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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77631 ***
+
+
+
+
+                             RUPERT GODWIN
+
+                                A Novel
+
+
+                           BY THE AUTHOR OF
+
+                “LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET,” “AURORA FLOYD”
+                 “VIXEN,” “ISHMAEL,” “WYLLARD’S WEIRD”
+                               ETC. ETC.
+
+
+                          Stereotyped Edition
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+               SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO.,
+                                                 LIMITED,
+                        STATIONERS’ HALL COURT
+                                 1890.
+
+                       [_All rights reserved._]
+
+
+
+
+                        =MISS BRADDON’S NOVELS.=
+
+             NOW READY AT ALL BOOKSELLERS’ AND BOOKSTALLS,
+                 PRICE 2_s._ 6_d._ EACH, CLOTH GILT.
+
+                    THE AUTHOR’S AUTOGRAPH EDITION
+                       OF MISS BRADDON’S NOVELS.
+
+
+  “No one can be dull who has a novel by Miss Braddon in hand.
+  The most tiresome journey is beguiled, and the most wearisome
+  illness is brightened, by any one of her books.”
+
+  “Miss Braddon is the Queen of the circulating libraries.”
+
+                                                    _The World._
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+                        SIMPKIN & CO., LIMITED,
+                        STATIONERS’ HALL COURT.
+
+     _And at all Railway Bookstalls, Booksellers’, and Libraries._
+
+
+
+
+                       PUBLISHERS’ ANNOUNCEMENT.
+
+
+_Rupert Godwin_ was written for, and first appeared in, a cheap
+Weekly Journal. From this source the Tale was translated into the
+French language, and ran as the leading story in the _Journal pour
+Tous_. It was there discovered by an American, who re-translated
+the matter back into English, and who obtained an outlet for the
+new translation in the columns of the _New-York Mercury_. These and
+other versions have been made without the slightest advantage to
+the Author; or, indeed, without the faintest approach to any direct
+communication to her on the subject. Influenced by the facts as
+here stated, the Author has revised the original, and now offers
+the result for what it is, namely, a Tale of Incident written to
+amuse the short intervals of leisure which the readers of popular
+periodicals can snatch from their daily avocations.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAP.                                                           PAGE
+
+        I. A SAD FAREWELL                                            1
+
+       II. RUPERT GODWIN THE BANKER                                  7
+
+      III. AN IMPORTUNATE CREDITOR                                  16
+
+       IV. A NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS                               23
+
+        V. LOVE’S YOUNG DREAM                                       33
+
+       VI. THE STORY OF THE PAST                                    38
+
+      VII. THE STOLEN LETTER                                        47
+
+     VIII. THE DAY OF DESOLATION                                    54
+
+       IX. A PITILESS CLAIMANT                                      58
+
+        X. HIDDEN IN THE YEW-TREE                                   62
+
+       XI. HOMELESS AND FRIENDLESS                                  71
+
+      XII. MATERNAL MANŒUVRES                                       76
+
+     XIII. A DAUGHTER’S TRIAL                                       86
+
+      XIV. LOVE AT SIGHT                                            89
+
+       XV. VIOLET RESOLVES UPON ENTERING A NEW SPHERE               93
+
+      XVI. BEHIND THE SCENES                                       101
+
+     XVII. CRUEL KINDNESS                                          105
+
+    XVIII. WILMINGDON HALL                                         112
+
+      XIX. A RECOGNITION AND A DISAPPOINTMENT                      119
+
+       XX. THE MARQUIS OF ROXLEYDALE                               123
+
+      XXI. BENT BUT NOT BROKEN                                     131
+
+     XXII. JULIA’S PROTÉGÉ                                         134
+
+    XXIII. ON THE THRESHOLD                                        139
+
+     XXIV. MISS VANBERG IS MALICIOUS                               143
+
+      XXV. FALCON AND DOVE                                         150
+
+     XXVI. IN THE LABYRINTH                                        160
+
+    XXVII. A DARK JOURNEY                                          164
+
+   XXVIII. THE HOUSEKEEPER’S STORY                                 170
+
+     XXIX. “SHE WEPT, DELIVERED FROM HER DANGER”                   177
+
+      XXX. UNDERGROUND                                             185
+
+     XXXI. ON THE TRACK                                            191
+
+    XXXII. ESTHER VANBERG HAS HER WAY                              202
+
+   XXXIII. THE EVIDENCE OF THE MINIATURE                           208
+
+    XXXIV. FEVER-STRICKEN                                          214
+
+     XXXV. AN ALARMING DISCOVERY                                   222
+
+    XXXVI. DISCOMFITED                                             225
+
+   XXXVII. PUT TO THE TEST                                         237
+
+  XXXVIII. RIDING TO HER DOOM                                      238
+
+    XXXIX. THE SHADOW OF DEATH                                     247
+
+       XL. A FATAL LESSON                                          251
+
+      XLI. SILENCED                                                259
+
+     XLII. GIRT WITH FIRE                                          267
+
+    XLIII. THE CLERK’S STORY                                       272
+
+     XLIV. THE DUKE OF HARLINGFORD MAKES A DISCOVERY               278
+
+      XLV. THE FACE OF THE LOST                                    286
+
+     XLVI. SUSPENSE                                                291
+
+    XLVII. RESURGAM                                                298
+
+   XLVIII. “VENGEANCE IS MINE”                                     306
+
+
+
+
+RUPERT GODWIN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A SAD FAREWELL.
+
+
+In a charming residence, half cottage, half manor-house, embosomed
+in the woodland scenery of Hampshire, lived a family who might
+have formed the model for a poet’s ideal of domestic happiness.
+The home-circle was not a large one. It consisted of only four
+persons--Captain Harley Westford, of the merchant service, his wife,
+son, and daughter. The Captain and his wife were both in the fairest
+prime of middle age. Life for them seemed at its brightest and best.
+Clara Westford’s girlish beauty might, indeed, have vanished with
+the snows of departed winters, the blossoms of bygone spring-times;
+but another kind of beauty had succeeded--the calm loveliness of the
+matron whose life has been cloudless as one long summer’s day, pure
+as the untrodden snows of some far Alpine region.
+
+Yes; she was very lovely still. Beauty has its Indian summer, and
+the glory of that later splendour is scarcely less than the early
+freshness of spring-time. Mrs. Westford possessed even a rarer charm
+than mere perfection of face or figure. Every look, every movement,
+was instinct with that indefinable grace for which we can find no
+better name than good breeding. She had that winning manner the
+French call graciousness. Those who were intimate with the Captain
+and his wife whispered that Clara Westford came of a nobler race than
+that of her husband. It was said that she had left the house of a
+wealthy father, to begin the battle of life with the frank, genial,
+handsome merchant sailor, and that she had thus made herself for ever
+an outcast from the family to which she belonged.
+
+No one knew the real story of that runaway marriage. The Captain and
+his wife kept the secrets of the past locked in their own breasts.
+Mrs. Westford could very seldom be induced to speak of her marriage;
+but when she did speak, it was always in words that expressed the
+pride she felt in her husband.
+
+“I know that his family has no place amongst Burke’s landed gentry,
+and that his grandfather was a trader on the high seas, like
+himself,” she would say; “but I also know that his name is honoured
+by the few to whom it is familiar, and that in his native town,
+Westford and honesty are synonymous terms.”
+
+Only one shadow ever darkened that rustic dwelling among the verdant
+woods and fair spreading pastures of Hampshire; and that shadow was a
+very terrible one.
+
+It came when the husband and father was obliged to leave the dear
+ones who made his home a kind of paradise for him. Partings were very
+frequent in that simple household. The Captain’s professional duties
+called him often away to scenes of peril and tempest, far from that
+happy nook in peaceful England.
+
+To-day the June sunshine is bright on the lawn and flower-beds in
+the Captain’s garden; but the shadow comes with the sunshine, and
+the bright midsummer noontide is an hour of sadness for the seaman’s
+household.
+
+The Captain and his wife are walking slowly, arm in arm, under the
+shelter of a long alley of hazel and filbert trees. It is a lovely
+day at the close of June; the roses are in their fullest splendour;
+the deep blue sky is unshadowed by a cloud; the hum of bees and
+carolling music of birds make all the air melodious with nature’s
+simple harmonies; a thousand butterflies are fluttering above the
+flower-beds on the smooth lawn before the windows of the old Grange.
+Every quaint diamond-paned casement and broad mullioned window winks
+and blinks in the warm sunlight, till the old house seems full of
+eyes. The yellow stone-crop on the gabled roof, the deep crimson of
+the brickwork, are sharply defined against an ultramarine sky, and
+make a picture that would gladden the eyes of a pre-Raphaelite. The
+sunshine steeps every leaf and every flower in its warm radiance--it
+floods the trees with silvery light, it transforms and glorifies the
+commonest objects, until the earth seems unfamiliar and beautiful as
+fairyland.
+
+On such a day as this, it seems almost impossible to believe that
+sorrow or heartache can have any existence upon this glorified earth;
+we almost forgot that hearts can break amid beauty and sunshine.
+
+Clara Westford’s noble face is pale and wan this sunny morning. Dark
+circles surround her eyes--earnest eyes, from whose clear depths
+the very soul of truth looks out. All through the past night this
+true-hearted wife has watched and wept on her knees before Him who
+can alone protect the wanderer.
+
+“Oh, Harley,” she exclaimed, in a low, tremulous voice, while her
+slender fingers tightened their grasp upon the Captain’s arm, “it is
+so bitter--so bitter; almost too bitter to bear. We have parted often
+before to-day; and yet to-day, for the first time, the anguish of
+parting seems more than I can endure.”
+
+There was a look of agony in the wife’s pale face, as she turned it
+towards her husband, that expressed even more than her passionate
+words. There were no tears in the large violet-hued eyes; but there
+was a quivering motion about the compressed lips that betrayed a
+world of suffering.
+
+At sea, or in any hour of peril and contest, Harley Westford
+possessed the courage of a lion; but the aspect of his wife’s grief
+transformed him into the veriest coward. He strove manfully, however,
+to conceal his emotion, and it was in a tone of affected gaiety that
+he replied to Mrs. Westford.
+
+“My darling,” he exclaimed, “this is really foolish, and quite
+unworthy of a seaman’s wife, who should have a soul above fear. This
+parting ought not to be a hard one; for is not this to be my last
+voyage? After this one trip to China, by which I hope to make a
+sackful of golden guineas for you and the dear ones, I mean to settle
+down for the rest of my life in this dear old Grange, a regular
+landsman, a gentleman farmer, if you like; going in for pigs, and
+prize cattle, and monster turnips, and all that kind of thing, like a
+country squire to the manner born. Why, Clara, you ought not to shed
+a tear, this time!”
+
+“There are no tears in my eyes, Harley,” his wife answered, in the
+same low, faltering voice, so terribly expressive of mental anguish;
+“there is something in my sorrow too deep for tears. I have shed
+tears always on the day of our parting, and I know that my cowardly
+weakness has often unmanned you, Harley; but I can shed no tears
+to-day. There is an awful terror in my heart. My dreams for the last
+week have been full of trouble and foreboding. My prayers last night
+brought no consolation. It seemed to me as if Heaven was deaf to my
+cries. I feel like some unhappy wretch who wanders blindfold upon
+the brink of a precipice--every step may plunge me into an abyss of
+darkness and horror. O, Harley, Harley, have pity upon me! I know
+there is danger in this voyage--deadly, unseen peril. Do not go! Have
+mercy upon my anguish, Harley, and do not go!”
+
+Again the slender hands tightened convulsively upon the sailor’s arm.
+It seemed as if the agonized wife would have held her husband despite
+himself in that passionate grasp.
+
+Captain Westford smiled sadly.
+
+“My darling,” he said, “foolish as I know your fears to be, I might
+perhaps indulge them if my word were not pledged to this voyage;
+but my word is pledged. And when did Harley Westford ever break his
+promise? There is not a sailor amongst my crew who does not look
+forward to this trip as a means of taking home comfort to his wife
+and little ones. They all confide in me as if I were their brother
+as well as their captain; and I know their plans, poor fellows, and
+the disappointment they would feel if anything prevented the voyage.
+No, darling, you must be bold and brave, like a true-hearted sailor’s
+wife as you are. The _Lily Queen_--your ship, Clara; christened after
+you, the queen of all earthly lilies--the _Lily Queen_ sails from
+London Docks at daybreak to-morrow, and, if he lives, Harley Westford
+sails with her!”
+
+The wife knew that all further remonstrance was useless. She knew
+that her husband valued his word and honour more than his life--more
+even than her happiness. She only breathed one long sigh, which
+sounded like the last murmur of a despairing heart.
+
+“And now listen to me, my dearest one,” said Harley Westford, in
+tones which he strove to render cheerful. “Listen to me, my own
+brave, true-hearted wife; for I must talk to you of serious business
+before the Winchester coach turns the sharp corner yonder by the
+village pond.”
+
+He looked at his watch as he spoke.
+
+“Only one more half-hour, Clara, and then good-bye!” he exclaimed.
+“Now, darling, listen. You know that, thanks to Providence, I have
+been enabled to save a very decent little fortune for you and yours.
+Close against my breast I carry a pocket-book containing bank-notes
+to the amount of twenty thousand pounds, the entire bulk of my
+fortune, withdrawn from different foreign investments, by the advice
+of friends, who have given me warning of an approaching crisis in the
+money-market. There seems to be always something or other wrong in
+the money-market, by the way. Directly I return from China I shall
+invest this money, with the earnings of my present enterprise, in the
+best and safest manner I can. In the mean time, I shall place the
+money in the hands of the present head of the banking firm in which
+my father had the highest confidence and in whose house he kept an
+account for thirty years of his life. In such hands the money will be
+safe until my return And, to guard against any chance of accident, I
+shall send you the banker’s receipt for the twenty thousand pounds,
+and for the title-deeds of this house and land, which I shall also
+lodge in his hands. You will receive these from me before I set
+sail; and then, as my will is in the hands of my lawyer, you and the
+children will be safe, come what may.”
+
+“O, Harley,” murmured Clara Westford, “every word you say makes me
+more and more wretched. You talk as if you were going to certain
+death.”
+
+“No, darling, I only talk like a prudent man, who knows the
+uncertainty of life. But I will say no more, Clara. With twenty
+thousand pounds, and the freehold of this old Grange, with fifty
+acres of the best land in Hampshire spreading round it, you and the
+dear ones cannot be ill provided for. And now, dearest, nearly half
+my time has gone, and I must go and say good-bye to my children.”
+
+The Captain stepped from the shady alley to the broad sunshine of
+the lawn. Opposite him were the windows of a pretty morning-room,
+sheltered by a long verandah, half hidden under honeysuckle and
+roses. The cages of the pet birds hung under this verandah, and a
+Skye terrier was lying on the silky white mat stretched before one of
+the long French windows, blinking his lazy eyelids in the meridian
+sun.
+
+A girl of about seventeen appeared in this window. As the Captain
+stepped out upon the lawn she came running towards him.
+
+Never, perhaps, had the June sunlight shone upon a lovelier creature
+than this white-robed girl who came to meet the Captain. Her beauty
+had a sunny freshness which seemed in harmony with the summer
+morning. Her features were small and delicately-formed; the nose,
+forehead, and chin of the purest Grecian type. Her eyes, like her
+mother’s, were of the deepest violet hue, large, lustrous, and
+earnest, fringed by long auburn lashes. Her hair was of that golden
+tint, so rare in nature, and which art has been wont to simulate,
+from the age of Roman Lydias and Julius down to our own enlightened
+era.
+
+This was Violet Westford. They had called her Violet because of those
+deep-blue eyes, which were only to be matched by the hue of the
+modest hedgerow flower that hides its beauty under sheltering leaves.
+They had called her Violet; and well did the sweet romantic name
+harmonize with the nature of Clara Westford’s daughter, for the girl
+was almost as unconscious of her exquisite loveliness as the timid
+blossom after which she had been christened.
+
+“Dearest father,” she exclaimed, passing her little hand through the
+Captain’s arm, while Mrs. Westford sank faint and exhausted upon a
+garden-seat on the lawn, “mamma has been very cruel to detain you so
+long, while your poor Violet has been longing for a chance of saying
+good-bye. I have been counting the minutes, papa, and the coach will
+be at the gate almost immediately. O, papa, papa, it seems so hard to
+lose you!”
+
+The beautiful blue eyes filled with tears as the girl clung to her
+father; but in Violet Westford’s face there was no trace of that
+awful shadow which blanched the cheeks and lips of her mother to
+a death-like whiteness. Violet only felt a natural grief at this
+parting with a father whom she idolized. There was no presentiment of
+impending peril weighing down her heart.
+
+“Lionel has gone to get Warrior saddled,” she said; “he is going to
+ride by the cross-road to Winchester. He will be there to meet you
+when the coach arrives, and will only part from you when the train
+leaves the station. How I envy him that half-hour at the station!
+Men are always better off than women,” murmured the petted beauty of
+seventeen, with the most bewitching _moue_.
+
+“My darling, hark! There is the coach.”
+
+The guard’s horn playing a joyous polka made itself heard among
+the trees as the Captain spoke. At the same moment Lionel Westford
+rode out of an old-fashioned ivy-covered archway, which formed
+the entrance to the stables. The coach stopped at the low wide
+gate opening into the Grange gardens, and the guard’s horn had an
+impatient sound in the ears of Violet Westford.
+
+Mrs. Westford rose from the rustic bench, calm and tearless, but
+deadly pale. She advanced to her husband, and put her icy hands in
+his.
+
+“My beloved,” she murmured, “my all in all, I can only pray for you.
+I must ask you one question, Harley. You spoke just now of a banker;
+tell me his name, dearest. I have a particular reason for making this
+inquiry.”
+
+“My father’s bankers were Godwin and Selby,” answered the Captain;
+“the present head of the firm is Rupert Godwin. My own darling,
+good-bye.”
+
+The horn playing that cheerful dance-music sounded louder and more
+clamorous than ever, as Harley Westford pressed one kiss upon his
+wife’s white lips and tore himself away. So hurried, so agitated,
+had the Captain been in that sad parting, that he had been utterly
+unconscious of the one low agonized cry which broke from his wife’s
+lips at the sound of Rupert Godwin’s name.
+
+But as the coach drove away, bearing with it the husband and father,
+Clara Westford tottered forward a few paces, and then fell back
+swooning on the grass.
+
+Violet returned from the garden-gate to see her mother lying upon the
+ground, white and motionless as a corpse. The girl’s terror-stricken
+shriek brought a couple of women servants running from the house.
+Mrs. Westford was no puling sentimentalist; and deeply as she had
+always felt the pain of parting from the husband she so fondly loved,
+she had never before been known to lose consciousness. She had,
+indeed, been distinguished for the heroic calmness with which she
+had always endured her sorrow setting a noble example to her son and
+daughter.
+
+The servants, assisted by Violet, carried the unconscious wife into
+the house, and laid her on a sofa in the cool drawing-room, carefully
+darkened by the Venetian shutters.
+
+One of the women then ran to fetch the village doctor, while Violet
+knelt by her mother’s side, bathing the pale forehead with toilet
+vinegar.
+
+Presently the dark-blue eyes were slowly opened and turned towards
+Violet with a fixed and almost awful stare.
+
+“Rupert Godwin! Rupert Godwin!” cried Clara Westford in tones of
+anguish. “O, not to him, Harley! O, no, no, no! Not to him! Rupert
+Godwin! I knew that there was peril, deadly peril, in store for you;
+but I never dreamt of that danger.”
+
+Again the eyes closed; the head fell back upon the sofa-pillows.
+
+The doctor came; but neither he nor any other doctor upon this earth
+could have ministered to her, whose disease was of the mind rather
+than of the body.
+
+Mrs. Westford fell from one fainting-fit into another. She was
+conveyed to her own room, where she was tenderly watched by her
+daughter, and by her son Lionel, who returned from Winchester after
+having seen his father start by the London train.
+
+The young man adored his mother, and was both grieved and alarmed by
+her sudden illness. He insisted upon taking up his post in a pretty
+little boudoir adjoining Mrs. Westford’s bedroom, and he sat there
+hour after hour, listening to every sound in the sick chamber.
+
+The old Grange, so gay with happy voices only a few days before, was
+now silent as the house of death. The doctor ordered his patient to
+be kept in unbroken quiet, and his orders were implicitly obeyed.
+
+But though Mr. Sanderson, the village surgeon, was a man of
+considerable experience, he found his patient’s illness of a nature
+to baffle his best care, his highest skill.
+
+“The mind is ailing, Miss Westford,” he said, in answer to Violet’s
+anxious questions; “the parting of to-day has affected your mother
+very keenly, and hers is an illness that time alone can heal. In
+the meanwhile I can only recommend perfect repose. The mind has
+been over-excited by painful emotions, and we must allow time for
+recovery. A night’s rest may restore the brain to its normal state.
+To-morrow all may be well.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+RUPERT GODWIN THE BANKER.
+
+
+The express-train from Winchester bore Harley Westford quickly
+across the fair expanse of country between the old cathedral city
+and the smoky roof-tops of the metropolis. Past swelling hillside
+and sunlit meadow, past winding river and secluded village, rushed
+the mighty monster. London, black, grimy, but with a certain rugged
+grandeur of its own, like some dusty Cyclops, mighty in his gigantic
+stature,--London, the commercial centre of the world,--loomed in
+sight of the merchant Captain, whose heart was divided between the
+dear ones he had left in the rustic Grange at Eastburgh, and the
+scenes of adventure, and perhaps peril, that lay before him on the
+high seas.
+
+Harley Westford was in heart and soul a sailor. He had the spirit of
+a Columbus, and would gladly have gone forth in search of new worlds
+wherewith to enrich his Queen and country, if fate had permitted him
+so noble an adventure. His heart warmed at the thought of his Chinese
+expedition--an expedition which promised to make a noble addition to
+his fortune. For himself, no man could have been more indifferent
+about money. He had the true sailor’s recklessness of spirit, and
+would have flung his gold right and left, had he been alone in the
+world, as carelessly as the untutored salt, who, from sheer bravado,
+puts a bank-note between his bread-and-butter and eats it, in order
+to demonstrate his contempt for the sordid pelf. But for his children
+he was eager to earn the means of comfort and independence, so that
+no hard battle of life might await those pampered children, that
+idolized wife, who as yet had known only the sunshine of existence.
+
+He reached London at about half-past one o’clock, and drove straight
+to Lombard-street, in which noble commercial thoroughfare the
+banking-house of Messrs. Godwin and Selby was situated.
+
+The name of Selby had long ceased to be anything more than a name.
+The last Selby had expired placidly in a comfortable mansion at Tulse
+Hill, some little time after the battle of Waterloo. The firm was now
+solely represented by Rupert Godwin, the only son of the late head of
+the firm, Anthony Godwin, and of a noble Spanish lady, who had given
+supreme offence to her family by marrying a wealthy British trader,
+rather than one of the penniless hidalgos who were eager to unite
+their unimpeachable pedigrees and quarter their knightly arms with
+hers.
+
+The lady was proud, passionate, and self-willed. She preferred the
+British trader to the descendants of the Cid, and left the shadowy
+glories of her native land for the comfort and splendour of her
+husband’s noble old mansion, where she ruled him with despotic power
+till the day of her death.
+
+Two sons and three daughters were born to the proud Castilian beauty;
+but those children of the South languished under the cold English
+sky. The youngest son, Rupert, was the only one of the family who
+lived to attain manhood. He inherited his mother’s Spanish beauty,
+together with her wilful and passionate nature.
+
+This Rupert Godwin was a man of five-and-forty years of age, who
+had inherited a noble fortune from his father, and who had obtained
+another fortune with the hand of his wife, the only daughter of
+a city millionnaire, an amiable but not over-wise damsel, who had
+worshipped her husband as a kind of demigod, and who had faded
+quietly out of existence soon after the birth of her second child,
+not by any means passionately lamented by Rupert Godwin.
+
+He was a man who had begun the world very early, and had exhausted
+the common round of life’s pleasures and dissipations at an age when
+other men are still enjoying the freshness of youth’s morning. He had
+been his own master from the age of sixteen, for the simple reason
+that neither his father nor his tutors had ever been able to conquer
+his indomitable spirit, or restrain his determined will.
+
+His father had been much shaken by the early deaths of his children
+and the loss of his wife, who died when Rupert was fifteen. He
+allowed this last surviving son to do as he pleased, and dawdled
+through his lonely existence at his country-house, in the company of
+his medical attendant and a valet who had grown grey in his service.
+
+While the father’s placid days glided by at the country seat in
+Hertfordshire, the son travelled from one place to another, sometimes
+abroad, sometimes at home, spending money lavishly, and seeing a
+great deal of life, more or less to his own satisfaction, but not
+very much to his moral improvement.
+
+At three-and-twenty he married; but those who knew him best augured
+little happiness from this marriage. He accepted his wife’s
+devotion as a matter of course, allowed her to live her own life
+at the noble old house in Hertfordshire, while he followed the
+bent of his inclinations elsewhere, honouring his household by his
+presence during all seasons of gaiety and festivity, but studiously
+avoiding the delights of domestic retirement. The business of the
+bank always afforded Mr. Godwin an excellent excuse for absence.
+There were branch-houses in Spain and in Spanish America, and these
+branch-houses were under the personal supervision of the banker.
+
+For many years the name of Rupert Godwin had been in the minds of
+City men a tower of strength. But within the last few weeks there
+had come a crisis in the fortunes of great commercial firms, and all
+at once there were strange whispers passing from lip to lip amongst
+the wise men of the Stock Exchange. It was well known that for some
+years Rupert Godwin had been a great speculator. It was now whispered
+abroad that he had not been always a fortunate speculator. He had
+been bitten with the mania of speculation, men said, and had plunged
+wildly into all manner of schemes, many of which had ended in ruin.
+
+Such whispers as these are fatal in their influence upon the credit
+of a commercial man. But as yet these dark rumours had not gone
+beyond the narrow circle of wiseacres; as yet no hint of Rupert
+Godwin’s losses had reached those whose money was lodged in his
+keeping; as yet, therefore, there had been no run upon the bank.
+
+The banker sat in his private room, with his books spread open
+before him, while with a white face and a heavily-beating heart he
+examined the state of his affairs. Daily, almost hourly, he expected
+a desperate crisis, and he tried in vain to devise some means of
+meeting it.
+
+There was only one human being who was admitted to Rupert Godwin’s
+confidence, and that was his head clerk, Jacob Danielson.
+
+Ever since Rupert’s earliest manhood this Danielson had been in his
+employment, and little by little there had grown up a strange bond of
+union between the two men.
+
+It could not be called friendship, for the banker was of too reserved
+a nature to form a close friendship with any one--least of all with
+an inferior; and whatever the confidences between him and his clerk,
+he was always haughty and commanding in his tone and manner towards
+his dependent.
+
+But Jacob Danielson was the depository of many of his employer’s
+secrets, and seemed to possess an almost superhuman power of reading
+every thought that entered the brain of Rupert Godwin.
+
+It may be that the banker knew this, and that there were times when
+he felt a kind of terror of his shabby, queer-looking dependent.
+
+Nothing could be wider than the contrast between the outward
+appearance of the two men.
+
+Rupert Godwin had one of those darkly splendid faces which we rarely
+see out of an old Italian picture--such a face as Leonardo or Guido
+might have chosen for a Herod or a Saul.
+
+He was tall and broad-chested, his head nobly poised upon his
+shoulders. His dark flashing eyes had something of the falcon in
+their proud and eager glance; but beneath the calm steady gaze of
+more honest eyes those falcon glances grew shifting and restless.
+
+Jacob Danielson was strangely deficient in those physical perfections
+which had so furthered his master’s fortunes.
+
+The clerk was a wizen little man, with high shoulders, and a queer,
+limping walk. His small but piercing gray eyes looked out from under
+the shelter of a protruding forehead, fringed by two shaggy eyebrows.
+His thin lips were apt to be disturbed by a twitching motion, which
+at times was almost painful to witness.
+
+Jacob Danielson was one of those walking mysteries whose thoughts,
+deeds, and words are alike beyond the comprehension of other men. No
+one understood him; no one was able to fathom the secrets hidden in
+his breast.
+
+He lived in a dingy little lodging on the Surrey side of the Thames,
+a lodging which he had occupied for years, and where he had never
+been known to receive the visit of any human being.
+
+It was known that he drank deeply, but he had never been seen in a
+state of intoxication. There were those amongst his fellow-clerks
+who had tried to make him drunk, and who declared that there was no
+spirit potent enough to master the senses of Jacob Danielson.
+
+To his employer he was a most indefatigable servant. He _seemed_ also
+a faithful servant; yet there were times in which the banker trembled
+when he remembered the dangerous secrets lodged in the keeping of
+this unsympathetic, inscrutable being.
+
+While Rupert Godwin sat in his private apartment meditating over the
+books of the house, and dreading the bursting of that storm-cloud
+which had so long brooded above his head, Harley Westford was
+hurrying towards him, eager to deposit in his hand the savings of
+twenty years of peril and hardship.
+
+A hansom cab carried the Captain to the door of the banking-house. He
+alighted, and made his way into the outer office of the firm, where
+he addressed himself to the first person whom he found disengaged.
+That person happened to be no other than Jacob Danielson, the chief
+clerk.
+
+“I want to see Mr. Godwin,” said the Captain.
+
+“Impossible,” Jacob answered coolly. “Mr. Godwin is particularly
+engaged. If you will be good enough to state your business, I shall
+be very happy to--”
+
+“Thank you. No; I won’t trouble you. My time is very precious just
+now; but as my business is important, I’ll wait till Mr. Godwin is
+disengaged. When a man comes to place the savings of a lifetime
+with a banking firm in which he has confidence, he feels a sort of
+satisfaction in depositing his money in the hands of the principal.”
+
+Jacob Danielson’s thin lips twitched nervously. The savings of a
+lifetime! A stranger eager to place his money in Rupert Godwin’s
+hands at a time when the banker expected only the frantic demands of
+panic-stricken depositors, eager to snatch their treasures from a
+falling house!
+
+Jacob looked with keen scrutinizing eyes at the honest sailor, half
+suspecting that there might be some trap hidden beneath his apparent
+simplicity; but no one looking at Harley Westford could possibly
+suspect him of cunning or treachery.
+
+“The poor fool has walked straight into the lion’s den,” thought the
+clerk; “and he’ll be tolerably close-shaved before he walks out of
+it.”
+
+He sat at his desk for some minutes, scratching his head in a
+reflective manner, and looking furtively at handsome hazel-eyed
+Harley Westford, who was swinging his cane, and rocking himself
+backwards and forwards on his chair in a manner expressive of
+considerable impatience.
+
+Presently the clerk dismounted from his high stool. “Come, I see
+you’re in a hurry, sir,” he said, “so I’ll go into the parlour and
+ascertain what Mr. Godwin’s engagements are. Shall I take your card?”
+
+“Yes; you may as well do so. My father was a customer of the firm,
+and Mr. Godwin may have heard my name before to-day.”
+
+He _may_ have heard your name, Harley Westford! That name is written
+in letters of fire on the heart of Rupert Godwin, never to be erased
+on this side of the grave.
+
+Jacob Danielson carried the card into the banker’s sitting-room, and
+threw it on the table before his master, without once deigning to
+look at the name inscribed upon it.
+
+“Some unfortunate fool has come to deposit a lump of money in your
+hands, sir,” he said coolly; “he’s very particular about placing it
+in _your_ hands, so that he may be sure it’s safe. I suppose you’ll
+see him?”
+
+“Yes,” answered the banker haughtily; “you can show him in.”
+
+The cool insolence of his clerk’s manner galled him cruelly. He
+had borne the same insolence without wincing in the hour of his
+prosperity; but now that he felt himself upon the verge of ruin,
+Jacob Danielson’s familiarity stung him to the quick. A deposed
+sovereign is quick to feel insolence from his lackeys.
+
+It was only when the clerk had left the room that Rupert Godwin
+looked at the card lying on the table before him.
+
+His glance was careless at first; but in the very moment when he
+recognized the name inscribed upon the slip of pasteboard, his face
+changed as few faces have power to change.
+
+The sallow skin darkened to a dull leaden tint; a kind of electric
+flame seemed to kindle in the dark eyes.
+
+“Harley Westford!” he muttered. “And it is to me, his bitterest
+enemy, that he brings his wealth; and at such a time as this! There
+is a Nemesis who plans these things.”
+
+The banker crushed the card in his sinewy hand, and after that one
+passionate gesture controlled his emotion by a strength of will
+which was like iron in its unyielding nature. His face, so suddenly
+distorted, became as suddenly calm and placid, and he looked up with
+a friendly smile as Harley entered the room.
+
+No warning presentiment restrained the sailor at this last moment. He
+handed the pocket-book to the banker, and said quietly, “That, Mr.
+Godwin, contains the hard-won earnings of twenty years. Be so good
+as to count the notes. You’ll find a thousand for every year--not so
+bad, take it all in all. I had the money invested in foreign loans,
+and it brought me very handsome interest, I can assure you. But some
+wise friends of mine have taken fright. There’s to be war here, and
+war there--two or three thrones expected to topple over during the
+next six months, and three or four glorious republics on the point
+of intestine war. ‘Sell out,’ say my friends. ‘What! and give up ten
+per cent.?’ say I. And then they remind me of the cautious old Duke’s
+axiom: ‘The better your interest, the worse your security.’ So I
+‘cave in’ at once, as the Yankees say; and here I am, safe out of the
+lion’s claws, and ready to accept the current rate of interest for my
+capital.”
+
+“I congratulate you on your escape,” answered the banker. “There’s
+more than one storm brewing on the Continent, and foreign stock is
+dropping every day.”
+
+“Well, I’m glad I’ve done right. You see, I’m going to risk my life
+upon one more journey before I settle down in the pleasant harbour
+of home. I don’t know anything about this house, myself, but I know
+my father trusted your father to his dying day. I shall feel quite
+comfortable when my money is safely lodged in your hands. You find
+the amount correct, I suppose?”
+
+Rupert Godwin was counting the little packet of notes which he held
+in his hand as the Captain spoke. Harley Westford did not see that
+the banker’s hand trembled slightly as it grasped the fluttering
+pieces of tissue paper.
+
+Twenty thousand pounds! Such a sum trusted in his keeping at such a
+moment might be the salvation of his credit.
+
+“I have one charge more to confide in your hands,” said the Captain,
+“and then I can leave England in peace. This sealed packet contains
+the title-deeds of a small estate in Hampshire, on which my wife and
+children reside; with your permission, I will lodge the packet in
+your hands.”
+
+As he spoke, Harley Westford laid a sealed packet on the table.
+
+“I shall be happy to accept any charge you may confide in me,” the
+banker answered with a courteous smile.
+
+“And you’ll allow me decent interest on my money?”
+
+“On deposits placed with us for a year certain we allow five per
+cent.”
+
+“I think that settles everything,” said the sailor; “and now I can
+face danger, or death, without fear. Come what may, my wife and
+children are provided for. Let my fate be what it will, they are
+beyond the power of evil fortune.”
+
+Rupert Godwin, bending over the papers before him, smiled to himself
+as Harley Westford uttered these words--a strange, almost satanic
+smile.
+
+“Stay!” exclaimed the Captain, “you ought to give me some kind of
+receipt for that money, and those deeds, ought you not? I don’t
+pretend to be a man of business; but you see in these affairs a
+family man is bound to be precise--even if he happens to be a sailor.”
+
+“Most decidedly; I was waiting the opportunity of giving you your
+receipt,” replied the banker coolly.
+
+He touched a little hand-bell on the table before him, and the next
+minute Jacob Danielson appeared in answer to the summons.
+
+“Bring me some blank forms of receipt, Danielson.”
+
+The clerk obeyed; and Rupert Godwin filled-in the receipt for twenty
+thousand pounds.
+
+To this he affixed his own signature, and then handed the paper to
+Jacob Danielson, who signed his name below that of his master, as
+witness. The banker also filled-in and duly signed an acknowledgment
+of the sealed packet containing the title-deeds of the Grange.
+
+With these two documents in the breast-pocket of his light
+outer-coat, Harley Westford departed, delighted with the idea that he
+had rendered the fortunes of his wife and children thoroughly secure.
+
+The same hansom cab that had driven him from the railway station to
+the bank in Lombard-street drove him to the Docks, where he alighted,
+and made his way on board his own vessel, the _Lily Queen_.
+
+Her freight had been taken on board some days before, and all was
+ready for departure. A bright-faced, good-looking man of about five
+and twenty was pacing up and down the deck as the Captain came
+alongside the vessel.
+
+This young man was Gilbert Thornleigh; first mate of the _Lily
+Queen_, and a great favourite of Harley Westford’s. He had been down
+to the Grange with his Captain, and had fallen desperately in love
+with Violet in the course of a three days’ visit to that rustic
+paradise: but it is needless to say that the sailor kept the secret
+of his inflammable heart. The Captain’s beautiful daughter seemed as
+high above him as some duchess crowned with a diadem and robed in
+ermine might appear to some young captain of household troops.
+
+Captain Westford greeted Gilbert with a hearty grasp of the hand.
+
+“True to my time, you see, my lad,” he said.
+
+“Yes, Captain; always true.”
+
+“And this time I can leave England with a light heart,” said
+Harley; “for I have made all secure for my wife and children. No
+more foreign loans and Otaheite railway debentures and Fiji Island
+first-preference bonds, my lad, which bewilder a plain man’s brains
+when he tries to understand them. I have placed the whole lump of
+money in the hands of an old-established English banker, and in my
+pocket here I have Rupert Godwin’s receipt for the cash.”
+
+Gilbert Thornleigh stared aghast at his Captain.
+
+“Rupert Godwin!” he exclaimed. “You can’t mean that, Captain? You
+can’t mean that you have placed your money with the firm of Godwin
+and Selby?”
+
+“Why not, lad? Why shouldn’t I place it with them?”
+
+“Because it is whispered that they are on the verge of ruin. I had a
+few hundreds in their hands myself until yesterday; but my uncle, an
+old City man, gave me a word of warning, and I drew every farthing
+of my money before the bank closed last night. But don’t be uneasy,
+Captain, the rumour may be a false one. Besides, it’s not too late;
+you can withdraw your money.”
+
+Harley Westford’s face grew suddenly white. He reeled like a drunken
+man, and clung to the bulwark for support.
+
+“The villain!” he exclaimed; “the infernal scoundrel! He knew that
+the money belonged to my wife and children, and he smiled in my face
+while he took it from me!”
+
+“But there is time enough yet, Captain,” said Gilbert Thornleigh,
+looking at his watch; “the bank will not close before four o’clock,
+and it’s now only three. You can go ashore and get your money back.”
+
+“Yes,” cried Harley Westford, with a terrible oath, “I will have
+my money--or the life of that villain! My children! My wife! The
+scoundrel could look me in the face and know that he was robbing two
+helpless women! No, no, my darlings, you shall not be cheated!”
+
+“Captain, there is not a moment to lose.”
+
+“I know, lad; I know,” answered Harley, passing his hand across his
+brow as if to collect his scattered senses. “This news upset me a
+bit at first, but I shall be all right presently. See here, my lad;
+you know how I have always trusted you, and now I must place a still
+greater trust in your hands. Come what may, the _Lily Queen_ sails at
+daybreak to-morrow. If I am on board her by that time, well and good.
+If not, she must sail without me, and you, Gilbert Thornleigh, go as
+her Captain. Remember that. I will have no delays; the men are all on
+board her, her cargo is expected and waited for out yonder. There has
+been too much delay as it is, and it’s a point of honour with me not
+to lose another hour. I trust you, Gilbert, as if you were my son.
+Heaven only knows when I may see blue water again. If this man Rupert
+Godwin is indeed on the verge of ruin, he will scarcely relinquish
+twenty thousand pounds without a struggle. But, come what may, I will
+have the money from him, by fair means or foul. In the mean time
+Gilbert, I trust the command of the vessel to you in case of the
+worst. Remember, she sails to-morrow morning.”
+
+“Without fail, Captain, and you with her, please Providence!”
+
+“That,” answered Harley Westford solemnly, “is in the hands of
+Heaven.”
+
+He placed all the necessary papers in the young man’s custody, and
+after a few instructions, hurriedly but not carelessly given, he
+wrung Gilbert’s extended hand, and then sprang into the boat which
+was to take him ashore.
+
+He called the first cab that was to be found outside the Docks, and
+told the man to drive at a gallop to Lombard-street.
+
+The bank was closing as the Captain alighted from the vehicle. Mr.
+Godwin had just left for his country-house, the clerk told Harley,
+and no further business could be transacted that day.
+
+“Then I must follow him to his country-house,” answered the Captain.
+“Where is it?”
+
+“Wilmingdon Hall, on the North road, beyond Hertford.”
+
+“How can I get there?”
+
+“You can go by rail to Hertford, and then get a fly across to the
+Hall. It’s only a mile and a half from the station.”
+
+“Good,” answered Harley Westford. Then, after directing the cabman
+to drive his fastest to the Great Northern Terminus, he stepped once
+more into the vehicle.
+
+“Neither Rupert Godwin nor I shall know peace or rest until that
+money has been restored to its rightful owner!” cried the Captain,
+raising his clenched hand, as if he would have invoked the powers of
+Heaven to witness his oath.
+
+He little knew how terribly that oath was to be fulfilled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+AN IMPORTUNATE CREDITOR.
+
+
+While Harley Westford was making his way to Hertford by
+express-train, Mr. Godwin sat over his wine in one of the splendid
+apartments of Wilmingdon Hall.
+
+Wilmingdon Hall was no modern villa erected by a wealthy speculator,
+one of the merchant princes of the commercial age. It was a noble
+relic of the past; one of those stately habitations which we find
+here and there embosomed in woods whose growth is of a thousand
+years. For centuries the Hall had been the residence of a grand old
+race; but reckless extravagance had driven the lords of the mansion
+away from its ponderous gates, to give place to the rich commoner
+whose wealth made him master of the old domain.
+
+The Hall was built in the form of a quadrangle, and was large
+enough to have accommodated a regiment of soldiers. One side of the
+quadrangle had been built in the early Tudor period, and had been
+disused for many years. The stone mullions of the windows darkened
+the rooms, and the tapestry hung rotting on the walls of the gloomy
+bedchambers and the low-roofed saloons of a bygone age.
+
+There were few of the banker’s household who would have been bold
+enough to enter this northern wing of the mansion, which was, of
+course, reported to be haunted; but Mr. Godwin himself had been often
+known to visit the silent chambers, where the dust lay thick upon the
+mouldering oaken floors. The banker had indeed caused an iron safe to
+be placed in one of the lower rooms; and it was said that he kept a
+great deal of old-fashioned plate and jewellery, intrusted to him by
+his customers, in the cellarage below this northern wing.
+
+Very few persons living in this present day had ever descended to
+these cellars; but it was reported that they extended the whole
+length and breadth of the northern side of the quadrangle, and even
+penetrated into the adjoining wings. It was also said that in the
+time of the civil wars these cellars had been used as prisons for the
+enemy, and as hiding-places for the faithful adherents of the good
+cause.
+
+The servants of Mr. Godwin’s numerous household often talked of
+those gloomy underground chambers, but not one among them would have
+been courageous enough to descend into the dark and unknown vaults.
+Nor were the cellars ever left open to any hazardous intruder, as
+the ponderous old keys belonging to them, and to all the rooms in
+the deserted northern wing, were lodged in the safe keeping of Mr.
+Godwin himself, and no doubt stowed away in one of the numerous iron
+safes which lined the walls of his study. There was some legend of
+a subterranean passage leading from some part of the grounds to the
+cellarage; but no one now in the household had ever ventured to test
+the truth of this legend. Was there not also the legend of a White
+Lady, whose shadowy form might be met at any hour in those darksome
+chambers,--a harmless lady enough while in the flesh, a poor gentle
+creature, who had broken her heart and gone distraught for love of
+an inconstant gentleman in the military line; but a very troublesome
+lady in the spirit, since she appeared to devote her leisure to
+sighing and wailing in passages and cupboards, and to the performance
+of every variety of scratching, and knocking, and scraping, and
+tapping known to the most ingenious of ghosts.
+
+In the neighbourhood of Wilmingdon Hall Mr. Godwin was looked upon as
+the possessor of almost fabulous wealth. He was regarded as a kind of
+modern magician, who could have coined gold out of the dead leaves
+which strewed Wilmingdon woods in the autumn, if he had chosen to do
+so.
+
+The June evening was as beautiful as the June morning had been. The
+western sky was one grand blaze of crimson and orange, as Rupert
+Godwin sat over his wine in his spacious oak-panelled dining-room. He
+was not alone. On the opposite side of the table appeared the wizen
+face of the clerk, Jacob Danielson.
+
+Crystal decanters, diamond cut, and sparkling as if studded with
+jewels, glittered in the crimson sunset, and fragrant hot-house
+fruits were piled amongst their dewy leaves in dishes of rare old
+Sèvres china. Luxury and elegance surrounded the banker on every
+side; but he had by no means the air of a man who enjoys the delights
+of the Sybarite’s _dolce far niente_. A dark frown of discontent
+obscured his handsome face, and the violet-perfumed Burgundy, which
+his clerk was sniffing with the true epicurean gusto, had no charm
+for the master.
+
+Rupert Godwin had felt himself compelled to conciliate his clerk. Did
+not Jacob know of the twenty thousand pounds--that twenty thousand
+pounds respecting which dark plots were now being woven in the
+banker’s mind?
+
+That sum might have restored Mr. Godwin’s shaken credit for a time;
+but what would he be able to do when the Captain returned from his
+Chinese voyage, and demanded the restoration of his money?
+
+Rupert Godwin hated Harley Westford with a deeply-rooted hatred,
+though he had never looked upon the sailor’s face until that day. The
+hatred which had long smouldered in the banker’s breast arose out of
+a dark mystery of the past--a mystery in which Clara, the Captain’s
+wife, had been concerned.
+
+Under these circumstances, Rupert Godwin, ever selfish, false, and
+unscrupulous, resolved on appropriating the sailor’s fortune. Ruin
+stared him in the face. He had speculated wildly, and had lost
+heavily. He resolved on leaving Europe for ever, and carrying with
+him the twenty thousand pounds intrusted to him by Harley Westford.
+
+He had spent some of the pleasantest years of his youth in South
+America, where a member of his family occupied a position of some
+importance as a merchant.
+
+“Under a feigned name, and in that distant land, no one will be able
+to discover the whereabouts of Rupert Godwin, the runaway banker,”
+he thought; “and with twenty thousand pounds for my starting-point,
+I may make a second fortune, larger than my first. Julia shall
+accompany me. My son may remain in England and shift for himself;
+there has never been much love between us, and I do not want to be
+hindered at every turn by some Quixotic scruple of his. Chivalry and
+commerce won’t go in harness together. Bayard would have made a bad
+thing of it on the Stock Exchange.”
+
+Thus ran the banker’s thoughts as he sat brooding over his wine; but
+every now and then his restless eyes glanced furtively towards the
+face of his clerk.
+
+He feared Jacob Danielson. The fear as yet was shadowy and
+unreasoning; but he felt that the clerk knew too many of his secrets,
+and might become a hindrance to his schemes. He felt this, and in
+the meantime he was anxious to conciliate, and if possible hoodwink,
+Jacob Danielson.
+
+“Yes, Jacob,” he said presently, taking up the thread of a former
+conversation, “this twenty thousand may enable us to weather the
+storm. If the first calls made upon us are promptly paid, confidence
+must be restored, and the rumour against us will die away.”
+
+“Very likely,” answered the clerk, in that cool dry tone of voice
+which was peculiarly unpleasant to Rupert Godwin; “but when the
+sea captain comes home and wants his money--what then?”
+
+“By that time we may be again in a strong position.”
+
+“Yes, we _may_! But how?”
+
+“Some of the speculations in which my money has been risked may
+improve. My eggs are not all in one basket. Some of the baskets may
+prove to be sounder than they appear just now,” answered the banker,
+who tried in vain to appear at his ease under the piercing scrutiny
+of Jacob’s sharp grey eyes.
+
+“Do you believe that, Mr. Godwin?” asked the clerk, in a tone that
+was strangely significant.
+
+“Most decidedly.”
+
+“Humph!” responded Jacob, rubbing the iron-grey stubble upon his chin
+with his horny palm, until the harsh rasping noise produced by that
+action set his employer’s teeth on edge. “I am glad you have so much
+confidence in the future.”
+
+Rupert Godwin winced as he felt the sting contained in these simple
+words. He felt that to throw dust in the eyes of Mr. Danielson was by
+no means an easy operation. But he was no coward. He was a bold bad
+man, whose heart was not likely to fail him in any desperate venture.
+
+“Bah!” he thought, as his strongly-marked brows contracted over his
+dark eyes, “what have I to fear from this man? True, that he knows
+of the twenty thousand pounds; but what harm can his knowledge do me
+when I am far away from England and my creditors? In that money lies
+the means of new wealth.”
+
+His head drooped forward upon his breast, as he abandoned himself to
+a reverie that was not altogether unpleasant, when suddenly a voice,
+solemnly impressive in its tone, sounded in the quiet of the June
+twilight.
+
+“Mr. Godwin,” said the voice, “I come to demand from you the twenty
+thousand pounds which I lodged in your keeping to-day.”
+
+A thunderbolt descending from heaven to shatter the roof above him
+could scarcely have affected the banker more terribly than did the
+sound of that unceremonious demand.
+
+He looked up, and saw Harley Westford standing in one of the long
+French windows which opened upon the lawn. The Captain stood on the
+threshold of the central window, exactly opposite Rupert Godwin;
+and in the dim declining light the banker could see that Harley
+Westford’s face was deadly pale. It was the fixed and resolute
+countenance of a desperate man.
+
+For the first few moments after those words had been spoken Rupert
+Godwin was completely unnerved; but, with an effort, he shook off
+that feeling of mental paralysis which had taken possession of him,
+and assumed his usual ease of manner.
+
+“My dear Captain Westford,” he said, “your sudden appearance actually
+alarmed me; and yet I am not generally subject to any nervous
+fancies. But this place is supposed to be haunted; and I give you my
+word you looked exactly like a ghost just now in the June gloaming.
+Pray be seated, and try some of that Chambertin, which I can
+recommend. Danielson, will you be good enough to ring for lamps? The
+darkness has crept upon us unawares.”
+
+“Yes,” answered the clerk, “we have been so deeply interested in our
+own thoughts.”
+
+There was something like a sneer in Jacob Danielson’s tone as he said
+this; and the banker felt as if his inmost thoughts had been read by
+his clerk.
+
+“Well, Captain Westford,” said Mr. Godwin in his most careless tone,
+“to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? You wish to make some
+new arrangement about the investment of your money; perhaps you are
+not satisfied with the rate of interest allowed by our house. You
+want to dabble in some speculative investment.”
+
+“Mr. Godwin,” exclaimed the sailor, “I am a plain-spoken man, and I
+don’t know how to beat about the bush. In a very few words, then, I
+want my money back.”
+
+“You are afraid to trust it in my hands?”
+
+“I am.”
+
+“You have heard some false rumour, no doubt; some story got up by
+notorious City scoundrels. Some anonymous circular has reached
+you, perhaps, intended to undermine the credit of one of the best
+considered banking-firms in the City of London. I have heard of such
+stabs in the dark; and if I had my will the anonymous slanderer
+who destroys his neighbour’s credit should be hung as high as the
+assassin who takes his neighbour’s life.”
+
+“The rumour which I have heard may be true or false,” replied the
+Captain quietly. “I trust for your sake, Mr. Godwin, that it is
+false. I think it very likely that it may be so. But I am dealing
+with that which is dearer to me than my own heart’s blood. I am
+dealing with the money which represents the future comfort and safety
+of my wife and children. There must be no risk, not the shadow
+of risk, about that money. Ask me to trust you with my life, and
+I will trust you freely; but I will not leave that money in your
+hands. At the risk of giving you mortal offence I come to demand its
+restoration.”
+
+“And you shall have it in due course, my dear Captain Westford,”
+answered the banker, throwing himself back in his chair and laughing
+aloud. “Pray, excuse me, but I cannot help being amused by your
+simplicity. You sailors are as bold as lions on the high seas, but
+the veriest cowards when you come into the neighbourhood of the Stock
+Exchange. I really can’t help laughing at your fears.”
+
+“Laugh as much as you please, Mr. Godwin; only, give me back my
+money.”
+
+“Most decidedly, my dear Captain Westford; but as I don’t happen to
+carry your fortune about with me in my waistcoat-pocket, you must
+wait till business hours to-morrow.”
+
+The sailor’s countenance darkened.
+
+“I relied on catching you in Lombard-street before the bank closed,”
+he said, “and I have given orders for the sailing of my vessel
+to-morrow at daybreak. If I am not aboard her, she sails without me.”
+
+The banker was silent for some moments. The lamps had not yet been
+brought into the room, and in the darkness a sinister smile passed
+over Rupert Godwin’s face.
+
+“Your vessel sails without you,” he said presently; “but of course
+your officers will await fresh orders from you?”
+
+“No, they have no occasion to wait,” answered the Captain; “they have
+received all necessary instructions. If I am not on board my vessel
+before daybreak to-morrow, my first mate will assume the post of
+Captain, and the _Lily Queen_ will leave the Pool without me.”
+
+Two men-servants entered the room with lamps at this moment. In the
+brilliant yet subdued light of the moderator-lamps, Rupert Godwin
+looked like a man who was on good terms with himself and all the
+world. And yet Heaven alone knew the intensity of the struggle going
+forward in this man’s mind.
+
+“My dear Danielson,” he exclaimed, after glancing at the clock upon
+the chimney-piece--“my dear Danielson, have you any notion of the
+time? It is now past nine, and unless you start at once, you’ll
+scarcely catch the 10.30 train from Hertford.”
+
+“It is like you, to be so kind and thoughtful, Mr. Godwin!” the clerk
+said, looking searchingly at his employer. “Yes, my time is up, and I
+must be thinking of getting off.”
+
+“I’ll order one of my grooms to drive you to the station,” said Mr.
+Godwin; and before Jacob could remonstrate, he rang the bell and gave
+his directions to the servant who answered it.
+
+Meanwhile Harley Westford stood a little way from the table, pale and
+silent, and with a resolute look upon his frank handsome face.
+
+During all this time he had not once seated himself; during all this
+time he had not once removed his gaze from the countenance of the
+banker. He wanted to discover whether or not Rupert Godwin was an
+honest man.
+
+“I am waiting to hear your decision about that money, Mr. Godwin,” he
+said quietly; “remember, that to me it is a matter of life and death.”
+
+“If you will step into my study. I shall be at your service
+immediately, Captain Westford,” answered the banker; “I have only a
+few words to say to my clerk, and then I will join you.”
+
+A servant entered at this moment to announce that the dog-cart was
+ready to take Mr. Danielson to the station.
+
+“Show this gentleman into my study,” said Rupert Godwin, “and take
+lights there immediately.”
+
+Harley Westford followed the servant. When he entered the dining-room
+he had carried his light overcoat upon his arm: this coat he now left
+hanging loosely upon a chair.
+
+“Now, my dear Jacob,” said the banker, with every appearance of
+unconcern, “let me see you off, and then I will go and settle with
+this importunate sea-captain.”
+
+“But how will you settle with him?” asked Danielson in a low
+suppressed voice.
+
+“Very easily. I will persuade him that the rumour he has heard
+against our credit is entirely false, and shall by that means prevail
+upon him to leave his money in my hands until his return from China.”
+
+“But he seems determined upon having the money back immediately. I
+fancy you’ll find him rather a tough customer.”
+
+“Trust my diplomacy against his determination. Come, Jacob, you will
+certainly lose your train.”
+
+The banker almost pushed his clerk towards the dog-cart which was
+waiting before the Gothic porch of Wilmingdon Hall. Jacob mounted the
+vehicle, and the groom drove off at a smart pace.
+
+Then, for the first time, Rupert Godwin sighed heavily, as he stood
+alone in the porch, and a dark cloud fell over his face.
+
+“It is difficult work,” he muttered to himself; “awful work, let me
+plan it which way I will. But let me remember Clara Ponsonby--my love
+and her disdain. Let me remember the past, and _that_ memory may give
+me nerve and resolution to-night.”
+
+He stood for some minutes in the porch, looking out into the summer
+darkness. No star had yet risen in the June heavens, and the lawn
+and gardens of Wilmingdon Hall were as dark as the deepest recesses
+of the forest. After those few minutes of silent thought, the banker
+breathed one more sigh, profound as the first, and turned to re-enter
+the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS.
+
+
+Rupert Godwin went at once to the library, where Harley Westford was
+waiting for him.
+
+“Come, my dear Captain,” he said, as he entered the spacious room,
+the walls of which were lined with books, whose costly and artistic
+bindings announced alike the wealth of a millionnaire and the
+perfect taste of an accomplished bibliopole,--“come, Captain, let us
+understand each other fully. You want this money to-night?”
+
+“I do. My demand may perhaps be unreasonable, as this house is not
+your place of business, nor this an hour in which you are accustomed
+to transact business; but the peculiar circumstances of the case must
+plead my excuse. I tell you again, Mr. Godwin, to me this is a matter
+of life or death.”
+
+“And if I refuse to give you the money to-night you will apply for it
+to-morrow, as soon as the bank opens?”
+
+“Unquestionably.”
+
+“And if then there was any delay in the production of your money,
+what would you do?”
+
+“I would dog your footsteps day and night; I would haunt you like
+your own shadow; I would stand upon the steps of your banking-house
+in Lombard-street and proclaim you as a thief and a scoundrel, until
+that twenty thousand pounds was produced. _My_ money!” cried the
+Captain in passionate accents; “it is not my money; it is my wife’s
+money, my children’s money; and you had better try to take my life
+than to rob me of that.”
+
+“Come, come, my dear sir,” said the banker, with his blandest smile,
+“pray do not excite yourself. I was only putting a case. I daresay
+if I were a dishonest man you would be what is vulgarly called
+an ugly customer; but as I have no intention of withholding your
+money for an hour longer than is necessary, we need not discuss the
+matter with any violence. I told you just now that I was not in the
+habit of carrying twenty thousand pounds about me. Under ordinary
+circumstances, therefore, I should not be able to give you your money
+to-night. You say your vessel sails at daybreak to-morrow?”
+
+“She does.”
+
+“And you will be a loser if you cannot sail with her?”
+
+“A very considerable loser.”
+
+“Very well, then, Captain Westford,” answered the banker; “you have
+not behaved very generously to me. You have intruded yourself upon
+my domestic privacy, and have insulted me by most unjust suspicions.
+In spite of this, however, I am prepared to act generously towards
+you. As the circumstances of the case are exceptional, I will strain
+a point in your favour. It happens, strange to say, that I have in
+this house a sum of money amounting to more than the twenty thousand
+pounds which you lodged in my hands.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“Yes. It is a strange coincidence, is it not?”
+
+The banker laughed as he made this remark. Had Harley Westford been
+a suspicious man, skilled in reading the darker secrets of the human
+heart, something strained and unnatural in that laugh might have
+struck upon his ear, awakening a vague terror. But he suspected
+nothing. He was quite ready to believe that he had wronged Rupert
+Godwin by his impetuous demand for the return of his money.
+
+“I happen to have an eccentric old lady amongst my customers, whose
+fortune of some seven-and-twenty thousand pounds was, until a few
+days since, lodged in the hands of different railway companies,”
+said the banker, in his most business-like tone. “But a week or so
+ago she wrote to me in a panic, caused by some silly report she had
+heard, desiring me to sell out of these companies, and to keep her
+money in my hands until she gave me further directions respecting the
+disposal of it. But the best part of the business is, that she begged
+me to keep the money at my country-house, for fear, as she said, of a
+robbery in Lombard-street. Did you ever hear of anything so absurd?”
+
+Again Mr. Godwin laughed, the same forced unnatural laugh as before.
+
+“However, Captain Westford,” he continued, “the old proverb very
+truly tells us, ‘It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.’ You shall
+profit by the old lady’s eccentricity. If you will come with me to
+the other side of my house, where I keep all valuables intrusted to
+me, I will give you Bank of England notes to the amount of twenty
+thousand pounds.”
+
+“I thank you very much,” answered the Captain.
+
+“No thanks, I am glad to do as much for the sake of----your wife.”
+
+The banker made a long pause before uttering those two last words.
+
+He opened an iron safe, artfully disguised by doors of carved oak,
+and took from it a heavy bunch of keys, all labelled with slips of
+parchment. These keys belonged to the northern wing of the Hall.
+
+As the two men were about to leave the room, the door was opened, and
+a woman appeared upon the threshold.
+
+Never had Harley Westford looked upon beauty more splendid than that
+which now greeted his sight.
+
+A girl of some nineteen years of age, whose darkly-flashing eyes and
+Spanish style of beauty proclaimed her the daughter of Rupert Godwin,
+stood before him. But all that was stern and cold in the banker’s
+face was softened into beauty in that of his daughter.
+
+The eyes were oriental in their dark lustre, and there was a
+dewy softness mingled even with the eager brightness of their
+gaze. A crimson glow relieved the pale olive of the clear skin;
+and half-parted lips, whose vermilion recalled the hue of the
+pomegranate, displayed two rows of small white teeth that glittered
+in the lamp-light.
+
+The girl’s figure was tall and commanding, but she was graceful as an
+Andalusian countess.
+
+Such was Julia Godwin, the only daughter of the banker and of the
+poor neglected lady who had been his wife.
+
+“I have been looking for you everywhere, papa!” exclaimed Julia;
+“where have you been hiding yourself all the evening?”
+
+The banker turned upon his daughter with a frown.
+
+“Have I to tell you again, Julia, that this is a room which I devote
+to business, and that I will not be intruded upon here?” he exclaimed
+sternly. “This gentleman is with me on an affair of vital importance,
+and I must beg that you will retire to your own apartments, and leave
+us undisturbed.”
+
+“O, very well, papa,” said Julia, pouting her rosy under-lip in
+evident vexation, and lingering on the threshold with the privileged
+pertinacity of a spoiled child; “but it is dreadfully weary work
+sitting alone a whole evening in this melancholy old house, where one
+expects to see a ghost walk out of the panelling at any moment after
+dark. Mrs. Melville has gone to town to dine with some old friends,
+and will not come back till to-morrow morning; so I am all alone. And
+I looked forward to such a pleasant evening with you. However, I’m
+going, papa; only I do think you’re very unkind, and I----”
+
+The dark frown upon Mr. Godwin’s face silenced his daughter’s
+complaining voice, and she retired, murmuring to herself about her
+father’s unkindness.
+
+Even the sternest men are liable to some weaknesses; and it must
+be confessed that Julia Godwin was a spoiled child, the favourite
+companion of a doting father.
+
+Between Rupert Godwin and his son there was neither affection nor
+companionship. A strange and unnatural dislike divided the father
+and his only son; and it was in his daughter that the proud man had
+centred all his hopes.
+
+“Come, Captain Westford,” said the banker, when Julia had vanished,
+“it is growing late. The last train from Hertford leaves at a little
+before midnight. Will you be able to walk as far as the station?”
+
+“Three times that distance, if necessary,” answered the seaman
+heartily.
+
+“Come, then.”
+
+Rupert Godwin took the lamp in one hand and the bunch of keys in the
+other. He went into the hall, followed by Captain Westford.
+
+“There will be no vehicle required for this gentleman,” the banker
+said, to a servant whom they met in the hall; “he will take a short
+cut across the park, and walk back to Hertford.”
+
+Rupert Godwin led the way along corridors carpeted with velvet pile,
+and adorned with pictures and statues, and great china vases of
+exotic flowers, whose rich perfumes filled the air. All was luxury
+and elegance in this part of the house, and through the open doors
+Harley Westford caught glimpses of exquisitely-furnished apartments,
+in which the carved oaken wainscots and richly-adorned ceilings of
+the Elizabethan age contrasted with the most graceful achievements of
+modern upholstery.
+
+But suddenly the scene changed. At the end of a long corridor the
+banker unlocked a ponderous oaken door, and led the way into a dark
+passage, where the atmosphere seemed thick with dust, and where there
+was a faint musty smell that seemed the very odour of decay.
+
+They were now in the northern wing of Wilmingdon Hall, amongst
+those disused chambers to whose dull solitude it pleased the banker
+sometimes to betake himself.
+
+Harley Westford looked round him with a shudder.
+
+“We seamen are rather superstitious fellows,” he said; “the air of
+this place chills me to the bone, and I should expect to meet a ghost
+in these dark passages. The place feels like a grave.”
+
+“Does it?” exclaimed the banker; “that’s strange!”
+
+Again, if Harley Westford had been a suspicious man, he might have
+detected something sinister in the tone in which those words were
+spoken.
+
+The banker unlocked a door leading into a small low-roofed chamber
+which bore the aspect of being sometimes occupied by a business man.
+
+There were iron safes along one side of the room, and a desk and a
+couple of chairs stood in the centre of the bare oak floor. There was
+a long narrow window, guarded by iron bars and by heavy shutters on
+the outside. At one end of the room there was a door, also heavily
+barred with iron.
+
+Nothing could be more dreary than the aspect of this apartment, dimly
+illuminated by the lamp which Rupert Godwin placed upon the desk.
+
+“It is in this room that I keep any objects of special value
+intrusted to me for any length of time,” he said, as Harley
+Westford’s eyes wandered slowly round the apartment. “Those safes
+contain money and securities. That door leads to a cellar in which I
+keep plate.”
+
+He opened one of the safes and took out an iron box.
+
+“This is Miss Wentworth’s fortune,” he said, “twenty thousand pounds
+of which I am about to deliver to you.”
+
+He set the box upon the desk; and while the Captain was looking at it
+with an almost respectful gaze, as the casket which contained so much
+wealth, Rupert Godwin turned once more to the safe.
+
+This time Harley Westford did not see the object which he took from
+that iron repository.
+
+It was something that flashed with a blue glitter in the light of the
+lamp--something which the banker concealed in the sleeve of his coat
+as he turned towards the sailor.
+
+“Come,” he said, with his most careless manner, “you must see my
+mysterious cellar before you leave this old haunted wing of the Hall.
+You are not afraid of the ghosts, I suppose, in my company?”
+
+“Neither in yours nor alone,” answered Harley; “a sailor is never
+afraid. He may believe in the appearance of strange visitants upon
+this earth, but he does not fear them.”
+
+The banker unlocked the iron-barred door, and pulled it open.
+
+It revolved very slowly on its ponderous hinges, revealing a flight
+of steep steps that led downwards into impenetrable darkness.
+
+“So that is where you keep your treasures!” cried the sailor; “a
+regular Aladdin’s cave!”
+
+“Yes,” answered Rupert Godwin; “if you are an amateur of old silver,
+you would find plenty to interest you in that vault--candelabras that
+have lighted the banquets of the Tudors, tankards that Cromwell’s
+thick lips have touched, tea-pots and salvers made by Queen Anne’s
+favourite silversmith, the tarnished treasures of some of the best
+families in England. Take the lamp and look down.”
+
+Harley took the lamp from the table, and approached the threshold of
+the door.
+
+He stood for some few moments looking thoughtfully down into the
+gloomy vault below.
+
+“A queer place!” he said; “darker than the hold of a slave-ship off
+the African coast.”
+
+As he uttered the last few words, the arm of the banker was suddenly
+raised, and that mysterious something which flashed with a blue
+glitter in the lamp-light descended upon the sailor’s back.
+
+Harley Westford uttered one groan, staggered forward, and fell
+headlong down the steep flight of steps leading to the cellar.
+
+There was a crash of broken glass as the lamp fell from his hand;
+then a dull heavy thud, which was re-echoed with a hollow sound in
+the vault below--a sound that prolonged itself like the suppressed
+roar of distant thunder.
+
+The banker thrust his hand into his breast, then pushed the heavy
+door upon its hinges, and turned the key in the lock.
+
+“I do not think he will come to Lombard-street to demand his money,
+or stand upon the steps of my house to denounce me for a thief and a
+scoundrel,” muttered Rupert Godwin, as he dropped the bunch of keys
+into his coat-pocket.
+
+Then he groped his way from the room, and crept cautiously along the
+narrow passage leading to the occupied portion of the house.
+
+He had left the door of communication ajar, and he saw the light
+shining through the aperture.
+
+He seemed to breathe more freely as he emerged into the carpeted
+corridor, and locked the door behind him.
+
+As he was turning the key in the lock, Julia Godwin came out of one
+of the rooms near at hand.
+
+“Where is your friend, papa?” she asked, with a look of surprise.
+
+“He has gone back to London.”
+
+“But how did he go? I saw you both go into the northern wing just
+now, and I have been sitting in my own room with the door open
+listening for your footsteps ever since. I am sure he has not passed
+along this passage.”
+
+For a moment the banker was silent.
+
+“How inquisitive you are, Julia!” he said at last. “I let that
+gentleman out of the side-door in the northern wing, as he wanted to
+get across the park by the shortest way.”
+
+“Ah, to be sure. But what could take you into that horrible northern
+wing?”
+
+“Business. I have important papers there. Go back to your room,
+Julia; I cannot stay to be questioned.”
+
+The girl looked at her father with an expression of mingled wonder
+and anxiety.
+
+“Papa!” she exclaimed, “you are as pale as death. I never saw you
+look like this before. And it is not like you to be so cross to me.
+I am sure that something has happened to vex you, something very
+serious.”
+
+“I had rather unpleasant business with that man; but it is all over
+now, and he has gone. Let me pass, Julia; I have important letters to
+write before I go to bed.”
+
+“Good-night then, papa,” said Julia, holding up her face to be
+kissed. But before the kiss could be given, she recoiled from her
+father, with a sudden movement, and a low cry of terror.
+
+“See there!” she exclaimed, pointing to his breast.
+
+“What is the matter, child?”
+
+“Blood, papa! A spot of blood upon your shirt.”
+
+The banker looked down, and saw a little splash of blood upon the
+spotless whiteness of his cambric shirt-front. “How silly you are,
+Julia!” he said. “My nose bled a little just now, as I was stooping
+over some papers. My brain is overloaded with blood, I think. There,
+there--good-night, child.”
+
+He pressed his lips upon the girl’s uplifted brow. Those cold
+bloodless lips sent a chill through her veins.
+
+“What is the matter with papa, to-night?” she thought, as she
+returned to her own apartment; “I’m afraid something must have gone
+wrong in the City.”
+
+The banker walked slowly to the dining-room, where Harley Westford
+had first broken in upon his reverie.
+
+The lamps were still burning on the long table of polished oak; the
+wines still glowed with ruby lustre in the diamond-cut decanters.
+
+But the room was not empty. Seated by the table, with the _Times_
+newspaper in his hand, Rupert Godwin beheld Jacob Danielson, the man
+who of all others he would have least wished to encounter at that
+moment.
+
+The banker had buttoned his coat across his breast after that meeting
+with his daughter, and the blood-stain was no longer visible. But he
+could not repress a sudden start at sight of his clerk.
+
+“You here, Danielson!” he exclaimed; “I thought you were on your way
+to London.”
+
+“No; I was too late for the train, and so walked back to ask a
+night’s hospitality. I might have gone by the midnight train, of
+course; but then, you see, my landlady is a very particular sort of
+person, and it wouldn’t do for me to go back to my lodgings in the
+dead of the night; so I venture to return here. I hope I shall not be
+considered an intruder.”
+
+“O, not at all,” answered Rupert, dropping suddenly into an
+arm-chair. “Will you be good enough to touch the bell?”
+
+“Certainly. You are looking very pale.”
+
+“Yes, I was seized with a spasm of the heart just now. I am subject
+to that sort of thing,” replied the banker, coolly. Then he added to
+the servant who entered the room, “Bring me some brandy.”
+
+The man brought a decanter of brandy. Rupert Godwin half filled a
+tumbler with the spirit, and drained it to the last drop.
+
+“And so you lost the train, and walked over here?” he asked of
+Danielson, presently.
+
+“Yes; I dismissed your man with the dog-cart before I discovered that
+the train had started, so I had no alternative but to walk back.”
+
+“You must have walked uncommonly fast,” said the banker, thoughtfully.
+
+“Yes, I’m rather a fast walker. But where’s our friend the Captain?”
+
+“Gone, half an hour ago.”
+
+“You contrived to pacify him, then?”
+
+“O, yes. He agreed to let me have the use of his money till his
+return from China. I shall pay him rather a high rate of interest.”
+
+“Ah, to be sure,” answered the clerk, rubbing his chin in that
+slow and meditative manner which was peculiar to him, and staring
+thoughtfully at his employer, who drank another half-tumbler of
+brandy. “And so the Captain walked to the railway station. You
+directed him to go by a cross cut through the park, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“By the grotto and fernery, eh?”
+
+“Yes; I sent him that way,” answered the banker, rather abstractedly.
+
+“Strange!” said the clerk. “I ought to have met him, for I came that
+way.”
+
+“Very likely he took the wrong path; these sailors never are very
+good hands at steering their course on shore.”
+
+“No; to be sure. And the careless fellow has left his coat behind
+him, I see,” said Danielson, pointing to Harley Westford’s light
+overcoat, which hung on the back of a distant chair.
+
+“Very careless,” answered the banker. “And now, as I am rather tired,
+I will wish you good-night, Danielson. The servants will show you to
+your room. Try some of that cognac. It is quite a liqueur.”
+
+“It ought to be rather mild,” answered the clerk; “for I never saw
+you take so much brandy as you’ve drunk within the last five minutes.”
+
+Rupert Godwin left the dining-room, and went up the broad oak
+staircase to his own apartment--a lofty and spacious chamber,
+furnished with dark carved oak, relieved by hangings of green velvet.
+
+Here the mask fell from the assassin’s face; here the guilty man
+dared to be himself.
+
+He dropped heavily into a chair, and covering his face with his
+hands, groaned aloud.
+
+“It was horrible,” he muttered, “very horrible; and yet they say
+revenge is sweet. Years ago I hungered for vengeance as some famished
+animal may hunger for his prey. And now it is mine. I am avenged,
+Clara Ponsonby. You will never look upon my rival again.”
+
+The banker plunged his hand into his waistcoat, and drew from thence
+a long Spanish dagger of bright blue steel.
+
+From the point half-way towards the hilt, the blade was stained with
+blood.
+
+“His blood!” muttered Rupert Godwin; “the blood of the man I have
+hated for twenty years, and only met for the first time to-day! The
+ways of destiny are strange.”
+
+The banker rose from his chair, and went to an old-fashioned ebony
+cabinet, in a secret drawer of which he placed the dagger.
+
+“No living creature but myself knows the secret of that spring,” he
+said to himself. “They must be clever who find the weapon that killed
+Harley Westford.”
+
+Then after a pause, he murmured:
+
+“The weapon that killed him! Can I be certain that he is dead?”
+
+And again, after a pause, he muttered:
+
+“Bah! How should he survive to-night’s work? The stroke of the dagger
+was sure enough; and then the fall down the steep flight of steps.
+Can there be any doubt of his death? And again, if he survived the
+dagger-stroke and the fall, he must perish from loss of blood, cold,
+or even famine.”
+
+There was something demoniac in the face of Rupert Godwin as he
+contemplated this horrible alternative.
+
+“And the twenty thousand pounds are mine!” he exclaimed triumphantly,
+after a long pause: “mine--for ever; to deal with as I please. That
+sum may help me to sustain the shattered credit of my house. Fresh
+speculations may float me back to fortune. I may surmount all my
+difficulties, as I have surmounted the difficulty of to-night. What
+is it, after all?--this crime, which is so hideous to contemplate, so
+awful to remember? One bold, sudden stroke, and the thing is done.
+This man’s life comes to an end, as it might have come to an end a
+few days hence in some squall at sea. What is the world the worse for
+his loss, or how am I the worse for what I have done?”
+
+This was the argument which this man held with himself in that first
+pause after the commission of the dread act which must separate him
+for evermore in thought and feeling from men with clean hands and
+sinless hearts.
+
+He was not sorry for what he had done. He was disturbed by no feeling
+of compassion or regret for his victim. But he felt that he had done
+a deed the weight and influence of which upon his future existence he
+had yet to discover.
+
+It seemed to him as if some physical transformation had been worked
+upon him since the doing of that awful deed. He no longer breathed,
+or moved, or spoke, with a sense of ease and freedom. His respiration
+was troubled, his limbs seemed to have lost their elasticity; when he
+spoke, his voice sounded strange to him.
+
+“It is a kind of nightmare,” he said to himself, “and will pass away
+as quickly as it came. I have lived in lands where men hold each
+other’s lives very lightly. Am I the man to play the coward because
+this insolent sailor’s days have been cut shorter by so many months
+or years? Why did he come here to brave and defy me in my own house?
+He did not know what a desperate man he came to defy. He did not know
+what good cause I had to hate him.”
+
+Excited by such thoughts as these, the banker paced up and down his
+spacious room, with his arms folded, and his head bent upon his
+breast.
+
+Suddenly he stopped, and a look of terror passed across his face.
+
+“The receipt!” he exclaimed. “Powers of hell! the receipt for the
+twenty thousand pounds! What if that should have fallen into other
+hands?”
+
+Then, after a pause, he muttered:
+
+“No, it is scarcely possible. The man would have kept it in his own
+possession. It is buried in the dark vault where he lies, never to
+rise again upon this earth.”
+
+But in the next moment the banker remembered the coat which Harley
+Westford had left in the dining-room.
+
+“If by any chance the receipt should be in one of the pockets of
+that coat!” he thought, as he stood motionless in the centre of the
+room. After a moment’s hesitation, he snatched a candle from the
+dressing-table, left his room, and went down to the hall below.
+
+He went into the dining-room. There all was deserted. The lamps were
+out; Jacob Danielson was gone; but the Captain’s coat still hung on
+the chair where he had left it.
+
+Rupert Godwin ransacked the pockets; but there was no shred of paper
+to be found in any one of them.
+
+“What if Danielson should have examined them before me, and should
+have secured the receipt!” exclaimed the banker. “That would indeed
+be destruction. But no; surely, careless as these seafaring men
+may be, Harley Westford would never have carried the only document
+representing his fortune in the pocket of a loose overcoat.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+LOVE’S YOUNG DREAM.
+
+
+Slowly, very slowly, did Mrs. Westford recover from that attack of
+brain-fever which had been brought on by the grief and excitement
+of her parting with her husband. It was no ordinary grief which had
+reduced her to this alarming condition--she had succumbed beneath
+the influence of a strange and unconquerable presentiment which had
+oppressed her during the long night of watching that preceded Captain
+Westford’s departure.
+
+Long and patiently through those bright midsummer days did Violet
+watch in the sick-chamber, while Lionel, scarcely less devoted, was
+faithful to his post in the pretty boudoir adjoining his mother’s
+room. Never had a mother been blessed by more affectionate children;
+never had more loving eyes kept watch by a sick-bed.
+
+But sometimes in the pleasantest hour of the June evening, when the
+western sky was rosy with the last glory of the setting sun, Lionel
+Westford would insist upon Violet going out for a constitutional
+walk, while he took her place beside his mother’s bed.
+
+“It is no use talking, Violet,” he said; “if you don’t get a little
+fresh air after a long day’s watching and fatigue, you will make
+yourself as ill as poor mamma, and it will be small comfort for her
+to find you an invalid when she recovers. Go, dear, and take a nice
+long ramble in the forest, and come back fresh and blooming to get a
+good night’s rest. Remember, Miss Vio, in the absence of papa I am
+your responsible guardian. So no disobedience, miss. Put on your hat
+and depart.”
+
+If the light-hearted young man had been a close observer, he would
+have wondered, perhaps, at the blushes which dyed Violet’s cheeks
+whenever these evening rambles were discussed.
+
+Hesitating and confused in her manner, she would seem one minute
+as if she most earnestly wished to go, and in the next would plead
+almost piteously to be allowed to stay in the peaceful sanctuary of
+her mother’s room.
+
+But Lionel was obstinate where he thought Violet’s welfare was
+concerned, and insisted on these evening rambles.
+
+“I should go with you and see that you took a regular constitutional,
+miss,” he would say; “but I am determined that our mother shall
+never be left entirely to hired service, however faithful and devoted
+that service might be. If you don’t like going alone, you can take
+one of the servants with you; but you need scarcely go out of earshot
+of the house.”
+
+All this time Clara Westford lay feeble and helpless, her mind
+disordered by feverish visions, in which she always saw her husband
+surrounded by peril and tempest.
+
+The doctor reported favourably, but he owned that her recovery might
+be slow and tedious.
+
+The mind had been very much shaken, he said, by the shock of that
+parting with Harley Westford.
+
+So when the sun was low in the west, Violet was wont to leave her
+mother’s room and to go out alone into the forest glades that
+stretched beyond the gardens of the Grange.
+
+No English scenery could be more lovely than that Hampshire woodland,
+with its rich undergrowth of fern and hazel, its glimpses of sunshine
+and depth of shadow.
+
+And surely no lovelier nymph ever adorned a classic forest than she
+who now wandered forth in the quiet evening, with wildflowers twisted
+in the ribbon of her broad straw hat.
+
+So she went forth one evening about a week after that interview
+between the banker and his victim at Wilmingdon Hall.
+
+She crossed the broad lawn, went along the narrow path that led
+through the shrubbery, and left the Grange gardens by a little
+wooden gate that opened at once into the forest. Her face was pale
+now, though it had been rosy with bright blushes when she left her
+brother. She did not keep within earshot of the house, as Lionel had
+supposed she would do, but struck at once into a narrow footpath
+that wound in and out amongst the grand old trees, and wandered on,
+sometimes slowly, sometimes at an almost rapid pace, till she came
+to a grassy patch of land shut in by a tall screen of elm and beech,
+with here and there the spreading branches of an oak. It was a most
+lovely spot, an enchanted circle wherein Vivien might have hushed the
+magician to his charmed sleep. The fern grew tall amongst the broad
+brown trunks of the old trees, and in the distance a glassy sheet of
+water reflected the evening sky.
+
+It was a lovely spot; and it was not untenanted. A young man sat on a
+low camp-seat, with an artist’s portable easel before him.
+
+He was not working at the water-colour sketch on the easel. He was
+sitting in rather a melancholy attitude, and his eyes were fixed upon
+that opening in the forest in which Violet appeared.
+
+He was very handsome; dark, with deep grey eyes fringed by long
+black lashes--eyes which more often looked black than grey. He was
+very handsome, and his appearance was that of a man upon whom the
+stamp of gentle blood had been indelibly fixed. The air of high
+breeding was a part of himself, and not borrowed from the clothes
+he wore; for no costume could be more indefinite in its character
+than his velveteen shooting-jacket and grey waistcoat and trousers,
+which might have been alike suitable to a gamekeeper, a pedlar, or a
+gentleman on a pedestrian tour.
+
+No sooner had the first glimpse of Violet Westford’s white dress
+appeared in the forest pathway than the young artist sprang from his
+seat and ran to meet her.
+
+“My own darling!” he exclaimed; “how late you are, and how long the
+time has seemed--how cruelly long!”
+
+Now, when a gentleman addresses a lady as “his own darling,” it must
+be presumed that the lady and gentleman have met very often, and are
+on very good terms with each other.
+
+“I could not come earlier, George,” the girl said gently; “and even
+now I feel as if I were very wicked to come at all. O, if mamma were
+well, and I could tell her of our engagement! If I could take you to
+her! O, George, you do not know her, if you think that your poverty
+would stand in your way. She would never ask me to marry a man I did
+not sincerely love. And if she liked you, I’m sure she’d be the last
+person to consider whether you were rich or poor.”
+
+The young man sighed heavily, and did not immediately answer this
+maidenly speech.
+
+But after a pause he said:
+
+“Your mother may be a very generous woman, Violet, but there are
+others who are not so generous. There are some who worship only one
+god, the Golden Calf; some there are who bow themselves down before
+that modern Moloch, and would offer up the hearts’ blood of their own
+children as mercilessly as the Carthaginians cast their offspring
+into the furnaces that burned beneath the feet of Belsamen. You do
+not know the world, my Violet, as I know it, or you would never talk
+of poverty being no barrier between us.”
+
+“But neither my father nor my mother are money-worshippers,” pleaded
+the loving girl. “Papa is the most simple-hearted of men, and I have
+only to confess to him that I have been foolish enough to fall in
+love with a poor unknown artist, whose sole fortune consists of a
+sheaf of brushes, a palette, a portable easel, and a camp-stool, and
+he will give his consent immediately--that is to say, as soon as he
+knows you, George; for, at the risk of making you very conceited, I
+must confess that he can’t know you without liking you.”
+
+“My dear foolish girl!”
+
+“Wasn’t mamma charmed with you last Christmas, when we met you at
+the ball at Winchester? only she mistook you for a man of fortune,
+and little knew that you were a poor wandering artist, lodging at a
+cottage in the forest. You have really such an aristocratic air, that
+one would imagine you had twenty thousand a year.”
+
+A dark shade passed over the young man’s face.
+
+“If I had five hundred a year, my darling, I should have contrived to
+get an introduction to your father before he left England, and should
+have boldly asked for this dear little hand. But I am a pauper,
+Violet. I am a dependant, and the lowest of dependants, for I am a
+dependant on a man I cannot esteem.”
+
+Violet Westford looked at her lover’s gloomy face with an air of
+mingled distress and bewilderment.
+
+“But it will not be always so, George,” she said. “You will be a
+great painter some day, and then all the world will be at your feet.”
+
+The young man’s moody expression vanished as he looked down at the
+bright face lifted to his.
+
+“My beautiful young dreamer!” he exclaimed. “No; I have no such
+ambitious visions of triumph and greatness; but I hope some day to
+win a name that will at least give me independence. To that end I
+work; and you know that I work hard, my darling.”
+
+“Yes, indeed, I am sometimes afraid your health will suffer.”
+
+“There is no fear of that, Violet. See here. You must see the
+result of my day’s labour, and approve, or I shall not rest happily
+to-night. You are all the world to me now, Violet.”
+
+The young painter led the girl to the easel, and she stood by his
+side for some minutes gazing in silent rapture upon the water-colour
+drawing before her.
+
+She had no artistic knowledge--no experience; and yet she felt
+somehow that the work before her bore upon it the divine impress of
+genius.
+
+It was only the picture of that forest glade, with the deep fern, the
+broad sheet of unrippled water, the rosy glow of the sunset, and the
+figure of a deer drinking.
+
+But the soul of a poet had inspired the hand of the painter, and
+there was a quiet beauty about the picture that went home to the
+heart.
+
+“O, you will be great, George!” exclaimed the girl, after that long
+silent gaze upon the picture. “I feel that you will be great.”
+
+She looked up at him with her earnest eyes of darkest deepest blue,
+and clasped two little loving hands about his arm.
+
+He needed no higher praise than this. Glory might come to him
+by-and-by, and gold with it; but this one passionate thrill of
+delight was the thing neither glory nor gold could buy for him.
+
+For some little time the lovers wandered together in the forest
+glade, supremely happy, forgetful for a while of all the earth,
+except that one verdant spot hidden in the heart of the woodland.
+
+Then, as long streaks of crimson dyed the grass, Violet hurried
+homewards, with her lover still by her side. It was only when they
+were near the gate opening into the gardens of the Grange that the
+young painter reluctantly withdrew.
+
+Heaven knows, their meetings were pure and innocent as if they had
+been denizens of the fairy realms of Oberon and Titania; but Violet
+felt a pang of something like guilt as she returned to the sick-room,
+and seated herself once more by her mother’s bed.
+
+“How hard to keep a secret from such a darling mother!” thought the
+girl, with a sigh. “I will tell her all directly she recovers. George
+cannot refuse me that privilege. I will tell her all, and she will
+smile at our folly and sympathize with our hopes, and believe, as I
+do, in that bright future when George Stanmore will be the name of a
+great painter.”
+
+Comforted by such thoughts as these, a sweet smile crept over Violet
+Westford’s face as she watched her mother’s slumbers, which to-night
+were more peaceful than they had been since the Captain’s departure.
+
+The story of Violet’s acquaintance with the wandering artist is a
+very simple one.
+
+The lovers first met at a ball at Winchester--a grand county ball,
+where only people of unblemished respectability were admitted. Here
+Mrs. Westford and Violet met Mr. Stanmore, who came with one of the
+officers stationed there, an old school-fellow, as he said. The young
+stranger made a very favourable impression upon both ladies, and
+danced several times with the younger.
+
+After this, Lionel and his sister frequently encountered the
+stranger in their winter walks and drives in the forest. He made
+no secret of his profession, but told them at once that he was a
+landscape-painter, and that he was living in very humble lodgings in
+the forest, in order that he might study nature face to face.
+
+Sometimes they found him seated in a little canvas tent, buttoned to
+the chin in a thick greatcoat, and working hard at a study of some
+grand old oak, gaunt and brown, against the wintry sky.
+
+Little by little, therefore, the young people grew very intimate with
+Mr. George Stanmore, the artist. Lionel was much pleased with his
+new acquaintance. But during the warm spring months Lionel Westford
+had been away at the University, and Violet had been obliged to walk
+alone in the forest, for Mrs. Westford’s active charities engaged
+the greater part of her time, as she devoted herself much to visiting
+the poor in the villages within a few miles of the Grange.
+
+Sometimes Violet accompanied her upon these missions of charity; but
+there were many days upon which the young girl went alone into the
+forest, sometimes on foot, sometimes riding a pet pony, that had been
+honoured with the name of Oberon.
+
+But, whether she rode Oberon or went on foot, and whichever pathway
+she took, Violet Westford was sure to meet George Stanmore.
+
+The rest is easily told. They had seen and loved each other. From the
+very first, unknown to either, that Divine lamp of love had shone
+in the breast of each--innocent unselfish love, which the trials of
+life, the cruel tempests of the world, might distress and torture,
+but could never wholly quench. It was true love, which knows no base
+alloy of selfish fear or mercenary caution. Violet Westford would
+have united her fortunes to George Stanmore though he had been a
+beggar and would have blindly trusted Providence with her future; and
+the only prudential motive that withheld the young man from pressing
+his suit was the fear that she whom he so tenderly loved might suffer
+by his impetuosity.
+
+“Not till I have won independence will I ask her to be my wife,” he
+thought. “No, not till I can look the world in the face, reliant upon
+my own right hand for support.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE STORY OF THE PAST.
+
+
+Clara Westford recovered slowly, but she did recover; a faint flush
+came back to the wan cheeks, a new brightness lit up in the eyes that
+had been so haggard.
+
+That process of recovery was very painful. When the invalid’s weary
+hours of delirium and stupor wore over--when unreal afflictions,
+visions of horror and dread, had ceased to torture the agonized and
+bewildered mind, real sorrow, stern and cruel, awaited Clara Westford.
+
+The first syllables that fell from her lips, when reason returned,
+formed a question about her husband.
+
+“Was there any letter?” she asked. “Had any letter come from Harley?”
+
+Alas, for that anxious wife, the answer was in the negative; no
+letter had arrived from the Captain.
+
+Neither Violet nor Lionel had been rendered uneasy by their father’s
+silence. They fancied that if he had not written, it was because he
+had had no opportunity of sending a letter.
+
+But the wife was distracted by a thousand fears. Her husband had left
+her declaring his intention of depositing the entire amount of his
+savings in a banker’s hands, and immediately sending her the receipt
+for the money.
+
+The fortune itself was a secondary consideration in Clara Westford’s
+mind; yet she knew her husband’s anxiety upon that point, and she
+could not but wonder that he had omitted to write to her on the
+subject before leaving England; or failing to write before setting
+sail from London, she wondered that he had not contrived to send a
+letter ashore before losing sight of the English coast.
