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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17084-8.txt b/17084-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7427e7e --- /dev/null +++ b/17084-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9590 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Guy Livingstone;, by George A. Lawrence + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Guy Livingstone; + or, 'Thorough' + +Author: George A. Lawrence + +Release Date: November 17, 2005 [EBook #17084] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GUY LIVINGSTONE; *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + + + + + +GUY LIVINGSTONE; + +OR, + +"THOROUGH." + +BY + +GEORGE A. LAWRENCE. + + +ICH HABE GELEBT UND GELIEBT. + + +NEW YORK: +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, +FRANKLIN SQUARE. +1868. + + + + +GUY LIVINGSTONE. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + "Neque imbellem feroces + Progenerant aquilæ columbam." + + +It is not a pleasant epoch in one's life, the first forty-eight hours at +a large public school. I have known strong-minded men of mature age +confess that they never thought of it without a shiver. I don't count +the home-sickness, which perhaps only affects seriously the most +innocent of _débutants_, but there are other thousand and one little +annoyances which make up a great trouble. If there were nothing else, +for instance, the unceasing query, "What's your name?" makes you feel +the possession of a cognomen at all a serious burden and bar to +advancement in life. + +A dull afternoon toward the end of October; the sky a neutral tint of +ashy gray; a bitter northeast wind tearing down the yellow leaves from +the old elms that girdle the school-close of ----; a foul, clinging +paste of mud and trampled grass-blades under foot, that chilled you to +the marrow; a mob of two hundred lower boys, vicious with cold and the +enforcement of keeping goal through the first football match of the +season--in the midst, I, who speak to you, feeling myself in an +eminently false position--there's the _mise en scène_. + +My small persecutors had surrounded me, but had hardly time to settle +well to their work, when one of the players came by, and stopped for an +instant to see what was going on. The match had not yet begun. + +There was nothing which interested him much apparently, for he was +passing on, when my despondent answer to the everlasting question caught +his ear. He turned round then-- + +"Any relation to Hammond of Holt?" + +I replied, meekly but rather more cheerfully, that he was my uncle. + +"I know him very well," the new-comer said. "Don't bully him more than +you can help, you fellows; I'll wait for you after calling over, +Hammond. I should like to ask you about the squire." + +He had no time to say more, for just then the ball was kicked off, and +the battle began. I saw him afterward often during that afternoon, +always in the front of the rush or the thick of the scrimmage, and I +saw, too, more than one player limp out of his path disconsolately, +trying vainly to dissemble the pain of a vicious "hack." + +I'll try to sketch Guy Livingstone as he appeared to me then, at our +first meeting. + +He was about fifteen, but looked fully a year older, not only from his +height, but from a disproportionate length of limb and development of +muscle, which ripened later into the rarest union of activity and +strength that I have ever known. His features were very dark and pale, +too strongly marked to be called handsome; about the lips and lower jaw +especially there was a set sternness that one seldom sees before the +beard is grown. The eyes were very dark gray, nearly black, and so +deeply set under the thick eyebrows that they looked smaller than they +really were; and I remember, even at that early age, their expression, +when angered, was any thing but pleasant to meet. His dress was well +adapted for displaying his deep square chest and sinewy arms--a +close-fitting jersey, and white trowsers girt by a broad black belt; the +cap, orange velvet, fronted with a silver Maltese cross. + +The few words he had spoken worked an immediate change in my favor. I +heard one of my tormentors say, not without awe, "The Count knows his +people at home;" and they not only left me in peace, but, a little +later, some of them began to tell me of a recent exploit of Guy's, which +had raised him high in their simple hero-worship, and which, I dare say, +is still enumerated among the feats of the brave days of old by the fags +over their evening small-beer. + +To appreciate it, you must understand that the highest form in the +school--the sixth--were regarded by the fags and other subordinate +classes with an inexpressible reverence and terror. They were considered +as exempt from the common frailties of schoolboy nature: no one ventured +to fix a limit to their power. Like the gods of the Lotus-eater, they +lay beside their nectar, rarely communing with ordinary mortals except +to give an order or set a punishment. On the form immediately below them +part of their glory was reflected; these were a sort of hêmitheoi, +awaiting their translation into the higher Olympus of perfected +omnipotence. + +In this intermediate state flourished, at the time I speak of, one +Joseph Baines, a fat, small-eyed youth, with immense pendent pallid +cheeks, rejoicing in the _sobriquet_ of "Buttons," his father being +eminent in that line in the Midland Metropolis. The son was Brummagem to +the back-bone. He was intensely stupid; but, having been a fixture at +---- beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant, he had slowly +gravitated on into his present position, on the old Ring principle, +"weight must tell." I believe he had been bullied continuously for many +years, and now, with a dull, pertinacious malignity, was biding his +time, intending, on his accession to power, to inflict full reprisals on +those below him; or, in his own expressive language, "to take it out of +'em, like smoke." He was keeping his hand in by the perpetration of +small tyrannies on all whom he was not afraid to meddle with; but +hitherto, from a lingering suspicion, perhaps, that it was not quite +safe, he had never annoyed Livingstone. + +It was on a Saturday night, the hebdomadal Saturnalia, when the week's +work was over, and no one had any thing to do; the heart of Joseph was +jocund with pork chops and mulled beer, and, his evil genius tempting +him, he proposed to three of his intimates "to go and give the Count a +turn." Nearly every one had a nickname, and this had been given to Guy, +partly, I think, from his haughty demeanor, partly from a prevalent idea +that this German dignity was dormant somewhere in his family. When the +_quartette_ entered, Guy knew perfectly what they came for, but he sat +quite still and silent, while two of them held him down by the arms in +his chair. + +"I think you'd look very well with a cross on, Count," Baines said, "so +keep steady while we decorate you." + +As he spoke he was mixing up a paste with tallow and candle-snuff, and, +when it was ready, came near to daub the cross on Livingstone's +forehead. + +The two who held him had been quite deceived by his unexpected +tranquillity, and had somewhat relaxed their gripe as they leaned +forward to witness the operation; but the fourth, standing idle, saw all +at once the pupils of his eyes contract, and his lips set so ominously, +that the words were in his mouth, "Hold him fast!" when Guy, exerting +the full force of his arms, shook himself clear, and grasping a +brass-candlestick within his reach, struck the executioner straight +between the eyes. The effort of freeing himself to some extent broke the +force of the blow, or the great Baines dynasty might have ended there +and then; as it was, Buttons fell like a log, and, rolling once over on +his face, lay there bleeding and motionless. + +While the assistants were too much astounded to detain him, Guy walked +out without a glance at his prostrate enemy; and going straight to the +head of the house, told him what had happened. The character of the +aggressor was so well known, that, when they found he was not seriously +hurt, they let Guy off easy with "two books of the _Iliad_ to write out +in Greek." Buttons kept the sick-room for ten days, and came out looking +more pasty than ever, with his pleasant propensities decidedly checked +for the time. + +In his parish church at Birmingham, two tons of marble weighing him +down, the old button-maker sleeps with his father (to pluralize his +ancestors would be a grave historical error), and Joseph II. reigns in +his stead, exercising, I doubt not, over his factory-people the same +ingenuity of torture which in old times nearly drove the fags to +rebellion. He is a Demosthenes, they say, at vestries, and a Draco at +the Board of Guardians; but in the centre of his broad face, marring the +platitude of its smooth-shaven respectability, still burns angrily a +dark red scar--Guy's sign-manual--which he will carry to his grave. + +The exultation of the lower school over this exploit was boundless. +Fifty energetic admirers contended for the honor of writing out the +punishment inflicted on the avenger; and one sentimentalist, just in +Herodotus, preserved the fatal candlestick as an inestimable relic, +wreathing its stem with laurel and myrtle, in imitation of the honors +paid by Athens to the sword that slew the Pisistratid. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + "My only books + Were woman's looks, + And folly all they taught me." + + +The Count bore his honors very calmly, though every week some fresh feat +of bodily strength or daring kept adding to his popularity. It was no +slight temptation to his vanity; for, as some one has said truly, no +successful adventurer in after-life ever wins such undivided admiration +and hearty partisans as a school hero. The _prestige_ of the liberator +among the Irish peasantry comes nearest to it, I think; or the feeling +of a clan, a hundred years ago, toward their chief. It must be very +pleasant to be quoted so incessantly and believed in so implicitly, and +to know that your decisions are so absolutely without appeal. From that +first day when he interfered in my favor, Guy never ceased to accord me +the ægis of his protection, and it served me well; for, then as now, I +was strong neither in body nor nerve. Yet our tastes, save in one +respect, were as dissimilar as can be imagined. The solitary conformity +was, that we were both, in a desultory way, fond of reading, and our +favorite books were the same. Neither would do more school-work than was +absolutely necessary, but at light literature of a certain class we read +hard. + +I don't think Guy's was what is usually called a poetical temperament, +for his taste in this line was quite one-sided. He was no admirer of +the picturesque, certainly. I have heard him say that his idea of a +country to live in was where there was no hill steep enough to wind a +horse in good condition, and no wood that hounds could not run through +in fifteen minutes; therein following the fancy of that eminent French +philosopher, who, being invited to climb Ben Lomond to enjoy the most +magnificent of views, responded meekly, "_Aimez-vous les beautés de la +Nature? Pour moi, je les abhorre_." Can you not fancy the strident +emphasis on the last syllable, revealing how often the poor materialist +had been victimized before he made a stand at last? + +All through Livingstone's life the real was to predominate over the +ideal; and so it was at this period of it. He had a great dislike to +purely sentimental or descriptive poetry, preferring to all others those +battle-ballads, like the _Lays of Rome_, which stir the blood like a +trumpet, or those love-songs which heat it like rough strong wine. + +He was very fond of Homer, too. He liked the diapason of those sonorous +hexameters, that roll on, sinking and swelling with the ebb and flow of +a stormy sea. I hear his voice--deep-toned and powerful even at that +early age--finishing the story of Poseidon and his beautiful +prize--their bridal-bed laid in the hollow of a curling wave-- + + _"Porphureon d' ara kuma peristathê, oureï ison, + Kurtôthen, krupsen de Theon thnêtên te gunaika."_ + +And yet they say that the glorious old Sciote was a myth, and the +Odyssey a magazine worked out by clever contributors. They might as well +assert that all his marshals would have made up one Napoleon. + +I remember how we used to pass in review the beauties of old time, for +whom "many drew swords and died," whose charms convulsed kingdoms and +ruined cities, who called the stars after their own names. + +Ah! Gyneth and Ida, peerless queens of beauty, it was exciting, +doubtless, to gaze down from your velveted gallery on the mad tilting +below, to see ever and anon through the yellow dust a kind, handsome +face looking up at you, pale but scarcely reproachful, just before the +horse-hoofs trod it down; ah! fairest Ninons and Dianas--prizes that, +like the Whip at Newmarket, were always to be challenged for--you were +proud when your reckless lover came to woo, with the blood of last +night's favorite not dry on his blade; but what were your fatal honors +compared to those of a reigning toast in the rough, ancient days? The +demigods and heroes that were suitors did not stand upon trifles, and +the contest often ended in the extermination of all the lady's male +relatives to the third and fourth generation. People then took it quite +as a matter of course--rather a credit to the family than otherwise. + +Guy and I discussed, often and gravely, the relative merits of Evadne +the violet-haired, Helen, Cleopatra, and a hundred others, just as, on +the steps of White's, or in the smoking-room at the "Rag," men compare +the points of the _débutantes_ of the season. + +His knowledge of feminine psychology--it _must_ have been theoretical, +for he was not seventeen--implied a study and depth of research that was +quite surprising; but I am bound to state that his estimate of the +strength of character and principle inherent in the weaker sex was any +thing but high; nearly, indeed, identical with that formed by the +learned lady who, to the question, "Did she think the virtue of any +single one of her sisterhood impregnable?" replied "_C'est selon_." He +often used to astonish my weak mind by his observations on this head. I +did not know till afterward that Sir Henry Fallowfield, the Bassompierre +of his day, came for the Christmas pheasant-shooting every year into +Guy's neighborhood, and that he had already imbibed lessons of +questionable morality, sitting at the gouty feet of that evil Gamaliel. + +He spoke of and to women of every class readily whenever he got the +chance, always with perfect _aplomb_ and self-possession; and I have +heard older men remark since, that in him it did not appear the +precocity of "the rising generation," but rather the confidence of one +who knew his subject well. Perhaps the fact of his father having died +when he was an infant, and his having always been suzerain among his +women at home, may have had something to do with this. An absurd +instance of what I have been saying happened just before Guy left. + +By time-honored custom, four or five of the Sixth were invited every +week to dine with the head master. They were not, strictly speaking, +convivial, those solemn banquets; where the host was condescendingly +affable, and his guests cheerful, as it were, under protest; resembling +somewhat the entertainments in the captain's cabin, where the chief is +unpopular. + +Our Archididascalus was a kind-hearted, honest man, albeit, by virtue +of his office, somewhat strict and stern. You could read the +_Categories_ in the wrinkles of his colorless face, and contested +passages of Thucydides in the crows'-feet round his eyes. The +everlasting grind at the educational tread-mill had worn away all he +might once have had of imagination; he translated with precisely the +same intonations the Tusculan _Disputations_ and--_Erôs anikate machan._ + +He had lately taken to himself a wife, his junior by a score of years. +The academic atmosphere had not had time then to freeze her into the +dignity befitting her position; when I met her ten years later, she was +steady and staid enough, poor thing, to have been the wife of Grotius. + +Guy sat next to her that evening, and before the first course was over a +decided flirtation was established. The pretty hostess, albeit wife of a +doctor and daughter of a dean, had evidently a strong coquettish element +in her composition, and a very slight spark was sufficient to relight +the _veteris vestigia flammæ._ + +For some time her husband did not seem to realize the position; but +gradually his sentences grew rare and curt; he opened his mouth, no +longer to let fall the pearls of his wisdom, but to stop it with savory +meat; finally this last resource failed, and he sat, looking wrathfully +but helplessly on the proceedings at the other end of the table--a +lamentable instance of prostrated ecclesiastical dignity. His disgust, +however, was far exceeded by the horror of one of the party, a meek, +cadaverous-looking boy, whose parents lived in the town, and who was +wont to regard the head master as the vicegerent of all powers, civil +and sacerdotal--I am not sure he did not include military as well. I +caught him looking several times at the door and the ceiling with a +pale, guilty face, as if he expected some immediate visitation to punish +the sacrilege. However, heaven, which did not interrupt the feast of +Atreus or of Tereus (till the dessert), allowed us to finish our dinner +in peace. During the interval when we sat alone over his claret, our +host revived a little; but utterly relapsed in the drawing-room, where +things went on worse than ever. Guy leaned over the fair Penelope (such +was her classical and not inappropriate name) while she was singing, and +over her sofa afterward, evidently considering himself her legitimate +proprietor for the time, and regarding the husband, as he hovered round +them, in the light of an unauthorized intruder. The latter would have +given any thing, once or twice, to have interfered, I am sure; but, +apart from, the extreme ridicule of the thing, he was in his own house, +and as hospitable as Saladin. + +It was a great scene, when, at parting, she gave Guy the camellia that +she wore at her breast; the doctor gasped thrice convulsively and said +no word; but I wonder how she accounted afterward for the smile and +blush which answered some whispered thanks? There are certain limits +that even the historian dares not transgress; a veil falls between the +profane and the thalamus of an LL.D.; but I rather imagine she had a +hard time of it that night, the poor little woman! Let us hope, in +charity, that she held her own. + +When the Count was questioned as to the conversation that had passed, +he declined to give any particulars, merely remarking that "he had to +thank Dr. ---- for for a very pleasant evening, and he hoped everyone +had enjoyed themselves very much"--which was philanthropic, to say the +least of it. + +I don't know if it was our imagination, but we fancied that when the +head master called up Livingstone in form after this, he did so with an +air of grave defiance, such as a duelist of the Old Régime may have worn +when, doffing his plumed hat, he said to his adversary, "_En garde!_" + +There was little time to make observations, for shortly afterward Guy +went up to Oxford, whither, six months later, I followed him. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + "Through many an hour of summer suns, + By many pleasant ways, + Like Hezekiah's, backward runs + The shadow of my days." + + +When I came up, I found Guy quite established and at home. He was a +general favorite with all the men he knew at college, though intimate +with but very few. There was but one individual who hated him +thoroughly, and I think the feeling was mutual--the senior tutor, a +flaccid being, with a hand that felt like a fish two days out of water, +a large nose, and a perpetual cold in his head. He consistently and +impartially disbelieved every one on their word, requiring material +proof of each assertion; an original mode of acquiring the confidence of +his pupils, and precluding any thing like an attempt at deception on +their part. I remember well a discussion on his merits that took place +in the porter's lodge one night just after twelve. When several had +given their opinions more or less strongly, some one asked the gate-ward +what he thought of the individual in question, to which that eminent +functionary thus replied: "Why, you see, sir, I'm only a servant, and, +as such, can't speak freely, but I wish he was dead, I do." + +As I have said, Livingstone disliked Selkirk heartily, and did not take +the trouble to conceal it. He used to look at him sometimes with a +curious expression in his eyes, which made the tutor twirl and writhe +uncomfortably in his chair. The latter annoyed him as much as he +possibly could, but Guy held on the even tenor of his way, seldom +contravening the statutes except in hunting three days a week, which he +persisted in doing, all lectures and regulations notwithstanding. He +rode little under fourteen stone even then; but the three horses he kept +were well up to his weight, and he stood A 1 in Jem Hill's estimation as +"the best heavy-weight that had come out of Oxford for many a day;" for +he not only went straight as a die, but rode _to_ hounds instead of +_over_ them. I suppose this latter practice is inherent in University +sportsmen. I know, in my time, the way in which they pressed on hounds, +for the first two fields out of cover or after a check, used to make the +gray hairs, which were the brave old huntsman's crown of glory, stand on +end with indignation and terror, so that he prayed devoutly for a big +fence which, like the broken bridge at Leipsic, might prove a stopper to +the pursuing army. There was the making of a good rider in many of them, +too; they only wanted ballast, for they knew no more of fear than Nelson +did, and would grind over the Vale of the Evenlode and the Marsh Gibbon +double timber as gayly and undauntedly as over the accommodating +Bullingdon hurdles. And what screws they rode! ancient animals bearing +as many scars as a _vieux de la vieille_, that were considered short of +work if they did not come out five days a fortnight. This was Guy's +favorite pursuit; but he threw off the superfluity of his animal +energies in all sorts of athletics: in sparring especially he attained a +rare excellence; so well-known was it, indeed, that he passed his first +year without striking a blow in anger, through default of an antagonist, +except a chance one or two exchanged in the _melée_ which is imperative +on the 5th of November. + +I did not hunt much myself, for my health was far from strong, and, I +confess, my University recollections are not lively. + +After the first flush of novelty had worn off, they bored one +intensely--those large wines and suppers where, night by night, a score +of Nephelégeretæ sat shrouded in smoke, chanting the same equivocal +ditties, drinking the same fiery liquors miscalled the juice of the +grape, villainous enough to make the patriarch that planted the vine +stir remorsefully in his grave under Ararat--each man all the while +talking "shop," _à l'outrance_. The skeleton of ennui sat at these +dreary feasts; and it was not even crowned with roses. I often used to +wonder what the majority of my contemporaries conversed about, when in +the bosom of their families, during the "long." They couldn't _always_ +have been inflicting Oxford on their miserable relatives; the weakest of +human natures would have revolted against such tyranny; and yet the +horizon of their ideas seemed as utterly bounded by Bagley and +Headington Hill as if the great ocean-stream had flowed outside those +limits. Some adventurous spirits, it is true, stretched away as far as +Woodstock and Abingdon, but I doubt if they returned much improved by +the grand tour. + +One of their most remarkable characteristics was the invincible terror +and repugnance that they appeared to entertain to the society of women +of their own class. When the visitation was inevitable, it is +impossible to describe the great horror that fell on these unfortunate +boys. The feeling of Zanoni's pupil, as the Watcher on the Threshold +came floating and creeping toward him, was nothing to it. + +For example, at Commemoration--to which festival "lions" from all +quarters of the earth resorted in vast droves--when one of this class +was hard hit by the charms of some fair stranger, he never thought of +expressing his admiration otherwise than by piteous looks, directed at +her from an immense distance, out of shot for an opera-glass; when in +her immediate vicinity his motto was that of the Breton baron--_mourir +muet_. Claret-cup flowed and Champagne sparkled, powerless to raise him +to the audacity of an avowal. Under the woods of Nuneham, in the gardens +of Blenheim, amid the crowd of the Commemoration ball, the same deep +river of diffidence flowed between him and his happiness. My own idea is +that, after all was over, the silent ones, like Jacques' stricken deer, +used to "go weep" over chances lost and opportunities neglected. With +waitresses at wayside inns, _et id genus omne_, they were tolerably +self-possessed and reliant; though even there "a thousand might well be +stopped by three," and I would have backed an intelligent barmaid +against the field at odds; indeed, I think I have seen a security nearly +allied to contempt on the fine features of a certain "lone _star_" as +she parried--so easily!--the compliments and repartees of a dozen +assailants at once, accounted, in their own quadrangles, Millamours of +the darkest dye. + +Guy accounted for this unfortunate peculiarity by saying that a cigar +in the mouth was the normal state of many of these men; so that, when +circumstances debarred them from the Havana courage, they lost all +presence of mind, and, being unable to retreat under cover of the smoke, +lapsed instantly into a sullen despair, suffering themselves to be shot +down unresistingly. Perhaps some future philosopher will favor us with a +better solution to this important problem in physics; I know of none. + +After all, the reading men did best, though we did not think so then, +when we saw them creeping into morning chapel jaded and heavy-eyed, +after a debauch over Herodotus or the Stagyrite. They had a purpose in +view, at all events, and, I believe, were placidly content during the +progress of its attainment--in the seventh heaven when their hopes were +crowned by a First, or even a Second. True; the pace was too good for +some of the half-bred ones, and such as could not stand the training, +who departed, to fade away rapidly in the old house at home, or to pine, +slowly, but very surely, in remote curacies. + +Some of these, I fancy, must have sympathized with Madame de Staël's +consumptive niece, who answered to the question, "Why she was weeping +all alone?" "_Je me regrette._" When, resting in their daily walk, +shortened till it became a toil to reach the shady seat under the elms +at the garden's end, they watched the stalwart plowmen and drovers go +striding by, without a trouble behind their tanned foreheads except the +thought that wages might fall a shilling a week, was there no envy, I +wonder, as they looked down on the wan hands lying so listless across +their knees? Would they not have given their First, and their fellowship +in embryo to boot, to have had the morning appetite of Tom Chauntrell, +the horse-breaker, after twelve pipes overnight, with gin and water to +match, or to have been able, like Joe Springett, the under keeper, to +breast the steepest brae in Cumberland with never a sob or a painful +breath? Did they never murmur while thinking how brightly the blade +might have flashed, how deftly have been wielded, if the worthless +scabbard had only lasted out till, on some grand field-day, the word was +given, "Draw swords?" Some felt this, doubtless; but the most part, I +imagine, were possessed with a comfortable assurance that their short +life had been useful, if not ornamental; and so, to a certain extent, +they had their reward. At any rate, their ending was to the full as +glorious as that of some other friends of ours, who crawl away from the +battle-ground of the _Viveurs_ to die, or to linger on helpless +hypochondriacs. + +If I have spoken depreciatingly or unfairly of the mass of my college +coevals (and it may well be so), I do full justice, in thought at least, +to some brilliant exceptions. I founded friendships there which, I +trust, will outlive me. + +I do not forget Warrenne, too good for the men he lived with, a David in +our camp of Kedar--always going on straight in the path he thought +right--though ever and anon his hot Irish blood would chafe fiercely +under the curb self-imposed--and laboring incessantly, with all +gentleness, to induce others to follow; a Launcelot in his devotion to +womankind; a Galahad in purity of thought and purpose. I have never +known a man of the world so single-hearted, or a saint with so much +_savoir vivre_. + +I see before me now Lovell, with his frank look and cheery laugh, the +model of a stalwart English squirehood; and Petre, equal to either +fortune; in reverse or success calm and impassible as Athos the +mousquetaire; regarding money simply as a circulating medium, with the +profoundest contempt for its actual value--_se ruinant en prince_. He +edified us greatly, on one occasion, by meeting his justly offended +father with a stern politeness, declining to hold any communication with +him by word or letter till he (the sire) "could express himself in a +more Christian spirit." + +Then there was Barlowe, the pearl of gentlemen riders, the very apple of +Charles Symond's eye; unspoiled by a hundred triumphs, and never +degenerating into the professional, though I believe his idea of earthly +felicity was, + +A match for £50, 10 st. 7 lb. each. Owners up. Over 4 miles of a fair +hunting country. + +I see him, too, with his pleasant face, round, rosy, and beardless as a +child-cherub of Rubens, tempting pale men with splitting heads to throw +boots at him in the bitterness of their envy as he entered their rooms +on the morning after a heavy drink, his eyes so clear and guileless that +you would never guess how sharp they could be at times when a dangerous +horse was coming up on his quarter. A strange compound his character was +of cool calculation and sentimental simplicity. The most astute of +trainers never got the better of him in making a match; and I am sure, +to this day, he believes in ----'s poetry, and in the immutability of +feminine affection. + +How agreeable he was about the small hours, chirping over his grog; +alternating between reminiscences of "My tutor's daughter" and recitals +of choice morsels in verse and prose; misquoting, to the utter +annihilation of rhythm and sense, but all with perfect gravity, good +faith, and satisfaction! + +_Nec te, memorande, relinquam_--true Tom Lynton! not clever, not even +high-bred, but loved by every one for the honestest and kindest heart +that ever was the kernel of a rough rind. + +Do we not remember that supper where the Fathers of England were being +discussed? Every one, drawn on by the current, had a stone to throw at +his relieving officer, the complaint, of course, being a general +tightness in the supplies. At last, Tom, who, though his own sire was an +austere man, could not bear to hear the absent run down, broke in, +gravely remonstrating, + +"Well, gentlemen," he said, "remember they're our _fellow-creatures_, at +all events." + +They drank "Lynton and the Governors" with a compound multiplication of +cheers. + +I might mention more; but a face rises just now before me which makes me +close the muster-roll--the face of one who united in himself many, very +many of the best qualities of the others; of one whom I shrink from +naming here, lest it should seem that I do so lightly--a face that I saw +six hours before its features became set forever. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + _"Dê tot' anaschomenô, ho men êlase dexion ômon + Iros, ho d' auchen' elassen hup' ouatos, ostea d' eisô + Ethlasen; autika d' êlthen ana stoma phoinion haima."_ + + +Toward the end of my second year an event came off in which we were all +much interested--a steeplechase in which both Universities were to take +part. The stakes were worth winning--twenty sovs. entrance, h.f., and a +hundred sovs. added; besides, the _esprit de corps_ was strong, and men +backed their opinions pretty freely. The venue was fixed at B----; the +time, the beginning of the Easter vacation. + +The old town was crowded like Vanity Fair. There was a railway in +progress near, and the navvies and other "roughs" came flocking in by +hundreds, so that the municipal authorities, justly apprehensive of a +row, concentrated the cohorts of their police, and swore in no end of +specials as a reserve. + +The great event came off duly, a fair instance of the "glorious +uncertainty" which backers of horses execrate and ring-men adore. All +the favorites were out of the race early. Our best man, Barlowe, the +centre of many hopes, and carrying a heavy investment of Oxford money, +was floored at the second double post-and-rail. The Cambridge cracks, +too, by divers casualties, were soon disposed of. At the last fence, an +Oxford man was leading by sixty yards; but it was his maiden race, and +he lost his head when he found himself looking like a winner so near +home. Instead of taking the stake-and-bound at the weakest place, he +rode at the strongest; his horse swerved to the gap, took the fence +sideways, and came down heavily into the ditch of the winning field. The +representative of Cambridge, who came next, riding a good steady hunter, +not fast, but safe at his fences, cantered in by himself. I remember he +was so bewildered by his unexpected victory that one of his backers had +to hold him fast in the saddle, or he would have dismounted before +riding to scale, and so lost the stakes. + +Well, the race was over and the laurels lost, so we had nothing to do +but pay and look pleasant, and then adjourn to the inevitable banquet at +"The George." There was little to distinguish the proceedings from the +routine of such festivals. The winners stood Champagne, and the losers +drank it--to any amount. The accidents of flood and field were discussed +over and over again; and, I believe, every man of the twenty-three who +had ridden that day could and did prove, to his own entire satisfaction, +that he must have won but for some freak of fortune totally unavoidable, +and defying human calculation. + +About nine o'clock I went out with another man to get some fresh air, +and something I wanted in the town. At the corner of every street there +was a group of heavy, sullen faces, looking viciously ready for a row, +while out of the windows of the frequent public houses gushed bursts of +revelry hideously discordant, from the low-browed rooms where the wild +Irish sat howling and wrangling over their liquor. However, we got what +we wanted, and were returning, when, in a street on our left, we heard +cries and a trampling of many feet. Two figures, looking like University +men, passed us at speed, and, throwing something down before us, dived +into an alley opposite, and were lost to sight. My companion picked up +the object; and we had just time to make out that it was a bell-handle +and name-plate, when the pursuers came up--six or seven "peelers" and +specials, with a ruck of men and boys. We were collared on the instant. +The fact of the property being found in our possession constituted a +_flagrans delictum_--we were caught "red-handed." It was vain to argue +that, had we been the delinquents, we should scarcely have been standing +there still, awaiting discovery. The idea of arguing with a rural +policeman, when, by a rare coincidence, popular feeling is with him! The +mob regarded our capture, exulting like the Romans over Jugurtha in +chains. It was decided "we were to go before the Inspector." We were +placed in the centre of a phalanx of specials, each guarded by two +regulars; and so the triumph, followed by a train that swelled at every +turning, moved slowly along the Sacred Way toward the temple of the +station-house, where the municipal Jupiter Capitolinus sat in his glory. + +Before we had proceeded three hundred yards there was a shout from the +crowd, "Look out! here come the 'Varsity!" and down a cross street +leading from the inn, two hundred gownsmen, wild with wrath and wassail, +came leaping to the rescue. + +In the van of all I caught sight of two figures--one that I knew very +well, towering, bareheaded, a hand's-breadth above the throng; the +other, something below the middle height, but shaggy, vast-chested, and +double-jointed as a red Highland steer--M'Diarmid of Trinity, glory of +the Cambridge gymnasium, and "5" in the University eight. They were not +shouting like the rest, but hitting out straight and remorselessly; and +before those two strong Promachi, townsman and navvy, peeler and +special, went down like blades of corn. Close at their shoulder I +distinguished Lovell, his clear blue eyes lightening savagely; and stout +Tom Lynton, a deeper flush on his honest face, hewing away with all the +unscientific strength of his nervous arm. + +But my two guards, very Abdiels in their duty, never let me go; on the +contrary, one tightened his gripe on my throat suffocatingly, while the +other, though I remained perfectly quiescent, kept giving me gentle +hints to keep the peace with the end of his staff. I was getting sick +and dizzy, when something passed my cheek like the wind of a ball; there +was a dull, crashing sound close at my ear; the grasp on my neck relaxed +all at once; I felt something across my feet, and saw a dark blue mass, +topped by the ruin of a shiny hat, lying there quite still; an arm was +round my waist like the coil of a cable, and I heard Guy's voice +laughing loud, + +"My dear Frank," he said, as he dragged me away toward the inn, "the +centre of a row, as usual. _Que, diable, allait il faire dans cette +bagarre?_" + +I hardly heard him, for my senses were still confused; but in thirty +seconds I was under the archway of "The George." As the heroines of the +Radcliffe romances say, "I turned to thank my preserver, but he was +gone." + +When I recovered my breath, I went up to a balcony on the first floor +and looked out. The tide of the affray was surging gradually back into +the wide open space before the inn, and very shortly this was filled +with a chaos of furious faces and struggling arms. The University were +evidently recoiling, pressed back by the sheer weight of their +opponents; but soon came a re-enforcement of grooms and stable-men, +lightweights, active and wiry; and these, with their hunting-crops and +heavy cutting-whips used remorselessly--like Cæsar's legionaries, they +struck only at the face--once more re-established the balance of the +battle. + +Suddenly the _melée_ seemed to converge to one point--the mid-eddy, as +it were, of the whirlpool; then came a lull, almost a hush; and then +fifty strong arms, indiscriminately of town and gownsmen, were locked to +keep the ground, while a storm of voices shouted for "A ring!" + +In that impromptu arena two men stood face to face under the full glare +of the gas-lamps--one was Guy Livingstone; the other a denizen of the +Potteries, yclept "Burn's Big 'un," who had selected B---- as his +training quarters, in preparation for his fight to come off in the +ensuing week with the third best man in England for £100 a side. + +They made a magnificent contrast. Guy, apparently quite composed, but +the lower part of his face set stern and pitiless; an evil light in his +eyes, showing how all the gladiator in his nature was roused; his left +hand swaying level with his hip; all the weight of his body resting on +the right foot; his lofty head thrown back haughtily; his guard low. The +professional, three inches shorter than his adversary, but a rare model +of brute strength; his arms and neck, where the short jersey left them +exposed, clear-skinned and white as a woman's, through the perfection of +his training; his hair cropped close round a low, retreating forehead; +his thick lips parted in a savage grin, meant to represent a smile of +confidence. So they stood there--fitting champions of the races that +have been antagonistic for four thousand years--Patrician and +Proletarian. + +Suddenly there was a commotion at one corner of the ring, and I saw a +small, bullet-headed man, with a voice like a fractious child, striving +frantically to force his way through. "Don't let 'em fight!" he +screamed: "it's robbery, I tell you. There's hundreds of pounds on him +for Thursday next, I'm his trainer; and I daren't show him with a +scratch on him." + +A great roar of laughter answered his entreaties, and twenty arms thrust +the little man back; but his interesting charge seemed to ponder and +hesitate, when a drawling nasal voice spoke from the opposite corner: +"Ah! you're right; take him away; don't show his white feather till +you're druv to it." That turned the wavering scale. The Big 'un ground +his teeth with blasphemy, and set-to. + +I need not go through the minutiæ of the fight; it was all one way. The +professional did his best, and took his punishment like a glutton; but +he could do nothing against the long reach of his adversary, who stopped +and countered as coolly as if he had only the gloves on. + +It was the beginning of the sixth round; our champion bore only one +mark, showing where a tremendous right-hander had almost come home--a +cut on his lower lip, whence the bright Norman blood was flowing freely. +I will not attempt to describe the hideous changes that ten minutes had +wrought in his opponent's countenance; but I think I was not the only +spectator who felt a thrill of fear mingling with disgust as the Big 'un +made his despairing effort, and fought his way in to the terrible +"half-arm rally." In truth, there was something unearthly and awful in +the sight of the maimed and mangled Colossus; his huge breast heaving +with wrath and pain; his one unblinded eye glaring unutterably; his +crushed lips churning the crimson foam. It was the last rash of the +Cordovan bull goaded to madness by picador and chulo; but Guy's fatal +left met him, straight, unyielding as the blade of the matador; twice he +reeled back wellnigh stunned; the third time he dropped his head +cleverly, so as to avoid the blow, and grappled. For some seconds the +two were locked together, undistinguishably; then we saw Guy's right +hand, never used till then save as a guard, rise and fall twice with a +dull, smashing sound, which was bad to hear; then the huge form of the +prize-fighter was whirled up unresistingly over his antagonist's hip, +and fell crashing down at his feet, a heap of blind, senseless, bleeding +humanity. + +"Time!" You must call louder yet before he will hear, and lance a vein +in the throat before he will answer. + +Then, in the old market-place of B----, there went up such a shout as I +think it has never heard since Vikings and Berserkyr caroused there +after storming the town. The gownsmen, as they will do on slighter +provocation, screamed themselves hoarse and voiceless with delight; and +their late opponents--the honest Saxon's love of a fair fight overcoming +the spirit of the partisan--echoed and prolonged the cheer. + +There was no more thought of battle or broil; and there were as many +navvies as University men among the enthusiasts who bore the champion on +their shoulders into "The George." + +How we reveled on that night of victory, especially when Guy, after +necessary ablutions and change of raiment, joined us, calm and +self-possessed as ever, only slightly swelled about the lower lip, and a +dark red flush on his forehead! He had satisfactory accounts of his +adversary, the said amiable individual having so far recovered, under +the surgeon's hands, as to swear thrice--"quite like hisself," the +messenger said--and to call for cold brandy and water. + +Livingstone's health was proposed twice--the first time by a fellow of +King's, with a neat talent for classical allusions, who remarked that, +"if the olive-crown of the Hippodrome had fallen to the lot of +Cambridge, none would deny her sister's claim to the parsley of the +cæstus." The second time was very late in the evening, by M'Diarmid. It +must be confessed that gallant chieftain was somewhat incoherent, and +amid protestations of admiration and eternal friendship, much to our +astonishment, wept profusely. Still later, he got very maudlin indeed, +and was heard to murmur, looking at his scarred knuckles, that "he was +afraid he must have hurt some one that night," with an accent of +heartfelt sorrow and contrition which was inimitable. + +We heard afterward that the taunt which made the fight a certainty came +from the commissioner of the party who stood heavily against the Big +'un, sent down to watch him in his training, and spy out the joints in +his harness. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + "As he rode down the sanctified bends of the Bow, + Each carline was flyting and shaking her pow; + But the young Plants of Grace they looked couthie and slee, + Saying, 'Luck to thy bonnet, thou bonnie Dundee.'" + + +In the autumn of that year my chest became so troublesome that I was +obliged to try Italy. Thither I went; and, about the same time, Guy was +gazetted to the ---- Life Guards. The struggle between climate and +constitution was protracted, and for a long time doubtful; but winters +without fog, and springs without cold winds, worked wonders, and at last +carried the day. In the fourth year they told me I might risk England +again. Moving homeward slowly, I reached London about the beginning of +December--a most unfavorable season, it is true; but I was weary of +foreign wandering, and wanted to spend Christmas somewhere in the +fatherland, though where I had not yet determined. + +I had heard tolerably often from Livingstone during my absence. His +letters were very amusing, containing all sorts of news, and remarks on +men and manners. They would have pleased me more if they had not +indicated a vein of sarcasm deepening into cynicism. + +I stand very much alone in this world, and had few family visits to +detain me; so, on the morning after my arrival, I went down to the +Knightsbridge barracks, where Guy's regiment happened to be quartered. + +It was a field-day, his servant said, and his master was out with his +troop; but he expected him in very shortly. Captain Forrester was +waiting breakfast for him up stairs. + +As I entered the room, its occupant turned his head languidly on the +sofa-cushion which supported it; but when he saw it was a stranger, sat +up, and, on hearing my name, actually rose and came toward me. + +"Livingstone will be charmed to find you here, Mr. Hammond," he said, in +a voice that, though slightly affected and _traînante_, was very +musical. "I don't know if he ever mentioned Charley Forrester to you, +who must do the honors of the barrack-room in his absence?" + +I had heard of him very often; and, though my expectations as to his +personal appearance had been raised, I own the first glance did not +disappoint them. He was about three-and-twenty then, rather tall, but +very slightly built; his eyes long, sleepy, of a violet blue; features +small and delicately cut, with a complexion so soft and bright that his +silky, chestnut mustache hardly saved the face from effeminacy; his +hands and feet would have satisfied the Pacha of Tebelen at once as to +his purity of race; indeed, though Charley was not disposed to +undervalue any of his own bodily advantages, I imagine he considered his +extremities as his strong point. His manner was very fascinating, and, +with women, had a sort of caress in it which is hard to describe, though +even with _them_ he seldom excited himself much, preferring, +consistently, the passive to the active part in the conversation. +Indeed, his golden rule was the Arabic maxim, _Agitel lil +Shaitan_--Hurry is the Devil's--so, in the flirtations which were the +serious business of his life, he always let his fish hook themselves, +just exerting himself enough to play them afterward. + +In ten minutes we were very good friends, talking pleasantly of all +sorts of things, though Forrester had resumed his recumbent posture, and +I could not help fearing it was only a strong effort of politeness or +sense of duty which enabled him always to answer at the right time. + +Before long we heard the clatter of horses' hoofs and the rattle of +steel scabbards, and I looked out at the squadrons defiling into the +barrack-yard. My eye fell upon Livingstone at once: it was not difficult +to distinguish him, for few, if any, among those troopers, picked from +the flower of all the counties north of the Humber, could compare with +him for length of limb and breadth of shoulder. I felt proud of him, as +the hero of my boyhood, looking at him there, on his great black +charger, square and steadfast as the keep of a castle. + +His servant spoke to him as he dismounted. I saw his features soften and +brighten in an instant; in five seconds he was in the room, and the +light was on his face still--I like to think of it--the light of a +frank, cordial welcome, as he griped my hand. + +He was changed, certainly, but for the better. The features, which in +early youth had been too rugged and strongly marked, harmonized +perfectly with the vast proportions of a frame now fully developed, +though still lean in the flanks as a wolf-hound. The stern expression +about his mouth was more decided and unvarying than ever--an effect +which was increased by the heavy mustache that, dense as a Cuirassier's +of the Old Guard, fell over his lip in a black cascade. It was the face +of one of those stone Crusaders who look up at us from their couches in +the Round Church of the Temple. + +Before our first sentences were concluded, Forrester had nerved himself +to the effort of rising, and turned to go. + +"You must have fifty things to say to each other," he said. "You'll find +me in the mess-room. But, Guy, don't be long; I've no appetite myself +this morning, and it will refresh me to see you eat your breakfast;" and +so faded away gradually through the door. + +"How do you like him?" Livingstone called out from the inner room, where +he was donning the "mufti." "He's not so conceited as he might be, +considering how the women spoil him; and, lazy as he looks, he is a very +fair officer, and goes across country like a bird. Did I ever tell you +what first made him famous?" + +"No; I should like to hear." + +"Well, it was at a picnic at Cliefden. Charley was hardly nineteen then, +and had just joined the ----th Lancers at Hounslow; he wandered away, +and got lost with Kate Harcourt, a self-possessed beauty in high +condition for flirting, for she had had three seasons of hard training. +When they had been away from their party about two hours, she felt, or +pretended to feel, the awkwardness of the situation, and asked her +cavalier, in a charmingly helpless and confiding way, what they were to +do. 'Well, I hardly know,' Forrester answered, languidly; 'but I don't +mind proposing to you, if that will do you any good.' A fair performance +for an untried colt, was it not? Miss Harcourt thought so, and said so, +and Charley woke next morning with an established renown. Shall we go +and find him?" + +After breakfast we went with Guy to his room, to do the regulation +cigar. + +"I know you've made no plans, Frank," Livingstone said, "so I have +settled every thing for you already. You are coming down to Kerton with +us. We have just got our long leave, and our horses went down three days +ago." + +"It's very nice of him to say 'our horses,'" interrupted Forrester. +"Mine consist of one young one, that has been over about eight fences in +his life, and a mare, that I call the Wandering Jewess, for I don't +think she will ever die, and I am sure she will never rest till she +does: what with being park-hack in the summer and cover-hack in the +winter, with a by-day now and then when the country's light, she's the +best instance of perpetual motion I know. Well, it's not my fault the +chief won't let us hunt our second chargers--that's the charm of being +in a crack regiment--I always have one lame at least, and no one will +sell me hunters on tick." + +"Don't be so plaintive, Charley; you've nearly all mine to ride: it's a +treat to them, poor things, to feel your light weight and hand, after +carrying my enormous carcass. That's settled, then, Frank; you come with +us?" Guy said. + +"I shall be very glad. I only want a day to get my traps together." So +two days afterward we three came down to Kerton Manor. It was not my +first visit to Livingstone's home, but I have not described it before. + +Fancy a very large, low house, built in two quadrangles--the offices and +stables forming the smaller one farthermost from the main entrance--of +the light gray stone common in Northamptonshire, darkened at the angles +and buttresses into purple, and green, and bistre by the storms of three +hundred years; on the south side, smooth turf, with islands in it of +bright flower-beds, sloped down to a broad, slow stream, where grave, +stately swans were always sailing to and fro, and moor-hens diving among +the rushes; on the other sides, a park, extensive, but somewhat +rough-looking, stretched away, and, all round, lines of tall avenue +radiated--the bones of a dead giant's skeleton--for Kerton once stood in +the centre of a royal forest. + +You entered into a wide, low hall, the oak ceiling resting on broad +square pillars of the same dark wood; all round hung countless memorials +of chase and war, for the Livingstones had been hunters and soldiers +beyond the memory of man. + +Often, passing through of a winter's evening, I have stopped to watch +the fitful effects of the great logs burning on the andirons, as their +light died away, deadened among brown bear-skins and shadowy antlers, or +played, redly reflected, on the mail-shirt and corslet of Crusader or +Cavalier. + +There were many portraits too; one, the most remarkable, fronted you as +you came through the great doorway, the likeness of a very handsome man +in the uniform of a Light Dragoon; under this hung a cavalry sword, and +a brass helmet shaded with black horse-hair. The portrait and sword were +those of Guy's father; the helmet belonged to the Cuirassier who slew +him. + +It was in a skirmish with part of Kellermann's brigade, near the end of +the Peninsular war; Colonel Livingstone was engaged with an adversary in +his front, when a trooper, delivering point from behind, ran him through +the body. He had got his death-wound, and knew it; but he came of a race +that ever died hard and dangerously; he only ground his teeth, and, +turning short in his saddle, cut the last assailant down. Look at the +helmet, with the clean, even gap in it, cloven down to the +cheek-strap--the stout old Laird of Colonsay struck no fairer blow. + +It was curious to mark how the same expression of sternness and decision +about the lips and lower part of the face, which was so remarkable in +their descendants, ran through the long row of ancestral portraits. You +saw it--now, beneath the half-raised visor of Sir Malise, surnamed +_Poing-de-fer_, who went up the breach at Ascalon shoulder to shoulder +with strong King Richard--now, yet more grimly shadowed forth, under the +cowl of Prior Bernard, the ambitious ascetic, whom, they say, the great +Earl of Warwick trusted as his own right hand--now, softened a little, +but still distinctly visible, under the long love-locks of Prince +Rupert's aid-de-camp, who died at Naseby manfully in his harness--now, +contrasting strangely with the elaborately powdered peruke and delicate +lace ruffles of Beau Livingstone, the gallant, with the whitest hand, +the softest voice, the neatest knack at a sonnet, and the deadliest +rapier at the court of good Queen Anne. Nay, you could trace it in the +features of many a fair Edith and Alice, half counteracting the magnetic +attraction of their melting eyes. + +On the sunny south side, looking across the flower-garden, were Lady +Catharine Livingstone's rooms, where, diligent as Matilda and her +maidens, in summer by the window, in winter by the fire; the pale +châtelaine sat over her embroidery. What rivers of tapestry must have +flowed from under those slender white fingers during their ceaseless +toil of twenty years! + +The good that she did in her neighborhood can not be told. She was kind +and hospitable, too, to her female guests, in her own haughty, +undemonstrative way; nevertheless, the wives and daughters of the +squirearchy regarded her with great awe and fear. Perhaps she felt this, +though she could not alter it, and the sense of isolation may have +deepened the shades on her sad face. She had only one thing on earth to +centre her affections on, and that one she worshiped with a love +stronger than her sense of duty; for, since his father died, she had +never been able to check Guy in a single whim. + +When he had a hunting-party in the house, she sometimes would not appear +for days; but, however early he might start for the meet, I do not think +he ever left his dressing-room without his mother's kiss on his cheek. +She knew, as well as any one, how recklessly her son rode; nothing but +his science, coolness, and great strength in the saddle could often have +saved him from some terrible accident. Many times, in the middle of the +day's sport, the thought has come across me piteously of that poor lady, +in her lonely rooms, trembling, and I am very sure praying, for her +darling. + +On the opposite side of the court were Guy's own apartments: first, what +was called by courtesy his study--an armory of guns and other weapons, a +chaos _e rebus omnibus et quibusdam aliis_, for he never had the +faintest conception of the beauty of order; then came the smoking-room, +with its great divans and scattered card-tables; then Livingstone's +bed-room and dressing-room. + +Did the distance and the doors always deaden the sounds of late revels, +so as not to break Lady Catharine's slumbers? I fear not. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + + "Thou art not steeped in golden languors; + No tranced summer calm is thine, + Ever-varying Madeline." + + + +It was a woodland meet, a long way off, the morning after we arrived, so +we staid at home; and, after breakfast, Guy having to give audience to +keepers and other retainers, I strolled out with Forrester to smoke in +the stables. I have seldom seen a lot which united so perfectly bone and +blood. Livingstone gave any price for his horses; the only thing he was +not particular about was their temper; more than one looked eminently +unsuited to a nervous rider, and a swinging bar behind them warned the +stranger against incautious approach. + +After duly discussing and admiring the stud, we established ourselves on +the sunniest stone bench in the garden, and I asked my companion to tell +me something of what Guy had been doing during my absence. + +"Well, it's rather hard to say," answered Charley. "He never takes the +trouble to conceal any thing; but then, you see, he never tells one any +thing either; so it's only guess work, after all. He lives very much +like other men in the Household Brigade; plays heavily, though not +regularly; but he always has two _affaires de coeur_, at least, on +hand at once; that's his stint." + +"So he still persecutes the weaker sex unremittingly?" I asked, +laughing. + +"In a way peculiar to himself," said Forrester; "he is always strictly +courteous, but decidedly sarcastic. Poor things, they are easily imposed +upon; he very soon has them well in hand, and they can never get their +heads up afterward. I suppose they like it, for it seems to answer +admirably. Last season he divided himself pretty equally between +Constance Brandon and Flora Bellasys--quite the two best things out, +though as opposite to each other in every way as the poles. To do Miss +Brandon justice, I don't think she knew much of the other flirtation; +she always went away early, and he used to take up her rival for the +rest of the evening." + +"But the said rival--how did she like the divided homage?" + +"Not at all at first; at least, she used to look revolvers at Guy from +time to time--(ah! you should see the Bellasys' eyes when they begin to +lighten)--but he always brought her back to the lure, and at last she +seemed to take it quite as a matter of course, keeping all her +after-supper waltzes for him religiously, though half the men in town +were trying to cut in. I can't make out how he does it. Do you think his +size and sinews can have any thing to do with it?" He said this gravely +and reflectively. + +"Not unlikely," I replied; "the _fortiter in re_ goes a long way with +women apparently, even where there is not a tongue like his to back it. +Don't you remember Juvenal's strong-minded heroine, who left husband and +home to follow the scarred, maimed gladiator? I doubt if the Mirmillo +was a pleasant or intellectual companion. Now I want you to tell me +something about Guy's cousin and her father; they are coming here +to-day, and I have never met them." + +"Mr. Raymond is very like most calm, comfortable old men with a life +interest in £2000 a year," Charley said; "rather more cold and +impassible than the generality, perhaps. He _must_ be clever, for he +plays whist better than any one I know; but not brilliant, certainly. +His daughter is"--the color deepened on his cheek perceptibly--"very +charming, most people think; but I hate describing people. I always +caricature the likeness. You'll form your own judgment at dinner. Shall +we go in? We shoot an outlying cover after luncheon, and the blackthorns +involve gaiters." + +We had very fair sport, and were returning across the park, picking up a +stray rabbit every now and then in the tufts of long grass and patches +of brake. One had just started before Forrester, and he was in the act +of pulling the trigger, when Livingstone said suddenly, + +"There's my uncle's carriage coming down the north avenue." + +It was an easy shot in the open, but Charley missed it clean. + +"What eyes you have, Guy," he said, pettishly; "but I wish you wouldn't +speak to a man on his shot." + +Guy's great Lancaster rang out with the roar of a small field-piece, and +the rabbit was rolling over, riddled through the head, before he +answered, + +"Yea, my eyes _are_ good, and I see a good many things, but I _don't_ +see why you should have muffled that shot, particularly as my +intelligence was meant for the world in general, and it was not such an +astounding remark, after all." + +Charley did not seem ready with a reply, so he retained his look of +injured innocence, and walked on, sucking silently at his cigar. The +Raymonds reached the house before us; but, not being in a presentable +state, I did not see them before dinner. + +Forrester was right; there was nothing startling about Mr. Raymond. He +had one of those thin, high-bred looking faces that one always fancies +would have suited admirably the powder and ruffles of the last century. +It expressed little except perfect repose, and when he spoke, which was +but seldom, no additional light came into his hard blue eyes. His +daughter was his absolute contrast--a lovely, delicate little creature, +with silky dark-brown hair, and eyes _en suite_, and color that deepened +and faded twenty times in an hour, without ever losing the softness of +its tints. She had the ways of a child petted all its life through, that +a harsh word would frighten to annihilation. She seemed very fond of +Guy, though evidently rather afraid of him at times. + +Nothing passed at dinner worth mentioning; but soon after the ladies +left us, Mr. Raymond turned lazily to his nephew to inquire, + +"If he would mind asking Bruce to come and stay at Kerton, as he was to +be in the neighborhood soon after Christmas." + +He did not seem to feel the faintest interest in the reply. + +"I shall be too glad, Uncle Henry," answered Guy (he did not look +particularly charmed though), "if it will give you or Bella any +pleasure. Need he be written to immediately?" + +"Thank you very much," said Raymond, languidly. "I know he bores you, +and I am sure I don't wonder at it; but one must be civil to one's +son-in-law that is to be. No, you need not trouble yourself to invite +him yet. Bella can do it when she writes. I suppose she _does_ write to +him sometimes." + +I looked across the table at Forrester. This was the first time I had +heard of Miss Raymond's engagement. He met my eye quite unconcernedly, +pursuing with great interest his occupation of peeling walnuts and +dropping them into Sherry. It did not often happen to him to blush +_twice_ in the twenty-four hours. Directly afterward we began to talk +about pheasants and other things. + +After coffee in the drawing-room Guy sat down to piquet with his uncle. +Raymond liked to utilize his evenings, and never played for nominal +stakes. He was the _beau ideal_ of a card-player, certainly; no +revolution or persistence of luck could ruffle the dead calm of his +courteous face. He would win the money of his nearest and dearest +friend, or lose his own to an utter stranger with the same placidity. To +be sure, to a certain extent, he had enslaved Fortune; though he always +played most loyally, and sometimes would forego an advantage he might +fairly have claimed, his rare science made ultimate success scarcely +doubtful. He never touched a game of mere chance. + +I heard a good story of him in Paris. They were playing a game like +Brag; the principle being that the players increase the stakes without +seeing each other's cards, till one refuses to go on and throws up, or +shows his point. Raymond was left in at last with one adversary; the +stakes had mounted up to a sum that was fearful, and it was his choice +to double or _abattre_. Of course, it was of the last importance to +discover whether the antagonist was strong or not; but the Frenchman's +face gave not the slightest sign. He was _beau joueur s'il en fût_, and +had lost two fair fortunes at play. Raymond hesitated, looking steadily +into his opponent's eyes. All at once he smiled and doubled instantly. +The other dared not go on; he showed his point, and lost. They asked +Raymond afterward how he could have detected any want of confidence to +guide him in a face that looked like marble. + +"I saw three drops of perspiration on his forehead," he said; "and I +knew my own hand was strong." + +Lady Catharine was resting on a sofa: she looked tired and paler than +usual, not in the least available for conversation. Miss Raymond had +nestled herself into the recesses of a huge arm-chair close to the +fire--she was as fond of warmth, when she could not get sunshine, as a +tropical bird--and Forrester was lounging on an ottoman behind her, so +that his head almost touched her elbow. When I caught scraps of their +conversation it seemed to be turning on the most ordinary subjects; but +even in these I should have felt lost--I had been so long away from +England--so I contented myself with watching them, and wondering why +discussions as to the merits of operas and inquiries after mutual +acquaintances should make the fair cheeks hang out signals of distress +so often as they did that evening. + +I lingered in the smoking-room about midnight for a moment after +Forrester left us. + +"So your cousin is really engaged?" I asked Guy. + +"_Tout ce qu'il y a du plus fiancé_," was the answer. "It was one of the +last affairs of state that my poor aunt concluded before she died. Bruce +is a very good match. I don't think Bella worships him, though I have +scarcely ever seen them together, and I am sure he is not a favorite +with Uncle Henry; but nothing on earth would make him break it off; +indeed, I know no one who would propose such a thing to him--not his +daughter, certainly. There's no such hopeless obstacle as the passive +resistance of a thoroughly lazy man. Good-night, Frank. I've sent the +Baron on for you to-morrow. We must start about nine, mind, for we've +fifteen miles to go to cover." + +I went to bed, and dreamed that Raymond was playing _ecarté_ with +Forrester for his daughter, who stood by blushing beautifully--and never +held a trump! + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + "She has two eyes so soft and brown; + Take care! + She gives a side glance, and looks down; + Beware! beware! + Trust her not; she is fooling thee." + + +So the days went on. The stream of visitors usual in a country house +during the hunting season flowed in and out of Kerton Manor without any +remarkable specimen showing itself above the surface. One individual, +perhaps, I ought to except, the curate of the parish, who was a very +constant visitor. + +His appearance was not fascinating: he had a long, narrow head, thatched +with straight, scanty hair; little, protruding eyes, and a complexion of +a bright unvarying red--in fact, he was very like a prawn. + +It was soon evident that the Rev. Samuel Foster was helplessly smitten +by Miss Raymond, or, as Forrester elegantly expressed it, "hard hit in +the wings, and crippled for flying!" Helplessly, I say, but not +hopelessly; for that wicked little creature, acting perhaps under +private orders, gave him all sorts of treacherous encouragement. I never +saw any human being evolve so much caloric under excitement as he did, +except one young woman whom I met ages ago--(a most estimable person; +her Sunday-school was a model)--whose only way of evincing any emotion, +either of anger, fear, pain, or pleasure, was--a profuse perspiration. +Mr. Foster not only got awfully hot, but electrical into the bargain. +His thin hairs used to stand out distinctly and in relief from his head +and face, just like a person on the glass tripod. Charley suggested +insulating him unawares, and getting a flash out of his knuckles, if not +out of his brain. In truth, it was piteous to see the struggle between +passion and nervousness that raged perpetually within him. He would +stand for some time casting _lamb's_-eyes at the object of his +affections--to the amorous audacity of the full-grown sheep he never +soared--then suddenly, without the slightest provocation, he would +discharge at her a compliment, elaborate, long-winded, Grandisonian, as +a raw recruit fires his musket, shutting his eyes, and incontinently +take to flight, without waiting to see the effect of his shot. If he had +spent half the time and pains on his sermons that he did on his +small-talk (I believe he used to write out three or four foul copies of +each sentence previously at home), what a boon it would have been to his +unlucky audience on Sundays! + +Why is it that the great proportion of our pastors seem to conspire +together with one consent to make the periodical duty of listening to +them as hard as possible? Can they imagine there is profit or pleasure +in a discourse wandering wearily round in a circle, or dragging a slow +length along of truisms and trivialities? In the best of congregations +there can be but few alchemists; and, without that science, who is to +extract the essence of Truth from the _moles incongesta_ of crass +moralities? + +To persuade or dissuade you must interest the head or the heart. I +admire those who can do either successfully, but I do protest against +those clerical tyrants who shelter themselves behind their license to +fire at us their ruthless platitudes. If such could only struggle +against that strong temptation of our fallen nature--the delight of +hearing one's own sweet voice--so as to concentrate now and then! The +best orators, spiritual and mundane, have been brief sometimes. + +I am no theologian, but I take leave to doubt if, in the elaborate +divinity of fourteen epistles, the apostle of the Gentiles ever went so +straight to his hearer's heart as in that farewell charge, when the +elders of Ephesus gathered round him on the sea-sand, "Sorrowing most of +all for the words that he spake, that they should see his face no more." + +Do you remember Canning and the clergyman? When the latter asked him, +"How did you like my sermon? I endeavored not to be tedious;" I always +fancy the statesman's weary, wistful look, which would have been +compassionate but for a sense of personal injury, as he answered, in his +mild voice, "And yet--_you were_." + +Well, the flirtation went on its way rejoicing, to the intense amusement +of all of us, especially of Forrester, till one day his cousin came into +Guy's study, who had just returned from hunting, looking rather +frightened, like a child who has let fall a valuable piece of china--it +was only an honest man's heart that she had broken. Slowly the truth +came out; Mr. Foster had proposed to her that afternoon in the park. + +We, far off in the drawing-room, heard the shrill whistle with which +Livingstone greeted the intelligence. + +"You accepted him, of course?" he said. + +"O Guy!" Miss Raymond answered, blushing more than ever. (I'll back a +woman against the world for expressing half a chapter by a simple +interjection; Lord Burleigh's nod is nothing to it.) "But, indeed," she +went on, "I'm very sorry about it; I never saw any one look so unhappy +before. Do you know I think I saw the tears standing in his eyes; and I +only guessed at the words when he said 'God bless you!'" + +"Ah bah!" replied Guy, with his most cynical smile on his lip; "he'll +recover. Who breaks his heart in these days, especially for such little +dots of things as you? But, Bella mia, how do you think Mr. Bruce would +approve of all these innocent amusements?" + +It was no blush now, but a dead waxen whiteness, that came over the +beautiful face, even down to the chin. The soft brown eyes grew fixed +and wild with an imploring terror. "You won't tell him?" she gasped out; +and then stood quivering and shuddering. Guy was very much surprised: he +had never believed greatly in his cousin's affection for her betrothed; +but here there were signs, not only of the absence of love, but of the +presence of physical fear. + +"My dear child," he said, very kindly, "don't alarm yourself so +absurdly. I have not the honor of Mr. Bruce's confidence; and if I had, +how could I tell him of an affair where _I_ have been most to blame? +I'll speak to Foster; he must not show his disappointment even before +Uncle Henry. You will be quite safe, you see. But, mind, I won't allow +_any one_ to frighten or vex my pet cousin." His countenance lowered as +he spoke, and there was a threat in his eyes. + +As the cloud darkened on his face, the light came back on Isabel +Raymond's. She took his hand--all fibre and sinew, like an +oak-bough--into her slender fingers and pressed it hard. In good truth, +a woman at her need could ask no better defender than he who stood by +her side then, tall, strong, black-browed, and terrible as Saul. "Thank +you so much, dear Guy," she whispered. "If you speak to Mr. Foster, you +will tell him how _very_ sorry I am!" and then she left him. + +Guy did speak to the curate, I hope gently. At all events, we never +laughed at him again. How could we, when we saw him going about his +daily duties, honestly and bravely, and always, when in presence, +struggling with his great sorrow, so as not by word or look to +compromise the thoughtless child who had won his heart for her +amusement, and thrown it away for her convenience? + +I have been disciplined since by what I have felt and seen, and I see +now how ungenerous we had been. + +What right had we to make of that man a puppet for our amusement, +because he was shy, and stupid, and slow? He was as true in his +devotion, as honorable in all his wishes, as confident in his hopes till +they were blasted, as any one that has gone a wooing since the first +whisper of love was heard in Eden. If his despair was less crushing than +that of other men, it was because his principles were stronger to +endure, and perhaps because his temperament was more tranquil and cold. +As I have said, he did his day's work thoroughly, and that helped him +through a good deal. But, to the utmost of his nature, I believe he did +suffer. And could the long train of those whom disappointment has made +maniacs or suicides do more? + +Let us not trust too much to the absence of feeling in these seemingly +impassive organizations. + +I wonder how often the executors of old college fellows, or of +hard-faced bankers and bureaucrats, have been aggravated by finding in +that most secret drawer, which ought to have held a codicil or a jewel, +a tress, a glove, or a flower? The searcher looks at the object for a +moment, and then throws it into the rubbish-basket, with a laugh if he +is good-natured, with a curse if he is vicious and disappointed. Let it +lie there--though the dead miser valued it above all his bank-stock, and +kissed it oftener than he did his living and lawful wife and +children--what is it worth now? Say, as the grim Dean of St. Patrick +wrote on _his_ love-token, "Only a woman's hair." + +Now these men, unknown to their best friend perhaps, had gone through +the affliction which is so common that it is hard to speak of it without +launching into truisms. This sorrow has made some men famous, by forcing +them out into the world and shutting the door behind them. It has made +the fortunes of some poets, who choose the world for their confidant, +setting their bereavement to music, and bewailing Eurydice in charming +volumes, that are cheap at "3_s._ 6_d._ in cloth, lettered." It has made +some--I think the best and bravest--somewhat silent for the rest of +their lives. I read some lines the other day wise enough to have sprung +from an older brain than Owen Meredith's. + + "They were pedants who could speak-- + Grander souls have passed unheard; + Such as felt all language weak; + Choosing rather to record + Secrets before Heaven, than break + Faith with angels, by a word--" + +Yes, many men have their Rachel; but--there being a prejudice against +bigamy--few have even the Patriarch's luck, to marry her at last; for +the wife _de convenance_ generally outlives her younger sister; and so, +one afternoon, we turn again from a grave in Ephrata-Green Cemetery, +somewhat drearily, into our tent pitched in the plains of Belgravia, +where Leah--(there was ever jealousy between those two)--meets us with a +sharp glance of triumph in her "tender eyes." + +We have known pleasanter _tête-à-têtes_--have we not?--than that which +we undergo that evening at dinner, though our companion seems disposed +to be especially lively. We have not much appetite; but our _carissima +sposa_ tells us "not to drink any more claret, or we shall never be fit +to take her to Lady Shechem's _conversazione_." Of all nights in the +year, would she let us off duty on this one? "There are to be some very +pleasant people there," she says, "though none, perhaps, that _you +particularly care about_." (Thank you, my love; I understand that +good-natured allusion perfectly, and am proportionately grateful.) Her +voice sounds shriller than usual as she says this, and leaves us to put +some last touches to her toilette. So we order a fresh bottle, +notwithstanding the warning, and fall to thinking. How low and soft +_that other_ voice was, and, even when a little reproachful, how rarely +sweet! _She_ would scarcely have invented that last taunt if matters +had turned out differently. Then we think of our respected +father-in-law, Sir Joseph Leyburn, of Harran Park--a mighty county +magistrate and cattle-breeder. He got Ishmael Deadeye, the poacher, +transported last year, and took the prize for Devons at the Great +Mesopotamian Agricultural with a brindled bull. We remember his weeping +at the wedding-breakfast over the loss of his eldest treasure, and +wonder if he was an arrant humbug, or only a foolish, fond old man, +inclining morosely toward the former opinion. We don't seem to care much +about Sir Roland de Vaux, the celebrated geologist, whom we shall have +the privilege of meeting this evening. What are strata to us, when our +thoughts will not go lower than about _eight feet_ underground? We shall +be rather bored than otherwise by Dr. Sternhold, that eminent Christian +divine, who passes his leisure hours in proving St. Paul to have been an +unsound theologian and a weak dialectician. Why should Mr. Planet, the +intrepid traveler, be always inflicting Jerusalem upon us, as if no one +had ever visited the Holy Land before him? Our ancestors did so five +hundred years ago, and did not make half the fuss about it; and _they_ +had a skirmish or two there worth speaking of, while we don't believe a +word of Planet's encounter with those three Arabs on the Hebron road. +Pooh! there's no more peril in traversing the Wilderness of Cades than +in going up to the Grands Mulets. We are not worthy of those +distinguished men, and would prefer the society of hard-riding Dick +Foley of the Blues. He had a few feelings in common with us once on a +certain point (how we hated him then), and he won't wonder if we are +duller than usual this evening. Perhaps his own nerve will scarcely be +as iron as usual in the Grand Military, to come off in the course of the +week. + +Well, the bottle is out, and Mademoiselle Zelpa comes to say that +"Madame is ze raidèe." So one glass of Cognac neat, as a _chasse_ (to +more things than good Claret), and then--let us put on our whitest tie +and our most attractive smile, and "go forth, for she is gone." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + "A man had given all other bliss + And all his worldly worth for this, + To waste his whole heart in one kiss + Upon her perfect lips." + + +We were asked to dine and sleep at Brainswick, where the hounds met on +the following morning. Mr. Raymond could not make up his mind to the +exertion, so Forrester and I accompanied Guy alone. + +"By-the-by," the latter observed, as we were driving over in his +mail-phaeton, "I wonder if we shall see the Bellasys to-night? I know +they were to come down about this time. Steady, old wench! where are you +off to?" (This was to the near wheeler, who was breaking her trot.) "I +think you'll admire her, Frank; but, _gare à vous_, she's dangerous. Eh, +Charley?" + +"Well, you ought to know," answered Forrester; "I never tried her much +myself. She's two or three stone over my weight. I wonder what she has +been doing lately? They sent her down to rusticate somewhere at the end +of the season. She ought to be in great condition now, with a summer's +run." + +Livingstone smiled, complacently I thought, as if some one had praised +one of his favorite hunters, but did not pursue the subject. + +When I came down before dinner he was talking to a lady in dark blue +silk, with black lace over it, a wreath curiously plaited of natural ivy +in her hair. I guessed her at once to be Flora Bellasys. + +Let me try to paint--though abler artists have failed--the handsomest +brunette I have ever seen. + +She was very tall; her figure magnificently developed, though +slender-waisted and lithe as a serpent. She walked as if she had been +bred in a _basquiña_, and her foot and ankle were hardly to be matched +on this side of the Pyrenees; the nose slightly aquiline, with thin, +transparent nostrils; and the forehead rather low--it looked more so, +perhaps, from the thick masses of dark hair which framed and shaded her +face. Under the clear, pale olive of the cheeks the rich blood mantled +now and then like wine in a Venice glass; and her lips--the outline of +the upper one just defined by a penciling of down, the lower one full +and pouting--glistened with the brilliant smoothness of a pomegranate +flower when the dew is clinging. Her eyes--the opium-eaters of Stamboul +never dreamed of their peers among the bevies of hachis-houris. They +were of the very darkest hazel; one moment sleeping lazily under their +long lashes, like a river under leaves of water-lilies; the next, +sparkling like the same stream when the sunlight is splintered on its +ripples into carcanets of diamonds. When they chose to speak, not all +the orators that have rounded periods since Isocrates could match their +eloquence; when it was their will to guard a secret, they met you with +the cold, impenetrable gaze that we attribute to the mighty mother, +Cybèle. Even a philosopher might have been interested--on purely +psychological grounds, of course--in watching the thoughts as they rose +one by one to the surface of those deep, clear wells (was truth at the +bottom of them?--I doubt), like the strange shapes of beauty that +reveal themselves to seamen, coyly and slowly, through the purple calm +of the Indian Sea. + +Twice I have chosen a watery simile; but I know no other element +combining, as her glances did, liquid softness with lustre. + +When near her, you were sensible of a strange, subtle, intoxicating +perfume, very fragrant, perfectly indefinable, which clung, not only to +her dress, but to every thing belonging to her. From what flowers it was +distilled no artist in essences alive could have told. I incline to +think that, like the "birk" in the ghost's garland, + + "They were not grown on earthly bank, + Nor yet on earthly sheugh." + +Guy took Miss Bellasys in to dinner, and I found myself placed on her +other side. I had been introduced to her ten minutes before, but had +little opportunity for "improving the occasion," as the Nonconformists +have it, for she never once deigned a look in my direction. + +My right-hand neighbor was an elderly man of a full habit, whom it would +have been cruel to disturb till the rage of hunger was appeased, so I +was fain to seek amusement in the conversation going on on my left. +There was no indiscretion in this, for I knew Guy would never touch +secrets of state in mixed company. + +For some time they talked nothing but commonplaces, evidently feeling +each other's foils. The real fencing began with a question from +Flora--if he was not surprised at seeing her there that evening. + +"Not at all," was the reply; "I knew we must meet before long. It is +only parallels that don't; and there is very little of the right line +about either you or me." + +"Speak for yourself," Miss Bellasys said; "I consider that a very rude +observation." + +"Pardon me," retorted Guy; "I seldom say rude things--never +intentionally. I don't know which is in worst taste, that, or paying +point-blank compliments. Without being mathematical, you may have heard +that the line of beauty is a curve." + +Flora laughed. + +"It is difficult to catch you. What have you been doing since we +parted?" + +"That is just the question that was on my lips, so nearly uttered that I +consider I spoke first. Now, will you confess, or must I cross-question +some one else? I _will_ know. It is easy to follow you, like an invading +army, by the trail of devastation." + +"So you do care to know?" the soft voice said, that could make the +nerves of even an indifferent hearer thrill and quiver strangely. + +After once listening to it, it was very easy to believe the weird +stories of Norse sorceresses, and German wood-spirits and pixies, luring +men to death with their fatally musical tones. + +"Simple curiosity," Guy replied, coolly, "and a little compassion for +your victims. They might be friends of mine, you know." + +Miss Bellasys bit her lip, half provoked, half amused, apparently, as +she answered, "The dead tell no tales." + +"No, but the wounded do, and they cry out pretty loudly sometimes. I +suppose all the cases did not terminate fatally. Will you confess?" + +"I have nothing to tell you," Flora said, very demurely and meekly, +only for once her eyes betrayed her. "Mamma took me down into +Devonshire, where we have an aunt or two, for sea-breezes and seclusion. +I rather liked at first having nothing on earth to do, and nothing--yes, +I understand--really nothing to think about. I used to sleep a great +deal, and then drive a little obstinate pony, to see views. But I don't +care much about views--do you? Then mamma was always wanting me to help +her look for shells and wild-flowers; and the rocks hurt my feet, and +the bushes never would leave me alone in the woods." She shuddered +slightly here. + +"The Bushes! a Devonshire family of that name, I presume?" Guy +interrupted, with intense gravity. "How wrong of them! They are very +ill-regulated young men down in those parts, I believe." + +"Don't be absurd; I never saw a creature for months between fifteen and +fifty. Are not those ages safe?" (A shake of the head from Livingstone.) +"I began to be very unhappy; I had no one to tease; my aunts are too +good-natured, and mamma is used to it. At last I had the greatest mind +to do something desperate--to write to you, for instance--merely to see +the household's horror when your answer came. You would have answered, +would you not? I should not have opened it, you know, but given it to +mamma, like a good child." + +"Of course; I know you show all your letters to your mother. But that +ruralizing must have been fearful for you, _poverina_! People were +talking a good deal of agricultural distress, but this is the most +piteous case I've heard of. So there were really no men to govern in +that wood?" + +"Not even a little boy," said Flora, decisively. "There were two or +three from Oxford in the neighborhood; I used to see them sitting +outside their lodgings in the sun, like rabbits, but they always ran in +before--" + +"Before you could get a shot at them, you mean?" broke in Guy; "you +ought to have crept up, and stalked them cleverly." + +Flora threw hack her handsome head. "I don't war with children. It went +on just as I tell you till we left for our round of winter visits, which +have been very stupid and correct--till now." + +I hardly caught the two last words, she spoke them so low. There was +silence for several minutes, and then Guy leaned back to address me. + +"Do you remember Arthur Darrell, of Christchurch, Frank, the man that +used to speak at the Union, and was always raving about ebon locks and +dark eyes?" + +"I remember him well. I have not seen him for years; but I heard he was +getting on well in the law." + +"He'll have time to get tired of brunettes--if any one ever _does_ get +tired of them--before he comes back," said Guy. "He's just gone out to +try the Indian bar." + +"What could have put such an idea into his head?" I asked, very +innocently. + +"I can't say," was the reply; "men do take such curious fancies. It was +a sudden determination, I believe. The beauties of the Eastern +hemisphere began to develop themselves to his weak mind last summer +while he was down with his people in--Devonshire." + +Involuntarily I looked at Miss Bellasys. She saw she was detected; but, +instead of betraying any embarrassment, she turned upon Guy a queer +little imploring look, not indicative in the least of shame or +repentance, but such as might be put on by one of those truly excellent +people who do good by stealth and blush to find it known, when some of +their benevolent acts have come to light, and they wish to deprecate +praise. + +Livingstone gazed piercingly at her for several instants without moving +a muscle of his face; suddenly its fixed and stern expression--you could +not say softened, but--broke up all at once like a sheet of ice +shivering. + +"Let there be peace," he said, sententiously. "We forgive all the errors +of your long vacation in consideration of the good it has evidently done +you. You are looking brilliantly!" + +There was an unusual softness, almost a tremor, in his deep voice as he +spoke the last words, and a look in his bold eyes that many trained +coquettes would have shrunk from--a look that I should be sorry and +angry to see turned on any woman in whom I felt an interest--a look such +as Selim Pasha might wear as the Arnauts defile into his harem-court, +bringing the fair Georgians home. + +Flora Bellasys only smiled in saucy triumph. + +"You say you never pay compliments," she answered, "and I always _try_ +to believe you. We will suppose this one is only the truth extorted. My +glove--thank you." The same smile was on her lip as she turned her head +once in her haughty progress to the door. + +As Guy sat down again, and filled a huge glass with claret, I heard him +mutter between his teeth, "_Royale, quand même_!" + +"Close up, gentlemen, close up!" broke in the cheery voice of our rare +old host. "Livingstone, if you begin back-handing already, you'll never +be able to hold that great raking chestnut I saw your groom leading this +evening. The man looked as if he thought he would be eaten before he got +in." + +"Whatever you do, drink fair," Guy answered, laughing; "so saith the +immortal Gamp. The squire's beginning to tremble for his '22 wine." + +"I don't wonder," said Godfrey Parndon, the M.F.H. "I've always observed +that, after flirting disgracefully at dinner, you drink harder +afterward. It's to drown remorse, I suppose. So you ride that new horse +of yours to-morrow? My poor hounds!" + +"Don't be alarmed," cried Guy; "he never kicks hounds, and I won't let +him go over them; it's only human strangers the amiable animal can't +endure: that's why I call him the Axeine. He is worth more than the £300 +I gave for him." + +"Well, he nearly spoiled two grooms for Hounscott," Parndon said. "The +stablemen at Revesby had a great beer the day they got rid of him." + +"He wouldn't suit every one," remarked Livingstone--"not you, for +instance, Godfrey, who always ride with a loose rein. I was obliged to +give him his gallops myself at first; he's a devil to pull, and if he +once gets away with you, you may 'write to your friends.' But I've +nothing like him in my stable." + +Then the conversation became general, revolving in a circle of +hound-and-horse talk, as it will do now and then in the shires. + +"Guy," whispered Forrester, as we went up stairs, "there's a little +woman here who says she used to know you very well: won't you go and +talk to her?" + +"Many little women say that," answered Guy; "it's a way they have. Which +is it, now?" + +Charley pointed out a small, plump, rather pretty blonde, with long +ringlets, and light, laughing blue eyes. It seemed the lady's +reminiscences were well founded, for in five minutes Livingstone and she +were talking like old friends. + +In the course of the evening I found myself near Miss Bellasys. This +time she did me the honor to address me, and soon began asking me more +questions than I could answer, even had she waited a reply. Did I like +Kerton Manor? Had there been many agreeable people there yet? Not any +remarkably so! She was surprised at that. Miss Raymond was there _en +permanence_, of course? She was such a favorite with her (Flora), and +with her cousin too, she thought. Was Mr. Livingstone always playing +with his uncle, and always losing? She supposed he liked losing--at +play. Did I know the lady in pink, with twenty-five flowers in her hair? +She had counted them. Yes, that was her husband, the stout man looking +uncomfortable, in the corner--an old friend of Mr. Livingstone's? He had +so many old friends; but he did not always talk to them for a whole +evening without intermission. Ah! she was going to sing; that is, if +Mr. Livingstone had quite finished with her, and would let her go. +Little women with pink cheeks and dresses always _did_ sing, and never +had any voice. + +I don't know how many more questions she put to me in the same quiet, +clear tones; but just then I happened to look down on the handkerchief +she held in her hand, and I saw a long rent in its broad Valenciennes +border that I am very sure was not there an hour ago; for Flora's +toilette, morning and evening, was faultless to a degree. + +I had hardly time to remark this when Guy lounged up to us. My +companion's dark eyes were more eloquent than her lips, which quivered +slightly as she said, + +"I wonder you have not more consideration. A new arrival in the county, +and compromised irretrievably! Look at Mr. Stafford now." + +"The husband?" Guy said, with intense disdain; "the husband's helpless. +He may sharpen his--tusks, but he'll never come to battle. How good and +great you are! It is quite refreshing to hear your strictures on +innocent amusements. But I beg you will speak of that lady with due +respect; she is the first--yes, positively the first--woman I ever +loved." + +"_Monseigneur, que d'honneur!_" Flora said, curling her haughty lip. + +"It is true," Guy went on. "At a children's ball, about fifteen years +ago, I met my fate. She was in white muslin, with a velvet bodice (Flora +shuddered visibly); for a year after I pictured to myself the angels in +no other attire, and now--years vitiate one's tastes so--I can fancy +nothing but a jockey in 'black body and white sleeves.' I suppose she +was very pretty; let us hope so; it is my only excuse for being +enchanted in ten minutes, and stupidly enslaved in half an hour. The +thing would not have been complete without a rival; he came--a plump, +circular-faced boy, with severely flaxen hair. No, you need not look +across the room--not the least like what she is now! Great jealousy may +make me unjust, but I don't think he had any advantage over me save one, +and he used that mercilessly. He wore collars boldly erect under his fat +checks, while those of the rest of us lay prostrate, after the simple +fashion of my childhood. The _prestige_ was too much for Ellen's weak +mind. (Did I tell you her name was Ellen?) Bottom monopolized Titania +for the rest of the evening. I could have beaten him with ease and +satisfaction to myself, but I refrained; and, rushing into the +supper-room, drained three glasses of weak negus with the energy of +despair. + +"I have never suffered any thing since like the torment of the next two +hours. I saw her several times afterward, and might have made play, +perhaps, but the phantom of a round red face, with collars starched _à +l'outrance_, always came between us. It is only a slight satisfaction to +hear that she has utterly lost sight of my rival, and promises to cut +him dead the first time they meet. There's the history of a young heart +blighted--of a crushed affection! I am not aware if there is any moral +in it; if there is, you are very welcome to it, I am sure. You might +look a little more sympathizing, though, even if I _have_ bored you." + +Flora tried to look grave, but the dancing light in her rebellious eyes +betrayed her, even before her merry musical laugh broke in. + +"It is far the most touching thing I ever heard. Poor child, how you +must have suffered! I wonder you ever smiled again. How well she sings, +does she not? when she does not try to go too high." + +"Don't be severe," Guy retorted; "you may have to sing yourself some +day. You prefer talking, though? Well, with a well-managed _contralto_, +it comes nearly to the same thing, and I suppose you consider the world +in general is not worthy of it?" + +Almost imperceptibly, but very meaningly, her glance turned to where I +sat close beside her. + +"How absurd! you know why I don't sing often. To-night it would be--too +cruel. (Flora's idea of modest merit was peculiar.) Now tell me, what +are you going to ride to-morrow? We shall all go and see them throw +off." + +Without answering her question, he leaned over her, and said something +too low for me to hear, which made her color brighten. + +From a distant corner two ancient virgins, long past "mark of mouth," +surveyed the proceedings with faces like moulds of lemon-ice. Flora +glanced toward them this time, and said demurely, making a gesture of +crossing her arms a _à la Napoléon I._, "Take care; from the summit of +yonder sofa forty ages behold you." + +The caution was a challenge; and so her hearer interpreted it as he sank +down beside her. + +I seemed to be lapsing rapidly into the terrible _third_ that spoils +sport, so I left them; but not all the adjurations of Godfrey Parndon +invoking his favorite antagonist to the whist-table could draw Guy from +his post again that evening. + +I know men who would have given five years of life for the whisper that +glided into his ear as he gave Miss Bellasys her candle on retiring, ten +for the Parthian glance that shot its arrow home. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + "I know the purple vestment; + I know the crest of flame; + So ever _rides_ Mamilius, + Prince of the Latian name." + + +The next was a perfect hunting morning; a light breeze, steady from the +southwest, and not too much sun; the very day when a scent, in and out +of cover, would be a certainty, if there were any calculation on this +contingency. Let us do our sisters justice--there is _one_ thing in +nature more uncertain and capricious than the whims of womankind. + +The hounds had come up with their usual train of officials, and of those +steady-going sportsmen who love the pack better than their own children, +and can call each individual in it by his name. Godfrey Parndon was +doing the civil to the "great men in Israel," his heaviest subscribers; +pinks were gleaming in every direction through the clumps and belts of +plantation, as the men came up at a hard gallop on their cover-hacks, or +opened the pipes of their hunters by a stretch over the turf of the +park. + +On the hall steps stood Flora Bellasys--Penthesilea in a wide-awake and +plume; a dozen men were round her, striving emulously for a word or a +smile, and she held her own gallantly with them all. She was waiting +patiently till Guy had lighted an obstinate cigar, and was ready to +mount her. He understood putting her up better than any one else, she +said. Perhaps he did; but, though he swung her into the saddle with one +wave of his mighty arm as lightly as Lochinvar could have done, the +arrangement of the skirt and stirrup seemed a problem hardly to be +solved. + +If there was any truth in the old Courland superstition that the display +of a lady's ankle to the hunters before they started brought them luck, +we ought to have had the run of the season that day. + +He rode by her side, too, as near as the plunges of the chestnut would +allow, till we reached the gorse that we were to draw; once there, the +stronger passion prevailed. Aphroditè hid her face, and the great +goddess Artemis claimed her own. As the first hound whimpered, he drew +off toward a corner, where a big fence would give a chance of shaking +off the crowd, and I do not think he turned his head till the fox went +away. + +The last thing I remember there was the anxious look in two beautiful +hazel eyes as they gazed after the Axeine, charging his second fence +with the rush of an express train. + +The _fétiche_ did not fail us; we had a wonderful run, of which only +five men saw the end. I confess, the second brook stopped me and many +others. Forrester got over with a fall; but they were preparing to break +up the fox, when he came up first of the second flight. + +Guy came home in great spirits; he had been admirably carried. He and +the first whip, a ten-stone man, were head and head at the last fence, +while the hounds were rolling over their fox, a hundred yards farther, +in the open. + +After dinner he amused himself with teasing his cousin. At last he +asked her if she would lend him Bella Donna to hack to cover, as his own +favorite was rather lame. + +Miss Raymond's indignation was superb; for, be it known, she was prouder +of the said animal than of any thing else in the world. + +She (the mare, not the lady) was a bright bay, with black points, quite +thorough-bred, and as handsome as a picture. Livingstone had bought her +out of a training-stable, and had given her to his cousin, after having +broken her into a perfect light-weight hunter. + +One of the few extravagances in which Mr. Raymond indulged his daughter +was allowing her to take Bella Donna wherever she went. + +"Don't excite yourself, you small Amazon!" replied Guy to her indignant +refusal. "How you do believe in that mare! I wonder you don't put her +into some of the great Spring Handicaps! You would get her in light, and +might win enough to keep you in gloves for half a century." + +"Well, I don't know," Forester's slow, languid voice suggested; "I think +she's faster, for three miles, than any thing in your stable. I should +like to run the best you have for £50, weight for inches." + +"I am not surprised at your supporting Bella's opinion," said Guy, with +a shade of sarcasm in his voice, "but I did not expect you would back +it. Come, I'll make this match, if you like; you shall ride +catch-weight, which will be about 11 st. 7 lb., and I'll ride the Axeine +at 14 st. 7 lb.: I must take a 7 lb. saddle to do that. They are both in +hard condition, so it can come off in ten days; and I'll give the +farmers a cup to run for at the same time. Is it a match?" + +"Certainly, if Miss Raymond will trust me with Bella Donna." + +Isabel's eyes sparkled--so brilliantly! as she answered, "I should like +it, of all things." + +"Now, Puss," Guy went on, "you ought to have something on it. There is a +certain set of turquoises and pearls that I meant to give you whenever +you had been good for three weeks consecutively; it is no use waiting +for such a miracle, so I'll bet you these against that sapphire and +diamond ring you have taken to wearing lately." + +His cousin looked distressed and confused. "Any thing else, Guy," she +said. "I can not risk that; it was a present from--from Mrs. Molyneux." + +"I don't think," Charley suggested, very quietly, "Mrs.--Molyneux, was +it not?--could object to your investing her present on such a certainty. +I really believe we shall bring it off; and if not--" He checked himself +with a smile. + +"Oh, if you think so," answered Isabel, blushing more than ever, "I will +venture my ring. But you _must_ win; I don't know what I should do if I +lost it." So it was settled. + +"You seem confident," I remarked to Livingstone, later in the evening. I +remember the peculiar expression of his face, though I did not then +understand it, as he answered gravely, + +"Bella ought to be; for--she has laid long odds." + +There was great excitement in the neighborhood when the match, and the +farmers' race to follow, became known. Half the county was assembled on +the appointed morning, an off-day with the Pytchley. Godfrey Parndon was +judge, and had picked the ground--a figure of 8, with 17 fences, large +but fair for the most part; the horses were to traverse it twice, +missing the brook (16 feet of clear water) the second time. + +I wish they were not getting so rare, those purely country meetings, +where three wagons with an awning make the grant stand; where there are +no ring-men to force the betting and deafen you with their blatant +proffers--"to lay agin any thing in the race;" where the bold yeomen, in +full confidence that their favorite will not be "roped," back their +opinions manfully for crowns. + +Livingstone's great local renown, and the reputation of the Axeine for +strength and speed (though no one knew how fast he _could_ go), made the +betting 5 to 4 on him; but takers were not wanting, calculating on the +horse's truly Satanic temper. Miss Bellasys, who, with her mother, had +arrived at Kerton the night before, laid half a point more--_not_ in +gloves--on the heavy-weight. + +The bell for saddling rang, and the horses came out. The mare stripped +beautifully, as fine as a star--no wonder her mistress was proud of her; +and I think she had, to the full, as many admirers as the Axeine. + +The latter was a dark chestnut with a white fetlock, standing full 16 +hands (while the mare scarcely topped 15), well ribbed up, with a good +sloping shoulder, immense flat hocks, and sinewy thighs; his crest and +forehand were like a stallion's; and, when you looked at his quarters, +it was easy to believe what the Revesby stablemen said, "They could +shoot a man into the next county." + +He was "orkarder than usual that morning," the groom remarked; perhaps +he did not fancy the crowd without the hounds, for he kept lashing out +perpetually, with vicious backward glances from his red eyes. + +Then the riders showed: Livingstone in his own colors, purple and +scarlet cap, workmanlike and weather-stained; Forrester in the fresh +glories of light blue with white sleeves, his cap quartered with the +same. + +Charley lingered a minute by Miss Raymond's side, taking her last +instructions, I suppose. She looked very nervous and pale, her jockey +pleasantly languid as ever. + +The instant the chestnut was mounted he reared, and indulged in two or +three "buck-jumps" that would have made a weaker man tremble for his +back-bone, and then kicked furiously; but Guy seemed to take it all as a +matter of course, sitting square and erect; all he did was to drive the +sharp rowels in repeatedly, bringing a dark blood-spot out with each +stroke. It was not by love certainly that he ruled the Axeine. Then came +the preliminary gallops, the mare going easily on her bit, gliding over +the ground smoothly and springily; the horse shaking his head, and every +now and then tearing madly at the reins, without being able to gain a +hair's breadth on the iron hands that never moved from his withers. + +"They're off!" Guy taking the lead; well over the first two fences, fair +hunting ones; the third is a teaser--an ugly black bulfinch, with a +ditch on the landing side, and a drop into a plowed field. The +chestnut's devil is thoroughly roused by this time. When within sixty +yards of the fence, he puts on a rush that even his rider's mighty +muscles can not check: his impetus would send him through a castle wall; +but he hardly rises at the leap, taking it, too, where there is a +network of growers--a crash that might be heard in the grand stand--and +horse and man are rolling in the field beyond. + +Flora Bellasys strikes her foot angrily with her riding-whip, and turns +very pale. + +Ten lengths behind, the mare comes up, well in hand, and slips through +the bulfinch without a mistake--hardly with an effort--just at the only +place where you can see daylight through the blackthorn. + +What is Guy doing? Even in that thundering fall he has never let the +reins go. Horse and rider struggle up together. A dozen arms are ready +to lift him into the saddle, and a cheery voice says in his ear, "Hold +up, squire; keep him a going, and you'll catch the captain yet!" He +hardly hears the words though, for his head is whirling, and he feels +strangely sick and faint; but before he has gone a hundred yards his +face has settled into its habitual resolute calmness, only there is a +thin thread of blood creeping from under his cap, and his brow is bent +and lowering. + +A fall, which would have taken the fight out of most horses, has only +steadied the Axeine; and, as we watch him striding through the deep +ground, casting the dirt behind him like a catapult we think and say, +"The race is not over yet." + +They are over the brook without a scramble. Forrester still leads, +riding patiently and well. He knows better than to force the running, +even with the difference in weight, for the going is too heavy quite to +suit his mare. + +As Livingstone passed the spot where Miss Raymond was stationed, he +turned half round in his saddle, and looked curiously in her face. She +did not even know he was near. All her soul was in her eyes, that were +gazing after Forrester with an anxiety so disproportioned to the +occasion that her cousin fairly started. + +"Poor child," he said to himself, all his angry feelings changing, "she +seems to have set her heart so upon winning, it would be sad if she were +disappointed. No one has much on it; shall I try 'Captain Armstrong' for +once? It would make her very happy. Bar accidents, I must win. They do +not know that the chestnut has not extended himself yet." + +We lose sight of the horses for a little. When we see them a gain, the +mare has decidedly gained ground; and, to our astonishment, the Axeine +swerves, and refuses at rather an easy fence. + +Miss Bellasys' cheek flushes this time. She goes off at a sharp canter +through a gate that takes her into a field where the horses must pass +her close; several of her attendants follow. Charley comes up, looking +rather more excited and happy than usual. He has made the pace better +for the last half mile, and still seems going at his ease. More than a +distance behind is the chestnut, evidently on bad terms with his jockey; +he is in a white lather of foam, and changes his leg twice as he +approaches. Guy has his face turned slightly aside as he nears the spot +where Miss Bellasys waits for him, in the midst of her body-guard. For +the first time since the race began, her voice was heard, cutting the +air with its clear mocking tones, like the edge of a Damascus sabre, +"The chestnut wins--hard held!" + +Guy's kindly impulses vanished instantly before the sarcasm latent in +those last two words. He could sacrifice his own victory and the hopes +of his backers, but he would not give a chance to Flora's merciless +tongue. We saw him change his hold on the reins, and, with a shake and a +fierce thrust of the spurs, he set the Axeine fairly going. + +Every man on the ground, including his late owner [who hated himself +bitterly at that moment for parting with him], was taken by surprise by +the extraordinary speed the horse displayed. He raced up to Bella Donna +just before the last fence, at which she hangs ever so little, while he +takes it in his swing, covering good nine yards from hoof to hoof. +Nothing but hurdles now between them and home. The down-hill run-in +favors his vast stride. A thousand voices echo Flora's words, "The +chestnut wins!" Charley made his effort exactly at the right time, and +the brave little mare answered gallantly; but it was not to be. He shook +his head, and never touched her with whip or spur again. + +The race was over. No one disputed the judge's fiat: "The Axeine by six +lengths." + +Up to the skies went the hats and the shouts of the sturdy yeomen, who +"know'd he couldn't be beat," exulting in the success of their +favorite. Round winner and loser crowded their friends, congratulating +the one, condoling with the other, praising both for their riding. At +that moment I do not think any one except myself remarked Isabel +Raymond, who sat somewhat apart, her tears falling fast under her veil +as she looked upon her lost ring. + +Just then Forrester rode up. "Woe to the vanquished!" he said. "All is +lost but honor. Will you say something kind to me after my defeat, Miss +Raymond? You will find your pet not punished in the least, and without a +scratch on her." + +Without answering, she held out her hand. As he bent over it, and +whispered, what I could not hear, I saw her eyes sparkle, and a happy +consciousness flush her cheeks, till they glowed like a sky at sunset +when a storm is passing away in the west. Then I knew that he had won a +richer prize than ever was set on a race since the first Great +Metropolitan was run for at Olympia. + +Livingstone had washed away the traces of his fall (his wound was only a +cut under the hair, above the temple), and was going to get the horses +in line to start them for the farmers' cup. As he passed Miss Bellasys +he checked his horse for an instant, and said, very coldly, + +"You are satisfied, I trust?" + +"All's well that ends well," answered Flora; "but I began to tremble for +my bets. I thought you were waiting too long." + +Guy did not wish to pursue the subject apparently, for he rode on +without reply. Flora made no attempt to detain him. She had studied the +signs of the times in his countenance long enough to be weather-wise, +and to know that the better part of valor was advisable when the +quicksilver had sunk to Stormy. + +The cup was a great success. Eleven started, and three made a most +artistic finish--scarcely a length between first and third. The farmers +of the present day ride very differently from their ancestors of fifty +years ago, whose highest ambition was to pound along after the slow, +sure "currant-jelly dogs." + +Go down into the Vale of Belvoir; watch one of the duke's tenants +handing a five-year old over the Smite, and say if the modern +agriculturists might not boast with Tydides, + + _"hêmeis dê paterôn meg' ameinones euchometh' einai."_ + +They are getting so erudite, too, that I dare say they would quote it in +the original. + +When all was over, and they were returning to Kerton, Guy ranged up to +his cousin's side. He looked rather embarrassed and penitent--an +expression which sat upon his stern, resolute face very strangely. But +Isabel was radiant with happiness, and did not even sigh as she held out +the forfeited ring. He put it back with a decided gesture of his hand, +and, leaning over her, whispered something in her ear. I don't know how +they arranged it; but Miss Raymond wore the turquoises at the next +county ball--the ring, to her dying day. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + "Souvent femme varie; + Bien fol est, qui s'y fie." + + +We sat by the firelight in the old library of Kerton Manor. The dreary +January evening was closing in, with a sharp sleet lashing the windows +and rattling on their diamond panes, but the gleams from the great +burning logs lighted up the dark crimson cushions of Utrecht and the +polished walnut panels so changefully and enticingly that no one had the +heart to think of candles. + +All the younger members of the party were assembled there, with Mrs. +Bellasys to play propriety. It was her mission to be chaperon in +ordinary to her daughter and her daughter's friends, and she went +through with it, admirable in her patient self-denial. May they be +reckoned to her credit hereafter--those long hours, when she sat sleepy, +weary, uncomplaining, with an aching head but a stereotyped smile. + +Let us speak gently of these maternal martyrs, manoeuvring though they +be. If they have erred, they have suffered. I knew once a lady with a +lot of six, nubile, but not attractive, all with a decided bias toward +Terpsichore and Hymen. Fancy what she must have endured, with those +plain young women round her, always clamoring for partners, temporary or +permanent, like fledglings in a nest for food. Clever and unscrupulous +as she was--they called her the "judicious Hooker"--she must have been +conscious of her utter inability to satisfy them. She knew, too, that +if, by any dispensation, one were removed, five daughters of the +horse-leech would still remain, with ravenous appetites unappeased. Yet +the poor old bird was cheerful, and sometimes, after supper, would chirp +quite merrily. _Honneur au courage malheureux._ Let us stand aside in +the cloak-room, and salute her as she passes out with all the honors of +war. + +Mrs. Bellasys was a little woman, who always reminded me of a certain +tropical monkey--name unknown. She wore her hair bushily on each side of +her small face, just like the said intelligent animal, and had the same +eager, rather frightened way of glancing out of her beady black eyes, +accompanied by a quick turning of the head when addressed. She had her +full share of troubles in her time, but she took them all +contentedly--not to say complacently--as part of the day's work. Her +husband was not a model of fidelity, nor, indeed, of any of the conjugal +or cardinal virtues. He was a sort of Maëlstrom, into which fair +fortunes and names were sucked down, only emerging in unrecognizable +fragments. His own would have gone too, doubtless; but he had been lucky +at play for a long time--too constantly so, some said--and a pistol +bullet cut him short before he had half spent his wife's money, so that +she was left comfortably off, and her daughter was a fair average +heiress. She had long ago abdicated the government in favor of Flora, +who treated her well on the whole, _en bonne princesse_. + +It is an invariable rule that, if there is a delicate subject which we +determine beforehand to avoid, this particular one is sure +imperceptibly to creep into the conversation. + +Mr. Bruce was to arrive before dinner, an event which we guessed would +not add materially to the comfort of two of our party (how silent those +two were in their remote corner where the firelight never came), so of +course we found ourselves talking of ill-assorted marriages. + +"You count _mésalliances_ among such?" Guy asked, at length. "Yes, you +are right; but I know a case where 'a man's being balked in his +intention to degrade himself' ruined him for life. Ralph Mohun told me +of it. It was a nine-days' wonder in Vienna soon after he joined the +Imperial Cuirassiers. A Bohemian count flourished there then--a great +favorite with every one, for he was frank and generous, like most boys +well-born and of great possessions, who have only seen things in general +on the sunny side. While down at his castle for the shooting, he fell in +love with the daughter of one of his foresters. The man was a dull, +brutal cur, and, when drunk, especially savage. His daughter was rarely +beautiful; at all events, the count, a good judge, thought her peerless. + +"He meant fairly by the girl from the first, and promised her marriage, +actually intending to keep his word. Still there were arrangements to be +made before he could introduce such a novel element into blood that for +centuries had been pure as the _sangue azzura_. He went up to Vienna for +that purpose, leaving his design a profound secret to all his +dependents. If these thought about it at all, they probably believed +their master's intentions to be--like Dick Harcourt's toward the Irish +lady--'strictly dishonorable.' + +"One night during his absence shrieks came from the cottage where the +forester lived alone with his daughter. Those who heard them made haste; +but it was a desolate spot, far from any other dwelling, and they came +too late. + +"They found the girl lying in her blood, not a feature of her pretty +face recognizable. Near her were the butt of a gun shivered, and her +father senselessly drunk. He had evidently finished the bottle after +beating her to death. + +"Whether it was merely an outbreak of his stupid ferocity, or if she had +exasperated him by her threats and taunts, for she was of a haughty +spirit, poor child! and perhaps rather elevated by the thought of the +coming coronet, will never be known. The murderer was in no state to +make a confession, and he remained obstinately silent in prison till his +lord's return." + +"How very horrible!" Mrs. Bellasys cried out, shuddering; "was not the +count very angry?" + +"Well, he _was_ rather vexed," replied Guy, coolly. "They are high +justiciaries on their own lands, those great Bohemian barons, and so he +gave the forester a fair trial. It was soon over; the man denied +nothing, only whining out, in excuse, that he thought his daughter was +dishonored. The shadow of death was closing round him, and he was nearly +mad with fear. + +"The old steward saw a strange sort of smile twist his master's white, +quivering lips when he heard this, but he never said a word. I imagine +he thought to reveal his purpose now that it was crushed too great a +sacrifice even to clear the dead girl's fair fame; perhaps, though, he +could not trust his voice, for he did not announce the sentence in +words, but wrote it down: his hand shook very much, and it never carried +a full glass unspilled to his mouth again. + +"The court broke up at midday, and the man went straight, unconfessed, +to the place of his punishment. They tied him to the tree nearest his +own door, and the count sat by while he howled his life out under the +lash. He was hardly dead by sundown." + +"It was revenge, not justice," Mrs. Bellasys said, more firmly than was +her wont. I saw the quick, impatient movement of her daughter's little +foot; she did not appreciate her mother's moralities. + +The answer came in the deepest of Livingstone's deep, stern tones. + +"He was no saint, but a man, and a very miserable one; he acted +according to his light, and in his despair caught at the weapon that was +nearest to his hand. After all, the blood of a base, brutal hound, take +it in what fashion you will, is a poor compensation for one life cut +short in agony, and another blasted utterly. + +"Mohun knew the count's family. Some of them, maiden aunts I suppose, +were devotees of the first order: these came in person, or sent their +pet priests, to argue with him on his unchristian habits of sullen +solitude. The men of his old set came too, to laugh him out of the +horrors. Saint and sinner got the same answer--a shake of the head, a +curse, a threat if he were not left alone, growled out between deep +draughts of strong Moldavian wine. They went, and were wise; for his +pistols lay always beside him--in case his servants offended him, or if +he should take a sudden fancy to suicide--and the shaking finger could +have pulled a trigger still. + +"After a little he left Vienna, shut himself up in his castle, and would +see no one. + +"In England they would have tried at the '_de lunatico_' statute; but +his next of kin left him in peace, biding their time as patiently as +they could. They had not to wait long; in four years a good constitution +broke up, suddenly at last, and the count exchanged stupor for a sleep +with his fathers, without benefit of clergy. Perhaps they would not have +given him absolution, for he died certainly not in charity with all +men." + +"I don't know," Mrs. Bellasys objected, with a timid obstinacy; "I can +not argue with you; but I am sure it was very wrong." + +I struck in to the meek little woman's rescue. + +"That's right, Mrs. Bellasys, don't let him put you down with the high +hand; it's always his way when truth is against him; but I never knew +him break down a stubborn fact yet." + +Guy turned upon me directly. + +"Frank, I have often remarked in you, with pain, quite a feminine +propensity to theorize. Women _will_ do it. My dear Mrs. Bellasys, don't +look so dreadfully like an accusing angel about to bring me to book; you +know I am a hopeless heretic. They get up a sort of _Memoria Technica_ +in early youth, and it clings to them all their life through. If they go +astray, they never cease proclaiming aloud that 'they know it's very +wrong;' though eminently unpractical, they think it due to themselves to +pet certain abstract truths (circumstances don't affect them in the +least), like that priestess of Cotytto, who said to the magistrate, +through her tears, 'I may have been unfortunate, but I've always been +respectable!' Sometimes principle gets the pull over passion, but, in +such a case, regrets come as often afterward as remorse does in the +reverse. I was reading a French story the other day--" He checked +himself with a laugh. "Bah! I am in the prosaic vein, it seems, +anecdoting like the old knave of clubs." + +"Will you go on?" Flora said, leaning over toward him, her eyes +glittering in the firelight. + +The thrill in her voice--strangely contagious it was--told how much she +was interested. I do not wonder at it. There was only one man on earth +for whom she had ever really cared--he sat beside her then--and, I +believe, what attracted her most in him was the daring disregard of +opinions, conventionalities, and more sacred things yet, which carried +him on straight to the accomplishment of his thought or purpose. In +those days, if either were an obstacle, he flinched no more before a +great moral law than at a big fence. + +"Well," Guy went on, "it is the simple history of Fernande, an _ange +déchue_ of the Quartier Brèda. She had formed a connection with a man +who suited her perfectly in every way, and they went on in happy +immorality, till she found out that Maurice had a wife somewhere, a very +charming person, who loved him dearly; perhaps she thought that the +possession of two such affections by one man was _de luxe_; at all +events, she cut him at once, refusing consistently to see him again. +Maurice, after trying all other means to move her in vain, resorted to +the expedient of a brain fever. When his wife and mother saw him very +near his end, they sent for Fernande as a last resource. They ought to +have preferred death to dishonor, of course; but, my dear Mrs. Bellasys, +they were not strong-minded. What would you have? There are women and +women. + +"She came and nursed him faithfully; when he got better, though still +very weak, she took advantage of his unprotected position to inflict on +him the longest lectures, replete with good sense and good feeling, as +to his conjugal duties, proprieties, and so forth. He gave in at last, +on the principle of 'any thing for a quiet life,' and promised to behave +himself like a decent head of a family. When the balance of power was +thoroughly re-established, she left him, first entreating him, when he +found himself really in love with his wife, and happy, to write and tell +her so. This was to be her reward, you know. The others went to Italy, +Fernande to a place she had in Brittany, where she put herself on a +strict _régime_ of penitence, attending matins regularly, and doing as +much good in her neighborhood as Lady Bountiful, or--my mother. In about +a twelvemonth the letter came; Maurice was devoted to his wife, and +great on the point of domestic felicity. Then Fernande went into her +oratory and prayed. What do you think was the substance of her prayer?" + +"That she might go mad or die," was the quick answer: it came from Flora +Bellasys. + +"How good of you," Guy said, "to let me finish that long story, when you +knew it by heart." + +I think no ear but his and mine caught the whisper--"I never read or +heard of it till now." + +He bent his head in assent, as if the intelligence did not surprise him +much, and then spoke suddenly, + +"Charley, will you make an observation? You have been displaying that +incontestable talent of yours for silence long enough." + +Very seldom was Forrester taken by surprise, but this time his reply was +not ready. There was an embarrassing pause, broken by a _Deus ex +machinâ_,--the butler announcing that Mr. Bruce had arrived, and was in +the drawing-room. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + "And now thou knowest thy father's will, + All that thy sex hath need to know: + 'Twas mine to teach obedience still-- + The way to love thy lord may show." + + +From that dark distant corner I heard a sigh, ending in a nervous +catching of the breath, and then a muttered word unpleasantly like an +oath, as Forrester sprang to his feet. + +Livingstone rose slowly. + +"I'll go and receive him. Let Mr. Raymond know, Wise. I suppose he will +not care to see any one else before dressing-time; it must be near that +now." + +As he passed his cousin, he whispered something inaudible to us; and I +saw his heavy hand fall on Charley's shoulder, crushing him down again +like a child. + +Then Flora went to Miss Raymond, and asked her, with more kindness in +her manner than usual, to come to her rooms for some tea; they always +seriously inclined to the consumption of that cheerful herb about this +hour. Isabel clung to her companion as they went out with a meek +helplessness which was sad to see. + +Charley had vanished before them. After that first involuntary movement +he had become _nonchalant_ as ever, so I remained alone to ruminate. I +confess, after some thought, I was still in the dark as to where things +would end. + +The meeting had been got over somehow, for, when I came down before +dinner, Bruce was sitting on a sofa by Miss Raymond's side. + +Why does a man in such a position invariably look as if he were on the +stool of repentance, expiating some misdeed of unutterable shame? He has +sat by the same woman before, when it was only a strong flirtation; more +eyes, curious and spiteful, were upon him then, and he met them with +perfect self-possession. Now that he is in his right, why does he look +blushingly uneasy, as if he would call on the curtains to hide him, and +the cushions to cover him? Have any mortals existed so good, or great, +or wise, as to be exempt from that dreadful poll-tax levied on all males +unprivileged to woo by proxy--the necessity of looking ridiculous from +the moment their engagement is announced to that when they leave the +church as Benedicts? I should like to have watched Burke, or Herschel, +or the Iron Duke, or _any_ Archbishop of Canterbury, through the ordeal +of a recognized courtship. Would the dignity of the statesman, the sage, +the soldier, or the saint have been sustained? I trow not. + +In truth, it is a sight full of sad warning, that ever-recurring +spectacle of an engaged man (the lady is always provokingly at her ease) +in general society. His friends turn away in compassion and charity; the +girls, whom he ought to have married and--didn't, look on, exchanging +smiles with their mothers; it is their hour of savage triumph. The +French manage things more comfortably, I think. The promessi sposi meet +so seldom before the contract is signed--between sentence and execution +the time is so brief that there is little space for intermediate +terrors. + +Nature had not been bountiful to Mr. Bruce in externals. He was very +tall, with round shoulders, long, lean limbs, large feet and hands, and +immense joints. There was a good deal of strength about him, but it +wanted concentration and arrangement. His features were rather +exaggerated and coarse in outline, with the high cheek-bones common on +the north side of the Tweed; his hair of an unhappy vacillating color +that could not make its mind up to be red; and his eyes, that rarely met +you fairly, of a light cold gray. About the mouth, in particular, there +was a very unpleasant expression, alternately vicious and cunning. + +I do not believe that his intimates, if he had any, in their wildest +moments of conviviality, ever called him "Jack;" nor his mother, in his +earliest childhood, "Johnnie." Plain "John Bruce" was written +uncompromisingly in every line of his face; just the converse of +Forrester, whom old maids of rigid virtue, after seeing him twice, were +irresistibly impelled to speak of as "Charley." + +I wish some profound psychologist would give us his theory on the +question of "The influence of nomenclature on disposition and destiny." +It is all very well to ask, "What's in a name?" I think there is a great +deal; and that our sponsors have much to answer for in indulging their +baptismal fancies. Not to go into the subject (which some have already +done without exhausting it), have you not remarked that Georgiana is +always pretty and slightly sarcastic; that Isabella has large, soft, +lustrous eyes--generally they are dark; that Fanny invariably flirts; +and that Kate is decided in character, if not haughty? + +Tragedy and comedy both are forced to observe these nominal +proprieties. Who was it that illuminated his house, and had the church +bells rung, on finding a name for his hero? We should never have +believed in Iago's treacheries if he had appeared before us as simple +"James." + +The new arrival seemed to have chilled us all into stupidity. Dinner +languished; and afterward, Guy, after trying at first to be laboriously +civil--the sense of duty was painfully evident--lapsed into silence, +passing the claret rather faster than usual, so that Mr. Raymond, to his +intense disgust, had to make an effort and force the conversation. + +When we entered, Isabel was nestling under Miss Bellasys' wing, from +which shelter she had to emerge at Bruce's request for some music. She +went directly, and played several pieces that he asked for straight +through, while he stood gravely behind her with a complacent air of +proprietorship which was inexpressibly aggravating. + +When her task was done she went back to her sofa again; there she was +safe, for all Bruce's devotion to his ladye-love and stubbornness of +character could not give him courage enough to affront, at close +quarters, the mingled dislike and scornful humor that played round +Flora's lips, and gleamed in her eyes like summer lightning. He had to +retreat upon Lady Catharine, who, thinking him hardly used, in her +inextinguishable charity exerted herself to entertain him. + +We were all glad when that first evening was over, and we got into the +smoking-room, whither Mr. Bruce was not entreated to follow. It was +always an augury of foul weather in Livingstone's temper when, instead +of the decent evening cigar, he smoked the short black _brule-gueule_, +loaded to the muzzle with cavendish. He sat thus for some minutes, +rolling out stormy puffs from under his mustache, and then broke out, + +"I haven't an idea what to do with him" (there was no need to name the +object of his thoughts); "I made up my mind to risk a horse or two, for, +of course, he would have broken their knees; but when I offered him a +mount, he thanked me and said, 'He didn't hunt.' It would have got him +away from home, at all events. Poor Bella! how heavy on hand she _will_ +find him." + +"Ah! and he might have come to a timely end over timber; Providence does +interfere so benevolently sometimes." This was Forrester's pious +reflection. + +"Well, that's over," Guy went on. "He must shoot, though; every one +shoots, or thinks he does. We have all the pheasants to kill yet +(by-the-by, Fallowfield comes over on Thursday for the Home Wood); that +will keep him employed for some time; but it's only putting off the evil +day. My match-making aunt, of blessed memory, how much she has to answer +for! I hate to think of Bella's _mignonne_ face alongside of that +flinty-cheeked Scotchman's." + +"Don't be angry, Guy," suggested Charley, with some diffidence; "but, if +it's not an impertinent question, do you think he ever tries to kiss +your cousin?" + +"I never thought of that," replied Livingstone, not without an oath; +"there's another pleasant reflection. No, I should think not. He _is_ +ceremonious, to give the devil his due. I'll find out to-morrow, though, +without making Bella blush. Miss Bellasys is sure to know. I saw them +exchanging confidences all this evening, and I am certain there were +instigations to rebellion. Flora would delight in an _émeute_; she's a +perfect Red Republican, that girl." + +"The opposition seems organizing," I remarked; "ministers will find +themselves soon, I fear, without a working majority." + +"Not unlikely," said Guy, filling another pipe; "but they won't resign. +Some men never know when they are beaten. Well, he who lives will see. +If this wind lasts, we shall have a cracker from Lilbourne to-morrow. +You ride the young one, don't you, Charley?" + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + "A life whose waste + Ravaged each bloom by which its path was traced, + Sporting at will, and moulding sport to art, + With what sad holiness--the human heart." + + +It is a bright, crisp morning, and there is a gathering round the hall +door of Kerton Manor. + +To the right is Sir Henry Fallowfield, already established on the broad +tack of his shooting pony, an invaluable animal, that can leap or creep +wherever a man can go, and steady under fire as old Copenhagen. The +baronet is very gouty. The whip made out of his favorite vices cuts him +up sharply at times, and he does not like it alluded to. I never saw him +look so savage at Guy as when the latter quoted, _"Raro antecedentem +scelestum Deseruit pede poena claudo."_ Of course, he can not walk +much; but, placed in a ride, or at the corner of a cover, he rolls over +the hares and pulls down the pheasants unerringly as ever; when you come +up, you will find him surrounded by a semicircle of slain, and not a +runner among them. + +The battle of life has left its tokens on the face of the strong, +skillful Protagonist. The features, once so finely cut, are somewhat +full and bloated now; but it is a magnificent ruin, and there are traces +yet of "the handsomest man of his day." Very expressive are his glances +still; a little too much so, some people think, when he is criticising a +figure or a face; but, to do him justice, _gourmandise_ is his pet +weakness now, a comparatively harmless one; and a delicate _entremet_ +will bring the light into his eyes that only war or love could do in the +old days. + +By Sir Henry's side, encouraging him with great prophecies of sport, +stands Mallett, the head-keeper. What a contrast his fresh, honest face +makes with the veteran _roué's_! He is the elder of the two by a good +ten years, and there is scarcely a wrinkle on his ruddy cheeks and +smooth forehead. Wind and weather have used him with a rough kindness, +and his foot is almost as light, his hand quite as heavy, as when he +entered the service of Guy's grandfather half a century ago. For +generations his family have been devoted to the preservation of game; +his six stalwart sons are all eminent in that line; and the "Kerton +breed" of keepers is renowned throughout the Midland shires. He is a +prime favorite with the village children and their mothers, for, in all +respects save one, his heart is as soft as a woman's; to poachers it is +as the nether millstone. There is the stain of a "justifiable homicide" +on the old man's hands--the blood of an antagonist slain in fair fight, +in those rough times when the forest was, and marauders came out by +scores to strike its deer. I do not think the deed has weighed heavily +on his conscience (though he never has spoken of it since), or troubled +his healthy, honest slumbers. + +To the left is Guy, repressing the attentions of four couple of strong +red and white spaniels, but _not_ those of Miss Bellasys, who, standing +at the oriel window of the library, is good-natured enough to fasten the +band of his wide-awake for him, which has come undone. As he stands +with his towering head a little bent, murmuring the "more last words," +Sir Henry, contemplating the picture with much satisfaction, smacks his +lips, and suggests "Omphale." + +Last of all, Mr. Raymond comes slowly down the staircase, followed by +his son-in-law that is to be. Forrester and I have been ready long ago, +so we start. + +Bruce did shoot, certainly, if discharging his gun on the slightest +provocation constituted the fact; but he shot curiously ill. Indeed, he +might have formed a pendant to that humane sportsman who, having taken +to rural sports _sero sed serio_, said, in extreme old age, "that it was +a satisfaction to him to reflect that he could not charge himself with +having been, wittingly, the death of more than a dozen of his +fellow-creatures." + +It was a problem whereon Mallett ruminated gravely long +afterward--"Wherever Mr. Bruce's shot do go to?" He could not conceive +so much lead being dispersed in the atmosphere without a more adequate +result. This want of dexterity, too, was thrown into strong relief that +day; for all the other men, putting myself out of the question, were +rare masters of the art. + +Livingstone headed the list, though Fallowfield ran him hard. He got the +most shots, indeed; for his knowledge of the woods and great strength +enabled him always to keep close to the spaniels. He was a sight to +marvel at, as he went crashing through bramble and blackthorn with a +long even stride, just as if he had been walking through light springs. + +At the end of the day we were all assembled outside the cover, where the +game was being counted, except Bruce, who was still in the wood. A stray +shot every now and then gave notice of his approach. + + + "We heard but the distant and random gun + That the foe was sullenly firing," + + +Guy quoted, laughing. + +"Random! you may say that," remarked Fallowfield. "That man ought to be +in a glass case, and ticketed; he's a natural curiosity. His bag to-day +consists of one hare, one hen, and one--sex unknown, for no one saw it +rise or tried to pick it up; it was blown into a cloud of feathers +within six feet of his muzzle. Here he comes; don't ask him what he's +done--it's cruelty." + +Bruce came up to us, looking rather more discontented than usual, but +not nearly so savage as the keeper who had attended him all day, who +immediately retreated among his fellows to relieve himself, by many +oaths, of his suppressed disgust and scorn. They offered him beer, but +it was no use. I heard him growl out, "That there muff's enough to spile +one's taste for a fortnit." + +It was the hour of the wood-pigeons coming in to roost, and several were +wheeling over our heads at a considerable height. + +"There's something for you to empty your gun at, Bruce," Sir. Raymond +said, pointing to one that came rather nearer than the rest. + +He was leveling, when Forrester cried out, "Five-and-twenty to five on +the bird!" + +"Done!" answered Bruce, as he pulled the trigger. It was a long and not +very easy shot, but the pigeon came whirling down through the tranches +with a broken pinion. + +"You are unlucky in your selection, Captain Forrester," the successful +shot remarked, coolly. "You might have won a heavy stake by laying the +same odds all day." + +"It serves you right," interposed Guy, "for speaking to a man on his +shot. Don't you remember quarreling with me the other day for doing so, +Charley?" + +Charley's face of perplexity and disgust was irresistible. We all +laughed. "What a _guignon_ I have," he said. "Mr. Raymond, I believe you +were in the robbery." + +"Not I," was the answer. "I was as much surprised as any one. I think," +he went on, lowering his tone, "Guy is right; he changed his aim, as you +spoke, involuntarily, or he _must_ have missed." + +Then we turned homeward through the twilight. + +I do not know if the reminiscence of his lost "pony" was rankling in +Forrester's mind, or if he was only affected by the presence of Sir +Henry Fallowfield--an immoral Upas, under whose shadow the most +flourishing of good resolutions were apt to wither and die; but +certainly, after dinner, he broke through the cautious reserve which he +had always in public maintained toward Miss Raymond since Bruce's +arrival. He not only talked to her incessantly, but tempted her to sing +with him, during which performance they seemed rapidly lapsing into the +old confidential style. + +Bruce sat apart, the shades on his rugged face gradually deepening from +sullenness into ferocity. He looked quite wolfish at last, for it was a +habit he had to show his white teeth more when he was savage than when +he smiled. But the music went on its way rejoicing, + + + "Unconscious of their doom, + The little victims played." + + +Isabel was too happy, and Charley too careless to be prudent. Once I +caught his glance as it crossed with Bruce's scowl. There was an +expression on his pleasant face that few men had ever seen there, +approaching nearly to an insolent defiance. Looking at those two, a +child might have known that between them there was bitter hate. + +But what of that? Are not the laws of society and the amenities of +civilized life supreme over such trifles as personal animosities? How +many women are there who never meet without mingling in a close embrace, +when each is to the other a Brinvilliers in heart? My gentle cousin +Kate, only last night I saw you greet your intimate enemy. It was the +moat gushing thing I ever imagined. The kisses were profuse and +tantalizing in the extreme; yet I wish, if thoughts could kill, dearest +Emma's neck would have been safer in the hug of a Norway bear than in +the clasp of your white willowy arms. + +Are there not men, sitting constantly at each other's tables, who, in +the Golden Age, when people spoke and acted as they felt, would only +have encountered at the sword's point? + +If we hear that our mortal foe is ruined irretrievably, we betray no +indecorous exultation, but smile complacently and say, "We are not +surprised;" or, if we have the chance, give him a last push to send him +over the precipice on whose brink he is staggering. But as for any +violent demonstration--bah! the _Vendetta_ is going out of fashion, even +in Corsica, nowadays; only on the boards of the "Princess's" does it +have a run. + +It is better so. Is it not far more creditable and less ridiculous for +two of our reverend seniors, between whom there exists a deadly feud, to +comport themselves with decent reserve toward each other, than to go +vaporing about on crutches, stamping the foot that is not gouty, and +blaspheming in a weak, cracked treble, like Capulet and Montague? Hot +rooms and cold draughts are dangerous, but not so fatal as the Aqua +Tofana, and other pleasant beverages more revolting and rapid in their +effects. Could any thing be more harrowing to a well regulated mind than +to see, in the midst of a neatly-turned compliment, one's partner +literally _look black_ at one, and expire incontinently in great +torments? + +It is less romantic, but I prefer to be given an unmedicated rose. When +I win a pair of gloves, it is a satisfaction to me to reflect that in +Houbigant or Pivert there is no venom or guile. + +All these consoling thoughts, and more, passed through my mind that +evening; yet I could not get rid of a strange, indistinct impression +that it was only the presence of Livingstone which averted some great +danger imminent over his cousin and Forrester. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + "This is all + The gain we reap, from all the wisdom sown + Through ages. Nothing doubted those first sons + Of time; while we, the schooled of centuries, + Nothing believe--" + + +We were scattered round the smoking-room, about midnight, in different +attitudes of repose. Bruce was of the party, decidedly out of his +element. He did not like tobacco much, and only took a cigar as a +sacrifice to the exigencies of the occasion, consuming the same with +great toil and exertion of the lungs, and when he removed it from his +lips, holding it at arm's length, like a viper or other venomous beast. + +"Charley," asked Fallowfield, at length, from the depths of his divan, +"how is the regiment going on? Insolvent as ever?" + +"More so," was the reply. "When I came away they were thinking of +framing a £5 note, and hanging it up in the ante-room, to show that we +had _some_ money--just like the man who pitched loaves over the +city-walls when they were dying of famine--but there was a difficulty +about procuring one. However, we have been promised the son of an +opulent brewer or distiller (I forget which, but I know he makes +something to drink), who is to join before Easter. Perhaps he may set us +afloat again." + +"Yes," Guy remarked; "fortunately, a martial spirit is abroad in the +Third Estate. _Walbrook s'en va t'en guerre_. If there is one moneyed +man in the lot, it seems sufficient to keep the others going. I often +wonder how you manage; for, to do you justice, you don't plunder your +Croesus. You deserve statues--as Sydney Smith would have said--_æris +alieni_." + +"I am not the rose, but I have lived with her," responded Forrester, +sententiously. "That's the principle of the thing. When a subaltern +arrives laden with gold, the barrack-yard is a perfect garden of +Bendemeer to the tradesmen." + +"I believe it is precisely such regiments," remarked Bruce, "that the +political economists have in view when they attack the army estimates." + +The observation was aggressive; but Charley's countenance was unruffled +as the Dead Sea as he answered, "Personal, but correct. You are intimate +with Joseph Hume, probably? You look as if you were." (These last words +were a stage aside, not quite so inaudible as could be wished.) "I think +we should fight, if we had a chance, though." + +His lip wore a curious smile, and he raised himself on his arm to look +the last speaker full in the face. + +"Of course you would," broke in Sir Henry; "that's not a peculiarity of +crack regiments or second sons. It's only in their baptism of fire that +the young ones shrink and start; after that, the meekest of men develop +themselves wonderfully. I heard an old Indian, the other day, speak of a +case in point. + +"There was an officer in his service, mild and stupid to a degree. He +had been a butt all his life; bullied at school, at Addiscombe, and in +his corps worst of all. + +"They were attacking a hill-fort, and the fire from wall-pieces and +matchlocks was so heavy that the storming-party would not face it. Among +those who retreated were two of his superior officers and chief +tormentors. The junior lieutenant saw them cowering away to seek +shelter, and laughed out loud; then he flung his shako before him into +the fort, and led the sepoys back to the charge, and right over the +breastwork--bareheaded and cheering. He was shot down inside, and lived +only a few hours, all the time in horrible agony; but Western told us +that Bayard or Sidney could have made no braver or calmer ending." + +"You are right," Livingstone said. "The Roundheads fought fully as well +as the Cavaliers. I only know of two instances where the thoroughbreds +had the advantage of a contrast. One was when the Scottish regiment took +the island in the Rhine; the other was the exploit of the _Gants +Glacés_. Don't you know it? It's worth hearing. + +"They were attacking some town in the wars of the Fronde. The breach was +scarcely practicable, and the best of the besieging army had recoiled +from it with great loss. The Black Mousquetaires stood by in all the +coquetry of scarf, and plume, and fringed scented gloves, laughing +louder at each repulse of the Linesmen. The soldiers heard them and +gnashed their teeth. At last there was a murmur, and then a shout--_'En +avant les Gants Glacés!'_ They wanted to see 'the swells' beaten too. +Then the Household Brigade went up and carried the breach, leaving a +third of their number on it. The general in command made the whole army +defile past their _guidon_, and salute it with sloped standards. + +"No; very few men are physical cowards in battle, whatever they may be +across country. I don't believe Paris was, when he ran from Menelaüs; +and Helen did not think so, though she teased him about it, or she would +never have spoken to him again. I rather imagine his feeling was that of +a certain Guardsman of our acquaintance, who said, declining the ordeal +of combat, that 'his first duty was to his partners, and this did not +allow him to risk a black eye.'" + +"Might not remorse at the sight of the man he had injured have had +something to do with his flight?" Bruce asked. + +He was full of moral sentiments--that man; only you could not look at +him without fancying that they sprung more from an inclination to be +contradictious and disagreeable than from any depth of principle. + +"Absurd," Guy retorted. "Wasn't he a heathen, and rather an immoral one? +It was of profligates with far greater advantages of education that some +one said, '_'Le remords nait de l'abandon, et non de la faute_.' The +walls of Troy were strong then, and the Destroyer-of-ships safe behind +them, 'getting herself up alarmingly' for his return. No wonder Menelaüs +was eager for the duel: he was staking his loneliness against Paris's +nine points of the law." + +Sir Henry Fallowfield smiled approvingly. + +"Yes," he observed, not answering what had been said, but evidently +following out a train of his own thought. "Modern exquisites have +courage, and self-possession, and conceit--great elements of success +with women, I own--but they have not much more. I am certain Charley, +who is a favorable specimen of the class, often affects silence because +he has nothing on earth to say. There is a decadence since my younger +days (I hope I speak dispassionately), and how very far we fell short of +the _roués_ of the Régence! We could no more match them than a +fighting-man in good training could stand up to one of the old Pict +giants. Look at Richelieu: good at all points--in the battle, in the +boudoir, in the Bastille--a dangerous rival at the two ages of ordinary +men's first and second childhood." + +"He was a great man in his way," I assented. "Do you remember his answer +to the Duchesse de Maine, when she asked him, for a political purpose, +if he could remain faithful for one week to an intrigue then twenty-four +hours old? '_Madame, quand une fois j'embrasse un parti, je suis capable +des plus grandes sacrifices pour le soutenir._' The object of that +heroic constancy was the Maréchale de Villars, one of the loveliest +women in France. It was the sublime of fatuity--was it not?" + +"Well, I don't know," said Charley, settling himself comfortably in his +cushions, and glancing almost imperceptibly at Bruce; "they seem to +fancy us, notwithstanding. We have only one great obstacle--the mothers +that _bore_ us." + +Be it known that "they," used simply, stood in his vocabulary for the +fair sex in general. + +"Nonsense," replied Fallowfield; "don't be so ungrateful. You don't know +what you owe to those anxious parents. It helps you enormously, being +the objects of perpetual warnings from husbands and chaperons, the +first considering you _mauvais sujets_, the last _mauvais partis_; for +you _are_ 'detrimentals,' for the most part, you will own." + +"_Vetitum ergo cupitum_," interrupted Livingstone. "A good many +moralists before and since old Rabelais have discoursed on that text. +The Chief of Errington was probably much more agreeable, besides being a +better match than Jock of Hazeldean, who clearly was what an old +Frenchman lately described to me--'_un vaurien, mon cher, qui court les +filles et qui n'a pas le son_.' But then poor Frank was the government +candidate; so, of course, in a popular election, he went to the wall." + +Sir Henry's face grew more pensive and grave as he said, "It is very +hard on the women, certainly, that our race should have degenerated so, +for I believe in my conscience they are as clever and wicked, and +appreciate temptation as much as ever." (The gusto with which he said +this is indescribable.) "There is the Bellasys, for instance, with a +calculating sensuality, an astuteness of stratagem, an utter contempt of +truth, and a general aptitude for making fools of men, that poor Philip +the Regent would have worshiped. When she had no one better to corrupt, +I have seen her take in hand an older, sadder, wiser, uglier man than +myself, and in three days bring him to the verge of insanity, so that he +would scowl at his wife, his companion for forty years, the blameless +mother of six grown-up children, with a hideous expression indicative of +carving-knives and strychnine. Guy suits her best. His thews and sinews +awe her a little sometimes; and he has a certain hardness of character +and pitilessness of purpose, improved by my instructions, which will +carry him far, but not far enough, I think. You're right not to look +flattered" (Guy's face had moved no more than the marble Memnon's); "you +are only a shade better than the rest. Our effete world is not worthy of +that rare creature: she was born a century too late." + +"I quite differ with you," Bruce said, in his harshest voice; "I am +certain the great plurality of the women of our day would resist any +temptation, from fear of the consequences, if not from principle." + +Fancy the feelings of the Greek professor interrupted in his lecture by +a controverting freshman, and you will have some idea of Fallowfield's. +His eye lighted on the last speaker, glittering like a hooded snake's, +as it were caressing him with a lambent scorn. + +I never guessed how much sneering provocation could reside in tones +usually so very soft and musical till I heard him answer, "I suppose you +_do_ differ with me. We probably both speak from experience. On one +point you are scarcely practical, though. You think you can frighten a +woman into propriety. Try it." + +"Are you not too general in your strictures or encomiums?" I suggested, +wishing to relieve the awkwardness which ensued; "surely there are many +instances to the contrary. Take Lady Clanronald, for instance, married +to a man her elder by twenty years, and not very clever or agreeable, I +should think. No one ever breathed a whisper against her, and it has not +been through default of aspirants." + +An evil smile curled round the old _roué's_ sensual mouth, radiating +even to the verge of the forest of his iron-gray whiskers. + +"Clanronald not clever?" he replied. "The cleverest man I know. He knew +how his wife would be tempted, and he has taken the greatest pains to +encourage a counteracting influence--family pride. Don't you know she is +a Hautagne? It is a tradition with that race that their women never go +wrong--under a prince of the blood. None of these are available just +now, so she is still '_Une Madeleine, dans la puissance de son mari, et +dans l'impuissance de se repentir_.'" + +It was worse than useless to argue with Fallowfield. All your own best +hits were turned aside by the target of his cynicism and unbelief, while +his sophistries and sarcasms often came home. Like old wounds, they +would begin to shoot and rankle in after years, just when it was most +important and profitable to forget them. + +We separated soon after this. Sir Henry's face wore an expression of +placid self-congratulation. He thought the conversation had been rather +improving, I believe, and that some of the ideas and illustrations had +been rather neatly put; so he laid his head down that night with the +calm, satisfied feeling of a good man who has done his duty and not lost +a day. + +He was not more ingenious in overcoming the scruples of others than in +silencing his own conscience, though of late years this last had +probably ceased to give him much trouble. Finer feelings with him were +only "sensations morbidly exaggerated," and he made no sort of +allowance for such; among others, utterly ignoring remorse, I doubt if +he ever looked forward; I am sure he never looked back. A parody on the +"tag" which was given to Cambronne would sum up his terribly simple and +consistent creed--_La femme se rend, mais ne meurt pas_. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + "I hold him but a fool, that would endanger + His body for a girl that loves him not." + + +Fallowfield left us the next morning, the Bellasys later in the same +day. They were to pay divers visits, and then return to Kerton. Lady +Catharine pressed them to do so; though she liked the daughter less than +the mother, she was so anxious Guy should marry some one that I think +she would have accepted even Flora with thankfulness. + +It is a favorite delusion with the British parent that marriage will +work a miracle, and steady their children for life, by casting forth the +_lutins_ who beset them. A thousand failures have not convinced the good +speculative matrons of the hazard of the experiment, nor will as many +more do so; they will go on match-making and blundering to the end of +time. For a very brief space the evil spirits are exorcised; but before +the gloss is off the new-married couple's new furniture, one of the band +creeps back and opens the door to his fellows. These hardly know their +old quarters at first, but they soon begin to like them better than +ever--are they not swept and garnished? "So they enter in and dwell +there, and"--I need not finish the sentence; a thousand sweet though +somewhat shrill voices will save me that trouble--a doleful music--an +ancient tale of wrong--the Song of the Brides! They used to say that a +man never went so hard to hounds after entering the holy estate. If +this be so, I fear it is the only comforting result which follows of +course. + +What Flora and Guy said to each other at parting I can not guess. +Neither was of the sentimental order, and both might have taken for +their motto, "Lightly won and lightly lost." Her hand lingered somewhat +long in his as they said farewell, but she was smiling, if any thing, +more saucily than ever. So she went, leaving behind her no tangible +token, except a tiny pearl-colored glove, which Guy twisted rather +pensively between his fingers as he stood on the hall steps, and watched +the carriage disappear down the avenue. Mr. Bruce exulted after his +saturnine fashion, and Isabel Raymond trembled; the one had lost a +strong, unscrupulous ally, the other a formidable enemy. + +"Why don't you open those letters, Charley?" Livingstone asked at +breakfast, next morning, pointing to a pile that lay unopened by the +letters plate. + +"My dear boy, I haven't the heart to do it," was the reply. "They are +all expressive, I know, of different phases of mercantile despair. I +believe these men keep a supplicant, as Moses maintains a poet. The last +appeal from my saddler was perfectly heartrending: he could not have +written it himself, for he looks as tough as his own pig-skin. If he +had, he would be _impayable_ in more ways than one. What can I do? I +can't come down on the poor old man who has the misfortune to be my +father for more supplies when rents are being reduced fifteen per cent. +The tradesmen must learn to endure. They have a splendid chance of +attaining the victory of suffering." + +Bruce smiled complacently to himself, and then superciliously at +Charley. He had just received a letter from his banker, consulting him +as to the disposal of a superfluous thousand or so, and he was +hesitating between some dock shares and a promising railway. + +"Yes," Forrester went on, "it's very well for you to talk in that +hardened way, as you did the other night, about detrimentals and second +sons. I wonder how you would like to have an elder brother, a pillar of +learned societies, and as tenacious of life as one of his pet zoophytes? +He used to consume quantities of medicine, which was encouraging; but +lately he has taken to homoeopathy, which was quite out of the match. +He told me, lately, that 'four hundred a year and my pay was affluence.' +Affluence!" + +It is impossible to describe the cadence of plaintive indignation which +he gave to the last word. The recollection of his wrongs had made him +almost energetic: we listened to his eloquence in respectful surprise. + +"It was adding insult to injury," answered Guy. "If Parliament does not +do something for you all soon, there will be another exodus of the +Parthenidæ." + +Charley looked at his friend admiringly, as he always did when Guy was +classical in his allusions; but the unwonted effort had evidently +exhausted him, and he lapsed into silence. + +We rode out that afternoon to make some calls in the neighborhood, and, +in returning, Livingstone proposed a short cut through a line of gates, +with a short interval of cross-country work. + +His cousin looked delighted, Bruce decidedly uncomfortable, though, of +course, he could not refuse. He was riding Kathleen, an Irish mare, one +of the quietest in the Kerton stable, where none were very steady. The +fences were nothing at first; at last we came to a brook. It was not +broad, but evidently deep, with high, rotten banks. However, as we were +going at a fair hunting pace, all, including Bella Donna and her +mistress, took it in their stride, but pulled up at once, seeing that +Bruce was left behind, with the groom who was following us. + +The first time he came at it, it was a clear case of "craning." He was +hauling nervously at the reins, and would not let the mare have it. + +Guy regarded him with intense contempt. "By G--d," he muttered, "I +believe the man's afraid!" + +Forrester laughed so unrestrainedly that Isabel looked at him +beseechingly, in evident dread of the consequences. + +"My dear Miss Raymond," he said, answering her frightened glance, "don't +alarm yourself. Do you think I am a Quixote, to war with windmills?" + +No one could look at Bruce's long arms and legs, all working at once, +without owning the aptness of the simile. + +For the third time he came down at the brook, and, I really believe, +meant going; but Kathleen, unused to such vacillating measures, had got +sulky, and swerved on the very brink, almost sliding over it. Her rider +lost his seat, rolled over her shoulder, and for an instant disappeared +in the water. + +Achelous or Tiber, emerging from his native waves, crowned with aquatic +plants, presented, I doubt not, an appearance at once dignified and +becoming, but I defy any ordinary non-amphibious mortal to look, under +similar circumstances, any thing but supremely ridiculous. The wrathful +face framed in dripping hair and plastered whiskers--the movements of +the limbs, awkward and constrained--the rivulets distilling from every +salient angle, turning the victim into a walking Lauterbrunnen--when we +saw all these absurdities exaggerated before us, no wonder that from the +whole party, including the groom, there broke "unnumbered laughters." + +"Curse the mare!" Bruce hissed out. The words came crushed and broken, +as it were, through the white ranges of his grinding teeth. + +Livingstone's face hardened directly. "Swear as much as you think the +circumstances require, or as my cousin will allow," he said, "but be +just before you're generous: don't anathematize Kathleen. It was no +fault of hers. I never saw her refuse before; but she is used to be put +straight at her fences. Hold her still, Harry" (to the groom on the +farther side, who had caught the mare's rein); "I'll ride her at it +myself." + +He threw his bridle to Forrester, and, dismounting, cleared the brook at +a bound. Then he went up to Kathleen, and began to coax her with voice +and hand. + +"I'll bet an even fifty he takes her over the first time," said Charley. + +Bruce nodded his head, without speaking, to show that he took the bet. I +thought he had the best of it, for the mare was so savage and sulky +still that a refusal seemed a certainty. + +Guy had mounted by this time, and, after taking a wide sweep in the +field, came down at the brook. Kathleen was curling her back up, and +going short, with the most evident intention of balking; but swerving +was next to impossible, for she was fairly held in a vice by her rider's +hands and knees. The whip fell heavily twice on either shoulder, and, +just at the water's edge, Livingstone drove his heels in and lifted her. +It was almost a standing leap, and, as Kathleen landed, a fragment of +the bank went crashing into the water from under her hind hoofs, and she +went down on her head; but Guy recovered her cleverly, and, turning +again, sent her over it twice, backward and forward. The first time the +mare did not try to refuse again, but rushed at it, snorting wrathfully, +with her head in the air; the second she was quite tamed, and took it +evenly in her stride. + +"Give Mr. Bruce your horse, Harry, and take the Czar," Guy said. "I'll +ride Kathleen home. Steady, old lady--don't fret. We are friends again +now." + +"So you have got your pony back," I remarked to Forrester. + +"Yes, and with interest," was the quiet reply. "I don't think he will +owe me much when I have done with him." + +Though I had nothing on earth to do with it, I felt something like +compunction as I guessed what he meant. + +Bruce's was a hard, money-loving nature, unromantic to a degree; but I +believe he would gladly have waked to find himself a houseless, landless +beggar, if he could thus have regained what Charley, with his soft +voice, and eyes, and manner, had stolen from him long ago. + +Am I right in saying "stolen?" Perhaps he never had it; at all events, +he thought he had, which comes to nearly the same thing. + +It is true that, unraveling the cord of a man's existence, you will +generally find the blackest hank in it twined by a woman's hand, but it +is not less common to trace the golden thread to the same spindle. + +Great warrior, profound statesman, stanch champion of liberty as he was, +without Edith of the Swan's-neck, Harold would scarcely have risen into +a hero of romance. We do not quite despise Charles VII. when we think +how faithfully, in loneliness and ruin, the Lady of Beauty loved her +apathetic, senseless, discrowned king. Others never found it out, but +there must have been something precious hid in a dark corner of his +wayward heart near which Agnes nestled so long. We look leniently on +Otho--parasite and profligate--when we see him lingering on his last +march, on the very verge of the death-struggle, in the teeth of Galba's +legions, to decorate Popæa's grave. More in pity than in scorn, be sure, +did Tacitus, the historic epigrammatist, write "_Ne tum quidem veterum +immemor amorum_." + +Was it in remorseful consciousness of having inflicted a deep, +irreparable wrong, that Isabel rode so constantly by Bruce's side, +striving, by all means of timid propitiation, to chase the cloud +lowering on his sullen face as we returned slowly home? + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + _"To de prokluein, + Epei genoit' an êlusis, prochairetô; + Ison de tô prostenein, + Toron gar êxei sunorthron augais."_ + + +My stay at Kerton Manor was drawing to a close. I had lingered there too +long already, and letters from neglected relatives and friends came, +reproachful, with every post. The day before I went, Guy called me into +his study. + +"Frank," he said, "I am in a great strait of perplexity; my uncle has +been attacking me this morning about Isabel and Charley. Bruce puts him +up to it, of course." + +"I thought it would come; but why on earth did not Bruce speak to you, +if not to Forrester, himself? Perhaps it was from delicacy, though. Let +us hope so." + +"How philanthropic we are!" Guy retorted. "I don't believe any other man +would have spoken of delicacy and that rough-hewn log of Scotch-fir in +the same breath. My dear boy, the thing is as simple as possible--the +man is a coward. He is as careful of that precious person of his as if +it were worth preserving, so he shoots his arrows from behind Uncle +Henry's Telamonian shield. Nothing is so acute and right-judging as the +instinct of fear. He knows that if he had a fancy for a quarrel, either +Charley or I would be too happy to indulge him." + +"He can't be such a dastard," I said. + +"I am sure of it; but he is not the less dangerous for that. Such men +are always the most unscrupulous in revenge. I have seen murder in his +eyes a score of times in the last fortnight. If our lines had fallen in +the pleasant Italian places, he would have invested twenty scudi long +ago in hiring a dagger. As it is, civilization and the rural police +stand our friends; but I have strongly advised Charley not to trust +himself near him in cover. By G--d, I think, for once in his life, he +would hold straight!" + +"You don't like him, that's evident." + +The pupils of Livingstone's eyes contracted ominously; a lurid flash +shot out from under his black, bent brows, and there came on his lip +that peculiar smile that we fancy on the face of Homeric heroes--more +fell, and cruel, and terrible than even their own frown--just before +they leveled the spear. He laid his broad hand, corded across with a +net-work of tangled sinews, on the table before him, and the stout oak +creaked and trembled. + +"If I were to strangle him," he said, "as I constantly feel tempted to +do, I believe I should deserve well of the state. But, with all that, I +don't like plotting against him under my own roof; it strikes me that is +a phase of hospitality not strictly Arabian. My mother laments over him +already as hardly dealt with. Then Uncle Henry is a great difficulty. He +is not in the least one of the light comedy fathers who, during two +acts, stamps about with many strange oaths and stormy denials, but in +the last yields to fate and _soubrettes_, says 'Bless you, my children!' +and hands out untold gold. There is no more appeal from his decisions +than from Major A----'s. He dislikes Bruce, of course; but he would just +as soon think of objecting to a partner at whist as to a son-in-law +because he happened to be unprepossessing. When the poor little +Iphigenia is sacrificed on the shrine of expediency, you will see him, +not veiling his face but taking snuff with the calm grace that is +peculiar to him. Arguing with such a man is a simple absurdity." + +"I can not advise you," I answered, sadly; "but it seems hard on Miss +Raymond, too." + +"Of course it is," Livingstone broke in; "and the worst of it is, the +poor child looks to me to help her. I can't bear to think of what her +life would be if she married Bruce. He would be constantly retaliating +on her for what he is suffering now--for he does suffer. A pleasant idea +that she, who is only meant to be petted, should be set up as a target +for his jealousy and ill-humor! She would never be able to stand it, and +Charley wouldn't if she could; and then there would be a _dénouement_ +like that which ruined Ralph Mohun. If there _is_ to be a row, it had +better come before than after marriage. It's more moral, and saves an +infinity of trouble. I think Charley is better away, too, just now. +Parndon wants us both to stay with him. We'll go; and so my conscience +will stand at ease for the present. When we are on neutral ground I can +help them, or, at all events, 'let the justice of the king pass by.'" + +"Have you spoken to Forrester yet?" + +"No; but he will do as I advise, and temporize, I am sure, though he +would hardly give up Bella, even if I asked him. He means business for +once, evidently. They will have plenty of time to concert their plans +before the summer. Charley wants no help in that. As to carrying them +out--we shall see. Well, you will go to-morrow. I am very sorry, for all +reasons. I hope you have not been much bored here. Kerton counts on you +for next winter." + +I need not give my answer. I felt really loth to go; but, fortunately +for my peace of mind, I could not guess at the changes that would be +wrought in the hopes, the intentions, the destinies of all of us before +I should stand in the fine old manor-house again. + +If adieus are painful in reality, they ate intensely stupid on paper--a +landscape without a foreground--so I spare you next morning's +leave-takings. + +Guy had said nothing to his cousin then of the plan he had determined +on. I was glad of it. I was glad not to see, at parting, her sweet face +so sad as I am sure it became when she heard that she was to struggle +against Brace's persecutions and her own antipathies unaided and alone. + +I wandered through many counties, and then went to Ireland. During the +next few months I saw the faces I had left behind me many times, but +only in my dreams. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + "The only living thing he could not hate + Was reft at once--and he deserved his fate, + But did not feel it less; the good explore + For peace, these realms where guilt can never soar; + The proud--the wayward--who have fixed below + Their joy, and find this earth enough for woe, + Lose in that one their all--perchance a mite-- + But who in patience parts with all delight?" + + +Pleasant days they were when, through the soft spring weather, I +wandered round the coasts of Kerry, Clare, and Galway, hooking salmon in +broad pools, where the vexed water rests a while from its labors under +wooded cliffs, and at the tail of roaring rapids, specked with white +foam-clots, or sea-trout in the estuaries where the great rivers hurry +down to their stormy meeting with the Atlantic rollers. + +Every where I met the frank, cheery welcome that you must cross the +Channel to find in its perfection. + +It is sad to see how widely over that fair land the abomination of +desolation has cast its shadow. Many halls are tenantless besides those +of Tara. The ancient owners of the soil--where are they? Not a country +in Europe but is conscious of these restless, careless, homeless +Zingari. In distant provincial towns of France you hear their enormous +blunders in grammar and musical Milesian brogue breaking the uniformity +of dull legitimist _soirées_. Hombourg and Baden are irradiated with the +glory of their whiskers. You find their blue eyes and open, handsome +features diversifying the sameness of wooden-faced Austrian squadrons. +Nay, has it not been whispered that the proudest name in Ireland +attained a bad eminence in the Grecian Archipelago as the captain of the +wickedest of those long low craft that, in the purple dawn or ivory +moonlight, steal silently out from behind the headlands of the Cyclades? + +But let us do justice to those who remain behind. + +The sceptre of Connemara has passed away from the ancient dynasty. If +the penultimate monarch could rise from his peaceful grave, his place +would know him no more. If he traveled through all his thirty miles of +seaboard, the Scotch laborers would doff their hats more respectfully to +the steward of the "Law Life" than to the humane old homicide. The royal +writ, which he defied from his place at St. Stephen's, might be served +now, I imagine, without danger of the bailiff's breaking his fast on the +same. Claret flows soberly from long-necked bottles whose corks bear the +brand of the wine-merchant, high priced and legal, instead of from the +cask of which the snug sandy cove and the roguish-looking hooker could +have told tales. But, in spite of visionary rents, and poor-rates +sternly real, the Irish squire still clings to the exercise of that +hospitality which has been an heirloom with the tribes since the days of +Strongbow. + +One of my longest halting-places was at Ralph Mohun's, by whom, though +personally unknown to him, I was made very welcome as a friend of Guy's. +My host deserves a more especial mention, for his history was a sad, +though not an uncommon one. + +He began life in a Cavalry regiment, wherein he conducted himself with +fair average propriety till he met Lady Caroline Desborough. He fell in +love with her--most people did--but, unluckily, when she married Mr. +Mannering, to whom she had been predestined since her _début_, he could +not bring himself to wear the willow decently and in order, like her +other disappointed admirers. + +It was the old unhappy story: her husband neglected Lady Caroline +consistently--ill-treated her sometimes. Mohun pursued his purpose with +the relentless obstinacy of his character. Eighteen months after her +marriage they fled together. + +He was not rich, so that the trial which ensued, with its heavy damages, +completely crippled him. The partner of his crime was absolutely +penniless. They went to Vienna, and Ralph entered the Austrian +Cuirassiers, where he had some interest to push him. He had lingered +some time within reach of England, to give Mannering an opportunity of +demanding satisfaction. But the injured husband knew his man too well to +trust himself within fifteen paces of Mohun's pistol. He chose a surer, +safer revenge in taking no steps to procure a divorce, and so debarring +Ralph from his only means of atonement--marriage with his victim. + +He varied the dull routine of seducers, it is true, for he never wearied +of, or behaved unkindly to, the woman he had ruined. Time brought many +troubles on them, but never satiety or coldness. To the very last he +worshiped her, and, to the utmost of his power, guarded her tenderly. +Rough, and hard, and morose as he was to others, she never heard his +lips utter one harsh word. + +But she was of a proud, sensitive spirit, and had miscalculated her +strength when she thought she could bear dishonor. After that duel with +which Austria rang, in which the best _schlager_ in his brigade fell, +horribly mangled, the day after he had whispered a jest about Caroline +Mannering, men were very cautious how they even looked askance at her; +but the women--who could bridle their tongues or blunt their scornful +glances? Briareus, armed to the teeth, would not affright our modern +dowagers, or deter them from their prey. Wherever the carcass of a fair +fame lies, thither they flock, screaming shrilly in triumph, +vulture-eyed, sharp-taloned--the choosers of the slain. + +I pity from my heart the frailest, the most utterly fallen of her sex, +when once the social Nemesis hands her over to the chorus of the +Eumenides. + +We deride the _subsignanæ_ who line the wall; we make a mock at their +old-fashioned whist; we risk jokes whereat our partners smile +approvingly on their false fronts and wonderful head-gears; but may the +wittiest of us never know by experience how much worse is the bite than +the bark of the Veteran Battalion! + +Caroline Mannering had all this to contend with, for Vienna was a +favorite resort in those days for the English, and she was constantly +encountering some of her old set. She bore up bravely for a while, but +it killed her. She never wearied her lover with her self-reproach, but +crushed back her sorrows into her heart, and met him always with a +gentle smile. That same smile contrasted so sadly, at last, with the +wan, worn features, that it often made him bend his bushy brows to +conceal the rising tears. + +If her destiny had been different--if she had died ripe in years, after +a life spent in calm matronly happiness, with all that she loved best +round her, would she have been nursed so tenderly or mourned so bitterly +by the nearest and dearest of them all as she was by her tempter to sin? +I think not. I believe that in all the world there never was a greater +sorrow than that which Mohun endured as he saw his treasure slowly +escaping him; never a desolation more complete and crushing than that +which fell upon him as he stood by her corpse, with dry eyes, folded +arms, and a heavy, frowning brow. It was not only that he felt her place +could never be filled again--many feel that, and find it turn out +so--but a part of his being was gone: all that was soft, and kind, and +tender in his nature died with Caroline Mannering. He never could get +rid of a certain chivalry which was inherent in him, so sometimes he +would do a generous thing; but he did it so harshly as to deprive the +act of the semblance of good-nature. I think he very seldom again felt +sympathy or compassion for any living creature. Perhaps he thought the +world had behaved hardly to his dead love, and so never forgave it. She +passed away very stilly and painlessly. She was leaning on his breast +when he saw death come into her eyes: he shivered then all over, as if a +cold wind had struck him suddenly, but spoke no word. She understood +him, though. Her last motion was to draw his cheek down to hers with her +thin, shadowy arm, and her last breath went up to the God who would +judge them both in an unselfish prayer. + +"She was rightly served," says Cornelia; "such women ought to be +miserable." + +O rigid mother of the Gracchi! how we all respect you, _trônante_ in the +comfortable cathedra of virtue inexpugnable, perhaps unassailed. Your +dictum must stand for the present. The court is with you. But I believe +other balances will weigh the strength of temptation, the weakness of +human endurance, the sincerity of repentance, and the extent of suffered +retribution, when the Father of all that have lived and erred since the +world began shall make up His jewels. In that day, I think, the light of +many orthodox virgins and dignified matrons will pale before the softer +lustre of Magdalene the Saint. + +Mohun remained in the Austrian service some time after Caroline +Mannering's death, and, by dint of good service and interest, rose +rapidly; but, about eight years before I saw him, a distant relation +left him the estate in the west of Ireland, where he had resided ever +since, making occasional visits to the Continent, and beating up his old +quarters, but rarely coming to England. + +He did not mix much with the county society, such as it was; and his +visitors were chiefly friends from England who had not forgotten him +yet, or the military quartered in his neighborhood. + +It was a dreary, desolate old house where he lived--massive, square, and +gray. There were wooded banks and hollows just round it; but farther +afield the chill, bare moorland stretched away toward the sea, broken +here and there by sullen sedgy tarns. + +Here he spent his monotonous existence, riding hard and drinking +obstinately, but never, even in the latter case, rising into +conviviality. A long, bushy beard, and portentous mustache, grizzled, +though he was scarcely past middle age, which could not conceal a deep +sabre-scar, gave him a grim, sinister expression; and his voice had that +brief imperious accent which is peculiar to men for many years used to +give the word of command. + +That worn, haggard face told a real tale. The furrows there had been +plowed by an enduring remorse, very different from that comfortable, +half-complacent regret which some feel at the retrospect of their +youthful _frèdaines_. + +They shake their solemn old heads as they hold themselves up to us as a +warning; they sermonize with edifying gravity on the impropriety of such +misdemeanors; but we can trace through all this an under-current of +satisfaction tenderly fatuitous, as they go back to the days of their +gipsyhood, when Plancus was consul. + +I have been amused with watching these eminent but somewhat sensual +Christians on such occasions, and seeing the dull eyes begin to glisten, +and the lips wrinkle themselves into a fat, unpleasant smile. _They_ +have prospered since, and certainly it would be most absurd to torment +themselves now about the souls and bodies which they once sacrificed to +a whim. Over those ruins and relics the River of Oblivion has rolled +long ago--let them sleep on there and take their rest. + +Have we not the bright example of the prototype of this class--the +pious Æneas? How creditable was his behavior when he looked back over +the black water on the trail of flame stretching from the funeral pyre +where Dido lay burning! + +"He knew," says his admiring biographer, "what the madness of women +could do;" but the breeze was getting up astern, and favoring gods +beckoned him on to Italy and fortune; so he sighed twice or +thrice--perhaps he wept, for the amiable hero's tears were always ready +on the shortest notice--and then, like the captain of the _Hesperus_, +"steered for the open sea." + +Did he feel a pang of remorse or shame at that meeting in the twilight +of Hades, when he called vainly on Elissa, and the dead queen, from +where she stood by the side of Sychæus, who had forgiven her all, turned +on him the disgust and horror of her imperial eyes? Who can tell? The +greatest and best of men have their moments of weakness. If so, be sure +he was soon comforted as he reviewed the shadowy procession of his +posterity of kings. The episode of Byrsa would scarcely trouble his +conjugal happiness, or make him more indulgent to the mildest flirtation +of Lavinia. + +I fancy that poor princess--after listening to a long, intensely proper +discourse from her immaculate husband, or when the young Iulus had been +unusually disagreeable--gazing wistfully in the direction where, against +the sky-line, rose the clump of plane-trees, under which hot-headed, +warm-hearted Turnus was resting after his brief life of storms. Then she +would think of that unhappy mother who, with every impulse of a willful +nature, loved her child so dearly, till she would begin to doubt--it was +very wrong of her--if Amata or the match-making gods were most right +after all. + +The neighboring peasantry regarded Mohun with mingled dislike and +terror--a feeling which was increased tenfold by an event which occurred +about three years before my visit, in the height of the agrarian +troubles. I can not do better than give it, as near as I can, in the +words of one who was an actor in the scene. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + "Now what wouldst thou do, good my squire, + That rides beside my rein, + Wert thou Glenallan's earl to-day, + And I were Roland Cheyne? + + * * * * * + + My horse should ride through their ranks sae rude, + As he would through the moorland fern, + And ne'er let the gentle Norman bluid + Grow cauld for the Highland kerne." + + +It was in the beginning of December, 184-(said Fred. Carew); we were +sitting down to dinner after a capital day's cock-shooting--besides +myself there were Lord Clontarf, Mohun, and Kate, my wife--when we were +disturbed by a perfect hail of knocks at the hall door. Old Dan Tucker, +or the Spectre Horseman, never clamored more loudly for admittance. +Fritz, Mohun's old Austrian servant, went down to see what was up, and, +on opening the door, was instantly borne down by the tumultuous rush of +Michael Kelly, gentleman, agent to half a dozen estates, and attorney at +law. In the two last capacities be had given, it seems, great umbrage to +the neighboring peasantry, and they had caught him that night as he +returned home, intending to put him to death with that ingenuity of +torture for which the fine, warm-hearted fellows are justly celebrated. + +They did not wish to hurry over the entertainment, so confined him in an +upper chamber, while they called their friends and neighbors to rejoice +with them, carousing meantime jovially below. The victim contrived to +let himself down from the window, and ran for his life to the nearest +house, which, unluckily, happened to be the Lodge. Two boys, however, +saw and recognized him as he entered the demesne, and raised a whoop, to +show that they knew where the fox had gone to ground. + +This we made out from a string of incoherent interjections; and then he +lay panting and contorting himself in an agony of fear. + +Mohun sat on the hall table, swinging his foot and regarding the +spectacle with the indolent curiosity that one might exhibit toward the +gambols of some ugly new importation of the Zoological Society. When the +story was told he pointed coolly to the door. + +The shriek that the miserable creature set up on seeing that gesture I +shall never forget. + +"Do you think I shall turn my house into a refuge for destitute +attorneys?" Ralph said, answering my look of inquiry. "If there were no +other reason, I would not risk it, with your wife under my roof. A +night-attack in the West is no child's play." + +Kate had come out, and was leaning over the gallery. She heard the last +words, and spoke, flushing scarlet with anger. + +"If I thought that my presence prevented an act of common humanity, I +would leave your house this instant, Colonel Mohun." + +Ralph smiled slightly as he bent his head in courteous acknowledgment of +her interruption. + +"Don't be indignant, Mrs. Carew. If you have a fancy for such an +excitement, I shall be too happy to indulge you. It is settled, then? We +back the attorney. Don't lie there, sir, looking so like a whipped +hound. You hear? You are safe for the present." He had hardly finished, +when there came a rustling of feet outside, then hurried whispers, then +a knock, and a summons. + +"We'd like to spake wid the curnel, av ye plase." + +"I am here; what do ye want?" Mohun growled. + +"We want the 'torney. We know he's widin." + +"Then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. It's not my fancy to give him +up. I wouldn't turn out a badger to you, let alone a man." + +You see, he took the high moral ground now. + +"Then we'll have him out in spite of yez," two or three voices cried out +together. + +"Try it," Ralph said. "Meantime I am going to dine; good-night." + +A voice that had not spoken yet was heard, with a shrill, gibing accent. +"Ah! thin the best of appetites to ye, curnel, and make haste over yer +dinner. It's Pierce Delaney that'll give ye yer supper." Then they went +off. + +"The said Delaney is a huge quarryman," Ralph observed. "He represents +the physical element of terror hereabouts, as I believe I do the moral. +We shall have warm work before morning. He does not like me. Fritz, send +Connell up; he is below somewhere." + +The keeper came, looking very much surprised. He had been in the +stables, and had only just heard of the disturbance. + +"Get the rifles and guns ready, with bullets and buckshot," his master +said. "We are to be attacked, it seems." + +The man's bold face fell blankly. + +"By the powers, yer honor, I haven't the value of an ounce of poudther +in the house. I meant to get some the morrow morning, afore ye were up." + +Mohun shrugged his shoulders, whistling softly. + +"Man proposes," he said. "It's almost a pity we found so many cocks in +the lower copse this afternoon. I have fifteen charges or so in my +pistol-case. We must make that do, loading the rifles light." Then he +went to a window, whence he could see down the road; the moon was +shining brightly. + +"I thought so; they have got scouts posted already. The barbarians know +something of skirmishing, after all. Maddox, come here." (The groom was +a strong English boy, very much afraid of his master, but of nothing +else on earth.) "Saddle Sunbeam, and go out by the back gates, keeping +well under the shadow of the trees. When you clear them, ride straight +at the rails at the end of the paddock. You'll get over with a scramble, +I think. Keep fast hold of his head--you _mustn't_ fall. Then make the +best of your way to A----, and tell Colonel Harding, with my +compliments, that I shall be glad if he will send over a troop as +quickly as possible. They ought to be here in two hours. And, mind, +don't spare the horse going, but bring him back easy. You will be of no +use here, and I won't have him lamed if I can help it. You'll have to +risk a bullet or two as you get into the road; but they can't shoot. +It's odds against their hitting you. Now go." + +The groom pulled his forelock as if the most ordinary commission had +been given him, and vanished. + +"Connell," Ralph went on, "go and saw the ladders that are in the yard +half through. They will hardly try the barred windows; but it looks more +workmanlike to take all precautions. Then come back, and help Fritz to +pile chairs and furniture all up the staircase, and about the hall near +it. Line the gallery with mattresses, two deep, leaving spaces to fire +through. Light all the lamps, and get more candles to fix about; we +shall not see very clearly after the smoke of the first dozen shots. +When you have finished, come to me. Now, shall we go back to dinner?" + +I am not ashamed to own I had little appetite; nevertheless, I sat down. +Kate had gone to her room. If her courage was failing, she did not wish +to show it. + +Suddenly our host got up and went to the window. His practiced ear had +caught the tread of the horse which Maddox was taking out as quietly as +possible. We watched him stealing along under the trees till their +shelter failed him. Then he put Sunbeam to speed, and rode boldly at the +rails. A yell went up from the road, and we saw dark figures running; +then came a shot, just as the horse was rising at the fence, he hit it +hard, and the splinters flew up white in the moonlight, but he was over. +We held our breath, while several flashes told of dropping shots after +the fugitive. They did not stop him, though; and, to our great relief, +we heard the wild rush of the frightened horse subside into a long +stretching gallop, and the wind brought back a cheery hollo--"Forr'ard, +forr'ard away!" + +"So far so good," said Ralph Mohun, as he sat down again, and went in +steadily at a woodcock. "Don't hurry yourselves, gentlemen. We have +three quarters of an hour yet; they will take that time to muster. +Clontarf, some Hock?" + +The boy to whom he spoke held out his glass with a pleasant smile. The +coming peril had not altered a tint on his fresh, beardless cheeks--rosy +and clear as a page's in one of Boucher's pictures. + +A good contrast he made with the miserable attorney, who had followed us +uninvited (it seemed he only felt safe in our presence), and who was +crouching in a corner, his lank hair plastered round his livid convulsed +face with the sweat of mortal fear. + +It struck Mohun, I think. He laid his hand on Clontarf's shoulder, and +spoke with a kindliness of voice and manner most unusual with him-- + + "We'll quell the savage mountaineer, + As their Tinchell cows the game: + They come as fleet as forest deer; + We'll drive them back as tame." + +Even at that anxious moment I could not help laughing at the idea of +Ralph quoting poetry--of that grim Saul among the prophets. + +I went in to keep up Kate's spirits. She bore up gallantly, poor child, +and I left her tolerably calm. She believed in me as a "plunger" to an +enormous extent, and in Mohun still more. When I returned my companions +were in the gallery. This ran round two sides of the hall, which went up +to the roof. The only access to the upper part of the house was by a +stone staircase of a single flight. The kitchen and offices were on the +ground floor, otherwise it was uninhabited. + +Ralph had his pistols by him, and his cavalry sword, long and heavy, but +admirably poised, lay within his reach. + +"I have settled it," he said. "You and Connell are to take the guns. +Smooth-bores are quickest loaded, and will do for this short distance. +Clontarf, who is not quite so sure with the trigger, is to have the post +of honor, and guard the staircase with his sabre. Throw another bucket +of water over it, Connell--is it thoroughly drenched? And draw the +windows up" (these did not reach to within ten feet of the floor); "we +shall be stifled else. But there will be a thorough draft when the +door's down, that's our comfort. One word with you, Carew." + +He drew me aside, and spoke almost in a whisper, while his face was very +grave and stern. + +"You will do me this justice, whatever happens. Unless it had been +forced upon me, I would not have risked a hair of your wife's head to +save all the attorneys that are patronized by the father of lies. But, +mark, me! if it comes to the worst, keep a bullet for _her_. Don't leave +her to the mercy of those savage devils. I know them. She had better die +ten times over than full into their brutal hands. You must use your own +discretion, though. I shall not be able to advise you then. Not a man of +them will be in this gallery till I am past praying for. Nevertheless, I +hope and believe all will be right. Don't trouble yourself to reload; +Fritz will do that for you. I have given him his orders. Aim very +coolly, too; we must not waste a bullet. You can choose your own sword; +there are several behind you. Ah! I hear them coming up. Now, men, to +your posts." + +There was the tramp of many feet, and the surging of a crowd about and +against the hall door. Then a harsh, loud voice spoke: + +"Onst for all, will ye give him up, or shall we take him, and serve the +rest of yez as bad? Ye've got women there, too--" + +I will not add the rest of the threat for very shame. I know it made me +more wolfish than ever I thought it possible to feel, for I am a +good-natured man in the main. Mohun, who is _not_, bit his mustache +furiously, and his voice shook a little as he answered, + +"Do you ever say a prayer, Pierce Delaney? You need one now. If you live +to see to-morrow's sunset, I wish my right hand may wither at the +wrist." + +A shrill howl pealed out from the assailants, and then the stout oak +door cracked and quivered under the strokes of a heavy battering-beam; +in a hundred seconds the hinges yielded, and it came clattering in; over +it leaped three wild figures, bearing torches and pikes, but their +chief, Delaney, was not one of them. + +"The left-hand man is yours, Carew; Connell, take the middle one," said +Ralph, as coolly as if we had sprung a pack of grouse. While he spoke +his pistol cracked, and the right-hand intruder dropped across the +threshold without a cry or a stagger, shot right through the brain. The +keeper and I were nearly as fortunate. Then there was a pause; then a +rush from without, an irregular discharge of musketry, and the clear +part of the hall was crowded with enemies. + +I can't tell exactly what ensued. I know they retreated several times, +for the barricade was impassable; and while their shots fell harmlessly +on the mattresses, every one of ours told--nothing makes a man shoot +straight like being short of powder--but they came on again, each time +with added ferocity. + +I heard Mohun mutter more than once, in a dissatisfied tone, "Why does +not that scoundrel show himself? I can't make out Delaney." All at once +I heard a stifled cry on my right, and, to my horror, I saw Clontarf +dragged over the balustrade in the gripe of a giant, whom I guessed at +once to be the man we had looked for so long. Under cover of the smoke, +he had swung himself up by the balustrade of the staircase, and, +grasping the poor boy's collar as he looked out incautiously from his +shelter, dropped back into the hall, carrying his victim with him. + +With a roar of exultation the wild beasts closed round their prey. +Before I had time to think what could be done, I heard, close to my ear, +a blasphemy so awful that it made me start even at that critical moment: +it was Ralph's voice, but I hardly knew it--hoarse and guttural, and +indistinct with passion. Without hesitating an instant, he swung himself +over the balustrade, and lighted on his feet in the midst of the crowd. +They were half drunk with whisky, and maddened by the smell of blood; +but--so great was the terror of Mohun's name--all recoiled when they saw +him thus face to face, his sword bare and his eyes blazing. That +momentary panic saved Clontarf. In a second Ralph had thrown him under +the arch of a deep doorway, and placed himself between the senseless +body and its assailants. Two or three shots were fired at him without +effect; it was difficult to take aim in such a tossing chaos; then one +man, Delaney, sprung out at him with a clubbed musket. "At last!" we +heard Mohun say, laughing low and savagely in his beard as he stepped +one pace forward to meet his enemy. A blow that looked as if it might +have felled Behemoth was warded dexterously by the sabre, and, by a +quick turn of the wrist, its edge laid the Rapparee's face open in a +bright scarlet gash, extending from eyebrow to chin. + +His comrades rushed over his body, furious, though somewhat disheartened +at seeing their champion come to grief; but they had to deal with a +blade that had kept half a dozen Hungarian swordsmen at bay, and, with +point or edge, it met them every where, magically. They were drawing +back, when Delaney, recovering from the first effects of his fearful +wound, crawled forward, gasping out curses that seemed floating on the +torrent of his rushing blood, and tried to grasp Mohun by the knees and +drag him down. + +Pah! it was a sight to haunt one's dreams. (You might have filled my +glass, some of you, when you saw it was empty.) + +Ralph looked down on him, and laughed again; his sabre whirled round +once, and cleared a wide circle; then, trampling down the wounded man by +main force, he drove the point through his throat, and pinned him to the +floor. I tell you I heard the steel plainly as it grated on the stone. +There was an awful convulsion of all the limbs, and then the huge mass +lay quite still. + +Then came a lull for several moments. The Irish cowered back to the door +like penned sheep; their ammunition was exhausted, and none dared to +cross the hideous barrier that now was between them and the terrible +Cuirassier. + +All this took about half the time to act that it does to tell. I was +hesitating whether to descend or to stay where my duty called me--near +my wife. Fritz knelt behind me, silent and motionless; he had got his +orders to stay by me to the last; but the sturdy keeper rose to his +feet. + +"Faix," he said, "I'm but a poor hand at the swoording, but I must help +my master, anyhow;" and he began to climb over the breastwork. The +colonel's quick glance caught the movement, and his brief imperious +tones rang over the hubbub of voices loud and clear, + +"Don't stir, Connell; stay where you are. I can finish with these hounds +alone." + +As he spoke, he dashed in upon them with lowered head and uplifted +sword. + +I don't wonder that they all recoiled; his whole face and form were +fearfully transfigured; every hair in his bushy beard was bristling with +rage, and the incarnate devil of murder was gleaming redly in his eyes. + +Just then there was a wild cry from without, answered by a shriek from +my wife, who had been quiet till now. At first I thought that some +fellows had scaled the window; but I soon distinguished the accents of a +great joy. My poor Kate! She had roughed it in barracks too long not to +know the rattle of the steel scabbards. + +When the dragoons came up at a hard gallop, there was nothing left in +the court-yard but the dead and dying. Mohun had followed the flyers to +get a last stroke at the hindmost. We clambered down into the hall, and, +just as we reached the door, we saw a miserable crippled being clinging +round his knees, crying for quarter. Poor wretch! he might as well have +asked it from a famished jungle-tiger. The arm that had fallen so often +that night, and never in vain, came down once more; the piteous appeal +ended in a death-yell, and, as we reached him, Mohun was wiping coolly +his dripping sabre: it had no more work to do. + +I could not help shuddering as I took his offered hand, and I saw +Connell tremble for the first time as he made the sign of the cross. + +The Dragoons were returning from the pursuit; they had only made two +prisoners; the darkness and broken ground prevented their doing more. +Ralph went up to the officer in command. + +"How very good of you to come yourself, Harding, when I only asked you +for a troop. Come in; you shall have some supper in half an hour, and +Fritz will take care of your men. Throw all that carrion out," he went +on, as we entered the hall, strewn with corpses. "We'll give them a +truce to take up their dead." + +Clontarf came to meet us; he had only been stunned and bruised by the +fall. His pale face flushed up as he said, "I shall never forget that I +have to thank you for my life." + +"It's not worth mentioning," Mohun replied, carelessly. "I hope you are +not much the worse for the tumble. Gad! it was a near thing, though. The +quarryman's arms were a rough necklace." + +At that moment they were carrying by the disfigured remains of the dead +Colossus. His slayer stopped them, and bent over the hideous face with a +grim satisfaction. + +"My good friend Delaney," he muttered, "you will own that I have kept my +word. If ever we meet again, I think I shall know you. _Au revoir_," and +he passed on. + +I need not go through the congratulatory scene, nor describe how Kate +blushed as they complimented her on her nerve. Fortunately for her, she +had seen nothing, though she had heard all. Just as we were sitting down +to supper, which Fritz prepared with his usual stolid coolness, and when +Kate was about to leave us, for she needed rest, we remarked the +attorney hovering about us with an exultation on his face yet more +servile and repulsive than its late abject terror. + +"Mrs. Carew," said Mohun, "if you have quite done with your _protégé_, I +think we'll send him down stairs. Give him something to eat, Fritz; not +with the soldiers, though; and let some one take him home as soon as +it's light. If you say one word, sir, I'll have you turned out _now_." + +Mr. Kelly crept out of the room, almost as frightened as he had been two +hours before. + +The supper was more cheerful than the dinner, though there was a certain +constraint on the party, who were not all so seasoned as their host. +_He_ was in unusual spirits; so much so that Clontarf confided to a +cornet, his particular friend, that "it was a pity the colonel could +not have such a bear-fight once a fortnight, it put him into such a +charming humor." + +We had nearly finished when, from the road outside, there came a +prolonged ear-piercing wail, that made the window-panes tremble. I have +never heard any earthly sound at once so expressive of utter despair, +and appealing to heaven or hell for vengeance. + +We all started, and set down our glasses; but Mohun finished his slowly, +savoring like a connoisseur the rich Burgundy. + +"It is the wild Irish women keening over their dead," he remarked, with +perfect unconcern. "They'll have more to howl for before I have done +with them. I shall go round with the police to-morrow and pick up the +stragglers. Your men are too good for such work, Harding. There are +several too hard hit to go far, and my hand-writing is pretty legible." + +The stout soldier to whom he spoke bent his head in assent, but with +rather a queer expression on his honest face. + +"Gad!" he said, "you do your work cleanly, Mohun." + +"It is the best way, and the shortest in the end," was the reply; and so +the matter dropped. + +The Dragoons left us before daybreak; their protection was not needed; +we were as safe as in the Tower of London. The next morning, while I was +sleeping heavily, Ralph was in the saddle scouring the country, with +what success the next Assizes could tell. + +I go there again this winter for the cock-shooting, but I don't much +think Kate will accompany me. + +Now who says "a rubber?" Don't all speak at once. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + "He has mounted her on a milk-white steed, + Himself on a dappled gray; + And a bugelet-horn hung down by his side + As lightly they rode away." + + +It is hard to describe the terrible _prestige_ which, after the event I +have been speaking of, attached itself to Ralph Mohun. As for attempting +a second attack on the fatal house, the peasantry would as soon have +thought of storming the bottomless pit. They did not even try a shot at +him from behind a wall; considering him perfectly invulnerable, they +deemed it a pity to waste good powder and lead that might be usefully +employed on an agent or process server. As his gaunt, erect figure went +by, the men shrunk out of his path, and the women called their children +in hastily, and shut their cabin doors; the very beggars, who are +tolerably unscrupulous, gave his gate a wide berth, crossing themselves, +with a muttered prayer, "God stand betwixt us and harm." If Ralph +perceived this, I think he rather liked it; at all events, he made no +attempt, either by softening his manner or by any act of benevolence, to +win the popular favor. + +Before going to the Lodge I had heard from Livingstone. He said that his +cousin's affair with Charley was progressing satisfactorily (I knew what +that meant), and that he was going himself to sell out. I was not +surprised at this; for some time past even the light restraint of +service in the Household Brigade had begun to bore him. But the +intelligence conveyed in a brief note from him during my stay with Mohun +startled me very much. It announced, without any preface or explanation, +that he was engaged to Constance Brandon. + +I had observed that lately he never mentioned or alluded to Miss +Bellasys, but he had been equally silent about his present betrothed. I +told my host of the news directly. + +"I am very glad to hear it," he said. "I never heard any thing but good +of his _fiancée_. She is wonderfully beautiful, too, I believe, and her +blood is unexceptionable. And yet," he went on musingly, "I should +hardly have fancied that she would quite suit Guy. I don't know any one +who would exactly. By-the-by, was there not a strong flirtation with a +Miss Bellasys?" + +"Yes; so strong that I should have been less surprised to have seen her +name in this letter." + +"Then he has not got out of that scrape yet," Mohun observed. "That girl +comes of the wrong stock to give up any thing she has fancied without a +struggle. I knew her father, Dick Bellasys, well. He contrived to +compress as much mischief into his five-and-thirty years, before De +Launy shot him, as most strong men can manage in double the time. He was +like the Visconti--never sparing man in his anger, or woman in his +love." + +I felt that he was right. I did not fancy the idea of Flora's state of +mind when she heard that all her fascinations had failed, and that her +rival had won the day. + +"I think I must leave you sooner than I had intended," I said; "I +should like to be in England to see how things are going on." + +"You are right," answered Ralph, "though I shall be sorry to lose you. +You have some influence with Livingstone, I know, though he is so hard +to guide and self-reliant that advice is almost useless. If I had to +give you a _consigne_, it would be--Distrust. If Miss Bellasys seems to +take things pleasantly, be still more wary. I never saw a peculiarly +frank, winning smile on her father's face without there being ruin to +some one in the background. After all, you can do but little, I suppose. +_Che sara, sara_." He said this drearily, and with something like a +sigh. + +I had some business which detained me in Dublin, and it was nearly a +fortnight after I received Guy's letter before I reached London. + +Early on the morning after my arrival I went down to his lodgings in +Piccadilly. I found him at breakfast; after the first greetings, before +I could say one word about his own affairs, he began to speak eagerly. + +"What a pity you should have come too late for the catastrophe, when you +had seen all the preface! Five days ago Bella and Charley made their +great _coup_, and were married in Paris." + +"And Bruce?" I said, recovering from the intelligence, which was not so +unexpected, after all. + +"Ah! Bruce"--Guy replied; "I should be very glad if I knew what he _was_ +doing at this moment. I have been expecting him every day; but nothing +has been heard of him since he left my mother's presence in a rabid +state of fury. Did I tell you it was from Kerton they fled? I thought +he must have come to me for an explanation, knowing that I was an +accessory before the fact. Indeed, I lent Charley the sinews of war in +the shape of a blank check, which I see this morning he has filled up +for a thousand--just like his modesty. Well, I hope they'll amuse +themselves! Bruce has never been near me. Suicide is the most charitable +suggestion I've heard yet; but coroners are silent, and the Thames, if +it is conscious of that unlucky though disagreeable man, keeps his +secret so far!" + +Then he went on to give me more particulars of the _escapade_. It seems +that Miss Raymond had gone out to walk alone, after luncheon, and that +nothing more was heard of her till dinner-time, when a note was found on +her dressing-table, addressed to her aunt, containing the intelligence +of her flight with Forrester, and a little piece of ready-made +penitence--the first for all whom it might concern, the second for her +father. + +That placid Lord Ullin received the news by telegraph when he was well +into his second rubber at the "Travelers;" he put the message into his +pocket without remark, and won the rubber before he rose. It has been +reported that he was somewhat absent during its progress, so much so as +to rough his partner's strongest suit; but this I conceive to have been +an after-thought of some one's, or a _canard_ of the club. Impavid as +the Horatian model-man--(just in all his _dealings_, and tenacious of +the odd trick)--I can not imagine the convulsion of nature which would +have made him jeopardize by any sin of omission or commission the +winning of the long odds. + +He found Bruce that night, and told him all. He never would give an +account of that interview: it must have been a curious one. + + _"xunômosan gar, ontes echtistoi to prin, + pur kai thalassa--"_ + +Fancy the well-iced conventionalities of the one brought in contact with +the other's savage temperament, maddened by baffled desires and the +sense of shameful defeat. + +Before noon the next day it was announced to Lady Catharine, at Kerton +Manor, that Bruce was waiting for her in the drawing-room. It was with a +diffidence and sense of guilt very strange to her pure, straightforward +nature that she obeyed the summons. + +His back was to the door as she entered. + +"I can not tell you how sorry I am," she began. + +Bruce turned toward her his ghastly face, ravaged and deformed by +passion and sleeplessness, like a cane-brake in the Western Indies over +which a tornado has passed. He did not appear to notice her words or her +offered hand, but spoke in a strange, broken voice, after clearing his +parched throat once or twice, huskily: + +"When did they go? At what hour?" + +She told him as well as she could. + +"Where have they gone to?" + +"I have not the least idea. Bella gave no hint of this. Would you like +to see her note?" and she held it out to him. + +The name appeared to sting him like the cut of a whip, for he started +convulsively as he took the scrap of paper. He read it through more than +once, as if unable to comprehend it; the power of discrimination seemed +blasted in his dry, red eyeballs; they could only glare. + +He made it out at last, and crumpled it up in his hand, clenching it +till the knuckles became dead-white under the strain. + +"We were to have been married this day month," he said to himself, in a +hoarse whisper; then raising his voice, "You can guess, at least, which +route they have taken?" + +"Indeed I can not," she answered; "I would have done any thing to +prevent this; but you must see that pursuit now would be worse than +useless; it could only lead to fresh evils." + +Then the smouldering passion burst into a flame. + +"It is false," he cried out; "you would have done nothing. It is a plot. +You are all in it; you, your son, and more that I will know soon. I saw +it from the first moment I set foot in this cursed house. And you think +I will not be revenged? Wait--wait and see!" He spoke rapidly, but it +seemed as if the words could hardly force their way through his gnashing +teeth. + +Good and kind-hearted as she was, there breathed no prouder woman than +Lady Catharine Livingstone. Before he had ended her hand was on the +bell. + +"Not even your disappointment can excuse your language," she said, in +her clear, vibrating tones; "our interview is ended. I have pitied you +hitherto, and blamed my niece; I do neither now: she knew you better +than I. Not one word more. Mr. Bruce's carriage." + +Bruce glared at her savagely. He would have sold his soul, I believe, +to have strangled her where she stood; but Guy's own peculiar look was +in the cold, disdainful eyes, which met his without flinching or +faltering. He knew that look very well, and quailed under it now, as he +had done many times before. + +"A last piece of advice," Lady Catharine said, as he turned to go; "you +had better curb your temper if you think of seeing my son. He may +scarcely be so patient with you as I have been." + +If he heard it he did not notice the remark, but left the room slowly. +He lifted his hand, but not his head, in a stealthy gesture of menace as +he reached the door. + +Lady Catharine stood for some moments after his departure as if in +thought, unconsciously retaining her somewhat haughty attitude and +expression. Then she went to her room, and prayed, with many tears, that +Isabel Raymond might never have to repent the step she had taken so +rashly. I think a presentiment of danger made her pray for Guy too. But +did she ever forget him when she was on her knees? + +Nevertheless, Bruce had not shown upon the scene since, so that they +could not convey to him the intelligence when Isabel Forrester wrote +from Paris to communicate her marriage. + +Guy went to Mr. Raymond as a plenipotentiary from the recently allied +powers, to obtain, if possible, fair conditions of peace. His uncle was +breakfasting alone, and received him with perfect good-temper. + +"My dear boy," he said, "it was a match of your poor aunt's making, not +mine. If she had lived to see it broken off, I think she would have been +very much provoked. (He gave a slight shudder of reminiscence here, and +finished his chocolate.) But they say there is no marrying or giving in +marriage where she is gone, so let us hope it will not seriously affect +her now. As to me, I have never been angry since I was twenty-two. +Personally, I very much prefer Forrester to Bruce as a connection. I +should have allowed Bella £300 a year, and I suppose the necessary +outfit and presents would have cost me about £500. I will do just the +same now--neither more nor less. You can tell Charley he may draw for +the last sum and for the first quarter when he pleases. They had better +travel for a year or so, I think, till the people have stopped talking +about them. Charley will sell out, of course?" + +"His papers are sent in," Guy replied. + +"Just so," Raymond went on. "If they are in a pleasant place, I may very +likely go and see them this summer. Suggest Hombourg. I should like to +try the waters. And tell Charley not to go about too much alone after +nightfall. The deserted one is capable of laying a trap for him. I +didn't like his look when I saw him last. That is all, I think. Do you +go to Lady Featherstone's to-night?" + +Raymond appeared at his clubs and elsewhere with a face so impenetrably +cheerful and complacent that his bitterest friend dared not venture on a +condolence. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + "Tu mihi, tu certè (memini), Græcine, negabas, + Uno posse aliquem tempore amare duas." + + +When I had heard all this, I questioned Guy about his own affairs. He +was not very communicative, though he seemed perfectly happy and hopeful +as to the future. He said that his marriage was not to take place till +the autumn, when Miss Brandon's brother (they were orphans) was expected +to return from India. I could not help asking what Flora Bellasys +thought of it. + +Livingstone bit his lip and frowned slightly as he answered, "Well, +there _was_ a scene--rather a tempestuous one, to speak the truth, but +we are perfectly good friends now. I wonder if she ever really expected +me to marry her? She is the most amusing person alive to flirt with, but +as for serious measures--" He shrugged his shoulders expressively. +"Perhaps she _has_ something to complain of; but if she has any +conscience at all, she ought to recognize the _lex talionis_." + +I was not convinced or satisfied, but it was useless to pursue the +subject then. + +"Will you ride to-day?" Guy asked. "There are always horses for you +here. I should like to introduce you to Constance. We shall be in the +Park about five." + +I accepted willingly, and left him soon afterward. + +A little after the hour he had named I saw Livingstone's tall figure +turn the corner of Kensington Gardens, riding on Miss Brandon's right; +on her left was her uncle, Mr. Vavasour, her usual escort. + +She was rarely lovely, certainly, as I was sure she would be, for Guy's +taste in feminine beauty was undisputed. Her features were delicate, but +very clearly cut; the nose and chin purely Grecian in their outline; the +dark gray eyes met you with an earnest, true expression, as if they had +nothing to conceal. Her broad Spanish hat suited her well, shading as it +did cheeks slightly flushed by exercise, and shining tresses of that +color which with us is nameless, and which across the Channel they +call--_blond cendré_. Her hand was strikingly perfect, even in its +gauntlet. It might have been modeled from that famous marble fragment of +which the banker-poet was so proud, and which Canova kissed so often. + +There is a face which always reminds me of hers, though the figure in +the portrait is far more matured and developed than Constance's willowy +form--the picture of Queen Joanna of Naples in the Palazzo Doria. + +I have stood before it long, trying in vain to read the riddle of the +haughty lineaments, and serene, untroubled eyes. Gazing at these, who +could guess the story of that most guilty woman and astute +conspirator--unbridled in sensuality--remorseless in statecraft--who +counted her lovers by legions, and saw, unmoved, her chief favorite torn +limb from limb on the rack? + +But this is no singular instance. Marble and canvas are more discreet +than the mask of the best trained living features. Messalina and Julia +look cold and correct enough since they have been turned into stone. +Only by the magic of her smile and by the glory of her golden hair do we +recognize her who, if all tales are true, might have given a tongue to +the walls of the Vatican. We forget the Borgia, with her laboratory of +philtres and poisons--we only think that never a duke of all his royal +race brought home a lovelier bride than Alfonso of Ferrara. + +Perhaps it is best so. Why should a mark be set upon those whom, it may +be, history has condemned unrighteously? Let us not be more uncharitable +than the painter or the sculptor, but pass on without pausing to +reflect--_Desinit in piscem_. + +If one had wanted to find a fault in Constance Brandon's beauty, I +suppose it would have been that her forehead was too high, and her lips +too thin and decided in their expression, especially when compressed +under any strong feeling. But this defect it would have been hard to +discover on this first occasion of our meeting. She looked so bright and +joyous, and the light from her face seemed reflected on Guy's dark +features, softening their stern outline, and making them radiant with a +proud happiness. She received me very cordially, and I well remember the +pleasant impression left on my ear by the first sound of her voice, soft +and low as Cordelia's. In these two attributes it resembled that of +Flora Bellasys, yet their tones were essentially different--as different +as is to the taste a draft of pure sparkling water from one of strong +sweet wine. We had taken two or three turns, when a large party +approached us, in the centre of whom I recognized instantly Miss +Bellasys. If possible, she looked handsomer than ever as she swept by at +a sharp canter, sitting square and firmly, but yielding just enough to +the stride of the horse--perfectly erect, but inimitably lithe and +graceful. + +Nothing in her demeanor betrayed the faintest shade of emotion; but I +remembered the old maxim of the fencing-school--"Watch your enemy's +eyes, not his blade;" and I caught Flora's, as she raised her head after +returning our salutation, before she had time to discipline them +thoroughly. I saw them glitter with defiant hatred as they lighted on +her rival. I saw them melt with passionate eagerness as for one brief +moment they followed Guy's retreating figure and averted face. Half of +Mohun's warning became superfluous after that. I was in no danger of +being deceived by "Miss Bellasys taking things pleasantly." + +Yet, as time wore on, the idea forced itself on me more and more that +Livingstone's choice was in some respects a mistake. They were _not_ +suited to each other. Constance was as unsuspicious and as free from +commonplace jealousies as the merest child; but some of her lover's +proceedings did not please her, and she told him so, perhaps without +attending sufficiently to the "_suaviter in modo_"; for, when it was a +question of duty, real or fancied, to herself and to others, she was +rigid as steel. Besides this, she was a strict observer of all Church +canons and rituals; and more than once, when Guy had proposed some plan, +a vigil, or matins, or vespers came in the way. She did all for the +best, I am certain, and judged herself far more severely than she did +others, but she could not guess how any thing like an admonition or a +lecture grated on the proud, self-willed nature that from childhood had +been unused to the slightest control. To speak the truth, too, she was +not exempt from that failing which brought ruin on the brightest of the +angels, and punishment eternal on the Son of the Morning; so that pride +may often have checked the evidence of the deep love she really felt, +and made her manner seem constrained and cold. + +I only guess all this; for neither then, nor at any future time, did I +ever hear from Guy the faintest whisper of accusation or complaint. + +I do not think he contradicted her often; I am quite sure it never came +to a quarrel or even a dispute. They were not a couple likely to indulge +in the _amantium iræ_; but sometimes, after quitting her, his brow was +so ominously overcast that it would have gladdened the very heart of +Flora Bellasys to have seen it. Once, I remember, after sitting some +time in silence, his eyes turned toward a table, where, among other +letters, lay a little triangular note unopened. He broke the seal and +read it through, frowning still heavily; after a few moments of what +looked like hesitation, he seemed to come to a decision, and burned it +slowly at the flame of his spirit-lamp. Then he rose and shook all his +mighty limbs--as the Danite Titan might have done before his locks were +shorn--and sat down again with a long-drawn sigh, as of relief. I longed +to interpose with a warning word, for in the handwriting I recognized +the _griffe_ of the fatal Delilah. But I knew how dangerous it was to +attempt interference with Guy; and besides, this time, I felt sure he +had escaped the toils. Yet my heart sank as I thought of the seductions +and temptations that the future might have in store. I could hardly +keep my temper that evening when I saw at the Opera Flora +Bellasys--triumphant, as if she could guess what the morning's work had +been--and then thought of the single, guileless heart whose happiness +she was plotting to overthrow. + +She and Guy met constantly, for he still went every where, often +accompanied by his _fiancée_. They seemed to be on the most ordinary +footing of old acquaintances, though it was remarked that no one could +be said to have succeeded to the post of grand vizier at the Bellasys +court, vacated by Livingstone. I can not trace the threads of the web of +Circe. She concealed them well at the time; and since--between the +knowledge of them and me is drawn the veil of a terrible remorse, which +I have never tried to penetrate. + +I can only tell the end, which came very speedily. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + "'Tis good to be merry and wise; + 'Tis good to be honest and true; + 'Tis good to be off with the old love + Before you are on with the new." + + +There was a sound of revelry by night in Mrs. Wallace's villa at +Richmond, and fair women and brave men mustered there strong. Every one +liked those parties. The hostess was young and very charming, while her +husband, a bald, inoffensive, elderly man, was equally eminent in his +own department of the commissariat. His wines were things to dream of in +after years, when, like Curran, "confined to the Port" of a remote +country inn, one sacrifices one's self heroically on the altar of the +landlord for the good of the house. + +The crowd was not so dense as at most London parties, and the +temperature consequently something below that of a vapor-bath or of the +_Piombi_, but the generality of the guests were either amusing, or +pretty, or otherwise eligible. To be sure, it was rather an expedition +and a question of passports to get down there, but the drive home +through the cool dewy morning made you amends. + +Constance Brandon was present. I never saw her look so lovely as on +this, her last appearance on the world's stage. No one could have +guessed that, five hours later, the light was to die in her eyes and the +color in her cheeks, never to return to either again till she shall +wake on the Resurrection morning. + +Flora Bellasys was there too, in all the insolence of beauty, defying +criticism, and challenging the admiration that was lavished on her. I +should like to describe her dress; but I know how dangerous it is for +the uninitiate to venture within the verge of those awful mysteries over +which, as hierophants, Devy and Maradon-Carson preside. Conscious of my +sex, I retire. Have we not read of Actæon? + +Still I may say that I have an impression of her being surrounded by a +sort of cloud of pale blue _tulle_, over which bouquets of geranium were +scattered here and there; and I remember perfectly a certain serpent of +scarlet velvet and diamonds flashing amid the rolls and braids of her +dark shining tresses. + +The evening began with private theatricals, which were most successful. +There was a _soubrette_--provoking enough to have set all the +parti-colored world by the ears--who traced her descent from a vavasor +of Duke William the Norman, and an attorney's clerk, who had evidently +mistaken his profession when he took a commission in the Coldstreams. + +Soon after the ball which followed had begun, Livingstone arrived. He +had been dining at the mess of his old regiment. I never remember seeing +him what is called the worse for liquor. His head was marble under the +influence of wine and of yet stronger compounds; but the instant I met +his eyes, I guessed from their unusual brilliancy, and from the slight +additional flush on his brown cheeks, that the wassail had been deep. + +He paused for a moment to say a word or two to me, and I noticed that +the first person whom his glance lighted on was, not his betrothed, but +Flora Bellasys. The latter was resting after her first polka, with her +usual staff of admirers round her. Guy watched the circle paying their +homage, and I heard him mutter to himself the formula of the Roman +arena--_Morituri te salutant_. Then he passed on; and, after retaining +Constance for her first disengaged turn, he began talking to a lady, +whom I have not noticed yet, but who merits to be sketched hastily. + +Rose Thornton was not clever. She was no longer in her first youth, and +had never been pretty or very attractive. Her figure was neat, and her +face had a sort of nervous deprecating expression, that made you look at +it a second time. Nevertheless, she was always deeply engaged, and +generally to the best goers in the room. She was a good performer +herself, but this would not account for it; ninety-nine girls out of +every hundred are that, after two seasons' practice. Those who were in +the secret did not wonder at her luck. She was the _âme damnee_ of Flora +Bellasys. + +Whenever the latter ventured on any unusually daring escapade, she was +always really accompanied by Miss Thornton, or supposed to be so. How +the influence was originally acquired I know not; at the time I speak of +she had no more volition left than a Russian Grenadier. She had some +principles of action once, I suppose, and considered herself as an +accountable being; but all such vanities her "dashing white sergeant" +had drilled out of her long ago. Poor thing! It was no wonder that the +frightened look had become habitual to her face, and that she always +spoke with reserve and constraint, as if to guard against the +chance-betrayal of some terrible secret. It was no sinecure, her +office--alternately scapegoat and _confidante_. My own idea is, that +having still a little feeble remnant of a conscience remaining, she +suffered agonies of remorse at times in the latter capacity. Dancing was +her great--almost her only pleasure, and Flora certainly provided her +regularly with partners. Indeed, some one had irreverently designated +Miss Thornton as The Turnpike, inasmuch as, before securing a waltz with +the beauty, it was necessary to pay toll in the shape of a duty-dance +with her _protégée_. Rose's gratitude was boundless. She never wearied +in rendering small services to her patroness. She would write her notes +for her, as La Raffé did for Richelieu, and fetch and carry like the +best of retrievers; venturing every now and then on a timid caress, +which was permitted rather than accepted with an imperial nonchalance. +The only subject on which she ever expanded into eloquence was the +fascinations of her friend. She spent all her weak breath in blowing +that laudatory trumpet, as if she expected the defenses of the best +guarded heart to fall prostrate before it, like the walls of Jericho. +And yet, if all the truth were known, I think she had as much reason to +complain as the dwarf in the story who swore fellowship in arms with the +giant. + +I was sorry to see Livingstone linger at her side, yet more sorry when, +by an easy transition, he passed on to Flora's, and the circle around +her, from old habit, made room for him to pass. He did not stay there +long, though--only long enough to make future arrangements, I +suppose--and then, for some time, I lost sight of him. + +I had been driving heavily through a quadrille in the society of a very +foolish virgin, whose ideas of past, present, and future seemed bounded +by the last Opera, which she had and I had not seen. A horror of great +dullness had fallen upon me, and I went out to restore the tone of my +depressed spirits by a libation, wherein I devoted, solemnly, my late +partner to the infernal gods. When I returned they were playing "The +Olga," and Flora was whirling round on Guy Livingstone's arm. + +Among her many perilous fascinations, have I ever mentioned her +wonderful waltzing? She was as untiring as an Almè; and when once fairly +launched with a steerer who could do her justice, had a sway with +her--to use an Americanism--like that of a clipper three points off the +wind. + +As I watched her, almost reclining in her partner's powerful grasp, her +lips moving incessantly, though audibly only to him, as her head leaned +against his shoulder, I thought of the old Rhineland tradition of the +Wilis; then the daughter of Herodias came into my mind; and then that +scarcely less murderous _danseuse_, at whose many-twinkling feet they +say the second Napoleon cast his frail life down. + +If, in his assault on St. Anthony, the Evil One mingled no Terpsichorean +temptation, be sure it was because the ancient man had no ear for music, +I do not think that weapon was forgotten when Don Roderick, who had once +been a courtly king, did battle through a long winter's night with the +phantasm of fair, sinful La Cava. + +The waltz was over, and I saw Guy and Flora disappear through the +curtained door of the conservatory. If there was one thing Mrs. Wallace +was prouder of than another, it was the arrangement of this sanctum. +Very justly so; for it had witnessed the commencement and happy +termination of more flirtations than half the ball-rooms in London put +together. When you got into one of those nooks, contrived in artful +recesses, shaded by magnolias, camellias, and the broad, thick-leaved +tropical plants, lighted dimly by lamps of many-colored glass, you felt +the recitation of some chapter in "the old tale so often told" a +necessity of the position, not a matter of choice. Against eyes you were +tolerably safe, though not against ears; but this is of very secondary +importance. The man who would not assist a woman in distress (as the +stage sailor has it) by adhering to the whisper appropriate to the +imparting of interesting information, deserves to be--overheard. + +Flora sank down on a convenient _causeuse_, still panting slightly--not +from breathlessness, but past excitement--the ground-swell after the +storm. + +"Ah! what a waltz!" she said, with a sigh. "And what a pity it is so +nearly the last! I shall never find any one else who will understand my +step and pace so well." + +"Why should it be nearly the last?" Guy asked, contemplating the varying +expression of her face and the somewhat careless _pose_ of her +magnificent figure with more than admiration in his eyes. + +"_On se range,_" Flora answered, demurely. "And the first step in the +right direction will be to give up one's favorite partners." + +He sat down by her with a short laugh that was rather forced. + +"Bah! do you think, because we are virtuous, there shall be no more +cakes and ale?" + +"Of course I do. I could sketch your future so easily. It will be so +intensely respectable. You will become a model country squire. You will +hunt a good deal, but never _ride_ any more. (You must sell the Axeine, +you know.) You will go to magistrates' meetings regularly, and breed +immense cattle; and you will grow very fat yourself. That's the worst of +all. I don't like to fancy you stout and unwieldy, like Athelstan." + +She ended, pensively. The languor of reaction seemed stealing over her, +but it only made her more charming as she leaned still farther back on +the soft cushions, watching the point of her tiny foot tracing the +pattern of the carpet. + +"What a brilliant horoscope!" said Guy; "and so benevolently sketched, +too! Now your own, Improvisatrice." + +"I shall marry too," she answered, gravely. "I ought to have done so +long ago. Perhaps I shall make up my mind soon. Evil examples are so +contagious." + +"And who will draw the great prize?" + +"I have not the faintest idea. I suppose some fine old English +gentleman, who has a great estate." + +"I only hope the said estate will be near Kerton," Livingstone +suggested; and he drew closer to his companion. + +"Ah! dear old Kerton," she said, sighing again, "I shall never go there +any more." + +"The reason?" + +"Perhaps because my husband, whoever he may be, will not choose to bring +me." + +"Absurd!" Guy retorted, biting his lip hard. "As if that individual +would have any will of his own. You want to provoke me, I see." + +The answer came in so low a whisper that, though he bent his ear down, +he had almost to guess at the words. + +"No, I have never tried to do that, even during the last three months. I +am not brave enough. Perhaps I should not come, because--I could not +bear it." + +They were silent. She was so near him now that her quick breath stirred +his hair, and he could feel the pulse of her heart beating against his +own side. The fiery Livingstone blood, heated seven-fold by wine and +passion, was surging through his veins like molten iron. Memory and +foresight were both swept away like withered leaves by the strength of +the terrible temptation. + +His arm stole round her waist, and he drew her toward him--close--closer +yet; then she looked up in his face. The cloud of thoughtful gravity has +passed away from hers, and the provocations of a myriad of coquettes and +courtesans concentrated in her marvelous eyes. + +He bent down his lofty head, and instantly their lips met, and were set +together fast. + +A kiss! Tibullus, Secundus, Moore, and a thousand other poets and +poetasters, have rhymed on the word for centuries, decking it with the +choicest and quaintest conceits. But, remember, it was with a kiss that +the greatest of all criminals sealed the unpardonable sin--it was a kiss +which brought on Francesca punishment so unutterably piteous that he +swooned at the sight who endured to look on all other terrors of +nine-circled hell. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + "God help thee, then! + I'll see thy face no more. + Like water spilled upon the plain, + Not to be gathered up again, + Is the old love I bore." + + +Before that long caress was ended, close behind them there broke forth a +low, plaintive cry, such as might be wrung from the bravest of delicate +women, in her extremity of pain, when stricken by a heavy brutal hand. + +The hot blood ebbed back in Guy Livingstone's veins, and froze at its +fountain-head. His punishment had begun already. Before her face, white +as the dress she wore, was revealed through a break in the dark green +foliage of the camellias, he knew that he had trifled away his life's +happiness, and lost Constance Brandon. + +She came forward slowly. With a valiant effort she had shaken off the +first feeling of faintness that had crept over her, and there was +scarcely a trace of emotion left on her features--calm and pale as the +Angel of Death. + +Guy had risen, and stood still, with his head bent down on his breast. +For the first time in his life he was unable to raise his eyes, weighed +down by the heavy sense of bitter disgrace and forfeited honor. + +But the bright flush on Flora's cheek spoke more of exultation than of +shame; the bouquet which she raised to her lips only half concealed a +smile of triumph. She wreathed her slender neck haughtily while she met +her rival's glance without flinching. She thought that, if she had +played for a heavy stake--no less than the jeopardy of her fair +fame--this time, at least, the game was her own. + +Constance spoke first, in a voice perfectly measured and composed. There +was not a false note in the soft, musical tones. After once conquering +her emotion, she would have dropped dead at Flora's feet sooner than +betray how she was wounded. + +"When you have taken Miss Bellasys back, will you come to me for a +moment, Mr. Livingstone? I will wait for you here." + +Flora rose before Guy could answer. "Don't trouble yourself," she said, +gayly. "Here is my partner for the polka looking anxiously for me. I am +ready, Captain Ravenswood." + +She turned, before reaching the door, to fire a last shot. + +"It is the next galop I am to keep for you, is it not?" + +This was to Guy; but there was no answer. He stood in precisely the same +attitude, without a muscle of his face stirring or an eyelash quivering. + +In all the Rifle Brigade there was not a more reckless dare-devil than +Harry Ravenswood, nor one who adhered more devoutly to the convenient +creed, "All is fair in war or love." But he saw that something had +happened quite out of his line; and he did not venture on a single +allusion to it as he led his partner back to the dancing-room, with a +perplexed expression on his cheery face, which amused Flora intensely +when she remarked it. When the subject came on for discussion afterward +in the smoking-room at his club, he thus expressed himself, in language +terse and elegantly allegorical. + +"You see, Livingstone is a very heavy weight; a good deal better than +most in the ring. When I saw him so floored as not to be able to come to +time, I knew there had been some hard hitting going on thereabouts, so I +kept clear." + +The two who were left alone in the conservatory remained silent for a +few seconds. Then Guy roused himself, and offered his arm to his +companion with an impulse of courtesy that was simply mechanical. She +took it without remark, and they passed out through the door which led +into the garden. + +There Constance left his side; and, for the first time, their eyes met +as they stood face to face under the bright moon. Guy read his sentence +instantly--a sentence from which there was no appeal. The very +hopelessness of his situation restored its elasticity to the somewhat +sullen pride which was the mainspring of his character. He stood, +waiting for her to speak; and his eyes were not cast down now, but +riveted on her face--gloomily defiant. + +"I hope you will believe," Miss Brandon said, "that it was quite +involuntarily I became a spy on your actions. I did not overhear one +word; and my partner had that moment left me, when I saw--" Not all her +self-command could check the shudder that ran through every limb, and +the choking in her throat that would interrupt her. + +"I have very little to add," she went on, more steadily. "After what I +witnessed, I need hardly say that we only meet again as the merest +strangers. You might think meanly of me, indeed, if I ever allowed your +lips to touch my cheek or my hand again. Remember, I told you from the +first we were not suited to each other; perhaps I deserve all I have met +with for allowing myself to be overruled. You can not contradict a word +of this, or say that it is unjust or severe." + +Did she pause in the expectation or the hope of an excuse, or an appeal +from her hearer? Only the hoarse answer came, + +"I have forfeited the right to defend myself or to gainsay you." + +"You would find it difficult to do either," Constance rejoined, rather +more haughtily; perhaps she was disappointed in the tone of his reply. +"One word more: if my name is ever called in question, I am sure no one +will defend it more readily than yourself. My voice will never be heard +against you; and if, hereafter, you shall desire my forgiveness more +than you now do; remember, I have given it unasked and freely." + +Guy's tone was pregnant with cold, cruel irony as he answered, + +"I congratulate you on your position, Miss Brandon; it is quite +unassailable. You are in the right now, as you always have been. You +were right, of course, in always doling out the tokens of your love in +such scanty measure as your pride and your priests would allow. They +ought to canonize you--those holy men! I doubt if they have another +disciple so superior to all human weaknesses. It must be very +gratifying to so eminent a Christian to be able to forgive plenarily, +without danger of the favor being returned. I have nothing to urge +against your decision--that we part forever. You will have no difficulty +in forgetting me, whom you ought never to have stooped to. Yet I will +give you one caution. I am not romantic, as you know, and I generally +mean what I say. If you should think hereafter of bestowing yourself on +some worthier object, hesitate a little for _his_ sake, or wait till I +am dead; otherwise, the day that makes his happiness certain may bring +him very near his grave." + +His voice had changed during the last words into a growl of savage +menace, and his forehead was black and furrowed with passion. + +It might have been his own excited fancy, or the passing just then of a +light cloud over the moon; but, for an instant, he thought he saw her +steady lip quiver and tremble. If so, be very sure it was not fear which +caused the emotion, though even that the circumstances might have +excused; rather, I think, it was a pang of self-reproach--a +consciousness of having acted unwisely, though for the best; perhaps, +too, the stubbornness of the heart she had ruled once--so strong and +proud even in its abasement--was congenial to her own besetting sin: she +liked the fierce threat better than the cool sarcasm. At any rate, she +answered more gently than she had yet spoken. + +"I believe you. But you know me better than to think a threat would +influence me. Yet you need not fear my ever again trusting this world +with my happiness. You will be very sorry hereafter for some things you +have said to-night. Ask yourself--if I had loved you, as you seem to +have expected, better than my own soul, would the result have been +different? It is too late now to say any thing but--farewell. Will you +not say it, as I do, kindly, or at least not in anger--Guy?" + +She paused between the two last words, and their imploring accent was +almost piteous. There must have been a strange fascination about +Livingstone, for, saint as she was, no other living creature would have +won such a concession from the Christian charity of Constance Brandon. + +Had Guy spoken then, as he ought to have done, I believe all might have +been amended; but an angry devil was busy within him, and would not let +go his prey; he stood with his black brows downcast, and with folded +arms, never seeming to notice the slender fingers that sought to touch +his hand. True it is that nothing makes a man so unforgiving as the +consciousness of having inflicted a bitter wrong. He heard a sigh, heavy +and despairing as Francesca's when her dying prayer was spurned, a light +shadow flitted across the streak of moonlit grass, and, when he raised +his head, he was left alone, like Alp on the sea-shore, to judge the +battle between a remorseful conscience and a hardened heart. + +Livingstone was seen no more that night; Constance glided in alone, and +her absence had been scarcely noticed. During the short time that she +remained, no one could have guessed from her face that her heart was +broken, any more than did Napoleon that the aid-de-camp who brought the +news of Lannes' victory had been almost cut in two by a grape-shot. + +I speak it diffidently, with the fear of the divine voice of the people +before my eyes, as is but fitting in these equalizing days, when +territories, the title to which is possession immemorial, are being +plucked away acre by acre, and hereditary privileges mined one by one; +but it seems to me, in this, perhaps, solitary attribute, "the brave old +houses" still keep their pre-eminence. + +They are not better, nor wiser in their generation (forbid it, +Manchester!), nor even more daring in confronting danger than the +thousands whose grandsires are creations of a powerful fancy or of a +complaisant king-at-arms. In that terrible charge which swept away the +Russian cavalry at Eylau, three lengths in front of the best blood in +France rode the innkeeper's son. The "First Grenadier" himself was not +more splendidly reckless, though he was a La Tour d'Auvergne. But in +passive uncomplaining endurance, in the power of obliterating outward +tokens of suffering, physical or mental, may we not still say, _Noblesse +oblige_? + +Hundreds of similar isolated instances may be quoted from the annals of +the Third Estate; but, in the class I speak of, this quality seems a +sixth sense wholly independent of, and often contradicting the rest of +the individual's disposition. + +I remember meeting in France an old Italian refugee. He had not much +principle and very little pride; he was ready _quidvis facere aut pati_ +to get a five-franc piece, which he would incontinently stake and lose +at baccarat or ecarté, as he had done aforetime with a large ancestral +inheritance; but his quiet fortitude under privations that were neither +few nor light was worthy of Belisarius. + +Very often, I am sure, his evening meal must have been eaten with the +Barmecide; but his pale, handsome face, finished off so gracefully by +the white, pointed beard, still met you, courteous and unruffled, the +idea of an exiled doge, or a Rohan in disgrace. Once only I saw him +moved--when the landlord of our inn, a vast bloated _bourgeois_, smote +the Count familiarly on the shoulder, and bantered him pleasantly on the +brilliant prospects of his eldest son. It was not unkindly meant, +perhaps, but the old man shrunk away from the large fat hand as if it +hurt him, and turned toward us a look piteously appealing, which was not +lost on myself or Livingstone. When mine host, later in the evening, +shook in his gouty slippers before an ebullition of Guy's wrath, excited +by the most shadowy pretext, I wonder if he guessed at the remote cause +of that outpouring of the vials? Count Massa did, for he smiled +intensely, as only an Italian can smile when amply revenged. + +One instance more to close a long digression. I have read of a baron in +the fifteenth century who once in his life said a good thing. He was a +coarse, brutal marauder, illiterate enough to have satisfied Earl Angus, +and as unromantic as the Integral Calculus. He was mortally wounded in a +skirmish; and when his men came back from the pursuit, he was bleeding +to death, resting against a tree. When they lifted him up, they noticed +his eyes fixed with a curious, complacent expression on the red stream +that surged and gurgled out of his wound, just as a _gourmand_ looks at +a bumper of a rare vintage held up to the light. They heard him growl to +himself, "_Qu'il coule rouge et fort, le bon vieux sang de Bourgogne_." +And then he fell back--dead. + +O Publicola Thompson! Phösphor to the Tower Hamlets and Boanerges of +the platform--will you not allow that, amid a wilderness of weeds, this +one fair plant flourishes under "the cold shade?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + "Shy she was, and I thought her cold; + Thought her proud, and fled over the sea; + Filled I was with folly and spite, + When Ellen Adair was dying for me." + + +When I came to Livingstone's chambers on the following morning, I found +him alone. His head was resting listlessly against the back of the vast +easy-chair in which he was reclining, and his face, thrown out in relief +against the crimson velvet, looked haggard and drawn. The calumet--not +of peace--was between his lips, and the dense blue clouds were wreathing +round him like a Scotch mist. On a table near lay a heap of gold and +notes. He had finished the night at his club, where lansquenet had been +raging till long after sunrise. Fortune had been more kind than usual, +and the fruits of "passing" eight times lay before me. An open +liqueur-case close at his elbow showed that play was not the only +counter-excitement to which he had resorted. + +I hoped to have found him in a repentant mood, but his first words +undeceived me: "I start for Paris by this evening's train;" and then I +remarked all about me the signs of immediate departure. + +I only had a confused idea of what had happened, and was anxious to know +the truth, but he was very brief in his answers: the particulars of what +had passed I learned long afterward. + +"Can nothing be done?" I asked, when he had finished all he chose to +tell me. + +"Nothing!" replied Livingstone, decisively. "If excuse or explanation +had been of any use, I think I should have tried them last night. You +would not advise me to humiliate myself to no purpose, I suppose?" + +There is a certain scene in Æschylus which came into my mind just then. + +A group of elderly men, with grave, rather vacuous faces, and grizzled +beards, stand in the court-yard of an ancient palace. On one side is the +peristyle, with its square stunted pillars, looking as if the weight +above crushed them, though it wearies them no more than the heavens do +Atlas; on the other, a gateway, vast, low-browed, shadowy with Cyclopean +stones. Somewhat apart is a strange weird figure, ever and anon starting +up and tossing her arms wildly as she utters some new denunciation, and +then cowering down again in a despairing weariness. There are traces yet +in the thin, wan face of the beauty which enslaved Loxian Apollo, and of +the pride which turned his great love into a greater hate: round it hang +the black elf-locks, disheveled, that have never been braided since the +gripe of Telamonian Ajax ruffled them so rudely. In her great, troubled +eyes you read terrible memories, and a prescience of coming +death--death, most grateful to the dishonored princess, but before which +the frail womanhood can not but shudder and quail. No wonder that the +reverend men glance at her uneasily, scarcely mustering courage enough +sometimes to answer her with a pious platitude. Alas! alas! Cassandra. + +While we gaze, forth from the recesses of the gynæceum there breaks a +cry, expressing rather wrath and surprise than mere pain. Then there +comes another, more plaintive--the moan of a strong man in the +death-throe. + +We know that voice very well; we have heard it many times, calm and +regal, above the wrangle of councils and the roar of battle; often it +prayed for victory or for the people's weal, but it never yet called on +earth or heaven to help Agamemnon. The Chorus hear it too; but they +linger and palter, while each gives his grave sentence deliberately in +his proper turn. One or two advise action and interference, and stand +perfectly still. At last we hear a heavy, choking groan, and a great +stillness follows. We know that all is over--we know that there is a +stir already down there in Hades--we seem to catch a far-off murmur +raised by a thousand weak, tremulous voices--the very ghost of a +wail--as the shadows of those who died gallantly in their harness before +Troy gather to meet their old leader, the mightiest Atride. + +In the background of all we fancy a hideous Eidolon, from whose side +even the damned recoil in loathing. There is a grin on the lips yet red +and wet with the traces of the unholy banquet. Thyestes exalts over the +fulfillment of another chapter in the inevitable curse. + +Who has not grown savage over that scene? We hate the old drivelers less +when, a few minutes later, they truckle and temporize with the awful +shape, who comes forth with a splash of blood on her slender wrist, and +a speck or two on her white, lofty forehead. + +Just so helpless and useless I felt at that moment. I was standing by +while a foul wrong was being wrought. I saw nothing but ruin for Guy, +and desolate misery for Constance, in the black future. Yet I could +think of no argument or counsel that would in the least avail. I felt +sick at heart. It was some minutes before I answered his last question. +At last the words broke from me almost unconsciously: "Ah! how will you +answer to God and man for last night's work?" + +I forgot that I was quoting the cry of the Covenanter's widow when she +knelt by her husband's corpse, and looked up into Claverhouse's face +with those sad eyes that were ever dim and cloudy after the carbines +flashed across them. But Guy remembered it, and answered instantly in +the words of his favorite hero, + +"I can answer it to man well enough, and I will take God in my own +hand." + +Years afterward we both recalled that fatal defiance, when the speaker +lay helpless, at the mercy of the Omnipotence whose might he challenged. +Just then his servant, who was busily preparing for departure, entered +the room. + +Willis was a slight, under-sized man, of about fifty; his complexion was +muddy and indefinite; his small whiskers, of a grayish red, were trimmed +and pruned as accurately as a box border-edging, and the partial absence +of eyebrows and eyelashes gave his face a sort of unfinished look. The +expression natural to it was, I think, a low, vicious cunning; but his +features and little green eyes were so rigidly disciplined that, as a +rule, neither had any characteristic save utter vacuity. In his own line +he was perfect. No commission that could be intrusted to him would draw +from him a remark or a look of surprise. He executed precisely what he +was told, and fulfilled the minutest duties of his station +irreproachably, with a noiseless, feline activity. He was like the +war-horse of the Douglas: + + "Though somewhat old, + Swift in his paces, cool, and bold." + +He held a miniature-case in his hand as he entered. "Am I to put this +in, sir?" he asked, in the slow, measured voice that was habitual to +him. + +His master gazed sharply at him, as if trying to detect a covert +sneer--it would have been safer to have stroked a rattlesnake's crest +than to have trifled with Livingstone just then--but Willis's face was +as innocent of any expression as a dead wall. + +"Put it down, and go on with your packing; you have no time to spare." +The man laid the case on a marble table near, and went out. + +Guy took the miniature and regarded it steadfastly for some moments, +then he looked up and caught my eye. Perhaps there was an eager appeal +there (for I knew well whose likeness lay before him) which displeased +and provoked his sullen temper; for he frowned darkly, and then his +clenched hand fell with the crashing weight of a steam-hammer. Nothing +but a heap of shivered wood, glass, and ivory remained of what had been +the life-like image of Constance Brandon. + +A thrill of horror shot through me icily, and a low cry burst from my +lips. I felt at that moment as if the blow had fallen, not on the +portrait, but on the original. + +But I kept silence. The dark hour was on Saul, and I knew no spell to +chase the evil spirit away. + +Guy spoke at last. His manner was unusually chill and constrained. + +"I expect to meet Mohun in Paris, and we shall probably go on to Vienna. +I hardly like troubling you with commissions, but I must. Listen. I +leave my own name--and another person's--in your keeping. I wish it to +be clearly understood that the engagement was broken off by Miss +Brandon, not by me. If you hear any man speak disparagingly of her in +connection with what has passed, you can insult him on my behalf as +grossly as you please. I will be here, as fast as steam can bring me, to +back what you may have said or done. This is the only point in which I +hope you will guard my honor. As for blaming _me_, they may say what +they please. Do you quite understand? And will you promise?" + +I did promise; and so, after a few more last words, we parted, more +coldly than we had ever done in all the years through which we had been +intimate. + +Guy left England the same evening, and descended like a thunder-clap on +the joyous little _ménage_ in the Rue de la Madeleine, where Forrester +and his bride were still fluttering their wings in the honeymoon-shine +of post-nuptial spring. + +They were miraculously happy, those two. Indeed, they seemed to have +only one taste between them, and that was Charley's. If he felt +inclined, which was not seldom, to utter inaction, his wife encouraged +him in his laziness, sitting contentedly for hours on her footstool, +with her silky hair just within reach of his indolent hand. If, after +dinner, he suggested the "Italiens," or the "Bouffes," it was always +precisely that theatre that she had been thinking of all the morning. +She was in the seventh heaven when he won a hurdle-race in the Champ de +Mars. + +They made excursions into the _banlieue_, and farther afield yet, like a +couple of the _Pays Latin_ in their first loves. The cabinets of Bercy +and St. Cloud knew them; so did the arbors of Asnières, where, in +oilskin and _vareuse_, muster for their Sabbat the ancient mariners of +the Seine. Nay, it has been whispered that more than once--close veiled +and clinging tightly to her husband's arm--Isabel witnessed at _Mabille_ +and the _Chaumière_ the choregraphic triumphs of _Frisette_, _Pomare_, +and _Mogador_. + +My hand trembles while I record such enormities and backslidings. O +Brougham-girls of Belgravia, who "never gave your mothers a moment's +uneasiness"--stars of the Western hemisphere, who can be trusted any +where without fear of your wandering from your orbits--think on this +lost Pleiad, once your companion, and be warned. Men are deceivers ever, +even when they mean matrimony; and the tender mercies of the Light +Dragoon are cruel. + +Isabel was dreadfully startled at the sudden appearance of her cousin. +Her notions of his power were quite unlimited and irrational, and I +believe her first thought was that he had changed his mind about the +propriety of her marriage, and was come to carry her back into the house +of her bondage with the strong hand. + +When his curt sentences told her the facts, sorry as she was, it +certainly was rather a relief to her. Charley was full of compassion +too, but he only confided this to his wife. He knew better than to try +condolence with Guy, and felt instantly that the case was far beyond his +simple powers of healing. + +They did not see much of him. The contrast of their happiness with his +own state must have grated on his feelings. His grim presence chilled +and clouded their little banquets at the Trois Frères or the Café de +Paris. He sat there among the bright lamps and flowers like a statue of +dark marble that it is impossible to light up, drinking all the while, +moodily, of the strongest wines to that portentous extent that it made +Isabel nervous and her husband grave. + +Perhaps Guy was conscious of the effect he produced; at all events, he +rather avoided the Forresters, finding in Mohun more congenial society. +The latter probably regretted what had happened; perhaps he felt an +approach to sympathy, after his rough fashion, but with this mingled a +dreary sort of satisfaction at the sight of a strong mind and hardy +nature rapidly descending to his own misanthropical level. Such an +exultation was breathed in that ghastly chorus of the dead kings and +chief ones of the earth when they rose, each on his awful throne, and +Hell beneath was moved at the advent of the Son of the Morning. + +These two did not stay long in Paris before they took their departure +for Vienna. + +We who were left behind in England talked a little at first, of course, +about the broken engagement, but I had no occasion to throw down the +gauntlet that had been left in my hands. I never heard any thing more +spiteful about Miss Brandon than that "she was never suited to her +_fiancé_--far too good for him." Others "had always thought how it +would be; it would take a good deal more yet to tame Livingstone." Sir +Henry Fallowfield observed, "Nothing could be more natural and correct. +The lady was a saint, and there is always a sort of incompleteness about +saints if they are not made martyrs. Suffering is their normal state." + +It was remarked that he was unusually cheerful for some days afterward; +and when Guy's conduct was canvassed, seemed inclined to quote the old +school-master's words on witnessing his pupil's success, "Bless the boy! +I taught him." + +Some other subject soon came up and replaced the week's wonder. + +Constance left town with her uncle almost immediately, and I heard +nothing of her for many months. Miss Bellasys remained. Very few persons +even guessed at the share she had had in breaking off the match; so her +credit was not much impaired, and her campaign was as brilliantly +successful as usual. If she felt any disappointment at Guy's abrupt +departure, she concealed it remarkably well. In some things, though +naturally impetuous and impatient, she was as cool as a Red Indian, and +would wait and watch forever if she saw a prospect of ultimate success. +So the days rolled on, bringing swiftly and surely the bitter +harvest-time, when he who had sown the wind was to reap the whirlwind. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + "And from his lips those words of insult fell-- + His sword is good who can maintain them well." + + +It was the middle of October; the reflux of the winter season was +beginning to fill Paris, and thither Mohun and Livingstone had returned +from their German tour, the latter decidedly the worse for his +wanderings. He had not suffered much physically, for the hard living +that would have utterly broken up some constitutions had only been able +to make his face thinner, to deepen the bistre tints under the eyes, and +to give a more angular gauntness to his massive frame. + +But morally he was not the same man. Play, which had formerly been only +an occasional excitement, had now become a necessary part of his daily +existence. Mohun would never say--perhaps he did not know--how much Guy +had lost during those few months. In spite of several gigantic _coups_ +(he broke the bank both at Baden and Hombourg), the balance was +fearfully on the wrong side, so much so that it entailed a heavy +mortgage--the maiden one in his time--on the fair lands of Kerton Manor. + +I wonder people have not got tired of quoting "_Heureux en jeu; +malheureux en amour_." It seems one of the least true of all stale, +stupid proverbs. Luck will run itself out in more ways than one; and +sometimes you will never hold a trump, however often the suit changes. +The ancients knew better than we when they called the double-sixes +"Venus's cast." The monotony of Guy's reckless dissipations was soon +broken up by an event which ought to have sobered him. + +He had been dining with Mohun at the Trois Frères, and they were +returning late toward the Boulevards, when their attention was attracted +by a group in one of the narrow streets leading out of the Rue Vivienne. +Five or six raffish-looking men had surrounded a fair, delicate girl, +and were preparing to besiege her in form, deriving apparently intense +amusement from the piteous entreaties of their victim to be released. +Not the _roués_ of the Regency after the suppers that have become a +by-word--not the _mousquetaires_ after the wildest of their orgies--were +ever so unrelenting in brutality toward women quite lonely and +undefended as those unshorn ornaments of Young France, when replete with +a dinner at forty _sous_, and with the anomalous liquor that Macon +blushes to own. + +In all Europe there is no more genial companion and gallant gentleman +than the aristocrat of France _pur sang_--in all the world no more +terrible adversary than her wiry, well-trained soldier; but, from the +prolific decay of old institutions and prejudices, a mushroom growth has +sprouted of child-atheists and precocious profligates, calculating +debauchees while their cheeks are still innocent of down, who, after the +effervescence of a foul, vicious youth has spent itself, simmer down +into avaricious, dishonest _bourgeois_ and bloated café politicians. The +teeth of the Republican dragon have been drawn, but they are sown +broadcast from Dan even to Beersheba. Ancient realm of Capet, Valois, +and Bourbon--motherland of Du Guesclin and Bayard--you may well be proud +of your Cadmean offspring! + +Guy was passing the scene with a careless side-glance when the accent of +the suppliant caught his ear--not French, though she spoke the language +perfectly. + +"By G--d," he said, dropping Mohun's arm, "I believe it's an +Englishwoman they are bullying;" and three of his long strides took him +into the midst of the group. + +Two of the aggressors reeled back, right and left, from the shock of his +mighty shoulders; and griping another, the tallest, by the collar, he +whirled him some paces off on his back in the streaming kennel, as one +might do with a very weak, light little child. "_Au large, canaille_!" +he said, as he advanced on the two who still kept their feet. These drew +back from his path without a second warning. One indeed, eminent in the +_savate_, made a demonstration for an instant; but his comrade, who had +just gathered himself up, caught his arm, muttering "_Ne t'y frotte pas, +Alphonse. C'est trop dur_." None of them fancied an encounter with the +grim giant who confronted them, his muscles braced and salient, his eyes +gleaming with the _gaudia certaminis_, and his nostrils dilated as if +they snuffed the battle. + +So they made way for Guy and his charge to pass, only grinding out +between their teeth the strange guttural blasphemies that characterize +impotent Gallic wrath. + +Mohun, a reserve scarcely leas formidable, stood by all the while, +looking on lazily; he saw that his companion was more than equal to the +emergency. + +"I hope you have not been much annoyed," Livingstone said, kindly. +"Where were you going to? I shall be too happy to escort you, if you +will allow me." + +She named the street, only a few hundred yards off, and tried to thank +him gratefully, but her voice was broken and scarcely audible, and the +blinding tears would rush into her eyes. Poor child! it was very long +since she had heard gentle, courteous words in her mother-tongue. She +recovered herself, however, during their short walk, and they had nearly +reached her destination when Livingstone said, "Forgive me for being +impertinent; I have no right to advise you; but I think you would find +it better not to walk alone, often, at this hour. There is always a +chance of something disagreeable." + +He could see her blush painfully as she answered, "I have no one to +accompany me. I work hard at drawing and painting as long as there is +light, and I had gone out to see if I could sell what I have done. But I +fear I am a very poor artist; no one would offer me as much as they had +cost me. And I tried at so many places!" + +It was piteous to hear the heavy, heart-broken sigh. + +"Perhaps I have better taste," replied Livingstone. "Those print-sellers +are absurdly ignorant of what is good and anonymous. At all events, they +will interest me, as a memorial of to-night. Will you give them to me? I +will promise not to be too critical." + +He drew the roll out of her hand as he spoke, replacing it by his +note-case; and before she could open it or make any objection, he +followed Mohun (for they had reached the artist's door by this time), +first raising his hat to her in adieu as courteously as he would have +done to a reigning archduchess. + +How much did the case contain? Guy himself could hardly have told you. +But be sure the Recorder of his many misdeeds knew, and reckoned it to +the uttermost farthing when he wrote down that one kind action on the +credit side. + +"Philanthropic, for a change!" Mohun remarked, when his companion joined +him. "Well, it's not worse than many of your vagaries. We shall have you +founding an asylum next, I suppose." + +In his heart the savage old cynic approved, but, for the life of him, he +could not check the sneer. + +Livingstone made no reply. It was a habit of his very often not to +answer Ralph, and the latter did not mind it in the least. In a few +moments they reached Guy's apartments, where they found about a dozen +men--French and English--awaiting their arrival to begin an unbridled +lansquenet. It was a favorite rendezvous for this purpose. The +thoroughbred gamblers preferred it to the brilliant entertainments of +the Quartier Brèda. They liked to court or fight Fortune by themselves, +without being congratulated in success or compassionated in defeat by +the fair Phrynes and Aspasias, whose sympathy was somewhat expansive, +inasmuch as they always would borrow from the heap whenever any one won, +repaying the loan in kind by smiles and caresses, which cost the happy +recipient about fifteen Napoleons apiece. Here was an Eden from which +Eves were excluded; and on the nights of the _Mercurialia_, the +brightest Peri that ever wore camellias might have knocked at the gate +disconsolately, but in vain. + +While the tables were being prepared, Guy began to tell his late +adventure. He spoke of it very lightly, but he thought, if he passed it +over altogether, Mohun would probably betray him. + +Immediately there was a great cry for a sight of the performances of the +unknown genius. + +Livingstone looked over the drawings himself carefully, and then passed +them to the man who sat nearest him. "I have seen worse," he said. +"There is no signature, and I shall not give you the address. You are +none of you just the patrons she would fancy. You don't care much for +high art." + +Among the guests was Horace Levinge, a pale, dark man, with a face that +was decidedly handsome, in spite of its Jewish _contour_, and the +excessive fullness of the scarlet, sensual lips. His grandfather, report +said, had been a prize-fighting Israelite, and afterward a celebrated +betting-man--equally eminent in either ring for an unscrupulous +scoundrelism which made his fortune. His father had added to the family +treasure and importance by cautious usury and adventurous stock-jobbing. +Horace himself was a gentleman at large, with no other profession than +the consistent pursuit of all kinds of debauchery. He was calculating +even in his pleasures, and, they say, kept a regular ledger and daybook +of the moneys disbursed in his vices. + +When the drawings came to him, he glanced at them for a moment, and +then threw them down with a little contemptuous laugh. + +"I am sorry to spoil your romance, Livingstone, but I have a pretty good +right to recognize the artist's touch. You know her, some of you; it is +Fanny Challoner." + +"What! the girl you sent away about three weeks ago?" some one asked. +"Poor thing! she was not sorry, I should think. She had a hard time of +it before she left you." + +"Precisely," Levinge replied. "Her modesty and high moral principles, +which I never could quite subdue, gave a zest to the thing at first. You +understand?--a sort of caviare flavor. But at last it bored me horribly. +I really believe she had a conscience. Can you conceive any thing so out +of place? I did offer her a little money when she went away, but she +would not take any, and said she would try to maintain herself honestly. +Bah! I defy her. She was a governess, you know, when I took her first, +so she is trying some of the old accomplishments. I wish you joy of your +_protégée_, Livingstone; and as for her address, if any of you want it, +I will give it you to-morrow." + +Before Guy could reply Mohun broke in. While Levinge had been speaking, +the colonel's face had grown very dark and threatening. + +"Did her father live near Walmer? And was he a half-pay officer?" + +"Quite correct," was the answer. "He died about eighteen months before I +met Fanny. You knew him, perhaps? How interesting! Excuse my emotion." + +"I did know him," Ralph said. "He was a gentleman, and well born. +Perhaps that was the reason you could not get on long with his +daughter?" + +It is a popular error that a bully is always a coward. Certainly Horace +was an exception to the rule, if such exists. Nothing could be more +calmly insolent than his tone as he answered deliberately, + +"How admirable to find Colonel Mohun in the character of the Censor! A +Clodius come to judgment. I should hardly have expected it, from his +past life, either." + +The reply came from the depths of Ralph's chest, very distinct, but with +a strange effect of distance and echo, as if the words had been spoken +under the vault of some vast dome. + +"You will leave my past life alone, if you are wise. I don't preach +against immorality; it is only brutality that I find simply disgusting." + +"Bah!" the other retorted; "it comes to the same thing. I should have +thought Lady Caroline Mannering might have taught you to be less +critical." + +The Cuirassier rose from his seat and strode a pace forward, the gray +hair bristling round his savage face like a wild-boar's at bay. + +"If you dare to breathe that name again, except with respect and honor, +I'll cram the words down your throat, by the eternal God!" + +Levinge crimsoned with passion. The brutal blood of the dead +prize-fighter, who, when he "crossed" a fight, lost it ever by a foul +blow, was boiling in his descendant. He had been drinking too, and, as +the French say--_avait le vin mauvais_--so he answered coolly and +slowly, letting the syllables fall one by one, like drops of hail, + +"I shall mention it just as often as it pleases me, and with just so +much respect as is due to Mannering's cast-off wife and your--" + +The foul word that was on his lips never left them, for Mohun's threat +was literally fulfilled. His right hand shot out from the shoulder with +a sudden impulse that seemed rather mechanical than an action of the +will, and, catching the speaker full in the mouth, laid him on the +carpet senseless and streaming with blood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + "Look doun, look doun now, ladye fair, + On him ye lo'ed sae weel; + A brawer man than yon blue corse + Never drew sword of steel." + + +The dead silence that ensued was broken first by Guy Livingstone. "It +was well done! I say it and maintain it; Mohun, I envy you that blow!" +He looked round as if to challenge contradiction; but evidently the +general opinion was that Levinge had only got his deserts. By this time +the fallen man had recovered his consciousness, and struggled up, first +into a sitting posture, then to his feet; he stood leaning against a +table, swaying to and fro, and staring about him with wild eyes half +glazed. At last he spoke in a thick, faint voice, stanching all the +while the gushing blood with his handkerchief. + +"Will any one here be my second, or must I look for a friend elsewhere?" + +There was a pause, and then from the circle stepped forth Camille de +Rosny. He did not like Levinge, and thought in the present instance he +had behaved infamously, but it was the fashion hereditary in his gallant +house to back the losing side; so, when he saw every one else shrink +from the appeal, he bowed gravely and said, + +"I shall have that honor, if you will permit me. In an hour I shall be +at the orders of M. le Colonel's second. Where shall I find him?" + +"Here," replied Livingstone. "I think no one will contest my right to +see my old friend through this quarrel." + +Mohun grasped his hand. "I would have chosen you among a thousand. You +understand me, and know what I wish." + +"Then I shall expect you, De Rosny," Guy went on. The Frenchman assented +courteously, and then, turning to his principal, + +"Let us go," he said. "My _coupé_ is at your disposition, M. Levinge. +_Messieurs, au plaisir._" + +Horace followed him with a step that was still faltering and uncertain; +but at the door he turned, and, straightening himself up, faced his +adversary with such a look as few human countenances have ever worn. +There was more in it than mortal hatred: it expressed a sort of devilish +satisfaction and anticipation, as if he knew that his revenge was +secured. + +Mohun read all this as plainly as if it had been written down in so many +words; but he only smiled as he seated himself and lighted a cigar. + +There was an end of lansquenet for that night. An ordinary quarrel would +have made little impression on those reckless spirits, who had, most of +them, at one time or another, "been out" themselves; but they felt that +what they had witnessed now was the prologue to a certain tragedy; there +was a savor of death in the air; so they dropped off one by one, leaving +Guy and Ralph alone; not before the latter had expressed, with much +politeness, "his desolation at having been compelled to interrupt a +_partie_, which he trusted was only deferred till the morrow." + +Before long De Rosny returned. The preliminaries were soon arranged. +Pistols were necessarily to be the weapons, for Levinge had seldom +touched a foil; and, as the Frenchman said with a bow that made his +objection a compliment, "Colonel Mohun's reputation as a swordsman was +European." An early hour next morning was fixed for the _venue_, in the +Pré aux Clercs of the nineteenth century--the Bois de Boulogne. + +When they were alone again Guy turned gravely to his companion. "It is a +bad business, I fear, though you could not have acted otherwise; but I +would rather your adversary were any other than Levinge. It is a +murderous, unscrupulous scoundrel as ever lived. He can shoot--that's +nothing; so can you, better than most men--but, mark me, Ralph, he has +been out twice, and hit his man each time, the last mortally; but on +neither occasion was _his fire returned_. Men say he has an awkward +knack of pulling the trigger half a second too soon. I don't know if +this is true, but I do know that Seymour, who seconded him at Florence +when he killed O'Neill, has been more than cool to him ever since." + +"Faith, I can well believe it," Mohun answered, quietly, "and it is very +probable I may get hard hit to-morrow; but of killing him I feel morally +certain. Do you believe in presentiments? I do. Before that drunken +brute had half done speaking, I saw imminent death written in his face +as plainly as if I had possessed the Highland second-sight. I think I +could almost tell you how it will look _after my shot_. Well, we must +talk of business. My arrangements won't take me long. I have very little +to dispose of; it is almost all entailed property. I shall leave you the +choice of any thing among my goods and chattels. You will find some arms +that you may fancy. But if my pistols fail me to-morrow, so that Levinge +lives over it, do me the favor to throw them into the Seine; they +deserve nothing better. As for the ready-money I have with me, and some +more at my banker's--" he hesitated, and then went on in a gentler +voice, "I should like it to go to that poor child whom we met to-night. +If I live I will take care she is settled in England, where some one +will be kind to her. Her father was a good soldier and a true-hearted +gentleman. And, Guy, I am sorry that I sneered at you to-night; I hardly +meant it when I said it." + +This was a great concession from Mohun, and his hearer thought so as he +wrung his hand hard and replied, + +"Don't think of that again. I did you justice an hour ago." + +There was this peculiarity about Ralph; he was not only insensible to +danger, like other men, but he absolutely seemed to revel in it. The +genial side of his character came out at the approach of deadly peril, +just as some morose natures will soften and brighten temporarily under +the influence of strong wine. + +His mood seemed to change, however, suddenly; and when, after a long +pause, he spoke again, it was in a low, broken voice, as if to himself. + +"'Be sure your sin will find you out.' It is thirty years since I heard +that text; I forgot it the same day, and never thought of it again till +now. There may be truth in that. It hunted _her_ to her grave, and it +will not leave her in peace even there. And yet she suffered enough to +make atonement. She tried not to let me see how much, but I did see it; +I watched her dying for a year and more. I am sure she is an angel now. +I like to think so, though I shall never see her again. I would not +believe otherwise if a thousand priests said it and swore it; for I +never moved from her side, after she was dead, till I saw the smile come +on her face. She must have been happy then; do you not think so? They +would hardly have gone on punishing her forever. It was all my fault, +you know." + +He gazed at Livingstone anxiously, almost timidly. Guy bowed his head in +assent, but he could not find words to answer just then. There was +something very terrible in that opening of the flood-gates when a life's +pent-up remorse broke forth. + +"I think you will end better than I have done," Mohun went on, "though +you are going down-hill fast now. But I have no right even to warn you. +Only take care--" He broke off suddenly, and roused himself with an +effort. "I shall go home and dress now, and get through what little I +have to write, and then lie down for an hour or two. Nothing makes the +hand shake like a sleepless night. I'll call for you in good time." So +he went away. + +Livingstone sat thinking, without ever closing his eyes, till Mohun +returned. The latter looked fresh and alert; he had slept for the time +he had allotted to himself quite calmly and comfortably; the old habits +of picket-duty had taught him to watch or sleep at pleasure. + +After Guy had made a careful toilette, at the special request of his +principal they started, and in forty minutes were on the ground. Levinge +and his second, with the surgeon, arrived almost immediately; the former +stood somewhat apart, keeping the lower part of his face carefully +muffled. + +It was a dull, chill morning; the sky of a steely-gray, without a +promise of a gleam from the sun, which had risen _somewhere_, but was +reserving himself for better times. There was a sort of desultory wind +blowing, just strong enough at intervals to bring the moist brown leaves +sullenly down. + +After the pistols had been scientifically loaded, the seconds placed +their men fifteen yards apart--with such known shots it was not worth +while shortening the distance. + +The sensations of ordinary mortals under such circumstances are somewhat +curious. Very few are afraid, I think; but one has an impression that +one's own proportions are becoming sensibly developed--"swelling +wisibly," in fact, like the lady at the Pickwickian tea-fight--while +those of our adversary diminish in a like ratio, so that he does not +appear near so fair a mark as he did a few minutes ago. But, with all +this, there is a quickening of the pulse not unpleasurable--something +like the excitement of the "four to the seven" chance at hazard, when +you are backing the In for a large stake. + +I do not believe Mohun felt any thing of this sort. It was not his own +life, but his adversary's death he was playing for; the other was busy, +too, with still darker thoughts and purposes. + +"Listen," Guy said in French; "M. de Rosny gives the signal, _un_, +_deux_, _trois_; if either fires before the last is fully pronounced, it +is murder." He looked sharply at Levinge, but the latter seemed +studiously to avoid meeting his eye. Guy felt very uncomfortable and +very savage. + +The men stood opposite to one another like black marble statues, neither +showing a speck of color which might serve as a _point de mire_, each +turning only a side-front to his opponent. + +De Rosny pronounced the two first words of the signal in a clear, +deliberate voice; the last left his lips almost in a shriek, for, before +it was half syllabled, his principal fired. + +Quick as the movement was, it was anticipated; as Levinge's hand +stirred, Mohun made a half-face to the right, and looked his enemy +straight between the eyes. That sudden change of position, or the +consciousness of detection, probably unsettled the practiced aim, for +the ball, that would have drilled Ralph through the heart, only scored a +deep furrow in his side. + +No one could have guessed that he was touched; he brought his pistol to +the level just as coolly as he would have done in the shooting-gallery, +and, after the discharge, dropped his hand with measured deliberation. +Before the smoke had curled a yard upward, Horace Levinge sprang into +the air, and, with out-stretched arms, fell crashing down upon the +grass--a bullet through his brain. + +They turned him over on his back. It was a ghastly sight; the ball had +penetrated just below the arch of the right eyebrow, and all the lower +features were swollen and distorted with the blow of last night, adding +to the hideous disfigurement. + +Is that the face on which the dead man used to spend hours, tending it, +like an ancient coquette, with washes and cosmetics, dreading the +faintest freckle or sunburn which might mar the smoothness of the +delicate skin? No need of the surgeon there. Cover it up quickly. The +mother that bore him, if she should recognize him, would recoil in +disgust and loathing. + +"_C'en est fini_," Livingstone said to De Rosny, who stood by shuddering +in horror, not at the death, but at the treachery which had preceded it. + +None but a Frenchman could have given such an accent to the low, hissing +reply, "_Je l'espére_." + +Then they looked to Mohun's wound; it was nothing serious: there were a +dozen deeper on the warworn body and limbs. Indeed, I imagine his +general health was materially benefited by the blood-letting. The first +remark he made was when he was depositing his pistol in its +case--tenderly as you would lay a child in its cradle--"Do you believe +in presentiments _now_, Guy?" + +The sullen sun broke out just as they turned to go, and peered curiously +through the boughs, till it found out and lighted on the angular ominous +heap, shrouded with a cloak, that, ten minutes ago, was a strong, +hot-blooded man. + +There the _garde_ soon after discovered Horace Levinge; and, when he had +been owned, they buried him in _Père la Chaise_. Such events were common +then, and the police gave themselves no trouble to trace who had slain +the stranger. Among his tribes-men and kinsfolk in Houndsditch and the +Minories there was great joy at first, and afterward bitter, endless +litigation. They screamed and battled over the heritage like vultures +over a mighty carrion, tearing it at length piecemeal. He did not keep a +pet dog, and so no living creature regretted him, unless it were the +thin, delicate girl, with white cheeks and hollow eyes, who came once, +and knelt to pray by his grave for hours, her tears falling fast. + +Hard as they may find it to observe other precepts of the Great Master, +this one, at least, most women have practiced easily and naturally for +eighteen hundred years: "Forgive, until seventy times seven." The acts +of some of these--how they warred with their husbands and were worsted; +how they provoked the presiding Draco, and stultified the attesting +policeman by obstinately ignoring their injuries, written legibly in +red, and black, and blue; how they interceded with many sobs for the +aggressor--are they not written in the book of the chronicles of +Bow-street and Clerkenwell? + +This propensity leads them into scrapes, it is true, for our world, in +its wisdom, will take advantage of such weakness. Perhaps the next will +make them some amends. + +But the mourner strewed no flowers on the grave. It would have been too +bitter a mockery; for, if there were sympathy in sweet roses and pure +white lilies, on no other spot of God's earth would they have withered +so soon: she hung up no wreath of _immortelles_; for, if such things +could be, the dearest wish one could have formed for the dead man's soul +would have been swift, utter annihilation. + +Yet Fanny Challoner would scarcely have accepted Mohun's good offices if +she had guessed that the blood of her seducer and tyrant was on his +hand. She never suspected it, and so went gratefully to the home he +found for her; and there she lives yet, tranquil and contented, though +always sad and humble, among people who know nothing of her history and +love her dearly, trying her best to be useful in her generation--alone +in her cottage, that nestles under a sunny cliff, just above the white +spray-line of the Irish Sea. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + "Let me see her once again. + Let her bring her proud dark eyes, + And her petulant quick replies; + Let her wave her slender hand + With its gesture of command, + And throw back her raven hair + With the old imperial air; + Let her be as she was then-- + The loveliest lady in all the land + Iseult of Ireland." + + +Mohun and Livingstone soon fell back into the groove of their old +habits; if any thing, the former was more forbidding and morose, the +latter more reckless than ever. + +Just at this time Mrs. Bellasys and her daughter arrived in Paris. It +was Flora's _débût_ there, and she had an immense success. The _jeunesse +dorée_ of the Chaussée d'Antin and the cavaliers of the Faubourg +thronged about her, emulously enthusiastic. Her repartees and sarcasms +were quoted like Talleyrand's. They never wearied in raving over her +perfections, taking them in a regular catalogue--from her magnificent +eyes and hair, that flashed back the light from its smooth bands like +clouded steel, down to the small _brodequins_ of white satin, which it +was her fancy to wear instead of the ball-room _chaussure_ of ordinary +mortals. The intrigues to secure her for a waltz or a mazurka displayed +diplomatic talent enough to have set half a dozen German principalities +and powers by the ears. The succession of admirers was never broken; as +fast as one dropped off, killed by her coldness or caprice, another +stepped into his place. It reminded one of the old "Die-hards" at +Waterloo, filling up their squares torn and ravaged by the pelting +grape-shot. + +Here, as elsewhere, she pursued her favorite amusement remorselessly. +Fallowfield called it "her cutting-out expeditions." She used to watch +till a mother and daughter had, between them, secured a good matrimonial +prize, and then employ her fascinations on the captured one--seldom +without effect--so as to steal him out of their hands. + +Do you remember Waterton's story of the osprey? The hard-working bird, +by dint of perseverance, has brought up a good fish. Just as it emerges +from the water, there is heard a flap and a whistle of mighty pinions, +and from his watch-tower on the cliff far above swoops down the great +sea-eagle. The poor osprey _a beau crier_, it must drop its booty, and +the strong marauder sails off with a slow and dignified flight, to +discuss it in the wood at his leisure. The only fault in the parallel +was that Flora always dropped the prey with the coolest disdain when it +was once fairly within her clutches. How the match-makers did hate her! +What vows for her discomfiture must have been breathed into bouquets +held up to conceal the angry flush of disappointment or the paleness of +despair! + +I own this practice of hers did not raise her in my opinion. I can not +think so hardly as it is the fashion to do of the junior and working +members, at least, of the manoeuvring guild. It is not an elevating or +very creditable profession, certainly, but it seems such a disagreeable +one that none would take it up from choice. The chief fault, at all +events, lies with the trainers; the jockeys (poor little things!) only +ride to orders; and, by the way, I think they generally err in not +knowing how to _wait_, and in making the running too strong at first. + +As I meet, year after year, one of these--to whom the seed sown in +London ball-rooms and German watering-places had produced nothing yet +but those tiresome garlands of the vestal--I look curiously to see how +she wears, thinking of the courtier's answer to Louis XIV. when the +latter asked if he was looking older: "Sire, I see some more victories +written on your forehead." It is more defeats that one can read so +plainly on poor Fanny Singleton's. + +How many shipwrecks close to port; how many races lost by a head, how +many games by a point, she must have known before her silver laugh +became so hollow, and her pleasant smile so evidently theatrical and +lip-deep; before what once was chanceful became desperate, and she fell +back into the ranks of the forlorn hope--of the "Lost Children!" + +On one of these occasions I met her. She was just beginning her +_condottiére_ life then, and was very attractive even to those on whom +she had no designs--believed in balls, and had an ingenious talent for +original composition. I don't think those entertainments are dangerously +exciting to her now; and Heaven forefend that she should write poetry! +One shudders to think of what it would he. Well, she was returning to +the house after a moonlight flirtation (if you can call it so when it +was all on one side). She had been trying to fascinate a stupid, sullen, +commercial Orson--a boy not clever, but cunning, who calculated on his +share in the bank as a means of procuring him these amusements, as other +men might reckon on their good looks or soft tongue. He had just left +her, and I was wishing her good-night under the porch. She forgot her +cue for a moment, and became natural. "I feel so very, very tired," she +said. I remember how drearily she said it, and how the tears glittered +in her weary eyes. I remember, too, how, ten minutes later, I heard that +amiable youth boasting of what had happened, and giving a hideous +travestie of her attempts to captivate him, till at last my wrath was +kindled, and, to his great confusion (for he was of a timid +disposition), I spoke, and sharply, with my tongue. + +Ah me! I mind the time when men used to waylay Fanny Singleton in the +cloak-room, and shoot her flying as she went up the staircase, in their +anxiety to secure her for a partner; and now she is a refuge for the +destitute, except when some one, for old acquaintance' sake, takes a +turn with one of the best waltzers in Europe. + +I like her for one thing--she has never tried the girlish dodge on yet. +She has never been heard to say, "Mamma always calls me a wild thing." +It is better that she should be bitter and sardonic, as she is +sometimes, than that. Mars herself could hardly play the _ingénues_ when +in mature age. Grisi's best part now is not Amina. + +The last thing I heard of Fanny was that she was about to unite herself +(the _active_ voice is the proper one) to a very Low-Church clergyman, a +distinguished member of the Evangelical Alliance, pregnant with the odor +of sanctity--_bouquet de Baptiste_ treble distilled. I dare say they +will get on well enough. If the holy man wants to collect "experiences," +his wife will be able to furnish them, that's certain. It will be very +"sweet." + +I pity, but I condemn. In the name of Matuta and of common sense, is +there an imperative necessity that all our maids should become matrons? + +If such exists, think, I beseech you, O virgins--pretty, but +penniless--apt for the yoke, how many chances of subjection may turn up +without rushing to put your necks under it. Is the aspiring race of +H.E.I.C.S. cadets extinct? Are Erin's sons so good or so cold as not to +be tempted by woman, even without the gold? Are there not soldiers still +to the fore too inflammable to be trusted near an ammunition wagon? Are +there not--the _bonne bouche_ comes at last--priests and deacons? The +instant a man takes orders, celibacy becomes intolerable to him. I +firmly believe that half the offers made in the year throughout broad +England emanate from those energetic ecclesiastics. + +After all, what specimens you do pick up sometimes in your haste! If you +_are_ to lead apes, is it not better to defer the evil day as long as +possible, instead of parading the animals about by your sides here on +this upper earth? + +My sermon is too long for the occasion--too short for the text. I close +a discourse not much wiser, perhaps, than poor Wamba's, with his "_Pax +vobiscum!_" + +Flora and Guy met with perfect composure on both sides. She did not +appear to think that she had any claim upon him arising from what had +passed, but it was evident that he was still the favorite, and that all +others were complete "outsiders." No betting man would have backed the +field for a shilling. She waltzed with him whenever he asked her, to the +utter oblivion and annihilation of previous engagements, whereat the +Frenchmen chafed inexpressibly, cursing and gnashing their teeth when, +after the ball was over, they went forth into the outer darkness. +Nothing but Livingstone's extraordinary reputation in the +shooting-galleries, added to a certain ferocity of demeanor which had +become habitual to him of late, saved him from more than one serious +quarrel. + +He took it all as a matter of course. Flora amused him certainly; she +sympathized with his tastes, and perhaps flattered his vanity. For +instance, she always took an interest in his fortunes at play, watching +and sometimes backing him at _ecarté_, and often inquiring the next +morning how the battle had gone in her absence at the Board of Green +Cloth. + +Once when an unfortunate adorer--in bitterness of spirit at being thrown +over twice in one evening--hinted at some of the intrigues which had +made Guy's name unenviably notorious (play was not the guiltiest of his +distractions to thoughts that would come back), Miss Bellasys only +smiled haughtily, and did not even deign to betray any curiosity on the +subject. Those ephemeral passions were not the rivals she feared. + +Her mother all this time was very uncomfortable. Though herself +perfectly innocent of any connivance in Flora's schemes, she was +afflicted with a perpetual indistinct sort of remorse. Once or twice, I +believe, she did venture on a remonstrance, but she was put down +decisively, and did not try it again. + +One evening Guy had been lingering for some time in the Bellasys' box at +the Opera. As he went out into the _foyer_ he saw an old acquaintance +coming toward him. + +Lord Killowen was past sixty: the world had used him roughly, and he had +been ruined very early in life, but he bore both years and troubles +lightly. Looking at his smooth forehead, and square, erect figure, and +listening to his ready, cheery laugh, you would never have guessed how +long he had led that guerrilla existence--for forty years keeping the +bailiffs at bay. His nerve and his seat in the saddle were as firm as +they were on the first night of his joining the ---- Hussars, when he +rode Kicking Kate over the iron pales round Hounslow Barrack-yard, and +hit the layers of the long odds for a cool thousand. + +He had been intimate with Colonel Livingstone, and had known his son +from childhood; but he was a still closer friend of the Brandon family, +with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected. He had never seen Guy +since the breaking off of the latter's engagement till this night, when +he caught a glimpse of his lofty head bending over Flora Bellasys' +chair. + +Lord Killowen's blood was as hot and his impulses as quick as if he had +not yet seen his twentieth winter, and the chivalry within him was +stirred at what he considered an insolent parade of treachery; for he +had guessed much of what had happened, though he did not know all the +truth; so he passed Guy's extended hand, turning his head studiously +aside. + +The latter was startled for a moment, but he could not believe in an +intentional "cut," and he knew his friend to be rather short-sighted; so +with one stride he overtook him, and, touching him on the shoulder, +said, "I must be very much changed if you do not know me, Lord +Killowen." + +The brave old Irishman turned short upon his heel and confronted the +speaker, bending on him all the light of his clear blue eyes: he drew +himself up to the full height of a stature that nearly equaled +Livingstone's, and said, coolly and slowly, "Pardon me, you are not +changed in the least; I know you very well." + +The insult was palpable. Guy fairly staggered as if he had received a +sword-thrust; then the angry blood rushed up to his temples, making the +veins start out like muscles, and he spoke in a voice hoarse and +indistinct with passion, "You will answer this." + +True, his antagonist was more than old enough to have been his father, +but in feast, field, and fray, Lord Killowen remembered his own age so +seldom that other men might be excused for forgetting it sometimes. + +The old man was going to answer eagerly, but he checked himself with an +effort, as if repressing a strong temptation; when, after some seconds, +he spoke, there was more of sadness and warning than of anger in his +tone. + +"No, I will not fight, even in this quarrel, with your father's son; +besides, I might be anticipating one who has a better right. Four days +ago Cyril Brandon landed from India." + +It would have been difficult, I think, to have found another, among +living men, both by constitution and temperament, so inaccessible to +material terrors as Livingstone, yet when that name came upon him thus +suddenly he felt a thrill and a start through his nerves, so +unpleasantly like commonplace physical fear that ever, when he thought +of it, it made his cheek burn with shame. He could not, after that, +controvert gallant Lannes' maxim: "It is only a coward who says that he +never was afraid." + +He stood silently, and allowed Lord Killowen to pass him, bowing +courteously, though coldly, to him. The latter never knew what mischief +he had done. After that momentary sensation had passed off, all the +worst elements of Guy's stubborn, haughty nature rose in rebellion at +what he deemed a despicable weakness. As if in defiance of the +consequences, all that evening and on the succeeding days he devoted +himself to Flora Bellasys with such unusual ardor that it made her +nervous: she thought it was too good to last. + +When Mohun heard what had happened, he would not admit that there was +the slightest chance of a meeting with Cyril Brandon, though he knew the +character of the latter--fierce and intractable to a degree. + +"Don't flatter yourself you will wipe off the score in that way," he +said to Guy, with his sardonic laugh. "Men will quarrel over cards and +about _lorettes_ easily enough, but who fights for a 'broken covenant' +now? We live two hundred years too late." + +Ralph remembered how long he had lingered on the French seaboard +waiting for a challenge from beyond the Channel which never came, though +there was deeper provocation to justify it. + +A few mornings after this had occurred Livingstone found himself without +a servant. His demeanor toward this estimable class had always been +imperious and stern to a fault, but latterly they, as well as others, +had felt the effects of his exasperated temper, and he was sometimes +brutally overbearing in his reprimands. On this particular occasion he +must have been unusually oppressive, for it exhausted the patience of +the much-enduring Willis, so that the worm turned again--insolently. + +Before he had said ten words his master interrupted him, his eye turning +toward a heavy horsewhip that lay near with an expression that made +Willis retreat toward the door. + +"So you have robbed me of enough to make you independent? Very well; +make your book up; the _maître d'hôtel_ will settle with you. You will +carry away some of my property, of course? I shall not trouble myself to +have your trunks searched, but if you take any thing that I happen to +want afterward, I'll have you arrested, wherever you are. Now go." + +The man left the room sulkily: an hour later he returned. "I am going +this instant, Mr. Livingstone; but I could tell you something first that +you ought to know, if you would promise not to be violent. I am very +sorry now I did it." There was a curious expression--half spiteful, half +frightened--on his cunning face as he spoke. + +Guy looked at him carelessly. "Thank you; I am in no humor to listen to +your confessions. You may be quite easy; I give you credit for all +imaginable rascality. Remember what I said: if I miss any thing, the +police will be after you the same day. Now, once more, go. If I see your +face about here again, it will be the worse for you." + +There was a good deal of meaning in Willis's smile, though, his lips +were white with fear. "You will never miss what I was going to tell you +about, sir," he said; and then faded away out of the room with his usual +noiseless step, closing the door softly behind him. + +If his master could have guessed what was the secret he had refused to +hear, haughty as he was, I do believe there is no earthly degradation to +which he would not have abased himself to gain its knowledge. + +But the hour for the humbling of the strong, self-reliant nature had not +come yet, though it was very near. The wild bull never saw the net till +its meshes had trapped him fast. + +The same morning Guy, who was lounging an hour away at the Bellasys', +mentioned to them what had occurred. If he had glanced at Flora's face +just then, he would have been puzzled to guess what there was in the +intelligence to turn her so deadly pale. It was only for an instant that +the accomplished actress forgot her part, and when he looked at her next +there was not a trace of emotion in her face. + +"Have you filled up his place?" she asked, carelessly. + +"I have ordered my landlord to provide me," replied Guy. "I shall find +some well-trained scoundrel on my return, I hope. I shall never get +another like Willis, though. It's just my luck. The great principle of +the gazelle runs through life: When they come to know you well, &c. What +made you ask? Surely you have no _protégé_ to recommend?" + +Flora laughed gayly as she answered in the negative, and so the subject +dropped; but all the afternoon she was pensive and absent, and flashes +of vexation gleamed every now and then fitfully in her stormy eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + "Let none think to fly the danger, + For, soon or late, Love is his own avenger." + + +Christmas-tide had come round again, and hall, manor-house, and castle +were filling fast. But the pheasants had a jubilee at Kerton, to the +great discouragement of Mallett, who "could not mind such another +breeding season." Foxes were strong and plentiful with the Belvoir and +the Pytchley; and, during two months of open weather, many a +straight-goer had died gallantly in the midst of the wide +pasture-grounds, testifying with his last breath to the generalship of +Goodall and Payne. But the best shot and the hardest rider in +Northamptonshire lingered on still in Paris, wasting his patrimony in +most riotous living, and trying his iron constitution presumptuously. + +Lady Catharine sat alone in the gray old house, paler and more care-worn +than ever. I think she would have preferred the noisiest revel that ever +broke her slumbers in the old times to the dead silence that brooded +like a mist in the deserted rooms. + +Guy had always been a bad correspondent, and now he hardly ever wrote to +her; but rumors of his wild life reached his mother often, though dimly +and vaguely. It was best so; what would that poor lady have felt if she +could have guessed at the scene in which her son was the principal +figure as the Christmas morning was breaking? + +It is the close of a furious orgie; the Babel of cries, of fragments of +songs, of insane, meaningless laughter, is dying away, through the pure +exhaustion of the revelers; on the gay carpet and the rich damask are +pools of spilled liquors, heaps of shivered glass, and bouquets and +garlands that have ceased to be fragrant hours ago. All around, in +different attitudes--ignoble and helpless--are strewn the bodies of +those who have gone down early in the battle of the Bacchanals: they lie +in their ranks as they fell. One figure towers above the +rest--pre-eminent as Satan in the conclave of the ruined angels--the +guiltiest, because the most conscious of his own utter degradation. The +frequent draughts that have prostrated his companions have only brought +out two round scarlet spots in the pale bronze of his cheeks; his voice +retains still its deep, calm, almost solemn tone. Listen to it as he +raises to his lips an immense glass brimming-full of Burgundy: "One +toast more, and with funeral honors--'To the memory of those who have +fallen gloriously on the 24th of December.'" + +Is it true that, six months ago, the soft, pure cheek of Constance +Brandon rested often on the broad breast that pillows now the disheveled +head of that wild-eyed, shrill-voiced Mænad? Draw the curtains closer +yet; shut out the dawn of the Nativity for very shame. + +Mohun was breakfasting with Livingstone on a cold, gusty January +morning, that succeeded a night of heavy drinking and heavier play. The +colonel would see him through one of these readily enough, but if there +was even a single female face present he would retreat in disgust and +contempt unutterable. Guy had been hit so hard that it made him graver +than usual as he thought of it, though he was tolerably inured and +indifferent to evil fortune; so the conversation languished during the +meal. After it was over, Mohun rose to light a cigar, while his +companion took up a pile of letters and began to glance at them +listlessly. Suddenly the former dropped the match from his hand, +starting in irrepressible astonishment. + +He had seen strong men die hard, mangled and shattered by sabre or +bullet, but he had never heard a sound so terribly significant of agony +as the dull, heavy groan that just then burst from Livingstone's lips. + +In those few seconds his face had grown perfectly livid; his eyes were +riveted upon a small note that he held in his shaking fingers; they +glittered strangely, but there was no meaning or expression in their +fixed stare. + +"In the name of God, what has happened?" Ralph asked. + +Guy's lips worked and moved, but no sound came from them, except an +irregular catching of the breath and a gasping rattle in the throat. + +Mohun took the note from his hand without his seeming to be aware of it, +and read it through. These were the words: + +"I have tried very hard to persuade myself that you never received the +letter I wrote to you two months ago. I think you would have answered +it, for you would know how much I must have suffered before my pride +broke down so utterly. Yet I could not have risked being scorned a +second time if I had not learned yesterday that my life must now be +reckoned by weeks, if not by days. I do not know if I shall be allowed +to see you if you come. But you will come; will you not? Dear, dear Guy, +I can not die as I ought to do, contentedly, unless I speak to you once +again. In spite of all, I will sign my last letter + + "Your own CONSTANCE BRANDON." + + +It was dated Ventnor. + +Hard and cynical as he was, Mohun was thoroughly shocked and grieved; +but the urgency of the crisis brought back the prompt decision of +thought and purpose that were habitual to the trained soldier. He sprang +to his feet, alert and ready for action, as he would have done in the +old times, from his bivouac, to meet a night-surprise of the wild +Hungarians. + +"Get every thing ready," he said to the servant, who entered at that +moment; "your master is going to England immediately. The train starts +for Havre at two o'clock. You will catch the night-boat for +Southampton." + +When the man had left the room he turned to Guy: "Rouse yourself, man! +There is all a lifetime for remorse, but only a few hours for the little +amends you can make. You will be at Ventnor to-morrow; and mind--you +_must_ see her, whatever difficulties may be thrown in your way. You +won't lose your temper if you meet her brother? Ah! I see you are not +listening." + +Then Livingstone spoke for the first time, in a hoarse, grating +whisper, articulating the words one by one with difficulty. + +"I never dreamed of this. I did not mean to kill her." + +Mohun knew his friend too well to attempt consolation or sympathy, even +if these had not been foreign to his own nature; so he answered +deliberately and coldly, + +"Of having brought bitter sorrow on Constance Brandon I do hold you +guilty; of having caused her death, not, and so you will find when you +know all. But her note of two months ago--of course you never saw it? +You must have overlooked it; you are so careless with your papers." + +"It never reached me," Livingstone replied. "I have always looked at the +outside of my letters, and I should have known that handwriting among +ten thousand. Some one must have intercepted it. I wish I knew who." He +was recovering from the first stunning effects of the shock, and the old +angry light came back into his eyes. + +"I will find out when you are gone," said Mohun. "You have not a moment +to spare. I won't ask you to write; I will join you in England in three +days. Only remember one thing--keep cool. Yes, I know what you mean; but +your patience may be tried more than you have any idea of." He was +thinking of Cyril Brandon. + +The hurry of departure prevented any further conversation. At the +station, just before the train started, Ralph said, grasping his +comrade's hand as he spoke, "I did not think you loved her so dearly." + +It was very long before he forgot the dreary look which accompanied the +answer, "I did not know it myself till now." + +"I must trace the note," the colonel muttered, as he strode away from +the station. "That handsome tiger-cat has laid her claw on it, I am +certain. But she won't confess; red-hot pincers would not drag a secret +from her, if she meant to keep it. I doubt if she will even betray +herself by a blush. Poor Constance! What chance had she against such a +Machiavel in petticoats? I am bad at diplomacy, too. If I only had the +slightest proof, or if she had any weak point--unless she loses her head +when she hears where Guy is gone, I have no chance of finding out much +in that quarter. There's Willis, to be sure--she bribed him, no doubt. +D--n them both!" In this complimentary and charitable mood, he went +straight to Flora Bellasys. + +He found her alone. She was sitting in her riding-dress, and the broad +Spanish hat, with its curling plumes, lay close beside her, with the +gauntlets and whip across it. + +She did not much like Mohun, for she had an idea that his sarcasms, with +her for their object, had made Guy smile more than once approvingly. She +knew, too, that all her fascinations recoiled harmlessly from that +rugged block of ironstone. Whatever he might have been in early years, +he was harder of heart than stout Sir Artegall now. Radigund, unhelming +her lovely face, would never have tempted him to forego his advantage +and throw his weapons down. + +However, she greeted him with perfect composure and satisfaction. + +"Do you join our party this afternoon, Colonel Mohun? I expect them to +call for me every moment. We are going to the Croix de Berny, to see the +ground for the race next week. Mr. Livingstone was to have lunched here; +but I never reckon on his keeping an engagement." + +There was something in Ralph's manner which made her uncomfortable. She +took up her whip, and began twisting its slender stock rather nervously; +you would not have thought there was so much strength in the delicate +fingers. + +"You are right," he replied, coolly, "not to count too much on Guy's +punctuality. He _is_ very uncertain in his movements. I fear he can not +accompany you this afternoon. He would have charged me with his excuses, +I am sure, if he had not been so hurried." + +Flora looked up quickly. + +"It must have been something very sudden, then. Have you any idea where +he is now?" + +Ralph consulted his watch. "About Mantes, I should imagine. He started +for Havre by the last train. He will be at Southampton, to-morrow, and +the same day he can reach--" + +He stopped, gazing at his companion with a cold, cruel satisfaction. The +blood was sinking in her cheeks, not with a sudden impulse, but +gradually--as the sunset rose-tints fade from the brow of the Jungfrau, +leaving a ghastly opaque whiteness behind them. During the silence that +ensued, a sharp tinkle might be heard as the jeweled head of the +riding-whip, snapped by a convulsive movement, fell at Flora's feet. + +It _was_ weak in her to betray such loss of self-command, but, +remember, the blow came unexpectedly. She saw the edifice she had +plotted, and toiled, and risked so much to build, ruined and shattered +to its foundation-stone. How many whispers, and smiles, and eloquent +glances had been lavished, only to end in this Pavia, where not even +honor was saved from the utter wreck! + +Was not the perfect waxen mask of the first Napoleon shivered in that +terrible abdication-night at Fontainebleau? Where was Cleopatra's +queenly dignity when she heard that Antony had rejoined Octavia? + +"Why has he gone? What called him back?" + +Her voice had lost the clear ring of silver, and sounded dull and flat, +like base metal. + +"Constance Brandon wrote to tell him she was dying. Do you wonder that +he went to her?" + +A passing cloud of horror swept across Flora's pale face; but after it +broke forth a gleam of strange, ferocious exultation, which stifled the +rising pity in her hearer's breast, and changed it into contempt. + +"I don't believe it," she cried, passionately. "It is a trick. She was +quite well two months ago. At least, she said nothing--" + +She checked herself, but too late. The practiced duelist laughed grimly +in his mustache, as he might have done on discovering the weak point in +his enemy's ward which laid him open to his rapier. + +"You make my task easier," he said; "I came to inquire about a note +which miscarried about the time you speak of. I _will_ know what became +of it, Miss Bellasys, though I wish to spare you unnecessary exposure +and shame." + +He had gained a momentary advantage, but it did not profit him much. +There are swordsmen who will not own that they are touched, though their +life-blood is ebbing fast. Flora rose without a sign of yielding or +weakness in her dry eyes, drawing up her magnificent figure proudly. +Ralph could not help thinking how like her father she was just then. + +"I will answer, though I deny your right to question me. I have not the +faintest idea of what you refer to. I have seen no note, except such as +were addressed to myself; and you will hardly think that Miss Brandon +would choose me as a _confidante_ or correspondent." + +Mohun saw that she would persist to the last, undaunted as Sapphira. So +he rose to leave her, without another word. + +"You do not doubt me?" Flora asked, as he turned away after saluting +her. It was a rash question, all things considered, and scarcely worthy +of the accomplished speaker. There is no more useful maxim in diplomacy +than this: _Quieta non movere_. + +Ralph faced her directly. "Miss Bellasys, when a lady tells me what I +can not believe, I question--not her word, but--her agent." He was half +way down stairs before she could answer or detain him. + +He found out Willis's direction at Guy's hotel, but he had to wait some +time before obtaining it; and other things delayed him _en route_, so +that it was nearly two hours before he reached the modest lodgings, _au +quatrième_, where the discharged valet was hiding his greatness. + +Willis had an extensive connection; this, and his well-known talents, +made him tolerably sure of a situation whenever he chose to seek one. He +had luxurious tastes, and thoroughly appreciated self-indulgence; so he +determined to devote some time and a portion of his perquisites to +relaxation before going into harness again. + +On this particular evening he had in prospect a little dinner at +Philippe's--not uncheered by the smiles of venal beauty--and had just +completed a careful toilette. He was above the small peculations of his +order; indeed, had he been inclined to plunder his late masters +wardrobe, the absurd disproportion in their size would have saved him +from that vulgar temptation. He was somewhat choice in his tailors, and +his clothes fitted him and suited him well. He was reviewing the general +effect in the glass with a complacent and rather _égrillarde_ expression +in his little eyes, when between him and his _partie fine_ rose the +apparition of the colonel, like that of the commander before a bolder +profligate. He knew that the interview must come, and did not wish to +avoid it, but just at this moment it was singularly ill timed. What a +contrast between the stern, fixed gaze that seemed to nail him to the +spot where he stood and the well-tutored glances of fair, frail Héloise! +He felt as if he had been put into the ice-pail by mistake for the +Champagne. However, he met his ill luck placidly, and, handing his +visitor a chair, begged to know "what he could do to serve him." + +"You can tell me what became of a letter from Miss Brandon, which ought +to have reached yow master two months ago, and miscarried." + +Willis was forewarned and armed for the question; but, even with this +advantage given in, his blank, unconscious look and start of +astonishment did him infinite credit. + +"A letter, sir?" he said, vaguely, as if consulting his recollections. +"From Miss Brandon? I have never seen or heard of such a thing. If I +had, of course I should have given it to Mr. Livingstone. What else +could I have done with it?" + +"I will give a thousand francs for it," Mohun went on, without noticing +the denial, "or for a written acknowledgment of how you disposed of it, +and at whose orders." He laid the bank-note on the table. + +The flats changed; the look of bewilderment gave place to one of injured +innocence--an appeal against manifest injustice. It was really +artistically done. + +"I am sorry, sir, that you should think I want a bribe to serve you or +Mr. Livingstone. It is quite out of my power now. I don't know what you +refer to." + +"I have no time to bargain," Ralph growled, and his eyes began to +glisten ominously. "Name your price, and have done with it." + +Finale and Grand Tableau--virtuous indignation--the faithful servant +asserting his dignity as a man. There was a hitch here somewhere; the +scene-shifter was hardly up to his work, so that it was rather a +failure. + +"I have told you twice, sir, that I do not know any thing about it. I +beg you will not insult me with more questions. You have no right to do +so; I am neither in your service nor Mr. Livingstone's now." + +Mohun bent his bushy brows in some perplexity. After all, he had not a +shadow of proof, though he felt a moral certainty. His sheet-anchor was +the avarice of the scoundrel he was dealing with, and this seemed to +fail. Evidently a strong counter-influence had been at work. + +"Curse her!" he muttered between his clenched teeth, "she has been here +before me." + +Then he looked up suddenly, and what he saw caused the shallow cup of +his patience at once to overflow. + +In Willis's eyes was an ill-repressed twinkle of exultation and +amusement, and on his thin lips the dawning of an actual sneer. It was +but seldom the trained satellite allowed himself the luxury of betraying +any natural feeling. In truth, he chose his time badly for its +exhibition now. Before he could collect himself so as to utter a cry, he +lay upon his back on the carpet, a heavy foot on his chest; and the +colonel was gazing down on him with a fell murderous expression, that +made the victim's blood run cold. + +"By G--d!" Mohun said, in the smothered tones of concentrated passion, +"if you trifle with me ten seconds longer--if you open your lips except +to answer my question, I'll crush your breast-bone in." + +Willis knew the desperate character of the man who held him in his +power; it was no vain threat he had just heard; the pressure on his +chest was agonizing already. + +"For God's sake don't murder me!" he gasped out; "I--I gave it to Miss +Bellasys." + +"Of course you did," Mohun said, coolly; "I knew it all along. Now get +up, and write that down." + +He spurned away the fallen man as he spoke till he rolled over and over +on the floor. + +There is nothing which disconcerts a nature long used to obey like a +sudden brutal _coup de main_. Remember the Scythians and their slaves. +The rebels met their masters boldly enough on a fair field with sword +and spear, but they cowered before the crack of the horsewhips. + +All the spider-webs of the unfortunate Willis's diplomacy were utterly +swept away; his powers of thought and volition were concentrated now on +one point--to get rid of his visitor as soon as possible. + +He rose slowly and painfully (for the mere physical shock had been +heavy), and, placing himself at a table, tried to write the few words of +acknowledgment that Mohun dictated; but his hand trembled so excessively +that he could hardly form the letters. As he looked up in piteous +deprecation, evidently fearing lest his inability to comply should be +construed into unwillingness or rebellion, he presented a spectacle of +degraded humanity so revolting in its abasement that even the cynic +turned away in painful disgust. + +It was done at last. As Willis saw his confession consigned to Mohun's +pocket-book, his avarice gave him courage to try one last effort to gain +something by the transaction--a salve to his bruises--a set-off against +the _relicta non bene parmula_. + +"I hope you will consider I have done all I can, sir," he said, looking +wistfully at the bank-note, which still lay on the table. "I shall be +ruined if this becomes known." + +The cast-steel smile which was peculiar to him hardened the colonel's +face. + +"You must come down on Miss Bellasys for compensation. She pays well, I +have no doubt. You never get another _sou_ from our side, if it were to +keep you from starving. My second thought was the best, after all; it +saved time and--money. (He put the note back into his purse.) I'll give +you one caution, though. Keep out of Mr. Livingstone's way. If he meets +you, after hearing all this, he'll break your neck, I believe in my +conscience." So he left him. + +For the second time that evening Willis looked in the glass--the +reflection was not so satisfactory. Was that unseemly crumpled ruin the +white tie, sublime in its scientific wrinkles, on which its author had +gazed with a pardonable paternal pride? No wonder that he stamped in +wrath, not the less bitter because impotent, while he shook off the dust +from his garments as a testimony against Ralph Mohun. + +He repaired the damages, though, to the best of his power, and then went +off to keep his appointment; but the _pâtés à la bechamelle_ were as +ashes, and the _gelée au marisquin_ as gall to his parched, disordered +palate. He made himself so intensely disagreeable that poor Héloise +thenceforth swore an enmity against his compatriots, which endured to +the end of her brief misspent existence. "_Gredin d'Anglais, va!_" she +was wont to say, grinding her little white teeth melodramatically, +whenever she recalled that dreary entertainment, and the failure of her +simple stratagems to enliven her saturnine host. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + "Then let the funeral bells be tolled, a requiem be sung, + An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young; + A dirge for her--the doubly dead, in that she died so young." + + +For the first few minutes after the train had moved off Guy was unable +to collect his thoughts. As the tall figure of Mohun passed from his +view, it seemed as if a sustaining prop had been suddenly cut away from +under him, and he felt more than ever helpless. The stubborn strength of +his character asserted itself before long, and he faced his great sorrow +as he would have done an enemy in bodily shape; but neither then, nor +for many days after, could he pursue any one train of reflection long +unbroken. + +First he began to think how Constance would look when he saw her. Would +she be much changed? How beautiful she was the night they parted, with +the blue myosotis gleaming through her bright hair! Would her eyes be as +cold as he remembered them then (he had not seen their _last_ look), or +would they forgive him at once, and tell him so? Not if she knew all. +And then, in hideous contrast to her pure stately beauty, there rose +before him faces and figures which had shared his orgies during the past +months, gay with paint and jewels, and meretricious ornament. There was +a deeper horror in those mocking shapes than in the most loathsome +phantasms of corporeal corruption that feverish dreams ever called up +from the grave-yard. If his lips were unworthy, months ago, to touch +Constance's cheek or hand, what were they now? He ground his teeth in +the bitterness of self-condemnation. It would be easier to bear, if she +met him coldly and proudly, than if she yielded at once, as her letter +seemed to promise. Her letter! What became of the first one? If that had +reached him, how much had been saved! Perhaps Constance's +life--certainly much of his own dishonor. The idea did cross him that +Flora might have been concerned in intercepting it, but it seemed +improbable, and he drove it away. With all his revived devotion to +Constance, he did not like to think hardly of her rival; in a lesser +degree he had wronged her too. + +You will rarely find the sternest or wisest of men disposed to be harsh +toward errors that spring from a devotion to themselves. It is only +just, as well as natural, that it should be so. If the second cause of +the crime did not find an excuse for the defendant, I don't know where +he or she would look for an advocate. St. Kevin need not have troubled +himself: there were plenty of people ready to push poor Kathleen down. I +think it is a pity they canonized him. + +Through all Guy's reflections there ran this under-current--"how easily +all might have been avoided if the slightest things had turned out +differently." Just so, after a heavy loss at play, a man _will_ keep +thinking how he might have won a large stake if he had played one card +otherwise, or backed the In instead of the Out. I have heard good judges +say that this pertinacious after-thought is the hardest part to bear of +all the annoyance. Of course he worries himself about it, just as if +"great results from small beginnings" were not the tritest of all +truisms. I don't wish to be historical, or I would reflect how often the +Continent has been convulsed by a dish that disagreed with some one, or +by a ship that did not start to its time. The Jacobites were very wise +in toasting "the little gentleman in black velvet" that raised the fatal +mole-hill. Does not the old romance say that an adder starting from a +bush brought on the terrible battle in which all the chivalry of England +were strewn like leaves around Arthur on Barren Down? + +Guy could still hardly realize to himself the certainty of Constance's +approaching death. He tried to fix his thoughts on this till a heavy, +listless torpor, like drowsiness, began to steal over him. He roused +himself impatiently, and began to think how slow they were going. +Nevertheless, the green _coteaux_ that swell between Rouen and the sea +were flying past rapidly, and they arrived at Havre, as Mohun had said, +just in time to catch the Southampton packet. + +There was threatening of foul weather to windward. The clouds, in masses +of indigo just edged with copper, were banking up fast, and the "white +horses," more and more frequent, were beginning to toss their manes +against the dark sky-line. + +To the few travelers whom the stern necessities of business drove forth, +lingering and shivering, from their comfortable inns on to the deck, +already wet and unsteady, Livingstone was an object of great interest +and many theories. His impatience to be gone was so marked that the +conscientious official looked more than once suspiciously at his +passport. + +Mr. Phineas Hackett, of Boston, U.S., Marchand (so self-described in +the Livre des Voyageurs at Chamounix), made up his mind that he saw +before him the hero of some gigantic forgery, or a fraudulent bankrupt +on a large scale; but, just as he had fixed on the astute question which +was to drive the first wedge into the mystery, Guy turned in his quick +walk and met him full. I doubt if he even saw the smooth-shaven, eager +face at his elbow; but he was thinking again of the lost letter, and the +savage glare in his eyes made the heart of the "earnest inquirer" quiver +under his black satin waistcoat. "D----d hard knot, that," he muttered, +disconsolately, and retreated with great loss, to writhe during the rest +of the passage in an orgasm of unsatisfied curiosity. + +The weather looked worse every moment as the wild north wind came +roaring from seaward with a challenge to the vessels that lay tossing +within the jetty to come forth and meet him. The waste-pipe of the +_Sea-gull_ screamed out shrilly in answer; and the brave old ship, +shaking the foam from her bows after every plunge, as her namesake might +do from its breast-feathers, steamed out right in the teeth of the gale. + +A regular "Channel night"--a night which Mr. Augustus Winder, Paris +traveler to H---- and Co., the mighty mercers of Regent Street, spoke of +in after days with a shudder of reminiscence mingling with the pride of +one who has endured and survived great peril; who has gone down to the +sea in ships, and seen the wonders of the deep. His associates--the +_élite_ of the silk-and-ribbon department--youths of polished manners +and fascinating address, than whom _non alii leviore saltu_ took the +counter in their stride--would gather round the narrator in respectful +admiration, just as the young sea-dogs of Nantucket might listen to a +veteran hunter of the sperm whale as he tells of a hurricane that caught +him in the strait between the Land of Fire and terrible Cape Horn. + +Mr. Winder represented himself as having assisted all on board, from the +captain down to the cabin-boy, with his counsel and encouragement, and +as having been materially useful to the man at the wheel. The fact was, +that he cried a good deal during the night, and was incessant in his +appeals to the steward and Heaven for help. In his appeals to the latter +power he employed often a strangely modified form of the Apostles' +Creed; for his religious education had been neglected, and this was his +solitary and simple idea of an orison. However, no one was present to +detract from his triumph or to controvert his concluding words: + +"An awful night, gents; but duty's duty, and the firm behaved handsome. +Mr. Sassnett, I'll trouble you for a light, sir." And so he ignited a +fuller-flavored Cuba, and drank, in a sweeter grog, "Our noble +selves"--_olim hæc meminisse juvabit_. + +There was one striking contrast on board to the gallant Winder. +Livingstone did not go below, but walked the deck all night long, +straining his eyes eagerly forward through the thick darkness and the +driving rain. + +Captain Weatherby regarded him approvingly, as, halting in his walk, Guy +stood near him, upright and steady as a mainmast of Memel pine. "That's +the sort I like to carry," the old sailor remarked confidentially to +his second in command as they shared an amicable grog under the shelter +of the companion. + +The wind abated toward morning; and, as the dawn broke, they were under +the lee of the Wight, and moving steadily into the quiet Solent. + +Guy made his way straight to Ventnor. Twenty-four hours after her +summons reached him, Constance knew that her lover had never received +her first letter, and that now he was within five hundred yards of her, +waiting to be called into her presence. + +It was long before her answer came. It only contained a few hurried +words, saying that it was impossible for her to see him that day, and +begging him not to be angry, but to wait. The hand-writing was far more +faltering and uncertain than that which had struck him so painfully with +its weakness the day before. It spoke plainly of the effort which it had +cost the invalid to trace even those brief lines. He did not try to +delude himself any more, but all that day remained alone, face to face +with his despair. + +He went out after nightfall, and stole up cautiously to the house where +Constance was staying. + +It is not only ghosts that _walk_. Men, as powerless to retrieve the +past as if they were already disembodied spirits, _will_ haunt the +scenes and sepulchres of their lost happiness even before they die. +Though the world was all before them where to choose, I doubt not that +the exiles from Paradise lingered long just without the sweep of the +flaming sword. + +Two rooms in the house were lighted, one with the faint glimmer peculiar +to the shaded lamp of a sick-room. Guy's pulse bounded wildly at first, +and then grew dull and still. In that room he knew Constance lay dying. +The other window was brightly lighted, but half shaded by a curtain. +While he gazed, this was torn suddenly aside, as if by an angry, +impatient hand, and a man leaned out, throwing back the hair from his +forehead, to catch the cold wind which was blowing sharply. Guy had +never seen the dark, passionate face before, but he know whose it was +very well, though there was little family likeness to guide him. Cyril +Brandon's features were small and finely cut, like his sister's; but +there the resemblance ended. His complexion, naturally sallow, had been +burnt three shades deeper by the Indian sun. His fierce black eyes, and +thin lips, that seemed always ready to curl or quiver, made the contrast +with Constance very striking. + +Livingstone drew back into the farthest shadow of the garden trees. He +knew how much reason Cyril had for hating him above all living men, and +he did not wish to risk a meeting. Mohun's warning shot across his mind, +and he felt it was rightly founded. + +Brandon looked out for some minutes without moving, then he dropped his +head suddenly on his arms with a heavy groan. The bright light was +behind him, and Guy could see his clasped fingers twisting and tearing +at each other, as if he wished to distract mental agony by the sense of +bodily pain. The gazer saw that another besides himself had given up all +hope; and, with a heavier heart than over, he stole away home--not to +sleep, but to think, and wait for the morning. + +About noon next day the expected message came: + + "DEAR GUY,--I have got leave to see you at last, but it + was very difficult to gain. It is only on these conditions: you are + not to stay with me a moment beyond three hours, and you must leave + Ventnor immediately afterward, and not return. I have promised all + for you. It seems very hard; but we must not think of that now. + Come directly. C.B." + +Ten minutes later there was only a closed door between Livingstone, and +the interview he longed for and dreaded so much. His steel nerves stood +him in good stead then; it was not at the crisis that these were likely +to fail. When Constance heard his step, it was measured and firmly +planted as she always remembered it. So it would have been if he had +been walking to meet the fire of a platoon. Her aunt, Mrs. Vavasour, was +with her, but left the room, as Guy opened the door, and so they met +again as they had parted--alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + "I charge thee, by the living's prayer, + By the dead's silentness, + To wring from out thy soul a cry + That God may hear and bless; + Lest heaven's own palm fade in my hand, + And, pale among the saints I stand + A saint companionless." + + +Constance was lying on a couch near the fire propped up by many pillows. +She felt weaker than usual: what she had gone through in the morning had +exhausted her. Guy never knew, till long after, that the effort she had +made to secure the meeting with him had, in all human probability, +shortened her life by weeks. She thought it cheaply purchased at that +price--and she was right. Even the excitement of the moment had hardly +brought a tinge of color into the pure waxen cheeks, but the beautiful +clear eyes were more brilliant than ever. A ribbon of the blue which was +Guy's favorite was twisted in her bright glossy hair. + +He saw nothing of this at first; he did not see her raise herself with a +faint joyful cry as he advanced with his eyes cast down; he never knew +how it was that he found himself kneeling by Constance, with her arms +clinging fondly round his neck, and her voice murmuring in his ear, "I +said you would come--I knew you would come." + +Though her soft cheek lay so very near his lips, they never touched it. +He drew back, shuddering all over, and said, hoarsely, + +"I can not; I dare not; I am not worthy." + +I do not know if she guessed what he meant, but she tried to lift his +head, which was bent down on the cushion beside her, so that he might +look into her true eyes as she answered, + +"You must not think that--you must not say so. I know you have been +angry and almost mad for many months, but you are not so now, and you +never will be any more. It was my fault--yes, mine. If I had not been so +cold and proud, you would never have left me. You thought I did not love +you; but I did; my own, my darling, I did--so dearly!" + +All Guy's stout manhood was shivered within him, utterly and suddenly, +as 4000 years ago the rock was cloven in Horeb, the Mount of God. Now, +too, from the rift in the granite the waters flowed; the first tears +that he had shed since he was a very little child--the last that any +mortal saw there--streamed hot and blinding from his eyes down on the +thin, transparent hand that he held fast. + +Would those with whom he was a by-word for hard sternness of character +have known him then? They would have been almost as much surprised to +see Constance Brandon--thought so haughty and cold--overcoming her +terror at his passionate burst of grief, to soothe him with every +tenderest gesture and with words that were each a caress, till the +convulsion passed away, and calm self-government returned. + +Guy did not speak till he could quite control himself; then he said +firmly, but with a sob in his voice still, + +"Yet I have killed you!" + +"No, no," Constance answered, quickly; "indeed it is not so. A cold +which attacked my chest caused this illness; but they say my lungs were +affected long ago, and that I could hardly have lived many months. You +must think of that, dear; and perhaps it is much better that it should +be so. Life is very hard and difficult, I think, and I should never have +been strong enough to bear my part in it well." + +Guy shook his head sadly, as if only half convinced, though he knew she +would not have said an untrue word even to save him from suffering. + +"If you could only stay with me--if I could only keep you!" he cried +out, and threw his arms round her, as if their strong clasp would hold +her back one step on the road along which the messengers of God had been +beckoning her for many days past. + +"Hush!" Constance whispered; "you must be patient. Yet I like to think +that you will not forget me soon. Now listen--" and she held up her +finger with something of the "old imperial air." "I have something to +ask of you. Will you not like to do it for my sake, even if it is hard?" + +He did not answer; but she understood the pressure of his hand, and went +on. + +"I have been fearing so much that something terrible will happen between +you and Cyril. He is so passionate and willful, he will not listen to +me, though he loves me dearly, and though I have tried every entreaty I +could think of. (She grew paler than ever, and shuddered visibly.) And +you are not patient, Guy, dear; but you would be this time, would you +not? Only think how it would grieve me if--" + +The deep hollow cough that she had tried hard to keep back _would_ +break in here. + +"You can not doubt me," Guy replied, caressing her fondly: "I promise +that nothing he can say or do shall tempt me to defend myself by word or +deed. How could I, even if you had not asked this? Has he not bitter +cause? Ask me something harder, my own!" + +Constance hesitated; then she spoke rapidly, as if afraid to pause when +she had once made up her mind. The lovely color came and flickered for a +moment on her cheek, and then went out again as suddenly. + +"I know it is easier for me to submit than for you, yet it is very hard +to be obliged to leave you, Guy; it is harder still to leave you to +Flora Bellasys. I hope my jealousy--I _am_ jealous--does not make me +unjust; but I don't think she will make you better, or even happier in +the end. Now do forgive me; perhaps I ought not--" + +Guy interrupted her here: he had not stopped her till she began to +excuse herself. + +"I must see her once again (the knitting of his black brows omened ill +for the peace of that interview); afterward, on my honor and faith, I +will never speak to her one word, or willingly look upon her face." + +O true heart! that had suffered so long, and hitherto unavailingly, till +your life-blood was drained in the struggle, be content, for the victory +is won at last. Never did loyalty and right triumph more absolutely +since those who stood fast by their King in the _dies iræ_ of the great +battle saw the rebel angels cast headlong down. + +If, in the intense joy that thrilled through every fibre of Constance's +frame, there mingled an element of gratified pride, who shall blame her? +Not I, for fear of being less indulgent than I believe was her Eternal +Judge when, not many days later, she stood before him. + +She needed no further protest or explanation; she never thought that, +because her lover had once been entangled, there was danger of his +falling into the net again; she never doubted for an instant--and she +was right. The gaze of the spirit is far-seeing and rarely fallible when +so near its translation as was hers. + +As she leaned her head against his shoulder, murmuring, "You have made +me so very, very happy!" there were pleasant tears in the beautiful eyes +that had known so many bitter ones, and had not lost their brightness +yet. + +There was silence for some minutes; then Constance spoke again, looking +wistfully, and more sadly than she had yet done, on her companion: + +"Do you know, Guy, I have been thinking that yours will not be a very +long life? You are so strong that it seems foolish in me, but I can not +help it." + +The faintest glimmer of satisfaction, like the ghost of a smile, came +upon Livingstone's miserable, haggard face: there had been nothing like +it there for many hours; there was nothing like it again for many days. + +"You may be right," he said, very calmly. "I trust in God you are." + +"Yes," Constance went on; "but I was thinking more than that. I was +hoping that perhaps, for my sake, if not for your own, you would try to +grow better every day. Only think what it would be if, throughout all +ages, we were never to meet after to-day." She drew him closer to her, +and her voice almost failed her. "I don't believe you ever could be what +is called a very religious character. I am so weak--strong-minded as you +thought me--that I fear I have found an attraction in this fault of +yours; but you could keep from great sins, I am sure. Try and be gentler +to others first, and with every act of unselfish kindness you will have +gained something. Any good clergyman will tell you the rest better than +I. Remember how happy you will make me. I believe I shall see and know +it all. It may be hard for you, dear, but it may not be for long." + +The same strange, wistful look came into her eyes again, as if shadows +of the dim future were passing before them. + +Poor child! Pure as she was in principle and firm in truth, she would +have made but a weak controversial theologian; but her simple words went +straight to her hearer's heart, with a stronger power of conversion than +could have been found in the discourses of all the surpliced Chrysostoms +that ever anathematized a sinner or anatomized a creed. + +Yet Guy did not answer so soon this time. When he did, he spoke firmly +and resolutely: "Indeed, indeed, I will try." + +Constance nestled down on his broad chest, wearily, but with a +long-drawn breath of intense relief. + +"I have said all my say," she whispered; "I have not tired you? Now I +will rest, and you shall pet me and talk to me as you used to do." + +What broken sentences--what pauses of silence yet more eloquent--what +lavish, tender caresses passed between those two, over whom the shadow +of desolation was closing fast, I have never guessed, nor, if I could, +would I write them in these pages. I hold that there are partings +bitterer to bear than a father's from his child, and sorrows worthier of +the veil than those of Agamemnon. + +Though Guy repressed now all outward signs of painful emotion, he +suffered, I believe, far the most of the two. It is always so with those +whom death is about to divide. The agony is unequally distributed, +falling heaviest on the one that remains behind. If the separation were +for years, and both were healthy and hopeful, very often the positions +would be reversed; but--whether it be that bodily weakness blunts the +sharp sense of anticipated sorrow, or that, to eyes bent forward on the +glories and terrors of the unknown world, earthly relations lessen by +comparison--you will find that with most, however impetuous it may have +been in mid-channel, the river of life flows calmly and evenly just +before its junction with the great ocean stream. Besides, the dying girl +had suffered so much of late that the present change left no room for +other feelings than those of unalloyed happiness, and the words of love +murmured into her ear brought with them a deeper delight than when she +heard them for the first time from the same lips. + +Both were so engaged with their own thoughts and with each other that +they never noted how the narrow space of time allotted to them was +vanishing, rapidly as the last dry islet of sand when the spring-tide is +flowing. They never heard the footsteps, more impatient at every turn, +sounding from the room beneath, where Cyril Brandon paced to and fro. +Constance had cut off one of her long sunny braids, and was twining it, +in and out, in fetter-locks round Guy's fingers as she lay nestling in +the clasp of his other arm: it was only their eyes that were speaking +then. They started as the door opened suddenly, and Mrs. Vavasour came +in, her face white, and her eyes wild with terror. She was too +frightened to be gentle or considerate. + +"You must go this instant!" she cried out, catching Livingstone's arm. +"Constance, make him go; he has staid too long already. You know you +promised." + +"I did promise," Constance answered, calmly, almost proudly "and he will +keep it." + +Then she turned to Guy, who was kneeling by her, and hid her face in his +neck, locking her arms round him. Her aunt caught the words--"Not +forget!" Beyond these her farewell was a secret known only to her lover +and the angels. + +But the parting, which had come so suddenly, drained the last weak +remnant of strength already taxed too hardly. Guy felt the lips that +were murmuring in his car grow still at first, and then cold; the tender +arms unknit themselves, and his imploring eyes could draw no answer from +hers that were closed. + +"She has only fainted," Mrs. Vavasour said, answering his look: "I will +recover her. But pray, pray go!" + +He laid the light burden that scarcely weighed upon his arm down on the +pillows, very softly and gently, smoothing them mechanically with his +hand. Then he stooped and pressed one kiss more on the pale lips; they +never felt it, though the passion of that lengthened caress might almost +have waked the dead. And so those two parted, to meet again--upon earth +never any more. + +The next time woman's lips touched Guy Livingstone's they were his +mother's, and he had been a corpse an hour. + +He went, without looking back; his step was slow and unsteady, very +different from the firm, even tread of three hours ago. The power of +volition and self-direction was very nearly gone. Through a half open +door on the lower story he caught a glimpse of a haggard face lighted up +by wolfish eyes, and heard a savage, growling voice. He felt that both +eyes and voice cursed him as he passed; and afterward, recalling these +things vaguely, as one does the incidents of a hideous dream, he knew +that, for the second time, he had seen Cyril Brandon. Guy could hardly +tell how he reached London that night, for the brain fever was coming on +that the next morning held him in its clutches fast. