diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:32:35 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:32:35 -0700 |
| commit | 84bc4316df2a7f5fee3bd07d8769099698da62cf (patch) | |
| tree | 906704f0bb52ab537032ab1cf1f51060e34a4e62 /old/8lasc10h.htm | |
Diffstat (limited to 'old/8lasc10h.htm')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/8lasc10h.htm | 17219 |
1 files changed, 17219 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/8lasc10h.htm b/old/8lasc10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..599f73c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8lasc10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,17219 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"> +<html> +<HEAD> +<META HTTP-EQUIV="content-type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<TITLE>Lady Audley's Secret </TITLE> +<META NAME="author" CONTENT="M.E. Braddon"> +</HEAD> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Lady Audley's Secret, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Lady Audley's Secret + +Author: Mary Elizabeth Braddon + +Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8954] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on August 29, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram and Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + + +<CENTER> +<H1>Lady Audley's Secret</H1> +<BR> +<HR size=1 width="33%"> +<BR> +<H2>BY<BR> +MARY<BR> +ELIZABETH<BR> +BRADDON</H2> +</CENTER> +<BR> +<HR size=1> +<BR> +<CENTER> +<H1>LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.</H1> +<HR size=1 width=140> +<H2>By Miss M.E. Braddon.</H2> +<HR size=1 width=140> +<H2>CHAPTER I.</H2> +<H3>LUCY.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +It lay down in a hollow, rich with fine old timber and luxuriant +pastures; and you came upon it through an avenue of limes, bordered on +either side by meadows, over the high hedges of which the cattle looked +inquisitively at you as you passed, wondering, perhaps, what you wanted; +for there was no thorough-fare, and unless you were going to the Court +you had no business there at all. +</P><P> +At the end of this avenue there was an old arch and a clock tower, with +a stupid, bewildering clock, which had only one hand—and which jumped +straight from one hour to the next—and was therefore always in +extremes. Through this arch you walked straight into the gardens of +Audley Court. +</P><P> +A smooth lawn lay before you, dotted with groups of rhododendrons, which +grew in more perfection here than anywhere else in the county. To the +right there were the kitchen gardens, the fish-pond, and an orchard +bordered by a dry moat, and a broken ruin of a wall, in some places +thicker than it was high, and everywhere overgrown with trailing ivy, +yellow stonecrop, and dark moss. To the left there was a broad graveled +walk, down which, years ago, when the place had been a convent, the +quiet nuns had walked hand in hand; a wall bordered with espaliers, and +shadowed on one side by goodly oaks, which shut out the flat landscape, +and circled in the house and gardens with a darkening shelter. +</P><P> +The house faced the arch, and occupied three sides of a quadrangle. It +was very old, and very irregular and rambling. The windows were uneven; +some small, some large, some with heavy stone mullions and rich stained +glass; others with frail lattices that rattled in every breeze; others +so modern that they might have been added only yesterday. Great piles of +chimneys rose up here and there behind the pointed gables, and seemed as +if they were so broken down by age and long service that they must have +fallen but for the straggling ivy which, crawling up the walls and +trailing even over the roof, wound itself about them and supported them. +The principal door was squeezed into a corner of a turret at one angle +of the building, as if it were in hiding from dangerous visitors, and +wished to keep itself a secret—a noble door for all that—old oak, and +studded with great square-headed iron nails, and so thick that the sharp +iron knocker struck upon it with a muffled sound, and the visitor rung a +clanging bell that dangled in a corner among the ivy, lest the noise of +the knocking should never penetrate the stronghold. +</P><P> +A glorious old place. A place that visitors fell in raptures with; +feeling a yearning wish to have done with life, and to stay there +forever, staring into the cool fish-ponds and counting the bubbles as +the roach and carp rose to the surface of the water. A spot in which +peace seemed to have taken up her abode, setting her soothing hand on +every tree and flower, on the still ponds and quiet alleys, the shady +corners of the old-fashioned rooms, the deep window-seats behind the +painted glass, the low meadows and the stately avenues—ay, even upon +the stagnant well, which, cool and sheltered as all else in the old +place, hid itself away in a shrubbery behind the gardens, with an idle +handle that was never turned and a lazy rope so rotten that the pail had +broken away from it, and had fallen into the water. +</P><P> +A noble place; inside as well as out, a noble place—a house in which +you incontinently lost yourself if ever you were so rash as to attempt +to penetrate its mysteries alone; a house in which no one room had any +sympathy with another, every chamber running off at a tangent into an +inner chamber, and through that down some narrow staircase leading to a +door which, in its turn, led back into that very part of the house from +which you thought yourself the furthest; a house that could never have +been planned by any mortal architect, but must have been the handiwork +of that good old builder, Time, who, adding a room one year, and +knocking down a room another year, toppling down a chimney coeval with +the Plantagenets, and setting up one in the style of the Tudors; shaking +down a bit of Saxon wall, allowing a Norman arch to stand here; throwing +in a row of high narrow windows in the reign of Queen Anne, and joining +on a dining-room after the fashion of the time of Hanoverian George I, +to a refectory that had been standing since the Conquest, had contrived, +in some eleven centuries, to run up such a mansion as was not elsewhere +to be met with throughout the county of Essex. Of course, in such a +house there were secret chambers; the little daughter of the present +owner, Sir Michael Audley, had fallen by accident upon the discovery of +one. A board had rattled under her feet in the great nursery where she +played, and on attention being drawn to it, it was found to be loose, +and so removed, revealed a ladder, leading to a hiding-place between the +floor of the nursery and the ceiling of the room below—a hiding-place +so small that he who had hid there must have crouched on his hands and +knees or lain at full length, and yet large enough to contain a quaint +old carved oak chest, half filled with priests' vestments, which had +been hidden away, no doubt, in those cruel days when the life of a man +was in danger if he was discovered to have harbored a Roman Catholic +priest, or to have mass said in his house. +</P><P> +The broad outer moat was dry and grass-grown, and the laden trees of the +orchard hung over it with gnarled, straggling branches that drew +fantastical shadows upon the green slope. Within this moat there was, as +I have said, the fish-pond—a sheet of water that extended the whole +length of the garden and bordering which there was an avenue called the +lime-tree walk; an avenue so shaded from the sun and sky, so screened +from observation by the thick shelter of the over-arching trees that it +seemed a chosen place for secret meetings or for stolen interviews; a +place in which a conspiracy might have been planned, or a lover's vow +registered with equal safety; and yet it was scarcely twenty paces from +the house. +</P><P> +At the end of this dark arcade there was the shrubbery, where, half +buried among the tangled branches and the neglected weeds, stood the +rusty wheel of that old well of which I have spoken. It had been of good +service in its time, no doubt; and busy nuns have perhaps drawn the cool +water with their own fair hands; but it had fallen into disuse now, and +scarcely any one at Audley Court knew whether the spring had dried up or +not. But sheltered as was the solitude of this lime-tree walk, I doubt +very much if it was ever put to any romantic uses. Often in the cool of +the evening Sir Michael Audley would stroll up and down smoking his +cigar, with his dogs at his heels, and his pretty young wife dawdling by +his side; but in about ten minutes the baronet and his companion would +grow tired of the rustling limes and the still water, hidden under the +spreading leaves of the water-lilies, and the long green vista with the +broken well at the end, and would stroll back to the drawing-room, where +my lady played dreamy melodies by Beethoven and Mendelssohn till her +husband fell asleep in his easy-chair. +</P><P> +Sir Michael Audley was fifty-six years of age, and he had married a +second wife three months after his fifty-fifth birthday. He was a big +man, tall and stout, with a deep, sonorous voice, handsome black eyes, +and a white beard—a white beard which made him look venerable against +his will, for he was as active as a boy, and one of the hardest riders +in the country. For seventeen years he had been a widower with an only +child, a daughter, Alicia Audley, now eighteen, and by no means too well +pleased at having a step-mother brought home to the Court; for Miss +Alicia had reigned supreme in her father's house since her earliest +childhood, and had carried the keys, and jingled them in the pockets of +her silk aprons, and lost them in the shrubbery, and dropped them into +the pond, and given all manner of trouble about them from the hour in +which she entered her teens, and had, on that account, deluded herself +into the sincere belief, that for the whole of that period, she had been +keeping the house. +</P><P> +But Miss Alicia's day was over; and now, when she asked anything of the +housekeeper, the housekeeper would tell her that she would speak to my +lady, or she would consult my lady, and if my lady pleased it should be +done. So the baronet's daughter, who was an excellent horsewoman and a +very clever artist, spent most of her time out of doors, riding about +the green lanes, and sketching the cottage children, and the plow-boys, +and the cattle, and all manner of animal life that came in her way. She +set her face with a sulky determination against any intimacy between +herself and the baronet's young wife; and amiable as that lady was, she +found it quite impossible to overcome Miss Alicia's prejudices and +dislike; or to convince the spoilt girl that she had not done her a +cruel injury by marrying Sir Michael Audley. The truth was that Lady +Audley had, in becoming the wife of Sir Michael, made one of those +apparently advantageous matches which are apt to draw upon a woman the +envy and hatred of her sex. She had come into the neighborhood as a +governess in the family of a surgeon in the village near Audley Court. +No