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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41276 ***
+
+                              MILES TREMENHERE.
+
+                 "For such a love, O Rachel! years are few,
+                  and life is short!"--LOPEZ DE VEGA.
+
+                          BY ANNETTE MARIE MAILLARD.
+
+    AUTHORESS OF "THE COMPULSORY MARRIAGE," "ZINGRA THE GIPSY," ETC., ETC.
+
+
+    IN TWO VOLUMES.
+    VOL. II.
+
+    LONDON:
+    G. ROUTLEDGE & CO., FARRINGDON STREET.
+    1853.
+
+    M'CORQUODALE AND CO., PRINTERS, LONDON.
+    WORKS--NEWTON.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Minnie parting with Lord Randolph]
+
+
+
+
+MILES TREMENHERE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Tremenhere did not return to dinner at six, as usual. He was not one of
+those careless husbands, who dine out unexpectedly with a friend, and
+leave their wives to wait in ignorance of their movements; so he sent a
+messenger immediately after Lady Dora had quitted the villa, and Minnie
+felt as if his absence _for the first time_ gave her pleasure. It
+afforded her time to collect her resolution for meeting him with this
+concealment in her heart. The long hours passed sadly enough, for every
+thing around her seemed distasteful; the sunny noon of her heart was
+growing into twilight. Tremenhere generally returned early from his
+occasional parties. Ten o'clock came--a late hour for their quiet
+cottage--then half-past. Minnie grew restless--her conscience was not at
+rest; moreover, she was quite alone. The servant and the boy they
+kept--all their household, had retired. Miles always had his key, when
+late. Minnie watched a short time longer, and then, going up-stairs to
+her dressing-room, partially undressed, enfolding herself in a long
+loose wrapper, of pale pink cashmere, in which she looked even more
+beautiful than when richly attired. Next, she unbound her long, fair
+hair, and, unweaving it, flung the rich mantle over her shoulders, which
+it completely covered; and thus, at perfect ease, she sat down in a
+large chair before the fire. She had been unused to much deep thought of
+late, and the events of the past two days had wearied her brain.
+Gradually the head fell listlessly back, a little on one side--the
+clasped hands, so perfect in form, supported it, an elbow resting on the
+arm of the chair--the lips were slightly parted, and a warm glow, like a
+sleeping infant's, ruddied her cheek, while the fair hair literally
+swept the ground. So soundly she slept, that Tremenhere entered the room
+unheard; he, too, had passed a day of deep meditation. Matter-of-fact
+persons may laugh at the idea; but to sensitive minds, coming events
+have often, as _avant courier_, presentiment. He had been thoroughly
+wretched all day; so much so, that without knowing any tangible cause of
+fear, he entered his home with a beating heart, as if he should find it
+vacant! How can we account for such sensations? They are purely
+spiritual. A deep sigh of joy trembled his lip, when he saw all he loved
+so well, so exclusively in safety, and sleeping calm as an angel might,
+rocked in a sailing cloud,--if angels ever sleep. He crept on tiptoe
+nearer; involuntarily his hands clasped as in prayer, as he gazed upon
+her, then, fearful lest that magnetic influence of an eye watching over
+us, which makes us start up affrighted, with throbbing hearts, from our
+sleep, should awake her rudely, he bent slowly downwards on his knee,
+and looked upon her as on a saint, so pure, so unearthly was his love at
+that moment. Some moments he knelt thus, then, unclasping his hands, he
+raised the mass of sweeping hair gently, and pressed it to his lips; it
+was slightly perfumed, like new-mown grass. Insensibly his hands
+commenced turning fold over fold, tress over tress, till it grew to a
+rope of brightness in his hands, which they could just clasp; smiling,
+he twisted it, wondering at her prolonged sleep--suddenly a thought
+flashed through his brain, a demon's thought--jealousy; his fears of the
+day were parent to it. If she _ever_ should love another! if those
+dreaming thoughts, which he then felt were his, should wander to
+another! What temptation had she yet known?--none. What men had she ever
+seen, to make her what so many were, even if only in idea--faithless? He
+should care but little for actual virtue, if the soul of it were gone;
+and as these maddening fancies crept through his mind, tighter and
+tighter he twisted the fair hair in his grasp.
+
+"I could still her life with this," he muttered; "once round that small,
+fair infant neck, and I should save her from ever having a sinful wish.
+She is pure as one of those little things, whose faces are not veiled
+even by their own wings, as they say other angels are in heaven. O
+Minnie! so much I love you thus, that I could find in my heart almost
+to kill you now, and bear the weight of that heavy sin, to save you from
+even knowing remorse." And in the agony of that moment of demoniacal
+temptation, he rose to his full height, while the livid face and brow
+were studded by agonized sweat-drops, his temples throbbed, he felt his
+mental power of reflection every moment becoming more condensed, and
+almost lost in impulse--impulse to commit murder, and, damning himself,
+save her! At that supreme moment a deep sigh struggled through her
+parted lips, the brow knit in mental pain, and Minnie awoke. Like a tree
+blasted at the roots, Tremenhere dropped on his knees, which gave way
+beneath his weight, and, burying his face in the terrified girl's lap,
+he sobbed convulsively--it was not weeping, but his heart's bursting,
+coming sorrow.
+
+"Miles--dearest Miles--my own love!" cried she in terror, trying to
+raise his head--"What has occurred? Are you ill? Speak to me, Miles."
+She lifted up the face at last; it was pale as death, and on the fringes
+of the closed eyes hung unfalling tears: they were as the heat drops
+from the clouds before they burst asunder, sending forth sheet upon
+sheet of flame.
+
+"Minnie!" he cried wildly, looking up at last, "I have dreamed a horrid
+waking dream while you slept: I was mad; for I thought if a day should
+ever come wherein you would not love me, but another----"
+
+"Miles--Miles!" cried the trembling girl. "Do not think of so fearful a
+thing; 'tis tempting some demon to try you."
+
+"_Try_ me, Minnie! How so?" There was almost madness in his look.
+
+"By giving you _real_ trouble for this unchecked vision of impossible
+things."
+
+"You are right, dearest," he said, rising more calmly, yet he shivered
+with emotion. "Heaven keep me from _real_ doubt! I could not support it.
+Come, let us leave this room; it chills my heart, Minnie;" and he placed
+his arm around her--as he did so, and it came in contact with the living
+rope he had so madly twisted, a cold shudder passed over him.
+
+"You are not well, dear Miles," she said, tenderly. "Let us leave this
+room; it seems filled with fancies and spirits--I grow superstitious."
+She tried to smile up in his face as usual, but the dimpling peace had
+left her--she was tacitly deceiving him.
+
+The next day came with a bright sunshine, which imparted its light to
+Tremenhere's heart. He looked back upon his mad thoughts of the past
+night, half in laughter, half in horror, fully resolving for the future
+to check those wild, jealous, unfounded fears. Minnie could not rally,
+as he had done; she crept about that cottage like a troubled spirit,
+from one room to another, restless and unhappy. She was counting the
+moments until Lady Dora should arrive, and she could fling her arms
+round Miles's neck, and, telling him all, make him promise to be as ever
+towards Lord Randolph, who had in truth not insulted her in any way. The
+more she reflected, the less cause could she see for this secresy; and
+but for her hasty promise to her cousin, certainly would have told him
+at once.
+
+"Minnie, dearest," cried her husband, laughing; "what are you creeping
+about in that miserable manner for? Poor child! I startled you out of
+your sleep last night--you are quite pale."
+
+She would have looked doubly so had she known his mad thoughts while she
+slept; as it was, she blushed painfully when he noticed her.
+
+"I declare," he said, bending over her fondly, "you have been crying,
+dear child. What is grieving you?--have I unintentionally pained you?"
+And he kissed the bent brow.
+
+"No, dearest Miles," she answered with quivering lips--she felt so
+nervous. "You are all kindness, all love. I----" and she was choking
+with her efforts to subdue her tears.
+
+"My darling child--my own wife!" he said tenderly, raising her to his
+bosom, "do not give way to nervous depression--you can have no cause--I
+will not leave you so much alone; but you know, dearest, why it is--not
+choice, as heaven hears me--but necessity. Where will be our
+long-projected voyage to Gibraltar, for our good object, if I do not
+work? Every hour away from you is one of regret; and, as I am painting
+some grim portrait, I long to carry my model, easel, and all, to my
+quiet painting-room here, with my Minnie to hang over my shoulder."
+
+She was silently weeping most bitter tears; they were standing near the
+table in the centre of the room. "Come, come," he said, cheeringly,
+"you shall not give way to this--come into my studio; I want you to mix
+my colours. Silly child--silly child! to cry so much for nothing."
+
+She was on the point of telling him all, and imploring pardon, when he
+turned his head aside, and the eye caught sight of a sheet of paper on
+the table. "Since when has Minnie," he said laughingly, as he took it in
+his hand, "turned copyist, and whose writing is this she has been
+imitating? I have seen it somewhere before--where have I seen it?" She
+was almost sinking to earth. It was a note which Lord Randolph had
+commenced; yet, in her speechless agony, she clung to his arm. There
+were only a few words--they ran thus:--
+
+"Dear Tremenhere,--I am much annoyed at not finding you at home----"
+
+"What does it mean, Minnie?" he cried, still smiling, and yet a strange,
+uncertain light bursting over him. "Surely this is not your writing? has
+any one been here? I will ring, and ask Bruce." He had his hand on the
+bell: she had slid from his arm unperceived to a seat. Before the bell
+sounded, the servant boy entered the room with a letter, which he handed
+to Tremenhere.
+
+"Has any one called during my----"
+
+Tremenhere said no more, his eye fell on the letter--one glance
+sufficed; for in his other hand he held the slip of paper.
+
+"You may go," he said hastily to the boy. Without uttering another word
+he tore open the letter, and read, (we have said Lord Randolph had not
+much variety of thought; this note was a copy, in the past tense, of
+the other one commenced.)
+
+    "Dear Tremenhere,--I was much annoyed at not finding you at home
+    when I called to-day," (it had been posted the previous evening,)
+    "as I particularly wished to see you. I know, under the emergency of
+    the case, you will pardon my intrusion at your villa, the fair
+    inhabitant of which did me the great honour of mistaking me for you,
+    and, rushing in to meet you, brought me acquainted with the fairest
+    face and form I ever beheld. 'Pon my life, Tremenhere, you are a
+    lucky fellow, and a selfish one too, for possessing so fair an
+    original. Surely you might bestow the copy on a friend, to create
+    the loveliest Aurora ever seen! I am off to Uplands. As I _most_
+    particularly wish to see you, come down without delay; I shall
+    expect you to-morrow night, and you must stop a few days. Make my
+    best compliments to your fair companion, and believe me to be, ever
+    yours truly,
+
+    "RANDOLPH GRAY."
+
+Miles read the letter through without a word uttered; it was only on his
+face his soul broke forth, and there it became, step by step, as he read
+on--surprise, grief, cold desolation--a man waking from a dream of home
+and love, to the rigid reality of a field of blood and battle. All these
+emotions, one by one, passed like shadows over his face, which grew
+paler with each. When he looked up, all had given place to a stern
+resolution, which sat on his troubled brow as he turned towards his
+wife. She, poor child, had covered her face with both hands, and was
+weeping bitterly. He laid a cold unearthly hand on her arm--"You have
+deceived me," he uttered; and, with that almost inarticulate sound, his
+soul seemed to pass, so great was his agony. "Whom can we trust?" he
+whispered almost, as though speaking to himself. "She has deceived me!"
+and a sigh, almost a sob, burst from his bosom.
+
+Our readers must picture to themselves the jealous temperament of this
+man--his intense, all-absorbing love for his wife--and then they may
+form some idea of his present agony; for this it was. His heart-strings
+seemed tightened as if a breath would snap them, like a lute too finely
+strung, over which we pass the fingers in dread.
+
+"Miles!" she cried, clasping his arm, "hear me--hear all! I--I--I was
+afraid to tell you!" and the tears gushed from her eyes anew.
+
+He released her grasp, and quietly reseating her, but as some one he
+touched with repulsion, said, with his cold, stern eyes bent on her,
+"Afraid to tell me! Am I then so much an object of terror to you? I
+who----" The tone was unnatural, for his heart was bursting. "I," he
+continued, gradually raising his voice till it trembled with various
+emotions, "who have been gentle as a woman with you. I thought you so
+loving, so timid in your love, I feared to startle you by a rough
+tone--and you are afraid of me! All my love for you has only brought
+forth this--fear! Oh! when I said my heart was too old for yours, I was
+indeed right. I am not old--young still--but old at heart; and there,
+where I have given all, I meet only fear!" He passed his hand over his
+brow, as if his brain were burning within. "Only fear--only fear!" he
+muttered; "and I, fool, thought she loved me!"
+
+"So I do, Miles, my own dear husband," she cried, dropping on her knees,
+and holding her trembling hands up to him in supplication, while the
+tears rolled heavily down her upturned face; "I do love you, Miles--on
+my soul, I do, more than all the world beside; but I feared to tell you,
+for Dora frightened me so much about this man's visit."
+
+"Lady Dora!" he cried--"when was she here?"
+
+"Yesterday, Miles," sobbed she. "In my trouble, I forgot to tell you;"
+and, rising, she dropped on a seat.
+
+"There was a time, Minnie," he said bitterly, looking at the girl as he
+stood with crossed arms before her, where she sat trembling, "you never
+_forgot_ or _concealed_ any thing from me. Times are sadly changed; or,
+perhaps, 'tis I who have been self-deceived all this long time, and read
+you as I hoped, not as you really are. In good truth, we know no one
+till we try them. 'Tis your nature, perhaps, child. You tried your young
+wings at home, and now you are giving me the advantage of your perfected
+flight. I have walked with you against others on this crooked road: I
+deserve to meet with a path where you turn round upon--myself!"
+
+"Miles! for pity's sake," she articulated, almost suffocated by emotion,
+"have mercy on me; you are unjust and cruel!"
+
+He strode the room with clenched hands, endeavouring to subdue the many
+passions in his breast. She rose like a spirit so noiselessly, and,
+gliding beside him, grasped his arm again. "Forgive me, Miles," she
+whispered with quivering lips. Her touch roused all the indignation he
+was endeavouring to subdue.
+
+"Forgive you!" he exclaimed, flinging her hand from him as if it burned
+him with its contact. "Forgive you!" and he stood before her with a wild
+look of passion. "You, who have so bitterly wounded and deceived me--and
+for whom? A man--the stranger of a day! Yet how do I know this? Perhaps
+you have met often; and now I think of it, he does not name in his note
+having been presented to you by your cousin. Fools!" he laughed--"poor
+fools! you have ill-managed your duplicity. I read you all--all--and so
+you will discover." So saying, he rushed from the room; and in a few
+minutes afterwards quitted the house. Poor Minnie could not stay
+him--she had fainted.
+
+It would be difficult to say to what extremities he might not
+have proceeded, but a gentler thought came over the Parque who
+had raised this first sorrow. As Tremenhere strode onwards towards
+town, not looking to the right or left, but in deep thought,
+scarcely knowing whither to go, or what to do, a brougham passed
+rapidly--stopped--turned, and Lady Dora's voice said, "Mr. Tremenhere,
+may I speak one word to you?" Hers trembled--it ever did when addressing
+him: there was much warring in that girl's mind. She would have given
+worlds never to see his face again, as, by a concatenation of strange
+circumstances, she was forced to seek, or meet him. Her voice burst on
+his deep reverie, and startled him.
+
+We have shewn that he had quitted home without any actual explanation
+from Minnie. As he bowed to Lady Dora, there was more than the ordinary
+constraint which marked his manner towards her on all occasions, she at
+once remarked it, and a gleam of truth passed through her mind. "May I
+speak to you?" she said, opening the door; for in these visits to
+Minnie, she only brought her groom with her, on whose discretion, as an
+old servant, she knew she could rely--not that she would condescend to
+ask silence of any one; but in this man she had confidence.
+
+"If not of immediate moment, Lady Dora," he said bluntly, "I will beg to
+be excused the honour you propose to me, of a seat beside you. I have
+business of the utmost importance in town--meeting you on this road, I
+presume your drive will be extended to Chiswick; Mrs. Tremenhere is at
+home." He was moving away, having coldly raised his hat.
+
+Lady Dora was sincerely pained at the trouble she read in those eyes, on
+that brow. "I must speak to you!" she cried hastily; "and, if you will
+not step in, permit me to accompany you in your walk a short
+distance--'tis of poor Minnie I would speak."
+
+The "poor Minnie" touched a chord in his heart which was strung to
+harmony; it had been vibrating to the desire of his soul, to prove her
+innocent. He stopped:--
+
+"I will not trouble your ladyship so much," he said, stepping in and
+closing the door. "Where shall I bid the man drive?" "Any where," she
+answered in some confusion, leaning back in the corner. "I will not
+detain you very long--let it be slowly towards town; you were going
+there."
+
+But he did not continue that route above half a mile. Lady Dora had a
+good heart, she really loved Minnie, and once you could, by her better
+sentiments, penetrate through her pride, she was a kind, gentle girl.
+Unhesitatingly she told Miles how every thing had occurred, every word
+his little wife had uttered, her horror at deceiving him, even tacitly;
+and _the fear_ explained, was so kindly a one, lest he should fly into
+trouble, that his heart expanded with joy, and, involuntarily seizing
+Lady Dora's hand, he pressed it to his lips. "You are a messenger of
+peace and joy," he cried, looking in her face, which was very pale.
+Something like a tear dimmed his eye as the thought of his poor little
+wife--it was half love, and half regret.
+
+How very slowly the horse, even at a good long trot, seemed to go, as
+the brougham turned once more towards his home! Lady Dora told him, that
+having vainly expected Lord Randolph the previous evening, that morning
+she sent to his residence, and learned he had gone off to Uplands. What
+she had to tell him about Minnie, she could not write, and when Miles
+met her, she was coming down to see him, and consult on what had best be
+done. It was decided in their short drive, that he should accept Lord
+Randolph's invitation, and start for Uplands at once, and himself
+explain all. Lady Dora stopped the brougham before arriving at the
+villa; nothing could have induced her to be present at the meeting
+between the husband and wife: it was a scene she felt it would have
+pained her to witness, much as she desired their re-union. Miles did not
+urge it upon her, and as the carriage, with its pale occupant, turned
+away, he hastily entered his own home. Poor Minnie was lying on her
+couch, scarcely recovered from her swoon; when she heard his step, she
+started up in terror, and with eyes distended and trembling frame,
+awaited his coming.
+
+The door opened, and, before she could articulate, his arms were about
+her, and we are not quite certain the tears which fell were all from her
+eyes, there is something so soothing, so heavenly in reconciliation--it
+is indeed the halcyon from above, descending with peaceful, unfluttering
+wings!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+As Minnie lay nestled to his heart, and once more, as of yore, smiling
+in his face, he told her of his intention of going to Uplands without
+delay, resolved upon confiding all to Lord Randolph, to prevent further
+mistakes. Minnie fully concurred in his opinion; and yet, she could not
+name this latter without a painful blush. It was the recollection of
+Miles's suspicion which called up this evidence against him.
+
+"I will not have you even blush at his name," he whispered fondly;
+"though not in love, I shall be perhaps envious of the emotion which
+creates it. I am a jealous wretch, darling; I would have every flutter
+of your heart for myself alone." Much more he said in the sweet
+half-hour he gave to reconciliation, and sincere regret for his cruelty;
+and then, with a heart free from every cloud of doubt, he took an
+affectionate leave of her; twice, indeed, he returned, as though it were
+impossible to quit her, and at last, with a rude effort, tore himself
+away, determining to remain as short a time as possible. His carpet-bag
+was in a fly at the door--Minnie watching him step in from the window,
+when a gentleman's cab drew hastily up, and Mr. Vellumy's voice
+exclaimed "Hallo, Tremenhere!"
+
+Miles was leaning forward, to kiss his hand once more to his wife. The
+appellation startled him not a little. He turned hastily round. A frown
+crossed over his brow.
+
+"G_w_ay told me last night," said the other, in reply to his cool "How
+d'ye do," "that you would be coming down to-day, and, as I am returning,
+I thought we might go down together. I see you have your carpet-bag, so
+of course you are off there--lucky I just caught you--here, step into my
+cab, and send away your fellow; I'll spin you to the railroad in no
+time."
+
+All this looked fair and above board. It was not written on Vellumy's
+brow, that he had a correct list of all the trains in his pocket; he had
+been for half an hour watching on the road, expecting what had happened,
+namely--the departure from home of Tremenhere.
+
+"You're very good," answered he, still distantly; "but it is scarcely
+worth while changing for so short a distance."
+
+"Pa_w_don me," lisped Vellumy. "'Tis a long way; come, do be sociable, I
+hate t_w_a_w_elling alone."
+
+"He's a good-natured fool," thought Miles; "why refuse? conciliation is
+my object, so here goes;" and, making some sort of apology for his
+abruptness at first, he stepped out of the fly into the cab, and casting
+a long look at the curtain, behind which he saw Minnie's face, they
+drove away, and arrived without accident at London bridge station--just
+caught the train--and started for Uplands. We should mention that
+Vellumy stopped for an instant at his club--threw the reins to
+Tremenhere--and in less than five minutes was again by his side.
+
+Tremenhere was in unusually good spirits; he felt almost mirthful. He
+was going to place his beloved wife on a pedestal whence no slander
+could shake her; henceforth he was resolved openly to speak of her; he
+had learned the evil attending concealment. His heart was full of sweet
+thoughts of her; he determined, however, to speak first to Lord
+Randolph, and then let him present him, in his new character of
+Benedick, to his friends.
+
+"Do you know," he asked, starting from a reverie, "why Lord Randolph
+desires my company so especially at Uplands?"
+
+"Cannot say," answered Vellumy, smiling, "unless it be to call your
+palette into requisition, to pourt_w_ay the beauties of his ladye-love."
+
+"Lady Dora Vaughan?" asked the other in surprise. "I thought she had
+quitted Up--. Indeed, I _know_ she has," he added hastily; "I saw her
+to-day."
+
+"Not Lady Do_w_a," answered Vellumy, with a knowing smile. "Some one else
+he is ve_w_y much in love with, a----" Up to the present moment he had
+been talking at random, just to divert Tremenhere's ideas from any thing
+singular in the summons the other had received. Some thread from the
+Parque's weaving surely, tangled round his shallow mind at this
+juncture, and drew him on, without thinking on his part, to add, by way
+of "fun:" "I don't know that I ought to tell you"--this was said
+confidentially--"but G_w_ay is deucedly in love with some married woman,
+q_w_ite a beauty, I hear."
+
+"Indeed!" was the thoughtful, half painful reply, yet he could not tell
+where this information galled him.
+
+"Oh yes!" continued the confidential Vellumy; "it is a recent
+affair--G_w_ay is te_w_ibly in love," he glanced smilingly at the
+thoughtful Tremenhere.
+
+"Do you know her?" asked he.
+
+"No, he's ne_w_er let me see her; it is quite a romantic affair, of
+_w_ecent date."
+
+"Married, you say?" inquired Tremenhere, trembling he scarcely knew why.
+"Then of course the passion is a hopeless one?"
+
+"What an innocent you would make me think you!" laughed Vellumy. "Her
+husband, I hear, is a jealous cu_w_mudgeon; she's af_w_aid of her life
+of him, but, f_w_om all I hear, I should certainly say she loved G_w_ay,
+and not a little."
+
+A cold chill passed through the other's frame, then suddenly recalling
+his cruel suspicions of Minnie, which had been so completely obliterated
+from his mind, he shook off the incubus hanging round his heart, and
+said mentally, "I am again playing the madman! There are thousands of
+married women with whom Lord Randolph is acquainted." And, resolved to
+banish these thoughts, he started a totally different subject, and
+conversing indifferently they arrived at the end of their journey. They
+found their host absent, however; he and some friends were out shooting,
+so a servant said, but would of course return for dinner. Tremenhere
+took possession of the room awarded him, and afterwards he and Vellumy
+amused themselves with billiards for an hour or two. Lord Randolph was
+one of the most oblivious personages in the world; he totally forgot, in
+the turmoil of other thoughts, that Marmaduke Burton had on a previous
+occasion declined meeting Tremenhere; great, then, was the unpleasing
+surprise of both, when Lord Randolph entered in shooting trim,
+accompanied by the latter. Tremenhere's brow flushed with pride as Lord
+Randolph said, slightly presenting them, "I suppose you two have met
+before?"
+
+Burton looked pale and uncomfortable; Tremenhere said boldly, "We have
+met often."
+
+Their host looked up at the tone, and, bursting into a reckless,
+good-tempered laugh, said, turning round on one heel, "Egad, now I
+recollect! Burton, you fought shy of Tremenhere last time he was here,
+and shirked a meeting. Come, I'll be sworn you've quarrelled about some
+woman; you must oblige _me_, and make it up: this I intend to be a day
+of peace-making;" and he gave a peculiar look at Vellumy, who responded
+to it in an equally significant manner. All this by-play was unnoticed
+by Miles, who, in answer to Lord Randolph, said, "Your lordship is quite
+right; that gentleman and I have quarrelled about a woman, yet not quite
+as you suppose, possibly."
+
+"'Pon my life," answered their host more seriously, "I'm a thoughtless,
+forgetful fellow, or I ought to have called to mind, Burton, that when
+you and Tremenhere were down here together the other day, you quitted to
+avoid him. This should convince you, Tremenhere, that Burton bears no
+animosity towards you; come, oblige me: be friends, forget old
+grievances."
+
+"Animosity! and forgetfulness!" cried Tremenhere. Then, lowering his
+tone, he added coldly, "Lord Randolph, there are persons with whom
+estrangement is more consonant to our feelings than friendship; but his
+presence--I mean the presence of my worthy cousin----"
+
+"Cousin!" exclaimed their host and Vellumy in a breath.
+
+"I disclaim it!" cried Burton, trying to appear calm; "that is, except
+indirectly--left-handed."
+
+"Man!" said Tremenhere, energetically making an involuntary step towards
+him. The other two made a movement to prevent any collision; but
+Tremenhere stopped as Burton shrunk back. "I am a fool," he said, "to
+forget my noble part--patience. Pardon me, Lord Randolph; whilst I am in
+your house as guest, I will no more so offend--I will conduct myself as
+if such a person as that man had never existed. When I proclaim our
+relationship again, he shall tremble more than he does even now--look at
+him!" And, turning contemptuously away, he quietly interrupted an
+awkward apology which their host was commencing, by--"Has your lordship
+had good sport to-day? We artists lose these more wholesome pleasures,
+amidst our palettes and pencils."
+
+Lord Randolph was well pleased at the turn affairs had taken: he had
+not brains enough to carry out two things at once. All his ideas were
+now fixed upon one great achievement, foreign to this. Burton seemed so
+awkwardly ill at ease, that Tremenhere could almost have found it in his
+heart to pity him. After the first feeling of annoyance occasioned by
+his presence, he felt gratified, as he would be a witness of the public
+justice he purposed doing Minnie; and, in this mood, he quickly
+recovered his equanimity of temper; and, when he took his place at the
+dinner-table, Lord Randolph was fain to admit, even with the then
+prejudice against him, that certainly honest uprightness sat upon his
+brow, and lightness of conscience in his easy gaiety; whereas Burton
+looked pale, discontented, and gloomy. Tremenhere took not the slightest
+notice of him; there was no sneer, no avoidance, but a quiet
+obliviousness of his existence, especially annoying. Their host was in
+high spirits, and, with the well-bred ease of a perfect gentleman, put
+all his guests, as far as he could, on that pleasant footing. Several
+peculiar looks passed between Vellumy and himself, more especially after
+the former's return to table, whence he had been summoned by Lord
+Randolph's valet.
+
+"Vellumy," he cried, laughing, "you look as if you had seen a ghost;
+'pon my life you're pale."
+
+"Am I?" responded the other in the same tone; "I have, howe_w_er, seen
+no ghost, but a spi_w_it of g_w_ace and beauty."
+
+"Where?" asked the others, in a breath.
+
+"Ask Randolph," said Vellumy; "I ne_w_er tell tales out of school."
+
+"Pshaw!" answered the host, giving a half-frowning look at his friend,
+"there's not a living woman here, that I ever see, now the women folk
+and their maids have departed."
+
+"Talking of that," said Burton, "when do you become one apart from us--a
+respectable married man?"
+
+"Probably never," was the decided reply. "Lady Dora frowns upon my suit;
+and----"
+
+"You have little pressed it of late," hazarded some one.
+
+"I never saw two less like lovers than you were, down here the other
+day."
+
+"By George, no!" cried Burton; "you were always running up to
+town--there must be some magnet there, I fear. Lady Dora should look to
+it."
+
+Vellumy laughed aloud.
+
+"Oh, Vel is in the secret!" exclaimed the first speaker. "Tell us, is
+she dark or fair?--fair for a guinea! for this morning at breakfast he
+was raving about golden hair, and cheeks blushing like the inside of a
+sea-shell, which the amorous sea bathes in tears."
+
+"Poetically described," said Lord Randolph, colouring slightly; and
+almost inadvertently his eye rested on Tremenhere, who was pale and
+silent. "I shall, probably, _never_ marry," continued he; "that is, not
+till I grow a cranky old bachelor."
+
+"You have changed," said Tremenhere in rather a low tone, feeling it
+necessary to say something; "and not for the better, I think. If people
+must marry, why, let them do it in youth--that is, not extreme youth,
+but not with too much disparity--a year or two on the man's side."
+
+"Only _that_!" exclaimed Burton sarcastically, half addressing
+Tremenhere, who looked him full in the face, but made no reply; the
+blood, however, painfully rose to his brow. The remark was not lost
+where he intended it to tell.
+
+"The misfortune is," said one of the guests, "that we men do not gain
+wisdom with age--our wise teeth are the first to decay and desert us. We
+forget how many years have gone over our heads; and at sixty expect some
+lovely girl of twenty to love us for ourselves alone."
+
+"A grave error," answered Tremenhere, laughing. He was resolved, if
+possible, to chase painful thought, and the cold, unfounded suspicions
+gathering round his heart. "For an old man, marrying a young girl,
+generally becomes like a hoop in a child's hands; which it trundles
+before it whither it will, giving it hard knocks at every step!"
+
+"Bravo!" cried several.
+
+"It is not always thus," said their host, laughing. "Some old fellows
+weary their young wives to death; these always remind me of a punishment
+I have read of somewhere, where a living person was chained to a corpse
+till death came--some old men are brutes."
+
+"I'd poison such a one!" exclaimed one man, laughing.
+
+"I know such a being now," responded Lord Randolph, "with his hair dyed
+a purple black, idem whiskers, and one of our celebrated dentists is
+guilty of affording him the means of mastication, and life."
+
+"If I were his wife," said Tremenhere, "I'd take away his teeth, and
+starve him! 'Twould be a decay of nature, nothing to affect the
+conscience!"
+
+Some more jests were passed on this subject; and when silence was a
+little restored, Burton asked, "But Vellumy has not yet accounted for
+the fair spirit he spoke of--where is she?"
+
+"In the picture gallery," answered Lord Randolph, hastily. "Tremenhere,
+you are such a deucedly lazy fellow, that, till you send me your
+'Aurora,' I have gladdened my eyes with a Venus; you must give me your
+opinion of her by candle-light. Vellumy loses himself in ecstasy before
+her."
+
+"By whom is she?" asked Tremenhere.
+
+"Gad I forget! some young aspirant. I have a fancy of my own, to bring
+forward unknown genius and beauty."
+
+Here again he looked at Vellumy, and again a cloud passed over
+Tremenhere's heart. Much more was said on various subjects. The cloth
+was removed--the wine circulated freely. Vellumy whispered Tremenhere,
+"Come along; leave those fellows drinking; let's go and have a quiet hit
+at billiards."
+
+Both rose. "Where are you off to?" exclaimed Lord Randolph; "I'll have
+no shirking, Vel. You and Tremenhere remain--we'll all go shortly."
+
+"You can join us," answered Vellumy; "we're going to see the Venus
+first," and he moved to the door.
+
+"I'll be shot if you do!" cried their host springing towards, and
+locking it.
+
+"That's right!" cried several; "keep them in! That's not fair to leave
+so soon."
+
+"Done, my boy!" exclaimed Vellumy, rushing to another--a side one. "Come
+along, Tremenhere; we can find our way through this passage."
+
+"Try, try!" shouted Lord Randolph after them; "the doors are locked that
+way, you must come back."
+
+"This way, Tremenhere," called Vellumy, running on before; "up this side
+passage, and the private stair, to G_w_ay's own rooms; I know the way,
+come along!"
+
+They had both been drinking rather freely, and in the cup Tremenhere had
+forgotten all annoyance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Up the narrow stair they hurried laughing, then down a passage, at the
+further end of which was a door.
+
+"G_w_ay forgot this," laughed the conductor; "this leads to the
+g_w_allery."
+
+Apparently Gray had not forgotten it; for, for some unexplained purpose,
+it was fastened.
+
+"Confound it!" exclaimed the speaker; "what can he have locked up all
+these doors for? Try that one on your left; that leads to his own
+apa_w_tments."
+
+"Locked, too," said Tremenhere, after trying it.
+
+"I won't be b_w_eaten!" cried Vellumy; "st_w_op a moment. I'll run down
+the p_w_assage, and g_w_et the keys out of the other doors; they'll most
+likely op_w_en this;" and back he ran. Tremenhere stood looking after
+him.
+
+"Here," he called out, though under his breath, from the end of the
+passage; "here's a key--t_w_y it;" and he flung it down the carpeted
+corridor. "I'll go look for m_w_ore."
+
+Tremenhere raised the key and applied it to the lock, which yielded at
+once; he entered unhesitatingly, with that freedom natural to a
+bachelor-house, and found himself in a small antechamber leading to Lord
+Randolph's own rooms; for an instant he stood irresolute. Which way
+turn? the picture-gallery was the object of his search. There were two
+doors in this room--one opposite the one by which he had entered;
+towards this he moved, and, gently turning the handle, found himself at
+the entrance of a small, but elegantly-furnished sitting-room. There
+were no lights, except from the fire, which threw a wide, cheerful blaze
+over all. A sofa was drawn close to it, and on this sat a lady, leaning
+half over the arm of it; her back was turned to the door, which had
+opened noiselessly. The light was not uncertain, and it threw its
+fullest blaze on that fair form--and that fair form was Minnie's!
+
+Tremenhere stood still--a statue-like stillness. Life seemed fading away
+in horror. He felt drunk for a moment with suffering; then vision,
+thought--all cleared away into perfect sobriety, and he strode silently
+towards her. She started, and, dropping her book, uttered a cry of
+surprise, and, by an involuntary feeling of sudden alarm, shrunk back;
+then, seeing who it was, exclaimed in joy, if he could so have read
+it,--
+
+"Oh, Miles, is that you? but you startled me, indeed, standing like a
+ghost, there. You look as if you did not expect me!"
+
+"You here--you here!" he muttered with cold lips. "In these rooms! and
+why here at all?" And he held his hands before him to keep her back.
+
+"Miles," she cried, still advancing; and though the face grew pale with
+some sudden fear of untimely birth, for it was so unexpected, yet the
+brow was clear and pure to all but a jealous man. "You know wherefore I
+am here; think--you must be mad!"
+
+"Mad!" he echoed, staring wildly; "I must be mad, or dreaming!--you were
+locked in, and in _these_ rooms."
+
+"Where am I?" she cried, looking hurriedly round.
+
+"Do you not know," he articulated beneath his breath, "or are you
+deceiving me? These are Lord Randolph Gray's private apartments."
+
+"His!" she whispered, dropping on a seat; "I thought they were yours."
+Poor girl! her limbs tottered beneath her weight.
+
+"You will drive me mad," he cried, seizing her trembling hands; "tell
+me, in Heaven's name--tell me how you came here, and why?"
+
+"I came," she ejaculated half in surprise and half in fear, "because you
+sent for me; but why am I in these rooms, why not in yours?" She did not
+yet understand his suspicions; her fears arose from his strange
+excitement; she began to fear for his reason, thinking that he had sent
+for her.
+
+"Woman!" he cried in agony, wringing her cold hands, "I never called you
+hither, and this you must know." She could not speak, but sat silently
+staring at him, her eyes distended with terror. "Speak--speak truth, if
+you _dare_--and tell me why you are here? and how? for I am nearly mad;
+do you not see it, woman? I conjure you, speak."
+
+"Speak you!" she whispered, "and tell me your hidden meaning; you
+affright me with these spirit thoughts. Embody them, Miles; for I dare
+not believe my heart's fear."
+
+"Speak them!" he exclaimed, "do they need speech? No! your guilty soul
+has uttered them to your terror-stricken frame; you have done, and now
+you shudder at your own act. Woman, I am doubly deceived, deceived when
+this day I took you to my loving heart, deceived when I was lured from
+my home that you might come hither in secret, but I will have revenge,
+where revenge may be taken." And casting her hands from him, which he
+had held grasped in his, he sprung towards the door, but like lightning
+she was before him, and placing her slight form, now nerved by
+resolution against it, she said, "Miles, I bore much this day patiently,
+for I had been guilty of concealment, though done for a worthy purpose;
+but now, that my soul is clear of any wilful sin against you, in the
+sight of Heaven, I _demand_ that you should hear me."
+
+"Speak," he said coldly folding his arms, "my revenge can wait."
+
+"When," she articulated faintly, for the nerve of a moment had passed
+away--"when you left me to-day, an hour elapsed in thoughts of you, all
+you Miles, and joy--that deep joy which reconciliation brings. I was
+aroused from this dream of peace and rest, after my recent sorrow, by a
+messenger who came, he said, with a letter from you, which you had given
+him on starting, and this letter bade me at once come to Uplands to
+rejoin you, placing myself under the care of this messenger; you had a
+project in view for our mutual happiness, and my presence was necessary;
+so, dear Miles, I did not delay a moment,"--here the long restrained
+tears overflowed her eyes at the calling of that gentle word on her
+lip--"but fearlessly quitted home, knowing your judgment must be best in
+all things for my benefit, I could not err in following your guidance,"
+her full eye looked all its love on him as she spoke.
+
+"The letter," he said hoarsely, holding out a hand; he durst not take
+her, as he longed to do, to his heart, without this proof.
+
+"Are _you_ mad, or am _I_?" exclaimed the affrighted girl--his calmness
+awed her. "I have burned that letter, you know you bade me do so."
+
+"By heavens!" he laughed wildly, "your cold-hearted assurance proves you
+the most consummate deceiver in the world. Girl--woman--demon! I _never_
+bade you come--I never wrote to you; and you _know_ I did not, but your
+paramour knew me safe here; and in safety lodged you here also. By
+heaven it was a bold, daring game, worthy a better cause!" How often, in
+our bitterest or most serious moments, some passage either ludicrous, or
+irreverent, will cross our minds; through his flitted the words of
+Iago,--
+
+     "She did deceive her father, marrying you!"
+
+"Yes," he continued, following the thought, "she deceived them all,
+cleverly and calmly; and what wonder I should follow?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Minnie, dropping on her knees and looking upwards; "if
+spirits in pain may summon their kindred from heaven, oh! my own dear
+mother, look on your orphan, and pity her; pray for her, mother
+dear--pray for her!" and, covering her face with her hands, she wept
+bitterly. There is not in the regions of darkness a blacker demon than
+jealousy; it brands all--perverts all. There was a time when a tear from
+Minnie would have torn his soul. Now he looked on, almost exultingly; he
+thought she was sorrowing for another.
+
+"Tremenhere, Tremenhere, open the door!" exclaimed Lord Randolph
+without, agitatedly--he heard a woman in tears. "For heaven's sake open
+the door, I will explain all!"
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Miles in a deep tone of satisfaction, yet it seemed as
+a groan, "here is something tangible to deal with." And without casting
+a look on his sobbing wife, who was bowed to earth, he hastily
+unfastened the door, which she had locked to prevent Miles's egress.
+"Come in, my lord," he said, perfectly calm, "and witness your day's
+worthy occupation! Look up, woman; here is one for whom you have cast me
+off! You, my lord, to-day, reign master of that fickle heart; and
+another--and another--and another, to-morrow!" and he strode
+contemptuously to the fireplace; but the hands were clenched in agony,
+which he would let no one witness.
+
+"Come in, Vellumy!" cried Lord Randolph, whose voice trembled. He had
+created a storm which was mastering him.
+
+"Let no one else in!" shouted Miles, turning round, all his forced calm
+giving way to intense passion. "Or, yes," he added, springing to the
+door and forcing it wide open from Vellumy's grasp, who strove to close
+it. "Come in, one, all--all--Burton too--come, glory, triumph over the
+proud man biting the bitter dust of betrayed trust."
+
+"Are you mad?" exclaimed his host, pale with agitation. "Hear me,
+Tremenhere; I will explain all. Vellumy knows all--we will explain."
+
+As they entered Minnie crept to her feet, and silently dropping on the
+sofa, sat watching all with a bewildered look of extreme terror; her
+shaken mind could not comprehend it.
+
+"I am ready to hear all you may have to say, gentlemen," Miles said
+coldly, and sarcastically; "you will, however, permit me to hold my own
+opinions, and act upon them, as a man so much injured should."
+
+"Tell him, my lord," whispered Minnie, who had silently crept to Lord
+Randolph's side, and grasped his arm--"tell him; for _you_ must know how
+I came here, if, indeed, he is not mad, as I feared, but truly in
+ignorance."
+
+Tremenhere stood as one doubtful whether to drag her from the arm she
+energetically grasped, or else kill her as she stood there; assuredly
+there was murder in the thought of that ungoverned, erring, but most
+devoted heart. He passed his hand over his brow, and dashed aside the
+cold drops of suspense and doubt.
+
+"Pray, calm yourself, madam," said Lord Randolph, gently laying his hand
+on her trembling one; "I will explain all. Indeed, I never expected
+matters to take so biased a turn as this." She shrunk back from the
+touch of his hand. Her terror assumed so many forms, she scarcely knew
+where to find the end of that tangled web to unravel it. Vellumy looked
+even more alarmed than Lord Randolph; besides which, for the first time,
+he looked upon Minnie, and perhaps she never had appeared more beautiful
+than in that moment of anxiety and suffering. Instinctively he drew near
+to the girl, who sat like one awakened from a fearful dream, gazing
+wildly from one to the other, and incapable of the least exertion; her
+very arms hung nerveless, yet essaying to grasp the sofa for support.
+
+Vellumy whispered gently, "Don't c_w_y; we will make it all
+_w_ight--G_w_ay has brought you here for that purpose." But she stared
+wildly at him, not hearing or understanding his meaning. Meanwhile, Lord
+Randolph, who really had done all with a good intention, gained energy
+from the uprightness of his conscience, and said calmly--
+
+"Now hear me, Tremenhere; I may possibly offend you by my interference,
+but my object in bringing that most unfortunate, most injured girl here,
+has been----"
+
+"Stop, my lord!" cried Miles, recovering his dignity, and soothing down
+his passion like a smouldering fire, more concentrated and intense in
+that apparent calm. "Though lost to all shame--though lost to me and my
+love, permit me still to claim a certain respect for the name she still
+bears--you forget that _girl_ is my wife--Mrs. Tremenhere!"
+
+"Your _wife_!" exclaimed both the other men in a voice. "Your wife! Good
+heavens! can this be?"
+
+"True!" answered Miles, coldly. "I forgot this was unknown to you--that
+is, _through me_. I came hither to-day, to leave you no longer in
+ignorance of my exact position, as you had done my wife the honour of a
+visit."
+
+"Merciful heavens!" cried Lord Randolph, agitatedly. "If this be indeed
+the case, I have been led into a grievous, but not irretrievable, error.
+Is this lady truly your wife?"
+
+"As truly as a twice-told ceremony can make her," answered the other,
+with a cold, doubting smile. "Is your lordship indeed in ignorance of
+this fact? and does the responsibility of your crime alarm you? Fear
+not--it is not by _law_ I shall seek redress when I demand it. There may
+be honour--if you know that thing more than by name--but there will be
+no laws to satisfy."
+
+Lord Randolph was pacing the room, uncertain how to explain
+himself;--Vellumy looked thunderstruck.