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + "Quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse." + + +The tidings of her son's illness reached Lady Catharine quickly at +Kerton Manor. I did not hear of it till a day later, and when I arrived +I found her nearly exhausted by sleeplessness and anxiety, though she +had not been Guy's nurse for more than thirty-six hours. + +The sick-bed of delirium taxes the energies of the watcher very +differently from any other. There is a sort of fascination in the roll +of the restless head, tossing from side to side, as if trying to escape +from the pressure of a heavy hot hand; in the glare of the eager eyes, +that follow you every where, with a question in them that they never +wait to have answered; in the incoherent words, just trembling on the +verge of a revelation, but always leaving the tale half told, that +creates a perpetual strain on the attention, enough to wear out a strong +man. + +There have been men, they say, who, sensible of the approach of +delirium, chose the one person who should attend them, and ordered their +doors to be closed against all others, preferring to die almost alone to +the risk of what their ravings might betray; but I have heard, also, +that there are secrets--secrets shared, too, by many confederates--to +which neither fever or intoxication ever gave a clew. The hot blood grew +chill for an instant, and the babbling tongue was tied when the dreamer +came near the frontier ground, where the oath reared itself distinct and +threatening as ever, while all else was fantastic and vague. + +There was something of this in Guy's case. We could hear distinctly many +of his broken sentences, relating sometimes to the hunting-field, +sometimes to the orgies of wine or play. There were names, too, +occurring now and then, which to his mother were meaningless, but to me +had an evil significance. Once or twice--not oftener--he was talking to +Flora Bellasys. But when the name of Constance Brandon came, the harsh +loud voice sank into a whisper so low that if you had laid your ear to +his lips you would not have caught one syllable. Very, very often I had +occasion to remark this, and to wonder how the heart could guard its +treasure so rigidly when the brain was driving on, aimless as a ship +before the hurricane with her rudder gone. + +On the fifth day after Guy's illness began, an angel might have +interceded for him in the stead of a pure true-hearted woman, for +Constance was dead. + +I saw Lady Catharine tremble, and bend her head down low when she heard +the news, as if herself crushed by the blow which would fall so heavily +on her son. She had known but very little of Constance; that little had +made her love her dearly--who could help doing that? Yet it was not +Constance she was regretting then. I could see the same thought was in +her mind as in mine--who will tell Guy this if he recovers? I did all I +could to spare her; but the anxiety she felt when out of the sick-room +tried her almost more than the bodily fatigue. It was best to let her +have her way. I never guessed, till then, the extent of a weak woman's +endurance. + +It was a close struggle, indeed, between life and death. The fire of the +fever died out when there was little left for it to feed on. The arm +which, a month ago, was fatal as old Front-de-Boeuf's, had not +strength enough in its loosened sinews to lift itself three inches from +the coverlet. + +Guy had fallen at last into a heavy sleep. The doctors said it was the +turning-point. If he woke quite calm and sane, the immense power of his +constitution would probably enable him to rally; if not, the worst that +could be feared was certain. + +He woke after many hours. There was such a stillness in the room as he +unclosed his eyes that you might have heard his mother's heart beat as +she sat motionless by his bedside. They recognized her at once--heavy +and dim as they were--for he tried to turn his head to kiss her hand +that lay on the pillow beside him. Then we knew that he was saved; and I +saw, for the first time, tears stream down Lady Catharine's worn cheeks. +She could check the evidence of her grief better than that of her joy. + +He saw me, too, as I came forward out of the shadow. "Is that you, +Frank?" he said, faintly. "How very good of you to come." We would not +let him speak any more. + +On the third day after the change for the better, I was alone with the +invalid. He turned to me suddenly, and spoke in a low voice, but so +steady that it surprised me. "Frank, what have you heard of Constance?" + +Had I been arming myself to meet that question--disciplining my voice +and countenance for days, only to fail so miserably at last? I felt +unspeakably angry and self-reproachful when I saw that my face had told +him all. + +"When did she die?" He went on in the same measured tone, without taking +his eyes off me. I think he had nerved himself just enough for the +effort, and was afraid of breaking down if he paused. + +I could speak now, and told him. I was going on to tell him, too, how +calmly and happily her life had ended (her aunt had written all this to +Lady Catharine), when Guy stopped me--not coldly, but with a hopeless +sadness in his accent very painful to hear. "Thank you; it is meant +kindly, but I would rather not speak of this, even to you--at least for +some time." + +His self-command carried him through bravely, but it only just lasted +out. Then he turned his head aside and threw his arm across it. As I +drew back to the window, I saw the quivering of the long, emaciated +fingers that veiled his face. I did not look again till Guy's voice +called to me, quite composedly, for I did not dare to pry into or meddle +with the secrets of the strong heart that knew its own bitterness so +well. + +I told Lady Catharine what had passed. She was very much relieved to +hear that it was all over. She never opened her lips on the subject to +her son; indeed, though those two understood each other thoroughly, +there were wonderfully few confidences between them. + +Guy's convalescence was slow--far slower than we had hoped for. It +seemed as if some spring was broken in his being not easily to be +replaced. He was moody and listless always, speaking very seldom; but +his words and manner, when he did talk, were gentler and more kindly +than I ever remembered them. + +One of his first visitors was Colonel Mohun. He had been incessant in +his inquiries, and had offered to share our watching, but Lady Catharine +would not hear of it. She had a sort of dread at the idea of that grim +face lowering over the sick man's bed. + +No one was present at their first interview. Ralph was more moved than +he cared to show at his old friend's altered looks and ways; but he gave +him the account of his search after the lost letter conscientiously, +without sparing a single detail. "It must have gone hard with Guy," he +remarked to me, thoughtfully, as he came away. "He's very far from right +yet. When I told him what Willis had done, I made sure he would be very +angry. He only said, 'Poor wretch! He acted under orders, and did not +know what mischief he was doing.' He wants rousing; but I am sure I +don't know what is to do it." + +Forgiveness and forgetfulness of injuries seemed to that hard old +heathen the most dangerous sign of bodily and mental debility. + +He came almost daily after that, and I think his rough ways, and sharp, +sarcastic remarks acted on Livingstone as a sort of tonic--bitter, but +strengthening. + +A few days later Mrs. Vavasour called. She, too, saw Guy alone. She +surely had a message to deliver, or she would not have ventured on an +interview which must have been so painful to both. It did not last long; +but when she came down, her thick black veil was drawn closely over her +face, and that evening Guy was denied to Ralph Mohun. + +One afternoon Livingstone was quite by himself. The colonel had gone +into Warwickshire for a few days' hunting; Lady Catharine had paid her +usual visit and had gone back to her hotel, and I was out for an hour or +two. We did not mind leaving him a good deal alone; indeed, he preferred +it very often, and said so. + +His servant came in, looking rather puzzled, to say that a lady wished +to see him. She would not give her name, but said that she would not +detain him many minutes. + +Guy had not time to refuse admittance to the visitor, she followed so +close upon her message. Though she was closely-wrapped in her mantle, +and her veil fell in triple folds, there was no mistaking the turn of +the haughty head, the smooth, elastic step, and the lithe undulations of +a figure matchless between the four seas. No wonder that he drew his +breath hard as he recognized Flora Bellasys. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + Treu und fest. + + +As the door closed, Flora advanced quickly. "Confess you are surprised +to see me," she said, holding out her little gloved hand. The courtesy +toward the sex, which was hereditary with the Livingstones, contrasting +strangely with their fierce, ungovernable tempers, made him not reject +it; but his lay passive and nerveless in her slender fingers, never +answering their eager pressure; it had no longer the elastic quiver of +repressed strength that she remembered and liked so well. + +"I am surprised to see you here, and so soon," he answered, coldly; "but +I knew we should meet before long." + +"The surprise does not seem too charming," Miss Bellasys said, pouting +her scarlet lip as she threw herself into a deep _bergère_ opposite to +the couch on which Livingstone had already sunk down again--he was very +weak and unsteady in his movements still. + +Was it by chance or calculation that a fold of her dress disarranged +displayed the slender foot, with its arched instep--set off by the +delicate _brodequin_, a labor of love to the Parisian Crispin--and the +straight, beautifully-turned ankle, cased in dead-white silk? The +latter, I think; for Flora knew how to fall as well as Cæsar or +Polyxena, and had studied her part to its minutest shade. It was by the +senses that she had always been most successful in attacking Guy, and +she knew that, in old days, no point of feminine perfection had a +greater attraction for him. + +The temptation, if so it was intended, had about as much effect upon him +now as it might have had on weather-beaten St. Simeon Stylites when his +penances had lasted twenty years. + +After a minute's silence, during which Flora was gazing intently on her +companion, leaning her chin upon her hand, she spoke again. + +"I fear you must have been very ill. How--how changed you are!" + +Livingstone was, indeed, fearfully altered. The healthy brown of his +complexion had given place to a dull, opaque pallor; there were great +hollows under the prominent cheek-bones, and his loose dressing-robe of +black velvet hung straight down from the gaunt angles of the immense +joints and bones. His voice sounded deeper than ever as he replied, + +"Yes, I have been very ill, and I am utterly changed. But you must have +had something more important to say to me, or you would hardly have +ventured on this step." + +She was getting very nervous--inexplicably so for her, who generally +kept her head, while she made others lose theirs, + +"No. I only wished--" she hesitated, trying to force a smile, and then +broke off suddenly--"Guy, do speak kindly to me. Don't look at me so +strangely." + +His answer came, brief and stern. + +"I will speak, then. Miss Bellasys, on what authority from me did you +venture to interfere in my concerns so far as to intercept my +correspondence?" + +She tried denial still; it was her way; she always _would_ do it, even +when it could avail nothing--perhaps to gain time. + +"I don't know what you mean. I never--" + +Livingstone interrupted her, with a curl of contempt on his lip. + +"Stop, I beg of you. It is useless to stoop lower than you have done +already. I have Willis's written confession here. Ah! I know your +talents too well to accuse you without material proof." + +She raised her head, haughtily enough now. There was something Spartan +about that girl. She had such an utter recklessness of exposure--it was +in failure that she felt the shame. + +"At least _you_ ought not to reproach me. You might guess my motive--my +only one--without forcing me to confess it. Have I not gratified your +pride enough already?" + +"You know that is not the question," Guy answered, gravely. "Yet you are +half right. I could not reproach you for any fair, honest move. In much, +I own myself more guilty than you. But this is very different. Miss +Bellasys, you must have distrusted greatly your own powers of +fascination before you stooped to such cruel treachery." + +"I did not know what I was doing," she whispered; "I did not know she +was dying. Ah! Guy, have pity!" + +"But you knew it might kill her to find her letter--such a +letter--unanswered. You knew what she must have suffered before she +wrote it. You did all this in cold blood, and now you say to me, 'Have +pity!' If an accountable being--not a woman and her miserable +instrument--had wronged me so, I would have risked my soul to have +revenge; and, because that is impossible, you think that I feel less +bitterly? You might have known me better by this time." + +Instead of being softened by her appeal, his heart, features, and tone +were hardening more and more. + +The sting of defeat, imminent and unavoidable, that, ere this, has +driven strong and wise men headlong into the thickest of the battle to +hunt for death there, proved too much for a temper never well regulated. + +"You have decided, then?" she cried, passionately, her eyes flashing and +her lip quivering. "After all I have risked and borne for you, I am to +be sacrificed to a shadow--a memory--the memory of that cold, pale +statue of propriety?" She checked herself suddenly, only just in time. + +Guy had sprung to his feet, excitement bringing back for the moment all +his lost strength. If Ralph Mohun had seen him, he would not have feared +that the wrathful devil was cast out. It was raging within him then, +untamed and dangerous as ever. + +"Do you dare to insult her now that she is dead--and to me, not a month +after I have lost her? It is not safe: take care, take care!" + +The tempest of his passion made him forget, for the first time in his +life, the weakness of her who had roused it. + +Flora was only a woman after all, though haughty and bold of spirit as +any that had breathed. Her own outbreak of anger vanished before that +terrible burst of wrath, just as the camp-fire, when the prairie is +blazing, is swallowed up in the great roaring torrent of flame. She +bowed her head on her hands, trembling all over in pure physical fear. +Guy felt ashamed when he saw the effect of his violence, and spoke more +gently than he had done yet. + +"Forgive me. I was very wrong; but I have not learned to control +myself--I never shall, I fear; but you ought not to say such words, even +if I could bear them better. Now it is time that we should part; you +have staid here too long already. You must not risk your reputation for +me, who can not even be grateful for the venture. We shall never meet +again, if we can avoid it; it would be strange to do so as mere +acquaintance, and in any other way--no, don't stop me--it is impossible. +It will be long before I go much into society again, so I shall not +cross your path." + +Flora knew it was hopeless then. She was quite broken down, and did not +raise her head from her hand, through the fingers of which, half shading +her face, the tears trickled fast. Guy heard her murmur, very low and +plaintively, "I have loved you so long--so dearly!" + +Mistress as she was of every art that can deceive, I believe she only +spoke the simple truth then. With all the energy of her strong and +sensual nature, I believe she did worship Livingstone. To most men she +would have been far more dangerous thus, in the abandonment of her +sorrow, than ever she had been in the insolence of her splendid beauty. + +There are some women, very few (Johnson's fair friend, Sophy +Streatfield, was one), whom weeping does not disfigure. Their eyelids do +not get red or swollen; only the iris softens for a moment; and the +drops do not streak or blot the polished cheeks, but glitter there, +singly, like dew on marble; their sobs are well regulated, and follow in +a certain rhythm; and the heaving bosom sinks and swells, not too +stormily. It is a rare accomplishment. Miss Bellasys had not practiced +it often, being essentially Democritian--not to say Rabelaisian--in her +philosophy; but she did it very well. Like every other emotion, it +became her. + +Guy hardly glanced at her, and never answered a word. + +She rose to go; then turned all at once to try one effort more. "Yes, we +must part," she said. "I know it now. But give me a kind word to take +with me. I shall be so lonely, now that you are my enemy. Will you not +say you wish me well? Ah! Guy, remember all the hours that I have tried +to make pleasant for you. Say 'Good-by, Flora,' only those two little +words, gently." Her voice was broken and uncertain, but full of music +still, like the wind wandering through an organ. + +Just at that moment I opened the door. (I had not an idea Livingstone +was not alone.) I closed it before either had remarked my entrance, but +not before I had caught sight of a very striking picture. + +Guy was leaning one arm against the mantel-piece; the other was crossed +over his chest: on that arm Flora was clinging, with both her hands +clenched in the passion of her appeal. Her slight bonnet had fallen +rather back, showing the masses of her glorious hair, and all her +flushed cheeks, and her eyes that shone with a strange lustre, though +there were tears still on their long, trailing lashes. I saw the +impersonation of material life, exuberant and vigorous, yet delicately +lovely--the Lust of the Eye incarnate. + +He stood perfectly still, making no effort to cast her off. Had he done +so with violence, it would scarcely have evinced more repulsion than did +the expression of his face. There was no more of yielding or softening +in the set features and severe eyes than you would find in those of a +corpse three hours old, whose spirit has passed in some great anger or +pain. Can you guess what made him more than ever hard and unrelenting? +He was thinking _who_ tried to win a kind farewell from him six months +ago, and utterly failed. Should her rival have this triumph, too, over +the dead? + +As he answered deliberately, each slow word shut out another hope, like +bolts shot, one by one, in the lock of a prison door. + +"I remember nothing of the past except your last act, for which I will +never, never forgive you. I form no wish for your welfare or for the +reverse. There shall not stand the faintest shadow of a connecting link +that I can break asunder. Between you and me there is the gulf of a +fresh-made grave, and no thought of mine shall ever cross it--so help me +God in Heaven!" + +Flora's last arrow was shivered: if she had had another in her quiver, +she would have had no courage to try it after hearing those terrible +words. She caught his hand, however, before he could guess her +intention, and pressed her lips upon it till they left their print +behind, and then she was gone. Her light foot hardly sounded as it +sprang down the stairs, but its faint echo was the last living sound +connected with Flora Bellasys that ever reached the ear of Guy +Livingstone. + +When I heard more of the interview, I thought, and think still, that he +erred on the side of harshness. He was so fixed and steady in his +purpose that he could have afforded to have compromised a little in +expressing it. But he did things in his own way, and fought with his own +weapons--effective, but hardly to be wielded by most men, like the axe +of the King-maker or the bow of Odysseus. In carrying out his will, he +was apt to consider the softer feelings of others as little as he did +his own. It was just so with him when riding to hounds: he went as +straight as a line, and if he did not spare his horses, he certainly did +not himself. + +To each man alive, one particular precept of the Christian code is +harder to realize and practice than all the rest put together. It was +this, perhaps, which drove the anchorites on from one degree of penance +to another, and made them so savage in self-tormenting. When the +macerated flesh had almost lost sensation, the thorn that had galled it +sometimes in their hot youth rankled incessantly, more venomous than +ever. That one injunction--"Forgive, as you would hope to be +forgiven"--was ever a stumbling-block to Guy. + +Besides all this, he knew, better than any one, what sort of an +adversary he was contending against; one with whom each step in +negotiation or temporizing was a step toward discomfiture. It was like +the Spaniard with his _navaja_ against the sabre: your only chance is +keeping him steadily at the sword's-point, without breaking ground; if +he once gets under your guard, not all the saints in the calendar can +save you. + +Perhaps, then, he was right, after all. Certainly Ralph Mohun thought +so, as he listened to a sketch of the proceedings with a grim +satisfaction edifying to witness. + +As for me, before I went to bed that night, I read through those +chapters in the "Mort d'Arthur" that tell how the long, guilty loves of +Launcelot and Guenever ended. In the present case, there was certainly +wonderfully little penitence on the lady's side, but yet there were +points of resemblance which struck me. [I always think the queen must +have been the image of Flora.] It is worth while wading through many +chapters of exaggeration and obscurity to come out into the noble light +of the epilogue at last. + +Good King Arthur is gone. It bit deep, that blow which Mordred, the +strong traitor, struck when the spear stood out a fathom behind his +back; and Morgan la Fay came too late to heal the grievous wound that +had taken cold. The frank, kind, generous heart, that would not mistrust +till certainty left no space for suspicion, can never be wrung or +betrayed again. The bitter parting between the lovers is over too; and +Launcelot is gone to his own place, without the farewell caress he +prayed for when he besought the queen "to kiss him once and never more." +After a very few short months, the beautiful wild bird has beaten +herself to death against her cage, and the vision comes by night, +bidding Launcelot arise and fetch the corpse of Guenever home. She +wandered often and far in life, but where should her home be _now_ but +by the side of her husband? Hardly and painfully in two days, he and +the faithful seven accomplish the thirty miles that lay between; so +utterly is that unearthly strength, before which lance-shafts were as +reeds, and iron bars as silken threads (remember the May night in +Meliagraunce's castle), enfeebled and broken down. He stands in the +nunnery-church at Almesbury; he hears from the queen's maidens of the +prayer that was ever on her lips through those two days when she lay a +dying, how "she besought God that she might never have power to see Sir +Launcelot with her worldly eyes." Then, says the chronicler, "he saw her +visage; yet he wept not greatly, but sighed. And so he did all the +observance of the service himself, both the dirge at night and the mass +on the morrow." Not till every rite was performed, not till the earth +had closed over the marble coffin, did Launcelot swoon. + +I know nothing in fiction so piteous as the words that tell of his +dreary, mortal sorrow. "Then, Sir Launcelot never after ate but little +meat, nor drank, but continually mourned until he was dead; and then he +sickened more and more, and dried and dwined away; for the bishop nor +none of his fellows might make him to eat, and little he drank; so that +he waxed shorter by a cubit than he was, and the people could not know +him; for evermore day and night he prayed; but needfully as nature +required, sometimes he slumbered a broken sleep; and always he was lying +groveling on King Arthur's and Queen Guenever's tomb. And there was no +comfort that his fellows could make him; it availed nothing." + +We know it can not last long; we know that the morning is fast +approaching, when they will find him "stark dead, and lying as he had +smiled;" when they will bear him forth, according to his vow, to his +resting-place in Joyous Guard; when there will be pronounced over him +that famous funeral oration--the truest, the simplest, the noblest, I +think, that ever was spoken over the body of a sinful man. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + "I pray God pardon me, + That I no more, without a pang, + His choicest works can see." + + +It was long before Livingstone's health recovered the check to its +improvement given by that interview. However, as the spring advanced he +began to regain strength rapidly, and toward the end of May he and I +started in the _Petrel_, which he had just bought, for a cruise in the +Mediterranean. + +It would seem hard that any one, coasting for the first time along the +shores of Italy, and penetrating ever and anon far into the interior, +should not feel and display some interest in the succession of pictures, +of living Nature and dead Art, that meet you at every step. I can not +say that I ever detected the faintest symptom of such in my companion. +He strayed with me through the old Forum, and through Adrian's Villa, +and lingered by the Alban Lake; but it was more to keep me in +countenance than any thing else. I liked them better this second time of +seeing them than I did the first; I doubt if they left an impression on +his mind equal to the dimmest photograph that ever was the pride of an +amateur and the puzzle of his friends. The brilliant landscapes made up +of bold headlands, hanging woods, and sunny bays fared no better. Guy +did not come on deck for two hours after we cast anchor off Mola di +Gaeta. + +Our _ciceroni_ were much pained and scandalized at an indifference +which exceeded all they had yet encountered in the matter-of-fact +_Signori Inglesi_. I saw one of them look quite relieved when, after +quitting us, he had to listen to an excitable young Jewess endeavoring +to express her raptures in the most execrable Italian. The physical +effort it cost her was awful to witness, especially as she was wintering +in Italy for her lungs. O, long-suffering stones of the Coliseum! which +returned the most barbarous echo--the growls from the cells when their +tenants scented the Christian; the jargon of the Goth and the Hun; or +the _lingua Anglo-Romana in bocca Bloomsburiana_? The two first-named +classes, at all events, confined themselves to their own dialect, and +spoke it, doubtless, with perfect propriety. However, in the present +instance, the _custode_ took the sentimental ebullition of the Maid of +Judah for an _amende honorable_, and rubbed his key complacently. + +I do not believe that our travels brought to Guy a single distraction to +the great sorrow that all the while held him fast. + +A German philosopher under similar circumstances would have written +reams and spoken volumes (eating and drinking all the while +Pantagruelically), theorizing and abstracting his emotions till they +vanished into cloud and vapor. A true disciple of Rousseau or Lamartine +would have analyzed his grief, dividing it into as many channels as +Alexander did the Oxus, till the main stream was lost, and each +individual rivulet might be crossed dry-shod. Both would have shed tears +perpetual and profuse. I read the other day of a Frenchman who, in the +midst of a mixed assembly, remembering that on that day ten years he had +lost a dear friend, instantly went out and wept bitterly. He was so +charmed with the happiness of the thought that, as he says, "I took the +resolution henceforth to weep for all whom I have loved, each on the +anniversary of their death." + +Can you conceive any thing more touching than the picture of the +Bereaved One consulting his almanac and then "going at it with a will?" +It _was_ an athletic performance certainly; but remember what condition +he must have been in from the constant training. + +From the episode of Niobe down to the best song in the "Princess," how +many beautiful lines have been devoted to those outward and visible +signs of sorrow? + +Sadder elegiacs, more pathetic threnodies might have been written on the +tears that were stifled at their source, either from pride or from +physical inability to let them flow. Great regrets, like great schemes, +are generally matured in the shade. If I had to choose the tombs where +most hopes and affections are buried, I should turn, I think, not to +those with the long inscriptions of questionable poetry or blameless +Latinity, but to where just the initials and a cross are cut on the +single stone. + +The philosophical and poetical mourners hardly suffered much more than +Guy did during those months, and for long after too, though he was +always quite silent on the subject, and would speak cheerfully on others +now and then, and though, from the day that he parted with Constance to +that of his own death, his eyes were as dry as the skies over the Delta. +He used to lie for hours in that state of utter listlessness which +gives a reality to the sad old Eastern proverb, "Man is better sitting +than standing, lying down than sitting, dead than lying down." + +With all this, however, his health improved every day. After the wild +life he had led lately, the perfect rest and the clear pure air +refreshed him marvelously. It had the effect of coming out of a room +heated and laden with smoke into the cool summer morning. His strength, +too, had returned almost completely. I found this out at Baiæ. + +The guardian of the _Cento Camerelle_, a big _lazzarone_, became +inordinately abusive. My impression is that he had received about +fifteen times his due; but, seeing our yacht in the offing, he conceived +the idea that we were princes in our own country, and ought to be robbed +in his proportionally. Guy's eyes began to gleam at last, and he made a +step toward the offender. I thought he was going to be heavily visited; +but Livingstone only lifted him by the throat and held him suspended +against the wall, as you may see the children in those parts pin the +lizards in a forked stick. Then he let him drop, unhurt, but green with +terror. A year ago, a straightforward blow from the shoulder would have +settled the business in a shorter time, and worked a strange alteration +in good Giuseppe's handsome sunburnt face. But the old hardness of heart +was wearing away. I had another proof of this some days later. + +We were dropping down out of the Bay of Naples. Though we weighed anchor +in early morning, it was past noon before we cleared the Bocca di Capri, +for there was hardly wind enough to give the _Petrel_ steerage-way. The +smoke from our long Turkish pipes mounted almost straight upward, and +lingered over our heads in thin blue curls; yet the sullen, discontented +heave and roll in the water were growing heavier every hour. The black +tufa cliffs crested with shattered masonry--the foundations of the sty +where the Boar of Capreæ wallowed--were just on our starboard quarter, +when Riddell, the master, came up to Livingstone. "I think we'd better +make all snug, sir," he said. "There's dirty weather to windward, and we +haven't too much sea-room." He was an old man-of-war's boatswain, and +had had a tussle, in his time, on every sea and ocean in the known +world, with every wind that blows. He had rather a contempt for the +Mediterranean, esteeming it just one degree above the Cowes Roads, and +attaching about as much importance to its vagaries as one might do to +the fractiousness of a spoiled child. If he had been caught in the most +terrible tempest that ever desolated the shores of the Great Lake, I +don't believe he would have called it any thing but "dirty weather." He +was too good a sailor, though, not to take all precautions, even if he +had been sailing on a piece of ornamental water; and he went quickly +forward to give the necessary orders, after getting a nod of assent from +Guy. + +The latter raised himself lazily on his arm, so as to see all round over +the low bulwarks. There was a blue-black bank of cloud rolling up from +the southwest. Puffs of wind, with no coolness in them, but dry and +uncertain as if stirred by some capricious artificial means, struck the +sails without filling them, and drove the _Petrel_ through the water by +fits and starts. + +"I really believe we are going to have a white squall," Guy remarked, +indifferently. "Well, we shall see how the boat behaves. Riddell only +spoke just in time." + +Suddenly his tone changed, and he said, quickly and decidedly, "Hold on +every thing!" + +The master turned his weatherwise eye toward the quarter where the +danger lay, and frowned. "We're none too soon with it, Mr. Livingstone. +If there's a yard too much canvas spread when _that_ reaches us, I won't +answer for the spars." + +Deeper and deeper the blackness came rushing down upon us, an angry +ridge of foam before it--the white squall showing its teeth. + +Guy took the old man by the arm, and pointed to an object to leeward +that none on board had remarked yet. It was a small _barca_ with four +men in it. They were Capriotes, as we found afterward, the boldest +boatmen in the Bay. Had they been pure-bred Neapolitans, they would have +been down on their faces long ago, screaming out prayers to a long +muster-roll of saints. As it was, they stood manfully to their oars, +straining every muscle to reach us; there was no other safety for them +then. "They will never get alongside in time, unless we bear down to +meet them," Livingstone said, "and what chance will they have in ten +minutes hence?" + +Riddell was only half satisfied. His creed evidently was that a sailor's +first duty is to his own ship; but neither he nor any one else ever +argued with Guy. "As you like, sir," he grumbled, somewhat +discontentedly. "Keep her full, Saunders; we shall fetch them so." + +If a stitch of sail had been taken off our vessel she could never have +reached the _barca_, though her crew strove hard to meet us. She forged +down slowly enough as it was, but we were just in time to take them on +board. + +"Reef every thing now!" Riddell shouted, leaping himself first into the +rigging like a wild-cat. "Cheerily, men--with a will!" All his ill-humor +was gone when the peril became imminent. + +We were strong-handed, and the four Capriotes did us seaman's service; +but it was "touch and go." The last man had scarcely reached the deck +when the line of foam was within half-cable's length. Then there came a +sound unlike any I had ever heard before in the elements, beginning with +a whistling sort of scream and deepening into a roar as of many angry +voices, bestial and human, striving for the mastery; and then the +_Petrel_ staggered and reeled over almost on her beam-ends, in the midst +of a white boiling caldron of mad water. She recovered herself, however, +quickly, quivering and trembling as a live creature might do after +severe punishment; and we drove on, the strong arms at the wheel keeping +her well before the blast. In a very few minutes, I suppose (though it +seemed very long), I heard old Riddell say, "Sharp while it lasted, Mr. +Livingstone; but they're right to call it a squall. They've nothing down +here-away like a good right down hard gale." + +I looked up, clearing my eyes, blinded with the hissing spray, just as +Guy answered, coolly as ever. He had run his arm through a becket, and +did not seem to have moved otherwise, whereas I disgraced myself by +falling at full length as the squall struck us. + +"Ah! you've got difficult to please; it's always so when one sees so +much of life. Never mind, Riddell, the Mediterranean does its best, and +perhaps we'll go and try your tornadoes some day. Where's the _barca_ +now?" + +Where? The eyes that could have told you that must have looked a hundred +fathoms deep. There was not the faintest vestige of such a thing to be +seen--not even a shivered plank. The poor Capriotes' "bread-winner" had +gone the way of Antonio's argosies--another whet to the all-devouring +appetite, for which nothing that swims is too large or too small. + +It was almost calm again when we landed the rescued men at Salerno; we +were glad to get rid of them, for their gratitude was overpowering, +especially as all the salt water that had soaked them could not disguise +the savor of their favorite herb. + +You may break, you may ruin the clay if you will, but the scent of the +garlic will cling to it still. + +Guy gave them enough to buy two such boats as they had lost--about as +much as one wins or loses in an evening's whist, with fair luck and +half-crown points. + +This incident showed the change that was coming over my companion. His +principle had always been that a man who could not help himself was not +worth helping. He never asked for aid himself, and never gave it to his +own sex, as a rule. I believe his rescuing me at B---- was a solitary +case, and I took it as a great compliment. You will say this one was +only an act of common humanity. If you had known the man, you would have +thought, as I did, that the words of her, who was an angel then, were +bearing fruit already. + +Nothing happened of the slightest interest as we ran down through the +Straits of Messina, and up the eastern coast of Calabria. We did not +stay to see Sicily then, for we had settled to be in Venice by a certain +day, to meet the Forresters. + +If I were to be seduced into "word-painting," the Queen of the Adriatic +would tempt me. I know no other scene so provocative of enthusiasm as +the square acre round St. Mark's. All things considered, the author of +the "Stones of Venice" seems very sufficiently rational and +cold-blooded. + +We can not all be romantic about landscapes. Nature has worshipers +enough not to grudge a few to Art. For myself, admiring both when in +perfection, I prefer hewn stones to rough rocks--the Canalazzo to _any_ +cascade. The glory of old days that clings round the Palace of the Doges +stands comparison, in my mind's eye, with the Iris of Terni. + +But why trench on a field already amply cultivated? I will never +describe any place till I find a virgin spot untouched by Murray, and +then I will send it to him, with my initials. Does such exist in Europe? +"Faith, very hardly, sir." _Nil intentatum reliquit._ What obligations +do we not owe to the accomplished compilers? Rarely rising into poetry +(I except "Spain"--the field, and bar one), never jocose, they move on, +severe in simplicity, straight to their solemn end of enlightening the +British tourist. Upright as Rhadamanthus, they hold the scales that +weigh the merits of cathedrals, hotels, ruins, guides, pictures, and +mountain passes, telling us what to eat, drink, and avoid. Let us repose +on them in blind but contented reliance. + +I heard of one man, clever but eccentric, who became so exasperated at +seeing the volumes in every body's hand, and hearing them in every +body's mouth, that he conceived a sort of personal enmity to them, +impiously dissenting from their conclusions and questioning their +premises. The well-known red cover at last had the same effect on him as +the scarlet cloak on the bull in the _corrida_, making him stamp and +roar hideously. The angry gods had demented him. _Væ misero!_ How could +such sacrilege end but badly? Braving and deriding the solemn warning of +the prophet, he attempted a certain pass in the Tyrol alone, and, losing +his way, caught a pleurisy which proved fatal. He died game, but, I am +sorry to say, impenitent, speaking blasphemy against the book with his +last breath. _Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere--_ + +Such heresy, be it far from me! If I had my will, I protest I would +found a "Murray's Traveling Fellowship" in one or both of the +Universities. If I had the poetic vein, I would indite a pendant to +Byron's iambics to that enlightened bibliopole. He published "Childe +Harold," and the Hand-book to Every Where. Could one man in one century +do more for the Ideal and the Real? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + "Sweetest lips that ever were kissed, + Brightest eyes that ever have shone, + May sigh and whisper, and _he_ not list, + Or look away, and never be missed + Long or ever a month be gone." + + +It was a very curious _ménage_ that of the Forresters'. They were +wonderfully happy, yet you could not call theirs _domestic_ felicity. +They went out perpetually every where, and were scarcely ever alone +together at home. Tho cold-water cure of matrimony had not been able to +cool either down into the dignity and steadiness befitting that +honorable state. As far as I could see, Charley flirted as much as ever; +the only difference was, that he stole upon his victims now with a sort +of protecting and paternal air, merging gradually, as the interest +deepened, into the old confidential style. The whole effect was, if any +thing, more seductive than before. + +The fair Venetians admired him intensely. His bright, clear complexion +and rich chestnut hair had the charm of novelty for them. Though without +the faintest respect for grammar or idiom, he spoke their language with +perfect composure, confidence, and self-satisfaction, and his tones were +so well adapted to the slow, soft, languid tongue, that his blunders +sounded better than other men's correctness of speech. _Mallem +mehercule cum Platone errare_. When he said "_Si, Siora_," it seemed as +if he were calling the lady by a pet name. + +Isabel did a good deal of mischief too in her unassuming way, but I +think she confined her depredations chiefly to her compatriots. + +The best of it was, that neither objected in the least to the other's +proceedings, appearing, indeed, to consider them rather creditable than +otherwise. Perhaps it would be as well if this principle of reciprocal +free agency were somewhat extended, though not quite to the latitude to +which they carried it. + +We can not send our wives about surrounded by a detachment of semiviri +to keep the peace; our climate is too uncertain, and influenza too +prevalent, for us to watch their windows ourselves, as they do at Cadiz. +Fancy mounting guard in Eaton Square at 4 P.M., shrouded in a yellow +fog, on the chance of surprising a forbidden morning visitor! + +Supposing that we could adopt either of those methods, why should they +prove more efficacious than they are said to be on their native soil? If +the British husband will allow nothing for the principles, charitably +supposed by others to be inherent in the wife of his bosom--nothing for +the Damoclean damages hanging over the imaginary plotter against his +peace--why should he depreciate his own merits and powers so completely +as to consider himself out of the lists altogether? If he would only +desist from making himself consistently disagreeable, I believe, in most +cases, his substantial interest would be little endangered. + +That poor Hephæstus! The net was an ingenious device, and a pretty +piece of workmanship, but--it didn't answer. + +In despite of Mrs. Ellis, there are women whose mission it is _not_ to +be good housewives; they can't be useful if they would, any more than +May-flies can spin silk. Like them, they can attract fish (and sometimes +get snapped up if they go too close), that's all. If you marry them, you +must accept them as they are, and take your chance. Be generous, then, +and don't stop their waltzing. I believe there may be flirting without +the most distant idea of criminality--fencing with wooden foils, where +no blood is drawn. + +A lady was asked the other day "what she did when an admirer became too +lover-like." Her answer was, "I never had such a case." I think she +spoke the truth; yet she was a coquette renowned through a good part of +two hemispheres. + +As for the doubts and fears of the other sex, the subject is too vast +for me. To the end of time there will be Deianiras (with imaginary +Ioles), Zaras, and Mrs. Caudles. Tragedy and comedy have tried in vain +to frighten or to laugh them out of the indulgence of the fatal passion, +that wreaks itself indiscriminately on the beat and the worst, the +youngest and the oldest, the simplest and the most guileful of adult +males. Let us not attempt to argue, then, but, wrapping ourselves in our +virtue, endure as best we may the groundless reproaches and accusations +of our ox-eyed Junos. + +We _did_ Venice very severely, with the exception of Forrester, who, +after strolling once through the Palace of the Doges (a pilgrimage +interrupted by many halts and profuse lamentations), declined seeing any +thing more than what he could view from his gondola. I never saw any +one so completely at home in that most delicious of conveyances. His +Venetian friends encouraged and sympathized with him in his laziness, +and pitied him with eyes and words, forever being teased about it. +Indeed, he was generally left alone; but one day we were landing to see +a church of great repute, and Miss Devereux made a strong appeal to him +to follow her. She was a handsome, clever girl, a great favorite of +Charley's. I believe they used to quarrel and make it up again about six +times in every twenty-four hours. We saw that it was hopeless, but she +was obstinate enough to try and persuade him. + +"Now, Captain Forrester, you must come. I have set my heart upon it." + +He lifted his long eyelashes in a languid satisfaction. "Thank you very +much; I like people to be interested about me; but you see it's simply +impossible. Look at Rinaldo; there's a sensible example for you. He +doesn't mean to stir till he is obliged to do so." The handsome +gondolier had already couched, to enjoy a bask in the sun, which was +blazing fiercely down on his brown face and magnificent black hair. + +"There is the most perfect Titian," she persisted. + +"No use. I should not appreciate it," he replied. "I have been through a +gallery _with you_ before. It's a delusion and a snare. I never looked +at a single picture. The canvas won't stand the comparison." + +"I did not think you would have refused me," Miss Devereux went on, +"particularly after last night, when you were so very--amusing." She +hesitated out the last word with a blush. It evidently was not the +adjective that ought to have closed the sentence. + +"Amusing!" replied Charley, plaintively. "You need not say any more. I +am crushed for the day. I meant to be especially touching and pathetic. +Well, there's some good in every thing, though. I entertained an angel +unawares." + +"I shall know how far to believe you another time, at all events," she +retorted, getting rather provoked. + +"Don't be unjust," said Forrester, profoundly regardless of the fact +that his wife was within three paces of them. "I said I was ready to die +for you. So I am. You may fix the time, but I may choose the place. If +you insist upon it, I'll make an end of it now--here." And he settled +himself deeper into the pile of cushions. + +We had no patience to listen to any more, but went off to perform our +duty. Long before he had exhausted his arguments against moving, we had +returned. Margaret Devereux missed seeing the church and its Titian, but +she got a "great moral lesson." She never wasted her pretty pleadings in +such a hopeless cause again. + +I remember, when we mounted the Campanile, the solemn way in which he +wished us _buon viaggio_. When we reached the top, we made out his +figure reclining on many chairs in front of "Florian's." + +He saw us, too, and lifted the glass before him to his lips with a wave +of approval and encouragement, just as they do at Chamounix when the +telescopes make out a few black specks on the white crests of the +mountain. When we came down, he stopped us before we could say one +word. "Yes, I know--it was magnificent. Bella, I see you are going to +rave about the view. If you do, I'll shut you up for a week _en +penitence_, and feed you on nothing but 'Bradshaw' and water." + +We spent a very pleasant month in Venice. It did Guy good being with the +Forresters. He had always been very fond of his cousin, and she seemed +to suit him better than any one else now. She would sit by him for +hours, talking in her low, caressing tones, that soothed him like a cool +soft hand laid on a forehead fever-heated. Isabel was not afraid of him +now, but a great awe mingled with her pity. + +It is curious, and tells well perhaps for our human nature; neither +pride of birth, nor complete success, nor profound wisdom, surrounds a +man with such reverence as the being possessed with a great sorrow. At +least no one can envy him; and so those who were his enemies once--like +the gallant Frenchman when he saw his adversary's empty sleeve--bring +their swords to the salute, and pass on. + +At last we started for Rome, our party nearly filling two carriages. +There are only two ways of traveling: in your own carriage, with courier +and fourgon, like Russian or transatlantic noble, or with vetturino. +This last mode, which was ours, is scarcely less pleasant, if you are +not in a hurry. The charm of having, for a certain period, every care as +to ways and means off your mind, compensates for the six-miles-an-hour +pace. So we moved slowly southward through Verona, where one thinks more +of the Avon than the Adige--where, in tombs poised like Mohammed's +coffin, the mighty Scagliari sleep between earth and heaven, as if not +quite fit for either--where are the cypresses in the trim old garden, +soaring skyward till the eyes that follow grow dizzy, the trees that +were green and luxuriant years before the world was redeemed. So through +Mantua and Bologna down to Florence, where, I think, the spirits of +Catharine and Cosmo linger yet, the women and the men all so soft-toned, +and silky, and sinful, and cruel. We did not stay long there, for we had +all visited it before once or twice, but kept on our way, by the upper +road, to Rome, till we reached our last halting-place--Civita +Castellana. + +We were gathered round the wood fire after dinner (for the October +evenings grew chilly as they closed in); I don't know how it was that +Forrester began telling us about their flight. + +"You ought to have seen Bella's baggage," he said, at last; "it was so +compact. You can't fancy any thing so tiny as the _sac de nuit_. A +courier's moneybag would make two of it. Then a vast cloak, and that's +all. Quite in light marching order." + +"I wonder you are not ashamed to talk about baggage," his wife retorted. +"When we got to Dover, there was his servant with four immense +portmanteaus and a dressing-case nearly as large, waiting for us. Was it +not romantic?" + +"Bah!" Charley said. "A man must have his comforts, even if he is +eloping. I am sure I arranged every thing superbly. I don't know how I +did it--an undeveloped talent for intrigue, I suppose." + +"Was it not kind of him to take so much trouble?" Isabel asked, quite +innocently, and in perfect good faith, I am sure; but her husband +pinched the little pink ear that was within his reach. + +"She means to be sarcastic," he said. "You've spoiled her, Guy. If I had +had time to deliberate, though, I don't think I should ever have come to +the post. I wonder how any one stands the training." + +"I'll tell you what would have suited you exactly," Livingstone +remarked--"to have been one of those men in the Arabian Nights, who wake +and find themselves at a strange city's gate, 10,000 leagues from home, +to whom there comes up a venerable vizier, saying, 'My son, heaven has +blessed me with one daughter, a very pearl of beauty; many have sought +her in marriage, but in vain. Your appearance pleases me, and I would +have you for my son-in-law.'" + +"Exactly," said Forrester. "I should not have minded turning out +somebody else's child eventually--(they all did that, didn't they?)--for +such a piece of luck as to be taken in and done for off-hand, without +the trouble of thinking about it." + +Instead of looking vexed, Isabel laughed merrily, and her eyes glittered +as they rested on him, full of a proud, loving happiness. + +"The best of it was," Charley went on, "she was in the most dreadful +state of alarm and excitement all the way to Dover, looking out at every +station, under the impression that she should see the bridegroom there, +'dangling his bonnet and plume' (though how he was to have got ahead of +us, unless he came by electric telegraph, does not appear). What sport +it would have been! I should have liked so to have seen the 'laggard in +love' once more." + +"He was not quite _that_," Isabel interrupted, rather mischievously. + +"Ah! I dare say you kept him up to the traces," her husband remarked, +languidly. "You have a talent that way. What 'passages,' as Varney +called them, there must have been, eh! Guy? We won't hear your +confession now, Puss. In pity to Mademoiselle Agläe's eyes (which are +very fine), if not to your own (which are very useful), I think you had +better go to bed. That ferocious vetturino will have us up at unholy +hours, and is not to be mitigated." + +We sat talking for a little while after Isabel left us; then Forrester +rose and strolled to the window. The flood of light that poured in when +he drew the curtain was quite startling, making the three beaked oil +lamps look smoky and dim. + +"I shall smoke my last cigar _al fresco_," Charley said; "I suppose it's +the correct thing to do, with such a moon as that. Won't you come, Guy? +I must not tempt you out into the night air, Hammond." + +"Not to-night," Livingstone answered. "I am not in the humor for +admiring any thing. I should be rather in your way." + +One of his gloomy fits was coming over him, at which times he always +chose to be alone. + +"Well, I shall go and consume the 'humble, but not wholly heart-broken +weed of every-day life,' as Tyrrell used to say. (Don't you remember his +double-barreled adjectives?) If you hear any one singing _very_ sweetly, +don't be alarmed; you'll know it is the harmless lunatic who now +addresses you; the fit won't last more than an hour. We shall be in Rome +to-morrow. The only thing on my mind now is whether I shall find any +thing there to carry me across the Campagna. K---- has a very fair pack, +I understand, and no end of foxes." + +Have you ever watched the completion of a photograph, when the nitrate +of silver (or whatever the last lotion may be) is applied? First one +feature comes out, that you may indulgently mistake for a tree, or a +gable-end, or a mountain top; then another, till the whole picture +stands out in clear, brilliant relief. + +Just so when I recall that scene--little heed as I took at the time of +them--every gesture, and look, and tone of Forrester's becomes as +distinct as if he stood in the body before me now. I can see him +standing in the shadow of the doorway, the red glare from the blazing +wood with which he was lighting his cigar falling over his delicate +features and bright chestnut hair--I can hear his kind soft voice as he +speaks these last two words, "_Al rivederci_." + +Whether that wish will be accomplished hereafter, God alone can tell; if +so, it must be beyond the grave. In life we never saw him any more. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + "But time at length makes all things even, + And if we do but bide the hour, + There never yet was human power + That could evade, if unforgiven, + The patient search and vigil long + Of him who treasures up a wrong." + + +Three quarters of an hour later, Guy was sitting in his room, gazing at +the embers on the hearth, in the attitude of moody thought that of late +he was apt to fall into. Suddenly there came a timid knock at his door. +When he opened it, his cousin stood on the threshold--ghost-like, +against the background of darkness, with her white dressing-gown, pale +cheeks, and long hair unbound. + +"Guy, don't be angry," she said; "it's very foolish of me, I know; but +Charley has not come in yet, and just now I am certain there was a shot +quite near. Agläe heard nothing, but I did. You know he always carries a +pistol. I made him do so. It is nothing, I am sure; but I am so +frightened. If you would--" + +She tried to smile, but that ghastly look of terror that he had seen +once before, long ago, in the library at Kerton Manor, again swept over, +and possessed all her face like a white chill mist. + +"Don't be absurd, you silly child," Guy said, kindly. "Of course I'll go +out directly, and bring him in in five minutes, to laugh at you. Now go +back to your room; there's nothing on earth to be alarmed about." + +But the instant she had gone, I heard his voice quick and stern: "Frank, +come here." There was a door of communication between our rooms, and, +though it was closed, I had caught some words of this conversation, so I +was ready nearly as soon as he. Guy only staid to take a short +lance-wood club, headed with a spiked steel head, which was his constant +traveling companion--a very simple weapon, but deadly in his hands as +the axe of Richard the King--and then we sallied out, taking our +servants and some other men that were below, with torches, in case the +moon should fail us unexpectedly. + +Twice, three times, when we had gone a short distance, Livingstone +shouted Forrester's name. His powerful voice rang far through the +ravines, and struck against the rocks, rolling and reverberating in +their hollows like a blast fired in a deep mine; but no answer came. + +I looked at my companion very nervously. He never spoke, but I saw him +gnaw his under lip till the blood ran down. + +We had gone a hundred paces or so farther along a narrow path outside +the town. On our right the cliff fell almost abruptly toward the river. +Guy was a few paces in front, when suddenly there broke from his lips +such a sound as I have never heard from those of any mortal before or +since. + +It is impossible to describe it. It was utterly involuntary, as if some +spirit had spoken within the man--a cry of horror and of unspeakable +wrath, such as might have burst from the chest of one of the Old-World +giants, when the rock fell from heaven that crushed him like a worm. The +Italians, used to every tone that can express passion, shrunk and +cowered back in terror. + +Our eyes all followed the direction of his, that were staring down upon +a flat open space, clear from brush-wood, down in the hollow on our +right. Our search was ended, and we knew it. The moon, that flickered +and quivered elsewhere through bough and brake, settled there steadily +on a single white spot. + +In all the world there is but one object on which she can cast so +ghastly a reflection--a dead man's face. + +Guy recovered himself first, and plunged recklessly down the cliff side. +When we reached him, he was supporting on his knee the head of poor +Charley Forrester, stone dead, and foully murdered. + +The first glance told how unavailing all human aid must be. One small +deep wound just above the left temple must have been fatal instantly. +Close by his side lay the instrument of the slaughter--a thin, +triangular piece of granite--and, ten paces off, his pistol, one barrel +discharged. His watch and (as we afterward found) his purse were gone, +but an emerald ring of great value was still untouched on his finger. + +I staggered back, heart-sick and faint. When I recovered I saw dimly the +group of men, awe-stricken and whispering, and Guy still gazing down at +the face that rested on his knee, as if it fascinated his eyes. I could +not bear to look upon the piteous sight. All through the bright hair the +dark blood had soaked, and a slow stream was stealing through it still; +the fair features were all defaced and deformed with the wrath and +agony of the last mortal struggle. Yet I do remember that, if any one +definite expression still lingered there, it was bitter contempt and +scorn. + +"In God's name, sir, what is to be done?" It was Hardy who spoke, poor +Forrester's own servant, the only Englishman among our attendants. He +was choking, and could hardly gasp out the words. + +Livingstone rose slowly, first pillowing the mangled head on a soft tuft +of moss, tenderly as if it were conscious still. His nature was such +that no shock, or pain, or sorrow to which humanity is liable, could +bend or quell it, so as to deprive him, beyond a brief instant, of +self-possession and calmness. It was not insensibility now, and hardly +stoicism, but an elasticity of resistance and strength of endurance +that, in my own knowledge, have never been matched. In history or in +Indian life you might find many parallels. + +He answered quite steadily, though in a low tone, as if reverencing the +presence of the dead. + +"There is no hope. It is useless to send for a surgeon. Hardy, you will +take all the men whom you can collect and scour the country. Send to the +_sbirri_ immediately; they will go with you. There must be traces of the +murderer. Frank, will you see that--he--is brought carefully to the +house? I will"--he stopped, and drew a long, hard breath--"I will go and +break it to Isabel." His hand, that happened to touch mine as he spoke, +was damp and icy cold. + +In his life Guy Livingstone had done and dared more than most men, but +he never ventured on any thing so thoroughly brave, and valiant, and +strong-hearted as when he left me, without another word, on that +errand. For myself, though weak both in body and nerve, I swear I would +rather have gone up the breach at Badajoz with the forlorn hope, than up +that bank with the certainty before me of what awaited him. + +Trees overhanging, and high walls on either side, and the change from +the bright moonlight, made it so dark just as you approached the inn +that Guy scarcely saw a white figure crouching down a few paces from the +door till he was close upon it. + +He threw his arm round Isabel Forrester's waist before she could pass +him. Half his task was done; there was nothing to break to her now. She +understood all when she saw him come back alone. + +For a few moments, there they stood in the dark, no word passing between +them; the only sound was her quick panting, as she struggled in his +grasp, battling to get free. + +"Isabel," he said, at last, gravely, "come in; I must speak to you." + +No answer still, but the same desperate struggle to get loose. There was +a savage, supernatural power in her writhings that taxed even his +gigantic strength to hold her; as it was, he yielded unconsciously to +her impulse so as to recede some paces till they issued out into the +moonlight. He could scarcely recognize her features; they were all +working and contorted, the lips especially horribly drawn back and +tense. She bent her head down at last, and made her teeth meet in the +arm that detained her. + +Guy never flinched nor stirred, but spoke again in the same slow, +deliberate tone. + +"Isabel, come in. I swear that you shall see him when it is safe. They +are bringing him back now." + +She ceased struggling and stood straight up, shaking all over, straining +her eyes forward to the turning in the path where the torches began to +gleam. + +"Is he not dead, then?" she said, in a strange, harsh voice, utterly +unlike her own. Her cousin did not try to delude her; all the stern +outline of his face softening in an intense pity told her enough. + +Such a scream--weird, long drawn out, and unearthly, such as we fancy the +Banchee's--as that which pierced through my very marrow (though I stood +three hundred yards away, as if it had been uttered close at my ear), I +trust I shall never hear again. + +Then followed the contrast of a great stillness; for, as the last +accents died away on her lips, Isabel sank down, without a struggle, +into a dead swoon. + +A sad satisfaction came into Guy's face. "It is best so," he muttered; +"I hope she won't wake for an hour," and he carried her into the house. +They were trying to revive her, unsuccessfully, when I reached it with +those who bore the corpse on a litter of pine branches. By Guy's +directions, it was laid on his own bed; and there the Italian women +rendered the last offices to the dead man, weeping and wailing over him +as though he had been a brother or dear friend--only for his rare +beauty--even as the Moorish girls mourned over that fair-faced Christian +knight whom they found lying, rolled in blood, by the rock of Alpujarro. + +Soon they came to tell Guy that Isabel was recovering from her swoon. +She was hardly conscious when he entered the room, and he heard her +moaning, "I am so cold, so cold," shivering all over, though she was +warmly wrapped in cloaks and shawls. + +The village doctor, a mild, helpless-looking man, was sitting by her +bedside. He tried to feel her pulse just then, I suppose to show that he +could be of some use; but she shrunk away from him, and beckoned to her +cousin to come near. He motioned to the others to leave them alone, and, +kneeling down by her, took her hand in his. + +"Guy, dear," she said, "I know I have been so very wicked and ungrateful +to you; but you must not be angry. I have no one left to take care of me +but you, now. I will try to be patient; indeed, indeed I will." Her +voice was faint and exhausted, but as gentle as ever. + +He held her hand faster, and bent his forehead down upon it. + +"You are not wicked--only too weak to bear your sorrow. If I only knew +what to do to comfort you! But I am so rough and harsh, even when I mean +to be kind. I can say nothing, either. I suppose you ought to submit, +but I can not tell you how; it is a lesson I have never been able to +learn." + +"You can do this," she said. "Let me go to him. Ah! don't refuse. I will +be calm and good. Indeed I will. But I must go"--she sank her voice into +a lower whisper yet--"I have not kissed him to-night." + +There was something so unspeakably piteous in her tone and in her +imploring eyes, that had grown quite soft again, though no tears had +moistened them, that Guy could hardly answer her. + +"I did not mean to refuse you, dear," he said, at last. "I won't even +ask you to wait. If you are not strong enough to walk, I will carry +you." + +She rose slowly and painfully, as if her limbs were stiff with cold; but +she could stand, and walk with his arm round her; and so these two moved +slowly along the deserted passages toward the room where the corpse lay. + +There was nothing shocking in its appearance now. All the traces of +murder had been washed away, and they had arranged the silky chestnut +hair till it concealed the wound, and fell in smooth waves over the +white forehead. That sweet calm which will sometimes descend on the face +of the dead, even when their end has been violent--the sad _Alpen-gluth_ +that comes only when the sun has set--was there in all its beauty. Save +that the features were somewhat sharper than in life, there was nothing +to mar their pure classical outline. It was well, indeed, that Guy held +her back two hours ago. If Isabel had looked on them then, I believe she +would have gone mad with terror, if not with sorrow. It matters much, +the expression of a face, when it is sure to mingle in our dreams for +many after years. + +Guy led her up to the bedside, and left the room as she sank down on her +knees. He remained outside the closed door, for he thought she might +need help if her strength failed suddenly; and I joined him there. + +For some time we heard only the quick, stormy sobs, and the kisses +showering down; then came the piteous, heart-broken wail that called +upon her husband's name; and then the great gush of tears that saved +her. After that there was a murmur, often broken off but always +renewed: we both bowed our heads reverently, for we knew the widow was +praying. + +She came forth at length, her head buried in her hands; but she could +walk to her room unassisted, and allowed them to undress her there, +without a word but thanks. Before long nature would have her way, and +she was sleeping quietly. + +While we were waiting the return of the men who had gone out in pursuit, +Livingstone went alone into the death-chamber. He staid there some +minutes. When he came out his face was paler than ever, and there was a +sort of horror in his eyes. + +He took my arm and led me into the room without speaking. "Do you see +that?" he asked, lifting the hair gently that fell over the left check +of the corpse. + +Distinctly and lividly marked on the waxen flesh were the five fingers +of a man's _open hand_. + +"Do you think that was a brigand's work?" he went on, his gripe +tightening till I could scarcely bear the pain. "They always strike with +a weapon or with the clenched fist. Shall I tell you whose mark that is? +Bruce's. If he did not murder him himself, he struck him after he was +dead." + +"Impossible," I said; "how could he? He has never--" + +Livingstone cast my arm loose somewhat impatiently. "We shall know all +some day," he growled, his whole face black with passion. "I am +convinced of it. If he's on earth I'll find him; and when I do, if I +show him mercy or let him go--" The imprecation that followed was not +less solemn and terrible because it was muttered to his own heart. + +"We must never let Isabel guess the truth," he said, when he became +calmer. "It would be worse than all. She would always think she had +caused this, and she has enough to bear up against already. God help +her!" + +Soon Agläe came to tell us that her mistress was asleep. The +Frenchwoman's first impulse had been to be hysterical and helpless; it +was only her terror of Guy prevailing over all others that made her, as +she was, very useful. + +He went to the door for an instant, and looked at Isabel. Dreamland was +kinder and pleasanter to her than real life, poor child, for there was a +smile on her lips that, when she was waking, would be long in visiting +them. How would ships or men ever last out if there were not some +harbors of refuge to rest in before going out into the wild weather +again? Truly she had won hers for the moment; it looked as if an angel +had come down to smooth, this time, instead of troubling the waters. + +The pursuers came back empty-handed; they had not come upon the faintest +trace, nor could they hear of any suspicious character having been seen +in the neighborhood. + +Guy betrayed no impatience when he heard this; but he went out himself +with some of the best men, and spent the rest of the night and all the +following morning on the quest. All to no purpose. He returned about +noon, with his companions quite fagged out; but fatigue and +sleeplessness seemed to have no grasp upon his frame. + +Isabel was up, and had been asking for him several times. When he saw +her, she offered no opposition to his wish to go on straight to Rome the +next day. Neither then nor at any future time did she ever ask for any +particulars of her husband's death. + +Her old child-like dependence and trust in her cousin had come back, and +all through the journey she was quite tranquil. It is true, we hardly +ever saw her face, for her veil was closely drawn. Her grief was not the +less painful to witness because it was so little demonstrative. Very old +and very young women, in the plenitude of their benevolence, are good +enough to sympathize with any tale of woe, however absurdly exaggerated; +but men, I think, are most moved by the simple and quiet sorrows. We +smile at the critical point of a spasmodic tragedy, complacently as the +Lucretian philosopher looking down from the cliff on the wild sea; we +yawn over the wailings of Werter and Raphael, but we ponder gravely over +the last chapters of the _Heir of Redclyffe_, and feel a curious +sensation in the throat--perhaps the slightest dimness of vision--when +we read in _The Newcomes_ how that noble old soldier crowned the +chivalry of a stainless life, dying in the Gray Brother's gown. + +There were many at Rome who had known Forrester and loved him well, and +all these followed him to his grave. I do not think he had an enemy on +earth except the man who slew him. + +What are the qualifications of a general favorite? Good looks, good +birth, good-humor, and good assurance will do much; but the want of one +or more of these will not invalidate the election, nor the union of all +four insure it. It must be very pleasant to serve in the _compagnie +d'élite_. They have privileges to which the Line may not aspire. It does +not much matter what they do. Their victories make them no enemies, and +their defeats raise them up hosts of sympathizers and apologists. When +they err gravely, if you hint at the misdemeanor, a "true believer" +looks at you indignantly, not to say contemptuously, and says, "What +could you expect? It's only poor--" Yes, it is a great gift--Amiability; +and when the possessor dies, it is profoundly true that better men might +be better spared. + +Very soon Raymond came to take his daughter back to England. That calm +old calculating machine was more deranged and shocked by the catastrophe +than I should have thought it possible he would have been by any earthly +disaster. He was getting older now, and more broken, it is true, and so, +perhaps, was more accessible to the weakness of sympathy. At all events, +nothing could be kinder and more considerate than his conduct to Isabel. + +Guy and I still lingered on in Rome. He was untiring in his researches, +but quite unsuccessful. Yet it was not that the police were remiss, or +the country people inclined to shield the murderer. The best of them +would have sold his own father to the guillotine for half the reward +offered by Livingstone, for he lavished as much gold in trying to clear +up that crime as in old days the Cenci or Colonna did to smother theirs. +At length we were forced to give it up, and returned home in the +_Petrel_. I own I despaired of ever being more successful; but my +companion evidently had not done so, for I heard him, more than once, +mutter to himself, in the same low, determined tone, "If he is on +earth, I'll find him." + +Immediately on our arrival, Guy went up to Bruce's home in Scotland. He +only learned that the latter had not been there for a long time; but +that some months back, Allan Macbane, a sort of steward and old +dependent of the family, had left suddenly, summoned, it was supposed, +by his master. More the people could not or would not tell. + +At his banker's it was discovered that, immediately after the +Forresters' marriage, he had drawn out a very large sum--not in letters +of credit, but in bank-notes--and had not been heard of since. After +much trouble, we did find out that one of the large notes had been +changed at Florence about the time of the murder, but the description of +the person did not answer in the least to that of Bruce or the man who +was supposed to be his attendant. All trace stopped there. So the months +rolled away. I constantly saw Guy, and sometimes was with him both in +town and at Kerton, where Isabel was staying with Lady Catharine. He +still appeared to have no doubt of the ultimate result of the search, +which, personally or by deputy, he never intermitted for a day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + "He threw + His wrathful hand aloft, and cried 'Away! + Earth could not hold us both, nor can one heaven + Contain my deadliest enemy and me.'" + + +We were sitting in Livingstone's chambers one night in the following +March, and dinner was just over, when the detective was announced who +for months had been in Guy's pay and on Bruce's track. + +He was a stout, hale man, rather past middle age, with a rosy face, a +cheerful, moist eye, and full, sensual lips--just the proper person to +return thanks for "The Successful Candidates" at an agricultural +meeting. Originally of a kindly convivial nature, he had grown familiar +with crime till he despised it. The reward set upon the criminal's +capture was his only standard of guilt. He took a real pleasure in the +chase, I imagine, but had no preference for any game in particular, and +was quite indifferent whether the cover he had to draw was a saloon or a +cellar. He would hunt a fraudulent bankrupt or a parricide with equal +zeal, and, when he had caught him, be just as jocularly affable with the +one as with the other. In a drama of life and death, the fierce passions +of the actors were only so many gleams of light showing him where the +right path lay, for which assistance he thanked them heartily. The +foulest mysteries of the sinful human heart touched and shocked him no +more than the evidences of disease do the dissecting surgeon: with both +it was a simple question of defective organization. The possession of +secrets, far less weighty than some that he never told, have made men +look worn, and miserable, and gray; but he would pat his corpulent +leather pocket-book with a self-sufficient satisfaction, scarcely +hinting that the publication of its contents would have caused more +devastation in some well-regulated families than the bursting of a +ten-inch shell in their front drawing-room. + +His lips and eyes wore a smile pleasantly significant as he entered, +and, before he could speak, Guy leaped up, waving his hand high in +irrepressible triumph. "I told you so, Frank. I knew we should find him. +Come--come quickly." He was more excited than I had seen him in the last +dozen years. + +I exulted too, but I confess a certain repugnance and nervousness +mingled with that feeling: it was a new thing to me to stand face to +face with a murderer. + +Neither of us gave as much attention as it deserved to the narrative +with which the officer favored us _en route_, of how he had been +gradually getting the clew to the fugitive's many doublings and +disguises till he came upon his retreat at last. "They mostly make for +home when they're dead beat," he remarked, alluding to Bruce's having +selected London as his final hiding-place. + +We soon reached the spot--one of those dreary by-ways that trend +westward out of the Waterloo Road. As we drew up, the outline of a +figure revealed itself out of the darkest nook of the dim street, and a +man came forward and opened the door of the cab, interchanging a word +or two with our companion. + +As we got out, the detective laid his hand on Guy's arm. "Gently, sir," +he said. "You must be careful. We've not quite so much proof as I could +wish. It would be straining a point to arrest him as it stands. I'd do +it though--_for you_. Get him to talk, and don't hurry him; he's safe to +commit himself; and we'll nail him at the first word. My comrade says he +has not left his bed since yesterday. Perhaps he's ill. All the better. +We can frighten him if we get his man out of the way." + +Guy's hand was on the bell before the last words were said, and he rang +it sharply. The two officers drew back into the shadow. + +In a few moments an old man opened the door, whom we guessed to be +Bruce's attendant. He had one of those stubborn, rough-hewn faces that +even white hair can not soften any more than hoar-frost can the outline +of a granite crag. + +"What's ye're wull?" he drawled out, in the rugged Aberdeen Doric. + +"I wish to see Mr. Bruce." + +"No sic a pairson here," was the reply, accompanied by a vigorous effort +to close the door. + +A heavy groan, proceeding from a room on the ground floor, gave him the +lie as he spoke. Guy threw up his head like a hound breaking from scent +to view, and thrust Macbane back violently. The old man staggered and +fell; but he clung round Livingstone's knees, as he groveled, till he +was actually trampled down. There was a difficulty in the lock +somewhere; but bolt and staple were torn away in an instant by the +furious hand that grasped the handle, and so at last we stood in the +presence of the man we had sought so long. + +Do you remember that hideous picture in Hogarth's "Two Apprentices," +where the sleeping robber is alarmed by the crash in the chimney? That +was exactly Bruce's attitude. He had started into a sitting posture, and +was braced up on his hands, his face thrust forward, half covered by the +straight unkempt hair. What a face it was! White and flecked with +sweat-drops, marbled here and there with livid stains, the lips +quivering and working till they twisted themselves sometimes into a +ghastly mockery of a smile, the long teeth gleaming more wolfish than +ever. The iris of the prominent eyes had grown yellowish, and the whites +were bloodshot, so that the light seemed to flash from them _tawnily_. + +Bruce had always been very much afraid of Livingstone. His terror had +gone on increasing during months of relentless pursuit; it had reached +its climax now. Guy stood at the foot of the bed, contemplating the +unhappy wretch with a cruel calmness that seemed to drive him wild. He +writhed and cowered under the fixed gaze, as if it gave him physical +pain. + +"What are you here for?" he screamed out at last. + +In strong contrast to the shrill, strained voice, the answer came slow +and stern. "To arrest Charles Forrester's murderer." + +Then Bruce seemed to lose his head all at once, and began to rave. It is +impossible to transcribe the string of protestations, prayers for mercy, +and horrible blasphemies; but there was enough of self-betrayal to +complete the proof we wanted ten times told. The detective chuckled +more complacently than ever as he insinuated the handcuffs round +Macbane's wrists. Over all Bruce's cries, I remember, the old man's +harsh voice made itself heard, "Whisht, whisht, I tell ye, and keep a +quiet tongue; they canna harm ye." The other did not seem to hear him, +or to notice his removal by the officers, muttering, as he went, that +"we had driven his master mad, and were killing him." + +Livingstone waited patiently till the outbreak had spent itself; then he +said, "Get up, and come with us instantly. You shall finish your night +in Newgate." + +Tho sick man lay back for some moments with his eyes closed, panting and +evidently quite exhausted. When he opened his eyes there was a +steadiness in them which surprised us. He spoke, too, quite calmly. "I +do not mean to deny any thing, nor to resist, even if I could. I am +tired of running away; it is as well over; but I was taken by surprise +at first. Guy Livingstone, do you choose to listen to me for five +minutes? My head is clear now. I do not know how long it will last; but +I do know that, after to-night, I will never speak about Forrester's +death one word." + +"Will you tell me how you killed him?" Livingstone asked, controlling +his voice wonderfully. + +"That is what I wish to do," Bruce said. I believe he was glad of the +opportunity of showing us how much we had misjudged him in thinking him +harmless, for a curious sort of grin was hovering about his mouth. Guy, +whose eyes were bent down at the moment, did not see it, or the tale +would never have been told. + +"You know how you were all against me at Kerton," he began. "She did +not care for me then, perhaps; but I would have been so patient and +persevering that she must have loved me at last--only you never gave me +fair play. Ah! do you think, because I was ugly and awkward, I had no +chance?" + +"No; but because she knew you were a coward," Guy said. + +There was something grand in the utter indifference with which Bruce met +the insult. + +"You are wrong," he replied, coolly; "she did not know it. You all did, +and reckoned on my being long-suffering and inoffensive. I saw, at last, +what Forrester had done; yet I never guessed but that she would marry +me. I trusted to her father and her own fears for keeping her straight. +After marriage I would have tried still what great love and tenderness +could do. I meant--never mind what I meant--it's all over now. I was +nearly mad for a week after their flight. Then I became quite cool, and +I said, 'I will kill him myself.' And so I did. Mind, I swear, Allan +knew nothing of it till all was done. I thought I should be brave enough +for that. Fifty times during the months that I tracked them, always +changing my disguise, I nearly caught him alone; but each time I was +balked. Wherever they went, I watched under their windows for the chance +of his coming out; but I only saw--" + +He gnashed his teeth, and rolled over and over in a paroxysm of jealous +recollection. We guessed what he meant. Then he went on: "That night he +sauntered backward and forward for some time. I thought he would not go +far enough away, and I called to the devil to help me. He did; for, very +soon, Forrester walked straight down the path. I crept after him till +he had gone some hundred yards--my heart was beating so quickly that I +could hardly breathe--then I ran forward and stood before him. I had +taken off the black wig and beard that I always wore, and he knew me +directly. + +"'Mr. Bruce, I believe?' he said, raising his hat, just as if he had met +me by appointment. + +"'Yes,' I said. 'I have got you at last, as I wished.' I tried to speak +as steadily as he had done; but, as the moment for action came near, my +d----d cowardice made me stammer. + +"'I am not invisible, as a rule,' he replied. 'You, or any friend of +yours, might have found me long ago. You have been some time making up +your mind. It's that unfortunate constitutional--caution, I suppose. +Well, I'll meet you in Rome: it's more than you deserve.' + +"'You'll fight me here--now,' I said. + +"'I shall do nothing half so melodramatic,' he answered. 'I'll give you +a fair chance on the ground; but, if you do not move out of my path now, +I'll shoot you as I would any other disagreeable ruffian,' and he put +his hand into his breast, where, I knew, he carried a pistol. + +"I _was_ brave then. I sprang in upon him all at once. 'You may shoot +now, if you like,' I said. 'I swear I am quite unarmed. But show _that_ +to your wife when you go back,' and I struck him with my open hand." + +(I remembered the mark on the corpse's cheek, and looked at Guy eagerly. +I could not see his face, which was hidden by the curtain, but all his +lower limbs were shaking and quivering.) + +"I thought how it would be," Bruce went on; "he drew his hand out with +the pistol in it, but he only flung it over the bank--one barrel went +off in the fall--then we grappled. After wrestling for a minute or two +on the narrow path, we lost our footing and rolled down the rocks; +neither quitted his hold, but I fell uppermost and kept him down. He +struggled desperately at first; but when he found that I was much the +stronger, he lay quite still, looking up into my face. I said, 'It's my +turn at last. Do you think I'll let you off?' + +"He did not answer at first. I believe he would not till he had quite +recovered his breath; then he said, coolly, 'No, I don't. Finish it +quickly, if you can, that's all.' I would have delayed a little, to +enjoy my triumph, but I thought the pistol-shot might bring some one; so +I tightened my gripe on his throat, and looked round for a weapon. I +found none at first, and my purpose actually began to soften when I saw +him so helpless; but, as I relaxed my fingers, I heard him whisper to +himself, 'Poor Bella! we have been very happy: I wish we had more +time--' I got mad again directly. 'D--n you!' I cried out, 'I'll kill +you now, and marry her some day.' His old insolent smile came on his +lip. 'No you won't,' he said; 'you don't know how she hates you, and how +we have laughed--' He had no time to say more, for I found my weapon +then--a stone triangular and sharp-pointed like a dagger--and I struck +him over the temple with all my force. He gave one convulsive spring +that threw me clear of him, and never stirred again. + +"I did not repent when it was done; I have never repented since; I do +not now. I only thought how best to escape the consequences. I took his +watch and purse, that brigands might be suspected, and threw them into +the river a mile off. I robbed him of one thing more--this!" All his +haggard face was transfigured with a ghastly triumph as he opened a +small leathern case that hung round his neck, and held up before us two +locks of hair. + +There they were--the love-gift and the death-spoil--the memorials of +defeat and of victory, of foiled affection and of gratified hate--the +one, beguiled from Isabel by Bruce himself, with many earnest pleadings, +in the early days of their engagement; the other, torn from her +husband's temples before they were cold. The long light brown tress was +scarcely more soft and satin-smooth than the chestnut curl; but one end +of the last was matted, and discolored by a dark rusty stain--the stain +that, the Greek poet said, all the rivers of earth flowing in one +channel could never wash away--the testimony, to our ears mute enough +now, but which, perhaps, will make itself heard above the Babel of all +other cries at the Day of Judgment. + +The two tokens were twined together lovingly, as if they were sensitive +and conscious still. Bruce plucked them asunder: "I never can keep them +apart," he said, querulously. Then he put them back into the case +separately, and began to mutter to himself many words that I could not +distinguish. + +"Have you any thing more to say?" Livingstone asked. His lips were rigid +and compressed like a steel-trap, opening and closing mechanically. As +he spoke, he snatched the leathern bag from Bruce's hand and threw it +into the blazing fire. + +A sharp howl, like a flogged hound's, broke from the sick man as he saw +his treasure shrivel up in the flame. Then he began to whimper out all +sorts of incoherent supplications, crying "that we did not know how much +he had suffered before he killed Forrester, and since too; that he had +been cruelly used from the beginning; that he was very, very ill now; +would not we let him die in peace?" The tears were streaming down his +face. It was a sight of abasement that sent a shiver through one's +veins. + +Guy laid his hand on the miserable creature's shoulder. Though he +scarcely touched it, I saw the great muscles starting out on his arm +like ropes from the intensity of his suppressed emotion; his lower lip +trembled, but his tones did not in the least. I can give no idea of +their pitiless, deliberate ferocity. + +"Listen!" he said. "I told you before to get up and come with us--that +is my answer now. If you have life enough left to be carried to the +gallows-foot, you shall never cheat the hangman." + +Bruce looked up into the speaker's face for some moments. Gradually the +agonized appeal in his wild eyes died away into vacancy; an expression, +half cunning, half amused, stole over his face; and, leaning gently +back, he began pulling threads out of the coverlet, laughing low. + +The blood gushed from Guy's clenched hand as he struck it furiously +against the stone mantel. + +"By ----," he said, with a fearful oath, "he has escaped me, after all." + +It was so. The mind, worn and strained by the terrors of the long +pursuit, perhaps by remorse not acknowledged even to himself; and by the +last great effort at self-control, had given way at last--forever. God +had recorded his verdict, and no earthly court could try the criminal +again. Bruce is living now (and I dare say will outlive most of us, for +his bodily health is perfect), vicious sometimes, but never conscious; +hard to please, but easy to manage, so long as his attendant is a man, +and a strong one; accessible only to the one emotion which drove him +mad--physical fear. + +Livingstone called the officers; they came in with Macbane. The old man +pretended to be very wroth when he saw his master's state, but I believe +he rejoiced secretly. The credit of the family, with him, outweighed all +considerations of personal attachment, and he would think public +disgrace cheaply averted at any price. + +On our poor detective, perhaps, the blow fell heaviest; for, after some +time, Guy did come round to my idea, that no punishment we could have +brought about would have been so ample and terrible; but Mr. Fitchett +could not see it in that light at all. Not only was the termination of +the affair dreadfully unprofessional, but the little triumph he had +anticipated at the trial was spoiled. If human weakness ever could touch +this great man, it was when he heard the judge pay a compliment to "the +sagacity and zeal of that most efficient officer." On such occasions, +his bow of conscious merit abnegating praise was, I am told, wonderful +to see. After a few words of explanation, he glanced wistfully at Bruce, +and shook his head, like a broken-hearted Lord Burleigh. Then he +unloosed the handcuffs from Macbane's wrists, whistling all the while +softly a popular air, lively in itself, with a cadence so plaintive that +it might have been a penitential psalm. No romantic school-girl opening +the cage to her pet starling ever displayed more hesitation and +reluctance than Mr. Fitchett setting that grim old bird free. + +In truth, there was no evidence to attach to the servant, so we left him +and his master together. I could not have stood that room much longer. +The ceaseless complacent chuckle of the idiot, and his fearful grimaces +when he could not make the threads match, had the effect on my chest of +a nightmare. Very slowly and silently we walked home through the +darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + "Be the day weary or never so long, + At length it ringeth to even song." + + +There is little to chronicle in the events of the next few years. +Livingstone resided almost entirely at Kerton. He rode as hard, and +distinguished himself in all other field-sports as much as ever. But +even in these, his favorite pursuits, he had lost the intense faculty of +enjoyment which once seemed a part of his powerful organization. + +Do you remember that scene in the Nekuia, where the Eidolon of Achilles +comes slowly through the twilight to meet his old brother in arms? Not +only are his form and features altered after so ghastly a fashion that +even the wanderer, wave-worn and travel-stained, looks brilliant by +comparison, but all his feelings are utterly and strangely changed. +Listen! He asks after the father from whom he parted when quite a child; +after the son, whom he never saw; but not one word of his fair +first-love--not one of her who was the passion of his manhood, whom he +bucklered once against ten thousand. He had rather hear of Peleus and +Neoptolemus than of Deidamia or Briseis. Of Polyxena, be sure that he +remembers nothing but that he was holding her hand when her brother slew +him. Will he ever forgive her that? Not if she could have made amends by +the sacrifice of ten lives instead of that one which she gave, +willingly, on Sigæum. Has ambition any hold on him either? Only to +breathe the fresh clear air above instead of that murky, heavy +atmosphere, he would resign the empire of the dead, and be a drudge to +the veriest boor. Yet once, if we remember right, he chafed fiercely +enough at a word of authority uttered by the King of Men. One of his old +tastes clings to him still--a very simple one. He has forgotten the +savor of Sciote and Chian wine; but--were it only for the sake of the +carouses they have had together--Odysseus will not grudge him another +draught out of the black trench. It is so long since be tasted blood! + +Guy was no more like his former self than the shadow was like the +substance of Pelides. He was not languid, but simply apathetic and +indifferent, so that one could not help being constantly struck by the +contrast between his moral and physical state: the latter was still the +perfection of muscular power. + +He was every thing that was kind to his mother, and to Isabel Forrester +too, who spent much of her time at Kerton, and whose health was very +delicate. If Lady Catharine could only have seen him more cheerful, she +would have been _too_ happy. It was her great delight to try and spoil +him, as she used to do when he was a child--trying to suit his tastes to +the minutest shade. For instance, Guy was always finding in his own +rooms some new ornament or addition to their comfort. Indifferent as he +was to every thing, it was good in him that he never failed to remark +these instantly. You would not have thought a cold, haughty face could +light up so brilliantly as his mother's always did when he thanked her. +Poor lady! Those last few years were her summer of St. Martin--not the +less pleasant because winter was gathering already on the crests of the +whitening hills. + +There were a good many guests in the house at times, almost invariably +men, but none of the wild revels of the old days, very little hard +drinking, and no play to speak of. + +One thing was remarkable--the great eagerness Guy displayed to keep the +party together at night. He would engage us in arguments, and employ all +sorts of ingenious devices to prevent us from going to bed, so that it +became very trying to a weak constitution. I observed this to him one +night when the rest had gone. + +The slight flush left by the excitement of conversation was vanishing +rapidly from his cheeks, and a gray tinge was creeping over them like +that which we see on a sick man very near his end. + +"It is too bad to keep you up, and too selfish," he said; "but I find +the nights so long!" + +I left him without another word; but I lay long awake, haunted by that +haggard face and dreary eyes. I wish I did not see them so often still +in my dreams. + +There were changes in other houses besides Kerton Manor, and a vacancy +in the most luxurious set of chambers in the Albany. + +Duns, and rheumatic gout, and satiety had proved too much at last for +the patience of Sir Henry Fallowfield; so one night he preached his +farewell sermon in the smoking-room of the ----, in which he was +especially severe and witty on the absurdity and bad taste of a man +condescending to suicide under any circumstances. The next morning they +found him with--"that across his throat that you had scarcely cared to +see." The hand whose tremor used to make him so savage when he was +lifting a glass to his lips, had been strong and steady enough when it +shattered the Golden Bowl and cut the Silver Cord asunder. + +Whether he was looking death in the face while he uttered those last +cynicisms, and calculated on heightening the stage effect of the morrow, +or whether a paroxysm of pain drove him mad, as it had done better men, +who can tell? I think and hope the latter was the case, but--I doubt. +Though Sir Henry Fallowfield had never read Aristotle, he had studied, +all his life, the principles of the peripeteia. + +Godfrey Parndon no longer ruled over the Pytchley. He had backed his own +opinions and other men's bills once or twice too often, and had retired +temporarily into private life till he could get "his second wind." The +new M.F.H. was his complete contrast--pale-faced, low-voiced, mild-eyed, +and melancholy as a lotus-eater--one of the class of "weak-minded but +gentlemanly young men" that Tom Cradock used to ask his friends to +recommend to him as pupils. The farmers missed sadly Godfrey's bluff +face and stalwart figure at the cover-side, while the "bruisers" from +Leamington, and the "railers" from town, hearing no longer his great +voice, good-naturedly imperative, adjuring them to "hold hard, and not +to spoil their own sport," rode over the hounds rejoicing. + +Flora Bellasys was married. + +It was just the match I thought she would make. Sir Marmaduke +Dorrillon's possessions were vast enough to satisfy any ambition, and +his years put love out of the question. + +His friends had been as prophetic in their warnings as January's were, +but even, they never guessed what he would have to endure at the hands +of that cruel May. He tried very hard not to be jealous, but he could +not help being sensitive; and so, day by day, she inflicted on him the +_peine forte et dure_, "laying on him as much as he could bear, and +more." It was sad to see how the kind old man withered and pined away; +yet he never complained, and quarreled mortally with his best friend for +daring to compassionate him. + +He was so courteous, and gentle, and chivalrous; so conscious of his own +disadvantage in age; so generous in trusting her, and in hoping against +hope; so considerate in anticipating all her wishes and whims, that it +might have moved even Flora to pity. But her great disappointment had +strangely altered and imbittered her character. She was _quite_ +merciless now, and never seemed really amused unless she was doing harm +to some one. + +It was not that her manner had become harsh or repellent, or even more +sarcastic; she wag to the full as fascinating as ever; but she was cool +and calculating in her caprices. She took pains to make the momentary +pleasure as exquisite as possible, that the after suffering might be +more terrible; just like that ingenious Borderer who fed his enemy with +all pungent and highly-seasoned dishes, and then left him to die of +thirst. + +Yet all the while her own feelings must have been scarcely enviable. +They say that great enchantresses, from Medea and Circe downward, have +generally been unhappy in their loves. Either they could not raise the +spirit, or it proved unmanageable; either their affection was not +returned, or its object was unfaithful at last. In the single case where +they put their science and their philtres aside, and were womanly, and +natural, and sincere; where, to gain or to keep their treasure, they +would gladly have broken their wand, they failed utterly, and found they +were only half omnipotent. The justice was retributive, but it was very +complete. Be sure, with those passionate natures, the honey of a +thousand triumphs never deadened the sting of the one discomfiture. +Suitors flocking from every shore and island of the Ægean never made +Sappho forget, for one hour, that stubborn impassible Phaon. No wonder +such are cruel and unjust to their subjects in after days. Poor innocent +Ægeus very often has to do penance for the infidelity of Jason. + +I have little more to tell, and that is of the sort that is best told +briefly. + +The hounds met one morning not far from Kerton. A three-days' frost had +broken up; but it was not out of the ground yet, making the "take-off" +slippery, and the north side of the fences dangerously hard. Livingstone +rode the Axeine that day. The chestnut was still his favorite, and the +crack hunter of three counties, though he had never lost his habit of +pulling. + +It was a large, straggling cover that we drew, but the fox went away +very soon. From the lower end of the wood a great pasture sloped down, +at the bottom of which was a flight of post-and-rails--very high, new, +and strong, with a deep cutting on the farther side. At one end of this +was an open gate, through which the whole field passed. + +The hounds were just settling to the scent, when I happened to turn my +head, and saw Livingstone coming down at the rails. He had got a bad +start, and saw that, by taking them straight in his line, he would gain +greatly on the pack, which was turning toward him. + +As the Axeine tore down the hill at furious speed, pulling double, it +was evident that neither he nor his rider had the remotest idea of +refusing. + +It was the last fence that either of them ever charged. As the chestnut +rose to the leap, his hind legs slipped; he chested the rail, which +would not break, and turned quite over, crushing Guy beneath him. + +I had seen the latter fall a hundred times without feeling the +presentiment that seemed to _tighten_ round my heart as I galloped up to +the spot. Many others must have felt the same, for they let the hounds +go away without another glance, and some were before me there. + +The Axeine lay stone dead, with his neck broken, the huge carcass +pressing on the legs of his rider. Guy was quite senseless; his face of +a dull, ghastly white; there was a deep cut on his forehead; but we all +felt we did not see the worst. With great trouble we drew him from under +the dead horse. Still we could discover no broken bones or further +external injury. We dashed water over him. In a few minutes he opened +his eyes, and seemed to recognize every one directly, for he looked up +into the frightened face of the first whip, who was supporting him, and +said, + +"You always told me I went too fast at timber, Jack." + +I was sure, then, he was desperately injured, his voice was so weak and +changed. + +"Where are you hurt, Guy?" some one asked. I could not speak myself. + +"I don't know," he said, looking down in a strange, bewildered way. "My +head and arm pain me; but I feel nothing _below the waist_." + +His lower limbs were not much twisted or distorted, but they bore a +horribly inert, dead appearance. There was not even a muscular quiver in +them. + +I saw the Squire of Brainswick turn his head away with a shudder and a +groan (he loved Guy as his own son), and I heard him mutter, "The +_spine_!" + +It was so, and Livingstone soon knew it himself. He sighed once, +drearily; but not a man there could have commanded his voice as he did +when he said, + +"You must carry me home, heavy as I am. My walking days are ended." + +We made the best litter we could of poles and branches; and I remember, +as we bore him past the carcass of the Axeine, he made us stop for an +instant, and dropping his hand on the stiff, distorted neck, stroked it +softly, + +"Good-by, old horse," he said. "It was no fault of yours. How well you +always carried me!" He never spoke again till we reached Kerton Manor. + +Isabel Forrester was fortunately out, but Lady Catharine met us on the +hall steps. She did not shriek or faint when she saw the horror, which +had haunted her for years, fulfilled there to the uttermost. She knelt +by her son when we laid him down, and wiped off a spot or two of blood +from his forehead, and then kept his hand in hers, kissing it often. We +had sent on before to warn the village doctor, and he visited Guy alone +in his room. + +Powell had been a surgeon's mate in his youth, and was serving under +Collingwood at Trafalgar when his ship stood first into action, and, +like a sovereign of the old days, led the van of the battle. There was +no shape of shattered and maimed humanity with which he had not been +familiar, and my last hope died away when I saw him come forth, +trembling all over, his rugged features convulsed with grief. + +"I saw him born," the old man sobbed out. "I never thought to see him +die--and die _so_!" + +Guy had received a mortal injury in the spine, though how long he might +linger none could tell. + +There broke from Lady Catharine's white lips one terrible heart-broken +cry--"If God would only take me first!" Then her self-control returned, +and she went into her son's room, outwardly quite calm. + +I have never tried to fancy what passed at the meeting of those two +strong hearts, after the one had been brought suddenly, face to face, +with an awful death, the other with a yet more awful sorrow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + "Ah! Sir Launcelot, there thou liest, that never wert matched of + earthly hands. Thou wert the fairest person, and the goodliest of + any that rode in the press of knights; thou wert the truest to thy + sworn brother of any that buckled on the spur; and thou wert the + faithfullest of any that have loved _paramours_: most courteous + wert thou, and gentle of all that sat in hall among dames; and thou + wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever laid spear in + the rest." + + +When Powell's self-command gave way so completely after he saw the +nature of Guy's case, it was not because he knew it must end fatally, +but because his skill told him what fearful agonies must precede the +release. All the surgeons who were called in could do nothing but +confirm these forebodings. The colossal strength and vital energy of +Livingstone's frame and constitution yielded but slowly to a blow which +would have crushed a weaker man instantly. All the outworks were ruined +and carried, but Death had still to fight hard before he won the +citadel. I can not go through the details; I will only say that, +sometimes, none of us could endure to look upon sufferings which never +drew a complaint or a moan from him. + +Almost every pleasure has been discussed and dissected, but we know +comparatively nothing of the physiology of pain. There is no standard by +which to measure it, even if the courage and endurance of any mortal man +could enable him to analyze his own tortures philosophically. Was it not +always supposed that the guillotine is merciful, because quick in +annihilation? Look at Wiertz's pictures at Brussels. If his idea (shared +too, now, by many clever surgeons) be true, you will see the amount of a +long life's suffering exceeded by what seems to us a minute's agony. But +it is like the Eastern king's gaining the experience of fifty years by +dipping his head for a second in the magic water. For a soul in torment +there is no horologe. + +Of one thing be sure; the strong temperaments who enjoy greatly, suffer +greatly too--those who endure in silence, most of all. I think the +wolf's death-pang is sharper than the hare's. + +But Guy was not only patient, he was actually more cheerful than I had +seen him since Constance died. He liked to see his old friends, and to +hear accounts of their sport with hound and gun. To do these justice, +there was not one who would not give up, gladly, the best meet of the +Pytchley, or the shooting of the best cover in the county, to sit for +half a day in that sick-room. He talked, too, always pleasantly and +kindly to his mother and his cousin. + +Poor Isabel Forrester was quite broken down by this second blow. Next to +her dead husband, I believe, she loved Guy better than any one; not +unnaturally, for he had petted and protected her all her life long. She +could not help giving way, though she tried hard, for the sake of +others. It was piteous to see her, sitting alone for hours, gazing out +on the bleak winter landscape, while the tears welled slowly from under +her heavy eyelids. + +Foster, who was still at Kerton, came often to visit Livingstone. No +one could do him so much good. The curate was just as confident and +uncompromising in the discharge of his office as he was yielding and +diffident when only himself was in question. He was so honest, and +straightforward, and true--so free from rant or cant--so strong in his +simple theology, that Guy soon trusted him implicitly when he spoke of +the past and of the future that was so near. The repentance that was +begun by Constance's dying bed was completed, I am sure, on his own. + +"Frank," Guy said, one morning, suddenly, "I have written to ask Cyril +Brandon to come to me. He will be here to-day. It would make me very +happy if I could hear him say he forgave me." + +"Do you think you will succeed?" I asked, sadly; for I felt a nervous +certainty that the pain the interview must cost him would be unavailing. + +"I can not tell," he answered, firmly; "but Foster says, and I know, +that it is my duty to try. You may be present, if you like, on one +condition--you must promise, whatever he may say or do, not to interfere +by a look or a word." + +I did promise; but I looked forward with dread to Brandon's coming. In +an hour's time he was announced. + +It was the first time I had seen him; and I was much struck by the +mingled expression of suffering and ferocity that sat, like a mask, on +his worn dark face. I have seen its like but once--in a dangerous +maniac's. He walked straight up to Guy's couch without noticing me, and +stood there silent, glaring down on the sick man with his fiery black +eyes. + +"It is very good of you to come," Guy said; "I scarcely hoped you +would. I have wronged you, more deeply than any living man--so deeply +that I could never have dared to ask your forgiveness if I had not been +very near my death. Can you give me your hand? Indeed, indeed, I have +repented sorely." + +Brandon's hoarse tones broke in: + +"I came, because, years ago, to see this sight, to see you lying there +like a crushed worm, I would have sold my soul. Wronged me? Shall I tell +you what you have done? There was only one creature on earth I cared +for; that was my sister. All those years in India I had been fancying +our meeting. I came back, and found her dying; more than that, I found +her love turned away from me. You did _all_ this. I tell you, I never +could get one of her old fond looks or words from her all the time she +was dying. She was only afraid of me. By hell! you stood between us to +the last. Do you know that she dragged herself across the room at my +knees--mine, who never refused to indulge her in a whim before--first to +be allowed to see you, and then to make me swear not to attempt your +life?" + +He stopped, gnashing his teeth. + +All Guy's features, wan and worn by pain, were lighted up with a +tenderness and joy inexpressible as he heard what his dead love had +borne and done for him. He would have hidden his face had he guessed how +its expression would exasperate Cyril's furious temper. + +"D--n you!" he howled out, like a madman, "do you dare to triumph?" and, +tearing off his glove, he struck Livingstone on the cheek with it a +sharp blow. + +A great shudder swept through every fibre of the maimed giant's frame, +in which sensation lingered still; the blood surged up to his forehead +and ebbed again instantly, leaving even the lips deathly white; he +raised his hand quickly, but it was only to warn me back; for, mild and +peaceable as I am, I leaped up then, as savage as Cain. With that hand +he caught Brandon's wrist. The latter stood with his eyes cast down, +sullenly--already, I am sure, horror at the act of foul cowardice into +which his passion had driven him was creeping over him--he did not try +to disengage himself. Had he done so, thrice his strength would not have +set him free. + +"I thank God, from my heart," Guy said, very slowly and steadily, "that, +if I meet your sister hereafter, I shall not shrink before her, for I +believe all I promised her has been kept. Listen! you would feel shame +to your life's end thinking that you had struck a helpless, dying +cripple. It is not so. You don't know what you risked. You were within +arm's-length, and at close quarters I could be dangerous still. Look." + +He took up a small silver cup that lay near, and crushed it flat between +his fingers. + +There was silence then; only Brandon's breath was heard, drawn hard and +irregularly, as if he was trying to throw off a weight from his chest. + +Guy looked up at him, and said very gently, holding out his hand, "Once +more, forgive me." + +Cyril answered in a thick, smothered voice, + +"I will not take your hand. I will never forgive you. But I forgive +Constance; for--I understand her now." + +He turned on his heel, and left the room without another word, still +with his head bent down, as if in thought. I gazed after him till the +door shut softly. Then I looked round at Guy. His head had fallen back, +and the features looked so drawn and changed that I cried out, thinking +he was dead. It was only a long, long swoon. + +Just another scene, and my tale is told. + +I was reading in Guy's room one evening. He had not spoken for some +time, and I fancied he was asleep. Suddenly he called to me, + +"Frank, come here--nearer. I have several things to say to you, and I +feel I must make haste. No, don't call any one. I said farewell to my +mother yesterday, and we must spare her all we can." + +In the presence of that sublime self-command, I _dared_ not betray my +grief by any outward sign. I knelt down by his side silently. + +He went on in a voice that, though hollow and often interrupted by +failing breath, was perfectly measured and steady. + +"You can only be glad that the end has come at last, though it is well I +have had time to prepare myself. Am I ready now? I can not tell. Foster +says I ought to hope. I trust it is not wicked to say I do not _fear_. I +have sinned often and deeply; but He who will judge me created me, and +He knows, too, how much I have suffered. I do not mean from _this_ (he +threw his hand toward his crippled limbs with the old gesture of +disdain), but from bitterness and loneliness of heart. More than all, I +am sure my darling has been pleading for me ever since she died. I will +not believe her prayers have been wasted. + +"I want to tell you what I have done. You know the direct line of my +family ends with me. I am glad it does. The next in succession would be +a cousin, who has taken to some trade in Edinburgh; a good man, I +believe--but he would not do here. So I have left Kerton to my mother +for her life, and then--to you. Hush! the time is too short for +objections or thanks, and death-bed gifts show little generosity. +Besides, I would have left it to Isabel, only it would be more a trouble +to her than any thing else. You will take care of every thing and every +body. Say farewell for me to my old friends, especially to Mohun. Poor +Ralph! he will be sorry--though he will not own it--when he comes back +from Bohemia and finds me gone." + +He raised himself a little, so as to rest his hand on my shoulder as I +knelt, while his voice deepened in its solemn calm: + +"Dear Frank, one other word for yourself, who have borne so patiently +with my perverse temper since we were boys together. I have been silent, +but, indeed, not ungrateful. For all your kind, unselfish thoughts, and +words, and deeds--for all the good you would have counseled--for all +your efforts to stand between me and wrong-doing--tried friend, true +comrade! I thank you now, heartily, and I pray God to bless you always." + +It was only self-control, almost superhuman, that enabled him to speak +those words steadily, for the fierce death-throe was possessing him +before he ended. Through the awful minutes that followed, not another +sound than the hissing breath escaped through his set lips; his face was +not once distorted, though the hair and beard clung round it, matted and +dank with the sweat of agony. The brave heart and iron nerve ruled the +body to the last imperially--supreme over the intensity of torture. + +When he opened his eyes, which had been closed all through the +protracted death-pang, there was a look of the ancient kindness in them, +though they were glazing fast. He found my hand, and grasped it, till I +felt the life ebbing back in his fingers. I saw his lips syllable +"Good-by;" then, he leaned his head back gently, and, without a sigh or +a shiver, the strong man's spirit went forth into The Night. + +A sense of utter desolation, as it were a horror of great darkness, +gathered all around me as I leaned my forehead against the corpse's +cheek, sobbing like a helpless child. + +You will not care to hear how we all mourned him. + +Will you care to hear that, often as his mother visits his grave, there +is _one_ woman who comes oftener still? + +None of us have ever met her, for she comes always at late night or +early morning. But finding, in the depth of winter or in the bleak +spring, the ground about strewed with the choicest of exotic +flowers--not carefully arranged, but showered down by a reckless, +desperate hand--we know that Flora Dorrillon has been there. + +Do not laugh at her too much for clinging to the one romance of her +artificial existence. Remember, while he lived, there was nothing so +rare and precious--ay, even to the sacrifice of her own body and +soul--that she would not have laid ungrudgingly at Guy Livingstone's +feet. + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Guy Livingstone;, by George A. 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LAWRENCE. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem div {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem div.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem div.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em;} + .poem div.i9 {display: block; margin-left: 9em;} + .poem div.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em;} + .poem div.i12 {display: block; margin-left: 12em;} + .poem div.i14 {display: block; margin-left: 14em;} + + + + /* index */ + + div.index ul li { padding-top: 1em ;text-align: center; } + + div.index ul ul ul, div.index ul li ul li { padding: 0; text-align: left; } + + div.index ul { list-style: none; margin: 0; } + + div.index ul, div.index ul ul ul li { display: inline; } + + div.index .subitem { display: block; padding-left: 2em; } + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Guy Livingstone;, by George A. Lawrence + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Guy Livingstone; + or, 'Thorough' + +Author: George A. Lawrence + +Release Date: November 17, 2005 [EBook #17084] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GUY LIVINGSTONE; *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p><i>Transcriber's note: Greek transliterations added.</i></p> + +<h1>GUY LIVINGSTONE;</h1> + +<h3>OR,</h3> + +<h2>"THOROUGH."</h2> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>GEORGE A. LAWRENCE.</h2> + +<h3>ICH HABE GELEBT UND GELIEBT.</h3> + + +<h3>NEW YORK:<br /> +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,<br /> +FRANKLIN SQUARE.<br /> +1868.</h3> + +<hr /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class="index"> +<ul> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI.</a></li> + +</ul> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'> +<div class='i8'>"Neque imbellem feroces</div> +<div class='i8'>Progenerant aquilæ columbam."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>It is not a pleasant epoch in one's life, the first forty-eight hours at +a large public school. I have known strong-minded men of mature age +confess that they never thought of it without a shiver. I don't count +the home-sickness, which perhaps only affects seriously the most +innocent of <i>débutants</i>, but there are other thousand and one little +annoyances which make up a great trouble. If there were nothing else, +for instance, the unceasing query, "What's your name?" makes you feel +the possession of a cognomen at all a serious burden and bar to +advancement in life.</p> + +<p>A dull afternoon toward the end of October; the sky a neutral tint of +ashy gray; a bitter northeast wind tearing down the yellow leaves from +the old elms that girdle the school-close of ——; a foul, clinging +paste of mud and trampled grass-blades under foot, that chilled you to +the marrow; a mob of two hundred lower boys, vicious with cold and the +enforcement of keeping goal through the first football match of the +season—in the midst, I, who speak to you, feeling myself in an +eminently false position—there's the <i>mise en scène</i>.</p> + +<p>My small persecutors had surrounded me, but had hardly time to settle +well to their work, when one of the players came by, and stopped for an +instant to see what was going on. The match had not yet begun.</p> + +<p>There was nothing which interested him much apparently, for he was +passing on, when my despondent answer to the everlasting question caught +his ear. He turned round then—</p> + +<p>"Any relation to Hammond of Holt?"</p> + +<p>I replied, meekly but rather more cheerfully, that he was my uncle.</p> + +<p>"I know him very well," the new-comer said. "Don't bully him more than +you can help, you fellows; I'll wait for you after calling over, +Hammond. I should like to ask you about the squire."</p> + +<p>He had no time to say more, for just then the ball was kicked off, and +the battle began. I saw him afterward often during that afternoon, +always in the front of the rush or the thick of the scrimmage, and I +saw, too, more than one player limp out of his path disconsolately, +trying vainly to dissemble the pain of a vicious "hack."</p> + +<p>I'll try to sketch Guy Livingstone as he appeared to me then, at our +first meeting.</p> + +<p>He was about fifteen, but looked fully a year older, not only from his +height, but from a disproportionate length of limb and development of +muscle, which ripened later into the rarest union of activity and +strength that I have ever known. His features were very dark and pale, +too strongly marked to be called handsome; about the lips and lower jaw +especially there was a set sternness that one seldom sees before the +beard is grown. The eyes were very dark gray, nearly black, and so +deeply set under the thick eyebrows that they looked smaller than they +really were; and I remember, even at that early age, their expression, +when angered, was any thing but pleasant to meet. His dress was well +adapted for displaying his deep square chest and sinewy arms—a +close-fitting jersey, and white trowsers girt by a broad black belt; the +cap, orange velvet, fronted with a silver Maltese cross.</p> + +<p>The few words he had spoken worked an immediate change in my favor. I +heard one of my tormentors say, not without awe, "The Count knows his +people at home;" and they not only left me in peace, but, a little +later, some of them began to tell me of a recent exploit of Guy's, which +had raised him high in their simple hero-worship, and which, I dare say, +is still enumerated among the feats of the brave days of old by the fags +over their evening small-beer.</p> + +<p>To appreciate it, you must understand that the highest form in the +school—the sixth—were regarded by the fags and other subordinate +classes with an inexpressible reverence and terror. They were considered +as exempt from the common frailties of schoolboy nature: no one ventured +to fix a limit to their power. Like the gods of the Lotus-eater, they +lay beside their nectar, rarely communing with ordinary mortals except +to give an order or set a punishment. On the form immediately below them +part of their glory was reflected; these were a sort of ἡμίθεοι + [hêmitheoi], +awaiting their translation into the higher Olympus of +perfected omnipotence.</p> + +<p>In this intermediate state flourished, at the time I speak of, one +Joseph Baines, a fat, small-eyed youth, with immense pendent pallid +cheeks, rejoicing in the <i>sobriquet</i> of "Buttons," his father being +eminent in that line in the Midland Metropolis. The son was Brummagem to +the back-bone. He was intensely stupid; but, having been a fixture at +---- beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant, he had slowly +gravitated on into his present position, on the old Ring principle, +"weight must tell." I believe he had been bullied continuously for many +years, and now, with a dull, pertinacious malignity, was biding his +time, intending, on his accession to power, to inflict full reprisals on +those below him; or, in his own expressive language, "to take it out of +'em, like smoke." He was keeping his hand in by the perpetration of +small tyrannies on all whom he was not afraid to meddle with; but +hitherto, from a lingering suspicion, perhaps, that it was not quite +safe, he had never annoyed Livingstone.</p> + +<p>It was on a Saturday night, the hebdomadal Saturnalia, when the week's +work was over, and no one had any thing to do; the heart of Joseph was +jocund with pork chops and mulled beer, and, his evil genius tempting +him, he proposed to three of his intimates "to go and give the Count a +turn." Nearly every one had a nickname, and this had been given to Guy, +partly, I think, from his haughty demeanor, partly from a prevalent idea +that this German dignity was dormant somewhere in his family. When the +<i>quartette</i> entered, Guy knew perfectly what they came for, but he sat +quite still and silent, while two of them held him down by the arms in +his chair.</p> + +<p>"I think you'd look very well with a cross on, Count," Baines said, "so +keep steady while we decorate you."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he was mixing up a paste with tallow and candle-snuff, and, +when it was ready, came near to daub the cross on Livingstone's +forehead.</p> + +<p>The two who held him had been quite deceived by his unexpected +tranquillity, and had somewhat relaxed their gripe as they leaned +forward to witness the operation; but the fourth, standing idle, saw all +at once the pupils of his eyes contract, and his lips set so ominously, +that the words were in his mouth, "Hold him fast!" when Guy, exerting +the full force of his arms, shook himself clear, and grasping a +brass-candlestick within his reach, struck the executioner straight +between the eyes. The effort of freeing himself to some extent broke the +force of the blow, or the great Baines dynasty might have ended there +and then; as it was, Buttons fell like a log, and, rolling once over on +his face, lay there bleeding and motionless.</p> + +<p>While the assistants were too much astounded to detain him, Guy walked +out without a glance at his prostrate enemy; and going straight to the +head of the house, told him what had happened. The character of the +aggressor was so well known, that, when they found he was not seriously +hurt, they let Guy off easy with "two books of the <i>Iliad</i> to write out +in Greek." Buttons kept the sick-room for ten days, and came out looking +more pasty than ever, with his pleasant propensities decidedly checked +for the time.</p> + +<p>In his parish church at Birmingham, two tons of marble weighing him +down, the old button-maker sleeps with his father (to pluralize his +ancestors would be a grave historical error), and Joseph II. reigns in +his stead, exercising, I doubt not, over his factory-people the same +ingenuity of torture which in old times nearly drove the fags to +rebellion. He is a Demosthenes, they say, at vestries, and a Draco at +the Board of Guardians; but in the centre of his broad face, marring the +platitude of its smooth-shaven respectability, still burns angrily a +dark red scar—Guy's sign-manual—which he will carry to his grave.</p> + +<p>The exultation of the lower school over this exploit was boundless. +Fifty energetic admirers contended for the honor of writing out the +punishment inflicted on the avenger; and one sentimentalist, just in +Herodotus, preserved the fatal candlestick as an inestimable relic, +wreathing its stem with laurel and myrtle, in imitation of the honors +paid by Athens to the sword that slew the Pisistratid.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"My only books</div> +<div class='i8'>Were woman's looks,</div> +<div class='i9'>And folly all they taught me."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>The Count bore his honors very calmly, though every week some fresh feat +of bodily strength or daring kept adding to his popularity. It was no +slight temptation to his vanity; for, as some one has said truly, no +successful adventurer in after-life ever wins such undivided admiration +and hearty partisans as a school hero. The <i>prestige</i> of the liberator +among the Irish peasantry comes nearest to it, I think; or the feeling +of a clan, a hundred years ago, toward their chief. It must be very +pleasant to be quoted so incessantly and believed in so implicitly, and +to know that your decisions are so absolutely without appeal. From that +first day when he interfered in my favor, Guy never ceased to accord me +the ægis of his protection, and it served me well; for, then as now, I +was strong neither in body nor nerve. Yet our tastes, save in one +respect, were as dissimilar as can be imagined. The solitary conformity +was, that we were both, in a desultory way, fond of reading, and our +favorite books were the same. Neither would do more school-work than was +absolutely necessary, but at light literature of a certain class we read +hard.</p> + +<p>I don't think Guy's was what is usually called a poetical temperament, +for his taste in this line was quite one-sided. He was no admirer of +the picturesque, certainly. I have heard him say that his idea of a +country to live in was where there was no hill steep enough to wind a +horse in good condition, and no wood that hounds could not run through +in fifteen minutes; therein following the fancy of that eminent French +philosopher, who, being invited to climb Ben Lomond to enjoy the most +magnificent of views, responded meekly, "<i>Aimez-vous les beautés de la +Nature? Pour moi, je les abhorre</i>." Can you not fancy the strident +emphasis on the last syllable, revealing how often the poor materialist +had been victimized before he made a stand at last?</p> + +<p>All through Livingstone's life the real was to predominate over the +ideal; and so it was at this period of it. He had a great dislike to +purely sentimental or descriptive poetry, preferring to all others those +battle-ballads, like the <i>Lays of Rome</i>, which stir the blood like a +trumpet, or those love-songs which heat it like rough strong wine.</p> + +<p>He was very fond of Homer, too. He liked the diapason of those sonorous +hexameters, that roll on, sinking and swelling with the ebb and flow of +a stormy sea. I hear his voice—deep-toned and powerful even at that +early age—finishing the story of Poseidon and his beautiful +prize—their bridal-bed laid in the hollow of a curling wave—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div><i>"Πορφύρεον δ᾽ ἄρα κῦμα περιστάθη, οὔρεϊ ἶσον,</i></div> +<div><i>Κυρτωθὲν, κρύψεν δὲ Θεὸν θνητήν τε γυναῖκα.</i></div></div> +</div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div><i>"Porphureon d' ara kuma peristathê, oureï ison,</i></div> +<div><i>Kurtôthen, krupsen de Theon thnêtên te gunaika.</i></div></div> +</div> + +<p>And yet they say that the glorious old Sciote was a myth, and the +Odyssey a magazine worked out by clever contributors. They might as well +assert that all his marshals would have made up one Napoleon.</p> + +<p>I remember how we used to pass in review the beauties of old time, for +whom "many drew swords and died," whose charms convulsed kingdoms and +ruined cities, who called the stars after their own names.</p> + +<p>Ah! Gyneth and Ida, peerless queens of beauty, it was exciting, +doubtless, to gaze down from your velveted gallery on the mad tilting +below, to see ever and anon through the yellow dust a kind, handsome +face looking up at you, pale but scarcely reproachful, just before the +horse-hoofs trod it down; ah! fairest Ninons and Dianas—prizes that, +like the Whip at Newmarket, were always to be challenged for—you were +proud when your reckless lover came to woo, with the blood of last +night's favorite not dry on his blade; but what were your fatal honors +compared to those of a reigning toast in the rough, ancient days? The +demigods and heroes that were suitors did not stand upon trifles, and +the contest often ended in the extermination of all the lady's male +relatives to the third and fourth generation. People then took it quite +as a matter of course—rather a credit to the family than otherwise.</p> + +<p>Guy and I discussed, often and gravely, the relative merits of Evadne +the violet-haired, Helen, Cleopatra, and a hundred others, just as, on +the steps of White's, or in the smoking-room at the "Rag," men compare +the points of the <i>débutantes</i> of the season.</p> + +<p>His knowledge of feminine psychology—it <i>must</i> have been theoretical, +for he was not seventeen—implied a study and depth of research that was +quite surprising; but I am bound to state that his estimate of the +strength of character and principle inherent in the weaker sex was any +thing but high; nearly, indeed, identical with that formed by the +learned lady who, to the question, "Did she think the virtue of any +single one of her sisterhood impregnable?" replied "<i>C'est selon</i>." He +often used to astonish my weak mind by his observations on this head. I +did not know till afterward that Sir Henry Fallowfield, the Bassompierre +of his day, came for the Christmas pheasant-shooting every year into +Guy's neighborhood, and that he had already imbibed lessons of +questionable morality, sitting at the gouty feet of that evil Gamaliel.</p> + +<p>He spoke of and to women of every class readily whenever he got the +chance, always with perfect <i>aplomb</i> and self-possession; and I have +heard older men remark since, that in him it did not appear the +precocity of "the rising generation," but rather the confidence of one +who knew his subject well. Perhaps the fact of his father having died +when he was an infant, and his having always been suzerain among his +women at home, may have had something to do with this. An absurd +instance of what I have been saying happened just before Guy left.</p> + +<p>By time-honored custom, four or five of the Sixth were invited every +week to dine with the head master. They were not, strictly speaking, +convivial, those solemn banquets; where the host was condescendingly +affable, and his guests cheerful, as it were, under protest; resembling +somewhat the entertainments in the captain's cabin, where the chief is +unpopular.</p> + +<p>Our Archididascalus was a kind-hearted, honest man, albeit, by virtue +of his office, somewhat strict and stern. You could read the +<i>Categories</i> in the wrinkles of his colorless face, and contested +passages of Thucydides in the crows'-feet round his eyes. The +everlasting grind at the educational tread-mill had worn away all he +might once have had of imagination; he translated with precisely the +same intonations the Tusculan <i>Disputations</i> and—<i>"Ἔρως ἀνίκατε μάχαν. [Erôs anikate machan.]</i></p> + +<p>He had lately taken to himself a wife, his junior by a score of years. +The academic atmosphere had not had time then to freeze her into the +dignity befitting her position; when I met her ten years later, she was +steady and staid enough, poor thing, to have been the wife of Grotius.</p> + +<p>Guy sat next to her that evening, and before the first course was over a +decided flirtation was established. The pretty hostess, albeit wife of a +doctor and daughter of a dean, had evidently a strong coquettish element +in her composition, and a very slight spark was sufficient to relight +the <i>veteris vestigia flammæ.</i></p> + +<p>For some time her husband did not seem to realize the position; but +gradually his sentences grew rare and curt; he opened his mouth, no +longer to let fall the pearls of his wisdom, but to stop it with savory +meat; finally this last resource failed, and he sat, looking wrathfully +but helplessly on the proceedings at the other end of the table—a +lamentable instance of prostrated ecclesiastical dignity. His disgust, +however, was far exceeded by the horror of one of the party, a meek, +cadaverous-looking boy, whose parents lived in the town, and who was +wont to regard the head master as the vicegerent of all powers, civil +and sacerdotal—I am not sure he did not include military as well. I +caught him looking several times at the door and the ceiling with a +pale, guilty face, as if he expected some immediate visitation to punish +the sacrilege. However, heaven, which did not interrupt the feast of +Atreus or of Tereus (till the dessert), allowed us to finish our dinner +in peace. During the interval when we sat alone over his claret, our +host revived a little; but utterly relapsed in the drawing-room, where +things went on worse than ever. Guy leaned over the fair Penelope (such +was her classical and not inappropriate name) while she was singing, and +over her sofa afterward, evidently considering himself her legitimate +proprietor for the time, and regarding the husband, as he hovered round +them, in the light of an unauthorized intruder. The latter would have +given any thing, once or twice, to have interfered, I am sure; but, +apart from, the extreme ridicule of the thing, he was in his own house, +and as hospitable as Saladin.</p> + +<p>It was a great scene, when, at parting, she gave Guy the camellia that +she wore at her breast; the doctor gasped thrice convulsively and said +no word; but I wonder how she accounted afterward for the smile and +blush which answered some whispered thanks? There are certain limits +that even the historian dares not transgress; a veil falls between the +profane and the thalamus of an LL.D.; but I rather imagine she had a +hard time of it that night, the poor little woman! Let us hope, in +charity, that she held her own.</p> + +<p>When the Count was questioned as to the conversation that had passed, +he declined to give any particulars, merely remarking that "he had to +thank Dr. —— for for a very pleasant evening, and he hoped everyone +had enjoyed themselves very much"—which was philanthropic, to say the +least of it.</p> + +<p>I don't know if it was our imagination, but we fancied that when the +head master called up Livingstone in form after this, he did so with an +air of grave defiance, such as a duelist of the Old Régime may have worn +when, doffing his plumed hat, he said to his adversary, "<i>En garde!</i>"</p> + +<p>There was little time to make observations, for shortly afterward Guy +went up to Oxford, whither, six months later, I followed him.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"Through many an hour of summer suns,</div> +<div class='i10'>By many pleasant ways,</div> +<div class='i8'>Like Hezekiah's, backward runs</div> +<div class='i10'>The shadow of my days."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>When I came up, I found Guy quite established and at home. He was a +general favorite with all the men he knew at college, though intimate +with but very few. There was but one individual who hated him +thoroughly, and I think the feeling was mutual—the senior tutor, a +flaccid being, with a hand that felt like a fish two days out of water, +a large nose, and a perpetual cold in his head. He consistently and +impartially disbelieved every one on their word, requiring material +proof of each assertion; an original mode of acquiring the confidence of +his pupils, and precluding any thing like an attempt at deception on +their part. I remember well a discussion on his merits that took place +in the porter's lodge one night just after twelve. When several had +given their opinions more or less strongly, some one asked the gate-ward +what he thought of the individual in question, to which that eminent +functionary thus replied: "Why, you see, sir, I'm only a servant, and, +as such, can't speak freely, but I wish he was dead, I do."</p> + +<p>As I have said, Livingstone disliked Selkirk heartily, and did not take +the trouble to conceal it. He used to look at him sometimes with a +curious expression in his eyes, which made the tutor twirl and writhe +uncomfortably in his chair. The latter annoyed him as much as he +possibly could, but Guy held on the even tenor of his way, seldom +contravening the statutes except in hunting three days a week, which he +persisted in doing, all lectures and regulations notwithstanding. He +rode little under fourteen stone even then; but the three horses he kept +were well up to his weight, and he stood A 1 in Jem Hill's estimation as +"the best heavy-weight that had come out of Oxford for many a day;" for +he not only went straight as a die, but rode <i>to</i> hounds instead of +<i>over</i> them. I suppose this latter practice is inherent in University +sportsmen. I know, in my time, the way in which they pressed on hounds, +for the first two fields out of cover or after a check, used to make the +gray hairs, which were the brave old huntsman's crown of glory, stand on +end with indignation and terror, so that he prayed devoutly for a big +fence which, like the broken bridge at Leipsic, might prove a stopper to +the pursuing army. There was the making of a good rider in many of them, +too; they only wanted ballast, for they knew no more of fear than Nelson +did, and would grind over the Vale of the Evenlode and the Marsh Gibbon +double timber as gayly and undauntedly as over the accommodating +Bullingdon hurdles. And what screws they rode! ancient animals bearing +as many scars as a <i>vieux de la vieille</i>, that were considered short of +work if they did not come out five days a fortnight. This was Guy's +favorite pursuit; but he threw off the superfluity of his animal +energies in all sorts of athletics: in sparring especially he attained a +rare excellence; so well-known was it, indeed, that he passed his first +year without striking a blow in anger, through default of an antagonist, +except a chance one or two exchanged in the <i>melée</i> which is imperative +on the 5th of November.</p> + +<p>I did not hunt much myself, for my health was far from strong, and, I +confess, my University recollections are not lively.</p> + +<p>After the first flush of novelty had worn off, they bored one +intensely—those large wines and suppers where, night by night, a score +of Nephelégeretæ sat shrouded in smoke, chanting the same equivocal +ditties, drinking the same fiery liquors miscalled the juice of the +grape, villainous enough to make the patriarch that planted the vine +stir remorsefully in his grave under Ararat—each man all the while +talking "shop," <i>à l'outrance</i>. The skeleton of ennui sat at these +dreary feasts; and it was not even crowned with roses. I often used to +wonder what the majority of my contemporaries conversed about, when in +the bosom of their families, during the "long." They couldn't <i>always</i> +have been inflicting Oxford on their miserable relatives; the weakest of +human natures would have revolted against such tyranny; and yet the +horizon of their ideas seemed as utterly bounded by Bagley and +Headington Hill as if the great ocean-stream had flowed outside those +limits. Some adventurous spirits, it is true, stretched away as far as +Woodstock and Abingdon, but I doubt if they returned much improved by +the grand tour.</p> + +<p>One of their most remarkable characteristics was the invincible terror +and repugnance that they appeared to entertain to the society of women +of their own class. When the visitation was inevitable, it is +impossible to describe the great horror that fell on these unfortunate +boys. The feeling of Zanoni's pupil, as the Watcher on the Threshold +came floating and creeping toward him, was nothing to it.</p> + +<p>For example, at Commemoration—to which festival "lions" from all +quarters of the earth resorted in vast droves—when one of this class +was hard hit by the charms of some fair stranger, he never thought of +expressing his admiration otherwise than by piteous looks, directed at +her from an immense distance, out of shot for an opera-glass; when in +her immediate vicinity his motto was that of the Breton baron—<i>mourir +muet</i>. Claret-cup flowed and Champagne sparkled, powerless to raise him +to the audacity of an avowal. Under the woods of Nuneham, in the gardens +of Blenheim, amid the crowd of the Commemoration ball, the same deep +river of diffidence flowed between him and his happiness. My own idea is +that, after all was over, the silent ones, like Jacques' stricken deer, +used to "go weep" over chances lost and opportunities neglected. With +waitresses at wayside inns, <i>et id genus omne</i>, they were tolerably +self-possessed and reliant; though even there "a thousand might well be +stopped by three," and I would have backed an intelligent barmaid +against the field at odds; indeed, I think I have seen a security nearly +allied to contempt on the fine features of a certain "lone <i>star</i>" as +she parried—so easily!—the compliments and repartees of a dozen +assailants at once, accounted, in their own quadrangles, Millamours of +the darkest dye.</p> + +<p>Guy accounted for this unfortunate peculiarity by saying that a cigar +in the mouth was the normal state of many of these men; so that, when +circumstances debarred them from the Havana courage, they lost all +presence of mind, and, being unable to retreat under cover of the smoke, +lapsed instantly into a sullen despair, suffering themselves to be shot +down unresistingly. Perhaps some future philosopher will favor us with a +better solution to this important problem in physics; I know of none.</p> + +<p>After all, the reading men did best, though we did not think so then, +when we saw them creeping into morning chapel jaded and heavy-eyed, +after a debauch over Herodotus or the Stagyrite. They had a purpose in +view, at all events, and, I believe, were placidly content during the +progress of its attainment—in the seventh heaven when their hopes were +crowned by a First, or even a Second. True; the pace was too good for +some of the half-bred ones, and such as could not stand the training, +who departed, to fade away rapidly in the old house at home, or to pine, +slowly, but very surely, in remote curacies.</p> + +<p>Some of these, I fancy, must have sympathized with Madame de Staël's +consumptive niece, who answered to the question, "Why she was weeping +all alone?" "<i>Je me regrette.</i>" When, resting in their daily walk, +shortened till it became a toil to reach the shady seat under the elms +at the garden's end, they watched the stalwart plowmen and drovers go +striding by, without a trouble behind their tanned foreheads except the +thought that wages might fall a shilling a week, was there no envy, I +wonder, as they looked down on the wan hands lying so listless across +their knees? Would they not have given their First, and their fellowship +in embryo to boot, to have had the morning appetite of Tom Chauntrell, +the horse-breaker, after twelve pipes overnight, with gin and water to +match, or to have been able, like Joe Springett, the under keeper, to +breast the steepest brae in Cumberland with never a sob or a painful +breath? Did they never murmur while thinking how brightly the blade +might have flashed, how deftly have been wielded, if the worthless +scabbard had only lasted out till, on some grand field-day, the word was +given, "Draw swords?" Some felt this, doubtless; but the most part, I +imagine, were possessed with a comfortable assurance that their short +life had been useful, if not ornamental; and so, to a certain extent, +they had their reward. At any rate, their ending was to the full as +glorious as that of some other friends of ours, who crawl away from the +battle-ground of the <i>Viveurs</i> to die, or to linger on helpless +hypochondriacs.</p> + +<p>If I have spoken depreciatingly or unfairly of the mass of my college +coevals (and it may well be so), I do full justice, in thought at least, +to some brilliant exceptions. I founded friendships there which, I +trust, will outlive me.</p> + +<p>I do not forget Warrenne, too good for the men he lived with, a David in +our camp of Kedar—always going on straight in the path he thought +right—though ever and anon his hot Irish blood would chafe fiercely +under the curb self-imposed—and laboring incessantly, with all +gentleness, to induce others to follow; a Launcelot in his devotion to +womankind; a Galahad in purity of thought and purpose. I have never +known a man of the world so single-hearted, or a saint with so much +<i>savoir vivre</i>.</p> + +<p>I see before me now Lovell, with his frank look and cheery laugh, the +model of a stalwart English squirehood; and Petre, equal to either +fortune; in reverse or success calm and impassible as Athos the +mousquetaire; regarding money simply as a circulating medium, with the +profoundest contempt for its actual value—<i>se ruinant en prince</i>. He +edified us greatly, on one occasion, by meeting his justly offended +father with a stern politeness, declining to hold any communication with +him by word or letter till he (the sire) "could express himself in a +more Christian spirit."</p> + +<p>Then there was Barlowe, the pearl of gentlemen riders, the very apple of +Charles Symond's eye; unspoiled by a hundred triumphs, and never +degenerating into the professional, though I believe his idea of earthly +felicity was,</p> + +<p>A match for £50, 10 st. 7 lb. each. Owners up. Over 4 miles of a fair +hunting country.</p> + +<p>I see him, too, with his pleasant face, round, rosy, and beardless as a +child-cherub of Rubens, tempting pale men with splitting heads to throw +boots at him in the bitterness of their envy as he entered their rooms +on the morning after a heavy drink, his eyes so clear and guileless that +you would never guess how sharp they could be at times when a dangerous +horse was coming up on his quarter. A strange compound his character was +of cool calculation and sentimental simplicity. The most astute of +trainers never got the better of him in making a match; and I am sure, +to this day, he believes in ——'s poetry, and in the immutability of +feminine affection.</p> + +<p>How agreeable he was about the small hours, chirping over his grog; +alternating between reminiscences of "My tutor's daughter" and recitals +of choice morsels in verse and prose; misquoting, to the utter +annihilation of rhythm and sense, but all with perfect gravity, good +faith, and satisfaction!</p> + +<p><i>Nec te, memorande, relinquam</i>—true Tom Lynton! not clever, not even +high-bred, but loved by every one for the honestest and kindest heart +that ever was the kernel of a rough rind.</p> + +<p>Do we not remember that supper where the Fathers of England were being +discussed? Every one, drawn on by the current, had a stone to throw at +his relieving officer, the complaint, of course, being a general +tightness in the supplies. At last, Tom, who, though his own sire was an +austere man, could not bear to hear the absent run down, broke in, +gravely remonstrating,</p> + +<p>"Well, gentlemen," he said, "remember they're our <i>fellow-creatures</i>, at +all events."</p> + +<p>They drank "Lynton and the Governors" with a compound multiplication of +cheers.</p> + +<p>I might mention more; but a face rises just now before me which makes me +close the muster-roll—the face of one who united in himself many, very +many of the best qualities of the others; of one whom I shrink from +naming here, lest it should seem that I do so lightly—a face that I saw +six hours before its features became set forever.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'><i>"Δὴ τότ᾽ ἀνασχομένω, ὁ μὲν ἤλασε δεξίον ὦμον</i></div> +<div class='i8'><i>Ἶρος, ὁ δ᾽ αὐχέν᾽ ἔλασσεν ὑπ᾽ οὖατος, ὀστέα δ᾽ εἴσω</i></div> +<div class='i8'><i>Ἔθλασεν‧ αὐτίκα δ᾽ ἦλθεν ἀνὰ στόμα φοίνιον αἷμα."</i></div></div> +</div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'><i>"Dê tot' anaschomenô, ho men êlase dexion ômon </i></div> +<div class='i8'><i>Iros, ho d' auchen' elassen hup' ouatos, ostea d' eisô</i></div> +<div class='i8'><i>Ethlasen; autika d' êlthen ana stoma phoinion haima."</i></div></div> +</div> + + +<p>Toward the end of my second year an event came off in which we were all +much interested—a steeplechase in which both Universities were to take +part. The stakes were worth winning—twenty sovs. entrance, h.f., and a +hundred sovs. added; besides, the <i>esprit de corps</i> was strong, and men +backed their opinions pretty freely. The venue was fixed at B——; the +time, the beginning of the Easter vacation.</p> + +<p>The old town was crowded like Vanity Fair. There was a railway in +progress near, and the navvies and other "roughs" came flocking in by +hundreds, so that the municipal authorities, justly apprehensive of a +row, concentrated the cohorts of their police, and swore in no end of +specials as a reserve.</p> + +<p>The great event came off duly, a fair instance of the "glorious +uncertainty" which backers of horses execrate and ring-men adore. All +the favorites were out of the race early. Our best man, Barlowe, the +centre of many hopes, and carrying a heavy investment of Oxford money, +was floored at the second double post-and-rail. The Cambridge cracks, +too, by divers casualties, were soon disposed of. At the last fence, an +Oxford man was leading by sixty yards; but it was his maiden race, and +he lost his head when he found himself looking like a winner so near +home. Instead of taking the stake-and-bound at the weakest place, he +rode at the strongest; his horse swerved to the gap, took the fence +sideways, and came down heavily into the ditch of the winning field. The +representative of Cambridge, who came next, riding a good steady hunter, +not fast, but safe at his fences, cantered in by himself. I remember he +was so bewildered by his unexpected victory that one of his backers had +to hold him fast in the saddle, or he would have dismounted before +riding to scale, and so lost the stakes.</p> + +<p>Well, the race was over and the laurels lost, so we had nothing to do +but pay and look pleasant, and then adjourn to the inevitable banquet at +"The George." There was little to distinguish the proceedings from the +routine of such festivals. The winners stood Champagne, and the losers +drank it—to any amount. The accidents of flood and field were discussed +over and over again; and, I believe, every man of the twenty-three who +had ridden that day could and did prove, to his own entire satisfaction, +that he must have won but for some freak of fortune totally unavoidable, +and defying human calculation.</p> + +<p>About nine o'clock I went out with another man to get some fresh air, +and something I wanted in the town. At the corner of every street there +was a group of heavy, sullen faces, looking viciously ready for a row, +while out of the windows of the frequent public houses gushed bursts of +revelry hideously discordant, from the low-browed rooms where the wild +Irish sat howling and wrangling over their liquor. However, we got what +we wanted, and were returning, when, in a street on our left, we heard +cries and a trampling of many feet. Two figures, looking like University +men, passed us at speed, and, throwing something down before us, dived +into an alley opposite, and were lost to sight. My companion picked up +the object; and we had just time to make out that it was a bell-handle +and name-plate, when the pursuers came up—six or seven "peelers" and +specials, with a ruck of men and boys. We were collared on the instant. +The fact of the property being found in our possession constituted a +<i>flagrans delictum</i>—we were caught "red-handed." It was vain to argue +that, had we been the delinquents, we should scarcely have been standing +there still, awaiting discovery. The idea of arguing with a rural +policeman, when, by a rare coincidence, popular feeling is with him! The +mob regarded our capture, exulting like the Romans over Jugurtha in +chains. It was decided "we were to go before the Inspector." We were +placed in the centre of a phalanx of specials, each guarded by two +regulars; and so the triumph, followed by a train that swelled at every +turning, moved slowly along the Sacred Way toward the temple of the +station-house, where the municipal Jupiter Capitolinus sat in his glory.</p> + +<p>Before we had proceeded three hundred yards there was a shout from the +crowd, "Look out! here come the 'Varsity!" and down a cross street +leading from the inn, two hundred gownsmen, wild with wrath and wassail, +came leaping to the rescue.</p> + +<p>In the van of all I caught sight of two figures—one that I knew very +well, towering, bareheaded, a hand's-breadth above the throng; the +other, something below the middle height, but shaggy, vast-chested, and +double-jointed as a red Highland steer—M'Diarmid of Trinity, glory of +the Cambridge gymnasium, and "5" in the University eight. They were not +shouting like the rest, but hitting out straight and remorselessly; and +before those two strong Promachi, townsman and navvy, peeler and +special, went down like blades of corn. Close at their shoulder I +distinguished Lovell, his clear blue eyes lightening savagely; and stout +Tom Lynton, a deeper flush on his honest face, hewing away with all the +unscientific strength of his nervous arm.</p> + +<p>But my two guards, very Abdiels in their duty, never let me go; on the +contrary, one tightened his gripe on my throat suffocatingly, while the +other, though I remained perfectly quiescent, kept giving me gentle +hints to keep the peace with the end of his staff. I was getting sick +and dizzy, when something passed my cheek like the wind of a ball; there +was a dull, crashing sound close at my ear; the grasp on my neck relaxed +all at once; I felt something across my feet, and saw a dark blue mass, +topped by the ruin of a shiny hat, lying there quite still; an arm was +round my waist like the coil of a cable, and I heard Guy's voice +laughing loud,</p> + +<p>"My dear Frank," he said, as he dragged me away toward the inn, "the +centre of a row, as usual. <i>Que, diable, allait il faire dans cette +bagarre?</i>"</p> + +<p>I hardly heard him, for my senses were still confused; but in thirty +seconds I was under the archway of "The George." As the heroines of the +Radcliffe romances say, "I turned to thank my preserver, but he was +gone."</p> + +<p>When I recovered my breath, I went up to a balcony on the first floor +and looked out. The tide of the affray was surging gradually back into +the wide open space before the inn, and very shortly this was filled +with a chaos of furious faces and struggling arms. The University were +evidently recoiling, pressed back by the sheer weight of their +opponents; but soon came a re-enforcement of grooms and stable-men, +lightweights, active and wiry; and these, with their hunting-crops and +heavy cutting-whips used remorselessly—like Cæsar's legionaries, they +struck only at the face—once more re-established the balance of the +battle.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the <i>melée</i> seemed to converge to one point—the mid-eddy, as +it were, of the whirlpool; then came a lull, almost a hush; and then +fifty strong arms, indiscriminately of town and gownsmen, were locked to +keep the ground, while a storm of voices shouted for "A ring!"</p> + +<p>In that impromptu arena two men stood face to face under the full glare +of the gas-lamps—one was Guy Livingstone; the other a denizen of the +Potteries, yclept "Burn's Big 'un," who had selected B—— as his +training quarters, in preparation for his fight to come off in the +ensuing week with the third best man in England for £100 a side.</p> + +<p>They made a magnificent contrast. Guy, apparently quite composed, but +the lower part of his face set stern and pitiless; an evil light in his +eyes, showing how all the gladiator in his nature was roused; his left +hand swaying level with his hip; all the weight of his body resting on +the right foot; his lofty head thrown back haughtily; his guard low. The +professional, three inches shorter than his adversary, but a rare model +of brute strength; his arms and neck, where the short jersey left them +exposed, clear-skinned and white as a woman's, through the perfection of +his training; his hair cropped close round a low, retreating forehead; +his thick lips parted in a savage grin, meant to represent a smile of +confidence. So they stood there—fitting champions of the races that +have been antagonistic for four thousand years—Patrician and +Proletarian.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there was a commotion at one corner of the ring, and I saw a +small, bullet-headed man, with a voice like a fractious child, striving +frantically to force his way through. "Don't let 'em fight!" he +screamed: "it's robbery, I tell you. There's hundreds of pounds on him +for Thursday next, I'm his trainer; and I daren't show him with a +scratch on him."</p> + +<p>A great roar of laughter answered his entreaties, and twenty arms thrust +the little man back; but his interesting charge seemed to ponder and +hesitate, when a drawling nasal voice spoke from the opposite corner: +"Ah! you're right; take him away; don't show his white feather till +you're druv to it." That turned the wavering scale. The Big 'un ground +his teeth with blasphemy, and set-to.</p> + +<p>I need not go through the minutiæ of the fight; it was all one way. The +professional did his best, and took his punishment like a glutton; but +he could do nothing against the long reach of his adversary, who stopped +and countered as coolly as if he had only the gloves on.</p> + +<p>It was the beginning of the sixth round; our champion bore only one +mark, showing where a tremendous right-hander had almost come home—a +cut on his lower lip, whence the bright Norman blood was flowing freely. +I will not attempt to describe the hideous changes that ten minutes had +wrought in his opponent's countenance; but I think I was not the only +spectator who felt a thrill of fear mingling with disgust as the Big 'un +made his despairing effort, and fought his way in to the terrible +"half-arm rally." In truth, there was something unearthly and awful in +the sight of the maimed and mangled Colossus; his huge breast heaving +with wrath and pain; his one unblinded eye glaring unutterably; his +crushed lips churning the crimson foam. It was the last rash of the +Cordovan bull goaded to madness by picador and chulo; but Guy's fatal +left met him, straight, unyielding as the blade of the matador; twice he +reeled back wellnigh stunned; the third time he dropped his head +cleverly, so as to avoid the blow, and grappled. For some seconds the +two were locked together, undistinguishably; then we saw Guy's right +hand, never used till then save as a guard, rise and fall twice with a +dull, smashing sound, which was bad to hear; then the huge form of the +prize-fighter was whirled up unresistingly over his antagonist's hip, +and fell crashing down at his feet, a heap of blind, senseless, bleeding +humanity.</p> + +<p>"Time!" You must call louder yet before he will hear, and lance a vein +in the throat before he will answer.</p> + +<p>Then, in the old market-place of B——, there went up such a shout as I +think it has never heard since Vikings and Berserkyr caroused there +after storming the town. The gownsmen, as they will do on slighter +provocation, screamed themselves hoarse and voiceless with delight; and +their late opponents—the honest Saxon's love of a fair fight overcoming +the spirit of the partisan—echoed and prolonged the cheer.</p> + +<p>There was no more thought of battle or broil; and there were as many +navvies as University men among the enthusiasts who bore the champion on +their shoulders into "The George."</p> + +<p>How we reveled on that night of victory, especially when Guy, after +necessary ablutions and change of raiment, joined us, calm and +self-possessed as ever, only slightly swelled about the lower lip, and a +dark red flush on his forehead! He had satisfactory accounts of his +adversary, the said amiable individual having so far recovered, under +the surgeon's hands, as to swear thrice—"quite like hisself," the +messenger said—and to call for cold brandy and water.</p> + +<p>Livingstone's health was proposed twice—the first time by a fellow of +King's, with a neat talent for classical allusions, who remarked that, +"if the olive-crown of the Hippodrome had fallen to the lot of +Cambridge, none would deny her sister's claim to the parsley of the +cæstus." The second time was very late in the evening, by M'Diarmid. It +must be confessed that gallant chieftain was somewhat incoherent, and +amid protestations of admiration and eternal friendship, much to our +astonishment, wept profusely. Still later, he got very maudlin indeed, +and was heard to murmur, looking at his scarred knuckles, that "he was +afraid he must have hurt some one that night," with an accent of +heartfelt sorrow and contrition which was inimitable.</p> + +<p>We heard afterward that the taunt which made the fight a certainty came +from the commissioner of the party who stood heavily against the Big +'un, sent down to watch him in his training, and spy out the joints in +his harness.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"As he rode down the sanctified bends of the Bow,</div> +<div class='i8'>Each carline was flyting and shaking her pow;</div> +<div class='i8'>But the young Plants of Grace they looked couthie and slee,</div> +<div class='i8'>Saying, 'Luck to thy bonnet, thou bonnie Dundee.'"</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>In the autumn of that year my chest became so troublesome that I was +obliged to try Italy. Thither I went; and, about the same time, Guy was +gazetted to the —— Life Guards. The struggle between climate and +constitution was protracted, and for a long time doubtful; but winters +without fog, and springs without cold winds, worked wonders, and at last +carried the day. In the fourth year they told me I might risk England +again. Moving homeward slowly, I reached London about the beginning of +December—a most unfavorable season, it is true; but I was weary of +foreign wandering, and wanted to spend Christmas somewhere in the +fatherland, though where I had not yet determined.</p> + +<p>I had heard tolerably often from Livingstone during my absence. His +letters were very amusing, containing all sorts of news, and remarks on +men and manners. They would have pleased me more if they had not +indicated a vein of sarcasm deepening into cynicism.</p> + +<p>I stand very much alone in this world, and had few family visits to +detain me; so, on the morning after my arrival, I went down to the +Knightsbridge barracks, where Guy's regiment happened to be quartered.</p> + +<p>It was a field-day, his servant said, and his master was out with his +troop; but he expected him in very shortly. Captain Forrester was +waiting breakfast for him up stairs.</p> + +<p>As I entered the room, its occupant turned his head languidly on the +sofa-cushion which supported it; but when he saw it was a stranger, sat +up, and, on hearing my name, actually rose and came toward me.</p> + +<p>"Livingstone will be charmed to find you here, Mr. Hammond," he said, in +a voice that, though slightly affected and <i>traînante</i>, was very +musical. "I don't know if he ever mentioned Charley Forrester to you, +who must do the honors of the barrack-room in his absence?"</p> + +<p>I had heard of him very often; and, though my expectations as to his +personal appearance had been raised, I own the first glance did not +disappoint them. He was about three-and-twenty then, rather tall, but +very slightly built; his eyes long, sleepy, of a violet blue; features +small and delicately cut, with a complexion so soft and bright that his +silky, chestnut mustache hardly saved the face from effeminacy; his +hands and feet would have satisfied the Pacha of Tebelen at once as to +his purity of race; indeed, though Charley was not disposed to +undervalue any of his own bodily advantages, I imagine he considered his +extremities as his strong point. His manner was very fascinating, and, +with women, had a sort of caress in it which is hard to describe, though +even with <i>them</i> he seldom excited himself much, preferring, +consistently, the passive to the active part in the conversation. +Indeed, his golden rule was the Arabic maxim, <i>Agitel lil +Shaitan</i>—Hurry is the Devil's—so, in the flirtations which were the +serious business of his life, he always let his fish hook themselves, +just exerting himself enough to play them afterward.</p> + +<p>In ten minutes we were very good friends, talking pleasantly of all +sorts of things, though Forrester had resumed his recumbent posture, and +I could not help fearing it was only a strong effort of politeness or +sense of duty which enabled him always to answer at the right time.</p> + +<p>Before long we heard the clatter of horses' hoofs and the rattle of +steel scabbards, and I looked out at the squadrons defiling into the +barrack-yard. My eye fell upon Livingstone at once: it was not difficult +to distinguish him, for few, if any, among those troopers, picked from +the flower of all the counties north of the Humber, could compare with +him for length of limb and breadth of shoulder. I felt proud of him, as +the hero of my boyhood, looking at him there, on his great black +charger, square and steadfast as the keep of a castle.</p> + +<p>His servant spoke to him as he dismounted. I saw his features soften and +brighten in an instant; in five seconds he was in the room, and the +light was on his face still—I like to think of it—the light of a +frank, cordial welcome, as he griped my hand.</p> + +<p>He was changed, certainly, but for the better. The features, which in +early youth had been too rugged and strongly marked, harmonized +perfectly with the vast proportions of a frame now fully developed, +though still lean in the flanks as a wolf-hound. The stern expression +about his mouth was more decided and unvarying than ever—an effect +which was increased by the heavy mustache that, dense as a Cuirassier's +of the Old Guard, fell over his lip in a black cascade. It was the face +of one of those stone Crusaders who look up at us from their couches in +the Round Church of the Temple.</p> + +<p>Before our first sentences were concluded, Forrester had nerved himself +to the effort of rising, and turned to go.</p> + +<p>"You must have fifty things to say to each other," he said. "You'll find +me in the mess-room. But, Guy, don't be long; I've no appetite myself +this morning, and it will refresh me to see you eat your breakfast;" and +so faded away gradually through the door.</p> + +<p>"How do you like him?" Livingstone called out from the inner room, where +he was donning the "mufti." "He's not so conceited as he might be, +considering how the women spoil him; and, lazy as he looks, he is a very +fair officer, and goes across country like a bird. Did I ever tell you +what first made him famous?"</p> + +<p>"No; I should like to hear."</p> + +<p>"Well, it was at a picnic at Cliefden. Charley was hardly nineteen then, +and had just joined the ——th Lancers at Hounslow; he wandered away, +and got lost with Kate Harcourt, a self-possessed beauty in high +condition for flirting, for she had had three seasons of hard training. +When they had been away from their party about two hours, she felt, or +pretended to feel, the awkwardness of the situation, and asked her +cavalier, in a charmingly helpless and confiding way, what they were to +do. 'Well, I hardly know,' Forrester answered, languidly; 'but I don't +mind proposing to you, if that will do you any good.' A fair performance +for an untried colt, was it not? Miss Harcourt thought so, and said so, +and Charley woke next morning with an established renown. Shall we go +and find him?"</p> + +<p>After breakfast we went with Guy to his room, to do the regulation +cigar.</p> + +<p>"I know you've made no plans, Frank," Livingstone said, "so I have +settled every thing for you already. You are coming down to Kerton with +us. We have just got our long leave, and our horses went down three days +ago."</p> + +<p>"It's very nice of him to say 'our horses,'" interrupted Forrester. +"Mine consist of one young one, that has been over about eight fences in +his life, and a mare, that I call the Wandering Jewess, for I don't +think she will ever die, and I am sure she will never rest till she +does: what with being park-hack in the summer and cover-hack in the +winter, with a by-day now and then when the country's light, she's the +best instance of perpetual motion I know. Well, it's not my fault the +chief won't let us hunt our second chargers—that's the charm of being +in a crack regiment—I always have one lame at least, and no one will +sell me hunters on tick."</p> + +<p>"Don't be so plaintive, Charley; you've nearly all mine to ride: it's a +treat to them, poor things, to feel your light weight and hand, after +carrying my enormous carcass. That's settled, then, Frank; you come with +us?" Guy said.</p> + +<p>"I shall be very glad. I only want a day to get my traps together." So +two days afterward we three came down to Kerton Manor. It was not my +first visit to Livingstone's home, but I have not described it before.</p> + +<p>Fancy a very large, low house, built in two quadrangles—the offices and +stables forming the smaller one farthermost from the main entrance—of +the light gray stone common in Northamptonshire, darkened at the angles +and buttresses into purple, and green, and bistre by the storms of three +hundred years; on the south side, smooth turf, with islands in it of +bright flower-beds, sloped down to a broad, slow stream, where grave, +stately swans were always sailing to and fro, and moor-hens diving among +the rushes; on the other sides, a park, extensive, but somewhat +rough-looking, stretched away, and, all round, lines of tall avenue +radiated—the bones of a dead giant's skeleton—for Kerton once stood in +the centre of a royal forest.</p> + +<p>You entered into a wide, low hall, the oak ceiling resting on broad +square pillars of the same dark wood; all round hung countless memorials +of chase and war, for the Livingstones had been hunters and soldiers +beyond the memory of man.</p> + +<p>Often, passing through of a winter's evening, I have stopped to watch +the fitful effects of the great logs burning on the andirons, as their +light died away, deadened among brown bear-skins and shadowy antlers, or +played, redly reflected, on the mail-shirt and corslet of Crusader or +Cavalier.</p> + +<p>There were many portraits too; one, the most remarkable, fronted you as +you came through the great doorway, the likeness of a very handsome man +in the uniform of a Light Dragoon; under this hung a cavalry sword, and +a brass helmet shaded with black horse-hair. The portrait and sword were +those of Guy's father; the helmet belonged to the Cuirassier who slew +him.</p> + +<p>It was in a skirmish with part of Kellermann's brigade, near the end of +the Peninsular war; Colonel Livingstone was engaged with an adversary in +his front, when a trooper, delivering point from behind, ran him through +the body. He had got his death-wound, and knew it; but he came of a race +that ever died hard and dangerously; he only ground his teeth, and, +turning short in his saddle, cut the last assailant down. Look at the +helmet, with the clean, even gap in it, cloven down to the +cheek-strap—the stout old Laird of Colonsay struck no fairer blow.</p> + +<p>It was curious to mark how the same expression of sternness and decision +about the lips and lower part of the face, which was so remarkable in +their descendants, ran through the long row of ancestral portraits. You +saw it—now, beneath the half-raised visor of Sir Malise, surnamed +<i>Poing-de-fer</i>, who went up the breach at Ascalon shoulder to shoulder +with strong King Richard—now, yet more grimly shadowed forth, under the +cowl of Prior Bernard, the ambitious ascetic, whom, they say, the great +Earl of Warwick trusted as his own right hand—now, softened a little, +but still distinctly visible, under the long love-locks of Prince +Rupert's aid-de-camp, who died at Naseby manfully in his harness—now, +contrasting strangely with the elaborately powdered peruke and delicate +lace ruffles of Beau Livingstone, the gallant, with the whitest hand, +the softest voice, the neatest knack at a sonnet, and the deadliest +rapier at the court of good Queen Anne. Nay, you could trace it in the +features of many a fair Edith and Alice, half counteracting the magnetic +attraction of their melting eyes.</p> + +<p>On the sunny south side, looking across the flower-garden, were Lady +Catharine Livingstone's rooms, where, diligent as Matilda and her +maidens, in summer by the window, in winter by the fire; the pale +châtelaine sat over her embroidery. What rivers of tapestry must have +flowed from under those slender white fingers during their ceaseless +toil of twenty years!</p> + +<p>The good that she did in her neighborhood can not be told. She was kind +and hospitable, too, to her female guests, in her own haughty, +undemonstrative way; nevertheless, the wives and daughters of the +squirearchy regarded her with great awe and fear. Perhaps she felt this, +though she could not alter it, and the sense of isolation may have +deepened the shades on her sad face. She had only one thing on earth to +centre her affections on, and that one she worshiped with a love +stronger than her sense of duty; for, since his father died, she had +never been able to check Guy in a single whim.</p> + +<p>When he had a hunting-party in the house, she sometimes would not appear +for days; but, however early he might start for the meet, I do not think +he ever left his dressing-room without his mother's kiss on his cheek. +She knew, as well as any one, how recklessly her son rode; nothing but +his science, coolness, and great strength in the saddle could often have +saved him from some terrible accident. Many times, in the middle of the +day's sport, the thought has come across me piteously of that poor lady, +in her lonely rooms, trembling, and I am very sure praying, for her +darling.</p> + +<p>On the opposite side of the court were Guy's own apartments: first, what +was called by courtesy his study—an armory of guns and other weapons, a +chaos <i>e rebus omnibus et quibusdam aliis</i>, for he never had the +faintest conception of the beauty of order; then came the smoking-room, +with its great divans and scattered card-tables; then Livingstone's +bed-room and dressing-room.</p> + +<p>Did the distance and the doors always deaden the sounds of late revels, +so as not to break Lady Catharine's slumbers? I fear not.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"Thou art not steeped in golden languors;</div> +<div class='i8'>No tranced summer calm is thine,</div> +<div class='i8'>Ever-varying Madeline."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>It was a woodland meet, a long way off, the morning after we arrived, so +we staid at home; and, after breakfast, Guy having to give audience to +keepers and other retainers, I strolled out with Forrester to smoke in +the stables. I have seldom seen a lot which united so perfectly bone and +blood. Livingstone gave any price for his horses; the only thing he was +not particular about was their temper; more than one looked eminently +unsuited to a nervous rider, and a swinging bar behind them warned the +stranger against incautious approach.</p> + +<p>After duly discussing and admiring the stud, we established ourselves on +the sunniest stone bench in the garden, and I asked my companion to tell +me something of what Guy had been doing during my absence.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's rather hard to say," answered Charley. "He never takes the +trouble to conceal any thing; but then, you see, he never tells one any +thing either; so it's only guess work, after all. He lives very much +like other men in the Household Brigade; plays heavily, though not +regularly; but he always has two <i>affaires de cœur</i>, at least, on +hand at once; that's his stint."</p> + +<p>"So he still persecutes the weaker sex unremittingly?" I asked, +laughing.</p> + +<p>"In a way peculiar to himself," said Forrester; "he is always strictly +courteous, but decidedly sarcastic. Poor things, they are easily imposed +upon; he very soon has them well in hand, and they can never get their +heads up afterward. I suppose they like it, for it seems to answer +admirably. Last season he divided himself pretty equally between +Constance Brandon and Flora Bellasys—quite the two best things out, +though as opposite to each other in every way as the poles. To do Miss +Brandon justice, I don't think she knew much of the other flirtation; +she always went away early, and he used to take up her rival for the +rest of the evening."</p> + +<p>"But the said rival—how did she like the divided homage?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all at first; at least, she used to look revolvers at Guy from +time to time—(ah! you should see the Bellasys' eyes when they begin to +lighten)—but he always brought her back to the lure, and at last she +seemed to take it quite as a matter of course, keeping all her +after-supper waltzes for him religiously, though half the men in town +were trying to cut in. I can't make out how he does it. Do you think his +size and sinews can have any thing to do with it?" He said this gravely +and reflectively.</p> + +<p>"Not unlikely," I replied; "the <i>fortiter in re</i> goes a long way with +women apparently, even where there is not a tongue like his to back it. +Don't you remember Juvenal's strong-minded heroine, who left husband and +home to follow the scarred, maimed gladiator? I doubt if the Mirmillo +was a pleasant or intellectual companion. Now I want you to tell me +something about Guy's cousin and her father; they are coming here +to-day, and I have never met them."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Raymond is very like most calm, comfortable old men with a life +interest in £2000 a year," Charley said; "rather more cold and +impassible than the generality, perhaps. He <i>must</i> be clever, for he +plays whist better than any one I know; but not brilliant, certainly. +His daughter is"—the color deepened on his cheek perceptibly—"very +charming, most people think; but I hate describing people. I always +caricature the likeness. You'll form your own judgment at dinner. Shall +we go in? We shoot an outlying cover after luncheon, and the blackthorns +involve gaiters."</p> + +<p>We had very fair sport, and were returning across the park, picking up a +stray rabbit every now and then in the tufts of long grass and patches +of brake. One had just started before Forrester, and he was in the act +of pulling the trigger, when Livingstone said suddenly,</p> + +<p>"There's my uncle's carriage coming down the north avenue."</p> + +<p>It was an easy shot in the open, but Charley missed it clean.</p> + +<p>"What eyes you have, Guy," he said, pettishly; "but I wish you wouldn't +speak to a man on his shot."</p> + +<p>Guy's great Lancaster rang out with the roar of a small field-piece, and +the rabbit was rolling over, riddled through the head, before he +answered,</p> + +<p>"Yea, my eyes <i>are</i> good, and I see a good many things, but I <i>don't</i> +see why you should have muffled that shot, particularly as my +intelligence was meant for the world in general, and it was not such an +astounding remark, after all."</p> + +<p>Charley did not seem ready with a reply, so he retained his look of +injured innocence, and walked on, sucking silently at his cigar. The +Raymonds reached the house before us; but, not being in a presentable +state, I did not see them before dinner.</p> + +<p>Forrester was right; there was nothing startling about Mr. Raymond. He +had one of those thin, high-bred looking faces that one always fancies +would have suited admirably the powder and ruffles of the last century. +It expressed little except perfect repose, and when he spoke, which was +but seldom, no additional light came into his hard blue eyes. His +daughter was his absolute contrast—a lovely, delicate little creature, +with silky dark-brown hair, and eyes <i>en suite</i>, and color that deepened +and faded twenty times in an hour, without ever losing the softness of +its tints. She had the ways of a child petted all its life through, that +a harsh word would frighten to annihilation. She seemed very fond of +Guy, though evidently rather afraid of him at times.</p> + +<p>Nothing passed at dinner worth mentioning; but soon after the ladies +left us, Mr. Raymond turned lazily to his nephew to inquire,</p> + +<p>"If he would mind asking Bruce to come and stay at Kerton, as he was to +be in the neighborhood soon after Christmas."</p> + +<p>He did not seem to feel the faintest interest in the reply.