+
+She was distracted by fears, so shadowy in their nature that she
+could scarcely give utterance to them. Her children perceived her
+uneasiness, and endeavoured to set her fears at rest.
+
+“My dearest mother,” exclaimed Lionel, “do you think, if there were
+really cause for fear, that _I_ should not also be uneasy? Do you
+forget the old proverb, which tells us that ill news flies fast? If
+anything had been amiss with my father before the _Lily Queen_ lost
+sight of England, Gilbert Thornleigh would have been sure to write
+to us. You know how devoted he is to my father; and, indeed, to all
+of us,” added the young man, looking with peculiar significance at
+Violet, who blushed, and moved to an open window near her to avoid
+that searching gaze.
+
+Everybody at the Grange had perceived the impression made by Violet
+on the simple-hearted first mate of the _Lily Queen_.
+
+Clara Westford tried to smile upon the loving son and daughter, who
+watched her every look with anxious eyes. She smiled, but it was the
+smile of resignation, not of peace. Her heart was racked by hidden
+torture, yet she suffered no cry of despair to escape her lips. For
+the sake of Lionel and Violet she tried to suppress all outward
+evidence of her anguish, and waited, hoping day after day that ere
+the sun set a letter might reach her, sent by some homeward-bound
+vessel, to assure her of Harley Westford’s safety.
+
+“He knows how much I suffer when he is away,” she thought. “He will
+not fail to write whenever the opportunity occurs.”
+
+It was a fearful time--a long, dreary interval of suspense and
+anxiety. Lionel was happy; for, with the careless, light-hearted
+confidence of youth that has never been clouded by sorrow, he trusted
+blindly in the future. All his father’s previous voyages had been
+prosperous, why should not this voyage be like the rest?
+
+And Violet, she too was happy, with the wondrous happiness of a first
+love--true, pure, and boundless. Now that her mother was restored
+to health, it seemed to her as if there were no cloud upon the
+brightness of her life. What if George Stanmore were poor? Her father
+would return, and poverty would be no disgrace in the eyes of that
+most generous of fathers.
+
+So the summer time passed happily for the lovers, who met often in
+the beautiful woodland, sometimes alone, sometimes in the presence
+of Lionel, who saw that the painter admired his sister, but had no
+suspicion of any deeper feeling existing between the two. This is
+a subject upon which brothers are very slow of understanding. They
+think their sisters very nice girls, but are rather surprised than
+otherwise when some masculine friend declares that the nice girl is
+something akin to an angel.
+
+If Lionel had suspected the truth, he would scarcely have interfered
+to cross the path of that true love. He had no mercenary ambition,
+either for his sister or himself; and the hard schooling of adversity
+had not yet taught him prudence.
+
+The summer waned; bright hues of crimson and amber mingled with
+the verdant green of the forest, the fern grew brown, the country
+children came whooping through the echoing glades, bent on the
+plunder of aloe and hazel, beech and chestnut; the days grew shorter,
+and the little family at the Grange spent long quiet evenings in the
+lamp-lit drawing-room.
+
+But still there was no letter from Harley Westford--no tidings of the
+_Lily Queen_.
+
+Mrs. Westford and her son and daughter had many friends amongst the
+neighbouring county families; but they saw little company during
+this period, for Clara had always held herself very much aloof from
+society during her husband’s absence.
+
+All who were intimate with her admired and loved her: but there were
+some who knew little of Clara Westford, and who pronounced her proud
+and exclusive.
+
+She was proud, because her husband’s position as a merchant captain
+was beneath that of the county gentry, who had never dabbled in trade
+or speculation, and who could not quite realize the fact that the
+owner of a trading-vessel might be a gentleman.
+
+Clara was proud for his sake; not for her own.
+
+“I will go to no house where my husband is not esteemed an honoured
+guest,” she said.
+
+She was exclusive, because her affection was concentrated into one
+focus. She loved her husband and children with a deep and devoted
+love, and she had little affection left for the world outside that
+happy household.
+
+Three months had passed since the sailing of the _Lily Queen_; and
+yet there were no tidings of the Captain.
+
+To Clara, and to Clara alone, this was a cause of alarm. Lionel and
+Violet still trusted blindly, almost too happy to believe in the
+existence of misfortune.
+
+One bright autumn day Clara Westford sent her son and daughter on
+a shopping expedition to Winchester. She was pleased to see them
+employed and happy; for she had no wish that any part of her burden
+should be borne by them. It was a relief to her to be alone, so that
+she might give way to her own sorrow, free from the loving scrutiny
+of those watchful eyes.
+
+She sat in the Grange drawing-room, a large low-ceilinged apartment,
+with long windows opening on to the lawn.
+
+The day was warm and bright; and the open windows admitted the
+pure air from the gardens and woodland. Clara Westford sat in a
+half-reclining position in a low arm-chair near one of the windows. A
+little table loaded with books was by her side; but the volumes lay
+there unopened and unheeded. She could not read; her thoughts were
+far away--on those terrible and unknown seas where the _Lily Queen_
+was sailing.
+
+Never, perhaps, in the earliest bloom of her girlhood, had Clara
+Westford looked lovelier than she did to-day.
+
+It was the subdued beauty of womanhood, calm and quiet as the mellow
+light of the moon compared with the full glory of the noontide sun.
+
+She was exquisitely dressed, for she was too completely high-bred
+to neglect her toilette on any occasion. She was not a woman who
+made sorrow or anxiety an excuse for slovenly attire. Her chestnut
+hair was coiled in thick plaits at the back of her small classical
+head, and fastened with a simple tortoiseshell comb. Her silk dress
+was of a golden brown, which harmonized exquisitely with the fair
+clear complexion and chestnut hair--the brown which Millais has
+immortalized in the dress of his red-coated squire’s fair-haired
+daughter. A large turquoise, set in a rim of lustreless gold, clasped
+the small white collar, and a stud of exactly the same fashion
+fastened each simple cuff of spotless cambric. A few costly rings,
+all of turquoise and gold, adorned the tapering white hands, and
+these were the only ornaments worn by the Captain’s wife.
+
+She sat alone, thinking--O, how fondly, how mournfully!--of her
+absent husband, when suddenly the curtains of the window farthest
+from her were pushed aside with a jangling noise, and a man entered
+the room.
+
+Clara Westford looked up, startled by that sound, and a half-stifled
+shriek burst from her lips.
+
+“You here!” she cried. “_You_ here!”
+
+The intruder was no other than Rupert Godwin, the Lombard-street
+banker.
+
+He advanced slowly towards the spot where Clara Westford sat. His
+dark face was just a little paler than usual, and there was a stern
+resolute look in his eyes.
+
+“Yes,” he answered quietly, “it is I, Clara Westford. After twenty
+years we meet face to face for the first time to-day, and I look
+once again upon the woman who has been the curse and torment of my
+life.”
+
+Clara Westford shrank back into the cushioned chair almost as if she
+had been recoiling from a blow.
+
+“O, merciful Heaven!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands passionately;
+“after twenty years of happiness am I to hear that hated voice again?”
+
+“Yes, Clara,” answered the banker; “for twenty years there has been
+a truce. To-day the war begins again, and this time it shall not end
+until I am conqueror.”
+
+The Captain’s wife clasped her hands before her face; but she uttered
+no further appeal. She sat shivering, as if chilled to the very heart
+by some sudden blast of freezing wind.
+
+“Ah, Clara, you are as beautiful as ever, but you have lost some of
+your old haughty spirit,” said the banker. “The merchant captain’s
+wife is not so proud as the baronet’s daughter.”
+
+“A hundred times more proud!” cried Clara, dropping her hands from
+her face, and looking suddenly at Rupert Godwin. “A hundred times
+more proud! For she has her husband’s honour to protect as well as
+her own.”
+
+“Bravely spoken, Clara--nobly spoken! You are the same imperious
+beauty still, I see, and the conquest will be a noble one. This time
+I will not fail!”
+
+“Why are you here?” cried Mrs. Westford. “How did you discover this
+place?”
+
+“From your husband. But you shall know more of that by-and-by.”
+
+“From my husband? Ah! he came to you, then?--you saw him before he
+sailed?”
+
+“Yes; I saw him.”
+
+“He deposited money to a large amount in your hands?”
+
+The bunker looked at Clara Westford with an insolent smile.
+
+“My dear Clara, you must surely be dreaming!” he exclaimed. “Your
+husband deposited no money in my hands, nor was he in a position to
+do so.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Simply, that when Harley Westford came to me he was a beggar.
+He came to borrow money to pay for some part of the cargo of his
+ship, and he deposited with me the title-deeds of this estate, as a
+security for the amount advanced to him.”
+
+“He borrowed money from you!” cried Clara, clasping her hands upon
+her forehead with a convulsive gesture. “Why, he told me that he
+meant to lodge twenty thousand pounds in your hands!”
+
+“He told you a falsehood, then; for the whole of his earnings were
+lost in some foreign speculations in which he had involved himself,
+and it was only with the help of borrowed money that he could start
+upon this new venture. Do not look at me with that incredulous
+stare, my dear Clara; I do not ask you to accept this fact on the
+simple evidence of my word. I have documents bearing your husband’s
+signature to prove the truth of what I state. When you hold those
+papers in your hands you may be able to believe me.”
+
+“O, it’s too terrible!” exclaimed the wretched wife; “it is too
+bitter. Harley, my husband, under an obligation to you--to you, of
+all other men upon this earth!”
+
+“Yes,” answered the banker, with a smile. “It was strange that he
+should come to me, was it not? Very strange! It was one of those
+startling accidents which go to make the drama of social life.”
+
+There was a pause. Clara Westford was silent. She was thinking of her
+last interview with her husband, and recalling the words he had then
+spoken.
+
+Could it be that he had deceived her as to the state of his affairs?
+Could it be, that, with the weakness and cowardice of intense
+affection, he had sought to hide from her the approach of ruin?
+
+It might be so; such things had been. Love shrinks, with a cowardly
+weakness, from inflicting pain upon the thing it loves.
+
+“He might have trusted me,” she thought sadly. “Did he think I should
+fear poverty that was to be shared with him? After twenty years of
+union can he know me so little as to think that?”
+
+Clara Westford hated and despised Rupert Godwin, and she would
+have been inclined to disbelieve any assertion made by him to the
+detriment of the man she loved; but she ceased to doubt him when he
+boldly offered to produce her husband’s signature in confirmation of
+his words.
+
+“Let me see Harley’s own handwriting in support of this statement,”
+she said presently; “then, and not till then, can I believe you.”
+
+“All in good time, my dear Clara. You shall see your husband’s
+signature, believe me; perhaps only too soon for your own comfort.
+But we need not forestall that time. In the meanwhile, let us look
+back upon the past. After twenty years of truce the war is to begin
+again; and this time it shall be a duel to the death. Let us look
+back upon the past, Clara Westford--let us recall that old story.”
+
+“What, Mr. Godwin!” cried the Captain’s wife indignantly. “Are you
+not ashamed to recall the hateful part you played in that story?”
+
+“I only want to prove to you how well I have remembered. Let me
+recall that story, Clara.”
+
+There was no answer. Mrs. Westford turned from him and covered her
+face with her hands once more, as if she would fain have shut out
+sight and sound; but, in a cold merciless voice, Rupert Godwin began
+thus:
+
+“Twenty-two years ago, Clara Westford, I spent the autumn at a
+fashionable watering-place on the south coast. The place was crowded
+that season with all that was most elegant, most distinguished,
+most aristocratic. But even amongst that highborn crowd I did not
+find myself an intruder. The reputation of my father’s wealth went
+with me, and there was a kind of golden glory about my untitled
+name. I had been educated in the greatest cities of the world, and
+was completely a man of the world, with no vulgar prejudices as to
+religion or morals. My youth had been somewhat stormy, and those who
+pretended to know most about me whispered dark histories in which my
+name was mingled--not pleasantly. In a few words, Clara, I was not a
+man to be trifled with, or fooled, by a girl of seventeen.”
+
+There was a brief pause, and then the banker continued:
+
+“There were many beautiful women at that pleasant seaside town; but
+the loveliest of them all, the acknowledged belle, the observed of
+all observers, was the only daughter of Sir John Ponsonby, a rich
+Yorkshire baronet of very old family. Need I tell you how lovely she
+was, Clara? She is lovely still; with a more subdued beauty, but
+with as great a charm as she bore in her brilliant youth. She was a
+dazzling creature. I met her at a charity-ball--on the sands--in the
+reading-rooms--on horseback with her father, a thoroughgoing Tory
+of the old school, and as proud as Lucifer or a Spanish hidalgo. I
+met her constantly, for I haunted all the places where there was any
+chance of seeing her. The very sight of that girl dazzled me like the
+sudden glory of the sun. I loved her, with a mad, wild, unreasonable
+passion; and I determined that she should be my wife.”
+
+For a moment Clara Westford uncovered her face, and looked at the
+banker with a quiet scornful smile.
+
+“Ah, I understand the meaning of that smile, Clara,” said Rupert
+Godwin. “I was presumptuous, was I not, when I determined to win this
+woman for my wife? But remember, she had fooled me on; she had smiled
+upon me, and encouraged me by her sweetest words, her brightest
+glances. She was surrounded by a crowd of admirers; but I was one of
+the most distinguished amongst them; and it seemed to me that she
+singled me out from the rest, and took more pleasure in talking to
+me than to the others. There were strangers who thought so too; and
+the likelihood of our speedy marriage was soon the public talk of the
+place.”
+
+“She was a weak, frivolous girl,” murmured Clara; “but she meant no
+wrong.”
+
+“She meant no wrong!” echoed the banker. “There are men who commit
+murder, and then declare they meant no wrong. This woman did me a
+deep and bitter wrong. She fed my mad passion, she encouraged my wild
+devotion; and then, when I went to her, confident, hopeful, blindly
+believing that I was beloved again--when I went to her and told her
+how dearly she was loved, she turned upon me, and slew me with a
+look of cold surprise, telling me that she was the promised wife of
+another man.”
+
+The banker paused for a few moments; then, in a suppressed voice, a
+voice which was low and hoarse with stifled passion, he proceeded:
+
+“I was not the man to take this quietly, Clara Westford. I was not
+one of those puling creatures who avow their power to forget and
+forgive. In my heart there was no such thing as forgiveness; in
+my nature there was no such thing as forgetfulness. I left Clara
+Ponsonby with a tempest of passion raging in my breast. That night,
+after roaming alone for hours on the broad open sands, far away
+from the glimmering lights of the town, where no living creature
+but myself heard the long roar of the ocean--that night, with my
+clenched hand lifted to the stars of heaven, I swore a terrible oath.
+I swore that, sooner or later, Clara Ponsonby should be mine--not
+as my honoured wife, but mine by a less honourable tie. The cup of
+degradation she had offered to me--to _me_, the proud descendant of a
+proud race--_her_ lips should drain to the lowest dregs. I was not a
+man to work in the dark. I saw my lovely Clara next day, and told her
+of the oath that I had sworn. She too came of a proud race, and she
+defied me.”
+
+“She did,” answered the Captain’s wife, “as she defies you now.”
+
+“For six months the contest lasted,” continued the banker. “For six
+months that silent warfare was waged. Wherever Clara Ponsonby was
+seen, I was seen near her. I followed her from place to place. Her
+father liked and trusted me, so she could not banish me from her
+presence without betraying her secret engagement to another--a man
+who was her inferior in station, and whom her father would have
+refused to admit as a claimant for his daughter’s hand. Clara was
+dumb, therefore; and, however odious my presence might be, she was
+compelled to submit to its infliction. I stood behind her chair in
+her opera-box. I rode beside her carriage when she drove in the
+Park. I did _not_ succeed in ousting the low-born rival for whose
+sake I had been rejected; but I _did_ succeed in humiliating Miss
+Ponsonby in the eyes of the world. Before that season was over the
+fashionable circle in which Clara lived was busy with slanderous
+rumours against her fair fame. I had managed very cleverly. I had
+friends--sycophant followers--always ready to do my bidding. An idle
+jest, a significant shrug of the shoulders, a little damaging gossip
+at a club-dinner, and the business was accomplished. Before that
+season came to its close Clara Ponsonby’s reputation was blighted.
+The poisonous whispers reached her father’s ear--I took care they
+should; and the proud old man, believing in his daughter’s disgrace,
+cast her from his household, declaring that he would never look on
+her face again.”
+
+A convulsive sobbing shook Clara Westford’s frame; but she uttered no
+word--no cry.
+
+“In that hour I fancied myself triumphant,” continued Rupert Godwin.
+“Abandoned, desolate, ruined in reputation, I thought that Clara
+Ponsonby would have sought the luxurious home which she knew I had
+prepared against this day. My letters had told her of my hopes,
+my plans; the new home that awaited her; the passionate devotion
+that might still be hers. My emissaries watched her as she left her
+father’s house; but--O, bitter anguish and disappointment!--it was
+not to me that she came. She went to Southampton, and embarked on
+board a steamer bound for Malta; and a month afterwards I read in the
+_Times_ an announcement of the marriage of Harley Westford, captain
+of the merchant vessel _Adventurer_, to Clara Ponsonby. At Malta
+she had joined the man to whom she was engaged. His life had been
+spent far away from the circles in which she moved, and no breath of
+scandal against her had ever reached his ear. That, Clara, is the
+end of the first act of the drama. The second act began three months
+ago, when Harley Westford, your husband, the man for whose sake you
+insulted and scorned me, came into my office in Lombard-street.”
+
+Clara Westford suddenly rose from her seat and turned towards the
+banker, proud and defiant of look and gesture.
+
+“Leave this house!” she exclaimed, pointing to the door. “It is
+disgraced and degraded by your presence. Twenty years ago, when
+you intruded yourself upon me, you found me in my father’s house,
+from which I had no power to dismiss you. This house in my own,
+Rupert Godwin. I command you to leave it, and never again darken its
+threshold by your hated shadow!”
+
+“Those are strong words, Clara, and I cannot do otherwise than obey
+them. I go; but only for a time. The time will come when I may have a
+better right of entrance to this house. In the meanwhile, I depart;
+but before I do so, let me show you a paragraph in this newspaper,
+which may perhaps have some interest for you.”
+
+As he said this, Rupert Godwin handed Mrs. Westford a copy of the
+_Times_, in which one paragraph was marked by a heavy black line
+drawn against it with a pen.
+
+The paragraph ran as follows:--
+
+“The underwriters of Lloyd’s are beginning to have serious fears
+about the trading vessel _Lily Queen_, which sailed from London Docks
+on the 27th of last June, bound for China, and has not since been
+heard of.”
+
+The paper dropped from Clara Westford’s hands; she could read no
+farther, but with a long shriek of agony fell senseless on the floor.
+
+“Ah, Clara!” exclaimed the banker, looking down at that prostrate
+form with a cruel smile upon his face, “I said truly that the second
+act of our life-drama has begun.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE STOLEN LETTER.
+
+
+The banker took no measures for reviving Clara Westford from the
+fainting-fit into which she had fallen after the perusal of that
+paragraph in the _Times_.
+
+She had fallen backwards, and her pale still face was turned towards
+the ceiling.
+
+Rupert Godwin knelt beside her, and examined that white statuesque
+face with a long and earnest scrutiny.
+
+“Quite unconscious!” he exclaimed, as he lifted Mrs. Westford’s
+unresisting hand, and watched it fall inert and lifeless. “Death
+itself could scarcely be less conscious of surrounding events.
+Nothing could be better.”
+
+The banker rose from his knees, and with a soft and cautious footstep
+walked slowly round the room.
+
+It was charmingly furnished, and it bore the traces of constant
+occupation. There was an open work-table, an open piano, a box of
+water-colours, and upon a table by one of the windows there was
+an elegant little walnut-wood easel. In a comfortable corner near
+the fireplace stood a desk in different coloured woods, with an
+easy-chair before it. The lid of the desk was closed, but a bunch of
+keys hung from the lock.
+
+“It looks like her desk,” muttered the banker, “and if so I can
+scarcely fail to find what I want.”
+
+He glanced once more at the figure lying on the sunlit floor.
+
+Clara Westford had not stirred.
+
+Then, with careful fingers, Rupert Godwin lifted the lid of the desk
+and looked within.
+
+In a row of pigeon-holes before him he saw numerous packets of
+letters, some tied with common red tape, others with blue ribbon.
+
+“Those are _his_ letters,” muttered the banker, with a sneer. “I
+would wager a small fortune that those are _his_ letters which she
+has tied with that dainty blue ribbon. Sir John Ponsonby’s haughty
+daughter can be as sentimental as a school-girl, I daresay, where her
+dashing Captain is concerned.”
+
+He took out one of the packets.
+
+Yes, upon the uppermost envelope was written--“From my husband.”
+
+“Let me see how the fellow signs his name,” said Rupert Godwin.
+“Perhaps he uses only initials, and I shall be balked that way. I
+must have his full signature.”
+
+The banker drew one of the letters from the packet, and took it from
+its envelope.
+
+It was a very long letter, and it was signed in full--“Harley
+Westford.”
+
+“Yes, the Fates favour my schemes,” muttered Rupert Godwin, as he put
+the single letter in his waistcoat-pocket, and replaced the packet in
+the pigeon-hole from which he had taken it.
+
+Then, after one last look at Clara Westford, he left the room.
+
+He went to the hall, where he rang a bell violently. A female servant
+hurried to answer his summons, and started back in alarm at the sight
+of a stranger.
+
+“I am an old friend of Mrs. Westford’s,” said Rupert Godwin; “but
+unhappily I am the bearer of very ill news. Your mistress has
+fainted; you had better run to her at once. Stay; what is the name of
+your doctor?”
+
+“Doctor Sanderson, sir, in the village. He lives at the house with
+the green blinds, please sir. The first on the left as you pass the
+Seven Stars, please, sir.”
+
+“I’ll send him, then, immediately.”
+
+“Thank you, sir; thank you.”
+
+The girl ran away, eager to be with her mistress; and the banker
+left the ill-fated house, whose peace had fled before his ill-omened
+coming.
+
+He went to the village, and found the house where the surgeon lived.
+He left a message for that gentleman, and then walked to a little inn
+where he had left his dog-cart and groom.
+
+He stepped into the vehicle and drove towards Winchester, whence he
+had come that day. On the road, a little pony-carriage passed him,
+driven by a girl with bright golden hair, set off by a coquettish
+little turban hat. A young man was lolling by her side.
+
+That bright happy-looking girl was Violet Westford.
+
+The banker started as if he had seen a ghost, and looked back after
+the vehicle with an eager gaze.
+
+“Yes, that girl must be her daughter,” he thought. “How the sight of
+her recalls the past!--the very day when I met Clara Ponsonby riding
+by her father’s side--the day when sudden love sprang up in my heart,
+an ‘Adam at his birth.’ And from that hour to this I have loved her.
+Yes, I have loved her, though hatred and vengeful thoughts have
+mingled strangely with my love. I love her; but I would bring her to
+my feet. I worship her; and yet I would humiliate her to the very
+dust.”
+
+With such thoughts as these in his mind, Rupert Godwin drove back to
+Winchester, and alighted at the chief hotel in the old city.
+
+He had come to Winchester; but not alone. Crime has terrors and
+penalties which even the cleverest criminal cannot escape. Rupert
+Godwin knew that he was to some extent in the power of his old clerk
+Jacob Danielson, and he determined to make that clerk his accomplice.
+
+“If the old man is with me in my schemes, and accepts a reward for
+his service, he can never betray me,” he argued with himself.
+
+The banker knew that Jacob Danielson was the slave of two
+passions--two fatal passions, which render a man the easy prey of any
+tempter.
+
+These two passions were avarice and the love of strong drink. Jacob
+Danielson was, in his pettifogging way, a miser; and he was an
+habitual brandy-drinker.
+
+To get brandy, or to get money, he would have been tempted to sell
+his soul to the legendary fiend of mediæval times, who seems to have
+been always on the look-out for that kind of bargain.
+
+The banker had watched his clerk almost as closely as the clerk had
+watched him, and he knew the weak points of Danielson’s character.
+
+“He would like to be my master,” thought Rupert Godwin, “and he
+possesses knowledge that might give him a powerful hold over me; but,
+in spite of that, I will make him my slave.”
+
+In the mean time the banker had determined upon conciliating his
+clerk in every way. The hand of steel in the velvet glove was
+exemplified by Mr. Godwin’s policy. He had brought Danielson to
+Winchester with him; and that gentleman was enjoying free quarters at
+the hotel, and drinking as much brandy as he pleased to call for.
+
+The banker’s policy was very simple. He wanted to destroy the only
+creature he feared, and he thought that he should be able to effect
+that work of destruction through the agency of Danielson’s own vices.
+
+He found the clerk sitting in a parlour at the hotel--a very pleasant
+apartment, looking into a garden. A decanter half full of brandy
+stood on the table; but the clerk was sitting in a moody attitude,
+with his arms folded, and he was not drinking.
+
+The banker looked at his subordinate with a suspicious glance. Rupert
+Godwin did not care to see his clerk thus deeply absorbed in thought.
+
+Sharp and rapid in all his habits and manners as Danielson ordinarily
+was, he seemed this afternoon almost like a creature absorbed in a
+dream. He turned his eyes slowly towards the banker, and looked at
+him with a strange unseeing gaze, almost as a blind man might have
+looked at the sun with his dull sightless orbs.
+
+“Why, Jacob,” cried Rupert Godwin, “what’s the matter with you? You
+look like a man who has newly awakened from a trance.”
+
+“I have been in a trance,” answered the clerk in a dreamy tone. “I
+was out in the street just now, and I saw a ghost pass by.”
+
+“A ghost?”
+
+“Yes; a ghost, such as men often see in the broad sunlight--the ghost
+of my dead youth. I saw a woman--the living image of the only one
+creature I ever loved; and she seemed to me like a phantom.”
+
+The clerk sighed as he stretched out his tremulous hand to the
+decanter and refilled his glass.
+
+“But there’s comfort here,” he muttered; “there’s always comfort in
+this. There’s not many sorrows that this won’t drown, if a man can
+only get enough of it.”
+
+Never had the banker seen his clerk so deeply moved. “Why, Jacob,” he
+exclaimed, “this does indeed surprise me! I thought you were a man of
+iron--hard as iron, pitiless as iron, strong as iron; I never knew
+you had a heart.”
+
+“No more I have,” answered the clerk; “not now--not now. I had a
+heart once, and it was broken. I was a fool once, and I was made to
+pay for my folly. But that’s long gone by. Come, Mr. Godwin, I’m
+myself again. You don’t pay me to dream; you pay me to work, and I’m
+ready for your work, whatever it is. You didn’t bring me down to
+Winchester for my pleasure, or for yours. You brought me because you
+had something for me to do. What is it? that’s the question.”
+
+“A question not to be answered just yet, Jacob,” replied the banker.
+“We’ll dine first, and go to business afterwards. The evenings are
+chilly, so I’ll order a fire.”
+
+The order was given, and the fire lighted; a well-chosen little
+dinner was served presently, and the two men seated themselves at the
+table, which glittered with cut glass and massive plate.
+
+“Strange,” thought Rupert Godwin, as he looked furtively at the wizen
+face of the clerk, “this man talks of the ghost of his dead youth!
+Have not I too, seen the phantom of the past--that girl with the
+violet eyes and the golden hair? She seemed to me like the ghost of
+the Clara Ponsonby I fell in love with two-and-twenty years ago.”
+
+The clerk was by this time quite himself again, and he had resumed
+that half-servile, half-ironical manner which he generally had with
+his master.
+
+“This is indeed luxury,” he said, rubbing his dry withered palms,
+as he looked from the handsomely furnished room to the glittering
+dinner-table. “It is not every day that I dine like this. You are a
+good master, Mr. Godwin.”
+
+“I mean to be a liberal one,” answered the banker; “and I will
+pay you well, if you serve me faithfully. I make no pretence of
+generosity, but I will pay handsomely for handsome service.”
+
+“Good, Mr. Godwin; the wisest men are those who pretend the least.”
+
+The banker knew that it was useless to play the hypocrite with Jacob
+Danielson. Clever as Rupert Godwin was, he always felt that the
+clerk’s sharp rat-like eyes could fathom the remotest recesses of his
+mind.
+
+There was only _one_ secret that he believed to be hidden from Jacob
+Danielson. That was the secret of Harley Westford’s disappearance.
+
+Little more was said during dinner, for the waiters of the hotel were
+in attendance throughout the repast. Mr. Godwin kept his clerk’s
+glass filled with a succession of expensive wines; and the waiters
+opened their eyes to their widest extent as they saw the little
+wizened man pour the sparkling liquids down his throat as fast as
+they could supply them.
+
+The banker himself did not drink; and this fact did not escape Jacob
+Danielson, who smiled a cunning smile as he perceived his employer’s
+abstinence.
+
+At last the cloth was removed, and dessert was placed upon the
+table--the conventional dessert peculiar to provincial hotels,
+flanked by a decanter of tawny port, and a jug of claret which the
+head-waiter declared to be genuine Lafitte, and which figured in the
+wine-carte at eighteen shillings a bottle. The head-waiter hovered
+about the table for a few minutes after that noted claret had been
+set before Mr. Godwin, poked the fire with a profoundly studious
+air, as of a man who had given a lifetime of study to the science
+of poking fires, looked meditatively at the two gentlemen as if
+deliberating upon the possibility of their wanting something else,
+and anon silently departed.
+
+Then, with the curtains closely drawn, and the waxen lights gleaming
+from their tall silver branches, the two men drew their chairs closer
+to the hearth, and settled themselves for the evening.
+
+“Now then for business,” exclaimed the clerk, as the sound of the
+head-waiter’s boots died away in the distance.
+
+The banker was not quick to reply to this address. He was sitting
+looking at the fire, brooding darkly. His task was not an easy one,
+for he was about to ask Danielson to become his accomplice in a crime.
+
+At last he spoke.
+
+“Danielson,” he said, gravely, “you and I have been involved in many
+transactions, some of which the world would scarcely call honest.”
+
+“Some of which the world would call decidedly dishonest,” answered
+the clerk, with a sinister grin.
+
+“But, then, is it an honest world?” asked the banker.
+
+“O yes; a very honest world, until it is found out.”
+
+“Ay, there’s the difference. The detected villain is a scoundrel only
+fit for the gallows; the undetected villain may pass for a saint.”
+
+There was a pause, and then the banker said, in a tone which he
+endeavoured to render indifferent:
+
+“You remember that merchant captain--the man called Harley
+Westford--who came to Wilmingdon Hall to demand the return of that
+money which he had deposited with me?”
+
+“O yes; I remember him perfectly.”
+
+“I am sorry to tell you that the poor fellow is dead.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+Jacob Danielson looked very steadfastly at the face of his employer,
+but there was no surprise in the tone in which he uttered that one
+word “indeed.”
+
+“Yes; the _Lily Queen_ has been lost, and all hands with her.”
+
+“But how do you know that Harley Westford was on board the _Lily
+Queen_?”
+
+“How do I know it? Why, because he was captain and owner of the
+vessel, and because he declared his intention of sailing with her,
+without fail. Why should he not sail in the _Lily Queen_?”
+
+“I can’t imagine any reason,” answered the clerk, with his steadfast
+gaze still fixed on the banker’s face, which had grown suddenly
+pallid. “I really can’t imagine any reason; but then, you know,
+such singular things happen in this life. There may have been
+something--some accident, to prevent Captain Westford’s departure.”
+
+“Pshaw!” exclaimed Rupert Godwin. “Utterly impossible! I tell you,
+man, Harley Westford sailed in the _Lily Queen_, and has gone down to
+the bottom of the sea with her and her cargo.”
+
+“And in that case Harley Westford’s heirs may come upon you at any
+moment for the twenty thousand pounds deposited in your hands.”
+
+“They might come upon me for it, if they had any evidence that it was
+ever placed in my hands,” replied the banker. “But what if they have
+no such evidence?”
+
+“There is the receipt which you gave Harley Westford.”
+
+“Yes; and which has no doubt gone down with him to the depth of the
+ocean.”
+
+“What if he lodged that receipt in other hands before sailing on his
+Chinese expedition?”
+
+“_That_ is scarcely likely. No man ever foresees his own doom. At any
+rate, I speculate upon the chance that Harley Westford carried the
+receipt with him, and that it perished with its owner. In that case,
+there is only one person who knows of the twenty thousand pounds--and
+that person is yourself. Can I trust you?”
+
+“You have trusted me before.”
+
+“Yes; and with important secrets, but never with such a secret
+as this. Will the gift of a thousand pounds, to be paid in ten
+instalments at intervals of six months--will such a gift as that buy
+your fidelity?”
+
+“It will,” answered Jacob Danielson.
+
+“Then I will execute any deed you choose to draw up, engaging myself
+to pay you that money. And now, I want something more than your
+silence. I want your service.”
+
+“You shall have both.”
+
+“Good!” replied the banker. “Now, then, listen to what I have to
+say. When Harley Westford deposited his fortune in my hands, he also
+deposited the title-deeds of a small estate in this county. Those
+deeds and that estate must be mine.”
+
+“But how so?”
+
+“By virtue of a deed executed by Harley Westford before his
+departure--a deed, giving me sole possession of the estate if a
+certain sum, lent by me to him, was not repaid within six months of
+the date of his signature.”
+
+“O, indeed! The estate will be yours by virtue of such a deed as
+that!”
+
+“Yes; a document formally drawn up by a lawyer, and signed by you as
+witness.”
+
+“But I never witnessed any such deed,” answered the clerk.
+
+“Your memory fails you to-night, my dear Danielson; you will have a
+better memory to-morrow, especially if I give you fifty pounds on
+account of our bargain.”
+
+The banker said this with a sinister smile. The clerk fully
+understood him.
+
+“Make it a hundred,” he exclaimed, “and you will find that I have an
+excellent memory.”
+
+“So be it. And now I want you to try and remember if you have any
+friend--a lawyer’s clerk, we’ll say--who knows how to draw up a
+legal document in which there shall be no flaw, and who is also
+clever at imitating the handwriting of other people.”
+
+“Let me think a little before I answer that question,” replied
+Danielson.
+
+He sat for some minutes thinking deeply, with his sharp eyes fixed
+upon the fire.
+
+“Yes,” he said at last, “I do know such a man.”
+
+“And you will have the deed prepared and executed at once?”
+
+“I will. The man will want money for his work.”
+
+“He shall be paid handsomely,” answered the banker.
+
+“And how about the signature which he is to imitate?”
+
+Rupert Godwin took the stolen letter from his pocket, and tore off
+the Captain’s autograph. This he handed to Jacob Danielson.
+
+“You understand what you have to do?” he asked.
+
+“Perfectly.”
+
+No more was said. The clerk’s brains seemed no more affected by the
+wine that he had taken than if he had been drinking so much water. He
+sat looking, sometimes at the fire, sometimes at the thoughtful face
+of his employer; and every now and then he refilled his glass from
+one of the decanters standing near him.
+
+But, drink as deeply as he might, his mind seemed entirely unaffected
+by what he drank. Rupert Godwin, watching him furtively even in the
+midst of his own reverie, perceived this.
+
+“The man is made of iron,” he thought, as he went to his own room,
+after bidding Jacob Danielson good-night. “With many of my secrets in
+the possession of such a man as this, how can I ever know rest?”
+
+And then, after a pause, he muttered:
+
+“Rest!--rest! When have I ever rested since--”
+
+Only a groan finished that broken sentence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE DAY OF DESOLATION.
+
+
+Bitter, most bitter, was the anguish which awaited Violet and Lionel
+Westford when they returned from their pleasant little excursion to
+Winchester.
+
+They had gone forth that morning in all the light-hearted
+carelessness of youth, pleased with the beauty of the fair world in
+which they lived, scarcely able to believe that sorrow, deep and
+lasting sorrow, could exist in so lovely a universe.
+
+But now the blow, the first most cruel blow which crushes out the
+warm life of youth, had fallen.
+
+Never again could these two bright young creatures feel as they had
+felt; never again could they almost doubt the existence of sorrow.
+
+The cup of anguish was offered to their young lips--the bitter
+draught was to be drained to its uttermost dregs.
+
+Violet found her mother lying once more on the bed to which she had
+been so long a prisoner. The doctor had attended her; but he could
+do nothing. The miserable woman lay in a stony stupor, with her face
+turned towards the wall. No passionate sob relieved the anguish of
+her aching heart. She suffered in silence. It seemed as if her heart
+was changed to stone.
+
+The surgeon, who had known Violet and Lionel from their childhood,
+was waiting in the drawing-room, and begged to see them before he
+left the house. They went to him without delay, and found him seated
+near a table, with a newspaper in his hand.
+
+“Mamma has had some bad news,” exclaimed Violet, whose face was wet
+with the tears she had shed at the aspect of her mother’s grief. “O,
+Mr. Sanderson, I am sure that it is so. This is no common illness.
+Some one has brought news, bad news, of papa. For pity’s sake, do not
+torture us by this agony of suspense; let us know the worst.”
+
+“Yes,” said Lionel, with forced calmness, “let us know the worst.”
+
+The surgeon looked at them with sad, compassionate eyes.
+
+“Perhaps it is better so,” he said thoughtfully. “The news that has
+so affected your poor mother is not of a very certain nature,” he
+continued, “and may not be so bad as it seems. We can still hope
+for the best, Miss Westford. Providence is very merciful, and joy
+sometimes is near at hand when we are in the depths of despair.”
+
+“Tell us the worst,” cried Lionel passionately; “you are trifling
+with us, Mr. Sanderson.”
+
+The surgeon placed the newspaper in the young man’s hand.
+
+“Read that,” he said, pointing to the marked paragraph respecting the
+_Lily Queen_; “and may God grant that it is only a false alarm!”
+
+Lionel read the paragraph--not once only, but three separate times;
+and a deadly chill crept to his heart as he read. Presently he felt
+a little hand trembling on his shoulder. He turned and saw Violet’s
+white face staring blankly at the fatal newspaper.
+
+“O, no; no, no!” she cried piteously; “not lost--not lost! My
+father--my dear, dear father!”
+
+“Let us hope not, dear Miss Westford,” answered the surgeon, in the
+most cheering tones he could assume. “These business men are always
+very quick to take alarm. Let us trust, my dear friends--let us trust
+in Heaven that all may be well.”
+
+“No,” cried Lionel vehemently, “I will trust no longer. Something
+tells me that my father is lost. Can I forget my mother’s illness?
+That illness was caused solely by a presentiment that harm would
+come to my father upon this voyage. For twenty years she had been a
+sailor’s wife, yet never before had she felt such a presentiment of
+evil. I was a presumptuous fool, and I laughed at my mother’s fears.
+I know now that they were well founded. My father’s ship has been
+wrecked; she and all her crew have perished.”
+
+The young man was interrupted by a hysterical shriek from Violet, who
+fell sobbing into his arms.
+
+“You will kill your sister, if you talk like that, Mr. Lionel
+Westford,” exclaimed the doctor angrily.
+
+Lionel was silent. He carried Violet to her own room; and that night
+Mr. Sanderson had to attend two patients at the Grange.
+
+As for the young man himself, a terrible despair seemed to have
+fallen upon him. All through that long miserable night he paced up
+and down the empty rooms absorbed in melancholy thoughts.
+
+“Why was I not a sailor like him?” he thought. “Why was I not with
+him in the hour of trial and danger? It might have been my fate to
+save him, or at the worst to perish with him! I feel myself a base
+coward when I think of my idle luxurious existence, and remember
+how my father has hazarded his life to earn the money I have been
+squandering at University wine-parties and boating excursions. And
+now that noble life has been lost in the last effort to increase the
+fortune of his children.”
+
+Miserable and dreary were the days and weeks that succeeded that
+fatal visit of Rupert Godwin to the Grange.
+
+For a long time Clara Westford and her daughter lay in their darkened
+rooms, victims to a kind of low fever.
+
+During this weary time Lionel was something more than an ordinary son
+and brother to the mother and sister he adored.
+
+Night after night when the hired nurses had grown weary of their
+task--when the servants of the household, sincerely as they were
+attached to their mistress and her daughter, had from mere exhaustion
+been compelled to abandon their watch, the devotion of the young man
+still sustained him. There was something wonderful in this patient
+self-abnegation in one who, until the day of calamity, had seemed so
+light-hearted and frivolous.
+
+Lionel Westford’s task was not confined to watching in the sick-room.
+He made many journeys to London during that weary time. Again and
+again he visited every place where there was any hope of obtaining
+tidings of the missing vessel; but no good news rewarded his
+patience, and before the time of his mother’s recovery he had learned
+the worst.
+
+A fragment of the lost vessel had been found floating near a rocky
+coast--a fragment which bore the name of the _Lily Queen_.
+
+With a broken heart Lionel Westford returned to the Grange. Bitter as
+this loss was to him, the thought of his mother’s anguish was almost
+a deeper grief.
+
+He returned to her, and watched once more by her sick-bed. This time
+he could watch and tend her day after day, night after night. He had
+no longer need to leave her, for he knew the worst.
+
+At last, after the long intervals of stupor and delirium were past,
+Clara Westford was pronounced well enough to be removed from her bed
+to a chair near the fire.
+
+The windows were closed. Without all was dark and dreary. The trees
+were leafless; and the December wind sighed mournfully amongst
+the bare branches. The sky was of a dull iron grey--no glimmer of
+sunshine relieved its coldness.
+
+But Clara Westford’s room was no comfortless apartment, even in the
+depth of winter. Voluminous curtains half shrouded the windows, and
+the invalid was propped up by pillows in a luxurious easy-chair, that
+had been wheeled close to the low fireplace of polished steel, in
+which the red flames were reflected with a cheerful dancing motion
+that was very pleasant to see. The broad marble mantelpiece was
+crowded with valuable Oriental china, rare old Japanese monsters,
+and curious specimens of crackle, brought home by the Captain for
+the gratification of the wife to please whom had been the chief
+delight of his existence. A portrait of Harley Westford smiled with
+the sailor’s own bright genial smile above the chimney-piece; and a
+tapestry screen, of Violet’s workmanship, protected the invalid from
+the heat of the fire.
+
+Clara had not been seated long in that comfortable chimney-corner
+when the door was opened, and Lionel came into the apartment,
+half-leading, half-carrying, his sister. Violet had also risen to-day
+from her sick-bed, but not for the first time. Her illness had not
+been quite so long nor so severe as that of her mother, and she had
+been the first to rise.
+
+But she was still very feeble, and in her loose white robes she
+looked wan and phantom-like. She was no longer the brilliant
+sunny-haired girl who had fascinated the young painter at the
+Winchester ball.
+
+“Violet,” exclaimed Mrs. Westford, “how pale and changed you are! O,
+my darling girl, you too have been ill?”
+
+“Yes, dear mother.”
+
+“And I was never told of your illness!” murmured Clara, reproachfully.
+
+“Why should you have been made more wretched by any such knowledge,
+dear mother?” said Lionel. “Violet has been taken care of.”
+
+“Yes, indeed, dear Lionel,” exclaimed the girl, lifting her eyes
+with a grateful glance to her brother’s face; for she knew that
+during that bitter time Lionel had been the good genius of the
+household.
+
+“My poor Violet,” murmured the mother, clasping her daughter’s hand
+with quiet tenderness,--“my poor Violet, the sunshine of life has
+been clouded very early for you. I have had twenty years of unsullied
+brightness, but for you the storm-cloud has come very soon. My poor
+children--my beloved children!”
+
+The mother laid her weary head on her son’s shoulder. Lionel drew
+his arm round her with a caressing gesture. Violet had sunk upon a
+low ottoman at her mother’s feet; and, grouped thus, the three were
+silent for some moments.
+
+Lionel was pale as death. The dreaded question would be asked
+presently, and the answer must be given.
+
+He wondered that his mother had not questioned him long before this.
+
+Alas for her broken heart, the reason of her silence was her
+instinctive consciousness that all hope was past. If there had been
+joyful tidings, her son would have only too gladly imparted them.
+And then Clara Westford had watched the young man’s face, and she
+had seen the traces of despair imprinted there only too plainly. She
+clasped the strong hand that was supporting her feeble frame.
+
+“Lionel,” she murmured, “why do you try to hide the truth from me?
+Do you think I cannot understand my children’s looks, and read my
+sorrows in their sad faces? There is no news of your father!”
+
+“No, mother; there is no news of--my father.”
+
+“But there is news,” gasped Clara, “of his ship!”
+
+“Only the saddest tidings,” exclaimed the young man, sinking on his
+knees beside his mother’s chair. “O, mother--mother! for our sakes
+try to endure this calamity. Look up, dear mother, and be comforted.
+Remember, _we have only you_.”
+
+Those last words told all. Clara Westford knew that she was a widow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A PITILESS CLAIMANT.
+
+
+After that sad scene in Mrs. Westford’s bedchamber, peace seemed to
+reign in the household of the Grange.
+
+Bitter and profound was the grief felt by each member of that little
+household; but the heroic hearts battled bravely with their sorrow.
+Very little was said of the lost husband and father. Those who had so
+dearly loved him, who now so deeply lamented him, dared not speak
+that familiar name; but he reigned supreme in the thoughts of all.
+
+In Clara Westford’s bedchamber a black curtain hung before the
+sailor’s portrait. Another portrait in the drawing-room was also
+shrouded in the same manner.
+
+Violet looked very pale and fragile in her deep mourning robes. Her
+golden hair gleamed with all its old brightness under the black crape
+bonnet; but there was a settled sadness in the dark blue eyes which
+had once beamed with such bewitching smiles.
+
+Everyone in the neighbourhood of the Grange now knew that Harley
+Westford’s ship had been lost, and many friends gathered round the
+widow to condole with her in the hour of her affliction.
+
+But, alas, their presence only tortured her. She wanted to be
+alone--alone with her despair, alone with the image of her lost
+husband. If she had been of the old Catholic faith, she would have
+gladly fled to the quiet shelter of some convent; where the remainder
+of her joyless days might have been devoted to charitable works and
+pious meditations, and where no sound of the clamorous outer world
+might have reached her weary ears.
+
+She endured her grief in silence, but the anguish was not the less
+keen. The thought of her loss was ever present to her--not to be put
+aside even for a moment. She spent days in wandering listlessly from
+room to room, recalling the happy hours which had been spent with
+_him_ in each familiar chamber. Everything reminded her of him, every
+association was torture. Even the society of her children afforded
+no consolation to her. Their burden was not like hers, she said to
+herself. The future might bring them new hope; for her all hope, all
+joy, was buried with the past.
+
+Amongst the friends who came to the Grange was a Mr. Maldon, a
+retired attorney, who had made a large fortune in Chancery practice,
+and who was a person of some importance in the neighbourhood.
+
+This gentleman questioned Clara about her husband’s property. What
+proceedings was she about to take? What was the extent of her
+children’s fortune?
+
+Then Clara related to him Rupert Godwin’s extraordinary statement
+about the money advanced by him to Harley Westford, and the
+title-deeds lodged in his hands as a security for that loan.
+
+“Strange!” exclaimed Mr. Maldon. “I always thought your husband had
+saved a comfortable little fortune.”
+
+“I thought the same,” answered Clara, “and I think so still. Upon the
+day of his departure my dear husband told me he was about to deposit
+a sum of twenty thousand pounds in the hands of Rupert Godwin.”
+
+“And Mr. Godwin denies having received that money?”
+
+“He does; and he further declares my husband to be his debtor. But
+I will never believe it, unless I see the proof in Harley’s own
+handwriting.”
+
+“My dear Mrs. Westford, this is all very mysterious,” exclaimed the
+lawyer. “I don’t see how we can possibly doubt such a man as Mr.
+Godwin. His position is that of one of the commercial princes of this
+country. He would not be likely to advance any false assertion with
+regard to his claims upon your husband.”
+
+“I do not know that. I have a very bad opinion of Rupert Godwin,”
+Mrs. Westford answered coldly.
+
+“You know him, then?”
+
+“I knew him once, very long ago; and I knew him then to be one of the
+meanest and worst of men.”
+
+The lawyer looked at Clara with a bewildered stare. “That is very
+strong language, my dear Mrs. Westford.”
+
+“This matter is one upon which I feel very strongly. I believe that
+my husband lodged twenty thousand pounds in Rupert Godwin’s hands;
+and I believe also that Rupert Godwin is quite capable of cheating
+myself and my children out of that money.”
+
+“Well, well, my dear Mrs. Westford,” exclaimed the bewildered
+attorney, “I think you allow your prejudices to mislead you in this
+matter. But in any case, I will make it my business to go up to
+town and see Mr. Godwin immediately. You shall be protected from
+any attempted wrong. I liked and respected your husband. I love and
+admire yourself and your children. And you shall not be cheated.
+No, no, you shall not be cheated; old Stephen Maldon must indeed be
+changed, if he can be done by the sharpest banker in London.”
+
+The lawyer lost no time in paying a visit to the City, where he had
+a long interview with Rupert Godwin. The result of that interview
+was that the banker showed Stephen Maldon a deed signed by Harley
+Westford, and duly witnessed by Jacob Danielson, and by John Spence,
+a lawyer’s clerk. The document bore the date of June 26th, in the
+previous year.
+
+This deed gave Rupert Godwin full power to take possession of the
+Grange estate, pictures, plate, furniture, and all appertaining to
+house and homestead, on or after the 25th March in the present year,
+unless the sum of six thousand five hundred pounds was paid to him in
+the interim.
+
+It was now late in January. For only two months more would the widow
+and orphans be secure in their once happy home.
+
+Mr. Maldon was a very clever lawyer; but he could see nothing in the
+deed shown him by Rupert Godwin that would justify any dispute of the
+banker’s claim.
+
+The catastrophe seemed very terrible, but none the less inevitable
+because it was a hard thing for the widow and orphans. The law does
+not take widows and orphans into any special consideration. The
+estate must be abandoned to Mr. Godwin, unless the six thousand five
+hundred pounds could be paid on or before the ensuing quarter-day.
+
+Mr. Maldon searched amongst the Captain’s papers at the Grange, but
+he could not find any document calculated to throw the smallest light
+on the sailor’s affairs. He called upon the Winchester attorney who
+had made Captain Westford’s will, and carefully studied the wording
+of that document.
+
+The will left all property, real and personal, to Clara, who was
+appointed sole executrix. But the will was dated a year earlier than
+the deed in the possession of Mr. Godwin, and there was no evidence
+that the sailor was possessed of any property except his Hampshire
+estate, when he sailed on his fatal voyage.
+
+The lawyer knew that men have often deceived their wives as to their
+pecuniary position. Might not Harley Westford have invented that
+story of the twenty thousand pounds, in order to lull those he loved
+with a false sense of peace and security?
+
+“A generous, impulsive sailor would be the worst possible man of
+business,” thought Stephen Maldon. “What more likely than that Harley
+Westford was a ruined man, while all the world fancied him a rich
+one?”
+
+Meanwhile, the weeks sped by. Soon, very soon, the 25th of March
+would be at hand.
+
+Clara Westford knew full well that she must expect no mercy from
+Rupert Godwin.
+
+The heroism of her nature asserted itself, and she prepared herself
+with calm resignation to leave the home where she had been so
+unspeakably happy.
+
+She had no money of her own--positively none; for she had fled from
+her father’s roof to become the wife of Harley Westford, and had
+been disinherited by him in favour of a grandchild, the daughter of
+an only son, who died at two-and-twenty years of age, leaving a baby
+girl, on whom stern Sir John Ponsonby doted with senile fondness.
+
+Never had the sailor heard a hint or a whisper of that cruel slander
+which had blighted Clara Ponsonby’s youth--never had he heard the
+association of her name with that of the notorious young _roué_,
+Rupert Godwin.
+
+From the moment of her marriage, Sir John Ponsonby’s daughter
+disappeared entirely from the circles in which she had been once a
+star of some magnitude.
+
+She had gone to her husband quite penniless, and he had loved her
+more fondly than if she had been dowered with a million.
+
+Now, when she examined into the state of her affairs, now that she
+was widowed and alone, and had no longer Harley’s strong arm to lean
+upon, she found that her circumstances were indeed desperate.
+
+The yearly bills of the tradespeople who supplied the Grange were
+all unpaid, and amounted to some hundreds. The servants’ wages must
+also be paid; and to meet these claims Clara Westford had no money
+whatever.
+
+The little stock of ready-money which her husband had left with her
+was entirely spent. He had promised to send his wife remittances from
+time to time, as it had been his habit to do; but he, and any money
+he possessed, had gone down to the fathomless depths of the ocean
+with the good ship _Lily Queen_ and all on board her.
+
+Only one resource remained to the widow. Her jewels, the costly gifts
+of a generous husband, these alone remained, and these must be sold
+in order that the tradespeople and servants might be paid.
+
+There was a bitter pain in parting with these trinkets, every one of
+which had a tender association of its own.
+
+But Clara Westford bore this sharp pain with quiet resignation.
+She arranged her jewel-box, and delivered it to her old friend
+Mr. Maldon, with instructions for the sale of the jewels at some
+London auction-room. They were sold, amongst others, at Debenham and
+Storr’s, as the property of “a lady going abroad.”
+
+She was, indeed, going abroad--abroad into a world that to her
+inexperienced steps must needs be a trackless wilderness, full of
+pitiless thorns and brambles.
+
+The valuables thus disposed of realized about four hundred pounds.
+With this sum Mrs. Westford discharged every claim upon her; leaving
+a balance of some thirty pounds.
+
+Thirty pounds! And with this pitiful sum the widow and orphans, who
+had never known what it was to have a wish unfulfilled that money
+could gratify, were to begin the battle of life!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+HIDDEN IN THE YEW-TREE.
+
+
+It was the eve of the 25th of March--that day whose approach had been
+so dreaded by Clara Westford and her children,--the day on which they
+were to be banished for ever from their happy home.
+
+As yet the banker had given no notice of his intentions with regard
+to his victims. But Clara knew how little mercy she had to expect
+from him, and she had determined on saving herself and her children
+the agony of humiliation.
+
+She would not wait for Rupert Godwin to act. She would not be turned
+out of her happy home by the man whose blighting influence had
+darkened her youth. She determined therefore, to leave the Grange
+early on the morning of the 25th.
+
+But when she announced this determination to Violet, the girl
+expressed considerable surprise.
+
+“Why should we be in such a hurry to leave the dear old place?”
+Violet exclaimed. “This Mr. Godwin may not press his claim upon the
+Grange. They say he is enormously rich, and surely he would be happy
+to let us stay here till he has a tenant for the place. We may be
+allowed to live here for some time to come, dear mother, till you are
+better and stronger, and more fit to face the world.”
+
+Mrs. Westford shook her head.
+
+“No, Violet,” she answered firmly; “I will not remain one hour under
+this roof when it becomes the property of Rupert Godwin.”
+
+“Mamma, you speak as if you knew this Mr. Godwin?”
+
+“I know that he is one of the vilest of men,” answered Mrs. Westford.
+“Do not question me further, Violet; my resolution is not to be
+shaken upon this point. Believe me when I assure you that I am acting
+for the best. And now, write to your brother, dear, and ask him to
+meet us at the Waterloo Terminus to-morrow at one o’clock.”
+
+Lionel had been in London for the last few weeks, endeavouring to
+obtain a situation in some office.
+
+But the young man, highly educated though he was, found it extremely
+difficult to procure any kind of employment, however humble.
+
+His University education availed him little. London seemed to swarm
+with clever young men, all engaged in the struggle for daily bread.
+Lionel Westford’s heart sank within him as he made application after
+application, only to fail alike in all.
+
+For every situation that offered there seemed a hundred competitors.
+And ninety-nine out of this hundred must endure the misery of failure.
+
+Lionel had secured a very cheap and humble lodging on the Surrey side
+of the Thames, and had made arrangements for the reception of his
+mother and sister as soon as they left the Grange.
+
+O, what a dreary change was that darksome London lodging, after the
+luxurious country-house, the lovely gardens, the horses and grooms,
+the dogs and guns, and all those things which are so especially dear
+to a young man!
+
+On his own account, however, Lionel Westford never once complained.
+His only thought was of his mother and sister; his most earnest
+desire that he might be enabled to shield _them_ from all the
+bitterest ills of poverty.
+
+He thought very seriously of his future career. His classical
+learning seemed unlikely to be of the smallest use to him;
+unless, like Goldsmith and Johnson, he accepted the slavery of a
+schoolmaster’s drudge. How bitterly he regretted his careless youth,
+his want of a profession, which would give him at least something!
+He asked himself whether there was yet time for him to adopt a
+profession. There was the Church. Yes; but he must waste two or three
+years before he could hope for a curacy worth from fifty to a hundred
+per annum. There was the law; but, alas, he was too familiar with the
+proverbial miseries of briefless youth idling in the garrets of the
+Temple.
+
+It was a living he wanted, an immediate living, and in search of this
+he tramped the streets of London with untiring feet; but day by day
+went by, and he seemed no nearer to the object of his desire.
+
+The afternoon of the 24th of March was dull and cheerless. The wind
+howled among the branches of the old trees about the Grange; the grey
+sky was cold and sunless.
+
+Yet upon this afternoon, cheerless and cold though it was, Violet
+Westford opened the little garden-gate leading out into the forest,
+for the first time for many months.
+
+Never since her illness had she seen or heard of the artist, George
+Stanmore.
+
+She had fully expected that he would have come to the Grange to
+inquire about her during that long illness; and she had contrived
+to ask Lionel, in an apparently careless manner, if he had heard
+anything of his friend Mr. Stanmore.
+
+But the answer had been in the negative. George had therefore taken
+no steps to discover the cause of Violet’s absence from her favourite
+forest haunts. This seeming neglect and indifference had cruelly
+stung the girl’s heart.
+
+“His pretended attachment to me was only a passing fancy, perhaps,”
+she thought; “and I daresay he was amused by my sentimental folly in
+believing all his protestations of regard. I can understand now why
+he shrank from seeing my mother, and making an open avowal of his
+love.”
+
+The idea that she had been the dupe of a sentimental delusion was
+very bitter to the girl’s sensitive mind. Her pride was outraged, and
+from the time of her recovery she had shunned the forest pathways,
+with an obstinate determination to avoid all meetings with her false
+lover.
+
+But now that she was going to leave the Grange for ever, an
+irresistible impulse took possession of her, and she felt that she
+could not quit the neighbourhood of the forest without making some
+endeavour to ascertain the cause of George Stanmore’s neglect.
+
+Might not he, too, have been ill? Or might he not have been
+compelled to leave the forest? It was almost easier to believe
+anything than that he could be false.
+
+Thus it was that Miss Westford’s love overcame her pride; and once
+more she opened the little gate leading to her beloved woodland--the
+sweet scene which had been familiar and dear to her from infancy.
+
+The forest pathways looked dreary this cold March afternoon, but
+the change in the aspect of the woodland was not so striking as the
+change in her who now passed through that rustic gateway.
+
+The brilliant girl, whose smiling face was once like the sunlight,
+looked now wan and pale as some misty shape that glides about the
+mountain-tops in the evening dimness.
+
+She walked with feeble steps along the grassy path, for the beating
+of her heart seemed to paralyze her strength. She went straight to
+the cottage where the landscape-painter had lodged; but the walk was
+a long one, and the twilight was gathering fast when she reached the
+modest little habitation, nestling amongst grand old trees.
+
+The firelight from the cottage window streamed out upon the chill
+gray twilight, and there was a look of homeliness and comfort in the
+aspect of the simple place.
+
+A sudden pang pierced through Violet’s heart as she looked at that
+cosy little cottage, with the neat, well stocked garden, and the red
+firelight in the window.
+
+“If my mother and I had such a home as that, we might think ourselves
+very happy,” she thought; “and yet I daresay the people who live here
+have often envied our wealth and luxury.”
+
+A woman was standing at the open door of the cottage as Violet
+approached the gate, and she came out into the pathway to welcome her
+visitor.
+
+“Lor, Miss Westford!” she exclaimed, “you a’most frightened me,
+standing there so dark and ghostly like. Do step in, miss, and rest
+yourself a bit by the fire. It’s quite chilly these March afternoons.
+How sad it do seem to see your black dress, and to think of the poor
+dear kind free-spoken gentleman that’s gone! Ah, deary me, deary me,
+he were a good friend to all us poor folks, and there’s many will
+miss him in these parts. Take a chair close to the fire, miss. I am
+so glad to see you getting about once more, though you’re looking but
+sadly yet. I was at the Grange many times to ask after you during
+your illness.”
+
+Violet’s heart beat convulsively. She began to think that George
+Stanmore had employed this woman as his messenger.
+
+“It was very good of you to inquire after me,” she faltered.
+
+“Lor, miss! wasn’t it likely I should be wishful to know how you was?
+Haven’t I known you ever since you was a little bit of a child? and
+hasn’t your dear ma been a good friend to me times and often? and
+didn’t your pa send me a bottle of his own old East-Indy Madeery,
+last Christmas was a twelvemonth, when he heard I was ailing?”
+
+In all this there was no mention of Mr. Stanmore. Violet’s heart
+sank. She could not bring herself to question the simple dame,
+and she was not sufficiently skilled in diplomacy to extort the
+information she was so eager to obtain without direct questioning.
+She looked hopelessly round the comfortable little cottage chamber,
+wondering what she could say next. She was very pale; but the red
+light of the fire gave a false glow to her face, and the good-natured
+cottager did not perceive her visitor’s agitation.
+
+“How neatly you keep your cottage, Mrs. Morris!” Violet said at last,
+feeling that she must say something. “It’s quite pleasant to see your
+place, it looks such a picture of comfort.”
+
+“You’re very good to say so, miss, I’m sure,” answered Mrs. Morris.
+“But talking of pictures, and talking of comfort, we ain’t half as
+comfortable now, since we’ve lost our lodger.”
+
+Violet’s heart gave a great bound. He was gone, then! But how--and
+where?
+
+“You’ve lost your lodger?” she said. “You mean Mr. Stanmore?”
+
+“Yes, miss. Mr. Stanmore, that painter gentleman. He left us all of a
+sudden, the very first week as you was taken ill; and, what’s more,
+it was against his own wishes as he went.”
+
+“Against his own wishes! How so?”
+
+“Why, you see, miss, this is how it was. I was ironing in that window
+one afternoon, when I saw a dark, foreign-looking gentleman standing
+at our gate, and with such a frown upon his face that he set me all
+of a tremble like, which I scorched one of my good man’s shirt-fronts
+as brown as a coffee-berry for the first time this ten years, having
+had an aunt, Rebecca Javes by name, which was brought up to the
+clear-starching and laundry-maid at Sir Robert Flinder’s, three miles
+on this side of Netley Abbey, and has shown me to iron a shirt-front
+with her own hands more times than I could count----”
+
+“But the foreign-looking gentleman----”
+
+“Yes, miss. That’s just what I was a-saying. There he stands as large
+as life. In he walks, right into our place, as cool as you please.
+‘Is my son at home?’ he asks. ‘Your son, sir!’ I answered. ‘Lor,
+bless me, no; I don’t know any such person.’ ‘O yes you do,’ he
+says. ‘The person who painted that picture yonder is my son, and he
+lodges in your house.’ With that he points to one of Mr. Stanmore’s
+landscapes, that’s been set to dry on my little table yonder. ‘Mr.
+Stanmore your son!’ I cried out. And I assure you, miss, you might
+have knocked me down with a feather. ‘He is capable of calling
+himself Stanmore, or any other false name,’ answered the dark
+gentleman; ‘but whatever he calls himself, the man who painted that
+picture is my wicked and undutiful son.’
+
+“Before he could get out another word, Mr. Stanmore walked in, with
+his hat on, and his drawings and things under his arm. He’d just come
+in from the forest.
+
+“‘I am here, father,’ he said, ‘to answer for my sins, whatever they
+may be;’ and he said it as proud-like as if he’d been a prince of the
+royal family.
+
+“So then the two gentlemen walked upstairs to Mr. Stanmore’s
+sitting-room, and our walls being thin, you know, miss, I could hear
+a good deal of what was said; not the words exactly, but the tones
+of voice like, though I’m sure as to bemean myself by listening, I
+wouldn’t do it, there, not if you was to lay me down twenty pound;
+and I could hear as the two gentlemen seemed at variance, as you
+may say; and at last down comes Mr. Stanmore’s father, as stiff as
+a poker, and as black as any thunderstorm as I ever see, and walks
+out of the house without so much as a word to me; but I could see
+by his face that he was regularly upset. And then, about an hour or
+so afterwards, down came Mr. Stanmore, looking very pale, but very
+quiet-like. He’d packed all his things, he said, and he wanted my
+husband to carry them over to Winchester Station in his cart, in
+time for the mail-train, which he did. I was regular cut up at the
+young gentleman leaving me so sudden like, for never was there a
+better lodger, and he paid me very handsome, and was altogether the
+gentleman. He seemed quite broken-hearted like at going away, miss;
+and, lor bless me, if that don’t remind me of something!”
+
+The dame stopped suddenly, looking at Violet.
+
+“Something about you, too, miss!”
+
+The blood rushed into Violet’s pale face.
+
+“Did Mr. Stanmore mention me?” she asked.
+
+“Yes, miss; indeed he did. Just as he was going out of the house he
+stopped all of a sudden, and said, ‘If you should see Miss Westford,
+tell her that I have painted the old yew-tree she was so fond of;
+and I want her to look once more at the tree, in order that she may
+remember it when she sees my picture.’ Wasn’t that a funny message,
+miss?”
+
+“Yes,” Violet answered, with pretended carelessness. “I suppose Mr.
+Stanmore means an old yew near the lake, which my brother and I
+very much admired. I sha’n’t have many opportunities of looking at
+the tree, Mrs. Morris, for we are going to leave this neighbourhood
+to-morrow.”
+
+The woman expressed her regret at the departure of Violet and her
+mother; but, in the country, news travels fast, and she had heard
+some days before that the Grange was to be deserted. The change
+of fortune that had befallen the Westfords had been talked of and
+lamented by rich and poor.
+
+Violet left the cottage with a heavy heart. George Stanmore had gone,
+leaving no trace behind him--not even a letter for the woman he had
+sworn to love and cherish for ever.
+
+It was all a mystery, which Violet strove in vain to understand.
+
+The moon had risen when she left the cottage, and every branch and
+leaf stood sharply out against the silvery light. Violet looked at
+the peaceful scene with inexpressible sadness.
+
+“It may be the last time that I shall ever see it,” she thought; “the
+last time! And I have been so happy here!”
+
+Then she thought of George Stanmore’s message about the old yew-tree.
+
+It seemed a very absurd and meaningless message--a message which to
+any one not in love would have appeared the very extreme of maudlin
+sentimentality. But Violet was by no means inclined to regard it in
+that light. She looked upon it rather as a solemn and mysterious
+mandate which it was her duty to obey to the very letter.
+
+Madame Laffarge, of unpleasant notoriety, wrote to her husband
+entreating him to eat certain cakes made by her own fair hand, and
+to contemplate the moon at a certain hour, when she too would be
+absorbed in sentimental meditation upon that luminary. The idea
+was poetical, but, unfortunately for M. Laffarge, the cakes were
+poisoned, and he died, the victim of obedience.
+
+Violet was in that state of mind in which she found it pleasanter
+to loiter in the forest than to go home, and there was a kind of
+consolation in the idea of doing anything that her lover had asked
+her to do. It seemed to bring him nearer to her for the moment. He
+might be thinking of that favourite spot at the very moment she
+stood there thinking so sadly of him. He might even see her in her
+loneliness and despondency by some subtle power of second-sight given
+to lovers. Was anything impossible to true love?
+
+So Miss Westford turned aside from her homeward path, and vent
+fearlessly through the solitary avenue that led towards the lake.
+
+That forest lake looked very lovely under the still evening sky. The
+broad branches of the yew made patches of black shadow on the grass;
+the fallen leaves made a faint rustling noise as the wind stirred
+them--a kind of ghostly murmur.
+
+Around the trunk of the tree there was a rustic bench of roughly-hewn
+wood; and on this Violet seated herself, exhausted by her long walk,
+and glad to linger on a spot so associated with her lost happiness.
+
+As she sat there, the beauty of the scene impressed her with an
+almost painful sense of its splendour. For the first time throughout
+that sorrowful day the tears, passionate tears of regret, rushed
+down her pale cheeks.
+
+She turned her head aside, and rested her forehead against the rugged
+bark of the yew.
+
+As she did so, she perceived a hollow in the tree--a great hollow, in
+which George Stanmore had often hidden his colour-box and brushes.
+The remembrance of this suddenly flashed upon her. It had been her
+lover’s habit to hide things in that old tree. What if he had hidden
+a letter there, and had directed her attention to the fact by means
+of that message left with Mrs. Morris! In the next moment Violet
+Westford was on her knees before the hollow, groping in it with her
+hands.
+
+She found it half-filled with moss and withered leaves; but, after
+dragging these out, she saw something white gleaming in the moonlight.
+
+Ah, how eagerly she picked up that scrap of white from among the
+scattered leaves and moss!
+
+It was a letter. Miss Westford could just make out the words “For
+Violet,” written on the envelope. Impatient as she was to see the
+contents of that precious envelope, she was fain to wait until she
+reached home; for brightly as the moon shone above forest and lake,
+that poetic radiance was not sufficient to throw light upon the
+mysteries of a modern gentleman’s penmanship.
+
+Never in her happiest day had Violet Westford’s feet tripped more
+lightly along those forest pathways. She reached the Grange panting
+and exhausted, took a candle from the hall, and hurried to her own
+apartment--the bright airy room, so prettily decked to suit her
+girlish tastes, so soon to pass into the hands of strangers.
+
+She seated herself close to the light, and tore open George
+Stanmore’s envelope. The letter it contained was brief, and had
+evidently been written in extreme haste.
+
+It consisted of only these words:
+
+“MY DEAREST GIRL,--Circumstances which I cannot explain in this
+letter compel me to leave England immediately. I do not know when I
+may be able to return; but when I do return, it will be to claim you
+as my wife. In the mean time, I implore you to write to me at the
+Post-office, Bruges, Belgium. Write to me, dearest, and tell me that
+you do not doubt my fidelity: tell me also that your faith will be as
+constant and unshaken as that of your devoted
+
+                                                       “GEORGE.”
+
+No words can express the comfort which Violet Westford derived
+from this brief letter. To a woman of the world, George Stanmore’s
+assurance of unalterable affection might have seemed of very little
+value; but to this girl, who did not know what it was to deceive,
+that assurance was all in all.
+
+“He loves me! He is true to me!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands in
+a rapture of delight. “And when he comes back, it will be to seek me
+as his wife. But what will he do when he finds the Grange deserted,
+and our circumstances so cruelly changed? Will he change too?” This
+was the question which Violet asked herself very sadly, as she sat in
+the familiar room that was so soon to be hers no longer.
+
+There was little sleep or rest for the dwellers in that pleasant
+country-house during the last sad night. The servants sat late in the
+cosy housekeeper’s-room, bewailing the misfortunes of their mistress
+over a very comfortably-furnished supper-table--for even a funeral
+table must be provided with “baked meats;” and faithful retainers,
+weighed down by the sadness of approaching farewell, require to be
+sustained by extra beer. They were unanimous in their praises of the
+family they had served so long, and in their dread of the unknown
+ills to be encountered in strange households, and from masters and
+mistresses whose “ways” would be new to them. But the old-fashioned
+type of servant, who appears so frequently in Morton’s comedies and
+in old novels, seems to be almost as extinct as the dodo. The Grange
+retainers were honestly sorry for Mrs. Westford’s misfortunes, but
+they had no idea of volunteering to follow the family in exile and
+poverty without wages, and, if need were, without food. Nor did cook
+or housemaid rush into the parlour to lay her savings at the feet of
+mistress, in the pathetic manner so familiar in the fairy world of
+romance. They sighed over the sorrows of the house as they ate their
+cold meat, and shook their heads dolefully over the old housekeeper’s
+famous pickles; but their boxes were all packed, and their plans all
+made for an early departure from the ruined house.
+
+All through that long dreary night Mrs. Westford sat at her desk,
+sorting and destroying old letters and documents, the records of her
+happy womanhood. Of all the friendly notes, the pleasant gossiping
+letters, she kept none, except those written by her husband and her
+children.
+
+Ah, how happy she had been in that simple country-house! What a calm
+life it had been!--and how brief the years seemed as she looked back
+to the early days in which her husband had brought her into Hampshire
+house-hunting, in a happy summer holiday, when their honeymoon was
+scarcely waned, and there was still in the minds of both the sweet
+strange sense that it was a new thing to be thus together!
+
+She remembered her first year in that quiet haven. The glorious
+summer time, in which every sunny day had brought the discovery
+of some new treasure in shrubbery or garden. She remembered the
+warm midsummer night, in which she had lain, faint and weak, but
+unspeakably happy, looking up at the stars, with the perfumed air of
+the June night blowing in upon her from the wide window, and her baby
+Lionel on her breast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+HOMELESS AND FRIENDLESS.
+
+
+Very early in the chill spring morning Violet and her mother drove
+away from the Grange in a hired fly that was to convey them to
+Winchester.
+
+They took nothing with them but their own personal property and the
+two portraits of Harley Westford. These Mrs. Westford knew she had no
+legal right to possess, but she stooped to infringe the letter of the
+law rather than leave her dead husband’s likeness in the hands of his
+hateful rival.
+
+Thus it was that the widow and her daughter left their happy home,
+with all its luxurious belongings undisturbed, to fall into the hands
+of strangers.
+
+It was still early when they reached Winchester; and it was just one
+o’clock when the train entered the Waterloo terminus, where Lionel
+Westford was waiting on the platform, very pale and very grave, and
+altogether different from the light-hearted, careless young Oxonian
+who had brought life and gaiety to his home whenever he had come to
+it, and whose greatest trouble was the fear of being disappointed in
+his hope of University honours.
+
+The young man bore his reverses nobly. He greeted his mother and
+sister with one of his old smiles, and then ran off to attend to
+their luggage, which he saw conveyed to a cab.
+
+In this cab they speedily drove away from the station, and went
+through two or three small streets in the neighbourhood of the
+Waterloo-road.
+
+The cab stopped at a shabby but clean-looking house in one of the
+smallest of these streets.
+
+Lionel Westford watched his mother’s face with an anxious expression.
+He was thinking how horrible this dingy street, that shabby,
+poverty-stricken house must appear, when contrasted with the dear old
+Grange, and its lovely lawns and flower-beds, its avenue of stately
+elms, and spreading meadows sheltered with old oaks and beeches.
+
+“It is very poor, very common, dear mother,” said the young man; “but
+the landlady seems a decent sort of person, and this place was the
+best I could get at present. However, this time of poverty and trial
+shall not last long, if any effort of mine can shorten it.”
+
+He pressed his mother’s hand as he spoke, and she answered him by a
+look of the deepest gratitude and affection.
+
+“My treasures!” she exclaimed, looking fondly at her two children,
+“should I not be a wretch to repine while you are still left to me?”
+
+Lionel had done all in his power to impart an appearance of
+cheerfulness to the shabby sitting-room which had been prepared for
+the new-comers. A fire burned in the little grate; a bunch of early
+spring-flowers adorned the table.
+
+Only true and pure affection supported the banker’s victims during
+these first days of poverty and trial.
+
+The trial was very bitter; for poverty was new to them, and
+everything around seemed to send a fresh chill to their hearts.
+
+But they were none of them people to waste time in idle complaints.
+Every morning, as soon as he had eaten his frugal breakfast, Lionel
+Westford set out upon his weary travels in the great desert of London.
+
+What desert can be more lonely than that wealthy and crowded city to
+the wanderer who has neither friends nor money?
+
+Every morning Violet and her mother also left their dingy lodgings,
+and went out into the world by separate ways to seek for bread. Yes,
+for bread! For now only a very slender hoard remained between them
+and absolute starvation.
+
+Violet was no more fortunate than her brother. She was accomplished;
+but there were many portionless girls in London, all more or less
+accomplished, and all eager to earn the merest pittance. Who could
+hope that there would ever be enough employment for all of them?
+
+Mrs. Westford also sought to turn her talents to some use; but she
+too sought for a long time most vainly. She offered herself as a
+morning governess, and spent what to her was a large sum in the
+postage of letters replying to advertisements in the morning papers.
+But no answers came to these letters. Education seemed to have
+become the most valueless drug in the London market. The Captain’s
+widow was troubled by none of those ultra-refined compunctions which
+restrain the actions of some among the ranks of the shabby-genteel.
+When she found her educational powers would not obtain her the merest
+pittance, she fell back upon her mechanical skill in all kinds of
+elegant fancy-work. She visited half the Berlin-wool shops and fancy
+repositories in London and the suburbs, and at last succeeded in
+finding a speculative trader, who agreed to give her a starvation
+price for her work.
+
+At last, however, when a kind of heart-sickness had seized upon both
+mother and daughter, a faint glimmer of sunshine broke through the
+dense black clouds that darkened the horizon. It was only a chilly
+April radiance at best, but still it was the sun.
+
+Violet was amongst the crowd of clever and accomplished women
+who answered an advertisement inserted in the _Times_ by a lady
+who required a morning governess for her young daughters--two
+pretty-looking, half-educated girls of seventeen and nineteen.
+
+Mrs. Montague Trevor was a frivolous woman, whose heart and intellect
+were alike absorbed in the delights of the fashionable world. She had
+been a beauty, and had flourished for her brief hour as belle of a
+second-rate watering-place, where she had been fortunate enough to
+win the affections of a popular Queen’s Counsel, who fell in love
+with her pretty face, and was too busy ever to have leisure in which
+to find out how empty the head was behind it. Mr. Montague Trevor had
+therefore been very well content with his choice, and in due course
+had worked himself to death, leaving the watering-place beauty a
+widow with a handsome fortune. On the strength of this fortune, and
+her late husband’s professional celebrity, Mrs. Trevor had obtained
+an extended circle of acquaintance, and amongst these she still
+played off some of the airs and graces which she had cultivated as a
+belle of nineteen.
+
+She was intensely vain; and she fancied that every man who laid
+her a compliment was desperately in love with her. She had no
+disinclination to part with her freedom to a new lord and master; but
+she wanted a rich husband, for her habits were terribly extravagant,
+and, in spite of her excellent income, she was always more or less in
+debt.
+
+Unfortunately, though her admirers were numerous, they were not many
+of them rich, and the vain and frivolous Annabella sighed in vain for
+a wealthy husband, whose boundless purse should supply money for all
+her whims and fancies.
+
+It was this lady whose advertisement Violet Westford saw in the
+_Times_ newspaper, and it was in Mrs. Trevor’s fashionably-furnished
+drawing-room in the Regent’s Park that the young girl sat amongst a
+crowd of other applicants, waiting the nervous moment when she should
+be summoned before the lady who was to decide her fate.
+
+She knew that poverty, dire and terrible, was fast approaching that
+miserable lodging near the Waterloo-road, and she felt a painful
+anxiety to be of some use to her mother, and to her brave young
+brother, on whose brow she already saw the impress of despair.
+
+At last the moment arrived, and a smartly dressed maid conducted
+Violet to Mrs. Trevor’s morning-room, or boudoir, as it was always
+called by elegant Annabella.
+
+Mrs. Trevor was reclining on a sofa, dressed in an elaborately
+beflounced muslin morning-dress, dotted about with infantine bows of
+sky-blue ribbon, her hair arranged _à la vierge_, an expensive fan
+in her hand, and a tiny Maltese dog in her lap. On a table near her
+there was a scent-bottle with a gold stopper and an elegant little
+Dresden chocolate-service. The two Miss Trevors were lounging near
+the windows, and staring idly out into the Park.
+
+As Violet entered the room, nervously anxious, Mrs. Trevor uttered an
+exclamation of surprise.
+
+“What a sweet face!” she cried. “My dear Theodosia, my darling
+Anastasia, did you ever see a sweeter face?”
+
+Violet had no idea that this speech could possibly apply to her.
+She stood opposite the one lady on the sofa, almost trembling with
+anxiety, for repeated failure had depressed her spirits, and she had
+a morbid apprehension of disappointment.
+
+“You were so good as to send for me madam,” she faltered.
+
+“Yes, my love; I sent for you, and I am absolutely charmed with you.
+I like to see everything lovely about me--my rooms, my flowers, my
+china; and you are lovely! Beauty is almost as necessary to me as the
+air I breathe, and you are beautiful! I am sure we shall suit each
+other delightfully. Such _objects_, such _creatures_, such absolute
+Gorgons as I have seen this morning, my dear!--really enough to give
+a sensitive person the horrors; and I am so excruciatingly sensitive.
+Anastasia, my love, don’t you think there is something of a likeness
+between Miss--Miss----”
+
+“Westford, madam,” interposed Violet.
+
+“Between Miss Westford and me? About the nose, Anastasia? Miss
+Westford has exactly that delicate style of nose which your poor papa
+used to call a perfect Grecian.”
+
+Miss Anastasia Trevor did not take the trouble to answer her mother’s
+question. Nor was there any occasion that she should do so, as the
+volatile Annabella rarely gave any one time to reply to her remarks.
+
+“I am sure you will suit me, my love!” she exclaimed. “You play and
+sing, of course?”
+
+“O yes, madam.”
+
+Mrs. Trevor waved her jewelled hand towards an open piano.
+
+“Let me hear you, my dear.”
+
+Violet seated herself, and after a brilliant prelude which displayed
+her execution and expression as a pianiste, she sang a simple little
+Italian barcarole, in which her mezzo-soprano voice rang out soft and
+clear.
+
+“Charming!” exclaimed Mrs. Trevor. “You draw and paint in
+water-colours, I suppose?”
+
+Violet blushed as she answered this question, for she remembered how
+her artist-lover had admired her sketches, and how much her taste had
+been cultivated in his society.
+
+She opened a little portfolio which she had brought with her, and
+showed Mrs. Trevor some water-colour sketches of the forest.
+
+“Delicious!” exclaimed the fashionable widow. “There is a taste, a
+lightness, a warmth, an atmosphere, a _chiaro-oscuro_ which is really
+charming. You speak French, German, and Italian, of course, as those
+were mentioned as requisite in the advertisement?”
+
+Violet replied that she was familiar with all three languages.
+
+“And your references are irreproachable, I conclude?”
+
+“I can refer you to Mr. Morton, the clergyman of the parish in which
+we lived in my dear father’s lifetime.”
+
+Violet’s eyes filled with tears as she referred to that happy past,
+which contrasted so cruelly with the present.
+
+“Nothing can be more satisfactory,” said Mrs. Trevor, as Violet
+handed her the address of the Hampshire rector. “I shall write
+to this gentleman by to-day’s post. I take it for granted that
+the answer will be favourable, therefore we may as well conclude
+arrangements at once. This is Wednesday. On Friday I can receive the
+rector’s answer, and on Monday morning you can commence your duties.
+Good morning.--Anastasia, my love, the bell.”
+
+Violet rose; but she lingered hesitatingly.
+
+“There is one question,” she murmured; “the salary, madam?”
+
+“Ah, to be sure!” exclaimed Mrs. Trevor. “What a forgetful creature
+I am! You will want a salary, I suppose--though really, as it is
+your first engagement as a governess, there are many people who
+would object to giving you a salary. However, I am not one of those
+illiberal persons.--You know, Anastasia, your poor dear papa used to
+call me ridiculously generous.--The salary, Miss Westford, will be
+half-a-guinea a week.”
+
+Violet had expected a great deal more; but poverty stared her in the
+face, and even this pittance would be something.
+
+“And the hours?” she asked.
+
+“The hours will be from nine till two, which will enable you to dine
+comfortably at home with your own family,” Mrs. Trevor answered, with
+a benevolent smile.
+
+From nine till two--six days a week--for half-a-guinea! Four-pence an
+hour was the value set upon accomplishments the acquirement of which
+had cost a small fortune!
+
+Violet sighed as she thought of her expensive masters, her handsomely
+paid governess, and the time and trouble which had been bestowed upon
+her education.
+
+“Perhaps the situation will not suit you?” said the sweet Mrs. Trevor
+rather sharply.
+
+“O, yes, madam; it will suit me very well.”
+
+“And you accept the terms?”
+
+“Yes, madam.”
+
+“Then in that case I shall expect you on Monday. You can then begin
+your duties; that is, of course, in the event of the reference
+proving satisfactory.”
+
+“I do not fear that, madam. Good morning.”
+
+And Violet left the richly furnished boudoir comparatively happy;
+for half-a-guinea a week was at least some small provision against
+absolute starvation.
+
+Half-a-guinea a week for the salary of an accomplished governess!
+And this from Mrs. Montague Trevor, who thought nothing of paying a
+five-pound note for a cup and saucer of Sèvres china.
+
+As the door closed upon Violet, the diplomatic widow turned with a
+look of triumph to her eldest daughter.
+
+“Well, I think I managed that business admirably!” she exclaimed.
+“Half-a-guinea a week! Why, my dear Anastasia, the girl is worth a
+hundred guineas a year at the very least. Look at the salary that
+elderly Gorgon with the blue spectacles had the presumption to ask
+me. This girl is worth as much again as the Gorgon, whose voice was
+like a screech owl’s.”
+
+The younger Miss Trevor, who bore no resemblance to her mother either
+in person or disposition, lifted her eyes reproachfully to the
+flighty widow’s face.
+
+“But if this young lady is worth so much, is it not very cruel, and
+almost dishonest, to offer her so little, mamma?” she asked gravely.
+
+“Cruel! dishonest!” ejaculated Mrs. Trevor. “Why, child, you’re a
+perfect idiot! You’ll never make a bargain as long as you live.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIL.
+
+MATERNAL MANŒUVRES.
+
+
+Five minutes before the clocks in the neighbourhood struck nine, on
+the appointed Monday morning Violet Westford knocked at the door of
+the villa in the Regent’s Park. She was admitted by a maid-servant,
+who at once conducted her to an apartment near the top of the
+house--a cold, cheerless looking room, very shabbily furnished,
+and commanding an agreeable view of the backs of the houses in
+Albany-street,--altogether a very different apartment from Mrs.
+Montague Trevor’s silken-curtained boudoir, with its somewhat stagey
+decoration in modern buhl and marqueterie.
+
+Here Violet’s duties began; and very tedious they promised to be; for
+one of her pupils was idle, frivolous, and flippant, and the other
+was naturally slow of apprehension.
+
+Anastasia Trevor was a clever girl; but her natural idleness
+was excessive, and she could only be induced to study those
+accomplishments which could be paraded before the admiring of
+curious eyes of her acquaintance.
+
+Theodosia was not a clever or brilliant girl; but she was something
+better, for she was truthful and conscientious. She exerted herself
+to the utmost under the direction of her new governess.
+
+“I fear you’ll find me very stupid, Miss Westford,” she said; “but I
+hope you’ll believe that I shall do my best.”
+
+“I am sure you will,” Violet answered gently.
+
+From that moment it seemed as if a friendship arose between the
+governess and her pupil. Theodosia had been accustomed to find
+herself neglected by the masters and governesses whom her mother
+engaged, and who speedily discovered that the lively Anastasia was
+Mrs. Trevor’s favourite, and that attention bestowed upon her would
+be better rewarded than if given to the quiet Theodosia.
+
+Theodosia and her mother were never very likely to agree, for the
+girl’s high sense of truth and honour was continually being wounded
+by the widow’s conduct; and as Theodosia was too candid to conceal
+her sentiments, perpetual disputes arose between them.
+
+Anastasia, on the contrary, was the exact counterpart of her mother,
+and the two agreed admirably, except when their interests clashed,
+which was not a rare event.
+
+Day after day Violet toiled in the dull schoolroom at Mrs. Trevor’s
+villa. Her duties were excessively fatiguing, but no murmur of
+complaint ever crossed her lips. When Saturday came she was able to
+carry home her hard-earned half-guinea, and that in itself was a
+recompense for all her trouble.
+
+In the mean time affairs had brightened a little for Lionel, who
+had at last succeeded in getting some work as a copyist of legal
+documents.
+
+It was very hard work, very poorly paid; but for the sake of his
+mother and sister the young man would even have swept a crossing.
+
+For some little time matters went on tolerably smoothly in the humble
+lodging. Mrs. Westford bent over an embroidery frame with untiring
+patience; Lionel laboured for long hours at his wearisome penmanship;
+and Violet attended daily at Mrs. Trevor’s villa. So that, comforted
+by affection, which brightens even the dullest home, the widow and
+her orphans were comparatively happy.
+
+But that period of peace was destined to be very brief. The storm was
+near at hand; and Violet, the gentle Violet, who until the last few
+months had never known sorrow, was the first to be stricken by the
+thunderbolt.
+
+She had been teaching Mrs. Trevor’s daughters for nearly six weeks,
+when one day the widow sent her a very condescending message
+inviting her to a small evening-party, which was to take place during
+the week.
+
+Of course Violet accepted the invitation. Painful as it would be to
+her to appear once more amongst careless and happy people, she feared
+to offend her employer by a refusal. She knew full well that she was
+invited to this party in order that she might be useful in showing
+off her pupils; and that any refusal on her part would inevitably be
+resented.
+
+Anastasia sang Rossini’s and Verdi’s music very brilliantly, and
+Violet would be required to accompany her on the piano. Theodosia had
+a fine contralto voice, and sang simple ballads with a great deal of
+expression; but it was a question if she would be allowed to sing
+before company. Mrs. Trevor did not care to see her younger daughter
+admired. She was jealous of all praise that was not bestowed upon
+herself or her favourite Anastasia. But Violet was determined that,
+if possible, Theodosia should sing one of her simple ballads in the
+course of the evening. She had taken a great deal of trouble with her
+younger pupil’s voice, and was anxious that Mrs. Trevor should be
+made aware of Theodosia’s rapid improvement. But it was no pride in
+her own teaching that made Violet anxious for this,--it was because
+she had really grown attached to her pupil.
+
+With Anastasia it was quite different. That young lady was resolved
+to display her accomplishments to the uttermost, and had perfect
+confidence in her own powers.
+
+The eventful evening arrived. Violet was dressed very simply; in
+deep mourning. But her fair face and golden hair were set off by her
+sombre dress, and she looked very lovely. Anastasia Trevor was by no
+means pleased to see the notice which the governess attracted as she
+made her way quietly and shyly through the crowd in the endeavour to
+reach her hostess. Miss Trevor was of the order of fast young ladies,
+and she had regarded Violet with a kind of benignant pity, as a
+creature utterly without “dash” or “style.”
+
+To be dashing was the chief desire of Miss Trevor’s heart. She
+studied the _Court Circular_ and the Parisian fashion-books; she
+formed herself and dressed herself after the model of the latest
+celebrity in the _haut monde_, and did not even blush to borrow a
+grace or a piquant eccentricity from some brilliant leader of the
+_demi monde_.
+
+To-night she had taken more than usual pains with her costume,
+complaining loudly as she did so, of the extravagance and selfishness
+of her mother, who had ordered her own dress from a Parisian milliner
+in Wigmore-street, while expecting her daughters to be satisfied with
+the achievements of a clever young person in Somers-town.
+
+“I hate white tarlatane!” exclaimed Miss Trevor, as she stood before
+her mother’s cheval glass, putting the finishing touches to her
+dress. “It is all very well for mamma to lay down the law about
+girlish elegance and simplicity when she gives twenty guineas for a
+moire, and wears lace worth hundreds, in order to set herself off to
+the best advantage.”
+
+The young lady looked very discontentedly at the airy puffings of
+her dress, which was dotted all over with dew-spangled rosebuds,
+and which was very becoming to the dark-haired beauty, but by no
+means the costume she would have chosen had she been permitted to
+consult Madame Forchère, of Wigmore-street. Nor was her temper at all
+improved when she saw the glances of admiring surprise which greeted
+Violet Westford as she made her way through the crowded room.