+
+"What!" continued Miles, in the same tone of bitterness; "did you think
+that was a frail creature, you were only making frailer still? that you
+were only deceiving a deceiver? giving to the giver his own again? I
+tell you, no; the creature was to me as the light of heaven--pure,
+sunny, gladdening all!--a gift of God to cheer me on my pilgrimage! Do
+you think I could look up to heaven, and bless it for its light, when I
+had condemned a soul like hers to crime and darkness?--to walk with me
+onward to the judgment-seat, and there kneel down and condemn me to
+hell, for the wrong I had done her? I tell you no, my lord; she _was_
+my own loved, virtuous _wife--once_!" And the stern man's voice
+trembled with emotion.
+
+"And, by heavens, Tremenhere! that _still_ for me, or any thought of
+mine. Give me your hand: forgive me--I have been led to wrong you
+deeply; I rejoice in being able once again to call you friend. I
+respect--I pity you; for some, to me unknown, unhappy circumstances,
+must have made you condemn a being like that to the shade of a
+suspicion. Mrs. Tremenhere," he added, approaching her, as Miles drew
+coldly back from the proffered hand, "forgive me the involuntary pain I
+have caused you, but plead for me to Tremenhere; he cannot resist you!"
+
+Minnie stared like one idiotic; she was wounded too deeply; her native
+delicacy was sullied by these cruel suspicions.
+
+"Tell Miles all," she articulated, in a low tone--"I cannot speak to
+him; tell him all--pray, do!" And her voice was choked with tears.
+
+"You _must_ hear me, Tremenhere!" he cried.
+
+"_Must!_" laughed the other incredulously. "May I ask is this an
+impromptu, or a part of a well-arranged whole? I ask a simple
+question--favour me with a simple reply, my lord. How came Mrs.
+Tremenhere in this apartment, where I by accident found her? Words will
+not do--I ask proofs!"
+
+"Will not my pledged and sacred honour suffice?"
+
+"Some men deem it a duty, where a lady's reputation is concerned, to
+clear her from suspicion at any price."
+
+"By heavens! you are blunt, sir," answered Lord Randolph haughtily;
+"and but that a well-meant act of mine, has caused this scene--this
+mistake--I should leave you to seek your remedy where and how you would;
+but I am resolved to state all, and then leave you to be just, if just
+you can be in your present state."
+
+He then proceeded to relate the scheme arranged between Vellumy and
+himself, believing Minnie wronged by Tremenhere--a scheme to bring her
+down, and call upon Miles's better feelings to do her justice. What she
+had told her husband was perfectly true. When Vellumy entered the club,
+on their way to the railroad, it was to despatch a trusty person, to
+whom the letter had been confided, which lured Minnie unsuspecting from
+home. We have seen how Vellumy's cab had been in waiting with its
+master, to secure the positive departure of Miles. Vellumy had a great
+talent--(for one it is, though dangerous in the extreme)--an
+extraordinary power of copying handwriting. He wrote a letter so exactly
+like Miles's, that even Minnie was deceived. It ran thus (they were
+ignorant of her name, it will be remembered)--
+
+    "Dearest Love--I have just received a letter at my club, on my way
+    to the station, which contains something of so much importance to
+    our future welfare, that I earnestly desire you should follow me to
+    Uplands. Place yourself unfearing under the care of the trusty
+    bearer, and he will bring you safe to your
+
+    "MILES.
+
+"Burn this; I will explain all when we meet."
+
+This letter might have misled a more experienced person than poor
+Minnie; what could she suspect? Miles's word was law, unquestioned;
+without hesitating one moment, she quitted home with the messenger, who
+was none other than Lord Randolph's valet, one he could securely confide
+in. The plan for Tremenhere to discover her, was all arranged
+beforehand; but, most unfortunately, the well-intentioned plotters were
+quite ignorant of Miles's jealous disposition, as also of the scene of
+that morning on his lordship's account; and, to crown all, there was no
+letter forthcoming in proof. Vellumy, by the latter's desire, quitted
+the room to keep the guests below in good temper; he was, like his
+friend, a well-meaning man, but not a gifted one, by wisdom. Of all the
+persons below, he selected Burton for his confident, to whom he might
+unburthen his overcharged bosom. Secrets were of leaden weight with him.
+This man listened with avidity and delight to the strange tale, but made
+no like confidence himself. What he knew about it, remained in his own
+breast; but he, who before chid his fate for bringing him in contact
+with his cousin, now rejoiced in it: these revelations raised a host of
+ideas in his mind, which he promised himself not to lose sight of.
+
+All these circumstances, as we have related them, were laid before
+Tremenhere, and though he allowed himself at last to be convinced of
+Minnie's truth, yet there was a power within him stronger than his own
+will. It was an offspring of nature--wild and ungovernable jealousy: it
+ran like a muddy current through every vein, and though he took Minnie
+once again in love and reconciliation to his heart, and shook Lord
+Randolph's hand in sincerity of gratitude for the manly wish which
+prompted this ill-advised act of kindness to Minnie, still the demon
+shook his heart when he saw her, in the warmth of her generous,
+guileless heart, shake Lord Randolph gratefully by the hand, and,
+looking up in his face, bid "Heaven bless him;" for he felt no man could
+forget that face, that look, and he dreaded lest what was not, might be
+engendered by that beauty and grace of nature, which had driven even his
+stern heart almost to madness; and the restless demon whispered, "I
+would you had seen the letter," but letter, Vellumy, Burton, Lord
+Randolph--all, were forgotten and forgiven, when he held his Minnie once
+again to his heart, and their host descended to make some plausible
+excuse for his non-appearance again.
+
+Early next morning he and Minnie returned to town, and Burton, too,
+quitted Uplands.
+
+"That fool Dalby made a confounded mistake," said Lord Randolph to his
+crony, Vellumy, next day; "but it has all turned out most fortunately.
+What an exquisite creature Mrs. Tremenhere is! Ten thousand times
+handsomer even than her cousin. Lady Dora," (for Miles had related all,
+to leave no further doubt or suspicion about Minnie.)
+
+"B_w_ootiful!" responded Vellumy, "and such a sweet l_w_oving woman! I
+hope T_w_emenhere will t_w_eat her well, he's so d_w_eucedly jealous!"
+
+And thus terminated a good intention. If it went where such too often
+are said to go, it left its germ in earth to bud and blossom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+If Lord Randolph had possessed as good sense as he had kindness of
+heart, even yet all might have passed into oblivion; but he was that
+_rara avis_ of fashionable life--a moral man; that is, one too much so,
+to attempt the seduction of a friend's wife. Minnie became sacred to him
+from the moment he shook Tremenhere's hand in reconciliation; him, he
+liked, and still more, his fair little wife. It was, then, not to be
+wondered at if he claimed the privilege of an old friend, and made
+frequent calls at the villa near Chiswick. It would have been much more
+wisely done to have remained away; but, in conscious rectitude, we often
+are guilty of very compromising acts, viewed by prejudiced or evil
+minds. Tremenhere's pride forbade any observations to Minnie, who
+received him with pleasure, looking upon him in two lights--both as her
+husband's friend, and Lady Dora's suitor, for such he still was; and as
+she occasionally, but not very frequently called, they met at the villa.
+Still there was--burned as it were into Miles's brain--the memory of all
+Vellumy had said that fatal day about his friend's love for a married
+woman--fair, too; in all, answering Minnie's description. And, worse
+than all, there was that unfortunate letter which Vellumy had written,
+and, for self-security, bade her burn immediately. All these things
+combined were ever floating before Tremenhere's brain; and, to complete
+the impression, Lord Randolph was constantly urging him to finish the
+"Aurora," by giving her a worthy representative in the face of his fair,
+young, sylph-like wife.
+
+In the most well-meaning manner, this man was ever doing something to
+keep alive the other's suspicions. He was no longer in ignorance of
+Tremenhere's position regarding Marmaduke Burton; and, as a sincere
+friend and generous-hearted man, pressed his purse upon Miles, to
+proceed at once to Gibraltar, and prosecute all possible research. It
+need scarcely be said, that he had dropped all acquaintance with
+Marmaduke, which created a double hatred and desire of revenge on his
+part, towards his cousin and his young wife.
+
+When Lord Randolph made the generous offer of his purse, he concluded by
+saying, naturally and without thought of harm--
+
+"You could leave Mrs. Tremenhere with her aunt, Lady Ripley; I will
+undertake to arrange that. Or, I know my own good, kind one, Lady
+Lysson, would most gladly offer her a home during your absence."
+
+Tremenhere was painting at the moment the other said this; he flushed
+deeply, then dropping a pencil, stooped to pick it up, and thus partly
+covered his confusion.
+
+"I cannot be sufficiently grateful," he answered; "but--" there was an
+almost imperceptible tone of sarcasm in his voice; "but I never have
+been parted from my wife, Lord Randolph; and I do not think she would
+desire or like it--that is, I hope not." And he fixed his eye for a
+moment on the other's face, who saw nothing, and consequently more than
+once urged the subject upon Miles, who grew at last almost rude, beyond
+his power of control.
+
+"Tremenhere's out of temper to-day," said the visitor to himself. "I'm
+sure it would be the best thing he could do, and a duty, to place that
+sweet wife of his, in her proper sphere; I'll be at him again."
+
+All these groundless suspicions wore on his really noble nature, every
+thing giving way before them; even the sacred hope which once had been
+so dear to him, the re-establishing his mother's fame, became a blank.
+He cared for nothing, except to watch and verify his doubts; he became
+weary, feverish, ill, and an enigma to all! almost too--oh, worse than
+all--a terror to poor Minnie, who was lost in wonder and perplexity. If
+she quitted the room for a longer time than was pleasing to him, he
+stole from his easel, and listened; if he saw her writing, he could not
+rest till the letter was placed in his hands, even the book on which she
+had written it was examined, to trace whether the blotting-paper had
+kept the words confided to it; and, when all had been done with feverish
+haste, the man sat down, and hated himself for his meanness, and seeking
+out Minnie, drew her to his heart, as if he would keep her ever there,
+and almost wept over her in penitence and love; for never a man loved
+more madly or fatally for the peace of both.
+
+He would start from some mad dream of desertion, and, stilling his very
+heart to listen, find her sleeping purely and calmly as an infant beside
+him. Such a state could not last; Minnie, every one noticed it, but
+few--or better said, none--guessed the cause, so well did he veil his
+thoughts.
+
+We have spoken little of Minnie's late home, but there was little to
+interest the reader in that tranquil abode,--tranquil, except when
+Dorcas sought to recall Minnie there, and to their hearts; this might
+have been accomplished long before the present time of which we write,
+had there not been extraneous influence to keep alive the feeling
+against her. Marmaduke Burton was not only a visiter, but a constant
+correspondent, when absent, of Juvenal's; nothing was left undone which
+could widen the breach, and it was with the "deepest regret," he said,
+that he felt compelled, by a sacred duty, to inform Juvenal, as her
+uncle, that the once pure Minnie was deceiving her husband, as she had
+all of them.
+
+Alas! the girl who flies her home, leaves an unanswerable argument
+against her, when the world afterwards adds sin, shame, or a levity to
+her charge; however innocent she may be, the "once" is a precedent for
+all.
+
+Dorcas, and even poor Mrs. Gillett, loudly exclaimed against this; the
+former refused positively to meet or sit in company with Burton; Sylvia
+shook her head, and looked more sinister than ever, as she said, "It
+might very likely be; she never expected any thing better from her
+marriage with such a man; she had indeed raised a barrier between them,"
+and chapters more to the same effect. Poor Dorcas cried bitterly, and
+reproached herself for her supineness in the first instant, in not
+vigorously opposing Minnie's incarceration. She knew the girl better
+than any, and knew nothing would have tempted her honest nature to
+duplicity, had she not been driven half frantic by wrong accusations,
+and suspicion of her truth. In her trouble, Dorcas sought her only
+comforter, Mr. Skaife, and urged him so anxiously to see her beloved
+niece, that he quitted Yorkshire for town; before he arrived, sorrow was
+gathering fast over both those he felt so much interested about.
+
+Our readers will recall to mind, that Mary Burns had obtained teaching,
+by which she principally supported her mother; for she felt a delicacy
+in receiving succour from Tremenhere, however generously offered. Of
+late he seldom quitted home, never except when absolutely forced to do
+so, and generally he so arranged it, to be driven in by Lord Randolph;
+thus only could he feel secure. One thing we forgot to mention sooner,
+that nothing was wanting to urge a jealous man to madness; he was in the
+constant habit of receiving anonymous letters, those vile arms of coward
+strength; these were written, so bearing upon acts of actual occurrence,
+that, though he read and flung them into the fire, still they left an
+unerring shaft behind, piercing his heart with doubt, for in every one
+there was but the one name registered, which was eating into his
+soul--Lord Randolph's. He was truly a man fighting with shadows; he
+feared every thing, seeing nothing. It was a state of irritability
+which could not last much longer. He was borne to earth with the
+tortures of his mind; and Minnie crept, like the ghost of herself,
+through those almost silent rooms--once all light and happiness.
+
+It must not be supposed that Marmaduke Burton, who was working
+under-ground like some vermin, did it for mere revenge, or wanton
+wickedness; no, he was impelled to it by fear; he knew in his heart that
+Miles had _right_ on his side, and he saw that _might_, too, would
+probably become his. Environed as he was by powerful friends, whom he
+was daily gaining by his talents as an artist, he felt his only security
+lay in driving Tremenhere to some act of desperation, which would make
+him fly the country, either in despair or to conceal Minnie from all. He
+had known his cousin's disposition from boyhood; he knew every turn of
+his hasty, but noble heart; and all the harsher feelings of it had been
+drawn forth, as stains by fire, in the wrongs of his mother and his own
+Minnie. There are so many vile ones on earth, who know no law where
+money is proffered in exchange for evil, that Burton found ready tools
+to watch all--report all; even the household hearth was not sacred from
+this pollution.
+
+Some weeks had passed; Minnie had not seen Mary Burns for a considerable
+time, when, one day, a note reached her from her, brought by a messenger
+who said it required immediate attention. Tremenhere had left home about
+half an hour, on business which would occupy him nearly the whole day.
+His manner had been feverish and excited all the morning, and Minnie
+would not have wondered had she read the contents of another of those
+vile missives which he had received an hour before leaving. After
+reading it, by an involuntary movement of disgust, he pushed her from
+him, as she stooped her head over him while he sat motionless at his
+easel, the uplifted brush awaiting the command of genius to call life on
+the lifeless canvass; but his thoughts were more of death, than any
+existing, glowing creation.
+
+"Miles, dearest," and she bent down to embrace him, and her always
+slight figure, looked now like a lithe graceful withey, so fragile its
+outline; "what are you thinking of?"
+
+He pushed her from him, and then, as the girl stood, pale and alarmed at
+his violence, his haggard eye forgot its troubled glance, to soften into
+tenderness, as he drew her passionately to his heart. And the trembling
+voice said--
+
+"Forgive me, again, Minnie--forgive me; I am a very wretched man, loving
+you as I love you, and----" He paused.
+
+"And what? my own husband."
+
+"Never mind, Minnie--never mind! You will not, will you? Oh! promise me
+you will not." He was speaking to his thoughts.
+
+"Any thing, Miles!" she answered, old fears of his perfect sanity making
+her shudder. "What is it you wish me to promise?"
+
+"Never to forsake me, come what may; be your feelings towards me what
+they may, hide them, Minnie; let me be deceived if you will, but never
+let me see it; and oh! do not forsake me, or I shall go mad!"
+
+She could not answer. Her tears were frozen by fear. She really thought
+him deranged; and so he was--that worst madness--jealousy. For the
+overwrought mind was not fighting with idle fancies, evanescent as vain;
+but with a cold, tangible reality, built on many a doubt and distorted
+act or word of hers, and still worse on the letters of his anonymous
+correspondent, whose last letter, received that morning, ran thus--
+
+    "If you wish to verify all, leave home early, professedly for the
+    day, and watch your house; be in readiness to follow, and you will
+    need no further proof or admonition to enable you to convince
+    yourself. A hired brougham will be at the end of your lane. The
+    driver, ignorant of all, will place himself at your disposal, on
+    your giving the name of--'Gray,' as well as another--'twill keep him
+    in your memory.
+
+    "Your sincere, but unsuspected FRIEND."
+
+And Miles was resolved at last to have proof, or else never again
+suspect--never read another letter, but burn them unopened.
+
+"You do not speak," he said, again drawing her, shrinking from terror,
+close to his heart, by the arm which clasped her. "Poor child--poor
+Minnie! I have frightened you; forget it, my child, I am unfitting for
+so frail a thing as you. I should have mated with my own kind, something
+lion-born, and you--you with----Minnie," he cried, changing his tone
+suddenly, and looking full in her face with his dark, gloomy eyes, "you
+should have married such a man as Lord Randolph Gray, and have led a
+life of luxury and peace. He would never have terrified you, as _I_ do;
+I think you would have been very happy--I think he loves you, Minnie."
+
+The suddenness of the words, his change of manner, all combined to call
+the warm blood to her cheek.
+
+"Miles," she said in agitation, "do not say things like these; even in
+jest, Lord Randolph's name should never be mingled with mine in a breath
+of doubt, after that one painful scene at Uplands--you forget, too, he
+is Dora's----"
+
+"Oh!" laughed he hoarsely, "those things are soon broken off. Now,
+Minnie, were you free, on your sacred soul, do you not think that man
+would propose to marry you?"
+
+"On my sacred soul, Miles," she answered solemnly, shrinking from his
+arms, almost with a feeling of dislike towards him at the manner of his
+speech,--"I do not think so; and this I _know_, were I free, fifty times
+over, I would refuse his lordship."
+
+"Forgive me, Minnie, forgive me--forget this!" and he once more folded
+his arms around her, as he rose from his seat. "I am unworthy of you,
+yet _indeed_ I love you." His smile was almost as of old, and once again
+they were at peace; _he had forgotten the letter_, but it was only the
+merciful oblivion of a moment; their peace was like a house built on a
+blasted rock, through the caverns of which the wind whistles mournfully,
+shewing the hollowness beneath.
+
+Shortly afterwards he quitted the house for "nearly the whole day," he
+said. He was gone; and she sat silently thinking, as now was her wont
+when alone; there was nothing to restrain her feelings having full play.
+Before him, she often forced a gaiety she did not feel; now she sat in
+sorrow, and the once laughing face looked pale and care-worn.
+
+"A letter, if you please, ma'am," said the footboy, presenting one. She
+took it, the characters were familiar. "Poor Mary!" she said, refolding
+it when read; "I have indeed much neglected you of late; and it was a
+sacred duty to do otherwise, lest by that neglect your heart had once
+again grown callous or reckless in the midst of troubles. We should
+uphold a fallen sister who has risen, lest the weakened limbs totter
+again, and sink, never to rise! I will go at once and see her; I am sure
+my doing so must please Miles--poor Miles, my own dear husband! John,"
+she asked, as the boy obeyed her summons to the room again, "who brought
+this note?"
+
+"I don't know, ma'am. A man; he said there was no answer required."
+
+"Go," she said, "round to the stables, and order me a fly immediately,
+without delay."
+
+The letter said--
+
+    "Dear Mrs. Tremenhere--I am sure you will pardon my writing to ask
+    you, as a very great favour, to come here to-day. I am in much
+    trouble, and have only you to comfort and support me in it, by your
+    counsel and advice. Pray, forgive the trouble I am imposing upon
+    you; and pray be here if possible by two o'clock.
+
+    "Humbly and sincerely yours,
+
+    "MARY BURNS."
+
+The fly drove to the door in a quarter of an hour: it was one o'clock.
+
+"Drive quickly!" cried Minnie, as she stepped in and gave Mary's
+address; "I am late." The man touched his hat, and obeyed. There was a
+lane leading to the road from their house; at the corner of this a
+brougham appeared, coming towards the villa. "It is Dora!" exclaimed she
+to herself. "If I stop, she will delay me; moreover, she does not see
+all as I do; dear Dora is more coldly calculating, and lectures me for
+visiting poor Mary; I will not stop now, but write and tell her
+to-morrow; she will call again, and for worlds I would not forsake Mary
+in her trouble." As she thought all this, with one hand she hastily drew
+down the blinds, and leaned back in the carriage. She did not see Dora,
+neither did she see the occupant of another brougham, with the blinds
+half down, who was watching all, with a pale, anxious face.
+
+"Follow that fly," he said, in a scarcely articulate voice, pointing
+after Minnie's--"not too closely, but keep it in sight----She did not
+even speak to her cousin," he whispered to his trembling heart, "but
+drew down the blinds to avoid observation!" And he pressed his hands
+over his strained and burning eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+It was scarcely two when Minnie stopped at the door of Mary Burns's
+cottage; alighting, she rapped. The servant of whom Dalby made mention,
+opened the door. But, let us hasten to say, of all this he was ignorant;
+the game was too deep a one to be entrusted even to him.
+
+"Is Miss Burns at home?" asked Minnie.
+
+"No, ma'am; she has been out some time, but I expect her very shortly.
+Will you walk up-stairs, in the drawing-room?"
+
+Minnie obeyed, desiring the fly to wait. Before going to this apartment,
+however, she entered the parlour, and there found Mary's old mother
+sitting, childish and insensible as ever to all around. She spoke a few
+words to the deaf ear, and looked her sympathy in the unconscious face;
+then turning, followed the servant up-stairs. Here she paced the room
+impatiently some moments; then, sitting down, looked in the fire to seek
+some associations for her thoughts in the "faces in the fire." She was
+in deep meditation; she felt nervous, and full of thought.
+
+Thought! What are our thoughts? They are like dissolving views passing
+over the soul. One fades imperceptibly into another, brighter and
+totally different; then this one in its turn yields place to others, and
+so on, until at last the curtain falls over the last--and where are we?
+In an immensity of tangled imaginings, wide and spreading like eternity!
+
+A long time she sat thus, and then a rap at the street door startled
+her; a step was on the stairs, light and bounding; it was not calm as
+Mary's generally, nevertheless she rose to meet it; the door opened, and
+she found herself face to face with Lord Randolph! She could not speak,
+but shrunk silently back, gazing on him.
+
+"I shame to see it," he cried, advancing with extended hands, "that you,
+my dear Mrs. Tremenhere, have arrived first."
+
+There was nothing libertine in his manner, nothing more than usual--glad
+to see her, and most respectful. "You are annoyed," he continued, as she
+involuntarily drew back; "but pray, pardon me: I was unavoidably
+delayed, and prove your forgiveness by telling me how, in what manner, I
+can serve or oblige you?"
+
+"There is some strange mistake in this, some incomprehensible mystery,
+my lord," she whispered in terror, though scarcely knowing of what. "I
+never expected to see you here; why are you in this house?"
+
+"Merciful heavens!" he cried in amazement, "did you not write,
+requesting my presence here? Stay! I have the note about me: I came
+unhesitatingly, knowing well that you were in the habit of calling here
+occasionally."
+
+"I never wrote, Lord Randolph; there is some extraordinary meaning in
+this, coupled with the absence of her I came to see," and she seated
+herself tremblingly on the couch.
+
+"Here is the note," he cried, not less agitated; "is not this exactly
+your handwriting?"
+
+"Sufficiently like it to deceive an inexperienced eye; but I never wrote
+it, believe me."
+
+"I do, Mrs. Tremenhere, most truly; but believe also that I obeyed the
+summons without one wronging thought of one I respect so sincerely as I
+do yourself."
+
+"Alas! alas!" she said in a tone of despondency, "I have felt some time
+past that there was a web weaving around me, I knew not where; my
+husband is changed, and I--oh! I am so far from happy," and she burst
+into tears, covering her face with her hands.
+
+"Do not weep thus; pray, do not weep," he said with much feeling,
+leaning one hand on the back of the couch on which she sat. "I will sift
+this to the bottom; there must be treachery somewhere--but where? and
+why?" He read Mary Burns's letter to Minnie carefully over. "Where is
+this girl?" he asked; "can she be false, for some demoniacal motive?"
+
+"I do not think so: I would she were returned. Pray, let me hear the
+contents of the letter you received--I cannot read it." Lord Randolph
+hastened to obey; it merely contained a few hurried lines, as if written
+in trouble, imploring him to meet the writer at the place indicated, at
+a friend of hers, as she had something of importance to communicate, and
+begging secresy to all. It was signed "M. T., Chiswick," adding in a
+N.B.--"Inquire for me; you know my name. Should I not have arrived, ask
+to be shewn to the drawing-room, and wait."
+
+Minnie's tears fell thick and fast, her terror was so great. She felt
+she must be surrounded by enemies, and the worst, hidden ones--he was
+leaning forward, endeavouring to soothe, to guide, and counsel, where he
+himself felt so much in the dark: as he sat beside the weeping woman,
+the door opened quietly, and the servant looked in. "There was a
+gentleman there," she said, "wanting to look at the apartments which
+were to let, might she show them? Her mistress left orders for her to do
+so, when she was out." As she spoke, with an apparently innocent manner
+she flung open the door to the person, who stood behind her. A wolf
+driven to despair for food dares all--so will a coward for revenge.
+
+Marmaduke Burton stepped into the room--Lord Randolph sprang from the
+sofa, and Minnie in alarm, without reflection, lowered her veil.
+
+"I beg ten thousand pardons, Mrs. Tremenhere," he cried, starting back
+as if in surprise. "I was little aware I should meet you here! I beg ten
+thousand pardons," and he drew back.
+
+"Sir!" exclaimed Lord Randolph with _hauteur_, "your presence here
+solves the enigma of the forged letters, which have brought Mrs.
+Tremenhere and myself hither, but it is not here you must answer for
+it."
+
+"I do not comprehend you, Lord Randolph," he answered, advancing; "we
+mistake each other, doubtless. I have known the lady of this house from
+childhood; and, being commissioned by a friend to seek apartments for
+him, I deemed it an act of kindness to benefit her, if possible, knowing
+how circumscribed her means are; and her troubles, I grieve to say,
+occasioned by an unworthy relative of my own."
+
+He said this, not feeling positive that Minnie might not be shaken
+enough to doubt her husband's veracity about his (Burton's) seduction of
+the girl; it might do good any way, and materially change Lord
+Randolph's opinion of, and consequent interest in, Tremenhere.
+
+"Oh, it is untrue!" cried Minnie, starting up, forgeting every thing but
+the slander of her husband. "Do not believe that man, my lord--ask Mary
+herself. Miles has been as a brother to her; and shame--oh! shame on the
+base tongue which proclaims the wrongs of his victim!"
+
+"I see, madam," answered Burton, "that your old and natural prejudice
+against me has nothing abated; and I make no doubt, even my truly good
+motive in visiting this house will be misconstrued by you."
+
+"There can be no further occasion, then, for prolonging your stay here,
+I presume," said Lord Randolph coldly; and here be it said, the
+indifferent, or rather neutral portion of his lordship's character
+appeared as the active and better had shone forth in his desire, however
+awkwardly executed, of making Tremenhere from shame do Minnie justice,
+when he supposed her an injured woman. Had he now taken up the intrusion
+differently, and alarmed Burton's coward heart, by his resolution of
+sifting the mystery thoroughly, and in the presence of Mary Burns, who
+was momentarily expected, as the servant had told Minnie, Burton could
+not have refused, under the accusation of a knowledge of the
+mystification which had been practised upon the other two, to await
+Mary's coming; and thus have exonerated himself, if possible. Under any
+circumstances, fear of Lord Randolph would have silenced him elsewhere.
+On this subject, as it was, the other's supineness and policy emboldened
+him, and left a fearful arm in his hands to injure Minnie. Lord Randolph
+said to himself, "I have a very great regard for Mrs. Tremenhere; I like
+her husband, too; there is some mystery here; if I involve myself to
+unravel it, or punish Burton, whom I firmly believe to be at the bottom,
+I shall bring my name into question; and as Lady Dora, who, most
+probably, some day will become my wife, is Mrs. Tremenhere's cousin, all
+these unpleasant circumstances had better be left to die away; nothing
+will come of it; I shall withdraw from the acquaintance."
+
+And so poor Minnie was sacrificed for the want of a resolute, sterling,
+English heart, to bring the darkness of the affair to light. Poor woman!
+all her strength of mind seemed to have deserted her, after those few
+words uttered in defence of Miles; and she sat like one bewildered by
+passing events, intoxicating from their combination.
+
+"I have no wish to intrude further," said Burton, as he turned round. "I
+have only to apologize sincerely for the alarm my inopportune visit has
+occasioned this lady and your lordship."
+
+"I trust, sir," exclaimed this latter, "that you do not mean to
+insinuate aught against Mrs. Tremenhere? Our meeting here remains an
+unsolved mystery, which we can only leave to time."
+
+"Far be it from me to wrong the purity of one so fair," answered the
+other, bowing lowly, with as much sarcasm in his manner as he durst
+shew. "Mrs. Tremenhere has a husband to judge her--I leave all to him."
+
+And with this last bitter phrase of doubtful meaning, he quitted the
+room. Poor Minnie could not speak; she was thunderstruck, and crushed
+with presentiment and fear.
+
+"This has been a most inexplicable affair," said Lord Randolph, as the
+door closed. "Can you devise any means for discovering the authors, dear
+Mrs. Tremenhere? I am, indeed, truly distressed at your annoyance; but,
+believe me, there will be, there can be, no unpleasant results--it has
+been some foolish jest."
+
+"Jest!" she exclaimed, looking up; she was very pale. "It is more than
+that; there is some villainy in it, and that man is the author."
+
+There was a garden attached to the back of the house, through the door
+of which, leading into a lane, Burton passed out as he had entered,
+conducted by the servant, whose physiognomy had not deceived the acute
+Dalby. At the same moment Mary Burns rapped at the front; and our
+readers will not fail to remember the occupant of the hired brougham who
+had followed, and was witness to the arrival of all except Burton.
+
+Mary Burns went up immediately to the drawing-room, when her servant
+told her Mrs. Tremenhere was there. In an instant this latter was at her
+side--the presence of that girl seemed so great a protection--her
+coming, the only means of elucidating this painful mystery. Lord
+Randolph bowed rather uneasily as Minnie presented him. He wished much
+that he had sooner quitted the house. Yet, when he looked at her, he
+could not but feel deep commiseration for her, she was so agitated; in a
+few brief words she explained all to Mary, it would be impossible to
+describe her anxious state. Without the slightest hesitation she
+pronounced that Marmaduke Burton was the author of it for some vile
+purpose. It was not alone fear which agitated Minnie. There was a sense
+of degraded delicacy in it, that she should be drawn into even a
+fictitious intrigue with any man. She blushed deeply when this feeling
+came over her in all its force; especially when Lord Randolph said,
+meaning well, but certainly not advising wisely, "I should seriously
+counsel Mrs. Tremenhere not to name this affair to her husband, he has
+shewn himself so prone to jealousy; and _I_ will take means to silence
+the servant who admitted us--thus the affair will die away quietly."
+
+"Not name it to Miles!" exclaimed Minnie. "Pardon me, my lord, he shall
+instantly be made acquainted with it; and as one who, I trust, has too
+much reliance on me to suspect me of wrong. Let him seek those who cast
+so unworthy an imputation upon me."
+
+Poor Minnie, in her earnest defence of her husband, forgot the past
+unhappy scene to which Lord Randolph had been a witness, but he
+remembered it; and, fixing an eye of deep pity upon her, said, "Think
+well, Mrs. Tremenhere, before you act; your future happiness may be
+wrecked by one false step."
+
+"I think Mrs. Tremenhere is correct in her resolution," said Mary
+timidly. "Candour is ever best; and if I may presume to suggest to your
+lordship, I should assuredly beg that no bribe for secresy should be
+given to my servant. Honest uprightness, like Mrs. Tremenhere's and your
+own, needs no mask to hide its face."
+
+"Perhaps you are right," he said; and, taking up his hat and gloves from
+the table, added--"And now I think it would be more advisable for me to
+take my leave; that is, unless I can in any way serve you," he said,
+addressing Minnie.
+
+"Not in any," she answered, offering her hand; "it is far better you
+should leave. Most probably Miles will seek you to consult about
+discovering this affair; may I tell him your lordship will willingly
+lend any aid in your power?"
+
+"Assuredly," he answered, taking her proffered hand; "and now farewell,
+dear Mrs. Tremenhere. I sincerely trust this effort of your enemy,
+whosoever he may be, will prove abortive in any way to annoy you."
+
+"God grant it!" sighed she.
+
+"I earnestly pray so, too," responded Mary, as the door closed on Lord
+Randolph, who reached the street, entered his cab and drove off, without
+noticing the brougham, drawn up some doors off, through the window, at
+the back of which Tremenhere's pale face was watching him.
+
+"It can only be the work of that wicked man, Mr. Burton," said the
+agitated Mary; "and let me pray and entreat of you, dear Mrs.
+Tremenhere, not to lose a moment in returning, and stating all to your
+husband."
+
+"Assuredly he shall know all," answered she earnestly. "Poor Miles, it
+will grieve him deeply I know; but he will at once devise the best plan
+to frustrate our enemy: and now Mary, before I go, tell me, are you
+prospering in your teaching?"
+
+Mary's face grew very pale; the corners of her mouth twinged, and vain
+was the effort to repress her tears, she burst into sobs. "I have
+learned a severe lesson of late," she said, "that though there may be
+those in the world, in pure Christian charity, to take the fallen by the
+hand, there are more who close their gates against her: may Heaven not
+close the eternal ones to them!--I have had two shut against me since we
+met; I have not dared tell you, dear madam; I knew how your kind heart
+would suffer for me."
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Minnie, "how has it happened?"
+
+"Some enemy," answered the other with quivering lips, "or better said,
+_my_ enemy--the one who seems to seek the misery of all, alone can have
+done it. Past events have been by letter detailed; I was charged with
+them, and would not deny that the accusation was true. I accepted the
+shame as retribution."
+
+"And have you then lost your pupils in consequence?"
+
+"_All_," answered the unhappy woman; "for of the three families I
+attended, two were acquainted. One lady spoke of 'regret,' but 'there
+were worldly prejudices to be bowed down to.' I humbled myself, I
+implored them, for my poor old mother's sake, but it mattered little. At
+the other houses I was driven with insult from the place, and told that
+my manners bespoke no contrition or humility. Oh! if they could but
+witness the bowing down of my heart before Heaven for pardon, my
+sincere, my earnest repentance, they would not have condemned me so
+harshly."
+
+"I fear," said Minnie taking her hand kindly between her own trembling
+ones, on which the tears of sympathy fell, "that the world in general
+judges only from outward seeming; the hypocrite may be pardoned and
+believed, but the lowly penitent woman, walking before her God, and
+seeking his will in all things, to gain pardon and peace, is rejected by
+man, because her tears are silent, and hidden, save to the one to whom
+all her thoughts are directed; and let this be your consolation, Mary,
+that there is a limit to man's power, and then the tears of contrition
+will shine like stars to light you on your road to where they will all
+be wiped away."
+
+"May a better than myself bless you!" cried the stricken woman
+emphatically. "I did not intend saying so much to-day. May your
+consolation to me descend upon your own head in peace and happiness; and
+now, dear Mrs. Tremenhere, let me urge you to go, and tell your husband
+all, for only openness and candour can defeat the demon warring against
+us all."
+
+"I will go," answered Minnie, pressing her hand warmly. "You are right,
+Mary; but do not you despond. I will see you again in a few days--now I
+will go at once."
+
+And with a kind, gentle word to the sorrowing woman, she quitted the
+cottage, and, entering the fly awaiting her, drove rapidly towards home;
+and the brougham quitted its station too, and followed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Minnie arrived at home, and, hastily taking off her walking-dress, sat
+down to think, as calmly as might be, of the events of that day. Despite
+all her efforts, a pang shot through her heart at the idea of seeing
+Miles. His temper had of late been so uncertain, that she trembled lest
+any fault should be imputed to herself; the more narrowly she examined
+her heart, the less could she find any thing to blame herself for in
+this affair. While she sat thus, Miles appeared at the outer gate. As he
+traversed the front garden, she thought she had never seen him look so
+pale; and, when he raised his eyes towards the windows, there was an
+intense look in them, which made their hazel darkness seem like blackest
+night--this was probably owing to the excessive pallor of his cheek and
+brow. When he entered the room where she sat, a choking sensation arose
+in his throat--he had paused, too, outside the door, to still the
+bounding of his heart. She rose to meet him; there was a smile on her
+lip, but it was forced, constrained--fear kept it from expanding into
+cheerfulness.
+
+"You are home earlier than you promised to be, dear Miles," she said.
+
+His eyes were riveted on her face. "Yes," he answered in a deep, hollow
+tone, which he endeavoured to render tranquil; "but I hope not less
+welcome for that?"
+
+"Ever welcome--ever the one to come too late, and leave too early," she
+answered. "Where have you been, Miles?"
+
+"In several places, Minnie,"--and he stifled almost a groan.
+
+"Are you not well?" she inquired, delaying what she had to say in
+terror, and really anxious too about him; his pallor struck her as so
+unusual, but without one dawning thought of the truth.
+
+"Quite well, Minnie; but I am weary--very weary," and he sunk exhausted
+in a chair--it was the mind which had lost all nerve. She drew a
+footstool close to his feet, and, in kneeling upon it, took both his
+hands in hers; but, in so doing, she did not feel the thrill which
+passed over them; it was horror--the horror of doubt--no, she did not
+feel it; but holding them tightly, and leaning on his knees, she looked
+up in the face, whose rigid, intense gaze was fixed upon her uplifted
+countenance.
+
+"Miles, I have something to tell you," she said at last; but her lip
+quivered as she spoke.
+
+"Something to tell me!" he uttered, repeating her words; and a shadow of
+hope crossed over his face.
+
+"Yes, dear Miles; but promise you will not fly in a passion: you do not
+know how you terrify me in doing so. Hear all I have to say, and then
+let us, as calmly as may be, consult what is to be done." He could not
+speak; he was like one fluttering between life and death. She did not
+wait, however, for him to do so, but hurriedly told him the events of
+the morning; so anxious was she to say all, that she scarcely noticed
+his extraordinary silence. When she paused, he quietly drew his hands
+from hers, and still keeping his fixed gaze upon her, though the
+countenance had changed with every word of hers, still the eye had not
+one instant quitted her face. Withdrawing his hands, he placed them both
+on her shoulders as she knelt before him, and said in a low, measured
+tone, "Minnie, I know all you have told me; I followed you to-day. It
+may seem mean, unmanly, my doing so; but I was resolved to prove you--I
+knew all!"
+
+"Knew all!" she ejaculated, shrinking back from his touch, as if it
+pained her.
+
+"Why do you shrink from me, Minnie?"
+
+"Because," she said, rising slowly to her feet, "you then have done it
+yourself, doubting, to prove me!"
+
+"No, by heavens, I have not! Kneel down again, Minnie;" and he drew her
+reluctantly before him again. "Look upon me, Minnie, for I am your judge
+now, to hear, but not condemn. You have forced that character upon me; I
+came, fully determined to say nothing, to close my heart to proof and
+conviction, to bear all my wrongs, if such they were, and seek no
+elucidation, leaving all to time to prove you whatever you might be!"
+
+"Oh, Miles--Miles!" she cried, looking up trembling in his face; "and
+can you suspect me still? And could you live with me a day, believing
+me so false to you?"
+
+"Listen--I have passed three hours of the bitterest anguish man ever
+suffered--a thousand mad thoughts and resolutions passing through my
+brain; and at last I came to the determination which you know, for I,
+mere man, cannot fathom this affair. I would not for all the world
+condemn you; for though not a man prone to superstitious thoughts, I
+feel there must be some demoniacal power in all this, Minnie," and he
+raised her face upwards in his hands. "You are either the falsest woman
+that ever drew breath--and if so, the breath which gives you life must
+be the vapour of hell, from whence you draw it; or else there is a power
+around us which we cannot combat with, and 'tis best to still the
+heart's beatings, to subdue ourselves to callousness, and wait for time!
+I am resolved _to bear_ and wait. Now, sit beside me here," and he rose
+and drew her to the ottoman calmly and composedly, "and shew me the
+letter you received."
+
+She was so lost in terror at his extraordinary manner, that it was in
+vain she essayed to utter a word; in cold silence she placed the letter
+in his hand; he opened, and silently read it through, and over again.
+
+"One of three persons wrote this letter," he said--"I, or Mary Burns, or
+Marmaduke Burton, for from childhood we had the same masters."
+
+"'Tis Marmaduke Burton!" she cried with energy, seeing at last a path
+through this tangled forest of brushwood. "'Tis Marmaduke; for, as you
+must have seen, he came to Mary's cottage whilst Lord Randolph and I
+were there?"
+
+A cold shudder passed through Miles's heart, which had been awakening
+from its stupor of sorrow and suspicion, to take his proved faithful
+wife to it. This then, was the cause of her candour. Burton's most
+unexpected arrival at Mary's had induced her, from fear of discovery, to
+choose the wiser part, and tell him herself, lest another should! Oh,
+what a demon jealousy is! how unsleeping, how grasping in intellect;
+though all is perverted to harm!
+
+"Tell me all that passed," he uttered, without replying to her question;
+and, while she related, his mind formed all into the well-connected
+reality of a diseased brain. The same person who had so often warned
+him, none other than Marmaduke, had discovered this intrigue, and
+followed it up. The letter was probably written by Mary Burns, as an arm
+in Minnie's favour, should any thing be discovered by him; her absence,
+etc. Mary, who had once fallen, had doubly done so again, by pandering
+to the meetings of Lord Randolph and Minnie; he was a target for the
+scorn and contempt of all, and all these maddening thoughts passed
+through his soul, leaving him in outward seeming calm. There is
+_nothing_ more fearful than this concentrated, chained passion--'tis
+this which leads the best man to cold, deliberate murder. Silently he
+thought all this, and then, when the mind had compassed all his misery,
+it paused to deliberate on revenge. Then it was that mercy crept in,
+like the last ray of sunshine to the eyes dimmed by death, and he said
+to himself, "If she should be innocent still?"
+
+And, lifting his eyes, they rested upon hers, troubled, but pure and
+holy in their dove-like innocence of expression.
+
+"Minnie," he said, placing his arms around her, "I have many bitter
+thoughts in my heart. I am a very wretched man _now_--so happy once! But
+I feel my greatest sorrow would be your loss; as I before said to you, I
+_wish_ to think you innocent. I would rather know we were compassed by
+fiends, and be ever waging war with them in darkness, than know, or
+believe you false to me; _that_ would be my moral death, and make me the
+most reckless man on earth! I _will_ believe you innocent."
+
+"I am, Miles; believe me. I have not even a thought which has ever
+wronged you."
+
+"I will believe you, Minnie, against all evidence but proof," and he
+took the trembling woman to his heart, so shaken, but so true.
+
+It cannot be imagined, that with that pardon, or reconciliation,
+Tremenhere became calm and happy; true it was, that Minnie never quitted
+home without him, scarcely ever quitted his side, but the mad dream
+which had been, left its trace on his every action; he was a
+broken-spirited man. His profession was a toil of every instant--a
+necessity, not a pleasure. He saw Minnie growing daily paler and sadder,
+and, though his heart ached to see it, still he could not overcome his
+sensations of doubt.
+
+"She is perhaps fretting about Lord Randolph," he thought to himself,
+"and after all I said, in condemnation of her, poor child! she perhaps
+deserves more pity; for I took her almost one, from her home. She had
+seen no one to fancy herself in love with, till I came. Unjust coercion
+drove her into my arms; it was probably more from indignation than from
+love, yet, too, I think she loved me once," and here he pondered on many
+an unmistakeable proof of affection; her watchings for his return, the
+lighting up of the whole countenance, which no art could imitate. "Yes,"
+he continued, "she certainly loved me once, but then she is of a gentle,
+loving nature; she knew not the vast difference between _affection_ and
+_love_, until _he_, perhaps, taught her. Poor child--poor Minnie! what a
+life of misery we have created for one another; but we must bear it, and
+linger on!"
+
+And so completely did the thought take possession of his soul that these
+ideas were well founded, that for a while his feelings towards her
+assumed a tone of almost fatherly pity, so worn and old his heart felt.
+He had vainly endeavoured to trace who sent the brougham, the
+letters--in short, to _prove_ it Marmaduke; but all failed.