one knew anything of her, except that she came in answer to an +advertisement which Mr. Dawson, the surgeon, had inserted in The +<i>Times</i>. She came from London; and the only reference she gave was to a +lady at a school at Brompton, where she had once been a teacher. But +this reference was so satisfactory that none other was needed, and Miss +Lucy Graham was received by the surgeon as the instructress of his +daughters. Her accomplishments were so brilliant and numerous, that it +seemed strange that she should have answered an advertisement offering +such very moderate terms of remuneration as those named by Mr. Dawson; +but Miss Graham seemed perfectly well satisfied with her situation, and +she taught the girls to play sonatas by Beethoven, and to paint from +nature after Creswick, and walked through a dull, out-of-the-way village +to the humble little church, three times every Sunday, as contentedly as +if she had no higher aspiration in the world than to do so all the rest +of her life. +</P><P> +People who observed this, accounted for it by saying that it was a part +of her amiable and gentle nature always to be light-hearted, happy and +contented under any circumstances. +</P><P> +Wherever she went she seemed to take joy and brightness with her. In the +cottages of the poor her fair face shone like a sunbeam. She would sit +for a quarter of an hour talking to some old woman, and apparently as +pleased with the admiration of a toothless crone as if she had been +listening to the compliments of a marquis; and when she tripped away, +leaving nothing behind her (for her poor salary gave no scope to her +benevolence), the old woman would burst out into senile raptures with +her grace, beauty, and her kindliness, such as she never bestowed upon +the vicar's wife, who half fed and clothed her. For you see, Miss Lucy +Graham was blessed with that magic power of fascination, by which a +woman can charm with a word or intoxicate with a smile. Every one loved, +admired, and praised her. The boy who opened the five-barred gate that +stood in her pathway, ran home to his mother to tell of her pretty +looks, and the sweet voice in which she thanked him for the little +service. The verger at the church, who ushered her into the surgeon's +pew; the vicar, who saw the soft blue eyes uplifted to his face as he +preached his simple sermon; the porter from the railway station, who +brought her sometimes a letter or a parcel, and who never looked for +reward from her; her employer; his visitors; her pupils; the servants; +everybody, high and low, united in declaring that Lucy Graham was the +sweetest girl that ever lived. +</P><P> +Perhaps it was the rumor of this which penetrated into the quiet chamber +of Audley Court; or, perhaps, it was the sight of her pretty face, +looking over the surgeon's high pew every Sunday morning; however it +was, it was certain that Sir Michael Audley suddenly experienced a +strong desire to be better acquainted with Mr. Dawson's governess. +</P><P> +He had only to hint his wish to the worthy doctor for a little party to +be got up, to which the vicar and his wife, and the baronet and his +daughter, were invited. +</P><P> +That one quiet evening sealed Sir Michael's fate. He could no more +resist the tender fascination of those soft and melting blue eyes; the +graceful beauty of that slender throat and drooping head, with its +wealth of showering flaxen curls; the low music of that gentle voice; +the perfect harmony which pervaded every charm, and made all doubly +charming in this woman; than he could resist his destiny! Destiny! Why, +she was his destiny! He had never loved before. What had been his +marriage with Alicia's mother but a dull, jog-trot bargain made to keep +some estate in the family that would have been just as well out of it? +What had been his love for his first wife but a poor, pitiful, +smoldering spark, too dull to be extinguished, too feeble to burn? But +<i>this</i> was love—this fever, this longing, this restless, uncertain, +miserable hesitation; these cruel fears that his age was an +insurmountable barrier to his happiness; this sick hatred of his white +beard; this frenzied wish to be young again, with glistening raven hair, +and a slim waist, such as he had twenty years before; these, wakeful +nights and melancholy days, so gloriously brightened if he chanced to +catch a glimpse of her sweet face behind the window curtains, as he +drove past the surgeon's house; all these signs gave token of the truth, +and told only too plainly that, at the sober age of fifty-five, Sir +Michael Audley had fallen ill of the terrible fever called love. +</P><P> +I do not think that, throughout his courtship, the baronet once +calculated upon his wealth or his position as reasons for his success. +If he ever remembered these things, he dismissed the thought of them +with a shudder. It pained him too much to believe for a moment that any +one so lovely and innocent could value herself against a splendid house +or a good old title. No; his hope was that, as her life had been most +likely one of toil and dependence, and as she was very young nobody +exactly knew her age, but she looked little more than twenty, she might +never have formed any attachment, and that he, being the first to woo +her, might, by tender attentions, by generous watchfulness, by a love +which should recall to her the father she had lost, and by a protecting +care that should make him necessary to her, win her young heart, and +obtain from her fresh and earliest love, the promise or her hand. It was +a very romantic day-dream, no doubt; but, for all that, it seemed in a +very fair way to be realized. Lucy Graham appeared by no means to +dislike the baronet's attentions. There was nothing whatever in her +manner that betrayed the shallow artifices employed by a woman who +wishes to captivate a rich man. She was so accustomed to admiration from +every one, high and low, that Sir Michael's conduct made very little +impression upon her. Again, he had been so many years a widower that +people had given up the idea of his ever marrying again. At last, +however, Mrs. Dawson spoke to the governess on the subject. The +surgeon's wife was sitting in the school-room busy at work, while Lucy +was putting the finishing touches on some water-color sketches done by +her pupils. +</P><P> +"Do you know, my dear Miss Graham," said Mrs. Dawson, "I think you ought +to consider yourself a remarkably lucky girl?" +</P><P> +The governess lifted her head from its stooping attitude, and stared +wonderingly at her employer, shaking back a shower of curls. They were +the most wonderful curls in the world—soft and feathery, always +floating away from her face, and making a pale halo round her head when +the sunlight shone through them. +</P><P> +"What do you mean, my dear Mrs. Dawson?" she asked, dipping her +camel's-hair brush into the wet aquamarine upon the palette, and poising +it carefully before putting in the delicate streak of purple which was +to brighten the horizon in her pupil's sketch. +</P><P> +"Why, I mean, my dear, that it only rests with yourself to become Lady +Audley, and the mistress of Audley Court." +</P><P> +Lucy Graham dropped the brush upon the picture, and flushed scarlet to +the roots of her fair hair; and then grew pale again, far paler than +Mrs. Dawson had ever seen her before. +</P><P> +"My dear, don't agitate yourself," said the surgeon's wife, soothingly; +"you know that nobody asks you to marry Sir Michael unless you wish. Of +course it would be a magnificent match; he has a splendid income, and is +one of the most generous of men. Your position would be very high, and +you would be enabled to do a great deal of good; but, as I said before, +you must be entirely guided by your own feelings. Only one thing I must +say, and that is that if Sir Michael's attentions are not agreeable to +you, it is really scarcely honorable to encourage him." +</P><P> +"His attentions—encourage him!" muttered Lucy, as if the words +bewildered her. "Pray, pray don't talk to me, Mrs. Dawson. I had no idea +of this. It is the last thing that would have occurred to me." She +leaned her elbows on the drawing-board before her, and clasping her +hands over her face, seemed for some minutes to be thinking deeply. She +wore a narrow black ribbon round her neck, with a locket, or a cross, or +a miniature, perhaps, attached to it; but whatever the trinket was, she +always kept it hidden under her dress. Once or twice, while she sat +silently thinking, she removed one of her hands from before her face, +and fidgeted nervously with the ribbon, clutching at it with a +half-angry gesture, and twisting it backward and forward between her +fingers. +</P><P> +"I think some people are born to be unlucky, Mrs. Dawson," she said, +by-and-by; "it would be a great deal too much good fortune for me to +become Lady Audley." +</P><P> +She said this with so much bitterness in her tone, that the surgeon's +wife looked up at her with surprise. +</P><P> +"You unlucky, my dear!" she exclaimed. "I think you are the last person +who ought to talk like that—you, such a bright, happy creature, that it +does every one good to see you. I'm sure I don't know what we shall do +if Sir Michael robs us of you." +</P><P> +After this conversation they often spoke upon the subject, and Lucy +never again showed any emotion whatever when the baronet's admiration +for her was canvassed. It was a tacitly understood thing in the +surgeon's family that whenever Sir Michael proposed, the governess would +quietly accept him; and, indeed, the simple Dawsons would have thought +it something more than madness in a penniless girl to reject such an +offer. +</P><P> +So, one misty August evening, Sir Michael, sitting opposite to Lucy +Graham, at a window in the surgeon's little drawing-room, took an +opportunity while the family happened by some accident to be absent from +the room, of speaking upon the subject nearest to his heart. He made the +governess, in a few but solemn words, an offer of his hand. There was +something almost touching in the manner and tone in which he spoke to +her—half in deprecation, knowing that he could hardly expect to be the +choice of a beautiful young girl, and praying rather that she would +reject him, even though she broke his heart by doing so, than that she +should accept his offer if she did not love him. +</P><P> +"I scarcely think there is a greater sin, Lucy," he said, solemnly, +"than that of a woman who marries a man she does not love. You are so +precious to me, my beloved, that deeply as my heart is set on this, and +bitter as the mere thought of disappointment is to me, I would not have +you commit such a sin for any happiness of mine. If my happiness could +be achieved by such an act, which it could not—which it never could," +he repeated, earnestly—"nothing but misery can result from a marriage +dictated by any motive but truth and love." +</P><P> +Lucy Graham was not looking at Sir Michael, but straight out into the +misty twilight and dim landscape far away beyond the little garden. The +baronet tried to see her face, but her profile was turned to