1 files changed, 7599 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/59911-0.txt b/59911-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0e18656
--- /dev/null
+++ b/59911-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7599 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59911 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+     1. Page Scan Source:
+        https://books.google.com/books?id=kbZMAAAAcAAJ
+        (the Bavarian State Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ROCK AHEAD.
+
+A NOVEL.
+
+BY EDMUND YATES,
+AUTHOR OF "LAND AT LAST," ETC.
+
+
+_COPYRIGHT EDITION_.
+
+
+IN TWO VOLUMES.
+VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+LEIPZIG
+BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.
+1868.
+
+_The Right of Translation is reserved_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+To M. E--d. Forgues.
+
+My dear Sir,
+
+Although I have not the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, I
+
+venture to ask you to accept the dedication of this book, in slight
+
+acknowledgment of the admirable manner in which you have reproduced
+
+two of my previous stories (_Broken to Harness_ and _The Forlorn Hope_)
+
+in the pages of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, and of the flattering
+
+way in which you have frequently referred to my writings in that
+
+excellent periodical.
+
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+EDMUND YATES.
+
+_London, April 1868_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+OF VOLUME I.
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+CHAPTER
+      I. Whispered.
+     II. Pondered.
+    III. Proposed.
+     IV. Settled.
+
+
+BOOK THE FIRST.
+
+      I. Rowley Court.
+     II. In Possession.
+    III. Carabas House.
+     IV. Breaking Cover.
+      V. Memory-haunted.
+     VI. Lloyd's Luck.
+    VII. The Linnet's Cage.
+   VIII. The Linnet's first Flight.
+     IX. Soaring.
+
+
+BOOK THE SECOND.
+
+      I. Progress.
+     II. Integratio Amoris.
+    III. At the Crystal Palace.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ROCK AHEAD.
+
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+Whispered.
+
+
+Hot in Brighton, very hot. The August sun reflected off white-chalk
+cliff and red-brick pavement, and the sea shining and sparkling like a
+sapphire; the statue of George the Fourth, in its robe of verdigris,
+looking on in blighted perspiration at the cabmen at its base, as
+though imploring a drink; the cabmen lolling undemonstratively on the
+boxes of their vehicles, not seeking for employment, and--partly by
+reason of the heat, but more, perhaps in consequence of the money
+received recently at the races--rather annoyed than otherwise when
+their services were called into requisition. For the Brighton races
+had just taken place, and the town, always so full, had been more
+crammed than ever. All the grand hotels had been filled with the upper
+ten thousand, who moved easily over from Chichester and Worthing and
+Bognor, where they had been staying for Goodwood, which immediately
+precedes Brighton; and all the lodgings had been taken by the
+betting-men and the turfites,--the "professionals," with whom the
+whole affair is the strictest matter of business, and to whom it is of
+no interest whether the race is run at Torquay or Wolverhampton, in
+blazing sunshine or pouring hailstorm, so long as the right thing
+"comes off," and they "land the winner."
+
+It was all right for the bookmakers this time at Brighton: the
+favourites, against which so much money had been staked, had been
+beaten, and "dark" horses, scarcely heard of, and backed for nothing,
+had carried off the principal prizes. So it followed that most of the
+gentry of the betting-ring, instead of hurrying off to the scene of
+their next trials of fortune, finding themselves with plenty of money
+in their pockets, at a pleasant place in lovely weather, made up their
+minds to remain there during the intervening Saturday and Sunday, and
+to drop business so far as possible until the Monday morning, when
+they would speed away by the early express-trains.
+
+So far as possible, but not entirely. It is impossible for them to
+drop business altogether even on this glorious Sunday afternoon, when
+the whole face of Nature is blandly smiling. See the broad blue bosom
+of the sea smooth and sparkling as glass, dotted here and there with
+white-sailed pleasure-boats; see far away, beyond the encircling belt
+of brick and stone, the broad shoulder of the bare and bushless downs,
+over which the fresh air careering comes away laden with the delicious
+scents of trodden turf and wild thyme and yellow gorse; see the
+brown beach, where under the lee of the fishing-smacks, or making a
+table of the large flukes of rusty anchors, sit groups of
+excursionists,--pallid Londoners, exulting in the unwonted luxury of
+escaping from the stony streets, and more excited by the brisk and
+revivifying sea air than by the contents of the stone bottle which
+stands in the midst of each group, and whose contents are so
+perpetually going round from hand to hand in the little footless
+glass; see the Esplanade thronged with its hundreds of foot
+passengers, its scores of flies and carriages; see the Stock Exchange
+in all its glory, and the children of Israel gorgeous in long
+ringlets, thunder-and-lightning neckties, and shot-silk parasols; and
+see the turf-men standing here and there in little knots, trying to be
+interested in the scenes passing around them, but ever and again
+turning to each other with some question of "odds," for some scrap of
+"intelligence."
+
+The ring is strongly represented this Sunday afternoon on Brighton
+Parade, both in its highest and its lowest form. The short stout man
+in the greasy suit of black, with the satin waistcoat frayed round the
+pockets by the rubbing of his silver watch-guard, who is jotting down
+memoranda with a fat cedar-pencil in his betting-book, enters freely
+into conversation and is on an equality with the gentlemanly-looking
+man whose only visible "horseyness" is expressed in his tightly-cut
+trousers and his bird's-eye neckerchief with the horseshoe pin.
+Patrons of the turf, owners of racehorses, commission-agents,
+bookmakers, touts, tipsters, hangers-on of every kind to turf
+speculations and turf iniquities, are here at Brighton on this lovely
+Sunday afternoon.
+
+There was one group, consisting of three people, planted on the
+Esplanade, just in front of the Old Ship Hotel, the three component
+members of which were recognised and saluted by nearly everyone who
+passed. One of them was a short square-built man, with keen eyes
+closely set and sunken, small red whiskers, and a sharp-pointed nose.
+He was dressed in black, with a wonderfully neatly-tied long white
+cravat, folded quite flat, with a dog's tooth set in gold for a pin;
+and he wore a low-crowned hat. The other two were young men, dressed
+in the best style of what is known as "horsey get-up." They had been
+talking and laughing ever since they had taken up their position,
+immediately after lunching at the hotel, out of which they had
+strolled with cigars in their mouths; and it was obvious that any
+respect which the elder man might receive was not paid to him on
+account of his age, but rather in acknowledgment of the caustic
+remarks with which he amused his companions. These remarks seemed at
+last to have come to an end. There had been a long silence, which was
+broken by the elder man asking,
+
+"O, seen anything of Gore--Harvey Gore? Has he gone back, or what?"
+
+"Don't know; haven't seen him since Thursday night," said the taller
+of the young men.
+
+"Won a pot of money on the Cup," said the other sententiously;
+"regular hatful."
+
+"What did his pal do?" asked the elder man. "Lloyd I mean. Did he pull
+through?"
+
+"Dropped his tin, Foxey dear. Held on like grim death to Gaslight, and
+was put in the hole like the rest of us. He tells me he has been hit
+for--"
+
+"_He_ tells you!" interrupted the elder man; "He tells you! I've known
+Gilbert Lloyd for two or three years, and anything _he_ tells me I
+should take deuced good care not to believe."
+
+"Very good, Foxey dear! very nice, you sweet old thing! only don't
+halloo out _quite_ so loud, because here's G.L. coming across the road
+to speak to us, and he mightn't--How do, Lloyd, old fellow?"
+
+The new-comer was a man of about four-and-twenty, a little above the
+middle height, and slightly but strongly built. His face would
+generally have been considered handsome, though a physiognomist would
+have read shiftiness and suspicion in the small and sunken blue eyes,
+want of geniality in the tightly-closing mouth visible under the
+slight fair moustache, and determination in the jaw. Though there was
+a slight trace of the stable in his appearance, he was decidedly more
+gentlemanly-looking than his companions, having a distinct stamp of
+birth and breeding which they lacked. He smiled as he approached the
+group, and waved a small stick which he carried in a jaunty manner;
+but Foxey noticed a flushed appearance round his eyes, an eager worn
+straining round his mouth, and said to his friend who had last spoken,
+"You're right, Jack; Lloyd has had it hot and strong this time, and no
+mistake."
+
+The young man had by this time crossed the road and stood leaning over
+the railing. In answer to a repetition of their salutes, he said:
+
+"Not very bright. None of us are always up to the mark, save Foxey
+here, who is perennial; and just now I'm worried and bothered. O, not
+as you fellows imagine," he said hastily, as he saw a smile go round;
+and as he said it his face darkened, and the clenching of his jaws
+gave him a very savage expression,--"not from what I've dropped at
+this meeting; that's neither here nor there: lightly come; lightly
+gone; but the fact is that Gore, who is living with me over there, is
+deuced seedy."
+
+"Thought he looked pulled and done on Thursday," said Foxey. "Didn't
+know whether it was backing Gaslight that had touched him up, or--"
+
+"No," interrupted Lloyd hurriedly; "a good deal of champagne under a
+tremendously hot sun; that's the cause, I believe. Harvey has a way of
+turning up his little finger under excitement, and never will learn to
+moderate his transports. He's overdone it this time, and I'm afraid is
+really bad. I must send for a doctor; and now I'm off to the
+telegraph-office, to send a message to my wife. Gore was to have
+cleared out of this early this morning, to spend a day or two with
+Sandcrack, the vet, at Shoreham; and my proprietress was coming down
+here; but there's no room for her now, and I must put her off."
+
+"Do you think Harvey Gore's really bad?" asked one of the younger men.
+
+"Well, I _think_ he's got something like sunstroke, and I _know_
+he's a little off his head," responded Lloyd. "He'll pull round, I
+daresay--I've no doubt. But still he can't be moved just yet, and a
+woman would only be in the way under such circumstances, let alone
+it's not being very lively for her; so I'll just send her a message to
+keep off. Ta-ta! I shall look into the smoking-room to-night at the
+Ship, when Harvey's gone off to sleep." And with a nod and a smile,
+Gilbert Lloyd started off.
+
+"Queer customer that, Foxey."
+
+"Queer indeed; which his golden number is Number One!" said Foxey
+enigmatically.
+
+"What's his wife like?"
+
+"Never saw her," said Foxey; "but I should think she had a pleasant
+time of it with that youth. It will be an awful disappointment to him,
+her not coming down, won't it?"
+
+"Foxey, you are an unbeliever of the deepest dye. Domestic happiness
+in your eyes is--"
+
+"Bosh! You never said a truer word. Now, let's have
+half-a-crown's-worth of fly, and go up the cliff."
+
+
+A short time after Gilbert Lloyd had left the house in which he had
+taken lodgings, consisting of the parlour-floor and a bedroom
+upstairs, Mrs. Bush, the landlady, whose mind was rather troubled,
+partly because the servant, whose "Sunday out" it was, had not
+yet returned from the Methodist chapel where she performed her
+devotions--a delay which her mistress did not impute entirely to the
+blandishments of the preacher--and partly for other reasons, took up
+her position in the parlour-window, and began to look up and down the
+street. Mrs. Bush was not a landlady of the jolly type; she was not
+ruddy of complexion, or thin and trim of ankle, neither did she adorn
+herself with numerous ribbons of florid hue. On the contrary, she was
+a pale, anxious-faced woman, who looked as if she had had too much to
+do, and quite enough to fret about, all her life. And now, as she
+stood in the parlour-window on a hot Sunday, and contemplated the
+few loungers who straggled through the street on their way to the
+seashore, she assumed a piteous expression of countenance, and shook
+her head monotonously.
+
+"I wish I hadn't let 'em the rooms, I'm sure," said Mrs. Bush to
+herself. "It's like my luck--and in the race-week too. If _he's_ able
+to be up and away from this in a day or two, then _I_ know nothing of
+sickness; and I've seen a good deal of it too in my time. No sign of
+that girl! But who's this?"
+
+Asking this, under the circumstances, unsatisfactory question, Mrs.
+Bush drew still closer to the parlour-window, holding the inevitable
+red-moreen curtain still farther back, and looked with mingled
+curiosity and helplessness at a cab which stopped unmistakably at the
+door of her house, and from the window of which a handsome young
+female head protruded itself. Mrs. Bush could not doubt that the
+intention of the lady in the cab was to get out of it and come into
+her house; and that good-for-nothing Betsy had not come in, and there
+was nobody to open the door but Mrs. Bush--a thing which, though a
+meek-enough woman in general, she did not like doing. The lady gave
+her very little time to consider whether she liked it or not; for she
+descended rapidly from the cab, took a small travelling-bag from the
+hand of the cabman, paid him, mounted the three steps which led to the
+door, and knocked and rang with so determined a purpose of being
+admitted that Mrs. Bush, without a moment's hesitation,--but with a
+muttered "Mercy on us! Suppose he'd been asleep now!" which seemed to
+imply that the lady's vehemence might probably damage somebody's
+nerves,--crossed the hall and opened the door.
+
+She found herself confronted by a very young lady, a girl of not more,
+and possibly less, than nineteen years, in whose manner there was a
+certain confidence strongly suggestive of her entertaining an idea
+that the house which she was evidently about to enter was her own, and
+not that of the quiet, but not well-pleased, looking person who asked
+her civilly enough, yet not with any cordiality of tone, whom she
+wished to see.
+
+"Is Mr. Lloyd not at home? This is his address, I know," was the
+enigmatical reply of the young lady.
+
+"A Mr. Lloyd _is_ lodging here, miss," returned Mrs. Bush, with a
+glance of anything but approbation at her questioner, and planting
+herself rather demonstratively in the doorway; "but he isn't in. Did
+you wish to see him?"
+
+"I am Mrs. Lloyd," replied the young lady with a frown, and depositing
+her little travelling-bag within the threshold; "did you not know I
+was coming? Let me in, please."
+
+And the next minute--Mrs. Bush could not tell exactly how it
+happened--she found the hall-door shut, and she was standing in the
+passage, while the young lady who had announced herself as Mrs. Lloyd
+was calmly walking into the parlour. Mrs. Bush was confounded by the
+sudden and unexpected nature of this occurrence; but the only thing
+she could do was to follow the unlooked-for visitor into the parlour,
+and she did it. The young lady had already seated herself on a small
+hard sofa, covered with crimson moreen to match the window-curtains,
+had put off her very becoming and fashionable bonnet, and was then
+taking off her gloves. She looked annoyed, but not in the least
+embarrassed.
+
+"_That_ is Mr. Lloyd's room, I presume?" she said, as she pointed to
+the folding-doors which connected the parlours, and which stood
+slightly open.
+
+"Yes, m'm; but--"
+
+Mrs. Bush hesitated; but as the young lady rose, took up her bag, and
+instantly pushed the door she had indicated quite open, and walked
+into the apartment, Mrs. Bush felt that the case was getting
+desperate. Though a depressed woman habitually, she was not by any
+means a timid one, and had fought many scores of highly successful
+battles with lodgers in her time. But this was quite a novel
+experience, and Mrs. Bush was greatly at a loss how to act. Something
+must be done, that was quite clear. Not so what that something was to
+be; and more than ever did Mrs. Bush resent the tarrying of Betsy's
+feet on her return from Beulah Chapel.
+
+"_She_ would have shut the door in her face, and kept her out until I
+saw how things really were," thought the aggrieved landlady; but she
+said boldly enough, as she closely followed the intruder, and glanced
+at her left hand, on which the symbol of lawful matrimony duly shone:
+
+"If you please, m'm, you wasn't expected. Mr. Lloyd nor the other
+gentleman never mentioned that there was a lady coming; and I don't in
+general let my parlours to ladies."
+
+"Indeed! that is very awkward," said the young lady, who had opened
+her bag, taken out her combs and brushes, and was drawing a chair to
+the dressing-table; "but it cannot be helped. Mr. Lloyd quite expected
+me, I know; he arranged that I should come down to-morrow before he
+left town; but it suited me better to come to-day. I can't think why
+he did not tell you."
+
+"I suppose he forgot it, m'm," said Mrs. Bush, utterly regardless of
+the uncomplimentary nature of the suggestion, "on account of the sick
+gentleman; but it's rather unfortunate, for I never _do_ take in
+ladies, not in my parlours; and Mr. Lloyd not having mentioned it,
+I--"
+
+"Do you mean to say that I cannot remain here with my husband?" said
+the young lady, turning an astonished glance upon Mrs. Bush.
+
+"Well, m'm," said the nervous landlady, "as it's for a short time only
+as Mr. Lloyd has taken the rooms, and as it's Sunday, I shall see,
+when he conies in. You see, m'm, I've rather particular people in my
+drawing-rooms, and it's different about ladies; and--" Here she
+glanced once more at the light girlish figure, in the well-fitting,
+fashionable dress, standing before the dressing-table, and at the
+white hand adorned with the orthodox ring.
+
+"I think I understand you," said the intruder gravely; "you did not
+know Mr. Lloyd was married, and you are not sure that I am his wife.
+It is a difficulty, and I really don't see how it is to be gotten
+over. Will you take _his_ word?--at all events I may remain here until
+he comes in presently?"
+
+Something winning, something convincing, in the tone of her voice
+caused a sudden revulsion of feeling in Mrs. Bush. The good woman--for
+she was a good woman in the main--began to feel rather ashamed of
+herself, and she commenced a bungling sort of apology. Of course the
+lady could stay, but it _was_ awkward Mr. Lloyd not having told her;
+and there was but one servant, a good-for-nothing hussy as ever
+stepped--and over-staying her time now to that degree, that she
+expected the "drawing-rooms" would not have their dinner till ever so
+late; but at this point the young lady interrupted her.
+
+"If I may stay for to-night," she said gently, and with a very frank
+smile, which made Mrs. Bush feel indignant with herself, as well as
+ashamed, "some other arrangement can be made to-morrow; and I require
+no waiting-on. I shall give you no trouble, or as little as possible."
+
+Mrs. Bush could not hold out any longer. She told the young lady she
+could certainly stay for that day and night, and as for to-morrow, she
+would "see about it;" and then, at the dreaded summons of the
+impatient "drawing-rooms," bustled away, saying she would return
+presently, and "see to" the stranger herself.
+
+Pretty girls in pretty dresses are not rarities in the lodging-houses
+of Brighton; indeed, it would perhaps be difficult to name any place
+where they are to be seen more frequently, or in greater numbers; but
+the toilet-glass on the table in the back bedroom of Mrs. Bush's
+lodging-house, a heavy article of furniture, with a preponderance of
+frame, had probably reflected few such faces as that of the lady
+calling herself Mrs. Lloyd, who looked attentively into it when she
+found herself alone, and decided that she was not so very dusty,
+considering.
+
+She was rather tall, and her figure was slight and girlish, but firm
+and well-developed. She carried her head gracefully; and something in
+her attitude and air suggested to the beholder that she was not more
+commonplace in character than in appearance. Her complexion was very
+fair and clear, but not either rosy or milky; very young as she was,
+she looked as if she had thought too much and lived too much to retain
+the ruddiness and whiteness of colouring which rarely coexist with
+intellectual activity or sensitive feelings. Her features were
+well-formed; but the face was one in which a charm existed different
+from and superior to any which merely lies in regularity of feature.
+It was to be found mainly in the eyes and mouth. The eyes were brown
+in colour--the soft rich deep brown in which the pupil confounds
+itself with the iris; and the curling lashes harmonised with both;
+eyes not widely opened, but yet with nothing sly or hidden in their
+semi-veiled habitual look--eyes which, when suddenly lifted up, and
+opened in surprise, pleasure, anger, or any other emotion, instantly
+convinced the person who received the glance that they were the most
+beautiful he had ever seen. The eyebrows were dark and arched, and the
+forehead, of that peculiar formation and width above the brow which
+phrenologists hold to indicate a talent for music, was framed in
+rippling bands of dark chestnut hair.
+
+She was a beautiful and yet more a remarkable-looking young woman,
+girlish in some points of her appearance, and in her light lithe
+movements, but with something ungirlish, and even hard, in her
+expression. This something was in the mouth: not small enough to be
+silly, not large enough to be defective in point of proportion; the
+line of the lips was sharp, decisive, and cold; richly coloured, as
+befitted her youth, they were not young lips--they did not smile
+spontaneously, or move above the small white teeth with every thought
+and fancy, but moved deliberately, opening and closing at her will
+only. What it was in Mrs. Lloyd's face which contradicted the general
+expression of youth which it wore, would have been seen at once if she
+had placed her hand across her eyes. The beaming brown eyes, the
+faintly-tinted rounded cheeks, were the features of a girl--the
+forehead and the mouth were the features of a woman who had left
+girlhood a good way behind her, and travelled over some rough roads
+and winding ways since she had lost sight of it.
+
+When Mrs. Bush returned, she found the stranger in the front parlour,
+but not standing at the window, looking out for the return of her
+husband; on the contrary, she was seated at the prim round table,
+listlessly turning over some newspapers and railway literature left
+there by Gilbert Lloyd. Once again Mrs. Bush looked at her with sharp
+suspicion; once again she was disarmed by her beauty, her composure,
+and the sweetness of her smile.
+
+"Mr. Lloyd is not in yet, m'm," began Mrs. Bush, "and you'll be
+wanting your lunch."
+
+"No, thank you," said Mrs. Lloyd; "I can wait. I suppose you don't
+know when he is likely to be in?"
+
+"He _said_ directly," replied Mrs. Bush; "and I wish he had kept to
+it, for I can't think the sick gentleman is any better. I've been to
+look at him, and he seems to me a deal worse since morning."
+
+Mrs. Lloyd looked rather vacantly at Mrs. Bush. "Have you a lodger ill
+in the house?" she asked. "That makes it still more inconvenient for
+you to receive me."
+
+Mrs. Bush felt uncomfortable at this question. How very odd that Mrs.
+Lloyd should not know about her husband's friend! They are evidently
+queer people, thought the landlady; and she answered rather stiffly:
+
+"The only lodger ill in the house, m'm, is the gentleman as came with
+Mr. Lloyd; and, in my opinion, he's very ill indeed."
+
+"Came with Mr. Lloyd?" said the young lady in a tone of great
+surprise. "Do you mean Mr. Gore? Can you possibly mean Mr. Gore?"
+
+"Just him," answered Mrs. Bush succinctly. "Didn't you know he was
+here with Mr. Lloyd?"
+
+"I knew he was coming to Brighton with him, certainly," said Mrs.
+Lloyd; "but I understood he was to leave immediately after the
+races--before I came down. What made him stay?"
+
+Mrs. Bush drew near the table, and, leaning her hands upon it, fell
+into an easy tone of confidential chat with Mrs. Lloyd. That lady sat
+still, looking thoughtfully before her, as the landlady began, but
+after a little resting her head on her hand and covering her eyes:
+
+"He stayed, m'm, because he was very ill, uncommon ill to be sure; I
+never saw a gentleman iller, nor more stubborn. His portmanteau was
+packed and ready when he went to the races, and he told Betsy he
+shouldn't be five minutes here when he'd come back; and Mr. Lloyd said
+to him in my hearing, 'Gore,' said he, 'how your digestion stands the
+tricks you play with it, I can _not_ understand;' for they'd been
+breakfasting, and he had eat unwholesome, I can't say otherwise. But
+when they come from the races, they come in a cab, which wasn't usual;
+and, not to offend you, m'm, Mr. Lloyd had had quite enough" (here she
+paused for an expression of annoyance on the part of her hearer; but
+no such manifestation was made); "but Mr. Gore, he _was_ far gone, and
+a job we had to get him upstairs without disturbing the drawing-rooms,
+I can assure you. And Mr. Lloyd told me he had been very ill all day
+at the races, and wouldn't come home or let them fetch a doctor--there
+were ever so many there--or anything, but would go on drinking, and
+when he put him in the cab, he wanted to take him to a doctor's, but
+he wouldn't go; and Mr. Lloyd did say, m'm, begging your pardon, that
+Mr. Gore damned the doctors, and said all the medicine he ever took,
+or ever would take, was in his portmanteau."
+
+"Was there no doctor sent for, then? Has nothing been done for him?"
+asked Mrs. Lloyd, with some uneasiness in her tone, removing her hand
+from her eyes and looking full at Mrs. Bush.
+
+"We've done--Betsy and me and Mr. Lloyd; for no one could be more
+attentive--all we could; but Mr. Gore was quite sensible, and have a
+doctor he _would not_; and what could we do? We gave him the medicine
+out of the case in his portmanteau. I mixed it and all, and he told me
+how, quite well; and this morning he was ever so much better."
+
+"And is he worse now? Who is with him?" asked Mrs. Lloyd, rising.
+
+"Well, m'm, _I_ think he looks a deal worse; and I wish Mr. Lloyd was
+come in, because I think he ought to send for a doctor; I don't know
+what to do."
+
+"Who is with him?" repeated Mrs. Lloyd.
+
+"No one," returned Mrs. Bush. "No one is with him. When Mr. Lloyd went
+out, he told me Mr. Gore felt inclined to sleep; he had had some tea
+and was better, and I was not to let him be disturbed. But when I was
+upstairs just now, I heard him give a moan; and I knew he was not
+asleep, so I went in; and he looks very bad, and I couldn't get a word
+out of him but 'Where's Lloyd?'"
+
+"Take me to his room at once," said Mrs. Lloyd, "and send for a doctor
+instantly. We must not wait for anything."
+
+But the incorrigible Betsy had not yet returned, and Mrs. Bush
+explained to the stranger that she had no means of sending for a
+doctor until she could send Betsy.
+
+"Let me see Mr. Gore first, for a minute, and then I will fetch the
+nearest doctor myself," said Mrs. Lloyd; and passing out of the room
+as she spoke, she began to ascend the narrow staircase, followed by
+the landlady, instructing her that the room in which the sick man was
+to be found was the "two-pair front."
+
+The room in which the sick man lay was airy, and tolerably large. As
+Gertrude Lloyd softly turned the handle of the door, and entered, the
+breeze, which bore with it a mingled flavour of the sea and the dust,
+fluttered the scanty window-curtains of white dimity, and caused the
+draperies of the bed to flap dismally. The sun streamed into the room,
+but little impeded by the green blinds, which shed a sickly hue over
+everything, and lent additional ghastliness to the face, which was
+turned away from Gertrude when she entered the chamber. The bed, a
+large structure of extraordinary height, stood in front of one of the
+windows; the furniture of the room was of the usual lodging-house
+quality; an open portmanteau, belching forth tumbled shirts and
+rumpled pocket-handkerchiefs, gaped wide upon the floor; the top of
+the chest of drawers was covered with bottles, principally of the
+soda-water pattern, but of which one contained a modicum of brandy,
+and another some fluid magnesia. Everything in the room was disorderly
+and uncomfortable; and Gertrude's quick eye took in all this
+discomfort and its details in a glance, while she stepped lightly
+across the floor and approached the bed.
+
+The sunlight was shining on Harvey Gore's face, and showed her how
+worn and livid, how ghastly and distorted, it was. He lay quite still,
+and took no notice of her presence. Instantly perceiving the effect of
+the green blind, Gertrude went to the window and pulled it up, then
+beckoned Mrs. Bush to her side, and once more drew near the bed.
+
+"Mr. Gore," she said, "Mr. Gore! Do you not know me? Can you not look
+at me? Can you not speak to me? I am Mrs. Lloyd."
+
+The sick man answered her only with a groan. His face was an awful
+ashen gray; his shoulders were so raised that the head seemed to be
+sunken upon the chest; and his body lay upon the bed with unnatural
+weight and stillness. One hand was hidden by the bedclothes, the other
+clutched a corner of the pillow with cramped and rigid fingers. The
+two women exchanged looks of alarm.
+
+"Was he looking like this when you saw him last--since I came?" said
+Mrs. Lloyd, speaking in a distinct low tone directed completely into
+the ear of the listener.
+
+"No, no; nothing like so bad as he looks now," said Mrs. Bush, whose
+distended eyes were fixed upon the patient with an expression of
+unmitigated dismay. "Did you ever see anyone die?" she whispered to
+Gertrude Lloyd.
+
+"No; never."
+
+"Then you will see it, and soon."
+
+"Do you really think he is dying?" and then she leaned over him, shook
+him very gently by the shoulder, loosened his hold of the pillow, and
+said again,
+
+"Mr. Gore! Mr. Gore! Do you not know me? Can you not speak to me?"
+
+Again he groaned, and then, feebly opening his eyes, so awfully glazed
+and hollow that Gertrude recoiled with an irrepressible start, made a
+movement with his head.
+
+"He knows me," whispered Gertrude to Mrs. Bush; "for God's sake go for
+a doctor without an instant's delay! I must stay with him."
+
+The landlady, dreadfully frightened, was only too glad to escape from
+the room.
+
+For a few moments after she was left alone with the sick man Gertrude
+stood beside him quite still and silent; then he moved uneasily, again
+groaned, and made an ineffectual attempt to sit up in his bed.
+Gertrude tried to assist him; she passed her arms round his shoulders,
+and put all her strength to the effort to raise him, but in vain. The
+large heavy frame slipped from her hold, and sunk down again with
+ominous weight and inertness. Looking around in great fear, but still
+preserving her calmness, she perceived the bottle in which some brandy
+still remained. In an instant she had filled a wine-glass with the
+spirit, lifted the sufferer's feeble head, and contrived to pour a
+small quantity down his throat. The stimulant acted for a little upon
+the dying man; he looked at her with eyes in which an intelligent
+purpose pierced the dull glaze preceding the fast-coming darkness,
+stretched his hand out to her, and drew her nearer, nearer. Gertrude
+bent over him until her chestnut hair touched his wan livid temples,
+and then, when her face was on a level with his own, he whispered in
+her ear.
+
+*    *    *    *    *
+
+Mrs. Bush had not gone many steps away from her own hall-door when she
+met Gilbert Lloyd. He was walking slowly, his hands thrust deep into
+his pockets, his head bent, his eyes frowning and downcast, and his
+under-lip firmly held by his white, sharp, even teeth. He did not see
+Mrs. Bush until she came close up to him, and exclaimed,
+
+"O, Mr. Lloyd, how thankful I am I've met you! The gentleman is very
+bad indeed--just gone, sir,--and I was going for a doctor. There's not
+a moment to lose."
+
+Gilbert Lloyd's face turned perfectly white.
+
+"Impossible, Mrs. Bush," he said; "you must be mistaken. He was much
+better when I left him; besides, he was not seriously ill at all."
+
+"I don't know about that, sir, and I can't stay to talk about it; I
+must get the doctor at once."
+
+"No, no," said Lloyd, rousing himself; "I will do that. Where is the
+nearest? Tell me, and do you go back to him."
+
+"First turn to the right, second door on the left," said Mrs. Bush,
+with unusual promptitude. "Dr. Muxky's; he isn't long established, but
+does a good business."
+
+Gilbert Lloyd hurried away; and Mrs. Bush returned to the house,
+thinking only when she had reached it, that she had forgotten to
+mention his wife's arrival to Gilbert Lloyd.
+
+*    *    *    *     *
+
+When Lloyd entered the sick man's room, bringing with him Dr. Muxky,
+as that sandy-haired and youthful general practitioner was called by
+his not numerous clients, he saw a female figure bending over the bed.
+It was not that of Mrs. Bush; he had passed her loitering on the
+stairs,--ostensibly that she might conduct the gentlemen to the scene
+of action, really because she dared not reënter the room unsupported
+by a medical presence. The figure did not change its attitude as they
+entered, and Dr. Muxky approached the patient with a professional
+gliding step. He was followed by Lloyd; who, however, stopped abruptly
+on the opposite side of the bed when he met the full unshrinking gaze
+of his wife's bright, clear, threatening eyes.
+
+"May I trouble you to stand aside for a moment?" said Dr. Muxky
+courteously to Gertrude, who instantly moved, but only a very little
+way, and again stood quite still and quite silent. Dr. Muxky stooped
+over his patient, but only for a few seconds. Then he looked up at
+Gilbert Lloyd, and said hastily,
+
+"I have been called in too late, sir; I'm afraid your friend is dead."
+
+"Yes," said Gertrude quietly, as if the doctor had spoken to her: "he
+is dead. He has been dead some minutes."
+
+Gilbert Lloyd looked at her, but did not speak; the doctor looked from
+one to the other, but said nothing. Then Gertrude stretched out her
+hand and laid her fingers heavily upon the dead man's eyelids, and
+kept them there for several moments amid the silence. In a little
+while she steadily withdrew her hand, and without a word left the
+room.
+
+On the drawing-room landing she found Mrs. Bush. That practised and
+cautious landlady, mindful of the possible prejudice of her permanent
+lodgers against serious illness and probable death in their immediate
+vicinity, raised her finger, as a signal that a low tone of voice
+would be advisable.
+
+"Go upstairs; the doctor wants you," said Gertrude, and passed quickly
+down to the parlour. A few moments more, and she had put on her bonnet
+and shawl, opened the hall-door without noise, closed it softly, and
+was walking swiftly down the street towards the shore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+Pondered.
+
+
+The sandy-haired slim young man, whose name was Muxky, who was a
+member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and who amongst
+the few poor people of Brighton that knew of his existence enjoyed the
+brevet-rank of doctor, found himself in anything but a pleasant
+position. The man to see whom he had been called in was dead; there
+was no doubt of that. No pulsation in the heart, dropped jaw, fixed
+eyes--all the usual appearances--ay, and rather more than the usual
+appearances: "What we professionally call the _rigor mortis_--the
+stiffness immediately succeeding death, my dear sir, is in this case
+very peculiarly developed." Mr. Muxky, in the course of his attendance
+at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, had seen many deathbeds, had inspected
+in an easy and pleasant manner many dead bodies; but he had never seen
+one which had presented such an extraordinary aspect of rigidity so
+immediately after death. He approached the bed once more, turned back
+the sheet which Mrs. Bush had drawn over the face, and kneeling by the
+side of the bed, passed his hand over and under the body. As he moved,
+Gilbert Lloyd moved too, taking up his position close behind him, and
+watching him narrowly. For an instant a deep look of anxiety played
+across Gilbert Lloyd's face, the lines round the mouth deepened and
+darkened, the brows came down over the sunken eyes, and the under jaw,
+relaxing, lost its aspect of determination; but as Mr. Muxky turned
+from the bed and addressed him, Lloyd's glance was perfectly steady,
+and his face expressed no emotions stronger than those which under the
+circumstances every man would be expected to feel, and no man would
+care to hide.
+
+"This is rather an odd experience, my dear sir," said Mr. Muxky;
+"called in to see our poor friend, who has, as it were, slipped his
+cable before my arrival. Our poor friend, now, was a--well--man of the
+world as you are--you will understand what I mean--our poor friend was
+a--free liver."
+
+Yes, Gilbert Lloyd thought that he was a man who ate and drank
+heartily, and never stinted himself in anything.
+
+"Nev-er stinted himself in anything!" repeated Mr. Muxky, who had by
+this time added many years to his personal appearance, and entirely
+prevented the bystanders from gleaning any expression from his eyes,
+by the assumption of a pair of glasses of neutral tint--"nev-er
+stinted himself in anything! Ah, a great deal may be ascribed to that,
+my dear sir; a great deal may be ascribed to that!"
+
+"Yes," said Gilbert Lloyd carelessly; "if a man will take as much
+lobster-salad and Strasbourg pie as he can eat, with as much champagne
+and moselle as he can carry; and if, in spite of the remonstrances of
+his friends, he will sit without his hat on the top of a drag, with
+the August sun beating down upon him--"
+
+"Did he do that, my dear sir--did he do that?"
+
+"He did, indeed! Several of us implored him to be careful; but you
+might as well have spoken to the wind as to him, poor dear fellow. We
+told him that he'd probably have a--a--what do you call it?"
+
+"General derangement of the system? Flux of blood to the--"
+
+"No, no; sunstroke--that's what I mean; sunstroke. Perigal, who was
+out in India in the Punjaub business--he was on our drag when poor
+Harvey was taken bad, and he said it was sunstroke all over--regular
+case."
+
+"Did he, indeed?" said Mr. Muxky. "Well, that's odd, very odd! From
+the symptoms you have described, I imagined that it must have been
+something of the kind:--brain overdone, system overtaxed. In this
+railway age, Mr. Lloyd, we live such desperately rapid lives,
+concentrate so much mental energy and bodily fibre into a few years,
+that--"
+
+"I'm glad you're satisfied, Mr. Muxky," said Gilbert Lloyd, pulling
+out his purse. "It's a satisfaction in these melancholy cases to know
+that everything has been done, and that there was no chance of saving
+the poor fellow, even if--"
+
+"I scarcely say that, Mr. Lloyd. A little bloodletting might, if taken
+at the exact moment--_in tempore veni_; you recollect the old
+quotation--might have been of some use. There's a prejudice just now
+against the use of the lancet, I know; but still-- For me?" taking a
+crisp hank-note which Lloyd handed to him. "O, thank you, thank you!
+This is far too munifi--"
+
+"The labourer, Mr. Muxky, is worthy of his hire," said Gilbert Lloyd:
+"and it is our fault--not yours--that you were summoned too late. But,
+as you just now remarked, it is impossible in these cases to know what
+is impending, or how nigh may be the danger. I was very much struck by
+that remark. And now good-afternoon, Mr. Muxky. I must go out and find
+my poor wife, who is quite upset by this unfortunate affair.
+Good-afternoon--not another word of thanks, I beg; and any of the
+usual formalities in these matters---I don't know what they are--but
+certificates, and that kind of thing, we may look to you to settle?
+Thanks again. Good-day."
+
+And Gilbert Lloyd shook hands with the overwhelmed Mr. Muxky, whose
+eyes gleamed even through the neutral-tinted glasses, and whose pale
+face burst into a pleased perspiration, as he crumpled the crisp
+bank-note into his waistcoat-pocket, and followed Mrs. Bush down the
+stairs.
+
+"A sensible man that, Mrs. Bush," said he when he reached the first
+landing; "a very sensible, kind-hearted, clear-headed man. Under all
+the circumstances, you're very lucky in having had such a man in the
+house. No fuss, no preposterous excitement--everything quite proper,
+but thoroughly businesslike."
+
+"You're right, Dr. Muxky," responded the sympathetic landlady. "When I
+saw as clear as clear that that poor creature was going the way of all
+flesh--which is grass, and also dust and ashes--and knew I'd got those
+Miss Twillows in the drawing-rooms, you might have knocked me down
+with a feather. Nervous is nothing to what the Miss Twillows is;
+and coming regular from Peckham for the sea-bathing now five
+years, regular as the month of July comes round; and giving no
+trouble, through bringing their own maid; and stopping on all
+September,--without perambulators in the passage, and children's
+boots, which after being filled with sand will _not_ take the
+polish,--their leaving would be a loss to me which--"
+
+Mrs. Bush stopped suddenly in her harangue, as the drawing-room door,
+by which they were standing, was cautiously opened, and an elderly
+female head was slowly protruded. It was a large head, and yet it had
+what is called a "skimpy" character. What little hair there was on it
+was of a mixed pepper-and-salt kind of colour, and gathered into two
+large roll-curls, one on either side of the head, in front, and into a
+thin wisp behind. In this wisp was stuck a comb, pendent from which
+was a little bit of black lace. The features could not be defined, as
+the lower part of the face was entirely hidden in a handkerchief held
+to the nose, exhaling pungent vinegar. Mr. Muxky stared a little at
+this apparition--stared more when the head wagged and the mouth
+opened, and the word "Doctor?" was uttered in interrogative accent.
+Then Mr. Muxky, beginning to perceive how the land lay, said in his
+softest tones: "Yes, my dear madam, I _am_ the doctor."
+
+The head dropped again, and again the lips opened. "Fever?" was what
+they said this time, while a skinny hand at the end of a skinny arm
+made itself manifest, pointing upwards.
+
+"Fever," repeated Mr. Muxky, "that has removed our poor friend
+upstairs--nothing of the sort, my dear madam, I can assure you;
+nothing but--"
+
+"Not smallpox?--don't say it's smallpox!" This from another voice, the
+owner of which was in the background, unseen. "O, Hannah, does he say
+it's smallpox?"
+
+"He don't say anything of the kind, Miss Twillow," interposed Mrs.
+Bush; "knowing that in the midst of life we are in death, specially
+sitting in hot suns without our hats on the tops of stage-coaches, and
+to say nothing of too much to drink. You've never been inconvenienced
+since you've been in this house, have you, m'm? and you won't be now.
+It isn't my fault, I'm sure; nor yet Dr. Muxky's; and, considering all
+things, not a great put-out, though doubtless upsetting to the
+nerves."
+
+"That's just the point, Mrs. Bush," said Mr. Muxky, who was not going
+to lose the chance; "nothing to fear; but yet, some temperaments so
+constituted that--like the Æolian harp--the--the slightest breath of
+fright has an effect on them. If my poor services now could be of any
+use--"
+
+"Yes, now do," said Mrs. Bush, "Miss Twillow, Miss Hannah; just see
+the doctor for a minute. You've had a shock, I'll allow, and it's
+natural you should be upset; but the doctor will put you right in a
+minute."
+
+Thus Mr. Muxky secured two new patients; not a bad day's work.
+
+While these matters were in progress in the house Gertrude had left,
+and the subdued bustle inevitably attendant upon the necessary care
+and the unavoidable household disorganisation which succeeds a death,
+even when the dead is only a stranger in the house where the solution
+of the enigma has come to him,--she was sitting on the shore close by
+the foamy edge of the waves, and thinking.
+
+Gertrude had gone down to the shore across the broad road, now crowded
+with people out for the bright summer afternoon; with carriages and
+gigs, with vehicles of the highest elegance, and with such as had no
+pretence to anything but convenience; with pedestrians of every class,
+assembled with all sorts of objects, hygiene and flirtation being
+predominant. She had gone away down the slope, and on to the strip of
+pebbly sand; and where one of the wooden barriers marked out a
+measured space, she sat down on a seaweed-flecked heap of shingle, and
+began to think. The long line of the horizon, where the blue sea met
+the blue sky, parted only by a narrow verge of light, broken white
+clouds, was before her--between it and her absent, troubled eyes lay
+the wide expanse of sea. A short space only parted her from the
+moving, restless, talking crowd upon the Esplanade; but her sense of
+solitude was complete. The ridge of the slope hid her; the soft plash
+of the sea, with its monotonous recurrence, soothed her ear, and
+deadened the sound of wheels and the murmur of voices; her eyes met
+only the great waters, across which sometimes a boat glided, on which
+sometimes a sea-bird's wing rested for an instant. As Gertrude sat
+there, with her arms extended and her hands tightly clasped together,
+with her head bent forward and her eyes fixed upon the distant line of
+the sea and sky, her thoughts obeyed her will, and formed themselves,
+consecutive, complete, and purposeful. The girl--for she was but a
+girl, after all--had brought thither a heavy trouble; to be taken out,
+looked at, weighed, examined. She had brought there a half-developed
+purpose, to be thought into maturity, to be fully fashioned and
+resolved upon. Before she should leave that place she would have done
+these things; and when she should leave it, a new phase in her life
+would have begun. Ineffable sadness was in her brown eyes--grief and
+dread, which did not seem newly born there, but constant dwellers,
+only that to-day they had been suddenly awakened once again from
+temporary repose. If there had been anyone to see Gertrude, as she sat
+by the edge of the waves, and to note her face, with its concentrated
+and yet varying expression, that person, if an acute observer, would
+have been struck by the contrast between  the eyes and the mouth. The
+character of the look in the eyes shifted and varied; there was fear
+in it, grief, weariness, disgust, sometimes even horror; and these
+expressions passed like the lights and shadows over a fair landscape.
+But the mouth did not vary; firm, closely shut,--so compressed that
+its tightness produced a white line above the red of the upper lip,--
+it expressed power and resolution, when that long process of
+thinking--too purposeful to be called a reverie--commenced, and it
+expressed power and resolution when at length Gertrude rose. Hours had
+passed over her unheeded, as she sat by the sea; the afternoon had
+lengthened into the evening; the crowd of loungers had dispersed. She
+had heard, but not heeded, the church-bells ringing for evening
+service; and now silence was all around her, and the red flush of
+sunset was upon the sky and the sea. When she had risen from her seat
+of shingle, Gertrude stood for some minutes and looked along the
+shore, where her solitary figure seemed doubly lonely. Then she turned
+and scanned the long line of the houses and the road, on which a few
+scattered human beings only were moving. A strange reluctance to move
+possessed her; but at length she shook it off, and with a slight
+shudder turned her back upon the sea, fast becoming gray as the sun
+went down, and walked steadily, though not quickly, back to the
+lodging-house where she had left her husband.
+
+As she drew near to the house, Gertrude looked up at the window of the
+room in which she had seen Harvey Gore die. It was open; but the green
+blind was closely drawn. Looking upwards at the window, she did not
+perceive till she was close upon it that the house-door was slightly
+ajar; but as she raised her hand to the knocker, the door was opened
+widely by Mrs. Bush, and Gertrude, going into the passage, found
+Gilbert Lloyd there. The sudden sight of him caused her to start for
+an instant, but not perceptibly; and Mrs. Bush immediately addressed
+her with voluble questions and regrets.
+
+Where had she been all this time? She had gone out without her lunch,
+and had she had nothing to eat? How uneasy she and Mr. Lloyd had been
+about her! (Mr. Lloyd had evidently secured by this time a high place
+in the good graces of Mrs. Bush.) Mr. Lloyd had been waiting and
+watching for her ever so long; and she, Mrs. Bush, as soon as ever the
+poor dear dead gentleman upstairs had been "put tidy,"--which was her
+practical mode of expressing the performance of the toilet of the
+dead,--had been also watching and waiting for Mrs. Lloyd's
+reappearance. Suspicion and scanty civility had given place in the
+manner of the worthy landlady--who was infinitely satisfied with the
+proper sense of what was due to her in the unfortunate position of
+affairs exhibited by Gilbert Lloyd--to anxiety for the comfort of the
+young lady whom she had so unwillingly received.
+
+During the colloquy between Mrs. Bush and Gertrude, Gilbert Lloyd had
+been standing, awkwardly enough, in the passage, but without speaking.
+But when a pause came, and Gertrude approached the parlour-door, he
+spoke.
+
+"Where have you been, Gertrude?" he asked sternly.
+
+His wife stood still and answered, but did not look at him.
+
+"I have been sitting by the seashore."
+
+"You must be cold and hungry, I should think."
+
+"I am neither."
+
+"I suppose you know you cannot remain here?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+He seemed a little at a loss for an answer; but replied, after a
+moment's pause:
+
+"A death in the house is sufficient reason. Mrs. Bush can't attend to
+a lady-lodger, under the circumstances. You can go back to town in the
+morning; for to-night I shall take you to the nearest hotel."
+
+"Very well."
+
+She never looked at him; not by the most fleeting flicker of an
+eyelash did she address her face to him, though he looked steadily at
+her, trying to compel her glance. She went into the parlour, through
+the folding-door into the bedroom, collected the few articles which
+she had taken out of her travelling-bag, and returned, carrying it in
+her hand. Evidently all arrangements had been made by Gilbert Lloyd
+with Mrs. Bush: no more was said. Gertrude took a friendly leave of
+the landlady, and went out of the house, walking silently by her
+husband's side. He did not offer her his arm, and not a word was
+spoken between them until the door of a private sitting-room at the
+George had closed behind them. Then he turned savagely round upon her,
+and said, in a thick low voice, "The meaning of this foolery?"
+
+This time she looked at him--looked him straight in the face with the
+utmost calmness. There was not the least flush of colour in her pale
+face, not the slightest trembling of her lips, not the smallest
+flutter of her hands,--by which in woman agitation is so often
+betrayed,--as she said calmly, "You are polite, but mysterious. And I
+suppose the journey, or something, has rendered me a little dull. I
+don't quite follow you. What 'foolery' are you pleased to ask the
+meaning of?"
+
+She had the best of it so far. She stood erect, facing the light, her
+head thrown back, her arm outstretched, with nothing of bravado, but
+with a good deal of earnestness in her manner and air. Gilbert Lloyd's
+head was sunk on his breast, his brow was knit over his frowning eyes,
+his lips tightly set, and his under-jaw was clenched and rigid. His
+hands were plunged into his pockets, and he had commenced to pace the
+room; but at his wife's question he stopped, and said, "What foolery!