+
+The hire of the brougham, and order to send it to Chiswick, had been
+brought to the stables by a boy, who was not known or detained; there
+was nothing in the act to excite suspicion of wrong. He wrote to Lord
+Randolph a calm, deliberate letter, requesting, but in all politeness,
+that his visits might be discontinued. He was certain, he said, that
+Lord Randolph would see the absolute necessity of such a thing, after
+the many unaccountable circumstances which had taken place. And the
+"Aurora" was taken, unfinished, from her easel, and placed aside, and
+not a word on the subject passed between Minnie and her husband; it was
+a state of coldness which could not last. The affair had been so painful
+a one, that by mutual consent neither ever spoke of it, nor even named
+it to Lady Dora, whose visits were not of very frequent occurrence. One
+day, however, she called, having been absent a month at Brighton; she
+was more excited than usually happened to her. After sitting some time
+in evident uneasiness, she at last begged Minnie to let her speak with
+her alone. Minnie rose to quit the drawing-room; she grew trembling;
+every thing new, startled her.
+
+"I will not trouble your ladyship to leave the room," said Miles, rising
+coldly from his seat. "I am going to my studio; I should have remembered
+that husbands are often _de trop_."
+
+"Pray, stay, Miles!" exclaimed Minnie, seizing his arm, like the Minnie
+of old. "There _can_ be nothing which you may not hear, that is, if it
+only concerns me," and she looked at Dora inquiringly.
+
+"I should prefer speaking to you alone," answered the other coldly. "It
+is something which distresses me much, yet almost too painful, I hope,
+to be true."
+
+"May I ask," said he, pausing on the threshold of the door, "if it be
+any thing relating to Lord Randolph Gray?"
+
+"It is!" answered she, with a look of surprise.
+
+"And--my wife?" he asked, after a moment's hesitation.
+
+"Then you are not in ignorance of it?" she inquired, with an amazed
+look, mingled with one of contempt. "And you and Minnie are----"
+
+"Friends, as you see," he said, turning back and reseating himself, and
+by a movement of generous feeling, taking his wife's trembling hand in
+his. "Now, Lady Dora," he continued, "you may tell all you have heard,
+and we may be able in a measure, to correct any inaccuracies."
+
+"How do you mean, Mr. Tremenhere?" she said haughtily. "Do you accuse me
+of possible untruth?"
+
+"Not you, Lady Dora, but your informant, whoever he may be."
+
+"It was a lady," she replied. "The conversation turned one evening, in
+Brighton, on paintings; your name was mentioned flatteringly as an
+artist of genius," and then she paused. The remainder was embarrassing
+to tell.
+
+"Go on, Lady Dora," he said, in outward seeming calm.
+
+"I had better tell you," she hastily rejoined; "for, if untrue, you may
+find means of silencing the slander."
+
+"_If_," he uttered; "then your ladyship gives credit to the world's vile
+attack upon this poor girl; for I guess all you would say." Whatever his
+own fears at times might be in the warring of his spirit, he was
+resolved to uphold Minnie before all.
+
+Lady Dora related all she had heard. In short, the whole affair of
+Minnie's discovery at Uplands, and her subsequent meeting with Lord
+Randolph at Mary's. It had been told with severe animadversions on the
+meanness of Mr. Tremenhere, whose marriage had been kept a secret from
+the world until this affair brought it to light, and who could receive
+his wife again, and even Lord Randolph, knowing, to say the least, of
+great imprudence on his wife's part. Much of this Lady Dora allowed to
+escape her, as having been freely discussed at the club to which Miles
+belonged.
+
+"Oh, Dora!" cried the agitated Minnie, "how could you, for one moment,
+believe so wicked a thing against me!--To think I could love any one but
+Miles! And I must be doubly base, to even listen to common flattery or
+gallantry from Lord Randolph, to whom you are engaged!"
+
+"Pardon me, Minnie," answered her cousin decidedly. "I am _not_ engaged
+to that gentleman, and never shall be; for, if you are innocent, as I
+will believe even without knowing all, _he_ assuredly must have been
+connected in some manner with the affair."
+
+Minnie then related all from the first, and though her cousin acquitted
+her of all blame, except linking herself, as she termed it, "with an
+improper woman--that Mary Burns," still she could not divest her mind of
+the idea that Lord Randolph was quite innocent. She begged Tremenhere's
+pardon for the wrong she had done him in her mind, and, whatever her
+feelings might be to Minnie, her heart rejoiced in not knowing him base,
+who had once been more than a passing thought. Tremenhere received her
+apologies with cold reserve, and, stifling feelings which were
+distracting him, he inquired from whom all this information had
+emanated. Lady Dora, however, could give no exact account. She had heard
+it openly spoken of by those who were not aware that she was in any way
+allied to either party. With some difficulty--for he was obliged to veil
+his intentions from observation--Miles ascertained that the affair had
+been spoken of at his club by more than one person. This satisfied him;
+he knew then how to act; so he changed the subject, and affected a
+cheerfulness he was far from feeling, which continued even after Lady
+Dora had quitted the house. He did not allude to the reports; but there
+was something so noble in the heart of that man, that he banished all
+his own suffering from the surface, that evening, to soothe and cheer
+Minnie, who was low and depressed, beyond her own power to control the
+feeling.
+
+The following day Miles rose more cheerfully than he had done of late;
+and, as soon as breakfast was over, he started for town. He really felt
+lighter at heart, for he had something tangible--not a mere shadow--to
+deal with. He had, without appearing anxious on the subject, elicited
+from Lady Dora the names of one or two persons who had spoken of this
+affair--and now it was to their houses he went. After a long research,
+he found one of them was still in Brighton; so sitting down at a
+friend's, for he avoided his club, he wrote a kind note to Minnie,
+telling her not to alarm herself, but possibly he might not return that
+evening. His manner had so completely thrown her off her guard, that
+she did not dream of the possible business occupying him.
+
+He arrived in Brighton, and in perfect composure proceeded to the hotel
+of the gentleman who had mentioned the affair. The meeting was at first
+one of extreme frigidity on the part of both, especially the
+gentleman's. Miles was determined and calm, having right on his side;
+the other hem'd and haw'd, evading a direct answer, when the former
+demanded from whom he had heard the reports in question.
+
+"It will only then, sir, remain for me to treat you as the author," said
+Miles coldly, turning to quit the room.
+
+"What do you mean?" cried the other, advancing.
+
+"Simply what I say. If a gentleman propagates a vile, calumnious report
+of a virtuous woman, and then refuses to state the author, that he may
+be made publicly retract his slander, and re-establish the lady's fame,
+there is but one path possible, and that is, through the only known
+medium. I hold you, sir, responsible."
+
+His cool determination alarmed the other. It is not a very pleasant
+thing to have a hole made through one's body, by either sword or bullet,
+because one possesses a talkative friend. A parley ensued; and then at
+last Miles went forth with another name--this was a lady's, rather more
+difficult to deal with. The only way, then, is to find out the lady's
+nearest household tie; and, in case of refusal on her part, appeal to
+him. They say men have an easy time of it; but assuredly such would not
+be the case, were some less pacific than they are in demanding reason
+and authority from ladies for all they utter; and were their fathers,
+husbands, brothers, etc., looked upon as responsible agents to act for
+them. In such a case, were I a man, I would marry a woman who always
+wore a respirator. She would talk but little, if compelled to whistle
+her phrases through layers of wires. Assuredly, these things were
+invented by some clever man with a Xantippe for wife.
+
+But to return to Tremenhere. The lady he waited upon was one of those
+beings whose milk of human kindness had, at her birth, been turned to
+vinegar and gall. She never said a kind thing, except from some motive,
+and to those even she professed, or was bound to like; she delighted in
+uttering the most galling innuendoes; and she looked her character.
+
+When Tremenhere was announced, she received him, though almost a
+stranger, with an air of pity, perfectly dreadful--that kind of air
+which inclines one to exclaim at once, "Don't pity me, for there's
+nothing in my case to excite that feeling--I won't be pitied!"
+
+Here he had little difficulty at first, for no sooner did he name the
+motive of his visit, than the old lady commenced a string of
+well-arranged untruths, which amazed Tremenhere, and clearly showing how
+wisely he had acted in sifting the affair thoroughly. When she
+concluded--for the _historiette_ was delivered as crudely to his ears,
+as if he were a perfectly indifferent personage in it--he could not but
+bite his lip; but seeing at a glance the nature of his informant, he
+deprived her by his coolness of half her satisfaction. Verily, dame
+Nature has three tubs at hand, in which she dips her children when she
+creates them, according to the caprice of the moment--one containing
+honey and milk, one vinegar and gall, and the other an amalgamation of
+spices.
+
+When this abluted thing in the second tub had told her tale, she
+paused--this was not what Tremenhere intended, so he simply inquired her
+informant's name. Oh! this she never could give! It had been related to
+her under a promise never to divulge the name; she never could!
+
+"And so, madam," he said contemptuously, "though you feel bound in
+honour to conceal the name, no such feeling prevents your blasting the
+fame of a pure, innocent woman, by promulgating infamous falsehoods,
+which I am resolved to silence; since, then, you decline giving me the
+vile author's name, it is to your son I must apply!"
+
+This was a lesson the lady had never learned, and it would be well if it
+were more frequently taught to those who only exist with satisfaction to
+themselves, by ruining the fame of the innocent, whom they detest, and
+cannot comprehend. A loud shriek burst from the terrified woman; for, if
+she did love any thing but herself on earth, it was her tall rawbone
+son, in the Grenadiers--but not all her entreaties could avail,
+Tremenhere was resolute, he was on the track, one footprint lost, his
+game might elude his grasp. With many sighs, and beatings of her chest,
+for heart she had none, the name burst forth of Mr. Marmaduke Burton,
+and with its utterance a deep groan struggled from Miles's bosom, but it
+was one of satisfaction; for not only did he hold his bitter enemy, but
+the union of events for the moment convinced him of Minnie's innocence,
+and the other's authorship of the plot to destroy his peace. With a
+lightened heart, he quitted the bewailing woman, who allowed it to
+escape her, that it had been confided to her, on a solemn promise given
+_not to name him_; and Burton, in doing so, imagined she would not, for
+a fellowship of feeling and mind made him an especial favourite of hers,
+and he well knew, in telling her, the facts would lose nothing, and
+Miles be irretrievably lost in all respectable society; he did not
+calculate upon its arriving so quickly at his ears, neither of his
+determined conduct should it do so. He did not yet know his cousin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Tremenhere lost no time now in following up his intentions; he inquired
+every where, and at last discovered that Burton was in town. Late that
+same evening, he returned home, and great was his satisfaction to find
+Skaife domiciled there. He, we have said, was the only man in the world,
+perhaps, of whom he could not feel jealous; where lay the germ of
+extraordinary confidence, 'tis impossible to say, but with open-hearted
+confidence he wrung Skaife's hand, which cheered poor Minnie's heart,
+for she was terrified at the fancies her mind had been conjuring up
+about Miles's return; and when he said to the other, "I am delighted to
+see you," there was no mistaking the truth of the feeling: Miles could
+not feign a cordiality he did not feel. The union of these three gave
+rise to one of the few happy evenings, or even tranquil ones, Minnie had
+passed of late. Skaife came laden with letters and love from Dorcas, and
+even poor Mrs. Gillett. Of the many painful things they had heard at
+Gatestone, he said nothing before Minnie; he spoke cheeringly, and did
+not even utter what he thought, of her being unhappy, when he gazed with
+a stifled sigh on her altered face. It was in good truth Minnie
+spiritualized; for she seemed scarcely mortal, so thin, pale, and
+heavenly patient she looked.
+
+When she had retired, then Tremenhere, no longer under any restraint,
+spoke of all his care, his wretchedness, which he strove to conceal from
+her; but though he mentioned the reports which had reached him through
+Lady Dora, he passed them over lightly. There was no man to whom he
+would sooner have applied, as a friend in such a case, than to Skaife,
+but his calling forbade it; he could not act with Tremenhere, and this
+was what he now required in a friend; neither durst he confide in the
+other all his plans; they might be betrayed in kindness to Minnie, or,
+even more seriously, to authorities which would frustrate them. He spoke
+painedly of them, but yet, rather to Skaife's surprise, also added, that
+time alone must clear them up.
+
+"I am a wretched man!" he said. "There is a weight on my heart nothing,
+I fear, can remove."
+
+"Surely," cried the other, "you cannot, for an instant, suspect your
+wife? You must see, and know, that the deep villainy of one man alone,
+has produced all these sad events? Let me conjure you, do not give him
+the triumph of seeing that he has succeeded in estranging your heart
+from one so good and pure."
+
+"Skaife, I never shall love any one as I love her; 'tis that love which
+makes my existence one of torture, for my base nature is fighting
+against my better judgment, and at times it gains the mastery. There are
+moments," and his voice trembled as he uttered these last words, "that I
+wish she were dead; for then I could alone, bear my crushing sorrow;
+but the fear that she may ever love another, or even survive myself, is
+worse than the bitterest death could be!"
+
+"Do not utter such things!" exclaimed Skaife, with a cold shudder.
+"Place all your faith and reliance on her: _she_ will never deceive you,
+but your own heart may, and prove your basest traitor."
+
+"Well, let us not speak more of it now. A day of retribution must come
+for that villain, Burton; leave him to fate--she has long arms and
+clutching hands." His apparent coolness disappointed the other; for he
+felt, without thinking of a hostile meeting, that Tremenhere might, and
+ought to seek means of silencing these slanders, and he resolved on a
+future occasion to suggest as much to him.
+
+Before returning to Chiswick from Brighton, Tremenhere had sought a
+friend on whom he could rely; and, placing the affair in his hands,
+requested that no time might be lost in seeking Burton, to solicit the
+name of a friend who would act for him, in a meeting with Tremenhere. No
+apology would suffice, unless he consented to publish to the world, in
+terms not to be misunderstood, the whole part he had taken in the
+affair, from first to last; and this it was scarcely likely he would do.
+Having arranged this, he returned, in the more tranquil mood in which we
+have seen him, to his home.
+
+Early the following morning his friend came to the villa. He had called
+upon Burton, who essayed with white lips to deny any participation in
+the affair, from first to last. The evidence of the persons whom
+Tremenhere had seen in Brighton, he treated with perfect contempt, as
+inventions to screen some other person; and finally refused most
+positively to meet his cousin. He had a prejudice against duelling, he
+said, especially with one whom he had known from boyhood; he sincerely
+pitied him for his turbulent, ungovernable temper, and great hatred
+towards himself. In short, he summed up all by hypocritically drawling
+forth, that could he serve him in any way, he too gladly would do so;
+and assuredly, to injure him, was farthest from his thoughts; and
+concluded with much deceitful, mawkish sentiment.
+
+When his friend related this, Tremenhere paced the room, at first in
+indignant, contemptuous rage; then an unwonted calm came over him, and
+he smiled as he said, stepping before his visiter--"This man has taught
+me a talent I never might have possessed without him: that of watching,
+unseen, the movements of others. I will return to town with you; I have
+paved the way for doing so without exciting suspicion. I must act
+decidedly and secretly, for that coward else, will seek the protection
+of the law, and defeat my object. Let us be off."
+
+And, quitting the studio where they were, he entered the drawing-room
+where sat Minnie and Skaife, she looking so much happier than of late
+had been the case. Tremenhere, too, seemed light at heart. He was a man
+so generous by nature, that the greater the sacrifice he made for a
+person, the better he loved them. He was ready to offer up his life for
+Minnie, for in his moments of energetic feeling he _knew_ her innocent.
+'Twas only when the muscular power relaxed with thought and care, that
+he doubted her; it had removed a load of suspicion from his heart, the
+knowing who really, beyond mistake, was his enemy, he knew so well all
+he was capable of. As he took his hat to quit the room, his full, deep
+glance fell on his wife, who was looking timidly at him. Skaife saw the
+look. It spoke so much wretchedness, that his heart ached bitterly for
+her. Coming towards her, Miles stooped, and, unheeding the presence of
+the other two, warmly embraced her. "Be a good girl, Minnie," he said
+cheerfully, "and amuse our good friend, Skaife, and I'll bring you--a
+fairing," he added laughing, "from town." His glance crossed his
+friend's as he spoke.
+
+"Bring yourself soon," she said, smiling in his face; "'twill be my best
+present."
+
+He pressed her hand warmly in reply. There was so much renewal of love,
+that she felt her heart full of hope--long foreign to it.
+
+Tremenhere and his friend drove quickly to town; the former's object
+was, to watch Burton to his club, whither he went about twelve every
+day--and his, was Miles's. It is probable, that had this latter been in
+the habit of going himself every day, Burton would have quitted the
+field; as it was, Tremenhere had, by his absence, left him master of it;
+and here, as Tremenhere had ascertained, was the spot where he
+circulated his scandals freely to his own set. The two friends drove to
+the top of the street where Burton's hotel was, and stopping the cab
+where it would not attract notice, they resolved to watch for awhile,
+before inquiring for him of the hall porter. Fortune favoured them this
+time, for in less than half an hour, Burton came forth on foot; and
+glancing carelessly up the street, walked on, and the cab followed. As
+they hoped, he proceeded to his club, within a few doors of which the
+others alighted, and walked quickly towards it. Burton entered the
+reading-room, where sat some dozen or more men, poring over their
+papers; thence he stepped into another, nor noticed his cousin, who
+followed at a distance, keeping him in view.
+
+Tremenhere's aim was attained: in the reading-room he met several
+friends,--acquaintances were better said; hastily addressing each,
+without appearing to notice the chilling looks of some, he said, calling
+each by name, "Leave your papers awhile, and follow me; I will give you
+something better worth seeing than aught you may meet with there."
+
+And most did so, for curiosity is a spirit fluttering over the heads of
+the many, few indeed are those eschewing her worship. On walked
+Tremenhere, accompanied by his friend, and in his wake came the others.
+At last he stood silently, surveying all in the room, where dozens were
+collected, some in knots talking, others at breakfast, others reading.
+In a glance Tremenhere took in all this, and the faces of friend and
+foe. He advanced a step. Burton stood with his back towards him,
+conversing with two or three persons. Was it instinct which made him
+suddenly turn, and grow white as the snowiest cloth on those tables,
+when he saw Tremenhere _erect_, smiling, and towering in height and
+manly beauty, as lie gave him a glance of scorn? He stopped suddenly in
+what he was uttering, and made a movement to quit the room by a
+side-door. There is a power, an irresistible spell, in dignity and right
+combined, (indeed the former cannot exist without the latter,) which
+make the meaner mind bow down before them.
+
+"Stop, Marmaduke Burton!" cried Tremenhere with his full, rich voice of
+command. Burton made an involuntary pause, and then, with a quick
+shuffling gait, attempted to seem dignified as he moved towards the
+door. "Stop him!" cried Tremenhere again, calmly waving his hand, "that
+he may at least have the satisfaction of hearing me, face to face,
+proclaim him slanderer, liar, and coward!"
+
+Burton was forced to turn. At these words a movement passed over the
+whole room--no one, however, spoke.
+
+"Look at him!" said Tremenhere, contemptuously. "He dare not face what
+he has done; were it not from inability to move--for no shame withholds
+him--he would fly!"
+
+"These are harsh words," said an officer, advancing; "are you prepared
+to prove them?"
+
+"That I am," answered the other; and in words as brief as possible he
+told the tale, and his visit to Brighton--the evidence there--summing up
+all with the refusal on Burton's part to meet him.
+
+"It pains me deeply," continued Tremenhere, with much emotion, "to drag
+the name of my wife before this assembly; but her accusations have been
+openly spoken, or whispered in every select circle where my humble name
+is known. 'Tis true I might have sought my remedy by law; but I leave
+such to colder hearts and heads than mine. I forgot," he added, looking
+round upon all, "to present myself to many who may not know me. I
+am Miles Tremenhere, now an humble artist, once heir of the
+manor-house, ----, Yorkshire; that, my worthy cousin, who from childhood
+had been my companion, has for a while--_only for a while_--deprived me
+of----but let that rest. I came to-day to proclaim him what you have all
+heard, and he _dare_ not deny it. Once I have horsewhipped him for his
+base seduction of an innocent girl,--flogging is thrown away on callous
+skins like his; so I brand him--liar and coward!"
+
+"Sir," said Burton, endeavouring to seem calm, "you shall answer for
+this, and bitterly rue it."
+
+"Answer it!" laughed the other, "when and where you will; this is all I
+ask at your hands."
+
+"Ah, T_w_emenhere!" exclaimed a voice, as the speaker just entered the
+room, amazed at the _fracas_, but ignorant of the cause, "is that
+you?--what a st_w_anger you are," and he held out a hand. Tremenhere's
+trembled as he warmly shook it: he was all woman in gentler emotions,
+and never was there a more grateful heart than his; he felt Vellumy's
+act deeply. This act seemed the signal which many had been awaiting, not
+from wavering indifference, but for want of the electric spark, which
+moves Englishmen more slowly than others, but surer, when its propelling
+force comes, than all the very warm and sudden impulses in the world.
+In an instant Tremenhere was surrounded. Those who a day before had
+condemned him, perhaps too hastily, on the whispered calumnies of
+Burton, now pressed forward to press his hand. Some few, whose
+dislocated nerves can never be strengthened to any thing warmer than
+zero, grumbled at the disturbance, and talked of secretaries, rules,
+etc., etc.; but the majority rejoiced as over a lost brother restored,
+for Miles had been a favourite with all.
+
+In the midst of this, Burton had slunk away; he could not bully, nor
+defy; Tremenhere had proof in the evidence of his (Burton's) kindred
+spirit, and betraying confidant, at Brighton. And certainly there was no
+table so merry as the one at which Tremenhere sat, surrounded by his
+friends, to repair a scarcely touched breakfast at home. He would have
+preferred leaving at once, to return to Minnie and Skaife, especially to
+remove from the latter's brow that not-to-be-mistaken cloud of
+disappointment, which he had seen gathered there, at his own supposed
+coolness and indifference about his wife's fame. But policy dictated
+another course; there was much he had not explained, and he took this
+opportunity of doing so. It is indeed to be regretted, that the finest
+natures admit of passions dark and overwhelming, and the strongest minds
+are, in some things, the weakest. To see Tremenhere amidst his friends,
+glowing with joy at having restored Minnie to fame, who could imagine
+that he ever again would be led down the bitter path of doubt and
+suspicion, or that these two poisons were only awhile dormant in his
+breast?
+
+When he entered his home, for some moments he could scarcely speak,
+then, grasping Skaife's hand, he said--
+
+"Give me a grasp from your heart, my friend--to-day you could not, I saw
+that--now you may, for I have done what a man should."
+
+"You do not mean!" exclaimed the man of peace, with a feeling akin to
+alarm, "that you----"
+
+"No, no," laughed Miles; "the coward would not fight; I tried him, but
+he refused. 'Tis better, done as it is."
+
+Poor Minnie had crept tremblingly to his side. In her fear she almost
+forgot he was safe before her.
+
+"I _do_ congratulate you," cried Skaife warmly; "for it was not a thing
+to be passed quietly over."
+
+"Poor Minnie--poor child!" said her husband, placing his arms round her,
+and bending his deep, loving eyes upon her; "how you tremble! Think,
+darling, I have silenced all who calumniated you--justice, like truth,
+will eventually win in any fight. The devil deserts his children in the
+utmost need; we deal with brighter spirits, dear, and will triumph over
+all!"
+
+"Heaven grant it, dearest Miles! You have indeed been good and kind to
+me to-day--and always," she added hastily. "You have been tried
+severely; we shall be _so_ happy now. Dear Mr. Skaife, you have been
+indeed a messenger of peace. I feel as if all would turn to me now,
+even my uncle Juvenal, and aunt Sylvia."
+
+It was a day of deep rejoicing--each heart was light and glad.
+
+The following one Mr. Skaife visited Mary Burns; but there he had little
+joy to see--the unerring hand of deep malice had done its worst. She had
+been dismissed from every house, some less coldly than others; but even
+the kindest said, only in excuse, that, though they would gladly, _if
+possible_, serve her, yet it would be a thing unexampled for them to fly
+in the face of society's laws, as by the world laid down; quite
+overlooking the fact, that there _will be_ a world where they might be
+called to severe account for uncharitableness and harsh judgment of a
+repentant sinner; but this is worldly wisdom, and worldly virtue, which
+dictate all. Few are virtuous from truly religious motives--we speak of
+the world _en masse_. It is either from a sense of innate delicacy,
+morality, and fear of the public reprehension, should discovery take
+place; few indeed, in comparison, place first on the list, the condemned
+sin which makes the devils rejoice, and angels weep. So Mary was left to
+starve, beg, or return to evil, that society might be kept untainted.
+She had assuredly found forgiveness, where it is too joyfully given, and
+with rejoicing; but with man--that is, on these cold, unforgetting
+shores--to fallen woman, she found none with the mass; so Minnie and
+Skaife both advised her to quit England. 'Tis sad, but true. Much as we
+love our native land, we are obliged to own that our neighbours look
+more to the present than past; and if a woman evince an earnest desire
+to become honest, there will indeed be _few_ to point and say, "Avoid
+her, she has sinned;" and _many_ to hold a hand forth to a tottering
+mortal. It was with difficulty Mary could be persuaded to strive once
+more. She felt sad enough to lie down and die; but when those two, whose
+hearts were such sterling gold, upheld her, comforted, encouraged, and
+commanded in her mother's name, she once more arose, and with her
+knowledge of French quitted England for Paris, under the escort of
+Skaife, who was empowered by Tremenhere to settle her in some suitable
+business.
+
+"I would not have my poor mother look down and see I had neglected one
+she loved almost as a child," he said; "and possibly we may all meet
+soon on those shores. I hate England."
+
+And so strange is it, that great events of our lives are the offspring
+of some momentary inspiration, or thoughtlessly uttered word, that,
+until that instant, Tremenhere had not dreamed of quitting England; and,
+from that hour, an insurmountable desire seized upon him to leave
+London, the villa--all which had become hateful to him. His wishes were
+laws to Minnie. She would gladly have seen her aunts again--have been
+friends with her uncle before leaving; consequently she wrote, imploring
+pardon of the two hearts in rebellion against her, and begging aunt
+Dorcas to come and see her. But even this was denied her. Dorcas had
+been made to suffer so severely by the other two on the occasion of the
+former visit, that she deemed it better not to enrage them further by
+coming; but to remain, and patiently work for Minnie's future pardon.
+She wrote most affectionately, and completely repudiated every thought
+of her niece's impropriety of conduct, which had been imparted to
+Juvenal by his friend, Marmaduke Burton. On this subject, too,
+Tremenhere wrote to Minnie's uncle, and detailed the whole affair as it
+had occurred, not forgetting the last discomfiture of his enemy in the
+exposure at the club. Whatever Juvenal's opinions might have been, had
+he permitted them full play, is uncertain; for he was one of those
+narrow-minded, prejudiced persons, who, having espoused an idea, find it
+completely out of the pale of their governing law to divorce it from
+their belief. Minnie was guilty--she must be guilty; Burton said she
+was. She had been imprudent once, and consequently, assuredly, would be
+again; in short, prejudice, with its narrow ideas and venomed breath,
+stood between poor Minnie and her home. Juvenal might have forgiven, if
+left to himself, for sometimes a memory would come over him of her
+gentle tones, her loving, girlish heart; besides which, he could not
+refuse to believe all Tremenhere wrote--there was evidence and proof;
+though he left the letter unanswered, it influenced his mind in his
+niece's favour. Gillett too spoke, and at last decidedly, in the
+rejected one's favour; but to counteract these healthful influences,
+came the soured heart, and acrid tongue, of one who hated Minnie for
+entering that state without her permission, which, in the whole course
+of her own life, no one had ever held open the door to, though but a
+little ajar, for her to peep into--matrimony. Not a soul had once said a
+civil, or even word of doubtful meaning, for her to build a hope or an
+hour's dream upon, and she felt a double pleasure in stamping Minnie
+with her reprehension and condemnation. So she, poor girl, bade adieu to
+their pretty villa and England, to seek peace and happiness in a
+stranger land, with the one whom she loved as freshly and well as on the
+day she vowed to leave all for his sake. Skaife had returned, after a
+few weeks' absence, to his duties, near Minnie's childhood's home; but
+his heart was heavy. The man foresaw clouds in the horizon, over one he
+now loved as a dear sister; for, with all Tremenhere's worth, no one
+could be blind to his unconquered passion--jealousy, which only lay
+still to gain strength, and rise, like a giant refreshed from slumber,
+to overwhelm all.
+
+Marmaduke Burton was gone abroad, no one knew whither, "on a tour."
+Dalby was a resident in town. Mary Burns was established in a small
+business for fancy work; her poor mother no longer burthened her--she
+slept in the quiet home, alike for rich and poor. And thus all stood on
+the day Minnie and Tremenhere started for Paris, where he had many
+friends to forward his views as an artist; moreover, he had orders from
+friends at home, and all seemed to smile on them as they quitted their
+native land.
+
+"And now, Minnie," he said, tenderly embracing her, "no more care. I
+will banish all, and begin anew our life of love, and the labour of love
+I have sadly neglected, though not forgotten. My poor mother--I must
+toil for you both, darling, now, and for _our child_, my Minnie, for I
+should indeed wish it to see the light in my lawful home; I will try so
+to have it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Assuredly there is something very exhilarating in the air of Paris, when
+compared with our heavier, smoky atmosphere; this, and a complete
+removal from painful scenes, were all sufficient causes for the change
+in Tremenhere and Minnie. They seemed indeed to have commenced a new
+life; all annoyances had ceased, her colour had returned, the frown had
+quitted his brow, the past seemed like a dream, as his confidence was
+restored, and not unfrequently he laughed with her, over those
+reasonless fears which had once agonized him so much. Many of their
+mornings were passed in the Louvre together, he copying the old masters,
+or the glowing sunset pictures in the Spanish gallery; whilst she sat
+beside him, either talking, reading, or working, and thus two very happy
+months passed, and Christmas drew nigh. They were residing in an
+apartment, not far from the Louvre, in one of the principal streets, _Au
+Troisième_, where he found a room admirably adapted for him, having been
+used as a studio. _Au Troisième_ seems a frightful height to English
+ears; nevertheless, to the many who are acquainted with Paris, it has
+nothing extraordinary.
+
+All suspicion even seemed lulled to rest on his part; for frequently
+Minnie went alone to visit Mary, who was, at all events, peaceful, if
+not happy, in her present successful path. Tremenhere talked of being
+obliged, very shortly, to revisit England, consequent on some paintings
+he was completing to order. A shudder crept over Minnie at the thought;
+she had almost hoped never to see it again, except perhaps some day to
+revisit Gatestone, but certainly not London; however, the patient loving
+wife said nothing, she was contented to go whither he went. They had not
+received any communication from Lady Dora, in short from no one but
+Dorcas and Skaife--all else was in quiet oblivion around them; and they,
+not the less happy, though sometimes Minnie would sigh when she thought
+of her cousin's unkindness. Marmaduke Burton, too, was lost to them,
+almost in thought; the truth was, he had made a tour to Italy, and so
+bitter had been his disgrace, consequent upon Miles's discovery of his
+wickedness, that he resolved to leave them in peace, despairing of
+success in separating them. In good, as unfortunately often in bad, when
+all human power has failed, fate steps in, and accomplishes in an
+instant that which years might else not have matured. Poor Minnie was
+one of those kindly-disposed creatures, full of thoughtfulness to
+surprise those she loved by some great joy--nothing had changed, or
+could chill her heart; and frequently some little quiet secret of her's
+to please Miles, tortured him once again into dormant, but not
+eradicated suspicion, until the perfection of her plot enabled her to
+give it to the light, and thus remove a weight from his mind, which had
+oppressed it for days perhaps. She never saw this,--she was a very child
+at heart, forgetting in her present happiness her past bitter suffering.
+For some days she had been in a state of much excitement, and her visits
+had been more frequent than usual to Mary's. Other friends she had in
+Paris; but though there existed a certain constraint and distance
+between herself and this unfortunate girl, still we often cling more
+kindly to the person we have served, whatever their station, than to the
+one who has obliged ourselves,--a noble nature loves better giving, than
+receiving. Thus Minnie delighted in watching her _protégée's_ progress
+towards honest prosperity, for Mary was so humble and grateful. Miles
+noticed her frequent visits to Mary, her distraction of manner, followed
+by sudden lightness of heart, as of hidden joy. Then, too, she often
+made a plea of laziness to remain at home, and he went alone to the
+Louvre. This worried him; nevertheless he said nothing, but he was not
+at ease. Suspicions arose; but he chid them down--he _would_ be happy.
+Sometimes Minnie looked sad and disappointed, still she said nothing;
+and he forebore questioning, though not a glance of her's escaped him.
+The cause of all this was as follows:--One day Mary Burns drew Minnie
+into the little quiet back room adjoining the shop, and exclaimed, "Dear
+Mrs. Tremenhere! I have been so anxiously looking for your arrival the
+last two days; I did not like calling, or I should have done so."
+
+"Why not, Mary? we should have been glad to see you."
+
+"I know, dear madam, you are always so kind; but I wished to see you
+alone--my motive is this. You must have heard from Mr. Tremenhere, of
+his meeting me one night at his cousin's?" She looked down, and spoke
+with difficulty and pain. "I am forced to allude to this, to explain how
+I became possessed of what I now wish to speak of. Have you ever," she
+cried, changing her tone, "heard Mr. Tremenhere mention any one named
+d'Estrées?"
+
+"Never," answered Minnie, after a moment's pause.
+
+"On that evening in question," continued Mary, "there were several torn
+papers scattered about the floor,--a sudden impulse induced me, unseen,
+to secure one--and here it is. I found it only to-day; for I shame to
+say, in my own selfish troubles, I had forgotten it sooner," and she
+placed the torn piece of letter, which we have seen in the first volume,
+in Minnie's hand.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed she, after carefully perusing it, "this must have been
+written by Miles's father, before his birth. Oh, Mary! how may we
+discover this man? he must have been the person who married them," and
+the delighted wife almost danced with joy, to think of Miles's
+rejoicing. "Shall we tell him yet?" asked she after a pause, "or
+wait--search every thing ourselves? Poor dear Miles will suffer so
+keenly should he be disappointed; and then, too, he is seriously
+occupied now with a painting which engages all his attention. Let us
+work unknown to him, Mary; and, oh! think of our joy if we can, some
+day, place the proof in his hands!"
+
+"I think your idea will be the better one to pursue," said Mary
+quietly, after a moment's thought--she was less sanguine, and more
+cautious than warm-hearted Minnie; "but we must not too soon reckon upon
+success, we may not succeed--he may be dead. Oh! how I wish I had
+secured the remainder of the letter! we might then have told Mr.
+Tremenhere, and he could have directed us how to act, we are so
+powerless alone."
+
+"Do not say that; we will inquire how we had better commence our
+research. I do not like telling dear Miles yet; it would be so happy a
+surprise!"
+
+And this it was which caused a mystery in Minnie's manner, which raised
+the demon suspicion once more in Tremenhere. All her energies were
+exerted in this anxious search, and in consequence she became thoughtful
+and pre-occupied. Mary had some acquaintances, from whom she inquired
+which would be the better way of discovering a lost address, and she was
+told to search the passport-office at the _Prefecture_.
+
+The most timid woman will find energy and resolution for all, when the
+happiness of one she loves is at stake. In the first instance, the two
+women employed a man to go to the office for them; but this did not
+satisfy Minnie when he proclaimed his want of success.
+
+"How can we be quite certain he went, or searched as we should have
+done?" asked she. "I will go myself."
+
+"You cannot do so alone!" cried Mary, "and I am unable to leave my
+shop."
+
+"Why not? Oh, but I can! Miles will be all day to-morrow at the Louvre;
+I will not accompany him, and putting on a close bonnet and veil, lest
+I should meet any one, take a _fiacre_ and go."
+
+Mary tried to dissuade her for some short time, and then she
+relinquished the task herself, convinced that it would be the most
+secure and satisfactory thing to do. Minnie had no one to advise or
+assist her, and on Mary she almost looked as upon a sister, from the
+circumstances of her childhood passed with Miles and his mother; then
+again, they were mutually interested in this affair, and Mary was so
+humble and contrite in manner, it would have been impossible for the
+other not to love her. All this intimacy, however, did not pass without
+censure on Miles's part, not that he doubted Mary then; but he deemed,
+in worldly wisdom, that where Minnie's name had been in question,
+however innocent she had proved, too much caution could not be observed;
+then, too, the one dark spot in his happiness ever arose before him--her
+imprudence in flying with himself, which would ever leave one place in
+her fame open to animadversion; but he spoke to the least worldly woman
+ever created, and then at this moment she had so strong a motive in
+seeking Mary, that all his arguments terminated in a tacit consent on
+his part, however unwillingly given, when Minnie's arms encircled his
+neck, and her smiling cheek pressed itself like a child's to his, as she
+coaxed him into good temper; then, too, there was a fonder hope in his
+heart than any he had ever yet known, whatever he had once said of being
+even jealous of his own child.
+
+Thus weeks crept on, and as disappointment followed disappointment in
+their search, Minnie grew saddened and uneasy; still, every day she
+rejoiced that she bore her trouble alone, and that Miles was exempt.
+Poor creature! she did not perceive that her unexplained, altered
+manner, was making him once again most unhappy. Doubts, fears,
+suspicions of all, arose in his mind, and he began to ask himself,
+"Could Burton be in Paris, and at some fiendish plot?" He resolved to
+verify this doubt by inquiry. He went to several of the principal
+hotels, without success. No such name was on their books; then, as a man
+perfectly acquainted with Paris and its habits, he went to the passport
+office, and searched; he was on the point of leaving, perfectly assured
+no Burton was in Paris, consequently it must be something else preying
+upon her mind and directing her actions, when a woman's figure flitted
+through the office, closely enveloped and veiled. But it was Minnie, and
+none other; for the second time, she had come to the prefecture to seek
+d'Estrées. Miles stood transfixed with surprise. Whom could she be
+seeking? Quietly he stole after her; without turning, she entered a
+_fiacre_ and drove away. This was a day on which he was supposed to be
+engaged at the Louvre. He stood irresolute a moment, then, walking
+composedly back again, commenced a search after another passport and
+name--the act was the offspring of a moment's thought. "Yes, monsieur,"
+answered the functionary, rather more civilly than these men generally
+speak in all public offices in France; "the gentleman, _ce milord_, is
+in Paris, I know--I remember the name--ah! here's the passport, and
+address, _Rue Castiglione_ 7," and he gave the shuddering Tremenhere
+_his own address_.
+
+This method of seeking persons is most common in France, where, within
+twenty-four hours of your arrival, your passport and address have to be
+left at the prefecture's, under the penalty of a fine, should it not be
+done. It is needless to say that Minnie had not been inquiring for Lord
+Randolph, but following up what she had hoped might prove a trace of her
+all-absorbing thought, d'Estrées. Tremenhere said nothing; but, calmly
+thanking the official, walked forth. There was no cloud on his
+brow--nothing of anger or sorrow--but a cold, stern, desolation, far
+more dreadful to behold. At last the blow had fallen; there could be no
+longer any doubt, still less hope, of reclaiming her. She must be
+wickedly, wilfully bad, and false as the falsest thing that ever
+breathed. His brain, nevertheless, was in a chaos of perplexity. For
+whom could she have been inquiring? No one, perhaps; but why there? The
+residence of Lord Randolph, even in his own hotel, in nowise astonished
+him after a moment's thought,--it was a part of her unparalleled
+audacity. Those who have resided in France will know, how easily
+families may live for months in the same hotel or house, and never meet.
+Lord Randolph had come to Paris for a short time, and, disliking a
+regular hotel, had taken an _entresol_ in this most popular and
+fashionable street, without having an idea of meeting with the
+Tremenheres in any way. And thus an event, the most likely and
+commonplace, did more for Marmaduke Burton's revenge, than all his own
+plotting and scheming. Tremenhere returned home--he stopped carelessly
+in the _loge de concièrge_, and inquired, "If Lord Randolph Gray resided
+there?"
+
+"Yes," answered the man, "_milord_ has been here several days; but he
+does not go out much--he is not in good health, I think."
+
+"Thank you," was the calm reply, and Tremenhere turned from his door,
+and entered the gardens of the Tuileries. Here he proceeded to the
+loneliest part, and, relaxing his quick pace, reviewed all the events of
+this fatal day. Not for an instant did he doubt Minnie's perfect
+knowledge of Lord Randolph's being in their hotel. Here was no
+Burton--no Dalby to entangle their victims in a snare. How he laughed
+aloud at his own folly and blindness, in having been so long deceived.
+"In the very house with me!" he cried--"O, fool!--mad, blind fool! And
+O, woman!--falsest, basest! what a shrine, too, hath the devil chosen
+for his abode! so much seeming candour and lovely purity--even in the
+look. I could find it in my heart to shed tears of blood for this
+perverted creature, on whom I have lavished my soul's love, for I can
+never love again."
+
+People may laugh and say, "'Tis very well for fiction," but there are
+many circumstances in everyday life far more extraordinary, far more
+fatally organized by a genius of good or evil, than any things the mind
+could conjure up. Are they sent as trials? as punishments? or the mighty
+Hand directing all, though through pain and suffering, for our ultimate
+benefit? or is it, that there are moments in every one's life, wherein
+the spirit of evil has permitted sway? Who may divine this?
+
+As Tremenhere turned again through the gardens, near the centre alley,
+half hidden by the trees, he saw two persons; they were shaking hands
+and parting: these were Minnie and Lord Randolph! She had quitted her
+_fiacre_ on the Quay, and was hastening home across the gardens, when
+she most unexpectedly met this, to her, fatal man. Only a few words
+passed, and they parted, he in indifference and calm, she in almost
+terror at the meeting--but it was enough Tremenhere saw not hearts, but
+acts. He turned back again; a cold bolt of iron entered his soul; no
+anger was there, no passionate desire for revenge--nothing but calm
+resolution, which only became more intense, when he reflected on
+Minnie's position. At one instant he thought of returning to London, and
+suing for a divorce; then a bitterer feeling crossed his heart. "No!" he
+cried, "she has branded me for ever with infamy; _she_ shall never
+become his wife, nor _their_ child legitimate; this shall be my
+revenge--let her bear my name, blast it, degrade it, what care I? Name!"
+he exclaimed after a moment's pause, "I have no name; what am I? the
+castaway offspring of Helena Nunoz! All women are false; I believe in
+none, I am the blasted child of an impure woman--Nunoz--Nunoz--only
+this, and Marmaduke Burton has right, to carry him onward!" and the
+wretched man laughed aloud--laughed in the bitterness of a holy thought
+of childhood, and dream of manhood, desecrated--his mother. His last
+hope was gone; he could believe none pure, proving Minnie false. He was
+not a man to sit down, and pine, and regret over his fate; but one to
+act vigorously, a resolution once taken. His heart had turned to stone,
+there was no "if" in it--not for an instant did he pause to think, or
+hope, but sped away to act. He was determined to inquire into nothing,
+in this last hopeless affair; he felt some demoniacal artifice would be
+employed to persuade him against all reason; he would not degrade his
+reason farther by listening--guilty she must be. Her presence at the
+prefecture had something in it in connection with Lord Randolph, he
+scarcely cared to inquire how, for assuredly she must, before that day,
+have been privy to his residence under the same roof with herself; Mary,
+too, was a party to it! What a web had been, and was around him!--he
+shuddered as he thought of his deceived heart, for so long a time. When
+his mind had compassed all coolly and deliberately, he proceeded to the
+apartment of a friend, a brother artist, unfortunately not a Skaife, to
+breathe justice or patience to him, but a man to whom woman had ever
+been a merely beautiful creation for art to copy, soulless, and unworthy
+a higher place in man's thought. To him Tremenhere told all, coolly,
+dispassionately from the first, not to seek counsel, but to act for, and
+with him. His listener shrugged his shoulder and smiled.
+
+"Well," he said, "'tis better thus, perhaps; for with your genius, you
+will rise to high things _alone_. Hampered with a wife and children, you
+would possibly have remained stationary, a good father of a family, fit
+only to paint a _bonne mère_ and her _bambins_!--leave such positions
+to others--soar, _mon ami_--soar!"