him, and he +could not discover the expression of her eyes. If he could have done so, +he would have seen a yearning gaze which seemed as if it would have +pierced the far obscurity and looked away—away into another world. +</P><P> +"Lucy, you heard me?" +</P><P> +"Yes," she said, gravely; not coldly, or in any way as if she were +offended at his words. +</P><P> +"And your answer?" +</P><P> +She did not remove her gaze from the darkening country side, but for +some moments was quite silent; then turning to him, with a sudden +passion in her manner, that lighted up her face with a new and wonderful +beauty which the baronet perceived even in the growing twilight, she +fell on her knees at his feet. +</P><P> +"No, Lucy; no, no!" he cried, vehemently, "not here, not here!" +</P><P> +"Yes, here, here," she said, the strange passion which agitated her +making her voice sound shrill and piercing—not loud, but +preternaturally distinct; "here and nowhere else. How good you are—how +noble and how generous! Love you! Why, there are women a hundred times +my superiors in beauty and in goodness who might love you dearly; but +you ask too much of me! Remember what my life has been; only remember +that! From my very babyhood I have never seen anything but poverty. My +father was a gentleman: clever, accomplished, handsome—but poor—and +what a pitiful wretch poverty made of him! My mother—But do not let me +speak of her. Poverty—poverty, trials, vexations, humiliations, +deprivations. You cannot tell; you, who are among those for whom life is +so smooth and easy, you can never guess what is endured by such as we. +Do not ask too much of me, then. I cannot be disinterested; I cannot be +blind to the advantages of such an alliance. I cannot, I cannot!" +</P><P> +Beyond her agitation and her passionate vehemence, there is an undefined +something in her manner which fills the baronet with a vague alarm. She +is still on the ground at his feet, crouching rather than kneeling, her +thin white dress clinging about her, her pale hair streaming over her +shoulders, her great blue eyes glittering in the dusk, and her hands +clutching at the black ribbon about her throat, as if it had been +strangling her. "Don't ask too much of me," she kept repeating; "I have +been selfish from my babyhood." +</P><P> +"Lucy—Lucy, speak plainly. Do you dislike me?" +</P><P> +"Dislike you? No—no!" +</P><P> +"But is there any one else whom you love?" +</P><P> +She laughed aloud at his question. "I do not love any one in the world," +she answered. +</P><P> +He was glad of her reply; and yet that and the strange laugh jarred upon +his feelings. He was silent for some moments, and then said, with a kind +of effort: +</P><P> +"Well, Lucy, I will not ask too much of you. I dare say I am a romantic +old fool; but if you do not dislike me, and if you do not love any one +else, I see no reason why we should not make a very happy couple. Is it +a bargain, Lucy?" +</P><P> +"Yes." +</P><P> +The baronet lifted her in his arms and kissed her once upon the +forehead, then quietly bidding her good-night, he walked straight out of +the house. +</P><P> +He walked straight out of the house, this foolish old man, because there +was some strong emotion at work in his breast—neither joy nor triumph, +but something almost akin to disappointment—some stifled and +unsatisfied longing which lay heavy and dull at his heart, as if he had +carried a corpse in his bosom. He carried the corpse of that hope which +had died at the sound of Lucy's words. All the doubts and fears and +timid aspirations were ended now. He must be contented, like other men +of his age, to be married for his fortune and his position. +</P><P> +Lucy Graham went slowly up the stairs to her little room at the top of +the house. She placed her dim candle on the chest of drawers, and seated +herself on the edge of the white bed, still and white as the draperies +hanging around her. +</P><P> +"No more dependence, no more drudgery, no more humiliations," she said; +"every trace of the old life melted away—every clew to identity buried +and forgotten—except these, except these." +</P><P> +She had never taken her left hand from the black ribbon at her throat. +She drew it from her bosom, as she spoke, and looked at the object +attached to it. +</P><P> +It was neither a locket, a miniature, nor a cross; it was a ring wrapped +in an oblong piece of paper—the paper partly written, partly printed, +yellow with age, and crumpled with much folding. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER II.</H2> +<H3>ON BOARD THE ARGUS.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +He threw the end of his cigar into the water, and leaning his elbows +upon the bulwarks, stared meditatively at the waves. +</P><P> +"How wearisome they are," he said; "blue and green, and opal; opal, and +blue, and green; all very well in their way, of course, but three months +of them are rather too much, especially—" +</P><P> +He did not attempt to finish his sentence; his thoughts seemed to wander +in the very midst of it, and carry him a thousand miles or so away. +</P><P> +"Poor little girl, how pleased she'll be!" he muttered, opening his +cigar-case, lazily surveying its contents; "how pleased and how +surprised? Poor little girl. After three years and a half, too; she +<i>will</i> be surprised." +</P><P> +He was a young man of about five-and-twenty, with dark face bronzed by +exposure to the sun; he had handsome brown eyes, with a lazy smile in +them that sparkled through the black lashes, and a bushy beard and +mustache that covered the whole lower part of his face. He was tall and +powerfully built; he wore a loose gray suit and a felt hat, thrown +carelessly upon his black hair. His name was George Talboys, and he was +aft-cabin passenger on board the good ship <i>Argus</i>, laden with +Australian wool and sailing from Sydney to Liverpool. +</P><P> +There were very few passengers in the aft-cabin of the <i>Argus</i>. An +elderly wool-stapler returning to his native country with his wife and +daughters, after having made a fortune in the colonies; a governess of +three-and-thirty years of age, going home to marry a man to whom she had +been engaged fifteen years; the sentimental daughter of a wealthy +Australian wine-merchant, invoiced to England to finish her education, +and George Talboys, were the only first-class passengers on board. +</P><P> +This George Talboys was the life and soul of the vessel; nobody knew who +or what he was, or where he came from, but everybody liked him. He sat +at the bottom of the dinner-table, and assisted the captain in doing the +honors of the friendly meal. He opened the champagne bottles, and took +wine with every one present; be told funny stories, and led the life +himself with such a joyous peal that the man must have been a churl who +could not have laughed for pure sympathy. He was a capital hand at +speculation and vingt-et-un, and all the merry games, which kept the +little circle round the cabin-lamp so deep in innocent amusement, that a +hurricane might have howled overhead without their hearing it; but he +freely owned that he had no talent for whist, and that he didn't know a +knight from a castle upon the chess-board. +</P><P> +Indeed, Mr. Talboys was by no means too learned a gentleman. The pale +governess had tried to talk to him about fashionable literature, but +George had only pulled his beard and stared very hard at her, saying +occasionally, "Ah, yes, by Jove!" and "To be sure, ah!" +</P><P> +The sentimental young lady, going home to finish her education, had +tried him with Shelby and Byron, and he had fairly laughed in her face, +as if poetry where a joke. The woolstapler sounded him on politics, but +he did not seem very deeply versed in them; so they let him go his own +way, smoke his cigars and talk to the sailors, lounge over the bulwarks +and stare at the water, and make himself agreeable to everybody in his +own fashion. But when the <i>Argus</i> came to be within about a fortnight's +sail of England everybody noticed a change in George Talboys. He grew +restless and fidgety; sometimes so merry that the cabin rung with his +laughter; sometimes moody and thoughtful. Favorite as he was among the +sailors, they were tired at last of answering his perpetual questions +about the probable time of touching land. Would it be in ten days, in +eleven, in twelve, in thirteen? Was the wind favorable? How many knots +an hour was the vessel doing? Then a sudden passion would sieze him, and +he would stamp upon the deck, crying out that she was a rickety old +craft, and that her owners were swindlers to advertise her as the +fast-sailing <i>Argus</i>. She was not fit for passenger traffic; she was not +fit to carry impatient living creatures, with hearts and souls; she was +fit for nothing but to be laden with bales of stupid wool, that might +rot on the sea and be none the worse for it. +</P><P> +The sun was drooping down behind the waves as George Talboys lighted his +cigar upon this August evening. Only ten days more, the sailors had told +him that afternoon, and they would see the English coast. "I will go +ashore in the first boat that hails us," he cried; "I will go ashore in +a cockle-shell. By Jove, if it comes to that, I will swim to land." +</P><P> +His friends in the aft-cabin, with the exception of the pale governess, +laughed at his impatience; she sighed as she watched the young man, +chafing at the slow hours, pushing away his untasted wine, flinging +himself restlessly about upon the cabin sofa, rushing up and down the +companion ladder, and staring at the waves. +</P><P> +As the red rim of the sun dropped into the water, the governess ascended +the cabin stairs for a stroll on deck, while the passengers sat over +their wine below. She stopped when she came up to George, and, standing +by his side, watched the fading crimson in the western sky. +</P><P> +The lady was very quiet and reserved, seldom sharing in the after-cabin +amusements, never laughing, and speaking very little; but she and George +Talboys had been excellent friends throughout the passage. +</P><P> +"Does my cigar annoy you, Miss Morley?" he said, taking it out of his +mouth. +</P><P> +"Not at all; pray do not leave off smoking. I only came up to look at +the sunset. What a lovely evening!" +</P><P> +"Yes, yes, I dare say," he answered, impatiently; "yet so long, so long! +Ten more interminable days and ten more weary nights before we land." +</P><P> +"Yes," said Miss Morley, sighing. "Do you wish the time shorter?" +</P><P> +"Do I?" cried George. "Indeed I do. Don't you?" +</P><P> +"Scarcely." +</P><P> +"But is there no one you love in England? Is there no one you love +looking out for your arrival?" +</P><P> +"I hope so," she said gravely. They were silent for some time, he +smoking his cigar with a furious impatience, as if he could hasten the +course of the vessel by his own restlessness; she looking out at the +waning light with melancholy blue eyes—eyes that seemed to have faded +with poring over closely-printed books and difficult needlework; eyes +that had faded a little, perhaps, by reason of tears secretly