+
+Mrs. Montague Trevor’s drawing-room blazed with the light of a
+hundred wax candles. The elegant widow would not admit anything so
+vulgar and commonplace as gas into her apartments, so they were
+lighted entirely by wax candles, in branches of crystal and ormolu.
+
+The rooms were crowded to suffocation when Violet arrived. When
+Mrs. Trevor talked of giving a small evening-party, her friends
+always knew very well that her rooms and staircase would be made
+insufferable by the crowd assembled at the villa, and that the
+elegant supper would be a kind of lottery in which many speculators
+would draw blanks.
+
+Such a moment as this was the pride and delight of Mrs. Trevor’s
+life. Radiant in a train of pink moire, the rustling folds of which
+were almost covered with flounces of point-lace, the handsome widow
+smiled upon her guests.
+
+Among them she knew that there were several eligible men in a
+matrimonial point of view, and two of those eligible beings she had
+marked as her intended victims.
+
+One of these was Rupert Godwin the banker, whom Mrs. Trevor hoped to
+win as a husband for herself.
+
+She had been to a garden-party at Wilmingdon Hall, and had been
+agreeably impressed by the splendour of that old mansion and its
+surroundings, as well as by the extravagance of the arrangements.
+
+The other was Sir Harold Ivry, the wealthy descendant of a family
+of ironfounders; a young man who was the possessor of a million of
+money, and whom the widow fancied she might secure for her favourite
+daughter.
+
+Anastasia was handsome and accomplished; Sir Harold was young and
+independent. Why should not a match be brought about between them?
+
+This was what Mrs. Trevor thought; and she looked with peculiar
+favour on the wealthy scion of the Birmingham ironmaster.
+
+The manœuvring mother and the husband-hunting widow had a difficult
+part to play this evening, but the lady proved herself quite equal
+to the occasion. While engaged in a sentimental flirtation with the
+eligible banker, Mrs. Trevor contrived to keep a watchful eye upon
+Anastasia and the young Baronet.
+
+Nothing could exceed her mortification when she saw that Sir
+Harold paid very little attention to Anastasia, and that he seemed
+peculiarly attracted by the beautiful but pensive-looking governess,
+whose mourning dress and lovely pale face were very conspicuous amid
+that gaily attired crowd.
+
+Mrs. Trevor bit her lower lip with suppressed rage and mortification,
+even while she appeared to be smiling her sweetest smiles at Rupert
+Godwin.
+
+“It is too provoking,” she thought, as she kept a furtive watch
+upon the admiring glances which Sir Harold Ivry bestowed upon the
+governess. “I quite forgot that the creature is really remarkably
+pretty; and that mourning dress happens to suit her insipid
+complexion, and is, of course, worn on purpose to attract attention.
+What a fool I was to allow the artful minx to make her appearance
+amongst us to-night! But then I only thought of the use she would
+be to Anastasia, who always sings out of time when she accompanies
+herself.”
+
+While Mrs. Montague Trevor was enduring all these secret tortures,
+poor Violet Westford was quite unconscious of the Baronet’s admiring
+glances. She had seated herself in the quietest corner of the back
+drawing-room, in a sheltered little nook between the grand-piano and
+a stand of hot-house flowers, and she was waiting patiently until her
+services should be required.
+
+Sir Harold had approached her, and had made an attempt to enter into
+conversation with her, of course trying to break ground with some of
+the usual feeble truisms about the weather; but her brief and timid
+answers gave him little encouragement.
+
+Violet Westford could not be at her ease in this crowded assemblage,
+where she felt instinctively that she was looked down upon as a poor
+dependant--a well-bred and accomplished drudge, whose very presence
+was forgotten, except at the moment when her services were required.
+She could not help thinking a little sadly of the last party at
+which she had been a guest,--a carpet-dance at the house of some
+old friends in Hampshire, people considerably above Mrs. Trevor in
+position. She remembered the attention, the kindness, the praises
+that had been lavished upon her; and now she sat alone amongst a
+crowd, in which there was not one familiar face, except those of her
+employer and her two pupils.
+
+At last, the eventful moment of the evening arrived for the
+manœuvring mother and her favourite daughter.
+
+Violet took her place at the piano, and Anastasia prepared to
+commence an Italian bravura.
+
+Miss Trevor cast a glance of triumph round the room. She was the
+heroine of the moment, and she knew that she was looking very
+handsome. Sir Harold was standing near the piano, and he was watching
+her with a thoughtful look in his candid eyes.
+
+Anastasia fancied that thoughtful gaze could not be other than an
+admiring one; but she did not know very much of Sir Harold Ivry, who
+was a very peculiar young man, naturally reserved, and not given to
+displaying his real feelings.
+
+A murmur of admiration ran through the crowded drawing-rooms as
+Violet finished the symphony, so crisp and brilliant was her touch,
+and so correct her expression; and then Anastasia began her scena.
+Her voice was a soprano, very brilliant in quality, and highly
+cultivated; but though she sang well, the charm of feeling was
+wanting, and her singing seemed cold and colourless.
+
+Mrs. Trevor had been seated in the front drawing-room, talking to the
+banker; but she rose as Anastasia’s voice rang out in the opening
+notes of the scena.
+
+“You must hear my daughter sing, Mr. Godwin,” she said. “I think you
+will acknowledge that her voice is fine, and her style perfection.”
+
+She led Rupert Godwin towards the archway between the two
+drawing-rooms. There were no folding-doors, and only curtains of the
+airiest lace divided the two apartments.
+
+Mrs. Trevor and the banker stood in the archway between the festoons
+of drooping lace.
+
+The piano was at the other end of the room, and the faces of the
+singer and the accompanist were turned towards the archway.
+
+Rupert Godwin’s cheek grew paler than usual as he looked at the
+pensive face of the young governess. He had started at the first
+sight of that beautiful but melancholy countenance; but the gesture
+of surprise had been so slight as to escape the attention of Mrs.
+Trevor, who was gazing admiringly at her handsome daughter.
+
+“Who is that young lady?” whispered the banker; “the young lady at
+the piano--the young lady in deep mourning?”
+
+He asked the question with an eagerness that startled Mrs. Trevor,
+who was not a little offended at his inattention to her daughter’s
+singing.
+
+“That young lady who absorbs your attention so entirely is my
+daughters’ morning governess,” answered the widow, with considerable
+asperity of tone.
+
+“And her name?” demanded the banker.
+
+“Her name is Westford--Violet Westford. She is in mourning for her
+father, a merchant captain, who was lost at sea.”
+
+A slight shudder stirred Rupert Godwin’s frame, but it passed as
+quickly as the transient breath that ruffles the forest-leaves on a
+calm summer day.
+
+Then a dark frown obscured his face.
+
+“No child of Clara Westford’s shall succeed where I have power
+to hinder her success. When I bear a grudge, it is the great
+vendetta--war to the death against body and soul.”
+
+This was the gist of Mr. Godwin’s thoughts as he looked with a
+strange, menacing gaze at the fair face of the girl at the piano.
+
+“Westford!” he exclaimed. “And so your daughters’ governess is the
+daughter of Captain Westford. I am sorry for it.”
+
+“Why so?” asked Mrs. Trevor, with a look of alarm.
+
+“Because I am sincerely interested in the welfare and happiness of
+you and your daughters, my dear Mrs. Trevor; and I am sorry that
+the education of those charming girls should be intrusted to such a
+person as the daughter of Mrs. Westford.”
+
+All this was said in the blandest tone. Mr. Godwin could appear the
+best and most benevolent of men when it suited his purpose to do so.
+
+“You really terrify me out of my senses!” exclaimed Mrs. Trevor.
+“What can you mean? I had excellent references with Miss Westford.
+Pray explain yourself.”
+
+“Not now; there are people about who may overhear what we say.
+To-morrow, my dear Mrs. Trevor, or to-night even, if I find an
+opportunity, I will explain myself more fully.”
+
+Anastasia’s Italian scena wound up with a brilliant cadence,
+whereupon her mother’s guests fell into the usual ecstasies. And yet
+there were very few present who cared for showy Italian music except
+at an opera-house.
+
+Some one asked Theodosia to sing. The girl would have refused; but
+before she could do so Violet whispered to her, “I know you will
+consent, dear, to please me;” and in the next moment the brilliant
+fingers flew over the keys in the sparkling symphony of an old
+English ballad.
+
+Theodosia was truly attached to her new friend, and she drew near the
+piano, determined to do her best, however painful the task might be.
+
+“Good gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Trevor; “can I believe my eyes?
+Theodosia going to sing! She has a decent voice, poor child; but no
+style--no style whatever.”
+
+Nothing could be more contemptuous than the tone in which the mother
+said this. She did not like that Theodosia should attract attention
+which might have been bestowed upon Anastasia.
+
+The first notes of the rich contralto voice were low and tremulous,
+but they swelled out presently in a burst of melody. The song was
+a very simple one--an old familiar ballad, “Auld Robin Gray;” but
+before Theodosia had finished the last verse, tears had bedewed the
+eyes of many listeners.
+
+Anastasia’s brief triumph was entirely eclipsed. The praises which
+had been bestowed upon her had sounded cold and unreal compared
+to those now lavished on her sister. The vain girl could scarcely
+conceal her mortification, and her mother seemed almost equally
+annoyed.
+
+“I should have been glad if you had asked my permission before you
+allowed Theodosia to sing, Miss Westford,” she said to Violet,
+in her sharpest tones. “I consider her too young to display her
+accomplishments in a crowded room; and that old-fashioned ballad is
+better suited for a nursery ditty than for a drawing-room.”
+
+Sir Harold Ivry overheard this speech, and replied to it eagerly.
+
+“Pray do not say that, my dear Mrs. Trevor!” he exclaimed. “Your
+youngest daughter’s singing has drawn tears from our eyes, and has
+made us forget what hardened worldly creatures we are!”
+
+He glanced admiringly at Theodosia as he spoke; but the next moment
+his eyes wandered to the beautiful face of Violet Westford, and with
+a still more admiring gaze.
+
+“I am sure that Miss Theodosia Trevor owes a great deal to her
+governess,” he said. And then in a lower voice he added to Violet,
+“Pray let us hear you sing.”
+
+Mrs. Trevor’s brow darkened: but she could not oppose the wishes of
+the Baronet, who was a privileged person in that house.
+
+“Will you persuade her, Mrs. Trevor?” he said. “I feel that my
+entreaties will be useless. Pray ask Miss Westford to sing.”
+
+The widow complied, and resumed all her accustomed sweetness of
+manner, as she requested Violet to grant the Baronet’s request.
+
+Poor Violet was much too single-hearted to understand the sudden
+anger raging in Mrs. Trevor’s breast. She was entirely without
+affectation, and she consented to sing directly she was asked.
+
+She sang one of Thomas Moore’s sweetest and most pensive ballads,
+“Oft in the stilly night;” and again the eyes of almost every
+listener were wet with tears.
+
+Her own eyes filled, as she remembered how often she had sung that
+ballad in her happy home, in the pleasant summer twilight, after
+dinner, or in the winter dusk, when her lost father was near to
+listen and admire. Sir Harold Ivry saw those dark blue eyes fill with
+tears, and he saw that it was only with a struggle that Violet could
+control her emotion.
+
+He bent over her chair to thank her at the conclusion of the song.
+
+“But I fear the ballad has melancholy associations,” he added in a
+lower voice.
+
+“It has indeed; for it recalls the dear father I have lost, and the
+memory of a home that is deserted.”
+
+“It is for your father, then, you wear that mourning dress? O,
+forgive me, if I appear inquisitive. I am so deeply interested in all
+that concerns you.”
+
+Violet looked up at the Baronet with a glance of innocent surprise.
+She was entirely without vanity, and she could not imagine why Sir
+Harold should be interested about her.
+
+“Yes,” she answered sadly; “I am in mourning for my father--the best
+father who ever made his children’s life happy.”
+
+No more was said; for Anastasia was about to sing again, and Violet
+was required at the piano.
+
+Half an hour afterwards the crowd began to grow thin, and Violet
+obtained permission to retire. It was already past two o’clock; for
+Mrs. Trevor’s little party had not begun until eleven, and the poor
+girl was anxious to return to the cheerless lodging where her mother
+was doubtless waiting up to receive her.
+
+Violet noticed a peculiar stateliness in Mrs. Trevor’s manner as that
+lady wished her good-night; but she was too tired even to wonder
+about that altered manner. She left the room very quietly, and went
+down to the hall, where she had left her cloak and bonnet in the care
+of one of the servants. She had refused to incur even the expense
+of a cab to bring her to Mrs. Trevor’s house, for the luxury of
+that plebeian vehicle would have cost half a week’s salary. She had
+preferred to hide her simple evening toilette under a heavy black
+cloak, and to make her way to the villa on foot.
+
+She had just put on her bonnet and cloak when a light footstep
+sounded on the stairs, and in the next moment Sir Harold Ivry stood
+before her.
+
+“I hope you will allow me to see you safely home, Miss Westford,” he
+said, with profound respect in his tone and manner. “I know you are
+alone here, and it will give me unbounded pleasure to conduct you
+safely to your home.”
+
+Violet blushed; for in the happy days that were gone she had been
+accustomed to be handed to her carriage after a party or a ball.
+
+She could not help feeling some touch of shame--false shame, if you
+will; but after that one instant of confusion, she answered boldly,
+“You are very kind, Sir Harold; but I am going to walk home, and I
+believe my brother will be waiting outside to take care of me.”
+
+“Your brother!” exclaimed the Baronet, who was unable to conceal his
+disappointment. “Then in that case I must surrender you to one who
+has the best possible right to protect you. But at least you will
+allow me to conduct you to your brother.”
+
+He offered Violet his arm as he spoke, and she felt that she could
+not refuse to take it.
+
+Sir Harold did not escort her very far, for Lionel was waiting at
+the end of the terrace, and to his care the Baronet was compelled to
+resign his precious charge.
+
+We often hear and read of love at first sight, and certainly Sir
+Harold Ivry seemed to have fallen a victim to that sudden fever.
+
+Violet could not do less than introduce him to her brother: and for
+some little way they all three walked on together, Sir Harold doing
+his best to make himself agreeable to Lionel.
+
+It was a bright summer night, and a full moon was shining high in the
+cloudless heaven. Even London, so dingy in its usual aspect, looked
+romantic when seen by that soft silvery light.
+
+But as Violet looked at her brother, a pang shot through her heart as
+she compared his worn and shabby attire with the costume of the rich
+young Baronet.
+
+Lionel Westford still retained his gentlemanly bearing, but the awful
+stamp of poverty was upon him; and Violet’s heart was wrung as she
+remembered the gay, dashing young Oxonian, to whom life had been one
+long summer holiday, disturbed by no harder toil than the study of an
+obscure passage in Euripides, or a week’s training for the University
+boat race.
+
+It seemed as if that moonlight walk through the streets of London was
+a most delightful thing to Sir Harold, for he went on, and on, until
+they were drawing near to Waterloo Bridge, when he stopped to say
+good-night, feeling that his companions might not wish him to know
+the humble quarter of the town in which they lived.
+
+He had seen enough to understand that Violet and her brother had sunk
+from prosperity to poverty--poverty of the sharpest and bitterest
+kind, the poverty that must conceal itself under the mask of
+gentility.
+
+He lingered, as he wished Violet good-night. It seemed as if he could
+scarcely tear himself away from her.
+
+“I shall never forget your song,” he said; “it is ringing in my ears
+still--I shall never forget it; but I hope to hear you soon again.”
+
+And then he was compelled to say good-night, for Lionel Westford’s
+manner repelled any approach to intimacy. Poverty had made the young
+man proud. He, to whom pride had once been an unknown sentiment, was
+now almost haughty in his manner to strangers.
+
+“How lovely she is!” thought Sir Harold, as he walked through the
+moonlit streets towards his chambers in the Albany. “How lovely she
+is! And what an air of high breeding there is in her every tone and
+gesture! And to think that such a woman should be poor, compelled to
+walk through the streets at three o’clock in the morning--compelled
+to put on her cloak at the bottom of a staircase, with half-a-dozen
+grinning flunkeys staring at her while she does it. It’s too
+bad--it’s shameful.”
+
+Then, after a pause, the Baronet murmured, “While I am so rich;
+while I have thousands lying idle at my banker’s, and half-a-million
+in the public funds! But I will call on Mrs. Trevor to-morrow, and
+find out Miss Westford’s address. I will send her a thousand pounds
+anonymously. I will do something, no matter how desperate, even at
+the risk of being kicked as an intrusive snob by that priggish young
+brother of hers, who was very stand-offish just now as he bade me
+good-night.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A DAUGHTER’S TRIAL.
+
+
+Late though it was when she returned home after Mrs. Trevor’s party.
+Violet knew that she must be punctual in her attendance on her pupils
+on the following morning. At eight o’clock she was walking westwards,
+after having taken her scanty breakfast at home. No refreshment had
+ever been offered to her at Mrs. Trevor’s house, for the widow knew
+how to make the best of a good bargain; and liberal though she was
+in the matter of fine words and elegant compliments, she would have
+grudged her hard-working slave a cup of tea or a class of indifferent
+sherry.
+
+Nine was striking as Violet was admitted into the hall. She was about
+to proceed to the back-staircase, which led to the schoolroom, when
+the man-of-all-work stopped her.
+
+“My missus wants to see you in her _boodore_,” he said, with the
+cool insolence with which a well-paid footman addresses an ill-paid
+governess; “which it’s very important, and you wos to go upstairs
+immediate, and to look sharp about it.”
+
+Violet was surprised at this summons, as Mrs. Trevor rarely rose
+until nearly mid-day, when it was her habit to sit sipping her
+chocolate and reading a novel until it was time to go out upon
+a round of fashionable visits; but, although the governess was
+surprised at this unexpected summons, she was in no way apprehensive
+of any unpleasantness in an interview with her employer.
+
+Never had she looked brighter or prettier than when she presented
+herself before Mrs. Trevor, who had not long risen from her bed, and
+who sat untidily dressed in a loose morning-gown, at a well furnished
+breakfast-table. The barrister’s widow had acquired the tastes of an
+accomplished _gourmet_ from her late husband, and was selecting the
+daintiest morsels out of a raised pie for her own consumption as Miss
+Westford entered the room.
+
+Her favourite daughter Anastasia was sitting on the other side of the
+table, and a dark frown obscured that young lady’s handsome face.
+
+She had perceived the impression made by Violet Westford on Sir
+Harold Ivry, and she felt something nearly akin to hatred for the
+innocent girl whose charms had outrivalled her own.
+
+Violet saw at a glance that something had happened to alter her
+position in the estimation of Mrs. and Miss Trevor; but, as her
+conscience was entirely free from blame, she met the changed looks of
+the two ladies with a frank and fearless countenance.
+
+“Miss Westford,” exclaimed Mrs. Trevor in the affected and high-flown
+manner which was peculiar to her, “when you first entered this room,
+you entered the presence of a woman who is as confiding as a child.
+I saw you, and I liked you. You are beautiful; and I am a sensitive
+creature, to whom the presence of beautiful things is almost a
+necessity. You sought to enter my employment; I accepted your offer
+with confidence; I admitted you into my household; I trusted you with
+the care of my innocent girls; and now--now, when I had lulled myself
+to rest, believing in your truth and purity, I find that I have
+nourished a viper.”
+
+Violet started and turned deadly pale. Never before had Captain
+Westford’s daughter known what it was to receive an insult.
+
+“Madam!” she exclaimed, with a sudden pride, which contrasted
+strangely with her usual gentleness, “you are mistaken in the person
+you address in this extraordinary manner.”
+
+“I wish I were,” answered Mrs. Trevor, shaking her head solemnly. “I
+wish I were indeed mistaken, and that I could awake from my delusion
+to find you worthy of my confidence.”
+
+“In what way have I proved myself unworthy of that confidence,
+madam?” asked Violet, with the same proud and fearless manner.
+
+“O, Miss Westford,” ejaculated the widow, raising her lace-bordered
+handkerchief to her eyes, with a sniff that was meant for a sob, “it
+is a sad case--a most painful case. It is not yourself against whom
+I have anything to say--except, indeed, that you have withheld the
+truth from me.”
+
+“I have withheld the truth, madam?” exclaimed Violet. “What truth
+have I withheld from you?”
+
+“You entered my house under false pretences; you concealed from me
+the character of--your--unhappy mother.”
+
+At this point Mrs. Trevor made a pretence of being almost overcome by
+her emotion.
+
+“The character of my mother!” cried Violet. “What should I tell you
+of her, madam, except that she is the best and dearest of mothers,
+and that I love her better than my life?”
+
+“Unhappy girl! Do you pretend to be ignorant of your mother’s
+character prior to her marriage with your father?”
+
+“Ignorant, madam! What should I know of my dear mother? Who is it
+that dares sully her name by so much as a whisper?”
+
+“One who knows her only too well,” answered Mrs. Trevor. “Alas, poor
+child! I begin to think you may indeed be ignorant of the truth. And
+yet surely you must know the maiden name of your own mother?”
+
+A vivid blush suddenly dyed Violet’s pale cheeks. For a moment a
+deadly fear--shadowy, shapeless, but terrible--took possession of her.
+
+She had never been told the maiden name of her mother. More than
+this, she remembered that she had never heard that mother allude to
+any one circumstance of her early life. A dark veil of mystery had
+seemed to shroud that portion of Mrs. Westford’s existence.
+
+But the daughter’s love was stronger than the base feeling of
+suspicion, that poisonous and fatal weed which at times twines itself
+about the purest and truest heart.
+
+“I beg to resign my situation here this instant, Mrs. Trevor,” Violet
+exclaimed, indignantly. “If any one has dared to slander my mother
+in your hearing, I declare that person to be the falsest and basest
+of mankind. But, be it as it may, I will not stop an hour in a house
+where my mother’s name has been sullied by the breath of suspicion.”
+
+“The person who told me your mother’s sad story--sad and shameful
+also, alas!” sighed Mrs. Trevor, “is a person far too high in
+position to become the promoter of any idle slander. He spoke of
+facts--facts which I thought you might have been able to disprove;
+but you cannot do so. You cannot even tell me your mother’s maiden
+name. But I can tell you that name, Miss Westford. Your mother’s name
+was Ponsonby, and she was turned out of doors by her father, Sir John
+Ponsonby, when his heart had been almost broken by the disgrace which
+had fallen upon his daughter.”
+
+“What disgrace, madam?”
+
+Mrs. Trevor was silent. Rupert Godwin had not chosen to tell her that
+he was the lover whose conduct had caused a cruel slander to blacken
+the name of Clara Ponsonby.
+
+“What was that disgrace, madam?” repeated Violet. “I have a right to
+know the extent of the falsehoods that some wretch has dared to utter
+against the best and purest of women.”
+
+“Nay, child,” answered Mrs. Trevor, with affected sympathy; “enough
+has been said--more than enough! I pity your misfortune, for no
+misfortune can be greater than that of being the daughter of a
+worthless woman. I pity you, Miss Westford. But I am a mother myself;
+I have my own daughters to consider, and I cannot possibly allow you
+to enter this house again.”
+
+“You cannot allow me, madam!” cried Violet, with passionate
+indignation. “Do you think my own feelings will allow me ever again
+to cross the threshold of a house in which my mothers name has been
+so cruelly and pitilessly slandered? No, Mrs. Trevor! I wish you good
+morning; and I can only trust that we may never again meet. You may
+have been deceived by your informant, but I cannot forgive you for
+being so ready to think ill of my dear mother.”
+
+Having said this, Violet left the room, calm and dignified in outward
+seeming, though her heart was almost bursting with the agony that
+tortured it.
+
+Mrs. Trevor sat for some moments staring at the door by which the
+young girl had left her apartments, as if she could scarcely collect
+her scattered senses.
+
+“Did you ever see such assurance, Anastasia?” she exclaimed at last.
+“If this penniless girl had been the Queen of England she could
+scarcely have answered me more proudly. However, we’ve got rid of
+her, that’s one comfort. It’s very lucky Rupert Godwin told me what
+he did, for I’m sure that designing creature would have set her cap
+at Sir Harold Ivry, and tried to supplant you, my pet. I had my eye
+upon her last night, though she little knew it, and I saw her artful
+manœuvres.”
+
+Anastasia Trevor bit her lips with vexation as she remembered the
+events of the previous evening--the evening which was to have been
+one long triumph to herself, and which had only resulted in bitter
+disappointment and humiliation. Hypocritical though we may be in our
+conduct to the world, we cannot deceive ourselves; and Anastasia
+knew only too well that Sir Harold’s admiration had been freely and
+spontaneously given, and that Violet had been even unconscious of the
+impression she had made.
+
+“There’s one blessing,” exclaimed the fashionable Mrs. Trevor, after
+some minutes of meditation, “we save half a week’s salary by this
+quarrel--though where we shall get such another governess for the
+same money, goodness only knows!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+LOVE AT SIGHT.
+
+
+While Violet walked slowly homewards to the cheerless lodging in that
+dingy street near the Waterloo-road, a mail-phaeton dashed up to
+Mrs. Trevor’s pretty villa, and Sir Harold Ivry alighted.
+
+It was the fashionable hour for paving and receiving visits; so the
+widow and her favourite daughter were seated in the drawing-room,
+dressed exquisitely, prepared to fascinate any eligible marrying man
+who might fall in their way, for which favoured being the delights of
+social afternoon tea were specially reserved.
+
+Anastasia was seated close to the window, pretending to be occupied
+by some fashionable Berlin-wool work; but she watched the phaeton as
+it drew up to the door.
+
+“Mamma!” she exclaimed, “it is Sir Harold!”
+
+“Indeed!” cried Mrs. Trevor, in triumphant tones. “Then you see last
+night’s party was not an unsuccessful affair after all. The Baronet
+must be smitten, or he would never be in such a hurry to call. I
+shall see you mistress of that splendid place in the North, my love,
+depend upon it.”
+
+“That’s just like you, mamma!” exclaimed the petted Anastasia,
+impatiently; “you always fancy that everything is going to happen
+just as you want it. I’m sure Sir Harold took no more notice of me
+last night than if I were the plainest gawky that ever emerged from a
+third-rate boarding-school. And I daresay he has only come to-day in
+the hope of seeing _that_ Miss Westford.”
+
+“What!” shrieked Mrs. Trevor, almost hysterically. “You don’t mean
+to tell me that Sir Harold would presume to come to my house for
+the purpose of paying his addresses to your governess! Nonsense,
+Anastasia, you are really too absurd.”
+
+No more could be said, for the Baronet was announced, and the two
+ladies turned to receive him with their brightest smiles.
+
+“My dear Sir Harold, how very kind of you to call to-day!” exclaimed
+the widow.
+
+“Your party was so charming, Mrs. Trevor, that I really could not
+delay coming to tell you how thoroughly I enjoyed myself, and to
+express a hope that neither you nor your daughters were fatigued
+by your exertions in our behalf,” answered the young man. “How
+magnificently Miss Trevor sang!” he added, bowing to Anastasia; “and
+Miss Theodosia; and that other young lady, Miss Westford--what a
+lovely voice she has!”
+
+Anastasia crimsoned with anger. The Baronet did not even attempt to
+conceal his admiration of Violet. Mrs. Trevor’s indignation knew no
+bounds, and yet she contrived to smile sweetly at the Baronet.
+
+_Nil desperandum_ is the motto of every manœuvring mother; and
+Mrs. Trevor was by no means disposed to abandon her hopes at the
+first disappointment. Even though Sir Harold admired the penniless
+governess, a little clever management and an unlimited amount of
+flattery might change the current of his fancies, and bring him to
+the feet of Anastasia.
+
+This is what Mrs. Trevor thought; and this hope inspired her with
+heroic courage.
+
+The Baronet talked of general subjects for some little time. He
+discussed the operas, the picture galleries, the botanical fêtes,
+the delights of a Sunday afternoon at the “Zoo,” the Toxophilite
+Society’s field-days in the neighbouring park, and the movements
+of the Royal Family, in the most conventional strain of polite
+commonplace; but Mrs. Trevor could see that he talked at random,
+and that he was thinking of other subjects than those in which he
+pretended to be interested. At last he broke out suddenly, without
+any reference to his previous conversation:
+
+“What a charming girl that Miss Westford is! I never saw any one I so
+much admired. She is so lovely, so modest, so completely unconscious
+of her own beauty! She is really the most bewitching creature I ever
+beheld; and O, my dear Mrs. Trevor, if you wish to render me your
+grateful and devoted slave, pray introduce me to that charming girl’s
+family! I want so much to know them, that I may have the opportunity
+of seeing more of her.”
+
+“Sir Harold, I really am at a loss to----”
+
+“O, pray do not misunderstand me, my dear Mrs. Trevor. You surely
+cannot think that I should feel any less respect for that sweet
+girl, because I find her in a dependent position--going away from a
+party on foot, and all that kind of thing. No, Mrs. Trevor, I am not
+the man to be influenced by any consideration of that sort. I am no
+aristocrat, as you and all the world know very well indeed. My father
+won his position by sheer hard work, and there’s a blundering old
+wheelbarrow kept in a lumber room at Ivry Place, which my grandfather
+used to wheel when he was a navvy, and helped to make the Slopsall
+Canal down in our county. So, you see, it wouldn’t do for me to
+give myself airs. I am rich, independent, and can afford to marry
+the woman I love, if I am only so happy as to win her regard. Under
+these circumstances, Mrs. Trevor, I am sure you will believe me when
+I declare the honourable nature of my intentions with regard to Miss
+Westford; and I know you are just the kind of warm-hearted woman to
+be fond of that feminine amusement called match-making. You’ll not
+refuse to introduce me to her family, will you now?”
+
+No words can describe Mrs. Trevor’s rage and mortification as she
+listened to this speech. Here was the wealthy Baronet, whom she
+had intended to win as a husband for her own daughter, utterly
+indifferent to Anastasia’s charms, and ready to throw himself at the
+feet of a friendless orphan girl, whom he had only seen once in his
+life. The fashionable widow was past-mistress of all the hypocrisies
+of polished society. She contrived, therefore, to conceal her
+aggravation, and looked at Sir Harold with a countenance expressive
+only of the most profound sympathy.
+
+“My dear Sir Harold,” she exclaimed, with a long-drawn sigh, “I pity
+you--I do indeed pity you. Nothing could be more charming than the
+sentiments which you so eloquently express. I only regret that they
+should be wasted upon an unworthy object.”
+
+“An unworthy object, Mrs. Trevor!” cried the Baronet; “what do you
+mean?”
+
+“I have only this morning dismissed Miss Westford from my employment
+as an unfit associate for my dear children.”
+
+Annabella Trevor gave a little shiver of horror as she spoke. The
+Baronet turned pale, and the widow saw that her poisoned arrow had
+gone home to its mark.
+
+“You dismissed her!” exclaimed Sir Harold. “An unfit associate! But
+how?”
+
+“_That_ I decline to tell you,” answered Mrs. Trevor, with supreme
+dignity. “There are secrets which no honourable woman can ever bring
+herself to reveal. I will not sully my lips by repeating what has
+passed between Miss Westford and myself. It is enough for you to know
+that she was dismissed from this house--and in disgrace.”
+
+“But the nature of that disgrace, Mrs. Trevor?” asked the Baronet, in
+an almost imploring tone.
+
+“_That_, I must repeat, I decline to tell you; and I must beg you,
+as a gentleman, not to press the question,” answered the lady with
+dignity. “Surely, Sir Harold, you cannot doubt my word?”
+
+“Doubt you, Mrs. Trevor! O, no, no. What motive could you possibly
+have for blighting the fair fame of this poor girl? I _cannot_ doubt
+you. But the blow is very bitter to me. A few days ago, I should
+have ridiculed the mere idea of love at first sight; and yet I
+believe, upon my word, that I am as deeply attached to Miss Westford
+as if I had known her for half a lifetime. And to discover that she
+is unworthy of an honest man’s regard! O, Mrs. Trevor, you cannot
+imagine how cruelly I feel this disappointment!”
+
+In his almost boyish candour, the Baronet made no attempt to conceal
+the state of his feelings. Anastasia looked at him with mingled
+contempt and anger. She had always envied and disliked Violet
+Westford for her superior beauty; but now she hated her with as
+fierce a hatred as ever raged in a woman’s breast.
+
+Sir Harold Ivry rose to take leave.
+
+“I fear I have made a fool of myself, and that you must really
+despise me, ladies,” he said, blushing crimson, as he remembered the
+emotion he had betrayed; “but I am a spoiled child of fortune, and I
+am not used to disappointment--and I am the worst possible hand at
+keeping a secret. Forgive me for having bored you with my affairs.
+Good morning.”
+
+He shook hands with both the ladies, and was about to leave; but Mrs.
+Trevor was not inclined to let him escape so easily.
+
+“You will dine with us to-morrow evening, I hope, Sir Harold, and
+escort us to Covent Garden, where my dear friend Lady Mordaunt has
+given me her box. Pray don’t say you are engaged elsewhere. Anastasia
+knows you are an excellent musical critic, and wants to hear your
+opinion of the new opera.”
+
+The young man hesitated for some moments, but at last accepted the
+invitation.
+
+He did not do so from any regard for Mrs. Trevor or her daughter,
+but because he still cherished the hope that from them he should
+discover the truth about Violet Westford. He left the house very
+much depressed and disheartened by what he had heard, and ashamed of
+his impetuous devotion, now that he had been told that its object
+was base and unworthy. He had been accustomed to find life the
+pleasantest, easiest kind of affair, like a royal progress by special
+train, with a saloon-carriage fitted by Jackson and Graham to repose
+in, and all the stations draped with red cloth and festooned with
+garlands in honour of the favoured traveller. To-day, for the first
+time, he discovered that there is happiness which wealth cannot
+purchase, and his disappointment was even keener than that of the
+young spendthrift, who wanted a box for the opera on one of Jenny
+Lind’s field-nights, and offered a hundred pounds for the object of
+his desire, only to be told that it was impossible of attainment
+even at that price; whereupon he left Mr. Mitchell’s shop, murmuring
+dolefully, “By Jove, there’s something that money won’t buy!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+VIOLET RESOLVES UPON ENTERING A NEW SPHERE.
+
+
+A cloud fell upon the little household in the purlieus of the
+Waterloo-road. Violet sought for fresh employment, but in vain. She
+was incapable of uttering a falsehood, and she did not attempt to
+conceal the fact of her having lately quitted Mrs. Montague Trevor’s
+employment.
+
+In every case she was asked for a reference to her late employer, and
+when she refused to refer to Mrs. Trevor, people shook their heads.
+The case looked suspicious, and no one would have anything to say to
+the helpless girl, whose youth and beauty were additional obstacles
+to her success.
+
+Thus Violet found herself with a blighted character, helpless and
+friendless, in the vast city of London.
+
+Now for the first time the poor girl’s heart failed; her courage
+gave way. Her enforced idleness gave her time for thought, and she
+sat brooding upon her fate for hours together, until a profound
+melancholy took possession of her.
+
+She had lost so much--a doting father; a betrothed lover, in whom
+she had so fondly trusted--it was scarcely strange that she should
+feel her life very hopeless and desolate, even though her mother and
+Lionel were still left to her.
+
+Once, and once only, she had written to George Stanmore, at the
+Poste Restante, Bruges. She had written to him, telling him of her
+father’s death, and the sad changes of fortune which had followed
+that calamity. In a spirit of mingled pride and generosity she had
+released her lover from the engagement that bound him to her.
+
+No answer had come to that letter. Violet could only imagine that Mr.
+Stanmore had left Bruges, or that he accepted her release in silence.
+The pain of this thought was very bitter; but Violet Westford was
+becoming used to sorrow. Neither her mother nor Lionel suspected the
+existence of that hidden grief, which made a dull aching anguish in
+the girl’s breast.
+
+And in the meantime they were poor, very poor. Toil as she might with
+her skilful needle, Clara Westford could earn very little towards the
+support of that small household; and Lionel’s earnings as a copyist
+of law-papers were very uncertain. It was only by the most unfailing
+economy that this once prosperous family were able to pay the rent of
+the pitiful lodging, and obtain the commonest necessaries of life.
+
+To Violet enforced idleness was almost insupportable. She saw those
+she loved toiling through the long weary days--hot summer days, whose
+sunshine brought back the remembrance of the shadowy gardens about
+the Grange, the cool depths of the forest, those deep and sheltered
+glades in which she had spent such careless hours of happiness with
+George Stanmore. When she saw her mother and Lionel toiling in their
+close, dingy London lodging, and felt that she could do nothing to
+help them, despair took possession of her heart.
+
+Every day she answered fresh advertisements in the _Times_ newspaper,
+the hire of which from a neighbouring stationer cost her a penny a
+day. Every day she walked weary miles, in order to form one of the
+crowd of helpless girls, highly educated and tenderly reared, whom
+the iron hand of poverty has thrust out upon the hard world of London.
+
+But her perseverance was of no avail. Without a reference to her
+former employer, no one would venture to trust in her. Even her
+beauty--that gift so precious for the pampered child of a luxurious
+home--became an impediment to her success, and gave rise to cruel
+suspicions about her in the minds of the worldly-wise.
+
+She had doubtless been dismissed from her last situation because of
+some imprudence--or perhaps something worse than imprudence--which
+rendered her unfit to be the companion and guardian of innocence.
+
+After efforts that would have almost exhausted the patience of a
+martyr, Violet’s hope and courage at last failed her altogether,
+and she gave up all thought of obtaining another situation. She was
+crushed and bowed to the very earth under the burden of despair.
+
+It was on a glorious day in August that this sense of utter
+hopelessness took possession of her mind. She had walked to Hampstead
+that morning, after breakfasting on a little dry bread and a
+teacupful of milk. She had walked from the Waterloo-road to the
+breezy Heath at Hampstead, and had presented herself before noon at
+a pretentious villa, only to be told by its prosperous mistress that
+she was a great deal too young for the situation.
+
+“There was no age stated in the advertisement, madam,” poor Violet
+pleaded almost piteously; “and I can assure you that I possess all
+the accomplishments required, or I should not have applied for the
+situation.”
+
+“Very likely,” answered the lady of the villa, who was the wife of
+an ironmonger at the West-end; “very likely you have a school-girl’s
+smattering of the accomplishments I require; but I could not possibly
+intrust my children’s education to a person of your age, and I really
+consider it almost an impertinence in a girl of nineteen to apply for
+such a position as governess in a house of this kind.”
+
+The lady tossed her head contemptuously as she uttered this speech.
+Had there been one spark of womanly feeling in her breast, she
+might have seen that poor Violet was well-nigh exhausted from sheer
+fatigue, and ready to drop fainting to the floor. She might have
+seen the mute anguish pourtrayed in the girl’s face; and she might
+at least have offered a glass of wine from her well-stocked cellar,
+and a few words of sympathy and comfort from one Christian woman to
+another.
+
+“Alas for the rarity of Christian charity” in this hard world! The
+lady of the villa only rang the bell, and desired her servant to show
+the “young person” out. Poor Violet found a seat upon the Heath,
+where she was able to rest for some time, in order to regain strength
+for the long homeward walk. There was no occasion for haste; why
+should she hurry home, when she had no good tidings for those whom
+she loved? She had only the old cruel story to tell--the story of
+failure and disappointment.
+
+She sat for a long time, gazing dreamily at the dark roofs and
+steeples of the city, which were half hidden under a cloud of smoke
+in the valley beneath her. Then at last she rose, and walked slowly
+and despondently homewards.
+
+The walk was a very long one; and the way she went took her across
+Long-acre and into Bow-street, which she entered at about three
+o’clock in the afternoon, dusty with her long walk in the high-road,
+pale and exhausted with fatigue.
+
+Bow-street was very busy at this hour of the afternoon. A series of
+cheap performances were being given at the close of the Covent-Garden
+opera-season, and people were buying tickets and engaging boxes for
+the night’s entertainment.
+
+Bow-street is the centre of the theatrical world of London. In this
+street the dramatic agents have their offices, and to those offices
+flock all classes of the theatrical profession, from the provincial
+Macready, who is only waiting to get an innings in order to set the
+town in a blaze, and who enters the official chamber with a pompous
+tragedy stalk, to the timid amateur aspirant for dramatic fame,
+who has never yet set foot upon a public stage, and who announces
+his approach by a faint nervous cough, expressive of profound
+self-abasement.
+
+The street is redolent of the footlights. Here the theatrical
+wigmaker exhibits the flowing _chevelure_ of roistering
+Charles Stuart--that supreme favourite of _vaudeville_ and
+_commedietta_--side by side with the oily locks of _Tartuffe_, or
+the close-cropped poll of Jack Sheppard. There the theatrical hosier
+displays the sacred mysteries of his art, and treacherously reveals
+the means by which art and cotton-wool can supply the deficiencies of
+nature. Close at hand the theatrical gold-lace maker sets forth his
+glittering wares, and allows the vulgar eye to gloat upon the diadem
+of a Richard, and the jewelled sword-hilt of a Romeo. Next door hang
+Beauty’s robes, limp and dowdy of aspect when untenanted by their
+fair mistress. Everywhere the specialty of the street reveals itself.
+
+Walking slowly down this street, Violet Westford glanced, in sheer
+absence of mind, at the big brass plate upon the door of a dramatic
+agent’s offices.
+
+A dramatic agent! It was only after a few moments’ reflection that
+she understood what the term meant.
+
+A dramatic agent, of course, must be a person whose business it is to
+procure situations for actors and actresses.
+
+A sudden and desperate fancy entered Violet’s brain. She knew that
+people earned money, sometimes a great deal of money, by acting. She
+had read novels in which lovely young creatures, with a taste for
+histrionics, had walked straight from their domestic retirement on
+to the stage of Drury Lane, to take the town by storm on their first
+appearance, and to be the delight and glory of the universe, until
+prevailed upon to exchange the triumphs of the drama for the social
+successes of fashionable life by an adoring duke, who languishes to
+lay his strawberry leaves and rent-roll at their feet.
+
+Why should she not be an actress? She was rejected on every side as a
+governess. In her despair, she would have been almost willing to have
+swept a crossing, if by so doing she might have helped her mother and
+Lionel.
+
+Why should she not be an actress? The thought was not quite so wild
+as it seemed. Violet Westford had often acted in amateur theatricals
+in pleasant country-houses near the Grange, and at merry Christmas
+gatherings in her own home. She had shown considerable talent
+upon these occasions, and had been much admired and applauded for
+that talent; and she had no idea of the width of that gulf which
+divides the clever young actress of the domestic charade from the
+hard-working artist who woos public favour.
+
+She remembered her social successes--not with any feeling of vanity,
+but as one last wild hope, to which, in the depth of her despair, she
+was ready to cling, as the drowning sailor clings to the frailest
+plank that ever floated on a blustrous ocean.
+
+Acting on the impulse of the moment, she seemed inspired by a
+boldness that was strange to her. She entered the open doorway
+by which she had seen the brass plate, and went up an uncarpeted
+staircase leading to the first-floor. Here she saw the word “office”
+painted upon a door opposite to her. She knocked timidly, and a
+voice, that sounded harsh and abrupt in her unaccustomed ears, told
+her to enter.
+
+She went into the room, and found herself in the presence of a man
+of about five-and-thirty years of age, who was sitting at a table
+writing, with a heap of papers, open letters, and many-coloured
+playbills lying about him.
+
+The walls of the room were adorned with big rainbow-hued playbills
+and theatrical portraits. In one of the curtainless windows a
+foppishly dressed man was lounging, with his back to the interior of
+the room.
+
+The agent looked up from his writing, and bowed to Violet; but he did
+not speak. He evidently waited for her to state her business.
+
+The poor girl’s courage failed her all at once. Physically exhausted
+by her long and weary walk, she was not capable of any very heroic
+mental effort. She dropped into the chair to which the agent pointed.
+Her lips moved tremulously; but she could not speak.
+
+Fortunately, the agent was by no means an ill-natured man. He saw
+Violet’s embarrassment, and came to her relief.
+
+“You want an engagement, I suppose?” he said.
+
+“Yes,” faltered Violet.
+
+“Very good. You’ve brought some bills with you, I suppose?”
+
+“Bills, sir? I----”
+
+“Yes; bills from the theatre where you were last engaged. What’s
+your line of business? The juvenile lead, I suppose, or first
+walking-ladies, hay? Where have you been acting lately?”
+
+Violet shook her head.
+
+“I have never acted in any theatre,” she said. “I have only acted in
+private theatricals at the houses of my friends.”
+
+“What!” cried the agent. “Do you mean to say you’ve never acted on a
+public stage?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+Mr. Henry de Lancy, the agent, who had been born a Higgins, gave a
+long whistle, expressive of extreme surprise.
+
+“Then you’re a regular amateur, my dear girl,” he said, “and as
+ignorant as a baby. I don’t suppose the manager of any theatre in
+England would care to engage you--unless you were willing to go for a
+month or so on trial, without any salary.”
+
+Without any salary! Violet’s heart sank in her breast. It was the
+salary, and the salary alone, she wanted. She did not wish to exhibit
+herself before a gaping crowd. She only wanted to earn money for
+those she loved.
+
+“You don’t seem to like the idea,” said Mr. de Lancy. “Most young
+ladies like you are very glad to get the chance of acting, and would
+often be willing even to pay for it. Indeed, there are many of them
+who do pay--and pretty stiffly too.”
+
+“Perhaps so,” Violet answered sadly; “but I am very poor, and I want
+to earn money. I thought that I could get a salary as an actress.”
+
+“And so you can, my dear, when you’ve learnt how to act; but acting
+is an art, like every other art, and must be learnt by experience. If
+you like to go to some little country theatre, and play small parts
+for a couple of months without any payment, in order to get a little
+accustomed to your business, I’ll look over my books and see if I can
+manage the matter for you.”
+
+“A country theatre, sir!” exclaimed Violet, “and no salary! O, that
+is quite useless for me. I want to be in London, with my mother, and
+I _must_ earn money.”
+
+The agent flung himself back in his chair with a half-contemptuous
+shrug of his shoulders.
+
+“You want impossibilities, my dear young lady,” he said. “I can’t be
+of any use to you. Good afternoon.”
+
+He dipped his pen in the ink, and went on with his writing. Violet
+rose to leave the room. She began to think that the career of an
+actress must be attended with as many difficulties as that of a
+governess.
+
+But as she stood on the threshold of the door, the man who had been
+lounging in the window, and who had turned round to stare at her
+during this brief scene, suddenly addressed her.
+
+“Stop a bit, my dear,” he said. “Just sit down five minutes, will
+you?--De Lancy, my boy, what a fool you are!” he added, addressing
+the agent.
+
+Mr. de Lancy looked up from his writing.
+
+“What do you mean?” he asked.
+
+“Why, what a confounded fool you must be not to see that this young
+lady is the very person we want at the Cir!”
+
+“The Cir” was an abbreviation of the Circenses; and this gentleman
+was no less an individual than Mr. Maltravers, the stage-manager of
+the Circenses Theatre.
+
+“What for?” asked the agent.
+
+“Why, for the Queen of Beauty, to be sure, in the new burlesque.
+Haven’t I been hunting all over London for a pretty girl, and haven’t
+you sent me all sorts of guys and dowdies to apply for the situation?
+and isn’t this young lady Venus herself in a straw bonnet?”
+
+Violet blushed crimson. The stage-manager smiled as he perceived her
+confusion.
+
+“You’ll get used to this sort of thing by-and-by, my dear,” he said.
+“Now, let us understand each other. You want to be engaged at a
+London theatre?”
+
+“I do, sir.”
+
+“And you’ve never been on any stage in your life?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“Then all I can tell you is this: the first moment you tried to open
+those pretty lips of yours before a London audience you would find it
+almost as difficult to speak three words as if you had been born deaf
+and dumb. You think because you’ve read Shakespeare, and acted in a
+charade now and then among your friends, that you only want a chance
+in order to burst upon the world as a modern Siddons. But that kind
+of thing is not quite so easy as you imagine. No, my dear young lady,
+acting isn’t an accomplishment that comes natural to people, any more
+than playing the piano, or painting pictures, or speaking foreign
+languages. Acting must be learnt, my dear, and it isn’t learnt in a
+day.”
+
+Violet looked despairingly at the speaker, who said all this in the
+airiest and pleasantest manner.
+
+“What am I to do, then, sir?” she asked piteously. “I have no time to
+learn an art. I want to earn money, and at once.”
+
+“And you shall earn some money, my dear, and very easily too,”
+replied the stage-manager.
+
+“O, sir, tell me what you mean!” exclaimed Violet, who was bewildered
+by the stage-manager’s vivacity.
+
+“What would you say if I were to pay you eighteen shillings a week
+for sitting in a golden temple for ten minutes every night, in one of
+the most splendid dresses that was ever made in a theatre? What would
+you say to appearing as the Queen of Beauty in the last scene of our
+burlesque? You’ll have nothing to say; you’ll have nothing to do, but
+sit still and allow the audience to admire you; and you will be paid
+the liberal sum of eighteen shillings a week. What do you say, young
+lady? Do you accept my offer?”
+
+“O yes, yes; most willingly,” answered Violet.
+
+Eighteen shillings a week--nearly double the amount of Mrs. Trevor’s
+miserable salary! Violet was only too eager to secure so much
+prosperity.
+
+“I accept your offer, and with gratitude!” she exclaimed.
+
+Then, suddenly, the flush of excitement faded from her face, and she
+grew very pale. Would her mother and Lionel--proud, high-spirited
+Lionel--would those two, who loved her so dearly, ever consent that
+she should earn money in this manner? Could the young Oxonian--so
+quick to feel the humiliation of those he loved--permit his sister to
+be stared at by an audience who paid for the privilege of criticising
+or admiring her?
+
+“Surely, when we are so poor, they would scarcely object to any
+honest means by which I could earn money,” Violet thought.
+
+But she dared not decide the question without her mother’s permission.
+
+“Will you give me time to consult my friends?” she said. “I was too
+hasty in what I said just now. I cannot accept your offer without my
+mother’s consent.”
+
+“Very right and proper,” answered the stage-manager approvingly. “But
+you must get your mother’s permission between this and eleven o’clock
+to-morrow morning, or I shall be obliged to find another young lady
+for the Queen of Beauty. I suppose you can come to me at the theatre
+by half-past ten o’clock to-morrow?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Very well, then; there’s my card. You must go to the stage-door, and
+if you give that to the door-keeper, he’ll send you to me directly.
+Mind you are punctual, for there are plenty of people anxious for the
+situation. All the ugliest ballet-girls in London fancy themselves
+the very thing for the Queen of Beauty.”
+
+Violet promised to be punctual. There was a fee due to Mr. de Lancy;
+but when that gentleman found the poor girl was penniless, he very
+good-naturedly volunteered to wait until she had received her first
+week’s salary.
+
+Violet hurried homewards after this interview, rejoiced beyond
+measure at having the chance of help held out to her. She told her
+mother and Lionel of what had happened, and implored them to lay
+aside all prejudice at a time when poverty in its worst bitterness
+had entered their household.
+
+At first, both Mrs. Westford and Lionel were strongly averse to her
+proposition; but little by little the girl won their consent.
+
+Lionel’s concurrence was given unwillingly, even at the last; it
+stung him to the very quick to think that his sister should be
+obliged to earn money by exhibiting her lovely face to a careless,
+perhaps insolent crowd. But when he looked at his mother’s careworn
+countenance, the beautiful lines of which were already sharpened by
+the cruel hand of want, his courage gave way, and he burst into a
+passion of tears--those tears which seem so terrible when they flow
+from the eyes of a brave man.
+
+“Do as you will, Violet!” he exclaimed, dashing those bitter drops
+away with a hasty passionate gesture. “How can we refuse the help of
+your feeble hands? I am a man; I have received an education which
+cost my father a small fortune; and yet, work as I may, I cannot earn
+enough to keep my mother and sister from penury.”
+
+Thus it was that Violet presented herself at the stage-door of the
+Circenses at the appointed hour on the following morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+BEHIND THE SCENES.
+
+
+To Violet Westford scarcely anything could have been more trying than
+the ordeal which she now had to undergo. What scene could be more
+strange to this delicate-minded, home-bred, carefully nurtured girl,
+than the busy world behind the curtain in a great London theatre?
+
+The door-keeper of the Circenses received the card which she
+presented to him, and, after uttering some half-sulky, half-insolent
+remark, gave her into the charge of a dirty boy, who was to take
+her upstairs to the stage, where she would find Mr. Maltravers, the
+stage-manager.
+
+Poor Violet was almost bewildered by the many dark passages along
+which her conductor led her. There seemed scarcely a gleam of the
+summer sunlight in all the great building, and the underground
+passages smelt like vaults or charnel-houses--charnel-houses in
+which there was a perpetual escape of gas, mingled with that odour
+of corduroy and shoe-leather which the working classes are apt to
+leave behind them, and which a very witty lady once spoke of as their
+_esprit de corps_.
+
+At last the dirty boy led the way up a little break-neck staircase,
+opened a slamming wooden door, and ushered Violet into a corner,
+where crowds of shabbily dressed men and women were lounging amongst
+heaps of piled-up scenery.
+
+These men and women were the inferiors and subordinates of the
+company--the banner bearers and supernumeraries who appear in grand
+processions, and the ill-paid girls who fill up the stage in crowded
+scenes.
+
+Many of these girls were dressed neatly and plainly; others were
+distinguished by a tawdry shabbiness--a cheap finery of costume; but
+there were some girls whom Violet saw lounging together in little
+groups, whose attire would have scarcely seemed out of place upon
+women of rank and wealth--handsome girls some of them; and they
+looked at the stranger’s shabby mourning dress with a supercilious
+stare.
+
+Violet had to stand for some time amongst these different groups,
+waiting until it should please the stage-manager to come to her.
+
+That gentleman was working as hard as it is possible for a man to
+work; running from one side of the great stage to the other; giving
+directions here, there, and everywhere; abusing those whose stupidity
+or neglect annoyed him; giving a hasty word of praise now and then;
+answering questions, writing letters, correcting the rough proofs of
+playbills, looking at scenery; stooping over the orchestra to say a
+few words to the _répétiteur_; and appearing to do a dozen things at
+once, so quickly did he pass from one task to another.
+
+Little by little Violet became accustomed to the half-darkness of the
+place, which was only illumined by the glare of a row of lamps at the
+edge of the stage, technically known as the “float.”
+
+As she grew better able to distinguish objects around her, she felt
+still more keenly the strangeness of her position. The handsomely
+attired girls stared at her, always with the same supercilious gaze;
+and at last one of them, after looking at her fixedly for some
+time, addressed her. She was a beautiful, dark-eyed, Jewish-looking
+girl, and her costume was more extravagant than that of any of her
+companions.
+
+A train of mauve moire antique, bordered with a deep flounce of the
+richest block lace, trailed upon the dirty boards of the theatre.
+Over this dress the Jewess wore a lace shawl of the costliest
+description; and a small white-chip bonnet, adorned with mauve
+feathers and silver butterflies, crowned her queen-like head.
+
+She was a magnificent looking woman--a woman who might have
+graced a throne; but there was something almost terrible in her
+beauty--something that sent a thrill of indefinable pain and terror
+through the heart of the thoughtful observer.
+
+Her dark eyes had an ominous lustre; there was a hectic bloom upon
+her oval cheek, and that cheek, perfect though its outline still was,
+had a sunken look that presaged ill.
+
+A physician would have said that the stamp of decay was upon this
+splendid creature, the foreshadowing of an early death.
+
+“Pray, are you engaged here?” she asked of Violet; “because, unless
+you are engaged, you will not be allowed to stand in this wing. It is
+against the rules for strangers to hang about the theatre.”
+
+There was an insolence in the girl’s tone which aroused Violet
+Westford’s innate dignity.
+
+She replied very quietly, but with perfect self-possession.
+
+“I am here because I have been told to come here,” she said.
+
+“By whom?”
+
+“By Mr. Maltravers.”
+
+“O, indeed!” exclaimed the Jewess; “then in that case I suppose you
+are engaged?”
+
+“I believe so.”
+
+“For what?”
+
+“To appear in the new burlesque.”
+
+The Jewess flushed crimson, and an angry light gleamed in her
+splendid eyes.
+
+“What!” she exclaimed, “then I suppose you are to be the Queen of
+Beauty in the grand tableau?”
+
+“So Mr. Maltravers told me.”
+
+The Jewess laughed--a hollow laugh, that was very painful to hear.
+To sit in the golden temple, as the representative of all that is
+lovely, the observed of all observers, had been Esther Vanberg’s
+ambition. She was the handsomest girl in the theatre, and she fully
+expected to be chosen for this distinction. So when she found a
+stranger was about to be engaged, she flew to Mr. Maltravers, and
+complained to him bitterly of an arrangement which she declared to be
+a deliberate insult to herself.
+
+The stage-manager was a thorough man of the world, accustomed to deal
+with all the different airs and graces of the company under his rule.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, paid the handsome Jewess some very
+high-flown compliments, but told her he wanted her to fill another
+part of the tableau, and that he must have a new lady for the Queen
+of Beauty.
+
+The truth of the matter was, that in the opinion of Mr. Maltravers
+the beauty of Esther Vanberg was on the wane. She was very well known
+to the regular audience at the Circenses, and, handsome though she
+was, people might be, perhaps, just a little tired of her beauty.
+
+Beyond this, there was something in Esther’s beauty that was almost
+demoniac in character--something which reflected the reckless
+wildness of her life and the violence of her temper. Mr. Maltravers
+had the eye of an artist. His taste in the composition of a stage
+picture was scarcely inferior to that of Vestris herself, beneath
+whose despotic sway he had served his apprenticeship in the art of
+stage management. For the central figure of his tableau he wanted a
+woman whose beauty should possess the charm of youth and innocence.
+Thus it was that he had been peculiarly struck by the appearance of
+Violet Westford. He was a hard, worldly-minded man of business, but
+he was devoted to the dramatic art, and he held the interests of the
+theatre before every other consideration.
+
+He came off the stage presently, and made his way to the spot where
+Esther and Violet were standing.
+
+“Good morning, my dear,” he said to Violet, addressing her with
+a fatherly familiarity that was entirely free from impertinence.
+“I’m very glad to see you. You’ve made up your mind to accept the
+engagement?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Very well, then; go upstairs to the wardrobe--any one will show you
+the way--and ask Mrs. Clements to measure you for your new dress.
+You can take this,” he added, scrawling a few words in pencil on the
+back of a card. “Mrs. C. knows all about the dress. There, run along,
+that’s a good girl.”
+
+Before Violet could reply, Mr. Maltravers had returned to the centre
+of the stage, and was busy among the scene-shifters. A good-natured
+looking, gentle-voiced girl, very simply but yet very neatly
+dressed, who had been sitting in a dark corner of the side-scenes
+working crochet, came forward and offered to conduct Violet to the
+wardrobe-room, and the two set out together.
+
+It was a long journey--up staircases that seemed interminable to
+Violet; but at last they arrived at a great, bare whitewashed
+apartment, immediately under the roof of the theatre--an apartment
+which was littered from one end to the other with scraps of
+gorgeous-hued satin and glittering tissue, spangles, ribbons, and
+gold-lace. About twenty women were at work here, and to one of these
+Violet was conducted.
+
+Mr. Maltravers’s card produced an immediate effect. The
+wardrobe-mistress left her work, and proceeded to take Violet’s
+measure for the dress. She was in raptures with the young girl’s
+appearance, and told her she would look lovely in a robe of silver
+tissue, spangled with stars, and with draperies of rose-coloured
+crape.
+
+“The dress will be perfection, miss, _per_fection, and will just suit
+your beautiful fair skin. Now don’t you let any of the ballet-ladies
+persuade you to plaster your face with _blanc de perle_, or _blanc
+Rosati_, or _blanc de_ something, as most of them do, until their
+faces have about us much expression as you’ll see in a whitewashed
+wall. I shall take great pains with the costume, for I know Mr.
+Maltravers has set his heart upon the Temple of Beauty being a great
+success. My youngest little girl is to be one of the Cupids, and
+she does nothing but talk of it at home. She went on in last year’s
+pantomime as the Singing Oyster, and did _so_ well, bless her dear
+little heart!”
+
+To Violet all this talk was utterly strange. Already she began to
+look forward with fear to her first appearance on a public stage; but
+for the sake of those she loved she would have dared more than the
+ordeal before her.
+
+She went downstairs, and at the back of the stage met Mr. Maltravers,
+who told her to come at ten o’clock the next morning for the
+rehearsal of the new burlesque.
+
+“O, by the bye,” he said, “what name shall I put down in the cast?
+You never told me your name.”
+
+“My name is Wes----,” Violet began; but she stopped abruptly,
+remembering that the subordinate position she was about to occupy in
+that theatre would be a kind of disgrace to her lost father’s name.
+
+The stage-manager seemed to guess the nature of her scruples.
+
+“You are not obliged to give me your real name, my dear,” he said
+kindly; “if you like to take a false name, you can do so. Most
+actresses and ladies of the ballet assume false names: they have
+generally some relations or friends who object to their appearance
+on the stage--straitlaced people, you know, who fancy that the
+stage-door is the entrance to a kind of Tophet.”
+
+“You are very good, sir. I should not wish my position here to be
+known,” Violet faltered. “I honour and admire the dramatic art, and
+those who profess it; but as my position in the theatre will be a
+very humble one, I shall be glad to keep my name a secret. You can
+call me Watson, if you please, Mr. Maltravers.”
+
+“Very well, my dear; so be it. You will be known here as Miss Watson.
+And don’t you be put out if Esther Vanberg gives herself airs because
+you’ve been chosen for the best place in the tableau. You just attend
+to your business, and if Vanberg annoys you, come to me, and I’ll
+take my lady down a peg or two.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+CRUEL KINDNESS.
+
+
+While Violet began her lowly career at the Circenses, Lionel made a
+new effort to earn a few pounds. His powers as an artist were of no
+mean order, and he made a desperate attempt to turn his talents to
+some account. He gathered together a little bundle of sketches, some
+in water-colours, some in pen-and-ink, but all of them exhibiting
+considerable dash and talent: sporting sketches, military sketches,
+graceful groups _à la_ Watteau, cavaliers in the ever-picturesque
+costume of the Restoration, all the work of happy hours at the
+Grange. With this bundle under his arm, Lionel Westford sallied
+forth one wet afternoon in quest of some enterprising dealer in art.
+
+Never had the streets of London looked duller or dingier than they
+did to-day. There were few carriages even in the best thoroughfares,
+and the muddy foot-passengers who trod wearily upon the sloppy
+pavement seemed all of them more or less at odds with fortune.
+
+Lionel Westford crossed Waterloo Bridge and made his way by different
+short cuts to Regent-street.
+
+Here, as well as in the meaner quarters of the town, the
+foot-passengers might suffer all the inconvenience and discomfort of
+muddy pavements and perpetual rain; but pampered beauty, rolling here
+and there in her luxurious carriage, could descend therefrom to be
+sheltered by the huge umbrella held by a deferential footman, and to
+be escorted into a shop as elegantly and as comfortably furnished as
+a West-end drawing-room.
+
+Lionel entered the shop of a fashionable printseller. It was
+comparatively empty, and he was able to make his way at once to
+the counter, where the principal was busily occupied sorting some
+engravings in a portfolio.
+
+Three or four fashionable-looking men were lounging near the door,
+and glanced with supreme indifference at the shabbily-dressed
+stranger, whose threadbare coat and shining hat, dripping with rain,
+too palpably betrayed his poverty.
+
+Lionel Westford approached the counter, and after a few preliminary
+words, opened his portfolio.
+
+The printseller looked at the sketches readily enough. They were very
+clever, he said; they gave indications of great talent, but unluckily
+they were not wanted; there were plenty of such things to be had,
+done by the regular people.
+
+Lionel Westford’s cheek grew paler as he saw his last hope deserting
+him.
+
+“Can you not give me some kind of employment?” he asked, with a
+feverish energy. “You think, perhaps, I shall want high prices for
+what I do. You are mistaken. I will work for starvation wages, and
+work untiringly--I only ask you to give me a chance.”
+
+The printseller shook his head decisively.
+
+“Quite impossible,” he said. “I have more of these kind of things in
+my stock than I shall be able to sell in a twelvemonth. Photography
+has quite superseded this kind of work. The fashion for scrap-books
+has gone out.”
+
+“But if I were to paint a more important picture----”
+
+“There would be no market for it, my good young man. You must have
+some kind of reputation as an artist before you can expect your
+pictures to sell,” answered the shopkeeper impatiently.
+
+Lionel shut his portfolio, and turned away from the counter with a
+feeling of heart-sickness in his breast. None, save those who have
+endured such disappointments, can tell their anguish.
+
+His face was deadly pale; his lips contracted rigidly; and there was
+an angry look in his eyes. He was in the humour which would have sent
+a Frenchman on the first stage of that fatal journey which halts at
+the _filets de St. Cloud_, to make its dismal end in the darksome
+cells of the Morgue.
+
+As he turned from the counter he found himself face to face with a
+woman--a woman whose beauty startled him by its splendour.
+
+Never before had he seen a face that seemed to him so wondrous in
+its magical charm. It was not an English type of beauty. The large,
+almond-shaped eyes, darkly lustrous yet soft and dewy even in their
+lustre, were like the eyes of a Madonna by Correggio. The rich
+complexion was foreign in its clear olive tint. The hair, simply
+dressed under a pink crape bonnet, was of that bluish-black which a
+painter would choose for the massy tresses of an Assyrian queen.
+
+This Spanish-looking divinity was dressed in the height of fashion
+and the perfection of taste, as it seemed to Lionel Westford, whose
+artistic eye took in every detail of her appearance, even in that
+dreary crisis of his fate. His own troubles and perplexities vanished
+out of his mind as he looked at this unknown beauty, and he was
+wholly absorbed by the painter’s delight in loveliness of form and
+colour.
+
+The young lady wore a dress of some silken material, in which violet
+and silvery grey were artfully intermingled. A priceless cashmere
+shawl draped her perfect figure, lending itself to those diagonal
+lines which are agreeable to the painter’s eye. Close behind this
+brilliant demoiselle appeared a stout but very stately matron
+of the chaperone class--the kind of person created for domestic
+surveillance--the modern form under which the dragon of the famous
+garden guards the unapproachable fruit.
+
+Lionel Westford was scarcely conscious of this latter lady’s
+presence. It was the young beauty whose sudden appearance bewildered
+him, as he turned away, despairing, from the printseller’s counter.
+
+He gazed for some moments upon the unknown beauty, dazzled by her
+splendour, and then passed hastily on. He wanted to leave the
+shop--he felt eager to withdraw himself from the influence of that
+beauteous face. It seemed to him as if there was something almost
+stifling in the atmosphere. What had he to do with such a creature
+as this pampered and doubtless high-bred beauty?--he, a beggar, an
+outcast, a kind of Pariah, by reason of his poverty?
+
+He would have passed out of the shop; but, to his utter
+bewilderment, the fashionable beauty followed him towards the door,
+after a brief whispered disputation with the elder lady, and laid
+her little gloved hand upon the damp sleeve of his shabby coat. The
+gesture was only momentary. The slim fingers touched him as lightly
+as a butterfly’s wing; and yet a kind of thrill seemed to vibrate
+through his veins.
+
+“Do not go just yet,” pleaded a low earnest voice; “I should be glad
+to speak with you for a few minutes.”
+
+“I am quite at your service, madam.”
+
+At her service! How cold and formal the words sounded as he uttered
+them! What was she to him but a stranger, whose face had shone upon
+him for the first time only five minutes ago? And yet he felt as if
+he could have surrendered his life to give her pleasure. He stood
+with his hat in his hand, waiting until she should address him.
+
+If he was embarrassed, she was still more so. The rich crimson
+blood rushed to her cheeks--the dark fringes drooped over her eyes.
+And yet the impulse that stirred her heart was only one of womanly
+compassion; it was pity alone that had impelled her to address Lionel
+Westford.
+
+She had overheard his appeal to the shopkeeper. She had perceived
+from his tone and manner that he was a gentleman, unaccustomed to
+bitter struggles for daily bread. She had seen his white face, almost
+ghastly in its look of despair; and, with impulsive generosity, she
+had determined, if possible, to help him.
+
+“You are very much in need of employment?” she said hesitatingly.
+
+“My dearest Julia,” exclaimed the outraged matron, “this is really
+such a very unprecedented kind of proceeding, I must protest against
+such inconsiderate conduct.”
+
+“My dear Mrs. Melville, for once in a way don’t protest against
+anything: I am only going to speak to this gentleman about a matter
+of business,” returned the young lady, just a little impatiently.
+
+“But, my dear Julia, your papa----”
+
+“Papa always allows me to have my own way.”
+
+“But, my dear love, this per--this--ahem!--gentleman is an utter
+stranger to you.”
+
+All this was spoken in an undertone, but Lionel could perceive that
+the language of remonstrance was being addressed to the young lady by
+an outraged duenna, and he moved again towards the door, anxious to
+terminate an embarrassing situation.
+
+The young lady’s generous impulses were not to be subjugated by
+matronly caution.
+
+She stopped Lionel once more as he was about to leave the shop.
+
+“Pray do not hesitate to answer me,” she said. “I heard you say just
+now that you needed employment.”
+
+“I only said the truth, madam. I need it very much.”
+
+“And would you be particular as to the nature of the employment, so
+long as it were tolerably remunerative?”
+
+“Particular, madam!” exclaimed Lionel. “I would sweep a crossing in
+the muddy street yonder, or hold horses at the doors of the clubs. I
+would do anything that an honest man may do, in order to get bread
+for those I love.”
+
+“For those you love!” repeated the lady. “You have a young wife,
+perhaps--or even children--whom you find it difficult to support?”
+
+“O no, madam! I have no wife to reproach me for my poverty. The dear
+ones of whom I spoke are my mother and sister.”
+
+“I think I could offer you remunerative employment,” said the Spanish
+beauty, still in the same hesitating manner, “if the nature of it
+would not be unpleasant to you.”
+
+“Unpleasant to me, madam!” exclaimed Lionel. “Believe me, there is no
+fear of that. Pray speak--command me, in any way you please.”
+
+“I have an only brother,” answered the lady, “who possesses the
+same talent as yourself. He is abroad now; and indeed we have been
+separated for some time; but we are truly attached to each other, and
+everything relating to him is sacred in my eyes. When he went away
+from home he left behind him a great quantity of sketches--things
+to which he attached no value, but which are very precious to me. I
+am anxious to get these drawings mounted by some one with artistic
+taste. I should be very glad if you would undertake the task. Our
+house in the country is a very large one; and I have no doubt papa
+would give you rooms in it while you were engaged in carrying out my
+wishes. I will ask him to write to you on the subject, if you like.
+In the mean time, here is my card.”
+
+She opened an exquisitely carved ivory case, and handed Lionel a
+card, while the outraged matron looked on in silence, with an air of
+wounded dignity that approached the tragic.
+
+Her tone and manner throughout, even when she was most hesitating,
+seemed those of one accustomed to command. There was an imperious
+grandeur in her beauty, which contrasted strongly with her maidenly
+shyness in addressing a stranger.
+
+The name which Lionel Westford read upon the card was
+
+                             MISS GODWIN,
+                                             _Wilmingdon Hall, Herts._
+
+Miss Godwin of Wilmingdon Hall! Lionel Westford started, and recoiled
+a little from his lovely companion.
+
+“I dare say you know my father’s name,” she said; “almost everybody
+knows Mr. Godwin the banker.”
+
+“I don’t know what people would say if they knew Mr. Godwin’s
+daughter went about the world picking up strange young men in shops,”
+thought the matron.
+
+Lionel faltered some few words in reply to Miss Godwin, but those
+words were not intelligible.
+
+Rupert Godwin’s daughter! This girl, who was anxious to be his
+patroness, his benefactress, was no other than the daughter of Rupert
+Godwin, his mother’s worst enemy!
+
+Could he accept any favour from that man’s race? And, on the other
+hand, how could he now refuse this girl’s help, so generously
+offered, so eagerly accepted, a few moments before?
+
+He was silent. He stood with the card in his hand, staring absently
+at the name inscribed upon it, while a sharp mental struggle went on
+within his breast.
+
+What was he to do? Was he, who so needed help, to reject this most
+unexpected succour, this friendly rope flung out to him at the moment
+when he was buffeting with waves that threatened his annihilation?
+Was he to refuse the help offered in this crisis of his life, in
+deference to a feeling which was, perhaps, after all, only a foolish
+prejudice?
+
+He thought of his mother’s broken home. He believed that Rupert
+Godwin had only acted as any other hard-headed, callous-hearted man
+of business might have done. But the memory of that desolate home was
+very vivid in his mind, and he had long ago learned to look upon the
+banker as a bitter enemy.
+
+Yet he _could not_ reject Julia Godwin’s offer of assistance. The
+images of his mother and sister seemed to fade from his mind. He
+stood before Julia Godwin bewildered by conflicting emotions,
+helpless as some creature under the influence of a spell.
+
+“Shall I ask Papa to write to you about terms and other arrangements?
+Will you consent to mount my brother’s sketches?” asked the soft
+voice, while the chaperone still looked on with the stony stare of
+amazement.
+
+“Yes, I am at your service. I will do what you please,” answered
+Lionel.
+
+“You are very good. And to what address shall papa write?”
+
+The young man paused for a moment, and then named a post-office in a
+street near his lodging.
+
+Julia Godwin wrote the address on the back of one of her cards
+with the jewelled pencil dangling amongst the costly toys at her
+watch-chain.
+
+“And the name?” she asked.
+
+“Lewis Wilton,” Lionel answered, after another brief pause.
+
+He could only enter Rupert Godwin’s house under a false name.
+Henceforward his independence would be gone, for there would be
+falsehood and dishonour in his life.
+
+He felt this; and a sense of shame mingled with his delight in the
+thought that he and Julia Godwin would meet again.
+
+“And now I am quite at your service, dear Mrs. Melville,” she said
+to her duenna, placidly ignoring the tempest of indignation with
+which the matron’s breast had been swelling. “Yet stay, I had almost
+forgotten to make my purchases.”
+
+She went to the counter, and bought some trifling articles, while
+Lionel waited to escort the two ladies to their carriage.
+
+It was a very magnificent equipage; and the young man thought, as
+Julia Godwin bowed to him from the window, that she looked like some
+foreign princess, dazzling alike by her beauty and by the splendour
+of her surroundings.
+
+He little knew that the infamous theft of his father’s hardly-earned
+fortune had alone preserved that splendid equipage from the hands of
+infuriated creditors. He little knew that all his own sufferings were
+occasioned by the diabolical fraud which had enabled Rupert Godwin to
+stem the tide in his affairs, and float into new enterprises that had
+brought him the command of money.
+
+Yes; the twenty thousand pounds had saved the banker’s commercial
+position, and had enabled him to enter upon new speculations, which
+had been singularly, almost miraculously, fortunate.
+
+Lucifer sometimes favours his children. Harley Westford’s money had
+been very _lucky_ to Rupert Godwin.
+
+And yet, hard and resolute as the banker’s nature was, there were
+times when he would have gladly sacrificed all his position in the
+commercial world if he could have recalled the day upon which he
+first saw the captain of the _Lily Queen_.
+
+Lionel stood on the muddy pavement, lingering until Godwin’s carriage
+was quite out of sight.
+
+Then he turned slowly away, and walked homeward; heedless of the
+fast-falling rain--almost unconscious of the way by which he went;
+entirely absorbed in thoughts of the lovely face that had so lately
+beamed upon him--the low musical voice which seemed still to sound in
+his ear.
+
+But, think as he would of the beautiful Julia, he could not quite
+banish from his mind the memory of his mother’s trials. What would
+she think of her only son, could she but know that he was about to
+accept service with the man who had rendered her home desolate, the
+man of whom she never spoke without a shudder of aversion?
+
+“There is something horribly base in this business,” thought the
+young man. “False to Rupert Godwin, since I enter his house as a
+concealed enemy; false to my mother, whose natural hatred of this
+man I must outrage by any dealings with him or his race. False every
+way! What can I do but despise myself for my meanness and folly?
+No!--come what may, I will not be so utterly weak and degraded. I
+will not enter the house of Rupert Godwin!”
+
+But there is a Nemesis who guides the footsteps of the avenger. It
+was destined that Lionel Westford should enter Rupert Godwin’s house
+under a false name.
+
+The hand of fatality pointed to Wilmingdon Hall. Harley Westford’s
+son was to go thither.
+
+Chance seemed to have brought about that which was to be the first
+step in a long train of circumstances leading, slowly but surely,
+towards discovery and retribution.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two days after his interview with Julia Godwin, Lionel called at the
+post-office, and received a letter from the banker.
+
+It was brief, but not uncourteous:
+
+“SIR,--In accordance with my daughter’s request and recommendation, I
+am prepared to employ you for some weeks in the cleaning and mounting
+of my son’s sketches. The salary I can offer you is five guineas a
+week; and you can be accommodated with rooms at my house.
+
+“I shall naturally expect a reference to some person of position who
+can testify to the respectability of your character and antecedents.
+
+                          “Yours obediently,
+                                                       “RUPERT GODWIN.
+
+“_Wilmingdon Hall, Herts_.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+WILMINGDON HALL.
+
+
+Lionel Westford yielded to the influence of the bright face which had
+looked at him so compassionately in the moment of his despair. He
+gave way to the temptation against which he had struggled resolutely
+and manfully, only to break down in the end; and he wrote to Rupert
+Godwin, accepting the engagement offered him.
+
+Before writing this letter the young man called upon an old college
+companion, a shallow-minded but kind-hearted young idler, from whom
+he had kept aloof since his reverse of fortune. It was very much
+against the grain that he went to ask a favour at the hands of this
+gentleman, but he had no alternative. Mr. Godwin required some
+testimony as to the respectability of the stranger whom he was to
+admit into his household, and Frederick Dudley, his once familiar
+chum, was the only person to whom Lionel could apply.
+
+Mr. Dudley willingly consented to testify to his old friend’s merits.
+He knew very little of the changes that had befallen the Westfords,
+and he jumped at once to the conclusion that Lionel’s assumption of a
+false name was only a part of some romantic scheme.
+
+“I see it all, Westford,” exclaimed the young man, “though you are
+so confoundedly close with a fellow. It’s a love affair, that’s what
+it is; you’ve fallen head over heels in love with this old fogy’s
+handsome daughter--I’ve met Julia Godwin in society, and a remarkably
+fine girl she is, though not _my_ style--and you want to get into the
+house disguised as a poor artist. Quite a romantic dodge, upon my
+word, and I envy you the spirits for the adventure! I’m so deucedly
+used-up myself that I should never have thought of such a thing. Come
+now, confess that I’ve hit it;--eh, old boy?”
+
+“I can confess nothing,” answered Lionel; “but I must not allow you
+to entertain any false ideas with regard to Miss Godwin. I have
+only seen that young lady once in my life, and then only for a few
+minutes.”
+
+“Very likely, my dear boy; and for all that you may be awfully in
+love with her. There’s such a thing as love at first sight, you
+know, if we’re to believe those prosy old poets. I don’t understand
+the thing myself; but then I’m so deucedly used-up. I have not
+experienced the tender passion since I was spoony on a pretty little
+pastrycook at Eton,” added the young simpleton, whose moustache had
+only lately begun to sprout.
+
+“At any rate, I may rely upon your kind offices, Dudley?” asked
+Lionel, as he prepared to leave his friend’s chambers.
+
+“You shall have them with all my heart, dear boy. But you’ll stop
+to luncheon, won’t you? I can give you a grilled chicken, and a dry
+sherry that you’ll not match every day in the week. I shall so enjoy
+a smoke and a chat with you. It will recall the old times, you know,
+when we were young and fresh. What have you been doing with yourself
+lately, old fellow? I haven’t seen you for the last six months.”
+
+“No, my dear Dudley,” answered Lionel; “and very few of my friends
+have seen me during that time.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Because your world is no longer my world. Since my poor father was
+lost at sea, a great change has taken place in my fortunes. Such
+lucky young scapegraces as you can no longer be my companions, for I
+have entered the ranks of the breadwinners.”
+
+“But, my dear Lionel,” exclaimed the young man, “surely your friends
+could be of some service to you! I haven’t a very large balance at my
+banker’s, for the relieving officer has all the parochial hardness of
+heart, but so far as it goes it is entirely at your disposal.”
+
+Lionel wrung his friend’s hand with a grateful pressure.
+
+“My dear Fred, I know what a good fellow you are, and I thank you
+most heartily; but I am now certain of employment which will be
+tolerably remunerative. Good-bye, old friend!”
+
+“And you don’t like me well enough to borrow a few tenners just to
+carry on the war with?”
+
+“No, thanks, Dudley; I can do without the tenners, if I get the five
+pounds a week Mr. Godwin is willing to give me for some very easy
+work.”
+
+“Do you want an introduction to my tailor? I keep the fellow an
+unconscionable time waiting for his money, but I make a point of
+recommending him to my friends. What a pity a fellow’s friends have
+such a knack of going through the Bankruptcy Court, by the way! It
+takes so much off the value of one’s introductions. Shall I give you
+a line to my snip?”
+
+“No, dear boy, I’ll not victimise him, this time. I have the remnant
+of my University extravagances in that way, and can make a decent
+appearance at Wilmingdon Hall.”
+
+“You will come and see me again, dear boy?”
+
+“Yes, when my position has improved; until then, good-bye.”
+
+Three days after this interview, Lionel Westford left King’s Cross on
+his way to Hertfordshire. For the first time in his life the young
+man had told his mother a falsehood. He had told her that artistic
+work had been offered him in the town of Hertford, and that he was
+about to occupy himself for a few weeks in that place.
+
+Clara Westford was grieved at the thought of even a brief separation
+from her son; but she had seen his spirit drooping, and a dark cloud
+upon his brow, so she was glad to think that he would have employment
+and change of scene. Lionel’s conscience upbraided him cruelly as he
+left that devoted mother; and yet he tried to reason with himself
+against his scruples. Was not Rupert Godwin’s money as good as that
+of any other man? and would it not purchase comfort for that dear
+patient sufferer? and was he, Lionel Westford the pauper, to fling
+away the chance of fortune because it was offered by the banker’s
+hand?
+
+Thus it was that he went to Wilmingdon Hall. Rupert Godwin had
+only yielded to a caprice of his daughter’s when he consented to
+engage the young artist. Julia’s influence over her father was
+almost unbounded. The cold heart for her grew warm and human; the
+remorseless nature became softened. Rupert Godwin hated his son; for
+he knew that the young man had read the secrete of his inner nature,
+and despised him. He hated his son; but he loved his beautiful
+daughter with a morbid and exaggerated affection, and there were few
+requests of hers which he cared to refuse.
+
+At any other time Mr. Godwin might certainly have been inclined to
+question the prudence of his daughter’s views with regard to the
+stranger whose desperate condition had excited her compassion. He
+was by no means given to the Quixotic impulses which were common
+to Julia’s nature; and whatever benefits he had bestowed upon his
+fellow creatures had been given in obedience to the prejudices of
+society rather than to the impulses of his own heart. At another time
+he would have sided with the outraged guardian of his daughter’s
+youth, and would have protested against Julia’s philanthropic schemes
+as absurd and impracticable. Julia had been prepared to encounter
+such opposition, and had been just a little inclined to repent her
+somewhat precipitate offer of employment in the interval which
+elapsed between her meeting with Lionel Westford and her father’s
+next flying visit to Hertfordshire.
+
+To her surprise, however, the young lady met with only the faintest
+possible opposition. Of late Rupert Godwin’s mind had been entirely
+occupied by one all-absorbing care, and he had grown strangely
+indifferent to the details of his daily life.
+
+He made one or two peevish objections to Julia’s proposition, and
+then gave way to her wish, but not with the good grace with which he
+had once been accustomed to grant a favour asked by that fondly loved
+daughter.
+
+“You want me to write to this young man,” he said half absently,
+as if it were almost too much trouble for him to concentrate his
+thoughts for even a few moments on the subject in question. “Very
+well, Julia--very well; I will write. Don’t worry me any further
+about the business. I think the whole affair very absurd, but you
+must have your wish. What does it matter?”
+
+“What does it matter?” That was a phrase which Rupert Godwin had
+used very frequently of late when called upon to discuss the trifles
+that make up the sum of existence. These things had become of such
+complete indifference to him, and it seemed to him that people
+made such fuss and noise about the petty details that appeared so
+contemptible in his eyes;--in his eyes, before which for ever loomed
+one dark awful shape, the shadow whereof shut out all other things
+from his sight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lionel Westford arrived at the Hall in the afternoon of a brilliant
+August day. Not a leaf stirred in the verdant depths of the park, not
+a blade of grass was ruffled by a passing breeze. The lake, lying in
+a green hollow overshadowed by spreading chestnuts and beeches, was
+smooth as the face of a mirror, and reflected the rich blue of the
+cloudless summer sky.
+
+Lionel had been for many months a prisoner in the dreary desert of
+London;--London, which is a delightful city for the denizens of
+Mayfair or Belgravia, who, if called upon to make a map of the
+British capital, would place its centre at Apsley House, and its
+eastern boundary on the further side of Regent-street; but a dismal
+abode for those needy wayfarers who contemplate it from the purlieus
+of the New-cut. For months he had looked only on shabby houses, close
+streets whose blackened walls shut out the light of day; and the
+pleasantest sound which had announced to him the advent of summer had
+been the shrill cry of the costermonger vending his “Cauliflow-vers!”
+to the small householders of the neighbourhood. So it was that,
+entering the banker’s grand old domain, a kind of intoxication stole
+over his senses. He looked about him, and drew a deep inspiration--a
+long breath of rapture. His chest heaved, his head was lifted to the
+summer sky, his step grew elastic as he trod the crisp springy turf.
+
+“It is a paradise!” he exclaimed--“a paradise, and she is its queen!”
+
+The distance from the lodge-gates to the house was a long one.
+Lionel had left his portmanteau at the lodge, and had there obtained
+instructions as to the nearest road to the Hall. The lodge-keeper
+had directed him to go by a narrow pathway winding through a thick
+shrubbery, and leading past the grotto and fernery.
+
+In the depths of this leafy arcade a solemn gloom prevailed, even on
+this brilliant summer day; and as Lionel Westford advanced further
+into that forest darkness, the sombre twilight of the place, together
+with its perfect stillness, produced a strange effect upon his mind.
+
+He was no longer elated, he was no longer carried away by a sense of
+rapture. On the contrary, he felt all at once strangely depressed; a
+mysterious burden seemed to weigh down his heart. It was almost as
+if there had been something stifling in the very atmosphere of that
+luxuriant shrubbery. And under this strange influence even the image
+of Julia Godwin faded out of the young man’s mind. All other feelings
+seemed absorbed by that mysterious sensation, the nature of which he
+could not define.
+
+He quickened his pace. The solitude of the scene was distasteful to
+him. He hurried on, eager to reach the Hall, eager to behold human
+faces, to hear cheerful voices.
+
+After walking a considerable distance, he came at last to a spot
+which he recognized as the grotto and fernery.
+
+The spot was darker, wilder, and more solitary than any other part of
+Wilmingdon Park.
+
+Great craggy masses of limestone and granite were mingled with the
+ruins of some classic temple; and amongst the broken pillars and the
+rugged rockwork the ferns grew high in rank luxuriance.
+
+A small cascade trickled noiselessly amongst the moss-grown stones,
+and dropped into a smooth pool of water--a pool that looked as if
+beneath its quiet surface there lurked a treacherous depth.
+
+“It looks like a spot that has been blighted by the influence of
+some evil deed,” thought Lionel, as he paused for a few moments to
+contemplate the scene. “It looks like a place upon which the red hand
+of murder had set its stamp. I could fancy some Eugene Aram lying
+in wait for his victim behind one of those Doric columns, prepared
+to shoot him through the head, and then drop him quietly to the
+bottom of that pool. It’s the sort of place a Highlander would call
+‘uncanny.’”
+
+While this thought was still in his mind he was startled by long
+melancholy moan, which sounded near him.
+
+Lionel Westford inherited his father’s courage, and yet his heart
+sank within him as he heard that strange unearthly utterance.
+
+The hardiest nature succumbs, for a moment at least, beneath the
+influence of the supernatural.
+
+But that sudden thrill of fear passed with the moment.
+
+“Pshaw!” exclaimed the young man; “the sound was human enough, I
+daresay, though it was awfully like the wail of a departed soul. I
+have only to discover its cause. It seemed to come from behind this
+rockery.”
+
+As he said this, Lionel Westford walked round the irregular pile of
+stonework, and speedily discovered whence that mysterious moaning had
+proceeded.
+
+An old man, dressed in a suit of well-worn corduroy, was sitting on a
+block of moss-grown stone, with his elbows resting on his bony knees,
+and his face hidden in his tanned and withered hands.
+
+He seemed very old, for long thin locks of snowy whiteness fell over
+his spare shoulders. He was evidently employed about the grounds, for
+gardening implements lay on the grass near him.
+
+As Lionel stood looking at this strange figure, the dismal moan was
+repeated.
+
+Then the old man spoke.
+
+“O Lord, O Lord!” he cried, “it’s dreadful to bear; it’s dreadful,
+dreadful, dreadful!”
+
+This time Lionel Westford’s only feeling was one of compassion.
+
+He laid his hand lightly upon the gardener’s shoulder. The old man
+started to his feet as if under the influence of a galvanic shock.
+The face he turned towards Lionel was blanched with fear, and his
+whole frame was shaken by a convulsive trembling.
+
+“Who are you?” he gasped. “Who are you, and where did come from?”
+
+“I am a perfect stranger here,” answered Lionel. “I heard you moaning
+just now, and naturally felt anxious to discover the cause of your
+distress.”
+
+“A stranger!” repeated the old man in a hoarse whisper, wiping the
+sweat-drops from his forehead as he spoke. “A stranger! Are you sure
+of that?--eh?”
+
+He peered earnestly into Lionel’s frank face, as if he would fain
+have read the truth there.
+
+“Yes, yes,” he muttered; “I see you don’t deceive me. You _are_ a
+stranger to this dreadful place. But just now I was talking, wasn’t
+I? I talk sometimes without knowing it. I’m an old man, and my
+brain’s getting muddled. Did I say much--did I say anything--anything
+queer--anything that made your blood run cold and your hair stand on
+end?--eh?”
+
+Lionel Westford looked compassionately at the old gardener.
+
+What could this be but madness, or at least the cloudy twilight of a
+fading mind, through which there flitted the dark and hideous shadows
+of delirium?
+
+“My good man, there is no occasion for this distress,” Lionel said
+gently. “You said nothing, except that something or other was
+dreadful. Pray calm yourself. It was only the sound of your moaning
+that attracted me here.”
+
+“And I said nothing? Ah! but I say queer things sometimes--very queer
+things! But there’s no meaning in ’em--no meaning; no more meaning
+than there is in the screeching of them old ravens as you’ll hear
+sometimes in this here shrubbery. They’re as old as I am and older,
+them ravens, and they screeches awful sometimes after dark. _That_
+sounds dreadful; but there’s nothing in it. I’m a very old man. I’ve
+served the Godwins, man and boy, for seventy years. I remember this
+Mr. Godwin--Rupert Godwin--a baby; and I remember his father a boy--a
+bright-faced, free-hearted boy; not dark and silent, like this one,
+but bright and open; the right sort he was--yes, the right sort. I’ve
+served ’em long, and faithful; and they’ve been good masters to me.
+It isn’t likely that I should turn against ’em and betray ’em, now
+I’m an old man. Is it?”
+
+“Of course not,” answered Lionel. “What should you have to betray?”