+Why, the foolery of your conduct in those lodgings this day; the
+foolery of your coming down, in the first place, when you weren't
+wanted, and of your conduct once you came."
+
+"I came," said Gertrude, in a perfectly calm voice, and still looking
+him steadily in the face, "in pursuance of the arrangement between us.
+It was your whim, when last I saw you, to wish for my company here;
+and you settled the time at which I was to come. My 'foolery' so far
+consists in having exactly obeyed you."
+
+"Your obedience is very charming," said Gilbert Lloyd with a sneer;
+"and no doubt I should have enjoyed your company as much as I
+generally do. Few men are blessed with wives embodying all the
+cardinal virtues. But circumstances have changed since we made that
+arrangement. I couldn't tell this man was going to die, I suppose?"
+
+She had purposely turned her face away when her husband began to sneer
+at her, and was pretending to occupy herself with opening her
+travelling-bag; but as these words fell upon her ear, she drew herself
+to her full height, and again looking steadily at him, said, "I
+suppose not."
+
+"You suppose not! Why, of course not! By heavens, it's enough to drive
+a man to desperation to be tied for life to a white-faced cat like
+this, who stands opposite him repeating his words, and shows no more
+interest in him than--By Jove," he exclaimed, shaking his clenched
+fist at her, "I feel as if I could knock the life out of you!"
+
+To have been struck by him would have been no novel experience on
+Gertrude's part. More than once in these paroxysms of temper he had
+seized her roughly by the arm or shoulder, leaving the livid imprint
+of his hand on her delicate flesh; and she fully expected that he
+would strike her now. But as he spoke he had been hastily pacing the
+room; and it was not until he stopped to menace her that he looked in
+her face, and saw there an expression such as he had never seen
+before. Anger, terror, misery, obstinacy, contempt,--all these
+passions he had often seen mirrored in Gertrude's features, but never
+the aversion, the horror, the loathing which now appeared there. The
+look seemed to paralyse him, for in it he divined the feelings of
+which it was the reflex. His extended arm dropped by his side, and his
+whole manner changed, as he said, "There! enough of that! It was hard
+enough for me to have the trouble of poor Gore's illness to fight
+against, without anything else; and when you did come, Gertrude, I
+thought--well"--pulling himself together, as it were, he bent forward
+towards her, and with a soft look in his eyes and an inexpressible
+tenderness in his voice, whispered, "I thought you might have brought
+a word of cheer and comfort and--and love--to your poor old Gilbert,
+who--"
+
+While speaking he gradually drew near to her, and advanced his hand
+until it touched her waist. Gertrude no sooner felt his clasp than,
+with a short sharp cry as if of bodily pain, she withdrew herself from
+it.
+
+"Don't touch me!" she exclaimed, in a voice half choked with sobs. Her
+calmness was gone, and her whole system was quivering with emotion.
+"For Heaven's sake keep off! Never lay your touch on me, in kindness
+or in cruelty, again, or you will find that the 'white-faced cat' has
+claws, and can use them."
+
+Gilbert Lloyd stared for an instant in mute astonishment at his wife,
+who stood confronting him, her eyes sparkling like glowing coals in
+the midst of her pale face, her hair pushed back off her forehead, her
+hands tightly clasped behind her head. He was cowed by this sudden
+transformation, by this first act of overt rebellion on Gertrude's
+part, and thought it best to temporise. So he said, "Why, Gertrude
+darling, my little lady, what's all--"
+
+"No more of that Gilbert," she interrupted, calming herself by a
+strong effort, unlocking her hands, and again confronting him. "Those
+pet names are things of the past now--of the past, which must be to us
+even more dead and more forgotten than it is to most people."
+
+The solemnity of her tone and of her look angered him, and he said
+shortly, "Don't preach, please. Spare yourself that."
+
+"I am not preaching, Gilbert, and I am not--as you sometimes tell
+me--acting; but I have something to say which you must hear."
+
+"Must, eh? Well, come down off your stilts, and say it."
+
+"Gilbert Lloyd," said Gertrude, "this day you and I part for ever.
+Don't interrupt me," she said, as he made a hasty gesture; "hear me
+out. I knew that this would be the end of our hasty and ill-advised
+marriage; but I did not think the end would come so soon. It _has_
+come now, and no power on earth would induce me to alter my
+determination."
+
+"O, that's it, is it?" said Lloyd, after a minute's silence. "And this
+is my wife, if you please; this is the young lady who promised to
+love, honour, and obey! This woman, who now coolly talks about our
+parting for ever, is one who has hung about my neck a thousand times
+and--"
+
+"No," exclaimed Gertrude, interrupting him, "no! This" (touching
+herself lightly on the breast) "is your wife indeed--is the woman who
+bears your name and has borne your caprices; but" (again touching
+herself) "this is not the woman that left London this morning. I wish
+to heaven I were--I wish to heaven I were!"
+
+She uttered these last words in a low plaintive tone that was almost a
+wail, and covered her face with her hands.
+
+"This is mere foolery and nonsense," said Lloyd, after a momentary
+pause. "You wish you were, indeed! If you're not the same woman, what
+the devil has changed you?"
+
+"Do you want to know?" she asked suddenly, looking up at him,--not
+eagerly, boldly, or defiantly, but with the expression of horror and
+loathing which he had previously noticed.
+
+"No!" he replied with an oath; "why should I waste my time listening
+to your string of querulous complaints? You want a separation, do you?
+Well, I am not disposed to say 'no' to any reasonable request; but if
+I agree to this, mind, it's not to be the usual business."
+
+Finding he paused, Gertrude said, "I scarcely understand you."
+
+"Well, I mean that 'parting for ever' does not mean coming together
+again next month, to live in a fool's paradise for a week, and then
+hate each other worse than ever. If we part, we part for ever, which
+means that we never meet again on earth--or rather, that we begin life
+afresh, with the recollection of the last few months completely
+expunged. We have neither of us any relations to worry us with
+attempts at reconciliation; not half-a-dozen men know of the fact of
+my having been married, and none of them have ever seen you. So that
+on both sides we start entirely free. It is not very likely that we
+shall ever run across each other's path in the future; but if we do,
+we meet as entire strangers, and the fact of our having been anything
+to one another must never be brought forward to prejudice any scheme
+in which either of us may be engaged. Do you follow me?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"And does what I propose meet your views?"
+
+"Entirely."
+
+"That's right. Curious," said Lloyd, with a short, sharp
+laugh,--"curious that just as we are about to part, we should begin to
+agree. However, you're right, I suppose; we could not hit it; we were
+always having tremendous rows, and now each of us can go our own way;
+and," he added, under his breath, as he glanced at Gertrude's
+expressive face and trim figure, "I don't think I've had the worst of
+the bargain."
+
+After a moment's silence, Lloyd said, "What do you propose to do?"
+
+"I have no schemes at present," Gertrude replied; "and if I had, you
+have no right to ask about them."
+
+"You've not taken long to shake off your harness, by Jove!" said Lloyd
+bitterly. "However, whatever you do hereafter, you must have something
+to start with now." He took out a pocket-book, and counted from it
+some bank-notes. "I've not done so badly as people thought," said he;
+"and here are two hundred pounds, all my available capital. Yon shall
+have half of this--here it is." He pushed a roll of notes towards her.
+She took it without a word, and placed it in her travelling-bag.
+"You'll sleep here to-night, I suppose; and had better clear out of
+this place early to-morrow. I shall have to stay until after the
+funeral. And now, I suppose, that's about all?"
+
+"All," said Gertrude, taking up her travelling-bag and moving towards
+the door.
+
+"Won't you--won't you say 'good-bye'?" said Lloyd, putting out his
+hand as she passed him.
+
+Gertrude made him no reply; but she gathered her dress tightly round
+her, as though to preserve it from his touch; and on glancing at her
+face Gilbert Lloyd saw there the same look of horror and loathing
+which had paralysed him even in the midst of his furious rage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+Proposed.
+
+
+When Gertrude left her husband's presence,--without giving him any
+clue to her intentions for the future, something like bewilderment
+fell upon her for a little. It was not grief--no such sentiment had
+any place or share in the tumult of her mind. The arrangement which
+had been made, the agreement that had been come to, was a distinct and
+positive relief to her. It would have been a relief even before the
+late occurrences which had brought things to a crisis, and Gertrude
+neither denied nor lost sight of that fact. It had become a positive
+necessity, not to be avoided, not to be deferred; and it was done.
+When the door closed behind her, as she trod the narrow passage which
+divided the sitting-room in which their last interview had taken place
+from the bedroom in which she was to pass the night, Gertrude knew
+that she was relieved--was even, in a dull, hardly-ascertained sort of
+way, glad, and yet she was bewildered. There was more horror in her
+mind than sorrow. For the hope and happiness of her own life, thus
+early blighted in their first bloom, she had no sentimental pity; she
+could not afford to think about them, even if she had had time, which
+she had not. The circumstances of her life had aided the natural
+disposition and habits of her mind, and brought her to look steadily
+at facts rather than feelings, at results and actions rather than at
+influences and illusions of the past. As a matter of fact, her life in
+all its great meanings was past, and the best thing she could do was
+to banish it from memory, to dismiss it from contemplation as
+completely and as rapidly as possible.
+
+Gertrude had been for many hours without food, and had undergone much
+and various mental agitation. She was conscious that the bewilderment
+which pervaded her mind was in a great degree referable to physical
+exhaustion, and she resolved to postpone thought and action until the
+morning. She rang a hell, ordered a slight meal to be served to her in
+her room, and having eaten and drank, went to bed so completely
+overpowered by the fatigue and restrained excitement of the day, that
+she fell asleep immediately. The calm summer night, unvisited by
+darkness, passed over, and witnessed only her unbroken rest--a grand
+privilege of her youth.
+
+Gilbert Lloyd remained for some time in the room where Gertrude had
+left him, walking to and fro before the windows, lost in thought. The
+passion and excitement of the day had not been without their effect on
+him also, and certain components mingled with them in his case which
+had no existence in the sum of Gertrude's suffering--doubt, dread,
+suspense, uncertainty. What did Gertrude mean? What still remained
+hidden, after that terrible interview in which so much had been
+revealed? What was still unexplained, after all that dreary and
+hopeless explanation? These questions, which he could not answer,
+which it was his best hope might never be answered, troubled Gilbert
+Lloyd sorely. That the agreement which had been made between him and
+his wife was highly satisfactory to him he knew as clearly as Gertrude
+knew it; but in the way in which it had been brought about, in the
+manner of its decision, the advantage had been Gertrude's. Gilbert
+Lloyd did not like that, though this parting was so utter and so final
+that he might well have dismissed all such considerations, and turned
+his back upon the past, as he had proposed to do in reality, and as he
+did not entertain a doubt that Gertrude would do in downright real
+earnest, never bestowing so much thought or memory on him again as to
+produce the smallest practical effect upon her future life. He knew
+that he had achieved a great success that day; that this final
+separation between himself and Gertrude was an event in every way
+desirable, and which he would have hailed with satisfaction at any
+period since he had wearied of her and begun to regard marriage as the
+very worst and stupidest of all mistakes;--a mental process which had
+commenced surprisingly soon after he had made the blunder. But,
+somehow, Gilbert Lloyd did not taste the flavour of success. It was
+not sufficiently unmingled for the palate of a man of despotic
+self-will, and the ultra intolerance of complete callousness and
+scoundrelism. At length he checked himself in his monotonous walk, and
+muttering, "Yes, I'll go back it's safest," he rang the bell.
+
+His summons was not obeyed with remarkable alacrity--waiters and
+chambermaids had had a bard time of it at the George of late; but a
+waiter did at length present himself. By this time the news of a
+"sporting gent's" death in the immediate vicinity had reached the
+George, and the man looked at Lloyd with the irrational curiosity
+invariably excited by the sight of anyone who has been recently in
+close contact with crime, horror, or grief.
+
+"I rang to tell you I shall send my traps down from Pavilion-place,
+but I shall not sleep here," said Lloyd; "I shall come up to breakfast
+in the morning, though."
+
+"Very good, sir," said the man; and Gilbert Lloyd took up his hat and
+walked out. He called for a minute at Pavilion-place, and spoke a few
+words to Mrs. Bush, who gave him a latchkey, then went away again; and
+the morning hours were well on when he let himself quietly into the
+lodging-house and threw himself on the bed in the back parlour.
+
+The window of the "two-pair front" was open, and the fresh breeze,
+sea-scented, blew in through the aperture, and faintly stirred the
+drapery of the bed. Presently the sun rose, and before long a bright
+ray streamed through the green blind, and a wavering bar of light
+shimmered fantastically across the sheet which decently veiled the
+dead man's face.
+
+
+Gertrude Lloyd went down to the railway station early on the following
+morning, and before Gilbert had made his appearance at the George. She
+had not passed unnoticed at that hostelry. In the first place, she was
+too young and handsome to pass unnoticed anywhere during a sojourn of
+sufficient duration to give people time to look at her, if so
+disposed. In the second place, there was something odd about her. She
+was evidently the wife of the gentleman who had brought her to the
+hotel, and had then changed his mind about staying, and gone away so
+abruptly. Here she was now going away without seeing him; calling for
+her bill and paying it, "quite independent like," as a chambermaid,
+with a very proper reverence for masculine superiority, remarked;
+setting off alone, perfectly cool and comfortable. "There's been a
+tiff, that's it, and more's the pity," was the conclusion arrived at
+by the waiter and the chambermaid, who agreed that Gertrude was very
+pretty, and "uncommon young, to be sure, to be so very off-handed."
+
+Mrs. Bush, too, did not omit to inquire for the handsome young lady
+who had got "the better" of her so very decidedly. "She's off to
+London, first train in the morning," said Lloyd. "There was no good in
+her staying here for all this sad affair. _I_ can't avoid it, of
+course; but she is better out of it all." After which explanation,
+Mrs. Bush thought, sagaciously, that leaving one's husband in an
+unpleasant position, and getting safe out of it one's self, was not a
+very affectionate proceeding; and that Mrs. Lloyd, if she really was
+very fond of her husband, at all events did not make the fact
+obtrusively evident.
+
+But Gertrude Lloyd had not gone to London. Her mind had been actively
+at work from an early hour in the morning, and strengthened and
+refreshed by rest, she had been able to employ it to good purpose. Her
+first resolve was not to go to the lodgings she and her husband had
+occupied in London any more. She had no wish to embarrass his
+proceedings in any way. She desired to carry out their contract in
+both letter and spirit, and to disappear at once and completely from
+his life. So she left a note for Gilbert Lloyd at the George,
+containing the words: "Please have everything belonging to me sent to
+Mrs. Bloxam's;" and then took her way to the station, and her place in
+an early train for Worthing. Gertrude was alone in the carriage, and
+she profited by the circumstance to tear up and throw out of window a
+letter or two, and sundry bills on which her name, "Mrs. Lloyd,"
+appeared. Her initials only were stamped on her travelling-bag. The
+letters disposed of, she drew off her wedding-ring, and without an
+instant's hesitation for sentimental regret, dropped it on to the
+rails. Then she sat still and looked out at the landscape. Her face
+was quite calm now, but the traces of past agitation were on it. The
+first person to whom Gertrude Lloyd should speak to-day would not be
+struck by the contrast between her assured, self-possessed manner and
+her extreme youth, as Mrs. Bush had been impressed by it only
+yesterday.
+
+Arrived at Worthing, Gertrude had no difficulty in securing quiet and
+respectable lodgings, away from the sea, and not far out of the town.
+It was in a small house, forming one of a row of small houses, with
+climbing roses about the windows, and common but fragrant flowers in a
+Lilliputian strip of garden-plot on either side of the door. On the
+opposite side of the road was a row of gardens corresponding to the
+houses, remarkable for numerous arbours of curiously small dimensions
+and great variety and ingenuity of construction; likewise for the
+profusion and luxuriance with which they grew scarlet-runners and
+nasturtiums. In one of these houses Gertrude engaged a sunny parlour
+and bedroom for a week certain; and then, having explained to the
+woman of the house that she was a governess, and was about to enter on
+a new situation, but was not certain when she would be required to
+proceed to the house of her employers, she set herself to the carrying
+out of the plans she had formed that morning, and, as a first step,
+wrote the following letter:
+
+
+"7 Warwick-place, Worthing.
+
+"Monday.
+
+"My Dear Mrs. Bloxam,--You will probably be very much surprised to
+receive a letter from me, and I am not less astonished to find myself
+writing to you. Though you were kind to me, after a fashion, while I
+lived at the Vale House, the circumstances under which I quitted your
+protection, and the events which have since occurred, were of a nature
+to render me unwilling to open up any communication with you, and to
+make it extremely improbable that I should ever be called on to do so.
+I retain some pleasant and grateful recollections of you and of my
+childhood, when I was, on the whole, happy; and I remember in
+particular, and with especial gratitude, that you put down, with the
+high hand of authority, the very natural inclination of the other
+girls to ridicule and oppress me, because I had no relations to give
+me presents, take me out, and beg half-holidays for all the pupils on
+the strength of their visits, and because my holidays were always
+passed at school. You will wonder what I am coming to, and why, if it
+be anything important, I should recall these seemingly trivial things
+by the way; but I do so in order to remind myself, and to gain courage
+in so doing, of the only protection and friendship I have ever
+received from a woman,--now, when I need protection and friendship
+very, very much, and am about to ask you to extend them to me.
+
+"When I left you as I did, and married the man who had induced me to
+deceive you as I did (do not suppose I want to extenuate my own share
+in the matter, or throw the blame on him because I mention him thus),
+you told me, in the only letter you ever addressed to me, that I had
+made a bad mistake, and should inevitably find it out sooner or later.
+You were distinctly and unerringly right. I did make a bad mistake--a
+worse mistake than anyone but myself can ever know or guess; and I
+have found it out sooner instead of later. I have known it for a long
+time; but now circumstances have arisen which oblige me to act on my
+knowledge, and a separation has taken place between my husband and
+myself. Not a separation in the ordinary sense, with the tie
+repudiated and yet retained; but a separation by which each has
+undertaken to cease to exist for the other. I have no relations, so
+far as I know. If I have any, you and you alone are aware of the fact,
+and know who they are. I have no prejudices to offend, no position to
+forfeit. Gilbert Lloyd and I have parted never to meet again, as we
+both hope; never, under any circumstances, to recognise or interfere
+with one another. I have no friends, except I may venture to call you
+a friend; and to you alone can I now turn for assistance. I would say
+for advice, but that the time for that is past. There is nothing to be
+done now but to act upon the resolution which has been taken.
+
+"My plan for the future is this: I have 100_l_., and a voice whose
+quality you know, and which has improved since I was at the Vale
+House; so that I know it to be of the best kind, and in the best
+order, for concert-singing at least, perhaps ultimately for opera. I
+intend to become a public singer; but I must have more teaching, and
+the means of living in the mean time; so that the small sum in my
+possession may be expended upon the teaching and training of my voice.
+From many indications, which I perfectly remember, but need not enter
+into here, I have reason to believe that I was a profitable pupil to
+you; that from some source unknown to me you received sums of money
+for my maintenance and education of an amount which was very well
+worth having. I do not say this in any way to disparage the habitual
+kindness with which you treated me, and which I have always
+acknowledged gratefully, bat because I am about to propose a bargain
+to you, and wish to assure myself that I have some grounds for doing
+so, and for counting upon your acquiescence.
+
+"Will you receive me at the Vale House for one year free of charge, in
+the capacity of a teacher for the junior classes, and giving me
+sufficient time to enable me to take music-lessons and practise
+singing? If you will do this, and thus enable me, if I find my voice
+fulfils my expectations, to earn a livelihood for myself in an
+independent fashion, I will undertake to repay the cost out of my
+earnings. Possessing, as you do, the knowledge, if not of my
+parentage, at least of some person who became voluntarily responsible
+for my support during several years, you may perhaps be able, unless I
+am considered to have sacrificed all claim on my unknown connections
+by my marriage, to procure from them a little more assistance for me;
+but you must not make any attempt to do so if such an attempt should
+involve the revelation of my secret. I presume, if anyone exists whom
+it concerned, you made known my marriage. That circumstance is the
+last to be known about me; henceforth Gertrude Lloyd has no more
+existence than Gertrude Keith.
+
+"If you should accede to my request, it will be necessary for me to
+know whether any of the girls now under your charge were at the Vale
+House when I left it, also whether you have any servants now likely to
+recognise me. I shall await your answer with much anxiety. Should it
+be unfavourable, I must endeavour to devise some other method of
+carrying out the fixed purpose of my future life; and at present no
+possible alternative presents itself to my mind. In conclusion, I beg
+that you will decide quickly. I shall be here only one week; that
+expired, if you do not answer me, or if you answer me unfavourably, I
+must face the problem to which just now I see no solution. Address
+Miss Grace Lambert.--Yours sincerely,
+
+"Gertrude Lloyd."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+Settled.
+
+
+The Vale House, Hampstead, was admirably suited in point of size and
+situation for a boarding-school or "establishment" for young ladies.
+It stood in its own grounds, which, though not really extensive, had
+been made the most of, and contrived to look as if there were a great
+deal more of them than there really was; and it commanded an extensive
+prospect from the upper windows, well elevated above the jealous walls
+which guarded the youth and beauty committed to Mrs. Bloxam's charge
+from contact with the outer world. Occasionally, or at least in one
+instance, as will presently appear, the security had not been
+altogether so inviolable as might have been desired; but, on the
+whole, the "establishment" at Vale House maintained and deserved a
+high character. A heavy, square, roomy, red-brick mansion, with its
+windows cased in white stone, and a coat-of-arms sculptured in the
+same material, but now nearly undecipherable, inserted over the heavy
+mahogany hall-door,--the Vale House belonged to a period of
+architecture when contract-building was unknown, when the art of
+"running-up" houses was yet undiscovered, and a family mansion among
+the middle-classes meant a house in which fathers and sons and
+grandsons intended to live and die, unbeguiled by "splendid
+opportunities" into constant migrations and rapid changes in their
+style and manner of living.
+
+The Vale House had, however, suffered from the changes and innovations
+of the age; and the grandson of its last hereditary inhabitant now
+dwelt in splendour in a west-end "place," forming an "annexe" to a
+square of ultra-fashionable pretensions and performances, and looked
+and spoke as though he had never even heard the name of a locality
+more northern or more distant from the centre of civilisation than the
+Marble Arch. If the Townleys were oblivious of the Vale House, so was
+the Vale House of them. Except among such of the inhabitants of
+Hampstead as were careful and religious conservators of tradition, the
+origin and history of the Vale House had been forgotten; and a general
+notion prevailed that it had always been a school. The pupils--with
+the exception of such as were of a romantic turn of mind and given to
+the association of all old houses having plenty of room in them with
+the _Orphan of the Forest_ and the _Children of the Abbey_--hated the
+place, and believed that it must always have witnessed the
+incarceration of unoffending girlhood. The ancient and much-effaced
+armorial bearings awakened no compassionate respect in the minds of
+these haughty young creatures, but rather a lively scorn. "Old Bloxam
+was only a sea-captain, and she was a governess in some old lord's
+family, and they set her up in the school, and she gives herself airs
+as if she was a lady," they would remark, under the influence of
+irritation, arising from causes gastronomic or otherwise; and the
+caricaturing of these armorial bearings was a favourite _jeu d'esprit_
+among the livelier and cleverer section of Mrs. Bloxam's pupils.
+
+The school at the Vale House had--been of late years a very prosperous
+undertaking. Mrs. Bloxam's connection was among the rich and
+respectable mercantile community, not the shop-keeping, be it known:
+she observed with the utmost strictness the distinction between
+wholesale and retail trades, and especially affected the learned
+professions. In Gertrude's time, two daughters of a Scotch baronet had
+effectively represented the real aristocracy; but they were "finished"
+long since, and had returned to the land of their birth, having
+learned to braid their sandy locks, and to tone down their hereditary
+freckles, and equally hereditary accents, to the admiration of all
+Glen Houlaghan. The real aristocracy was quite unrepresented at the
+Vale House, but the "British-merchant" element flourished there. Mrs.
+Bloxam had prospered of late years, and was now in circumstances
+which permitted her to contemplate retiring from the labours of
+school-keeping,--in which she had never pretended to herself to find a
+congenial occupation,--as a not impossible, indeed not even a very
+remote, contingency.
+
+Mrs. Bloxam was not at all like the conventional schoolmistress; she
+as little resembled the Pinkerton as the Monflathers type; and despite
+the contemptuous comments of her pupils was very ladylike indeed, both
+in appearance and manners. She was a tall slight woman, very fair of
+hair and complexion, with blue eyes, which were a little hard in
+expression, and a little shifty; with an inexpressive mouth, a
+graceful figure, and a good deal of character and decision in her
+voice, gestures, and movements. She had purchased the Vale House from
+its former proprietor, a distant relative of her own and, like
+herself, a schoolmistress, on highly advantageous terms, when she was
+a new-made widow, and a very young woman; and now she hoped, after a
+year or two, to dispose of it on terms by no means so advantageous to
+the purchaser. But this hope Mrs. Bloxam had not spoken of to anyone.
+She was of silent and secretive temperament, and liked to make up her
+mind completely, and in every detail, to any plan of action which she
+contemplated before making it known to any friend or acquaintance. Her
+man of business was Mrs. Bloxam's sole confidant, and even he knew no
+more of her affairs than was indispensable to their safe and
+profitable conduct.
+
+Mr. Dexter would have been as ignorant as any mere acquaintance of
+Mrs. Bloxam's--as any of the young girls asleep in the white beds,
+standing in long ranges in the "lofty and well-ventilated dormitories"
+which formed so important a feature in the prospectus that eloquently
+set forth the advantages of the Vale House "establishment"--of the
+nature of the contents of a bundle of letters which Mrs. Bloxam set
+herself to peruse, late on the same evening on which Gertrude Lloyd's
+letter reached her well-shaped hands. Only one individual in the world
+besides Mrs. Bloxam knew that the letters which she was now engaged in
+reading had ever been written; and their writer would probably have
+been surprised--as they did not contain any guarantees for the payment
+of money--had he known that they were still in existence.
+
+Gertrude's letter had reached Mrs. Bloxam just at the hour at which
+the concluding ceremonial of the school-day routine was about to be
+performed. She laid it aside until prayers and the formal leave-taking
+for the night insisted upon at the Vale House as essential to the due
+inculcation of good breeding had been gone through; and then, in the
+welcome retirement and solitude of her own sitting-room, seated before
+her own particular bureau, and with her own particular supper in
+tempting perspective, Mrs. Bloxam read, not without sympathy mingling
+with her astonishment, the letter of her quondam pupil.
+
+Mrs. Bloxam read the letter once and laid it down, and thought very
+profoundly for some minutes. Then she took it up and read it again,
+and once more fell into a fit of musing. The bureau before which she
+had seated herself had a number of small drawers at the side. One of
+these Mrs. Bloxam opened, and selected from among its neatly-arranged
+contents a packet, tied with green ribbon and docketed: "Lord S--,
+from 185- to 186-." The parcel contained twenty letters, and Mrs.
+Bloxam read them all through. The task did not occupy much time; the
+writing was large and clear, her sight was strong and quick. When she
+had read the letters, she replaced them in the order which she had
+temporarily disturbed, retied the packet, and locked it away in the
+drawer whence she had taken it. Then she arranged a sheet of paper on
+the blotting-pad before her, took up a pen, and began to write with a
+rapid hand what was evidently intended to be a long letter.
+
+But in the middle of the third page Mrs. Bloxam changed her mind.
+"Safer not, better not," she muttered to herself; "the written letter
+remains. Witness these;" and she inclined her pen-handle towards the
+drawer in which she had just replaced the packet of letters; "time
+will show whether she had better know, or not know."
+
+Then Mrs. Bloxam tore the sheet, the third page of which she had begun
+to write on, into fragments sufficiently minute to defy the curiosity
+and the ingenuity of the most prying and ingenious of housemaids, and
+replaced it by another, on which she wrote the following words:
+
+"The Vale House, Hampstead.
+"Tuesday night.
+
+
+"My Dear Gertrude,--I have your letter. I accede to your request, and
+will make arrangements in reference to the proposal which you have
+submitted to me. None of the girls now here have any recollection of
+you. There are several younger members of the families whose older
+girls were here; but your change of name prevents that being of any
+consequence. The servants were all changed at the Easter Term. Let me
+know when it will suit you to come here; and believe me yours
+sincerely,
+
+"Elinor Bloxam."
+
+
+When she had read this brief note over, addressed it to Miss Grace
+Lambert, and placed it in the appointed spot for all letters to be
+despatched by the morning post, Mrs. Bloxam sat down to her solitary
+supper with a well-satisfied expression of countenance.
+
+It was nearly eleven years since Gertrude Keith, a handsome,
+intelligent, and self-willed child of eight years old, had been
+confided to the care of Mrs. Bloxam and the advantages, educational
+and otherwise, of the Vale House. The letters which Mrs. Bloxam had
+read, that summer night, formed the greater part of all the
+correspondence which had--been addressed to her by the individual who
+had placed the child under her protection, and whose confidence Mrs.
+Bloxam had won, and to a certain extent undeniably deserved. It had
+been stipulated that Gertrude Keith was to be kept in ignorance of her
+parentage, and of the circumstances under which she had been placed in
+Mrs. Bloxam's establishment; and this condition the schoolmistress had
+conscientiously observed. Gertrude knew nothing of her own origin. She
+was believed by her companions, and she believed herself, to be an
+orphan girl, without any living relatives.
+
+Gertrude Keith was the natural daughter of Lord Sandilands, a nobleman
+whose wild youth had given place to a correct and irreproachable
+middle age, which stage of life he had now passed, and was beginning
+the downward descent. He had placed the child under the care of Mrs.
+Bloxam, who had been formerly a governess in the family of his sister,
+Lady Marchmont, and who retained the confidence and regard of her
+former employers, after she had made the adventurous and unsuccessful
+experiment of matrimony. Certain circumstances connected with the
+little girl's birth and the early death of her ill-starred mother made
+Lord Sandilands shrink from seeing her, with strange and strong
+aversion; and one of the conditions to which he had required Mrs.
+Bloxam's consent and adherence was, that his name was never to be
+spoken to the child, and that, except in the event of her illness or
+death, he was to be spared all communications respecting her, except
+at certain stated intervals. These conditions had been scrupulously
+observed; and Gertrude's childhood had been as happy as any childhood
+passed under such exceptional conditions could be. She was a handsome,
+healthy, brave, independent-spirited child, who did not give much
+trouble, and who held her own against the envy, hatred, malice,
+and all uncharitableness of that world in miniature--a girls'
+boarding-school. As for Mrs. Bloxam, she liked the handsome, sturdy
+child, and she liked the stylish graceful girl, who developed herself
+so rapidly from that promising childhood. Then Gertrude was not a
+troublesome, while she was a very lucrative, pupil; and there was an
+agreeable certainty about the very liberal payments made on her
+account by Lord Sandilands, and an equally agreeable uncertainty about
+the period of the girl's removal from the Vale House, which formed an
+exception to the rule in general cases; and Mrs. Bloxam highly
+appreciated both these advantages. A portion of the correspondence
+which Mrs. Bloxam had read on the evening on which she had received
+Gertrude's letter referred to the time when she should have attained
+to womanhood, and her schooldays should be over. It was Lord
+Sandilands' wish that the arrangement made for her in her childhood
+should continue; that Mrs. Bloxam should act as her protectress; that
+the girl should remain with her, until she should feel indisposed to
+stay at the Vale House any longer, or should decide upon some manner
+of life for herself. "In any of these cases," said Gertrude's unknown
+father in one of his letters, "on your communicating the facts to me,
+I will make the best arrangement for Gertrude within my power."
+
+It was not very long after this had been written, though much before
+the time at which either her father or Mrs. Bloxam had contemplated
+the probability of any change in Gertrude's life, or of the girl's
+taking her destiny into her own hands, that an accident made her
+acquainted with Gilbert Lloyd. She had not shared any of the early
+romance and follies of her companions: the "young gentlemen" of Dr.
+Waggle's "establishment" had had no charm, singly or collectively, for
+her; the doctor, the chemist, the music and drawing masters, even the
+Italian signor, who made singing-lessons a delight, and was so
+fascinating, though he used his hair-brush sparingly, and his
+nail-brush not at all,--each and all were perfectly without attraction
+or danger for the young girl, who seemed to ignore or despise all the
+petty flirtations and manoeuvrings of her schoolfellows.
+
+Of and for not one of the young girls under her care head Mrs. Bloxam
+less fear or anxiety. Gertrude was proud and stately, and though tall
+for her seventeen years, and firm as well as graceful of outline, and
+though she had made fair progress with her education, and in her
+musical studies was notably in the van, there was something childlike
+about her still, something which kept Mrs. Bloxam in a happy condition
+of unsuspecting tranquillity.
+
+But all Gertrude Keith's childlike peace and passionless calm vanished
+when she met Gilbert Lloyd, at a house where Mrs. Bloxam was in the
+habit of visiting during the vacations, and whither she brought
+Gertrude, in order to avoid leaving her to the portentous solitude of
+the Vale House, in the absence of her companions. The girl fell in
+love with the young man--who paid her quiet, stealthy, underhand
+attentions--with a suddenness and a vehemence which would have alarmed
+anyone who loved her, for the future of a woman endowed with so
+imaginative, sensitive, and passionate a nature. All the dormant
+romance, of which no one had suspected the existence in Gertrude's
+nature, whose awakening no one perceived, when the time came was
+aroused into force and action, and the girl was transformed. Now was
+the time at which the instinct, the care, the love, the caution of a
+mother, would have been needed to guide, direct, and save Gertrude
+from her own undisciplined fancy, from her own untaught impulses. But
+Gertrude had no such aid extended to her. Mrs. Bloxam, a good woman in
+her way, and of more than average intelligence, had no feelings
+towards the girl which even bordered on the maternal; and the habitual
+authority of the schoolmistress was naturally in some degree abrogated
+by the fact that it was vacation-time. She was not of a very confiding
+or unsuspicious disposition; but she had, unconsciously to herself, to
+deal in Gilbert Lloyd with one who knew well how to lull suspicion,
+and he in his turn found an apt pupil in Gertrude. They met again and
+again; the girl's beauty, freshness, and daring had a strong charm for
+a man like Lloyd; and for the first time since he had had to calculate
+life's chances closely, and to rely upon himself for the indulgences
+and luxuries which alone made life worth having to a man of his
+temperament, he committed the blunder of gratifying feeling at the
+expense of prudence. He did not fall in love with Gertrude quite so
+precipitately or so violently as she fell in love with him, but the
+second meeting did for him what the first had done for her; and in
+Gilbert Lloyd's case, to form a desire was to resolve to achieve it,
+at whatever cost to others, at whatever sacrifice of personal honour,
+provided it did not entail public disgrace, such gratification might
+necessitate or involve.
+
+The vacation enjoyed by the pupils, and not less enjoyed by the
+proprietor, of the Vale House, was within three days of its
+expiration, when a housemaid belonging to the establishment reported
+Miss Gertrude Keith "missing;" and the search and anxiety consequent
+on the intelligence were terminated by a letter from the fugitive,
+informing Mrs. Bloxam that she had been married that morning to
+Gilbert Lloyd by special license, and was then about to start for a
+short continental excursion.
+
+Mrs. Bloxam was very much shocked, and very much annoyed, in the first
+place, that the event should have happened at all; in the second, that
+Gilbert Lloyd, of whom she knew something, and cordially disapproved
+what she did know, should be the hero of an affair certain to bring
+her into discredit with Lord Sandilands, and likely, if she did not
+contrive to hide it very skilfully, to bring her school into discredit
+with the public. She had no doubt as to the veracity of Gertrude's
+story, no doubt that Lloyd had really married her--a copy of the
+certificate of the marriage was enclosed in her letter; but she
+bitterly regretted her own blindness and negligence, and, to do her
+justice, felt not a little for the girl's probable fate.
+
+Mrs. Bloxam rapidly perceived the advantage to be derived from the
+circumstance that the untoward event of Gertrude's elopement had taken
+place during the vacation. She summoned all the servants, informed
+them that Miss Keith had left the Vale House under certain unpleasant
+circumstances which it was not necessary to explain; that any
+indiscreet reference to the circumstance made to the other pupils on
+the reassembling of the school would be visited by condign punishment
+in the forfeiture of the offender's place; and then dismissed them, to
+assemble downstairs in their own domain and learn all the particulars
+from the housemaid, who was in Gertrude's confidence, and had been
+liberally bribed by Gilbert Lloyd to facilitate and connive at all the
+preliminary meetings which had resulted in the elopement.
+
+To this proceeding succeeded a period of reflection on the part of
+Mrs. Bloxam. Should she inform Lord Sandilands of the events that had
+taken place? Should she tell him how much sooner than she had
+calculated upon, Gertrude had taken the decision of her fate into her
+own hands? Should she tell him that the time to which she had looked
+forward as an eventuality, which might come about in a couple of
+years, had already taken place, and that now was the opportunity for
+fulfilling the intentions which he had continuously, if vaguely,
+expressed in his letters to her? Mrs. Bloxam debated this question
+with herself, and self-interest loudly and persistently advised her to
+silence. Lord Sandilands had never seen the girl, had never even
+hinted at seeing her, had indeed distinctly disclaimed any intention
+of ever seeing her. Nothing could be more improbable than that he
+should find out what had occurred. If she should continue to apply to
+his solicitor for the money which he was authorised to pay her at
+certain intervals, no suspicion of any change in the state of affairs
+could arise. And the money would be very welcome to her. By resorting
+to the simple expedient of holding her tongue, she might avoid
+scandal, avoid doing herself the injury which she most necessarily
+inflict upon her school by the admission of an elopement having taken
+place from within its walls, and secure a sum of money which would be
+both useful and agreeable. To be sure, the day of reckoning must come,
+but not yet; and if ever she should have it in her power to do any
+service or kindness to the poor misguided girl, who would certainly
+inevitably come, or she (Mrs. Bloxam) was much mistaken in Gilbert
+Lloyd, to need service and kindness before much time should have gone
+over her, she pledged herself, to herself, to show her all the
+kindness in her power, unreservedly and heartily. Thus did Mrs. Bloxam
+make the devil's bargain with herself; and very successfully did she
+pursue the line of conduct which she had determined to follow, from
+the period of Gertrude Keith's elopement to that evening on which she
+had received the no-longer-deluded girl's letter, two years and a half
+later. With the fatal facility which results from impunity, Mrs.
+Bloxam had almost ceased to remember Gertrude, and had quite ceased to
+feel uneasiness regarding the concealment she had practised towards
+Lord Sandilands, and the appropriation of the sum of money which he
+paid to her yearly. But with the perusal of Gertrude's letter the
+subject again arose in her mind, and, as was Mrs. Bloxam's habit, she
+faced it steadily and considered it maturely. Gertrude's proposition
+was not an entirely pleasing one. There was a certain responsibility
+attaching to assuming the charge of a young woman so strangely
+situated; and the present acceptation of the trust might involve Mrs.
+Bloxam in difficulties and dilemmas to which she was by no means blind
+or insensible. But, on the other hand, she saw in Gertrude's return a
+perfect security against the divulgement of her decidedly unpleasant
+secret. Should Lord Sandilands now make any inquiry about Gertrude,
+she should experience no difficulty in satisfying him or any
+representative he might send. Even should the change of name become
+known-a contingency which a little well-timed manoeuvring might
+prevent--Mrs. Bloxam could afford to trust to her own ingenuity to
+find a reason for that proceeding which should satisfy all querists.
+Gertrude's own interest and safety were now concerned in preserving
+the secret of her elopement, her marriage, and the duration of her
+absence from the Vale House; while the offer of her services as
+teacher to the junior classes was sufficiently valuable to leave Mrs.
+Bloxam still a gainer to the full extent of the annual stipend, even
+when Gertrude's maintenance and needful expenses should be taken into
+account--a calculation which Mrs. Bloxam made very accurately and
+minutely, and which was very much in her line. The result of the
+cogitations to which Mrs. Bloxam gave herself up after she had read
+Gertrude's letter has already appeared. On the following day she
+received from Mrs. Lloyd a few brief lines of acknowledgment and
+thanks; and the Saturday of the week which had begun with the death of
+Harvey Gore and the final parting between Gilbert Lloyd and his young
+wife witnessed the installation of a new inmate, holding an anomalous
+position--partly parlour-boarder and partly pupil-teacher--at the Vale
+House. This new inmate was known to her companions and pupils, in
+short to all concerned, as Miss Grace Lambert.
+
+
+
+
+END OF THE PROLOGUE.
+
+
+
+BOOK THE FIRST.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+Rowley Court.
+
+
+The traveller of thirty years ago, whom pleasure or business took
+through the heart of Gloucestershire, and who had the satisfaction of
+enjoying the box-seat of the admirably-appointed mail-coach which ran
+through that district,--if he had an eye for the picturesque and a
+proper appreciation of the beauties of nature, exhibiting themselves
+in the freshest turf, the oldest trees, the loveliest natural
+landscape-gardening combination of grassy upland, wooded knoll, and
+silver stream,--seldom refrained from inquiring the name of the owner
+of the property which was skirted by the well-kept road along which
+they were bowling, and was invariably informed by the coachman that
+all belonged "to the Challoners, of whom you've doubtless heerd; the
+Challoners of Rowley Court." By his phrase, "of whom you've doubtless
+heerd," the coachman expressed literally what he meant. He and his
+compeers, born and bred in the county, were so impressed with the
+seignorial dignities of the Challoners of Rowley Court, that they
+ignored the possibility of the position of the family being unknown
+throughout the length and breadth of the land. That they were, not
+what they had been was indeed admitted, that the grand old estate had
+some what diminished, that the family revenues had decreased, that the
+present members of it were to a certain extent impoverished, that the
+hand of poverty was one of the many objectionable hands which had an
+unpleasant grip upon the old Squire,--all these were facts which were
+tacitly admitted in privileged regions--such as the servants'-hall at
+the Court, or the snuggery at the Challoners' Arms--but which were
+never hinted at to passing strangers. So jealous, indeed, of the
+honour of the family were its retainers--among whom the mail-driver
+was to be classed, as he was doubtless connected with the tenantry by
+family or marriage--that if "the box" ventured to comment on the
+evident want of attention to the property, manifested in broken
+hedges, unmended thatch, in undrained fen or unreclaimed common, he
+received but a short answer, conveying an intimation that they knew
+pretty well what was right down in those parts, the Challoners did; at
+all events, as well as most cockneys: the biting sarcasm conveyed in
+this retort having generally the effect of closing the conversation,
+and reducing the fee given to the driver at the journey's end to
+one-half the sum originally intended.
+
+There are no mail-coaches now, and the traveller by rail has no chance
+of getting a glimpse of Rowley Court, save a momentary one in the
+short interval between a cutting and a tunnel which are on the extreme
+border of the park. The Court itself stands towards the centre of the
+park on low ground encircled by wooded hills, towards which, in the
+good old times, avenues of stately oak, elm, and lime trees extended
+in long vistas. But under the dire pressure of necessity the woodman's
+axe has been frequently at work lately in these "cool colonnades," and
+the avenues are consequently much shorn of their fair proportions. The
+house is a big incongruous mass of two distinct styles of
+architecture--a grafting of Inigo Jones's plain façade and Corinthian
+pillars on a red-brick Elizabethan foundation, with projecting
+mullioned windows, octagonal turrets, quaintly-carved cornices, and
+ornamental doorways. Round the house runs a broad stone terrace
+bounded by a low balustrade, and flanked at each of the corners by a
+large stone vase, which, in the time of prosperity, had contained
+choice flowers varying with the season, but which were now full of
+cracks and fissures, and were overgrown with creeping weeds and common
+parasites. The very stones of the terrace were chipped moss-edged, and
+grass-fringed; the black-faced old clock in the stable-turret had lost
+one of its hands, while several of its gilt numerals had become
+effaced by time and tempest; the vane above it had only two points of
+the compass remaining for the brass fox, whose bushy tail had gone in
+the universal wreck, to point at; the pump in the stable-yard was dry;
+the trough in front of it warped and blistered; a piece of dirty
+oil-cloth had been roughly nailed over the kennel, in front of which
+the big old mastiff lay blinking in the sunshine; and a couple of
+cart-horses, a pair of superannuated carriage-horses, the Squire's old
+roan cob, and "the pony" (a strong, rough, undersized, Welsh-bred
+brute, with untiring energy and no mouth), were the sole tenants of
+the stables which had once been occupied by the best-bred hacks, and
+hunters of the county.
+
+They were bad times now for the Challoners of Rowley Court--bad times
+enough, Heaven knew; but they had been great people, and that was some
+consolation for Mark Challoner, the old Squire, as he stiffly returned
+the bow of Sir Thomas Walbrook, ex-Lord Mayor of London, carpet-maker,
+and millionaire, who had recently built an Italian villa and laid out
+an Italian garden on a three-hundred acre "lot" which he had purchased
+from the Challoner estate. They had been the great lords of all that
+district. Queen Elizabeth had lodged for some time at Rowley Court on
+one of her progresses; and Charles the First and Henrietta Maria had
+slept there, the royal pair finding "all the highways strewed with
+roses and all manner of sweet flowers," as was recorded in a
+worm-eaten parchment manuscript kept among the archives in the old
+oak-chest in the library. There was no sign then of the evil days in
+store; evil days which began in 1643, when Colonel Sands' troopers
+pillaged the Court, and sent off five wagons loaded with spoil to
+London.
+
+It is the custom of the Challoners to say that then began that
+decadence which has continued for ever since; and in truth, though
+there have been many vicissitudes of fortune undergone by the old
+family, the tendency has been for ever downward. The final blow to
+their fortunes was dealt by Mark Challoner's immediate predecessor,
+his brother Howard, who was one of the ornaments of the Prince
+Regent's court, and who gambled and drank and diced and drabbed with
+the very finest of those fine gentlemen. It was in his time that the
+axe was laid to the root of the tree; that Sir Thomas Walbrook's
+father, the old carpet-maker, made the first money advances which
+resulted in his ultimate purchase on easy terms of the three hundred
+acres; and that ultimate ruin began decidedly to establish and
+proclaim itself at Rowley Court. When providence removed Howard
+Challoner from this world by a timely attack of gout in the stomach,
+long after his beloved king and patron had been gathered to his
+fathers, it was felt that there was every chance of a beneficial
+change in the family fortunes. The godless old bachelor was succeeded
+by his brother Mark, then a clear-headed, energetic man in the prime
+of life, a widower with two remarkably promising boys--the elder a
+frank, free-hearted jovial fellow, fond of country sports, a good
+shot, a bold rider, "a downright Englishman," as the tenantry
+delighted to call him; the younger a retiring, shy lad, wanting in the
+attributes of popularity, but said to be wondrous clever "with his
+head," and to know more than people double his age, which in itself
+was something bordering on the miraculous to the simple
+Gloucestershire folk. And, for a time, all went very well. Mark
+Challoner was his own steward, and almost his own bailiff; at all
+events, he allowed no one on the property to be more thoroughly master
+of its details than he. Without any undue amount of niggardliness he
+devised and carried out unsparing retrenchments; thriftless tenants,
+after warning, were got rid of, and energetic men introduced in their
+places; a better style of farming was suggested, and all who adopted
+it were helped by their landlord. The estate improved so greatly and
+so rapidly that vacant farms were largely competed for, and rents were
+rising, when suddenly Mark Challoner withdrew himself from the life
+into which he had plunged with such eagerness, and in which he had
+succeeded so well, and became a confirmed recluse, a querulous, moody,
+silent man, loving solitude, hating companionship, shutting out from
+him all human interest.
+
+A sudden change this, and one which did not happen without exciting
+remarks from all the little world round Rowley Court, both high and
+low. The Walbrooks and their set (for during the few later years there
+had been frequent irruptions of the plutocracy into the old county
+families, and the Walbrooks were now the shining centre of a circle of
+people with almost as much money and as little breeding as
+themselves)--the Walbrooks and their set shook their heads and
+shrugged their shoulders, and secretly rejoiced that the old man from
+whom they never received anything but the sternest courtesy, and who
+so pertinaciously repelled all attempts at familiar intercourse from
+them, had at last come upon the evil days in store for him, and would
+no longer twit them by his aristocratic presence and frigid behaviour.