shed in +the lonely night. +</P><P> +"See!" said George, suddenly, pointing in another direction from that +toward which Miss Morley was looking, "there's the new moon!" +</P><P> +She looked up at the pale crescent, her own face almost as pale and wan. +</P><P> +"This is the first time we have seen it." +</P><P> +"We must wish!" said George. "I know what I wish." +</P><P> +"What?" +</P><P> +"That we may get home quickly." +</P><P> +"My wish is that we may find no disappointment when we get there," said +the governess, sadly. +</P><P> +"Disappointment!" +</P><P> +He started as if he had been struck, and asked what she meant by talking +of disappointment. +</P><P> +"I mean this," she said, speaking rapidly, and with a restless motion of +her thin hands; "I mean that as the end of the voyage draws near, hope +sinks in my heart; and a sick fear comes over me that at the last all +may not be well. The person I go to meet may be changed in his feelings +toward me; or he may retain all the old feeling until the moment of +seeing me, and then lose it in a breath at sight of my poor wan face, +for I was called a pretty girl, Mr. Talboys, when I sailed for Sydney, +fifteen years ago; or he may be so changed by the world as to have grown +selfish and mercenary, and he may welcome me for the sake of my fifteen +years' savings. Again, he may be dead. He may have been well, perhaps, +up to within a week of our landing, and in that last week may have taken +a fever, and died an hour before our vessel anchors in the Mersey. I +think of all these things, Mr. Talboys, and act the scenes over in my +mind, and feel the anguish of them twenty times a day. Twenty times a +day," she repeated; "why I do it a thousand times a day." +</P><P> +George Talboys had stood motionless, with his cigar in his hand, +listening to her so intently that, as she said the last words, his hold +relaxed, and the cigar dropped in the water. +</P><P> +"I wonder," she continued, more to herself than to him, "I wonder, +looking back, to think how hopeful I was when the vessel sailed; I never +thought then of disappointment, but I pictured the joy of meeting, +imagining the very words that would be said, the very tones, the very +looks; but for this last month of the voyage, day by day, and hour by +hour my heart sinks and my hopeful fancies fade away, and I dread the +end as much as if I knew that I was going to England to attend a +funeral." +</P><P> +The young man suddenly changed his attitude, and turned his face full +upon his companion, with a look of alarm. She saw in the pale light that +the color had faded from his cheek. +</P><P> +"What a fool!" he cried, striking his clinched fist upon the side of the +vessel, "what a fool I am to be frightened at this? Why do you come and +say these things to me? Why do you come and terrify me out of my senses, +when I am going straight home to the woman I love; to a girl whose heart +is as true as the light of Heaven; and in whom I no more expect to find +any change than I do to see another sun rise in to-morrow's sky? Why do +you come and try to put such fancies in my head when I am going home to +my darling wife?" +</P><P> +"Your wife," she said; "that is different. There is no reason that my +terrors should terrify you. I am going to England to rejoin a man to +whom I was engaged to be married fifteen years ago. He was too poor to +marry then, and when I was offered a situation as governess in a rich +Australian family, I persuaded him to let me accept it, so that I might +leave him free and unfettered to win his way in the world, while I saved +a little money to help us when we began life together. I never meant to +stay away so long, but things have gone badly with him in England. That +is my story, and you can understand my fears. They need not influence +you. Mine is an exceptional case." +</P><P> +"So is mine," said George, impatiently. "I tell you that mine is an +exceptional case: although I swear to you that until this moment, I have +never known a fear as to the result of my voyage home. But you are +right; your terrors have nothing to do with me. You have been away +fifteen years; all kinds of things may happen in fifteen years. Now it +is only three years and a half this very month since I left England. +What can have happened in such a short time as that?" +</P><P> +Miss Morley looked at him with a mournful smile, but did not speak. His +feverish ardor, the freshness and impatience of his nature were so +strange and new to her, that she looked at him half in admiration, half +in pity. +</P><P> +"My pretty little wife! My gentle, innocent, loving little wife! Do you +know, Miss Morley," he said, with all his old hopefulness of manner, +"that I left my little girl asleep, with her baby in her arms, and with +nothing but a few blotted lines to tell her why her faithful husband had +deserted her?" +</P><P> +"Deserted her!" exclaimed the governess. +</P><P> +"Yes. I was an ensign in a cavalry regiment when I first met my little +darling. We were quartered at a stupid seaport town, where my pet lived +with her shabby old father, a half-pay naval officer; a regular old +humbug, as poor as Job, and with an eye for nothing but the main chance. +I saw through all his shallow tricks to catch one of us for his pretty +daughter. I saw all the pitiable, contemptible, palpable traps he set +for us big dragoons to walk into. I saw through his shabby-genteel +dinners and public-house port; his fine talk of the grandeur of his +family; his sham pride and independence, and the sham tears of his +bleared old eyes when he talked of his only child. He was a drunken old +hypocrite, and he was ready to sell my poor, little girl to the highest +bidder. Luckily for me, I happened just then to be the highest bidder; +for my father, is a rich man, Miss Morley, and as it was love at first +sight on both sides, my darling and I made a match of it. No sooner, +however, did my father hear that I had married a penniless little girl, +the daughter of a tipsy old half-pay lieutenant, than he wrote me a +furious letter, telling me he would never again hold any communication +with me, and that my yearly allowance would stop from my wedding-day. +</P><P> +"As there was no remaining in such a regiment as mine, with nothing but +my pay to live on, and my pretty little wife to keep, I sold out, +thinking that before the money was exhausted, I should be sure to drop +into something. I took my darling to Italy, and we lived there in +splendid style as long as my two thousand pounds lasted; but when that +began to dwindle down to a couple of hundred or so, we came back to +England, and as my darling had a fancy for being near that tiresome old +father of hers, we settled at the watering-place where he lived. Well, +as soon as the old man heard that I had a couple of hundred pounds left, +he expressed a wonderful degree of affection for us, and insisted on our +boarding in his house. We consented, still to please my darling, who had +just then a peculiar right to have every whim and fancy of her innocent +heart indulged. We did board with him, and finally he fleeced us; but +when I spoke of it to my little wife, she only shrugged her shoulders, +and said she did not like to be unkind to her 'poor papa.' So poor papa +made away with our little stock of money in no time; and as I felt that +it was now becoming necessary to look about for something, I ran up to +London, and tried to get a situation as a clerk in a merchant's office, +or as accountant, or book-keeper, or something of that kind. But I +suppose there was the stamp of a heavy dragoon about me, for do what I +would I couldn't get anybody to believe in my capacity; and tired out, +and down-hearted, I returned to my darling, to find her nursing a son +and heir to his father's poverty. Poor little girl, she was very +low-spirited; and when I told her that my London expedition had failed, +she fairly broke down, and burst in to a storm of sobs and lamentations, +telling me that I ought not to have married her if I could give her +nothing but poverty and misery; and that I had done her a cruel wrong in +making her my wife. By heaven! Miss Morley, her tears and reproaches +drove me almost mad; and I flew into a rage with her, myself, her +father, the world, and everybody in it, and then rail out of the house. +I walked about the streets all that day, half out of my mind, and with a +strong inclination to throw myself into the sea, so as to leave my poor +girl free to make a better match. 'If I drown myself, her father must +support her,' I thought; 'the old hypocrite could never refuse her a +shelter; but while I live she has no claim on him.' I went down to a +rickety old wooden pier, meaning to wait there till it was dark, and +then drop quietly over the end of it into the water; but while I sat +there smoking my pipe, and staring vacantly at the sea-gulls, two men +came down, and one of them began to talk of the Australian +gold-diggings, and the great things that were to be done there. It +appeared that he was going to sail in a day or two, and he was trying to +persuade his companion to join him in the expedition. +</P><P> +"I listened to these men for upward of an hour, following them up and +down the pier, with my pipe in my mouth, and hearing all their talk. +After this I fell into conversation with them myself, and ascertained +that there was a vessel going to leave Liverpool in three days, by which +vessel one of the men was going out. This man gave me all the +information I required, and told me, moreover, that a stalwart young +fellow, such as I was, could hardly fail to do well in the diggings. The +thought flashed upon me so suddenly, that I grew hot and red in the +face, and trembled in every limb with excitement. This was better than +the water, at any rate. Suppose I stole away from my darling, leaving +her safe under her father's roof, and went and made a fortune in the new +world, and came back in a twelvemonth to throw it into her lap; for I +was so sanguine in those days that I counted on making my fortune in a +year or so. I thanked the man for his information, and late at night +strolled homeward. It was bitter winter weather, but I had been too full +of passion to feel cold, and I walked through the quiet streets, with +the snow drifting in my face, and a desperate hopefulness in my heart. +The old man was sitting drinking brandy-and-water in the little +dining-room; and my wife was up-stairs, sleeping peacefully, with the +baby on her breast. I sat down and wrote a few brief lines, which told +her that I never had loved her better than now, when I seemed to desert +her; that I was going to try my fortune in the new world, and that if I +succeeded I should come back to bring her plenty and happiness; but that +if I failed I should never look upon her face again. I divided the +remainder of our money—something over forty pounds—into two equal +portions, leaving one for her, and putting the other in my pocket. I +knelt down and prayed for my wife and child, with my head upon the white +counterpane that covered them. I wasn't much of a praying man at +ordinary times, but God knows <i>that</i> was a heartfelt prayer. I kissed +her once, and the baby once, and then crept out of the room. The +dining-room door was open, and the old man was nodding over his paper. +He looked up as he heard my step in the passage, and asked me where I +was going. 