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diff --git a/old/56227-8.txt b/old/56227-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index be55d2d..0000000 --- a/old/56227-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6456 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's The Bath Comedy, by Agnes Castle and Egerton Castle - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Bath Comedy - -Author: Agnes Castle - Egerton Castle - -Release Date: December 23, 2017 [EBook #56227] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATH COMEDY *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines - - - - - - - - - - _The - Bath Comedy_ - - - _By_ - - _Agnes & Egerton Castle_ - - _Authors of 'The Pride of Jennico,' &c._ - - - - _London - Macmillan and Co., Limited - 1900_ - - _All rights reserved_ - - - - - GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS - BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. - - - - - Dedicated - to our Sister - Mrs. Francis Blundell of Crosby - ("M. E. Francis") - who, over the MS. of this frivolous - drama, was the first to - give us the kindly - criticism of - laughter - - - - - _Contents_ - - PREFACE - SCENE I. - SCENE II. - SCENE III. - SCENE IV. - SCENE V. - SCENE VI. - SCENE VII. - SCENE VIII. - SCENE IX. - SCENE X. - SCENE XI. - SCENE XII. - SCENE XIII. - SCENE XIV. - SCENE XV. - SCENE XVI. - SCENE XVII. - SCENE XVIII. - SCENE XIX. - SCENE XX. - SCENE XXI. - SCENE XXII. - SCENE XXIII. - SCENE XXIV. - SCENE XXV. - - - - -_Preface_ - -_The Royal Crescent--_ - - "_Open we here on a Spring day fine..._" - -_the first scene of this Bath Comedy._ - -_The precise year, however, may not be given. A sufficient reason for -reticence in the matter of exact date will be found in the unfortunate -predicament of the then Bishop of Bath and Wells: undoubtedly a most -mortifying episode in the life of an invariably dignified Divine. Now -there were several Bishops of Bath and Wells during the second half of -the 18th century, and this trifling lack of circumstantiality will do -away with the least trace of scandal._ - -_The second half of the century, however, is admitted. The fact, -indeed, would be revealed at once to the curious in the matter, by the -mention, on the one hand, of the King's Circus (which dates from the -last years of second George), and on the other by the reference to -Bathwick Meadows as a solitary site and still fitted at the time to an -honourable meeting, whereas it has been known as a place of popular -resort (under the name of Sydney Gardens) since the year 1795._ - -_A few other points, again (should anyone think worth his while to -consider so trifling a question), might serve to fix within a few -lustres the date of Mrs. Kitty Bellairs' cantrips as they affected, -among other things, Lady Standish's domestic happiness, Mr. O'Hara's -connubial hopes, and my Lord Verney's sentimental education._ - -_It may be noticed, for instance, that the gentlemen wear their swords. -That was, as most people know, a distinction strenuously denied them so -long as the immortal Master of Ceremonies, Mr. Richard Nash, reigned as -King of Bath. Now, his autocratic rule came to an end before George -the Third was King. As another landmark it will be recalled that the -notorious and indecorous encounter between Richard Brinsley Sheridan -and that unpleasant personage, Captain Matthews, was the last duel with -swords fought in the Kingdom: and it was fought in 1772._ - -_Furthermore, our Captain Spicer (whether veraciously or not) claims to -have been a favoured pupil of the famous Angelo--and such a perfecting -course in the noble art could not have been acquired before the early -sixties. Then, again, there is still a good deal of powder in our -actors' head-dress. The slippers of our actresses are still delicious -and high-heeled: the sandal of the nineties has not yet made its -dreadful appearance. And the ladies visard, if not so universal as it -once had been, is still an accepted institution._ - -_It will suffice, in short, to say of our characters (if once more we -may be allowed to paraphrase some of Mr. Austin Dobson's dainty verses) -that_ - - _They lived in that past Georgian day, - When men were less inclined to say - That "Time is Gold" and overlay - With toil their pleasure...._ - - -_Those were, on the whole, rather more joyous times than our own, and -more different than the mere lapse of one century seems to account for. -The gentlemen then, dressed almost as handsomely, prinked and plumed -themselves as elaborately, as the ladies. Gallantry in both senses and -ready wit were their most precious claim: a fight was considered a full -remedy to a slight, a sharp epigram to an injury. Heavy drinking was -held an indispensable accompaniment to good-fellowship; and love-making -was a far suppler art than seems known to this more earnest century--a -pastime for "the quality," something on par with the gambling passion. -"Virtue" not modesty, was woman's fair fame. A forcible abduction -would at a pinch be argued as an undeniable compliment. Life ran like -a dance then, with merry, tapping heels and light-hearted interchange -of partner: those old-world days were much younger than ours._ - -_So much for the times, and for the characters. For scenery we have -this gem among prosperous towns. The grey stone city of wealthy, -sedate residences, arranged with noble architectural effect in broad -straight streets, wide open squares, parades, terraces, crescents; tier -upon tier on the slope of a hill down to the water's edge; set serenely -in a wooded valley, with much green in perspective beyond the lazy, -slowly winding Avon._ - -_Indeed, of its kind, Bath is unique among the cities of Europe: -deprived as it is, by modern conditions, of its former social -attractions, it is still one of the most beautiful._ - -_Like so many very old towns, it has had a long Roman existence; its -luxurious baths and other remains testify to its splendour when it was -known as Aquae Solis. It filled, also, an important place in the land -as a Mediaeval Borough, wall-girt and defensible: of that period the -Abbey Church, the "Lantern of England" remains a handsome bequest. -But, on the surface at least, there is now nothing to recall vividly -any older past than the days of periwig, of powder and patches, of -"wine and walnut" wit. Its characteristic charm, one which, happily, -the present age has had little power to efface, is par excellence that -of the 18th Century; for it was in early and middle Georgian years -that, with a strange suddenness "The Bath" became an accepted centre of -fashion and pleasure, and assumed its special physiognomy of leisure, -wealth and exclusiveness._ - -_This old-world air still hangs about the residential part of the Town -and in a singularly haunting way. In those broad streets, calm and -silent and almost deserted at most hours, in those high-windowed -houses, typical of stateliness and cold elegance rather than of lolling -comfort, the very atmosphere seems to this day redolent of -"Chippendale" notions. The sordidly plain modern dress of man is -painfully incongruous. The rattling cab is a discord. It would be a -relief, much more than an astonishment, to note an obvious -three-cornered hat, a broad-skirted coat, on one's fellow man, to hear -on the flags the regular tramp of Chairmen swinging along some dainty -charge deliciously powdered and rouged!_ - -_The course of an hundred and odd years has obliterated some scenes, -and modified all to some extent. Orange Grove has lost, 'tis true, -much of its discreet character; and its neighbouring chocolate rooms, -so handy to intrigues, are now only memories. The Assembly Rooms are -shorn of all fashion. The new Great Pump Room is not quite a replica -of the old, though it has retained its general air--but the Crescents, -Royal and Lansdowne, the Circus, Gay Street and Queen Square, the -Parades, and the flags of Abbey Place, are still for us. At certain -hours, if we have the mood, we can readily people them again in our -mind's eye with notable guests of "The Bath" in its great days.... Dr. -Johnson and my Lord Chesterfield, Pops, Oliver Goldsmith, Sheridan, -Smollett, Chatham, Gainsborough, Fanny Burney, according to the -fleeting thought--all "faithfuls of the Spa"--Greatness, Literature, -Art, mere Fashion--or, again, shall we say Squire Bramble, or Lydia -Languish, or Sir Anthony Absolute; or blushing, too ingenuous -Evelina...?_ - -_Why, the place is alive with suggestion! Here a house front, with its -carved stone wreaths and urns and bosses, with its pedimented windows -or its shell-canopied door (still provided with its long since honorary -link-extinguisher) if you look at it enquiringly, seems ready to tell -its tale of by-gone life. But, unlike that of so many buildings of a -past age, the tale of a house in Bath rarely takes the earnest romantic -turn: it is irresistibly a "Comedy," comedy of intrigue and manners, of -fashion and all its consequent frivolity (with perhaps just a little -pathos, but never beyond the limits of elegance) Comedie à la Française -mostly. Je trompe, tu trompes, nous trompons...!_ - -_In this guise the first stately building at the western extremity of -the Royal Crescent, its pilasters, its stone steps, curvetting -iron-work, clamoured to tell of Lady Standish's so nearly disastrous -experiment on her husband's credulity. The corner house of Gay Street -near George Street (opposite the alluring old-book store of Mr. -Meehan--the genial Bath Antiquary) proclaimed at all the pores of its -crumbling stones, as clearly as if the commemorative tablet had duly -been erected, that the warm-hearted Irishman, the Honble. Denis O'Hara, -had dwelt there in the year 17--. There is another house, at the -southern corner of Queen Square, adorned with Cupid's heads and -cornucopiae, which beyond all manner of doubt in that same year was the -"lodging" (Fashion spoke of lodgings then!) of the ingenious young -widow Bellairs. In the same manner the middle building, facing west, -of Pierrepont's Street, one of the most correct in Bath, has still all -the conscious air of having sheltered once that most excellent young -man, Lord Verney._ - -_One of the drawbacks of setting down a comedy in narrative form is the -necessary curtailing of all descriptive passages and explanatory -ethical disquisitions: in such a frame, pen and ink pictures of -scenery, and the rendering of atmosphere, are out of place._ - -_Let it therefore be borne in mind that, in this Butterfly Drama, with -the exception of the penultimate scene enacted at the Inn in Devizes, -the scenery is altogether cast in or about the handsome old grey town; -in its lofty-ceiled, polished-floored rooms, rather bare; on its broad -pavement, clean and trim and as little crowded as any conventional -stage. Of the rest it must be understood that we are in the midst of -what has been extolled as "the Bath manner" and that throughout, as was -said of another, but world-wide known, Bath Comedy,_ - - "_Love gilds the scene, and woman guides the plot._" - _A. & E. C._ - - - 49 Sloane Gardens, S.W., - _April_, 1900. - - - - -The Bath Comedy - - -SCENE I - -"What? My sweet Lady Standish in tears!" - -Mistress Kitty Bellairs poised her dainty person on one foot and cast a -mocking, somewhat contemptuous, yet good-humoured glance at the slim -length of sobbing womanhood prone on the gilt-legged, satin-cushioned -sofa. - -"Tears," said Mistress Kitty, twirling round on her heel to look at the -set of her new sacque in the mirror and admire its delicate flowered -folds, as they caught the shafts of spring sunshine that pierced into -the long dim room from the narrow street. "Tears, my dear, unless you -cry becomingly, which I would have you know not one in the thousand -can, are a luxury every self-respecting woman ought to deny herself. -Now I," said Mistress Kitty, and tweaked at a powdered curl and turned -her head like a bird for a last glimpse at the mirror before sinking -into an arm-chair and drawing closer to her afflicted friend, "have not -shed a tear since I lost my first lover, and that is--I will not say -how many years ago. I was a mightily precocious child! When I say a -tear, mind you, 'tis a figure of speech. Far be it from me to deny the -charm of a pearly drop--just one: enough to gather on the tip of the -finger, enough just to suffuse the pathetic eye. Oh, that is not only -permissible, 'tis to be cultivated. But such weeping as yours--sobs -that shake you, tears that drench the handkerchief, redden the eyes, -not to speak of the nose--fie! fie! it is clean against all reason. -Come!" with a sudden gentle change of tone, putting her hand on the -abased head, where fair curls luxuriated in all their native sunshine, -"what is it all about?" - -Lady Standish slowly and languidly drew herself into a sitting posture, -and raised a countenance marred out of its delicate beauty by the -violent passion of her grief. Swimming blue eyes she fixed upon the -Mistress Kitty's plump dimpling face. - -"Alas!" she breathed upon the gust of a sigh that was as wet as an -April breeze, and tripped up by a belated sob. "Alas! you see in me -the most miserable of women. Alas! my heart is broken!" - -Here the kerchief, soaked indeed beyond all possible utility, was -frantically held to streaming eyes once more. - -"Mercy!" cried the pretty widow, "you could not take on worse if you -had the smallpox: you a three-months' wife!" - -"Ah me!" moaned Lady Standish. - -"So," said Mistress Kitty, "he has been a brute again, has he? Come, -Julia, weep on my bosom. What is it now? Did he kiss you on the -forehead instead of on the lips? Or did he say: 'Zounds, madam!' when -you upset a dish of tea over his waistcoat? Or yet did he, could he, -the monster!--nay it is not possible, yet men are so--could he have -whispered that Lady Caroline looked--passable last night?" - -Lady Standish rose to her feet, crumpled her kerchief in one small hand -and faced her friend with tragic passion. - -"It is useless to blind myself," she said. "Cease to gibe at me, pray, -Mistress Bellairs; I must face the truth! My husband loves me no -longer. Oh! Kitty, Kitty," dropping from her height of tragedy very -quickly and landing on a whimper again, "is it not sad? I have tried, -Heaven is my witness, to win him back by the tenderest love, by the -most pitiful pleading. He has seen me weep and pine. 'Rob me of your -love,' I have told him, 'and you rob me of life.' And he, he--oh, how -shall I tell you! As the days go by he is with me less and less. He -walks abroad with others. His evenings he gives to strangers--ay, and -half his nights--while I may sob myself to sleep at home. I saw him -to-day but for two minutes--'twas half an hour ago. He entered here -upon me, looking, ah Kitty! as only he can look, the most elegant and -beautiful of men. I was singing, piping as a poor bird may to strive -and call its mate to the nest. He passed through the room without a -word, without a sign; he that used to say 'twas heaven to sit and -listen to my voice. 'What!' I exclaimed as he reached the door, 'not a -word for poor Julia?' Kitty, at the sound of that cry, wrung from my -heart, he turned and frowned, and said---- (Oh, oh, oh.)" - -"Ha!" cried Mistress Kitty, "what said he?" ("Heaven help him," said -she aside; "the woman's a fountain.") - -"He said," sobbed Julia, "'Mayn't a man even go for a stroll?' Oh, had -you but heard the cold indifferent tone, you would have understood how -it cut me to the heart. I ran to him and laid my hand upon his sleeve, -and he said----" - -Again grief overcame her. - -"Well, what said he?" - -"He said--oh, oh--he said, 'Julia don't paw me.'" - -Mistress Kitty Bellairs, the reigning toast of Bath, the prettiest -woman, in the estimation of her admirers, in all England, and the -wittiest, laughed low to herself, then rose from her chair, took her -tall friend by the shoulders, and walked her up to the mirror. - -"Look at yourself," said she, "and look at me." - -Lady Standish winced. The contrast between her own dishevelled hair, -her marbled swollen countenance, her untidy morning gown, and the -blooming perfection of the apparition beside her, was more than she -could contemplate. Kitty Bellairs--as complete in every detail of -beauty as a carnation--smiled upon herself sweetly. - -"My dear," said she, "I have had thirty-seven _declared_ adorers these -three years, and never one tired of me yet. Poor Bellairs," she said -with a light sigh, "he had two wives before me, and he was sixty-nine -when he died, but he told me with his last breath that 'twas I gave him -all the joy he ever knew." - -Lady Standish ceased weeping as suddenly as if her tears had been -mechanically turned off. She regarded the widow earnestly. - -"Now, child," said Mistress Bellairs, with all the authority of her -twenty-six years, "here we have been four weeks acquainted, and you -have more than once done me the honour of saying that you considered me -your friend." - -"'Tis so," said Lady Standish. - -"Then listen to me. There are three great rules to be observed in our -dealings with men. The first rule comprises an extraordinary number of -minor details, but briefly and comprehensively it runs thus: _Never be -monotonous_! Second rule: _Never let a man be too sure of you_! Oh -that is a wonderful wise maxim: reflect upon it. Third: _Never, never -let a man see how--well, how far from lovely you can look_! Tush, -tush, you are a better-looking woman than I am, but not when you have -been blubbering and not when you are fretful." - -Lady Standish suddenly sat down as if her limbs could support her no -more. She looked up at the ceiling with tear-dimmed eyes. - -"Pray," said Mistress Kitty inquisitorially _ex cathedra_, "how many -times a day do you tell that unfortunate man that you love him? And, -worse still, how many times a day do you want him to say that he loves -you? I vow 'tis enough to drive him to cards, or wine, or something -infinitely worse that also begins with a w! And, pray, if you spend -all you have, and empty your purse, do you think your purse becomes a -very valuable possession? 'Tis a mere bit of leather. Nay, nay, keep -your gold, and give it out piece by piece, and do not give it at all -unless you get good change for it. Oh," cried Kitty, a fine flush of -indignation rising scarlet behind her rouge, "I marvel that women -should be such fools!--to act the handmaid where they should ever rule -as mistress; to cast forth unsought what they should dole out only to -the supplicant on bended knee. Hath a man ever had from _me_ an -unsolicited avowal? Have I ever thrown the most ardent lover more than -a 'perhaps' and 'it may be,' a smile, a dimple, a finger-tip? (What -they have stolen I have not given, that is obvious! And, besides, 'tis -neither here nor there.) And pray, Lady Standish, since when have you -left off putting on rouge and having your hair tired and powdered, and -wearing a decent gown of mornings and a modish sacque, and a heel to -that pretty foot, a jewel in the ear and a patch beneath the lip?" - -Lady Standish had ceased contemplating the ceiling; she was looking at -her friend. - -"But, madam," she said, "this is strange advice. Would you have me -coquette with my husband, as if--God forgive me for even saying such a -thing--as if I were not wife, but mistress?" - -"La, you there," said Mistress Bellairs, and clapped her hands, "there -is the whole murder out! You are the man's lawful, honest wife, and -therefore all tedium and homeliness, all fretful brow and tearful eye. -God save us! who shall blame him if he seek a pleasant glint of vice to -change him of you?" - -There fell a silence. Lady Standish rose indignant, grew red, grew -pale, caught a glimpse of herself again in the mirror, shrank from the -sight, and crept back to the sofa with a humble and convicted air. -Then she cast a look of anguished pleading at Mistress Bellairs's -bright unfeeling countenance. - -"Tell me," she said with a parched lip, "what shall I do?" - -"Do!" cried the widow, rising with a brisk laugh, "get some powder into -your hair, and some colour into those cheeks! And when Sir Jasper -returns (he left you in tears, he will be sullen when he comes home; -'tis a mere matter of self-defence) let him find you gay, _distraite_; -say a sharp thing or two if you can; tell him you do not need his -company this afternoon. Ah, and if you could make him jealous! 'Tis a -very, very old trick, but then, you see, love is a very old game, the -oldest of all. Make him jealous, my dear, make him jealous and you'll -win the rubber yet!" - -"Jealous!" cried the three-months' wife, and all the blood of the -innocent country girl leapt to her brow. "Oh, madam, how could that -be?" - -"Look out a beau, nay, two or three, 'tis safer! Talk discreetly with -them in the Pump-Room, let them fan you at the ball, let them meet you -in Orange-Grove. Or, if you have not spirit enough--and indeed, my -sweet life, you sadly lack spirit--start but an imaginary one, merely -for the use of your lord and master: I wager you he will rise to the -fly." - -"I am afraid Sir Jasper could be _very_ jealous," said the other -uneasily. "I remember before we were wed, when my cousin Harry would -ride with me to the meet, oh, how angry Sir Jasper was! He swore he -would shoot himself, ay, and he was all for shooting Harry too." - -"But he was not the less ardent with you on the score of it, I'll -warrant him," said the experienced Mistress Bellairs. - -"Ah, no," said Lady Standish, and her lip trembled over a smile, while -the ready water sprang to her eyelashes, and: "Ah, no!" she said again. -"Indeed, he loved me then very ardently." - -"And he'll love you so still if you have but a spark of courage. Get -you to your room," said the widow, goodhumouredly, "bustle up and play -your part. Where is that woman of yours?" - -She pushed Lady Standish before her as she spoke, herself rang the -call-bell for the tire-woman, and gave a few pregnant suggestions to -that worthy, who advanced all sour smiles and disapproving dips. Then -she strolled back into the drawing-room and paused a moment as she -slipped on her long gloves. Next she drew a letter from her pocket and -began to read it with a thoughtful brow. - -"No, no, Sir Jasper," she said half aloud, "you're a fine gentleman, -and a pretty fellow, you have a neat leg, and an eloquent turn of -speech, but I will not have the child's heart broken for the amusement -of an idle day." - -She took the letter between each little forefinger and thumb as if to -tear it, thought better of it, folded it again and thrust it back into -its place of concealment. - -Presently she smiled to herself, and walked out of the long open window -across the little strip of garden, and so through the iron gate into -the shady back street. - - - - -SCENE II - -Sir Jasper Standish halted on the flags of the Royal Crescent in front -of his own door and his face darkened. He took a pinch of snuff. - -"Now! I shall find my lady in tears. What a strange world it is! The -girl you woo is as merry as a May day: the wife you wed is like naught -but early November. Equinoctial gales and water enough to drown the -best spirits that ever were stilled. 'Tis a damp life," said Sir -Jasper, "and a depressing." - -He sighed as the door was thrown open by the footman, and crossed the -hall into the morning-room, where he had left his lady weeping. He -beheld a flowered brocade, a very shapely back, and a crisp powdered -head outlined against the window, and thought he had come upon a -visitor unawares. - -"I crave ten thousand pardons," quoth he, and swept from his gallant -head his knowing three-cornered hat. But slowly the figure at the -window turned and he saw his wife's eyes strangely brilliant over two -pink cheeks, beneath the snow of her up-piled hair. - -"Julia!" said he in amaze, and stared and stared again. ("And did I -doubt my own taste?" thought he to himself. "Why, she is the prettiest -woman in Bath!") "Expecting visitors, Julia?" He smiled as he spoke: -in another minute that arm, shining pearl-like from the hanging lace of -her sleeve, would be round his neck, and those lips (how red they were, -and what a curve!) would be upon his. Well, a loving woman had her -uses. - -"No," said Lady Standish to his query. She dropped the word with a -faintly scornful smile, and a dimple came and went at the corner of her -lip. There was a patch just above the dimple. Then she turned away -and looked forth into the still, solemn, grey and green Crescent as -before. - -Sir Jasper stood bewildered. Then he put his hat upon a table and came -up to his wife and placed his arm round her waist. - -"My sweet life," said he, "your gown is vastly becoming." - -"Sir Jasper," said Lady Standish, "you do me proud." She slipped from -his embrace, sketched a curtesy, and moved to the next window. - -Sir Jasper passed his hand across his brow. That was Julia, Julia his -wife, sure enough; and yet, faith, it was a woman he did not know! - -"You are mightily interested in the Crescent," said he, with some -humour. - -My lady shrugged her shoulders. - -"I believe you were vexed with me this morning, love," said he. - -"I, vexed?" said she. "Nay, why should I be vexed?" and then she -tapped her foot and looked at the clock. "These servants grow -monstrous unpunctual," she said; "are we not to dine to-day?" - -He glanced down at the tapping shoe, its little pointing toe and -curving heel. 'Twas a smart shoe, and boasted a diamond buckle in a -knot of rose-coloured ribbon. - -"Egad!" said he, "I doubt if there is another foot in Bath that could -slip into that case." - -And Sir Jasper was a connoisseur! His opinion of himself, his faith in -his own discrimination (which had waned sadly these last days) began to -rise again, not disagreeably. He smirked. My Lady Standish, who, -after a way that only women can practise, seemed absorbed in the -contemplation of the empty Crescent the while she was intent upon each -shade of expression upon her husband's countenance, felt a sudden glow -of confidence in her own powers that she had never known before. The -game she had started with a beating heart and a dry throat began to -have a certain charm of its own. Was it so easy really? Was a man so -lightly swayed? There was contempt in the thought, and yet pleasure. -Was all a woman's loving heart to count for so little, and a pretty -gown, a new shoe, a coquettish manner for so much? Ah, there was -bitterness in that! But yet the immediate result of this new method: -that look in his eye, that softening of his lip, it was too sweet to be -forborne. Kitty was right! - -Sir Jasper took her hand. - -"It wants," said he, "full half-an-hour to dinner-time, love. Nay, do -not draw your hand away. You are vexed with me? I left you weeping, -'twas unkind." - -"Weeping?" said Julia, and her heart fluttered to her throat, so that -she could hardly speak, and Kitty's maxims kept dancing before her eyes -as if written in letters of fire. "Make him jealous--oh, if you make -him jealous you will win the rubber yet!" - -"If I wept," said she, "must my tears have been for you?" - -"How now?" said Sir Jasper, and dropped the little hand that struggled -so gently yet determinedly to be free. - -"Oh, dear me," said Lady Standish, "how droll you men are!" She -shrugged her shoulders and laughed affectedly. Like all budding -actresses she over-did the part. But Sir Jasper was too much stirred, -too much bewildered to be critical. Moreover his armour was not -without vulnerable joints, and with a wanton word she had found one at -the first pass. - -"How now?" said he. "Madam, and what might that mean?" - -Lady Standish trilled the bar of a song, and again directed her -attention to the view. - -"Julia," said her husband in a deep voice. "Julia," he repeated with a -threatening growl of passion. - -"Sir?" she said, and tilted her little head. - -"Who then were your tears for, if they were not for me? What signify -these manners? What do these insinuations mean? By Jupiter, I will -have the truth!" His face flushed, the veins on his temples swelled, -his nostrils became dilated. - -Lady Standish lifted the hanging lace of her sleeve with one hand and -examined it minutely. - -"I would rather," she said, and her voice shook, "I would rather you -did not question me, Sir Jasper." Then she flashed upon him in anger, -swift and lovely, as he had never seen her flash before. "You go your -own way free enough," she said. "These last three weeks you have not -spent one evening in my company, and half your days are given to others -of whom I know nothing, Oh, I am not complaining, sir! I did complain, -but that is over. I was wrong, for I see adversities have their -advantages." Here she smiled. (Had the man but known how near she was -to tears!) "Your neglect leaves me free." - -"Free!" cried Sir Jasper, and choked. "Free! Good heavens, free! -What in the name of God do you mean? Free, madam?" - -"Sir Jasper," said Lady Standish, looking at him very earnestly, "you -will never hear me ask again whose society it is you find so much more -attractive than your wife's." - -"Indeed," cried Sir Jasper, and hesitated upon a gust of anger, at a -loss in which direction to drive it forth. - -"No," said my lady, "and I expect the same good taste from you. 'Tis -not too much to ask. Indeed you should rejoice if I have found -consolation for your absence." - -He broke out with a fearful oath, and almost leaped upon her. - -"Consolation!" He plunged his hands into his powdered hair, and -quivered into silence for the very impotence of words. - -"I said 'if,'" said she. She was surprised to find how readily the -words came to her; and yet her hands were clammy with fright, and her -breath ran short between her rouged lips. "Let us leave it at the -'if.'" - -She turned to the window and leant against it, drew her kerchief and -fanned herself. - -Passing along the railings opposite the Crescent, not twelve yards -distant, a tall, slender young gentleman of attractive appearance, -though very dark in complexion, caught sight of her lovely glowing -face, stared first in unconscious admiration, then with recognition, -and finally, blushing swarthily, saluted with some appearance of -agitation. Lady Standish, aware that her husband had approached close -behind her, and hearing in every creak of his satin coat the flattering -emotion of his senses, felt herself driven more and more by the unknown -demon of mischief that had taken possession of her. She fluttered her -little handkerchief back at the young gentleman with a gesture that -almost indicated the wafting of a kiss. - -"Death and damnation," cried Sir Jasper, "before my very eyes!" - -He seized her by the wrist and flung her down upon the settee. "Nay," -he cried, "there may be husbands that would put up with this, but I am -not of them. So that is the Consoler! That is the Beau for whom you -prink yourself with such fine feathers, whom you lie in wait for at the -window to make signals to and smirk at! Oh, my innocent country daisy! -Faugh! I might have known you were too fond--hypocrite!" He dashed at -the window and burst its fastenings. - -"Hey! you, you my Lord Verney, a word with you!" Sir Jasper was -already foaming at the mouth. - -The slim gentleman paused, surprised. - -"Oh, heavens!" cried Lady Standish, "what have I done? Sir Jasper! my -husband!" She threw herself upon him. "Sir Jasper, what do you -suspect? Oh, heavens!" She was half fainting and scarce could -articulate a coherent word. "It was all to tease you. It was but the -sport of an idle moment. Oh, I implore you, believe me, believe me!" - -"Ay, deny!" cried he. "Deny what I have seen with my own eyes! Let me -go, madam." He thrust her aside, and, bareheaded, dashed down the -stairs and out of the house towards Lord Verney, who, with a bashful, -yet a pleasant smile, began to retrace his steps. - -"'Tis a fair day, Sir Jasper," said he courteously, and then became -aware of Sir Jasper's convulsed face, and noted that Lady Standish, -whom but a moment before he had beheld all smiling beauty, now clung -despairingly to the window-post, her countenance ghastly behind her -rouge. - -Lord Verney was a shy young man. - -"Ah--ah, good morning," said he, bowed politely, and turned with -celerity. - -Sir Jasper flung a look of infinite derision and contempt towards his -wife. - -"You have chosen," it seemed to say, "a pretty hare!" Then he arrested -the slim swift figure with an aggressive shout: - -"Stand--stand, Lord Verney--Lord Verney--a word with you." - -The youth stopped, wheeled round, and: - -"I am at your service," said he. A certain pallor had replaced the -ingenuous young blushes upon his cheek, but into his eye there sprang a -fine spark of spirit. - -Sir Jasper marched upon him and only halted when his six feet of sinewy -bulk were within a yard of the stripling's willowy shape. His hot -red-brown eyes shot fire and fury, death and annihilation upon the -innocent young peer. His full lips endeavoured to sneer, but rage -distorted them to a grimace through which his white teeth shone forth -ferociously. - -"Come, come, we understand each other," said he; "will you walk with -me? There is no time like the present and a couple of friends are easy -to come by." - -"'Tis vastly well," said Lord Verney with an attempt at dignity that -betrayed the boy in every line of him. Then all at once colour flushed -into his face again, and his rigid demeanour was broken up. "Come, -devil take it all, Sir Jasper," said he, "and what is it about?" - -Sir Jasper threw bloodshot eyes upwards. - -"This fellow," quoth he, appealing to Heaven--"oh! this pretty fellow! -You want reasons, my Lord Verney?" - -Lord Verney blushed and stammered. Gad, he'd like to know what he had -done. He was at Sir Jasper's disposition, of course, but before -drawing swords on a man---- - -Sir Jasper uttered a sound which was between a groan and a roar. He -indicated with sweeping gesture the figure of Lady Standish strained in -anguish watching, clinging still to the window-post. Then he hissed: - -"I know!" - -"Sir Jasper!" - -"I know, I tell you," repeated Sir Jasper, "let that suffice." - -"Good heavens," gasped Lord Verney, "here is some most grievous -mistake. Do you mean, sir--am I to understand, Sir Jasper--? 