+
+“No, no,” muttered the old gardener, speaking to himself rather than
+to Lionel, “it isn’t likely. I’ve eaten their bread for seventy
+years, and it isn’t likely I should speak agen ’em, though I feel now
+sometimes as if that bread would choke me. But I musn’t be talking,
+sir; I musn’t stand talking here to you, for I say queer things
+sometimes, only there’s no meaning in ’em; mind that--there’s never
+any meaning in ’em.”
+
+The old man shouldered his spade and walked off, leaving Lionel very
+much bewildered by his manner.
+
+“Mad!” thought the young man. “Mad! Poor old fellow; I wonder the
+banker doesn’t pension off such an old servant. I should scarcely
+like to have such a melancholy object about my place, if I were Mr.
+Godwin. _Frère, il faut mourir!_ The man must be a perpetual reminder
+of the horrors of old age.”
+
+Lionel Westford walked on a few paces further, and presently emerged
+from the shrubberies on to a smooth lawn, across which he saw the
+grand old mansion that had sheltered so many noble inhabitants.
+
+In a moment the recollection of the mad old gardener was blotted out
+of his mind. He thought only of that radiant vision which had so
+bewitched and enchanted him a week before in the printseller’s shop.
+He could only think of the wondrous dark eyes of Julia Godwin.
+
+He arrived at the house, and was received by a stately butler, who
+ushered him immediately up the broad staircase and along a corridor,
+out of which a great many doors opened. One of these doors was
+thrown open by the aristocratic butler, and Lionel found himself in
+a comfortably furnished sitting-room, out of which there opened a
+bedroom and dressing-room.
+
+These were the apartments which the housekeeper had caused to be
+prepared for the artist. Lionel could but compare their simple though
+luxurious furniture with the dingy curtains and meagre-looking
+weak-legged chairs and tables of the shabby lodging in which he had
+left his mother and sister.
+
+He seated himself before a table near the window, on which a large
+portfolio had been placed ready for him, and began to consider his
+work without further delay. But his mind was oppressed by the thought
+that he was acting a treacherous part towards both his mother and
+Rupert Godwin; and the image of the half-imbecile old gardener
+mingled itself strangely with the radiant vision of Julia in all her
+proud young beauty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+A RECOGNITION AND A DISAPPOINTMENT.
+
+
+Violet attended the rehearsals at the Circenses with unfailing
+regularity, and won the warm praises of Mr. Maltravers, the
+stage-manager, both for her punctual habits and her quiet manners,
+which were in strong contrast with the noisy chatter and clamorous
+laughter of some of the giddy careless girls employed in the theatre.
+The interior of the theatre was like a strange world to this girl,
+who had been reared in the refined atmosphere of home. Esther Vanberg
+and her companions treated the newcomer as an intruder. They would
+have been very kind to her, perhaps, had she been an ordinary-looking
+girl, the homely muddy-complexioned sort of young person whom other
+girls speak of as “a dear;” but she was something very different.
+Her undeniable beauty inspired all manner of malice, envy, and
+uncharitableness; and these young ladies did their uttermost to
+render the theatre uncomfortable to her.
+
+They did their uttermost, but they failed most completely; for
+Violet’s thoughts were so far removed from theirs that she scarcely
+felt any annoyance from their sneers or their insolence. Strange
+as this unknown world behind the curtain seemed to her, she was
+supported by the knowledge that she was earning money that would
+at least secure her mother from actual privation; and she was
+comparatively happy.
+
+At last the eventful night arrived on which the new burlesque was to
+be performed. Violet was by this time perfectly familiar with the
+easy task she had to perform. Her dress was ready for her, and no
+expense had been spared to render the costume magnificent.
+
+Even Violet Westford, unconscious though she ordinarily was of her
+own attractions, could scarcely fail to recognize the perfection of
+the face and figure she saw reflected in the glass when the finishing
+touch had been put to her dress, and a starry circlet placed upon her
+sunny hair, which was allowed to fall in wavy masses that reached
+below her waist.
+
+She went downstairs to the stage, and was warmly complimented by Mr.
+Maltravers on her appearance.
+
+He saw her seated in a fairy temple which formed the central feature
+of the gorgeous scene that was to conclude the extravaganza, and then
+left her. In a few minutes the front scene would be drawn aside,
+and Violet Westford would find herself face to face with a London
+audience.
+
+Her heart beat quickly; for though she had nothing more to do than
+to sit in statuesque repose upon a gilded throne and look beautiful,
+she could not help being a little alarmed at the prospect of finding
+herself the focus of all the eyes in the crowded house. On one side
+of the temple Esther Vanberg was placed amongst a group of girls
+ranged on gilded pedestals, for the scene was one of those displays
+of pretty young women and gorgeous stage decoration which Mr. Ruskin
+condemns on aesthetic principles. The Jewess was talking loudly while
+waiting for the scene to be unclosed.
+
+“Pretty!” she exclaimed scornfully; “if Mr. Maltravers calls that
+piece of fair-haired insipidity a beauty, I don’t think much of his
+taste. She’s about as fit to be the Queen of Beauty as the snuffy old
+woman who cleans out the theatre.”
+
+Violet knew that this elegant speech referred to her; but she knew
+also the envious feeling which dictated it, and she was not disturbed
+by her rival’s malignity.
+
+But as Esther Vanberg spoke Violet turned almost involuntarily
+to look at her. The Jewess was splendidly dressed, and looked
+very handsome; but the hollowness of her cheeks and the feverish
+brightness of her eyes were visible, in spite of the rouge and other
+cosmetiques which she used to enhance her beauty.
+
+As Violet looked at those dark eyes, some memory, which she was
+powerless to put into any distinct shape, arose in her mind. Where
+and when had she seen such eyes as those?
+
+She could not answer the question; but she knew that she had at some
+time or other encountered a gaze which was now recalled to her by
+that of Esther Vanberg.
+
+Miss Westford had no time to ponder upon this question, for the scene
+was unclosed, and she saw before her the crowded theatre, with its
+myriad faces and dazzling lights.
+
+A tremendous burst of applause followed the unclosing of the scene,
+for the final tableau of the new burlesque was a miracle of the
+scene-painter’s art.
+
+For some moments Violet could only see a confused mass of faces and
+glittering lamps; then little by little the scene grew clearer to her
+eyes, and she could distinguish single faces from among the crowd.
+
+She saw beautiful women--aristocratic-looking men. She saw hundreds
+of opera-glasses, which all seemed to be levelled at herself. She
+saw humbler sight-seers gazing with enraptured countenances upon the
+scene from the Olympus of the eighteen-penny gallery, and little
+children applauding vehemently, with their chubby hands.
+
+Then, as the scene was a long one, and as she had nothing to do
+during its progress, her gaze wandered idly about the house, now
+resting here, now lingering there, attracted by the novelty of the
+scene.
+
+Suddenly she started, and trembled from head to foot.
+
+In the dress-circle--in a corner nearest the stage--she had
+recognized a man sitting alone, with his arms folded on the velvet
+cushion, his eyes fixed dreamily on the scene before him, as if in
+utter absence of mind.
+
+This man was George Stanmore the painter!
+
+The recognition had set Violet’s heart beating violently. But she
+remembered where she was, and the myriad eyes that were upon her. By
+a powerful effort of self-control she restrained all outward token of
+emotion.
+
+George Stanmore’s dark eyes were still fixed upon vacancy, rather
+than on the dazzling scene at which all the rest of the audience
+were looking; and as Violet watched those dark eyes, a sudden fancy
+startled her, almost as much as she had been startled by her first
+recognition of the artist.
+
+She perceived a singular resemblance between the eyes of George
+Stanmore and those of the Jewess, Esther Vanberg. This was the
+likeness which had so puzzled her only a few moments before the
+unclosing of the scene. It was strange; and Violet was grieved at
+finding a likeness between the man she loved and the _figurante_,
+whose short youth had been one career of folly and extravagance.
+
+It was strange; but these accidental resemblances are of frequent
+occurrence, so Violet did not long puzzle herself about the subject.
+She was too much absorbed by the knowledge that the plighted lover
+from whom she had been so long separated was now before her. Surely
+he must speedily recognize her, as she had recognized him.
+
+She did not consider that she saw George Stanmore in his everyday
+habiliments; while he beheld her in the complete disguise of a
+brilliant stage costume, and moreover in a position which he could
+not have supposed she would occupy. Presently, however, she saw him
+rouse himself from his reverie and look at the stage. He had no
+opera-glass; but he started, and looked at Violet with a prolonged
+and eager scrutiny.
+
+“Yes,” she thought, “he recognizes me; I knew that he would do so.
+And now, how will he act? Will my appearance in this place disgust
+and annoy him? Will the change in our circumstances produce an
+alteration in his feelings? Will he despise the woman who has sunk
+from affluence to poverty, or will he respect my endeavour to earn a
+livelihood by any means in my power?”
+
+Violet asked herself these questions, but in her heart she never
+doubted the fidelity of the man she loved. He had recognized her,
+and he would doubtless leave the box immediately, and hasten to the
+stage-door, whence he could send her a message or a letter.
+
+But to her surprise he did not hasten to quit his seat. He sat quite
+still, gazing fixedly at her until the curtain fell and shut him from
+her sight.
+
+Then Violet fancied that he had only waited for the fall of the
+curtain, preferring to wait rather than to disturb the people about
+him by rising in the middle of a scene.
+
+She left the stage, where the confusion caused by the shifting of the
+scenery was something beyond description. She left the tumultuous
+chaos of noisy carpenters and ponderous machinery, and hurried to
+the room in which she dressed, in company with Esther Vanberg and
+about half-a-dozen other girls. Her heart throbbed with a new sense
+of happiness, her cheeks were flushed with expectation, her hands
+trembled as she removed her fantastic dress, and plaited her long
+hair. She had no ears for the loud talk of her excited companions,
+who were noisily discussing the success of the scene they had been
+engaged in, and the relative merits of their several costumes,
+or speculating and disputing as to who was or who was not in
+“front,”--the front in question being that portion of the theatre
+which has been more elegantly described as the _auditorium_.
+
+Every moment Violet expected to hear her name pronounced outside the
+door of the dressing-room; every moment she expected to be summoned,
+in order that a letter or message might be given to her.
+
+But no letter, no message came. Half an hour, and then the greater
+part of an hour, passed. Violet had dressed herself very slowly,
+lingering over the operation in expectation of a summons; but she
+had now put on her bonnet and shawl; she was ready to go home; and
+her mother, the careful anxious mother, to whom this ordeal of her
+daughter’s was unspeakably painful, would be waiting in the hall by
+the stage-entrance, ready to escort the _débutante_ home.
+
+Clara Westford had insisted upon coming to fetch Violet from the
+theatre. Lionel was away, and the girl had now no male protector. How
+could the devoted mother rest within doors, with the knowledge that
+her daughter was exposed to all the perils of insult and annoyance in
+the half-deserted London streets?
+
+Poor Violet could not linger any longer in the dressing-room with
+the knowledge that her mother was waiting for her below. No words
+can tell the bitterness of her disappointment. Only those who have
+known a life as joyless and hopeless as hers had been of late, can
+imagine the anguish which she felt as she saw her brightest and most
+cherished dream fade away from her.
+
+Throughout her sorrows her heart had been sustained by a belief in
+George Stanmore’s constancy, a deep and heartfelt confidence in his
+affection, which circumstances might shake but could not destroy.
+
+Now that fondly treasured hope was crushed all at once.
+
+He had seen her after a long separation, which should have made her a
+hundredfold more dear to him; he had seen her, he had recognized her,
+and yet had made no effort to approach her.
+
+“He despises me in my altered fortune,” she thought bitterly; “he has
+been to the neighbourhood of the Grange perhaps, and has heard of our
+losses; and now that he sees me struggling to earn a living as best
+I may, he despises me. It was all very well for him to talk so nobly
+about the worshippers of Mammon while he thought me the daughter of
+a rich man, but he is not disinterested enough to forgive the sin of
+poverty in the woman he pretended to love.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE MARQUIS OF ROXLEYDALE.
+
+
+From the night of that first performance of the burlesque at the
+Circenses, Violet Westford’s life was one long conquest over
+self--one long act of womanly heroism.
+
+The noble-hearted girl was determined that her mother should be kept
+in perfect ignorance of her grief. Had not that dear mother already
+suffered enough? Did she not still suffer unceasingly for the loss of
+the best and truest of husbands?
+
+Violet had not told her mother the secret of her love when its object
+had appeared thoroughly worthy of her affection. She could not now
+reveal it, when to do so would have been to stamp her lover as a
+traitor. She had been ashamed of her clandestine engagement from the
+first; she was doubly ashamed of it now, when the falsehood of her
+lover seemed to be a punishment for the secrecy that had attended her
+attachment to him.
+
+“If I know that he is heartless and mercenary, I can at least hide
+the knowledge from others,” she thought. “If I cannot myself respect
+him, I can at any rate shield him from the contempt of strangers.”
+
+Alas for poor Violet! All this suffering, which was so much harder to
+bear than the worst stings of poverty, might have been saved her. All
+this pain arose from a very natural misconception. She had herself
+recognized George Stanmore, and she had imagined it impossible that
+he could fail to recognize her.
+
+She had seen his gesture of surprise, his scrutinizing gaze, so
+fixed in its earnestness, which had lasted until the falling of the
+curtain; and she fancied that gesture and gaze could only arise from
+Mr. Stanmore’s recognition of her.
+
+But it was not so. The artist had not recognized in the fair face of
+the Queen of Beauty the innocent countenance of the girl he had wooed
+and won in the New Forest.
+
+George Stanmore had been only attracted by the _likeness_ which he
+fancied the ballet-girl at the Circenses bore to the daughter of
+Captain Westford. He never for a moment imagined that Violet and the
+Queen of Beauty were one and the same person.
+
+The young man had been wandering in Flanders, from village to city,
+and from city to village, studying the old Flemish masters, and
+exploring every nook and corner in which an old picture was to be
+found. He had only crossed from Ostend to London within a few days of
+his visit to the Circenses. He had no idea of the changes that had
+taken place at the Grange. How, then, should he believe that Violet
+Westford, the only daughter of a prosperous gentleman, the highly
+educated but country-bred girl, could appear before him on the stage
+of a London theatre?
+
+Almost involuntarily he had consulted his playbill. No such name as
+Westford appeared there. The Queen of Beauty was distinguished by the
+very commonplace cognomen of Watson.
+
+But even if he had seen Violet’s real name in the list of characters,
+George Stanmore would have been more inclined to doubt the evidence
+of his own eyes than to believe that it was indeed his simple
+woodland nymph whom he beheld amidst the glare and glitter of that
+brilliantly lighted stage.
+
+No. He gazed to the last moment at the beautiful girl in the roseate
+draperies and crown of stars; but it was only because he loved to
+look upon a face that closely resembled the one so dear to him.
+
+He had no opera-glass, and could not bring the face nearer. If
+Violet had been more experienced in theatrical matters, she would
+have known how few amongst an audience in a large theatre can afford
+to dispense with an opera-glass; and she would have also known how
+much difference is made in every actor or actress’s appearance by an
+entirely strange costume.
+
+Unhappily, she knew nothing of this. She fancied that her lover must
+have inevitably recognized her as easily as she recognized him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nearly a week passed. Every evening Violet Westford’s lovely face
+beamed radiantly on the spectators of the burlesque. Already she
+had learned one lesson belonging to the life of the stage: she had
+learned that she must smile always, whatever secret canker might be
+eating silently into her own heart. The public, who pay to be amused,
+will of course tolerate no doleful faces, no sad or thoughtful looks,
+in the paid favourites of the hour. The queen of tragedy alone can
+indulge in sorrow; and her sorrow must be as unreal as the gladness
+of the ballet-girl, who may smile upon the aristocratic loungers in
+the stalls while her heart is breaking with sorrow for a father,
+a mother, or a favourite sister, lying on a deathbed at home. Let
+those who would be lured away from peaceful and comfortable homes by
+the false glitter of the stage, look well at the dark side of the
+picture, ere they take the first step in a career which is successful
+only for the few.
+
+Violet Westford needed all her fortitude in that London theatre.
+The stage-manager was very kind to her, in his rough-and-ready
+semi-paternal manner. The actresses of superior rank saw that she was
+no vulgar or disreputable person, and often noticed her by a friendly
+word or smile; but, in spite of this, Violet was cruelly persecuted
+in the quiet performance of her duty.
+
+This persecution was inspired by the foul fiend called Envy. Violet’s
+beauty had been much noticed, and had been commented upon in the
+papers which criticised the new burlesque. Although she had not so
+much as one line to speak, her position in the grand scene of the
+_spectacle_ was a very prominent one, and drew upon her the notice of
+every spectator.
+
+Her beauty did the rest. That beauty was so striking; in its
+youthful freshness, and formed such a contrast with the faded
+splendour of those around her, that the waning belles of the theatre
+resented her appearance amongst them as a personal injury.
+
+Esther Vanberg was the leader of a little band who made it their
+business to sneer at Violet, and nothing but the girl’s quiet spirit
+of endurance enabled her to bear the insolence of their innuendoes.
+
+But she did bear it, and without shrinking. It seemed so small a
+trouble to endure when compared with the thought that George Stanmore
+was false and cold-hearted. “The heart once broken by the loved is
+strong to meet the foeman.”
+
+She had been little more than a week in the theatre when one of the
+largest private boxes was occupied by three gentlemen well known to
+the world of London.
+
+One was a handsome Spanish-looking man of middle age; the second
+was an insignificant individual, with a round fat face, small gray
+eyes, sandy hair, and long, carefully trained whiskers, which were
+evidently the pride of his heart; the third was a very young man,
+with a pale auburn moustache, faultless evening-dress, and languid
+manner, as of a sufferer bowed down by the burden of existence.
+
+The first of these three men was Rupert Godwin the banker; the second
+was Mr. Sempronius Sykemore, a renowned tuft-hunter and toady, who
+was always to be found following close upon the heels of some wealthy
+and weak-witted young nobleman, and whose presence was an unfailing
+sign of approaching ruin for the nobleman in question; the third was
+the Marquis of Roxleydale, a young gentleman who had inherited one of
+the oldest titles in England, an estate worth sixty thousand a year,
+and whom nature had not gifted with a very large amount of brains or
+a very noble heart.
+
+It had lately pleased Rupert Godwin to be extremely civil to the
+shallow-headed young Marquis. But he did not put himself to this
+trouble without an eye to his own interests. He hoped to secure Lord
+Roxleydale as a husband for his idolized Julia.
+
+With this end in view, he invited the Marquis to Wilmingdon Hall,
+whenever that young nobleman could be prevailed upon to withdraw
+himself from the delights of London life--a life of the vilest and
+most degraded order; a life passed in the haunts of vice, in which
+horrible dens the Marquis was always attended by Mr. Sempronius
+Sykemore, who conducted him through the seven circles of this
+earthly Inferno as faithfully as Virgil conducted Dante, and who was
+eminently calculated to play the part of Mentor, as he was old enough
+to be the young man’s father.
+
+Lord Roxleydale very much admired Julia Godwin’s beauty; but he had
+no wish to fetter himself with the chains of matrimony; and he found
+Wilmingdon Hall a very dull place after the brilliant assemblies in
+which his evenings were generally spent.
+
+Rupert Godwin perceived this, and for a while he allowed the active
+working of his schemes to be suspended. But he only waited his time.
+He watched the young Marquis as a cat watches a mouse. He affected
+to admire his high spirit--he even joined in his vicious amusements;
+but there was a deep and rooted purpose under all he did--a purpose
+that was fraught with danger to the shallow-brained scion of the
+Roxleydales.
+
+To-night the banker had entertained Lord Roxleydale and his toady Mr.
+Sykemore at a sumptuous dinner given at a West-end club. He was too
+much of a diplomatist not to know that in order to succeed with the
+Marquis he must first secure that gentleman’s guide, philosopher, and
+friend, Mr. Sykemore, and he had purchased Mr. Sykemore’s good graces
+at rather a high figure.
+
+After dinner, when a great deal of wine had been drunk by the Marquis
+and by the worthy Sempronius, it had been proposed that the party
+should adjourn to the Circenses, where the new extravaganza had
+acquired considerable popularity.
+
+Rupert Godwin had been the only one of the party who had refrained
+from drinking. He had excused himself from tasting the choice
+moselles and sparkling hocks which he ordered for his guests, and
+had limited his potations to a few glasses of the driest and palest
+sherry obtainable for money.
+
+Sempronius Sykemore had perceived this; and he suspected some design
+on his friend and patron the Marquis.
+
+He determined to keep a close watch over the banker; but his
+intellect was of a very low order as compared with that of Rupert
+Godwin. All he wanted was to sponge upon the fortune of the weak
+young nobleman, so long as that fortune held out against the ruinous
+habits which Lord Roxleydale had acquired by the evil teaching of
+false friends.
+
+It was past ten o’clock when the three gentlemen entered the theatre.
+They had not long taken their seats when the scene opened, revealing
+the final tableau in which the Queen of Beauty appeared seated in her
+golden temple.
+
+The Marquis lifted his opera-glass and surveyed the stage. He was at
+once attracted by Violet Westford’s lovely face, which amongst all
+the faces on that crowded stage was the only one that was new to him.
+
+“By all that’s beautiful,” he exclaimed, “she’s a houri--an angel!”
+
+“Who is an angel, my dear Marquis?” asked the banker, laughing.
+
+“She is--that girl in the temple yonder! She’s a new girl. I never
+saw her face before. I wonder where the deuce Maltravers picked
+her up. Look at her, Godwin,” added the young man, handing his
+opera-glass to the banker as he spoke.
+
+Rupert Godwin shrugged his shoulders with a careless gesture, and
+then looked at the stage.
+
+But presently he started violently, and the glass almost fell from
+his hand.
+
+Again the ghost! Again the vision of the past! Again the face that
+recalled to him Clara Ponsonby in all her youthful beauty, as he had
+first seen her riding by her father’s side!
+
+“Come,” exclaimed the Marquis, “I see you’re as much struck with her
+as I was.”
+
+“Yes,” answered Rupert Godwin slowly, “she is very lovely.” As he
+spoke his brows contracted over his dark, unfathomable eyes, his lips
+grew rigid,--a diabolical scheme was forming itself in that satanic
+mind.
+
+He had sworn to revenge himself upon the woman who had done him the
+supreme wrong of preferring a happier rival, and who had inflicted
+a wound which had rankled and festered in his envenomed soul. How
+better could he assail this woman than through her daughter’s
+temptation and peril?
+
+This weak young Marquis could be made the instrument of his plot.
+
+Yes; the vile deed shaped itself before him, distinct and palpable as
+the scene now acting on the stage.
+
+“I will pay Clara Westford a visit to-morrow,” thought Rupert Godwin.
+“I have already brought her to the very dust. She defied me when we
+last met; but at that time she was still the mistress of a luxurious
+home, secure, as she believed, from the trials and degradations of
+poverty. I will see her again now, when she has tasted the bitterest
+waters of life’s chalice. Surely she will have grown too wise to defy
+me now. If not--if the indomitable spirit of Clara Ponsonby still
+reigns in the breast of Clara Westford,--I will find a way to bring
+her to my feet, and that way shall be through the peril of yonder
+golden-haired girl.”
+
+These were the thoughts which filled the plotting brain of Rupert
+Godwin as he sat, with the glass in his hand, looking fixedly at the
+stage.
+
+Presently his gaze wandered from the face of Violet Westford, and
+he took a sweeping survey of the groups of showily dressed girls
+arranged in graceful attitudes, which were the result of careful
+study on the part of ballet-master and stage-manager.
+
+Once more the banker’s hand faltered, and he started violently; but
+this time his eyes were fixed upon the Jewish beauty, Esther Vanberg.
+
+“Who is that girl?” he gasped, in a tone that revealed unwanted
+excitement--a degree of emotion extraordinary in this man of iron.
+“Who is she?”
+
+“My dear Godwin,” exclaimed Mr. Sempronius Sykemore, laughing at
+the banker’s vehemence, “I thought just now you were going to fall
+in love with the fair girl! and now you seem suddenly smitten with
+the dark beauty. That young lady is Miss Vanberg, celebrated for her
+handsome face and her demoniac temper. She boasts that she has the
+blood of Spanish Jews in her veins--the old Jews of Andalusia--the
+aristocrats of the fallen race. She is an extraordinary woman--as
+proud as Lucifer, as changeable as the wind. They say that the Duke
+of Harlingford worships the ground she walks upon, and would have
+made her his Duchess long before this, in spite of his exasperated
+relations, if her violent temper had not always caused some desperate
+quarrel between them just as the marriage was about to take place.
+Most women of Esther’s class would be too prudent to quarrel with
+a Duke and a millionnaire--but Miss Vanberg’s temper and pride
+are utterly ungovernable. In the meantime she occupies a house in
+Mayfair, drives a pair of chestnuts worth five hundred guineas,
+dresses as extravagantly as the Princess Metternich, and gives
+herself the airs of a Russian Empress.”
+
+“Strange!” muttered the banker; “the blood of Spanish Jews in her
+veins! And then so like--”
+
+These words were uttered in an undertone, which did not reach the
+ears of the Marquis or his toady. As for Lord Roxleydale, that young
+nobleman was entirely absorbed in admiration of Violet. He sat with
+his eyes fixed upon her, in a gaze as profound as if his senses had
+been enthralled by some supernal vision. So might Faust have looked
+on the phantasm of fair young Gretchen; so might have gazed the son
+of Priam and Hecuba when he first looked on her whose fatal beauty
+was predoomed to be the destruction of Troy.
+
+He gazed thus fixedly until the curtain fell, and then sank back into
+his chair with a profound sigh.
+
+“I’m done for, Semper!” he said--he always called his toady Semper;
+“that girl, that adorable angel, has imprinted her image on my inmost
+heart. Egad! I never knew that I had a heart before. I must see her
+to-night--immediately. I’ll make Maltravers give me an introduction;
+I’ll--”
+
+“Stay, Roxleydale!” exclaimed the banker, laying his hand upon
+the arm of the Marquis, as the young man rose from his seat: “not
+to-night. I know the girl--and know all about her. To-morrow night I
+will introduce you to her.”
+
+“You, Godwin?”
+
+“Yes; I tell you, I know the girl. If you try to get an introduction
+to her through Maltravers, she will give herself prudish airs, and
+refuse to see you. Trust all to me. I can exercise indirect influence
+that you can never guess at. Wait till to-morrow night. I don’t ask
+you to wait long.”
+
+The Marquis sighed.
+
+“You may not think it long,” he answered; “but to me it will be an
+age--an eternity. I never saw such a lovely creature as that girl.
+Egad, I should like to lay my coronet at her feet, and make her
+Marchioness of Roxleydale.”
+
+“Bah!” exclaimed the banker, contemptuously. “It is only a fool
+or a madman who lays his coronet at the feet of a ballet-girl.
+Marchionesses are not picked up out of the gutter. I thought you were
+a man of the world, my dear Roxleydale.”
+
+“A man of the world!” Yes. It had been ever thus. From his earliest
+boyhood the Marquis had been surrounded by flatterers, sycophants,
+and scoundrels, who prided themselves upon being “men of the
+world.” Every generous impulse, every noble emotion that had arisen
+in the young man’s breast, had been stifled by the influence of
+such companions as these; while, on the other hand, every vicious
+inclination had been fostered, every bad quality had been encouraged;
+for it was out of the rich nobleman’s vices that his flatterers hoped
+to make their market.
+
+The Marquis had a mother who adored him, and whom he in his boyhood
+had dearly loved. But his vicious companions had contrived to lure
+him away from the society and influence of that devoted mother, and
+the Dowager Marchioness lived lonely and neglected at one of the
+country seats belonging to her son.
+
+The house she had chosen was situated upon a small estate in
+Yorkshire. There, secluded from the world, the Marchioness spent her
+quiet life, the greater part of which was devoted to works of charity
+and benevolence.
+
+She wrote very often to her son; long letters--earnest supplications
+that he would lead a life worthy of a Christian gentleman, an
+Englishman of high position.
+
+But these letters were never answered. To the young man, living
+in so impure an atmosphere, those tender letters seemed to convey
+only reproaches; his guilty conscience imparted a sting even to his
+mother’s affectionate advice.
+
+And then the tempters were always by his side; always ready to
+whisper evil suggestions into his too willing ear; always ready to
+pooh-pooh the earnest remonstrances of that one good adviser, with
+some insolent modern slang about “the maternal,” or “the dozy old
+party in the North.”
+
+The three men supped together after leaving the theatre, and this
+time Rupert Godwin drank deeply.
+
+He drank deeply, and there was a wild joviality about his manner that
+had something fiend-like in its reckless mirth. He drank deeply; and
+once, when the talk was wildest, he lifted his glass above his head,
+and cried:
+
+“I drink this to Clara, and to the fulfilment of an old vow!”
+
+He drained the glass, and then flung it against the wall opposite to
+him. The crystal shivered into a hundred fragments.
+
+“So will I break your proud spirit, my haughty Clara!” he exclaimed.
+
+The Marquis and Sempronius were both too tipsy to take much notice of
+the banker’s wild talk; or, if they heard it, they little dreamed how
+deep a meaning lurked beneath those threatening words.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+BENT BUT NOT BROKEN.
+
+
+The day that succeeded the night on which the Marquis of Roxleydale
+and his two friends had visited the Circenses happened to be
+Saturday, and Violet Westford had to attend at the theatre in order
+to receive her salary for the week. This business was a long one, for
+the salaries were not paid until after the rehearsal of a new piece
+that was about to be produced, and Violet had to wait until all the
+principal actors and actresses had received their money. Thus it
+happened that Clara Westford was alone all that Saturday morning;
+alone and very sad; for when her children were away from her she made
+no effort to control her sadness. She gave free course to melancholy
+and regretful thoughts; mournful and bitter memories crowded upon
+her mind, and the unheeded tears rolled slowly down her wan cheeks,
+as she bent over the needlework, which took such time and labour to
+accomplish, and was so poorly paid for when done.
+
+She was seated at the little table near the window, when a man’s
+footstep sounded on the stair without, and in the next instant the
+door was suddenly opened.
+
+Clara Westford started to her feet, her heart beating quickly. To
+whom could that unexpected footstep belong except Lionel, her bright,
+brave son, in whose presence there was always comfort?
+
+Her disappointment was very keen when, on turning towards the door,
+she found herself face to face with her bitterest foe, the man whom
+of all others she hated and feared.
+
+But the proud spirit of Sir John Ponsonby’s daughter was not yet
+quenched. The widow drew herself to her full height, and turned to
+meet her persecutor, very pale, but self-possessed as her visitor
+himself.
+
+“You here, Mr. Godwin!” she said. “I thought that in this place at
+least I should be secure from such an intrusion.”
+
+“Love, Clara, respects no place in its pursuit of the beloved object.”
+
+Mrs. Westford shuddered, and turned from the banker with a look of
+scorn and disgust.
+
+“Love!” she exclaimed. “Pray do not profane that sentiment by the
+poison of your lips! Why are you here, Mr. Godwin? By what right do
+you enter this room? This poor lodging is at least my own, and I
+request you to leave it immediately. When you came to me in my happy
+country home you came as the harbinger of sorrow and desolation. By
+your machinations I and my children have been banished from that
+home. Here we have taken shelter. This place is our own, supported
+by our own labour, and here our poverty should preserve us from your
+hateful presence.”
+
+“Fine words, Clara Westford--grand words!” exclaimed the banker, with
+a sneer. “You would banish me from your presence; you would order me
+out of your lodgings; and yet I come to you as a friend.”
+
+“A friend!” cried the widow, with a bitter laugh.
+
+“Ay, a friend, Clara, as well as a lover. Let me first be the lover;
+let me first tell you that my heart is still unchanged. After all
+these years of separation, after all your unconcealed hatred, your
+bitter scorn and defiance, I love you still. Yes, Clara, even now in
+your poverty, even now in your fallen pride.”
+
+“My pride has not fallen,” answered Clara Westford. “It is the pride
+of a woman whose love has been given to a noble and generous-minded
+husband, and who holds that husband’s memory after death even more
+sacred than his honour in life.”
+
+“Clara!” cried Rupert Godwin passionately, “Clara, have pity upon me!
+Remember, how deeply, how devotedly I loved you.”
+
+His hands were clasped entreatingly; his head sank upon his breast; a
+vivid light burned in his dark eyes. It seemed as if in that moment
+the feelings of youth returned to him; and for a while at least it
+was love, and not vengeance, that animated his breast.
+
+“Clara,” he murmured tenderly, “at the sight of your face the past
+all comes back to me, and I forget your cruelty, I forget your
+preference of another, I forget all except my love. I cannot bear to
+see you thus--poor, degraded; for poverty is in itself degradation.
+Leave this place, Clara. Your old home shall again be yours;
+beautified and enriched by the lavish outlay of wealth which I prize
+very little except for your sake. Return to the Grange, Clara, as its
+mistress--and the mistress of my fate.”
+
+Clara Westford looked at the banker aghast with horror.
+
+“Return thither!” she cried. “Return to that house as your dependant;
+your--no, I will not utter the odious word. Return to that house
+which is sacred to me by the memory of my husband’s affection! You
+must know me very little, Rupert Godwin, when you can come to me with
+such a request as this.”
+
+The banker’s face grew black as thunder.
+
+“Enough, Clara!” he exclaimed. “I was a fool to show you the weakness
+of my heart. I came to you as a friend; but you refuse to accept
+my friendship. So be it. Henceforth I am your foe. You have chosen
+to set your pride against mine. You have elected to defy me. Good,
+madam! I accept the challenge. It is a duel to the death. I am what
+is called a good hater, Mrs. Westford, as you may live to discover.”
+
+For some moments Clara Westford made no reply. She stood before the
+banker, calm, impassable; very beautiful in her quiet dignity, in
+her threadbare mourning robes, her simple widow’s cap. The delicate
+colour had faded from her cheeks, the perfect oval of her face was
+hollowed by care and deprivation, but the classic outline of feature
+and the subtle loveliness of expression remained, and Clara Westford
+was still beautiful.
+
+After a few moments of silence, during which the banker’s breath came
+thick and fast between his set teeth, Clara Westford seated herself
+in the chair by the table, and resumed her work.
+
+“I must remind you that this room belongs to me, Mr. Godwin,” she
+said, very quietly, “and that your presence is unpleasant to me.
+Allow me to wish you good morning.”
+
+“Not yet, Mrs. Westford; I did not come here entirely on a fool’s
+errand. You have despised my friendship; you have defied my enmity.
+Perhaps, however, you will not refuse to accept my advice. Have a
+care of your daughter!”
+
+Clara Westford started; and her face, always pale, grew ghastly
+white. She tried to speak, but her trembling lips refused to shape
+the words she would have spoken.
+
+“Have a care of your daughter!” repeated Rupert Godwin. “She is very
+young. She is inexperienced. It is only a few months since she first
+came to London, and already strange things have happened. She has
+left one situation--under suspicious circumstances. She is now in a
+sphere where there is constant danger for one so young and beautiful
+as she is. Once again, I say, beware, Clara Westford! and if ever
+disgrace or ruin come upon your only daughter, remember that I have
+warned you. In that hour you will perhaps come to me. In that hour
+you will perhaps condescend to accept my friendship.”
+
+What words could have been better adapted to strike terror to the
+heart of a mother? The sickness of despair blanched the cheek of
+Clara Westford. Everywhere, on every side, there seemed danger and
+misery. And she was so utterly alone in the world, so completely
+helpless, hedged round by calamities, face to face with a man who
+openly avowed himself her deadly enemy! Yet, even in this supreme
+hour of trial, her fortitude did not entirely abandon her.
+
+“My daughter is able to protect her good name in any position, Mr.
+Godwin,” she said proudly, “however degraded that position may
+appear in your eyes. If I am destined to eat the bread of dependence,
+I would rather be indebted to the precarious labours of my daughter
+than owe sixpence to your--_friendship_.”
+
+“You carry matters with a high hand, Mrs. Westford,” replied the
+banker, irritated beyond measure by the undisturbed calmness of his
+victim’s manner; “but I can afford to wait. What is it Tennyson
+says about that? ‘My faith is strong in Time!’ You defy me to-day,
+but before long I may find you in a more reasonable temper. _En
+attendant_, I can only advise you to keep a sharp eye upon Miss
+Violet. The Circenses ballet is not quite the highest school of
+morality; and Hogarth has taught us what happens to rustic simplicity
+when she comes to seek her fortune in London. Good morning.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+JULIA’S PROTÉGÉ.
+
+
+The life at Wilmingdon Hall was a new and pleasant one for Lionel
+Westford.
+
+Here every luxury and comfort were provided for him. He was earning
+money which he knew would ensure considerable comfort for his mother
+and sister in their humble lodging, or even a change to better
+quarters, if they would consent to make that change. He was living
+in a house in which objects of art and beauty met his eye on every
+side; and this, to the man endowed with artistic tastes, is no small
+privilege. Without, a fair sylvan landscape spread itself before his
+eyes--those weary eyes that had grown so tired of the smoky streets
+and high black chimneys of London. His work was light--absurdly
+light, as it seemed to him, after his dreary unprofitable toil as a
+copyist of law papers. He was his own master, free at any time to
+ramble where he pleased in the pleasant country, or in the verdant
+solitude of the park; and if he chose to ride, one of the banker’s
+horses was at his disposal.
+
+Beyond all this--infinitely more precious a privilege--he was near
+Julia Godwin, the woman whose compassionate glances had seemed to him
+like the looks of an angel; the woman with whom he, the penniless
+adventurer, had fallen over head and ears in love.
+
+He was near her. He heard her low contralto voice as she sang in the
+rooms below, accompanying herself sometimes on her piano, sometimes
+with the bewitchingly romantic sound of a few careless chords on
+her guitar. He saw her--accidentally, of course--not once only, but
+several times in the day. He met her in the park or gardens, and
+loitered talking with her for an hour at a time; or he was summoned
+to discuss the mounting of some picture, and spent an agreeable
+half-hour or so in the morning-room, where Miss Godwin sat with the
+stately widow whom the banker had appointed as companion, chaperone,
+and protectress of the _convenances_, at a very handsome salary.
+
+Somehow or other, the young people were always happening to meet.
+
+And Lionel Westford would have been supremely happy in this dependent
+position, but for the stings of conscience. Unhappily, the stings of
+conscience were very sharp. Argue with himself as he might, he could
+not shut his eyes to the fact that there was guilt and dishonour in
+his intercourse with the Godwin family.
+
+There was secrecy, nay, deception,--and deception must always involve
+meanness. Lionel Westford felt that he had no right to live at ease
+in the house of the man whom his mother counted as her foe.
+
+He tried to argue with himself that women are always unreasoning in
+their dislikes. He tried to persuade himself that Rupert Godwin was
+not the enemy of his household; that the banker had only acted as any
+other business man might have acted in the same circumstances.
+
+The young man’s sense of his false position was not to be lulled to
+rest. He knew that he was acting dishonourably. He knew that there
+was a kind of treachery in the fact of his presence at Wilmingdon
+Hall, and he could not be entirely at peace, even in the enchanting
+society of the woman he loved.
+
+A heavy burden seemed to weigh upon his spirits. It was only while he
+was in Julia’s society that he could put aside that weight of care.
+
+He had been more than a week at Wilmingdon Hall, and he had not again
+encountered the half-witted old gardener.
+
+But the recollection of the old man’s strange words had often flashed
+upon him. Sometimes, against his own will, those words haunted his
+memory, and puzzled and tormented his brain, when he would fain have
+thought of other things.
+
+One day, when the August weather was brightest and balmiest, Lionel
+left his apartment after a long morning’s work at the drawings
+intrusted to him. He strolled out into the grounds, where a few
+minutes before he had seen Julia Godwin’s muslin dress glancing
+amongst the laurel groves.
+
+Nothing could be more beautiful than the smooth lawns, the flowery
+parterres, the sloping banks, and glistening laurel hedges that
+surrounded Wilmingdon Hall. Nothing could be more beautiful than
+those exquisitely cultivated gardens, as Lionel Westford saw them
+to-day, under the golden light of an August sun.
+
+In the distance there sounded the low murmur of a waterfall, which
+seemed the complaining voice of some spirit of the woodland, rather
+than any earthly sound. There had been a time when the gardens of
+Wilmingdon Hall were the pride of Rupert Godwin’s heart. Many a
+fashionable assembly had met on that broad lawn; many an agreeable
+flirtation had commenced in those winding shrubbery walks, in which
+the spreading foliage of the evergreens made a solemn darkness all
+day long. Many a fair young country damsel had winged her ruthless
+arrows home to the hearts of her admirers under the patriarchal
+beeches of the avenue. Fancy-fairs, garden-parties, toxophilite
+meetings, and flower-shows had been wont to enliven those spacious
+gardens. It was only within the last year that a shadow seemed to
+have fallen on the life of Rupert Godwin, the reputed millionnaire;
+and the county people marvelled at the change in the man who had once
+aspired to hold a high place amongst them.
+
+It was known that the banker had quarrelled with his son, though the
+cause of that quarrel had never transpired.
+
+Rumour had made herself busy with the interior of Mr. Godwin’s
+mansion, and strange things had been said of the disagreement between
+father and son. People said that it was his son’s misconduct which
+had led to Mr. Godwin’s desertion of his country seat; and the county
+gentlemen spoke of the young man’s behaviour in terms of unmitigated
+disapprobation.
+
+He had turned his back upon the paternal mansion for ever, it was
+said, and had gone abroad to wander on the face of the earth, a
+reprobate and an outcast.
+
+The feminine portion of the community were honestly sorry for this
+erring wanderer. Edward Godwin was young and handsome, and there
+are young ladies who would pity Cain, and be ready to forgive that
+unlucky blow with the club, if they were informed on good authority
+that the first murderer was darkly splendid of aspect.
+
+Julia was devoted to her brother, and she pleaded his cause
+everywhere; but she was very little wiser than the county gentry with
+regard to the unhappy misunderstanding which had separated father and
+son.
+
+She could only tell people that “poor Edward and papa couldn’t get
+on together,” or that “they didn’t understand each other.” She could
+only speak in tender deprecation of her brother’s “wild notions on
+some subjects,” and conclude with the hope that the prodigal would
+return and be forgiven.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lionel had watched Julia from his window, and he knew in what
+direction she had walked. Nothing, therefore, was more natural than
+that he should meet her--accidentally.
+
+He entered one of the long shadowy alleys, which seemed to narrow to
+a vanishing point, and his heart beat faster than its wont, as he
+saw the graceful figure of Julia Godwin seated in an old-fashioned
+bower, midway between him and the end of the walk.
+
+She was reading, but she looked up smiling and blushing as Lionel
+drew near.
+
+He began to talk to her about her book, the last popular volume
+of travels in the centre of Africa, and from that subject they
+wandered on to other topics. Julia was very bright and animated.
+She had spent a weary morning in the society of her companion, Mrs.
+Melville, whose conversation was the very essence of dulness; and
+she had fled to the gardens for a refuge from that monotonous drip,
+drip, drip of meaningless babble. It is scarcely strange, therefore,
+if she was more or less interested in Lionel’s conversation, when
+it is considered that he talked his best, as if inspired by that
+enthusiastic listener.
+
+It was easy for a clever woman to discover that the young man had
+received the highest class of education which modern civilization can
+afford.
+
+Julia perceived this; she saw that Lionel was a gentleman both by
+birth and breeding; and she could not but wonder at the strange
+position in which she had found him.
+
+All that was most generous in her nature was aroused in sympathy with
+the stranger’s misfortunes. She would fain have known his history.
+She had hoped to win his confidence; but she found this was no easy
+task. The young man spoke freely of every subject--except of himself
+and his antecedents. On these points he preserved a guarded silence.
+
+They sat talking together for nearly an hour--an hour whose sands ran
+out as the sands only run when “Love takes up the glass of Time, and
+turns it in his glowing hands.”
+
+At last Julia took a tiny watch from her belt, and glanced at the
+dial. She blushed as she perceived the hour, for conscience told
+her there must be some special reason for her forgetfulness of the
+flight of time. What would her father have said to her, had he known
+that she could waste an hour in conversation with a penniless young
+artist, whose history was utterly unknown to her--whose only claim
+upon her had been his destitution?
+
+“But whatever papa could say of him, he is a gentleman,” thought
+Julia, “as highly educated as the best and brightest of papa’s
+aristocratic friends.”
+
+She closed her book, and rose to leave the quaint old arbour of
+clipped laurels.
+
+“Two o’clock!” she exclaimed. “How quickly the time slips away! I had
+no idea that I had been out so long. I must wish you good morning,
+Mr. Wilton.”
+
+A faint flush tinged Lionel’s face as he heard his false name
+pronounced by those lovely lips. He could not stifle the feeling of
+shame which the consciousness of his deception awoke in his mind.
+
+“You will allow me to accompany you to the house?” he said.
+
+“O, certainly,” Julia answered, “if you have nothing better to do.”
+
+Some complimentary speech rose to the young man’s lips, but he
+repressed it.
+
+How could he dare to betray his admiration, his love, for Julia
+Godwin? Even if she had not been the daughter of his mother’s enemy,
+his own poverty would have been an insurmountable barrier, separating
+him from her entirely.
+
+No; his love was hopeless. This girl, luxuriously nurtured, heiress
+to an ample fortune, would, no doubt, have laughed to scorn the
+devotion of a man whom she had rescued from a state of beggary, that
+had been near akin to starvation. The story of King Cophetua and the
+beggar maiden is the prettiest of poetic legends; but reverse the
+positions of the lovers, and the poetry is gone. The king may lead
+the beggar maiden up the steps of his throne, amid the acclamations
+of an approving people; but the queen must not stoop from her high
+estate to smile on low-born merit. This, at any rate, was Lionel
+Westford’s reading of the old legend, and he felt that there was
+something almost contemptible in his position in relation to Miss
+Godwin.
+
+“Let my pride protect me,” he said to himself. “Let me remember how
+we met, and let me hold my tongue, whatever effort it may cost me
+to set a watch upon my lips. I can endure anything rather than her
+contempt.”
+
+The two young people walked for some little time in silence. Then
+Lionel spoke; but there was something of constraint in his tone.
+
+“You will, perhaps, like to hear an account of my morning’s work,
+Miss Godwin,” he said. “I have been mounting the Snow piece and the
+Alpine Sunset. They are both very good. Your brother has real genius,
+wonderful freedom and vigour in his pencil, and a splendid eye for
+colour. I only know one amateur artist at all equal to him.”
+
+“Indeed!--and who is he?”
+
+“A young man whom I met in Hampshire. Perhaps I ought not to call
+him an amateur, for I believe he intended to make painting his
+profession. Your brother’s style very much reminds me of his, though
+he may have been, perhaps, a little further advanced in his art.”
+
+“And his name?”
+
+“His name was Stanmore--George Stanmore.”
+
+“And you met him in Hampshire?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Long ago?”
+
+“Not very long. It is about a twelvemonth since I last saw him.”
+
+Julia was silent. A cloud seemed to spread itself over her bright
+face. She was near the house now; and before the great stone porch
+Lionel bowed, and left her.
+
+He had worked hard that day, and had risen early in the summer
+morning in order to make rapid progress with the work which was for
+him a labour of love, since it was to please _her_ he took so much
+trouble in the mounting and touching-up of the drawings. What was he
+but a salaried servant in that house, and how could he maintain the
+smallest sense of independence except by hard work?
+
+He was in no humour to return to his solitary apartments. Julia
+Godwin’s image filled his mind. He strolled back to the laurel grove
+in which he had spent such pleasant hours. For a long time he paced
+up and down the long alley between the clipped laurel edges, thinking
+of the beautiful girl with whom he had been so besotted as to fall
+in love. Then, scarcely knowing where he went, he wandered away from
+the laurel alley, through an old-fashioned garden, in which there
+were big, straggling yew-trees, which had once been the pride of
+a gardener’s heart, in the shape of peacocks and lions, and stiff
+little flower-beds of geometrical form, where the kitchen gardeners
+grew savoury herbs, to give flavour and piquancy to the flesh-pots of
+Wilmingdon Hall.
+
+After exploring this garden, Lionel went through an opening in a
+close-cut hedge of yew, and found himself suddenly under the dark
+walls of the northern wing. Those ancient walls seemed to cast a cold
+and dismal shadow across the garden--a shadow that darkened the glory
+of the summer day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+ON THE THRESHOLD.
+
+
+Lionel Westford looked up at the building before him with an
+involuntary shudder; and yet there was nothing either strange or
+terrible in its aspect. It was only old, worn, and grey. Long rows
+of narrow Gothic windows extended from one end to the other of the
+massive pile. Every one of these windows was closely shuttered
+within; moss grew on the old grey walls, save where the ivy crept,
+darksome and thick, to the very roof.
+
+“A dreary-looking building!” muttered Lionel, after one brief glance
+at those dark shuttered windows, that damp-stained, moss-grown
+wall--“a dismal, uncomfortable sort of place! I wonder the banker
+doesn’t pull it down, and build something better upon its site. I
+suppose he is something of an antiquarian, and respects this relic of
+the days of the Plantagenets. Yet, in that case, one would think he’d
+spend a little money on restoring the old building.”
+
+He was about to turn away and leave the neighbourhood of the northern
+wing for some more cheerful part of the grounds, when he was startled
+by the sound of a voice--the weak quavering voice of an old man.
+
+“Through the crack in the shutter,” said the voice, “I saw, I
+saw!--through the crack in the shutter!”
+
+Lionel Westford turned in the direction whence the voice proceeded,
+and saw the half-witted gardener, whose strange talk he had overheard
+upon his first arrival at Wilmingdon Hall. The old man was crouching
+close against one of the lower windows, and seemed as if peering
+earnestly through a crack in the heavy oak shutter.
+
+There was something so strange in the action that it could scarcely
+fail to inspire a sentiment of curiosity, even in the least
+suspicious mind.
+
+Lionel lingered to listen to what more the old man might have to say.
+
+The weak-witted, white-haired pensioner, was strangely excited. He
+clung to the stone ledge of the window; he pressed his face close
+against the dingy glass, behind which the thick oak shutter looked
+dark and impenetrable as the wall of a dungeon.
+
+For some moments he remained in the same attitude, still as death.
+Then a change came over him, and he began to tremble violently, with
+the manner of a man who watches some appalling scene.
+
+“Don’t, master! don’t!” he cried, in a half-stifled shriek. “Don’t
+do it, master! For the love of heaven, don’t do it! O, the knife,
+the dreadful knife! It’s murder--cruel, deadly, treacherous bloody
+murder! Don’t, master! Don’t, don’t!”
+
+The old man recoiled from the window, exhausted by his own emotion,
+and turned as if to rush from the place. As he turned he met the gaze
+of Lionel Westford, who stood pale and breathless before him.
+
+With one savage bound the gardener flew at the young man’s throat.
+
+“Ha!” he shrieked; “it’s you, is it? You’ve been listening! you’ve
+been spying again! I know you! You’re on the watch. You want to
+find out the secret--the wicked secret, the bloody secret; but you
+sha’n’t, you sha’n’t! I’m an old man, and I’m weak and foolish
+sometimes; but I sha’n’t live long, and, come what may, I’ll keep
+that secret till I die, for the sake of the master I’ve served so
+long. Did I say much? Tell me, young man! Did I say much? Speak, or
+I’ll throttle you.”
+
+The old gardener’s withered fingers grasped Lionel’s cravat. The
+young man gently freed himself from that feeble grasp.
+
+“What did I say?” repeated the gardener; “whatever it was, it meant
+nothing. My poor old wits wander sometimes, you see, and I fancy
+I see things--such things!--knives, daggers--and murder--cruel,
+treacherous murder; a man standing on the top of a flight of dark
+steps, and another man stabbing him in the back, and throwing him
+down into some black dreadful place underground. It’s only a dream,
+you know, a horrid dream; but I dream it so often--O, so often!”
+
+No words can describe the look of horror upon the old man’s face as
+he said this. He clung convulsively to Lionel’s arm, trembling from
+head to foot, and with his eyes almost starting from their sockets.
+
+A death-like chill crept through the young man’s veins; a death-like
+horror took possession of his breast.
+
+Something told him that in this old gardener’s wild talk there was
+more than the raving of a disordered intellect. Something told him
+that lurking in these hideous words there was the clue to some dark
+and horrible secret--a secret in which Rupert Godwin was concerned.
+
+He struggled against the hideous conviction, the horrible dread
+that filled his breast. Rupert Godwin had been the enemy of his own
+family; but, then, was he not also Julia’s father? It would have
+gone hard with young Romeo Montague, if he had found himself obliged
+to think ill of the paternal Capulet. To think ill of the master of
+Wilmingdon Hall was torture to Lionel Westford. And yet the young man
+could not help feeling that he was on the threshold of some dreadful
+mystery.
+
+Providence had, perhaps, sent him to that spot as the appointed
+discoverer and avenger of some dark crime; some deed buried from the
+light of day; some foul secret, the clue to which was hidden in the
+bewildered brain of an imbecile old man. Come what might, Lionel felt
+that it was his solemn duty to endeavour to fathom the mystery. It
+was possible that the secret might not concern the present owner of
+the Hall. This old man’s clouded brain might be haunted by the memory
+of some deed done by a former master, in days when men held each
+other’s and their own lives more cheaply than they hold them now;
+in the days when duels were as common as dinner parties are to-day,
+and when many a gentlemanly affray ended in horror and bloodshed.
+Or it might even be that the tragic scene which tormented the old
+gardener’s brain had no more substantial origin than some ghastly
+legend of the old mansion told by the Christmas fire in the servants’
+hall, and fatally impressed upon the imbecile mind of age.
+
+Let its origin be what it might, however, Lionel felt that he ought
+to make himself master of its real nature; and, in order to do this,
+prudence and some dissimulation would be necessary. He could only
+hope to succeed by lulling the old man’s fears to rest, and thus
+winning his confidence.
+
+“Come,” he said gently, slipping his arm through that of the gardener
+with a protecting gesture,--“come, my friend, calm yourself, I beg.
+You are an old man, and these dreams and fancies wear you out. Let us
+talk of something else. Let us leave this dismal-looking place.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” answered the gardener eagerly; “let us go away. I’ve no
+business here; I don’t want to come here--but there’s something draws
+me to the spot; there’s some devil, I think, that drags me here.
+I don’t see him, but I feel his touch--I feel his burning fingers
+dragging me, and then I come here in spite of myself, and I look
+through the crack of the shutter, and I see it all again, as I saw it
+that night.”
+
+The old man turned and pointed to the window as he spoke. Following
+his skinny finger, Lionel fixed his eyes on that one particular
+window, and then noted its position in the range of shattered
+casements.
+
+It was the seventh window from the western angle of the wall.
+
+The young man took special note of this circumstance, and then led
+his companion very slowly away.
+
+The gardener was very old--very feeble. At any time he might die,
+and, if there were indeed a secret hidden beneath his wild talk, that
+dark secret would perhaps die with him.
+
+“You are an old servant in this household?” Lionel said.
+
+“Yes, a very old servant, a faithful servant. I’ve served here, man
+and boy, for the best part of a century. Is it likely I would turn
+again them that has fed and clothed me? Is it likely I would turn
+again one of my master’s race--my old master’s race? This one is dark
+and cold and proud, and there’s something in his eyes that makes me
+shudder when he looks at me. But the Godwin blood runs in his veins,
+and old Caleb Wildred will never turned against him. It ain’t likely,
+you see, after serving ’em, man and boy, for nigh upon a hundred
+years--it ain’t likely.”
+
+For some time Lionel walked side by side with the old gardener.
+Caleb Wildred talked a great deal; but his talk was all of the same
+rambling order, and he always came round again to the same point.
+
+There was a secret--a secret which he would die sooner than betray.
+
+Lionel Westford lay down to rest that night with a terrible burden
+upon his mind. All through the night he was alternately tossing
+wakefully upon his pillow, or tormented by hideous dreams in which
+Julia Godwin came to him, pale and tearful, imploring him to keep the
+secret of her father’s crime.
+
+That hidden shapeless crime--which was as yet only a hideous shadow,
+a frightful suspicion in the young man’s mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+MISS VANBERG IS MALICIOUS.
+
+
+Rupert Godwin left Clara Westford with rage and vengeance burning in
+his breast. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” says the poet;
+but the mind of a bad man who finds himself despised by the woman he
+loves is the habitation of that devil whose name is legion. There was
+no vengeance too base, too cruel, for the banker. He determined to
+heap the bitterest of all earthly sufferings upon the woman who had
+defied him.
+
+He laughed aloud as he thought of the widow’s weakness.
+Poverty-stricken, friendless--what could she do in the strife with
+him, who had wealth and power on his side?
+
+Rupert Godwin had been an infidel from his very boyhood. His
+philosophy was of the Garden, and not of the Porch. In his creed
+a man had but one duty, and that was allegiance to himself. For
+himself and for his own pleasure he had lived, and now that the
+passions of youth had been sated by the pleasures of youth, a darker
+and more stormy passion held the mastery of his mind. That passion
+was revenge. His offended pride, his baffled love, his outraged
+self-esteem, alike demanded the humiliation of Clara Westford.
+
+From the Waterloo-road he went straight to a West-end club, where he
+had promised to meet the young Marquis.
+
+He had pledged himself to introduce Lord Roxleydale to Violet
+Westford. But he had only done this in order that he might gain time
+to mature his schemes. If Clara had yielded to the temptation of his
+wealth, or the fear of his power, he would then have protected Violet
+from the Marquis.
+
+But Clara had defied him, and he was now determined on a course which
+must result in unspeakable misery for her.
+
+He found Lord Roxleydale waiting for him in the smoking-room of the
+club. The apartment was almost deserted at this hour, and the young
+Marquis had no better amusement than to lounge in one of the windows,
+puffing laboriously at a gigantic regalia, with the air of a man who
+has sworn to smoke himself into a galloping consumption within a
+given period.
+
+For once in a way he had contrived to escape from the society of his
+hanger-on and flatterer, Mr. Sempronius Sykemore; but he had only
+done this at the cost of a fifty-pound note, which he had lent to the
+needy Sempronius, who was always tormented by a kind of demon avenger
+in the shape of a “little bill,” which required to be taken up with
+money borrowed from Mr. Sykemore’s wealthy friends. “I should paste
+a bit of calico behind that ‘little’ bill of yours, if I were you,
+Sykemore,” remarked one of his victims. “It has been taken up so
+many times that I am sure it can’t hold together much longer.”
+
+“Well, Godwin!” exclaimed Lord Roxleydale, turning eagerly to meet
+the banker; “have you managed that business? Have you seen her, and
+have you arranged matters for my introduction to her?”
+
+“Unluckily, no, my dear boy,” Mr. Godwin answered coolly. “I have
+not forgotten you, but I find that I have made a slight mistake. I
+have been making inquiries at the theatre this morning, and I have
+discovered that Miss Watson, the girl who plays the Queen of Beauty,
+is not the person I fancied.”
+
+“Then you can’t introduce me to her?”
+
+“Unhappily, my dear boy, I have not that privilege. But I am a man of
+the world, and I think I can give you a few useful hints as to the
+best way of getting an introduction.”
+
+Lord Roxleydale shrugged his shoulders with an impatient gesture.
+
+“Sempronius could do as much as that,” he said.
+
+“Sempronius is a cad,” answered the banker, “who ought not to be
+trusted with any business requiring the smallest amount of tact. He’s
+a very good sort of person to send on a message to your tailor, or to
+get you long odds from the bookmen when you want to back anything.
+He may be useful to us by-and-by; but for the present we are better
+off without him. Do you know that girl--that handsome Jewish-looking
+girl? Miss Vanberg, I think you called her.”
+
+“Yes, I know her.”
+
+“She is the person to be of use to us. She will be able to tell us
+all about this Miss Watson. Suppose you were to call upon her, taking
+me with you?”
+
+“It seems rather a roundabout way of doing business,” the Marquis
+said contemptuously; “but I’m agreeable. My phaeton is waiting. I can
+drive you to Miss Vanberg’s at once, if you like.”
+
+“I am ready,” answered the banker. “I want to see this Miss Vanberg.”
+
+He spoke carelessly, but in his face there was a lurking expression
+in which a physiognomist might have perceived an almost feverish
+anxiety.
+
+But the Marquis was by no means skilled in reading either the faces
+or the minds of men. He had gone through the usual curriculum at Eton
+and Oxford, and had done the usual Continental tour with a tutor
+whose life he endangered at every available opportunity by upsetting
+him on the highways and byways of Europe out of divers vehicles,
+and had evinced altogether an exceptional capacity for remaining in
+a state of primitive ignorance. His career at the University had
+awakened him to the comprehension of the fact that those Latin
+fellows who wrote stupid histories about each other’s wars and that
+kind of thing were a confounded bore, and the Greek fellows a still
+more confounded bore; that getting up early in the morning was
+humbug; and that wine-parties were slow, because fellows had got
+so doosid sober and so doosid intellectual, that they were always
+chopping damm’ logic and talking damm’ crack-jaw stuff about Homer
+and Æschylus and that kind of thing, instead of enjoying themselves
+like gentlemen.
+
+This was Hector Augustus Front d’Airain, Baron of Hursley in
+Staffordshire, Marquis of Roxleydale in Scotland,--a fair-haired,
+yellow-whiskered, baby-faced young gentleman, with the morals of a
+Rochester and the intellect of a Master Slender. He was the very last
+of men whom Rupert Godwin would have chosen for a companion from any
+but mercenary motives.
+
+The two men drove straight to Miss Vanberg’s house, which was a
+_bijou_ mansion in Bolton-row. It was between four and five o’clock
+in the afternoon by this time, and the young lady was at home.
+
+A man-servant ushered the two gentlemen up the richly-decorated
+staircase, where nymphs and satyrs in Florentine bronze smirked
+and capered in the recesses of the pale grey wall, relieved by
+mouldings and medallions in unburnished gold. Everything in the
+elegantly-appointed house betokened the presence of wealth. The Duke
+of Harlingford’s purse had to pay very largely for the caprices of
+the lovely Jewess, who honoured him by spending his money.
+
+The afternoon’s sun was shining between the leaves of the tropical
+flowers that shaded the open window of Miss Vanberg’s drawing-room.
+Near this window the Jewess was half-seated, half-reclining on a low
+luxurious sofa covered with amber satin.
+
+Esther Vanberg wore a clear white muslin dress, high to the throat,
+and fastened round her waist by a broad crimson sash tied in a loose
+knot. A crimson ribbon secured the rich masses of her purple-black
+hair.
+
+Her slender figure was half-buried in the amber satin pillows of the
+sofa, whose brilliant hue contrasted marvellously with her dark hair
+and flashing black eyes.
+
+Seated thus, Esther Vanberg might have been a worthy study for any
+living painter.
+
+But in the broad summer sunlight the havoc which her reckless life
+and evil temper had wrought in her constitution was only too plainly
+visible.
+
+Rupert Godwin saw the feverish light in her eyes, the hectic flush
+upon her cheek; and he knew that the beautiful Jewess was doomed to
+make a speedy finish to her reckless career.
+
+She half rose as the two gentlemen entered the room.
+
+“Pray don’t disturb yourself, Miss Vanberg,” said the Marquis; “I’ve
+only dropped in for a few minutes’ chat, with my friend here, Mr.
+Godwin, the great banker. You must have heard of Godwin’s bank, eh?
+That’s quite in your style, you know. You’ve got quite a genius for
+getting rid of money, you know, and that kind of thing. You’re not
+looking very well this afternoon. You’re tired, I daresay. Long
+rehearsal, and so on. Fatiguing life, I should think, the drama, eh?”
+
+“Very fatiguing,” answered the Jewess, shrugging her shoulders
+contemptuously, “especially when one’s ambition is blighted by the
+senseless stupidity of one’s employers. I want to be an actress, not
+a ballet-girl; but Mr. Maltravers will not allow me to open my lips;
+and yet he has picked up some girl in the streets whom he has chosen
+to place in the most conspicuous position in the great scene of our
+new burlesque.”
+
+“You mean Miss Watson,” exclaimed the Marquis. “Well, I don’t wonder
+Maltravers was knocked over when he saw her: she’s the loveliest
+creature I ever beheld.”
+
+Esther Vanberg looked at the young nobleman with a frown which was
+almost too much for the young man’s nerves. Rupert Godwin gave him a
+warning glance at the same moment; and, dull as Lord Roxleydale was,
+he saw that he had been imprudent in the undisguised utterance of his
+admiration.
+
+“If you call that insipid flaxen-haired doll a beauty, you must be as
+stupid as Maltravers himself,” said the Jewess unceremoniously.
+
+Mr. Godwin took this opportunity of striking in.
+
+“Well, for my part, I think she’s a pretty girl, in a very insipid
+style, as you say, Miss Vanberg, and by no means my style of beauty.
+I like something flashing, queen-like, Oriental--the Cleopatra type
+of loveliness.”
+
+He looked at the Jewess as he spoke, and it was evident that her
+offended vanity was somewhat appeased by the compliment implied in
+his words.
+
+“However,” continued the banker, “insipid as the young lady is, a
+friend of ours, a certain Mr. Sempronius Sykemore, a tuft-hunter and
+vulgarian, has chosen to fall desperately in love with her. He is
+pining for an introduction, and is ready to carry her off and make
+her Mrs. Sempronius Sykemore at the shortest notice, if she will
+accept him for a husband.”
+
+“He is rich, I suppose?” inquired Esther.
+
+“Not he. The fellow is a low-born adventurer, without a sixpence in
+the world, beyond what he contrives to borrow from some obliging
+friend.”
+
+“He is young, handsome, perhaps?” suggested Esther.
+
+“Neither. He is five-and-forty at the least, wears the most obvious
+of wigs, and is strongly suspected of being guilty of false teeth.”
+
+Esther Vanberg’s face lighted up with a gracious smile.
+
+“And he wants to marry Miss Watson, the stage-manager’s favourite,
+the Queen of Beauty?”
+
+“He does.”
+
+“And if she refuses to marry him?”
+
+“Well, my dear Miss Vanberg,” answered the banker, “that’s the
+very thing the Marquis and I have been thinking of; and we want to
+concoct a little plot--a pleasant little practical joke, you know,
+by which we may have some innocent fun ourselves, and secure our
+dear Sempronius a pretty wife. Now, unfortunately, Sykemore is so
+confoundedly vulgar and ugly, and fat and conceited, that if he
+were to ask Miss Watson to marry him she’d be sure to say No. So in
+this case we want to plan an elopement. We shall try and arrange
+some little _ruse_, by which Miss Watson will be lured into a
+travelling carriage; post-horses will be ready on the road, and our
+friend Sykemore shall carry the young lady off to a lonely place
+in Essex, belonging to our friend Lord Roxleydale. Once there, the
+Queen of Beauty, who is a very prudish, stuck-up young person, as I
+understand, will feel that her reputation is compromised. Sempronius
+will be ready with a special licence and a parson, the knot will
+be tied, and Miss Watson will disappear into domestic life as Mrs.
+Sykemore, and will thus leave the stage of the Circenses clear for
+one infinitely more calculated to charm the public than her most
+insipid self.”
+
+The Marquis of Roxleydale sat open-mouthed, listening to this speech.
+He felt that some subtle plot was being concocted, but he was just
+clever enough to know that he was stupid, and he trusted himself
+entirely in the hands of his friend and adviser--the man of the world.
+
+To Esther Vanberg there was a terrible temptation in the proposition
+made by the banker.
+
+She hated Violet Westford; hated her alike for her superior beauty,
+the favour that had been shown her by Mr. Maltravers, and the
+admiration that had been lavished on her by the press and the public.
+
+It had been whispered in the theatre that Violet would be permitted
+to play some small part in a new piece that was about to be produced,
+in order that the audience might see more of her fresh young beauty.
+
+This was a terrible mortification to the haughty girl, who so
+earnestly aspired to be an actress, and who had never been allowed to
+open her lips on the stage of the Circenses.
+
+For these reasons Esther Vanberg hated Violet. She hated her also
+because of the girl’s quiet dignity, that calm and placid demeanour
+which resisted insult more completely than any violence of temper
+could have done.
+
+Thus it was that Esther Vanberg was tempted to join in a plot which
+might remove Violet from her path, and the success of which would
+humiliate her unconscious rival by uniting her to an unworthy husband.
+
+The temptation was a powerful one, and Esther had never been
+accustomed to withstand temptation.
+
+“What do you want me to do in order to assist your scheme?” she
+asked, after an interval of thought.
+
+“We only want you to introduce us to Miss Watson in such a manner as
+to throw her off her guard. The Marquis can get admittance to the
+green-room of the theatre for himself and any of his friends.”
+
+“Miss Watson is an ill-bred insolent creature,” exclaimed Esther
+impatiently, “and she and I are scarcely on speaking terms. However,
+if you will wait till Monday night I’ll try and arrange matters in
+the mean time. I must be on tolerably friendly terms with this girl
+before I can introduce you to her.”
+
+“To be sure,” answered the banker. “Monday night will do very well
+indeed.”
+
+The Marquis of Roxleydale looked crestfallen. His weak mind was
+entirely filled with the image of Violet, and he could not bear the
+thought of delay. He was eager to see her, to give utterance to his
+admiration--his worship. Left to himself, his love might have been a
+generous affection: as it was, that love would speedily degenerate
+into the base passion of a profligate, for he was under the influence
+of a man of the world.
+
+“I should have liked to see--I mean, I should have liked Sempronius
+to see her to-night,” he said; “Monday seems such a doosid long time
+to wait.”
+
+Esther Vanberg shrugged her shoulders with the disdainful gesture
+that was peculiar to her.
+
+“It can’t possibly be managed before Monday,” she said; “and as it
+is, it will give me a great deal of trouble.”
+
+“For which you shall be recompensed, my dear Miss Vanberg,” answered
+the Marquis eagerly; “if the handsomest diamond bracelet to be bought
+at Harry Emanuel’s will content you.”
+
+Esther smiled. Revenge was sweet, but precious gems were also very
+dear to the heart of the ballet-girl. Rupert Godwin watched her
+keenly, and with a strange shadow of melancholy overspreading his
+countenance.
+
+There was something very horrible in the idea of this girl, with
+the doom of death stamped upon her face, but with her mind entirely
+absorbed by schemes of vengeance and greed of gain.
+
+“Who is she, and whence does she come?” thought the banker. “There is
+a strange coincidence in the likeness she bears to the dead. And then
+that talk of the ancient Jews of Andalusia. Strange!--strange!”
+
+Rupert Godwin roused himself by an effort from the reverie into which
+he had fallen, and rose to take his leave of Miss Vanberg.
+
+After some further discussion, a meeting in the green-room of the
+Circenses was arranged for the following Monday evening. Lord
+Roxleydale was hand-and-glove with the manager of the theatre, and
+his influence was sufficiently powerful to procure the admission of
+his friend.
+
+The two gentlemen left Miss Vanberg’s elegant little domicile and
+drove back to the club, where the banker was to dine _tête-à-tête_
+with the Marquis. Of late Rupert Godwin had occupied a _pied-à-terre_
+in St. James’s, preferring to live anywhere rather than at Wilmingdon
+Hall, though Julia complained bitterly of his desertion.
+
+“Now, Godwin,” exclaimed the Marquis, when the two men were seated
+opposite to each other at the glittering little dinner-table in the
+club-room, “tell me why you introduced Sempronius into this business.”
+
+“As a tool, my dear Marquis; and a very convenient one,” answered
+the banker. “Couldn’t you see through that girl Vanberg’s jealousy?
+She is envious of the other girl’s superior beauty. If she knew that
+you admired Miss Watson, she would do all in her power to baulk your
+schemes; for she would be afraid of helping her rival to become a
+Marchioness. But, on the other hand, she will cordially assist in
+a plot that will unite the girl she hates to a vulgar penniless
+husband.”
+
+“I see. You’re a clever fellow, upon my word, Godwin. So far, so
+good. And how about the rest of your plot?”
+
+“Nothing can be more simple. You have a place in Essex, called the
+Moat?”
+
+“I have.”
+
+“What sort of a place is it?”
+
+“Well, I think It’s about the loneliest and dreariest old dungeon in
+the civilized world.”
+
+“Have you many servants there?”
+
+“No; only two poor old creatures, who wither away among the cobwebs
+and mildew of the place. They are a superannuated coachman and his
+wife, who served my father, and were pensioned by him. They are both
+of them as deaf as posts, and as blind as beetles.”
+
+“Nothing could be better--unless, indeed, they had been dumb into the
+bargain,” answered Rupert Godwin, with a grim smile. “The very people
+of all people; the very place of all places. I have my little schemes
+all prepared, and before midnight on Monday, Vio--Miss Watson, the
+Queen of Beauty, will be in a travelling carriage behind four horses
+on her road to the Moat.”
+
+“With Sempronius Sykemore?”
+
+“No, my dear Roxleydale; with you.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+FALCON AND DOVE.
+
+
+The Saturday evening which succeeded the interview in Miss Vanberg’s
+drawing-room was almost a happy one for Violet Westford: for on this
+evening Mr. Maltravers announced to her that he was so much pleased
+with her graceful deportment in the burlesque that he had decided
+upon intrusting her with a small speaking part in a new piece, which
+was to be read aloud in the green-room on the following Monday
+morning.
+
+This alone would have very little affected Violet, for she was too
+unhappy in the thought of George Stanmore’s supposed desertion to be
+ambitious of success upon the stage; but Mr. Maltravers also told her
+that he meant to increase her salary to a guinea and a half a week,
+and this sum seemed almost unheard-of wealth to the girl who had
+toiled so laboriously in order to earn Mrs. Trevor’s pitiful stipend
+of half-a-guinea.
+
+She thought of the increased comforts she could procure for her
+mother; she remembered that now Lionel was earning money, and her own
+salary was to be increased, the dear mother need no longer slave at
+that tiresome Berlin-wool work, which was so poorly paid.
+
+She thought that now they could leave their close lodging in the dark
+street near the Victoria Theatre; that they might find some better
+home farther away, towards Camberwell or Kennington, where there were
+trees and gardens and flowers.
+
+Such innocent thoughts as these filled Violet Westford’s mind as Mr.
+Maltravers quitted her, after announcing her good fortune.
+
+No vain triumph, no feeling of gratified pride, swelled her breast.
+She thought only of her mother, and the simple home comforts which
+might be provided by her increased salary.
+
+She little knew the feelings of rage and envy that the
+stage-manager’s announcement had kindled in the breast of her bitter
+enemy, Esther Vanberg.
+
+That ambitious young aspirant for dramatic honours had happened to
+be standing close at hand when Mr. Maltravers spoke to Violet. There
+had been nothing of a private nature in his communication, and he
+spoke quite openly. Miss Vanberg, therefore, had overheard every
+syllable--his praises, his promises of advancement.
+
+If Esther Vanberg had wavered in her purpose, if she had hesitated
+as to her share in Rupert Godwin’s foul plot against the unconscious
+girl, this circumstance would have decided her.
+
+“What do I care what trouble or disgrace comes upon her, so long as
+I can remove her from my pathway?” thought the ballet-girl bitterly;
+for she felt as if Violet had done her an absolute injury, by
+usurping the place which she herself had desired to fill.
+
+Under better circumstances, and in a purer atmosphere, the nature
+of Esther Vanberg might not have been ignoble. She was impulsive,
+passionate, and revengeful, and she had never learnt to school her
+evil impulses, or to bridle her impetuous nature. She was a creature
+of the moment, lavishly generous to her friends, savagely vindictive
+in all dealings with her enemies. She was like some denizen of the
+jungle--graceful, beautiful, and dangerous. There was something of
+the Bohemian in her nature, and she had all the gipsy quickness of
+perception, and the gipsy cunning, as well as the gipsy love of gauds
+and gems, bright colours and fantastic raiment. She had shown no
+special capacity for acting on the boards of the Circenses, but in
+the dealings of every-day life she was a consummate actress.
+
+So it was on this occasion, though she felt almost stifled by the
+envious rage that devoured her, she was yet able to suppress all
+outward evidence of her emotion, and to appear utterly indifferent to
+the conversation she had just overheard.
+
+She stood for a few moments at the side scene, watching the piece
+that was being acted; and then, approaching Violet with a soft and
+gliding footstep that was peculiar to her, laid her hand lightly and
+with an almost caressing gesture upon the girl’s shoulder.
+
+Violet turned, startled from her reverie by that light touch, and
+found herself face to face with Esther Vanberg. But to her surprise
+the ballet-girl was smiling upon her. Instead of the insolent
+and defiant frown which had always darkened her face when she
+had addressed her rival, Esther’s countenance now wore its most
+bewitching smile.
+
+That brilliant countenance had the power to assume any expression at
+will. There were some people who fancied they knew Esther Vanberg;
+but there were very few who had ever fathomed the depths of her
+nature.
+
+“Come, Miss Watson,” she said softly, almost pleadingly, “let us be
+friends. I daresay I have been very foolish, very childish, to feel
+as I have done about such a trifling disappointment. I wanted to
+fill your position in the burlesque; and when Mr. Maltravers refused
+my request, and chose you for the best place in the tableau, I was
+absurdly angry with you as well as with him. But to-night I am in a
+better humour, I suppose, and I feel quite ashamed of myself when I
+remember how silly I have been. Can you forgive me?”
+
+She stretched out her little hand--a little brown hand which Murillo
+might have loved to paint. This pretty little brown hand was
+glittering with diamonds.
+
+The young lady’s quarrels with her ducal admirer were of frequent
+occurrence, but the return of the Duke’s presents was no part of the
+programme. Miss Vanberg looked upon these costly offerings as a kind
+of spoil taken from the enemy, rather than as those rich gifts which
+“wax poor when givers prove unkind.”
+
+“I am sure you are not a revengeful person, Miss Watson,” she said
+smiling. “Say that you forgive me.”
+
+“Most willingly,” answered Violet, with a confiding smile; “I do
+not think I have much to forgive. I know you have spoken unkindly
+about me; but we were strangers, and I had no right to expect your
+friendship.”
+
+“Henceforward it is yours,” returned the Jewess. “And those who know
+me best know what Esther Vanberg’s friendship or her hatred is worth.
+But it is nearly time for us to dress. Are you going upstairs?”
+
+The two girls ascended the stairs together. The dressing-room of
+a theatre is by no means an unpleasant place, when its atmosphere
+is free from the poison of envy and malice. Half-a-dozen merry
+light-hearted girls attiring themselves in their picturesque
+costumes, and chatting gaily as they dress, form a very pleasant
+party.
+
+Miss Vanberg was the queen of the dressing-room allotted to her and
+half-a-dozen other girls of the same rank. Her beauty, her diabolical
+temper, her lavish outlay of money, and the Duke of Harlington’s
+notorious infatuation, which might at any time raise this girl to the
+highest rank in the peerage, all combined to render her paramount
+amongst the more ignorant and weak-minded of the young women with
+whom she associated.
+
+Everyone took her tone from the Jewess; and now that Esther was
+pleased to be civil to Violet Westford, her companions followed her
+example, and had only the sweetest words to bestow upon the Queen of
+Beauty.
+
+But this change had very little effect upon Violet. She was so
+different a being from the girls amongst whom chance had thrown her,
+that it was quite impossible she could have any sympathy with them.
+Her gentle nature asserted itself alike in her dignified indifference
+to insolence, and in her calm acceptance of affected friendliness.
+Her heart was far away from that noisy chamber, and the talk and
+laughter of her companions fell on unheeding ears.
+
+The Sunday which followed this evening was a pleasant one for Violet.
+She spent that day alone with her mother, accompanying her to the
+nearest church in the morning, and sitting all through the long
+afternoon and evening talking with that beloved friend and confidante
+of the happy days that were past--the pleasant hours that had been
+buried with the dead.
+
+She told her mother of the good fortune which Mr. Maltravers had
+announced to her on the previous evening. On that same evening a
+letter had arrived from Lionel, containing a five-pound note, so the
+mother and daughter felt themselves actually rich.
+
+“And Lionel is happy in his new employment, mamma?” asked Violet.
+
+“I imagine so, dear, from the tone of his letter, though he makes no
+allusion to his employer, or his present mode of life. But he speaks
+with rapture of the delights of country air and country scenery,
+after this dingy quarter of London; and he begs me to find some
+comfortable lodging in the suburbs, where we too may enjoy fresh air
+and the sight of green trees and blooming gardens.”
+
+“Dear Lionel, how thoughtful he is!” murmured Violet.
+
+“He is, dear. But now, I want you to answer me a question, and
+candidly, my darling, for it is a vital question for me. You have
+now been some little time in the theatre--quite long enough to form
+a judgment of your new life. Tell me, dear, have you found the
+green-room of a theatre such a scene of danger as it has sometimes
+been asserted that it is? Your youth and attractions might render
+you the victim of many annoyances--I will not insult you by talking
+about temptations. Trust me then, Violet, and trust me as fully as
+a mother should be trusted. Tell me, what is your experience of the
+side-scenes of a theatre?”
+
+“Very simple, dear mother. I have been almost as much at home at the
+Circenses as in these lodgings, and I can assure you that the popular
+idea of a green-room is quite a delusion. The people behind the
+scenes of the Circenses seem as much occupied by the business they
+have to do as if the theatre were a factory. Of course I was a little
+nervous at appearing before a London audience, but no one behind the
+scenes has in any way annoyed me; except, indeed--”
+
+“Except whom, dear girl?”
+
+“One of the girls employed in the burlesque--a Miss Vanberg--was at
+first rather disagreeable in her manner towards me, but last night
+she apologised for her rudeness, and we shall no doubt be very
+comfortable in future. Mr. Maltravers is extremely kind; and, for the
+rest, I go very quietly about my business--do what I have to do, and
+no one interferes with me.”
+
+It was impossible to doubt Violet’s statement. Her manner was
+frankness itself.
+
+The mother breathed a sigh of intense relief.
+
+“My darling, how completely you have relieved my mind!” she exclaimed
+with delight. “I have heard so much about the dangers of a theatre;
+but now I shall have no further fear. I ought not to have feared. I
+ought to have remembered the story of Una and the Lion.”
+
+A thrill of triumph stirred Clara Westford’s heart as she spoke. In
+spite of her defiance of him, the banker’s sinister threats had not
+been without their effect upon her mind. She had trembled at the
+thought of dangers that might assail her child--alone, inexperienced,
+in an entirely new world, beautiful, helpless, innocent as an infant,
+and utterly unprotected.
+
+But the mother’s fears were entirely set at rest by Violet’s candid
+assurances. Clara Westford was now ready to smile at what she
+believed to be the empty threats of her unscrupulous persecutor.
+
+A quiet peace, that was almost akin to happiness, reigned in the
+breasts of both mother and daughter on that Sabbath-day. Not for
+a moment could Violet Westford forget that secret grief which had
+arisen out of her belief in George Stanmore’s falsehood. Not for a
+moment could the fond and trusting girl forget that the dearest dream
+of her life was broken. But there was no taint of selfishness in
+Violet’s character, and no sorrow of her own could entirely absorb
+her mind, or render her indifferent to the feelings of those she
+loved.
+
+To-day she had seen a smile, a bright and peaceful smile, light up
+her mother’s face for the first time since that never-to-be-forgotten
+day when the tidings of the sailor’s death had fallen like a
+thunderbolt on the quiet country home. To-day, for the first time
+since that hour of despair, Clara Westford seemed almost happy; and
+this in itself was happiness for her devoted daughter.
+
+Early the next morning Violet went to the Circenses to attend the
+reading of the new piece in which she was to make her _début_ as an
+actress. Esther Vanberg was at the theatre--“dressed to death,” as
+her “intimate enemies” remarked to each other in confidence, after
+having congratulated the young lady upon the perfection of her
+costume with effusion. Miss Vanberg had no special business in the
+green-room this morning; but she was very anxious to know whether
+the part allotted to Violet in the new piece was only a few lines of
+young lady-like inanity, or one of those lively little sketches of
+character which might win applause for the young _débutante_.
+
+Miss Vanberg appeared to be in an unusually gracious humour upon
+this particular morning, and she greeted Violet with the same warm
+friendliness of manner which she had displayed upon the Saturday
+night.
+
+Violet, unsuspecting as a child, accepted that spurious friendship
+for the pure gold it represented. She had no reason to suspect
+hypocrisy. What motive could the Jewess have for wishing to deceive
+her?
+
+In consequence, therefore, of Esther Vanberg’s artful manœuvres the
+two girls were on excellent terms on Monday night, and all was
+prepared for the vile plot concocted by the banker.
+
+As for the Marquis, he was only a passive instrument in the hands
+of his tempter. Rupert Godwin had planned everything; and Lord
+Roxleydale was told that he had nothing to do except to act in
+accordance with the directions of his friend. His friend! Alas for
+ill-trained youth! these are the friends who lure their helpless
+dupes into the uttermost depths of vice and folly. And when the ruin
+is accomplished, when the poor weak-minded fool has parted alike
+with the last sixpence of his fortune, the last impulse of truth and
+honour that ever thrilled through his breast, then the so-called
+friend laughs his deluded victim to scorn, and goes away to seek a
+new dupe.
+
+Violet was dressed for her part in the burlesque. She was looking
+her loveliest in her fantastic robe of silvery gauze, her draperies
+of rose-coloured crape, her crown of stars and flowers. Her long
+rippling golden hair fell upon her shoulders, long and thick as the
+tresses of a modern Godiva.
+
+Under some artful pretence Esther Vanberg had lured her new friend
+into the green-room, and the two girls were sitting side by side upon
+a low ottoman, beneath the full light of a chandelier.
+
+The green-room was deserted at this time of the evening, for all the
+actors were busy on the stage, or in their dressing-rooms. The two
+girls were sitting alone; and seen thus they might have served as a
+model for some artist’s rendering of a fallen angel and a spirit of
+light.
+
+Esther Vanberg’s blue-black hair was drawn away from her low brow,
+and confined with a narrow circlet of diamonds, one of the Duke of
+Harlingford’s latest gifts, given at a time when he had intended to
+make her his Duchess, in spite of every opposing influence.
+
+They had quarrelled since then; and Esther, with the pride of some
+despotic Eastern queen, rather than a _figurante_ in a theatre,
+had forbidden the young Duke to approach her, and had ordered her
+servants to deny him admission to her house.
+
+Unluckily for the Duke’s prospects in life, such wild freaks as
+these only rendered the shallow-brained young nobleman still more
+infatuated, still more inclined to sacrifice the wishes of all his
+best friends by uniting his fate to that of a woman whose only charm
+was her almost demoniac beauty.
+
+The hour at which the Marquis and his two friends were to present
+themselves in the green-room had been planned by Esther; and now,
+while talking gaily to the unconscious Violet she glanced across the
+girl’s shoulder and saw the three men upon the threshold of the door.
+
+Lord Roxleydale was really in love, after his own fashion; and he
+was almost as nervous as some school-girl who enters a ball-room for
+the first time.
+
+Not so the banker. He was perfectly self-possessed, quite able to
+play out the base game that he had planned.
+
+He took care to address himself at first entirely to Esther Vanberg,
+and scarcely appeared to be aware of Violet’s presence, though at the
+same time he was surprised by the dazzling beauty of the girl whom he
+had only seen in her simple mourning dress at Mrs. Trevor’s party.
+
+Presently, however, the introductions were made, and Miss Vanberg
+presented Mr. Sempronius Sykemore to her dearest friend, Miss Watson.
+
+Violet, fully accustomed to society, was in no manner disturbed or
+confused by this introduction, nor by the introduction of the Marquis
+which immediately followed.
+
+But Lord Roxleydale hung sheepishly in the background, sheltering
+himself behind his friend the banker, quite incapable of saying a
+word for himself, so deeply was he smitten by Violet’s loveliness.
+And beyond this, the young nobleman had been told to hold his tongue,
+and to leave the management of the plot entirely to his wiser friends.
+
+He was silent therefore, and could only gaze in mute admiration upon
+Violet, while Mr. Sempronius Sykemore paid all manner of extravagant
+compliments to the two girls. Esther Vanberg was completely
+hoodwinked by the story which Rupert Godwin had told her, and which
+Mr. Sykemore’s manner seemed to confirm. With her face averted from
+Violet, she smiled at the banker, a smile full of malicious meaning.
+
+Violet had no recollection of having seen Rupert Godwin before; for
+he had quite escaped her notice amongst the crowd of guests at Mrs.
+Trevor’s party.
+
+And yet there was something in his face, something in the vivid light
+of his dark eyes, which seemed strangely familiar to her.
+
+Surely it must be the same look which had so puzzled her in Esther
+Vanberg, the expression which bore a resemblance to that of George
+Stanmore, her false and fickle lover.
+
+She could not help wondering about this, even while the two strange
+gentlemen and Esther were chattering round her. She was abstracted in
+the midst of their talk, and gave random answers to any observations
+that were addressed to her.
+
+But presently the call-boy announced the last scene of the burlesque,
+and the two girls rose to leave the green-room.
+
+Violet bowed to the gentlemen with an air of quiet dignity as she
+quitted the apartment. From first to last she behaved to them as
+she would have done had she met them in the drawing-room of an
+acquaintance; and she had no idea that they could think badly of
+her, simply because they found her earning her living in a theatre.
+
+“Well, my dear Roxleydale!” exclaimed the banker, as the three
+friends were left alone in the green-room, “what do you think of your
+golden-haired goddess now? Are you still bewitched?”
+
+“I’m completely annihilated,” answered the Marquis; “she’s an angel,
+divinity, a--a nice girl, and that kind of thing.”
+
+“And are you prepared to go through fire and water to win her?”
+
+“Through an ocean--across a blazing prairie, and that kind of thing,”
+exclaimed the young lord, who could venture to be poetical now that
+the object of his adoration was safely out of hearing.
+
+“It is only fair to remind you that the enterprise of to-night will
+be one of some danger,” said Rupert Godwin, looking earnestly at the
+young man.
+
+“Danger!” cried Lord Roxleydale; “my people learned to laugh at
+danger before the Normans conquered England.”
+
+“Yes, that’s all very grand,” answered the banker coolly; “but
+nowadays there are legal penalties sometimes attaching to these
+matters. Whatever happens, Marquis, you will stand the consequences
+of this act yourself--you will not betray my share in the business?”
+
+“I am a gentleman, and a Roxleydale,” returned the young man, with
+some touch of dignity; “and I only associate with those who can trust
+me.”
+
+“Enough, Lord Roxleydale,” replied Rupert Godwin; “I will trust you
+freely. As soon as Vio--as soon as the girl they call Miss Watson
+returns to her dressing-room she will receive a message to the
+effect that her mother has been seized with sudden illness, and
+that a neighbouring doctor has sent his carriage for her. She will
+be conducted in all haste and confusion to the carriage, which will
+be standing in readiness in a quiet street between the Strand and
+Covent-garden. I need scarcely tell you that the carriage in question
+will be the vehicle provided to convey the yellow-haired goddess to
+your place in Essex.”
+
+The Marquis did not look altogether delighted with this scheme.
+
+“Isn’t it rather too bad,” he said, “that dodge about her mother?”
+
+“My dear Roxleydale, need I remind you that all stratagems are fair
+in love as well as in war?”
+
+The Marquis was too weak to resist his black-hearted tempter. The
+three men returned to the private box, which Lord Roxleydale had
+rented for the entire season.
+
+Rupert Godwin did not remain long in the box. He quitted the theatre
+as the curtain fell upon the close of the burlesque, taking the
+Marquis with him.
+
+All had been arranged with unfailing precision. The banker and Lord
+Roxleydale walked together to the quiet street, where the carriage
+was waiting, and paced slowly up and down the pavement, smoking their
+cigars, and watching for the moment when the foul plot would be set
+in action.