</p> + +<p>"I shall be too glad, Uncle Henry," answered Guy (he did not look +particularly charmed though), "if it will give you or Bella any +pleasure. Need he be written to immediately?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much," said Raymond, languidly. "I know he bores you, +and I am sure I don't wonder at it; but one must be civil to one's +son-in-law that is to be. No, you need not trouble yourself to invite +him yet. Bella can do it when she writes. I suppose she <i>does</i> write to +him sometimes."</p> + +<p>I looked across the table at Forrester. This was the first time I had +heard of Miss Raymond's engagement. He met my eye quite unconcernedly, +pursuing with great interest his occupation of peeling walnuts and +dropping them into Sherry. It did not often happen to him to blush +<i>twice</i> in the twenty-four hours. Directly afterward we began to talk +about pheasants and other things.</p> + +<p>After coffee in the drawing-room Guy sat down to piquet with his uncle. +Raymond liked to utilize his evenings, and never played for nominal +stakes. He was the <i>beau ideal</i> of a card-player, certainly; no +revolution or persistence of luck could ruffle the dead calm of his +courteous face. He would win the money of his nearest and dearest +friend, or lose his own to an utter stranger with the same placidity. To +be sure, to a certain extent, he had enslaved Fortune; though he always +played most loyally, and sometimes would forego an advantage he might +fairly have claimed, his rare science made ultimate success scarcely +doubtful. He never touched a game of mere chance.</p> + +<p>I heard a good story of him in Paris. They were playing a game like +Brag; the principle being that the players increase the stakes without +seeing each other's cards, till one refuses to go on and throws up, or +shows his point. Raymond was left in at last with one adversary; the +stakes had mounted up to a sum that was fearful, and it was his choice +to double or <i>abattre</i>. Of course, it was of the last importance to +discover whether the antagonist was strong or not; but the Frenchman's +face gave not the slightest sign. He was <i>beau joueur s'il en fût</i>, and +had lost two fair fortunes at play. Raymond hesitated, looking steadily +into his opponent's eyes. All at once he smiled and doubled instantly. +The other dared not go on; he showed his point, and lost. They asked +Raymond afterward how he could have detected any want of confidence to +guide him in a face that looked like marble.</p> + +<p>"I saw three drops of perspiration on his forehead," he said; "and I +knew my own hand was strong."</p> + +<p>Lady Catharine was resting on a sofa: she looked tired and paler than +usual, not in the least available for conversation. Miss Raymond had +nestled herself into the recesses of a huge arm-chair close to the +fire—she was as fond of warmth, when she could not get sunshine, as a +tropical bird—and Forrester was lounging on an ottoman behind her, so +that his head almost touched her elbow. When I caught scraps of their +conversation it seemed to be turning on the most ordinary subjects; but +even in these I should have felt lost—I had been so long away from +England—so I contented myself with watching them, and wondering why +discussions as to the merits of operas and inquiries after mutual +acquaintances should make the fair cheeks hang out signals of distress +so often as they did that evening.</p> + +<p>I lingered in the smoking-room about midnight for a moment after +Forrester left us.</p> + +<p>"So your cousin is really engaged?" I asked Guy.</p> + +<p>"<i>Tout ce qu'il y a du plus fiancé</i>," was the answer. "It was one of the +last affairs of state that my poor aunt concluded before she died. Bruce +is a very good match. I don't think Bella worships him, though I have +scarcely ever seen them together, and I am sure he is not a favorite +with Uncle Henry; but nothing on earth would make him break it off; +indeed, I know no one who would propose such a thing to him—not his +daughter, certainly. There's no such hopeless obstacle as the passive +resistance of a thoroughly lazy man. Good-night, Frank. I've sent the +Baron on for you to-morrow. We must start about nine, mind, for we've +fifteen miles to go to cover."</p> + +<p>I went to bed, and dreamed that Raymond was playing <i>ecarté</i> with +Forrester for his daughter, who stood by blushing beautifully—and never +held a trump!</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"She has two eyes so soft and brown;</div> +<div class='i14'>Take care!</div> +<div class='i8'>She gives a side glance, and looks down;</div> +<div class='i14'>Beware! beware!</div> +<div class='i8'>Trust her not; she is fooling thee."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>So the days went on. The stream of visitors usual in a country house +during the hunting season flowed in and out of Kerton Manor without any +remarkable specimen showing itself above the surface. One individual, +perhaps, I ought to except, the curate of the parish, who was a very +constant visitor.</p> + +<p>His appearance was not fascinating: he had a long, narrow head, thatched +with straight, scanty hair; little, protruding eyes, and a complexion of +a bright unvarying red—in fact, he was very like a prawn.</p> + +<p>It was soon evident that the Rev. Samuel Foster was helplessly smitten +by Miss Raymond, or, as Forrester elegantly expressed it, "hard hit in +the wings, and crippled for flying!" Helplessly, I say, but not +hopelessly; for that wicked little creature, acting perhaps under +private orders, gave him all sorts of treacherous encouragement. I never +saw any human being evolve so much caloric under excitement as he did, +except one young woman whom I met ages ago—(a most estimable person; +her Sunday-school was a model)—whose only way of evincing any emotion, +either of anger, fear, pain, or pleasure, was—a profuse perspiration. +Mr. Foster not only got awfully hot, but electrical into the bargain. +His thin hairs used to stand out distinctly and in relief from his head +and face, just like a person on the glass tripod. Charley suggested +insulating him unawares, and getting a flash out of his knuckles, if not +out of his brain. In truth, it was piteous to see the struggle between +passion and nervousness that raged perpetually within him. He would +stand for some time casting <i>lamb's</i>-eyes at the object of his +affections—to the amorous audacity of the full-grown sheep he never +soared—then suddenly, without the slightest provocation, he would +discharge at her a compliment, elaborate, long-winded, Grandisonian, as +a raw recruit fires his musket, shutting his eyes, and incontinently +take to flight, without waiting to see the effect of his shot. If he had +spent half the time and pains on his sermons that he did on his +small-talk (I believe he used to write out three or four foul copies of +each sentence previously at home), what a boon it would have been to his +unlucky audience on Sundays!</p> + +<p>Why is it that the great proportion of our pastors seem to conspire +together with one consent to make the periodical duty of listening to +them as hard as possible? Can they imagine there is profit or pleasure +in a discourse wandering wearily round in a circle, or dragging a slow +length along of truisms and trivialities? In the best of congregations +there can be but few alchemists; and, without that science, who is to +extract the essence of Truth from the <i>moles incongesta</i> of crass +moralities?</p> + +<p>To persuade or dissuade you must interest the head or the heart. I +admire those who can do either successfully, but I do protest against +those clerical tyrants who shelter themselves behind their license to +fire at us their ruthless platitudes. If such could only struggle +against that strong temptation of our fallen nature—the delight of +hearing one's own sweet voice—so as to concentrate now and then! The +best orators, spiritual and mundane, have been brief sometimes.</p> + +<p>I am no theologian, but I take leave to doubt if, in the elaborate +divinity of fourteen epistles, the apostle of the Gentiles ever went so +straight to his hearer's heart as in that farewell charge, when the +elders of Ephesus gathered round him on the sea-sand, "Sorrowing most of +all for the words that he spake, that they should see his face no more."</p> + +<p>Do you remember Canning and the clergyman? When the latter asked him, +"How did you like my sermon? I endeavored not to be tedious;" I always +fancy the statesman's weary, wistful look, which would have been +compassionate but for a sense of personal injury, as he answered, in his +mild voice, "And yet—<i>you were</i>."</p> + +<p>Well, the flirtation went on its way rejoicing, to the intense amusement +of all of us, especially of Forrester, till one day his cousin came into +Guy's study, who had just returned from hunting, looking rather +frightened, like a child who has let fall a valuable piece of china—it +was only an honest man's heart that she had broken. Slowly the truth +came out; Mr. Foster had proposed to her that afternoon in the park.</p> + +<p>We, far off in the drawing-room, heard the shrill whistle with which +Livingstone greeted the intelligence.</p> + +<p>"You accepted him, of course?" he said.</p> + +<p>"O Guy!" Miss Raymond answered, blushing more than ever. (I'll back a +woman against the world for expressing half a chapter by a simple +interjection; Lord Burleigh's nod is nothing to it.) "But, indeed," she +went on, "I'm very sorry about it; I never saw any one look so unhappy +before. Do you know I think I saw the tears standing in his eyes; and I +only guessed at the words when he said 'God bless you!'"</p> + +<p>"Ah bah!" replied Guy, with his most cynical smile on his lip; "he'll +recover. Who breaks his heart in these days, especially for such little +dots of things as you? But, Bella mia, how do you think Mr. Bruce would +approve of all these innocent amusements?"</p> + +<p>It was no blush now, but a dead waxen whiteness, that came over the +beautiful face, even down to the chin. The soft brown eyes grew fixed +and wild with an imploring terror. "You won't tell him?" she gasped out; +and then stood quivering and shuddering. Guy was very much surprised: he +had never believed greatly in his cousin's affection for her betrothed; +but here there were signs, not only of the absence of love, but of the +presence of physical fear.</p> + +<p>"My dear child," he said, very kindly, "don't alarm yourself so +absurdly. I have not the honor of Mr. Bruce's confidence; and if I had, +how could I tell him of an affair where <i>I</i> have been most to blame? +I'll speak to Foster; he must not show his disappointment even before +Uncle Henry. You will be quite safe, you see. But, mind, I won't allow +<i>any one</i> to frighten or vex my pet cousin." His countenance lowered as +he spoke, and there was a threat in his eyes.</p> + +<p>As the cloud darkened on his face, the light came back on Isabel +Raymond's. She took his hand—all fibre and sinew, like an +oak-bough—into her slender fingers and pressed it hard. In good truth, +a woman at her need could ask no better defender than he who stood by +her side then, tall, strong, black-browed, and terrible as Saul. "Thank +you so much, dear Guy," she whispered. "If you speak to Mr. Foster, you +will tell him how <i>very</i> sorry I am!" and then she left him.</p> + +<p>Guy did speak to the curate, I hope gently. At all events, we never +laughed at him again. How could we, when we saw him going about his +daily duties, honestly and bravely, and always, when in presence, +struggling with his great sorrow, so as not by word or look to +compromise the thoughtless child who had won his heart for her +amusement, and thrown it away for her convenience?</p> + +<p>I have been disciplined since by what I have felt and seen, and I see +now how ungenerous we had been.</p> + +<p>What right had we to make of that man a puppet for our amusement, +because he was shy, and stupid, and slow? He was as true in his +devotion, as honorable in all his wishes, as confident in his hopes till +they were blasted, as any one that has gone a wooing since the first +whisper of love was heard in Eden. If his despair was less crushing than +that of other men, it was because his principles were stronger to +endure, and perhaps because his temperament was more tranquil and cold. +As I have said, he did his day's work thoroughly, and that helped him +through a good deal. But, to the utmost of his nature, I believe he did +suffer. And could the long train of those whom disappointment has made +maniacs or suicides do more?</p> + +<p>Let us not trust too much to the absence of feeling in these seemingly +impassive organizations.</p> + +<p>I wonder how often the executors of old college fellows, or of +hard-faced bankers and bureaucrats, have been aggravated by finding in +that most secret drawer, which ought to have held a codicil or a jewel, +a tress, a glove, or a flower? The searcher looks at the object for a +moment, and then throws it into the rubbish-basket, with a laugh if he +is good-natured, with a curse if he is vicious and disappointed. Let it +lie there—though the dead miser valued it above all his bank-stock, and +kissed it oftener than he did his living and lawful wife and +children—what is it worth now? Say, as the grim Dean of St. Patrick +wrote on <i>his</i> love-token, "Only a woman's hair."</p> + +<p>Now these men, unknown to their best friend perhaps, had gone through +the affliction which is so common that it is hard to speak of it without +launching into truisms. This sorrow has made some men famous, by forcing +them out into the world and shutting the door behind them. It has made +the fortunes of some poets, who choose the world for their confidant, +setting their bereavement to music, and bewailing Eurydice in charming +volumes, that are cheap at "3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> in cloth, lettered." It has made +some—I think the best and bravest—somewhat silent for the rest of +their lives. I read some lines the other day wise enough to have sprung +from an older brain than Owen Meredith's.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div>"They were pedants who could speak—</div> +<div>Grander souls have passed unheard;</div> +<div>Such as felt all language weak;</div> +<div>Choosing rather to record</div> +<div>Secrets before Heaven, than break</div> +<div>Faith with angels, by a word—"</div></div> +</div> + +<p>Yes, many men have their Rachel; but—there being a prejudice against +bigamy—few have even the Patriarch's luck, to marry her at last; for +the wife <i>de convenance</i> generally outlives her younger sister; and so, +one afternoon, we turn again from a grave in Ephrata-Green Cemetery, +somewhat drearily, into our tent pitched in the plains of Belgravia, +where Leah—(there was ever jealousy between those two)—meets us with a +sharp glance of triumph in her "tender eyes."</p> + +<p>We have known pleasanter <i>tête-à-têtes</i>—have we not?—than that which +we undergo that evening at dinner, though our companion seems disposed +to be especially lively. We have not much appetite; but our <i>carissima +sposa</i> tells us "not to drink any more claret, or we shall never be fit +to take her to Lady Shechem's <i>conversazione</i>." Of all nights in the +year, would she let us off duty on this one? "There are to be some very +pleasant people there," she says, "though none, perhaps, that <i>you +particularly care about</i>." (Thank you, my love; I understand that +good-natured allusion perfectly, and am proportionately grateful.) Her +voice sounds shriller than usual as she says this, and leaves us to put +some last touches to her toilette. So we order a fresh bottle, +notwithstanding the warning, and fall to thinking. How low and soft +<i>that other</i> voice was, and, even when a little reproachful, how rarely +sweet! <i>She</i> would scarcely have invented that last taunt if matters +had turned out differently. Then we think of our respected +father-in-law, Sir Joseph Leyburn, of Harran Park—a mighty county +magistrate and cattle-breeder. He got Ishmael Deadeye, the poacher, +transported last year, and took the prize for Devons at the Great +Mesopotamian Agricultural with a brindled bull. We remember his weeping +at the wedding-breakfast over the loss of his eldest treasure, and +wonder if he was an arrant humbug, or only a foolish, fond old man, +inclining morosely toward the former opinion. We don't seem to care much +about Sir Roland de Vaux, the celebrated geologist, whom we shall have +the privilege of meeting this evening. What are strata to us, when our +thoughts will not go lower than about <i>eight feet</i> underground? We shall +be rather bored than otherwise by Dr. Sternhold, that eminent Christian +divine, who passes his leisure hours in proving St. Paul to have been an +unsound theologian and a weak dialectician. Why should Mr. Planet, the +intrepid traveler, be always inflicting Jerusalem upon us, as if no one +had ever visited the Holy Land before him? Our ancestors did so five +hundred years ago, and did not make half the fuss about it; and <i>they</i> +had a skirmish or two there worth speaking of, while we don't believe a +word of Planet's encounter with those three Arabs on the Hebron road. +Pooh! there's no more peril in traversing the Wilderness of Cades than +in going up to the Grands Mulets. We are not worthy of those +distinguished men, and would prefer the society of hard-riding Dick +Foley of the Blues. He had a few feelings in common with us once on a +certain point (how we hated him then), and he won't wonder if we are +duller than usual this evening. Perhaps his own nerve will scarcely be +as iron as usual in the Grand Military, to come off in the course of the +week.</p> + +<p>Well, the bottle is out, and Mademoiselle Zelpa comes to say that +"Madame is ze raidèe." So one glass of Cognac neat, as a <i>chasse</i> (to +more things than good Claret), and then—let us put on our whitest tie +and our most attractive smile, and "go forth, for she is gone."</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"A man had given all other bliss</div> +<div class='i8'>And all his worldly worth for this,</div> +<div class='i8'>To waste his whole heart in one kiss</div> +<div class='i9'>Upon her perfect lips."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>We were asked to dine and sleep at Brainswick, where the hounds met on +the following morning. Mr. Raymond could not make up his mind to the +exertion, so Forrester and I accompanied Guy alone.</p> + +<p>"By-the-by," the latter observed, as we were driving over in his +mail-phaeton, "I wonder if we shall see the Bellasys to-night? I know +they were to come down about this time. Steady, old wench! where are you +off to?" (This was to the near wheeler, who was breaking her trot.) "I +think you'll admire her, Frank; but, <i>gare à vous</i>, she's dangerous. Eh, +Charley?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you ought to know," answered Forrester; "I never tried her much +myself. She's two or three stone over my weight. I wonder what she has +been doing lately? They sent her down to rusticate somewhere at the end +of the season. She ought to be in great condition now, with a summer's +run."</p> + +<p>Livingstone smiled, complacently I thought, as if some one had praised +one of his favorite hunters, but did not pursue the subject.</p> + +<p>When I came down before dinner he was talking to a lady in dark blue +silk, with black lace over it, a wreath curiously plaited of natural ivy +in her hair. I guessed her at once to be Flora Bellasys.</p> + +<p>Let me try to paint—though abler artists have failed—the handsomest +brunette I have ever seen.</p> + +<p>She was very tall; her figure magnificently developed, though +slender-waisted and lithe as a serpent. She walked as if she had been +bred in a <i>basquiña</i>, and her foot and ankle were hardly to be matched +on this side of the Pyrenees; the nose slightly aquiline, with thin, +transparent nostrils; and the forehead rather low—it looked more so, +perhaps, from the thick masses of dark hair which framed and shaded her +face. Under the clear, pale olive of the cheeks the rich blood mantled +now and then like wine in a Venice glass; and her lips—the outline of +the upper one just defined by a penciling of down, the lower one full +and pouting—glistened with the brilliant smoothness of a pomegranate +flower when the dew is clinging. Her eyes—the opium-eaters of Stamboul +never dreamed of their peers among the bevies of hachis-houris. They +were of the very darkest hazel; one moment sleeping lazily under their +long lashes, like a river under leaves of water-lilies; the next, +sparkling like the same stream when the sunlight is splintered on its +ripples into carcanets of diamonds. When they chose to speak, not all +the orators that have rounded periods since Isocrates could match their +eloquence; when it was their will to guard a secret, they met you with +the cold, impenetrable gaze that we attribute to the mighty mother, +Cybèle. Even a philosopher might have been interested—on purely +psychological grounds, of course—in watching the thoughts as they rose +one by one to the surface of those deep, clear wells (was truth at the +bottom of them?—I doubt), like the strange shapes of beauty that +reveal themselves to seamen, coyly and slowly, through the purple calm +of the Indian Sea.</p> + +<p>Twice I have chosen a watery simile; but I know no other element +combining, as her glances did, liquid softness with lustre.</p> + +<p>When near her, you were sensible of a strange, subtle, intoxicating +perfume, very fragrant, perfectly indefinable, which clung, not only to +her dress, but to every thing belonging to her. From what flowers it was +distilled no artist in essences alive could have told. I incline to +think that, like the "birk" in the ghost's garland,</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div>"They were not grown on earthly bank,</div> +<div>Nor yet on earthly sheugh."</div></div> +</div> + +<p>Guy took Miss Bellasys in to dinner, and I found myself placed on her +other side. I had been introduced to her ten minutes before, but had +little opportunity for "improving the occasion," as the Nonconformists +have it, for she never once deigned a look in my direction.</p> + +<p>My right-hand neighbor was an elderly man of a full habit, whom it would +have been cruel to disturb till the rage of hunger was appeased, so I +was fain to seek amusement in the conversation going on on my left. +There was no indiscretion in this, for I knew Guy would never touch +secrets of state in mixed company.</p> + +<p>For some time they talked nothing but commonplaces, evidently feeling +each other's foils. The real fencing began with a question from +Flora—if he was not surprised at seeing her there that evening.</p> + +<p>"Not at all," was the reply; "I knew we must meet before long. It is +only parallels that don't; and there is very little of the right line +about either you or me."</p> + +<p>"Speak for yourself," Miss Bellasys said; "I consider that a very rude +observation."</p> + +<p>"Pardon me," retorted Guy; "I seldom say rude things—never +intentionally. I don't know which is in worst taste, that, or paying +point-blank compliments. Without being mathematical, you may have heard +that the line of beauty is a curve."</p> + +<p>Flora laughed.</p> + +<p>"It is difficult to catch you. What have you been doing since we +parted?"</p> + +<p>"That is just the question that was on my lips, so nearly uttered that I +consider I spoke first. Now, will you confess, or must I cross-question +some one else? I <i>will</i> know. It is easy to follow you, like an invading +army, by the trail of devastation."</p> + +<p>"So you do care to know?" the soft voice said, that could make the +nerves of even an indifferent hearer thrill and quiver strangely.</p> + +<p>After once listening to it, it was very easy to believe the weird +stories of Norse sorceresses, and German wood-spirits and pixies, luring +men to death with their fatally musical tones.</p> + +<p>"Simple curiosity," Guy replied, coolly, "and a little compassion for +your victims. They might be friends of mine, you know."</p> + +<p>Miss Bellasys bit her lip, half provoked, half amused, apparently, as +she answered, "The dead tell no tales."</p> + +<p>"No, but the wounded do, and they cry out pretty loudly sometimes. I +suppose all the cases did not terminate fatally. Will you confess?"</p> + +<p>"I have nothing to tell you," Flora said, very demurely and meekly, +only for once her eyes betrayed her. "Mamma took me down into +Devonshire, where we have an aunt or two, for sea-breezes and seclusion. +I rather liked at first having nothing on earth to do, and nothing—yes, +I understand—really nothing to think about. I used to sleep a great +deal, and then drive a little obstinate pony, to see views. But I don't +care much about views—do you? Then mamma was always wanting me to help +her look for shells and wild-flowers; and the rocks hurt my feet, and +the bushes never would leave me alone in the woods." She shuddered +slightly here.</p> + +<p>"The Bushes! a Devonshire family of that name, I presume?" Guy +interrupted, with intense gravity. "How wrong of them! They are very +ill-regulated young men down in those parts, I believe."</p> + +<p>"Don't be absurd; I never saw a creature for months between fifteen and +fifty. Are not those ages safe?" (A shake of the head from Livingstone.) +"I began to be very unhappy; I had no one to tease; my aunts are too +good-natured, and mamma is used to it. At last I had the greatest mind +to do something desperate—to write to you, for instance—merely to see +the household's horror when your answer came. You would have answered, +would you not? I should not have opened it, you know, but given it to +mamma, like a good child."</p> + +<p>"Of course; I know you show all your letters to your mother. But that +ruralizing must have been fearful for you, <i>poverina</i>! People were +talking a good deal of agricultural distress, but this is the most +piteous case I've heard of. So there were really no men to govern in +that wood?"</p> + +<p>"Not even a little boy," said Flora, decisively. "There were two or +three from Oxford in the neighborhood; I used to see them sitting +outside their lodgings in the sun, like rabbits, but they always ran in +before—"</p> + +<p>"Before you could get a shot at them, you mean?" broke in Guy; "you +ought to have crept up, and stalked them cleverly."</p> + +<p>Flora threw hack her handsome head. "I don't war with children. It went +on just as I tell you till we left for our round of winter visits, which +have been very stupid and correct—till now."</p> + +<p>I hardly caught the two last words, she spoke them so low. There was +silence for several minutes, and then Guy leaned back to address me.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember Arthur Darrell, of Christchurch, Frank, the man that +used to speak at the Union, and was always raving about ebon locks and +dark eyes?"</p> + +<p>"I remember him well. I have not seen him for years; but I heard he was +getting on well in the law."</p> + +<p>"He'll have time to get tired of brunettes—if any one ever <i>does</i> get +tired of them—before he comes back," said Guy. "He's just gone out to +try the Indian bar."</p> + +<p>"What could have put such an idea into his head?" I asked, very +innocently.</p> + +<p>"I can't say," was the reply; "men do take such curious fancies. It was +a sudden determination, I believe. The beauties of the Eastern +hemisphere began to develop themselves to his weak mind last summer +while he was down with his people in—Devonshire."</p> + +<p>Involuntarily I looked at Miss Bellasys. She saw she was detected; but, +instead of betraying any embarrassment, she turned upon Guy a queer +little imploring look, not indicative in the least of shame or +repentance, but such as might be put on by one of those truly excellent +people who do good by stealth and blush to find it known, when some of +their benevolent acts have come to light, and they wish to deprecate +praise.</p> + +<p>Livingstone gazed piercingly at her for several instants without moving +a muscle of his face; suddenly its fixed and stern expression—you could +not say softened, but—broke up all at once like a sheet of ice +shivering.</p> + +<p>"Let there be peace," he said, sententiously. "We forgive all the errors +of your long vacation in consideration of the good it has evidently done +you. You are looking brilliantly!"</p> + +<p>There was an unusual softness, almost a tremor, in his deep voice as he +spoke the last words, and a look in his bold eyes that many trained +coquettes would have shrunk from—a look that I should be sorry and +angry to see turned on any woman in whom I felt an interest—a look such +as Selim Pasha might wear as the Arnauts defile into his harem-court, +bringing the fair Georgians home.</p> + +<p>Flora Bellasys only smiled in saucy triumph.</p> + +<p>"You say you never pay compliments," she answered, "and I always <i>try</i> +to believe you. We will suppose this one is only the truth extorted. My +glove—thank you." The same smile was on her lip as she turned her head +once in her haughty progress to the door.</p> + +<p>As Guy sat down again, and filled a huge glass with claret, I heard him +mutter between his teeth, "<i>Royale, quand même</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Close up, gentlemen, close up!" broke in the cheery voice of our rare +old host. "Livingstone, if you begin back-handing already, you'll never +be able to hold that great raking chestnut I saw your groom leading this +evening. The man looked as if he thought he would be eaten before he got +in."</p> + +<p>"Whatever you do, drink fair," Guy answered, laughing; "so saith the +immortal Gamp. The squire's beginning to tremble for his '22 wine."</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder," said Godfrey Parndon, the M.F.H. "I've always observed +that, after flirting disgracefully at dinner, you drink harder +afterward. It's to drown remorse, I suppose. So you ride that new horse +of yours to-morrow? My poor hounds!"</p> + +<p>"Don't be alarmed," cried Guy; "he never kicks hounds, and I won't let +him go over them; it's only human strangers the amiable animal can't +endure: that's why I call him the Axeine. He is worth more than the £300 +I gave for him."</p> + +<p>"Well, he nearly spoiled two grooms for Hounscott," Parndon said. "The +stablemen at Revesby had a great beer the day they got rid of him."</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't suit every one," remarked Livingstone—"not you, for +instance, Godfrey, who always ride with a loose rein. I was obliged to +give him his gallops myself at first; he's a devil to pull, and if he +once gets away with you, you may 'write to your friends.' But I've +nothing like him in my stable."</p> + +<p>Then the conversation became general, revolving in a circle of +hound-and-horse talk, as it will do now and then in the shires.</p> + +<p>"Guy," whispered Forrester, as we went up stairs, "there's a little +woman here who says she used to know you very well: won't you go and +talk to her?"</p> + +<p>"Many little women say that," answered Guy; "it's a way they have. Which +is it, now?"</p> + +<p>Charley pointed out a small, plump, rather pretty blonde, with long +ringlets, and light, laughing blue eyes. It seemed the lady's +reminiscences were well founded, for in five minutes Livingstone and she +were talking like old friends.</p> + +<p>In the course of the evening I found myself near Miss Bellasys. This +time she did me the honor to address me, and soon began asking me more +questions than I could answer, even had she waited a reply. Did I like +Kerton Manor? Had there been many agreeable people there yet? Not any +remarkably so! She was surprised at that. Miss Raymond was there <i>en +permanence</i>, of course? She was such a favorite with her (Flora), and +with her cousin too, she thought. Was Mr. Livingstone always playing +with his uncle, and always losing? She supposed he liked losing—at +play. Did I know the lady in pink, with twenty-five flowers in her hair? +She had counted them. Yes, that was her husband, the stout man looking +uncomfortable, in the corner—an old friend of Mr. Livingstone's? He had +so many old friends; but he did not always talk to them for a whole +evening without intermission. Ah! she was going to sing; that is, if +Mr. Livingstone had quite finished with her, and would let her go. +Little women with pink cheeks and dresses always <i>did</i> sing, and never +had any voice.</p> + +<p>I don't know how many more questions she put to me in the same quiet, +clear tones; but just then I happened to look down on the handkerchief +she held in her hand, and I saw a long rent in its broad Valenciennes +border that I am very sure was not there an hour ago; for Flora's +toilette, morning and evening, was faultless to a degree.</p> + +<p>I had hardly time to remark this when Guy lounged up to us. My +companion's dark eyes were more eloquent than her lips, which quivered +slightly as she said,</p> + +<p>"I wonder you have not more consideration. A new arrival in the county, +and compromised irretrievably! Look at Mr. Stafford now."</p> + +<p>"The husband?" Guy said, with intense disdain; "the husband's helpless. +He may sharpen his—tusks, but he'll never come to battle. How good and +great you are! It is quite refreshing to hear your strictures on +innocent amusements. But I beg you will speak of that lady with due +respect; she is the first—yes, positively the first—woman I ever +loved."</p> + +<p>"<i>Monseigneur, que d'honneur!</i>" Flora said, curling her haughty lip.</p> + +<p>"It is true," Guy went on. "At a children's ball, about fifteen years +ago, I met my fate. She was in white muslin, with a velvet bodice (Flora +shuddered visibly); for a year after I pictured to myself the angels in +no other attire, and now—years vitiate one's tastes so—I can fancy +nothing but a jockey in 'black body and white sleeves.' I suppose she +was very pretty; let us hope so; it is my only excuse for being +enchanted in ten minutes, and stupidly enslaved in half an hour. The +thing would not have been complete without a rival; he came—a plump, +circular-faced boy, with severely flaxen hair. No, you need not look +across the room—not the least like what she is now! Great jealousy may +make me unjust, but I don't think he had any advantage over me save one, +and he used that mercilessly. He wore collars boldly erect under his fat +checks, while those of the rest of us lay prostrate, after the simple +fashion of my childhood. The <i>prestige</i> was too much for Ellen's weak +mind. (Did I tell you her name was Ellen?) Bottom monopolized Titania +for the rest of the evening. I could have beaten him with ease and +satisfaction to myself, but I refrained; and, rushing into the +supper-room, drained three glasses of weak negus with the energy of +despair.</p> + +<p>"I have never suffered any thing since like the torment of the next two +hours. I saw her several times afterward, and might have made play, +perhaps, but the phantom of a round red face, with collars starched <i>à +l'outrance</i>, always came between us. It is only a slight satisfaction to +hear that she has utterly lost sight of my rival, and promises to cut +him dead the first time they meet. There's the history of a young heart +blighted—of a crushed affection! I am not aware if there is any moral +in it; if there is, you are very welcome to it, I am sure. You might +look a little more sympathizing, though, even if I <i>have</i> bored you."</p> + +<p>Flora tried to look grave, but the dancing light in her rebellious eyes +betrayed her, even before her merry musical laugh broke in.</p> + +<p>"It is far the most touching thing I ever heard. Poor child, how you +must have suffered! I wonder you ever smiled again. How well she sings, +does she not? when she does not try to go too high."</p> + +<p>"Don't be severe," Guy retorted; "you may have to sing yourself some +day. You prefer talking, though? Well, with a well-managed <i>contralto</i>, +it comes nearly to the same thing, and I suppose you consider the world +in general is not worthy of it?"</p> + +<p>Almost imperceptibly, but very meaningly, her glance turned to where I +sat close beside her.</p> + +<p>"How absurd! you know why I don't sing often. To-night it would be—too +cruel. (Flora's idea of modest merit was peculiar.) Now tell me, what +are you going to ride to-morrow? We shall all go and see them throw +off."</p> + +<p>Without answering her question, he leaned over her, and said something +too low for me to hear, which made her color brighten.</p> + +<p>From a distant corner two ancient virgins, long past "mark of mouth," +surveyed the proceedings with faces like moulds of lemon-ice. Flora +glanced toward them this time, and said demurely, making a gesture of +crossing her arms a <i>à la Napoléon I.</i>, "Take care; from the summit of +yonder sofa forty ages behold you."</p> + +<p>The caution was a challenge; and so her hearer interpreted it as he sank +down beside her.</p> + +<p>I seemed to be lapsing rapidly into the terrible <i>third</i> that spoils +sport, so I left them; but not all the adjurations of Godfrey Parndon +invoking his favorite antagonist to the whist-table could draw Guy from +his post again that evening.</p> + +<p>I know men who would have given five years of life for the whisper that +glided into his ear as he gave Miss Bellasys her candle on retiring, ten +for the Parthian glance that shot its arrow home.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"I know the purple vestment;</div> +<div class='i10'>I know the crest of flame;</div> +<div class='i8'>So ever <i>rides</i> Mamilius,</div> +<div class='i10'>Prince of the Latian name."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>The next was a perfect hunting morning; a light breeze, steady from the +southwest, and not too much sun; the very day when a scent, in and out +of cover, would be a certainty, if there were any calculation on this +contingency. Let us do our sisters justice—there is <i>one</i> thing in +nature more uncertain and capricious than the whims of womankind.</p> + +<p>The hounds had come up with their usual train of officials, and of those +steady-going sportsmen who love the pack better than their own children, +and can call each individual in it by his name. Godfrey Parndon was +doing the civil to the "great men in Israel," his heaviest subscribers; +pinks were gleaming in every direction through the clumps and belts of +plantation, as the men came up at a hard gallop on their cover-hacks, or +opened the pipes of their hunters by a stretch over the turf of the +park.</p> + +<p>On the hall steps stood Flora Bellasys—Penthesilea in a wide-awake and +plume; a dozen men were round her, striving emulously for a word or a +smile, and she held her own gallantly with them all. She was waiting +patiently till Guy had lighted an obstinate cigar, and was ready to +mount her. He understood putting her up better than any one else, she +said. Perhaps he did; but, though he swung her into the saddle with one +wave of his mighty arm as lightly as Lochinvar could have done, the +arrangement of the skirt and stirrup seemed a problem hardly to be +solved.</p> + +<p>If there was any truth in the old Courland superstition that the display +of a lady's ankle to the hunters before they started brought them luck, +we ought to have had the run of the season that day.</p> + +<p>He rode by her side, too, as near as the plunges of the chestnut would +allow, till we reached the gorse that we were to draw; once there, the +stronger passion prevailed. Aphroditè hid her face, and the great +goddess Artemis claimed her own. As the first hound whimpered, he drew +off toward a corner, where a big fence would give a chance of shaking +off the crowd, and I do not think he turned his head till the fox went +away.</p> + +<p>The last thing I remember there was the anxious look in two beautiful +hazel eyes as they gazed after the Axeine, charging his second fence +with the rush of an express train.</p> + +<p>The <i>fétiche</i> did not fail us; we had a wonderful run, of which only +five men saw the end. I confess, the second brook stopped me and many +others. Forrester got over with a fall; but they were preparing to break +up the fox, when he came up first of the second flight.</p> + +<p>Guy came home in great spirits; he had been admirably carried. He and +the first whip, a ten-stone man, were head and head at the last fence, +while the hounds were rolling over their fox, a hundred yards farther, +in the open.</p> + +<p>After dinner he amused himself with teasing his cousin. At last he +asked her if she would lend him Bella Donna to hack to cover, as his own +favorite was rather lame.</p> + +<p>Miss Raymond's indignation was superb; for, be it known, she was prouder +of the said animal than of any thing else in the world.</p> + +<p>She (the mare, not the lady) was a bright bay, with black points, quite +thorough-bred, and as handsome as a picture. Livingstone had bought her +out of a training-stable, and had given her to his cousin, after having +broken her into a perfect light-weight hunter.</p> + +<p>One of the few extravagances in which Mr. Raymond indulged his daughter +was allowing her to take Bella Donna wherever she went.</p> + +<p>"Don't excite yourself, you small Amazon!" replied Guy to her indignant +refusal. "How you do believe in that mare! I wonder you don't put her +into some of the great Spring Handicaps! You would get her in light, and +might win enough to keep you in gloves for half a century."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," Forester's slow, languid voice suggested; "I think +she's faster, for three miles, than any thing in your stable. I should +like to run the best you have for £50, weight for inches."</p> + +<p>"I am not surprised at your supporting Bella's opinion," said Guy, with +a shade of sarcasm in his voice, "but I did not expect you would back +it. Come, I'll make this match, if you like; you shall ride +catch-weight, which will be about 11 st. 7 lb., and I'll ride the Axeine +at 14 st. 7 lb.: I must take a 7 lb. saddle to do that. They are both in +hard condition, so it can come off in ten days; and I'll give the +farmers a cup to run for at the same time. Is it a match?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, if Miss Raymond will trust me with Bella Donna."</p> + +<p>Isabel's eyes sparkled—so brilliantly! as she answered, "I should like +it, of all things."</p> + +<p>"Now, Puss," Guy went on, "you ought to have something on it. There is a +certain set of turquoises and pearls that I meant to give you whenever +you had been good for three weeks consecutively; it is no use waiting +for such a miracle, so I'll bet you these against that sapphire and +diamond ring you have taken to wearing lately."</p> + +<p>His cousin looked distressed and confused. "Any thing else, Guy," she +said. "I can not risk that; it was a present from—from Mrs. Molyneux."</p> + +<p>"I don't think," Charley suggested, very quietly, "Mrs.—Molyneux, was +it not?—could object to your investing her present on such a certainty. +I really believe we shall bring it off; and if not—" He checked himself +with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you think so," answered Isabel, blushing more than ever, "I will +venture my ring. But you <i>must</i> win; I don't know what I should do if I +lost it." So it was settled.</p> + +<p>"You seem confident," I remarked to Livingstone, later in the evening. I +remember the peculiar expression of his face, though I did not then +understand it, as he answered gravely,</p> + +<p>"Bella ought to be; for—she has laid long odds."</p> + +<p>There was great excitement in the neighborhood when the match, and the +farmers' race to follow, became known. Half the county was assembled on +the appointed morning, an off-day with the Pytchley. Godfrey Parndon was +judge, and had picked the ground—a figure of 8, with 17 fences, large +but fair for the most part; the horses were to traverse it twice, +missing the brook (16 feet of clear water) the second time.</p> + +<p>I wish they were not getting so rare, those purely country meetings, +where three wagons with an awning make the grant stand; where there are +no ring-men to force the betting and deafen you with their blatant +proffers—"to lay agin any thing in the race;" where the bold yeomen, in +full confidence that their favorite will not be "roped," back their +opinions manfully for crowns.</p> + +<p>Livingstone's great local renown, and the reputation of the Axeine for +strength and speed (though no one knew how fast he <i>could</i> go), made the +betting 5 to 4 on him; but takers were not wanting, calculating on the +horse's truly Satanic temper. Miss Bellasys, who, with her mother, had +arrived at Kerton the night before, laid half a point more—<i>not</i> in +gloves—on the heavy-weight.</p> + +<p>The bell for saddling rang, and the horses came out. The mare stripped +beautifully, as fine as a star—no wonder her mistress was proud of her; +and I think she had, to the full, as many admirers as the Axeine.</p> + +<p>The latter was a dark chestnut with a white fetlock, standing full 16 +hands (while the mare scarcely topped 15), well ribbed up, with a good +sloping shoulder, immense flat hocks, and sinewy thighs; his crest and +forehand were like a stallion's; and, when you looked at his quarters, +it was easy to believe what the Revesby stablemen said, "They could +shoot a man into the next county."</p> + +<p>He was "orkarder than usual that morning," the groom remarked; perhaps +he did not fancy the crowd without the hounds, for he kept lashing out +perpetually, with vicious backward glances from his red eyes.</p> + +<p>Then the riders showed: Livingstone in his own colors, purple and +scarlet cap, workmanlike and weather-stained; Forrester in the fresh +glories of light blue with white sleeves, his cap quartered with the +same.</p> + +<p>Charley lingered a minute by Miss Raymond's side, taking her last +instructions, I suppose. She looked very nervous and pale, her jockey +pleasantly languid as ever.</p> + +<p>The instant the chestnut was mounted he reared, and indulged in two or +three "buck-jumps" that would have made a weaker man tremble for his +back-bone, and then kicked furiously; but Guy seemed to take it all as a +matter of course, sitting square and erect; all he did was to drive the +sharp rowels in repeatedly, bringing a dark blood-spot out with each +stroke. It was not by love certainly that he ruled the Axeine. Then came +the preliminary gallops, the mare going easily on her bit, gliding over +the ground smoothly and springily; the horse shaking his head, and every +now and then tearing madly at the reins, without being able to gain a +hair's breadth on the iron hands that never moved from his withers.</p> + +<p>"They're off!" Guy taking the lead; well over the first two fences, fair +hunting ones; the third is a teaser—an ugly black bulfinch, with a +ditch on the landing side, and a drop into a plowed field. The +chestnut's devil is thoroughly roused by this time. When within sixty +yards of the fence, he puts on a rush that even his rider's mighty +muscles can not check: his impetus would send him through a castle wall; +but he hardly rises at the leap, taking it, too, where there is a +network of growers—a crash that might be heard in the grand stand—and +horse and man are rolling in the field beyond.</p> + +<p>Flora Bellasys strikes her foot angrily with her riding-whip, and turns +very pale.</p> + +<p>Ten lengths behind, the mare comes up, well in hand, and slips through +the bulfinch without a mistake—hardly with an effort—just at the only +place where you can see daylight through the blackthorn.</p> + +<p>What is Guy doing? Even in that thundering fall he has never let the +reins go. Horse and rider struggle up together. A dozen arms are ready +to lift him into the saddle, and a cheery voice says in his ear, "Hold +up, squire; keep him a going, and you'll catch the captain yet!" He +hardly hears the words though, for his head is whirling, and he feels +strangely sick and faint; but before he has gone a hundred yards his +face has settled into its habitual resolute calmness, only there is a +thin thread of blood creeping from under his cap, and his brow is bent +and lowering.</p> + +<p>A fall, which would have taken the fight out of most horses, has only +steadied the Axeine; and, as we watch him striding through the deep +ground, casting the dirt behind him like a catapult we think and say, +"The race is not over yet."</p> + +<p>They are over the brook without a scramble. Forrester still leads, +riding patiently and well. He knows better than to force the running, +even with the difference in weight, for the going is too heavy quite to +suit his mare.</p> + +<p>As Livingstone passed the spot where Miss Raymond was stationed, he +turned half round in his saddle, and looked curiously in her face. She +did not even know he was near. All her soul was in her eyes, that were +gazing after Forrester with an anxiety so disproportioned to the +occasion that her cousin fairly started.</p> + +<p>"Poor child," he said to himself, all his angry feelings changing, "she +seems to have set her heart so upon winning, it would be sad if she were +disappointed. No one has much on it; shall I try 'Captain Armstrong' for +once? It would make her very happy. Bar accidents, I must win. They do +not know that the chestnut has not extended himself yet."</p> + +<p>We lose sight of the horses for a little. When we see them a gain, the +mare has decidedly gained ground; and, to our astonishment, the Axeine +swerves, and refuses at rather an easy fence.</p> + +<p>Miss Bellasys' cheek flushes this time. She goes off at a sharp canter +through a gate that takes her into a field where the horses must pass +her close; several of her attendants follow. Charley comes up, looking +rather more excited and happy than usual. He has made the pace better +for the last half mile, and still seems going at his ease. More than a +distance behind is the chestnut, evidently on bad terms with his jockey; +he is in a white lather of foam, and changes his leg twice as he +approaches. Guy has his face turned slightly aside as he nears the spot +where Miss Bellasys waits for him, in the midst of her body-guard. For +the first time since the race began, her voice was heard, cutting the +air with its clear mocking tones, like the edge of a Damascus sabre, +"The chestnut wins—hard held!"</p> + +<p>Guy's kindly impulses vanished instantly before the sarcasm latent in +those last two words. He could sacrifice his own victory and the hopes +of his backers, but he would not give a chance to Flora's merciless +tongue. We saw him change his hold on the reins, and, with a shake and a +fierce thrust of the spurs, he set the Axeine fairly going.</p> + +<p>Every man on the ground, including his late owner [who hated himself +bitterly at that moment for parting with him], was taken by surprise by +the extraordinary speed the horse displayed. He raced up to Bella Donna +just before the last fence, at which she hangs ever so little, while he +takes it in his swing, covering good nine yards from hoof to hoof. +Nothing but hurdles now between them and home. The down-hill run-in +favors his vast stride. A thousand voices echo Flora's words, "The +chestnut wins!" Charley made his effort exactly at the right time, and +the brave little mare answered gallantly; but it was not to be. He shook +his head, and never touched her with whip or spur again.</p> + +<p>The race was over. No one disputed the judge's fiat: "The Axeine by six +lengths."</p> + +<p>Up to the skies went the hats and the shouts of the sturdy yeomen, who +"know'd he couldn't be beat," exulting in the success of their +favorite. Round winner and loser crowded their friends, congratulating +the one, condoling with the other, praising both for their riding. At +that moment I do not think any one except myself remarked Isabel +Raymond, who sat somewhat apart, her tears falling fast under her veil +as she looked upon her lost ring.</p> + +<p>Just then Forrester rode up. "Woe to the vanquished!" he said. "All is +lost but honor. Will you say something kind to me after my defeat, Miss +Raymond? You will find your pet not punished in the least, and without a +scratch on her."</p> + +<p>Without answering, she held out her hand. As he bent over it, and +whispered, what I could not hear, I saw her eyes sparkle, and a happy +consciousness flush her cheeks, till they glowed like a sky at sunset +when a storm is passing away in the west. Then I knew that he had won a +richer prize than ever was set on a race since the first Great +Metropolitan was run for at Olympia.</p> + +<p>Livingstone had washed away the traces of his fall (his wound was only a +cut under the hair, above the temple), and was going to get the horses +in line to start them for the farmers' cup. As he passed Miss Bellasys +he checked his horse for an instant, and said, very coldly,</p> + +<p>"You are satisfied, I trust?"</p> + +<p>"All's well that ends well," answered Flora; "but I began to tremble for +my bets. I thought you were waiting too long."</p> + +<p>Guy did not wish to pursue the subject apparently, for he rode on +without reply. Flora made no attempt to detain him. She had studied the +signs of the times in his countenance long enough to be weather-wise, +and to know that the better part of valor was advisable when the +quicksilver had sunk to Stormy.</p> + +<p>The cup was a great success. Eleven started, and three made a most +artistic finish—scarcely a length between first and third. The farmers +of the present day ride very differently from their ancestors of fifty +years ago, whose highest ambition was to pound along after the slow, +sure "currant-jelly dogs."</p> + +<p>Go down into the Vale of Belvoir; watch one of the duke's tenants +handing a five-year old over the Smite, and say if the modern +agriculturists might not boast with Tydides,</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>"ἡμεῖς δὴ πατέρων μέγ᾽ ἀμείνονες εὐχόμεθ᾽ εἶναι."</i></p></blockquote> + +<blockquote><p><i>"hêmeis dê paterôn meg' ameinones euchometh' einai."</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>They are getting so erudite, too, that I dare say they would quote it in +the original.</p> + +<p>When all was over, and they were returning to Kerton, Guy ranged up to +his cousin's side. He looked rather embarrassed and penitent—an +expression which sat upon his stern, resolute face very strangely. But +Isabel was radiant with happiness, and did not even sigh as she held out +the forfeited ring. He put it back with a decided gesture of his hand, +and, leaning over her, whispered something in her ear. I don't know how +they arranged it; but Miss Raymond wore the turquoises at the next +county ball—the ring, to her dying day.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"Souvent femme varie;</div> +<div class='i8'>Bien fol est, qui s'y fie."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>We sat by the firelight in the old library of Kerton Manor. The dreary +January evening was closing in, with a sharp sleet lashing the windows +and rattling on their diamond panes, but the gleams from the great +burning logs lighted up the dark crimson cushions of Utrecht and the +polished walnut panels so changefully and enticingly that no one had the +heart to think of candles.</p> + +<p>All the younger members of the party were assembled there, with Mrs. +Bellasys to play propriety. It was her mission to be chaperon in +ordinary to her daughter and her daughter's friends, and she went +through with it, admirable in her patient self-denial. May they be +reckoned to her credit hereafter—those long hours, when she sat sleepy, +weary, uncomplaining, with an aching head but a stereotyped smile.</p> + +<p>Let us speak gently of these maternal martyrs, manœuvring though they +be. If they have erred, they have suffered. I knew once a lady with a +lot of six, nubile, but not attractive, all with a decided bias toward +Terpsichore and Hymen. Fancy what she must have endured, with those +plain young women round her, always clamoring for partners, temporary or +permanent, like fledglings in a nest for food. Clever and unscrupulous +as she was—they called her the "judicious Hooker"—she must have been +conscious of her utter inability to satisfy them. She knew, too, that +if, by any dispensation, one were removed, five daughters of the +horse-leech would still remain, with ravenous appetites unappeased. Yet +the poor old bird was cheerful, and sometimes, after supper, would chirp +quite merrily. <i>Honneur au courage malheureux.</i> Let us stand aside in +the cloak-room, and salute her as she passes out with all the honors of +war.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bellasys was a little woman, who always reminded me of a certain +tropical monkey—name unknown. She wore her hair bushily on each side of +her small face, just like the said intelligent animal, and had the same +eager, rather frightened way of glancing out of her beady black eyes, +accompanied by a quick turning of the head when addressed. She had her +full share of troubles in her time, but she took them all +contentedly—not to say complacently—as part of the day's work. Her +husband was not a model of fidelity, nor, indeed, of any of the conjugal +or cardinal virtues. He was a sort of Maëlstrom, into which fair +fortunes and names were sucked down, only emerging in unrecognizable +fragments. His own would have gone too, doubtless; but he had been lucky +at play for a long time—too constantly so, some said—and a pistol +bullet cut him short before he had half spent his wife's money, so that +she was left comfortably off, and her daughter was a fair average +heiress. She had long ago abdicated the government in favor of Flora, +who treated her well on the whole, <i>en bonne princesse</i>.</p> + +<p>It is an invariable rule that, if there is a delicate subject which we +determine beforehand to avoid, this particular one is sure +imperceptibly to creep into the conversation.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bruce was to arrive before dinner, an event which we guessed would +not add materially to the comfort of two of our party (how silent those +two were in their remote corner where the firelight never came), so of +course we found ourselves talking of ill-assorted marriages.</p> + +<p>"You count <i>mésalliances</i> among such?" Guy asked, at length. "Yes, you +are right; but I know a case where 'a man's being balked in his +intention to degrade himself' ruined him for life. Ralph Mohun told me +of it. It was a nine-days' wonder in Vienna soon after he joined the +Imperial Cuirassiers. A Bohemian count flourished there then—a great +favorite with every one, for he was frank and generous, like most boys +well-born and of great possessions, who have only seen things in general +on the sunny side. While down at his castle for the shooting, he fell in +love with the daughter of one of his foresters. The man was a dull, +brutal cur, and, when drunk, especially savage. His daughter was rarely +beautiful; at all events, the count, a good judge, thought her peerless.</p> + +<p>"He meant fairly by the girl from the first, and promised her marriage, +actually intending to keep his word. Still there were arrangements to be +made before he could introduce such a novel element into blood that for +centuries had been pure as the <i>sangue azzura</i>. He went up to Vienna for +that purpose, leaving his design a profound secret to all his +dependents. If these thought about it at all, they probably believed +their master's intentions to be—like Dick Harcourt's toward the Irish +lady—'strictly dishonorable.'</p> + +<p>"One night during his absence shrieks came from the cottage where the +forester lived alone with his daughter. Those who heard them made haste; +but it was a desolate spot, far from any other dwelling, and they came +too late.</p> + +<p>"They found the girl lying in her blood, not a feature of her pretty +face recognizable. Near her were the butt of a gun shivered, and her +father senselessly drunk. He had evidently finished the bottle after +beating her to death.</p> + +<p>"Whether it was merely an outbreak of his stupid ferocity, or if she had +exasperated him by her threats and taunts, for she was of a haughty +spirit, poor child! and perhaps rather elevated by the thought of the +coming coronet, will never be known. The murderer was in no state to +make a confession, and he remained obstinately silent in prison till his +lord's return."</p> + +<p>"How very horrible!" Mrs. Bellasys cried out, shuddering; "was not the +count very angry?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he <i>was</i> rather vexed," replied Guy, coolly. "They are high +justiciaries on their own lands, those great Bohemian barons, and so he +gave the forester a fair trial. It was soon over; the man denied +nothing, only whining out, in excuse, that he thought his daughter was +dishonored. The shadow of death was closing round him, and he was nearly +mad with fear.</p> + +<p>"The old steward saw a strange sort of smile twist his master's white, +quivering lips when he heard this, but he never said a word. I imagine +he thought to reveal his purpose now that it was crushed too great a +sacrifice even to clear the dead girl's fair fame; perhaps, though, he +could not trust his voice, for he did not announce the sentence in +words, but wrote it down: his hand shook very much, and it never carried +a full glass unspilled to his mouth again.</p> + +<p>"The court broke up at midday, and the man went straight, unconfessed, +to the place of his punishment. They tied him to the tree nearest his +own door, and the count sat by while he howled his life out under the +lash. He was hardly dead by sundown."</p> + +<p>"It was revenge, not justice," Mrs. Bellasys said, more firmly than was +her wont. I saw the quick, impatient movement of her daughter's little +foot; she did not appreciate her mother's moralities.</p> + +<p>The answer came in the deepest of Livingstone's deep, stern tones.</p> + +<p>"He was no saint, but a man, and a very miserable one; he acted +according to his light, and in his despair caught at the weapon that was +nearest to his hand. After all, the blood of a base, brutal hound, take +it in what fashion you will, is a poor compensation for one life cut +short in agony, and another blasted utterly.</p> + +<p>"Mohun knew the count's family. Some of them, maiden aunts I suppose, +were devotees of the first order: these came in person, or sent their +pet priests, to argue with him on his unchristian habits of sullen +solitude. The men of his old set came too, to laugh him out of the +horrors. Saint and sinner got the same answer—a shake of the head, a +curse, a threat if he were not left alone, growled out between deep +draughts of strong Moldavian wine. They went, and were wise; for his +pistols lay always beside him—in case his servants offended him, or if +he should take a sudden fancy to suicide—and the shaking finger could +have pulled a trigger still.</p> + +<p>"After a little he left Vienna, shut himself up in his castle, and would +see no one.</p> + +<p>"In England they would have tried at the '<i>de lunatico</i>' statute; but +his next of kin left him in peace, biding their time as patiently as +they could. They had not to wait long; in four years a good constitution +broke up, suddenly at last, and the count exchanged stupor for a sleep +with his fathers, without benefit of clergy. Perhaps they would not have +given him absolution, for he died certainly not in charity with all +men."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Mrs. Bellasys objected, with a timid obstinacy; "I can +not argue with you; but I am sure it was very wrong."</p> + +<p>I struck in to the meek little woman's rescue.</p> + +<p>"That's right, Mrs. Bellasys, don't let him put you down with the high +hand; it's always his way when truth is against him; but I never knew +him break down a stubborn fact yet."</p> + +<p>Guy turned upon me directly.</p> + +<p>"Frank, I have often remarked in you, with pain, quite a feminine +propensity to theorize. Women <i>will</i> do it. My dear Mrs. Bellasys, don't +look so dreadfully like an accusing angel about to bring me to book; you +know I am a hopeless heretic. They get up a sort of <i>Memoria Technica</i> +in early youth, and it clings to them all their life through. If they go +astray, they never cease proclaiming aloud that 'they know it's very +wrong;' though eminently unpractical, they think it due to themselves to +pet certain abstract truths (circumstances don't affect them in the +least), like that priestess of Cotytto, who said to the magistrate, +through her tears, 'I may have been unfortunate, but I've always been +respectable!' Sometimes principle gets the pull over passion, but, in +such a case, regrets come as often afterward as remorse does in the +reverse. I was reading a French story the other day—" He checked +himself with a laugh. "Bah! I am in the prosaic vein, it seems, +anecdoting like the old knave of clubs."</p> + +<p>"Will you go on?" Flora said, leaning over toward him, her eyes +glittering in the firelight.</p> + +<p>The thrill in her voice—strangely contagious it was—told how much she +was interested. I do not wonder at it. There was only one man on earth +for whom she had ever really cared—he sat beside her then—and, I +believe, what attracted her most in him was the daring disregard of +opinions, conventionalities, and more sacred things yet, which carried +him on straight to the accomplishment of his thought or purpose. In +those days, if either were an obstacle, he flinched no more before a +great moral law than at a big fence.</p> + +<p>"Well," Guy went on, "it is the simple history of Fernande, an <i>ange +déchue</i> of the Quartier Brèda. She had formed a connection with a man +who suited her perfectly in every way, and they went on in happy +immorality, till she found out that Maurice had a wife somewhere, a very +charming person, who loved him dearly; perhaps she thought that the +possession of two such affections by one man was <i>de luxe</i>; at all +events, she cut him at once, refusing consistently to see him again. +Maurice, after trying all other means to move her in vain, resorted to +the expedient of a brain fever. When his wife and mother saw him very +near his end, they sent for Fernande as a last resource. They ought to +have preferred death to dishonor, of course; but, my dear Mrs. Bellasys, +they were not strong-minded. What would you have? There are women and +women.</p> + +<p>"She came and nursed him faithfully; when he got better, though still +very weak, she took advantage of his unprotected position to inflict on +him the longest lectures, replete with good sense and good feeling, as +to his conjugal duties, proprieties, and so forth. He gave in at last, +on the principle of 'any thing for a quiet life,' and promised to behave +himself like a decent head of a family. When the balance of power was +thoroughly re-established, she left him, first entreating him, when he +found himself really in love with his wife, and happy, to write and tell +her so. This was to be her reward, you know. The others went to Italy, +Fernande to a place she had in Brittany, where she put herself on a +strict <i>régime</i> of penitence, attending matins regularly, and doing as +much good in her neighborhood as Lady Bountiful, or—my mother. In about +a twelvemonth the letter came; Maurice was devoted to his wife, and +great on the point of domestic felicity. Then Fernande went into her +oratory and prayed. What do you think was the substance of her prayer?"</p> + +<p>"That she might go mad or die," was the quick answer: it came from Flora +Bellasys.</p> + +<p>"How good of you," Guy said, "to let me finish that long story, when you +knew it by heart."</p> + +<p>I think no ear but his and mine caught the whisper—"I never read or +heard of it till now."</p> + +<p>He bent his head in assent, as if the intelligence did not surprise him +much, and then spoke suddenly,</p> + +<p>"Charley, will you make an observation? You have been displaying that +incontestable talent of yours for silence long enough."</p> + +<p>Very seldom was Forrester taken by surprise, but this time his reply was +not ready. There was an embarrassing pause, broken by a <i>Deus ex +machinâ</i>,—the butler announcing that Mr. Bruce had arrived, and was in +the drawing-room.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"And now thou knowest thy father's will,</div> +<div class='i10'>All that thy sex hath need to know:</div> +<div class='i8'>'Twas mine to teach obedience still—</div> +<div class='i10'>The way to love thy lord may show."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>From that dark distant corner I heard a sigh, ending in a nervous +catching of the breath, and then a muttered word unpleasantly like an +oath, as Forrester sprang to his feet.</p> + +<p>Livingstone rose slowly.</p> + +<p>"I'll go and receive him. Let Mr. Raymond know, Wise. I suppose he will +not care to see any one else before dressing-time; it must be near that +now."</p> + +<p>As he passed his cousin, he whispered something inaudible to us; and I +saw his heavy hand fall on Charley's shoulder, crushing him down again +like a child.</p> + +<p>Then Flora went to Miss Raymond, and asked her, with more kindness in +her manner than usual, to come to her rooms for some tea; they always +seriously inclined to the consumption of that cheerful herb about this +hour. Isabel clung to her companion as they went out with a meek +helplessness which was sad to see.</p> + +<p>Charley had vanished before them. After that first involuntary movement +he had become <i>nonchalant</i> as ever, so I remained alone to ruminate. I +confess, after some thought, I was still in the dark as to where things +would end.</p> + +<p>The meeting had been got over somehow, for, when I came down before +dinner, Bruce was sitting on a sofa by Miss Raymond's side.</p> + +<p>Why does a man in such a position invariably look as if he were on the +stool of repentance, expiating some misdeed of unutterable shame? He has +sat by the same woman before, when it was only a strong flirtation; more +eyes, curious and spiteful, were upon him then, and he met them with +perfect self-possession. Now that he is in his right, why does he look +blushingly uneasy, as if he would call on the curtains to hide him, and +the cushions to cover him? Have any mortals existed so good, or great, +or wise, as to be exempt from that dreadful poll-tax levied on all males +unprivileged to woo by proxy—the necessity of looking ridiculous from +the moment their engagement is announced to that when they leave the +church as Benedicts? I should like to have watched Burke, or Herschel, +or the Iron Duke, or <i>any</i> Archbishop of Canterbury, through the ordeal +of a recognized courtship. Would the dignity of the statesman, the sage, +the soldier, or the saint have been sustained? I trow not.</p> + +<p>In truth, it is a sight full of sad warning, that ever-recurring +spectacle of an engaged man (the lady is always provokingly at her ease) +in general society. His friends turn away in compassion and charity; the +girls, whom he ought to have married and—didn't, look on, exchanging +smiles with their mothers; it is their hour of savage triumph. The +French manage things more comfortably, I think. The promessi sposi meet +so seldom before the contract is signed—between sentence and execution +the time is so brief that there is little space for intermediate +terrors.</p> + +<p>Nature had not been bountiful to Mr. Bruce in externals. He was very +tall, with round shoulders, long, lean limbs, large feet and hands, and +immense joints. There was a good deal of strength about him, but it +wanted concentration and arrangement. His features were rather +exaggerated and coarse in outline, with the high cheek-bones common on +the north side of the Tweed; his hair of an unhappy vacillating color +that could not make its mind up to be red; and his eyes, that rarely met +you fairly, of a light cold gray. About the mouth, in particular, there +was a very unpleasant expression, alternately vicious and cunning.</p> + +<p>I do not believe that his intimates, if he had any, in their wildest +moments of conviviality, ever called him "Jack;" nor his mother, in his +earliest childhood, "Johnnie." Plain "John Bruce" was written +uncompromisingly in every line of his face; just the converse of +Forrester, whom old maids of rigid virtue, after seeing him twice, were +irresistibly impelled to speak of as "Charley."</p> + +<p>I wish some profound psychologist would give us his theory on the +question of "The influence of nomenclature on disposition and destiny." +It is all very well to ask, "What's in a name?" I think there is a great +deal; and that our sponsors have much to answer for in indulging their +baptismal fancies. Not to go into the subject (which some have already +done without exhausting it), have you not remarked that Georgiana is +always pretty and slightly sarcastic; that Isabella has large, soft, +lustrous eyes—generally they are dark; that Fanny invariably flirts; +and that Kate is decided in character, if not haughty?</p> + +<p>Tragedy and comedy both are forced to observe these nominal +proprieties. Who was it that illuminated his house, and had the church +bells rung, on finding a name for his hero? We should never have +believed in Iago's treacheries if he had appeared before us as simple +"James."</p> + +<p>The new arrival seemed to have chilled us all into stupidity. Dinner +languished; and afterward, Guy, after trying at first to be laboriously +civil—the sense of duty was painfully evident—lapsed into silence, +passing the claret rather faster than usual, so that Mr. Raymond, to his +intense disgust, had to make an effort and force the conversation.</p> + +<p>When we entered, Isabel was nestling under Miss Bellasys' wing, from +which shelter she had to emerge at Bruce's request for some music. She +went directly, and played several pieces that he asked for straight +through, while he stood gravely behind her with a complacent air of +proprietorship which was inexpressibly aggravating.</p> + +<p>When her task was done she went back to her sofa again; there she was +safe, for all Bruce's devotion to his ladye-love and stubbornness of +character could not give him courage enough to affront, at close +quarters, the mingled dislike and scornful humor that played round +Flora's lips, and gleamed in her eyes like summer lightning. He had to +retreat upon Lady Catharine, who, thinking him hardly used, in her +inextinguishable charity exerted herself to entertain him.</p> + +<p>We were all glad when that first evening was over, and we got into the +smoking-room, whither Mr. Bruce was not entreated to follow. It was +always an augury of foul weather in Livingstone's temper when, instead +of the decent evening cigar, he smoked the short black <i>brule-gueule</i>, +loaded to the muzzle with cavendish. He sat thus for some minutes, +rolling out stormy puffs from under his mustache, and then broke out,</p> + +<p>"I haven't an idea what to do with him" (there was no need to name the +object of his thoughts); "I made up my mind to risk a horse or two, for, +of course, he would have broken their knees; but when I offered him a +mount, he thanked me and said, 'He didn't hunt.' It would have got him +away from home, at all events. Poor Bella! how heavy on hand she <i>will</i> +find him."</p> + +<p>"Ah! and he might have come to a timely end over timber; Providence does +interfere so benevolently sometimes." This was Forrester's pious +reflection.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's over," Guy went on. "He must shoot, though; every one +shoots, or thinks he does. We have all the pheasants to kill yet +(by-the-by, Fallowfield comes over on Thursday for the Home Wood); that +will keep him employed for some time; but it's only putting off the evil +day. My match-making aunt, of blessed memory, how much she has to answer +for! I hate to think of Bella's <i>mignonne</i> face alongside of that +flinty-cheeked Scotchman's."</p> + +<p>"Don't be angry, Guy," suggested Charley, with some diffidence; "but, if +it's not an impertinent question, do you think he ever tries to kiss +your cousin?"</p> + +<p>"I never thought of that," replied Livingstone, not without an oath; +"there's another pleasant reflection. No, I should think not. He <i>is</i> +ceremonious, to give the devil his due. I'll find out to-morrow, though, +without making Bella blush. Miss Bellasys is sure to know. I saw them +exchanging confidences all this evening, and I am certain there were +instigations to rebellion. Flora would delight in an <i>émeute</i>; she's a +perfect Red Republican, that girl."</p> + +<p>"The opposition seems organizing," I remarked; "ministers will find +themselves soon, I fear, without a working majority."</p> + +<p>"Not unlikely," said Guy, filling another pipe; "but they won't resign. +Some men never know when they are beaten. Well, he who lives will see. +If this wind lasts, we shall have a cracker from Lilbourne to-morrow. +You ride the young one, don't you, Charley?"</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i14'>"A life whose waste</div> +<div class='i8'>Ravaged each bloom by which its path was traced,</div> +<div class='i8'>Sporting at will, and moulding sport to art,</div> +<div class='i8'>With what sad holiness—the human heart."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>It is a bright, crisp morning, and there is a gathering round the hall +door of Kerton Manor.</p> + +<p>To the right is Sir Henry Fallowfield, already established on the broad +tack of his shooting pony, an invaluable animal, that can leap or creep +wherever a man can go, and steady under fire as old Copenhagen. The +baronet is very gouty. The whip made out of his favorite vices cuts him +up sharply at times, and he does not like it alluded to. I never saw him +look so savage at Guy as when the latter quoted, <i>"Raro antecedentem +scelestum Deseruit pede pœna claudo."</i> Of course, he can not walk +much; but, placed in a ride, or at the corner of a cover, he rolls over +the hares and pulls down the pheasants unerringly as ever; when you come +up, you will find him surrounded by a semicircle of slain, and not a +runner among them.</p> + +<p>The battle of life has left its tokens on the face of the strong, +skillful Protagonist. The features, once so finely cut, are somewhat +full and bloated now; but it is a magnificent ruin, and there are traces +yet of "the handsomest man of his day." Very expressive are his glances +still; a little too much so, some people think, when he is criticising a +figure or a face; but, to do him justice, <i>gourmandise</i> is his pet +weakness now, a comparatively harmless one; and a delicate <i>entremet</i> +will bring the light into his eyes that only war or love could do in the +old days.</p> + +<p>By Sir Henry's side, encouraging him with great prophecies of sport, +stands Mallett, the head-keeper. What a contrast his fresh, honest face +makes with the veteran <i>roué's</i>! He is the elder of the two by a good +ten years, and there is scarcely a wrinkle on his ruddy cheeks and +smooth forehead. Wind and weather have used him with a rough kindness, +and his foot is almost as light, his hand quite as heavy, as when he +entered the service of Guy's grandfather half a century ago. For +generations his family have been devoted to the preservation of game; +his six stalwart sons are all eminent in that line; and the "Kerton +breed" of keepers is renowned throughout the Midland shires. He is a +prime favorite with the village children and their mothers, for, in all +respects save one, his heart is as soft as a woman's; to poachers it is +as the nether millstone. There is the stain of a "justifiable homicide" +on the old man's hands—the blood of an antagonist slain in fair fight, +in those rough times when the forest was, and marauders came out by +scores to strike its deer. I do not think the deed has weighed heavily +on his conscience (though he never has spoken of it since), or troubled +his healthy, honest slumbers.</p> + +<p>To the left is Guy, repressing the attentions of four couple of strong +red and white spaniels, but <i>not</i> those of Miss Bellasys, who, standing +at the oriel window of the library, is good-natured enough to fasten the +band of his wide-awake for him, which has come undone. As he stands +with his towering head a little bent, murmuring the "more last words," +Sir Henry, contemplating the picture with much satisfaction, smacks his +lips, and suggests "Omphale."</p> + +<p>Last of all, Mr. Raymond comes slowly down the staircase, followed by +his son-in-law that is to be. Forrester and I have been ready long ago, +so we start.</p> + +<p>Bruce did shoot, certainly, if discharging his gun on the slightest +provocation constituted the fact; but he shot curiously ill. Indeed, he +might have formed a pendant to that humane sportsman who, having taken +to rural sports <i>sero sed serio</i>, said, in extreme old age, "that it was +a satisfaction to him to reflect that he could not charge himself with +having been, wittingly, the death of more than a dozen of his +fellow-creatures."</p> + +<p>It was a problem whereon Mallett ruminated gravely long +afterward—"Wherever Mr. Bruce's shot do go to?" He could not conceive +so much lead being dispersed in the atmosphere without a more adequate +result. This want of dexterity, too, was thrown into strong relief that +day; for all the other men, putting myself out of the question, were +rare masters of the art.</p> + +<p>Livingstone headed the list, though Fallowfield ran him hard. He got the +most shots, indeed; for his knowledge of the woods and great strength +enabled him always to keep close to the spaniels. He was a sight to +marvel at, as he went crashing through bramble and blackthorn with a +long even stride, just as if he had been walking through light springs.</p> + +<p>At the end of the day we were all assembled outside the cover, where the +game was being counted, except Bruce, who was still in the wood. A stray +shot every now and then gave notice of his approach.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div>"We heard but the distant and random gun</div> +<div>That the foe was sullenly firing,"</div></div> +</div> + +<p>Guy quoted, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Random! you may say that," remarked Fallowfield. "That man ought to be +in a glass case, and ticketed; he's a natural curiosity. His bag to-day +consists of one hare, one hen, and one—sex unknown, for no one saw it +rise or tried to pick it up; it was blown into a cloud of feathers +within six feet of his muzzle. Here he comes; don't ask him what he's +done—it's cruelty."</p> + +<p>Bruce came up to us, looking rather more discontented than usual, but +not nearly so savage as the keeper who had attended him all day, who +immediately retreated among his fellows to relieve himself, by many +oaths, of his suppressed disgust and scorn. They offered him beer, but +it was no use. I heard him growl out, "That there muff's enough to spile +one's taste for a fortnit."</p> + +<p>It was the hour of the wood-pigeons coming in to roost, and several were +wheeling over our heads at a considerable height.</p> + +<p>"There's something for you to empty your gun at, Bruce," Sir. Raymond +said, pointing to one that came rather nearer than the rest.</p> + +<p>He was leveling, when Forrester cried out, "Five-and-twenty to five on +the bird!"</p> + +<p>"Done!" answered Bruce, as he pulled the trigger. It was a long and not +very easy shot, but the pigeon came whirling down through the tranches +with a broken pinion.</p> + +<p>"You are unlucky in your selection, Captain Forrester," the successful +shot remarked, coolly. "You might have won a heavy stake by laying the +same odds all day."</p> + +<p>"It serves you right," interposed Guy, "for speaking to a man on his +shot. Don't you remember quarreling with me the other day for doing so, +Charley?"</p> + +<p>Charley's face of perplexity and disgust was irresistible. We all +laughed. "What a <i>guignon</i> I have," he said. "Mr. Raymond, I believe you +were in the robbery."</p> + +<p>"Not I," was the answer. "I was as much surprised as any one. I think," +he went on, lowering his tone, "Guy is right; he changed his aim, as you +spoke, involuntarily, or he <i>must</i> have missed."</p> + +<p>Then we turned homeward through the twilight.</p> + +<p>I do not know if the reminiscence of his lost "pony" was rankling in +Forrester's mind, or if he was only affected by the presence of Sir +Henry Fallowfield—an immoral Upas, under whose shadow the most +flourishing of good resolutions were apt to wither and die; but +certainly, after dinner, he broke through the cautious reserve which he +had always in public maintained toward Miss Raymond since Bruce's +arrival. He not only talked to her incessantly, but tempted her to sing +with him, during which performance they seemed rapidly lapsing into the +old confidential style.</p> + +<p>Bruce sat apart, the shades on his rugged face gradually deepening from +sullenness into ferocity. He looked quite wolfish at last, for it was a +habit he had to show his white teeth more when he was savage than when +he smiled. But the music went on its way rejoicing,</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div>"Unconscious of their doom,</div> +<div>The little victims played."</div></div> +</div> + +<p>Isabel was too happy, and Charley too careless to be prudent. Once I +caught his glance as it crossed with Bruce's scowl. There was an +expression on his pleasant face that few men had ever seen there, +approaching nearly to an insolent defiance. Looking at those two, a +child might have known that between them there was bitter hate.</p> + +<p>But what of that? Are not the laws of society and the amenities of +civilized life supreme over such trifles as personal animosities? How +many women are there who never meet without mingling in a close embrace, +when each is to the other a Brinvilliers in heart? My gentle cousin +Kate, only last night I saw you greet your intimate enemy. It was the +moat gushing thing I ever imagined. The kisses were profuse and +tantalizing in the extreme; yet I wish, if thoughts could kill, dearest +Emma's neck would have been safer in the hug of a Norway bear than in +the clasp of your white willowy arms.</p> + +<p>Are there not men, sitting constantly at each other's tables, who, in +the Golden Age, when people spoke and acted as they felt, would only +have encountered at the sword's point?</p> + +<p>If we hear that our mortal foe is ruined irretrievably, we betray no +indecorous exultation, but smile complacently and say, "We are not +surprised;" or, if we have the chance, give him a last push to send him +over the precipice on whose brink he is staggering. But as for any +violent demonstration—bah! the <i>Vendetta</i> is going out of fashion, even +in Corsica, nowadays; only on the boards of the "Princess's" does it +have a run.</p> + +<p>It is better so. Is it not far more creditable and less ridiculous for +two of our reverend seniors, between whom there exists a deadly feud, to +comport themselves with decent reserve toward each other, than to go +vaporing about on crutches, stamping the foot that is not gouty, and +blaspheming in a weak, cracked treble, like Capulet and Montague? Hot +rooms and cold draughts are dangerous, but not so fatal as the Aqua +Tofana, and other pleasant beverages more revolting and rapid in their +effects. Could any thing be more harrowing to a well regulated mind than +to see, in the midst of a neatly-turned compliment, one's partner +literally <i>look black</i> at one, and expire incontinently in great +torments?</p> + +<p>It is less romantic, but I prefer to be given an unmedicated rose. When +I win a pair of gloves, it is a satisfaction to me to reflect that in +Houbigant or Pivert there is no venom or guile.</p> + +<p>All these consoling thoughts, and more, passed through my mind that +evening; yet I could not get rid of a strange, indistinct impression +that it was only the presence of Livingstone which averted some great +danger imminent over his cousin and Forrester.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i14'>"This is all</div> +<div class='i8'>The gain we reap, from all the wisdom sown</div> +<div class='i8'>Through ages. Nothing doubted those first sons</div> +<div class='i8'>Of time; while we, the schooled of centuries,</div> +<div class='i8'>Nothing believe—"</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>We were scattered round the smoking-room, about midnight, in different +attitudes of repose. Bruce was of the party, decidedly out of his +element. He did not like tobacco much, and only took a cigar as a +sacrifice to the exigencies of the occasion, consuming the same with +great toil and exertion of the lungs, and when he removed it from his +lips, holding it at arm's length, like a viper or other venomous beast.</p> + +<p>"Charley," asked Fallowfield, at length, from the depths of his divan, +"how is the regiment going on? Insolvent as ever?"</p> + +<p>"More so," was the reply. "When I came away they were thinking of +framing a £5 note, and hanging it up in the ante-room, to show that we +had <i>some</i> money—just like the man who pitched loaves over the +city-walls when they were dying of famine—but there was a difficulty +about procuring one. However, we have been promised the son of an +opulent brewer or distiller (I forget which, but I know he makes +something to drink), who is to join before Easter. Perhaps he may set us +afloat again."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Guy remarked; "fortunately, a martial spirit is abroad in the +Third Estate. <i>Walbrook s'en va t'en guerre</i>. If there is one moneyed +man in the lot, it seems sufficient to keep the others going. I often +wonder how you manage; for, to do you justice, you don't plunder your +Crœsus. You deserve statues—as Sydney Smith would have said—<i>æris +alieni</i>."</p> + +<p>"I am not the rose, but I have lived with her," responded Forrester, +sententiously. "That's the principle of the thing. When a subaltern +arrives laden with gold, the barrack-yard is a perfect garden of +Bendemeer to the tradesmen."</p> + +<p>"I believe it is precisely such regiments," remarked Bruce, "that the +political economists have in view when they attack the army estimates."</p> + +<p>The observation was aggressive; but Charley's countenance was unruffled +as the Dead Sea as he answered, "Personal, but correct. You are intimate +with Joseph Hume, probably? You look as if you were." (These last words +were a stage aside, not quite so inaudible as could be wished.) "I think +we should fight, if we had a chance, though."</p> + +<p>His lip wore a curious smile, and he raised himself on his arm to look +the last speaker full in the face.</p> + +<p>"Of course you would," broke in Sir Henry; "that's not a peculiarity of +crack regiments or second sons. It's only in their baptism of fire that +the young ones shrink and start; after that, the meekest of men develop +themselves wonderfully. I heard an old Indian, the other day, speak of a +case in point.</p> + +<p>"There was an officer in his service, mild and stupid to a degree. He +had been a butt all his life; bullied at school, at Addiscombe, and in +his corps worst of all.</p> + +<p>"They were attacking a hill-fort, and the fire from wall-pieces and +matchlocks was so heavy that the storming-party would not face it. Among +those who retreated were two of his superior officers and chief +tormentors. The junior lieutenant saw them cowering away to seek +shelter, and laughed out loud; then he flung his shako before him into +the fort, and led the sepoys back to the charge, and right over the +breastwork—bareheaded and cheering. He was shot down inside, and lived +only a few hours, all the time in horrible agony; but Western told us +that Bayard or Sidney could have made no braver or calmer ending."</p> + +<p>"You are right," Livingstone said. "The Roundheads fought fully as well +as the Cavaliers. I only know of two instances where the thoroughbreds +had the advantage of a contrast. One was when the Scottish regiment took +the island in the Rhine; the other was the exploit of the <i>Gants +Glacés</i>. Don't you know it? It's worth hearing.</p> + +<p>"They were attacking some town in the wars of the Fronde. The breach was +scarcely practicable, and the best of the besieging army had recoiled +from it with great loss. The Black Mousquetaires stood by in all the +coquetry of scarf, and plume, and fringed scented gloves, laughing +louder at each repulse of the Linesmen. The soldiers heard them and +gnashed their teeth. At last there was a murmur, and then a shout—<i>'En +avant les Gants Glacés!'</i> They wanted to see 'the swells' beaten too. +Then the Household Brigade went up and carried the breach, leaving a +third of their number on it. The general in command made the whole army +defile past their <i>guidon</i>, and salute it with sloped standards.</p> + +<p>"No; very few men are physical cowards in battle, whatever they may be +across country. I don't believe Paris was, when he ran from Menelaüs; +and Helen did not think so, though she teased him about it, or she would +never have spoken to him again. I rather imagine his feeling was that of +a certain Guardsman of our acquaintance, who said, declining the ordeal +of combat, that 'his first duty was to his partners, and this did not +allow him to risk a black eye.'"</p> + +<p>"Might not remorse at the sight of the man he had injured have had +something to do with his flight?" Bruce asked.</p> + +<p>He was full of moral sentiments—that man; only you could not look at +him without fancying that they sprung more from an inclination to be +contradictious and disagreeable than from any depth of principle.</p> + +<p>"Absurd," Guy retorted. "Wasn't he a heathen, and rather an immoral one? +It was of profligates with far greater advantages of education that some +one said, '<i>'Le remords nait de l'abandon, et non de la faute</i>.' The +walls of Troy were strong then, and the Destroyer-of-ships safe behind +them, 'getting herself up alarmingly' for his return. No wonder Menelaüs +was eager for the duel: he was staking his loneliness against Paris's +nine points of the law."</p> + +<p>Sir Henry Fallowfield smiled approvingly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he observed, not answering what had been said, but evidently +following out a train of his own thought. "Modern exquisites have +courage, and self-possession, and conceit—great elements of success +with women, I own—but they have not much more. I am certain Charley, +who is a favorable specimen of the class, often affects silence because +he has nothing on earth to say. There is a decadence since my younger +days (I hope I speak dispassionately), and how very far we fell short of +the <i>roués</i> of the Régence! We could no more match them than a +fighting-man in good training could stand up to one of the old Pict +giants. Look at Richelieu: good at all points—in the battle, in the +boudoir, in the Bastille—a dangerous rival at the two ages of ordinary +men's first and second childhood."</p> + +<p>"He was a great man in his way," I assented. "Do you remember his answer +to the Duchesse de Maine, when she asked him, for a political purpose, +if he could remain faithful for one week to an intrigue then twenty-four +hours old? '<i>Madame, quand une fois j'embrasse un parti, je suis capable +des plus grandes sacrifices pour le soutenir.</i>' The object of that +heroic constancy was the Maréchale de Villars, one of the loveliest +women in France. It was the sublime of fatuity—was it not?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," said Charley, settling himself comfortably in his +cushions, and glancing almost imperceptibly at Bruce; "they seem to +fancy us, notwithstanding. We have only one great obstacle—the mothers +that <i>bore</i> us."</p> + +<p>Be it known that "they," used simply, stood in his vocabulary for the +fair sex in general.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," replied Fallowfield; "don't be so ungrateful. You don't know +what you owe to those anxious parents. It helps you enormously, being +the objects of perpetual warnings from husbands and chaperons, the +first considering you <i>mauvais sujets</i>, the last <i>mauvais partis</i>; for +you <i>are</i> 'detrimentals,' for the most part, you will own."</p> + +<p>"<i>Vetitum ergo cupitum</i>," interrupted Livingstone. "A good many +moralists before and since old Rabelais have discoursed on that text. +The Chief of Errington was probably much more agreeable, besides being a +better match than Jock of Hazeldean, who clearly was what an old +Frenchman lately described to me—'<i>un vaurien, mon cher, qui court les +filles et qui n'a pas le son</i>.' But then poor Frank was the government +candidate; so, of course, in a popular election, he went to the wall."</p> + +<p>Sir Henry's face grew more pensive and grave as he said, "It is very +hard on the women, certainly, that our race should have degenerated so, +for I believe in my conscience they are as clever and wicked, and +appreciate temptation as much as ever." (The gusto with which he said +this is indescribable.) "There is the Bellasys, for instance, with a +calculating sensuality, an astuteness of stratagem, an utter contempt of +truth, and a general aptitude for making fools of men, that poor Philip +the Regent would have worshiped. When she had no one better to corrupt, +I have seen her take in hand an older, sadder, wiser, uglier man than +myself, and in three days bring him to the verge of insanity, so that he +would scowl at his wife, his companion for forty years, the blameless +mother of six grown-up children, with a hideous expression indicative of +carving-knives and strychnine. Guy suits her best. His thews and sinews +awe her a little sometimes; and he has a certain hardness of character +and pitilessness of purpose, improved by my instructions, which will +carry him far, but not far enough, I think. You're right not to look +flattered" (Guy's face had moved no more than the marble Memnon's); "you +are only a shade better than the rest. Our effete world is not worthy of +that rare creature: she was born a century too late."</p> + +<p>"I quite differ with you," Bruce said, in his harshest voice; "I am +certain the great plurality of the women of our day would resist any +temptation, from fear of the consequences, if not from principle."</p> + +<p>Fancy the feelings of the Greek professor interrupted in his lecture by +a controverting freshman, and you will have some idea of Fallowfield's. +His eye lighted on the last speaker, glittering like a hooded snake's, +as it were caressing him with a lambent scorn.</p> + +<p>I never guessed how much sneering provocation could reside in tones +usually so very soft and musical till I heard him answer, "I suppose you +<i>do</i> differ with me. We probably both speak from experience. On one +point you are scarcely practical, though. You think you can frighten a +woman into propriety. Try it."</p> + +<p>"Are you not too general in your strictures or encomiums?" I suggested, +wishing to relieve the awkwardness which ensued; "surely there are many +instances to the contrary. Take Lady Clanronald, for instance, married +to a man her elder by twenty years, and not very clever or agreeable, I +should think. No one ever breathed a whisper against her, and it has not +been through default of aspirants."</p> + +<p>An evil smile curled round the old <i>roué's</i> sensual mouth, radiating +even to the verge of the forest of his iron-gray whiskers.</p> + +<p>"Clanronald not clever?" he replied. "The cleverest man I know. He knew +how his wife would be tempted, and he has taken the greatest pains to +encourage a counteracting influence—family pride. Don't you know she is +a Hautagne? It is a tradition with that race that their women never go +wrong—under a prince of the blood. None of these are available just +now, so she is still '<i>Une Madeleine, dans la puissance de son mari, et +dans l'impuissance de se repentir</i>.'"</p> + +<p>It was worse than useless to argue with Fallowfield. All your own best +hits were turned aside by the target of his cynicism and unbelief, while +his sophistries and sarcasms often came home. Like old wounds, they +would begin to shoot and rankle in after years, just when it was most +important and profitable to forget them.</p> + +<p>We separated soon after this. Sir Henry's face wore an expression of +placid self-congratulation. He thought the conversation had been rather +improving, I believe, and that some of the ideas and illustrations had +been rather neatly put; so he laid his head down that night with the +calm, satisfied feeling of a good man who has done his duty and not lost +a day.</p> + +<p>He was not more ingenious in overcoming the scruples of others than in +silencing his own conscience, though of late years this last had +probably ceased to give him much trouble. Finer feelings with him were +only "sensations morbidly exaggerated," and he made no sort of +allowance for such; among others, utterly ignoring remorse, I doubt if +he ever looked forward; I am sure he never looked back. A parody on the +"tag" which was given to Cambronne would sum up his terribly simple and +consistent creed—<i>La femme se rend, mais ne meurt pas</i>.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"I hold him but a fool, that would endanger</div> +<div class='i8'>His body for a girl that loves him not."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>Fallowfield left us the next morning, the Bellasys later in the same +day. They were to pay divers visits, and then return to Kerton. Lady +Catharine pressed them to do so; though she liked the daughter less than +the mother, she was so anxious Guy should marry some one that I think +she would have accepted even Flora with thankfulness.</p> + +<p>It is a favorite delusion with the British parent that marriage will +work a miracle, and steady their children for life, by casting forth the +<i>lutins</i> who beset them. A thousand failures have not convinced the good +speculative matrons of the hazard of the experiment, nor will as many +more do so; they will go on match-making and blundering to the end of +time. For a very brief space the evil spirits are exorcised; but before +the gloss is off the new-married couple's new furniture, one of the band +creeps back and opens the door to his fellows. These hardly know their +old quarters at first, but they soon begin to like them better than +ever—are they not swept and garnished? "So they enter in and dwell +there, and"—I need not finish the sentence; a thousand sweet though +somewhat shrill voices will save me that trouble—a doleful music—an +ancient tale of wrong—the Song of the Brides! They used to say that a +man never went so hard to hounds after entering the holy estate. If +this be so, I fear it is the only comforting result which follows of +course.</p> + +<p>What Flora and Guy said to each other at parting I can not guess. +Neither was of the sentimental order, and both might have taken for +their motto, "Lightly won and lightly lost." Her hand lingered somewhat +long in his as they said farewell, but she was smiling, if any thing, +more saucily than ever. So she went, leaving behind her no tangible +token, except a tiny pearl-colored glove, which Guy twisted rather +pensively between his fingers as he stood on the hall steps, and watched +the carriage disappear down the avenue. Mr. Bruce exulted after his +saturnine fashion, and Isabel Raymond trembled; the one had lost a +strong, unscrupulous ally, the other a formidable enemy.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you open those letters, Charley?" Livingstone asked at +breakfast, next morning, pointing to a pile that lay unopened by the +letters plate.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, I haven't the heart to do it," was the reply. "They are +all expressive, I know, of different phases of mercantile despair. I +believe these men keep a supplicant, as Moses maintains a poet. The last +appeal from my saddler was perfectly heartrending: he could not have +written it himself, for he looks as tough as his own pig-skin. If he +had, he would be <i>impayable</i> in more ways than one. What can I do? I +can't come down on the poor old man who has the misfortune to be my +father for more supplies when rents are being reduced fifteen per cent. +The tradesmen must learn to endure. They have a splendid chance of +attaining the victory of suffering."</p> + +<p>Bruce smiled complacently to himself, and then superciliously at +Charley. He had just received a letter from his banker, consulting him +as to the disposal of a superfluous thousand or so, and he was +hesitating between some dock shares and a promising railway.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Forrester went on, "it's very well for you to talk in that +hardened way, as you did the other night, about detrimentals and second +sons. I wonder how you would like to have an elder brother, a pillar of +learned societies, and as tenacious of life as one of his pet zoophytes? +He used to consume quantities of medicine, which was encouraging; but +lately he has taken to homœopathy, which was quite out of the match. +He told me, lately, that 'four hundred a year and my pay was affluence.' +Affluence!"</p> + +<p>It is impossible to describe the cadence of plaintive indignation which +he gave to the last word. The recollection of his wrongs had made him +almost energetic: we listened to his eloquence in respectful surprise.</p> + +<p>"It was adding insult to injury," answered Guy. "If Parliament does not +do something for you all soon, there will be another exodus of the +Parthenidæ."</p> + +<p>Charley looked at his friend admiringly, as he always did when Guy was +classical in his allusions; but the unwonted effort had evidently +exhausted him, and he lapsed into silence.</p> + +<p>We rode out that afternoon to make some calls in the neighborhood, and, +in returning, Livingstone proposed a short cut through a line of gates, +with a short interval of cross-country work.</p> + +<p>His cousin looked delighted, Bruce decidedly uncomfortable, though, of +course, he could not refuse. He was riding Kathleen, an Irish mare, one +of the quietest in the Kerton stable, where none were very steady. The +fences were nothing at first; at last we came to a brook. It was not +broad, but evidently deep, with high, rotten banks. However, as we were +going at a fair hunting pace, all, including Bella Donna and her +mistress, took it in their stride, but pulled up at once, seeing that +Bruce was left behind, with the groom who was following us.</p> + +<p>The first time he came at it, it was a clear case of "craning." He was +hauling nervously at the reins, and would not let the mare have it.</p> + +<p>Guy regarded him with intense contempt. "By G—d," he muttered, "I +believe the man's afraid!"</p> + +<p>Forrester laughed so unrestrainedly that Isabel looked at him +beseechingly, in evident dread of the consequences.</p> + +<p>"My dear Miss Raymond," he said, answering her frightened glance, "don't +alarm yourself. Do you think I am a Quixote, to war with windmills?"</p> + +<p>No one could look at Bruce's long arms and legs, all working at once, +without owning the aptness of the simile.</p> + +<p>For the third time he came down at the brook, and, I really believe, +meant going; but Kathleen, unused to such vacillating measures, had got +sulky, and swerved on the very brink, almost sliding over it. Her rider +lost his seat, rolled over her shoulder, and for an instant disappeared +in the water.</p> + +<p>Achelous or Tiber, emerging from his native waves, crowned with aquatic +plants, presented, I doubt not, an appearance at once dignified and +becoming, but I defy any ordinary non-amphibious mortal to look, under +similar circumstances, any thing but supremely ridiculous. The wrathful +face framed in dripping hair and plastered whiskers—the movements of +the limbs, awkward and constrained—the rivulets distilling from every +salient angle, turning the victim into a walking Lauterbrunnen—when we +saw all these absurdities exaggerated before us, no wonder that from the +whole party, including the groom, there broke "unnumbered laughters."</p> + +<p>"Curse the mare!" Bruce hissed out. The words came crushed and broken, +as it were, through the white ranges of his grinding teeth.</p> + +<p>Livingstone's face hardened directly. "Swear as much as you think the +circumstances require, or as my cousin will allow," he said, "but be +just before you're generous: don't anathematize Kathleen. It was no +fault of hers. I never saw her refuse before; but she is used to be put +straight at her fences. Hold her still, Harry" (to the groom on the +farther side, who had caught the mare's rein); "I'll ride her at it +myself."</p> + +<p>He threw his bridle to Forrester, and, dismounting, cleared the brook at +a bound. Then he went up to Kathleen, and began to coax her with voice +and hand.</p> + +<p>"I'll bet an even fifty he takes her over the first time," said Charley.</p> + +<p>Bruce nodded his head, without speaking, to show that he took the bet. I +thought he had the best of it, for the mare was so savage and sulky +still that a refusal seemed a certainty.</p> + +<p>Guy had mounted by this time, and, after taking a wide sweep in the +field, came down at the brook. Kathleen was curling her back up, and +going short, with the most evident intention of balking; but swerving +was next to impossible, for she was fairly held in a vice by her rider's +hands and knees. The whip fell heavily twice on either shoulder, and, +just at the water's edge, Livingstone drove his heels in and lifted her. +It was almost a standing leap, and, as Kathleen landed, a fragment of +the bank went crashing into the water from under her hind hoofs, and she +went down on her head; but Guy recovered her cleverly, and, turning +again, sent her over it twice, backward and forward. The first time the +mare did not try to refuse again, but rushed at it, snorting wrathfully, +with her head in the air; the second she was quite tamed, and took it +evenly in her stride.</p> + +<p>"Give Mr. Bruce your horse, Harry, and take the Czar," Guy said. "I'll +ride Kathleen home. Steady, old lady—don't fret. We are friends again +now."</p> + +<p>"So you have got your pony back," I remarked to Forrester.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and with interest," was the quiet reply. "I don't think he will +owe me much when I have done with him."</p> + +<p>Though I had nothing on earth to do with it, I felt something like +compunction as I guessed what he meant.</p> + +<p>Bruce's was a hard, money-loving nature, unromantic to a degree; but I +believe he would gladly have waked to find himself a houseless, landless +beggar, if he could thus have regained what Charley, with his soft +voice, and eyes, and manner, had stolen from him long ago.</p> + +<p>Am I right in saying "stolen?" Perhaps he never had it; at all events, +he thought he had, which comes to nearly the same thing.</p> + +<p>It is true that, unraveling the cord of a man's existence, you will +generally find the blackest hank in it twined by a woman's hand, but it +is not less common to trace the golden thread to the same spindle.</p> + +<p>Great warrior, profound statesman, stanch champion of liberty as he was, +without Edith of the Swan's-neck, Harold would scarcely have risen into +a hero of romance. We do not quite despise Charles VII. when we think +how faithfully, in loneliness and ruin, the Lady of Beauty loved her +apathetic, senseless, discrowned king. Others never found it out, but +there must have been something precious hid in a dark corner of his +wayward heart near which Agnes nestled so long. We look leniently on +Otho—parasite and profligate—when we see him lingering on his last +march, on the very verge of the death-struggle, in the teeth of Galba's +legions, to decorate Popæa's grave. More in pity than in scorn, be sure, +did Tacitus, the historic epigrammatist, write "<i>Ne tum quidem veterum +immemor amorum</i>."</p> + +<p>Was it in remorseful consciousness of having inflicted a deep, +irreparable wrong, that Isabel rode so constantly by Bruce's side, +striving, by all means of timid propitiation, to chase the cloud +lowering on his sullen face as we returned slowly home?</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'><i>"Τὸ δὲ προκλύειν,</i></div> +<div class='i10'><i>Ἐπεὶ γένοιτ᾽ ἂν ἤλυσις, προχαιρέτω‧ </i></div> +<div class='i14'><i>Ἴσον δὲ τῷ προστένειν,</i></div> +<div class='i12'><i>Τορὸν γὰρ ἤξει σύνορθρον αὐγαῖς."</i></div></div> +</div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'><i>"To de prokluein,</i></div> +<div class='i10'><i>Epei genoit' an êlusis, prochairetô;</i></div> +<div class='i14'><i>Ison de tô prostenein,</i></div> +<div class='i12'><i>Toron gar êxei sunorthron augais."</i></div></div> +</div> + +<p>My stay at Kerton Manor was drawing to a close. I had lingered there too +long already, and letters from neglected relatives and friends came, +reproachful, with every post. The day before I went, Guy called me into +his study.</p> + +<p>"Frank," he said, "I am in a great strait of perplexity; my uncle has +been attacking me this morning about Isabel and Charley. Bruce puts him +up to it, of course."</p> + +<p>"I thought it would come; but why on earth did not Bruce speak to you, +if not to Forrester, himself? Perhaps it was from delicacy, though. Let +us hope so."</p> + +<p>"How philanthropic we are!" Guy retorted. "I don't believe any other man +would have spoken of delicacy and that rough-hewn log of Scotch-fir in +the same breath. My dear boy, the thing is as simple as possible—the +man is a coward. He is as careful of that precious person of his as if +it were worth preserving, so he shoots his arrows from behind Uncle +Henry's Telamonian shield. Nothing is so acute and right-judging as the +instinct of fear. He knows that if he had a fancy for a quarrel, either +Charley or I would be too happy to indulge him."</p> + +<p>"He can't be such a dastard," I said.</p> + +<p>"I am sure of it; but he is not the less dangerous for that. Such men +are always the most unscrupulous in revenge. I have seen murder in his +eyes a score of times in the last fortnight. If our lines had fallen in +the pleasant Italian places, he would have invested twenty scudi long +ago in hiring a dagger. As it is, civilization and the rural police +stand our friends; but I have strongly advised Charley not to trust +himself near him in cover. By G—d, I think, for once in his life, he +would hold straight!"</p> + +<p>"You don't like him, that's evident."</p> + +<p>The pupils of Livingstone's eyes contracted ominously; a lurid flash +shot out from under his black, bent brows, and there came on his lip +that peculiar smile that we fancy on the face of Homeric heroes—more +fell, and cruel, and terrible than even their own frown—just before +they leveled the spear. He laid his broad hand, corded across with a +net-work of tangled sinews, on the table before him, and the stout oak +creaked and trembled.</p> + +<p>"If I were to strangle him," he said, "as I constantly feel tempted to +do, I believe I should deserve well of the state. But, with all that, I +don't like plotting against him under my own roof; it strikes me that is +a phase of hospitality not strictly Arabian. My mother laments over him +already as hardly dealt with. Then Uncle Henry is a great difficulty. He +is not in the least one of the light comedy fathers who, during two +acts, stamps about with many strange oaths and stormy denials, but in +the last yields to fate and <i>soubrettes</i>, says 'Bless you, my children!' +and hands out untold gold. There is no more appeal from his decisions +than from Major A——'s. He dislikes Bruce, of course; but he would just +as soon think of objecting to a partner at whist as to a son-in-law +because he happened to be unprepossessing. When the poor little +Iphigenia is sacrificed on the shrine of expediency, you will see him, +not veiling his face but taking snuff with the calm grace that is +peculiar to him. Arguing with such a man is a simple absurdity."</p> + +<p>"I can not advise you," I answered, sadly; "but it seems hard on Miss +Raymond, too."</p> + +<p>"Of course it is," Livingstone broke in; "and the worst of it is, the +poor child looks to me to help her. I can't bear to think of what her +life would be if she married Bruce. He would be constantly retaliating +on her for what he is suffering now—for he does suffer. A pleasant idea +that she, who is only meant to be petted, should be set up as a target +for his jealousy and ill-humor! She would never be able to stand it, and +Charley wouldn't if she could; and then there would be a <i>dénouement</i> +like that which ruined Ralph Mohun. If there <i>is</i> to be a row, it had +better come before than after marriage. It's more moral, and saves an +infinity of trouble. I think Charley is better away, too, just now. +Parndon wants us both to stay with him. We'll go; and so my conscience +will stand at ease for the present. When we are on neutral ground I can +help them, or, at all events, 'let the justice of the king pass by.'"</p> + +<p>"Have you spoken to Forrester yet?"</p> + +<p>"No; but he will do as I advise, and temporize, I am sure, though he +would hardly give up Bella, even if I asked him. He means business for +once, evidently. They will have plenty of time to concert their plans +before the summer. Charley wants no help in that. As to carrying them +out—we shall see. Well, you will go to-morrow. I am very sorry, for all +reasons. I hope you have not been much bored here. Kerton counts on you +for next winter."</p> + +<p>I need not give my answer. I felt really loth to go; but, fortunately +for my peace of mind, I could not guess at the changes that would be +wrought in the hopes, the intentions, the destinies of all of us before +I should stand in the fine old manor-house again.</p> + +<p>If adieus are painful in reality, they ate intensely stupid on paper—a +landscape without a foreground—so I spare you next morning's +leave-takings.</p> + +<p>Guy had said nothing to his cousin then of the plan he had determined +on. I was glad of it. I was glad not to see, at parting, her sweet face +so sad as I am sure it became when she heard that she was to struggle +against Brace's persecutions and her own antipathies unaided and alone.</p> + +<p>I wandered through many counties, and then went to Ireland. During the +next few months I saw the faces I had left behind me many times, but +only in my dreams.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"The only living thing he could not hate</div> +<div class='i8'>Was reft at once—and he deserved his fate,</div> +<div class='i8'>But did not feel it less; the good explore</div> +<div class='i8'>For peace, these realms where guilt can never soar;</div> +<div class='i8'>The proud—the wayward—who have fixed below</div> +<div class='i8'>Their joy, and find this earth enough for woe,</div> +<div class='i8'>Lose in that one their all—perchance a mite—</div> +<div class='i8'>But who in patience parts with all delight?"</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>Pleasant days they were when, through the soft spring weather, I +wandered round the coasts of Kerry, Clare, and Galway, hooking salmon in +broad pools, where the vexed water rests a while from its labors under +wooded cliffs, and at the tail of roaring rapids, specked with white +foam-clots, or sea-trout in the estuaries where the great rivers hurry +down to their stormy meeting with the Atlantic rollers.</p> + +<p>Every where I met the frank, cheery welcome that you must cross the +Channel to find in its perfection.</p> + +<p>It is sad to see how widely over that fair land the abomination of +desolation has cast its shadow. Many halls are tenantless besides those +of Tara. The ancient owners of the soil—where are they? Not a country +in Europe but is conscious of these restless, careless, homeless +Zingari. In distant provincial towns of France you hear their enormous +blunders in grammar and musical Milesian brogue breaking the uniformity +of dull legitimist <i>soirées</i>. Hombourg and Baden are irradiated with the +glory of their whiskers. You find their blue eyes and open, handsome +features diversifying the sameness of wooden-faced Austrian squadrons. +Nay, has it not been whispered that the proudest name in Ireland +attained a bad eminence in the Grecian Archipelago as the captain of the +wickedest of those long low craft that, in the purple dawn or ivory +moonlight, steal silently out from behind the headlands of the Cyclades?</p> + +<p>But let us do justice to those who remain behind.</p> + +<p>The sceptre of Connemara has passed away from the ancient dynasty. If +the penultimate monarch could rise from his peaceful grave, his place +would know him no more. If he traveled through all his thirty miles of +seaboard, the Scotch laborers would doff their hats more respectfully to +the steward of the "Law Life" than to the humane old homicide. The royal +writ, which he defied from his place at St. Stephen's, might be served +now, I imagine, without danger of the bailiff's breaking his fast on the +same. Claret flows soberly from long-necked bottles whose corks bear the +brand of the wine-merchant, high priced and legal, instead of from the +cask of which the snug sandy cove and the roguish-looking hooker could +have told tales. But, in spite of visionary rents, and poor-rates +sternly real, the Irish squire still clings to the exercise of that +hospitality which has been an heirloom with the tribes since the days of +Strongbow.</p> + +<p>One of my longest halting-places was at Ralph Mohun's, by whom, though +personally unknown to him, I was made very welcome as a friend of Guy's. +My host deserves a more especial mention, for his history was a sad, +though not an uncommon one.</p> + +<p>He began life in a Cavalry regiment, wherein he conducted himself with +fair average propriety till he met Lady Caroline Desborough. He fell in +love with her—most people did—but, unluckily, when she married Mr. +Mannering, to whom she had been predestined since her <i>début</i>, he could +not bring himself to wear the willow decently and in order, like her +other disappointed admirers.</p> + +<p>It was the old unhappy story: her husband neglected Lady Caroline +consistently—ill-treated her sometimes. Mohun pursued his purpose with +the relentless obstinacy of his character. Eighteen months after her +marriage they fled together.</p> + +<p>He was not rich, so that the trial which ensued, with its heavy damages, +completely crippled him. The partner of his crime was absolutely +penniless. They went to Vienna, and Ralph entered the Austrian +Cuirassiers, where he had some interest to push him. He had lingered +some time within reach of England, to give Mannering an opportunity of +demanding satisfaction. But the injured husband knew his man too well to +trust himself within fifteen paces of Mohun's pistol. He chose a surer, +safer revenge in taking no steps to procure a divorce, and so debarring +Ralph from his only means of atonement—marriage with his victim.</p> + +<p>He varied the dull routine of seducers, it is true, for he never wearied +of, or behaved unkindly to, the woman he had ruined. Time brought many +troubles on them, but never satiety or coldness. To the very last he +worshiped her, and, to the utmost of his power, guarded her tenderly. +Rough, and hard, and morose as he was to others, she never heard his +lips utter one harsh word.</p> + +<p>But she was of a proud, sensitive spirit, and had miscalculated her +strength when she thought she could bear dishonor. After that duel with +which Austria rang, in which the best <i>schlager</i> in his brigade fell, +horribly mangled, the day after he had whispered a jest about Caroline +Mannering, men were very cautious how they even looked askance at her; +but the women—who could bridle their tongues or blunt their scornful +glances? Briareus, armed to the teeth, would not affright our modern +dowagers, or deter them from their prey. Wherever the carcass of a fair +fame lies, thither they flock, screaming shrilly in triumph, +vulture-eyed, sharp-taloned—the choosers of the slain.</p> + +<p>I pity from my heart the frailest, the most utterly fallen of her sex, +when once the social Nemesis hands her over to the chorus of the +Eumenides.</p> + +<p>We deride the <i>subsignanæ</i> who line the wall; we make a mock at their +old-fashioned whist; we risk jokes whereat our partners smile +approvingly on their false fronts and wonderful head-gears; but may the +wittiest of us never know by experience how much worse is the bite than +the bark of the Veteran Battalion!</p> + +<p>Caroline Mannering had all this to contend with, for Vienna was a +favorite resort in those days for the English, and she was constantly +encountering some of her old set. She bore up bravely for a while, but +it killed her. She never wearied her lover with her self-reproach, but +crushed back her sorrows into her heart, and met him always with a +gentle smile. That same smile contrasted so sadly, at last, with the +wan, worn features, that it often made him bend his bushy brows to +conceal the rising tears.</p> + +<p>If her destiny had been different—if she had died ripe in years, after +a life spent in calm matronly happiness, with all that she loved best +round her, would she have been nursed so tenderly or mourned so bitterly +by the nearest and dearest of them all as she was by her tempter to sin? +I think not. I believe that in all the world there never was a greater +sorrow than that which Mohun endured as he saw his treasure slowly +escaping him; never a desolation more complete and crushing than that +which fell upon him as he stood by her corpse, with dry eyes, folded +arms, and a heavy, frowning brow. It was not only that he felt her place +could never be filled again—many feel that, and find it turn out +so—but a part of his being was gone: all that was soft, and kind, and +tender in his nature died with Caroline Mannering. He never could get +rid of a certain chivalry which was inherent in him, so sometimes he +would do a generous thing; but he did it so harshly as to deprive the +act of the semblance of good-nature. I think he very seldom again felt +sympathy or compassion for any living creature. Perhaps he thought the +world had behaved hardly to his dead love, and so never forgave it. She +passed away very stilly and painlessly. She was leaning on his breast +when he saw death come into her eyes: he shivered then all over, as if a +cold wind had struck him suddenly, but spoke no word. She understood +him, though. Her last motion was to draw his cheek down to hers with her +thin, shadowy arm, and her last breath went up to the God who would +judge them both in an unselfish prayer.</p> + +<p>"She was rightly served," says Cornelia; "such women ought to be +miserable."</p> + +<p>O rigid mother of the Gracchi! how we all respect you, <i>trônante</i> in the +comfortable cathedra of virtue inexpugnable, perhaps unassailed. Your +dictum must stand for the present. The court is with you. But I believe +other balances will weigh the strength of temptation, the weakness of +human endurance, the sincerity of repentance, and the extent of suffered +retribution, when the Father of all that have lived and erred since the +world began shall make up His jewels. In that day, I think, the light of +many orthodox virgins and dignified matrons will pale before the softer +lustre of Magdalene the Saint.</p> + +<p>Mohun remained in the Austrian service some time after Caroline +Mannering's death, and, by dint of good service and interest, rose +rapidly; but, about eight years before I saw him, a distant relation +left him the estate in the west of Ireland, where he had resided ever +since, making occasional visits to the Continent, and beating up his old +quarters, but rarely coming to England.</p> + +<p>He did not mix much with the county society, such as it was; and his +visitors were chiefly friends from England who had not forgotten him +yet, or the military quartered in his neighborhood.</p> + +<p>It was a dreary, desolate old house where he lived—massive, square, and +gray. There were wooded banks and hollows just round it; but farther +afield the chill, bare moorland stretched away toward the sea, broken +here and there by sullen sedgy tarns.</p> + +<p>Here he spent his monotonous existence, riding hard and drinking +obstinately, but never, even in the latter case, rising into +conviviality. A long, bushy beard, and portentous mustache, grizzled, +though he was scarcely past middle age, which could not conceal a deep +sabre-scar, gave him a grim, sinister expression; and his voice had that +brief imperious accent which is peculiar to men for many years used to +give the word of command.</p> + +<p>That worn, haggard face told a real tale. The furrows there had been +plowed by an enduring remorse, very different from that comfortable, +half-complacent regret which some feel at the retrospect of their +youthful <i>frèdaines</i>.</p> + +<p>They shake their solemn old heads as they hold themselves up to us as a +warning; they sermonize with edifying gravity on the impropriety of such +misdemeanors; but we can trace through all this an under-current of +satisfaction tenderly fatuitous, as they go back to the days of their +gipsyhood, when Plancus was consul.</p> + +<p>I have been amused with watching these eminent but somewhat sensual +Christians on such occasions, and seeing the dull eyes begin to glisten, +and the lips wrinkle themselves into a fat, unpleasant smile. <i>They</i> +have prospered since, and certainly it would be most absurd to torment +themselves now about the souls and bodies which they once sacrificed to +a whim. Over those ruins and relics the River of Oblivion has rolled +long ago—let them sleep on there and take their rest.</p> + +<p>Have we not the bright example of the prototype of this class—the +pious Æneas? How creditable was his behavior when he looked back over +the black water on the trail of flame stretching from the funeral pyre +where Dido lay burning!</p> + +<p>"He knew," says his admiring biographer, "what the madness of women +could do;" but the breeze was getting up astern, and favoring gods +beckoned him on to Italy and fortune; so he sighed twice or +thrice—perhaps he wept, for the amiable hero's tears were always ready +on the shortest notice—and then, like the captain of the <i>Hesperus</i>, +"steered for the open sea."</p> + +<p>Did he feel a pang of remorse or shame at that meeting in the twilight +of Hades, when he called vainly on Elissa, and the dead queen, from +where she stood by the side of Sychæus, who had forgiven her all, turned +on him the disgust and horror of her imperial eyes? Who can tell? The +greatest and best of men have their moments of weakness. If so, be sure +he was soon comforted as he reviewed the shadowy procession of his +posterity of kings. The episode of Byrsa would scarcely trouble his +conjugal happiness, or make him more indulgent to the mildest flirtation +of Lavinia.</p> + +<p>I fancy that poor princess—after listening to a long, intensely proper +discourse from her immaculate husband, or when the young Iulus had been +unusually disagreeable—gazing wistfully in the direction where, against +the sky-line, rose the clump of plane-trees, under which hot-headed, +warm-hearted Turnus was resting after his brief life of storms. Then she +would think of that unhappy mother who, with every impulse of a willful +nature, loved her child so dearly, till she would begin to doubt—it was +very wrong of her—if Amata or the match-making gods were most right +after all.</p> + +<p>The neighboring peasantry regarded Mohun with mingled dislike and +terror—a feeling which was increased tenfold by an event which occurred +about three years before my visit, in the height of the agrarian +troubles. I can not do better than give it, as near as I can, in the +words of one who was an actor in the scene.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"Now what wouldst thou do, good my squire,</div> +<div class='i10'>That rides beside my rein,</div> +<div class='i8'>Wert thou Glenallan's earl to-day,</div> +<div class='i10'>And I were Roland Cheyne?</div></div> + +<hr/> + +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>My horse should ride through their ranks sae rude,</div> +<div class='i10'>As he would through the moorland fern,</div> +<div class='i8'>And ne'er let the gentle Norman bluid</div> +<div class='i10'>Grow cauld for the Highland kerne."</div></div> +</div> + +<p>It was in the beginning of December, 184-(said Fred. Carew); we were +sitting down to dinner after a capital day's cock-shooting—besides +myself there were Lord Clontarf, Mohun, and Kate, my wife—when we were +disturbed by a perfect hail of knocks at the hall door. Old Dan Tucker, +or the Spectre Horseman, never clamored more loudly for admittance. +Fritz, Mohun's old Austrian servant, went down to see what was up, and, +on opening the door, was instantly borne down by the tumultuous rush of +Michael Kelly, gentleman, agent to half a dozen estates, and attorney at +law. In the two last capacities be had given, it seems, great umbrage to +the neighboring peasantry, and they had caught him that night as he +returned home, intending to put him to death with that ingenuity of +torture for which the fine, warm-hearted fellows are justly celebrated.</p> + +<p>They did not wish to hurry over the entertainment, so confined him in an +upper chamber, while they called their friends and neighbors to rejoice +with them, carousing meantime jovially below. The victim contrived to +let himself down from the window, and ran for his life to the nearest +house, which, unluckily, happened to be the Lodge. Two boys, however, +saw and recognized him as he entered the demesne, and raised a whoop, to +show that they knew where the fox had gone to ground.</p> + +<p>This we made out from a string of incoherent interjections; and then he +lay panting and contorting himself in an agony of fear.</p> + +<p>Mohun sat on the hall table, swinging his foot and regarding the +spectacle with the indolent curiosity that one might exhibit toward the +gambols of some ugly new importation of the Zoological Society. When the +story was told he pointed coolly to the door.</p> + +<p>The shriek that the miserable creature set up on seeing that gesture I +shall never forget.</p> + +<p>"Do you think I shall turn my house into a refuge for destitute +attorneys?" Ralph said, answering my look of inquiry. "If there were no +other reason, I would not risk it, with your wife under my roof. A +night-attack in the West is no child's play."</p> + +<p>Kate had come out, and was leaning over the gallery. She heard the last +words, and spoke, flushing scarlet with anger.</p> + +<p>"If I thought that my presence prevented an act of common humanity, I +would leave your house this instant, Colonel Mohun."</p> + +<p>Ralph smiled slightly as he bent his head in courteous acknowledgment of +her interruption.</p> + +<p>"Don't be indignant, Mrs. Carew. If you have a fancy for such an +excitement, I shall be too happy to indulge you. It is settled, then? We +back the attorney. Don't lie there, sir, looking so like a whipped +hound. You hear? You are safe for the present." He had hardly finished, +when there came a rustling of feet outside, then hurried whispers, then +a knock, and a summons.</p> + +<p>"We'd like to spake wid the curnel, av ye plase."</p> + +<p>"I am here; what do ye want?" Mohun growled.</p> + +<p>"We want the 'torney. We know he's widin."</p> + +<p>"Then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. It's not my fancy to give him +up. I wouldn't turn out a badger to you, let alone a man."</p> + +<p>You see, he took the high moral ground now.</p> + +<p>"Then we'll have him out in spite of yez," two or three voices cried out +together.</p> + +<p>"Try it," Ralph said. "Meantime I am going to dine; good-night."</p> + +<p>A voice that had not spoken yet was heard, with a shrill, gibing accent. +"Ah! thin the best of appetites to ye, curnel, and make haste over yer +dinner. It's Pierce Delaney that'll give ye yer supper." Then they went +off.</p> + +<p>"The said Delaney is a huge quarryman," Ralph observed. "He represents +the physical element of terror hereabouts, as I believe I do the moral. +We shall have warm work before morning. He does not like me. Fritz, send +Connell up; he is below somewhere."</p> + +<p>The keeper came, looking very much surprised. He had been in the +stables, and had only just heard of the disturbance.</p> + +<p>"Get the rifles and guns ready, with bullets and buckshot," his master +said. "We are to be attacked, it seems."</p> + +<p>The man's bold face fell blankly.</p> + +<p>"By the powers, yer honor, I haven't the value of an ounce of poudther +in the house. I meant to get some the morrow morning, afore ye were up."</p> + +<p>Mohun shrugged his shoulders, whistling softly.</p> + +<p>"Man proposes," he said. "It's almost a pity we found so many cocks in +the lower copse this afternoon. I have fifteen charges or so in my +pistol-case. We must make that do, loading the rifles light." Then he +went to a window, whence he could see down the road; the moon was +shining brightly.</p> + +<p>"I thought so; they have got scouts posted already. The barbarians know +something of skirmishing, after all. Maddox, come here." (The groom was +a strong English boy, very much afraid of his master, but of nothing +else on earth.) "Saddle Sunbeam, and go out by the back gates, keeping +well under the shadow of the trees. When you clear them, ride straight +at the rails at the end of the paddock. You'll get over with a scramble, +I think. Keep fast hold of his head—you <i>mustn't</i> fall. Then make the +best of your way to A——, and tell Colonel Harding, with my +compliments, that I shall be glad if he will send over a troop as +quickly as possible. They ought to be here in two hours. And, mind, +don't spare the horse going, but bring him back easy. You will be of no +use here, and I won't have him lamed if I can help it. You'll have to +risk a bullet or two as you get into the road; but they can't shoot. +It's odds against their hitting you. Now go."</p> + +<p>The groom pulled his forelock as if the most ordinary commission had +been given him, and vanished.</p> + +<p>"Connell," Ralph went on, "go and saw the ladders that are in the yard +half through. They will hardly try the barred windows; but it looks more +workmanlike to take all precautions. Then come back, and help Fritz to +pile chairs and furniture all up the staircase, and about the hall near +it. Line the gallery with mattresses, two deep, leaving spaces to fire +through. Light all the lamps, and get more candles to fix about; we +shall not see very clearly after the smoke of the first dozen shots. +When you have finished, come to me. Now, shall we go back to dinner?"</p> + +<p>I am not ashamed to own I had little appetite; nevertheless, I sat down. +Kate had gone to her room. If her courage was failing, she did not wish +to show it.</p> + +<p>Suddenly our host got up and went to the window. His practiced ear had +caught the tread of the horse which Maddox was taking out as quietly as +possible. We watched him stealing along under the trees till their +shelter failed him. Then he put Sunbeam to speed, and rode boldly at the +rails. A yell went up from the road, and we saw dark figures running; +then came a shot, just as the horse was rising at the fence, he hit it +hard, and the splinters flew up white in the moonlight, but he was over. +We held our breath, while several flashes told of dropping shots after +the fugitive. They did not stop him, though; and, to our great relief, +we heard the wild rush of the frightened horse subside into a long +stretching gallop, and the wind brought back a cheery hollo—"Forr'ard, +forr'ard away!"</p> + +<p>"So far so good," said Ralph Mohun, as he sat down again, and went in +steadily at a woodcock. "Don't hurry yourselves, gentlemen. We have +three quarters of an hour yet; they will take that time to muster. +Clontarf, some Hock?"</p> + +<p>The boy to whom he spoke held out his glass with a pleasant smile. The +coming peril had not altered a tint on his fresh, beardless cheeks—rosy +and clear as a page's in one of Boucher's pictures.</p> + +<p>A good contrast he made with the miserable attorney, who had followed us +uninvited (it seemed he only felt safe in our presence), and who was +crouching in a corner, his lank hair plastered round his livid convulsed +face with the sweat of mortal fear.</p> + +<p>It struck Mohun, I think. He laid his hand on Clontarf's shoulder, and +spoke with a kindliness of voice and manner most unusual with him—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div>"We'll quell the savage mountaineer,</div> +<div class='i2'>As their Tinchell cows the game:</div> +<div>They come as fleet as forest deer;</div> +<div class='i2'>We'll drive them back as tame."</div></div> +</div> + +<p>Even at that anxious moment I could not help laughing at the idea of +Ralph quoting poetry—of that grim Saul among the prophets.</p> + +<p>I went in to keep up Kate's spirits. She bore up gallantly, poor child, +and I left her tolerably calm. She believed in me as a "plunger" to an +enormous extent, and in Mohun still more. When I returned my companions +were in the gallery. This ran round two sides of the hall, which went up +to the roof. The only access to the upper part of the house was by a +stone staircase of a single flight. The kitchen and offices were on the +ground floor, otherwise it was uninhabited.</p> + +<p>Ralph had his pistols by him, and his cavalry sword, long and heavy, but +admirably poised, lay within his reach.</p> + +<p>"I have settled it," he said. "You and Connell are to take the guns. +Smooth-bores are quickest loaded, and will do for this short distance. +Clontarf, who is not quite so sure with the trigger, is to have the post +of honor, and guard the staircase with his sabre. Throw another bucket +of water over it, Connell—is it thoroughly drenched? And draw the +windows up" (these did not reach to within ten feet of the floor); "we +shall be stifled else. But there will be a thorough draft when the +door's down, that's our comfort. One word with you, Carew."</p> + +<p>He drew me aside, and spoke almost in a whisper, while his face was very +grave and stern.</p> + +<p>"You will do me this justice, whatever happens. Unless it had been +forced upon me, I would not have risked a hair of your wife's head to +save all the attorneys that are patronized by the father of lies. But, +mark, me! if it comes to the worst, keep a bullet for <i>her</i>. Don't leave +her to the mercy of those savage devils. I know them. She had better die +ten times over than full into their brutal hands. You must use your own +discretion, though. I shall not be able to advise you then. Not a man of +them will be in this gallery till I am past praying for. Nevertheless, I +hope and believe all will be right. Don't trouble yourself to reload; +Fritz will do that for you. I have given him his orders. Aim very +coolly, too; we must not waste a bullet. You can choose your own sword; +there are several behind you. Ah! I hear them coming up. Now, men, to +your posts."</p> + +<p>There was the tramp of many feet, and the surging of a crowd about and +against the hall door. Then a harsh, loud voice spoke:</p> + +<p>"Onst for all, will ye give him up, or shall we take him, and serve the +rest of yez as bad? Ye've got women there, too—"</p> + +<p>I will not add the rest of the threat for very shame. I know it made me +more wolfish than ever I thought it possible to feel, for I am a +good-natured man in the main. Mohun, who is <i>not</i>, bit his mustache +furiously, and his voice shook a little as he answered,</p> + +<p>"Do you ever say a prayer, Pierce Delaney? You need one now. If you live +to see to-morrow's sunset, I wish my right hand may wither at the +wrist."</p> + +<p>A shrill howl pealed out from the assailants, and then the stout oak +door cracked and quivered under the strokes of a heavy battering-beam; +in a hundred seconds the hinges yielded, and it came clattering in; over +it leaped three wild figures, bearing torches and pikes, but their +chief, Delaney, was not one of them.</p> + +<p>"The left-hand man is yours, Carew; Connell, take the middle one," said +Ralph, as coolly as if we had sprung a pack of grouse. While he spoke +his pistol cracked, and the right-hand intruder dropped across the +threshold without a cry or a stagger, shot right through the brain. The +keeper and I were nearly as fortunate. Then there was a pause; then a +rush from without, an irregular discharge of musketry, and the clear +part of the hall was crowded with enemies.</p> + +<p>I can't tell exactly what ensued. I know they retreated several times, +for the barricade was impassable; and while their shots fell harmlessly +on the mattresses, every one of ours told—nothing makes a man shoot +straight like being short of powder—but they came on again, each time +with added ferocity.</p> + +<p>I heard Mohun mutter more than once, in a dissatisfied tone, "Why does +not that scoundrel show himself? I can't make out Delaney." All at once +I heard a stifled cry on my right, and, to my horror, I saw Clontarf +dragged over the balustrade in the gripe of a giant, whom I guessed at +once to be the man we had looked for so long. Under cover of the smoke, +he had swung himself up by the balustrade of the staircase, and, +grasping the poor boy's collar as he looked out incautiously from his +shelter, dropped back into the hall, carrying his victim with him.</p> + +<p>With a roar of exultation the wild beasts closed round their prey. +Before I had time to think what could be done, I heard, close to my ear, +a blasphemy so awful that it made me start even at that critical moment: +it was Ralph's voice, but I hardly knew it—hoarse and guttural, and +indistinct with passion. Without hesitating an instant, he swung himself +over the balustrade, and lighted on his feet in the midst of the crowd. +They were half drunk with whisky, and maddened by the smell of blood; +but—so great was the terror of Mohun's name—all recoiled when they saw +him thus face to face, his sword bare and his eyes blazing. That +momentary panic saved Clontarf. In a second Ralph had thrown him under +the arch of a deep doorway, and placed himself between the senseless +body and its assailants. Two or three shots were fired at him without +effect; it was difficult to take aim in such a tossing chaos; then one +man, Delaney, sprung out at him with a clubbed musket. "At last!" we +heard Mohun say, laughing low and savagely in his beard as he stepped +one pace forward to meet his enemy. A blow that looked as if it might +have felled Behemoth was warded dexterously by the sabre, and, by a +quick turn of the wrist, its edge laid the Rapparee's face open in a +bright scarlet gash, extending from eyebrow to chin.</p> + +<p>His comrades rushed over his body, furious, though somewhat disheartened +at seeing their champion come to grief; but they had to deal with a +blade that had kept half a dozen Hungarian swordsmen at bay, and, with +point or edge, it met them every where, magically. They were drawing +back, when Delaney, recovering from the first effects of his fearful +wound, crawled forward, gasping out curses that seemed floating on the +torrent of his rushing blood, and tried to grasp Mohun by the knees and +drag him down.</p> + +<p>Pah! it was a sight to haunt one's dreams. (You might have filled my +glass, some of you, when you saw it was empty.)</p> + +<p>Ralph looked down on him, and laughed again; his sabre whirled round +once, and cleared a wide circle; then, trampling down the wounded man by +main force, he drove the point through his throat, and pinned him to the +floor. I tell you I heard the steel plainly as it grated on the stone. +There was an awful convulsion of all the limbs, and then the huge mass +lay quite still.</p> + +<p>Then came a lull for several moments. The Irish cowered back to the door +like penned sheep; their ammunition was exhausted, and none dared to +cross the hideous barrier that now was between them and the terrible +Cuirassier.</p> + +<p>All this took about half the time to act that it does to tell. I was +hesitating whether to descend or to stay where my duty called me—near +my wife. Fritz knelt behind me, silent and motionless; he had got his +orders to stay by me to the last; but the sturdy keeper rose to his +feet.</p> + +<p>"Faix," he said, "I'm but a poor hand at the swoording, but I must help +my master, anyhow;" and he began to climb over the breastwork. The +colonel's quick glance caught the movement, and his brief imperious +tones rang over the hubbub of voices loud and clear,</p> + +<p>"Don't stir, Connell; stay where you are. I can finish with these hounds +alone."</p> + +<p>As he spoke, he dashed in upon them with lowered head and uplifted +sword.</p> + +<p>I don't wonder that they all recoiled; his whole face and form were +fearfully transfigured; every hair in his bushy beard was bristling with +rage, and the incarnate devil of murder was gleaming redly in his eyes.</p> + +<p>Just then there was a wild cry from without, answered by a shriek from +my wife, who had been quiet till now. At first I thought that some +fellows had scaled the window; but I soon distinguished the accents of a +great joy. My poor Kate! She had roughed it in barracks too long not to +know the rattle of the steel scabbards.</p> + +<p>When the dragoons came up at a hard gallop, there was nothing left in +the court-yard but the dead and dying. Mohun had followed the flyers to +get a last stroke at the hindmost. We clambered down into the hall, and, +just as we reached the door, we saw a miserable crippled being clinging +round his knees, crying for quarter. Poor wretch! he might as well have +asked it from a famished jungle-tiger. The arm that had fallen so often +that night, and never in vain, came down once more; the piteous appeal +ended in a death-yell, and, as we reached him, Mohun was wiping coolly +his dripping sabre: it had no more work to do.</p> + +<p>I could not help shuddering as I took his offered hand, and I saw +Connell tremble for the first time as he made the sign of the cross.</p> + +<p>The Dragoons were returning from the pursuit; they had only made two +prisoners; the darkness and broken ground prevented their doing more. +Ralph went up to the officer in command.</p> + +<p>"How very good of you to come yourself, Harding, when I only asked you +for a troop. Come in; you shall have some supper in half an hour, and +Fritz will take care of your men. Throw all that carrion out," he went +on, as we entered the hall, strewn with corpses. "We'll give them a +truce to take up their dead."</p> + +<p>Clontarf came to meet us; he had only been stunned and bruised by the +fall. His pale face flushed up as he said, "I shall never forget that I +have to thank you for my life."</p> + +<p>"It's not worth mentioning," Mohun replied, carelessly. "I hope you are +not much the worse for the tumble. Gad! it was a near thing, though. The +quarryman's arms were a rough necklace."</p> + +<p>At that moment they were carrying by the disfigured remains of the dead +Colossus. His slayer stopped them, and bent over the hideous face with a +grim satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"My good friend Delaney," he muttered, "you will own that I have kept my +word. If ever we meet again, I think I shall know you. <i>Au revoir</i>," and +he passed on.</p> + +<p>I need not go through the congratulatory scene, nor describe how Kate +blushed as they complimented her on her nerve. Fortunately for her, she +had seen nothing, though she had heard all. Just as we were sitting down +to supper, which Fritz prepared with his usual stolid coolness, and when +Kate was about to leave us, for she needed rest, we remarked the +attorney hovering about us with an exultation on his face yet more +servile and repulsive than its late abject terror.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Carew," said Mohun, "if you have quite done with your <i>protégé</i>, I +think we'll send him down stairs. Give him something to eat, Fritz; not +with the soldiers, though; and let some one take him home as soon as +it's light. If you say one word, sir, I'll have you turned out <i>now</i>."</p> + +<p>Mr. Kelly crept out of the room, almost as frightened as he had been two +hours before.</p> + +<p>The supper was more cheerful than the dinner, though there was a certain +constraint on the party, who were not all so seasoned as their host. +<i>He</i> was in unusual spirits; so much so that Clontarf confided to a +cornet, his particular friend, that "it was a pity the colonel could +not have such a bear-fight once a fortnight, it put him into such a +charming humor."</p> + +<p>We had nearly finished when, from the road outside, there came a +prolonged ear-piercing wail, that made the window-panes tremble. I have +never heard any earthly sound at once so expressive of utter despair, +and appealing to heaven or hell for vengeance.</p> + +<p>We all started, and set down our glasses; but Mohun finished his slowly, +savoring like a connoisseur the rich Burgundy.</p> + +<p>"It is the wild Irish women keening over their dead," he remarked, with +perfect unconcern. "They'll have more to howl for before I have done +with them. I shall go round with the police to-morrow and pick up the +stragglers. Your men are too good for such work, Harding. There are +several too hard hit to go far, and my hand-writing is pretty legible."</p> + +<p>The stout soldier to whom he spoke bent his head in assent, but with +rather a queer expression on his honest face.</p> + +<p>"Gad!" he said, "you do your work cleanly, Mohun."</p> + +<p>"It is the best way, and the shortest in the end," was the reply; and so +the matter dropped.</p> + +<p>The Dragoons left us before daybreak; their protection was not needed; +we were as safe as in the Tower of London. The next morning, while I was +sleeping heavily, Ralph was in the saddle scouring the country, with +what success the next Assizes could tell.</p> + +<p>I go there again this winter for the cock-shooting, but I don't much +think Kate will accompany me.</p> + +<p>Now who says "a rubber?" Don't all speak at once.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"He has mounted her on a milk-white steed,</div> +<div class='i10'>Himself on a dappled gray;</div> +<div class='i8'>And a bugelet-horn hung down by his side</div> +<div class='i10'>As lightly they rode away."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>It is hard to describe the terrible <i>prestige</i> which, after the event I +have been speaking of, attached itself to Ralph Mohun. As for attempting +a second attack on the fatal house, the peasantry would as soon have +thought of storming the bottomless pit. They did not even try a shot at +him from behind a wall; considering him perfectly invulnerable, they +deemed it a pity to waste good powder and lead that might be usefully +employed on an agent or process server. As his gaunt, erect figure went +by, the men shrunk out of his path, and the women called their children +in hastily, and shut their cabin doors; the very beggars, who are +tolerably unscrupulous, gave his gate a wide berth, crossing themselves, +with a muttered prayer, "God stand betwixt us and harm." If Ralph +perceived this, I think he rather liked it; at all events, he made no +attempt, either by softening his manner or by any act of benevolence, to +win the popular favor.</p> + +<p>Before going to the Lodge I had heard from Livingstone. He said that his +cousin's affair with Charley was progressing satisfactorily (I knew what +that meant), and that he was going himself to sell out. I was not +surprised at this; for some time past even the light restraint of +service in the Household Brigade had begun to bore him. But the +intelligence conveyed in a brief note from him during my stay with Mohun +startled me very much. It announced, without any preface or explanation, +that he was engaged to Constance Brandon.</p> + +<p>I had observed that lately he never mentioned or alluded to Miss +Bellasys, but he had been equally silent about his present betrothed. I +told my host of the news directly.</p> + +<p>"I am very glad to hear it," he said. "I never heard any thing but good +of his <i>fiancée</i>. She is wonderfully beautiful, too, I believe, and her +blood is unexceptionable. And yet," he went on musingly, "I should +hardly have fancied that she would quite suit Guy. I don't know any one +who would exactly. By-the-by, was there not a strong flirtation with a +Miss Bellasys?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; so strong that I should have been less surprised to have seen her +name in this letter."</p> + +<p>"Then he has not got out of that scrape yet," Mohun observed. "That girl +comes of the wrong stock to give up any thing she has fancied without a +struggle. I knew her father, Dick Bellasys, well. He contrived to +compress as much mischief into his five-and-thirty years, before De +Launy shot him, as most strong men can manage in double the time. He was +like the Visconti—never sparing man in his anger, or woman in his +love."</p> + +<p>I felt that he was right. I did not fancy the idea of Flora's state of +mind when she heard that all her fascinations had failed, and that her +rival had won the day.</p> + +<p>"I think I must leave you sooner than I had intended," I said; "I +should like to be in England to see how things are going on."</p> + +<p>"You are right," answered Ralph, "though I shall be sorry to lose you. +You have some influence with Livingstone, I know, though he is so hard +to guide and self-reliant that advice is almost useless. If I had to +give you a <i>consigne</i>, it would be—Distrust. If Miss Bellasys seems to +take things pleasantly, be still more wary. I never saw a peculiarly +frank, winning smile on her father's face without there being ruin to +some one in the background. After all, you can do but little, I suppose. +<i>Che sara, sara</i>." He said this drearily, and with something like a +sigh.</p> + +<p>I had some business which detained me in Dublin, and it was nearly a +fortnight after I received Guy's letter before I reached London.</p> + +<p>Early on the morning after my arrival I went down to his lodgings in +Piccadilly. I found him at breakfast; after the first greetings, before +I could say one word about his own affairs, he began to speak eagerly.</p> + +<p>"What a pity you should have come too late for the catastrophe, when you +had seen all the preface! Five days ago Bella and Charley made their +great <i>coup</i>, and were married in Paris."</p> + +<p>"And Bruce?" I said, recovering from the intelligence, which was not so +unexpected, after all.</p> + +<p>"Ah! Bruce"—Guy replied; "I should be very glad if I knew what he <i>was</i> +doing at this moment. I have been expecting him every day; but nothing +has been heard of him since he left my mother's presence in a rabid +state of fury. Did I tell you it was from Kerton they fled? I thought +he must have come to me for an explanation, knowing that I was an +accessory before the fact. Indeed, I lent Charley the sinews of war in +the shape of a blank check, which I see this morning he has filled up +for a thousand—just like his modesty. Well, I hope they'll amuse +themselves! Bruce has never been near me. Suicide is the most charitable +suggestion I've heard yet; but coroners are silent, and the Thames, if +it is conscious of that unlucky though disagreeable man, keeps his +secret so far!"</p> + +<p>Then he went on to give me more particulars of the <i>escapade</i>. It seems +that Miss Raymond had gone out to walk alone, after luncheon, and that +nothing more was heard of her till dinner-time, when a note was found on +her dressing-table, addressed to her aunt, containing the intelligence +of her flight with Forrester, and a little piece of ready-made +penitence—the first for all whom it might concern, the second for her +father.</p> + +<p>That placid Lord Ullin received the news by telegraph when he was well +into his second rubber at the "Travelers;" he put the message into his +pocket without remark, and won the rubber before he rose. It has been +reported that he was somewhat absent during its progress, so much so as +to rough his partner's strongest suit; but this I conceive to have been +an after-thought of some one's, or a <i>canard</i> of the club. Impavid as +the Horatian model-man—(just in all his <i>dealings</i>, and tenacious of +the odd trick)—I can not imagine the convulsion of nature which would +have made him jeopardize by any sin of omission or commission the +winning of the long odds.</p> + +<p>He found Bruce that night, and told him all. He never would give an +account of that interview: it must have been a curious one.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div><i>"ξυνώμοσαν γὰρ, ὄντες ἔχθιστοι τὸ πρὶν,</i></div> +<div><i>πῦρ καὶ θάλασσα—"</i></div></div> +</div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div><i>"xunômosan gar, ontes echtistoi to prin,</i></div> +<div><i>pur kai thalassa—"</i></div></div> +</div> + +<p>Fancy the well-iced conventionalities of the one brought in contact with +the other's savage temperament, maddened by baffled desires and the +sense of shameful defeat.</p> + +<p>Before noon the next day it was announced to Lady Catharine, at Kerton +Manor, that Bruce was waiting for her in the drawing-room. It was with a +diffidence and sense of guilt very strange to her pure, straightforward +nature that she obeyed the summons.</p> + +<p>His back was to the door as she entered.</p> + +<p>"I can not tell you how sorry I am," she began.</p> + +<p>Bruce turned toward her his ghastly face, ravaged and deformed by +passion and sleeplessness, like a cane-brake in the Western Indies over +which a tornado has passed. He did not appear to notice her words or her +offered hand, but spoke in a strange, broken voice, after clearing his +parched throat once or twice, huskily:</p> + +<p>"When did they go? At what hour?"</p> + +<p>She told him as well as she could.</p> + +<p>"Where have they gone to?"</p> + +<p>"I have not the least idea. Bella gave no hint of this. Would you like +to see her note?" and she held it out to him.</p> + +<p>The name appeared to sting him like the cut of a whip, for he started +convulsively as he took the scrap of paper. He read it through more than +once, as if unable to comprehend it; the power of discrimination seemed +blasted in his dry, red eyeballs; they could only glare.</p> + +<p>He made it out at last, and crumpled it up in his hand, clenching it +till the knuckles became dead-white under the strain.</p> + +<p>"We were to have been married this day month," he said to himself, in a +hoarse whisper; then raising his voice, "You can guess, at least, which +route they have taken?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed I can not," she answered; "I would have done any thing to +prevent this; but you must see that pursuit now would be worse than +useless; it could only lead to fresh evils."</p> + +<p>Then the smouldering passion burst into a flame.</p> + +<p>"It is false," he cried out; "you would have done nothing. It is a plot. +You are all in it; you, your son, and more that I will know soon. I saw +it from the first moment I set foot in this cursed house. And you think +I will not be revenged? Wait—wait and see!" He spoke rapidly, but it +seemed as if the words could hardly force their way through his gnashing +teeth.</p> + +<p>Good and kind-hearted as she was, there breathed no prouder woman than +Lady Catharine Livingstone. Before he had ended her hand was on the +bell.</p> + +<p>"Not even your disappointment can excuse your language," she said, in +her clear, vibrating tones; "our interview is ended. I have pitied you +hitherto, and blamed my niece; I do neither now: she knew you better +than I. Not one word more. Mr. Bruce's carriage."</p> + +<p>Bruce glared at her savagely. He would have sold his soul, I believe, +to have strangled her where she stood; but Guy's own peculiar look was +in the cold, disdainful eyes, which met his without flinching or +faltering. He knew that look very well, and quailed under it now, as he +had done many times before.</p> + +<p>"A last piece of advice," Lady Catharine said, as he turned to go; "you +had better curb your temper if you think of seeing my son. He may +scarcely be so patient with you as I have been."</p> + +<p>If he heard it he did not notice the remark, but left the room slowly. +He lifted his hand, but not his head, in a stealthy gesture of menace as +he reached the door.</p> + +<p>Lady Catharine stood for some moments after his departure as if in +thought, unconsciously retaining her somewhat haughty attitude and +expression. Then she went to her room, and prayed, with many tears, that +Isabel Raymond might never have to repent the step she had taken so +rashly. I think a presentiment of danger made her pray for Guy too. But +did she ever forget him when she was on her knees?</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Bruce had not shown upon the scene since, so that they +could not convey to him the intelligence when Isabel Forrester wrote +from Paris to communicate her marriage.</p> + +<p>Guy went to Mr. Raymond as a plenipotentiary from the recently allied +powers, to obtain, if possible, fair conditions of peace. His uncle was +breakfasting alone, and received him with perfect good-temper.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy," he said, "it was a match of your poor aunt's making, not +mine. If she had lived to see it broken off, I think she would have been +very much provoked. (He gave a slight shudder of reminiscence here, and +finished his chocolate.) But they say there is no marrying or giving in +marriage where she is gone, so let us hope it will not seriously affect +her now. As to me, I have never been angry since I was twenty-two. +Personally, I very much prefer Forrester to Bruce as a connection. I +should have allowed Bella £300 a year, and I suppose the necessary +outfit and presents would have cost me about £500. I will do just the +same now—neither more nor less. You can tell Charley he may draw for +the last sum and for the first quarter when he pleases. They had better +travel for a year or so, I think, till the people have stopped talking +about them. Charley will sell out, of course?"</p> + +<p>"His papers are sent in," Guy replied.</p> + +<p>"Just so," Raymond went on. "If they are in a pleasant place, I may very +likely go and see them this summer. Suggest Hombourg. I should like to +try the waters. And tell Charley not to go about too much alone after +nightfall. The deserted one is capable of laying a trap for him. I +didn't like his look when I saw him last. That is all, I think. Do you +go to Lady Featherstone's to-night?"</p> + +<p>Raymond appeared at his clubs and elsewhere with a face so impenetrably +cheerful and complacent that his bitterest friend dared not venture on a +condolence.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"Tu mihi, tu certè (memini), Græcine, negabas,</div> +<div class='i8'>Uno posse aliquem tempore amare duas."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>When I had heard all this, I questioned Guy about his own affairs. He +was not very communicative, though he seemed perfectly happy and hopeful +as to the future. He said that his marriage was not to take place till +the autumn, when Miss Brandon's brother (they were orphans) was expected +to return from India. I could not help asking what Flora Bellasys +thought of it.</p> + +<p>Livingstone bit his lip and frowned slightly as he answered, "Well, +there <i>was</i> a scene—rather a tempestuous one, to speak the truth, but +we are perfectly good friends now. I wonder if she ever really expected +me to marry her? She is the most amusing person alive to flirt with, but +as for serious measures—" He shrugged his shoulders expressively. +"Perhaps she <i>has</i> something to complain of; but if she has any +conscience at all, she ought to recognize the <i>lex talionis</i>."</p> + +<p>I was not convinced or satisfied, but it was useless to pursue the +subject then.</p> + +<p>"Will you ride to-day?" Guy asked. "There are always horses for you +here. I should like to introduce you to Constance. We shall be in the +Park about five."</p> + +<p>I accepted willingly, and left him soon afterward.</p> + +<p>A little after the hour he had named I saw Livingstone's tall figure +turn the corner of Kensington Gardens, riding on Miss Brandon's right; +on her left was her uncle, Mr. Vavasour, her usual escort.</p> + +<p>She was rarely lovely, certainly, as I was sure she would be, for Guy's +taste in feminine beauty was undisputed. Her features were delicate, but +very clearly cut; the nose and chin purely Grecian in their outline; the +dark gray eyes met you with an earnest, true expression, as if they had +nothing to conceal. Her broad Spanish hat suited her well, shading as it +did cheeks slightly flushed by exercise, and shining tresses of that +color which with us is nameless, and which across the Channel they +call—<i>blond cendré</i>. Her hand was strikingly perfect, even in its +gauntlet. It might have been modeled from that famous marble fragment of +which the banker-poet was so proud, and which Canova kissed so often.</p> + +<p>There is a face which always reminds me of hers, though the figure in +the portrait is far more matured and developed than Constance's willowy +form—the picture of Queen Joanna of Naples in the Palazzo Doria.</p> + +<p>I have stood before it long, trying in vain to read the riddle of the +haughty lineaments, and serene, untroubled eyes. Gazing at these, who +could guess the story of that most guilty woman and astute +conspirator—unbridled in sensuality—remorseless in statecraft—who +counted her lovers by legions, and saw, unmoved, her chief favorite torn +limb from limb on the rack?</p> + +<p>But this is no singular instance. Marble and canvas are more discreet +than the mask of the best trained living features. Messalina and Julia +look cold and correct enough since they have been turned into stone. +Only by the magic of her smile and by the glory of her golden hair do we +recognize her who, if all tales are true, might have given a tongue to +the walls of the Vatican. We forget the Borgia, with her laboratory of +philtres and poisons—we only think that never a duke of all his royal +race brought home a lovelier bride than Alfonso of Ferrara.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it is best so. Why should a mark be set upon those whom, it may +be, history has condemned unrighteously? Let us not be more uncharitable +than the painter or the sculptor, but pass on without pausing to +reflect—<i>Desinit in piscem</i>.</p> + +<p>If one had wanted to find a fault in Constance Brandon's beauty, I +suppose it would have been that her forehead was too high, and her lips +too thin and decided in their expression, especially when compressed +under any strong feeling. But this defect it would have been hard to +discover on this first occasion of our meeting. She looked so bright and +joyous, and the light from her face seemed reflected on Guy's dark +features, softening their stern outline, and making them radiant with a +proud happiness. She received me very cordially, and I well remember the +pleasant impression left on my ear by the first sound of her voice, soft +and low as Cordelia's. In these two attributes it resembled that of +Flora Bellasys, yet their tones were essentially different—as different +as is to the taste a draft of pure sparkling water from one of strong +sweet wine. We had taken two or three turns, when a large party +approached us, in the centre of whom I recognized instantly Miss +Bellasys. If possible, she looked handsomer than ever as she swept by at +a sharp canter, sitting square and firmly, but yielding just enough to +the stride of the horse—perfectly erect, but inimitably lithe and +graceful.</p> + +<p>Nothing in her demeanor betrayed the faintest shade of emotion; but I +remembered the old maxim of the fencing-school—"Watch your enemy's +eyes, not his blade;" and I caught Flora's, as she raised her head after +returning our salutation, before she had time to discipline them +thoroughly. I saw them glitter with defiant hatred as they lighted on +her rival. I saw them melt with passionate eagerness as for one brief +moment they followed Guy's retreating figure and averted face. Half of +Mohun's warning became superfluous after that. I was in no danger of +being deceived by "Miss Bellasys taking things pleasantly."</p> + +<p>Yet, as time wore on, the idea forced itself on me more and more that +Livingstone's choice was in some respects a mistake. They were <i>not</i> +suited to each other. Constance was as unsuspicious and as free from +commonplace jealousies as the merest child; but some of her lover's +proceedings did not please her, and she told him so, perhaps without +attending sufficiently to the "<i>suaviter in modo</i>"; for, when it was a +question of duty, real or fancied, to herself and to others, she was +rigid as steel. Besides this, she was a strict observer of all Church +canons and rituals; and more than once, when Guy had proposed some plan, +a vigil, or matins, or vespers came in the way. She did all for the +best, I am certain, and judged herself far more severely than she did +others, but she could not guess how any thing like an admonition or a +lecture grated on the proud, self-willed nature that from childhood had +been unused to the slightest control. To speak the truth, too, she was +not exempt from that failing which brought ruin on the brightest of the +angels, and punishment eternal on the Son of the Morning; so that pride +may often have checked the evidence of the deep love she really felt, +and made her manner seem constrained and cold.</p> + +<p>I only guess all this; for neither then, nor at any future time, did I +ever hear from Guy the faintest whisper of accusation or complaint.</p> + +<p>I do not think he contradicted her often; I am quite sure it never came +to a quarrel or even a dispute. They were not a couple likely to indulge +in the <i>amantium iræ</i>; but sometimes, after quitting her, his brow was +so ominously overcast that it would have gladdened the very heart of +Flora Bellasys to have seen it. Once, I remember, after sitting some +time in silence, his eyes turned toward a table, where, among other +letters, lay a little triangular note unopened. He broke the seal and +read it through, frowning still heavily; after a few moments of what +looked like hesitation, he seemed to come to a decision, and burned it +slowly at the flame of his spirit-lamp. Then he rose and shook all his +mighty limbs—as the Danite Titan might have done before his locks were +shorn—and sat down again with a long-drawn sigh, as of relief. I longed +to interpose with a warning word, for in the handwriting I recognized +the <i>griffe</i> of the fatal Delilah. But I knew how dangerous it was to +attempt interference with Guy; and besides, this time, I felt sure he +had escaped the toils. Yet my heart sank as I thought of the seductions +and temptations that the future might have in store. I could hardly keep +my temper that evening when I saw at the Opera Flora +Bellasys—triumphant, as if she could guess what the morning's work had +been—and then thought of the single, guileless heart whose happiness +she was plotting to overthrow.</p> + +<p>She and Guy met constantly, for he still went every where, often +accompanied by his <i>fiancée</i>. They seemed to be on the most ordinary +footing of old acquaintances, though it was remarked that no one could +be said to have succeeded to the post of grand vizier at the Bellasys +court, vacated by Livingstone. I can not trace the threads of the web of +Circe. She concealed them well at the time; and since—between the +knowledge of them and me is drawn the veil of a terrible remorse, which +I have never tried to penetrate.</p> + +<p>I can only tell the end, which came very speedily.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"'Tis good to be merry and wise;</div> +<div class='i10'>'Tis good to be honest and true;</div> +<div class='i8'>'Tis good to be off with the old love</div> +<div class='i10'>Before you are on with the new."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>There was a sound of revelry by night in Mrs. Wallace's villa at +Richmond, and fair women and brave men mustered there strong. Every one +liked those parties. The hostess was young and very charming, while her +husband, a bald, inoffensive, elderly man, was equally eminent in his +own department of the commissariat. His wines were things to dream of in +after years, when, like Curran, "confined to the Port" of a remote +country inn, one sacrifices one's self heroically on the altar of the +landlord for the good of the house.</p> + +<p>The crowd was not so dense as at most London parties, and the +temperature consequently something below that of a vapor-bath or of the +<i>Piombi</i>, but the generality of the guests were either amusing, or +pretty, or otherwise eligible. To be sure, it was rather an expedition +and a question of passports to get down there, but the drive home +through the cool dewy morning made you amends.</p> + +<p>Constance Brandon was present. I never saw her look so lovely as on +this, her last appearance on the world's stage. No one could have +guessed that, five hours later, the light was to die in her eyes and the +color in her cheeks, never to return to either again till she shall +wake on the Resurrection morning.</p> + +<p>Flora Bellasys was there too, in all the insolence of beauty, defying +criticism, and challenging the admiration that was lavished on her. I +should like to describe her dress; but I know how dangerous it is for +the uninitiate to venture within the verge of those awful mysteries over +which, as hierophants, Devy and Maradon-Carson preside. Conscious of my +sex, I retire. Have we not read of Actæon?</p> + +<p>Still I may say that I have an impression of her being surrounded by a +sort of cloud of pale blue <i>tulle</i>, over which bouquets of geranium were +scattered here and there; and I remember perfectly a certain serpent of +scarlet velvet and diamonds flashing amid the rolls and braids of her +dark shining tresses.</p> + +<p>The evening began with private theatricals, which were most successful. +There was a <i>soubrette</i>—provoking enough to have set all the +parti-colored world by the ears—who traced her descent from a vavasor +of Duke William the Norman, and an attorney's clerk, who had evidently +mistaken his profession when he took a commission in the Coldstreams.</p> + +<p>Soon after the ball which followed had begun, Livingstone arrived. He +had been dining at the mess of his old regiment. I never remember seeing +him what is called the worse for liquor. His head was marble under the +influence of wine and of yet stronger compounds; but the instant I met +his eyes, I guessed from their unusual brilliancy, and from the slight +additional flush on his brown cheeks, that the wassail had been deep.</p> + +<p>He paused for a moment to say a word or two to me, and I noticed that +the first person whom his glance lighted on was, not his betrothed, but +Flora Bellasys. The latter was resting after her first polka, with her +usual staff of admirers round her. Guy watched the circle paying their +homage, and I heard him mutter to himself the formula of the Roman +arena—<i>Morituri te salutant</i>. Then he passed on; and, after retaining +Constance for her first disengaged turn, he began talking to a lady, +whom I have not noticed yet, but who merits to be sketched hastily.</p> + +<p>Rose Thornton was not clever. She was no longer in her first youth, and +had never been pretty or very attractive. Her figure was neat, and her +face had a sort of nervous deprecating expression, that made you look at +it a second time. Nevertheless, she was always deeply engaged, and +generally to the best goers in the room. She was a good performer +herself, but this would not account for it; ninety-nine girls out of +every hundred are that, after two seasons' practice. Those who were in +the secret did not wonder at her luck. She was the <i>âme damnee</i> of Flora +Bellasys.</p> + +<p>Whenever the latter ventured on any unusually daring escapade, she was +always really accompanied by Miss Thornton, or supposed to be so. How +the influence was originally acquired I know not; at the time I speak of +she had no more volition left than a Russian Grenadier. She had some +principles of action once, I suppose, and considered herself as an +accountable being; but all such vanities her "dashing white sergeant" +had drilled out of her long ago. Poor thing! It was no wonder that the +frightened look had become habitual to her face, and that she always +spoke with reserve and constraint, as if to guard against the +chance-betrayal of some terrible secret. It was no sinecure, her +office—alternately scapegoat and <i>confidante</i>. My own idea is, that +having still a little feeble remnant of a conscience remaining, she +suffered agonies of remorse at times in the latter capacity. Dancing was +her great—almost her only pleasure, and Flora certainly provided her +regularly with partners. Indeed, some one had irreverently designated +Miss Thornton as The Turnpike, inasmuch as, before securing a waltz with +the beauty, it was necessary to pay toll in the shape of a duty-dance +with her <i>protégée</i>. Rose's gratitude was boundless. She never wearied +in rendering small services to her patroness. She would write her notes +for her, as La Raffé did for Richelieu, and fetch and carry like the +best of retrievers; venturing every now and then on a timid caress, +which was permitted rather than accepted with an imperial nonchalance. +The only subject on which she ever expanded into eloquence was the +fascinations of her friend. She spent all her weak breath in blowing +that laudatory trumpet, as if she expected the defenses of the best +guarded heart to fall prostrate before it, like the walls of Jericho. +And yet, if all the truth were known, I think she had as much reason to +complain as the dwarf in the story who swore fellowship in arms with the +giant.</p> + +<p>I was sorry to see Livingstone linger at her side, yet more sorry when, +by an easy transition, he passed on to Flora's, and the circle around +her, from old habit, made room for him to pass. He did not stay there +long, though—only long enough to make future arrangements, I +suppose—and then, for some time, I lost sight of him.</p> + +<p>I had been driving heavily through a quadrille in the society of a very +foolish virgin, whose ideas of past, present, and future seemed bounded +by the last Opera, which she had and I had not seen. A horror of great +dullness had fallen upon me, and I went out to restore the tone of my +depressed spirits by a libation, wherein I devoted, solemnly, my late +partner to the infernal gods. When I returned they were playing "The +Olga," and Flora was whirling round on Guy Livingstone's arm.