+The more humble classes--the old tenantry, who had been rejoicing at
+the better turn which things on the estate had undoubtedly taken, and
+who were looking forward to a long career of good management under the
+reign of Mark Challoner and his sons--were wofully disappointed at the
+change, and expressed their disappointment loudly amongst themselves,
+while taking due care that it should never reach the master's ear. No
+one, however, either among the neighbours or the dependents, seemed to
+notice that the change in Mark Challoner's life--that his fading from
+the hearty English squire into the premature old man, that his
+abnegating the exercise of his tastes and pleasures, and giving up
+everything in which he had hitherto felt the keenest interest--was
+contemporaneous with the departure of his younger son, Geoffrey, from
+the paternal roof. In that act there was nothing to create surprise:
+it had always been known that Master Geoffrey's talents were destined
+to find exercise in the great arena of London, and now that he was
+eighteen years of age, it was natural that he should wish to bring
+those talents into play; and though nothing had been said in or out of
+the house about his going, until one morning when he told the coachman
+to bring round the dogcart and to come with him to the station,
+there was no expression, of surprise on the part of any of the
+household--beings to whom the expression of anything they might feel
+was of the rarest occurrence. The old butler, indeed, a relic of the
+past, who had been Howard Challoner's body-servant in his later years,
+and who was almost superannuated, remarked that the Squire sent for
+his eldest son immediately after his younger son's departure; that the
+two were closeted together for full two hours (a most unusual thing at
+Rowley Court, where, in general, all matters were discussed before the
+servants, or, indeed, before anyone that might be present); and that
+"Master Miles" came out with pallid cheeks and red eyes, and in a
+state which the narrator described as one of "flustration."
+
+Seven years had passed since Geoffrey Challoner's departure,--seven
+years, during which his name had never been mentioned by his father or
+his brother; seven years, during which the old man, wrapped in the
+reserve, the silence, and the moodiness which had become his second
+nature, had been gradually, but surely, breaking in health, and
+wending his way towards the trysting-place where the Shadow cloaked
+from head to foot was in waiting for him. That meeting was very close
+at hand just now. So thought the servants, as from the ivy-covered
+windows of the office they peered occasionally at their master,
+propped up by pillows in his bath-chair, which had been wheeled into a
+corner of the stone terrace where the light spring sunshine fell
+fullest; so thought Dr. Barford, the brightest, cheeriest, rosiest
+little medico, on whom all within the Cotswold district pinned their
+faith ungrudgingly, and who had just sent his dark green gig, drawn by
+that flea-bitten gray mare, which was known within a circuit of fifty
+miles round, to the stables, and who approached the invalid with a
+brisk step and an inquiring, pleasant smile.
+
+"Sitting in the sunshine," said the Doctor aloud (having previously
+said, _sotto voce_, "Hem!--hem! much changed, by George!"), "sitting
+in the sunshine, my dear old friend! And quite right too--
+
+
+     'The sunshine, broken in the rill,
+      Though turned astray, is sunshine still,'
+
+
+as somebody says. Well, and how do we feel to-day?"
+
+"Badly enough, Doctor; badly enough!" replied the Squire, in a low
+thick voice. "I'm running down very fast, and there's very little more
+sunshine for me--" here an attack of coughing interrupted him for a
+moment; "so I'm making the most of it."
+
+"O, you mustn't say that," said Dr. Barford cheerily. "While there's
+life there's hope, you know; and you've gone through some baddish
+bouts since we've known each other."
+
+"None so bad as this," said Mark Challoner. "Your skill, under
+Providence, has kept me alive hitherto; but though you're as skilful
+as ever, and as kind--God bless you for it!--you've not got Providence
+working with you now. I'm doomed, and I know it. What's more, I don't
+repine, only I want to make the most of the time that's left me; and,
+above all, I want to see Miles again."
+
+"Miles? O, ay! He's staying in town, is he not?"
+
+"Yes, with my old friend Sandilands, who loves him as if he were his
+own son. Poor Miles, it's a shame to drag him away from his enjoyment
+to come down to a poor, dull, dying old man."
+
+"You would not hurt his feelings by saying that before him," said the
+Doctor shortly, "and you've no right to say it now. Has he been sent
+for?"
+
+"Yes, they telegraphed for him this morning."
+
+"Well, there can be no harm in that, though I won't have you give way
+to this feeling of lowness that is coming over you."
+
+"Coming over me!" the old man repeated wearily. "Ah, Barford, my dear
+friend, you know how long it is since the light died out of my life,
+and left me the mere shell and husk of man that I have been since; you
+know, Doctor, how long it is ago, though you don't know the cause of
+it."
+
+"Nor ever sought to know it, Squire; bear me witness of that," said
+the little Doctor. "It's no part of my business or of my nature to
+seek confidences; and though perhaps if I had been aware of what was
+troubling you--and at the first I knew perfectly well that _animo
+magis quam corpore_ was the seat of your illness--and though, being
+unable to 'minister to a mind diseased,' as somebody says, I was
+labouring, as it were, at a disadvantage,--you will do me the justice
+to say, that I never for a moment hinted that--hum! you understand?"
+And Dr. Barford, who would have given the results of a week's practice
+to know really what had first worked the change in the old man,
+stopped short and looked at him with a confidence-inviting glance.
+
+"Perfectly," said the Squire; "but it could never have been. My secret
+must die with me; and when after my death the closet is broken open,
+and people find the skeleton in it, they will merely come upon a lot
+of old bones jumbled together, and, not having got the key of the
+puzzle to fit them together, will wonder what I can have been afraid
+of. Why do you stare so earnestly?"
+
+"A skeleton, my dear Squire!" said the little Doctor, on tiptoe with
+eagerness; "you said a skeleton in a closet, and a lot of old bones
+jumbled together--"
+
+A smile, the first seen for many a day, passed across Mark Challoner's
+wan face as he said, "I was speaking metaphorically, Barford; that is
+all. No belated traveller was ever robbed and murdered at Rowley
+Court--in my time at least, believe me."
+
+Dr. Barford laughed a short laugh, and shrugged his shoulders as
+though deprecating a pursuance of the subject, but he evidently did
+not place entire credence on his friend's assertion. However, he
+plunged at once into a series of medical questions, and shortly
+afterwards took his leave. As he passed the hall-door, which was open,
+on his way to the stables, he saw a neatly-dressed middle-aged woman
+pacing quietly up and down the hall; and recognising her as the nurse
+from London, who for some time past had been in nightly attendance on
+the old man, he beckoned her to him.
+
+"Coming out to get a little breath of fresh air, nurse?" he said
+pleasantly, as she approached. "You must need it, I should think."
+
+"Well, sir, it is warm and close in the Squire's room now, there's no
+denying; and what it'll be when the summer comes on I often dread to
+think."
+
+"No you don't, nurse," said the Doctor, eyeing her keenly. "You know
+better than that, with all the practice and experience you've had. No
+summer for the Squire, poor fellow, this side the grave."
+
+"You think not, sir?"
+
+"I _know_ it, nurse, and so do you, if you only chose to say so.
+However, he's gone down so very rapidly since I was here last, and his
+tone is altogether so very low and depressed, that I imagine the end
+to be very close upon us; so close that I think you had better tell
+Mr. Miles--the son that has been telegraphed for, you know, and who
+will probably be down to-night--that if he has anything special to say
+to his father he had better do so very shortly after his arrival.
+What's that?" he asked, as a dull sound fell upon his ear.
+
+"That's the Squire knocking for Barnard to fetch his chair, sir; see,
+Barnard has heard, and is going to him."
+
+"O, all right! Poor old Squire! poor good old fellow! Don't forget
+about Mr. Miles, nurse. Goodnight;" and the little Doctor, casting a
+kindly look towards the spot where the figure of the old man in the
+chair loomed hazily in the dim distance, hurried away.
+
+When Mark Challoner's servant had reached his master's chair, and,
+obedient to the signal he had received, was about to wheel it towards
+the house, he found that the old man had changed his intention, and
+was desirous of remaining out on the terrace yet a few minutes. On
+receiving this order Barnard looked over his shoulder at the nurse,
+who was still standing at the hall-door; and as she made no sign to
+him to hasten his movements, he concluded that his master's wish might
+be obeyed, and so, after touching his hat respectfully, he returned to
+the genial society of the gardener and the stable-lad. And Mark
+Challoner was once more left alone. The fact in its broadest
+significance seemed to become patent to him as he watched the
+retreating figure of his servant, and two tears coursed down his wan
+cheeks. Mark Challoner knew that his last illness was then upon him;
+for weeks he had felt that he should never again shake off the
+lassitude and weakness so stealthily yet so surely creeping over him;
+but now, within the last few minutes, the conviction had flashed
+across him that the end was close at hand--that he had arrived at the
+final remnant of that originally grand strength and vitality which,
+slowly decaying, had enabled him to make head against disease so long,
+and that he was taking his last look at the fair fields which he had
+inherited, and in the improvement of which he had at one time--ah, how
+long ago!--found his delight. It was this thought that made him
+dismiss Barnard. The old man, with the new-born consciousness of his
+approaching end fresh in him, wanted to gaze once more at his
+diminished possessions; and for the last time to experience the old
+associations which a contemplation of them never failed to revive.
+There, with the westering sun just gilding its topmost branches, was
+the Home Copse, where he had shot his first pheasant, to his old
+father's loudly-expressed delight. Just below it lay the Black Pool,
+out of which, at the risk of his own life, he had pulled Charles
+Gammock, a rosy-faced boy with fair hair--Charles Gammock! ay, ay,
+they buried him a year ago, and his grandson now holds the land.
+There, bare and attenuated now, but as he first remembered it young
+and strong and full of promise, was the Regent's Plantation, so called
+in honour of the illustrious personage who, staying for the night with
+Howard Challoner, had honoured him by planting the first tree in it.
+Beyond it, Dirck's land, now--and as that thought crossed him the
+Squire's brow became furrowed, and his wan colour deepened into a
+leaden hue, for Dirck was one of the moneyed interest, one of the
+manufacturers who had come in Sir Thomas Walbrook's wake, and were
+bent on the acquisition of all the county property which might come
+into the market. Beyond it lay Thurston Gap, the surest place for
+finding a fox in the whole county, old Tom Horniblow used to say. Old
+Tom Horniblow! Why, there had been three or four huntsmen to the
+Cotswold since him: he must have been dead these forty years, during
+which time the Squire had not thought of him a dozen times; and yet
+then, at that moment, the stout figure of the old huntsman mounted on
+his famous black horse, just as he had seen him at the cover-side half
+a century ago, rose before his eyes. This reminiscence turned Mark
+Challoner's thoughts from places to people; and though his glance
+still rested on the landscape, his mind was busy recalling the ghosts
+of the past. His father, a squire indeed of the old type--hearty,
+boisterous, and hot-headed: it was well--and a faint smile dawned on
+Mark Challoner's cheek as the thought crossed his mind--it was as well
+that his father had died before the irruption of the Walbrooks,
+Dircks, and such-like; it would have been too much for him. His
+brother, the dandy with the high cravat and the buckskin breeches and
+hessian boots, ridiculed by his country neighbours, and regarding his
+estate but as a means to supply his town dissipation. His wife--she
+seemed more dim and ghost-like to him than any of the others; he had
+known her so short a time, so much of his life had been passed since
+her death; since the gentle little woman, whose wedding-ring he had
+worn on his little finger until it had eaten into the flesh, glided
+out of the world after having given birth to her second son. And, with
+the train of thought awakened by the reminiscence of the career of
+that second son, from his birth until the morning of his abrupt
+departure from the ancestral home, surging round him, the old man's
+head sunk upon his breast, a fresh access of feebleness seemed to come
+over him; and when the watchful Barnard sallied from his retreat and
+advanced towards the chair, he found his master in a state bordering
+on collapse, and made the utmost haste to get him to his room, and
+place him under the professional care of the nurse.
+
+In the course of a very few minutes, however, the Squire, aided by
+stimulants, revived; and his senses rapidly returning, he ordered his
+desk to be brought to the side of the bed into which he had been
+moved, and commenced listlessly sorting the papers therein. They were
+few and unimportant; the old man's illness had not been sudden; he had
+always been a thoroughly methodical man, and he had had plenty of time
+and opportunity to attend to his correspondence. Propped up by the
+pillows, he was leisurely looking through the orderly bundles of
+letters, neatly tied together and scrupulously docketed, when the
+sound of a horse's hoofs on the gravel outside, the grating of wheels,
+the barking of the dogs in the stable-yard, and the almost
+simultaneous ringing of the house-bell, gave warning of an arrival.
+Mark Challoner had scarcely time to note these various occurrences
+when the room-door was thrown open, and in the next instant the old
+man's wavering and unsteady hands were fast in the grasp of his son
+Miles.
+
+A tall man, over six feet in height, with a bright red-and-white
+complexion, large brown eyes, a straight nose too big for his face, a
+large mouth full of sound white teeth, with dark brown hair curling
+crisply at the sides of his head and over his poll, with long
+moustache and flowing brown beard, with a strongly-knit but somewhat
+ungainly figure, dressed in a well-made but loosely-fitting gray suit,
+and with large, well-shaped, brown hands, which, after releasing the
+first grip of the Squire's fingers, joined themselves together and
+kept working in tortuous lissom twists: this was Miles Challoner. A
+faint smile, half of pleasure, half of amusement--something odd in
+Miles had always been remarked by his father--flitted over the
+Squire's face, as he said, after the first greeting, "You've come in
+time, Miles: you received the telegram?"
+
+"And started off at once, sir. All I could do to prevent his lordship
+from coming with me--wanted to come immensely; but I told him I
+thought he'd better not. Even such an old friend as he is in the way
+when one's seedy--don't you think I'm right, sir?"
+
+
+"You're right enough, Miles; more especially when, as in the present
+case, it's a question of something more than 'seediness,' as you call
+it. My time," continued the Squire, in tones a little thickened by
+emotion,--"my time has come, my boy. I'm only waiting for you, before,
+like Hezekiah, I should 'turn my face unto the wall.' I have, I hope,
+'set my house in order,' and I know that now 'I shall die, and not
+live;' but I wanted to see you before--before I go."
+
+The young man leaned quickly forward and looked earnestly in his
+father's face, as he heard these words; then with a gesture of inquiry
+elevated his eyebrows at the nurse, who was standing just inside the
+door. Receiving for answer an affirmative nod, Miles Challoner's cheek
+for an instant turned as pale as that of the invalid; but he speedily
+recovered himself, and said in a voice which lacked the cheery ring
+that should have accompanied the words: "You're a little down, sir,
+and that's natural enough, considering your illness; but you'll make
+head against it now, and we shall soon have you about as usual. It was
+only yesterday Lord Sandilands was saying that though he's some
+quarter of a century your junior, he should be very sorry to back
+himself against you at 'anything British,' as he expressed
+it--anything where strength and bottom were required."
+
+The old man smiled again as he said: "Sandilands has been a townman
+for so long that he's lost all condition, and has ruined his health
+for want of air and exercise. But at least he lives; while I--I've
+vegetated for the last few years, and now there's an end even to
+that."
+
+"Why didn't you send for me before, sir? If I'd had any idea you
+thought yourself so ill, I'd have come long since."
+
+"I know that, my dear boy, and that's the very reason why I didn't
+send. Why should I fetch you from your friends and your gaiety to
+potter about an old man's bedside? I would not have sent for you even
+now, save that I have that inward feeling which is unmistakable, and
+which tells me that I can't last many days, many hours more, and I
+wanted, selfishly enough, to have you near me at the last." The old
+man spoke these words with indescribable affection, and, half
+involuntarily as it seemed, threw his arm round his son's neck. The
+big strong frame of the young man shook with ill-repressed emotion as
+he took the thin hand hanging round his shoulder, and pressed it
+reverently to his lips. "Father!" he said; and as he said it, both the
+men felt how many years had passed since he had chanced to use the
+term "Father!"
+
+"True, my boy," said Mark Challoner quietly,--"it is a pleasure,
+though I fear a selfish one. 'On some fond breast the parting soul
+relies,' you know, Miles; and you're all that's left to me in the
+world. Besides, the tie between us has been such a happy one; as long
+as I can recollect we've had no difference,--we were more like
+brothers than father and son, Miles."
+
+Miles answered only by a pressure of his father's hand. He dared not
+trust himself to speak, he knew that his voice was thick and choked
+with tears. His father looked at him for an instant, and then said:
+"Now, boy, go and get some dinner. How thoughtless of me to keep you
+so long fasting after your journey!--Nurse, take Mr. Miles away, and
+see that he is properly attended to. Be as careful of him as you are
+of me, that's all I ask;" and the old man, half-exhausted, sank back
+on his pillow.
+
+Miles Challoner left the room with the nurse, and when they were
+alone, he took the first opportunity of asking her real opinion as to
+his father's state. This she gave him frankly and fully, telling him
+moreover what Dr. Barford had said as to the necessity of not delaying
+anything which he might have to say to the Squire. Miles thanked her,
+and then sat down to his cheerless meal. His thoughts were
+preoccupied, and he ate and drank but little, pausing every now and
+then, bestriding the room, reseating himself, and leaning his head on
+his hand with a helpless puzzled air, as one to whom the process of
+thought was unfamiliar. He could scarcely realise the fact that the
+presiding spirit of the place, the man whose will had been law ever
+since he could recollect, "the Squire," who, with diminished
+possessions and failing fortunes, had commanded, partly through his
+own style and manner, partly through the prestige attaching to the
+family, more respect and esteem than all the members of the invading
+calicocracy put together,--he could scarcely realise that this rural
+autocrat's power was ebbing, and that he himself lay on his death-bed.
+On his death-bed!--that was a curious thought: Miles Challoner had
+never attempted to realise the position, and now; when vaguely he
+attempted it, he failed. Only one thing came out clearly to him after
+his attempted examination of the subject, and that was that it would
+be most desirable to be at peace with all the world, and that any
+enmity cherished to the last would probably have a most disturbing and
+uncomfortable effect. Pondering all this he returned to the sick-room.
+During his absence, the curtains had been closed and the night-lamp
+lighted. The nurse sat nodding in a large easy-chair by the bedside,
+and the Squire lay in a dozing state, half-waking now and again as his
+head slipped off the high pillow on which it rested, or when the
+heaviness of his breathing became specially oppressive. Miles seated
+himself on a couch at the foot of the bed, and fatigued by his
+journey, soon fell asleep. He seemed to have been unconscious only a
+few minutes, but in reality had slept nearly an hour, when he was
+awakened by a touch on the shoulder, and opening his eyes, saw the
+nurse standing by him. "The Squire's calling for you," she said,
+adding in a whisper, "he's going fast!" Miles roused himself, and
+crept silently to the head of the bed, where he found his father
+gasping for breath. The Squire's dim eyes recognised his son, and
+between the paroxysms of laboured respiration he again threw his arm
+round Miles's neck and touched the bowed forehead with his lips. Then
+the thoughts that had been fermenting in Miles Challoner's heart for
+so many years, and which had caused him such mental disturbance that
+night, at length found vent in words. With his father's arm around
+him, and with his face close to the old man's, Miles said: "Father!
+one word, only one! You hear and understand me?" A pressure of the
+hand on his cheeks--O, such a feeble pressure, but still a
+recognition--answered him. "Father, what of Geoffrey?" A low moan
+escaped the old man's lips; other sign made he none. "What of
+Geoffrey?" continued Miles,--"years ago you forbade me ever to ask
+what had become of him, why he had left us, even to mention his name.
+I have obeyed you, as you know: but now, father, now--"
+
+"Never!" said the old man in dull low accents. "Your brother Geoffrey
+is, and must be for ever, dead to you. Miles, my boy, my own boy,
+listen! Should you ever meet him, as you may do, shun him, I urge, I
+command you! Think of what I say to you now, here, as I am--shun him,
+fly from him, let nothing earthly induce you to know him or
+acknowledge him."
+
+"But, father, you will surely tell me why---"
+
+The nurse touched Miles on the shoulder as he spoke, and pointed to
+the Squire, whose swooning had been noticed by her observant eyes.
+When he recovered himself he essayed again to speak, but his strength
+failing him he laid his hand in his son's, and so peacefully passed
+away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+In Possession.
+
+
+"Really, hardly sooner than I expected, my dear sir," said Dr.
+Barford, when he came to pay his accustomed daily visit at Rowley
+Court, and found his occupation gone. "A little accelerated by
+nervousness about your coming home, but very little; not more than a
+few hours. I quite expected the event; told the nurse as much
+yesterday, in fact. Ah, well, my dear sir, it is what we must all come
+to. He was a fine old gentleman, a very fine old gentleman,--has not
+left many like him in Gloucestershire; more's the pity;" and Dr.
+Barford continued to talk on with smooth professional glibness, by no
+means unconscious of the fact that he was not listened to by Miles
+Challoner with even a show of attention.
+
+Old Mark Challoner's death was emphatically a "bad business" for Dr.
+Barford, and he said so (to himself) quite frankly. The Squire had
+been a very profitable and by no means a troublesome or exacting
+patient to the worthy doctor for a considerable time, and it was not
+pleasant to him to know that the attendance which brought much that
+was agreeable with it, in addition to liberal and regularly-paid fees,
+was at an end. Dr. Barford looked at Miles Challoner, and a mild
+despondency possessed itself of his soul. Miles was a model of health
+and strength; his complexion indicated unconsciousness of the presence
+of bile in his system, and he looked as little like a man troubled, or
+likely to be troubled, with nerves, or fancied ailments of any kind,
+as need be. So Dr. Barford felt his footing at Rowley Court was a
+thing of the past, and mentally bade it farewell with a plaintive
+sigh. He was an honest little man, and kind-hearted too, though he did
+think of the event, as we all think of every event in which we are
+concerned, from a selfish standpoint; and he was frankly, genuinely
+sorry for his old friend; and Miles recognised the sincerity of
+feeling in him, and threw off his absence of mind, and shook hands
+with him over again, thanking him for the skill and care that had
+availed so long, none the less warmly that it could avail no longer.
+
+Miles Challoner's grief for his father was very deep and poignant. His
+nature was acutely sensitive, and he had the power of feeling sorrow
+more intensely than most men, while he lacked the faculty for shaking
+it off, and betaking himself to the way of life which had been his
+before the trouble came upon him, which most men possess, and find
+very useful in a world which affords little time and has not much
+toleration for sentiment. Loneliness fell heavily upon him, and the
+society which in the winter would have been within his reach was not
+available now. The season was well on in London, and most of the
+people who formed the not very extensive neighbourhood of Rowley Court
+were in town; so that Miles Challoner was all uncheered by neighbourly
+kindness, and his evenings were especially solitary.
+
+Incidental to his position as sole heir to the diminished but still
+respectable possessions of the Challoners, a great deal of business
+had to be gone through which was particularly distasteful to Miles.
+The family lawyer lived in London, of course, but his personal
+services had not been needed. Old Mark Challoner had set his house
+very thoroughly in order; no rents were in arrear, the debts were few,
+and the tenants were orderly and well-behaved. They had liked their
+old landlord well enough, and had been somewhat afraid of him. They
+were not quite sure whether they should approve altogether so much of
+the new one. Not that Miles had done anything to offend his father's
+people; not that he had saliently departed from, or violently
+transgressed, the traditions of conduct of the foregone Challoners;
+not that there was the slightest suspicion of milk-sopism attaching to
+Miles; but there was an uneasy notion abroad that Miles did not take
+much interest in the old place, that he cared over-much for books and
+"Lunnon," and was rather degenerately ignorant in matters appertaining
+to agriculture. On the whole, though there was no disaffection among
+the Rowley-Court tenantry, there was not much enthusiasm. Men who
+would have thought it a desperate hardship, an entirely unnatural and
+unheard-of slight indeed, if they had not been, whenever they desired
+it, immediately admitted to an interview with old Mark Challoner, were
+perfectly satisfied to transact their business with Mr. Styles the
+steward, and displayed to the deputy very little curiosity respecting
+his principal. They talked about Miles a little among themselves,
+wondering whether he would not marry soon, and supposing, in rather
+depreciatory accents, that he would bring a lady from "Lunnon."
+
+"Glo'ster won't do for him, depend on it," said farmer Bewlay to the
+buxom wife of farmer Oliver; "he'll be having a fine madam, what'll
+want to be six months among the furriners, and save all she can at
+home the other six. Times have changed since the old Squire brought
+his pretty little wife home, and she shook hands with us all in the
+churchyard, after morning prayers, her first Sunday here, and told us
+how she knew us all already, from her husband's talk."
+
+"I don't remember it myself," said farmer Oliver's buxom wife; "but
+I've heard Tummas talk of it, and how she looked up at the old Squire
+when she said, 'my husband,' and smiled just like a summer morning."
+
+"Ay, indeed she did," assented farmer Bewlay; "but he wasn't the old
+Squire then, but a brave and good-looking gentleman; and she was a
+pretty girl, was madam, when she came to Rowley Court, and pretty up
+to the time they carried her out of it. I helped in that job; and the
+Squire had nowt but his little boys left."
+
+"Has anybody heerd tell anything about Master Geoffrey?" said farmer
+Oliver's wife, dropping her voice, and looking round her, as people
+look who are talking of things which are not, or should not be,
+generally mentioned. "Does Mr. Styles say anything about him? Does Mr.
+Styles know where he is?"
+
+"Mr. Styles never mentions him. I don't believe he knows any more than
+we do where he is, or what has become of him. A handsome child he was,
+and a handsome boy, though small and sly and cruel in his ways, and no
+more like the Squire, nor madam neither, than I am. You remember
+Master Geoffrey, surely?"
+
+"O yes, I remember him. How the Squire changed after he went away! He
+ran away to sea, didn't he?"
+
+"Some folk said so; but for my part I don't believe it. The sea, from
+all I've ever heard tell of it, ain't an easy life, nor a gay life,
+for the matter o' that; and wherever Master Geoffrey run to--and it's
+certain sure he can somewheres--it wasn't to sea, in my opinion. I
+don't know; I only have my own thoughts about it; and I ha'n't no
+means of knowin'. Anyhow he went, and Squire was never the same man
+after; he were always good, and fond of the place, and that he were to
+the last; but he never had the same smile again, and I never see him
+talking to the children about, or patting them on the head, or doing
+anything like what he used."
+
+The honest dark eyes of Polly Oliver filled with tears. "It's all
+true," she said, "and more than that. When our Johnny were lying in
+the measles, and very near his end, the Squire came down one day along
+with Dr. Barford, the physician, you know. He thought there ought to
+be someone beside the doctor to see the child; and when Dr. Barford
+told us--very kind and feeling like, I must say--as the child couldn't
+be left with us any longer, and I began to cry, as was only natural,
+and made no difference to me who was there, Squire or no Squire, he
+says to me, quiet like, but I can hear the words now, 'You won't
+believe me, Mrs. Oliver, and it would be hard to expect you should;
+but there are worse things in life than seeing your boy die;' and then
+he went away. And when Johnny was buried, and I had time to think of
+anything else, I thought of the Squire's words; and many a time I
+wondered what was the meaning that was in them, and knew it must be
+Master Geoffrey's doing somehow, but how I did not know, and I suppose
+no one knows."
+
+"I don't know about that," said farmer Bewlay; "it's likely as Mr.
+Miles knows, and Mr. Geoffrey; but I'm sure Styles doesn't: and
+outside them two, and the Squire in his grave, I daresay nobody in
+this world knows the rights of the story."
+
+While the people over whom Miles Challoner had come to reign in the
+course of nature thus curiously, but not unkindly or with any lack of
+feeling, discussed the actualities and the probabilities of his life,
+and raked up the memory of that mysterious family secret, strongly
+suspected to be of a calamitous nature, which had long been hidden by
+the impenetrable silence of the Squire, and now lay buried in his
+grave, Miles Challoner himself was much occupied with the selfsame
+subject. The unanswered question which he had asked his father in his
+last moments,--the unsolved enigma which had disturbed his mind for
+years, which haunted him now, and made all his life seem unreal,
+wrong, and out of joint,--. rose up before him, and engaged his
+thoughts constantly, almost to the exclusion of every other matter for
+reflection except his father's death. The two linked themselves
+together in a strong bond of pain, and held him in their withes. This
+time was a very heavy one to the new master of Rowley Court.
+
+His position was irksome to him. The privileges of proprietorship had
+no charms for Miles Challoner. He disliked the business details in
+which it involved him; he shrunk from the keenly painful associations
+it produced; he suffered much from his loneliness,--from the
+loneliness of the Court generally. Hitherto, whenever he had been
+away, he had returned to enjoy the tranquillity--tranquillity which,
+when it was tasted as a change, he appreciated very highly, but which
+as the normal state of things wearied him rapidly and excessively. He
+had had much companionship, in and since his boyhood, with his father,
+and the blank left by the old Squire's death was indeed complete.
+Miles Challoner, without deserving precisely the appellation of a
+student, was fond of books. He was well-educated, not in a very
+profound, but in a tolerably extensive and various sense; and his
+taste took a literary turn early in life, which, wholly unshared by
+his father, had been encouraged, fostered, and directed by his
+father's friend, Lord Sandilands. Miles was a man of few intimacies.
+He liked society; but no one would ever have called him sociable: he
+had much more the air of frequenting general, in order to keep clear
+of particular society; and this really was the case. Upon his
+sensitive disposition the family secret, concerning which he had
+vainly questioned his father on his death-bed, weighed heavily. It set
+him apart, and kept him apart from anything like intimacy with young
+men of his own age, because he felt that they too would be always
+trying to find out that of which he himself was ignorant; and he was
+not at ease with the older people, his father's contemporaries and
+neighbours, because he was not sure whether they had any inkling or
+certain knowledge of the family secret,--whether they were all in a
+conspiracy to keep him in the darkness to which his father had
+condemned him from the period of his brother's disappearance. Would
+Mark Challoner have at last confided the truth to his son, had a
+little more life, a little longer time, been accorded to him? This was
+the vain question which Miles asked himself as he sat moodily in the
+library after his solitary dinner, and watched the sun go down in a
+sea of gold and azure behind the grand old woods of Rowley Court, or
+strolled about the terrace listlessly, until the night fell. He could
+never answer it--no one could ever answer it; but this did not keep
+Miles Challoner from pondering upon it. He felt quite certain that
+there was but one man in the world who could resolve his doubts, who
+could tell him the worst,--might it not rather be the best--of this
+matter, which so sorely perplexed him. That man was Lord Sandilands.
+If anyone knew the truth, it was he; but whether Miles would ever hear
+it from him depended, as he felt, entirely on the terms on which the
+communication had been made, if it had been made at all, by his father
+to Lord Sandilands. That the family lawyer knew nothing of it, Miles
+felt confident; that Mr. Styles, the steward, was as ignorant and as
+curious, if not as anxious, as himself, he had no doubt whatever.
+There was no one to share, no one to aid, his mental inquietude. Was
+his brother living, or was he the only--the last--one bearing the old
+name left?
+
+Very shortly after Mark Challoner's funeral had taken place, his son
+had instituted the strictest possible search among the documents of
+all kinds which the house contained, for any letters or papers bearing
+upon the mysterious occurrences which had changed the aspect of
+affairs at Rowley Court while the old Squire's sons were yet boys, and
+had shut the younger out from his father's house into banishment and
+oblivion. This search, which Miles had conducted quite alone, and had
+been careful to keep from the knowledge of the servants, had been
+entirely unrewarded by success, and had only revealed to Miles a
+circumstance which still further deepened the mystery which tormented
+him, and increased its distressing effect. Not only did there not
+exist among the Squire's papers any memoranda, letters, or documents
+of any description bearing upon, or having any reference to, the
+period at which Geoffrey Challoner had left Rowley Court, but none
+existed in any way, directly or indirectly, relating to him. Not a
+scrap of his writing as a child, though Miles found his own little
+letters to his father and mother carefully treasured up, with the
+correct dates noted upon each packet; and his portrait, as a baby of
+three years old, hung over the mantelpiece of his father's bedroom.
+But there was no likeness of Geoffrey. By an effort of memory Miles
+recalled the taking of that little portrait; he remembered how he
+had sat upon his father's knee, and played with the heavy gold
+hunting-watch, which was his especial delight--it was ticking away
+still in a watch-stand in the library--while the artist did his work.
+He remembered how his hair had been additionally brushed and curled for
+the occasion; and--yes, now he distinctly remembered that Geoffrey's
+portrait had also been painted. Where was it? What had been done with
+it?
+
+All the circumstances returned to Miles Challoner's memory. The two
+pictures had hung side by side for years. Where was that of the
+younger son? The Squire had gone abroad for a short time, and the
+brothers had remained at Rowley Court under the care of their tutor.
+They had both written regularly to their father; and Miles found all
+his own letters of that period carefully preserved, arranged according
+to their dates, and indorsed, in his father's hand, "My Son's Letters,
+18-." But there was no scrap of Geoffrey's writing, there was no trace
+that he had ever lived, to be found within the walls of Rowley Court.
+Only when Miles went into the room which had been the brothers' study,
+only when he entered and looked round the long-unused apartments which
+had been their nursery and play-room, could he realise that there had
+been two in that stately old house eleven years ago. The room which
+had been his wife's had always been occupied by the Squire after her
+death; otherwise Miles would have hoped to find some little memento of
+his brother there,--there, where he could dimly remember--or was it
+fancy, and not memory?--- a gentle pale face turned wistfully towards
+him when, a very little child, he was brought to see the fading mother
+who had been early and mercifully taken away from the evil to come.
+From evil indeed, from terrible and irremediable evil Miles Challoner
+felt it must have been; else why the hopeless banishment, why the
+impenetrable silence, why the apparently complete oblivion? He brooded
+upon these things in the solitude to which the first few weeks of his
+proprietorship of Rowley Court were devoted, almost to the exclusion
+of every other subject of thought; and Mr. Styles found him singularly
+inattentive and indifferent to the details of his property and his
+squirearchical duties, as that experienced person laid them before
+him.
+
+"I can't make him out, and that's the truth," Mr. Styles remarked to
+Dr. Barford one day that the steward met the doctor taking his gig by
+a short cut through a lane which formed the boundary of Rowley Court
+on one side,--"I really can't make him out. He cares for nothing; and
+it is not natural for a young gentleman like him. I was talking to him
+this morning about the likely look of the turnips on the Lea Farm, and
+I'm blessed if he heard one word in ten; and when I asked him a
+question, just to rouse him up like, he said, 'O, ah! turnips, I think
+you said? Of course do as you think best;' which was altogether
+complete nonsense. Of course he's cut up about the Squire; and very
+natural and right it is he should be so; but it ain't natural and it
+ain't right to go on as he's going. And it's my belief," said Mr.
+Styles, as he removed his hat, took his checked pocket-handkerchief
+out of the crown, gave his face a desponding wipe with it, and
+replaced it,--"it's my belief as he don't know the difference between
+turnips and pine-apples; and there's a fine promise too, such as a man
+might look to getting some credit along of."
+
+"That's bad, Styles; that's bad," said Dr. Barford; "I don't like to
+hear that my old friend's son is taking to moping. I'll call up at the
+Court and see him to-morrow. Good-day, Styles;" and the Doctor drove
+on, thinking gravely of the changes he had seen at Rowley Court,
+though he knew as little of their origin as everybody else knew.
+
+On the following day, as Miles Challoner and the Doctor walked
+together upon the stone terrace, Miles stopped on the very spot
+whence his father had taken his last look at the lands which had
+called him master so long; and, looking full and earnestly at his
+companion, asked him: "Dr. Barford, do you know why my brother left
+his home? Do you know what that grief was which my father had on his
+mind while he lived, and when he died?"
+
+Dr. Barford hesitated for a moment before he replied to Miles
+Challoner's question, but his hesitation arose from surprise, not from
+uncertainty. There was not the least tone of doubt or reserve in his
+voice and manner as he answered: "No, Mr. Challoner, your question
+surprises me very much; but I can assure you most positively I know
+nothing of the matter."
+
+"Did my father never mention it to you? Never, even at the last, when
+he knew--for he told me so--he was dying?"
+
+"Never," said Dr. Barford; then he added, after a momentary pause, "he
+did say something to me, on the last occasion when I had any talk with
+him, which may have had some reference to your brother; but if it had
+any, it was only incidental, and quite unexplained. He said something
+about his sharing in the common lot--having a skeleton in the
+cupboard; but that was all. Nothing more explicit ever passed his lips
+to me."
+
+"Then, or at any time?" asked Miles.
+
+"Then, or at any time, Mr. Challoner," repeated Dr. Barford gravely;
+and the two fell into silence, which lasted for several minutes.
+
+At length Miles spoke:
+
+"You really advise me to leave Rowley Court?" he said.
+
+"Certainly I do; if not as a physician--in which capacity you do not
+require my services, happily--as a friend. You are not naturally of a
+very active temperament; and moping about here, in a place which is
+necessarily gloomy just now, and where you have no congenial
+occupation, will not improve you in that respect. Go up to town for
+the remainder of the season, and then go abroad for a few months; and
+you will find that you will come back wonderfully reconciled to being
+master of Rowley Court."
+
+"I like your advice," said Miles with unusual briskness of tone; "and
+I think I will take it; at least I will take it so far as going up to
+town is concerned. As for the rest--"
+
+"As for the rest, you can think of it when the time comes," said the
+Doctor. "And now I must bid you good-bye, and be off. I have to call
+at Dale and Stourton before I go home to dinner."
+
+As Dr. Barford drove down the wide smooth avenue, between the ranks of
+tall stately elms which bordered the well-kept road, he thought:
+"That's a fine young fellow, but of rather a gloomy turn of mind. I
+hope he may fall in love and marry up in London, and bring a new
+mistress to the Court."
+
+Miles walked up and down the terrace long after the Doctor had left
+him, and his face wore a brighter and more serene expression than it
+had been used to wear of late. He had remained at Rowley Court long
+enough; he knew how his affairs stood now; he had really nothing to
+keep him there. He could only learn what he most desired to know, if
+indeed it were possible to learn it at all, from Lord Sandilands, who
+was just then at his house in London. He would go and stay with Lord
+Sandilands. Having come to this decision, he turned into the house
+with a brisker step, and felt the evening which ensued the least
+dreary through which he had lived since the Squire died.
+
+Had Mark Challoner been of a less autocratic disposition it would have
+been very difficult, if not impossible, for him to have carried into
+execution the absolute taboo under which he had placed the subject of
+Geoffrey's disappearance. But the Squire had been a man of inexorable
+determination of character; and as he was not at all capricious, and
+exerted this resolution only when and where it was necessary, he had
+never met with rebellion on the part of his elder son. What the story
+of the younger had been, no one knew; no one had any certain
+indication by which to guess. The tutor to whom the education of the
+two boys had been intrusted was absent from Rowley Court when the
+separation intended by Mark Challoner, and destined by Providence, to
+be final, had taken place; and there was no reason to suppose that Mr.
+Mordaunt had ever received any information concerning his former pupil
+from the Squire. Had Miles Challoner been either older or younger at
+the time of the occurrence, he might have been unable to observe his
+father's peremptory command with the reluctant obedience he had
+manifested until the end, when his pent-up anxiety had found vent in
+his useless appeal to the dying Squire. But he had outlived the
+restless irrepressible curiosity of the child, and he had not reached
+the calm deliberative reasoning of the man. Now that the latter mode
+of thought had fully come to him, he suffered keenly, as only such
+sensitive natures have the gift to suffer, from his helpless ignorance
+of his brother's fate. The thought haunted him. As children, he and
+Geoffrey had loved each other well enough, after the childish fashion
+which includes any amount of quarrelling and making-up again; but as
+boys they had never got on very well together. They were essentially
+different, with the difference which makes discord, not with the
+contrast which produces harmony. Miles had always had an
+unacknowledged consciousness that Geoffrey cared very little about
+him, and this had had its influence upon the sensitive boy, an
+influence even stronger than that of the want of accord in the tastes
+and pursuits of the brothers. As Miles had advanced into manhood, he
+had come to understand all the appalling gravity of such a sentence as
+that which his father had passed upon his brother when he forbade the
+mention of his name in the house where he had been born and bred. With
+this comprehension came an intense yearning to know the meaning of the
+sentence,--to be enabled to estimate its justice; a kind of revolt on
+behalf of the banished brother, in which affection had less share than
+an abstract love of right, happily strong in the nature of the young
+man. And now there was no means of satisfying this yearning; the
+secret had to all appearance died with the Squire, but its
+consequences remained, to become an almost intolerable burden to Miles
+Challoner.
+
+Lord Sandilands received his young friend's letter with sincere
+pleasure. He liked Miles; he liked his ideas and "ways;" he liked his
+society The young man had a happy faculty for creating this kind of
+liking among his fellows. He was large-minded and unselfish, and so he
+did not neglect or trample upon the feelings of other people, or try
+their tempers much or often. He was not a brilliant person, and
+therefore could afford to be good-natured and unaffected; and though
+he possessed rather more than an average amount of information upon
+most subjects of general interest and importance, there were few men
+less inclined to display their knowledge than Miles Challoner. He was
+disposed to accord to everybody his or her fair share of conversation,
+and had an acquiescent uncritical way with him which made friends for
+him, particularly among women. Without being in the least deserving of
+that truly opprobrious epithet, a lady's man, Miles had strong
+partisans among "the conflicting gender;" and women who found him a
+very impracticable subject for flirtation were ready to acknowledge
+that his notions of friendship were peculiarly exalted and practical.
+People who knew him, but had never troubled themselves to think about
+him particularly, would nevertheless have answered promptly to any
+question respecting him, that he was a fine honourably-minded fellow,
+and rather clever than otherwise; and the few who knew him well would
+have said substantially the same thing in more numerous and perhaps
+stronger words. The truth is, it was about all that could be said of
+Miles Challoner at the important period of his life which witnessed
+his father's death and his own succession to the family property, with
+its penalties and privileges of squiredom. He had reached man's estate
+some years before; but there had been nothing in the course and manner
+of his life previously to develop his character strongly,--to bring
+its good or evil traits into prominence. It had been an even,
+prosperous, happy life, on which he had entered with all the
+advantages of high animal spirits and unblemished health. Whether he
+had in him the stuff which either defies or moulds destiny, the
+courage which is matured in suffering, the truth and steadfastness of
+character which are at once weapons and armour in the strife of human
+existence, it was for time to tell.
+
+Time did tell.
+
+"I'm uncommonly glad you have made up your mind to come to town,"
+wrote Lord Sandilands to Miles Challoner; "it is the best thing you
+can do; and so far from being disrespectful to your father's memory,
+it is your best way of avoiding what might even appear disrespectful
+to those who are no doubt watching you pretty closely. You have not a
+taste for the things the Squire (God bless him!) delighted in, and you
+cannot affect to have; because, in the first place, it is not in you
+to affect, and, in the second, you would certainly be  found out by
+Mr. Styles. (Ceres and Pomona! shall I ever forget a dialogue between
+your father and him about the best crop for the Bayhamsfields?) You
+will offend your new people much less by absence than by indifference,
+depend upon it. Then you can thoroughly depend on Styles; and you can
+always put agricultural enthusiasm on paper. So come up, my dear boy;
+and the sooner the better."
+
+Miles Challoner went to London, and very soon after he arrived there
+"time" began "to tell."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+Carabas House.
+
+
+Carabas House is in Beaumanoir-square, as most people know. Long
+before the smart stuccoed residences--with their plate-glass windows,
+their conservatoried balconies, their roomy porticoes--sprung up, like
+Aladdin's palaces, at the command of the great wizard-builder, Compo,
+who so recently died a baronet and a millionaire; when the ground on
+which Beaumanoir-square now stands was a dreary swamp, across which
+our great-grandmothers, in fear of their lives, were carried to
+Ranelagh, Carabas House stood, a big, rambling, red-bricked mansion,
+surrounded on all sides by a high wall, and looking something between
+a workhouse, a lunatic asylum, and a gaol. To the Marquis of Carabas
+of those days it mattered little what was the aspect of his ancestral
+home, as he, from the time of his succession, had resolutely declined
+to see it, or any other part of the domain whence his title and
+estates were derived, preferring to spend his life on the Continent of
+Europe, in the society of agreeable men and women, and in the
+acquisition of a splendid collection of pictures, statues, and other
+_objets d'art_, which at his lordship's lamented demise were sold in
+Paris at a world-famous sale extending over many days, the pecuniary
+result of which was hailed with the greatest satisfaction by his
+lordship's heir. For Mr. Purrington, his lordship's cousin, who
+succeeded to the title and estates, wanted money very badly indeed, he
+had been speculating for a very long time on the chances of his
+succession, and he had to pay very dearly for these speculations. He
+had contested his county in the Tory interest four separate times, at
+a cost known only to himself, his wife, and his head-agent. He had
+married the daughter of an Irish peer; a lovely woman full of talent,
+affectionate, loyal, energetic, and thoroughly understanding her
+position as--a county member's wife, but with a number of impecunious
+relations, all of whom looked for assistance to the heir to an English
+marquisate. He was a crack shot, and always paired about the 25th of
+July for the remainder of the session, having, according to his own
+account, the great luck of having one of the best Scotch moors "lent
+to him" for three weeks from the 12th. He was a capital judge of a
+horse, a keen rider to hounds, and the invariable occupant of a little
+box near Egerton Lodge, with a stud sufficient to see him "out" four
+days a week; but this, as he pathetically put it, was his "only
+expense." In the season, Lady Fanny had her Wednesday-evening
+receptions, when a perpetual stream of fashionables, political people,
+and the usual ruck of young men who are met everywhere, would filter
+from ten till one through her little drawing-rooms in Clarges-street;
+and her Saturday dinners of eight, which were very good and very
+enjoyable, and where pleasant people in various social circles met
+together without the dread of seeing their names announced in the
+fashionable journals. But all these things cost a great deal of money;
+and when Mr. Purrington became the Marquis of Carabas, he was very
+nearly at the end of his tether.
+
+The marquisate of Carabas, however, was by no means an empty title, a
+grand position lacking means to support its proper state, than which
+it is impossible to fancy anything more painful. During the late
+lord's lifetime the revenue had very far exceeded the expenditure, and
+the Parisian sale had left a very large balance at Coutts's; so that
+the new people entered upon their estate with great comfort, and were
+enabled to carry out their peculiarly extensive views of life without
+embarrassing themselves in the slightest degree. It was shortly after
+their accession that the big brick screen-wall was replaced by a light
+and elegant bronze railing; that the rambling red-bricked mansion was
+transformed into a modern stone house; that the Marchioness of Carabas
+took her position as a leader of _ton_, and in Carabas House, so long
+black and desolate and abandoned, chimneys smoked, and lights blazed,
+and music resounded, and the best people in London found themselves
+gathered together three times a week.
+
+The best people? The very best.
+
+It was the fashion in certain circles to talk of "the mixture" which
+you met at Carabas House; and the young Duchess of Taffington (whose
+father was old Bloomer the banker of Lombard-street, and whose
+grandfather was old Bloöm the money-lender and diamond-merchant of
+Amsterdam) and old Lady Clanronald, with whom her husband, then the
+Hon. Ulick Strabane, fell in love, from seeing her looking over the
+blind in her father's (the apothecary's) window in Drogheda,--both
+these great ladies shrugged their very different pairs of shoulders
+whenever the Marchioness's receptions were alluded to before them; but
+neither of these leaders of fashion could deny that princes of the
+blood, royal dukes, stars and garters, ambassadors, belles of the
+season, Foreign-Office clerks, and all the great creatures of the day,
+were blocked together, week after week, on the staircase at Carabas
+House; or that the Marchioness herself took _pas_ and precedence,
+according to her rank, and was one of the most distinguished and most
+highly-thought-of guests wherever she chose to go.