+
+Such men as Rupert Godwin select their servants to suit their own
+purposes, and generally contrive to find willing tools in those they
+employ. The banker’s confidential servant was a man whose principles
+were about on a level with those of his master, and Mr. Godwin had no
+fear of rebellion or discontent when he wanted help in some villanous
+business.
+
+Violet had nearly finished dressing, when she was summoned to the
+door of the apartment, where she found one of the men belonging to
+the theatre waiting for her with a letter in his hand.
+
+The letter consisted of only a few words, written in pencil:
+
+“Miss Westford is requested to follow the bearer of this to Dr.
+Maldon’s carriage. Dr. Maldon is now in attendance upon Mrs.
+Westford, who has been taken seriously ill. Her daughter will do well
+to lose no time in following the messenger.”
+
+Violet almost fainted under the terrible shock caused by these few
+lines. Her mother ill--seriously ill; a physician in attendance, a
+carriage sent for her, and an urgent request that no time should be
+lost! The case must indeed be serious.
+
+The excited girl snatched her bonnet from the peg where it hung,
+flung her shawl around her, and hurried back to the passage where she
+had left the messenger.
+
+“Take me to him!” she cried impetuously, “the man who brought this
+letter--where is he?”
+
+“In the hall, Miss. He begged me to say as you was to be very quick.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” gasped Violet, “not a minute is to be lost--not a moment!”
+
+She rushed past the astonished messenger, and ran down the stairs,
+scarcely conscious of the ground upon which she trod. She forgot
+everything, except that her mother was ill; and her heart throbbed
+loud and fast with a terror that was almost too painful to bear.
+
+No thought of falsehood or imposture ever flashed across her mind.
+How should it do so? How could this innocent girl imagine that there
+lived a wretch so base as to betray his victim by practising on the
+sacred love of a daughter for her mother?
+
+James Spence, the banker’s valet, was the person who had been
+intrusted with the pretended physician’s note. He was just the sort
+of man to assist in such a scheme. Silent, soft of foot and of voice,
+false in every word and look, he was fully qualified to carry out the
+plans his master confided to him; and he served the banker well, for
+he knew that with few other masters could he have had so profitable
+a place. No class of employers pay so liberally as the wicked. For
+them fidelity is priceless. There must have been good times for the
+servants in the house of Lucrezia Borgia, Princess of Ferrara!
+
+The banker’s valet assumed an expression of profound sympathy as
+Violet approached him. He was a very respectable-looking man--grave,
+middle-aged, dressed with a scrupulous neatness that was almost
+Quaker-like; and he looked exactly the sort of man a physician’s
+servant might be supposed to be.
+
+“O, pray let us lose no time!” Violet exclaimed. “You are the person
+who brought this letter, are you not?”
+
+“I am, Miss.”
+
+“Then I am ready to come with you at once.”
+
+No more was said until they had left the theatre; then James Spence
+addressed Violet in his most respectful tone.
+
+“If you would allow me to suggest that you should take my arm, Miss,
+I think we should reach the carriage sooner,” he said, “for we may
+have to pass through a crowd.”
+
+“Yes; you are very good; I will take your arm,” answered the excited
+girl. “O, pray let us hurry to the carriage.”
+
+The valet lost no time in obeying this behest. He led Violet through
+the busy streets at a rapid pace, and they reached the quiet
+thoroughfare where the carriage was waiting, before the agonized and
+trembling girl had been able to collect her thoughts, or recover from
+the first effects of the shock she had so lately received.
+
+Had she been a little calmer, she must have wondered at the style of
+carriage waiting to receive her, which bore little resemblance to
+the kind of vehicle usually employed by a medical man. Had she been
+calmer, she might have remarked the presence of a man enveloped in a
+loose overcoat, who sat in the rumble of the carriage smoking a cigar.
+
+But as it was, Violet observed nothing. The carriage-door was opened
+for her, she sprang into the vehicle, and sank half-fainting on the
+seat.
+
+“Pray beg the coachman to drive quickly!” she cried in an imploring
+voice as James Spence closed the door.
+
+“O yes, Miss, we’ll drive fast enough,” the valet answered, with a
+sinister grin, as he stepped back upon the pavement, while the horses
+hurried off in the direction of the Strand.
+
+The man wrapped in an overcoat, and seated in the rumble, was the
+Marquis of Roxleydale. Another man, lounging at the corner of the
+street, watched the departing vehicle.
+
+“So, Clara Westford,” he muttered between his set teeth, “I think
+at last I am fairly revenged upon you for your insolence. You have
+chosen to defy me. Be it my task to show you what a helpless creature
+you are.”
+
+Helpless! Yes, Rupert Godwin; but the helpless are beneath the
+special care of Providence--that Power which is strong enough to
+triumph over even such schemers as you!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+IN THE LABYRINTH.
+
+
+A strange conflict went on in Lionel Westford’s mind after that scene
+outside the northern wing of Wilmingdon Hall. At one moment the young
+man’s brain was occupied by thoughts of Julia Godwin--her beauty,
+the noble nature which was evinced in every word she uttered, the
+amiable and yet impulsive temper, and all those charms and graces
+of manner which made the banker’s daughter irresistible. But in the
+next instant the remembrance of the old gardener’s dark hints would
+flash upon Lionel Westford’s mind, and he would find it impossible to
+enjoy a moment’s peace in a house that was haunted by a hideous yet
+shapeless shadow.
+
+Yes, Wilmingdon Hall had become a haunted house in the imagination
+of Lionel Westford. Do what he would, he could not banish from his
+recollection the strange and terrible words that had been uttered by
+the old gardener.
+
+Those words were for ever taking a more palpable form in Lionel’s
+mind. They shaped themselves into the story of a murder--a foul
+and deadly crime, which had been witnessed by the half-witted old
+man through a chink in the shutter of the seventh window in that
+long range of darkened casements belonging to the deserted wing of
+Wilmingdon Hall.
+
+But who was the murderer? That was a fearful point. Lionel Westford
+scarcely dared to whisper to himself the name of the man to whom his
+suspicion pointed.
+
+That man was the same of whom his widowed mother had spoken with
+unusual and apparently unreasonable bitterness; the man through whose
+agency a family had been cast penniless upon the world.
+
+But the same man was also the father of Julia Godwin, and Lionel
+Westford’s heart sank within him as he contemplated the possibility
+of the banker’s guilt.
+
+What was he to do? To remain in that haunted house without taking
+some active step in the matter was impossible. The very atmosphere of
+the place seemed to oppress him. The cry of a dying creature seemed
+perpetually ringing in his ears.
+
+His dreams were made hideous by shapeless visions. His brain grew
+dazed and bewildered, and a fitful fever took possession of him.
+His tremulous hands refused to do their work; and he found himself
+sometimes sitting for an hour together, staring vacantly at the
+drawing before him, while his mind dwelt upon that scene in the
+deserted old garden before the northern wing.
+
+He felt that only action--prompt and decided action--could save him
+from a serious illness.
+
+“My brain is beginning to be affected,” he thought; “at any moment
+I may be seized with brain-fever. In my ravings I may reveal the
+suspicion that fills my mind--reveal it, perhaps, to the ears of
+guilt; and then--”
+
+He scarcely dared to follow out the thought, which was a very
+horrible one.
+
+If in the delirium attendant upon brain-fever he revealed the secret
+preying so fearfully upon his mind, and revealed it to the ears of
+a murderer, what more likely than that some means would be taken to
+prevent his ever leaving that house alive? A helpless and unconscious
+creature, stricken by fever, could be very easily disposed of, and no
+one would be likely to suspect any but a natural cause for his death.
+
+“I must act in this matter, and act promptly,” the young man thought.
+“It is not because I have fallen desperately in love with Julia
+Godwin that I can refrain from using my utmost endeavours to fathom
+this mystery. Duty demands that I should investigate the old man’s
+story. Heaven grant it may be only the delusion of a demented brain!”
+
+Having once resolved upon the course he should take, Lionel’s mind
+grew much clearer. He worked quietly and calmly all that afternoon,
+keeping to his own apartments; for he was determined henceforward to
+avoid the dangerous fascination of Julia Godwin’s society.
+
+He saw Miss Godwin stroll out upon the lawn; and never had she seemed
+lovelier to him than this afternoon, when stern duty kept him away
+from her. He saw her walk slowly across the grass, book in hand, and
+take the direction of that laurel avenue where they had so often
+met--where they had passed so many happy hours.
+
+His heart beat quicker as his eyes followed that tall white-robed
+figure, in which girlish elegance was mingled with a queen-like
+grace. Lionel Westford was no coxcomb, and yet within the last week
+of his residence at Wilmingdon Hall, vague but delicious hopes and
+fancies had mingled themselves with the tortures that oppressed his
+mind.
+
+He had been a great deal in Julia’s society within the last week, and
+something--some subtle shade of tone and manner--told him that his
+love was not altogether hopeless. In spite of the apparent difference
+between their social positions, Julia’s manner innocently and
+unconsciously revealed a tender interest in the man whom she had been
+so anxious to save from destitution.
+
+And Lionel had to exclude this exquisite hope from his mind; and,
+knowing that he was beloved, he yet felt himself called upon to
+devote all the force of his intellect to the carrying out of an
+investigation which might result in branding with a fearful crime the
+father of the girl who loved him. The task was very terrible; but
+Lionel Westford was inflexible in a matter in which he felt that duty
+and honour alike called upon his firmness.
+
+“At the cost of my own happiness, at the sacrifice even of Julia’s
+peace, I must fathom this horrible secret,” he thought, as he turned
+away from the open window looking out upon the lawn.
+
+That evening he began his work.
+
+It was his habit to dine alone in his own apartment at seven o’clock,
+the hour at which Miss Godwin and her stately companion, Mrs.
+Melville, took their ceremonious meal.
+
+All the arrangements of the grand old mansion were perfect in their
+style, and Lionel’s solitary dinner-table was served as carefully as
+if he had been a distinguished guest.
+
+He had rarely spoken much to the man-servant who waited upon him; but
+this evening he talked to the man with a purpose, for he felt that he
+could do nothing in the task he had set himself until he had obtained
+all the information which the members of Mr. Godwin’s household could
+afford him.
+
+“I have been very much interested lately in an old man whom
+I often see about the grounds,” Lionel began with assumed
+carelessness,--“Caleb Wildred, I think you call him. Poor fellow, his
+mind seems quite gone. How long has he been in his present state?”
+
+“Well, sir,” answered the servant, who was very glad of an
+opportunity of talking, “Old Caleb has been queerish in his head,
+off and on, for the last five or six years. But he had a bad illness
+about a twelvemonth ago, and ever since he’s been a great deal worse
+than he used to be--regular mad, as you must have seen, sir, talking
+about blood being shed--and treachery--and daggers--and murder--and
+all sorts of horrid things, till really it makes a man’s flesh creep
+to hear him.”
+
+“Poor fellow! And this has come about since his illness! What sort of
+an illness was it?”
+
+“Brain-fever, sir, and desperately bad he had it, poor chap! His life
+was give over; but Mrs. Beckson, the housekeeper, she’s a very old
+woman, she is, but not so old as Caleb, and as sharp as a needle, and
+she and Caleb are cousins, you see, sir; so she nursed him all the
+time, without troubling Mr. Godwin about the poor old chap’s illness,
+and he was kept up in a garret at the top of the house, where nobody
+could be disturbed by his raving and going on when the fever was at
+its worst. But lor, sir, it was awful to hear the things that poor
+weak-witted old fellow said.”
+
+“What kind of things did he say?”
+
+“Well, it was always the same story, sir, over and over and over
+again. Murder and treachery, and a chink in a shutter, and goodness
+knows what, but always the same; till it seemed to make your brain
+go queer to hear him. That illness of his lasted for nigh upon two
+months; and ever since that he’s been just as you see him now--able
+to do his little bit of work well enough, and quiet and harmless,
+but always going over the same ground, and yet somehow sensible and
+rational in some things, for after raving out about the murder, and
+the treachery, and so on, he’ll turn round the next minute and tell
+you it all means nothing, it’s all nonsense, and you’re not to listen
+to it. So, you see, the poor old fellow knows that he’s queer in his
+head, sir; and that’s more than most of your lunatics do.”
+
+“Has Mr. Godwin ever heard of his wild talk?”
+
+“Never, sir, so far as I’m aware. Indeed, I may venture to say for
+certain that he hasn’t, for that’s another strange part of the
+business. Ever since that illness of his, old Caleb has seemed afraid
+of his master; never will he go anywhere near Mr. Godwin; the very
+sound of master’s voice will set him of a tremble from head to foot,
+and he’ll turn as white as a ghost sometimes at the mere mention
+of his name. But, lor bless me, sir, when once a man’s brain’s
+turned, there’s no accounting for the fancies that get into it. I
+had a cousin, sir, which he was barman at a tavern in Hertford, and
+took to taking more liquor than was good for him, and had delirious
+tremblings, I think the doctor called it; and, lor bless your heart,
+sir, that poor fellow was always fancying things, and making grabs
+at nothing, sir, thinking as how he was catching flies, mostly
+blue-bottles; and if once a man gets a tile off, as the saying is,
+it’s uncommon difficult to get the tile on again.”
+
+Lionel assented to this truism. He was not particularly interested
+in the delirious fancies of the footman’s drunken cousin, but he was
+deeply interested in the account he gave of old Caleb. Everything the
+man said helped to strengthen the hideous suspicions that oppressed
+him. Why should the superannuated gardener exhibit this unreasonable
+terror of his master?--why, unless the shock which had dethroned his
+reason had been caused by some act of that master’s?
+
+Lionel asked presently:
+
+“But how was poor old Wildred seized with this brain-fever? What
+brought on the attack?”
+
+“Well, sir, that’s the queerest part of the story. You must know that
+most of the servants in this house, the women servants especially,
+will have it, foolish like, that the northern wing of the Hall is
+haunted. It was built in the time of the Planpagennys, you see, sir,
+and from all accounts it appears the Planpagennys were a queer lot.
+There’s not one of the women servants will go near the place after
+dark; and they all put down poor old Caleb’s fever to his having seen
+some kind of a ghost.”
+
+“But why so?”
+
+“Because, you see, sir, this is how he was took. One night in
+July,--or, let me see,” said the footman, checking himself abruptly,
+with an air of intense conscientiousness, “don’t let me tell a
+story--was it the beginning of July, as Caleb was took, or was it
+the end of June? Well, I think it was the end of June, as it might
+be somewheres between the twentieth and the thirtieth. Howsomdever,
+as we was all a-sitting down to supper, the housekeeper she misses
+Caleb; and being a relation, and attached to him for old times’ sake,
+she was regular uneasy about him, and couldn’t go on with her supper
+till she’d had him looked for. So she sends the under-gardener,
+and he was gone above an hour, searching here and there about the
+grounds. And it was nigh upon twelve o’clock at night when he found
+poor old Caleb--where do you suppose, sir?”
+
+“I really can’t imagine.”
+
+“Lying in a swound, under one of the windows in the northern wing;
+and our people will have it as he’d been peeping through the shutter,
+and had seen a ghost.”
+
+“Strange!” exclaimed Lionel thoughtfully.
+
+He had lingered over his dinner, scarcely eating half-a-dozen
+mouthfuls, so deeply interested was he in what the man had to tell
+him. But he could not venture to prolong the meal any further, or to
+ask any more questions, lest by so doing he should excite suspicion
+in the mind of the servant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+A DARK JOURNEY.
+
+
+The carriage in which Violet was seated drove at a rapid pace along
+the Strand; but, to the girl’s surprise and terror, it did not turn
+aside to cross Waterloo Bridge.
+
+She was in an agony of excitement, thinking that the coachman,
+through mere ignorance or stupidity, had taken the wrong road, and
+that time, the precious time, would be lost.
+
+She pulled the check-string violently; but the driver took no
+notice--he seemed to drive faster every minute. Already the
+carriage had passed under Temple Bar, and was making its way along
+Fleet-street at a rapid rate, for at this hour there were few
+vehicles in the City.
+
+Violet strove to open the window, and with some difficulty succeeded
+in doing so. She called to the coachman, but he paid no attention to
+her cry. It might be that her voice was drowned by the noise of the
+wheels.
+
+Rendered desperate by the thought of her mother’s illness, Violet
+would have tried to spring from the carriage, even at the risk of her
+life; but when she endeavoured to open the door, she found that it
+was locked.
+
+She then beat violently with her hands against the front windows of
+the carriage. This time the coachman must have heard her, but he did
+not even turn his head; he took no notice whatever of her frantic
+summons.
+
+By this time the carriage was crossing Smithfield. A few minutes
+more and it was in Bishopsgate-street. Violet strained her eyes,
+endeavouring to discover where she was; but the neighbourhood was
+entirely strange to her.
+
+Then a feeling of utter despair came over her. The carriage dashed
+on; the houses and street-lamps swam before her eyes; the tramp of
+the horses’ hoofs seemed like the throbbing of her own brain.
+
+Presently the houses grew thinner; there were trees and a country
+road--a road which seemed to go on for ever to the distracted girl,
+who watched it from the open window of the carriage.
+
+She felt that she was the victim of some horrible conspiracy; but
+she did not for a moment doubt the story of her mother’s illness.
+Her brain was too much bewildered to enable her to think reasonably
+of the night’s work. She fancied that her mother was really ill, and
+that some wretches, out of fiendish cruelty, were carrying her away
+from that beloved mother.
+
+So she sat, watching the long dark road, and praying for help from
+Heaven in this hour of bewilderment and despair.
+
+After about two hours’ rapid travelling, the carriage stopped before
+an old-fashioned-looking inn.
+
+It seemed as if the travellers were expected, for though it was long
+past midnight, a man came out of the stables directly the vehicle
+stopped. The doors and windows of the inn were all dark, and the
+household had evidently retired to rest; but the stable-yard was
+open, and a light was burning in one of the numerous buildings
+within. There was no time lost in waiting, and while the ostler
+removed the jaded and steaming animals from the carriage, a second
+man came out of the stable-yard leading a pair of fresh horses.
+
+This only added to poor Violet’s bewilderment. All the occurrences of
+the night seemed rather the incidents of a troubled dream than those
+of reality.
+
+She put her head out of the carriage-window, and saw a tall,
+slenderly-built man standing a little way from the carriage.
+
+“O, for pity’s sake!” she cried, “whoever you are, tell me the
+meaning of this mystery! Why have I been brought here? Is there
+any one in the world who can be so cruel as to wish to separate a
+daughter from her dying mother?”
+
+The stranger approached the carriage-window. His face was shaded by
+the brim of his hat, which he wore low on his forehead, and by a
+cashmere shawl which enveloped his chin. The night was dark, though
+fine, and Violet could not recognize the Marquis of Roxleydale, whom
+she had only seen for the first time that evening, and of whom she
+had taken very little notice.
+
+“Whoever you are, I implore you to have pity upon me!” she cried. “If
+you have one touch of human feeling, have mercy upon me, and take me
+back to London--take me to my mother!”
+
+“My dear young lady,” answered the Marquis, “pray don’t give way to
+grief. I can make your mind quite easy as regards your mother. Her
+illness was only a fiction. All stratagems, you know, are fair in
+love and war, and that kind of thing. So far as I know, the maternal
+par----your mother, is as well as ever she was.”
+
+“She is not ill! O, thank Heaven--thank Heaven for that! And that
+letter--the doctor’s letter!”
+
+“The doctor’s letter was only part of an innocent little ruse, which
+I am sure you will forgive when you know its motive. It mightn’t be
+exactly the thing, you know, but it isn’t more ungentlemanly than the
+conduct of that fellow who pretended he wasn’t going away, you know,
+and got his ships ready on the quiet, and made a bolt of it. Dido and
+Æneas, and that kind of thing, you know.”
+
+The fresh horses were harnessed by this time, and the driver was in
+his seat. Before Violet could ask another question, the Marquis bowed
+and retired. He returned to his seat in the rumble, the ostler gave
+the horses their heads, and in the next moment they had started at a
+gallant pace along the dark road.
+
+At first there was only one feeling in Violet’s breast, and that was
+a profound sense of gratitude to Heaven.
+
+Her mother was not ill; her beloved mother was not in danger.
+
+The burden of anguish had been suddenly lifted from her breast; and
+the relief was so intense that it was some time before she could even
+attempt to contemplate her own position. But when she did at length
+grow calm enough to consider the events of the night, her brain
+seemed to give way beneath a sense of utter bewilderment.
+
+Think of it as she would, she could not imagine any possible motive
+for this mysterious business.
+
+Had she been persecuted by the addresses of any dishonourable lover,
+she might perhaps have realized at once the motive of this midnight
+abduction; but she imagined herself entirely unknown and unnoticed.
+
+Who, then, could be interested in carrying her away from her home,
+from the mother she idolized, the mother who would suffer unutterable
+fear and suspense during her absence?
+
+She tried in vain to find an answer to this question, but her
+bewilderment only increased as she tormented her brain by useless
+speculations. And at last she sank back in a corner of the carriage,
+completely worn out by the mental struggle she had undergone--weary,
+too, of watching the long dark, road along which she was being
+carried to her mysterious destination.
+
+At last, at about three o’clock in the morning, the carriage stopped
+before high gates, with massive stone pillars, surmounted by
+escutcheons festooned with ivy.
+
+A bell was rung,--a loud clanging bell, that gave out a strange
+shrill peal in the stillness of the night.
+
+There was a pause, during which Violet had ample time to contemplate
+the tall stone pillars, the massive iron gates, which had a weird and
+ghostly look in the dim light; and then the bell was rung for the
+second time. This time the summons was heard; for a man came out of
+the lodge, carrying a lantern and a big bunch of keys.
+
+He unlocked the gates, which fell back upon their hinges with a
+grating and scrooping noise, as if they were very rarely opened. The
+carriage passed through into a long dark avenue--an avenue in which
+the low gusty breath of the chill morning wind sounded almost like
+the wailing of a ghost.
+
+At the end of the avenue, which seemed more than a mile long, the
+carriage crossed a bridge, below which Violet saw a black stream of
+water lying at the bottom of a wide stone moat. The carriage passed
+under an archway after crossing this bridge, and then drew up before
+a dreary-looking building with a castellated roof and circular towers
+at each angle of the wall.
+
+Nothing could be more dispiriting than the appearance of this house,
+even when shrouded by the darkness. In the past, it might have been
+a feudal castle; in the present, it looked only like a madhouse, a
+union, or a gaol.
+
+The Marquis of Roxleydale came to the carriage-door, unlocked it, and
+assisted Violet to alight.
+
+The poor girl was utterly worn out in mind and body by the events of
+the night. She dismounted from the vehicle with a tottering step, and
+would have fallen on the slippery moss-grown stone if Lord Roxleydale
+had not supported her.
+
+“Where am I?” she gasped; “and why am I brought here?”
+
+“Only be patient, dearest and loveliest of women,” answered the
+Marquis in a tender whisper. “Rest quietly to-night, and ask no
+questions. To-morrow morning you shall know all.”
+
+A stifled shriek escaped from Violet’s lips. There was something in
+the speaker’s tone which chilled her to the heart. It was the tone
+of a profligate who believed that his victim was in his power.
+
+Innocent, inexperienced in life’s perils as Violet was, her instinct
+seemed to reveal to her the danger and misery of her position. But
+gentle though she was, she had the spirit of a true woman--the spirit
+which asserts itself in the hour of danger and difficulty.
+
+“Why am I brought here?” she demanded, drawing herself away from Lord
+Roxleydale’s supporting arm; “and who are you who have been base
+enough to carry out this vile plot against a helpless girl? To any
+honourable man my friendlessness would have rendered me sacred.”
+
+“Dear Miss Watson,” pleaded the Marquis, who really was inclined to
+feel very much ashamed of himself, but who was always trying to act
+according to the base sentiments instilled into his weak mind by
+those false friends who called themselves men of the world,--“dear
+Miss Watson, if you knew the devoted admiration, the all-absorbing
+love, and that kind of thing, which prompted this scheme, you would
+pardon all. Believe this, and let me defer all explanations until
+to-morrow. This lonely house shall be as safe a shelter for you as
+the roof beneath which you slept last night.”
+
+This time there was an accent of truth in the young man’s words.
+Violet was almost fainting, and was far too weak to make any further
+struggle to extricate herself from the power of her persecutor. She
+sank upon a carved oaken bench, in the great stone entrance-hall,
+which was dimly lighted by one lamp, and the atmosphere of which
+seemed cold and damp as that of a charnel-house.
+
+No wealthy young nobleman, possessor of numerous country seats in
+pleasant neighbourhoods, would have cared to spend much of his life
+at this dreary habitation amongst the flat swamps upon the Essex
+coast. The Marquis of Roxleydale was the very last man in the world
+to tolerate a dull abode; and the Moat had been almost deserted ever
+since the death of his grandfather--an eccentric old misanthrope, who
+had chosen to inhabit the dreariest house of all his possessions.
+
+An old woman had admitted the Marquis and his companion into the
+hall. Lord Roxleydale committed Violet to her charge.
+
+“You received my letter?” he asked.
+
+He spoke in a very loud voice, but he had to repeat the question.
+
+“Yes, my lord. Yes, yes; I received the letter,” muttered the old
+woman at last; “and all’s ready for the lady--the young lady. Yes,
+and it’s a pretty face too, and a fair face, and a good face--eh, my
+lord?” she said, looking at Violet, “but it’s paler than it should be
+for a bride; it’s much too pale for a bride, I’ve seen a bonny bride
+brought home to this house long ago--very long ago; but the place
+seems to have gone to ruin since then.”
+
+“She’s a little weak in her head, I think, Miss Watson,” the Marquis
+said apologetically; “but you won’t mind her, will you?”
+
+Violet shook her head, and stretched out her hand with a friendly
+gesture towards the old woman. She was too ill to speak; her dry lips
+refused to utter a sound.
+
+The old housekeeper led her charge towards the great oaken staircase;
+the broad staircase up and down which gay-hearted people had trodden
+lightly in the days that were gone.
+
+The Marquis had removed his hat on entering the hall; but even yet
+Violet had not recognized him. She was too completely prostrated to
+observe the face of her abductor. Only one thought held a place amid
+the misty shadows that clouded her brain. That one thought related to
+her desire to escape, to return to her mother, whose heart would be
+wrung by all the torments of suspense and anxiety.
+
+She followed the housekeeper. There was something honest and friendly
+in the old woman’s countenance; and Violet felt that with her she was
+at least safe.
+
+The woman led her up the staircase and along a corridor, until they
+came to a spacious room, where a pair of tall wax candles were
+burning in antique silver candlesticks. A wood fire blazed upon the
+broad stone hearth, within the great chimney; and, summer time though
+it was, there was unspeakable comfort in the aspect of the red logs.
+
+The room was large and gloomy, and, like everything else in the old
+house, seemed to belong to an age long gone by. The wainscoting was
+of black oak; the ceiling was of the same sombre hue and massive
+material, crossed by huge beams, with quaintly-carved pendants, which
+threw weird shadows upon the walls, and looked like grinning faces
+leering down at the inmates of the room.
+
+An immense four-post bedstead, surmounted by funereal-looking plumes,
+stood at one end of the apartment. Near the fireplace there were two
+old-fashioned easy-chairs, covered with faded tapestry, and a table
+upon which the silver candlesticks were placed.
+
+Violet had scarcely strength to totter to the nearest chair. She sank
+into it fainting and helpless.
+
+“Don’t leave me!” she gasped, clinging to the old woman’s withered
+hands. “Pray don’t leave me!”
+
+The housekeeper seemed to understand the meaning of the helpless
+girl’s look and gesture, though she could not possibly have
+understood her words.
+
+“Ay, ay,” she muttered. “I’ll take care of you, my pretty--you
+needn’t, be afraid. Old Nancy will take care of you.”
+
+Violet felt reassured by these words. Her eyelids sank over her
+wearied eyes; her head fell back upon the cushion of the chair.
+Presently she felt the housekeeper’s feeble hands tenderly removing
+her outer garments, and then the old woman half carried, half led her
+to the bed, on which she sank, completely overcome by fatigue and
+excitement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE HOUSEKEEPER’S STORY.
+
+
+After his conversation with Mr. Godwin’s servant, Lionel Westford
+felt more than ever that duty and honour alike urged him to an
+immediate and most vigorous investigation of the mystery connected
+with the deserted wing of Wilmingdon Hall.
+
+Had there been no such person as Julia Godwin in existence, had the
+banker and the banker’s kindred been alike indifferent to him, the
+young man would not for a moment have thought of acting on his own
+responsibility.
+
+He would have gone at once to Scotland-yard, and would have placed
+the whole matter in the hands of the detective police--laying before
+them a full statement of the case, and relying on their skill in the
+unravelment of such dark enigmas as that which cast its black shadow
+on Wilmingdon Hall. Mr. Pollaky of Paddington-green, or some other
+gentleman of Mr. Pollaky’s profession, would have been provided with
+one of those mysterious cases which seem designed for the development
+of detective genius, and all the complicated machinery of detection
+would have been set in motion.
+
+But for Julia’s sake Lionel Westford refrained from doing this; for
+her sake he determined not to make any communication to the police
+until his dark suspicions became certainty, and duty compelled him to
+denounce the father of the girl he loved.
+
+In the mean time he felt that his task of investigation would be very
+difficult, and would demand all the subtlety of his intellect, all
+the strength of his will.
+
+On thinking over what the servant had told him, he came to the
+conclusion that old Caleb had indeed witnessed some appalling scene
+in one of the rooms in the northern wing.
+
+But, granting this, what was the nature of that scene?
+
+The old gardener described a murder--a foul and treacherous murder.
+Yet how could a murder have been committed in that deserted wing
+without suspicion having been sooner or later aroused?
+
+The victim could scarcely have entered the building without the fact
+of his presence there being known; and in that case, how had Rupert
+Godwin been able to account for his disappearance?
+
+At present it was all a dark mystery, the clue to which Lionel
+Westford could only hope to obtain by long and patient toiling in the
+obscurity. It was a tangled skein, which could only be unravelled
+inch by inch.
+
+He pondered much upon what the man-servant had told him, and
+came to the conclusion that the person most likely to assist his
+search--unconsciously, of course--was the old housekeeper, of whom
+the man had spoken.
+
+This woman was a cousin of Caleb Wildred’s, and from her girlhood
+had lived in the service of the Godwins, rising through all the
+gradations of service, from under scullery-maid to housekeeper.
+
+Many secrets of the banker’s history were, in all probability, known
+to this woman; and, if carefully sounded, she could scarcely fail to
+give some clue to any mystery that might lurk behind the commonplace
+story of his life.
+
+Lionel determined to seek the earliest opportunity of placing himself
+in confidential relations with the housekeeper. Old servants are
+generally garrulous and communicative, unless they have some special
+motive for reserve. Lionel therefore hoped much from an interview
+with Mrs. Beckson.
+
+A very little consideration suggested a means of approaching her.
+
+There were a great number of old pictures at Wilmingdon Hall--old
+portraits of dead-and-gone grandees who had flourished there when
+the original lords of the soil still held their own, before the days
+when rich mercantile men had come to occupy the dwellings of the
+noble. The hall and staircase, the billiard-room and music room, were
+decorated with portraits of the departed Wilmingdons, painted by Sir
+Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey Kneller, and let into the richly-carved
+panelling of the rooms. These portraits formed, therefore, a part
+of the walls they enriched, and had passed to the banker’s father
+with the house itself. But these the elder Mr. Godwin had looked on
+as so much furniture; and being a connoisseur of no mean powers, he
+had amassed a large collection of old and modern pictures, to which
+his son had added, bringing home many treasures from his continental
+ramblings.
+
+Pictures of considerable value adorned almost every wall in the
+house; and Lionel remembered having heard Julia say that there were
+some very fine old Dutch paintings in the housekeeper’s room.
+
+“Papa is a believer in the modern school,” she had said; “and the
+Jan Steens and Ostades have been banished from the dining-room,
+to make way for Frith and Elmore, Leighton and Millais, whose
+pictures please _me_ a great deal better than those perpetual brown
+Dutchmen, who are always lighting their tiresome pipes in their
+dingy tavern-parlours, or those wooden-faced Dutchwomen, who seem
+to pass their existence between the brown little kitchen where they
+peel vegetables, and the brown little parlour where they play upon a
+queer-shaped organ.”
+
+What could better serve Lionel as an excuse for approaching the
+housekeeper than his very natural wish to see these valuable old
+pictures?
+
+He sent Mrs. Beckson a message by the servant who waited upon him,
+requesting that he might be allowed to see the Dutch pictures in
+her apartment, and received a prompt and most gracious reply, to
+the effect that Mrs. Beckson would be delighted to see Mr. Wilton
+at any time; but she would feel herself especially honoured if he
+would condescend so far as to drink tea with her at five o’clock that
+afternoon.
+
+Nothing could suit Lionel’s purpose better than this. He was, of
+course, only on a level with the housekeeper in that establishment,
+where he gave his services for a weekly stipend, and was content to
+sink his status as a gentleman in order to earn a livelihood for
+those he loved.
+
+He sent the servant back to Mrs. Beckson to say that he would be most
+happy to avail himself of her kind invitation.
+
+“But you don’t dine till seven o’clock, sir. Mrs. Beckson has such
+old-fashioned notions,” the man remonstrated.
+
+“I will go without my dinner to-day for the sake of a leisurely
+inspection of Mrs. Beckson’s Dutch pictures,” Lionel answered. “Tell
+her I accept her invitation with thanks.”
+
+The servant departed, wondering at what he called “the rum ways of
+that artist chap, who’d sacrifice a good dinner for the sake of
+looking at a lot of dingy old pictures, that seem every one of ’em as
+if they’d been hung up a smoky chimney.”
+
+At five o’clock precisely Lionel Westford presented himself in the
+housekeeper’s room. Mrs. Beckson had made quite a little festival of
+the occasion, and had adorned her table with preserves and cakes,
+an old-fashioned silver tea-and-coffee equipage, covered dishes of
+buttered toast, and a stand of new-laid eggs, as if she had expected
+a party.
+
+Lionel could scarcely refrain from a smile as he looked at the worthy
+housekeeper’s preparations, and thought how utterly her dainties were
+wasted on a guest whose mind was completely absorbed by one dark and
+terrible subject.
+
+The old dame had dressed herself in her stateliest attire, her most
+formidable head-gear and brownest and crispest wig. She received
+Lionel with a sweeping curtsey that might have done honour to
+an old-fashioned court in the days when the minuet was danced by
+powdered beaux and belles.
+
+One by one she pointed out the old pictures which adorned her room,
+telling all she knew of their history, and the value that had been
+set upon them by connoisseurs whom Mr. Godwin had brought to look at
+them.
+
+Lionel had no occasion to pretend an interest in these pictures. His
+artistic taste was aroused at once by their merits, and he lingered
+long before them, delighted and enthusiastic; so long indeed, that
+he sorely tried the patience of the old housekeeper, who was anxious
+to see him seated at her well-furnished tea-table, and was afflicted
+by the fear that the toast would become leathery and the eggs hard,
+while her visitor was dwelling on the details of a Jan Steen.
+
+At last, however, the inspection was finished, and he seated himself
+opposite her, taking care to place himself with his back to the
+window, so that the varying expressions of his own face would not
+be seen, while, on the other hand, he would be able to perceive any
+change in the countenance of his companion.
+
+The tea was poured out. Of course, there was a little preliminary
+conversation as to its merits; and then Lionel set to work, very
+cautiously and slowly. He began to speak of Mr. Godwin, and found the
+housekeeper nothing loth to talk of her master.
+
+It was scarcely strange that the banker should form one of the chief
+subjects of his servants’ discourse; for as they rarely passed
+beyond the park-gates, they had little else to talk of besides the
+habits and affairs of their master. People who cry out against the
+gossiping propensities of servants should at least remember that in
+many cases servants are kept close prisoners, very rarely seeing or
+hearing anything of the outer world. Is it strange that, under such
+circumstances, they should attach an undue importance to what they do
+see and hear?
+
+“The present Mr. Godwin is a good master,” said Mrs. Beckson,
+after some little discussion of general subjects; “he’s a liberal
+paymaster, and his servants have nothing to complain of. But he’s not
+like his father. He’s got a silent and gloomy way with him that’s
+apt to set people against him--not strangers, for his manners to
+strangers are generally considered very pleasing; but in his own
+house he gives himself up to thought like, and doesn’t seem to take
+either rest or pleasure. I never did see such a gentleman to think.
+He’s always thinking, always brooding; and this last year, judging
+by the little we’ve seen of him, I do believe he’s been worse than
+ever--brooding, brooding, brooding, as if he’d got all the troubles
+in this world upon his own mind. And if _that’s_ all the good riches
+bring a body, give me poverty, say I.”
+
+“And you have not seen much of him lately?”
+
+“Very little indeed. I don’t know why it is, I suppose it’s
+business--or it may be pleasure, for they do say Mr. Godwin leads
+a very wild life in London; but somehow or other, ever since last
+summer, counting from about the time my poor cousin Caleb was taken
+ill with brain-fever, our master has kept away from this place,
+almost as if it was haunted.”
+
+Lionel could not repress a slight start as Mrs. Beckson said this.
+Every word that he heard seemed to point to the same conclusion,
+every little circumstance so casually revealed led up to one terrible
+fact--the crime that had been committed by Rupert Godwin in the
+summer of the preceding year.
+
+“Your cousin Caleb and I have become very good friends, Mrs.
+Beckson,” Lionel said, after a brief pause in which he reflected upon
+what the housekeeper had told him; “we meet often in the garden, and
+he always talks to me a little wildly at first, but he gets quite
+rational afterwards.”
+
+“Yes, yes, to be sure; Caleb’s apt to be very wild, very wild
+indeed, sir. It isn’t everybody that would have patience with him.
+But I’m his own cousin, you see, sir, his own flesh and blood, and
+we were boy and girl together. So I bear with all his vagaries. I
+think there’s not many beside me could have nursed him through that
+dreadful brain-fever.”
+
+“And that fever was the result of a sudden fright, I have heard?”
+said Lionel.
+
+“Yes, sir; they do say poor Caleb was frightened; but, sir, there’s
+no knowing; it might have been some delusion of his poor weak brain.
+The women servants will have it that he saw a ghost in the northern
+wing; but I don’t believe in any such nonsense, though I have heard
+stories about those deserted old rooms that would make your blood run
+cold, and it certainly isn’t every gentleman that would have as much
+courage as our master.”
+
+“How so?”
+
+“Why, I mean that he’s not a bit afraid of being for hours and hours,
+sometimes in the dead of the night, shut up alone in those dreary
+rooms. He’s got an office in the northern wing, bless you, sir, and
+they say he keeps all his most valuable documents and securities and
+such-like locked in iron safes there, and up to last June twelvemonth
+he used to work there once in a way, looking over his papers, and
+such-like, I’ve heard Miss Godwin say.”
+
+“Up to last June twelvemonth? But not since that time?” asked Lionel.
+
+“Why, don’t I tell you, sir, that since last midsummer twelvemonth
+Mr. Godwin has scarcely come home once in a month? He’s seemed to
+shun the place somehow, and I can’t help thinking that he has some
+kind of trouble on his mind, and that he tries to drown it in the
+racketing and rioting of that rampageous London. You see, sir, he
+and his only son didn’t agree well together, and young Mr. Godwin
+left home two or three years ago, and it may be that preys on our Mr.
+Godwin’s mind.”
+
+“But he used to work in an office in the northern wing?”
+
+“Yes; and that’s one of the reasons why I feel sure our poor Caleb
+saw no ghost on the night he was taken ill.”
+
+“How is that?”
+
+“Why, you see, sir, the very night Caleb was taken, Mr. Godwin was in
+his office; and it isn’t likely the most audacious ghosts would show
+themselves when there were lights burning, and a city gentleman and
+his friend in the office.”
+
+“His friend! Mr. Godwin was not alone then?”
+
+“No; there was a gentleman with him--a strange gentleman. I can
+remember it all as if it had happened yesterday. I suppose it must
+have been Caleb’s illness that impressed it upon my mind, you see,
+sir. It was a very hot evening, and the house felt so oppressive
+like, that me and my niece Susan, who is head-housemaid here, we took
+a turn in the garden. It was quite dark when we went out, but it was
+very pleasant for all that. Mr. Godwin’s confidential clerk, Jacob
+Danielson, happened to be down here that evening, and was sitting in
+the dining-room, when the strange gentleman came.”
+
+“Indeed! the stranger came late then?”
+
+“Yes; it must have been dark when he came. My niece and me were
+sitting under one of the great cedars on the lawn, and the
+dining-room windows being open and the lamps lighted, we could see
+everything that was going on in the room. We saw the stranger walk
+in through one of the windows, while master and his clerk were
+sitting quietly over their wine; and the strange gentleman seemed
+excited about something, as we could guess from his manner. But Mr.
+Godwin, he was as quiet as a stone statue, and presently, after
+Jacob Danielson had gone away in a dog-cart to catch the train from
+Hertford, the stranger and master left the dining-room together, and
+went to the library; for me and my niece could see the lights through
+the great painted window, though we couldn’t see anything of what
+was going on inside. But presently, through the open doors of the
+hall--for, being such a hot, oppressive night, all the doors were
+left wide open--we saw Mr. Godwin and the stranger going towards the
+corridor leading to the northern wing, Mr. Godwin carrying a lamp.”
+
+The housekeeper paused to draw breath after this long speech. Lionel
+Westford was terribly excited, and it was with difficulty that he
+concealed the extent of his agitation.
+
+“And after this?” he said interrogatively.
+
+“After this me and my niece walked about a bit, first here, then
+there, keeping out in the cool till supper-time; and we’d been
+walking about nigh upon an hour, and were strolling along one of
+the pathways close to the north garden, when who should come upon
+us sudden like but Jacob Danielson, which we had thought to have
+started by the train from Hertford! We couldn’t help being a little
+startled by his coming upon us so sudden, and there was something in
+his manner that seemed as if he’d been excited, or almost frightened
+like; and this was something out of the way for him, for, generally
+speaking, he’s more like a machine made out of cast iron than a human
+being. ‘Where’s the gentleman?’ says he to me and my niece,--‘where’s
+the strange gentleman? Have you seen him go away?’ ‘No,’ I replied;
+‘Mr. Danielson, I have not.’ ‘O,’ says he, ‘I thought you might have
+seen him; it’s of no consequence; good evening;’ and with that he
+walks off very fast; and though there wasn’t much in what he said,
+there was something in his manner that seemed to make me and my niece
+turn all cold and shivery like, in spite of the sultry evening.”
+
+“And did you see the stranger after this?”
+
+“No; he left as quietly as he came. I daresay Mr. Godwin showed him
+the short cut across the park, for none of us in the servants’ hall
+saw him go away.”
+
+“Indeed! And this was the night upon which your cousin Caleb was
+taken with the fever?”
+
+“It was, sir.”
+
+“Well; I can’t help feeling a sort of curiosity about this haunted
+northern wing. I’m not exactly a believer in ghosts; but I’ve often
+wondered whether there might not be some little truth in the numerous
+stories so firmly believed by many sensible people. I should like
+very much to explore those old rooms. Is there any way of getting
+into that part of the building?”
+
+The housekeeper shook her head.
+
+“No, sir. Mr. Godwin keeps the keys locked up in his own library, and
+wouldn’t let them out of his hands on any account.”
+
+“But he allows the servants to clean the rooms sometimes, I suppose?”
+
+“Not he, sir. He says he’d rather have the dust a foot deep than he’d
+have his papers pried into or meddled with. But there is a way of
+getting into those rooms for all that, Mr. Wilton, if anyone had the
+courage to go that way.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“Yes. This place is very old, you know, sir, hundreds of years old;
+and they do say that there was all sorts of queer hiding-places made
+in the days of the Lollards. However that may be, the cellars under
+the northern wing are almost big enough for a regiment to hide in,
+and there’s an underground passage leading from the cellars to a
+grotto at one end of the laurel-walk.”
+
+“I know the grotto,” answered Lionel eagerly. “I noticed it some days
+ago.”
+
+“It’s a regular ruinous place; but if you grope your way through the
+archway at the back, you’ll find a flight of stone steps leading
+down underground, and at the bottom of those steps there’s a passage
+leading, as I’ve heard say long ago when I was a girl, to the
+cellars. But, mind you, Mr. Wilton, I never knew anyone to go down
+that underground passage, and goodness knows what state it may be in.
+I don’t suppose Mr. Godwin so much as knows of its existence. So if
+you go, Mr. Wilton, you know the risk you’ve got to run.”
+
+Lionel Westford laughed aloud at the old dame’s warning. Fortunately,
+the housekeeper’s ear was not acute enough to discover the artificial
+sound of that laughter.
+
+“You needn’t be afraid of my running any risk, my dear Mrs. Beckson,”
+he said. “I should very much like to see a ghost, if I could meet
+the gentleman or lady without putting myself to any very great
+trouble. But I certainly have no inclination to tempt the perils
+of an underground journey, even though I might be rewarded by an
+introduction to all the phantoms in shadowland. No, no; I’m no
+coward; but I have no wish to be entombed alive, and some of the old
+brickwork of your passage might happen to give way, perhaps, and
+bury me under its ruins.” This is what Lionel Westford said. What he
+intended to do was something very different.
+
+“I must watch my opportunity,” he thought, “and pay a secret visit to
+the northern wing when every member of this household is sleeping.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+“SHE WEPT, DELIVERED FROM HER DANGER.”
+
+
+Violet awoke, feverish and unrefreshed, from the heavy slumber into
+which she had fallen from sheer exhaustion. She awoke to see the
+broad summer sunlight streaming through the old-fashioned windows of
+her room.
+
+At first she looked about her, dazed and bewildered by the
+strangeness of the place in which she found herself, and scarcely
+knowing whether she were dreaming or waking.
+
+Then, with a terrible suddenness, the events of the previous night
+flashed back upon her memory. She sprang hastily from her bed, and
+ran to one of the windows; she wanted at least to know whither she
+had been brought.
+
+But the prospect to be seen from the window told her very little. She
+looked out upon a flat swampy expanse, across which stretched a long
+avenue of poplars,--the weird, ghastly-looking trees which she had
+seen in the chill morning light as she was driven up to the house.
+
+In the far distance she saw the river, widening to the sea. Violet
+had spent her life so entirely in one neighbourhood that she had
+little knowledge of the other parts of England. She had no idea that
+the broad river was the Thames, and that the county in which she
+found herself was Essex. Nor had she any idea of the distance which
+she had been brought upon the previous night. In her bewilderment
+and agitation she had lost all count of time. But her intense
+anxiety about her mother had made the few hours during which she had
+been travelling seem multiplied tenfold. She was utterly ignorant,
+therefore, of the locality in which this dismal old house was
+situated--as ignorant and helpless as a child.
+
+For some time she stood motionless before the window, staring at the
+flat barren swamp with the vacant gaze of despair. Then she suddenly
+clasped her hands and lifted her eyes in mute appeal to Providence.
+
+“Surely Heaven will not desert me,” she thought; “surely, if only for
+my mother’s sake, I shall be spared!”
+
+This thought seemed to inspire the helpless girl with new courage.
+She sank upon her knees before one of the old carved-oak chairs, and
+remained for a long time in the same attitude, praying fervently.
+
+Then she rose and dressed herself neatly, with hands that had ceased
+to tremble. The cold water with which she bathed her head and face
+revived her considerably; and when her toilette was finished, she
+looked almost as calm and self-possessed as if she had been in her
+own home.
+
+She had to cope with unknown and mysterious persecutors; and she
+knew that any weakness or cowardice would render her only the more
+completely powerless to protect herself.
+
+What was the danger that assailed her?--and why had she been brought
+to this lonely country-house? Again and again the unhappy girl asked
+herself these two questions; but she could find no answer for them.
+
+Presently the deaf old housekeeper made her appearance, carrying a
+tray, upon which a simple breakfast was neatly laid. Violet ran to
+meet the old woman, and clasping her hands entreatingly, begged her
+to speak--to explain the mystery.
+
+The poor girl repeated her questions again and again; but this time
+it seemed as if the housekeeper either could not or would not hear a
+word. Yet she nodded to Violet, with a friendly look on her withered
+face; and to the helpless girl there was something reassuring even in
+that slight action.
+
+The old woman set the tray upon the table, and then retired; but just
+as she reached the door, she stopped, and looked back with a very
+significant expression at Violet.
+
+“Don’t be down-hearted, poor child,” she said. “Keep up your
+spirits, my pretty. There’s help nearer at hand than you think,
+perhaps, my pet. Perhaps there is,--perhaps there is. There’s an
+awful lot of wickedness in this world; but there’s goodness too,
+praised be the Lord! so don’t be cast down.”
+
+With this she retired, leaving Violet very much at a loss to
+determine whether there was any hopeful meaning in these oracular
+utterances, or whether they were only the wandering expressions of a
+half-demented brain.
+
+She went to the door and tried to open it; but it was locked. She
+listened; but no sound broke the dismal silence, except the long
+hoarse crow of some distant chanticleer, or the plaintive lowing of
+the cattle in one of the flat meadows by the river. Mariana’s moated
+grange could not have been more dreary than this unknown habitation
+seemed to Violet Westford.
+
+After listening wearily for a long time, hoping for some sound that
+would betray the neighbourhood of human life, Violet stationed
+herself at the window. Here at least she fancied there was some
+chance of help. Surely in the course of the day some human creature
+must pass below that window.
+
+She opened the casement, and placed herself on the old-fashioned
+window-seat, a living image of patience and resignation. But she
+watched in vain. The hours crept by, insupportably slow in their
+progress. The long summer day wore itself out; the sun sloped
+westward; but still no living creature appeared upon the broad flat
+below that open window.
+
+Violet’s heart sank with a dull feeling of despair. She had
+taken one cup of tea out of the quaint little silver teapot and
+old dragon-china cup and saucer on the tray brought her by the
+housekeeper, but she had eaten nothing. Her dry lips were burning
+with fever, and she was sick and faint from exhaustion.
+
+During almost every moment of that weary day her mother’s image
+had been present with her. She had pictured Mrs. Westford’s
+feelings--her suspense, her terror, her anguish; and sometimes she
+could scarcely endure to remain in that silent room, knowing as
+she did the sufferings that would be caused to that devoted mother
+by her mysterious absence. There were times when she felt inclined
+to leap from the window, even at the risk of her life: there were
+moments when she felt that she must escape or perish. But a sense of
+religion, the pure spirit of faith and love that had been instilled
+long ago into her mind, supported her now under this most bitter
+trial. When she suffered most, she clasped her hands and prayed
+silently for help and deliverance.
+
+The sunlight made a slanting track of crimson glory on the broad
+river in the misty distance. Already the evening shadows were
+gathering in the gloomy wainscoted apartment.
+
+Violet began to think with terror that another dreary night of
+suspense lay before her, when she heard a key turned in the lock.
+The door was opened, and a gentleman entered the room.
+
+This time she recognized the Marquis of Roxleydale, to whom she had
+been introduced in the Circenses green-room on the previous evening.
+The young nobleman had been dining with his tempter and accomplice,
+Rupert Godwin, and had been drinking somewhat deeply.
+
+The banker had driven to the Moat from the nearest railway station
+early in the afternoon. He knew the weakness of his tool and dupe,
+and he feared that his diabolical scheme would not be fully carried
+out unless he was himself near to pull the strings of his puppet, and
+direct the dark windings of the plot.
+
+The old Essex mansion was large and rambling. Lord Roxleydale and
+the banker had dined in a tolerably comfortable room at a remote
+end of the building; where no sound of their voices, no echo of the
+servants’ footsteps, could reach the wing in which Violet watched and
+waited through that weary day.
+
+At sunset the young Marquis presented himself before his victim,
+flushed with wine, and duly instructed in the dark plot concocted by
+Rupert Godwin.
+
+That plot was one which could scarcely have failed to ensnare a weak
+or ambitious woman; and Rupert Godwin, who thought meanly of all
+womankind, fancied that Violet Westford would be utterly unable to
+resist the temptation offered to her.
+
+The Marquis was to affect only honourable intentions. He was to
+make her a formal offer of his hand; but he was also to propose an
+elopement and a secret marriage, as the only means by which he could
+dare to make Violet his wife; pleading his minority as the reason for
+this course.
+
+Violet, ignorant of the world, eager, no doubt, to seize the golden
+chance of becoming Marchioness of Roxleydale, would of course
+speedily accept this proposal.
+
+This is how the man of the world argued. It needed but the simplicity
+of an innocent girl to overthrow all his carefully-laid plans.
+
+Lord Roxleydale’s yacht, the _Norse King_, was lying at anchor in
+the estuary of the Thames. If Violet consented to the clandestine
+marriage proposed by the Marquis, she was to be induced to go on
+board the yacht, under the pretence of crossing the Channel, in order
+that the marriage might be performed in France, where secrecy would
+be more easily ensured.
+
+Once on board the _Norse King_, the Marquis could take her
+whithersoever he pleased. He was the possessor of a charming little
+villa on an island near Naples; and it was thither that Rupert Godwin
+advised him to convey his helpless victim.
+
+Violet once away, the banker felt that his scheme of vengeance upon
+a hapless wife and mother would be complete. Then, and then only,
+would he see Clara Westford’s proud head bowed to the dust; then, and
+then only, would he feel that he had avenged the wrong inflicted on
+him by the woman he had loved.
+
+The Marquis approached Violet as she stood near the open window, pale
+but self-possessed, with the last rays of the declining sunlight
+gilding her hair.
+
+“My dear Miss Watson,” he said, “I come to you this evening as the
+humblest suppliant who ever sued for pardon. Can you forgive me?”
+
+“My forgiveness will be easily won, Lord Roxleydale,” Violet
+answered quietly; “and may Heaven forgive you also for the cruel
+and purposeless wrong you have inflicted upon one who never injured
+you; to whom, indeed, you are so complete a stranger that I am still
+utterly at a loss to comprehend the motive of your extraordinary
+conduct. I could very easily pardon you the pain you have inflicted
+upon _me_; but it is much more difficult for me to excuse your
+conduct when I think of the anguish it must have caused my mother.
+She is a widow, my lord; and her life lately has been full of
+trouble. She did not need this new trial.”
+
+The Marquis blushed crimson at this reproach. He was very young--too
+young to be altogether base or shameless; and he felt the reproof
+conveyed in Violet’s quiet words.
+
+But he had his tempter’s lesson by heart; and those better feelings
+were only transient.
+
+“My dear Miss Watson--my dear Violet, for I have been told that sweet
+name belongs to you; and what other name could so well harmonize with
+your loveliness?--my own sweet Violet, your mother’s anxiety can be
+speedily set at rest. A few lines in your handwriting will assure her
+of your safety. It is not yet too late for the London mail. Write,
+and your letter shall be immediately sent to the post-town.”
+
+“And it will reach London--”
+
+“Early to-morrow morning.”
+
+Violet reflected that it was scarcely likely that she herself could
+reach London sooner than the following morning, under the most
+favourable circumstances. And was it not terribly probable that she
+might be kept for days a prisoner in that hateful house? It would be
+madness to reject any chance of giving at least some relief to her
+mother’s fears and anxieties. The Marquis seemed to be sincere, and
+she was so completely in his power that he could have little motive
+for deceiving her.
+
+“I will write,” she said, moving towards a table upon which there was
+an inkstand and portfolio. “O, Lord Roxleydale, if you ever loved
+your own mother, have pity upon mine, and on me!”
+
+This appeal galled a hidden wound that lay deep in the young man’s
+heart. The time had been when he had dearly loved the most tender and
+indulgent of mothers; and that is an affection which never wholly
+dies out, even in the breast of a hardened sinner. Lord Roxleydale
+knew that he had been of late years a bad and neglectful son, and
+Violet’s simple words stung him to the quick.
+
+“Do not talk of my mother,” he said; “there are some subjects that
+will not bear speaking of. Write your letter, Violet, and I will see
+that it is posted.”
+
+He walked to the window, and stood looking out at the dusky prospect.
+The darkness was gathering rapidly; and one long line of crimson
+light defined the low horizon.
+
+Violet wrote only a few cautious lines. How could she have written
+at any length, when she was utterly uncertain as to her own
+fate--surrounded, perhaps, by dangers? She wrote the following brief
+note intended to reassure her mother:--
+
+“DEAREST MOTHER,--I am safe and well. At present I can tell you no
+more than this. Believe this, and be at rest till you hear from me
+again, or see me. You will not doubt that I shall return to you as
+speedily as possible. You will not doubt that I am only kept away
+from you by the sternest necessity.
+
+                                     “Ever and ever your own
+                                                       “VIOLET.”
+
+She folded her letter, placed it in an envelope, and directed it. The
+Marquis took it from her.
+
+“Dearest Violet,” he exclaimed, “I only leave you to get this
+conveyed to the post; when I return I will explain my conduct--I will
+endeavour to win your forgiveness.”
+
+He left the room, and Violet heard the key turned in the lock.
+That one simple action filled her with terror. This man, under all
+outward appearance of respect and consideration, was her enemy, her
+most dangerous enemy, since he took advantage of her helplessness
+to approach her in the character of a lover. She was a prisoner in
+that lonely house--a close prisoner, in that unknown and solitary
+building, where the only creature in the least friendly to her was a
+deaf and perhaps imbecile old woman.
+
+What position could be more terrible to this girl, who, amidst all
+her sorrow, had never before known danger? “O, my Heavenly Father!”
+she cried, leaning in a half-fainting state against the oaken
+wainscot, “Thou, who art a Father to the fatherless, hear my prayers,
+have pity upon my helplessness, and raise up some friend in this
+bitter hour of need!”
+
+She had scarcely spoken the words when the oaken panelling behind her
+was pushed suddenly on one side; and she felt herself supported by a
+slender arm--an arm that felt like that of a woman.
+
+It seemed as if Heaven had heard her prayers. It seemed almost as if
+a miracle had been performed in her behalf. A cry of joyful surprise
+half escaped her lips; but in the next moment it was stifled by a
+hand, a soft feminine hand, pressed against her mouth.
+
+“Hush!” murmured a low voice; “not a cry--not a whisper!”
+
+Then the mysterious friend half drew, half lifted Violet through the
+opening in the wall.
+
+The helpless girl, so suddenly, so miraculously rescued, fainted
+in the arms of her preserver. But she was not long unconscious.
+Presently she felt cool perfumed water sprinkled upon her forehead;
+a pungent aromatic odour revived her senses; and the evening breeze
+blew in upon her from an open window, by which her unknown friend had
+placed her.
+
+She raised her heavy eyelids and looked up, clinging to her preserver.
+
+She looked up, and saw a gentle, careworn face bending over her--a
+beautiful face, with regularly chiselled features, and a tenderly
+gracious smile. A face that was framed in bands of silvered hair, and
+upon which the traces of suffering were only too evident.
+
+The owner of this face was tall and slender. She looked, perhaps,
+somewhat taller than she really was on account of her dress, which
+was of black silk, very rich and costly, but made with an extreme
+simplicity. A small cap of the most exquisite Honiton lace shrouded
+her silvery hair.
+
+“O madam!” exclaimed Violet, “you will not leave me? You will not
+send me away from you?”
+
+“No, child, not till I can place you in the care of your own
+friends,” answered the lady. “Poor girl, you are still trembling.”
+
+“I have suffered so much,” murmured Violet, in a low tremulous voice;
+“and it has all seemed like some dreadful dream. Ah, madam, it seems
+to me as if Heaven raised you up to befriend me in answer to my
+prayers. Where did you come from? How did you know that I wanted your
+help?”
+
+“My presence in this house is indeed providential,” replied the lady.
+“I only arrived at ten o’clock last night; but a few hours before you
+yourself were brought here. Thank heaven I arrived in time to save
+you, and to hinder my wretched son from the commission of any deeper
+wrong than that of which he has already been guilty!”
+
+“Your son, madam?”
+
+“Yes, my poor child. I am Lord Roxleydale’s most unhappy mother. A
+letter from an old friend informed me of my son’s latest follies,
+and urged upon me the necessity of making one more attempt to
+withdraw him from the set in which he has involved himself. I have
+made many efforts on his behalf, and have begun almost to despair of
+his reformation. But my friend told me that Albert was looking ill,
+and--well, I suppose--I suppose I am still weak enough to love him
+better than he deserves. I left Yorkshire, and came here, intending
+to spend the autumn in this house, which is within easy reach of
+town, and from which I could visit my son as often as I pleased. I
+little thought that my coming would happen so fortunately.”
+
+“But the Marquis--he will follow me here!”
+
+“No! He does not yet know of my presence in this house. He is quite
+ignorant of the secret of that sliding panel, which I happened to
+remember having heard of when I was first married, and spent a summer
+in this house. Nancy Gibson, the old housekeeper, told me of your
+arrival, and it is in consequence of the information afforded me by
+her that I have been enabled to watch over you. You are as safe here,
+and in the rooms adjoining, as if you were a hundred miles away from
+your foolish and wicked persecutor.”
+
+The Marchioness led the way to an adjacent apartment--a handsome
+room, with ponderous old-fashioned furniture. The shutters were
+closed, the heavy curtains drawn, and a pair of tall wax candles
+lighted a comfortably-arranged tea-table.
+
+“Come, my poor child,” exclaimed Lady Roxleydale, “a cup of tea will
+restore new strength to your nerves. Sit down by me, and tell me how
+it was you were brought here last night. Be candid, and confide in
+me.”
+
+“Willingly, dear madam. Believe me, the events of last night are as
+great a mystery to me as they can be to you.”
+
+Violet felt a sense of unspeakable gratitude towards the gentle lady
+who had rescued her. She told the whole story of her adventures,
+with a simple candour which made a most favourable impression on
+Lady Roxleydale, whose strict education and somewhat old-fashioned
+prejudices had by no means inclined her to look very indulgently
+upon a _figurante_ from the Circenses. The girl would fain have left
+the Moat that night, in her anxiety to return to her mother; but the
+Dowager told her the journey to town would be impossible until the
+next morning, and that she herself would undertake to convey her
+safely back to that anxious mother early the next day.
+
+So that night Violet slept in peace, safe under the protection of her
+new friend, comparatively happy in the thought that the morning’s
+post would convey her letter to Clara Westford.
+
+The poor girl little dreamt how false that hope was. Lord Roxleydale
+had met Rupert Godwin in the hall as he was about to despatch
+Violet’s letter to the post; and the banker, seeing the envelope in
+his hand, had easily gained from him the history of its contents.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to say that Rupert Godwin interfered to stop
+the posting of the letter. He had a packet for the post himself, he
+said, taking the missive from Lord Roxleydale’s hand, and he would
+see that Violet’s letter was posted with his own. A carriage was
+waiting to convey him back to the railway station. He had schooled
+his protégé carefully in the part he was to play, and, having
+done this was eager to get back to town. He was well aware of the
+penalties attending the abduction he had planned, and had no wish
+that his own hand should appear in any part of the work.
+
+He took Violet’s letter, bade the Marquis a hasty good-night, and got
+into the hired fly that had been ordered to fetch him.
+
+Lord Roxleydale was only too glad to return to the apartment where he
+had left his beautiful prisoner, and where he naturally expected to
+find her.
+
+His mortification was extreme when he found the bird flown from the
+trap so artfully set, so heartlessly baited; and it was with profound
+humiliation that he heard, by-and-by, of his mother’s presence in the
+old house.
+
+Had Rupert Godwin been near to sustain him, or to shame him into
+a display of hardihood, Lord Roxleydale might have tried to carry
+matters with a high hand. As it was, he left the Moat, and went
+quietly back to town, very much ashamed of the transaction he had
+been engaged in, and fully resolved, that whatever follies or
+escapades might vary the monotony of his future life, he would never
+again try his hand at an abduction.
+
+“It may be all very well in a novel or a play,” he said to himself as
+he sat smoking in the solitary _coupé_, which a judiciously invested
+half-crown had secured for him; “but it doesn’t answer in real life;
+and it makes a man feel uncommonly small when he’s trying it on.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+UNDERGROUND.
+
+
+Lionel Westford was resolved to lose no time in putting into
+execution the plan which had been suggested to him by his interview
+with the housekeeper.
+
+He determined to explore the secret passages and cellars, and the
+deserted chambers of the northern wing, in the dead of the night,
+while the household at Wilmingdon Hall was wrapped in slumber.
+
+It was a bold determination; for it needs a stout heart to brave the
+unknown and mysterious. The perils of a cavalry charge seem little
+to many a young Englishman, when compared to the mystic terrors of a
+haunted mansion.
+
+But, once convinced that duty called for prompt action, Lionel
+Westford was the very last to flinch from any trial that lay
+before him. He had much of his father’s spirit--the spirit of the
+true-hearted sailor, who is the first to face death and danger, the
+last to succumb to failure or defeat.
+
+Lionel left Mrs. Beckson’s apartment at eight o’clock, after
+gratifying the old housekeeper by his friendly interest in her
+conversation.
+
+Eight o’clock; and he knew the habits of the household well enough to
+be aware that at eleven every member of the family would have retired
+to rest.
+
+He returned to his own apartment. A pair of wax candles, newly
+lighted, were burning on the table. One of these he extinguished. He
+would have need of light during his examination of the northern wing,
+and he did not know what length of time that examination might occupy.
+
+He seated himself by the table, drew the one lighted candle towards
+him, and took up a book; but he found it quite impossible to
+concentrate his attention upon the page before him. His mind was
+haunted, his whole being was possessed by the thought of the work he
+had to do.
+
+The task was, indeed, a terrible one. Alone, in the dead of the
+night, he was to explore a long range of deserted chambers, in search
+of some evidence of a foul and mysterious deed which he believed to
+have been committed in the northern wing of Wilmingdon Hall.
+
+The longer he deliberated upon all he had heard, the more conclusive
+appeared the evidence which pointed to the banker’s guilt.
+
+A stranger had come to the Hall on that oppressive summer evening,
+more than a twelvemonth ago, and had never been seen to leave the
+house or grounds.
+
+This much was clearly to be inferred from the housekeeper’s account
+of the matter. It was just possible that this stranger might have
+left the house unseen; but in so large a household the chances were
+very much against his departure being unobserved.
+
+Then there had been something in the manner of the clerk, Jacob
+Danielson, peculiarly calculated to excite suspicion.
+
+Had he been the witness of a crime, or the accomplice of a criminal?
+His conduct had been, at any rate, a part of the mystery which was
+dimly revealed in Caleb Wildred’s wandering talk.
+
+Lionel Westford sat musing thus, with the book in his hand, through
+the long tedious hours between eight o’clock and midnight.
+
+And ever and anon, when his reverie was darkest; when the shadow of
+an assassin, with vengeful countenance and arm lifted to strike,
+loomed before his mental sight, a second image--the image of a
+beautiful woman--would arise, as if to mock the dark horror of his
+thoughts.
+
+He was in love, honestly and truly in love, with Julia Godwin; and a
+dull despair gnawed at his heart as he reflected that the work he
+was now engaged in might bring misery and shame upon her.
+
+And yet honour forbade that he should abandon his task. Come what
+might, he must go on to the last, even though the performance of that
+work of duty should entail upon him a lifetime of misery.
+
+At last the great stable-clock struck twelve. One by one the
+solemn-sounding strokes tolled out upon the stillness of the summer
+night. Lionel Westford opened the window and looked out.
+
+There was no vestige of light from any other window in the long range
+of rooms. The household had evidently retired for the night.
+
+“I will wait half an hour longer before I venture to leave this
+room,” the young man thought.
+
+He feared to run the smallest risk of interruption. He had carefully
+thought out his plans, and his only dread was the hazard of his
+footsteps being overheard by any light sleeper as he made his way
+through the inhabited portion of the house.
+
+Once in the grounds, he feared nothing. Not all the terrors of the
+northern wing could stir his breast with one coward thrill, now that
+his course of action was fixed. The dauntless spirit of the sailor’s
+son was aroused; and Lionel Westford was worthy of the true-hearted
+father whose noblest pride had centered itself in his children.
+
+At half-past twelve the watcher flung aside his book--that book which
+had served so little to distract him from his own cares--he took the
+unlighted candle, put on his hat, and went out of his room.
+
+With slow and cautious footsteps he made his way along the corridor,
+descended the stairs, crossed the hall, and entered the dining-room.
+
+He knew that the great hall-door was locked every night by the old
+butler, who made quite a state ceremony of the business, and who
+always carried the keys to his own apartment.
+
+Lionel’s only mode of exit from the house was by one of the
+dining-room windows. These were secured by massive shutters and heavy
+iron bars; but the bars might be removed by strong and skilful hands.
+
+To remove them silently was a critical task; but Lionel succeeded in
+accomplishing it, and stepped out upon the broad gravel walk before
+the windows.
+
+The cool night air blowing upon his fevered brow gave him fresh
+vigour. He crossed the lawn with rapid footsteps, and entered one of
+those long laurel-avenues so familiar and so dear to him; for it was
+in those dark and gloomy alleys he had been wont to meet Julia Godwin.
+
+The moon was young as yet, and there was only a faint glimmer of
+wan silvery light; very different from the mellow radiance which
+sometimes glorifies the midnight landscape.
+
+In the laurel-walk there reigned impenetrable darkness. Lionel groped
+his way to the end of the arcade, and entered the grotto. He found
+the archway described by the housekeeper, and, feeling with the point
+of his foot, discovered the topmost step of the narrow stairs leading
+to the cellars. Before he commenced his descent he took a fusee-box
+from his waistcoat-pocket, and lighted the candle he had brought with
+him.
+
+He was not far from the house; but he was at the back of the northern
+wing, and he knew that no restless watcher was likely to see the
+glimmer of that light.
+
+Slowly and cautiously he descended the slippery stone steps, stooping
+all the while, for the arched roof was too low to admit of his
+remaining upright.
+
+On every side he saw the evidence that this hidden staircase had
+been disused for years: spiders’ webs brushed against his face, and
+scared reptiles started under his foot and crawled away from before
+him as he advanced. With every step he took he seemed to disturb
+some living creature that had lain in its nook unmolested hitherto.
+A palæontologist might here have discovered extinct races--forgotten
+tribes of newt and adder, spider and toad, and divers curious
+specimens of the genus rat.
+
+Withered and rotten leaves of many bygone summers strewed the broken
+and crumbling steps; the moss grew green upon the roof and walls;
+and it was with difficulty that Lionel preserved his footing on the
+slippery stones beneath his feet.
+
+The housekeeper had not misled him. He found the secret passage, and
+groped his way along it until he came to an arched doorway. The door
+was studded with great iron-headed nails, and was deeply set in the
+solid masonry. This door Lionel knew must be the entrance to the
+first of the cellars.
+
+But here he felt that his task would most likely come to an abrupt
+termination. What was more probable than that the cellar-door would
+be securely locked against him?
+
+He pulled a rusty iron handle, and to his surprise the door yielded.
+He forced it open with an effort that required all his strength, so
+stiffly did the hinges move from long disuse and entered the first
+cellar under the northern wing.
+
+He knew that he now stood beneath the first room at the western angle
+of the deserted wing. The seventh window from this western angle was
+the one to which Caleb had pointed when he talked of the foul deed
+that he had witnessed within.
+
+Lionel had ascertained that there were two windows in every room on
+this lower floor, and only two. The seventh window must therefore
+belong to the fourth room, counting always from the western angle of
+the building.
+
+Pausing, with the candle raised above his head, to look round the
+first cellar, Lionel Westford saw nothing but a black and empty
+vault, festooned with cobwebs, and littered with fragments of wood
+that had once been stored there.
+
+The door between this cellar and the next stood open. The second
+cellar was as empty as the first; but the walls were lined with stone
+bins which had once held wine, and the floor was thickly covered with
+damp, mouldy-smelling sawdust.
+
+The third door was shut, but not locked. Lionel pushed it open, and
+entered the third cellar.
+
+He was now drawing very near to the room with the seventh window.
+
+The third cellar was different from the two others. There was a
+massive iron safe in one angle of the wall; and a narrow stone
+staircase in an opposite angle wound upwards.
+
+The cellar was to all appearance empty.
+
+Lionel Westford ascended the winding staircase, and found himself
+upon a small square cupboard-like landing, with a narrow door. He
+felt tolerably certain that this door must lead into the fourth
+room--the room with the seventh window.
+
+But here, where he was most eager to examine further, his
+investigation was brought to a sudden stop; for when he tried the
+door he found it firmly locked against him. He paused; baffled and
+bewildered by the small result of his labours.
+
+He had taken infinite trouble to procure his information; and in the
+dead of the night had braved the ghostly terrors of the northern wing.
+
+And what had he found? Only three empty cellars, and a door locked
+against him.
+
+“Thank Heaven that I have found no more!” he thought. “My best hope
+is that the old gardener’s horrible fancies may have been no more
+real than a feverish dream.”
+
+He was standing on the topmost of the stone steps as he mused thus,
+and was about to turn away from the locked door, when his eye was
+caught by a fragment of stuff which hung from a jagged nail in the
+edge of the panel.
+
+He extricated the fragment from the nail, and examined it by the
+light of his solitary candle. It was a piece of bluish cloth, torn
+from a man’s coat--a narrow strip some six inches long. But the
+bluish colour was partly obscured by a dark stain. Some dark liquid
+had dyed that torn fragment of cloth, which felt stiff between
+Lionel’s fingers.
+
+A thrill of horror ran through his veins. Something whispered to him
+that the black stain upon the cloth was the stain of human blood. He
+put the torn fragment in his breast-pocket, and then began carefully
+and minutely to examine the stone steps on which he was standing.
+
+It was not the scrap of blue cloth alone that had been disfigured
+by that hideous stain. Dark splotches appeared on every one of the
+stone steps--black and terrible blots, which made themselves plainly
+visible, even on the damp-stained stone.
+
+At the bottom of the steps a great pool of blood had soaked into the
+worm-eaten wood which formed the flooring of the cellar.
+
+Caleb was no idle dreamer. There was little doubt that he had watched
+through the chink of the shutter, and had indeed witnessed the
+commission of some most horrible deed.
+
+A murder had been committed. The blood of the victim remained--a dark
+and damning stain, a fatal and overwhelming evidence against his
+murderer.
+
+Lionel’s heart sank within him with a dull sense of despair. Julia
+Godwin’s father was an assassin, and Providence had appointed him as
+the instrument of that assassin’s detection.
+
+“How she will hate me!” thought the young man; “how she will curse
+the day on which the purest feelings of her nature prompted her to
+interest herself in my fate! But it is my duty to denounce this
+wretch--even though he is her father.”
+
+The examination of the cellar was not yet completed. Lionel Westford
+paused to think, endeavouring to penetrate the mystery of the place.
+
+The torn coat-sleeve steeped in blood, the traces of blood on
+every step, the great black pool on the floor--all pointed to one
+conclusion.
+
+Rupert Godwin’s unknown victim had been hurled down the stairs after
+the commission of the murder. The body had lain bleeding at the foot
+of the stairs, and must have remained for some time in the same
+position, for there were no traces of blood in any other part of the
+cellar.
+
+But when and where had the body been removed?
+
+Doubtless in the dead of the night, by that secret passage, the
+murderer had returned to the scene of his guilt, and had dragged away
+the corpse of his victim.
+
+To conceal it----where? In a grave dug stealthily in some remote and
+desolate corner of the grounds.
+
+“But the murdered victim will not rest in his hidden grave,” thought
+Lionel; “the Hand that has led me to the scene of the crime will lead
+me to the grave of the dead. The Hand that has pointed to this cellar
+will point further yet upon the dark road I have been appointed to
+tread. Providence is stronger than man, and I, who of all others
+would wish to think well of Julia Godwin’s father, am destined to be
+the discoverer and denouncer of his guilt. The Eumenides, who forced
+their direful work of retribution upon Orestes, are only typical of
+the Providence which appoints the task of the Christian avenger.”
+
+The young man did not leave the cellar until he had found a new
+evidence of the banker’s crime. The light of the candle revealed
+some dark object lying in a corner of the cellar. Lionel stooped and
+picked up a glove--a glove of tanned leather.
+
+He put this in his pocket with the fragment of cloth. By this time
+he had been nearly an hour in the cellar, and his search had been a
+most minute one. There was nothing more for him to do but to return
+by the way he had come to the inhabited part of the Hall, only too
+terribly convinced that the father of the woman he loved was one of
+the vilest of mankind. He went back through the cellars and along
+the subterranean passage, looking right and left as he went, and
+awe-stricken by the thought that he might at any moment come suddenly
+upon some trace of the corpse that must be hidden somewhere within
+the precincts of Wilmingdon Hall.
+
+But no such evidence of the banker’s crime met his eyes. He returned
+to the grotto, and emerged once more into the gardens. The pure
+breath of the night-air was strangely welcome after the charnel-like
+atmosphere of the cellars below the northern wing,--those cellars
+which, from the moment of his finding the dark stain upon the scrap
+of cloth, had seemed to Lionel to be tainted with the odour of blood.
+
+He crossed the lawn, where the night-dew lay thick and heavy, entered
+the dining-room, and barred the shutters. Then with a stealthy
+footstep he ascended the staircase, and returned unheard to his own
+apartments. As he stole upward in the darkness, he could not but
+picture to himself the assassin creeping thus stealthily through the
+silent house to remove the body of his victim, and to deposit that
+most fatal evidence of his crime in some secure hiding-place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+ON THE TRACK.
+
+
+The feelings of Clara Westford on that night upon which Violet
+was lured away from the theatre may be more easily imagined than
+described.
+
+She arrived at the stage-door of the Circenses only ten minutes after
+Violet had left the theatre with Rupert Godwin’s servant.
+
+Mrs. Westford had by this time become well known to the people
+employed at the stage-entrance to the theatre, as she had come every
+night to wait for her daughter and accompany her home. She was not
+allowed to go behind the scenes, nor had she any wish to penetrate
+those mysterious regions; but she was always accommodated with a
+seat in a quiet corner of the hall. To-night, however, instead of
+his usual civil “Good-evening, ma’am,” the tall-porter greeted Mrs.
+Westford with a stare expressive of intense astonishment.
+
+The widow was quite at a loss to understand the meaning of the man’s
+gaze. But she walked quietly to her accustomed seat in the most
+retired corner of the hall.
+
+“Why, ma’am,” exclaimed the porter at last, “when you walked in just
+now anyone might have knocked me down with a feather. I thought you
+was ill--very ill.”
+
+“No, indeed, my good friend. What should have put such an idea into
+your head?” asked Mrs. Westford, smiling at the man’s earnestness.
+
+“Well, I’m blest! But there must be some mistake, ma’am, for your
+daughter was fetched away just now all in a hurry, by a man who said
+he was a doctor’s servant, and had brought his master’s carriage to
+fetch her; and I never did see a poor young lady in such a state of
+agitation. She was as pale as death, she was, and trembling like a
+hasping leaf.”
+
+“My daughter! You must be mistaken! It must have been some one else.”
+
+“O no, indeed, ma’am. I knows your daughter very well, and a sweet
+pretty-spoken young lady she is too. The doctor’s servant had brought
+a note, he had, to say as Miss Watson’s mother was took very ill,
+and she was to go home directly minute. He told me so while he was
+waitin’ for your daughter to come down stairs.”
+
+“And Violet, my daughter, went away with this man?”
+
+“She did, ma’am. She hadn’t been gone above ten minutes when you came
+in.”
+
+Clara Westford lifted her hand to her forehead with a gesture
+expressive of bewilderment. Her face had grown ashy pale. She
+felt that some great calamity was close at hand; but as yet she
+was too entirely bewildered to understand the full import of the
+communication that had startled her.
+
+“Only ten minutes!” she murmured, echoing the porter’s words. “I must
+go in search of her. She cannot be gone far.”
+
+“It must be twenty minutes by this time, ma’am,” said the man; “for
+it’s full ten since you came in. And as for lookin’ for the young
+lady in such a neighbourhood as this, you might us well expect to
+find a needle in a bundle of hay. The best thing that you can do is
+to go quietly home. Of course, as soon as your daughter finds she’s
+been fetched away by mistake for somebody else, as she must have
+been, she’ll go home, and perhaps will get there before you can.”
+
+“But if it should not have been a mistake! If it should have been a
+plot--some villanous scheme to get my daughter into the power of a
+scoundrel!”
+
+Clara Westford said this to herself, rather than to the man. She was
+thinking of Rupert Godwin’s threats--his dark hints at dangers to
+which her daughter was exposed in that theatre.
+
+She had defied him, secure in the belief that Providence would have
+pity upon her helplessness, and would shield her from the power of
+her persecutor.
+
+She had defied the sworn enemy who had cast so black a shadow upon
+her youth. She had dared to defy him, and already he had asserted his
+power; already she felt how feeble a creature she was to cope against
+his vengeful machinations.
+
+“I ought to have remembered how often the wicked are permitted to
+triumph upon this earth,” she thought. “O heaven! if the blow had
+fallen upon me only, I could have borne it; but my daughter--my
+innocent darling! I cannot bear that she should suffer. Welcome any
+misery to me, if my suffering could preserve that bright blossom from
+being trampled in the dust!”
+
+Thought flits through the brain almost as rapidly as summer lightning
+flashes across the face of heaven. These thoughts passed through
+Clara Westford’s mind as she leant half-fainting against the back of
+the chair from which she had risen.
+
+The porter’s compassion was excited by her evident distress.
+
+“You just go quietly home, ma’am,” he said, in a consoling tone; “and
+I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if you was to find your daughter had
+got there before you.”
+
+Clara shook her head despairingly.
+
+“You don’t know what reason I have to be terrified by this business,”
+she said. “I will trust you, my good man, for I can see that you pity
+me. You are well acquainted with the dangers of a theatre. I daresay
+you know everything that goes on in this place?”
+
+“Well, ma’am, I hear pretty nigh all that is to be heard, I daresay,”
+answered the porter.
+
+“My daughter was very young--very inexperienced. She was much
+admired, perhaps; and I know that unprincipled men are sometimes
+admitted behind the scenes of a theatre. Tell me, my good man, did
+you ever hear that my daughter was persecuted by the attentions of
+any of these men?”
+
+“Never,” answered the man heartily; “there ain’t so many as ever
+come behind the scenes in this house. People as don’t know no better
+talk a great deal of nonsense about theatres, and think that my
+Lord This and Sir Harry That are always lolling about behind the
+scenes. But, bless your heart, ma’am, oftener than not you’d find our
+green-room as quiet as a church; though I don’t say but what one or
+two particular patrons do get let in once in a way. And as for your
+daughter, I have heard say from them as have took notice of her, that
+she was one of those modest quiet young ladies as the wildest of
+young men going would never dare to insult.”
+
+In the intensity of her gratitude for these comforting assurances
+Clara Westford stretched out her hand, and grasped the grimy paw of
+the stage-doorkeeper.
+
+“My good friend,” she exclaimed, “you have spoken the pleasantest
+words that I have heard for long from any stranger’s lips. I will go
+home. I will try to think that this business has been only a mistake,
+and that my daughter will return to me in safety. But stay; let me
+ask you one question. You heard the name of the doctor who sent for
+my daughter?”
+
+“No, ma’am; the servant may have mentioned the name; but I can’t say
+I caught it, if he did.”
+
+“Nor the address?”
+
+“No, ma’am; unfortunately, I didn’t hear that either.”
+
+“Then I have no clue,” murmured Clara despairingly.
+
+She bade the porter good-night, and left the theatre. She walked
+rapidly through those crowded streets, in which she could not count
+a single friend. But quickly as she made her way homewards, the time
+seemed cruelly long, so eager was she to reach her lodging, where it
+was just possible that she might find Violet safe.
+
+But, alas, only heart-sickening disappointment awaited her. All
+was dark in the window of the little sitting-room. Violet had not
+returned. Clara Westford tottered with feeble footsteps up the
+narrow staircase, and entered the empty room. Hitherto she had
+been supported by hope. Now despair came upon her: all at once
+her strength seemed to forsake her. She threw herself upon the
+old-fashioned rickety sofa, and gave way to a paroxysm of grief.
+
+For a long time she was completely overwhelmed by that convulsive
+outburst of despair. But at last she grew calm, with the dull
+calmness of misery.
+
+“I must save her! I must save her!” she thought,--“even at the peril
+of my own soul!”
+
+She did not kindle any light, but sat in the darkness, with her head
+resting on the arm of the sofa, and her forehead tightly pressed in
+her two hands.
+
+The unhappy woman was trying to think of a friend--some
+long-forgotten friend, who might help her in this bitter hour of
+calamity.
+
+But the poor have few friends on earth. Clara Westford had been
+long-forgotten by those aristocratic relations who had believed in
+the disgrace of Sir John Ponsonby’s beautiful daughter. She had
+disappeared from the world as completely as if the grave had hidden
+her. She had scrupulously avoided all possibility of any meeting with
+those who had known her before her marriage with the merchant captain.
+
+Now, therefore, she could only count those friends whom she had
+known in Hampshire during her happy married life--simple, well-to-do
+country people, unversed in the ways of the world, who would be quite
+incompetent to help her in this crisis of her life, even if they had
+been within call, and their friendship of that sterling metal which
+resists the biting influence of adversity.
+
+Clara had known them only during the summer of her existence. Their
+friendship had been very pleasant to her; but she had found no
+opportunity of testing its quality or measuring its force. She had
+dined with her friends, and her friends had dined with her. They had
+killed the fatted calf to do her honour; but while doing it they had
+been perfectly aware that she had fatted calves of her own in the
+homestead. It was not to such untried friendship as this that Mrs.
+Westford could appeal in a desperate crisis.
+
+“It is to my direst enemy I must appeal,” she thought. “Rupert Godwin
+has triumphed, and he alone on earth can help me to recover my lost
+child.”
+
+Early the next morning Mrs. Westford walked to a quiet street near
+St. James’s-square. On his visit to her lodging the banker had left
+his card on her table, inscribed with the address of his London abode.
+
+But even this desperate step resulted in disappointment. At the
+banker’s lodgings Mrs. Westford only found James Spence, the valet,
+who informed her that his master was out of town, and was not likely
+to return until the following day.
+
+“If Mr. Godwin is at his country-house, I will go down there to
+see him,” Clara said to the valet. “My business is most important;
+indeed, it is a matter of life and death.”
+
+“Unfortunately, madam, Mr. Godwin is not at Wilmingdon Hall,” the man
+answered very politely; “and I am sorry to say I cannot inform you
+where he is. He told me nothing, except that he was going into the
+country, and would return to-morrow morning.”
+
+“To-morrow! Then I will call here again,” said Clara, with a sigh of
+real despair.
+
+She turned away, sick at heart, to retrace her steps to the dreary
+lodging, now so utterly desolate.
+
+She walked slowly, for her feeble limbs could scarcely drag
+themselves along. She had money in her purse; but she never thought
+of hailing any vehicle. The dull stupor of her brain seemed to render
+her almost unconscious of physical suffering. The sunlit streets,
+gay with busy people hastening hither and thither, lively with that
+bustling activity which looks like happiness, swam before her weary
+eyes, worn and dim with long weeping: yet she walked on, wending her
+steps mechanically towards her joyless home. She was in the busiest
+part of the Strand, when she suddenly heard her name spoken, in a
+voice that sounded strangely familiar--a voice that was associated
+with the happy past.
+
+She started like a creature newly awakened from some hideous dream,
+and a taint flush passed over her wan face.
+
+A hand was laid gently upon her arm. A young man, with a frank, manly
+countenance, bronzed to an almost Indian hue by exposure to sun and
+wind, was looking earnestly in her face.
+
+“Mrs. Westford!” he exclaimed, “dear Mrs. Westford! Is it really you?
+I am so surprised to meet you thus--in London, and alone.”
+
+Clara Westford looked at the speaker with a dreamy bewildered
+gaze. The bronzed face seemed at first strange to her; but the
+well-remembered voice brought back the past.
+
+She looked at the stranger for some moments in silence; then her lips
+parted, and she gasped the familiar name--
+
+“Gilbert Thornleigh!”
+
+Yes; this bronzed stranger was no other than Gilbert Thornleigh, the
+first mate of the _Lily Queen_.
+
+“Gilbert!” said Clara Westford; “can it indeed be you?”
+
+“Yes, dear Mrs. Westford; myself, and no other. I have survived all
+the perils of shipwreck--the dangers and privations of a difficult
+journey in the wildest part of the coast of Africa--and have set foot
+once more on British ground. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see
+the old streets, the familiar faces, and to hear my mother tongue
+spoken on every side of me. Need I tell you the delight I feel in
+seeing you? And yet, dear Mrs. Westford,” exclaimed the young man,
+changing his tone suddenly, and looking anxiously at Clara’s face, “I
+confess that I am sorry to see you looking so pale and careworn, so
+sadly altered since I saw you in Hampshire. And your dress--You are
+in deep mourning. Great heavens! Violet! she is not dead?”
+
+The sailor’s bronzed check changed to an almost livid line as he
+asked that terrible question.
+
+“Not dead! No, no; not dead!” Mrs. Westford answered in a strange,
+half-bewildered way.
+
+“But I am sure that some calamity has happened to you,” exclaimed
+Gilbert Thornleigh. “There are traces of sorrow in your face. You are
+ill. I am sure you are ill.”
+
+“I am ill,” answered Clara; “the street in which we stand spins round
+me. I cannot understand what has happened. I meet you here--you whom
+I thought dead. You were saved, then? You were rescued from the wreck
+of the _Lily Queen_?”
+
+“Yes; I and three of the crew contrived to swim ashore. We had a
+hard fight for it, I can tell you, for it was no common squall that
+sent the _Lily Queen_ against the rock that shattered her brave old
+timbers as you’d shatter a wine-glass if you were to dash it against
+the curbstone yonder. We had nothing but our life-belts and our
+strong arms to rely upon, and we had to swim against a terrific sea;
+but somehow or other we did reach the land. The poor fellows who
+trusted to the boats went down to the bottom, every one of them; and
+the ship herself was ground to powder.”
+
+“And my husband--Harley? He was no doubt the last to abandon the
+sinking vessel? I know his brave true heart. You were saved, but
+Harley perished.”
+
+Gilbert Thornleigh stared at his companion in utter bewilderment.
+
+“Dear Mrs. Westford,” he exclaimed, “you are surely trying to mystify
+me. Your husband was not on board when the ship was lost. Captain
+Westford did not sail with us in the _Lily Queen_.”
+
+“He did not sail in the _Lily Queen_!”
+
+Clara Westford repeated the sailor’s words almost mechanically,
+looking at him with wild dilated eyes.
+
+“He did not sail? He was not with you when you were wrecked?” she
+exclaimed.
+
+“No, most decidedly not. He intrusted the ship’s papers to me, and
+I sailed as his deputy. I was at this very moment on my way to
+the Waterloo Terminus, where I meant to have taken the train to
+Winchester, fully expecting to find yourself and Captain Westford at
+the Grange.”
+
+“Gilbert Thornleigh,” exclaimed Clara, “I must be mad--surely I must
+be mad! You say my husband did not sail in the _Lily Queen_? Yet this
+black dress has been worn for him, and for him alone. From the hour
+in which he left the Grange to sail for China on the 27th of last
+June, I have never seen my husband’s face, nor have I received the
+faintest token of his existence.”
+
+“You have not seen him? You believed that he had sailed last June?”
+
+“Most firmly.”
+
+“Great heavens!” cried Gilbert Thornleigh, “there must be some
+terrible mystery here. Some calamity must have happened to the
+Captain.”
+
+“Yes,” answered Clara, with the dull accent of utter hopelessness,
+“nothing but death could separate Harley from his wife and children.”
+
+The sailor had offered her his arm, and she had taken it almost
+unconsciously. He led her out of the bustle and confusion of the
+Strand into one of those quiet streets that lead down to the river.