'To have a smoke in the street,' I answered; and as this was +a common habit of mine he believed me. Three nights after I was out at +sea, bound for Melbourne—a steerage passenger, with a digger's tools +for my baggage, and about seven shillings in my pocket." +</P><P> +"And you succeeded?" asked Miss Morley. +</P><P> +"Not till I had long despaired of success; not until poverty and I had +become such old companions and bed-fellows, that looking back at my past +life, I wondered whether that dashing, reckless, extravagant, luxurious, +champagne-drinking dragoon could have really been the same man who sat +on the damp ground gnawing a moldy crust in the wilds of the new world. +I clung to the memory of my darling, and the trust that I had in her +love and truth was the one keystone that kept the fabric of my past life +together—the one star that lit the thick black darkness of the future. +I was hail-fellow-well-met with bad men; I was in the center of riot, +drunkenness, and debauchery; but the purifying influence of my love kept +me safe from all. Thin and gaunt, the half-starved shadow of what I once +had been, I saw myself one day in a broken bit of looking-glass, and was +frightened by my own face. But I toiled on through all; through +disappointment and despair, rheumatism, fever, starvation; at the very +gates of death, I toiled on steadily to the end; and in the end I +conquered." +</P><P> +He was so brave in his energy and determination, in his proud triumph of +success, and in the knowledge of the difficulties he had vanquished, +that the pale governess could only look at him in wondering admiration. +</P><P> +"How brave you were!" she said. +</P><P> +"Brave!" he cried, with a joyous peal of laughter; "wasn't I working for +my darling? Through all the dreary time of that probation, her pretty +white hand seemed beckoning me onward to a happy future! Why, I have +seen her under my wretched canvas tent sitting by my side, with her boy +in her arms, as plainly as I had ever seen her in the one happy year of +our wedded life. At last, one dreary foggy morning, just three months +ago, with a drizzling rain wetting me to the skin, up to my neck in clay +and mire, half-starved, enfeebled by fever, stiff with rheumatism, a +monster nugget turned up under my spade, and I was in one minute the +richest man in Australia. I fell down on the wet clay, with my lump of +gold in the bosom of my shirt, and, for the first time in my life, cried +like a child. I traveled post-haste to Sydney, realized my price, which +was worth upward of £20,000, and a fortnight afterward took my passage +for England in this vessel; and in ten days—in ten days I shall see my +darling." +</P><P> +"But in all that time did you never write to your wife?" +</P><P> +"Never, till the night before I left Sydney. I could not write when +everything looked so black. I could not write and tell her that I was +fighting hard with despair and death. I waited for better fortune, and +when that came I wrote telling her that I should be in England almost as +soon as my letter, and giving her an address at a coffee-house in London +where she could write to me, telling me where to find her, though she is +hardly likely to have left her father's house." +</P><P> +He fell into a reverie after this, and puffed meditatively at his cigar. +His companion did not disturb him. The last ray of summer daylight had +died out, and the pale light of the crescent moon only remained. +</P><P> +Presently George Talboys flung away his cigar, and turning to the +governess, cried abruptly, "Miss Morley, if, when I get to England, I +hear that anything has happened to my wife, I shall fall down dead." +</P><P> +"My dear Mr. Talboys, why do you think of these things? God is very good +to us; He will not afflict us beyond our power of endurance. I see all +things, perhaps, in a melancholy light; for the long monotony of my life +has given me too much time to think over my troubles." +</P><P> +"And my life has been all action, privation, toil, alternate hope and +despair; I have had no time to think upon the chances of anything +happening to my darling. What a blind, reckless fool I have been! Three +years and a half and not one line—one word from her, or from any mortal +creature who knows her. Heaven above! what may not have happened?" +</P><P> +In the agitation of his mind he began to walk rapidly up and down the +lonely deck, the governess following, and trying to soothe him. +</P><P> +"I swear to you, Miss Morley," he said, "that till you spoke to me +to-night, I never felt one shadow of fear, and now I have that sick, +sinking dread at my heart which you talked of an hour ago. Let me alone, +please, to get over it my own way." +</P><P> +She drew silently away from him, and seated herself by the side of the +vessel, looking over into the water. +</P><P> +George Talboys walked backward and forward for some time, with his head +bent upon his breast, looking neither to the right nor the left, but in +about a quarter of an hour he returned to the spot where the governess +was seated. +</P><P> +"I have been praying," he said—"praying for my darling." +</P><P> +He spoke in a voice little above a whisper, and she saw his face +ineffably calm in the moonlight. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER III.</H2> +<H3>HIDDEN RELICS.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +The same August sun which had gone down behind the waste of waters +glimmered redly upon the broad face of the old clock over that +ivy-covered archway which leads into the gardens of Audley Court. +</P><P> +A fierce and crimson sunset. The mullioned windows and twinkling +lattices are all ablaze with the red glory; the fading light flickers +upon the leaves of the limes in the long avenue, and changes the still +fish-pond into a sheet of burnished copper; even into those dim recesses +of brier and brushwood, amidst which the old well is hidden, the crimson +brightness penetrates in fitful flashes till the dank weeds and the +rusty iron wheel and broken woodwork seem as if they were flecked with +blood. +</P><P> +The lowing of a cow in the quiet meadows, the splash of a trout in the +fish-pond, the last notes of a tired bird, the creaking of wagon-wheels +upon the distant road, every now and then breaking the evening silence, +only made the stillness of the place seem more intense. It was almost +oppressive, this twilight stillness. The very repose of the place grew +painful from its intensity, and you felt as if a corpse must be lying +somewhere within that gray and ivy-covered pile of building—so +deathlike was the tranquillity of all around. +</P><P> +As the clock over the archway struck eight, a door at the back of the +house was softly opened, and a girl came out into the gardens. +</P><P> +But even the presence of a human being scarcely broke the silence; for +the girl crept slowly over the thick grass, and gliding into the avenue +by the side of the fish-pond, disappeared in the rich shelter of the +limes. +</P><P> +She was not, perhaps, positively a pretty girl; but her appearance was +of that order which is commonly called interesting. Interesting, it may +be, because in the pale face and the light gray eyes, the small features +and compressed lips, there was something which hinted at a power of +repression and self-control not common in a woman of nineteen or twenty. +She might have been pretty, I think, but for the one fault in her small +oval face. This fault was an absence of color. Not one tinge of crimson +flushed the waxen whiteness of her cheeks; not one shadow of brown +redeemed the pale insipidity of her eyebrows and eyelashes; not one +glimmer of gold or auburn relieved the dull flaxen of her hair. Even her +dress was spoiled by this same deficiency. The pale lavender muslin +faded into a sickly gray, and the ribbon knotted round her throat melted +into the same neutral hue. +</P><P> +Her figure was slim and fragile, and in spite of her humble dress, she +had something of the grace and carriage of a gentlewoman, but she was +only a simple country girl, called Phoebe Marks, who had been nursemaid +in Mr. Dawson's family, and whom Lady Audley had chosen for her maid +after her marriage with Sir Michael. +</P><P> +Of course, this was a wonderful piece of good fortune for Phoebe, who +found her wages trebled and her work lightened in the well-ordered +household at the Court; and who was therefore quite as much the object +of envy among her particular friends as my lady herself to higher +circles. +</P><P> +A man, who was sitting on the broken wood-work of the well, started as +the lady's-maid came out of the dim shade of the limes and stood before +him among the weeds and brushwood. +</P><P> +I have said before that this was a neglected spot; it lay in the midst +of a low shrubbery, hidden away from the rest of the gardens, and only +visible from the garret windows at the back of the west wing. +</P><P> +"Why, Phoebe," said the man, shutting a clasp-knife with which he had +been stripping the bark from a blackthorn stake, "you came upon me so +still and sudden, that I thought you was an evil spirit. I've come +across through the fields, and come in here at the gate agen the moat, +and I was taking a rest before I came up to the house to ask if you was +come back." +</P><P> +"I can see the well from my bedroom window, Luke," Phoebe answered, +pointing to an open lattice in one of the gables. "I saw you sitting +here, and came down to have a chat; it's better talking out here than in +the house, where there's always somebody listening." +</P><P> +The man was a big, broad-shouldered, stupid-looking clod-hopper of about +twenty-three years of age. His dark red hair grew low upon his forehead, +and his bushy brows met over a pair of greenish gray eyes; his nose was +large and well-shaped, but the mouth was coarse in form and animal in +expression. Rosy-cheeked, red-haired, and bull-necked, he was not unlike +one of the stout oxen grazing in the meadows round about the Court. +</P><P> +The girl seated herself lightly upon the wood-work at his side, and put +one of her hands, which had grown white in her new and easy service, +about his thick neck. +</P><P> +"Are you glad to see me, Luke?" she asked. +</P><P> +"Of course I'm glad, lass," he answered, boorishly, opening his knife +again, and scraping away at the hedge-stake. +</P><P> +They were first cousins, and had been play fellows in childhood, and +sweethearts in early youth. +</P><P> +"You don't seem much as if you were glad," said the girl; "you might +look at me, Luke, and tell me if you think my journey has improved me." +</P><P> +"It ain't put any color into your cheeks, my girl," he said, glancing up +at her from under his lowering eyebrows; "you're every bit as white as +you was when you went away." +</P><P> +"But they say traveling makes people genteel, Luke. I've been on the +Continent with my lady, through all manner of curious places; and you +know, when I was a child, Squire Horton's daughters taught me to speak a +little French, and I found it so nice to be able to talk to the people +abroad." +</P><P> +"Genteel!" cried Luke Marks, with a hoarse laugh; "who wants you to be +genteel, I wonder? Not me, for one; when you're my wife you won't have +overmuch time for gentility, my girl. French, too! Dang me, Phoebe, I +suppose when we've saved money enough between us to buy a bit of a farm, +you'll be <i>parleyvooing</i> to the cows?" +</P><P> +She bit her lip as her lover spoke, and looked away. He went on cutting +and chopping at a rude handle he was fashioning to the stake, whistling +softly to himself all the while, and not once looking at his cousin. +</P><P> +For some time they were silent, but by-and-by she said, with her face +still turned away from her companion: +</P><P> +"What a fine thing it is for Miss Graham that was, to travel with her +maid and her courier, and her chariot and four, and a husband that +thinks there isn't one spot upon all the earth that's good enough for +her to set her foot upon!" +</P><P> +"Ay, it is a fine thing, Phoebe, to have lots of money," answered Luke, +"and I hope you'll be warned by that, my lass, to save up your wages +agin we get married." +</P><P> +"Why, what was she in Mr. Dawson's house only three months ago?" +continued the girl, as if she had not heard her cousin's speech. "What +was she but a servant like me? Taking wages and working for them us +hard, or harder, than I did. You should have seen her shabby clothes, +Luke—worn and patched, and darned and turned and twisted, yet always +looking nice upon her, somehow. She gives me more as lady's-maid here +than ever she got from Mr. Dawson then. Why, I've seen her come out of +the parlor with a few sovereigns and a little silver in her hand, that +master had just given her for her quarter's salary; and now look at +her!" +</P><P> +"Never you mind her," said Luke; "take care of yourself, Phoebe; that's +all you've got to do. What should you say to a public-house for you and +me, by-and-by, my girl? There's a deal of money to be made out of a +public-house." +</P><P> +The girl still sat with her face averted from her lover, her hands +hanging listlessly in her lap, and her pale gray eyes fixed upon the +last low streak of crimson dying out behind the trunks of the trees. +</P><P> +"You should see the inside of the house, Luke," she said; "it's a +tumbledown looking place enough outside; but you should see my lady's +rooms—all pictures and gilding, and great looking-glasses that stretch +from the ceiling to the floor. Painted ceilings, too, that cost hundreds +of pounds, the housekeeper told her, and all done for her." +</P><P> +"She's a lucky one," muttered Luke, with lazy indifference. +</P><P> +"You should have seen her while we were abroad, with a crowd of +gentlemen hanging about her; Sir Michael not jealous of them, only proud +to see her so much admired. You should have heard her laugh and talk +with them; throwing all their compliments and fine speeches back at +them, as it were, as if they had been pelting her with roses. She set +everybody mad about her, wherever she went. Her singing, her playing, +her painting, her dancing, her beautiful smile, and sunshiny ringlets! +She was always the talk of a place, as long as we stayed in it." +</P><P> +"Is she at home to-night?" +</P><P> +"No; she has gone out with Sir Michael to a dinner party at the Beeches. +They've seven or eight miles to drive, and they won't be back till after +eleven." +</P><P> +"Then I'll tell you what, Phoebe, if the inside of the house is so +mighty fine, I should like to have a look at it." +</P><P> +"You shall, then. Mrs. Barton, the housekeeper, knows you by sight, and +she can't object to my showing you some of the best rooms." +</P><P> +It was almost dark when the cousins left the shrubbery and walked slowly +to the house. The door by which they entered led into the servants' +hall, on one side of which was the housekeeper's room. Phoebe Marks +stopped for a moment to ask the housekeeper if she might take her cousin +through some of the rooms, and having received permission to do so, +lighted a candle at the lamp in the hall, and beckoned to Luke to follow +her into the other part of the house. +</P><P> +The long, black oak corridors were dim in the ghostly twilight—the +light carried by Phoebe looking only a poor speck in the broad passages +through which the girl led her cousin. Luke looked suspiciously over his +shoulder now and then, half-frightened by the creaking of his own +hob-nailed boots. +</P><P> +"It's a mortal dull place, Phoebe," he said, as they emerged from a +passage into the principal hall, which was not yet lighted; "I've heard +tell of a murder that was done here in old times." +</P><P> +"There are murders enough in these times, as to that, Luke," answered +the girl, ascending the staircase, followed by the young man. +</P><P> +She led the way through a great drawing-room, rich in satin and ormolu, +buhl and inlaid cabinets, bronzes, cameos, statuettes, and trinkets, +that glistened in the dusky light; then through a morning room, hung +with proof engravings of valuable pictures; through this into an +ante-chamber, where she stopped, holding the light above her head. +</P><P> +The young man stared about him, open-mouthed and open-eyed. +</P><P> +"It's a rare fine place," he said, "and must have cost a heap of money." +</P><P> +"Look at the pictures on the walls," said Phoebe, glancing at the panels +of the octagonal chamber, which were hung with Claudes and Poussins, +Wouvermans and Cuyps. "I've heard that those alone are worth a fortune. +This is the entrance to my lady's apartments, Miss Graham that was." She +lifted a heavy green cloth curtain which hung across a doorway, and led +the astonished countryman into a fairy-like boudoir, and thence to a +dressing-room, in which the open doors of a wardrobe and a heap of +dresses flung about a sofa showed that it still remained exactly as its +occupants had left it. +</P><P> +"I've got all these things to put away before my lady comes home, Luke; +you might sit down here while I do it, I shan't be long." +</P><P> +Her cousin looked around in gawky embarrassment, bewildered by the +splendor of the room; and after some deliberation selected the most +substantial of the chairs, on the extreme edge of which he carefully +seated himself. +</P><P> +"I wish I could show you the jewels, Luke," said the girl; "but I can't, +for she always keeps the keys herself; that's the case on the +dressing-table there." +</P><P> +"What, <i>that?</i>" cried Luke, staring at the massive walnut-wood and brass +inlaid casket. "Why, that's big enough to hold every bit of clothes +I've got!" +</P><P> +"And it's as full as it can be of diamonds, rubies, pearls and +emeralds," answered Phoebe, busy as she spoke in folding the rustling +silk dresses, and laying them one by one upon the shelves of the +wardrobe. As she was shaking out the flounces of the last, a jingling +sound caught her ear, and she put her hand into the pocket. +</P><P> +"I declare!" she exclaimed, "my lady has left her keys in her pocket for +once in a way; I can show you the jewelry, if you like, Luke." +</P><P> +"Well, I may as well have a look at it, my girl," he said, rising from +his chair and holding the light while his cousin unlocked the casket. He +uttered a cry of wonder when he saw the ornaments glittering on white +satin cushions. He wanted to handle the delicate jewels; to pull them +about, and find out their mercantile value. Perhaps a pang of longing +and envy shot through his heart as he thought how he would have liked to +have taken one of them. +</P><P> +"Why, one of those diamond things would set us up in life, Phoebe, he +said, turning a bracelet over and over in his big red hands. +</P><P> +"Put it down, Luke! Put it down directly!" cried the girl, with a look +of terror; "how can you speak about such things?" +</P><P> +He laid the bracelet in its place with a reluctant sigh, and then +continued his examination of the casket. +</P><P> +"What's this?" he asked presently, pointing to a brass knob in the +frame-work of the box. +</P><P> +He pushed it as he spoke, and a secret drawer, lined with purple velvet, +flew out of the casket. +</P><P> +"Look ye here!" cried Luke, pleased at his discovery. +</P><P> +Phoebe Marks threw down the dress she had been folding, and went over to +the toilette table. +</P><P> +"Why, I never saw this before," she said; "I wonder what there is in +it?" +</P><P> +There was not much in it; neither gold nor gems; only a baby's little +worsted shoe rolled up in a piece of paper, and a tiny lock of pale and +silky yellow hair, evidently taken from a baby's head. Phoebe's eyes +dilated as she examined the little packet. +</P><P> +"So this is what my lady hides in the secret drawer," she muttered. +</P><P> +"It's queer rubbish to keep in such a place," said Luke, carelessly. +</P><P> +The girl's thin lip curved into a curious smile. +</P><P> +"You will bear me witness where I found this," she said, putting the +little parcel into her pocket. +</P><P> +"Why, Phoebe, you're not going to be such a fool as to take that," cried +the young man. +</P><P> +"I'd rather have this than the diamond bracelet you would have liked to +take," she answered; "you shall have the public house, Luke." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER IV.</H2> +<H3>IN THE FIRST PAGE OF "THE TIMES."