+
+"That's so!" as Jack Hawkes, of the F.O., would remark to his
+familiars; "neither the Duchess nor old Clanronald can get over that,
+and that's what makes them so wild; and as to the mixture they talk
+about, that's lions. She's in great form, don't you know, Lady Carabas
+is, and quite fit, but her weakness is lions; and I'm bound to say
+that you meet some people at Carabas House who are quite out of the
+hunt. If any fellow get's talked about, no matter what he is--writing
+fellow, painting fellow, fiddling fellow--I'll lay odds you'll find
+him there. There's what's his name--Burkinyoung: man who made a stir
+last year with his poems; they had him down there, sir, at their place
+on the river--Weir Lodge---and he used to sit on the lawn under the
+trees with Lady Carabas pouring eau-de-cologne on his head, and some
+of her lot--Maude Allingham, and Agnes Creswell, and that lot, don't
+you know--fanning him and keeping the flies off while he composed; no
+one was allowed to come near, for fear of disturbing him. Give you my
+honour, heard it first-hand from Chinny Middleton of the Blues, who
+pulled up from Windsor in his canoe, and was going to land, as usual,
+and got warned off, by George, as though he'd got the plague on
+board!"
+
+There was a good deal of truth in Mr. Hawkes's remarks, Lady Carabas
+being Mrs. Leo Hunter on a very superior scale. Her passion was that
+everyone distinguished not merely in her own rank in life but in every
+other should be seen in her rooms; and from her position and by her
+fascinating manner she generally managed to attain her object. The
+pilot of the state ship, at a period when opposition winds were
+howling loud and the political horizon was black with threatened
+storm, would find time to pass a few minutes at one of Lady Carabas's
+receptions, however haggard his looks, however burning his brain. The
+right honourable gentleman the leader of the Opposition, who for the
+last month had been gathering himself together for a tiger-like spring
+on the state pilot, might have been seen, on the night before he made
+his grand onslaught, jammed into a corner of the staircase at Carabas
+House, looking like the Sphinx in evening dress, and pleasantly
+bantering Mr. Mulvaney, the celebrated "special correspondent" of the
+_Statesman_. Anyone talked of in any way; the _belles_ of the season;
+pretty women, presentable of course, but quite out of the Carabas set;
+dawning lights in politics, no matter of what party; artists, young
+and old--of everyone whom you saw at Carabas House you would learn
+that they had done something special; indeed, Jack Hawkes, an
+invaluable _cicerone_, could talk for two hours on a grand night, and
+not get through his list-- "Who are all these strange people that one
+sees nowhere else? Well, everybody's somebody, and it's difficult to
+know where to begin. Let's see. That short, stout, common-looking man
+is Vireduc, the great engineer and contractor--builds bridges,
+railroads, and those kind of things, don't you know--horrible fellow,
+who's always telling you he came to London with eightpence in his
+pocket, and rose from nothing, as though one couldn't see that. Woman
+sitting this side the ottoman is Mrs. Goodchild; writes novels--pretty
+good, they say. I don't read; I haven't any time. Her husband's
+somewhere about; but he's nobody--only asked because of his wife. The
+little man talking to her is Bistry the surgeon--have your leg off
+before you can say 'knife;' and the brown-faced man, who looks so
+bored, is Sir Alan Tulwar, Indian-army man, made K.C.B. for something
+he did out there--Punjaub, don't you know? The little man with the big
+head is Polaski the flute-player; and the fat man with the red face is
+Ethelred Jinks, the Queen's Counsel. That pretty little fair girl is
+Miss Wren, who shot the burglar down in Hampshire three years ago; and
+the little boy in black, as you call him, is Jules Brissot, the Red
+Republican, who was blown off a barricade on the 4th of December, and
+settled down here as a--what do you call it--tutor."
+
+This will suffice as a specimen of Mr. Hawkes's conversation, which,
+on such occasions, had the singular merit of having a substratum of
+truth.
+
+But though lions of all kinds were to be found roaring during the
+season at Carabas House, none were so welcome as the musical lions,
+both native and foreign. In her younger days, Lady Carabas had had a
+pretty little voice herself, and even in Clarges-street she had always
+managed to secure some of the best professional talent at a very much
+less expense than any of her friends; and when once Lord Carabas had
+succeeded, "musical mossoo," as Jack Hawkes was accustomed to call all
+foreigners who played or sung professionally, had his headquarters in
+Beaumanoir-square. Heinrich Katzenjammer, who, being a native of
+Emmerich on the Lower Rhine, thought proper to advertise in the
+English newspapers in the French language, had not been "de retour"
+many hours before his limp glazed card was on the hall-table at
+Carabas House. Baton, the _chef d'orchestre_, would as soon have
+thought of being absent from his conductor's stool on a Saturday night
+as from Lady Carabas's luncheon-table on a Sunday afternoon. There the
+most promising pupils of the Academy of Music made their _débuts_ in
+cantatas or operettas, written by distinguished amateurs, and thereby
+considered themselves entitled ever after to describe themselves as
+"of the nobility's concerts;" and there, on festival nights, could you
+check off the principal singers and players whom London delighted to
+honour, with the amateurs, the _dilettanti_, and the _cognoscenti_,
+who always follow in their wake.
+
+It was a soft bright night in early summer, and Beaumanoir-square was
+filled with flashing lamps and whirling carriages, and stamping
+horses, and excited drivers, and roaring linkmen. It was a grand night
+at Carabas House, and all London was expected there. The police had
+enough to do to make the vehicles keep in line; and when some of the
+royal carriages familiarly used the royal privilege and dashed through
+here and cut in there, the confusion increased a thousandfold; and it
+was with the greatest difficulty that the crowd surging round the door
+were thrust back right and left to allow the visitors to enter, or
+were prevented from casting themselves under the wheels of the
+carriages as they drew up, with the recklessness of Juggernaut
+victims. Halfway down the line was a perfectly appointed brougham, in
+which sat Miles Challoner and the friend with whom he was staying.
+Lord Sandilands was in every respect a remarkable-looking man;
+tall and upright, with a polished bald head slightly fringed with
+snow-white soft hair; thin clean-cut features; gray eyes, from which
+most of the fire had faded; and small carefully-trimmed gray whiskers.
+His appearance and manners were those of a past age; now in his
+evening dress he wore a high stiff white-muslin cravat, an elaborately
+got-up cambric shirt-frill, a blue coat with brass buttons, white
+waistcoat, black trousers fitting tightly round the ankles, silk
+stockings and shoes. His voice was particularly soft and clear, as,
+replying to some remark of his companion, he said: "No, indeed; I
+think both you and I are perfectly right; you in consenting to come, I
+in having persuaded you; besides, I should have scarcely dared to
+present myself to Lady Carabas without you. Her ladyship's dictum is
+that you require rousing, and to-night is to be the first experiment
+in rousing you."
+
+"Her ladyship is very kind to interest herself in me," said Miles. "I
+have no claim upon her thoughts."
+
+"My dear fellow," said Lord Sandilands, "you will very soon see that
+Lady Carabas interests herself about everybody and everything. That is
+her _métier_. She will talk to the Bishop of Boscastle about the
+Additional Curates' Fund, and to Sir Charles Chifney about his chance
+for the Leger. She knows what price Scumble got for his Academy
+picture; and can tell you the plot of Spofforth's five-act play, which
+is as yet unwritten. She could tell you what the Duke of Brentford
+said to Tom Forbes, who arrived late on escort-duty at the last
+Drawing-room--she couldn't quote the Duke's exact words, which were
+full-flavoured; and could give you the heads of the charge which Judge
+Minos will deliver on the great libel case; and with all that she
+dresses as well as Lady Capisbury herself, and bears the whole weight
+of that household on her own shoulders. There's no estate in Britain
+better managed than Carabas, and her ladyship is her own agent,
+steward, bailiff,--everything."
+
+"She must be a wonderful woman."
+
+"Wonderful! there's nothing like her! Lord Carabas thinks of nothing
+but shooting and fishing. Her eldest son, the Earl of Booterstown, is
+a religious monomaniac; and her youngest, Lord Grey de Malkin, is one
+of your political new lights, lecturing at mechanics' institutes, and
+making speeches to working-men. You know the kind of fellow. Now, here
+we are!--Tell Fisher to wait, James,"--to the footman,--"we sha'n't
+stay very long."
+
+The hall was filled with people, all of whom the old gentleman seemed
+to know, and greeted with somewhat stately courtesy. "A regular
+Carabas crush," whispered he to Miles, as they commenced the ascent of
+the staircase. "Everybody here! The Lord Chancellor next to you, and
+the Bishop of Boscastle coming down the stairs. He has evidently dined
+here, sweet old thing; and is going away before the worldly music
+begins.--How do you do, my lord? I trust Mrs. Shum is well--Deuced
+fine woman, by the way, is Mrs. Shum, my dear Miles.--Ha, Ellenbogen!
+you in London, and I've not seen you? Only arrived last night, eh?
+Come to me to-morrow, eh? _Au revoir!_--That is the famous German
+violinist; nothing like his touch in the world--so crisp, so perfectly
+sympathetic. There's Lady Carabas at her post, of course. Brave woman,
+breasting this surging ocean of visitors. Gad, how glad she must be
+when it's all over!"
+
+Following his friend's glance, Miles looked up and saw Lady Carabas
+stationed at the head of the staircase. A tall handsome woman of
+fifty, with all the look and bearing of a _grande dame_, a little
+softened by the frank geniality of her manner. She received Miles
+Challoner, on his presentation to her, with something more than mere
+graciousness--with cordiality; then, turning to Lord Sandilands, said,
+"She's here."
+
+"Is she, indeed?" said the old gentleman with equal earnestness.
+
+"Yes, and in excellent spirits: I have not the least doubt of her
+success."
+
+"That is delightful;" and they passed on. When they had gone a few
+steps, Miles asked his friend who was the lady of whom he and Lady
+Carabas were speaking.
+
+"My dear fellow," said Lord Sandilands with a little chuckle, "I
+haven't the remotest notion. Dear Lady Carabas is always giving one
+half-confidences about people she's interested in, and 'pon my life
+I'm too old to open my heart indiscriminately, and make myself
+partaker of the joys and sorrows of half the world. So, as she's a
+dear good creature, and I would not offend her for the world, I nod my
+head, and grin, and pretend I know all about it; and I find that
+answers very well."
+
+Miles laughed at the old gentleman's evident satisfaction, and they
+entered the rooms. A large movable platform, so slightly raised as to
+give the performers sufficient altitude above the spectators without
+disconcerting them by any pretensions to a stage, occupied one end
+of the spacious apartment, a recent erection built specially for
+concert-giving purposes, and with all the latest acoustic
+improvements. Opposite the platform, bristling with seats for the
+instrumentalists, stood the conductor's desk. To the right of this
+were a few benches for the most distinguished guests, and behind it
+were the seats for the general company. All the seats were unoccupied
+at present, and the company were grouped together about the room,
+chatting freely. It was early in the season at present; and that
+frightful lack of conversation which necessarily falls on people who
+have naturally very little to say, and who, having seen each other
+every night for three months, have exhausted that little, had not as
+yet made itself felt. Miles Challoner, as he looked round on the
+beautiful women so exquisitely dressed, the brightly-lighted room, the
+inexpressible air of luxury and elegance which pervaded the entire
+scene, as he thought that for the future he might, if he so chose,
+have similar pleasant resorts at his command, felt the oppressive
+thoughts, the dull, dead level of world-weariness and vapidity,
+gradually slipping from him. His eyes brightened, he looked round him
+eagerly, and his whole demeanour was so fresh and spirited and
+youthful as to seriously annoy several _blasé_ young men of two or
+three-and-twenty, who had long since used up all signs of youth, and
+who inquired of each other who was the rustic, gushing person that old
+Sandilands had brought with him.
+
+Lord Sandilands had himself noticed the change in his friend's manner,
+and was about to rally him on it, when the musicians came trooping
+into the room and took their places. Sir Purcell Arne, the well-known
+amateur composer, who was to conduct, rapped the desk in front of him;
+the foreign professionals who had settled themselves modestly in the
+back rows, uttered profound sounds of "Hsh--sh!" and the company
+generally seated themselves. Lord Sandilands and Miles were proceeding
+with the rest, when the former saw himself beckoned by Lady Carabas to
+the place of distinction by her side, and he took his young friend
+with him.
+
+The ouverture ought to have been very well played, for it was very
+much applauded at its conclusion, though, as Jack Hawkes remarked to
+the young lady sitting next to him, that might possibly have been
+because they were so glad it was over. It is certain that during the
+performance several of the more excitable foreigners ground their
+teeth, and covered their ears with their hands, while at its close Sir
+Purcell Arne addressed two recreant members of the orchestra--the
+second cornet and the first clarinet, being respectively a young
+gentleman in the Coldstreams, and an old gentleman in the India
+Office--in terms of the strongest opprobrium. Sir Purcell's
+good-temper was restored after his son, a favourite pupil of
+Ellenbogen's, had played a solo on the violin; and during the applause
+consequent thereon, he crossed over to Lady Carabas's seat, and
+whispered, "She's quite ready; shall I bring her in?" Lady Carabas,
+too much excited to speak, gave him an affirmative nod; and the
+enthusiasm had scarcely subsided, to be renewed with tenfold force as
+Sir Purcell returned leading by the hand a young lady, whom, with one
+of his best bows, he left facing the audience while he went back to
+his conductor's desk.
+
+The young lady stood perfectly unmoved by the storm of applause which
+hailed her arrival, the only sign of emotion which she betrayed being
+a slight contraction of her thin decisive lips; and this was only
+momentary. She was a decidedly pretty girl, Miles thought; with rich
+brown eyes, and well-formed features, and slight though rounded
+figure. In her dark chestnut hair, which was banded close round her
+head, and gathered into a large knot behind, she wore one white rose,
+and another in the front of her plain white-silk dress. Other ornament
+had she none, save a gold locket with a horseshoe in turquoises on
+her neck, and a bracelet, a band of plain gold, on one arm. Who was
+this handsome and distinguished-looking girl who was received with so
+much _empressement?_ Miles Challoner took up a perfumed programme that
+lay beside him, and read her name--Miss Grace Lambert.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+Breaking Cover.
+
+
+Miss Grace Lambert! Who was she? The programme, of course, told
+nothing but her name, and when Miles Challoner turned to his companion
+for the purpose of inquiring further, he saw that his brows were knit,
+and his lips tightly clenched. Miles looked at Lord Sandilands in
+surprise, but forbore to question him. It was evident that the people
+in his immediate vicinity were equally unable to assuage his
+curiosity, as they were all talking and chattering together, and
+throwing glances towards the occupant of the platform, who stood
+totally unmoved. Then Sir Purcell Arne, looking round with a
+half-anxious, half-triumphant air, gave the customary three taps on
+his desk, and with a wave of his baton led the orchestra into the
+prelude. It was a simple English air--very simple--with a pathetic
+_refrain_, and out from the harmonious _ensemble_ of the musicians
+came a soft sweet bird-like voice, beginning mellowly and low, then
+rising into a clear pure treble, a volume of lark-like utterance, a
+continuous ripple of sound, such as is seldom heard in human voice.
+Few notes had been uttered before their effect became visible on the
+whole assemblage--amongst the foreigners first; on the back benches,
+where were gathered the hirsute professionals honoured with the
+_entrée_ to Lady Carabas' concerts, there was an immediate movement, a
+simultaneous pricking of ears and elevation of eyebrows, culminating
+into a general impossible-to-be-suppressed "A--h!" of intense delight.
+Then the enthusiasm spread. Impressible young girls with the
+_nil-admirari_ breeding scarcely yet habitual to them, looked timidly
+towards their chaperones, as though pleading, "For Heaven's sake, let
+us for one moment be natural, and give vent to the delight with which
+this girl has inspired us." Said chaperones, with some faint
+reminiscence of nature unbusked and unsteeled by conventionality,
+sought relief in faintly tapping their kidded palms with their fans.
+Old boys, dragged away from after-dinner maps, or cosy house-dinners
+at the clubs, to do family duty, and expecting nothing but driest
+musical classicalities, expressed their gratitude in strident
+"bravas." Even the gilded youth of the period, surprised out of its
+usual inanity into a feeble semblance of life and earnestness,
+condescended to express its opinion of the singer, that she was not
+"half bad, don't you know?" And its component members inquired of each
+other, "who the devil is she?" On Lady Carabas' handsome face the
+hard-set look of anxiety had softened into the blandest smile of
+triumph; old Sir Purcell Arne's blond moustache bristled with delight;
+and at the conclusion of the ballad, when the singer, rising to the
+occasion, had sent a flood of melody surging through the room, now
+dying away in softest trills and most harmonious cadences, the
+enthusiasm could no longer be restrained, and amidst sonorous applause
+breaking forth from every side, the amateur instrumentalists leading
+the van, and Lady Carabas herself, regardless of appearances or of the
+value of three-buttoned gloves, clapping her hands with the ardour of
+the most zealous member of a professional _claque_,--Miss Grace
+Lambert, perfectly composed, and with the slightest bow in recognition
+of her triumph, laid her fingers daintily on Sir Purcell Arne's
+tremblingly-proffered arm, and disappeared from public view. Ten
+minutes' interval now, much needed. Impossible, after such a display,
+to keep the coterie quiet, and it breaks up at once into twenty little
+knots, all with the same refrain of praise, differently expressed:
+"_Das ist aber'was Schönes!" "Tiens, tiens, Jules! v'là donc un
+rossignol charmant!_" "That's what I call good singing, for an
+Englishwoman, that is, Veluti! _Capisco, signor!_" "Tell you what it
+is, old fella; since poor Bosio, you know, never heard anything like
+that, don't you know?" "It's A1, don't you know?" Frank testimonies
+these, from the male sex; chiming in with "Dearest Lady Carabas, O,
+how I congratulate you! Where did you find such a treasure? Charmin',
+quite charmin'; so ladylike, and all that kind of thing. Quite a
+nice-looking person, too!" from the female portion of the audience.
+
+She had vanished, and Miles Challoner remained mute and dazed. Of
+beauty he had always had a keen appreciation--that is, beauty as he
+understood it--showing itself in tolerable regularity of feature, in
+grace and aristocratic _tournure_. Red-and-white women, were they
+duchesses or dairymaids--and it must be owned that when Nature alone
+is depended upon they are generally the latter--found no favour in
+Miles's eyes. He used to say he liked a "bred"-looking woman; and here
+was one who, so far as appearance went, might have been a Plantagenet.
+And her voice--good Heavens!--was there ever heard anything so
+completely enthralling! The blood yet danced in his veins with the
+delight excited when that low tremulous utterance, gradually rising
+into trills of lark-like melody, first stole upon his ear. No wonder
+that all in the room were talking loudly in her praise. All? No. Rapt
+in his own delight, Miles had forgotten to speak to Lord Sandilands,
+to whom he partly owed the pleasure he had just experienced, and he
+turned to repair his neglect.
+
+Lord Sandilands was sitting "quiet as a stone." He had recovered his
+gloves, and his long shapely white hands were tightly clasped together
+on his knee. Despite the tight clasp, the hands twitched nervously,
+and on the old man's well-cut features Miles noticed a worn pinched
+look, such as he had never before observed. Lord Sandilands' eyes,
+too, were downcast, and he did not raise them even when Miles
+addressed him.
+
+"Was there ever anything so charming as that young lady?"
+
+"She has a very sweet voice."
+
+"Sweet! it is perfectly entrancing! I had no idea such sounds could be
+produced by human throat; and then her appearance so thoroughly
+ladylike, and such an exquisite profile! Why, even you, who go in so
+strictly for the classical, must have been satisfied with the
+profile!"
+
+"I scarcely observed her."
+
+"Scarcely observed her! Why, my dear old friend, that is very unlike
+your usual habit when a pretty woman is in question, unless, indeed,
+you were so enthralled by her voice that you cared for nothing else."
+
+"Ye-es; that was it, I suppose--I--"
+
+The conversation was interrupted by the return of the other guests,
+who, summoned by Sir Purcell Arne's preliminary taps, came back to
+their seats to hear the rest of the concert. All rustle and talk and
+chatter still. "Never was anything like it. I'm sure I can't tell
+where you pick up these wonderful people, dear Lady Carabas. And what
+comes next, dear Lady Carabas? O, now we're to have Mr. Wisk's
+operetta--for the first time; never was played anywhere before. You
+know Ferdinand Wisk? clever creature! there he is, comin' to conduct
+it himself. Sh-h!"
+
+That clever creature, Mr. Ferdinand Wisk, who was supposed to be a
+scion of the aristocracy, but whose real mission in life seemed to be
+to devote himself to the affairs, public and private, of every member
+of the musical world, English or foreign, advanced rapidly through the
+room, and took the baton which Sir Purcell handed to him amidst
+general applause. Mr. Wisk's operetta needs but little mention here;
+it was bright and sparkling, and would have been more original if the
+overture had not been cribbed from Auber, and the concerted pieces
+from Offenbach; but as it was, it did remarkably well, affording
+opportunities for two young ladies and two young gentlemen to sing
+very much out of tune; for the funny man of the company to convulse
+the audience with his drolleries; and for the audience generally to
+repay themselves for their silence during Miss Grace Lambert's ballad,
+by chatting without stint. Perhaps the only two persons in the room
+who did not avail themselves of this opportunity were Lord Sandilands
+and Miles Challoner. The former, having glanced at the programme, and
+noticed that Miss Lambert's name did not appear again therein, made a
+half-muttered apology to Lady Carabas about the "heat," and left the
+room very shortly after the commencement of Mr. Wisk's performance;
+while the latter could not shake off the spell which held him, and
+which, during all the comic gentleman's funniments and all the others'
+bad singing, gave but Grace Lambert's voice to his ears, her face and
+figure to his eyes.
+
+To supper now, foreigners first,--making great running and leaving
+everyone else far behind; leaping on to edibles and dashing at
+potables with such vigour as to cause one to think they had not dined,
+as indeed many of them had not. And now, more congratulation amongst
+visitors, more "Did you evers?" a perfect whirlwind of "Don't you
+knows?" and "only to think of dear Lady Carabas being so fortunate,
+and such a wonderful acquisition even to _her_ set!" Ferdinand Wisk, a
+little depressed at being thrown into the background by the superior
+attractions of Miss Lambert; and the funny man of the company feeling
+himself not sufficiently appreciated, and thirsting for Miss Lambert's
+blood--both, however, consoled by old Piccolo, the fashionable
+music-master, who is popularly supposed to have been allied with Auber
+and Offenbach in writing Mr. Wisk's operetta, and who tells them that
+Miss Lambert's triumph is a mere _succès d'estime_, and that she will
+"go out like that--pouf!" Piccolo snapping his fingers and blowing out
+an imaginary candle in explanation. Foreigners having been fed, and a
+proper quantity of champagne and seltzer-water having been duly drunk,
+it enters into the minds of some of the younger guests that dancing
+would be a pleasant pastime for the remainder of the night, such
+exercise being sometimes permitted at the concerts, when Lady Carabas
+is in specially good temper, which is the case to-night apparently,
+for servants are instructed to clear the concert-room, a band is
+improvised, and the floor is soon covered with whirling couples.
+
+On these dancers Miles Challoner stood gazing with an abstracted air.
+At the conclusion of the concert he had moved with the rest, and on
+passing Lady Carabas had addressed to her a few words of compliment on
+the success of her evening; words which, although Miles did not remark
+it, were pleasantly received, for though Lady Carabas had come to that
+time of life when she was called an "old thing" by very young ladies,
+the epithet having "dear" or "horrid," according to the speaker's
+tastes, attached to it, she still delighted in the admiration of men
+if they were clever or handsome, and purred under their praises with
+ineffable satisfaction. Whether Miles Challoner was clever, Lady
+Carabas had yet to learn; but she knew that he was undeniably
+handsome, and that he was a credit to her evening. Many other people
+in the rooms had thought so too; and though strange faces were more
+frequently seen at Carabas House than in any other frequented by the
+same set, Miles's tall figure and frank face had excited a certain
+amount of languid curiosity, and the "new importation," as he was
+called by people who had been twice to the house, made a very
+favourable first impression.
+
+He was not the least conscious of it, though, nor, had he been, would
+he have particularly cared. When Lord Sandilands' brougham drew up
+under the portico of Carabas House, when Miles, after climbing up the
+staircase,--a unit in the throng of pretty women and distinguished
+men,-was presented to Lady Carabas, the young man felt that he was
+entering on a new and entrancing sphere of life, in which he was
+henceforth to move; and his thoughts, in the little time he allowed
+himself for thinking, were of a roseate hue. He had sufficient money
+to live easily with those people amongst whom Lord Sandilands'
+introduction would give him position, and place him at his ease.
+Emerging from the dull country-squire life to which he at first had
+imagined himself relegated, he should now mix on excellent footing
+with that society which he had always thought of with envy, but never
+thoroughly comprehended. In a word, when Sir Purcell Arne left the
+room for the purpose of fetching the new singer, there was not in
+England, perhaps, at that moment, a more thoroughly happy young man
+than Miles Challoner. But ever since Grace Lambert's voice had fallen
+on his ear, he had been a different man. As he listened to her, as he
+gazed upon her handsome face and elegant figure, he sat enthralled,
+spell-bound by her charm. And when she had gone, her voice remained
+ringing in his ears, her face and figure remained before his eyes,
+while a total change--to him entirely unaccountable--had come over his
+thoughts. What had sent his mind wandering back to the early days of
+his childhood? What had suddenly brought to his recollection his
+brother Geoffrey as he last saw him, a bright, bold, daring boy,
+persistent in carrying through whatever might be uppermost in his
+mind, and undeterred by fear of his tutor, or even of his stern
+father? He had just decided with delight upon the course of life which
+he would pursue in future; but now he wondered whether he had decided
+rightly, Ought he not, in his position as head of the Challoner
+family, to live down at the old place, as all his forefathers, save
+his uncle Howard, who was universally hated, had done? Was it not his
+bounden duty to be there, ready, when called upon, to give advice and
+assistance to his tenantry and poorer neighbours? And that thought of
+Geoffrey! Ought he not, even in spite of all his father had said, to
+have taken some steps to trace his brother's career from the time of
+his leaving home, at all events to endeavour to ascertain the reason
+of the fatal sentence of banishment which had been pronounced against
+him? Ought he not--and then he found himself wondering what connection
+Miss Grace Lambert's voice and face had with these thoughts, and then
+he roused himself from the reverie into which he had fallen, and
+things material took their proper shapes and forms to his eyes: he
+returned from the dim past to the bright present--from the play-room
+at Rowley Court to the ball-room of Carabas House.
+
+It was getting rather late now for the outer world and common people
+in general, but not for Carabas House, where the meaning of the word
+was unknown. The great hall-porter in his younger and slimmer days
+must have served his apprenticeship as boots at a railway hotel, the
+only position in which he could have acquired his faculty of
+sleeplessness. Men constantly spent what they were pleased to call the
+early part of the evening at Carabas House, went on to other balls
+which they "saw out," and returned, certain to find "someone left."
+The latest lounger at Pratt's, the most devoted attendant at the
+Raleigh, knew that during the season he should always be able to get
+his glass of sherry and seltzer in Beaumanoir-square, no matter what
+time of night it might be. The linkman, whose light had long since
+paled its ineffectual fire and gone out, seldom left before the
+milkman arrived, and the pair interchanged confidence about the house
+and its owners, as is the custom of such people.
+
+The dancing was not quite so animated as when Miles had last looked at
+it. Careful men who called themselves seven-and-twenty, and who were
+really five-and-thirty, mindful of all the outing they had before them
+during the season, had gone home to bed. Those who remained were very
+young men, and very determined girls, whose wearing _chaperones_ sat
+blinking round the room, or solaced themselves with stabbing each
+other, and tearing to pieces the reputation of their common friends,
+on the landing. But Lady Carabas was not with these; she was standing
+at the far end of the room, surrounded by half-a-dozen men, with whom
+she was holding an animated conversation. One of them, to whom she
+appeared to pay particular attention, had his back turned to Miles,
+but seemed to be young and of a slight wiry figure. Miles noticed this
+man specially, partly from the evident enjoyment which Lady Carabas
+took in his conversation, and partly from a peculiarity in his
+appearance, so far as it could be gathered from a back-view, in the
+horsey cut of his clothes, and the slang attitude, rounded shoulders,
+and hands plunged deep into his trousers-pockets, in which he stood
+conversing with his hostess. Miles had not noticed this gentleman
+before, and was wondering who he was, when a valsing couple, looking
+tired and out of breath, stopped immediately in front of him.
+
+"That was a grand spin," said the gentleman; "the room's splendid just
+now. Got rid of all those awful people who can't dance a bit, don't
+you know? and do nothing but get in your way. You're in great feather
+to-night, Miss Grenville."
+
+"Thanks very much," said the young lady, "a compliment from you is
+quite the most charming thing possible; perhaps because it's so rare,
+Mr. Ashleigh."
+
+"'Gad, I don't know!" replied the gentleman, who was two-and-twenty
+years of age, and who might have been two-and-sixty for calm
+self-possession and _savoir faire_, "I'm rather a good hand at saying
+nice things, I think."
+
+"When you don't mean them, perhaps?"
+
+"No, no. Now you're down upon me too sharp, Miss Grenville; 'pon my
+word you are; and I can never say anything, nice or not nice, at this
+time of night. Let's finish the _valse_."
+
+"I'm afraid I must not stay any longer, Mr. Ashleigh! Really, it's
+quite too cruel to poor mamma; and we've two dances to-morrow night
+that we must go to. Besides, Lady Carabas is dying to get rid of us."
+
+"Don't look as if she was, does she, Miss Grenville? Laughing away;
+look at her. Wonderful woman, Lady Carabas!"
+
+"Who is the gentleman she is talking to?"
+"That? O, that's a man that's everywhere about."
+
+"I'm as wise as I was before. What is his name? where does he come
+from?"
+
+"His name! 'pon my word, Miss Grenville, I forget. I'll go and ask
+him, if you like. Ah, I know he's a great friend of Ticehurst's. You
+know Ticehurst?"
+
+"I have met Lord Ticehurst."
+
+"Met him! O ah, yes; always know what ladies mean when they say
+they've 'met' anybody; mean they hate 'em. Well, if you don't like
+Ticehurst, I don't think you'd like that man; they're very much alike,
+specially Pompey, don't you know? Bad egg, and that kind of thing."
+
+"You are enigmatic, but sufficiently expressive, Mr. Ashleigh. I think
+I comprehend you, at least. But if he is that kind of person, why is
+he admitted here?"
+
+"Dear Miss Grenville, it's exactly because he is that kind of person
+that they're glad to see him here. He's somebody in his line, don't
+you know; though it's a bad line. His name, which I forget, is always
+mentioned in _Bell_ and the sporting-papers, and that kind of thing;
+and he's a--what do you call it--notoriety on the turf. By Jove! Coote
+is just going to make those fellows leave off. Do let's finish the
+_valse_."
+
+The couple whirled away to the last bars of the music; and Miles, who
+had perforce overheard this conversation, glanced across the room at
+the subject of it, who was still standing with his face averted,
+talking to Lady Carabas. "A pleasant man that, if all my dancing
+friend said of him is true," said Miles to himself. "I wonder what
+Lord Sandilands would think of him? Pshaw! he'd take it like a man of
+the world; and--eh? there is the old gentleman, making his way over
+here; where can he have been all the evening?"
+
+Whatever doubts Miles Challoner may have felt as to the line of
+conduct which Lord Sandilands would adopt towards the gentleman on
+whom Miles had bestowed so much observation, they were destined to be
+speedily set at rest. As Lord Sandilands passed the group at the other
+end of the room, Lady Carabas beckoned to him; and by the way in which
+he and the unknown bowed to each other, Miles easily divined that the
+ceremony of introduction had taken place. With a half-smile at the
+incongruity just perpetrated, Miles was making his way across the
+room, when a servant came up to him and said: "I beg your pardon, sir,
+are you Mr. Lloyd?" Miles had scarcely time to reply in the negative,
+when the groom of the chambers, a very solemn-looking personage, who
+was passing at the moment, and who heard the inquiry, said, "That is
+Mr. Lloyd talking to her ladyship, James. What is wanted?"
+
+"Only Lord Ticehurst, sir, told me to tell Mr. Lloyd he couldn't wait
+any longer;" and the man proceeded on his mission. Meanwhile Lady
+Carabas' quick eye had spied Miles approaching, and she advanced to
+meet him. "Mr. Challoner," said she, with a gracious smile, "I'm
+afraid you've had a horribly dull evening; been dreadfully bored, and
+all that kind of thing. O, don't deny it; I'm sure of it. But the fact
+is I thought Lord Sandilands would tell you who people were, and
+introduce you, and all that; and now I find he has been poked away in
+the library all night, looking at some horrid old political
+caricatures. Ridiculous of him, I tell him, to strain his eyes over
+such nonsense. He looks quite pale and worn. You must come and help me
+to scold him. By the way, I must introduce you to a very charming
+friend of mine, who fortunately is still here.--Mr. Lloyd," touching
+him--with her fan, "let me introduce Mr. Challoner."
+
+The young man addressed wheeled round when he felt the touch on his
+arm, and before the last words were uttered he confronted Miles
+Challoner as Lady Carabas pronounced the name; and at that instant the
+light died out of his small and sunken blue eyes, his cheeks became
+colourless, and his thin lips closed tightly under his long fair
+moustache. Simultaneously a bright scarlet flush overspread Miles
+Challoner's face. Both then bowed slightly, but neither spoke; and
+immediately afterwards Miles turned sharply on his heel, and wishing
+Lady Carabas a formal "good-night," hurried from the room.
+
+"My dear boy," said Lord Sandilands--they were in the brougham going
+home--"you must pardon my saying that your treatment of Mr.--Mr. Lloyd
+was _brusque_ to a degree. Supposing him even to be a highly
+objectionable person, the fact that you were introduced to him by Lady
+Carabas should have assured him a--well, a more gracious reception, to
+say the least of it. You--why, what the deuce is the matter, Miles?
+you're dead-white, and your hand shakes?"
+
+"Nothing, dear old friend. I shall be all right again directly. That
+man--was I rude to him? I scarcely knew what I said or did. That man
+is one whom it was my father's most urgent wish I should never meet or
+know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+Memory-haunted.
+
+
+Had Lord Sandilands been less preoccupied by certain thoughts, and
+less disturbed by certain associations and recollections, suddenly
+aroused by the incidents which had just taken place, and of a painful
+and distracting kind, he would have been more strongly moved by Miles
+Challoner's abrupt and extraordinary communication. But the old
+nobleman's mood just then was a strange one; and the scene which had
+passed before his eyes, the words which his young friend had spoken,
+affected him but slightly and vaguely. There had been some
+unpleasantness for Miles in the meeting with that clever-looking
+fellow, Lloyd; and he was sorry for it. That was all. Old Mark has
+desired Miles to avoid this man, had he? The Squire had been very odd
+latterly, and had taken strong dislikes, and entertained strong
+prejudices all his life, but especially since that bad business about
+his son; and in the midst of his personal preoccupation and
+abstraction, Lord Sandilands had time for a shudder at the thought of
+his old friend's great grief, and a sort of pang of thankfulness that
+it had come to an end, even though a life he valued dearly was
+finished with it. But his mind was full of his own concerns, and
+before he had reached the seclusion of his own particular sanctum--a
+small room within the library--he had almost forgotten the occurrence.
+
+Lord Sandilands sighed heavily as he sat down in a deep leather chair
+by the window, which opened into a small verandah, with trellised
+walls well clothed with creeping plants, and tiled with cool
+quaint-patterned porcelain. A light iron staircase led thence to the
+garden, which, though unavoidably towny, was cool, pretty, and
+well-cared for. The summer air passed lightly over the flowers, and
+carried their fresh morning breath to the old man. But he did not meet
+its perfume gladly; it had no soothing, no refreshing influence for
+him. He moved uneasily, as though some painful association had come to
+him with the scented breeze; then rose impatiently, and shut the
+window down, and paced the room from end to end. "A wonderful
+likeness," he muttered; "quite too close for accident. There is more
+expression, more power in the face, but just the same beauty. Yes, it
+must be so; but why have I not been told?"--He stopped before a table,
+and tapped it with his fingers. "And yet, why should I have been told?
+I made the conditions, I defined the rules myself; and why should I
+wonder that they have not been broken? What beauty and what talent!
+Who would have thought it of poor Gerty's child!--for her child and
+mine, Grace Lambert is, I am certain. What a strange sudden shock it
+was to me! I wonder if anyone perceived it--thought I was ill,
+perhaps. The room was hot and overcrowded, as usual; and Lady Carabas
+cackled more unbearably than ever; still, I hope I did not make a fool
+of myself; I hope I did not look upset."
+
+Thus, Lord Saudi lands, true to the ruling principles of his order and
+his age, was disturbed in the midst of greater and deeper disturbance,
+and even diverted from his thoughts of it, by the dread so touchingly
+proper to every British mind, that he had been betrayed into emotion,
+into any departure from the unruffled and impassive calm which British
+society demands.
+
+At this stage of his soliloquy Lord Sandilands looked at himself in
+the chimney-glass, passed his aristocratically slender fingers through
+his aristocratically fine silver hair, and assured himself that his
+outward man had not suffered from the internal perturbation and
+surprise which he had experienced. This critical examination
+concluded, he resumed his walk and his soliloquy, which we need not
+follow in form. Its matter was as follows:
+
+In Grace Lambert, Lord Sandilands had recognised so strong a likeness
+to the mother of the little girl whom he had placed under Mrs.
+Bloxam's care, and towards whom he had never displayed any fatherly
+affection beyond that implied by the punctual and uninterrupted
+discharge of the pecuniary obligations which he had contracted towards
+that lady, that he entertained no doubt whatever of her identity with
+Gertrude Keith. This discovery had agitated him less by reason of any
+present significance which it possessed--the girl was clever, and had
+achieved in his presence a success of a kind which was undeniably
+desirable in such a position as hers--than because it had touched
+long-silent chords, and touched them to utterances full of pain for
+the old man, who had been so thoroughly of the world, and whom the
+world had, on the whole, treated remarkably well. But Lord Sandilands
+was growing old, and was naturally beginning to yield just a little to
+the inevitable feeling, of being rather tired of it all, which comes
+with age, to the best-treated among the sons of men, and had come
+perceptibly to him, since Mark Challoner's death had done away with
+the last of the old landmarks. Things might have been so different; he
+had often thought so, and then put the thought from him hurriedly and
+resolutely. He thought so to-day, and he could not put the thought
+from him; it would not go; but, as he paced the room, it grew stronger
+and stronger and came closer and closer to him, and at last looked him
+sternly and threateningly in the face, demanding harbour and reply;
+and Lord Sandilands gave it both--no more expelling it, but taking
+counsel with himself, and repeating to himself an old story of the
+past, which, with a different ending, might have set all his present
+in another key;--which story was not very different from many that
+have--been told, and not difficult to tell.
+
+Lord Sandilands had not succeeded early in life to his old title and
+respectable but not magnificent estates. The Honourable John Borlase
+was much more clever, agreeable, and fascinating than rich, when,
+having left the University of Oxford after a very creditable career,
+he began to lead the kind of life which is ordinarily led by young men
+who have only to wait for fortune and title, and who possess
+sufficient means to fill up the interval comfortably, and sufficient
+intellect to occupy it with tolerable rationality. The dilettanteism
+which was one of Lord Sandilands' characteristics developed itself
+later in life; while he was a young man, his tastes were more active,
+and he had devoted himself to sporting and travel. In the pursuit of
+the first he had made Mark Challoner's acquaintance; and the
+_camaraderie_ of the hunting-field had strengthened into a strong and
+congenial tie of friendship, which had been broken only by the
+Squire's death. In the pursuit of the second, John Borlase had
+encountered many adventures, and made more than one acquaintance
+destined to influence his future, either sensibly or insensibly; and
+among the many was one with whom we have to do, for a brief interval
+of retrospection.
+
+John Borlase did not affect "Bohemianism" (the phrase had not then
+been invented, but the thing existed); but he liked character, and he
+liked Art,--liked it better than he understood it, selected the
+society of those who knew more about it than he did; and though he by
+no means restricted himself to the society of artists, he certainly
+frequented them more than any other class. It was at Berlin that he
+fell in with Etienne Gautier, an eccentric and very clever Frenchman,
+exiled by the cruelty of fortune from his native paradise, Paris, and
+employed by the French Government in some mysterious commission
+connected with the Galleries of Painting and Sculpture at Berlin,--a
+city which he never ceased to depreciate, but where he nevertheless
+appeared to enjoy himself thoroughly. Etienne Gautier was a dark,
+active, restless man; vivacious of speech; highly informed on all
+matters appertaining to Art; a liberal in politics and religion--of a
+degree of liberalism very unusual at that period, though it would not
+be regarded as particularly "advanced" at present; an oddity in his
+manners; evidently in poor circumstances, which he treated with that
+perfect absence of disguise and affectation which is so difficult for
+English people to comprehend, so impossible for them to imitate; and
+devotedly, though injudiciously, attached to his beautiful daughter,
+Gertrude. The girl's mother, an Englishwoman, had died at her birth,
+and her father had brought her up after a completely unconventional
+fashion, and one which would have horrified his own countrymen in
+particular. She was allowed as much freedom as "bird on branch," and
+her education was of the most desultory description. Gertrude Gautier
+was very handsome, very wilful, and totally destitute of knowledge of
+the world. She was her father's companion in all places and at all
+times; and when the Hon. John Borlase made Etienne Gautier's
+acquaintance and took to frequenting his society, he found that it
+included that of one of the handsomest, cleverest, and most spirited
+girls he had ever met. John Borlase was not quite a free man when he
+first saw Gertrude Gautier. Had her position in life been such as to
+render his marrying her a wise and suitable proceeding, he could not
+have offered to do so with honour, though the engagement, if so it
+could be called, which bound him to the Lady Lucy Beecher, was of a
+cool and vague description, and much more the doing of their
+respective families than their own. But he had carried the not
+unpleasant obligation cheerfully for a year or more; and it was only
+when he fully and freely acknowledged to himself that he had fallen in
+love with Gertrude Gautier, and felt a delightful though embarrassing
+consciousness that she had fallen in love with him, that he grumbled
+at his engagement, and persuaded himself that but for its existence he
+would certainly have married Gertrude, and boldly set the opinions and
+wishes of his family at defiance. It was a pleasing delusion: there
+never existed a man less likely to have done anything of the kind
+than John Borlase; but he cherished the belief, which nothing in his
+former life tended to justify. He was a proud man in a totally
+unaffected way; and only his fancy--not for a moment his real
+practical self--regarded the possibility of the elevation into a
+future British peeress of a girl whose father was a painter, of the
+Bohemian order, and in whose maternal ancestry the most noteworthy
+"illustration" was a wholesale grocer. As for Gertrude, she loved him,
+and that was enough for her. The untaught, undisciplined, passionate
+girl thought of nothing beyond; and her father, who was as blind as
+fathers usually are to the fact that his daughter was longer a child,
+but with all the charm and beauty of womanhood had entered upon all
+its danger gave the matter no consideration whatever. This state of
+things lasted for several months, and then came a crisis. Etienne
+Gautier fell from a height, in one of the Berlin galleries, and died
+of the injuries he had received, after recovering consciousness for
+just sufficient time to commend his daughter to the care and kindness
+of John Borlase.
+
+"Send her to Leamington," said the dying man; "her mother's uncle
+lives there. She knows his name."
+
+There is little need to pursue the story of Gertrude Gautier further.
+She never went to Leamington; she never saw the prosperous grocer, her
+mother's uncle. The story is not a new one, but at least it ended
+better than many a one like it has ended. Gertrude was happy; she had
+no scruples; she knew no better. She had no friends to forfeit; she
+had no position to lose. Her lover was true to her, and all the more
+devoted that he had many stings of conscience of which she had no
+suspicion, in which she never shared. He brought her to England, and
+the girl was happy in her pretty suburban house, with her birds, her
+flowers, and his society. But a time came in which John Borlase had
+the chance of testing his own sincerity; and he applied the test, and
+recognised its failure. When the institution of the suburban house was
+a year old, and when he had frequently congratulated himself upon the
+successful secrecy which had been maintained, John Borlase found a
+letter to his address awaiting him at his father's town-house. The
+letter was from Lady Lucy Beecher, and it contained the intelligence
+of her marriage. "I knew you did not care for me," said the fair and
+frank writer, "in any sense which would give us a chance of being
+happy together; but I did not make a fuss about the family arrangement
+before it became necessary to do so. That necessity arose when I found
+myself deliberately preferring another man to you. I do so prefer
+Hugh Wybrant, and I have married him. My people are very angry, of
+course--perhaps yours will be so also; but you will not care much
+about that; and I am sure you will heartily thank me for what I have
+done. We shall always be good friends, I hope; and if we had married,
+we could never have been more, and might easily--indeed should very
+certainly, I am convinced--have been less." John Borlase was much
+relieved by the intelligence contained in this characteristic letter.
+Lady Lucy had troubled his mind, had been a difficulty to him. Under
+the circumstances he would not have married, he would not have done so
+doubly dishonourable an action; but he was very glad the ostensible
+breach was of her making and not his. He derived a pleasant
+self-congratulatory conviction that he was rather a lucky fellow from
+this fortunate occurrence; and he answered Lady Lucy's flippant letter
+by one which was full of kindliness and good-humour, and accompanied
+by a set of Neapolitan coral.
+
+Then came the question which would make itself heard. Should he marry
+Gertrude? He could do so without risk of her antecedents being
+discovered; the only odium he would have to bear would be that of her
+foreign birth and insignificant, indefinite origin. The girl's own
+feelings, strange to say, counted but little with John Borlase, in the
+discussion he held with himself, and which need not be pursued
+further. If he had decided in her favour, he felt that a first and
+important preliminary would be that he should explain to her the
+degradation of her present position, and the immense advantages to her
+of the compensation which he should offer her by marrying her. Their
+life would be changed, of course; and what had such a change to give
+him? He reasoned entirely as a man of the world; and the upshot of his
+deliberations was that he did not marry Gertrude Gautier. It made no
+difference to her; she did not know that the subject had ever occupied
+him; she had never heard Lady Lucy's name. Her calm, happy, guilty
+love-dream went on for a little longer, and then it ended. The doom of
+her mother was on Gertrude; and John Borlase came home one day, as
+Etienne Gautier had come home, to find a dead woman and a helpless
+infant where he had left youth and health and beauty in the morning.
+The blow fell heavily upon John Borlase, and remorse as well as sorrow
+was for a long time busy at his heart. During this period he was
+extremely restless, and the world was quite concerned and edified to
+see how much he had taken Lady Lucy's defection to heart. Who would
+have thought a man could possess so much feeling? And then, the
+generosity with which he acted, the pains he had taken to show how
+completely he was _sans rancune_; how could Lady Lucy have done such a
+thing! But everybody flocked to see Lady Lucy, for all that; and as
+for Captain Wybrant, never was there anyone so charming. John Borlase
+did not hear all the talk, or if he did, he did not heed it. He was
+not a sentimental man, and he was sufficiently unscrupulous; but
+Gertrude's death was more than a racking grief and loss to him.
+Alongside of her shrouded figure he saw her father's; and now, too
+late, he was haunted by the unfulfilled trust bequeathed him by the
+dead. Deceiving himself again, he tried to persuade himself that only
+the suddenness of Gertrude's death had prevented his marrying her; he
+tried to throw the blame, which he could not ignore, on circumstances.
+At first he succeeded, to a certain extent, in this--succeeded
+sufficiently to deaden the acuteness--of the pain he could not escape
+from. Then, after a time, he knew better; he no longer indulged in
+self-deception; he acknowledged that the wrong was irreparable, and
+the self-reproach life-long; and he bowed to the stern truth. John
+Borlase was never afterwards talked of as a marrying man; and Lady
+Lucy Wybrant, whose sources of social success were numerous and
+various, enjoyed that one in addition, that the inexorable celibacy of
+Lord Sandilands was ascribed to his chivalrous fidelity to her. She
+knew that this was a fiction, as well as he knew it; but as it was a
+gleam of additional glorification for her, and such a supposition
+saved him a great deal of trouble, and preserved him from match-making
+mammas, each acquiesced in the view which society chose to adopt, with
+most amiable affability. Captain Wybrant laughed at the theory of
+Sandilands' celibacy, as he laughed at most other theories; and said
+(and believed) that if a man must be fool enough to wear the willow
+for any woman, his Lucy was the best worth wearing it for, of all the
+women in the world. And though the whole thing was a myth, Lord
+Sandilands never cordially liked jolly Hugh Wybrant--perhaps no man
+ever yet did cordially like the individual in whose favour he has been
+jilted, though he may not have cared a straw for the fickle fair one,
+but have honestly regarded her inconstancy as a delightful
+circumstance, demanding ardent gratitude.