+Here they were undisturbed; here they could talk freely of the
+strange mystery that surrounded the fate of Harley Westford.
+
+“I cannot understand it,” murmured Clara, with a dreary despair in
+her tone. “It’s all a bewildering dream.”
+
+Little by little Gilbert Thornleigh contrived to subdue Mrs.
+Westford’s agitation, while he told her, slowly and deliberately,
+the story of the last day before the sailing of the _Lily Queen_.
+
+He told her how Harley Westford had quitted the ship, declaring that
+he would recover his money from Rupert Godwin’s hands at any hazard.
+He told her how the vessel had waited in the dock, not only until
+the following morning, as Harley Westford had ordered, but until the
+following sunset, the young man deferring departure to the very last,
+in the hope that the Captain would rejoin his ship.
+
+Then a lurid light broke upon Clara Westford’s mind.
+
+In this calamity, as in every other, she saw the one dark figure
+always between her and happiness--Rupert Godwin, always Rupert
+Godwin, her implacable enemy, her relentless persecutor.
+
+And now a hideous fear took possession of her. Rupert Godwin had
+destroyed her husband!
+
+Yes; with his own desperate hand, or by the hand of some hired
+assassin, Rupert Godwin had murdered his fortunate rival.
+
+By slow degrees this conviction shaped itself in Clara Westford’s
+mind.
+
+“I can understand it all now,” she said. “There was good reason for
+my dark forebodings, my gloomy presentiments. When Harley left me on
+that bright summer morning, he left me to go to his death.”
+
+“Dear Mrs. Westford, let us hope for the best,” murmured the sailor;
+but there was little hopefulness in his tone.
+
+“Tell me one thing,” said Clara: “are you positive that my husband
+lodged the sum of twenty thousand pounds in Rupert Godwin’s hands?
+Are you sure that Harley did not owe money to the banker?”
+
+“As certain as I am of my own name. Your husband had been a very
+fortunate man, and the twenty thousand pounds were the savings of his
+life.”
+
+“Then the document by which my children were made penniless and
+homeless was a forgery,” exclaimed Clara.
+
+She told Gilbert Thornleigh the story of Rupert Godwin’s seizure
+of the Grange and all its contents. But she could not speak or
+dwell long on this subject; she could only think of one thing--the
+mysterious disappearance of her husband.
+
+“He has been murdered, Gilbert,” she said; “my heart tells me that it
+is so. He has fallen a victim to the relentless Rupert Godwin.”
+
+Gilbert Thornleigh shook his head incredulously.
+
+“Impossible, dear Mrs. Westford!” he exclaimed. “Rupert Godwin has
+a high position in the world. He would never be guilty of such a
+crime--a crime which must ultimately be discovered, and for which he
+could have no adequate motive.”
+
+“I tell you, Gilbert, there is no infamy--no deed, however dark--of
+which Rupert Godwin is not capable. I know him. I know the cruelty
+of his heart. He is a man without conscience and without mercy. Why
+should such a man hesitate to commit murder?”
+
+The sailor was still incredulous. It is so difficult for a generous
+nature to believe in the possibility of crime.
+
+“Some accident may have happened to the Captain,” he said. “He may
+never have reached the bank.”
+
+“If any accident had happened, I should have been almost sure to hear
+of it,” Clara Westford replied decisively. “Gilbert Thornleigh, I
+think you loved my husband?”
+
+“I did, as truly as ever a son loved his father; and I had good
+reason to love him. No father was ever kinder to his son than the
+Captain was to me.”
+
+“Give me a proof of your devotion,” said Clara, with passionate
+energy; “aid me to discover my husband’s fate.”
+
+“I will,” replied the young man; “my life is at your service. I will
+shrink from neither trouble nor peril in the performance of the duty
+I owe to my Captain.”
+
+“Then let us begin our work immediately. O, Gilbert, I can neither
+know peace nor rest till this dark enigma has been solved.”
+
+The young man was silent for some moments, thinking deeply. He was
+trying to form some plan of action.
+
+“When Captain Westford left me on board the _Lily Queen_, I know that
+he was going straight to Mr. Godwin’s banking-house,” he said at
+last. “The first fact we have to ascertain is whether he ever reached
+that place. We can at least attempt to settle that question by making
+inquiries of the clerks at the bank.”
+
+“I have not much faith in any of Rupert Godwin’s creatures; but let
+us lose no time in questioning them. Providence may give us help in
+an attempt to fathom the mystery of this man’s crime. Let us go at
+once to the bank.”
+
+Gilbert Thornleigh was almost as earnest as Mrs. Westford. He called
+a cab, and told the man to drive to Lombard-street. They alighted
+before the door of the banking-house. Gilbert went into the principal
+office, followed by Mrs. Westford.
+
+An old man, with a queer, almost humpbacked, figure and a wizen face,
+was seated at one of the desks, bending over a ledger. He looked
+up as Gilbert and his companion entered the office. He cast at the
+sailor only a brief and careless glance of indifference; but the
+whole aspect of his face changed as he looked at Clara Westford.
+
+The eyes were fixed in a long earnest gaze, and the lips trembled. It
+was evident that some sudden and violent emotion shook the man to his
+inmost soul.
+
+This man was no other than Rupert Godwin’s confidential clerk, Jacob
+Danielson.
+
+“I have come to ask a question relating to an event that happened
+more than a year ago,” said the mate of the _Lily Queen_. “Can you
+call to mind the dealings of this house during last June twelvemonth?”
+
+“Perhaps I can,” answered the clerk, not looking at Gilbert
+Thornleigh, but keeping his small deep-set eyes fixed intently upon
+Clara Westford, who stood a little way behind the sailor. “It depends
+very much upon the nature of those dealings. What is it that you want
+me to remember?”
+
+“A captain in the merchant service, named Harley Westford, lodged
+a sum of money in the hands of your principal during that month,
+a large sum for a single deposit--twenty thousand pounds. Do you
+remember the circumstances?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“He returned the same day to withdraw the money, or he intended to do
+so?”
+
+“He did return: and not finding Mr. Godwin here, he followed him to
+his country seat, Wilmingdon Hall, in Hertfordshire. I was there when
+he arrived.”
+
+“And he claimed the return of his money?”
+
+“He did.”
+
+“Were his claims acceded to?”
+
+“Mr. Godwin told me as much.”
+
+“The money was returned?”
+
+“I repeat that Mr. Godwin told me so. I left Wilmingdon Hall to catch
+the ten-o’clock train from Hertford. When I left, Captain Westford
+was still with Mr. Godwin. I was so unlucky as to lose the train. I
+returned to the Hall. When I returned the Captain had left, no doubt
+carrying his twenty thousand pounds with him. Mr. Godwin told me that
+he had restored the money that evening, as the Captain was obliged to
+rejoin his ship by daybreak; otherwise she would have sailed without
+him.”
+
+“She did sail without him,” answered Gilbert Thornleigh; “from that
+hour to this, the Captain has never been seen by his friends. He
+disappeared as completely as if the earth had opened to swallow him
+up.”
+
+“Strange!” murmured the clerk thoughtfully.
+
+“Very strange,” replied the sailor; “there has been foul play
+somewhere. I should not care to be in Rupert Godwin’s position.
+Harley Westford was last seen in his house. Harley Westford’s fortune
+was lodged in his hands. There are two questions that I must have
+answered, somehow or other; the first is, was that fortune ever
+restored to its rightful owner? The second is one of even darker
+meaning: Did Harley Westford ever leave Wilmingdon Hall alive?”
+
+Jacob Danielson looked at the speaker with a strange expression.
+
+“Bah!” he exclaimed. “Do you suppose such a man as Rupert Godwin
+would lie in wait to murder one of his customers for the sake of
+twenty thousand pounds? Mr. Godwin is a millionaire, and that which
+seemed a wonderful fortune to the merchant captain would have been
+only a trifle to him.”
+
+“Mr. Godwin may be a millionaire to-day,” answered Gilbert
+Thornleigh; “but if the tongue of common report spoke truly, he was
+no millionaire last June twelvemonth. He had just made great losses,
+and there was a rumour that he was likely to become bankrupt.”
+
+“The tongue of common report is a lying tongue,” replied Jacob
+Danielson. “Come, young man, this talk is madness. Rich men, such as
+Rupert Godwin, do not commit crimes. Seek for your captain elsewhere;
+we are not responsible for his safety.”
+
+“Perhaps not,” answered Gilbert; “but the law may ask you and your
+employer some strange questions about that meeting at Wilmingdon
+Hall. My first task shall be to put the case in the hands of the
+police; they may be able to discover whether Harley Westford ever
+left that place alive.”
+
+“Perhaps so,” responded the clerk coolly. “The police are very
+clever, no doubt; but they are sometimes baffled. They have made two
+or three rather notable _fiascos_ lately. Good morning. Stay! In
+spite of your insolent insinuations, I should really be glad to be of
+service to you. If I should obtain any information likely to aid you
+in your search for the missing Captain, I will send it to you. Where
+shall I address my letter?”
+
+He looked at Clara Westford as he spoke, and it was she who answered
+him.
+
+“You can address your letter to me, Harley Westford’s wife, at No. 4,
+Little Vincent-street, Lambeth,” she said eagerly.
+
+Jacob Danielson started at the sound of her low earnest voice, but
+neither Clara nor her companion observed his emotion. They were too
+deeply engrossed by their own anxiety.
+
+They left the bank immediately after this. The young man put his
+companion into a cab, and then parted from her, promising to go
+at once to the proper quarter, where he might place the matter of
+Harley Westford’s disappearance in the hands of the detective police,
+and promising also to call upon her early the next day, in order
+to tell her the result of his interview with the chief official at
+Scotland-yard.
+
+Before she took off her bonnet and shawl Clara Westford seated
+herself at her desk and wrote a letter to her son, telling him of the
+return of Gilbert Thornleigh, and of the mysterious disappearance of
+the Captain, and imploring him to exert himself to the utmost in his
+endeavours to fathom the mystery.
+
+“By a providential chance you happen to be in the near neighbourhood
+of Wilmingdon Hall,” wrote Clara Westford, “which I am told is
+within a few miles of Hertford. For Heaven’s sake, my dear Lionel,
+make a good use of that chance, and try by every means to discover
+whether your unhappy father left Rupert Godwin’s house alive on the
+night of the 27th of June.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+ESTHER VANBERG HAS HER WAY.
+
+
+Esther Vanberg thought very little more of Violet after the base
+scheme, in which she had assisted, had been successfully carried out.
+
+Her lovely rival was gone; that was all she cared about. The stage
+was now clear for herself. Mr. Maltravers was in a dilemma, and was
+glad to allow the handsome and dashing Esther to appear in the very
+part he had intended for Violet. Most complete, therefore, was the
+triumph of the Jewess.
+
+She had but little dramatic ability, or she would long ago have been
+elevated to a more important position in the theatre--in the days
+when her beauty had been fresher than it was now. But she managed to
+speak the few lines allotted to her without breaking down, and she
+looked superb.
+
+The character she had to perform was that of a woman of rank; which
+gave her an opportunity of displaying some of the jewels which had
+been presented to her by the wealthy and generous young Duke of
+Harlingford.
+
+Her dress was a triumph of art from a court milliner in
+Clarges-street--a satin train of the softest pink almost covered by
+a tunic of Malines lace. The delicate hue of the dress contrasted
+exquisitely with the girl’s pale-olive skin; and she looked as
+perilously lovely as that “Serpent of old Nile,” whose fatal eyes
+cost Antony a world.
+
+A diamond bracelet encircled one of her slim wrists; a massive band
+of yellow lustreless gold clasped with a large ruby star adorned the
+other. Her purple-black hair was drawn off from her proud clearly-cut
+face, coiled in a heavy knot at the back of her head, and secured by
+a diamond comb.
+
+Attired thus, Esther Vanberg looked indeed worthy of the rank and
+title of duchess.
+
+There were many that night in the crowded theatre who thought as
+much; but there was one young man sitting alone in a private box, who
+would gladly, ay even proudly, have bestowed upon her that rank and
+title.
+
+This solitary young man, whose handsome face brightened as he watched
+the beautiful actress, was no other than the Duke of Harlingford,
+Esther Vanberg’s doting admirer.
+
+The haughty girl had quarrelled with him about some absurd trifle,
+and had dismissed him from her drawing-room as coolly as a sovereign
+would banish an offending courtier. During three or four weeks the
+infatuated young nobleman had in vain sought for admission to the
+pretty little house in Mayfair. Every day he received the same kind
+of answer--Miss Vanberg was not at home; or Miss Vanberg was engaged.
+
+The Grand Monarque himself, in the plenitude of his power, could
+scarcely have treated his subjects with more supreme hauteur than the
+Duke had to endure from this friendless, nameless ballet-girl.
+
+But unfortunately opposition only increased the young man’s
+infatuation. The worse Esther Vanberg behaved to him, the more
+ardently he worshipped her.
+
+Every night found him at his post in the private box, which he had
+hired for the season, content to gaze at his idol, who did not even
+condescend to glance towards the spot where he sat.
+
+He had the privilege of entering the green-room of the Circenses
+whenever he pleased; but when last he was there, Esther Vanberg had
+passed him by with a look of superb disdain. He had spoken to her;
+but she had not deigned to reply to him. So that now the weak-minded
+young man had not the courage to intrude in that charmed circle.
+
+But to-night, to the Duke’s surprise and delight, the lovely Jewess
+was pleased to be gracious. She looked towards his box with the most
+bewitching smile of recognition. The enraptured young nobleman saw
+that he was forgiven. He hurried round to the stage-door directly
+the piece was over, and made his way to the green-room. There were
+several members of the company assembled there, engaged in discussing
+the merits of the new piece, and amongst them the Duke beheld the
+object of his adoration.
+
+Esther Vanberg was seated on a sofa, fanning herself with an Indian
+fan of gaudy feathers and exquisitely carved wood. She beckoned the
+Duke to her side with a wave of her fan.
+
+He was only too glad to obey the summons. In a moment he was by her
+side, bending over her in an attitude of respectful devotion.
+
+Strange as it may seem, the Duke respected this capricious,
+self-willed woman. Her despotic temper, her insolence and pride, kept
+him at her feet.
+
+She gave him her slender jewelled hand with a gesture of superb
+condescension.
+
+“Come, Vincent,” she said, “let us be friends once more. I am tired
+of seeing your gloomy face in that stage box. Who were those people
+that used to place a death’s-head upon their banquet-table, to
+remind them of their mortality? I’m sure you would make a very good
+substitute for the skeleton head, if that sort of thing were the
+fashion nowadays. You look absolutely funereal.”
+
+“My dear Esther, when a fellow calls at your house a dozen times, and
+is told every time that you are out, though he hears you strumming--”
+
+“What?”
+
+“I beg your pardon, playing the piano.”
+
+“Well, say no more,” replied Miss Vanberg graciously; “I daresay
+I have behaved rather badly to you during the last fortnight. But
+I’m sure I must have had awful provocation--though I can’t exactly
+remember what it was. However, you may consider yourself forgiven.”
+
+“My darling Esther--” exclaimed the enraptured Duke.
+
+“Stay!” cried the young lady, with an imperious wave of her fan; “you
+are only forgiven conditionally. I want you to do me a favour.”
+
+“My adorable angel, is there anything you could ask that I would
+refuse to do?”
+
+“Of course not,” answered Esther with the air of an empress: “you
+will not refuse to do anything that you _can_ do. But in this case
+the question is, whether you can or not.”
+
+“My dearest Esther, if it is possible, consider it done; if it is
+impossible, be assured that it shall be done.”
+
+“O, it’s the simplest thing in the world, if you only go to
+work about it cleverly. You know how fond I am of riding, and
+how anxiously I look forward to the hunting-season, when I mean
+to go down to Berkshire, and enjoy the delight of a run across
+country. Well, a few evenings ago, Captain Angus Harding was in the
+green-room, and was talking most rapturously about a crack hunter
+that was to be sold at Tattersall’s the following day at two o’clock.
+A magnificent creature, he said; a chestnut, without a white hair
+about him; a perfect flyer, with only one defect, and that the common
+fault of chestnut horses--ahem!--and dark-haired women--rather a
+queer temper. The animal is called Devilshoof, and has been ridden by
+the great steeplechaser Mr. Palgrave Norton. Captain Harding declared
+that he would have given a thousand pounds for such a horse, if he
+could possibly have afforded the money.”
+
+“Poor _dayvil_!” drawled the Duke. “Angus Harding is always hard-up.
+He ought to be called Angus Hardup, by Jove!” added the young
+nobleman, delighted with his feeble attempt at wit.
+
+Miss Vanberg laughed heartily. She was in a charming humour to-night.
+
+“Well,” she continued, “of course you may imagine that after hearing
+such an account of this horse, I was seized with a desire to have
+him. I kept my own counsel but determined to send my groom to
+Tattersall’s to bid any money for Devilshoof. I gave him my orders
+early the next day, and my man was in Tattersall’s yard at a quarter
+before two; but--would you believe it?--that abominable Harding had
+misled me as to the hour of the sale. Devilshoof had been sold for
+seven hundred guineas at half-past one. Imagine my annoyance.”
+
+“Yes; it was provoking,” answered the Duke; “but as the horse is a
+queer temper, I call it rather a lucky escape.”
+
+“Temper!” exclaimed Esther Vanberg, with a scornful laugh. “Do you
+think I should have been afraid of the animal’s temper? I like a
+spirited horse. I like my temper to be at war with the animal I ride,
+for I know I shall conquer, and I feel a thrill of pride and triumph
+in the sense of power. I hate a quiet horse. I would just as soon
+stay at home and sit on the sofa, as go jogging up and down the Row
+on one of your placid animals which are warranted ‘quiet for a lady.’
+Now, my dear Harlingford, what I have to say to you is this: when I
+set my heart upon a thing, I am not accustomed to be disappointed. I
+_have_ set my heart upon this horse; so you must get him for me.”
+
+“But, my dearest Esther, you say that he was sold.”
+
+“What of that? He can be bought again, I suppose? The man who bought
+him may be induced to sell him for a higher price?”
+
+“That depends upon the character of the purchaser. Who is he?”
+
+“Lord Bothwell Wallace.”
+
+“Then I’m afraid the matter is quite impossible,” replied the Duke.
+“Bothwell Wallace is a great man in the shires, and will scarcely
+care to part with a horse he fancies.”
+
+Miss Vanberg tossed her head disdainfully, while her brilliant eyes
+flashed angrily upon the Duke.
+
+“O, very well,” she exclaimed; “let it be just as you please. I shall
+know how to estimate the worth of your pretended affection, when you
+cannot even gratify me in a little whim like this.”
+
+Now, this was a cruel speech, and a very unjust one into the bargain;
+for the Duke had already spent a fortune upon the gratification of
+Esther Vanberg’s little whims, never having been in the habit of
+denying her anything, from Marie Antoinette’s own writing-table, in
+tortoise-shell and Sèvres, to the title-deeds of the prettiest villa
+on the banks of the Thames. But the weak young man was ready to do
+anything, however foolish, rather than incur one angry glance from
+the bright eyes of his idol.
+
+“Well, my darling,” he said, almost piteously, “I will exert myself
+to the utmost to accomplish what you want. But Wallace is awfully
+rich; and I really don’t see how I am to induce him to part with a
+horse he likes. However, I’ll do my best.”
+
+“Pray do,” answered Esther, rising languidly, and drawing a costly
+Indian shawl about her shoulders, “and don’t come near me until
+you can tell me that Devilshoof is mine. Never presume to approach
+me again if you fail in getting him, for the sight of you will be
+actually obnoxious to me. Good-night.”
+
+She held out her hand once more. The Duke kissed the jewelled
+fingers, and accepted his sentence of banishment as meekly as if
+Esther Vanberg had been the Emperor of all the Russias.
+
+He wrote on the following day to Lord Bothwell Wallace, offering that
+nobleman a thousand guineas for the horse which had been bought at
+Tattersall’s for seven hundred. He informed Lord Wallace that the
+horse was wanted for a lady who had set her heart upon possessing him.
+
+The Duke fully expected a decided refusal to this offer; but the
+letter which he received did not contain an actual refusal. Lord
+Wallace wrote:
+
+“MY DEAR HARLINGFORD,--I shall be very glad to get rid of Devilshoof
+for the sum which I paid for him; but I will _not_ sell him to a
+lady. I and my grooms have tried him, and we find him one of the
+worst-tempered brutes it was ever our bad fortune to encounter.
+You’ve been in my harness-room at the Caravansera, and you know
+I’m rather great in the invention of teasers in the shape of bits.
+I’ve tried all my latest discoveries on Devilshoof without effect.
+The brute is an incorrigible bolter; and whatever good there ever
+was in him has been taken out of him by gentleman jocks. He is so
+bad a temper that I don’t care to keep him in my stud, in spite of
+his good looks. I shall send him back to Tattersall’s, and have him
+sold for whatever he will fetch. But no lady shall ride him with my
+concurrence.
+
+                                   “Yours faithfully,
+                                                      “WALLACE.”
+
+The Duke of Harlingford imagined that this letter would perfectly
+satisfy Esther Vanberg. She would, of course, not care to possess a
+horse which a hunting-man like Bothwell Wallace refused to ride. The
+Duke put the letter in his pocket, ordered his cab, and drove at once
+to the coquettish little mansion in Mayfair.
+
+Esther was at home, fluttering about her drawing-room in an exquisite
+morning-dress of muslin and lace. She was arranging the hot-house
+flowers in her vases, and looked up with a cry of delight as the
+Duke entered the room. Looking up thus, in her dainty summer dress,
+with her hands full of flowers, and all the colour and brightness of
+her sunlit drawing-room for a background, she made a picture which a
+Meissonier might have been pleased to paint.
+
+“I triumph!” she exclaimed. “Devilshoof is mine!”
+
+“No, my dearest Esther; but----”
+
+“But what?” interrupted the Jewess. “I will have no such word as
+‘but’ uttered in _my_ house. I thought I told you not to come near me
+until that horse was mine?”
+
+“Precisely, my darling,” answered the Duke, handing Lord Wallace’s
+letter to the angry beauty; “but if you will only read that, you will
+understand why I have not bought him.”
+
+Esther Vanberg read the letter, and then tossed it from her with a
+gesture of disdain.
+
+“Well!” she exclaimed; “of course you wrote to say that you would buy
+the horse?”
+
+“My dear Esther!--after receiving such an account of him?”
+
+“Bah!” cried the Jewess contemptuously. “What cowards you men are, in
+spite of all your pretended love of manly sports! A horse is a little
+hot-tempered, and you are actually afraid to ride him. I should
+despise myself for such cowardice! Write to Lord Wallace immediately,
+and tell him that you will give him his own price for Devilshoof.”
+
+“But, my darling Esther, you would never be so rash as to ride him?
+It would be sheer madness.”
+
+“Never mind what it would be; sit down and write.”
+
+The Jewess pointed imperiously to the Marie Antoinette writing-table.
+
+For some time the Duke resisted; but Esther Vanberg’s power over him
+was boundless, and in the end she triumphed.
+
+He wrote to Lord Wallace, telling him that the lady had set her heart
+on the horse, and would have him at any price.
+
+It was with great unwillingness that the weak-minded young man wrote
+this letter; for the thought of danger to his beloved Esther inspired
+him with utter dismay; but he had not firmness enough to oppose any
+fancy of the woman he so tenderly loved.
+
+He received a reply from Lord Wallace in a few hours.
+
+It ran thus:
+
+“DEAR HARLINGFORD,--If the lady whom you wish to gratify has set her
+heart on _committing suicide_, she may as well do so in one way as
+in another. I can only tell you once more, that Devilshoof is unsafe
+for a lady to ride. He requires to be ridden by a man with a wrist of
+iron, and a temper as determined as his own.
+
+                                   “Always yours,
+                                                      “WALLACE.”
+
+The Duke hurried off to Mayfair with this second letter. Esther
+Vanberg received it eagerly, and laughed gaily after reading it.
+
+“A wrist of iron, and a temper as determined as his own!” she
+exclaimed, repeating the Viscount’s words. “Well, well; I don’t know
+about the wrist of iron; but I know that no horse that ever was
+foaled can have a more determined temper than I have. We will see
+which is the stronger Devilshoof or I.”
+
+“You mean to ride the horse then, in spite of Wallace’s warning?”
+
+“Mean to ride him?--of course I do!” cried the Jewess, who was
+walking up and down the room in the highest spirits. “How gloomily
+you look at me! Poor Harlingford! one would suppose I was going to
+jump over a precipice, or to do something or other that would be
+certain death. You men are all cowards. I’ll show you that a horse
+can be conquered. Send Lord Wallace a cheque for a thousand pounds,
+and tell him to send Devilshoof to my stables.”
+
+Again the Duke remonstrated, entreated, implored; but again Esther
+triumphed, and the foolish young man acceded to her request. Had
+she ordered him to jump out of her drawing-room window into the
+street below, his compliance with her command would have only been a
+question of time.
+
+The cheque was sent; and early next morning Esther went round to her
+stables to look at the animal.
+
+It was a pouring-wet day, and the Jewess could have found it in
+her heart to quarrel with the very elements, so great was her
+disappointment. She wanted to have ridden Devilshoof that morning.
+
+“I suppose to-morrow will be fine,” she said. “Mind, Harlingford, you
+hold yourself disengaged, to ride with me at eleven in the morning. I
+shall ride as far as Richmond Park or Wimbledon Common, for the sake
+of a gallop on the turf.”
+
+“I shall be ready, Esther,” answered the Duke gravely; “but I wish
+you would ride any other horse than Devilshoof. You used to be so
+fond of your mare Waterwitch.”
+
+“Yes; but that is ages ago. I’m tired of her now: she’s almost as fat
+as one of those horrible animals you took me to see at Islington; and
+I mean to ride this chestnut beauty.”
+
+She laid her little white hand on the animal’s arching neck, and he
+looked at her with his large brown eyes, which had something almost
+demoniac in their fiery brightness. The appearance of the horse fully
+justified his name of Devilshoof.
+
+“I don’t know how it is,” exclaimed the Duke. “I suppose Wallace’s
+letter has made a coward of me. But I give you my honour, Esther, I
+would gladly sacrifice every penny I possess if you would promise me
+never to ride that horse.”
+
+“My dear Harlingford,” cried the Jewess gaily, “you shall not be
+allowed to give way to such foolish fancies. I never felt in better
+spirits than I do to-day; and I anticipate a most delightful ride
+to-morrow.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE EVIDENCE OF THE MINIATURE.
+
+
+After his secret visit to the vaults below the northern wing, a
+perpetual fever of mind possessed Lionel Westford. He shrank from
+every chance of meeting with Julia Godwin. He brooded continually
+upon the circumstantial evidence of the blood-stained shred of cloth,
+the black pool of blood, the leather glove, which he had found in the
+cellar.
+
+A man had come to Wilmingdon one evening in the June of the past
+year, and had never been seen to go away.
+
+The ravings of the old gardener were not the result of a disordered
+mind; they were the offspring of an intellect which even in its decay
+retained the memory of a dreadful scene.
+
+Lionel Westford’s mind was tortured by conflicting feelings. He knew
+that, having fallen upon the clue to a crime that had escaped the eye
+of justice, it was his sacred duty to place that clue in the hands
+of the police, in order that the secret of Wilmingdon Hall might be
+dragged to light, and that justice might overtake the criminal.
+
+But that criminal was Julia Godwin’s father. The image of the woman
+he loved, pale, agonized, grief-stricken, rose before him; and he
+felt that he _could not_ be the means of bringing her father to the
+gallows.
+
+Then he tried to believe that no murder had been committed on that
+June evening. He tried to think that Rupert Godwin was not guilty
+of the worst crime which man can commit. It was all one great
+mystification, probably the result of a sequence of accidents. The
+blood-stained fragment of a coat, the glove, the ravings of Caleb
+Wildred might all be explained perhaps in quite a different manner
+from that in which Lionel had been inclined to read them.
+
+“Why should Rupert Godwin murder this stranger?” thought the young
+man. “What motive could he have had? Pshaw! I have been a madman
+to suspect him of such a deed--as mad and foolish as that poor
+half-witted gardener, whose ravings, after all, may be utterly
+meaningless.”
+
+It was thus that Lionel Westford reasoned with himself,--so anxious
+was he to believe in the innocence of his mother’s enemy. But, argue
+with himself as he would, the dark and terrible truth was perpetually
+thrusting its hideous image before his eyes.
+
+It was quite in vain that he tried to think lightly of the mystery. A
+dreadful weight oppressed his mind. He remembered the strange feeling
+which had come over him on the day when he for the first time entered
+Wilmingdon Hall.
+
+“It is useless to struggle against the truth!” he exclaimed one day,
+after a long period of mental conflict. “The shadow of crime darkens
+this place. The foul taint of blood poisons the very atmosphere.
+Murder has been done here; and, come what may, I must do my
+duty--yes, even at the cost of Julia Godwin’s peace.”
+
+The long struggle had come to an end at last. Lionel Westford
+resolved to lose no more time, but to leave Wilmingdon Hall that
+very day, and seek an interview with one of the chief members of the
+detective police immediately he reached London.
+
+Under these circumstances he sat down to write to Julia Godwin, his
+employer, his patroness.
+
+He had only occasion to tell her that particular business obliged him
+to go to London, and that he was therefore compelled to relinquish
+his employment without a more formal notice.
+
+He had only to tell her this, and to thank her for her goodness--to
+express his appreciation of the benevolent feelings that had prompted
+her to employ him.
+
+But, simple though the matter of the letter was, he found it very
+difficult to write. He knew that the task he was about to undertake
+was one which might bring despair and anguish upon the woman whose
+generosity had rescued him from starvation--the woman whom he fondly
+loved.
+
+His letter was very cold, very formal. He dared not trust himself to
+reveal one spark of real feeling.
+
+He sealed and directed it. He then set in order the drawings upon
+which he had been employed; and next hastily gathered together his
+few possessions.
+
+These he packed in his portmanteau; but he resolved on leaving the
+portmanteau behind him until he should be able to send for it. He
+wanted to quit the house unnoticed; he wished his departure to be
+undiscovered till he was far from Wilmingdon Hall. He wished, above
+all things, to escape the chance of meeting with Julia Godwin. Such a
+meeting would have been fatal; for the young man felt that he should
+have failed in the endeavour to conceal his feelings.
+
+He descended the stairs, crossed the hall, and went out upon the
+lawn. The drawing-room windows were open, and he could hear Julia
+Godwin singing. The song was very familiar to him, for he had often
+sat in the summer twilight listening dreamily to the melody. The rich
+tones of the singer went to his heart. He was leaving her--perhaps
+forever. Or if they ever met again, would she not look upon him as
+her worst and bitterest foe?
+
+He could not quit the Hall without stealing one last glance at the
+face which had bewitched him.
+
+The long French windows were open to their utmost extent. Lionel
+stole softly across the pathway, and stood for some moments gazing
+silently at the face of the singer.
+
+Julia Godwin was very pensive. There was a look of profound thought,
+or it might be of profound sadness, in her large dark eyes. The tones
+of her voice were tremulous, and her hands moved slowly over the keys
+of the piano.
+
+For but a few moments Lionel Westford lingered. He dared not trust
+himself to stay longer, lest Julia should glance upward, and see
+him standing by the open window. There was nothing he more dreaded
+than an interview with Rupert Godwin’s daughter, and yet it was very
+difficult to turn away from that window.
+
+He did turn, however, and stole off unnoticed. He made his way across
+the park, and walked to Hertford--no public vehicle plying on the
+country road.
+
+He was going straight to the railway station, when he suddenly
+remembered that there might possibly be a letter from his mother or
+sister waiting for him at the post-office.
+
+He accordingly turned back, and went to the office. There was a
+letter--a letter addressed to him in his mother’s handwriting; but
+the writing seemed strangely tremulous.
+
+“O Heaven!” he thought; “I hope my mother is not ill.”
+
+He tore open the envelope hastily, and read the letter as he walked
+towards the railway station. It was the letter which Clara Westford
+had written after her interview with Gilbert Thornleigh.
+
+No words can tell the horror of the young man as he read that
+communication.
+
+His father, his beloved father, had been known to start for
+Wilmingdon Hall on a night in the June of the previous year, and
+had never been seen since. Twenty thousand pounds had been paid
+into the hands of Rupert Godwin--of that very Rupert Godwin who had
+represented Harley Westford as deeply indebted to him, and who had
+driven the Captain’s wife and children away from the home that had so
+long been their own.
+
+The people walking that day in the High-street of Hertford must have
+been startled by the white face of Lionel Westford as he sauntered
+along, brooding on the contents of his mother’s letter. Could it be
+that his father had fallen a victim to the murderous hand of Rupert
+Godwin? Could it have been the blood of his own father which he had
+traced down the cellar-steps below the northern wing?
+
+By what means was he to fathom the truth?
+
+Should he go on to London, and place the whole case in the hands of
+the police? Or should he return to Wilmingdon Hall, and endeavour
+himself to discover whether the visitor whom Rupert Godwin had taken
+into the northern wing was indeed Harley Westford?
+
+He decided on returning to the Hall. He fancied that he had hit upon
+a plan by which he might at least settle the question of his father’s
+identity with the stranger who had been seen by the housekeeper to
+enter the northern wing in company with Rupert Godwin.
+
+The sun was setting behind the noble elms and beeches of Wilmingdon
+Park when Lionel Westford once more walked along the avenue leading
+to the Hall.
+
+Half-way between the lodge-gates and the house he turned aside into
+the winding path which he had been directed to take on his first
+coming to Wilmingdon.
+
+As he proceeded slowly along this shadowy pathway he took a small
+object from his waistcoat-pocket and looked at it intently. It was a
+gold locket, attached to a chain of soft golden-brown hair. That soft
+brown hair had been cut from Clara Westford’s head. The chain had
+been a birthday gift from the mother to her son. The locket contained
+a carefully painted and faithful likeness of Harley Westford,
+taken shortly before that luckless midsummer which had been the
+commencement of so many sorrows.
+
+Lionel had a purpose in choosing this shadowy path through the thick
+shrubbery. He was going to the fernery, the spot where he had first
+seen Caleb Wildred.
+
+He knew that the fernery was a favourite retreat with old Caleb, and
+that the half-witted gardener would often spend whole days there,
+brooding over his dark fancies, mumbling and muttering to himself.
+
+Lionel was not disappointed. Caleb was there this evening, sitting on
+a fragment of the rockwork, his elbows on his knees, his chin in the
+palms of his hands, in the attitude of a person who is thinking very
+deeply.
+
+He started as Lionel’s footfall sounded on some newly-fallen leaves,
+the first of the fading summer. A moment afterwards he looked up with
+a half-imbecile smile.
+
+“Ah!” he muttered, “a stranger--a stranger! a young man who talks
+to old Caleb sometimes. I’m not afraid or you. No, no. You are kind
+to me, and I’m not afraid of you. But you won’t try to find out the
+secret, will you? You won’t ask me to betray my master? I’ve lived
+in this place so long, so long--man and boy, man and boy; and you
+can’t surely ask me to bring a Godwin to the gallows--not to the
+gallows!--no, no. They used to hang ’em in chains when I was a boy;
+and I’ve heard the dry bones rattle and the rusty irons creak on the
+old coach-road between Hertford and London. You wouldn’t ask me to
+hang one of the Godwin’s--one of the old stock!”
+
+Lionel Westford seated himself upon the rockwork beside the old man.
+He laid his hand gently on Caleb’s wrist, and tried to soothe him.
+
+“Come, Mr. Wildred,” he said, “let us talk seriously. You have
+allowed your mind to dwell too much upon this business. I want you
+to help me; I want you to give me your aid in a very serious matter.
+Look at this picture, and tell me if you ever saw the face before?”
+
+Lionel Westford opened the locket which contained his father’s
+miniature, and held the picture before the old man.
+
+For a few moments Caleb Wildred stared at it with the blank gaze
+of imbecility. Then a sudden change came over his face; his eyes
+dilated, his lips trembled convulsively.
+
+“Great God of Heaven!” he cried, “the secret--the secret! Where did
+you get that picture?”
+
+“Never mind that,” answered Lionel, who could scarcely control his
+agitation; “look at the face, and tell me if you ever saw it before?”
+
+“If I ever saw it before!” cried the old gardener, in a voice that
+rose almost to a shriek of agony; “he asks me if I ever saw that face
+before! Why, it haunts me by day and by night--it follows me wherever
+I go! If I look into the deep dark water, I see it looking at me from
+the bottom, calm and smiling, as it looked that night; if I shut
+myself up in the darkness, I can see it still, with a light of its
+own about it. Wherever I go, it follows me, and tortures me, because
+I keep that wicked secret--that horrid secret of my master’s guilt.
+Take the picture away, young man, unless you want to drive me raving
+mad. It is the face of the man who was murdered in the northern wing!”
+
+Lionel Westford uttered one long cry of despair, and fell to the
+ground, with his father’s miniature still clasped in his hand.
+
+When consciousness slowly returned, the young man found himself
+alone, lying face downwards on the grass.
+
+The sky was dark, save for the faint and silvery glimmer of distant
+stars high in the vault of heaven. It was late, and the dew had
+fallen. Lionel Westford felt a deadly chill creeping through his
+bones.
+
+There was a heavy feeling in his brain--a dull drowsiness which was
+almost stupor; and yet the memory of what had happened still held its
+place in his mind.
+
+The image of his father, slain by Rupert Godwin’s murderous hand, was
+vividly impressed upon his imagination; he saw it before him, almost
+as palpable as the giant trunks of oaks and elms looming darkly
+through the night.
+
+He tried to rise, but found that his limbs were stiff and aching. It
+was only with a powerful effort that at length he staggered to his
+feet.
+
+When he looked about him, the scene around seemed to swim before his
+eyes, the ground to reel beneath his feet.
+
+“O God!” he exclaimed, “am I going to be ill? Is my hand to be
+rendered powerless at this moment, when I have such need to use it as
+the avenger of my father’s death?”
+
+Slowly, and with tottering footsteps, Lionel Westford made his way
+across the lawn, and approached the Hall. He knew that the principal
+doors leading into the great entrance-hall were never locked until
+late at night. He would be able to open them, and enter the house
+unnoticed.
+
+He had changed his mind with regard to his plan of action. He wanted
+to make the most of the strange chance which had placed him beneath
+the banker’s roof--he wanted to obtain still further proof of Rupert
+Godwin’s guilt.
+
+An alarming sense of helplessness was upon him as he approached the
+mansion--a feeling of stupor and dizziness, which increased with
+every moment.
+
+He opened the door, and entered the hall. None of the servants
+happened to be about, and he was able to ascend the staircase and
+reach his own apartments entirely unnoticed. There were no candles
+burning on the table of the sitting-room, but in the semi-darkness of
+the August night he could see that the letter he addressed to Julia
+had been removed. There was no white spot upon the dark ground of the
+table-cover.
+
+With weary, heavy steps he tottered into the adjoining room, and
+flung himself upon the bed. It seemed as if he could not have gone a
+step farther, even though his life had been at stake. Many-coloured
+lights flashed before his dazzled eyes, a singing noise sounded in
+his ears, and little by little the image of his murdered father
+faded and melted away as Lionel Westford lapsed into a state of
+unconsciousness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+FEVER-STRICKEN.
+
+
+When the servant who had been in the habit of waiting upon Lionel
+Westford entered the young man’s bedroom late at night, in order to
+close the shutters of the apartment, he found Lionel lying on the
+bed in the state of unconsciousness into which he had fallen. The
+astonishment of the servant was very great. Several hours had passed
+since he had entered Lionel’s sitting-room in order to prepare the
+table for dinner. He had then found the apartment empty, and the
+letter addressed to Miss Godwin lying on the table. He had taken
+that letter to Julia, and had been told by her that Mr. Wilton had
+left the Hall for an indefinite period, and that his services would
+therefore be no longer needed in the chintz-rooms at the end of the
+corridor.
+
+But now he found Lionel Westford lying on the bed, dressed in his
+walking clothes, and his hair damp and dishevelled.
+
+Lionel’s face was turned towards the wall, and it never occurred to
+the man that he might possibly be ill. Only one idea entered his
+mind; and that was, that the artist had been drinking somewhere
+during his absence from the Hall, and had returned intoxicated to
+fling himself dressed upon his bed.
+
+“If a servant did such a thing, he’d lose his situation,” thought the
+man; “but I suppose your artist chaps can do what they please. Miss
+Godwin seems to have an uncommon fancy for this one, but I don’t know
+what she’ll say when she hears of his goings-on.”
+
+He left Lionel’s room, and descended to the lower part of the
+house. Julia Godwin was seated in the drawing-room; but she was
+not alone. Mrs. Melville was on guard as usual, with her eternal
+embroidery-frame before her, the very pattern of primness and
+propriety.
+
+She had watched Julia narrowly since the coming of Lionel Westford,
+and she by no means approved that young lady’s evident liking for the
+artist.
+
+The man-servant entered the drawing-room and told the two ladies of
+Mr. Wilton’s return.
+
+Nothing could exceed Mrs. Melville’s indignation.
+
+“Returned!” she exclaimed; “returned to the Hall without giving
+any notice of his return, or offering any explanation of his
+conduct, after writing a formal letter to Miss Godwin announcing his
+departure! I really never heard of such impertinence. What can he
+mean by such conduct?”
+
+Julia said nothing. She had been cruelly wounded by the receipt of
+Lionel’s cold-worded letter telling her of his departure, and she had
+been very silent throughout the afternoon and evening. She bent over
+her book so as to keep her face concealed from Mrs. Melville and the
+servant, and made no remark whatever.
+
+“Julia, my dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Melville, “did you ever hear of such
+mingled audacity and ingratitude? I am really quite distressed upon
+your account, as this person is a kind of _protégé_ of yours. Are you
+not surprised, my love, and are you not indignant at such insolence?”
+
+Poor Julia was obliged to look up as she answered these energetic
+questions.
+
+“There may be some reason for his conduct, perhaps, Mrs. Melville,”
+she said gently. “He may have changed his mind, and may have decided
+on returning to the Hall. He knew how much I wanted those pictures
+finished, and he may have been anxious to complete them.”
+
+“But, my dearest Julia, to return in such a manner, and to lie down
+in his clothes, just like some horrid intoxicated member of the
+working-classes! O, it’s really dreadful!”
+
+“That’s about it, I think, mum,” answered the servant, with an
+ill-concealed grin. “I fancy as how Mr. Wilton has took a little more
+than is good for him, and finding hisself queer, he come back here to
+sleep instead of going up to London by rail.”
+
+“Intoxicated!” shrieked Mrs. Melville; “an intoxicated man has dared
+to enter this house! Go to Mrs. Beckson immediately Thomas, and
+tell her to go to Mr. Wilton’s apartment and order him to leave the
+Hall without a moment’s delay. Not for an instant will I suffer an
+intoxicated person to pollute this house by his odious presence.”
+
+“Stop, Mrs. Melville,” said Julia; “we do not know that Mr. Wilton
+is intoxicated; and I should think from what I have seen of his
+habits that such a thing is most unlikely. In any case, he must
+not be turned out of this house to-night. It is just possible that
+he may be ill. To-morrow morning will be quite soon enough for any
+investigation that you may wish to make; and unless I am very much
+mistaken, Mr. Wilton will be able to give a satisfactory explanation
+of his conduct.”
+
+“But, my darling Julia, I cannot really suffer an intoxicated person
+to--”
+
+“This is my father’s house, Mrs. Melville; and on this point I must
+beg to have my own way.”
+
+Mrs. Melville gave a dubious kind of cough. She felt that she was
+treading on dangerous ground. Julia Godwin was a spoiled child,
+and the banker might be very apt to resent any offence against his
+darling.
+
+“Well, my sweetest Julia,” murmured the widow meekly, “if you really
+wish an intoxicated person to remain in the house--”
+
+“I merely wish to hear Mr. Wilton’s own explanation of his conduct
+to-morrow morning,” Julia answered quietly. “You can go, Thomas,” she
+added, turning to the servant, who had lingered to see the result of
+this little battle between the two ladies.
+
+No more was said that night upon the subject of Lionel’s return,
+but there was some little restraint between the two ladies all the
+evening. Julia occupied herself with her book, which she affected
+to find intensely interesting; but Mrs. Melville could see by the
+subdued light of the reading-lamp that her face was very pale.
+
+“There is no doubt as to the state of her feelings,” thought the
+widow; “the silly girl has fallen in love with this handsome young
+adventurer. I must enlighten Mr. Godwin upon the subject the first
+time he comes to Wilmingdon.”
+
+Early the next morning the two ladies were seated at breakfast in a
+prettily-furnished room opening into the garden. Julia was still pale
+and thoughtful; the widow was still watchful of her charge--fearing
+that she might be blamed for any foolish attachment formed by the
+banker’s daughter, and might perhaps forfeit a most profitable and
+agreeable position. She tried to win Julia to talk in her usual
+cheerful and animated manner; but the girl was evidently preoccupied,
+and Mrs. Melville was obliged to abandon the attempt to sustain any
+conversation.
+
+They were still seated at the breakfast-table when a knock sounded on
+the door, which was opened the next moment to give admittance to the
+portly form of Mrs. Beckson, the housekeeper, who entered, curtseying
+with profound respect.
+
+“I am sure, ladies, I am very sorry to intrude upon you in the midst
+of your breakfasts, especially being the bearer of unpleasant news,
+as one may say, for of course illness is not pleasant, even when
+relating to a stranger, thank Providence, and not a member of the
+family, but still a remarkably civil-spoken and genteel young man,
+who has no doubt seen better days, which is the case with so many of
+us, only it isn’t our place to rebel against the ways of Providence;
+and I’m sure, Miss Godwin, and you too, Mrs. Melville, ma’am----”
+
+Julia had risen, deathly pale, and trembling violently. She did not
+even make any attempt to conceal her agitation.
+
+“For pity’s sake, tell us what is the matter, Mrs. Beckson!” she
+exclaimed, interrupting the rapid flow of the housekeeper’s speech.
+“Is Mr. Wil----is any one ill?”
+
+“Yes; it is Mr. Wilton, Miss,” answered Mrs. Beckson. “And I think I
+never, in the whole course of my life, see any one in such a raging
+fever.”
+
+Mrs. Melville turned uneasily towards Julia; she expected that the
+girl would faint. But there was no weakness in Julia Godwin’s nature;
+she had all a woman’s tenderness, but more than a woman’s courage and
+endurance.
+
+She resumed her seat, and betrayed no further emotion, except such
+anxiety as any woman might reasonably feel for a person residing
+beneath her father’s roof.
+
+“Have you sent for the doctor, Mrs. Beckson?” she asked very quietly.
+
+“O yes, Miss! I sent off immediately. William Jones, one of the
+stablemen, has ridden off to Hertford as fast as he can gallop; but,
+go as quick as he may, it must be some time before he can get back
+with Doctor Granger; and in the meantime I’ve told Thomas to get
+the poor young man into a nice warm bed, and to bathe his head with
+vinegar and water.”
+
+“He is very ill, then?” said Julia.
+
+“Awful bad, miss! Since my poor cousin Caleb was took with the
+brain-fever that night last June twelvemonth, I never see any one
+half so bad--and this poor young man seems even worse than Caleb.
+When our Thomas went into the room this morning, he found Mr.
+Wilton sitting at the open window shivering just as if he’d shake
+to pieces, and yet in a burning fever all the time. And what’s the
+strangest part of the whole business, he was raving about murder, and
+treachery, and stabbing, and such-like, just for all the world like
+our Caleb.”
+
+“Strange!” murmured Julia.
+
+It was strange. A kind of horror filled the girl’s breast as she
+thought that this was the second person who had been stricken with
+sudden illness--with illness which reduced them from sanity to raving
+madness; and that the minds of both should dwell on the same dark and
+hideous subjects.
+
+“It is enough to make one superstitious,” she exclaimed, with a
+shudder; “it is enough to make one believe that there is really some
+truth in the ghastly stories the servants tell of those empty rooms
+in the northern wing.”
+
+That morning was a sad one for Julia Godwin. She wandered from room
+to room, trying to occupy herself, trying to distract her mind from
+the one subject upon which it unceasingly brooded, but trying in vain.
+
+She could only think of the artist whom she knew as Lewis Wilton. He
+was ill--suffering; in danger, perhaps.
+
+For the first time she discovered that this man, whom she had sought
+to benefit from an impulse of pure womanly compassion, had now
+become dearer to her than any other creature in the universe, except
+her father. A blush of shame dyed her face as the truth gradually
+revealed itself to her.
+
+To love one who had never sought her love--to love a stranger, whose
+station was in the eyes of the world infinitely beneath her own--a
+stranger with whom she had become acquainted under such peculiar
+circumstances! What would the world say, should it ever know that
+Miss Godwin’s charity had ended by her falling in love with the
+object of her compassion?
+
+Then, after some minutes of bitter and humiliating reflection,
+Julia’s mind wandered back to those long afternoons in which she had
+wasted hours talking to the artist in the laurel-walk or beneath the
+solemn darkness of the spreading cedars.
+
+She remembered the low tones of his voice, the noble sentiments which
+had dropped, as if unconsciously spoken, from his lips.
+
+“The world might despise him because of his poverty,” she thought;
+“but whatever his present position may be, I feel sure that he is a
+gentleman by birth and education.”
+
+There was some comfort in this thought. There is no such torture for
+the heart of a proud woman as the idea that she has wasted her love
+upon one who is unworthy of her respect.
+
+“I am not so mean a wretch as to remember his poverty,” thought
+Julia. “I know that he is noble-minded, generous-hearted,
+intellectual. What more can be needed to render him worthy of any
+woman’s affection?”
+
+And then Julia Godwin bent her head with a modest gesture, and a
+tender smile illumined her countenance, as some good fairy’s voice
+seemed to whisper gently in her ear, “Ah, Julia, and you know, too,
+that he loves you.”
+
+Even at such a time as this Julia Godwin could not repress the thrill
+of happiness that stirred her breast as the conviction that she was
+beloved by the young artist stole gradually upon her. But in the
+next moment the thought of his illness sent an icy chill through her
+heart. He was in danger; he might die.
+
+Men, as young and bright as he, had often been snatched suddenly away
+in the very morning of life. He might die.
+
+Julia threw down the book which she had been vainly trying to read,
+and went out through the French window on to the broad gravel walk in
+front of the house.
+
+Along this walk the doctor must come. Julia paced slowly up and down,
+waiting for his coming with extreme anxiety. Several times, almost
+in spite of herself, her eyes wandered upwards to the windows of the
+room in which she knew Lewis Wilton must be lying.
+
+The Venetian shutters were closed; all was still. Mrs. Melville
+came out of the breakfast-room, and joined the anxious girl in her
+promenade up and down the gravel walk.
+
+Her presence tortured Julia, who found herself compelled to reply to
+all manner of commonplace observations at a time when her mind was
+distracted by secret anxiety. But the widow was not a person to be
+easily shaken off. She talked perpetually, and seemed as if she would
+not allow Julia to escape from her sight.
+
+At last the doctor’s gig drove up to the door of the Hall. Julia
+hurried forward to receive him.
+
+“My dear Mr. Granger,” she said, “I wish you to tell me the exact
+truth with regard to the patient you are about to visit: for if there
+is any danger, I must write at once to my father.”
+
+Her manner was so calm and collected that the surgeon was quite
+unable to guess the real state of her feelings.
+
+“My dear young lady, you are perfectly right,” he replied; “if there
+is any danger, it will be better for you to write at once to Mr.
+Godwin. In any case you shall hear the truth directly I have seen
+this young man.”
+
+He entered the house. Julia remained without, still accompanied by
+Mrs. Melville. An agony of suspense tortured the proud girl’s heart
+during the interval that elapsed before the doctor returned.
+
+He was not long absent, yet the time seemed intolerably tedious.
+Every moment Julia fancied she heard the surgeon’s step in the hall;
+every moment she expected him to emerge from the door.
+
+At last he came. He looked very grave, and Julia could see at the
+first glance that Mrs. Beckson had not exaggerated Lewis Wilton’s
+illness.
+
+“He is very ill?” she said interrogatively.
+
+“Yes, my dear Miss Godwin; I am sorry to say the case is very
+serious. It seems to be rather a complicated case. There is rheumatic
+fever, evidently the result of exposure to cold and damp; and there
+seems to be some very great disorder of the brain, which must have
+been caused by mental excitement. I cannot imagine what has so upset
+the young man’s mind; but the delirium is of an aggravated kind. I
+am afraid the servants must have frightened him with some of their
+stories about the haunted rooms in the northern wing, for his
+ravings all seem to relate to some story of a murder in one of the
+cellars under the deserted rooms.”
+
+“That is very strange!” exclaimed Julia. “I should have fancied Mr.
+Wilton was far too highly educated to be affected by any such foolish
+stories.”
+
+“There is no accounting for this sort of thing. Superstition is not
+always to be controlled by education.”
+
+“And you think there is danger, and that I ought to write to papa?”
+
+“I do indeed, Miss Godwin.”
+
+“You will require further medical help, perhaps,” said Julia. “Shall
+I ask papa to bring a physician from London?”
+
+“No, Miss Godwin; I think there is no necessity for that. There
+is danger; but the case is not beyond the skill of an ordinary
+practitioner. If there should be any change in the aspect of the
+fever, I will ask for aid; as it is, care and watchfulness can alone
+help our patient.”
+
+“Who is watching him now?”
+
+“Mrs. Beckson, and the servant, Thomas Morrison. He will need very
+careful watching; for in those fevers in which the brain is affected
+there is sometimes danger of the patient doing himself some desperate
+injury. A man has been known to cut his throat--to jump out of a
+window. There is always a risk of some terrible catastrophe.”
+
+Julia’s face grew ashy white to the very lips.
+
+“For shame, Mr. Granger!” cried Mrs. Melville indignantly; “you have
+quite unnerved my sweetest Julia.”
+
+“Pray pardon me!” exclaimed the penitent doctor. “I should have
+remembered that I was talking to a sensitive young lady, and not to a
+brother surgeon. I hope you will forgive me, Miss Godwin.”
+
+“You have no need of my forgiveness,” Julia answered. “I asked you to
+tell me the truth, and I am very glad that you have done so. I will
+write to papa immediately.”
+
+She had quite recovered herself by this time, and was able to speak
+with perfect composure. The surgeon took his leave, after promising
+to call again before dusk.
+
+Julia despatched a servant to the station at Hertford, with a message
+which was to be telegraphed to Mr. Godwin’s London lodgings.
+
+The telegram was duly delivered; and at five o’clock that afternoon
+Rupert Godwin entered his daughter’s morning-room.
+
+“Well, my dearest girl,” he exclaimed, “what is all this melancholy
+business? Your artistic protégé seized with brain-fever, and you
+as much concerned about the matter as if your pet Skye terrier’s
+valuable life was in danger. What is it, my darling?”
+
+He took his daughter in his arms and embraced her tenderly.
+
+Infamous as this man’s life had been--hard, cruel, and remorseless
+though his nature was, he was at least sincere in his love for
+his beautiful daughter. And yet it was a selfish affection, after
+all--such a love as a Sultan might feel for his favourite slave. She
+was a part of himself, an element of happiness in his life.
+
+Julia told her father the circumstances of the artist’s departure
+from Wilmingdon, and his mysterious return the same evening. She told
+him all that had happened that day, and the opinion of the Hertford
+surgeon.
+
+“It is such a strange business altogether, papa,” she said. “Mr.
+Granger fancies that Mr. Wilton’s mind has been affected by some of
+the servants’ stories about the northern wing. He has done nothing
+but rave about a murder committed in one of the cellars. Papa,
+papa!--what is the matter?”
+
+Julia Godwin had ample cause for this exclamation, for the banker had
+started from her as suddenly as if a thunderbolt had fallen between
+him. What bolt from heaven could have been more appalling than the
+words just uttered by his daughter’s innocent lips?
+
+The father and daughter had been standing together near the open
+window. The afternoon twilight shone full on Rupert Godwin’s face.
+
+When Julia looked at him, she saw that great beads of perspiration
+had started to his forehead. His face was livid; a convulsive
+trembling shook him in every limb.
+
+“Papa!” cried Julia, “for pity’s sake speak to me! What is the
+matter?”
+
+For some moments Rupert Godwin struggled to speak; but his tongue
+clove to the roof of his mouth.
+
+At last, with a terrible effort he spoke; but even then the words had
+a strange, confused sound, like those of a man only just recovering
+from a fit.
+
+“It is nothing,” he said, “only a physical affection. It is a kind of
+nervous fit that comes upon me suddenly now and then.”
+
+“But, papa, it is very dreadful. You ought to consult a physician.”
+
+“Pshaw, child! I tell you it is nothing!” exclaimed the banker
+impatiently. “I will go upstairs and see this ailing protégé of
+yours.”
+
+There was an attempt at carelessness in the tone, but the banker’s
+face had not lost its livid hue. He hurried from the room, and Julia
+stood in the doorway looking after him, inexpressibly shocked and
+terrified by his manner.
+
+“Is it really a haunted house?” she thought; “and does some dark
+shadow fall upon every one who enters it?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+AN ALARMING DISCOVERY.
+
+
+Rupert Godwin’s livid face was terrible to look upon, as he ascended
+the broad oak staircase that summer afternoon; but by a most powerful
+effort of his iron will he contrived to control his countenance and
+assume a perfectly placid expression by the time he reached the end
+of the long corridor, out of which Lionel Westford’s apartments
+opened.
+
+He stopped for a few moments outside the door of the bedroom, with
+his hand upon his breast. He was trying to still the tumultuous
+throbbings of his heart.
+
+“This man knows my secret,” he thought; “but how, how has he made the
+discovery? _He_--a stranger, utterly uninterested in ferreting out
+the truth? The fiends of hell must have meddled in the business. The
+doors were all locked and double-locked in the northern wing; it is
+impossible, therefore--quite impossible, that he can have penetrated
+to the cellar where--”
+
+Rupert Godwin did not finish the thought. He shuddered faintly, as
+if the end of that unspoken sentence were too hideous to be endured,
+even by his stony nature.
+
+“He cannot know,” thought the banker. “It must be some old story,
+which happens by a strange chance to be like the ghastly truth.”
+
+His countenance was quite composed by this time. For many years, for
+the larger half of this man’s lifetime, his face had been seldom
+other than a mask, beneath which he concealed his real feelings.
+
+He entered the sick-chamber. Thomas Morrison, the footman, was
+sitting near the window reading a newspaper; Mrs. Beckson was dozing
+in a comfortable arm-chair. The sick man was lying on a bed exactly
+opposite Rupert Godwin, as he entered the room.
+
+Never before had the banker, to his knowledge, seen his daughter’s
+protégé. Yet that white face lying on the pillow seemed strangely
+familiar to him.
+
+He tried in vain to think when and where he had seen a look which was
+now recalled to him by the expression of those pallid features.
+
+There was something very ghastly in the young man’s appearance, for
+his head was bound with damp linen cloths, which entirely concealed
+his hair.
+
+Every now and then that weary head rolled restlessly round upon the
+pillow, and the pale parched lips muttered some indistinct words.
+
+Mrs. Beckson rose and curtsied respectfully to her employer. She
+offered him the easy-chair, from which she had risen, and the banker
+seated himself by the side of the bed.
+
+“Is your patient still delirious?” he asked anxiously.
+
+“O yes, sir; just as bad as ever, as far as that goes; but more quiet
+like. His raving and going on was quite dreadful a few hours ago, but
+he’s worn himself out at last, poor dear young gentleman, and now
+he’s been lying there for an hour and more, just as you see, rolling
+his poor head about and muttering to himself.”
+
+“What is it that he says in his delirium?” asked the banker.
+
+His face was almost as fixed as a mask carved out of granite while he
+waited for an answer to his question.
+
+“Always the same thing--always the same thing, sir,” said the
+housekeeper. “Something about a murder, and blood-stains in the
+cellars under the northern wing.”
+
+“Have the servants been telling him any foolish ghost-story?”
+
+“O no, sir; that’s next to impossible; for there is no story of a
+murder, nor anything whatever, connected with the cellars. They do
+say the northern wing is haunted; but the story they tell is only
+about the ghost of a young lady who died of a broken heart, on
+account of her lover being killed in the civil wars; and they do say
+she walks in the passages of the northern wing every new-year’s eve
+at twelve o’clock precisely.”
+
+“Humph!” muttered the banker; “there is no accounting for the queer
+ideas that get into the brain of a delirious man. I suppose this
+young man has been reading a novel, and has mixed up the story with
+his knowledge of this house. He’ll have some other fancy to-morrow,
+I daresay. You can leave him for the present, Mrs. Beckson; and you
+too, Morrison. I heard the bell ringing for tea in the servants’ hall
+just as I came upstairs. I’ll keep watch over your invalid.”
+
+“You’re very kind, sir; but I’m afraid you’ll find it dreadfully
+wearing to hear him going on, always the same thing over and over
+again.”
+
+Lionel Westford turned his head upon the pillow, and looked full at
+the banker, with bloodshot and dilated eyes.
+
+“Rupert Godwin!” he said, in low, distinct tones,--“Rupert
+Godwin--the murderer of--”
+
+He paused for a moment, and then, with a long moan of anguish, he
+cried:
+
+“Oh, it is too hideous--too horrible! I cannot believe it!”
+
+“Now, isn’t it dreadful to hear him, sir?” exclaimed the housekeeper.
+“He’s been going on in that foolish way for the last hour, mixing up
+your name with his mad fancies.”
+
+“There is nothing strange in that,” answered the banker coolly.
+“Delirious people always have these absurd fancies. This is not the
+first case of fever that I have seen.”
+
+“And it isn’t the first that I’ve seen either,” returned Mrs.
+Beckson. “There was my cousin, Caleb Wildred, who was taken ill
+last year--last June twelvemonth; just after that strange gentleman
+came to the Hall; the night that Mr. Danielson was with you, as
+you may remember, sir. Caleb was just for all the world like this
+young gentleman; and what’s the strangest part of the business is,
+that Caleb said exactly the same things. His talk was all about a
+murder, and a body thrown down the steps of one of the cellars in the
+northern wing.”
+
+Once more, as in the drawing-room half an hour before, the banker
+was taken completely off his guard; once again that iron nature was
+shaken; the big drops of perspiration started to the livid brow; the
+strong limbs were seized with a sudden trembling.
+
+“Caleb said that?” he gasped. “Caleb Wildred?”
+
+“Yes, sir; he was always telling the same story; his talk was exactly
+like this gentleman’s talk--the same words, as far as I can remember.”
+
+“Where is he?” cried Rupert Godwin. “Speak, woman!--where is he?”
+
+He rose as if he would have rushed to find the old gardener that very
+moment; but in the next instant he recovered himself, and sat down
+again quietly by the side of the sick-bed.
+
+“Bah!” he exclaimed; “I was almost beginning to think that there
+must be some meaning in these mad ravings, and that some dark deed
+had really been committed beneath my roof. But it is all nonsense.
+These two men must have heard the same story--some lying tradition of
+the past, no doubt. You may go, Mrs. Beckson; I will remain with the
+invalid for half an hour, while you take your tea.”
+
+The man-servant had already departed. Mrs. Beckson curtsied,
+and retired; but there was a puzzled expression on her honest
+countenance. She was surprised and bewildered by the banker’s unusual
+conduct.
+
+For some time after the housekeeper’s departure Rupert Godwin sat
+quite motionless, watching the pallid face of the sick man, and
+listening to those muttered words which were every now and then
+repeated in the same accents:
+
+“Rupert Godwin--the murderer--blood-stains on the stairs--blood in
+the cellar--cruel--treacherous!”
+
+Always the same words--the same broken sentences--again and again,
+again and again.
+
+The bloodshot eyes gazed at vacancy; but there was a fixed look
+of horror in them, as if the eyeballs had been struck with sudden
+rigidity while beholding some hideous sight.
+
+At last the banker rose from beside the bed, where he had seemed
+fixed as if by some unholy spell.
+
+Lionel Westford’s clothes lay on a chair near the bed, and on the
+dressing-table were scattered a handkerchief, a bunch of keys, some
+letters and papers which had been taken from his pockets.
+
+The banker went over to the dressing-table, and examined the
+different objects lying there.
+
+His hand struck against a hard substance lying under a cambric
+handkerchief.
+
+He removed the handkerchief, and saw a gold locket attached to a
+chain of soft auburn hair. He opened the locket, and a frank manly
+face looked out at him with a confiding smile.
+
+It was the face of the brave, generous-hearted sea-captain, Harley
+Westford.
+
+It was the face of the man whom Rupert Godwin had stabbed on the
+threshold of the cellar-steps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+DISCOMFITED.
+
+
+For some minutes Rupert Godwin stood with the open miniature in his
+hand, gazing at the face of his victim.
+
+At first a kind of stupor seemed to obscure his senses, and he
+could only stand motionless, staring blankly at that frank handsome
+countenance.
+
+His senses were confused by the suddenness of the shock. It was some
+time before he could reason calmly about what had happened.
+
+How had Harley Westford’s miniature come to be lying there? How
+had the sea-captain’s likeness fallen into the possession of Julia
+Godwin’s protégé?
+
+For some little time he stood with the picture still in his hand,
+wondering at the extraordinary chance which had brought it there.
+Then he set to work to examine the letters and papers, in the hope
+that they might give him some clue to the mystery.
+
+The first letter which he took up revealed the entire truth. It had
+been lying seal upwards, or Rupert Godwin could scarcely have failed
+to recognize the handwriting.
+
+It was the letter addressed to Lionel at the Post-office, Hertford,
+under his initials only. It was the letter which Clara Westford
+had written to her son, telling him of her meeting with Gilbert
+Thornleigh, and setting him upon the track of his missing father.
+
+Rupert Godwin sank into the nearest chair, that terrible letter
+clenched tightly in his hand.
+
+“They are on my track,” he muttered in a thick voice, for the muscles
+of his throat seemed paralyzed by agitation; “they are on my track.
+How am I to avoid them?”
+
+He looked towards the bed. Never, perhaps, had a darker or more
+threatening face glowered above a helpless and unconscious invalid.
+
+“Only by wading deeper in crime,” he said, this time with slow
+deliberate accents; “only by wading deeper.”
+
+He thrust the letter into his breast-pocket, and then sat brooding,
+with his face hidden in his hands.
+
+When he at last uncovered it, there was a strange look of
+determination in that ashen face. He walked to the side of the bed,
+and stood for some moments looking down at the sick man.
+
+“_His_ son!” he muttered; “_his_ son! That was the likeness which
+sent a chill through my breast. But it is all a mystery still. How
+did he discover the secret of the cellar? Did he come here on purpose
+to find out the truth? No, that can scarcely be; for his mother’s
+letter is dated only two days back, and when she wrote that letter
+her suspicions were only just aroused. No matter; I dare not bewilder
+my brain by trying to solve these questions. I must act; they are on
+my track, and action alone can save me. Shall I fly? No, not while
+there is one inch of safe ground to fight for, amidst an ocean of
+peril. Flight is the first resource of the coward; it is the last
+hope of the bold criminal. This young man knows my secret, somehow or
+other. What matters how, since he does know it? He and Caleb Wildred
+have discovered the truth; but as yet they have not denounced me,
+except in the ravings of delirium. Their tongues must be stopped.”
+
+The housekeeper returned while Mr. Godwin was absorbed in these
+meditations.
+
+“You can resume your seat by the side of your patient, Mrs. Beckson,”
+he said; “there has been no change. I shall remain at the Hall until
+this young man is out of danger; and I shall look into his room now
+and then, to see how he is going on. You need never be surprised by
+my coming. I am a light sleeper, and I daresay I shall look in once
+or twice in the course of the night.”
+
+“I’m sure it’s very kind of you, sir, to take such an interest in the
+poor young gentleman.”
+
+“I think it’s only natural that I should feel an interest in a sick
+man; common humanity demands as much,” answered the banker coolly.
+“By the bye, you will be watching for a very long time. I hope you
+are wakeful?”
+
+“O yes, sir, pretty wakeful.”
+
+“You take something to keep you awake, I hope?”
+
+“Well, sir, thank you, I’ve just taken a cup of strong tea, and I may
+take another in the course of the evening.”
+
+“Tea is not the thing. You should try coffee.”
+
+“Is coffee better than tea, sir?”
+
+“Infinitely better. I’ll send you a strong cup of coffee by-and-by. I
+always take coffee after dinner.”
+
+“To be sure, sir. Well, I will take a cup, if you’ll be so very kind
+as to send it.”
+
+The banker went to his room, changed his dress, which was dusty with
+travelling, and bathed his head and face in cold water.
+
+Then he descended to the dining-room, where he found Julia waiting
+for him.
+
+He dined with his daughter and her duenna. Julia was too entirely
+preoccupied by her own emotion to perceive the silence of her father;
+it seemed only natural to her that an air of gloom should pervade
+everything, while the man she loved lay suffering upstairs. But Mrs.
+Melville remarked the banker’s abstracted manner, and wondered at
+it; she thought that he had perhaps discovered the secret of his
+daughter’s affection for a penniless stranger.
+
+After dinner, the ladies retired to the drawing-room, while Rupert
+Godwin remained seated at the foot of the long dinner-table.
+
+Here his coffee was brought to him, about twenty minutes after the
+ladies had left him. The servant placed the salver by his master’s
+side, and immediately quitted the room. The coffee was served in a
+small antique silver coffee-pot. There was only one cup and saucer,
+of Sèvres china, on the salver. Rupert Godwin rang the bell, and told
+the servant to bring a second cup and saucer.
+
+“I want a cup of my own coffee to be taken to Mrs. Beckson,” he said.
+“Strong coffee is the best thing in the world to keep any one awake.”
+
+But when the man returned with the cup and saucer, Mr. Godwin said:
+
+“You need not wait. I will take the coffee myself to Mrs. Beckson. I
+am going to the sick-room.”
+
+It seemed strange that so proud a man as Rupert Godwin should
+trouble himself to take a cup of coffee to his housekeeper, and the
+man-servant thought as much.
+
+He might, perhaps, have thought Rupert Godwin’s conduct stranger
+still, had he seen him take a small vial from his waistcoat-pocket,
+and pour about a teaspoonful of a thick dark fluid into one of the
+coffee-cups.
+
+That little vial was one which the banker had taken from his
+dressing-case before descending to the dining-room that evening. The
+dark fluid was opium.
+
+The coffee, made as strong as a Turkish potentate might have taken
+it, and very much sweetened, almost entirely disguised the bitter
+flavour of the opium. The banker tasted half a spoonful of the
+mixture.
+
+“No,” he muttered; “I don’t think Mrs. Beckson will discover anything
+queer in the taste of that coffee.”
+
+He took the cup and saucer, and carried them to the sick-room.
+
+“There, my good Beckson,” he said, “I don’t think you are very likely
+to fall asleep after taking this.”
+
+He handed her the coffee. The old woman had been nodding and blinking
+in her easy-chair when he entered the room, but she opened her eyes
+and endeavoured to appear very wakeful, as she took the cup of coffee
+from her master’s hand. Rupert Godwin left her, and returned to the
+lower part of the house. His private apartment, the room specially
+sacred to him, was the library. It was there that he kept the keys of
+the northern wing in a small iron safe, the key of which he carried
+always in his pocket.
+
+The keys of the doors in the northern wing could only be obtained,
+therefore, by the breaking open of this small iron safe, of the use
+of a false key.
+
+But the locks were not of a kind to be easily opened by a false key.
+It was, indeed, supposed to be quite impossible for any false key to
+open them.
+
+The banker examined the safe. The keys of the northern wing hung in
+their usual place; the dust which had accumulated during the last
+twelvemonth was thick upon them.
+
+Rupert Godwin was utterly unable to understand Lionel Westford’s
+discovery of his crime.
+
+“How did he find out my ghastly secret?” he thought. “By what devilry
+did he stumble upon the truth?”
+
+The banker dared not dwell upon this question. His brain, even _his_
+clear and powerful intellect, seemed to grow dull and confused, as he
+tried to solve the dark riddle.
+
+He went to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Melville and Julia were
+seated. The widow was occupied, as usual, with the embroidery-frame.
+Miss Godwin was sitting with an open book before her--a book whose
+pages might quite as well have been blank paper.
+
+“Julia,” said the banker, “I feel tired after my journey down here,
+and considerably upset by this vexatious affair of your protégé’s
+illness. I shall go to bed at once, and I should advise you to retire
+early; for you too have been worried by this affair.”
+
+“Yes, papa,” answered Julia, without looking up from her book; “I
+shall go to bed very early.”
+
+“Good-night, my love.”
+
+“Good-night, dear papa.”
+
+Julia rose from her seat, and the banker pressed his lips to her
+forehead. He wished Mrs. Melville good-night, and then left the room.
+
+In less than ten minutes afterwards Julia flung down her book with a
+weary sigh.
+
+“I _am_ very tired,” she said. “Good-night, dear Mrs. Melville.”
+
+“Good-night, sweet child. You are pale, my love; this tiresome
+business has quite upset you.”
+
+Julia was glad to escape from the widow’s sympathy. She retired
+to her own apartments, which were at some distance from the rooms
+occupied by Lionel Westford.
+
+She dismissed her maid, and exchanged her silk dress for a loose
+white dressing-gown. In spite of what she had said to Mrs. Melville,
+she had no inclination for sleep; on the contrary, she felt more than
+usually wakeful. Every nerve was strung to its utmost tension--all
+her senses seemed intensified.
+
+She went to the window and flung it open; but even the chilly night
+air failed to cool her burning brow. The anxiety of the day, the
+emotions which she had been compelled to repress, had affected
+her very acutely. Now that she was alone, free to give way to her
+agitation, she leant her head against the sash of the window, and
+sobbed convulsively.
+
+“I love him so dearly,” she murmured; “and yet I cannot save him from
+suffering. I dare not even inquire whether he is better or worse.”
+
+For a long time Julia stood at the open window, gazing out into the
+obscurity of the summer night.
+
+Then she seated herself near a pretty little reading-table loaded
+with new books, and tried to read.
+
+She sat for more than an hour with a volume in her hand. Her eyes
+travelled along the lines, her hand turned the leaves, but she
+paid little attention to the contents of the book. Her mind dwelt
+perpetually upon Lionel’s danger. She remembered what the doctor
+had said about his delirium. If he were not watched, he might do
+some desperate act; in fevers, such as his, men had been known to
+commit suicide. No words can express the horror with which this idea
+inspired her.
+
+In the loneliness and silence of the night this feeling of horror
+increased every moment.
+
+What if those who watched the sick man should fail in their
+watchfulness? Mrs. Beckson was an old woman, and so not unlikely to
+give way to drowsiness. Thomas Morrison might desert his post.
+
+The clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven--half-past eleven--then
+twelve; and still Julia sat brooding over this one agonizing fear.
+
+The sick man’s attendants would neglect him, to the peril of his life.
+
+Hideous images arose before her. She saw Lionel blood-stained, dying,
+with a ghastly wound across his throat. Every moment she expected to
+hear a maniac shriek ring through the silent house.
+
+At last the agony of this one thought became almost too intense for
+endurance. Julia flung aside her book, and began to pace up and down
+the room.
+
+By this time it was a quarter-past twelve.
+
+“I will not endure this suspense any longer,” Julia exclaimed at
+last. “At any hazard, I _will_ know if he is safe. One peep into his
+room will tell me if Mrs. Beckson is awake. If I only know that he
+is carefully watched, I can resign myself to the knowledge of his
+suffering.”
+
+She opened the door and looked out into the corridor. All was dark
+and silent. There could be little doubt that the whole household was
+sleeping, except the two servants who watched the sick man.
+
+Julia wrapped a dark shawl about her head and shoulders, and then,
+with light and cautious footsteps, crept along the corridor.
+
+She opened the door of Lionel’s apartment. The handle turned almost
+noiselessly in her cautious hand. She looked into the room, and one
+glance told her that her anxious fears had not been groundless.
+
+Mrs. Beckson’s head lay back upon the cushions of her easy-chair, and
+her heavy breathing was that of a person in a profound slumber.
+
+There was no other attendant in the room.
+
+The invalid was asleep. He lay quite motionless, his pale face turned
+towards the door by which Julia had entered. The voluminous chintz
+curtains were drawn on the other side of the old-fashioned four-post
+bedstead.
+
+Julia advanced into the room with the intention of awakening Mrs.
+Beckson; but just as she was approaching the housekeeper’s chair, she
+was startled by the sound of footsteps in the corridor.
+
+Her first impulse was to hide. She dreaded the discovery of her visit
+to the sick-chamber, since that discovery must betray an unusual
+anxiety for Lionel’s welfare.
+
+She obeyed that first impulse, for there was no time for reflection.
+She crept swiftly past the bed round to the other side where she
+could be most completely concealed by the curtains.
+
+From between a very narrow opening in these curtains she was able to
+see everything that happened in the room.
+
+The footsteps in the corridor drew nearer. They were those of a man.
+Presently the door was cautiously opened, and Rupert Godwin entered
+the room.
+
+Julia was not very much surprised at this late visit of her father to
+the sick-chamber. What more natural than that he should be anxious
+about the young man who was a dweller beneath his roof?
+
+She fancied that he would at once awaken the housekeeper and that
+he would be very angry with her for having fallen asleep daring the
+hours of her watch.
+
+But to Julia’s surprise the banker made no attempt to arouse Mrs.
+Beckson. He walked past her with no further notice than one sharp
+scrutinizing glance, and bent with a thoughtful face over the bed.
+
+From between the curtains Julia watched her father’s face. There was
+something in the expression of that familiar face which chilled her
+heart, and inspired her with a sudden terror--a terror whose nature
+she could not define.
+
+Rupert Godwin held a candle in his hand, and the light of it shone
+full upon his gloomy countenance. Julia stood motionless, almost
+breathless, gazing at him from her hiding-place behind the curtains.
+Presently he passed the flame of the candle slowly backwards and
+forwards before the eyes of the sleeper.
+
+Lionel Westford’s eyelids never stirred.
+
+Then the banker turned towards Mrs. Beckson, and watched her intently
+for some moments.
+
+No words could express Julia’s astonishment at her father’s conduct;
+she was paralyzed by that shapeless fear which had taken possession
+of her mind as she saw him bending over the sick man.
+
+Presently he approached the table, upon which the patient’s
+medicine-bottles had been placed. There were two bottles, one large
+and half empty, the other smaller and nearly full.
+
+The banker lifted the small bottle and looked at it. Then he removed
+the cork and smelt the mixture. It was a saline draught to be taken
+the first thing in the morning, and it was colourless as water.
+Rupert Godwin took a tiny vial from his waistcoat-pocket--so tiny,
+that Julia could only just distinguish what it was, as the banker
+held it between his finger and thumb. He withdrew the cork with his
+teeth, for his left hand was occupied with the medicine-bottle.
+
+Then, slowly and deliberately, he poured several drops of some
+colourless fluid from the tiny vial into the larger bottle containing
+the draught. He replaced the medicine-bottle in the precise spot from
+which he had taken it, looked once more at each of the sleepers, and
+then crept stealthily from the room.
+
+Whatever purpose had brought him thither had been achieved. Could
+Julia doubt that it was a dark and dreadful one?
+
+She shivered as if stricken by an ague fit, and there was a sickness
+worse than death at her heart. She loved her father so dearly; could
+she believe him to be----
+
+What? A midnight poisoner?
+
+His actions pointed to this hideous conclusion. What motive but the
+deadliest of all motives could have brought him to that room, in the
+stillness of the night, to tamper with the sick man’s medicine?
+
+“It cannot be!” thought the horror-stricken girl. “I must be mad, or
+dreaming. That which I have seen cannot be real. It cannot be!”
+
+She clasped her hands tightly upon her forehead. She was trying to
+collect her scattered senses.
+
+“O God, it is too real,” she murmured, “too real!”
+
+Her father’s face had revealed more than even his actions. There
+was no evidence that the liquid he had dropped into the sick man’s
+medicine was poisonous in its nature; but his face had been the face
+of an assassin.
+
+“O Heaven!” thought Julia; “I have heard of people becoming suddenly
+mad, and being tempted by some diabolical suggestion to the
+commission of a deadly crime. Surely it must be thus with my father.”
+
+The wretched girl clung to this belief as to one faint ray of hope.
+It was better to think that her father was a madman, a hapless
+distraught creature, possessed by the devil, than that he was a
+deliberate and cold-blooded assassin.
+
+Slowly and stealthily Julia crept from her hiding-place and advanced
+to the little table upon which the medicine-bottles stood. She looked
+at the housekeeper, fearing every moment that she might awake; but
+the old woman slept on in a heavy slumber, induced by the drugged
+coffee.
+
+Julia took the medicine-bottle in her hand, and looked anxiously
+round the room.
+
+She was looking for an empty bottle.
+
+Presently she perceived one standing on a corner of the mantelpiece.
+Into this she poured the contents of the vial which her father had
+tampered with.
+
+She then filled the vial with pure water from the water-bottle on the
+wash-hand stand.
+
+The poisoned medicine she carried away with her, departing as
+noiselessly as she had come, after one last anxious glance at the two
+sleepers.
+
+Throughout the remainder of that wretched night Julia Godwin sat at
+her window, staring vacantly out at the starlit heavens.
+
+She saw those stars fade slowly in the chill morning light; but
+still she sat motionless, like a creature whom some great horror had
+changed into stone. Yet in all this long agony her senses did not
+fail her.
+
+At seven o’clock she went to her dressing-room, after disarranging
+the coverings of her bed, so that her maid might not discover that
+she had been up all night. She locked the bottle containing the
+medicine in a desk in her dressing-room, and then commenced a careful
+toilette.
+
+At half-past seven her maid came to her, and found her very nearly
+dressed.
+
+“I was a little earlier than usual this morning, Mitford, but you are
+just in time to do my hair,” Julia said very calmly; “have you heard
+how Mr. Wilton is going on this morning?”
+
+“Yes, miss. He is pretty much the same, I hear; still delirious, but
+a good deal quieter. Poor Mrs. Beckson’s quite upset, I hear, this
+morning. She fell asleep, poor old soul, and slept all night, and
+woke this morning with a dreadful headache, and quite put out to find
+that she had been asleep so long. However, luckily her patient seemed
+to have been very quiet, so there was no harm done.”
+
+Julia Godwin shuddered as she thought of the harm that _might_
+have been done during the watcher’s slumber, if Providence had not
+interposed to shield the banker’s intended victim.
+
+When the bell rang for breakfast she went down to the dining-room.
+Surely her father would not be there; or, if he were there, his
+manner would reveal the frenzy of a distraught brain. But, to her
+utter bewilderment, she saw him, calm and self-possessed, seated at
+the head of the breakfast-table, with an open Bible under his hands.
+
+Yes; it was unspeakably horrible. This man, this midnight poisoner,
+was about to read the Gospel to his assembled household!
+
+It was a rule with Rupert Godwin to read morning prayers to his
+family and servants whenever he slept at his country-house. Whatever
+his life might be in London, in Hertfordshire his habits were those
+of extreme respectability.
+
+Julia watched him with dilated eyes as he read. Presently he began
+prayers. The servants knelt; the master also sank upon his knees.
+
+The proud girl’s noble spirit revolted against this hideous
+hypocrisy. She rose from her seat and walked to one of the windows,
+where she remained looking out at the garden, while her father read
+the morning prayer, in which he besought the grace of Heaven for
+that kneeling household, and implored the Divine guidance for all
+the actions of his life. Even as he read Rupert Godwin perceived the
+figure of his daughter standing by the open window, and was not a
+little disturbed by her unusual conduct.
+
+Presently, when the servants had risen from their knees and left the
+room, Mr. Godwin went to the window where Julia stood.
+
+“Why did you not join in our prayers just now?” he asked, looking at
+her with concealed terror.
+
+She turned her face towards him. It was deadly pale, and the dark
+eyes fixed themselves upon the banker’s countenance with a strange
+earnestness.
+
+“I could not kneel and pray this morning,” she said in tremulous
+accents. “I could not ask for Heaven’s blessing on this household,
+or on--you.”
+
+She looked at him intently as she pronounced that last word. His face
+grew livid; but he was able to conquer all other evidences of his
+agitation.
+
+“Why not, Julia?” he asked coldly.
+
+“O, my unhappy father, cannot you guess the reason?” cried the
+wretched girl in an outburst of passionate grief.
+
+The banker looked at her with a scowl upon his face.
+
+“Are you mad, Julia?” he exclaimed. “What, in the name of all that
+is ridiculous, has inspired you with this folly? I have a peculiar
+aversion to anything in the way of heroics. What is the meaning of
+these tragic airs?”
+
+“O, father, father!” she cried, suddenly bursting into tears. “Heaven
+grant that I have wronged you!”
+
+She rushed from the room before Rupert Godwin could question her
+further. A hundred conflicting feelings tortured her breast, but
+amidst them all there still lingered one ray of hope.
+
+Her father might be guiltless of the poisoner’s dark intent. She
+could not believe that the parent she loved so dearly was the worst
+and vilest of earth’s creatures.
+
+“It is too horrible--too horrible!” she murmured, when she had
+reached the shelter of her own apartment and flung herself upon the
+bed, hiding her pale face in her clasped hands. “It is too bitter
+a blow, too cruel, to be forced to hate the father I have loved so
+dearly. To hate him! The father I have been so proud of--from whom I
+have never known anything but love and indulgence. And yet, can I do
+otherwise than hate him, if he is what he seemed to be last night?
+A murderer--and the vilest of murderers--the secret assassin, who
+carries death to the unconscious sleeper!”
+
+She brooded on the scene of last night until her brain grew dizzy
+with the violent strain that was made upon it. Why should her father
+attempt the life of Lewis Wilton--the penniless obscure artist? What
+motive could have induced him to injure this stranger, whom accident
+only had thrown across his path? No--an attempt so purposeless could
+only be the murderous freak of a madman. Or was it not possible that
+Julia had been mistaken in the import of the scene she had witnessed,
+and that the liquid added to the medicine was harmless--some
+experimental remedy which Mr. Godwin chose to administer in secret,
+rather than encounter the opposition of a medical practitioner, or
+the prejudices of an ignorant nurse?
+
+No words can depict the agony of this unhappy girl. Noble and pure of
+heart, she could but detest guilt and treachery. Yet she was devoted
+to her father; and her breast was tortured by the thought of his
+peril, should his guilty attempt become known to the world.
+
+“I will ascertain the truth,” she thought; “come what may I will
+discover the nature of the liquid which he mingled with the sleeper’s
+medicine. If it should be something harmless after all, O, what
+happiness!--what a blessed relief from this unendurable agony of
+mind! And yet, can I hope it?--can I forget my father’s face as he
+looked at me to-day--so dark, so livid, so like the countenance of a
+murderer?”
+
+While Julia abandoned herself to her sorrow, the banker paced the
+breakfast-room, tormented by horrible fears--fears which until lately
+had been almost strangers in his breast. His daughter’s conduct had
+affected him more acutely than anything that had happened to him for
+a long time.
+
+Could _she_ suspect? No, it was impossible. Elsewhere suspicion
+might arise, but not _here_--not in her mind. She is as innocent and
+confiding as a child.
+
+He thought over the events of the previous night, and he could
+perceive no flaw, no blemish, in his deadly work; all had been
+planned so carefully, all had been executed so successfully, and at
+an hour when Julia must naturally have been asleep in her own room.
+
+It was impossible that she could know anything.
+
+“I understand it all,” thought the banker. “She is in love with this
+Lionel, and he has revealed his real name to her, and has told her
+the story of his mother’s wrongs.”
+
+Reassured a little by this thought, Rupert Godwin paced his room with
+a quick nervous step, listening for the opening of the door. He was
+waiting for the coming of the person who should announce to him the
+death of Lionel Westford.
+
+But the door was not opened; no one came. Breakfast remained
+untouched upon the table, where the richly painted Worcester china,
+the antique silver dishes, the mellow brown of a ponderous ham,
+the golden tints of a raised pie decorated in alto relievo by some
+Benvenuto Cellini of pastrycooks, would have made a study for a
+painter of still life.
+
+The poor envy the rich sometimes, and it is only natural that the
+penniless should murmur complainingly against the waste and luxury
+of a millionaire’s household, and be rather slow to recognize the
+harmony of a universe in which one man has half-a-dozen country
+seats, a shooting-box in the Highlands, and a house in Park-lane,
+while another man’s children look at him with wan haggard faces as he
+sits moaning with his gaunt elbows on his bony knees--out of work!
+Yet if the veriest pauper in all England could have looked into that
+splendid room and watched the dark face of Rupert Godwin, he would
+have hugged himself in his rags as he contemplated the misery of a
+bad man surrounded by the luxury of a prince.
+
+No one came to speak the slow solemn words that tell of death; and
+yet the time had long passed at which Lionel Westford should have
+taken his medicine.
+
+Again and again Rupert Godwin had looked at his watch. At last he
+could endure the suspense no longer. He left the breakfast-room, and
+went straight to Lionel’s apartment.
+
+He expected to behold the face of the dead, still and shadowy in a
+shrouded chamber. But the chamber was not darkened; the windows had
+been opened, and the balmy morning air blew into the room. Lionel was
+lying with his eyes fixed upon the door. He raised himself in the bed
+as Rupert Godwin entered, and fixed those wild bloodshot eyes upon
+the banker.
+
+“My father’s murderer!” he cried, pointing to the advancing figure.
+“Don’t you see him? Will no one seize him? Will no one hold him for
+me? My father’s murderer, Rupert Godwin!”
+
+Mrs. Beckson was seated by the bedside. She had taken a cup of strong
+tea, and had recovered in some measure from the effects of the opiate
+given her by the banker, though her head ached, and she felt a
+sensation of drowsiness that was very difficult to shake off.
+
+Nothing could exceed Rupert Godwin’s bewilderment when he found his
+intended victim still living, still vigorous, still able to proclaim
+his guilt.
+
+He looked at the bottles on the table near the bed.
+
+The bottle which he had tampered with was empty.
+
+“Who gave the invalid his medicine?” he asked.
+
+“I did, sir,” answered Mrs. Beckson.
+
+“He took it quietly?”
+
+“O yes, sir. Though he does rave and go on so at times, he always
+takes his medicine quietly enough.”
+
+“There was none spilt, then?”
+
+“Not a drop, sir.”
+
+The banker looked at his housekeeper very intently. It was evident
+that she was speaking the truth.
+
+No suspicion had as yet entered her mind. Here, at least, there was
+safety.
+
+But how was it, then, that the poison had failed in its effect? It
+was not a poison likely to fail. Rupert Godwin had laid his plans
+deliberately, and was not a man to make any mistake in a deadly
+business like this.
+
+He left the room. He dared not remain longer in that apartment, to be
+denounced as a murderer.
+
+At present that denunciation was only regarded as the senseless
+raving of delirium. What if those who watched the invalid should come
+by-and-by to believe in it--to search, to investigate? It was all one
+dark labyrinth of horror. Rupert Godwin felt as if a network had been
+closing round him, slowly but surely--a fatal web, from which escape
+would ere long be impossible.
+
+“I must remove this man somehow,” he thought, as he went back to his
+own room. “The poison has failed, and I must try some other means,
+less deadly, less dangerous, but as certain. I think I know of a plan
+by which Lionel Westford’s lips may be as surely closed as if he
+slept the cold slumber of the dead.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+PUT TO THE TEST.
+
+
+The doctor from Hertford came at noon to see his patient. As he left
+the sick-chamber he was met by Julia, who had been watching for him
+at the door of her own apartment.
+
+She beckoned the surgeon into her pretty sitting-room. A small
+portable easel was arranged upon the table, with an open colour-box,
+a palette, and a sheaf of brushes. It seemed as if Julia had been
+painting.