+
+Alas! he overlooked the fact, that to every one possessing real heart
+and soul--soaring is sorry work when there is no loving eye to mark our
+flight.
+
+"Now, what can I do for you? command me," said his friend.
+
+"See her!" answered Tremenhere sternly. "I would not leave that woman
+unprovided for; arrange how and where she will receive it; you will have
+tears and prayers--_I_ have had them; disregard them, be firm, tell her
+_we never meet again_; do not say where I am; remove all my
+paintings--all--I will give you written authority to do so. Arrange
+every thing; and then I have other work for you. Stay, I will write one
+line to her; and that will be a warrant for all you may do."
+
+And with a calmness, amazing to himself, he sat down and wrote coldly,
+dispassionately, to her; merely saying he knew all. He did not
+condescend even to tell her his accusations, adding, "of course, what I
+_know_, will reach you from another quarter. 'Tis vain to seek an
+interview; nothing shall induce me to see you--throw off all disguise,
+'twill suit you better than this audacious duplicity. Farewell."
+
+Minnie read this letter, and it did not kill her! yet her life seemed
+awhile to stand still. There was but one idea in her mind, that by that
+fatality which seemed to hang over her, Miles had witnessed her
+accidental meeting with Lord Randolph. A more than mortal fear oppressed
+her. There arose in her mind a belief in spiritual agency--spirits of
+evil around her. She became almost lifeless with this strange fear. She
+sat like a statue; and saw one after another, the paintings, depart,
+which had been commenced beneath her eye, her caresses, her love. She
+was totally speechless, thoughtless; all stood still, even to her very
+blood, for she was cold as marble. At last the easel was taken past her;
+then the man stood still, as if awaiting some questioning from her; but
+though she had watched every action of his with intense gaze, idea of
+what was passing--she had none. So he went forth, and closed the door of
+the outer apartment, mentally ejaculating, "What a cold, heartless
+creature! Evidently she is glad to be released from Tremenhere, for this
+_freluquet de milord_! What a blessing for her husband to lose such a
+woman!" And this man, so talented in portraying the human face, was
+powerless _on it_ to read the breaking heart! When the door closed,
+Minnie fell back on the ottoman, not fainting; but the lifeless blood
+was insufficient to bid the heart beat above mere existence. She was
+living, but lifeless to the touch, or memory--and thus she lay for hours
+alone!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+"She did not speak, or expostulate?" asked Tremenhere.
+
+"No," answered his friend; "she was too much taken by surprise, but I
+never saw a woman look more confounded in her guilt."
+
+Miles did not speak for some time. Strange, how wrongs, supposed or
+real, darken the heart to every gleam of pity! It was not his vanity
+which was wounded--not any feeling of false pride, which urged him to so
+much apparent heartlessness; it was a disgust pervading his noble
+nature, at so much infamy in one so young and fair. Had he deemed her
+reclaimable, he would have nobly, generously, endeavoured to do so; but,
+believing what he did, he felt that any further contact with her would
+irretrievably sully his own honour, and plunge her still deeper into
+duplicity and sin. _If_ she ever could repent, their separation--his
+utter contempt for her--might, through shame, open that channel to her.
+There was uprightness and conscience in his every thought; he even felt
+then, that, if he could be convinced she would be true and faithful to
+his rival, he would seek by the law that release which should enable
+him (Lord Randolph) to do her justice. With these thoughts in his mind,
+after a calm survey of all remaining in the ruined temple of his heart,
+he wrote to this latter, and despatched his friend with the missive,
+which contained little of accusation, beyond a quiet, cool detail of
+facts, as he believed them, and giving him a choice of two things,
+either a solemn assurance to marry Minnie if he divorced her--he,
+thereby, submitting to the reprehension of the world at large--wherein
+many might blame him for the calmness of the act, so little in
+consonance with his real feelings, in preference to the more manly one
+of first demanding retribution at his hands in a struggle for life, or
+to meet him muzzle to muzzle, where often the luckier aim carries it
+above the more skilful. But we are wrong, for the luckier aim would
+carry undying remorse with it, in any noble heart, however wronged.
+"Live, and let live," and leave vengeance to Heaven.
+
+It would be vain to attempt portraying Lord Randolph's amazement on
+receipt of this note; he was preparing to leave his apartment to dine
+with some friends when it reached him. He read, and re-read it; and
+then, with an air of wonder which would have convinced any unprejudiced
+person, asked whether really Mr. Tremenhere resided in that hotel?
+
+"Apparently," was the laconic reply, sarcastically delivered.
+
+"He must be mad, then, and deserving only _le Bicêtre_," answered Lord
+Randolph; "where may he be found?"
+
+"By letter or message through me," was the reply.
+
+"You are abrupt, monsieur," said the other, sitting down to write;
+"nevertheless, pray be seated."
+
+"I prefer standing, _milord_," and he folded his arms doggedly.
+
+It will be seen this was the last person who could successfully
+conciliate persons in so painful a position.
+
+Lord Randolph wrote:--"You must be mad. I most solemnly assure you,
+until this moment, I knew not you were in this hotel. True, I met Mrs.
+Tremenhere to-day by accident; but she never named her address, nor I
+mine. You are at liberty to appeal to law, if it so please you to cast
+fresh ridicule on yourself; but though I most highly esteem Mrs.
+Tremenhere, enough to deem myself a most fortunate man could I call her
+lawfully mine; still, I have too much self-respect and vanity, under any
+circumstances, to seek a certain refusal, by proposing to her. For the
+rest, your good sense, and I hope, heart, will guide you aright, and
+make you see the folly of your conduct."
+
+His lordship was ignorant of the manner in which Minnie had been
+treated, or he would have written more forcibly in her favour. Thus he
+dismissed his visiter, and departed to dinner. This letter almost shook
+Tremenhere's calmness to an outburst of rage; he only saw in it cool
+audacity, and that feeling of honour which makes a man oftentimes
+perjure himself to redeem a wrong act, and save a woman's reputation.
+
+"Let us seek him," he said, moving towards the door. "I will await you
+in the street; you can enter and inquire for him." And, with a
+resolution he did not think himself capable of, well as he knew his own
+stern nature in wrong, he stood almost on the threshold of his once
+happy home, whilst his friend entered to inquire where Lord Randolph
+might be found. This was easily ascertained, and thither the two men
+followed; he was dining with some friends at the _restaurant_ of great
+renown, "_Les Trois Frères_," and was in the act of detailing his most
+extraordinary and unpleasant affair, when a card was handed to him, and
+on it was "Miles Tremenhere!"
+
+"Show the gentleman into another room," said his lordship with perfect
+composure, for not one spark of cowardice was in his composition. The
+waiter obeyed, and in a few minutes he stood before Miles and his
+companion.
+
+"Your lordship will pardon this unusual method of proceeding," said
+Tremenhere, with dignity; "but the unsatisfactory nature of your reply
+to my letter obliges me to call in person, and demand another."
+
+"_Demand!_" exclaimed the other. "What if I refuse?"
+
+"Then it will but remain with me to attach to your lordship's name, one
+I should regret being forced to call into requisition."
+
+Lord Randolph bit his lip to restrain an angry retort. After a moment's
+pause, to collect his coolness, he said, "Mr. Tremenhere, I do not deal
+with you as I should with another, for I look upon you as a lunatic; but
+for the sake of your most innocent, injured wife, I implore you consider
+well what you are doing!"
+
+"My lord," answered his opponent, "I have not come to listen to idle
+words, still less to be again a dupe. I come to demand, unless your
+heart fail you too much to meet me, to give me the name of _your_
+friend, to whom _mine_ may apply; the rest will then regard them."
+
+"Think well, sir," said Lord Randolph again, as calmly as he could be
+under so much aggravation. "You may some day rue this. I would, for an
+innocent woman's sake, save you from remorse, and her from ruin."
+
+"By heavens!" exclaimed Miles, turning sarcastically towards his friend,
+"this man would have me take his mistress to my arms again, and receive
+him, perchance, as friend! My lord," and he turned wildly in rage upon
+him, "if there be a coward here, 'tis not Miles Tremenhere, or his
+friend."
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Lord Randolph, drawing a long breath, then keeping
+silence a moment to subdue himself, he replied, holding out a hand to
+Miles's friend, "Your card, monsieur, and I will immediately place it in
+the hands of my friend. I think now, sir," and he bowed to Tremenhere,
+"our interview may terminate; and may you never regret the day's work
+which will follow this."
+
+And, holding the card given by the other in his hand, he quietly quitted
+the apartment. "After all," he said to himself as he moved to the room
+where his friends were awaiting him, "this fellow requires a severe
+lesson; it will cure his jealousy." And none was gayer that evening at
+table than Lord Randolph Gray. Tremenhere was otherwise. There was a
+monitor in his breast, not silent, for it was full of questionings. Yet
+to all he replied, "It is justice and retribution,"--and then he sat
+down with perfect composure, and drew a rough copy of his will, which he
+purposed having legally executed on the morrow. "I will not leave her
+unprovided for," he whispered to himself; "this shall be my revenge on
+her."
+
+The next day but one, Lord Randolph and his adversary met; and
+Tremenhere was carried from the spot severely, though not dangerously,
+wounded--a bullet having traversed his side, without, however, touching
+any vital part, though he became insensible from loss of blood. His
+opponent, with the manly self-possession which had characterised him
+throughout, remained until well assured there existed no danger from the
+actual wound, and then quitted the Bois de Bologne, where they met, and
+next day Paris, for Italy. Tremenhere was transported to the nearest
+house, and there he lay unconscious for many days.
+
+Minnie recovered from her stupor, to find herself in the arms of her
+attendant, who was too much terrified to quit her and summon assistance.
+This woman had not entered the apartment where her mistress was for some
+hours; and her absence at the moment of her master's friend's arrival,
+prevented her knowing what had occurred. As Minnie returned to the
+warmth of life, and something of its consciousness, she inquired whether
+Mr. Tremenhere had returned. A reply in the negative being given, she
+for a moment was lost in wonder; then thought after thought crowded
+through her brain, and she found amidst them, one to lead her partially
+to light. Tremenhere was gone--but where, or wherefore, she could not
+remember for hours. She wandered hastily from room to room, touching
+every thing there which had been his--her manner was flighty, half
+idiotic; the suddenness of the blow found her unprepared. At last the
+terrified servant beheld a cold, grey look steal over her face, the
+hectic flush disappeared, memory had returned, and desolation sat
+triumphant above all; and nothing could equal that desolation of
+heart--she did not imagine, for an instant, that Miles believed her
+guilty. It will be remembered that she was unconscious of Lord
+Randolph's residence in their hotel; she had hurried home, trembling, it
+is true, to inform Tremenhere of her meeting with him, and this was the
+only clue she had to his cruel conduct and desertion. She read his
+letter over and over; her first supernatural fears passed away, and she
+felt convinced either that he was mad, or changed in heart, so changed
+that the parting was pleasurably done by him. After viewing all his
+recent conduct, she dismissed the idea of madness, his coldness, and
+absence of manner for some time, since, in fact, her own mysterious
+search after D'Estrées, which had given him fresh cause for suspicion,
+arose before her, and her eyes seemed to open on the truth. She looked
+back to many things; his meetings with Lady Dora, first in the holly
+field at home, that had puzzled her, then at Uplands, so sedulously
+concealed from her--all arose, and without jealousy of her cousin, she
+felt, and more firmly in that it was an unworn, up-springing thought of
+an instant, that Miles _had_ once loved Dora, and possibly marrying her
+for pique, subsequent disgust had ensued. "Oh! if he really loved me, he
+could not have sought to prove me false so often," she said, "neither
+now have left me for so slight a cause, without even seeking an
+explanation, as my accidental meeting with Lord Randolph. He never truly
+loved me." And with this fixed thought, a cold desolation crept over her
+soul. Minnie had yet to learn all the madness of jealousy, therefore she
+was incompetent to judge him. She was not long left in any uncertainty
+about her desertion; her servant informed her that Mr. Tremenhere's
+friend had authorized the landlord to apply to him for all expenses,
+when madame quitted the hotel, as some unfortunate differences had
+occasioned a separation. This had been gratuitous pain inflicted in
+total indifference to her feelings on this man's part. Tremenhere had
+bid him say that he had quitted Paris.
+
+Minnie, in all her keen suffering, had but one friend, Mary; our good
+deeds seldom are lost in the waves of life's ocean--they return again,
+to break at our feet. Minnie felt all this girl's kindness, but she had
+grown so cold at heart in a few days, that all failed to warm her to
+life. Of the duel they heard nothing; those kind of things are of more
+ordinary occurrence in France than among ourselves, and from whom could
+they hear it? Mary had written several letters to Miles's friend, their
+only clue, to beseech Tremenhere to listen to reason. After some days
+deep anxiety, they were returned, with a request in his name, that none
+more might be sent; he was leaving France, search after him would be
+useless. At length a letter arrived from himself; the characters were
+trembling, for he was scarcely able to write them. In this he spoke
+little of wrongs, merely by the tone of it, implying Mary to be as
+guilty as his own wife. There was no regret, nothing to excite hope. He
+spoke deliberately of never again seeing her; he was resolved; he had no
+desire to do so; he had long been unhappy; now the tie was severed, he
+felt content. Of her pecuniary wants he had taken care, _however she
+might be circumstanced_. He named a banker in whose hands a sufficiency
+for her support would be placed quarterly, and then all care for her
+ended. With this letter Minnie's last hope died; it was indeed a
+hopeless one. Had she seen him, pale, haggard, and suffering, as he sat
+up in the bed to write it, she would have felt that he was less to blame
+than she deemed him. He scarcely knew what he wrote, still he felt
+anxious to settle all for her comfort, in case Lord Randolph should
+forsake her; for the idea was a fixed one in his mind, that though they
+might not meet publicly for a while, eventually, finding him no longer
+to be duped, they would fly together.
+
+Nothing could induce Minnie to touch a farthing of the money Miles had
+allotted her; forsaken by him, he was as a stranger to her. Had she
+known he still loved her--had she known all, she would have followed to
+the farthest end of the earth, to find and plead to him. As it was, her
+heart sickened; she had been deceiving herself--deceived by him. Her
+pride arose, and, enwraping herself in it, she sat down, and forbore
+even to name him. One thing she wrung from Mary in sacred promise: this
+was--that neither Dorcas nor Skaife should be informed of the whole
+truth.
+
+"Let me bear my misery alone," she said. "Tell them, for I cannot write
+now, that he and I have parted: that there was incompatibility of
+temper--any thing you will; but do not--pray, do not, say he has
+forsaken me! Let them think it has been mutual consent, but do not blame
+him; they all hate him enough already," and the heart whispered even
+still, "poor Miles!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+It was not, however, for some time that Minnie allowed Mary to write
+even this; for she still hoped at times, in her heart, that Miles would
+return. But when months passed, and she ascertained, beyond a doubt,
+from a visit Mary made to his artist friend, that he had quitted for
+Florence, then she hoped no more, and nothing remained but to act.
+
+Dorcas was most uneasy at her silence, and then Mary wrote, and
+afterwards she summoned courage to do so herself, though every word
+written was penned in the bitterness of worse than death; for we may die
+happy in hope, and the love of those dear ones around us, smoothing the
+pillow as we depart in peace and faith to happy shores, beyond life's
+troubled sea. Minnie's grief had nothing of this. She was on a wreck in
+a dark stormy night--a wild sea foaming over her head--a dark sky, and
+impenetrable darkness above and around; but nevertheless she spoke of
+contentment, and a wish to be left in quiet. "We deemed it better to
+part than live in estrangement of heart," she wrote, "and I am resigned.
+If you love me, let the subject drop; nothing can change our fate.
+Leave me in quiet awhile, I shall remain some time longer abroad."
+
+But this letter did not tranquillize Dorcas, to whom it was written. She
+carefully abstained from speaking of its contents to any one but Mr.
+Skaife, and he, like herself, was too deeply interested in Minnie, not
+to be the confidant of all. Dorcas wrote most anxiously to her, and
+Skaife promised, as soon as his duties would admit of it, to go to
+Paris, and endeavour to reconcile them. He guessed a portion of the
+truth; but, alas, nor he, nor Dorcas knew a tithe of it!
+
+Minnie, we have said, resolutely refused to touch her husband's
+allowance. He had gone to Florence (as far he might be, in his
+spirit-broken state,) contented in the thought that she was provided
+for, and in following his art, now a toil undertaken to banish care--he
+strove to obliterate her memory. Minnie's pride forbade her accepting
+existence at the expense of Mary; when all her means had become
+exhausted--the slender ones her purse and jewels afforded, her pride
+arose in proportion to her poverty. It was not false pride, but the
+honest, upright determination, to burthen no one. "I will leave Paris,"
+she said to herself, "and go where no one may hear of me."
+
+This could not be accomplished without some difficulty; nevertheless, at
+last she succeeded, and one day, when Mary sought her in the humble room
+she had been residing in, she was gone. A letter reached her faithful
+friend, telling her that cares such as hers were better borne alone;
+even _her_ sympathy pained her. She would go where only her own heart
+should know her sorrow, and breathe it to her. She bade her not fear for
+her; she was safe, and would shortly give her proof of it by letter; but
+she implored her to breathe to no one that she had fled. Mary, however,
+in kindness of heart, wrote immediately to Mr. Skaife; the secret was
+too a heavy a one for her own conscience to support in peace. This
+intelligence caused the most bitter sorrow to him and Dorcas, to whom
+alone it was told; and he hastened to seek some one to take charge of
+his parish duties awhile, at her earnest prayer, and his own heart's
+promptings, to follow Minnie whithersoever she might be gone.
+
+It sometimes, but rarely happens in life, that where we only expected to
+find a merely common acquaintance, we meet a warm and sincere
+friend--one who, through years of sorrow, never forsakes us--one who
+forgets self, to help us onward on life's weary track with our
+burthens--who, when all have forsaken save himself, clings to us still,
+and whose best, and only reward sought, is, when a gleam of sunshine
+flits across our dreary way. To such a one, honour and blessing--gifts,
+which his own good conscience will bring him, when, at the end of life's
+journey, he makes up his account, and reckons with his Creator. Such a
+copy of an original, was Skaife. But there was a machine working which
+he could not stay or controul; it would spin its wool, and weave its
+woof, before man might overcome it.
+
+Tremenhere was in Florence; but yet he heard of Minnie whilst she was
+in Paris. So blinded was he by his passions, that even her poverty--her
+refusal tacitly to touch his allowance, were snares in his eyes, to lure
+him back to deception. Again, if at times his heart softened, 'twas but
+for a moment--he grew cold again, and pitiless. Living too, as he lived,
+steeled his heart to gentler scenes or thoughts; he avoided all society,
+and, shut up in his studio, labouring to banish the bosom's emotions,
+became sullen, morose, and vindictive.
+
+Months passed since their separation, and in the delicate, frail woman,
+living in almost privation in Marseilles, toiling at her needle for her
+daily bread, who might have known Minnie Dalzell? With the little money
+remaining to her, she crossed to England, to prevent discovery and
+pursuit; here remaining hidden a short time, she then returned on her
+footsteps, and hastened to Marseilles. She knew Miles was in Italy, and
+her yearning heart led her to the port, whence she might some day,
+perhaps, be called upon to follow his path. Bowed and saddened she was
+by sorrow, still her heart's conscious uprightness, and honest pride,
+upheld her; if she suffered, no one knew it; if sometimes she ate her
+bread in tears, and only _that_, for a day's nourishment, who saw her?
+No mere _person_, but One who sees and reckons to us our patience and
+confidence in him however he may try us, and Him, Minnie never forgot.
+Even as the trembling fingers, pale and attenuated, broke the hardened
+crust, the eyes, once violet in their depth and richness, now paler,
+clearer, more serene in their sadness, looked up and blessed the Giver
+of it in their tearful gratitude. In all this patient sorrow came an
+almost overwhelming, unhoped-for joy; she held a living child on her
+bosom, small, frail little creature; its tones were as a bird's, so soft
+and sad, and through the little thin fingers the light shone, as you
+held them up, and only then did a ruddy colour, like pale ruby, show in
+them, proving they were not merely wax, an imitation of life. "I shall
+not have you long to comfort me, my boy," she whispered, when the
+sobered first joy gave place to reason; "but you will go to a better
+place, and plead for your mother, darling, and oh! do not forget
+him--your father. I would you might have seen him _here_, my child, to
+know him in heaven; but I trust in spirit meetings, spirit sight will
+show him to you, and we may all three rejoice, reconciled in peace and
+everlasting joy, which nothing human can attain to!"
+
+He was christened Miles, and though the pale, fair mother grew paler
+each day, and toiled more, as the embroidery, in which she excelled,
+became more sought after, still the boy thrived, and as she laid him
+upon her lap, like a model of rare beauty, her lip smiled in placid
+thankfulness and joy, as she counted the dimples which day by day seemed
+to deepen in the now rosy cheeks and fingers. Hers was not a heart to
+keep its joy to itself; she wrote to Mary. True she did not give her
+address, but she wrote to bid her rejoice with her; her child was born
+and lived. A deep hope sustained her for some time. If Miles ever had
+truly loved her, he must think of the expected tie which bound them
+closer than ever. He would remember how he had spoken with almost
+boyish delight of the hoped-for period, and he would seek her, and
+come. Alas! he did remember it; but in bitterness of spirit, and laughed
+in scorn over those boyish hopes, of which he had been the dupe.
+
+Mary replied, in haste and deep anxiety, to the Post-Office, as
+directed; she spoke of Dorcas's trouble, Skaife's arrival and anxious
+search for her, but not one word of Miles! and then her heart sunk in
+utter despondency. "Not even now!" she uttered, as the big tears fell on
+her boy's sleeping face; "oh, he must hate me much!" Then succeeded a
+fear lest Mary should seek her, or Skaife, or Dorcas; she would fly
+again.
+
+Among her employers was one lady who had taken a deep interest in her;
+she had a daughter about Minnie's age, and married to a Maltese
+merchant; she was about to become a mother herself, and, being called
+upon to join her husband in Malta, her mother implored Minnie, who was
+thought a young widow, to accompany her as nurse to the expected child.
+The offer was a tempting one; thus she could fly, fly all, and in change
+of scene, more than place, still, busy thought. A large offer was
+proposed to her to wean her own child when another should claim her
+care, but this she resolutely refused. "You will be too delicate to
+nurse both!" exclaimed the lady.
+
+"I shall gain strength for all, Madame," she replied, with confidence.
+"I am stronger than I seem," and she thought of all she had mentally
+borne and wrestled successfully with, and mere physical labour could not
+daunt her strong heart.
+
+She waited upon the lady, and, disdaining all deceit, at the risk of
+losing possibly the situation which she much desired to obtain, told all
+her story. She had truly said, when asked, that she had no husband, and
+others concluded he was dead. At all events, as we have said, assuredly
+on the Continent people more charitably judge a sister woman by present
+good conduct, than they seek, by diving from _curiosity_ into the past,
+to discover, perhaps, some deep sorrow, or more deeply repented error.
+We deny that our Continental neighbours are less virtuous than
+Englishwomen, _in general_; but they are less severe, more charitable,
+less censorious. Minnie's candour raised her high in the opinion of
+those, now doubly bound to her, from pity. All her energies were called
+into play, to meet the emergency of outfit--money was required. The lady
+advanced her some, still she required more.
+
+We are not relating a mere tale of romance, where fairy and unexpected
+gifts come to help the toiling and virtuous, but a story of everyday
+life, where the good and conscientious, by undeserved misfortunes, are
+thrown in much trouble, degradation, poverty, and _often_ want; where
+the fingers once destined to be jewelled, must learn to toil, that the
+lip which had been born to command a host of servants, may eat its daily
+bread.
+
+Minnie had been guilty of but one imprudent act, and this was the
+penalty due to it, and unmurmuringly she was prepared to pay it to the
+last farthing. Her hours of sleep became shortened; the earliest morning
+light saw her working, while her boy slept. Oh, woman--fellow-woman!
+when some pale mother places in your gemmed hand the work you have
+commanded her to do for you, pause, and think that she may be in _all_
+things superior to yourselves. Pause and reflect, grow humble and
+grateful, where all your gratitude is due. Turn not away in pride, do
+not bid her seek some insolent menial for payment, who will grudge the
+hardly-earned sum, and insult, while giving it. Pay her yourselves--pay
+well, and in conscience, and above all, pay kindly; for how know you but
+that, in another place, this woman may plead for, or condemn you?
+
+Time hastened on; the day shone fair and bright; it was in October, and
+the quay was thronged with gallant vessels coming and going, and friends
+were receiving in joy those who returned, and others weeping over the
+departing; but none were there to press Minnie to their heart in sorrow
+or fear, as, clasping her child to her bosom, she stepped on board the
+steamer "Hirondelle," for Malta. Once she looked back, and scanned the
+crowd, every face--it was a last hope, but it faded in the sigh which
+heaved her heart, where little Miles slept in peace. She turned away,
+nor looking again, went below. The anchor weighed, the steam gushed
+upwards in a cloud, the paddles commenced sending the spray around, and
+the port faded insensibly from view.
+
+"Don't cry, madame," said Minnie, whose eyes were overflowing for
+another's grief. A mother had just seen her daughter for the last time.
+"Don't cry, dear madame," and she knelt and clasped her hands in both
+her own (her boy was sleeping in her berth.) "We shall soon be at
+Malta, and then you will see your husband, who so anxiously expects
+you." Here she may be pardoned if a tear fell for herself; this chord
+jarred on her heart, but she checked the vain dream, and awoke to
+comfort another.
+
+On--on they sailed with wind and tide, until night set in, and then the
+former suddenly changed, and a high sea arose. Minnie had lain down
+dressed beside her boy; her mistress slept in a berth above her.
+Suddenly there arose a noise more than usual over-head, footsteps, and
+voices calling fore and aft. She sat up and listened. Some of the ladies
+slept, others were partially awakened by the noise, and murmuringly
+called the attendant. Some sat up, the better to listen. Minnie was very
+pale, but spoke not. At this moment a man appeared at the cabin door; he
+was in a sailor's heaviest dress, for weathering rough weather. He
+whispered the attendant, who grew paler; then he crept almost
+noiselessly in, and commenced putting in and securing, what are called
+the dead-lights. Then he stole away as he had entered; but, as he
+mounted the companion ladder, he closed and fastened the door. Minnie
+did not shriek, but she arose, and, though scarcely able to keep her
+footing, held on to the side of the berth, and whispered her mistress,
+"Madame, madame, awake and dress!" The lady started up; just at that
+moment something crashed on deck, and went over the side. A simultaneous
+scream burst from all in that cabin; then for an instant, which seemed
+as an age in duration, there were breathless silence and watching for
+the expected signal again, of disaster; but nothing was heard save
+hurrying footsteps over-head, and the heavy ploughing of the steamer
+through the waves, which broke with a monotonous sound against the
+vessel, which seemed like some poor, breathing, overwhelmed animal,
+struggling for its life. After this moment's suspense, wherein every ear
+expected to be startled by some fierce cry of despair, all in that cabin
+looked from one to another in terror. This lasted another minute--then
+one, endowed with a sudden desire to fly the gloomy silence of that
+almost dark cabin, where only one small lamp flickered to and fro in the
+centre, sprang up the ladder and endeavoured to open the door; but it
+resisted all her efforts. With a wild cry she shook it madly; then,
+struggling in her fear, fell headlong downwards, and lay on the floor,
+terrifying the inmates of that prison-house by her shrieks of wild,
+hysterical agony. Some rose, some kneeled and prayed, with trembling
+upraised hands. Others were too lifeless to think, but leaned stupefied
+against the side of the cabin. One woman lay still--perfectly still, and
+beside her were two beautiful sleeping children; her pale lips alone
+breathed a prayer for mercy, as she clasped both to her bosom. Minnie
+had awakened her mistress, whose personal attendant was too much alarmed
+to think except of herself; and Tremenhere's deserted wife, with her boy
+clasped in one arm to her heart, yet found courage with the other to
+enfold the almost paralyzed lady, and breathe words of hope; and thus
+the vessel toiled on with its death-expecting cargo. For nearly an hour,
+it seemed as if for one plunge she took despairingly forward, she was
+driven double the distance back again; assuredly she made no way in that
+heavy sea. At length there was a pause, as though she had some
+impossible wave to cut through; every heart stood still; then her sides
+creaked and heaved; the timbers seemed like complaining spirits. She had
+had both wind and tide against her; in an instant, as if by magic, she
+appeared to swing round, with her head to the wind, and onward she flew,
+like a soul loosened from bondage, and seeking its haven of rest. She
+was returning to Marseilles. It was a race for life; but, like many an
+overwrought gallant steed, her strength failed where her spirit upheld.
+Onward she dashed, and one wild shriek mingled with the severing crash,
+as "L'Hirondelle" broke upon the rocks, her crew was powerless to keep
+her off, and went to pieces in that dark, dreary night.
+
+It is not our province, even though we portray a true scene, to speak of
+all in that doomed steamer; it is with Minnie we have to buffet over the
+waves of that dark sea, in a small boat, into which many--far too many,
+had crowded. Her child was clasped in a grasp like death, (for only that
+could have parted them,) to her shivering breast powerless to warm it,
+while its faint cry broke in agony on her stricken heart. Still she
+hoped; she knew something more than human force would be requisite to
+separate her from her infant, strained as it was to her bosom. So the
+shivering mother sat still, uncomplaining in her anguish, and thus they
+drifted on in that laden boat. Morning broke, and the boat was keel
+uppermost, riding on a calm sea; to that keel clung two living beings,
+the mother and child, yet the latter scarcely lived. The tone of that
+little voice was a faint murmur of expiring nature, which echoed in a
+heavy sob from the mother's heart, as she clung to the keel in almost
+despairing hope, and thus they drifted to and fro, a mockery of life, so
+nigh death they seemed on that calm sea, until her benumbed hand, for
+one grasped her child, could scarcely cling on, and insensibility was
+stealing over both, slowly and gradually, so much so that it seemed as a
+dream, two rough, but friendly arms, lifting her into a boat, where she
+was gently laid at the bottom on sails and coats, and covered up
+carefully from the spray, which dashed over her, as in playfulness. What
+means of restoration they had at hand, were supplied by those rough
+nurses, two fishermen on the Marseilles coast, who, quitting their toil
+for that day, sailed in, as quickly as possible, to their humble
+village-home, of a few poor cottages up the coast. A long, insensible
+sleep was Minnie's, when she was laid in the cotter's bed. Her long,
+fair hair hung in heavy, damp masses on the coverlet, and on her bosom
+lay the living thing she still clasped in her straining arms, loving
+almost unto death. It was nearly two long days before she awoke to
+perfect consciousness, to find herself tended with care and every
+kindness their poverty could afford, by the two men who had rescued her,
+and who, calling in a woman from a neighbouring hut, placed the mother
+and child under her care. Her first awakening was a loud cry of terror,
+as in a horrid dream she saw the past, and her first thought was her
+boy. Startled by her cry, the woman ceased a low monotonous song she was
+singing, to lull an infant to sleep with by the fire. Minnie sprang from
+the bed towards her, and in an instant memory gave her back all; for one
+doubting moment she held her child at arm's length to recall the
+features, then folding those arms in gentle, but strong hold around it,
+she sunk tremblingly on her knees, and the fair veil of hair sweeping
+the ground, made her seem a spirit from another world, in purity and
+holiness, as, raising her streaming eyes upwards, her lips murmured in
+deep, heartfelt gratitude--"Oh, I am not worthy of so much mercy! so
+great a blessing! teach me to deserve it!"
+
+And her tears baptized anew her child, spared from death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+With her memory and return to life, came a strange desire over Minnie's
+heart. She learned by the inquiries of the fisherman, that almost all on
+board the ill-fated Hirondelle had been lost. Only one or two of the
+passengers, and a few of the crew, had been picked up. Her sorrow was
+keen and heart-rending, on hearing that the lady whom she had vainly
+endeavoured to save, was amongst the lost--all were reported so, except
+the few we have named; and one of the men returning from Marseilles one
+day, brought her a paper containing a list of those lost, or supposed to
+be; and almost the first name she read there was, "Madame Tremenhere,
+and child." Her first feeling was a shudder, as she thought of what
+might have been. Then an idea rushed through her brain of, "What would
+Miles's feelings be should he read this? Would he regret her?--still
+hate her? Or, his once strong love reviving, would he remember her only
+through that medium, and sorrow over her fate?"
+
+"Should he," she mentally said, "what heartfelt joy it would be to seek
+him, and, casting myself at his feet, pray him to take me once again to
+his arms and heart!"
+
+This thought gave rise to the earnest desire of proving him. This task
+did not seem difficult or impossible. Her humble friends were not of
+that class to carry the news of her existence far and wide; her name,
+too, was unknown to them. More than thanks she had little to give,
+reserving to herself in some hereafter, to reward them amply. Her object
+was to gain Paris once again, and then ponder upon the best means of
+carrying out her project; it seemed to her as a last hope. The only
+articles of value she possessed were a watch and chain, which her
+ill-fated mistress had given her the day before they sailed. On these,
+her late friends, the fishermen, had raised her a sum of money in
+Marseilles; a small sum she forced upon them, and with the remainder,
+after purchasing a few absolute necessaries, the still hoping woman
+left, unrecognized, for Paris. She had confided to her friends a wish to
+be unknown, until she reached her relatives, and thus a passport was
+obtained in the name of Deval. With her she took the paper containing
+the list of passengers supposed to be lost, and thus she started for
+Paris.
+
+Minnie had not calculated all in doing this; she overlooked, in her
+haste to put a last hope of reconciliation in practice, the grief many
+might feel. But it was done, and thought came afterwards. She knew that,
+by sending the paper to Tremenhere's artist-friend, in Paris, it
+assuredly would reach him, directed to himself; consequently, on her
+arrival, her first act was to seek the box of one of those curiously
+occupied persons in that large city, who sit at the corners of some
+streets, and, for a trifle, write letters for the illiterate or
+mysterious. Here she got her paper addressed to Tremenhere, to his
+friend's care, in a strange hand, and sent it by a porter, with an order
+to leave it in the _loge de concièrge_, without answering any questions,
+merely inquiring if they knew the address of the gentleman. The man
+returned to her, and said--
+
+"The person to whom it was addressed, was daily expected in Paris, and
+it should be given to him." Her heart bounded with a joy, long a
+stranger to it, at this information; all seemed to favour her scheme.
+Then, however, for the first time she sat down to reflect, and thought
+of Mary's certain grief--Dorcas--Skaife--all, perhaps; but she consoled
+herself with the reflection--"It will not be for long: Miles will come
+to Paris--when he receives the paper, he will go to Mary. I will watch
+for him near her house, and his friend's; and when I see his fine head
+bowed in sorrow, I will bid it raise itself up, rejoicing!"
+
+And with this idea she took a small, almost garret, within view of his
+friend's residence, and through the _concièrge_, and at shops obtained
+some work, whereby to support life, and her dearer than own--that of
+Tremenhere's child's.
+
+Miles had remained at Florence, in retirement and bitterness, until his
+feelings outwore themselves. He wanted fuel to feed his thoughts against
+Minnie. He was tormented in soul; for sometimes a till then silent
+monitor awoke, and said--
+
+"You were perhaps too hasty--you had no proof, but presumptive
+evidence--the most deceiving of any: return to Paris." And his fate took
+him by the hand, and led him thither.
+
+Before Minnie brought the newspaper to Paris, the journals, both there
+and in England, were teeming with accounts of the loss of the
+"Hirondelle," and a list given of the passengers' names. Who may depict
+the heavy gloom which fell upon her family at Gatestone, when her name,
+coupled with her infant's, appeared amongst those lost! Dorcas was
+almost broken-hearted. If Minnie could have seen her, she would indeed
+have regretted the _ruse_ of a moment, which could cause so much bitter
+anguish to one she loved--she would no longer accuse her aunt of
+coldness, but rather have pitied that want of energy, which made her
+seem what she was not. On Juvenal and Sylvia, too, it fell heavily, but
+in a different manner. On him, it awakened remorse and gloom for unjust
+severity, and a consequent hatred towards those who had urged him to it.
+He would not listen to the name of Burton, or Dalby, without violent
+passion, followed by almost tears; and this feeling was constantly
+awakened by Sylvia, who became more acrimonious in proportion as her
+conscience told her she had taken a good part in the oppression of her
+poor niece; and her greatest satisfaction was in torturing others.
+
+Dorcas and Skaife were the two who, in almost silence, bore the heaviest
+burthen; they spoke of her to one another, but beyond this, they were
+silent. Dorcas crept about her home in quiet grief; every little object
+which had belonged to Minnie was gradually taken from public gaze, to be
+treasured up in her own saddened room, and there she would sit for
+hours, looking upon them, and recalling when and how Minnie employed
+them.
+
+The old hall clock ticked no more: this was Juvenal's act--it awakened
+such painful feelings whenever its tongue proclaimed the hour; so one
+day, unknown to any one, he sent early for a carpenter, and the friend
+of years was consigned to a lumber-room!--_à propos_, this is too often
+the fate of old, tried friends, who would recall us to thought and duty
+by reminding us of wasted hours!
+
+Mrs. Gillett had but one phrase in her sorrow to cut Juvenal to the
+soul; and this was--
+
+"I told you something bad would come of all your severity! Poor
+darling!--only for your cruelty she might be smiling amongst us now, and
+her blessed, crowing babby!" She spoke of it as if it had been a young
+game-cock. "And to think," she continued, "that that pretty creatur',
+long hair and all, has become food for fishes! There--never don't send
+no more into this house; for, as long as I'm in it, none sha'n't be
+cooked, I can tell you!"
+
+And the poor woman, having thus energetically delivered herself of her
+opinions, would creep away, and, shutting the door of her
+pleasant-looking room, sit rocking to and fro, crying, as she would
+fancy she again beheld Minnie and her handsome Tremenhere there, side by
+side.
+
+The authorities at Marseilles were written to, and all confirmed the sad
+news; some few had been rescued, but nothing had been heard of Minnie,
+except that the boat in which she and others had escaped from the wreck,
+was found keel uppermost by a steamer. The fishermen far on the coast,
+had little intercourse with the town; and then Minnie had implored
+secresy at their hands, and her wishes were obeyed. Mary, too, wrote to
+Skaife in broken-heartedness. Nothing was wanting to confirm it; and,
+just when all else were in their sorrow, Tremenhere arrived in Paris.
+While at Florence, he had heard that Lord Randolph was cruising in a
+yacht in the Mediterranean. This partially urged his return to France--a
+fear of meeting _them_. He felt he should not be master of himself were
+such to take place; so strong on his mind was the idea of their being
+together. Yet, too, sometimes a doubt arose; and, to clear up all, he
+returned to France--he could not rest. His first idea was to go direct
+to Mary's, and inquire about her in seeming indifference; then he
+changed his intention, and went hastily to his friend's. This man was
+from home when Miles arrived, so he went to his studio and awaited his
+return. Miles was one of those whose busy mind ever found employment for
+the fingers; he could not sit down patiently and wait, doing
+nothing--the busy thoughts when the mind is in trouble, become too acute
+then. Thus he looked round the studio--to read was impossible--taking a
+blank sheet of pasteboard, he placed it on an easel, and commenced
+sketching. He was not thinking willingly of Minnie; but somehow she was
+the spirit of the man's innermost soul. Beneath his pencil grew two
+figures--a Madonna and child, lightly sketched. Something passed over
+his heart like a footstep in a deserted hall, and echoed. He laid down
+the pencil, and brushing back his hair with a hasty hand, resumed the
+pencil, but reversed the sketch, and commenced another--as he did so, a
+step sounded without. He started up; it was his friend--friend to him,
+and a worthy man, which made him the more severe towards Minnie,
+supposing her so faithless. The cordial grasp of friendship given, his
+friend said,--
+
+"Oh! I've got some letters and papers for you, which have come
+recently," and he hastened to seek them. Miles's heart beat high. They
+most probably, in some manner, related to the overflowing thought of his
+heart. He took them with trembling hands from the other, and scrutinized
+them all; a cold feeling of disappointment filled his heart--not a line
+in her handwriting!--then she was truly lost, and indifferent to him!
+All this time the other was gazing at him with an embarrassed look, not
+knowing when or how to commence--something he had to give utterance to;
+this look had come over him immediately after their first salutation.
+Miles tore open the Marseilles paper, and flung it down with a "pshaw."
+The name caught his friend's eye, and he took it up. As he did so,
+Miles, to conceal his disappointed look, hastily seated himself at the
+easel, and commenced finishing his sketch. "Look," he said, "Duplin,
+this is the model of the sweet villa where I have been sojourning
+often, in Florence--I must return--already I grow weary in France!" In
+good truth, he looked so; he was pale, care-worn, and his smile passed
+like a breath on glass, leaving a dark, dim vapour behind.
+
+"Tremenhere," said the other at last, "have you heard aught of madame,
+lately?"
+
+The question made his hand tremble.
+
+"No," he replied, continuing his sketch. "How should I? Have you?" and
+he looked up wistfully.
+
+"Nor of _ce milord_?" asked Duplin, again interrogatively, without
+replying to his demand.
+
+"He is in the Mediterranean," answered Miles bitterly, "cruising in a
+yacht."
+
+"Then it _was_ the case," fell from his friend's lip, as if in
+self-satisfaction, at a doubt solved.
+
+"What?" cried Miles, looking up hastily; "speak out, I can bear it--I
+suspect all, from the reports I have heard."
+
+"Well, then, after you left I resolved to discover all; I deemed it
+right towards you, and also a satisfaction, where madame would fain have
+seemed so wronged. I found out that milord went to Italy and the
+Mediterranean, and shortly afterwards madame quitted Paris for England;
+but this must have been a _ruse_ to mislead, for she was recently in
+Marseilles with her child."
+
+Tremenhere groaned aloud at the thoughts this communication awakened;
+there was something so bitter in the memory of all the happiness her
+supposed infamy had cost him, wife, child, home--all but a vain dream.
+
+"And thence," continued Duplin, anxious, by fortifying his (Miles's)
+heart with contempt for her, to prepare him to receive calmly the
+intelligence he had gained through the public prints, "madame with her
+child, sailed the other day for the _Mediterranean_ for Malta; in fact,
+where I last heard of milord's yacht."
+
+"True!" ejaculated Miles through his closed teeth, as he bent over his
+sketch.
+
+"And now, _mon ami_," added the other hurriedly, "I have something more
+to tell you. I do not think you need much courage to hear it; for after
+all, 'tis better, far better thus."
+
+"What would you tell me, Duplin? speak?" and he looked up perfectly
+unconscious of the truth.
+
+"Well then, Tremenhere, you are free; madame is dead!"
+
+"Dead!" exclaimed Miles, starting up pale and rigid; and, strange
+contradiction of the thought which the other endeavoured to convey to
+his mind, the fair, living Minnie seemed to stand before him.
+
+"Be a man!" said Duplin, soothingly; "think how false she was; think how
+painful a tie--of the disgrace!" and he grasped his arm.
+
+"Where did she die?" asked Miles, passing his hand over his brow to
+collect his thoughts; for he was in a stupor, not understanding really
+what the other meant to convey to him.
+
+"She was lost; the vessel was wrecked going to Malta," answered Duplin,
+who had unfolded the Marseilles paper, and, suspecting the contents sent
+by some unknown hand, placed the open sheet before the stupefied
+Tremenhere on the easel. Gradually the glazed eyes fell upon the page,
+and the names stood out bold and clear before him, "Madame Tremenhere
+(_Anglaise_) _et son enfant_," he dropped silently on the seat, and,
+shading his eyes, gazed on the sheet motionless and speechless.
+
+"Be yourself--be a man!" said Duplin, once more touching his arm.
+
+"I am!" cried Tremenhere, in a hoarse but steady voice, looking up. "I
+rejoice; better know her dead, than _his_!" and he rose and strode
+across the room. "I do rejoice, Duplin; see, my hand even does not
+tremble. Now I can bear my sorrow; now the world is one huge blank
+before me. I have lost that leper spot which was tainting all my flesh;
+I have no past, no present, no future--all is alike a blank. I can walk
+on in the darkness, nor fear to meet her form at every step!"