'Tis -monstrous." White dismay and crimson confusion chased each other -across his candid brow. "Surely you do not mean me to understand that -Lady Standish has any connection with this extraordinary scene?" - -Sir Jasper's trembling hand was furiously uplifted, then blindly sought -his sword hilt, and then dropped in impotent disgust at his side. - -"My lord," said he, "Lady Standish is the pearl of womanhood, I would -have you know it! There never breathed a female more virtuously -attached to her husband and her duty--I would have you know it!" His -face was quite horrible to look at in its withering sarcasm. "My -quarrel with you, sir, is--" He paused and cast a roving eye upon the -young gentleman, who now began to show unequivocal signs of fear. A -jealous husband, a contingency that may have to be met any day--but a -raving maniac! ... - -"'Tis the shape of your leg that mispleases me, sir. You have a vile -calf, I cannot endure that so offensive an outline should pass and -repass my windows." - -"I understand, Sir Jasper, yes, yes," said Lord Verney soothingly, -backing as he spoke and casting nervous eyes round the empty street. -"And so, good-morning." - -He bowed and turned. - -"Rat!" cried Sir Jasper, and shot forth a clutching hand. - -"I will bear it in mind," cried Lord Verney. "Good-morning, -good-morning!" - -He was fleeing away on a swift foot. - -"Rat! Rat!" screamed the enraged baronet, starting in pursuit. But -his passion made him clumsy. He stumbled, lurched, struck his foot -against a stone, fell upon his knee and rose in another mood: one of -darkling sullen determination for revenge. - -Lord Verney was a timid young man. Had it been with anyone else that -this scene in the Royal Crescent had taken place all Bath would have -known within the hour that Sir Jasper Standish had been seized with -sudden lunacy. But Lord Verney was of those who turn a word over three -times before they speak and then say something else. Moreover, he was -not sure that he himself had cut a brilliant figure in the amazing -duologue, so he held his tongue upon it. - -As the day grew, however, he began to have a curious recollection of -Lady Standish's lovely smiling greeting and of that little gesture -with the white handkerchief, which had almost seemed like the blowing -of a kiss (here his very ears would grow hot), then of Sir Jasper's -inexplicable wrath, and of the stricken figure by the window! Could -it be? Twas impossible! Nay, but such things had been. When the -dusk fell he made up his mind and sought the counsels of that -fashionable friend who was kind enough to pilot his inexperience -through the first shoals and rocks of Bath life. This gentleman's -name was Spicer. He called himself Captain: of what regiment no -one knew. - - - - -SCENE III - -Sir Jasper came striding back to the house. In the morning-room he -passed his wife without a word. - -"Sir Jasper," quoth she, and shot out a timid hand. "Oh, Sir Jasper, -will you not listen to me? This is the most terrible mistake. Sir -Jasper, I swear I am true to you, not only in deed but in every inmost -thought." - -"Do not swear, madam," said he, and shut the door in her face. - -Ten minutes later he sallied forth again. She heard his steps ring -out: they sounded very desperate. She sat on the pink-striped settee -in a misery too deep this time for tears. How puerile, how far away, -seemed the morning's storm. She sat with her hands locked and her eyes -starting, revolving terrible possibilities, and fruitless plans for -preventing them. Dinner was served in vain. Her ladyship's woman -brought her a dish of tea. This poor Julia drank, for she felt faint -and weary. Then a sudden thought struck her. - -"'Tis Mistress Bellairs who made the mischief," she thought, "now she -must mend it." She dashed off a despairing note to the lady and -dispatched her black page with all possible celerity. - - - "I have followed your advice, to my undoing. You told me to make - Sir Jasper jealous; I tried to make him jealous, and succeeded far - too well. He fancies there is something between me and Lord - Verney. Poor young man, I have spoken to him but three times in my - life! There will be a duel and they will both be killed. Come to - me, dear Mistress Bellairs, and see what is to be done, for I am - half dead with fear and anguish." - - -The dusk was falling when, with incredible celerity, the sedan-chair of -Mistress Bellairs rounded the corner at a swinging pace; her bell-like -voice might be heard from within rating the chairmen with no gentle -tone for their sluggishness. - -"'Tis snails ye are--snails, not men. La! is there one of you that is -not a great-grandfather? It is not, I would have you know, a coffin -that you are carrying, but a chair. Oh, Gad, deliver me from such lazy -scoundrels!" - -In a storm she burst open the door; in a whirlwind tore through the -passage. Lady Standish's obsequious footmen she flounced upon one -side. Into that afflicted lady's presence she burst with undiminished -vigour. - -"So," said she, "these are fine goings on! And why Lord Verney, may I -inquire?" - -"Oh, Mistress Bellairs," ejaculated her friend, with a wail, "'tis -indeed terrible. Think of Sir Jasper's danger, and all because of my -folly in listening to your pernicious advice." - -"My advice!" cried Mistress Kitty. "My advice--this is pretty hearing! -Here, where is that woman of yours, and where are those stuffed owls -you keep in the hall. What is the use of them if they do not do their -business? Light up, light up--who can speak in the dark?" She ran -from one door to another calling. - -"Oh, dear," sighed Lady Standish, and leant her distraught head against -the cushions. - -"Come, come," cried Mistress Bellairs, heedless of the presence of -footmen with tapers, and lady's-maid with twinkling curl paper. "Sit -up this minute, Julia, and tell me the whole from the beginning. It is -no use your trying to extenuate, for I will know all that has happened." - -But before her friend, whose back was beginning to stiffen under this -treatment, had had time to collect her thoughts sufficiently for a -dignified reply, Mistress Kitty herself proceeded with great volubility: - -"And so, madam, not content with having a new young husband of your -own, you must fix upon Lord Verney for your manoeuvres. Why, he has -never so much as blinked the same side of the room as you. Why, it was -but yester-night he vowed he hardly knew if you were tall or short. -Put that out of your head, my Lady Standish, Lord Verney is not for -you. Oh, these country girls!" - -Lady Standish rose, quivering with rage. - -"Be silent, madam," she said, "your words have neither sense nor truth. -I was ill-advised enough to listen to your unwomanly counsels. I tried -to deceive my husband, and God has punished me." - -"Ah," said Mrs. Kitty, "deceit is a very grievous sin. I wonder at -you, that you must fix upon Lord Verney. Oh, Julia!" here her voice -grew melting and her large brown eyes suffused. "You had all Bath," -she said, "and you must fix upon Lord Verney. The one man I thought -... the one man I could have.... Oh, how did you dare? Nay! It is a -blind," she cried, flaming again into indignation and catching her -friend by the wrist. "There was more in your game than you pretend, -you sly and silken hypocrite! If he is killed, how will you feel then?" - -"Oh," exclaimed Lady Standish, "cruel woman! Is this your help? Sir -Jasper killed!" - -"Sir Jasper? Sir Fiddle!" cried Mistress Kitty, with a fine scorn. -"Who cares for Sir Jasper? 'Tis my Harry I think of. Oh, oh!" cried -the widow, and burst into tears. - -Lady Standish stood confounded. - -"What!" cried she, "_you_ love Lord Verney?" - -"'Tis the only man of them," sobbed Kitty, "who does not pester me with -his devotion--the only one who does not come to my call like a lap-dog. -If I look at him he blushes for bashfulness, and not for love; if his -hand shakes it is because he is so sweetly timid, not because my touch -thrills him. I had set my heart," said Mistress Kitty through her -clenched teeth--"I had set my heart upon Lord Verney, and now you must -needs have him ki--ki--killed before I have even had time to make him -see the colour of my eyes." - -"Oh, oh!" sighed Julia Standish, still beyond tears. - -And: - -"Oh!" sobbed Kitty Bellairs, quite forgetful of red noses and swollen -lids. - -There was a silence broken only by the sobs of the widow and the sighs -of the wife. - -Then said Mistress Kitty, in a small, strangled voice: "Let this be a -lesson to you never to deceive." - -"I never told a single lie before," moaned Lady Standish. - -"Ah!" said Kitty, "there never was a single lie, madam. A lie is wed -as soon as born, and its progeny exceeds that of Abraham." - -The two women rose from their despairing postures, and, mutually pushed -by the same impulse, approached each other. - -"What is to be done now?" said Lady Standish. - -"What is to be done?" said Mistress Bellairs. - -"Let us seek Sir Jasper," said his wife, "and tell him the whole truth." - -Kitty, through wet eyelashes, shot a glance of withering scorn upon her -friend. - -"Ay," she said sarcastically, "that would be useful truly. Why, child, -let you and me but go and swear your innocence to Sir Jasper, and it -will be enough to establish you steeped in guilt in the eyes of every -sensible person for the rest of your life. No," said she, "better must -be thought of than that. We must act midwife to the lie and start the -little family as soon as possible." - -"I will lie no more," said Lady Standish. - -"I am told," said Mistress Kitty musingly, "that Lord Verney has -learned swordsmanship abroad." - -"Oh, cruel!" moaned the other. - -Mistress Kitty paused, bit a taper finger, scratched an arch eyebrow, -drew white brows together, pondered deeply. Suddenly her dimples -peeped again. - -"I have it!" said she. "'Tis as easy as can be. Will you leave it to -me?" - -Lady Standish began to tremble. She had wept much, she had not eaten, -her heart was full of terror. Faintness she felt creep upon her. - -"What will you do?" she said, grasping after the vanishing powers of -reflection with all her failing strength. - -"Do?" said Mistress Bellairs. "First of all, prevent the duel. Will -that serve you?" - -"Oh, yes," cried Julia, and grew livid behind her paint. - -"She has got the vapours again," thought the other. "What a poor weak -fool it is!" - -But these vapours came in handy to her plans; she was not keen to -restore Lady Standish too promptly. She called her woman, however, and -helped her to convey the sufferer to her room and lay her on the couch; -then she advised _sal volatile_ and sleep. - -"Leave it all to me," she murmured into the little ear uppermost upon -the pillow; "I will save you." - -Lady Standish groped for her friend's hand with her own that was cold -and shaking. The ladies exchanged a clasp of confidence, and Mistress -Bellairs tripped down to the drawing-room. - -"Now," said she to herself, "let us see." Sudden inspiration sparkled -in her eye. She plunged her hand into the depth of the brocade pocket -dangling at her side, drew forth sundry letters, and began to select -with pursed lips. There was Sir Jasper's own. Those gallant -well-turned lines, that might mean all or nothing, as a woman might -choose to take them--that was of no use for the present. Back it went -into the brocade pocket. There was a scrawl from Harry Verney -declining her invitation to a breakfast party because he had promised -(with two "m's") my Lord Scroop to shoot (with a "u" and an "e"). -Kitty Bellairs looked at it very tenderly, folded it with a loving -touch, and replaced it in its nest. Here was a large folded sheet, -unaddressed, filled inside with bold black writing. A crisp auburn -curl was fastened across the sheet by an emerald-headed pin. - - - "Most cruel, most beautiful, most kind!" - - -ran the ardent lines, - - - "most desired, most beloved! Was it last night or a hundred years - ago that we met? This is the lock of hair the loveliest hand in - all the world deigned to caress. It became upon that moment far - too precious a thing for its poor owner. He ventures, therefore, - to offer it at the shrine of the goddess who consecrated it. Will - she cast it from her? Or will she keep it and let it speak to her, - every hair a tongue, of the burning flame of love that she has - kindled in this mortal breast? Did I dream, or can it be - true?--there was a patch above the dimple at the corner of your - lip. I kissed it. Oh, it must have been a dream! One word, - fairest:--When may I dream again? - - "Your own and ever your own. - - "P.S.--The lock was white before you touched it, but you see you - have turned it to fire!" - - -Mistress Kitty read and smiled. "The very thing!" Then she paused. -"But has the woman a dimple?" said she. "Has she? Never mind, -something must be risked. Now, if I know men, Sir Jasper will spend -the whole night prowling about, trying to discover confirmation of his -suspicions." - -The letter was folded up. "It must seem as if it dropped from my -lady's bosom. Here, at the foot of the sofa, just peeping from behind -the foot-stool! A jealous eye cannot miss it!" - -The deed was done. - -She caught up her cloak and hood, glanced cheerfully round the room, -satisfied herself that the letter showed itself sufficiently in the -candle light to attract a roving eye and, bustling forth, summoned her -chair for her departure in a far better humour than that which had -marked her arrival. - -"They could not fight till morning," she said to herself, as she -snuggled against the silken sides. "Now heaven speed my plan!" She -breathed a pious prayer as her bearers swung her onwards. - - - - -SCENE IV - -For the first time for over a fortnight Sir Jasper returned to the very -fine mansion he had taken for the Bath season, before the small hours. - -It was about ten o'clock of the evening that his impatient hand upon -the knocker sent thunder through the house, startled the gambling -footmen in the hall below and the fat butler from his comfortable nook -at the housekeeper's fireside and his fragrant glass of punch. The -nerves of the elder footman were indeed so shaken that he dropped an -ace from his wide cuff as he swung back the door. Breathing hot lemon -peel, the butler hurried to receive his master's cloak and cane. The -ribbons of Mistress Tremlet's cap quivered over the staircase: the -whole household was agog with curiosity, for her ladyship's woman had -told them to a tear the state of her ladyship's feelings. - -Sir Jasper cursed freely as he entered, struck the younger footman with -his cane over the calves for gaping, requested a just Creator to -dispose of his butler's soul with all possible celerity, and himself -obligingly suggested the particular temperature most suitable to it; -then strode he to the drawing-room with the brief announcement that he -expected the visit of some gentlemen. - -He looked round scowlingly for his wife. The room was empty and -desolate in spite of bright chandeliers. He paused with a frowning -brow, stood a moment irresolute, then shaped his course for the stairs -and mounted with determined foot. In my lady's dressing-room, by one -dismal candle, sat her woman, reading a book of sermons. She had a -long pink face, had been her ladyship's mother's own attendant; and -much Sir Jasper hated her. She rose bristling, dropped him a curtesy -eloquent of a sense of his reprobation; and he felt that with every -line of the homily she laid by on his appearance she had just damned -him as comfortably as he the butler. - -Oh, Lud, Lud! (thus she prayed Sir Jasper in a frightful whisper) would -he in mercy walk softer? My lady was asleep. Her ladyship had been so -unwell, so indisposed, that she, Megrim, had seen the moment when she -must send for the apothecary, and have Sir Jasper looked for all over -Bath. Sir Jasper did not seem to realise it, but my lady was of a -delicate complexion: a tender flower! A harsh look from Sir Jasper, an -unkind word, much less cruel treatment, and she would slip through his -fingers. Ay, that she would. - -Sir Jasper cast a lowering suspicious look around. He glared at the -woman, at the corners of the room, at the closed door. He felt his hot -jealousy sicken and turn green and yellow within him. He stretched out -his hand towards the lock of his wife's door; but Mistress Megrim came -between him and his purpose with determined movement, her stout bust -creaking in its tight stays. - -"No," said she, "no, Sir Jasper, unless it be across my dead corpse!" -Here she trembled very much and grew red about the eyes and nose. - -"Pshaw!" said Sir Jasper, and walked away down the stairs again and -into the empty, lighted drawing-room. First he halted by the window, -where Lady Standish had stood and smiled upon Lord Verney. Then he -went to her writing-desk, and laid his hand upon the casket where she -kept her correspondence, then withdrawing it with a murmured curse, -turned to the chair where she sat, and lifted up her bag of silks. But -this he tossed from him without drawing the strings. Another moment -and his eye caught the gleam of the letter so artfully hidden and -exposed by Mistress Bellairs. He picked it up and surveyed it; it bore -no address, was vaguely perfumed and fell temptingly open to his hand. -He spread the sheet and saw the ruddy curl. Then his eyes read in -spite of himself. And as he read the blood rushed to his brain and -turned him giddy, and he sank on the settee and tore at the ruffles at -his neck. For a moment he suffocated. With recovered breath came a -fury as voluptuous as a rapture. He brought the paper to the light and -examined the love-lock. - -"Red!" said he, "red!" - -He thought of Lord Verney's olive face, and looked and glared at the -hair again as if he disbelieved his senses. Red! Were there two of -them, a black and a ruddy? Stay; oh! women were sly devils! Lord -Verney was a blind. This, _this_ carrot Judas was the consoler! -"There was a patch above the dimple at the corner of your lip. I -dreamed I kissed it." Sir Jasper gave a sort of roar in his soul, -which issued from his lips in a broken groan. The dimple and the -patch! Ay, he had seen them! Only a few short hours ago he had -thought to kiss that dimple with a husband's lordly pleasure, that -dimple, set for another man! - -"Blast them! blast them!" cried Sir Jasper and clenched his hands above -his head. The world went round with him, and everything turned the -colour of blood. The next instant he was cold again, chiding himself -for his passion. He must be calm, calm, for his vengeance. This lock -he must trace to its parent head, no later than to-night, if he had to -scour the town. He sat down, stretched the fatal missive before him, -and sat staring at it. - -It was thus that a visitor, who was announced as Captain Spicer, -presently found him. Captain Spicer was an elongated young gentleman, -had a tendency to visual obliquity and was attired in the extreme of -fashion. He minced forward, bowing and waving white hands with -delicately crooked fingers. - -His respects he presented to Sir Jasper. He had not up to this had the -pleasure and honour of Sir Jasper's acquaintance, but was charmed of -the opportunity--any opportunity which should afford him that pleasure -and honour. Might he, might he? He extended a snuff-box, charmingly -enamelled, and quivered it towards his host. Sir Jasper had risen -stiffly, in his dull eye there was no response. - -"You do not, then?" said Captain Spicer, himself extracting a pinch and -inhaling it with superlative elegance and the very last turn of the -wrist. "And right, my dear sir! A vicious habit. Yet positively," -said he, and smiled engagingly, "without it, I vow, I could not exist -from noon to midnight. But then it must be pure Macabaw. Anything -short of pure Macabaw, fie, fie!" - -Sir Jasper shook himself and interrupted with a snarl: - -"To what, sir, do I owe the honour?" - -"I come," said Captain Spicer, "of course you have guessed, from my -Lord Verney. There was a trifle, I believe about--ha--the shape of his -nether limbs. Upon so private a matter, sir, as his, ahem, nether -limbs, a gentleman cannot brook reflection. You will comprehend that -my Lord Verney felt hurt, Sir Jasper, hurt! I myself, familiar as I am -with his lordship, have never ventured to hint to him even the name of -a hosier, though I know a genius in that line, sir, a fellow who has a -gift--a divine inspiration, I may say--in dealing with these intimate -details! But Gad, sir, delicacy, delicacy!" - -Sir Jasper, meanwhile, had lifted the letter from the table, and was -advancing upon Captain Spicer, ponderingly looking from the lock of -hair in his hand to that young gentleman's head, which, however, was -powdered to such a nicety that it was quite impossible to tell the -colour beneath. - -"Sir," interrupted he at this juncture, "excuse me, but I should be -glad to know if you wear your hair or a wig?" - -Captain Spicer leaped a step back, and looked in amaze at the Baronet's -earnest countenance. - -"Egad!" thought he to himself, "Verney's in the right of it, the -fellow's mad. Ha! ha!" said he aloud, "very good, Sir Jasper, very -good. A little conundrum, eh? 'Rat me, I love a riddle." He glanced -towards the door. Sir Jasper still advanced upon him as he retreated. - -"I asked you, sir," he demanded with an ominous rise in his voice, "if -you wore your own hair?" ("The fellow looks frightened," he argued -internally--"'tis monstrous suspicious!") - -"I," cried the Captain, with his back against the door fumbling for the -handle as he stood. "Fie, fie, who wears a peruke now-a-days, unless -it be your country cousin? He, he! How warm the night is!" - -Sir Jasper had halted opposite to him and was rolling a withering eye -over his countenance. - -"His mealy face is so painted," said the unhappy baronet to himself, -"that devil take him if I can guess the colour of the fellow." His -hand dropped irresolute by his side. - -Beads of perspiration sprang on Captain Spicer's forehead. - -"If ever I carry a challenge to a madman again!" thought he. - -"Your hair is very well powdered," said Sir Jasper. - -"Oh, it is so, it is as you say--Poudre à la Maréchale, sir," said the -Captain, while under his persevering finger the door-handle slowly -turned. An aperture yawned behind him; in a twinkling his slim figure -twisted, doubled, and was gone. - -"Hey, hey!" cried Sir Jasper, "stop, man, stop, our business together -has but just begun." - -But Captain Spicer had reached the street-door. - -"Look to your master," said he to the footman, "he is ill, very ill!" - -Sir Jasper came running after him into the hall. - -"Stop him, fools!" cried he to his servants, and then in the next -breath, "Back!" he ordered. And to himself he murmured, "'Tis never -he. That sleek, fluttering idiot never grew so crisp a curl nor wrote -so sturdy a hand, no, nor kissed a dimple! _Kissed a dimple_! -S'death!" - - - - -SCENE V - -As he stood turning the seething brew of his dark thoughts, there came -a pair of knowing raps upon the street-door, and in upon him strode -with cheery step and cry the friends he was expecting. - -"Ah, Jasper, lad," cried Tom Stafford, and struck him upon his -shoulder, "lying in wait for us? Gad, you're a blood-thirsty fellow!" - -"And quite right," said Colonel Villiers, clinking spurred legs, and -flinging off a military cloak. "Zounds, man, would you have him sit -down in his dishonour?" - -Sir Jasper stretched a hand to each; and holding him by the elbows they -entered his private apartment and closed the door with such carefulness -that the tall footman had no choice but to take it in turns to listen -and peep through the key-hole. - -"Tom," said Sir Jasper, "Colonel Villiers, when I begged you to favour -me with this interview, I was anxious for your services because, as I -told you, of a strong suspicion of Lady Standish's infidelity to me. -Now, gentlemen, doubt is no longer possible, I have the proofs!" - -"Come, come, Jasper, never be down-hearted," cried jovial Tom Stafford. -"Come, sir, you have been too fond of the little dears in your day not -to know what tender yielding creatures they are. 'Tis their nature -man; and then, must they not follow the mode? Do you want to be the -only husband in Bath whose wife is not in the fashion? Tut, tut, so -long as you can measure a sword for it and let a little blood, why, -'tis all in the day's fun!" - -"Swords?" gurgled Colonel Villiers. "No, no, pistols are the thing, -boy. You are never sure with your sword: 'tis but a dig in the ribs, a -slash in the arm, and your pretty fellow looks all the prettier for his -pallor, and is all the more likely to get prompt consolation in the -proper quarter. Ha!" - -"Consolation!" cried Sir Jasper, as if the word were a blow. "Ay, -consolation! damnation!" - -"Whereas with your bullet," said the Colonel, "in the lungs, or in the -brain--at your choice--the job is done as neat as can be. Are you a -good hand at the barkers, Jasper?" - -"Oh, I can hit a haystack!" said Sir Jasper. But he spoke vaguely. - -"I am for the swords, whenever you can," cried comely Stafford, -crossing a pair of neat legs as he spoke and caressing one rounded calf -with a loving hand. "'Tis a far more genteel weapon. Oh, for the feel -of the blades, the pretty talk, as it were, of one with the other! -'Ha, have I got you now, my friend?'--'Ha, would you step between me -and my wife? or my mistress? or my pleasure?'--as the case may be. -'Would you? I will teach you, sa--sa!' Now--now one in the ribs! One -under that presuming heart! Let the red blood flow, see it drop from -the steel: that is something like! Pistols, what of them! pooh! Snap, -you blow a pill into the air, and 'tis like enough you have to swallow -it yourself! 'Tis for apothecaries, say I, and such as have not been -brought up to the noble and gentlemanly art of self-defence." - -"Silence, Tom," growled the Colonel; "here is no matter for jesting. -This friend of ours has had a mortal affront, has he not? 'Tis -established. Shall he not mortally avenge himself upon him who has -robbed him of his honour? That is the case, is it not? And, blast me, -is not the pistol the deadlier weapon and therefore the most suited? -Hey?" - -Sir Jasper made an inarticulate sound that might have passed for assent -or dissent, or merely as an expression of excessive discomfort of -feeling. - -"To business then," cried Colonel Villiers. "Shall I wait upon Lord -Verney and suggest pistols at seven o'clock to-morrow morning in -Hammer's Fields? That is where I generally like to place such affairs: -snug enough to be out of disturbers' way, and far enough to warm the -blood with a brisk walk. Gad, 'twas but ten days ago that I saw poor -Ned Waring laid as neatly on his back by Lord Tipstaffe (him they call -Tipsy Tip, you know) as ever it was done; as pretty a fight! Six -paces, egad, and Ned as determined a dog as a fellow could want to -second. 'Villiers,' said he, as I handed him his saw-handle, 'if I do -not do for him, may he do for me! One of us must kill the other,' said -he. 'Twas all about Mistress Waring, you know, dashed pretty woman! -Poor Ned, he made a discovery something like yours, eh? Faith! ha, ha! -And devil take it, sir, Tip had him in the throat at the first shot, -and Ned's bullet took off Tipstaffe's right curl! Jove, it was a -shave! Ned never spoke again. Ah, leave it to me; see if I do not -turn you out as rare a meeting." - -"But stay," cried Stafford, as Sir Jasper writhed in his arm-chair, -clenched and unclenched furious hands and felt the curl of red hair -burn him where he had thrust it into his bosom. "Stay," cried -Stafford, "we are going too fast, I think. Do I not understand from -our friend here that he called Lord Verney a rat? Sir Jasper is -therefore himself the insulting party, and must wait for Lord Verney's -action in the matter." - -"I protest," cried the Colonel, "the first insult was Lord Verney's in -compromising our friend's wife." - -"Pooh, pooh," exclaimed Stafford, recrossing his legs to bring the left -one into shapely prominence this time, "that is but the insult -incidental. But to call a man a rat, that is the insult direct. -Jasper is therefore the true challenger; the other has the choice of -arms. It is for Lord Verney to send to our friend!" - -"Sir!" exclaimed the Colonel, growing redder about the gills than -Nature and port wine had already made him. "Sir, would you know better -than I?" - -"Gentlemen," said Sir Jasper, sitting up suddenly, "as I have just told -you, since I craved of your kindness that you would help me in this -matter, I have made discoveries that alter the complexion of the affair -very materially. I have reason to believe that if Lord Verney be -guilty in this matter it is in a very minor way. You know what they -call in France _un chandelier_. Indeed it is my conviction--such is -female artfulness--that he has merely been made a puppet of to shield -another person. It is this person I must find first, and upon him that -my vengeance must fall before I can attend to any other business. Lord -Verney indeed has already sent to me, but his friend, Captain Spicer, a -poor fool (somewhat weak in the head, I believe), left suddenly without -our coming to any conclusion. Indeed, I do not regret it--I do not -seek to fight with Lord Verney now. Gentlemen," said Sir Jasper, -rising and drawing the letter from his breast--"gentlemen, I shall -neither eat nor sleep till I have found out the owner of this curl!" - -He shook out the letter as he spoke, and fiercely thrust the tell-tale -love-token under the noses of his amazed friends. "It is a red-haired -man, you see! There lives no red-haired man in Bath but him I must -forthwith spit or plug lest the villain escape me!" - -Colonel Villiers started to his feet with a growl like that of a tiger -aroused from slumber. - -"Zounds!" he exclaimed. "An insult." - -"How!" cried Jasper, turning upon him and suddenly noticing the sandy -hue of his friend's bushy eyebrows. "You, good God! You? Pooh, pooh, -impossible, and yet.... Colonel Villiers, Sir!" cried Sir Jasper, in -awful tones, "did you write this letter? Speak! Yes or no, man! -Speak, or must I drag the words from your throat?" - -Purple and apoplectic passion well-nigh stifled Colonel Villiers. - -"Stafford, Stafford," he spluttered, "you are witness. These are gross -affronts, affronts which shall be wiped out." - -"Did you write that letter? Yes or no!" screamed Sir Jasper, shaking -the offending document in the Colonel's convulsed countenance. - -"I?" cried the Colonel, and struck away Sir Jasper's hand with a -furious blow, "I? I write such brimstone nonsense? No, sir! Now, -damn you body and soul, Sir Jasper, how dare you ask me such a -question?" - -"No," said Sir Jasper, "of course not! Ah, I am a fool, Villiers. -Forgive me. There's no quarrel between us! No, of course it could not -be you! With that nose, that waistcoat, your sixty years! Gad, I am -going mad!" - -"Why, man," said Stafford, as soon as he could speak for laughing, -"Villiers has not so much hair on all his head as you hold in your hand -there. Off with your wig, Villiers, off with your wig, and let your -bald pate proclaim its shining innocence." - -The gallant gentleman thus addressed was by this time black in the -face. Panting as to breath, disjointed as to speech, his fury had -nevertheless its well-defined purpose. - -"I have been insulted, I have been insulted," he gasped; "the matter -cannot end here. Sir Jasper, you have insulted me. I am a red-haired -man, sir. I shall send a friend to call upon you." - -"Nay, then," said Sir Jasper, "since 'tis so between us I will even -assure myself that Tom has spoken the truth and give you something to -fight for!" He stretched out his hand as he spoke, and plucked the wig -from Colonel Villiers' head. - -Before him indeed spread so complete an expanse of hairless candour, -that further evidence was not necessary; yet the few limp hairs that -lingered behind the Colonel's ears, if they had once been ruddy, shone -now meekly silver in the candle-light. - -"I thank you," said Sir Jasper, "that is sufficient. When you send -your friend to call upon me, I shall receive him with pleasure." He -handed back the Colonel's wig with a bow. - -The Colonel stood trembling, his knotted hand instinctively fumbled for -his sword. But remembering perhaps that this was eminently a case for -pistols, he bethought himself, seized his wig, clapped it on defiantly, -settled it with minute care, glared, wheeled round and left the room, -muttering as he went remarks of so sulphurous a nature as to defy -recording. - -Sir Jasper did not seem to give him another thought. He fell into his -chair again and spread out upon his knee the sorely crumpled letter. - -"Confusion!" said he. Who can it be? "Tom, you scamp, I know your -hair is brown. Thou art not the man, Tom. Oh, Tom, oh, Tom, if I do -not kill him I shall go mad!" - -Stafford was weak with laughter, and tears rolled from his eyes as he -gasped: - -"Let us see, who can the Judas be? (Gad, this is the best joke I have -known for years. Oh, Lord, the bald head of him! Oh, Jasper, 'tis -cruel funny! Stab me, sir, if I have known a better laugh these ten -years!) Nay, nay, I will help thee. Come, there's his Lordship the -Bishop of Bath and Wells, he is red, I know, for I have seen him in the -water. Gad, he was like a boiled lobster, hair and all. Could it be -he, think you? They have a way, these divines, and Lady Standish has a -delicate conscience. She would like the approval of the Church upon -her deeds. Nay, never glare like that, for I will not fight you! Have -you not got your rosary of red polls to tell first. Ha! there is -O'Hara, he is Irish enough and rake enough and red enough. Oh, he is -red enough!" - -"O'Hara," cried Sir Jasper, struck. - -There came a fine rat-tat-tat at the door, a parley in the hall, and -the servant announced Mr. Denis O'Hara. - -"Talk of the devil," said Stafford. - -Sir Jasper rose from his armchair with the air of one whose enemy is -delivered into his hands. - - - - -SCENE VI - -The Honourable Denis O'Hara, son and heir of Viscount Kilcroney in the -peerage of Ireland, entered with a swift and easy step, and saluted -airily. He had a merry green eye, and the red of his crisp hair shone -out through the powder like a winter sunset through a mist. - -"Sir Jasper," said he, "your servant, sir. Faith, Tom, me boy, is that -you? The top of the evening to ye." - -Uninvited he took a chair and flung his careless figure upon it. His -joints were loose, his nose aspired, his rich lace ruffles were torn, -his handsome coat was buttoned awry; Irishman was stamped upon every -line of him, from his hot red head to his slim alert foot; Irishman -lurked in every rich accent of his ready tongue. - -Sir Jasper made no doubt that now the Lothario who had poached on his -preserves, had destroyed his peace, had devastated his home, was before -him. He turned to Stafford and caught him by the wrist. - -"Tom," whispered he, "you will stand by me, for by my immortal soul, I -will fight it out to-night!" - -"For God's sake, be quiet," whispered the other, who began to think -that the jealous husband was getting beyond a joke. "Let us hear what -the fellow has got to say first. The devil! I will not stand by to -see you pink every auburn buck in the town. 