+
+Amongst the colours and brushes there was a little medicine vial,
+filled with a colourless liquid, but bearing no label whatever.
+
+“Good morning, Mr. Granger,” said Julia. “How is your patient?”
+
+She was quite calm, although still very pale; and she asked the
+question in a quiet tone that betrayed no emotion except a natural
+interest in the invalid.
+
+The surgeon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I cannot say that there is much change,” he said, “either for better
+or worse. It is a very peculiar case, Miss Godwin--a case in which
+the mind seems more affected than the body. I am about to speak to
+your father on the subject, and I shall propose calling in further
+medical aid. I must confess that the case is somewhat beyond me, the
+mind is so very strangely affected. One rooted idea seems to have
+taken firm possession of the brain.”
+
+“And that idea is----”
+
+“A very horrible one, Miss Godwin--something about murder and
+treachery; and unfortunately my patient has taken it into his head to
+mix your father’s name with all his wild talk. There is no accounting
+for these delirious fancies. Good morning.”
+
+“Stay, Mr. Granger,” exclaimed Julia. “I want to ask your advice
+about something.”
+
+“And I shall be most happy to give it.”
+
+“It is a very trivial subject. When I was in town some weeks ago, I
+was recommended a wash to mix with my colours for painting. It is a
+mixture intended to brighten the tints, I believe; but the shopkeeper
+who recommended it told me that I must be very careful how I use
+it, as it is of a poisonous nature. I am so foolish as to be almost
+afraid to use the wash at all after having heard this, and I should
+be very glad if you would tell me whether it really is poisonous.”
+
+Julia Godwin placed the medicine vial in the surgeon’s hand. He
+removed the cork and smelt the liquid.
+
+“Poisonous!” he exclaimed; “I should think it was poisonous indeed!
+Why, my dear young lady, do you know that there is a considerable
+admixture of prussic acid in this fine wash of yours? Upon my word,
+people have no right to sell such stuff, even if it does give
+brilliancy to the water-colours, which I can scarcely believe.”
+
+Julia’s pale face grew white to the very lips.
+
+“There is prussic acid in it, then?” she said.
+
+“Most decidedly, my dear Miss Godwin; but there is no occasion for
+so much alarm. So long as you do not let any of this liquid approach
+your lips there is no possible danger.”
+
+“And if--if an accident were to happen--if any one were to drink that
+stuff?”
+
+The surgeon smiled.
+
+“Well, my dear young lady, that imprudent person would not live to
+drink anything else. But I will take the bottle home and analyze its
+contents, if you like.”
+
+“O, no!” exclaimed Julia, taking the bottle hastily from his hand,
+“not on any account; there is no occasion.”
+
+“I should recommend you to throw the stuff away.”
+
+Julia went to one of the windows, and poured the contents of the
+bottle upon the mould of a box of flowers in her balcony.
+
+“You are satisfied now?” she said, with a smile.
+
+Heaven knows how difficult it was for her to assume that careless
+manner, that smiling countenance.
+
+“Quite satisfied,” answered the surgeon. “Good morning.”
+
+He left the room, closing the door after him. In the next moment
+Julia flung herself on her knees, her hands clasped above her head,
+her tearless eyes raised piteously to Heaven.
+
+“O God of mercy, have compassion on my misery!” she cried; “for now I
+know the worst. My father is a villain and a murderer! I understand
+all now--that delirious raving about murder and treachery; those wild
+accusations which mystify the watchers in the sick-room: I understand
+all now. Beneath them there is hidden some fearful story, and it is
+to seal for ever the lips of his accuser that my father would have
+committed a murder.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+RIDING TO HER DOOM.
+
+
+Esther Vanberg’s prophecy respecting the weather was fully realized.
+The sun shone with unusual and most un-English splendour upon that
+morning on which she had arranged to ride Devilshoof for the first
+time.
+
+In spite of the pain and terror with which her hardihood inspired
+him, Esther’s devoted adorer presented himself in her drawing-room as
+the hands of the Sèvres timepiece indicated the appointed moment.
+
+The Duke was pale and anxious-looking. He could not forget Lord
+Wallace’s warning with respect to the thoroughbred hunter. But the
+Jewess was almost as radiant as the summer sunlight which was shining
+into her tiny conservatory. She was walking up and down the room in
+high spirits, singing a gay little Swiss ballad, and slashing the
+trailing skirt of her riding-habit with a turquoise-handled whip.
+
+She looked superb in her equestrian costume. The closely-fitting
+habit revealed the outline of her graceful figure. A tiny turban hat,
+adorned with a peacock’s breast of shining green and purple, was
+perched coquettishly upon her queen-like head. The blue-black hair
+was coiled in a tight mass of plaits at the back of this regal head,
+and secured by a small golden comb. Her head-gear might very easily
+have been in better taste, but it certainly could not have been more
+becoming, and it was the becoming rather than the correct which the
+strong-minded Miss Vanberg affected.
+
+“Esther,” cried the Duke of Harlingford, “you look positively
+adorable!”
+
+“I am always adorable,” answered the Jewess, gaily, “when I happen to
+be in a good temper, which perhaps is not very often. But to-day I am
+bent upon enjoying myself. You must give me a superb luncheon at the
+Star and Garter, Harlingford. This is the very weather for whitebait
+and moselle. If I were a person of fortune, I would have iced moselle
+laid on all over my house, like the water-service, and a cistern of
+Badminton on the roof. O, how I long for a canter over the greensward
+of Richmond Park! Devilshoof has been saddled for the last ten
+minutes. Look at him!--did you ever see a greater beauty?” exclaimed
+Esther, pointing to the open window.
+
+The young Duke looked out, and in the street below he saw the
+thoroughbred chestnut in charge of a groom, who seemed to have some
+little difficulty in keeping the animal quiet.
+
+Certainly, the horse was a superb creature; but as certainly he was
+an animal that few women would have cared to ride.
+
+“How do you like his looks?” asked the Jewess.
+
+“Not at all,” answered the Duke, gravely.
+
+Then, after a pause, he said earnestly:
+
+“Esther, I have some little claim upon your affection. You know
+how devotedly I have loved you. You know that I am even ready to
+break with all my family for your sake--to snap my fingers at the
+prejudices of the world in which I live, in order that I may make you
+my wife. You know this, Esther! I do not boast of my love, or make
+any merit of my devotion; for I am so weak where you are concerned
+that I cannot help loving you, in spite of my better reason. I never
+refused to gratify any whim of yours; and I have not received much
+kindness in return for my obedience to your fancies. For the first
+time in my life I ask you a favour. Do not ride that horse.”
+
+There was a tender earnestness in the Duke’s tone that for a moment
+almost melted the stubborn heart of Esther Vanberg; but in the next
+instant she drew herself up proudly, and met her lover’s entreating
+look with a defiant smile.
+
+“My dear Harlingford,” she said, “I think I must have the blood of
+a warrior in my veins, for I have a horror of showing the white
+feather. I have set my heart upon proving the folly of Lord Bothwell
+Wallace’s warning. Come, Devilshoof is getting impatient.”
+
+“Very well, Esther,” the young nobleman replied sadly; “I have been
+refused the first and the last favour that I shall ever ask at your
+hands.”
+
+The Jewess turned to look at him wonderingly.
+
+“You are offended with me, Harlingford?” she said.
+
+“No, Esther; only grieved.”
+
+No more was said until the Jewess and her companion were mounted.
+They rode through the Park to the Kensington-road, crossed
+Hammersmith-bridge, and went through Barnes. Devilshoof seemed quiet
+and tractable enough under the light hand of his new mistress; and,
+after watching the animal intently for some little time, the Duke
+began to recover his spirits. Perhaps, after all, Bothwell Wallace
+had been mistaken about the horse.
+
+Esther was in her gayest humour, and at such a time the brilliant
+Jewess could be marvellously fascinating. She talked a good deal of
+nonsense, perhaps; but what is more delightful than nonsense from the
+lips of a beautiful woman who is not quite a fool? The Duke forgot
+all his fears, bewitched and delighted by his companion’s vivacity.
+
+They rode thus gaily onward to Richmond. During the whole of the
+journey Devilshoof had behaved splendidly, and Esther was loud in her
+praises of him.
+
+At the Star and Garter they dismounted, and left their horses to be
+refreshed under the watchful care of Esther’s groom. An obsequious
+attendant ushered the young nobleman and his lovely companion into
+one of the pretty little garden rooms, which the ruthless hand of
+that seven-league-booted giant, Limited Liability, has swept off the
+face of the earth. The Duke ordered the whitebait and moselle which
+his idol affected, with such accompanying delicacies as the taste of
+an accomplished German waiter might suggest.
+
+“Pray let the luncheon be served quickly,” Esther exclaimed, as
+she removed her hat, and threw aside her whip and gloves. “I am
+longing for that canter in the Park, Harlingford. I suppose you are
+reconciled to Devilshoof now?”
+
+“Well, darling, I begin to think that Wallace must have exaggerated
+his vices. But I shall never feel easy while you insist on riding
+him. However, perhaps when you have sustained your reputation for
+pluck by a canter or two, you’ll let me send the brute down to
+Leicestershire.”
+
+The luncheon was served very speedily. The Duke of Harlingford
+was well known at the Star and Garter, and swift are the feet and
+dexterous are the hands which perform the bidding of a ducal guest.
+
+The cook had done his best, the perfume of the moselle was delicious,
+and the Jewess drank several glasses of the sparkling beverage.
+
+“Here is to the health of my glorious hunter, Devilshoof!” she said
+gaily, lifting the glass above her head.
+
+Never had the Duke beheld her so bewitching. He was fascinated by
+her--intoxicated far more by the splendour of her dark eyes than by
+the pale ambrosia of Rhineland.
+
+It was nearly four o’clock when Miss Vanberg rose from the table,
+and adjusted her coquettish little hat before the glass over the
+mantelpiece. Four o’clock, and a radiant summer afternoon. Richmond
+Hill was looking its gayest as the Duke and his companion mounted
+their horses before the portico of the Star and Garter. Carriages
+were passing to and fro; loungers were strolling on the broad
+terrace; dinner-eaters were beginning to arrive at the hotel; and in
+the distance a band was playing a German waltz, whose pensive strain
+mingled with the shrill happy voices of little children playing under
+the elms.
+
+“I never felt in higher spirits,” cried Esther, as she sprang lightly
+into the saddle. “Come, Vincent, now for our gallop in the Park!”
+
+As she lifted her habit, and put her little foot into the groom’s
+hand before mounting her horse, the Duke perceived for the first time
+a slender steel spur glittering at the heel of her patent leather
+boot. When she had adjusted herself in the saddle he turned to her
+with an anxious face. “Good heavens, Esther!” he exclaimed, as they
+rode away from the hotel, “you surely cannot be so mad as to intend
+using a spur with that horse?”
+
+“And why should I not, you most fidgety man?” asked the Jewess, with
+a saucy laugh.
+
+“Because, if there is any truth in what Wallace says, the animal has
+a devil of a temper, and a touch from a spur may send him half mad.
+For mercy’s sake, Esther, be prudent!”
+
+“Bah!” cried the haughty girl, with a contemptuous shrug of her
+shoulders; “one would think I was some school-girl who had only
+had half-a-dozen lessons in a riding-school. You forget that I have
+hunted in Leicestershire, and been in at the death after many a ride
+across the stiffest country in England. Come, Vincent! Hurrah for the
+horse that can carry me with the speed of a lightning-flash across
+hill and dale!”
+
+She flung her arm above her head, waving the tiny riding-whip with a
+triumphant flourish.
+
+They were in the heart of the Park by this time, on a broad open
+expanse of greensward, a sunny sky above them, the purple woodlands
+stretching far around, the birds singing merrily under that cloudless
+sky.
+
+Devilshoof held his head high, his nostrils dilated as they scented
+the air sweeping across the broad expanse. He was going at a swinging
+canter, when Esther, delighting in her companion’s anxiety, suddenly
+shouted the loud view-halloo of the hunting-field, and planted her
+spur in the animal’s side. That one touch seemed to act like magic.
+In the next moment Lord Bothwell Wallace’s opinion of the horse was
+fully confirmed.
+
+Away flew Devilshoof, scudding across the grassy expanse swift as
+the wind, uprooting little patches of grass with his flying hoofs as
+he tore along. At first the Jewess laughed gaily, pleased with the
+animal’s spirit. She turned round to look at the Duke with a smile
+upon her face, and waved her whip above her head as a signal to him
+to follow her.
+
+But all at once this daring and obstinate woman began to be conscious
+of her folly. Danger lay before her--a danger whose extent she could
+not estimate.
+
+The grassy expanse sloped suddenly downward; and at the bottom of
+the slope there was a rugged timber fence, about eight feet high,
+dividing the Park from the enclosed lands beyond.
+
+On the other side of this fence the ground sloped abruptly upward,
+stony, rugged, and steep.
+
+Towards this danger, hidden until now, Devilshoof was flying at the
+speed of a racehorse.
+
+In vain the Jewess tried to pull him up. The animal had got the bit
+between his teeth, and held it locked as if in an iron vice.
+
+Esther Vanberg’s face grew deadly white, but to the last her
+dauntless spirit defied danger. She was a first-rate horsewoman, and
+held herself as firmly in the saddle as if she had been a part of the
+animal she rode.
+
+But the danger was close upon her now. Devilshoof went madly at the
+fence, cleared it with his fore-feet, but caught his hind-legs in the
+topmost rail, and fell crashing down against the rugged slope beyond.
+
+The Duke of Harlingford, riding his hardest to overtake the Jewess,
+arrived only in time to see the catastrophe. The groom came behind
+him. Both men were white to the very lips, and breathless with
+terror. They knew the extent of the danger that had been seen only
+when too late.
+
+They dismounted on the near side of the fence, tied up their horses,
+and clambered over the wooden boundary. It was the work of but a few
+moments; those few moments, however, seemed an eternity of agonized
+suspense to the Duke of Harlingford.
+
+Between them, the two men contrived to drag the horse away from the
+motionless form of his rider. The animal’s shoulder was broken.
+
+“Take him away!” exclaimed the Duke in hoarse gasping accents. “Take
+the cursed brute from my sight, and blow out his brains; he has
+killed the only woman I ever loved.”
+
+“God grant it mayn’t be quite as bad as that, your grace; let us hope
+for the best,” said the groom, as he took the bridle and led the
+horse away.
+
+The young man knelt down on the rugged slope beside the Jewess.
+Esther Vanberg was lying on her back, with her face looking upward to
+the afternoon sky. Her beauty was unblemished--no scratch disfigured
+the pale olive skin. The still face, with its closed eyes and long
+drooping lashes, looked as calm as the face of a statue.
+
+Presently the eyelids were raised, very slowly, and the glorious dark
+eyes looked with a strange languid gaze at the face of the Duke.
+
+“Esther!” he exclaimed, with a wild cry of rapture. “You are not
+dead! O, thank Heaven! thank Heaven!”
+
+The strong man’s face sank upon his clasped hands, and he sobbed
+aloud. The revulsion of feeling had been even more difficult to bear
+than the agony that had preceded it.
+
+The Jewess looked at her lover with a languid smile.
+
+“Why, you dear, affectionate goose, who said I was dead? I never saw
+such a man--to be frightened about a trifle of a spill. That animal
+has thrown me, I suppose? Well, well, Vincent; you and your friend
+are right after all, I daresay; and I’ve been fairly punished for
+my obstinacy. I scarcely knew where I was just now. I fainted, I
+suppose?”
+
+“Yes, darling; you were unconscious for a few moments. O, Esther,
+what an age of agony it seemed! I thought you were dead.”
+
+“Dead! Why, I’m not even hurt. I only feel a kind of numbness--just
+as if I hadn’t any sense in my limbs. The shock, you know, and that
+kind of thing.”
+
+“My own darling, where can I take you? The nearest lodge must be
+upwards of a mile from here; but I’ll carry you in my arms, if you
+feel fit to come.”
+
+“Fit to come? Of course I am! I daresay I shall be able to walk when
+this numbness goes off. But perhaps you’d better carry me at first.”
+
+The Duke lifted the light burden in his arms. Alas for that slender
+form! It hung as inertly in his arms as though it had been a corpse.
+There was no spring, no elasticity; it was a deadweight which the
+Duke carried.
+
+He called to the groom, who left Devilshoof tied to the fence at some
+distance, while he came to render service to his mistress.
+
+“Thank God for this escape, your grace!” the man said
+earnestly.--“We’ve had a rare fright about you, ma’am.”
+
+Esther Vanberg was a liberal mistress, and her servants were attached
+to her, in spite of her violent temper. The Duke intrusted his
+beloved burden to the groom, while he himself mounted his horse. Then
+the groom placed Esther in the young man’s arms, and he seated her in
+front of him on the saddle, and walked his horse gently away.
+
+“We shall meet a carriage before long, I daresay, my darling,” he
+said; “and I will get you a more comfortable mode of conveyance.”
+
+The Jewess was very pale. Her large dark eyes were fixed on the
+face of the Duke with a strangely anxious and inquiring gaze. They
+looked unnaturally large now, those dark eyes, and all their lustrous
+brilliancy had faded.
+
+“Do you think I am much hurt, Vincent?” she asked very earnestly. “I
+don’t suffer any pain; but this numbness in my limbs is so strange.
+There seems no life in me below my shoulders. What if the life should
+never come back?”
+
+The Duke looked at her with his face blanched by a new terror. The
+revulsion of feeling upon finding her alive and conscious had been so
+great, that Vincent had imagined all serious danger to be past. But
+now an icy horror crept through his veins.
+
+“I remember a man being thrown from his hunter down in
+Leicestershire,” said the Jewess, in a low faint voice, watching the
+Duke’s face anxiously as she spoke. “At first he didn’t seem hurt at
+all; but he was just like me--he couldn’t move a bit; and when they
+carried him home, the surgeon found that his back was broken. He died
+before it was dark that night. O, Vincent, do you think I am going to
+die?”
+
+“Going to die!” cried the Duke. “What, darling, when I hold you in my
+arms--your own bright self, with your eyes looking into mine? Why,
+Esther, this is foolish; my brave girl’s proud spirit has gone all at
+once!”
+
+“Yes, Vincent, the proud spirit has gone. It will never come back
+again. I’m afraid it was a wicked spirit, and led me into many evil
+deeds. I hope I am not dying, Vincent,” she said very slowly; and
+then added, in a still lower voice, “for I do not think I am fit to
+die.”
+
+“You shall not die!” cried the Duke, with an almost savage energy.
+“How can you talk of dying, Esther, when you know that I would give
+the last drop of my heart’s best blood to save you? I tell you you
+shall not die. All the greatest surgeons in London shall be summoned.
+Science can do marvellous things, and it shall save you. I will give
+them every penny of my fortune, but, I say, they shall save you! Fear
+nothing, my own darling. You shall know the power of a devoted love.”
+
+He drew her closer to him with his strong right arm, while his left
+hand held the reins.
+
+At this moment carriage-wheels sounded on the road. The Duke looked
+round, and saw a plain brougham, drawn by one horse, which was
+approaching at a smart pace.
+
+“A doctor’s brougham, I’ll lay my life!” cried the young man.
+“Nothing could be more providential. Cheer up, Esther darling; if
+there is a medical man in that carriage, he’ll soon laugh your fears
+out of you.”
+
+The Duke drew up his horse, and waited for the advancing vehicle. He
+made a sign to the coachman as it approached, and the man stopped.
+Vincent rode up to the carriage-window.
+
+The glass was down; an elderly, gray-haired gentleman, with a cheery,
+pleasant face, looked out.
+
+“Is there anything the matter?” he asked, looking with quick
+observant eyes at Esther’s pale face, and the slender form leaning so
+languidly against the Duke’s shoulder.
+
+“Yes. This lady has met with an accident, and I have been on the
+look-out for a carriage in order to beg a lift for her. Are you a
+medical man, sir?”
+
+“I am.”
+
+“Thank God for that! Will you assist me to place the lady in your
+carriage, and see her conveyed to the Star and Garter?”
+
+“Most certainly.”
+
+The doctor was an active little man. He arranged the cushions on the
+seat of the brougham, and then skipped lightly out of the vehicle,
+and took Esther Vanberg in his arms.
+
+“Any bones broken?” he asked, as cheerily as though a few fractured
+bones were of very little consequence when he was by to set them.
+
+“No, thank Providence!” answered the Duke. “Miss Vanberg only
+complains of numbness in the limbs--nothing else; she is suffering no
+pain.”
+
+All at once the doctor’s face changed. Its cheerful expression gave
+place to a very grave and earnest look.
+
+Esther had been watching the medical man’s countenance very intently.
+
+As she saw the change, a low cry of terror broke from her pale lips.
+
+“I knew that it was so!” she said. “I am going to die!” And then, in
+low mournful accents, she murmured:
+
+“So unfit to die! so unfit to die!”
+
+The doctor recovered his professional presence of mind in a moment.
+
+“My dear young lady,” he said, “I must not have any foolish alarm of
+this kind. As yet we do not know that there is danger. The sensation
+you complain of may be only the effect of the shock--the severe
+shaking, the----”
+
+“You are deceiving me, doctor!” cried Esther angrily. “But it is no
+use. Your face told me the truth just now.”
+
+The medical man saw that his thoughts had been read by those anxious
+eyes.
+
+“I did not quite like that symptom of the numbness,” he said; “that
+was all. There may be nothing in it. Was it a very bad fall? Don’t
+talk, my dear young lady; your friend will tell me all about it.”
+
+The doctor had placed himself on a little seat with his back to the
+horse. Esther was lying opposite to him. The Duke rode by the side of
+the carriage, as the vehicle drove slowly towards the principal gates
+of the Park--those gates which Esther Vanberg had entered so joyously
+less than an hour before.
+
+The Duke of Harlingford related the circumstances of the accident.
+The medical man listened attentively; but while he listened he
+kept his eyes fixed on Esther’s white face, and his fingers on her
+pulse. He tried to conceal his anxiety; but the brisk cheerfulness
+of manner that was common to him had quite forsaken him. He was very
+grave--very watchful, like a man who feels that danger is at hand.
+
+“Shall we take her to the Star and Garter?” asked the Duke.
+
+“You could not take her to a better place. You will telegraph for
+some female relations, I suppose--her mother, perhaps?”
+
+“She has no mother. She is an orphan.”
+
+“Your sister, I conclude?”
+
+“No,” answered the Duke, looking at Esther with inexpressible
+affection; “she is a lady whom I hope to make my wife.”
+
+Esther returned his look, and the tears gathered slowly in her eyes.
+O, what a noble heart this was, which she had so often trampled upon
+and spurned in her pride and folly! What a devoted love! What a
+self-sacrificing affection, which she had trifled with and imposed
+upon in the haughty recklessness of her stubborn nature! But now that
+nature seemed melted all at once.
+
+“Heaven have pity upon me!” she thought. “I believe I have been a
+demon until to-day. And now I seem transformed into a woman, with
+womanly feelings--womanly tears! But the change comes too late!--too
+late, too late!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
+
+
+The medical man felt rather inquisitive as to the name and position
+of his patient and her companion. The Duke was unattended; but from
+the appearance of the horse he rode, and from the careless manner in
+which he spoke of putting up at the Star and Garter, Mr. Granby, the
+surgeon, concluded that he was at least tolerably well off. But he
+had no idea of the rank of his patient’s companion until the carriage
+arrived at the Star and Garter, when a bevy of waiters crowded to
+obey the orders of the fair-haired, elegant-looking young man, whom
+they addressed as “your grace.”
+
+The helpless girl was carried to a suite of spacious rooms on the
+first floor. She was laid on the sofa, and then the doctor turned
+round and addressed the Duke.
+
+“I must beg you to leave us, sir,” he said. “I require the assistance
+of some middle-aged woman, who has been used to wait upon an invalid.
+I daresay there is such a person in the house.”
+
+The waiter who had escorted them to the apartments replied that
+there was a person qualified to attend to the young lady, under Mr.
+Granby’s direction.
+
+“Very good,” said the surgeon; “then you will be kind enough to send
+her to me immediately.--In the mean time, perhaps you will kindly
+assist me to wheel this sofa into the next room?” he added, to the
+Duke.
+
+The adjoining apartment was a bedroom, large and airy, like the
+sitting-room, and overlooking the garden of the hotel. Beyond the
+garden stretched one of the fairest landscapes in England--the
+winding river, now crimsoned by the sinking sun; the distant hills
+and woodlands, purple with the cool shadows of evening.
+
+Esther looked round the room with an expression of alarm.
+
+“Why do you bring me here?” she exclaimed. “I shall not be obliged to
+sleep at Richmond, shall I? Surely I shall be well enough to go home?”
+
+“Not to-night, my dear young lady; it is growing late, and you
+require rest,” said the doctor in a soothing tone.
+
+The Jewess looked at him anxiously, but said no more.
+
+The Duke was banished from the bedchamber. Pale, and restless with
+the slow torture of suspense, he paced up and down the sitting-room,
+while the doctor remained alone with his patient.
+
+A respectable-looking woman appeared presently, escorted by the
+waiter. She was one of the head chambermaids, and she had lived
+in private families, where she had had considerable experience in
+nursing.
+
+In cases of real need people seem, by general consent, to forget
+the very meaning of the word “trouble.” The woman came cheerfully
+to devote herself to the young lady who had fallen from her horse.
+She was a clean comfortable-looking woman, of about five-and-forty,
+called Martha Gibbs, the very _beau idéal_ of a Martha.
+
+The doctor opened the door, and Mrs. Gibbs went into the bedroom.
+Then the door was again closed, and the Duke of Harlingford resumed
+his weary pacing up and down the room.
+
+How long the time seemed! And yet, during all that period of
+suspense, the young nobleman did not once look out upon the evening
+landscape, which spread itself like some glorious picture of earth’s
+rarest beauty before the open windows.
+
+His eyes were never lifted from the carpet, as he paced up and down,
+up and down, straining his ear to catch some sound of voices from the
+chamber within--sometimes hoping, sometimes despairing, but never
+praying. Alas! it was so long since this young man had lifted his
+voice in supplication to his Creator, that now, when he had such
+need to pray, the words would not come. Prayer seemed a mockery upon
+his lips. His frivolous, dissipated life; his association with men
+who scoffed at the very name of religion; all his own faults and
+follies,--arose before him in this dread hour of anguish, and he felt
+himself unworthy to ask for Heaven’s compassion upon his sorrow. How
+doubly appalling is the face of death when it confronts the man who
+is without religion! Who does not remember that woful picture of the
+dying Dubois, fighting against death till the last, and then sending
+in hot haste for the Viaticum, with the _special ceremonial for
+cardinals_?
+
+At length that period of agonizing suspense came to an end. The door
+of the bedroom was opened, and the medical man appeared.
+
+One eager glance at his face told the Duke that the surgeon had
+melancholy tidings to impart. He rushed forward, and grasped Mr.
+Granby’s arm.
+
+“The case is much worse than I thought,” he exclaimed; “I can see it
+in your face. Miss Vanberg’s injuries are serious?”
+
+“They are very serious.”
+
+“She will be a cripple for life?”
+
+The surgeon shook his head sadly.
+
+“O God!” cried the Duke, “then it is even worse than that! She will
+be paralyzed, perhaps helpless? No matter! She shall find what it
+is to be truly loved! O, doctor, for pity’s sake speak, and speak
+plainly--tell me the worst!”
+
+The Duke raised his head, and looked earnestly at the surgeon’s face.
+
+“I understand,” he said; “you can give me no hope. She is----”
+
+He could not finish the sentence. He paused, struggled with the
+passionate sobs that rent his breast, and then gasped, in a hoarse
+whisper:
+
+“I shall lose her?”
+
+“On earth, your grace. Let us hope that you may meet her again in
+heaven.”
+
+The Duke shuddered as he listened to those solemn words. Alas! he
+knew but too well that the life of the Jewess had not fitted her for
+a higher and purer sphere than this lower world. Proud and reckless,
+she had lived a pagan life, neither worshipping in the synagogues of
+her own people nor at any Christian shrine; and now that the shadow
+of death hovered near, Vincent, Duke of Harlingford, felt how utterly
+helpless were his rank and wealth to ward off one pang from the woman
+he loved.
+
+“My God,” he murmured, “it is too bitter a stroke! And yet it is only
+a fitting retribution for my useless, frivolous life. But she seemed
+so little hurt!”
+
+“Ah, my dear sir,” answered the doctor gravely, “those very symptoms
+which gave you hope filled me with alarm. The absence of pain, the
+numbness of the limbs--I knew too well what those portended. The
+spine is fractured.”
+
+“And no science can save her?”
+
+“No. It may give you some satisfaction to call in further aid. I
+will telegraph immediately, if you please, for the two best men in
+Saville-row.”
+
+“For Heaven’s sake do so! But before you go give me one word of
+comfort. You have spoken her doom, but it will not be soon; she will
+live for some time, surely?”
+
+Again the surgeon shook his head, with the same sad expression on his
+face.
+
+“I wish to tell you the truth,” he said, “for I know that in these
+cases the truth is wisest and best. Miss Vanberg’s hours are
+numbered. If she has relatives whom she would wish to see, they had
+better be telegraphed for at once.”
+
+“No,” answered the Duke mournfully; “my poor girl stands alone in
+the world. She has had many admirers, but not one friend, except
+myself,--a weak and dangerous one; for I yielded to all her caprices,
+against my own better judgment, and I allowed her to commit the
+imprudence that is to cost her her life. She has no friends, doctor;
+but there is one favour you can do me.”
+
+“Your grace has only to command my services.”
+
+“After you have telegraphed for the London surgeons, I shall be
+truly grateful if you will call upon some clergyman in this town,
+and request him to come at once to my poor girl. You reside in
+the neighbourhood, and are, no doubt, on intimate terms with some
+minister of the Church?”
+
+“Yes,” answered the doctor, “I do know a clergyman in the immediate
+neighbourhood, one of the best men that ever breathed. I will call on
+him immediately after sending the telegram, and will bring him here
+with me.”
+
+“I thank you very much. In the mean while I may see her, I suppose?”
+said the Duke, looking with mournful, yearning eyes to the door of
+the bedroom.
+
+“Yes, you may see her. She is quite conscious, and very calm--though
+she knows the worst.”
+
+The Duke bent his head. He could not speak, but he grasped the
+doctor’s hand with a grateful pressure, and then passed silently into
+the sick-room.
+
+Esther Vanberg was lying quite motionless, her eyes fixed on the door
+as the Duke entered. Never before had Vincent seen so much tenderness
+in those eyes. The shadow of death, so near at hand, seemed to have a
+very softening influence upon the Jewess.
+
+She pointed silently to an arm-chair by the side of the bed. The
+Duke seated himself, and took the feeble hand which stretched itself
+towards him.
+
+The proud woman was quite subdued. She could read the signs of an
+unspeakable sorrow in the pale face of her lover, and she felt how
+unworthy she was of such unbounded devotion.
+
+“Dear Vincent,” she murmured softly, “you must not grieve for me. You
+have all your life before you. It is better for your happiness, much
+better, that I should die. I have been a proud, capricious creature,
+and I never should have made a good wife. Believe me, dear, it is
+better as it is. I know that you will grieve just at first; but
+by-and-by the sorrow will all wear away, and you will only remember
+me as one of the pale shadows of the past. Then I hope you will marry
+a woman of your own station, a woman worthy of your love.”
+
+“My darling! my own dear love! I would give my dukedom, and the last
+acre of the Harlingford lands--I would give my very soul--if I could
+save you!”
+
+“I know your true heart, Vincent; and I can believe all you say, poor
+boy! But I know that my death will be ultimately for your happiness.
+And now, dear, I have done many wicked things in my life. I want to
+repent of them before I die--to atone for some, if I can. There was
+one cruel wrong I inflicted upon an innocent girl, prompted by an
+envious hatred of her good looks--and her success in the theatre.
+You’ll despise me when I tell you how mean and cruel I have been--but
+I must tell you, Vincent, however hard it is to do it.”
+
+In as few words as could tell the story, Esther related the
+circumstances of the treacherous plot against Violet Westford. The
+Duke listened with a grave face. He was deeply grieved by the recital
+of Esther’s sin.
+
+“I was very wicked, was I not, Vincent?” she asked, when she had
+finished her story; “and you will hate me for my wickedness.”
+
+“No, Esther: but I hate the man who tempted you--that cold-blooded
+scoundrel, Rupert Godwin, who, for some wicked purpose of his own,
+played upon a woman’s foolish jealousy, in order to make her the
+instrument of his treachery.”
+
+“Rupert Godwin!” cried the Jewess. “Is Mr. Godwin’s name Rupert?”
+
+“It is.”
+
+“Strange! strange!”
+
+“Why so, darling?”
+
+“I don’t know; but the name is an uncommon one, and it is connected
+with the history of my childhood. O, Vincent, I have not many hours
+to live; but before I die I should like to tell you the story of my
+youth. I think it would make you understand why I have been a proud
+and extravagant woman--reckless of the feelings of others, seeking
+only my own pleasure, heartless, ungrateful. If I live long enough,
+Vincent, I will tell you that story.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+A FATAL LESSON.
+
+
+While Esther Vanberg lay very calm and still, with her hand linked
+in that of the Duke, the door was softly opened, and the surgeon
+appeared on the threshold of the chamber.
+
+He was not alone. Behind him came the ever-welcome visitor to the
+death-chamber, the minister of the Gospel. The proud heart may scorn
+Heaven’s gentle laws while life is in its zenith, while the grave
+seems so far away; but, sooner or later, the dark hour comes, and the
+only earthly comforter is welcome.
+
+“My friend, Mr. Champneys, has come to see our patient,” the surgeon
+said softly: “shall you and I leave them alone for a little? The
+nurse will see that Miss Vanberg wants nothing. She understands all
+that is required.”
+
+The Duke rose from his seat by the bedside, and submissively followed
+the medical man.
+
+They entered the sitting-room, and seated themselves in mournful
+silence. Candles had been brought, and the curtains drawn. A table
+had been laid for dinner, but the Duke took nothing but a glass of
+water.
+
+“Is there no hope?” he asked presently, in heart-broken accents.
+
+“None, upon this earth. I have telegraphed for the most eminent
+surgeons in England; but I have only done so in deference to your
+affectionate anxiety. I regret to say that the case is quite
+hopeless. Miss Vanberg’s life is a question of so many hours. She
+may possibly survive the night, but even that is doubtful.”
+
+No more was said. The two men sat in silence. Vincent Mountford
+covered his face with his hands. But this time he shed no tears. He
+was occupied in solemn prayer for the departing soul of the woman he
+loved.
+
+For upwards of an hour he sat thus. Then the door of the bedroom was
+opened, and the clergyman emerged.
+
+“I am leaving her in peace,” he said. “I never talked with any one
+more humbly desirous to obtain solace from the true source of all
+consolation. I shall return in a few hours; my presence may afford
+some comfort. In the meantime, I wish you good-evening. Do not
+hesitate to send for me if--if there should be any unlooked-for
+change, or if the patient should wish to see me.”
+
+Mr. Champneys departed as quietly as he had entered; and next minute
+the door of the sick-room was again opened, and Martha Gibbs appeared
+on the threshold.
+
+“Miss Vanberg wishes to speak to you, sir,” she said, addressing the
+Duke.
+
+Vincent Mountford hastened to respond to that summons. Once more he
+seated himself by the bed of the dying girl.
+
+Mrs. Gibbs passed silently into the sitting-room, leaving the lovers
+alone together.
+
+Even in the brief interval that had passed, the Duke saw a change in
+the face he loved.
+
+Yes, the pale shadow was hovering nearer. The small hand was feebler;
+the dark eyes had a more spiritual light--the radiance of a soul fast
+escaping from its earthly bondage.
+
+“Vincent,” said the Jewess, “I want to tell you the story of
+my youth. Ah, no, no!” she exclaimed, answering his look of
+remonstrance; “it will do me no harm to speak. I should suffer more
+were I compelled to keep silence. The only excuse for my life lies in
+the story of my childhood. I must speak of that, Vincent, before I
+die.”
+
+“Speak, then, darling! Every word of yours is precious to me.”
+
+“Let me begin at the beginning. The first thing I can remember
+is living in a great city--Paris, as I found out afterwards. I
+remember beautiful apartments; windows that opened into a garden, in
+which there was a fountain in a marble basin. I remember a happy,
+idle life, spent in this fairy mansion, and in those beautiful
+gardens; shut in from the great city by high walls and sheltering
+chestnut-trees.
+
+“I remember a face, a lovely woman’s face, darker than my own--dark
+with the rich olive hue of the South. I remember that foreign-looking
+face smiling upon me, and I knew that she to whom it belonged was my
+mother.
+
+“She was my mother. Hushed in her arms I used to sink to sleep in the
+still summer twilight while she sang to me. O, Vincent, I can almost
+hear her voice now as I think of her; and the old time comes back--I
+am a child once more. My mother was not happy. I was only a very
+little child when I first discovered that secret. She was not happy.
+Sometimes she would sit, pale and silent, for hours together--with
+her hands lying listlessly in her lap. Sometimes her tears fell upon
+my face as I lay in her arms. Children are quick to perceive sorrow.
+I saw that my mother was unhappy; and, child though I was, I watched
+her closely.
+
+“Few friends visited us in that splendid abode, and even to me its
+lonely splendour seemed sad and dreary.
+
+“Now and then--at long intervals, as I thought--a gentleman came;
+a gentleman whom I was told to call papa. He took me on his knee
+sometimes, and caressed me; and when he was with us my mother’s
+manner changed from its dreary quiet, its outbreaks of passionate
+sorrow.
+
+“When he was with us my mother seemed gay and happy. She would sit
+on a heap of cushions at his feet, looking up at him with her dark
+eyes, which had a light like yellow sunshine in them, smiling at him,
+talking to him, happy and vivacious as some joyous bird.
+
+“Ah, how beautiful I thought her then, in her rich dress, with jewels
+flashing on her hands and arms!
+
+“But as I grew older, my father’s visits were rarer; my mother’s
+sorrow became deeper and more settled day by day.
+
+“Then, by-and-by, there was a sudden change in our life. My father
+came very often, but not alone; he brought with him a young
+Englishman, an empty-headed fop, as I know now, with a heart of ice.
+Even then, child as I was, I perceived the man’s shallow nature, and
+I instinctively detested him.
+
+“But my mother cared very little what guests she welcomed so long as
+she was blessed with the presence of the man she loved. She smiled
+her brightest smiles upon my father’s friend, and greeted him with
+her sweetest words.
+
+“My father came day after day, week after week; but his English
+friend always came with him. He bought my mother a carriage, and we
+went to races and fêtes; but the Englishman accompanied us everywhere.
+
+“This may have gone on for some three months, when the end came.
+
+“Ah, Vincent, that end was very terrible! It was the old, old story:
+passionate devoted love on the one side; on the other, selfishness
+and cruelty. The Englishman, whose name I forget, came one day to
+announce that the house which was our only home had changed hands.
+He was its new master. My mother might still be its mistress. He
+brought his credentials with him, in the shape of a letter from my
+father.
+
+“That letter now lies amongst my private papers, Vincent, and I have
+read it again and again, until its every word seems branded on my
+brain. That horrible letter has influenced my life; for it taught me
+to believe all men false and cruel. I accepted their flatteries; I
+let them squander their fortune on my follies; but I never trusted
+them; and it is only now, when the world is fading away from me, that
+I begin to understand there may really exist one good man upon this
+earth.
+
+“Shall I tell you the contents of that letter, Vincent? It was very
+brief, for the writer had used little ceremony.
+
+“The man my mother loved had grown tired of her and of her devotion.
+He had sold her to his wealthy friend! _That_ was the gist of the
+letter. The elegant house, the horses, the carriages, all had been
+lost at the card-table; and the last stake had been the woman whom he
+had sworn to love and cherish to the hour of his death!
+
+“Within an hour of the receipt of that letter my mother and I
+left the luxurious home in which I had been born. She took me to
+England--to London; and London did indeed seem a dreary city after
+the bright boulevards and chestnut-trees of Paris. All through one
+long summer day we wandered in the dismal muddy streets of the most
+squalid neighbourhood on the Surrey side of the Thames, and at
+length, worn out, wearied, and miserable, we took possession of our
+new home.
+
+“Shall I tell you what it was like, Vincent, that new home,--the
+first that ever sheltered me in your native country?
+
+“It was a garret, so poorly furnished, so utterly wretched, that a
+tolerably prosperous crossing-sweeper would have despised it for a
+habitation when his day’s work was over. The rain pattering against
+the casement beat in upon us through the gaps in the broken glass;
+and the chill night wind crept in through a hundred different cracks
+and crannies.
+
+“‘This is the only lodging we can afford, child,’ my mother cried
+bitterly, as I stood in the midst of the wretched chamber, staring
+helplessly about me, utterly bewildered by the change in our
+position. ‘It is as good a home as either you or I have any right to
+occupy; for we are friendless outcasts, penniless wretches, who know
+not where to look for their daily bread.’
+
+“Ah, Vincent, I dare not dwell upon that horrible time; for the
+shadow of death grows darker round me; and though I feel so little
+pain, the numbness seems creeping, creeping to my heart, and I know
+that the end must be very near.
+
+“My mother went out on the day after our arrival, leaving me alone in
+that most miserable house. She did not return until late at night,
+and then she told me that she had obtained work which would give us,
+at the worst, enough to keep us from starvation.
+
+“After this she went out every night, and was sometimes away from me
+half the day. She never came home till after midnight; and as soon as
+I was old enough to understand anything of London life, I knew that
+she was a _figurante_ at a minor theatre on the Surrey side of the
+Thames.
+
+“By-and-by we moved to a lodging which, although very humble and
+very poorly furnished, was a palace in comparison with the miserable
+garret that had first sheltered us.
+
+“So long as my mother lived, I never entered a theatre. She loved
+me with the same passionate affection which I felt for her; and
+she could not bear that I should be exposed to the dangers and
+temptations of a life in which she saw so many fall into a fatal
+career of extravagance and vice. Her life was a very hard one;
+and others saw the change in her which I was too inexperienced to
+perceive. Strangers saw that the hard life was slowly killing her.
+
+“One day she came in from her morning duties at the theatre with the
+hectic tint in her cheeks heightened, and the fatal brightness of her
+eyes even more brilliant than usual.
+
+“It was my birthday, she had told me early that morning, and I was
+fifteen that day.
+
+“She took both my hands, and led me to the window.
+
+“‘Turn your face towards the light, Esther,’ she said. ‘Let me see
+your eyes, for I am going to tell you something, and I want to see if
+you are my own true daughter.’
+
+“I looked at her wonderingly; and we stood thus, each looking with
+fixed and earnest gaze into the other’s eyes.
+
+“‘Esther,’ said my mother, ‘I saw your father in the streets of
+London to-day. I saw him, and spoke to him; to him--to the man for
+whom I fled from a happy home in my native country--for whose sake
+I broke my father’s heart! But the vengeance of Heaven follows such
+sins as mine surely--too surely; and that vengeance has tracked me
+step by step ever since the fatal night upon which I was beguiled
+by your father’s empty promises to leave the shelter of my home,
+trusting in the honour of a villain. To-day, for the first time after
+weary years of beggary, I met your father in the street. For your
+sake, Esther, and for your sake only, I followed and spoke to him. He
+was very much surprised to see me, and even more disgusted to see me
+such an altered creature. His face said as much. I told him that his
+daughter was growing into womanhood; that in all the world she had
+not one friend to replace the mother on whose face the hand of death
+had set its stamp. I implored him to have pity upon this friendless
+child; I promised forgiveness for my own blighted life--for the lies
+that had lured me from my home--the cool treachery which would
+have sold me with the goods and chattels lost at a gaming-table. I
+humiliated myself to the dust, Esther, for your sake--only for your
+sake!
+
+“‘Shall I tell you how that man answered my prayers? He told me to
+starve, or to rot, where I pleased; but not to obtrude my ghastly
+face on him. He had given me my chance, he said, and I might have
+squandered the wealth of a weak-minded fool who would have supported
+me in the splendour I was so fond of. I had chosen to fling away this
+chance, and whatever misery had come to me had been brought upon
+me by my own folly. He was not responsible for that folly, he told
+me, and he would not give me sixpence to save me from the pangs of
+starvation.
+
+“‘This was what he said to me, Esther; but no words can tell the
+brutal manner in which he spoke, the cold-blooded insolence of his
+gaze. He could not have looked more scornfully at the dirt beneath
+his feet than he looked at me--at me, whose girlish brain was
+well-nigh turned by his flattery when he stole me from my home.
+
+“‘You are indeed changed,’ he said. ‘I can scarcely bring myself to
+believe that the creature I am looking at was once the vaunted beauty
+of Seville.’
+
+“‘I could find no words to speak my indignation. I was choked by the
+suffocating tears of shame and despair. He turned upon his heel, and
+left me--left me standing like a statue in the windy street, with
+the rain driving gustily at me, and the icy cold creeping to my very
+heart.’
+
+“I burst into a torrent of sobs, and fell on my mother’s breast. I
+tried to comfort her; but there are some sorrows in which any attempt
+at comfort seems a mockery; and hers was one of them.
+
+“‘Esther,’ she said, ‘I have told you this story as a solemn warning.
+You must be dull indeed if you cannot understand the bitter moral to
+be learnt from my life. Crush out from your heart every vestige of
+womanly affection. You are beautiful, and your beauty will win you
+lovers. Remember my fate! Remember that their admiration is the false
+worship of the profligate, who pays homage to the divinity that he
+is only eager to destroy. Value your charms only for their power to
+win the love you trample upon and despise. Be proud and pitiless,
+false and mercenary, as the wretches who pretend to adore you; for
+only thus will you keep them at your feet. They will be the slaves
+of a beautiful demon, who laughs at their devotion, and mocks them
+with false hopes, while she ruins them by her reckless extravagance,
+her insatiable avarice; but they would grow weary of the love of an
+angel, when once she has been won by their treacherous pleading.
+Take everything from them, but give nothing in return--not one true
+word, not one tender thought. Revenge my fate, Esther, and be warned
+by the misery you have seen. Remember the anguish of a woman who
+sacrificed her life to one unhappy passion, and who will die the
+heart-broken victim of a scoundrel.’
+
+“This, and much more, my mother said to me, not once, but many times,
+before she faded slowly from me, leaving me alone in the world.
+
+“Such, Vincent, was the teaching of my early youth; such were the
+precepts that had been carefully instilled into me when I found
+myself lonely and destitute, with the world all before me.
+
+“I was not quite sixteen years of age when my mother died. I looked
+in the glass; but my life had been such a secluded one, that but for
+my mother’s words I should scarcely have known that I was beautiful.
+
+“At first I was stunned by my calamity, and I sat day after day in my
+lonely room, in the idle helplessness of complete despair.
+
+“One day the proprietor of the theatre in which my mother had been
+employed called upon me, and offered to engage me, paying for my
+services at the same pitiful rate as my mother had received for hers.
+
+“I accepted his offer, since it afforded me the only chance of
+escaping starvation. I entered the theatre, and in the following
+year I received the offer of an engagement from the manager of the
+Circenses, where I have been employed ever since, and where I first
+met you, Vincent, and won the love which I have done so little to
+deserve.
+
+“But I think you will understand now why my heart has seemed cold and
+hard as stone. My mother had taught me to believe that my father was
+only a sample of the rest of mankind. She had believed herself, and
+she had taught me to think, that truth, honour, loyalty, generosity,
+pure and unselfish affection did not exist in the breast of any
+man living. I had learnt the fatal lesson only too well, and you
+know what that lesson had made me--a heartless, pitiless creature,
+eager for my own pleasure alone, at any cost to others; extravagant,
+reckless, greedy, valuing those who admired me only for the wealth
+they lavished on me; proud and insolent, cold and ungrateful. To win
+you for my husband, to wear the coronet of a duchess, and to push
+my way into the great world in defiance of all who should oppose
+me--this was my ambition. But even to win such a prize as this I
+could not control the passionate temper which had so long been freely
+indulged; I could not curb the insolent tongue on whose reckless
+audacity I prided myself.
+
+“Nothing but true and pure love could have exercised such forbearance
+as you have always shown me. O, forgive me, Vincent; forgive me for
+my heartless ingratitude! I see things in a softened light now that
+the shadows are closing round me, and I can understand how good, how
+noble you have been to me. You would have taken the nameless Jewess
+to your arms; you would have bestowed the sacred name of wife on the
+reckless adventuress who squandered your wealth and laughed at your
+love. Forgive me, Vincent! Remember my early teaching, the wrongs of
+my broken-hearted mother; remember these, and forgive me!”
+
+“I do, Esther, with all my heart,” answered the Duke in a broken
+voice. “If you could live, darling; if heaven would spare you, the
+dismal lesson of the past should be forgotten in the happiness of the
+future, and you should learn that a man’s love can be as true and
+pure, as unselfish and devoted, as the affection of the woman who
+unites her fate to his.”
+
+“Vincent,” said the Jewess, “when I am dead, you will go to my house
+and examine all my papers. If amongst them you can find any clue to
+the identity of my father, seek him out, if he still lives, and tell
+him of his victim’s death, and of the death of that daughter whom he
+refused to rescue from starvation.”
+
+No more was said upon this subject. Esther gave Vincent Mountford
+some few directions respecting the papers which he was to examine.
+
+“And now,” she said, “my true and only friend, I have one last favour
+to ask of you. My jewels and pictures, the furniture of my house,
+my carriage and horses, are worth a considerable sum. I should like
+them all to be sold to the best advantage--except such things as you,
+Vincent, may like to keep for my sake; and let the proceeds of the
+sale be given to Miss Watson, the girl whom I so cruelly injured in
+my wicked jealousy. You will do this, will you not, Vincent? It is
+the only atonement I can make for the treachery which may have caused
+so much pain. I trust in you, dear and faithful friend! Miss Watson
+must never know the name of the person by whose bequest she inherits
+the money; for if she did so, she might refuse to receive it. Let
+this last act of justice be as little known as the guilty act for
+which it is a poor reparation. Promise me, Vincent!”
+
+The young man gave a solemn promise; and the dark eyes of the Jewess
+looked at him with a calmer light, as she lay back upon the pillow
+from which she was never to rise again.
+
+It was late by this time, and the London surgeons had arrived. The
+Duke left the room as the medical men entered it.
+
+Once more he paced slowly up and down the sitting-room; and, in spite
+of all that the Richmond surgeon had said to him, his heart was
+agitated by a faint thrill of hope.
+
+That hope was soon changed to the calm quiet of despair. After about
+a quarter of an hour of suspense, the door of the bedchamber was
+opened, and the medical men came out, grave and silent, and in their
+solemn faces Vincent Mountford read the death warrant of the woman he
+loved.
+
+“There is no hope?” asked the Duke, appealing to the Richmond surgeon.
+
+“None!” that gentleman answered solemnly.
+
+Vincent Mountford sank helplessly down upon the nearest chair. This
+time he gave way to no passionate outburst of grief: this time he
+was calm and silent; but he felt that the one bright dream, the fond
+delusion of his youth, was melting away from him for ever.
+
+The time might come when Esther Vanberg’s beautiful face would smile
+upon him, faint and shadowy as the face that haunts a sleeper in his
+dream; but that time would be slow to come; and to-night it seemed to
+the Duke of Harlingford as if all the joy and brightness of his life
+had vanished away from him, never to be recalled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+SILENCED.
+
+
+After the discovery of the deadly nature of that draught which Rupert
+Godwin had attempted to administer to the unconscious invalid, a dull
+stupor seemed to take possession of Julia’s mind.
+
+The horror of her thoughts was too terrible for endurance. The brain
+almost gave way beneath its burden. The heart which until now had
+throbbed with love for this guilty father was well-nigh broken by the
+knowledge of his crime.
+
+“A secret assassin--a midnight poisoner!” thought the miserable girl,
+as she brooded over the events of the past few days. “Had his crime
+been of any other nature, had his guilt been the consequence of a
+moment’s violence, the fatal act of sudden rage, I could have pitied
+and forgiven him. But how can I pity the criminal whose treachery
+hides itself beneath a smile?”
+
+She paced up and down the room, her hands clasped before her face,
+maddened by the thoughts which distracted her over-tasked brain.
+
+“And all my life, all my life, I shall have to keep this hideous
+secret hidden in my breast! Day after day I shall see my father
+smiling upon people who, were I to reveal what I know, would think
+the story of that night the wild delusion of a maniac. I can
+understand now why my brother could never be happy in this house--why
+there was always a gulf between him and my father, a yawning gulf of
+distrust that was almost hatred. My brother’s instinct revealed to
+him that fatal truth, to which my love has blinded me. He saw that
+my father was unworthy of a son’s affection, and he ran away from a
+home whose atmosphere was hateful to him. He knew what I could not
+understand. He knew that it was the stifling atmosphere of falsehood
+and hypocrisy.”
+
+All that day Julia remained in her own apartments. Mrs. Melville came
+to her and entreated to be admitted; but the girl was inflexible, and
+refused to see anyone.
+
+“I am suffering from a headache,” she said, opening the door a little
+way, in order to speak to the widow, “and all I want is undisturbed
+quiet. My brain has been over-excited by the anxiety of the past
+few days. Pray do not ask to see me, dear Mrs. Melville. I shall be
+infinitely better if you leave me quite alone.”
+
+The widow was really alarmed by her charge’s conduct. She went
+straight to Mr. Godwin’s study, and informed him of what had passed.
+
+But, to her surprise, she found the banker almost indifferent upon
+the subject of his daughter’s illness. This man, who was known to
+be so fond and devoted a father, seemed to-day as if he scarcely
+understood the communication that was made to him respecting his
+idolized child.
+
+“She is ill, you say?” he muttered impatiently. “Yes, yes; I thought
+she seemed ill this morning when I saw her. I don’t wonder. Her mind
+seemed affected, I fancied. I begin to fear that the fever from which
+Mr. Wilton is suffering is contagious. I shall take Julia to Brighton
+with me to-night.”
+
+“I should imagine it would be very wise to do so. The dear girl
+is far too sensitive to be exposed to the excitement and anxiety
+of a sick-house,” answered the lady. “I will go at once and make
+arrangements for the journey. You will require me to accompany you, I
+conclude, Mr. Godwin?”
+
+“No!” exclaimed the banker, turning upon her almost angrily; “I shall
+require no one. You were asking me the other day for permission to
+pay a visit to some friends in town. I give you that permission now,
+and I will write you a cheque for a half year’s salary in advance, if
+you wish it. My daughter and I will go alone to Brighton, and this
+house will be shut up and left in the care of Mrs. Beckson.”
+
+“And Mr. Wilton?” asked Mrs. Melville wonderingly.
+
+“Mr. Wilton’s comfort and safety will be provided for,” answered
+Rupert Godwin impatiently. “And now, Mrs. Melville, I must wish you
+good morning. I am very busy.”
+
+The banker had been standing all this time at the door of his study.
+He closed it now, leaving Mrs. Melville bewildered by the strangeness
+of his manner.
+
+Her bewilderment would have been even greater, had she seen him
+standing in the centre of the room, with his hands clasped about his
+head, staring vacantly at the floor.
+
+“The net is closing round me,” he muttered; “it’s closing round
+me. The meshes gather about me thicker and thicker--the web grows
+tighter; and I shall find myself all at once bound hand and foot
+without hope of escape. My daughter suspects me. How or why she has
+learnt to do so, I cannot conceive; but she suspects. Another spy,
+whose lips must be sealed; another creature whose every word I must
+fear! Surely she would not betray me! No, no; she would not betray
+the father whom she has loved, unless the hideous secret escaped her
+in the ravings of delirium. I have to guard against that danger as
+well as every other. O, what a life!--what a life! The hand of the
+avenger is upon me: it pushes me on to wade yet deeper in guilt; but
+at the end of all what do I see? Security? No; there is no security
+for the wretch whose secret is once known to any mortal but himself.”
+
+Then, after a pause of blank terror and dismay, Rupert Godwin lifted
+his head with an impetuous and defiant gesture.
+
+“Bah!” he exclaimed; “I am a coward and a fool to-day. What was my
+intellect given me for, if not to triumph over meaner men? The world
+is still with me. The dupes and fools still trust the wealthy banker.
+Who would believe Rupert Godwin is an assassin--a thief--a baffled
+poisoner? No; I will not despair because that young man has fathomed
+the secret of his father’s murder--I will not despair even though my
+own daughter suspects my guilt. The odds may be against me; but if
+the game is to be a desperate one, I will not throw away a single
+chance.”
+
+A servant opened the door of the library. In a moment Rupert Godwin’s
+brow cleared. He was himself again; or rather, he resumed once more
+that false and smiling semblance which he presented to the world.
+
+“Well?” he demanded. “Are those two gentlemen here?”
+
+“They are, sir,” answered the servant, ushering in two gentlemen.
+
+One was Mr. Granger, the doctor from Hertford; the other was a little
+fat man, with a pale flabby face and sandy hair. There was a cunning
+expression in his reddish-brown eyes, and a physiognomist would have
+perceived the signs of a brutal and cruel nature in the low receding
+forehead, the thick lips and massive jaws.
+
+This pale-faced, sandy-haired man wore the orthodox costume of a
+medical practitioner, and exhibited that expanse of spotless cambric
+which is generally supposed to be the outward indication of that
+highly-prized grace--respectability. He seated himself opposite Mr.
+Godwin, while the Hertford surgeon stood near the window.
+
+The sandy-haired man called himself Doctor Wilderson Snaffley, and
+he was the proprietor of a private lunatic asylum, on which he had
+bestowed the romantic appellation of “The Retreat.” He had published
+several pamphlets on the efficacy of a paternal indulgence in the
+treatment of lunatics--pamphlets in which the pages quite bristled
+with Latin quotations.
+
+“I little thought, when I saw your advertisement in the _Times_ some
+weeks ago, that I should ever be under the necessity of appealing to
+you for assistance, Dr. Snaffley,” said Rupert Godwin; “but I regret
+to tell you that I do require your services. A young man, who is a
+kind of protégé of my daughter’s, something of an artist, employed
+out of charity to mount some drawings of my son’s, has been seized
+with a fever, under which his mind seems entirely to have given way.
+Mr. Granger will tell you that he has been treating this young man
+for fever only; but the malady appears to have its seat in the mind,
+or at least mainly there. He has therefore come to the conclusion
+that this is a case requiring quite another course of treatment--he
+has come to the conclusion that this unhappy young man is mad.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, Mr. Godwin,” interposed the surgeon; “but I must
+remind you that the suggestion of madness first came from you.”
+
+“Did it?” asked the banker carelessly. “Well, it may be so--my memory
+is not quite clear upon that point. The first direct suggestion may
+have come from me. You medical men only deal in hints and innuendos.
+You are so abominably cautious. Indirectly you suggested the idea
+of mental disease; for I have been much too busy to give this
+unfortunate young man’s case any serious consideration.”
+
+“Certainly, certainly,” said Dr. Snaffley, in a slow ponderous way,
+which, like his spotless shirt-front, seemed indicative of extreme
+respectability--a kind of social solidity. “Your duties, sir, are
+no doubt multifarious. We are aware of the onerous duties of such a
+position as yours, Mr. Godwin.”
+
+“You are very good,” replied the banker. “But, however busy I may be,
+I must see that this young man is properly cared for. It is quite
+clear to my mind that he is mad. There seems no doubt as to the
+lamentable fact. Whether there is hereditary madness in this case I
+know not; for the unhappy young man is a mere waif, without friends
+or connections, so far as I can understand, and quite penniless. I
+know nothing of his past history; I only know that my daughter picked
+him up, almost starving, at a printseller’s in Regent-street, where
+he was offering some drawings for sale, and that he has been employed
+in this house ever since.”
+
+“Very creditable to Miss Godwin’s benevolent nature, I am sure,”
+murmured Dr. Snaffley.
+
+“Under ordinary circumstances, this young man would of course be
+handed over to the proper authorities, to be treated as a pauper
+lunatic. But I cannot suffer that. My daughter has chosen to
+undertake a work of benevolence--the rescue of a fellow-creature
+from destitution and despair. Whatever the cost to myself, I am
+bound to carry out that work to its furthest limit; so if this young
+man’s mind is indeed gone, as I regret to say I believe it is, I am
+prepared to place him under your care, Dr. Snaffley, and to offer you
+whatever remuneration you may think fair and liberal.”
+
+The doctor bowed. His cunning brown eyes twinkled with gratification
+at having secured another inmate for that peaceful and delightful
+home which he called the Retreat; but he dropped his eyelids, and
+affected disinterested feeling.
+
+“I am ready to serve you, Mr. Godwin,” he said; “and in serving you
+it is very pleasant to serve also the cause of humanity. Your noble
+offer to protect this friendless young man is indeed worthy of a
+Christian. Let me see him. My friend here, Mr. Granger, is prepared
+to give a certificate, I believe.”
+
+“Yes,” answered the surgeon, shaking his head mournfully; “I am
+really very sorry, but I am afraid there is no doubt about the
+case--the young man is mad. That rooted delusion, that morbid idea
+about an imaginary murder, can only result from madness. The fever
+has been got under, but the hallucination still remains. There are
+all the symptoms of insanity.”
+
+Rupert Godwin sighed heavily.
+
+“It is very sad,” he said. “My poor Julia will feel it deeply, for
+she had such a high opinion of the unfortunate young man’s talents. I
+trust that you will bring the calmest deliberation to bear upon this
+case, gentlemen, and that you will decide nothing hastily.”
+
+The banker rang a bell, and ordered a servant to conduct the two
+medical men to the invalid’s apartment.
+
+The two men left him--one impressed with the generosity of his
+employer, the other delighted at the promise of profit.
+
+Dr. Wilderson Snaffley was an unprincipled adventurer, who was a
+disgrace to the science which he made subservient to his own schemes.
+He was a man who throughout his life had enriched himself by preying
+upon the weakness, or trading upon the wickedness of his fellow-men.
+The Retreat was a kind of tomb, in which guilty secrets could be very
+easily hidden; and some of the mysteries buried within those dismal
+walls were terrible ones.
+
+Dr. Snaffley was the last man to be deceived by hypocrisy, for he
+was himself an accomplished hypocrite. He penetrated the pretence of
+generosity beneath which Rupert Godwin sought to conceal his real
+purpose, and he perceived that there was some mysterious reason for
+the banker’s benevolence towards a stranger.
+
+“I understand,” he thought, as he followed the servant upstairs.
+“I have only to keep quiet, and I may make this business very
+profitable. One thing is perfectly clear: Mr. Godwin wants to get rid
+of his young friend.”
+
+Dr. Snaffley entered the room, while his fellow-practitioner waited
+in an adjoining apartment.
+
+Lionel Westford was lying in an uneasy slumber; but he was awakened
+by the entrance of the doctor, and opened his eyes in a wild,
+wondering stare.
+
+The proprietor of the Retreat seated himself in an easy-chair by the
+bed, and laid his hand softly on the wrist of the invalid.
+
+Lionel looked at him, and then turned away, murmuring some low
+incoherent words. The doctor bent over him, listening intently;
+but the young man’s mind had gone back to the scenes of his early
+youth. He fancied himself a student once more, amidst light-hearted
+companions--now at a boat-race, now at a wine-party. His feeble voice
+had a strangely melancholy sound as it strove to shape itself into a
+jovial shout or a cry of triumph.
+
+“Brazenose wins!” he cried; “ten to one upon Brazenose! Bravo!
+Brazenose!”
+
+The doctor knew that his patient was acting over again the scenes of
+a University career.
+
+“Ha, ha!” thought he; “this nameless, friendless, penniless young
+man has been educated at one of the Universities. That looks rather
+strange, Mr. Godwin. We shall find out something more by-and-by.”
+
+He kept his place by the bedside, listening intently to Lionel’s
+half-broken words.
+
+Presently the young man started up from his pillow, erect as a dart.
+
+“Murdered!” he cried. “My poor father--my brave, noble-hearted
+father, murdered by the hand of a villain, in the cellars below the
+northern wing!”
+
+Dr. Wilderson Snaffley’s flabby face was always pale, but it grew
+livid as he listened to these words.
+
+“The cellars below the northern wing,” he muttered; “why, the man
+is talking of this house! I knew that there was a mystery. Murder!
+That’s a big word. So, Mr. Godwin, you seem to want my services very
+badly. People do not send their friends to the Retreat for nothing. A
+private madhouse is rather expensive--an expensive luxury; but when
+people want to get rid of a troublesome acquaintance, they don’t mind
+coming down handsomely.”
+
+Again the doctor bent over the patient, and listened breathlessly.
+The young man had fallen back upon his pillow, and lay prostrate and
+exhausted. For some time the silence was only broken by incoherent
+murmurs; and then Lionel spoke once more of the northern wing, the
+cellar-stairs, the foul deed that had been done in that accursed
+spot--all in broken sentences; but the doctor had been accustomed
+to listen to the ravings of a maniac, and he knew how to put those
+broken phrases together.
+
+“My father’s blood!” exclaimed Lionel, in a hoarse whisper. “Yes,
+father, I saw the traces of that blood spilt by a murderer’s hand.
+But the crime shall not go unpunished. Yes; your son shall track that
+guilty wretch to the gallows. Rupert Godwin--Rupert--_her_ father!”
+
+It was such broken sentences as these which Dr. Wilderson Snaffley
+heard as he bent over the prostrate form of the invalid. He saw that
+Lionel Westford was suffering from brain-fever, and that his mind was
+distracted by the memory of some deed, the discovery of which had
+been the chief cause of his illness.
+
+The proprietor of the Retreat was able to discover what the simple
+Hertford surgeon had been utterly unable to understand; for to him
+the idea of any guilty deed done by Rupert Godwin seemed so utterly
+preposterous, that he attributed Lionel’s persistent accusations to
+the ravings of insanity.
+
+Dr. Wilderson Snaffley had made a fortune by the crimes of other
+men; and he was only familiar with the darkest and most hideous side
+of human nature. He was ready to believe anything. Cunning, false,
+designing, he knew how to turn guilty secrets to his own advantage
+without betraying his knowledge of them.
+
+He went downstairs presently, leaving his fellow-practitioner to
+enter the sick-chamber alone, and form his unbiassed opinion as to
+the condition of the patient.
+
+Dr. Snaffley found Rupert Godwin in his study. By no look or gesture
+did the banker betray impatience or uneasiness; and yet the doctor
+knew very well that he was both impatient and uneasy.
+
+“Well, doctor,” he said, “is there any hope for this poor young man?”
+
+The doctor shrugged his shoulders and pursed his lips.
+
+“It is a very difficult case,” he said; “a most critical case. I
+never met one at all resembling it. I can only see one chance of
+cure, and that is very hazardous.”
+
+“What is the nature of this one chance?”
+
+“I will tell you. This young man appears to be possessed with a
+monomania--a single delusion. Once dispel that, and you may restore
+the brain to its balance. Our patient has formed some idea about
+the cellars below the northern wing of this house. Your servants
+have told him some ghastly legend, I suppose, and he has dwelt so
+long upon its details, that his imagination has become completely
+distempered by queer fancies. Now, what I think is this: Why not
+attempt to cure him by proving to him the absurdity of his delusion?
+He fancies that a murder has been committed in one of the rooms, or
+in one of the cellars, belonging to the northern wing. Have a public
+investigation of those rooms and cellars. Call in the assistance of
+the police, and let them search for traces of this imaginary murder.
+If there has been any foul deed done there, the secret of it will be
+brought to light, and that would, of course, be a satisfaction to
+you, as owner of this house. If not--if this horrible story is only
+the invention of a distempered brain, there is every chance that,
+when the young man has witnessed a practical investigation, he will
+see how foolish his fancies have been, and the balance of the mind
+will be restored.”
+
+Throughout this speech Wilderson Snaffley had kept his eyes fixed
+upon the banker’s face. When he had finished speaking, Rupert Godwin
+shrugged his shoulders disdainfully.
+
+“My dear Doctor Snaffley,” he said, “I begin to think that madhouse
+physicians do indeed catch a little of their patients’ disease. Can
+you for a moment imagine that any revelation of the groundlessness of
+this unhappy young man’s fancies will dispel them, and restore him to
+reason? What arguments can ever induce the ghost-seer to disbelieve
+in his phantom? No; he believes to the end, and perhaps dies a victim
+to the visitations of a shadow which he conjures out of his own
+brain.”
+
+“Then you will not attempt my plan? You will not cause any
+investigation of the grounds for this man’s story?”
+
+“There are no grounds. No, Doctor Snaffley. Cure your patient if you
+can; but you must devise some better means than this before you will
+cure him.”
+
+“Be it so, then,” answered the proprietor of the Retreat, still
+watching the face of the banker with a fixed and searching gaze.
+“Be it so. I am prepared to certify to this young man’s insanity;
+and I am willing to take him under my charge, and to keep him in
+my establishment, pledging myself to ensure his safe keeping. I am
+willing to do this; but I shall expect a liberal compensation for my
+trouble.”
+
+“Name your terms.”
+
+“Five hundred a year.”
+
+“Humph!” muttered the banker. “Are not those absurdly extravagant
+terms, taking into consideration the position of the patient?”
+
+“No, Mr. Godwin; the terms are not by any means extravagant, taking
+into consideration the _nature of the case_,” answered Doctor
+Wilderson Snaffley.
+
+The two men looked at each other. It was only for a moment that
+their eyes met; but Rupert Godwin knew that his secret was divined by
+the doctor.
+
+“Agreed,” said the banker; “I accept your terms.”
+
+At ten o’clock that night Lionel Westford was removed from Wilmingdon
+Hall to the Retreat, which was situated in a very lonely part of the
+county, some ten miles from the banker’s mansion. He was taken away
+in a close carriage, lying upon a mattress. An opiate prepared by Dr.
+Snaffley had been administered to him; and he slept too soundly to
+give any trouble to those who conveyed him to his new home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+GIRT WITH FIRE.
+
+
+Rupert Godwin did not quit Wilmingdon Hall quite so soon as he had
+told Mrs. Melville he intended to leave it; but he contrived that
+the widow should take her departure some time before the removal of
+Lionel Westford by Doctor Snaffley and his myrmidons.
+
+In the solitude of her own apartments, Julia Godwin heard nothing of
+what was passing in her father’s house. She lay upon a sofa in her
+own room, not sleeping, but oppressed by a kind of stupor. She felt
+as though she would have been glad to die, that in the repose of
+death she might no longer be haunted by the memory of her father’s
+guilt.
+
+Mrs. Melville had tried to gain admission to Julia’s room, but found
+the door locked. The unhappy girl feigned to be asleep, and made no
+reply to the widow’s anxious entreaties for admittance.
+
+The banker had behaved very liberally to his daughter’s companion;
+but, accomplished hypocrite as he was, Mrs. Melville could not help
+suspecting that he must have some reason for wishing her to leave his
+house so suddenly.
+
+The widow thought there was something wrong, but imagined that the
+banker was harassed by some commercial difficulty--perhaps threatened
+by ruin; and she considered herself fortunate in securing an advance
+of six months upon her very handsome salary, when other people might
+lose by a bankruptcy.
+
+She left the Hall, therefore, in excellent spirits, after bidding
+adieu to Mr. Godwin, who promised to communicate with her as soon as
+he and his daughter were settled at Brighton.
+
+At eleven o’clock that night all was quiet in Wilmingdon Hall, and
+the banker strode up and down the dining-room, after dismissing the
+servant who had attended upon him.
+
+The habits of the household were early. At ten o’clock all except
+the servant who waited on Mr. Godwin had retired to their several
+apartments. By eleven all was still as the grave; and, pacing to and
+fro the large empty room, Rupert Godwin was able to contemplate his
+position with something like calmness.
+
+“_He_ is safe,” the banker muttered, “and will remain so, while I
+can pay that man, who has fathomed my secret and means to profit
+by it. So long as I can satisfy his exorbitant claim, all will be
+secure in that quarter. How much simpler would have been the effect
+of that draught, had not some devilry interfered to prevent its
+being administered! Nothing could have been more natural than that
+young man’s death; and a decent funeral would have won for me the
+reputation of a kind and liberal patron. However, at the worst,
+he is safe. The next thing from which I have cause for fear is my
+daughter’s suspicions. She knows something; but how much does she
+know? That is the point. Was hers the hand which interposed so
+mysteriously between that draught and the lips for which it was
+intended? Was it she who baffled my plans, and put my neck in danger
+of the gallows? And will she consider it her duty to betray her
+father? These are fearful questions; but, come what may, I must know
+the worst. I will face this girl, hear what she has to say, and learn
+how far she dare accuse me.”
+
+The banker took one of the candlesticks from the dining-room table,
+and went upstairs to his daughter’s room.
+
+He knocked, and waited, listening for some moments; but there was no
+answer.
+
+He knocked again, with the same result.
+
+Then he spoke:
+
+“Julia,” he said, in a low but resolute tone, “it is I--your father.
+I beg you to admit me immediately.”
+
+He heard his daughter’s footsteps slowly approaching the door, and
+then a low voice answered, in broken accents:
+
+“Pray pardon me, papa. I cannot see you to-night. I am distracted
+with an excruciating headache, and really cannot see anyone.”
+
+“I cannot accept that excuse, Julia; I must see you, and immediately.
+I command you to admit me. I insist upon knowing your reasons for
+this most extraordinary conduct.”
+
+“Father, for pity’s sake--” cried the miserable girl, in an imploring
+voice that was broken by hysterical sobs.
+
+“If you do not unlock your door immediately, I will burst it open,”
+rejoined the banker resolutely.
+
+He had the desperate resolution of a man who feels that despair is
+close upon him, that death and danger are tracking his footsteps,
+and that only indomitable courage can save him from the fate he has
+merited.
+
+The key turned in the lock. The banker opened the door, and entered
+his daughter’s apartment.
+
+He shuddered, as he stood in presence of the girl, whose glorious
+beauty had been wont to shine upon him radiant with youth and
+happiness. To-night, he beheld the pale face of a woman whose heart
+has been racked with the anguish of despair.
+
+That colourless face looked soddened with tears. The dark luxuriant
+hair hung loosely about Julia Godwin’s shoulders; her hands were
+locked together, her white lips trembled convulsively, as she averted
+her gaze from the father whom she had once loved so dearly, but whose
+presence now inspired her with horror.
+
+“Julia,” said the banker, “I want to know the meaning of your conduct
+to-day. Why have you secluded yourself in this unusual manner, so
+obstinately refusing to admit anyone to your room?”
+
+“I have been very ill.”
+
+“In that case you must see the doctor. I will send one of the
+servants for Mr. Granger immediately.”
+
+“There is no occasion. My illness is not one that can be cured by Mr.
+Granger. It is an illness of the mind, rather than of the body.”
+
+“Julia!” cried the banker sternly, “are you going mad? There was
+something in your manner when you spoke this morning that was unlike
+the conduct of a rational being. What is amiss with you?”
+
+His daughter was silent. For a few moments she stood quite motionless,
+with her hands clasped, and her eyes fixed upon her father’s face
+with a heart-rending expression.
+
+“Father,” she said, after that brief silence, “I had a dream last
+night--a dream so horrible, that it has oppressed me throughout the
+day, and I cannot shake it off. It clings to me still. It will haunt
+me till I find forgetfulness in the grave. Shall I tell you that
+hideous dream?”
+
+“Yes, if telling it will give you relief.”
+
+“Nothing can give me relief. There is nothing but misery for me
+henceforward upon this earth. But I will tell you my dream. I dreamt
+last night that the sick man lying in this house was menaced by some
+terrible danger. I did not know the nature of the peril; but I knew
+that it was deadly peril, and close at hand. I thought that--guided
+always by some subtle instinct that was stronger than reason--I left
+my room in the dead of the night, resolved to watch over the helpless
+invalid, to save him if possible from the danger that threatened
+him. I did leave my room, and crept along the corridor with stealthy
+footsteps. I went into Mr. Wilton’s room, and found that the old
+woman who was set to watch him had fallen asleep at her post. That
+was the first part of the danger.”
+
+“Humph!” muttered the banker, “a commonplace dream enough, and a very
+natural one. You have troubled yourself a good deal more than was
+necessary or becoming about this protégé of yours.”
+
+“That is only the beginning of my dream, father,” answered Julia,
+“you will find the end of it neither commonplace nor natural. I
+had not been in the sick-room many moments, when I was startled
+by the sound of stealthy footsteps in the corridor outside.
+The same instinct that had prompted me to seek the sick man’s
+apartment prompted me now to hide--or it might be only a feeling of
+embarrassment at my strange position. I had no time for reflection;
+so, obeying the impulse of the moment, I concealed myself behind the
+curtains of the bed. From that hiding-place I saw a man enter the
+room. I saw the hand of a murderer mix poison with the medicine which
+was to be administered to the sleeper. I saw the assassin’s face;
+yes, father, as plainly as I see yours at this moment. O, Heaven!
+have pity upon me; when shall I forget the horror of that time?”
+
+“Pshaw!” exclaimed Rupert Godwin; “distempered dreams like these
+arise from a disordered brain. Beware how you indulge in them, Julia.
+They are the forerunners of madness. Such youth and beauty as yours
+would be sadly wasted in the padded room of a private lunatic asylum.
+Take my advice, Julia, and do not give way to the influence of evil
+dreams, lest such a fate should be yours.”
+
+This advice sounded like a threat. But Julia Godwin did not quail
+beneath her father’s stern gaze or threatening tone.
+
+“It would be better to be really mad than to suffer as I do,” she
+said.
+
+“Why should this dream affect you? It is as absurd and
+inconsequential as dreams usually are. What motive should anyone have
+for murdering your protégé? Besides, how did you know that the liquid
+mixed with the draught was poison?”
+
+“Because--in my dream--I caused the draught to be analyzed--or, at
+least, I consulted a surgeon as to its nature, and he told me that it
+contained prussic acid.”
+
+“A very strange dream. Come, Julia, let me hear no more of this
+folly. I shall remove you from here to-morrow, and shall take you
+with me to Brighton. If I do not speedily find you recovered from
+these morbid fancies, I shall conclude that your mind is seriously
+affected, and I shall place you under the charge of a medical man
+accustomed to deal with mental disorder.”
+
+“You would do that, father?” asked Julia; “you would declare me to be
+mad, and give me over to the care of a stranger?”
+
+“Yes, I would do so without a moment’s hesitation,” answered the
+banker resolutely, “if I saw reason for such a course. Once for
+all, I tell you, I will endure no folly of the kind which you have
+practised to-day. I know how to act when I am assailed by the morbid
+fancies of madness; and to prove my power to protect myself from
+the folly of others, I will tell you of something that has happened
+to-day--something that is _not_ a dream. But, first, come with me.”
+
+Rupert Godwin led the way to the apartment which had lately been
+occupied by Lionel Westford.
+
+“You see, Julia,” he said, pointing to the bed upon which the young
+man had so lately been lying, “this person, in whom you take so much
+interest that you must needs dream horrible dreams about him, has
+disappeared: you will never see him again.”
+
+“Great Heaven!” cried Julia, “he is dead! And you--_you_ dare tell me
+this!”
+
+“He is not dead; but he is as completely lost to the living as if he
+were buried in the deepest grave that was ever dug for mortal man. He
+was like you, Julia; and he had foolish fancies. He was tormented by
+some absurd idea about a murder--a foul deed which had no existence
+save in his own distempered imagination, but which, little by little,
+had shaped itself into a reality. Poor fellow! he could not abandon
+his dream, and the end of it is, that two qualified practitioners
+have pronounced him a confirmed maniac, and to-night he will sleep
+in that living tomb--a private lunatic asylum. And now, Julia, you
+can return to your room; I think we shall understand each other in
+future; and you will trouble me no more by the relation of ghastly
+dreams, that are as meaningless as they are unpleasant.”
+
+Once more the eyes of the father and daughter met--the girl’s
+expression sorrowful, despairing; the man’s gaze proudly defiant,
+with the defiance of a fiend.
+
+Julia did not utter another word. She turned from her father, and
+left the room with a slow step and a drooping head. It seemed to her
+as if the end of the world had come. She felt that she could not
+endure life now that her father had revealed himself to her in his
+true character.
+
+And the man she loved, what of him?
+
+“Heaven give me power to think calmly!” she murmured on her knees
+in her own room. “Let me plan some means for watching over him. An
+impulse, inspired by Providence, enabled me to save him from an
+untimely death. May the same Providence watch over him now in his
+helplessness, and enable me to rescue him from a life that can be
+little better than death!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Early next morning the banker went to his daughter’s room to order
+her immediate preparation for departure from Wilmingdon Hall. He
+intended to take her to London by an early train, and thence to
+Brighton.
+
+He found her rooms empty. Julia Godwin had fled from the home which
+had sheltered her from her girlhood.
+
+This was the last blow that fell upon him before he left
+Hertfordshire, and the stroke was a crushing one.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+THE CLERK’S STORY.
+
+
+While Gilbert Thornleigh was employed in putting the case of Harley
+Westford’s disappearance into the hands of the police, Clara sat in
+her shabby lodging, brooding over the troubles which environed her,
+until it seemed as if there was not one ray of sunshine to illumine
+the darkness of her fate.
+
+The mysterious disappearance of her daughter--her beloved Violet--was
+almost more horrible to contemplate than the dark fate of her brave
+and true-hearted husband.
+
+Harley Westford might have died the victim of treachery--he might
+have perished by the pitiless hand of the assassin; but the fate of
+Violet might be something worse than death.
+
+Shame--disgrace--degradation! These were the dangers which the mother
+dreaded for the daughter she loved. And she was quite helpless. She
+knew not what step to take--how to attempt a rescue of the lost girl.
+Sorrows had crowded upon her with a bewildering rapidity, and the
+sufferer succumbed beneath the force of a burden which hourly grew
+heavier and harder to bear. The revelation made by Gilbert Thornleigh
+had been the last overwhelming blow; and Clara Westford sat in a
+listless attitude, helpless, nerveless, apathetic, like a creature
+who had outlived all sense of sorrow. “Who am I? and where am I?” she
+asked herself; “are these troubles real, or are they part of some
+long feverish dream?”
+
+There comes a stage in human sorrow when the sufferer seems to
+lose all hold upon reality. The victim cannot understand why the
+chastisement should be so heavy, the cup of anguish so bitter and so
+deep. The brain refuses to grapple with the horrible realities that
+crowd upon it. There is a merciful pause in life’s fever, a dull
+apathy, which may perhaps be designed to save the anguish-stricken
+sufferer from madness.
+
+For Clara Westford this pause, this apathy, did not last long.
+
+One joy, at least, was in store for the woman upon whom so many
+sorrows had come with crushing force during the last twelve
+months--one joy, so wild and deep in its intensity, that the
+overwrought brain could scarcely sustain the sudden shock of so much
+joy.
+
+While Clara Westford sat by her bedside, with her head lying wearily
+upon the pillow, her tearless eyes fixed on the dingy ceiling above
+her with a blank unseeing stare, carriage-wheels sounded in the
+street below, and a vehicle drew up close at hand.
+
+The bedchamber opened out of the sitting-room, and the door of
+communication between them was open. Clara rushed to the window, and
+looked down into the street. Her heart throbbed tumultuously. She was
+in that over-excited state in which every incident alarms the mind.
+
+A very handsome close carriage, simple in its appointments, but drawn
+by a superb pair of horses, was standing before the door of the
+house. A bright face appeared at the window of the carriage--a lovely
+face, framed in clustering golden hair; a face which seemed like that
+of an angel to Clara Westford, for it was the face of her daughter.
+
+A servant opened the door of the carriage, and Violet alighted.
+She rushed into the house, and her mother heard the light familiar
+footstep hurrying up the stairs.
+
+She burst into a torrent of tears, the first she had shed since her
+daughter’s disappearance, and in the next moment Violet was clasped
+in her mother’s arms.
+
+Clara Westford saw that this was no heart-broken, dishonoured girl,
+who returned thus, radiant and smiling, to bury her beautiful face on
+her mother’s breast, and to cry amidst her passionate sobs:
+
+“Dear mother, I have come back to you! I have been rescued by a kind
+and noble friend; and we shall be happy together once more.”
+
+As she spoke the door was opened, and an elderly lady entered--a
+lady with a pale gentle face that had once been beautiful, and
+smoothly banded silver hair. This lady was the Dowager Marchioness of
+Roxleydale.
+
+“I have brought you back your daughter, Mrs. Westford,” said the
+Marchioness; “and I feel that I deserve your thanks, for the treasure
+I restore to you is a priceless one. If I have learnt to love this
+dear girl in a few hours, how tenderly must you love her who have
+known her for a lifetime!”
+
+The mother’s heart was full to overflowing. She uttered no word
+relating to Gilbert Thornleigh’s return, or to the ghastly mystery
+involved in Captain Westford’s disappearance. Her child was restored
+to her, and she taught herself to smile, while her heart was still
+racked by anxiety, that no cloud should overshadow the joy of
+Violet’s return.
+
+The Marchioness did not remain long with the mother and daughter.
+
+“I will not intrude upon your happiness,” she said; “but I shall
+hope not to lose sight of this sweet girl, whom my son’s wicked
+folly, instigated, I am sure, by bad advisers, has involved in so
+much trouble. I shall pay some visits while I am in town, and return
+to Essex this evening. But whenever I come to London I shall make
+a point of calling upon you. Violet has told me a good deal of her
+history; and if I can find any way of serving either herself or her
+brother through the influence of my friends, I shall not be slow to
+do so. In the mean time, she has given me a promise not to return
+to the perilous life of a theatre, as with her attainments and
+accomplishments, assisted by my hearty recommendation, she cannot
+fail to obtain very remunerative employment as a daily governess.
+There _are_ people in the world who know how to respect the ladies to
+whom they intrust the education of their children. I shall make it my
+business to find a lady in whose employment Violet will feel that she
+is respected and esteemed.”
+
+The Marchioness pressed Clara Westford’s hand, and kissed Violet
+almost as affectionately as if the grateful girl had been indeed her
+daughter.
+
+When she was gone, the mother and child sat down side by side,
+happy in the delight of being once more together; so happy in this,
+that the wife forgot for a few moments the mystery of her husband’s
+disappearance.
+
+But that bitter memory was very swift to return; and it was only by
+heroic self-control that Clara contrived to keep her daughter in
+ignorance of the anxiety which was gnawing at her heart.
+
+While they were sitting together, talking of Violet’s escape from
+danger, and of the warm friend she had found at a moment when she
+seemed to be surrounded by enemies, the servant of the house came
+into the room, and handed a visiting-card to Mrs. Westford.
+
+It was a dirty-looking, old-fashioned card, and upon it was inscribed
+a name that seemed vaguely familiar to Clara:
+
+                         MR. JACOB DANIELSON.
+              _Who entreats Mrs. Westford to grant him a
+                          private interview._
+
+These words were written in pencil below the name on the card.
+
+“Danielson!” murmured the widow; “I have an idea that the name was
+once familiar to me. And yet that may be only fancy--it is such a
+common name.”
+
+“The persing seemed very anxious to see you, mem,” said the girl who
+had brought the card.
+
+“What sort of person is he?”
+
+“A little old man, mem; very shabby and common-looking, with a hump
+on his pore old back, mem. He said he had somethink very particular
+to tell you.”
+
+“Something particular to tell me! If it should be--I will see him,
+Susan,” exclaimed the widow, with sudden agitation. “Go to your room,
+dear. I must see this man alone.”
+
+The slipshod maid-of-all-work ran down stairs to admit the stranger;
+and Clara Westford half led, half pushed Violet into the inner room,
+before the anxious girl had time to inquire into the cause of her
+mother’s agitation.
+
+In the next minute Jacob Danielson entered the little sitting-room,
+his hat in his hand, his head bent in a respectful attitude.
+
+“What is your business, sir?” asked Clara Westford, looking at him
+very anxiously.
+
+“You do not remember me, madam?”
+
+“Remember you? No!”
+
+“And yet it is only a day or two since you saw me. I am Mr. Rupert
+Godwin’s confidential clerk--the person of whom you and a young
+sailor made some inquiries respecting your missing husband.”
+
+“Yes, yes!” cried Clara eagerly; “I remember. And you have something
+to tell me? For pity’s sake do not trifle with me! If you knew what I
+suffer--”
+
+“I have something to tell you, madam--I have much to tell you. But I
+cannot yet give you any information about your husband. I came to you
+to-day to make you the offer of my friendship. But perhaps you will
+despise such an offer from such a person as I am?”
+
+“Despise your friendship! No, indeed, Mr. Danielson; I am in too much
+need of friends to despise the kindly feeling even of a stranger.”
+
+“You are changed, Mrs. Westford,” murmured the old clerk; “very much
+changed since I knew you.”
+
+“Since you knew me!” exclaimed Clara. “Have we ever been known to
+each other? Your name just now seemed familiar to me; but I have no
+recollection of you.”
+
+“No, Mrs. Westford!” cried Jacob Danielson, with a sudden burst of
+passion; “you cannot remember me, because the stamp of degradation
+is upon me. It is more than twenty years since I knew you. I was a
+man then, with some remnant of self-respect, though the world had
+begun to teach me how vile a thing I was, in my misshapen form,
+my low birth, my hopeless poverty. But I was a man then, with a
+man’s ambitious yearnings to climb some few steps of life’s great
+ladder. Now you look only upon a degraded ruin--the hideous wreck
+of that which was once a man. Mrs. Westford, do you remember, when
+you were completing your education at your father’s country seat,
+the humpbacked village schoolmaster who was employed to teach
+you classics? Do you remember reading Virgil during the summer
+afternoons, before you had grown too grand a lady to care about old
+Latin fables?”
+
+“I do remember the schoolmaster at the dear old park!” cried Clara.
+“Yes; and he was called Danielson. I knew that the name was familiar
+to me. And you are that very Mr. Danielson? Ah, then indeed you are
+sadly changed. I should never have recognized you.”
+
+“Yet I am not so much changed as the daughter of Sir John Ponsonby,”
+said the clerk, with an intensity of bitterness, “if she can deign to
+feel one spark of compassion for the wretch who stands before her.”
+
+“What do you mean, Mr. Danielson? It has not been my habit to refuse
+pity to anyone who needed it.”
+
+“Indeed!” cried Jacob Danielson, with sudden vehemence. “Ah! I see
+you have a convenient memory, Mrs. Westford. You have quite forgotten
+the day on which the humpbacked scholar was beaten like a rebellious
+hound at your bidding!”
+
+“Beaten!” exclaimed Clara, “at my bidding! What, in Heaven’s name, do
+you mean?”
+
+“O, Mrs. Westford, you have indeed forgotten the past,” said the
+clerk, in tones of quiet irony.
+
+“I have forgotten nothing,” answered Clara. “Pray sit down quietly
+and explain yourself. There must be some mistake in all this.”
+
+The clerk dropped listlessly into a chair.
+
+“It is so easy for the person who strikes the blow to forget,” he
+murmured, “but not so easy for the victim on whom the blow falls.”
+
+Clara looked at him, with perfect mystification in her countenance.
+
+“I am weary of these enigmas,” she said coldly; “pray speak plainly,
+Mr. Danielson.”
+
+“I will,” answered the clerk; “I will go back to the day when you
+were seventeen years of age--yes, it was your seventeenth birthday;
+and I had been teaching you for a year then, and had found you the
+brightest pupil whose apt intelligence ever sent a thrill of pride
+through a master’s heart. It was your birthday. You and some happy
+girls of your own age were to celebrate the day by a rustic _fête_.
+You were busy, decorating your favourite rooms with garlands of
+flowers, when I came that morning to give you your usual lesson. You
+told me that you were to have a holiday--there were to be no studies
+that day; but when I would have turned to leave you, Heaven knows how
+sorrowfully, you called me back, and invited me--me, the humpbacked,
+low-born, village schoolmaster--to share the day’s pleasure, to join
+in the simple festival.