</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Robert Audley was supposed to be a barrister. As a barrister was his +name inscribed in the law-list; as a barrister he had chambers in +Figtree Court, Temple; as a barrister he had eaten the allotted number +of dinners, which form the sublime ordeal through which the forensic +aspirant wades on to fame and fortune. If these things can make a man a +barrister, Robert Audley decidedly was one. But he had never either had +a brief, or tried to get a brief, or even wished to have a brief in all +those five years, during which his name had been painted upon one of the +doors in Figtree Court. He was a handsome, lazy, care-for-nothing +fellow, of about seven-and-twenty; the only son of a younger brother of +Sir Michael Audley. His father had left him £400 a year, which his +friends had advised him to increase by being called to the bar; and as +he found it, after due consideration, more trouble to oppose the wishes +of these friends than to eat so many dinners, and to take a set of +chambers in the Temple, he adopted the latter course, and unblushingly +called himself a barrister. +</P><P> +Sometimes, when the weather was very hot, and he had exhausted himself +with the exertion of smoking his German pipe, and reading French novels, +he would stroll into the Temple Gardens, and lying in some shady spot, +pale and cool, with his shirt collar turned down and a blue silk +handkerchief tied loosely about his neck, would tell grave benchers that +he had knocked himself up with over work. +</P><P> +The sly old benchers laughed at the pleasant fiction; but they all +agreed that Robert Audley was a good fellow; a generous-hearted fellow; +rather a curious fellow, too, with a fund of sly wit and quiet humor, +under his listless, dawdling, indifferent, irresolute manner. A man who +would never get on in the world; but who would not hurt a worm. Indeed, +his chambers were converted into a perfect dog-kennel, by his habit of +bringing home stray and benighted curs, who were attracted by his looks +in the street, and followed him with abject fondness. +</P><P> +Robert always spent the hunting season at Audley Court; not that he was +distinguished as a Nimrod, for he would quietly trot to covert upon a +mild-tempered, stout-limbed bay hack, and keep at a very respectful +distance from the hard riders; his horse knowing quite as well as he +did, that nothing was further from his thoughts than any desire to be in +at the death. +</P><P> +The young man was a great favorite with his uncle, and by no means +despised by his pretty, gipsy-faced, light-hearted, hoydenish cousin, +Miss Alice Audley. It might have seemed to other men, that the +partiality of a young lady who was sole heiress to a very fine estate, +was rather well worth cultivating, but it did not so occur to Robert +Audley. Alicia was a very nice girl, he said, a jolly girl, with no +nonsense about her—a girl of a thousand; but this was the highest point +to which enthusiasm could carry him. The idea of turning his cousin's +girlish liking for him to some good account never entered his idle +brain. I doubt if he even had any correct notion of the amount of his +uncle's fortune, and I am certain that he never for one moment +calculated upon the chances of any part of that fortune ultimately +coming to himself. So that when, one fine spring morning, about three +months before the time of which I am writing, the postman brought him +the wedding cards of Sir Michael and Lady Audley, together with a very +indignant letter from his cousin, setting forth how her father had just +married a wax-dollish young person, no older than Alicia herself, with +flaxen ringlets, and a perpetual giggle; for I am sorry to say that Miss +Audley's animus caused her thus to describe that pretty musical laugh +which had been so much admired in the late Miss Lucy Graham—when, I +say, these documents reached Robert Audley—they elicited neither +vexation nor astonishment in the lymphatic nature of that gentleman. He +read Alicia's angry crossed and recrossed letter without so much as +removing the amber mouth-piece of his German pipe from his mustached +lips. When he had finished the perusal of the epistle, which he read +with his dark eyebrows elevated to the center of his forehead (his only +manner of expressing surprise, by the way) he deliberately threw that +and the wedding cards into the waste-paper basket, and putting down his +pipe, prepared himself for the exertion of thinking out the subject. +</P><P> +"I always said the old buffer would marry," he muttered, after about +half an hour's revery. Alicia and my lady, the stepmother, will go at it +hammer and tongs. I hope they won't quarrel in the hunting season, or +say unpleasant things to each other at the dinner-table; rows always +upset a man's digestion. +</P><P> +At about twelve o'clock on the morning following that night upon which +the events recorded in my last chapter had taken place, the baronet's +nephew strolled out of the Temple, Blackfriarsward, on his way to the +city. He had in an evil hour obliged some necessitous friend by putting +the ancient name of Audley across a bill of accommodation, which bill +not having been provided for by the drawer, Robert was called upon to +pay. For this purpose he sauntered up Ludgate Hill, with his blue +necktie fluttering in the hot August air, and thence to a refreshingly +cool banking-house in a shady court out of St. Paul's churchyard, where +be made arrangements for selling out a couple of hundred pounds' worth +of consols. +</P><P> +He had transacted this business, and was loitering at the corner of the +court, waiting for a chance hansom to convey him back to the Temple, +when he was almost knocked down by a man of about his own age, who +dashed headlong into the narrow opening. +</P><P> +"Be so good as to look where you're going, my friend!" Robert +remonstrated, mildly, to the impetuous passenger; "you might give a man +warning before you throw him down and trample upon him." +</P><P> +The stranger stopped suddenly, looked very hard at the speaker, and then +gasped for breath. +</P><P> +"Bob!" he cried, in a tone expressive of the most intense astonishment; +"I only touched British ground after dark last night, and to think that +I should meet you this morning." +</P><P> +"I've seen you somewhere before, my bearded friend," said Mr. Audley, +calmly scrutinizing the animated face of the other, "but I'll be hanged +if I can remember when or where." +</P><P> +"What!" exclaimed the stranger, reproachfully. "You don't mean to say +that you've forgotten George Talboys?" +</P><P> +"<i>No I have not!</i>" said Robert, with an emphasis by no means usual to +him; and then hooking his arm into that of his friend, he led him into +the shady court, saying, with his old indifference, "and now, George +tell us all about it." +</P><P> +George Talboys did tell him all about it. He told that very story which +he had related ten days before to the pale governess on board the +<i>Argus</i>; and then, hot and breathless, he said that he had twenty +thousand pounds or so in his pocket, and that he wanted to bank it at +Messrs. ——, who had been his bankers many years before. +</P><P> +"If you'll believe me, I've only just left their counting-house," said +Robert. "I'll go back with you, and we'll settle that matter in five +minutes." +</P><P> +They did contrive to settle it in about a quarter of an hour; and then +Robert Audley was for starting off immediately for the Crown and +Scepter, at Greenwich, or the Castle, at Richmond, where they could have +a bit of dinner, and talk over those good old times when they were +together at Eton. But George told his friend that before he went +anywhere, before he shaved or broke his fast, or in any way refreshed +himself after a night journey from Liverpool by express train, he must +call at a certain coffee-house in Bridge street, Westminster, where he +expected to find a letter from his wife. +</P><P> +As they dashed through Ludgate Hill, Fleet street, and the Strand, in a +fast hansom, George Talboys poured into his friend's ear all those wild +hopes and dreams which had usurped such a dominion over his sanguine +nature. +</P><P> +"I shall take a villa on the banks of the Thames, Bob," he said, "for +the little wife and myself; and we'll have a yacht, Bob, old boy, and +you shall lie on the deck and smoke, while my pretty one plays her +guitar and sings songs to us. She's for all the world like one of those +what's-its-names, who got poor old Ulysses into trouble," added the +young man, whose classic lore was not very great. +</P><P> +The waiters at the Westminster coffee-house stared at the hollow-eyed, +unshaven stranger, with his clothes of colonial cut, and his boisterous, +excited manner; but he had been an old frequenter of the place in his +military days, and when they heard who he was they flew to do his +bidding. +</P><P> +He did not want much—only a bottle of soda-water, and to know if there +was a letter at the bar directed to George Talboys. +</P><P> +The waiter brought the soda-water before the young men had seated +themselves in a shady box near the disused fire-place. No; there was no +letter for that name. +</P><P> +The waiter said it with consummate indifference, while he mechanically +dusted the little mahogany table. +</P><P> +George's face blanched to a deadly whiteness. "Talboys," he said; +"perhaps you didn't hear the name distinctly—T, A, L, B, O, Y, S. Go +and look again, there <i>must</i> be a letter." +</P><P> +The waiter shrugged his shoulders as he left the room, and returned in +three minutes to say that there was no name at all resembling Talboys in +the letter rack. There was Brown, and Sanderson, and Pinchbeck; only +three letters altogether. +</P><P> +The young man drank his soda-water in silence, and then, leaning his +elbows on the table, covered his face with his hands. There was +something in his manner which told Robert Audley that his +disappointment, trifling as it may appear, was in reality a very bitter +one. He seated himself opposite to his friend, but did not attempt to +address him. +</P><P> +By-and-by George looked up, and mechanically taking a greasy <i>Times</i> +newspaper of the day before from a heap of journals on the table, stared +vacantly at the first page. +</P><P> +I cannot tell how long he sat blankly staring at one paragraph among the +list of deaths, before his dazed brain took in its full meaning; but +after considerable pause he pushed the newspaper over to Robert Audley, +and with a face that had changed from its dark bronze to a sickly, +chalky grayish white, and with an awful calmness in his manner, he +pointed with his finger to a line which ran thus: +</P><P> +"On the 24th inst., at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, Helen Talboys, aged 22." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER V.</H2> +<H3>THE HEADSTONE AT VENTNOR.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Yes, there it was in black and white—"Helen Talboys, aged 22." +</P><P> +When George told the governess on board the <i>Argus</i> that if he heard any +evil tidings of his wife he should drop down dead, he spoke in perfect +good faith; and yet, here were the worst tidings that could come to him, +and he sat rigid, white and helpless, staring stupidly at the shocked +face of his friend. +</P><P> +The suddenness of the blow had stunned him. In this strange and +bewildered state of mind he began to wonder what had happened, and why +it was that one line in the <i>Times</i> newspaper could have so horrible an +effect upon him. +</P><P> +Then by degrees even this vague consciousness of his misfortune faded +slowly out of his mind, succeeded by a painful consciousness of external +things. +</P><P> +The hot August sunshine, the dusty window-panes and shabby-painted +blinds, a file of fly-blown play-bills fastened to the wall, the black +and empty fire-places, a bald-headed old man nodding over the <i>Morning +Advertizer</i>, the slip-shod waiter folding a tumbled table-cloth, and +Robert Audley's handsome face looking at him full of compassionate +alarm—he knew that all these things took gigantic proportions, and +then, one by one, melted into dark blots and swam before his eyes, He +knew that there was a great noise, as of half a dozen furious +steam-engines tearing and grinding in his ears, and he knew nothing +more—except that somebody or something fell heavily to the ground. +</P><P> +He opened his eyes upon the dusky evening in a cool and shaded room, the +silence only broken by the rumbling of wheels at a distance. +</P><P> +He looked about him wonderingly, but half indifferently. His old friend, +Robert Audley, was seated by his side smoking. George was lying