'Tis stark lunacy." - -"But 'tis you yourself," returned Sir Jasper, in his fierce -undertone--"you yourself who told me it was he. See, but look at this -curl and at that head." - -"Oh, flummery!" cried Stafford. "Let him speak, I say." - -"When you have done your little conversation, gentlemen," said Mr. -O'Hara good-naturedly, "perhaps you will let me put in a word edgeways?" - -Sir Jasper, under his friend's compelling hand, sank into a chair; his -sinews well-nigh creaked with the constraint he was putting upon -himself. - -"I have come," said Denis O'Hara, "from me friend Captain Spoicer. I -met him a whoile ago, fluttering down Gay Street, leaping like a hare -with the hounds after him, by St. Patrick! 'You're running away from -someone, Spoicer,' says I. And says he, 'I'm running away from that -blithering madman Sir Jasper Standish.' Excuse me, Sir Jasper, those -were his words, ye see." - -"And what, sir," interrupted Sir Jasper in an ominous voice--"what, -sir, may I ask, was your purpose in walking this way to-night?" - -"Eh," cried the Irishman, "what is that ye say?" - -"Oh, go on, O'Hara," cried Stafford impatiently, and under his breath -to Standish, "Faith, Jasper," said he, "keep your manners, or I'll wash -my hands of the whole matter." - -"Oh, is that the way with him," said O'Hara, behind his hand to -Stafford, and winked jovially. "Well, I was saying, gentlemen, that to -see a man run, unless it be a Frenchman, is a thing that goes against -me. 'Why, what did he do to you?' said I (meaning you, Sir Jasper). -'Oh,' says me gallant Captain, 'I went to him with a gentlemanly -message from a friend and the fellow insulted me so grossly with -remarks about my hair, that sure,' says he, 'tis only fit for Bedlam he -is.' 'Insulted you,' says I, 'and where are you running to? To look -for a friend, I hope,' says I. 'Insults are stinking things.' 'Sure,' -says he, 'he is mad,' says he. 'Well, what matter of that?' says I. -'Sure, isn't it all mad we are more or less? Come,' says I, 'Spoicer, -this will look bad for you with the ladies, not to speak of the men. -Give me the message, me boy, and I will take it; and sure we will let -Sir Jasper bring his keepers with him to the field, and no one can say -fairer than that.'" - -Sir Jasper sprang to his feet. - -"Now, curse your Irish insolence," he roared; "this is more than I -would stand from any man! And, if I mistake not, Mr. O'Hara, we have -other scores to settle besides." - -"Is it we?" cried O'Hara, jumping up likewise. "'Tis the first I've -heard of them--but, be jabers, you will never find me behind hand in -putting me foot to the front! I will settle as many scores as you -like, Sir Jasper--so long as it is me sword and not me purse that pays -them." - -"Draw then, man, draw!" snarled Sir Jasper, dancing in his fury. He -bared his silver-hilted sword and threw the scabbard in a corner. - -"Heaven defend us!" cried Stafford, in vain endeavouring to come -between the two. - -"Sure, you must not contradict him," cried O'Hara, unbuckling his belt -rapidly, and drawing likewise with a pretty flourish of shining blade. -"'Tis the worst way in the world to deal with a cracked man. Sure, ye -must soothe him and give in to him. Don't I know! Is not me own first -cousin a real raw lunatic in Kinsale Asylum this blessed day? Come on, -Sir Jasper, I'm yer man. Just pull the chairs out of the way, Tom, me -dear boy." - -"Now sir, now sir!" said Sir Jasper, and felt restored to himself again -as steel clinked against steel. And he gripped the ground with his -feet, and knew the joy of action. - -"Well, what must be, must be," said Stafford philosophically, and sat -across a chair; "and a good fight is a good fight all the world over! -Ha! that was a lunge! O'Hara wields a pretty blade, but there is -danger in Jasper's eye. I vow I won't have the Irish boy killed. Ha!" -He sprang to his feet again and brandished the chair, ready to -interpose between the two at the critical moment. O'Hara was as -buoyant as a cork; he skipped backwards and forwards, from one side to -another, in sheer enjoyment of the contest. But Sir Jasper hardly -moved from his first position except for one or two vicious lunges. -Stafford had deemed to see danger in his eye; there was more than -danger--there was murder! The injured husband was determined to slay, -and bided his time for the fatal thrust. The while, O'Hara attacked -out of sheer lightness of heart. Now his blade grazed Sir Jasper's -thigh; once he gave him a flicking prick on the wrist so that the blood -ran down his fingers. - -"Stop, stop," cried Stafford, running in with his chair, "Sir Jasper's -hit!" - -"No, dash you!" cried Sir Jasper. And click, clank, click, it went -again, with the pant of the shortening breath, and the thud of the -leaping feet. Sir Jasper lunged a third time, O'Hara waved his sword -aimlessly, fell on one knee, and rolled over. - -"Halt!" yelled Stafford. It was too late. Sir Jasper stood staring at -his red blade. - -"You have killed him!" cried Stafford, turning furiously on his friend, -and was down on his knees and had caught the wounded man in his arms -the next second. - -"Devil a bit," said O'Hara, and wriggled in the other's grasp, too -vigorously indeed for a moribund, found his feet in a jiffy and stood -laughing with a white face and looking down at his dripping shirt. -"'Tis but the sudden cold feel of the steel, man! Sure I'm all right, -and ready to begin again! 'Tis but a rip in the ribs, for I can -breathe as right as ever." He puffed noisily as he spoke to prove his -words, slapped his chest, then turned giddily and fell into a chair. -Stafford tore open the shirt. It was as O'Hara had said, the wound was -an ugly surface rip, more unpleasant than dangerous. - -"Let us have another bout," said O'Hara. - -"No, no," said Stafford. - -"No, no," said Sir Jasper advancing and standing before his adversary. -"No. Mr. O'Hara, you may have done me the greatest injury that one can -do another, but gad, sir, you have fought like a gentleman!" - -"Ah!" whispered O'Hara to Stafford, who still examined the wound with a -knowing manner, "'tis crazed entoirely he is, the poor dear fellow." - -"Not crazed," said Stafford rising, "or if so, only through -jealousy.--Jasper, let us have some wine for Mr. O'Hara, and one of -your women with water and bandages. A little sticking plaister will -set this business to rights. Thank God, that I have not seen murder -to-night!" - -"One moment, Stafford." said Jasper, "one moment, sir. Let us clear -this matter. Am I not right, Mr. O'Hara, in believing you to have -written a letter to my wife?" - -"Is it me?" cried O'Hara in the most guileless astonishment. - -"He thinks you are her lover," whispered Stafford in his ear. "Zooks, -I can laugh again now! He knows she has got a red-haired lover, and -says he will kill every red-haired man in Bath!" - -"Sure I have never laid eyes on Lady Standish," said O'Hara to Sir -Jasper, "if that is all you want. Sure, I'd have been proud to be her -lover if I'd only had the honour of her acquaintance!" - -"Mr. O'Hara," said Sir Jasper, "will you shake hands with me?" - -"With all the pleasure in loife!" cried the genial Irishman. "Faith, -'tis great friends we will be, but perhaps ye had better not introjuce -me to ye'r lady, for I'm not to be trusted where the dear creatures are -concerned, and so 'tis best to tell you at the outset." - -The opponents now shook hands with some feeling on either side. The -wound was attended to and several bottles of wine were thereafter -cracked in great good-fellowship. - -"There is nothing like Canary," vowed O'Hara, "for the power of -healing." - - * * * * * - -It was past midnight when, on the arm of Mr. Stafford, Denis O'Hara set -out to return to his own lodgings. - -The streets were empty and the night dark, and they had many grave -consultations at the street corners as to which way to pursue. If they -reeled a little as they went, if they marched round King's Circus, and -round again more than once, and showed a disposition to traverse Gay -Street from side to side oftener than was really required by their -itinerary, it was not, as O'Hara said, because of the Canary, but all -in the way of "divarsion." - -"Sir Jasper's a jolly good fellow," said Lord Kilcroney's heir as he -propped himself against his own door-post, and waggled the knocker with -tipsy gravity. "And so are you," said he to Stafford. "I like ye -both." Here he suddenly showed a disposition to fall upon Stafford's -neck, but as suddenly arrested himself, stiffened his swaying limbs and -struck his forehead with a sudden flash of sobriety. "Thunder and -'ouns," said he, "if I did not clean forget about Spoicer!" - -He was with difficulty restrained by Stafford (who, having a stronger -head, was somewhat the soberer), with the help of the servants who now -appeared, from setting forth to repair his negligence. By a tactful -mixture of persuasion and force, the wounded gentleman was at length -conducted to bed, sleepily murmuring: - -"Won't do at all--most remiss--affair of honour--never put off!" until -sleep overtook him, which was before his head touched the pillow. - -Meanwhile Sir Jasper sat, with guttering candles all around him, in the -recesses of an armchair, his legs extended straight, his bandaged wrist -stuffed into his bosom, his head sunk upon his chest, his spurious -flash of gaiety now all lost in a depth of chaotic gloom. Dawn found -him thus. At its first cold rays he rose sobered, and could not have -said whether the night had passed in waking anguish or in hideous -nightmare. He looked round on the cheerless scene, the blood-stained -linen, the empty wine-glasses with their sickening reek, the smoking -candles, the disordered room; then he shuddered and sought the haven of -his dressing-room, and the relief of an hour's sleep with a wet towel -tied round his throbbing head. - - - - -SCENE VII - -Mistress Bellairs was up betimes. In truth she had slept ill, which -was a strange experience for her. What her thirty-seven lovers had -never had the power to wring from her--a tear and a sleepless -night--this had she given to the one man who loved her not. - -She was tortured with anxiety concerning the danger which her caprice -(or, as she put it, Lady Standish's inconceivable foolishness) might -have brought upon Lord Verney. At daybreak she rang for her maid, and -with the eight o'clock chocolate demanded to be posted with all the -news of the town. She was of those who possess the talent of making -themselves served. The chocolate was to the full as perfumed and -creamy as ever, and Miss Lydia was bursting with tidings of importance, -as she stood by her lady's couch. - -"Well, Lydia, well?" cried her mistress, sharply. - -"Oh, lud, ma'am, the whole town's ringing with it! My Lady Standish -has been found out. There, I for one never trust those solemn prudes -that ever keep their eyes turned up or cast down, and their mouths -pursed like cherries. You would not be so proper if there was not a -reason for it, I always think." - -"Lydia," said Mistress Bellairs, "do not be a fool. Go on; what has -Lady Standish been found out in, pray?" - -"Oh, ma'am," said Lydia, "it ain't hard to guess. 'Tis what a woman's -always found out in, I suppose. But, lud, the shamelessness of it! I -hear, ma'am," she came closer to her mistress and bent to whisper, -almost trembling with the joy of being tale-bearer to such purpose, "I -hear, ma'am, Sir Jasper found Colonel Villiers there yesterday -afternoon. Oh, ma'am, such goings on!" - -"Pshaw!" said Mistress Kitty. - -"Well, they're going to fight, anyhow," cried the girl, "and Sir Jasper -tore off the Colonel's wig and beat him about the face with it, ma'am, -and the Colonel's been like a madman ever since, and he vows he will -shoot him this morning." - -Mistress Bellairs gave a sigh of relief. - -"Let them shoot each other," said she, sinking back on her pillows and -stirring her chocolate calmly. "I do not find the world any better for -either of them." - -"But that is not all, ma'am, for poor Sir Jasper no sooner had he -thrashed the Colonel, than he finds Mr. Denis O'Hara behind the -curtains." - -"Denis O'Hara!" exclaimed Mistress Bellairs, sitting up in amaze. -"You're raving!" - -"No, ma'am, for I have it from Mr. O'Hara's own man; and did not he and -Sir Jasper fight it out then and there, and was not Mr. O'Hara carried -home wounded by the Watch!" - -"Mercy on us!" exclaimed the lady. - -"And that is not all, ma'am," said the maid. - -"You frighten me, child." - -"There is Captain Spicer too, whom you can't a-bear, and Lord Verney." - -"Lord Verney!" cried Mistress Kitty. - -"Ay, ma'am; he and Sir Jasper are going to fight this morning. Sir -Jasper's going to fight them all, but Lord Verney is to be the first, -for Sir Jasper found him kissing Lady Standish yesterday at noon; the -others were later on. So it's my Lord comes first you see, ma'am." - -"La, girl," cried Mistress Bellairs with a scream, and upset her -chocolate, "going to fight this morning? 'Tis not true!" Her pretty -face turned as white as chalk under its lace frills. - -"Yes, ma'am," pursued the maid, gabbling as hard as she could. "Yes, -ma'am, first there's Lord Verney. Sir Jasper, they say, behaved so -oddly to Captain Spicer who brought the first challenge, that Lord -Verney sent another by a chairman this morning. And then Colonel -Villiers. Of course, as Mr. Mahoney says (that's Mr. O'Hara's man, -ma'am), Sir Jasper is safe to kill Lord Verney, and Colonel Villiers is -safe to kill Sir Jasper. But if the Colonel do not kill Sir Jasper, -then Sir Jasper will fight Captain Spicer! La! ma'am, the chocolate's -all over the bed." - -"Oh, get out of that, you silly wench," cried Mistress Bellairs, "let -me rise! There is not a moment to lose. And where is Sir Jasper -supposed to fight my Lord Verney? (Give me my silk stockings, useless -thing that you are!) I don't believe a word of your story. How dare -you come and tell me such a pack of nonsense? But where are they -supposed to fight? Of course you must have heard the hour?" She was -pulling silk stockings over her little arched foot, and up her little -plump leg as fast as her trembling hands would obey her. - -"I do not know where, ma'am," said the maid demurely, "but the Colonel -is to meet Sir Jasper in Hammer's Fields at noon, so I suppose my Lord -Verney and he will be fighting about this time." - -"Oh, hold your tongue," cried her mistress; "you're enough to drive one -mad with your quacking!" - -Not a dab of rouge did the widow find time to spread upon pale cheeks, -not a dust of powder upon a black curl. The pretty morning hood was -drawn round a very different face from that which it usually shaded; -but who shall say that Kitty, the woman, running breathless through the -empty streets with the early breeze playing with her loose hair, was -not as fair in her complete self-abandonment, as the fashionable lady, -powdered, painted, patched and laced, known under the name of Mrs. -Bellairs? Her small feet hammered impatiently along, her skirts -fluttered as she went. She would not wait for a coach; a chair would -have sent her crazy. - -At the turning of the Crescent, another fluttering woman's figure, also -hooded, also cloaked, also advancing with the haste that despises -appearances, passed her with a patter and a flash. They crossed, then -moved by the same impulse halted with dawning recognition. - -"Mistress Bellairs!" cried Lady Standish's flute-like voice. - -"Julia Standish!" screamed Mistress Bellairs. They turned and caught -at each other with clinging hands. - -"Oh, heavens," said Mistress Bellairs, "is what I hear true? Is that -devil Sir Jasper going to fight Lord Verney this morning? Why, -Verney's but a child; 'tis rank murder. You wicked woman, see what you -have done!" - -"Ah, Mistress Bellairs," cried Julia, and pressed her side, "my heart -is broken." - -"But what has happened, woman, what has happened?" cried Kitty, and -shook the plaintive Julia with a fierce hand. - -"Sir Jasper will not see me," sobbed Julia, "but I have found out that -he is to meet my Lord Verney in an hour in Bathwick Meadows. There -have been messages going backwards and forwards since early dawn. Oh, -Heaven have pity on us!" - -"Where are you going?" cried Kitty, and shook her once more. - -"I was going to Lord Verney to plead for my husband's life," said Lady -Standish, and the tears streamed down her face like the storm-rain upon -lily flowers. - -"The Lord keep you," cried Mistress Bellairs with feelings too deep for -anger; "I believe you are no better than an idiot!" - -The most heroic resolves are often the work of a second! "Now go back -home again, you silly thing," said Kitty. "'Tis I--yes, Lady Standish, -you do not deserve it of me--but I will sacrifice myself! I will -prevent this duel, I will go to my Lord Verney!" - -"You," said Julia, and wondered, and but half understood the meaning of -the words. - -"Go home, go home," said Mistress Kitty, "and I tell you that if I do -not make Lord Verney fail at the meeting, my name is not Kitty -Bellairs!" - -Lady Standish hesitated, and meekly bowed her head, turned and began to -retrace her steps, her slim figure bending and swaying as if the fresh -morning wind were too stern for her. - -Mistress Bellairs looked at her watch. - -"Did she say an hour?" murmured she to herself. "Then, ten minutes -before the looking-glass, and ten minutes to get to my Lord's lodgings, -and I will find him about to start. 'Tis his first affair of honour, -poor boy, and he is sure to be as early at it as a country cousin to a -dinner-party." - -The sun broke out from a cloudy sky, and Mrs. Bellairs shook herself -and felt her spirits rise. A dimple peeped in either cheek. - -"After all," said she as she tripped along, and the dimples deepened as -the smile broadened, "who knows? 'Tis an ill wind that blows nobody -good." - - * * * * * - -My Lady Standish returned home. The servants stared at her curiously -as she crossed the hall. Mistress Tremlet, the housekeeper, passed her -with pursed lips. Her own maid, she knew, was dissolved in tears and -plunged in Doctor Persel's discourses against heresy. White as new -fallen snow was her conscience, nevertheless she felt herself smirched -in the eyes of all these people. Yet she cared not. - -Outside Sir Jasper's dressing-room she listened. She could hear him -stamp about as he made his toilet, and curse his man. She put out her -hand to knock, but the memory of his stern repulse to her last appeal -robbed her of all courage. - -"I will not go in upon him," thought she, "but when he comes out I will -speak." - -"These swords," said Sir Jasper within, "I will take in the carriage. -I expect Mr. Stafford and a friend to call for me in half-an-hour. Do -you understand, sirrah! And hark ye, where are the pistols?" - -"Pistols!" echoed Lady Standish, and her heart beat to suffocation. - -There was a pause. - -"Here, Sir Jasper," said the valet then. - -"Now, mark what I say," said Jasper impressively. "Lord Markham will -call at eleven. Let the curricle be in waiting; tell my Lord that I -will meet him five minutes before the half-hour at Hammer's Fields. -Forget at your peril! You are to take these pistols there yourself. -Stay, tell my Lord Markham that if I am not at the _rendezvous_, 'twill -only be because I have not life enough left to take me there, and he -must make it straight with Colonel Villiers. Have you understood, -rascal? Nay--damn you!--I will give you a letter for my Lord Markham." - -"Oh God! oh God!" cried poor Lady Standish, and felt her knees tremble, -"what is this now? Another meeting! The Colonel! ... In God's name -how comes he upon Colonel Villiers? Why, this is wholesale slaughter! -This is insanity! This must be prevented!" She caught her head in her -hands. "Sir Jasper's mad," she said. "What shall I do? What shall I -do? They will kill him, and I shall have done it. Why now, if Kitty -prevents the first duel, cannot I prevent the second? Oh, I am a false -wife if I cannot save my husband. Heaven direct me!" she prayed, and -to her prayer came inspiration. - -There was the Bishop, the Bishop of Bath and Wells! That reverend -prelate had shown her much kindness and attention; he would know how to -interfere in such a crisis. He was a man of authority. Between them -could they not enforce the peace at Hammer's Fields, and could not Sir -Jasper be saved in spite of himself, were it by delivering him into the -hands of the law? - -Lady Standish flew into her room and called the sniffing Megrim. - -"Paper and ink," cried she, "and get you ready to run on a message. -'Tis a matter of life and death." - -"My Lady," said Megrim primly, "I will serve your Ladyship in all -things that are right; but I hope I know my dooty to my Creator; and -stoop to connive at irregularities, my Lady, I won't and never will." -She had been ready to condemn her master overnight, but the talk in the -servants' hall had, as she expressed it, "opened her eyes." And what -woman is not ready to judge her sister woman--above all, what maid to -condemn her mistress? - -Lady Standish stared. - -"What means this?" said she. "You shall do as I bid you, Mistress -Megrim. How dare you!" cried Lady Standish with a sudden flash of -comprehension. "Why, woman, my letter is to the Bishop!" - -"Oh," quoth Mistress Megrim, still with reserve, yet condescending to -approval, "that is another matter! Shall I," she sniffed, "be stricter -than becomes a Christian? Shall I refuse aid to the bruised sinner or -to the smoking lamp whose conscience is awakened? May his Lordship be -a tower of strength to your Ladyship along the rocky paths of -penitence--Amen!" - - - - -SCENE VIII - -In ten minutes a fair lady may do much to enhance her fairness. As -Mistress Bellairs took a last look at her mirror, while Lydia bustled -out to call a hired chair, she bestowed upon her reflection a smile of -approval which indeed so charming an image could not fail to call -forth. Then she huddled herself in a mysterious and all enveloping -cloak, caught up a little velvet mask from the table, and sped upon her -errand. She sallied forth as the gallant soldier might to battle, with -a beating heart yet a high one. - -Lord Verney and Captain Spicer had just finished breakfast at the -former's lodgings in Pierrepoint Street, near North Parade. Captain -Spicer, babbling ineptly of his own experience as a duellist, of his -scorn of Sir Jasper's lunacy, yet of his full determination to slay the -vile madman, had done ample justice to his young principal's table. -But Lord Verney, his cheek now darkly flushed, now spread with an -unwholesome pallor, found it hard to swallow even a mouthful of bread, -and restlessly passed from the contemplation of the clock and the -setting of his watch to the handling of his pistols, or the hasty -addition of yet another postscript to the ill-spelt, blotted farewell -epistle he had spent half the night in inditing to the Dowager his -mother: "In case, you know..." he had said to his friend, with a quiver -in his voice. - -Captain Spicer had earnestly promised to carry out his patron's last -wishes in the most scrupulous manner. - -"My dear Lord," he had said, grasping him by the hand, "rely upon me. -Gad, Sir Jasper is a devil of a shot I hear, and of course, he, he! we -all know the saying--the strength of a madman. But no sooner has he -laid you, Harry, than I vow, upon my honour, I shall hold him at my -sword's point. I will revenge thee, Harry, never fear of that. 'Twill -be a mighty genteel story, and the world will ring with it. Egad, he -will not be the first I have spitted as easy as your cook would spit a -turkey. Have I not learnt of the great Angelo Malevolti himself? He, -he--'A woman's hand,' he would say, 'and the devil's head!'" - -Here Captain Spicer shook out his bony fingers from the encumbering -ruffles and contemplated them with much satisfaction. - -"Oh, hang you, Spicer, be quiet, can't you!" cried Lord Verney -petulantly. - -The Captain leant back on his chair and began to pick his teeth with a -silver toothpick. - -"Pooh, these novices!" said he, as if to himself. "Keep your nerves -steady, my Lord, or, stab me, I may as well order the mourning-coach -before we start. He, he! 'Tis well, indeed, you have a friend to -stand by you!" - -A discreet tap was heard at the door, and Lord Verney's impassive new -servant (especially engaged on his behalf by the Captain, who indeed, -some ill-natured wag had it, shared his wages and perquisites) stood in -the doorway. - -"There is a lady downstairs, my Lord," he said in his mechanical voice. -"She particularly requests to see your Lordship and will take no -denial, although I informed her that your Lordship was like to be -engaged until late in the morning." - -Lord Verney merely stared in amazement; but Captain Spicer sprang up -from his chair, his pale eyes starting with curiosity. - -"A lady, gad! Verney, you dog, what is this? A lady, Ned? Stay, is -she tall and fair and slight?" - -"No, sir, she is under-sized, and seems plump, though she is wrapt in -so great a cloak I could hardly tell." - -"Pretty, man?" - -"Cannot say, sir, she wears a mask." - -"A mask? He, Verney, Verney, this is vastly interesting! And she -won't go away, eh, Ned?" - -"No, sir, she must see his Lordship, she said, if only for five -minutes." - -"Plump, under-sized, masked," ejaculated Captain Spicer in burning -perplexity. "Gad, we have ten minutes yet, we will have her up, eh, -Verney? Show her up, Ned." - -The servant withdrew, unheeding Lord Verney's stammered protest. - -"Really, Captain Spicer," said he, "I would have liked to have kept -these last ten minutes for something serious. I would have liked," -said the lad with a catch in his voice and a hot colour on his cheek, -"to have read a page of my Bible before starting, were it only for my -mother's sake, afterwards." - -The led Captain threw up hand and eye in unfeigned horror. - -"A page of your Bible! Zounds! If it gets out, we are the -laughing-stock of Bath. A page of your Bible! 'Tis well no one heard -you but I." - -"Hush!" said Lord Verney, for in the doorway stood their visitor. -'Twas indeed a little figure, wrapt in a great cloak, and except for -the white hand that held the folds, and the glimpse of round chin and -cherry lip that was trembling beneath the curve of the mask, there was -naught else to betray her identity, to tell whether she were young or -old, well-favoured or disinherited. But it was a charming little hand, -and an engaging little chin. - -Lord Verney merely stood and stared like the boy he was. But Captain -Spicer leaped forward with a spring like a grasshopper, and crossing -his lean shanks, he presented a chair with the killing grace of which -he alone was master. The lady entered the room, put her hand on the -back of the chair, and turned upon Captain Spicer. - -"I would see Lord Verney alone, sir," she said. It was a very sweet -voice, but it was imperious. The masked lady had all the air of one -who was accustomed to instant obedience. - -In vain Captain Spicer leered and languished; the black eyes gleamed -from behind the disguise very coldly and steadily back at him. Forced -to withdraw, he endeavoured to do so with wit and elegance, but he was -conscious somehow of cutting rather a poor figure; and under the -unknown one's hand the door closed upon him with so much energy as to -frustrate utterly his last bow. - -Kitty Bellairs deliberately turned the key in the lock, and put it in -her pocket. Lord Verney started forward, but was arrested by the sound -of his own name, pronounced in the most dulcet and plaintive tone he -thought he had ever heard. - -"Lord Verney," said Kitty, flinging back her cloak and hood and -allowing her pretty brown curls, and a hint of the most perfect shape -in Bath, to become visible to the young peer's bewildered gaze. "Lord -Verney," said she, and clasped her hands, "a very, very unhappy woman -has come to throw herself upon your compassion." - -"Madam," said Lord Verney, "what can I do for you?" His boyish soul -was thrilled by these gentle accents of grief; he thought he saw a tear -running down the white chin; the rounded bosom heaved beneath its -bewitching disorder of lace. He glanced at the clock and back at the -suppliant in a cruel perplexity. "Madam," said he, "time presses; I -have but a few minutes to give you. Tell me, madam, how can I serve -you? To do so will be a comfort to me in what is perhaps the last hour -of my life." - -The lady gave a cry as soft as a dove's, and as plaintive. - -"Oh," said she, "it is true, then, what I heard?" and the white hands -were wrung together as in extremest anguish. - -"Madam," cried he, with outspread arms, and, though without daring to -touch her, drawing closer, so close as to hear the quick catch of her -breath and to inhale the subtle fragrance of violets that emanated from -her. - -"Oh," said she, "it is true!" She staggered and caught at the -fastenings of her cloak and threw it open. - -"You are faint," he cried, strangely moved; "let me call." - -But she caught him by the hand. Her fingers were curiously warm for -one seized with faintness, but the touch of them was pleasant to the -young man as never woman's touch had been before. Out flew the fellow -hand to keep his prisoner, and they clung round his great boy's wrist. - -He never knew how, but suddenly he was on his knees before her. - -"You are going to fight," said she, "to fight with Sir Jasper. Oh, my -God, you do not know, but it is because of me, and if you fight it will -break my heart." She leant forward to look eagerly at him as he knelt. -Her breath fanned his cheek. Through her mask he saw beautiful black -eyes, deep, deep. How white the skin was upon her neck and chin--how -fine its grain! What little wanton curls upon her head! What a -fragrance of flowers in the air! How he longed to pluck that mask -away--and yet how the very mystery lured him, held him! - -"Who are you?" said he, in a low quick whisper. "Let me see your face." - -She forbade his indiscreet hand with a little shriek. - -"No, no, no, you must never see, never know; that would be terrible." - -Then he placed both his hands, all unconsciously, upon hers, and then -she caught them both and held them, and he felt that her weak grasp was -to him as strong as iron. - -"Why do you fight?" said she. "Tell me." - -He blushed. - -"'Tis for nothing, the merest misunderstanding. Sir Jasper is mad, I -think." - -"Sir Jasper is jealous," breathed she, and nearer came the gaze of the -eyes. "Is it true that you love Lady Standish?" - -"I?" cried he vehemently, and rapped out a great oath--so eager was he -to deny. "I? No! God is my witness. No!" - -"Then do not fight," said she. - -He wanted to look at the clock; he wanted to spring up and rush to the -door; he was conscious that Spicer was knocking gently, and that it was -time to go where the conventions of honour called him. The soft clasp -held him, and the mysterious eyes. He was a very boy, and had never -loved before, and--she was masked! - -"Let me advise you," said she. "Believe me, your welfare is dearer to -me than you can imagine--dearer to me than I ought to tell you. -Believe me, if you give up this duel you will live to be glad of it. -Sir Jasper will thank you no later than this very day, as never man -thanked man before. And you will make me so happy! Oh, believe me, -your honour is safe with me." - -"Only let me see your face," said he, while Spicer knocked louder. "I -will see her, and kiss her," he thought to himself, "and that will be -something to carry to my death." - -"How dare you ask it?" she said. "Must I grant your request when you -refuse me mine?" - -"And if I grant you yours," said he, as his heart beat very fast, "what -will you give me?" - -"Oh, give," said she, "give! Who cares for gifts? A man must take." -Her red lip beneath the mask here became arched so bewitchingly over a -row of the whitest teeth in all the world, that Harry Verney, whose -head had been rapidly going, lost it and his heart together. - -"That is a challenge," said he, as he drew a hand away and lifted it to -the mask. - -"Ah, traitor!" she cried, and made a dainty start of resistance. His -fingers trembled on the soft scented locks. - -"You shall not," said she, and bent her head to avoid his touch, so -that as he knelt their faces were closer together than ever. - -"Oh!" cried he, and kissed her on the chin beneath the mask. - - - - -SCENE IX - -"My Lord," clamoured Captain Spicer at the -door, "the coach is waiting and we have but -half an hour to reach Bathwick Meadows. -Egad, Lord Verney, would you be last at the -meeting?" - -Lord Verney sprang to his feet. The words, -the impatient raps penetrated to his dizzy brain -with sudden conviction. - -"Heavens!" cried he, and glanced at the -clock, and made a leap for the door. - -"And will you go," said the stranger, "without -having seen my face?" - -He ran back to her and then back to the door -again, distracted, as you may see a puppy dog -between two calls. Finally he came back to the -lady with a new and manly dignity upon him. - -"I must go," he said. "Would you show -yourself as kind as you seem, madam, remove -your mask that I may see you before I go." - -Outside Captain Spicer was dancing a sort of -hornpipe of impotent impatience, and filling the -air with shrill strange oaths. - -Mistress Bellairs put the lean swarthy boy -very composedly on one side by the merest -touch of her hand, then she went over to the -door, unlocked it and admitted Captain Spicer, -green and sweating. - -"I am coming, Spicer," cried Lord Verney -desperately, and made a plunge for his hat and -cloak, murmuring as he passed the lady: "Oh -cruel!" - -Kitty Bellairs nibbled her little finger and -looked at the clock. - -"It will not take you, you know," said she, -"more than five minutes to drive down to the -Bathwick ferry, therefore if you start in three -you will still have twenty-six to spare. My -Lord Verney, will you give me those three -minutes?" - -Lord Verney flung aside hat and cloak again, -his face glowing with a dark flush. - -"Oh," cried he, like a school-boy, "for God's -sake, Spicer, wait outside." - -"Nay," said Mistress Kitty, smiling to herself -under her mask, "nay, I have need of Captain -Spicer." - -Lord Verney's face fell, - -"Come hither," said she, and took him crestfallen -by the hand and brought him to the table, -where lay the writing materials he had been -using but a little while ago. "Here," said she, -"is a sheet of paper. Sit down, my Lord, and -write, write," she said, and tapped his shoulder; -"write, sir--thus:-- - -/# -'Lord Verney begs to inform Sir Joseph Standish that he -understands the grounds of the quarrel between them to lie -in a gross misconception of Lord Verney's feelings for Lady -Standish.' -#/ - -"Write, write!" She leaned over him, dictating. - -Half spell-bound, yet protesting incoherently, -he began to cover the page with his awkward -scrawl. - -"Quick," said she. "(Child, how do you -spell quarrel?) Never mind, on with you:-- - -/# -'Lord Verney begs to assure Sir Jasper that, so far from -presuming to entertain any unlawful sentiments for Lady -Standish, he has never addressed more than three words to -her or as many glances at her in his-life; that his whole -heart is given to another lady, the only woman he has ever -loved and ever will love.'" -#/ - -The pen nearly dropped from Lord Verney's -fingers. He started and turned round on his -chair to graze in amaze into the countenance of -his mysterious visitor, and again was at once -attracted and foiled by her mask. - -"Surely you would not contradict a lady?" -she whispered in his ear; "haste, we have but -one minute more. Here, give me the pen, I -will finish." She snapped the quill from his -hand, her curls touched his cheek as she bent -forward over him to the page. Swiftly her -little hand flew:-- - -/# -"If upon this explanation Sir Jasper does not see his way -to retract all the offensive observations he made to Lord -Verney, Lord Verney will be ready to meet him as arranged -without an instant's delay. The truth of all these statements -is guaranteed by the woman Lord Verney loves." -#/ - -She seized the sheet and folded it. - -"Now, Captain Spicer," said she, "take your -coach and hie you to Sir Jasper's house, and -if you bring back an answer before the clock -strikes, I will let you take off my mask, and that -will save you from dying of curiosity and, also, -give you something to tattle about for the next -month. Oh, you will find Sir Jasper," she said; -"he is a seasoned hand, and does not, like your -virgin duellist, make it a point of honour to -bring his high valour to the rendezvous twenty -minutes before the time." - -Within his meagre body Captain Spicer -carried the soul of a flunkey. He would have -given worlds to rebel, but could not. - -"So long as it is not a put-off," said he. -"Not even for a fair one's smile could I barter -a friend's honour." - -Kitty held the letter aloft tantalizingly and -looked at the clock. - -"If you won't be the bearer," said she, "I -will send it by the chairman, and then you will -never know what is in it. Moreover," said she, -and smiled archly, "if Sir Jasper apologises to -Lord Verney, which, upon receipt of this letter, -I make no doubt he will, you can take his place, -you know, and will not be done out of a gallant -meeting." - -"Of course, ha, of course!" cried Spicer with -a yellow smile. - -Laughing, Mistress Kitty closed the door -behind his retreating figure. - -"Now," said she. - -"Oh, what have you done, what have you -made me do?" cried Harry Verney in a sudden -agony. - -"Hush," said Mistress Kitty. "Did I not -tell you your honour was safe with me? Do -you not believe me?" said she meltingly. -"Ah, Verney!" She put her hand to her -head, and at her touch the mask fell. - -He looked at her face, blushing and quivering -upon him, and once more fell on his knee -at her feet. - -"Oh, tell me your name!" cried he, pleadingly. - -"Why, Lord Verney," she said, "how ungallant!" She -smiled and looked bewitchingly -beautiful; looked serious and reproachful, and -he fell beyond his depths in rapture. - -"Why, you know me, you know me well," -said she, "am I not Mistress Bellairs, Kitty -Bellairs--am I not, Kitty?" - -"No, no," cried he, "I never knew you -till this hour, madam, Mistress Bellairs Kitty! -I see you," he cried, "for the first time! Oh, -God, be kind to me, for I love her!" - -"And yet," she whispered archly, "they say -that love is blind." - -Upon this he kissed her as he had kissed -her beneath the mask; and if anything could -have been sweeter than the first kiss it was -the second. - -Ah, love, how easy an art to learn, how hard -to unlearn! - -While Harry Verney thus forgot the whole -world, his first duel, and the code of honour. -Sir Jasper sat inditing an answer to his -communication:-- - -/# -"Sir Jasper Standish has received my Lord Verney's -explanation in the spirit in which it is offered. He is -quite ready to acknowledge that he has acted entirely -under a misapprehension, and begs Lord Verney to receive -his unreserved apologies and the expression of his admiration -for Lord Verney's gallant and gentlemanly behaviour, -together with his congratulations to him and the unknown -lady upon their enviable situation." -#/ - -Captain Spicer did not offer to supply his -principal's place in the field. Indeed, he -displayed to Sir Jasper, who received him -with the most gloomy courtesy, the extreme -suppleness of his spine, and pressed his -unrivalled snuff upon him with a fluttering and -ingratiating air. - -When he returned to Pierrepoint Street he -found the mysterious stranger already in her -sedan, Lord Verney leaning through the window -thereof, engaged in an earnest whispering -conversation. Captain Spicer jocularly pulled him -back by the coat-tails and inserted his own -foolish face instead. The lady was masked -and cloaked as he had left her. - -"Madam, I have done your errand," said -he. "It was," said he, "a matter of difficult -negotiation, requiring--ahem--requiring such -tact as I think I may call my own. Sir -Jasper was vastly incensed, one might as well -have tried to reason with a bull. 'But gad, -sir,' said I, 'would I, I, Captain Spicer, come -with this message if it were not in accordance -with the strictest rule of honourable etiquette?' That -floored him, madam----" - -Here Mistress Kitty snatched the letter -flickering in his gesticulating hand with scant -ceremony, turned her shoulder upon him, read -it and handed it out to Lord Verney, who -had lost no time in coming round to the -other window. - -"Now," said she, "bid the man take me -to the Pump Room." She leaned her head -out and Lord Verney put his close to hers, -and there followed another conclave. - -"Madam, madam, I demand the fulfilment -of your promise!" from the other side came -Captain Spicer's clamouring thin voice.--"Verney, -my good fellow, I must request you -to retire, there is a compact between this lady -and me----" - -"A compact?" said the mask turning her head. - -"Oh, madam, the vision of that entrancing -countenance!" - -He strove to unfasten the chair door, when: - -"What?" cried she, "and rob you of all -the charm of uncertainty and all the joy of -guessing and all the spice of being able to -take away the character of every lady in -Bath. Oh," she said, "I hope I have been better -taught my duty to my neighbour!" Out went -her head again to Lord Verney; there was -another whisper, a silver laugh. "On men!" -she cried. - -Lord Verney skipped round and in his turn -dragged the discomfited Captain out of the -window and restrained him by main force -from running after the retreating chairman and -their fair burden. - - - - -SCENE X - -Lord Markham was a person of indefinite appearance, indefinite age and -indefinite manners. He wore an ill-fitting wig, but he had a high -reputation as a man of honour. He sat beside Sir Jasper on the front -seat, while on the back sat Tom Stafford; and the curricle sped -cheerily along through the up-and-down Bath streets out into the -country budding with green, down, down the hill, to Hammer's Fields by -the winding Avon. Sir Jasper's face bespoke great dissatisfaction with -life at large, and with his own existence in particular. Tom Stafford -was beginning to feel slightly bored. - -"'Tis an early spring," said Lord Markham, in the well-meant endeavour -to beguile away the heavy minutes and distract his principal's mind. -"'Tis very mild weather for the time of year; and the lambs are -forward." - -"Ugh!" said Sir Jasper. - -"Speak not to him of lambs," whispered Stafford; "do not you see he is -all for blood and thunder?" - -Then he added maliciously; "There is but one animal in the whole fauna -that Sir Jasper takes an interest in at present; and that's not easy, -it seems, to find in these purlieus, though we know it does haunt them: -'tis the red dear!" He chuckled, vastly delighted with the conceit. - -"Let us hope we shall not have rain," said Lord Markham; "these clouds -are menacing." - -"Nay, they will hold up for half-an-hour. Enough to serve our -purpose," growled Sir Jasper, and tipped the horses with the lash so -that they spurned the slope. - -"But we shall get wet returning," pleaded the well-meaning Earl, "I -said so all along; 'twould have been better to have gone in a coach." - -"I vow," cried Sir Jasper with a sudden burst of spleen, "I vow that I -have it in my heart to wish that Villiers' ball may speed so well that -I may feel neither rain nor shine, coming home again. Home again," -said he with a withering smile; "blast it, a pretty home mine is!" - -"And a pretty cheerful fellow you are to bring out to a merry meeting," -quoth Stafford from the back, "and a nice pair of fools you and the -Colonel be, plague on you both! And when you are shot, 'twill be a -fine satisfaction to think that your wife can console herself with the -owner of the red curl, eh? What are you going to fight old Villiers -about, I should like to know?" - -"You do know," growled Sir Jasper, then he exploded. "You goad me, -sir; do _I_ want to fight Villiers? Is not this business the merest -fooling; sheer waste of time when the real fellow--villain!--has eluded -me?" His hold on the reins tightened, he laid on the whip, and the -curricle swayed as the horses leaped and plunged. - -"Really," said Lord Markham, "I wish I had come in a coach." - -And: "Hold on," cried Stafford, "hold on, Jasper; we don't all want to -leave our bones in this business." - -There came a pause in the conversation. They bowled alone a more level -road with the wind humming in their ears, and the rhythmic trot of the -greys beating a tune. Then Stafford remarked vaguely: - -"I have a notion there will be no duel to-day at Hammer's Fields, -Jasper, that you will be able to return with undiminished vigour to the -hunt of the unknown culprit." - -"How now," cried Sir Jasper fiercely, "have you heard from Villiers? -Are they all rats now-a-days? Verney first, then that Spicer, then the -Colonel! No, no, the fellow was mad with me, sir; and--gad!--the -offence was mine!" - -"Nevertheless," said Stafford unmoved, "I happen to know that Colonel -Villiers' man was sent in all haste for his physician, Sir George -Waters, at such an unconscionable hour this morning that Sir George -despatched the apothecary in his stead, and the apothecary found our -fire-eating Colonel roaring in a fit of the most violent gout 'tis -possible to imagine. So violent, indeed, that poor Mr. Wigginbotham -was soundly beat by the Colonel for not being Sir George. Villiers' -foot is as large as a pumpkin, old Foulks tells me; I had it all from -Foulks over a glass of water in the Pump Room this morning, and zooks, -sir, his false teeth rattled in his head as he tried to describe to me -the awful language Colonel Villiers was using. He's to be Villiers' -second, you know, but he swore 'twas impossible, rank impossible, for -any man to put such a foot to the ground." - -They were rounding the corner of Hammer's Fields as he spoke, and -Stafford's eyes roaming over the green expanse of grass rested upon the -little group drawn up towards the entrance gate. - -"Unless," he went on, "the Colonel comes upon crutches. No, zounds! -ha, ha! Jasper I will always love you, man, for the capital jokes you -have provided of late. Strike me ugly if the old fellow has not -come--_in a bath-chair_!" - -"Really," said Lord Markham, "this is very irregular. I have never -before been privy to a duel where one of the combatants fought in a -chair. And I am not sure that I can undertake the responsibility of -concluding arrangements in such circumstances." - -"Blasted nonsense!" said Sir Jasper with all his former urbanity of -demeanour. He flung the reins to his man as he spoke, and clambered -down from the curricle. Stafford had gone before him to the gate and -was now stamping from one foot to another in exquisite enjoyment of the -situation. - -"(Ha, ha, ha!) Hello! Morning, Colonel, sorry to see you this way! -(Ha, ha!) Have you brought another bath-chair for our man? Oh come, -yes. 'Twon't be fair if he do not sit in a bath-chair too! Say, -Foulks, you wheel one chair, I'll wheel the other, and we will run them -one at the other and let them fire as soon as they please. Gad, what a -joke!" - -Colonel Villiers turned upon his volatile friend a countenance the -colour of which presented some resemblance to a well-defined bruise on -the third day; it was yellow and green with pain where it was not -purple with fury. - -"Mr. Stafford, sir, these jokes, sir, are vastly out of place. (Curse -this foot!) Mr. Foulks, have the kindness to explain.... Major -Topham, explain to these gentlemen that I have come out to fight, sir, -and that fight I will, by the living jingo!" He struck the arm of the -chair in his fury, gave his suffering foot a nasty jar and burst into a -howl of rage and agony. - -"Stap me," said Stafford, "I'd as soon fight an old bear! Whisper, -Foulks, is he going to shoot in his cage--beg pardon, I mean his chair?" - -"Such is his intention," said Mr. Foulks, grinning nervously as he -spoke, and showing the set of fine Bond Street ivory already referred -to by Mr. Stafford. "But it strikes me it is somewhat irregular." - -"Somewhat irregular?" ejaculated Lord Markham; "it is altogether -irregular. I decline to have anything to say to it." - -Sir Jasper remained standing, gloomily looking at the ground and -driving his gold-headed malacca into the soft mud as if all his -attention were directed to the making of a row of little tunnels. - -"What is the difficulty, what is the difficulty?" bellowed Colonel -Villiers. "You wheel me into position, and you mark the paces, eight -paces, Foulks, not a foot more, and you give me my pistol. What is the -difficulty--hang me, hang you all, I say! What _is_ the difficulty?" - -"The combatants will not be equal," suggested Major Topham. "I told -Villiers that I will gladly take his place." - -"No no, no!" screamed the old man turning round, and then, "Oh," cried -he, and screwed up his face. And then the gout had him with such fury -that he gripped the arms of his chair and flung back his head, -displaying a ghastly countenance. - -"I remember," champed old Foulks, "the dear Duke of Darlington insisted -upon fighting Basil Verney (that's Verney's father, you know) with his -left arm in splints, but as my Lord Marquis of Cranbroke, his Grace's -second, remarked to me at the time----" - -"Oh, spare us the Marquis!" interrupted Stafford brutally. "Let us -keep to the business on hand, if you please. The whole thing is -absurd, monstrous! Look here, Jasper, look here, Colonel, you two -cannot fight to-day. How could you be equally matched even if we got -another bath-chair for Jasper. We cannot give him the gout, man, and -'twould be too dashed unfair. Gad, Colonel you would shoot too well or -too ill, 'twon't do! Come, come, gentlemen, let us make a good -business out of a bad one. Why should you fight at all? Here's Jasper -willing to apologise. (Yes you are, Jasper, hold your tongue and be -sensible for once; you pulled off his wig, you know. Gad, it was not -pretty behaviour, not at all pretty!) But then, Colonel, did not he -think you had cut him out with his wife, and was not that a compliment? -The neatest compliment you'll ever have this side the grave! He was -jealous of you, Colonel; faith, I don't know another man in Bath that -would do you so much honour, now-a-days." - -"Oh, take me out of this," cried the Colonel, suddenly giving way to -the physical anguish that he had been struggling against so valiantly. -"Zounds, I will fight you all some day! Take me out of this. Where is -that brimstone idiot, my servant? Take me out of this, you devils!" - -Between them they wheeled his chair into the road and his screams and -curses as he was lifted into the coach were terrible to hear. - -"Lord, if he could but call out the gout!" cried Stafford. "Look at -him, gentlemen! Ha, he has got his footman by the periwig! Oh, 'tis -as good as a play, he is laying it on to the fellow like a Trojan! -Why, the poor devil has escaped, but his wig is in the Colonel's hands. -Ha, ha, he has sent it flying out of the coach! Off they go; what a -voice the old boy has got, he is trumpeting like the elephant at the -fair! Well, Jasper, what did I say? No duel to-day." - -"Do not make so sure of that," said Sir Jasper. He was moving towards -the curricle as he spoke, and turned a sinister face over his shoulder -to his friend. - -"Oh," cried the latter, and fell back upon Markham, "the fellow's look -would turn a churn-full of cream! No, I will not drive back with ye, -thankye, Sir Jasper; I will walk. Devil take it," said Stafford, "I -don't mind a little jealousy in reason myself; but if I were to drive -home in that company, I'd have no appetite for dinner. Come, -gentlemen, 'tis a lovely day, let us walk." - -So Sir Jasper rolled home alone, and, as his coachman observed a little -later as he helped to unharness the sweating horses, "drove them cruel!" - - - - -SCENE XI - -Lady Standish was one of those clinging beings who seem morally and -physically to be always seeking a prop. Before adversity she was -prostrate, and when his lordship the Bishop of Bath and Wells was -ushered into her sitting-room, half-an-hour after Sir Jasper's -departure for Hammer's Fields, he found the poor lady stretched all her -length upon the sofa, her head buried in the cushions. - -"Dear me," said his lordship, and paused. He was a tall, portly, -handsome gentleman with sleek countenance, full eye, and well-defined -waistcoat. Could human weakness have touched him, he would have felt a -pride in those legs which so roundly filled the silk stockings. But -that human weakness could ever affect the Bishop of Bath and Wells was -a thing that dignitary (and he gave his Maker thanks for it) felt to be -utterly inconceivable. - -"Lady Standish," said the Bishop; then he waved his hand to the curious -servants. "Leave us, leave us, friends," said he. - -Lady Standish reared herself with a sort of desperate heart-sickness -into a sitting posture and turned her head to look dully upon her -visitor. - -"You come too late," she said; "my lord. Sir Jasper has gone to this -most disastrous meeting." - -"My dear Lady Standish," said Dr. Thurlow, "my dear child," he took a -chair and drew it to the sofa, and then lifted her slight languid hand -and held it between his two plump palms. "My dear Lady Standish," -pursued he in a purring, soothing tone. If he did not know how to deal -with an afflicted soul (especially if that afflicted soul happened to -belong to the aristocracy and in preference inhabited a young female -body), who did? "I came upon the very moment I received your letter. -I might perhaps have instantly done something to help in this matter, -had you been more explicit, but there was a slight incoherence ... very -natural!" Here he patted her hand gently. "A slight incoherence which -required explanations. Now tell me--I gather that your worthy husband -has set forth upon an affair of honour, eh? Shall we say a duel?" - -Lady Standish gave a moaning assent. - -"Some trifling quarrel. Hot-headed young men! It is very -reprehensible, but we must not be too hard on young blood. Young blood -is hot! Well, well, trust in a merciful Providence, my dear Lady -Standish. You know, not a sparrow falls, not a hair of our heads, that -is not counted. Was the, ah--quarrel about cards, or some such social -trifle?" - -"It was about me," said the afflicted wife in a strangled voice. - -"About you, my dear lady!" The clasp of the plump hand grew, if -possible, a trifle closer, almost tender. Lady Standish was cold and -miserable, this warm touch conveyed somehow a vague feeling of strength -and comfort. - -"About me," she repeated, and her lip trembled. - -"Ah, is it so? And with whom does Sir Jasper fight?" - -"With Colonel Villiers," said she, and shot a glance of full misery -into the benign large-featured face bending over her. - -"Colonel Villiers," repeated the Bishop in tones of the blankest -astonishment. "Not--eh, not--er, old Colonel Villiers?" - -"Oh, my lord," cried Lady Standish, "I am the most miserable and the -most innocent of women!" - -"My dear madam," cried the Bishop, "I never for an instant doubted the -latter." His hold upon her hand relaxed, and she withdrew it to push -away the tears that now began to gather thick and fast on her -eyelashes. The Bishop wondered how it was he had never noticed before -what a very pretty woman Lady Standish was, what charming eyes she had, -and what quite unusually long eyelashes. It was something of a -revelation to him too, to see so fair and fine a skin in these days of -rouge and powder. - -"And yet," sobbed Lady Standish, "'tis my fault too, for I have been -very wrong, very foolish! Oh, my lord, if my husband is hurt, I cannot -deny 'tis I shall bear the guilt of it." - -"Come, tell me all about it," said the Bishop, and edged from his chair -to her side on the sofa, and re-possessed himself of her hand. She let -it lie in his; she was very confiding. "We are all foolish," said Dr. -Thurlow, "we are all, alas, prone to sin." He spoke in the plural to -give her confidence, not that such a remark could apply to any Bishop -of Bath and Wells. - -"Oh, I have been very foolish," repeated the lady. "I thought, my -lord, I fancied that my husband's affection for me was waning." - -"Impossible!" cried his lordship. But he felt slightly bewildered. - -"And so, acting upon inconsiderate advice, I--I pretended--only -pretended indeed, my lord--that I cared for someone else, and Sir -Jasper got jealous and so he has been calling everybody out thinking -that he has a rival." - -"Nevertheless," said the Bishop, "he has no rival. Do I understand you -correctly, my dear child? These suspicions of his are unfounded? -Colonel Villiers?" - -"Colonel Villiers," cried she, "that old stupid red-nosed wretch! No, -my lord, indeed, there is no one. My husband has my whole heart!" She -caught her breath and looked up at him with candid eyes swimming in the -most attractive tears. "Colonel Villiers!" cried she. "Oh, how can -you think such a thing of me? But my husband will not believe me; -indeed, indeed, indeed I am innocent! He was jealous of Lord Verney -too, and last night fought Mr. O'Hara." - -The Bishop smiled to himself with the most benign indulgence. His was -a soul overflowing with charity, but it was chiefly when dealing with -the foibles of a pretty woman that he appreciated to the full what a -truly inspired ordinance that of charity is. - -"My dear child, if I may call you so, knowing your worthy mother so -well, you must not grieve like this. Let me feel that you look upon me -as a friend. Let me wipe away these tears. Why, you are trembling! -Shall we not have more trust in the ruling of a merciful Heaven? Now I -am confident that Sir Jasper will be restored to you uninjured or with -but a trifling injury. And if I may so advise, do not seek, my dear -Lady Standish, in the future to provoke his jealousy in this manner; do -not openly do anything which will arouse those evil passions of anger -and vengeance in him!" - -"Oh, indeed, indeed," she cried, and placed her other little hand -timidly upon the comforting clasp of the Bishop's, "indeed I never will -again!" - -"And remember that in me you have a true friend, my dear Lady Standish. -Allow me to call myself your friend." - -Here there came a sound of flying wheels and frantic hoofs without, and -the door-bell was pealed and the knocker plied so that the summons -echoed and re-echoed through the house. - -"Oh, God!" screamed Lady Standish springing to her feet, "they have -returned! Oh, heavens, what has happened? If he is hurt I cannot bear -it, I cannot--I cannot!" She clasped her head wildly and swayed as if -she would have fallen. What could a Christian do, a gentleman and a -shepherd of souls, but catch her lest she fall? Half mad with terror -she turned and clung to him as she would have clung to the nearest -support. - -"Have courage," he purred into the little ear; "I am with you, dear -child, have courage." - -So they stood, she clasping the Bishop and the Bishop clasping her, -patting her shoulder, whispering in her ear, when Sir Jasper burst in -upon them. - -It was his voice that drove them apart, yet it was neither loud nor -fierce, it was only blightingly sarcastic. - -"So!" said he. - -What was it Stafford had said: "There's the Bishop of Bath and Wells. -He's red, as red as a lobster, from top to toe! They have a way, these -divines." Oh, Stafford knew doubtless: all Bath knew! Sir Jasper -cursed horribly in his heart, but aloud only said: "So!" - -Lady Standish flew half across the room to him with a joyful cry, but -was arrested midway by his attitude, his look. The Bishop said "Ahem," -and "ahem" again, and then said he: - -"I rejoice, I rejoice, Sir Jasper, to see you return unscathed. Lady -Standish has been greatly distressed." - -"And you," said Sir Jasper, drily, "have been consoling her." - -"To the best of my poor power," said the Bishop, and felt, he knew not -why (if indeed it were possible for him to feel that way!) a shade -uncomfortable. - -Sir Jasper closed the door and bowed. - -"I think," said he, "I ought to crave pardon for this intrusion." - -"Oh Jasper!" cried my lady. - -Her husband turned towards her for a second. She wilted beneath his -eye and sank into a chair. - -"Oh, Sir Jasper," said she, floundering. "The Bishop has been very -kind. I have been so unhappy about you." - -"I see," said Sir Jasper, "that his lordship has been very kind. His -lordship, as I said, has been administering consolation." - -Here all at once his stoniness gave way. He walked towards the Bishop -and bent a ghastly face close to the florid uneasily smiling -countenance. - -"My Lord," said Sir Jasper, "your cloth will not protect you." - -"Sir!" ejaculated the divine. - -"Your cloth will not protect you!" repeated Sir Jasper in that voice of -strenuous composure that seems to tremble on a shriek. "Oh, shepherd, -_you_!" - -"Sir!" cried the Bishop, "do you mean to insinuate----" - -"I insinuate nothing," cried the other and sneered. "So madam," he -turned again to his wife, "this is your choice, eh? You were always a -pious woman, were you not? You would like to have the approval of the -Church upon your acts, would you not?" Indescribable was the sarcasm -upon his lip. - -"Really," said the Bishop, "I am seriously annoyed." He looked -reproachfully at Lady Standish. "Madam," said he, "I came to you, as -you know, in pure charity, in unsuspecting friendship. I was not -prepared for this." - -"Ha, ha," said Sir Jasper with a hideous laugh. "No, sir, I have no -doubt you were not prepared for this. Pure, ha--unsuspecting--this is -pleasant! Be silent, madam, these groans, these crocodile tears have -no effect upon me. Come, my Lord Bishop, your sanctimonious airs -cannot take me in. Have I not read your letter? Oh, you have got a -very fine head of hair, but I know ... _there is a curl missing_! Ha, -Julia, you should take better care of your love-tokens." - -"I vow," said Dr. Thurlow, majestically, "that your behaviour, your -words are quite beyond my poor comprehension.--Madam, I pity you from -my heart!--Sir Jasper, sir," folding his arms fiercely, "your servant. -I wish you good-morning." He strode to the door, his fine legs -quivering with indignation beneath their purple silk meshes. - -"No!" said Sir Jasper, and seized him roughly by the skirts. "No, you -do not escape me thus!" - -"How now!" cried the Bishop, the veins on his forehead swelling, and -the nostrils of his handsome Roman nose dilating. "Would you lay hands -upon the Lord's anointed? Let go my coat, Sir Jasper!" - -He struck at Sir Jasper's retaining hand with his own plump fist -clenched in a fashion suggestive of pulpit eloquence. - -"Ha! you would, would you?" exclaimed Sir Jasper, and leaped at the -Episcopal throat. - -The next instant, to his intense astonishment, Sir Jasper found himself -in an iron grip; lifted into the air with an ease against which all his -resistance was as that of a puppet; shaken till his teeth rattled, and -deposited on the flat of his back upon the floor. - -"Oh, help, help, help!" screamed Lady Standish. - -"Really," said the Bishop, "I don't know when I have been so insulted -in my life. 'Tis the whole Church, sir, the Church of England, the -State itself, that you have assaulted in my person!" - -He stood glaring down on the prostrate foe, breathing heavy rebuke -through his high dignified nose. - -"You have committed blasphemy, simony, sacrilege, rank sacrilege," -thundered Dr. Thurlow. - -Sir Jasper gathered himself together like a panther, and sprang to his -feet; like a panther, too, he took two or three stealthy steps and, -half crouching, measured the muscular Bishop with bloodshot eyes, -selecting the most vulnerable portion of anatomy. He panted and -foamed. The air was thick with flying powder. - -Lady Standish flung herself between them. - -"In mercy, my lord," she cried, "leave us--leave us!" - -Here the door opened and butler and delighted footmen burst into the -room. - -The Bishop turned slowly. The grace of his vocation prevailed over the -mere man. - -"May heaven pardon you," he said. "May Heaven pardon you, sir, and -help you to chasten this gross violence of temper. And you, madam," -said he, turning witheringly upon the unfortunate and long-suffering -lady, "may you learn womanly decorum and circumspection!" - -"You shall hear from me again," growled Sir Jasper, -murderously--"Toombs," cried he to the butler with a snarl, "show the -Bishop the door!" - -The Bishop smiled. He wheeled upon them all a stately back, and with -short deliberate steps withdrew, taking his cane from the footman with -a glassy look that petrified Thomas, and refusing Mr. Toombs' proffered -ministrations as he might have waved aside a cup of poison. "_Vade -retro Satanas_," he seemed to say; and so departed, leaving his -pastoral curse voicelessly behind him. - - - - -SCENE XII - -"How beautiful you are!" said Lord Verney. - -He was sitting on a stool at Mrs. Bellairs' feet. She had abandoned to -him one plump taper-fingered hand. The gay little parlour of the Queen -Square house was full of sunshine and of the screeching ecstasy of -Mistress Kitty's canary bird. - -"How beautiful you are!" said he; it was for the fourth time within the -half-hour. Conversation between them had languished somehow. - -Kitty Bellairs flung a sidelong wistful look upon her lover's -countenance. His eyes, gazing upwards upon her, devoured her beauty -with the self-same expression that she had found so entrancing earlier -in the day. "Deep wells of passion," she had told herself then. Now a -chill shade of misgiving crept upon her. - -"His eyes are like a calf's," she said to herself suddenly. - - * * * * * - -"How beautiful----" thus he began to murmur once again, when his -mistress's little hand, twitching impatiently from his grasp, surprised -him into silence. - -"Oh dear! a calf in very truth," thought she. "Baah--baa ooh.... What -can I have seen in him? 