</p> + +<p>Among her many perilous fascinations, have I ever mentioned her +wonderful waltzing? She was as untiring as an Almè; and when once fairly +launched with a steerer who could do her justice, had a sway with +her—to use an Americanism—like that of a clipper three points off the +wind.</p> + +<p>As I watched her, almost reclining in her partner's powerful grasp, her +lips moving incessantly, though audibly only to him, as her head leaned +against his shoulder, I thought of the old Rhineland tradition of the +Wilis; then the daughter of Herodias came into my mind; and then that +scarcely less murderous <i>danseuse</i>, at whose many-twinkling feet they +say the second Napoleon cast his frail life down.</p> + +<p>If, in his assault on St. Anthony, the Evil One mingled no Terpsichorean +temptation, be sure it was because the ancient man had no ear for music, +I do not think that weapon was forgotten when Don Roderick, who had once +been a courtly king, did battle through a long winter's night with the +phantasm of fair, sinful La Cava.</p> + +<p>The waltz was over, and I saw Guy and Flora disappear through the +curtained door of the conservatory. If there was one thing Mrs. Wallace +was prouder of than another, it was the arrangement of this sanctum. +Very justly so; for it had witnessed the commencement and happy +termination of more flirtations than half the ball-rooms in London put +together. When you got into one of those nooks, contrived in artful +recesses, shaded by magnolias, camellias, and the broad, thick-leaved +tropical plants, lighted dimly by lamps of many-colored glass, you felt +the recitation of some chapter in "the old tale so often told" a +necessity of the position, not a matter of choice. Against eyes you were +tolerably safe, though not against ears; but this is of very secondary +importance. The man who would not assist a woman in distress (as the +stage sailor has it) by adhering to the whisper appropriate to the +imparting of interesting information, deserves to be—overheard.</p> + +<p>Flora sank down on a convenient <i>causeuse</i>, still panting slightly—not +from breathlessness, but past excitement—the ground-swell after the +storm.</p> + +<p>"Ah! what a waltz!" she said, with a sigh. "And what a pity it is so +nearly the last! I shall never find any one else who will understand my +step and pace so well."</p> + +<p>"Why should it be nearly the last?" Guy asked, contemplating the varying +expression of her face and the somewhat careless <i>pose</i> of her +magnificent figure with more than admiration in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"<i>On se range,</i>" Flora answered, demurely. "And the first step in the +right direction will be to give up one's favorite partners."</p> + +<p>He sat down by her with a short laugh that was rather forced.</p> + +<p>"Bah! do you think, because we are virtuous, there shall be no more +cakes and ale?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do. I could sketch your future so easily. It will be so +intensely respectable. You will become a model country squire. You will +hunt a good deal, but never <i>ride</i> any more. (You must sell the Axeine, +you know.) You will go to magistrates' meetings regularly, and breed +immense cattle; and you will grow very fat yourself. That's the worst of +all. I don't like to fancy you stout and unwieldy, like Athelstan."</p> + +<p>She ended, pensively. The languor of reaction seemed stealing over her, +but it only made her more charming as she leaned still farther back on +the soft cushions, watching the point of her tiny foot tracing the +pattern of the carpet.</p> + +<p>"What a brilliant horoscope!" said Guy; "and so benevolently sketched, +too! Now your own, Improvisatrice."</p> + +<p>"I shall marry too," she answered, gravely. "I ought to have done so +long ago. Perhaps I shall make up my mind soon. Evil examples are so +contagious."</p> + +<p>"And who will draw the great prize?"</p> + +<p>"I have not the faintest idea. I suppose some fine old English +gentleman, who has a great estate."</p> + +<p>"I only hope the said estate will be near Kerton," Livingstone +suggested; and he drew closer to his companion.</p> + +<p>"Ah! dear old Kerton," she said, sighing again, "I shall never go there +any more."</p> + +<p>"The reason?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps because my husband, whoever he may be, will not choose to bring +me."</p> + +<p>"Absurd!" Guy retorted, biting his lip hard. "As if that individual +would have any will of his own. You want to provoke me, I see."</p> + +<p>The answer came in so low a whisper that, though he bent his ear down, +he had almost to guess at the words.</p> + +<p>"No, I have never tried to do that, even during the last three months. I +am not brave enough. Perhaps I should not come, because—I could not +bear it."</p> + +<p>They were silent. She was so near him now that her quick breath stirred +his hair, and he could feel the pulse of her heart beating against his +own side. The fiery Livingstone blood, heated seven-fold by wine and +passion, was surging through his veins like molten iron. Memory and +foresight were both swept away like withered leaves by the strength of +the terrible temptation.</p> + +<p>His arm stole round her waist, and he drew her toward him—close—closer +yet; then she looked up in his face. The cloud of thoughtful gravity has +passed away from hers, and the provocations of a myriad of coquettes and +courtesans concentrated in her marvelous eyes.</p> + +<p>He bent down his lofty head, and instantly their lips met, and were set +together fast.</p> + +<p>A kiss! Tibullus, Secundus, Moore, and a thousand other poets and +poetasters, have rhymed on the word for centuries, decking it with the +choicest and quaintest conceits. But, remember, it was with a kiss that +the greatest of all criminals sealed the unpardonable sin—it was a kiss +which brought on Francesca punishment so unutterably piteous that he +swooned at the sight who endured to look on all other terrors of +nine-circled hell.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i12'>"God help thee, then!</div> +<div class='i10'>I'll see thy face no more.</div> +<div class='i8'>Like water spilled upon the plain,</div> +<div class='i8'>Not to be gathered up again,</div> +<div class='i10'>Is the old love I bore."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>Before that long caress was ended, close behind them there broke forth a +low, plaintive cry, such as might be wrung from the bravest of delicate +women, in her extremity of pain, when stricken by a heavy brutal hand.</p> + +<p>The hot blood ebbed back in Guy Livingstone's veins, and froze at its +fountain-head. His punishment had begun already. Before her face, white +as the dress she wore, was revealed through a break in the dark green +foliage of the camellias, he knew that he had trifled away his life's +happiness, and lost Constance Brandon.</p> + +<p>She came forward slowly. With a valiant effort she had shaken off the +first feeling of faintness that had crept over her, and there was +scarcely a trace of emotion left on her features—calm and pale as the +Angel of Death.</p> + +<p>Guy had risen, and stood still, with his head bent down on his breast. +For the first time in his life he was unable to raise his eyes, weighed +down by the heavy sense of bitter disgrace and forfeited honor.</p> + +<p>But the bright flush on Flora's cheek spoke more of exultation than of +shame; the bouquet which she raised to her lips only half concealed a +smile of triumph. She wreathed her slender neck haughtily while she met +her rival's glance without flinching. She thought that, if she had +played for a heavy stake—no less than the jeopardy of her fair +fame—this time, at least, the game was her own.</p> + +<p>Constance spoke first, in a voice perfectly measured and composed. There +was not a false note in the soft, musical tones. After once conquering +her emotion, she would have dropped dead at Flora's feet sooner than +betray how she was wounded.</p> + +<p>"When you have taken Miss Bellasys back, will you come to me for a +moment, Mr. Livingstone? I will wait for you here."</p> + +<p>Flora rose before Guy could answer. "Don't trouble yourself," she said, +gayly. "Here is my partner for the polka looking anxiously for me. I am +ready, Captain Ravenswood."</p> + +<p>She turned, before reaching the door, to fire a last shot.</p> + +<p>"It is the next galop I am to keep for you, is it not?"</p> + +<p>This was to Guy; but there was no answer. He stood in precisely the same +attitude, without a muscle of his face stirring or an eyelash quivering.</p> + +<p>In all the Rifle Brigade there was not a more reckless dare-devil than +Harry Ravenswood, nor one who adhered more devoutly to the convenient +creed, "All is fair in war or love." But he saw that something had +happened quite out of his line; and he did not venture on a single +allusion to it as he led his partner back to the dancing-room, with a +perplexed expression on his cheery face, which amused Flora intensely +when she remarked it. When the subject came on for discussion afterward +in the smoking-room at his club, he thus expressed himself, in language +terse and elegantly allegorical.</p> + +<p>"You see, Livingstone is a very heavy weight; a good deal better than +most in the ring. When I saw him so floored as not to be able to come to +time, I knew there had been some hard hitting going on thereabouts, so I +kept clear."</p> + +<p>The two who were left alone in the conservatory remained silent for a +few seconds. Then Guy roused himself, and offered his arm to his +companion with an impulse of courtesy that was simply mechanical. She +took it without remark, and they passed out through the door which led +into the garden.</p> + +<p>There Constance left his side; and, for the first time, their eyes met +as they stood face to face under the bright moon. Guy read his sentence +instantly—a sentence from which there was no appeal. The very +hopelessness of his situation restored its elasticity to the somewhat +sullen pride which was the mainspring of his character. He stood, +waiting for her to speak; and his eyes were not cast down now, but +riveted on her face—gloomily defiant.</p> + +<p>"I hope you will believe," Miss Brandon said, "that it was quite +involuntarily I became a spy on your actions. I did not overhear one +word; and my partner had that moment left me, when I saw—" Not all her +self-command could check the shudder that ran through every limb, and +the choking in her throat that would interrupt her.</p> + +<p>"I have very little to add," she went on, more steadily. "After what I +witnessed, I need hardly say that we only meet again as the merest +strangers. You might think meanly of me, indeed, if I ever allowed your +lips to touch my cheek or my hand again. Remember, I told you from the +first we were not suited to each other; perhaps I deserve all I have met +with for allowing myself to be overruled. You can not contradict a word +of this, or say that it is unjust or severe."</p> + +<p>Did she pause in the expectation or the hope of an excuse, or an appeal +from her hearer? Only the hoarse answer came,</p> + +<p>"I have forfeited the right to defend myself or to gainsay you."</p> + +<p>"You would find it difficult to do either," Constance rejoined, rather +more haughtily; perhaps she was disappointed in the tone of his reply. +"One word more: if my name is ever called in question, I am sure no one +will defend it more readily than yourself. My voice will never be heard +against you; and if, hereafter, you shall desire my forgiveness more +than you now do; remember, I have given it unasked and freely."</p> + +<p>Guy's tone was pregnant with cold, cruel irony as he answered,</p> + +<p>"I congratulate you on your position, Miss Brandon; it is quite +unassailable. You are in the right now, as you always have been. You +were right, of course, in always doling out the tokens of your love in +such scanty measure as your pride and your priests would allow. They +ought to canonize you—those holy men! I doubt if they have another +disciple so superior to all human weaknesses. It must be very +gratifying to so eminent a Christian to be able to forgive plenarily, +without danger of the favor being returned. I have nothing to urge +against your decision—that we part forever. You will have no difficulty +in forgetting me, whom you ought never to have stooped to. Yet I will +give you one caution. I am not romantic, as you know, and I generally +mean what I say. If you should think hereafter of bestowing yourself on +some worthier object, hesitate a little for <i>his</i> sake, or wait till I +am dead; otherwise, the day that makes his happiness certain may bring +him very near his grave."</p> + +<p>His voice had changed during the last words into a growl of savage +menace, and his forehead was black and furrowed with passion.</p> + +<p>It might have been his own excited fancy, or the passing just then of a +light cloud over the moon; but, for an instant, he thought he saw her +steady lip quiver and tremble. If so, be very sure it was not fear which +caused the emotion, though even that the circumstances might have +excused; rather, I think, it was a pang of self-reproach—a +consciousness of having acted unwisely, though for the best; perhaps, +too, the stubbornness of the heart she had ruled once—so strong and +proud even in its abasement—was congenial to her own besetting sin: she +liked the fierce threat better than the cool sarcasm. At any rate, she +answered more gently than she had yet spoken.</p> + +<p>"I believe you. But you know me better than to think a threat would +influence me. Yet you need not fear my ever again trusting this world +with my happiness. You will be very sorry hereafter for some things you +have said to-night. Ask yourself—if I had loved you, as you seem to +have expected, better than my own soul, would the result have been +different? It is too late now to say any thing but—farewell. Will you +not say it, as I do, kindly, or at least not in anger—Guy?"</p> + +<p>She paused between the two last words, and their imploring accent was +almost piteous. There must have been a strange fascination about +Livingstone, for, saint as she was, no other living creature would have +won such a concession from the Christian charity of Constance Brandon.</p> + +<p>Had Guy spoken then, as he ought to have done, I believe all might have +been amended; but an angry devil was busy within him, and would not let +go his prey; he stood with his black brows downcast, and with folded +arms, never seeming to notice the slender fingers that sought to touch +his hand. True it is that nothing makes a man so unforgiving as the +consciousness of having inflicted a bitter wrong. He heard a sigh, heavy +and despairing as Francesca's when her dying prayer was spurned, a light +shadow flitted across the streak of moonlit grass, and, when he raised +his head, he was left alone, like Alp on the sea-shore, to judge the +battle between a remorseful conscience and a hardened heart.</p> + +<p>Livingstone was seen no more that night; Constance glided in alone, and +her absence had been scarcely noticed. During the short time that she +remained, no one could have guessed from her face that her heart was +broken, any more than did Napoleon that the aid-de-camp who brought the +news of Lannes' victory had been almost cut in two by a grape-shot.</p> + +<p>I speak it diffidently, with the fear of the divine voice of the people +before my eyes, as is but fitting in these equalizing days, when +territories, the title to which is possession immemorial, are being +plucked away acre by acre, and hereditary privileges mined one by one; +but it seems to me, in this, perhaps, solitary attribute, "the brave old +houses" still keep their pre-eminence.</p> + +<p>They are not better, nor wiser in their generation (forbid it, +Manchester!), nor even more daring in confronting danger than the +thousands whose grandsires are creations of a powerful fancy or of a +complaisant king-at-arms. In that terrible charge which swept away the +Russian cavalry at Eylau, three lengths in front of the best blood in +France rode the innkeeper's son. The "First Grenadier" himself was not +more splendidly reckless, though he was a La Tour d'Auvergne. But in +passive uncomplaining endurance, in the power of obliterating outward +tokens of suffering, physical or mental, may we not still say, <i>Noblesse +oblige</i>?</p> + +<p>Hundreds of similar isolated instances may be quoted from the annals of +the Third Estate; but, in the class I speak of, this quality seems a +sixth sense wholly independent of, and often contradicting the rest of +the individual's disposition.</p> + +<p>I remember meeting in France an old Italian refugee. He had not much +principle and very little pride; he was ready <i>quidvis facere aut pati</i> +to get a five-franc piece, which he would incontinently stake and lose +at baccarat or ecarté, as he had done aforetime with a large ancestral +inheritance; but his quiet fortitude under privations that were neither +few nor light was worthy of Belisarius.</p> + +<p>Very often, I am sure, his evening meal must have been eaten with the +Barmecide; but his pale, handsome face, finished off so gracefully by +the white, pointed beard, still met you, courteous and unruffled, the +idea of an exiled doge, or a Rohan in disgrace. Once only I saw him +moved—when the landlord of our inn, a vast bloated <i>bourgeois</i>, smote +the Count familiarly on the shoulder, and bantered him pleasantly on the +brilliant prospects of his eldest son. It was not unkindly meant, +perhaps, but the old man shrunk away from the large fat hand as if it +hurt him, and turned toward us a look piteously appealing, which was not +lost on myself or Livingstone. When mine host, later in the evening, +shook in his gouty slippers before an ebullition of Guy's wrath, excited +by the most shadowy pretext, I wonder if he guessed at the remote cause +of that outpouring of the vials? Count Massa did, for he smiled +intensely, as only an Italian can smile when amply revenged.</p> + +<p>One instance more to close a long digression. I have read of a baron in +the fifteenth century who once in his life said a good thing. He was a +coarse, brutal marauder, illiterate enough to have satisfied Earl Angus, +and as unromantic as the Integral Calculus. He was mortally wounded in a +skirmish; and when his men came back from the pursuit, he was bleeding +to death, resting against a tree. When they lifted him up, they noticed +his eyes fixed with a curious, complacent expression on the red stream +that surged and gurgled out of his wound, just as a <i>gourmand</i> looks at +a bumper of a rare vintage held up to the light. They heard him growl to +himself, "<i>Qu'il coule rouge et fort, le bon vieux sang de Bourgogne</i>." +And then he fell back—dead.</p> + +<p>O Publicola Thompson! Ph[=o]sphor to the Tower Hamlets and Boanerges of +the platform—will you not allow that, amid a wilderness of weeds, this +one fair plant flourishes under "the cold shade?"</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"Shy she was, and I thought her cold;</div> +<div class='i10'>Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;</div> +<div class='i8'>Filled I was with folly and spite,</div> +<div class='i10'>When Ellen Adair was dying for me."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>When I came to Livingstone's chambers on the following morning, I found +him alone. His head was resting listlessly against the back of the vast +easy-chair in which he was reclining, and his face, thrown out in relief +against the crimson velvet, looked haggard and drawn. The calumet—not +of peace—was between his lips, and the dense blue clouds were wreathing +round him like a Scotch mist. On a table near lay a heap of gold and +notes. He had finished the night at his club, where lansquenet had been +raging till long after sunrise. Fortune had been more kind than usual, +and the fruits of "passing" eight times lay before me. An open +liqueur-case close at his elbow showed that play was not the only +counter-excitement to which he had resorted.</p> + +<p>I hoped to have found him in a repentant mood, but his first words +undeceived me: "I start for Paris by this evening's train;" and then I +remarked all about me the signs of immediate departure.</p> + +<p>I only had a confused idea of what had happened, and was anxious to know +the truth, but he was very brief in his answers: the particulars of what +had passed I learned long afterward.</p> + +<p>"Can nothing be done?" I asked, when he had finished all he chose to +tell me.</p> + +<p>"Nothing!" replied Livingstone, decisively. "If excuse or explanation +had been of any use, I think I should have tried them last night. You +would not advise me to humiliate myself to no purpose, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>There is a certain scene in Æschylus which came into my mind just then.</p> + +<p>A group of elderly men, with grave, rather vacuous faces, and grizzled +beards, stand in the court-yard of an ancient palace. On one side is the +peristyle, with its square stunted pillars, looking as if the weight +above crushed them, though it wearies them no more than the heavens do +Atlas; on the other, a gateway, vast, low-browed, shadowy with Cyclopean +stones. Somewhat apart is a strange weird figure, ever and anon starting +up and tossing her arms wildly as she utters some new denunciation, and +then cowering down again in a despairing weariness. There are traces yet +in the thin, wan face of the beauty which enslaved Loxian Apollo, and of +the pride which turned his great love into a greater hate: round it hang +the black elf-locks, disheveled, that have never been braided since the +gripe of Telamonian Ajax ruffled them so rudely. In her great, troubled +eyes you read terrible memories, and a prescience of coming +death—death, most grateful to the dishonored princess, but before which +the frail womanhood can not but shudder and quail. No wonder that the +reverend men glance at her uneasily, scarcely mustering courage enough +sometimes to answer her with a pious platitude. Alas! alas! Cassandra.</p> + +<p>While we gaze, forth from the recesses of the gynæceum there breaks a +cry, expressing rather wrath and surprise than mere pain. Then there +comes another, more plaintive—the moan of a strong man in the +death-throe.</p> + +<p>We know that voice very well; we have heard it many times, calm and +regal, above the wrangle of councils and the roar of battle; often it +prayed for victory or for the people's weal, but it never yet called on +earth or heaven to help Agamemnon. The Chorus hear it too; but they +linger and palter, while each gives his grave sentence deliberately in +his proper turn. One or two advise action and interference, and stand +perfectly still. At last we hear a heavy, choking groan, and a great +stillness follows. We know that all is over—we know that there is a +stir already down there in Hades—we seem to catch a far-off murmur +raised by a thousand weak, tremulous voices—the very ghost of a +wail—as the shadows of those who died gallantly in their harness before +Troy gather to meet their old leader, the mightiest Atride.</p> + +<p>In the background of all we fancy a hideous Eidolon, from whose side +even the damned recoil in loathing. There is a grin on the lips yet red +and wet with the traces of the unholy banquet. Thyestes exalts over the +fulfillment of another chapter in the inevitable curse.</p> + +<p>Who has not grown savage over that scene? We hate the old drivelers less +when, a few minutes later, they truckle and temporize with the awful +shape, who comes forth with a splash of blood on her slender wrist, and +a speck or two on her white, lofty forehead.</p> + +<p>Just so helpless and useless I felt at that moment. I was standing by +while a foul wrong was being wrought. I saw nothing but ruin for Guy, +and desolate misery for Constance, in the black future. Yet I could +think of no argument or counsel that would in the least avail. I felt +sick at heart. It was some minutes before I answered his last question. +At last the words broke from me almost unconsciously: "Ah! how will you +answer to God and man for last night's work?"</p> + +<p>I forgot that I was quoting the cry of the Covenanter's widow when she +knelt by her husband's corpse, and looked up into Claverhouse's face +with those sad eyes that were ever dim and cloudy after the carbines +flashed across them. But Guy remembered it, and answered instantly in +the words of his favorite hero,</p> + +<p>"I can answer it to man well enough, and I will take God in my own +hand."</p> + +<p>Years afterward we both recalled that fatal defiance, when the speaker +lay helpless, at the mercy of the Omnipotence whose might he challenged. +Just then his servant, who was busily preparing for departure, entered +the room.</p> + +<p>Willis was a slight, under-sized man, of about fifty; his complexion was +muddy and indefinite; his small whiskers, of a grayish red, were trimmed +and pruned as accurately as a box border-edging, and the partial absence +of eyebrows and eyelashes gave his face a sort of unfinished look. The +expression natural to it was, I think, a low, vicious cunning; but his +features and little green eyes were so rigidly disciplined that, as a +rule, neither had any characteristic save utter vacuity. In his own line +he was perfect. No commission that could be intrusted to him would draw +from him a remark or a look of surprise. He executed precisely what he +was told, and fulfilled the minutest duties of his station +irreproachably, with a noiseless, feline activity. He was like the +war-horse of the Douglas:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i2'>"Though somewhat old,</div> +<div>Swift in his paces, cool, and bold."</div></div> +</div> + +<p>He held a miniature-case in his hand as he entered. "Am I to put this +in, sir?" he asked, in the slow, measured voice that was habitual to +him.</p> + +<p>His master gazed sharply at him, as if trying to detect a covert +sneer—it would have been safer to have stroked a rattlesnake's crest +than to have trifled with Livingstone just then—but Willis's face was +as innocent of any expression as a dead wall.</p> + +<p>"Put it down, and go on with your packing; you have no time to spare." +The man laid the case on a marble table near, and went out.</p> + +<p>Guy took the miniature and regarded it steadfastly for some moments, +then he looked up and caught my eye. Perhaps there was an eager appeal +there (for I knew well whose likeness lay before him) which displeased +and provoked his sullen temper; for he frowned darkly, and then his +clenched hand fell with the crashing weight of a steam-hammer. Nothing +but a heap of shivered wood, glass, and ivory remained of what had been +the life-like image of Constance Brandon.</p> + +<p>A thrill of horror shot through me icily, and a low cry burst from my +lips. I felt at that moment as if the blow had fallen, not on the +portrait, but on the original.</p> + +<p>But I kept silence. The dark hour was on Saul, and I knew no spell to +chase the evil spirit away.</p> + +<p>Guy spoke at last. His manner was unusually chill and constrained.</p> + +<p>"I expect to meet Mohun in Paris, and we shall probably go on to Vienna. +I hardly like troubling you with commissions, but I must. Listen. I +leave my own name—and another person's—in your keeping. I wish it to +be clearly understood that the engagement was broken off by Miss +Brandon, not by me. If you hear any man speak disparagingly of her in +connection with what has passed, you can insult him on my behalf as +grossly as you please. I will be here, as fast as steam can bring me, to +back what you may have said or done. This is the only point in which I +hope you will guard my honor. As for blaming <i>me</i>, they may say what +they please. Do you quite understand? And will you promise?"</p> + +<p>I did promise; and so, after a few more last words, we parted, more +coldly than we had ever done in all the years through which we had been +intimate.</p> + +<p>Guy left England the same evening, and descended like a thunder-clap on +the joyous little <i>ménage</i> in the Rue de la Madeleine, where Forrester +and his bride were still fluttering their wings in the honeymoon-shine +of post-nuptial spring.</p> + +<p>They were miraculously happy, those two. Indeed, they seemed to have +only one taste between them, and that was Charley's. If he felt +inclined, which was not seldom, to utter inaction, his wife encouraged +him in his laziness, sitting contentedly for hours on her footstool, +with her silky hair just within reach of his indolent hand. If, after +dinner, he suggested the "Italiens," or the "Bouffes," it was always +precisely that theatre that she had been thinking of all the morning. +She was in the seventh heaven when he won a hurdle-race in the Champ de +Mars.</p> + +<p>They made excursions into the <i>banlieue</i>, and farther afield yet, like a +couple of the <i>Pays Latin</i> in their first loves. The cabinets of Bercy +and St. Cloud knew them; so did the arbors of Asnières, where, in +oilskin and <i>vareuse</i>, muster for their Sabbat the ancient mariners of +the Seine. Nay, it has been whispered that more than once—close veiled +and clinging tightly to her husband's arm—Isabel witnessed at <i>Mabille</i> +and the <i>Chaumière</i> the choregraphic triumphs of <i>Frisette</i>, <i>Pomare</i>, +and <i>Mogador</i>.</p> + +<p>My hand trembles while I record such enormities and backslidings. O +Brougham-girls of Belgravia, who "never gave your mothers a moment's +uneasiness"—stars of the Western hemisphere, who can be trusted any +where without fear of your wandering from your orbits—think on this +lost Pleiad, once your companion, and be warned. Men are deceivers ever, +even when they mean matrimony; and the tender mercies of the Light +Dragoon are cruel.</p> + +<p>Isabel was dreadfully startled at the sudden appearance of her cousin. +Her notions of his power were quite unlimited and irrational, and I +believe her first thought was that he had changed his mind about the +propriety of her marriage, and was come to carry her back into the house +of her bondage with the strong hand.</p> + +<p>When his curt sentences told her the facts, sorry as she was, it +certainly was rather a relief to her. Charley was full of compassion +too, but he only confided this to his wife. He knew better than to try +condolence with Guy, and felt instantly that the case was far beyond his +simple powers of healing.</p> + +<p>They did not see much of him. The contrast of their happiness with his +own state must have grated on his feelings. His grim presence chilled +and clouded their little banquets at the Trois Frères or the Café de +Paris. He sat there among the bright lamps and flowers like a statue of +dark marble that it is impossible to light up, drinking all the while, +moodily, of the strongest wines to that portentous extent that it made +Isabel nervous and her husband grave.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Guy was conscious of the effect he produced; at all events, he +rather avoided the Forresters, finding in Mohun more congenial society. +The latter probably regretted what had happened; perhaps he felt an +approach to sympathy, after his rough fashion, but with this mingled a +dreary sort of satisfaction at the sight of a strong mind and hardy +nature rapidly descending to his own misanthropical level. Such an +exultation was breathed in that ghastly chorus of the dead kings and +chief ones of the earth when they rose, each on his awful throne, and +Hell beneath was moved at the advent of the Son of the Morning.</p> + +<p>These two did not stay long in Paris before they took their departure +for Vienna.</p> + +<p>We who were left behind in England talked a little at first, of course, +about the broken engagement, but I had no occasion to throw down the +gauntlet that had been left in my hands. I never heard any thing more +spiteful about Miss Brandon than that "she was never suited to her +<i>fiancé</i>—far too good for him." Others "had always thought how it +would be; it would take a good deal more yet to tame Livingstone." Sir +Henry Fallowfield observed, "Nothing could be more natural and correct. +The lady was a saint, and there is always a sort of incompleteness about +saints if they are not made martyrs. Suffering is their normal state."</p> + +<p>It was remarked that he was unusually cheerful for some days afterward; +and when Guy's conduct was canvassed, seemed inclined to quote the old +school-master's words on witnessing his pupil's success, "Bless the boy! +I taught him."</p> + +<p>Some other subject soon came up and replaced the week's wonder.</p> + +<p>Constance left town with her uncle almost immediately, and I heard +nothing of her for many months. Miss Bellasys remained. Very few persons +even guessed at the share she had had in breaking off the match; so her +credit was not much impaired, and her campaign was as brilliantly +successful as usual. If she felt any disappointment at Guy's abrupt +departure, she concealed it remarkably well. In some things, though +naturally impetuous and impatient, she was as cool as a Red Indian, and +would wait and watch forever if she saw a prospect of ultimate success. +So the days rolled on, bringing swiftly and surely the bitter +harvest-time, when he who had sown the wind was to reap the whirlwind.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"And from his lips those words of insult fell—</div> +<div class='i8'>His sword is good who can maintain them well."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>It was the middle of October; the reflux of the winter season was +beginning to fill Paris, and thither Mohun and Livingstone had returned +from their German tour, the latter decidedly the worse for his +wanderings. He had not suffered much physically, for the hard living +that would have utterly broken up some constitutions had only been able +to make his face thinner, to deepen the bistre tints under the eyes, and +to give a more angular gauntness to his massive frame.</p> + +<p>But morally he was not the same man. Play, which had formerly been only +an occasional excitement, had now become a necessary part of his daily +existence. Mohun would never say—perhaps he did not know—how much Guy +had lost during those few months. In spite of several gigantic <i>coups</i> +(he broke the bank both at Baden and Hombourg), the balance was +fearfully on the wrong side, so much so that it entailed a heavy +mortgage—the maiden one in his time—on the fair lands of Kerton Manor.</p> + +<p>I wonder people have not got tired of quoting "<i>Heureux en jeu; +malheureux en amour</i>." It seems one of the least true of all stale, +stupid proverbs. Luck will run itself out in more ways than one; and +sometimes you will never hold a trump, however often the suit changes. +The ancients knew better than we when they called the double-sixes +"Venus's cast." The monotony of Guy's reckless dissipations was soon +broken up by an event which ought to have sobered him.</p> + +<p>He had been dining with Mohun at the Trois Frères, and they were +returning late toward the Boulevards, when their attention was attracted +by a group in one of the narrow streets leading out of the Rue Vivienne. +Five or six raffish-looking men had surrounded a fair, delicate girl, +and were preparing to besiege her in form, deriving apparently intense +amusement from the piteous entreaties of their victim to be released. +Not the <i>roués</i> of the Regency after the suppers that have become a +by-word—not the <i>mousquetaires</i> after the wildest of their orgies—were +ever so unrelenting in brutality toward women quite lonely and +undefended as those unshorn ornaments of Young France, when replete with +a dinner at forty <i>sous</i>, and with the anomalous liquor that Macon +blushes to own.</p> + +<p>In all Europe there is no more genial companion and gallant gentleman +than the aristocrat of France <i>pur sang</i>—in all the world no more +terrible adversary than her wiry, well-trained soldier; but, from the +prolific decay of old institutions and prejudices, a mushroom growth has +sprouted of child-atheists and precocious profligates, calculating +debauchees while their cheeks are still innocent of down, who, after the +effervescence of a foul, vicious youth has spent itself, simmer down +into avaricious, dishonest <i>bourgeois</i> and bloated café politicians. The +teeth of the Republican dragon have been drawn, but they are sown +broadcast from Dan even to Beersheba. Ancient realm of Capet, Valois, +and Bourbon—motherland of Du Guesclin and Bayard—you may well be proud +of your Cadmean offspring!</p> + +<p>Guy was passing the scene with a careless side-glance when the accent of +the suppliant caught his ear—not French, though she spoke the language +perfectly.</p> + +<p>"By G—d," he said, dropping Mohun's arm, "I believe it's an +Englishwoman they are bullying;" and three of his long strides took him +into the midst of the group.</p> + +<p>Two of the aggressors reeled back, right and left, from the shock of his +mighty shoulders; and griping another, the tallest, by the collar, he +whirled him some paces off on his back in the streaming kennel, as one +might do with a very weak, light little child. "<i>Au large, canaille</i>!" +he said, as he advanced on the two who still kept their feet. These drew +back from his path without a second warning. One indeed, eminent in the +<i>savate</i>, made a demonstration for an instant; but his comrade, who had +just gathered himself up, caught his arm, muttering "<i>Ne t'y frotte pas, +Alphonse. C'est trop dur</i>." None of them fancied an encounter with the +grim giant who confronted them, his muscles braced and salient, his eyes +gleaming with the <i>gaudia certaminis</i>, and his nostrils dilated as if +they snuffed the battle.</p> + +<p>So they made way for Guy and his charge to pass, only grinding out +between their teeth the strange guttural blasphemies that characterize +impotent Gallic wrath.</p> + +<p>Mohun, a reserve scarcely leas formidable, stood by all the while, +looking on lazily; he saw that his companion was more than equal to the +emergency.</p> + +<p>"I hope you have not been much annoyed," Livingstone said, kindly. +"Where were you going to? I shall be too happy to escort you, if you +will allow me."</p> + +<p>She named the street, only a few hundred yards off, and tried to thank +him gratefully, but her voice was broken and scarcely audible, and the +blinding tears would rush into her eyes. Poor child! it was very long +since she had heard gentle, courteous words in her mother-tongue. She +recovered herself, however, during their short walk, and they had nearly +reached her destination when Livingstone said, "Forgive me for being +impertinent; I have no right to advise you; but I think you would find +it better not to walk alone, often, at this hour. There is always a +chance of something disagreeable."</p> + +<p>He could see her blush painfully as she answered, "I have no one to +accompany me. I work hard at drawing and painting as long as there is +light, and I had gone out to see if I could sell what I have done. But I +fear I am a very poor artist; no one would offer me as much as they had +cost me. And I tried at so many places!"</p> + +<p>It was piteous to hear the heavy, heart-broken sigh.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I have better taste," replied Livingstone. "Those print-sellers +are absurdly ignorant of what is good and anonymous. At all events, they +will interest me, as a memorial of to-night. Will you give them to me? I +will promise not to be too critical."</p> + +<p>He drew the roll out of her hand as he spoke, replacing it by his +note-case; and before she could open it or make any objection, he +followed Mohun (for they had reached the artist's door by this time), +first raising his hat to her in adieu as courteously as he would have +done to a reigning archduchess.</p> + +<p>How much did the case contain? Guy himself could hardly have told you. +But be sure the Recorder of his many misdeeds knew, and reckoned it to +the uttermost farthing when he wrote down that one kind action on the +credit side.</p> + +<p>"Philanthropic, for a change!" Mohun remarked, when his companion joined +him. "Well, it's not worse than many of your vagaries. We shall have you +founding an asylum next, I suppose."</p> + +<p>In his heart the savage old cynic approved, but, for the life of him, he +could not check the sneer.</p> + +<p>Livingstone made no reply. It was a habit of his very often not to +answer Ralph, and the latter did not mind it in the least. In a few +moments they reached Guy's apartments, where they found about a dozen +men—French and English—awaiting their arrival to begin an unbridled +lansquenet. It was a favorite rendezvous for this purpose. The +thoroughbred gamblers preferred it to the brilliant entertainments of +the Quartier Brèda. They liked to court or fight Fortune by themselves, +without being congratulated in success or compassionated in defeat by +the fair Phrynes and Aspasias, whose sympathy was somewhat expansive, +inasmuch as they always would borrow from the heap whenever any one won, +repaying the loan in kind by smiles and caresses, which cost the happy +recipient about fifteen Napoleons apiece. Here was an Eden from which +Eves were excluded; and on the nights of the <i>Mercurialia</i>, the +brightest Peri that ever wore camellias might have knocked at the gate +disconsolately, but in vain.</p> + +<p>While the tables were being prepared, Guy began to tell his late +adventure. He spoke of it very lightly, but he thought, if he passed it +over altogether, Mohun would probably betray him.</p> + +<p>Immediately there was a great cry for a sight of the performances of the +unknown genius.</p> + +<p>Livingstone looked over the drawings himself carefully, and then passed +them to the man who sat nearest him. "I have seen worse," he said. +"There is no signature, and I shall not give you the address. You are +none of you just the patrons she would fancy. You don't care much for +high art."</p> + +<p>Among the guests was Horace Levinge, a pale, dark man, with a face that +was decidedly handsome, in spite of its Jewish <i>contour</i>, and the +excessive fullness of the scarlet, sensual lips. His grandfather, report +said, had been a prize-fighting Israelite, and afterward a celebrated +betting-man—equally eminent in either ring for an unscrupulous +scoundrelism which made his fortune. His father had added to the family +treasure and importance by cautious usury and adventurous stock-jobbing. +Horace himself was a gentleman at large, with no other profession than +the consistent pursuit of all kinds of debauchery. He was calculating +even in his pleasures, and, they say, kept a regular ledger and daybook +of the moneys disbursed in his vices.</p> + +<p>When the drawings came to him, he glanced at them for a moment, and +then threw them down with a little contemptuous laugh.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to spoil your romance, Livingstone, but I have a pretty good +right to recognize the artist's touch. You know her, some of you; it is +Fanny Challoner."</p> + +<p>"What! the girl you sent away about three weeks ago?" some one asked. +"Poor thing! she was not sorry, I should think. She had a hard time of +it before she left you."</p> + +<p>"Precisely," Levinge replied. "Her modesty and high moral principles, +which I never could quite subdue, gave a zest to the thing at first. You +understand?—a sort of caviare flavor. But at last it bored me horribly. +I really believe she had a conscience. Can you conceive any thing so out +of place? I did offer her a little money when she went away, but she +would not take any, and said she would try to maintain herself honestly. +Bah! I defy her. She was a governess, you know, when I took her first, +so she is trying some of the old accomplishments. I wish you joy of your +<i>protégée</i>, Livingstone; and as for her address, if any of you want it, +I will give it you to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Before Guy could reply Mohun broke in. While Levinge had been speaking, +the colonel's face had grown very dark and threatening.</p> + +<p>"Did her father live near Walmer? And was he a half-pay officer?"</p> + +<p>"Quite correct," was the answer. "He died about eighteen months before I +met Fanny. You knew him, perhaps? How interesting! Excuse my emotion."</p> + +<p>"I did know him," Ralph said. "He was a gentleman, and well born. +Perhaps that was the reason you could not get on long with his +daughter?"</p> + +<p>It is a popular error that a bully is always a coward. Certainly Horace +was an exception to the rule, if such exists. Nothing could be more +calmly insolent than his tone as he answered deliberately,</p> + +<p>"How admirable to find Colonel Mohun in the character of the Censor! A +Clodius come to judgment. I should hardly have expected it, from his +past life, either."</p> + +<p>The reply came from the depths of Ralph's chest, very distinct, but with +a strange effect of distance and echo, as if the words had been spoken +under the vault of some vast dome.</p> + +<p>"You will leave my past life alone, if you are wise. I don't preach +against immorality; it is only brutality that I find simply disgusting."</p> + +<p>"Bah!" the other retorted; "it comes to the same thing. I should have +thought Lady Caroline Mannering might have taught you to be less +critical."</p> + +<p>The Cuirassier rose from his seat and strode a pace forward, the gray +hair bristling round his savage face like a wild-boar's at bay.</p> + +<p>"If you dare to breathe that name again, except with respect and honor, +I'll cram the words down your throat, by the eternal God!"</p> + +<p>Levinge crimsoned with passion. The brutal blood of the dead +prize-fighter, who, when he "crossed" a fight, lost it ever by a foul +blow, was boiling in his descendant. He had been drinking too, and, as +the French say—<i>avait le vin mauvais</i>—so he answered coolly and +slowly, letting the syllables fall one by one, like drops of hail,</p> + +<p>"I shall mention it just as often as it pleases me, and with just so +much respect as is due to Mannering's cast-off wife and your—"</p> + +<p>The foul word that was on his lips never left them, for Mohun's threat +was literally fulfilled. His right hand shot out from the shoulder with +a sudden impulse that seemed rather mechanical than an action of the +will, and, catching the speaker full in the mouth, laid him on the +carpet senseless and streaming with blood.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"Look doun, look doun now, ladye fair,</div> +<div class='i10'>On him ye lo'ed sae weel;</div> +<div class='i8'>A brawer man than yon blue corse</div> +<div class='i10'>Never drew sword of steel."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>The dead silence that ensued was broken first by Guy Livingstone. "It +was well done! I say it and maintain it; Mohun, I envy you that blow!" +He looked round as if to challenge contradiction; but evidently the +general opinion was that Levinge had only got his deserts. By this time +the fallen man had recovered his consciousness, and struggled up, first +into a sitting posture, then to his feet; he stood leaning against a +table, swaying to and fro, and staring about him with wild eyes half +glazed. At last he spoke in a thick, faint voice, stanching all the +while the gushing blood with his handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"Will any one here be my second, or must I look for a friend elsewhere?"</p> + +<p>There was a pause, and then from the circle stepped forth Camille de +Rosny. He did not like Levinge, and thought in the present instance he +had behaved infamously, but it was the fashion hereditary in his gallant +house to back the losing side; so, when he saw every one else shrink +from the appeal, he bowed gravely and said,</p> + +<p>"I shall have that honor, if you will permit me. In an hour I shall be +at the orders of M. le Colonel's second. Where shall I find him?"</p> + +<p>"Here," replied Livingstone. "I think no one will contest my right to +see my old friend through this quarrel."</p> + +<p>Mohun grasped his hand. "I would have chosen you among a thousand. You +understand me, and know what I wish."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall expect you, De Rosny," Guy went on. The Frenchman assented +courteously, and then, turning to his principal,</p> + +<p>"Let us go," he said. "My <i>coupé</i> is at your disposition, M. Levinge. +<i>Messieurs, au plaisir.</i>"</p> + +<p>Horace followed him with a step that was still faltering and uncertain; +but at the door he turned, and, straightening himself up, faced his +adversary with such a look as few human countenances have ever worn. +There was more in it than mortal hatred: it expressed a sort of devilish +satisfaction and anticipation, as if he knew that his revenge was +secured.</p> + +<p>Mohun read all this as plainly as if it had been written down in so many +words; but he only smiled as he seated himself and lighted a cigar.</p> + +<p>There was an end of lansquenet for that night. An ordinary quarrel would +have made little impression on those reckless spirits, who had, most of +them, at one time or another, "been out" themselves; but they felt that +what they had witnessed now was the prologue to a certain tragedy; there +was a savor of death in the air; so they dropped off one by one, leaving +Guy and Ralph alone; not before the latter had expressed, with much +politeness, "his desolation at having been compelled to interrupt a +<i>partie</i>, which he trusted was only deferred till the morrow."</p> + +<p>Before long De Rosny returned. The preliminaries were soon arranged. +Pistols were necessarily to be the weapons, for Levinge had seldom +touched a foil; and, as the Frenchman said with a bow that made his +objection a compliment, "Colonel Mohun's reputation as a swordsman was +European." An early hour next morning was fixed for the <i>venue</i>, in the +Pré aux Clercs of the nineteenth century—the Bois de Boulogne.</p> + +<p>When they were alone again Guy turned gravely to his companion. "It is a +bad business, I fear, though you could not have acted otherwise; but I +would rather your adversary were any other than Levinge. It is a +murderous, unscrupulous scoundrel as ever lived. He can shoot—that's +nothing; so can you, better than most men—but, mark me, Ralph, he has +been out twice, and hit his man each time, the last mortally; but on +neither occasion was <i>his fire returned</i>. Men say he has an awkward +knack of pulling the trigger half a second too soon. I don't know if +this is true, but I do know that Seymour, who seconded him at Florence +when he killed O'Neill, has been more than cool to him ever since."</p> + +<p>"Faith, I can well believe it," Mohun answered, quietly, "and it is very +probable I may get hard hit to-morrow; but of killing him I feel morally +certain. Do you believe in presentiments? I do. Before that drunken +brute had half done speaking, I saw imminent death written in his face +as plainly as if I had possessed the Highland second-sight. I think I +could almost tell you how it will look <i>after my shot</i>. Well, we must +talk of business. My arrangements won't take me long. I have very little +to dispose of; it is almost all entailed property. I shall leave you the +choice of any thing among my goods and chattels. You will find some arms +that you may fancy. But if my pistols fail me to-morrow, so that Levinge +lives over it, do me the favor to throw them into the Seine; they +deserve nothing better. As for the ready-money I have with me, and some +more at my banker's—" he hesitated, and then went on in a gentler +voice, "I should like it to go to that poor child whom we met to-night. +If I live I will take care she is settled in England, where some one +will be kind to her. Her father was a good soldier and a true-hearted +gentleman. And, Guy, I am sorry that I sneered at you to-night; I hardly +meant it when I said it."</p> + +<p>This was a great concession from Mohun, and his hearer thought so as he +wrung his hand hard and replied,</p> + +<p>"Don't think of that again. I did you justice an hour ago."</p> + +<p>There was this peculiarity about Ralph; he was not only insensible to +danger, like other men, but he absolutely seemed to revel in it. The +genial side of his character came out at the approach of deadly peril, +just as some morose natures will soften and brighten temporarily under +the influence of strong wine.</p> + +<p>His mood seemed to change, however, suddenly; and when, after a long +pause, he spoke again, it was in a low, broken voice, as if to himself.</p> + +<p>"'Be sure your sin will find you out.' It is thirty years since I heard +that text; I forgot it the same day, and never thought of it again till +now. There may be truth in that. It hunted <i>her</i> to her grave, and it +will not leave her in peace even there. And yet she suffered enough to +make atonement. She tried not to let me see how much, but I did see it; +I watched her dying for a year and more. I am sure she is an angel now. +I like to think so, though I shall never see her again. I would not +believe otherwise if a thousand priests said it and swore it; for I +never moved from her side, after she was dead, till I saw the smile come +on her face. She must have been happy then; do you not think so? They +would hardly have gone on punishing her forever. It was all my fault, +you know."</p> + +<p>He gazed at Livingstone anxiously, almost timidly. Guy bowed his head in +assent, but he could not find words to answer just then. There was +something very terrible in that opening of the flood-gates when a life's +pent-up remorse broke forth.</p> + +<p>"I think you will end better than I have done," Mohun went on, "though +you are going down-hill fast now. But I have no right even to warn you. +Only take care—" He broke off suddenly, and roused himself with an +effort. "I shall go home and dress now, and get through what little I +have to write, and then lie down for an hour or two. Nothing makes the +hand shake like a sleepless night. I'll call for you in good time." So +he went away.</p> + +<p>Livingstone sat thinking, without ever closing his eyes, till Mohun +returned. The latter looked fresh and alert; he had slept for the time +he had allotted to himself quite calmly and comfortably; the old habits +of picket-duty had taught him to watch or sleep at pleasure.</p> + +<p>After Guy had made a careful toilette, at the special request of his +principal they started, and in forty minutes were on the ground. Levinge +and his second, with the surgeon, arrived almost immediately; the former +stood somewhat apart, keeping the lower part of his face carefully +muffled.</p> + +<p>It was a dull, chill morning; the sky of a steely-gray, without a +promise of a gleam from the sun, which had risen <i>somewhere</i>, but was +reserving himself for better times. There was a sort of desultory wind +blowing, just strong enough at intervals to bring the moist brown leaves +sullenly down.</p> + +<p>After the pistols had been scientifically loaded, the seconds placed +their men fifteen yards apart—with such known shots it was not worth +while shortening the distance.</p> + +<p>The sensations of ordinary mortals under such circumstances are somewhat +curious. Very few are afraid, I think; but one has an impression that +one's own proportions are becoming sensibly developed—"swelling +wisibly," in fact, like the lady at the Pickwickian tea-fight—while +those of our adversary diminish in a like ratio, so that he does not +appear near so fair a mark as he did a few minutes ago. But, with all +this, there is a quickening of the pulse not unpleasurable—something +like the excitement of the "four to the seven" chance at hazard, when +you are backing the In for a large stake.</p> + +<p>I do not believe Mohun felt any thing of this sort. It was not his own +life, but his adversary's death he was playing for; the other was busy, +too, with still darker thoughts and purposes.</p> + +<p>"Listen," Guy said in French; "M. de Rosny gives the signal, <i>un</i>, +<i>deux</i>, <i>trois</i>; if either fires before the last is fully pronounced, it +is murder." He looked sharply at Levinge, but the latter seemed +studiously to avoid meeting his eye. Guy felt very uncomfortable and +very savage.</p> + +<p>The men stood opposite to one another like black marble statues, neither +showing a speck of color which might serve as a <i>point de mire</i>, each +turning only a side-front to his opponent.</p> + +<p>De Rosny pronounced the two first words of the signal in a clear, +deliberate voice; the last left his lips almost in a shriek, for, before +it was half syllabled, his principal fired.</p> + +<p>Quick as the movement was, it was anticipated; as Levinge's hand +stirred, Mohun made a half-face to the right, and looked his enemy +straight between the eyes. That sudden change of position, or the +consciousness of detection, probably unsettled the practiced aim, for +the ball, that would have drilled Ralph through the heart, only scored a +deep furrow in his side.</p> + +<p>No one could have guessed that he was touched; he brought his pistol to +the level just as coolly as he would have done in the shooting-gallery, +and, after the discharge, dropped his hand with measured deliberation. +Before the smoke had curled a yard upward, Horace Levinge sprang into +the air, and, with out-stretched arms, fell crashing down upon the +grass—a bullet through his brain.</p> + +<p>They turned him over on his back. It was a ghastly sight; the ball had +penetrated just below the arch of the right eyebrow, and all the lower +features were swollen and distorted with the blow of last night, adding +to the hideous disfigurement.</p> + +<p>Is that the face on which the dead man used to spend hours, tending it, +like an ancient coquette, with washes and cosmetics, dreading the +faintest freckle or sunburn which might mar the smoothness of the +delicate skin? No need of the surgeon there. Cover it up quickly. The +mother that bore him, if she should recognize him, would recoil in +disgust and loathing.</p> + +<p>"<i>C'en est fini</i>," Livingstone said to De Rosny, who stood by shuddering +in horror, not at the death, but at the treachery which had preceded it.</p> + +<p>None but a Frenchman could have given such an accent to the low, hissing +reply, "<i>Je l'espére</i>."</p> + +<p>Then they looked to Mohun's wound; it was nothing serious: there were a +dozen deeper on the warworn body and limbs. Indeed, I imagine his +general health was materially benefited by the blood-letting. The first +remark he made was when he was depositing his pistol in its +case—tenderly as you would lay a child in its cradle—"Do you believe +in presentiments <i>now</i>, Guy?"</p> + +<p>The sullen sun broke out just as they turned to go, and peered curiously +through the boughs, till it found out and lighted on the angular ominous +heap, shrouded with a cloak, that, ten minutes ago, was a strong, +hot-blooded man.</p> + +<p>There the <i>garde</i> soon after discovered Horace Levinge; and, when he had +been owned, they buried him in <i>Père la Chaise</i>. Such events were common +then, and the police gave themselves no trouble to trace who had slain +the stranger. Among his tribes-men and kinsfolk in Houndsditch and the +Minories there was great joy at first, and afterward bitter, endless +litigation. They screamed and battled over the heritage like vultures +over a mighty carrion, tearing it at length piecemeal. He did not keep a +pet dog, and so no living creature regretted him, unless it were the +thin, delicate girl, with white cheeks and hollow eyes, who came once, +and knelt to pray by his grave for hours, her tears falling fast.</p> + +<p>Hard as they may find it to observe other precepts of the Great Master, +this one, at least, most women have practiced easily and naturally for +eighteen hundred years: "Forgive, until seventy times seven." The acts +of some of these—how they warred with their husbands and were worsted; +how they provoked the presiding Draco, and stultified the attesting +policeman by obstinately ignoring their injuries, written legibly in +red, and black, and blue; how they interceded with many sobs for the +aggressor—are they not written in the book of the chronicles of +Bow-street and Clerkenwell?</p> + +<p>This propensity leads them into scrapes, it is true, for our world, in +its wisdom, will take advantage of such weakness. Perhaps the next will +make them some amends.</p> + +<p>But the mourner strewed no flowers on the grave. It would have been too +bitter a mockery; for, if there were sympathy in sweet roses and pure +white lilies, on no other spot of God's earth would they have withered +so soon: she hung up no wreath of <i>immortelles</i>; for, if such things +could be, the dearest wish one could have formed for the dead man's soul +would have been swift, utter annihilation.</p> + +<p>Yet Fanny Challoner would scarcely have accepted Mohun's good offices if +she had guessed that the blood of her seducer and tyrant was on his +hand. She never suspected it, and so went gratefully to the home he +found for her; and there she lives yet, tranquil and contented, though +always sad and humble, among people who know nothing of her history and +love her dearly, trying her best to be useful in her generation—alone +in her cottage, that nestles under a sunny cliff, just above the white +spray-line of the Irish Sea.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"Let me see her once again.</div> +<div class='i8'>Let her bring her proud dark eyes,</div> +<div class='i8'>And her petulant quick replies;</div> +<div class='i8'>Let her wave her slender hand</div> +<div class='i8'>With its gesture of command,</div> +<div class='i8'>And throw back her raven hair</div> +<div class='i8'>With the old imperial air;</div> +<div class='i10'>Let her be as she was then—</div> +<div class='i8'>The loveliest lady in all the land</div> +<div class='i10'>Iseult of Ireland."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>Mohun and Livingstone soon fell back into the groove of their old +habits; if any thing, the former was more forbidding and morose, the +latter more reckless than ever.</p> + +<p>Just at this time Mrs. Bellasys and her daughter arrived in Paris. It +was Flora's <i>débût</i> there, and she had an immense success. The <i>jeunesse +dorée</i> of the Chaussée d'Antin and the cavaliers of the Faubourg +thronged about her, emulously enthusiastic. Her repartees and sarcasms +were quoted like Talleyrand's. They never wearied in raving over her +perfections, taking them in a regular catalogue—from her magnificent +eyes and hair, that flashed back the light from its smooth bands like +clouded steel, down to the small <i>brodequins</i> of white satin, which it +was her fancy to wear instead of the ball-room <i>chaussure</i> of ordinary +mortals. The intrigues to secure her for a waltz or a mazurka displayed +diplomatic talent enough to have set half a dozen German principalities +and powers by the ears. The succession of admirers was never broken; as +fast as one dropped off, killed by her coldness or caprice, another +stepped into his place. It reminded one of the old "Die-hards" at +Waterloo, filling up their squares torn and ravaged by the pelting +grape-shot.</p> + +<p>Here, as elsewhere, she pursued her favorite amusement remorselessly. +Fallowfield called it "her cutting-out expeditions." She used to watch +till a mother and daughter had, between them, secured a good matrimonial +prize, and then employ her fascinations on the captured one—seldom +without effect—so as to steal him out of their hands.</p> + +<p>Do you remember Waterton's story of the osprey? The hard-working bird, +by dint of perseverance, has brought up a good fish. Just as it emerges +from the water, there is heard a flap and a whistle of mighty pinions, +and from his watch-tower on the cliff far above swoops down the great +sea-eagle. The poor osprey <i>a beau crier</i>, it must drop its booty, and +the strong marauder sails off with a slow and dignified flight, to +discuss it in the wood at his leisure. The only fault in the parallel +was that Flora always dropped the prey with the coolest disdain when it +was once fairly within her clutches. How the match-makers did hate her! +What vows for her discomfiture must have been breathed into bouquets +held up to conceal the angry flush of disappointment or the paleness of +despair!</p> + +<p>I own this practice of hers did not raise her in my opinion. I can not +think so hardly as it is the fashion to do of the junior and working +members, at least, of the manœuvring guild. It is not an elevating or +very creditable profession, certainly, but it seems such a disagreeable +one that none would take it up from choice. The chief fault, at all +events, lies with the trainers; the jockeys (poor little things!) only +ride to orders; and, by the way, I think they generally err in not +knowing how to <i>wait</i>, and in making the running too strong at first.</p> + +<p>As I meet, year after year, one of these—to whom the seed sown in +London ball-rooms and German watering-places had produced nothing yet +but those tiresome garlands of the vestal—I look curiously to see how +she wears, thinking of the courtier's answer to Louis XIV. when the +latter asked if he was looking older: "Sire, I see some more victories +written on your forehead." It is more defeats that one can read so +plainly on poor Fanny Singleton's.</p> + +<p>How many shipwrecks close to port; how many races lost by a head, how +many games by a point, she must have known before her silver laugh +became so hollow, and her pleasant smile so evidently theatrical and +lip-deep; before what once was chanceful became desperate, and she fell +back into the ranks of the forlorn hope—of the "Lost Children!"</p> + +<p>On one of these occasions I met her. She was just beginning her +<i>condottiére</i> life then, and was very attractive even to those on whom +she had no designs—believed in balls, and had an ingenious talent for +original composition. I don't think those entertainments are dangerously +exciting to her now; and Heaven forefend that she should write poetry! +One shudders to think of what it would he. Well, she was returning to +the house after a moonlight flirtation (if you can call it so when it +was all on one side). She had been trying to fascinate a stupid, sullen, +commercial Orson—a boy not clever, but cunning, who calculated on his +share in the bank as a means of procuring him these amusements, as other +men might reckon on their good looks or soft tongue. He had just left +her, and I was wishing her good-night under the porch. She forgot her +cue for a moment, and became natural. "I feel so very, very tired," she +said. I remember how drearily she said it, and how the tears glittered +in her weary eyes. I remember, too, how, ten minutes later, I heard that +amiable youth boasting of what had happened, and giving a hideous +travestie of her attempts to captivate him, till at last my wrath was +kindled, and, to his great confusion (for he was of a timid +disposition), I spoke, and sharply, with my tongue.</p> + +<p>Ah me! I mind the time when men used to waylay Fanny Singleton in the +cloak-room, and shoot her flying as she went up the staircase, in their +anxiety to secure her for a partner; and now she is a refuge for the +destitute, except when some one, for old acquaintance' sake, takes a +turn with one of the best waltzers in Europe.</p> + +<p>I like her for one thing—she has never tried the girlish dodge on yet. +She has never been heard to say, "Mamma always calls me a wild thing." +It is better that she should be bitter and sardonic, as she is +sometimes, than that. Mars herself could hardly play the <i>ingénues</i> when +in mature age. Grisi's best part now is not Amina.</p> + +<p>The last thing I heard of Fanny was that she was about to unite herself +(the <i>active</i> voice is the proper one) to a very Low-Church clergyman, a +distinguished member of the Evangelical Alliance, pregnant with the odor +of sanctity—<i>bouquet de Baptiste</i> treble distilled. I dare say they +will get on well enough. If the holy man wants to collect "experiences," +his wife will be able to furnish them, that's certain. It will be very +"sweet."</p> + +<p>I pity, but I condemn. In the name of Matuta and of common sense, is +there an imperative necessity that all our maids should become matrons?</p> + +<p>If such exists, think, I beseech you, O virgins—pretty, but +penniless—apt for the yoke, how many chances of subjection may turn up +without rushing to put your necks under it. Is the aspiring race of +H.E.I.C.S. cadets extinct? Are Erin's sons so good or so cold as not to +be tempted by woman, even without the gold? Are there not soldiers still +to the fore too inflammable to be trusted near an ammunition wagon? Are +there not—the <i>bonne bouche</i> comes at last—priests and deacons? The +instant a man takes orders, celibacy becomes intolerable to him. I +firmly believe that half the offers made in the year throughout broad +England emanate from those energetic ecclesiastics.</p> + +<p>After all, what specimens you do pick up sometimes in your haste! If you +<i>are</i> to lead apes, is it not better to defer the evil day as long as +possible, instead of parading the animals about by your sides here on +this upper earth?</p> + +<p>My sermon is too long for the occasion—too short for the text. I close +a discourse not much wiser, perhaps, than poor Wamba's, with his "<i>Pax +vobiscum!</i>"</p> + +<p>Flora and Guy met with perfect composure on both sides. She did not +appear to think that she had any claim upon him arising from what had +passed, but it was evident that he was still the favorite, and that all +others were complete "outsiders." No betting man would have backed the +field for a shilling. She waltzed with him whenever he asked her, to the +utter oblivion and annihilation of previous engagements, whereat the +Frenchmen chafed inexpressibly, cursing and gnashing their teeth when, +after the ball was over, they went forth into the outer darkness. +Nothing but Livingstone's extraordinary reputation in the +shooting-galleries, added to a certain ferocity of demeanor which had +become habitual to him of late, saved him from more than one serious +quarrel.</p> + +<p>He took it all as a matter of course. Flora amused him certainly; she +sympathized with his tastes, and perhaps flattered his vanity. For +instance, she always took an interest in his fortunes at play, watching +and sometimes backing him at <i>ecarté</i>, and often inquiring the next +morning how the battle had gone in her absence at the Board of Green +Cloth.</p> + +<p>Once when an unfortunate adorer—in bitterness of spirit at being thrown +over twice in one evening—hinted at some of the intrigues which had +made Guy's name unenviably notorious (play was not the guiltiest of his +distractions to thoughts that would come back), Miss Bellasys only +smiled haughtily, and did not even deign to betray any curiosity on the +subject. Those ephemeral passions were not the rivals she feared.</p> + +<p>Her mother all this time was very uncomfortable. Though herself +perfectly innocent of any connivance in Flora's schemes, she was +afflicted with a perpetual indistinct sort of remorse. Once or twice, I +believe, she did venture on a remonstrance, but she was put down +decisively, and did not try it again.</p> + +<p>One evening Guy had been lingering for some time in the Bellasys' box at +the Opera. As he went out into the <i>foyer</i> he saw an old acquaintance +coming toward him.</p> + +<p>Lord Killowen was past sixty: the world had used him roughly, and he had +been ruined very early in life, but he bore both years and troubles +lightly. Looking at his smooth forehead, and square, erect figure, and +listening to his ready, cheery laugh, you would never have guessed how +long he had led that guerrilla existence—for forty years keeping the +bailiffs at bay. His nerve and his seat in the saddle were as firm as +they were on the first night of his joining the —— Hussars, when he +rode Kicking Kate over the iron pales round Hounslow Barrack-yard, and +hit the layers of the long odds for a cool thousand.</p> + +<p>He had been intimate with Colonel Livingstone, and had known his son +from childhood; but he was a still closer friend of the Brandon family, +with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected. He had never seen Guy +since the breaking off of the latter's engagement till this night, when +he caught a glimpse of his lofty head bending over Flora Bellasys' +chair.</p> + +<p>Lord Killowen's blood was as hot and his impulses as quick as if he had +not yet seen his twentieth winter, and the chivalry within him was +stirred at what he considered an insolent parade of treachery; for he +had guessed much of what had happened, though he did not know all the +truth; so he passed Guy's extended hand, turning his head studiously +aside.</p> + +<p>The latter was startled for a moment, but he could not believe in an +intentional "cut," and he knew his friend to be rather short-sighted; so +with one stride he overtook him, and, touching him on the shoulder, +said, "I must be very much changed if you do not know me, Lord +Killowen."</p> + +<p>The brave old Irishman turned short upon his heel and confronted the +speaker, bending on him all the light of his clear blue eyes: he drew +himself up to the full height of a stature that nearly equaled +Livingstone's, and said, coolly and slowly, "Pardon me, you are not +changed in the least; I know you very well."</p> + +<p>The insult was palpable. Guy fairly staggered as if he had received a +sword-thrust; then the angry blood rushed up to his temples, making the +veins start out like muscles, and he spoke in a voice hoarse and +indistinct with passion, "You will answer this."</p> + +<p>True, his antagonist was more than old enough to have been his father, +but in feast, field, and fray, Lord Killowen remembered his own age so +seldom that other men might be excused for forgetting it sometimes.</p> + +<p>The old man was going to answer eagerly, but he checked himself with an +effort, as if repressing a strong temptation; when, after some seconds, +he spoke, there was more of sadness and warning than of anger in his +tone.</p> + +<p>"No, I will not fight, even in this quarrel, with your father's son; +besides, I might be anticipating one who has a better right. Four days +ago Cyril Brandon landed from India."</p> + +<p>It would have been difficult, I think, to have found another, among +living men, both by constitution and temperament, so inaccessible to +material terrors as Livingstone, yet when that name came upon him thus +suddenly he felt a thrill and a start through his nerves, so +unpleasantly like commonplace physical fear that ever, when he thought +of it, it made his cheek burn with shame. He could not, after that, +controvert gallant Lannes' maxim: "It is only a coward who says that he +never was afraid."</p> + +<p>He stood silently, and allowed Lord Killowen to pass him, bowing +courteously, though coldly, to him. The latter never knew what mischief +he had done. After that momentary sensation had passed off, all the +worst elements of Guy's stubborn, haughty nature rose in rebellion at +what he deemed a despicable weakness. As if in defiance of the +consequences, all that evening and on the succeeding days he devoted +himself to Flora Bellasys with such unusual ardor that it made her +nervous: she thought it was too good to last.</p> + +<p>When Mohun heard what had happened, he would not admit that there was +the slightest chance of a meeting with Cyril Brandon, though he knew the +character of the latter—fierce and intractable to a degree.</p> + +<p>"Don't flatter yourself you will wipe off the score in that way," he +said to Guy, with his sardonic laugh. "Men will quarrel over cards and +about <i>lorettes</i> easily enough, but who fights for a 'broken covenant' +now? We live two hundred years too late."</p> + +<p>Ralph remembered how long he had lingered on the French seaboard +waiting for a challenge from beyond the Channel which never came, though +there was deeper provocation to justify it.</p> + +<p>A few mornings after this had occurred Livingstone found himself without +a servant. His demeanor toward this estimable class had always been +imperious and stern to a fault, but latterly they, as well as others, +had felt the effects of his exasperated temper, and he was sometimes +brutally overbearing in his reprimands. On this particular occasion he +must have been unusually oppressive, for it exhausted the patience of +the much-enduring Willis, so that the worm turned again—insolently.</p> + +<p>Before he had said ten words his master interrupted him, his eye turning +toward a heavy horsewhip that lay near with an expression that made +Willis retreat toward the door.</p> + +<p>"So you have robbed me of enough to make you independent? Very well; +make your book up; the <i>maître d'hôtel</i> will settle with you. You will +carry away some of my property, of course? I shall not trouble myself to +have your trunks searched, but if you take any thing that I happen to +want afterward, I'll have you arrested, wherever you are. Now go."</p> + +<p>The man left the room sulkily: an hour later he returned. "I am going +this instant, Mr. Livingstone; but I could tell you something first that +you ought to know, if you would promise not to be violent. I am very +sorry now I did it." There was a curious expression—half spiteful, half +frightened—on his cunning face as he spoke.</p> + +<p>Guy looked at him carelessly. "Thank you; I am in no humor to listen to +your confessions. You may be quite easy; I give you credit for all +imaginable rascality. Remember what I said: if I miss any thing, the +police will be after you the same day. Now, once more, go. If I see your +face about here again, it will be the worse for you."</p> + +<p>There was a good deal of meaning in Willis's smile, though, his lips +were white with fear. "You will never miss what I was going to tell you +about, sir," he said; and then faded away out of the room with his usual +noiseless step, closing the door softly behind him.</p> + +<p>If his master could have guessed what was the secret he had refused to +hear, haughty as he was, I do believe there is no earthly degradation to +which he would not have abased himself to gain its knowledge.</p> + +<p>But the hour for the humbling of the strong, self-reliant nature had not +come yet, though it was very near. The wild bull never saw the net till +its meshes had trapped him fast.</p> + +<p>The same morning Guy, who was lounging an hour away at the Bellasys', +mentioned to them what had occurred. If he had glanced at Flora's face +just then, he would have been puzzled to guess what there was in the +intelligence to turn her so deadly pale. It was only for an instant that +the accomplished actress forgot her part, and when he looked at her next +there was not a trace of emotion in her face.</p> + +<p>"Have you filled up his place?" she asked, carelessly.</p> + +<p>"I have ordered my landlord to provide me," replied Guy. "I shall find +some well-trained scoundrel on my return, I hope. I shall never get +another like Willis, though. It's just my luck. The great principle of +the gazelle runs through life: When they come to know you well, &c. What +made you ask? Surely you have no <i>protégé</i> to recommend?"</p> + +<p>Flora laughed gayly as she answered in the negative, and so the subject +dropped; but all the afternoon she was pensive and absent, and flashes +of vexation gleamed every now and then fitfully in her stormy eyes.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i12'>"Let none think to fly the danger,</div> +<div class='i8'>For, soon or late, Love is his own avenger."</div></div> +</div> + +<p>Christmas-tide had come round again, and hall, manor-house, and castle +were filling fast. But the pheasants had a jubilee at Kerton, to the +great discouragement of Mallett, who "could not mind such another +breeding season." Foxes were strong and plentiful with the Belvoir and +the Pytchley; and, during two months of open weather, many a +straight-goer had died gallantly in the midst of the wide +pasture-grounds, testifying with his last breath to the generalship of +Goodall and Payne. But the best shot and the hardest rider in +Northamptonshire lingered on still in Paris, wasting his patrimony in +most riotous living, and trying his iron constitution presumptuously.</p> + +<p>Lady Catharine sat alone in the gray old house, paler and more care-worn +than ever. I think she would have preferred the noisiest revel that ever +broke her slumbers in the old times to the dead silence that brooded +like a mist in the deserted rooms.</p> + +<p>Guy had always been a bad correspondent, and now he hardly ever wrote to +her; but rumors of his wild life reached his mother often, though dimly +and vaguely. It was best so; what would that poor lady have felt if she +could have guessed at the scene in which her son was the principal +figure as the Christmas morning was breaking?</p> + +<p>It is the close of a furious orgie; the Babel of cries, of fragments of +songs, of insane, meaningless laughter, is dying away, through the pure +exhaustion of the revelers; on the gay carpet and the rich damask are +pools of spilled liquors, heaps of shivered glass, and bouquets and +garlands that have ceased to be fragrant hours ago. All around, in +different attitudes—ignoble and helpless—are strewn the bodies of +those who have gone down early in the battle of the Bacchanals: they lie +in their ranks as they fell. One figure towers above the +rest—pre-eminent as Satan in the conclave of the ruined angels—the +guiltiest, because the most conscious of his own utter degradation. The +frequent draughts that have prostrated his companions have only brought +out two round scarlet spots in the pale bronze of his cheeks; his voice +retains still its deep, calm, almost solemn tone. Listen to it as he +raises to his lips an immense glass brimming-full of Burgundy: "One +toast more, and with funeral honors—'To the memory of those who have +fallen gloriously on the 24th of December.'"</p> + +<p>Is it true that, six months ago, the soft, pure cheek of Constance +Brandon rested often on the broad breast that pillows now the disheveled +head of that wild-eyed, shrill-voiced Mænad? Draw the curtains closer +yet; shut out the dawn of the Nativity for very shame.</p> + +<p>Mohun was breakfasting with Livingstone on a cold, gusty January +morning, that succeeded a night of heavy drinking and heavier play. The +colonel would see him through one of these readily enough, but if there +was even a single female face present he would retreat in disgust and +contempt unutterable. Guy had been hit so hard that it made him graver +than usual as he thought of it, though he was tolerably inured and +indifferent to evil fortune; so the conversation languished during the +meal. After it was over, Mohun rose to light a cigar, while his +companion took up a pile of letters and began to glance at them +listlessly. Suddenly the former dropped the match from his hand, +starting in irrepressible astonishment.</p> + +<p>He had seen strong men die hard, mangled and shattered by sabre or +bullet, but he had never heard a sound so terribly significant of agony +as the dull, heavy groan that just then burst from Livingstone's lips.</p> + +<p>In those few seconds his face had grown perfectly livid; his eyes were +riveted upon a small note that he held in his shaking fingers; they +glittered strangely, but there was no meaning or expression in their +fixed stare.</p> + +<p>"In the name of God, what has happened?" Ralph asked.</p> + +<p>Guy's lips worked and moved, but no sound came from them, except an +irregular catching of the breath and a gasping rattle in the throat.</p> + +<p>Mohun took the note from his hand without his seeming to be aware of it, +and read it through. These were the words:</p> + +<p>"I have tried very hard to persuade myself that you never received the +letter I wrote to you two months ago. I think you would have answered +it, for you would know how much I must have suffered before my pride +broke down so utterly. Yet I could not have risked being scorned a +second time if I had not learned yesterday that my life must now be +reckoned by weeks, if not by days. I do not know if I shall be allowed +to see you if you come. But you will come; will you not? Dear, dear Guy, +I can not die as I ought to do, contentedly, unless I speak to you once +again. In spite of all, I will sign my last letter</p> + +<p class='center'>"Your own +<span class="smcap">Constance Brandon.</span>"</p> + +<p>It was dated Ventnor.</p> + +<p>Hard and cynical as he was, Mohun was thoroughly shocked and grieved; +but the urgency of the crisis brought back the prompt decision of +thought and purpose that were habitual to the trained soldier. He sprang +to his feet, alert and ready for action, as he would have done in the +old times, from his bivouac, to meet a night-surprise of the wild +Hungarians.</p> + +<p>"Get every thing ready," he said to the servant, who entered at that +moment; "your master is going to England immediately. The train starts +for Havre at two o'clock. You will catch the night-boat for +Southampton."</p> + +<p>When the man had left the room he turned to Guy: "Rouse yourself, man! +There is all a lifetime for remorse, but only a few hours for the little +amends you can make. You will be at Ventnor to-morrow; and mind—you +<i>must</i> see her, whatever difficulties may be thrown in your way. You +won't lose your temper if you meet her brother? Ah! I see you are not +listening."</p> + +<p>Then Livingstone spoke for the first time, in a hoarse, grating +whisper, articulating the words one by one with difficulty.</p> + +<p>"I never dreamed of this. I did not mean to kill her."</p> + +<p>Mohun knew his friend too well to attempt consolation or sympathy, even +if these had not been foreign to his own nature; so he answered +deliberately and coldly,</p> + +<p>"Of having brought bitter sorrow on Constance Brandon I do hold you +guilty; of having caused her death, not, and so you will find when you +know all. But her note of two months ago—of course you never saw it? +You must have overlooked it; you are so careless with your papers."</p> + +<p>"It never reached me," Livingstone replied. "I have always looked at the +outside of my letters, and I should have known that handwriting among +ten thousand. Some one must have intercepted it. I wish I knew who." He +was recovering from the first stunning effects of the shock, and the old +angry light came back into his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I will find out when you are gone," said Mohun. "You have not a moment +to spare. I won't ask you to write; I will join you in England in three +days. Only remember one thing—keep cool. Yes, I know what you mean; but +your patience may be tried more than you have any idea of." He was +thinking of Cyril Brandon.</p> + +<p>The hurry of departure prevented any further conversation. At the +station, just before the train started, Ralph said, grasping his +comrade's hand as he spoke, "I did not think you loved her so dearly."</p> + +<p>It was very long before he forgot the dreary look which accompanied the +answer, "I did not know it myself till now."</p> + +<p>"I must trace the note," the colonel muttered, as he strode away from +the station. "That handsome tiger-cat has laid her claw on it, I am +certain. But she won't confess; red-hot pincers would not drag a secret +from her, if she meant to keep it. I doubt if she will even betray +herself by a blush. Poor Constance! What chance had she against such a +Machiavel in petticoats? I am bad at diplomacy, too. If I only had the +slightest proof, or if she had any weak point—unless she loses her head +when she hears where Guy is gone, I have no chance of finding out much +in that quarter. There's Willis, to be sure—she bribed him, no doubt. +D—n them both!" In this complimentary and charitable mood, he went +straight to Flora Bellasys.</p> + +<p>He found her alone. She was sitting in her riding-dress, and the broad +Spanish hat, with its curling plumes, lay close beside her, with the +gauntlets and whip across it.</p> + +<p>She did not much like Mohun, for she had an idea that his sarcasms, with +her for their object, had made Guy smile more than once approvingly. She +knew, too, that all her fascinations recoiled harmlessly from that +rugged block of ironstone. Whatever he might have been in early years, +he was harder of heart than stout Sir Artegall now. Radigund, unhelming +her lovely face, would never have tempted him to forego his advantage +and throw his weapons down.</p> + +<p>However, she greeted him with perfect composure and satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"Do you join our party this afternoon, Colonel Mohun? I expect them to +call for me every moment. We are going to the Croix de Berny, to see the +ground for the race next week. Mr. Livingstone was to have lunched here; +but I never reckon on his keeping an engagement."</p> + +<p>There was something in Ralph's manner which made her uncomfortable. She +took up her whip, and began twisting its slender stock rather nervously; +you would not have thought there was so much strength in the delicate +fingers.</p> + +<p>"You are right," he replied, coolly, "not to count too much on Guy's +punctuality. He <i>is</i> very uncertain in his movements. I fear he can not +accompany you this afternoon. He would have charged me with his excuses, +I am sure, if he had not been so hurried."</p> + +<p>Flora looked up quickly.</p> + +<p>"It must have been something very sudden, then. Have you any idea where +he is now?"</p> + +<p>Ralph consulted his watch. "About Mantes, I should imagine. He started +for Havre by the last train. He will be at Southampton, to-morrow, and +the same day he can reach—"</p> + +<p>He stopped, gazing at his companion with a cold, cruel satisfaction. The +blood was sinking in her cheeks, not with a sudden impulse, but +gradually—as the sunset rose-tints fade from the brow of the Jungfrau, +leaving a ghastly opaque whiteness behind them. During the silence that +ensued, a sharp tinkle might be heard as the jeweled head of the +riding-whip, snapped by a convulsive movement, fell at Flora's feet.</p> + +<p>It <i>was</i> weak in her to betray such loss of self-command, but, +remember, the blow came unexpectedly. She saw the edifice she had +plotted, and toiled, and risked so much to build, ruined and shattered +to its foundation-stone. How many whispers, and smiles, and eloquent +glances had been lavished, only to end in this Pavia, where not even +honor was saved from the utter wreck!</p> + +<p>Was not the perfect waxen mask of the first Napoleon shivered in that +terrible abdication-night at Fontainebleau? Where was Cleopatra's +queenly dignity when she heard that Antony had rejoined Octavia?</p> + +<p>"Why has he gone? What called him back?"</p> + +<p>Her voice had lost the clear ring of silver, and sounded dull and flat, +like base metal.</p> + +<p>"Constance Brandon wrote to tell him she was dying. Do you wonder that +he went to her?"</p> + +<p>A passing cloud of horror swept across Flora's pale face; but after it +broke forth a gleam of strange, ferocious exultation, which stifled the +rising pity in her hearer's breast, and changed it into contempt.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it," she cried, passionately. "It is a trick. She was +quite well two months ago. At least, she said nothing—"</p> + +<p>She checked herself, but too late. The practiced duelist laughed grimly +in his mustache, as he might have done on discovering the weak point in +his enemy's ward which laid him open to his rapier.</p> + +<p>"You make my task easier," he said; "I came to inquire about a note +which miscarried about the time you speak of. I <i>will</i> know what became +of it, Miss Bellasys, though I wish to spare you unnecessary exposure +and shame."</p> + +<p>He had gained a momentary advantage, but it did not profit him much. +There are swordsmen who will not own that they are touched, though their +life-blood is ebbing fast. Flora rose without a sign of yielding or +weakness in her dry eyes, drawing up her magnificent figure proudly. +Ralph could not help thinking how like her father she was just then.</p> + +<p>"I will answer, though I deny your right to question me. I have not the +faintest idea of what you refer to. I have seen no note, except such as +were addressed to myself; and you will hardly think that Miss Brandon +would choose me as a <i>confidante</i> or correspondent."</p> + +<p>Mohun saw that she would persist to the last, undaunted as Sapphira. So +he rose to leave her, without another word.</p> + +<p>"You do not doubt me?" Flora asked, as he turned away after saluting +her. It was a rash question, all things considered, and scarcely worthy +of the accomplished speaker. There is no more useful maxim in diplomacy +than this: <i>Quieta non movere</i>.</p> + +<p>Ralph faced her directly. "Miss Bellasys, when a lady tells me what I +can not believe, I question—not her word, but—her agent." He was half +way down stairs before she could answer or detain him.</p> + +<p>He found out Willis's direction at Guy's hotel, but he had to wait some +time before obtaining it; and other things delayed him <i>en route</i>, so +that it was nearly two hours before he reached the modest lodgings, <i>au +quatrième</i>, where the discharged valet was hiding his greatness.</p> + +<p>Willis had an extensive connection; this, and his well-known talents, +made him tolerably sure of a situation whenever he chose to seek one. He +had luxurious tastes, and thoroughly appreciated self-indulgence; so he +determined to devote some time and a portion of his perquisites to +relaxation before going into harness again.</p> + +<p>On this particular evening he had in prospect a little dinner at +Philippe's—not uncheered by the smiles of venal beauty—and had just +completed a careful toilette. He was above the small peculations of his +order; indeed, had he been inclined to plunder his late masters +wardrobe, the absurd disproportion in their size would have saved him +from that vulgar temptation. He was somewhat choice in his tailors, and +his clothes fitted him and suited him well. He was reviewing the general +effect in the glass with a complacent and rather <i>égrillarde</i> expression +in his little eyes, when between him and his <i>partie fine</i> rose the +apparition of the colonel, like that of the commander before a bolder +profligate. He knew that the interview must come, and did not wish to +avoid it, but just at this moment it was singularly ill timed. What a +contrast between the stern, fixed gaze that seemed to nail him to the +spot where he stood and the well-tutored glances of fair, frail Héloise! +He felt as if he had been put into the ice-pail by mistake for the +Champagne. However, he met his ill luck placidly, and, handing his +visitor a chair, begged to know "what he could do to serve him."</p> + +<p>"You can tell me what became of a letter from Miss Brandon, which ought +to have reached yow master two months ago, and miscarried."</p> + +<p>Willis was forewarned and armed for the question; but, even with this +advantage given in, his blank, unconscious look and start of +astonishment did him infinite credit.</p> + +<p>"A letter, sir?" he said, vaguely, as if consulting his recollections. +"From Miss Brandon? I have never seen or heard of such a thing. If I +had, of course I should have given it to Mr. Livingstone. What else +could I have done with it?"</p> + +<p>"I will give a thousand francs for it," Mohun went on, without noticing +the denial, "or for a written acknowledgment of how you disposed of it, +and at whose orders." He laid the bank-note on the table.</p> + +<p>The flats changed; the look of bewilderment gave place to one of injured +innocence—an appeal against manifest injustice. It was really +artistically done.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry, sir, that you should think I want a bribe to serve you or +Mr. Livingstone. It is quite out of my power now. I don't know what you +refer to."</p> + +<p>"I have no time to bargain," Ralph growled, and his eyes began to +glisten ominously. "Name your price, and have done with it."</p> + +<p>Finale and Grand Tableau—virtuous indignation—the faithful servant +asserting his dignity as a man. There was a hitch here somewhere; the +scene-shifter was hardly up to his work, so that it was rather a +failure.</p> + +<p>"I have told you twice, sir, that I do not know any thing about it. I +beg you will not insult me with more questions. You have no right to do +so; I am neither in your service nor Mr. Livingstone's now."</p> + +<p>Mohun bent his bushy brows in some perplexity. After all, he had not a +shadow of proof, though he felt a moral certainty. His sheet-anchor was +the avarice of the scoundrel he was dealing with, and this seemed to +fail. Evidently a strong counter-influence had been at work.</p> + +<p>"Curse her!" he muttered between his clenched teeth, "she has been here +before me."</p> + +<p>Then he looked up suddenly, and what he saw caused the shallow cup of +his patience at once to overflow.</p> + +<p>In Willis's eyes was an ill-repressed twinkle of exultation and +amusement, and on his thin lips the dawning of an actual sneer. It was +but seldom the trained satellite allowed himself the luxury of betraying +any natural feeling. In truth, he chose his time badly for its +exhibition now. Before he could collect himself so as to utter a cry, he +lay upon his back on the carpet, a heavy foot on his chest; and the +colonel was gazing down on him with a fell murderous expression, that +made the victim's blood run cold.</p> + +<p>"By G—d!" Mohun said, in the smothered tones of concentrated passion, +"if you trifle with me ten seconds longer—if you open your lips except +to answer my question, I'll crush your breast-bone in."</p> + +<p>Willis knew the desperate character of the man who held him in his +power; it was no vain threat he had just heard; the pressure on his +chest was agonizing already.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake don't murder me!" he gasped out; "I—I gave it to Miss +Bellasys."</p> + +<p>"Of course you did," Mohun said, coolly; "I knew it all along. Now get +up, and write that down."</p> + +<p>He spurned away the fallen man as he spoke till he rolled over and over +on the floor.</p> + +<p>There is nothing which disconcerts a nature long used to obey like a +sudden brutal <i>coup de main</i>. Remember the Scythians and their slaves. +The rebels met their masters boldly enough on a fair field with sword +and spear, but they cowered before the crack of the horsewhips.</p> + +<p>All the spider-webs of the unfortunate Willis's diplomacy were utterly +swept away; his powers of thought and volition were concentrated now on +one point—to get rid of his visitor as soon as possible.</p> + +<p>He rose slowly and painfully (for the mere physical shock had been +heavy), and, placing himself at a table, tried to write the few words of +acknowledgment that Mohun dictated; but his hand trembled so excessively +that he could hardly form the letters. As he looked up in piteous +deprecation, evidently fearing lest his inability to comply should be +construed into unwillingness or rebellion, he presented a spectacle of +degraded humanity so revolting in its abasement that even the cynic +turned away in painful disgust.</p> + +<p>It was done at last. As Willis saw his confession consigned to Mohun's +pocket-book, his avarice gave him courage to try one last effort to gain +something by the transaction—a salve to his bruises—a set-off against +the <i>relicta non bene parmula</i>.</p> + +<p>"I hope you will consider I have done all I can, sir," he said, looking +wistfully at the bank-note, which still lay on the table. "I shall be +ruined if this becomes known."</p> + +<p>The cast-steel smile which was peculiar to him hardened the colonel's +face.</p> + +<p>"You must come down on Miss Bellasys for compensation. She pays well, I +have no doubt. You never get another <i>sou</i> from our side, if it were to +keep you from starving. My second thought was the best, after all; it +saved time and—money. (He put the note back into his purse.) I'll give +you one caution, though. Keep out of Mr. Livingstone's way. If he meets +you, after hearing all this, he'll break your neck, I believe in my +conscience." So he left him.</p> + +<p>For the second time that evening Willis looked in the glass—the +reflection was not so satisfactory. Was that unseemly crumpled ruin the +white tie, sublime in its scientific wrinkles, on which its author had +gazed with a pardonable paternal pride? No wonder that he stamped in +wrath, not the less bitter because impotent, while he shook off the dust +from his garments as a testimony against Ralph Mohun.</p> + +<p>He repaired the damages, though, to the best of his power, and then went +off to keep his appointment; but the <i>pâtés à la bechamelle</i> were as +ashes, and the <i>gelée au marisquin</i> as gall to his parched, disordered +palate. He made himself so intensely disagreeable that poor Héloise +thenceforth swore an enmity against his compatriots, which endured to +the end of her brief misspent existence. "<i>Gredin d'Anglais, va!</i>" she +was wont to say, grinding her little white teeth melodramatically, +whenever she recalled that dreary entertainment, and the failure of her +simple stratagems to enliven her saturnine host.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"Then let the funeral bells be tolled, a requiem be sung,</div> +<div class='i8'>An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young;</div> +<div class='i8'>A dirge for her—the doubly dead, in that she died so young."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>For the first few minutes after the train had moved off Guy was unable +to collect his thoughts. As the tall figure of Mohun passed from his +view, it seemed as if a sustaining prop had been suddenly cut away from +under him, and he felt more than ever helpless. The stubborn strength of +his character asserted itself before long, and he faced his great sorrow +as he would have done an enemy in bodily shape; but neither then, nor +for many days after, could he pursue any one train of reflection long +unbroken.</p> + +<p>First he began to think how Constance would look when he saw her. Would +she be much changed? How beautiful she was the night they parted, with +the blue myosotis gleaming through her bright hair! Would her eyes be as +cold as he remembered them then (he had not seen their <i>last</i> look), or +would they forgive him at once, and tell him so? Not if she knew all. +And then, in hideous contrast to her pure stately beauty, there rose +before him faces and figures which had shared his orgies during the past +months, gay with paint and jewels, and meretricious ornament. There was +a deeper horror in those mocking shapes than in the most loathsome +phantasms of corporeal corruption that feverish dreams ever called up +from the grave-yard. If his lips were unworthy, months ago, to touch +Constance's cheek or hand, what were they now? He ground his teeth in +the bitterness of self-condemnation. It would be easier to bear, if she +met him coldly and proudly, than if she yielded at once, as her letter +seemed to promise. Her letter! What became of the first one? If that had +reached him, how much had been saved! Perhaps Constance's +life—certainly much of his own dishonor. The idea did cross him that +Flora might have been concerned in intercepting it, but it seemed +improbable, and he drove it away. With all his revived devotion to +Constance, he did not like to think hardly of her rival; in a lesser +degree he had wronged her too.</p> + +<p>You will rarely find the sternest or wisest of men disposed to be harsh +toward errors that spring from a devotion to themselves. It is only +just, as well as natural, that it should be so. If the second cause of +the crime did not find an excuse for the defendant, I don't know where +he or she would look for an advocate. St. Kevin need not have troubled +himself: there were plenty of people ready to push poor Kathleen down. I +think it is a pity they canonized him.</p> + +<p>Through all Guy's reflections there ran this under-current—"how easily +all might have been avoided if the slightest things had turned out +differently." Just so, after a heavy loss at play, a man <i>will</i> keep +thinking how he might have won a large stake if he had played one card +otherwise, or backed the In instead of the Out. I have heard good judges +say that this pertinacious after-thought is the hardest part to bear of +all the annoyance. Of course he worries himself about it, just as if +"great results from small beginnings" were not the tritest of all +truisms. I don't wish to be historical, or I would reflect how often the +Continent has been convulsed by a dish that disagreed with some one, or +by a ship that did not start to its time. The Jacobites were very wise +in toasting "the little gentleman in black velvet" that raised the fatal +mole-hill. Does not the old romance say that an adder starting from a +bush brought on the terrible battle in which all the chivalry of England +were strewn like leaves around Arthur on Barren Down?</p> + +<p>Guy could still hardly realize to himself the certainty of Constance's +approaching death. He tried to fix his thoughts on this till a heavy, +listless torpor, like drowsiness, began to steal over him. He roused +himself impatiently, and began to think how slow they were going. +Nevertheless, the green <i>coteaux</i> that swell between Rouen and the sea +were flying past rapidly, and they arrived at Havre, as Mohun had said, +just in time to catch the Southampton packet.</p> + +<p>There was threatening of foul weather to windward. The clouds, in masses +of indigo just edged with copper, were banking up fast, and the "white +horses," more and more frequent, were beginning to toss their manes +against the dark sky-line.</p> + +<p>To the few travelers whom the stern necessities of business drove forth, +lingering and shivering, from their comfortable inns on to the deck, +already wet and unsteady, Livingstone was an object of great interest +and many theories. His impatience to be gone was so marked that the +conscientious official looked more than once suspiciously at his +passport.</p> + +<p>Mr. Phineas Hackett, of Boston, U.S., Marchand (so self-described in +the Livre des Voyageurs at Chamounix), made up his mind that he saw +before him the hero of some gigantic forgery, or a fraudulent bankrupt +on a large scale; but, just as he had fixed on the astute question which +was to drive the first wedge into the mystery, Guy turned in his quick +walk and met him full. I doubt if he even saw the smooth-shaven, eager +face at his elbow; but he was thinking again of the lost letter, and the +savage glare in his eyes made the heart of the "earnest inquirer" quiver +under his black satin waistcoat. "D——d hard knot, that," he muttered, +disconsolately, and retreated with great loss, to writhe during the rest +of the passage in an orgasm of unsatisfied curiosity.</p> + +<p>The weather looked worse every moment as the wild north wind came +roaring from seaward with a challenge to the vessels that lay tossing +within the jetty to come forth and meet him. The waste-pipe of the +<i>Sea-gull</i> screamed out shrilly in answer; and the brave old ship, +shaking the foam from her bows after every plunge, as her namesake might +do from its breast-feathers, steamed out right in the teeth of the gale.</p> + +<p>A regular "Channel night"—a night which Mr. Augustus Winder, Paris +traveler to H—— and Co., the mighty mercers of Regent Street, spoke of +in after days with a shudder of reminiscence mingling with the pride of +one who has endured and survived great peril; who has gone down to the +sea in ships, and seen the wonders of the deep. His associates—the +<i>élite</i> of the silk-and-ribbon department—youths of polished manners +and fascinating address, than whom <i>non alii leviore saltu</i> took the +counter in their stride—would gather round the narrator in respectful +admiration, just as the young sea-dogs of Nantucket might listen to a +veteran hunter of the sperm whale as he tells of a hurricane that caught +him in the strait between the Land of Fire and terrible Cape Horn.</p> + +<p>Mr. Winder represented himself as having assisted all on board, from the +captain down to the cabin-boy, with his counsel and encouragement, and +as having been materially useful to the man at the wheel. The fact was, +that he cried a good deal during the night, and was incessant in his +appeals to the steward and Heaven for help. In his appeals to the latter +power he employed often a strangely modified form of the Apostles' +Creed; for his religious education had been neglected, and this was his +solitary and simple idea of an orison. However, no one was present to +detract from his triumph or to controvert his concluding words:</p> + +<p>"An awful night, gents; but duty's duty, and the firm behaved handsome. +Mr. Sassnett, I'll trouble you for a light, sir." And so he ignited a +fuller-flavored Cuba, and drank, in a sweeter grog, "Our noble +selves"—<i>olim hæc meminisse juvabit</i>.</p> + +<p>There was one striking contrast on board to the gallant Winder. +Livingstone did not go below, but walked the deck all night long, +straining his eyes eagerly forward through the thick darkness and the +driving rain.</p> + +<p>Captain Weatherby regarded him approvingly, as, halting in his walk, Guy +stood near him, upright and steady as a mainmast of Memel pine. "That's +the sort I like to carry," the old sailor remarked confidentially to +his second in command as they shared an amicable grog under the shelter +of the companion.</p> + +<p>The wind abated toward morning; and, as the dawn broke, they were under +the lee of the Wight, and moving steadily into the quiet Solent.</p> + +<p>Guy made his way straight to Ventnor. Twenty-four hours after her +summons reached him, Constance knew that her lover had never received +her first letter, and that now he was within five hundred yards of her, +waiting to be called into her presence.</p> + +<p>It was long before her answer came. It only contained a few hurried +words, saying that it was impossible for her to see him that day, and +begging him not to be angry, but to wait. The hand-writing was far more +faltering and uncertain than that which had struck him so painfully with +its weakness the day before. It spoke plainly of the effort which it had +cost the invalid to trace even those brief lines. He did not try to +delude himself any more, but all that day remained alone, face to face +with his despair.</p> + +<p>He went out after nightfall, and stole up cautiously to the house where +Constance was staying.</p> + +<p>It is not only ghosts that <i>walk</i>. Men, as powerless to retrieve the +past as if they were already disembodied spirits, <i>will</i> haunt the +scenes and sepulchres of their lost happiness even before they die. +Though the world was all before them where to choose, I doubt not that +the exiles from Paradise lingered long just without the sweep of the +flaming sword.</p> + +<p>Two rooms in the house were lighted, one with the faint glimmer peculiar +to the shaded lamp of a sick-room. Guy's pulse bounded wildly at first, +and then grew dull and still. In that room he knew Constance lay dying. +The other window was brightly lighted, but half shaded by a curtain. +While he gazed, this was torn suddenly aside, as if by an angry, +impatient hand, and a man leaned out, throwing back the hair from his +forehead, to catch the cold wind which was blowing sharply. Guy had +never seen the dark, passionate face before, but he know whose it was +very well, though there was little family likeness to guide him. Cyril +Brandon's features were small and finely cut, like his sister's; but +there the resemblance ended. His complexion, naturally sallow, had been +burnt three shades deeper by the Indian sun. His fierce black eyes, and +thin lips, that seemed always ready to curl or quiver, made the contrast +with Constance very striking.</p> + +<p>Livingstone drew back into the farthest shadow of the garden trees. He +knew how much reason Cyril had for hating him above all living men, and +he did not wish to risk a meeting. Mohun's warning shot across his mind, +and he felt it was rightly founded.</p> + +<p>Brandon looked out for some minutes without moving, then he dropped his +head suddenly on his arms with a heavy groan. The bright light was +behind him, and Guy could see his clasped fingers twisting and tearing +at each other, as if he wished to distract mental agony by the sense of +bodily pain. The gazer saw that another besides himself had given up all +hope; and, with a heavier heart than over, he stole away home—not to +sleep, but to think, and wait for the morning.</p> + +<p>About noon next day the expected message came:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Guy</span>,—I have got leave to see you at last, but it +was very difficult to gain. It is only on these conditions: you are +not to stay with me a moment beyond three hours, and you must leave +Ventnor immediately afterward, and not return. I have promised all +for you. It seems very hard; but we must not think of that now. +Come directly. C.B."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Ten minutes later there was only a closed door between Livingstone, and +the interview he longed for and dreaded so much. His steel nerves stood +him in good stead then; it was not at the crisis that these were likely +to fail. When Constance heard his step, it was measured and firmly +planted as she always remembered it. So it would have been if he had +been walking to meet the fire of a platoon. Her aunt, Mrs. Vavasour, was +with her, but left the room, as Guy opened the door, and so they met +again as they had parted—alone.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"I charge thee, by the living's prayer,</div> +<div class='i10'>By the dead's silentness,</div> +<div class='i8'>To wring from out thy soul a cry</div> +<div class='i10'>That God may hear and bless;</div> +<div class='i8'>Lest heaven's own palm fade in my hand,</div> +<div class='i8'>And, pale among the saints I stand</div> +<div class='i10'>A saint companionless."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>Constance was lying on a couch near the fire propped up by many pillows. +She felt weaker than usual: what she had gone through in the morning had +exhausted her. Guy never knew, till long after, that the effort she had +made to secure the meeting with him had, in all human probability, +shortened her life by weeks. She thought it cheaply purchased at that +price—and she was right. Even the excitement of the moment had hardly +brought a tinge of color into the pure waxen cheeks, but the beautiful +clear eyes were more brilliant than ever. A ribbon of the blue which was +Guy's favorite was twisted in her bright glossy hair.</p> + +<p>He saw nothing of this at first; he did not see her raise herself with a +faint joyful cry as he advanced with his eyes cast down; he never knew +how it was that he found himself kneeling by Constance, with her arms +clinging fondly round his neck, and her voice murmuring in his ear, "I +said you would come—I knew you would come."</p> + +<p>Though her soft cheek lay so very near his lips, they never touched it. +He drew back, shuddering all over, and said, hoarsely,</p> + +<p>"I can not; I dare not; I am not worthy."</p> + +<p>I do not know if she guessed what he meant, but she tried to lift his +head, which was bent down on the cushion beside her, so that he might +look into her true eyes as she answered,</p> + +<p>"You must not think that—you must not say so. I know you have been +angry and almost mad for many months, but you are not so now, and you +never will be any more. It was my fault—yes, mine. If I had not been so +cold and proud, you would never have left me. You thought I did not love +you; but I did; my own, my darling, I did—so dearly!"</p> + +<p>All Guy's stout manhood was shivered within him, utterly and suddenly, +as 4000 years ago the rock was cloven in Horeb, the Mount of God. Now, +too, from the rift in the granite the waters flowed; the first tears +that he had shed since he was a very little child—the last that any +mortal saw there—streamed hot and blinding from his eyes down on the +thin, transparent hand that he held fast.</p> + +<p>Would those with whom he was a by-word for hard sternness of character +have known him then? They would have been almost as much surprised to +see Constance Brandon—thought so haughty and cold—overcoming her +terror at his passionate burst of grief, to soothe him with every +tenderest gesture and with words that were each a caress, till the +convulsion passed away, and calm self-government returned.</p> + +<p>Guy did not speak till he could quite control himself; then he said +firmly, but with a sob in his voice still,</p> + +<p>"Yet I have killed you!"</p> + +<p>"No, no," Constance answered, quickly; "indeed it is not so. A cold +which attacked my chest caused this illness; but they say my lungs were +affected long ago, and that I could hardly have lived many months. You +must think of that, dear; and perhaps it is much better that it should +be so. Life is very hard and difficult, I think, and I should never have +been strong enough to bear my part in it well."</p> + +<p>Guy shook his head sadly, as if only half convinced, though he knew she +would not have said an untrue word even to save him from suffering.</p> + +<p>"If you could only stay with me—if I could only keep you!" he cried +out, and threw his arms round her, as if their strong clasp would hold +her back one step on the road along which the messengers of God had been +beckoning her for many days past.</p> + +<p>"Hush!" Constance whispered; "you must be patient. Yet I like to think +that you will not forget me soon. Now listen—" and she held up her +finger with something of the "old imperial air." "I have something to +ask of you. Will you not like to do it for my sake, even if it is hard?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer; but she understood the pressure of his hand, and went +on.</p> + +<p>"I have been fearing so much that something terrible will happen between +you and Cyril. He is so passionate and willful, he will not listen to +me, though he loves me dearly, and though I have tried every entreaty I +could think of. (She grew paler than ever, and shuddered visibly.) And +you are not patient, Guy, dear; but you would be this time, would you +not? Only think how it would grieve me if—"</p> + +<p>The deep hollow cough that she had tried hard to keep back <i>would</i> +break in here.</p> + +<p>"You can not doubt me," Guy replied, caressing her fondly: "I promise +that nothing he can say or do shall tempt me to defend myself by word or +deed. How could I, even if you had not asked this? Has he not bitter +cause? Ask me something harder, my own!"</p> + +<p>Constance hesitated; then she spoke rapidly, as if afraid to pause when +she had once made up her mind. The lovely color came and flickered for a +moment on her cheek, and then went out again as suddenly.</p> + +<p>"I know it is easier for me to submit than for you, yet it is very hard +to be obliged to leave you, Guy; it is harder still to leave you to +Flora Bellasys. I hope my jealousy—I <i>am</i> jealous—does not make me +unjust; but I don't think she will make you better, or even happier in +the end. Now do forgive me; perhaps I ought not—"</p> + +<p>Guy interrupted her here: he had not stopped her till she began to +excuse herself.</p> + +<p>"I must see her once again (the knitting of his black brows omened ill +for the peace of that interview); afterward, on my honor and faith, I +will never speak to her one word, or willingly look upon her face."</p> + +<p>O true heart! that had suffered so long, and hitherto unavailingly, till +your life-blood was drained in the struggle, be content, for the victory +is won at last. Never did loyalty and right triumph more absolutely +since those who stood fast by their King in the <i>dies iræ</i> of the great +battle saw the rebel angels cast headlong down.</p> + +<p>If, in the intense joy that thrilled through every fibre of Constance's +frame, there mingled an element of gratified pride, who shall blame her? +Not I, for fear of being less indulgent than I believe was her Eternal +Judge when, not many days later, she stood before him.</p> + +<p>She needed no further protest or explanation; she never thought that, +because her lover had once been entangled, there was danger of his +falling into the net again; she never doubted for an instant—and she +was right. The gaze of the spirit is far-seeing and rarely fallible when +so near its translation as was hers.</p> + +<p>As she leaned her head against his shoulder, murmuring, "You have made +me so very, very happy!" there were pleasant tears in the beautiful eyes +that had known so many bitter ones, and had not lost their brightness +yet.</p> + +<p>There was silence for some minutes; then Constance spoke again, looking +wistfully, and more sadly than she had yet done, on her companion:</p> + +<p>"Do you know, Guy, I have been thinking that yours will not be a very +long life? You are so strong that it seems foolish in me, but I can not +help it."</p> + +<p>The faintest glimmer of satisfaction, like the ghost of a smile, came +upon Livingstone's miserable, haggard face: there had been nothing like +it there for many hours; there was nothing like it again for many days.</p> + +<p>"You may be right," he said, very calmly. "I trust in God you are."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Constance went on; "but I was thinking more than that. I was +hoping that perhaps, for my sake, if not for your own, you would try to +grow better every day. Only think what it would be if, throughout all +ages, we were never to meet after to-day." She drew him closer to her, +and her voice almost failed her. "I don't believe you ever could be what +is called a very religious character. I am so weak—strong-minded as you +thought me—that I fear I have found an attraction in this fault of +yours; but you could keep from great sins, I am sure. Try and be gentler +to others first, and with every act of unselfish kindness you will have +gained something. Any good clergyman will tell you the rest better than +I. Remember how happy you will make me. I believe I shall see and know +it all. It may be hard for you, dear, but it may not be for long."</p> + +<p>The same strange, wistful look came into her eyes again, as if shadows +of the dim future were passing before them.</p> + +<p>Poor child! Pure as she was in principle and firm in truth, she would +have made but a weak controversial theologian; but her simple words went +straight to her hearer's heart, with a stronger power of conversion than +could have been found in the discourses of all the surpliced Chrysostoms +that ever anathematized a sinner or anatomized a creed.</p> + +<p>Yet Guy did not answer so soon this time. When he did, he spoke firmly +and resolutely: "Indeed, indeed, I will try."</p> + +<p>Constance nestled down on his broad chest, wearily, but with a +long-drawn breath of intense relief.</p> + +<p>"I have said all my say," she whispered; "I have not tired you? Now I +will rest, and you shall pet me and talk to me as you used to do."</p> + +<p>What broken sentences—what pauses of silence yet more eloquent—what +lavish, tender caresses passed between those two, over whom the shadow +of desolation was closing fast, I have never guessed, nor, if I could, +would I write them in these pages. I hold that there are partings +bitterer to bear than a father's from his child, and sorrows worthier of +the veil than those of Agamemnon.</p> + +<p>Though Guy repressed now all outward signs of painful emotion, he +suffered, I believe, far the most of the two. It is always so with those +whom death is about to divide. The agony is unequally distributed, +falling heaviest on the one that remains behind. If the separation were +for years, and both were healthy and hopeful, very often the positions +would be reversed; but—whether it be that bodily weakness blunts the +sharp sense of anticipated sorrow, or that, to eyes bent forward on the +glories and terrors of the unknown world, earthly relations lessen by +comparison—you will find that with most, however impetuous it may have +been in mid-channel, the river of life flows calmly and evenly just +before its junction with the great ocean stream. Besides, the dying girl +had suffered so much of late that the present change left no room for +other feelings than those of unalloyed happiness, and the words of love +murmured into her ear brought with them a deeper delight than when she +heard them for the first time from the same lips.</p> + +<p>Both were so engaged with their own thoughts and with each other that +they never noted how the narrow space of time allotted to them was +vanishing, rapidly as the last dry islet of sand when the spring-tide is +flowing. They never heard the footsteps, more impatient at every turn, +sounding from the room beneath, where Cyril Brandon paced to and fro. +Constance had cut off one of her long sunny braids, and was twining it, +in and out, in fetter-locks round Guy's fingers as she lay nestling in +the clasp of his other arm: it was only their eyes that were speaking +then. They started as the door opened suddenly, and Mrs. Vavasour came +in, her face white, and her eyes wild with terror. She was too +frightened to be gentle or considerate.</p> + +<p>"You must go this instant!" she cried out, catching Livingstone's arm. +"Constance, make him go; he has staid too long already. You know you +promised."</p> + +<p>"I did promise," Constance answered, calmly, almost proudly "and he will +keep it."</p> + +<p>Then she turned to Guy, who was kneeling by her, and hid her face in his +neck, locking her arms round him. Her aunt caught the words—"Not +forget!" Beyond these her farewell was a secret known only to her lover +and the angels.</p> + +<p>But the parting, which had come so suddenly, drained the last weak +remnant of strength already taxed too hardly. Guy felt the lips that +were murmuring in his car grow still at first, and then cold; the tender +arms unknit themselves, and his imploring eyes could draw no answer from +hers that were closed.</p> + +<p>"She has only fainted," Mrs. Vavasour said, answering his look: "I will +recover her. But pray, pray go!"</p> + +<p>He laid the light burden that scarcely weighed upon his arm down on the +pillows, very softly and gently, smoothing them mechanically with his +hand. Then he stooped and pressed one kiss more on the pale lips; they +never felt it, though the passion of that lengthened caress might almost +have waked the dead. And so those two parted, to meet again—upon earth +never any more.</p> + +<p>The next time woman's lips touched Guy Livingstone's they were his +mother's, and he had been a corpse an hour.</p> + +<p>He went, without looking back; his step was slow and unsteady, very +different from the firm, even tread of three hours ago. The power of +volition and self-direction was very nearly gone. Through a half open +door on the lower story he caught a glimpse of a haggard face lighted up +by wolfish eyes, and heard a savage, growling voice. He felt that both +eyes and voice cursed him as he passed; and afterward, recalling these +things vaguely, as one does the incidents of a hideous dream, he knew +that, for the second time, he had seen Cyril Brandon. Guy could hardly +tell how he reached London that night, for the brain fever was coming on +that the next morning held him in its clutches fast.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> + +<p class='center'>"Quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse."</p> + + +<p>The tidings of her son's illness reached Lady Catharine quickly at +Kerton Manor. I did not hear of it till a day later, and when I arrived +I found her nearly exhausted by sleeplessness and anxiety, though she +had not been Guy's nurse for more than thirty-six hours.</p> + +<p>The sick-bed of delirium taxes the energies of the watcher very +differently from any other. There is a sort of fascination in the roll +of the restless head, tossing from side to side, as if trying to escape +from the pressure of a heavy hot hand; in the glare of the eager eyes, +that follow you every where, with a question in them that they never +wait to have answered; in the incoherent words, just trembling on the +verge of a revelation, but always leaving the tale half told, that +creates a perpetual strain on the attention, enough to wear out a strong +man.</p> + +<p>There have been men, they say, who, sensible of the approach of +delirium, chose the one person who should attend them, and ordered their +doors to be closed against all others, preferring to die almost alone to +the risk of what their ravings might betray; but I have heard, also, +that there are secrets—secrets shared, too, by many confederates—to +which neither fever or intoxication ever gave a clew. The hot blood grew +chill for an instant, and the babbling tongue was tied when the dreamer +came near the frontier ground, where the oath reared itself distinct and +threatening as ever, while all else was fantastic and vague.</p> + +<p>There was something of this in Guy's case. We could hear distinctly many +of his broken sentences, relating sometimes to the hunting-field, +sometimes to the orgies of wine or play. There were names, too, +occurring now and then, which to his mother were meaningless, but to me +had an evil significance. Once or twice—not oftener—he was talking to +Flora Bellasys. But when the name of Constance Brandon came, the harsh +loud voice sank into a whisper so low that if you had laid your ear to +his lips you would not have caught one syllable. Very, very often I had +occasion to remark this, and to wonder how the heart could guard its +treasure so rigidly when the brain was driving on, aimless as a ship +before the hurricane with her rudder gone.</p> + +<p>On the fifth day after Guy's illness began, an angel might have +interceded for him in the stead of a pure true-hearted woman, for +Constance was dead.</p> + +<p>I saw Lady Catharine tremble, and bend her head down low when she heard +the news, as if herself crushed by the blow which would fall so heavily +on her son. She had known but very little of Constance; that little had +made her love her dearly—who could help doing that? Yet it was not +Constance she was regretting then. I could see the same thought was in +her mind as in mine—who will tell Guy this if he recovers? I did all I +could to spare her; but the anxiety she felt when out of the sick-room +tried her almost more than the bodily fatigue. It was best to let her +have her way. I never guessed, till then, the extent of a weak woman's +endurance.</p> + +<p>It was a close struggle, indeed, between life and death. The fire of the +fever died out when there was little left for it to feed on. The arm +which, a month ago, was fatal as old Front-de-Bœuf's, had not +strength enough in its loosened sinews to lift itself three inches from +the coverlet.</p> + +<p>Guy had fallen at last into a heavy sleep. The doctors said it was the +turning-point. If he woke quite calm and sane, the immense power of his +constitution would probably enable him to rally; if not, the worst that +could be feared was certain.</p> + +<p>He woke after many hours. There was such a stillness in the room as he +unclosed his eyes that you might have heard his mother's heart beat as +she sat motionless by his bedside. They recognized her at once—heavy +and dim as they were—for he tried to turn his head to kiss her hand +that lay on the pillow beside him. Then we knew that he was saved; and I +saw, for the first time, tears stream down Lady Catharine's worn cheeks. +She could check the evidence of her grief better than that of her joy.</p> + +<p>He saw me, too, as I came forward out of the shadow. "Is that you, +Frank?" he said, faintly. "How very good of you to come." We would not +let him speak any more.</p> + +<p>On the third day after the change for the better, I was alone with the +invalid. He turned to me suddenly, and spoke in a low voice, but so +steady that it surprised me. "Frank, what have you heard of Constance?"</p> + +<p>Had I been arming myself to meet that question—disciplining my voice +and countenance for days, only to fail so miserably at last? I felt +unspeakably angry and self-reproachful when I saw that my face had told +him all.</p> + +<p>"When did she die?" He went on in the same measured tone, without taking +his eyes off me. I think he had nerved himself just enough for the +effort, and was afraid of breaking down if he paused.</p> + +<p>I could speak now, and told him. I was going on to tell him, too, how +calmly and happily her life had ended (her aunt had written all this to +Lady Catharine), when Guy stopped me—not coldly, but with a hopeless +sadness in his accent very painful to hear. "Thank you; it is meant +kindly, but I would rather not speak of this, even to you—at least for +some time."</p> + +<p>His self-command carried him through bravely, but it only just lasted +out. Then he turned his head aside and threw his arm across it. As I +drew back to the window, I saw the quivering of the long, emaciated +fingers that veiled his face. I did not look again till Guy's voice +called to me, quite composedly, for I did not dare to pry into or meddle +with the secrets of the strong heart that knew its own bitterness so +well.</p> + +<p>I told Lady Catharine what had passed. She was very much relieved to +hear that it was all over. She never opened her lips on the subject to +her son; indeed, though those two understood each other thoroughly, +there were wonderfully few confidences between them.</p> + +<p>Guy's convalescence was slow—far slower than we had hoped for. It +seemed as if some spring was broken in his being not easily to be +replaced. He was moody and listless always, speaking very seldom; but +his words and manner, when he did talk, were gentler and more kindly +than I ever remembered them.</p> + +<p>One of his first visitors was Colonel Mohun. He had been incessant in +his inquiries, and had offered to share our watching, but Lady Catharine +would not hear of it. She had a sort of dread at the idea of that grim +face lowering over the sick man's bed.</p> + +<p>No one was present at their first interview. Ralph was more moved than +he cared to show at his old friend's altered looks and ways; but he gave +him the account of his search after the lost letter conscientiously, +without sparing a single detail. "It must have gone hard with Guy," he +remarked to me, thoughtfully, as he came away. "He's very far from right +yet. When I told him what Willis had done, I made sure he would be very +angry. He only said, 'Poor wretch! He acted under orders, and did not +know what mischief he was doing.' He wants rousing; but I am sure I +don't know what is to do it."</p> + +<p>Forgiveness and forgetfulness of injuries seemed to that hard old +heathen the most dangerous sign of bodily and mental debility.</p> + +<p>He came almost daily after that, and I think his rough ways, and sharp, +sarcastic remarks acted on Livingstone as a sort of tonic—bitter, but +strengthening.</p> + +<p>A few days later Mrs. Vavasour called. She, too, saw Guy alone. She +surely had a message to deliver, or she would not have ventured on an +interview which must have been so painful to both. It did not last long; +but when she came down, her thick black veil was drawn closely over her +face, and that evening Guy was denied to Ralph Mohun.</p> + +<p>One afternoon Livingstone was quite by himself. The colonel had gone +into Warwickshire for a few days' hunting; Lady Catharine had paid her +usual visit and had gone back to her hotel, and I was out for an hour or +two. We did not mind leaving him a good deal alone; indeed, he preferred +it very often, and said so.</p> + +<p>His servant came in, looking rather puzzled, to say that a lady wished +to see him. She would not give her name, but said that she would not +detain him many minutes.</p> + +<p>Guy had not time to refuse admittance to the visitor, she followed so +close upon her message. Though she was closely-wrapped in her mantle, +and her veil fell in triple folds, there was no mistaking the turn of +the haughty head, the smooth, elastic step, and the lithe undulations of +a figure matchless between the four seas. No wonder that he drew his +breath hard as he recognized Flora Bellasys.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> + +<p class='center'>Treu und fest.</p> + + +<p>As the door closed, Flora advanced quickly. "Confess you are surprised +to see me," she said, holding out her little gloved hand. The courtesy +toward the sex, which was hereditary with the Livingstones, contrasting +strangely with their fierce, ungovernable tempers, made him not reject +it; but his lay passive and nerveless in her slender fingers, never +answering their eager pressure; it had no longer the elastic quiver of +repressed strength that she remembered and liked so well.</p> + +<p>"I am surprised to see you here, and so soon," he answered, coldly; "but +I knew we should meet before long."</p> + +<p>"The surprise does not seem too charming," Miss Bellasys said, pouting +her scarlet lip as she threw herself into a deep <i>bergère</i> opposite to +the couch on which Livingstone had already sunk down again—he was very +weak and unsteady in his movements still.</p> + +<p>Was it by chance or calculation that a fold of her dress disarranged +displayed the slender foot, with its arched instep—set off by the +delicate <i>brodequin</i>, a labor of love to the Parisian Crispin—and the +straight, beautifully-turned ankle, cased in dead-white silk? The +latter, I think; for Flora knew how to fall as well as Cæsar or +Polyxena, and had studied her part to its minutest shade. It was by the +senses that she had always been most successful in attacking Guy, and +she knew that, in old days, no point of feminine perfection had a +greater attraction for him.</p> + +<p>The temptation, if so it was intended, had about as much effect upon him +now as it might have had on weather-beaten St. Simeon Stylites when his +penances had lasted twenty years.</p> + +<p>After a minute's silence, during which Flora was gazing intently on her +companion, leaning her chin upon her hand, she spoke again.</p> + +<p>"I fear you must have been very ill. How—how changed you are!"</p> + +<p>Livingstone was, indeed, fearfully altered. The healthy brown of his +complexion had given place to a dull, opaque pallor; there were great +hollows under the prominent cheek-bones, and his loose dressing-robe of +black velvet hung straight down from the gaunt angles of the immense +joints and bones. His voice sounded deeper than ever as he replied,</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have been very ill, and I am utterly changed. But you must have +had something more important to say to me, or you would hardly have +ventured on this step."</p> + +<p>She was getting very nervous—inexplicably so for her, who generally +kept her head, while she made others lose theirs,</p> + +<p>"No. I only wished—" she hesitated, trying to force a smile, and then +broke off suddenly—"Guy, do speak kindly to me. Don't look at me so +strangely."</p> + +<p>His answer came, brief and stern.</p> + +<p>"I will speak, then. Miss Bellasys, on what authority from me did you +venture to interfere in my concerns so far as to intercept my +correspondence?"</p> + +<p>She tried denial still; it was her way; she always <i>would</i> do it, even +when it could avail nothing—perhaps to gain time.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean. I never—"</p> + +<p>Livingstone interrupted her, with a curl of contempt on his lip.</p> + +<p>"Stop, I beg of you. It is useless to stoop lower than you have done +already. I have Willis's written confession here. Ah! I know your +talents too well to accuse you without material proof."</p> + +<p>She raised her head, haughtily enough now. There was something Spartan +about that girl. She had such an utter recklessness of exposure—it was +in failure that she felt the shame.</p> + +<p>"At least <i>you</i> ought not to reproach me. You might guess my motive—my +only one—without forcing me to confess it. Have I not gratified your +pride enough already?"</p> + +<p>"You know that is not the question," Guy answered, gravely. "Yet you are +half right. I could not reproach you for any fair, honest move. In much, +I own myself more guilty than you. But this is very different. Miss +Bellasys, you must have distrusted greatly your own powers of +fascination before you stooped to such cruel treachery."</p> + +<p>"I did not know what I was doing," she whispered; "I did not know she +was dying. Ah! Guy, have pity!"</p> + +<p>"But you knew it might kill her to find her letter—such a +letter—unanswered. You knew what she must have suffered before she +wrote it. You did all this in cold blood, and now you say to me, 'Have +pity!' If an accountable being—not a woman and her miserable +instrument—had wronged me so, I would have risked my soul to have +revenge; and, because that is impossible, you think that I feel less +bitterly? You might have known me better by this time."</p> + +<p>Instead of being softened by her appeal, his heart, features, and tone +were hardening more and more.</p> + +<p>The sting of defeat, imminent and unavoidable, that, ere this, has +driven strong and wise men headlong into the thickest of the battle to +hunt for death there, proved too much for a temper never well regulated.</p> + +<p>"You have decided, then?" she cried, passionately, her eyes flashing and +her lip quivering. "After all I have risked and borne for you, I am to +be sacrificed to a shadow—a memory—the memory of that cold, pale +statue of propriety?" She checked herself suddenly, only just in time.</p> + +<p>Guy had sprung to his feet, excitement bringing back for the moment all +his lost strength. If Ralph Mohun had seen him, he would not have feared +that the wrathful devil was cast out. It was raging within him then, +untamed and dangerous as ever.</p> + +<p>"Do you dare to insult her now that she is dead—and to me, not a month +after I have lost her? It is not safe: take care, take care!"</p> + +<p>The tempest of his passion made him forget, for the first time in his +life, the weakness of her who had roused it.</p> + +<p>Flora was only a woman after all, though haughty and bold of spirit as +any that had breathed. Her own outbreak of anger vanished before that +terrible burst of wrath, just as the camp-fire, when the prairie is +blazing, is swallowed up in the great roaring torrent of flame. She +bowed her head on her hands, trembling all over in pure physical fear. +Guy felt ashamed when he saw the effect of his violence, and spoke more +gently than he had done yet.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me. I was very wrong; but I have not learned to control +myself—I never shall, I fear; but you ought not to say such words, even +if I could bear them better. Now it is time that we should part; you +have staid here too long already. You must not risk your reputation for +me, who can not even be grateful for the venture. We shall never meet +again, if we can avoid it; it would be strange to do so as mere +acquaintance, and in any other way—no, don't stop me—it is impossible. +It will be long before I go much into society again, so I shall not +cross your path."</p> + +<p>Flora knew it was hopeless then. She was quite broken down, and did not +raise her head from her hand, through the fingers of which, half shading +her face, the tears trickled fast. Guy heard her murmur, very low and +plaintively, "I have loved you so long—so dearly!"</p> + +<p>Mistress as she was of every art that can deceive, I believe she only +spoke the simple truth then. With all the energy of her strong and +sensual nature, I believe she did worship Livingstone. To most men she +would have been far more dangerous thus, in the abandonment of her +sorrow, than ever she had been in the insolence of her splendid beauty.</p> + +<p>There are some women, very few (Johnson's fair friend, Sophy +Streatfield, was one), whom weeping does not disfigure. Their eyelids do +not get red or swollen; only the iris softens for a moment; and the +drops do not streak or blot the polished cheeks, but glitter there, +singly, like dew on marble; their sobs are well regulated, and follow in +a certain rhythm; and the heaving bosom sinks and swells, not too +stormily. It is a rare accomplishment. Miss Bellasys had not practiced +it often, being essentially Democritian—not to say Rabelaisian—in her +philosophy; but she did it very well. Like every other emotion, it +became her.</p> + +<p>Guy hardly glanced at her, and never answered a word.</p> + +<p>She rose to go; then turned all at once to try one effort more. "Yes, we +must part," she said. "I know it now. But give me a kind word to take +with me. I shall be so lonely, now that you are my enemy. Will you not +say you wish me well? Ah! Guy, remember all the hours that I have tried +to make pleasant for you. Say 'Good-by, Flora,' only those two little +words, gently." Her voice was broken and uncertain, but full of music +still, like the wind wandering through an organ.</p> + +<p>Just at that moment I opened the door. (I had not an idea Livingstone +was not alone.) I closed it before either had remarked my entrance, but +not before I had caught sight of a very striking picture.</p> + +<p>Guy was leaning one arm against the mantel-piece; the other was crossed +over his chest: on that arm Flora was clinging, with both her hands +clenched in the passion of her appeal. Her slight bonnet had fallen +rather back, showing the masses of her glorious hair, and all her +flushed cheeks, and her eyes that shone with a strange lustre, though +there were tears still on their long, trailing lashes. I saw the +impersonation of material life, exuberant and vigorous, yet delicately +lovely—the Lust of the Eye incarnate.</p> + +<p>He stood perfectly still, making no effort to cast her off. Had he done +so with violence, it would scarcely have evinced more repulsion than did +the expression of his face. There was no more of yielding or softening +in the set features and severe eyes than you would find in those of a +corpse three hours old, whose spirit has passed in some great anger or +pain. Can you guess what made him more than ever hard and unrelenting? +He was thinking <i>who</i> tried to win a kind farewell from him six months +ago, and utterly failed. Should her rival have this triumph, too, over +the dead?</p> + +<p>As he answered deliberately, each slow word shut out another hope, like +bolts shot, one by one, in the lock of a prison door.</p> + +<p>"I remember nothing of the past except your last act, for which I will +never, never forgive you. I form no wish for your welfare or for the +reverse. There shall not stand the faintest shadow of a connecting link +that I can break asunder. Between you and me there is the gulf of a +fresh-made grave, and no thought of mine shall ever cross it—so help me +God in Heaven!"</p> + +<p>Flora's last arrow was shivered: if she had had another in her quiver, +she would have had no courage to try it after hearing those terrible +words. She caught his hand, however, before he could guess her +intention, and pressed her lips upon it till they left their print +behind, and then she was gone. Her light foot hardly sounded as it +sprang down the stairs, but its faint echo was the last living sound +connected with Flora Bellasys that ever reached the ear of Guy +Livingstone.</p> + +<p>When I heard more of the interview, I thought, and think still, that he +erred on the side of harshness. He was so fixed and steady in his +purpose that he could have afforded to have compromised a little in +expressing it. But he did things in his own way, and fought with his own +weapons—effective, but hardly to be wielded by most men, like the axe +of the King-maker or the bow of Odysseus. In carrying out his will, he +was apt to consider the softer feelings of others as little as he did +his own. It was just so with him when riding to hounds: he went as +straight as a line, and if he did not spare his horses, he certainly did +not himself.</p> + +<p>To each man alive, one particular precept of the Christian code is +harder to realize and practice than all the rest put together. It was +this, perhaps, which drove the anchorites on from one degree of penance +to another, and made them so savage in self-tormenting. When the +macerated flesh had almost lost sensation, the thorn that had galled it +sometimes in their hot youth rankled incessantly, more venomous than +ever. That one injunction—"Forgive, as you would hope to be +forgiven"—was ever a stumbling-block to Guy.</p> + +<p>Besides all this, he knew, better than any one, what sort of an +adversary he was contending against; one with whom each step in +negotiation or temporizing was a step toward discomfiture. It was like +the Spaniard with his <i>navaja</i> against the sabre: your only chance is +keeping him steadily at the sword's-point, without breaking ground; if +he once gets under your guard, not all the saints in the calendar can +save you.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, then, he was right, after all. Certainly Ralph Mohun thought +so, as he listened to a sketch of the proceedings with a grim +satisfaction edifying to witness.</p> + +<p>As for me, before I went to bed that night, I read through those +chapters in the "Mort d'Arthur" that tell how the long, guilty loves of +Launcelot and Guenever ended. In the present case, there was certainly +wonderfully little penitence on the lady's side, but yet there were +points of resemblance which struck me. [I always think the queen must +have been the image of Flora.] It is worth while wading through many +chapters of exaggeration and obscurity to come out into the noble light +of the epilogue at last.</p> + +<p>Good King Arthur is gone. It bit deep, that blow which Mordred, the +strong traitor, struck when the spear stood out a fathom behind his +back; and Morgan la Fay came too late to heal the grievous wound that +had taken cold. The frank, kind, generous heart, that would not mistrust +till certainty left no space for suspicion, can never be wrung or +betrayed again. The bitter parting between the lovers is over too; and +Launcelot is gone to his own place, without the farewell caress he +prayed for when he besought the queen "to kiss him once and never more." +After a very few short months, the beautiful wild bird has beaten +herself to death against her cage, and the vision comes by night, +bidding Launcelot arise and fetch the corpse of Guenever home. She +wandered often and far in life, but where should her home be <i>now</i> but +by the side of her husband? Hardly and painfully in two days, he and +the faithful seven accomplish the thirty miles that lay between; so +utterly is that unearthly strength, before which lance-shafts were as +reeds, and iron bars as silken threads (remember the May night in +Meliagraunce's castle), enfeebled and broken down. He stands in the +nunnery-church at Almesbury; he hears from the queen's maidens of the +prayer that was ever on her lips through those two days when she lay a +dying, how "she besought God that she might never have power to see Sir +Launcelot with her worldly eyes." Then, says the chronicler, "he saw her +visage; yet he wept not greatly, but sighed. And so he did all the +observance of the service himself, both the dirge at night and the mass +on the morrow." Not till every rite was performed, not till the earth +had closed over the marble coffin, did Launcelot swoon.</p> + +<p>I know nothing in fiction so piteous as the words that tell of his +dreary, mortal sorrow. "Then, Sir Launcelot never after ate but little +meat, nor drank, but continually mourned until he was dead; and then he +sickened more and more, and dried and dwined away; for the bishop nor +none of his fellows might make him to eat, and little he drank; so that +he waxed shorter by a cubit than he was, and the people could not know +him; for evermore day and night he prayed; but needfully as nature +required, sometimes he slumbered a broken sleep; and always he was lying +groveling on King Arthur's and Queen Guenever's tomb. And there was no +comfort that his fellows could make him; it availed nothing."</p> + +<p>We know it can not last long; we know that the morning is fast +approaching, when they will find him "stark dead, and lying as he had +smiled;" when they will bear him forth, according to his vow, to his +resting-place in Joyous Guard; when there will be pronounced over him +that famous funeral oration—the truest, the simplest, the noblest, I +think, that ever was spoken over the body of a sinful man.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"I pray God pardon me,</div> +<div class='i8'>That I no more, without a pang,</div> +<div class='i9'>His choicest works can see."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>It was long before Livingstone's health recovered the check to its +improvement given by that interview. However, as the spring advanced he +began to regain strength rapidly, and toward the end of May he and I +started in the <i>Petrel</i>, which he had just bought, for a cruise in the +Mediterranean.</p> + +<p>It would seem hard that any one, coasting for the first time along the +shores of Italy, and penetrating ever and anon far into the interior, +should not feel and display some interest in the succession of pictures, +of living Nature and dead Art, that meet you at every step. I can not +say that I ever detected the faintest symptom of such in my companion. +He strayed with me through the old Forum, and through Adrian's Villa, +and lingered by the Alban Lake; but it was more to keep me in +countenance than any thing else. I liked them better this second time of +seeing them than I did the first; I doubt if they left an impression on +his mind equal to the dimmest photograph that ever was the pride of an +amateur and the puzzle of his friends. The brilliant landscapes made up +of bold headlands, hanging woods, and sunny bays fared no better. Guy +did not come on deck for two hours after we cast anchor off Mola di +Gaeta.</p> + +<p>Our <i>ciceroni</i> were much pained and scandalized at an indifference +which exceeded all they had yet encountered in the matter-of-fact +<i>Signori Inglesi</i>. I saw one of them look quite relieved when, after +quitting us, he had to listen to an excitable young Jewess endeavoring +to express her raptures in the most execrable Italian. The physical +effort it cost her was awful to witness, especially as she was wintering +in Italy for her lungs. O, long-suffering stones of the Coliseum! which +returned the most barbarous echo—the growls from the cells when their +tenants scented the Christian; the jargon of the Goth and the Hun; or +the <i>lingua Anglo-Romana in bocca Bloomsburiana</i>? The two first-named +classes, at all events, confined themselves to their own dialect, and +spoke it, doubtless, with perfect propriety. However, in the present +instance, the <i>custode</i> took the sentimental ebullition of the Maid of +Judah for an <i>amende honorable</i>, and rubbed his key complacently.</p> + +<p>I do not believe that our travels brought to Guy a single distraction to +the great sorrow that all the while held him fast.</p> + +<p>A German philosopher under similar circumstances would have written +reams and spoken volumes (eating and drinking all the while +Pantagruelically), theorizing and abstracting his emotions till they +vanished into cloud and vapor. A true disciple of Rousseau or Lamartine +would have analyzed his grief, dividing it into as many channels as +Alexander did the Oxus, till the main stream was lost, and each +individual rivulet might be crossed dry-shod. Both would have shed tears +perpetual and profuse. I read the other day of a Frenchman who, in the +midst of a mixed assembly, remembering that on that day ten years he had +lost a dear friend, instantly went out and wept bitterly. He was so +charmed with the happiness of the thought that, as he says, "I took the +resolution henceforth to weep for all whom I have loved, each on the +anniversary of their death."</p> + +<p>Can you conceive any thing more touching than the picture of the +Bereaved One consulting his almanac and then "going at it with a will?" +It <i>was</i> an athletic performance certainly; but remember what condition +he must have been in from the constant training.</p> + +<p>From the episode of Niobe down to the best song in the "Princess," how +many beautiful lines have been devoted to those outward and visible +signs of sorrow?</p> + +<p>Sadder elegiacs, more pathetic threnodies might have been written on the +tears that were stifled at their source, either from pride or from +physical inability to let them flow. Great regrets, like great schemes, +are generally matured in the shade. If I had to choose the tombs where +most hopes and affections are buried, I should turn, I think, not to +those with the long inscriptions of questionable poetry or blameless +Latinity, but to where just the initials and a cross are cut on the +single stone.</p> + +<p>The philosophical and poetical mourners hardly suffered much more than +Guy did during those months, and for long after too, though he was +always quite silent on the subject, and would speak cheerfully on others +now and then, and though, from the day that he parted with Constance to +that of his own death, his eyes were as dry as the skies over the Delta. +He used to lie for hours in that state of utter listlessness which +gives a reality to the sad old Eastern proverb, "Man is better sitting +than standing, lying down than sitting, dead than lying down."</p> + +<p>With all this, however, his health improved every day. After the wild +life he had led lately, the perfect rest and the clear pure air +refreshed him marvelously. It had the effect of coming out of a room +heated and laden with smoke into the cool summer morning. His strength, +too, had returned almost completely. I found this out at Baiæ.</p> + +<p>The guardian of the <i>Cento Camerelle</i>, a big <i>lazzarone</i>, became +inordinately abusive. My impression is that he had received about +fifteen times his due; but, seeing our yacht in the offing, he conceived +the idea that we were princes in our own country, and ought to be robbed +in his proportionally. Guy's eyes began to gleam at last, and he made a +step toward the offender. I thought he was going to be heavily visited; +but Livingstone only lifted him by the throat and held him suspended +against the wall, as you may see the children in those parts pin the +lizards in a forked stick. Then he let him drop, unhurt, but green with +terror. A year ago, a straightforward blow from the shoulder would have +settled the business in a shorter time, and worked a strange alteration +in good Giuseppe's handsome sunburnt face. But the old hardness of heart +was wearing away. I had another proof of this some days later.</p> + +<p>We were dropping down out of the Bay of Naples. Though we weighed anchor +in early morning, it was past noon before we cleared the Bocca di Capri, +for there was hardly wind enough to give the <i>Petrel</i> steerage-way. The +smoke from our long Turkish pipes mounted almost straight upward, and +lingered over our heads in thin blue curls; yet the sullen, discontented +heave and roll in the water were growing heavier every hour. The black +tufa cliffs crested with shattered masonry—the foundations of the sty +where the Boar of Capreæ wallowed—were just on our starboard quarter, +when Riddell, the master, came up to Livingstone. "I think we'd better +make all snug, sir," he said. "There's dirty weather to windward, and we +haven't too much sea-room." He was an old man-of-war's boatswain, and +had had a tussle, in his time, on every sea and ocean in the known +world, with every wind that blows. He had rather a contempt for the +Mediterranean, esteeming it just one degree above the Cowes Roads, and +attaching about as much importance to its vagaries as one might do to +the fractiousness of a spoiled child. If he had been caught in the most +terrible tempest that ever desolated the shores of the Great Lake, I +don't believe he would have called it any thing but "dirty weather." He +was too good a sailor, though, not to take all precautions, even if he +had been sailing on a piece of ornamental water; and he went quickly +forward to give the necessary orders, after getting a nod of assent from +Guy.</p> + +<p>The latter raised himself lazily on his arm, so as to see all round over +the low bulwarks. There was a blue-black bank of cloud rolling up from +the southwest. Puffs of wind, with no coolness in them, but dry and +uncertain as if stirred by some capricious artificial means, struck the +sails without filling them, and drove the <i>Petrel</i> through the water by +fits and starts.</p> + +<p>"I really believe we are going to have a white squall," Guy remarked, +indifferently. "Well, we shall see how the boat behaves. Riddell only +spoke just in time."</p> + +<p>Suddenly his tone changed, and he said, quickly and decidedly, "Hold on +every thing!"</p> + +<p>The master turned his weatherwise eye toward the quarter where the +danger lay, and frowned. "We're none too soon with it, Mr. Livingstone. +If there's a yard too much canvas spread when <i>that</i> reaches us, I won't +answer for the spars."</p> + +<p>Deeper and deeper the blackness came rushing down upon us, an angry +ridge of foam before it—the white squall showing its teeth.</p> + +<p>Guy took the old man by the arm, and pointed to an object to leeward +that none on board had remarked yet. It was a small <i>barca</i> with four +men in it. They were Capriotes, as we found afterward, the boldest +boatmen in the Bay. Had they been pure-bred Neapolitans, they would have +been down on their faces long ago, screaming out prayers to a long +muster-roll of saints. As it was, they stood manfully to their oars, +straining every muscle to reach us; there was no other safety for them +then. "They will never get alongside in time, unless we bear down to +meet them," Livingstone said, "and what chance will they have in ten +minutes hence?"</p> + +<p>Riddell was only half satisfied. His creed evidently was that a sailor's +first duty is to his own ship; but neither he nor any one else ever +argued with Guy. "As you like, sir," he grumbled, somewhat +discontentedly. "Keep her full, Saunders; we shall fetch them so."</p> + +<p>If a stitch of sail had been taken off our vessel she could never have +reached the <i>barca</i>, though her crew strove hard to meet us. She forged +down slowly enough as it was, but we were just in time to take them on +board.</p> + +<p>"Reef every thing now!" Riddell shouted, leaping himself first into the +rigging like a wild-cat. "Cheerily, men—with a will!" All his ill-humor +was gone when the peril became imminent.</p> + +<p>We were strong-handed, and the four Capriotes did us seaman's service; +but it was "touch and go." The last man had scarcely reached the deck +when the line of foam was within half-cable's length. Then there came a +sound unlike any I had ever heard before in the elements, beginning with +a whistling sort of scream and deepening into a roar as of many angry +voices, bestial and human, striving for the mastery; and then the +<i>Petrel</i> staggered and reeled over almost on her beam-ends, in the midst +of a white boiling caldron of mad water. She recovered herself, however, +quickly, quivering and trembling as a live creature might do after +severe punishment; and we drove on, the strong arms at the wheel keeping +her well before the blast. In a very few minutes, I suppose (though it +seemed very long), I heard old Riddell say, "Sharp while it lasted, Mr. +Livingstone; but they're right to call it a squall. They've nothing down +here-away like a good right down hard gale."</p> + +<p>I looked up, clearing my eyes, blinded with the hissing spray, just as +Guy answered, coolly as ever. He had run his arm through a becket, and +did not seem to have moved otherwise, whereas I disgraced myself by +falling at full length as the squall struck us.</p> + +<p>"Ah! you've got difficult to please; it's always so when one sees so +much of life. Never mind, Riddell, the Mediterranean does its best, and +perhaps we'll go and try your tornadoes some day. Where's the <i>barca</i> +now?"</p> + +<p>Where? The eyes that could have told you that must have looked a hundred +fathoms deep. There was not the faintest vestige of such a thing to be +seen—not even a shivered plank. The poor Capriotes' "bread-winner" had +gone the way of Antonio's argosies—another whet to the all-devouring +appetite, for which nothing that swims is too large or too small.</p> + +<p>It was almost calm again when we landed the rescued men at Salerno; we +were glad to get rid of them, for their gratitude was overpowering, +especially as all the salt water that had soaked them could not disguise +the savor of their favorite herb.</p> + +<p>You may break, you may ruin the clay if you will, but the scent of the +garlic will cling to it still.</p> + +<p>Guy gave them enough to buy two such boats as they had lost—about as +much as one wins or loses in an evening's whist, with fair luck and +half-crown points.</p> + +<p>This incident showed the change that was coming over my companion. His +principle had always been that a man who could not help himself was not +worth helping. He never asked for aid himself, and never gave it to his +own sex, as a rule. I believe his rescuing me at B—— was a solitary +case, and I took it as a great compliment. You will say this one was +only an act of common humanity. If you had known the man, you would have +thought, as I did, that the words of her, who was an angel then, were +bearing fruit already.</p> + +<p>Nothing happened of the slightest interest as we ran down through the +Straits of Messina, and up the eastern coast of Calabria. We did not +stay to see Sicily then, for we had settled to be in Venice by a certain +day, to meet the Forresters.</p> + +<p>If I were to be seduced into "word-painting," the Queen of the Adriatic +would tempt me. I know no other scene so provocative of enthusiasm as +the square acre round St. Mark's. All things considered, the author of +the "Stones of Venice" seems very sufficiently rational and +cold-blooded.</p> + +<p>We can not all be romantic about landscapes. Nature has worshipers +enough not to grudge a few to Art. For myself, admiring both when in +perfection, I prefer hewn stones to rough rocks—the Canalazzo to <i>any</i> +cascade. The glory of old days that clings round the Palace of the Doges +stands comparison, in my mind's eye, with the Iris of Terni.</p> + +<p>But why trench on a field already amply cultivated? I will never +describe any place till I find a virgin spot untouched by Murray, and +then I will send it to him, with my initials. Does such exist in Europe? +"Faith, very hardly, sir." <i>Nil intentatum reliquit.</i> What obligations +do we not owe to the accomplished compilers? Rarely rising into poetry +(I except "Spain"—the field, and bar one), never jocose, they move on, +severe in simplicity, straight to their solemn end of enlightening the +British tourist. Upright as Rhadamanthus, they hold the scales that +weigh the merits of cathedrals, hotels, ruins, guides, pictures, and +mountain passes, telling us what to eat, drink, and avoid. Let us repose +on them in blind but contented reliance.</p> + +<p>I heard of one man, clever but eccentric, who became so exasperated at +seeing the volumes in every body's hand, and hearing them in every +body's mouth, that he conceived a sort of personal enmity to them, +impiously dissenting from their conclusions and questioning their +premises. The well-known red cover at last had the same effect on him as +the scarlet cloak on the bull in the <i>corrida</i>, making him stamp and +roar hideously. The angry gods had demented him. <i>Væ misero!</i> How could +such sacrilege end but badly? Braving and deriding the solemn warning of +the prophet, he attempted a certain pass in the Tyrol alone, and, losing +his way, caught a pleurisy which proved fatal. He died game, but, I am +sorry to say, impenitent, speaking blasphemy against the book with his +last breath. <i>Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere—</i></p> + +<p>Such heresy, be it far from me! If I had my will, I protest I would +found a "Murray's Traveling Fellowship" in one or both of the +Universities. If I had the poetic vein, I would indite a pendant to +Byron's iambics to that enlightened bibliopole. He published "Childe +Harold," and the Hand-book to Every Where. Could one man in one century +do more for the Ideal and the Real?</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"Sweetest lips that ever were kissed,</div> +<div class='i9'>Brightest eyes that ever have shone,</div> +<div class='i8'>May sigh and whisper, and <i>he</i> not list,</div> +<div class='i8'>Or look away, and never be missed</div> +<div class='i9'>Long or ever a month be gone."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>It was a very curious <i>ménage</i> that of the Forresters'. They were +wonderfully happy, yet you could not call theirs <i>domestic</i> felicity. +They went out perpetually every where, and were scarcely ever alone +together at home. Tho cold-water cure of matrimony had not been able to +cool either down into the dignity and steadiness befitting that +honorable state. As far as I could see, Charley flirted as much as ever; +the only difference was, that he stole upon his victims now with a sort +of protecting and paternal air, merging gradually, as the interest +deepened, into the old confidential style. The whole effect was, if any +thing, more seductive than before.</p> + +<p>The fair Venetians admired him intensely. His bright, clear complexion +and rich chestnut hair had the charm of novelty for them. Though without +the faintest respect for grammar or idiom, he spoke their language with +perfect composure, confidence, and self-satisfaction, and his tones were +so well adapted to the slow, soft, languid tongue, that his blunders +sounded better than other men's correctness of speech. <i>Mallem +mehercule cum Platone errare</i>. When he said "<i>Si, Siora</i>," it seemed as +if he were calling the lady by a pet name.</p> + +<p>Isabel did a good deal of mischief too in her unassuming way, but I +think she confined her depredations chiefly to her compatriots.</p> + +<p>The best of it was, that neither objected in the least to the other's +proceedings, appearing, indeed, to consider them rather creditable than +otherwise. Perhaps it would be as well if this principle of reciprocal +free agency were somewhat extended, though not quite to the latitude to +which they carried it.</p> + +<p>We can not send our wives about surrounded by a detachment of semiviri +to keep the peace; our climate is too uncertain, and influenza too +prevalent, for us to watch their windows ourselves, as they do at Cadiz. +Fancy mounting guard in Eaton Square at 4 P.M., shrouded in a yellow +fog, on the chance of surprising a forbidden morning visitor!</p> + +<p>Supposing that we could adopt either of those methods, why should they +prove more efficacious than they are said to be on their native soil? If +the British husband will allow nothing for the principles, charitably +supposed by others to be inherent in the wife of his bosom—nothing for +the Damoclean damages hanging over the imaginary plotter against his +peace—why should he depreciate his own merits and powers so completely +as to consider himself out of the lists altogether? If he would only +desist from making himself consistently disagreeable, I believe, in most +cases, his substantial interest would be little endangered.</p> + +<p>That poor Hephæstus! The net was an ingenious device, and a pretty +piece of workmanship, but—it didn't answer.</p> + +<p>In despite of Mrs. Ellis, there are women whose mission it is <i>not</i> to +be good housewives; they can't be useful if they would, any more than +May-flies can spin silk. Like them, they can attract fish (and sometimes +get snapped up if they go too close), that's all. If you marry them, you +must accept them as they are, and take your chance. Be generous, then, +and don't stop their waltzing. I believe there may be flirting without +the most distant idea of criminality—fencing with wooden foils, where +no blood is drawn.</p> + +<p>A lady was asked the other day "what she did when an admirer became too +lover-like." Her answer was, "I never had such a case." I think she +spoke the truth; yet she was a coquette renowned through a good part of +two hemispheres.</p> + +<p>As for the doubts and fears of the other sex, the subject is too vast +for me. To the end of time there will be Deianiras (with imaginary +Ioles), Zaras, and Mrs. Caudles. Tragedy and comedy have tried in vain +to frighten or to laugh them out of the indulgence of the fatal passion, +that wreaks itself indiscriminately on the beat and the worst, the +youngest and the oldest, the simplest and the most guileful of adult +males. Let us not attempt to argue, then, but, wrapping ourselves in our +virtue, endure as best we may the groundless reproaches and accusations +of our ox-eyed Junos.</p> + +<p>We <i>did</i> Venice very severely, with the exception of Forrester, who, +after strolling once through the Palace of the Doges (a pilgrimage +interrupted by many halts and profuse lamentations), declined seeing any +thing more than what he could view from his gondola. I never saw any +one so completely at home in that most delicious of conveyances. His +Venetian friends encouraged and sympathized with him in his laziness, +and pitied him with eyes and words, forever being teased about it. +Indeed, he was generally left alone; but one day we were landing to see +a church of great repute, and Miss Devereux made a strong appeal to him +to follow her. She was a handsome, clever girl, a great favorite of +Charley's. I believe they used to quarrel and make it up again about six +times in every twenty-four hours. We saw that it was hopeless, but she +was obstinate enough to try and persuade him.</p> + +<p>"Now, Captain Forrester, you must come. I have set my heart upon it."</p> + +<p>He lifted his long eyelashes in a languid satisfaction. "Thank you very +much; I like people to be interested about me; but you see it's simply +impossible. Look at Rinaldo; there's a sensible example for you. He +doesn't mean to stir till he is obliged to do so." The handsome +gondolier had already couched, to enjoy a bask in the sun, which was +blazing fiercely down on his brown face and magnificent black hair.</p> + +<p>"There is the most perfect Titian," she persisted.</p> + +<p>"No use. I should not appreciate it," he replied. "I have been through a +gallery <i>with you</i> before. It's a delusion and a snare. I never looked +at a single picture. The canvas won't stand the comparison."</p> + +<p>"I did not think you would have refused me," Miss Devereux went on, +"particularly after last night, when you were so very—amusing." She +hesitated out the last word with a blush. It evidently was not the +adjective that ought to have closed the sentence.</p> + +<p>"Amusing!" replied Charley, plaintively. "You need not say any more. I +am crushed for the day. I meant to be especially touching and pathetic. +Well, there's some good in every thing, though. I entertained an angel +unawares."</p> + +<p>"I shall know how far to believe you another time, at all events," she +retorted, getting rather provoked.</p> + +<p>"Don't be unjust," said Forrester, profoundly regardless of the fact +that his wife was within three paces of them. "I said I was ready to die +for you. So I am. You may fix the time, but I may choose the place. If +you insist upon it, I'll make an end of it now—here." And he settled +himself deeper into the pile of cushions.</p> + +<p>We had no patience to listen to any more, but went off to perform our +duty. Long before he had exhausted his arguments against moving, we had +returned. Margaret Devereux missed seeing the church and its Titian, but +she got a "great moral lesson." She never wasted her pretty pleadings in +such a hopeless cause again.</p> + +<p>I remember, when we mounted the Campanile, the solemn way in which he +wished us <i>buon viaggio</i>. When we reached the top, we made out his +figure reclining on many chairs in front of "Florian's."</p> + +<p>He saw us, too, and lifted the glass before him to his lips with a wave +of approval and encouragement, just as they do at Chamounix when the +telescopes make out a few black specks on the white crests of the +mountain. When we came down, he stopped us before we could say one +word. "Yes, I know—it was magnificent. Bella, I see you are going to +rave about the view. If you do, I'll shut you up for a week <i>en +penitence</i>, and feed you on nothing but 'Bradshaw' and water."</p> + +<p>We spent a very pleasant month in Venice. It did Guy good being with the +Forresters. He had always been very fond of his cousin, and she seemed +to suit him better than any one else now. She would sit by him for +hours, talking in her low, caressing tones, that soothed him like a cool +soft hand laid on a forehead fever-heated. Isabel was not afraid of him +now, but a great awe mingled with her pity.</p> + +<p>It is curious, and tells well perhaps for our human nature; neither +pride of birth, nor complete success, nor profound wisdom, surrounds a +man with such reverence as the being possessed with a great sorrow. At +least no one can envy him; and so those who were his enemies once—like +the gallant Frenchman when he saw his adversary's empty sleeve—bring +their swords to the salute, and pass on.</p> + +<p>At last we started for Rome, our party nearly filling two carriages. +There are only two ways of traveling: in your own carriage, with courier +and fourgon, like Russian or transatlantic noble, or with vetturino. +This last mode, which was ours, is scarcely less pleasant, if you are +not in a hurry. The charm of having, for a certain period, every care as +to ways and means off your mind, compensates for the six-miles-an-hour +pace. So we moved slowly southward through Verona, where one thinks more +of the Avon than the Adige—where, in tombs poised like Mohammed's +coffin, the mighty Scagliari sleep between earth and heaven, as if not +quite fit for either—where are the cypresses in the trim old garden, +soaring skyward till the eyes that follow grow dizzy, the trees that +were green and luxuriant years before the world was redeemed. So through +Mantua and Bologna down to Florence, where, I think, the spirits of +Catharine and Cosmo linger yet, the women and the men all so soft-toned, +and silky, and sinful, and cruel. We did not stay long there, for we had +all visited it before once or twice, but kept on our way, by the upper +road, to Rome, till we reached our last halting-place—Civita +Castellana.</p> + +<p>We were gathered round the wood fire after dinner (for the October +evenings grew chilly as they closed in); I don't know how it was that +Forrester began telling us about their flight.</p> + +<p>"You ought to have seen Bella's baggage," he said, at last; "it was so +compact. You can't fancy any thing so tiny as the <i>sac de nuit</i>. A +courier's moneybag would make two of it. Then a vast cloak, and that's +all. Quite in light marching order."</p> + +<p>"I wonder you are not ashamed to talk about baggage," his wife retorted. +"When we got to Dover, there was his servant with four immense +portmanteaus and a dressing-case nearly as large, waiting for us. Was it +not romantic?"</p> + +<p>"Bah!" Charley said. "A man must have his comforts, even if he is +eloping. I am sure I arranged every thing superbly. I don't know how I +did it—an undeveloped talent for intrigue, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Was it not kind of him to take so much trouble?" Isabel asked, quite +innocently, and in perfect good faith, I am sure; but her husband +pinched the little pink ear that was within his reach.</p> + +<p>"She means to be sarcastic," he said. "You've spoiled her, Guy. If I had +had time to deliberate, though, I don't think I should ever have come to +the post. I wonder how any one stands the training."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what would have suited you exactly," Livingstone +remarked—"to have been one of those men in the Arabian Nights, who wake +and find themselves at a strange city's gate, 10,000 leagues from home, +to whom there comes up a venerable vizier, saying, 'My son, heaven has +blessed me with one daughter, a very pearl of beauty; many have sought +her in marriage, but in vain. Your appearance pleases me, and I would +have you for my son-in-law.'"</p> + +<p>"Exactly," said Forrester. "I should not have minded turning out +somebody else's child eventually—(they all did that, didn't they?)—for +such a piece of luck as to be taken in and done for off-hand, without +the trouble of thinking about it."</p> + +<p>Instead of looking vexed, Isabel laughed merrily, and her eyes glittered +as they rested on him, full of a proud, loving happiness.</p> + +<p>"The best of it was," Charley went on, "she was in the most dreadful +state of alarm and excitement all the way to Dover, looking out at every +station, under the impression that she should see the bridegroom there, +'dangling his bonnet and plume' (though how he was to have got ahead of +us, unless he came by electric telegraph, does not appear). What sport +it would have been! I should have liked so to have seen the 'laggard in +love' once more."</p> + +<p>"He was not quite <i>that</i>," Isabel interrupted, rather mischievously.</p> + +<p>"Ah! I dare say you kept him up to the traces," her husband remarked, +languidly. "You have a talent that way. What 'passages,' as Varney +called them, there must have been, eh! Guy? We won't hear your +confession now, Puss. In pity to Mademoiselle Agläe's eyes (which are +very fine), if not to your own (which are very useful), I think you had +better go to bed. That ferocious vetturino will have us up at unholy +hours, and is not to be mitigated."</p> + +<p>We sat talking for a little while after Isabel left us; then Forrester +rose and strolled to the window. The flood of light that poured in when +he drew the curtain was quite startling, making the three beaked oil +lamps look smoky and dim.</p> + +<p>"I shall smoke my last cigar <i>al fresco</i>," Charley said; "I suppose it's +the correct thing to do, with such a moon as that. Won't you come, Guy? +I must not tempt you out into the night air, Hammond."