+
+Duplin stood awed by his calmness, it seemed so terrific over those
+young graves. "Who can have sent that paper?" he asked, taking the
+journal in his hand.
+
+"An enemy; but I guess him. I defy them all now! They can wound no
+more--my wound is cleansed, and healed; I defy them! the plague spot has
+left me! Rejoice Duplin, rejoice!"
+
+When he went forth from that house, his step was exact, the brow stern
+and cold, but untroubled, the mouth compressed and calm, and the pale
+woman closely veiled, who was concealed in a gateway watching the exit
+of him whom she had seen enter Duplin's abode, felt her hopeful heart
+loosen all its chords, and wellnigh burst in its sorrow, as she failed
+to read one regret on that face of stone. She knew he must have received
+the paper which told him all, and now indeed she felt he had never loved
+her--all was lost. She had but three things to comfort her; first, her
+own upright conscience, her boy, and the morbid satisfaction of being
+indeed dead to all, lone, and uncomforted, and thus she crept back to
+her gloomy garret.
+
+Once again she saw Miles; her dress touched him in the half-lighted
+street at night. He was cold, unmoved, as before. She stretched a hand
+to touch him; his name was on her lips; but he passed on, and the
+whispered word died away in a hysterical sob.
+
+Next day he quitted for England, without seeking any communication with
+Mary, and Minnie remained to weep and toil.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+Four months passed away, and February, with its cold assumption of
+earliest spring, found a crowd of fashionables assembled in the French
+capital; and, amongst others, Lady Ripley, Lady Lysson, and Lady Dora.
+
+It would be impossible to convey to many minds, or easily describe, the
+chilling effect which pride, and a luxuriously-indulged fashionable
+existence, throw over a heart which otherwise might have been warm,
+generous, and loving. Lady Dora was painfully shocked when she heard of
+Minnie's death; but then she had her mother's cold reasonings to soothe
+her grief.
+
+"Minnie had disgraced her family; her name had, since her unfortunate
+marriage, been brought in question. Assuredly, though Mr. Tremenhere had
+hushed slander by resolution, yet Minnie must have given some room for
+it! It was very unfortunate that she had ever been known, by the
+publicity he had given at the club, as his wife; and perhaps some day,
+as a relative of their's--for people always _will_ inquire who's who?
+Therefore they must, of course, for decency sake, put on mourning.
+Perhaps it was better so to do; it would silence whisperings, as it was
+known to many that the husband and wife had been separated before her
+death. Something, too, was rumoured, of a duel having been fought; but
+as no public scandal had been given by a divorce, an assumption of
+sorrow would appear in favour of her memory, should the truth ever
+become known!"
+
+So Lady Ripley and her daughter swept the floors of their hotel in Paris
+(whither they had gone, to seek oblivion of sorrow in change of scene)
+in robes of sombre hue, craped and bugled with jet, and only in a very
+quiet soirée permitted themselves to be "at home" or "abroad."
+
+Tremenhere had been a favourite in Florence before his marriage, with
+many a high dame; that event threw a partial veil over him: he grew
+domestic.
+
+Now he came forth again in a new character. In the first state he had an
+absorbing idea--his mother's fame; this was his guiding star. With
+Minnie's supposed fall, this fell too; it "sought the sea," and was
+engulfed.
+
+Tremenhere now was a thoroughly heartless, reckless man. Without hope,
+present or future, he lived for the moment. At first he hesitated, in
+the candour of his heart, even to wear mourning for Minnie; then a
+thought--a more generous one to the dead--arose; he forgave her, and
+would spare her memory from calumny, by any act of his, so glaring in
+disrespect. As the pale, interesting widower, one whose fate had been so
+mysterious--one ejected from his high estate by his parents' error--he
+became the fashionable rage, the pet artist, the sought-after guest; and
+the man _submitting_ to all, courted nothing, for nothing moved him.
+
+It will not be our province to betray beforehand Lady Dora's heart--let
+it work its own way, and shew itself. Lady Ripley could not close her
+doors against Tremenhere, without risking scandal to her relative's
+memory, should any busy tongue ever proclaim she had been such to them;
+besides, he was the fashion, and received every where, as more than an
+artist even of fame, as a man who ranked their equal by birth, though a
+cloud now obscured him. Burton had never been a favourite in society,
+and not a few hoped yet to see Tremenhere restored to his home. So Lady
+Ripley did the more prudent thing, received him with something
+approaching to cordiality. Moreover, he was every where; not to receive
+him, would be to shut fashion out of doors. No portrait was perfect
+unless he painted it, no bust a model unless he chiseled it; and the man
+walked among all like a soul in transmigration, seeking the one hidden
+thing, which should bid it back to the heaven it had lost, and was
+striving to regain.
+
+"Come here, you dreadful man!" exclaimed Lady Lysson, as he entered her
+apartments one day in the Hotel Mirabeau, "and account for yourself.
+Here is Lady Dora complaining bitterly that her portrait, as '_Diane
+Chasseresse_,' will never be completed! I shame to hear so bad an
+account of my protegé."
+
+"Lady Lysson," he said, taking her cordially proffered hand, "I cannot
+plead guilty; the fault is Lady Dora Vaughan's. Three days have I placed
+it upon my easel, and, after impatiently awaiting her ladyship to give
+me a sitting, have been compelled to remove it for some other claimant."
+
+"What have you to answer to this charge, Lady Dora?" asked the lively
+hostess with mock gravity, appealing to the lady, who was sitting at
+another table sketching when Tremenhere entered, and who had received
+him as usual with a constrained air, merely bowing.
+
+"I reply," answered that lady, "that my mother, having been particularly
+engaged, it was impossible for me to wait upon Mr. Tremenhere; and
+indeed, dear Lady Lysson, you are well aware I have not complained of
+the delay. It is a matter of indifference to me, the completion of that
+portrait."
+
+"I declare you are ungracious enough to induce Mr. Tremenhere to cast
+the care of it off his hands, and but that I have its perfecting at
+heart, before my truant nephew's return from afar, to gladden his eyes
+with, I should advise him to leave Diane _à la chasse_ for ever, and
+unfinished."
+
+If the allusion to Lord Randolph made him wince, no eye saw it. As soon
+as the discussion between the ladies commenced, he had very coolly
+seated himself in a corner of the sofa; and with pencil and paper was
+silently sketching Lady Lysson's spaniel, which lay before the fire.
+Lady Ripley, too, had apartments in the Hotel Mirabeau--consequently,
+the ladies were as one family. We have seen before, the desire of the
+two families for an union between Lady Dora and Lord Randolph--a
+marriage now equally sought for by the gentleman. Though Minnie's death
+had affected him much, yet he knew not all the circumstances of the
+case; and, in truth, he was so innocent of any wrong towards her, that
+the memory soon passed away. On Tremenhere he looked as upon a sort of
+madman, really being incapable to dive into the recesses of a heart so
+filled with love, and its _ever-accompanying_ pang--jealousy; and he was
+now daily expected in Paris to plead his own cause with Lady Dora, who
+had, unpromising any thing, alone consented, at his aunt's request, to
+sit for "La Diane," _nominally_ for herself.
+
+There was a feeling of deep repulsion in Lady Dora's heart towards Lord
+Randolph. Thinking, as she did, that he had at the very least sought to
+compromise her cousin--if in truth he had not done so--knowing, as she
+also did, that he and Tremenhere had met in a hostile manner, she felt
+any thing but easy at the inevitable meeting between them now, courted
+and sought after as the latter was every where, for his exalted talent,
+manners, wit, when he pleased, and a certain romance about him, which
+made him a hero--and what were his feelings at the prospect of seeing
+Lord Randolph? They were part of a whole of sorrow and suffering. He was
+resolved to fly nothing which might still more harden his heart; he
+would apply the iron to every part till he burned out and scarred the
+vitality still in it. He had but one desire--total callousness--that
+thus he might find peace; and before the world he had attained that
+wish--but in the privacy of his own room, unseen, unheard, who might
+tell the agony he endured? Something of this Lady Dora suspected; and
+beneath that pride-encased heart there was a woman's thought for him.
+She could not but respect him, and she dreaded him now more than
+ever--and this dread made her desire ardently the return of Lord
+Randolph, that she might _endeavour_ to meet the wishes of all, and,
+becoming his wife, place him in barrier between Tremenhere and herself;
+but her fortification would not be a very strong one where her own heart
+was more than half traitor. Lord Randolph, too, knew Tremenhere was in
+Paris; but, as nothing forced him to remain, he presumed the meeting
+would have nothing very painful for him. He looked upon it in this
+light: that in life, more than once, it has happened, that the law's
+divorcing power has made wives strangers to their husbands; and society,
+backed by the rules of etiquette and politeness, has brought these same
+husbands into almost daily intercourse, without collision--thus he felt
+it would be between Tremenhere and himself. There was something of a
+jealous pang, a memory of past insinuations, which made him wish to
+secure Lady Dora at once--all his love, as _he_ knew that passion, had
+revived for her. Now we will resume our narrative, where we left Miles
+sketching the dog.
+
+"Mr. Tremenhere," cried Lady Lysson, "why don't you speak, and assist me
+in fighting your battles?"
+
+"Mine? Lady Lysson!" he exclaimed, looking up. "Pardon me; I am
+compelled, though in gratitude for the intention doubtless, on your
+part, to disavow them as such. It has not been to oblige me, however
+pleasant the task, that Lady Dora sat for her portrait."
+
+"I am tired of the subject," uttered that lady, pettishly curling her
+haughty lip, and at the same time etching her sketch with a hasty pen.
+
+"I am perfectly ashamed of the length of time I have expended in
+pourtraying your beauties, Tiney," said Tremenhere; gravely shaking his
+head, "when I am compelled to notice the energy with which Lady Dora
+sketches her----What _is_ Lady Dora sketching?" he asked, rising slowly
+from his quiet seat, and crossing towards her. As he did so, however,
+pausing an instant before Lady Lysson, and dropping her favourite's
+picture in her outstretched hand, with--
+
+"An offering, Lady Lysson, though not by a Landseer. May I look at your
+labour?" he asked, gently leaning over Lady Dora's chair. She felt his
+warm breath on her bent neck, and her cheek coloured. She tried to
+persuade herself it was indignation at his cool audacity, and
+indifference to her haughtiness; but her heart rejected the excuse, for
+Tremenhere was her equal, and now received every where as one thrown by
+accident, or roguery, from his allotted sphere. Even the least liberal
+could not speak of him as one raised above his real position. She felt
+herself colouring, and felt also that his eyes were bent upon her; and,
+hastily tearing the etching in two, cast it aside, saying--
+
+"Pshaw! Mr. Tremenhere; my child's play could never interest a person
+of your genius; and I am too proud to play second to any one!"
+
+"_That_ you never could," he said, gallantly taking up the pieces, and
+rejoining them.
+
+"I declare, Lady Dora, I never saw you so cross in my life!" cried the
+gentle-tempered, lively Lady Lysson. "What has Mr. Tremenhere done to
+offend you? One would really take you for two----" She paused, suddenly
+and awkwardly--"children," she added, colouring. _Both_ felt the word
+she had omitted.
+
+"This looks like a sketch of an early scene of my boyhood," he said, not
+appearing to notice the pause which the other lady had made. "A holly
+field!--true, it is so: here is the quickset hedge, the old stile, and
+the hall in the distance. Lady Dora, you have a faithful memory--a clear
+vision--a skilful pen: may I keep this?" and he fixed his eye full upon
+her. Their eyes met, and in that schooled look, speaking only of the
+past in reference to herself--not a shade of bitter regret in it--who
+might have read that only one thought at that moment was gnawing at his
+heart--his lost Minnie? For it was on that stile he had sat full often,
+watching for her; 'twas there she came the night they fled. Lady Dora
+dropped her eyes, and a shudder passed over her; for she, too, saw
+Minnie before her, and her heart upbraided her for more than the
+weakness of the present moment, which was insensibly stealing over her.
+She felt that, in all her sorrow, she had not acted the part of one,
+almost a sister to that poor girl; and she asked herself, "What can this
+man's heart be, to forget so soon, and by so many ways lead me to
+suppose I am not an object of indifference to him? And what must I seem
+to him, even to cross a glance with him, engendering thoughtful
+dreaming?"
+
+Then vanity, the ruling queen of earth, whispered, "He loved you before
+he saw her, or his half-uttered words were traitors; and, if she proved
+unworthy the love he gave her _in pique_, why should he regret her
+loss?"
+
+"You are thoughtful, Lady Dora," he said gently, taking a seat beside
+her.
+
+"I was going to make the same remark," cried Lady Lysson, who overheard
+the words, though the tone was so very low. "I declare English girls
+bring English hearts every where, and are always gloomy or sentimental."
+
+"Do not accuse me of the latter!" exclaimed Lady Dora, starting up, and
+shaking off the incubus overwhelming her; "I beg to disclaim all
+acquaintance with so missy-ish a creation as mawkish sentiment."
+
+"You are quite right, my dear," answered the other lady; "I know nothing
+more dreadful than a bread and butter miss. If a man but look at her,
+she drops her eyes and blushes; she disowns any thing so dreadful as a
+corn; consequently all accidental treadings on the toe, make her heart
+flutter, and become so many gentle avowals of love, oddly enough
+conveyed though they may be."
+
+"I disagree with your ladyship," said Miles, "about the oddity of the
+act; 'tis wittily imagined, for, in doing so, a man stoops to conquer!"
+
+"Oh, dreadful!" cried Lady Lysson; "but, to continue my sketch. If you
+speak to her of any one particular flower, even if it were the humble
+daisy itself, she would mow a field to obtain a sufficient quantity to
+convince you, you were most completely understood, and sympathized with;
+and as to colours--why, you could make a chameleon of her, every hour
+different in hue, if it so pleased you."
+
+"What, if you played 'cat's cradle' with her, Lady Lysson? you once
+spoke feelingly to me on this same subject."
+
+"What did I say? Oh, now I remember--I spoke of my poor Lysson, and
+myself, and----"
+
+"You advised me not to play at the game with Lady Dora--now I like
+_daring_ all, Lady Dora; will you show me how you play 'cat's cradle?'"
+and he took a piece of twisted silk from the table.
+
+"I don't know the game," she answered coldly.
+
+"I daresay Lady Lysson will instruct us; will you not?" and he held the
+silk towards her.
+
+"Willingly, beneath my own eye," she replied.
+
+"Not beyond?"
+
+"No! Lady Dora might use her feline qualities upon you."
+
+"Oh! I should little care," he answered pointedly, "to alter slightly
+the words of a talented, most unfortunate, and I believe most innocent
+woman, Madame Laffarge, if Lady Dora scratch me like a cat, so she will
+but love me like a dog."
+
+There was a dead silence of a moment--Lady Dora interrupted it by an
+allusion to the first portion of his speech, not seeming to have noticed
+the latter.
+
+"Do you believe Madame Laffarge was innocent?"
+
+"I believe all so, till proved otherwise. There was no proof but
+presumptive evidence against her; and she was surrounded by deceit and
+enemies."
+
+"Too often the case with many an innocent woman who has been falsely
+condemned!" ejaculated Lady Lysson, partially ignorant of Tremenhere's
+history.
+
+Lady Dora blushed painfully. The conversation had glided imperceptibly
+into this channel--how stop the current?
+
+"Right," he said calmly; "but in some cases a demon, or guilt alone, can
+collect this evidence. If we condemn, we do so innocently in the former
+case; and assuredly full many a crown of martyrdom has been more lightly
+won, than a woman's, thus condemned, thus punished!"
+
+Nothing seemed to touch him. Lady Dora had shuddered as this strange
+conversation commenced; for none there better than herself knew how much
+poor Minnie had suffered. She was lost in wonder at Tremenhere's
+sternness of heart; and yet, as a lioness loves her mate, so her proud,
+almost unwomanly nature, admired this man's, daily, more and more.
+
+"We forget 'cat's cradle!'" he cried, almost boyishly. "Lady Lysson,
+behold my willing hands."
+
+And, laughingly, that lady adjusted the silk on his fingers, and,
+drawing Lady Dora's trembling hand towards him, commenced the task of
+teaching them. Child's play is foolish for two who should not fall in
+love; for so much more is done in innocence, than the mature heart can
+calmly bear unmoved. People are thrown off their guard, and then some
+watchful sprite is sure to step in with his assistance. Lady Lysson
+taught them, and at last even Lady Dora laughingly joined in the caprice
+of a moment's childishness. Their fingers came in contact--(a thing much
+better avoided, where the woman's weakening heart needs every possible
+bulwark to keep out Love. He is very apt to glide into the citadel in a
+gentle pressure of thrilling joy; but if not accomplished the _first_
+time, the besieged has nothing to fear; in these cases, "_ce n'est que
+le premier pas qui coute_")--and while puzzling unnecessarily over her
+silken entanglements, he found time to press her for another sitting for
+_Diane_ soon.
+
+"Let it be to-morrow--shall it, Lady Dora?" he asked, as Lady Lysson
+drew her attention elsewhere, to scold 'Tiney,' who was tearing the
+leaves of a book dropped on the floor.
+
+"Well, yes; to-morrow," uttered Lady Dora gently, as he held her hands
+imprisoned by the silken cord. She did not withdraw them, so he stooped,
+with the quiet gentleness peculiar to himself, and touched the prisoners
+with his lip. She started, but did not utter a word.
+
+"You are tired of our child's play," he said; "let me release your
+hands. Lady Lysson, a thousand thanks for your teaching; you did well in
+cautioning me against it with Lady Dora--I shall remember it!" And
+rising, a glance fell on her, and this was scarcely more than one of
+respect and interest: shaking Lady Lysson warmly by the hand, he bowed
+merely to the other, and said--"Then to-morrow, Lady Dora, I may expect
+you?"
+
+She bowed, and he quitted the room.
+
+"What an exceedingly awkward turn the conversation took!" cried Lady
+Lysson as he left. "It was a most painful thing that affair about his
+wife, which has ever appeared involved, to me, in some strange mystery.
+How was it, my dear? I asked Randolph about it before he quitted
+England, and he said Mr. Tremenhere was jealous of his own shadow; and
+this was all the satisfaction I received."
+
+It will be seen Lady Lysson was totally ignorant of the relationship
+existing between Minnie and Lady Dora. Lord Randolph had, for his own
+sake, as a suitor to the latter, hushed it up as much as possible.
+
+"There was something strange about it!" dropped from Lady Dora, with
+perfect self-possession; she was again herself.
+
+"There must have been some indiscretion on her part," continued the
+other, even charitable as she was, "for they were separated some time
+before her unhappy death. I heard,"--here she lowered her voice--"that
+Randolph had flirted with her, and this excited Mr. Tremenhere's
+jealousy, and that subsequently he discovered a decided intrigue
+elsewhere, and shot, or dangerously wounded the lover. I admired him for
+it; for, though it may be wrong, 'tis more natural than a cold-blooded
+divorce and damages: it always seems to me like making a fortune of
+one's own dishonour!"
+
+"I doubt whether Lord Randolph really were guilty of seeking the lady's
+dishonour," answered Lady Dora; though she _thought_ it herself, she
+would not admit any thing to another, so galling to her vanity.
+
+"'My lord, beware of jealousy!'" quoted Lady Lysson laughing. "Don't be
+alarmed; a reformed rake makes the best husband, they say."
+
+"I should be sorry to try one," was the dry rejoinder. "The reformation
+is too often skin deep, and they always make suspicious husbands, severe
+fathers--look around at all our neighbours!"
+
+"But I defend Randolph from the charge of being one; he is a black
+swan," said his aunt.
+
+"Oh, that example of a _rara avis_ is no longer orthodox!" cried the
+other smiling. "We have many specimens of them, and, to my thinking,
+they are over fond of seeking crumbs of comfort at the hands of the fair
+sex, if we take for example those on the Serpentine, to make perfect,
+and exclusively loving mates."
+
+"Come, I will not have a word against my Randolph, even _sous entendu_,
+in epigrams. I have set my heart on his subduing yours, and giving me a
+right to call you my dear niece."
+
+"I thank you for the cordial wish, dear Lady Lysson; we shall see--_à
+propos_, I have promised Mr. Tremenhere a, sitting for _Le Diane_
+to-morrow, will you accompany me?--or mamma?"
+
+"Oh, I will, gladly! I delight in that man's society; and he is so very
+reserved towards women, so totally devoid of love-making, except _par
+badinage_--that one feels quite comfortable in cultivating the
+acquaintance--I speak as relates to you young marrying girls."
+
+"Stop, stop Lady Lysson! you are too fascinating, too young at heart, to
+exclude yourself from love's attacks yet."
+
+"My dear girl, I have played 'cat's cradle' once too often, ever to
+attempt it again. I could not unravel the very simplest;" she looked
+down and thought of "poor Lysson," as she ever termed him. Lady Dora
+looked down too, and began to think _she_ had played rather too
+earnestly _once_ at "cat's cradle," and would not resume it again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+Tremenhere was in his studio alone--that is, free from living witnesses;
+but what crowding memories were around him! Here he was himself; not the
+man seeking oblivion of the past, in society with which he had no
+fellowship of soul, but the stern, sobered being, whose peace of mind
+seemed wrecked for ever, and on a rock so minute in appearance, as an
+"if!" Ever before him stood this word, blistering his eyesight.
+
+Had he been _assured_ of Minnie's infidelity, nothing could have induced
+him to meet Lord Randolph; as it was, he had a feverish desire to see
+him, as though in his eyes, by some superhuman power, he could read the
+whole truth, and either cast her memory for ever from him, or else sit
+down with every thought of her, collected around him like household
+gods, on his hearth, and live with them, cherish them, and, stilling the
+beating of his heart, bid it break amidst them, like a shattered,
+valueless vase, whose rich essences were poured upon the ground.
+
+"But she _was_ false!" he cried, pacing the floor with hasty steps.
+"What fiend could ever have weaved together in one web, so much black
+evidence against her? And what a face she had to cover her lie with!
+Who could have doubted her--her smile, her clear, seraphic eye! Minnie,
+'twas madness to love as I did; and, far more than that, to lose you
+even, even _if_ you were false! Why could I not have closed my heart
+against all evidence? Why not have known sooner, that _nothing_ here is
+perfect! Her mad fancy passed, she _might_ have loved me again--she
+_did_ love me once! Love me again!--love me again! and could I have
+waited for that love's return, as we watch the healthful glow coming
+back to the pale cheek we cherish? Oh no, no, no!--not _that_! To sit
+and watch the silent tear, to feel the form shrink from our kindly
+enfolding; and at last see repulsion become toleration--toleration,
+patience--patience, friendship, and the heart pause there? Oh no, no!
+better ten thousand times separation and death!" He stopped, and then
+creeping silently across that large room, drew back a curtain hanging
+before a niche, and in this was a statue in marble. It was
+Minnie--Minnie in her desolation! The face was still, hopeless life;
+every feature perfection; but disenchantment sat over all, stealing away
+its life! She stood leaning against a broken pillar--fitting emblem of
+her fate. The forehead was pressed against the left arm; the heavy
+plaits of hair, as she had often worn them, looped down the side of her
+face, hung forward, shewing all the pale chiseling of that hopeless
+agony there depicted. The whole body denoted utter prostration; and the
+right arm drooped powerless at her side, holding by its stem a cup
+reversed! It was an inspiration of memory; and beneath, at its base, was
+inscribed, "Life's Chalice." It was one of those magically wrought
+creations which thrill the soul when we look upon them. Tremenhere stood
+with folded arms contemplating it.
+
+"Night and day--night and day," he murmured, "have I passed to complete
+my thought, my _dream_--for I dreamed I saw her thus; and how like it
+is! What is wanting? the spark of life to make it move and speak to me.
+Speak to me! No, she would turn away, either in indifference, and love
+for another, or horror of me! Perhaps I have murdered her!" and the
+man's voice sank to a hollow whisper--"her, and her infant! Oh, if I
+have!" and the cold dew stood on his brow at the thought. "What a bitter
+reckoning there will be against me when they stand before heaven to
+condemn! Not only here, but hereafter! Never to find peace again, nor
+rest, nor happy thought? Oh! life is indeed a burthen; and death a
+terror!" He sank for some time in silent thought before her; then
+brushing away the dew from his brow, and hastily drawing the curtain
+before the statue, he turned away. "Poor, weak fool!" he cried
+contemptuously, "I am not fit to be alone. She _was_ false--false to
+them, the nurses of her childhood--false to me, her loving
+husband--false to heaven! I will destroy all memory of her." He tore
+back the curtain, and raised his arm to do so--but the arm fell. "No,"
+he said, turning away, "'tis a work of art--only that; only these have I
+to spur me over the mountains of sorrow, before I meet death--art and
+occupation, inactivity would be madness. And she, her cousin!" and he
+laughed aloud in scorn, "thinks I love her. That having loved Minnie, I
+could give even the memory of that affection so base a counterfeit!
+Heartless, worldly, proud earth-worm!--only this! to place herself
+beside----But I will not dream of her! If that other had held in her
+veins one drop of human blood, she would have shielded, upheld, watched
+over _her_, and she had not been lost. I was too rude a guardian; I
+loved her with a lion's love, and the shrinking thing, in terror, sought
+refuge where words were soft, and the hand gentler; but the heart--the
+heart, his did not love like mine! Mine would have poured out its every
+drop of life's current, to spare one hair of her fair head from
+suffering.----I am growing weak--weak--womanly weak," and he moved
+feverishly about the room, whispering to himself, "I must shake this
+off, I have a part to play; I must avoid solitude, seek excitement; time
+may do much, bring oblivion, as it darkens the mental vision. _She_ will
+be here to-day--she who loves to entangle--to wanton with the insect
+awhile, and then crush it with her heel. Crush me!--me!!" and he laughed
+aloud. "I will bring her down, in her subdued pride, to acknowledge that
+she envies even the place in hatred, which her once despised cousin
+holds in my heart. I will bring her to marry another in hate, and love
+me in unloved bitterness, and be false to him--_if I will_. I will
+revenge Minnie, even though I cast her from me--_only I_ had a right to
+condemn and blast her." A bell sounded in the outer chamber. "'Tis she!"
+he cried. "Not _here yet_; there is a spirit in the place--I have evoked
+it." And, hastily closing the door, he passed into a _salon_ luxuriantly
+furnished.
+
+In a moment more, Lady Dora entered in all the pride of her glowing,
+majestic beauty, set off to greater advantage by her mourning robes,
+which floated in mockery of woe around her--Lady Ripley accompanied her.
+How false some positions are, in what's called society! Here were three
+persons, nearly allied, meeting as mere strangers, almost in coldness,
+without an allusion even to the past. Lady Ripley was gracious; her
+daughter strove by an unconstrained cordiality, where pride towered in
+majestic condescension, to seem perfectly indifferent, though Tremenhere
+smiled in his heart, as he read her well--his manner was so free from
+any significance of tone or look, so calm and unembarrassed, that Lady
+Dora asked herself involuntarily, "Have I dreamed the past of
+yesterday?" and she felt humbled on reflecting how weary an hour she had
+passed that morning, in schooling her looks and heart to meet, without
+betraying herself to him.
+
+"You will scarcely pardon me, I fear," he said, "when I tell you, Lady
+Dora, that I had totally forgotten this engagement this morning, and was
+going to pass a morning at the Louvre."
+
+"Oh, pray, do not let us detain you, Mr. Tremenhere!" she exclaimed
+haughtily. "I, too, had other engagements, but mamma wished me to come,
+having promised."
+
+"You cannot doubt, Lady Dora," he gallantly said--but it was mere
+gallantry; no hidden tone of meaning could be detected by the nicest
+ear--"the great pleasure this remembrance gives me. I was blaming my
+own wretched memory, and anxious to convey to you the forgotten
+happiness, which was driving me for a morning's amusement among the dead
+beauties in the Spanish gallery, instead of immortalizing my pencil, by
+endeavouring to pourtray your living loveliness."
+
+She bowed, and, biting her lip, accepted this overstrained compliment at
+its full value--empty as the wind; and in this mood she sat down to lend
+herself to his pencil. Lady Ripley had not noticed the by-play of all
+this, indeed how could she, ignorant as she was of the previous scene,
+and totally incapable of comprehending the possibility of _her_
+daughter, even condescending to the slightest approach to flirtation
+even with an artist, whatever his pretensions to birth might be? She was
+unusually gracious this day, which removed much of the embarrassment the
+others could not otherwise have failed to feel. As some little revenge
+for his cool impertinence when they entered, Lady Dora suddenly
+inquired--
+
+"Mr. Tremenhere, how many days' journey do you reckon it from Paris to
+Florence? I mean," she added, fearful that her meaning might be
+misunderstood, "from Florence to Paris, supposing a person to travel as
+expeditiously as possible?"
+
+"As many," he answered, smiling blandly in her face, and with perfect
+sincerity of tone, "as it would take a person to go from Paris to
+Florence."
+
+"Is he a fool?" she thought, "or only insensible? Thank you," she added
+aloud. "I presume they would be the same, but my question remains
+unanswered."
+
+"True," he replied, smiling; "I am very rude, but my attention was so
+engrossed by this most lovely Diana. I will endeavour to answer you:
+were _I_ a happy man, whom one so fair as yourself, Lady Dora, expected
+impatiently, I should not choose the commonplace mode of transporting
+myself; but, borrowing the wings of the wind (that is, supposing them
+disengaged,) flutter to her feet."
+
+"Mr. Tremenhere is pleased to be facetious," answered Lady Dora,
+pettishly.
+
+"Pardon me, I never was more serious. I am trying to convey to your mind
+how great my impatience would be; but you have interrupted, without
+hearing all I had to say. If fate and inclination together, had cast me
+upon the waters--we will say, for example, in a yacht--why, I would
+summon to my aid some fairy spell, and, like the peterel, run over the
+surface of the waters, from the blue Mediterranean to the dusky Seine,
+till I found myself, web-footed, and incapable of running thence, on the
+polished floors of your hotel!"
+
+There is nothing more disagreeable than to have taken up a weapon to
+wound, and suddenly to find the point in your own bosom. She felt he was
+laughing at her.
+
+"Mamma," she cried, "did Lady Lysson show you a letter she received
+to-day?"
+
+"My love?" asked her mother, looking up from a book she had been
+perusing. Lady Dora repeated the question.
+
+"Yes, his lordship wrote much pleased with his cruise."
+
+"I trust Lord Randolph Gray is quite well?" inquired Tremenhere, with
+perfect composure. "Lady Lysson mentioned, in my presence, that he was
+shortly expected from Malta."
+
+"Quite well!" ejaculated Lady Dora, amazed at his coolness; "but you are
+mistaken about his locality, Mr. Tremenhere; he was at Florence when she
+last heard from him."
+
+"Indeed! Then," he continued, laughing, "I will sketch him as the
+peterel of my idea; shall I?"
+
+"He will feel flattered, doubtless, at any notice from your pencil, Mr.
+Tremenhere," was her cold reply. Her mother was again deep in her book.
+
+"I have an ornithological thought in my brain, hatching, Lady Dora; I
+propose sketching all my friends, _à la plume_."
+
+"What will you make me?" she asked, hoping to change the style of their
+previous conversation.
+
+"You!" and he lowered his tone, and looked fixedly at her. She could not
+withdraw her gaze, he was sketching her brow--"You!--you shall be the
+fabled weevil, and I, the sick man, fit to die, turning my face to you
+to implore for life. Do not turn your head away, and thus bid that
+sickness be to death; but, extracting my heart's disease, with your
+sweet breath, fly upwards to heaven, and burn it out by the sun that we
+may so live together!"
+
+"You must be mad!" she involuntarily cried, turning her eyes hastily to
+where her mother sat. But _she_ had heard nothing; they were at some
+distance from her, and he spoke so low.
+
+"Yes, perhaps I am; but madmen have happy dreams sometimes, we cannot
+refuse them these, where their reality is so hopeless and sad. But you
+have not answered me; may I place you among my ornithological specimens,
+as the milkwhite weevil of my thoughts?"
+
+"And if not the sick man," she asked, and the voice trembled, though she
+endeavoured to smile as in jesting, "what will you depict yourself?"
+
+"A goose!" he answered, laughing; "and I will lend your ladyship my
+quills to write to Florence! Am I not a _bon enfant_?"
+
+This term in French, so completely in keeping with the character of the
+bird he chose as his representative, provoked a laugh even from Lady
+Dora, beneath which she covered, at least she fancied she covered, her
+confusion.
+
+"How very lively you are, Dora!" said her mother approaching. "What has
+occurred?"
+
+"A most absurd error on my part," he answered. "Only fancy, Lady Ripley:
+I was to-day forgetting sex, character--all, and (the quiver of arrows
+misled me) was going to transform Lady Dora into Cupid! Ye gods! who
+could withstand arrows from such a bow?"
+
+"How could you imagine so absurd a thing, Mr. Tremenhere?" asked the not
+very imaginative Lady Ripley, not certain whether to feel offended or
+no.
+
+"I really cannot conceive! Altogether it would have been out of place;
+for love, they say, flies out of the window when poverty enters at the
+door. This never could be applicable to Lady Dora," and he bowed in
+seeming excuse before her. So much did his heart war against her, that,
+even desirous as he was to gain his point, he could not restrain his
+tongue from words of bitterness; yet she felt it impossible to think he
+meant them: she looked upon it as a natural sarcasm of character, which
+made a gentle word doubly dangerous.
+
+"You are going in a huge body to see a Parisian wonder to English eyes,
+to-night, I understand, Lady Ripley," he said, turning the conversation.
+
+"Yes, truly; I am curious to see a _Bal Masqué à l'Opera_, never having
+witnessed one."
+
+"Indeed! shall you go early?"
+
+"I really do not know. I was averse to going, and especially taking Lady
+Dora; but Lady Lysson has made up her party, and, closely concealed by
+dominoes, I presume we shall pass unnoticed."
+
+"You accompany us, I believe?" hazarded Lady Dora, addressing him.
+
+"I hope to meet you there," was the reply; "accompany, _that_ I shall
+not be able to accomplish. Lady Lysson spoke of a signal by which her
+party should know one another; a rose on the left breast, I think?"
+
+"Yes; but it seems unnecessary to me," replied Lady Ripley; "for, of
+course, we shall none of us separate."
+
+"But in mercy to those forced to come late and rejoin the party, it is
+done," he answered.
+
+"_A propos_, Mr. Tremenhere!" cried Lady Dora. "I have not yet chosen my
+domino; until this moment I had forgotten it. Madame ---- had promised
+to have two or three for my choice, completed this afternoon. We will,
+if you please, leave 'Diane' for to-day," and she rose.
+
+"With regret, then, Lady Dora; but where so grave an occupation calls
+you, I must submit;" and with a few constrained words they parted.
+Parting is very awkward, where two persons have been trying their wings
+together in a flight of love; one or the other is sure to lose some
+feathers in endeavouring to smooth them down into sober propriety at the
+last moment. Tremenhere was perfectly calm, and all a mamma like Lady
+Ripley might wish to see him. Lady Dora blushed--half held out her
+hand--half withdrew it.
+
+"Permit me to fasten your glove, Lady Dora," he said quietly; "I see it
+embarrasses you."
+
+She held it towards him, colouring deeply. Scarcely touching the hand,
+he buttoned it; and, bowing with perfect ease, he led the way to the
+outer door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Has the workwoman sent in those dominoes?" asked Madame ----, of her
+forewoman, that afternoon.
+
+"No."
+
+"Then send directly, and say they _must_ come in at once; for _cette
+belle Anglaise Milady_ Dora Vaughan, is coming to select one of them,
+and _Milady_ Lysson, and several others, who are going _en cachette_ to
+a _bal de l'opera_, this evening."
+
+This message was given to the workwoman; and Minnie's pale fingers
+trembled violently as she finished off the last hood, for she was the
+workwoman, in her little, sad garret!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+Need we describe a _bal de l'opera_?--we mean, in all its varied groups,
+its mystery, its joyousness! Or only skim over the surface, and speak of
+the mounting the carpeted stair, with the immense mirrors on the
+landing, where you are startled at first by the shadow you cast upon
+it--a gloomy vision pourtraying _tout en noir_! Then the almost silent
+whispering groups, like muffled demons. Here, a couple _en costume_;
+there, a man leaning against a pillar, looking frightfully sheepish, and
+trying to smile and retort.
+
+'Tis an Englishman, _sans masqué_, of course, (no gentleman covers his
+face, unless he has a motive for so doing,) who is dreadfully intrigued
+by two black dominoes, who are telling him all he has been doing the
+last fortnight. He has been lured hither by an anonymous letter, asking
+him to come and meet a blue domino; twice he has furtively looked at
+this letter, to be certain it said blue, being positive in his own mind
+that one of these two must be the writer. Shall we leave him in his
+perplexity, and, standing on the stair leading down into the _salle de
+danse_, where a dense crowd, in every imaginable dress, is jostled
+together, endeavouring to dance, and, looking on, admire the sober,
+judge-like gravity of several men--authors, artists, men of the highest
+rank, semi-disguised--who are dancing the most grotesque figures without
+a smile on their countenances? They look as if they had made a pact, for
+an allotted time, with some mocking spirit, to make fools of themselves.
+Or shall we look up in a _loge au premier_, and see a group of many, the
+ladies all in black dominoes, the gentlemen in plain evening dress,
+unmasked?
+
+Yes; we will pause here. This is Lady Lysson's box; for see!--every lady
+has a rose on the left breast. How amused they all appear! Some had been
+before, others never; and there is something peculiarly exciting and
+novel to an English lady the first time she sees a _bal de l'opera_: she
+has heard so much of and against them, it is almost as a forbidden tree,
+which makes the fruit the sweeter.
+
+Tremenhere came in rather late, and alone. He was standing in the
+_foyer_, looking around him: this large saloon was crowded to excess.
+Near the clock (that place for rendezvous) he stood, well assured there
+he should soon be seen by some of the party; but for some time he looked
+in vain: they were all in their _loge_, too much delighted with the
+scene to quit hastily. As he stood thus, some one brushed past him;
+rather, they were pushed by the crowd. _He_ had not previously noticed
+them, but they had been fixed, statue-like, regarding him; and the crowd
+pushed them from their contemplative position against him.
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated a trembling voice; "I beg pardon. I----"
+
+He turned: it was a black domino, with the significant rose on its
+breast. He instantly offered his arm, and the woman clung to it as in
+terror.
+
+"I see," he said in a low tone, "that I have been fortunate enough to
+offer my protection to one of the 'Roses of the Left,' but to whom, I am
+totally ignorant. How have you lost your party? 'Tis unpleasant in so
+great a crowd; you might be insulted."
+
+"Sir," she uttered in a low, scarcely audible, voice, and in French,
+"you are mistaken--we are strangers."
+
+"Strangers!" he cried, stopping an instant, and gazing at the
+closely-concealed face and figure. "Impossible! else you had not taken
+my arm; for you must be one of Lady L----'s party by your dress."
+
+The girl was silent; but a sigh escaped her.
+
+"You are terrified," he said kindly. "Do not fear; we are safe, and soon
+shall meet some of our friends. I must indeed be accused of great
+forgetfulness, when I admit I have no recollection or idea who you can
+be. May I not know?"
+
+"We are strangers," she uttered again, in a tone scarcely audible, still
+in French. "I do not understand English."
+
+"Well, as you will," he replied gaily. "I like it thus--'tis in keeping
+with the place--this mystery. Only pardon me for reminding you, for
+consistency sake, that your first words were decidedly not in French;
+and though you cannot _understand English_, you have been replying to
+all my questions addressed to you in that tongue. However, as you prefer
+the other, _changeons_," and he commenced a fluent conversation in
+Gallic. She had visibly started when he pointed out to her the error of
+her confused mind. For some time their conversation was merely
+monosyllabic on her part. "Some silly young English girl Lady Lysson has
+brought with her," thought he, "who thinks she must sustain a character,
+and this very stupid attempt at intriguing me is the result. How can she
+have lost her party?--scarcely prudent in Lady Lysson to leave her so
+unguarded; she is evidently young. Who can she be?"
+
+In a few minutes more, he was fain to admit that the lady _did_ however
+intrigue him, and considerably; for, by an evident effort over herself,
+she overcame some cause of trepidation, and, if not easy in manner, was
+sufficiently ingenuous and pleasing in her remarks to interest him much.
+
+"Where have I heard her voice?" he mentally said. "It is evidently
+subdued and disguised, and 'tis only when an unguarded tone escapes,
+that I seem to hear a remembered one; yet 'tis too imperfectly uttered
+to convey memory to my ear. Certainly she has intrigued me! Were she the
+veriest Frenchwoman that ever made a vow to miss no one _bal masqué_,
+and perfect in the amusements and mystifications of all, she could not
+have more cleverly accomplished her purpose than this girl; for she has
+called me by name, and I can guess no one she can be!"
+
+"Here is a seat," he said, after a moment's pause in their
+conversation; "shall we take advantage of it, or would you prefer going
+to Lady Lysson's box?"
+
+"Oh, not there!" she whispered shrinkingly.
+
+"Why not there? On my life, lady, you puzzle me much. Come, confide in
+me: I am addressing some one--some fair, young, unexpected guest, who,
+having heard of the projected party, has escaped from governesses, etc.,
+to come hither also--am I not right?" This was the only solution he
+could find for the enigma, engendered by her strange fear at the
+proposal he made, to go to Lady Lysson's box.
+
+"You are wrong," she uttered. "I have no one to restrain my wishes. I
+came here to-night for a purpose, but _alone_!"
+
+"Alone!" and he started. "Then why this signal?" and he pointed to the
+rose.
+
+"I cannot tell you. Is Lady Dora Vaughan here to-night?"
+
+"By heavens, you know them all! Who are you? Pray, tell me; confide in
+my honour--I have never broken faith in my life!"
+
+A sigh, almost a sob, escaped from her bosom. He turned amazed.
+Tremenhere was not a vain man, but the strangeness of the whole scene
+made him ask himself, whether it might not be some love-sick girl's
+_escapade_; but the question, for which he could find no answer, was,
+"Who can she be?" Her abrupt mention of Lady Dora's name confirmed this
+idea.
+
+"Lady Dora is here," he said, "that is, she was to be; but I came alone.
+I have seen no one but yourself, my fair incognita, and now let me ask,
+wherefore were you beneath the clock?"
+
+"Because--because, 'tis a good point for observation; and I was looking
+for some one."
+
+"Then I have carried you away--shall we seek them?"
+
+"No, I am content; that is, I have changed my mind."
+
+"How did you know the reputation 'the clock' has as a point of
+observation, as you term it; _we_ call it one of _rendezvous_--have you
+been here often?"
+
+"Heaven forbid! 'tis my _first_ visit."
+
+"Indeed! then a powerful motive must have urged you to take so hazardous
+a step, if in truth, as I believe, you are connected with some one of
+Lady Lysson's society, and here _en cachette_."
+
+"I have a motive--let it rest; I am satisfied it should do so; but
+having had it, I was told _sous l'horloge_ I should most probably see
+every one in the saloon better than elsewhere."
+
+"Well, _mon domino_, you are a mystery; in truth, 'tis a scene from the
+_Domino Noir_. I would I were the happy Horace; I dare not think so."
+
+She was perfectly silent.
+
+"Surely I have no fair _pensionnaire_ escaped from her convent, at my
+side?"
+
+"No, truly--one her own mistress. Is not Lady Dora Vaughan very
+handsome?"
+
+"Very!" and he started at the sudden transition in her speech. "Don't
+you know her?"
+
+"Well; but I wished to hear your opinion as an artist--you must be
+better enabled to judge than I can."
+
+"Now tell me when you saw her last? Give me at least a chance of
+guessing who you are?"
+
+She paused an instant, then added, "Yesterday, walking with you in the
+Tuileries, and with several other ladies."
+
+"True! _Pray_, tell me something of yourself; let me see your eyes, your
+mouth, or hand," and he took the one resting on her knee.
+
+"Not for worlds!" she exclaimed in unmistakable terror, clasping them
+together.
+
+"Do not be alarmed, I would not use any violence; you are with one
+incapable of an ungentlemanly act, I trust."
+
+"I know _that_," she said emphatically, "or of one wilfully unkind or
+cruel, if you allowed your heart to act freely."
+
+"For mercy's sake, what do you mean? I entreat you tell me who you are.