+
+For several years after Gertrude Gautier's death, the Hon. John
+Borlase indulged in frequent and extensive foreign travel; and during
+this period the infant girl who had inherited her beauty, apparently
+without her delicacy of constitution, was well cared for. The child's
+father cared little for her, beyond scrupulously providing for her
+physical welfare. She was an embodied reproach to him, though he never
+said so to himself, but persuaded himself his indifference to the
+little girl whom he saw but rarely and at long intervals, arose from
+his not naturally caring about children. When she was eight years old,
+and the memory of her mother had almost died out, though the indelible
+effect of the sad and guilty episode in his life with which she was
+connected remained impressed upon him, Lord Sandilands placed the
+little girl under Mrs. Bloxam's care, with the conditions already
+stated and the results already partially developed. He had provided
+ample funds to meet the exigencies of her education; he had made due
+arrangements for their safe and punctual transmission to Mrs. Bloxam;
+he had but vague notions concerning the requirements and the risks of
+girlhood: his dominant idea was, that in a respectable boarding-school
+the girl must be safe; he did not want to see her; she must not know
+him as her father; and he had no fancy for playing any part,
+undertaking any personation,--in short, having any trouble
+unrepresented by money,--about her. John Borlase had been
+unscrupulous, and a trifle hard in his nature; and despite the
+conflict in his breast which had ensued on Gertrude Gautier's death,
+and which for all his impassive bearing had been fierce and long, Lord
+Sandilands was not much more scrupulous, and was decidedly harder. If
+the girl married, or if she died, he should be made acquainted with
+the circumstance; and as a matter of fact--fact, not sentiment, being
+the real consideration in this matter--either was all he need know. As
+time went on, this frame of mind about his unknown daughter became
+habitual to Lord Sandilands; and of late he had never remembered
+Gertrude's existence, except when an entry in his accounts, under a
+certain appointed formula, recalled the fact to his mind.
+
+These were the circumstances on which Lord Sandilands mused, as he
+paced his room in the early morning, after he had seen Grace Lambert
+at Lady Carabas' concert. The girl's face had risen up before him like
+a ghost,--not only her mother's, but that of his own youth; and in the
+proud, assured, but not bold glance of her splendid brown eyes a story
+which had no successor in the old man's lonely life was written. This
+beautiful, gifted girl was his daughter. She might have been the pride
+of his life, the darling, the ornament of his home, the light of his
+declining years, the inheritor of his fortune, if-if he had done right
+instead of wrong, if he had repaired the injury he had done to her,
+whose grave lay henceforth and for ever between him and the
+possibility of reparation.
+
+"How very handsome she is!" he thought; "and how fine and highly
+cultivated her voice! If I had known she possessed such a talent as
+that!" And then he thought how that talent might have been displayed
+in society, in which the possessor might have mixed on equal terms. A
+long train of images and fancies, of vain and bitter regrets, came up
+with the strong impression of the girl's grace, beauty, and gifts. Of
+her identity there could be no doubt. As Gertrude Gautier had looked
+out from the garden-gate, where she had bidden him the fond and
+smiling farewell destined to be their last, so this girl, as beautiful
+as his lost Gertrude, and with something of grandeur in her look,
+which Gertrude had not, and which was the grace added by genius, had
+looked that night, as she calmly, smilingly, received the applause of
+her audience. As he recalled that look, and dwelt on it in his memory
+with the full assurance that his conviction was correct, an idea
+struck him. He was a known connoisseur in music, a known patron of
+musical art; everyone who was anyone in the musical world sought an
+introduction to Lord Sandilands. In the case of Miss Grace Lambert,
+his generally extended patronage had been especially requested by Lady
+Carabas for her _protégée_. Here was a fair and legitimate expedient
+within his reach for securing access to Miss Lambert, without the
+slightest risk of awakening suspicion, either in her mind or in that
+of sharp-sighted observers, that he was actuated by any particular
+motive in this instance. He must see her, he must know her! How
+bitterly he lamented now, and condemned himself for the indifference
+which had kept him for so many years contented that his child should
+be a stranger to him! How ready he was, now that he saw her beautiful
+and gifted, to accord credence and attention to the voice of nature,
+in which he had never before believed, and which under other
+circumstances would have found him just as deaf as usual! Then he
+resolved that he would write to Mrs. Bloxam, and prepare her for a
+long-deferred visit to her charge, stipulating in his letter that
+Gertrude should know nothing of the intended visit, and that Mrs.
+Bloxam should receive him alone. "She shall tell me my child's
+history," he said; "at least it has been a bright and happy story
+hitherto." And Lord Sandilands sighed, and his face looked old and
+worn, as he arranged his note-paper, and dipped his pen in the ink,
+and then hesitated and pondered long before he commenced his letter to
+Mrs. Bloxam.
+
+The letter consisted of but a few lines, and Lord Sandilands put it in
+another cover, addressed to Mr. Plowden, his solicitor, and the medium
+of his payments to Mrs. Bloxam. It was not until he had retired to
+rest, after sunrise, and had been for some time vainly trying to
+sleep, that his thoughts reverted to Miles Challoner and the incident
+which had taken place just before they parted.
+
+Miles Challoner, also wakeful, was thinking of it too, and debating
+with himself whether he should mention the matter again to Lord
+Sandilands. He shrank from reviving a subject so full of pain. The man
+whom he had met evidently had an object in concealing his identity, or
+he would not have been so reticent by a first impulse. They were not
+likely to meet again. So Miles Challoner took a resolution to keep his
+own counsel; and acted upon it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+Lloyd's Luck.
+
+
+We have found Gilbert Lloyd the centre of an amused circle at Carabas
+House. Let us see what has been his career since he parted with his
+wife at the George Inn at Brighton.
+
+He was free! That was his first thought when he began to ponder over
+the probable results of the step he had taken,--free to come and go as
+he liked, to do as he listed, without the chance of incurring black
+looks or reproaches. Not that he had had either from Gertrude for a
+very long time. When her faith in her husband was first shattered;
+when she first began to perceive that the man whom in her girlish
+fancy she had regarded as a hero of romance--a creature bright,
+glorious, and rare--was formed of very ordinary clay, Gertrude was
+vexed and annoyed by the discovery. She was young, too, and had a
+young woman's belief in the efficacy of tears and sulks; so that when
+Gilbert stayed out late, or brought home companions to whom she
+objected, or went away on business tours for several days together,
+Gertrude at first met him with sharp reproaches, dissolving into
+passionate fits of weeping, or varied with sufficiently feeble
+attempts at dignity. But Gilbert laughed these last to scorn, and
+either took no notice of the reproaches, or with an oath bade them
+cease. And then, the glamour having utterly died out, and the
+selfishness and brutality of her husband being fully known to her,
+Gertrude's manner had entirely changed. No sighs were ever heard by
+Gilbert Lloyd, no red eyelids, no cheeks swollen by traces of recent
+tears were ever seen by him. If the cold cynical expression on his
+wife's face had hot been sufficient, the bitter mocking tones of her
+voice never failed to tell him of the contempt she felt for him. That
+she was no longer his dupe; that she bitterly despised herself for
+ever having been fooled by him; that she had gauged the depth of his
+knavery and the shallowness of his pretensions,--all this was
+recognisable in her every look, in her every word. No brutality on her
+husband's part--and his brutality sometimes found other vent than
+language--no intermittent fits of softness towards her such as would
+occasionally come over him, had the smallest effect on her face or on
+her voice. She bore his blows silently, his caresses shudderingly, and
+when they were over she looked up at him with the cold cynical face,
+and replied to him with the bitter mocking voice.
+
+Gilbert Lloyd's friends--by which expression is meant the men of the
+set in which he regularly lived--saw little of Mrs. Lloyd, who was
+popularly supposed by them to be next to a nonentity, Lloyd being a
+man who "always had his own way." And indeed, so far as those words
+were ordinarily understood, Gilbert Lloyd's acquaintances were right.
+For months and months his comings and goings, his long absences, his
+conduct while at home, had been uncommented upon by Gertrude, save in
+the expression of her face and in the tone of her voice. But these,
+even at such rare intervals as he was subjected to them, were quite
+enough to goad a man of his temperament, by nature irritable, and
+rendered doubly petulant by the exciting life he led; and the
+knowledge that he was free from them for ever, came to him with
+immense relief. He was "on his own hook" now, and had the world before
+him as much as he had before he committed the ridiculous error of
+letting his passion get the better of his prudence, and so binding a
+burden on to his back. A burden! yes, she had been a burden--a useless
+helpless dead-weight--even when his fleeting passion for her began to
+wane, he had hopes that after all he had not done such a bad thing in
+marrying her. To a man who looked for his prey amongst the young and
+inexperienced, a pretty woman would always prove a useful assistant,
+and Gilbert Lloyd at one time thought of using his wife as a lure and
+a bait. But any hopes of this nature which he may have entertained
+were speedily uprooted. "Right-thinking" Gertrude Lloyd certainly was
+not; of mental obliquity in the matter of distinguishing between good
+and evil, she had her full share; but she was as proud as Lucifer, and
+her pride stepped in to her aid where better qualities might not have
+interfered. Her natural quickness enabled her at once to see through
+her husband's designs, and she told him plainly and promptly that he
+must seek elsewhere for a confederate; nay more, when Lloyd would have
+insisted on her presiding at his table, and making herself agreeable
+to his friends, her resistance, hitherto passive, became active; she
+threatened to make known some of his proceedings, which would have
+seriously compromised him in the eyes of persons with whom he wished
+to stand well, and neither entreaties nor commands could alter her
+resolution.
+
+She had been a burden, and he was rid of her. The more he thought it
+over, the more he congratulated himself on the step which he had
+taken, and felt that he had the best of the arrangement just
+concluded. He had never loved anyone; and the caprice, for it was
+nothing more, which he had once felt for Gertrude had long since died
+away. He was free now to pursue his own career, and he determined that
+his future should be brighter and more ambitious than he had hitherto
+hoped. Now was his chance, and he would take advantage of it.
+Heretofore he had lived almost entirely in the society of the
+Ring-men--among them, but not of them--despising his associates, and
+using them merely as a means to an end. He had had more than enough of
+such companionship, and would shake it off for ever. Not that Gilbert
+Lloyd intended quitting the turf and giving up his career as a
+betting-man. Such a thought never occurred to him; he knew no other
+way by which he could so easily earn so much money, while its
+Bohemianism, and even its chicanery, were by no means unpleasant
+ingredients to his fallen nature. All he wished was to take higher
+rank and live with a different section of the fraternity. There were
+betting-men and betting-men; and Gilbert Lloyd knew that his birth and
+education fitted him more for the society of the "swells" who looked
+languidly on from the tops of drags or moved quietly about the Ring,
+than for the companionship of the professionals and welchers who drove
+what was literally a "roaring" trade outside the enclosure. There was,
+moreover, considerably more money to be made amongst the former than
+the latter. Opportunity alone had been wanting; now he thought that
+had come, and Gilbert Lloyd determined on trying his luck and going
+for a great _coup_.
+
+He had a hundred pounds in hand and a capital book for Doncaster, so
+he made up his mind to leave the last to the manipulation of an
+intimate friend, who would watch the alterations in the market, and
+report them to him at Baden, whither he started, at once. Here he
+established himself in a pleasant little bedchamber in the bachelor's
+wing of the Badischer Hof, and proceeded to commence operations. The
+language, the appearance, the manners of the regular turfite he at
+once discarded, though an occasional hint dropped in conversation at
+the _table d'hôte_ or in the Kursaal, at both of which places he soon
+made many promiscuous acquaintances, conveyed a notion that the
+_arcana_ of the Ring were, or had been, sufficiently familiar to him.
+At the tables he played nightly, with varying fortune it was thought,
+though those who watched him closely averred that he was a
+considerable winner. His pecuniary success, however, affected him very
+slightly; he was glad, of course, to have been able to live
+luxuriously during a month, and to leave the place with more money
+than he took into it; but Gilbert Lloyd had done far better than
+merely winning a few hundred louis--he had made his _coup_.
+
+He made it thus. Staying at the Badischer Hof was the Earl of
+Ticehurst, a young English nobleman who had recently succeeded to his
+title and estate, and who, during the previous year, had caused a
+great deal of talk in London. He was a big, heavy-looking young man,
+with a huge jowl and a bull neck, coarse features, and small sunken
+eyes. At Eton he had been principally noticeable for his cruelty to
+animals and his power of beer-drinking. At Oxford these charming
+qualities were more freely developed, but whereas they had been called
+by their proper names by Viscount Etchingham's schoolfellows, they
+became known as "high spirits", to the college dons and the
+tuft-hunting tutors. It is probable, however, that even these
+long-suffering individuals would have had to take notice of his
+lordship's vivacious proceedings, had not his father died during his
+first year of residence; and on succeeding to the earldom of
+Ticehurst, Lord Etchingham at once left the University and entered
+upon London life. This means different things to different people. To
+the nobleman just interred in the family vault at Etchingham, in the
+presence of the Premier and half the Cabinet, it had signified the
+commencement of a brilliant political career. To his son, who had
+succeeded him, it meant the acquisition of a stud of racers, the
+sovereignty of the coffee-room at Hummer's, the well-known sporting
+hotel, and the obsequious homage of some of the greatest scoundrels in
+London. The young man delighted in his position, and felt that he had
+really come into his kingdom. His name was in everyone's mouth, and
+people who scarcely could distinguish a racer from a towel-horse had
+heard of young Lord Ticehurst. The names of the horses which he owned
+were familiar in the mouths of the most general of the "general
+public," the amount of the bets which he won or lost was talked of in
+all classes of society, and by the "sporting world" he was looked upon
+as the great revivalist of those pastimes which are always described
+by the epithets "old" and "British." The fighting of mains of cocks,
+the drawing of badgers, the patronage of the rat-pit and the P.R.
+("that glorious institution which, while it exists among us and is
+fostered by the genial support of such true Corinthians as the E-- of
+T--, will prevent Englishmen from having recourse to the dastardly use
+of the knife," as it was prettily described by Snish, the fistic
+reporter of the _Life_), the frequent fuddling of himself with ardent
+spirits, the constant attendance at night-saloons, and the never going
+home till morning--came into this category. Elderly Haymarket
+publicans and night-cabmen began to think that the glorious days of
+their youth had returned, when they witnessed or listened to the
+pranks of Lord Ticehurst; and in his first London season he had
+established a reputation for gentlemanly black-guardism and
+dare-devilry quite equal to any in the records of the Bow-street
+Police-court.
+
+Needless to say that with Lord Ticehurst's reputation Gilbert Lloyd
+was perfectly familiar, and that he had long and ardently desired the
+opportunity of making the acquaintance of that distinguished nobleman.
+To use his own language, he had "done all he knew" to carry out this
+desirable result; but in vain. There are hawks and hawks; and the
+birds of prey who hovered round Lord Ticehurst were far too clever and
+too hungry to allow any of the inferior kind to interfere with their
+spoil. Not that Gilbert Lloyd was inferior in any sense, save that of
+mixing with an inferior class. Lord Ticehurst knew several men of
+Lloyd's set--knew them sufficiently to speak to them in a manner
+varying from the _de haut en bas_ style which he used to his valet to
+the vulgar familiarity with which he addressed his trainer; but it
+would not have suited Gilbert Lloyd to have been thrown in his way,
+and he had carefully avoided being presented or becoming known to Lord
+Ticehurst in an inferior position.
+
+When Gilbert arrived at the Badischer Hof, the first person he saw at
+the late _table d'hôte_ was Lord Ticehurst; the second was Plater
+Dobbs, who acted as his lordship's henchman, Mentor, and confidential
+upper servant. A stout short man, Plater Dobbs (his real name was
+George, and he was supposed once to have been a major in something,
+the nickname "Plater" attaching to him from the quality of the
+racehorses he bred and backed), with a red face, the blood strangled
+into it by his tight bird's-eye choker, a moist eye, a pendulous under
+lip, a short gray whisker and stubbly moustache of the same colour, a
+bell-shaped curly-brimmed hat, and a wonderful vocabulary of oaths.
+Plater Dobbs was one of the old school in everything--one of the
+hard-drinking, hard-riding, hard-swearing, five-o'clock-in-the-morning
+old boys. A sportsman of the old school, with many recollections of
+Pea-green Hayne, and Colonel Berkeley, and the Golden Ball, and other
+lights of other days; a godless abandoned old profligate, illiterate
+and debauched, but with a certain old-fashioned knowledge of
+horse-flesh, an unlimited power of drinking without being harmed by
+what he drank, and a belief in and an adherence to "the code of
+honour" as then understood amongst gentlemen, as he had proved in
+person on various occasions at home and abroad. He had taken entire
+sway over Lord Ticehurst, bought racers with the young nobleman's
+money, and trained and ran them when he chose; went with him
+everywhere; and was alternately his Mentor and his butt--acting in
+either capacity with the greatest equanimity.
+
+Now, above all other men in the world, Lloyd hated Plater Dobbs. He
+had long envied the position which the "vulgar old cad," as he called
+him, had held in regard to Lord Ticehurst; and when he saw them
+together at Baden, his rage was extreme, and a desire to supplant the
+elderly Mentor at once rose in his breast. Not that Gilbert had any
+feeling that the counsels or the example given and shown to Lord
+Ticehurst by Plater Dobbs were wrong or immoral. All he felt about
+them was that they were rococo, old-fashioned, and behind the mark of
+the present day. The appointment of "confederate" to such a man as
+Ticehurst, was one of the most splendid chances of a lifetime; and it
+had now fallen to the lot of a senile debauchee, who was neither doing
+good for himself nor obtaining credit for his pupil. If Ticehurst were
+only in _his_ hands, what would not Gilbert Lloyd do for him and for
+himself? Ticehurst should be in his hands, but how? That was the
+problem which Lloyd set himself to solve. That was the thought which
+haunted him day and night, which dulled his palate to M. Rheinbolt's
+choicest _plats_, which even made him sometimes inattentive to the
+monotonous cry of the _croupiers_. To secure Plater Dobbs' position
+would be to land a greater stake than could be gained by the most
+unexpected fluke at _trente et quarante_. Let him only hook Ticehurst,
+and--_rien ne va plus!_
+
+An ordinary sharper would have taken advantage of the frequent
+opportunities afforded by the _table d'hôte_ and continental life
+generally, have spoken to Lord Ticehurst, and managed to secure a
+speaking acquaintanceship with him. But Gilbert Lloyd was not an
+ordinary sharper, and he saw clearly enough how little that course
+would tend to the end he had in view. He foresaw that Plater Dobbs'
+jealousy would be at once aroused; and that while the acquaintance
+with the bear was ripening, the bear-leader would have ample
+opportunity of vilifying his would-be rival. He put it to himself
+clearly that success was only to be gained by adventitious chance, and
+that chance came thus.
+
+Among the frequenters of the Kursaal was a French gentleman of
+some thirty-five years of age, black-bearded, bright-eyed, and
+thin-waisted. André de Prailles was this gentleman's name, Paris was
+his nation, and, to carry out the old rhyme, the degradation of
+England and her children was apparently his vocation. In private and
+in public he took every opportunity of saying unpleasant things about
+_la perfide Albion_, and the traitors, native and domiciled, nourished
+by her. He had, for a Frenchman, an extraordinary knowledge of English
+ways and manners of life--of life of a certain kind--which he amused
+himself and certain of his immediate friends by turning into the
+greatest ridicule. He played but little at the tables; indeed those
+who had watched him narrowly avowed that there was a certain
+understanding between him and the _croupiers_, who discouraged his
+attendance; but be this as it might, he frequented the promenade and
+the baths, lived in very fair style at the Hotel Victoria, and was "a
+feature" in the society of the place. M. de Prailles' Anglophobia had
+contented itself with disdainful glances at the representatives of the
+land which he detested, and with muttering with bated breath at all
+they said and did, until the arrival at Baden of Mdlle. de Meronville,
+the celebrated _ingénue_ of the Vaudeville, with whom M. de Prailles
+had an acquaintance, and for whom he professed an adoration.
+
+Mdlle. de Meronville was a bright lithe little woman, with large black
+eyes, an olive complexion, and what Lord Ticehurst called a "fuzzy"
+head of jet-black hair; a pleasant good-natured little woman, fond of
+admiration and _bonbons_ and good dinners and plenty of champagne; a
+little woman who played constantly at the tables, screaming with
+delight when she won, and using "strange oaths" when she lost--who
+smoked cigarettes on the promenade, and gesticulated wildly, and beat
+her companions with her parasol, and, in fact, behaved herself as
+unlike a British female as is possible to be imagined. Perhaps it was
+the entire novelty of her style and conduct that gave her such a charm
+in the eyes of Lord Ticehurst, for charm she undoubtedly had. A
+devotion to the opposite sex had never hitherto been classed among the
+weaknesses of that amiable nobleman; but he was so completely overcome
+by the fascinations of Eugénie de Meronville, that no youth ever
+suffered more severely from "calf-love" than this reckless roisterer.
+He followed her about like her shadow; when in her company, after he
+had obtained an introduction to her, he would address to her the most
+flowery compliments in a curious _mélange_ of tongues; and when absent
+from her he would sit and puff his cigar in moody silence, obstinately
+rejecting all efforts to withdraw him from his sentimental
+abstraction. Plater Dobbs regarded this new phase in his pupil's
+character with unspeakable horror, and was at his wits' end to know
+how to put a stop to it. He endeavoured to lead Lord Ticehurst into
+deeper play; but unless Mdlle. de Meronville were at the tables the
+young man would not go near them. He organised a little supper-party,
+at which were present two newly-arrived and most distinguished
+beauties: an English grass-widow whose husband was in India, and a
+Russian lady, who regarded the fact of her liege lord's being ruined,
+and sinking from a position of affluence into that of a hotel-keeper,
+as quite enough to excuse her leaving him for ever. But Ticehurst
+sulked through the banquet, and the ladies agreed in voting him _bête_
+and _mauvais ton_. The fact was that the man was madly in love with
+Eugénie de Meronville, and cared for nothing but her society.
+
+What one does and where one goes and with whom one passes one's time
+is, of course, very easily known in a small coterie such as that
+assembled in the autumn at Baden; and it is not to be wondered at that
+M. André de Prailles suffered many a bad quarter of an hour as he
+witnessed and heard of the amicable relations between his fair
+compatriot and one of the leading representatives of that nation which
+he detested. What added to M. de Prailles' anger was the fact that
+whereas in Paris, where he was known to be the friend of certain
+_feuilletonistes_ with whom it was well for every actress to be on
+good terms, he had had cause for believing himself to be well thought
+of by the _ingénue_ of the Vaudeville, at Baden, where no such
+inducement existed, he had been completely snubbed by Eugénie, and
+treated with a _hauteur_ which set his blood boiling in his veins. M.
+de Prailles resented this after his own fashion. First, he addressed a
+passionate letter to his idol, reproaching her for her perfidy. To
+this he received a very short, and, to tell truth, a very ill-spelt,
+answer, in which the goddess replied that it was not his "_afair_,"
+and that she would behave herself "_come je voulai_" wheresoever and
+with whomsoever she pleased. Then he took to a more open course of
+defiance--following on the trail of Mdlle. de Meronville and Lord
+Ticehurst, standing behind them at the table, occupying adjacent seats
+to theirs in the Kursaal or on the promenade, and enunciating, in by
+no means a hushed voice, his opinion on Englishmen in general and Lord
+Ticehurst in particular. But Lord Ticehurst's comprehension of the
+French language was limited, his comprehension of the English
+language, as spoken by M. de Prailles, was still more limited; and the
+strongest comment with which he favoured his opponent's ravings was a
+muttered inquiry as to what "that d--d little Frenchman was jabbering
+about."
+
+At last, one night, the long-threatened explosion took place. A sudden
+storm of wind and rain swept down from the Black Forest, and the
+curious vehicle attached to the Hôtel d'Angleterre was sent for to
+convey Mdlle. de Meronville from the Kursaal to her rooms. The little
+actress had been playing with great ill-luck, and had been duly waited
+upon by Lord Ticehurst; but at the moment when the arrival of the
+droschky was notified to her, he had been called into another part of
+the room by Plater Dobbs, and only arrived in time to see her,
+mortified and angry, being conducted to the carriage on the arm of M.
+de Prailles. Rushing forward to make his excuses, Lord Ticehurst
+caught his foot in the train of Mdlle. de Meronville's gown, and, amid
+the suppressed burst of laughter from the bystanders, pulled her
+backwards and fell forward himself. He had scarcely recovered himself
+when the roll of the departing vehicle was in his ears, and M. de
+Prailles was standing before him fuming.
+
+"An accident? nothing of the sort! _Exprès! tout à fait exprès!_"
+
+A crowd gathered at the ominous words and at the tone of voice in
+which they were uttered: Plater Dobbs and Gilbert Lloyd foremost among
+the concurrents, the one flushed and excited, the other cool and
+collected; Lord Ticehurst, very pale, and with an odd twitching in the
+muscles of his month.
+
+"It was no accident, that tumble!" shrieked M. de Prailles. "It was a
+studied insult offered to a lady by a barbarian! _Exprès,
+entendes-vous, messieurs, exprès?_"
+
+Then, seeing that his opponent stood motionless, the little Frenchman
+drew himself on tiptoes, and hissed out,
+
+"_Et il ne dit rien? Décidément, milor, vous êtes un lâche!_" and he
+made a movement as though he would have struck Lord Ticehurst with his
+open hand.
+
+But Plater Dobbs, who had been puffing and fuming and gasping for
+breath, caught the angry Frenchman by the arm, and called out,
+
+"Holla, none of that! We'll produce our man when he's wanted. We don't
+want any rough-and-tumble here! _Ally, party, mossoo!_"
+
+"_Au diable, ivrogne!_" was all the response which M. de Prailles
+chose to make to this elegant appeal; but he turned to some of his
+compatriots, and said, "_Regardez donc la figure de ce milor là!_" And
+in truth Lord Ticehurst was almost livid, and the chair against which
+he was leaning trembled in his grasp. At that moment Gilbert Lloyd
+stepped forward.
+
+"There's no question of producing any man on this occasion, except a
+_gensdarme_," said he, addressing Plater Dobbs.
+
+A hush fell on the little crowd--the Englishmen silenced by what they
+heard, the foreigners by the effect which they saw the words had
+produced. Only Dobbs spoke, and he said, "What the devil do you mean?"
+
+"What I say," replied Lloyd; "it's impossible for Lord Ticehurst to
+fight this fellow," with a contemptuous wave of the hand at De
+Prailles. "I've long thought I recognised him; now I'm sure of it. I
+don't know what he calls himself now, but he used to answer to the
+name of Louis three years ago, when he was a billiard-marker at the
+rooms over the Tennis-court, just out of the Haymarket."
+
+"_Tu mens, canaille!_" screamed M. de Prailles, rushing at him; but
+Gilbert Lloyd caught his adversary by the throat, and with every nerve
+in his lithe frame strung to its tightest pitch, shook him to and fro.
+
+"Drop that!" he said; "drop that, or by the Lord I'll fling you out of
+the window. You know the height you'd have to fall!" and with one
+parting shake he threw the Frenchman from him. "I'm glad my memory
+served me so well; it would have been impossible for your lordship to
+have gone out with such a fellow."
+
+
+M. André de Prailles left Baden very early the next morning: but the
+events of that night affected more than him. Although he was not of a
+grateful or recognisant nature, Lord Ticehurst felt keenly the
+material assistance which Gilbert Lloyd afforded him at what in his
+inmost heart his lordship knew to have been a most critical and
+unpleasant time, and he showed at once that he appreciated this
+assistance at its proper value. He made immediate advances of
+friendship to Gilbert, which advances Gilbert received with sufficient
+_nonchalance_ to cause them to be repeated with double ardour. At the
+same time he by no means declined the acquaintance which Lord
+Ticehurst offered him, and in the course of various colloquies
+contrived to indoctrinate his lordship with a notion of his
+extraordinary 'cuteness in things in general, and in matters
+pertaining to the turf and to society in particular. The world, as
+viewed through Gilbert Lloyd's glasses, had to Lord Ticehurst quite a
+different aspect from that under which he had hitherto seen it, and he
+raged against opportunities missed and stupid courses taken while
+under the tutelage of Plater Dobbs. To rid himself of that worthy's
+companionship and to instal Gilbert Lloyd in his place was a task
+which Lord Ticehurst set himself at once, and carried out with great
+speed and success. He found little opposition from the Plater. That
+worldly-wise old person had seen how matters stood--"how the cat
+jumped," as he phrased it--from the first, and was perfectly prepared
+to receive his _congé_. Nor, indeed, was he altogether displeased at
+the arrangement. His good qualities were few enough, but among them
+was the possession of personal pluck and courage, and a horror of
+anyone in whom these were lacking. "I always knew Etchingham was a
+duffer, sir," he would say in after-days--"a pig-headed, obstinate,
+mean duffer--but I never thought he was a cur until that night. He was
+in a blue funk, I tell you--in a blue funk of a d--d little Frenchman
+that he could have swallowed whole! I don't complain, sir. He hasn't
+behaved badly to me, and I hope he'll find he's done right in holding
+on to Master Lloyd. A devilish slippery customer that, sir. But him
+and me couldn't have been the same after I saw he funked that
+Frenchman, and so perhaps it's better as it is." So Major Plater Dobbs
+retired on an allowance of three hundred a year from his ex-pupil to
+the cheerful city of York, and this history knows him no more.
+
+When Gilbert Lloyd returned to England in time to accompany his patron
+to Doncaster, where they witnessed the shameful defeat of all Lord
+Ticehurst's horses, which had been trained under the Dobbs' _regime_,
+he felt that he had made his _coup_; but he did not anticipate such
+success as fell to his lot. By an excellent system of tactics, the
+mainspring of which was to make himself sought instead of to seek, and
+to speak his mind unreservedly upon all points on which he was
+consulted, taking care never to interfere in cases where his opinion
+was not asked, he obtained a complete ascendency over the young man,
+who, after a very short time, made him overseer, not merely of his
+stable, but of his house, his establishment, and his estates. And
+excellently did Lloyd perform the functions then allotted to him. He
+had a clear head for business, and a keen eye for "a good thing," and
+as a large portion of all Lord Ticehurst's luck and success was shared
+by his "confederate," it was not surprising that Lloyd employed his
+time and brains in planning and achieving successes. Not a little of
+his good fortune Lloyd owed to keeping in with his former allies the
+Ring-men, who were treated by him with a frank cordiality which stood
+him in excellent stead, and who were delighted to find that one of
+their own order, as they judged him, could climb to such a height
+without becoming stuck-up or spiteful. The old trainer, the jockeys,
+and all the Dobbs' satellites were swept away as soon as Gilbert Lloyd
+came into power, and were so well replaced that Lord Ticehurst's stud,
+which had previously been the laughing-stock of Tattersall's, now
+contained several animals of excellent repute, and one or two from
+which the greatest things were expected.
+
+Nor was the change less remarkable in Lord Ticehurst himself. Of
+course his new Mentor would have lacked the inclination, even if he
+had had the power, to withdraw his pupil from turf-life; but to a
+certain extent he made him understand the meaning and the value of the
+saying "_noblesse oblige_." It was understood that hence-forward Lord
+Ticehurst's horses were run "on the square," and that there was to be
+no more "pulling," or "roping," or any other chicanery. And after a
+good deal of patience and persuasion Gilbert Lloyd succeeded in
+indoctrinating his patron with the notion that it was scarcely worth
+while keeping up the reputation of being "British" with a small
+portion of the community at the expense of disgusting all the rest;
+that if one had no original taste in the matter of costume, and needs
+must copy someone else, there were styles not simpler perhaps, but at
+all events as becoming as those of the groom; and that all the
+literary homage of the _Life_ scarcely repaid a gentleman for having
+to associate with such blackguards as he met in his patronage of the
+prize-ring, the cock-pit, and the rat-hunt. The young man, who being
+young was impressionable, was brought to see the force of these
+various arguments; more easily, doubtless, because they were put to
+him in a remarkably skilful way, without dictation and without
+deference--simply as the suggestions of a man of the world to another
+worldling, the force of which he, from his worldly knowledge, would
+perfectly understand and appreciate. And so, within a year after
+submitting himself to Gilbert Lloyd's tutelage, Lord Ticehurst, who
+had been universally regarded as a "cub" and a "tiger," was admitted
+to be a doosid good fellow, and his friends laid all the improvement
+to Gilbert Lloyd.
+
+Amongst those friends, perhaps the warmest of Lloyd's supporters was
+Lord Ticehurst's aunt, Lady Carabas. Lady Carabas had always delighted
+to have it thought that she was a _femme incomprise_; that while she
+was looked upon as the mere worldling, the mere butterfly of fashion,
+she had a soul--not the immortal part of her system which she took
+notice of once a week in St. Barnabas's Church, but such a soul as
+poets and metaphysical writers spell with a large S,--a Soul for
+poetry, romance, love, and all those other things which are never
+heard of in polite neighbourhoods. The Marquis of Carabas was quite
+unaware of the existence of this portion of his wife's attributes, and
+if he had known of it, it is probable it would have made very little
+difference to him: it was nothing to eat, nothing to be shot at or
+angled for, at least with a gun or a rod, so had no interest for his
+lordship. But there was always someone sufficiently intimate with Lady
+Carabas to be intrusted with the secret of the existence of this Soul,
+and to be permitted to share in its aspirations. Lady Carabas had
+married very early in life, and although she had two large and
+whiskered sons, she was yet a remarkably handsome woman; so handsome,
+so genial, and so winning, that there were few men who would not have
+been gratified by her notice. And here let it be said, that all her
+friendships--she had many, though never more than one at the same
+time--were perfectly platonic in their nature. She pined to be
+understood--she wanted nothing else, she said; but people remarked
+that those whom she allowed to understand her were always
+distinguished either by rank, good looks, or intellect. The immediate
+predecessor of Gilbert Lloyd in dominion over Lady Carabas' Soul, was
+an Italian singer with a straight nose, a curling brown beard, and a
+pair of luminous gray eyes; and he in his turn had supplanted a Prince
+of the Blood. Gilbert Lloyd was prime favourite now, and was treated
+accordingly by the "regulars" in Beaumanoir-square. It was Lady
+Carabas' boast that she could be "all things to all men." Thus while
+her Soul had gushed with the regal romance of Arthur and Guinevere in
+its outpourings to the Prince--an honest gentleman of limited
+intellect and conversation restricted to the utterance of an
+occasional "Hum, haw, Jove!"--it had burned with republican ardour in
+its conference with the exiled Italian; and was now imbued with the
+spirit of Ruff, _Bell_, Bailey, and other leading turf-guides, in its
+lighter dalliance with Gilbert Lloyd. And this kind of thing suited
+Lloyd very well, and tended to secure his position with Lord
+Ticehurst.
+
+At the time of Gilbert Lloyd's introduction to Miles Challoner at
+Carabas House, that position was settled and secured. Not merely was
+Lord Ticehurst, to all appearance, utterly dependent on his Mentor for
+aid and advice in every action of his life, but Lloyd's supremacy in
+the Ticehurst household was recognised and acquiesced in by all
+friends and members of the family. It was so recognised, so apparently
+secure, and withal so pleasant, that Lloyd had put aside any doubt of
+the possibility of its ever being done away with; and the first idea
+of such a catastrophe came to him as the old name, so long unheard,
+sounded once more in his ears, and as in the handsome man before him
+he recognised his elder brother. Miles Challoner, as we have seen,
+sought safety in flight. Gilbert Lloyd, the younger man, but by far
+the older worldling, soon recovered from his temporary disquietude, so
+far as his looks were concerned, and gazed after the vanishing figure
+of his brother with eyebrows uplifted in apparent wonderment at his
+_gaucherie_. But in the solitude of his chamber, before he went to bed
+that morning, he faced the subject manfully, and thought it out under
+all its various aspects.
+
+Would Miles betray him? That was the chief point. The blood surged up
+in his pale face, and the beating of his heart was plainly audible to
+himself as he thought of that contingency, and foresaw the unalterable
+and immediate result. Exposure! proved to have been living for years
+under an assumed name and in a false position--A slight ray of hope
+here. The real name and the real position were incomparably better
+than those he had assumed. Had he not rather lost than gained
+by--Dashed out at once? Why did he hide his name and position? Forced
+to. Why? O, that story must never be given up, or he would be lost
+indeed. And then his thoughts digressed, and he found himself
+picturing in his memory that last night in the old house--that
+farewell of Rowley Court. Good God! how he recollected it all!--the
+drive in the dogcart through the long lanes redolent of May; the
+puzzled face of the old coachman, who knew young Master was going
+away, and yet could not make out why old Master, and Master Miles, and
+the household had not turned out to wish him "God speed;" the last
+glimpse which, as he stood at the station-door, he caught of the
+dog-cart thridding its way homewards through the lanes, almost every
+inch of which he knew. Would Miles betray him? No, he thought not--at
+least wilfully and intentionally. If the Miles of to-day had the same
+characteristics as he remembered in the boy, he had an amount of pride
+which would render it impossible for him to move in the matter.
+Impossible! Yes, because to move in it would be to announce to the
+world that he, the Squire of Rowley Court, was the brother of Mr.
+Lloyd the turfite, the "confederate" of Lord Ticehurst, the--and
+Gilbert cursed the pride which would make his brother look down upon
+him, even though to that pride he principally looked for his own
+safety. But might not Miles unintentionally blunder and blurt out the
+secret? He had been hot-headed and violent of speech as a boy, and his
+conduct at Carabas House on the introduction had proved that he had no
+command over his feelings. This was what it was to have to do with
+fools. And then Gilbert Lloyd recollected that, on the only other
+occasion in his life when the chance of compromising his future was in
+the hands of another person, it was his wife to whom the chance was
+allotted; and he remembered the perfect security which he felt in her
+sense and discretion. His wife! He had not thought of her for a very
+long time. He wondered where she was and what she was doing. He
+wondered whether she had altered in personal appearance, whether
+anyone else had--pshaw! what the deuce did it matter to him?
+Nevertheless, he angrily quickened the step with which he was pacing
+the room as the thought crossed his mind. O no, Miles would not betray
+him! There were other reasons why he should not. Did he not--perhaps
+it was a mistake after all his having broken with Gertrude in that
+manner? She would have been in his way here and there, perhaps; but
+she was wonderfully accommodating, even in letting him have his own
+way so far as coming and going were concerned; and how shrewd and
+clear-headed she was! So good-looking, too! He found himself idly
+tracing her profile with his finger on the table in front of him.
+Strange girl--what an odd light there was on her face that--that night
+when they parted! And Harvey Gore--O, good Lord! what had started that
+vein of thought? That confounded meeting with Miles had upset him
+entirely. Harvey Gore!--did Gertrude suspect--she knew. He was
+certain, she knew, and that was what--It was for the best that he had
+got rid of her; for the best that he was on his own hook--only himself
+to consult and rely upon, and no one else with a chance of selling
+him. All women were unreliable, and interfered with business. By the
+way, what was that Ticehurst was saying as they came away in the
+brougham about some woman who had sung in the early part of the
+evening, before he got to Carabas House? Ticehurst was wonderfully
+enthusiastic for him--such a face, such a figure, such a lovely voice!
+These raptures meant nothing serious, Gilbert supposed; at all events
+he intended to take care that they should mean nothing serious. That
+affair of Eugénie de Meronville, when Ticehurst's admiration very
+nearly brought him under an infuriated Frenchman's fire, had been of
+infinite service, Gilbert reflected with a grin, in cooling his
+lordship's love ardour, and indeed had kept him very much aloof from
+the sex. It was better so; if Lord Ticehurst married, more than half
+Gilbert Lloyd's influence would be gone, if indeed the turf were not
+abandoned, and the "confederate" _chasséd_; and any other arrangement
+in which a woman might be concerned would be equally unsatisfactory.
+Fancy his having seen Miles, and heard the old name too! How much did
+Miles know? He turned on his heel as if--and yet the old man would
+never have told him. _His_ pride would have prevented that; at all
+events nothing could be gained by keeping awake now. He had thought it
+out, and decided that, for several reasons, his brother would not
+betray him; and so Gilbert Lloyd turned into bed, and slept as
+peacefully and as easily as the darkest schemers often do, despite all
+the romancists say to the contrary.
+
+Next day he was walking through the Park with his patron, on their way
+to Tattersall's, when, just as they crossed the Drive, a brougham
+dashed rapidly by them. Lord Ticehurst clutched his companion's arm,
+and said eagerly, "Look, Gilbert--quick! there she is." Gilbert Lloyd
+looked round, and said in a tone of irritation, "What? Who?" "The girl
+who sang last night at Carabas's. The stunner I told you of." "Then I
+wish the stunner had gone some other way," said Lloyd. "I didn't even
+have the satisfaction of seeing her; and I was just totting-up how we
+stood on the Ascot Cup, and you've startled all the figures out of my
+head."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+The Linnet's Cage.
+
+
+Mrs. Bloxam had had no reason to regret the assent which she had given
+to the proposition made to her by her ex-pupil Gertrude Lloyd. The
+arrangement had turned out successfully, and the far-seeing astute
+lady, who had had quite enough of school-keeping considerably before
+she saw her way to the abandonment of that uncongenial occupation,
+soon began to see visions and dream dreams of a very different and
+much more enjoyable kind of life in the future. For a calm person, not
+to be taken in by appearances, and habitually distrustful of first
+impressions, Mrs. Bloxam may be said to have been astonished when she
+beheld her former pupil, after the lapse of two years and a half,
+during which Gertrude had been learning experience in a school which,
+though always severe, was sufficiently varied; and Mrs. Bloxam, when
+she remembered the girl at all, thought of her only as the clever and
+handsome pupil, who had outwitted her indeed (but that was a feat
+which she was not likely to overrate--she never imposed any magnified
+notion of her own vigilance upon herself), but who was not likely to
+turn out in any way remarkable. Gertrude's letter had struck her
+rather forcibly as being out of the common way; apart from the unusual
+nature of the circumstances which had given rise to it, its coolness,
+firmness, and businesslike precision were not common in the
+schoolmistress's experience of feminine correspondence; and there was
+nothing in her previous knowledge of Gertrude's intellect and
+character which would have naturally led her to take such a
+manifestation of those qualities for granted. Mrs. Bloxam thought a
+good deal about Gertrude's letter in the interval between the receipt
+of it and the arrival of its writer. It occurred to her that the girl
+who took her life into her own management, after the clear cool-headed
+fashion in which it was plain that Gertrude was acting, must have been
+rather a difficult wife to manage, and not a particularly safe one to
+deceive and injure. From thinking of Gertrude as the wife and the
+enemy of Gilbert Lloyd, it was an easy transition to think of Gertrude
+as possibly her (Mrs. Bloxam's) enemy--easy, not pleasant--and
+significantly encouraging to that lady, in the resolution she had
+formed, to treat Gertrude in all respects well, and with loyalty. Mrs.
+Bloxam conceived, in the course of her cogitations, a very reasonable
+certainty that Gertrude had developed into a kind of person, who, if
+she made up her mind to discover the secret of her birth, parentage,
+and previous position, would inevitably do so, or make herself
+extremely disagreeable in the process of failure. When this notion
+associated itself with the recollection of the comfortable sums of
+money which she had continued to receive for Gertrude's benefit, when
+Gertrude was absent and her fate unknown, Mrs. Bloxam congratulated
+herself on the course she had adopted, and made such virtuous
+resolutions that she would advance Gertrude's interests in every way
+within her power, that she soon succeeded in compounding with her
+conscience for the--indiscretion.
+
+When Gertrude made her appearance at the Vale House, Mrs. Bloxam's
+anticipations were more than fulfilled. The young woman's easy and
+assured grace of manner, the calmness with which she inducted herself
+into the place which she had assigned to herself in the establishment,
+and the conviction with which she inspired Mrs. Bloxam that, if she
+desired to possess her confidence, she must patiently await the time
+and manner of her accordance of it, at her own will, were simply
+inimitable. The schoolmistress contemplated the girl with wonder and
+secret admiration. She had seen so much of the vapidity, the
+frivolity, the dependence, and the littleness of feminine human
+nature, that (as she did not care for Gertrude sufficiently to be
+alarmed by the dangerous side of her complex character) it was a
+positive pleasure to her to observe a disposition so exceptional. In
+person she was also changed and much improved, though Mrs. Bloxam was
+not slow to notice the discordant expression which occasionally
+deprived her face of its youthfulness by lending it an intensity
+beyond her years.
+
+Gertrude Lloyd had been settled at the Vale House for more than a
+week, and had entered on her duties with a grave alacrity which
+surprised Mrs. Bloxam, whose recollection of her as a desultory pupil
+had left her unprepared to find the girl an active and conscientious
+teacher, before she accorded to Mrs. Bloxam any more confidence
+than that which her letter had conveyed. When so much time had
+elapsed, she informed Mrs. Bloxam that she intended to commence her
+singing-lessons, and invited that lady to be present at the trial of
+her voice. The masters who attended at the Vale House were all of a
+superior class, and Gertrude was satisfied to abide by the opinion
+which Signor da Capo should express concerning her musical capacity.
+The testimony of that dark-eyed and sentimental exile was most
+reassuring; he had rarely heard such a voice as Miss Lambert's,
+and it was perfectly fresh and uninjured, susceptible of the
+highest training. He could conscientiously assure Miss Lambert no
+concert-singer in London possessed a finer organ, not even
+Mademoiselle Roulade, who was just then making such a sensation at the
+private concerts of the nobility--she was quite the rage at Carabas
+House in particular.
+
+Miss Grace Lambert was not interested in Mademoiselle Roulade, and cut
+the worthy signor's raptures rather unceremoniously short; but he
+produced a second edition of them for the benefit of Mrs. Bloxam, when
+Miss Lambert had left the room, and evinced so much curiosity
+concerning Miss Lambert's future plans, throwing out hints of the
+advantage to be derived from the judicious promulgation of reports as
+_avant-coureurs_ of a _débutante_, that Mrs. Bloxam felt convinced of
+his sincerity, and forthwith began to form a pleasant scheme for the
+future in her fancy.
+
+On the same evening Gertrude requested audience of Mrs. Bloxam in her
+private sitting-room; and having been cordially welcomed, briefly
+expressed her appreciation of the kindness with which she had been
+received at the Vale House, and asked Mrs. Bloxam's opinion of what
+Signor da Capo had said. Mrs. Bloxam thought nothing could be more
+satisfactory, nothing more encouraging; and if Gertrude really
+intended to become a public singer--
+
+"I do intend it," interrupted Gertrude, with a slight expressive
+frown; "understand this once for all, Mrs. Bloxam, my mind is quite
+made up. I may succeed, I may fail; but at least I will make the
+attempt; and I feel that I _shall_ succeed. I am confident this will
+not be a losing speculation for you."
+
+"My dear girl," said Mrs. Bloxam,--and she said it quite sincerely,
+with true interest: there had been a fascination for her about the
+girl since her return, a charm partly arising from the uncommonness of
+her disposition and manners, and partly from the elder woman's dim
+perception of the pitifulness of her story,--"I am not thinking about
+that. I am thinking about you, and of what you must have suffered, to
+have made you turn your back so resolutely on your past life. You are
+so young, Gertrude."
+
+"Grace, if you please," said the younger woman, and she touched Mrs.
+Bloxam's hand for a moment. In the slight caress there was a little
+softening, and the other took advantage of it.
+
+"You may trust me, my dear, you may indeed," she said. "I don't
+pretend to be disinterested in many of the occurrences of my life; I
+could not afford to be so--no woman can who has her bread to earn--and
+I have not acted disinterestedly towards you; but I will if you will
+trust me."
+
+An unusual expression of gentleness was in Mrs. Bloxam's face, and her
+shallow shifty blue eyes grew almost deep and almost steady under the
+influence of unwonted feeling.