</p> + +<p>"Not to-night," Livingstone answered. "I am not in the humor for +admiring any thing. I should be rather in your way."</p> + +<p>One of his gloomy fits was coming over him, at which times he always +chose to be alone.</p> + +<p>"Well, I shall go and consume the 'humble, but not wholly heart-broken +weed of every-day life,' as Tyrrell used to say. (Don't you remember his +double-barreled adjectives?) If you hear any one singing <i>very</i> sweetly, +don't be alarmed; you'll know it is the harmless lunatic who now +addresses you; the fit won't last more than an hour. We shall be in Rome +to-morrow. The only thing on my mind now is whether I shall find any +thing there to carry me across the Campagna. K—— has a very fair pack, +I understand, and no end of foxes."</p> + +<p>Have you ever watched the completion of a photograph, when the nitrate +of silver (or whatever the last lotion may be) is applied? First one +feature comes out, that you may indulgently mistake for a tree, or a +gable-end, or a mountain top; then another, till the whole picture +stands out in clear, brilliant relief.</p> + +<p>Just so when I recall that scene—little heed as I took at the time of +them—every gesture, and look, and tone of Forrester's becomes as +distinct as if he stood in the body before me now. I can see him +standing in the shadow of the doorway, the red glare from the blazing +wood with which he was lighting his cigar falling over his delicate +features and bright chestnut hair—I can hear his kind soft voice as he +speaks these last two words, "<i>Al rivederci</i>."</p> + +<p>Whether that wish will be accomplished hereafter, God alone can tell; if +so, it must be beyond the grave. In life we never saw him any more.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"But time at length makes all things even,</div> +<div class='i8'>And if we do but bide the hour,</div> +<div class='i8'>There never yet was human power</div> +<div class='i9'>That could evade, if unforgiven,</div> +<div class='i8'>The patient search and vigil long</div> +<div class='i8'>Of him who treasures up a wrong."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>Three quarters of an hour later, Guy was sitting in his room, gazing at +the embers on the hearth, in the attitude of moody thought that of late +he was apt to fall into. Suddenly there came a timid knock at his door. +When he opened it, his cousin stood on the threshold—ghost-like, +against the background of darkness, with her white dressing-gown, pale +cheeks, and long hair unbound.</p> + +<p>"Guy, don't be angry," she said; "it's very foolish of me, I know; but +Charley has not come in yet, and just now I am certain there was a shot +quite near. Agläe heard nothing, but I did. You know he always carries a +pistol. I made him do so. It is nothing, I am sure; but I am so +frightened. If you would—"</p> + +<p>She tried to smile, but that ghastly look of terror that he had seen +once before, long ago, in the library at Kerton Manor, again swept over, +and possessed all her face like a white chill mist.</p> + +<p>"Don't be absurd, you silly child," Guy said, kindly. "Of course I'll go +out directly, and bring him in in five minutes, to laugh at you. Now go +back to your room; there's nothing on earth to be alarmed about."</p> + +<p>But the instant she had gone, I heard his voice quick and stern: "Frank, +come here." There was a door of communication between our rooms, and, +though it was closed, I had caught some words of this conversation, so I +was ready nearly as soon as he. Guy only staid to take a short +lance-wood club, headed with a spiked steel head, which was his constant +traveling companion—a very simple weapon, but deadly in his hands as +the axe of Richard the King—and then we sallied out, taking our +servants and some other men that were below, with torches, in case the +moon should fail us unexpectedly.</p> + +<p>Twice, three times, when we had gone a short distance, Livingstone +shouted Forrester's name. His powerful voice rang far through the +ravines, and struck against the rocks, rolling and reverberating in +their hollows like a blast fired in a deep mine; but no answer came.</p> + +<p>I looked at my companion very nervously. He never spoke, but I saw him +gnaw his under lip till the blood ran down.</p> + +<p>We had gone a hundred paces or so farther along a narrow path outside +the town. On our right the cliff fell almost abruptly toward the river. +Guy was a few paces in front, when suddenly there broke from his lips +such a sound as I have never heard from those of any mortal before or +since.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to describe it. It was utterly involuntary, as if some +spirit had spoken within the man—a cry of horror and of unspeakable +wrath, such as might have burst from the chest of one of the Old-World +giants, when the rock fell from heaven that crushed him like a worm. The +Italians, used to every tone that can express passion, shrunk and +cowered back in terror.</p> + +<p>Our eyes all followed the direction of his, that were staring down upon +a flat open space, clear from brush-wood, down in the hollow on our +right. Our search was ended, and we knew it. The moon, that flickered +and quivered elsewhere through bough and brake, settled there steadily +on a single white spot.</p> + +<p>In all the world there is but one object on which she can cast so +ghastly a reflection—a dead man's face.</p> + +<p>Guy recovered himself first, and plunged recklessly down the cliff side. +When we reached him, he was supporting on his knee the head of poor +Charley Forrester, stone dead, and foully murdered.</p> + +<p>The first glance told how unavailing all human aid must be. One small +deep wound just above the left temple must have been fatal instantly. +Close by his side lay the instrument of the slaughter—a thin, +triangular piece of granite—and, ten paces off, his pistol, one barrel +discharged. His watch and (as we afterward found) his purse were gone, +but an emerald ring of great value was still untouched on his finger.</p> + +<p>I staggered back, heart-sick and faint. When I recovered I saw dimly the +group of men, awe-stricken and whispering, and Guy still gazing down at +the face that rested on his knee, as if it fascinated his eyes. I could +not bear to look upon the piteous sight. All through the bright hair the +dark blood had soaked, and a slow stream was stealing through it still; +the fair features were all defaced and deformed with the wrath and +agony of the last mortal struggle. Yet I do remember that, if any one +definite expression still lingered there, it was bitter contempt and +scorn.</p> + +<p>"In God's name, sir, what is to be done?" It was Hardy who spoke, poor +Forrester's own servant, the only Englishman among our attendants. He +was choking, and could hardly gasp out the words.</p> + +<p>Livingstone rose slowly, first pillowing the mangled head on a soft tuft +of moss, tenderly as if it were conscious still. His nature was such +that no shock, or pain, or sorrow to which humanity is liable, could +bend or quell it, so as to deprive him, beyond a brief instant, of +self-possession and calmness. It was not insensibility now, and hardly +stoicism, but an elasticity of resistance and strength of endurance +that, in my own knowledge, have never been matched. In history or in +Indian life you might find many parallels.</p> + +<p>He answered quite steadily, though in a low tone, as if reverencing the +presence of the dead.</p> + +<p>"There is no hope. It is useless to send for a surgeon. Hardy, you will +take all the men whom you can collect and scour the country. Send to the +<i>sbirri</i> immediately; they will go with you. There must be traces of the +murderer. Frank, will you see that—he—is brought carefully to the +house? I will"—he stopped, and drew a long, hard breath—"I will go and +break it to Isabel." His hand, that happened to touch mine as he spoke, +was damp and icy cold.</p> + +<p>In his life Guy Livingstone had done and dared more than most men, but +he never ventured on any thing so thoroughly brave, and valiant, and +strong-hearted as when he left me, without another word, on that +errand. For myself, though weak both in body and nerve, I swear I would +rather have gone up the breach at Badajoz with the forlorn hope, than up +that bank with the certainty before me of what awaited him.</p> + +<p>Trees overhanging, and high walls on either side, and the change from +the bright moonlight, made it so dark just as you approached the inn +that Guy scarcely saw a white figure crouching down a few paces from the +door till he was close upon it.</p> + +<p>He threw his arm round Isabel Forrester's waist before she could pass +him. Half his task was done; there was nothing to break to her now. She +understood all when she saw him come back alone.</p> + +<p>For a few moments, there they stood in the dark, no word passing between +them; the only sound was her quick panting, as she struggled in his +grasp, battling to get free.</p> + +<p>"Isabel," he said, at last, gravely, "come in; I must speak to you."</p> + +<p>No answer still, but the same desperate struggle to get loose. There was +a savage, supernatural power in her writhings that taxed even his +gigantic strength to hold her; as it was, he yielded unconsciously to +her impulse so as to recede some paces till they issued out into the +moonlight. He could scarcely recognize her features; they were all +working and contorted, the lips especially horribly drawn back and +tense. She bent her head down at last, and made her teeth meet in the +arm that detained her.</p> + +<p>Guy never flinched nor stirred, but spoke again in the same slow, +deliberate tone.</p> + +<p>"Isabel, come in. I swear that you shall see him when it is safe. They +are bringing him back now."</p> + +<p>She ceased struggling and stood straight up, shaking all over, straining +her eyes forward to the turning in the path where the torches began to +gleam.</p> + +<p>"Is he not dead, then?" she said, in a strange, harsh voice, utterly +unlike her own. Her cousin did not try to delude her; all the stern +outline of his face softening in an intense pity told her enough.</p> + +<p>Such a scream—weird, long drawn out, and unearthly, such as we fancy the +Banchee's—as that which pierced through my very marrow (though I stood +three hundred yards away, as if it had been uttered close at my ear), I +trust I shall never hear again.</p> + +<p>Then followed the contrast of a great stillness; for, as the last +accents died away on her lips, Isabel sank down, without a struggle, +into a dead swoon.</p> + +<p>A sad satisfaction came into Guy's face. "It is best so," he muttered; +"I hope she won't wake for an hour," and he carried her into the house. +They were trying to revive her, unsuccessfully, when I reached it with +those who bore the corpse on a litter of pine branches. By Guy's +directions, it was laid on his own bed; and there the Italian women +rendered the last offices to the dead man, weeping and wailing over him +as though he had been a brother or dear friend—only for his rare +beauty—even as the Moorish girls mourned over that fair-faced Christian +knight whom they found lying, rolled in blood, by the rock of Alpujarro.</p> + +<p>Soon they came to tell Guy that Isabel was recovering from her swoon. +She was hardly conscious when he entered the room, and he heard her +moaning, "I am so cold, so cold," shivering all over, though she was +warmly wrapped in cloaks and shawls.</p> + +<p>The village doctor, a mild, helpless-looking man, was sitting by her +bedside. He tried to feel her pulse just then, I suppose to show that he +could be of some use; but she shrunk away from him, and beckoned to her +cousin to come near. He motioned to the others to leave them alone, and, +kneeling down by her, took her hand in his.</p> + +<p>"Guy, dear," she said, "I know I have been so very wicked and ungrateful +to you; but you must not be angry. I have no one left to take care of me +but you, now. I will try to be patient; indeed, indeed I will." Her +voice was faint and exhausted, but as gentle as ever.</p> + +<p>He held her hand faster, and bent his forehead down upon it.</p> + +<p>"You are not wicked—only too weak to bear your sorrow. If I only knew +what to do to comfort you! But I am so rough and harsh, even when I mean +to be kind. I can say nothing, either. I suppose you ought to submit, +but I can not tell you how; it is a lesson I have never been able to +learn."</p> + +<p>"You can do this," she said. "Let me go to him. Ah! don't refuse. I will +be calm and good. Indeed I will. But I must go"—she sank her voice into +a lower whisper yet—"I have not kissed him to-night."</p> + +<p>There was something so unspeakably piteous in her tone and in her +imploring eyes, that had grown quite soft again, though no tears had +moistened them, that Guy could hardly answer her.</p> + +<p>"I did not mean to refuse you, dear," he said, at last. "I won't even +ask you to wait. If you are not strong enough to walk, I will carry +you."</p> + +<p>She rose slowly and painfully, as if her limbs were stiff with cold; but +she could stand, and walk with his arm round her; and so these two moved +slowly along the deserted passages toward the room where the corpse lay.</p> + +<p>There was nothing shocking in its appearance now. All the traces of +murder had been washed away, and they had arranged the silky chestnut +hair till it concealed the wound, and fell in smooth waves over the +white forehead. That sweet calm which will sometimes descend on the face +of the dead, even when their end has been violent—the sad <i>Alpen-gluth</i> +that comes only when the sun has set—was there in all its beauty. Save +that the features were somewhat sharper than in life, there was nothing +to mar their pure classical outline. It was well, indeed, that Guy held +her back two hours ago. If Isabel had looked on them then, I believe she +would have gone mad with terror, if not with sorrow. It matters much, +the expression of a face, when it is sure to mingle in our dreams for +many after years.</p> + +<p>Guy led her up to the bedside, and left the room as she sank down on her +knees. He remained outside the closed door, for he thought she might +need help if her strength failed suddenly; and I joined him there.</p> + +<p>For some time we heard only the quick, stormy sobs, and the kisses +showering down; then came the piteous, heart-broken wail that called +upon her husband's name; and then the great gush of tears that saved +her. After that there was a murmur, often broken off but always +renewed: we both bowed our heads reverently, for we knew the widow was +praying.</p> + +<p>She came forth at length, her head buried in her hands; but she could +walk to her room unassisted, and allowed them to undress her there, +without a word but thanks. Before long nature would have her way, and +she was sleeping quietly.</p> + +<p>While we were waiting the return of the men who had gone out in pursuit, +Livingstone went alone into the death-chamber. He staid there some +minutes. When he came out his face was paler than ever, and there was a +sort of horror in his eyes.</p> + +<p>He took my arm and led me into the room without speaking. "Do you see +that?" he asked, lifting the hair gently that fell over the left check +of the corpse.</p> + +<p>Distinctly and lividly marked on the waxen flesh were the five fingers +of a man's <i>open hand</i>.</p> + +<p>"Do you think that was a brigand's work?" he went on, his gripe +tightening till I could scarcely bear the pain. "They always strike with +a weapon or with the clenched fist. Shall I tell you whose mark that is? +Bruce's. If he did not murder him himself, he struck him after he was +dead."</p> + +<p>"Impossible," I said; "how could he? He has never—"</p> + +<p>Livingstone cast my arm loose somewhat impatiently. "We shall know all +some day," he growled, his whole face black with passion. "I am +convinced of it. If he's on earth I'll find him; and when I do, if I +show him mercy or let him go—" The imprecation that followed was not +less solemn and terrible because it was muttered to his own heart.</p> + +<p>"We must never let Isabel guess the truth," he said, when he became +calmer. "It would be worse than all. She would always think she had +caused this, and she has enough to bear up against already. God help +her!"</p> + +<p>Soon Agläe came to tell us that her mistress was asleep. The +Frenchwoman's first impulse had been to be hysterical and helpless; it +was only her terror of Guy prevailing over all others that made her, as +she was, very useful.</p> + +<p>He went to the door for an instant, and looked at Isabel. Dreamland was +kinder and pleasanter to her than real life, poor child, for there was a +smile on her lips that, when she was waking, would be long in visiting +them. How would ships or men ever last out if there were not some +harbors of refuge to rest in before going out into the wild weather +again? Truly she had won hers for the moment; it looked as if an angel +had come down to smooth, this time, instead of troubling the waters.</p> + +<p>The pursuers came back empty-handed; they had not come upon the faintest +trace, nor could they hear of any suspicious character having been seen +in the neighborhood.</p> + +<p>Guy betrayed no impatience when he heard this; but he went out himself +with some of the best men, and spent the rest of the night and all the +following morning on the quest. All to no purpose. He returned about +noon, with his companions quite fagged out; but fatigue and +sleeplessness seemed to have no grasp upon his frame.</p> + +<p>Isabel was up, and had been asking for him several times. When he saw +her, she offered no opposition to his wish to go on straight to Rome the +next day. Neither then nor at any future time did she ever ask for any +particulars of her husband's death.</p> + +<p>Her old child-like dependence and trust in her cousin had come back, and +all through the journey she was quite tranquil. It is true, we hardly +ever saw her face, for her veil was closely drawn. Her grief was not the +less painful to witness because it was so little demonstrative. Very old +and very young women, in the plenitude of their benevolence, are good +enough to sympathize with any tale of woe, however absurdly exaggerated; +but men, I think, are most moved by the simple and quiet sorrows. We +smile at the critical point of a spasmodic tragedy, complacently as the +Lucretian philosopher looking down from the cliff on the wild sea; we +yawn over the wailings of Werter and Raphael, but we ponder gravely over +the last chapters of the <i>Heir of Redclyffe</i>, and feel a curious +sensation in the throat—perhaps the slightest dimness of vision—when +we read in <i>The Newcomes</i> how that noble old soldier crowned the +chivalry of a stainless life, dying in the Gray Brother's gown.</p> + +<p>There were many at Rome who had known Forrester and loved him well, and +all these followed him to his grave. I do not think he had an enemy on +earth except the man who slew him.</p> + +<p>What are the qualifications of a general favorite? Good looks, good +birth, good-humor, and good assurance will do much; but the want of one +or more of these will not invalidate the election, nor the union of all +four insure it. It must be very pleasant to serve in the <i>compagnie +d'élite</i>. They have privileges to which the Line may not aspire. It does +not much matter what they do. Their victories make them no enemies, and +their defeats raise them up hosts of sympathizers and apologists. When +they err gravely, if you hint at the misdemeanor, a "true believer" +looks at you indignantly, not to say contemptuously, and says, "What +could you expect? It's only poor—" Yes, it is a great gift—Amiability; +and when the possessor dies, it is profoundly true that better men might +be better spared.</p> + +<p>Very soon Raymond came to take his daughter back to England. That calm +old calculating machine was more deranged and shocked by the catastrophe +than I should have thought it possible he would have been by any earthly +disaster. He was getting older now, and more broken, it is true, and so, +perhaps, was more accessible to the weakness of sympathy. At all events, +nothing could be kinder and more considerate than his conduct to Isabel.</p> + +<p>Guy and I still lingered on in Rome. He was untiring in his researches, +but quite unsuccessful. Yet it was not that the police were remiss, or +the country people inclined to shield the murderer. The best of them +would have sold his own father to the guillotine for half the reward +offered by Livingstone, for he lavished as much gold in trying to clear +up that crime as in old days the Cenci or Colonna did to smother theirs. +At length we were forced to give it up, and returned home in the +<i>Petrel</i>. I own I despaired of ever being more successful; but my +companion evidently had not done so, for I heard him, more than once, +mutter to himself, in the same low, determined tone, "If he is on +earth, I'll find him."</p> + +<p>Immediately on our arrival, Guy went up to Bruce's home in Scotland. He +only learned that the latter had not been there for a long time; but +that some months back, Allan Macbane, a sort of steward and old +dependent of the family, had left suddenly, summoned, it was supposed, +by his master. More the people could not or would not tell.</p> + +<p>At his banker's it was discovered that, immediately after the +Forresters' marriage, he had drawn out a very large sum—not in letters +of credit, but in bank-notes—and had not been heard of since. After +much trouble, we did find out that one of the large notes had been +changed at Florence about the time of the murder, but the description of +the person did not answer in the least to that of Bruce or the man who +was supposed to be his attendant. All trace stopped there. So the months +rolled away. I constantly saw Guy, and sometimes was with him both in +town and at Kerton, where Isabel was staying with Lady Catharine. He +still appeared to have no doubt of the ultimate result of the search, +which, personally or by deputy, he never intermitted for a day.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i14'>"He threw</div> +<div class='i8'>His wrathful hand aloft, and cried 'Away!</div> +<div class='i8'>Earth could not hold us both, nor can one heaven</div> +<div class='i8'>Contain my deadliest enemy and me.'"</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>We were sitting in Livingstone's chambers one night in the following +March, and dinner was just over, when the detective was announced who +for months had been in Guy's pay and on Bruce's track.</p> + +<p>He was a stout, hale man, rather past middle age, with a rosy face, a +cheerful, moist eye, and full, sensual lips—just the proper person to +return thanks for "The Successful Candidates" at an agricultural +meeting. Originally of a kindly convivial nature, he had grown familiar +with crime till he despised it. The reward set upon the criminal's +capture was his only standard of guilt. He took a real pleasure in the +chase, I imagine, but had no preference for any game in particular, and +was quite indifferent whether the cover he had to draw was a saloon or a +cellar. He would hunt a fraudulent bankrupt or a parricide with equal +zeal, and, when he had caught him, be just as jocularly affable with the +one as with the other. In a drama of life and death, the fierce passions +of the actors were only so many gleams of light showing him where the +right path lay, for which assistance he thanked them heartily. The +foulest mysteries of the sinful human heart touched and shocked him no +more than the evidences of disease do the dissecting surgeon: with both +it was a simple question of defective organization. The possession of +secrets, far less weighty than some that he never told, have made men +look worn, and miserable, and gray; but he would pat his corpulent +leather pocket-book with a self-sufficient satisfaction, scarcely +hinting that the publication of its contents would have caused more +devastation in some well-regulated families than the bursting of a +ten-inch shell in their front drawing-room.</p> + +<p>His lips and eyes wore a smile pleasantly significant as he entered, +and, before he could speak, Guy leaped up, waving his hand high in +irrepressible triumph. "I told you so, Frank. I knew we should find him. +Come—come quickly." He was more excited than I had seen him in the last +dozen years.</p> + +<p>I exulted too, but I confess a certain repugnance and nervousness +mingled with that feeling: it was a new thing to me to stand face to +face with a murderer.</p> + +<p>Neither of us gave as much attention as it deserved to the narrative +with which the officer favored us <i>en route</i>, of how he had been +gradually getting the clew to the fugitive's many doublings and +disguises till he came upon his retreat at last. "They mostly make for +home when they're dead beat," he remarked, alluding to Bruce's having +selected London as his final hiding-place.</p> + +<p>We soon reached the spot—one of those dreary by-ways that trend +westward out of the Waterloo Road. As we drew up, the outline of a +figure revealed itself out of the darkest nook of the dim street, and a +man came forward and opened the door of the cab, interchanging a word +or two with our companion.</p> + +<p>As we got out, the detective laid his hand on Guy's arm. "Gently, sir," +he said. "You must be careful. We've not quite so much proof as I could +wish. It would be straining a point to arrest him as it stands. I'd do +it though—<i>for you</i>. Get him to talk, and don't hurry him; he's safe to +commit himself; and we'll nail him at the first word. My comrade says he +has not left his bed since yesterday. Perhaps he's ill. All the better. +We can frighten him if we get his man out of the way."</p> + +<p>Guy's hand was on the bell before the last words were said, and he rang +it sharply. The two officers drew back into the shadow.</p> + +<p>In a few moments an old man opened the door, whom we guessed to be +Bruce's attendant. He had one of those stubborn, rough-hewn faces that +even white hair can not soften any more than hoar-frost can the outline +of a granite crag.</p> + +<p>"What's ye're wull?" he drawled out, in the rugged Aberdeen Doric.</p> + +<p>"I wish to see Mr. Bruce."</p> + +<p>"No sic a pairson here," was the reply, accompanied by a vigorous effort +to close the door.</p> + +<p>A heavy groan, proceeding from a room on the ground floor, gave him the +lie as he spoke. Guy threw up his head like a hound breaking from scent +to view, and thrust Macbane back violently. The old man staggered and +fell; but he clung round Livingstone's knees, as he groveled, till he +was actually trampled down. There was a difficulty in the lock +somewhere; but bolt and staple were torn away in an instant by the +furious hand that grasped the handle, and so at last we stood in the +presence of the man we had sought so long.</p> + +<p>Do you remember that hideous picture in Hogarth's "Two Apprentices," +where the sleeping robber is alarmed by the crash in the chimney? That +was exactly Bruce's attitude. He had started into a sitting posture, and +was braced up on his hands, his face thrust forward, half covered by the +straight unkempt hair. What a face it was! White and flecked with +sweat-drops, marbled here and there with livid stains, the lips +quivering and working till they twisted themselves sometimes into a +ghastly mockery of a smile, the long teeth gleaming more wolfish than +ever. The iris of the prominent eyes had grown yellowish, and the whites +were bloodshot, so that the light seemed to flash from them <i>tawnily</i>.</p> + +<p>Bruce had always been very much afraid of Livingstone. His terror had +gone on increasing during months of relentless pursuit; it had reached +its climax now. Guy stood at the foot of the bed, contemplating the +unhappy wretch with a cruel calmness that seemed to drive him wild. He +writhed and cowered under the fixed gaze, as if it gave him physical +pain.</p> + +<p>"What are you here for?" he screamed out at last.</p> + +<p>In strong contrast to the shrill, strained voice, the answer came slow +and stern. "To arrest Charles Forrester's murderer."</p> + +<p>Then Bruce seemed to lose his head all at once, and began to rave. It is +impossible to transcribe the string of protestations, prayers for mercy, +and horrible blasphemies; but there was enough of self-betrayal to +complete the proof we wanted ten times told. The detective chuckled +more complacently than ever as he insinuated the handcuffs round +Macbane's wrists. Over all Bruce's cries, I remember, the old man's +harsh voice made itself heard, "Whisht, whisht, I tell ye, and keep a +quiet tongue; they canna harm ye." The other did not seem to hear him, +or to notice his removal by the officers, muttering, as he went, that +"we had driven his master mad, and were killing him."</p> + +<p>Livingstone waited patiently till the outbreak had spent itself; then he +said, "Get up, and come with us instantly. You shall finish your night +in Newgate."</p> + +<p>Tho sick man lay back for some moments with his eyes closed, panting and +evidently quite exhausted. When he opened his eyes there was a +steadiness in them which surprised us. He spoke, too, quite calmly. "I +do not mean to deny any thing, nor to resist, even if I could. I am +tired of running away; it is as well over; but I was taken by surprise +at first. Guy Livingstone, do you choose to listen to me for five +minutes? My head is clear now. I do not know how long it will last; but +I do know that, after to-night, I will never speak about Forrester's +death one word."</p> + +<p>"Will you tell me how you killed him?" Livingstone asked, controlling +his voice wonderfully.</p> + +<p>"That is what I wish to do," Bruce said. I believe he was glad of the +opportunity of showing us how much we had misjudged him in thinking him +harmless, for a curious sort of grin was hovering about his mouth. Guy, +whose eyes were bent down at the moment, did not see it, or the tale +would never have been told.</p> + +<p>"You know how you were all against me at Kerton," he began. "She did +not care for me then, perhaps; but I would have been so patient and +persevering that she must have loved me at last—only you never gave me +fair play. Ah! do you think, because I was ugly and awkward, I had no +chance?"</p> + +<p>"No; but because she knew you were a coward," Guy said.</p> + +<p>There was something grand in the utter indifference with which Bruce met +the insult.</p> + +<p>"You are wrong," he replied, coolly; "she did not know it. You all did, +and reckoned on my being long-suffering and inoffensive. I saw, at last, +what Forrester had done; yet I never guessed but that she would marry +me. I trusted to her father and her own fears for keeping her straight. +After marriage I would have tried still what great love and tenderness +could do. I meant—never mind what I meant—it's all over now. I was +nearly mad for a week after their flight. Then I became quite cool, and +I said, 'I will kill him myself.' And so I did. Mind, I swear, Allan +knew nothing of it till all was done. I thought I should be brave enough +for that. Fifty times during the months that I tracked them, always +changing my disguise, I nearly caught him alone; but each time I was +balked. Wherever they went, I watched under their windows for the chance +of his coming out; but I only saw—"</p> + +<p>He gnashed his teeth, and rolled over and over in a paroxysm of jealous +recollection. We guessed what he meant. Then he went on: "That night he +sauntered backward and forward for some time. I thought he would not go +far enough away, and I called to the devil to help me. He did; for, very +soon, Forrester walked straight down the path. I crept after him till +he had gone some hundred yards—my heart was beating so quickly that I +could hardly breathe—then I ran forward and stood before him. I had +taken off the black wig and beard that I always wore, and he knew me +directly.</p> + +<p>"'Mr. Bruce, I believe?' he said, raising his hat, just as if he had met +me by appointment.</p> + +<p>"'Yes,' I said. 'I have got you at last, as I wished.' I tried to speak +as steadily as he had done; but, as the moment for action came near, my +d——d cowardice made me stammer.</p> + +<p>"'I am not invisible, as a rule,' he replied. 'You, or any friend of +yours, might have found me long ago. You have been some time making up +your mind. It's that unfortunate constitutional—caution, I suppose. +Well, I'll meet you in Rome: it's more than you deserve.'</p> + +<p>"'You'll fight me here—now,' I said.</p> + +<p>"'I shall do nothing half so melodramatic,' he answered. 'I'll give you +a fair chance on the ground; but, if you do not move out of my path now, +I'll shoot you as I would any other disagreeable ruffian,' and he put +his hand into his breast, where, I knew, he carried a pistol.</p> + +<p>"I <i>was</i> brave then. I sprang in upon him all at once. 'You may shoot +now, if you like,' I said. 'I swear I am quite unarmed. But show <i>that</i> +to your wife when you go back,' and I struck him with my open hand."</p> + +<p>(I remembered the mark on the corpse's cheek, and looked at Guy eagerly. +I could not see his face, which was hidden by the curtain, but all his +lower limbs were shaking and quivering.)</p> + +<p>"I thought how it would be," Bruce went on; "he drew his hand out with +the pistol in it, but he only flung it over the bank—one barrel went +off in the fall—then we grappled. After wrestling for a minute or two +on the narrow path, we lost our footing and rolled down the rocks; +neither quitted his hold, but I fell uppermost and kept him down. He +struggled desperately at first; but when he found that I was much the +stronger, he lay quite still, looking up into my face. I said, 'It's my +turn at last. Do you think I'll let you off?'</p> + +<p>"He did not answer at first. I believe he would not till he had quite +recovered his breath; then he said, coolly, 'No, I don't. Finish it +quickly, if you can, that's all.' I would have delayed a little, to +enjoy my triumph, but I thought the pistol-shot might bring some one; so +I tightened my gripe on his throat, and looked round for a weapon. I +found none at first, and my purpose actually began to soften when I saw +him so helpless; but, as I relaxed my fingers, I heard him whisper to +himself, 'Poor Bella! we have been very happy: I wish we had more +time—' I got mad again directly. 'D—n you!' I cried out, 'I'll kill +you now, and marry her some day.' His old insolent smile came on his +lip. 'No you won't,' he said; 'you don't know how she hates you, and how +we have laughed—' He had no time to say more, for I found my weapon +then—a stone triangular and sharp-pointed like a dagger—and I struck +him over the temple with all my force. He gave one convulsive spring +that threw me clear of him, and never stirred again.</p> + +<p>"I did not repent when it was done; I have never repented since; I do +not now. I only thought how best to escape the consequences. I took his +watch and purse, that brigands might be suspected, and threw them into +the river a mile off. I robbed him of one thing more—this!" All his +haggard face was transfigured with a ghastly triumph as he opened a +small leathern case that hung round his neck, and held up before us two +locks of hair.</p> + +<p>There they were—the love-gift and the death-spoil—the memorials of +defeat and of victory, of foiled affection and of gratified hate—the +one, beguiled from Isabel by Bruce himself, with many earnest pleadings, +in the early days of their engagement; the other, torn from her +husband's temples before they were cold. The long light brown tress was +scarcely more soft and satin-smooth than the chestnut curl; but one end +of the last was matted, and discolored by a dark rusty stain—the stain +that, the Greek poet said, all the rivers of earth flowing in one +channel could never wash away—the testimony, to our ears mute enough +now, but which, perhaps, will make itself heard above the Babel of all +other cries at the Day of Judgment.</p> + +<p>The two tokens were twined together lovingly, as if they were sensitive +and conscious still. Bruce plucked them asunder: "I never can keep them +apart," he said, querulously. Then he put them back into the case +separately, and began to mutter to himself many words that I could not +distinguish.</p> + +<p>"Have you any thing more to say?" Livingstone asked. His lips were rigid +and compressed like a steel-trap, opening and closing mechanically. As +he spoke, he snatched the leathern bag from Bruce's hand and threw it +into the blazing fire.</p> + +<p>A sharp howl, like a flogged hound's, broke from the sick man as he saw +his treasure shrivel up in the flame. Then he began to whimper out all +sorts of incoherent supplications, crying "that we did not know how much +he had suffered before he killed Forrester, and since too; that he had +been cruelly used from the beginning; that he was very, very ill now; +would not we let him die in peace?" The tears were streaming down his +face. It was a sight of abasement that sent a shiver through one's +veins.</p> + +<p>Guy laid his hand on the miserable creature's shoulder. Though he +scarcely touched it, I saw the great muscles starting out on his arm +like ropes from the intensity of his suppressed emotion; his lower lip +trembled, but his tones did not in the least. I can give no idea of +their pitiless, deliberate ferocity.</p> + +<p>"Listen!" he said. "I told you before to get up and come with us—that +is my answer now. If you have life enough left to be carried to the +gallows-foot, you shall never cheat the hangman."</p> + +<p>Bruce looked up into the speaker's face for some moments. Gradually the +agonized appeal in his wild eyes died away into vacancy; an expression, +half cunning, half amused, stole over his face; and, leaning gently +back, he began pulling threads out of the coverlet, laughing low.</p> + +<p>The blood gushed from Guy's clenched hand as he struck it furiously +against the stone mantel.</p> + +<p>"By ——," he said, with a fearful oath, "he has escaped me, after all."</p> + +<p>It was so. The mind, worn and strained by the terrors of the long +pursuit, perhaps by remorse not acknowledged even to himself; and by the +last great effort at self-control, had given way at last—forever. God +had recorded his verdict, and no earthly court could try the criminal +again. Bruce is living now (and I dare say will outlive most of us, for +his bodily health is perfect), vicious sometimes, but never conscious; +hard to please, but easy to manage, so long as his attendant is a man, +and a strong one; accessible only to the one emotion which drove him +mad—physical fear.</p> + +<p>Livingstone called the officers; they came in with Macbane. The old man +pretended to be very wroth when he saw his master's state, but I believe +he rejoiced secretly. The credit of the family, with him, outweighed all +considerations of personal attachment, and he would think public +disgrace cheaply averted at any price.</p> + +<p>On our poor detective, perhaps, the blow fell heaviest; for, after some +time, Guy did come round to my idea, that no punishment we could have +brought about would have been so ample and terrible; but Mr. Fitchett +could not see it in that light at all. Not only was the termination of +the affair dreadfully unprofessional, but the little triumph he had +anticipated at the trial was spoiled. If human weakness ever could touch +this great man, it was when he heard the judge pay a compliment to "the +sagacity and zeal of that most efficient officer." On such occasions, +his bow of conscious merit abnegating praise was, I am told, wonderful +to see. After a few words of explanation, he glanced wistfully at Bruce, +and shook his head, like a broken-hearted Lord Burleigh. Then he +unloosed the handcuffs from Macbane's wrists, whistling all the while +softly a popular air, lively in itself, with a cadence so plaintive that +it might have been a penitential psalm. No romantic school-girl opening +the cage to her pet starling ever displayed more hesitation and +reluctance than Mr. Fitchett setting that grim old bird free.</p> + +<p>In truth, there was no evidence to attach to the servant, so we left him +and his master together. I could not have stood that room much longer. +The ceaseless complacent chuckle of the idiot, and his fearful grimaces +when he could not make the threads match, had the effect on my chest of +a nightmare. Very slowly and silently we walked home through the +darkness.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div class='i8'>"Be the day weary or never so long,</div> +<div class='i8'>At length it ringeth to even song."</div></div> +</div> + + +<p>There is little to chronicle in the events of the next few years. +Livingstone resided almost entirely at Kerton. He rode as hard, and +distinguished himself in all other field-sports as much as ever. But +even in these, his favorite pursuits, he had lost the intense faculty of +enjoyment which once seemed a part of his powerful organization.</p> + +<p>Do you remember that scene in the Νέκυια [Nekuia], where the Eidolon of +Achilles comes slowly through the twilight to meet his old brother in +arms? Not only are his form and features altered after so ghastly a +fashion that even the wanderer, wave-worn and travel-stained, looks +brilliant by comparison, but all his feelings are utterly and strangely +changed. Listen! He asks after the father from whom he parted when quite +a child; after the son, whom he never saw; but not one word of his fair +first-love—not one of her who was the passion of his manhood, whom he +bucklered once against ten thousand. He had rather hear of Peleus and +Neoptolemus than of Deidamia or Briseis. Of Polyxena, be sure that he +remembers nothing but that he was holding her hand when her brother slew +him. Will he ever forgive her that? Not if she could have made amends by +the sacrifice of ten lives instead of that one which she gave, +willingly, on Sigæum. Has ambition any hold on him either? Only to +breathe the fresh clear air above instead of that murky, heavy +atmosphere, he would resign the empire of the dead, and be a drudge to +the veriest boor. Yet once, if we remember right, he chafed fiercely +enough at a word of authority uttered by the King of Men. One of his old +tastes clings to him still—a very simple one. He has forgotten the +savor of Sciote and Chian wine; but—were it only for the sake of the +carouses they have had together—Odysseus will not grudge him another +draught out of the black trench. It is so long since be tasted blood!</p> + +<p>Guy was no more like his former self than the shadow was like the +substance of Pelides. He was not languid, but simply apathetic and +indifferent, so that one could not help being constantly struck by the +contrast between his moral and physical state: the latter was still the +perfection of muscular power.</p> + +<p>He was every thing that was kind to his mother, and to Isabel Forrester +too, who spent much of her time at Kerton, and whose health was very +delicate. If Lady Catharine could only have seen him more cheerful, she +would have been <i>too</i> happy. It was her great delight to try and spoil +him, as she used to do when he was a child—trying to suit his tastes to +the minutest shade. For instance, Guy was always finding in his own +rooms some new ornament or addition to their comfort. Indifferent as he +was to every thing, it was good in him that he never failed to remark +these instantly. You would not have thought a cold, haughty face could +light up so brilliantly as his mother's always did when he thanked her. +Poor lady! Those last few years were her summer of St. Martin—not the +less pleasant because winter was gathering already on the crests of the +whitening hills.</p> + +<p>There were a good many guests in the house at times, almost invariably +men, but none of the wild revels of the old days, very little hard +drinking, and no play to speak of.</p> + +<p>One thing was remarkable—the great eagerness Guy displayed to keep the +party together at night. He would engage us in arguments, and employ all +sorts of ingenious devices to prevent us from going to bed, so that it +became very trying to a weak constitution. I observed this to him one +night when the rest had gone.</p> + +<p>The slight flush left by the excitement of conversation was vanishing +rapidly from his cheeks, and a gray tinge was creeping over them like +that which we see on a sick man very near his end.</p> + +<p>"It is too bad to keep you up, and too selfish," he said; "but I find +the nights so long!"</p> + +<p>I left him without another word; but I lay long awake, haunted by that +haggard face and dreary eyes. I wish I did not see them so often still +in my dreams.</p> + +<p>There were changes in other houses besides Kerton Manor, and a vacancy +in the most luxurious set of chambers in the Albany.</p> + +<p>Duns, and rheumatic gout, and satiety had proved too much at last for +the patience of Sir Henry Fallowfield; so one night he preached his +farewell sermon in the smoking-room of the ——, in which he was +especially severe and witty on the absurdity and bad taste of a man +condescending to suicide under any circumstances. The next morning they +found him with—"that across his throat that you had scarcely cared to +see." The hand whose tremor used to make him so savage when he was +lifting a glass to his lips, had been strong and steady enough when it +shattered the Golden Bowl and cut the Silver Cord asunder.</p> + +<p>Whether he was looking death in the face while he uttered those last +cynicisms, and calculated on heightening the stage effect of the morrow, +or whether a paroxysm of pain drove him mad, as it had done better men, +who can tell? I think and hope the latter was the case, but—I doubt. +Though Sir Henry Fallowfield had never read Aristotle, he had studied, +all his life, the principles of the περιπέτεια [peripeteia].</p> + +<p>Godfrey Parndon no longer ruled over the Pytchley. He had backed his own +opinions and other men's bills once or twice too often, and had retired +temporarily into private life till he could get "his second wind." The +new M.F.H. was his complete contrast—pale-faced, low-voiced, mild-eyed, +and melancholy as a lotus-eater—one of the class of "weak-minded but +gentlemanly young men" that Tom Cradock used to ask his friends to +recommend to him as pupils. The farmers missed sadly Godfrey's bluff +face and stalwart figure at the cover-side, while the "bruisers" from +Leamington, and the "railers" from town, hearing no longer his great +voice, good-naturedly imperative, adjuring them to "hold hard, and not +to spoil their own sport," rode over the hounds rejoicing.</p> + +<p>Flora Bellasys was married.</p> + +<p>It was just the match I thought she would make. Sir Marmaduke +Dorrillon's possessions were vast enough to satisfy any ambition, and +his years put love out of the question.</p> + +<p>His friends had been as prophetic in their warnings as January's were, +but even, they never guessed what he would have to endure at the hands +of that cruel May. He tried very hard not to be jealous, but he could +not help being sensitive; and so, day by day, she inflicted on him the +<i>peine forte et dure</i>, "laying on him as much as he could bear, and +more." It was sad to see how the kind old man withered and pined away; +yet he never complained, and quarreled mortally with his best friend for +daring to compassionate him.</p> + +<p>He was so courteous, and gentle, and chivalrous; so conscious of his own +disadvantage in age; so generous in trusting her, and in hoping against +hope; so considerate in anticipating all her wishes and whims, that it +might have moved even Flora to pity. But her great disappointment had +strangely altered and imbittered her character. She was <i>quite</i> +merciless now, and never seemed really amused unless she was doing harm +to some one.</p> + +<p>It was not that her manner had become harsh or repellent, or even more +sarcastic; she wag to the full as fascinating as ever; but she was cool +and calculating in her caprices. She took pains to make the momentary +pleasure as exquisite as possible, that the after suffering might be +more terrible; just like that ingenious Borderer who fed his enemy with +all pungent and highly-seasoned dishes, and then left him to die of +thirst.</p> + +<p>Yet all the while her own feelings must have been scarcely enviable. +They say that great enchantresses, from Medea and Circe downward, have +generally been unhappy in their loves. Either they could not raise the +spirit, or it proved unmanageable; either their affection was not +returned, or its object was unfaithful at last. In the single case where +they put their science and their philtres aside, and were womanly, and +natural, and sincere; where, to gain or to keep their treasure, they +would gladly have broken their wand, they failed utterly, and found they +were only half omnipotent. The justice was retributive, but it was very +complete. Be sure, with those passionate natures, the honey of a +thousand triumphs never deadened the sting of the one discomfiture. +Suitors flocking from every shore and island of the Ægean never made +Sappho forget, for one hour, that stubborn impassible Phaon. No wonder +such are cruel and unjust to their subjects in after days. Poor innocent +Ægeus very often has to do penance for the infidelity of Jason.</p> + +<p>I have little more to tell, and that is of the sort that is best told +briefly.</p> + +<p>The hounds met one morning not far from Kerton. A three-days' frost had +broken up; but it was not out of the ground yet, making the "take-off" +slippery, and the north side of the fences dangerously hard. Livingstone +rode the Axeine that day. The chestnut was still his favorite, and the +crack hunter of three counties, though he had never lost his habit of +pulling.</p> + +<p>It was a large, straggling cover that we drew, but the fox went away +very soon. From the lower end of the wood a great pasture sloped down, +at the bottom of which was a flight of post-and-rails—very high, new, +and strong, with a deep cutting on the farther side. At one end of this +was an open gate, through which the whole field passed.</p> + +<p>The hounds were just settling to the scent, when I happened to turn my +head, and saw Livingstone coming down at the rails. He had got a bad +start, and saw that, by taking them straight in his line, he would gain +greatly on the pack, which was turning toward him.</p> + +<p>As the Axeine tore down the hill at furious speed, pulling double, it +was evident that neither he nor his rider had the remotest idea of +refusing.</p> + +<p>It was the last fence that either of them ever charged. As the chestnut +rose to the leap, his hind legs slipped; he chested the rail, which +would not break, and turned quite over, crushing Guy beneath him.</p> + +<p>I had seen the latter fall a hundred times without feeling the +presentiment that seemed to <i>tighten</i> round my heart as I galloped up to +the spot. Many others must have felt the same, for they let the hounds +go away without another glance, and some were before me there.</p> + +<p>The Axeine lay stone dead, with his neck broken, the huge carcass +pressing on the legs of his rider. Guy was quite senseless; his face of +a dull, ghastly white; there was a deep cut on his forehead; but we all +felt we did not see the worst. With great trouble we drew him from under +the dead horse. Still we could discover no broken bones or further +external injury. We dashed water over him. In a few minutes he opened +his eyes, and seemed to recognize every one directly, for he looked up +into the frightened face of the first whip, who was supporting him, and +said,</p> + +<p>"You always told me I went too fast at timber, Jack."</p> + +<p>I was sure, then, he was desperately injured, his voice was so weak and +changed.</p> + +<p>"Where are you hurt, Guy?" some one asked. I could not speak myself.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he said, looking down in a strange, bewildered way. "My +head and arm pain me; but I feel nothing <i>below the waist</i>."</p> + +<p>His lower limbs were not much twisted or distorted, but they bore a +horribly inert, dead appearance. There was not even a muscular quiver in +them.</p> + +<p>I saw the Squire of Brainswick turn his head away with a shudder and a +groan (he loved Guy as his own son), and I heard him mutter, "The +<i>spine</i>!"</p> + +<p>It was so, and Livingstone soon knew it himself. He sighed once, +drearily; but not a man there could have commanded his voice as he did +when he said,</p> + +<p>"You must carry me home, heavy as I am. My walking days are ended."</p> + +<p>We made the best litter we could of poles and branches; and I remember, +as we bore him past the carcass of the Axeine, he made us stop for an +instant, and dropping his hand on the stiff, distorted neck, stroked it +softly,</p> + +<p>"Good-by, old horse," he said. "It was no fault of yours. How well you +always carried me!" He never spoke again till we reached Kerton Manor.</p> + +<p>Isabel Forrester was fortunately out, but Lady Catharine met us on the +hall steps. She did not shriek or faint when she saw the horror, which +had haunted her for years, fulfilled there to the uttermost. She knelt +by her son when we laid him down, and wiped off a spot or two of blood +from his forehead, and then kept his hand in hers, kissing it often. We +had sent on before to warn the village doctor, and he visited Guy alone +in his room.</p> + +<p>Powell had been a surgeon's mate in his youth, and was serving under +Collingwood at Trafalgar when his ship stood first into action, and, +like a sovereign of the old days, led the van of the battle. There was +no shape of shattered and maimed humanity with which he had not been +familiar, and my last hope died away when I saw him come forth, +trembling all over, his rugged features convulsed with grief.</p> + +<p>"I saw him born," the old man sobbed out. "I never thought to see him +die—and die <i>so</i>!"</p> + +<p>Guy had received a mortal injury in the spine, though how long he might +linger none could tell.</p> + +<p>There broke from Lady Catharine's white lips one terrible heart-broken +cry—"If God would only take me first!" Then her self-control returned, +and she went into her son's room, outwardly quite calm.</p> + +<p>I have never tried to fancy what passed at the meeting of those two +strong hearts, after the one had been brought suddenly, face to face, +with an awful death, the other with a yet more awful sorrow.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2> + +<blockquote><p>"Ah! Sir Launcelot, there thou liest, that never wert matched of +earthly hands. Thou wert the fairest person, and the goodliest of +any that rode in the press of knights; thou wert the truest to thy +sworn brother of any that buckled on the spur; and thou wert the +faithfullest of any that have loved <i>paramours</i>: most courteous +wert thou, and gentle of all that sat in hall among dames; and thou +wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever laid spear in +the rest."</p></blockquote> + + +<p>When Powell's self-command gave way so completely after he saw the +nature of Guy's case, it was not because he knew it must end fatally, +but because his skill told him what fearful agonies must precede the +release. All the surgeons who were called in could do nothing but +confirm these forebodings. The colossal strength and vital energy of +Livingstone's frame and constitution yielded but slowly to a blow which +would have crushed a weaker man instantly. All the outworks were ruined +and carried, but Death had still to fight hard before he won the +citadel. I can not go through the details; I will only say that, +sometimes, none of us could endure to look upon sufferings which never +drew a complaint or a moan from him.</p> + +<p>Almost every pleasure has been discussed and dissected, but we know +comparatively nothing of the physiology of pain. There is no standard by +which to measure it, even if the courage and endurance of any mortal man +could enable him to analyze his own tortures philosophically. Was it not +always supposed that the guillotine is merciful, because quick in +annihilation? Look at Wiertz's pictures at Brussels. If his idea (shared +too, now, by many clever surgeons) be true, you will see the amount of a +long life's suffering exceeded by what seems to us a minute's agony. But +it is like the Eastern king's gaining the experience of fifty years by +dipping his head for a second in the magic water. For a soul in torment +there is no horologe.</p> + +<p>Of one thing be sure; the strong temperaments who enjoy greatly, suffer +greatly too—those who endure in silence, most of all. I think the +wolf's death-pang is sharper than the hare's.</p> + +<p>But Guy was not only patient, he was actually more cheerful than I had +seen him since Constance died. He liked to see his old friends, and to +hear accounts of their sport with hound and gun. To do these justice, +there was not one who would not give up, gladly, the best meet of the +Pytchley, or the shooting of the best cover in the county, to sit for +half a day in that sick-room. He talked, too, always pleasantly and +kindly to his mother and his cousin.</p> + +<p>Poor Isabel Forrester was quite broken down by this second blow. Next to +her dead husband, I believe, she loved Guy better than any one; not +unnaturally, for he had petted and protected her all her life long. She +could not help giving way, though she tried hard, for the sake of +others. It was piteous to see her, sitting alone for hours, gazing out +on the bleak winter landscape, while the tears welled slowly from under +her heavy eyelids.</p> + +<p>Foster, who was still at Kerton, came often to visit Livingstone. No +one could do him so much good. The curate was just as confident and +uncompromising in the discharge of his office as he was yielding and +diffident when only himself was in question. He was so honest, and +straightforward, and true—so free from rant or cant—so strong in his +simple theology, that Guy soon trusted him implicitly when he spoke of +the past and of the future that was so near. The repentance that was +begun by Constance's dying bed was completed, I am sure, on his own.</p> + +<p>"Frank," Guy said, one morning, suddenly, "I have written to ask Cyril +Brandon to come to me. He will be here to-day. It would make me very +happy if I could hear him say he forgave me."</p> + +<p>"Do you think you will succeed?" I asked, sadly; for I felt a nervous +certainty that the pain the interview must cost him would be unavailing.</p> + +<p>"I can not tell," he answered, firmly; "but Foster says, and I know, +that it is my duty to try. You may be present, if you like, on one +condition—you must promise, whatever he may say or do, not to interfere +by a look or a word."</p> + +<p>I did promise; but I looked forward with dread to Brandon's coming. In +an hour's time he was announced.</p> + +<p>It was the first time I had seen him; and I was much struck by the +mingled expression of suffering and ferocity that sat, like a mask, on +his worn dark face. I have seen its like but once—in a dangerous +maniac's. He walked straight up to Guy's couch without noticing me, and +stood there silent, glaring down on the sick man with his fiery black +eyes.</p> + +<p>"It is very good of you to come," Guy said; "I scarcely hoped you +would. I have wronged you, more deeply than any living man—so deeply +that I could never have dared to ask your forgiveness if I had not been +very near my death. Can you give me your hand? Indeed, indeed, I have +repented sorely."</p> + +<p>Brandon's hoarse tones broke in:</p> + +<p>"I came, because, years ago, to see this sight, to see you lying there +like a crushed worm, I would have sold my soul. Wronged me? Shall I tell +you what you have done? There was only one creature on earth I cared +for; that was my sister. All those years in India I had been fancying +our meeting. I came back, and found her dying; more than that, I found +her love turned away from me. You did <i>all</i> this. I tell you, I never +could get one of her old fond looks or words from her all the time she +was dying. She was only afraid of me. By hell! you stood between us to +the last. Do you know that she dragged herself across the room at my +knees—mine, who never refused to indulge her in a whim before—first to +be allowed to see you, and then to make me swear not to attempt your +life?"</p> + +<p>He stopped, gnashing his teeth.</p> + +<p>All Guy's features, wan and worn by pain, were lighted up with a +tenderness and joy inexpressible as he heard what his dead love had +borne and done for him. He would have hidden his face had he guessed how +its expression would exasperate Cyril's furious temper.</p> + +<p>"D—n you!" he howled out, like a madman, "do you dare to triumph?" and, +tearing off his glove, he struck Livingstone on the cheek with it a +sharp blow.</p> + +<p>A great shudder swept through every fibre of the maimed giant's frame, +in which sensation lingered still; the blood surged up to his forehead +and ebbed again instantly, leaving even the lips deathly white; he +raised his hand quickly, but it was only to warn me back; for, mild and +peaceable as I am, I leaped up then, as savage as Cain. With that hand +he caught Brandon's wrist. The latter stood with his eyes cast down, +sullenly—already, I am sure, horror at the act of foul cowardice into +which his passion had driven him was creeping over him—he did not try +to disengage himself. Had he done so, thrice his strength would not have +set him free.</p> + +<p>"I thank God, from my heart," Guy said, very slowly and steadily, "that, +if I meet your sister hereafter, I shall not shrink before her, for I +believe all I promised her has been kept. Listen! you would feel shame +to your life's end thinking that you had struck a helpless, dying +cripple. It is not so. You don't know what you risked. You were within +arm's-length, and at close quarters I could be dangerous still. Look."</p> + +<p>He took up a small silver cup that lay near, and crushed it flat between +his fingers.</p> + +<p>There was silence then; only Brandon's breath was heard, drawn hard and +irregularly, as if he was trying to throw off a weight from his chest.</p> + +<p>Guy looked up at him, and said very gently, holding out his hand, "Once +more, forgive me."</p> + +<p>Cyril answered in a thick, smothered voice,</p> + +<p>"I will not take your hand. I will never forgive you. But I forgive +Constance; for—I understand her now."</p> + +<p>He turned on his heel, and left the room without another word, still +with his head bent down, as if in thought. I gazed after him till the +door shut softly. Then I looked round at Guy. His head had fallen back, +and the features looked so drawn and changed that I cried out, thinking +he was dead. It was only a long, long swoon.</p> + +<p>Just another scene, and my tale is told.</p> + +<p>I was reading in Guy's room one evening. He had not spoken for some +time, and I fancied he was asleep. Suddenly he called to me,</p> + +<p>"Frank, come here—nearer. I have several things to say to you, and I +feel I must make haste. No, don't call any one. I said farewell to my +mother yesterday, and we must spare her all we can."</p> + +<p>In the presence of that sublime self-command, I <i>dared</i> not betray my +grief by any outward sign. I knelt down by his side silently.</p> + +<p>He went on in a voice that, though hollow and often interrupted by +failing breath, was perfectly measured and steady.</p> + +<p>"You can only be glad that the end has come at last, though it is well I +have had time to prepare myself. Am I ready now? I can not tell. Foster +says I ought to hope. I trust it is not wicked to say I do not <i>fear</i>. I +have sinned often and deeply; but He who will judge me created me, and +He knows, too, how much I have suffered. I do not mean from <i>this</i> (he +threw his hand toward his crippled limbs with the old gesture of +disdain), but from bitterness and loneliness of heart. More than all, I +am sure my darling has been pleading for me ever since she died. I will +not believe her prayers have been wasted.</p> + +<p>"I want to tell you what I have done. You know the direct line of my +family ends with me. I am glad it does. The next in succession would be +a cousin, who has taken to some trade in Edinburgh; a good man, I +believe—but he would not do here. So I have left Kerton to my mother +for her life, and then—to you. Hush! the time is too short for +objections or thanks, and death-bed gifts show little generosity. +Besides, I would have left it to Isabel, only it would be more a trouble +to her than any thing else. You will take care of every thing and every +body. Say farewell for me to my old friends, especially to Mohun. Poor +Ralph! he will be sorry—though he will not own it—when he comes back +from Bohemia and finds me gone."</p> + +<p>He raised himself a little, so as to rest his hand on my shoulder as I +knelt, while his voice deepened in its solemn calm:</p> + +<p>"Dear Frank, one other word for yourself, who have borne so patiently +with my perverse temper since we were boys together. I have been silent, +but, indeed, not ungrateful. For all your kind, unselfish thoughts, and +words, and deeds—for all the good you would have counseled—for all +your efforts to stand between me and wrong-doing—tried friend, true +comrade! I thank you now, heartily, and I pray God to bless you always."</p> + +<p>It was only self-control, almost superhuman, that enabled him to speak +those words steadily, for the fierce death-throe was possessing him +before he ended. Through the awful minutes that followed, not another +sound than the hissing breath escaped through his set lips; his face was +not once distorted, though the hair and beard clung round it, matted and +dank with the sweat of agony. The brave heart and iron nerve ruled the +body to the last imperially—supreme over the intensity of torture.</p> + +<p>When he opened his eyes, which had been closed all through the +protracted death-pang, there was a look of the ancient kindness in them, +though they were glazing fast. He found my hand, and grasped it, till I +felt the life ebbing back in his fingers. I saw his lips syllable +"Good-by;" then, he leaned his head back gently, and, without a sigh or +a shiver, the strong man's spirit went forth into The Night.</p> + +<p>A sense of utter desolation, as it were a horror of great darkness, +gathered all around me as I leaned my forehead against the corpse's +cheek, sobbing like a helpless child.</p> + +<p>You will not care to hear how we all mourned him.</p> + +<p>Will you care to hear that, often as his mother visits his grave, there +is <i>one</i> woman who comes oftener still?</p> + +<p>None of us have ever met her, for she comes always at late night or +early morning. But finding, in the depth of winter or in the bleak +spring, the ground about strewed with the choicest of exotic +flowers—not carefully arranged, but showered down by a reckless, +desperate hand—we know that Flora Dorrillon has been there.</p> + +<p>Do not laugh at her too much for clinging to the one romance of her +artificial existence. Remember, while he lived, there was nothing so +rare and precious—ay, even to the sacrifice of her own body and +soul—that she would not have laid ungrudgingly at Guy Livingstone's +feet.</p> + + +<p class='center'>THE END.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Guy Livingstone;, by George A. Lawrence + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GUY LIVINGSTONE; *** + +***** This file should be named 17084-h.htm or 17084-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/0/8/17084/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Guy Livingstone; + or, 'Thorough' + +Author: George A. Lawrence + +Release Date: November 17, 2005 [EBook #17084] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GUY LIVINGSTONE; *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + + + + + +GUY LIVINGSTONE; + +OR, + +"THOROUGH." + +BY + +GEORGE A. LAWRENCE. + + +ICH HABE GELEBT UND GELIEBT. + + +NEW YORK: +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, +FRANKLIN SQUARE. +1868. + + + + +GUY LIVINGSTONE. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + "Neque imbellem feroces + Progenerant aquilae columbam." + + +It is not a pleasant epoch in one's life, the first forty-eight hours at +a large public school. I have known strong-minded men of mature age +confess that they never thought of it without a shiver. I don't count +the home-sickness, which perhaps only affects seriously the most +innocent of _debutants_, but there are other thousand and one little +annoyances which make up a great trouble. If there were nothing else, +for instance, the unceasing query, "What's your name?" makes you feel +the possession of a cognomen at all a serious burden and bar to +advancement in life. + +A dull afternoon toward the end of October; the sky a neutral tint of +ashy gray; a bitter northeast wind tearing down the yellow leaves from +the old elms that girdle the school-close of ----; a foul, clinging +paste of mud and trampled grass-blades under foot, that chilled you to +the marrow; a mob of two hundred lower boys, vicious with cold and the +enforcement of keeping goal through the first football match of the +season--in the midst, I, who speak to you, feeling myself in an +eminently false position--there's the _mise en scene_. + +My small persecutors had surrounded me, but had hardly time to settle +well to their work, when one of the players came by, and stopped for an +instant to see what was going on. The match had not yet begun. + +There was nothing which interested him much apparently, for he was +passing on, when my despondent answer to the everlasting question caught +his ear. He turned round then-- + +"Any relation to Hammond of Holt?" + +I replied, meekly but rather more cheerfully, that he was my uncle. + +"I know him very well," the new-comer said. "Don't bully him more than +you can help, you fellows; I'll wait for you after calling over, +Hammond. I should like to ask you about the squire." + +He had no time to say more, for just then the ball was kicked off, and +the battle began. I saw him afterward often during that afternoon, +always in the front of the rush or the thick of the scrimmage, and I +saw, too, more than one player limp out of his path disconsolately, +trying vainly to dissemble the pain of a vicious "hack." + +I'll try to sketch Guy Livingstone as he appeared to me then, at our +first meeting. + +He was about fifteen, but looked fully a year older, not only from his +height, but from a disproportionate length of limb and development of +muscle, which ripened later into the rarest union of activity and +strength that I have ever known. His features were very dark and pale, +too strongly marked to be called handsome; about the lips and lower jaw +especially there was a set sternness that one seldom sees before the +beard is grown. The eyes were very dark gray, nearly black, and so +deeply set under the thick eyebrows that they looked smaller than they +really were; and I remember, even at that early age, their expression, +when angered, was any thing but pleasant to meet. His dress was well +adapted for displaying his deep square chest and sinewy arms--a +close-fitting jersey, and white trowsers girt by a broad black belt; the +cap, orange velvet, fronted with a silver Maltese cross. + +The few words he had spoken worked an immediate change in my favor. I +heard one of my tormentors say, not without awe, "The Count knows his +people at home;" and they not only left me in peace, but, a little +later, some of them began to tell me of a recent exploit of Guy's, which +had raised him high in their simple hero-worship, and which, I dare say, +is still enumerated among the feats of the brave days of old by the fags +over their evening small-beer. + +To appreciate it, you must understand that the highest form in the +school--the sixth--were regarded by the fags and other subordinate +classes with an inexpressible reverence and terror. They were considered +as exempt from the common frailties of schoolboy nature: no one ventured +to fix a limit to their power. Like the gods of the Lotus-eater, they +lay beside their nectar, rarely communing with ordinary mortals except +to give an order or set a punishment. On the form immediately below them +part of their glory was reflected; these were a sort of hemitheoi, +awaiting their translation into the higher Olympus of perfected +omnipotence. + +In this intermediate state flourished, at the time I speak of, one +Joseph Baines, a fat, small-eyed youth, with immense pendent pallid +cheeks, rejoicing in the _sobriquet_ of "Buttons," his father being +eminent in that line in the Midland Metropolis. The son was Brummagem to +the back-bone. He was intensely stupid; but, having been a fixture at +---- beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant, he had slowly +gravitated on into his present position, on the old Ring principle, +"weight must tell." I believe he had been bullied continuously for many +years, and now, with a dull, pertinacious malignity, was biding his +time, intending, on his accession to power, to inflict full reprisals on +those below him; or, in his own expressive language, "to take it out of +'em, like smoke." He was keeping his hand in by the perpetration of +small tyrannies on all whom he was not afraid to meddle with; but +hitherto, from a lingering suspicion, perhaps, that it was not quite +safe, he had never annoyed Livingstone. + +It was on a Saturday night, the hebdomadal Saturnalia, when the week's +work was over, and no one had any thing to do; the heart of Joseph was +jocund with pork chops and mulled beer, and, his evil genius tempting +him, he proposed to three of his intimates "to go and give the Count a +turn." Nearly every one had a nickname, and this had been given to Guy, +partly, I think, from his haughty demeanor, partly from a prevalent idea +that this German dignity was dormant somewhere in his family. When the +_quartette_ entered, Guy knew perfectly what they came for, but he sat +quite still and silent, while two of them held him down by the arms in +his chair. + +"I think you'd look very well with a cross on, Count," Baines said, "so +keep steady while we decorate you." + +As he spoke he was mixing up a paste with tallow and candle-snuff, and, +when it was ready, came near to daub the cross on Livingstone's +forehead. + +The two who held him had been quite deceived by his unexpected +tranquillity, and had somewhat relaxed their gripe as they leaned +forward to witness the operation; but the fourth, standing idle, saw all +at once the pupils of his eyes contract, and his lips set so ominously, +that the words were in his mouth, "Hold him fast!" when Guy, exerting +the full force of his arms, shook himself clear, and grasping a +brass-candlestick within his reach, struck the executioner straight +between the eyes. The effort of freeing himself to some extent broke the +force of the blow, or the great Baines dynasty might have ended there +and then; as it was, Buttons fell like a log, and, rolling once over on +his face, lay there bleeding and motionless. + +While the assistants were too much astounded to detain him, Guy walked +out without a glance at his prostrate enemy; and going straight to the +head of the house, told him what had happened. The character of the +aggressor was so well known, that, when they found he was not seriously +hurt, they let Guy off easy with "two books of the _Iliad_ to write out +in Greek." Buttons kept the sick-room for ten days, and came out looking +more pasty than ever, with his pleasant propensities decidedly checked +for the time. + +In his parish church at Birmingham, two tons of marble weighing him +down, the old button-maker sleeps with his father (to pluralize his +ancestors would be a grave historical error), and Joseph II. reigns in +his stead, exercising, I doubt not, over his factory-people the same +ingenuity of torture which in old times nearly drove the fags to +rebellion. He is a Demosthenes, they say, at vestries, and a Draco at +the Board of Guardians; but in the centre of his broad face, marring the +platitude of its smooth-shaven respectability, still burns angrily a +dark red scar--Guy's sign-manual--which he will carry to his grave. + +The exultation of the lower school over this exploit was boundless. +Fifty energetic admirers contended for the honor of writing out the +punishment inflicted on the avenger; and one sentimentalist, just in +Herodotus, preserved the fatal candlestick as an inestimable relic, +wreathing its stem with laurel and myrtle, in imitation of the honors +paid by Athens to the sword that slew the Pisistratid. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + "My only books + Were woman's looks, + And folly all they taught me." + + +The Count bore his honors very calmly, though every week some fresh feat +of bodily strength or daring kept adding to his popularity. It was no +slight temptation to his vanity; for, as some one has said truly, no +successful adventurer in after-life ever wins such undivided admiration +and hearty partisans as a school hero. The _prestige_ of the liberator +among the Irish peasantry comes nearest to it, I think; or the feeling +of a clan, a hundred years ago, toward their chief. It must be very +pleasant to be quoted so incessantly and believed in so implicitly, and +to know that your decisions are so absolutely without appeal. From that +first day when he interfered in my favor, Guy never ceased to accord me +the aegis of his protection, and it served me well; for, then as now, I +was strong neither in body nor nerve. Yet our tastes, save in one +respect, were as dissimilar as can be imagined. The solitary conformity +was, that we were both, in a desultory way, fond of reading, and our +favorite books were the same. Neither would do more school-work than was +absolutely necessary, but at light literature of a certain class we read +hard. + +I don't think Guy's was what is usually called a poetical temperament, +for his taste in this line was quite one-sided. He was no admirer of +the picturesque, certainly. I have heard him say that his idea of a +country to live in was where there was no hill steep enough to wind a +horse in good condition, and no wood that hounds could not run through +in fifteen minutes; therein following the fancy of that eminent French +philosopher, who, being invited to climb Ben Lomond to enjoy the most +magnificent of views, responded meekly, "_Aimez-vous les beautes de la +Nature? Pour moi, je les abhorre_." Can you not fancy the strident +emphasis on the last syllable, revealing how often the poor materialist +had been victimized before he made a stand at last? + +All through Livingstone's life the real was to predominate over the +ideal; and so it was at this period of it. He had a great dislike to +purely sentimental or descriptive poetry, preferring to all others those +battle-ballads, like the _Lays of Rome_, which stir the blood like a +trumpet, or those love-songs which heat it like rough strong wine. + +He was very fond of Homer, too. He liked the diapason of those sonorous +hexameters, that roll on, sinking and swelling with the ebb and flow of +a stormy sea. I hear his voice--deep-toned and powerful even at that +early age--finishing the story of Poseidon and his beautiful +prize--their bridal-bed laid in the hollow of a curling wave-- + + _"Porphureon d' ara kuma peristathe, ourei ison, + Kurtothen, krupsen de Theon thneten te gunaika."_ + +And yet they say that the glorious old Sciote was a myth, and the +Odyssey a magazine worked out by clever contributors. They might as well +assert that all his marshals would have made up one Napoleon. + +I remember how we used to pass in review the beauties of old time, for +whom "many drew swords and died," whose charms convulsed kingdoms and +ruined cities, who called the stars after their own names. + +Ah! Gyneth and Ida, peerless queens of beauty, it was exciting, +doubtless, to gaze down from your velveted gallery on the mad tilting +below, to see ever and anon through the yellow dust a kind, handsome +face looking up at you, pale but scarcely reproachful, just before the +horse-hoofs trod it down; ah! fairest Ninons and Dianas--prizes that, +like the Whip at Newmarket, were always to be challenged for--you were +proud when your reckless lover came to woo, with the blood of last +night's favorite not dry on his blade; but what were your fatal honors +compared to those of a reigning toast in the rough, ancient days? The +demigods and heroes that were suitors did not stand upon trifles, and +the contest often ended in the extermination of all the lady's male +relatives to the third and fourth generation. People then took it quite +as a matter of course--rather a credit to the family than otherwise. + +Guy and I discussed, often and gravely, the relative merits of Evadne +the violet-haired, Helen, Cleopatra, and a hundred others, just as, on +the steps of White's, or in the smoking-room at the "Rag," men compare +the points of the _debutantes_ of the season. + +His knowledge of feminine psychology--it _must_ have been theoretical, +for he was not seventeen--implied a study and depth of research that was +quite surprising; but I am bound to state that his estimate of the +strength of character and principle inherent in the weaker sex was any +thing but high; nearly, indeed, identical with that formed by the +learned lady who, to the question, "Did she think the virtue of any +single one of her sisterhood impregnable?" replied "_C'est selon_." He +often used to astonish my weak mind by his observations on this head. I +did not know till afterward that Sir Henry Fallowfield, the Bassompierre +of his day, came for the Christmas pheasant-shooting every year into +Guy's neighborhood, and that he had already imbibed lessons of +questionable morality, sitting at the gouty feet of that evil Gamaliel. + +He spoke of and to women of every class readily whenever he got the +chance, always with perfect _aplomb_ and self-possession; and I have +heard older men remark since, that in him it did not appear the +precocity of "the rising generation," but rather the confidence of one +who knew his subject well. Perhaps the fact of his father having died +when he was an infant, and his having always been suzerain among his +women at home, may have had something to do with this. An absurd +instance of what I have been saying happened just before Guy left. + +By time-honored custom, four or five of the Sixth were invited every +week to dine with the head master. They were not, strictly speaking, +convivial, those solemn banquets; where the host was condescendingly +affable, and his guests cheerful, as it were, under protest; resembling +somewhat the entertainments in the captain's cabin, where the chief is +unpopular. + +Our Archididascalus was a kind-hearted, honest man, albeit, by virtue +of his office, somewhat strict and stern. You could read the +_Categories_ in the wrinkles of his colorless face, and contested +passages of Thucydides in the crows'-feet round his eyes. The +everlasting grind at the educational tread-mill had worn away all he +might once have had of imagination; he translated with precisely the +same intonations the Tusculan _Disputations_ and--_Eros anikate machan._ + +He had lately taken to himself a wife, his junior by a score of years. +The academic atmosphere had not had time then to freeze her into the +dignity befitting her position; when I met her ten years later, she was +steady and staid enough, poor thing, to have been the wife of Grotius. + +Guy sat next to her that evening, and before the first course was over a +decided flirtation was established. The pretty hostess, albeit wife of a +doctor and daughter of a dean, had evidently a strong coquettish element +in her composition, and a very slight spark was sufficient to relight +the _veteris vestigia flammae._ + +For some time her husband did not seem to realize the position; but +gradually his sentences grew rare and curt; he opened his mouth, no +longer to let fall the pearls of his wisdom, but to stop it with savory +meat; finally this last resource failed, and he sat, looking wrathfully +but helplessly on the proceedings at the other end of the table--a +lamentable instance of prostrated ecclesiastical dignity. His disgust, +however, was far exceeded by the horror of one of the party, a meek, +cadaverous-looking boy, whose parents lived in the town, and who was +wont to regard the head master as the vicegerent of all powers, civil +and sacerdotal--I am not sure he did not include military as well. I +caught him looking several times at the door and the ceiling with a +pale, guilty face, as if he expected some immediate visitation to punish +the sacrilege. However, heaven, which did not interrupt the feast of +Atreus or of Tereus (till the dessert), allowed us to finish our dinner +in peace. During the interval when we sat alone over his claret, our +host revived a little; but utterly relapsed in the drawing-room, where +things went on worse than ever. Guy leaned over the fair Penelope (such +was her classical and not inappropriate name) while she was singing, and +over her sofa afterward, evidently considering himself her legitimate +proprietor for the time, and regarding the husband, as he hovered round +them, in the light of an unauthorized intruder. The latter would have +given any thing, once or twice, to have interfered, I am sure; but, +apart from, the extreme ridicule of the thing, he was in his own house, +and as hospitable as Saladin. + +It was a great scene, when, at parting, she gave Guy the camellia that +she wore at her breast; the doctor gasped thrice convulsively and said +no word; but I wonder how she accounted afterward for the smile and +blush which answered some whispered thanks? There are certain limits +that even the historian dares not transgress; a veil falls between the +profane and the thalamus of an LL.D.; but I rather imagine she had a +hard time of it that night, the poor little woman! Let us hope, in +charity, that she held her own. + +When the Count was questioned as to the conversation that had passed, +he declined to give any particulars, merely remarking that "he had to +thank Dr. ---- for for a very pleasant evening, and he hoped everyone +had enjoyed themselves very much"--which was philanthropic, to say the +least of it. + +I don't know if it was our imagination, but we fancied that when the +head master called up Livingstone in form after this, he did so with an +air of grave defiance, such as a duelist of the Old Regime may have worn +when, doffing his plumed hat, he said to his adversary, "_En garde!_" + +There was little time to make observations, for shortly afterward Guy +went up to Oxford, whither, six months later, I followed him. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + "Through many an hour of summer suns, + By many pleasant ways, + Like Hezekiah's, backward runs + The shadow of my days." + + +When I came up, I found Guy quite established and at home. He was a +general favorite with all the men he knew at college, though intimate +with but very few. There was but one individual who hated him +thoroughly, and I think the feeling was mutual--the senior tutor, a +flaccid being, with a hand that felt like a fish two days out of water, +a large nose, and a perpetual cold in his head. He consistently and +impartially disbelieved every one on their word, requiring material +proof of each assertion; an original mode of acquiring the confidence of +his pupils, and precluding any thing like an attempt at deception on +their part. I remember well a discussion on his merits that took place +in the porter's lodge one night just after twelve. When several had +given their opinions more or less strongly, some one asked the gate-ward +what he thought of the individual in question, to which that eminent +functionary thus replied: "Why, you see, sir, I'm only a servant, and, +as such, can't speak freely, but I wish he was dead, I do." + +As I have said, Livingstone disliked Selkirk heartily, and did not take +the trouble to conceal it. He used to look at him sometimes with a +curious expression in his eyes, which made the tutor twirl and writhe +uncomfortably in his chair. The latter annoyed him as much as he +possibly could, but Guy held on the even tenor of his way, seldom +contravening the statutes except in hunting three days a week, which he +persisted in doing, all lectures and regulations notwithstanding. He +rode little under fourteen stone even then; but the three horses he kept +were well up to his weight, and he stood A 1 in Jem Hill's estimation as +"the best heavy-weight that had come out of Oxford for many a day;" for +he not only went straight as a die, but rode _to_ hounds instead of +_over_ them. I suppose this latter practice is inherent in University +sportsmen. I know, in my time, the way in which they pressed on hounds, +for the first two fields out of cover or after a check, used to make the +gray hairs, which were the brave old huntsman's crown of glory, stand on +end with indignation and terror, so that he prayed devoutly for a big +fence which, like the broken bridge at Leipsic, might prove a stopper to +the pursuing army. There was the making of a good rider in many of them, +too; they only wanted ballast, for they knew no more of fear than Nelson +did, and would grind over the Vale of the Evenlode and the Marsh Gibbon +double timber as gayly and undauntedly as over the accommodating +Bullingdon hurdles. And what screws they rode! ancient animals bearing +as many scars as a _vieux de la vieille_, that were considered short of +work if they did not come out five days a fortnight. This was Guy's +favorite pursuit; but he threw off the superfluity of his animal +energies in all sorts of athletics: in sparring especially he attained a +rare excellence; so well-known was it, indeed, that he passed his first +year without striking a blow in anger, through default of an antagonist, +except a chance one or two exchanged in the _melee_ which is imperative +on the 5th of November. + +I did not hunt much myself, for my health was far from strong, and, I +confess, my University recollections are not lively. + +After the first flush of novelty had worn off, they bored one +intensely--those large wines and suppers where, night by night, a score +of Nephelegeretae sat shrouded in smoke, chanting the same equivocal +ditties, drinking the same fiery liquors miscalled the juice of the +grape, villainous enough to make the patriarch that planted the vine +stir remorsefully in his grave under Ararat--each man all the while +talking "shop," _a l'outrance_. The skeleton of ennui sat at these +dreary feasts; and it was not even crowned with roses. I often used to +wonder what the majority of my contemporaries conversed about, when in +the bosom of their families, during the "long." They couldn't _always_ +have been inflicting Oxford on their miserable relatives; the weakest of +human natures would have revolted against such tyranny; and yet the +horizon of their ideas seemed as utterly bounded by Bagley and +Headington Hill as if the great ocean-stream had flowed outside those +limits. Some adventurous spirits, it is true, stretched away as far as +Woodstock and Abingdon, but I doubt if they returned much improved by +the grand tour. + +One of their most remarkable characteristics was the invincible terror +and repugnance that they appeared to entertain to the society of women +of their own class. When the visitation was inevitable, it is +impossible to describe the great horror that fell on these unfortunate +boys. The feeling of Zanoni's pupil, as the Watcher on the Threshold +came floating and creeping toward him, was nothing to it. + +For example, at Commemoration--to which festival "lions" from all +quarters of the earth resorted in vast droves--when one of this class +was hard hit by the charms of some fair stranger, he never thought of +expressing his admiration otherwise than by piteous looks, directed at +her from an immense distance, out of shot for an opera-glass; when in +her immediate vicinity his motto was that of the Breton baron--_mourir +muet_. Claret-cup flowed and Champagne sparkled, powerless to raise him +to the audacity of an avowal. Under the woods of Nuneham, in the gardens +of Blenheim, amid the crowd of the Commemoration ball, the same deep +river of diffidence flowed between him and his happiness. My own idea is +that, after all was over, the silent ones, like Jacques' stricken deer, +used to "go weep" over chances lost and opportunities neglected. With +waitresses at wayside inns, _et id genus omne_, they were tolerably +self-possessed and reliant; though even there "a thousand might well be +stopped by three," and I would have backed an intelligent barmaid +against the field at odds; indeed, I think I have seen a security nearly +allied to contempt on the fine features of a certain "lone _star_" as +she parried--so easily!--the compliments and repartees of a dozen +assailants at once, accounted, in their own quadrangles, Millamours of +the darkest dye. + +Guy accounted for this unfortunate peculiarity by saying that a cigar +in the mouth was the normal state of many of these men; so that, when +circumstances debarred them from the Havana courage, they lost all +presence of mind, and, being unable to retreat under cover of the smoke, +lapsed instantly into a sullen despair, suffering themselves to be shot +down unresistingly. Perhaps some future philosopher will favor us with a +better solution to this important problem in physics; I know of none. + +After all, the reading men did best, though we did not think so then, +when we saw them creeping into morning chapel jaded and heavy-eyed, +after a debauch over Herodotus or the Stagyrite. They had a purpose in +view, at all events, and, I believe, were placidly content during the +progress of its attainment--in the seventh heaven when their hopes were +crowned by a First, or even a Second. True; the pace was too good for +some of the half-bred ones, and such as could not stand the training, +who departed, to fade away rapidly in the old house at home, or to pine, +slowly, but very surely, in remote curacies. + +Some of these, I fancy, must have sympathized with Madame de Stael's +consumptive niece, who answered to the question, "Why she was weeping +all alone?" "_Je me regrette._" When, resting in their daily walk, +shortened till it became a toil to reach the shady seat under the elms +at the garden's end, they watched the stalwart plowmen and drovers go +striding by, without a trouble behind their tanned foreheads except the +thought that wages might fall a shilling a week, was there no envy, I +wonder, as they looked down on the wan hands lying so listless across +their knees? Would they not have given their First, and their fellowship +in embryo to boot, to have had the morning appetite of Tom Chauntrell, +the horse-breaker, after twelve pipes overnight, with gin and water to +match, or to have been able, like Joe Springett, the under keeper, to +breast the steepest brae in Cumberland with never a sob or a painful +breath? Did they never murmur while thinking how brightly the blade +might have flashed, how deftly have been wielded, if the worthless +scabbard had only lasted out till, on some grand field-day, the word was +given, "Draw swords?" Some felt this, doubtless; but the most part, I +imagine, were possessed with a comfortable assurance that their short +life had been useful, if not ornamental; and so, to a certain extent, +they had their reward. At any rate, their ending was to the full as +glorious as that of some other friends of ours, who crawl away from the +battle-ground of the _Viveurs_ to die, or to linger on helpless +hypochondriacs. + +If I have spoken depreciatingly or unfairly of the mass of my college +coevals (and it may well be so), I do full justice, in thought at least, +to some brilliant exceptions. I founded friendships there which, I +trust, will outlive me. + +I do not forget Warrenne, too good for the men he lived with, a David in +our camp of Kedar--always going on straight in the path he thought +right--though ever and anon his hot Irish blood would chafe fiercely +under the curb self-imposed--and laboring incessantly, with all +gentleness, to induce others to follow; a Launcelot in his devotion to +womankind; a Galahad in purity of thought and purpose. I have never +known a man of the world so single-hearted, or a saint with so much +_savoir vivre_. + +I see before me now Lovell, with his frank look and cheery laugh, the +model of a stalwart English squirehood; and Petre, equal to either +fortune; in reverse or success calm and impassible as Athos the +mousquetaire; regarding money simply as a circulating medium, with the +profoundest contempt for its actual value--_se ruinant en prince_. He +edified us greatly, on one occasion, by meeting his justly offended +father with a stern politeness, declining to hold any communication with +him by word or letter till he (the sire) "could express himself in a +more Christian spirit." + +Then there was Barlowe, the pearl of gentlemen riders, the very apple of +Charles Symond's eye; unspoiled by a hundred triumphs, and never +degenerating into the professional, though I believe his idea of earthly +felicity was, + +A match for L50, 10 st. 7 lb. each. Owners up. Over 4 miles of a fair +hunting country. + +I see him, too, with his pleasant face, round, rosy, and beardless as a +child-cherub of Rubens, tempting pale men with splitting heads to throw +boots at him in the bitterness of their envy as he entered their rooms +on the morning after a heavy drink, his eyes so clear and guileless that +you would never guess how sharp they could be at times when a dangerous +horse was coming up on his quarter. A strange compound his character was +of cool calculation and sentimental simplicity. The most astute of +trainers never got the better of him in making a match; and I am sure, +to this day, he believes in ----'s poetry, and in the immutability of +feminine affection. + +How agreeable he was about the small hours, chirping over his grog; +alternating between reminiscences of "My tutor's daughter" and recitals +of choice morsels in verse and prose; misquoting, to the utter +annihilation of rhythm and sense, but all with perfect gravity, good +faith, and satisfaction! + +_Nec te, memorande, relinquam_--true Tom Lynton! not clever, not even +high-bred, but loved by every one for the honestest and kindest heart +that ever was the kernel of a rough rind. + +Do we not remember that supper where the Fathers of England were being +discussed? Every one, drawn on by the current, had a stone to throw at +his relieving officer, the complaint, of course, being a general +tightness in the supplies. At last, Tom, who, though his own sire was an +austere man, could not bear to hear the absent run down, broke in, +gravely remonstrating, + +"Well, gentlemen," he said, "remember they're our _fellow-creatures_, at +all events." + +They drank "Lynton and the Governors" with a compound multiplication of +cheers. + +I might mention more; but a face rises just now before me which makes me +close the muster-roll--the face of one who united in himself many, very +many of the best qualities of the others; of one whom I shrink from +naming here, lest it should seem that I do so lightly--a face that I saw +six hours before its features became set forever. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + _"De tot' anaschomeno, ho men elase dexion omon + Iros, ho d' auchen' elassen hup' ouatos, ostea d' eiso + Ethlasen; autika d' elthen ana stoma phoinion haima."_ + + +Toward the end of my second year an event came off in which we were all +much interested--a steeplechase in which both Universities were to take +part. The stakes were worth winning--twenty sovs. entrance, h.f., and a +hundred sovs. added; besides, the _esprit de corps_ was strong, and men +backed their opinions pretty freely. The venue was fixed at B----; the +time, the beginning of the Easter vacation. + +The old town was crowded like Vanity Fair. There was a railway in +progress near, and the navvies and other "roughs" came flocking in by +hundreds, so that the municipal authorities, justly apprehensive of a +row, concentrated the cohorts of their police, and swore in no end of +specials as a reserve. + +The great event came off duly, a fair instance of the "glorious +uncertainty" which backers of horses execrate and ring-men adore. All +the favorites were out of the race early. Our best man, Barlowe, the +centre of many hopes, and carrying a heavy investment of Oxford money, +was floored at the second double post-and-rail. The Cambridge cracks, +too, by divers casualties, were soon disposed of. At the last fence, an +Oxford man was leading by sixty yards; but it was his maiden race, and +he lost his head when he found himself looking like a winner so near +home. Instead of taking the stake-and-bound at the weakest place, he +rode at the strongest; his horse swerved to the gap, took the fence +sideways, and came down heavily into the ditch of the winning field. The +representative of Cambridge, who came next, riding a good steady hunter, +not fast, but safe at his fences, cantered in by himself. I remember he +was so bewildered by his unexpected victory that one of his backers had +to hold him fast in the saddle, or he would have dismounted before +riding to scale, and so lost the stakes. + +Well, the race was over and the laurels lost, so we had nothing to do +but pay and look pleasant, and then adjourn to the inevitable banquet at +"The George." There was little to distinguish the proceedings from the +routine of such festivals. The winners stood Champagne, and the losers +drank it--to any amount. The accidents of flood and field were discussed +over and over again; and, I believe, every man of the twenty-three who +had ridden that day could and did prove, to his own entire satisfaction, +that he must have won but for some freak of fortune totally unavoidable, +and defying human calculation. + +About nine o'clock I went out with another man to get some fresh air, +and something I wanted in the town. At the corner of every street there +was a group of heavy, sullen faces, looking viciously ready for a row, +while out of the windows of the frequent public houses gushed bursts of +revelry hideously discordant, from the low-browed rooms where the wild +Irish sat howling and wrangling over their liquor. However, we got what +we wanted, and were returning, when, in a street on our left, we heard +cries and a trampling of many feet. Two figures, looking like University +men, passed us at speed, and, throwing something down before us, dived +into an alley opposite, and were lost to sight. My companion picked up +the object; and we had just time to make out that it was a bell-handle +and name-plate, when the pursuers came up--six or seven "peelers" and +specials, with a ruck of men and boys. We were collared on the instant. +The fact of the property being found in our possession constituted a +_flagrans delictum_--we were caught "red-handed." It was vain to argue +that, had we been the delinquents, we should scarcely have been standing +there still, awaiting discovery. The idea of arguing with a rural +policeman, when, by a rare coincidence, popular feeling is with him! The +mob regarded our capture, exulting like the Romans over Jugurtha in +chains. It was decided "we were to go before the Inspector." We were +placed in the centre of a phalanx of specials, each guarded by two +regulars; and so the triumph, followed by a train that swelled at every +turning, moved slowly along the Sacred Way toward the temple of the +station-house, where the municipal Jupiter Capitolinus sat in his glory. + +Before we had proceeded three hundred yards there was a shout from the +crowd, "Look out! here come the 'Varsity!" and down a cross street +leading from the inn, two hundred gownsmen, wild with wrath and wassail, +came leaping to the rescue. + +In the van of all I caught sight of two figures--one that I knew very +well, towering, bareheaded, a hand's-breadth above the throng; the +other, something below the middle height, but shaggy, vast-chested, and +double-jointed as a red Highland steer--M'Diarmid of Trinity, glory of +the Cambridge gymnasium, and "5" in the University eight. They were not +shouting like the rest, but hitting out straight and remorselessly; and +before those two strong Promachi, townsman and navvy, peeler and +special, went down like blades of corn. Close at their shoulder I +distinguished Lovell, his clear blue eyes lightening savagely; and stout +Tom Lynton, a deeper flush on his honest face, hewing away with all the +unscientific strength of his nervous arm. + +But my two guards, very Abdiels in their duty, never let me go; on the +contrary, one tightened his gripe on my throat suffocatingly, while the +other, though I remained perfectly quiescent, kept giving me gentle +hints to keep the peace with the end of his staff. I was getting sick +and dizzy, when something passed my cheek like the wind of a ball; there +was a dull, crashing sound close at my ear; the grasp on my neck relaxed +all at once; I felt something across my feet, and saw a dark blue mass, +topped by the ruin of a shiny hat, lying there quite still; an arm was +round my waist like the coil of a cable, and I heard Guy's voice +laughing loud, + +"My dear Frank," he said, as he dragged me away toward the inn, "the +centre of a row, as usual. _Que, diable, allait il faire dans cette +bagarre?_" + +I hardly heard him, for my senses were still confused; but in thirty +seconds I was under the archway of "The George." As the heroines of the +Radcliffe romances say, "I turned to thank my preserver, but he was +gone." + +When I recovered my breath, I went up to a balcony on the first floor +and looked out. The tide of the affray was surging gradually back into +the wide open space before the inn, and very shortly this was filled +with a chaos of furious faces and struggling arms. The University were +evidently recoiling, pressed back by the sheer weight of their +opponents; but soon came a re-enforcement of grooms and stable-men, +lightweights, active and wiry; and these, with their hunting-crops and +heavy cutting-whips used remorselessly--like Caesar's legionaries, they +struck only at the face--once more re-established the balance of the +battle. + +Suddenly the _melee_ seemed to converge to one point--the mid-eddy, as +it were, of the whirlpool; then came a lull, almost a hush; and then +fifty strong arms, indiscriminately of town and gownsmen, were locked to +keep the ground, while a storm of voices shouted for "A ring!" + +In that impromptu arena two men stood face to face under the full glare +of the gas-lamps--one was Guy Livingstone; the other a denizen of the +Potteries, yclept "Burn's Big 'un," who had selected B---- as his +training quarters, in preparation for his fight to come off in the +ensuing week with the third best man in England for L100 a side. + +They made a magnificent contrast. Guy, apparently quite composed, but +the lower part of his face set stern and pitiless; an evil light in his +eyes, showing how all the gladiator in his nature was roused; his left +hand swaying level with his hip; all the weight of his body resting on +the right foot; his lofty head thrown back haughtily; his guard low. The +professional, three inches shorter than his adversary, but a rare model +of brute strength; his arms and neck, where the short jersey left them +exposed, clear-skinned and white as a woman's, through the perfection of +his training; his hair cropped close round a low, retreating forehead; +his thick lips parted in a savage grin, meant to represent a smile of +confidence. So they stood there--fitting champions of the races that +have been antagonistic for four thousand years--Patrician and +Proletarian. + +Suddenly there was a commotion at one corner of the ring, and I saw a +small, bullet-headed man, with a voice like a fractious child, striving +frantically to force his way through. "Don't let 'em fight!" he +screamed: "it's robbery, I tell you. There's hundreds of pounds on him +for Thursday next, I'm his trainer; and I daren't show him with a +scratch on him." + +A great roar of laughter answered his entreaties, and twenty arms thrust +the little man back; but his interesting charge seemed to ponder and +hesitate, when a drawling nasal voice spoke from the opposite corner: +"Ah! you're right; take him away; don't show his white feather till +you're druv to it." That turned the wavering scale. The Big 'un ground +his teeth with blasphemy, and set-to. + +I need not go through the minutiae of the fight; it was all one way. The +professional did his best, and took his punishment like a glutton; but +he could do nothing against the long reach of his adversary, who stopped +and countered as coolly as if he had only the gloves on. + +It was the beginning of the sixth round; our champion bore only one +mark, showing where a tremendous right-hander had almost come home--a +cut on his lower lip, whence the bright Norman blood was flowing freely. +I will not attempt to describe the hideous changes that ten minutes had +wrought in his opponent's countenance; but I think I was not the only +spectator who felt a thrill of fear mingling with disgust as the Big 'un +made his despairing effort, and fought his way in to the terrible +"half-arm rally." In truth, there was something unearthly and awful in +the sight of the maimed and mangled Colossus; his huge breast heaving +with wrath and pain; his one unblinded eye glaring unutterably; his +crushed lips churning the crimson foam. It was the last rash of the +Cordovan bull goaded to madness by picador and chulo; but Guy's fatal +left met him, straight, unyielding as the blade of the matador; twice he +reeled back wellnigh stunned; the third time he dropped his head +cleverly, so as to avoid the blow, and grappled. For some seconds the +two were locked together, undistinguishably; then we saw Guy's right +hand, never used till then save as a guard, rise and fall twice with a +dull, smashing sound, which was bad to hear; then the huge form of the +prize-fighter was whirled up unresistingly over his antagonist's hip, +and fell crashing down at his feet, a heap of blind, senseless, bleeding +humanity. + +"Time!" You must call louder yet before he will hear, and lance a vein +in the throat before he will answer. + +Then, in the old market-place of B----, there went up such a shout as I +think it has never heard since Vikings and Berserkyr caroused there +after storming the town. The gownsmen, as they will do on slighter +provocation, screamed themselves hoarse and voiceless with delight; and +their late opponents--the honest Saxon's love of a fair fight overcoming +the spirit of the partisan--echoed and prolonged the cheer. + +There was no more thought of battle or broil; and there were as many +navvies as University men among the enthusiasts who bore the champion on +their shoulders into "The George." + +How we reveled on that night of victory, especially when Guy, after +necessary ablutions and change of raiment, joined us, calm and +self-possessed as ever, only slightly swelled about the lower lip, and a +dark red flush on his forehead! He had satisfactory accounts of his +adversary, the said amiable individual having so far recovered, under +the surgeon's hands, as to swear thrice--"quite like hisself," the +messenger said--and to call for cold brandy and water. + +Livingstone's health was proposed twice--the first time by a fellow of +King's, with a neat talent for classical allusions, who remarked that, +"if the olive-crown of the Hippodrome had fallen to the lot of +Cambridge, none would deny her sister's claim to the parsley of the +caestus." The second time was very late in the evening, by M'Diarmid. It +must be confessed that gallant chieftain was somewhat incoherent, and +amid protestations of admiration and eternal friendship, much to our +astonishment, wept profusely. Still later, he got very maudlin indeed, +and was heard to murmur, looking at his scarred knuckles, that "he was +afraid he must have hurt some one that night," with an accent of +heartfelt sorrow and contrition which was inimitable. + +We heard afterward that the taunt which made the fight a certainty came +from the commissioner of the party who stood heavily against the Big +'un, sent down to watch him in his training, and spy out the joints in +his harness. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + "As he rode down the sanctified bends of the Bow, + Each carline was flyting and shaking her pow; + But the young Plants of Grace they looked couthie and slee, + Saying, 'Luck to thy bonnet, thou bonnie Dundee.'" + + +In the autumn of that year my chest became so troublesome that I was +obliged to try Italy. Thither I went; and, about the same time, Guy was +gazetted to the ---- Life Guards. The struggle between climate and +constitution was protracted, and for a long time doubtful; but winters +without fog, and springs without cold winds, worked wonders, and at last +carried the day. In the fourth year they told me I might risk England +again. Moving homeward slowly, I reached London about the beginning of +December--a most unfavorable season, it is true; but I was weary of +foreign wandering, and wanted to spend Christmas somewhere in the +fatherland, though where I had not yet determined. + +I had heard tolerably often from Livingstone during my absence. His +letters were very amusing, containing all sorts of news, and remarks on +men and manners. They would have pleased me more if they had not +indicated a vein of sarcasm deepening into cynicism. + +I stand very much alone in this world, and had few family visits to +detain me; so, on the morning after my arrival, I went down to the +Knightsbridge barracks, where Guy's regiment happened to be quartered. + +It was a field-day, his servant said, and his master was out with his +troop; but he expected him in very shortly. Captain Forrester was +waiting breakfast for him up stairs. + +As I entered the room, its occupant turned his head languidly on the +sofa-cushion which supported it; but when he saw it was a stranger, sat +up, and, on hearing my name, actually rose and came toward me. + +"Livingstone will be charmed to find you here, Mr. Hammond," he said, in +a voice that, though slightly affected and _trainante_, was very +musical. "I don't know if he ever mentioned Charley Forrester to you, +who must do the honors of the barrack-room in his absence?" + +I had heard of him very often; and, though my expectations as to his +personal appearance had been raised, I own the first glance did not +disappoint them. He was about three-and-twenty then, rather tall, but +very slightly built; his eyes long, sleepy, of a violet blue; features +small and delicately cut, with a complexion so soft and bright that his +silky, chestnut mustache hardly saved the face from effeminacy; his +hands and feet would have satisfied the Pacha of Tebelen at once as to +his purity of race; indeed, though Charley was not disposed to +undervalue any of his own bodily advantages, I imagine he considered his +extremities as his strong point. His manner was very fascinating, and, +with women, had a sort of caress in it which is hard to describe, though +even with _them_ he seldom excited himself much, preferring, +consistently, the passive to the active part in the conversation. +Indeed, his golden rule was the Arabic maxim, _Agitel lil +Shaitan_--Hurry is the Devil's--so, in the flirtations which were the +serious business of his life, he always let his fish hook themselves, +just exerting himself enough to play them afterward. + +In ten minutes we were very good friends, talking pleasantly of all +sorts of things, though Forrester had resumed his recumbent posture, and +I could not help fearing it was only a strong effort of politeness or +sense of duty which enabled him always to answer at the right time. + +Before long we heard the clatter of horses' hoofs and the rattle of +steel scabbards, and I looked out at the squadrons defiling into the +barrack-yard. My eye fell upon Livingstone at once: it was not difficult +to distinguish him, for few, if any, among those troopers, picked from +the flower of all the counties north of the Humber, could compare with +him for length of limb and breadth of shoulder. I felt proud of him, as +the hero of my boyhood, looking at him there, on his great black +charger, square and steadfast as the keep of a castle. + +His servant spoke to him as he dismounted. I saw his features soften and +brighten in an instant; in five seconds he was in the room, and the +light was on his face still--I like to think of it--the light of a +frank, cordial welcome, as he griped my hand. + +He was changed, certainly, but for the better. The features, which in +early youth had been too rugged and strongly marked, harmonized +perfectly with the vast proportions of a frame now fully developed, +though still lean in the flanks as a wolf-hound. The stern expression +about his mouth was more decided and unvarying than ever--an effect +which was increased by the heavy mustache that, dense as a Cuirassier's +of the Old Guard, fell over his lip in a black cascade. It was the face +of one of those stone Crusaders who look up at us from their couches in +the Round Church of the Temple. + +Before our first sentences were concluded, Forrester had nerved himself +to the effort of rising, and turned to go. + +"You must have fifty things to say to each other," he said. "You'll find +me in the mess-room. But, Guy, don't be long; I've no appetite myself +this morning, and it will refresh me to see you eat your breakfast;" and +so faded away gradually through the door. + +"How do you like him?" Livingstone called out from the inner room, where +he was donning the "mufti." "He's not so conceited as he might be, +considering how the women spoil him; and, lazy as he looks, he is a very +fair officer, and goes across country like a bird. Did I ever tell you +what first made him famous?" + +"No; I should like to hear." + +"Well, it was at a picnic at Cliefden. Charley was hardly nineteen then, +and had just joined the ----th Lancers at Hounslow; he wandered away, +and got lost with Kate Harcourt, a self-possessed beauty in high +condition for flirting, for she had had three seasons of hard training. +When they had been away from their party about two hours, she felt, or +pretended to feel, the awkwardness of the situation, and asked her +cavalier, in a charmingly helpless and confiding way, what they were to +do. 'Well, I hardly know,' Forrester answered, languidly; 'but I don't +mind proposing to you, if that will do you any good.' A fair performance +for an untried colt, was it not? Miss Harcourt thought so, and said so, +and Charley woke next morning with an established renown. Shall we go +and find him?" + +After breakfast we went with Guy to his room, to do the regulation +cigar. + +"I know you've made no plans, Frank," Livingstone said, "so I have +settled every thing for you already. You are coming down to Kerton with +us. We have just got our long leave, and our horses went down three days +ago." + +"It's very nice of him to say 'our horses,'" interrupted Forrester. +"Mine consist of one young one, that has been over about eight fences in +his life, and a mare, that I call the Wandering Jewess, for I don't +think she will ever die, and I am sure she will never rest till she +does: what with being park-hack in the summer and cover-hack in the +winter, with a by-day now and then when the country's light, she's the +best instance of perpetual motion I know. Well, it's not my fault the +chief won't let us hunt our second chargers--that's the charm of being +in a crack regiment--I always have one lame at least, and no one will +sell me hunters on tick." + +"Don't be so plaintive, Charley; you've nearly all mine to ride: it's a +treat to them, poor things, to feel your light weight and hand, after +carrying my enormous carcass. That's settled, then, Frank; you come with +us?" Guy said. + +"I shall be very glad. I only want a day to get my traps together." So +two days afterward we three came down to Kerton Manor. It was not my +first visit to Livingstone's home, but I have not described it before. + +Fancy a very large, low house, built in two quadrangles--the offices and +stables forming the smaller one farthermost from the main entrance--of +the light gray stone common in Northamptonshire, darkened at the angles +and buttresses into purple, and green, and bistre by the storms of three +hundred years; on the south side, smooth turf, with islands in it of +bright flower-beds, sloped down to a broad, slow stream, where grave, +stately swans were always sailing to and fro, and moor-hens diving among +the rushes; on the other sides, a park, extensive, but somewhat +rough-looking, stretched away, and, all round, lines of tall avenue +radiated--the bones of a dead giant's skeleton--for Kerton once stood in +the centre of a royal forest. + +You entered into a wide, low hall, the oak ceiling resting on broad +square pillars of the same dark wood; all round hung countless memorials +of chase and war, for the Livingstones had been hunters and soldiers +beyond the memory of man. + +Often, passing through of a winter's evening, I have stopped to watch +the fitful effects of the great logs burning on the andirons, as their +light died away, deadened among brown bear-skins and shadowy antlers, or +played, redly reflected, on the mail-shirt and corslet of Crusader or +Cavalier. + +There were many portraits too; one, the most remarkable, fronted you as +you came through the great doorway, the likeness of a very handsome man +in the uniform of a Light Dragoon; under this hung a cavalry sword, and +a brass helmet shaded with black horse-hair. The portrait and sword were +those of Guy's father; the helmet belonged to the Cuirassier who slew +him. + +It was in a skirmish with part of Kellermann's brigade, near the end of +the Peninsular war; Colonel Livingstone was engaged with an adversary in +his front, when a trooper, delivering point from behind, ran him through +the body. He had got his death-wound, and knew it; but he came of a race +that ever died hard and dangerously; he only ground his teeth, and, +turning short in his saddle, cut the last assailant down. Look at the +helmet, with the clean, even gap in it, cloven down to the +cheek-strap--the stout old Laird of Colonsay struck no fairer blow. + +It was curious to mark how the same expression of sternness and decision +about the lips and lower part of the face, which was so remarkable in +their descendants, ran through the long row of ancestral portraits. You +saw it--now, beneath the half-raised visor of Sir Malise, surnamed +_Poing-de-fer_, who went up the breach at Ascalon shoulder to shoulder +with strong King Richard--now, yet more grimly shadowed forth, under the +cowl of Prior Bernard, the ambitious ascetic, whom, they say, the great +Earl of Warwick trusted as his own right hand--now, softened a little, +but still distinctly visible, under the long love-locks of Prince +Rupert's aid-de-camp, who died at Naseby manfully in his harness--now, +contrasting strangely with the elaborately powdered peruke and delicate +lace ruffles of Beau Livingstone, the gallant, with the whitest hand, +the softest voice, the neatest knack at a sonnet, and the deadliest +rapier at the court of good Queen Anne. Nay, you could trace it in the +features of many a fair Edith and Alice, half counteracting the magnetic +attraction of their melting eyes. + +On the sunny south side, looking across the flower-garden, were Lady +Catharine Livingstone's rooms, where, diligent as Matilda and her +maidens, in summer by the window, in winter by the fire; the pale +chatelaine sat over her embroidery. What rivers of tapestry must have +flowed from under those slender white fingers during their ceaseless +toil of twenty years! + +The good that she did in her neighborhood can not be told. She was kind +and hospitable, too, to her female guests, in her own haughty, +undemonstrative way; nevertheless, the wives and daughters of the +squirearchy regarded her with great awe and fear. Perhaps she felt this, +though she could not alter it, and the sense of isolation may have +deepened the shades on her sad face. She had only one thing on earth to +centre her affections on, and that one she worshiped with a love +stronger than her sense of duty; for, since his father died, she had +never been able to check Guy in a single whim. + +When he had a hunting-party in the house, she sometimes would not appear +for days; but, however early he might start for the meet, I do not think +he ever left his dressing-room without his mother's kiss on his cheek. +She knew, as well as any one, how recklessly her son rode; nothing but +his science, coolness, and great strength in the saddle could often have +saved him from some terrible accident. Many times, in the middle of the +day's sport, the thought has come across me piteously of that poor lady, +in her lonely rooms, trembling, and I am very sure praying, for her +darling. + +On the opposite side of the court were Guy's own apartments: first, what +was called by courtesy his study--an armory of guns and other weapons, a +chaos _e rebus omnibus et quibusdam aliis_, for he never had the +faintest conception of the beauty of order; then came the smoking-room, +with its great divans and scattered card-tables; then Livingstone's +bed-room and dressing-room. + +Did the distance and the doors always deaden the sounds of late revels, +so as not to break Lady Catharine's slumbers? I fear not. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + + "Thou art not steeped in golden languors; + No tranced summer calm is thine, + Ever-varying Madeline." + + + +It was a woodland meet, a long way off, the morning after we arrived, so +we staid at home; and, after breakfast, Guy having to give audience to +keepers and other retainers, I strolled out with Forrester to smoke in +the stables. I have seldom seen a lot which united so perfectly bone and +blood. Livingstone gave any price for his horses; the only thing he was +not particular about was their temper; more than one looked eminently +unsuited to a nervous rider, and a swinging bar behind them warned the +stranger against incautious approach. + +After duly discussing and admiring the stud, we established ourselves on +the sunniest stone bench in the garden, and I asked my companion to tell +me something of what Guy had been doing during my absence. + +"Well, it's rather hard to say," answered Charley. "He never takes the +trouble to conceal any thing; but then, you see, he never tells one any +thing either; so it's only guess work, after all. He lives very much +like other men in the Household Brigade; plays heavily, though not +regularly; but he always has two _affaires de coeur_, at least, on +hand at once; that's his stint." + +"So he still persecutes the weaker sex unremittingly?" I asked, +laughing. + +"In a way peculiar to himself," said Forrester; "he is always strictly +courteous, but decidedly sarcastic. Poor things, they are easily imposed +upon; he very soon has them well in hand, and they can never get their +heads up afterward. I suppose they like it, for it seems to answer +admirably. Last season he divided himself pretty equally between +Constance Brandon and Flora Bellasys--quite the two best things out, +though as opposite to each other in every way as the poles. To do Miss +Brandon justice, I don't think she knew much of the other flirtation; +she always went away early, and he used to take up her rival for the +rest of the evening." + +"But the said rival--how did she like the divided homage?" + +"Not at all at first; at least, she used to look revolvers at Guy from +time to time--(ah! you should see the Bellasys' eyes when they begin to +lighten)--but he always brought her back to the lure, and at last she +seemed to take it quite as a matter of course, keeping all her +after-supper waltzes for him religiously, though half the men in town +were trying to cut in. I can't make out how he does it. Do you think his +size and sinews can have any thing to do with it?" He said this gravely +and reflectively. + +"Not unlikely," I replied; "the _fortiter in re_ goes a long way with +women apparently, even where there is not a tongue like his to back it. +Don't you remember Juvenal's strong-minded heroine, who left husband and +home to follow the scarred, maimed gladiator? I doubt if the Mirmillo +was a pleasant or intellectual companion. Now I want you to tell me +something about Guy's cousin and her father; they are coming here +to-day, and I have never met them." + +"Mr. Raymond is very like most calm, comfortable old men with a life +interest in L2000 a year," Charley said; "rather more cold and +impassible than the generality, perhaps. He _must_ be clever, for he +plays whist better than any one I know; but not brilliant, certainly. +His daughter is"--the color deepened on his cheek perceptibly--"very +charming, most people think; but I hate describing people. I always +caricature the likeness. You'll form your own judgment at dinner. Shall +we go in? We shoot an outlying cover after luncheon, and the blackthorns +involve gaiters." + +We had very fair sport, and were returning across the park, picking up a +stray rabbit every now and then in the tufts of long grass and patches +of brake. One had just started before Forrester, and he was in the act +of pulling the trigger, when Livingstone said suddenly, + +"There's my uncle's carriage coming down the north avenue." + +It was an easy shot in the open, but Charley missed it clean. + +"What eyes you have, Guy," he said, pettishly; "but I wish you wouldn't +speak to a man on his shot." + +Guy's great Lancaster rang out with the roar of a small field-piece, and +the rabbit was rolling over, riddled through the head, before he +answered, + +"Yea, my eyes _are_ good, and I see a good many things, but I _don't_ +see why you should have muffled that shot, particularly as my +intelligence was meant for the world in general, and it was not such an +astounding remark, after all." + +Charley did not seem ready with a reply, so he retained his look of +injured innocence, and walked on, sucking silently at his cigar. The +Raymonds reached the house before us; but, not being in a presentable +state, I did not see them before dinner. + +Forrester was right; there was nothing startling about Mr. Raymond. He +had one of those thin, high-bred looking faces that one always fancies +would have suited admirably the powder and ruffles of the last century. +It expressed little except perfect repose, and when he spoke, which was +but seldom, no additional light came into his hard blue eyes. His +daughter was his absolute contrast--a lovely, delicate little creature, +with silky dark-brown hair, and eyes _en suite_, and color that deepened +and faded twenty times in an hour, without ever losing the softness of +its tints. She had the ways of a child petted all its life through, that +a harsh word would frighten to annihilation. She seemed very fond of +Guy, though evidently rather afraid of him at times. + +Nothing passed at dinner worth mentioning; but soon after the ladies +left us, Mr. Raymond turned lazily to his nephew to inquire, + +"If he would mind asking Bruce to come and stay at Kerton, as he was to +be in the neighborhood soon after Christmas." + +He did not seem to feel the faintest interest in the reply. + +"I shall be too glad, Uncle Henry," answered Guy (he did not look +particularly charmed though), "if it will give you or Bella any +pleasure. Need he be written to immediately?" + +"Thank you very much," said Raymond, languidly. "I know he bores you, +and I am sure I don't wonder at it; but one must be civil to one's +son-in-law that is to be. No, you need not trouble yourself to invite +him yet. Bella can do it when she writes. I suppose she _does_ write to +him sometimes." + +I looked across the table at Forrester. This was the first time I had +heard of Miss Raymond's engagement. He met my eye quite unconcernedly, +pursuing with great interest his occupation of peeling walnuts and +dropping them into Sherry. It did not often happen to him to blush +_twice_ in the twenty-four hours. Directly afterward we began to talk +about pheasants and other things. + +After coffee in the drawing-room Guy sat down to piquet with his uncle. +Raymond liked to utilize his evenings, and never played for nominal +stakes. He was the _beau ideal_ of a card-player, certainly; no +revolution or persistence of luck could ruffle the dead calm of his +courteous face. He would win the money of his nearest and dearest +friend, or lose his own to an utter stranger with the same placidity. To +be sure, to a certain extent, he had enslaved Fortune; though he always +played most loyally, and sometimes would forego an advantage he might +fairly have claimed, his rare science made ultimate success scarcely +doubtful. He never touched a game of mere chance. + +I heard a good story of him in Paris. They were playing a game like +Brag; the principle being that the players increase the stakes without +seeing each other's cards, till one refuses to go on and throws up, or +shows his point. Raymond was left in at last with one adversary; the +stakes had mounted up to a sum that was fearful, and it was his choice +to double or _abattre_. Of course, it was of the last importance to +discover whether the antagonist was strong or not; but the Frenchman's +face gave not the slightest sign. He was _beau joueur s'il en fut_, and +had lost two fair fortunes at play. Raymond hesitated, looking steadily +into his opponent's eyes. All at once he smiled and doubled instantly. +The other dared not go on; he showed his point, and lost. They asked +Raymond afterward how he could have detected any want of confidence to +guide him in a face that looked like marble. + +"I saw three drops of perspiration on his forehead," he said; "and I +knew my own hand was strong." + +Lady Catharine was resting on a sofa: she looked tired and paler than +usual, not in the least available for conversation. Miss Raymond had +nestled herself into the recesses of a huge arm-chair close to the +fire--she was as fond of warmth, when she could not get sunshine, as a +tropical bird--and Forrester was lounging on an ottoman behind her, so +that his head almost touched her elbow. When I caught scraps of their +conversation it seemed to be turning on the most ordinary subjects; but +even in these I should have felt lost--I had been so long away from +England--so I contented myself with watching them, and wondering why +discussions as to the merits of operas and inquiries after mutual +acquaintances should make the fair cheeks hang out signals of distress +so often as they did that evening. + +I lingered in the smoking-room about midnight for a moment after +Forrester left us. + +"So your cousin is really engaged?" I asked Guy. + +"_Tout ce qu'il y a du plus fiance_," was the answer. "It was one of the +last affairs of state that my poor aunt concluded before she died. Bruce +is a very good match. I don't think Bella worships him, though I have +scarcely ever seen them together, and I am sure he is not a favorite +with Uncle Henry; but nothing on earth would make him break it off; +indeed, I know no one who would propose such a thing to him--not his +daughter, certainly. There's no such hopeless obstacle as the passive +resistance of a thoroughly lazy man. Good-night, Frank. I've sent the +Baron on for you to-morrow. We must start about nine, mind, for we've +fifteen miles to go to cover." + +I went to bed, and dreamed that Raymond was playing _ecarte_ with +Forrester for his daughter, who stood by blushing beautifully--and never +held a trump! + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + "She has two eyes so soft and brown; + Take care! + She gives a side glance, and looks down; + Beware! beware! + Trust her not; she is fooling thee." + + +So the days went on. The stream of visitors usual in a country house +during the hunting season flowed in and out of Kerton Manor without any +remarkable specimen showing itself above the surface. One individual, +perhaps, I ought to except, the curate of the parish, who was a very +constant visitor. + +His appearance was not fascinating: he had a long, narrow head, thatched +with straight, scanty hair; little, protruding eyes, and a complexion of +a bright unvarying red--in fact, he was very like a prawn. + +It was soon evident that the Rev. Samuel Foster was helplessly smitten +by Miss Raymond, or, as Forrester elegantly expressed it, "hard hit in +the wings, and crippled for flying!" Helplessly, I say, but not +hopelessly; for that wicked little creature, acting perhaps under +private orders, gave him all sorts of treacherous encouragement. I never +saw any human being evolve so much caloric under excitement as he did, +except one young woman whom I met ages ago--(a most estimable person; +her Sunday-school was a model)--whose only way of evincing any emotion, +either of anger, fear, pain, or pleasure, was--a profuse perspiration. +Mr. Foster not only got awfully hot, but electrical into the bargain. +His thin hairs used to stand out distinctly and in relief from his head +and face, just like a person on the glass tripod. Charley suggested +insulating him unawares, and getting a flash out of his knuckles, if not +out of his brain. In truth, it was piteous to see the struggle between +passion and nervousness that raged perpetually within him. He would +stand for some time casting _lamb's_-eyes at the object of his +affections--to the amorous audacity of the full-grown sheep he never +soared--then suddenly, without the slightest provocation, he would +discharge at her a compliment, elaborate, long-winded, Grandisonian, as +a raw recruit fires his musket, shutting his eyes, and incontinently +take to flight, without waiting to see the effect of his shot. If he had +spent half the time and pains on his sermons that he did on his +small-talk (I believe he used to write out three or four foul copies of +each sentence previously at home), what a boon it would have been to his +unlucky audience on Sundays! + +Why is it that the great proportion of our pastors seem to conspire +together with one consent to make the periodical duty of listening to +them as hard as possible? Can they imagine there is profit or pleasure +in a discourse wandering wearily round in a circle, or dragging a slow +length along of truisms and trivialities? In the best of congregations +there can be but few alchemists; and, without that science, who is to +extract the essence of Truth from the _moles incongesta_ of crass +moralities? + +To persuade or dissuade you must interest the head or the heart. I +admire those who can do either successfully, but I do protest against +those clerical tyrants who shelter themselves behind their license to +fire at us their ruthless platitudes. If such could only struggle +against that strong temptation of our fallen nature--the delight of +hearing one's own sweet voice--so as to concentrate now and then! The +best orators, spiritual and mundane, have been brief sometimes. + +I am no theologian, but I take leave to doubt if, in the elaborate +divinity of fourteen epistles, the apostle of the Gentiles ever went so +straight to his hearer's heart as in that farewell charge, when the +elders of Ephesus gathered round him on the sea-sand, "Sorrowing most of +all for the words that he spake, that they should see his face no more." + +Do you remember Canning and the clergyman? When the latter asked him, +"How did you like my sermon? I endeavored not to be tedious;" I always +fancy the statesman's weary, wistful look, which would have been +compassionate but for a sense of personal injury, as he answered, in his +mild voice, "And yet--_you were_." + +Well, the flirtation went on its way rejoicing, to the intense amusement +of all of us, especially of Forrester, till one day his cousin came into +Guy's study, who had just returned from hunting, looking rather +frightened, like a child who has let fall a valuable piece of china--it +was only an honest man's heart that she had broken. Slowly the truth +came out; Mr. Foster had proposed to her that afternoon in the park. + +We, far off in the drawing-room, heard the shrill whistle with which +Livingstone greeted the intelligence. + +"You accepted him, of course?" he said. + +"O Guy!" Miss Raymond answered, blushing more than ever. (I'll back a +woman against the world for expressing half a chapter by a simple +interjection; Lord Burleigh's nod is nothing to it.) "But, indeed," she +went on, "I'm very sorry about it; I never saw any one look so unhappy +before. Do you know I think I saw the tears standing in his eyes; and I +only guessed at the words when he said 'God bless you!'" + +"Ah bah!" replied Guy, with his most cynical smile on his lip; "he'll +recover. Who breaks his heart in these days, especially for such little +dots of things as you? But, Bella mia, how do you think Mr. Bruce would +approve of all these innocent amusements?" + +It was no blush now, but a dead waxen whiteness, that came over the +beautiful face, even down to the chin. The soft brown eyes grew fixed +and wild with an imploring terror. "You won't tell him?" she gasped out; +and then stood quivering and shuddering. Guy was very much surprised: he +had never believed greatly in his cousin's affection for her betrothed; +but here there were signs, not only of the absence of love, but of the +presence of physical fear. + +"My dear child," he said, very kindly, "don't alarm yourself so +absurdly. I have not the honor of Mr. Bruce's confidence; and if I had, +how could I tell him of an affair where _I_ have been most to blame? +I'll speak to Foster; he must not show his disappointment even before +Uncle Henry. You will be quite safe, you see. But, mind, I won't allow +_any one_ to frighten or vex my pet cousin." His countenance lowered as +he spoke, and there was a threat in his eyes. + +As the cloud darkened on his face, the light came back on Isabel +Raymond's. She took his hand--all fibre and sinew, like an +oak-bough--into her slender fingers and pressed it hard. In good truth, +a woman at her need could ask no better defender than he who stood by +her side then, tall, strong, black-browed, and terrible as Saul. "Thank +you so much, dear Guy," she whispered. "If you speak to Mr. Foster, you +will tell him how _very_ sorry I am!" and then she left him. + +Guy did speak to the curate, I hope gently. At all events, we never +laughed at him again. How could we, when we saw him going about his +daily duties, honestly and bravely, and always, when in presence, +struggling with his great sorrow, so as not by word or look to +compromise the thoughtless child who had won his heart for her +amusement, and thrown it away for her convenience? + +I have been disciplined since by what I have felt and seen, and I see +now how ungenerous we had been. + +What right had we to make of that man a puppet for our amusement, +because he was shy, and stupid, and slow? He was as true in his +devotion, as honorable in all his wishes, as confident in his hopes till +they were blasted, as any one that has gone a wooing since the first +whisper of love was heard in Eden. If his despair was less crushing than +that of other men, it was because his principles were stronger to +endure, and perhaps because his temperament was more tranquil and cold. +As I have said, he did his day's work thoroughly, and that helped him +through a good deal. But, to the utmost of his nature, I believe he did +suffer. And could the long train of those whom disappointment has made +maniacs or suicides do more? + +Let us not trust too much to the absence of feeling in these seemingly +impassive organizations. + +I wonder how often the executors of old college fellows, or of +hard-faced bankers and bureaucrats, have been aggravated by finding in +that most secret drawer, which ought to have held a codicil or a jewel, +a tress, a glove, or a flower? The searcher looks at the object for a +moment, and then throws it into the rubbish-basket, with a laugh if he +is good-natured, with a curse if he is vicious and disappointed. Let it +lie there--though the dead miser valued it above all his bank-stock, and +kissed it oftener than he did his living and lawful wife and +children--what is it worth now? Say, as the grim Dean of St. Patrick +wrote on _his_ love-token, "Only a woman's hair." + +Now these men, unknown to their best friend perhaps, had gone through +the affliction which is so common that it is hard to speak of it without +launching into truisms. This sorrow has made some men famous, by forcing +them out into the world and shutting the door behind them. It has made +the fortunes of some poets, who choose the world for their confidant, +setting their bereavement to music, and bewailing Eurydice in charming +volumes, that are cheap at "3_s._ 6_d._ in cloth, lettered." It has made +some--I think the best and bravest--somewhat silent for the rest of +their lives. I read some lines the other day wise enough to have sprung +from an older brain than Owen Meredith's. + + "They were pedants who could speak-- + Grander souls have passed unheard; + Such as felt all language weak; + Choosing rather to record + Secrets before Heaven, than break + Faith with angels, by a word--" + +Yes, many men have their Rachel; but--there being a prejudice against +bigamy--few have even the Patriarch's luck, to marry her at last; for +the wife _de convenance_ generally outlives her younger sister; and so, +one afternoon, we turn again from a grave in Ephrata-Green Cemetery, +somewhat drearily, into our tent pitched in the plains of Belgravia, +where Leah--(there was ever jealousy between those two)--meets us with a +sharp glance of triumph in her "tender eyes." + +We have known pleasanter _tete-a-tetes_--have we not?--than that which +we undergo that evening at dinner, though our companion seems disposed +to be especially lively. We have not much appetite; but our _carissima +sposa_ tells us "not to drink any more claret, or we shall never be fit +to take her to Lady Shechem's _conversazione_." Of all nights in the +year, would she let us off duty on this one? "There are to be some very +pleasant people there," she says, "though none, perhaps, that _you +particularly care about_." (Thank you, my love; I understand that +good-natured allusion perfectly, and am proportionately grateful.) Her +voice sounds shriller than usual as she says this, and leaves us to put +some last touches to her toilette. So we order a fresh bottle, +notwithstanding the warning, and fall to thinking. How low and soft +_that other_ voice was, and, even when a little reproachful, how rarely +sweet! _She_ would scarcely have invented that last taunt if matters +had turned out differently. Then we think of our respected +father-in-law, Sir Joseph Leyburn, of Harran Park--a mighty county +magistrate and cattle-breeder. He got Ishmael Deadeye, the poacher, +transported last year, and took the prize for Devons at the Great +Mesopotamian Agricultural with a brindled bull. We remember his weeping +at the wedding-breakfast over the loss of his eldest treasure, and +wonder if he was an arrant humbug, or only a foolish, fond old man, +inclining morosely toward the former opinion. We don't seem to care much +about Sir Roland de Vaux, the celebrated geologist, whom we shall have +the privilege of meeting this evening. What are strata to us, when our +thoughts will not go lower than about _eight feet_ underground? We shall +be rather bored than otherwise by Dr. Sternhold, that eminent Christian +divine, who passes his leisure hours in proving St. Paul to have been an +unsound theologian and a weak dialectician. Why should Mr. Planet, the +intrepid traveler, be always inflicting Jerusalem upon us, as if no one +had ever visited the Holy Land before him? Our ancestors did so five +hundred years ago, and did not make half the fuss about it; and _they_ +had a skirmish or two there worth speaking of, while we don't believe a +word of Planet's encounter with those three Arabs on the Hebron road. +Pooh! there's no more peril in traversing the Wilderness of Cades than +in going up to the Grands Mulets. We are not worthy of those +distinguished men, and would prefer the society of hard-riding Dick +Foley of the Blues. He had a few feelings in common with us once on a +certain point (how we hated him then), and he won't wonder if we are +duller than usual this evening. Perhaps his own nerve will scarcely be +as iron as usual in the Grand Military, to come off in the course of the +week. + +Well, the bottle is out, and Mademoiselle Zelpa comes to say that +"Madame is ze raidee." So one glass of Cognac neat, as a _chasse_ (to +more things than good Claret), and then--let us put on our whitest tie +and our most attractive smile, and "go forth, for she is gone." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + "A man had given all other bliss + And all his worldly worth for this, + To waste his whole heart in one kiss + Upon her perfect lips." + + +We were asked to dine and sleep at Brainswick, where the hounds met on +the following morning. Mr. Raymond could not make up his mind to the +exertion, so Forrester and I accompanied Guy alone. + +"By-the-by," the latter observed, as we were driving over in his +mail-phaeton, "I wonder if we shall see the Bellasys to-night? I know +they were to come down about this time. Steady, old wench! where are you +off to?" (This was to the near wheeler, who was breaking her trot.) "I +think you'll admire her, Frank; but, _gare a vous_, she's dangerous. Eh, +Charley?" + +"Well, you ought to know," answered Forrester; "I never tried her much +myself. She's two or three stone over my weight. I wonder what she has +been doing lately? They sent her down to rusticate somewhere at the end +of the season. She ought to be in great condition now, with a summer's +run." + +Livingstone smiled, complacently I thought, as if some one had praised +one of his favorite hunters, but did not pursue the subject. + +When I came down before dinner he was talking to a lady in dark blue +silk, with black lace over it, a wreath curiously plaited of natural ivy +in her hair. I guessed her at once to be Flora Bellasys. + +Let me try to paint--though abler artists have failed--the handsomest +brunette I have ever seen. + +She was very tall; her figure magnificently developed, though +slender-waisted and lithe as a serpent. She walked as if she had been +bred in a _basquina_, and her foot and ankle were hardly to be matched +on this side of the Pyrenees; the nose slightly aquiline, with thin, +transparent nostrils; and the forehead rather low--it looked more so, +perhaps, from the thick masses of dark hair which framed and shaded her +face. Under the clear, pale olive of the cheeks the rich blood mantled +now and then like wine in a Venice glass; and her lips--the outline of +the upper one just defined by a penciling of down, the lower one full +and pouting--glistened with the brilliant smoothness of a pomegranate +flower when the dew is clinging. Her eyes--the opium-eaters of Stamboul +never dreamed of their peers among the bevies of hachis-houris. They +were of the very darkest hazel; one moment sleeping lazily under their +long lashes, like a river under leaves of water-lilies; the next, +sparkling like the same stream when the sunlight is splintered on its +ripples into carcanets of diamonds. When they chose to speak, not all +the orators that have rounded periods since Isocrates could match their +eloquence; when it was their will to guard a secret, they met you with +the cold, impenetrable gaze that we attribute to the mighty mother, +Cybele. Even a philosopher might have been interested--on purely +psychological grounds, of course--in watching the thoughts as they rose +one by one to the surface of those deep, clear wells (was truth at the +bottom of them?--I doubt), like the strange shapes of beauty that +reveal themselves to seamen, coyly and slowly, through the purple calm +of the Indian Sea. + +Twice I have chosen a watery simile; but I know no other element +combining, as her glances did, liquid softness with lustre. + +When near her, you were sensible of a strange, subtle, intoxicating +perfume, very fragrant, perfectly indefinable, which clung, not only to +her dress, but to every thing belonging to her. From what flowers it was +distilled no artist in essences alive could have told. I incline to +think that, like the "birk" in the ghost's garland, + + "They were not grown on earthly bank, + Nor yet on earthly sheugh." + +Guy took Miss Bellasys in to dinner, and I found myself placed on her +other side. I had been introduced to her ten minutes before, but had +little opportunity for "improving the occasion," as the Nonconformists +have it, for she never once deigned a look in my direction. + +My right-hand neighbor was an elderly man of a full habit, whom it would +have been cruel to disturb till the rage of hunger was appeased, so I +was fain to seek amusement in the conversation going on on my left. +There was no indiscretion in this, for I knew Guy would never touch +secrets of state in mixed company. + +For some time they talked nothing but commonplaces, evidently feeling +each other's foils. The real fencing began with a question from +Flora--if he was not surprised at seeing her there that evening. + +"Not at all," was the reply; "I knew we must meet before long. It is +only parallels that don't; and there is very little of the right line +about either you or me." + +"Speak for yourself," Miss Bellasys said; "I consider that a very rude +observation." + +"Pardon me," retorted Guy; "I seldom say rude things--never +intentionally. I don't know which is in worst taste, that, or paying +point-blank compliments. Without being mathematical, you may have heard +that the line of beauty is a curve." + +Flora laughed. + +"It is difficult to catch you. What have you been doing since we +parted?" + +"That is just the question that was on my lips, so nearly uttered that I +consider I spoke first. Now, will you confess, or must I cross-question +some one else? I _will_ know. It is easy to follow you, like an invading +army, by the trail of devastation." + +"So you do care to know?" the soft voice said, that could make the +nerves of even an indifferent hearer thrill and quiver strangely. + +After once listening to it, it was very easy to believe the weird +stories of Norse sorceresses, and German wood-spirits and pixies, luring +men to death with their fatally musical tones. + +"Simple curiosity," Guy replied, coolly, "and a little compassion for +your victims. They might be friends of mine, you know." + +Miss Bellasys bit her lip, half provoked, half amused, apparently, as +she answered, "The dead tell no tales." + +"No, but the wounded do, and they cry out pretty loudly sometimes. I +suppose all the cases did not terminate fatally. Will you confess?" + +"I have nothing to tell you," Flora said, very demurely and meekly, +only for once her eyes betrayed her. "Mamma took me down into +Devonshire, where we have an aunt or two, for sea-breezes and seclusion. +I rather liked at first having nothing on earth to do, and nothing--yes, +I understand--really nothing to think about. I used to sleep a great +deal, and then drive a little obstinate pony, to see views. But I don't +care much about views--do you? Then mamma was always wanting me to help +her look for shells and wild-flowers; and the rocks hurt my feet, and +the bushes never would leave me alone in the woods." She shuddered +slightly here. + +"The Bushes! a Devonshire family of that name, I presume?" Guy +interrupted, with intense gravity. "How wrong of them! They are very +ill-regulated young men down in those parts, I believe." + +"Don't be absurd; I never saw a creature for months between fifteen and +fifty. Are not those ages safe?" (A shake of the head from Livingstone.) +"I began to be very unhappy; I had no one to tease; my aunts are too +good-natured, and mamma is used to it. At last I had the greatest mind +to do something desperate--to write to you, for instance--merely to see +the household's horror when your answer came. You would have answered, +would you not? I should not have opened it, you know, but given it to +mamma, like a good child." + +"Of course; I know you show all your letters to your mother. But that +ruralizing must have been fearful for you, _poverina_! People were +talking a good deal of agricultural distress, but this is the most +piteous case I've heard of. So there were really no men to govern in +that wood?" + +"Not even a little boy," said Flora, decisively. "There were two or +three from Oxford in the neighborhood; I used to see them sitting +outside their lodgings in the sun, like rabbits, but they always ran in +before--" + +"Before you could get a shot at them, you mean?" broke in Guy; "you +ought to have crept up, and stalked them cleverly." + +Flora threw hack her handsome head. "I don't war with children. It went +on just as I tell you till we left for our round of winter visits, which +have been very stupid and correct--till now." + +I hardly caught the two last words, she spoke them so low. There was +silence for several minutes, and then Guy leaned back to address me. + +"Do you remember Arthur Darrell, of Christchurch, Frank, the man that +used to speak at the Union, and was always raving about ebon locks and +dark eyes?" + +"I remember him well. I have not seen him for years; but I heard he was +getting on well in the law." + +"He'll have time to get tired of brunettes--if any one ever _does_ get +tired of them--before he comes back," said Guy. "He's just gone out to +try the Indian bar." + +"What could have put such an idea into his head?" I asked, very +innocently. + +"I can't say," was the reply; "men do take such curious fancies. It was +a sudden determination, I believe. The beauties of the Eastern +hemisphere began to develop themselves to his weak mind last summer +while he was down with his people in--Devonshire." + +Involuntarily I looked at Miss Bellasys. She saw she was detected; but, +instead of betraying any embarrassment, she turned upon Guy a queer +little imploring look, not indicative in the least of shame or +repentance, but such as might be put on by one of those truly excellent +people who do good by stealth and blush to find it known, when some of +their benevolent acts have come to light, and they wish to deprecate +praise. + +Livingstone gazed piercingly at her for several instants without moving +a muscle of his face; suddenly its fixed and stern expression--you could +not say softened, but--broke up all at once like a sheet of ice +shivering. + +"Let there be peace," he said, sententiously. "We forgive all the errors +of your long vacation in consideration of the good it has evidently done +you. You are looking brilliantly!" + +There was an unusual softness, almost a tremor, in his deep voice as he +spoke the last words, and a look in his bold eyes that many trained +coquettes would have shrunk from--a look that I should be sorry and +angry to see turned on any woman in whom I felt an interest--a look such +as Selim Pasha might wear as the Arnauts defile into his harem-court, +bringing the fair Georgians home. + +Flora Bellasys only smiled in saucy triumph. + +"You say you never pay compliments," she answered, "and I always _try_ +to believe you. We will suppose this one is only the truth extorted. My +glove--thank you." The same smile was on her lip as she turned her head +once in her haughty progress to the door. + +As Guy sat down again, and filled a huge glass with claret, I heard him +mutter between his teeth, "_Royale, quand meme_!" + +"Close up, gentlemen, close up!" broke in the cheery voice of our rare +old host. "Livingstone, if you begin back-handing already, you'll never +be able to hold that great raking chestnut I saw your groom leading this +evening. The man looked as if he thought he would be eaten before he got +in." + +"Whatever you do, drink fair," Guy answered, laughing; "so saith the +immortal Gamp. The squire's beginning to tremble for his '22 wine." + +"I don't wonder," said Godfrey Parndon, the M.F.H. "I've always observed +that, after flirting disgracefully at dinner, you drink harder +afterward. It's to drown remorse, I suppose. So you ride that new horse +of yours to-morrow? My poor hounds!" + +"Don't be alarmed," cried Guy; "he never kicks hounds, and I won't let +him go over them; it's only human strangers the amiable animal can't +endure: that's why I call him the Axeine. He is worth more than the L300 +I gave for him." + +"Well, he nearly spoiled two grooms for Hounscott," Parndon said. "The +stablemen at Revesby had a great beer the day they got rid of him." + +"He wouldn't suit every one," remarked Livingstone--"not you, for +instance, Godfrey, who always ride with a loose rein. I was obliged to +give him his gallops myself at first; he's a devil to pull, and if he +once gets away with you, you may 'write to your friends.' But I've +nothing like him in my stable." + +Then the conversation became general, revolving in a circle of +hound-and-horse talk, as it will do now and then in the shires. + +"Guy," whispered Forrester, as we went up stairs, "there's a little +woman here who says she used to know you very well: won't you go and +talk to her?" + +"Many little women say that," answered Guy; "it's a way they have. Which +is it, now?" + +Charley pointed out a small, plump, rather pretty blonde, with long +ringlets, and light, laughing blue eyes. It seemed the lady's +reminiscences were well founded, for in five minutes Livingstone and she +were talking like old friends. + +In the course of the evening I found myself near Miss Bellasys. This +time she did me the honor to address me, and soon began asking me more +questions than I could answer, even had she waited a reply. Did I like +Kerton Manor? Had there been many agreeable people there yet? Not any +remarkably so! She was surprised at that. Miss Raymond was there _en +permanence_, of course? She was such a favorite with her (Flora), and +with her cousin too, she thought. Was Mr. Livingstone always playing +with his uncle, and always losing? She supposed he liked losing--at +play. Did I know the lady in pink, with twenty-five flowers in her hair? +She had counted them. Yes, that was her husband, the stout man looking +uncomfortable, in the corner--an old friend of Mr. Livingstone's? He had +so many old friends; but he did not always talk to them for a whole +evening without intermission. Ah! she was going to sing; that is, if +Mr. Livingstone had quite finished with her, and would let her go. +Little women with pink cheeks and dresses always _did_ sing, and never +had any voice. + +I don't know how many more questions she put to me in the same quiet, +clear tones; but just then I happened to look down on the handkerchief +she held in her hand, and I saw a long rent in its broad Valenciennes +border that I am very sure was not there an hour ago; for Flora's +toilette, morning and evening, was faultless to a degree. + +I had hardly time to remark this when Guy lounged up to us. My +companion's dark eyes were more eloquent than her lips, which quivered +slightly as she said, + +"I wonder you have not more consideration. A new arrival in the county, +and compromised irretrievably! Look at Mr. Stafford now." + +"The husband?" Guy said, with intense disdain; "the husband's helpless. +He may sharpen his--tusks, but he'll never come to battle. How good and +great you are! It is quite refreshing to hear your strictures on +innocent amusements. But I beg you will speak of that lady with due +respect; she is the first--yes, positively the first--woman I ever +loved." + +"_Monseigneur, que d'honneur!_" Flora said, curling her haughty lip. + +"It is true," Guy went on. "At a children's ball, about fifteen years +ago, I met my fate. She was in white muslin, with a velvet bodice (Flora +shuddered visibly); for a year after I pictured to myself the angels in +no other attire, and now--years vitiate one's tastes so--I can fancy +nothing but a jockey in 'black body and white sleeves.' I suppose she +was very pretty; let us hope so; it is my only excuse for being +enchanted in ten minutes, and stupidly enslaved in half an hour. The +thing would not have been complete without a rival; he came--a plump, +circular-faced boy, with severely flaxen hair. No, you need not look +across the room--not the least like what she is now! Great jealousy may +make me unjust, but I don't think he had any advantage over me save one, +and he used that mercilessly. He wore collars boldly erect under his fat +checks, while those of the rest of us lay prostrate, after the simple +fashion of my childhood. The _prestige_ was too much for Ellen's weak +mind. (Did I tell you her name was Ellen?) Bottom monopolized Titania +for the rest of the evening. I could have beaten him with ease and +satisfaction to myself, but I refrained; and, rushing into the +supper-room, drained three glasses of weak negus with the energy of +despair. + +"I have never suffered any thing since like the torment of the next two +hours. I saw her several times afterward, and might have made play, +perhaps, but the phantom of a round red face, with collars starched _a +l'outrance_, always came between us. It is only a slight satisfaction to +hear that she has utterly lost sight of my rival, and promises to cut +him dead the first time they meet. There's the history of a young heart +blighted--of a crushed affection! I am not aware if there is any moral +in it; if there is, you are very welcome to it, I am sure. You might +look a little more sympathizing, though, even if I _have_ bored you." + +Flora tried to look grave, but the dancing light in her rebellious eyes +betrayed her, even before her merry musical laugh broke in. + +"It is far the most touching thing I ever heard. Poor child, how you +must have suffered! I wonder you ever smiled again. How well she sings, +does she not? when she does not try to go too high." + +"Don't be severe," Guy retorted; "you may have to sing yourself some +day. You prefer talking, though? Well, with a well-managed _contralto_, +it comes nearly to the same thing, and I suppose you consider the world +in general is not worthy of it?" + +Almost imperceptibly, but very meaningly, her glance turned to where I +sat close beside her. + +"How absurd! you know why I don't sing often. To-night it would be--too +cruel. (Flora's idea of modest merit was peculiar.) Now tell me, what +are you going to ride to-morrow? We shall all go and see them throw +off." + +Without answering her question, he leaned over her, and said something +too low for me to hear, which made her color brighten. + +From a distant corner two ancient virgins, long past "mark of mouth," +surveyed the proceedings with faces like moulds of lemon-ice. Flora +glanced toward them this time, and said demurely, making a gesture of +crossing her arms a _a la Napoleon I._, "Take care; from the summit of +yonder sofa forty ages behold you." + +The caution was a challenge; and so her hearer interpreted it as he sank +down beside her. + +I seemed to be lapsing rapidly into the terrible _third_ that spoils +sport, so I left them; but not all the adjurations of Godfrey Parndon +invoking his favorite antagonist to the whist-table could draw Guy from +his post again that evening. + +I know men who would have given five years of life for the whisper that +glided into his ear as he gave Miss Bellasys her candle on retiring, ten +for the Parthian glance that shot its arrow home. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + "I know the purple vestment; + I know the crest of flame; + So ever _rides_ Mamilius, + Prince of the Latian name." + + +The next was a perfect hunting morning; a light breeze, steady from the +southwest, and not too much sun; the very day when a scent, in and out +of cover, would be a certainty, if there were any calculation on this +contingency. Let us do our sisters justice--there is _one_ thing in +nature more uncertain and capricious than the whims of womankind. + +The hounds had come up with their usual train of officials, and of those +steady-going sportsmen who love the pack better than their own children, +and can call each individual in it by his name. Godfrey Parndon was +doing the civil to the "great men in Israel," his heaviest subscribers; +pinks were gleaming in every direction through the clumps and belts of +plantation, as the men came up at a hard gallop on their cover-hacks, or +opened the pipes of their hunters by a stretch over the turf of the +park. + +On the hall steps stood Flora Bellasys--Penthesilea in a wide-awake and +plume; a dozen men were round her, striving emulously for a word or a +smile, and she held her own gallantly with them all. She was waiting +patiently till Guy had lighted an obstinate cigar, and was ready to +mount her. He understood putting her up better than any one else, she +said. Perhaps he did; but, though he swung her into the saddle with one +wave of his mighty arm as lightly as Lochinvar could have done, the +arrangement of the skirt and stirrup seemed a problem hardly to be +solved. + +If there was any truth in the old Courland superstition that the display +of a lady's ankle to the hunters before they started brought them luck, +we ought to have had the run of the season that day. + +He rode by her side, too, as near as the plunges of the chestnut would +allow, till we reached the gorse that we were to draw; once there, the +stronger passion prevailed. Aphrodite hid her face, and the great +goddess Artemis claimed her own. As the first hound whimpered, he drew +off toward a corner, where a big fence would give a chance of shaking +off the crowd, and I do not think he turned his head till the fox went +away. + +The last thing I remember there was the anxious look in two beautiful +hazel eyes as they gazed after the Axeine, charging his second fence +with the rush of an express train. + +The _fetiche_ did not fail us; we had a wonderful run, of which only +five men saw the end. I confess, the second brook stopped me and many +others. Forrester got over with a fall; but they were preparing to break +up the fox, when he came up first of the second flight. + +Guy came home in great spirits; he had been admirably carried. He and +the first whip, a ten-stone man, were head and head at the last fence, +while the hounds were rolling over their fox, a hundred yards farther, +in the open. + +After dinner he amused himself with teasing his cousin. At last he +asked her if she would lend him Bella Donna to hack to cover, as his own +favorite was rather lame. + +Miss Raymond's indignation was superb; for, be it known, she was prouder +of the said animal than of any thing else in the world. + +She (the mare, not the lady) was a bright bay, with black points, quite +thorough-bred, and as handsome as a picture. Livingstone had bought her +out of a training-stable, and had given her to his cousin, after having +broken her into a perfect light-weight hunter. + +One of the few extravagances in which Mr. Raymond indulged his daughter +was allowing her to take Bella Donna wherever she went. + +"Don't excite yourself, you small Amazon!" replied Guy to her indignant +refusal. "How you do believe in that mare! I wonder you don't put her +into some of the great Spring Handicaps! You would get her in light, and +might win enough to keep you in gloves for half a century." + +"Well, I don't know," Forester's slow, languid voice suggested; "I think +she's faster, for three miles, than any thing in your stable. I should +like to run the best you have for L50, weight for inches." + +"I am not surprised at your supporting Bella's opinion," said Guy, with +a shade of sarcasm in his voice, "but I did not expect you would back +it. Come, I'll make this match, if you like; you shall ride +catch-weight, which will be about 11 st. 7 lb., and I'll ride the Axeine +at 14 st. 7 lb.: I must take a 7 lb. saddle to do that. They are both in +hard condition, so it can come off in ten days; and I'll give the +farmers a cup to run for at the same time. Is it a match?" + +"Certainly, if Miss Raymond will trust me with Bella Donna." + +Isabel's eyes sparkled--so brilliantly! as she answered, "I should like +it, of all things." + +"Now, Puss," Guy went on, "you ought to have something on it. There is a +certain set of turquoises and pearls that I meant to give you whenever +you had been good for three weeks consecutively; it is no use waiting +for such a miracle, so I'll bet you these against that sapphire and +diamond ring you have taken to wearing lately." + +His cousin looked distressed and confused. "Any thing else, Guy," she +said. "I can not risk that; it was a present from--from Mrs. Molyneux." + +"I don't think," Charley suggested, very quietly, "Mrs.--Molyneux, was +it not?--could object to your investing her present on such a certainty. +I really believe we shall bring it off; and if not--" He checked himself +with a smile. + +"Oh, if you think so," answered Isabel, blushing more than ever, "I will +venture my ring. But you _must_ win; I don't know what I should do if I +lost it." So it was settled. + +"You seem confident," I remarked to Livingstone, later in the evening. I +remember the peculiar expression of his face, though I did not then +understand it, as he answered gravely, + +"Bella ought to be; for--she has laid long odds." + +There was great excitement in the neighborhood when the match, and the +farmers' race to follow, became known. Half the county was assembled on +the appointed morning, an off-day with the Pytchley. Godfrey Parndon was +judge, and had picked the ground--a figure of 8, with 17 fences, large +but fair for the most part; the horses were to traverse it twice, +missing the brook (16 feet of clear water) the second time. + +I wish they were not getting so rare, those purely country meetings, +where three wagons with an awning make the grant stand; where there are +no ring-men to force the betting and deafen you with their blatant +proffers--"to lay agin any thing in the race;" where the bold yeomen, in +full confidence that their favorite will not be "roped," back their +opinions manfully for crowns. + +Livingstone's great local renown, and the reputation of the Axeine for +strength and speed (though no one knew how fast he _could_ go), made the +betting 5 to 4 on him; but takers were not wanting, calculating on the +horse's truly Satanic temper. Miss Bellasys, who, with her mother, had +arrived at Kerton the night before, laid half a point more--_not_ in +gloves--on the heavy-weight. + +The bell for saddling rang, and the horses came out. The mare stripped +beautifully, as fine as a star--no wonder her mistress was proud of her; +and I think she had, to the full, as many admirers as the Axeine. + +The latter was a dark chestnut with a white fetlock, standing full 16 +hands (while the mare scarcely topped 15), well ribbed up, with a good +sloping shoulder, immense flat hocks, and sinewy thighs; his crest and +forehand were like a stallion's; and, when you looked at his quarters, +it was easy to believe what the Revesby stablemen said, "They could +shoot a man into the next county." + +He was "orkarder than usual that morning," the groom remarked; perhaps +he did not fancy the crowd without the hounds, for he kept lashing out +perpetually, with vicious backward glances from his red eyes. + +Then the riders showed: Livingstone in his own colors, purple and +scarlet cap, workmanlike and weather-stained; Forrester in the fresh +glories of light blue with white sleeves, his cap quartered with the +same. + +Charley lingered a minute by Miss Raymond's side, taking her last +instructions, I suppose. She looked very nervous and pale, her jockey +pleasantly languid as ever. + +The instant the chestnut was mounted he reared, and indulged in two or +three "buck-jumps" that would have made a weaker man tremble for his +back-bone, and then kicked furiously; but Guy seemed to take it all as a +matter of course, sitting square and erect; all he did was to drive the +sharp rowels in repeatedly, bringing a dark blood-spot out with each +stroke. It was not by love certainly that he ruled the Axeine. Then came +the preliminary gallops, the mare going easily on her bit, gliding over +the ground smoothly and springily; the horse shaking his head, and every +now and then tearing madly at the reins, without being able to gain a +hair's breadth on the iron hands that never moved from his withers. + +"They're off!" Guy taking the lead; well over the first two fences, fair +hunting ones; the third is a teaser--an ugly black bulfinch, with a +ditch on the landing side, and a drop into a plowed field. The +chestnut's devil is thoroughly roused by this time. When within sixty +yards of the fence, he puts on a rush that even his rider's mighty +muscles can not check: his impetus would send him through a castle wall; +but he hardly rises at the leap, taking it, too, where there is a +network of growers--a crash that might be heard in the grand stand--and +horse and man are rolling in the field beyond. + +Flora Bellasys strikes her foot angrily with her riding-whip, and turns +very pale. + +Ten lengths behind, the mare comes up, well in hand, and slips through +the bulfinch without a mistake--hardly with an effort--just at the only +place where you can see daylight through the blackthorn. + +What is Guy doing? Even in that thundering fall he has never let the +reins go. Horse and rider struggle up together. A dozen arms are ready +to lift him into the saddle, and a cheery voice says in his ear, "Hold +up, squire; keep him a going, and you'll catch the captain yet!" He +hardly hears the words though, for his head is whirling, and he feels +strangely sick and faint; but before he has gone a hundred yards his +face has settled into its habitual resolute calmness, only there is a +thin thread of blood creeping from under his cap, and his brow is bent +and lowering. + +A fall, which would have taken the fight out of most horses, has only +steadied the Axeine; and, as we watch him striding through the deep +ground, casting the dirt behind him like a catapult we think and say, +"The race is not over yet." + +They are over the brook without a scramble. Forrester still leads, +riding patiently and well. He knows better than to force the running, +even with the difference in weight, for the going is too heavy quite to +suit his mare. + +As Livingstone passed the spot where Miss Raymond was stationed, he +turned half round in his saddle, and looked curiously in her face. She +did not even know he was near. All her soul was in her eyes, that were +gazing after Forrester with an anxiety so disproportioned to the +occasion that her cousin fairly started. + +"Poor child," he said to himself, all his angry feelings changing, "she +seems to have set her heart so upon winning, it would be sad if she were +disappointed. No one has much on it; shall I try 'Captain Armstrong' for +once? It would make her very happy. Bar accidents, I must win. They do +not know that the chestnut has not extended himself yet." + +We lose sight of the horses for a little. When we see them a gain, the +mare has decidedly gained ground; and, to our astonishment, the Axeine +swerves, and refuses at rather an easy fence. + +Miss Bellasys' cheek flushes this time. She goes off at a sharp canter +through a gate that takes her into a field where the horses must pass +her close; several of her attendants follow. Charley comes up, looking +rather more excited and happy than usual. He has made the pace better +for the last half mile, and still seems going at his ease. More than a +distance behind is the chestnut, evidently on bad terms with his jockey; +he is in a white lather of foam, and changes his leg twice as he +approaches. Guy has his face turned slightly aside as he nears the spot +where Miss Bellasys waits for him, in the midst of her body-guard. For +the first time since the race began, her voice was heard, cutting the +air with its clear mocking tones, like the edge of a Damascus sabre, +"The chestnut wins--hard held!" + +Guy's kindly impulses vanished instantly before the sarcasm latent in +those last two words. He could sacrifice his own victory and the hopes +of his backers, but he would not give a chance to Flora's merciless +tongue. We saw him change his hold on the reins, and, with a shake and a +fierce thrust of the spurs, he set the Axeine fairly going. + +Every man on the ground, including his late owner [who hated himself +bitterly at that moment for parting with him], was taken by surprise by +the extraordinary speed the horse displayed. He raced up to Bella Donna +just before the last fence, at which she hangs ever so little, while he +takes it in his swing, covering good nine yards from hoof to hoof. +Nothing but hurdles now between them and home. The down-hill run-in +favors his vast stride. A thousand voices echo Flora's words, "The +chestnut wins!" Charley made his effort exactly at the right time, and +the brave little mare answered gallantly; but it was not to be. He shook +his head, and never touched her with whip or spur again. + +The race was over. No one disputed the judge's fiat: "The Axeine by six +lengths." + +Up to the skies went the hats and the shouts of the sturdy yeomen, who +"know'd he couldn't be beat," exulting in the success of their +favorite. Round winner and loser crowded their friends, congratulating +the one, condoling with the other, praising both for their riding. At +that moment I do not think any one except myself remarked Isabel +Raymond, who sat somewhat apart, her tears falling fast under her veil +as she looked upon her lost ring. + +Just then Forrester rode up. "Woe to the vanquished!" he said. "All is +lost but honor. Will you say something kind to me after my defeat, Miss +Raymond? You will find your pet not punished in the least, and without a +scratch on her." + +Without answering, she held out her hand. As he bent over it, and +whispered, what I could not hear, I saw her eyes sparkle, and a happy +consciousness flush her cheeks, till they glowed like a sky at sunset +when a storm is passing away in the west. Then I knew that he had won a +richer prize than ever was set on a race since the first Great +Metropolitan was run for at Olympia. + +Livingstone had washed away the traces of his fall (his wound was only a +cut under the hair, above the temple), and was going to get the horses +in line to start them for the farmers' cup. As he passed Miss Bellasys +he checked his horse for an instant, and said, very coldly, + +"You are satisfied, I trust?" + +"All's well that ends well," answered Flora; "but I began to tremble for +my bets. I thought you were waiting too long." + +Guy did not wish to pursue the subject apparently, for he rode on +without reply. Flora made no attempt to detain him. She had studied the +signs of the times in his countenance long enough to be weather-wise, +and to know that the better part of valor was advisable when the +quicksilver had sunk to Stormy. + +The cup was a great success. Eleven started, and three made a most +artistic finish--scarcely a length between first and third. The farmers +of the present day ride very differently from their ancestors of fifty +years ago, whose highest ambition was to pound along after the slow, +sure "currant-jelly dogs." + +Go down into the Vale of Belvoir; watch one of the duke's tenants +handing a five-year old over the Smite, and say if the modern +agriculturists might not boast with Tydides, + + _"hemeis de pateron meg' ameinones euchometh' einai."