'Twas a sudden pastoral yearning....!" - -"May I not hold your hand?" said he, shifting himself to his silken -knees and pressing against her. - -Yet he was a pretty boy and there was a charm undoubted in the -freshness of this innocence and youth awakening to the first glimmer of -man's passion. - -"Delightful task----" she quoted under her breath, and once more -vouchsafed him, with a sweep like the poise of a dove, her gentle hand. - -As it lay in his brown fingers, she contemplated it with artistic -satisfaction and played her little digits up and down, admiring the -shape and colour of the nails, the delicate dimples at the knuckles. -But Lord Verney's great boy's paw engulfed them all too quickly, and -his brown eyes never wavered from their devout contemplation of her -countenance. - -"How----" - -Mistress Kitty sprang to her feet. - -"I vow," she cried, "'tis my hour for the waters, and I had clean -forgot them!" - -She called upon her maid: - -"Lydia, child, my hat!--Lord Verney, if it please you, sir, your arm as -far as the Pump Room." ("At least," she thought to herself, "all Bath -shall know of my latest conquest") - -She tied her hat ribbons under her chin. - -"How like you the mode?" said she. And, charmed into smiles again by -the rosy vision under the black plumes, she flashed round upon him from -the mirror. "Is it not, perhaps, a thought fly-away? Yet 'tis the -latest. What says my Verney?" - -The poor youth vainly endeavoured to discriminate and criticise. - -"It is indeed a very fine hat," said he ... "and there seem to be a -vast number of feathers upon it." He hesitated, stammered. "Oh, what -care I for modes! 'Tis you, you----" - -"What are you staring at, girl?" cried Mistress Bellairs sharply, to -her Abigail. "Out with you!" - -"Well, my Verney?" said she. "Mercy, how you look, man! Is anything -wrong with my face?" - -She tilted that lovely little piece of perishable bloom innocently -towards him as she spoke. And the kiss she had read in his eyes landed -with unprecedented success upon her lips. - -"Why, who knows?" thought she, with a little satisfied smile, as she -straightened her modish hat. "There may be stuff in the lad, after -all!" - -She took his arm. Dazed by his own audacity, he suffered her to lead -him from the room. They jostled together down the narrow stairs. - -"How beautiful you are!" said he; and kissed her again as they reached -the sombre dark-panelled vestibule. - -"Fie!" said she with a shade of testiness and pushed him back, as her -little black page ran to open the door. - -The kiss, like his talk, lacked any heightening of tone--and what of a -lover's kiss that shows no new ardour, what of a vow of love that has -no new colour, no fresh imagery? But the trees in Queen Square were -lightly leafed with pale, golden-green. The sunshine was white-gold, -the breeze fresh and laughing; the old grey town was decked as with -garlands of Young Love. - -"He is but new to it," she argued against her fleeting doubts, "and he -is, sure, the prettiest youth in all Bath." - -Love and Spring danced in Mistress Kitty's light heart and light heels -as she tripped forth. And Love and Spring gathered and strove and -sought outlet in Verney's soul as inevitably, and irresistibly, and -almost as unconsciously as the sap in the young shoots that swayed -under the caress of the breeze and amorously unfurled themselves to the -sunlight. - - * * * * * - -The Pump Room was cool and dim after the grey stone street upon which -the young year's sunshine beat as fierce as its youth knew how. The -water droned its little song as it welled up, faintly steaming. - -"Listen to it," quoth Mistress Kitty. "How innocent it sounds, how -dear it looks!" - -With a smile she took the glass transferred to her by Verney, and: -"Ugh!" said she, "how monstrous horrid it tastes, to be sure! 'Tis, I -fear," she said, again casting a glance of some anxiety at her new -lover's countenance, "a symbol of life." - -"Yet," said he, "these waters are said to be vastly wholesome." - -"Wholesome!" cried Mistress Kitty, sipping again, and again curling her -nose upwards and the corners of her lips downwards, in an irresistibly -fascinating grimace. "Wholesome, my lord! Heaven defend us! And what -is that but the last drop to complete their odiousness! Wholesome, -sir? I would have you know 'tis not for wholesomeness I drink." She -put down her glass, undiminished save by the value of a bird's draught. -"Do I look like a woman who needs to drink waters for 'wholesomeness?'" - -"Indeed, no," floundered he in his bewildered way. - -"There are social obligations," said she, sententiously. "A widow, -sir, alone and unprotected, _must_ conform to common usage. And then I -have another reason, one of pure sentiment." - -She cocked her head and fixed her mocking eye upon him. - -"My poor Bellairs," said she, "how oft has it not been my pleasure and -my duty to fill such a glass as this and convey it to his lips? In his -last years, poor angel, he had quite lost the use of his limbs!" - -Lord Verney had no answer appropriate to these tender reminiscences; -and Mistress Kitty, having, it seemed, sufficiently conformed to the -usage of Bath, as well as sacrificed to the manes of the departed, -turned briskly round, and, leaning against a pilaster, began to survey -the room. - -"La! how empty!" quoth she. "'Tis your fault if I am so late, my lord. -Nobody, I swear, but that Flyte woman, your odious Spicer, sir--ha, and -old General Tilney. Verily, I believe these dreadful springs have the -power of keeping such mummies in life long after their proper limit. -'Tis hardly fair on the rest of the world. Why, the poor thing has -scarce a sense or a wit left, and yet it walks! Heaven preserve us! -why, it runs!" she cried suddenly with a little chirp, as the -unfortunate veteran of Dettingen, escaping from the guiding hands of -his chairman, started for the door with the uncontrolled trot of -semi-paralytic senility. - -"And that reminds me," said Mistress Kitty, "that Sir George is most -particular that I should walk five minutes between every glass. Here -comes your estimable aunt, Lady Maria, and her ear-trumpet, and the -unfortunate Miss Selina. I protest, with that yellow feather she is -more like my dear dead Toto than ever. - -"Was that your pet name for your husband?" murmured Lord Verney, in a -strangled whisper. - -"Fie, sir!" cried the widow. "My cockatoo--I referred to my cockatoo." -She sighed profoundly. "I loved him," she said. - -He looked at her, uncertain to which of the lamented bipeds she -referred. - -"Selina," cried Lady Maria, in the strident tones of the deaf woman -persuaded of her own consequence (the voice of your shy deaf one loses -all sound in her terror of being loud)--"Selina, how often must I tell -you that you must clip in my glass yourself! Who's that over there? -Where are my eyeglasses? Who's that, did you say? Mistress Bellairs? -Humph! And who's she got with her in tow now? Who did you say? -Louder, child, louder. What makes you mumble so? Who? Verney--Lord -Verney? Why, that's my nevvy. Tell him to come to me this minute. Do -you hear, Selina, this minute! I won't have him fall into the net of -widow Bellairs!" - -The cockatoo top-knot nodded vehemently. Poor Miss Selina, agitated -between consciousness that the whole Pump Room was echoing to Lady -Maria's sentiments and terror of her patroness, took two steps upon her -errand, and halted, fluttering. Lord Verney had flushed darkly purple. -Mistress Kitty hung with yet more affectionate weight upon his arm and -smiled with sweet unconsciousness. For the moment she was as deaf as -Lady Maria. - -The latter's claw-like hand had now disengaged a long-stemmed eyeglass -from her laces. - -"'Tis indeed," she pronounced in her commanding bass, "my nevvy Verney -with that vile Bellairs!---Nevvy! Here, I say!--Selina, fool, have you -gone to sleep?" - -An echo, as of titters, began to circle round the Pump Room. The -painted face of Lady Flyte was wreathed into a smile of peculiar -significance, as she whispered over her glass to her particular friend -of the moment, Captain Spicer. This gentleman's pallid visage was -illumined with a radiance of gratified spite. His lips were pursed as -though upon a plum of superdelicious gossip. He began to whisper and -mouthe. Young Squire Greene approached the couple with an eager ear -and an innocent noddy face that strove to look vastly wise. - -"I assure you," mouthed the Captain. "Was I not there?" - -"In his bedroom?" cried Lady Flyte, with a shrill laugh. - -Lady Maria's cockatoo crest rose more fiercely. It seemed to Kitty -Bellairs as if she heard the old lady's jaws rattle. It was certain -that in her wrath she squawked louder than even the late lamented Toto. -Then Mistress Kitty, who, to say the truth, began to find the scene a -little beyond enjoyment, felt the young arm upon which she leaned -stiffen, the young figure beside her rear itself with a new manliness. - -"Pray, Mistress Bellairs," said my Lord Verney, he spoke loudly and, to -her surprise, with perfect facility, even dignity, "will you allow me -to introduce you to my aunt, Lady Maria Prideaux?--Aunt Maria," said -he, and his voice rang out finely, imposing a general silence, "let me -present Mistress Bellairs. This lady has graciously condescended to -accept me as her future husband. I am the happiest and the most -honoured of men." - -The last sentence he cried out still more emphatically than the rest, -and then repeated it with his eye on Kitty's suddenly flushed cheek, -almost in a whisper and with a quiver of strong emotion. - -The astounded Mistress Kitty rose from her deep curtesy with a swelling -heart. - -"The dear lad," she said to herself. "The dear, innocent chivalrous -lad!" - -There was almost a dimness in her brilliant black eye. Her emotion was -of a kind she had never known before: it was almost maternal. - -Under stress of sudden genuine emotion, the wit of intrigue in the -cleverest woman falls in abeyance. Mistress Bellairs found no word out -of the new situation. - -Lady Maria's deafness had increased to an alarming extent. - -"Gratified, I'm sure," she mumbled, stuck out her dry hand and withdrew -it before Mistress Bellairs had time to touch it. - -"My future wife," bawled the budding peer, in his aged relative's ear. - -It was curious to note how old Lady Maria seemed suddenly to have -become. Huddled in herself she nodded vacantly at her nephew. - -"Thank ye for asking, child," said she, "but the waters try me a good -deal." - -Lord Verney attempted another shout in vain. - -"So Sir George says," remarked my lady. - -"'Tis the very eye of my poor dear Toto," thought Mistress Bellairs. - -Lord Verney looked round in despair. Miss Selina thought him monstrous -handsome and gallant, and her poor old-maid's heart warmed to the lover -in him. She approached Lady Maria and gently lifted her trumpet. - -Lady Maria, glad enough of a diversion, applied it to her ear with -unwonted affability. - -"What is it, my dear? Any sign of the Duchess?" - -"Your nephew," said Miss Selina in modest accents, "your nephew, my -Lord Verney, wishes to inform you that he is about to contract a -matrimonial alliance with the lady he has just introduced to you." - -Miss Selina blushed behind the mouthpiece as she made this -announcement. Then she cried: "Oh," with an accent of suffering, for -Lady Maria had rapped her over the knuckles with the instrument. - -"Matrimonial fiddlesticks!" said Lord Verney's aunt. "Selina, you're a -perfect fool!--Madam," remarked the wraith of the departed cockatoo, -inclining her crest with much dignity towards the blooming Kitty, "I -wish you good-morning." - - - - -SCENE XIII - -There must have been a curious magic in the words, "My future wife," -for no sooner had he pronounced them than Lord Verney became several -inches taller, a distinct span broader and quite unreasonably older. -In fact, from boyhood he had stepped to man's estate. He looked down -protectingly at the little woman hanging on his arm. The seriousness -of responsibility settled upon his brow. - -"Ah! Verney," quoth Mr. Stafford, flicking a hot brow, as he dashed in -out of the sunshine, powdered with white dust from his walk and still -bubbling with laughter. "Ah, Verney, playing butterfly in the golden -hours while other fellows toil in the sweat of their brow! Jingo! lad, -but you've lit on the very rose of the garden.--Mistress Kitty -Bellairs, I kiss your hand." - -At this Mistress Kitty felt her future lord's arm press her fingers to -his ribs, while he straightened his youthful back. - -"Mr. Stafford," began he in solemn tones, "this lady----" - -But she, knowing what was coming, interrupted ruthlessly. - -"And pray, Mr. Stafford," quoth she, cocking her head at him with those -birdlike airs and graces that were as natural to her as to any mincing -dove--Mistress Kitty being of those that begin by making eyes in their -nurses' arms, before they can speak, and end in a modish lace nightcap -for the benefit of the doctor--"and whence may you come so late, and -thus heated?" - -"Whence?" cried Mr. Stafford, and overcome by the humour of his -recollections, roused the solemn echoes of the Pump Room by his jovial -laugh. "Ah, you may well ask! from the merriest meeting it has ever -been my fate to attend. Oh, the face of him in his chair, between his -gout and his temper! And fire-eating Jasper all for bullets; and old -Foulks' teeth ready to drop out of his head at the indecorousness of it -all!--Spicer, man, aha! hold me up.--Oh, madam," cried Mr. Stafford, -wiping tears of ecstasy from his eyes and leaning as unceremoniously -against Spicer as if the latter's lank figure were a pilaster specially -intended for his support--"oh, madam, I could make you laugh had I the -breath left for it." - -"Indeed," cried Mistress Kitty, plunging in again, as it became evident -to her that Lord Verney, with the gentle obstinacy that was part of his -character, was once more preparing to make his nuptial statement. "Mr. -Stafford, please speak then, for in sooth it seems to me a vastly long -time since I have laughed." - -"Gad! you actually make me curious," put in Mr. Stafford's prop. - -"Oh dear, oh dear!" sighed Mr. Stafford, in a fresh fit, "ha, ha! By -the way, Verney, weren't you also to have walked with the jealous -husband this morning!--Ah, by the same token, and you too, Spicer? -Gad. I'm glad you didn't, for if either of you had put lead in him I'd -have missed the best joke of the season. Gad, I may say so. He, he, -aha-ha, ho, ho!" - -"Mr. Stafford," said my Lord Verney, as solemn as any owl, while -Mistress Kitty, caught by the infection of the genial Stafford's mirth, -tittered upon his arm, "I have deeper reason than you think of to -rejoice that the absurd misunderstanding was cleared up between Sir -Jasper and myself. This lady and I----" - -"Oh dear, the joke, the joke!" cried Mistress Bellairs, with loud -impatience, and stamped her little foot. - -"Oh, my fair Bellairs," gasped Mr. Stafford, "had you but been there to -share it with me!" - -"This lady----" quoth Lord Verney. - -"I wish indeed I had been!" cried she. And in very truth she did. - -"Mrs. Bellairs," said the determined lover, "has consented to make me -the happiest of men." - -"Eh?" cried Mr. Stafford, and stopped on the edge of another guffaw. - -Mistress Kitty cast down her eyelids. She felt she looked demure and -almost bashful, and she hated herself in this character. - -Mr. Stafford was one of the thirty-seven lovers of whom the lady had -spoken so confidently, and as such was far from realising the solemn -meaning of Lord Verney's announcement. - -"Ah, madam," cried he reproachfully, "is't not enough to keep me for -ever in Hades, must you needs add to my torture by showing me another -in Paradise? But, my little Verney," he went on, turning -good-naturedly to his young rival, "it is but fair to warn you that you -will be wise to pause before getting yourself measured for your halo: -the Paradise of this lady's favour is (alack, do I not know it?) of -most precarious tenure." - -"This lady, sir," said Lord Verney, with rigid lips, "has promised to -be my wife." - -It was fortunate that Mr. Stafford had a prop: under the shock he -staggered. Man of the world as he was, the most guileless astonishment -was stamped on his countenance. - -Oh, how demure looked Mistress Kitty! - -Spicer, a trifle yellow, became effusive in congratulations which were -but coldly received by his patron. - -"Ah, Kitty," whispered Mr. Stafford in Mistress Bellairs' shell-like -ear, "do you like them so tender-green? Why, my dear, the lad's chin -is as smooth as your own. What pleasantry is this?" - -Kitty scraped her little foot and hung her head. Mistress Kitty coy! -And yon poor innocent with his air of proprietorship--'twas a most -humorous spectacle! - -"I'm sure, Verney," cried Mr. Stafford, "I wish you joy, ha, ha! with -all my heart! And you madam, he, he!--forgive me, friends--the thought -of Sir Jasper's duel is still too much for me. Ha, ha! Support me, -Spicer." - -"She'll marry him, she'll marry him," cried Spicer with bilious -vindictiveness, looking over his shoulder at the couple, as they moved -away. - -"Marry him!--never she!" cried Stafford. "Kitty's no fool. Why, man, -the little demon wouldn't have _me_! She loves her liberty and her -pleasures too well. Did you not see? She could not look up for fear -of showing the devilment in her eye. Cheerily, cheerily, my gallant -Captain!" cried the spark, and struck the reedy shoulders that had -buttressed him, in contemptuous good-natured valediction. "You need -not yet cast about for a new greenhorn to subsist upon." - - * * * * * - -Mistress Kitty, glancing up at her Calf, found, something to her -astonishment and further displeasure, a new expression in his eyes. -Ardour had been superseded by an unseasonable gravity. - -"The creature is a complete menagerie!" she thought to herself, -indignantly. "I vow he looks like nothing but an owl in the twilight!" - -They wandered together from the Pump Room on to the Abbey Flags, and -so, slowly, into the cool and shady Orange Grove; and in a sequestered -spot they sat them down on a stone bench. - -"When a man," said he, "has been, as I have, brought face to face, -within the space of one short morning, with the great events of -existence, Death and Love, how hollow and how unworthy do the mock joys -and griefs of Society appear to him!" - -"Oh la!" said she. "You alarm me. And when did you see Death, my -lord?" - -"Why," said he, with his innocent gravity, "had you not intervened, my -dearest dear, between Sir Jasper and me, this morning, who knows what -might have happened?" - -"Oh, that!" said she, and her lip curled. - -"Ay," said he, "where should I be now, Kitty? The thought haunts me in -the midst of my great happiness. Had I killed Sir Jasper, could I have -looked upon myself other than as a murderer?" - -"Oh, fie, fie," interpolated his mistress impatiently, "who ever thinks -of such things in little matters of honour!" - -In her heart she told herself that the young man showed a prodigious -want of _savoir-vivre_. In all candour he proceeded to display a still -greater lack of that convenient quality. - -"On the other hand, had I fallen, and that indeed was the more likely -contingency, it being my first affair of the kind, I tremble to think -in what state my soul would have appeared before its Maker." His voice -quivered a moment. - -"My Lord Verney," cried Kitty, turning upon him a most distressed -countenance, "you have no idea how you shock me!" - -And indeed he had not. - -He took her distress for the sweetest womanly sympathy, and was -emboldened to further confidence. - -"I blush to tell you," he said, "that since I came to this gay Society -of Bath, my life has not been all my conscience could approve of. The -pious practices, the earnest principles of life so sedulously -inculcated in me by my dear mother, have been but too easily cast -aside." - -"Oh dear!" cried Kitty in accents of yet greater pain. - -"When we are married, my dear love," pursued Lord Verney, quietly -encircling his mistress's little waist with his arm as he spoke, but, -absorbed as he was in his virtuous reflections, omitting to infuse any -ardour into his embrace, "we shall not seek the brilliant world. We -shall find all our happiness with each other, shall we not? Oh, how -welcome my dear mother will make you at Verney Hall! It has always -been her dream that I should marry early and settle on the estate." - -Little shivers ran down Kitty's spine. "Is it your intention to live -with your mother when you are married?" she faltered, and leaned weakly -against the inert arm. - -Enthusiastically he cried that the best of mothers and he could never -be parted long. - -"Oh, how you will love her!" he said, looking fondly at the Kitty of -his imagination. - -"From your tenderest years she sedulously inculcated in you earnest -principles and pious practices, did she not?" murmured the Kitty of -reality, with what was almost a moan. - -"She did indeed," cried the youth. - -Mistress Kitty closed her eyes and let her head droop upon his shoulder. - -"I fear I am going to have the vapours," said she. - -"'Tis, maybe, the spring heats," said he, and made as if he would rise. - -"Maybe," said Mistress Kitty, becoming so limp all at once that he was -forced to tighten his clasp. He glanced at her now in some alarm. She -half opened bright eyes, and glimmered a languid little smile at him. - -"At least," thought the widow, "if we must part (and part we must, my -Calf and I) we shall part on a sweet moment. What--in a bower, every -scent, every secret bird and leaf and sunbeam of which calls on thought -of love, and I by his side--he to prate of his mother! An at least he -does not bleat of my beauty again, my name is not Kitty!" - -She sighed and closed her eyes. The delicate face lay but a span from -his lips. - -"I fear indeed you are faint," said he with solicitude. "My mother has -a sovereign cordial against such weakness." - -Mistress Bellairs sat up very energetically for a fainting lady. - -"Your mother..." she began with a flash of her eye, then checked -herself abruptly. "Adieu, Verney," said she, and stretched out her -hand to him. - -"Adieu!" he repeated, all bewilderment. - -"Ay," said she, "there chimes the Abbey its silly old air. How long -have I been with you, sir, alone? Fie, fie, and must I not think of my -reputation?" - -"Surely, as my future wife..." said he. - -"Why then the more reason," she said, cutting him short; "must I not -show myself duly discreet? Think of your lady mother! Come, sir, take -your leave." - -A moment she was taunting; a moment all delicious smiles. - -"I'll make him bleat!" she thought, and stamped her foot upon it. - -"As far as your door?" said he. - -"Not a step," she vowed. "Come, sir, adieu." - -He took her hand; bent and kissed her sedately. - -"I will," said he, "go write the news to my mother." - -"Oh go!" said she, and turned on her heel with a flounce and was out of -his sight, round the corner of an ally, with a whisk and flutter of -tempestuous petticoats, before his slow boy's wits had time to claim -the moment for the next meeting. - -There were actually tears in Mistress Kitty's eyes as she struck the -gravel with her cane. She rubbed her cherry lips where his kiss had -rested with a furious hand. - -"'Twas positively matrimonial," she cried within herself, with angry -double-threaded reminiscence--"the Calf! Did ever woman spend a more -ridiculous hour--and in Heaven's name, what's to be done?" - - - - -SCENE XIV - -Denis O'Hara appropriately lived in Gay Street. As all the world -knows, Gay Street runs steeply from the green exclusiveness of Queen -Square, to the lofty elegance, the columnal solemnity of the King's -Circus. Being a locality of the most fashionable, Gay Street was apt -to be deserted enough at those hours when Fashion, according to the -unwritten laws of Bath, foregathered in other quarters. - -Towards eight o'clock of the evening of the day after his duel with Sir -Jasper, Mr. Denis O'Hara, seated at his open window, disconsolate in a -very gorgeous dressing-gown and a slight fever fit, found it indeed so -damnably deserted that the sight of a sedan-chair and two toiling -chairmen coming up the incline became quite an object of interest to -him. - -"To be sure," thought he, "don't I know it's only some old hen being -joggled home to roost, after losing sixpence and her temper at piquet? -But what's to prevent me beguiling myself for a bit by dreaming of some -lovely young female coming to visit me in me misfortune? Sure it's the -rats those fellows are, that not one of them would keep me company -to-night! There's nobody like your dear friends for smelling out an -empty purse. Musha!" said Mr. O'Hara, putting his head out of the -window, "if the blessed ould chair isn't stopping at me own door!" - -A bell pealing through the house confirmed his observation. - -"It's a woman! By the powers, it's a woman! Tim, Tim, ye devil!" -roared Mr. O'Hara, "come to me this minute, or I'll brain ye." - -Conscious of his invalid _negligé_, he rose in his chair; but, -curiosity proving stronger than decorum, was unable to tear himself -from his post of vantage at the window. - -"Oh! the doaty little foot!" he cried in rapture, as arched pink-silk -instep and a brocade slipper of daintiest proportion emerged, in a -little cloud of lace, from the dim recesses of the chair, upon his -delighted vision. - -He turned for a moment to bellow again into the room: - -"Tim, you limb of Satan, where are you at all? Sure, I'm not fit to be -seen by any lady, let alone such a foot as that!" - -When he popped his head once more through the window, only the chairmen -occupied the street. - -"It's for the ground floor, of course; for the French marquis," said -O'Hara, and sat down, feeling as flat as a pancake. - -The next instant a knock at the door sent the quick blood flying to the -red head. The "limb of Satan," more generally known as Tim Mahoney, an -ingratiating, untidy fellow, with a cunning leer and a coaxing manner, -stood ogling his master on the threshold; then he jerked with his thumb -several times over his shoulder, and grinned with exquisite enjoyment. - -"What is it?" said O'Hara fiercely. - -Tim winked, and jerked his thumb once more. - -"Speak, ye ugly divil, or by heavens I'll spoil your beauty for you!" - -"Your sisther!" cried Tim, with a rumbling subterraneous laugh. - -"Me sisther, man?" - -"Ay, yer honour," said the scamp, who, as O'Hara's foster-brother, was -well aware that his master boasted no such gentle tie. "Sure she's -heard your honour's wounded, and she's come to visit you. 'I'm Misther -O'Hara's sister,' says she----" - -"And am I not?" cried a sweet voice behind him, "or, if not, at least a -very, very dear cousin, and, in any case, I must see Mr. O'Hara at -once, and alone." - -"To be sure," cried O'Hara, eagerly rising in every way to the -situation, and leaping forward. "Show in the lady, you villain!--Oh, -my darling!" cried the Irishman, opening generous arms, "but I am glad -to see ye!--Tim, you scoundrel, shut the door behind you!" - -The visitor was much enveloped, besides being masked. But there was -not a moment's hesitation in the ardour of Mr. O'Hara's welcome. - -"Sir, sir!" cried a faint voice from behind the folds of lace, "what -conduct is this?" - -"Oh, sisther darling, sure, me heart's been hungering for you! Another -kiss, me dear, dear cousin!" - -"Mr. O'Hara!" cried Mistress Bellairs, in tones of unmistakable -indignation; tore off her mask, and stood with panting bosom and fiery -eye. - -"Tare and ages!" exclaimed the ingenuous Irishman. "If it isn't me -lovely Kitty!" - -"Mistress Bellairs, if you please, Mr. O'Hara," said the lady with -great dignity. "I am glad to see, sir, that that other passion of -which I have heard so much has not interfered with the strength of your -family affections." - -She sat down, and fanned herself with her mask, and, looking haughtily -round the room, finally fixed her gaze, with much interest, upon the -left branch of the chandelier. - -For a second, Mr. O'Hara's glib tongue seemed at a loss; but it was -only for a second. With a graceful movement he gathered the skirts of -his fine-flowered damask dressing-gown more closely over the puce satin -small clothes, which, he was sadly conscious, were not in their first -freshness, besides bearing the trace of one over-generous bumper of -what he was fond of calling the ruby-wine. Then, sinking on one knee, -he began to pour a tender tale into the widow's averted ear. - -"And it's the fine ninny ye must think me, Kitty darling--I beg your -pardon, darling; ma'am it shall be, though I vow to see ye toss your -little head like that, and set all those elegant little curls dancing, -is enough to make anyone want to start you at it again. Oh, sure, it's -the divine little ear you have, but, be jabers, Kitty, if it's the back -of your neck you want to turn on me--there now, if I was to be shot for -it, I couldn't help it--with the little place there just inviting my -lips." - -"Keep your kisses for your sister, sir, or your cousin!" - -"What in the world---- And d'ye think I didn't know you?" - -"A likely tale!" - -"May I die this minute if I didn't know you before ever you were out of -the ould chair!" - -"Pray, sir," with an angry titter, "how will even your fertile wits -prove that?" - -"Sure, didn't I see the little pink foot of you step out, and didn't I -know it before ever it reached the ground?" - -"Lord forgive you!" said Mistress Kitty gravely. But a dimple peeped. - -He had now possessed himself of her hand, which he was caressing with -the touch of the tentative lover, tenderer than a woman's, full of mute -cajoling inquiry. - -"I hope the Lord may forgive me for setting up and worshipping an idol. -I believe there's something against that in the commandments, darling, -but sure, maybe, old Moses wouldn't have been so hard on those -Israelites if they'd had the gumption to raise a pretty woman in the -midst of them, instead of an old gilt Calf." - -At this word, Mistress Kitty gave a perceptible start. - -"Oh, dear," said she, "never, never speak to me of that dreadful animal -again! Oh, Denis," she said, turning upon him for the first time her -full eyes, as melting and as pathetic just then as it was in their -composition to look, "I am in sad, sad trouble, and I don't know what -to do!" - -Here she produced a delicate handkerchief, and applied it to her -eyelashes, which she almost believed herself had become quite moist. - -"Me jewel!" cried Mr. O'Hara, preparing to administer the first form of -consolation that occurred to him. - -"Be quiet," said Mistress Kitty testily. "Get up, sir! I have to -consult you. There, there, sit down. Oh, I am in earnest, and this is -truly serious." - -Mr. O'Hara, though with some reluctance, obeyed. He drew his chair as -near to the widow's as she would permit him, and pursed his lips into -gravity. - -"You know my Lord Verney," began the fascinating widow. - -"I do," interrupted the irrepressible Irishman, "and a decent quiet lad -he is, though, devil take him, he makes so many bones about losing a -few guineas at cards that one would think they grew on his skin!" - -"Hush," said she. "_I can't abide him!_" - -Mr. O'Hara half started from his armchair. - -"Say but the word," said he, "and I'll run him through the ribs as neat -as----" - -"Oh, be quiet," cried the lady, in much exasperation. "How can you -talk like that when all the world knows he is to be my husband!" - -"Your husband!" Mr. O'Hara turned an angry crimson to the roots of his -crisp red hair. Then he stopped, suffocating. - -"But I don't _want_ to marry him, you gaby," cried Mistress Kitty, with -a charming smile. - -Her lover turned white, and leaned back against the wing of his great -chair. The physician had blooded him that morning by way of mending -him for his loss of the previous night, and he felt just a little shaky -and swimming. Mistress Kitty's eye became ever more kindly as it -marked those flattering signs of emotion. - -"The noodle," said she vindictively, "mistook the purport of some -merely civil words, and forthwith went about bleating to all Bath that -he and I were to be wed." - -"I'll soon stop his mouth for him," muttered Mr. O'Hara, moved to less -refinement of diction than he usually affected. "Oh, Kitty," said he, -and wiped his pale brow, "sure, it's the terrible fright you've given -me!" - -Here Mistress Bellairs became suddenly and inexplicably agitated. - -"You don't understand," said she, and stamped her foot. "Oh, how can I -explain? How are people so stupid! I was obliged to go to his rooms -this morning--a pure matter of friendship, sir, on behalf of my Lady -Standish. Who would have conceived that the calf would take it for -himself and think it was for _his_ sake I interfered between him and -that madman, Sir Jasper! 