+I swear to you, your secret shall be safe." A strange, unaccountable
+tremor crept over him, yet without a suspicion of any thing approaching
+the truth.
+
+"I cannot, dare not--I would I durst!" and again she sighed.
+
+A thought crossed his mind, and he turned and looked fixedly at her, but
+not a hair was visible, or of the eye, more than a speck. "No," he said,
+after the survey, "you are not tall enough; yet this dress so disguises!
+Tell me, I conjure you, is your name Mary?"
+
+"No, on my honour; but cease guessing--you will not know me
+to-night--some day you will, perhaps."
+
+At that moment a group of several persons came up. The ladies had roses
+on their breasts. One of the gentlemen, on whom a tall figure leaned,
+stood still, but unbending, before Tremenhere, who was attentively
+watching every turn in his domino's figure, to guess some known
+style--but all was vain, graceful in every movement, but to him, still a
+mystery.
+
+"I declare," whispered a lady's voice, "you are the worst cavalier in
+the world! We have been expecting you in our box this hour, and here you
+are playing deserter." Miles started; his eye fell on Lord Randolph
+Gray, on whose arm Lady Dora was leaning. He knew her figure at a
+glance.
+
+"Lady Lysson," he said, in an under tone to the speaker, "you should not
+accuse me, for here have I been taking care of one of your strayed
+lambs, which has singularly intrigued me! I fail to discover my fair
+friend; pray, present me to her." He had risen to Lady Lysson as she
+spoke; when he turned round again, the place beside him was vacant! The
+domino had glided away, like a phantom. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed,
+"where is she?"
+
+"That lady beside you when we came up? She rose, and walked hurriedly
+away when I spoke to you."
+
+"But she is one of your party! She had a rose on her breast!" he cried
+in amazement.
+
+"Pardon me, this is some error. All my party is safe here," (she looked
+round on the two behind her, Lady Dora and Lord Randolph, who were
+conversing together,) "or up in the box. Your eyes have deceived you."
+
+"Nay, I will not admit that; for though she persisted in speaking
+French, her accent was English, though evidently disguised, and she knew
+you all, and inquired about you, by name!"
+
+"Oh!" laughed the lady, "I dare say it was one of our attendants, who,
+with the true spirit of intrigue, has borrowed our disguise to amuse
+herself at your expense."
+
+"It was no servant," he emphatically said. And his wonder increased, the
+more he thought of it.
+
+"Come, leave off puzzling about your incognita. I should have deemed you
+_trop Français_ to be scared by an intrigue _de bal masqué_. Come, Mr.
+Tremenhere," she lowered her voice, "I have a favour to ask--something
+to command," she added, smiling. "I made this party to-night, knowing
+that my nephew would be here, and knowing also, that the laws of these
+balls forbid serious acts--I mean angry ones----In good honest truth,
+you must shake hands. He declares, that whatever you may have against
+him, he is as ever kindly disposed towards you, and whatever your
+quarrel, of the cause of which I am innocent, let me beg of you, for my
+friendship sake towards both, to shake hands, forget, and forgive."
+
+"Tremenhere," cried Lord Randolph, coming forward with a hand out, and
+candour unmistakable on his brow, "I see my aunt is urging you; come,
+give me your hand, and a grasp in friendship. On my soul you wronged
+me, and from my soul I pity you!" He glanced upwards at the black band
+on Miles's hat. This latter fixed his deep eyes on him, and in that
+glance he read the other's inmost soul; no, guilt could never wear that
+look! Lord Randolph he had thought led away by passion to commit an
+unworthy act, for he knew he was no cold-blooded villain. A still, small
+voice had been some time whispering to him, that look--the calm,
+unblenching, feeling expression on the other's face brought a cold, grey
+light of despair to his heart, like that of early winter's dawn, when,
+for the first time by day, we look upon a loved face, whose spirit had
+fled by torch-light.
+
+"I believe you!" he uttered, in a husky voice, grasping his hand. "_Let
+us forget it._" There was something so broken-hearted in the tone, that
+Lord Randolph felt his bosom swell--something choked him; for he was a
+man, as we have seen, of feeling.
+
+"Better so," he said, in a low tone. "Forget it, Tremenhere--'twas
+destiny!"
+
+Miles did not reply, but burst into a discordant laugh.
+
+"I have done so," he said; "you see I have! _This_," and he pointed
+towards his hat, "is only the usage of society. Obligation! form! let us
+_never_ speak of it!" And, wringing his hand, he turned to the ladies,
+who had discreetly conversed apart; but Lady Dora's eyes never quitted
+Tremenhere's face. But she did not read him as Lord Randolph did: as
+their hands parted, this latter mentally said--
+
+"Poor fellow! _There_ is a man who _never_ will know peace, whatever he
+may seem to the world. From my soul I pity him!"
+
+Nothing was perceptible in Miles's manner. From that night he grew paler
+perhaps, but the canker was unseen. He was gayer, wittier, more amusing
+than ever; but as the door of his studio closed on the world, the man
+sat down with his conviction and undying remorse. One glance at Lord
+Randolph had enlightened his darkened mind. There were two feelings
+which grew apace in his heart from that moment--one was, a restless
+desire to be ever in the other's presence; he never gave utterance to a
+word of friendship, never spoke or alluded to Minnie; but, as if it
+could restore fame to her memory, his every earthly tie was Lord
+Randolph; and, to the utter amazement of all, an intimacy the most
+complete sprung up between them--both knew why, but neither ever noticed
+it. This horror of naming his wife prevented Miles seeking Mary Burns;
+he felt it would kill or madden him, to speak of her. He would crush her
+memory before all eyes, by a mask the most complete; only one eye should
+read his soul--Heaven's!
+
+The other collateral feeling which he alluded to was, hatred towards
+Lady Dora, the most intense; for he felt the unkindness of her family
+had left Minnie exposed to all his own ungovernable passions; and she
+had been the first to place her cousin in an equivocal point of view
+with Lord Randolph. But these were feelings of after hours: we must
+return to the ball.
+
+"Thank you," said Lady Lysson, pressing his hand, to thank him for his
+reconciliation with Lord Randolph. "Now give me your arm." And they
+passed on.
+
+Persons talk of suffering; but could there be any to surpass
+Tremenhere's this evening? Obliged to listen to, and join in amusement
+and gaiety! Among all the masks there, there was not one more complete
+in disguising, than his face; for no one could have guessed, in the
+unconcerned laughter which at times crossed it, that it was as sunshine
+on ice--all cold and frozen beneath.
+
+Lady Dora felt extremely piqued and galled at his manner. She had hoped
+for a triumph for her pride--vanity, it was not--in seeing him frown in
+jealous rage upon Lord Randolph; or else favour her with some of those
+sarcasms which spoke of vitality, even while they wounded. But nothing
+of the kind occurred. He was courteous in the extreme, witty, gay, and
+most attentive and polite to herself--nothing more.
+
+Only one person there read his heart, and keenly felt for that man,
+laughing over the tomb in his heart; for Lord Randolph had seen that
+conviction had been the inspiration of a moment, born of a glance at his
+own unshrinking face. Moore, in speaking of a heart, said, "Grief
+brought all its music forth." So it was with Lord Randolph. The shock he
+received on hearing of Minnie's death, called to vigour and beauty all
+the dormant qualities of a really sterling heart; and made him capable
+of feeling deeply for the man, whose hopeless woe was as an open page
+before him.
+
+In the course of their rambles through that crowd, Lady Dora found
+herself on Tremenhere's arm, whose eye was searching every where for his
+mysterious domino. In spite of himself, she pre-occupied his mind; but
+amidst the dozens there, he failed to see any one at all resembling her,
+either in dress or that nameless grace perceptible in every undulation,
+of her unrelieved disguise.
+
+"You are pre-occupied, Mr. Tremenhere," she said, after half a dozen
+absent replies had escaped his lips.
+
+"Pardon me; I am boyish enough to be amused at this scene."
+
+"One would not think it, for I never beheld a more seeking, anxious
+countenance--possibly you would prefer solitude."
+
+"Solitude, and here? Lady Dora."
+
+"Yes--Byron's."
+
+"Oh! 'with some sweet spirit for my minister?' Nay, if that were the
+case, where find a fairer than the one who for awhile blesses me?" and
+he almost pressed her arm; and, aroused by her questioning, became
+Tremenhere as the world had made him.
+
+"I certainly am pre-occupied," he said at last, "by that black domino,
+with whom you found me so very quietly tête-à-tête. The rose is
+emblematical in this case--a wild mystery."
+
+"Oh! Lady Lysson, I make no doubt, was correct. Some one of our maids
+has made an _escapade_; and, proving the rose's privilege, has intrigued
+you."
+
+"Assuredly, she was no servant; but her sudden disappearance when you
+came puzzles me. Let us talk of something else; it would be madness in
+me to waste these moments on another, when I have so few accorded me in
+your society. Lady Dora, tell me, does this amuse you, much?"
+
+"Yes, 'tis something so original to me, unconceived before, the hundreds
+congregated. I ask whence do they come, whither will they go?"
+
+"Probably, most of them to supper at some celebrated restaurant," he
+said laughing, and changing the vein of her moralizing; "and some to
+regret, some to rejoice. What will your feeling be?"
+
+"It must be rejoicing, for the regret has been seized upon. Did you hear
+that deep sigh near us?"
+
+He turned; they were leaning near a _loge_ door, and almost beside them
+stood a domino in brown, with blue ribbons. He glanced at the figure.
+
+"Some _pauvre delaissée_," he said laughing; then turning towards the
+girl, cried, "do not sigh, _il reviendra_."
+
+"_Jamais_," was the low reply, and the figure moved aside.
+
+"Never mind her," he continued, turning towards Lady Dora; "but tell me,
+how will you rejoice, and why?"
+
+"I am rejoicing, am I not?--I feel much amused."
+
+'Twas true; the influence of the place was creeping over her cold
+nature. She was not the Lady Dora of any day yet in which he had seen
+her.
+
+"You have not told me _why_ you should be glad. You are silent--shall
+_I_ tell you?"
+
+"Do, I wish to know; I feel like one in a dream--how shall I wake?"
+
+"Your dream will be unlike many--a realized one. You are happy--one you
+love is near you."
+
+"How do you mean?" she cried starting; and almost, in her alarm,
+withdrawing her arm from his.
+
+"Oh! you mistake me, Lady Dora; I am not so presumptuous--I allude to
+Lord Randolph."
+
+"To him!" she exclaimed hastily and unthinkingly; "he will never make a
+pulse of mine beat quicker or slower."
+
+"Indifference is worse than hate. I would rather hold the sentiment I
+inspire you with, than his."
+
+"You speak in enigmas, Mr. Tremenhere."
+
+"I would rather be hated than looked upon with indifference. We seek to
+crush a snake, but we step over a worm!"
+
+"A man may be neither."
+
+"What, then? A caged bird, to serve a woman's caprice; or a chained
+monkey, to amuse her?"
+
+"Nay; you are looking on the species in degradation. Why not a creature
+free to come or go--thought of in absence--loved in presence--going, to
+return more gladly--sure of a kindly welcome?"
+
+He looked fixedly at her. Could this be Lady Dora? An idea crossed his
+mind--she was one of two things, either luring him on to enchain, then
+crush him beneath the weight of those manacles; or else the arrival of
+Lord Randolph, the necessity of deciding her fate, the scene around,
+their isolation from all, and freedom from restraint, had combined to
+make her cast off the wearying mantle of her self-imposed pride, which
+had cloaked her in a corslet of impervious steel: it was a battle
+between them well _finessed_; both were on their guard.
+
+"I will prove, before I advance," he thought, "and woe to the day she
+places herself in my hands. I will be unsparing, as she was merciless
+and cold-hearted. Right!" he said aloud, in answer to her last sentence.
+"I would be an eagle, free and soaring, mated with one wild and
+ambitious as myself--towering and untameable. Such a one I could
+choose--to such a one yield love for love, and, like the fabled bird,
+consume with the ardour of my affections, and rise again from my ashes
+to live again--love again!" His warmth aroused her to a sense of her
+danger.
+
+"We are in truth playing our parts in the madness around us!" she said,
+in a voice which struggled to be calm.
+
+"True; but we play our parts _con amore_, admit that; and the better,
+that we know two things--one is, _you cannot_ love--the other, _I_ dare
+not."
+
+"I should have thought you a man to dare all things!"
+
+"You give me credit for more than I deserve. There are many things I
+would not encounter willingly--one is----"
+
+"What?"
+
+Despite his self-command, a cloud crossed his brow.
+
+"I will tell you some day," he hastily answered; "but if I met this
+spectre, _even_ as spectre, I would fly it."
+
+"I would fly nothing; _there_ is the difference between us."
+
+"What if your wayward heart--for all hearts are so--fixed itself upon
+some unworthy object, would you not fly them?"
+
+"No; were I to do so, I should never conquer; it would pursue me
+ever--flight would be vain. I would live near it, seek it, familiarize
+myself with it, till the inconstant heart grew tired of its bauble, then
+I----" she paused.
+
+"Would dash it to earth, and trample on it, reckless of its fragile
+nature. Believe me, vases of potter's clay are as fragile as the finest
+Sèvres ever produced by fire."
+
+"Perhaps so; but such should rest satisfied with draughts from water
+spring, nor seek to hold the ruby wine which a monarch sips; only
+degradation could ensue."
+
+She was not actually thinking of him when she said this: it was only the
+overflowing of her cup of pride, which coloured her speech; but he
+remembered every word, and it strengthened his determination, if
+possible, to humble this spirit to the dust.
+
+"What is it 'Ruy Blas' says so admirably, '_un ver de terre, amoureux
+d'une étoile_,' the star shines on it, though it cannot abase itself,
+and sends its light to guide the poor worm of the earth to its home in a
+dark sod, where it may pine and die, rejected, despised, unloved,
+because it has been created only for that fate of grovelling
+insignificance!"
+
+Neither heard the almost sob behind them; he was turned towards Lady
+Dora, and in the crowd stood the "Brown Domino," who had crept back
+unnoticed, to hear these last words.
+
+"I have been a sceptic in love," she almost whispered.
+
+"_Have_ been; are you not now? I should fancy so." She was perfectly
+silent.
+
+"If you have _present_ faith, on what is it grounded?"
+
+"Perhaps on the dream of an hour!" she ejaculated, scarcely above her
+breath.
+
+"Then watch its waking, and if it survive the glare of day, cherish it;
+if not in all freshness, banish it--'tis a temptation, not a rock to
+build upon. May I call to-morrow, and see if it be in existence? or
+passed, leaving no sweet savour behind of truth and futurity of joy?
+Here is Lady Lysson seeking you--may I call to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes, but--but, come in forgetfulness of this night. I surely am
+spellbound. This is a part of some witchcraft in this giddy scene.
+Remember, and forget this--and--me--other than this, were vain madness!"
+
+"I will only remember what I read then in your eyes; let _them_ answer
+me--_not_ your lip; words are false, tears are recorded untruths, the
+eyes are scholars of the soul. They shall learn all its truth, and
+impart it to me in a glance. I will call to-morrow. And to-morrow,"
+thought he, "I shall start for Marseilles; I _must_ go there and know
+all!"
+
+"I thought we should find you in this corridor!" exclaimed Lord
+Randolph, without an idea of jealous fear. "Hollo! what is this bustle
+about? Oh! only a lady has fainted. I don't wonder--'tis deucedly warm!"
+
+Some gentlemen were carrying a lady in a brown domino towards a private
+box. She was apparently lifeless in their arms. Unheeding, the party
+turned away laughing, and mounted the staircase to seek their box, and
+the remainder of their friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+It would be a task of pain and sorrow to tell all the bitterness of a
+woman's life, thrown friendless, delicate, and poor, in any land, but
+especially a stranger one, for one who had been nurtured so gently.
+Surely--surely, the wind is ever tempered to the shorn lamb!
+
+As the cares of life increased, so grew Minnie's energy; even when a dry
+crust alone broke her fast of the long, toiling day, her spirits upheld
+her. "If I have lost _him_," she mentally said, "it has been for some
+wise purpose; even though my stubborn heart rebels, still I am not
+comfortless; have I not my boy?--all my own!--no one to tear his love
+from me--no one to prejudice him against me: so Heaven preserve him to
+me, I may yet be content, if not happy!" and the young mother knelt
+beside him, and prayed fervently for strength to bear all! Poor Minnie
+knew herself so innocent, she could pray in hope.
+
+There are, unhappily, those who scoff at religion, and call it cant.
+None are so cheerful and hopeful as those who place their reliance on
+it, in all afflictions; for they know 'tis a flower which will never
+fade, and 'tis in our sorrows we so truly discover all its worth, and
+weep for those who are in ignorance of its powers. Religion is indeed
+like an Arabian tree, shedding its odorous gums on those who lean
+against it for support!
+
+Minnie found it so, and she discovered, too, that even in her
+wretchedness there were others more so. Her room was a poor garret, a
+_cinquième_, for as yet she had little work, there are so many seeking
+life through the same channel--she had no friends--then, too, her child
+was a burthen to her efforts; she could not at all times leave him, and
+little Miles was now nearly five months old. Sometimes the _concièrge_
+of the house, who was better than most of that most mercenary class,
+would take her child for her, while she sought work. There was ever a
+fear over her, in going out, lest she should meet Tremenhere. What her
+hopes were respecting him, who might say? Did she know them herself? or
+were they those inseparable clingings of the heart, which, like a limpet
+on a rock, adheres, inseparable from it, however rough the dashing
+waves? She had hope, else life would have fled. She still resided near
+Tremenhere's friend, Duplin, whither he often came, and thus, from her
+high window, she could see his tall figure pass. Ever closely, doubly
+veiled, and muffled up, she had watched, and met him in the dusk--she
+had followed too, by day, and seen him, too frequently for her peace of
+mind, accompany Lady Dora in walks and rides. True, others were there;
+but he was ever by _her_ side, and she began to question how it might
+terminate. Of such an event as marriage she had not dreamed, when,
+allowing all to believe her death, she had become so chilled at heart
+from the belief of the indifference of all, even poor sorrowing Dorcas,
+that she had no courage to make a friend there in confidence. "No," she
+said, in her disheartenment, "not to any of them will I betray my
+existence; they deserted me living, let them believe me dead!" and a
+morbid satisfaction at the thought crept over her. But when so fearful a
+consequence as his marriage with another broke in upon her mind, she
+became feverish, restless, and incapable of guiding herself aright.
+Before, however, this terror came to add to her sufferings, she used to
+toil cheerfully--her boy, lying perhaps on a pillow at her feet, crowing
+and laughing in her gentle face. Then he was so like his father--the
+same large brown eyes, and shading lashes, which tempered so much their
+fire--it was all Miles's face, but with her own light hair, in glossy
+curls, with a rich, sunny glow on the cheek; and with all the love she
+lavished on him, the little voice was seldom raised in tears, only
+laughter--laughter, which convulsed the bright face, as he hung,
+shrieking with it, round the fair mother's neck. We have said that, even
+in her wretchedness, Minnie had learned that there were others more so,
+in outward seeming. In the garret adjoining her own, she frequently
+heard, as the hours of the night crept on, and she was sitting up
+completing some work, a quiet, heavy step plodding up and down the room,
+in evident thought or pain. Often had she listened to this sad
+neighbour; and his sorrows and loneliness seemed to add to her own. A
+laugh beside her might have cheered; but this lonely watching wore on
+her already chastened heart. She asked the _concièrge_ one day if she
+knew who it was.
+
+"A poor old Frenchman," she replied; "very poor, I think, and all
+alone--but he seems proud in his necessity. And then, madame, you know I
+cannot do much for any one--I am not rich; and he never gives me an
+opportunity of speaking. He pays regularly; but I think, poor old man,
+that his means of existence are very small."
+
+This decided kind-hearted Minnie. "We are never so poor," she said to
+herself, "but what we can assist one another, even if only by a kind
+word to lighten life's weary load. I will try and speak to this poor
+man."
+
+Where a woman resolves upon doing a good action, she generally succeeds
+in some way. There was something about her, in her voice and manner,
+which at once inspired confidence and affection in the worthy; and when
+this pretty, delicate creature, with her little boy in her arms, tapped
+gently one evening at the next door, and asked for a light, if he had
+one, of the thin tenant, who was almost bent double by age, and still
+more, sorrow and poverty, the man's cold face brightened as he answered,
+while the poor lips trembled with cold, and possibly hunger, "My child,
+I have none; I am going--going out."
+
+Alas, poor creature! he was going out in the bitterer cold, thinly clad,
+to endeavour to circulate the nearly frozen blood, before returning to
+creep into a half-covered bed, and there strive to practise the French
+proverb of "_qui dort dîne_," for he was dinnerless. There was
+something in the accent not strictly Gallic, though he spoke French.
+
+"Don't go out to-night, _mon voisin_," she said smiling; "it is wet and
+cold; you are alone, so am I save for _mon enfant_. Do you like
+children?"
+
+"Yes," and he laid his thin hand on little Miles's head; "I love them
+well; I once had two of my own," and he stifled a sigh.
+
+"Well, then, you shall come in, and do me a neighbourly kindness; I am a
+poor _ouvrière_, and must work hard to-night--come in, I am going to
+make a fire; you shall nurse my boy whilst I work--will you oblige me?"
+
+"Willingly," he answered, "if I can serve you."
+
+"That you greatly can. Stay in your room till I have made mine
+comfortable, and then I will call you, I am so much obliged to you, it
+will help me greatly, for a child is an _embarras_ sometimes, and I like
+working and talking--'tis very kind of you."
+
+She had a talent for making the obliged seem her creditors, and thus
+placing them at perfect ease. So hurrying back to her room, Miles was
+laid on his accustomed place, a pillow on the floor; lest he should fall
+off, she seldom placed him on her bed. And then an Asmodeus might have
+seen Minnie--the fair and gentle--the one on whom the winds of heaven
+were once almost chidden, if they blew coldly--on her knees, lighting
+the stove in her room, for she soon found a match; the search for one
+was an excuse, and her face looked glad--that lip forgot its
+sadness--she was doing angels' work--charity. In an incredibly short
+space of time the room looked cheerful--the door of the stove was left
+open--the wood crackled in it--the glare lighted the humble garret. She
+drew the old, but clean curtain before the window--lit her lamp--placed
+her second chair (she had but two) and then she summoned her shivering
+guest.
+
+"Stay," she cried, as he seated himself, springing up herself; "I have
+forgotten my _bouillotte_;" (we cannot call it kettle--it had no
+resemblance to such a thing; neither can we translate the word, to give
+any idea of that queer, tin sort of jug, which rattles as if it had
+marbles in its head, and which is pushed into hot ashes to boil.) "I
+have forgotten my _bouillotte_," cried she; "and what should I do
+without a cup of tea? Do you like tea, monsieur?"
+
+"Yes, madame," he answered, faintly smiling; "but I have not taken any
+for some time."
+
+"Then we will have a cup together. Are you not English?" she asked,
+pausing in her arrangement of the _bouillotte_ in the stove; and as she
+knelt on one knee to do so, she rested the tips of her white fingers
+(even still) on the floor, to support herself, and looked up in his face
+like a child. She looked like a picture thus; for the pale face was
+glowing with pleasure at her good deed, and the close neat little
+_grisette_ cap concealing all that fair hair, except the braids on her
+forehead; she looked so innocent and pure, the old man bent his eyes
+upon that upturned face, and like a father, placing a hand on her
+shoulder, said in perfect English, though with a slightly foreign
+accent--
+
+"I have lived much among English, and been in England; but that is long
+ago. I am a Swiss by birth."
+
+"Oh!" she burst forth in English, "I am so happy to meet some one who
+speaks my own tongue, it has been a stranger to me so long a time; let
+us converse always in it: the sound has been lost to me. I have been
+teaching my child to speak his first word in my native tongue."
+
+"What is your boy's name?" he asked, deeply interested in this fair
+young mother.
+
+She hesitated a moment. In christening him he had been named "William,"
+as second name, after her father, and by this she generally now called
+him to strangers; his father's might lead somehow to detection, for
+frequently the _concièrge_ took him in her arms for a walk, when she was
+too busy to leave home, and always returned with an account of the many
+persons who stopped to inquire the boy's name. As William, or Guillaume
+Deval, who might recognize the parents? Almost an impulse induced her to
+give him Miles's name when this other inquired; but, checking herself,
+she said "William."
+
+"Has he no father?" asked the old man, caressing the boy, who now sat on
+his mother's knee; and he looked searchingly at her. But any thought of
+error fled when you gazed in Minnie's pure face: sin never could look
+thus.
+
+"We are parted," she said sadly. "Some day, perhaps, monsieur, I may
+tell you all, and ask your advice; for indeed you seem as an old friend,
+and father to me. I hope we shall often meet."
+
+And they did; and it seemed as if a blessing followed her good deed, for
+work came pouring in, and she found constant employment, as we have
+seen, even from the first dressmakers in Paris--thus she knew of Lady
+Lysson's party to the _bal de l'opera_; and her fingers made the domino
+in which Lady Dora leaned on Tremenhere and listened to his love--so
+strange a thing is fate! An impulse, impossible to resist, impelled her
+to visit that scene, whose gaiety harmonized so little with her
+feelings. She had the two dominoes to make; and in the black one we have
+seen how much she intrigued Tremenhere--the other she had left with the
+woman keeping the cloaks, and her foresight served her purpose well, of
+knowing all. Who may tell the agony of this woman, leaning once again on
+his arm, and listening to those accents which thrilled her inmost
+soul--words too of interest fell from his lips, and her bursting heart
+said, "Throw off your mask, and he will fly you in horror or hate;" but
+nothing could ever equal in agony that moment when, leaning against the
+pillar in her second dress, she heard the greater portion of his
+conversation with Lady Dora; and, worse than all, the promise of the
+morrow! How could she dive into his heart, and read its sorrow, remorse,
+and revenge, prompting it to the part he was playing with her cousin?
+She only saw facts--heard words. She saw him friendly and kind with Lord
+Randolph; and in his face, whose every look she knew full well, she read
+confidence and friendship towards that man; then all the hate was her
+own--it was not mere jealousy, but personal dislike, or he could not so
+soon have forgotten her! No wonder then she fainted; and, when recovered
+from her swoon, she declined--nay, peremptorily refused all assistance
+to take her home--that toiling home, now made doubly painful; she
+returned to it nearly mad. The _concièrge_, who had taken charge of her
+boy, was terrified at the paleness of that still face. Minnie said she
+had a motive for wishing much to go; and the good-natured woman,
+thinking it so natural, at once consented to keep the boy with her.
+
+"_Pauvre pétite_," said the woman to herself, as she gave the almost
+silent Minnie her key and lamp. "She has seen her monsieur, I dare say.
+Ah! I always thought she was not married--but forsaken, and with her
+child, too! _pauvre pétite!_ I will bring up Guillaume," she said aloud.
+"_Tenez!_ you can scarcely support your own weight, much less his! I'll
+bring him up to you."
+
+And Minnie thanked her in a whisper, and crept almost lifeless up the
+stairs.
+
+As yet she had confided nothing of her history to her old neighbour,
+whom she only knew as a poor man named Georges, who had lost place and
+fortune. By persuading him that he was useful to her, she had succeeded
+in making him more frequently her guest, than his own solitary
+companion. She feared speaking of the past; yet, so much did she love
+the venerable old man, that she longed to dare confide all, and ask his
+advice. Now she felt her total inability to act for herself, and
+resolved to tell him not later than the following day. But there is a
+destiny ever above ruling, far superior to our puny wills. Next day she
+was too ill to speak, or see him; she was confined to her bed, where
+the intense anguish of her mind drove madness through her frame; and the
+following one she was delirious, and her shrieking voice could only
+utter one name--"Tremenhere!" It was no moment for false delicacy. The
+old man, whom she had befriended, stood by her in her need, and the
+trembling hands wiped the cold moisture from her brow, or held the cup
+of _tizane_ to her lips. Little Miles was nursed below; and though her
+eye wandered, seeking something in her madness, she uttered but the one
+name, sometimes in accents of prayer, sometimes in shrieking horror, for
+the promised morrow was with her, even in her delirium!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+On that morrow, which she so much dreaded, Tremenhere was away from
+Paris, and hurrying onward towards Marseilles. Once arrived there, his
+task was an easy one; there were tongues enough to speak to him of the
+toiling little _ouvrière_, so frail, so persevering, and of the child
+which came to solace her hours; even her beauty had not unstrung one
+malevolent tongue against her fame--all was toil, gentleness, and worth.
+As he drank down each bitter draught, his soul grew sterner--there was
+not a tear in it to quench the fire of remorse. All, too, had one tale
+to tell: she always said, when she had saved enough to pay her journey,
+she should follow her husband, who was an artist at Florence. To fill up
+the measure of all, he waited upon the lady, whose daughter, Minnie had
+accompanied on board the fated "Hirondelle." He presented himself as a
+relative of her husband; he durst not trust his feelings to say, "I am
+the man," lest all should shrink from him in horror. He spoke of an
+unhappy quarrel, their separation, and consequent ignorance of where she
+was. Here he heard of her with tears from the childless mother, of the
+affection her daughter bore Minnie, whom she had employed as a
+workwoman at first, but won by her gentleness, piety, and goodness, had
+besought her to accompany her to Malta, as nurse to her child--of
+Minnie's love and devotion for her little "Miles," for thus she had
+called him there--her firm refusal to wean him, for any sum, from her
+breast, and her eventually consenting to go to Malta, on their promise
+to send her, in six months, to Florence--the one dream of her loving
+wife's heart! 'Tis wonderful Miles could command his feelings enough to
+listen calmly to all this; but there is a calm far beyond that of
+perfect peace--'tis that of despair. His face changed not--'twas as
+though it had been chiseled in marble, by some cunning artificer, to
+imitate life, for none was there--not a muscle moved--not a shade
+crossed it; it was the tombstone of hope, whose ashes lay beneath. One
+thing he did: he sought the room where she had resided in her
+sorrow--the room where her child's first accents struck upon her ear; it
+had not been let since, so he sat down alone there for hours, and his
+wandering eyes looked on every spot on that dingy wall; nothing he left
+unregarded where her eyes had dwelt, and he saw, as in a vision, all the
+many thoughts she had left behind her to people the place. He rejoiced
+no one had ever inhabited the same room since. Seeking the landlord, he
+rented it for a year, and, paying in advance, carefully locked, and put
+his seal on it, lest any one should desecrate it.
+
+"No voice in joy shall ever fill that place where she has wept so many
+silent tears--there, where she loved me still, our spirits have met
+again. Minnie, forgive me!" And the man knelt in that desolate abode,
+and prayed fervently. "If," he said, "I should ever be tempted to forget
+her sorrow, I will return hither, and fill my heart with memory, and
+hatred of myself!"
+
+And in this mood he returned to Paris: and a week had elapsed since the
+ball. It will not seem strange if, on his arrival, he shut himself up in
+his studio, away from the world, for days. How commune with that?--or
+those who had known her, and now smiled over her grave?
+
+Every moment his feelings became more vindictive towards Lady Dora: it
+was the only passion surviving in his heart--all the others were
+wrecked, and had gone down with the "Hirondelle."
+
+Perhaps it was well that Marmaduke Burton had gone, no one knew whither,
+or a worse one than vindictiveness might have revived. Assuredly he
+might have been driven to murder, had he once given way to his prompting
+fiend.
+
+It will seem almost strange to many, perhaps, that with this anguish
+raging in his heart, he never once thought even of suicide. Tremenhere
+was a brave man--an essentially courageous one; he feared nothing in
+this world. But he had a strong religious sense, implanted by his
+mother: he feared the suicide's unfailing hell, when madness comes not
+to plead for the act before Heaven. He was preparing himself, in the
+solitude of his chamber, for a pilgrimage of suffering and repentance,
+before he should meet her spirit, doomed in its other state to throw off
+the garb of mercy and forgiveness _she_ would ever have worn, and
+before Heaven accuse, perhaps condemn, him. He was preparing to face the
+world, and veil his suffering--to toil on; and then he asked himself,
+"For what?" Here his mother arose before him.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I have deserted, forgotten, reviled her; it shall be my
+task to place her high in brightness and purity. And if, in my passage,
+one lip breathes Minnie's name in shadow before me, then will I bare all
+my own heavy sorrow, and, condemning myself, clear her! Now, it would
+but sully a fame like hers, to drag her forth uncalled for. I must watch
+my opportunity; and the day I debase _her_ enemies--her enemy, her
+heartless cousin--I will elevate her where none shall dare attaint her
+again!"
+
+He heard Lord Randolph had called; and here it was that his heart turned
+towards that man. He remembered the kindly, though unadvisedly done, act
+at Uplands; this man's kindness of manner; his respectfulness towards
+her. Now the veil of darkness had fallen, he saw all aright; and a
+love--a love almost of womanly weakness--arose in his heart towards him.
+He was the first person whom he received; and when the other started at
+his pale cheek, he simply answered, he had been ill; a sudden obligation
+to visit the country, where illness had seized upon him. He started,
+however, when Lord Randolph begged his congratulations on his
+approaching marriage with Lady Dora, who had accepted him the previous
+day. However, his start was not perceptible to his friend, and he spoke
+all the speeches of usage as warmly as such are generally spoken; and,
+taking his arm, they proceeded together to the Hotel Mirabeau.
+
+Lady Dora and her mother sat alone when they entered. The former,
+despite her general self-possession, coloured painfully, and then became
+of marble whiteness, while the pale, curling lip alone spoke her
+internal battle to seem calm.
+
+"I bring you an invalid friend," said Lord Randolph; "Tremenhere has
+been very ill."
+
+She looked fixedly at him; his eyes were hollow, his cheeks white; but
+even these were not sufficient excuse, to that despotic heart. "He
+should have kept his appointment," she mentally said, "any way."
+
+"Have you been at home?" asked Lady Ripley; "for Lord Randolph told us
+you were not there when he called."
+
+A sudden thought seized Tremenhere; he would make this illness
+subservient to his plans. "I was forced to leave Paris--circumstances
+obliged me," he said, and for an instant his eye lighted on Lady Dora;
+"and something of a slow, nervous fever has overwhelmed me ever since."
+
+"Egad, yes!" cried Lord Randolph; "I found him seated listlessly at his
+easel, attempting to paint; and when I entered _sans ceremonie_, the
+fellow mistook me for a rival artist, and hastily threw a covering over
+some _chef d'oeuvre_ he was completing."
+
+A faint colour crossed Miles's pale cheek, and unthinkingly his eye fell
+on Lady Dora, and theirs met in an instant; he read her thoughts, and
+saw where it might be made available to his purpose.
+
+"I was painting from memory," he said--so he had been, but _not_ Lady
+Dora, as she imagined. His look, his illness, all combined to make her
+believe herself the cause, or rather jealousy at Lord Randolph's return;
+and the exulting heart of the woman bounded with gratified pride; there
+was not one thought of sincere affection in it. Still she could not
+quite forgive his departure without seeking her. When a woman feels she
+has stepped rather too far, and in haste, and passes a sleepless night,
+collecting herself to undo the evil by apparent indifference, it is most
+provoking to find all thrown away, and that uttered words which we
+fancied were sunk deep into another's soul, generating loving thoughts
+and hopes, had passed over the surface like a meteor across the sky,
+leaving not the slightest trace of its passage.
+
+"May I be permitted," he said, after a pause, in rather a low tone, for
+Lord Randolph was warmly discussing some political point with his
+mother-in-law elect, "to offer my congratulations on your approaching
+happiness? May you be so--I sincerely desire it."
+
+"Thank you," she answered trembling, and biting her lip at his coolness.
+
+"You appear to have held the happiness of more than his in your
+keeping--your own I mean, in suspense; and now, the battle over, the sun
+of joy bursts over all. Lord Randolph is perfectly happy, and I never
+saw your ladyship looking so well!"
+
+"Then, taking you at your own judgment," she answered hastily, without
+thinking, and acrimoniously, "you are an exception to the general
+happiness, for you certainly do not look well; you should have
+placed----" She paused suddenly, and coloured, remembering what her
+words implied.
+
+"You are right, Lady Dora. I ought to have placed my happiness in your
+keeping; would you have well guarded it?"
+
+"I do not understand you, Mr. Tremenhere; and I fear you mistake my
+meaning," was the haughty reply.
+
+"I fear I have mistaken much; forgive me, the error will have no
+mate--like myself, it will be lone--forgive me."
+
+There was so much sadness in his voice, that her hand trembled with the
+emotion her pride even could not quell; she had accepted Lord Randolph
+in pique at Tremenhere's supposed trifling with her, and now those
+chains were already galling her; yet, how throw them off? how find
+courage to cast herself away on him--the man she had once so much
+despised? It was a fearful war within her. At this juncture Lord
+Randolph came to their aid in words, but every one was significant to
+their thoughts.
+
+"Tremenhere!" he cried, "I appeal to you," and he turned to where the
+two sat, a little apart; she was knitting a purse. "Do you think a _bal
+masqué_, as we went the other night, a place where no man should take
+his wife?"
+
+"That depends much on the lady," was the reply.
+
+"I said," answered Lady Ripley, "that in my opinion, from the
+description given me by Lady Lysson (for I thank goodness I was not
+there,) that scenes so totally at variance with decorum as men in female
+attire, and _vice versâ_, and the heterogeneous mass of persons
+collected there--their freedom of speech, want of all ceremony and
+obedience to the commonest rules of society, must leave an unfavourable
+trace on the mind--I declare, even Dora savours of it; for ever since
+she went there has been a restlessness of spirit, an unquietness of
+manner, I never noticed before. I should scarcely have wondered at any
+absurdity she might have committed."
+
+"Oh, mamma!" exclaimed that lady, in painful confusion.
+
+"On my life," laughed Lord Randolph, "Lady Ripley, you are epigrammatic
+in your speech. Has Lady Dora been guilty of any absurdity since?"
+
+"You mistake me," hastily answered she, remembering the engagement
+contracted within a few days; "of any serious fault I trust _my_
+daughter will never be guilty; but I mean, were she not perfect, as I
+may, I believe, call her, in strict propriety of thought and action, I
+should indeed dread what such influence might effect."
+
+"Lady Dora could never forget what is due to her rank and station," said
+Tremenhere. "There may be a certain excitement in the scene, especially
+to a person visiting it for the first time; but we will leave all
+casualties of this kind to your unsophisticated girl, believing in such
+an absurdity as love different to what the world has viewed it, and
+thrown with one she fancied destined to call into being that feeling,
+there is really no saying whether such a one might not be led away by
+the atmosphere around her to give love for love, and speak her heart
+freely where the generous mask concealed her blushes from the eye
+envious to behold that record of her sincerity; but you will all
+perceive, I am depicting an imaginary scene, and persons. We are all too
+sage and old in fashion's ways to commit the like follies."
+
+"Oh, of course!" answered the unseeing mother; but every word had echoed
+in Lady Dora's heart, or its facsimile; for the thing itself she did not
+possess--it had long been choked by pride.
+
+"I believe," continued Lord Randolph, "that the masques in olden
+times--at court and elsewhere--were made the medium of intrigues, state
+and others; but surely nothing could be more innocent than the one the
+other night!" Lord Randolph was rather primitive in his ideas as regards
+a _bal masqué a l'opera_, even in our days--Lady Dora did not internally
+agree with him, but she said nothing.
+
+"Have you secured one box for the _Français_ this evening?" asked Lady
+Ripley, changing the subject. "I quite forgot it," answered Lord
+Randolph; "come along, Tremenhere, we will go and look for it, and you
+shall bring it back to the ladies, for I am unavoidably engaged till
+dinner; of course, you will be of the party?"
+
+"I fear not," he answered; "I have much occupation on hand."
+
+"Nonsense, man! you shut yourself up with your mysterious portrait, till
+you become perfectly gloomy; it must have a deep interest for you."
+
+"You mistake; 'tis an altar-piece which I am completing to order--a
+Madonna and child."
+
+"Then, why cover it up so mysteriously?"
+
+"We artists are jealous of our unfinished works being criticised; 'tis,
+however, not _that_ which would detain me to-night, but another claim."
+
+"Pray, set it aside, and accompany us, Mr. Tremenhere," said Lady
+Ripley, graciously; Lord Randolph's evident friendship for him, stamped
+him above what he was before, in her eyes--he still hesitated, when Lady
+Dora looked up, as if glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece, and
+almost imperceptibly, 'twas so quickly done, her glance crossed his.
+
+"Then I will do as you _command_," he said, bowing to Lady Ripley; but
+her daughter felt his eye was upon her, and the _command_, accentuated
+for her ear alone.
+
+"We can perhaps spare you the trouble of going to the theatre, if you
+are engaged," cried Lady Ripley. "Dora, we may as well drive there
+ourselves."
+
+"I shall not leave home to-day, mamma," was the reply.
+
+"But you know, my dear, I _must_ call upon the Montagus at four."
+
+"Lady Lysson will willingly accompany you; I know she too purposes a
+visit to them."
+
+"But your resolution is sudden, Dora; to-day you promised to go with me
+at four."
+
+"My head aches," she answered coldly; "pray excuse me."
+
+"Oh! if that be the case," replied her ladyship, "I can urge no more;
+you had better lie down, my dear child, and prepare yourself for the
+evening's fatigue."
+
+"No, thank you, mamma; with your permission I shall remain here--I have
+a letter to write."
+
+She never once looked up, but a man the least vain might have fancied,
+as Tremenhere did, that "the morrow" of the _bal masqué_, was presented
+to his view, especially after what Lord Randolph had said about his
+returning with the ticket for the theatre. Making their adieux, the
+gentlemen left with the understanding that one or both should return,
+after calling at the _Français_ to secure the box.
+
+For a moment Tremenhere hesitated how to act. He asked himself whether
+his conduct was right towards his friend--the title he gave him in his
+heart decided him. "She is unworthy of him," he said; "'tis an act of
+kindness to break off this marriage."
+
+And, consequently at four, he called with the ticket. Lady Dora had been
+schooling her heart, and received him with perfect composure, much
+regretting all the trouble he had taken; and she sat with an unfinished
+letter before her, and the pen between her fingers, as though expecting
+him to take leave. He read her as an open leaf in a book; and the want
+of all candour in her disposition made him more than ever resolved to
+bend her. Every day she had become more warped since he had first seen
+her; even when he and Minnie had been residing at Chiswick, she could
+be capable of a generous action; now, not one--she was the world's
+child!
+
+"Is letter-writing advisable for a headache?" he asked, after the first
+salutations were over.
+
+"Possibly not," was the cold reply; "but it is one of neglected duty,
+and I was resolved to finish it to-day."
+
+"Then I will take my leave; a visiter is never more unfortunate than
+when he cuts the thread of some pleasant narrative by pen or lip," and
+he was going towards the door. "I have forgotten half my message!" he
+cried, returning. "Lord Randolph desired me to say, that he had taken
+upon himself the pleasant task of choosing your ladyship's bouquet for
+this evening, which will arrive in due season," and he moved towards the
+door.
+
+"If you see him, Mr. Tremenhere," she said hastily, at the same time
+throwing down her pen and closing her letter-book, "pray prevent his
+lordship from giving himself so much trouble; I dislike bouquets in the
+hand."
+
+"Indeed! permit me to wonder, flowers are kindred to the beautiful--you
+should not be so unnatural, as to disclaim your own."
+
+"I presume I am expected to bow; but I seldom--_never_ do, to
+compliments; they are so vapid, made up, like these said bouquets, to
+suit every occasion, every taste, and thus doled out alike to all. Could
+we listen to half a dozen conversations at once, on the average they
+would be nearly word for word alike, between an idle man, and a silly
+woman."
+
+"Why silly?" he asked smiling, still standing, hat in hand, near the
+door.
+
+"Because all must be, to listen to them," and she pushed away her chair,
+and rising, dropped down amid the cushions of the ottomans. Without
+another word, he crossed the room, laid his hat on the table, and,
+drawing off the one glove remaining on his hand, flung the two into his
+hat; and then, quietly seating himself beside her, asked with gentle
+interest,--
+
+"How is your headache--is it better? You look pale!" and he took her
+hand. For an instant it struggled, then lay still. This was her first
+false step of bad generalship. His action was so natural, considering
+their relationship, though only by marriage, that what else had been
+freedom passed as a right; her struggle to release it denoted a thought
+of wrong, and he was not slow to take advantage of it.