+
+Gertrude sat still before her, with downcast eyes. A little interval
+of silence passed, and then she looked up, and spoke.
+
+"I will trust you, Mrs. Bloxam, as much as I can ever trust anyone in
+this world. I am separated for ever, of my own free will, by my own
+irrevocable decision, from my husband. I cannot tell you why in more
+than general terms. Gilbert Lloyd is a bad man--I am not a
+particularly good woman; but I could not live with him, and I trust I
+may never see him again. My life is at my own disposal now; I have no
+friend but you."
+
+There was no tremor in her voice, no quiver through her slight frame,
+as this young girl gave so terrible an account of herself.
+
+"But if he claims you?" said Mrs. Bloxam.
+
+"He will never claim me," replied Gertrude; and there was that in her
+voice and in her look which carried conviction to her hearer's mind.
+"He is more than dead to me--he is as though he had never lived."
+
+"My poor child, how wretched you must be!" exclaimed Mrs. Bloxam,
+almost involuntarily.
+
+"I am not wretched," said Gertrude; and again she frowned slightly,
+and again her face looked old, and her voice sounded hard. "I feel
+that there has been a chapter of misery and of degradation in the
+story of my life; but I have closed it for ever. I will never speak of
+it again, I will never think of it again, if by any effort of my will
+I can keep my mind clear of it. I am young, strong, clever, and
+ambitious; and I am not the first woman who has made a tremendous
+mistake, and incurred a dreadful penalty, in the outset of her life;
+but I daresay few, if any, have had such a chance of escape from the
+consequences as I have. I will take the fullest advantage of it. And
+now, Mrs. Bloxam, we will talk of this no more. Let that man's name be
+as dead to you and me as all feeling about him is dead in my heart for
+ever; and help me to make a new line in life for myself."
+
+Mrs. Bloxam looked at her silently, and sighed. Then she said:
+
+"You are a strange young woman, and have suffered some great wrongs, I
+am sure. It shall be as you wish, my dear, and I will try to forget
+that you ever were anything but Grace Lambert. And now let us talk of
+affairs--yours and mine, if you like; for I have something to tell
+you, and to consult you about."
+
+Gertrude looked round her, and smiled. The scene of their interview
+and its associations were strangely familiar to her. It seemed as
+though it were only the other day she had sat in that same room,
+summoned to a consultation with Mrs. Bloxam about the expenditure of
+her quarter's allowance, and the fashion of her summer costume. The
+same bureau lay open, disclosing a collection of tradesmen's books and
+bills of well-known aspect. Gertrude knew in which of the little
+drawers the reserve of prospectuses, in which the innumerable and
+incomparable advantages of the Vale House were set forth, was kept. A
+low chair, with a straight, upright, uncompromising back, whereon a
+very frosty-looking bunch of yellow dahlias had been worked in harsh
+worsted by a grateful pupil, stood in the position it had always
+occupied within Gertrude's memory, beside the bureau. It was known as
+"the client's chair." Moved by a familiar impulse, Gertrude rose and
+seated herself in this chair, and looked up at Mrs. Bloxam, with the
+old look so completely banished from her face, with so exactly the
+same girlish smile which she remembered, that Mrs. Bloxam started.
+
+"You might have never gone away," she said, "for all the change there
+is in you now. What a chameleon you are, Gertrude--"
+
+"Grace!" said Gertrude once more; and then the consultation, whose
+details there is no need to follow, as they will be made plain by
+their results, proceeded without interruption.
+
+
+*    *    *    *    *
+
+
+Signor da Capo was right in his judgment of Miss Lambert's voice. Her
+industry in the study of her art, her unflinching labour, and her
+great talent were alike conspicuous. After the interview with Mrs.
+Bloxam, Miss Lambert did not make her appearance very often in the
+school-room, and it was rumoured that she was not going to be exactly
+a teacher. This report proved to be correct. She gave a few occasional
+lessons, but only in a casual way; and it was understood among the
+pupils that not only did Miss Lambert receive lessons of preternatural
+duration from Signor da Capo, but that she went very often into
+London, and took instruction from a still more eminent professor of
+music, a beatified creature, glorious on the boards of the Italian
+Opera. It was even said, and with truth, that Miss Lambert's singing
+was beginning to be talked of outside the precincts of the Vale
+House; and that great ladies with coronets on their carriages and
+pocket-handkerchiefs had questioned Signor da Capo about his gifted
+pupil, and even called on Mrs. Bloxam. When these rumours had been for
+some time in circulation, and Grace Lambert's appearance in the
+school-room had become an event so rare as not to be looked for more
+than once in ten days or so, another report, and one of a startling
+nature, disturbed the small world of the Establishment for young
+Ladies. This tremendous _on dit_ foretold an event of no less moment
+than the relinquishment of the "Establishment" by Mrs. Bloxam, and
+that lady's retirement into the genteel tranquillity of private life.
+The Vale House had been disposed of; so ran the rumour; and Mrs.
+Bloxam was communicating with the "parents and guardians," and making
+over her interest and "connection" to her successor. The announcement
+would be made at breaking-up time. Much excitement prevailed. Most of
+the young ladies entertained a lively hope that their parents would
+not feel unreserved confidence in the successor, and that thus they
+should gain an indeterminate addition to the vacation. Those who had
+no such hope rather liked the novelty of the substitution. They
+"didn't mind old Bloxam;"--but anything new must be welcome. For once
+rumour was not mistaken. When breaking-up time came, Mrs. Bloxam took
+leave of her dear young charges in a touching speech, and consigned
+them, with many expressions of interest, to the care of the Misses
+Toppit, who were henceforth to preside over the Vale House.
+
+It was generally understood that Mrs. Bloxam's retirement had taken
+place under pecuniary conditions of a satisfactory character, and that
+Mr. Dexter had acted in the matter with becoming zeal for the
+interests of his client. A few days after the departure of her "dear
+young friends" for their several homes, Mrs. Bloxam left the Vale
+House. She was accompanied by Grace Lambert, who remarked, as they
+drove away, "It must be painful to you, after all, to leave a place
+where you have lived so long."
+
+"No," said Mrs. Bloxam, "it is not. _I_ feel what the girls _fancy_
+about it: I have had too much work and too little play there, to be
+able to regret the Vale House."
+
+
+*    *    *    *    *
+
+
+The carriage placed at her disposal by the Marchioness of Carabas
+whirled Miss Grace Lambert, after her brilliantly successful first
+appearance at Carabas House, to a small but remarkably pretty villa at
+Bayswater. The detached house, intensely modern and white, with the
+largest possible windows for its size, and the prettiest possible
+ornamentation about it--of carved wood in the Swiss style, and curly
+iron railings and posts and verandahs in the Birmingham style, with
+neat flower-beds, the colours all _en suite_, in the miniature
+Tuileries style--was very pretty and very comfortable. Mrs. Bloxam
+interested herself in every detail of the small establishment, which
+she had not found any difficulty in "starting" with her own funds, and
+which she fully expected to be able to maintain most creditably with
+those which should accrue from the success of Miss Grace Lambert,
+about which she was assured by competent authorities no reasonable
+doubt could be entertained.
+
+And now that success seemed to be assured indeed. The little coterie
+which was wont to assemble almost daily at the villa would rejoice
+hugely on the morrow of the grand concert at Carabas House, and the
+grand Carabas Marchioness would no doubt speed the fame of her
+_protégée's_ success far and wide in the most profitable directions.
+
+The Marchioness had "taken up" Signer da Capo's favourite pupil,
+concerning whom the gushing Italian was wont to tell wonderful things,
+while he was pretending to administer instruction to the Lady
+Angelica, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of the most noble
+the Marchioness, who had a remarkably pretty throat, which the singing
+attitude exhibited in a favourable light, but who possessed about as
+much talent for music, or indeed for anything, as the favourite
+Persian cat of the most noble. Signor da Capo was very good-looking,
+and was one of those who, at a respectable distance, and in a modified
+sense, "understood" the Marchioness, and she responded to his gushing
+communications about Miss Lambert's talents and attractions, and the
+inevitable _furore_ which she was indubitably to create, by a
+vehemently-expressed desire to befriend that young lady, and an
+amiable determination to bring her out at Carabas House, and so at
+once serve Miss Lambert, and prevent Lady Lowndes, who was her
+intimate enemy, and a rival patroness of genius, art, literature, and
+fashionable religion, from "getting hold of" the promising young
+_débutante_. The pleasure of the honest signor--who was truly
+interested in his young friend, and who religiously believed every
+word he had said in her favour--when Lady Carabas announced her
+intention of making Miss Lambert's acquaintance, was genuine and
+demonstrative, and he readily gave the pledge which she exacted from
+him, that he would not let Lady Lowndes know of the existence of this
+unsunned treasure.
+
+"I cannot answer for the discretion of M--, my lady," said the signor;
+"he knows Miss Lambert's genius as well as I do, and he goes to Lady
+Lowndes' oftener than I do; but there is always the chance for us that
+M-- never thinks and seldom talks of anybody but himself."
+
+The acquaintance made under such favourable auspices ripened rapidly
+into intimacy, very flattering, and likely to prove very profitable,
+to Miss Lambert. The Marchioness was almost as much delighted with the
+girl as she professed to be; and Miss Lambert, who "understood" the
+_grande dame_ in quite a different sense from that in which she was in
+the habit of using the word, was quite alive to the profit and the
+pleasure to be derived from such exalted patronage. The calmness, the
+reserve, the unbending self-respect of the girl had a powerful effect
+on Lady Carabas. They excited her curiosity, and awakened her
+interest. She had a good deal of the former in her disposition,
+apropos of everything, and particularly apropos of the love affairs of
+her friends and acquaintances, and she naturally felt strong curiosity
+on this subject as regarded Grace Lambert. She arrived, as she
+thought, at a tolerably accurate knowledge of who Miss Lambert saw,
+and where Miss Lambert went; but she never came upon the traces of the
+slightest "tendre."
+
+"How very charming!" said the Marchioness of Carabas to herself, a day
+or two before the grand concert at Carabas House; "this young
+creature's heart has evidently never spoken. She will be a _débutante_
+in every sense."
+
+The heart of the most noble had spoken so frequently, that it might
+fairly be supposed to be a little hoarse. Hence her admiration of the
+inarticulatism of that organ in the case of Grace Lambert. As she
+drove in the Park that day, she actually meditated upon the expediency
+of introducing to the special notice of her charming _protégée_ a
+delightful man in the Blues, who had up to a late period "understood"
+her, but who had had the misfortune to bore her lately, and the bad
+taste to take his dismissal in dudgeon.
+
+"He knows about music," thought her ladyship; "yes, that will do;" and
+then she pulled the deck-string, and gave the order "home," and had
+scribbled half-a-dozen notes of invitation to a little dinner _en
+petit comité_ on the following Sunday, before post-hour. One of the
+half-dozen notes was addressed to Lord Sandilands, a second to the man
+in the Blues, and a third to Miss Grace Lambert. The destination of
+the other three is no concern of ours.
+
+When Miss Lambert's page brought her the much-monogramed note which
+contained Lady Carabas' invitation, she observed that a second missive
+lay on the salver. It was addressed to Mrs. Bloxam, who was sitting in
+the same room, at a little distance from the piano before which Grace
+was seated. The page crossed the room, and held the salver towards
+Mrs. Bloxam, who took the letter, and as she glanced at the
+superscription, turned deadly pale. She held the letter in her hand
+unopened, and glanced with a strange uneasiness in her usually placid
+face towards Grace. But Grace had thrown the note she had just read on
+the floor beside her, and her fingers were scampering over the keys,
+and her Voice was pouring out volumes of sound; she seemed unconscious
+even of Mrs. Bloxam's presence. Seeing which that lady rose and went
+to her own room. Having reached that sanctum, and carefully bolted the
+door, she broke the seal of the letter which had caused her to
+experience so much emotion, and found, as she expected, that it came
+from Lord Sandilands. Its contents were brief and businesslike. Mrs.
+Bloxam knew his lordship's style of old. He told her that he wished to
+see her alone, for a reason which he would explain in person, should
+he be so fortunate as to procure the desired interview, on calling at
+the villa on the following day, at three o'clock in the afternoon. He
+would take his chance of finding her at home, and, if he should be
+unsuccessful, would call again.
+
+The receipt of this letter threw Mrs. Bloxam, who had been prevented
+by indisposition from accompanying Grace Lambert to Carabas House, and
+was therefore unaware that Lord Sandilands had been present at the
+concert, into a state of the utmost perturbation. She dreaded she knew
+not what. It was in vain she asked herself what had she to fear. If,
+indeed, the design of Lord Sandilands in coming to see her were to
+inquire after his daughter, he would find her in the care to which he
+had committed her. With regard to the career which she had chosen, he
+certainly could not possess the right, nor could she imagine his
+having the inclination, to interfere. Was he coming to destroy the
+long-maintained _incognito_, to make himself known to his daughter?
+Was he coming to demand from her, to whose care he had committed the
+child, a stern account of her stewardship? Had he any suspicion of the
+truth? Had any rumour of Gertrude's miserable marriage reached her
+father? Was he coming in anger, or in curiosity, or in an access of
+newly-awakened conscience, of newly-born feeling? She could not tell,
+and yet she was forced to ask herself these questions, vain though
+they were; and Mrs. Bloxam acknowledged to herself afterwards that she
+had seldom passed through more miserable hours than those which
+elapsed between the receipt of Lord Sandilands' letter, and the page's
+announcement that Lord Sandilands was awaiting her presence in the
+drawing-room, on the afternoon of the same day.
+
+At the hour which he had named Lord Sandilands presented himself at
+the villa. Mrs. Bloxam was alone, and received him with much more
+composure than she really felt, while he, in his turn, did not betray
+any symptoms of the unaccustomed mental perturbation which had led him
+to seek her presence. Years had elapsed since Mrs. Bloxam had last
+seen Lord Sandilands; years had changed him from a hale middle-aged
+man to one on whom the burden of age was beginning to tell. Those
+years had made less alteration in her; and the first desultory thought
+that occurred to her when she saw him was, how completely the likeness
+she had formerly traced in his features to those of Gertrude had
+ceased to exist. Lord Sandilands entered at once on the business of
+his visit.
+
+"I have come to ask you, Mrs. Bloxam," he said, "whether I am not
+right in supposing that the young lady whom I saw at Carabas House two
+nights ago is the same whom I placed with you under the name of
+Gertrude Keith?"
+
+"Miss Lambert is that young lady," replied Mrs. Bloxam.
+
+"I thought I could not be mistaken. I have never seen her since her
+childhood, as you know, and did not purpose to see her. But I have
+changed my mind. She is very handsome and very clever, Mrs. Bloxam;"
+and Lord Sandilands' voice took almost a pleading tone. "She is a girl
+who would do credit to such a position as--as I cannot give her
+now--but I should like to serve her in any way that is open to me; and
+I have come to you to ask your advice as to how this is to be done."
+
+"Miss Lambert is in the house now," said Mrs. Bloxam; "but I have not
+mentioned your name to her, or your intended visit. I fancied you
+might have some such purpose as you tell me of in coming, and thought
+it better to wait until I should know more."
+
+"You did very right, Mrs. Bloxam," said Lord Sandilands. "I think it
+is better I should not see Gertrude now; and I do not think she ought
+ever to know the truth--to know that I am her father. It could do no
+good to her or to me; there is no undoing the past; but I see no
+objection, if you have none, to my being introduced to her in the
+character of an old friend of yours, interested in her because you
+are, and anxious to serve her. Do _you_ see any reason why this should
+not be, Mrs. Bloxam?"
+
+"Certainly not, my lord," replied Gertrude's friend; "it requires
+little consideration, I think, and I shall be happy to carry out your
+wishes now as formerly."
+
+Mrs. Bloxam spoke with her usual fluent composure. It had forsaken her
+for a little while after Lord Sandilands' appearance, but now it was
+perfectly restored. Things were taking the best possible turn. Lord
+Sandilands was putting himself into the position of her debtor, making
+a compact of positive friendship with her. What an escape from the
+danger she dreaded, the risk she felt she had so duly incurred! He had
+no suspicion, not the slightest--the terrible episode of Gertrude's
+disastrous marriage was, then, safely concealed from the only human
+being whom, beside herself and her husband, it concerned! With steady
+serenity she turned her attention to what Lord Sandilands had to say
+to her. Their interview was long and uninterrupted, until, a few
+minutes after they had heard the sound of carriage-wheels in the
+little avenue, Grace Lambert entered the room abruptly. She was
+looking handsome, and in high spirits, and came in saying:
+
+"I beg your pardon--I thought you were alone."
+
+"This is Lord Sandilands, my dear," said Mrs. Bloxam, as the old
+nobleman rose and bowed. "Lord Sandilands, Miss Lambert. His Lordship
+saw you the other night at Carabas House, Grace.
+
+"Indeed!" said Grace, with a perfectly unembarrassed smile. "I am
+going there now--Lady Carabas has sent the carriage for me--so I came
+to tell you." Then, with a gesture of leave-taking, she said to Lord
+Sandilands, "Ah, yes, I remember now, quite well. You were in the
+front seats, next to a tall young man with a very thick dark beard."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+The Linnet's first Flight.
+
+
+There were many phases of this life in which Lord Sandilands enjoyed a
+singular and an extensive popularity, many varieties of the social
+scale in which his name was mentioned with respect, and not a few in
+which he was regarded with far more than ordinary interest. In the
+first place, he was a man well born and well bred, and did honour to
+his position by his appearance, his manners, and the constant decorum
+which pervaded and formed part of his life. City merchants, members of
+parliament, who, having swept out their own counting-houses, of course
+became rigidest Conservatives, when by those wonderful gradations
+which are known to the reverent as "honest perseverance," and to the
+irreverent as "lucky flukes," they rose to be heads of the firm, felt
+immensely honoured by being permitted to play in the same rubber at
+the Portland with the calm, quiet, self-possessed, bald-headed,
+silver-fringed old nobleman, who was a model of courtesy throughout
+the game, but who never missed a point or gave a chance. Young men
+imbued with slang, as are the young men of the present day, dropped
+the metaphor of the prize-ring, music-hall, and the _demi-monde_ villa
+in the presence of the "high-dried old boy," of whose position there
+could not be the smallest doubt, and who, on occasion, had shown that
+he owned a tongue which could make itself felt "doosid unpleasantly,
+don't you know!--kind of rough side of it, and all that sort of thing,
+you know!" To women he was always scrupulously attentive, and was in
+consequence in the greatest favour amongst them. The fact of his
+wearing the willow for his old love, Lady Lucy Beecher, was _répandu_
+from Belgrave- to Grosvenor-squares; and the story, which had won for
+him such affectionate interest amongst those who were young at the
+time when, as all supposed, he was jilted by the fair one, and bore
+his jilting so manfully, yet lived amongst their descendants, and
+caused Lord Sandilands to be regarded as "a sweet old thing," who had
+suffered in Love's cause, by _débutantes_ who were unborn when John
+Borlase first won Gertrude Gautier's childish heart.
+
+And yet Lord Sandilands was by no means a representative man. For
+politics he cared little or nothing. On special occasions he went down
+to the House and voted with his party, but in that was comprised his
+whole Parliamentary career. He never spoke and never intrigued; the
+Custom-house and the Inland Revenue enrolled no members who had
+obtained their appointments at his instance; his personal appearance
+was unknown to the private secretary of the Postmaster-general; nor
+was his handwriting to be found in the bulging pigeon-holes of the
+Treasury. Many years had elapsed since he had arrayed himself in the
+charming court-costume which intelligence has retained from the
+customs of the dark ages, and presented himself at the levees of his
+sovereign. At flower-shows and races, at afternoon Park or morning
+Row, at garden-parties or _fêtes champêtres_, at none of those
+gatherings where pleasant Frivolity rules, was Lord Sandilands
+known--at none, rather, save one--the Opera. There he was _facile
+princeps_; there he was king of the place. The check-takers and the
+box-keepers knew him as well as they knew the lessee, and stood in as
+much awe of him. The principal librarians, Messrs. Ivory, MacBone, and
+Déloge, prostrated themselves before him, and were always most anxious
+to learn his opinion of any novelty, as on that opinion they were
+accustomed to base their calculation of profit or loss. With Schrink,
+the critic of the _Statesman_--a cynical, humpbacked man, who had
+a spite against mankind, and "took it out" in writing venomous
+articles abusive of the world in general, and the musical world in
+particular--Lord Sandilands was the only man who had the smallest
+weight; and many a neophyte has owed the touch of oil which she
+received, instead of the pickling which threatened her, to a kind word
+dropped by his lordship in the seclusion of that box on the pit tier
+to which he alone was admitted, where Schrink sat nursing his leg,
+biting his nails, and glowering with fury alike at singers and
+audience. Behind the scenes his popularity was equally great; the
+sulky tenors gave up sucking their cough-lozenges and grinding their
+teeth at his approach, and welcomed him with courteous salutations;
+the basso roused himself from his stertorous sleep; the prima donna
+gave up that shrill altercation with her snuffy old mother; the
+property-men and the scene-shifters, who dashed indiscriminately
+against the gilded youth who roamed vacantly about, took special care
+to steer clear of Lord Sandilands, and touched their paper caps to him
+as he passed by; and the little ballet-women and chorus-singers
+dropped deepest curtsies to his lordship, and felt that so long as he
+was satisfied with them their pound a week was safe.
+
+Had he any interest in the management? That was a moot point. Ever
+since the publication of the bankrupt's schedule made patent the fact
+that a well-known advertising teacher of languages was identical with
+an even more notorious agricultural-implement maker, one has been
+afraid to give any positive opinion as to who is who in this most
+extraordinary world of ours. Mr. Boulderson Munns was the responsible
+lessee of the Grand Opera, and held the reins of management; but whose
+was the money embarked in the speculation it was impossible to say.
+Young Jeffcock, the China merchant (Jeffcock Brothers of Shanghai),
+used to attend all the rehearsals, had boxes always at his command,
+and was treated with great deference by Mr. Boulderson Munns; but in
+all these respects he was equalled by Jack Clayton of the Coldstreams,
+who was notoriously impecunious, who owed even for his button-hole
+bouquets, and--who spent all his ready-money in hansom cabs and
+sprat-suppers for the _corps de ballet_. Tommy Toshington, who knew
+most things, declared that Lord Sandilands had no monetary interest in
+the house, but that his position gave him greater influence with Mr.
+Boulderson Munns than was enjoyed by any of the others. "Sandilands,
+sir," Tommy would say, when he had dined well at somebody else's
+expense,--"Sandilands is the man to give a stamp to a thing of that
+sort! Don't know what there is in him, but there's something that when
+he says a musical thing's all right, it's safe to go. Why, when that
+old gray horse and green brougham of his are seen at the door of
+Canzonet's shop, as they are day after day in the season, it's worth a
+fortune to Sam Canzonet--he told me so himself. Money? Not a sixpence,
+not a sous. When he was John Borlase he was a regular screw, and he's
+not improved with age; but it is not money Munns wants out of him.
+Jeffcock? nonsense! Jack Clayton? bah! The real capitalist there, sir,
+is-;" and here Mr. Toshington whispered in your ear the name of a
+well-known Evangelical M.P., whom you would have as soon accredited
+with Mormonism as with connection with theatrical affairs; and having
+made his point, hobbles off chuckling.
+
+There was truth in this, although it was said by Tommy Toshington.
+There was no doubt that Lord Sandilands had powerful interest in all
+the ramifications of the musical world; and though this fact must for
+a long time have been patent to him, he never thought of it, never, at
+least, felt it so strongly as when he was turning over in his mind the
+curious chance which had brought him face to face with his daughter,
+and had been casting about as to how he best could serve her. That the
+girl had musical talent he was certain. He had served too long an
+apprenticeship, all amateur though it was, to his favourite science
+not to be thoroughly convinced of that; and he knew perfectly well
+that Grace Lambert's voice and style were both far beyond those
+possessed by most of the gifted pupils of the Academy of Music: for
+the most part delightful young persons, who came out with a gush, and
+went in with a run; who gave immense delight to their personal friends
+at the few concerts at which they sung gratuitously; and who may,
+according to the orthodox ending of the children's tales, "have lived
+happy ever after," but who, at all events, passed the remainder of
+their lives in obscurity, and were never heard of again.
+
+No; Grace Lambert--what the deuce had made her assume so unromantic a
+name? Gertrude Keith was fifty times as pretty--Grace Lambert was not
+to be measured by the usual bushel. Her voice, as Lord Sandilands
+recollected it at Carabas House, was one of the sweetest, the most
+_trainante_ and bewitching which, in all his great experience, he had
+ever listened to; and there was something about her personal
+appearance, her hair and _tournure_, which completely lifted her out
+of the common. "Psht!" said the old gentleman to himself, as he lay
+back in his easy-chair, revolving all these things in his mind--"how
+many of 'em have I seen? There was Miss Lavrock--charmin' voice she
+had, bright and shrill, like a bird's pipe--a little fat, dumpy body,
+that made the plank in the _Sonnambula_ creak beneath the weight of
+her ten stone, and looked more like a cook than Lucia; and there was
+Miss Greenwood--Miss Bellenden Greenwood, I beg her pardon--with her
+saucy black eyes, and her red-and-white complexion, and her corkscrew
+ringlets--gad, how horrible! But this child is marvellously
+_distinguée_ and bred-looking; the way her head is set on her
+shoulders, the shape of her head, the curve of her nostrils, and the
+delicacy of her hands--I'm always telling myself that blood's all
+bosh, as they say in their modern slang; but 'pon my word, one finds
+there's something in it after all!"
+
+Lord Sandilands was a constant visitor now at the pretty Bayswater
+villa, and had conducted himself with such courtesy and kindness as to
+render his presence anything but disagreeable to Grace. The time
+during which she had lived with her husband, short though it had been,
+had been quite long enough to give her an unconquerable aversion for
+slanginess, and bad taste, and enable her to appreciate the spirit of
+the gentleman, which showed itself in every action, in every word of
+the old nobleman. Nor did Lord Sandilands, after a little time, care
+to conceal the great interest which he took in Miss Lambert's career.
+While carefully veiling everything which might show the relationship
+in which he stood to the young girl, and while never ceasing to
+impress on Mrs. Bloxam--much to that worthy woman's secret annoyance,
+for was she not the possessor of a secret even more mysterious and
+more compromising in connection with Gertrude--the necessity of
+reticence, Lord Sandilands confessed to Miss Lambert that, actuated by
+the purest and most honourable motives, he wished to place himself at
+her service in advancing her interests in the profession which she had
+chosen, and in which she was evidently destined to take a high
+position, and in being of use to her in society. And in both these
+ways the old nobleman was of the greatest assistance to the
+_débutante_. As has been before said, his verdict in musical matters
+was immensely thought of; while, though it must be acknowledged that
+the open and avowed support of many elderly noblemen would be anything
+but fortunate in securing the interests of a young musical lady with
+the members of her own sex, that of such a known Galahad as Lord
+Sandilands had due weight, and his protégée, duly escorted by Mrs.
+Bloxam, "went everywhere." "Everywhere" included Lady Lowndes'; and
+the Marchioness of Carabas knew of this, as how could she do
+otherwise? being a diligent student of the _Morning Post_, in addition
+to having it told her by seven of her dearest and most intimate
+friends, who called for the express purpose of startling her with the
+information during the next afternoon. But the Marchioness knew of
+Miss Lambert's appearance at Lady Lowndes' house, and yet received
+her the next day with a welcome which had in it even more than the
+usual _empressement_. Why? impossible to say, save that people
+were beginning to talk more and more of Miss Grace Lambert's
+voice and appearance, and specially of her manners. "Something
+odd about her, don't you know--frigid, unimpressionable,
+something-which-one-can't-make-out sort of thing, you know!" the
+ladies said; while the delightful creature in the Blues, to whom she
+had been specially introduced with the view of eliciting the speaking
+of her heart, declared she was "doosid hard nut to crack," and
+something which had beaten him, the delightful creature in the Blues,
+"by chalks." So that Lady Carabas, carefully noting all the phases of
+society, felt more bound than ever to "keep in" with the _protégée_
+whom she had introduced; and the ambrosial footmen with the powdered
+locks went more frequently than ever between the halls of Carabas and
+the Bayswater villa, and the much-monogramed notes which they conveyed
+were warmer than ever in their expressions of admiration and
+attachment, and hopes of speedily seeing their most charming &c.; and
+more than ever was Lady Carabas Miss Grace Lambert's dearest friend.
+But Lady Carabas was a very woman after all, and as such her
+friendship for her dearest friend stopped at a certain point; she
+brooked no interference in matters where her Soul (with the big S) was
+concerned. Other women, not possessing so much worldly knowledge,
+might have given their dearest friends opportunity for intimacy with
+the temporary possessor of the Soul, and then quarrelled with them for
+causing the Soul to be depressed with the pangs of jealousy and
+distrust. Lady Carabas knew better than that. He whose image the Soul,
+however temporarily, enshrined must be kept sacred and apart, so far
+as it was possible to keep him, and must be troubled with no
+temptation. Hence it happened that Gilbert Lloyd, then regnant over
+Lady Carabas' Soul, was never permitted to meet, or scarcely even to
+hear of, the young lady in whom he would have recognised his wife.
+
+Of Miles Challoner, however, Miss Grace Lambert saw a great deal; not,
+indeed, at Carabas House. Ever since the eventful evening of his
+introduction to Mr. Gilbert Lloyd, Miles had crossed the threshold of
+Lady Carabas' mansion as seldom as social decency, in deference to the
+Marchioness's constantly renewed invitations, would permit him. The
+invitations were constantly renewed; for Lady Carabas had taken a
+liking to the young man, and, indeed, the idea had crossed her
+ladyship's mind that when Gilbert Lloyd's time of office had
+expired--and his tenure had been already more than the average--she
+could scarcely do better than intrust Miles Challoner with the secret
+of the existence of her Soul, and permit him to share in its
+aspiration. There was a freshness, she thought, about him which would
+suit her admirably; a something so different from those _fades_ and
+jaded worldlings among whom her life was passed. But though the
+invitations were constant, the response to them was very limited
+indeed, and only on one or two occasions subsequent to his
+introduction did Miles avail himself of the hospitality of Carabas
+House. On none of these occasions did he meet Mr. Gilbert Lloyd. The
+same reason which induced Lady Carabas to manoeuvre in keeping her
+friend for the time being from meeting her handsome protégée suggested
+to her the expediency of preventing any possible collision between the
+actual and the intended sharers of her Soul; collision, as Lady
+Carabas thought, by no means unlikely to occur, as she was a shrewd
+observant woman of the world, and had noticed the odd behaviour of
+both gentlemen at the time of their introduction.
+
+But Lord Sandilands, loving Miles Challoner for his own and for his
+father's sake, and noticing the strong impression which Miss Lambert's
+voice and beauty had made upon the young man, had taken him to the
+Bayswater villa, and formally introduced him; and both Mrs. Bloxam and
+Grace had "hoped they should see more of him." He was a gentleman. You
+could not say much more of him than that; but what an immense amount
+is implied in that word! He was not very bright; he never said clever
+or smart things--consequently he kept himself from evil-speaking,
+lying, and slandering; he had no facility for gossip--consequently he
+never intruded on the ladies the latest news of the _demi-monde_
+heroines, nor the back-stairs' sweepings of the Court; he was earnest
+and manly, and full of youthful fervour on various subjects, which he
+discussed in a bright, modest way which won Mrs. Bloxam's by no means
+impulsive heart, and at the same time made that impulsive heart beat
+quickly with its knowledge of Gertrude's secret: a secret with which
+the unexpressed but impossible-to-be-mistaken admiration of this young
+man might interfere.
+
+Impossible-to-be-mistaken admiration? Quite impossible. Lord
+Sandilands--though years had gone by since he had been a proficient in
+that peculiar vocabulary, whose expressions are undefined and
+untranslatable--recognised it in an instant, and scarcely knew whether
+to be pleased or vexed as the idea flashed upon him. He loved Miles
+like his own son, believed in all his good qualities, recognised and
+admitted that the young man had all in him requisite to make a good,
+loving husband; his social status, too, was such as would be most
+desirable for a girl in Gertrude's position. But Lord Sandilands knew
+that any question of his natural daughter's marriage would entail the
+disclosure of the relation in which he stood to her; and he dreaded
+the ridicule of the world, dreaded the banter of the club, dreaded
+more than all the elucidation of the fact that the _répandu_ notion of
+his wearing the willow for Lady Lucy Beecher had been all nonsense,
+and that he had consoled himself for her ladyship's defalcation by an
+intrigue of a very different calibre.
+
+"I should be laughed at all over town," the old gentleman said to
+himself; "and though it must come, by George, it's best to put off the
+evil day as long as possible. I don't know. I'm an old fellow now, and
+have not as keen an eye for these things as I had; but _I_ don't
+perceive any sign of a _tendresse_ on Gertrude's part; and, all things
+considered, I'm glad of it."
+
+And Lord Sandilands was right. There was not the smallest sign of
+any feeling for Miles Challoner in Grace Lambert. Had she had the
+least spark of such a feeling kindling in her heart, it is very
+doubtful--whether she would have permitted it to be remarked in her
+outward manner; but her heart was thoroughly free from any such
+sentiment. She liked Miles Challoner--liked his frank bearing, and was
+touched, after her fashion, by the respect which he showed her. It was
+something quite new to her, this old-fashioned courtesy from this
+young man. Of course, during her schooldays she had seen nothing of
+mankind, save as exemplified in the foreign professors of languages
+and music, whose courtesy was for the most part of the organ-monkey
+order--full of bows and grins. After her marriage, the set in which
+she was thrown--though to a certain extent kept in order by the
+feeling that Gilbert Lloyd was "a swell," and had peculiar notions as
+to how his wife should be treated--never had scrupled to talk to her
+without removing their hats, or to smoke in her presence. And though
+the gentlemen she had met at Carabas House had been guilty of neither
+of these solecisms, there had been a certain _laissez-aller_ air about
+them, which Grace Lambert had ascribed to a _tant soit peu_ disdain of
+her artistic position; the real fact being that to assume a vice if he
+have it not, and to heap as much mud as possible on that state of life
+into which it has pleased Providence to call him, is the chosen and
+favourite occupation of a high-born and wealthy young man of the
+present day. So Grace Lambert recognised Miles Challoner as a
+gentleman _pur sang_, and appreciated him accordingly; had a bright
+glance and a kindly word of welcome for him when he appeared at the
+Bayswater villa, made him at home by continuing her singing-practice
+while he remained, made him happy by asking him when he was coming
+again as he said his adieux; but as to having what Lord Sandilands
+called a _tendresse_ for the man, as to being in love with him--Love
+came into Gertrude Keith's heart three months before she walked out of
+the laundry-window over the roof of the school-room, and stepped down
+on to the driving-seat of the hansom cab, in which Gilbert Lloyd was
+waiting to take her off to the church and make her his wife. Love
+died out of Gertrude Lloyd's heart within three months of that
+marriage-day; and as for Grace Lambert, she never had known and never
+intended to know what the sentiment meant. So, so far, Lord Sandilands
+was right; and the more he watched the conduct of the two young people
+when alone towards each other--and he watched it narrowly enough--the
+more he took occasion to congratulate himself on his own perspicacity
+and knowledge of the world. But at the same time he reflected that the
+life which Miss Grace Lambert was leading was but a dull one, that she
+took but little interest in these society successes; and he took
+occasion to glean from her what he knew before--that her heart and
+soul were bound up in her profession, and that she was by no means
+satisfied by the hitherto limited opportunities afforded her of
+showing what she really could do therein. This ambition of the girl's
+to make for herself name and fame in the musical world by no means
+jarred against the ideas of the old nobleman. He should have to
+acknowledge her as his daughter some day or other, that he saw clearly
+enough; and it would be infinitely preferable to him, and would render
+him infinitely less ridiculous in the eyes of that infernal bantering
+club-world of which he stood so much in awe, if he could point to a
+distinguished artist of whom all the world was talking in praise, and
+say, "This is my child," than if he had to bear the brunt of the
+parentage of a commonplace and unknown person. There were half-a-dozen
+other ladies occupying a somewhat similar position to Miss Lambert's
+in society, as queens of amateur singing sets; and though she was
+acknowledged by all disinterested people to be far and away the best
+of them, it was necessary that she should have some public
+ratification of her merits, or, at all events, that some professional
+opinion, independent of that of Da Capo or her other singing-master,
+who would naturally be biassed, should be given. The other ladies were
+daughters and wives of rich men, who sang a little for their friends'
+and a great deal for their own amusement; but Miss Lambert's career
+was to be strictly professional, and a touchstone of a very different
+kind was to be applied to her merits.
+
+That was a happy time for Miles Challoner, perhaps really the happiest
+in his life. His first love, at least the first passion really
+deserving that name, was nascent within him, and all the environing
+circumstances of his life were tinged with the roseate hue which is
+the necessary "local colour" of the situation. Moreover, his feelings
+towards Gertrude were at present in that early stage of love in which
+they could be borne and indulged in without worrying and making him
+miserable. She was the nicest woman he had ever seen, and there was
+something marvellously attractive about her, something which he could
+not explain, but the magnetic influence of which he knew it impossible
+to resist. So he abandoned himself to the enjoyment of this pleasant
+feeling, enjoying it doubly perhaps, because up to this point it had
+been, and seemed to promise to continue to be, a mild and equable
+flame; not scorching and withering everything round it, but burning
+with a pleasant, steady heat. You see, at present Mr. Challoner had
+not seen much, if anything, of Miss Lambert alone; his admiration
+sprung from observation of her under the most commonplace
+circumstances, and his passion had never been quickened and stung into
+fiercer action by the thought of rivalry. True, that whenever Miss
+Lambert went into society she was always surrounded by a bragging
+crowd of representatives of the gilded youth of the period, who did
+their best to flatter and amuse her; attempts in which, if her grave
+face and formal manner might be accepted in evidence, they invariably
+and signally failed. And at the Bayswater villa he might be said to
+have her entirely to himself, he being the only young man admitted
+there, with the exception occasionally of some musical professor,
+native or foreign; the delightful creature in the Blues, and other
+delightful creatures who had made Miss Lambert's acquaintance in
+society, having tried to obtain the _entrée_ in vain.
+
+So Miles went on pleasantly in a happy dream, which was very shortly
+to come to an end; for Lord Sandilands, thinking it full time that
+some definite steps should be taken in regard to Gertrude's
+professional future, arrived one morning at the Bayswater villa, and
+was closeted with the young lady for more than two hours. During this
+interview, the old gentleman, without betraying his relationship with
+her, told Gertrude that, far beyond anything else, he had her
+interests at heart; that he had perceived her desire for professional
+distinction; and that, as he saw it was impossible to combat it, he
+was ready then and there to advance it to the best of his ability.
+Only, as the training was somewhat different, it was necessary that
+she should make up her mind whether she would prosecute her career in
+the concert-room or on the operatic stage.
+
+It was a pity Miles Challoner was not present to mark the brilliant
+flush which lit up Gertrude's usually pale cheeks, the fire which
+flashed in her eyes, and the proud curl of her small lips, as this
+proposition was made to her. For a few moments she hesitated, a
+thousand thoughts rushed through her mind--thoughts of her real
+position, retrospect of her past life--a wild, feverish vision of
+future triumph, where she, the put-aside and rejected of Gilbert
+Lloyd, the pupil-teacher of the suburban boarding-school, should be
+queen regnant, and have some of the greatest and highest in the
+kingdom for her slaves. As _prima donna_ of the Opera, what position
+might she not assume, or where should her sway stop, if ambition were
+to be gratified? And then the old cynical spirit arose within her, and
+she thought of the tinsel and the sham, the gas and the gewgaws; and
+the light died out of her eyes, and her cheeks resumed their usual
+pallor, and it was a perfectly cold hand which she placed in Lord
+Sandilands', as she said to him, without the smallest tremor in her
+voice, "You have indeed proved yourself a perfectly disinterested
+friend, my lord; how could I do better than leave the decision on my
+future career in your hands?"
+
+Lord Sandilands was rather unprepared for this speech, and a little
+put out by it. He had an objection to accepting responsibility in
+general; and in this instance, where he really felt deeply, he thought
+naturally that Gertrude would scarcely think of him with much
+gratitude if his choice did not eventuate so happily for her as he
+intended. However, there was nothing else to be done; so he raised the
+cold hand to his lips with old-fashioned gallantry, and promised to
+"think the matter over," and see her again on the following day. With
+many people, to think a matter over means to discuss it with someone
+else. Lord Sandilands was of this class; and though he accepted the
+commission so glibly from Gertrude, he never had the smallest
+intention of deciding upon it without taking excellent advice. That
+advice he sought at the hands of Mr. Déloge, the "librarian" of
+Jasmin-street.
+
+An odd man, Mr. Déloge--a character worth a passing study. His father,
+who had been a "librarian" before him, had amassed a large sum of
+money in those good old days when speculations in opera-boxes and
+stall-tickets were highly remunerative to those who knew how to work
+them, had given his son an excellent education abroad, and had hoped
+to see him take a superior position in life. But, to his parent's
+disappointment, young Déloge, returning from the Continent with a
+knowledge of several languages, and an acquaintance with life and the
+world which serves anyone possessing it better than any other
+knowledge whatsoever, determined to follow the family business, adding
+to it and grafting on to it such other operations as seemed to be
+analogous. These operations were so admirably selected and so well
+conducted, that before the old man died he had quite acquiesced in his
+son's decision, and at the time of our story there was no more
+thriving man in London. The old-fashioned shop in Jasmin-street bore
+the name over the door still; but that name was now widely known
+throughout England and Europe. No Secretary of State was harder worked
+than Mr. Déloge, who yet found time to hunt once or twice a week, to
+live at Maidenhead during the summer, and at Brighton during the
+autumn, and generally to enjoy life. In person he was a tall thin man,
+with an excellently-made wig and iron-gray whiskers, always calm and
+staid in demeanour, and always irreproachably dressed after the
+quietest style. He looked like a middle-aged nobleman whose life had
+been passed in diplomacy; and people who asked who he was--and most
+people did, so striking was his appearance--were surprised to hear
+that he was only "the man who sells the stalls, don't you know?" in
+Jasmin-street. Nothing pleased him more than to observe this
+astonishment, and he used to delight in telling a story against
+himself in illustration of it. One day, in the course of business, he
+had occasion to wait on a very great lady, one of his customers. He
+drove to the house in his perfectly-appointed brougham, and the door
+was opened by a strange footman, to whom he gave his card for
+transmission to her grace. The footman led the way into the library,
+poked the fire, wheeled the largest arm-chair in front of it, and
+placed the _Morning Post_ in the visitor's hands. Mr. Déloge had
+scarcely finished smiling at the extreme empressement of the man's
+manner, when the door was opened, and the same servant pushed his head
+in. "Her grace don't want no hop'ra-box to-night," were his charming
+words, delivered in his most offensive manner. The scales had fallen
+from his eyes, and the great creature found he had deceived himself
+into being civil to a "person in business."
+
+Mr. Déloge had gone through what to many men would have been an entire
+day's business in the morning before Lord Sandilands called upon him.
+He had read through an enormous mass of letters, and glanced over
+several newspapers--had pencilled hints for answers on some, and
+dictated replies to others at full length. His business seemed to have
+ramifications everywhere: in Australia, where he had an agent
+travelling with the celebrated Italian Opera _troupe_, the soprano,
+basso, tenor, and baritone, who were a little used up and bygone in
+England, but who were the greatest creatures that had ever visited
+Australia--so at least said the _Wong-Wong Kangaroo_, a copy of which
+the agent forwarded with his letter; in America, where Schlick's
+opera, in which Mr. Déloge possessed as much copyright as the
+large-souled American music-sellers could not pillage him of, was a
+great success; in India, whence he had that morning received a large
+order for pianos--for Mr. Déloge is not above the manufacture and
+exportation of musical instruments, and, indeed realises a handsome
+yearly revenue from that source alone. Before eleven o'clock he had
+come to terms, and signed and sealed an agreement with Mr. McManus,
+the eminent tragedian, for a series of readings and recitations
+throughout the provinces, thus giving the "serious" people who
+objected to costume and gas a quasi-theatrical entertainment which
+they swallowed eagerly; he had sent a cheque for ten pounds to Tom
+Lillibullero, who was solacing his imprisonment in Whitecross-street
+by translating a French libretto for the house of Déloge; he had given
+one of his clerks a list of a few friends to be asked down to
+Maidenhead the next Sunday--all art people, writers, painters,
+singers, who would have a remarkably jolly day, and enjoy themselves,
+as they always do, more than any other set of people in the world 5
+and he had written half-a-dozen private notes--one among the rest
+addressed to the Marchioness of Carabas, telling her that as her
+ladyship particularly wished it he should be happy to purchase and
+publish Mr. Ferdinand Wisk's operetta, which had been performed with
+such success at Carabas House, but that he must stipulate that the
+operetta must be dedicated to her ladyship, and that each _morceau_
+must have a vignette from her ladyship's portrait on the cover. Mr.
+Déloge had not half completed his business for the day when he was
+informed, through the snake-like elastic pipe that lay at the
+right-hand of his writing-table, that Lord Sandilands was in the shop
+and asking to see him, but he gave orders that his visitor should at
+once be admitted. He was far too recognisant of the old nobleman's
+position in the musical world to have kept him waiting or allowed him
+to feel the smallest slight, if indeed there had not been, as there was,
+a feeling of respect between the two men, which, had they been on the
+same social footing, would have been strong friendship.
+
+"How d'ye do, Déloge?" said Lord Sandilands, walking up and heartily
+shaking hands; "this is very kind of you, my good fellow, to allow me
+to come and bother you when you're over head and ears in business, as
+you always are--very kind indeed."
+
+"I don't want to say a pretty thing, my dear lord," said Mr. Déloge,
+"but when I can't find leisure from my business to attend to you when
+you want to see me, I'd better give that business up."
+
+"Thanks, very much. Well, what's the news? Been to Tenterden-street
+lately? Any very promising talent making itself heard up there, eh?"
+
+"No, my lord, none indeed--I'm glad to say," replied Déloge with a
+laugh.
+
+"Glad to say! eh, Déloge? that's not very patriotic, is it?"
+
+"O, I did not mean to confine my gladness to the dearth of native
+talent. If you only knew, my dear lord, how I'm hunted cut of life by
+promising talent, or by talent which considers itself promising and
+wants to perform, you would know fully how to appreciate, as I do,
+good steady-going mediocrity."
+
+"By Jove, Déloge! this is not very encouraging for me! I came to ask
+your advice on the question of bringing out a young lady of
+unquestionable genius."
+
+"Unless her genius is quite unquestionable I should advise you to let
+the young lady remain in. Why, think for yourself, my dear lord; you
+know these things as well as I do, and have every singer for the past
+quarter of a century in your mind. Run over the list and tell me which
+of them--always excepting Miss Lavrock--has made anything like a
+success."
+
+"Ha!" said Lord Sandilands, "yes, the Lavrock--what a voice, what a
+charming trill! not but that I think Miss Lambert--"
+
+"Is it a question of Miss Lambert--Miss Grace Lambert?"
+
+"It is. Miss Lambert has decided upon adopting the musical profession,
+and my object in coming here was to consult you as to the best means
+to give effect to her wishes."
+
+"That's quite another affair. I have only heard Miss Lambert once. I
+was engaged by Lady Lowndes to pilot Miramella and Jacowski to one of
+her ladyship's wonderful gatherings, and after they had finished their
+duet we went to the dining-room to get some of that curious
+refreshment which is always provided there for the artists. They had
+scarcely begun to eat when the whole house rang with a trill of melody
+so clear and bird-like that the Miramella only drank half her
+glass of sherry, and Jacowski put down his sandwich--I don't wonder at
+it--untasted. We all rushed upstairs, and found that the singer was
+Miss Grace Lambert. She sang so exquisitely, and produced such an
+immense effect, that Madame Miramella was seized with one of her
+violent headaches, and was obliged to be taken home."
+
+Lord Sandilands was delighted. "Poor Miramella!" said he, chuckling
+quietly, "and Ger-- and Miss Lambert was successful?"