'Tis very hard," cried Mistress Kitty, "for a -lone woman to escape calumny, and now there is my Lord Verney, after -braying it to the whole of Bath, this moment writing to his -insufferable old mother. And there is that cockatoo aunt of his -looking out her most ancient set of garnets and strass for a -wedding-gift. And, oh dear, oh dear; what _am_ I to do?" - -She turned over the back of her chair, to hide her face in her -pocket-handkerchief. In a twinkling, O'Hara was again at her feet. - -"Soul of my soul, pulse of my heart!" cried he. "Sure, don't cry, -Kitty darling, I'll clear that little fellow out of your way before you -know where you are." - -"Indeed, sir," she said, flashing round upon him with a glance -surprisingly bright, considering her woe. "And is that how you would -save my reputation? No, I see there's nothing for it," said Mistress -Kitty with sudden composure, folding up her handkerchief deliberately, -and gazing up again at the chandelier with the air of an early martyr, -"there's nothing for it but to pay the penalty of my good-nature and go -live at Verney Hall between my virtuous Lord Verney and that paragon of -female excellence and domestic piety, his mother." - -"Now, by Saint Peter," cried O'Hara, springing to his feet, "if I have -to whip you from under his nose at the very altar, and carry you away -myself, I'll save you from that, me darling!" - -"Say you so?" cried the lady with alacrity. "Then, indeed, sir," she -proceeded with sweetest coyness, and pointed her dimple at him, "I'll -not deny but what I thought you could help me, when I sought you -to-night. There was a letter, sir," she said, "which yester morning I -received. 'Twas signed by a lock of hair----" - -"Ah, Kitty!" cried the enraptured and adoring Irishman, once more -extending wide his arms. - -"Softly, sir," said she, eluding him. "Let us to business." - - * * * * * - - - - -SCENE XV - -"But you must understand," said the lady, "that you carry me off -against my will." - -"To be sure," said he. "Isn't poor Denis O'Hara to run away with you -merely to save your reputation?" - -"So if I scream, sir, and give you a scratch or two, you will bear me -no malice?" - -"Bear you malice, is it?" said he, stopping to kiss each finger-tip of -the hand which he contrived somehow should never be long out of his -clasp. "Me darling, sure, won't I love to feel your little pearls of -nails on my cheek?" - -"And spare no expense upon chaise or horses," said she. - -"Eh?" cried Mr. O'Hara, while a certain vagueness crept into his gaze. -"Me dear love, the best that money can produce--that money can -produce," said Mr. O'Hara, and his eye rolled under the stress and -strain of an inward calculation: ("There's my grandfather's watch; I'm -afeared the works are not up to the gold case, but it might run to four -guineas. And there's my jewelled snuff-box that the Chevalier gave my -father--no dash it, that's gone! There's my silver-hilted sword--I -could exchange it for a black one and perhaps five guineas. And -there's my three sets of Mechlin...") - -While he cogitated, the lady smiled upon him with gentle raillery; then -she popped her hand in her pocket and drew forth a well-filled case. - -"And did you think," said she, laying the case on the table, "that I -would have the face to ask a _rich_ lover to elope with me?" - -"Faith," said he, pursuing now aloud his silent addition, "there's the -gold punch-bowl, too! I vowed as long as I'd a drop to mix in it I'd -never part with the thing; but, sure, I little guessed what was in -store for me--that will make twenty guineas or more. Put up your -money, Kitty; I'll not consent to be paid for carrying you off, -except," said he, "by your sweet lips." - -"Now listen, sir," she cried, lifting up her finger, "you're a poor -man." - -"I am that," said he. - -"And I," said she, "am a rich woman." - -"Oh!" cried he, "Kitty, my darling, and sure that's the last thing in -the world I'd ever be thinking of now. When I laid my heart at your -feet, my dear, 'twas for your own sweet sake, with never a thought of -the lucre. What's money to me," said he, snapping his fingers, "not -_that_, Kitty darling! I despise it. Why," he went on with his -charming infectious smile, "I never had a gold piece in my pocket yet, -but it burned a hole in it." - -She listened to him with a curious expression, half contemptuous, half -tender. Then she nodded. - -"I well believe you," said she. "Come, come Denis, don't be a fool. -Since the money is there, and we know for what purpose, what matters it -between you and me who puts it down." - -"Ah," he cried, with a sort of shame, abandoning his light tone for one -of very real emotion, "you're an angel! I'm not worthy of you, but -I'll try, Kitty, I'll try." - -The lady looked slightly embarrassed. - -"I protest, sir; I cannot have you going on your knees again," she -cried sharply, "and it's getting late, and the business is settled, I -think." - -"Leave it to me," said he; "sure, I could do it blindfold." - -"Have the post-chay at the corner of Bond Street and Quiet Street, 'tis -the darkest in Bath, I think." - -"Ay, and the relay at Devizes, for we'll have to push the first stage." - -"And after?" said she, and looked at him doubtingly. - -"And after that--London. And sure I know an old boy in Covent Garden -that will marry us in a twinkle." - -She nibbled her little finger. The rapture evoked on his countenance -by this last prospect was not reflected upon hers. - -"But you forget," said she, "that I am to be abducted against my will, -and what will people say if I marry you at the end of the journey -without more ado?" - -"Oh, faith," said he, without a shade of uneasiness, "shouldn't I be a -poor fellow if I did not contrive to persuade you on the way? And -then, what would the world say if you did not marry me after travelling -all night with such a wild Irish devil? Sure," said he, with a wink, -"what else could a poor woman do to save her reputation?" - -"True," said she, musingly, and tapped her teeth. - -She tied on her mask once more and drew up her hood, passive, in her -mood of deep reflection, to his exuberant demonstrations. At the door -she paused and looked back at him, her eyes strangely alluring through -the black velvet peep-hole, her red lips full of mysterious promise -beneath the black lace fall. - -"And I never asked," said she, in a melting tone, "after your wound? -Does it hurt you? Will you be able, think you, to face the fatigues -to-morrow night?" - -"Ah, I have but one complaint, Kitty," he cried, "and that's my mortal -passion for you. And when a man's weak with love," he said, "sure it's -then he's the strength of twenty." - -"Not a step further," said she, "than this door. Think of the chairmen -and Bath gossip. Good-night." - - - - -SCENE XVI - -"And now, child, what's the town talk?" said Mistress Bellairs. - -The nights were chilly, and a log crackled on the hearth. Kitty, in -the most charming _déshabillé_, stretched a pink slippered foot airily -towards the blaze. - -"La, ma'am," said Miss Lydia, as with nervous fingers she uncoiled one -powdered roll and curl after another, "all the morning the gossip was -upon Sir Jasper's meeting with Colonel Villiers at Hammer's Fields. -And all the afternoon----" she paused and poised a brush. - -"All the afternoon? Speak, child. You know," said her mistress -piously, "that I had to spend my evening by the side of a dear sick -friend." - -"Well, ma'am," said the maid, "the talk is all about your own marriage -with the young Lord Verney." - -"Mercy, girl," cried the lady with a little scream, "you needn't hit my -head so hard with those bristles! What's taken you? And what do -people think of that?" - -"Why, ma'am," said the Abigail, wielding her brush more tenderly, and -permitting her irritation to betray itself only in the sharp snap of -her voice, "my Lord Verney's man says he pities anyone that will have -to go and live with her old la'ship at Verney Hall." - -"Ha!" said Kitty, and gave herself a congratulatory smile in the -handglass. - -"And Mr. Burrell, ma'am, that's Lady Maria's butler, and a wise old -gentleman he is, he says the marriage'll never take place, ma'am, for -neither his own la'ship, nor the lady at Verney Hall, would allow of -it, ma'am." - -"Oh, indeed?" exclaimed Mistress Bellairs, stiffening herself, "that's -all they know about it! Lydia, you untruthful, impertinent girl, how -dare you tell me such a story?" - -"I'm sure I beg your pardon, ma'am," said Lydia, sniffing. "I'm sure I -up and told Mr. Burrell that if you'd set your heart on wedding such a -poor ninny as Lord Verney--I beg pardon, ma'am, I'm sure he'll be a -very nice young nobleman, when his beard begins to grow--'twas not -likely a deaf old cat like his mistress could prevent him. And I told -Lord Verney's man, ma'am--and an impudent fellow he is--that you'd soon -teach the dowager her place, once you were mistress in Verney Hall." - -"Well, well," said the lady, mollified, "and what says the rest of your -Bath acquaintance?" - -"Squire Juniper's head coachman says his master'll drink himself to -death, as sure as eggs, on the day that sees you another's, ma'am. -He's been taking on terrible with Madeira ever since he's heard the -news. And the Marquis' running footman, he says 'that Lady Flyte'll -have it all her own way with his lordship now, and mores the pity, -for,' says he, 'her la'ship's not fit to hold a candle to the widow'; -excuse the language, he knows no better, his strength is mostly in his -legs, ma'am. And Mr. Stafford's jockey says, ma'am, that in his -opinion you're a lady as will never be drove again in double harness." - -"Did he say so, indeed!" said Mistress Bellairs, reflectively. "Well, -my good creature, and what say you?" - -"La!" said the maid, and the brush trembled over her mistress's curls, -"I say, ma'am, that if you was to make such a sacrifice, you so young, -and lovely, and so much admired, I humbly hopes you might pick out -someone livelier than my Lord Verney." - -"Now, whom," said Mistress Bellairs, in a tone of good-humoured banter, -"would you choose, I wonder? What would you say to the Marquis, Lydia?" - -"Oh, ma'am! His lordship is a real nobleman--as the prize-fighters all -say--and a better judge in the cockpit, Mr. Bantam, the trainer, says, -never breathed, drunk or sober; and no doubt when he's sober, ma'am, -he'd make as good a husband as most." - -"Well, well, girl, enough of him. What of Mr. Stafford, now?" - -"Oh, Mr. Stafford, ma'am, that's a comely gentleman; not one bit of -padding under his stockings, and an eye 'twould wheedle the very heart -out of one's bosom! And, no doubt, if you ever thought of him, ma'am, -you'd see that he paid off the little French milliner handsome. He's a -very constant gentleman," said Miss Lydia, with a suspicion of spite. - -"Pooh," cried the lady, and pushed her chair away from the fire, "what -nonsense you do talk! And pray what thinks your wisdom of Mr. O'Hara?" - -"Lud! ma'am," cried the guileless maiden, "that's the gentleman as was -found behind Lady Standish's curtains." - -"If you were not a perfect idiot," cried the widow, "you would not -repeat _that_ absurd tale, much less expect me to believe it. Mr. -O'Hara has never even spoken to Lady Standish." - -The unusual warmth in her mistress's tone struck the girl's sharp wits. -She glanced quickly at the lady's reflection in the glass, and made no -reply. - -"Come," said Mistress Bellairs, "what else have you against him? Is he -not handsome, child?" - -"Why, ma'am, handsome enough for such as like red hair." - -"And merry, and good company?" - -"Oh, ma'am, none better, as half the rogues in Bath know." - -"Tush--you mean he is good-natured, I suppose?" - -"He never said 'no' in his life, ma'am, I do believe, to man or woman." - -"Well, then?" cried her mistress testily. - -"And generous," gabbled Lydia, charmed by the cloud she beheld -gathering on the brow reflected in the glass, "open-handed, ma'am. Mr. -Mahoney--that queer peculiar servant of his--many a time he's told me, -ma'am, that his only way to keep his wages for himself, and seldom he -sees the sight of them, is to spend them at once, for his good master -is that free-handed, ma'am, he'd give the coat off his servant's back." - -"I'm quite aware," said the lady loftily, "that Mr. O'Hara's estates in -Ireland are slightly embarrassed." - -"I don't know what they call it, ma'am," cried Lydia shrilly. "It's -not a ha'porth of rent the old lord's seen these twelve months. Last -year they lived on the pictures. And now it's the plate, I'm told. -But, indeed, ma'am, as Mr. Mahoney says, what does it matter to a gay -gentleman like Mr. O'Hara? Sure, he's the sort, as he says to me only -yesterday, that would come to a fortune on Monday and be sending to the -pawnshop on Saturday." - -"You may go to bed, Lydia," cried Mistress Bellairs, rising hastily; -"you've half deafened me with your chatter." - -Left alone the little lady sat down by the fire in a melancholy mood. - -"The sort that would come to a fortune on Monday, and be sending to the -pawnshop on Saturday.... I'm afraid it's true. Yet, I believe, he -loves me, poor Denis! I vow," she said to herself, "'tis the only one -of them all that I could _endure_. Yes, I could endure Denis, vastly -well ... for a while at least. And now," said she, "what's to be done! -Oh, I'd be loath to baulk him of the pleasure of running away with me! -'tis the only decent way indeed of breaking with my Lord Verney. And -it certainly struck me that Master Stafford was mighty cool upon the -matter. I've been too quiet of late, and that odious Bab Flyte thinks -she can have everything her own way.... But, I'll be rescued," she -said, "at Devizes--I shall have to be rescued at Devizes. My poor -dear; he may be happy at least for an hour or two ... as far as -Devizes!" - -Her brow cleared; the dimples began to play. - -"We shall see," she smiled more broadly, "if we cannot prod his -Calfship into a night trot. 'Twill do his education a vastness of -service.... But the poor creature," she reflected further, "is scarce -to be depended on. Who knows whether his mother would approve of his -breathing the night air.... I must," Mistress Kitty's pretty forehead -became once more corrugated under the stress of profound thought--"I -must," she murmured, "have another string to my bow, or my sweet O'Hara -will marry me after all. Dear fellow, how happy we should be from -Monday ... till Saturday! Who? Who, shall it be? ... My Lord Marquis -might take the _rôle_ in earnest and spoil my pretty fellow's beauty. -Squire Juniper? He would sure be drunk. And Master Stafford? Oh, -_he_ may stay with the French milliner for me!" - -Suddenly the lady's perplexed countenance became illumined. "Sir -Jasper?" she said. "Sir Jasper--the very man! The good Julia--I owe -it to her to bring matters to an _éclaircissement_. And, Sir -Jasper--oh, he richly deserves a midnight jolt, for 'tis owing to his -monstrous jealousy that I am put to all this trouble. 'Twill be a fine -thing indeed," thought Mistress Bellairs with a burst of self-satisfied -benevolence, "if I can demonstrate to Sir Jasper, once for all, the -folly into which this evil passion may lead a man." - - - - -SCENE XVII - -"If you please, my lady," said Mistress Megrim, "I should like to quit -your ladyship's service." - -"How?" cried Lady Standish, waking with a start out of the heavy sleep -of trouble, and propping herself upon her elbow, to gaze in blinking -astonishment at the irate pink countenance of her woman. Lady Standish -looked very fair and young, poor little wife, with her half-powdered -curls of hair escaping in disorder from the laces of her nightcap, and -her soft blue eyes as full of uncomprehending grief as a frightened -baby's. - -Mistress Megrim gazed upon her coldly and her old-maid's heart hardened -within her. - -"No, your ladyship," said she, with a virtuous sniff, "I shouldn't feel -as I was doing my duty to her ladyship, your mother, nor to my humble -self, were I to remain an hour longer than I could help, the Handmaid -of Sin." - -"Oh, dear," said Lady Standish, letting herself fall back on her -pillows with a weary moan, "I do wish you'd hold your tongue, woman, -and allow me to rest! Pull the curtain again; oh, how my head aches!" - -"Very well, my lady," ejaculated Megrim, all at once in a towering -passion. "Since you're that hardened, my lady, that a sign from Heaven -couldn't melt your heart--I allude to that man of God, his lordship the -Bishop (oh, what a holy gentleman that is!); and, my lady, me and -Mistress Tremlet saw him out of the pantry window as he shook the dust -of this House of Iniquity from his shoes; if that vessel of -righteousness could not prevail with your ladyship, what hopes have I -that you'll hear the voice of the Lord through me?" - -"Megrim, hold your tongue," said her mistress in unwontedly angered -tones, "pull the curtains and go away!" - -With a hand that trembled with fury Mistress Megrim fell upon the -curtains and rattled them along their pole. Then she groped her way to -Lady Standish's bedside and stood for some seconds peering malevolently -at her through the darkness. - -"I wouldn't believe it, my lady," she hissed in a ghastly whisper, -"although indeed I might have known that such a gentleman as Sir Jasper -would never have taken on like that if he hadn't had grounds. But -you've mistaken your woman, when you think you can make an improper -go-between of me! Oh," cried she, with a rigid shudder, "I feel myself -defiled as with pitch, that these fingers should actually have touched -sich a letter!" - -"For goodness sake," moaned the lady from her pillows, "what are you -talking about now?" - -"My lady," said Megrim sepulchrally, "when that minx with her face -muffled up in a hood, came and had the brazen boldness to ask for me -this morning, saying she had some lace of your ladyship's from the -mender's, and that it was most particular and must be given into my -hands alone, my mind misgave me. 'Twas like an angel's warning. The -more so as there isn't a scrap of your ladyship's lace as has been to -the mender's since we came here." - -"Mercy, Megrim, how you do ramble on! I can't make head or tail of -your stupid story." Even a dove will peck. - -"Ho, do I, my lady! Can't you indeed? Perhaps your ladyship will -understand better when I tell her, that that same bold thing had no -lace at all--but a letter. 'Give it to your mistress,' says she, 'in -secret, and for your life don't let Sir Jasper see it.'" - -"Well, give it to me," said Lady Standish, "and hold your tongue, and -go and pack your trunks as soon as you like." - -"Ho, my lady," cried the incorruptible Megrim, with an acid laugh, "I -hope I know my Christian duty better. I brought the letter to my -master, according to the Voice of Conscience. And now," she concluded, -with a shrill titter, "I'll go and pack my trunks." - -Yet she paused, expecting to enjoy Lady Standish's outburst of terror -and distress. There was no sign from the bed, however, not even a -little gasp. And so Mistress Megrim was fain to depart to her virtuous -trunks without even that parting solace. - -Meanwhile, with the pillow of her spotless conscience to rest upon, and -deadened to fresh disturbances by the despairing reflection that -nothing for the present could make matters much worse between her and -her husband, Lady Standish, without attempting to solve the fresh -problem, determinedly closed her weary eyes upon the troubles of the -world and drifted into slumber again. - - * * * * * - -"I shall catch them red-handed," said Sir Jasper. - -This time all doubt was over: in his hand lay the proof, crisp and -fluttering. He read it again and again, with a kind of ghastly joy. -Unaddressed, unsealed, save by a foolish green wafer with a cupid on -it, the document which Mistress Megrim's rigid sense of duty had -delivered to him instead of to his guilty wife, was indited in the -self-same dashing hand as marked the crumpled rag that even now burned -him through his breast-pocket like a fly-blister. - - - "I never got a wink of sleep, dreaming of you, dearest dear, so - soon to be my own at last! The chay shall be drawn by horses such - as Phoebus himself, my darling, would have envied. And, so you - fail me not, we shall soon be dashing through the night--a world of - nothing but happiness and love before us. I could find it in my - heart to bless the poor foolish individual who shall be nameless, - since, had it not been for my lovely one's weariness of him, she - might never have turned to the arms of her own devoted, - - RED CURL! - - P.S.--I'll have as good a team as there is in England (barring the - one that shall bring us there), waiting for us at the Black Bear, - Devizes. We ought to arrive before midnight, and there shall be a - dainty trifle of supper for your Beautyship--while the nags are - changed. Ah, my dear, _what_ rapture!" - - -Indescribable were the various expressions that crossed Sir Jasper's -countenance upon the perusal and re-perusal of this artless missive. -Now he gnashed his teeth; now snorts of withering scorn were blown down -the channels of his fine aquiline nose; now smiles of the most deadly -description curled and parted luridly his full lips. - -"Ha, ha!" said Sir Jasper, "and perhaps the poor foolish individual may -give you cause for something less than blessings, Master Carrots! And -I think, madam, your beautyship may find at Devizes something harder to -digest than that trifle of supper! Till then, patience!" - -He folded the letter, placed it beside its fellow, and once more, with -a sort of bellow, he cried, "_Patience!_" - - * * * * * - -"Well, Lydia?" said Bellairs. She had but just finished her chocolate, -and looked like a rose among her pillows. - -"Well, madam," said Lydia, still panting from her hurried quest, "'tis -safe delivered. I gave it into Mistress Megrim's own hands, and----" - -"And can you reckon," said the lady, smiling at the amusing thought, -"upon her bringing it straight to Sir Jasper?" - -"Ah, lud, ma'am, yes. I told the sour, ugly old cat, that if her -master caught sight of it, Lady Standish would be ruined. You should -have seen how she grabbed at it, ma'am!" - -"Lydia," said her mistress, looking at her admiringly, "I question -whether I'd have risked it myself; you're a bold girl! But there, if -anything fail, you know that rose-coloured pelisse remains hanging in -my closet." - -"Never fear, ma'am," said Lydia, smiling quietly to herself, as she -pulled her mistress's long pink silk stocking over her hand, and turned -it knowingly from side to side, looking for invisible damage, "the -pelisse is as good as mine already." - -"But, think you, was Sir Jasper at home?" said Mistress Bellairs, after -a few moments' reflection. - -"I am sure of that," said Lydia triumphantly, peeling off the stocking. -"I thought it best to go in by the mews, ma'am, and I heard that Sir -Jasper had not left the house since that little--that little affair -with the Bishop, you know, ma'am. But all the night, and all the -morning, he kept William and Joseph (those are the grooms, ma'am) going -backwards and forwards with challenges to the Bishop's lodgings." - -"Oh!" cried Kitty, and kicked her little toes under the silk -counterpane with exquisite enjoyment, "and what does the Bishop answer, -I wonder?" - -"Sends back the letter every time unopened, ma'am, with a fresh text -written on the back of it. The texts it is, William says, that drive -Sir Jasper mad." - -"Oh! oh! oh!" cried Mistress Kitty faintly, rolling about her pillows. -"Child, you'll be the death of me! ... Well, then, to business. You -know what you are to do to-night?" - -"No sooner are you gone to the Assembly Rooms this evening, ma'am, than -I take a letter from you for Lady Standish, and this time deliver it -myself to her own hand, and, if needs be, persuade her to follow your -advice, ma'am." - -"Right, girl; thou shalt have the gold locket with the Turkey -stones----" - -"Thank you, ma'am. Well, then, I'm to scurry as fast as I can to the -corner of Bond Street and Quiet Street, and watch you being carried off -by the gentleman. And then----" - -"Be sure you wait till the chaise has well started." - -"Yes, ma'am, of course! When you're safely on the London Road, I'll go -and give the alarm at the Assembly Rooms." - -"Remember, you ask first for Lord Verney." - -"Oh, ay, ma'am. 'My mistress is carried off, is carried off! Help, -help, my lord!' I'll say. Oh, ma'am, I'll screech it well out, trust -me." - -"Don't forget," said her mistress, whose mood became every moment -merrier, "don't forget to say that you heard the ravisher mention -London, by Devizes." - -"Well, ma'am," said Lydia, "I thought of saying that he first flung you -swooning upon the cushions of the chay; then, stepping in himself, -cried out to the coachman, with an horrible oath, 'If you're not in -Devizes before twelve, I'll flay you with your own whip, and then hang -you with it to the shaft!'" - -"Aha, ha, Lydia," laughed her mistress. "I see I must give you a gold -chain to hang that locket upon. But pray, child," she added warningly, -"be careful not to overdo it." - - - - -SCENE XVIII - -The livelong day Lady Standish had not beheld the light of her lord's -countenance. - -Upon their last meeting, his behaviour to the Bishop having roused in -her gentle bosom a feeling as nearly akin to resentment as it was -capable of harbouring, she would not be (she had resolved) the one to -seek him first. She had, therefore, passed the day in her own -apartment in writing to her mother, and in practising her last song to -the harp--a piece of audacity and independence which she expected would -have goaded Sir Jasper into an instant interview with herself. - -When the dusk rose, however, and the candles were brought in by the -round-eyed handmaid, whose ministrations replaced those of Megrim (the -latter was still packing, and seemed like to take some weeks in the -process), and the said round-eyed damsel immediately began to inform -her mistress that Sir Jasper had set forth in his coach, Lady -Standish's small flame of courage began to flicker woefully. - -"Alone?" she asked in white dismay. - -"Please, my lady, Mr. Bowles was driving, and there was Mr. Thomas -behind, my lady." - -"Pshaw, girl! Did Sir Jasper take any luggage?" - -"Oh yes, my lady; there was his yellow bag, Mr. Toombs says, and a -small wooden case." - -"Heavens!" cried Lady Standish, with increasing alarm. "And whither -went they?" - -"Please, my lady, Mr. Toombs says they took the London Road." - -Fain would the round-eyed maid have lingered and told more, but Lady -Standish waved her hand faintly, and so dismissed her. - -An hour later, Lydia, brisk with importance, and sparkling with -conscious power, found the much-tried soul sunk in a sort of apathetic -weariness of misery. - -"Mistress Bellairs' love, my lady, and will you read this letter at -once?" - -Lady Standish took the letter from the black-mittened hand. - -"Please my lady, 'tis of the utmost importance," said Lydia, "and I was -to wait and see if I could not be of use to you." - -Something magnetic in the girl's lively tone gave impetus to Lady -Standish's suspended energies. She broke the seal. - - - "My sweet child," wrote Mistress Kitty. "If you want to know what - has become of your husband, you will instantly take a chaise and - start off for the Black Bear at Devizes. - - "Your true friend, - "K. B. - - "Postscriptum.--Do not go alone. Get some old hag (if possible - Lady Maria Prideaux) to accompany you. You will find her in the - Assembly Rooms. She's as curious as our first mother--you can - easily persuade her. _This is good advice!_" - - -"I am much too ill," cried Lady Standish, upon a moan. "Tell your -mistress," said she, looking vaguely in Lydia's direction, "that indeed -'tis quite impossible I should do as she suggests." - -"Very well, my lady," said Lydia cheerfully. "I'm sure I shouldn't -trouble myself if I was you. Gentlemen _must_ have their diversions, I -always say. If ladies would but shut their eyes a little more, 'twould -be for the peace of all parties. Indeed, my lady, though my mistress -would be angry to hear me say so, I'd go to bed, for you look sorely -tired, and Sir Jasper'll be glad enough to come home bye-and-bye." - -"Wretched girl," cried Julia, and her eyes flashed, "what dost thou -mean?" - -"La, now!" said Lydia, all innocence, "how my tongue do run away with -me, to be sure! Why, my lady, what can a poor servant-maid like me -know of the goings on of gentles? 'Tis but a few words of gossip here -and there." - -"Oh, merciful heavens, _what_ gossip mean you?" - -"My lady, have a sip of _volatile_, do! Oh, my mistress would be like -to kill me if she knew what I've been saying! 'Poor Julia,' she cried -when she got the news. 'Poor Julia, my poor confiding Julia! Oh, the -villain, the monster!'" - -"Good God, and whom did she refer to?" - -"Lud, madam, how can I tell? '_It shall not be!_' cries my mistress, -and down she sits and writes off to you, as if for bare life." - -Lady Standish, rising from her seat, rushed to the light, and with -starting eyes and bristling hair began to read afresh her fond Kitty's -missive. - -"La, my lady," cried the guileless Lydia, "you're all of a shake! I'd -never be that upset about Sir Jasper. Why, if your la'ship'll allow me -to say so, all Bath knows how jealous he is of your la'ship; and, -certain that shows a husband's affection." - -"True," cried Julia, "that's true, girl!" - -"And as for those who say, my lady, that some men are so artful that -they put on a deal of jealousy to cover a deal of fickleness, I'd -despise myself if I was to pay heed to such mean suspiciousness." - -"My cloak!" cried Lady Standish. "Megrim, Susan!" She flew to the -hall. "My cloak, let a post-chaise be ordered immediately!" - -"If I may make so bold, my lady," said Lydia, retiring gracefully upon -the conviction of a well-accomplished errand, "don't forget to take -Lady Maria with you, if you can. The gentlemen have such a way of -turning tables on us poor women--at least," said the damsel demurely, -"so I've heard said. And 'tis a long lonely road, my lady!" - - - - -SCENE XIX - -Mistress Bellairs took her departure early. - -Attired in unusually sober colours, floating in an atmosphere of -chastened, matronly dignity, she had shown herself this evening, -thought Lord Verney, quite worthy to be his mother's daughter-in-law. - -"Monstrous dull," Lady Flyte called the pretty widow's demeanour. - -Beyond a _gavotte_ with Lord Verney, she had not danced, but sat for -half-an-hour on the chair next to Lady Maria, who presented her with -the vision of a shoulder-blade which had seen better days, and an -impenetrability of hearing which baffled even Kitty's undaunted energy. - -When Verney had tucked her up in her sedan she insisted upon the young -peer allowing her to proceed home unescorted. - -"Indeed," said she, "I pray you, nay, I order you. People talk so in -this giddy place, and have you not your aged aunt to wait upon? I am -sure," said Mistress Kitty piously, "that your dear mother would wish -it thus." - -He submitted. He had no doubt that his mother would indeed entirely -concur with such sentiments, and blessed his Kitty for her sweet -reasonableness. - -"Good-night, then," she said, thrusting her pretty face out of the -window with a very tender and gentle smile. - -"Good-night," he replied, with his young, gracefully-awkward bow. - -She fully expected to hear his footstep pursue the chairman, for she -had not been able to refrain from throwing her utmost fascination into -that parting look. But nothing broke the silence of the parade save -the measured slouching tramp of the bearers. - -At once disappointed and relieved, she threw herself back in her seat. - -"What, not a spark left," said she, "of the fine flame 'twas so easy to -kindle this morning! 'Tis the very type of the odious British husband. -Let him be but sure of you, and the creature struts as confident of his -mastery as the cock among his hens. Lord!" she shuddered, "what an -escape I have had! We women are apt to fancy that very young men are -like very young peas, the greener, the tenderer, the better; whereas," -said the lady, with a sigh, "they are but like young wine, crude where -we look for strength, all head and no body, and vastly poor upon the -palate." - -She sighed again, and closed her eyes, waiting for the moment of the -impending catastrophe with a delicate composure. - -In truth, Mr. O'Hara conducted the performance with so much _brio_ as -to convince Mistress Bellairs that he must have had previous experience -of the kind. - -At the dark appointed corner the two muffled individuals who, each -selecting his own astonished chairman, enlaced him with overwhelming -brotherly affection, seemed such thorough-paced ruffians in the dim -light, that Mistress Kitty found it quite natural to scream--and even -had some difficulty in keeping her distressful note down to the pitch -of necessary discretion. - -And her heart fluttered with a sensation of fear, convincing enough to -produce quite a delightful illusion, when she found herself bodily -lifted out of her nest and rapidly carried through the darkness in an -irresistibly close and strong embrace. - -"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the lady, in a modulated sequence of little shrieks. - -"Merciful heavens!" she thought to herself, with a great thump of the -heart, astonished at her ravisher's silence, "what if it should be -someone else after all?" - -But the next instant the rich brogue of a tender whisper in her ear -dispelled all doubt. - -"You've forgotten the scratches, my darling," said O'Hara, as he laid -her preciously upon the cushions of the chaise. - -Here Mr. Mahoney and his comrade--which latter bore a curious -resemblance in build and gait to one of the sporting Marquis's own -celebrated gladiators--came running up to take their seats. In leaped -O'Hara--the coachman lifted his whip, and the team that Phoebus might -have envied started up the length of Milsom Street in style. - - * * * * * - -The chairmen, drawing their breath with some difficulty after their -spell of strangulation, stared in amazement at the clattering shadow as -it retreated up the steep street; and then back, and in fresh -amazement, at the yellow guinea which had been pressed, and now -glinted, in the palm of their hands. - -Presently a simultaneous smile overspread their honest countenances. - -"A queer go," said the first, easing and readjusting his necklace. -"Lud, the little madam did squeak!" - -"I'd let them all squeak at the same price," said the other, pocketing -his coin, and resuming his place in rear of the sedan. "But come, -Bill, we must go report this 'orrible crime. Rabbit me!