+
+"Do not deny me even the privilege of a friend--I once possessed that,
+Lady Dora."
+
+She made no reply.
+
+"You have not answered my question. Is your headache better, or gone?
+You would do well to banish that, like all other hurtful things."
+
+"_Hurtful_ things?" she uttered in echo. "You are right."
+
+"About what? Do we understand one another at last?"
+
+"Tell me," she cried hurriedly, looking up, "whilst we are alone and
+uninterrupted, where have you been, Mr. Tremenhere?"
+
+She looked, but could not read the anguish which crossed his brow; he
+made an effort, and subdued it before her.
+
+"Been? shall I tell you truly?"
+
+"Do, and quickly. I would know all _now_ at once."
+
+"I fled, to prove many things--I fled, to live with a memory--I fled, to
+come back a slave!"
+
+His tone was full of soul, for every word was truth; but she applied it
+wrongly to herself. He had withdrawn his hand, and passed it over his
+brow. As it fell listlessly on his knee, she laid hers upon it, and it
+trembled; it was the action of a moment, and as quickly withdrawn.
+
+"What have you proved?" she asked, almost imploringly.
+
+"That we must never trust our own false hearts--they lead us on to
+destruction; still less, any _living_ woman." His thoughts were with the
+dead, as he deemed.
+
+"Do not look so pale--so afflicted: look as you did on that night."
+
+"_That night_, which never knew a morrow! and yet it held the promise of
+one, Lady Dora."
+
+"Who cast that promise from his memory, as worthless?"
+
+"Not that, as dangerous, incapable of leading to happiness, as a
+snare--any thing you will, but a promise of that joy, which another has
+obtained."
+
+"I will not misunderstand you. There is one thing we may give in pique,
+the hand, but the heart defies our power--'tis our master."
+
+"Is yours?"
+
+"Yes; I have in vain struggled with it--it daunts me."
+
+"Mine is a slave," he answered, "chained, but not by me; and yours will
+become so too, and follow the manacled hand, and thus you will be calm
+and happy."
+
+"I? never. Do you know--do you not see, that my position terrifies me? I
+have none to counsel--be my guide, and as an error led me to the steps I
+have taken, direct me how to escape its penalty."
+
+"You mean your marriage with Lord Randolph?" he took her hand as he
+spoke, and, looking upon it, thought of the day he first held Minnie's
+thus!
+
+"'Tis a fair hand," he said, regarding it. "Oh! pity this should break
+hearts, sever ties of love--this little tiny thing, which holds so much
+fearful power. Are you sure you do not love Lord Randolph?"
+
+"Sure? I almost hate him, and should, were he my husband."
+
+"Are you mad? You must have been to pledge yourself to him, such as you
+are--one to be loved, worshipped, adored, if with this hand you gave
+your heart."
+
+"Thus I would have it--and only thus!" she uttered, her pride subdued in
+her feelings. He had urged her on by his manner; she had prepared
+herself against his prayers, but not against his ambiguous manner; for
+he looked as one fearful of speaking--of one on his guard. She fancied
+he durst not, and she dared all to prove him at last. For an instant he
+thought, "Shall I doom her to misery, such as she has not dreamed of,
+and, marrying her, tell her why I wooed her?" but a thought, even yet
+of pity, came over him; he knew the worse than death he could condemn
+her to, by making her his unloved, despised wife; then, too, Minnie
+stood between them, and forbade it. He felt he _never_ could place
+another, even in hate, or revenge, where her head alone, though but in
+memory might lie--on his heart.
+
+"Can you love? Do you love?" he asked, in a low whisper; and the arm
+stole round her waist. "Could you for that love renounce all--give up
+rank, station, home--all?"
+
+"Freely," she uttered; and at that moment she was sincere. "Freely--so I
+break this hated tie, and----"
+
+"Forge another where you could love?--_do_ love; and, forgetting all
+false pride, know the only true one--that of the man your soul has
+elected?--the man equal to you in all things but an empty title?"
+
+"You have taught me to know myself," she whispered; "teach me to read
+you aright; for my intellect cannot comprehend you, and I doubt, where I
+would have faith."
+
+"Do not doubt me," he said, coldly releasing her waist, and taking her
+hand; "I will counsel you well--lead you aright, and for your happiness.
+Never love, Lady Dora--never love; but if they will you should marry,
+make Lord Randolph a good and faithful wife, nor cast away your
+affections on one scarcely worthy of them. He is my friend--if you
+_must_ love, love him; but _I_ counsel all, never love, for _I_ dread
+and eschew the passion!" And, dropping her hand, he rose calmly from
+the ottoman, and listlessly taking up his hat and gloves, scarcely
+looking at her, bowed, and quitted the room.
+
+When he was gone she sprang from the ottoman, and, pacing the apartment
+like one bewildered by a sudden shock, ended by leaning her head on the
+table, and weeping the bitterest tears she had ever shed; for they were
+over her crushed pride--her abased heart, which he had probed to the
+quick, and then, as a worthless toy, cast from him. It was long before
+she could recall all the scene to her mind, and when she did it might
+have ended in almost madness had her unfailing pride and self-love not
+come hand in hand to say, "He loves, and dreads his love. Randolph is
+his friend--be patient--watchful, and your reward will be, in subduing
+all his feelings and resolutions."
+
+And thus cheered, she rose, to own to herself that for his love she
+would brave any thing. She even hated Minnie's memory when she thought,
+that though it had proved evanescent, as she deemed it had, he certainly
+_once_ loved that girl.
+
+"I will bind him yet, and in iron bands," she cried, as her tall, proud
+figure strode the room; "not as she did--silk could never hold so bold a
+heart as his--they shall be iron, and _I_ will rivet them; there shall
+be no key lest another undo them--riveted, Tremenhere--riveted!" and the
+girl smiled already, in triumph over his defeat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Days and days passed away, and Minnie lay almost in death's grasp, and
+the old man sat beside her as a father might have done, nursing the poor
+sick woman; his bitterest thought was his own poverty, and her great
+need of every care. The little money she had by her, was fast
+disappearing, sickness brings so many unaccustomed claims into a
+sufferer's room; there was a doctor, too, but here again she learned the
+charity still existing, despite all march of intellect, or railroad of
+worldliness; there was this one hallowed thing standing still, since the
+day of the good Samaritan. Nothing could induce this man to take a fee,
+and assuredly he came with more interest, and oftener, to see the sick
+woman, than if gold awaited his palm at every visit. The _concièrge_,
+too, was all kindness; she kept poor little Miles, and thus the weary
+days crept on, and nearly a fortnight passed, before Minnie returned to
+a perfect recollection of the past. When she did so, her first idea was
+to ask the length of time she had lain thus--two weeks! and in that
+period what might not have occurred? She struggled to rise from her bed,
+but her strength failed her; she had no one around in whom she might
+confide, feeling her own total incapacity to act, and knowing how
+necessary it was that some immediate steps should be taken, even though
+in taking them, her existence would, of necessity, be betrayed. There
+was but one person of whom she could think in her despair, and this was
+Mary Burns. Summoning all her fortitude and strength, she in a few,
+half-coherent words confided to Monsieur Georges that a mystery existed,
+and imploring caution, and otherwise total silence on his part, she
+besought him to seek Mary, and telling her a sick woman wished to see
+her immediately, having something of importance to communicate, beg of
+her to come, without delay. This he gladly promised to do; for, in his
+perplexity, he knew not himself where to apply, how to act; in her
+ravings she had said enough to convince him, some dreadful secret
+oppressed her. Mary, who had been alone informed by the papers at first
+of Minnie's supposed fate, and subsequently by Skaife, had mourned her
+with the sincerity of an humble sister; for some time she had been
+incapable of almost any exertion of mind or body; there was a blank
+around her, a disheartenment--for well she knew the purity of the
+unfortunate victim of Tremenhere's jealousy. When she received the
+mysterious summons, delivered to her by Georges, not a thought of Minnie
+crossed her mind; her deep, and truly mourning dress, bespoke her faith
+in the report of her untimely fate, but, though much puzzled as to whom
+the person could be desiring to see her, she was too sincere a Christian
+to refuse the prayer of any one in trouble. Minnie had said to Monsieur
+Georges, that she desired to see the person alone; consequently he
+brought her to the room door, and there left her. The name Deval could
+not possibly enlighten her at all, and the respectability of the house
+removed any fear she might otherwise have felt, in following a stranger.
+It would be impossible for any words adequately to describe her almost
+supernatural terror, when entering the room alone, on the humble bed,
+almost pallet, in the pale, worn ghastly face lying there, she beheld
+Mrs. Tremenhere! Her first feeling was one of doubt, of her own perfect
+sanity; she thought some extraordinary likeness deceived her, and
+standing breathless, with clasped hands, she gazed in fear and wonder.
+
+"Mary," whispered Minnie, turning her eyes, now hollow and wild, upon
+her--"Mary, 'tis I! come to me!" And she stretched forth her thin hands
+towards her. A shriek burst from the other: it was like an awakening
+from some dreadful dream. Dropping on her knees beside that bed, she
+clasped the wan hands in hers, and wept tears of so much heartfelt joy,
+that years of misery were washed from her memory in that stream of
+heaven-sent rapture.
+
+In a few brief words, Minnie, raised up, and lying on her bosom, told
+all, first binding her to solemn secresy about her existence, unless
+released from it by herself. If Mary wept over her sufferings, her heart
+became soothed as she wept, feeling that there must be a term to it now.
+_She_ knew Miles even better than his poor wife could; she had known his
+warm, generous, but hasty disposition, from boyhood; and even though
+her heart trembled when the other related the conversation which she had
+overheard at the opera, nothing could persuade her that he would so soon
+forget one he had loved as he once had Minnie: and so much does the fond
+heart of friendship soothe and cheer us, that Minnie too, became calm,
+and impressed with the conviction of her humble friend.
+
+While they were still conversing, the _concièrge_ rapped at the door,
+carrying little Miles in her arms; and, as Mary clasped the beautiful
+boy to her bosom, she felt how impossible it would be for Tremenhere to
+resist so strong an appeal to his heart as this woman and child, or the
+conviction of the latter's parentage, in whose young face his own every
+look breathed.
+
+After cheering, again and again, the now calmed woman, Mary hastily
+quitted, on her search for positive information. This had to be
+guardedly done, but she thought it might be accomplished through the
+medium of the waiting-woman of Lady Dora. Accordingly, she hurried home,
+and, selecting some articles of _lingèrie_, carried them to the Hotel
+Mirabeau, under pretence that some one had ordered her to bring patterns
+for selection, for the approval of Lady Dora Vaughan.
+
+It will be remembered that her person, her present position, both were
+equally unknown to this lady, who alone knew her by name. Her success
+was greater than she had at first ventured to hope. _Lingères_ and
+ladies'-maids soon open a conversation together, especially as Mary,
+having so much at stake, threw off all her usual reserve, and became a
+perfect Parisienne in manner. She came, she said, having heard Milady
+Vaughan was making up a _trousseau_, in hopes some of her _lingèrie_
+might be worthy of a place in it--taking care, however, to give a wrong
+name and address. After the usual preliminary of presenting the
+attendant with a handsome collar, to propitiate her good-will, she
+learned, with a tremor at first, which ended in amazement and joy, that
+Lady Dora was going very shortly to be married, but positively to Milord
+Randolph Gray, who was then in Paris; and the _soubrette_, warmed by the
+handsome present she had received, threw off all reserve, and spoke in
+raptures--true Parisian raptures--of her lady's beauty, and the justice
+it was meeting at the hands of a celebrated painter, a Monsieur
+Tremenhere, who was pourtraying her as Diana, to please Milord Randolph.
+
+Mary could scarcely contain herself in the bounds of moderation, at
+this, to her, delightful intelligence; she abridged the visit as much as
+possible, promising to call again in a few days with more patterns, as
+Lady Dora was then out. She flew almost to poor Minnie's abode, to whom
+every moment had been as days. When Mary entered the room, her eyes were
+wild and excited; one glance, however, sufficed. Minnie read so much
+real joy in the other's kind face, that she fell back on her pillow
+almost fainting, from her previously overwrought feelings.
+
+"Cheer up, madam--dear madam, I bring you joyful news!" exclaimed the
+other; and she hurriedly related all she had heard.
+
+Minnie could not utter a word for many moments; then, as memory of those
+words crossed her mind, she could but torture herself with a solution of
+them, by supposing that Lady Dora's pride had stood between them. Not
+all Mary could urge against it, could banish the idea; and all she could
+do was to promise secresy, and employ means to discover the truth. She
+left, but only to make some necessary arrangements, and then return. One
+thing she resolved upon doing, and this she put into immediate
+practice--namely, to write to Mr. Skaife without hinting a word of the
+truth, but implored him to lose not a day in coming to Paris, asking
+secresy to all on the subject of her request--a hint of Minnie she durst
+not give; she only spoke of the absolute necessity there existed for his
+immediate arrival. This done, she felt at ease; and returning to
+Minnie's, after providing many little comforts until then unknown there,
+she took up her abode beside that sick-bed, and watched with delight the
+change a few hours had made in that sick woman, whose mind diseased had
+defied all medicine. Our good deeds, not unfrequently even in this
+world, bring home their ripe fruits! Here was the girl whom she had
+taken from error to her bosom, from poverty to be almost her friend, now
+in this extreme moment, soothing, consoling, and returning to her all
+she had herself given her; and Mary's eye filled with honest joy as she
+felt this. Could she have laid down her life she would freely have done
+it, to prove all her gratitude. It was, in truth, a day when Minnie was
+made to feel that our good gifts often return tenfold to us. She did not
+in her peace forget him, who had watched over her in sickness and
+delirium. She had explained to Mary all she knew of Monsieur Georges;
+and, as the shades of evening were closing in, Minnie heard the stealthy
+step plodding up and down his solitary room. He feared to intrude now,
+knowing she had a friend to watch and guard her.
+
+"Oh!" cried she, "I have forgotten poor Monsieur Georges in all my
+selfish happiness. Mary, open that door, and say I would speak with
+him--will you? He has been indeed both father and friend to me!" Mary
+rose hastily to obey, and re-entered, almost dragging in the poor,
+solitary old man, from his own cold, comfortless chamber; for he was
+poorer than ever, having spent every _sou_ he could command on the sick
+woman who had befriended him.
+
+"Come in--pray, come in!" cried Minnie, stretching out a hand to him.
+"Come, and see how much better I am to-night; and your little boy, too,
+see how calmly he is sleeping beside me. You must not forget him; he has
+more than once slept in your arms when mine were powerless to retain
+him."
+
+Georges stooped over the bed, and a tear fell on her cheek, as the
+shivering man pressed his lips to her forehead.
+
+"My child," he said, "I never can forget you or him; you seem as
+something belonging to me, and yet I must lose you soon. I know you will
+recover, and go among friends. I felt from the first, your being as you
+were must have a cruel mystery attached to it--all will clear away for
+you, you are so good, and then you will go, and I shall remain!" and the
+desolate old man's voice trembled.
+
+"I will never forsake you!" exclaimed Minnie. "I could not; you have
+been with me in too much sorrow, for me ever to forget you! The friends
+of those hours we may not banish, like the ones who pass with our
+laughter."
+
+"I cannot account for it, Monsieur Georges," said Mary; "but from the
+first moment I saw you, your face seemed to me like one I had known,
+though altered by time, in some far away days of childhood; and yet it
+cannot be, for I am not a native of France."
+
+"They say," he replied, "that not two persons in the world resemble one
+another; yet there are likenesses so strong, you may have seen some one
+like me. The impressions of childhood, on thoughtful minds, come across
+us, like dreams in after years."
+
+"Oh!" she answered, "it is not alone your face and figure, but something
+in the tone of your voice is, and was from the first, most familiar,
+though dreamy."
+
+She gazed earnestly, as she spoke, at the dignified, though bent figure
+of the old man, as he sat beside the stove, where the light of the lamp
+fell on his venerable head and silvered hair.
+
+"There is something," he said, "I have intended asking, when our poor
+invalid should be better. I do not want to pry into, perhaps painful
+family secrets, for few are exempt from these," he sighed deeply; "but
+there can be no indiscretion in my inquiring, I hope, whether the name
+of 'Tremenhere,' which she uttered so frequently in her ravings, is one
+of family connection, or merely of acquaintanceship."
+
+"Tremenhere!" exclaimed Minnie, and the truth hung on her lip, yet
+something of fear of betrayal withheld her from uttering it. "Do you
+know the name?" she inquired, changing her original thought, and
+supporting herself on her arm, she looked anxiously at him.
+
+"I did," he answered, "long ago."
+
+"Where?" asked Mary, fixing a surprised look on his face.
+
+"Far from hence," he replied. "Abroad, and in England."
+
+"For mercy's sake!" exclaimed Minnie, "tell me, my good father (for such
+indeed you have been to me,) what Tremenhere did you know--the name is
+so uncommon?"
+
+"One," he answered, "whom you cannot have known, at least I think not,
+for he had no daughter--only one child--a son."
+
+"Do not hesitate; you may freely speak before me," cried Mary,
+anxiously; "you little know, perhaps, what your words may lead to. _I am
+sure_ I have seen you--heard your voice."
+
+"How can that be?" he asked, still doubting what it were prudent to do.
+"You would have forgotten me, you must have been so young, had we ever
+met. I should remember you, for I am an old man."
+
+"Were you ever in Yorkshire?" asked Mary, with a trembling voice.
+Something stilled Minnie's tongue; she could not speak.
+
+"Yorkshire!" he cried in almost terror. "Do you mean at an old
+manor-house?"
+
+"Come here," whispered Minnie, scarcely audible. She felt something
+strange was surrounding her. "Come nearer--here, beside me. I am too
+weak to speak loud--there," and she clasped his hand. "Father, by the
+love you have shown me--to me, a poor orphan child, a deserted
+wife--tell me, who are you? My name is Tremenhere, and I know the
+manor-house well; it _was_ my husband's father's!"
+
+"Merciful heavens!" exclaimed Georges, in agitation. "Then how are you
+thus? and how have we met? Tell me--is your husband the son--the only
+son of the _late_ Miles Tremenhere, of the manor-house? for you speak of
+the father as being no more."
+
+Mary sat speechless, and yet she knew not what her hopes or fears were;
+she was in a stupor.
+
+"Miles Tremenhere, the son, is my husband," answered Minnie; "but he has
+forsaken me--forsaken me!" and her tears gushed forth.
+
+"I will tell you," said Mary, in a whisper, drawing near and clasping
+Minnie in her arms. "This poor lady has been the victim of a villain,
+Marmaduke Burton, who, when old Mr. Tremenhere died, put in a claim to
+the property, on the plea of the son's illegitimacy; and, having driven
+him forth, was not content without destroying his young wife's fame, to
+drive him to desperation."
+
+"Illegitimacy!" exclaimed Georges, like one in a dream. "That was false;
+for _I_ married his parents--baptized him!"
+
+"Oh!" shrieked Minnie, starting from Mary's arms, and grasping his arm;
+"your name then is not Georges--'tis d'Estrées!"
+
+"I will tell you all, my poor child," he said, when his overflowing
+tears had subsided; and he leaned over the pillow, where lay the pale
+and exhausted Minnie from over-excitement. "I was chaplain in Gibraltar
+to Lord Dillon, who was governor there, and I knew, and became most
+intimate with Tremenhere, who was quartered there. For family reasons he
+did not wish his marriage with Helena Nunoz, with whom he had become
+acquainted, known to any one, on account of the obscurity of her family,
+during his father's lifetime. I married them privately: shortly
+afterwards they left for England: here, in Paris, they were re-married
+on account of her religion, she insisted upon it, by a catholic priest:
+all was legally, correctly done. Mr. Tremenhere was too good a man to
+have it otherwise. When his wife, than whom a better creature never
+existed, was near her confinement, he felt desirous the child should be
+baptized by me; and for that purpose I obtained permission of Lord
+Dillon, who had quitted Gibraltar, to go to Yorkshire, and there the
+ceremony was performed, and registered, in the parish church.
+
+"True," answered Mary, "but no one could discover whither Mr. d'Estrées
+who officiated had gone; besides, 'twas the marriage which was disputed,
+not baptism."
+
+"I have now," he continued sighing, "to touch upon a passage of agony in
+my own life, which will account for my concealment. Shortly afterwards I
+quitted Lord Dillon, sufficiently provided for, for all moderate wants;
+I had a son of my own, a fine youth of fourteen. After leaving his
+lordship, at Mr. Tremenhere's prayer I repaired to Yorkshire with my
+son, who was to be as companion and friend to his son, then a boy of
+ten; all was happiness and peace for nearly a year. There was something
+in my child I could never fully understand--a disposition difficult to
+govern; something not open and candid--but I hoped time might make him
+otherwise, and the society of those around him. A year passed--I will
+but touch upon this; it is too painful," the poor father trembled as he
+spoke. "The manor-house was robbed one night; after a long, painful
+investigation, you may guess my horror at the discovery, my son was
+implicated in it. A sum to a considerable amount had been abstracted
+from Mr. Tremenhere's old cabinet; he, in mercy to me, hushed up the
+affair; my son fled, and I became a broken-hearted man. To stay was
+impossible; Mr. Tremenhere felt this too, so I left, to the deep regret
+of himself and his angel wife. Little more remains to be said--after
+awhile, all communication ceased between us, my unhappy boy discovered
+me, with him I shared the little I had, and he went to America,
+promising me to reform. I have never heard from him, and I became as
+Monsieur Georges what you see!"
+
+"Do you not remember me?" asked Mary, pale with emotion and memory. "I
+was Mary Burns, the child whom you have often caressed; I knew I had
+seen you in days of youth!"
+
+Let us pass over the remainder of this scene; Mary told him all that
+which was strange to him, but what our readers already know. Minnie
+could but weep in joy, in hope; for now, indeed, she had a rich present
+to lay at Miles's feet--a mother's fame!
+
+"Think, my dear child," he said, when all was told, "that the night your
+kind heart (for I read it truly) called the shivering old man to your
+fire, your guardian angel led him in to bring you a blessing. And you
+will be blessed; doubt it not--here with your husband's love, hereafter
+with a better than even that, for our good deeds come home to roost far
+more than our bad ones; there is much mercy around us, poor, weak,
+mortal children, that we are."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+Skaife arrived in Paris, and, after a lengthened interview with Mary, he
+quitted her abode. If he was very pale, it was the pallor of sudden, and
+almost deemed impossible, joy. Minnie lived! and he was wending his way
+to a now scarcely sad chamber, where Hope sat beside the still pale, but
+recovering woman, reclining near a cheerful wood blaze, in a more
+comfortable, though still very humble, room. This is all she would
+consent to at Mary's expense; for personal resources she had none.
+Skaife found himself incapable of much speech; he could but press
+Minnie's hand between his own with the affection of a brother, to whom a
+loved sister was suddenly restored from death. He, however, endeavoured
+to persuade her to return at once to Gatestone, promising her a joyful
+welcome from all, who mourned her loss severely. To this she was deaf;
+nothing could induce her to quit Paris, and leave Tremenhere's vicinity.
+Skaife had bound himself, by a solemn promise, not to reveal her
+existence without her permission, unless he saw the absolute necessity
+for so doing, to prevent the marriage of Tremenhere with Lady Dora.
+After vainly endeavouring to urge her to another course, he quitted the
+house to visit Miles, and, if possible, discover what his real feelings
+were; for a certain pride prevented Minnie from throwing herself at his
+feet, until she knew whether his heart still remembered her.
+
+Our readers will recollect, that she knew nothing of his visit to
+Marseilles--his conviction of her innocence. She only knew the fatal
+words, which, ringing in her ears, had driven her frantic--his avowed
+love for Lady Dora. Tremenhere was pained and surprised by Skaife's
+visit. He felt in himself so guilty towards Minnie, that one who had
+known all her worth seemed as an accusing spirit. Skaife's manner, too,
+after the first hasty meeting, was so embarrassed, that it added to the
+suffering his presence inflicted.
+
+It would have been impossible for a friend to look upon Miles without
+reading all his deep care, however veiled to the world in
+general;--there was the clouded eye, without fire, full of soul and
+expression; but the changing fire was gone--'twas one settled, calm,
+uncomplaining trouble. Skaife spoke of his journey to Paris as one of
+mere pleasure; of course Minnie's family was never alluded to. Miles had
+been painting when the other entered, and drawing the cover, of which
+Lord Randolph had spoken, over the easel, he rose to welcome him with a
+start of pleasure, which, however, almost instantaneously settled into a
+look of pain and embarrassment. For some time they spoke on indifferent
+subjects, things most difficult to find for two so closely drawn
+together in one painful one. There was a moment's pause, when Tremenhere
+suddenly exclaimed--
+
+"Skaife, I am surprised--much surprised, to see you here."
+
+"How so?" the other asked, colouring, and amazed.
+
+"Because, were I in your place, I should shun the atmosphere where
+breathed such another as myself, like that of a pest-house."
+
+"Pardon me, Tremenhere, you would do as I do--feel sincere pity for a
+man, whose severest punishment must be his own bitter remorse and
+regret."
+
+Tremenhere looked silently at him a moment.
+
+"You have indeed said truly," he uttered at last, and turned away
+towards the covered picture before him.
+
+"Tremenhere," said Skaife, laying a hand on his arm, "I rejoice to hear
+you speak as you do; for vain as it may be, 'twill solace you all the
+remaining years of your life to remember _her_--as she was. You see I
+know to what you allude."
+
+"Remember her, Skaife! What can that do for me? Remember that, but for
+the insane promptings of some demon, jealous of my happiness, I might
+now have her beside me, a living, breathing creature, instead of only
+this!" And he drew back the veil from his painting, and there, on the
+speaking canvass, was Minnie--oh, Minnie, as though she breathed before
+him! There is nothing so faithful as memory. It was an altar-piece, of
+which he had before spoken--a Madonna and child. The eyes looked forth
+serene and beautiful, patient, and with that predestined look which such
+a face should have--a look of future sorrow, future and immortal hope.
+Minnie's was all a face should be for so holy a purpose; and when
+Skaife remembered all she had suffered, he felt how well Tremenhere had
+chosen the subject, to call her features into life's seeming.
+
+"It is like her, is it not?" asked the latter, fixing his deep, earnest
+gaze upon the face. "And I have tried to throw into the countenance
+something of the trouble I _have_ seen there--something of what must
+have been, when she was at Marseilles! Skaife, I went there a week
+since, and learned all; since my return, I have passed the heavy hours
+of day and night in pourtraying the look which I divined hers, in that
+sad room where my child was born!"
+
+"Have you been there?" exclaimed the other, a joy almost beyond controul
+bursting his heart; for he had come to that room in fear, of what he
+might hear.
+
+"Yes," answered Tremenhere, looking up, surprised at his tone; "but I do
+not think you quite understand me, by your tone. I have been in the
+humble house of the toiling woman and mother--of the one I lured from
+every luxury, to cast, with a blighted name, into _want_!--want,
+Skaife--for this she has known! _Now_ do you comprehend my utter
+wretchedness? Oh, believe that there can be no sorrow, no remorse like
+mine! I sit here for hours searching in my memory for every tone of her
+voice, every look of her sweet face! I tell _you_ this, for
+self-abasement; _you_, at least shall know me as I am, though to the
+world I may be a mystery--to some, a monster!"
+
+"From my soul I pity you, Tremenhere; but oh! I rejoice that her memory
+is now so sacred in your eyes from stain."
+
+"Sacred and pure as an angel's, Skaife! Yet what can that avail now?"
+
+"I feared," uttered the other, "that--I scarcely know how to speak my
+thought--that, in short, you might be--were, dazzled by Lady Dora
+Vaughan!"
+
+"By her!" and he laughed in derision. "Have you, too, known the human
+heart so ill, to suppose that, having once loved Minnie, even though
+unjust, cruel, her murderer, I could ever place another, and such a one
+as Lady Dora, near her? No, no; be my feelings what they may, I never
+will dream even of so vain a thing as alleviating them by any union;
+still less with Lady Dora, than another!"
+
+"I have, nevertheless, heard strange rumours."
+
+"Have you? well, 'tis well. I would have it thus; 'tis----" He paused.
+"Let us change the subject," he said hastily; "time will prove all of
+us."
+
+They were silent some moments.
+
+"Do you know what grieves me most in this my task?" He pointed to the
+picture. "I cannot find in my mind a thought of what _our_ child was
+like. I would I could thus complete my subject. But all is a blank!" He
+pointed to the infant, of which there was but an outline; indeed, all
+but the Madonna's face was this only, for he had not long commenced the
+picture, which had been one ordered some time previously.
+
+A sudden thought struck Skaife.
+
+"I was visiting in a house, yesterday," he said, "and there was struck
+by the unearthly beauty of a boy I saw in the arms of the _concièrge_. I
+asked to whom it belonged, and was told, to a poor woman residing in the
+house. I make no doubt I could induce them to bring the child to you--it
+is the loveliest I ever saw."
+
+"Thank you, Skaife," he answered sadly; "but I do not think _any_ child
+could give me the faintest idea of what hers must have been; it must
+have had a look of more than mortal sorrow on its young face, born in so
+much woe and care. I will try and dream what it could have been; nothing
+living can even pourtray it."
+
+Skaife said no more on the subject; but, leaving shortly afterwards,
+hastened to Minnie, and with thankfulness of joy, watched the calm beam
+of hope in her eye, when he told her all that had passed between them.
+Skaife urged her to allow him, by degrees, to break the truth to her
+sorrowing husband; but there was still on her memory, unobliterated, the
+recollection of his words to her cousin, which nothing could efface, but
+proof to the contrary. One thing, however, they arranged, and Monsieur
+d'Estrées was the person chosen to carry out the scheme--namely, to take
+little Miles, or William as he was called, to his father's studio. The
+child had become so accustomed to the old man during Minnie's illness,
+that he would go any where unfearingly with him. We should vainly
+attempt to depict the mother's feelings, when she saw her boy next day
+departing under the care of her two sincere friends, to see his father
+for the first time. Thrice she called them back in mother's pride to
+arrange some curl on the noble brow, or again kiss the cheek, where
+perhaps his lip might be pressed. There was something hallowing in the
+thought to her beautiful mind, that their child should be the medium of
+communication between them, though to him unknown. Skaife had previously
+written to apprise Tremenhere, that at that hour he should call; and
+when he entered, and after a few moments, by way of prefacing the visit,
+mentioned he had asked a friend of the mother's, who often nursed the
+child in her absence, to call with him. Tremenhere coolly thanked him;
+at the same time expressing his firm conviction, that it could not
+answer his views or exalted ideas of what it should be. When d'Estrées
+entered as Monsieur Georges, and the boy with a quiet, contemplative
+air, most uncommon in one so young, looked in childish questioning at
+the tall, dark, strange man, Tremenhere stood transfixed. It was not
+that a look of the mother shook his heart--it was not the thought, that
+of such an age would his own be, were it living. No, it was the artist's
+realized dream--such a dream as inspiration might have given him. A
+child born in so much sorrow could not look as others would; every
+beautiful lineament was grave as of early woe, if so young a heart might
+feel it; but yet this was more--it was a soul's sorrow implanted by a
+mother's cares, watered by her tears, on the boy's countenance.
+Tremenhere looked at him, then at the old man--a memory crossed his
+imagination.
+
+"Surely I have seen you before," he cried, gazing earnestly at
+d'Estrées.
+
+"I think not, monsieur," said the other; but his voice trembled, for
+he, too, remembered him, and then he so ably recalled his father and
+d'Estrées's best friend to his mind; "for I am an old man, seldom
+leaving home." He spoke in French.
+
+"Strange--strange!" he replied in thought; "you seem very familiar to
+me."
+
+"And the boy?" asked Skaife; "is he not all I promised you?"
+
+"He might have been _hers_," was the reply, which spoke volumes. He
+approached, and the child used to many strange faces looked fearlessly
+upon him, but with the strange, grave look we have before noticed.
+Tremenhere opened his arms, and the little boy's were around his neck,
+and the eyes, so like his own, fixed upon him. Something for the first
+time passed through the father's heart; he thought of his own, and
+involuntarily passed his hand over the head, where the golden curls were
+springing up, thick and clustering. He turned up the little unsmiling
+face, and his stern lip pressed the baby cheek.
+
+"Bless you, my boy!" he whispered.
+
+Strange, he never asked his name, or any thing about him, but gazed, and
+gazed on the face in bitterness of thought. As he did so, he turned
+towards the picture. The child stared a moment--the eyes distended--and
+then the whole sad face lighted up with a smile of angel beauty, as he
+paid the highest compliment which could be offered to Miles's art, by
+stretching forth his arms towards it; and the little tongue tried to
+syllable a name. The boy knew his mother!
+
+D'Estrées and Skaife turned pale, as a hasty glance passed between them:
+they deemed it impossible so strange a recognition could pass
+unsuspected: they trembled for the moment of avowal. But Miles's mind
+was obscured from all thought of the truth; he only saw a childish
+rapture on beholding a picture; and again kissing the boy and hastily
+passing him to d'Estrées, seated himself at the easel, and beneath his
+pencil placed the outline of his boy in its mother's arms.
+
+Tremenhere had resolved upon one thing both as a duty--a sacred one--and
+secondly, if possible, to give some more healthy tone to his heart, by
+the necessity for activity of mind and body. This was, to labour for the
+means of proceeding to Gibraltar, to seek proof of his mother's
+marriage. With his conviction of Minnie's innocence, this thought had
+sprung up with renewed vigour; for this reason he remained more at home,
+working at the picture for which his own unknown child was daily
+sitting. For this, when completed, he expected a large sum, with which
+he purposed at once proceeding to Gibraltar. Moreover, it was a labour
+of love, though of deep sorrow; for Minnie lived again before him, and
+the hours passed, in contemplating the face and form perfecting beneath
+his hand.
+
+Lady Dora was lost in vain conjectures as to the cause of his
+estrangement; though a momentary doubt might arise, yet her unfailing
+pride came in to soothe her--"he durst not trust himself!" Thus she
+thought, and with this conviction arose a determination to go to his
+studio; this was not difficult of accomplishment. By a cleverly turned
+hint to her mother about Lord Randolph's impatience respecting her
+picture, Lady Ripley wrote, expressing a desire for its completion, as
+soon as he conveniently might attend to it; and soliciting an hour when
+Lady Dora might give him a sitting. This lady so arranged it, that her
+mother asked from herself without naming any impatience on her part, but
+Tremenhere smiled in scorn and triumph; for he saw the whole affair, as
+though it had been planned beneath his eye. He wrote, regretting much
+occupation had obliged him to banish himself from her ladyship's circle;
+for the happy indolence which there crept over him, unfitted him for
+other less pleasing occupations, but fixing an hour in which he should
+be too happy to see Lady Dora. Every line of this had been guardedly
+penned; and each word had a signification in that lady's eyes,
+flattering to herself. Lord Randolph had seen him several times, and
+always reported something about the mysteriously veiled picture; she was
+convinced in her own mind, that this was some portrait of herself, and
+she resolved, if practicable, to verify the fact; however, when she
+arrived there with an appearance of calm dignity, accompanied by her
+mother, nothing was to be seen but herself as Diana on the easel, and as
+unfinished as when she had last seen it. This confirmed her impression
+of some strange mystery; and Tremenhere's suffering face, which nothing
+could disguise, made her heart bound high in triumphant pride--it was
+suffering on her account. His manner still further strengthened this
+deep error on her part,--her mother accompanied her, consequently their
+words, beyond mere general ones, were few; still, when she spoke of his
+absenting himself from all society, the significance with which he
+whispered, "Better live with a sad memory, than a vain and dangerous
+reality," lost nothing of the effect he intended it to convey. The real
+truth was, he felt too worn in spirit, even for revenge sake, just then
+to continue his comedy with herself--he had only courage to suffer; but
+his absenting himself was as politic a thing as he could have done; and
+she left the studio with a tremor in her heart, of which she had thought
+herself incapable--one which not a little startled her yet rebelling
+pride, and made her look every hour with deeper gloom, or nervous
+excitement, on the preparations which were progressing for her marriage
+with Lord Randolph, whom she almost hated, and yet had not the courage
+to come to an open rupture with, lest Tremenhere should quite read her
+heart. She was bent upon bringing him to her feet, and then permitting a
+hope to gleam over his doubts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+She was in this mood one day when he called, and found her in a
+tête-à-tête with Lord Randolph. She was dressed _à l'Amazone_, for her
+horse was awaiting its lovely mistress below.
+
+"I have arrived _mal à propos_," he said, after the salutations of
+meeting were over. "I see your ladyship is going out."
+
+"Come with us," asked Lord Randolph, shaking his hand warmly. "A gallop
+will chase away the clouds of study from your brow. Lady Dora, did you
+ever behold so altered a face? Why, man, your studio will be the death
+of you."
+
+"Not _that_," he replied, looking gloomily downwards; then, as suddenly
+raising his head, he seemed to chase away shades and clouds, for the
+face became calm and smiling.
+
+"Will you take me _en croupe_?" he asked, addressing Lord Randolph, in
+answer to his question. "I saw but two horses below--yours and Lady
+Dora's."
+
+"Oh, no! I will send my groom away, if you will mount his. You must
+accompany us."
+
+"Lady Dora says nothing; the lady may have too much excellent taste to
+admire a trio. In my opinion much pleasure is often lost in them, either
+in music or society."
+
+"How so, Mr. Tremenhere?" she asked coldly.
+
+"Why," he answered, laughing,--"there are the soprano, the contralto,
+and the mezzo; this last I have ever looked upon as an almost
+indistinct, useless sort of 'lend-its-aid' to support and show off the
+other two."
+
+"Then I'll play mezzo," cried Lord Randolph good-humouredly, but with
+singular, though unconscious truth; "for I have a bad headache, and you
+two shall sing, and I will listen, occasionally throwing in a note."
+
+"Don't let it be one of discord," cried Tremenhere, in the same tone as
+before. "We must have harmony; if Lady Dora consent to this, I will
+gladly take your groom's horse."
+
+Her eyes said more than her lips, as she replied--"We shall be most
+happy of your company."
+
+"Might I have chosen a character, in which to have handed Lady Dora
+down, by my humble skill, to posterity, I should have selected her
+present one. Lady, I never saw you so perfect as in your Amazonian
+costume; it suits your style far better than Diana even," and Tremenhere
+bent his eyes in well-schooled admiration upon her; still the effort was
+not an immense one, for, as an artist, he could not but have admired her
+perfection of beauty in this dress; then, too, she was grace personified
+in the management of a spirited horse, which seemed as a part of herself
+in pride of beauty.
+
+"Why do you object to Diana?" she inquired, fixing her full gaze upon
+him undauntedly, in all its fire.
+
+"Diana," said Lord Randolph, before the other could reply, "conveys to
+my mind the idea of a lady over fond of being out at night, not a
+loving bride or wife," and he laughed significantly at Lady Dora, who
+turned away towards Tremenhere.
+
+"You have not answered my question," she said.
+
+"Something of Lord Randolph's thought is mine," he replied. "Diana is
+cold, uncheered, uncheering; she sails onward in her dignity and
+splendour, surrounded by satellites, uncaring for them all, beautiful,
+but unloving."
+
+"What do you say to Endymion?" she asked, and her glance crossed his.
+
+"She loved him, and he slept!" was the calm reply.
+
+"That was _his_ fault; 'she could not wake his eye-lids with her kiss,'"
+fell from her lips.
+
+"Because," answered Tremenhere, "it was too queenly, too cold; had Venus
+embraced him, he would have started into waking life and love!" Her eye
+fell beneath his glance.
+
+"The 'Mezzo' must put in a note," said Lord Randolph.
+
+At the word "Mezzo," a gentle, but involuntary laugh escaped from Lady
+Dora. Tremenhere was grave. He despised while he played with this girl;
+and, turning to the other, asked in a tone almost too serious and
+feeling for the occasion, "What is your thought?"
+
+"I think Diana was an arrant, heartless flirt, and certainly deceitful.
+She assumed to herself a character not deserved--a strictly chaste
+goddess would never have come down o' night to embrace a shepherd on a
+hill. I think it is very fortunate he _did_ sleep; had he awakened, he
+would have had a very different opinion of the lady, and have been fully
+justified in nodding significantly when her name was mentioned. I only
+wonder she should have told of herself; for unless she did so--how was
+this midnight visit known?"
+
+"Oh! she perhaps wanted the cleverness which some possess, of keeping
+her own counsel," answered Tremenhere.
+
+"Most probably," hazarded Lady Dora, not liking to keep too painful a
+silence where the subject had become so strangely epigrammatic, "some
+star betrayed her mistress."
+
+"True!" replied Tremenhere, "as in 'Love's Witnesses,'" and he repeated
+in a soft, impressive voice--
+
+    "Love! when we last night, embracing,
+    Sigh'd farewell--who saw us part?
+    Was it night? or sly Aurora?
+    Or the stars? or the moon who heard?"
+
+    "A star shot down and told the ocean--
+    Ocean told a mariner;
+    Then the mariner told his mistress;
+    She--she told it every where!"
+
+"'Gad, that's how Madam Diana's escapade became known, I bet my life!"
+cried Lord Randolph.
+
+She did not reply; she was dreaming over the tone in which "Love! when
+we last night, embracing," had dropped from his lips, and was lost in
+that tone's significance, which sent up the harmony to her eyes, with
+which her softened glance lit on Tremenhere's; and then faded into shade
+beneath her trembling lashes, consumed, Phoenix-like, by its own fire.
+
+"Then Diana was cruel, too," continued Lord Randolph, hunting down the
+huntress. "Unsparing with her darts; the wound from which, like wound of
+hart, never heals!"
+
+"Let her rest," said Lady Dora, fixing a full look of meaning on
+Tremenhere; "those skilled in venery say, there _is_ a balm for wound of
+hart."
+
+"Yes, from the animal which has inflicted it," answered Tremenhere.
+
+"Let us have a canter!" cried Lady Dora, starting off down an avenue of
+the _Bois de Boulogne_, where the sand deadened the sound of their
+flying horses' feet. It was a lovely day, and there were groups of
+equestrians. They had ridden some time, when they met three or four
+gentlemen together. After bowing _en passant_, Lord Randolph suddenly
+stopped--
+
+"That's Gillingham!" he exclaimed; "and riding the very horse he wants
+me to buy. Lady Dora, may I leave you five minutes, _à regret_, however,
+on my own account, under Tremenhere's care. I will rejoin you near the
+pond."
+
+She merely bowed.
+
+"Beware of the '_Mare au Diable_!'" cried Tremenhere to him, as he
+cantered off. "Have you read George Sand's tale of that name?" asked he
+of Lady Dora.
+
+"No; that is, I am not certain of having done so--what is the plot?"
+
+"Oh! one full of intense interest; simply told, and of simple persons.
+It may not interest you."
+
+"I like simplicity," she replied.
+
+"Do you? I am glad to hear that. True feeling is _always_ simple, meek,
+and confiding."
+
+"But the tale?" she asked, to change his tone. She wanted time to
+prepare herself for a _tête-à-tête_. She began to fear her own sudden
+impulses.
+
+"Well," he said, "the plot is told in a few words; 'tis the working out
+of various feelings which is so perfect:--A man loves a girl whom he
+should not love----
+
+"Why?" and she stilled her heart, and looked calmly at him.
+
+"Because _he_ was rich, and _she_ only a poor, simple, peasant girl.
+Could I _reverse_ the case, I might find tongue to speak more eloquently
+on the subject; as it is, I can only tell your ladyship facts."
+
+"And what were these facts?"
+
+"They journeyed together, on horseback--_not_ as _we_ are doing, but in
+more primitive style, she on a pillion behind him. _He was a young
+widower_"--(these words were each distinctly articulated)--"and his boy
+rode before him, on his knee: 'tis a pretty scene! Night, however, comes
+on, and they lose their way, and at last find themselves beside the
+_'Mare au Diable_,' noted as fatal to all approaching it; and beside
+this they pass the night."
+
+"And?" she asked, deeply interested.
+
+"The place _was_ fatal; for Love was the spirit there. Probably," he
+added, laughing, "as _Le Diable_ is often said to '_émporte l'amour_,'
+he might have brought him to that spot. Certain it is, there he was, and
+he prompted two, to know their own hearts who had never known them
+before."