_ + +They are getting so erudite, too, that I dare say they would quote it in +the original. + +When all was over, and they were returning to Kerton, Guy ranged up to +his cousin's side. He looked rather embarrassed and penitent--an +expression which sat upon his stern, resolute face very strangely. But +Isabel was radiant with happiness, and did not even sigh as she held out +the forfeited ring. He put it back with a decided gesture of his hand, +and, leaning over her, whispered something in her ear. I don't know how +they arranged it; but Miss Raymond wore the turquoises at the next +county ball--the ring, to her dying day. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + "Souvent femme varie; + Bien fol est, qui s'y fie." + + +We sat by the firelight in the old library of Kerton Manor. The dreary +January evening was closing in, with a sharp sleet lashing the windows +and rattling on their diamond panes, but the gleams from the great +burning logs lighted up the dark crimson cushions of Utrecht and the +polished walnut panels so changefully and enticingly that no one had the +heart to think of candles. + +All the younger members of the party were assembled there, with Mrs. +Bellasys to play propriety. It was her mission to be chaperon in +ordinary to her daughter and her daughter's friends, and she went +through with it, admirable in her patient self-denial. May they be +reckoned to her credit hereafter--those long hours, when she sat sleepy, +weary, uncomplaining, with an aching head but a stereotyped smile. + +Let us speak gently of these maternal martyrs, manoeuvring though they +be. If they have erred, they have suffered. I knew once a lady with a +lot of six, nubile, but not attractive, all with a decided bias toward +Terpsichore and Hymen. Fancy what she must have endured, with those +plain young women round her, always clamoring for partners, temporary or +permanent, like fledglings in a nest for food. Clever and unscrupulous +as she was--they called her the "judicious Hooker"--she must have been +conscious of her utter inability to satisfy them. She knew, too, that +if, by any dispensation, one were removed, five daughters of the +horse-leech would still remain, with ravenous appetites unappeased. Yet +the poor old bird was cheerful, and sometimes, after supper, would chirp +quite merrily. _Honneur au courage malheureux._ Let us stand aside in +the cloak-room, and salute her as she passes out with all the honors of +war. + +Mrs. Bellasys was a little woman, who always reminded me of a certain +tropical monkey--name unknown. She wore her hair bushily on each side of +her small face, just like the said intelligent animal, and had the same +eager, rather frightened way of glancing out of her beady black eyes, +accompanied by a quick turning of the head when addressed. She had her +full share of troubles in her time, but she took them all +contentedly--not to say complacently--as part of the day's work. Her +husband was not a model of fidelity, nor, indeed, of any of the conjugal +or cardinal virtues. He was a sort of Maelstrom, into which fair +fortunes and names were sucked down, only emerging in unrecognizable +fragments. His own would have gone too, doubtless; but he had been lucky +at play for a long time--too constantly so, some said--and a pistol +bullet cut him short before he had half spent his wife's money, so that +she was left comfortably off, and her daughter was a fair average +heiress. She had long ago abdicated the government in favor of Flora, +who treated her well on the whole, _en bonne princesse_. + +It is an invariable rule that, if there is a delicate subject which we +determine beforehand to avoid, this particular one is sure +imperceptibly to creep into the conversation. + +Mr. Bruce was to arrive before dinner, an event which we guessed would +not add materially to the comfort of two of our party (how silent those +two were in their remote corner where the firelight never came), so of +course we found ourselves talking of ill-assorted marriages. + +"You count _mesalliances_ among such?" Guy asked, at length. "Yes, you +are right; but I know a case where 'a man's being balked in his +intention to degrade himself' ruined him for life. Ralph Mohun told me +of it. It was a nine-days' wonder in Vienna soon after he joined the +Imperial Cuirassiers. A Bohemian count flourished there then--a great +favorite with every one, for he was frank and generous, like most boys +well-born and of great possessions, who have only seen things in general +on the sunny side. While down at his castle for the shooting, he fell in +love with the daughter of one of his foresters. The man was a dull, +brutal cur, and, when drunk, especially savage. His daughter was rarely +beautiful; at all events, the count, a good judge, thought her peerless. + +"He meant fairly by the girl from the first, and promised her marriage, +actually intending to keep his word. Still there were arrangements to be +made before he could introduce such a novel element into blood that for +centuries had been pure as the _sangue azzura_. He went up to Vienna for +that purpose, leaving his design a profound secret to all his +dependents. If these thought about it at all, they probably believed +their master's intentions to be--like Dick Harcourt's toward the Irish +lady--'strictly dishonorable.' + +"One night during his absence shrieks came from the cottage where the +forester lived alone with his daughter. Those who heard them made haste; +but it was a desolate spot, far from any other dwelling, and they came +too late. + +"They found the girl lying in her blood, not a feature of her pretty +face recognizable. Near her were the butt of a gun shivered, and her +father senselessly drunk. He had evidently finished the bottle after +beating her to death. + +"Whether it was merely an outbreak of his stupid ferocity, or if she had +exasperated him by her threats and taunts, for she was of a haughty +spirit, poor child! and perhaps rather elevated by the thought of the +coming coronet, will never be known. The murderer was in no state to +make a confession, and he remained obstinately silent in prison till his +lord's return." + +"How very horrible!" Mrs. Bellasys cried out, shuddering; "was not the +count very angry?" + +"Well, he _was_ rather vexed," replied Guy, coolly. "They are high +justiciaries on their own lands, those great Bohemian barons, and so he +gave the forester a fair trial. It was soon over; the man denied +nothing, only whining out, in excuse, that he thought his daughter was +dishonored. The shadow of death was closing round him, and he was nearly +mad with fear. + +"The old steward saw a strange sort of smile twist his master's white, +quivering lips when he heard this, but he never said a word. I imagine +he thought to reveal his purpose now that it was crushed too great a +sacrifice even to clear the dead girl's fair fame; perhaps, though, he +could not trust his voice, for he did not announce the sentence in +words, but wrote it down: his hand shook very much, and it never carried +a full glass unspilled to his mouth again. + +"The court broke up at midday, and the man went straight, unconfessed, +to the place of his punishment. They tied him to the tree nearest his +own door, and the count sat by while he howled his life out under the +lash. He was hardly dead by sundown." + +"It was revenge, not justice," Mrs. Bellasys said, more firmly than was +her wont. I saw the quick, impatient movement of her daughter's little +foot; she did not appreciate her mother's moralities. + +The answer came in the deepest of Livingstone's deep, stern tones. + +"He was no saint, but a man, and a very miserable one; he acted +according to his light, and in his despair caught at the weapon that was +nearest to his hand. After all, the blood of a base, brutal hound, take +it in what fashion you will, is a poor compensation for one life cut +short in agony, and another blasted utterly. + +"Mohun knew the count's family. Some of them, maiden aunts I suppose, +were devotees of the first order: these came in person, or sent their +pet priests, to argue with him on his unchristian habits of sullen +solitude. The men of his old set came too, to laugh him out of the +horrors. Saint and sinner got the same answer--a shake of the head, a +curse, a threat if he were not left alone, growled out between deep +draughts of strong Moldavian wine. They went, and were wise; for his +pistols lay always beside him--in case his servants offended him, or if +he should take a sudden fancy to suicide--and the shaking finger could +have pulled a trigger still. + +"After a little he left Vienna, shut himself up in his castle, and would +see no one. + +"In England they would have tried at the '_de lunatico_' statute; but +his next of kin left him in peace, biding their time as patiently as +they could. They had not to wait long; in four years a good constitution +broke up, suddenly at last, and the count exchanged stupor for a sleep +with his fathers, without benefit of clergy. Perhaps they would not have +given him absolution, for he died certainly not in charity with all +men." + +"I don't know," Mrs. Bellasys objected, with a timid obstinacy; "I can +not argue with you; but I am sure it was very wrong." + +I struck in to the meek little woman's rescue. + +"That's right, Mrs. Bellasys, don't let him put you down with the high +hand; it's always his way when truth is against him; but I never knew +him break down a stubborn fact yet." + +Guy turned upon me directly. + +"Frank, I have often remarked in you, with pain, quite a feminine +propensity to theorize. Women _will_ do it. My dear Mrs. Bellasys, don't +look so dreadfully like an accusing angel about to bring me to book; you +know I am a hopeless heretic. They get up a sort of _Memoria Technica_ +in early youth, and it clings to them all their life through. If they go +astray, they never cease proclaiming aloud that 'they know it's very +wrong;' though eminently unpractical, they think it due to themselves to +pet certain abstract truths (circumstances don't affect them in the +least), like that priestess of Cotytto, who said to the magistrate, +through her tears, 'I may have been unfortunate, but I've always been +respectable!' Sometimes principle gets the pull over passion, but, in +such a case, regrets come as often afterward as remorse does in the +reverse. I was reading a French story the other day--" He checked +himself with a laugh. "Bah! I am in the prosaic vein, it seems, +anecdoting like the old knave of clubs." + +"Will you go on?" Flora said, leaning over toward him, her eyes +glittering in the firelight. + +The thrill in her voice--strangely contagious it was--told how much she +was interested. I do not wonder at it. There was only one man on earth +for whom she had ever really cared--he sat beside her then--and, I +believe, what attracted her most in him was the daring disregard of +opinions, conventionalities, and more sacred things yet, which carried +him on straight to the accomplishment of his thought or purpose. In +those days, if either were an obstacle, he flinched no more before a +great moral law than at a big fence. + +"Well," Guy went on, "it is the simple history of Fernande, an _ange +dechue_ of the Quartier Breda. She had formed a connection with a man +who suited her perfectly in every way, and they went on in happy +immorality, till she found out that Maurice had a wife somewhere, a very +charming person, who loved him dearly; perhaps she thought that the +possession of two such affections by one man was _de luxe_; at all +events, she cut him at once, refusing consistently to see him again. +Maurice, after trying all other means to move her in vain, resorted to +the expedient of a brain fever. When his wife and mother saw him very +near his end, they sent for Fernande as a last resource. They ought to +have preferred death to dishonor, of course; but, my dear Mrs. Bellasys, +they were not strong-minded. What would you have? There are women and +women. + +"She came and nursed him faithfully; when he got better, though still +very weak, she took advantage of his unprotected position to inflict on +him the longest lectures, replete with good sense and good feeling, as +to his conjugal duties, proprieties, and so forth. He gave in at last, +on the principle of 'any thing for a quiet life,' and promised to behave +himself like a decent head of a family. When the balance of power was +thoroughly re-established, she left him, first entreating him, when he +found himself really in love with his wife, and happy, to write and tell +her so. This was to be her reward, you know. The others went to Italy, +Fernande to a place she had in Brittany, where she put herself on a +strict _regime_ of penitence, attending matins regularly, and doing as +much good in her neighborhood as Lady Bountiful, or--my mother. In about +a twelvemonth the letter came; Maurice was devoted to his wife, and +great on the point of domestic felicity. Then Fernande went into her +oratory and prayed. What do you think was the substance of her prayer?" + +"That she might go mad or die," was the quick answer: it came from Flora +Bellasys. + +"How good of you," Guy said, "to let me finish that long story, when you +knew it by heart." + +I think no ear but his and mine caught the whisper--"I never read or +heard of it till now." + +He bent his head in assent, as if the intelligence did not surprise him +much, and then spoke suddenly, + +"Charley, will you make an observation? You have been displaying that +incontestable talent of yours for silence long enough." + +Very seldom was Forrester taken by surprise, but this time his reply was +not ready. There was an embarrassing pause, broken by a _Deus ex +machina_,--the butler announcing that Mr. Bruce had arrived, and was in +the drawing-room. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + "And now thou knowest thy father's will, + All that thy sex hath need to know: + 'Twas mine to teach obedience still-- + The way to love thy lord may show." + + +From that dark distant corner I heard a sigh, ending in a nervous +catching of the breath, and then a muttered word unpleasantly like an +oath, as Forrester sprang to his feet. + +Livingstone rose slowly. + +"I'll go and receive him. Let Mr. Raymond know, Wise. I suppose he will +not care to see any one else before dressing-time; it must be near that +now." + +As he passed his cousin, he whispered something inaudible to us; and I +saw his heavy hand fall on Charley's shoulder, crushing him down again +like a child. + +Then Flora went to Miss Raymond, and asked her, with more kindness in +her manner than usual, to come to her rooms for some tea; they always +seriously inclined to the consumption of that cheerful herb about this +hour. Isabel clung to her companion as they went out with a meek +helplessness which was sad to see. + +Charley had vanished before them. After that first involuntary movement +he had become _nonchalant_ as ever, so I remained alone to ruminate. I +confess, after some thought, I was still in the dark as to where things +would end. + +The meeting had been got over somehow, for, when I came down before +dinner, Bruce was sitting on a sofa by Miss Raymond's side. + +Why does a man in such a position invariably look as if he were on the +stool of repentance, expiating some misdeed of unutterable shame? He has +sat by the same woman before, when it was only a strong flirtation; more +eyes, curious and spiteful, were upon him then, and he met them with +perfect self-possession. Now that he is in his right, why does he look +blushingly uneasy, as if he would call on the curtains to hide him, and +the cushions to cover him? Have any mortals existed so good, or great, +or wise, as to be exempt from that dreadful poll-tax levied on all males +unprivileged to woo by proxy--the necessity of looking ridiculous from +the moment their engagement is announced to that when they leave the +church as Benedicts? I should like to have watched Burke, or Herschel, +or the Iron Duke, or _any_ Archbishop of Canterbury, through the ordeal +of a recognized courtship. Would the dignity of the statesman, the sage, +the soldier, or the saint have been sustained? I trow not. + +In truth, it is a sight full of sad warning, that ever-recurring +spectacle of an engaged man (the lady is always provokingly at her ease) +in general society. His friends turn away in compassion and charity; the +girls, whom he ought to have married and--didn't, look on, exchanging +smiles with their mothers; it is their hour of savage triumph. The +French manage things more comfortably, I think. The promessi sposi meet +so seldom before the contract is signed--between sentence and execution +the time is so brief that there is little space for intermediate +terrors. + +Nature had not been bountiful to Mr. Bruce in externals. He was very +tall, with round shoulders, long, lean limbs, large feet and hands, and +immense joints. There was a good deal of strength about him, but it +wanted concentration and arrangement. His features were rather +exaggerated and coarse in outline, with the high cheek-bones common on +the north side of the Tweed; his hair of an unhappy vacillating color +that could not make its mind up to be red; and his eyes, that rarely met +you fairly, of a light cold gray. About the mouth, in particular, there +was a very unpleasant expression, alternately vicious and cunning. + +I do not believe that his intimates, if he had any, in their wildest +moments of conviviality, ever called him "Jack;" nor his mother, in his +earliest childhood, "Johnnie." Plain "John Bruce" was written +uncompromisingly in every line of his face; just the converse of +Forrester, whom old maids of rigid virtue, after seeing him twice, were +irresistibly impelled to speak of as "Charley." + +I wish some profound psychologist would give us his theory on the +question of "The influence of nomenclature on disposition and destiny." +It is all very well to ask, "What's in a name?" I think there is a great +deal; and that our sponsors have much to answer for in indulging their +baptismal fancies. Not to go into the subject (which some have already +done without exhausting it), have you not remarked that Georgiana is +always pretty and slightly sarcastic; that Isabella has large, soft, +lustrous eyes--generally they are dark; that Fanny invariably flirts; +and that Kate is decided in character, if not haughty? + +Tragedy and comedy both are forced to observe these nominal +proprieties. Who was it that illuminated his house, and had the church +bells rung, on finding a name for his hero? We should never have +believed in Iago's treacheries if he had appeared before us as simple +"James." + +The new arrival seemed to have chilled us all into stupidity. Dinner +languished; and afterward, Guy, after trying at first to be laboriously +civil--the sense of duty was painfully evident--lapsed into silence, +passing the claret rather faster than usual, so that Mr. Raymond, to his +intense disgust, had to make an effort and force the conversation. + +When we entered, Isabel was nestling under Miss Bellasys' wing, from +which shelter she had to emerge at Bruce's request for some music. She +went directly, and played several pieces that he asked for straight +through, while he stood gravely behind her with a complacent air of +proprietorship which was inexpressibly aggravating. + +When her task was done she went back to her sofa again; there she was +safe, for all Bruce's devotion to his ladye-love and stubbornness of +character could not give him courage enough to affront, at close +quarters, the mingled dislike and scornful humor that played round +Flora's lips, and gleamed in her eyes like summer lightning. He had to +retreat upon Lady Catharine, who, thinking him hardly used, in her +inextinguishable charity exerted herself to entertain him. + +We were all glad when that first evening was over, and we got into the +smoking-room, whither Mr. Bruce was not entreated to follow. It was +always an augury of foul weather in Livingstone's temper when, instead +of the decent evening cigar, he smoked the short black _brule-gueule_, +loaded to the muzzle with cavendish. He sat thus for some minutes, +rolling out stormy puffs from under his mustache, and then broke out, + +"I haven't an idea what to do with him" (there was no need to name the +object of his thoughts); "I made up my mind to risk a horse or two, for, +of course, he would have broken their knees; but when I offered him a +mount, he thanked me and said, 'He didn't hunt.' It would have got him +away from home, at all events. Poor Bella! how heavy on hand she _will_ +find him." + +"Ah! and he might have come to a timely end over timber; Providence does +interfere so benevolently sometimes." This was Forrester's pious +reflection. + +"Well, that's over," Guy went on. "He must shoot, though; every one +shoots, or thinks he does. We have all the pheasants to kill yet +(by-the-by, Fallowfield comes over on Thursday for the Home Wood); that +will keep him employed for some time; but it's only putting off the evil +day. My match-making aunt, of blessed memory, how much she has to answer +for! I hate to think of Bella's _mignonne_ face alongside of that +flinty-cheeked Scotchman's." + +"Don't be angry, Guy," suggested Charley, with some diffidence; "but, if +it's not an impertinent question, do you think he ever tries to kiss +your cousin?" + +"I never thought of that," replied Livingstone, not without an oath; +"there's another pleasant reflection. No, I should think not. He _is_ +ceremonious, to give the devil his due. I'll find out to-morrow, though, +without making Bella blush. Miss Bellasys is sure to know. I saw them +exchanging confidences all this evening, and I am certain there were +instigations to rebellion. Flora would delight in an _emeute_; she's a +perfect Red Republican, that girl." + +"The opposition seems organizing," I remarked; "ministers will find +themselves soon, I fear, without a working majority." + +"Not unlikely," said Guy, filling another pipe; "but they won't resign. +Some men never know when they are beaten. Well, he who lives will see. +If this wind lasts, we shall have a cracker from Lilbourne to-morrow. +You ride the young one, don't you, Charley?" + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + "A life whose waste + Ravaged each bloom by which its path was traced, + Sporting at will, and moulding sport to art, + With what sad holiness--the human heart." + + +It is a bright, crisp morning, and there is a gathering round the hall +door of Kerton Manor. + +To the right is Sir Henry Fallowfield, already established on the broad +tack of his shooting pony, an invaluable animal, that can leap or creep +wherever a man can go, and steady under fire as old Copenhagen. The +baronet is very gouty. The whip made out of his favorite vices cuts him +up sharply at times, and he does not like it alluded to. I never saw him +look so savage at Guy as when the latter quoted, _"Raro antecedentem +scelestum Deseruit pede poena claudo."_ Of course, he can not walk +much; but, placed in a ride, or at the corner of a cover, he rolls over +the hares and pulls down the pheasants unerringly as ever; when you come +up, you will find him surrounded by a semicircle of slain, and not a +runner among them. + +The battle of life has left its tokens on the face of the strong, +skillful Protagonist. The features, once so finely cut, are somewhat +full and bloated now; but it is a magnificent ruin, and there are traces +yet of "the handsomest man of his day." Very expressive are his glances +still; a little too much so, some people think, when he is criticising a +figure or a face; but, to do him justice, _gourmandise_ is his pet +weakness now, a comparatively harmless one; and a delicate _entremet_ +will bring the light into his eyes that only war or love could do in the +old days. + +By Sir Henry's side, encouraging him with great prophecies of sport, +stands Mallett, the head-keeper. What a contrast his fresh, honest face +makes with the veteran _roue's_! He is the elder of the two by a good +ten years, and there is scarcely a wrinkle on his ruddy cheeks and +smooth forehead. Wind and weather have used him with a rough kindness, +and his foot is almost as light, his hand quite as heavy, as when he +entered the service of Guy's grandfather half a century ago. For +generations his family have been devoted to the preservation of game; +his six stalwart sons are all eminent in that line; and the "Kerton +breed" of keepers is renowned throughout the Midland shires. He is a +prime favorite with the village children and their mothers, for, in all +respects save one, his heart is as soft as a woman's; to poachers it is +as the nether millstone. There is the stain of a "justifiable homicide" +on the old man's hands--the blood of an antagonist slain in fair fight, +in those rough times when the forest was, and marauders came out by +scores to strike its deer. I do not think the deed has weighed heavily +on his conscience (though he never has spoken of it since), or troubled +his healthy, honest slumbers. + +To the left is Guy, repressing the attentions of four couple of strong +red and white spaniels, but _not_ those of Miss Bellasys, who, standing +at the oriel window of the library, is good-natured enough to fasten the +band of his wide-awake for him, which has come undone. As he stands +with his towering head a little bent, murmuring the "more last words," +Sir Henry, contemplating the picture with much satisfaction, smacks his +lips, and suggests "Omphale." + +Last of all, Mr. Raymond comes slowly down the staircase, followed by +his son-in-law that is to be. Forrester and I have been ready long ago, +so we start. + +Bruce did shoot, certainly, if discharging his gun on the slightest +provocation constituted the fact; but he shot curiously ill. Indeed, he +might have formed a pendant to that humane sportsman who, having taken +to rural sports _sero sed serio_, said, in extreme old age, "that it was +a satisfaction to him to reflect that he could not charge himself with +having been, wittingly, the death of more than a dozen of his +fellow-creatures." + +It was a problem whereon Mallett ruminated gravely long +afterward--"Wherever Mr. Bruce's shot do go to?" He could not conceive +so much lead being dispersed in the atmosphere without a more adequate +result. This want of dexterity, too, was thrown into strong relief that +day; for all the other men, putting myself out of the question, were +rare masters of the art. + +Livingstone headed the list, though Fallowfield ran him hard. He got the +most shots, indeed; for his knowledge of the woods and great strength +enabled him always to keep close to the spaniels. He was a sight to +marvel at, as he went crashing through bramble and blackthorn with a +long even stride, just as if he had been walking through light springs. + +At the end of the day we were all assembled outside the cover, where the +game was being counted, except Bruce, who was still in the wood. A stray +shot every now and then gave notice of his approach. + + + "We heard but the distant and random gun + That the foe was sullenly firing," + + +Guy quoted, laughing. + +"Random! you may say that," remarked Fallowfield. "That man ought to be +in a glass case, and ticketed; he's a natural curiosity. His bag to-day +consists of one hare, one hen, and one--sex unknown, for no one saw it +rise or tried to pick it up; it was blown into a cloud of feathers +within six feet of his muzzle. Here he comes; don't ask him what he's +done--it's cruelty." + +Bruce came up to us, looking rather more discontented than usual, but +not nearly so savage as the keeper who had attended him all day, who +immediately retreated among his fellows to relieve himself, by many +oaths, of his suppressed disgust and scorn. They offered him beer, but +it was no use. I heard him growl out, "That there muff's enough to spile +one's taste for a fortnit." + +It was the hour of the wood-pigeons coming in to roost, and several were +wheeling over our heads at a considerable height. + +"There's something for you to empty your gun at, Bruce," Sir. Raymond +said, pointing to one that came rather nearer than the rest. + +He was leveling, when Forrester cried out, "Five-and-twenty to five on +the bird!" + +"Done!" answered Bruce, as he pulled the trigger. It was a long and not +very easy shot, but the pigeon came whirling down through the tranches +with a broken pinion. + +"You are unlucky in your selection, Captain Forrester," the successful +shot remarked, coolly. "You might have won a heavy stake by laying the +same odds all day." + +"It serves you right," interposed Guy, "for speaking to a man on his +shot. Don't you remember quarreling with me the other day for doing so, +Charley?" + +Charley's face of perplexity and disgust was irresistible. We all +laughed. "What a _guignon_ I have," he said. "Mr. Raymond, I believe you +were in the robbery." + +"Not I," was the answer. "I was as much surprised as any one. I think," +he went on, lowering his tone, "Guy is right; he changed his aim, as you +spoke, involuntarily, or he _must_ have missed." + +Then we turned homeward through the twilight. + +I do not know if the reminiscence of his lost "pony" was rankling in +Forrester's mind, or if he was only affected by the presence of Sir +Henry Fallowfield--an immoral Upas, under whose shadow the most +flourishing of good resolutions were apt to wither and die; but +certainly, after dinner, he broke through the cautious reserve which he +had always in public maintained toward Miss Raymond since Bruce's +arrival. He not only talked to her incessantly, but tempted her to sing +with him, during which performance they seemed rapidly lapsing into the +old confidential style. + +Bruce sat apart, the shades on his rugged face gradually deepening from +sullenness into ferocity. He looked quite wolfish at last, for it was a +habit he had to show his white teeth more when he was savage than when +he smiled. But the music went on its way rejoicing, + + + "Unconscious of their doom, + The little victims played." + + +Isabel was too happy, and Charley too careless to be prudent. Once I +caught his glance as it crossed with Bruce's scowl. There was an +expression on his pleasant face that few men had ever seen there, +approaching nearly to an insolent defiance. Looking at those two, a +child might have known that between them there was bitter hate. + +But what of that? Are not the laws of society and the amenities of +civilized life supreme over such trifles as personal animosities? How +many women are there who never meet without mingling in a close embrace, +when each is to the other a Brinvilliers in heart? My gentle cousin +Kate, only last night I saw you greet your intimate enemy. It was the +moat gushing thing I ever imagined. The kisses were profuse and +tantalizing in the extreme; yet I wish, if thoughts could kill, dearest +Emma's neck would have been safer in the hug of a Norway bear than in +the clasp of your white willowy arms. + +Are there not men, sitting constantly at each other's tables, who, in +the Golden Age, when people spoke and acted as they felt, would only +have encountered at the sword's point? + +If we hear that our mortal foe is ruined irretrievably, we betray no +indecorous exultation, but smile complacently and say, "We are not +surprised;" or, if we have the chance, give him a last push to send him +over the precipice on whose brink he is staggering. But as for any +violent demonstration--bah! the _Vendetta_ is going out of fashion, even +in Corsica, nowadays; only on the boards of the "Princess's" does it +have a run. + +It is better so. Is it not far more creditable and less ridiculous for +two of our reverend seniors, between whom there exists a deadly feud, to +comport themselves with decent reserve toward each other, than to go +vaporing about on crutches, stamping the foot that is not gouty, and +blaspheming in a weak, cracked treble, like Capulet and Montague? Hot +rooms and cold draughts are dangerous, but not so fatal as the Aqua +Tofana, and other pleasant beverages more revolting and rapid in their +effects. Could any thing be more harrowing to a well regulated mind than +to see, in the midst of a neatly-turned compliment, one's partner +literally _look black_ at one, and expire incontinently in great +torments? + +It is less romantic, but I prefer to be given an unmedicated rose. When +I win a pair of gloves, it is a satisfaction to me to reflect that in +Houbigant or Pivert there is no venom or guile. + +All these consoling thoughts, and more, passed through my mind that +evening; yet I could not get rid of a strange, indistinct impression +that it was only the presence of Livingstone which averted some great +danger imminent over his cousin and Forrester. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + "This is all + The gain we reap, from all the wisdom sown + Through ages. Nothing doubted those first sons + Of time; while we, the schooled of centuries, + Nothing believe--" + + +We were scattered round the smoking-room, about midnight, in different +attitudes of repose. Bruce was of the party, decidedly out of his +element. He did not like tobacco much, and only took a cigar as a +sacrifice to the exigencies of the occasion, consuming the same with +great toil and exertion of the lungs, and when he removed it from his +lips, holding it at arm's length, like a viper or other venomous beast. + +"Charley," asked Fallowfield, at length, from the depths of his divan, +"how is the regiment going on? Insolvent as ever?" + +"More so," was the reply. "When I came away they were thinking of +framing a L5 note, and hanging it up in the ante-room, to show that we +had _some_ money--just like the man who pitched loaves over the +city-walls when they were dying of famine--but there was a difficulty +about procuring one. However, we have been promised the son of an +opulent brewer or distiller (I forget which, but I know he makes +something to drink), who is to join before Easter. Perhaps he may set us +afloat again." + +"Yes," Guy remarked; "fortunately, a martial spirit is abroad in the +Third Estate. _Walbrook s'en va t'en guerre_. If there is one moneyed +man in the lot, it seems sufficient to keep the others going. I often +wonder how you manage; for, to do you justice, you don't plunder your +Croesus. You deserve statues--as Sydney Smith would have said--_aeris +alieni_." + +"I am not the rose, but I have lived with her," responded Forrester, +sententiously. "That's the principle of the thing. When a subaltern +arrives laden with gold, the barrack-yard is a perfect garden of +Bendemeer to the tradesmen." + +"I believe it is precisely such regiments," remarked Bruce, "that the +political economists have in view when they attack the army estimates." + +The observation was aggressive; but Charley's countenance was unruffled +as the Dead Sea as he answered, "Personal, but correct. You are intimate +with Joseph Hume, probably? You look as if you were." (These last words +were a stage aside, not quite so inaudible as could be wished.) "I think +we should fight, if we had a chance, though." + +His lip wore a curious smile, and he raised himself on his arm to look +the last speaker full in the face. + +"Of course you would," broke in Sir Henry; "that's not a peculiarity of +crack regiments or second sons. It's only in their baptism of fire that +the young ones shrink and start; after that, the meekest of men develop +themselves wonderfully. I heard an old Indian, the other day, speak of a +case in point. + +"There was an officer in his service, mild and stupid to a degree. He +had been a butt all his life; bullied at school, at Addiscombe, and in +his corps worst of all. + +"They were attacking a hill-fort, and the fire from wall-pieces and +matchlocks was so heavy that the storming-party would not face it. Among +those who retreated were two of his superior officers and chief +tormentors. The junior lieutenant saw them cowering away to seek +shelter, and laughed out loud; then he flung his shako before him into +the fort, and led the sepoys back to the charge, and right over the +breastwork--bareheaded and cheering. He was shot down inside, and lived +only a few hours, all the time in horrible agony; but Western told us +that Bayard or Sidney could have made no braver or calmer ending." + +"You are right," Livingstone said. "The Roundheads fought fully as well +as the Cavaliers. I only know of two instances where the thoroughbreds +had the advantage of a contrast. One was when the Scottish regiment took +the island in the Rhine; the other was the exploit of the _Gants +Glaces_. Don't you know it? It's worth hearing. + +"They were attacking some town in the wars of the Fronde. The breach was +scarcely practicable, and the best of the besieging army had recoiled +from it with great loss. The Black Mousquetaires stood by in all the +coquetry of scarf, and plume, and fringed scented gloves, laughing +louder at each repulse of the Linesmen. The soldiers heard them and +gnashed their teeth. At last there was a murmur, and then a shout--_'En +avant les Gants Glaces!'_ They wanted to see 'the swells' beaten too. +Then the Household Brigade went up and carried the breach, leaving a +third of their number on it. The general in command made the whole army +defile past their _guidon_, and salute it with sloped standards. + +"No; very few men are physical cowards in battle, whatever they may be +across country. I don't believe Paris was, when he ran from Menelaues; +and Helen did not think so, though she teased him about it, or she would +never have spoken to him again. I rather imagine his feeling was that of +a certain Guardsman of our acquaintance, who said, declining the ordeal +of combat, that 'his first duty was to his partners, and this did not +allow him to risk a black eye.'" + +"Might not remorse at the sight of the man he had injured have had +something to do with his flight?" Bruce asked. + +He was full of moral sentiments--that man; only you could not look at +him without fancying that they sprung more from an inclination to be +contradictious and disagreeable than from any depth of principle. + +"Absurd," Guy retorted. "Wasn't he a heathen, and rather an immoral one? +It was of profligates with far greater advantages of education that some +one said, '_'Le remords nait de l'abandon, et non de la faute_.' The +walls of Troy were strong then, and the Destroyer-of-ships safe behind +them, 'getting herself up alarmingly' for his return. No wonder Menelaues +was eager for the duel: he was staking his loneliness against Paris's +nine points of the law." + +Sir Henry Fallowfield smiled approvingly. + +"Yes," he observed, not answering what had been said, but evidently +following out a train of his own thought. "Modern exquisites have +courage, and self-possession, and conceit--great elements of success +with women, I own--but they have not much more. I am certain Charley, +who is a favorable specimen of the class, often affects silence because +he has nothing on earth to say. There is a decadence since my younger +days (I hope I speak dispassionately), and how very far we fell short of +the _roues_ of the Regence! We could no more match them than a +fighting-man in good training could stand up to one of the old Pict +giants. Look at Richelieu: good at all points--in the battle, in the +boudoir, in the Bastille--a dangerous rival at the two ages of ordinary +men's first and second childhood." + +"He was a great man in his way," I assented. "Do you remember his answer +to the Duchesse de Maine, when she asked him, for a political purpose, +if he could remain faithful for one week to an intrigue then twenty-four +hours old? '_Madame, quand une fois j'embrasse un parti, je suis capable +des plus grandes sacrifices pour le soutenir._' The object of that +heroic constancy was the Marechale de Villars, one of the loveliest +women in France. It was the sublime of fatuity--was it not?" + +"Well, I don't know," said Charley, settling himself comfortably in his +cushions, and glancing almost imperceptibly at Bruce; "they seem to +fancy us, notwithstanding. We have only one great obstacle--the mothers +that _bore_ us." + +Be it known that "they," used simply, stood in his vocabulary for the +fair sex in general. + +"Nonsense," replied Fallowfield; "don't be so ungrateful. You don't know +what you owe to those anxious parents. It helps you enormously, being +the objects of perpetual warnings from husbands and chaperons, the +first considering you _mauvais sujets_, the last _mauvais partis_; for +you _are_ 'detrimentals,' for the most part, you will own." + +"_Vetitum ergo cupitum_," interrupted Livingstone. "A good many +moralists before and since old Rabelais have discoursed on that text. +The Chief of Errington was probably much more agreeable, besides being a +better match than Jock of Hazeldean, who clearly was what an old +Frenchman lately described to me--'_un vaurien, mon cher, qui court les +filles et qui n'a pas le son_.' But then poor Frank was the government +candidate; so, of course, in a popular election, he went to the wall." + +Sir Henry's face grew more pensive and grave as he said, "It is very +hard on the women, certainly, that our race should have degenerated so, +for I believe in my conscience they are as clever and wicked, and +appreciate temptation as much as ever." (The gusto with which he said +this is indescribable.) "There is the Bellasys, for instance, with a +calculating sensuality, an astuteness of stratagem, an utter contempt of +truth, and a general aptitude for making fools of men, that poor Philip +the Regent would have worshiped. When she had no one better to corrupt, +I have seen her take in hand an older, sadder, wiser, uglier man than +myself, and in three days bring him to the verge of insanity, so that he +would scowl at his wife, his companion for forty years, the blameless +mother of six grown-up children, with a hideous expression indicative of +carving-knives and strychnine. Guy suits her best. His thews and sinews +awe her a little sometimes; and he has a certain hardness of character +and pitilessness of purpose, improved by my instructions, which will +carry him far, but not far enough, I think. You're right not to look +flattered" (Guy's face had moved no more than the marble Memnon's); "you +are only a shade better than the rest. Our effete world is not worthy of +that rare creature: she was born a century too late." + +"I quite differ with you," Bruce said, in his harshest voice; "I am +certain the great plurality of the women of our day would resist any +temptation, from fear of the consequences, if not from principle." + +Fancy the feelings of the Greek professor interrupted in his lecture by +a controverting freshman, and you will have some idea of Fallowfield's. +His eye lighted on the last speaker, glittering like a hooded snake's, +as it were caressing him with a lambent scorn. + +I never guessed how much sneering provocation could reside in tones +usually so very soft and musical till I heard him answer, "I suppose you +_do_ differ with me. We probably both speak from experience. On one +point you are scarcely practical, though. You think you can frighten a +woman into propriety. Try it." + +"Are you not too general in your strictures or encomiums?" I suggested, +wishing to relieve the awkwardness which ensued; "surely there are many +instances to the contrary. Take Lady Clanronald, for instance, married +to a man her elder by twenty years, and not very clever or agreeable, I +should think. No one ever breathed a whisper against her, and it has not +been through default of aspirants." + +An evil smile curled round the old _roue's_ sensual mouth, radiating +even to the verge of the forest of his iron-gray whiskers. + +"Clanronald not clever?" he replied. "The cleverest man I know. He knew +how his wife would be tempted, and he has taken the greatest pains to +encourage a counteracting influence--family pride. Don't you know she is +a Hautagne? It is a tradition with that race that their women never go +wrong--under a prince of the blood. None of these are available just +now, so she is still '_Une Madeleine, dans la puissance de son mari, et +dans l'impuissance de se repentir_.'" + +It was worse than useless to argue with Fallowfield. All your own best +hits were turned aside by the target of his cynicism and unbelief, while +his sophistries and sarcasms often came home. Like old wounds, they +would begin to shoot and rankle in after years, just when it was most +important and profitable to forget them. + +We separated soon after this. Sir Henry's face wore an expression of +placid self-congratulation. He thought the conversation had been rather +improving, I believe, and that some of the ideas and illustrations had +been rather neatly put; so he laid his head down that night with the +calm, satisfied feeling of a good man who has done his duty and not lost +a day. + +He was not more ingenious in overcoming the scruples of others than in +silencing his own conscience, though of late years this last had +probably ceased to give him much trouble. Finer feelings with him were +only "sensations morbidly exaggerated," and he made no sort of +allowance for such; among others, utterly ignoring remorse, I doubt if +he ever looked forward; I am sure he never looked back. A parody on the +"tag" which was given to Cambronne would sum up his terribly simple and +consistent creed--_La femme se rend, mais ne meurt pas_. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + "I hold him but a fool, that would endanger + His body for a girl that loves him not." + + +Fallowfield left us the next morning, the Bellasys later in the same +day. They were to pay divers visits, and then return to Kerton. Lady +Catharine pressed them to do so; though she liked the daughter less than +the mother, she was so anxious Guy should marry some one that I think +she would have accepted even Flora with thankfulness. + +It is a favorite delusion with the British parent that marriage will +work a miracle, and steady their children for life, by casting forth the +_lutins_ who beset them. A thousand failures have not convinced the good +speculative matrons of the hazard of the experiment, nor will as many +more do so; they will go on match-making and blundering to the end of +time. For a very brief space the evil spirits are exorcised; but before +the gloss is off the new-married couple's new furniture, one of the band +creeps back and opens the door to his fellows. These hardly know their +old quarters at first, but they soon begin to like them better than +ever--are they not swept and garnished? "So they enter in and dwell +there, and"--I need not finish the sentence; a thousand sweet though +somewhat shrill voices will save me that trouble--a doleful music--an +ancient tale of wrong--the Song of the Brides! They used to say that a +man never went so hard to hounds after entering the holy estate. If +this be so, I fear it is the only comforting result which follows of +course. + +What Flora and Guy said to each other at parting I can not guess. +Neither was of the sentimental order, and both might have taken for +their motto, "Lightly won and lightly lost." Her hand lingered somewhat +long in his as they said farewell, but she was smiling, if any thing, +more saucily than ever. So she went, leaving behind her no tangible +token, except a tiny pearl-colored glove, which Guy twisted rather +pensively between his fingers as he stood on the hall steps, and watched +the carriage disappear down the avenue. Mr. Bruce exulted after his +saturnine fashion, and Isabel Raymond trembled; the one had lost a +strong, unscrupulous ally, the other a formidable enemy. + +"Why don't you open those letters, Charley?" Livingstone asked at +breakfast, next morning, pointing to a pile that lay unopened by the +letters plate. + +"My dear boy, I haven't the heart to do it," was the reply. "They are +all expressive, I know, of different phases of mercantile despair. I +believe these men keep a supplicant, as Moses maintains a poet. The last +appeal from my saddler was perfectly heartrending: he could not have +written it himself, for he looks as tough as his own pig-skin. If he +had, he would be _impayable_ in more ways than one. What can I do? I +can't come down on the poor old man who has the misfortune to be my +father for more supplies when rents are being reduced fifteen per cent. +The tradesmen must learn to endure. They have a splendid chance of +attaining the victory of suffering." + +Bruce smiled complacently to himself, and then superciliously at +Charley. He had just received a letter from his banker, consulting him +as to the disposal of a superfluous thousand or so, and he was +hesitating between some dock shares and a promising railway. + +"Yes," Forrester went on, "it's very well for you to talk in that +hardened way, as you did the other night, about detrimentals and second +sons. I wonder how you would like to have an elder brother, a pillar of +learned societies, and as tenacious of life as one of his pet zoophytes? +He used to consume quantities of medicine, which was encouraging; but +lately he has taken to homoeopathy, which was quite out of the match. +He told me, lately, that 'four hundred a year and my pay was affluence.' +Affluence!" + +It is impossible to describe the cadence of plaintive indignation which +he gave to the last word. The recollection of his wrongs had made him +almost energetic: we listened to his eloquence in respectful surprise. + +"It was adding insult to injury," answered Guy. "If Parliament does not +do something for you all soon, there will be another exodus of the +Parthenidae." + +Charley looked at his friend admiringly, as he always did when Guy was +classical in his allusions; but the unwonted effort had evidently +exhausted him, and he lapsed into silence. + +We rode out that afternoon to make some calls in the neighborhood, and, +in returning, Livingstone proposed a short cut through a line of gates, +with a short interval of cross-country work. + +His cousin looked delighted, Bruce decidedly uncomfortable, though, of +course, he could not refuse. He was riding Kathleen, an Irish mare, one +of the quietest in the Kerton stable, where none were very steady. The +fences were nothing at first; at last we came to a brook. It was not +broad, but evidently deep, with high, rotten banks. However, as we were +going at a fair hunting pace, all, including Bella Donna and her +mistress, took it in their stride, but pulled up at once, seeing that +Bruce was left behind, with the groom who was following us. + +The first time he came at it, it was a clear case of "craning." He was +hauling nervously at the reins, and would not let the mare have it. + +Guy regarded him with intense contempt. "By G--d," he muttered, "I +believe the man's afraid!" + +Forrester laughed so unrestrainedly that Isabel looked at him +beseechingly, in evident dread of the consequences. + +"My dear Miss Raymond," he said, answering her frightened glance, "don't +alarm yourself. Do you think I am a Quixote, to war with windmills?" + +No one could look at Bruce's long arms and legs, all working at once, +without owning the aptness of the simile. + +For the third time he came down at the brook, and, I really believe, +meant going; but Kathleen, unused to such vacillating measures, had got +sulky, and swerved on the very brink, almost sliding over it. Her rider +lost his seat, rolled over her shoulder, and for an instant disappeared +in the water. + +Achelous or Tiber, emerging from his native waves, crowned with aquatic +plants, presented, I doubt not, an appearance at once dignified and +becoming, but I defy any ordinary non-amphibious mortal to look, under +similar circumstances, any thing but supremely ridiculous. The wrathful +face framed in dripping hair and plastered whiskers--the movements of +the limbs, awkward and constrained--the rivulets distilling from every +salient angle, turning the victim into a walking Lauterbrunnen--when we +saw all these absurdities exaggerated before us, no wonder that from the +whole party, including the groom, there broke "unnumbered laughters." + +"Curse the mare!" Bruce hissed out. The words came crushed and broken, +as it were, through the white ranges of his grinding teeth. + +Livingstone's face hardened directly. "Swear as much as you think the +circumstances require, or as my cousin will allow," he said, "but be +just before you're generous: don't anathematize Kathleen. It was no +fault of hers. I never saw her refuse before; but she is used to be put +straight at her fences. Hold her still, Harry" (to the groom on the +farther side, who had caught the mare's rein); "I'll ride her at it +myself." + +He threw his bridle to Forrester, and, dismounting, cleared the brook at +a bound. Then he went up to Kathleen, and began to coax her with voice +and hand. + +"I'll bet an even fifty he takes her over the first time," said Charley. + +Bruce nodded his head, without speaking, to show that he took the bet. I +thought he had the best of it, for the mare was so savage and sulky +still that a refusal seemed a certainty. + +Guy had mounted by this time, and, after taking a wide sweep in the +field, came down at the brook. Kathleen was curling her back up, and +going short, with the most evident intention of balking; but swerving +was next to impossible, for she was fairly held in a vice by her rider's +hands and knees. The whip fell heavily twice on either shoulder, and, +just at the water's edge, Livingstone drove his heels in and lifted her. +It was almost a standing leap, and, as Kathleen landed, a fragment of +the bank went crashing into the water from under her hind hoofs, and she +went down on her head; but Guy recovered her cleverly, and, turning +again, sent her over it twice, backward and forward. The first time the +mare did not try to refuse again, but rushed at it, snorting wrathfully, +with her head in the air; the second she was quite tamed, and took it +evenly in her stride. + +"Give Mr. Bruce your horse, Harry, and take the Czar," Guy said. "I'll +ride Kathleen home. Steady, old lady--don't fret. We are friends again +now." + +"So you have got your pony back," I remarked to Forrester. + +"Yes, and with interest," was the quiet reply. "I don't think he will +owe me much when I have done with him." + +Though I had nothing on earth to do with it, I felt something like +compunction as I guessed what he meant. + +Bruce's was a hard, money-loving nature, unromantic to a degree; but I +believe he would gladly have waked to find himself a houseless, landless +beggar, if he could thus have regained what Charley, with his soft +voice, and eyes, and manner, had stolen from him long ago. + +Am I right in saying "stolen?" Perhaps he never had it; at all events, +he thought he had, which comes to nearly the same thing. + +It is true that, unraveling the cord of a man's existence, you will +generally find the blackest hank in it twined by a woman's hand, but it +is not less common to trace the golden thread to the same spindle. + +Great warrior, profound statesman, stanch champion of liberty as he was, +without Edith of the Swan's-neck, Harold would scarcely have risen into +a hero of romance. We do not quite despise Charles VII. when we think +how faithfully, in loneliness and ruin, the Lady of Beauty loved her +apathetic, senseless, discrowned king. Others never found it out, but +there must have been something precious hid in a dark corner of his +wayward heart near which Agnes nestled so long. We look leniently on +Otho--parasite and profligate--when we see him lingering on his last +march, on the very verge of the death-struggle, in the teeth of Galba's +legions, to decorate Popaea's grave. More in pity than in scorn, be sure, +did Tacitus, the historic epigrammatist, write "_Ne tum quidem veterum +immemor amorum_." + +Was it in remorseful consciousness of having inflicted a deep, +irreparable wrong, that Isabel rode so constantly by Bruce's side, +striving, by all means of timid propitiation, to chase the cloud +lowering on his sullen face as we returned slowly home? + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + _"To de prokluein, + Epei genoit' an elusis, prochaireto; + Ison de to prostenein, + Toron gar exei sunorthron augais."_ + + +My stay at Kerton Manor was drawing to a close. I had lingered there too +long already, and letters from neglected relatives and friends came, +reproachful, with every post. The day before I went, Guy called me into +his study. + +"Frank," he said, "I am in a great strait of perplexity; my uncle has +been attacking me this morning about Isabel and Charley. Bruce puts him +up to it, of course." + +"I thought it would come; but why on earth did not Bruce speak to you, +if not to Forrester, himself? Perhaps it was from delicacy, though. Let +us hope so." + +"How philanthropic we are!" Guy retorted. "I don't believe any other man +would have spoken of delicacy and that rough-hewn log of Scotch-fir in +the same breath. My dear boy, the thing is as simple as possible--the +man is a coward. He is as careful of that precious person of his as if +it were worth preserving, so he shoots his arrows from behind Uncle +Henry's Telamonian shield. Nothing is so acute and right-judging as the +instinct of fear. He knows that if he had a fancy for a quarrel, either +Charley or I would be too happy to indulge him." + +"He can't be such a dastard," I said. + +"I am sure of it; but he is not the less dangerous for that. Such men +are always the most unscrupulous in revenge. I have seen murder in his +eyes a score of times in the last fortnight. If our lines had fallen in +the pleasant Italian places, he would have invested twenty scudi long +ago in hiring a dagger. As it is, civilization and the rural police +stand our friends; but I have strongly advised Charley not to trust +himself near him in cover. By G--d, I think, for once in his life, he +would hold straight!" + +"You don't like him, that's evident." + +The pupils of Livingstone's eyes contracted ominously; a lurid flash +shot out from under his black, bent brows, and there came on his lip +that peculiar smile that we fancy on the face of Homeric heroes--more +fell, and cruel, and terrible than even their own frown--just before +they leveled the spear. He laid his broad hand, corded across with a +net-work of tangled sinews, on the table before him, and the stout oak +creaked and trembled. + +"If I were to strangle him," he said, "as I constantly feel tempted to +do, I believe I should deserve well of the state. But, with all that, I +don't like plotting against him under my own roof; it strikes me that is +a phase of hospitality not strictly Arabian. My mother laments over him +already as hardly dealt with. Then Uncle Henry is a great difficulty. He +is not in the least one of the light comedy fathers who, during two +acts, stamps about with many strange oaths and stormy denials, but in +the last yields to fate and _soubrettes_, says 'Bless you, my children!' +and hands out untold gold. There is no more appeal from his decisions +than from Major A----'s. He dislikes Bruce, of course; but he would just +as soon think of objecting to a partner at whist as to a son-in-law +because he happened to be unprepossessing. When the poor little +Iphigenia is sacrificed on the shrine of expediency, you will see him, +not veiling his face but taking snuff with the calm grace that is +peculiar to him. Arguing with such a man is a simple absurdity." + +"I can not advise you," I answered, sadly; "but it seems hard on Miss +Raymond, too." + +"Of course it is," Livingstone broke in; "and the worst of it is, the +poor child looks to me to help her. I can't bear to think of what her +life would be if she married Bruce. He would be constantly retaliating +on her for what he is suffering now--for he does suffer. A pleasant idea +that she, who is only meant to be petted, should be set up as a target +for his jealousy and ill-humor! She would never be able to stand it, and +Charley wouldn't if she could; and then there would be a _denouement_ +like that which ruined Ralph Mohun. If there _is_ to be a row, it had +better come before than after marriage. It's more moral, and saves an +infinity of trouble. I think Charley is better away, too, just now. +Parndon wants us both to stay with him. We'll go; and so my conscience +will stand at ease for the present. When we are on neutral ground I can +help them, or, at all events, 'let the justice of the king pass by.'" + +"Have you spoken to Forrester yet?" + +"No; but he will do as I advise, and temporize, I am sure, though he +would hardly give up Bella, even if I asked him. He means business for +once, evidently. They will have plenty of time to concert their plans +before the summer. Charley wants no help in that. As to carrying them +out--we shall see. Well, you will go to-morrow. I am very sorry, for all +reasons. I hope you have not been much bored here. Kerton counts on you +for next winter." + +I need not give my answer. I felt really loth to go; but, fortunately +for my peace of mind, I could not guess at the changes that would be +wrought in the hopes, the intentions, the destinies of all of us before +I should stand in the fine old manor-house again. + +If adieus are painful in reality, they ate intensely stupid on paper--a +landscape without a foreground--so I spare you next morning's +leave-takings. + +Guy had said nothing to his cousin then of the plan he had determined +on. I was glad of it. I was glad not to see, at parting, her sweet face +so sad as I am sure it became when she heard that she was to struggle +against Brace's persecutions and her own antipathies unaided and alone. + +I wandered through many counties, and then went to Ireland. During the +next few months I saw the faces I had left behind me many times, but +only in my dreams. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + "The only living thing he could not hate + Was reft at once--and he deserved his fate, + But did not feel it less; the good explore + For peace, these realms where guilt can never soar; + The proud--the wayward--who have fixed below + Their joy, and find this earth enough for woe, + Lose in that one their all--perchance a mite-- + But who in patience parts with all delight?" + + +Pleasant days they were when, through the soft spring weather, I +wandered round the coasts of Kerry, Clare, and Galway, hooking salmon in +broad pools, where the vexed water rests a while from its labors under +wooded cliffs, and at the tail of roaring rapids, specked with white +foam-clots, or sea-trout in the estuaries where the great rivers hurry +down to their stormy meeting with the Atlantic rollers. + +Every where I met the frank, cheery welcome that you must cross the +Channel to find in its perfection. + +It is sad to see how widely over that fair land the abomination of +desolation has cast its shadow. Many halls are tenantless besides those +of Tara. The ancient owners of the soil--where are they? Not a country +in Europe but is conscious of these restless, careless, homeless +Zingari. In distant provincial towns of France you hear their enormous +blunders in grammar and musical Milesian brogue breaking the uniformity +of dull legitimist _soirees_. Hombourg and Baden are irradiated with the +glory of their whiskers. You find their blue eyes and open, handsome +features diversifying the sameness of wooden-faced Austrian squadrons. +Nay, has it not been whispered that the proudest name in Ireland +attained a bad eminence in the Grecian Archipelago as the captain of the +wickedest of those long low craft that, in the purple dawn or ivory +moonlight, steal silently out from behind the headlands of the Cyclades? + +But let us do justice to those who remain behind. + +The sceptre of Connemara has passed away from the ancient dynasty. If +the penultimate monarch could rise from his peaceful grave, his place +would know him no more. If he traveled through all his thirty miles of +seaboard, the Scotch laborers would doff their hats more respectfully to +the steward of the "Law Life" than to the humane old homicide. The royal +writ, which he defied from his place at St. Stephen's, might be served +now, I imagine, without danger of the bailiff's breaking his fast on the +same. Claret flows soberly from long-necked bottles whose corks bear the +brand of the wine-merchant, high priced and legal, instead of from the +cask of which the snug sandy cove and the roguish-looking hooker could +have told tales. But, in spite of visionary rents, and poor-rates +sternly real, the Irish squire still clings to the exercise of that +hospitality which has been an heirloom with the tribes since the days of +Strongbow. + +One of my longest halting-places was at Ralph Mohun's, by whom, though +personally unknown to him, I was made very welcome as a friend of Guy's. +My host deserves a more especial mention, for his history was a sad, +though not an uncommon one. + +He began life in a Cavalry regiment, wherein he conducted himself with +fair average propriety till he met Lady Caroline Desborough. He fell in +love with her--most people did--but, unluckily, when she married Mr. +Mannering, to whom she had been predestined since her _debut_, he could +not bring himself to wear the willow decently and in order, like her +other disappointed admirers. + +It was the old unhappy story: her husband neglected Lady Caroline +consistently--ill-treated her sometimes. Mohun pursued his purpose with +the relentless obstinacy of his character. Eighteen months after her +marriage they fled together. + +He was not rich, so that the trial which ensued, with its heavy damages, +completely crippled him. The partner of his crime was absolutely +penniless. They went to Vienna, and Ralph entered the Austrian +Cuirassiers, where he had some interest to push him. He had lingered +some time within reach of England, to give Mannering an opportunity of +demanding satisfaction. But the injured husband knew his man too well to +trust himself within fifteen paces of Mohun's pistol. He chose a surer, +safer revenge in taking no steps to procure a divorce, and so debarring +Ralph from his only means of atonement--marriage with his victim. + +He varied the dull routine of seducers, it is true, for he never wearied +of, or behaved unkindly to, the woman he had ruined. Time brought many +troubles on them, but never satiety or coldness. To the very last he +worshiped her, and, to the utmost of his power, guarded her tenderly. +Rough, and hard, and morose as he was to others, she never heard his +lips utter one harsh word. + +But she was of a proud, sensitive spirit, and had miscalculated her +strength when she thought she could bear dishonor. After that duel with +which Austria rang, in which the best _schlager_ in his brigade fell, +horribly mangled, the day after he had whispered a jest about Caroline +Mannering, men were very cautious how they even looked askance at her; +but the women--who could bridle their tongues or blunt their scornful +glances? Briareus, armed to the teeth, would not affright our modern +dowagers, or deter them from their prey. Wherever the carcass of a fair +fame lies, thither they flock, screaming shrilly in triumph, +vulture-eyed, sharp-taloned--the choosers of the slain. + +I pity from my heart the frailest, the most utterly fallen of her sex, +when once the social Nemesis hands her over to the chorus of the +Eumenides. + +We deride the _subsignanae_ who line the wall; we make a mock at their +old-fashioned whist; we risk jokes whereat our partners smile +approvingly on their false fronts and wonderful head-gears; but may the +wittiest of us never know by experience how much worse is the bite than +the bark of the Veteran Battalion! + +Caroline Mannering had all this to contend with, for Vienna was a +favorite resort in those days for the English, and she was constantly +encountering some of her old set. She bore up bravely for a while, but +it killed her. She never wearied her lover with her self-reproach, but +crushed back her sorrows into her heart, and met him always with a +gentle smile. That same smile contrasted so sadly, at last, with the +wan, worn features, that it often made him bend his bushy brows to +conceal the rising tears. + +If her destiny had been different--if she had died ripe in years, after +a life spent in calm matronly happiness, with all that she loved best +round her, would she have been nursed so tenderly or mourned so bitterly +by the nearest and dearest of them all as she was by her tempter to sin? +I think not. I believe that in all the world there never was a greater +sorrow than that which Mohun endured as he saw his treasure slowly +escaping him; never a desolation more complete and crushing than that +which fell upon him as he stood by her corpse, with dry eyes, folded +arms, and a heavy, frowning brow. It was not only that he felt her place +could never be filled again--many feel that, and find it turn out +so--but a part of his being was gone: all that was soft, and kind, and +tender in his nature died with Caroline Mannering. He never could get +rid of a certain chivalry which was inherent in him, so sometimes he +would do a generous thing; but he did it so harshly as to deprive the +act of the semblance of good-nature. I think he very seldom again felt +sympathy or compassion for any living creature. Perhaps he thought the +world had behaved hardly to his dead love, and so never forgave it. She +passed away very stilly and painlessly. She was leaning on his breast +when he saw death come into her eyes: he shivered then all over, as if a +cold wind had struck him suddenly, but spoke no word. She understood +him, though. Her last motion was to draw his cheek down to hers with her +thin, shadowy arm, and her last breath went up to the God who would +judge them both in an unselfish prayer. + +"She was rightly served," says Cornelia; "such women ought to be +miserable." + +O rigid mother of the Gracchi! how we all respect you, _tronante_ in the +comfortable cathedra of virtue inexpugnable, perhaps unassailed. Your +dictum must stand for the present. The court is with you. But I believe +other balances will weigh the strength of temptation, the weakness of +human endurance, the sincerity of repentance, and the extent of suffered +retribution, when the Father of all that have lived and erred since the +world began shall make up His jewels. In that day, I think, the light of +many orthodox virgins and dignified matrons will pale before the softer +lustre of Magdalene the Saint. + +Mohun remained in the Austrian service some time after Caroline +Mannering's death, and, by dint of good service and interest, rose +rapidly; but, about eight years before I saw him, a distant relation +left him the estate in the west of Ireland, where he had resided ever +since, making occasional visits to the Continent, and beating up his old +quarters, but rarely coming to England. + +He did not mix much with the county society, such as it was; and his +visitors were chiefly friends from England who had not forgotten him +yet, or the military quartered in his neighborhood. + +It was a dreary, desolate old house where he lived--massive, square, and +gray. There were wooded banks and hollows just round it; but farther +afield the chill, bare moorland stretched away toward the sea, broken +here and there by sullen sedgy tarns. + +Here he spent his monotonous existence, riding hard and drinking +obstinately, but never, even in the latter case, rising into +conviviality. A long, bushy beard, and portentous mustache, grizzled, +though he was scarcely past middle age, which could not conceal a deep +sabre-scar, gave him a grim, sinister expression; and his voice had that +brief imperious accent which is peculiar to men for many years used to +give the word of command. + +That worn, haggard face told a real tale. The furrows there had been +plowed by an enduring remorse, very different from that comfortable, +half-complacent regret which some feel at the retrospect of their +youthful _fredaines_. + +They shake their solemn old heads as they hold themselves up to us as a +warning; they sermonize with edifying gravity on the impropriety of such +misdemeanors; but we can trace through all this an under-current of +satisfaction tenderly fatuitous, as they go back to the days of their +gipsyhood, when Plancus was consul. + +I have been amused with watching these eminent but somewhat sensual +Christians on such occasions, and seeing the dull eyes begin to glisten, +and the lips wrinkle themselves into a fat, unpleasant smile. _They_ +have prospered since, and certainly it would be most absurd to torment +themselves now about the souls and bodies which they once sacrificed to +a whim. Over those ruins and relics the River of Oblivion has rolled +long ago--let them sleep on there and take their rest. + +Have we not the bright example of the prototype of this class--the +pious AEneas? How creditable was his behavior when he looked back over +the black water on the trail of flame stretching from the funeral pyre +where Dido lay burning! + +"He knew," says his admiring biographer, "what the madness of women +could do;" but the breeze was getting up astern, and favoring gods +beckoned him on to Italy and fortune; so he sighed twice or +thrice--perhaps he wept, for the amiable hero's tears were always ready +on the shortest notice--and then, like the captain of the _Hesperus_, +"steered for the open sea." + +Did he feel a pang of remorse or shame at that meeting in the twilight +of Hades, when he called vainly on Elissa, and the dead queen, from +where she stood by the side of Sychaeus, who had forgiven her all, turned +on him the disgust and horror of her imperial eyes? Who can tell? The +greatest and best of men have their moments of weakness. If so, be sure +he was soon comforted as he reviewed the shadowy procession of his +posterity of kings. The episode of Byrsa would scarcely trouble his +conjugal happiness, or make him more indulgent to the mildest flirtation +of Lavinia. + +I fancy that poor princess--after listening to a long, intensely proper +discourse from her immaculate husband, or when the young Iulus had been +unusually disagreeable--gazing wistfully in the direction where, against +the sky-line, rose the clump of plane-trees, under which hot-headed, +warm-hearted Turnus was resting after his brief life of storms. Then she +would think of that unhappy mother who, with every impulse of a willful +nature, loved her child so dearly, till she would begin to doubt--it was +very wrong of her--if Amata or the match-making gods were most right +after all. + +The neighboring peasantry regarded Mohun with mingled dislike and +terror--a feeling which was increased tenfold by an event which occurred +about three years before my visit, in the height of the agrarian +troubles. I can not do better than give it, as near as I can, in the +words of one who was an actor in the scene. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + "Now what wouldst thou do, good my squire, + That rides beside my rein, + Wert thou Glenallan's earl to-day, + And I were Roland Cheyne? + + * * * * * + + My horse should ride through their ranks sae rude, + As he would through the moorland fern, + And ne'er let the gentle Norman bluid + Grow cauld for the Highland kerne." + + +It was in the beginning of December, 184-(said Fred. Carew); we were +sitting down to dinner after a capital day's cock-shooting--besides +myself there were Lord Clontarf, Mohun, and Kate, my wife--when we were +disturbed by a perfect hail of knocks at the hall door. Old Dan Tucker, +or the Spectre Horseman, never clamored more loudly for admittance. +Fritz, Mohun's old Austrian servant, went down to see what was up, and, +on opening the door, was instantly borne down by the tumultuous rush of +Michael Kelly, gentleman, agent to half a dozen estates, and attorney at +law. In the two last capacities be had given, it seems, great umbrage to +the neighboring peasantry, and they had caught him that night as he +returned home, intending to put him to death with that ingenuity of +torture for which the fine, warm-hearted fellows are justly celebrated. + +They did not wish to hurry over the entertainment, so confined him in an +upper chamber, while they called their friends and neighbors to rejoice +with them, carousing meantime jovially below. The victim contrived to +let himself down from the window, and ran for his life to the nearest +house, which, unluckily, happened to be the Lodge. Two boys, however, +saw and recognized him as he entered the demesne, and raised a whoop, to +show that they knew where the fox had gone to ground. + +This we made out from a string of incoherent interjections; and then he +lay panting and contorting himself in an agony of fear. + +Mohun sat on the hall table, swinging his foot and regarding the +spectacle with the indolent curiosity that one might exhibit toward the +gambols of some ugly new importation of the Zoological Society. When the +story was told he pointed coolly to the door. + +The shriek that the miserable creature set up on seeing that gesture I +shall never forget. + +"Do you think I shall turn my house into a refuge for destitute +attorneys?" Ralph said, answering my look of inquiry. "If there were no +other reason, I would not risk it, with your wife under my roof. A +night-attack in the West is no child's play." + +Kate had come out, and was leaning over the gallery. She heard the last +words, and spoke, flushing scarlet with anger. + +"If I thought that my presence prevented an act of common humanity, I +would leave your house this instant, Colonel Mohun." + +Ralph smiled slightly as he bent his head in courteous acknowledgment of +her interruption. + +"Don't be indignant, Mrs. Carew. If you have a fancy for such an +excitement, I shall be too happy to indulge you. It is settled, then? We +back the attorney. Don't lie there, sir, looking so like a whipped +hound. You hear? You are safe for the present." He had hardly finished, +when there came a rustling of feet outside, then hurried whispers, then +a knock, and a summons. + +"We'd like to spake wid the curnel, av ye plase." + +"I am here; what do ye want?" Mohun growled. + +"We want the 'torney. We know he's widin." + +"Then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. It's not my fancy to give him +up. I wouldn't turn out a badger to you, let alone a man." + +You see, he took the high moral ground now. + +"Then we'll have him out in spite of yez," two or three voices cried out +together. + +"Try it," Ralph said. "Meantime I am going to dine; good-night." + +A voice that had not spoken yet was heard, with a shrill, gibing accent. +"Ah! thin the best of appetites to ye, curnel, and make haste over yer +dinner. It's Pierce Delaney that'll give ye yer supper." Then they went +off. + +"The said Delaney is a huge quarryman," Ralph observed. "He represents +the physical element of terror hereabouts, as I believe I do the moral. +We shall have warm work before morning. He does not like me. Fritz, send +Connell up; he is below somewhere." + +The keeper came, looking very much surprised. He had been in the +stables, and had only just heard of the disturbance. + +"Get the rifles and guns ready, with bullets and buckshot," his master +said. "We are to be attacked, it seems." + +The man's bold face fell blankly. + +"By the powers, yer honor, I haven't the value of an ounce of poudther +in the house. I meant to get some the morrow morning, afore ye were up." + +Mohun shrugged his shoulders, whistling softly. + +"Man proposes," he said. "It's almost a pity we found so many cocks in +the lower copse this afternoon. I have fifteen charges or so in my +pistol-case. We must make that do, loading the rifles light." Then he +went to a window, whence he could see down the road; the moon was +shining brightly. + +"I thought so; they have got scouts posted already. The barbarians know +something of skirmishing, after all. Maddox, come here." (The groom was +a strong English boy, very much afraid of his master, but of nothing +else on earth.) "Saddle Sunbeam, and go out by the back gates, keeping +well under the shadow of the trees. When you clear them, ride straight +at the rails at the end of the paddock. You'll get over with a scramble, +I think. Keep fast hold of his head--you _mustn't_ fall. Then make the +best of your way to A----, and tell Colonel Harding, with my +compliments, that I shall be glad if he will send over a troop as +quickly as possible. They ought to be here in two hours. And, mind, +don't spare the horse going, but bring him back easy. You will be of no +use here, and I won't have him lamed if I can help it. You'll have to +risk a bullet or two as you get into the road; but they can't shoot. +It's odds against their hitting you. Now go." + +The groom pulled his forelock as if the most ordinary commission had +been given him, and vanished. + +"Connell," Ralph went on, "go and saw the ladders that are in the yard +half through. They will hardly try the barred windows; but it looks more +workmanlike to take all precautions. Then come back, and help Fritz to +pile chairs and furniture all up the staircase, and about the hall near +it. Line the gallery with mattresses, two deep, leaving spaces to fire +through. Light all the lamps, and get more candles to fix about; we +shall not see very clearly after the smoke of the first dozen shots. +When you have finished, come to me. Now, shall we go back to dinner?" + +I am not ashamed to own I had little appetite; nevertheless, I sat down. +Kate had gone to her room. If her courage was failing, she did not wish +to show it. + +Suddenly our host got up and went to the window. His practiced ear had +caught the tread of the horse which Maddox was taking out as quietly as +possible. We watched him stealing along under the trees till their +shelter failed him. Then he put Sunbeam to speed, and rode boldly at the +rails. A yell went up from the road, and we saw dark figures running; +then came a shot, just as the horse was rising at the fence, he hit it +hard, and the splinters flew up white in the moonlight, but he was over. +We held our breath, while several flashes told of dropping shots after +the fugitive. They did not stop him, though; and, to our great relief, +we heard the wild rush of the frightened horse subside into a long +stretching gallop, and the wind brought back a cheery hollo--"Forr'ard, +forr'ard away!" + +"So far so good," said Ralph Mohun, as he sat down again, and went in +steadily at a woodcock. "Don't hurry yourselves, gentlemen. We have +three quarters of an hour yet; they will take that time to muster. +Clontarf, some Hock?" + +The boy to whom he spoke held out his glass with a pleasant smile. The +coming peril had not altered a tint on his fresh, beardless cheeks--rosy +and clear as a page's in one of Boucher's pictures. + +A good contrast he made with the miserable attorney, who had followed us +uninvited (it seemed he only felt safe in our presence), and who was +crouching in a corner, his lank hair plastered round his livid convulsed +face with the sweat of mortal fear. + +It struck Mohun, I think. He laid his hand on Clontarf's shoulder, and +spoke with a kindliness of voice and manner most unusual with him-- + + "We'll quell the savage mountaineer, + As their Tinchell cows the game: + They come as fleet as forest deer; + We'll drive them back as tame." + +Even at that anxious moment I could not help laughing at the idea of +Ralph quoting poetry--of that grim Saul among the prophets. + +I went in to keep up Kate's spirits. She bore up gallantly, poor child, +and I left her tolerably calm. She believed in me as a "plunger" to an +enormous extent, and in Mohun still more. When I returned my companions +were in the gallery. This ran round two sides of the hall, which went up +to the roof. The only access to the upper part of the house was by a +stone staircase of a single flight. The kitchen and offices were on the +ground floor, otherwise it was uninhabited. + +Ralph had his pistols by him, and his cavalry sword, long and heavy, but +admirably poised, lay within his reach. + +"I have settled it," he said. "You and Connell are to take the guns. +Smooth-bores are quickest loaded, and will do for this short distance. +Clontarf, who is not quite so sure with the trigger, is to have the post +of honor, and guard the staircase with his sabre. Throw another bucket +of water over it, Connell--is it thoroughly drenched? And draw the +windows up" (these did not reach to within ten feet of the floor); "we +shall be stifled else. But there will be a thorough draft when the +door's down, that's our comfort. One word with you, Carew." + +He drew me aside, and spoke almost in a whisper, while his face was very +grave and stern. + +"You will do me this justice, whatever happens. Unless it had been +forced upon me, I would not have risked a hair of your wife's head to +save all the attorneys that are patronized by the father of lies. But, +mark, me! if it comes to the worst, keep a bullet for _her_. Don't leave +her to the mercy of those savage devils. I know them. She had better die +ten times over than full into their brutal hands. You must use your own +discretion, though. I shall not be able to advise you then. Not a man of +them will be in this gallery till I am past praying for. Nevertheless, I +hope and believe all will be right. Don't trouble yourself to reload; +Fritz will do that for you. I have given him his orders. Aim very +coolly, too; we must not waste a bullet. You can choose your own sword; +there are several behind you. Ah! I hear them coming up. Now, men, to +your posts." + +There was the tramp of many feet, and the surging of a crowd about and +against the hall door. Then a harsh, loud voice spoke: + +"Onst for all, will ye give him up, or shall we take him, and serve the +rest of yez as bad? Ye've got women there, too--" + +I will not add the rest of the threat for very shame. I know it made me +more wolfish than ever I thought it possible to feel, for I am a +good-natured man in the main. Mohun, who is _not_, bit his mustache +furiously, and his voice shook a little as he answered, + +"Do you ever say a prayer, Pierce Delaney? You need one now. If you live +to see to-morrow's sunset, I wish my right hand may wither at the +wrist." + +A shrill howl pealed out from the assailants, and then the stout oak +door cracked and quivered under the strokes of a heavy battering-beam; +in a hundred seconds the hinges yielded, and it came clattering in; over +it leaped three wild figures, bearing torches and pikes, but their +chief, Delaney, was not one of them. + +"The left-hand man is yours, Carew; Connell, take the middle one," said +Ralph, as coolly as if we had sprung a pack of grouse. While he spoke +his pistol cracked, and the right-hand intruder dropped across the +threshold without a cry or a stagger, shot right through the brain. The +keeper and I were nearly as fortunate. Then there was a pause; then a +rush from without, an irregular discharge of musketry, and the clear +part of the hall was crowded with enemies. + +I can't tell exactly what ensued. I know they retreated several times, +for the barricade was impassable; and while their shots fell harmlessly +on the mattresses, every one of ours told--nothing makes a man shoot +straight like being short of powder--but they came on again, each time +with added ferocity. + +I heard Mohun mutter more than once, in a dissatisfied tone, "Why does +not that scoundrel show himself? I can't make out Delaney." All at once +I heard a stifled cry on my right, and, to my horror, I saw Clontarf +dragged over the balustrade in the gripe of a giant, whom I guessed at +once to be the man we had looked for so long. Under cover of the smoke, +he had swung himself up by the balustrade of the staircase, and, +grasping the poor boy's collar as he looked out incautiously from his +shelter, dropped back into the hall, carrying his victim with him. + +With a roar of exultation the wild beasts closed round their prey. +Before I had time to think what could be done, I heard, close to my ear, +a blasphemy so awful that it made me start even at that critical moment: +it was Ralph's voice, but I hardly knew it--hoarse and guttural, and +indistinct with passion. Without hesitating an instant, he swung himself +over the balustrade, and lighted on his feet in the midst of the crowd. +They were half drunk with whisky, and maddened by the smell of blood; +but--so great was the terror of Mohun's name--all recoiled when they saw +him thus face to face, his sword bare and his eyes blazing. That +momentary panic saved Clontarf. In a second Ralph had thrown him under +the arch of a deep doorway, and placed himself between the senseless +body and its assailants. Two or three shots were fired at him without +effect; it was difficult to take aim in such a tossing chaos; then one +man, Delaney, sprung out at him with a clubbed musket. "At last!" we +heard Mohun say, laughing low and savagely in his beard as he stepped +one pace forward to meet his enemy. A blow that looked as if it might +have felled Behemoth was warded dexterously by the sabre, and, by a +quick turn of the wrist, its edge laid the Rapparee's face open in a +bright scarlet gash, extending from eyebrow to chin. + +His comrades rushed over his body, furious, though somewhat disheartened +at seeing their champion come to grief; but they had to deal with a +blade that had kept half a dozen Hungarian swordsmen at bay, and, with +point or edge, it met them every where, magically. They were drawing +back, when Delaney, recovering from the first effects of his fearful +wound, crawled forward, gasping out curses that seemed floating on the +torrent of his rushing blood, and tried to grasp Mohun by the knees and +drag him down. + +Pah! it was a sight to haunt one's dreams. (You might have filled my +glass, some of you, when you saw it was empty.) + +Ralph looked down on him, and laughed again; his sabre whirled round +once, and cleared a wide circle; then, trampling down the wounded man by +main force, he drove the point through his throat, and pinned him to the +floor. I tell you I heard the steel plainly as it grated on the stone. +There was an awful convulsion of all the limbs, and then the huge mass +lay quite still. + +Then came a lull for several moments. The Irish cowered back to the door +like penned sheep; their ammunition was exhausted, and none dared to +cross the hideous barrier that now was between them and the terrible +Cuirassier. + +All this took about half the time to act that it does to tell. I was +hesitating whether to descend or to stay where my duty called me--near +my wife. Fritz knelt behind me, silent and motionless; he had got his +orders to stay by me to the last; but the sturdy keeper rose to his +feet. + +"Faix," he said, "I'm but a poor hand at the swoording, but I must help +my master, anyhow;" and he began to climb over the breastwork. The +colonel's quick glance caught the movement, and his brief imperious +tones rang over the hubbub of voices loud and clear, + +"Don't stir, Connell; stay where you are. I can finish with these hounds +alone." + +As he spoke, he dashed in upon them with lowered head and uplifted +sword. + +I don't wonder that they all recoiled; his whole face and form were +fearfully transfigured; every hair in his bushy beard was bristling with +rage, and the incarnate devil of murder was gleaming redly in his eyes. + +Just then there was a wild cry from without, answered by a shriek from +my wife, who had been quiet till now. At first I thought that some +fellows had scaled the window; but I soon distinguished the accents of a +great joy. My poor Kate! She had roughed it in barracks too long not to +know the rattle of the steel scabbards. + +When the dragoons came up at a hard gallop, there was nothing left in +the court-yard but the dead and dying. Mohun had followed the flyers to +get a last stroke at the hindmost. We clambered down into the hall, and, +just as we reached the door, we saw a miserable crippled being clinging +round his knees, crying for quarter. Poor wretch! he might as well have +asked it from a famished jungle-tiger. The arm that had fallen so often +that night, and never in vain, came down once more; the piteous appeal +ended in a death-yell, and, as we reached him, Mohun was wiping coolly +his dripping sabre: it had no more work to do. + +I could not help shuddering as I took his offered hand, and I saw +Connell tremble for the first time as he made the sign of the cross. + +The Dragoons were returning from the pursuit; they had only made two +prisoners; the darkness and broken ground prevented their doing more. +Ralph went up to the officer in command. + +"How very good of you to come yourself, Harding, when I only asked you +for a troop. Come in; you shall have some supper in half an hour, and +Fritz will take care of your men. Throw all that carrion out," he went +on, as we entered the hall, strewn with corpses. "We'll give them a +truce to take up their dead." + +Clontarf came to meet us; he had only been stunned and bruised by the +fall. His pale face flushed up as he said, "I shall never forget that I +have to thank you for my life." + +"It's not worth mentioning," Mohun replied, carelessly. "I hope you are +not much the worse for the tumble. Gad! it was a near thing, though. The +quarryman's arms were a rough necklace." + +At that moment they were carrying by the disfigured remains of the dead +Colossus. His slayer stopped them, and bent over the hideous face with a +grim satisfaction. + +"My good friend Delaney," he muttered, "you will own that I have kept my +word. If ever we meet again, I think I shall know you. _Au revoir_," and +he passed on. + +I need not go through the congratulatory scene, nor describe how Kate +blushed as they complimented her on her nerve. Fortunately for her, she +had seen nothing, though she had heard all. Just as we were sitting down +to supper, which Fritz prepared with his usual stolid coolness, and when +Kate was about to leave us, for she needed rest, we remarked the +attorney hovering about us with an exultation on his face yet more +servile and repulsive than its late abject terror. + +"Mrs. Carew," said Mohun, "if you have quite done with your _protege_, I +think we'll send him down stairs. Give him something to eat, Fritz; not +with the soldiers, though; and let some one take him home as soon as +it's light. If you say one word, sir, I'll have you turned out _now_." + +Mr. Kelly crept out of the room, almost as frightened as he had been two +hours before. + +The supper was more cheerful than the dinner, though there was a certain +constraint on the party, who were not all so seasoned as their host. +_He_ was in unusual spirits; so much so that Clontarf confided to a +cornet, his particular friend, that "it was a pity the colonel could +not have such a bear-fight once a fortnight, it put him into such a +charming humor." + +We had nearly finished when, from the road outside, there came a +prolonged ear-piercing wail, that made the window-panes tremble. I have +never heard any earthly sound at once so expressive of utter despair, +and appealing to heaven or hell for vengeance. + +We all started, and set down our glasses; but Mohun finished his slowly, +savoring like a connoisseur the rich Burgundy. + +"It is the wild Irish women keening over their dead," he remarked, with +perfect unconcern. "They'll have more to howl for before I have done +with them. I shall go round with the police to-morrow and pick up the +stragglers. Your men are too good for such work, Harding. There are +several too hard hit to go far, and my hand-writing is pretty legible." + +The stout soldier to whom he spoke bent his head in assent, but with +rather a queer expression on his honest face. + +"Gad!" he said, "you do your work cleanly, Mohun." + +"It is the best way, and the shortest in the end," was the reply; and so +the matter dropped. + +The Dragoons left us before daybreak; their protection was not needed; +we were as safe as in the Tower of London. The next morning, while I was +sleeping heavily, Ralph was in the saddle scouring the country, with +what success the next Assizes could tell. + +I go there again this winter for the cock-shooting, but I don't much +think Kate will accompany me. + +Now who says "a rubber?" Don't all speak at once. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + "He has mounted her on a milk-white steed, + Himself on a dappled gray; + And a bugelet-horn hung down by his side + As lightly they rode away." + + +It is hard to describe the terrible _prestige_ which, after the event I +have been speaking of, attached itself to Ralph Mohun. As for attempting +a second attack on the fatal house, the peasantry would as soon have +thought of storming the bottomless pit. They did not even try a shot at +him from behind a wall; considering him perfectly invulnerable, they +deemed it a pity to waste good powder and lead that might be usefully +employed on an agent or process server. As his gaunt, erect figure went +by, the men shrunk out of his path, and the women called their children +in hastily, and shut their cabin doors; the very beggars, who are +tolerably unscrupulous, gave his gate a wide berth, crossing themselves, +with a muttered prayer, "God stand betwixt us and harm." If Ralph +perceived this, I think he rather liked it; at all events, he made no +attempt, either by softening his manner or by any act of benevolence, to +win the popular favor. + +Before going to the Lodge I had heard from Livingstone. He said that his +cousin's affair with Charley was progressing satisfactorily (I knew what +that meant), and that he was going himself to sell out. I was not +surprised at this; for some time past even the light restraint of +service in the Household Brigade had begun to bore him. But the +intelligence conveyed in a brief note from him during my stay with Mohun +startled me very much. It announced, without any preface or explanation, +that he was engaged to Constance Brandon. + +I had observed that lately he never mentioned or alluded to Miss +Bellasys, but he had been equally silent about his present betrothed. I +told my host of the news directly. + +"I am very glad to hear it," he said. "I never heard any thing but good +of his _fiancee_. She is wonderfully beautiful, too, I believe, and her +blood is unexceptionable. And yet," he went on musingly, "I should +hardly have fancied that she would quite suit Guy. I don't know any one +who would exactly. By-the-by, was there not a strong flirtation with a +Miss Bellasys?" + +"Yes; so strong that I should have been less surprised to have seen her +name in this letter." + +"Then he has not got out of that scrape yet," Mohun observed. "That girl +comes of the wrong stock to give up any thing she has fancied without a +struggle. I knew her father, Dick Bellasys, well. He contrived to +compress as much mischief into his five-and-thirty years, before De +Launy shot him, as most strong men can manage in double the time. He was +like the Visconti--never sparing man in his anger, or woman in his +love." + +I felt that he was right. I did not fancy the idea of Flora's state of +mind when she heard that all her fascinations had failed, and that her +rival had won the day. + +"I think I must leave you sooner than I had intended," I said; "I +should like to be in England to see how things are going on." + +"You are right," answered Ralph, "though I shall be sorry to lose you. +You have some influence with Livingstone, I know, though he is so hard +to guide and self-reliant that advice is almost useless. If I had to +give you a _consigne_, it would be--Distrust. If Miss Bellasys seems to +take things pleasantly, be still more wary. I never saw a peculiarly +frank, winning smile on her father's face without there being ruin to +some one in the background. After all, you can do but little, I suppose. +_Che sara, sara_." He said this drearily, and with something like a +sigh. + +I had some business which detained me in Dublin, and it was nearly a +fortnight after I received Guy's letter before I reached London. + +Early on the morning after my arrival I went down to his lodgings in +Piccadilly. I found him at breakfast; after the first greetings, before +I could say one word about his own affairs, he began to speak eagerly. + +"What a pity you should have come too late for the catastrophe, when you +had seen all the preface! Five days ago Bella and Charley made their +great _coup_, and were married in Paris." + +"And Bruce?" I said, recovering from the intelligence, which was not so +unexpected, after all. + +"Ah! Bruce"--Guy replied; "I should be very glad if I knew what he _was_ +doing at this moment. I have been expecting him every day; but nothing +has been heard of him since he left my mother's presence in a rabid +state of fury. Did I tell you it was from Kerton they fled? I thought +he must have come to me for an explanation, knowing that I was an +accessory before the fact. Indeed, I lent Charley the sinews of war in +the shape of a blank check, which I see this morning he has filled up +for a thousand--just like his modesty. Well, I hope they'll amuse +themselves! Bruce has never been near me. Suicide is the most charitable +suggestion I've heard yet; but coroners are silent, and the Thames, if +it is conscious of that unlucky though disagreeable man, keeps his +secret so far!" + +Then he went on to give me more particulars of the _escapade_. It seems +that Miss Raymond had gone out to walk alone, after luncheon, and that +nothing more was heard of her till dinner-time, when a note was found on +her dressing-table, addressed to her aunt, containing the intelligence +of her flight with Forrester, and a little piece of ready-made +penitence--the first for all whom it might concern, the second for her +father. + +That placid Lord Ullin received the news by telegraph when he was well +into his second rubber at the "Travelers;" he put the message into his +pocket without remark, and won the rubber before he rose. It has been +reported that he was somewhat absent during its progress, so much so as +to rough his partner's strongest suit; but this I conceive to have been +an after-thought of some one's, or a _canard_ of the club. Impavid as +the Horatian model-man--(just in all his _dealings_, and tenacious of +the odd trick)--I can not imagine the convulsion of nature which would +have made him jeopardize by any sin of omission or commission the +winning of the long odds. + +He found Bruce that night, and told him all. He never would give an +account of that interview: it must have been a curious one. + + _"xunomosan gar, ontes echtistoi to prin, + pur kai thalassa--"_ + +Fancy the well-iced conventionalities of the one brought in contact with +the other's savage temperament, maddened by baffled desires and the +sense of shameful defeat. + +Before noon the next day it was announced to Lady Catharine, at Kerton +Manor, that Bruce was waiting for her in the drawing-room. It was with a +diffidence and sense of guilt very strange to her pure, straightforward +nature that she obeyed the summons. + +His back was to the door as she entered. + +"I can not tell you how sorry I am," she began. + +Bruce turned toward her his ghastly face, ravaged and deformed by +passion and sleeplessness, like a cane-brake in the Western Indies over +which a tornado has passed. He did not appear to notice her words or her +offered hand, but spoke in a strange, broken voice, after clearing his +parched throat once or twice, huskily: + +"When did they go? At what hour?" + +She told him as well as she could. + +"Where have they gone to?" + +"I have not the least idea. Bella gave no hint of this. Would you like +to see her note?" and she held it out to him. + +The name appeared to sting him like the cut of a whip, for he started +convulsively as he took the scrap of paper. He read it through more than +once, as if unable to comprehend it; the power of discrimination seemed +blasted in his dry, red eyeballs; they could only glare. + +He made it out at last, and crumpled it up in his hand, clenching it +till the knuckles became dead-white under the strain. + +"We were to have been married this day month," he said to himself, in a +hoarse whisper; then raising his voice, "You can guess, at least, which +route they have taken?" + +"Indeed I can not," she answered; "I would have done any thing to +prevent this; but you must see that pursuit now would be worse than +useless; it could only lead to fresh evils." + +Then the smouldering passion burst into a flame. + +"It is false," he cried out; "you would have done nothing. It is a plot. +You are all in it; you, your son, and more that I will know soon. I saw +it from the first moment I set foot in this cursed house. And you think +I will not be revenged? Wait--wait and see!" He spoke rapidly, but it +seemed as if the words could hardly force their way through his gnashing +teeth. + +Good and kind-hearted as she was, there breathed no prouder woman than +Lady Catharine Livingstone. Before he had ended her hand was on the +bell. + +"Not even your disappointment can excuse your language," she said, in +her clear, vibrating tones; "our interview is ended. I have pitied you +hitherto, and blamed my niece; I do neither now: she knew you better +than I. Not one word more. Mr. Bruce's carriage." + +Bruce glared at her savagely. He would have sold his soul, I believe, +to have strangled her where she stood; but Guy's own peculiar look was +in the cold, disdainful eyes, which met his without flinching or +faltering. He knew that look very well, and quailed under it now, as he +had done many times before. + +"A last piece of advice," Lady Catharine said, as he turned to go; "you +had better curb your temper if you think of seeing my son. He may +scarcely be so patient with you as I have been." + +If he heard it he did not notice the remark, but left the room slowly. +He lifted his hand, but not his head, in a stealthy gesture of menace as +he reached the door. + +Lady Catharine stood for some moments after his departure as if in +thought, unconsciously retaining her somewhat haughty attitude and +expression. Then she went to her room, and prayed, with many tears, that +Isabel Raymond might never have to repent the step she had taken so +rashly. I think a presentiment of danger made her pray for Guy too. But +did she ever forget him when she was on her knees? + +Nevertheless, Bruce had not shown upon the scene since, so that they +could not convey to him the intelligence when Isabel Forrester wrote +from Paris to communicate her marriage. + +Guy went to Mr. Raymond as a plenipotentiary from the recently allied +powers, to obtain, if possible, fair conditions of peace. His uncle was +breakfasting alone, and received him with perfect good-temper. + +"My dear boy," he said, "it was a match of your poor aunt's making, not +mine. If she had lived to see it broken off, I think she would have been +very much provoked. (He gave a slight shudder of reminiscence here, and +finished his chocolate.) But they say there is no marrying or giving in +marriage where she is gone, so let us hope it will not seriously affect +her now. As to me, I have never been angry since I was twenty-two. +Personally, I very much prefer Forrester to Bruce as a connection. I +should have allowed Bella L300 a year, and I suppose the necessary +outfit and presents would have cost me about L500. I will do just the +same now--neither more nor less. You can tell Charley he may draw for +the last sum and for the first quarter when he pleases. They had better +travel for a year or so, I think, till the people have stopped talking +about them. Charley will sell out, of course?" + +"His papers are sent in," Guy replied. + +"Just so," Raymond went on. "If they are in a pleasant place, I may very +likely go and see them this summer. Suggest Hombourg. I should like to +try the waters. And tell Charley not to go about too much alone after +nightfall. The deserted one is capable of laying a trap for him. I +didn't like his look when I saw him last. That is all, I think. Do you +go to Lady Featherstone's to-night?" + +Raymond appeared at his clubs and elsewhere with a face so impenetrably +cheerful and complacent that his bitterest friend dared not venture on a +condolence. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + "Tu mihi, tu certe (memini), Graecine, negabas, + Uno posse aliquem tempore amare duas." + + +When I had heard all this, I questioned Guy about his own affairs. He +was not very communicative, though he seemed perfectly happy and hopeful +as to the future. He said that his marriage was not to take place till +the autumn, when Miss Brandon's brother (they were orphans) was expected +to return from India. I could not help asking what Flora Bellasys +thought of it. + +Livingstone bit his lip and frowned slightly as he answered, "Well, +there _was_ a scene--rather a tempestuous one, to speak the truth, but +we are perfectly good friends now. I wonder if she ever really expected +me to marry her? She is the most amusing person alive to flirt with, but +as for serious measures--" He shrugged his shoulders expressively. +"Perhaps she _has_ something to complain of; but if she has any +conscience at all, she ought to recognize the _lex talionis_." + +I was not convinced or satisfied, but it was useless to pursue the +subject then. + +"Will you ride to-day?" Guy asked. "There are always horses for you +here. I should like to introduce you to Constance. We shall be in the +Park about five." + +I accepted willingly, and left him soon afterward. + +A little after the hour he had named I saw Livingstone's tall figure +turn the corner of Kensington Gardens, riding on Miss Brandon's right; +on her left was her uncle, Mr. Vavasour, her usual escort. + +She was rarely lovely, certainly, as I was sure she would be, for Guy's +taste in feminine beauty was undisputed. Her features were delicate, but +very clearly cut; the nose and chin purely Grecian in their outline; the +dark gray eyes met you with an earnest, true expression, as if they had +nothing to conceal. Her broad Spanish hat suited her well, shading as it +did cheeks slightly flushed by exercise, and shining tresses of that +color which with us is nameless, and which across the Channel they +call--_blond cendre_. Her hand was strikingly perfect, even in its +gauntlet. It might have been modeled from that famous marble fragment of +which the banker-poet was so proud, and which Canova kissed so often. + +There is a face which always reminds me of hers, though the figure in +the portrait is far more matured and developed than Constance's willowy +form--the picture of Queen Joanna of Naples in the Palazzo Doria. + +I have stood before it long, trying in vain to read the riddle of the +haughty lineaments, and serene, untroubled eyes. Gazing at these, who +could guess the story of that most guilty woman and astute +conspirator--unbridled in sensuality--remorseless in statecraft--who +counted her lovers by legions, and saw, unmoved, her chief favorite torn +limb from limb on the rack? + +But this is no singular instance. Marble and canvas are more discreet +than the mask of the best trained living features. Messalina and Julia +look cold and correct enough since they have been turned into stone. +Only by the magic of her smile and by the glory of her golden hair do we +recognize her who, if all tales are true, might have given a tongue to +the walls of the Vatican. We forget the Borgia, with her laboratory of +philtres and poisons--we only think that never a duke of all his royal +race brought home a lovelier bride than Alfonso of Ferrara. + +Perhaps it is best so. Why should a mark be set upon those whom, it may +be, history has condemned unrighteously? Let us not be more uncharitable +than the painter or the sculptor, but pass on without pausing to +reflect--_Desinit in piscem_. + +If one had wanted to find a fault in Constance Brandon's beauty, I +suppose it would have been that her forehead was too high, and her lips +too thin and decided in their expression, especially when compressed +under any strong feeling. But this defect it would have been hard to +discover on this first occasion of our meeting. She looked so bright and +joyous, and the light from her face seemed reflected on Guy's dark +features, softening their stern outline, and making them radiant with a +proud happiness. She received me very cordially, and I well remember the +pleasant impression left on my ear by the first sound of her voice, soft +and low as Cordelia's. In these two attributes it resembled that of +Flora Bellasys, yet their tones were essentially different--as different +as is to the taste a draft of pure sparkling water from one of strong +sweet wine. We had taken two or three turns, when a large party +approached us, in the centre of whom I recognized instantly Miss +Bellasys. If possible, she looked handsomer than ever as she swept by at +a sharp canter, sitting square and firmly, but yielding just enough to +the stride of the horse--perfectly erect, but inimitably lithe and +graceful. + +Nothing in her demeanor betrayed the faintest shade of emotion; but I +remembered the old maxim of the fencing-school--"Watch your enemy's +eyes, not his blade;" and I caught Flora's, as she raised her head after +returning our salutation, before she had time to discipline them +thoroughly. I saw them glitter with defiant hatred as they lighted on +her rival. I saw them melt with passionate eagerness as for one brief +moment they followed Guy's retreating figure and averted face. Half of +Mohun's warning became superfluous after that. I was in no danger of +being deceived by "Miss Bellasys taking things pleasantly." + +Yet, as time wore on, the idea forced itself on me more and more that +Livingstone's choice was in some respects a mistake. They were _not_ +suited to each other. Constance was as unsuspicious and as free from +commonplace jealousies as the merest child; but some of her lover's +proceedings did not please her, and she told him so, perhaps without +attending sufficiently to the "_suaviter in modo_"; for, when it was a +question of duty, real or fancied, to herself and to others, she was +rigid as steel. Besides this, she was a strict observer of all Church +canons and rituals; and more than once, when Guy had proposed some plan, +a vigil, or matins, or vespers came in the way. She did all for the +best, I am certain, and judged herself far more severely than she did +others, but she could not guess how any thing like an admonition or a +lecture grated on the proud, self-willed nature that from childhood had +been unused to the slightest control. To speak the truth, too, she was +not exempt from that failing which brought ruin on the brightest of the +angels, and punishment eternal on the Son of the Morning; so that pride +may often have checked the evidence of the deep love she really felt, +and made her manner seem constrained and cold. + +I only guess all this; for neither then, nor at any future time, did I +ever hear from Guy the faintest whisper of accusation or complaint. + +I do not think he contradicted her often; I am quite sure it never came +to a quarrel or even a dispute. They were not a couple likely to indulge +in the _amantium irae_; but sometimes, after quitting her, his brow was +so ominously overcast that it would have gladdened the very heart of +Flora Bellasys to have seen it. Once, I remember, after sitting some +time in silence, his eyes turned toward a table, where, among other +letters, lay a little triangular note unopened. He broke the seal and +read it through, frowning still heavily; after a few moments of what +looked like hesitation, he seemed to come to a decision, and burned it +slowly at the flame of his spirit-lamp. Then he rose and shook all his +mighty limbs--as the Danite Titan might have done before his locks were +shorn--and sat down again with a long-drawn sigh, as of relief. I longed +to interpose with a warning word, for in the handwriting I recognized +the _griffe_ of the fatal Delilah. But I knew how dangerous it was to +attempt interference with Guy; and besides, this time, I felt sure he +had escaped the toils. Yet my heart sank as I thought of the seductions +and temptations that the future might have in store. I could hardly +keep my temper that evening when I saw at the Opera Flora +Bellasys--triumphant, as if she could guess what the morning's work had +been--and then thought of the single, guileless heart whose happiness +she was plotting to overthrow. + +She and Guy met constantly, for he still went every where, often +accompanied by his _fiancee_. They seemed to be on the most ordinary +footing of old acquaintances, though it was remarked that no one could +be said to have succeeded to the post of grand vizier at the Bellasys +court, vacated by Livingstone. I can not trace the threads of the web of +Circe. She concealed them well at the time; and since--between the +knowledge of them and me is drawn the veil of a terrible remorse, which +I have never tried to penetrate. + +I can only tell the end, which came very speedily. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + "'Tis good to be merry and wise; + 'Tis good to be honest and true; + 'Tis good to be off with the old love + Before you are on with the new." + + +There was a sound of revelry by night in Mrs. Wallace's villa at +Richmond, and fair women and brave men mustered there strong. Every one +liked those parties. The hostess was young and very charming, while her +husband, a bald, inoffensive, elderly man, was equally eminent in his +own department of the commissariat. His wines were things to dream of in +after years, when, like Curran, "confined to the Port" of a remote +country inn, one sacrifices one's self heroically on the altar of the +landlord for the good of the house. + +The crowd was not so dense as at most London parties, and the +temperature consequently something below that of a vapor-bath or of the +_Piombi_, but the generality of the guests were either amusing, or +pretty, or otherwise eligible. To be sure, it was rather an expedition +and a question of passports to get down there, but the drive home +through the cool dewy morning made you amends. + +Constance Brandon was present. I never saw her look so lovely as on +this, her last appearance on the world's stage. No one could have +guessed that, five hours later, the light was to die in her eyes and the +color in her cheeks, never to return to either again till she shall +wake on the Resurrection morning. + +Flora Bellasys was there too, in all the insolence of beauty, defying +criticism, and challenging the admiration that was lavished on her. I +should like to describe her dress; but I know how dangerous it is for +the uninitiate to venture within the verge of those awful mysteries over +which, as hierophants, Devy and Maradon-Carson preside. Conscious of my +sex, I retire. Have we not read of Actaeon? + +Still I may say that I have an impression of her being surrounded by a +sort of cloud of pale blue _tulle_, over which bouquets of geranium were +scattered here and there; and I remember perfectly a certain serpent of +scarlet velvet and diamonds flashing amid the rolls and braids of her +dark shining tresses. + +The evening began with private theatricals, which were most successful. +There was a _soubrette_--provoking enough to have set all the +parti-colored world by the ears--who traced her descent from a vavasor +of Duke William the Norman, and an attorney's clerk, who had evidently +mistaken his profession when he took a commission in the Coldstreams. + +Soon after the ball which followed had begun, Livingstone arrived. He +had been dining at the mess of his old regiment. I never remember seeing +him what is called the worse for liquor. His head was marble under the +influence of wine and of yet stronger compounds; but the instant I met +his eyes, I guessed from their unusual brilliancy, and from the slight +additional flush on his brown cheeks, that the wassail had been deep. + +He paused for a moment to say a word or two to me, and I noticed that +the first person whom his glance lighted on was, not his betrothed, but +Flora Bellasys. The latter was resting after her first polka, with her +usual staff of admirers round her. Guy watched the circle paying their +homage, and I heard him mutter to himself the formula of the Roman +arena--_Morituri te salutant_. Then he passed on; and, after retaining +Constance for her first disengaged turn, he began talking to a lady, +whom I have not noticed yet, but who merits to be sketched hastily. + +Rose Thornton was not clever. She was no longer in her first youth, and +had never been pretty or very attractive. Her figure was neat, and her +face had a sort of nervous deprecating expression, that made you look at +it a second time. Nevertheless, she was always deeply engaged, and +generally to the best goers in the room. She was a good performer +herself, but this would not account for it; ninety-nine girls out of +every hundred are that, after two seasons' practice. Those who were in +the secret did not wonder at her luck. She was the _ame damnee_ of Flora +Bellasys. + +Whenever the latter ventured on any unusually daring escapade, she was +always really accompanied by Miss Thornton, or supposed to be so. How +the influence was originally acquired I know not; at the time I speak of +she had no more volition left than a Russian Grenadier. She had some +principles of action once, I suppose, and considered herself as an +accountable being; but all such vanities her "dashing white sergeant" +had drilled out of her long ago. Poor thing! It was no wonder that the +frightened look had become habitual to her face, and that she always +spoke with reserve and constraint, as if to guard against the +chance-betrayal of some terrible secret. It was no sinecure, her +office--alternately scapegoat and _confidante_. My own idea is, that +having still a little feeble remnant of a conscience remaining, she +suffered agonies of remorse at times in the latter capacity. Dancing was +her great--almost her only pleasure, and Flora certainly provided her +regularly with partners. Indeed, some one had irreverently designated +Miss Thornton as The Turnpike, inasmuch as, before securing a waltz with +the beauty, it was necessary to pay toll in the shape of a duty-dance +with her _protegee_. Rose's gratitude was boundless. She never wearied +in rendering small services to her patroness. She would write her notes +for her, as La Raffe did for Richelieu, and fetch and carry like the +best of retrievers; venturing every now and then on a timid caress, +which was permitted rather than accepted with an imperial nonchalance. +The only subject on which she ever expanded into eloquence was the +fascinations of her friend. She spent all her weak breath in blowing +that laudatory trumpet, as if she expected the defenses of the best +guarded heart to fall prostrate before it, like the walls of Jericho. +And yet, if all the truth were known, I think she had as much reason to +complain as the dwarf in the story who swore fellowship in arms with the +giant. + +I was sorry to see Livingstone linger at her side, yet more sorry when, +by an easy transition, he passed on to Flora's, and the circle around +her, from old habit, made room for him to pass. He did not stay there +long, though--only long enough to make future arrangements, I +suppose--and then, for some time, I lost sight of him. + +I had been driving heavily through a quadrille in the society of a very +foolish virgin, whose ideas of past, present, and future seemed bounded +by the last Opera, which she had and I had not seen. A horror of great +dullness had fallen upon me, and I went out to restore the tone of my +depressed spirits by a libation, wherein I devoted, solemnly, my late +partner to the infernal gods. When I returned they were playing "The +Olga," and Flora was whirling round on Guy Livingstone's arm. + +Among her many perilous fascinations, have I ever mentioned her +wonderful waltzing? She was as untiring as an Alme; and when once fairly +launched with a steerer who could do her justice, had a sway with +her--to use an Americanism--like that of a clipper three points off the +wind. + +As I watched her, almost reclining in her partner's powerful grasp, her +lips moving incessantly, though audibly only to him, as her head leaned +against his shoulder, I thought of the old Rhineland tradition of the +Wilis; then the daughter of Herodias came into my mind; and then that +scarcely less murderous _danseuse_, at whose many-twinkling feet they +say the second Napoleon cast his frail life down. + +If, in his assault on St. Anthony, the Evil One mingled no Terpsichorean +temptation, be sure it was because the ancient man had no ear for music, +I do not think that weapon was forgotten when Don Roderick, who had once +been a courtly king, did battle through a long winter's night with the +phantasm of fair, sinful La Cava. + +The waltz was over, and I saw Guy and Flora disappear through the +curtained door of the conservatory. If there was one thing Mrs. Wallace +was prouder of than another, it was the arrangement of this sanctum. +Very justly so; for it had witnessed the commencement and happy +termination of more flirtations than half the ball-rooms in London put +together. When you got into one of those nooks, contrived in artful +recesses, shaded by magnolias, camellias, and the broad, thick-leaved +tropical plants, lighted dimly by lamps of many-colored glass, you felt +the recitation of some chapter in "the old tale so often told" a +necessity of the position, not a matter of choice. Against eyes you were +tolerably safe, though not against ears; but this is of very secondary +importance. The man who would not assist a woman in distress (as the +stage sailor has it) by adhering to the whisper appropriate to the +imparting of interesting information, deserves to be--overheard. + +Flora sank down on a convenient _causeuse_, still panting slightly--not +from breathlessness, but past excitement--the ground-swell after the +storm. + +"Ah! what a waltz!" she said, with a sigh. "And what a pity it is so +nearly the last! I shall never find any one else who will understand my +step and pace so well." + +"Why should it be nearly the last?" Guy asked, contemplating the varying +expression of her face and the somewhat careless _pose_ of her +magnificent figure with more than admiration in his eyes. + +"_On se range,_" Flora answered, demurely. "And the first step in the +right direction will be to give up one's favorite partners." + +He sat down by her with a short laugh that was rather forced. + +"Bah! do you think, because we are virtuous, there shall be no more +cakes and ale?" + +"Of course I do. I could sketch your future so easily. It will be so +intensely respectable. You will become a model country squire. You will +hunt a good deal, but never _ride_ any more. (You must sell the Axeine, +you know.) You will go to magistrates' meetings regularly, and breed +immense cattle; and you will grow very fat yourself. That's the worst of +all. I don't like to fancy you stout and unwieldy, like Athelstan." + +She ended, pensively. The languor of reaction seemed stealing over her, +but it only made her more charming as she leaned still farther back on +the soft cushions, watching the point of her tiny foot tracing the +pattern of the carpet. + +"What a brilliant horoscope!" said Guy; "and so benevolently sketched, +too! Now your own, Improvisatrice." + +"I shall marry too," she answered, gravely. "I ought to have done so +long ago. Perhaps I shall make up my mind soon. Evil examples are so +contagious." + +"And who will draw the great prize?" + +"I have not the faintest idea. I suppose some fine old English +gentleman, who has a great estate." + +"I only hope the said estate will be near Kerton," Livingstone +suggested; and he drew closer to his companion. + +"Ah! dear old Kerton," she said, sighing again, "I shall never go there +any more." + +"The reason?" + +"Perhaps because my husband, whoever he may be, will not choose to bring +me." + +"Absurd!" Guy retorted, biting his lip hard. "As if that individual +would have any will of his own. You want to provoke me, I see." + +The answer came in so low a whisper that, though he bent his ear down, +he had almost to guess at the words. + +"No, I have never tried to do that, even during the last three months. I +am not brave enough. Perhaps I should not come, because--I could not +bear it." + +They were silent. She was so near him now that her quick breath stirred +his hair, and he could feel the pulse of her heart beating against his +own side. The fiery Livingstone blood, heated seven-fold by wine and +passion, was surging through his veins like molten iron. Memory and +foresight were both swept away like withered leaves by the strength of +the terrible temptation. + +His arm stole round her waist, and he drew her toward him--close--closer +yet; then she looked up in his face. The cloud of thoughtful gravity has +passed away from hers, and the provocations of a myriad of coquettes and +courtesans concentrated in her marvelous eyes. + +He bent down his lofty head, and instantly their lips met, and were set +together fast. + +A kiss! Tibullus, Secundus, Moore, and a thousand other poets and +poetasters, have rhymed on the word for centuries, decking it with the +choicest and quaintest conceits. But, remember, it was with a kiss that +the greatest of all criminals sealed the unpardonable sin--it was a kiss +which brought on Francesca punishment so unutterably piteous that he +swooned at the sight who endured to look on all other terrors of +nine-circled hell. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + "God help thee, then! + I'll see thy face no more. + Like water spilled upon the plain, + Not to be gathered up again, + Is the old love I bore." + + +Before that long caress was ended, close behind them there broke forth a +low, plaintive cry, such as might be wrung from the bravest of delicate +women, in her extremity of pain, when stricken by a heavy brutal hand. + +The hot blood ebbed back in Guy Livingstone's veins, and froze at its +fountain-head. His punishment had begun already. Before her face, white +as the dress she wore, was revealed through a break in the dark green +foliage of the camellias, he knew that he had trifled away his life's +happiness, and lost Constance Brandon. + +She came forward slowly. With a valiant effort she had shaken off the +first feeling of faintness that had crept over her, and there was +scarcely a trace of emotion left on her features--calm and pale as the +Angel of Death. + +Guy had risen, and stood still, with his head bent down on his breast. +For the first time in his life he was unable to raise his eyes, weighed +down by the heavy sense of bitter disgrace and forfeited honor. + +But the bright flush on Flora's cheek spoke more of exultation than of +shame; the bouquet which she raised to her lips only half concealed a +smile of triumph. She wreathed her slender neck haughtily while she met +her rival's glance without flinching. She thought that, if she had +played for a heavy stake--no less than the jeopardy of her fair +fame--this time, at least, the game was her own. + +Constance spoke first, in a voice perfectly measured and composed. There +was not a false note in the soft, musical tones. After once conquering +her emotion, she would have dropped dead at Flora's feet sooner than +betray how she was wounded. + +"When you have taken Miss Bellasys back, will you come to me for a +moment, Mr. Livingstone? I will wait for you here." + +Flora rose before Guy could answer. "Don't trouble yourself," she said, +gayly. "Here is my partner for the polka looking anxiously for me. I am +ready, Captain Ravenswood." + +She turned, before reaching the door, to fire a last shot. + +"It is the next galop I am to keep for you, is it not?" + +This was to Guy; but there was no answer. He stood in precisely the same +attitude, without a muscle of his face stirring or an eyelash quivering. + +In all the Rifle Brigade there was not a more reckless dare-devil than +Harry Ravenswood, nor one who adhered more devoutly to the convenient +creed, "All is fair in war or love." But he saw that something had +happened quite out of his line; and he did not venture on a single +allusion to it as he led his partner back to the dancing-room, with a +perplexed expression on his cheery face, which amused Flora intensely +when she remarked it. When the subject came on for discussion afterward +in the smoking-room at his club, he thus expressed himself, in language +terse and elegantly allegorical. + +"You see, Livingstone is a very heavy weight; a good deal better than +most in the ring. When I saw him so floored as not to be able to come to +time, I knew there had been some hard hitting going on thereabouts, so I +kept clear." + +The two who were left alone in the conservatory remained silent for a +few seconds. Then Guy roused himself, and offered his arm to his +companion with an impulse of courtesy that was simply mechanical. She +took it without remark, and they passed out through the door which led +into the garden. + +There Constance left his side; and, for the first time, their eyes met +as they stood face to face under the bright moon. Guy read his sentence +instantly--a sentence from which there was no appeal. The very +hopelessness of his situation restored its elasticity to the somewhat +sullen pride which was the mainspring of his character. He stood, +waiting for her to speak; and his eyes were not cast down now, but +riveted on her face--gloomily defiant. + +"I hope you will believe," Miss Brandon said, "that it was quite +involuntarily I became a spy on your actions. I did not overhear one +word; and my partner had that moment left me, when I saw--" Not all her +self-command could check the shudder that ran through every limb, and +the choking in her throat that would interrupt her. + +"I have very little to add," she went on, more steadily. "After what I +witnessed, I need hardly say that we only meet again as the merest +strangers. You might think meanly of me, indeed, if I ever allowed your +lips to touch my cheek or my hand again. Remember, I told you from the +first we were not suited to each other; perhaps I deserve all I have met +with for allowing myself to be overruled. You can not contradict a word +of this, or say that it is unjust or severe." + +Did she pause in the expectation or the hope of an excuse, or an appeal +from her hearer? Only the hoarse answer came, + +"I have forfeited the right to defend myself or to gainsay you." + +"You would find it difficult to do either," Constance rejoined, rather +more haughtily; perhaps she was disappointed in the tone of his reply. +"One word more: if my name is ever called in question, I am sure no one +will defend it more readily than yourself. My voice will never be heard +against you; and if, hereafter, you shall desire my forgiveness more +than you now do; remember, I have given it unasked and freely." + +Guy's tone was pregnant with cold, cruel irony as he answered, + +"I congratulate you on your position, Miss Brandon; it is quite +unassailable. You are in the right now, as you always have been. You +were right, of course, in always doling out the tokens of your love in +such scanty measure as your pride and your priests would allow. They +ought to canonize you--those holy men! I doubt if they have another +disciple so superior to all human weaknesses. It must be very +gratifying to so eminent a Christian to be able to forgive plenarily, +without danger of the favor being returned. I have nothing to urge +against your decision--that we part forever. You will have no difficulty +in forgetting me, whom you ought never to have stooped to. Yet I will +give you one caution. I am not romantic, as you know, and I generally +mean what I say. If you should think hereafter of bestowing yourself on +some worthier object, hesitate a little for _his_ sake, or wait till I +am dead; otherwise, the day that makes his happiness certain may bring +him very near his grave." + +His voice had changed during the last words into a growl of savage +menace, and his forehead was black and furrowed with passion. + +It might have been his own excited fancy, or the passing just then of a +light cloud over the moon; but, for an instant, he thought he saw her +steady lip quiver and tremble. If so, be very sure it was not fear which +caused the emotion, though even that the circumstances might have +excused; rather, I think, it was a pang of self-reproach--a +consciousness of having acted unwisely, though for the best; perhaps, +too, the stubbornness of the heart she had ruled once--so strong and +proud even in its abasement--was congenial to her own besetting sin: she +liked the fierce threat better than the cool sarcasm. At any rate, she +answered more gently than she had yet spoken. + +"I believe you. But you know me better than to think a threat would +influence me. Yet you need not fear my ever again trusting this world +with my happiness. You will be very sorry hereafter for some things you +have said to-night. Ask yourself--if I had loved you, as you seem to +have expected, better than my own soul, would the result have been +different? It is too late now to say any thing but--farewell. Will you +not say it, as I do, kindly, or at least not in anger--Guy?" + +She paused between the two last words, and their imploring accent was +almost piteous. There must have been a strange fascination about +Livingstone, for, saint as she was, no other living creature would have +won such a concession from the Christian charity of Constance Brandon. + +Had Guy spoken then, as he ought to have done, I believe all might have +been amended; but an angry devil was busy within him, and would not let +go his prey; he stood with his black brows downcast, and with folded +arms, never seeming to notice the slender fingers that sought to touch +his hand. True it is that nothing makes a man so unforgiving as the +consciousness of having inflicted a bitter wrong. He heard a sigh, heavy +and despairing as Francesca's when her dying prayer was spurned, a light +shadow flitted across the streak of moonlit grass, and, when he raised +his head, he was left alone, like Alp on the sea-shore, to judge the +battle between a remorseful conscience and a hardened heart. + +Livingstone was seen no more that night; Constance glided in alone, and +her absence had been scarcely noticed. During the short time that she +remained, no one could have guessed from her face that her heart was +broken, any more than did Napoleon that the aid-de-camp who brought the +news of Lannes' victory had been almost cut in two by a grape-shot. + +I speak it diffidently, with the fear of the divine voice of the people +before my eyes, as is but fitting in these equalizing days, when +territories, the title to which is possession immemorial, are being +plucked away acre by acre, and hereditary privileges mined one by one; +but it seems to me, in this, perhaps, solitary attribute, "the brave old +houses" still keep their pre-eminence. + +They are not better, nor wiser in their generation (forbid it, +Manchester!), nor even more daring in confronting danger than the +thousands whose grandsires are creations of a powerful fancy or of a +complaisant king-at-arms. In that terrible charge which swept away the +Russian cavalry at Eylau, three lengths in front of the best blood in +France rode the innkeeper's son. The "First Grenadier" himself was not +more splendidly reckless, though he was a La Tour d'Auvergne. But in +passive uncomplaining endurance, in the power of obliterating outward +tokens of suffering, physical or mental, may we not still say, _Noblesse +oblige_? + +Hundreds of similar isolated instances may be quoted from the annals of +the Third Estate; but, in the class I speak of, this quality seems a +sixth sense wholly independent of, and often contradicting the rest of +the individual's disposition. + +I remember meeting in France an old Italian refugee. He had not much +principle and very little pride; he was ready _quidvis facere aut pati_ +to get a five-franc piece, which he would incontinently stake and lose +at baccarat or ecarte, as he had done aforetime with a large ancestral +inheritance; but his quiet fortitude under privations that were neither +few nor light was worthy of Belisarius. + +Very often, I am sure, his evening meal must have been eaten with the +Barmecide; but his pale, handsome face, finished off so gracefully by +the white, pointed beard, still met you, courteous and unruffled, the +idea of an exiled doge, or a Rohan in disgrace. Once only I saw him +moved--when the landlord of our inn, a vast bloated _bourgeois_, smote +the Count familiarly on the shoulder, and bantered him pleasantly on the +brilliant prospects of his eldest son. It was not unkindly meant, +perhaps, but the old man shrunk away from the large fat hand as if it +hurt him, and turned toward us a look piteously appealing, which was not +lost on myself or Livingstone. When mine host, later in the evening, +shook in his gouty slippers before an ebullition of Guy's wrath, excited +by the most shadowy pretext, I wonder if he guessed at the remote cause +of that outpouring of the vials? Count Massa did, for he smiled +intensely, as only an Italian can smile when amply revenged. + +One instance more to close a long digression. I have read of a baron in +the fifteenth century who once in his life said a good thing. He was a +coarse, brutal marauder, illiterate enough to have satisfied Earl Angus, +and as unromantic as the Integral Calculus. He was mortally wounded in a +skirmish; and when his men came back from the pursuit, he was bleeding +to death, resting against a tree. When they lifted him up, they noticed +his eyes fixed with a curious, complacent expression on the red stream +that surged and gurgled out of his wound, just as a _gourmand_ looks at +a bumper of a rare vintage held up to the light. They heard him growl to +himself, "_Qu'il coule rouge et fort, le bon vieux sang de Bourgogne_." +And then he fell back--dead. + +O Publicola Thompson! Phoesphor to the Tower Hamlets and Boanerges of +the platform--will you not allow that, amid a wilderness of weeds, this +one fair plant flourishes under "the cold shade?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + "Shy she was, and I thought her cold; + Thought her proud, and fled over the sea; + Filled I was with folly and spite, + When Ellen Adair was dying for me." + + +When I came to Livingstone's chambers on the following morning, I found +him alone. His head was resting listlessly against the back of the vast +easy-chair in which he was reclining, and his face, thrown out in relief +against the crimson velvet, looked haggard and drawn. The calumet--not +of peace--was between his lips, and the dense blue clouds were wreathing +round him like a Scotch mist. On a table near lay a heap of gold and +notes. He had finished the night at his club, where lansquenet had been +raging till long after sunrise. Fortune had been more kind than usual, +and the fruits of "passing" eight times lay before me. An open +liqueur-case close at his elbow showed that play was not the only +counter-excitement to which he had resorted. + +I hoped to have found him in a repentant mood, but his first words +undeceived me: "I start for Paris by this evening's train;" and then I +remarked all about me the signs of immediate departure. + +I only had a confused idea of what had happened, and was anxious to know +the truth, but he was very brief in his answers: the particulars of what +had passed I learned long afterward. + +"Can nothing be done?" I asked, when he had finished all he chose to +tell me. + +"Nothing!" replied Livingstone, decisively. "If excuse or explanation +had been of any use, I think I should have tried them last night. You +would not advise me to humiliate myself to no purpose, I suppose?" + +There is a certain scene in AEschylus which came into my mind just then. + +A group of elderly men, with grave, rather vacuous faces, and grizzled +beards, stand in the court-yard of an ancient palace. On one side is the +peristyle, with its square stunted pillars, looking as if the weight +above crushed them, though it wearies them no more than the heavens do +Atlas; on the other, a gateway, vast, low-browed, shadowy with Cyclopean +stones. Somewhat apart is a strange weird figure, ever and anon starting +up and tossing her arms wildly as she utters some new denunciation, and +then cowering down again in a despairing weariness. There are traces yet +in the thin, wan face of the beauty which enslaved Loxian Apollo, and of +the pride which turned his great love into a greater hate: round it hang +the black elf-locks, disheveled, that have never been braided since the +gripe of Telamonian Ajax ruffled them so rudely. In her great, troubled +eyes you read terrible memories, and a prescience of coming +death--death, most grateful to the dishonored princess, but before which +the frail womanhood can not but shudder and quail. No wonder that the +reverend men glance at her uneasily, scarcely mustering courage enough +sometimes to answer her with a pious platitude. Alas! alas! Cassandra. + +While we gaze, forth from the recesses of the gynaeceum there breaks a +cry, expressing rather wrath and surprise than mere pain. Then there +comes another, more plaintive--the moan of a strong man in the +death-throe. + +We know that voice very well; we have heard it many times, calm and +regal, above the wrangle of councils and the roar of battle; often it +prayed for victory or for the people's weal, but it never yet called on +earth or heaven to help Agamemnon. The Chorus hear it too; but they +linger and palter, while each gives his grave sentence deliberately in +his proper turn. One or two advise action and interference, and stand +perfectly still. At last we hear a heavy, choking groan, and a great +stillness follows. We know that all is over--we know that there is a +stir already down there in Hades--we seem to catch a far-off murmur +raised by a thousand weak, tremulous voices--the very ghost of a +wail--as the shadows of those who died gallantly in their harness before +Troy gather to meet their old leader, the mightiest Atride. + +In the background of all we fancy a hideous Eidolon, from whose side +even the damned recoil in loathing. There is a grin on the lips yet red +and wet with the traces of the unholy banquet. Thyestes exalts over the +fulfillment of another chapter in the inevitable curse. + +Who has not grown savage over that scene? We hate the old drivelers less +when, a few minutes later, they truckle and temporize with the awful +shape, who comes forth with a splash of blood on her slender wrist, and +a speck or two on her white, lofty forehead. + +Just so helpless and useless I felt at that moment. I was standing by +while a foul wrong was being wrought. I saw nothing but ruin for Guy, +and desolate misery for Constance, in the black future. Yet I could +think of no argument or counsel that would in the least avail. I felt +sick at heart. It was some minutes before I answered his last question. +At last the words broke from me almost unconsciously: "Ah! how will you +answer to God and man for last night's work?" + +I forgot that I was quoting the cry of the Covenanter's widow when she +knelt by her husband's corpse, and looked up into Claverhouse's face +with those sad eyes that were ever dim and cloudy after the carbines +flashed across them. But Guy remembered it, and answered instantly in +the words of his favorite hero, + +"I can answer it to man well enough, and I will take God in my own +hand." + +Years afterward we both recalled that fatal defiance, when the speaker +lay helpless, at the mercy of the Omnipotence whose might he challenged. +Just then his servant, who was busily preparing for departure, entered +the room. + +Willis was a slight, under-sized man, of about fifty; his complexion was +muddy and indefinite; his small whiskers, of a grayish red, were trimmed +and pruned as accurately as a box border-edging, and the partial absence +of eyebrows and eyelashes gave his face a sort of unfinished look. The +expression natural to it was, I think, a low, vicious cunning; but his +features and little green eyes were so rigidly disciplined that, as a +rule, neither had any characteristic save utter vacuity. In his own line +he was perfect. No commission that could be intrusted to him would draw +from him a remark or a look of surprise. He executed precisely what he +was told, and fulfilled the minutest duties of his station +irreproachably, with a noiseless, feline activity. He was like the +war-horse of the Douglas: + + "Though somewhat old, + Swift in his paces, cool, and bold." + +He held a miniature-case in his hand as he entered. "Am I to put this +in, sir?" he asked, in the slow, measured voice that was habitual to +him. + +His master gazed sharply at him, as if trying to detect a covert +sneer--it would have been safer to have stroked a rattlesnake's crest +than to have trifled with Livingstone just then--but Willis's face was +as innocent of any expression as a dead wall. + +"Put it down, and go on with your packing; you have no time to spare." +The man laid the case on a marble table near, and went out. + +Guy took the miniature and regarded it steadfastly for some moments, +then he looked up and caught my eye. Perhaps there was an eager appeal +there (for I knew well whose likeness lay before him) which displeased +and provoked his sullen temper; for he frowned darkly, and then his +clenched hand fell with the crashing weight of a steam-hammer. Nothing +but a heap of shivered wood, glass, and ivory remained of what had been +the life-like image of Constance Brandon. + +A thrill of horror shot through me icily, and a low cry burst from my +lips. I felt at that moment as if the blow had fallen, not on the +portrait, but on the original. + +But I kept silence. The dark hour was on Saul, and I knew no spell to +chase the evil spirit away. + +Guy spoke at last. His manner was unusually chill and constrained. + +"I expect to meet Mohun in Paris, and we shall probably go on to Vienna. +I hardly like troubling you with commissions, but I must. Listen. I +leave my own name--and another person's--in your keeping. I wish it to +be clearly understood that the engagement was broken off by Miss +Brandon, not by me. If you hear any man speak disparagingly of her in +connection with what has passed, you can insult him on my behalf as +grossly as you please. I will be here, as fast as steam can bring me, to +back what you may have said or done. This is the only point in which I +hope you will guard my honor. As for blaming _me_, they may say what +they please. Do you quite understand? And will you promise?" + +I did promise; and so, after a few more last words, we parted, more +coldly than we had ever done in all the years through which we had been +intimate. + +Guy left England the same evening, and descended like a thunder-clap on +the joyous little _menage_ in the Rue de la Madeleine, where Forrester +and his bride were still fluttering their wings in the honeymoon-shine +of post-nuptial spring. + +They were miraculously happy, those two. Indeed, they seemed to have +only one taste between them, and that was Charley's. If he felt +inclined, which was not seldom, to utter inaction, his wife encouraged +him in his laziness, sitting contentedly for hours on her footstool, +with her silky hair just within reach of his indolent hand. If, after +dinner, he suggested the "Italiens," or the "Bouffes," it was always +precisely that theatre that she had been thinking of all the morning. +She was in the seventh heaven when he won a hurdle-race in the Champ de +Mars. + +They made excursions into the _banlieue_, and farther afield yet, like a +couple of the _Pays Latin_ in their first loves. The cabinets of Bercy +and St. Cloud knew them; so did the arbors of Asnieres, where, in +oilskin and _vareuse_, muster for their Sabbat the ancient mariners of +the Seine. Nay, it has been whispered that more than once--close veiled +and clinging tightly to her husband's arm--Isabel witnessed at _Mabille_ +and the _Chaumiere_ the choregraphic triumphs of _Frisette_, _Pomare_, +and _Mogador_. + +My hand trembles while I record such enormities and backslidings. O +Brougham-girls of Belgravia, who "never gave your mothers a moment's +uneasiness"--stars of the Western hemisphere, who can be trusted any +where without fear of your wandering from your orbits--think on this +lost Pleiad, once your companion, and be warned. Men are deceivers ever, +even when they mean matrimony; and the tender mercies of the Light +Dragoon are cruel. + +Isabel was dreadfully startled at the sudden appearance of her cousin. +Her notions of his power were quite unlimited and irrational, and I +believe her first thought was that he had changed his mind about the +propriety of her marriage, and was come to carry her back into the house +of her bondage with the strong hand. + +When his curt sentences told her the facts, sorry as she was, it +certainly was rather a relief to her. Charley was full of compassion +too, but he only confided this to his wife. He knew better than to try +condolence with Guy, and felt instantly that the case was far beyond his +simple powers of healing. + +They did not see much of him. The contrast of their happiness with his +own state must have grated on his feelings. His grim presence chilled +and clouded their little banquets at the Trois Freres or the Cafe de +Paris. He sat there among the bright lamps and flowers like a statue of +dark marble that it is impossible to light up, drinking all the while, +moodily, of the strongest wines to that portentous extent that it made +Isabel nervous and her husband grave. + +Perhaps Guy was conscious of the effect he produced; at all events, he +rather avoided the Forresters, finding in Mohun more congenial society. +The latter probably regretted what had happened; perhaps he felt an +approach to sympathy, after his rough fashion, but with this mingled a +dreary sort of satisfaction at the sight of a strong mind and hardy +nature rapidly descending to his own misanthropical level. Such an +exultation was breathed in that ghastly chorus of the dead kings and +chief ones of the earth when they rose, each on his awful throne, and +Hell beneath was moved at the advent of the Son of the Morning. + +These two did not stay long in Paris before they took their departure +for Vienna. + +We who were left behind in England talked a little at first, of course, +about the broken engagement, but I had no occasion to throw down the +gauntlet that had been left in my hands. I never heard any thing more +spiteful about Miss Brandon than that "she was never suited to her +_fiance_--far too good for him." Others "had always thought how it +would be; it would take a good deal more yet to tame Livingstone." Sir +Henry Fallowfield observed, "Nothing could be more natural and correct. +The lady was a saint, and there is always a sort of incompleteness about +saints if they are not made martyrs. Suffering is their normal state." + +It was remarked that he was unusually cheerful for some days afterward; +and when Guy's conduct was canvassed, seemed inclined to quote the old +school-master's words on witnessing his pupil's success, "Bless the boy! +I taught him." + +Some other subject soon came up and replaced the week's wonder. + +Constance left town with her uncle almost immediately, and I heard +nothing of her for many months. Miss Bellasys remained. Very few persons +even guessed at the share she had had in breaking off the match; so her +credit was not much impaired, and her campaign was as brilliantly +successful as usual. If she felt any disappointment at Guy's abrupt +departure, she concealed it remarkably well. In some things, though +naturally impetuous and impatient, she was as cool as a Red Indian, and +would wait and watch forever if she saw a prospect of ultimate success. +So the days rolled on, bringing swiftly and surely the bitter +harvest-time, when he who had sown the wind was to reap the whirlwind. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + "And from his lips those words of insult fell-- + His sword is good who can maintain them well." + + +It was the middle of October; the reflux of the winter season was +beginning to fill Paris, and thither Mohun and Livingstone had returned +from their German tour, the latter decidedly the worse for his +wanderings. He had not suffered much physically, for the hard living +that would have utterly broken up some constitutions had only been able +to make his face thinner, to deepen the bistre tints under the eyes, and +to give a more angular gauntness to his massive frame. + +But morally he was not the same man. Play, which had formerly been only +an occasional excitement, had now become a necessary part of his daily +existence. Mohun would never say--perhaps he did not know--how much Guy +had lost during those few months. In spite of several gigantic _coups_ +(he broke the bank both at Baden and Hombourg), the balance was +fearfully on the wrong side, so much so that it entailed a heavy +mortgage--the maiden one in his time--on the fair lands of Kerton Manor. + +I wonder people have not got tired of quoting "_Heureux en jeu; +malheureux en amour_." It seems one of the least true of all stale, +stupid proverbs. Luck will run itself out in more ways than one; and +sometimes you will never hold a trump, however often the suit changes. +The ancients knew better than we when they called the double-sixes +"Venus's cast." The monotony of Guy's reckless dissipations was soon +broken up by an event which ought to have sobered him. + +He had been dining with Mohun at the Trois Freres, and they were +returning late toward the Boulevards, when their attention was attracted +by a group in one of the narrow streets leading out of the Rue Vivienne. +Five or six raffish-looking men had surrounded a fair, delicate girl, +and were preparing to besiege her in form, deriving apparently intense +amusement from the piteous entreaties of their victim to be released. +Not the _roues_ of the Regency after the suppers that have become a +by-word--not the _mousquetaires_ after the wildest of their orgies--were +ever so unrelenting in brutality toward women quite lonely and +undefended as those unshorn ornaments of Young France, when replete with +a dinner at forty _sous_, and with the anomalous liquor that Macon +blushes to own. + +In all Europe there is no more genial companion and gallant gentleman +than the aristocrat of France _pur sang_--in all the world no more +terrible adversary than her wiry, well-trained soldier; but, from the +prolific decay of old institutions and prejudices, a mushroom growth has +sprouted of child-atheists and precocious profligates, calculating +debauchees while their cheeks are still innocent of down, who, after the +effervescence of a foul, vicious youth has spent itself, simmer down +into avaricious, dishonest _bourgeois_ and bloated cafe politicians. The +teeth of the Republican dragon have been drawn, but they are sown +broadcast from Dan even to Beersheba. Ancient realm of Capet, Valois, +and Bourbon--motherland of Du Guesclin and Bayard--you may well be proud +of your Cadmean offspring! + +Guy was passing the scene with a careless side-glance when the accent of +the suppliant caught his ear--not French, though she spoke the language +perfectly. + +"By G--d," he said, dropping Mohun's arm, "I believe it's an +Englishwoman they are bullying;" and three of his long strides took him +into the midst of the group. + +Two of the aggressors reeled back, right and left, from the shock of his +mighty shoulders; and griping another, the tallest, by the collar, he +whirled him some paces off on his back in the streaming kennel, as one +might do with a very weak, light little child. "_Au large, canaille_!" +he said, as he advanced on the two who still kept their feet. These drew +back from his path without a second warning. One indeed, eminent in the +_savate_, made a demonstration for an instant; but his comrade, who had +just gathered himself up, caught his arm, muttering "_Ne t'y frotte pas, +Alphonse. C'est trop dur_." None of them fancied an encounter with the +grim giant who confronted them, his muscles braced and salient, his eyes +gleaming with the _gaudia certaminis_, and his nostrils dilated as if +they snuffed the battle. + +So they made way for Guy and his charge to pass, only grinding out +between their teeth the strange guttural blasphemies that characterize +impotent Gallic wrath. + +Mohun, a reserve scarcely leas formidable, stood by all the while, +looking on lazily; he saw that his companion was more than equal to the +emergency. + +"I hope you have not been much annoyed," Livingstone said, kindly. +"Where were you going to? I shall be too happy to escort you, if you +will allow me." + +She named the street, only a few hundred yards off, and tried to thank +him gratefully, but her voice was broken and scarcely audible, and the +blinding tears would rush into her eyes. Poor child! it was very long +since she had heard gentle, courteous words in her mother-tongue. She +recovered herself, however, during their short walk, and they had nearly +reached her destination when Livingstone said, "Forgive me for being +impertinent; I have no right to advise you; but I think you would find +it better not to walk alone, often, at this hour. There is always a +chance of something disagreeable." + +He could see her blush painfully as she answered, "I have no one to +accompany me. I work hard at drawing and painting as long as there is +light, and I had gone out to see if I could sell what I have done. But I +fear I am a very poor artist; no one would offer me as much as they had +cost me. And I tried at so many places!" + +It was piteous to hear the heavy, heart-broken sigh. + +"Perhaps I have better taste," replied Livingstone. "Those print-sellers +are absurdly ignorant of what is good and anonymous. At all events, they +will interest me, as a memorial of to-night. Will you give them to me? I +will promise not to be too critical." + +He drew the roll out of her hand as he spoke, replacing it by his +note-case; and before she could open it or make any objection, he +followed Mohun (for they had reached the artist's door by this time), +first raising his hat to her in adieu as courteously as he would have +done to a reigning archduchess. + +How much did the case contain? Guy himself could hardly have told you. +But be sure the Recorder of his many misdeeds knew, and reckoned it to +the uttermost farthing when he wrote down that one kind action on the +credit side. + +"Philanthropic, for a change!" Mohun remarked, when his companion joined +him. "Well, it's not worse than many of your vagaries. We shall have you +founding an asylum next, I suppose." + +In his heart the savage old cynic approved, but, for the life of him, he +could not check the sneer. + +Livingstone made no reply. It was a habit of his very often not to +answer Ralph, and the latter did not mind it in the least. In a few +moments they reached Guy's apartments, where they found about a dozen +men--French and English--awaiting their arrival to begin an unbridled +lansquenet. It was a favorite rendezvous for this purpose. The +thoroughbred gamblers preferred it to the brilliant entertainments of +the Quartier Breda. They liked to court or fight Fortune by themselves, +without being congratulated in success or compassionated in defeat by +the fair Phrynes and Aspasias, whose sympathy was somewhat expansive, +inasmuch as they always would borrow from the heap whenever any one won, +repaying the loan in kind by smiles and caresses, which cost the happy +recipient about fifteen Napoleons apiece. Here was an Eden from which +Eves were excluded; and on the nights of the _Mercurialia_, the +brightest Peri that ever wore camellias might have knocked at the gate +disconsolately, but in vain. + +While the tables were being prepared, Guy began to tell his late +adventure. He spoke of it very lightly, but he thought, if he passed it +over altogether, Mohun would probably betray him. + +Immediately there was a great cry for a sight of the performances of the +unknown genius. + +Livingstone looked over the drawings himself carefully, and then passed +them to the man who sat nearest him. "I have seen worse," he said. +"There is no signature, and I shall not give you the address. You are +none of you just the patrons she would fancy. You don't care much for +high art." + +Among the guests was Horace Levinge, a pale, dark man, with a face that +was decidedly handsome, in spite of its Jewish _contour_, and the +excessive fullness of the scarlet, sensual lips. His grandfather, report +said, had been a prize-fighting Israelite, and afterward a celebrated +betting-man--equally eminent in either ring for an unscrupulous +scoundrelism which made his fortune. His father had added to the family +treasure and importance by cautious usury and adventurous stock-jobbing. +Horace himself was a gentleman at large, with no other profession than +the consistent pursuit of all kinds of debauchery. He was calculating +even in his pleasures, and, they say, kept a regular ledger and daybook +of the moneys disbursed in his vices. + +When the drawings came to him, he glanced at them for a moment, and +then threw them down with a little contemptuous laugh. + +"I am sorry to spoil your romance, Livingstone, but I have a pretty good +right to recognize the artist's touch. You know her, some of you; it is +Fanny Challoner." + +"What! the girl you sent away about three weeks ago?" some one asked. +"Poor thing! she was not sorry, I should think. She had a hard time of +it before she left you." + +"Precisely," Levinge replied. "Her modesty and high moral principles, +which I never could quite subdue, gave a zest to the thing at first. You +understand?--a sort of caviare flavor. But at last it bored me horribly. +I really believe she had a conscience. Can you conceive any thing so out +of place? I did offer her a little money when she went away, but she +would not take any, and said she would try to maintain herself honestly. +Bah! I defy her. She was a governess, you know, when I took her first, +so she is trying some of the old accomplishments. I wish you joy of your +_protegee_, Livingstone; and as for her address, if any of you want it, +I will give it you to-morrow." + +Before Guy could reply Mohun broke in. While Levinge had been speaking, +the colonel's face had grown very dark and threatening. + +"Did her father live near Walmer? And was he a half-pay officer?" + +"Quite correct," was the answer. "He died about eighteen months before I +met Fanny. You knew him, perhaps? How interesting! Excuse my emotion." + +"I did know him," Ralph said. "He was a gentleman, and well born. +Perhaps that was the reason you could not get on long with his +daughter?" + +It is a popular error that a bully is always a coward. Certainly Horace +was an exception to the rule, if such exists. Nothing could be more +calmly insolent than his tone as he answered deliberately, + +"How admirable to find Colonel Mohun in the character of the Censor! A +Clodius come to judgment. I should hardly have expected it, from his +past life, either." + +The reply came from the depths of Ralph's chest, very distinct, but with +a strange effect of distance and echo, as if the words had been spoken +under the vault of some vast dome. + +"You will leave my past life alone, if you are wise. I don't preach +against immorality; it is only brutality that I find simply disgusting." + +"Bah!" the other retorted; "it comes to the same thing. I should have +thought Lady Caroline Mannering might have taught you to be less +critical." + +The Cuirassier rose from his seat and strode a pace forward, the gray +hair bristling round his savage face like a wild-boar's at bay. + +"If you dare to breathe that name again, except with respect and honor, +I'll cram the words down your throat, by the eternal God!" + +Levinge crimsoned with passion. The brutal blood of the dead +prize-fighter, who, when he "crossed" a fight, lost it ever by a foul +blow, was boiling in his descendant. He had been drinking too, and, as +the French say--_avait le vin mauvais_--so he answered coolly and +slowly, letting the syllables fall one by one, like drops of hail, + +"I shall mention it just as often as it pleases me, and with just so +much respect as is due to Mannering's cast-off wife and your--" + +The foul word that was on his lips never left them, for Mohun's threat +was literally fulfilled. His right hand shot out from the shoulder with +a sudden impulse that seemed rather mechanical than an action of the +will, and, catching the speaker full in the mouth, laid him on the +carpet senseless and streaming with blood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + "Look doun, look doun now, ladye fair, + On him ye lo'ed sae weel; + A brawer man than yon blue corse + Never drew sword of steel." + + +The dead silence that ensued was broken first by Guy Livingstone. "It +was well done! I say it and maintain it; Mohun, I envy you that blow!" +He looked round as if to challenge contradiction; but evidently the +general opinion was that Levinge had only got his deserts. By this time +the fallen man had recovered his consciousness, and struggled up, first +into a sitting posture, then to his feet; he stood leaning against a +table, swaying to and fro, and staring about him with wild eyes half +glazed. At last he spoke in a thick, faint voice, stanching all the +while the gushing blood with his handkerchief. + +"Will any one here be my second, or must I look for a friend elsewhere?" + +There was a pause, and then from the circle stepped forth Camille de +Rosny. He did not like Levinge, and thought in the present instance he +had behaved infamously, but it was the fashion hereditary in his gallant +house to back the losing side; so, when he saw every one else shrink +from the appeal, he bowed gravely and said, + +"I shall have that honor, if you will permit me. In an hour I shall be +at the orders of M. le Colonel's second. Where shall I find him?" + +"Here," replied Livingstone. "I think no one will contest my right to +see my old friend through this quarrel." + +Mohun grasped his hand. "I would have chosen you among a thousand. You +understand me, and know what I wish." + +"Then I shall expect you, De Rosny," Guy went on. The Frenchman assented +courteously, and then, turning to his principal, + +"Let us go," he said. "My _coupe_ is at your disposition, M. Levinge. +_Messieurs, au plaisir._" + +Horace followed him with a step that was still faltering and uncertain; +but at the door he turned, and, straightening himself up, faced his +adversary with such a look as few human countenances have ever worn. +There was more in it than mortal hatred: it expressed a sort of devilish +satisfaction and anticipation, as if he knew that his revenge was +secured. + +Mohun read all this as plainly as if it had been written down in so many +words; but he only smiled as he seated himself and lighted a cigar. + +There was an end of lansquenet for that night. An ordinary quarrel would +have made little impression on those reckless spirits, who had, most of +them, at one time or another, "been out" themselves; but they felt that +what they had witnessed now was the prologue to a certain tragedy; there +was a savor of death in the air; so they dropped off one by one, leaving +Guy and Ralph alone; not before the latter had expressed, with much +politeness, "his desolation at having been compelled to interrupt a +_partie_, which he trusted was only deferred till the morrow." + +Before long De Rosny returned. The preliminaries were soon arranged. +Pistols were necessarily to be the weapons, for Levinge had seldom +touched a foil; and, as the Frenchman said with a bow that made his +objection a compliment, "Colonel Mohun's reputation as a swordsman was +European." An early hour next morning was fixed for the _venue_, in the +Pre aux Clercs of the nineteenth century--the Bois de Boulogne. + +When they were alone again Guy turned gravely to his companion. "It is a +bad business, I fear, though you could not have acted otherwise; but I +would rather your adversary were any other than Levinge. It is a +murderous, unscrupulous scoundrel as ever lived. He can shoot--that's +nothing; so can you, better than most men--but, mark me, Ralph, he has +been out twice, and hit his man each time, the last mortally; but on +neither occasion was _his fire returned_. Men say he has an awkward +knack of pulling the trigger half a second too soon. I don't know if +this is true, but I do know that Seymour, who seconded him at Florence +when he killed O'Neill, has been more than cool to him ever since." + +"Faith, I can well believe it," Mohun answered, quietly, "and it is very +probable I may get hard hit to-morrow; but of killing him I feel morally +certain. Do you believe in presentiments? I do. Before that drunken +brute had half done speaking, I saw imminent death written in his face +as plainly as if I had possessed the Highland second-sight. I think I +could almost tell you how it will look _after my shot_. Well, we must +talk of business. My arrangements won't take me long. I have very little +to dispose of; it is almost all entailed property. I shall leave you the +choice of any thing among my goods and chattels. You will find some arms +that you may fancy. But if my pistols fail me to-morrow, so that Levinge +lives over it, do me the favor to throw them into the Seine; they +deserve nothing better. As for the ready-money I have with me, and some +more at my banker's--" he hesitated, and then went on in a gentler +voice, "I should like it to go to that poor child whom we met to-night. +If I live I will take care she is settled in England, where some one +will be kind to her. Her father was a good soldier and a true-hearted +gentleman. And, Guy, I am sorry that I sneered at you to-night; I hardly +meant it when I said it." + +This was a great concession from Mohun, and his hearer thought so as he +wrung his hand hard and replied, + +"Don't think of that again. I did you justice an hour ago." + +There was this peculiarity about Ralph; he was not only insensible to +danger, like other men, but he absolutely seemed to revel in it. The +genial side of his character came out at the approach of deadly peril, +just as some morose natures will soften and brighten temporarily under +the influence of strong wine. + +His mood seemed to change, however, suddenly; and when, after a long +pause, he spoke again, it was in a low, broken voice, as if to himself. + +"'Be sure your sin will find you out.' It is thirty years since I heard +that text; I forgot it the same day, and never thought of it again till +now. There may be truth in that. It hunted _her_ to her grave, and it +will not leave her in peace even there. And yet she suffered enough to +make atonement. She tried not to let me see how much, but I did see it; +I watched her dying for a year and more. I am sure she is an angel now. +I like to think so, though I shall never see her again. I would not +believe otherwise if a thousand priests said it and swore it; for I +never moved from her side, after she was dead, till I saw the smile come +on her face. She must have been happy then; do you not think so? They +would hardly have gone on punishing her forever. It was all my fault, +you know." + +He gazed at Livingstone anxiously, almost timidly. Guy bowed his head in +assent, but he could not find words to answer just then. There was +something very terrible in that opening of the flood-gates when a life's +pent-up remorse broke forth. + +"I think you will end better than I have done," Mohun went on, "though +you are going down-hill fast now. But I have no right even to warn you. +Only take care--" He broke off suddenly, and roused himself with an +effort. "I shall go home and dress now, and get through what little I +have to write, and then lie down for an hour or two. Nothing makes the +hand shake like a sleepless night. I'll call for you in good time." So +he went away. + +Livingstone sat thinking, without ever closing his eyes, till Mohun +returned. The latter looked fresh and alert; he had slept for the time +he had allotted to himself quite calmly and comfortably; the old habits +of picket-duty had taught him to watch or sleep at pleasure. + +After Guy had made a careful toilette, at the special request of his +principal they started, and in forty minutes were on the ground. Levinge +and his second, with the surgeon, arrived almost immediately; the former +stood somewhat apart, keeping the lower part of his face carefully +muffled. + +It was a dull, chill morning; the sky of a steely-gray, without a +promise of a gleam from the sun, which had risen _somewhere_, but was +reserving himself for better times. There was a sort of desultory wind +blowing, just strong enough at intervals to bring the moist brown leaves +sullenly down. + +After the pistols had been scientifically loaded, the seconds placed +their men fifteen yards apart--with such known shots it was not worth +while shortening the distance. + +The sensations of ordinary mortals under such circumstances are somewhat +curious. Very few are afraid, I think; but one has an impression that +one's own proportions are becoming sensibly developed--"swelling +wisibly," in fact, like the lady at the Pickwickian tea-fight--while +those of our adversary diminish in a like ratio, so that he does not +appear near so fair a mark as he did a few minutes ago. But, with all +this, there is a quickening of the pulse not unpleasurable--something +like the excitement of the "four to the seven" chance at hazard, when +you are backing the In for a large stake. + +I do not believe Mohun felt any thing of this sort. It was not his own +life, but his adversary's death he was playing for; the other was busy, +too, with still darker thoughts and purposes. + +"Listen," Guy said in French; "M. de Rosny gives the signal, _un_, +_deux_, _trois_; if either fires before the last is fully pronounced, it +is murder." He looked sharply at Levinge, but the latter seemed +studiously to avoid meeting his eye. Guy felt very uncomfortable and +very savage. + +The men stood opposite to one another like black marble statues, neither +showing a speck of color which might serve as a _point de mire_, each +turning only a side-front to his opponent. + +De Rosny pronounced the two first words of the signal in a clear, +deliberate voice; the last left his lips almost in a shriek, for, before +it was half syllabled, his principal fired. + +Quick as the movement was, it was anticipated; as Levinge's hand +stirred, Mohun made a half-face to the right, and looked his enemy +straight between the eyes. That sudden change of position, or the +consciousness of detection, probably unsettled the practiced aim, for +the ball, that would have drilled Ralph through the heart, only scored a +deep furrow in his side. + +No one could have guessed that he was touched; he brought his pistol to +the level just as coolly as he would have done in the shooting-gallery, +and, after the discharge, dropped his hand with measured deliberation. +Before the smoke had curled a yard upward, Horace Levinge sprang into +the air, and, with out-stretched arms, fell crashing down upon the +grass--a bullet through his brain. + +They turned him over on his back. It was a ghastly sight; the ball had +penetrated just below the arch of the right eyebrow, and all the lower +features were swollen and distorted with the blow of last night, adding +to the hideous disfigurement. + +Is that the face on which the dead man used to spend hours, tending it, +like an ancient coquette, with washes and cosmetics, dreading the +faintest freckle or sunburn which might mar the smoothness of the +delicate skin? No need of the surgeon there. Cover it up quickly. The +mother that bore him, if she should recognize him, would recoil in +disgust and loathing. + +"_C'en est fini_," Livingstone said to De Rosny, who stood by shuddering +in horror, not at the death, but at the treachery which had preceded it. + +None but a Frenchman could have given such an accent to the low, hissing +reply, "_Je l'espere_." + +Then they looked to Mohun's wound; it was nothing serious: there were a +dozen deeper on the warworn body and limbs. Indeed, I imagine his +general health was materially benefited by the blood-letting. The first +remark he made was when he was depositing his pistol in its +case--tenderly as you would lay a child in its cradle--"Do you believe +in presentiments _now_, Guy?" + +The sullen sun broke out just as they turned to go, and peered curiously +through the boughs, till it found out and lighted on the angular ominous +heap, shrouded with a cloak, that, ten minutes ago, was a strong, +hot-blooded man. + +There the _garde_ soon after discovered Horace Levinge; and, when he had +been owned, they buried him in _Pere la Chaise_. Such events were common +then, and the police gave themselves no trouble to trace who had slain +the stranger. Among his tribes-men and kinsfolk in Houndsditch and the +Minories there was great joy at first, and afterward bitter, endless +litigation. They screamed and battled over the heritage like vultures +over a mighty carrion, tearing it at length piecemeal. He did not keep a +pet dog, and so no living creature regretted him, unless it were the +thin, delicate girl, with white cheeks and hollow eyes, who came once, +and knelt to pray by his grave for hours, her tears falling fast. + +Hard as they may find it to observe other precepts of the Great Master, +this one, at least, most women have practiced easily and naturally for +eighteen hundred years: "Forgive, until seventy times seven." The acts +of some of these--how they warred with their husbands and were worsted; +how they provoked the presiding Draco, and stultified the attesting +policeman by obstinately ignoring their injuries, written legibly in +red, and black, and blue; how they interceded with many sobs for the +aggressor--are they not written in the book of the chronicles of +Bow-street and Clerkenwell? + +This propensity leads them into scrapes, it is true, for our world, in +its wisdom, will take advantage of such weakness. Perhaps the next will +make them some amends. + +But the mourner strewed no flowers on the grave. It would have been too +bitter a mockery; for, if there were sympathy in sweet roses and pure +white lilies, on no other spot of God's earth would they have withered +so soon: she hung up no wreath of _immortelles_; for, if such things +could be, the dearest wish one could have formed for the dead man's soul +would have been swift, utter annihilation. + +Yet Fanny Challoner would scarcely have accepted Mohun's good offices if +she had guessed that the blood of her seducer and tyrant was on his +hand. She never suspected it, and so went gratefully to the home he +found for her; and there she lives yet, tranquil and contented, though +always sad and humble, among people who know nothing of her history and +love her dearly, trying her best to be useful in her generation--alone +in her cottage, that nestles under a sunny cliff, just above the white +spray-line of the Irish Sea. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + "Let me see her once again. + Let her bring her proud dark eyes, + And her petulant quick replies; + Let her wave her slender hand + With its gesture of command, + And throw back her raven hair + With the old imperial air; + Let her be as she was then-- + The loveliest lady in all the land + Iseult of Ireland." + + +Mohun and Livingstone soon fell back into the groove of their old +habits; if any thing, the former was more forbidding and morose, the +latter more reckless than ever. + +Just at this time Mrs. Bellasys and her daughter arrived in Paris. It +was Flora's _debut_ there, and she had an immense success. The _jeunesse +doree_ of the Chaussee d'Antin and the cavaliers of the Faubourg +thronged about her, emulously enthusiastic. Her repartees and sarcasms +were quoted like Talleyrand's. They never wearied in raving over her +perfections, taking them in a regular catalogue--from her magnificent +eyes and hair, that flashed back the light from its smooth bands like +clouded steel, down to the small _brodequins_ of white satin, which it +was her fancy to wear instead of the ball-room _chaussure_ of ordinary +mortals. The intrigues to secure her for a waltz or a mazurka displayed +diplomatic talent enough to have set half a dozen German principalities +and powers by the ears. The succession of admirers was never broken; as +fast as one dropped off, killed by her coldness or caprice, another +stepped into his place. It reminded one of the old "Die-hards" at +Waterloo, filling up their squares torn and ravaged by the pelting +grape-shot. + +Here, as elsewhere, she pursued her favorite amusement remorselessly. +Fallowfield called it "her cutting-out expeditions." She used to watch +till a mother and daughter had, between them, secured a good matrimonial +prize, and then employ her fascinations on the captured one--seldom +without effect--so as to steal him out of their hands. + +Do you remember Waterton's story of the osprey? The hard-working bird, +by dint of perseverance, has brought up a good fish. Just as it emerges +from the water, there is heard a flap and a whistle of mighty pinions, +and from his watch-tower on the cliff far above swoops down the great +sea-eagle. The poor osprey _a beau crier_, it must drop its booty, and +the strong marauder sails off with a slow and dignified flight, to +discuss it in the wood at his leisure. The only fault in the parallel +was that Flora always dropped the prey with the coolest disdain when it +was once fairly within her clutches. How the match-makers did hate her! +What vows for her discomfiture must have been breathed into bouquets +held up to conceal the angry flush of disappointment or the paleness of +despair! + +I own this practice of hers did not raise her in my opinion. I can not +think so hardly as it is the fashion to do of the junior and working +members, at least, of the manoeuvring guild. It is not an elevating or +very creditable profession, certainly, but it seems such a disagreeable +one that none would take it up from choice. The chief fault, at all +events, lies with the trainers; the jockeys (poor little things!) only +ride to orders; and, by the way, I think they generally err in not +knowing how to _wait_, and in making the running too strong at first. + +As I meet, year after year, one of these--to whom the seed sown in +London ball-rooms and German watering-places had produced nothing yet +but those tiresome garlands of the vestal--I look curiously to see how +she wears, thinking of the courtier's answer to Louis XIV. when the +latter asked if he was looking older: "Sire, I see some more victories +written on your forehead." It is more defeats that one can read so +plainly on poor Fanny Singleton's. + +How many shipwrecks close to port; how many races lost by a head, how +many games by a point, she must have known before her silver laugh +became so hollow, and her pleasant smile so evidently theatrical and +lip-deep; before what once was chanceful became desperate, and she fell +back into the ranks of the forlorn hope--of the "Lost Children!" + +On one of these occasions I met her. She was just beginning her +_condottiere_ life then, and was very attractive even to those on whom +she had no designs--believed in balls, and had an ingenious talent for +original composition. I don't think those entertainments are dangerously +exciting to her now; and Heaven forefend that she should write poetry! +One shudders to think of what it would he. Well, she was returning to +the house after a moonlight flirtation (if you can call it so when it +was all on one side). She had been trying to fascinate a stupid, sullen, +commercial Orson--a boy not clever, but cunning, who calculated on his +share in the bank as a means of procuring him these amusements, as other +men might reckon on their good looks or soft tongue. He had just left +her, and I was wishing her good-night under the porch. She forgot her +cue for a moment, and became natural. "I feel so very, very tired," she +said. I remember how drearily she said it, and how the tears glittered +in her weary eyes. I remember, too, how, ten minutes later, I heard that +amiable youth boasting of what had happened, and giving a hideous +travestie of her attempts to captivate him, till at last my wrath was +kindled, and, to his great confusion (for he was of a timid +disposition), I spoke, and sharply, with my tongue. + +Ah me! I mind the time when men used to waylay Fanny Singleton in the +cloak-room, and shoot her flying as she went up the staircase, in their +anxiety to secure her for a partner; and now she is a refuge for the +destitute, except when some one, for old acquaintance' sake, takes a +turn with one of the best waltzers in Europe. + +I like her for one thing--she has never tried the girlish dodge on yet. +She has never been heard to say, "Mamma always calls me a wild thing." +It is better that she should be bitter and sardonic, as she is +sometimes, than that. Mars herself could hardly play the _ingenues_ when +in mature age. Grisi's best part now is not Amina. + +The last thing I heard of Fanny was that she was about to unite herself +(the _active_ voice is the proper one) to a very Low-Church clergyman, a +distinguished member of the Evangelical Alliance, pregnant with the odor +of sanctity--_bouquet de Baptiste_ treble distilled. I dare say they +will get on well enough. If the holy man wants to collect "experiences," +his wife will be able to furnish them, that's certain. It will be very +"sweet." + +I pity, but I condemn. In the name of Matuta and of common sense, is +there an imperative necessity that all our maids should become matrons? + +If such exists, think, I beseech you, O virgins--pretty, but +penniless--apt for the yoke, how many chances of subjection may turn up +without rushing to put your necks under it. Is the aspiring race of +H.E.I.C.S. cadets extinct? Are Erin's sons so good or so cold as not to +be tempted by woman, even without the gold? Are there not soldiers still +to the fore too inflammable to be trusted near an ammunition wagon? Are +there not--the _bonne bouche_ comes at last--priests and deacons? The +instant a man takes orders, celibacy becomes intolerable to him. I +firmly believe that half the offers made in the year throughout broad +England emanate from those energetic ecclesiastics. + +After all, what specimens you do pick up sometimes in your haste! If you +_are_ to lead apes, is it not better to defer the evil day as long as +possible, instead of parading the animals about by your sides here on +this upper earth? + +My sermon is too long for the occasion--too short for the text. I close +a discourse not much wiser, perhaps, than poor Wamba's, with his "_Pax +vobiscum!_" + +Flora and Guy met with perfect composure on both sides. She did not +appear to think that she had any claim upon him arising from what had +passed, but it was evident that he was still the favorite, and that all +others were complete "outsiders." No betting man would have backed the +field for a shilling. She waltzed with him whenever he asked her, to the +utter oblivion and annihilation of previous engagements, whereat the +Frenchmen chafed inexpressibly, cursing and gnashing their teeth when, +after the ball was over, they went forth into the outer darkness. +Nothing but Livingstone's extraordinary reputation in the +shooting-galleries, added to a certain ferocity of demeanor which had +become habitual to him of late, saved him from more than one serious +quarrel. + +He took it all as a matter of course. Flora amused him certainly; she +sympathized with his tastes, and perhaps flattered his vanity. For +instance, she always took an interest in his fortunes at play, watching +and sometimes backing him at _ecarte_, and often inquiring the next +morning how the battle had gone in her absence at the Board of Green +Cloth. + +Once when an unfortunate adorer--in bitterness of spirit at being thrown +over twice in one evening--hinted at some of the intrigues which had +made Guy's name unenviably notorious (play was not the guiltiest of his +distractions to thoughts that would come back), Miss Bellasys only +smiled haughtily, and did not even deign to betray any curiosity on the +subject. Those ephemeral passions were not the rivals she feared. + +Her mother all this time was very uncomfortable. Though herself +perfectly innocent of any connivance in Flora's schemes, she was +afflicted with a perpetual indistinct sort of remorse. Once or twice, I +believe, she did venture on a remonstrance, but she was put down +decisively, and did not try it again. + +One evening Guy had been lingering for some time in the Bellasys' box at +the Opera. As he went out into the _foyer_ he saw an old acquaintance +coming toward him. + +Lord Killowen was past sixty: the world had used him roughly, and he had +been ruined very early in life, but he bore both years and troubles +lightly. Looking at his smooth forehead, and square, erect figure, and +listening to his ready, cheery laugh, you would never have guessed how +long he had led that guerrilla existence--for forty years keeping the +bailiffs at bay. His nerve and his seat in the saddle were as firm as +they were on the first night of his joining the ---- Hussars, when he +rode Kicking Kate over the iron pales round Hounslow Barrack-yard, and +hit the layers of the long odds for a cool thousand. + +He had been intimate with Colonel Livingstone, and had known his son +from childhood; but he was a still closer friend of the Brandon family, +with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected. He had never seen Guy +since the breaking off of the latter's engagement till this night, when +he caught a glimpse of his lofty head bending over Flora Bellasys' +chair. + +Lord Killowen's blood was as hot and his impulses as quick as if he had +not yet seen his twentieth winter, and the chivalry within him was +stirred at what he considered an insolent parade of treachery; for he +had guessed much of what had happened, though he did not know all the +truth; so he passed Guy's extended hand, turning his head studiously +aside. + +The latter was startled for a moment, but he could not believe in an +intentional "cut," and he knew his friend to be rather short-sighted; so +with one stride he overtook him, and, touching him on the shoulder, +said, "I must be very much changed if you do not know me, Lord +Killowen." + +The brave old Irishman turned short upon his heel and confronted the +speaker, bending on him all the light of his clear blue eyes: he drew +himself up to the full height of a stature that nearly equaled +Livingstone's, and said, coolly and slowly, "Pardon me, you are not +changed in the least; I know you very well." + +The insult was palpable. Guy fairly staggered as if he had received a +sword-thrust; then the angry blood rushed up to his temples, making the +veins start out like muscles, and he spoke in a voice hoarse and +indistinct with passion, "You will answer this." + +True, his antagonist was more than old enough to have been his father, +but in feast, field, and fray, Lord Killowen remembered his own age so +seldom that other men might be excused for forgetting it sometimes. + +The old man was going to answer eagerly, but he checked himself with an +effort, as if repressing a strong temptation; when, after some seconds, +he spoke, there was more of sadness and warning than of anger in his +tone. + +"No, I will not fight, even in this quarrel, with your father's son; +besides, I might be anticipating one who has a better right. Four days +ago Cyril Brandon landed from India." + +It would have been difficult, I think, to have found another, among +living men, both by constitution and temperament, so inaccessible to +material terrors as Livingstone, yet when that name came upon him thus +suddenly he felt a thrill and a start through his nerves, so +unpleasantly like commonplace physical fear that ever, when he thought +of it, it made his cheek burn with shame. He could not, after that, +controvert gallant Lannes' maxim: "It is only a coward who says that he +never was afraid." + +He stood silently, and allowed Lord Killowen to pass him, bowing +courteously, though coldly, to him. The latter never knew what mischief +he had done. After that momentary sensation had passed off, all the +worst elements of Guy's stubborn, haughty nature rose in rebellion at +what he deemed a despicable weakness. As if in defiance of the +consequences, all that evening and on the succeeding days he devoted +himself to Flora Bellasys with such unusual ardor that it made her +nervous: she thought it was too good to last. + +When Mohun heard what had happened, he would not admit that there was +the slightest chance of a meeting with Cyril Brandon, though he knew the +character of the latter--fierce and intractable to a degree. + +"Don't flatter yourself you will wipe off the score in that way," he +said to Guy, with his sardonic laugh. "Men will quarrel over cards and +about _lorettes_ easily enough, but who fights for a 'broken covenant' +now? We live two hundred years too late." + +Ralph remembered how long he had lingered on the French seaboard +waiting for a challenge from beyond the Channel which never came, though +there was deeper provocation to justify it. + +A few mornings after this had occurred Livingstone found himself without +a servant. His demeanor toward this estimable class had always been +imperious and stern to a fault, but latterly they, as well as others, +had felt the effects of his exasperated temper, and he was sometimes +brutally overbearing in his reprimands. On this particular occasion he +must have been unusually oppressive, for it exhausted the patience of +the much-enduring Willis, so that the worm turned again--insolently. + +Before he had said ten words his master interrupted him, his eye turning +toward a heavy horsewhip that lay near with an expression that made +Willis retreat toward the door. + +"So you have robbed me of enough to make you independent? Very well; +make your book up; the _maitre d'hotel_ will settle with you. You will +carry away some of my property, of course? I shall not trouble myself to +have your trunks searched, but if you take any thing that I happen to +want afterward, I'll have you arrested, wherever you are. Now go." + +The man left the room sulkily: an hour later he returned. "I am going +this instant, Mr. Livingstone; but I could tell you something first that +you ought to know, if you would promise not to be violent. I am very +sorry now I did it." There was a curious expression--half spiteful, half +frightened--on his cunning face as he spoke. + +Guy looked at him carelessly. "Thank you; I am in no humor to listen to +your confessions. You may be quite easy; I give you credit for all +imaginable rascality. Remember what I said: if I miss any thing, the +police will be after you the same day. Now, once more, go. If I see your +face about here again, it will be the worse for you." + +There was a good deal of meaning in Willis's smile, though, his lips +were white with fear. "You will never miss what I was going to tell you +about, sir," he said; and then faded away out of the room with his usual +noiseless step, closing the door softly behind him. + +If his master could have guessed what was the secret he had refused to +hear, haughty as he was, I do believe there is no earthly degradation to +which he would not have abased himself to gain its knowledge. + +But the hour for the humbling of the strong, self-reliant nature had not +come yet, though it was very near. The wild bull never saw the net till +its meshes had trapped him fast. + +The same morning Guy, who was lounging an hour away at the Bellasys', +mentioned to them what had occurred. If he had glanced at Flora's face +just then, he would have been puzzled to guess what there was in the +intelligence to turn her so deadly pale. It was only for an instant that +the accomplished actress forgot her part, and when he looked at her next +there was not a trace of emotion in her face. + +"Have you filled up his place?" she asked, carelessly. + +"I have ordered my landlord to provide me," replied Guy. "I shall find +some well-trained scoundrel on my return, I hope. I shall never get +another like Willis, though. It's just my luck. The great principle of +the gazelle runs through life: When they come to know you well, &c. What +made you ask? Surely you have no _protege_ to recommend?" + +Flora laughed gayly as she answered in the negative, and so the subject +dropped; but all the afternoon she was pensive and absent, and flashes +of vexation gleamed every now and then fitfully in her stormy eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + "Let none think to fly the danger, + For, soon or late, Love is his own avenger." + + +Christmas-tide had come round again, and hall, manor-house, and castle +were filling fast. But the pheasants had a jubilee at Kerton, to the +great discouragement of Mallett, who "could not mind such another +breeding season." Foxes were strong and plentiful with the Belvoir and +the Pytchley; and, during two months of open weather, many a +straight-goer had died gallantly in the midst of the wide +pasture-grounds, testifying with his last breath to the generalship of +Goodall and Payne. But the best shot and the hardest rider in +Northamptonshire lingered on still in Paris, wasting his patrimony in +most riotous living, and trying his iron constitution presumptuously. + +Lady Catharine sat alone in the gray old house, paler and more care-worn +than ever. I think she would have preferred the noisiest revel that ever +broke her slumbers in the old times to the dead silence that brooded +like a mist in the deserted rooms. + +Guy had always been a bad correspondent, and now he hardly ever wrote to +her; but rumors of his wild life reached his mother often, though dimly +and vaguely. It was best so; what would that poor lady have felt if she +could have guessed at the scene in which her son was the principal +figure as the Christmas morning was breaking? + +It is the close of a furious orgie; the Babel of cries, of fragments of +songs, of insane, meaningless laughter, is dying away, through the pure +exhaustion of the revelers; on the gay carpet and the rich damask are +pools of spilled liquors, heaps of shivered glass, and bouquets and +garlands that have ceased to be fragrant hours ago. All around, in +different attitudes--ignoble and helpless--are strewn the bodies of +those who have gone down early in the battle of the Bacchanals: they lie +in their ranks as they fell. One figure towers above the +rest--pre-eminent as Satan in the conclave of the ruined angels--the +guiltiest, because the most conscious of his own utter degradation. The +frequent draughts that have prostrated his companions have only brought +out two round scarlet spots in the pale bronze of his cheeks; his voice +retains still its deep, calm, almost solemn tone. Listen to it as he +raises to his lips an immense glass brimming-full of Burgundy: "One +toast more, and with funeral honors--'To the memory of those who have +fallen gloriously on the 24th of December.'" + +Is it true that, six months ago, the soft, pure cheek of Constance +Brandon rested often on the broad breast that pillows now the disheveled +head of that wild-eyed, shrill-voiced Maenad? Draw the curtains closer +yet; shut out the dawn of the Nativity for very shame. + +Mohun was breakfasting with Livingstone on a cold, gusty January +morning, that succeeded a night of heavy drinking and heavier play. The +colonel would see him through one of these readily enough, but if there +was even a single female face present he would retreat in disgust and +contempt unutterable. Guy had been hit so hard that it made him graver +than usual as he thought of it, though he was tolerably inured and +indifferent to evil fortune; so the conversation languished during the +meal. After it was over, Mohun rose to light a cigar, while his +companion took up a pile of letters and began to glance at them +listlessly. Suddenly the former dropped the match from his hand, +starting in irrepressible astonishment. + +He had seen strong men die hard, mangled and shattered by sabre or +bullet, but he had never heard a sound so terribly significant of agony +as the dull, heavy groan that just then burst from Livingstone's lips. + +In those few seconds his face had grown perfectly livid; his eyes were +riveted upon a small note that he held in his shaking fingers; they +glittered strangely, but there was no meaning or expression in their +fixed stare. + +"In the name of God, what has happened?" Ralph asked. + +Guy's lips worked and moved, but no sound came from them, except an +irregular catching of the breath and a gasping rattle in the throat. + +Mohun took the note from his hand without his seeming to be aware of it, +and read it through. These were the words: + +"I have tried very hard to persuade myself that you never received the +letter I wrote to you two months ago. I think you would have answered +it, for you would know how much I must have suffered before my pride +broke down so utterly. Yet I could not have risked being scorned a +second time if I had not learned yesterday that my life must now be +reckoned by weeks, if not by days. I do not know if I shall be allowed +to see you if you come. But you will come; will you not? Dear, dear Guy, +I can not die as I ought to do, contentedly, unless I speak to you once +again. In spite of all, I will sign my last letter + + "Your own CONSTANCE BRANDON." + + +It was dated Ventnor. + +Hard and cynical as he was, Mohun was thoroughly shocked and grieved; +but the urgency of the crisis brought back the prompt decision of +thought and purpose that were habitual to the trained soldier. He sprang +to his feet, alert and ready for action, as he would have done in the +old times, from his bivouac, to meet a night-surprise of the wild +Hungarians. + +"Get every thing ready," he said to the servant, who entered at that +moment; "your master is going to England immediately. The train starts +for Havre at two o'clock. You will catch the night-boat for +Southampton." + +When the man had left the room he turned to Guy: "Rouse yourself, man! +There is all a lifetime for remorse, but only a few hours for the little +amends you can make. You will be at Ventnor to-morrow; and mind--you +_must_ see her, whatever difficulties may be thrown in your way. You +won't lose your temper if you meet her brother? Ah! I see you are not +listening." + +Then Livingstone spoke for the first time, in a hoarse, grating +whisper, articulating the words one by one with difficulty. + +"I never dreamed of this. I did not mean to kill her." + +Mohun knew his friend too well to attempt consolation or sympathy, even +if these had not been foreign to his own nature; so he answered +deliberately and coldly, + +"Of having brought bitter sorrow on Constance Brandon I do hold you +guilty; of having caused her death, not, and so you will find when you +know all. But her note of two months ago--of course you never saw it? +You must have overlooked it; you are so careless with your papers." + +"It never reached me," Livingstone replied. "I have always looked at the +outside of my letters, and I should have known that handwriting among +ten thousand. Some one must have intercepted it. I wish I knew who." He +was recovering from the first stunning effects of the shock, and the old +angry light came back into his eyes. + +"I will find out when you are gone," said Mohun. "You have not a moment +to spare. I won't ask you to write; I will join you in England in three +days. Only remember one thing--keep cool. Yes, I know what you mean; but +your patience may be tried more than you have any idea of." He was +thinking of Cyril Brandon. + +The hurry of departure prevented any further conversation. At the +station, just before the train started, Ralph said, grasping his +comrade's hand as he spoke, "I did not think you loved her so dearly." + +It was very long before he forgot the dreary look which accompanied the +answer, "I did not know it myself till now." + +"I must trace the note," the colonel muttered, as he strode away from +the station. "That handsome tiger-cat has laid her claw on it, I am +certain. But she won't confess; red-hot pincers would not drag a secret +from her, if she meant to keep it. I doubt if she will even betray +herself by a blush. Poor Constance! What chance had she against such a +Machiavel in petticoats? I am bad at diplomacy, too. If I only had the +slightest proof, or if she had any weak point--unless she loses her head +when she hears where Guy is gone, I have no chance of finding out much +in that quarter. There's Willis, to be sure--she bribed him, no doubt. +D--n them both!" In this complimentary and charitable mood, he went +straight to Flora Bellasys. + +He found her alone. She was sitting in her riding-dress, and the broad +Spanish hat, with its curling plumes, lay close beside her, with the +gauntlets and whip across it. + +She did not much like Mohun, for she had an idea that his sarcasms, with +her for their object, had made Guy smile more than once approvingly. She +knew, too, that all her fascinations recoiled harmlessly from that +rugged block of ironstone. Whatever he might have been in early years, +he was harder of heart than stout Sir Artegall now. Radigund, unhelming +her lovely face, would never have tempted him to forego his advantage +and throw his weapons down. + +However, she greeted him with perfect composure and satisfaction. + +"Do you join our party this afternoon, Colonel Mohun? I expect them to +call for me every moment. We are going to the Croix de Berny, to see the +ground for the race next week. Mr. Livingstone was to have lunched here; +but I never reckon on his keeping an engagement." + +There was something in Ralph's manner which made her uncomfortable. She +took up her whip, and began twisting its slender stock rather nervously; +you would not have thought there was so much strength in the delicate +fingers. + +"You are right," he replied, coolly, "not to count too much on Guy's +punctuality. He _is_ very uncertain in his movements. I fear he can not +accompany you this afternoon. He would have charged me with his excuses, +I am sure, if he had not been so hurried." + +Flora looked up quickly. + +"It must have been something very sudden, then. Have you any idea where +he is now?" + +Ralph consulted his watch. "About Mantes, I should imagine. He started +for Havre by the last train. He will be at Southampton, to-morrow, and +the same day he can reach--" + +He stopped, gazing at his companion with a cold, cruel satisfaction. The +blood was sinking in her cheeks, not with a sudden impulse, but +gradually--as the sunset rose-tints fade from the brow of the Jungfrau, +leaving a ghastly opaque whiteness behind them. During the silence that +ensued, a sharp tinkle might be heard as the jeweled head of the +riding-whip, snapped by a convulsive movement, fell at Flora's feet. + +It _was_ weak in her to betray such loss of self-command, but, +remember, the blow came unexpectedly. She saw the edifice she had +plotted, and toiled, and risked so much to build, ruined and shattered +to its foundation-stone. How many whispers, and smiles, and eloquent +glances had been lavished, only to end in this Pavia, where not even +honor was saved from the utter wreck! + +Was not the perfect waxen mask of the first Napoleon shivered in that +terrible abdication-night at Fontainebleau? Where was Cleopatra's +queenly dignity when she heard that Antony had rejoined Octavia? + +"Why has he gone? What called him back?" + +Her voice had lost the clear ring of silver, and sounded dull and flat, +like base metal. + +"Constance Brandon wrote to tell him she was dying. Do you wonder that +he went to her?" + +A passing cloud of horror swept across Flora's pale face; but after it +broke forth a gleam of strange, ferocious exultation, which stifled the +rising pity in her hearer's breast, and changed it into contempt. + +"I don't believe it," she cried, passionately. "It is a trick. She was +quite well two months ago. At least, she said nothing--" + +She checked herself, but too late. The practiced duelist laughed grimly +in his mustache, as he might have done on discovering the weak point in +his enemy's ward which laid him open to his rapier. + +"You make my task easier," he said; "I came to inquire about a note +which miscarried about the time you speak of. I _will_ know what became +of it, Miss Bellasys, though I wish to spare you unnecessary exposure +and shame." + +He had gained a momentary advantage, but it did not profit him much. +There are swordsmen who will not own that they are touched, though their +life-blood is ebbing fast. Flora rose without a sign of yielding or +weakness in her dry eyes, drawing up her magnificent figure proudly. +Ralph could not help thinking how like her father she was just then. + +"I will answer, though I deny your right to question me. I have not the +faintest idea of what you refer to. I have seen no note, except such as +were addressed to myself; and you will hardly think that Miss Brandon +would choose me as a _confidante_ or correspondent." + +Mohun saw that she would persist to the last, undaunted as Sapphira. So +he rose to leave her, without another word. + +"You do not doubt me?" Flora asked, as he turned away after saluting +her. It was a rash question, all things considered, and scarcely worthy +of the accomplished speaker. There is no more useful maxim in diplomacy +than this: _Quieta non movere_. + +Ralph faced her directly. "Miss Bellasys, when a lady tells me what I +can not believe, I question--not her word, but--her agent." He was half +way down stairs before she could answer or detain him. + +He found out Willis's direction at Guy's hotel, but he had to wait some +time before obtaining it; and other things delayed him _en route_, so +that it was nearly two hours before he reached the modest lodgings, _au +quatrieme_, where the discharged valet was hiding his greatness. + +Willis had an extensive connection; this, and his well-known talents, +made him tolerably sure of a situation whenever he chose to seek one. He +had luxurious tastes, and thoroughly appreciated self-indulgence; so he +determined to devote some time and a portion of his perquisites to +relaxation before going into harness again. + +On this particular evening he had in prospect a little dinner at +Philippe's--not uncheered by the smiles of venal beauty--and had just +completed a careful toilette. He was above the small peculations of his +order; indeed, had he been inclined to plunder his late masters +wardrobe, the absurd disproportion in their size would have saved him +from that vulgar temptation. He was somewhat choice in his tailors, and +his clothes fitted him and suited him well. He was reviewing the general +effect in the glass with a complacent and rather _egrillarde_ expression +in his little eyes, when between him and his _partie fine_ rose the +apparition of the colonel, like that of the commander before a bolder +profligate. He knew that the interview must come, and did not wish to +avoid it, but just at this moment it was singularly ill timed. What a +contrast between the stern, fixed gaze that seemed to nail him to the +spot where he stood and the well-tutored glances of fair, frail Heloise! +He felt as if he had been put into the ice-pail by mistake for the +Champagne. However, he met his ill luck placidly, and, handing his +visitor a chair, begged to know "what he could do to serve him." + +"You can tell me what became of a letter from Miss Brandon, which ought +to have reached yow master two months ago, and miscarried." + +Willis was forewarned and armed for the question; but, even with this +advantage given in, his blank, unconscious look and start of +astonishment did him infinite credit. + +"A letter, sir?" he said, vaguely, as if consulting his recollections. +"From Miss Brandon? I have never seen or heard of such a thing. If I +had, of course I should have given it to Mr. Livingstone. What else +could I have done with it?" + +"I will give a thousand francs for it," Mohun went on, without noticing +the denial, "or for a written acknowledgment of how you disposed of it, +and at whose orders." He laid the bank-note on the table. + +The flats changed; the look of bewilderment gave place to one of injured +innocence--an appeal against manifest injustice. It was really +artistically done. + +"I am sorry, sir, that you should think I want a bribe to serve you or +Mr. Livingstone. It is quite out of my power now. I don't know what you +refer to." + +"I have no time to bargain," Ralph growled, and his eyes began to +glisten ominously. "Name your price, and have done with it." + +Finale and Grand Tableau--virtuous indignation--the faithful servant +asserting his dignity as a man. There was a hitch here somewhere; the +scene-shifter was hardly up to his work, so that it was rather a +failure. + +"I have told you twice, sir, that I do not know any thing about it. I +beg you will not insult me with more questions. You have no right to do +so; I am neither in your service nor Mr. Livingstone's now." + +Mohun bent his bushy brows in some perplexity. After all, he had not a +shadow of proof, though he felt a moral certainty. His sheet-anchor was +the avarice of the scoundrel he was dealing with, and this seemed to +fail. Evidently a strong counter-influence had been at work. + +"Curse her!" he muttered between his clenched teeth, "she has been here +before me." + +Then he looked up suddenly, and what he saw caused the shallow cup of +his patience at once to overflow. + +In Willis's eyes was an ill-repressed twinkle of exultation and +amusement, and on his thin lips the dawning of an actual sneer. It was +but seldom the trained satellite allowed himself the luxury of betraying +any natural feeling. In truth, he chose his time badly for its +exhibition now. Before he could collect himself so as to utter a cry, he +lay upon his back on the carpet, a heavy foot on his chest; and the +colonel was gazing down on him with a fell murderous expression, that +made the victim's blood run cold. + +"By G--d!" Mohun said, in the smothered tones of concentrated passion, +"if you trifle with me ten seconds longer--if you open your lips except +to answer my question, I'll crush your breast-bone in." + +Willis knew the desperate character of the man who held him in his +power; it was no vain threat he had just heard; the pressure on his +chest was agonizing already. + +"For God's sake don't murder me!" he gasped out; "I--I gave it to Miss +Bellasys." + +"Of course you did," Mohun said, coolly; "I knew it all along. Now get +up, and write that down." + +He spurned away the fallen man as he spoke till he rolled over and over +on the floor. + +There is nothing which disconcerts a nature long used to obey like a +sudden brutal _coup de main_. Remember the Scythians and their slaves. +The rebels met their masters boldly enough on a fair field with sword +and spear, but they cowered before the crack of the horsewhips. + +All the spider-webs of the unfortunate Willis's diplomacy were utterly +swept away; his powers of thought and volition were concentrated now on +one point--to get rid of his visitor as soon as possible. + +He rose slowly and painfully (for the mere physical shock had been +heavy), and, placing himself at a table, tried to write the few words of +acknowledgment that Mohun dictated; but his hand trembled so excessively +that he could hardly form the letters. As he looked up in piteous +deprecation, evidently fearing lest his inability to comply should be +construed into unwillingness or rebellion, he presented a spectacle of +degraded humanity so revolting in its abasement that even the cynic +turned away in painful disgust. + +It was done at last. As Willis saw his confession consigned to Mohun's +pocket-book, his avarice gave him courage to try one last effort to gain +something by the transaction--a salve to his bruises--a set-off against +the _relicta non bene parmula_. + +"I hope you will consider I have done all I can, sir," he said, looking +wistfully at the bank-note, which still lay on the table. "I shall be +ruined if this becomes known." + +The cast-steel smile which was peculiar to him hardened the colonel's +face. + +"You must come down on Miss Bellasys for compensation. She pays well, I +have no doubt. You never get another _sou_ from our side, if it were to +keep you from starving. My second thought was the best, after all; it +saved time and--money. (He put the note back into his purse.) I'll give +you one caution, though. Keep out of Mr. Livingstone's way. If he meets +you, after hearing all this, he'll break your neck, I believe in my +conscience." So he left him. + +For the second time that evening Willis looked in the glass--the +reflection was not so satisfactory. Was that unseemly crumpled ruin the +white tie, sublime in its scientific wrinkles, on which its author had +gazed with a pardonable paternal pride? No wonder that he stamped in +wrath, not the less bitter because impotent, while he shook off the dust +from his garments as a testimony against Ralph Mohun. + +He repaired the damages, though, to the best of his power, and then went +off to keep his appointment; but the _pates a la bechamelle_ were as +ashes, and the _gelee au marisquin_ as gall to his parched, disordered +palate. He made himself so intensely disagreeable that poor Heloise +thenceforth swore an enmity against his compatriots, which endured to +the end of her brief misspent existence. "_Gredin d'Anglais, va!_" she +was wont to say, grinding her little white teeth melodramatically, +whenever she recalled that dreary entertainment, and the failure of her +simple stratagems to enliven her saturnine host. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + "Then let the funeral bells be tolled, a requiem be sung, + An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young; + A dirge for her--the doubly dead, in that she died so young." + + +For the first few minutes after the train had moved off Guy was unable +to collect his thoughts. As the tall figure of Mohun passed from his +view, it seemed as if a sustaining prop had been suddenly cut away from +under him, and he felt more than ever helpless. The stubborn strength of +his character asserted itself before long, and he faced his great sorrow +as he would have done an enemy in bodily shape; but neither then, nor +for many days after, could he pursue any one train of reflection long +unbroken. + +First he began to think how Constance would look when he saw her. Would +she be much changed? How beautiful she was the night they parted, with +the blue myosotis gleaming through her bright hair! Would her eyes be as +cold as he remembered them then (he had not seen their _last_ look), or +would they forgive him at once, and tell him so? Not if she knew all. +And then, in hideous contrast to her pure stately beauty, there rose +before him faces and figures which had shared his orgies during the past +months, gay with paint and jewels, and meretricious ornament. There was +a deeper horror in those mocking shapes than in the most loathsome +phantasms of corporeal corruption that feverish dreams ever called up +from the grave-yard. If his lips were unworthy, months ago, to touch +Constance's cheek or hand, what were they now? He ground his teeth in +the bitterness of self-condemnation. It would be easier to bear, if she +met him coldly and proudly, than if she yielded at once, as her letter +seemed to promise. Her letter! What became of the first one? If that had +reached him, how much had been saved! Perhaps Constance's +life--certainly much of his own dishonor. The idea did cross him that +Flora might have been concerned in intercepting it, but it seemed +improbable, and he drove it away. With all his revived devotion to +Constance, he did not like to think hardly of her rival; in a lesser +degree he had wronged her too. + +You will rarely find the sternest or wisest of men disposed to be harsh +toward errors that spring from a devotion to themselves. It is only +just, as well as natural, that it should be so. If the second cause of +the crime did not find an excuse for the defendant, I don't know where +he or she would look for an advocate. St. Kevin need not have troubled +himself: there were plenty of people ready to push poor Kathleen down. I +think it is a pity they canonized him. + +Through all Guy's reflections there ran this under-current--"how easily +all might have been avoided if the slightest things had turned out +differently." Just so, after a heavy loss at play, a man _will_ keep +thinking how he might have won a large stake if he had played one card +otherwise, or backed the In instead of the Out. I have heard good judges +say that this pertinacious after-thought is the hardest part to bear of +all the annoyance. Of course he worries himself about it, just as if +"great results from small beginnings" were not the tritest of all +truisms. I don't wish to be historical, or I would reflect how often the +Continent has been convulsed by a dish that disagreed with some one, or +by a ship that did not start to its time. The Jacobites were very wise +in toasting "the little gentleman in black velvet" that raised the fatal +mole-hill. Does not the old romance say that an adder starting from a +bush brought on the terrible battle in which all the chivalry of England +were strewn like leaves around Arthur on Barren Down? + +Guy could still hardly realize to himself the certainty of Constance's +approaching death. He tried to fix his thoughts on this till a heavy, +listless torpor, like drowsiness, began to steal over him. He roused +himself impatiently, and began to think how slow they were going. +Nevertheless, the green _coteaux_ that swell between Rouen and the sea +were flying past rapidly, and they arrived at Havre, as Mohun had said, +just in time to catch the Southampton packet. + +There was threatening of foul weather to windward. The clouds, in masses +of indigo just edged with copper, were banking up fast, and the "white +horses," more and more frequent, were beginning to toss their manes +against the dark sky-line. + +To the few travelers whom the stern necessities of business drove forth, +lingering and shivering, from their comfortable inns on to the deck, +already wet and unsteady, Livingstone was an object of great interest +and many theories. His impatience to be gone was so marked that the +conscientious official looked more than once suspiciously at his +passport. + +Mr. Phineas Hackett, of Boston, U.S., Marchand (so self-described in +the Livre des Voyageurs at Chamounix), made up his mind that he saw +before him the hero of some gigantic forgery, or a fraudulent bankrupt +on a large scale; but, just as he had fixed on the astute question which +was to drive the first wedge into the mystery, Guy turned in his quick +walk and met him full. I doubt if he even saw the smooth-shaven, eager +face at his elbow; but he was thinking again of the lost letter, and the +savage glare in his eyes made the heart of the "earnest inquirer" quiver +under his black satin waistcoat. "D----d hard knot, that," he muttered, +disconsolately, and retreated with great loss, to writhe during the rest +of the passage in an orgasm of unsatisfied curiosity. + +The weather looked worse every moment as the wild north wind came +roaring from seaward with a challenge to the vessels that lay tossing +within the jetty to come forth and meet him. The waste-pipe of the +_Sea-gull_ screamed out shrilly in answer; and the brave old ship, +shaking the foam from her bows after every plunge, as her namesake might +do from its breast-feathers, steamed out right in the teeth of the gale. + +A regular "Channel night"--a night which Mr. Augustus Winder, Paris +traveler to H---- and Co., the mighty mercers of Regent Street, spoke of +in after days with a shudder of reminiscence mingling with the pride of +one who has endured and survived great peril; who has gone down to the +sea in ships, and seen the wonders of the deep. His associates--the +_elite_ of the silk-and-ribbon department--youths of polished manners +and fascinating address, than whom _non alii leviore saltu_ took the +counter in their stride--would gather round the narrator in respectful +admiration, just as the young sea-dogs of Nantucket might listen to a +veteran hunter of the sperm whale as he tells of a hurricane that caught +him in the strait between the Land of Fire and terrible Cape Horn. + +Mr. Winder represented himself as having assisted all on board, from the +captain down to the cabin-boy, with his counsel and encouragement, and +as having been materially useful to the man at the wheel. The fact was, +that he cried a good deal during the night, and was incessant in his +appeals to the steward and Heaven for help. In his appeals to the latter +power he employed often a strangely modified form of the Apostles' +Creed; for his religious education had been neglected, and this was his +solitary and simple idea of an orison. However, no one was present to +detract from his triumph or to controvert his concluding words: + +"An awful night, gents; but duty's duty, and the firm behaved handsome. +Mr. Sassnett, I'll trouble you for a light, sir." And so he ignited a +fuller-flavored Cuba, and drank, in a sweeter grog, "Our noble +selves"--_olim haec meminisse juvabit_. + +There was one striking contrast on board to the gallant Winder. +Livingstone did not go below, but walked the deck all night long, +straining his eyes eagerly forward through the thick darkness and the +driving rain. + +Captain Weatherby regarded him approvingly, as, halting in his walk, Guy +stood near him, upright and steady as a mainmast of Memel pine. "That's +the sort I like to carry," the old sailor remarked confidentially to +his second in command as they shared an amicable grog under the shelter +of the companion. + +The wind abated toward morning; and, as the dawn broke, they were under +the lee of the Wight, and moving steadily into the quiet Solent. + +Guy made his way straight to Ventnor. Twenty-four hours after her +summons reached him, Constance knew that her lover had never received +her first letter, and that now he was within five hundred yards of her, +waiting to be called into her presence. + +It was long before her answer came. It only contained a few hurried +words, saying that it was impossible for her to see him that day, and +begging him not to be angry, but to wait. The hand-writing was far more +faltering and uncertain than that which had struck him so painfully with +its weakness the day before. It spoke plainly of the effort which it had +cost the invalid to trace even those brief lines. He did not try to +delude himself any more, but all that day remained alone, face to face +with his despair. + +He went out after nightfall, and stole up cautiously to the house where +Constance was staying. + +It is not only ghosts that _walk_. Men, as powerless to retrieve the +past as if they were already disembodied spirits, _will_ haunt the +scenes and sepulchres of their lost happiness even before they die. +Though the world was all before them where to choose, I doubt not that +the exiles from Paradise lingered long just without the sweep of the +flaming sword. + +Two rooms in the house were lighted, one with the faint glimmer peculiar +to the shaded lamp of a sick-room. Guy's pulse bounded wildly at first, +and then grew dull and still. In that room he knew Constance lay dying. +The other window was brightly lighted, but half shaded by a curtain. +While he gazed, this was torn suddenly aside, as if by an angry, +impatient hand, and a man leaned out, throwing back the hair from his +forehead, to catch the cold wind which was blowing sharply. Guy had +never seen the dark, passionate face before, but he know whose it was +very well, though there was little family likeness to guide him. Cyril +Brandon's features were small and finely cut, like his sister's; but +there the resemblance ended. His complexion, naturally sallow, had been +burnt three shades deeper by the Indian sun. His fierce black eyes, and +thin lips, that seemed always ready to curl or quiver, made the contrast +with Constance very striking. + +Livingstone drew back into the farthest shadow of the garden trees. He +knew how much reason Cyril had for hating him above all living men, and +he did not wish to risk a meeting. Mohun's warning shot across his mind, +and he felt it was rightly founded. + +Brandon looked out for some minutes without moving, then he dropped his +head suddenly on his arms with a heavy groan. The bright light was +behind him, and Guy could see his clasped fingers twisting and tearing +at each other, as if he wished to distract mental agony by the sense of +bodily pain. The gazer saw that another besides himself had given up all +hope; and, with a heavier heart than over, he stole away home--not to +sleep, but to think, and wait for the morning. + +About noon next day the expected message came: + + "DEAR GUY,--I have got leave to see you at last, but it + was very difficult to gain. It is only on these conditions: you are + not to stay with me a moment beyond three hours, and you must leave + Ventnor immediately afterward, and not return. I have promised all + for you. It seems very hard; but we must not think of that now. + Come directly. C.B." + +Ten minutes later there was only a closed door between Livingstone, and +the interview he longed for and dreaded so much. His steel nerves stood +him in good stead then; it was not at the crisis that these were likely +to fail. When Constance heard his step, it was measured and firmly +planted as she always remembered it. So it would have been if he had +been walking to meet the fire of a platoon. Her aunt, Mrs. Vavasour, was +with her, but left the room, as Guy opened the door, and so they met +again as they had parted--alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + "I charge thee, by the living's prayer, + By the dead's silentness, + To wring from out thy soul a cry + That God may hear and bless; + Lest heaven's own palm fade in my hand, + And, pale among the saints I stand + A saint companionless." + + +Constance was lying on a couch near the fire propped up by many pillows. +She felt weaker than usual: what she had gone through in the morning had +exhausted her. Guy never knew, till long after, that the effort she had +made to secure the meeting with him had, in all human probability, +shortened her life by weeks. She thought it cheaply purchased at that +price--and she was right. Even the excitement of the moment had hardly +brought a tinge of color into the pure waxen cheeks, but the beautiful +clear eyes were more brilliant than ever. A ribbon of the blue which was +Guy's favorite was twisted in her bright glossy hair. + +He saw nothing of this at first; he did not see her raise herself with a +faint joyful cry as he advanced with his eyes cast down; he never knew +how it was that he found himself kneeling by Constance, with her arms +clinging fondly round his neck, and her voice murmuring in his ear, "I +said you would come--I knew you would come." + +Though her soft cheek lay so very near his lips, they never touched it. +He drew back, shuddering all over, and said, hoarsely, + +"I can not; I dare not; I am not worthy." + +I do not know if she guessed what he meant, but she tried to lift his +head, which was bent down on the cushion beside her, so that he might +look into her true eyes as she answered, + +"You must not think that--you must not say so. I know you have been +angry and almost mad for many months, but you are not so now, and you +never will be any more. It was my fault--yes, mine. If I had not been so +cold and proud, you would never have left me. You thought I did not love +you; but I did; my own, my darling, I did--so dearly!" + +All Guy's stout manhood was shivered within him, utterly and suddenly, +as 4000 years ago the rock was cloven in Horeb, the Mount of God. Now, +too, from the rift in the granite the waters flowed; the first tears +that he had shed since he was a very little child--the last that any +mortal saw there--streamed hot and blinding from his eyes down on the +thin, transparent hand that he held fast. + +Would those with whom he was a by-word for hard sternness of character +have known him then? They would have been almost as much surprised to +see Constance Brandon--thought so haughty and cold--overcoming her +terror at his passionate burst of grief, to soothe him with every +tenderest gesture and with words that were each a caress, till the +convulsion passed away, and calm self-government returned. + +Guy did not speak till he could quite control himself; then he said +firmly, but with a sob in his voice still, + +"Yet I have killed you!" + +"No, no," Constance answered, quickly; "indeed it is not so. A cold +which attacked my chest caused this illness; but they say my lungs were +affected long ago, and that I could hardly have lived many months. You +must think of that, dear; and perhaps it is much better that it should +be so. Life is very hard and difficult, I think, and I should never have +been strong enough to bear my part in it well." + +Guy shook his head sadly, as if only half convinced, though he knew she +would not have said an untrue word even to save him from suffering. + +"If you could only stay with me--if I could only keep you!" he cried +out, and threw his arms round her, as if their strong clasp would hold +her back one step on the road along which the messengers of God had been +beckoning her for many days past. + +"Hush!" Constance whispered; "you must be patient. Yet I like to think +that you will not forget me soon. Now listen--" and she held up her +finger with something of the "old imperial air." "I have something to +ask of you. Will you not like to do it for my sake, even if it is hard?" + +He did not answer; but she understood the pressure of his hand, and went +on. + +"I have been fearing so much that something terrible will happen between +you and Cyril. He is so passionate and willful, he will not listen to +me, though he loves me dearly, and though I have tried every entreaty I +could think of. (She grew paler than ever, and shuddered visibly.) And +you are not patient, Guy, dear; but you would be this time, would you +not? Only think how it would grieve me if--" + +The deep hollow cough that she had tried hard to keep back _would_ +break in here. + +"You can not doubt me," Guy replied, caressing her fondly: "I promise +that nothing he can say or do shall tempt me to defend myself by word or +deed. How could I, even if you had not asked this? Has he not bitter +cause? Ask me something harder, my own!" + +Constance hesitated; then she spoke rapidly, as if afraid to pause when +she had once made up her mind. The lovely color came and flickered for a +moment on her cheek, and then went out again as suddenly. + +"I know it is easier for me to submit than for you, yet it is very hard +to be obliged to leave you, Guy; it is harder still to leave you to +Flora Bellasys. I hope my jealousy--I _am_ jealous--does not make me +unjust; but I don't think she will make you better, or even happier in +the end. Now do forgive me; perhaps I ought not--" + +Guy interrupted her here: he had not stopped her till she began to +excuse herself. + +"I must see her once again (the knitting of his black brows omened ill +for the peace of that interview); afterward, on my honor and faith, I +will never speak to her one word, or willingly look upon her face." + +O true heart! that had suffered so long, and hitherto unavailingly, till +your life-blood was drained in the struggle, be content, for the victory +is won at last. Never did loyalty and right triumph more absolutely +since those who stood fast by their King in the _dies irae_ of the great +battle saw the rebel angels cast headlong down. + +If, in the intense joy that thrilled through every fibre of Constance's +frame, there mingled an element of gratified pride, who shall blame her? +Not I, for fear of being less indulgent than I believe was her Eternal +Judge when, not many days later, she stood before him. + +She needed no further protest or explanation; she never thought that, +because her lover had once been entangled, there was danger of his +falling into the net again; she never doubted for an instant--and she +was right. The gaze of the spirit is far-seeing and rarely fallible when +so near its translation as was hers. + +As she leaned her head against his shoulder, murmuring, "You have made +me so very, very happy!" there were pleasant tears in the beautiful eyes +that had known so many bitter ones, and had not lost their brightness +yet. + +There was silence for some minutes; then Constance spoke again, looking +wistfully, and more sadly than she had yet done, on her companion: + +"Do you know, Guy, I have been thinking that yours will not be a very +long life? You are so strong that it seems foolish in me, but I can not +help it." + +The faintest glimmer of satisfaction, like the ghost of a smile, came +upon Livingstone's miserable, haggard face: there had been nothing like +it there for many hours; there was nothing like it again for many days. + +"You may be right," he said, very calmly. "I trust in God you are." + +"Yes," Constance went on; "but I was thinking more than that. I was +hoping that perhaps, for my sake, if not for your own, you would try to +grow better every day. Only think what it would be if, throughout all +ages, we were never to meet after to-day." She drew him closer to her, +and her voice almost failed her. "I don't believe you ever could be what +is called a very religious character. I am so weak--strong-minded as you +thought me--that I fear I have found an attraction in this fault of +yours; but you could keep from great sins, I am sure. Try and be gentler +to others first, and with every act of unselfish kindness you will have +gained something. Any good clergyman will tell you the rest better than +I. Remember how happy you will make me. I believe I shall see and know +it all. It may be hard for you, dear, but it may not be for long." + +The same strange, wistful look came into her eyes again, as if shadows +of the dim future were passing before them. + +Poor child! Pure as she was in principle and firm in truth, she would +have made but a weak controversial theologian; but her simple words went +straight to her hearer's heart, with a stronger power of conversion than +could have been found in the discourses of all the surpliced Chrysostoms +that ever anathematized a sinner or anatomized a creed. + +Yet Guy did not answer so soon this time. When he did, he spoke firmly +and resolutely: "Indeed, indeed, I will try." + +Constance nestled down on his broad chest, wearily, but with a +long-drawn breath of intense relief. + +"I have said all my say," she whispered; "I have not tired you? Now I +will rest, and you shall pet me and talk to me as you used to do." + +What broken sentences--what pauses of silence yet more eloquent--what +lavish, tender caresses passed between those two, over whom the shadow +of desolation was closing fast, I have never guessed, nor, if I could, +would I write them in these pages. I hold that there are partings +bitterer to bear than a father's from his child, and sorrows worthier of +the veil than those of Agamemnon. + +Though Guy repressed now all outward signs of painful emotion, he +suffered, I believe, far the most of the two. It is always so with those +whom death is about to divide. The agony is unequally distributed, +falling heaviest on the one that remains behind. If the separation were +for years, and both were healthy and hopeful, very often the positions +would be reversed; but--whether it be that bodily weakness blunts the +sharp sense of anticipated sorrow, or that, to eyes bent forward on the +glories and terrors of the unknown world, earthly relations lessen by +comparison--you will find that with most, however impetuous it may have +been in mid-channel, the river of life flows calmly and evenly just +before its junction with the great ocean stream. Besides, the dying girl +had suffered so much of late that the present change left no room for +other feelings than those of unalloyed happiness, and the words of love +murmured into her ear brought with them a deeper delight than when she +heard them for the first time from the same lips. + +Both were so engaged with their own thoughts and with each other that +they never noted how the narrow space of time allotted to them was +vanishing, rapidly as the last dry islet of sand when the spring-tide is +flowing. They never heard the footsteps, more impatient at every turn, +sounding from the room beneath, where Cyril Brandon paced to and fro. +Constance had cut off one of her long sunny braids, and was twining it, +in and out, in fetter-locks round Guy's fingers as she lay nestling in +the clasp of his other arm: it was only their eyes that were speaking +then. They started as the door opened suddenly, and Mrs. Vavasour came +in, her face white, and her eyes wild with terror. She was too +frightened to be gentle or considerate. + +"You must go this instant!" she cried out, catching Livingstone's arm. +"Constance, make him go; he has staid too long already. You know you +promised." + +"I did promise," Constance answered, calmly, almost proudly "and he will +keep it." + +Then she turned to Guy, who was kneeling by her, and hid her face in his +neck, locking her arms round him. Her aunt caught the words--"Not +forget!" Beyond these her farewell was a secret known only to her lover +and the angels. + +But the parting, which had come so suddenly, drained the last weak +remnant of strength already taxed too hardly. Guy felt the lips that +were murmuring in his car grow still at first, and then cold; the tender +arms unknit themselves, and his imploring eyes could draw no answer from +hers that were closed. + +"She has only fainted," Mrs. Vavasour said, answering his look: "I will +recover her. But pray, pray go!" + +He laid the light burden that scarcely weighed upon his arm down on the +pillows, very softly and gently, smoothing them mechanically with his +hand. Then he stooped and pressed one kiss more on the pale lips; they +never felt it, though the passion of that lengthened caress might almost +have waked the dead. And so those two parted, to meet again--upon earth +never any more. + +The next time woman's lips touched Guy Livingstone's they were his +mother's, and he had been a corpse an hour. + +He went, without looking back; his step was slow and unsteady, very +different from the firm, even tread of three hours ago. The power of +volition and self-direction was very nearly gone. Through a half open +door on the lower story he caught a glimpse of a haggard face lighted up +by wolfish eyes, and heard a savage, growling voice. He felt that both +eyes and voice cursed him as he passed; and afterward, recalling these +things vaguely, as one does the incidents of a hideous dream, he knew +that, for the second time, he had seen Cyril Brandon. Guy could hardly +tell how he reached London that night, for the brain fever was coming on +that the next morning held him in its clutches fast. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + "Quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse." + + +The tidings of her son's illness reached Lady Catharine quickly at +Kerton Manor. I did not hear of it till a day later, and when I arrived +I found her nearly exhausted by sleeplessness and anxiety, though she +had not been Guy's nurse for more than thirty-six hours. + +The sick-bed of delirium taxes the energies of the watcher very +differently from any other. There is a sort of fascination in the roll +of the restless head, tossing from side to side, as if trying to escape +from the pressure of a heavy hot hand; in the glare of the eager eyes, +that follow you every where, with a question in them that they never +wait to have answered; in the incoherent words, just trembling on the +verge of a revelation, but always leaving the tale half told, that +creates a perpetual strain on the attention, enough to wear out a strong +man. + +There have been men, they say, who, sensible of the approach of +delirium, chose the one person who should attend them, and ordered their +doors to be closed against all others, preferring to die almost alone to +the risk of what their ravings might betray; but I have heard, also, +that there are secrets--secrets shared, too, by many confederates--to +which neither fever or intoxication ever gave a clew. The hot blood grew +chill for an instant, and the babbling tongue was tied when the dreamer +came near the frontier ground, where the oath reared itself distinct and +threatening as ever, while all else was fantastic and vague. + +There was something of this in Guy's case. We could hear distinctly many +of his broken sentences, relating sometimes to the hunting-field, +sometimes to the orgies of wine or play. There were names, too, +occurring now and then, which to his mother were meaningless, but to me +had an evil significance. Once or twice--not oftener--he was talking to +Flora Bellasys. But when the name of Constance Brandon came, the harsh +loud voice sank into a whisper so low that if you had laid your ear to +his lips you would not have caught one syllable. Very, very often I had +occasion to remark this, and to wonder how the heart could guard its +treasure so rigidly when the brain was driving on, aimless as a ship +before the hurricane with her rudder gone. + +On the fifth day after Guy's illness began, an angel might have +interceded for him in the stead of a pure true-hearted woman, for +Constance was dead. + +I saw Lady Catharine tremble, and bend her head down low when she heard +the news, as if herself crushed by the blow which would fall so heavily +on her son. She had known but very little of Constance; that little had +made her love her dearly--who could help doing that? Yet it was not +Constance she was regretting then. I could see the same thought was in +her mind as in mine--who will tell Guy this if he recovers? I did all I +could to spare her; but the anxiety she felt when out of the sick-room +tried her almost more than the bodily fatigue. It was best to let her +have her way. I never guessed, till then, the extent of a weak woman's +endurance. + +It was a close struggle, indeed, between life and death. The fire of the +fever died out when there was little left for it to feed on. The arm +which, a month ago, was fatal as old Front-de-Boeuf's, had not +strength enough in its loosened sinews to lift itself three inches from +the coverlet. + +Guy had fallen at last into a heavy sleep. The doctors said it was the +turning-point. If he woke quite calm and sane, the immense power of his +constitution would probably enable him to rally; if not, the worst that +could be feared was certain. + +He woke after many hours. There was such a stillness in the room as he +unclosed his eyes that you might have heard his mother's heart beat as +she sat motionless by his bedside. They recognized her at once--heavy +and dim as they were--for he tried to turn his head to kiss her hand +that lay on the pillow beside him. Then we knew that he was saved; and I +saw, for the first time, tears stream down Lady Catharine's worn cheeks. +She could check the evidence of her grief better than that of her joy. + +He saw me, too, as I came forward out of the shadow. "Is that you, +Frank?" he said, faintly. "How very good of you to come." We would not +let him speak any more. + +On the third day after the change for the better, I was alone with the +invalid. He turned to me suddenly, and spoke in a low voice, but so +steady that it surprised me. "Frank, what have you heard of Constance?" + +Had I been arming myself to meet that question--disciplining my voice +and countenance for days, only to fail so miserably at last? I felt +unspeakably angry and self-reproachful when I saw that my face had told +him all. + +"When did she die?" He went on in the same measured tone, without taking +his eyes off me. I think he had nerved himself just enough for the +effort, and was afraid of breaking down if he paused. + +I could speak now, and told him. I was going on to tell him, too, how +calmly and happily her life had ended (her aunt had written all this to +Lady Catharine), when Guy stopped me--not coldly, but with a hopeless +sadness in his accent very painful to hear. "Thank you; it is meant +kindly, but I would rather not speak of this, even to you--at least for +some time." + +His self-command carried him through bravely, but it only just lasted +out. Then he turned his head aside and threw his arm across it. As I +drew back to the window, I saw the quivering of the long, emaciated +fingers that veiled his face. I did not look again till Guy's voice +called to me, quite composedly, for I did not dare to pry into or meddle +with the secrets of the strong heart that knew its own bitterness so +well. + +I told Lady Catharine what had passed. She was very much relieved to +hear that it was all over. She never opened her lips on the subject to +her son; indeed, though those two understood each other thoroughly, +there were wonderfully few confidences between them. + +Guy's convalescence was slow--far slower than we had hoped for. It +seemed as if some spring was broken in his being not easily to be +replaced. He was moody and listless always, speaking very seldom; but +his words and manner, when he did talk, were gentler and more kindly +than I ever remembered them. + +One of his first visitors was Colonel Mohun. He had been incessant in +his inquiries, and had offered to share our watching, but Lady Catharine +would not hear of it. She had a sort of dread at the idea of that grim +face lowering over the sick man's bed. + +No one was present at their first interview. Ralph was more moved than +he cared to show at his old friend's altered looks and ways; but he gave +him the account of his search after the lost letter conscientiously, +without sparing a single detail. "It must have gone hard with Guy," he +remarked to me, thoughtfully, as he came away. "He's very far from right +yet. When I told him what Willis had done, I made sure he would be very +angry. He only said, 'Poor wretch! He acted under orders, and did not +know what mischief he was doing.' He wants rousing; but I am sure I +don't know what is to do it." + +Forgiveness and forgetfulness of injuries seemed to that hard old +heathen the most dangerous sign of bodily and mental debility. + +He came almost daily after that, and I think his rough ways, and sharp, +sarcastic remarks acted on Livingstone as a sort of tonic--bitter, but +strengthening. + +A few days later Mrs. Vavasour called. She, too, saw Guy alone. She +surely had a message to deliver, or she would not have ventured on an +interview which must have been so painful to both. It did not last long; +but when she came down, her thick black veil was drawn closely over her +face, and that evening Guy was denied to Ralph Mohun. + +One afternoon Livingstone was quite by himself. The colonel had gone +into Warwickshire for a few days' hunting; Lady Catharine had paid her +usual visit and had gone back to her hotel, and I was out for an hour or +two. We did not mind leaving him a good deal alone; indeed, he preferred +it very often, and said so. + +His servant came in, looking rather puzzled, to say that a lady wished +to see him. She would not give her name, but said that she would not +detain him many minutes. + +Guy had not time to refuse admittance to the visitor, she followed so +close upon her message. Though she was closely-wrapped in her mantle, +and her veil fell in triple folds, there was no mistaking the turn of +the haughty head, the smooth, elastic step, and the lithe undulations of +a figure matchless between the four seas. No wonder that he drew his +breath hard as he recognized Flora Bellasys. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + Treu und fest. + + +As the door closed, Flora advanced quickly. "Confess you are surprised +to see me," she said, holding out her little gloved hand. The courtesy +toward the sex, which was hereditary with the Livingstones, contrasting +strangely with their fierce, ungovernable tempers, made him not reject +it; but his lay passive and nerveless in her slender fingers, never +answering their eager pressure; it had no longer the elastic quiver of +repressed strength that she remembered and liked so well. + +"I am surprised to see you here, and so soon," he answered, coldly; "but +I knew we should meet before long." + +"The surprise does not seem too charming," Miss Bellasys said, pouting +her scarlet lip as she threw herself into a deep _bergere_ opposite to +the couch on which Livingstone had already sunk down again--he was very +weak and unsteady in his movements still. + +Was it by chance or calculation that a fold of her dress disarranged +displayed the slender foot, with its arched instep--set off by the +delicate _brodequin_, a labor of love to the Parisian Crispin--and the +straight, beautifully-turned ankle, cased in dead-white silk? The +latter, I think; for Flora knew how to fall as well as Caesar or +Polyxena, and had studied her part to its minutest shade. It was by the +senses that she had always been most successful in attacking Guy, and +she knew that, in old days, no point of feminine perfection had a +greater attraction for him. + +The temptation, if so it was intended, had about as much effect upon him +now as it might have had on weather-beaten St. Simeon Stylites when his +penances had lasted twenty years. + +After a minute's silence, during which Flora was gazing intently on her +companion, leaning her chin upon her hand, she spoke again. + +"I fear you must have been very ill. How--how changed you are!" + +Livingstone was, indeed, fearfully altered. The healthy brown of his +complexion had given place to a dull, opaque pallor; there were great +hollows under the prominent cheek-bones, and his loose dressing-robe of +black velvet hung straight down from the gaunt angles of the immense +joints and bones. His voice sounded deeper than ever as he replied, + +"Yes, I have been very ill, and I am utterly changed. But you must have +had something more important to say to me, or you would hardly have +ventured on this step." + +She was getting very nervous--inexplicably so for her, who generally +kept her head, while she made others lose theirs, + +"No. I only wished--" she hesitated, trying to force a smile, and then +broke off suddenly--"Guy, do speak kindly to me. Don't look at me so +strangely." + +His answer came, brief and stern. + +"I will speak, then. Miss Bellasys, on what authority from me did you +venture to interfere in my concerns so far as to intercept my +correspondence?" + +She tried denial still; it was her way; she always _would_ do it, even +when it could avail nothing--perhaps to gain time. + +"I don't know what you mean. I never--" + +Livingstone interrupted her, with a curl of contempt on his lip. + +"Stop, I beg of you. It is useless to stoop lower than you have done +already. I have Willis's written confession here. Ah! I know your +talents too well to accuse you without material proof." + +She raised her head, haughtily enough now. There was something Spartan +about that girl. She had such an utter recklessness of exposure--it was +in failure that she felt the shame. + +"At least _you_ ought not to reproach me. You might guess my motive--my +only one--without forcing me to confess it. Have I not gratified your +pride enough already?" + +"You know that is not the question," Guy answered, gravely. "Yet you are +half right. I could not reproach you for any fair, honest move. In much, +I own myself more guilty than you. But this is very different. Miss +Bellasys, you must have distrusted greatly your own powers of +fascination before you stooped to such cruel treachery." + +"I did not know what I was doing," she whispered; "I did not know she +was dying. Ah! Guy, have pity!" + +"But you knew it might kill her to find her letter--such a +letter--unanswered. You knew what she must have suffered before she +wrote it. You did all this in cold blood, and now you say to me, 'Have +pity!' If an accountable being--not a woman and her miserable +instrument--had wronged me so, I would have risked my soul to have +revenge; and, because that is impossible, you think that I feel less +bitterly? You might have known me better by this time." + +Instead of being softened by her appeal, his heart, features, and tone +were hardening more and more. + +The sting of defeat, imminent and unavoidable, that, ere this, has +driven strong and wise men headlong into the thickest of the battle to +hunt for death there, proved too much for a temper never well regulated. + +"You have decided, then?" she cried, passionately, her eyes flashing and +her lip quivering. "After all I have risked and borne for you, I am to +be sacrificed to a shadow--a memory--the memory of that cold, pale +statue of propriety?" She checked herself suddenly, only just in time. + +Guy had sprung to his feet, excitement bringing back for the moment all +his lost strength. If Ralph Mohun had seen him, he would not have feared +that the wrathful devil was cast out. It was raging within him then, +untamed and dangerous as ever. + +"Do you dare to insult her now that she is dead--and to me, not a month +after I have lost her? It is not safe: take care, take care!" + +The tempest of his passion made him forget, for the first time in his +life, the weakness of her who had roused it. + +Flora was only a woman after all, though haughty and bold of spirit as +any that had breathed. Her own outbreak of anger vanished before that +terrible burst of wrath, just as the camp-fire, when the prairie is +blazing, is swallowed up in the great roaring torrent of flame. She +bowed her head on her hands, trembling all over in pure physical fear. +Guy felt ashamed when he saw the effect of his violence, and spoke more +gently than he had done yet. + +"Forgive me. I was very wrong; but I have not learned to control +myself--I never shall, I fear; but you ought not to say such words, even +if I could bear them better. Now it is time that we should part; you +have staid here too long already. You must not risk your reputation for +me, who can not even be grateful for the venture. We shall never meet +again, if we can avoid it; it would be strange to do so as mere +acquaintance, and in any other way--no, don't stop me--it is impossible. +It will be long before I go much into society again, so I shall not +cross your path." + +Flora knew it was hopeless then. She was quite broken down, and did not +raise her head from her hand, through the fingers of which, half shading +her face, the tears trickled fast. Guy heard her murmur, very low and +plaintively, "I have loved you so long--so dearly!" + +Mistress as she was of every art that can deceive, I believe she only +spoke the simple truth then. With all the energy of her strong and +sensual nature, I believe she did worship Livingstone. To most men she +would have been far more dangerous thus, in the abandonment of her +sorrow, than ever she had been in the insolence of her splendid beauty. + +There are some women, very few (Johnson's fair friend, Sophy +Streatfield, was one), whom weeping does not disfigure. Their eyelids do +not get red or swollen; only the iris softens for a moment; and the +drops do not streak or blot the polished cheeks, but glitter there, +singly, like dew on marble; their sobs are well regulated, and follow in +a certain rhythm; and the heaving bosom sinks and swells, not too +stormily. It is a rare accomplishment. Miss Bellasys had not practiced +it often, being essentially Democritian--not to say Rabelaisian--in her +philosophy; but she did it very well. Like every other emotion, it +became her. + +Guy hardly glanced at her, and never answered a word. + +She rose to go; then turned all at once to try one effort more. "Yes, we +must part," she said. "I know it now. But give me a kind word to take +with me. I shall be so lonely, now that you are my enemy. Will you not +say you wish me well? Ah! Guy, remember all the hours that I have tried +to make pleasant for you. Say 'Good-by, Flora,' only those two little +words, gently." Her voice was broken and uncertain, but full of music +still, like the wind wandering through an organ. + +Just at that moment I opened the door. (I had not an idea Livingstone +was not alone.) I closed it before either had remarked my entrance, but +not before I had caught sight of a very striking picture. + +Guy was leaning one arm against the mantel-piece; the other was crossed +over his chest: on that arm Flora was clinging, with both her hands +clenched in the passion of her appeal. Her slight bonnet had fallen +rather back, showing the masses of her glorious hair, and all her +flushed cheeks, and her eyes that shone with a strange lustre, though +there were tears still on their long, trailing lashes. I saw the +impersonation of material life, exuberant and vigorous, yet delicately +lovely--the Lust of the Eye incarnate. + +He stood perfectly still, making no effort to cast her off. Had he done +so with violence, it would scarcely have evinced more repulsion than did +the expression of his face. There was no more of yielding or softening +in the set features and severe eyes than you would find in those of a +corpse three hours old, whose spirit has passed in some great anger or +pain. Can you guess what made him more than ever hard and unrelenting? +He was thinking _who_ tried to win a kind farewell from him six months +ago, and utterly failed. Should her rival have this triumph, too, over +the dead? + +As he answered deliberately, each slow word shut out another hope, like +bolts shot, one by one, in the lock of a prison door. + +"I remember nothing of the past except your last act, for which I will +never, never forgive you. I form no wish for your welfare or for the +reverse. There shall not stand the faintest shadow of a connecting link +that I can break asunder. Between you and me there is the gulf of a +fresh-made grave, and no thought of mine shall ever cross it--so help me +God in Heaven!" + +Flora's last arrow was shivered: if she had had another in her quiver, +she would have had no courage to try it after hearing those terrible +words. She caught his hand, however, before he could guess her +intention, and pressed her lips upon it till they left their print +behind, and then she was gone. Her light foot hardly sounded as it +sprang down the stairs, but its faint echo was the last living sound +connected with Flora Bellasys that ever reached the ear of Guy +Livingstone. + +When I heard more of the interview, I thought, and think still, that he +erred on the side of harshness. He was so fixed and steady in his +purpose that he could have afforded to have compromised a little in +expressing it. But he did things in his own way, and fought with his own +weapons--effective, but hardly to be wielded by most men, like the axe +of the King-maker or the bow of Odysseus. In carrying out his will, he +was apt to consider the softer feelings of others as little as he did +his own. It was just so with him when riding to hounds: he went as +straight as a line, and if he did not spare his horses, he certainly did +not himself. + +To each man alive, one particular precept of the Christian code is +harder to realize and practice than all the rest put together. It was +this, perhaps, which drove the anchorites on from one degree of penance +to another, and made them so savage in self-tormenting. When the +macerated flesh had almost lost sensation, the thorn that had galled it +sometimes in their hot youth rankled incessantly, more venomous than +ever. That one injunction--"Forgive, as you would hope to be +forgiven"--was ever a stumbling-block to Guy. + +Besides all this, he knew, better than any one, what sort of an +adversary he was contending against; one with whom each step in +negotiation or temporizing was a step toward discomfiture. It was like +the Spaniard with his _navaja_ against the sabre: your only chance is +keeping him steadily at the sword's-point, without breaking ground; if +he once gets under your guard, not all the saints in the calendar can +save you. + +Perhaps, then, he was right, after all. Certainly Ralph Mohun thought +so, as he listened to a sketch of the proceedings with a grim +satisfaction edifying to witness. + +As for me, before I went to bed that night, I read through those +chapters in the "Mort d'Arthur" that tell how the long, guilty loves of +Launcelot and Guenever ended. In the present case, there was certainly +wonderfully little penitence on the lady's side, but yet there were +points of resemblance which struck me. [I always think the queen must +have been the image of Flora.] It is worth while wading through many +chapters of exaggeration and obscurity to come out into the noble light +of the epilogue at last. + +Good King Arthur is gone. It bit deep, that blow which Mordred, the +strong traitor, struck when the spear stood out a fathom behind his +back; and Morgan la Fay came too late to heal the grievous wound that +had taken cold. The frank, kind, generous heart, that would not mistrust +till certainty left no space for suspicion, can never be wrung or +betrayed again. The bitter parting between the lovers is over too; and +Launcelot is gone to his own place, without the farewell caress he +prayed for when he besought the queen "to kiss him once and never more." +After a very few short months, the beautiful wild bird has beaten +herself to death against her cage, and the vision comes by night, +bidding Launcelot arise and fetch the corpse of Guenever home. She +wandered often and far in life, but where should her home be _now_ but +by the side of her husband? Hardly and painfully in two days, he and +the faithful seven accomplish the thirty miles that lay between; so +utterly is that unearthly strength, before which lance-shafts were as +reeds, and iron bars as silken threads (remember the May night in +Meliagraunce's castle), enfeebled and broken down. He stands in the +nunnery-church at Almesbury; he hears from the queen's maidens of the +prayer that was ever on her lips through those two days when she lay a +dying, how "she besought God that she might never have power to see Sir +Launcelot with her worldly eyes." Then, says the chronicler, "he saw her +visage; yet he wept not greatly, but sighed. And so he did all the +observance of the service himself, both the dirge at night and the mass +on the morrow." Not till every rite was performed, not till the earth +had closed over the marble coffin, did Launcelot swoon. + +I know nothing in fiction so piteous as the words that tell of his +dreary, mortal sorrow. "Then, Sir Launcelot never after ate but little +meat, nor drank, but continually mourned until he was dead; and then he +sickened more and more, and dried and dwined away; for the bishop nor +none of his fellows might make him to eat, and little he drank; so that +he waxed shorter by a cubit than he was, and the people could not know +him; for evermore day and night he prayed; but needfully as nature +required, sometimes he slumbered a broken sleep; and always he was lying +groveling on King Arthur's and Queen Guenever's tomb. And there was no +comfort that his fellows could make him; it availed nothing." + +We know it can not last long; we know that the morning is fast +approaching, when they will find him "stark dead, and lying as he had +smiled;" when they will bear him forth, according to his vow, to his +resting-place in Joyous Guard; when there will be pronounced over him +that famous funeral oration--the truest, the simplest, the noblest, I +think, that ever was spoken over the body of a sinful man. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + "I pray God pardon me, + That I no more, without a pang, + His choicest works can see." + + +It was long before Livingstone's health recovered the check to its +improvement given by that interview. However, as the spring advanced he +began to regain strength rapidly, and toward the end of May he and I +started in the _Petrel_, which he had just bought, for a cruise in the +Mediterranean. + +It would seem hard that any one, coasting for the first time along the +shores of Italy, and penetrating ever and anon far into the interior, +should not feel and display some interest in the succession of pictures, +of living Nature and dead Art, that meet you at every step. I can not +say that I ever detected the faintest symptom of such in my companion. +He strayed with me through the old Forum, and through Adrian's Villa, +and lingered by the Alban Lake; but it was more to keep me in +countenance than any thing else. I liked them better this second time of +seeing them than I did the first; I doubt if they left an impression on +his mind equal to the dimmest photograph that ever was the pride of an +amateur and the puzzle of his friends. The brilliant landscapes made up +of bold headlands, hanging woods, and sunny bays fared no better. Guy +did not come on deck for two hours after we cast anchor off Mola di +Gaeta. + +Our _ciceroni_ were much pained and scandalized at an indifference +which exceeded all they had yet encountered in the matter-of-fact +_Signori Inglesi_. I saw one of them look quite relieved when, after +quitting us, he had to listen to an excitable young Jewess endeavoring +to express her raptures in the most execrable Italian. The physical +effort it cost her was awful to witness, especially as she was wintering +in Italy for her lungs. O, long-suffering stones of the Coliseum! which +returned the most barbarous echo--the growls from the cells when their +tenants scented the Christian; the jargon of the Goth and the Hun; or +the _lingua Anglo-Romana in bocca Bloomsburiana_? The two first-named +classes, at all events, confined themselves to their own dialect, and +spoke it, doubtless, with perfect propriety. However, in the present +instance, the _custode_ took the sentimental ebullition of the Maid of +Judah for an _amende honorable_, and rubbed his key complacently. + +I do not believe that our travels brought to Guy a single distraction to +the great sorrow that all the while held him fast. + +A German philosopher under similar circumstances would have written +reams and spoken volumes (eating and drinking all the while +Pantagruelically), theorizing and abstracting his emotions till they +vanished into cloud and vapor. A true disciple of Rousseau or Lamartine +would have analyzed his grief, dividing it into as many channels as +Alexander did the Oxus, till the main stream was lost, and each +individual rivulet might be crossed dry-shod. Both would have shed tears +perpetual and profuse. I read the other day of a Frenchman who, in the +midst of a mixed assembly, remembering that on that day ten years he had +lost a dear friend, instantly went out and wept bitterly. He was so +charmed with the happiness of the thought that, as he says, "I took the +resolution henceforth to weep for all whom I have loved, each on the +anniversary of their death." + +Can you conceive any thing more touching than the picture of the +Bereaved One consulting his almanac and then "going at it with a will?" +It _was_ an athletic performance certainly; but remember what condition +he must have been in from the constant training. + +From the episode of Niobe down to the best song in the "Princess," how +many beautiful lines have been devoted to those outward and visible +signs of sorrow? + +Sadder elegiacs, more pathetic threnodies might have been written on the +tears that were stifled at their source, either from pride or from +physical inability to let them flow. Great regrets, like great schemes, +are generally matured in the shade. If I had to choose the tombs where +most hopes and affections are buried, I should turn, I think, not to +those with the long inscriptions of questionable poetry or blameless +Latinity, but to where just the initials and a cross are cut on the +single stone. + +The philosophical and poetical mourners hardly suffered much more than +Guy did during those months, and for long after too, though he was +always quite silent on the subject, and would speak cheerfully on others +now and then, and though, from the day that he parted with Constance to +that of his own death, his eyes were as dry as the skies over the Delta. +He used to lie for hours in that state of utter listlessness which +gives a reality to the sad old Eastern proverb, "Man is better sitting +than standing, lying down than sitting, dead than lying down." + +With all this, however, his health improved every day. After the wild +life he had led lately, the perfect rest and the clear pure air +refreshed him marvelously. It had the effect of coming out of a room +heated and laden with smoke into the cool summer morning. His strength, +too, had returned almost completely. I found this out at Baiae. + +The guardian of the _Cento Camerelle_, a big _lazzarone_, became +inordinately abusive. My impression is that he had received about +fifteen times his due; but, seeing our yacht in the offing, he conceived +the idea that we were princes in our own country, and ought to be robbed +in his proportionally. Guy's eyes began to gleam at last, and he made a +step toward the offender. I thought he was going to be heavily visited; +but Livingstone only lifted him by the throat and held him suspended +against the wall, as you may see the children in those parts pin the +lizards in a forked stick. Then he let him drop, unhurt, but green with +terror. A year ago, a straightforward blow from the shoulder would have +settled the business in a shorter time, and worked a strange alteration +in good Giuseppe's handsome sunburnt face. But the old hardness of heart +was wearing away. I had another proof of this some days later. + +We were dropping down out of the Bay of Naples. Though we weighed anchor +in early morning, it was past noon before we cleared the Bocca di Capri, +for there was hardly wind enough to give the _Petrel_ steerage-way. The +smoke from our long Turkish pipes mounted almost straight upward, and +lingered over our heads in thin blue curls; yet the sullen, discontented +heave and roll in the water were growing heavier every hour. The black +tufa cliffs crested with shattered masonry--the foundations of the sty +where the Boar of Capreae wallowed--were just on our starboard quarter, +when Riddell, the master, came up to Livingstone. "I think we'd better +make all snug, sir," he said. "There's dirty weather to windward, and we +haven't too much sea-room." He was an old man-of-war's boatswain, and +had had a tussle, in his time, on every sea and ocean in the known +world, with every wind that blows. He had rather a contempt for the +Mediterranean, esteeming it just one degree above the Cowes Roads, and +attaching about as much importance to its vagaries as one might do to +the fractiousness of a spoiled child. If he had been caught in the most +terrible tempest that ever desolated the shores of the Great Lake, I +don't believe he would have called it any thing but "dirty weather." He +was too good a sailor, though, not to take all precautions, even if he +had been sailing on a piece of ornamental water; and he went quickly +forward to give the necessary orders, after getting a nod of assent from +Guy. + +The latter raised himself lazily on his arm, so as to see all round over +the low bulwarks. There was a blue-black bank of cloud rolling up from +the southwest. Puffs of wind, with no coolness in them, but dry and +uncertain as if stirred by some capricious artificial means, struck the +sails without filling them, and drove the _Petrel_ through the water by +fits and starts. + +"I really believe we are going to have a white squall," Guy remarked, +indifferently. "Well, we shall see how the boat behaves. Riddell only +spoke just in time." + +Suddenly his tone changed, and he said, quickly and decidedly, "Hold on +every thing!" + +The master turned his weatherwise eye toward the quarter where the +danger lay, and frowned. "We're none too soon with it, Mr. Livingstone. +If there's a yard too much canvas spread when _that_ reaches us, I won't +answer for the spars." + +Deeper and deeper the blackness came rushing down upon us, an angry +ridge of foam before it--the white squall showing its teeth. + +Guy took the old man by the arm, and pointed to an object to leeward +that none on board had remarked yet. It was a small _barca_ with four +men in it. They were Capriotes, as we found afterward, the boldest +boatmen in the Bay. Had they been pure-bred Neapolitans, they would have +been down on their faces long ago, screaming out prayers to a long +muster-roll of saints. As it was, they stood manfully to their oars, +straining every muscle to reach us; there was no other safety for them +then. "They will never get alongside in time, unless we bear down to +meet them," Livingstone said, "and what chance will they have in ten +minutes hence?" + +Riddell was only half satisfied. His creed evidently was that a sailor's +first duty is to his own ship; but neither he nor any one else ever +argued with Guy. "As you like, sir," he grumbled, somewhat +discontentedly. "Keep her full, Saunders; we shall fetch them so." + +If a stitch of sail had been taken off our vessel she could never have +reached the _barca_, though her crew strove hard to meet us. She forged +down slowly enough as it was, but we were just in time to take them on +board. + +"Reef every thing now!" Riddell shouted, leaping himself first into the +rigging like a wild-cat. "Cheerily, men--with a will!" All his ill-humor +was gone when the peril became imminent. + +We were strong-handed, and the four Capriotes did us seaman's service; +but it was "touch and go." The last man had scarcely reached the deck +when the line of foam was within half-cable's length. Then there came a +sound unlike any I had ever heard before in the elements, beginning with +a whistling sort of scream and deepening into a roar as of many angry +voices, bestial and human, striving for the mastery; and then the +_Petrel_ staggered and reeled over almost on her beam-ends, in the midst +of a white boiling caldron of mad water. She recovered herself, however, +quickly, quivering and trembling as a live creature might do after +severe punishment; and we drove on, the strong arms at the wheel keeping +her well before the blast. In a very few minutes, I suppose (though it +seemed very long), I heard old Riddell say, "Sharp while it lasted, Mr. +Livingstone; but they're right to call it a squall. They've nothing down +here-away like a good right down hard gale." + +I looked up, clearing my eyes, blinded with the hissing spray, just as +Guy answered, coolly as ever. He had run his arm through a becket, and +did not seem to have moved otherwise, whereas I disgraced myself by +falling at full length as the squall struck us. + +"Ah! you've got difficult to please; it's always so when one sees so +much of life. Never mind, Riddell, the Mediterranean does its best, and +perhaps we'll go and try your tornadoes some day. Where's the _barca_ +now?" + +Where? The eyes that could have told you that must have looked a hundred +fathoms deep. There was not the faintest vestige of such a thing to be +seen--not even a shivered plank. The poor Capriotes' "bread-winner" had +gone the way of Antonio's argosies--another whet to the all-devouring +appetite, for which nothing that swims is too large or too small. + +It was almost calm again when we landed the rescued men at Salerno; we +were glad to get rid of them, for their gratitude was overpowering, +especially as all the salt water that had soaked them could not disguise +the savor of their favorite herb. + +You may break, you may ruin the clay if you will, but the scent of the +garlic will cling to it still. + +Guy gave them enough to buy two such boats as they had lost--about as +much as one wins or loses in an evening's whist, with fair luck and +half-crown points. + +This incident showed the change that was coming over my companion. His +principle had always been that a man who could not help himself was not +worth helping. He never asked for aid himself, and never gave it to his +own sex, as a rule. I believe his rescuing me at B---- was a solitary +case, and I took it as a great compliment. You will say this one was +only an act of common humanity. If you had known the man, you would have +thought, as I did, that the words of her, who was an angel then, were +bearing fruit already. + +Nothing happened of the slightest interest as we ran down through the +Straits of Messina, and up the eastern coast of Calabria. We did not +stay to see Sicily then, for we had settled to be in Venice by a certain +day, to meet the Forresters. + +If I were to be seduced into "word-painting," the Queen of the Adriatic +would tempt me. I know no other scene so provocative of enthusiasm as +the square acre round St. Mark's. All things considered, the author of +the "Stones of Venice" seems very sufficiently rational and +cold-blooded. + +We can not all be romantic about landscapes. Nature has worshipers +enough not to grudge a few to Art. For myself, admiring both when in +perfection, I prefer hewn stones to rough rocks--the Canalazzo to _any_ +cascade. The glory of old days that clings round the Palace of the Doges +stands comparison, in my mind's eye, with the Iris of Terni. + +But why trench on a field already amply cultivated? I will never +describe any place till I find a virgin spot untouched by Murray, and +then I will send it to him, with my initials. Does such exist in Europe? +"Faith, very hardly, sir." _Nil intentatum reliquit._ What obligations +do we not owe to the accomplished compilers? Rarely rising into poetry +(I except "Spain"--the field, and bar one), never jocose, they move on, +severe in simplicity, straight to their solemn end of enlightening the +British tourist. Upright as Rhadamanthus, they hold the scales that +weigh the merits of cathedrals, hotels, ruins, guides, pictures, and +mountain passes, telling us what to eat, drink, and avoid. Let us repose +on them in blind but contented reliance. + +I heard of one man, clever but eccentric, who became so exasperated at +seeing the volumes in every body's hand, and hearing them in every +body's mouth, that he conceived a sort of personal enmity to them, +impiously dissenting from their conclusions and questioning their +premises. The well-known red cover at last had the same effect on him as +the scarlet cloak on the bull in the _corrida_, making him stamp and +roar hideously. The angry gods had demented him. _Vae misero!_ How could +such sacrilege end but badly? Braving and deriding the solemn warning of +the prophet, he attempted a certain pass in the Tyrol alone, and, losing +his way, caught a pleurisy which proved fatal. He died game, but, I am +sorry to say, impenitent, speaking blasphemy against the book with his +last breath. _Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere--_ + +Such heresy, be it far from me! If I had my will, I protest I would +found a "Murray's Traveling Fellowship" in one or both of the +Universities. If I had the poetic vein, I would indite a pendant to +Byron's iambics to that enlightened bibliopole. He published "Childe +Harold," and the Hand-book to Every Where. Could one man in one century +do more for the Ideal and the Real? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + "Sweetest lips that ever were kissed, + Brightest eyes that ever have shone, + May sigh and whisper, and _he_ not list, + Or look away, and never be missed + Long or ever a month be gone." + + +It was a very curious _menage_ that of the Forresters'. They were +wonderfully happy, yet you could not call theirs _domestic_ felicity. +They went out perpetually every where, and were scarcely ever alone +together at home. Tho cold-water cure of matrimony had not been able to +cool either down into the dignity and steadiness befitting that +honorable state. As far as I could see, Charley flirted as much as ever; +the only difference was, that he stole upon his victims now with a sort +of protecting and paternal air, merging gradually, as the interest +deepened, into the old confidential style. The whole effect was, if any +thing, more seductive than before. + +The fair Venetians admired him intensely. His bright, clear complexion +and rich chestnut hair had the charm of novelty for them. Though without +the faintest respect for grammar or idiom, he spoke their language with +perfect composure, confidence, and self-satisfaction, and his tones were +so well adapted to the slow, soft, languid tongue, that his blunders +sounded better than other men's correctness of speech. _Mallem +mehercule cum Platone errare_. When he said "_Si, Siora_," it seemed as +if he were calling the lady by a pet name. + +Isabel did a good deal of mischief too in her unassuming way, but I +think she confined her depredations chiefly to her compatriots. + +The best of it was, that neither objected in the least to the other's +proceedings, appearing, indeed, to consider them rather creditable than +otherwise. Perhaps it would be as well if this principle of reciprocal +free agency were somewhat extended, though not quite to the latitude to +which they carried it. + +We can not send our wives about surrounded by a detachment of semiviri +to keep the peace; our climate is too uncertain, and influenza too +prevalent, for us to watch their windows ourselves, as they do at Cadiz. +Fancy mounting guard in Eaton Square at 4 P.M., shrouded in a yellow +fog, on the chance of surprising a forbidden morning visitor! + +Supposing that we could adopt either of those methods, why should they +prove more efficacious than they are said to be on their native soil? If +the British husband will allow nothing for the principles, charitably +supposed by others to be inherent in the wife of his bosom--nothing for +the Damoclean damages hanging over the imaginary plotter against his +peace--why should he depreciate his own merits and powers so completely +as to consider himself out of the lists altogether? If he would only +desist from making himself consistently disagreeable, I believe, in most +cases, his substantial interest would be little endangered. + +That poor Hephaestus! The net was an ingenious device, and a pretty +piece of workmanship, but--it didn't answer. + +In despite of Mrs. Ellis, there are women whose mission it is _not_ to +be good housewives; they can't be useful if they would, any more than +May-flies can spin silk. Like them, they can attract fish (and sometimes +get snapped up if they go too close), that's all. If you marry them, you +must accept them as they are, and take your chance. Be generous, then, +and don't stop their waltzing. I believe there may be flirting without +the most distant idea of criminality--fencing with wooden foils, where +no blood is drawn. + +A lady was asked the other day "what she did when an admirer became too +lover-like." Her answer was, "I never had such a case." I think she +spoke the truth; yet she was a coquette renowned through a good part of +two hemispheres. + +As for the doubts and fears of the other sex, the subject is too vast +for me. To the end of time there will be Deianiras (with imaginary +Ioles), Zaras, and Mrs. Caudles. Tragedy and comedy have tried in vain +to frighten or to laugh them out of the indulgence of the fatal passion, +that wreaks itself indiscriminately on the beat and the worst, the +youngest and the oldest, the simplest and the most guileful of adult +males. Let us not attempt to argue, then, but, wrapping ourselves in our +virtue, endure as best we may the groundless reproaches and accusations +of our ox-eyed Junos. + +We _did_ Venice very severely, with the exception of Forrester, who, +after strolling once through the Palace of the Doges (a pilgrimage +interrupted by many halts and profuse lamentations), declined seeing any +thing more than what he could view from his gondola. I never saw any +one so completely at home in that most delicious of conveyances. His +Venetian friends encouraged and sympathized with him in his laziness, +and pitied him with eyes and words, forever being teased about it. +Indeed, he was generally left alone; but one day we were landing to see +a church of great repute, and Miss Devereux made a strong appeal to him +to follow her. She was a handsome, clever girl, a great favorite of +Charley's. I believe they used to quarrel and make it up again about six +times in every twenty-four hours. We saw that it was hopeless, but she +was obstinate enough to try and persuade him. + +"Now, Captain Forrester, you must come. I have set my heart upon it." + +He lifted his long eyelashes in a languid satisfaction. "Thank you very +much; I like people to be interested about me; but you see it's simply +impossible. Look at Rinaldo; there's a sensible example for you. He +doesn't mean to stir till he is obliged to do so." The handsome +gondolier had already couched, to enjoy a bask in the sun, which was +blazing fiercely down on his brown face and magnificent black hair. + +"There is the most perfect Titian," she persisted. + +"No use. I should not appreciate it," he replied. "I have been through a +gallery _with you_ before. It's a delusion and a snare. I never looked +at a single picture. The canvas won't stand the comparison." + +"I did not think you would have refused me," Miss Devereux went on, +"particularly after last night, when you were so very--amusing." She +hesitated out the last word with a blush. It evidently was not the +adjective that ought to have closed the sentence. + +"Amusing!" replied Charley, plaintively. "You need not say any more. I +am crushed for the day. I meant to be especially touching and pathetic. +Well, there's some good in every thing, though. I entertained an angel +unawares." + +"I shall know how far to believe you another time, at all events," she +retorted, getting rather provoked. + +"Don't be unjust," said Forrester, profoundly regardless of the fact +that his wife was within three paces of them. "I said I was ready to die +for you. So I am. You may fix the time, but I may choose the place. If +you insist upon it, I'll make an end of it now--here." And he settled +himself deeper into the pile of cushions. + +We had no patience to listen to any more, but went off to perform our +duty. Long before he had exhausted his arguments against moving, we had +returned. Margaret Devereux missed seeing the church and its Titian, but +she got a "great moral lesson." She never wasted her pretty pleadings in +such a hopeless cause again. + +I remember, when we mounted the Campanile, the solemn way in which he +wished us _buon viaggio_. When we reached the top, we made out his +figure reclining on many chairs in front of "Florian's." + +He saw us, too, and lifted the glass before him to his lips with a wave +of approval and encouragement, just as they do at Chamounix when the +telescopes make out a few black specks on the white crests of the +mountain. When we came down, he stopped us before we could say one +word. "Yes, I know--it was magnificent. Bella, I see you are going to +rave about the view. If you do, I'll shut you up for a week _en +penitence_, and feed you on nothing but 'Bradshaw' and water." + +We spent a very pleasant month in Venice. It did Guy good being with the +Forresters. He had always been very fond of his cousin, and she seemed +to suit him better than any one else now. She would sit by him for +hours, talking in her low, caressing tones, that soothed him like a cool +soft hand laid on a forehead fever-heated. Isabel was not afraid of him +now, but a great awe mingled with her pity. + +It is curious, and tells well perhaps for our human nature; neither +pride of birth, nor complete success, nor profound wisdom, surrounds a +man with such reverence as the being possessed with a great sorrow. At +least no one can envy him; and so those who were his enemies once--like +the gallant Frenchman when he saw his adversary's empty sleeve--bring +their swords to the salute, and pass on. + +At last we started for Rome, our party nearly filling two carriages. +There are only two ways of traveling: in your own carriage, with courier +and fourgon, like Russian or transatlantic noble, or with vetturino. +This last mode, which was ours, is scarcely less pleasant, if you are +not in a hurry. The charm of having, for a certain period, every care as +to ways and means off your mind, compensates for the six-miles-an-hour +pace. So we moved slowly southward through Verona, where one thinks more +of the Avon than the Adige--where, in tombs poised like Mohammed's +coffin, the mighty Scagliari sleep between earth and heaven, as if not +quite fit for either--where are the cypresses in the trim old garden, +soaring skyward till the eyes that follow grow dizzy, the trees that +were green and luxuriant years before the world was redeemed. So through +Mantua and Bologna down to Florence, where, I think, the spirits of +Catharine and Cosmo linger yet, the women and the men all so soft-toned, +and silky, and sinful, and cruel. We did not stay long there, for we had +all visited it before once or twice, but kept on our way, by the upper +road, to Rome, till we reached our last halting-place--Civita +Castellana. + +We were gathered round the wood fire after dinner (for the October +evenings grew chilly as they closed in); I don't know how it was that +Forrester began telling us about their flight. + +"You ought to have seen Bella's baggage," he said, at last; "it was so +compact. You can't fancy any thing so tiny as the _sac de nuit_. A +courier's moneybag would make two of it. Then a vast cloak, and that's +all. Quite in light marching order." + +"I wonder you are not ashamed to talk about baggage," his wife retorted. +"When we got to Dover, there was his servant with four immense +portmanteaus and a dressing-case nearly as large, waiting for us. Was it +not romantic?" + +"Bah!" Charley said. "A man must have his comforts, even if he is +eloping. I am sure I arranged every thing superbly. I don't know how I +did it--an undeveloped talent for intrigue, I suppose." + +"Was it not kind of him to take so much trouble?" Isabel asked, quite +innocently, and in perfect good faith, I am sure; but her husband +pinched the little pink ear that was within his reach. + +"She means to be sarcastic," he said. "You've spoiled her, Guy. If I had +had time to deliberate, though, I don't think I should ever have come to +the post. I wonder how any one stands the training." + +"I'll tell you what would have suited you exactly," Livingstone +remarked--"to have been one of those men in the Arabian Nights, who wake +and find themselves at a strange city's gate, 10,000 leagues from home, +to whom there comes up a venerable vizier, saying, 'My son, heaven has +blessed me with one daughter, a very pearl of beauty; many have sought +her in marriage, but in vain. Your appearance pleases me, and I would +have you for my son-in-law.'" + +"Exactly," said Forrester. "I should not have minded turning out +somebody else's child eventually--(they all did that, didn't they?)--for +such a piece of luck as to be taken in and done for off-hand, without +the trouble of thinking about it." + +Instead of looking vexed, Isabel laughed merrily, and her eyes glittered +as they rested on him, full of a proud, loving happiness. + +"The best of it was," Charley went on, "she was in the most dreadful +state of alarm and excitement all the way to Dover, looking out at every +station, under the impression that she should see the bridegroom there, +'dangling his bonnet and plume' (though how he was to have got ahead of +us, unless he came by electric telegraph, does not appear). What sport +it would have been! I should have liked so to have seen the 'laggard in +love' once more." + +"He was not quite _that_," Isabel interrupted, rather mischievously. + +"Ah! I dare say you kept him up to the traces," her husband remarked, +languidly. "You have a talent that way. What 'passages,' as Varney +called them, there must have been, eh! Guy? We won't hear your +confession now, Puss. In pity to Mademoiselle Aglaee's eyes (which are +very fine), if not to your own (which are very useful), I think you had +better go to bed. That ferocious vetturino will have us up at unholy +hours, and is not to be mitigated." + +We sat talking for a little while after Isabel left us; then Forrester +rose and strolled to the window. The flood of light that poured in when +he drew the curtain was quite startling, making the three beaked oil +lamps look smoky and dim. + +"I shall smoke my last cigar _al fresco_," Charley said; "I suppose it's +the correct thing to do, with such a moon as that. Won't you come, Guy? +I must not tempt you out into the night air, Hammond." + +"Not to-night," Livingstone answered. "I am not in the humor for +admiring any thing. I should be rather in your way." + +One of his gloomy fits was coming over him, at which times he always +chose to be alone. + +"Well, I shall go and consume the 'humble, but not wholly heart-broken +weed of every-day life,' as Tyrrell used to say. (Don't you remember his +double-barreled adjectives?) If you hear any one singing _very_ sweetly, +don't be alarmed; you'll know it is the harmless lunatic who now +addresses you; the fit won't last more than an hour. We shall be in Rome +to-morrow. The only thing on my mind now is whether I shall find any +thing there to carry me across the Campagna. K---- has a very fair pack, +I understand, and no end of foxes." + +Have you ever watched the completion of a photograph, when the nitrate +of silver (or whatever the last lotion may be) is applied? First one +feature comes out, that you may indulgently mistake for a tree, or a +gable-end, or a mountain top; then another, till the whole picture +stands out in clear, brilliant relief. + +Just so when I recall that scene--little heed as I took at the time of +them--every gesture, and look, and tone of Forrester's becomes as +distinct as if he stood in the body before me now. I can see him +standing in the shadow of the doorway, the red glare from the blazing +wood with which he was lighting his cigar falling over his delicate +features and bright chestnut hair--I can hear his kind soft voice as he +speaks these last two words, "_Al rivederci_." + +Whether that wish will be accomplished hereafter, God alone can tell; if +so, it must be beyond the grave. In life we never saw him any more. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + "But time at length makes all things even, + And if we do but bide the hour, + There never yet was human power + That could evade, if unforgiven, + The patient search and vigil long + Of him who treasures up a wrong." + + +Three quarters of an hour later, Guy was sitting in his room, gazing at +the embers on the hearth, in the attitude of moody thought that of late +he was apt to fall into. Suddenly there came a timid knock at his door. +When he opened it, his cousin stood on the threshold--ghost-like, +against the background of darkness, with her white dressing-gown, pale +cheeks, and long hair unbound. + +"Guy, don't be angry," she said; "it's very foolish of me, I know; but +Charley has not come in yet, and just now I am certain there was a shot +quite near. Aglaee heard nothing, but I did. You know he always carries a +pistol. I made him do so. It is nothing, I am sure; but I am so +frightened. If you would--" + +She tried to smile, but that ghastly look of terror that he had seen +once before, long ago, in the library at Kerton Manor, again swept over, +and possessed all her face like a white chill mist. + +"Don't be absurd, you silly child," Guy said, kindly. "Of course I'll go +out directly, and bring him in in five minutes, to laugh at you. Now go +back to your room; there's nothing on earth to be alarmed about." + +But the instant she had gone, I heard his voice quick and stern: "Frank, +come here." There was a door of communication between our rooms, and, +though it was closed, I had caught some words of this conversation, so I +was ready nearly as soon as he. Guy only staid to take a short +lance-wood club, headed with a spiked steel head, which was his constant +traveling companion--a very simple weapon, but deadly in his hands as +the axe of Richard the King--and then we sallied out, taking our +servants and some other men that were below, with torches, in case the +moon should fail us unexpectedly. + +Twice, three times, when we had gone a short distance, Livingstone +shouted Forrester's name. His powerful voice rang far through the +ravines, and struck against the rocks, rolling and reverberating in +their hollows like a blast fired in a deep mine; but no answer came. + +I looked at my companion very nervously. He never spoke, but I saw him +gnaw his under lip till the blood ran down. + +We had gone a hundred paces or so farther along a narrow path outside +the town. On our right the cliff fell almost abruptly toward the river. +Guy was a few paces in front, when suddenly there broke from his lips +such a sound as I have never heard from those of any mortal before or +since. + +It is impossible to describe it. It was utterly involuntary, as if some +spirit had spoken within the man--a cry of horror and of unspeakable +wrath, such as might have burst from the chest of one of the Old-World +giants, when the rock fell from heaven that crushed him like a worm. The +Italians, used to every tone that can express passion, shrunk and +cowered back in terror. + +Our eyes all followed the direction of his, that were staring down upon +a flat open space, clear from brush-wood, down in the hollow on our +right. Our search was ended, and we knew it. The moon, that flickered +and quivered elsewhere through bough and brake, settled there steadily +on a single white spot. + +In all the world there is but one object on which she can cast so +ghastly a reflection--a dead man's face. + +Guy recovered himself first, and plunged recklessly down the cliff side. +When we reached him, he was supporting on his knee the head of poor +Charley Forrester, stone dead, and foully murdered. + +The first glance told how unavailing all human aid must be. One small +deep wound just above the left temple must have been fatal instantly. +Close by his side lay the instrument of the slaughter--a thin, +triangular piece of granite--and, ten paces off, his pistol, one barrel +discharged. His watch and (as we afterward found) his purse were gone, +but an emerald ring of great value was still untouched on his finger. + +I staggered back, heart-sick and faint. When I recovered I saw dimly the +group of men, awe-stricken and whispering, and Guy still gazing down at +the face that rested on his knee, as if it fascinated his eyes. I could +not bear to look upon the piteous sight. All through the bright hair the +dark blood had soaked, and a slow stream was stealing through it still; +the fair features were all defaced and deformed with the wrath and +agony of the last mortal struggle. Yet I do remember that, if any one +definite expression still lingered there, it was bitter contempt and +scorn. + +"In God's name, sir, what is to be done?" It was Hardy who spoke, poor +Forrester's own servant, the only Englishman among our attendants. He +was choking, and could hardly gasp out the words. + +Livingstone rose slowly, first pillowing the mangled head on a soft tuft +of moss, tenderly as if it were conscious still. His nature was such +that no shock, or pain, or sorrow to which humanity is liable, could +bend or quell it, so as to deprive him, beyond a brief instant, of +self-possession and calmness. It was not insensibility now, and hardly +stoicism, but an elasticity of resistance and strength of endurance +that, in my own knowledge, have never been matched. In history or in +Indian life you might find many parallels. + +He answered quite steadily, though in a low tone, as if reverencing the +presence of the dead. + +"There is no hope. It is useless to send for a surgeon. Hardy, you will +take all the men whom you can collect and scour the country. Send to the +_sbirri_ immediately; they will go with you. There must be traces of the +murderer. Frank, will you see that--he--is brought carefully to the +house? I will"--he stopped, and drew a long, hard breath--"I will go and +break it to Isabel." His hand, that happened to touch mine as he spoke, +was damp and icy cold. + +In his life Guy Livingstone had done and dared more than most men, but +he never ventured on any thing so thoroughly brave, and valiant, and +strong-hearted as when he left me, without another word, on that +errand. For myself, though weak both in body and nerve, I swear I would +rather have gone up the breach at Badajoz with the forlorn hope, than up +that bank with the certainty before me of what awaited him. + +Trees overhanging, and high walls on either side, and the change from +the bright moonlight, made it so dark just as you approached the inn +that Guy scarcely saw a white figure crouching down a few paces from the +door till he was close upon it. + +He threw his arm round Isabel Forrester's waist before she could pass +him. Half his task was done; there was nothing to break to her now. She +understood all when she saw him come back alone. + +For a few moments, there they stood in the dark, no word passing between +them; the only sound was her quick panting, as she struggled in his +grasp, battling to get free. + +"Isabel," he said, at last, gravely, "come in; I must speak to you." + +No answer still, but the same desperate struggle to get loose. There was +a savage, supernatural power in her writhings that taxed even his +gigantic strength to hold her; as it was, he yielded unconsciously to +her impulse so as to recede some paces till they issued out into the +moonlight. He could scarcely recognize her features; they were all +working and contorted, the lips especially horribly drawn back and +tense. She bent her head down at last, and made her teeth meet in the +arm that detained her. + +Guy never flinched nor stirred, but spoke again in the same slow, +deliberate tone. + +"Isabel, come in. I swear that you shall see him when it is safe. They +are bringing him back now." + +She ceased struggling and stood straight up, shaking all over, straining +her eyes forward to the turning in the path where the torches began to +gleam. + +"Is he not dead, then?" she said, in a strange, harsh voice, utterly +unlike her own. Her cousin did not try to delude her; all the stern +outline of his face softening in an intense pity told her enough. + +Such a scream--weird, long drawn out, and unearthly, such as we fancy the +Banchee's--as that which pierced through my very marrow (though I stood +three hundred yards away, as if it had been uttered close at my ear), I +trust I shall never hear again. + +Then followed the contrast of a great stillness; for, as the last +accents died away on her lips, Isabel sank down, without a struggle, +into a dead swoon. + +A sad satisfaction came into Guy's face. "It is best so," he muttered; +"I hope she won't wake for an hour," and he carried her into the house. +They were trying to revive her, unsuccessfully, when I reached it with +those who bore the corpse on a litter of pine branches. By Guy's +directions, it was laid on his own bed; and there the Italian women +rendered the last offices to the dead man, weeping and wailing over him +as though he had been a brother or dear friend--only for his rare +beauty--even as the Moorish girls mourned over that fair-faced Christian +knight whom they found lying, rolled in blood, by the rock of Alpujarro. + +Soon they came to tell Guy that Isabel was recovering from her swoon. +She was hardly conscious when he entered the room, and he heard her +moaning, "I am so cold, so cold," shivering all over, though she was +warmly wrapped in cloaks and shawls. + +The village doctor, a mild, helpless-looking man, was sitting by her +bedside. He tried to feel her pulse just then, I suppose to show that he +could be of some use; but she shrunk away from him, and beckoned to her +cousin to come near. He motioned to the others to leave them alone, and, +kneeling down by her, took her hand in his. + +"Guy, dear," she said, "I know I have been so very wicked and ungrateful +to you; but you must not be angry. I have no one left to take care of me +but you, now. I will try to be patient; indeed, indeed I will." Her +voice was faint and exhausted, but as gentle as ever. + +He held her hand faster, and bent his forehead down upon it. + +"You are not wicked--only too weak to bear your sorrow. If I only knew +what to do to comfort you! But I am so rough and harsh, even when I mean +to be kind. I can say nothing, either. I suppose you ought to submit, +but I can not tell you how; it is a lesson I have never been able to +learn." + +"You can do this," she said. "Let me go to him. Ah! don't refuse. I will +be calm and good. Indeed I will. But I must go"--she sank her voice into +a lower whisper yet--"I have not kissed him to-night." + +There was something so unspeakably piteous in her tone and in her +imploring eyes, that had grown quite soft again, though no tears had +moistened them, that Guy could hardly answer her. + +"I did not mean to refuse you, dear," he said, at last. "I won't even +ask you to wait. If you are not strong enough to walk, I will carry +you." + +She rose slowly and painfully, as if her limbs were stiff with cold; but +she could stand, and walk with his arm round her; and so these two moved +slowly along the deserted passages toward the room where the corpse lay. + +There was nothing shocking in its appearance now. All the traces of +murder had been washed away, and they had arranged the silky chestnut +hair till it concealed the wound, and fell in smooth waves over the +white forehead. That sweet calm which will sometimes descend on the face +of the dead, even when their end has been violent--the sad _Alpen-gluth_ +that comes only when the sun has set--was there in all its beauty. Save +that the features were somewhat sharper than in life, there was nothing +to mar their pure classical outline. It was well, indeed, that Guy held +her back two hours ago. If Isabel had looked on them then, I believe she +would have gone mad with terror, if not with sorrow. It matters much, +the expression of a face, when it is sure to mingle in our dreams for +many after years. + +Guy led her up to the bedside, and left the room as she sank down on her +knees. He remained outside the closed door, for he thought she might +need help if her strength failed suddenly; and I joined him there. + +For some time we heard only the quick, stormy sobs, and the kisses +showering down; then came the piteous, heart-broken wail that called +upon her husband's name; and then the great gush of tears that saved +her. After that there was a murmur, often broken off but always +renewed: we both bowed our heads reverently, for we knew the widow was +praying. + +She came forth at length, her head buried in her hands; but she could +walk to her room unassisted, and allowed them to undress her there, +without a word but thanks. Before long nature would have her way, and +she was sleeping quietly. + +While we were waiting the return of the men who had gone out in pursuit, +Livingstone went alone into the death-chamber. He staid there some +minutes. When he came out his face was paler than ever, and there was a +sort of horror in his eyes. + +He took my arm and led me into the room without speaking. "Do you see +that?" he asked, lifting the hair gently that fell over the left check +of the corpse. + +Distinctly and lividly marked on the waxen flesh were the five fingers +of a man's _open hand_. + +"Do you think that was a brigand's work?" he went on, his gripe +tightening till I could scarcely bear the pain. "They always strike with +a weapon or with the clenched fist. Shall I tell you whose mark that is? +Bruce's. If he did not murder him himself, he struck him after he was +dead." + +"Impossible," I said; "how could he? He has never--" + +Livingstone cast my arm loose somewhat impatiently. "We shall know all +some day," he growled, his whole face black with passion. "I am +convinced of it. If he's on earth I'll find him; and when I do, if I +show him mercy or let him go--" The imprecation that followed was not +less solemn and terrible because it was muttered to his own heart. + +"We must never let Isabel guess the truth," he said, when he became +calmer. "It would be worse than all. She would always think she had +caused this, and she has enough to bear up against already. God help +her!" + +Soon Aglaee came to tell us that her mistress was asleep. The +Frenchwoman's first impulse had been to be hysterical and helpless; it +was only her terror of Guy prevailing over all others that made her, as +she was, very useful. + +He went to the door for an instant, and looked at Isabel. Dreamland was +kinder and pleasanter to her than real life, poor child, for there was a +smile on her lips that, when she was waking, would be long in visiting +them. How would ships or men ever last out if there were not some +harbors of refuge to rest in before going out into the wild weather +again? Truly she had won hers for the moment; it looked as if an angel +had come down to smooth, this time, instead of troubling the waters. + +The pursuers came back empty-handed; they had not come upon the faintest +trace, nor could they hear of any suspicious character having been seen +in the neighborhood. + +Guy betrayed no impatience when he heard this; but he went out himself +with some of the best men, and spent the rest of the night and all the +following morning on the quest. All to no purpose. He returned about +noon, with his companions quite fagged out; but fatigue and +sleeplessness seemed to have no grasp upon his frame. + +Isabel was up, and had been asking for him several times. When he saw +her, she offered no opposition to his wish to go on straight to Rome the +next day. Neither then nor at any future time did she ever ask for any +particulars of her husband's death. + +Her old child-like dependence and trust in her cousin had come back, and +all through the journey she was quite tranquil. It is true, we hardly +ever saw her face, for her veil was closely drawn. Her grief was not the +less painful to witness because it was so little demonstrative. Very old +and very young women, in the plenitude of their benevolence, are good +enough to sympathize with any tale of woe, however absurdly exaggerated; +but men, I think, are most moved by the simple and quiet sorrows. We +smile at the critical point of a spasmodic tragedy, complacently as the +Lucretian philosopher looking down from the cliff on the wild sea; we +yawn over the wailings of Werter and Raphael, but we ponder gravely over +the last chapters of the _Heir of Redclyffe_, and feel a curious +sensation in the throat--perhaps the slightest dimness of vision--when +we read in _The Newcomes_ how that noble old soldier crowned the +chivalry of a stainless life, dying in the Gray Brother's gown. + +There were many at Rome who had known Forrester and loved him well, and +all these followed him to his grave. I do not think he had an enemy on +earth except the man who slew him. + +What are the qualifications of a general favorite? Good looks, good +birth, good-humor, and good assurance will do much; but the want of one +or more of these will not invalidate the election, nor the union of all +four insure it. It must be very pleasant to serve in the _compagnie +d'elite_. They have privileges to which the Line may not aspire. It does +not much matter what they do. Their victories make them no enemies, and +their defeats raise them up hosts of sympathizers and apologists. When +they err gravely, if you hint at the misdemeanor, a "true believer" +looks at you indignantly, not to say contemptuously, and says, "What +could you expect? It's only poor--" Yes, it is a great gift--Amiability; +and when the possessor dies, it is profoundly true that better men might +be better spared. + +Very soon Raymond came to take his daughter back to England. That calm +old calculating machine was more deranged and shocked by the catastrophe +than I should have thought it possible he would have been by any earthly +disaster. He was getting older now, and more broken, it is true, and so, +perhaps, was more accessible to the weakness of sympathy. At all events, +nothing could be kinder and more considerate than his conduct to Isabel. + +Guy and I still lingered on in Rome. He was untiring in his researches, +but quite unsuccessful. Yet it was not that the police were remiss, or +the country people inclined to shield the murderer. The best of them +would have sold his own father to the guillotine for half the reward +offered by Livingstone, for he lavished as much gold in trying to clear +up that crime as in old days the Cenci or Colonna did to smother theirs. +At length we were forced to give it up, and returned home in the +_Petrel_. I own I despaired of ever being more successful; but my +companion evidently had not done so, for I heard him, more than once, +mutter to himself, in the same low, determined tone, "If he is on +earth, I'll find him." + +Immediately on our arrival, Guy went up to Bruce's home in Scotland. He +only learned that the latter had not been there for a long time; but +that some months back, Allan Macbane, a sort of steward and old +dependent of the family, had left suddenly, summoned, it was supposed, +by his master. More the people could not or would not tell. + +At his banker's it was discovered that, immediately after the +Forresters' marriage, he had drawn out a very large sum--not in letters +of credit, but in bank-notes--and had not been heard of since. After +much trouble, we did find out that one of the large notes had been +changed at Florence about the time of the murder, but the description of +the person did not answer in the least to that of Bruce or the man who +was supposed to be his attendant. All trace stopped there. So the months +rolled away. I constantly saw Guy, and sometimes was with him both in +town and at Kerton, where Isabel was staying with Lady Catharine. He +still appeared to have no doubt of the ultimate result of the search, +which, personally or by deputy, he never intermitted for a day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + "He threw + His wrathful hand aloft, and cried 'Away! + Earth could not hold us both, nor can one heaven + Contain my deadliest enemy and me.'" + + +We were sitting in Livingstone's chambers one night in the following +March, and dinner was just over, when the detective was announced who +for months had been in Guy's pay and on Bruce's track. + +He was a stout, hale man, rather past middle age, with a rosy face, a +cheerful, moist eye, and full, sensual lips--just the proper person to +return thanks for "The Successful Candidates" at an agricultural +meeting. Originally of a kindly convivial nature, he had grown familiar +with crime till he despised it. The reward set upon the criminal's +capture was his only standard of guilt. He took a real pleasure in the +chase, I imagine, but had no preference for any game in particular, and +was quite indifferent whether the cover he had to draw was a saloon or a +cellar. He would hunt a fraudulent bankrupt or a parricide with equal +zeal, and, when he had caught him, be just as jocularly affable with the +one as with the other. In a drama of life and death, the fierce passions +of the actors were only so many gleams of light showing him where the +right path lay, for which assistance he thanked them heartily. The +foulest mysteries of the sinful human heart touched and shocked him no +more than the evidences of disease do the dissecting surgeon: with both +it was a simple question of defective organization. The possession of +secrets, far less weighty than some that he never told, have made men +look worn, and miserable, and gray; but he would pat his corpulent +leather pocket-book with a self-sufficient satisfaction, scarcely +hinting that the publication of its contents would have caused more +devastation in some well-regulated families than the bursting of a +ten-inch shell in their front drawing-room. + +His lips and eyes wore a smile pleasantly significant as he entered, +and, before he could speak, Guy leaped up, waving his hand high in +irrepressible triumph. "I told you so, Frank. I knew we should find him. +Come--come quickly." He was more excited than I had seen him in the last +dozen years. + +I exulted too, but I confess a certain repugnance and nervousness +mingled with that feeling: it was a new thing to me to stand face to +face with a murderer. + +Neither of us gave as much attention as it deserved to the narrative +with which the officer favored us _en route_, of how he had been +gradually getting the clew to the fugitive's many doublings and +disguises till he came upon his retreat at last. "They mostly make for +home when they're dead beat," he remarked, alluding to Bruce's having +selected London as his final hiding-place. + +We soon reached the spot--one of those dreary by-ways that trend +westward out of the Waterloo Road. As we drew up, the outline of a +figure revealed itself out of the darkest nook of the dim street, and a +man came forward and opened the door of the cab, interchanging a word +or two with our companion. + +As we got out, the detective laid his hand on Guy's arm. "Gently, sir," +he said. "You must be careful. We've not quite so much proof as I could +wish. It would be straining a point to arrest him as it stands. I'd do +it though--_for you_. Get him to talk, and don't hurry him; he's safe to +commit himself; and we'll nail him at the first word. My comrade says he +has not left his bed since yesterday. Perhaps he's ill. All the better. +We can frighten him if we get his man out of the way." + +Guy's hand was on the bell before the last words were said, and he rang +it sharply. The two officers drew back into the shadow. + +In a few moments an old man opened the door, whom we guessed to be +Bruce's attendant. He had one of those stubborn, rough-hewn faces that +even white hair can not soften any more than hoar-frost can the outline +of a granite crag. + +"What's ye're wull?" he drawled out, in the rugged Aberdeen Doric. + +"I wish to see Mr. Bruce." + +"No sic a pairson here," was the reply, accompanied by a vigorous effort +to close the door. + +A heavy groan, proceeding from a room on the ground floor, gave him the +lie as he spoke. Guy threw up his head like a hound breaking from scent +to view, and thrust Macbane back violently. The old man staggered and +fell; but he clung round Livingstone's knees, as he groveled, till he +was actually trampled down. There was a difficulty in the lock +somewhere; but bolt and staple were torn away in an instant by the +furious hand that grasped the handle, and so at last we stood in the +presence of the man we had sought so long. + +Do you remember that hideous picture in Hogarth's "Two Apprentices," +where the sleeping robber is alarmed by the crash in the chimney? That +was exactly Bruce's attitude. He had started into a sitting posture, and +was braced up on his hands, his face thrust forward, half covered by the +straight unkempt hair. What a face it was! White and flecked with +sweat-drops, marbled here and there with livid stains, the lips +quivering and working till they twisted themselves sometimes into a +ghastly mockery of a smile, the long teeth gleaming more wolfish than +ever. The iris of the prominent eyes had grown yellowish, and the whites +were bloodshot, so that the light seemed to flash from them _tawnily_. + +Bruce had always been very much afraid of Livingstone. His terror had +gone on increasing during months of relentless pursuit; it had reached +its climax now. Guy stood at the foot of the bed, contemplating the +unhappy wretch with a cruel calmness that seemed to drive him wild. He +writhed and cowered under the fixed gaze, as if it gave him physical +pain. + +"What are you here for?" he screamed out at last. + +In strong contrast to the shrill, strained voice, the answer came slow +and stern. "To arrest Charles Forrester's murderer." + +Then Bruce seemed to lose his head all at once, and began to rave. It is +impossible to transcribe the string of protestations, prayers for mercy, +and horrible blasphemies; but there was enough of self-betrayal to +complete the proof we wanted ten times told. The detective chuckled +more complacently than ever as he insinuated the handcuffs round +Macbane's wrists. Over all Bruce's cries, I remember, the old man's +harsh voice made itself heard, "Whisht, whisht, I tell ye, and keep a +quiet tongue; they canna harm ye." The other did not seem to hear him, +or to notice his removal by the officers, muttering, as he went, that +"we had driven his master mad, and were killing him." + +Livingstone waited patiently till the outbreak had spent itself; then he +said, "Get up, and come with us instantly. You shall finish your night +in Newgate." + +Tho sick man lay back for some moments with his eyes closed, panting and +evidently quite exhausted. When he opened his eyes there was a +steadiness in them which surprised us. He spoke, too, quite calmly. "I +do not mean to deny any thing, nor to resist, even if I could. I am +tired of running away; it is as well over; but I was taken by surprise +at first. Guy Livingstone, do you choose to listen to me for five +minutes? My head is clear now. I do not know how long it will last; but +I do know that, after to-night, I will never speak about Forrester's +death one word." + +"Will you tell me how you killed him?" Livingstone asked, controlling +his voice wonderfully. + +"That is what I wish to do," Bruce said. I believe he was glad of the +opportunity of showing us how much we had misjudged him in thinking him +harmless, for a curious sort of grin was hovering about his mouth. Guy, +whose eyes were bent down at the moment, did not see it, or the tale +would never have been told. + +"You know how you were all against me at Kerton," he began. "She did +not care for me then, perhaps; but I would have been so patient and +persevering that she must have loved me at last--only you never gave me +fair play. Ah! do you think, because I was ugly and awkward, I had no +chance?" + +"No; but because she knew you were a coward," Guy said. + +There was something grand in the utter indifference with which Bruce met +the insult. + +"You are wrong," he replied, coolly; "she did not know it. You all did, +and reckoned on my being long-suffering and inoffensive. I saw, at last, +what Forrester had done; yet I never guessed but that she would marry +me. I trusted to her father and her own fears for keeping her straight. +After marriage I would have tried still what great love and tenderness +could do. I meant--never mind what I meant--it's all over now. I was +nearly mad for a week after their flight. Then I became quite cool, and +I said, 'I will kill him myself.' And so I did. Mind, I swear, Allan +knew nothing of it till all was done. I thought I should be brave enough +for that. Fifty times during the months that I tracked them, always +changing my disguise, I nearly caught him alone; but each time I was +balked. Wherever they went, I watched under their windows for the chance +of his coming out; but I only saw--" + +He gnashed his teeth, and rolled over and over in a paroxysm of jealous +recollection. We guessed what he meant. Then he went on: "That night he +sauntered backward and forward for some time. I thought he would not go +far enough away, and I called to the devil to help me. He did; for, very +soon, Forrester walked straight down the path. I crept after him till +he had gone some hundred yards--my heart was beating so quickly that I +could hardly breathe--then I ran forward and stood before him. I had +taken off the black wig and beard that I always wore, and he knew me +directly. + +"'Mr. Bruce, I believe?' he said, raising his hat, just as if he had met +me by appointment. + +"'Yes,' I said. 'I have got you at last, as I wished.' I tried to speak +as steadily as he had done; but, as the moment for action came near, my +d----d cowardice made me stammer. + +"'I am not invisible, as a rule,' he replied. 'You, or any friend of +yours, might have found me long ago. You have been some time making up +your mind. It's that unfortunate constitutional--caution, I suppose. +Well, I'll meet you in Rome: it's more than you deserve.' + +"'You'll fight me here--now,' I said. + +"'I shall do nothing half so melodramatic,' he answered. 'I'll give you +a fair chance on the ground; but, if you do not move out of my path now, +I'll shoot you as I would any other disagreeable ruffian,' and he put +his hand into his breast, where, I knew, he carried a pistol. + +"I _was_ brave then. I sprang in upon him all at once. 'You may shoot +now, if you like,' I said. 'I swear I am quite unarmed. But show _that_ +to your wife when you go back,' and I struck him with my open hand." + +(I remembered the mark on the corpse's cheek, and looked at Guy eagerly. +I could not see his face, which was hidden by the curtain, but all his +lower limbs were shaking and quivering.) + +"I thought how it would be," Bruce went on; "he drew his hand out with +the pistol in it, but he only flung it over the bank--one barrel went +off in the fall--then we grappled. After wrestling for a minute or two +on the narrow path, we lost our footing and rolled down the rocks; +neither quitted his hold, but I fell uppermost and kept him down. He +struggled desperately at first; but when he found that I was much the +stronger, he lay quite still, looking up into my face. I said, 'It's my +turn at last. Do you think I'll let you off?' + +"He did not answer at first. I believe he would not till he had quite +recovered his breath; then he said, coolly, 'No, I don't. Finish it +quickly, if you can, that's all.' I would have delayed a little, to +enjoy my triumph, but I thought the pistol-shot might bring some one; so +I tightened my gripe on his throat, and looked round for a weapon. I +found none at first, and my purpose actually began to soften when I saw +him so helpless; but, as I relaxed my fingers, I heard him whisper to +himself, 'Poor Bella! we have been very happy: I wish we had more +time--' I got mad again directly. 'D--n you!' I cried out, 'I'll kill +you now, and marry her some day.' His old insolent smile came on his +lip. 'No you won't,' he said; 'you don't know how she hates you, and how +we have laughed--' He had no time to say more, for I found my weapon +then--a stone triangular and sharp-pointed like a dagger--and I struck +him over the temple with all my force. He gave one convulsive spring +that threw me clear of him, and never stirred again. + +"I did not repent when it was done; I have never repented since; I do +not now. I only thought how best to escape the consequences. I took his +watch and purse, that brigands might be suspected, and threw them into +the river a mile off. I robbed him of one thing more--this!" All his +haggard face was transfigured with a ghastly triumph as he opened a +small leathern case that hung round his neck, and held up before us two +locks of hair. + +There they were--the love-gift and the death-spoil--the memorials of +defeat and of victory, of foiled affection and of gratified hate--the +one, beguiled from Isabel by Bruce himself, with many earnest pleadings, +in the early days of their engagement; the other, torn from her +husband's temples before they were cold. The long light brown tress was +scarcely more soft and satin-smooth than the chestnut curl; but one end +of the last was matted, and discolored by a dark rusty stain--the stain +that, the Greek poet said, all the rivers of earth flowing in one +channel could never wash away--the testimony, to our ears mute enough +now, but which, perhaps, will make itself heard above the Babel of all +other cries at the Day of Judgment. + +The two tokens were twined together lovingly, as if they were sensitive +and conscious still. Bruce plucked them asunder: "I never can keep them +apart," he said, querulously. Then he put them back into the case +separately, and began to mutter to himself many words that I could not +distinguish. + +"Have you any thing more to say?" Livingstone asked. His lips were rigid +and compressed like a steel-trap, opening and closing mechanically. As +he spoke, he snatched the leathern bag from Bruce's hand and threw it +into the blazing fire. + +A sharp howl, like a flogged hound's, broke from the sick man as he saw +his treasure shrivel up in the flame. Then he began to whimper out all +sorts of incoherent supplications, crying "that we did not know how much +he had suffered before he killed Forrester, and since too; that he had +been cruelly used from the beginning; that he was very, very ill now; +would not we let him die in peace?" The tears were streaming down his +face. It was a sight of abasement that sent a shiver through one's +veins. + +Guy laid his hand on the miserable creature's shoulder. Though he +scarcely touched it, I saw the great muscles starting out on his arm +like ropes from the intensity of his suppressed emotion; his lower lip +trembled, but his tones did not in the least. I can give no idea of +their pitiless, deliberate ferocity. + +"Listen!" he said. "I told you before to get up and come with us--that +is my answer now. If you have life enough left to be carried to the +gallows-foot, you shall never cheat the hangman." + +Bruce looked up into the speaker's face for some moments. Gradually the +agonized appeal in his wild eyes died away into vacancy; an expression, +half cunning, half amused, stole over his face; and, leaning gently +back, he began pulling threads out of the coverlet, laughing low. + +The blood gushed from Guy's clenched hand as he struck it furiously +against the stone mantel. + +"By ----," he said, with a fearful oath, "he has escaped me, after all." + +It was so. The mind, worn and strained by the terrors of the long +pursuit, perhaps by remorse not acknowledged even to himself; and by the +last great effort at self-control, had given way at last--forever. God +had recorded his verdict, and no earthly court could try the criminal +again. Bruce is living now (and I dare say will outlive most of us, for +his bodily health is perfect), vicious sometimes, but never conscious; +hard to please, but easy to manage, so long as his attendant is a man, +and a strong one; accessible only to the one emotion which drove him +mad--physical fear. + +Livingstone called the officers; they came in with Macbane. The old man +pretended to be very wroth when he saw his master's state, but I believe +he rejoiced secretly. The credit of the family, with him, outweighed all +considerations of personal attachment, and he would think public +disgrace cheaply averted at any price. + +On our poor detective, perhaps, the blow fell heaviest; for, after some +time, Guy did come round to my idea, that no punishment we could have +brought about would have been so ample and terrible; but Mr. Fitchett +could not see it in that light at all. Not only was the termination of +the affair dreadfully unprofessional, but the little triumph he had +anticipated at the trial was spoiled. If human weakness ever could touch +this great man, it was when he heard the judge pay a compliment to "the +sagacity and zeal of that most efficient officer." On such occasions, +his bow of conscious merit abnegating praise was, I am told, wonderful +to see. After a few words of explanation, he glanced wistfully at Bruce, +and shook his head, like a broken-hearted Lord Burleigh. Then he +unloosed the handcuffs from Macbane's wrists, whistling all the while +softly a popular air, lively in itself, with a cadence so plaintive that +it might have been a penitential psalm. No romantic school-girl opening +the cage to her pet starling ever displayed more hesitation and +reluctance than Mr. Fitchett setting that grim old bird free. + +In truth, there was no evidence to attach to the servant, so we left him +and his master together. I could not have stood that room much longer. +The ceaseless complacent chuckle of the idiot, and his fearful grimaces +when he could not make the threads match, had the effect on my chest of +a nightmare. Very slowly and silently we walked home through the +darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + "Be the day weary or never so long, + At length it ringeth to even song." + + +There is little to chronicle in the events of the next few years. +Livingstone resided almost entirely at Kerton. He rode as hard, and +distinguished himself in all other field-sports as much as ever. But +even in these, his favorite pursuits, he had lost the intense faculty of +enjoyment which once seemed a part of his powerful organization. + +Do you remember that scene in the Nekuia, where the Eidolon of Achilles +comes slowly through the twilight to meet his old brother in arms? Not +only are his form and features altered after so ghastly a fashion that +even the wanderer, wave-worn and travel-stained, looks brilliant by +comparison, but all his feelings are utterly and strangely changed. +Listen! He asks after the father from whom he parted when quite a child; +after the son, whom he never saw; but not one word of his fair +first-love--not one of her who was the passion of his manhood, whom he +bucklered once against ten thousand. He had rather hear of Peleus and +Neoptolemus than of Deidamia or Briseis. Of Polyxena, be sure that he +remembers nothing but that he was holding her hand when her brother slew +him. Will he ever forgive her that? Not if she could have made amends by +the sacrifice of ten lives instead of that one which she gave, +willingly, on Sigaeum. Has ambition any hold on him either? Only to +breathe the fresh clear air above instead of that murky, heavy +atmosphere, he would resign the empire of the dead, and be a drudge to +the veriest boor. Yet once, if we remember right, he chafed fiercely +enough at a word of authority uttered by the King of Men. One of his old +tastes clings to him still--a very simple one. He has forgotten the +savor of Sciote and Chian wine; but--were it only for the sake of the +carouses they have had together--Odysseus will not grudge him another +draught out of the black trench. It is so long since be tasted blood! + +Guy was no more like his former self than the shadow was like the +substance of Pelides. He was not languid, but simply apathetic and +indifferent, so that one could not help being constantly struck by the +contrast between his moral and physical state: the latter was still the +perfection of muscular power. + +He was every thing that was kind to his mother, and to Isabel Forrester +too, who spent much of her time at Kerton, and whose health was very +delicate. If Lady Catharine could only have seen him more cheerful, she +would have been _too_ happy. It was her great delight to try and spoil +him, as she used to do when he was a child--trying to suit his tastes to +the minutest shade. For instance, Guy was always finding in his own +rooms some new ornament or addition to their comfort. Indifferent as he +was to every thing, it was good in him that he never failed to remark +these instantly. You would not have thought a cold, haughty face could +light up so brilliantly as his mother's always did when he thanked her. +Poor lady! Those last few years were her summer of St. Martin--not the +less pleasant because winter was gathering already on the crests of the +whitening hills. + +There were a good many guests in the house at times, almost invariably +men, but none of the wild revels of the old days, very little hard +drinking, and no play to speak of. + +One thing was remarkable--the great eagerness Guy displayed to keep the +party together at night. He would engage us in arguments, and employ all +sorts of ingenious devices to prevent us from going to bed, so that it +became very trying to a weak constitution. I observed this to him one +night when the rest had gone. + +The slight flush left by the excitement of conversation was vanishing +rapidly from his cheeks, and a gray tinge was creeping over them like +that which we see on a sick man very near his end. + +"It is too bad to keep you up, and too selfish," he said; "but I find +the nights so long!" + +I left him without another word; but I lay long awake, haunted by that +haggard face and dreary eyes. I wish I did not see them so often still +in my dreams. + +There were changes in other houses besides Kerton Manor, and a vacancy +in the most luxurious set of chambers in the Albany. + +Duns, and rheumatic gout, and satiety had proved too much at last for +the patience of Sir Henry Fallowfield; so one night he preached his +farewell sermon in the smoking-room of the ----, in which he was +especially severe and witty on the absurdity and bad taste of a man +condescending to suicide under any circumstances. The next morning they +found him with--"that across his throat that you had scarcely cared to +see." The hand whose tremor used to make him so savage when he was +lifting a glass to his lips, had been strong and steady enough when it +shattered the Golden Bowl and cut the Silver Cord asunder. + +Whether he was looking death in the face while he uttered those last +cynicisms, and calculated on heightening the stage effect of the morrow, +or whether a paroxysm of pain drove him mad, as it had done better men, +who can tell? I think and hope the latter was the case, but--I doubt. +Though Sir Henry Fallowfield had never read Aristotle, he had studied, +all his life, the principles of the peripeteia. + +Godfrey Parndon no longer ruled over the Pytchley. He had backed his own +opinions and other men's bills once or twice too often, and had retired +temporarily into private life till he could get "his second wind." The +new M.F.H. was his complete contrast--pale-faced, low-voiced, mild-eyed, +and melancholy as a lotus-eater--one of the class of "weak-minded but +gentlemanly young men" that Tom Cradock used to ask his friends to +recommend to him as pupils. The farmers missed sadly Godfrey's bluff +face and stalwart figure at the cover-side, while the "bruisers" from +Leamington, and the "railers" from town, hearing no longer his great +voice, good-naturedly imperative, adjuring them to "hold hard, and not +to spoil their own sport," rode over the hounds rejoicing. + +Flora Bellasys was married. + +It was just the match I thought she would make. Sir Marmaduke +Dorrillon's possessions were vast enough to satisfy any ambition, and +his years put love out of the question. + +His friends had been as prophetic in their warnings as January's were, +but even, they never guessed what he would have to endure at the hands +of that cruel May. He tried very hard not to be jealous, but he could +not help being sensitive; and so, day by day, she inflicted on him the +_peine forte et dure_, "laying on him as much as he could bear, and +more." It was sad to see how the kind old man withered and pined away; +yet he never complained, and quarreled mortally with his best friend for +daring to compassionate him. + +He was so courteous, and gentle, and chivalrous; so conscious of his own +disadvantage in age; so generous in trusting her, and in hoping against +hope; so considerate in anticipating all her wishes and whims, that it +might have moved even Flora to pity. But her great disappointment had +strangely altered and imbittered her character. She was _quite_ +merciless now, and never seemed really amused unless she was doing harm +to some one. + +It was not that her manner had become harsh or repellent, or even more +sarcastic; she wag to the full as fascinating as ever; but she was cool +and calculating in her caprices. She took pains to make the momentary +pleasure as exquisite as possible, that the after suffering might be +more terrible; just like that ingenious Borderer who fed his enemy with +all pungent and highly-seasoned dishes, and then left him to die of +thirst. + +Yet all the while her own feelings must have been scarcely enviable. +They say that great enchantresses, from Medea and Circe downward, have +generally been unhappy in their loves. Either they could not raise the +spirit, or it proved unmanageable; either their affection was not +returned, or its object was unfaithful at last. In the single case where +they put their science and their philtres aside, and were womanly, and +natural, and sincere; where, to gain or to keep their treasure, they +would gladly have broken their wand, they failed utterly, and found they +were only half omnipotent. The justice was retributive, but it was very +complete. Be sure, with those passionate natures, the honey of a +thousand triumphs never deadened the sting of the one discomfiture. +Suitors flocking from every shore and island of the AEgean never made +Sappho forget, for one hour, that stubborn impassible Phaon. No wonder +such are cruel and unjust to their subjects in after days. Poor innocent +AEgeus very often has to do penance for the infidelity of Jason. + +I have little more to tell, and that is of the sort that is best told +briefly. + +The hounds met one morning not far from Kerton. A three-days' frost had +broken up; but it was not out of the ground yet, making the "take-off" +slippery, and the north side of the fences dangerously hard. Livingstone +rode the Axeine that day. The chestnut was still his favorite, and the +crack hunter of three counties, though he had never lost his habit of +pulling. + +It was a large, straggling cover that we drew, but the fox went away +very soon. From the lower end of the wood a great pasture sloped down, +at the bottom of which was a flight of post-and-rails--very high, new, +and strong, with a deep cutting on the farther side. At one end of this +was an open gate, through which the whole field passed. + +The hounds were just settling to the scent, when I happened to turn my +head, and saw Livingstone coming down at the rails. He had got a bad +start, and saw that, by taking them straight in his line, he would gain +greatly on the pack, which was turning toward him. + +As the Axeine tore down the hill at furious speed, pulling double, it +was evident that neither he nor his rider had the remotest idea of +refusing. + +It was the last fence that either of them ever charged. As the chestnut +rose to the leap, his hind legs slipped; he chested the rail, which +would not break, and turned quite over, crushing Guy beneath him. + +I had seen the latter fall a hundred times without feeling the +presentiment that seemed to _tighten_ round my heart as I galloped up to +the spot. Many others must have felt the same, for they let the hounds +go away without another glance, and some were before me there. + +The Axeine lay stone dead, with his neck broken, the huge carcass +pressing on the legs of his rider. Guy was quite senseless; his face of +a dull, ghastly white; there was a deep cut on his forehead; but we all +felt we did not see the worst. With great trouble we drew him from under +the dead horse. Still we could discover no broken bones or further +external injury. We dashed water over him. In a few minutes he opened +his eyes, and seemed to recognize every one directly, for he looked up +into the frightened face of the first whip, who was supporting him, and +said, + +"You always told me I went too fast at timber, Jack." + +I was sure, then, he was desperately injured, his voice was so weak and +changed. + +"Where are you hurt, Guy?" some one asked. I could not speak myself. + +"I don't know," he said, looking down in a strange, bewildered way. "My +head and arm pain me; but I feel nothing _below the waist_." + +His lower limbs were not much twisted or distorted, but they bore a +horribly inert, dead appearance. There was not even a muscular quiver in +them. + +I saw the Squire of Brainswick turn his head away with a shudder and a +groan (he loved Guy as his own son), and I heard him mutter, "The +_spine_!" + +It was so, and Livingstone soon knew it himself. He sighed once, +drearily; but not a man there could have commanded his voice as he did +when he said, + +"You must carry me home, heavy as I am. My walking days are ended." + +We made the best litter we could of poles and branches; and I remember, +as we bore him past the carcass of the Axeine, he made us stop for an +instant, and dropping his hand on the stiff, distorted neck, stroked it +softly, + +"Good-by, old horse," he said. "It was no fault of yours. How well you +always carried me!" He never spoke again till we reached Kerton Manor. + +Isabel Forrester was fortunately out, but Lady Catharine met us on the +hall steps. She did not shriek or faint when she saw the horror, which +had haunted her for years, fulfilled there to the uttermost. She knelt +by her son when we laid him down, and wiped off a spot or two of blood +from his forehead, and then kept his hand in hers, kissing it often. We +had sent on before to warn the village doctor, and he visited Guy alone +in his room. + +Powell had been a surgeon's mate in his youth, and was serving under +Collingwood at Trafalgar when his ship stood first into action, and, +like a sovereign of the old days, led the van of the battle. There was +no shape of shattered and maimed humanity with which he had not been +familiar, and my last hope died away when I saw him come forth, +trembling all over, his rugged features convulsed with grief. + +"I saw him born," the old man sobbed out. "I never thought to see him +die--and die _so_!" + +Guy had received a mortal injury in the spine, though how long he might +linger none could tell. + +There broke from Lady Catharine's white lips one terrible heart-broken +cry--"If God would only take me first!" Then her self-control returned, +and she went into her son's room, outwardly quite calm. + +I have never tried to fancy what passed at the meeting of those two +strong hearts, after the one had been brought suddenly, face to face, +with an awful death, the other with a yet more awful sorrow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + "Ah! Sir Launcelot, there thou liest, that never wert matched of + earthly hands. Thou wert the fairest person, and the goodliest of + any that rode in the press of knights; thou wert the truest to thy + sworn brother of any that buckled on the spur; and thou wert the + faithfullest of any that have loved _paramours_: most courteous + wert thou, and gentle of all that sat in hall among dames; and thou + wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever laid spear in + the rest." + + +When Powell's self-command gave way so completely after he saw the +nature of Guy's case, it was not because he knew it must end fatally, +but because his skill told him what fearful agonies must precede the +release. All the surgeons who were called in could do nothing but +confirm these forebodings. The colossal strength and vital energy of +Livingstone's frame and constitution yielded but slowly to a blow which +would have crushed a weaker man instantly. All the outworks were ruined +and carried, but Death had still to fight hard before he won the +citadel. I can not go through the details; I will only say that, +sometimes, none of us could endure to look upon sufferings which never +drew a complaint or a moan from him. + +Almost every pleasure has been discussed and dissected, but we know +comparatively nothing of the physiology of pain. There is no standard by +which to measure it, even if the courage and endurance of any mortal man +could enable him to analyze his own tortures philosophically. Was it not +always supposed that the guillotine is merciful, because quick in +annihilation? Look at Wiertz's pictures at Brussels. If his idea (shared +too, now, by many clever surgeons) be true, you will see the amount of a +long life's suffering exceeded by what seems to us a minute's agony. But +it is like the Eastern king's gaining the experience of fifty years by +dipping his head for a second in the magic water. For a soul in torment +there is no horologe. + +Of one thing be sure; the strong temperaments who enjoy greatly, suffer +greatly too--those who endure in silence, most of all. I think the +wolf's death-pang is sharper than the hare's. + +But Guy was not only patient, he was actually more cheerful than I had +seen him since Constance died. He liked to see his old friends, and to +hear accounts of their sport with hound and gun. To do these justice, +there was not one who would not give up, gladly, the best meet of the +Pytchley, or the shooting of the best cover in the county, to sit for +half a day in that sick-room. He talked, too, always pleasantly and +kindly to his mother and his cousin. + +Poor Isabel Forrester was quite broken down by this second blow. Next to +her dead husband, I believe, she loved Guy better than any one; not +unnaturally, for he had petted and protected her all her life long. She +could not help giving way, though she tried hard, for the sake of +others. It was piteous to see her, sitting alone for hours, gazing out +on the bleak winter landscape, while the tears welled slowly from under +her heavy eyelids. + +Foster, who was still at Kerton, came often to visit Livingstone. No +one could do him so much good. The curate was just as confident and +uncompromising in the discharge of his office as he was yielding and +diffident when only himself was in question. He was so honest, and +straightforward, and true--so free from rant or cant--so strong in his +simple theology, that Guy soon trusted him implicitly when he spoke of +the past and of the future that was so near. The repentance that was +begun by Constance's dying bed was completed, I am sure, on his own. + +"Frank," Guy said, one morning, suddenly, "I have written to ask Cyril +Brandon to come to me. He will be here to-day. It would make me very +happy if I could hear him say he forgave me." + +"Do you think you will succeed?" I asked, sadly; for I felt a nervous +certainty that the pain the interview must cost him would be unavailing. + +"I can not tell," he answered, firmly; "but Foster says, and I know, +that it is my duty to try. You may be present, if you like, on one +condition--you must promise, whatever he may say or do, not to interfere +by a look or a word." + +I did promise; but I looked forward with dread to Brandon's coming. In +an hour's time he was announced. + +It was the first time I had seen him; and I was much struck by the +mingled expression of suffering and ferocity that sat, like a mask, on +his worn dark face. I have seen its like but once--in a dangerous +maniac's. He walked straight up to Guy's couch without noticing me, and +stood there silent, glaring down on the sick man with his fiery black +eyes. + +"It is very good of you to come," Guy said; "I scarcely hoped you +would. I have wronged you, more deeply than any living man--so deeply +that I could never have dared to ask your forgiveness if I had not been +very near my death. Can you give me your hand? Indeed, indeed, I have +repented sorely." + +Brandon's hoarse tones broke in: + +"I came, because, years ago, to see this sight, to see you lying there +like a crushed worm, I would have sold my soul. Wronged me? Shall I tell +you what you have done? There was only one creature on earth I cared +for; that was my sister. All those years in India I had been fancying +our meeting. I came back, and found her dying; more than that, I found +her love turned away from me. You did _all_ this. I tell you, I never +could get one of her old fond looks or words from her all the time she +was dying. She was only afraid of me. By hell! you stood between us to +the last. Do you know that she dragged herself across the room at my +knees--mine, who never refused to indulge her in a whim before--first to +be allowed to see you, and then to make me swear not to attempt your +life?" + +He stopped, gnashing his teeth. + +All Guy's features, wan and worn by pain, were lighted up with a +tenderness and joy inexpressible as he heard what his dead love had +borne and done for him. He would have hidden his face had he guessed how +its expression would exasperate Cyril's furious temper. + +"D--n you!" he howled out, like a madman, "do you dare to triumph?" and, +tearing off his glove, he struck Livingstone on the cheek with it a +sharp blow. + +A great shudder swept through every fibre of the maimed giant's frame, +in which sensation lingered still; the blood surged up to his forehead +and ebbed again instantly, leaving even the lips deathly white; he +raised his hand quickly, but it was only to warn me back; for, mild and +peaceable as I am, I leaped up then, as savage as Cain. With that hand +he caught Brandon's wrist. The latter stood with his eyes cast down, +sullenly--already, I am sure, horror at the act of foul cowardice into +which his passion had driven him was creeping over him--he did not try +to disengage himself. Had he done so, thrice his strength would not have +set him free. + +"I thank God, from my heart," Guy said, very slowly and steadily, "that, +if I meet your sister hereafter, I shall not shrink before her, for I +believe all I promised her has been kept. Listen! you would feel shame +to your life's end thinking that you had struck a helpless, dying +cripple. It is not so. You don't know what you risked. You were within +arm's-length, and at close quarters I could be dangerous still. Look." + +He took up a small silver cup that lay near, and crushed it flat between +his fingers. + +There was silence then; only Brandon's breath was heard, drawn hard and +irregularly, as if he was trying to throw off a weight from his chest. + +Guy looked up at him, and said very gently, holding out his hand, "Once +more, forgive me." + +Cyril answered in a thick, smothered voice, + +"I will not take your hand. I will never forgive you. But I forgive +Constance; for--I understand her now." + +He turned on his heel, and left the room without another word, still +with his head bent down, as if in thought. I gazed after him till the +door shut softly. Then I looked round at Guy. His head had fallen back, +and the features looked so drawn and changed that I cried out, thinking +he was dead. It was only a long, long swoon. + +Just another scene, and my tale is told. + +I was reading in Guy's room one evening. He had not spoken for some +time, and I fancied he was asleep. Suddenly he called to me, + +"Frank, come here--nearer. I have several things to say to you, and I +feel I must make haste. No, don't call any one. I said farewell to my +mother yesterday, and we must spare her all we can." + +In the presence of that sublime self-command, I _dared_ not betray my +grief by any outward sign. I knelt down by his side silently. + +He went on in a voice that, though hollow and often interrupted by +failing breath, was perfectly measured and steady. + +"You can only be glad that the end has come at last, though it is well I +have had time to prepare myself. Am I ready now? I can not tell. Foster +says I ought to hope. I trust it is not wicked to say I do not _fear_. I +have sinned often and deeply; but He who will judge me created me, and +He knows, too, how much I have suffered. I do not mean from _this_ (he +threw his hand toward his crippled limbs with the old gesture of +disdain), but from bitterness and loneliness of heart. More than all, I +am sure my darling has been pleading for me ever since she died. I will +not believe her prayers have been wasted. + +"I want to tell you what I have done. You know the direct line of my +family ends with me. I am glad it does. The next in succession would be +a cousin, who has taken to some trade in Edinburgh; a good man, I +believe--but he would not do here. So I have left Kerton to my mother +for her life, and then--to you. Hush! the time is too short for +objections or thanks, and death-bed gifts show little generosity. +Besides, I would have left it to Isabel, only it would be more a trouble +to her than any thing else. You will take care of every thing and every +body. Say farewell for me to my old friends, especially to Mohun. Poor +Ralph! he will be sorry--though he will not own it--when he comes back +from Bohemia and finds me gone." + +He raised himself a little, so as to rest his hand on my shoulder as I +knelt, while his voice deepened in its solemn calm: + +"Dear Frank, one other word for yourself, who have borne so patiently +with my perverse temper since we were boys together. I have been silent, +but, indeed, not ungrateful. For all your kind, unselfish thoughts, and +words, and deeds--for all the good you would have counseled--for all +your efforts to stand between me and wrong-doing--tried friend, true +comrade! I thank you now, heartily, and I pray God to bless you always." + +It was only self-control, almost superhuman, that enabled him to speak +those words steadily, for the fierce death-throe was possessing him +before he ended. Through the awful minutes that followed, not another +sound than the hissing breath escaped through his set lips; his face was +not once distorted, though the hair and beard clung round it, matted and +dank with the sweat of agony. The brave heart and iron nerve ruled the +body to the last imperially--supreme over the intensity of torture. + +When he opened his eyes, which had been closed all through the +protracted death-pang, there was a look of the ancient kindness in them, +though they were glazing fast. He found my hand, and grasped it, till I +felt the life ebbing back in his fingers. I saw his lips syllable +"Good-by;" then, he leaned his head back gently, and, without a sigh or +a shiver, the strong man's spirit went forth into The Night. + +A sense of utter desolation, as it were a horror of great darkness, +gathered all around me as I leaned my forehead against the corpse's +cheek, sobbing like a helpless child. + +You will not care to hear how we all mourned him. + +Will you care to hear that, often as his mother visits his grave, there +is _one_ woman who comes oftener still? + +None of us have ever met her, for she comes always at late night or +early morning. But finding, in the depth of winter or in the bleak +spring, the ground about strewed with the choicest of exotic +flowers--not carefully arranged, but showered down by a reckless, +desperate hand--we know that Flora Dorrillon has been there. + +Do not laugh at her too much for clinging to the one romance of her +artificial existence. Remember, while he lived, there was nothing so +rare and precious--ay, even to the sacrifice of her own body and +soul--that she would not have laid ungrudgingly at Guy Livingstone's +feet. + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Guy Livingstone;, by George A. 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