--what's that?" - -A blood-curdling wail had risen out of the night, from his very elbow -it seemed. It circled in frightful cadence, and died away in -ghost-like fashion. - -"'T--'tis but a sick cat, I hope," stammered the first chairman, and -dived for the chair-poles in marked hurry. - -"O--o--o--o," moaned the voice, "oh, my mistress!" There was a -flutter, a patter, and: "Merciful heavens, you wretches!" cried -Mistress Bellairs's devoted woman, emerging like a gust of wind from -the blackest shadow of Bond Street and falling upon the nearest -chairman with a well-aimed flap of her shawl, followed up by a couple -of scratches. "Wretches, monsters, you've let my mistress be carried -away! Oh heavens, my unhappy mistress!" cried Lydia, and rent the -night with her cries. - - * * * * * - -Mistress Kitty's chair had no sooner left the precincts of the Assembly -Rooms when my Lady Standish's post-chaise came clattering round the -corner. - -Lord Verney, who was just about to go in again, arrested by curiosity, -turned to wonder at a visitor who arrived in so unwonted a conveyance. -Recognising Lady Standish he was somewhat abashed and somewhat -disconcerted, but felt he could do no less than advance through the -crowd of foot and chair men and offer his hand. - -"O, pray, Lord Verney," said she in a strenuous whisper, "conduct me to -your aunt, for I have great need of her help and counsel. Take me to -her at once," said the poor lady, in ever-increasing agitation. - -They passed through the elegant throng, she unconscious alike of -recognition, comment, or titter, he feeling to his boy's marrow, the -sensation created by her travelling gear and distraught appearance. - -"Would I were back at Verney Hall," thought he, and found that this -wish had been long gathering in his heart. - -No need of an ear-trumpet for Lady Maria now. The dowager recovered -her powers of hearing with almost miraculous celerity. - -"Oh, Lady Maria!" said Lady Standish, holding out both her hands. And -incontinently she burst into tears. "Oh, Lady Maria, Sir Jasper has -left me, I am in sad trouble! I'm told he has gone to Devizes. I must -follow him. You are my mother's oldest friend; will you give me the -support of your company and protection?" - -There was quite a buzz in the interested circle. Lady Maria nodded -round, charmed with the situation; bristling with delighted curiosity, -she was more like Mistress Kitty's cockatoo than ever. - -"Poor young thing, poor young thing," she said, patting Lady Standish's -hand; "your mother's oldest friend, quite so--quite right and proper to -come to me. And so Sir Jasper's left you; so Sir Jasper's gone; and -with whom, my dear?" - -Lady Maria fondly believed that she spoke these last words in a gentle -aside; but never had her sepulchral bass resounded more sonorously. -Lady Standish's faint cry of shocked disclaimer was, however, -completely drowned in the fresh rumour, lacerated by shrill feminine -shrieks, which now arose in the vestibule of the Assembly Rooms and -rapidly advanced. - -"My Lord Verney! My mistress! Where is my Lord Verney?" wailed the -distraught Lydia, who thoroughly enjoyed her _rôle_. - -A hundred voices took up the cry; the astounding news passed from group -to group: "The pretty widow has been carried off!" "Mistress Bellairs -has been abducted!" And then, in counter clamour and antiphone: "and -my Lady Standish is looking for Sir Jasper!" - -Meanwhile, before Lord Verney, dumb and suffocating under a variety of -emotions, Lydia wringing her hands and with the most thrilling notes of -tragic woe (as nearly copied from Mistress Susanna Cibber as she could -remember), narrated her tristful tale. - -"He flung my unhappy mistress, swooning and shrieking, into the chaise. -And 'Drive like the devil,' cries he in a voice of thunder to the -coachman. 'I'll flay you with your own whip and hang you to your own -shaft,' says he, 'if you're not in Devizes before midnight!'" - -"Devizes!" cried Lady Standish with a scream. Hanging on Lydia's -utterance, every word of which confirmed the awful suspicion that had -entered her heart, she now could no longer doubt the real extent of her -misfortune. - -"Oh, Lord Verney, save my mistress!" Lydia's pipe dominated the -universal chorus with piercing iteration. - -And now Lady Maria's bass struck in again. - -"What did I say?" cried she triumphantly. "Nevvy, you'd better go to -bed! you're well out of her. Julia, my dear, don't faint, we can catch -them at Devizes yet. Someone tell that wench to stop that screeching! -Julia, come! You've got the chay, I understand. Fortunately, my house -is near; we shall just call for Burrell and make him ride behind with -his blunderbuss. Child, if you faint I wash my hands of the whole -affair. We'll nip them, I tell you, if you'll only brisk up." - -"I won't faint," said Lady Standish setting her teeth. - - * * * * * - -Lord Verney suddenly awoke to the fact that he had been grievously -injured, and that he was in a towering passion. Spluttering, he -demanded vengeance of gods and men. Post-chaise, ho, and pistols, -forthwith! "My sword!" cried he, feeling for the blade which, however, -according to the regulations enforced by the immortal Master of the -Bath Ceremonies, was absent from its natural post on his noble hip in -this polite assembly. - -"Come with me," cried Captain Spicer, clapping his patron on the -shoulder in a burst of excitement. "I'll stand to you, of course, lad! -You'll want a witness. Gad!" exclaimed the amiable Captain, "we'll -have Sir Jasper's liver on the spit before crow of cock!" - - - - -SCENE XX - -The side-rays of the chaise-lamps played on the widow's soft, saucy -face, threw beguiling shadows under her eyes, and fleeting dimples -round those lips that seemed perpetually to invite kisses. - -Cosily nestling in the corner of the carriage, her head in its black -silk hood tilted back against the cushions, in the flickering uncertain -gleam, there was something almost babyish in her whole appearance; -something babyish, too, in her attitude of perfect confidence and -enjoyment. - -Denis O'Hara, with one arm extended above her head, his hand resting -open on the panel, the other hand still clasping the handle of the -door, gazed upon the woman who had placed herself so completely in his -power, and felt smitten to the heart of him with a tenderness that was -well-nigh pain. Hitherto his glib tongue had never faltered with a -woman that his lips were not ready to fill the pause with a suitable -caress. But not so to-day. - -"What's come to me at all?" said he to himself, as, frightened by the -very strength of his own passion, he could find no word at once ardent -and respectful enough in which to speak it. And, indeed, "What had -come to him?" was what Mistress Kitty was thinking about the same time. -"And what may his arm be doing over my head?" she wondered. - -"How beautiful you are!" babbled the Irishman at last. - -Mistress Bellairs sat up with an angry start. It was as if she had -been stung. - -"Heavens!" cried she, thrusting her little forefingers into her ears. -"Mr. O'Hara, if you say that again, I shall jump out of the chay." - -Her eyes flashed; she looked capable of fulfilling her threat upon the -spot. - -"Me darling heart," said he, and had perforce to lay his hands upon her -to keep her still. "Sure what else can I say to you, with my eyes upon -your angel face?" - -Apparently the lady's ears were not so completely stopped but that such -words could penetrate. - -"'Tis monstrous," said she in hot indignation, "that I should go to all -this trouble to escape from the bleating of that everlasting refrain, -and have it buzzed at me," she waxed incoherent under the sense of her -injuries, "thus at the very outset!" - -"My dear love," said he, humbly, capturing the angry, gesticulating -hand, "sure me heart's so full that it's just choking me." - -She felt him tremble beside her as he spoke. - -Now the trembling lover was not of those that entered into Mistress -Kitty's scheme of existence. She had, perhaps, reckoned, when planning -her escapade, upon being made to tremble a little herself. She had -certainly reckoned upon a journey this evening that should be among the -most memorable in the annals of her impressions. O'Hara bashful! -O'Hara tongue-tied! O'Hara with cold fingers that hardly dared to -touch hers! O'Hara, the gay rattler, with constrained lips! - -This was an O'Hara whose existence she had not dreamed of, and for -whose acquaintance, to say the truth, she had small relish. - -"What has come to you?" she cried aloud, with another burst of -petulance. - -"Faith," said he, "and I hardly know myself, Kitty darling. Oh, -Kitty," said he, "'tis vastly well to laugh at love, and play at love; -but when love comes in earnest it takes a man as it were by the throat, -and it's no joke then." - -"So I see," said she, with some dryness. - -O'Hara clenched his hand and drew a laboured breath. - - * * * * * - -Straining, slipping now and again, breaking into spurts of trot, to -fall into enforced walking pace once more, the gallant team had dragged -the chaise to the summit of the great rise at a speed quite -unprecedented, yet comparatively slow. - -Now the way lay down-hill. The coachman waved his whip. Bounding -along the fair road the wheels hummed; the night-wind blowing in -through the half-opened window, set Mistress Kitty's laces flapping on -her bosom, and a stray curl of Mr. O'Hara's dancing on his pale -forehead. - -The exhilaration of the rapid flight, the crack of the whip, the mad -rhythm of the hoofs, the witchery of the night hour, the risks of the -situation, the very madness of the whole enterprise, all combined to -set the widow's gay blood delightfully astir, mounting to her light -brain like sparkling wine. - -What! were all the accessories of the play to be so perfect, and was -the chief character to prove such a lamentable failure in his part? -What! was she, Kitty Bellairs, to be carried off by the most notorious -rake in Bath, only to find him as awkward, as dumb, as embarrassed with -the incomparable situation as the veriest greenhorn? "It shall not, -and it cannot be," said she to herself. And thereupon she changed her -tactics. - -"Why," said she aloud, with the cooing note of her most melting mood, -"I protest one would think, sir, that you were afraid of me." - -"Aye, Kitty," said he, simply; "and so I am." - -"Oh, fie!" she laughed. "And how have I alarmed you? Think of me," -said she, and leaned her face towards him with a smile of archest wit, -"not as a stranger, but as a sisther, as a dear, dear cousin." - -His eye flamed back at her. Her merry mood was as incongruous to his -sudden, storm-serious growth of passion as the gay lilt of a tambourine -might be to a solemn chant. - -"I think of you," he said, and there was a deep thrill in his voice, -"as my wife that is to be." - -And so saying he fell upon his knees in the narrow space, and tenderly -kissed a fold of her lace, as one, from the knowledge of his own fire, -afraid of a nearer touch. - -The word "wife" had never a pleasing sound in the lovely widow's ears. -From neither the past nor the future did it evoke for her an attractive -picture. - -Coming from those lips, by which it was the very last name she desired -to hear herself called, it aroused in her as pretty a fit of fury as -ever she had indulged in. - -"Now, indeed, is the murder out!" she cried. "Oh, you men are all -alike. As lovers--all fire, capsicums Indian suns! Bottles of Sillery -always bursting! Torrents not to be stemmed.... But, lo you! let the -lover once fancy himself the husband, let the vision of the coveted -mistress but merge into the prospect of the secured wife.... Merciful -heavens, what a change! For fire we have ice; for the red, biting -capsicum, the green, cool cucumber; for joyous, foaming Sillery, the -smallest ale; small ale--nay, toast and water!" cried Mistress Kitty, -lashing herself to finer frenzy. "And if the mere sense of your -security thus transforms the lover in you, what a pleasing prospect, -indeed, lies before the wedded wife! No, thank you, sir," said the -lady, and pushed the petrified O'Hara with an angry foot, "I have had -one wintry, toast-and-water husband, and that shall be enough for my -lifetime. Thank God, it is not too late yet!" she fumed. "I am not -yet, sir, Mistress O'Hara." - -And in the very midst of her indignation: "This will," she thought, -"simplify the parting at Devizes." But no whit was her wrath thereby -abated, that the fool should have spoiled her pretty ride. - -For a moment, after the angry music of her voice had ceased to ring, -there was a breathless silence, broken only by the straining progress -of horses and chaise up the sides of another hill. Then O'Hara broke -forth into a sort of roar of wounded tenderness, passion, and ire. -Flinging himself back upon the seat, he seized her wrist in a grip, -fierce, yet still gentle under its fierceness. - -"How dare ye!" cried the man, "how dare ye doubt my love! Sure the -flames of hell are cold compared to me this minute. May my tongue -wither in my mouth, may it be cut out of my jaws and never speak a word -of sense again, may I be struck dead at your feet, Kitty, for the rest -of my life, if it's not gospel truth! Listen to my heart," he cried, -with yet greater vehemence, pressing her captive hand against his -breast, "isn't it _Kitty, Kitty, Kitty_ ... that it's saying? Sure -it's nothing but a bell, and your name is the clapper in it! ... And -you to be railing at me because it's so much I have to say that never a -word can I bring out! Oh," pursued Mr. O'Hara, waxing louder and more -voluble still, "sure what could I say, with my heart in my mouth -stopping the way? Look at it, you cruel woman; isn't it all yours, and -aren't you sticking pins into it for sheer devilment, this minute? God -forgive me, that I should say such a thing of an angel! Look at it, -now, Kitty! Is that the heart of a cucumber? ... If you had said a -love-apple itself.... Och, indeed, it's the real cool cucumber I am, -and it's toast and water that's running through my veins like fire! ... -Laugh, madam, laugh, it's a grand joke entirely! Make a pin-cushion of -the cucumber! See, now, is that small ale that bursts from the wounds? -Upon my soul," he cried, arrived at the height of his tempest, "I have -a mind to show you the colour of it!" - -He reached violently towards the back seat for his sword as he spoke, -and Mistress Bellairs, suddenly arrested in her delighted paroxysm, was -sufficiently convinced of the strength of his feelings to stop him with -clinging hands and clamouring little notes of terror: - -"O'Hara! madman!--for God's sake, Denis!" - -"Ah!" cried he. "It's not hot enough I was for ye. It's the cold -husband you're afraid of. Ah, Kitty, you've stirred the sleeping dog, -you mustn't complain now if you can't put out the fire!" - -So saying, he turned and clasped her in an embrace that left her -scarcely breath to scream, had she so wished, and had indeed the kisses -which he rained upon her lips allowed her space in which to place a -protest. - -Her light soul, her easy shallow nature, was carried as it were off its -feet in the whirlwind of a passion the mere existence of which, with -all her experience, she had never even guessed. To say the truth, so -much as she had deemed him vastly too cold, so now she found him vastly -too hot. She was a woman of niceties, an epicure in life and love, and -nothing met with her favour but the delicate happy mean. This was a -revelation, with a warning. - -"Mr. O'Hara," she gasped, at length released, fluttering like a ruffled -dove, all in anger and fear, "such treatment! For a gentleman, sir, -you strangely forget yourself." She laid her hand on the window strap. -"Not a word, sir, or I will instantly give the order to turn back." - -"Oh," cried the unhappy lover, and tore at his hair with desperate -fingers, filling the ambient air with flakes of powder which shone -silvery in the moonlight. "You drove me to it. Ah, don't be -frightened of me, my darling; that hurts me the worst of all! I'm -quiet now, Kitty." - -His labouring breath hissed between his words, and his satin coat -creaked under each quivering muscle. - -"I'm as quiet as a lamb," said he; "sure a baby might put its head in -my jaws--the devil's gone out of me, Kitty." - -"I'm glad to hear it, sir," said she, unappeased. She sat, swelling -with ruffled plumes, looking out of the window and biting her lips. - -"A moon, too," she thought, and the tears almost started to her eyes, -for the vexation of the wasted opportunity and the complete failure of -a scene so excellently staged. "How wise, oh, how wise I was, to have -secured my exit at Devizes!" - -"I frightened her," thought O'Hara; and in the manly heart of him he -lamented his innate masculine brutality and formed the most delicate -chivalrous plans for the right cherishing in the future of the dear -lady who had confided herself to him. - - - - -SCENE XXI - -In the white moonlight Sir Jasper Standish paced up and down the -cobble-stoned yard with as monotonous a restlessness as if he had been -hired this night to act the living sign at the Bear Inn, Devizes. - -Each time he passed the low open window of the inn parlour, in which -sat Mr. Stafford by the dim yellow light of two long-tongued tallow -candles, the baronet would pause a moment to exchange from without a -few dismal words with his friend. The latter, puffing at a long clay -pipe, endeavoured in the intervals to while away the heavy minutes in -the perusal of some tome out of mine host's library--a unique -collection and celebrated on the Bath Road. - -"Tom Stafford," said Sir Jasper, for the twentieth time, "how goes the -hour?" - -"Damned slowly, friend," said Stafford, consulting with a yawn the most -exact of three watches at his fob. "To be precise, 'tis two minutes -and one third since I told you that it wanted a quarter of midnight." - -Sir Jasper fell once more to his ursine perambulation, and Stafford, -yawning again, flicked over a page. He had not reached the bottom of -it, however, before Sir Jasper's form returned between him and the -moonlight. - -"What," said the injured husband, "what if they should have taken -another road?" - -"Then," cried Stafford, closing his book with a snap between both his -palms, tossing it on to the table and stretching himself desperately, -"I shall only have to fight you myself for this most insufferably dull -evening that you have made me spend, when I was due at more than one -rendezvous, and had promised pretty Bellairs the first minuet." - -"It shall be pistols," said Sir Jasper, following his own thoughts with -a sort of gloomy lust, "pistols, Tom. For either he or I shall breathe -our last to-night." - -"Pistols with all my heart," said Stafford, stopping his pipe with his -little finger. "Only do, like a good fellow, make up your mind--just -for the sake of variety. I think the last time we considered the -matter, we had decided for this"--describing a neat thrust at Sir -Jasper's waistcoat through the window with the long stem of his -churchwarden. "There's more blood about it, Jasper," he suggested -critically. - -"True," murmured the other, again all indecision. "But pistols at five -paces----." - -"Well--yes, there's a charm about five paces, I admit," returned the -second with some weariness, dropping back again into his chair. "And -we can reload, you know." - -"If I fall," said Sir Jasper, with the emotion which generally -overtakes a man who contemplates a tragic contingency to himself, "be -gentle with her. She has sinned, but she was very dear to me." - -"She'll make a deuced elegant widow," said Stafford, musingly, after a -little pause, during which he had conjured up Lady Standish's especial -points with the judgment of a true connoisseur. - -"You must conduct her back to her home," gulped Sir Jasper, a minute -later, slowly thrusting in his head again. "Alack, would that I had -never fetched her thence.... Had you but seen her, when I wooed and -won her, Tom! A country flower, all innocence, a wild rose.... And -now, deceitful, double-faced!" - -"'Tis the way of the wild rose," said Stafford, philosophically. "Let -you but transplant it from the native hedgerow, and before next season -it grows double." - -Here the speaker, who was always ready with a generous appreciation of -his own conceits, threw his head back and laughed consumedly, while Sir -Jasper uttered some sounds between a growl and a groan. - -The volatile second in waiting wiped his eyes. - -"Go to, man," cried he, turning with sudden irascibility upon his -friend, "for pity's sake take that lugubrious countenance of thine out -of my sight. What the devil I ever saw in thee, Jasper, to make a -friend of, passes my comprehension: for, of all things, I love a fellow -with a spark of wit. And thou, lad, lackest the saving grace of humour -so wofully, that, in truth, I fear--well--thou art in a parlous state: -I fear damnation waits thee, for 'tis incurable. What! in God's name -cannot a man lose a throw in the game of happiness and yet laugh? -Cannot a husbandman detect a poacher on his land and yet laugh as he -sets the gin? Why," cried Mr. Stafford, warming to his thesis, and -clambering lightly out of the window to seat himself on the outer sill, -"strike me ugly! shall not a gentleman be ever ready to meet his fate -with a smile? I vow I've never yet seen Death's head grin at me, but -I've given him the grin back--split me!" - -"Hark--hark!" cried Sir Jasper, pricking his strained ear, "d'ye hear?" - -"Pooh!" said Mr. Stafford, "only the wind in the tree." - -"Nay," cried Sir Jasper; "hush man, listen!" - -An unmistakable rumbling grew upon the still night air--a confused -medley of sounds which gradually unravelled themselves upon their -listening ears. It was the rhythmical striking of many hoofs, the roll -of wheels, the crack of a merciless whip. - -"Faith and faith," cried Stafford, pleasantly exhilarated, "I believe -you're right, Jasper; here they come!" - -The moonlight swam blood-red before Sir Jasper's flaming eye. "Pistols -or swords?" questioned he again of himself, and grasped his hilt as the -nearest relief, pending the decisive moment. - -Out slouched a couple of sleepy ostlers, as Master Lawrence, mine host, -rang the stable bell. - -Betty, the maid, threw a couple of logs on the fire, while the dame in -the bar, waking from her snooze, demanded the kettle, selected some -lemons, and ordered candlesticks and dips with reckless prodigality. - - * * * * * - -Mistress Kitty, peering out of the carriage window, her shoulder still -turned upon the unhappy and unforgiven swain, hailed the twinkling -lights of the _Bear Inn_ with lively eyes. - -While the chaise described an irreproachable curve round the yard, her -quick glance had embraced every element of the scene. Sir Jasper's -bulky figure, with folded arms, was leaning against the post of the inn -door, awaiting her approach--retribution personified--capriciously -illumined by the orange rays of the landlord's lantern. Out in the -moonlight, shining in his pearl gray satin and powdered head, all -silver from crest to shoe-buckle, like the prince of fairy lore, sat -Stafford on his window-ledge, as gallant a picture to a woman's eye, -the widow had time to think, as one could wish to see on such a night. - -"Oh," she thought, "how we are going to enjoy ourselves at last!" - -And being too true an artist to consider her mere personal convenience -upon a question of effect, she resolved to defer the crisis until the -ripe moment, no matter at what cost. Accordingly, even as O'Hara cried -out, in tones of surprise and disgust: "Thunder and turf! my darling, -if there isn't now that blethering ox, Sir Jasper!" Mistress Kitty -instantly covered her face with her lace and swooned away on the -Irishman's breast. - -Sir Jasper charged the coach door. "Blethering ox!" he bellowed. -"I'll teach you, sir, what I am! I'll teach that woman--I'll, I'll----" - -Here Stafford sprang lightly to the rescue. - -"For Heaven's sake," said he, "think of our names as gentlemen; let it -be swords or pistols, Jasper, or swords and pistols, if you like, but -not fistycuffs and collaring. Be quiet, Jasper! And you, sir," said -he to O'Hara, as sternly as he could for the tripping of his laughter, -"having done your best to add that to a gentleman's head which shall -make his hats sit awry for the remainder of his days, do you think it -generous to give his condition so precise a name?" - -"O hush," cried O'Hara, in too deep distress to pay attention either to -abuse or banter, "give me room, gentlemen, for God's sake. Don't you -see the lady has fainted?" - -With infinite precaution and tenderness he emerged from the chay with -his burden, elbowing from his path on one side the curious and -officious landlord, on the other the struggling husband. - -"Oh, what have I done at all!" cried the distracted lover, as the -inertness of the weight in his arms began to fill him with apprehension -for his dear. "Sure, alanna, there's nothing to be afraid of! Sure, -am I not here? Och, me darling, if----" - -But here Sir Jasper escaped from his friend's control. "I'll not stand -it," cried he. "'Tis more than flesh and blood can endure. Give her -up to me, sir. How dare you hold her?" He fell upon O'Hara in the -rear and seized him, throttling, round the neck. - -"I'll dare you in a minute, ye mad divil!" yelled O'Hara, in a fury no -whit less violent than that of his assailant. Thus cried he, then -choked. - -In the scuffle they had reached the parlour. - -"Oh, Jasper, Jasper, in the name of decency!" protested Stafford, -vainly endeavouring to pluck the baronet from the Irishman's back. -"And you, Denis lad, I entreat of you, cease to provoke him. Zooks, my -boy, remember he has some prior claim--what shall I say? some little -vested interest----" - -"I'll stuff him with his own red hair!" asseverated Sir Jasper, foaming -at the mouth as, under a savage push from O'Hara's elbow he fell back, -staggering, into Stafford's power. - -"Prior claims--vested interest is it! Some of you will have to swallow -those words before I'll be got to swallow anything here," swore Denis -O'Hara, almost gaily, in the exaltation of his Celtic rage. "Sure, -'tis mad, I know ye are, lepping mad, Sir Jasper, but ought you not to -be ashamed of yourself before the lady? She's quivering with the -fright.... Lie here, my angel," said he, vibrating from the loudest -note of defiance to the tenderest cooing. "Lie here; there's not a -ha'porth to frighten ye, were there fifty such twopenny old crazy -weathercocks crowing at you!" - -So saying, he deposited his burthen tenderly in the leather-winged -arm-chair by the fire-place, and turned with a buoyant step towards Sir -Jasper. - -"Come out," said he, "come out, sir. Sure, leave him alone, Tom, 'tis -the only way to quiet him at all. Sure, after our little game the -other night, wasn't he that dove-like, poor fellow, a child might have -milked him?" - -The quivering form in the chair here emitted a scale of hysterical -little notes that seemed wrung from her by the most irrepressible -emotion. And: - -"Oh, oh," exclaimed Mr. Stafford, unable, in the midst of his laughter, -to retain any further grip upon his friend. - -"My darling," once more began the solicitous O'Hara, turning his head -round towards the arm-chair, but: - -"Judas!" hissed Sir Jasper, and furiously interposed his bulk between -the Irishman and his intention. - -"Faith," cried Stafford, "can't you cover that head of yours, somehow, -O'Hara? I vow the very sight of it is still the red rag to the -bull.... The bull, aha!" - -"Ha! ha! ha!" broke in, this time uncontrolled, the merriment from the -chair. - -The three men were struck into silence and immobility. - -Then, on tip toe, Mr. Stafford approached and peeped round the wing of -the arm-chair. He looked, and seemed blasted with astonishment; looked -again and made the rafters ring with his sonorous laugh, till the -apprehensive landlord in the passage and the trembling dame in the bar -were comforted and reassured by the genial sound. - -The high feminine trill of Mistress Kitty's musical mirth rang in -sweetly with his. - -"Oh, Kitty Bellairs, Kitty Bellairs!" gasped Mr. Stafford, shook his -finger at her, felt blindly for a support, and rolled up against Sir -Jasper. - -The baronet straightway fell into an opportunely adjacent chair and -there remained--his legs extended with compass stiffness, his eyes -starting with truly bovine bewilderment--staring at the rosy visage, -the plump little figure, that now emerged from the inglenook. - -"Oh dear, oh dear!" faintly murmured Stafford. And with a fresh breath -he was off again. "Aha ha ha! for an ox, my Jasper, thou hast started -on a lovely wild goose chase--as friend O'Hara might say." While: - -"Mercy on us!" rippled the lady. "I protest, 'tis the drollest scene. -Oh, Sir Jasper, Sir Jasper, see what jealousy may bring a man to!" - -"Musha, it's neither head nor tail I can make of the game," said -O'Hara, "but sure it's like an angel choir to hear you laugh again, me -darling." - -The guileless gentleman approached his mistress as he spoke, and -prepared to encircle her waist. But with a sudden sharpness she -whisked herself from his touch. - -"Pray, sir," she said, "remember how we stand to each other! If I -laugh 'tis with relief to know myself safe." - -"Safe?" he echoed with sudden awful misgiving. - -"Aye," said she, and spoke more tartly for the remorseful smiting of -her own heart, as she marked the change in his face. "You would seem -to forget, sir, that you have carried me off by violence--treacherously -seized me with your hired ruffians." Her voice grew ever shriller, as -certain rumours, which her expectant ears had already caught -approaching, now grew quite unmistakable without, and hasty steps -resounded in the passage. "Oh, Mr. O'Hara, you have cruelly used me!" -cried the lady. "Oh, Sir Jasper, oh, Mr. Stafford, from what a fate -has your most unexpected presence here to-night thus opportunely saved -me!" - -At this point she looked up and gave a scream of most intense -astonishment: for there, in the doorway, stood my Lord Verney; and, -over his shoulder, peered the white face of Captain Spicer, all -puckered up with curiosity. - - - - -SCENE XXII - -O'Hare drew himself up. He had grown all at once exceedingly still. - -Mr. Stafford, gradually recovering from his paroxysms, had begun to -bestow some intelligent interest upon the scene. There was a mist of -doubt in his eyes as he gazed from the victimised, but very lively, -lady to her crestfallen "violent abductor," and thence to the gloomy -countenance of the new-comer on the threshold. There seemed to be, it -struck him, a prodigious deliberation in Mistress Kitty's cry and start -of surprise. - -"What is my pretty Bellairs up to now? Well, poor Irish Denis, with -all his wits, is no match for her anyhow, and, faith, she knows it," -thought he. Aloud he said, with great placidity: "Fie, fie, this is -shocking to hear!" and sat, the good-humoured Chorus to the Comedy, on -the edge of the table, waiting for the development of the next scene. -Sir Jasper, wiping a beaded brow and still staring, as if by the sheer -fixing of his bloodshot eye he could turn these disappointing puppets -into the proper objects of his vengeance, was quite unable to follow -any current but the muddy whirl of his own thoughts. - -Lord Verney alone it was, therefore, who rose at all to Mistress -Kitty's situation. - -"Are _you_ the scoundrel, then," said he, marching upon O'Hara, "who -dared to lay hands upon an unprotected lady in the very streets of -Bath?" - -"Monstrous!" remarked Captain Spicer behind him. Then jogging his -patron's elbow, "'Twas well spoke, Verney, man. At him again, there's -blood in this." - -Mr. O'Hara looked steadily at Lord Verney, glancing contemptuously at -Captain Spicer, and then gazed with long, full searching at the -beguiling widow. - -She thought to scent danger to herself in the air; and, womanlike, she -seized unscrupulously upon the sharpest weapon in her armoury. - -"Perhaps," she said, with an angry, scornful laugh, "Mr. O'Hara will -now deny that he and his servants attacked my chairmen in the dark, -threw me, screaming with terror, into his carriage, and that his -intention was avowedly to wed me by force in London to-morrow." - -All eyes were fixed on the Irishman, and silence waited upon his reply. -He had grown so pale that his red head seemed to flame by contrast. He -made a low bow. - -"No, Kitty," said he, in a very gentle voice, "I deny nothing." Then -sweeping the company with a haughty glance. "This lady," said he, "has -spoken truth; as for me, I am ready to meet the consequences of my -conduct." - -His eye finally rested once more on Lord Verney. The latter grew white -and then scarlet; while Spicer whispered and again jogged. - -"Of course," blustered the youth, and wished that he had the curious -digestion of his contemporaries, that his stomach did not so -squeamishly rebel at the prospect of a dose of steel, "of course, sir, -you must be aware----" - -"It shall be swords," interrupted the irrepressible Spicer; "and gad, -sir, what my noble friend will have left of your body I will myself -make mince of this night! Aye, sir," said the Captain, beginning to -squint as was his wont under excitement, and slapping his bony chest; -"I will fight you myself, sir." - -"Fight _you_!" exclaimed O'Hara, suddenly stung into magnificent -contempt. "Fight you, sir?" he ran a withering eye over the -grasshopper anatomy of the toady as he spoke, "you, sir, you, the -writer of that dirty note this morning, bidding me -apologise--apologise!" cried Denis, with his most luscious brogue, "to -the man, Sir Jasper there, for having insulted you on the subject of -your miserable mealy head--fight you, sir? Sure, rather than fight -you," said Mr. O'Hara, searching for the most emphatic asseveration -conceivable, "I'd never fight again for the rest of my life! But I'll -tell you what I'll do for you: next time you thrust that ugly face of -yours within the reach of me arm Oi'll pull your nose till it's as long -as your tongue, and as slender as your courage, damme!" - -"Oh, gad! what a low scoundrel," murmured Captain Spicer, withdrawing -quickly several paces, and with an intensified cast in his eye; "'tis -positive unfit for a gentleman to speak to him!" - -"Now, my lord?" said O'Hara, resuming his easy dignity. - -But that her comedy should drift into tragedy was none of Mistress -Kitty's intentions. Briskly stepping between the laboriously -pugnacious Verney and the poor Irishman, whose eye (for all his present -composure) shone with the lust of the fray, she thus addressed them -collectively and in turn: - -"Shame, shame, gentlemen, I protest! Is it not enough that a poor -woman's heart should be set a-fluttering by over-much love, must it now -go pit-a-pat again for over-much hate? My Lord Verney, think of your -mother. Think of her, of whose declining years you are the sole prop -and joy; recall to mind those principles of high morality, of noble -Christian duty, which that paragon of women so sedulously inculcated in -you!" Her voice quivered on the faintest note of mockery. "Oh, what -would that worthy lady's feelings be, were you to be brought home to -her--a corse! What, ah what indeed! would _your_ feelings be if, by -some accident," here she shot involuntarily what was almost the -suspicion of a wink in the direction of O'Hara, "you had to answer for -the life of a fellow-creature before to-morrow's dawn? Why, you could -never open your Bible again without feeling in your bosom the throbbing -heart of a Cain!" She stopped to draw breath. - -Mr. Stafford, one delighted grin, slid the whole length of the table on -which he sat with dangling legs, to get a fuller view of the saucy -face: "Incomparable Bellairs," he murmured to himself with keen -appreciation, And: "So, ho, my noble friend," thought he, as he shot a -glance at the solemn Verney, "now do I know what has closed to you for -ever the gates of Paradise." - -"And you, Mr. O'Hara," resumed the lady, turning her eye, full of -indefinable and entrancing subtleties upon the honest gentleman, "would -you have me forgive you this night's work? Do not, then, do not force -this impetuous young man to an unnecessary quarrel. Allow him to -withdraw his challenge. Do that in _atonement_, sir," said she, with -much severity of accent; but her eye said sweetly enough, "Do that for -me" and gave further promise of unutterable reward. - -"Madam," said O'Hara, glancing away as if the sight of her beauty were -now more pain than pleasure to him, "'tis for my Lord Verney to speak; -I am entirely at his orders. I understand," and here, for all his -chivalrousness, he could not refrain him from a point of satire, "I -understand, ma'am, that you have given him the right to espouse your -quarrels." - -"Most certainly," said the crimson Verney, who had been monstrously -uneasy during his lady's sermon, not only because every word of it hit -some tender point of his abnormally developed conscience, but also -because of an indefinable sensation that he was being held up to -ridicule, "most certainly, sir, it is as Mistress Bellairs's future -husband that I find it incumbent--that I find myself forced, -reluctantly--no, I mean----" here he floundered and looked round for -Spicer, who, however, was ostentatiously turning his back upon the -proceedings and gazing at the moon. "In fact," resumed the poor youth, -falling back on his own unguided wits, "I have no alternative but to -demand satisfaction for an attempt on the honour of the future Lady -Verney." - -"Mercy on us!" cried Mistress Kitty, with a shrill indignant little -scream. "Oh fie, my lord, who would have deemed you so bloodthirsty? -Before heaven," she cried piously, glancing at the raftered ceiling, -"before heaven, it would be the death of me, were there to be -quarrelling, strife, contention for me--for _me_! Who am I," she said -with the most angelic humility, "that two such gallant gentlemen should -stake their lives for me? Rather," said she, "will I give you back -your word, my lord. Indeed," this with a noble air of sacrifice, "I -feel Providence has but too clearly shown me my duty. Hush, hush, -Verney, bethink yourself! How could I ever face your mother (were you -indeed to survive the encounter) with the knowledge that I had exposed -you to danger; that for me you had loaded your soul with -blood-guiltiness!" - -She shuddered and looked delicious. - -"Child," said she meltingly, as Lord Verney faintly protested, "it must -be so. I have felt it more than once; you are too young." There was a -conviction in her voice that gave no hope of reprieve, and Lord Verney, -who had already found out that Mistress Bellairs was too dangerous a -delight to pursue with comfort, accepted his sentence with a Christian -resignation that did justice to his mother's training. - -"All, all must now be over between us," said Kitty pathetically, "save -a gentle friendship! Your hand, my Lord." - -She reached for his clumsy paw with her determined little fingers. - -"Mr. O'Hara," said she, turning round. "_I forgive you_. Your hand -also, sir." - -If the clasp she extended to Verney was purely official, that with -which she now seized O Hara's cold right hand was eloquent enough with -quick and secret pressure. But, for the first time in his life, -perhaps, O'Hara was slow in returning a woman's token. - -"Shake hands," ordered Mistress Bellairs decisively, and joined the -belligerents' palms. - -Here Stafford sprang jovially to the assistance of the pretty -peacemaker. - -"Right, right," cried he. "Shake hands on it like good fellows. Fie! -who could keep up a feud under those beaming eyes?--Never be downcast, -Verney, lad! What did I tell thee, only yesterday, in the Pump Room, -about thy halo?--Denis, my boy, I've always loved thee, but now I'll -love thee more than ever, if only thou wilt mix us a bowl of punch in -right good Irish fashion, so that in it we may drown all enmity and -drink good friendship--and above all toast the divine Kitty Bellairs!" - -"Hurroosh," cried O'Hara, and with a valiant gulp determined to swallow -his own bitter disappointment and flood in a tide of warm gaiety the -cold ache in his heart. "By all means," cried he, wrung Verney's hand -with feverish cordiality, and gave one last sadly-longing look at Kitty -and his lovely delusive dream. - -Then spinning round upon himself he demanded loudly of the willing -landlord, lemons and "the craythur--a couple of bottles, my friend--a -bowl of sugar and a trifle of wather--the smaller the kittle the better -it boils." And: "Wake up, man," cried he, slapping Sir Jasper on the -back so that the powder flew from that baronet's queue. "Sure we're -all happy, now." - -"Where's my wife, sir?" said the gloomy husband, springing to his feet -fiercely. "I've been made a fool of between you, but all this does not -tell me where my wife is! Stafford, man, I see it now: this has been a -blind." He struck his forehead. "Ha, yes I have it now, it was a -false scent--the villain, the fox is off with her on another road, with -his tongue in his cheek, grinning to think of me sitting and waiting -for them at Devizes!--Tom, the chaise, the horses! There's not a -moment to be lost!" - -"Devil a horse or chay for me, sir," cried his friend. And nodding at -Kitty: "I know when I'm in good company," he pursued, "if you -don't.--Sit down, man, there's punch brewing. Your vengeance will keep -hot enough, ha, ha, but the punch won't." - -"Glory be to God," cried O'Hara, staring at Sir Jasper as if he were a -natural curiosity, "I've known many a madman, but I never knew one mad -enough yet to run away from a punch-bowl!" - -With lace ruffles neatly turned back from his deft hands, O'Hara began -to peel the lemons. - -"Do you," now said Captain Spicer with an ingratiating chirp. "Do you -really care for _quite_ so much peel in the bowl ... ahem?" - -The speaker stopped suddenly and seemed to wither quite away under a -sudden look from the punch-brewer (who had made a movement as though to -put his knife and lemons down and employ his fingers differently) and -the next instant found him whispering in Stafford's ear: - -"You're a man of the world, I know, friend Stafford," said he. "No -doubt you will laugh at my over-nice sense of delicacy, but just now, -in his ravings, poor O'Hara made a kind of threat, I believe, about -pulling my nose. What would _you_ advise me to do in the matter? Look -over it, eh?" - -"Certainly," cried the spark, with a glance of the most airy contempt. -"Look over it, _as straight as you can_. Look over it, by all means, -but as you value the symmetry of that ornament to your countenance, -Captain Spicer--if I were you I should keep it well-buttered." - - * * * * * - -With an art of which he alone was master, Captain Spicer hereupon -vanished from the company, without being missed. - - - - -SCENE XXIII - -"'Tis an orgy!" exclaimed Lady Maria. - -"Oh, Jasper!" sobbed Lady Standish. - -"'Twould be interesting to know," further trumpeted Lady Maria, "which -of these gentlemen is supposed to have run away with the widow -Bellairs?" - -"Oh, Kitty!" sobbed Lady Standish. - -"My God!" said Sir Jasper, laying down his reeking glass and hardly -believing his eyes. - -Mistress Kitty (seated between O'Hara and Stafford at the end of the -table, while Lord Verney and Sir Jasper faced each other), continued, -unmoved, to sip her fragrant brew and cocked her wicked eye at the -newcomers, enjoying the situation prodigiously. She laid an arresting -hand upon the cuffs of her neighbours, who, all polite amazement, were -about to spring to their feet. "Keep still," said she, "keep still and -let Sir Jasper and his lady first have their little explanation -undisturbed. Never intermeddle between husband and wife," she added -demurely: "it has always been one of my guiding axioms!" - -"Well, Sir Jasper Standish, these are pretty goings on!" cried Lady -Maria, "for a three months' husband.... (Hold up, my poor dear Julia!) -Profligate!" snorted the old lady, boring the baronet through with one -gimlet eye. "Dissolute wretch! highwayman!" - -"I demand," fluted Lady Standish's plaintive treble (in her gentle -obstinate heart she had come to the fixed resolution of never allowing -Sir Jasper out of her sight again), "I demand to be taken back to my -mother, and to have an immediate separation." - -"Running away with women out of the streets of Bath!--A lady," (sniff) -"supposed to be engaged to my nevvy! Poor deluded boy----" - -"And my dearest friend!--oh, Jasper! _How could you_?" - -Sir Jasper broke in upon his wife's treble with the anguished roar of -the goaded: "The devil take me," cried he, "if I don't think the whole -world's going mad! _I_ elope with the widow Bellairs, Lady Maria, -ma'am? _I_ treacherous, my Lady? Ha!" He positively capered with -fury and wounded feeling and general distraction, as he drew the -incriminating documents from his breast, and flourished them, one in -each hand, under the very nose of his accusers. "What of _Red Curl_, -madam? What of the man who kissed the dimple, madam? What of your -lover, madam!" - -In his confusion he hurled the last two demands straight in Lady -Maria's face, who, with all the indignation of outraged virtue, -exclaimed in her deepest note: - -"Vile slanderer, I deny it!" - -Here Mistress Bellairs deemed the moment ripe for her delicate -interference. - -"My lovely Standish," she cried, "you look sadly. Indeed I fear you -will swoon if you do not sit. Pray Mr. Stafford, conduct my Lady -Standish to the arm-chair and make her sip a glass of cordial from the -bowl yonder." - -"Oh, Kitty!" cried Lady Standish, and devoured the widow's face with -eager eyes to see whether friend or enemy was heralded there. - -"My dear," whispered Kitty, "nothing could be going better. Sit down, -I tell you, and I promise you that in ten minutes you will have Sir -Jasper on his knees." - -Then running up to Sir Jasper and speaking with the most childlike and -deliberate candour: - -"Pray, Sir Jasper," said she, "and what might you be prating of letters -and red curls? Strange now," she looked round the company with dewy, -guileless eyes, "_I_ lost a letter only a day or two ago at your -house--a," she dropped her lids with a most entrancing little simper, -"a rather private letter. I believe I must have lost it in dear -Julia's parlour, near the sofa, for I remember I pulled out my -handkerchief----" - -"Good God!" said Sir Jasper, hoarsely, and glared at her, all doubt, -and crushed the letters in his hand. - -"Could you--could _you_ have _found_ it, Sir Jasper, I wonder? Mercy -on me! And then this morning ... 'tis the strangest thing ... I get -another letter, another rather private letter, and after despatching a -few notes to my friends, for the life of me, I could not find the -letter any more! And I vow I wanted it, for I had scarce glanced at -it." - -"Oh, Mistress Bellairs!" cried Sir Jasper. "Tell me," cried he -panting, "what did these letters contain?" - -"La!" said she, "what a question to put to a lady!" - -"For God's sake, madam!" said he, and in truth he looked piteous. - -"Then, step apart," said she, "and for dear Julia's sake I will confide -in you, as a gentleman." - -She led him to the moonlit window, while all followed them with curious -eyes--except Verney, who surreptitiously drank his punch, and slid away -from the table, with the fear of his aunt in his heart. And now -Mistress Kitty hung her head, looked exceedingly bashful and -exceedingly coy. She took up a corner of her dainty flowered gown and -plaited it in her fingers. - -"Was there," she asked, "was there anything of the description of a--of -a trifling lock of hair, in the first letter--'twas somewhat of an -auburn hue?" - -"Confusion!" exclaimed the baronet, thrust the fateful letters into her -hand, and turning on his heel, stamped his foot, muttering furiously: -"Curse the fool that wrote them, and the feather-head that dropped -them!" - -"And what of the fool that picked them up and read them?" whispered -Mistress Kitty's voice in his ears, sharp as a slender stiletto. - -She looked him up and down with a fine disdainful mockery. - -"Why will you men write?" said she meaningly. "Letters are dangerous -things!" - -He stood convicted, without a word. - -"La! what a face!" she cried aloud now. "I protest you quite frighten -me. And how is it you are not overjoyed, Sir Jasper? Here is your -Julia proved whiter than the driven snow and more injured than -Griselidis, and you not at her feet!" - -"Where is she?" said Sir Jasper, half strangled by contending emotions. - -"Why, there, in that arm-chair in the inglenook." - -Mistress Kitty smoothed her restored treasures quite tenderly, folded -them neatly and slipped them into the little brocade bag that hung at -her waist. - - * * * * * - -"Indeed, Lady Standish," said Mr. Stafford, "a glass of punch will do -you no harm." - -"Punch?" echoed Lady Maria--then turning fiercely on her nephew: "What, -my Lord!" said she, "would your mother say? Why you are positively -reeking with the dissolute fumes!" - -"My dear Lady Maria," interposed the urbane Stafford, "a mere cordial, -a grateful fragrance to heighten the heart after fatigue and emotions, -a sovereign thing, madam, against the night air--the warmest antidote! -A sip of it, I assure you, would vastly restore you." - -"I," she said, "I, drink with the profligate and the wanton! The -deceiving husband and the treacherous friend!" She gave the fiercer -refusal for that she felt so strongly in her old bones the charm of his -description. - -"Pooh, pooh! my dear ladies, if that is all," said Mr. Stafford, "then, -by Heaven, let the glass circulate at once! Indeed, your La'ship," -turning to Lady Standish, "so far from our good Jasper having anything -to say to Mistress Bellairs's presence here to-night, let me assure you -that he and I set out alone at an early hour this evening, with no -other object but to be of service to your ladyship--whom your anxious -husband had been led to believe was likely to come this way ... -somewhat--ah--unsuitably protected, as he thought." - -Then he bent down and whispered into Lady Standish's pretty ear (which -she willingly enough lent to such consoling assurances): "As for your -friend," he went on, "our delightful if volatile Bellairs--she came -here with a vastly different person to Sir Jasper: poor O'Hara -yonder--who's drinking all the punch! She will tell you herself how it -happened.... But, gracious stars, my _dear_ Lady Maria, have you not -yet been given a glass of the--of Mr. O'Hara's restorative!" - -"Allow me," cried Kitty, who, having just settled Sir Jasper's business -for him, had now freedom to place her energies elsewhere. "Dearest -Lady Maria--how sweet of you to join us in our little reconciliation -feast!" She took a brimming glass from O'Hara's hands and held it, -with a winning smile, for Lady Maria's acceptance. - -"Madam," responded the matron, scowled, drew her voluminous skirts -together and became impenetrably deaf. - -"Ah," cried the widow in her topmost notes, "Madam, how I should have -revered such a relative as yourself! Next to the joy of calling my -Lord Verney's mother, _my_ mother, would have been that of calling his -aunt, _my_ aunt! But the dream is over. Lord Verney and I can never -be more to each other than we are now." - -"Eh?" and the Dowager recovered her hearing. "What's that, what's -that, nevvy?" - -"'Tis, alas, true," said Lord Verney, with great demureness. "Mistress -Bellairs has given me back my word." - -"Forgive me, dear Lady Maria," trilled the widow. - -"Mercy on us!" ejaculated the old lady; then, as if unconsciously, -groped for the glass in Mistress Kitty's hand. - -"Sit down, sit down all!" cried Mistress Bellairs. Stafford echoed -with a jovial shout. There was a call for a fresh bowl. O'Hara's eyes -began to dance, his tongue to resume its glibness. And Lady Maria was -surprised to find how long her tumbler took to empty, but, curiously, -never failed to be looking the other way when Mistress Bellairs with -tenderest solicitude plied the silver ladle in her direction. - -"I hope," said the ancient lady, now wreathed in smiles, "I hope that -Mr. O'Hara's cordial is not really stronger than Madeira wine--which my -physician, that charming Sir George, says is all I ought to drink." - -"Madeira?" cried Mr. O'Hara, "Madeira wine is a very fair drink ... it -is a fine stirring dhrink. But 'tis apt, I'm afraid, to heat the blood -overmuch. Now Claret," he went on, pursuing the thesis, "Claret's the -wine for gentlemen--only for the divil of a way it has of lying cold -upon the stomach ... after four or five bottles.... Do I hear you say: -'Port,' over there, Tom, me boy? I'll not deny but that Port has -qualities. It's strong, it's mellow--but it's heavy. It sends a -fellow to sleep, and that's a tirrible bad mark against it; for 'tis -near as bad for a man to sleep when he has a bottle going, as when he -has a lady coming. Then there's Champagne for you: there's -exhilaration in Champagne, 'tis the real tipple for a gentleman when -he's alone--in a _tête-à-tête_--but 'tis not the wine for great -company. Now, my dear friends," said O'Hara, stirring his new brew -with the touch of a past master, "if you want to know a wine that -combines the fire of the Madeira with the elegance of the Claret, the -power and mellowness of the Port with the exhilaration of the -Champagne--there's nothing in the world can compare to a fine -screeching bowl of Brandy Punch!" - - - - -SCENE XXIV - -When Mistress Kitty had sipped half a glass with great show of relish -and rakishness, and Lady Standish, under protest, had sucked a few -spoonfuls; when Lady Maria, stuck in the middle of her fourth helping, -protested that she really could not finish the tumbler and forthwith -began to show signs of incoherence and somnolence; when O'Hara broke -into snatches of song, and Lord Verney began to make calf's eyes afresh -at the lost Mistress Kitty; when Sir Jasper, hanging round his wife's -chair, showed unequivocal signs of repentance and a longing for -reconciliation: when Stafford himself became more pointed in his -admiration of Mistress Kitty and a trifle broader in his jests than was -quite consistent with his usual breeding, the little widow deemed it, -at last, time to break up the party. - -There was a vast bustle, a prodigious ordering and counter-ordering. - -"Never mind me," whispered Stafford, ever full of good humour and tact, -into Sir Jasper's ear, "take your wife home, man, I'll sleep here if -needs be." - -"Not a foot," asserted O'Hara, apparently quite sober, and speaking -with the most pleasant deliberation in the world, "not a foot will I -stir from this place, so long as there is a lemon left." - -"The cursed scoundrel," cried Lord Verney, babbling with fury as he -returned from the stables, "the scoundrel, Spicer, has driven off with -my curricle!" - -"Then shall we be a merry trio to drink daylight in," said Stafford, -and cheered. - -"Come, _dear_ Lady Maria," said Kitty. "I shall take care of you. I -will give you a seat in my chaise; we shall drive home together." - -"Certainly, my dear, certainly," mumbled the Dowager. "Who is that -remarkably agreeable person?" she requested to know of Stafford in her -prodigiously audible whisper. "My dear," she turned again to Kitty, "I -like you wonderfully. I cannot quite remember your name, my dear, but -we will go home together." - -"Dear, _dear_ Lady Maria!" cried Mistress Kitty, honey sweet. "My Lord -Verney, give your arm to your revered relative--mind you lead her -carefully," she said, with all the imps in her eyes dancing, "for I -fear Mr. Stafford's cordial has proved a little staggering--_after the -night air_! And warn her ladyship's attendant to be ready to escort us -back in my carriage." - -Then, taking advantage of Sir Jasper's absence--that gentleman might -even then be heard cursing his sleepy servants in the yard--Mistress -Kitty ran over to Lady Standish, who stood wistful and apart at the -inglenook. - -"My dear," she murmured, "the game is now in your hands." - -"Ah, no!" returned the other. "Oh, Kitty, you have been an evil -counsellor!" - -"Is this your gratitude?" retorted Kitty, and pinched her friend with -vicious little fingers. "Why, woman, your husband never thought so -much of you in his life as he does to-day! Why, there has never been -so much fuss made over you since you were born. Are these your thanks?" - -"Oh, for the moment when I can fly to his bosom and tell him all! My -foolish endeavour to make him jealous, my sinful pretence that he had a -rival in my heart!" - -"What?" exclaimed the widow, and her whisper took all the emphasis of a -shriek. "Fly to his bosom? Then I have done with you! Bring him to -his knees you mean, madam. Tell him all? Tell him all, forsooth, let -him know you have made a fool of him, all for nothing; let him think -that you had never had an idea beyond pining for his love; that no -other man ever thought of you, that he has never had a rival, never -will have one, that you are merely his own uninteresting Julia whom -nobody wants. Why, Lady Standish, 'tis laying down the arms when the -battle is yours. Sheer insanity! Prodigious, prodigious!" cried -Mistress Kitty. "Is it possible that you and I are of the same sex?" - -Bewildered, yet half convinced, Lady Standish listened and wondered. - -"Be guided by me," whispered Kitty again. "Indeed, my dear, I mean -well by you. Keep your secret if you love your husband. Keep it more -preciously than you would keep jour youth and your beauty; for I tell -you 'tis now your most valuable possession. Here," said she, and took -a letter from her famous bag and thrust it into Julia's hands, "here is -what will bring him to his knees! Oh, what a game you have upon this -drive home if you know how to play it!" - -"What is this, now?" cried Lady Standish. - -"Hush!" ordered Kitty, and clapped her friend's hand over the letter. -"Promise, promise! Here comes your lord!" - -Sir Jasper had approached them as she spoke; he now bowed confusedly -and took his wife's hand. But: - -"A word in your ear," said Mistress Kitty, arresting him as they were -about to pass out. "A word in your ear, sir. If a man has a treasure -at home he would keep for himself, he will do well to guard it! An -unwatched jewel, my good sir, invites thieves. Good-night!" - - * * * * * - -And now in the great room of the _Bear Inn_ were left only three: the -two gallant gentlemen, O'Hara and Stafford, and Mistress Kitty. - -Mistress Kitty's game had been successfully played out; and yet the -lady lingered. - -"Good night," she began, then shot a glance at Stafford. "I wonder," -she said innocently, "if my carriage be ready, and whether Lady Maria -is well installed?" - -"I will see," said Stafford simply, and vanished. - -O'Hara stood by the table, slowly dipping the ladle into the punch and -absently pouring the liquor back into the bowl again. She sidled round -to him. - -"Denis!" said she. - -He turned his wildly-bright eyes upon her, but made no answer. - -"I'm going back," said she, and held out her hand. - -He carefully put down the ladle, took the tips of her little fingers -and kissed them. But his hands and his lips were cold. - -"Glory be to God," said he, "it's a grand game you played with me ... -the Bath Comedy entirely, Kitty." - -Then he dropped her hand and took up the punch-ladle again with -downcast looks. - -"Will you not give me your arm to my carriage?" said she, after a -slight pause. - -"Ah, Kitty, sure haven't you broke my heart for me ... and has not the -punch robbed me of my legs!" - -His wild bright eyes were deeply sad as he turned them on her, and he -was pale as death. - -She drew back quickly, frowned, hesitated, frowned again, and then -brightened up once more. - -"Then, sir," said she, "when your legs are restored to you, pray let -them conduct your heart round to my lodgings, and we shall see what can -be done towards mending it." - -She dropped him a curtsey and was gone. - -As Stafford folded her into the chaise, he whispered: - -"If ever _I_ have a chance of running away with you, Kitty, I'll take -very good care not to let you know which road I mean to choose!" - - * * * * * - - - - -SCENE XXV - -As the carriage rolled homewards on the Bath Road, Lady Standish, both -hands folded over the mysterious letter, sat staring out of the window -with unseeing eyes. The dawn had begun to break upon a cloudless sky; -the air was chill and brisk; mists wreathed white scarves over the -fields. She felt conscious in every fibre of her being that Sir Jasper -was eagerly contemplating her in the cold grey light. Heart and brain -were in a turmoil; the anguish, the violent emotions, the successive -scenes of the last forty-eight hours passed again before her mind like -a phantasmagoria. Partly because of Mistress Bellairs's advice and -partly because of a certain womanly resentment, which, gentle as she -was, still reared itself within her, she did not even cast a look upon -her husband, but sat mutely, gazing at the land. Presently she became -aware that he had slid an arm behind her waist. She trembled a little, -but did not turn to him. - -"Julia," said he, in a muffled uncertain tone, "Julia, I--I have done -you injustice." Then, for jealousy is as ill to extinguish as a fire -that smoulders, a flame of the evil passion leaped up again with him. -"But you must admit," said he, "that I had cause. Your own words, I -may say your own confession----" - -Lady Standish turned her head, lifted heavy lids and for a moment fixed -upon him the most beautiful eyes in the world. - -"Nay," said she, "I made no confession." Her tongue trembled upon -other protestations, yet Kitty's warning carried the day. - -"Tell me," said he, and bent to her, "tell me was it Lord Verney after -all?" - -Lady Standish again raised her eyes to his face, and could such a thing -have been possible in a creature whose very being was all tenderness, -he would have sworn that in her gaze there was contempt. - -"Sir Jasper," said she, "it never was Lord Verney!" And then she -added: "Has there not been enough of this?" - -As she spoke she moved her hands and involuntarily looked down at the -letter she held. Then she sat as if turned to stone. The letter was -in Sir Jasper's writing and addressed to Mistress Bellairs! - -"What have you there?" cried he. - -"Nay," said she, "I know not, for 'tis not my letter. But you will -know." And she held it up to him, and her hand did not tremble, yet -was a cold fear upon her. "You wrote it," she said. He stared and his -countenance changed, utter discomposure fell upon him. - -"Julia," cried he, "Julia, upon my honour! I swear 'twas nothing, less -than nothing, a mere idle bit of gallantry--a jest!" As he spoke he -fell upon one knee in the chaise, at her feet. - -"Then I may read it?" said she. - -"Ah, Julia!" cried he, and encircled her with his arms. She felt the -straining eagerness of his grasp, she felt his heart beat stormily. -With a sudden warmth she knew that after all his love was hers. - -Then she had an inspiration, one worthy of a cleverer woman: but love -has his own geniuses. She disengaged herself from his embrace and put -the letter into his hand. - -"Take it," said she. - -"Julia," he cried, and shook from head to foot, and the tears sprang to -his eyes, "I never gave her a serious thought. I vow I hate the woman." - -"Then tear it up," said Lady Standish, with a superhuman magnanimity -that almost turned her faint. - -He rose and tore the letter in shreds (quickly, lest she should repent) -and flung them out of the window. She watched the floating pieces -flutter and vanish. In her secret soul she said to herself: - -"Mistress Bellairs and I shall be very good friends at a distance!" - -Her husband was kneeling at her feet again. "Angel," cried he -pleadingly, and once more she was in his arms; and yet his jealous -heart kept growling within him, like a surly dog that will not be -silenced. "Julia," said he in her ear, "but one word, one word, my -love! Julia, is there anyone, anything between us?" - -"Oh, that," she said, and smiled archly, "that, sir, you must discover -for yourself." Her head sank on his shoulder as she spoke. - -"You torture me!" he murmured. But she knew that he had never kissed -her with such passion in all his life before. - - * * * * * - -As her chaise followed on the road, some hundred yards or so behind Sir -Jasper's, Mistress Bellairs, sitting beside Lady Maria (who snored the -whole way with rhythmic steadiness) gazed across the livid fields -towards the low horizon where the slow fires of dawn were pulsing into -brightness. She was in deeply reflective mood. - -In her excited, busy brain she revolved many important questions and -weighed the gains and losses in her game of "Love and Hazard" with all -the seriousness of the gambler homeward bound after a heavy night. - -"At least," she thought, with a little sigh, but with some complacency, -"I did a vastly good turn to my Lady Standish. But the woman is a -fool, if a sweet one, and fools are past permanent mending. I did -well," thought she, "to condemn the Calf--there is no doubt of that." -She glanced at Lady Maria's withered countenance, unlovely and -undignified in her stupor---- "The menagerie would have been the death -of me, promptly.... But, my poor O'Hara! How could I ever have called -him a cucumber? _There_ was love for the taking, now--yet no! -Worshipper, vastly well; but husband? not for me, not for me! Bless -me," she cried to herself testily; "is a woman to have no choice -between mid-winter, green spring, or the dog days? If I ever allow -myself to be abducted again, 'twill be with your Man of the World--one -with palate enough to _relish me_ without wanting to swallow me at a -gulp." - -She paused in her train of thought to laugh at the recollection of Mr. -Stafford's parting speech. "There is an easy heart for you!" she -murmured. "A gallant gentleman, with as pretty a wit as O'Hara -himself, and every whit as good a leg. Perhaps," thought Mistress -Kitty, yawned and grew sleepy; nodded her delicate head; dreamed then a -little dream and saw a silver Beau in the moonlight, and woke up with a -smile. The spires of Bath Cathedral pierced silver grey through a -golden mist; far beneath her gaze, as the chaise began to tip the crest -of the great hill, like a silver ribbon ran the river. "Perhaps.... -We shall see," said the widow. - - - -GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO - - - - - - -BY EGERTON CASTLE - - Young April. - Consequences. - The Light of Scarthey. - La Bella and Others. - Marshfield the Observer. - - The Pride of Jennico. [_With Agnes Castle._] - - The Jerningham Letters. [_With portraits and illustrations._] - - English Book-plates, ancient and modern. [_Illustrated._] - - Schools and Masters of Fence, from the - Middle Ages to the XIXth Century. [_Illustrated._] - - Le Roman du Prince Othon. [_A rendering in French of - R. L. Stevenson's Prince Otto._] - - Etc. - - - - - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Bath Comedy, by Agnes Castle and Egerton Castle - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATH COMEDY *** - -***** This file should be named 56227-8.txt or 56227-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/6/2/2/56227/ - -Produced by Al Haines -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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