+
+"I am all impatience for the conclusion."
+
+"I am a bad story-teller; besides, the case is so _completely_ against
+_my_ position, that I cannot fully, soulfully, enter into it; however, I
+will satisfy your ladyship's impatience. Hearts _will_ speak at
+last--theirs did; and he, for her sake, relinquished a rich marriage,
+station, all--and married the simple girl."
+
+"And was happy?"
+
+"Blest--so the tale has it; and never looked back to the '_Mare au
+Diable_' without a feeling of gratitude. Here we are at the pond, Lady
+Dora. I wonder where Lord Randolph is!"
+
+"I cannot think love so hastily created," she said, not attending to his
+other words; "'tis of slower growth."
+
+"_Growth!_ yes; but I tried to give you the author's idea. They,
+unacknowledged, loved one another a long time, and a word opened their
+eyes to the truth."
+
+"There are few who make sacrifices for love," she replied, "and such,
+when made, are seldom appreciated."
+
+"Pardon me, we differ. When _truly_ made, from sincere affection, we bow
+down in almost adoration of the giver--'tis so sweet to give! The heart
+feels so light when it has yielded all its store; buoyant and
+healthful, it only grieves at its own poverty and ungathering powers;
+for it would fain, like a bee, renew the sweet store, to carry all home
+to one hive."
+
+"How may we know such a gift would be prized?"
+
+"By reading in a never closed page, by the eyes writ; but some do not
+love making sacrifices,--they cost dear."
+
+She felt, if this subject were continued in this strain, her courage
+would fail her. "Not yet!" she thought; "he shall suffer for all I felt
+the day he quitted me so abruptly."
+
+"Sacrifices are foolish things," she said aloud; "good for boys and
+girls--men do not value them; they are like water poured on the ground."
+
+"Which brings forth flowers," he added; "but I quite agree with you,
+they _are_ foolish; but then the mere human heart cannot boast of
+unerring wisdom. How stupid it is," he said, changing his tone, "to be
+walking round this _mare_! This is no god or _diable_ there; let us
+pursue that avenue before us; we will return hither. Now," he continued,
+when they were side by side in a quiet alley, "tell me _how_ one may
+school the heart not to offer itself up in sacrifice?"
+
+"There is no such thing as an appreciated sacrifice," she said proudly,
+"for a woman; to offer one, there must be a not desecrated altar--man's
+heart never _could_ be such; they are all deceitful, and profaned--on
+the like, I should trample as on a reptile!"
+
+"It might turn, and leave an unerring sting."
+
+"How? I do not understand you!"
+
+"In bruising a weed, we may trample on a flower; and our own heart never
+arise to vigour or life again." As he spoke, he leaned almost over her
+saddle-bow, and looked in her face.
+
+"I do not fear that, but we were speaking of the thing we _dare_ not
+love. Such a love I would look upon, in all its phases, till my eye grew
+tired, and my heart sunk to rest."
+
+"What constitutes that which we _dare_ not love?"
+
+"The thing we should sacrifice too much in loving, and, so doing, lose
+our own weight in the balance, and--"
+
+"And," he interrupted, "be slighted by the person we _fear_ to love, not
+being certain of gaining love for love, and gratitude, everlasting
+gratitude, for the word which raised us from despair to generous hope!"
+
+Her hand trembled on the bridle-rein, his eyes were fixed upon her
+downcast lid, and her lip was quivering with its effort not to speak. At
+that moment a close carriage passed them, in which was an invalid, a
+lady, and child. It was going very slowly--the invalid was Minnie, the
+child and woman, little Miles and Mary. This latter endeavoured to veil
+the vision before them by leaning across, but Minnie had seen all; his
+look, air, their closely-drawn figures, and grasping Mary's hand she
+became pale as death. Mary had been urging, and she had almost consented
+to Skaife's telling Tremenhere that she lived!
+
+"Oh, I have done well to refuse!" she cried. "Mere sufferance from him
+would kill me! Oh, would that I were dead!--would that he were free!
+Then he might marry her! Poor Miles--poor Miles, he never will be
+happy! Were I gone, her proud heart would not perhaps reject him at
+last; I know her well, and how difficult his task must be; is he not
+deserving all pity? He _thought_ he loved me, to awaken and know another
+held his heart in bondage! He loves her well! no wonder he looks so sad
+and ill: poor Miles!" and the generous heart bled more for him than for
+its own breaking sorrow!
+
+A few moments afterwards, Lady Dora and her two attendant suitors passed
+the quiet carriage in a hand-canter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Days passed after the events related in the last chapter, and Tremenhere
+did not make his appearance in Lady Ripley's apartments, at l'Hotel
+Mirabeau; to a person of Lady Dora's despotic temper, his conduct was
+maddening. He never lost an opportunity of uttering words leading her to
+believe his affections entangled beyond remedy; no one could look at him
+without seeing that he suffered keenly from some mental cause, and
+something of recent occurrence; therefore, it was not Minnie's loss--but
+this she would not permit herself to think for a moment--no, 'twas
+herself; consequently his manner of acting was the more inexplicable. He
+never sought her, but when they met; he seemed unable to controul his
+feelings, his avowal of love; but this was not all she would have. She
+would have him throw himself, a slave enchained before her, beseeching
+her love, to loosen his bonds, or rivet them for ever. In her impatient
+rage she hated all, even Lord Randolph at last, for the very friendship
+he had for Tremenhere. It was this, she thought, which, acting on an
+overstrained (to her) idea of honour, prevented his admitting all, and
+claiming a return. Her every thought became bitterness. Nothing is
+nearer love than hate; they are two extremes a child's tiny hand might
+unite. Thus, then, she fostered in absence a bitter hatred towards
+Tremenhere, which melted like a waxen flower in the sun when he
+approached, and became quite as impressionable, capable of any feeling
+he might stamp there in its place. In her rage she looked around for
+some one wherewith to wound him, and the thought after appeared in the
+person of Marmaduke Burton, who returned to Paris from a long tour in
+Italy and elsewhere. Coward-like, he had fled at first, then, not
+finding himself pursued, he stopped, and, looking around, thought he had
+deserted the field too soon.
+
+It was at a ball Lady Dora met him, nearly a week after the events of
+the past chapter. He stood for a moment uncertain how to act. She knew
+Tremenhere was there; they had just spoken, and he had passed on. In an
+instant she saw her advantage--for so she deemed it; and, holding out a
+hand, cordially welcomed Burton's return amongst them. Her mother, among
+others, had almost dropped the acquaintance, in consequence of the
+coward slur attached to his name; but so completely was Lady Dora
+mistress of all around her, that her mother, though still doubting the
+policy of it, remembering how decidedly Lord Randolph had cut him, was
+fain to receive him politely when Lady Dora came up, leaning on his arm.
+
+"I will bend him now!" she thought, as she reflected upon the only one
+occupying her mind. As she moved through the rooms, she met Lord
+Randolph, who was seeking her.
+
+He started: Marmaduke looked embarrassed, and then attempted to smile;
+but the other was one of those to whom wealth was as dross, compared
+with honour. All the weaker parts of his character were sinking to the
+bottom, and the more sterling ones rising to the surface. Possibly it
+was from constant association with so noble a mind as Tremenhere's--and
+Lady Lysson's, too. Be it as it may, the struggling artist was more to
+him than the wealthy but dishonourable Burton. Without glancing at him,
+he held out an arm to Lady Dora, saying--
+
+"Will you take my arm? I have been seeking you; Lady Lysson is anxious
+to speak to you."
+
+"Thank you," she replied with _hauteur_; "but you must see I am
+otherwise engaged--I am going to dance with Mr. Burton. Allow me to
+recall to your memory, an old friend."
+
+Lord Randolph took not the slightest notice. This cool reprehension of
+her conduct, the unworthy motive of which she was thus doubly made to
+feel, drove her frantic, and she turned aside with a--
+
+"Come, Mr. Burton--we shall be late for this _deux temps_!"
+
+Lord Randolph moved another way, and looked anxiously about him. He soon
+perceived the object of his search, as Tremenhere's tall figure rose
+before him.
+
+"Come along, Tremenhere," he said, familiarly linking his arm in his--"I
+want to show you somebody."
+
+"Any one I know?" asked the other unsuspectingly.
+
+"A very pretty girl," replied Lord Randolph.
+
+"Indeed! But where is Lady Dora?"
+
+"Lady Dora?--oh, there!" And he pointed her out, where she stood with
+Burton. A thrill passed through Tremenhere's frame, and the other felt
+it: the former felt all the delicacy and thought which had made Lord
+Randolph take him thus boldly by the arm, to publish his feelings
+towards him to his cousin; and also leading him, as a jockey takes his
+horse up and shows him what he has to overleap, lest he should shy at
+the difficulties suddenly placed before him.
+
+"Gray!" exclaimed he--using a term hitherto never uttered in his proud
+humility--"you are a good, generous, noble fellow; I thank you!" And he
+grasped his hand.
+
+These few words were volumes from him, and the other felt them so. As
+they moved on, not another word passed on the subject, and shortly
+afterwards the two met Lady Dora and Burton; and Tremenhere's
+countenance was free and unclouded, as he stopped and reminded her of a
+prior engagement for the following dance. Burton looked cowed and
+uneasy: her rage almost broke through the bounds of politeness, for in
+her heart she despised Burton, and now doubly so when her revenge had
+failed, and she saw herself abased in the abasement of her _protegé_.
+She was almost rude in speech as she acknowledged the engagement, and
+appointed where he might find her, this _valse_ concluded.
+
+And during these heavy hours poor Minnie sat at home in her sorrow. She
+had refused to leave the house since the day she met Lady Dora and
+Tremenhere; nothing could persuade her but that he loved her cousin: he
+might regret _her_ sad fate, but he loved Dora. She urged Skaife to give
+him the proof of his mother's fame--of his own legitimacy; but Skaife
+had resolved that she alone should lay this treasure, in reconciliation,
+at her husband's feet. Moreover, Skaife was a man of the world, and
+though he knew Tremenhere _now_ loved only Minnie, he had justly read
+her cousin and Lady Ripley; and he knew man as he too generally is,
+easily led by his vanity and a woman's love, even against his better
+reason and judgment. He saw Lady Dora loved Tremenhere, and felt assured
+only the "poor artist" stood between her love and pride. Once master of
+the manor-house he would answer for nothing, and like a wise man,
+resolved to spare him the temptation, and Minnie the pain, of seeing a
+fruitless effort to forget her, in an impossible marriage.
+
+We left Lady Dora dancing with Marmaduke Burton; she did so, but it was
+spiritless. She had played a game unpleasing to herself, and the success
+had not been all she hoped for. Tremenhere seemed perfectly indifferent;
+and when she rejoined Lady Lysson, a freezing manner towards herself,
+and complete ignorance of Marmaduke Burton's existence, were the things
+which they met, as she approached, leaning on his arm. To make her still
+more uncomfortable, she saw Tremenhere and Lord Randolph, as she passed
+through an inner saloon, laughing and talking with several ladies in the
+most unconcerned manner possible. At last the dance was proclaimed for
+which she was engaged to the former. Had she been behind him and his
+friend, as they stood unobserved by her in a doorway, watching her, she
+would not have felt perfectly comfortable. Lord Randolph's face was
+severe, but in nowise sad, as he said to the other--
+
+"Tremenhere, that woman does not love me--better said, she rather
+dislikes me. Look at her now. What she has done this night, has opened
+my eyes to a fact some time suspected, that another motive than even
+indifferent liking has induced her to accept me. She has some hidden
+thought, or hidden affection in her heart, and she is struggling with
+it, for whom I know not; but to me she is indifferent."
+
+"Perhaps you judge hastily," answered Tremenhere. "She has her oddity of
+temper, doubtless, like all women. Let time, he is my greatest ally,
+decide every thing; he has means of bringing hidden thought to light, of
+which our puny imaginings can form no idea. I must leave you; I am
+engaged this _Schottische_ to her ladyship," and, loosening his arm, he
+crossed over to where she stood with Burton. "May I claim my promised
+_Schottische_?" he asked, offering an arm.
+
+It was an immense relief for her to leave Burton. She felt many had
+looked coldly upon her that night. A man is not publicly branded
+slanderer and coward without the titles clinging to him, more especially
+among an English set, acquainted with most of the persons implicated in
+the affair. She expected, made up her mind to a few bitter words, or
+implied doubts of her motives in having chosen Burton for her cavalier;
+but though Tremenhere read her perfectly, he was a sealed book to her,
+without an effort, or any thing to make her say, "He is playing a part."
+He was perfectly unembarrassed in his manner--attentive, without being
+gallant--gentle, without any thing overstrained--full of that quiet,
+unostentatious wit which charms so much. She had never seen him to more
+advantage; and every moment she felt his superiority over her own narrow
+thoughts and mind; and she felt disgusted with the part she had been
+playing. A word would have made her express all her overtaxed feelings
+to him, but he gave her no opportunity; she was as an agreeable partner
+and stranger to him--nothing more. The dance was over; he evinced no
+desire to leave her, no particular wish to retain her near him; he was
+the impersonation of a thoroughly idle, indifferent man. As they passed
+near Lady Lysson, a fan gently touched his arm.
+
+"Amidst more youthful engagements, don't forget you are engaged to me
+for a _contredanse_," she said. "When a man solicits a thing, I hold it
+as a point of conscience to make him accomplish it; you have urged me to
+this folly--I wish to fulfil my kismet."
+
+"I have _not_ forgotten it, Lady Lysson; I am counting the moments by my
+stop-watch."
+
+Lady Dora would have given worlds to hear him speak to her in such a
+tone. There was a total change in the intonation when he addressed Lady
+Lysson. From one to the other it seemed to say, "I know you, and you
+know me; there exists a freemasonry between us."
+
+And when she stood in the same quadrille with Lord Randolph as partner,
+she felt it still more keenly. There was a freedom between Tremenhere
+and Lady Lysson to which she never had attained, though related to
+him--it was the familiarity of kindred spirits.
+
+She and her mother quitted early. There was a reception at the embassy
+this same evening, to which they were going. Before doing so, however,
+they returned home, as it was close at hand, and Lady Dora entered her
+room to re-arrange her dress, nominally; but, in fact, to collect her
+shattered nerves by a few moments quiet. Accordingly, dismissing her
+maid, she sat alone. There was a large mirror opposite the chair where
+she sat. After surveying herself some time in the distance, she rose,
+and pacing the room with her proud, queenly air, stood before it,
+glowing in beauty. Never mirror gave back any thing more richly
+beautiful than her face; her eyes of dazzling fire--eyes to make a man
+bow down in wonder before their power--and then the long heavy ringlet
+of dark chestnut falling across the heaving bosom, to the waist. She
+surveyed her beauty, not in petty vanity, but in wonder herself, that so
+perfect a work of nature had not awed that man to love her, and confess
+his love--how could he resist her? and loving her, as assuredly he
+_did_. With this thought a grim doubt arose, like a breath passing over
+that mirror, to shade her beauty--almost unconsciously she dropped on a
+seat opposite the glass, which her eyes never quitted; and, as if
+involuntarily, her hands unclasped the massive bracelets one by one, and
+laid them on a table beside her. Her maid had placed a bouquet of rich
+damask roses, looped round the stem with a string of gems, on the side
+of her beautiful head; for she was not simple in her dress, as Minnie--a
+more gorgeous style suited her best. Her fingers, though unused to tasks
+like these, unfastened them, and they dropped from her hand on the
+floor--all, save the rich dress of antique _moire_, lay around her; and
+then the girl, unladen by gems, unadorned but by nature, dispirited,
+broken-hearted, at that nature's bidding covered her face with her
+hands, and wept bitterly; she _felt_ he could not love her,--to have
+been so calm beneath her bitter insult in choosing his cousin's society,
+she felt how much, how madly she loved him; and the proud Lady Dora
+sobbed in her bitterness. "An artist's wife! the wife of a nameless,
+illegitimate man! I would be any thing he might become, if he but loved
+me! But he does!" she cried with sudden energy; "he must! His every word
+betokened it at once; this one fatal night cannot have made him hate me!
+He does, and I will prove him! Less would be madness, a longer suspense,
+the working of that hollow pride which has made me what I am!" When her
+maid tapped to say, "Lady Ripley was waiting!" she found Lady Dora pale,
+and with the tears still on her cheek, incapable of aught but an essay
+at rest on her feverish couch. Her mother was not unused of late to her
+whims, though she never had carried them to so much excess. It was her
+own fault. Had she trained this fair plant otherwise, it would have
+reared itself in cultured beauty towards heaven; as it was rotten at the
+root, it would either decay from its own want of power, or trail
+worthless on the ground, only fit to be torn from its parent earth as a
+weed--nothing more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+Nothing could adequately pourtray to our readers the unhappy state of
+all at Gatestone. Juvenal had sunk into a querulous old man; Sylvia's
+bile had spread itself over all: she silenced any qualms of conscience
+she might otherwise have felt, by keeping every one as uncomfortable as
+possible. If she beheld the faintest gleam of forgetfulness passing
+across the horizon, she immediately drew down the blinds of despair, and
+threw every one into darkness again, and sorrow; they could not even for
+a moment lose sight of their loss. If the wind whistled she gave a
+shiver, and talked of storms at sea, and drowning persons; if the
+railway whistle, borne on the air for miles, came faintly over
+Gatestone, she put her handkerchief to a dry eye, and _snivelled_ over
+the recollection thus suddenly recalled to her aching memory, of Gretna
+Green and its consequences. She was an inexhaustible fund of woe; for
+when Juvenal had been lured by the kind-hearted Dorcas into some other
+train of thought, Sylvia would suddenly remind them that this was the
+anniversary of a day in which Minnie had said, done, worn, or completed
+something, and consequently she had the house in as miserable a state
+as she could desire; all crept about from pantry to garret in listen
+shoes, that they might not break in on the general woe; this was another
+happy invention of Sylvia's, which made the large house as silent as if
+death were abiding there. Dorcas was lost, indeed, when Mr. Skaife left
+his curacy for Paris; for, without naming Minnie often, they consoled
+one another by gentle words, and works of charity accomplished together.
+Now Dorcas was fain to betake herself principally to her own room; for
+her means of consoling Juvenal were hourly more severed from her grasp.
+He became perfectly disconsolate, and rocked to and fro, like one
+bordering on idiotcy. Of Marmaduke Burton's return he never would listen
+to; he never should enter _his_ house, for his guidance had led him to
+oppress Minnie, and drive her to desperation. Mrs. Gillett's woe was
+beyond even the others; for she carried it even into sleep--she was
+constantly dreaming some dreadful dream. Either she saw Minnie a corpse
+or in bridal gear; both were bad--the first proved her spirit was
+unquiet--the second, an unerring sign of death. Now, as Minnie _was_
+dead, she couldn't die again; consequently, it must be the death of some
+one at Gatestone--but whose? And she would seek the sympathizing Sylvia,
+and break into loud prognostications of evil.
+
+"Oh, my dear master! my dear master!" she would cry, wringing her hands;
+"I know he's going, and then we shall all have to go, and leave the old
+place; whereas, if any of you had married, and had a boy, or Miss
+Minnie either, we might have remained; but her boy went along with her,
+and I often see a beautiful baby in my sleep, all covered with long
+hair, like Miss Minnie, sitting on a rock, wringing out the sea-water."
+
+Her description of Minnie was not very correct, but she didn't exactly
+and literally mean what she said. Poor Gillett certainly looked older by
+many years; and in proof of how much her memory was affected, she had
+been seen more than once sitting on the stile in the holly field,
+without her pattens. The manor-house was desolate--only servants
+inhabited it; Farmer Weld plodded over his fields in gloom, for now he
+lost all hope of ever seeing good Madam Tremenhere's son back again.
+
+Skaife had been so solemnly bound down not to betray Minnie's actual
+existence, that he durst not do so; besides he felt assured that an
+eventual day of brightness would shine over all, by Tremenhere's and
+Minnie's reconciliation. He wisely felt that this was too serious an
+act, after the fatal suspicions on his part, to be risked in its full
+and perfect self-accomplishment by any interference of friends; when
+both hearts should be firmly convinced of each other's worth, then they
+might be safely brought together. But when he told Minnie all the bitter
+grief her beloved aunt Dorcas felt, her gentle heart consented to a hope
+which might be held out to alleviate her pain; and this was in the
+accomplishment of a desire, she had so often expressed, that Minnie's
+boy even, had been saved.
+
+"Oh!" she often said to Skaife, "I could with time have become
+reconciled to all. If only I had held her child in my arms, it would
+have recalled her to me in all her childish love and kindness, but even
+this is denied me!"
+
+Skaife accordingly wrote to her, requesting that secresy which he knew
+would be faithfully kept; and stating that through Mary Burns he had
+strong hope of one day placing her Minnie's boy in her arms, as he had
+reason to believe he had been saved from the wreck!
+
+Minnie would indeed have rejoiced had she seen her aunt's joy; next to
+seeing herself once more, this was the dearest blessing she could have
+received. "Minnie's boy!" and as she sat, and hoped and prayed for his
+coming, the step grew lighter, the eye less dim--even Sylvia's bolts
+fell more harmlessly around her; and at last this amiable one had the
+cruelty to accuse her of want of feeling, and "unnatural mirth," because
+she once saw the ghost of a smile pass over her lip; but not all her
+indignation could make poor Dorcas hopeless; she felt Skaife would not
+lightly buoy her up with hopes, to destroy them.
+
+Skaife had indeed a difficult task in hand; he himself feared hurrying
+events between Tremenhere and Minnie. He dreaded many things; he
+trembled lest he should become captivated by Lady Dora; and then her
+flirtation with his cousin Burton, the motive of which Skaife plainly
+perceived, alarmed him--this, through revenge, might lead to infatuation
+on Miles's part, and how _then_ ever pursuade Minnie that really he only
+loved herself? and all her future happiness and contentment with him,
+depended on her strong conviction on this point. He might easily have
+effected a meeting, a most joyful one, and reconciliation; but he felt
+that it must be even more than the first confidence of love--it must be
+one which had been tried in the fire, proved and purified--and how
+accomplish this? Her meeting him and Lady Dora in the Bois de Boulogne,
+had thrown so heavy a doubt over her heart.
+
+One only thing he could imagine, and this was privately to bring her to
+the studio, and let her own ears hear Miles's words--something must be
+done, and done quickly.
+
+Some days had passed, and Tremenhere made no effort to see Lady Dora in
+private; true he called there; it was urged upon him by Lord Randolph
+and Lady Lysson, who most nobly spoke to him on the subject, without
+knowing the relationship between them, only knowing of that between
+Burton and himself.
+
+"Lady Dora is capricious, like most beauties," she said, "my dear Mr.
+Tremenhere, and, for some extraordinary reason, chooses to receive Mr.
+Burton's visits contrary to my advice; it will not therefore do, for
+your own dignity sake, for you to absent yourself from their circle; my
+doors are open to you at all times; we are only too happy when we can
+secure you within them; and I strongly advise your visiting Lady Ripley,
+even more frequently than usual." He could but press the little soft
+hand held out to him in gratitude to his lips.
+
+Lady Ripley and her daughter had, however, another motive besides
+pleasure or pique in seeking Marmaduke Burton. They feared him, dreading
+what he might utter about Tremenhere's wife, as a relative of theirs.
+By policy, and seeming kindness towards him, they bound him to silence;
+for he read their hearts, and never alluded to the unpleasant subject.
+It mattered little to him _how_ he secured their support, that he had
+it, and as he believed, thus galled Tremenhere, was sufficient. Lady
+Dora would gladly have cut Burton after the ball where they had met; but
+crooked policy costs full many a bitter pang, spared to straightforward
+candour: in concealing their relationship to Tremenhere's wife--they
+took from her memory that, which might have shielded it from many a
+cloud.
+
+Lady Dora met Tremenhere. Her heart was now beyond her own controul, had
+he spoken; but he was attentive, courteous--nothing more by word or
+look. He had resolved now to let another open Lord Randolph's eyes, for
+this had been a part of his motive lately; and he saw those eyes _were_
+extending their power of vision through his cousin, so he left all in
+other hands. This maddened her. A man may not _speak_ his love for many
+reasons; but he cannot but _look_ it, if he love; it is the soul which
+finds tongue through the eyes. If we might govern or quite controul
+this, what perfect creatures we should be, _with good intentions_.
+
+Skaife had obtained permission from Miles to visit his studio whenever
+he pleased, even during his absence, as the latter had a well-chosen
+library, in which Skaife delighted. He had asked leave so to do, for a
+half-formed plan in his mind.
+
+One day he brought this to perfection, as far as he could foresee.
+Tremenhere was going to pass some early hours in the morning at the
+Louvre. At two o'clock Lady Dora had requested a sitting, and so
+arranged it that Lord Randolph should accompany her to Tremenhere's, and
+leave her there for awhile, as he too had an engagement. Lady Dora was
+independent in all she did, and this day was resolved finally to know if
+she were beloved or not by Tremenhere. Skaife knew all the latter's
+appointments, and hours of them. He had made himself master of these
+facts, and, in accordance with his plan, deemed it better Lady Dora
+should come in almost immediately after the meeting and re-union of the
+husband and wife, that no proof further need be wanting to convince her
+of their mutual love; he dreaded this cold-hearted girl.
+
+All this was very nicely planned; but it had to be as well accomplished.
+It occupied him and Mary Burns for days, in preparing poor Minnie for
+her visit to Tremenhere's rooms, and when the day arrived her limbs
+almost refused to support her. With much difficulty he reached her
+husband's abode with her, and, leaving her in a fiacre, entered the
+_loge de concièrge_, and inquired whether Tremenhere was within, as a
+precautionary measure. The man answered in the negative, and handed him
+the key of the apartment, saying--
+
+"Perhaps, monsieur would like to walk up?"
+
+The next thing to be done was easy of accomplishment. This man, of that
+most corruptible class, was open to a little quiet bribery, "Not to
+tell Monsieur Tremenhere that a lady was in his rooms, as he (Skaife)
+wished to surprise him."
+
+"_Allez!_ monsieur," answered the man, "I see nothing."
+
+And Skaife and Minnie passed in. How her heart and limbs trembled when
+she entered those rooms where he had so lately been! where he sat and
+talked, thought of, and _perhaps_ so deeply regretted her! She stood in
+the centre of that studio, and turned round and round, and her pale face
+and figure, which moved so mechanically, as if afraid of a natural
+undulation, made her seem like a statue. Skaife had arranged all in his
+mind before bringing her, and in the space behind the bed in the alcove
+he concealed her. This room adjoined the studio by one door, and by an
+opposite from this latter you entered the saloon.
+
+Skaife's idea had been, immediately on Tremenhere's entrance to lead him
+to speak of Minnie, and she, by creeping from her place of concealment,
+would be enabled to listen to all--he reserving to himself the task of
+keeping Miles at his easel, and thus preventing him from entering his
+bedroom, without giving her sufficient time to conceal herself. All this
+was admirably arranged; but in such plans there is always the
+presumption that nothing untoward will occur to mar their perfect
+completion. Miles entered at one o'clock, as appointed, and after
+wandering through his apartment, passing close to the half lifeless
+Minnie, he threw off his coat, and put on the artistic jacket of
+scarlet, in which he was in the habit of painting. Minnie through the
+curtains watched all this, and saw him stand in deep thought a moment,
+then, passing a weary hand over a wearier brow, he entered his studio,
+where Skaife stood very pale. He durst not follow him to his bedroom--it
+would have looked extraordinary his doing so; and so he stood, almost
+retaining his breath, expecting every moment to hear Minnie shriek forth
+the other's name--but all passed quietly, and Miles came out, and sat
+down to touch up Lady Dora's portrait before her arrival. The saloon, we
+have said, was on the opposite side to the bedroom, and facing
+Tremenhere's easel; from the saloon you passed into an antechamber, and
+thence out of the apartment. Skaife had calculated upon having the
+catastrophe over before Lady Dora's arrival, who would come in, and
+share the surprise, with Lord Randolph, of finding the long lost wife in
+her husband's fond arms. He knew that if Tremenhere could be led to
+speak of her again, as he had done to him, Minnie would no longer doubt
+the joy her coming would afford him, and at once rush forth. So it might
+most probably have been all smooth and fair sailing; but they were
+doomed to meet with some rocks yet, and one of these was the entrance,
+before the hour appointed, of Lady Dora and Lord Randolph Gray! Skaife,
+though a most patient man, would assuredly have sworn, but for the
+colour of his cloth--as it was, he stamped, and coloured violently.
+
+"Trem.," said Lord Randolph, using the abbreviation by which he
+frequently addressed his friend, "I've brought Lady Dora before the
+hour, because I have a particular engagement, and must leave her in
+your care for half an hour."
+
+Be it said, Lady Ripley imagined Lord Randolph was going to remain the
+whole time during her sitting, else her ideas of propriety, most justly,
+would have forbidden allowing her to stop alone in a painter's studio.
+Lord Randolph had no thought of harm of his friend, when Lady Dora
+said,--
+
+"I am most anxious to get my sittings over for this Diana; so don't tell
+mamma you are going to leave me there alone, or she will not allow me to
+go."
+
+English mothers, perhaps too freely, permit their daughters to walk out
+_only_ accompanied by their intended husbands! French ones say, "The
+marriage may never take place; 'tis better to avoid bringing a girl's
+name in question."
+
+Lord Randolph looked at "Diana," and at the fair original, and departed
+fearless and confiding. Lady Dora trembled with annoyance. Every moment
+was an hour. She was resolved to have an explanation; and how accomplish
+this with Skaife present? However, there was a fate to turn all to its
+will. This latter felt choking with impatience. He could not remain
+there all the period of the sitting, for nothing could be done until
+Lady Dora left. So he rose, and entering the bedroom, approached the
+alcove, where he had placed a chair for Minnie to rest upon; in a low
+whisper he told her the state of the case, and bade her be patient--all
+would go well. Be it remembered that, whatever his suspicions of the
+state of Lady Dora's heart, he had no proof, he knew nothing of the
+scarcely ambiguous conversations which took place between them, whenever
+they met. To collect his thoughts, he deemed it best to go out for a
+walk; consequently he went, to Lady Dora's great joy, and, pulling the
+outer door after him, _thought_ he closed it, but he did not--it
+remained ajar.
+
+Lady Dora sat some moments listening, then her impatience began to
+manifest itself by a movement of the foot. Tremenhere's calmness and
+cheerful ease drove her mad.
+
+"Mr. Tremenhere," she said at last, "were you not surprised to see me
+dancing with your----with Mr. Burton, the other evening?"
+
+"Who--I, Lady Dora?" he asked in extreme surprise, but most placidly;
+"not in the least--why should I be?"
+
+"Because--because, it was strange my doing so."
+
+"Strange! Lady Dora--you use a wrong term, I think; there is nothing
+strange in a natural action. Mr. Burton, to do him justice, is tall,
+gentlemanly in appearance, can converse on general topics most agreeable
+to ladies, dances very well--and what more does a lady require?"
+
+"True--for all this you speak freely and truthfully; but you forget the
+character of the man--you forget----"
+
+"And pray, my dear Lady Dora, what _has_ character to do with a
+schottische or a polka? Even if a man be a slanderer, a liar, (pardon me
+the harsh, but truthful word,) and coward, the two first will not
+prevent his paying just compliments to your beauty, nor the last make
+him fail in keeping the time of a _deux temps_, though it _might_ that
+of a hostile meeting, to answer for the two first."
+
+"You are bitter, Mr. Tremenhere."
+
+"Bitter! and towards him?" and he laughed. "No; pardon me, I feel too
+thorough a contempt for the man to waste bitterness upon him; I reserve
+that for those who may yet be saved by a little wholesome bark, or
+quinine, medicinally speaking."
+
+"Expend it then on me. You _must_ despise, or condemn me; you cannot
+approve."
+
+"I do not judge you, Lady Dora; I do but try to hand down to posterity
+those perfect features of yours, and you sadly distort them," and he
+laid down his palette. "You are grieved, vexed; has any thing annoyed
+you? Can I serve you? Pray, command me!"
+
+Minnie had crept from behind the bed. An irresistible impulse impelled
+her to do so when she found herself alone, and knew Lady Dora to be
+unaccompanied by any one, with Tremenhere. And pale, almost lifeless,
+she leaned against the door, and--oh! most scrupulous reader, forgive
+the fault!--listened.
+
+"Mr. Tremenhere!" Lady Dora cried, rising hastily in reply to his
+question, and standing pale, erect, but trembling; "I would ask
+you,--I--I am in a position of much suffering." She clasped her hands
+together as if to still her nervous pain. "I would ask you," she
+uttered, "whether your memory is perfect?"
+
+"In all things, Lady Dora," was the calm reply.
+
+"Do you remember when first we met in Florence?"
+
+"Well--well. I was then a man, comparatively speaking, full of hope;
+now----"
+
+"And you loved _then_. You (better said) loved me, and I treated your
+half-avowed affection with scorn; that was pride!" She spoke in hurried
+confusion.
+
+"True--most true!" he uttered.
+
+"You quitted, believing me a cold, heartless flirt. You met, and married
+my cousin; was this love, or--pique?"
+
+"I cannot answer, lady, till I know why you ask."
+
+"Since her death" (the words fell in cold awe from her lips) "we have
+met often, and on each occasion words of implied tenderness fell from
+your tongue."
+
+Neither heard the almost groan from the sinking woman, leaning against
+the half-closed door to the bedroom.
+
+"All these I was deaf to, and I accepted Lord Randolph as my future
+husband. This, too, was pride."
+
+Tremenhere stood looking earnestly at her, as one of her hands nervously
+played on the back of a chair; but he did not utter a word, though the
+deep, speaking eye was fixed upon her.
+
+"Man!" she cried at last, stamping her foot with energy; "do you not see
+how I suffer? Pride--woman's delicacy--all are forgotten. Tremenhere, I
+love you! For this love I accepted your cousin's attention, hateful as
+he was to me, to urge you to say the last words; for all but those have
+been said between us. Tremenhere, for mercy's sake," she cried
+impetuously, "do not stand looking on me thus; but say those words at
+last!"
+
+"Lady Dora," he said, as a deep sigh of heartfelt joy struggled upwards,
+but his tone was calm and low, and he approached and clasped her hand,
+"_now_ I will answer you. When we met in Florence I could have loved
+you; I thought I did, till I measured the error afterwards by the
+intensity of my love for Minnie. When I brought her, a child almost, to
+my artist's home, who came and upheld that child? who came, and by her
+presence gave countenance to our love? Did you--did any? True, after a
+while, a few tardy visits were paid! But when I, fiendlike, drove her by
+my passions to become a wanderer--who sought her out to cheer and
+uphold? I blamed you less even then than now; for now you have shewn me
+how despotic your will can be, when it pleases you to be so! Love you!"
+he cried, striding across the room and dragging back the curtain before
+the statue of his wife--"love you, Lady Dora! the cold, heartless woman
+of the world; with this too looked upon--the marble dream of my adored,
+my murdered Minnie! Oh no, no!" he added, almost weeping. "By the long,
+long nights I watched, creating this memory--by her purity, which I now
+know too late--I scorn you, Lady Dora; and, unmanly as it may seem, have
+trifled with your semblance of heart, your vanity in short, to open the
+eyes of a worthy man, too worthy for you--Lord Randolph."
+
+She had stood transfixed by horror, crushed in her pride, and bending
+to earth. As he spoke the last words, a heavy fall in the bedroom
+resounded in their ears. She turned hastily, and in terror gazing at the
+door, through which he passed in haste. Not a thought of the truth burst
+upon him as he raised the closely enveloped and veiled figure, fainting
+on the ground. Placing her on a couch, he hurriedly tore off the bonnet
+to give her air; as he did so, the long fair hair rolled heavily to the
+ground, which it swept. He uttered a cry; it was one of pain and
+fear--for one hurried moment something supernatural crept through his
+blood and stilled it--then drawing near the couch, as if a spirit lay
+there, he gently lifted back the fallen hair, and gliding on one knee,
+gazed with distended eyes on the pale, unconscious face, then, placing
+his lips near hers, he held his own breath to feel if she breathed. A
+gentle sigh came over his cheek--with that sigh the truth rushed almost
+in maddening power over his mind. One loud cry came from his soul; and
+clasping her in his arms he strained her to his breast, and wild,
+hysteric sobs burst from his lips, but the eyes were burning and
+tearless.
+
+"Minnie--Minnie!" he sobbed; "speak to me--my wife--my Minnie, speak to
+me!"
+
+But though the blue eyes opened, and tried to comprehend all, they were
+haggard and without speculation. By degrees memory returned; and the
+first look of terror passing, the languid arms raised above the head on
+her bosom, and grew in a circle round his neck, and strained him to her
+heart.
+
+"Miles!" she whispered, "it would have killed me if----" she glanced
+towards the door. "Let us together thank that unfailing power," she
+uttered, "which has kept us from sin, and through so much sorrow, in
+faith and love," and the trembling knees clung to the ground beside
+where he knelt supporting her; and the eyes, pure as an angel's, looked
+upwards in prayer, while his arms clasped her, and the speechless lips
+were pressed on the upraised hands which pleaded for both.
+
+Lady Dora had stood unnoticed in the doorway, when he rushed in. No
+words can convey an idea of her mingled sensations. At a glance she
+guessed the truth--'twas Minnie in life. As she stood, a hand touched
+her arm.
+
+"Lady Dora," said a grave voice, "I was there." He pointed to the
+saloon. "An open door permitted me to enter, and hear all. I meant not
+to listen--your words arrested me. Come, let me take you to Lady
+Ripley's; _this_ is no place for you."
+
+She started--gazed on him--then, all her pride coming to her aid, she
+cried haughtily--
+
+"My lord, I need no counsellor; I can act alone!"
+
+And, hastily throwing on her bonnet and shawl, she quitted the studio.
+Lord Randolph stood an instant, then, taking up a pencil, wrote on a
+card, and placed it on the easel:--
+
+     "Heaven bless you both! Tremenhere, when you call me to your joy, I
+     shall rejoice with you, indeed!
+
+     "RANDOLPH."
+
+Skaife returned, and let himself in with the key which he had taken; but
+he was not alone. When he quitted the apartment, he hurried off (as men
+very often do) to a woman for advice; and now he entered with Mary and
+little Miles, resolved to tell all boldly. But when he arrived all had
+been said, and, creeping to the bedroom door, he saw Minnie's head on
+Tremenhere's beating heart, and his other arm clasped round her, as
+though he still dreaded some power might separate them again. Her face
+was upturned to his, whose deep, dark eyes were riveted on every look,
+as she told him all. Skaife moved aside, and Mary crept in. Miles looked
+up; but he could not for an instant loose his grasp, or move. Mary came
+quietly on, and round the mother's neck were clasped the arms of her
+child. Miles started. One glance told him all the truth. Something
+thrilled through him. It was what he once expressed--"Minnie, I should
+be jealous of my own child;" but the momentary gleam of that fatal
+passion left, ere matured, and, folding both in one clasp, his tears
+unrestrained baptized their re-union of love.
+
+"_You_ did this!" he cried, grasping the hands of Skaife and Mary, as he
+pointed to his boy's portrait in his mother's arms. "Thank you; it was
+nobly done, and oh, a lovely thought!"
+
+Tremenhere had married Minnie dowerless; but what a rich fortune she
+laid before him in the proofs of his mother's fame! It was only by
+degrees Minnie told him all she had suffered--all her vain search for
+d'Estrées, until aided from on high, whence comes all for good, though
+our little minds cannot always see it thus. For without these trials he
+would never have overcome his jealousy--never have been truly happy.
+What a room that saloon was of overflowing joy, as Tremenhere, Minnie,
+Mary, Skaife, and d'Estrées, sat and talked of the past and future! Nor
+must we forget the child, sleeping on its mother's knee, beneath the
+loving eyes which watched him!
+
+Lady Dora and her mother quitted Paris hastily for Switzerland; the
+former, whose wishes were law, broke off all engagement, as the latter
+believed, with Lord Randolph, without assigning any cause, and insisted
+upon leaving France; but the rupture was by mutual consent. Nothing
+would have induced him to marry her, after the conversation he
+overheard.
+
+Lady Lysson and himself were the first to call upon and congratulate
+Tremenhere and his wife. Lord Randolph confided all to her, except, as a
+feeling of honour, Lady Dora's confession; and, beneath the patronage of
+Lady Lysson, the young couple became the lions of the place, which they
+were shortly quitting, to solace those who still mourned Minnie, and
+whom she wished to surprise so joyfully. And who may depict that
+happiness? 'Twas like the throwing off of some horrid nightmare, which
+had oppressed all in a long, heavy sleep. Skaife went before, to prepare
+them for it.
+
+Dorcas, who had hoped to see the child, held once more to her heart the
+living mother. Juvenal wept in childish mirth, as he clasped her in his
+arms, and sued for pardon. Sylvia, even _then_, could not forbear her
+old habits, but called to Minnie's mind, again and again, all she had
+suffered through Miles's treachery, (as she termed it)--imploring her to
+be cautious for the future, for of course it was in him, and would break
+out somewhere. She never could expect to be a perfectly happy woman;
+there were things she _always_ must remember, and would do well to do
+so! She could _never really_ love him again, but _perhaps_ a re-union
+was wiser than a separation!
+
+However, despite all, Minnie _did_ look happy, for Miles was beside her;
+and Juvenal shook hands warmly with him, too, and Farmer Weld and buxom
+Sally.
+
+Marmaduke Burton followed Lady Dora to Switzerland, and both, in utter
+ignorance of D'Estrée's revelations, from the same motive--revenge
+towards Tremenhere--entered into a hasty marriage, the bell of which had
+scarcely rung, when a trumpet resounded, summoning him to yield up the
+manor-house to the incontestable proof of Miles's legitimacy.
+
+Minnie would fain, if it might have been, have spared her cousin so
+severe a blow; but the honour of her husband was more to her than all.
+And when the day of triumph came, and the bells rang out in praise of
+"good Madam Tremenhere's son"--and the carriage, though plain and
+unostentatious, drove up with him, his fair smiling wife, and child, one
+loud shout rang through the air; and, turning from the many,
+Tremenhere, with a warm clasp, grasped the hand of Farmer Weld, and
+presented him to Minnie as the truest friend of his day of shadow.
+
+And Skaife, d'Estrées, all were there; the latter became the tutor
+nominally of little Miles, and friend of both his doating parents. Mrs.
+Gillett!--who may speak of her? How she cried, and laughed, and dreamed
+all sorts of _couleur de rose_ dreams; and how she appeared for the
+first time in her life with a profusion of white satin ribbons in her
+cap! Mary remained in Paris, happy in the joy of others, which she had
+helped to create anew; prospering, content, and more, grateful for the
+peace Heaven had sent to repentance. Spring passed, Summer came, then
+Autumn, then Christmas; and despite Sylvia's prognostications, "that
+little Miles was a doomed child, for he looked it!"--the boy throve, and
+lisped papa and mamma to a large circle of friends round the Christmas
+fire at the manor-house. Among others were the faces of Lord Randolph,
+Lady Lysson, Skaife, Juvenal, now rosy and himself again, Dorcas, _not_
+Sylvia, she had a toothache which did not improve her temper, and
+therefore stayed at home alone; for Mrs. Gillett presided over some
+luxuries of her own handiwork, for the table. All were smiling and
+happy, and in the gallery of family paintings hung "Aurora chasing the
+Shades of Night," in which Minnie's lovely face shone; for she had
+indeed brought light to Tremenhere's heart and home. None might have
+known him; he was as we have never seen him; for, in the midst of the
+gaiety of those now joyous halls, he looked up, and beheld his mother's
+picture smiling on the son who had loved, and suffered so much for her.
+And when the ringing laughter or falling footsteps were stilled, on the
+quiet ear sounded the tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack, of the old hall
+clock, now transferred to the manor-house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let us end with a moral we have tried to carry out in these pages. If
+curses like chickens come home to roost, assuredly our good deeds bring
+nestling joys to our bosom, nor is a cup of cold water cast on the
+earth.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Miles Tremenhere, Vol 2 of 2, by 
+Annette Marie Maillard
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41276 ***