+
+"Successful! I have not heard such a combination of voice and style
+for years! But I thought she was merely an amateur, and had no idea
+she intended to take to the profession."
+
+"Yes, she is determined to do so; and as I take the greatest interest
+in her, I have come to ask your advice. Now, should she select the
+concert-room or the stage as her arena?"
+
+"The stage! the stage!" cried Déloge excitedly; "there can be no
+question about it, my dear lord! With that personal appearance and
+that voice, she must have the whole world at her feet, and make her
+fortune in a very few years. Any dumpy little woman who can sing
+tolerably in tune, and face an audience without the music in her hand
+visibly trembling, will do for a concert-room; but this young lady has
+qualities which--Good heavens! fancy the effect she'd make in Opera,
+with that head and that charming figure!"
+
+"My good friend!" said the delighted old nobleman, "you are becoming
+positively enthusiastic. In these days of total suppression of
+feelings, it does one good to hear you. I am charmed to see you think
+so highly of my _protégée_. Now tell met what's the first step to be
+taken towards bringing her out?"
+
+"I should let Munns hear her," said Mr. Déloge.
+
+And Lord Sandilands' face fell, and he looked very grave. Why? Well,
+the mention of Mr. Munns' name was the first thing that had jarred
+disagreeably on Lord Sandilands' ears and feelings in connection with
+Gertrude's intended adoption of the musical profession; and it _did_
+jar. Why, Lord Sandilands knew perfectly, but could scarcely express.
+
+Who was Mr. Boulderson Munns? You might have asked the question in a
+dozen different sets of society, and received a different answer in
+each. What was his birth or parentage no one, even the veriest club
+scandal-monger, ever assumed to know; and as to his education, he had
+none. He had been so long "before the public" that people ad forgotten
+whence he came, or in what capacity his _début_ was made. Only a very
+few men remembered, or cared to remember, that when Peponelli's
+management of the Grand Scandinavian Opera came to smash disastrously,
+by reason of Miramella, Jacowski, Courtasson, and Herzogenbusch, the
+celebrated singers, revolting and going over in a body to the Regent
+Theatre, the opposition house, Messrs. Mossop and Isaacson, of
+Thavies' Inn, put themselves in communication with the agents of the
+Earl of Haremarch, the ground landlord, and proposed their client, Mr.
+Boulderson Munns, as tenant. Lord Haremarch's agent, old Mr.
+Finchingfield, of New-square, Lincoln's Inn, looked askance through
+his double eyeglass at Messrs. Mossop and Isaacson's letter. He
+had heard of those gentlemen, truly, and knew them to be in a
+very large way of business, connected generally with people "in
+trouble"--criminals and bankrupts. Of Mr. Boulderson Munns, the
+gentleman proposed as tenant, Mr. Finchingfield had never heard; but
+on consulting with Mr. Leader, his articled clerk, a young gentleman
+who saw a good deal of "life," he learned that Mr. Munns had been for
+some time lessee of the Tivoli Gardens over the water, and was
+supposed to be a shrewd, clever, not too scrupulous man, who knew his
+business and attended to it. Mr. Finchingfield was a man of the world.
+"I don't know anything about such kind of speculations, and indeed it
+is strongly against my advice that my Lord Haremarch permits himself
+to be mixed up in such matters," he said. "But I should imagine that
+from a person tendering for a theatre you do not require a certificate
+of character from the clergyman of his parish; and if Mr. Munns is
+prepared to deposit a year's rent in advance, and to enter into the
+requisite sureties for the due performance of the various covenants of
+the lease, I see no reason why I should not recommend my lord to
+accept him as his tenant." And Mr. Leader, remembering this
+conversation, made a point of letting Mr. Munns know as soon as
+possible that if he, Mr. Munns, should get the theatre it would be
+owing entirely to his, Mr. Leader's, representations,--a statement
+made by Mr. Leader with a view to the future acquisition of gratuitous
+private boxes, and that much coveted _entrée_ known as "going behind."
+
+So Mr. Boulderson Munns became the tenant of the Grand Scandinavian
+Opera House, and took up his position in society, which at once began
+to pick holes in his garments, and to say all the unpleasant things it
+could against him. Some people said his name was not Boulderson at
+all, nor Munns much; that his real appellation was Muntz, and that he
+was the son of a German Jew sugar-baker in St. George's-in-the-East.
+People who professed to know said that Mr. Munns commenced his career
+in the useful though not-much-thought-of profession of a chiropodist,
+which they called a corn-cutter, in which capacity he took in hand the
+feet of Polesco Il Diavolo, the gentleman who made a rushing descent
+down a rope with fireworks in his heels at the Tivoli Gardens; and
+that by these means the youthful Muntz was brought into relations with
+Waddle, who then owned the gardens, and to whom Muntz lent some of the
+money he had inherited from the parental sugar-baker, at enormous
+interest. When Waddle collapsed, Muntz first appeared as Munns, and
+undertook the management of the gardens, which he carried on for
+several years with great success to himself and gratification to the
+public--more especially to the members of the press, who were always
+free of the grounds, and many of whom were entertained at suppers, at
+which champagne--known to Mr. Munns by the name of "sham"--flowed
+freely. He was a genial, hospitable, vulgar dog, given, as are the
+members of his nation, to the wearing of rich-coloured velvet coats
+and waistcoats, and jewelry of a large and florid pattern, to the
+smoking of very big cigars, the driving of horses in highly-plated
+harness in mail-phaetons with wheels vividly picked out with red, to
+the swearing of loud and full-flavoured oaths, and to Richmond dinners
+on the Sunday. When he entered on the lesseeship of the Grand
+Scandinavian Opera House, he continued all these eccentricities of
+pleasure, but mixed with them some excellent business habits. On the
+secession of Miramella, Jacowski, and all the rest, the public
+pronounced the Scandinavian Opera to be utterly dead and done for; but
+after the first few weeks of his season Mr. Munns produced Fräulein
+Brödchen, from the Stockholm Theatre, who fairly routed everyone else
+off their legs, and took London by storm. Never had been known such a
+triumph as that achieved by the Brödchen; boxes and stalls fetched a
+fabulous price, and were taken weeks in advance. It began to be
+perceived that the right thing was that Norma should have bright red
+hair; and people wondered how they had for so long endured any
+representative of Lucrezia without a turn-up nose. Miramella of
+the classic profile and the raven locks was nowhere. Jacowski the
+organ-voiced bellowed in vain. The swells of the Young-England
+party--guardsmen and impecunious youths, who were on the free list at
+the Regent--tried to get up an opposition; but Munns ran over to
+Barcelona, and came back with the Señorita Ciaja, whose celebrated
+back-movement in the Cachuca finished the business. The people who
+really understood and cared for music were delighted with the
+Brödchen; the occupants of the stalls and the omnibus-box--crabbed age
+and youth, who, despite the old song, manage to live together
+sometimes, and on each other a good deal--revelled in the Ciaja, and
+the trick was done. Mr. Munns realised an enormous sum of money, and
+was spoken of everywhere as "a marvellous fellow! a cad, sir, but a
+genius!"
+
+He was a cad, there was no doubt of that. The Earl of Haremarch, who,
+with all his eccentricities, was a highly-polished gentleman, suffered
+for days after an interview with his tenant, who would receive him in
+his managerial room with open bottles of "sham," and "My lord" him
+until the wine had done its work, when he would call him "Haremarch,
+old fellar!" with amiable frankness. He always addressed the foreign
+artistes in English; told them he didn't understand their d--d
+palaver, and poked them in the ribs, and slapped them on the back,
+until they ground their teeth and stamped their feet in inarticulate
+fury; but his money was always ready when due, and his salaries were
+liberal, as well as promptly paid. The _corps de ballet_ adored him,
+admired his velvet waistcoats, and screamed at his full-flavoured
+jokes. In person, Mr. Munns was a short stout man, with an enormous
+chest, a handsome Hebraic face, with dyed beard and whiskers, and
+small keen eyes.
+
+To such a man as this, Lord Sandilands, the polished old nobleman, had
+naturally a strong antipathy; and yet Lord Sandilands was almost the
+only man of his _clientèle_ to whom Mr. Munns showed anything like
+real respect. "There's something about that old buffer," he would say,
+"which licks me;" and he could not have paid a greater compliment. The
+Brödchen had retired into private life before this, and the Ciaja had
+gone to America on a starring tour; but Mr. Munns had replaced them
+with other attractions, had well maintained his ground: and when Mr.
+Déloge told Lord Sandilands that from Mr. Munns it would be best to
+obtain the information and the opinion he sought, the old nobleman
+knew that the librarian was right; though he hated Mr. Munns from the
+bottom of his heart, yet he made up his mind to get the great
+_impresario_ to hear Miss Grace Lambert, and determined to abide by
+his advice.
+
+So, one fine afternoon, the little road in which the pretty Bayswater
+villa was situated was thrown into a state of the greatest excitement
+by the arrival of the dashing phaeton with the prancing horses in
+their plated harness; and Mr. Boulderson Munns alighting therefrom,
+was received by Lord Sandilands, and duly presented to Miss Lambert.
+After partaking somewhat freely--for he was a convivial soul--of
+luncheon and dry sherry--which wine he was pleased to compliment
+highly, asking the "figure" which it cost, and the name of the
+vendor--the great _impresario_ was ushered into the drawing-room,
+where Signor Da Capo seated himself at the piano, and Gertrude,
+without the smallest affectation or hesitation, proceeded to sing. Mr.
+Munns, who had--been present at many such inaugural attempts, seated
+himself near Lord Sandilands with a resigned countenance; but after a
+very few notes the aspect of his face entirely changed; he listened
+with the greatest attention; he beat time with his little podgy
+diamond-ringed fingers, and with his varnished boots; and at the
+conclusion of the song, after a strident cry of "Brava! brava!" he
+winked calmly at the radiant nobleman, laid his finger alongside his
+nose, and whispered, "Damme, that'll do!"
+
+After a further hearing the great _impresario_ expressed himself more
+fully, after his own symbolic fashion.
+
+"That's the right thing," said he; "the right thing, and no flies! or
+rather it will be the right thing a few months hence.--My dear," he
+continued, laying his hand on Gertrude's arm, and keeping it there,
+though she shrank from his touch, "no offence, my dear; you've got the
+right stuff in you! No doubt of that! Now what we've got to do is to
+bring it out of you. Don't you make any mistake about it; it's there,
+but it wants forcing. What's to force it? why, a mellower air a and
+few lessons reg'larly given by someone who knows all about it. No
+offence again to Da Capo here, who's a very good fellow--him and me
+understand each other; but this young lady wants someone bigger than
+him, and quiet and rest and freedom from London ways and manners. Let
+her go to Italy and stop there for nine months; meanwhile you and me,
+my lord, the Marsh'ness Carabas, and the rest of us, will work the
+oracle, and then she shall came back and come out at the Grand
+Scandinavian Opera House; and if she ain't a success, I'll swallow my
+Lincoln and Bennett!"
+
+There was a pause for a minute, and then Lord Sandilands said: "Do you
+mean that Miss Lambert should make her _début_ on the Italian stage?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," shrieked Mr. Munns; "keep her _début_ for here! A
+gal like that, who can walk up to the piano and sing away before me,
+won't have any stage-fright, I'll pound it! Let her go to Florence, to
+old Papadaggi--which you know him well, my lord, and can make it all
+square there; let her take lessons of him, and make her _début_ with
+me. I'm a man of my word, as you know, and I see my way."
+
+Within a fortnight from that time Miles Challoner, who had been out of
+town, called at the Bayswater villa, found it in charge of a policeman
+and his wife, learned that Miss Lambert and Mrs. Bloxam had gone to
+Hit'ly for some months, and--went away lamenting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+Soaring.
+
+
+The novelty of her life in Italy was full of charm for Gertrude. She
+was still so young that she could escape, in any momentary emotion of
+pleasure, from the hardening influence of the past, and the entire
+change of scene had almost an intoxicating effect upon her. Here was
+no association with anything in the past which could pain, or in the
+present which might have the power to disconcert her. Her husband's
+foot had never trodden the paths in which she wandered daily, with all
+the pleasure of a stranger and all the appreciation of natural beauty
+which formed a portion of her artistic temperament. He had never
+gazed upon the classic waters of the Arno, or roamed through the
+picture-galleries which afforded her such intense delight, and would
+have been almost without a charm for his cynical materialistic nature.
+At least, if he had ever visited Italy, Gertrude did not know it; and
+with all her very real indifference, despite the wonderfully thorough
+enfranchisement of her mind and heart from the trammels of her
+dead-and-gone relation to him, Gertrude, with true womanly
+inconsistency, still occasionally associated him sufficiently with her
+present life to feel that distance from Gilbert Lloyd, that the
+strangeness of the unfamiliar places with  which he was wholly
+unassociated, added to the reality of her sense of freedom, gave it
+zest and flavour. She understood this inconsistency. "If I go on like
+this," she would think, "it will never do. I am much too near hating
+him at present to be comfortable. So long as he is not absolutely
+nothing to me I am not quite free; so long as I prefer the sense of
+the impossibility of my seeing him by any accident--so long as I am
+more glad to know that he is staying with Lord Ticehurst, and Lord
+Ticehurst's reputable friends, than I should be to know that he was in
+the next house on the promenade--so long as either circumstance has
+the smallest appreciable interest or importance for me--I am not free.
+I must regard him as so utterly nothing, that if I were to meet him
+to-morrow at the Cascine, or passing my door, it could have no
+importance, no meaning for me. I don't mean only in the external
+sense, of not appearing to agitate or concern me, but in the interior
+convictions of my own inmost heart. Such freedom I am quite resolved
+to have. It will come, I am sure, but not just yet. I am far too near
+to hating him yet."
+
+Gertrude had unusual power in the distribution of the subjects on
+which she chose to exercise her thinking faculty, and in the absolute
+and sustained expulsion from her mind of such topics as she chose to
+discard. This faculty was useful to her now. There were certain phases
+and incidents of her life with Gilbert Lloyd which she never thought
+about. She deliberately put them out of her mind, and kept them out of
+it. Among these were the occurrences which had immediately preceded
+the strange bargain which had been made between her and her husband.
+Of that bargain herself she thought with ever-growing satisfaction,
+remembering with complacent content the obscurity in which she had
+lived, which rendered such an arrangement possible, without risk of
+detection. But she never travelled farther back in memory than the
+making of that bargain. So then she determined to carry it out to the
+fullest, to have all the satisfaction out of it she possibly could. "I
+am determined I will bring myself to such freedom that the sight of
+him could not give me even an unpleasant sensation--that the sound of
+his name announced in the room with me should have no more meaning for
+me than any other sound devoid of interest."
+
+Gertrude was more happily circumstanced now for the carrying out of
+this determination. All her surroundings were delightful and novel,
+she was in high health and spirits, and her prospects for the future
+were bright and near. The climate was enchanting, the hours and the
+ways of foreign life suited her; and her masters pronounced her voice
+all that could be desired in the case of a daughter of sunny Italy,
+and something altogether admirable and extraordinary in the case of a
+daughter of foggy Albion. She worked very hard. She kept her ambition,
+her purpose steadily before her, and her efforts to obtain the power
+of gratifying it were unrelaxing.
+
+Hitherto Gertrude's experiences had been those only of a school-girl
+and a woman married to an unscrupulous man who lived by his wits. She
+had never been out of England before; and the interval of her life at
+the villa, under the beneficial influence of the Carabas patronage,
+though very much pleasanter than anything she had before experienced,
+Lad not tended much to the enlargement and cultivation of her mind or
+the expansion of her feelings. But this foreign life did tend to both.
+She was entirely unfettered, and the sole obligation laid upon her was
+the vigilant precaution it was necessary she should observe against
+taking cold. It was in Gertrude's nature to prize highly this
+newly-acquired sense of personal freedom, and to enter with avidity
+into all that was strange in her life abroad. Her enjoyment of the
+difference between the habits and customs of Italy and those of
+England was unintelligible to Mrs. Bloxam, who had also never before
+been out of England, and who carried all the true British prejudice in
+favour of everything English with her. She could not be induced to
+admit the superiority of foreign parts even in those lesser and
+superfluous respects to which it is generally conceded. "I cannot
+see," she remarked to a sympathising soul, whose acquaintance she had
+made shortly after her arrival--a lady held in foreign bondage by a
+tyrannical brother and his wife addicted to travel--"I cannot see,
+Miss Tyroll, that the new milk can be so much better. Just look at the
+cows! I'm sure I've seen some at Hampstead twice the size; and as for
+condition! And then the bread again: how can we tell what stuff they
+put into it to make it white? At home, we know there's alum in it; and
+that's the worst of it, and all about it. But here, I never dare think
+about it. Miss Lambert is quite foolish about violets; and I don't
+deny it is very nice indeed to have them when you certainly could not
+in England, and I like them as well as anyone; but I don't know that
+it makes so much difference after all, in one's comfort, in the
+long-run."
+
+"Certainly not," replied Miss Tyroll, who was a person of decisive
+mind and manners. "Foreign countries are much the best places for
+having things which you can very well do without; but, for my part, I
+like England best. Don't you get very tired of marble and pillars and
+church-bells? I do."
+
+"So do I," assented Mrs. Bloxam; "and all the places one is obliged to
+go to are so large and bare." And then the two ladies discussed the
+subject just started at great length. Even the climate had little
+merit in the prejudiced estimation of Mrs. Bloxam. She had felt it
+quite as cold by the Arno as ever she had felt it by the Thames; and
+she thought the _tramontana_ was only a piercing wind with a pretty
+name. She had felt very much the same sort of thing in London, where
+she could take refuge from it in a snug room with warm curtains and a
+coal fire. She had no fancy for sitting with her feet baking over
+_braise_, and she had seen at Dulwich and Hampton Court pictures
+enough to satisfy all her aspirations after art. There was something
+educational in the way in which visitors to Florence--and, indeed,
+Gertrude herself--did the churches and the galleries which was rather
+oppressive to Mrs. Bloxam. She hated all that reminded her of the life
+of sordid toil she had lived through and freed herself from; she did
+not like to learn anything, because she could not get rid of the
+feeling that by doing so she was exposing herself to the danger of
+having to teach it again. But all her personal discontent did not
+interfere with Mrs. Bloxam's interest in Gertrude, and did not render
+her an unpleasant companion. She was not sympathetic; but Gertrude had
+been little used to sympathy, and she did not greatly care about
+it--it never interfered with her enjoyment of anything, that she had
+to enjoy it alone. She did all in her power to make Mrs. Bloxam's life
+comfortable and happy, and she never interrupted or withheld her
+assent from the frequent reminiscences of Bayswater in which her
+friend indulged; but she liked her life in Italy, and she entertained
+a strong conviction that, as she had never been so happy before (for
+she had come to regard the brief period of her love for Lloyd as an
+interval of hallucination), so the future could hardly bring her
+anything better. She had no doubts, no fears about success in her
+adopted profession. The favourable opinions which had been pronounced
+by competent judges in England were confirmed and strengthened by
+those to which she attached most value in Italy, and her progress was
+surprising to herself and her instructors.
+
+The correspondence between Mrs. Bloxam and Lord Sandilands was
+frequent and _suivie_. Mrs. Bloxam was a clever letter-writer, and the
+recipient of her epistles found in them a source of interest which
+life had long lacked for him. If the young lady in whom he had
+discovered Gertrude Gautier's daughter had been merely handsome, he
+would have been pleased with her, doubtless would have taken a kindly
+interest in her; had she been only clever he would have felt a secret
+pride in her talent, and watched its manifestations with a hidden
+interest: but she was both handsome and clever, and highly gifted; and
+all the feelings which, but for his own fault, he might once have
+declared and indulged openly, had been gratified to the fullest
+extent.
+
+As time went on, the "working of the oracle" was done in London by the
+_impresario_ and his assistants in a masterly fashion. The higher
+branch of the same industry was also conducted by the Marchioness of
+Carabas with all the success to which her ladyship was so well
+accustomed in her social manoeuvrings. To such members of her coterie
+as understood her passionate devotion to art, her untiring exertions
+in its interests, and to its professors, she spoke in raptures of her
+"dear Grace Lambert," carefully avoiding the distant precision of the
+"Miss" and the too fond familiarity of the "Grace;" she read what she
+called "pet bits" of her young _protégée's_ letters, which were
+neither numerous nor lengthy; predicted the future value of those
+precious autographs, and contrived to keep a flickering flame of
+interest in Grace Lambert alive, which her appearance would readily
+blow into a blaze. The steadiness of dear Lady Carabas to this
+"fancy," as her friends called it, created some astonishment among her
+circle. She was more remarkable for the vehemence than for the
+duration of her attachments. It had happened to many aspirants for
+fame, or for social success, or some other of the many objects--which
+people think worth attainment, even if a little self-respect has to
+be sacrificed in the process, to find themselves somehow unaccountably
+set aside by Lady Carabas after a certain season of favour--happily,
+sometimes, long enough to have enabled them to extract from it all the
+profit they desired: not "dropped"--that is a rude proceeding, wanting
+in finesse, quite unworthy of the Carabas _savoir faire_--but calmly,
+imperceptibly set aside; whereat the wise among the number were
+amused, and the foolish were savage. But Grace Lambert held her place
+even during her absence. There was something captivating to the fancy
+in the idea of the cultivation in "seclusion" of that great talent of
+which the world had got an inkling, under the auspices of Lady
+Carabas, and which would inevitably be a splendid testimony in the
+future to her judgment and taste. Thus, the way for her appearance and
+success in London being made plainer, easier, and pleasanter for her
+day by day, and the purpose of her sojourn in Italy fulfilled in a
+like ratio, time slipped away, and the period named for the return of
+Grace Lambert and Mrs. Bloxam--who hailed it with delight, and who now
+positively pined for Bayswater--drew near.
+
+
+There had not been seen such a house at the Grand Scandinavian Opera
+for years; there had not been heard such long-continued thunders of
+applause, such rounds of cheering, since the Brödchen's _début_. Lady
+Carabas and Mr. Munns had each "worked the oracle," according to their
+lights; but the discrimination of her ladyship's friends rendered the
+managerial _claque_ quite unnecessary. The opera was the _Trovatore_,
+and Gertrude's entrance as Leonora was the signal for a subdued murmur
+of applause. People were too anxious to see and hear her to give vent
+to any loud expression of their feelings; but when, with perfect
+composure, and without the smallest trace of nervousness in face or
+voice, the girl burst into the lovely "Tacea la notte," the
+connoisseurs knew that her success was accomplished; and long before
+the enthusiastic roar surged forth at the conclusion of the air Mr.
+Boulderson Munns, who had been nervously playing with the ends of his
+dyed moustache, shut up his opera-glass, and said to his treasurer and
+alter-ego, Mr. William Duff, "By--, Billy, she'll smash the other
+shop!"
+
+The lobbies and the refreshment-room were emptying of the crowds which
+had been raving to each other after the first act of the beauty and
+talent of the _débutante_, when Lord Ticehurst, who had been among the
+loudest demonstrators in the omnibus-box, whither he was returning,
+met Gilbert Lloyd quietly ascending the stairs.
+
+"Only just come in?" asked his lordship.
+
+"Only this instant; straight from Arlington-street; it's all right
+about Charon."
+
+"O, d--n Charon!" said Lord Ticehurst; "you've missed the most
+splendid reception--Miss Grace Lambert, you know!"
+
+"My dear fellow, I know nothing--except that Lady Carabas insisted on
+my going to her box to-night, to hear a new singer."
+
+"There never was such a cold-blooded fish, as you, Gilbert! Now be
+quick, and you'll be in time to see her come on in the second act!"
+
+Gilbert Lloyd walked very leisurely to Lady Carabas' box on the grand
+tier, and received his snubbing for being late with due submission.
+When the roar of applause announced the reappearance of the evening's
+heroine, he looked up still leisurely; but the next instant his glass
+was fixed to his eyes, and then his hand shook and his cheeks were
+even whiter than usual, and his nether-lip was firmly held by his
+teeth, as in Miss Grace Lambert, the successful _débutante_, he
+recognised his wife.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THE SECOND.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+Progress.
+
+
+Mr. Boulderson Munns was right in the remark which he made to his
+treasurer and _fidus Achates_, Mr. William Duff, in regard to Miss
+Grace Lambert's success, and to the effect which it would have on the
+future of the opposition opera-house. That very night the triumph was
+achieved. Ladies who "looked in for a minute" at various balls and
+receptions after the opera talked to each other of no one but the new
+singer; the smoking-rooms of the clubs rang with her praises. Schrink,
+the humpbacked, critic of the _Statesman_, went off straight to the
+Albion in Drury-lane; called for some hot brandy-and-water and a pen
+and ink; seated himself in his accustomed box, into which no one else
+dared intrude, and dashed off something, which, when it appeared in
+print the next morning, proved to be an elaborate and scholarly eulogy
+of the new singer. The other journals were equally laudatory, and the
+result of the general commendation was soon proved. The box-office was
+besieged from morning till night; boxes and stalls were taken for
+weeks in advance; crowds began to collect round the pit and gallery
+doors at three o'clock in the afternoon, and remained there,
+increasing in size and turbulence, until the doors were opened; while
+the fugitive Miramella and the recreant Jacowski were singing away for
+dear life at the Regent Theatre, to empty benches. The fact of Miss
+Lambert's being an Englishwoman was with many people a great thing in
+her favour. Old people who recollected Miss Paton, and middle-aged
+people who still raved about Miss Adelaide Kemble, hurried off to see
+the young lady who had succeeded to the laurels erst won so gallantly
+and worn so gracefully by these two great English singers, and came
+back loud in her praise. The _Mirror_--the weekly journal of
+theatricals and music--uplifted its honest, ungrammatical, kindly
+voice in favour of the _débutante_, and gossiped pleasantly of Kitty
+Stephens, Vestris, and the few other English-women who have ever sung
+in time and tune. The _Illustrated News_ published Miss Lambert's
+portrait on the same page with the portrait of the trowel with which
+the Mayor of Mudfog had laid the foundation-stone of the Mudfog
+Infirmary; and the _Penny Woodcutter_ reproduced the engraving
+which had previously done duty as Warawaki, Queen of the Tonongo
+Islands, and subscribed Miss Lambert's name to it. A very gorgeous
+red-and-white engraving of the new singer figured also on the "Grace
+Valse," inscribed to her by her obedient humble servant Luigi Vasconi,
+who was leader of the orchestra of Mr. Munns' establishment, and who
+played first fiddle under the renowned conductor, Signor Cocco; while
+the enterprising hosier in the Arcade under the opera-house produced a
+new style of neck-tie which he christened "The Lambert," and of which
+he would probably have sold more had the Arcade been anything of a
+thoroughfare. As it was, the young man who kept the books of Mssrs.
+Octave and Finings, the wine-merchants, and who was known to have
+plunged madly into love with the new singer when he went in once with
+a gallery-order, sported a "Lambert," and led the fashionable world of
+Lamb's-Conduit-street in consequence.
+
+Was this fame? It was notoriety, at all events. To have your portrait
+in all the photograph-shops and the illustrated journals; to see your
+name blazing in large type in every newspaper, and on every hoarding
+and dead-wall of London; to read constant encomiastic mention of
+yourself in what are called, or miscalled, the organs of public
+opinion; to be pointed out by admiring friends to other admiring
+friends in the streets; to be the cynosure of crowds; to be the butt
+of the _Scarifier_--when some artist or contributor to that eminent
+journal has seen you on horseback while he was on foot, or seen
+you clean while he was dirty, or heard you praised while he was
+unnoticed--these are the recognitions of popularity received by
+art-workers, be they writers, or painters, or actors. Not very great,
+not very ennobling, perhaps, but pleasant--confess it, O my sisters
+and brethren in art! Pleasanter to earn hundreds by the novel, or the
+picture, or the acting--imperfect though each may be in its way--which
+shall cause thousands to think kindly of us, than to receive two
+guineas for verbal vitriol-throwing in the _Scarifier_; pleasanter
+than to stand up, earning nothing at all, to be howled at night after
+night by the vinous members of the opposite political party, and to be
+switched morning after morning by their press-organs; pleasanter than
+to go for forty years for six hours a day to the Tin-tax Office, and
+at last to arrive at six hundred a-year, with the chance of receiving
+a pension of two-thirds of the amount, if you prove by medical
+certificate that you are thoroughly worn out! That worn, gray old
+gentleman going in to enjoy the joint, and the table, and a pint of
+sherry at the Senior United, lost his youth and his hopes and his
+liver in India, and in a few years may perhaps get--just in time to
+leave it to his heir--the prize-money which he won a quarter of a
+century ago; that Irish gentleman with a chin-tuft has sold the last
+of his paternal acres to carry him through his third election, and may
+possibly obtain from the Government, which he has always earnestly
+supported, a commissionership of five hundred a-year. We can do better
+than that, we others! So, let us say, with the French actress, "_Qu'on
+leur donne des grimaces pour leur argent et vivons hereux!_" and in a
+modified and anglicised sense, "_Vive la vie de Bohème!_"
+
+Did Gertrude care much for this kind of cheap incense burnt in her
+honour? Truth to tell, she cared for it very little indeed. When she
+accepted the stage instead of the concert-room for her career, she was
+influenced, as we have seen, by an idea of the brilliancy of her
+triumph, should she succeed; but that triumph once secured, there was
+an end to such feeling in the matter, so far as she was personally
+concerned. She took it all in a perfectly businesslike manner; it was
+good, she supposed, for the theatre that she had succeeded. Gratified?
+O yes, of course, she was gratified; but when people came and told her
+there had never been anything heard like her, she was compelled to
+show them that, in accepting professional singing for her livelihood,
+she had not quite abnegated any pretension to common sense. With the
+exception of devoting the necessary time to rehearsals and study, her
+time was spent very much as it was before her departure to Italy. The
+drawing-room of the little Bayswater villa was gorgeous and fragrant
+with anonymous bouquets, offerings left the previous night at the
+stage-door; but Miss Lambert had not made one single new acquaintance
+since the night of her _début_. Occasionally on "off-nights" she would
+be seen at Carabas House, or at one or two of the other houses which
+she had been in the habit of visiting before the commencement of her
+professional career; but though she was inundated with invitations,
+she steadfastly refused to increase her visiting-list; and the
+lion-hunters, male and female, in vain sought to get her to their
+houses, and equally in vain sought admittance to hers.
+
+To none was she a greater enigma than to her manager, Mr. Boulderson
+Munns. Proud of her success, and disposed in his open-hearted
+vulgarity to testify to her his appreciation of it, that liberal
+gentleman purchased a gaudy and expensive diamond-bracelet, had an
+appropriate inscription in gilt letters put on to its morocco-leather
+case, and sent it to Miss Grace Lambert. The next morning, bracelet,
+case and all were laid on the managerial table, with a little note
+from Miss Lambert thanking Mr. Munns very sincerely for his kindness,
+but declining the present on the grounds that Miss Lambert was doing
+no more than fulfilling the terms of her engagement, and adding, that
+if Mr. Munns had found that engagement profitable, the time to show
+his appreciation of it would be when they came to settle terms for the
+next season. There was a combination of independence and business in
+this reply, which tickled Mr. Munns exceedingly. At first he was
+annoyed at the note, read it with a portentous frown, and strode up
+and down his room, plucking at the dyed whiskers wrathfully. But by
+the time Mr. Duff arrived with his usual budget of letters to be read,
+bills to be paid, questions to be asked, &c., the great _impressario_
+had softened down wonderfully, and had forgotten his rage at what he
+at first imagined the slight put upon him by his new singer, in his
+impossibility to comprehend her.
+
+"I can't make her out, Billy," said he, "and that's the fact. I've
+known 'em of all kinds; but she licks the lot. Look here at her
+letter! She won't have that bracelet, Billy--just shove it into the
+strong-box, will you? we can get the inscription altered, and it'll do
+for somebody else--and talks about fresh terms for next season.
+Reg'lar knowing little shot, ain't she? Quiet little devil, too;
+wouldn't come down to my garden-party at Teddington, on Wednesday,
+though I had the Dook and Sir George, and a whole lot of 'em dyin' to
+be introduced to her, 'No go, your Grace!' I said, 'she won't come;
+but when Venus is bashful let's stick to Bacchus, who's always our
+friend.' I haven't had a classical education, Billy, but I think that
+was rather neat; and so they did, and punished the 'sham' awfully.
+However, it's all good for trade. She and that old cat, her aunt--not
+her aunt? well, Bloxam; you know who I mean--go about to Lady
+Carabas', and all the right sort of people, and the more she won't
+know the wrong sort of people, the more they want to know her, and the
+'let's' tremendous. The other shop's done up, sir; chawed up, smashed!
+MacBone and Ivory and Déloge, and the rest of 'em, tell me they can't
+sell a stall for the Regent; and I hear that Miramella threatened
+Jacowski with a fork at dinner the other day, because he spoke of Miss
+Lambert, and swore she'd go to America. Best thing she could do,
+stupid old fool!"
+
+Although this feeling in regard to Miss Lambert was perhaps nowhere
+expressed in language, so strongly symbolical as that used by Mr.
+Munns, there is no doubt that it was generally felt. There is a
+certain class of artist-patronising society which has the _mot
+d'ordre_ of the _siffleur's_ box, and revels in the gossip of the
+_coulisses_. These worthy persons were in the habit of talking to each
+other constantly of the new _prima donna_--how she came in "a regular
+fly, my dear;" how she was always dressed in black silk, "made quite
+plain, and rather dowdy;" how she was always accompanied by the same
+old lady, who, whether at rehearsal or in the evening, never left her
+side; and how, with the exception of Lord Sandilands, with whom she
+seemed to be very intimate, she entered into conversation with no one
+during the performance;--in all which things Miss Grace Lambert
+differed very much from Madame Miramella, who--depending on the kind
+of temper in which she might happen to be--alternated between the most
+gorgeous garments and the most miserable _chiffons_; between a
+coroneted brougham with a five-hundred-gninea pair of horses, and a
+four-wheeler cab; between the loveliest complexion, and the most
+battered old parchment mask; between the most queenlike courtesy to
+all around her in the theatre, and the use of French and Italian
+_argot_-abuse, which fortunately was incomprehensible to those to
+whom it was addressed. In this society Lord Sandilands was far too
+well-known for the smallest breath of scandal ever to attach to Miss
+Lambert's name by reason of his intimacy with her. People remembered
+how devoted he had been to the Rossignol--who died, poor lady, in the
+height of her success--who had the voice of an angel, and the face of
+a little sheep; how he had fought an uphill fight for Miss Laverock
+until he had seen her properly ranked in her profession; how he had
+always been the kind and disinterested friend of musical talent. They
+wondered that somebody else did not arrive, some English duke, some
+Italian prince, some _millionnaire_, and bear her away as Madame
+Sontag, Miss Chester, Miss Stephens, and Madame Duvernay had been
+borne away before her. She was "thoroughly proper, my dear," they told
+each other in confidence; and the obvious result of propriety being
+marriage, they waited for that result with great impatience.
+
+The successful _début_ of the young lady whom the world regarded as
+his _protégée_, but whom he in his secret soul acknowledged as his
+daughter, had given Lord Sandilands unmitigated satisfaction!
+Unmitigated, because his worldly knowledge had given him sufficient
+insight into Gertrude's character to enable him to perceive that she
+could ride in safety over billows and through tempests in which a less
+evenly-ballasted bark would inevitably suffer shipwreck; to perceive
+that the triumph which she had achieved would leave her head unturned;
+while in the position which she had gained, her heart would be just as
+much at her command as it was when she first surprised society in the
+drawing-room of Carabas House. So, thoroughly happy, the old nobleman
+permeated society, listening with eager ears, to all comments on Miss
+Grace Lambert. He heard them everywhere. Steady old boys at the
+Portland had heard of the new singer from their "people," and
+intended, the first evening they had to spare, to make one in
+the family-box, and hear her. Fast men, young and old, at the
+Arlington, relaxing their great minds--_neque arcum semper tendit
+Apollo_--between turf-talk and whist-playing, spoke of her in
+exaggerated laudation. In many of the houses where he had formerly
+been accustomed to drop in with tolerable regularity, he had renewed
+the habit since Gertrude's arrival in London; pleasant, genial,
+hospitable houses, all the more genial that neither frisky matrons,
+nor foolish virgins, nor gilded youth, were to be reckoned among the
+component parts of the society to be found in them; and there he
+found that Miss Lambert was universally popular. A very great lady
+indeed--one who held herself, and, truth to tell, was generally held,
+far above the Carabas set, or any other of the kind--no less a lady
+than the Dowager Duchess of Broadwater--wrote to Lord Sandilands,
+saying that she had heard very much of Miss Lambert, and hoping that
+through Lord Sandilands' influence the young lady might be induced to
+come and see an old woman who never went out. If you have studied
+polite society and its Bible--the Peerage--you will know that the
+dowager duchess is the widow of that good, kind duke who was nothing
+more than the best landlord, and the most perfectly representative
+English nobleman of his time; who reduced the rents of his tenants,
+and built model cottages for his labourers, and loved music next to
+his wife, and composed pretty little pieces, which were played with
+much applause at the Ancient Concerts. A stately gentleman, tall,
+clean shaven, with his white hair daintily arranged, with his blue
+coat, buff waistcoat, and tight gray trousers in the morning; his
+_culotte courte_, black-silk stockings, and buckled shoes in evening
+attire. His son, the present duke, wears a rough red beard, buys his
+frieze shooting-coat and sixteen-shilling trousers from a cheap
+tailor, smokes a short pipe, and talks like a stable-man. His mother
+who adores him--he adores her, let us confess, and is as soft and
+docile with her as when he was a child--looks at him wonderingly; she
+is of the _vieille cour_, and cannot understand the "lowering" tone of
+the present day. _Grande dame_ as she is, she relaxes always towards
+the professors of that art which her husband so loved; and when Miss
+Lambert was brought to her by Lord Sandilands, and sang two little
+convent-airs which the old lady recollected having heard, ah, how many
+years ago! she drew the girl towards her, and with streaming eyes
+kissed her forehead, and bade her thank God for the great talent which
+He had bestowed upon her, and which ought always to be used in His
+service. After that interview, Gertrude saw a great deal of the old
+duchess, who always received her with the greatest affection, and
+introduced her to the small circle of intimate acquaintances by which
+she was surrounded.
+
+And Lady Carabas, who was necessarily apprised of all that happened in
+Grace Lambert's life, was by no means annoyed at or jealous of her
+_protégée's_ introduction to the Dowager Duchess of Broadwater, of
+whom, in truth, her ladyship stood somewhat in awe; not that she ever
+confessed this for an instant, speaking of her always as a "most
+charming person," and "quite the nicest old lady of the day;" but
+having at the same time an inward feeling that the "charming person,"
+though always perfectly polite, did not reciprocate the respect which
+Lady Carabas professed, and, indeed, really felt for her. The dowager
+duchess's society was as rigidly exclusive as Lady Carabas' was
+decidedly mixed; and the platonic _liaisons_ into which the
+Marchioness's Soul was always leading her were regarded with very
+stony glances from under very rigid eyebrows by the Broadwater
+faction. Lady Carabas had somewhat more than a dim idea of all this,
+and had quite sufficient sense of the fitness of things to be aware
+that it was more politic in her to accept the position than to fight
+against it--to know that for a recognised _protégée_ of hers to be
+received by the Broadwater clique tacitly reflected credit on her; and
+so, while she shrugged her shoulders when she heard of Lady Lowndes,
+and undisguisedly expressed her scorn at the attempts made by other
+lion-hunters to get hold of Gertrude, she warmly congratulated Lord
+Sandilands on the Broadwater connection, and redoubled her praises of
+Miss Lambert's voice and virtues. These laudations, skilfully served,
+as a woman of Lady Carabas' worldly experience alone knows how to
+express them, were always well received by the old nobleman, who could
+not hear too much in Gertrude's favour, and who day by day felt
+himself growing fonder of her, and more thoroughly associated with her
+plans and her welfare.
+
+And there was one other person to whom this lady was equally
+enchanting, who never wanted the song pitched in any other key, who
+listened in rapt delight so long as he was allowed to listen and gaze
+and dream--Miles Challoner, who had left town so soon as he found the
+pretty Bayswater villa deserted, on Gertrude's departure for Italy. He
+had no farther tie to London, and cared not to remain haunting the
+neighbourhood of the nest whence his "bird with the shining head" had
+fled. He became suddenly convinced of the utter emptiness of
+metropolitan existence, and expatiated thereon to Lord Sandilands in a
+way which greatly amused the old nobleman. He declared that these
+nineteenth-century views of life were false and wrongly based; that
+half the vices and shortcomings of the provincial poor and the
+labouring classes were due to the absenteeism of the landlords, who by
+example should lead their inferiors. The holder of an estate, Miles
+said, be it small or large, had duties which should keep him among his
+people. He felt that he had neglected these duties; and though he was
+not specially cut for a country gentleman's life, he knew that he
+ought to go down to Rowley Court, and do his best to get on in that
+sphere of life to which he had been called. The young man said all
+this with great earnestness, for at the moment he really believed it;
+and he was half-inclined to be angry when Lord Sandilands, who had
+listened to the rhapsody with a grave and attentive face, could
+contain himself no longer, but broke into a smile as he said that he
+thought Miles perfectly right, "particularly as the shooting-season
+was coming on." So Miles left London, and went to his old ancestral
+home. The bright bountiful beauty of summer still decked the woods and
+fields; the old servants and the villagers vied with each other in
+welcoming the young squire; and Miles felt that he had done rightly in
+following what he was pleased to call the dictates of his conscience,
+in coming back. The small sum of money which he had expended on the
+estate had been judiciously laid out, and improvement was manifest
+everywhere--in heavy crops, mended fences, and common land drained and
+reclaimed; in repaired outhouses, and shooting properly preserved;
+and, better than all, in a higher class of tenantry, and larger rents.
+Miles Challoner had never felt the pleasant sense of proprietorship
+until this visit to his home. He walked round his fields, he stood on
+little vantage-points and surveyed his estate, with an inward feeling
+of pride which he did not care to check. It _was_ something to be an
+English country gentleman, after all. He had been nothing and no one
+in London, a hanger-on, a unit in the great social stream--no better
+than a dancing barrister, or a flirting clerk in a government office;
+two-thirds of the people he visited knowing his name, and that he had
+been properly introduced to them by some accountable person, but
+nothing more. While here, he was the young squire; as he passed, the
+"hat was plucked from the slavish villager's head;" everybody knew
+him, and was anxious to be seen by him; he was the man of the place,
+and--Yes, it would not be difficult to make out one's life in that
+position; not as a bachelor, of course, but provided he had someone
+with him. Someone? No difficulty in finding her! If he knew the
+language of laughing eyes, Emily Walbrook would not object to become
+the mistress of Rowley Court. And with her father Sir Thomas's money
+what might not be done? The old place might be rehabilitated, the lost
+lands recovered, the old dignity of the family restored.
+
+But Miles Challoner, being a gentleman and not an adventurer, told
+himself, after very little self-examination, that he did not care for
+Miss Walbrook, and that he never could care for her, consequently that
+he would be a scoundrel to think of proposing for her hand; told
+himself further that he only did care and only had cared--apart
+from some boyish follies which had not done him nor anyone else any
+harm--for one person in the world, Grace Lambert. Did she care for
+him? He did not know; but, honestly, he thought she did not. And if
+she did, should he bring her there, to Rowley Court, as his wife? Did
+he care for her sufficiently to suffer the universal inquiries as to
+who she was, the generally uplifted eyebrows and supercilious remarks
+when the reply was given? At present she was only known as a young
+lady received in excellent society on account of her musical talents;
+but if this report was true--this report that she had gone to Italy
+with the intention of perfecting herself as a singer on the operatic
+stage? A singer? The stage? The general and only notion of the stage
+in the neighbourhood of Rowley Court was founded on reminiscences of
+the travelling troupe of mummers who had once or twice come to
+Bleakholme Fair; poor half-starved creatures, who had performed a
+dismal tragedy in an empty barn, by the light of a hoop of guttering
+tallow candles. How could he prepare the Bosotian mind of
+Gloucestershire to receive as his wife a woman who would bring with
+her such associations as these? What would be said by the old county
+neighbours, by whom the old Challoner name was yet held in the highest
+respect and regard? What by the wealthy new-comers, whose influence
+was day by day increasing, and who gave themselves airs of pride and
+position and exclusiveness far more intolerable than the loftiest
+hauteur of the real territorial _seigneurie?_ Poor Miles! and after
+all--even if he had made up his mind to brave all the outcry that
+might arise; to say, "I love this woman, and I bestow on her my rank
+and my position; accept her as my wife, or leave her alone; think as
+you please, talk as you please, and go to the deuce!"--he was by no
+means certain that Miss Grace Lambert would see the magnitude of the
+sacrifice he was making for her, or, indeed, that she would have
+anything to say to him.
+
+That was a dull winter for Miles Challoner, that duty season when he
+steadfastly went through the character of the English country
+gentleman, to the tolerable satisfaction of his neighbours and his
+tenants, but to his own intense disgust. He hunted twice a week, he
+shot constantly; he attended church regularly, and kept rigidly awake
+during the dear old vicar's dull sermons; he gave two or three dull
+bachelor dinners, where the vicar, the curate, little Dr. Barford, and
+two or three neighbouring foxhunting squires, ate and drank, and
+prosed wearily for three or four hours; and he went out occasionally.
+He dined with Lord Boscastle, the lord-lieutenant and principal
+grandee of the county, where he met all "the best people," but where
+his attention was principally concentrated on his hostess; for Lady
+Boscastle was _née_ Amelia Milliken, and, as Amelia Milliken, had been
+the great attraction for two seasons at the Theatre Royal Hatton
+Garden, during the lesseeship of the great Wuff. Miles could
+hardly realise to himself that the mild, elegant, dried-up,
+farinaceous-looking old lady had been the incomparable actress who, as
+he had heard his father relate, entered so thoroughly into her art
+that she would shed real scalding tears upon the stage; and whose
+Juliet yet remained in the memory of old playgoers as the most perfect
+impersonation ever witnessed. She was an actress when Lord Boscastle
+married her; and see her now, with a cabinet minister on her right
+hand, and the best families of the county honoured by her intercourse!
+Why could not he do the same with Grace Lambert? And then Miles
+recollected that he was not so great a man as Lord Boscastle, had not
+the same weight and _prestige_; remembered also that he had heard his
+father say that Lady Boscastle made her way very slowly into the
+county society; that she had an immense number of disagreeables to
+contend with at first; and that it was only the sweetness of her
+disposition, and her wonderful patience and forbearance, that carried
+her through. And though Miles Challoner was undoubtedly in love with
+Miss Lambert, he scarcely thought that sweetness of disposition,
+patience, and long-suffering were the virtues in which she specially
+excelled. Miles also dined with Sir Thomas Walbrook, where there was
+much more display and formality than at Lord Boscastle's--only
+that the display was in bad taste, and the formality betokened
+ill-breeding; and he went to a hunt-ball, and tried to attend the
+weekly meetings of a whist-club, but broke down in the attempt. In the
+daytime he did not fare so badly, for he was full of life and health,
+and the love for field-sports which had distinguished him when a boy
+came back renewed when he again joined in those sports; but in the
+long evenings he moped and moaned, and was dreadfully bored.
+
+The fact is that, however much he endeavoured to persuade himself to
+the contrary, he was in love with Miss Grace Lambert; and the more
+persistently he turned his thoughts from that young lady, the more he
+found himself taking interest in persons and things associated with
+her. He corresponded regularly with Lord Sandilands, and his every
+letter contained some inquiry after or allusion to "your young friend
+in Italy." The old nobleman chuckled over the frequency and the tone
+of these letters, but replied to them regularly, and invariably said
+something about Grace; something, too, which he thought would please
+the recipient of the letter, for he loved Miles with fatherly
+affection; and, if Gertrude saw fit, nothing would have pleased him
+better than that the two young people should make a match of it. That,
+however, was entirely for Gertrude to determine; and nothing could
+come of it yet, at all events, as she had the stage career before her.
+Meantime, there was no reason why pleasant reports of her progress
+should not go down to Rowley Court. And when Miles received the
+letters, he ran his eye over them hurriedly to see where _the_ name
+appeared, and read those bits first, and re-read them, and then
+dropped very coolly and leisurely into the perusal of his old friend's
+gossip.