+
+“Can I ever forget that day? Have I ever forgotten it? No, Mrs.
+Westford, not once in all these long dreary years has the memory of
+that bright summer morning faded away from me. I have drowned it in
+fiery drink--I have maddened my miserable brains with brandy; but I
+have never forgotten, and I never shall. Upon my deathbed the memory
+of my youth’s one passion will haunt me still, as it has haunted me
+all my life.
+
+“I can see you now as I saw you that day, Clara. Ah, let me call you
+Clara once more, as I did on that fatal day--as I have called you in
+my dreams ever since, as I shall call you with my latest breath when
+I die! What can it matter to you if such a wretch as I am insolent
+in the madness of my idolatry? What am I but a worm beneath your
+feet? Yes, Clara, I can see you now as I saw you then, with your soft
+brown hair falling in ringlets to your waist, and shot with wandering
+gleams of gold; your large dark eyes, blue with the serene azure
+of the skies; your parted lips, more lovely than if they had been
+sculptured out of coral. I had Catullus and Horace at my fingers’
+ends in those days, and all manner of poetic fancies used to arise
+in my mind as I looked at you. A garland of white lilies crowned
+your brow; but the loveliest of them was not fairer than yourself.
+You were pleased to be gracious to me; you bade me help you with the
+baskets of June roses, the honeysuckle, the seringa, which you were
+twining into wreaths and festoons to decorate your pretty rooms. The
+proud baronet’s lovely daughter did not know that the humpbacked
+schoolmaster was so mad, so presumptuous, as to love her with a
+devotion which the fairest of womankind does not always inspire even
+once in a lifetime--the devotion of the slavish idolater, who cries,
+Give me leave only to lie upon the ground under your feet, that I may
+be trampled out of life by the creature I adore!
+
+“Clara!” cried the clerk, with subdued vehemence, “I went mad
+altogether that day--I lost all consciousness of who and what I was.
+I might have had the rank of a duke, the wealth of a millionnaire,
+the beauty of an Adonis, for all the recollection I had of the
+monstrous gulf that separated you and me. I remembered only that you
+were beautiful, and that I loved you. In an evil moment my folly
+reached its climax. I spoke. I told you all. In one instant I was
+reminded of the audacity to which my wild passion had urged me. The
+daughter of Sir John Ponsonby answered my mad burst of passionate
+prayer with quiet dignity. She did not rebuke my presumption, but
+she let me understand how much I had presumed. Had all ended here,
+Clara, I could have borne my deserved humiliation, and I should have
+cherished your image as that of the purest and best of womankind,
+as well as the loveliest. But my punishment did not so end. Your
+wrath was not appeased by my humble apology. I slunk away from you
+abashed, repentant, and, as I thought, forgiven. You had deceived me
+by an appearance of mercy which you did not feel. As I was crossing
+the park, dejected, miserable, with my heart bleeding, and tears
+that were not all unmanly in my eyes, I was pursued, seized roughly,
+violently, by a couple of lacqueys, and dragged by brute force to
+your father’s study, where the infuriated baronet sprang on me, and
+horsewhipped me until I was unable to crawl from his presence. Then
+only was his fury appeased. He sent for a surgeon, and under the
+cover of night I was carried home to my lonely dwelling, where I
+recovered from my wounds as I might, unnoticed and unaided--except by
+a deaf old village crone who succoured me in my helplessness, and
+never thought of questioning the nature of my illness, which I told
+her arose from rheumatism.
+
+“Call it cowardice, if you like; I sought no redress from the man
+who had assaulted me; I kept the secret of my wrongs, and, as soon
+as I was sufficiently recovered, I threw up my situation and came
+to London, leaving my native place for ever, and leaving it a
+heart-broken man.
+
+“You had found it impossible to forgive the wretch who dared to
+love you, Clara, and who in an evil hour told you of his love. You
+urged your father to avenge a wrong which some women would have been
+merciful enough to pardon--for even the love of a Caliban is a kind
+of tribute.”
+
+“It is false!” cried Mrs. Westford, with passionate energy; “I never
+mentioned your name to my father on that day. I never knew until
+this moment that you had suffered an indignity, such a cruel wrong,
+at his hands. I remember, now, that my French governess was in the
+conservatory adjoining the room in which we were standing when you
+made that foolish avowal which I forgave as completely as I regretted
+that it should have been spoken. She overheard all, and threatened
+to tell my father. I implored her not to betray you, and I believed
+until this moment that she had kept your secret. For myself, I should
+have been the last to inflict humiliation upon a man whose learning
+I respected, and for whose patient kindness as a tutor I had good
+reason to be grateful.”
+
+“Mrs. Westford, is this true?” asked the clerk earnestly.
+
+“Look in my face, and doubt me if you can,” answered Clara.
+
+“No, I cannot doubt you,” answered Danielson, with a burst of
+emotion. “Truth beams from the eyes whose loveliness has haunted
+me throughout a lifetime. O, how I have wronged you! But it is not
+yet too late to repair that wrong; and it shall be repaired. Trust
+in me, Clara Westford; you have found a friend who will restore you
+your rights--an avenger who will bring your enemy, Rupert Godwin, to
+justice.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+THE DUKE OF HARLINGFORD MAKES A DISCOVERY.
+
+
+Esther Vanberg was buried in a churchyard north-west of London, a
+rustic spot on the summit of a hill--a churchyard in which a poet
+might love to lie and dream away the summer hours. Old yew-trees
+spread their solemn shadows on the velvet grass, and the pure hues
+of white marble monuments glimmered here and there among the dark
+foliage.
+
+The Jewess had noticed this spot once when riding a little way out of
+town with her devoted lover; and she had said, half playfully, that
+if she could choose her own grave she would desire nothing better
+than to be buried in that sequestered churchyard.
+
+Vincent Mountford, who forgot no sentiment that those beloved lips
+had ever expressed, took care that this wish should be religiously
+observed.
+
+The Jewess was buried in one of the fairest spots in that rustic
+churchyard. The funeral was entirely without ostentation, and there
+was only one mourner; but perhaps there are few graves over which
+such tears are shed as those which filled the eyes of Vincent
+Mountford, while the rector was reading the solemn service of the
+dead.
+
+All was over, and the young man drove slowly back to town. All was
+over! Alas, how much anguish is conveyed in those three little words!
+
+The last office of love had been performed, and there was no more to
+be done but to leave the quiet churchyard where the loved one lay in
+a tranquil slumber,
+
+      Deeper than the frost can bite,
+      Deeper than the hail can smite,
+      Deep asleep by day and night,
+                    Our delight.
+
+For a time at least the Duke of Harlingford was a broken-hearted man.
+The glories of his four-in-hand, the finest team in England, had
+no further charm for him. Other men of his class were deep in the
+delights and excitements of English races and regattas, or hurrying
+off to ride in continental steeplechases, or to lose their money at
+German spas. But Vincent Mountford felt as if these things could
+give him no more pleasure; they were all alike “stale, flat, and
+unprofitable,” and he turned from his familiar friends with a kind of
+loathing.
+
+“I never saw a fellow so awfully cut up,” said the Duke’s intimates
+to each other dolefully. “There’ll be no shooting at Mountford’s
+place this season, and no chance of his standing in for a moor with
+Bothwell Wallace, as he talked of doing.”
+
+It is a bad day for wild Prince Hal’s companions when the prince
+takes to wearing sack-cloth and bestrewing his head with ashes.
+There were some irreverent worldings who complained that it was
+a hard thing Miss Vanberg must needs break her back before the
+shooting-season, and at a time when the grouse promised more than
+usually good sport.
+
+Vincent Mountford wrote to one of the first sculptors in England,
+begging him to design a monument for the grave of a dearly-loved
+friend--a lady who had died in the zenith of her days; but he did not
+reveal the name of her whose tomb that monument was to adorn.
+
+“Let her sleep far away from the memories of her wasted life,” he
+thought sadly; “and let those who look upon her resting place know
+only that she was young and beautiful and beloved.”
+
+A sad task remained for Vincent Mountford after the burial of the
+Jewess. He had promised to examine her papers, to arrange the many
+valuable things she left behind her, and to see that the proceeds of
+their sale were handed over to the girl whom Esther Vanberg had so
+deeply injured.
+
+This girl was only known to the Duke as Miss Watson, the _figurante_
+of the Circenses. From the stage-doorkeeper at the theatre he
+obtained Violet’s address; then sent for his lawyer, and placed in
+his hands the carrying out of Esther’s last wish.
+
+But before the day appointed for the sale--before the auctioneer’s
+assistants entered the _bijou_ little residence in Bolton-row, and
+those expensive frivolities on which Esther had squandered a small
+fortune _pour se distraire_, were duly set forth in the flourishing
+language of a fashionable auctioneer’s catalogue--Vincent Mountford
+went alone to examine and destroy the papers left by the Jewess, so
+that nothing which she might have wished to keep sacred should fall
+into the hands of strangers. The task was a very painful one; and
+the young man would have encountered death in its most terrific form
+with a pang less keen than he now felt as he went up the familiar
+staircase in the bright summer noontide,--that staircase at the top
+of which he had so often seen her standing looking down at him, ready
+to scold or to praise him, as the humour of the moment prompted her,
+but always charming to that one faithful slave who never found his
+chains too heavy.
+
+He entered alone into those elegant little rooms, which Esther’s
+beauty had adorned, as some priceless jewel adorns the casket that
+contains it.
+
+The same exotics were blooming in the conservatory--the faded
+bouquets, on whose fresh bloom the eyes of the dead had looked, still
+remained undisturbed in the vases in which her hands had arranged
+them.
+
+The birds were singing gaily in the sunshine, though the white hands
+that had so often tended them lay still and cold in their last
+resting-place. A little dog, Esther’s favourite, whined piteously as
+he looked up at the Duke, and this faithful creature was the only
+object in those rooms that bore witness of the melancholy event which
+had almost broken Vincent Mountford’s heart.
+
+He took from his pocket the little bunch of keys given him by the
+Jewess, and seated himself before the piece of furniture, half
+cabinet, half writing-table, in which she had kept her papers.
+
+Nothing could have been more careless than her habits. The Duke
+sat for long hours, that would have wearied another man, trying to
+introduce some order into that mass of bills and letters, notes of
+invitation, tradesmen’s circulars, catalogues of pictures, playbills,
+programmes of concerts, and crumpled receipts.
+
+At last he had looked over them all, and had placed on one side every
+fragment of paper which bore any of the beloved handwriting. These
+he sorted and folded, as tenderly as a miser might fold a packet of
+bank-notes; and when he had collected the last of them, he packed
+them very neatly in a sheet of foolscap, and sealed the packet in
+several places with his signet-ring.
+
+Upon this packet he wrote only these few words:
+
+“Esther’s papers. To be burnt immediately after my death--unopened.”
+
+He had no wish that the prying eyes of strangers should ever inspect
+those records of the woman he had loved; frivolous, meaningless,
+though the greater number of them were. Nor yet could he bring
+himself to destroy the smallest paper on which the beloved hand had
+inscribed the most commonplace words.
+
+The rest of the papers, with the exception of tradesmen’s bills and
+receipts, he burnt.
+
+Then he turned his attention to the few remaining contents of the
+odorous sandal-wood pigeon-holes into which Miss Vanberg had thrust
+papers, trinkets, faded flowers, and worn gloves, without the
+smallest attempt at classification.
+
+Among these there was a miniature set in a rim of pearls.
+
+It was the picture of a lovely woman, a Spanish Jewess, whose face
+proclaimed her at once the mother of the dead girl.
+
+On the back of the gold case which contained the miniature was
+engraved the inscription:
+
+                  “FROM RUPERT TO HIS BELOVED LOLA.”
+
+The Duke examined the miniature very closely and then it suddenly
+occurred to him--
+
+Was there not, perhaps, something more than this inscription--some
+hidden spring in the case of the miniature, which might reveal a
+secret that Esther Vanberg had been too careless to discover?
+
+“I will take it to my jeweller,” muttered the young man; “if there is
+anything hidden in this massive case--which seems needlessly thick
+and heavy--he is the most likely person to find it out.”
+
+The Duke was not slow to carry out this idea. He drove straight from
+Bolton-row to a jeweller’s in Bond-street, and handed the locket to
+one of the assistants.
+
+“If there is anyone in your establishment who understands the
+mechanism of these things better than you do, I should be very glad
+if you would take him this, and ask him to examine it,” he said. “I
+will wait while you do so.”
+
+The Duke seated himself by the counter, and after he had been waiting
+ten minutes, the jeweller’s assistant returned with an elderly man,
+who held the locket open in his hand.
+
+He had discovered a secret spring, the nature of which he explained
+to Vincent Mountford.
+
+“Nobody except a working jeweller could have opened the locket,” he
+said in conclusion; “for the spring has evidently not been used for
+years. It is a very peculiar piece of jeweller’s work, and has been
+made by no English mechanic. The gold and the workmanship are both
+undoubtedly foreign.”
+
+The inner case of the locket contained a second miniature--the
+portrait of a young man; a dark handsome face, which seemed very
+familiar to the Duke of Harlingford.
+
+As he drove away from the jeweller’s he brooded thoughtfully upon
+that pictured face, trying, but without success, to remember when and
+where he had seen a face resembling it.
+
+“Those dark eyes, that peculiar mouth, are strangely familiar to me,”
+he thought; “and yet I cannot tell whom they recall to my mind.”
+
+The Duke drove across Waterloo Bridge, and sought out the obscure
+street in which Clara Westford and her children had lived during the
+days of their poverty. He had obtained the _figurante’s_ address from
+the door-keeper at the Circenses, and he was now going to announce to
+her with his own lips the news of her good fortune.
+
+All the practical part of the business he left to his lawyer; but he
+wished himself to tell Miss Watson of the money which had been left
+to her; as he fancied that he should thus more completely carry out
+Esther Vanberg’s dying request. He found the house in which Clara and
+her daughter lodged; sent up his card by the servant with a request
+that he might see Miss Watson on most urgent business.
+
+He was shown immediately into the shabbily furnished sitting-room, to
+which a certain air of refinement had been imparted by Mrs. Westford
+and her daughter at a very small cost. A few books, a vase of
+flowers, a caged bird, and a work-basket of graceful form, were the
+most expensive ornaments Violet had been able to buy; but even these
+small things relieved the sordid vulgar poverty of the room.
+
+Clara Westford was sitting on one side of the little table, working;
+while her daughter sat opposite to her, reading aloud.
+
+She closed the book as the Duke of Harlingford entered.
+
+He remembered Violet at the Circenses only as a very lovely
+girl; he perceived now for the first time that she was a perfect
+lady--self-possessed, and yet modest; and to Vincent Mountford’s
+mind, more beautiful in her well-worn black dress and simple linen
+collar than she had been in her brilliant stage costume.
+
+He seated himself, at Mrs. Westford’s request; and then he told
+Violet in a very few words that he was empowered to inform her of a
+small fortune that had been left her by a person whose name was to be
+kept a secret.
+
+“The bequest consists of a balance in the hands of the testator’s
+banker, and of personal property of a valuable character, which is to
+be sold, in order that the proceeds of the sale may be handed to you
+with the other money in one sum. The amount will not be a large one.
+Four or five thousand pounds at most.”
+
+Four or five thousand! It seemed an enormous sum to Violet, who had
+felt the keenest pangs of poverty. She burst into hysterical tears;
+for she was completely overcome by the thought that henceforward her
+mother might be spared at least the anguish of want.
+
+But suddenly she wiped her tears away, and addressed the Duke with
+imploring earnestness.
+
+“O, sir,” she exclaimed, “are you sure that no degradation attaches
+to this mysterious bequest? Why should this money be left to me by a
+person who conceals his name? Can you assure me, on your honour, that
+I am justified in accepting this unexpected wealth?”
+
+“I give you my word, as a gentleman, that you are justified in taking
+the money that has been left you,” answered the Duke gravely. “It
+is bequeathed by a lady who once did you an injury, and who most
+sincerely repented that wrong before she died. The thought that the
+gift of her fortune might do something to repair that injury was a
+solace to her on her deathbed. And I assure you that you would be
+actuated by a false pride were you to reject this bequest.”
+
+“In that case, I will accept it, gratefully, gladly,” returned
+Violet. “You would wish me to do so, would you not, mamma?”
+
+“Yes, Violet; for if I can believe in the evidence of an honest face,
+I am sure this gentleman would not advise you to take a false step,”
+said Mrs. Westford.
+
+The Duke bowed.
+
+“I am here to execute the last wishes of the dead,” he answered
+mournfully.
+
+“But I never knew that anyone had wronged me,” exclaimed Violet,
+“except one person; and that was not a lady, but a gentleman--or,
+at any rate, a person whose rank gave him a right to be called a
+gentleman.”
+
+“You will never know the entire history of that wrong,” answered the
+Duke. “I rejoice to see you here in safety with your mother, and to
+know that you have therefore escaped from all serious peril. As for
+the bequest, of which I have informed you, I beg you to accept it
+when it reaches you without question, and let the dead be forgiven.”
+
+Little more was said; and the Duke departed, pleased, even in the
+midst of his grief, by the knowledge that Esther Vanberg’s fortune
+had fallen into the hands of a deserving girl.
+
+From Lambeth he drove to his club, where he dismissed his cab and
+strolled into the reading-room.
+
+He had no wish for society; but solitude was very terrible to him,
+for it was haunted by the shadow of the dead--the mournful memories
+of the loved and the lost.
+
+He fell back, therefore, into his old habits, and took his accustomed
+seat in the public reading-room, though not without a strange sense
+of wonder that he should be able to take his place amongst other
+men, to read the evening papers, and talk in the conventional manner
+about the events recorded in them, while she was lying in that quiet
+churchyard.
+
+Could she indeed be there? Was it true? Was it possible? The
+catastrophe which had caused her death he could realize--her death
+itself; but not the fact that all was so completely finished,
+so entirely a thing of the past; and that she was lying in her
+grave--never to look upon him again on this earth, unconscious of his
+love, regardless of his anguish, a creature for ever removed from him
+and the world of which he was a part. He sat for upwards of an hour,
+with a newspaper before him, brooding over the great mystery. There
+were very few people in the reading-room at this time, for it was
+late. The dusk was closing in already; and the _habitués_ of the club
+were almost all of them dining in one of the larger apartments.
+
+The Duke left his seat by-and-by, and walked to the window. The room
+was very dreary in the waning daylight, and the street below the
+windows was almost deserted, the West-end world having gone home to
+dine.
+
+A gentleman was seated close to the open window reading a paper; he
+lowered the sheet from before his face and looked up, as Vincent
+Mountford approached him.
+
+This gentleman was Rupert Godwin, the banker. He had come to town
+in search of Julia, and had dropped into the club, pale and worn
+out by fatigue, to take a hasty dinner. He had heard nothing of his
+missing daughter; and he had just returned from the office of a
+private detective, whom he had been consulting as to the best means
+of seeking her.
+
+In his own words, the web was closing round him. Narrower and
+narrower grew the fatal circle; and he scarcely knew which way to
+step without finding himself face to face with some new danger.
+
+As he looked up at the Duke of Harlingford, whom he had met very
+frequently in society and in the familiar intercourse of the club
+reading-room, he tried to affect some of his old ease of manner,
+though the effort was a painful one.
+
+“Good-evening, Duke,” he exclaimed. “How is it that I find you
+here at an hour when you ought to be glorifying some Belgravian
+dinner-table by your presence?”
+
+The young man looked intently at that pale face, those un-English
+black eyes, dimly seen in the gathering dusk. This face--the face
+of Rupert Godwin the banker--was the image which had floated before
+his mental vision since he had seen the hidden miniature in Esther
+Vanberg’s locket. The face in the portrait was the youthful likeness
+of that face on which Vincent Mountford now looked.
+
+The Duke knew something of the banker’s history. He knew that Rupert
+Godwin had, in his early manhood, been a resident in Spain, where a
+branch house belonging to the banker had been carried on by a junior
+partner.
+
+Rapid as lightning an electric chain of ideas flashed through the
+mind of the Duke.
+
+This man, this banker, half Spaniard, half English, was the betrayer
+of the beautiful Spanish Jewess, and the father of Esther Vanberg.
+
+Occupied as Mr. Godwin was with his own thoughts, he could not help
+perceiving the strange expression, the solemn earnestness, in the
+Duke of Harlingford’s face.
+
+“There is something amiss with you to-night, is there not?” he asked.
+
+“Yes,” answered Vincent Mountford: “I have lately lost one who was
+most dear to me. It is but a very short time since I stood beside
+the grave of the only woman I ever loved. Do you know the name of
+Vanberg, Mr. Godwin?”
+
+The banker started; and pale though his face had been, it grew a
+shade paler as he looked up nervously at the Duke.
+
+The young man handed him the miniature of the beautiful Jewess.
+
+“Did you ever see this before?” he asked.
+
+The shrinking, half-shuddering movement with which Rupert Godwin
+recoiled from that faded miniature in its jewelled case told enough.
+
+“Your daughter, your abandoned, forgotten daughter, would have cursed
+you on her dying bed, Rupert Godwin,” said the Duke, solemnly, “if
+the shadow of death had not softened all things before her eyes. She
+uttered no word of love or forgiveness--she only told me the story
+of her life. The days of duelling are past, or I might tell you more
+plainly what I think of a man who leaves two helpless women to starve
+in the streets of London. As it is, I will say only that you and I
+had better meet as strangers after to-night.”
+
+The Duke bowed gravely, and turned his back upon the man who had once
+carried his head so proudly amongst the noblest frequenters of that
+room. Now he had no word of defiance to utter. He felt that the fatal
+circle was narrowing. A strange influence had been upon him for the
+last few days, and all his old hardihood of spirit seemed to have
+deserted him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE FACE OF THE LOST.
+
+
+The Retreat, the abode in which Dr. Wilderson Snaffley received his
+patients, was a place which seemed eminently calculated to drive the
+sanest person mad.
+
+Dismal walls of an unusual height, and ornamented at the top with
+iron spikes, surrounded a dreary wilderness of tangled bushes and
+tall lean poplars, which was designated a garden. In the centre
+of this garden stood a high square house; a house which had once
+been white, but from whose damp-stained walls the stucco had peeled
+off in great patches. Long rows of curtainless windows, every one
+the precise pattern of its neighbour, looked out upon the dismal
+wilderness. There were not even blinds to shut out the glaring heat
+of the sun; but wooden shutters, painted black, swung to and fro
+before the windows with every gust of wind, and the rusty hinges
+made a dreary creaking noise, that was like the groaning of a human
+creature in pain.
+
+This was the place of which Dr. Snaffley spoke so pleasantly to
+the friends of his patients, describing it always as “a delightful
+country mansion, standing in the midst of its own grounds.”
+
+But the doctor knew his patrons; and he was not deluded by the
+sympathetic looks or compassionate phrases of the people who
+intrusted their relatives to his keeping, and who took no trouble
+to ascertain the nature of the place that sheltered the afflicted
+creatures, or the comforts that softened their calamity. Dr. Snaffley
+knew that no one who entered the gates of the Retreat would have
+committed a beloved relative to his care. The unfortunates who came
+to that dark abode were people who were to be _got rid of_. No
+matter how cheerless the home, how wretchedly furnished the room,
+how miserable the daily fare, how chill and damp the atmosphere; the
+patients were only likely to die the sooner, and the bitterly-grudged
+stipend cease to be paid.
+
+Dr. Snaffley took patients at different rates, for he varied his
+charge according to the circumstances of the persons who employed
+him. His policy was neither to ill-use his patients nor to starve
+them; his policy was to keep them alive at the smallest possible
+cost. He was not personally cruel; but he allowed the men and women
+he employed to do pretty much as they liked; while he lived his
+own life, and enjoyed himself after his own manner in London, only
+putting in an appearance at the Retreat now and then.
+
+In that joyless, comfortless mansion there was, it may be hoped, less
+actual cruelty than in some of those dens of iniquity which have
+encumbered this beautiful earth. There were padded rooms, into which
+the dangerous lunatics were thrust, and kept under lock and key; but
+the harmless lunatics were allowed considerable liberty. The walls
+were so high, and the neighbourhood so utterly desolate, that there
+was little chance either of escape or of communication being held
+with the outer world.
+
+By far the larger number of his patients, and those for whom Dr.
+Wilderson Snaffley was the most liberally paid, _were not mad_, but
+were the wretched victims who, for some reason or other, had been
+put out of the way by their unnatural relatives upon the infamous
+pretence of insanity.
+
+These patients were very quiet. At first they were loud in
+their complaints. They cried out bitterly for justice; they
+threatened--they implored--they wept--they wrote letters, and tried
+with piteous persistence to hold some communication with the outer
+world--to find some means of reaching the ear of mercy, of enlisting
+the voice of justice in their cause. But no eye save that of Heaven
+saw their sufferings; no mortal ear but that of merciless gaolers
+heard their complaints; and in time they were all wearied out, one
+after another, and submitted with a stupid apathy to an inevitable
+fate. A hopeless, changeless melancholy took possession of them. They
+sat motionless at the windows, staring blankly out upon the gloomy
+prospect. They rarely conversed with one another; for what could they
+talk of in that living grave?
+
+Sometimes they roamed listlessly in the dreary wilderness, staring
+at those walls which shut them out from all they had ever loved
+or cherished. They ate their scanty meals in despondent silence.
+The wild chatter of the really mad patients tortured them with its
+discordant jargon; and they had no heart to speak amidst the Babel
+that surrounded them.
+
+Thus it was not strange that many who entered that place as sane as
+the wretches who sent them there became at last raving maniacs.
+
+All Dr. Snaffley wanted was the liberty to enjoy himself abroad, and
+the power to save a fortune for his old age from the profits of the
+Retreat. He was already rich; but every day brought him new wealth,
+and every day made him more greedy of gain.
+
+Still, notwithstanding the _good luck_ that had attended his dreary
+abode for many years, Dr. Snaffley had never before caught so rich
+a prize as the patient committed to his care by Rupert Godwin the
+banker.
+
+The proprietor of the Retreat knew his power; he knew that the
+patient called Lewis Wilton, who had been placed under his care, was
+capable of revealing a secret that might have condemned Rupert Godwin
+to a felon’s doom.
+
+The patient once within the walls of the Retreat, the secret was
+safe--as safe as if it had been buried in the grave of a second
+victim.
+
+“If Rupert Godwin had dared, he would have murdered this young man,”
+thought Dr. Snaffley; “he only pays me because he hasn’t pluck enough
+to play the bolder game.”
+
+For some days and nights after his removal to the Retreat, Lionel
+Westford remained still unconscious--still a prey to delirious
+fancies, to terrible visions, to all the wild delusions of a violent
+attack of brain-fever.
+
+But Dr. Wilderson Snaffley, although a scoundrel and a charlatan,
+was not without a certain cleverness in his professional capacity.
+He prescribed for the young man with a watchful care that he did not
+often bestow upon a patient, for Lionel Westford’s life was worth
+five hundred pounds a year to him--more than the income derived from
+five ordinary patients.
+
+For this reason the invalid enjoyed privileges that had never before
+been shown to any inmate of the Retreat.
+
+A private bedchamber was allotted to him, instead of a miserable
+truckle-bed in one of the bare wards, where twenty patients slept
+side by side, with the wind whistling round them from the chinks in
+the worm-eaten doors and window-frames. The battered furniture of the
+dreary mansion was ransacked in order that a tolerably comfortable
+bed and a dilapidated easy-chair might be found for Lionel’s private
+room.
+
+The fever-stricken young man progressed very rapidly in the hands of
+his new attendant; and in little more than a week after his removal
+from Wilmingdon Hall the patient had recovered consciousness.
+
+That recovery of consciousness was the most awful hour in Lionel
+Westford’s life--more awful even than the hour in which, stricken by
+the revelation of his father’s murder, he fell senseless on the turf
+in Wilmingdon Park.
+
+As he opened his eyes and stared stupidly about him, trying
+helplessly to remember where he was, the bare and wretched aspect of
+the chamber sent a deadly chill to his heart.
+
+Where was he? Never before had he seen those dreary, dirty walls.
+That dingy paper, with its geometrical pattern in dirty yellow and
+faded brown, falling in tattered shreds here and there, and looking
+as if it had not been renewed for twenty years, and those bare
+carpetless boards, belonged to no chamber that he could remember;
+for, poor and shabby though his Lambeth lodging had been, it had at
+least been clean, and here all looked dirty and disorderly. At first
+the invalid’s mind was too weak to arrive at any definite conclusion.
+He could only lie staring at the wretched chamber, with a vague
+wonder in his mind.
+
+He knew he had never before been in that room; but for a time that
+was all he knew or sought to know. He was not terrified by its
+strangeness. He did not recollect where he had last been, or what had
+happened to him. His mind was almost a blank.
+
+Then, little by little, memory came back, with all its power to
+torture. He remembered his pretty bedchamber at Wilmingdon Hall--the
+perfume of flowers blowing in at the open window, the luxurious
+furniture, the comfort and beauty of all around him.
+
+Then the image of Julia Godwin arose before him in all the splendour
+of her beauty. Then a dark form pushed that brilliant image aside,
+and the face of the banker scowled at him with hate and fear in every
+lineament.
+
+It was the countenance that had so often looked down upon him in
+his delirium. It looked on him now, as it had looked then; and it
+recalled the memory of the crime that had been committed in the
+northern wing.
+
+Then the picture was complete. Lionel remembered all the past--the
+mystery which it had been his fate to discover; the secret which
+Providence had revealed to him; the evidence that had been link by
+link united into one perfect chain, identifying the Captain of the
+_Lily Queen_ with the victim of Rupert Godwin.
+
+But where was he? How had he been removed from the luxurious chamber
+which had been his to this dismal and poverty-stricken room, such
+as no gentleman’s servant would have occupied without complaining
+bitterly of the master who allotted it to him?
+
+He fancied that he must have been removed into some desolate and
+disused chamber in Wilmingdon Hall. He was in the north wing,
+perhaps, in one of the bedchambers of that forgotten building, which
+ignorant people believed to be haunted by the shadows of the dead.
+
+It was noon when Lionel Westford lay helpless in his lonely chamber,
+with the anguish of consciousness, instead of the childish fancies
+of delirium. The sunlight streamed into the room through the narrow
+opening of a shutter which had been blown against the outside of the
+window.
+
+The window reached to the ground; and the young man was still
+scrutinizing his apartment with curious eyes, when the shutter was
+blown back from the window, and the chamber, which had been only
+dimly lighted before, was suddenly exposed to the full glare of the
+mid-day sun.
+
+Lionel Westford turned his gaze from the chamber itself to the
+prospect without.
+
+In all this time he had never once doubted that he was still an
+inmate of Wilmingdon Hall. He fancied that he had only been removed
+to some remote and uninhabited part of the house, where his ravings
+could not be heard--where no prying ear could listen to the ominous
+words which might fall from his lips.
+
+He believed this, and he was not disabused of his error; for, by a
+strange coincidence, the scene which met his eyes beyond the window
+of his room was not unlike the neglected garden which was to be seen
+from the windows of the northern wing.
+
+There all was ruin and desolation--overgrown shrubs, whose straggling
+branches were strangers to the gardener’s pruning-knife, long rank
+grass, ill-looking weeds, moss-grown gravel. Here were the same
+weeds, the same rank grass, blown to and fro by the autumn wind, the
+same weird tangled bushes, withering under the autumn sun.
+
+The northern garden at Wilmingdon Hall was shut in by an old brick
+wall; a noble mass of brickwork, with buttresses that might have
+served to sustain the ramparts of some mediæval castle. Here too the
+wall loomed, dark and dismal-looking, against the blue autumn sky.
+
+“Yes,” muttered Lionel Westford; “they have removed me to the
+northern wing. The murderer feared to hear himself denounced by the
+lips of his victim’s son; and he has banished me here--here, where I
+may lie forgotten and neglected; here, where _she_ may never know my
+fate! I only wonder that he has let me live; for he must know that,
+if I am ever able to leave this place, I shall devote the rest of my
+life to the task of bringing my father’s assassin to justice.”
+
+Then, as he put the story of the past together bit by bit, Lionel
+Westford remembered that he had entered Wilmingdon Hall under an
+assumed name. He did not think of his mother’s letter, or his
+father’s miniature--two things which bore direct evidence to his
+identity.
+
+“I am only a stranger to Rupert Godwin,” thought the young man,
+“unless in my delirium--for I suppose I have been delirious--I have
+revealed who I am, and my knowledge of his iniquity. Surely, if I had
+done so, he would have murdered me while I lay helpless in his power,
+as he murdered my father; and since I live, I may be sure that I owe
+my life to his ignorance.”
+
+For some time he lay too weak to move, gazing straight before him at
+the desolate garden, the neglected weeds waving drearily to and fro
+in the wind.
+
+“Strange,” he thought, “very strange, that they should have banished
+me to the building within whose walls my father met his fate.”
+
+Then, with a faint thrill of that latent superstition which lurks in
+almost every breast, he remembered the ghastly stories he had heard
+about that northern wing--the shrouded form which had scared ignorant
+intruders, and sent them shrieking from that deserted edifice.
+
+He remembered all this now. He had smiled at the foolish stories
+when they were told him, and had laughed to scorn the servants’ talk
+of ghosts and goblins; but now, weakened by his illness, prostrate,
+lonely, and wretched, Lionel thought very differently of the gloomy
+regions of which he fancied himself an inhabitant.
+
+As the dreary moments crept on, intolerably long while they left him
+in such miserable uncertainty with regard to his fate, the invalid’s
+spirits sank lower and lower, and the agonizing tears of despair
+filled his eyes.
+
+Then a kind of superstitious horror took possession of him. His
+utter loneliness, the strange quiet of the place, oppressed him to
+an extreme degree. The thought of his father’s assassination became
+every moment more vivid, until he pictured the scene of horror in all
+its hideous detail.
+
+“O, God!” he exclaimed, bursting into a flood of hysterical tears,
+“if Rupert Godwin does know who I am, it must have been by the
+instinct of a refined and hellish cruelty that he decided upon
+banishing me to this deserted building. If ever the dead yet haunted
+the living, surely my father’s shadow will haunt me.”
+
+The words had scarcely escaped his lips, the tears were still wet
+upon his cheeks, when a dark form suddenly came between him and the
+sunlight.
+
+A white death-like face looked in at him with a wan melancholy gaze.
+
+Lionel Westford lifted himself from the pillow, uttered a wild
+prolonged shriek, and then fell back unconscious.
+
+It was his father’s face that had looked at him through the sunlit
+window--the face of the Captain of the _Lily Queen_, the face that
+had smiled upon him in the days of his careless boyhood; but changed
+into the face of death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+SUSPENSE.
+
+
+Rupert Godwin was too desperately circumstanced, and too hardened
+a sinner, to be much affected by the revelation made by the Duke
+of Harlingford with regard to Esther Vanberg’s identity with his
+deserted daughter. Are there human beings created without that
+attribute of the mind, that natural love and tenderness, pity and
+remorse, which we blend into one general whole and call “a heart”?
+
+It would seem so; it would seem as if there are some natures in
+which there is no such element as heart or conscience. These are the
+exceptional criminals whom men wonder at, and whose iniquities the
+merciful are apt to ascribe to mental disease.
+
+The banker had been struck by Esther Vanberg’s likeness to the lovely
+Spanish Jewess whom his treachery had lured from the home of a
+doting father, a rich wine-merchant of Seville, who had toiled long
+and patiently in order to amass the fortune which was to secure the
+future welfare of his only child, Lola. The girl was engaged to be
+married to the cashier in the Seville banking-house belonging to the
+Godwin firm, when the young _roué_ saw her, and at once determined to
+oust his inferior.
+
+Rupert Godwin was handsomer and more polished than his _employé_.
+He was already a man of the world; the cashier was only an honest
+and devoted lover, eager to achieve a better position in life before
+he claimed the heiress of old Isaac Mendez. While the young man
+worked at his bureau, the employer hung about the footsteps of the
+merchant’s daughter, followed her to church and bull-fight, bribed
+her old nurse, flattered and fooled her doting father, and turned the
+poor girl’s head by his impassioned pleading. The end came only too
+quickly--the hackneyed conclusion of the hackneyed story.
+
+Lola let herself quietly out of the paternal dwelling one starless,
+airless summer night, and left Seville under the protection of Rupert
+Godwin. They started at once for Paris, where Lola had been told the
+marriage would take place. There were reasons why it could not be
+performed at Seville. Mr. Godwin’s father had formed plans of his own
+for his son’s matrimonial settlement, and for a time the marriage
+would have to be kept secret.
+
+“There is no safer place than Paris,” said Rupert; and Lola, who had
+heard Paris talked of as a kind of earthly elysium, was quite ready
+to agree to this proposal.
+
+In Paris the banker lodged his divinity in one of the prettiest
+villas in the Champs Elysées, a _bijou_ mansion built and decorated
+in the Moorish style, at a fabulous outlay, for a Muscovite prince
+lately deceased, and bought under the hammer by Mr. Godwin at about
+ten per cent of its original cost. In this luxurious nest Lola Mendez
+found herself a kind of fairy princess--flattered, beloved; but she
+never became the wife of Rupert Godwin.
+
+Rupert Godwin had thought it quite probable that the _figurante_
+might be his own daughter; but he had concerned himself no more about
+her fortunes in her lovely and reckless womanhood than he had done in
+her deserted girlhood.
+
+But when the Duke showed him the portrait of his victim, the proud
+man did feel the humiliation of his position. He winced beneath
+the cold contempt of the generous young patrician, for he was not
+without the plebeian’s natural reverence for rank, and it was hard to
+be despised by a duke. He had sunk so very low now, that every new
+stroke wounded him to the quick. Hemmed in on every side by danger, a
+superstitious terror had taken possession of him, and he saw in every
+incident of his troubled life a new omen of ruin.
+
+His daughter’s flight had filled him with unspeakable fear. He had
+loved this girl with the bad man’s selfish love, which sees in the
+beloved object only a source of pleasure or happiness to himself;
+still, he had loved her, and he felt her desertion deeply.
+
+But this was the least element in his trouble. Julia knew his guilty
+secret; she doubtless possessed the proof that in intention, if not
+in act, he was a poisoner.
+
+Would she betray him? Surely, not willingly. But she might be seized
+with a fever, such as that which had stricken Lionel Westford, and
+in her delirium she might utter the accusing words which would lead,
+perhaps, step by step, to the discovery of all his crimes.
+
+Ah, if the criminal could only foresee the agonies that follow the
+commission of crime, even when the torturing voice of conscience
+is dumb; if he could calculate the labour, the patience, the
+self-abnegation, the watchfulness which will be required of him
+during every hour of his ensuing existence, in which the one end
+and aim of his life will be to keep _that_ secret,--surely the very
+selfishness which suggests the crime would restrain the hand of the
+criminal.
+
+The search for Julia had been, so far, made in vain. Advertisements
+had been inserted in the papers; inquiries had been made in every
+direction, but without avail. If she had read the appeals in those
+advertisements, Julia had been inexorable, for she had never answered
+them.
+
+But Julia had not read those advertisements. While private detectives
+were searching for her in every direction suggested by Rupert Godwin,
+the missing girl had fled to a neighbourhood which the banker had
+never dreamt of suggesting.
+
+She had dressed herself, upon the morning of her flight, in some dark
+homely garments which she had been making for the poor; and, thus
+disguised, with an unfashionable straw bonnet, and a thick veil over
+her face, she had walked to Hertford in the dewy morning, while it
+was yet scarcely light. She had taken the first train for London,
+stepping quite unobserved into a second-class carriage. From the
+station at King’s Cross she had driven straight to Waterloo, going
+thence by express to Winchester. At the Winchester station she had
+taken a fly, which drove her to a quiet retreat in the New Forest.
+
+In her journey thither she had evidently a settled purpose, for her
+conduct from first to last had betrayed no hesitation as to whither
+she should go.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Three or four days after the old clerk’s visit to the lodging in the
+Waterloo-road, Clara Westford received a letter in the handwriting
+which had been so familiar to her in her early girlhood, when the
+deformed schoolmaster had devoted himself to her education, inspired
+by a passion which had been the keynote of his life,--such a passion
+as Quasimodo felt for the beautiful dancing-girl--such a passion as
+in the breast of Quasimodo’s master, the priest of Nôtre Dame, called
+itself fatality.
+
+The old clerk’s letter was very brief:--
+
+“I told you I could atone in some measure for the wrong I inflicted
+upon you when I imagined your father’s treatment of me was inspired
+by your express request. You shall see that I can make some amends
+for having thus suspected you of conduct which was foreign to your
+noble nature. If you will come with your daughter to the bank parlour
+this day week, at twelve o’clock, you will receive my atonement; and
+at the same time you will, perhaps, experience the greatest and the
+happiest surprise that you have ever known in the whole course of
+your life.
+
+                             “--Your respectful and obedient
+                                               “JACOB DANIELSON.
+ “_Tuesday morning._”
+
+A surprise! An atonement! It was quite in vain that Clara Westford
+perused and reperused the old clerk’s letter in the hope of
+discovering something of its meaning.
+
+A surprise--a happy surprise--wrote Jacob Danielson. Alas, what happy
+surprise could there be for her, since her husband, the lover of her
+youth, the adored friend and companion of her womanhood, met his fate
+at the hands of an assassin?
+
+“Unless Jacob Danielson can bring the dead back to life, I know not
+what happiness he can give me,” thought Clara mournfully.
+
+She was almost crushed down by the weight of her sorrows. They had
+come upon her, one after another, without even a brief interval of
+peace. Only a short time had elapsed since her daughter had been
+restored to her, and already a new grief was racking the mother’s
+heart.
+
+Her son had never responded to that letter in which she had told
+him of her meeting with Gilbert Thornleigh--a letter which was of a
+nature to demand an immediate answer.
+
+Day after day she had expected the reply; but none had come--for the
+reader knows the cause of Lionel Westford’s silence, and how little
+power he had to respond to that appalling communication. The mother
+wrote again and again, imploring some answer to her anxious letters;
+but still the post brought no tidings of the beloved son.
+
+Mrs. Westford had no address, except the Hertford post-office, to
+which she could direct her letters. She believed her son to be living
+in the town of Hertford, and she had imagined that forgetfulness
+alone had prevented his sending her the address of the house in which
+he lived.
+
+But as time wore on, and still no answer came to her letters, Clara
+Westford felt that something must have happened to her son. Lionel
+was the last in the world to neglect a mother’s supplicating letters;
+he had always been the most attentive and devoted of sons.
+
+“My boy is ill,” exclaimed Clara, when she found herself no longer
+able to keep her uneasiness hidden from Violet. “He must be
+dangerously ill,” she cried; “dying, perhaps; for if he were able to
+hold his pen, if he were able to dictate a letter, I am sure that he
+would not leave me in this state of suspense.”
+
+On the day after she had received Jacob Danielson’s letter, Mrs.
+Westford determined on going to Hertford. Her little stock of money
+was nearly exhausted; but she had just enough to pay the expenses
+of the journey, and she had no longer the grim visage of starvation
+frowning upon her darkly in the future, for Violet’s mysterious
+good fortune had changed the worldly position of the widow and her
+daughter.
+
+“Do not despair, dearest mother,” pleaded Violet; “even amidst all
+our bitter miseries, Providence has not wholly deserted us. What can
+be more providential than the chance by which I inherit a fortune
+from some mysterious benefactress, whose name I do not even know?
+Depend upon it, dearest mother, the turning-point has come on the
+dark road, and in future our path will be smoother than it has been
+during the last year, even though we may have little sunshine to
+illumine our lives,” murmured Violet sadly.
+
+She was thinking of George Stanmore, the lover whose fancied
+inconstancy was the settled sorrow of her life--a grief endured so
+patiently, a burden borne with such Christian resignation, that
+it had left no shadow on the calm loveliness of her pensive face.
+Her beauty was altered in character since the days when she had
+wandered, light-hearted as some wood-nymph, in the depths of the New
+Forest; but it was even more exquisite now in its pensive gravity of
+expression than it had been when radiant with the smiles of careless
+girlhood.
+
+Mrs. Westford set out alone for Hertford. Violet had entreated to be
+allowed to accompany her mother, but Clara refused.
+
+“No, Violet,” she said; “Heaven only knows what I may have to go
+through. I may find my boy lying in his grave, buried by strangers
+who did not even know of his mother’s existence. I may find him on a
+sick-bed: in that case I need not tell you that I shall remain with
+him. But, whatever may happen, I will telegraph to you, Violet, if I
+am detained.”
+
+It was with a very heavy heart that Clara Westford started on that
+journey. She seated herself in the corner of a second-class carriage,
+with her face hidden by a shabby crape veil; and she took little
+notice of her fellow-passengers, or of the autumn landscape that
+spun past the open windows of the carriage. Her heart was oppressed
+by the anticipation of some calamity. The image of her beloved son,
+racked by sickness, or lying still in death, haunted her brain with
+a torturing persistence. The voices of her companions jarred upon
+her ears. It was so terrible to hear their careless laughter--their
+gay discussions of the pleasures awaiting them at the end of their
+journey--their eager talk of business to be done, and money to
+be gained, at this or that market-town--their speculation and
+argumentation about the state of the crops in the country they were
+passing through--while before her there was only a blank horizon,
+darkened by the shadow of a hideous fear. It seemed to her that her
+life and her sorrows must be exceptional in a world where people
+could be so busy and so free from care as all these fellow-passengers
+appeared to be.
+
+At last she reached her destination, and a sickness like death itself
+came over her as she told herself that she would soon learn the
+worst. She went at once to one of the porters, and inquired her way
+from the station to the post-office.
+
+Here she fancied that her suspense would end. The people belonging to
+the office would be able to tell her the address of her son, and she
+would have nothing to do but to go straight to his lodging.
+
+But an unutterable despair took possession of her when the woman who
+answered her inquiries told her that she knew nothing whatever of the
+gentleman whose letters had been addressed to him under the name of
+Lionel Westford.
+
+“We have so many people call for letters,” she said, “that it is
+quite impossible we can remember them all.”
+
+On looking into the pigeon-hole where the letters addressed under the
+initial W. were deposited, the woman found three letters directed to
+Lionel Westford.
+
+Clara asked permission to look at them, and found that they were her
+own three letters of inquiry, written one after the other during the
+period of her alarm respecting Lionel.
+
+The woman returned them to the pigeon-hole, as she could give them up
+to no one but the person to whom they were addressed.
+
+Mrs. Westford asked the postmistress if she remembered the gentleman
+who had been accustomed to call for letters bearing that address.
+
+Yes, the woman remembered him perfectly. She had been struck by his
+good looks, his affable manner. She remembered the last time he
+called. It was on a very bright afternoon, but she could not say
+exactly how long ago.
+
+Had he ever told her in what part of the town he lived?
+
+No, he had been very reserved, though so pleasant-spoken. He had
+never said anything about himself.
+
+After this, Clara Westford wandered hopelessly about the town until
+long after dark, making inquiries in every direction where she
+thought there might be the smallest chance of obtaining a clue to
+Lionel’s whereabouts.
+
+She went to a printseller’s, to several booksellers’, to all the
+inns, even to humble little taverns in obscure by-streets and
+alleys, where poverty alone would seek a resting-place. But there
+was only one answer to her inquiries. No one had heard the name of
+Westford--no one had met with any stranger from London answering to
+the description which Mrs. Westford gave of her son.
+
+It was ten o’clock when Clara returned to the railway station,
+disconsolate and broken-hearted. Fortunately for her, the last train
+had not yet left; and after waiting some time she took her place in
+one of the second-class carriages, and was conveyed back to London as
+ignorant of her son’s whereabouts as she had been when she set out
+that morning to seek for him.
+
+Violet knew by her mother’s face, the moment she looked at her, that
+no good tidings had greeted her at Hertford.
+
+She knelt by Mrs. Westford’s side, removed the heavy black shawl from
+her shoulders with gentle, caressing hands, and tried by every means
+in her power to console the unhappy woman.
+
+“You have not found him, mother,” she said. “I can see that by your
+face. But is it not better to be still uncertain of his fate than
+to know, perhaps, that we have lost him? There is always hope where
+there is uncertainty. Ill news travels fast, you know, dearest. I
+am sure we should have heard if anything serious had happened to my
+brother. If he had been seized with illness, we should have been told
+of it. He must have had letters about him containing our address, and
+in such cases there is always some good Samaritan to summon a sick
+man’s relations. Do you know, mamma darling, I have an idea that the
+surprise alluded to in Mr. Danielson’s letter must be something that
+concerns Lionel. Try to hope this, dearest; and do not give way to
+grief which may be entirely groundless.”
+
+With such a loving comforter, Clara Westford could not quite despair.
+At the worst, it was a relief not to have heard ill news of Lionel.
+He had left Hertford most likely. His letters had been intrusted to
+strangers, perhaps, to carry to the post, and had never been posted.
+And again, in spite of herself, Clara could not help feeling some
+confidence in the mysterious hints of the old clerk.
+
+A surprise, and a happy surprise, he had written. Ah, surely some
+great joy must be in store for her. She had suffered so much, that
+it was scarcely unreasonable she should expect some blessing at the
+hands of Providence.
+
+“But they cannot give me back the dead,” thought Clara. “I can only
+hope to go down to the grave in peace, with my children by my side.
+No power on earth can restore the lost, nor give me back the happy
+days in which my husband and I walked side by side in the dear old
+garden at the Grange.”
+
+As she mused thus, the widow’s thoughts went back to that happy time.
+She fancied herself once more leaning on her husband’s arm--proud of
+him, and of his love; the happiest wife whose heart ever beat faster
+at the sound of a husband’s footstep.
+
+On the day which had been mentioned in the clerk’s letter, Clara
+Westford and her daughter dressed themselves neatly in their mourning
+garments and walked into the City.
+
+Clara’s mind had been much disturbed by the mysterious tenor of the
+old man’s letter.
+
+That he should ask her to meet him in the bank parlour was in itself
+very extraordinary. That room was the sanctuary of Rupert Godwin; and
+the clerk must have unusual power if he could venture to make any
+appointment of his own in that apartment.
+
+But the entire contents of the letter were a mystery to Clara, and
+she resolved on obeying the old clerk in blind confidence, since she
+was quite unable to penetrate his motives. His manner had impressed
+her with the perfect sincerity of his wish to serve her.
+
+Thus it was that she presented herself at the bank in Lombard-street
+at the appointed hour, accompanied by her daughter.
+
+The two ladies were shown at once into the parlour, where they found
+Rupert Godwin seated at the table, with Jacob Danielson standing at
+the back of his chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+RESURGAM.
+
+
+Rupert Godwin had been summoned to the bank by a letter from his
+clerk.
+
+“My dear sir,” wrote Jacob, “things are looking very black in the
+City, and the old rumour is beginning to get afloat again. You had
+better come to the office and look into matters yourself. I have
+made a business appointment for you to-morrow, at twelve sharp; and
+as it is an affair of some considerable importance I would recommend
+you to be punctual.--Obediently yours, J. D.”
+
+This letter had been addressed to the banker’s West-end apartments;
+and it was this summons which had brought him to the bank about three
+minutes before Clara and Violet entered it.
+
+For some time Rupert Godwin’s affairs had been gradually sinking back
+into the state in which they had been before his theft of the twenty
+thousand pounds intrusted to him by the sea captain.
+
+That sum was not the tenth part of the amount that would have been
+needed to restore the firm to a solvent position. But it had been
+enough to stop the leak in the ship, and to enable the rotten old
+vessel to right herself for a time, while her captain sailed in
+search of new gold-fields.
+
+Small depositors--always the first to take alarm--had been appeased.
+Suspicion had been set at rest by the promptitude with which all
+demands were satisfied; and customers who had withdrawn their
+balances in a fever of alarm, had brought back their custom when the
+panic was over.
+
+Unhappily for Rupert Godwin, this halcyon state of things could not
+endure for ever. The effects of the preceding year’s commercial
+panic were still felt. The edifice of credit had been shaken to its
+foundations, and the enchanted temple still tottered, frail as some
+confectioner’s fairy fabric of spun sugar.
+
+There were prophetic rumours of an approaching crisis more alarming
+than that through which the commercial classes of London had passed,
+more or less scorched and scathed by the ordeal, so lately. There
+were those who said that the first blast of the trumpet which
+sounded the alarm in the halls of the Stock Exchange would ring the
+death-knell of Rupert Godwin’s credit.
+
+There was one who knew this only too well; and that one was the
+banker himself. He knew that an hour’s run upon his bank would
+demonstrate the fact of his insolvency.
+
+He had been insolvent for more than ten years, and had borne the
+burden of that guilty secret, knowing that whenever the crash
+came thousands of innocent people would suffer for the inordinate
+extravagance which had sapped the capital of one of the most
+respectable private banks in the metropolis.
+
+Utterly indifferent as to the sufferings of other people, this
+knowledge had troubled Rupert Godwin very little. But he was
+considerably disturbed by the thought of his own ruin--his disgrace,
+and perhaps even poverty; or, at any rate, a miserable state
+of existence which to him would be little better than absolute
+indigence--a kind of suspension between the heaven of wealth and
+the hell of penury. “Better to be an outcast and Bohemian, begging
+in the high-road by day and sleeping in an empty barn by night,
+than to drag out the remnant of my days as a dreary old twaddler
+in some suburban cottage, with a maid-of-all-work to wait upon me,
+and a garden thirty feet square to walk in,” the Sybarite said
+to himself as he contemplated the future. He had tried to make a
+purse for himself; but of late his mind had been entirely absorbed
+by considerations that were even more alarming than his financial
+difficulties; and he had not been able to garner any great store
+against the day of ruin. He had set aside something; but even that
+something would be wrested from him if he did not make his plans for
+a speedy escape from the financial storm whose first hoarse thunders
+already rumbled ominously in the distance. And those commercial
+tempests travel so quickly!
+
+Upon his confidential clerk’s fidelity the banker relied with
+implicit confidence; not because he believed the clerk to be attached
+to his person, or bound to him by any sense of honour. Mr. Godwin
+had directed his attention to the vices rather than the virtues of
+his fellow-men. He had paid Danielson handsomely for fidelity in
+the past, and had promised him ample payment for fidelity in the
+future; and, as he looked upon good faith as a marketable commodity,
+to be purchased in any quantities at the current market rate, he was
+troubled by no doubt of his ally’s fidelity.
+
+He came to the office this morning in no very pleasant frame of mind;
+but distrust of Jacob Danielson had no part in his conflicting doubts
+and difficulties.
+
+“Well, Jacob,” he said, as he seated himself at his desk, “how are
+things looking?”
+
+“As black as they can look,” answered the clerk, with a mixture of
+respect and indifference that always galled his master--“as black as
+they can look. People have begun to talk; and when they once begin,
+it is not very easy to stop them. There may be a run upon the bank
+any day, and then the murder’s out.”
+
+Rupert Godwin’s nerves had been terribly shaken of late. He could not
+control a slight shuddering movement as the clerk pronounced that
+ghastly word “murder.”
+
+Before he could speak, one of the junior clerks opened the
+parlour-door and ushered in Mrs. Westford and her daughter.
+
+The banker started violently, and half rose from his chair with a
+convulsive movement at the aspect of those two slender figures draped
+in solemn black.
+
+“Who are these people?” he gasped. “I cannot see them.--Walters, take
+these ladies back to the public office; they can have no business
+here.--What is the meaning of this, Danielson?” added the banker,
+turning indignantly to the old clerk. “You told me you had arranged
+an important business meeting here at this hour. These people cannot
+possibly have any business to transact with me.”
+
+“O, yes, they have, sir,” answered the clerk quietly.--“Sit down,
+ladies, pray. Mr. Godwin is rather unprepared for your visit, you
+see, as I have not found time to explain matters to him before your
+arrival. But he will find the business very simple--quite simple.
+Pray sit down.”
+
+The mother and daughter obeyed. Clara had not in any manner saluted
+the banker, nor he her, though they had looked at each other fixedly
+for a moment.
+
+Mrs. Westford’s face was pale, and rigid as the face of a statue.
+
+Rupert Godwin’s countenance had grown livid. The sudden appearance of
+those two women had inspired him with a strange fear.
+
+As he turned indignantly towards the old clerk, something in Jacob
+Danielson’s face told the banker that he was about to find a deadly
+foe in the man who had so long been his tool and accomplice.
+
+“Insolent scoundrel!” he exclaimed, “how do you dare to defy me thus?
+Take your friends out of my room! I will not be intruded on by any
+one.”
+
+“These ladies are no friends of mine,” answered the clerk; “though I
+shall be proud indeed if I can render them any service. They are no
+intruders here. They have a claim upon you, Mr. Godwin, and a very
+large one.”
+
+“You are mad!” exclaimed the banker contemptuously. “What claim can
+these ladies have upon me?”
+
+“A very terrible one, it may be, Rupert Godwin,” replied Clara
+Westford solemnly. “What if I come to claim justice upon the murderer
+of a beloved husband? Retribution is very slow sometimes; but it is
+none the less certain. Sooner or later the day of reckoning comes; if
+not in this world, in the next. Heaven have pity on those who are not
+allowed to expiate their iniquities upon earth!”
+
+Rupert Godwin tried to carry matters with a high hand--but even
+his bravado failed him in this supreme moment of fear. His livid
+countenance, convulsed every now and then by sudden spasms, betrayed
+the state of his mind.
+
+“We will not talk of retribution here,” said Jacob Danielson. “It
+is only on a matter of business that these ladies have called on
+you this morning, Mr. Godwin. They come to claim the sum of twenty
+thousand pounds, intrusted to your care by Captain Harley Westford,
+of the _Lily Queen_, with five per cent. interest thereupon for the
+time the money has been in your hands.”
+
+Rupert Godwin laughed aloud. It was a wild spasmodic kind of laugh,
+and by no means agreeable to hear.
+
+“My good Danielson,” he exclaimed, “you are evidently going mad.
+I had better send for the parish authorities and the parish
+strait-waistcoat.”
+
+“Not just yet,” replied the clerk coolly. “You are rather fond of
+putting people into lunatic asylums, I know. But as I am not mad,
+your philanthropic and compassionate nature need not be troubled
+by any concern about me. Perhaps you’ll be so kind as to pay these
+ladies the money they claim--twenty-one thousand pounds. Mrs.
+Westford’s husband died suddenly; but he made his will, bequeathing
+all he possessed to his wife, with undivided power to administer
+his affairs. She has not yet gone through the usual formula; but
+as this is an exceptional case you can afford to waive ceremony,
+and pay Captain Westford’s widow the money that belongs to her,
+without waiting for legal formalities. Here is the receipt signed by
+yourself, and witnessed by me.”
+
+The clerk produced an oblong slip of paper, which he held before the
+eyes of his master. Those eyes glared at the document with a blank
+stare of mingled astonishment and horror.
+
+“Where,” he gasped,--“where did you----”
+
+“Where did I find it?” said the clerk, with supreme coolness. “Ah, to
+be sure. I was prepared to hear you ask that question. I’ll tell you
+where I found it. On the night on which Harley Westford came to you
+at Wilmingdon Hall, to claim the money which this receipt represents,
+he wore a light overcoat. Ah, you remember it, I see. The night was
+warm; and when the Captain came into the dining-room, where you and I
+were lingering over our dessert, he carried his outer coat across his
+arm. When he left the dining-room he flung it down upon a chair. _I_
+found it there when I returned to the Hall, after missing the train.
+I’m rather of an inquisitive disposition, and I had peculiar motives
+for my curiosity that night; so I took the liberty to examine the
+pockets in the Captain’s overcoat. I was very well rewarded for my
+pains, for in the small breast-pocket I found _this_. You recognize
+it, Mr. Godwin, I can see. It is the receipt for which _you_ searched
+the same pocket that night, but a little too late. You only half
+did your work when you stabbed Captain Westford in the back, and
+flung him down the cellar-steps, to lie and rot there unburied and
+forgotten.”
+
+“O, great Heaven!” shrieked Clara, with a wail of agony. “My husband
+was murdered then--by him; and you know the secret of his murder! You
+know, and you have never denounced the hellish assassin!”
+
+“Hush, Mrs. Westford,” cried the clerk, almost imperiously; “not a
+word! I told you that the greatest surprise, the _happiest_ surprise
+you had ever experienced in your life, would come upon you to-day.
+Wait, and trust in me.”
+
+Mrs. Westford had risen in her sudden agony and terror; but
+overawed,--influenced, in spite of herself, by something in the old
+clerk’s manner,--she sank back upon her chair, pale and breathless,
+waiting to hear more.
+
+“Come, Mr. Godwin,” said Jacob Danielson; “the best thing you can do
+is to pay this money quietly, and immediately. You would scarcely
+care to have any public inquiries made as to how I came into
+possession of this receipt.”
+
+“It is a forgery!” gasped the banker.
+
+“Is it? That’s a question which must be decided by a court of law, if
+you dispute the settlement of Mrs. Westford’s claim. And if this case
+once gets into a court of law, you may be sure it will be sifted to
+the very bottom. The mystery of that summer night at Wilmingdon Hall
+will be brought before the public, and then----”
+
+Jacob Danielson uttered the last words very slowly.
+
+“I will pay the money,” cried Rupert Godwin; “but you must give me
+time!”
+
+“Not a day! Not an hour! I know the state of your affairs. This money
+shall be paid before these ladies leave this house. If you have not
+that amount of ready cash, you have convertible securities, and they
+must be melted at once. Nor is that all, Mr. Godwin. You must sign a
+paper acknowledging that the document under which you took possession
+of the Grange----”
+
+“I will do no such thing!” answered the banker defiantly. Then, with
+a sudden burst of fury, he sprang upon the old clerk, and seized him
+by the throat.
+
+“Villain! hypocrite! dog!” he cried, “you have taken my money, you
+have pretended to serve me, and now you turn upon me and betray
+me--you, my slave, my foot-ball, the creature that I have paid as I
+pay the lowest scullery-maid in my house! But I----”
+
+He released his hold, for the door was opened, and one of the clerks
+looked in with a scared face. He had overheard the noise of the
+scuffle in the outer office.
+
+But as Rupert Godwin had sunk back exhausted into his chair, and as
+Jacob Danielson was standing quietly by him in his usual deferential
+attitude when the man looked in, he murmured an apology and withdrew,
+closing the door behind him.
+
+“You perceive, Mr. Godwin, that violence here is not quite so secure
+from detection as in the cellars of the northern wing. Every man’s
+house is his castle; but there is some difference between a haunted
+abbey in Hertfordshire and an office in the heart of Lombard-street,”
+said Jacob, with quiet significance. “I tell you again, you had
+better call your cashier, and order him to realize stock to the
+amount of twenty thousand pounds. How about those Canadian
+Grand-Trunk Debenture Bonds which you bought the other day? Ah, I
+had my eye upon you, you see, when you were quite unconscious of my
+watchfulness. That’s a capital form of security. Safe as a bank-note;
+easy to realize; no fuss or bother involved in the transfer. You can
+sell those in the open market. We will talk of the forged documents
+afterwards.”
+
+Never was baffled fury more strongly visible in a human face than it
+was in the scowling visage of the banker, as he turned from the clerk
+and touched a little handbell on the table.
+
+His summons was responded to in less than a minute. The same clerk
+who had looked into the room before looked in again.
+
+“The cashier,” said Rupert Godwin briefly.
+
+The clerk retired, and another man presented himself.
+
+“You realized some Mexican securities yesterday, by my order?” said
+the banker.
+
+“I did, sir.”
+
+“To what amount?”
+
+“Twenty-four thousand three hundred and twenty pounds.”
+
+“You will hand over bank-notes to the amount of twenty-one thousand
+pounds to this lady.”
+
+The banker pointed to Mrs. Westford. The cashier looked surprised;
+but he bowed in assent, retired, and presently reappeared with a
+packet of bank-notes.
+
+“Twenty notes of five hundred each, and eleven notes of a thousand
+each,” said the cashier, as he handed the packet to his employer.
+
+“Good. And now your deposit-receipt,” said the banker to Jacob
+Danielson.
+
+The clerk gave Rupert Godwin the oblong slip of paper with one hand,
+while with the other he received the packet of notes.
+
+“There, Mrs. Westford, is the fortune amassed by your husband in
+years of hazardous adventure,” said Jacob Danielson. “The documents
+relating to the Grange will be admitted as forgeries by Mr. Godwin.
+And you will be able to return to your home whenever you please.”
+
+“I cannot accept this money,” answered Clara.
+
+“But it is your own.”
+
+“It has passed through the hands of my husband’s murderer. There
+is not one of these notes that, to my mind, is not stained with my
+husband’s blood. It is not money which I want, Mr. Danielson, but
+justice--justice on the man who murdered my husband.”
+
+“She is mad!” cried Rupert Godwin hoarsely. “I will not be thus
+defied in my own house by a mad woman and a scoundrel. I will----”
+
+His hand moved towards the bell, but he did not touch it.
+
+“Ring that bell, Rupert Godwin,” cried the old clerk; “or if you will
+not, I will.”
+
+The clerk’s skinny fingers pressed the spring of the bell,--not once
+only, but three separate times.
+
+“What is the meaning of this?” gasped the banker.
+
+“It means that you have failed in the capacity of assassin as
+completely as you have failed in your commercial career, Mr. Godwin,”
+answered the clerk coolly.--“You shall have justice, Mrs. Westford,”
+he continued, turning to Clara, “but not on the murderer of your
+husband, for he survived the stroke that was intended to be his
+death-blow. He is here to denounce, in his own person, the would-be
+assassin and the daring swindler.”
+
+As the old clerk spoke, the powerful form of the merchant captain
+appeared upon the threshold, and in the next moment Clara Westford
+flung herself into her husband’s arms with a wild hysteric shriek.
+
+It was indeed as if the dead had been restored to life.
+
+Harley Westford had changed terribly since the hour when he had
+last stood in that room, in all the pride and vigour of manhood.
+His stalwart figure had wasted, though it still retained its noble
+outline. His handsome face was pale and careworn; dark circles
+surrounded his frank blue eyes, and haggard lines had been drawn
+about his mouth; but as he clasped his wife to his breast, his
+countenance was illumined by a light which restored to it, for a
+moment, all its former brightness.
+
+“It is not a dream!” cried Clara; “it is not a dream! O, Harley,
+Harley, is it really you? I have suffered so much--so much! I can
+scarcely bear this surprise.”
+
+These words were spoken amidst hysteric sobs that almost choked their
+utterance. Violet was sobbing on her father’s shoulder. The Captain
+looked from his wife to his daughter. Unspeakable affection beamed
+from his countenance; but he was unable to utter a word. He sank into
+a chair presently, quite overcome, and his wife and child knelt one
+on each side of him.
+
+Rupert Godwin looked on this picture with the gaze of a baffled
+fiend. He had the passions of an Iago, but not the triumph which
+gladdened the heart of the Venetian schemer even in the hour of
+defeat. He had not the grim satisfaction of seeing the ruin he had
+worked. He had achieved nothing--not even the misery of the rival he
+hated.
+
+“I told you you only half did your work that night at Wilmingdon
+Hall. With all your cleverness, you’ve proved no better than a
+bungler!” exclaimed the old clerk triumphantly.
+
+The banker groaned aloud; but he uttered no exclamation of
+surprise--no questioning word. Ruin had fallen upon him--so entire,
+so unexpectedly, that he was quite unable to struggle longer with
+the awful shadow of Nemesis. He could only abandon himself to a
+sullen despair. Remorse was a stranger to _his_ nature: remorse is
+the sorrow we feel for the wrong we have done to others. It was only
+on his own account that Rupert Godwin suffered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+“VENGEANCE IS MINE.”
+
+
+After the first wild confusion of that scene in the bank parlour
+there was a pause, a brief silence, which Jacob Danielson was the
+first to break.
+
+“When you flung your victim to his dark hiding-place in the cellar
+under the northern wing,” said the old clerk, addressing himself
+slowly and deliberately to his employer, “you might as well have
+taken the trouble to ascertain that he was really dead. It would have
+been a more business-like mode of proceeding, and I am surprised
+that you, a business man, should have failed to adopt it: but,
+perhaps, your courage failed you at the last moment, and you had
+not sufficient firmness to remain by the body of your victim, and
+to listen for the last pulsation of the heart which you had done
+your best to put to silence. However this may have been, you left
+your work half undone. And when I returned to Wilmingdon Hall, after
+contriving to miss my train, I returned in time to save at least the
+life of your intended victim. I had suspected some sinister motive in
+your desire to get rid of me, and I managed to lose the train, after
+having dismissed your servant. I was thus free to hurry back to the
+park, and to re-enter the grounds unobserved. I made my way rapidly
+towards the house, and the nearest way took me past the north garden.
+In one of the windows of the deserted wing I saw a light shining
+through the chinks in the shutters. Heavy and ponderous though those
+shutters are, they were not strong enough to conceal the secrets
+which you would have hidden behind them. I crept softly towards the
+window, and should have looked in through the chink, but the post of
+spy was already occupied. An old man, a gardener, was standing with
+his face flattened against the window, peeping into the room. When I
+saw this I crept away as quietly as I had approached, and went round
+to the occupied portion of the house. I went to the dining-room,
+where I took the opportunity to secure that deposit-receipt which
+has just proved so valuable to Mrs. Westford. Five minutes after I
+had seated myself, you made your appearance. Your face, your manner,
+both told me that something terrible had happened in that deserted
+room, in spite of your wonderful self-command. When you left me, I
+went straight to the window where I had seen the light. There the
+old gardener was lying senseless on the ground. I stooped over him,
+and found that he was in a kind of swoon. Then I felt convinced some
+hideous crime had been committed in that room, and that the witness
+of it had fallen senseless, horror-stricken with the awful sight he
+had beheld. I peeped into the room, but I could see nothing. All
+was dark. Then I remembered that during my earliest visits to the
+Hall I had heard of an underground passage leading from the grotto
+to the cellars of the northern wing, and communicating by means of
+a staircase with the ground floor. I determined on groping my way
+into this passage, and from thence to the room where I felt convinced
+a horrible deed had been done. I returned to the house, and waited
+in the dining-room till you had gone to your own apartments. I then
+went to the servants’ hall, where I procured a dark lantern, under
+pretence of searching for a purse I had lost in coming through the
+grounds; and, armed with this, I reached the grotto unobserved,
+entered the subterranean passage, followed its windings to the
+cellars, and then groped along to the cellar staircase, intending to
+penetrate to the room above. But I had no occasion to do so, for at
+the foot of the cellar-stairs I stumbled upon the body of the captain
+yonder.
+
+“I tore open his waistcoat, which was soaked with blood; and when I
+felt for the beating of the heart, a faint throb told me that the
+murderer had not completed his work. I found the wound, and staunched
+it with a woollen handkerchief from my neck; then of a heap of straw
+and rubbish which I discovered in a corner I made a kind of bed, on
+which I laid the unconscious victim of an intended assassination.
+
+“Having done this, I hurried back to the gardens, returned to the
+house, allowed one of the servants to conduct me to my room; and to
+all appearance retired for the night. But no sooner was the household
+wrapped in slumber, or at least in silence--for surely _one_ member
+of that household could have slept little that night--no sooner was
+all quiet, than I crept from my room, left the house, and went to
+a little inn in the neighbourhood where I was known, and where I
+hired a horse and gig on the plea of having lost the mail-train, and
+wanting to drive to London in the dead of the night rather than miss
+an early appointment on the following morning.
+
+“With this horse and gig I returned to the park, and drove to a
+sheltered spot near the entrance of the grotto. Then the most
+difficult part of my work had to be done. Alone and unaided I half
+carried, half dragged the unconscious sea captain from the cellar
+to the place where I had left the gig. I contrived to fasten him
+securely in the vehicle, and then drove at a walking pace to a
+house I had known in the past, and where I was sure of finding easy
+admission for my almost lifeless charge.
+
+“That house was the Retreat; a private lunatic asylum, kept by a man
+whose life I knew to be one long career of charlatanism and villany.
+There I knew that only one question would be asked: Was I prepared
+to pay for the care of the patient? If my answer to that inquiry was
+satisfactory, all would be settled.
+
+“I drove slowly along the lonely road leading to the Retreat. I met
+only one solitary horseman, and he asked me if my friend sitting in a
+heap at the bottom of the gig was ill or drunk. I answered, ‘Drunk,’
+and passed on without further question.
+
+“Arrived at the Retreat I rang up the attendants, and was received by
+Dr. Wilderson Snaffley, who rose from his comfortable bed to see me.
+I told him that my charge was a relation who had stabbed himself in a
+fit of lunacy, induced by delirium tremens; and that in order to keep
+his infirmity a profound secret, I had brought him straight to the
+Retreat, where I knew every effort would be made to save his life. I
+said that I was prepared to pay liberally for his maintenance.
+
+“That was quite enough. Dr. Wilderson Snaffley examined his still
+unconscious patient; but he did not ask me any troublesome questions,
+nor did he even remark that people do not usually stab themselves _in
+the back_ when they endeavour to commit suicide.
+
+“You will ask me, Clara Westford, why I acted thus--why I did not
+denounce the would-be assassin, and restore Harley Westford to the
+wife and children who loved him. I answer you, that one fatal passion
+had warped my nature, and transformed me into something between a
+madman and a drunkard. It pleased me to think that, by keeping the
+secret of Mr. Godwin’s crime, I should be revenged upon you, Clara;
+for I had loved you, and I believed that my presumptuous love had
+been revenged by you with the cruel pride of a woman who thinks
+it sport to trample on the heart of the plebeian wretch who dares
+to adore her. I sought for power over Rupert Godwin--for since my
+blighted youth had passed into premature old age, avarice had been
+the ruling passion of my life; and, possessed of the secret of Harley
+Westford’s supposed murder, I knew that I should have unlimited
+command over the purse of my employer. Thus a double motive prompted
+me to secrecy. And for more than a year I have kept my secret,
+disturbed by no pang of remorse, moved by no contrition, until
+destiny brought me once more face to face with the woman I had once
+so fatally loved.
+
+“Then all at once the ice melted, the hardened nature softened, and I
+could no longer endure the thought of what I had done.
+
+“I sought you out, Mrs. Westford, and from your own lips I
+discovered how deeply I had wronged your noble nature. From that
+moment my course lay clear before me: the only atonement in my power
+was to undo what I had done. For that purpose I went to the madhouse
+where your husband was hidden. A few words to Dr. Wilderson Snaffley,
+informing him that circumstances were altered with me, and that I was
+no longer able to pay for my patient, were quite sufficient.
+
+“The learned and conscientious physician discovered immediately that
+his charge was quite well, and perfectly able to enter the world
+again. I was thus enabled to quit the Retreat with Captain Westford
+as my companion. But we were obliged to leave behind us a patient
+whom we should have been glad to bring with us. That patient, Mrs.
+Westford, is no other than your son, to whom the finger of Providence
+had indicated the secret of his father’s attempted murder, and whom
+Mr. Godwin incarcerated in a prison which was intended to entomb him
+until he was transferred from that living grave to a more comfortable
+resting-place in some obscure churchyard. Had Lionel Westford been
+placed in any other lunatic asylum than the Retreat, you might have
+had some difficulty in discovering his prison house. Fortunately, he
+was confided to the care of Dr. Wilderson Snaffley and father and son
+met beneath that gentleman’s hospitable roof.--A strange meeting,
+was it not, Rupert Godwin, between the son who believed his father
+had been murdered, and the father who never thought to look upon a
+familiar face again?
+
+“But Providence sometimes brings about very strange meetings. Lionel
+Westford’s release from imprisonment under Dr. Snaffley’s tender
+care will be easily managed, I daresay. The doctor will not be
+particularly anxious to retain his patient when he discovers that
+his wealthy patron is a bankrupt and a felon.--That is all I have
+to tell, Captain Westford; it is for you to seek redress for the
+wrongs that have been done to you and yours. An aggravated attempt
+at assassination is a crime rather heavily punished even by our mild
+legislature.”
+
+“Stop!” cried Harley Westford, holding up his hand, with a warning
+gesture; “‘Vengeance is mine’ saith the Lord. The law of the land
+will have very little hold upon that man. Look at Rupert Godwin’s
+face. Send for a doctor, some one.” There was sudden confusion and
+alarm. The clerk loosened his employer’s cravat, while Captain
+Westford opened the door of the outer office and despatched a
+messenger post haste for the nearest surgeon.
+
+Rupert Godwin had fallen back in his chair a lifeless, shapeless heap
+of stricken mortality. The fevered, unresting brain, so long kept on
+the rack, had succumbed at last to a paralytic shock of an aggravated
+character. For weeks past the banker had been subject to convulsive
+starts and unwonted nervous sensations; but these sensations had
+affected him at long intervals, and had been very transient in their
+nature. They had therefore caused no alarm in the breast of the
+unhappy wretch who had so many other reasons for fear.
+
+The shock of Danielson’s demand, of Harley Westford’s reappearance,
+the overwhelming sense of failure and ruin, had been too much for
+even that vigorous intellect. The chord, so long strained to its
+utmost tension, snapped suddenly, and Rupert Godwin became a creature
+whom his worst enemies could afford to pity.
+
+A medical man came in hot haste to the bank parlor, and then another,
+and another, till there was quite a bevy of solemn-looking gentlemen
+hovering over the prostrate man. The tidings of Rupert Godwin’s
+affliction had spread like wildfire; and before his attendants had
+carried the heavy lifeless form to a sofa in an adjoining room,
+the fact that the banker had been stricken by paralysis was common
+talk on ’Change. Those who had prophesied the downfall of his house
+shrugged their shoulders, and lowered the corners of their mouths
+ominously.
+
+“This will bring matters to a crisis,” said one.
+
+“How do we know that he hasn’t made away with himself?” asked another.
+
+The medical gentlemen announced that the spark called life was
+not extinguished, although the other and more subtle flame called
+consciousness had gone out, never again to illumine this earth for
+Rupert Godwin.
+
+There was very little hope of his recovery, the doctors said; but
+their looks and tones implied that there was no hope. The stricken
+wretch lay with his dim eyes half shut; and his medical attendants
+said that he might lie thus for hours--or, indeed, for days.
+
+It was even possible that he might continue to live in that miserable
+state; and thus the Westfords left him to the care of his clerk
+Danielson.
+
+“He hasn’t a friend in the world, or a creature who ever loved him,
+except his daughter,” said the clerk; “and even she has deserted him.
+I’ll look after him somehow or other for the rest of his life. I’ve
+nothing particular to do with myself or my money, so I may as well
+take care of him. I must get him away from this place, by hook or by
+crook; for there may be a run on the bank to-morrow, and when people
+find out the state of the case they may want to tear Mr. Godwin to
+pieces.”
+
+In the course of that afternoon the clerk contrived to remove the
+awful wreck of humanity which had once been his employer. He carried
+Mr. Godwin to a place of safety. Not to Wilmingdon Hall; for that
+splendid mansion, with all its treasures, would in all probability
+fall very speedily into the hands of the officials of the Bankruptcy
+Court, to be dealt with for the benefit of the banker’s creditors,
+or to be mysteriously absorbed in the legal costs attendant on his
+bankruptcy.
+
+The shelter to which Jacob Danielson took his employer was a very
+humble one. It was a second floor in a little square behind the
+Borough, where Mr. Danielson had been for some years a lodger.
+
+Here, upon a flock-bed, the banker lay for some dreary days and
+nights, staring at the bare wall opposite him; and even the man who
+watched him so closely failed to discover the precise moment in which
+the vacant stare of idiocy changed to the blindness of death.
+
+Thus closed the existence of a man who had drained the cup of life’s
+excitements and enjoyments to the very dregs, and who had tasted
+to the uttermost the bitterness of the drops at the bottom of the
+chalice. There was an inquest, very quietly conducted, and the usual
+verdict of “Death from natural causes;” and this was all. The secret
+of Rupert Godwin’s crimes was known only to his confidential clerk,
+and those who had suffered so heavily at his hands.
+
+But many knew and lost by his commercial disasters, his reckless
+speculation, his unjustifiable extravagance, by which the foundations
+of a once substantial house of business had been undermined, until
+the whole fabric fell in one mass of ruin. Many an innocent victim
+suffered--many an impoverished creditor cursed the name of Rupert
+Godwin.
+
+Let us turn to a brighter picture. Let us turn to that pleasant home
+on the borders of the New Forest, that quaint old dwelling-place
+surrounded by picturesque gardens, the beloved home in which Clara
+Westford had passed all her happy married life.
+
+Once more she could call that dear home her own. Once more she
+wandered in the well-kept gardens, where the autumn flowers bloomed
+gaily under a bright October sky--where the rustle of the forest
+leaves fell upon her ear like a soothing murmur of loving voices,
+as she walked on the smooth lawn, leaning--O how proudly!--on her
+husband’s arm. Once more she occupied the pretty rooms, which bore
+no evidence of a stranger’s occupation, for an old servant of the
+Westfords had been left in charge of the Grange during Rupert
+Godwin’s brief hold upon the estate, and the smallest trifles had
+been held sacred for the love of an exiled house.
+
+She did not return alone with her loved husband. Lionel went with
+them, and Violet--happy in the society of the father and mother they
+loved so tenderly.
+
+But the brother and sister soon found another kind of happiness in
+other society; for in one of their forest walks they came upon a
+young man sketching, with a beautiful girl dressed in deep mourning
+by his side.
+
+The girl was Julia Godwin, and the artist was Edward Godwin, the
+young man whom Violet had known under the name of George Stanmore.
+
+It was to the protection of her brother that Julia had fled, when her
+father’s presence had become unendurable. Edward Godwin had returned
+to England after an artistic tour in Belgium, and had established
+himself again in the little cottage in the New Forest, hoping to meet
+his promised wife once more among the shadowy walks she had so dearly
+loved.
+
+His surprise on hearing that the Westfords had left the Grange, and
+that the estate had become the property of a Mr. Godwin, a banker
+in Lombard-street, was extreme. He wrote immediately to his sister
+announcing his whereabouts, and asking her if she could throw any
+light upon the circumstances under which his father had acquired this
+new property.
+
+The reply to that letter came in the person of Julia herself. She
+told her brother that she had left home because that home had become
+intolerable to her; but he could not extort from her any account of
+the causes that had made it so. She was loyal to the father whom she
+had once so dearly loved, whom she still thought of with a passionate
+regret.
+
+Here, in this quiet haven, the news of her father’s death reached
+her. That event, which at one time would have been so bitter a
+calamity for her, seemed now a kind of relief. He was dead--and
+at rest. He could be called before no earthly tribunal to answer
+for his crimes. He had gone to be judged by the All-just, and the
+All-merciful.
+
+If he had but repented--
+
+That was a question which no earthly lips could answer. Julia fondly
+hoped that repentance had come to the sinner before the closing-in of
+that dark scene, which she contemplated with unutterable horror.
+
+Strange explanations followed the first surprise of that meeting. The
+presence of Julia Godwin compelled the revelation of a secret which
+until this moment the painter had hidden from the woman he loved. He
+was compelled to tell Violet that his name was not George Stanmore,
+but Edward Godwin; and that he was the son of that unhappy man whose
+bankruptcy and death had lately been recorded in all the newspapers.
+
+Violet did not tell her lover that his father had been the cruel
+enemy of her family--the sole cause of the sad interval of poverty
+and suffering during which she had been absent from the Grange. The
+generous girl had not the heart to tell Edward Godwin this; but she
+received his explanations very coldly notwithstanding.
+
+“I wonder you remember me now, Mr. Godwin,” she said proudly, “for
+when you saw me last, on the stage of the Circenses, you did not seek
+to renew your acquaintanceship with me.”
+
+And then Edward’s earnest protestations convinced her in a few
+moments that he had not recognized her, and that he had only been
+struck by what he imagined was a most wonderful accidental likeness.
+After that all went smoothly between the reunited lovers, and they
+began to talk of how the secret of their love was to be broken to the
+merchant captain and his wife.
+
+They were alone together under the arching trees; for, by the merest
+accident of course, Julia and Lionel had strolled one way, while
+Edward and Violet went the other.
+
+“I can ask for your hand boldly now, Violet dearest,” said Edward
+Godwin. “Fortune has been very good to me since last we met. My
+pictures have been successful, both in English and Continental
+Exhibitions, and I have received very liberal prices for my work.
+I am growing rich, darling, and I have splendid prospects for the
+future. I want nothing but a dear little wife to sit beside my
+easel--a sweet household divinity, whose fair young face will inspire
+me with all kinds of poetical ideas. My life has been a very hard
+one, Violet; and when I was reticent as to my own history, it was
+because the subject was a most painful one. There was bad blood
+between my father and me. I cannot speak harshly of the dead, and
+therefore I will say nothing as to the cause of our quarrel. But we
+did quarrel, and we parted at once, and for ever. I went into the
+world penniless, and I have lived by my pencil ever since, having
+sworn to starve sooner than touch a sixpence of my father’s money.
+There is no spur so sharp as poverty. I have worked hard, and I have
+been amply rewarded for my work.”
+
+It is needless to linger with these lovers. They walked long under
+the shadow of those solemn forest trees, and they could have walked
+there for hours with no sense of weariness, with no consciousness of
+the monotony of their conversation, though it was very monotonous.
+
+While they lingered in the red westering light, another pair of
+lovers strolled near them, arm-in-arm. Lionel had declared his
+affection for Julia, and had won from her the confession that he
+had been loved almost from the first. But she did not tell him how
+she had saved his life when he had so nearly fallen a victim to a
+midnight assassin.
+
+That night Lionel and Violet confessed all to their parents.
+
+The communication was by no means a pleasant one to Harley Westford
+and his wife. Imagine the countenances of Signor and Signora Capulet,
+when informed that their sole daughter and heiress has set her
+affections on the young scion of the Montagues!
+
+It was difficult for Clara Westford to believe that the son of Rupert
+Godwin could be worthy of any woman’s love, much less of the love of
+that pearl amongst women, her own idolized daughter.
+
+But idolized children generally have their own way, however
+irrational their caprices may appear. And after considerable
+pleading, Violet and Lionel won Clara and her husband to consent to
+receive Rupert Godwin’s children.
+
+When once this consent had been gained, all the rest was easy.
+Edward Godwin was not a man to be misunderstood by his fellow-men;
+and the acquaintance which Harley Westford had so reluctantly begun
+speedily promised to ripen into friendship. “Is the young man to
+suffer because his father was a scoundrel?” the sailor asked himself.
+“That may be the letter of the old Jewish law, but I’m sure it isn’t
+Christianity. The Teacher who refused to cast a stone at a guilty
+woman would have been the last to punish her innocent children. Let
+young Godwin stand upon his own merits; and if I find he’s a good
+fellow, he shall marry my daughter, in spite of the scar under my
+left shoulder which bears witness against his father.”
+
+Mrs. Westford had been still less inclined than her husband to look
+kindly on the children of her merciless enemy; but even she was not
+inexorable. Julia’s grace and beauty--to say nothing of her evident
+devotion to Lionel--were quite irresistible; and before long the
+visitors from the forest cottage were as gladly welcomed at the
+Grange as any guests who had ever crossed the hospitable threshold.
+
+It was early in the following June, yet quite midsummer weather, when
+the bells of the little village church pealed gaily for a double
+wedding.
+
+Two fairer brides have rarely stood before an altar; two nobler
+bridegrooms seldom pledged the solemn vows which influence a lifetime.
+
+Captain Westford and his wife looked on with eyes that were dimmed
+by a mist of happy tears. Their own life lay before them, bright and
+sunny as it had been when they too had stood side by side before the
+altar of a sacred fane. Might these two young lives, now beginning,
+be as happy! That was the prayer breathed silently from the heart of
+husband and wife.
+
+Two pretty little rustic villas arose in the neighbourhood of
+the Grange. Not the builder’s ideal of Italian-Gothic, with a
+rickety-looking campanello tower for the stowage of empty crates
+and servants’ luggage, but trim little Tudor cottages, with broad
+stone-mullioned windows and roomy porches--a happy blending of the
+substantial and picturesque.
+
+Edward Godwin’s pencil soon won for him a world-wide fame; but he was
+known only to the world by the name he had assumed when he first met
+Violet at the county-ball and in the forest glades.
+
+Lionel, who had always been at heart a painter, followed the
+profession of his brother-in-law, and in his own style was almost
+equally successful.
+
+If he had loved art for no other reason, he would have loved it very
+dearly for the sake of that meeting in the printseller’s shop, when
+he looked for the first time on the beautiful face of his wife.
+
+And thus the curtain falls upon three happy homes--three united
+households, in which the days glide smoothly by, across whose
+threshold the demon Discord never passes; households on which the
+angels may look with approving smiles--households wherein “Love is
+lord of all.”
+
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+             PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
+                  STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
+
+
+
+
+                          Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+  Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
+  silently corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences
+  within the text and consultation of external sources.
+
+  Some hyphens in words have been silently removed and some silently
+  added when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
+
+  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Bold text
+  is surrounded by equal signs: =bold=.
+
+  Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text
+  and inconsistent or archaic usage have been retained.
+
+  Contents: ‘JULIA’S PROTEGE’ replaced by ‘JULIA’S PROTÉGÉ’.
+  Page 8: ‘the penniless hidalgoes’ replaced by ‘the penniless
+      hidalgos’.
+  Page 61: ‘doated with senile fondness’ replaced by ‘doted with
+      senile fondness’.
+  Page 74: ‘the nose, Anatasia’ replaced by ‘the nose, Anastasia’.
+  Page 94: ‘a doating father’ replaced by ‘a doting father’.
+  Page 110: ‘words in replp’ replaced by ‘words in reply’.
+  Page 141a: ‘horror took possesion’ replaced by ‘horror took
+      possession’.
+  Page 141b: ‘would be necesary’ replaced by ‘would be necessary’.
+  Page 149: ‘in the civiliszd world’ replaced by ‘in the civilized
+      world’.
+  Page 154: ‘for the first sime’ replaced by ‘for the first time’.
+  Page 157: ‘to the effect thal’ replaced by ‘to the effect that’.
+  Page 173: ‘the chief subects’ replaced by ‘the chief subjects’.
+  Page 176: ‘there’s an undergound’ replaced by ‘there’s an
+      underground’.
+  Page 178: ‘For sometime she’ replaced by ‘For some time she’.
+  Page 194: ‘had scrupuously avoided’ replaced by ‘had scrupulously
+      avoided’.
+  Page 203: ‘drawing-room as cooly’ replaced by ‘drawing-room as
+      coolly’.
+  Page 237a: ‘Good-morning, Mr. Grainger’ replaced by ‘Good morning,
+      Mr. Granger’.
+  Page 237b: ‘Stay, Mr. Grainger’ replaced by ‘Stay, Mr. Granger’.
+  Page 242: ‘swingeing canter’ replaced by ‘swinging canter’.
+  Page 244: ‘instrusted his beloved burden’ replaced by ‘intrusted his
+      beloved burden’.
+  Page 266: ‘a practical investigaton’ replaced by ‘a practical
+      investigation’.
+  Page 267: ‘prepared by Dr. Snaffle’ replaced by ‘prepared by Dr.
+      Snaffley’.
+  Page 274: ‘escape faom danger’ replaced by ‘escape from danger’.
+  Page 280: ‘duly set set forth’ replaced by ‘duly set forth’.
+  Page 305: ‘unable to struggel’ replaced by ‘unable to struggle’.
+  Page 311: ‘stare of idiotcy’ replaced by ‘stare of idiocy’.
+  Page 314: ‘reluctantly begun speedly’ replaced by ‘reluctantly begun
+      speedily’.
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77631 ***