+
+He was a queer, odd fellow, though, this Miles Challoner; full of that
+dogged determination which we call "British," and are extremely proud
+of (though, like the man who "treated resolution," in the end we often
+do the thing which we have so stubbornly refused to do); and although
+he knew that Miss Lambert had returned, and was about making her
+_début_ in public, he remained stationary at Rowley Court. He received
+letters regularly from Lord Sandilands, but none of them ever
+contained a hint or a suggestion that he should come up to town;
+indeed, Miles guessed that Miss Lambert would be far too much occupied
+to admit of his seeing her, and he had said he would "give that
+up"--"that" being the guiding motive of his life--and he would hold to
+it. So Miles Challoner was not in the Grand Scandinavian Opera-house
+on the night when Gertrude made her triumphal entry into theatrical
+life. But when, the next day, he read the flaming accounts of her
+success in the newspapers; when he received letters from Lord
+Sandilands and other friends, filled with ravings about her voice, her
+beauty, and her elegance; when he felt that this fresh flame would
+enormously increase the circle of her admirers, many of whom might
+have the chance--which they would not neglect as he was neglecting
+it--of personal acquaintance with her,--he could withstand the
+influence no longer, but made immediate arrangements for returning to
+London.
+
+His old friend received him with his accustomed warmth, talked about
+the length of time he had been away, and rallied him on the probable
+cause of his detention. "I know, my dear boy!" said Lord Sandilands;
+"I know all about what you're going to tell me,--the pleasure a man
+feels in his own _terre_; the delightful days you used to have with
+Sir Peter's pack; the unequalled cover-shooting, and all the rest of
+it. Those things don't keep a young man down in the country, leading
+that frightful dead-alive existence which we try to think pleasant. I
+know all about it; and I know that there's nothing more horrible.
+There must be _beaux yeux_ somewhere, when a man voluntarily accepts
+that kind of life; and, by Jove! it's a kind of life to make one find
+the most ordinary eyes _beaux_. That confounded country life has
+produced more _mésalliances_, and more--hem! What are you going to do
+with yourself to-day?" The old nobleman stopped his discourse
+abruptly; with the reflection, perhaps, that _mésalliances_ scarcely
+fitted him for a theme. Answering him, Miles said that he had nothing
+to do, and that he was entirely at his friend's disposal.
+
+"Then," said Lord Sandilands, "suppose we stroll out Bayswater way?
+You have not seen Miss Lambert for a long time now, though you
+know--for I wrote to you, and you must have heard in a hundred other
+places--of her success. Really, the greatest thing for years.
+Everybody enchanted; and, best of all, has not made the smallest
+difference in her; just the same unaffected, quiet, unpretending girl
+as when we met her that first night--don't you recollect?--at Carabas
+House."
+
+They walked across Kensington-gardens and speedily reached the
+bye-road in which Miss Lambert's pretty villa was situated. Up and
+down this road, fretting against the slowness of the pace allowed
+them, stepping grandly, and sending the foam in flying flakes around
+them, were a pair of horses in a handsome mail-phaeton, driven by a
+correctly-appointed groom.
+
+"Mr. Munns here!" said Lord Sandilands testily, as this sight broke
+upon him. "Horribly vexing, when we hoped to have the young lady all
+to ourselves, eh, Miles? A worthy man, Mr. Munns, but a dreadful
+vulgarian. Tell me, is it my shortsightedness, or has this fellow
+really mounted a cockade in his man's hat?"
+
+"There certainly is a cockade in the man's hat," said Miles, with a
+smile which died away as, on a nearer approach, he added, "and a
+coronet on the harness."
+
+"A coronet? Why, the man can never hare been ass enough to--eh? O dear
+me, impossible! Who's phaeton's that, sir, eh?"
+
+"Earl of Ticehurst's, my lord!" said the groom, touching his hat;
+"lordship's in there, my lord," pointing to the villa with his whip,
+"with her ladyship."
+
+"With her ladyship!" echoed Lord Sandilands in bewilderment. "Let us
+go in, Miles, and see what it all means."
+
+They saw what it all meant when they found Lady Carabas talking about
+education to Mrs. Bloxam in the drawing-room, and saw Lord Ticehurst
+walking with Miss Lambert round the little garden. Lord Sandilands
+frowned very gloomily, but Lady Carabas made straight at him. She had
+been dying to see dear Miss Lambert; she wanted so to see how she bore
+her success--ah, what a success!--and how charming she is over it all!
+not changed in the smallest degree. And her own horses were regularly
+knocked up with all their work just now; and as it was such a long way
+(fashionable people think anything west of Apsley House or north of
+Park-lane quite out of bounds), she had asked her nephew Etchingham to
+drive her over. Lord Sandilands bowed very grimly, and Miles Challoner
+then came forward. Lady Carabas was enchanted to see him; rallied him
+on his absence on the night of the _début_; hoped to have him
+constantly at Carabas House, and was overwhelmingly gracious. Then
+Lord Ticehurst and Gertrude came in, and after a few conventional
+remarks, the young patrician, after a casual glance out of the window,
+informed his aunt that "the chestnuts had already stamped up the road
+into a regular ploughed field, by Jove! and that, as the parish would
+probably send in the paving-bill, perhaps the best thing they could do
+was to be off;" and accordingly he and Lady Carabas retired, with many
+adieux.
+
+When they were gone, Lord Sandilands approached Gertrude and
+congratulated her with mock solemnity on her new acquaintance. "You
+have achieved an earl, my dear child, and there is no saying now to
+what you may not aspire. Charles the Fifth picking up Titian's pencil
+will be equalled by Lord Ticehurst's turning over the leaves of your
+music-book for you. Or in time we might get a duke to--"
+
+"We want no higher member of the peerage than a baron, apparently, to
+render his order ridiculous," said Gertrude, turning upon him with a
+sarcastic bow and a little _moue_. "Don't be angry, dear friend," she
+continued; "but I own I cannot stand raillery where Lord Ticehurst is
+concerned. I have no doubt he means well--I am sure of it; all he says
+is genuine, and, so far as he can make it, polite; but he is very
+silly and very slangy, and--I can't endure him.--And now, Mr.
+Challoner, tell me of all your doings during your long absence in the
+country."
+
+Lord Sandilands had a great deal to say to Mrs. Bloxam on the subject
+of any future visits which Lord Ticehurst might wish to pay to the
+Bayswater villa, and said it pointedly, and without circumlocution.
+When he rejoined the young people, he found them deep in conversation,
+and Miles, at least, looking very happy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+Integratio Amoris.
+
+
+When Gilbert Lloyd satisfied himself that the new opera-singer, at
+whose most successful debut he had "assisted," was none other than his
+wife, the momentary agitation which had so shaken him passed away, and
+he sat himself down at the back of Lady Carabas' box--not in the chair
+usually reserved for the controller for the time being of the Soul,
+but in a more retired position--and gave himself up, as any
+uninterested auditor might have done, to listening to the singing. He
+had never been particularly fond of music, and though he had always
+known that his wife possessed a fine voice, and had even at one time
+taken into consideration the probable profits which would accrue were
+he to _exploiter_ her musical talent, he had never imagined the
+possibility of her taking such a position as that in which he now
+found her. Gilbert Lloyd was a man who believed thoroughly in the
+truth of that axiom which tells us that "there is a time for
+everything;" it would be quite time enough for him to analyse the new
+light which had been let into his life, to weigh and balance the pros
+and cons connected with the appearance of Gertrude on a scene which he
+was accustomed to tread, mixed up with people with whom he was to a
+certain extent familiar; it would be time enough for him to enter into
+those business details on the next morning, when his brain would be
+fresh and clear, and he would be recruited by his night's rest, and
+able more clearly to see his way, and arrive at a more accurate
+decision as to the advisability of steps to be taken. Meanwhile, he
+would listen with the rest; and he did listen, with great pleasure,
+joining heartily in the applause, and delighting Lady Carabas by the
+warmth of his outspoken admiration of her favourite. And he escorted
+her ladyship to her carriage, and went to the club, and played
+half-a-dozen rubbers with admirable coolness and self-possession. It
+was one of Gilbert Lloyd's strongest points that he could put aside
+anything unpleasant that might be pressing upon him, no matter how
+urgently, and defer it for future consideration. In the midst of
+trouble of all kinds--pecuniary complications, turf anxieties, on the
+issue of which his position in life depended--he would, after looking
+at them vigorously with all his power, turn into bed and sleep as
+calmly as though his mind were entirely free, rising the next morning
+with renewed health and courage to tackle the difficulties again. Just
+at this period of Miss Lambert's _début_, Lloyd happened to be
+particularly busy; the Derby--on which he and his party were even more
+than usually interested--was close at hand, and all Gilbert's time was
+absorbed in "squaring" Lord Ticehurst's book and his own. But he knew
+that he need be under no alarm from the new element in his life which
+had just cropped out: though he had seen Gertrude, she had not seen
+him; there was no reason as yet--why they should be thrown together;
+and even if they were, he was too fully aware of her coldness and her
+pride to imagine she would for an instant attempt to thrust herself
+upon him, or even acknowledge him. So Gilbert Lloyd made no difference
+in his life, beyond noting the name under which his wife was charming
+the public, and paying attention whenever that name was pronounced in
+his presence. He heard all that--as we know--people said about her;
+but as that all was praise of her public performance, and astonishment
+at the quietude of her private life, it caused him very little
+emotion, and that little of no pleasurable kind.
+
+It was the intervening week between Epsom and Ascot, and the season
+was at its height. The Ticehurst party, thanks to the astute
+generalship of Gilbert Lloyd, had pulled through the Derby very well.
+Lord Ticehurst's horse had not won--no one had ever imagined that
+possible--but it had been brought up to such a position in the betting
+as to secure the money for the stable, and save its owner's credit
+with the public. Matters for the future looked promising. To be sure,
+Lord Ticehurst had not taken so much interest of late in his turf
+speculations; but that did not particularly affect Mr. Lloyd. So long
+as his patron kept up his stud, and left the entire management of
+everything to him, that gentleman was content. It was not unnatural
+that a man of Lord Ticehurst's youth and health and position should
+wish to enjoy himself in society; and Gilbert rather encouraged his
+pupil's new notions on this point. It was not that Orson was endowed
+with reason, but rather that Orson had found out some _jeux innocens_
+for himself, of which he did not require his keeper's constant
+supervision.
+
+One morning in the above-named week, Gilbert Lloyd was sitting in his
+own room in Lord Ticehurst's bachelor-house in Hill-street. It was a
+pleasant room on the first floor, and was furnished in a manner
+half-substantial and half-pretty. The large oak writing-table in the
+centre, the two or three japanned deed-boxes on the floor, the
+handful of auctioneers' bills pinned to the wall, announcing property
+to be disposed of at forthcoming sales--all these looked like
+business; but they were diametrically contradicted by the cigar-boxes,
+the pipe-rack, the Reynolds proofs, and the Pompeian photographs on
+the walls; the ivory statuettes and the china monsters on the
+chimney-piece; the deer-skins and the tiger-skins, the heavy bronzes,
+the velvet _portières_, and the luxurious chairs and ottomans; all of
+which indicated the possession of good taste and the means of
+gratifying it. Gilbert Lloyd had chosen these rooms--his bedchamber
+adjoined his sitting-room--when the _ménage_ was first transplanted to
+Hill-street from Limmer's--where, during the reign of Plater Dobbs,
+Lord Ticehurst had resided--and had kept them ever since. He had
+chosen them because they were pleasant and airy, and so far out of the
+way, that the ribald friends of the real proprietor--who were dropping
+into their companion's rooms on the ground-floor at all hours of the
+day and night--never thought of ascending to them. Trainers and
+jockeys made their way up the stairs with much muttered cursing,
+hating the ascent, which was troublesome to their short legs, and
+hating the business which brought them there; for Mr. Lloyd had a
+sharp tongue, and knew how to use it; and if his orders were not
+carried out to the letter, so much the worse for those who had to obey
+them. And latterly, a different class of visitors found their way to
+Gilbert's room, demure attorneys and portly land-agents; for Mr. Lloyd
+was now recognised as Lord Ticehurst's factotum; and all matters
+connected with the estates, whether as regards sale, purchase, or
+mortgage, passed through his hands.
+
+It was twelve o'clock in the day, and Gilbert was seated at the oak
+writing-table. A banker's pass-book lay open at his right hand, and he
+was busied with calculations on a paper before him, when there was a
+knock at the door, and upon the cry "come in," Lord Ticehurst entered
+the room. Gilbert looked up from his writing, and on seeing who was
+his visitor, gave a short laugh.
+
+"Won't you send up a servant with your name, next time?" said he; "the
+idea of a man knocking at a door in his own house--at least, when that
+isn't the door of his wife's room! Then, I've heard it's advisable to
+knock or cough outside, or something of that sort, just to keep all
+straight, you know!"
+
+"Funny dog!" said Lord Ticehurst, indolently dropping into an
+easy-chair and puffing at his cigar. "How are you?"
+
+"Well, but worried," answered Gilbert.
+
+"That goes without saying," said his lordship; "you always are
+worried, or you would never be well!"
+
+"Look here, Etchingham," exclaimed Gilbert Lloyd, with a mock air of
+intense interest, "you mustn't do this, 'pon my soul you mustn't, or
+you'll hurt yourself. I've noticed lately a distinct tendency on your
+part to be epigrammatic; you weren't intended for it, and it won't
+agree with you. Take a friend's advice, and cut it."
+
+"Considerate old boy! Tell me the news."
+
+"Tell _you_ the news--I like that. Tell the news to a man whose life
+is passed in what the newspaper fellows call the 'vortex of fashion:'
+who is so much engaged that his humble servant here can't get five
+minutes with him on business, when it's most particularly wanted. Tell
+_you_ the news, indeed!"
+
+"No. But I say, you know what I mean, Gilbert. How are we getting on?
+Ascot, you know, and all that?"
+
+"O, business! Well, Bosjesman will win the Trial Stakes, and Plume
+will be beaten like a sack for the Cup; both of which facts are good
+for us. We shall get Dumfunk's Derby-money, or most of it; he's come
+to terms--nice terms--with that discount company at Shrewsbury; and
+little Jim Potter's shoulder's better, and he'll be able to ride."
+
+"And what about the house?"
+
+"What house? Parliament? Does your lordship intend to put me in for
+Etchingham? I'm as tit a fiddle for that work, and could roll them
+speeches off the reel--"
+
+"Don't be an ass, Gilbert! I mean the house for the week--at Ascot?"
+
+"O, I see! Yes, that's all settled. I couldn't get anything nearer
+than Windsor; but I've got a very pretty little box there. Charley
+Chesterton rents it for the year--he's there with the Blues, you know;
+but Mrs. Chesterton's going away, and Charley will go into barracks
+for the week, and we can have the house. It's a stiffish figure, but
+they can get any amount that week, you know."
+
+"O yes, of course, that don't matter. And it's a nice house, you say?"
+
+"Very pretty little place indeed--do very well for us."
+
+"Yes. And Mrs. Chesterton's been living there? She's a nice woman,
+ain't she?"
+
+"Yes, she's nice enough, as women go. But what has she to do with it?"
+
+"Well--I mean to say, it's a sort of crib that--don't you know--one
+could ask a lady to stop in?"
+
+"O--h!" exclaimed Gilbert Lloyd, with a very long face--"that's it, is
+it?"
+
+"No, no, 'pon my soul, you don't understand what I mean," said Lord
+Ticehurst hurriedly. "Fact of the matter is, Lady Carabas wants to
+come down for the Cup-day; and she'll bring a friend, of course; and I
+told her about my having a house somewhere in the neighbourhood for
+the week, and thought she and the other lady, and their maids and
+people, could--don't you see--stay. What do you think?"
+
+"My dear Etchingham, whatever you wish, of course shall be carried
+out. It is not for me to teach etiquette to any lady, especially to
+Lady Carabas, who despises conventionality, and who, besides, is quite
+old enough to take care of herself. I should have thought that for a
+lady to come to a bachelor's house--however, of course she'll have her
+maid and her footman, and some one to act as her _âme damnées_--her
+sheep-dog. Who is the sheep-dog, by the way?"
+
+"I don't know about sheep-dog," said Lord Ticehurst, flushing very
+red; "but Lady Carabas said the lady she proposed to do me the honour
+to bring to my house was--was Miss Grace Lambert."
+
+Gilbert Lloyd looked up without the smallest trace of perturbation,
+and said, "Miss Grace Lambert? O, the--the celebrated singer! O,
+indeed!"
+
+"Yes," said Lord Ticehurst; "there's a chance of her getting a holiday
+on Thursday night--town will be very empty, you know, and I think I
+shall be able to square it with Munns--and then she might come down to
+the races, and she and Lady Carabas could come over here afterwards.
+She's a most charming person, Gilbert."
+
+"Is she?" said Gilbert Lloyd very slowly. "I have not--what you seem
+to have--the pleasure of her acquaintance. Have you known her long?"
+
+"O, ever so long; ever since she first came out at a concert at
+Carabas House one night. Don't you recollect my pointing out to you a
+very stunning girl in a brougham, just as we were turning into Tatt's
+one day?"
+
+"My dear fellow, you've pointed me out so many stunning girls when
+we've been turning into Tatt's, or elsewhere, that I really cannot
+distinguish that bright particular star. But I've seen Miss Lambert at
+the Opera."
+
+"And she's a stunner, ain't she?"
+
+"She seemed to be perfectly good-looking and ladylike on the stage.
+But these people are so different in private life."
+
+"My dear Gilbert, I've seen her in private life, as you call it, a
+dozen times, and she's awfully nice."
+
+"O, and she's awfully nice, eh?"
+
+"What a queer fish you are! Of course she's awfully nice, and this
+place of Charley Chesterton's will do for these ladies to come to?"
+
+"Yes, I should think so. Mrs. Chesterton is a woman accustomed to have
+the right thing about her; and it's good enough for her, so I presume
+it will 'do' for Miss Lambert and Lady Carabas."
+
+"I hate you when you've got this sneering fit on you, Gilbert," said
+his lordship sulkily; and Gilbert Lloyd saw that he had gone far
+enough. His patron was wonderfully good-tempered, but, like all
+good-tempered men, when once put out, he "cut up rough" for a very
+long time.
+
+"Don't be angry, Etchingham;" and Lloyd rose and crossed the room, and
+put his hand on the young man's shoulder. "I was only chaffing; and I
+was a little annoyed, perhaps, because you seemed doubtful whether
+this house that I have got, and only got after a great deal of
+trouble, would suit you. You might have depended on me. Well, and so
+you have made this young lady's acquaintance, and you find her
+charming?"
+
+"Quite charmin'," said Lord Ticehurst, his good-humour being restored.
+"I've been with Lady Carabas several times to see her at a pretty
+little place she's got out Bayswater way, where she lives with an old
+tabby--by the way, I'll bet odds that old tabby don't let her come
+here without her."
+
+"Well, there's room for the old tabby," said Gilbert. "But, see,
+Etchingham; do I really understand that you--that you care for this
+girl?"
+
+"D--n it, Gilbert, you press a fellow home! Well, then, I'm not given
+to this sort of thing, as you know very well; but this time it's an
+awful case of spoons."
+
+"Ah!" said Gilbert, smiling quietly, "your expression is slangy but
+vigorous. And what are your views with regard to her?"
+
+"Jove!" said Lord Ticehurst, "only one way there, my dear fellow!
+Wouldn't stand any nonsense; any of 'em, I mean,--Lady Carabas and all
+that lot. Besides, she's a lady, you know--educated, and all that sort
+of thing; and as to looks and breedin', she could hold her own with
+any of 'em--eh?"
+
+"Of course she could. Besides, chaff apart, when the Earl of Ticehurst
+chooses to marry, his countess--however, there's time enough to talk
+about that. Now run along, for I must write off at once about this
+Windsor house; and I've a heap of things to do to-day."
+
+Lord Ticehurst left his Mentor, after shaking hands warmly with him,
+and took his departure in a very happy frame of mind. It was a great
+comfort to him to have made Lloyd aware of the state of his feelings
+towards Miss Lambert, immature as those feelings were, for Mentor had
+such a hold over the young man that he never felt comfortable while he
+was keeping anything back from him. But when he was gone, Gilbert
+Lloyd did not begin to write the letter to Windsor, or settle to any
+of the "heap of work" which he had mentioned as in store for him. He
+got up and opened a drawer full of cigars, selected one carefully, lit
+it, and threw himself into a low easy-chair, with his legs crossed,
+and his hands clasped behind his head. At first he puffed angrily at
+his cigar, but after a little time he gradually began to smoke more
+quietly, and then he unclasped his hands and rested his elbows on his
+knees, and his chin on his hands.
+
+"That's it!" he said aloud, "that's the line of country! Fancy my
+never having given a thought to where this fellow was going so often,
+never wondering at the sudden fancy he had taken to his aunt's
+society; and then discovering from his own lips that he has been
+paying visits to my wife! More than that--that he is confoundedly in
+love with her, and wants to marry her! Wants to marry my wife! There's
+something deuced funny in that. I wonder whether any other fellow ever
+had a man come to him and tell him he wanted to marry his wife. I
+should think not! Not that I should care in the least if anyone
+married Gertrude--anyone, that is to say, except this youth
+downstairs. I have not done with him yet, and a wife would interfere
+horribly with me and my plans. Yes, that's the right notion. There is
+no reason why Etchingham should not be encouraged in this new fancy.
+It will keep him from dangling after any other woman, and it can come
+to nothing. I know her ladyship of Carabas rather too well to credit
+her with any desire for Miss Lambert the opera-singer as a relative;
+as a plaything, an amusement, she's well enough: but Lady Carabas
+cries '_Halte là!_' and a hint from me to her would make her speak the
+word. Besides, _I_ am not dead yet, and I might have something to say
+about my wife's second marriage--that is, of course, supposing that
+second marriage did not suit my views. But there will be no question
+of that for some time. Now that I know the state of affairs, I can
+keep myself _au courant_ to all that goes on through Lady Carabas; I
+shall make her ladyship induce her charming nephew to moderate his
+transports so far as any question of proposing is concerned; but he
+may be 'awful spoons,' as he charmingly phrases it, as long as he
+pleases. As for this Windsor notion, that must be knocked on the head
+at once. I don't intend to give up the Cup-day at Ascot myself, and I
+certainly could not well be there, if Gertrude were to be of the
+party. I'll settle that with Lady Carabas."
+
+Here behold Gilbert Lloyd's philosophy and views of life. Affection
+for the woman whom he had wedded, and from whom he had separated, he
+had not one scrap; nor even care as to what she did, what course of
+life she pursued, whence she obtained the means of livelihood. Any
+interest in that he had abnegated when he accepted the terms which she
+dictated for their separation,--terms which meant oblivion of the past
+and _insouciance_ for the future, terms which he had indorsed when
+they were proposed, and which he was ready to hold to still. But when
+his knowledge of his wife's previous life--of the thrall from which
+she had actually, but not legally, escaped--gave him the mastery over
+her actions, or the actions of those in relation with her, he was
+prepared Halteto twist the screw to its tightest, if by so twisting it he
+could aid in the development of his own plans.
+
+Had Gilbert Lloyd no remnant of love for Gertrude, no lingering
+reminiscence of the time when, a trusting school-girl, she placed her
+future in his hands, gave up her whole life to him, and fled away from
+the only semblance of home which she had known at his suggestion? Had
+he no thought of the time immediately succeeding that, when for those
+few happy weeks, ere the pleasant dream was dispelled, she lay
+nestling in his bosom, building O such castles in the air, such
+impossible pictures, prompted by girlish romantic fancies of the
+future? Had Gilbert Lloyd any such reminiscences as these? Truth to
+tell, not in the smallest degree. He had passed the wet sponge over
+the slate containing any records of his early life, and all trace of
+Gertrude had been effectually erased. When he heard of her now, when
+it became necessary for him to give a certain number of moments to
+thinking of her in connection with business matters, he treated the
+affair simply from a business point of view. To him she was as dead
+"as nail in door," as immaterial as the first woman he might brush
+against in the street; she might be turned to serve certain ends which
+he had in view; but he regarded her simply as one of the puppets in
+the little life-drama of which he acted as showman. The pleasant
+gathering which Lord Ticehurst had looked forward to on the Cup-day at
+Ascot did not come off. Gilbert Lloyd had five minutes' interview with
+Lady Carabas on the subject; and two days afterwards Mr. Boulderson
+Munns announced the impossibility of his sparing Miss Grace Lambert's
+services for that evening. Not that Miss Lambert would have accepted
+Lord Ticehurst's hospitality if her services could have been spared,
+but it was best to put the refusal on a strictly professional footing.
+Mr. Lloyd did not in the least care about absenting himself from that
+pleasant gathering on the Heath, and it was of course impossible for
+him to be brought face to face with Lord Ticehurst's intended guest.
+So the recipients of his lordship's hospitality in the cottage at
+Windsor were Lady Carabas and Miss Macivor, a sprightly elderly
+spinster, who was as well known in society as the clock at St. James's
+Palace, and who was always ready to play what she imagined to be
+propriety in any fast party. The ladies enjoyed themselves immensely,
+they said; but their host's gratification was not so keen. He was
+bored and ruffled, and he did not care to disguise it.
+
+And now a change came over Gilbert Lloyd, which was to him
+unaccountable, and against which he struggled with all the power of
+his strong will, but struggled in vain. This change came about, as
+frequently happens with such matters by which our whole future is
+influenced, in an unforeseen manner, and by the merest accident. The
+Ascot settling-day had not passed off very comfortably. Several heavy
+bookmakers were absent; among them one who had lost a large sum of
+money to the Ticehurst party. This man was known to have won hugely on
+the Derby a fortnight before, and to have had a capital account at his
+banker's a few days previously. It seemed therefore clear to Gilbert
+Lloyd, with whom the management of the matter rested, that the money
+was still in the possession of the absconding bookmaker, who would, in
+all probability, take an opportunity of leaving the country with the
+sum thus accumulated. Gilbert Lloyd put himself in communication with
+the police authorities, furnished a correct description of the
+defaulter, and caused a strict watch to be kept at the various
+principal ports. One morning he received a telegram from Liverpool,
+announcing that the offender had been seen there. It had been
+ascertained that he was about to leave by the Cunard boat for Boston
+the next morning; but that, as he had committed no criminal offence,
+it was impossible for the police to detain him. This news made Gilbert
+Lloyd furious; that he should have his prey under his hand, and yet be
+unable to close that hand upon him, was maddening. He thought some
+good might be effected by his hurrying to Liverpool by the afternoon
+express, finding the defaulter, and frightening him out of at least a
+portion of the money due. The more he turned this plan in his mind,
+the more feasible it seemed to him, and the more he was determined to
+carry it into effect. There were, however, certain affairs to be
+transacted that day upon which it was most necessary he should, before
+starting, communicate personally with Lord Ticehurst; and Gilbert,
+from recent experience, knew that he should have considerable
+difficulty in tracing that young nobleman's whereabouts. He made
+inquiries at all the various haunts, but without any success; at
+length, at the club someone said that Ticehurst had offered to drive
+him down to the Crystal Palace, for which place he had started a
+couple of hours--ago. The Crystal Palace! What on earth could take him
+there? Gilbert Lloyd, who saw fewer "sights" than almost any man in
+London, had been there once, but brought away a dazed recollection of
+fountains and Egyptian idols, and statues and tropical trees, none of
+which he thought would have any interest for his pupil. But his
+wonderment was at an end when, taking up the newspaper and looking for
+the advertisement, he saw announced that a grand concert, by the
+principal singers of the Scandinavian Opera, would take place at the
+Crystal Palace that afternoon, and that the chief attraction of the
+concert was to be Miss Grace Lambert.
+
+A swift hansom bore him to Victoria, and a tedious train landed him at
+the Crystal Palace, just in time to hear the opening notes of Herr
+Boreas' solo on the ophicleide. A charming performance that of Herr
+Boreas, but one to which Mr. Lloyd gave no attention. He hurried
+through the crowd, looking eagerly right and left; and at last his
+eyes fell upon a group, where they remained.
+
+Lord Ticehurst, Mr. Munns, and two or three others were component
+parts of this little knot; but Gilbert Lloyd saw but one
+person--Gertrude. How marvellously she had improved during the time
+that had elapsed since they parted! She had been pretty as a girl; she
+was lovely as a woman. How lovely she looked in her simple morning
+dress and coquettish little bonnet! With what a perfect air of easy
+grace she listened to the men bending before her, and how quietly she
+received the homage which they were evidently paying! An angry flush
+rose on Gilbert's pale cheeks, and his heart beat quickly as he
+witnessed this manifest adoration. What right had anyone but he to
+approach her, to--It stung him like a cut from a whip, it flared like
+a train of gunpowder. He knew what it was in an instant: mad, raging,
+ungovernable jealousy--nothing else. He had thrown off all love for
+her--all thought of her; and now, the first time they met, the passion
+which struck him when he first saw her, years before, looking out of
+the window of the Vale House, sprung up with renewed fury within him,
+and he raged and chafed as he recognised the obstacles which kept him
+from her, but which were no barriers to other men. She seemed utterly
+indifferent to them, though, he was glad to see--no! her face lights
+up, she smiles and bends forward; and when she looks up again there is
+a blush upon her cheek. Who has been speaking to her--the tall
+handsome man with the brown beard--Miles Challoner! And Gilbert Lloyd
+swore a deep oath of revenge--revenge of which his wife and his
+brother should each bear their share.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+At the Crystal Palace.
+
+
+To Herr Boreas was allotted the pleasing duty of opening the concert.
+The jolly German gentleman, neatly and seasonably dressed in black,
+with a large diamond-brooch in his plaited shirt-front, and with
+stuffy-looking black-cloth boots with shiny tips, opened his big
+chest, and puffed away at his ophicleide, evoking now the loudest and
+now the softest notes; while the crowds kept pouring in to the
+railed-off space, and took their seats, laughing and chattering, and
+not paying the smallest attention to the performance. It was a great
+day at the Palace, a day on which great people thought it proper to be
+seen there. The little public-houses in the neighbourhood were filled
+with resplendent creatures in gorgeous liveries, whose employers were
+making their way through nave and transept, looking at nothing save
+the other people there, and looking at them as though they were
+singular specimens of humanity specially put out for show. In the
+matter of staring, it must be confessed that the other people returned
+the compliment. The regular attendants at the Crystal Palace are, for
+the most part, resident in the neighbourhood, and the neighbouring
+residents are, for the most part, of or belonging to the City. The
+brokers of stocks, shares, and sugar; the owners of Manchester
+warehouses, the riggers of markets, and the projectors of companies;
+the directors of banks, and the "floaters" of "concerns," have, many
+of them, charming villas, magnificent mansions, or delicious
+snuggeries at Blackheath, Eltham, or Sydenham; and the Palace is the
+great place of resort for their wives and daughters, and for
+themselves when the cares of business are laid aside. How many
+successful matches, in which money has been allied to money, have
+commenced in flirtations by the side of the plashing fountains, or in
+the shade of the stunted orange-trees! What execution has not been
+done by flashing eyes in the central promenade! There, by the Dying
+Gladiator, Lord Claude Votate proposed for Miss Meggifer, and secured
+the fortune which rescued the Calfington estates from his lordship's
+creditors; there, behind the Dancing Faun, Charles Partington,
+of Partington Nephews, kissed Minnie Black, daughter of Black
+Brothers--was seen to do it by Mrs. Black, consequently could not
+escape, and thus cemented an alliance between those hitherto rival
+houses, considered in Wood-street as the Horatii and Curiatii of the
+Berlin-wool trade. Pleasant place of decorous festivity and innocent
+diversion, whence instruction has been completely routed by amusement,
+and where the Assyrian gods and the Renaissance friezes are deserted
+for the dancing dogs and the Temple of Momus as constructed by Mr.
+Nelson Lee!
+
+By the time that Herr Boreas had finished his solo--which was not
+until he had blown all the breath out of his body, and was apparently
+on the verge of apoplexy--the audience had taken possession of all the
+seats; and as the German gentleman bowed himself out of the orchestra,
+amidst a great deal of applause from people who, indeed, could not
+help having heard, but had not paid the least attention to him, there
+was a general reference to the programmes to see what was coming next,
+then a rustling, a whispering, and that curious settling stir which
+electrically runs through an audience just before the advent of a
+favourite artist. Gilbert Lloyd, not insensible to this, involuntarily
+looked round from behind the pillar by which he was standing to the
+spot where he had seen Gertrude, but she was no longer there. The next
+instant thunders of applause rang through the building as she advanced
+upon the platform. She bowed gracefully but coldly; then the conductor
+waved his baton, and dead silence fell upon the audience, leaning
+forward with outstretched necks to catch the first notes of her voice.
+Soft and sweet, clear and trilling, comes the bird-like song, warbled
+without the smallest apparent effort, while thrilling the listeners to
+the heart--thrilling Gilbert Lloyd, who holds his breath, and looks on
+in rapture. He had heard her before, but in Italian opera; now she is
+singing an English ballad, of no great musical pretension indeed, but
+pretty and sympathetic. At the end of the first verse the applause
+burst out in peals on peals; and so carried away was Gilbert Lloyd,
+that he found himself joining in the general feeling--he who scarcely
+knew one note of music from another, and who had come to the place on
+a matter of important business. That must stand over now, though--he
+felt that. The absconding turfite might go to America, or to the
+deuce, for the matter of that; Gilbert Lloyd felt it an impossibility
+to leave the place where he then was, and tried to cheat himself by
+pretending that it was expedient for his own interest that he should
+keep a close watch upon Lord Ticehurst just at that time. That young
+nobleman certainly took no pains to conceal his warm admiration for
+Miss Lambert, and his intense delight at her performance. He applauded
+more loudly than anyone else, and assumed an attitude of rapt
+attention, which would have been highly interesting if it had not also
+been slightly comic. When the song ceased, the cries for a repetition
+were loud and universal. Gertrude, who had retired, again advanced to
+the front of the orchestra. By an involuntary impulse, Gilbert Lloyd
+stepped from behind the pillar which had hitherto shielded him, and
+their eyes met--met for the first time since he left her at the
+Brighton hotel, on the day of Harvey Gore's death.
+
+A deep flush overspread Gilbert Lloyd's usually pallid cheeks, but
+Gertrude's expression did not change in the slightest degree. Not a
+trace of the faintest emotion, even of curiosity, could be seen in her
+face. The conductor of the orchestra, just before he left her in front
+of the audience, addressed some remark to her; and as she replied,
+Gilbert noticed that her lips were curling with a slight sneer--an
+expression which he fancied he understood, when the band commenced to
+play an air which even he, all unmusical as he was, recognised as
+"Home, sweet home." But she never looked at him again during the song,
+which she sung even more sweetly than the first, and with a deep
+pathos that roused the audience to enthusiasm. Gilbert Lloyd kept his
+eyes fixed on her, never moving them for an instant; and as he marked
+the calm air with which she received the public applause, and the
+graceful ease of all her movements--as he saw how her face, always
+clear cut and classically moulded, had ripened in womanly beauty and
+intellectual expression--as he noticed the rounded elegance of her
+figure, the tasteful simplicity of her dress--and he noticed all
+these details down to the fit of her gloves and the colour of her
+bonnet-strings--he raged against himself for having been fool enough
+to relinquish the hold he once had on her. Could that hold be
+reëstablished? If he were again to have an opportunity--But while
+these thoughts were passing through his mind, Gertrude had finished
+her song and quitted the orchestra, and her glance had not fallen on
+him again.
+
+Meantime Gilbert Lloyd saw he had been noticed by the group with whom
+Miss Lambert had been sitting previous to her performance, and as
+Miles Challoner was no longer with them he thought it better to join
+the party. His appearance amongst them was evidently a surprise to
+Lord Ticehurst, who expressed the greatest astonishment at his
+Mentor's finding any amusement in so slow a proceeding as a concert,
+and who grew very red and looked very conscious when Gilbert asked him
+what particular charm such an entertainment could possess for him.
+Lord Sandilands was, as usual in his behaviour to Mr. Lloyd,
+scrupulously polite, but not particularly cordial. He had nothing in
+common with Gilbert, detested the turf and all its associations, and
+looked on Lord Ticehurst's turf Mentor as very little better than Lord
+Ticehurst's stud-groom. Mr. Boulderson Munns still remained with them,
+and intended so to remain. It was part of Mr. Munns' business that he
+should be seen in close and confidential communication "with two
+nobs," as he elegantly phrased it, and he took advantage of the
+opportunity. Nothing pleased him so much as to notice when members of
+the promenading crowd would elbow each other, look towards him, and
+whisper together, or when he saw heads bent forward and opera-glasses
+pointed in his direction. It was his concert, he thought: when Herr
+Boreas blew his ophicleide, or Miss Lambert sang her song, he felt
+inclined to place his thumbs in the arm-holes of his big white
+waistcoat, and go forward and acknowledge the applause. He had done so
+in former years in the transformation-scenes of pantomimes, when the
+people called for Scumble the scene-painter, and why not now? Boreas
+and the Lambert were quite as much his people as Scumble! Mr. Munns
+restrained himself, however, from motives of policy. It was pretty
+plain to him, as he afterwards explained to Mr. Duff, that this young
+swell, this Ticehurst, was dead spoons on the Lambert; and as he had
+no end of money, and was good for a box every night, and perhaps
+something more if the screw were properly put on, it would be best to
+make it all sugar for 'em. With this laudable intent he commenced
+talking loudly to Lord Ticehurst of Miss Lambert's attractions, and
+did not suffer himself to be interrupted for more than a minute by
+Lloyd's arrival.
+
+"As I was telling you, my lord," he recommenced, "she's a wonder,
+this--this young lady--a wonder, and nothing but it! Not merely for
+the hit she's made, though it's a great go, and I don't mean to deny
+it; but I don't go by the public, I know too much of them. Why, Lord
+Sandilands here, he remembers when--Well, it's no good going into
+that; lots of them we've seen in our time, and then, after a season or
+two, all dickey! regular frost! But there's something very different
+from that with Miss Lambert--so quiet, and so quite the lady; none of
+your flaring up, and ballyragging the people about. Why Miss Murch,
+our wardrobe-woman, said to me only last night, that she only wished
+the other prima donnas were like her--won't wear this, and won't wear
+that--How d'ye do, Mr. Lloyd? I was talking to his lordship of Miss
+Lambert, who's just been singing, and saying what a stunner she was.
+Now, if you've got a filly to name--one that's likely to be something,
+and do something, you know--you should call her Grace Lambert--"
+
+"No, I think not; not quite that, Mr. Munns!" interposed Lord
+Ticehurst; "that's scarcely the kind of compliment I should care to
+pay to Miss Lambert."
+
+"You may depend upon it that it's one which, if Miss Lambert had the
+option, she would scarcely care to accept, my lord," said Lord
+Sandilands tartly; "however, there she is to answer for herself;" and
+he pointed through the glass to the garden, where Gertrude was seen
+walking with Mrs. Bloxam. There was an evident intention on the part
+of all composing the group to join them, and seeing this Gilbert Lloyd
+would have withdrawn; but Lord Ticehurst took him by the arm, and
+saying, "I've long wanted to introduce you to Miss Lambert, old
+fellow, and now you can't possibly escape," led the way.
+
+If he were ever again to have an opportunity! Had that opportunity
+then come? Was his never-failing luck holding by him still, and giving
+him this chance of retrieving the blunder he had made in the Brighton
+hotel? He thought so. His breath came short and thick as he nerved
+himself for the meeting. He saw her as she and Mrs. Bloxam strolled
+before them up the gardenwalk, noticed the swimming ease of her gait,
+the fall of her black-lace cloak, as it hung from her shoulders, the
+graceful pose of her head. She turned, he heard the sound of her
+approaching feet, he felt her presence close opposite to him, he heard
+Lord Ticehurst's voice repeating the set formula of introduction, but
+he saw nothing until he looked up to catch the faintest inclination of
+Gertrude's head, and to see her face colder, more set, more rigid than
+ever. Neither spoke; and the silence was becoming awkward, when Lord
+Ticehurst said, "I imagine you must have heard me speak of my friend
+Lloyd, Miss Lambert? Good enough to manage my racing matters for me,
+and to manage them deuced well--with the greatest talent and skill,
+and all that kind of thing. Not in your line, I know, Miss Lambert;
+but still--still--" and his lordship's eloquence failed him, and he
+broke down.
+
+Again neither of them spoke, but Gilbert Lloyd looked up from under
+his brow, and saw the stony glance which Gertrude cast upon him for an
+instant, then turned to Mrs. Bloxam, and suggested that they should
+return to the concert-room, where she would speedily be wanted. Lord
+Sandilands was at her right hand, Lord Ticehurst on the other side of
+Mrs. Bloxam. Mr. Munns preceded them, and caused a great sensation, on
+which he had reckoned, when he flung open the door and ostentatiously
+ushered them into the building; but Gilbert Lloyd walked slowly
+behind, his hands plunged into his pockets, and his face--there
+was no one to heed him, no reason for him to don an unnatural
+expression--savage, set, and careworn.
+
+So it had come at last, he thought. They had met after so long an
+estrangement; and that was to be the end of the meeting. No
+recognition--he had not expected that--no public recognition, no hint
+that they had ever been anything to each other. He recollected the
+words that he had addressed to her on their parting; they came surging
+up and ringing in his ears: "It is not very likely that we shall ever
+run across each other's path in the future, but if we do, we meet as
+entire strangers; and the fact of our having been anything to one
+another must never be brought forward to prejudice any scheme in which
+either of us may be engaged." Memory brought before him the dingy cold
+room of the second-rate hotel, with the dying sunlight streaking its
+discoloured walls, in which these words had been spoken; brought
+before him the slight figure and the deadly pallid face of the girl as
+she listened to them, and acquiesced in their verdict. In that verdict
+she acquiesced still, was acting up to its spirit, to its very letter.
+It was his proposition to leave her alone and unfettered "in any
+scheme in which she might be engaged." The fooling, the enslavement of
+this idiot Ticehurst, who was a mere tool in his hands, was the game
+which she was now playing, at which he was to look on helplessly,
+having himself spoken the words which rendered her independent of his
+control.
+
+And she, how did she take it? Calmly enough; but not so calmly as
+Gilbert Lloyd supposed. She had never gone in for much feeling, and
+whatever she had was now completely at her command, far more
+completely even than when she last had parted from her husband.
+Moreover, while Gilbert had utterly given himself up to the business
+of his turf profession, resolutely refusing to think of his wife, or
+to acknowledge to himself that there was ever a possibility of their
+again being brought into contact, the chance of such a meeting had
+often occurred to Gertrude, and the manner in which she would demean
+herself, should the occasion arise, had--been thought over by her and
+settled in her mind. And now that it had arisen, so far as her outward
+demeanour was concerned, she had behaved herself exactly as she had
+always proposed. And her facial control was such, that no one looking
+at her could have an inkling of what was passing in her mind, which
+was fortunate on this occasion, for she was considerably more
+disturbed than she had expected. The first sight of her husband was a
+complete shock to her, and it was only by the exercise of the greatest
+presence of mind that she prevented herself from betraying her
+perturbation. When the first shock was past--and she owed it to the
+strict discipline of professional training that she was enabled to get
+over it so quickly--her thoughts reverted to the subject, and she was
+able to discuss it calmly with herself. What brought Gilbert Lloyd to
+that place? She knew him well enough to feel sure that there must have
+been some strong inducement, and what could that be? Gilbert was _lié_
+with Lord Ticehurst; and that that full-flavoured young nobleman was
+considerably in love with her, Gertrude had never attempted to
+disguise from herself; but what could that matter to the man from whom
+she had been, so long estranged, and who had never shown the smallest
+interest in her proceedings during that long estrangement? The
+possibility of a desire on Gilbert's part to negotiate for a renewal
+of intimacy crossed her mind for an instant, but was at once rejected;
+and not even for an instant did she imagine the desire for such a
+proceeding was based on anything but motives of policy. And, after
+all, what did it matter to her? To her Gilbert Lloyd was dead and
+buried, she had nothing to look for at his hands, nothing to fear from
+him--her lip curled as she recollected that; she would dismiss him
+entirely from her thoughts, she would--what could have brought him to
+that concert, of all places in the world? It might be useful to know
+something of his mode of life. She would lead Lady Carabas to talk of
+him; the marchioness would be only too happy to dilate on such a
+subject.
+
+By the time Miss Lambert was to sing again, she had quite made up her
+mind on this point, and the sight of Gilbert Lloyd, _planté là_, did
+not cause her the slightest emotion. He stood as one rapt, fascinated
+by her beauty, drinking-in her voice, with one constant idea beating
+in his brain:--Was the past irrevocable? could not the mischief be
+undone? The power he had had in the old days remained to him still; he
+had but to exercise it, and all would be right again. True that just
+then she had rebuffed him; but that was her way, always had been; she
+had always piqued herself upon her pride, and after that had had its
+fling he should be able to do with her as he liked. Miss Lambert was
+in full song as these thoughts passed through Gilbert Lloyd's mind,
+when suddenly she changed colour, a transient flush overspread her
+face, dying away again almost instantaneously. At the same instant,
+Gilbert Lloyd turned swiftly round in the direction in which he had
+noticed her glance fall, and saw Miles Challoner, who had recently
+entered and dropped into a chair just behind Lord Sandilands' seat. No
+doubt of it, no doubt of it; her self-command was so shaken that her
+voice faltered for an instant, and he--look at his eyes, fastened on
+her face with a look of perfect love and trust, and it was impossible
+to doubt the position. Lloyd's heart sunk within him at the sight, and
+a bitter oath was rising to his lips, and would have found utterance,
+when he felt his arm pressed, and looking round, saw Tommy Toshington,
+of the clubs, standing behind him. Mr. Toshington had on a new and
+curly wig, a light high muslin cravat, and looked bland and amiable.
+He winked affably at Lloyd, and laying his finger lightly against his
+nose, said, "You're wrong, my dear boy;--it's all right!" Mr. Gilbert
+Lloyd shortly bade his friend not to be an ass, but if he had anything
+to say, to out with it. Nothing abashed at the strength of Gilbert's
+language, Tommy said,
+
+"My dear fellow, I mean exactly what I say; you're under a mistake,
+while all the time it's all right for _you!_"
+
+"What's all right for me--with whom--where?"
+
+"There!" said Tommy Toshington, wagging his new wig and his
+curly-brimmed hat in the direction where Lord Ticehurst was sitting;
+"his lordship is _entêté_ with a certain warbler, eh? Fourth finger of
+the left hand--death do us part, and all that sort of thing, eh? That
+wouldn't suit your book, I should think--have to give up your rooms;
+she persuade him to cut the turf, go to church, and that kind of
+thing. Don't you be afraid, my boy; I know the world better than you,
+and that'll never come off!"
+
+"You think not?" asked Gilbert.
+
+"I'm sure not," replied Tommy. "Look here; he'd like it fast enough.
+Etchingham would marry her to-morrow if he got the chance; but she's
+full of pluck and spirit, and don't care a bit for him. How do I know?
+Because she cares for somebody else. How do I know that? My dear
+fellow, don't I know everything? What used the old Dook to say, 'Ask
+Toshington, he'll know; he knows everything, Tommy does.' And he
+didn't make many mistakes, the old Dook."
+
+"Perhaps you know who is the 'somebody' else for whom the lady cares?"
+said Gilbert, an evil light dawning in his face, and his lips
+involuntarily tightening as he put the question.
+
+"Of _course_ I do!" said Tommy, with a crisp little laugh; "keep my
+eyes open, see everything; seen 'em together lots of times--Carabas
+House, Lady Lowndes', and lots of places. You know him, I should
+think; tall man from Gloucestershire--big beard--Chaldecott--some name
+like that!"
+
+This time the oath broke from Lloyd's lips unchecked. He turned
+rapidly on his heel, and strode away.
+
+"Dev'lish ill-bred young man that," said old Toshington, looking after
+him; "dammy, there's no manners left in the men of the present day!"
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+---------------------------------
+PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Rock Ahead. (Vol. 1 of 2), by Edmund Yates
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59911 ***