on a low +iron bedstead opposite to an open window, in which there was a stand of +flowers and two or three birds in cages. +</P><P> +"You don't mind the pipe, do you, George?" his friend asked, quietly. +</P><P> +"No." +</P><P> +He lay for some time looking at the flowers and the birds; one canary +was singing a shrill hymn to the setting sun. +</P><P> +"Do the birds annoy you, George? Shall I take them out of the room?" +</P><P> +"No; I like to hear them sing." +</P><P> +Robert Audley knocked the ashes out of his pipe, laid the precious +meerschaum tenderly upon the mantelpiece, and going into the next room, +returned presently with a cup of strong tea. +</P><P> +"Take this, George," he said, as he placed the cup on a little table +close to George's pillow; "it will do your head good." +</P><P> +The young man did not answer, but looked slowly round the room, and then +at his friend's grave face. +</P><P> +"Bob," he said, "where are we?" +</P><P> +"In my chambers, dear boy, in the Temple. You have no lodgings of your +own, so you may as well stay with me while you're in town." +</P><P> +George passed his hand once or twice across his forehead, and then, in a +hesitating manner, said, quietly: +</P><P> +"That newspaper this morning, Bob; what was it?" +</P><P> +"Never mind just now, old boy; drink some tea." +</P><P> +"Yes, yes," cried George, impatiently, raising himself upon the bed, and +staring about him with hollow eyes. "I remember all about it. Helen! my +Helen! my wife, my darling, my only love! Dead, dead!" +</P><P> +"George," said Robert Audley, laying his hand gently upon the young +man's arm, "you must remember that the person whose name you saw in the +paper may not be your wife. There may have been some other Helen +Talboys." +</P><P> +"No, no!" he cried; "the age corresponds with hers, and Talboys is such +an uncommon name." +</P><P> +"It may be a misprint for Talbot." +</P><P> +"No, no, no; my wife is dead!" +</P><P> +He shook off Robert's restraining hand, and rising from the bed, walked +straight to the door. +</P><P> +"Where are you going?" exclaimed his friend. +</P><P> +"To Ventnor, to see her grave." +</P><P> +"Not to-night, George, not to-night. I will go with you myself by the +first train to-morrow." +</P><P> +Robert led him back to the bed, and gently forced him to lie down again. +He then gave him an opiate, which had been left for him by the medical +man whom they had called in at the coffee-house in Bridge street, when +George fainted. +</P><P> +So George Talboys fell into a heavy slumber, and dreamed that he went to +Ventnor, to find his wife alive and happy, but wrinkled, old, and gray, +and to find his son grown into a young man. +</P><P> +Early the next morning he was seated opposite to Robert Audley in the +first-class carriage of an express, whirling through the pretty open +country toward Portsmouth. +</P><P> +They landed at Ventnor under the burning heat of the midday sun. As the +two young men came from the steamer, the people on the pier stared at +George's white face and untrimmed beard. +</P><P> +"What are we to do, George?" Robert Audley asked. "We have no clew to +finding the people you want to see." +</P><P> +The young man looked at him with a pitiful, bewildered expression. The +big dragoon was as helpless as a baby; and Robert Audley, the most +vacillating and unenergetic of men, found himself called upon to act for +another. He rose superior to himself, and equal to the occasion. +</P><P> +"Had we not better ask at one of the hotels about a Mrs. Talboys, +George?" he said. +</P><P> +"Her father's name was Maldon," George muttered; "he could never have +sent her here to die alone." +</P><P> +They said nothing more; but Robert walked straight to a hotel where he +inquired for a Mr. Maldon. +</P><P> +Yes, they told him, there was a gentleman of that name stopping at +Ventnor, a Captain Maldon; his daughter was lately dead. The waiter +would go and inquire for the address. +</P><P> +The hotel was a busy place at this season; people hurrying in and out, +and a great bustle of grooms and waiters about the halls. +</P><P> +George Talboys leaned against the doorpost, with much the same look in +his face, as that which had frightened his friend in the Westminister +coffee-house. +</P><P> +The worst was confirmed now. His wife, Captain Maldon's daughter was +dead. +</P><P> +The waiter returned in about five minutes to say that Captain Maldon was +lodging at Lansdowne Cottage, No. 4. +</P><P> +They easily found the house, a shabby, low-windowed cottage, looking +toward the water. +</P><P> +Was Captain Maldon at home? No, the landlady said; he had gone out on +the beach with his little grandson. Would the gentleman walk in and sit +down a bit? +</P><P> +George mechanically followed his friend into the little front +parlor—dusty, shabbily furnished, and disorderly, with a child's broken +toys scattered on the floor, and the scent of stale tobacco hanging +about the muslin window-curtains. +</P><P> +"Look!" said George, pointing to a picture over the mantelpiece. +</P><P> +It was his own portrait, painted in the old dragooning days. A pretty +good likeness, representing him in uniform, with his charger in the +background. +</P><P> +Perhaps the most animated of men would have been scarcely so wise a +comforter as Robert Audley. He did not utter a word to the stricken +widower, but quietly seated himself with his back to George, looking out +of the open window. +</P><P> +For some time the young man wandered restlessly about the room, looking +at and sometimes touching the nick-nacks lying here and there. +</P><P> +Her workbox, with an unfinished piece of work; her album full of +extracts from Byron and Moore, written in his own scrawling hand; some +books which he had given her, and a bunch of withered flowers in a vase +they had bought in Italy. +</P><P> +"Her portrait used to hang by the side of mine," he muttered; "I wonder +what they have done with it." +</P><P> +By-and-by he said, after about an hour's silence: +</P><P> +"I should like to see the woman of the house; I should like to ask her +about—" +</P><P> +He broke down, and buried his face in his hands. +</P><P> +Robert summoned the landlady. She was a good-natured garrulous creature, +accustomed to sickness and death, for many of her lodgers came to her to +die. +</P><P> +She told all the particulars of Mrs. Talboys' last hours; how she had +come to Ventnor only ten days before her death, in the last stage of +decline; and how, day by day, she had gradually, but surely, sunk under +the fatal malady. Was the gentleman any relative? she asked of Robert +Audley, as George sobbed aloud. +</P><P> +"Yes, he is the lady's husband." +</P><P> +"What!" the woman cried; "him as deserted her so cruel, and left her +with her pretty boy upon her poor old father's hands, which Captain +Maldon has told me often, with the tears in his poor eyes?" +</P><P> +"I did not desert her," George cried out; and then he told the history +of his three years' struggle. +</P><P> +"Did she speak of me?" he asked; "did she speak of me—at—at the last?" +</P><P> +"No, she went off as quiet as a lamb. She said very little from the +first; but the last day she knew nobody, not even her little boy, nor +her poor old father, who took on awful. Once she went off wild-like, +talking about her mother, and about the cruel shame it was to leave her +to die in a strange place, till it was quite pitiful to hear her." +</P><P> +"Her mother died when she was quite a child," said George. "To think +that she should remember her and speak of her, but never once of me." +</P><P> +The woman took him into the little bedroom in which his wife had died. +He knelt down by the bed and kissed the pillow tenderly, the landlady +crying as he did so. +</P><P> +While he was kneeling, praying, perhaps, with his face buried in this +humble, snow-white pillow, the woman took something from a drawer. She +gave it to him when he rose from his knees; it was a long tress of hair +wrapped in silver paper. +</P><P> +"I cut this off when she lay in her coffin," she said, "poor dear?" +</P><P> +He pressed the soft lock to his lips. "Yes," he murmured; "this is the +dear hair that I have kissed so often when her head lay upon my +shoulder. But it always had a rippling wave in it then, and now it seems +smooth and straight." +</P><P> +"It changes in illness," said the landlady. "If you'd like to see where +they have laid her, Mr. Talboys, my little boy shall show you the way to +the churchyard." +</P><P> +So George Talboys and his faithful friend walked to the quiet spot, +where, beneath a mound of earth, to which the patches of fresh turf +hardly adhered, lay that wife of whose welcoming smile George had +dreamed so often in the far antipodes. +</P><P> +Robert left the young man by the side of this newly-made grave, and +returning in about a quarter of an hour, found that he had not once +stirred. +</P><P> +He looked up presently, and said that if there was a stone-mason's +anywhere near he should like to give an order. +</P><P> +They very easily found the stonemason, and sitting down amidst the +fragmentary litter of the man's yard, George Talboys wrote in pencil +this brief inscription for the headstone of his dead wife's grave: +</P> +<center><BR> +Sacred to the Memory of<br> +HELEN,<br> +THE BELOVED WIFE OF GEORGE TALBOYS,<br> +"Who departed this life<br> +August 24th, 18—, aged 22,<br> +Deeply regretted by her sorrowing Husband.<br> +</center> +<BR> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER VI.</H2> +<H3>ANYWHERE, ANYWHERE OUT OF THE WORLD.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +When they returned to Lansdowne Cottage they found the old man had not +yet come in, so they walked down to the beach to look for him. After a +brief search they found him, sitting upon a heap of pebbles, reading a +newspaper and eating filberts. The little boy was at some distance from +his grandfather, digging in the sand with a wooden spade. The crape +round the old man's shabby hat, and the child's poor little black frock, +went to George's heart. Go where he would he met fresh confirmation of +this great grief of his life. His wife was dead. +</P><P> +"Mr. Maldon," he said, as he approached his father-in-law. +</P><P> +The old man looked up, and, dropping his newspaper, rose from the +pebbles with a ceremonious bow. His faded light hair was tinged with +gray; he had a pinched hook nose; watery blue eyes, and an +irresolute-looking mouth; he wore his shabby dress with an affectation +of foppish gentility; an eye-glass dangled over his closely buttoned-up +waistcoat, and he carried a cane in his ungloved hand. +</P><P> +"Great Heaven!" cried George, "don't you know me?" +</P><P> +Mr. Maldon started and colored violently, with something of a frightened +look, as he recognized his son-in-law. +</P><P> +"My dear boy," he said, "I did not; for the first moment I did not. That +beard makes such a difference. You find the beard makes a great +difference, do you not, sir?" he said, appealing to Robert. +</P><P> +"Great heavens!" exclaimed George Talboys, "is this the way you welcome +me? I come to England to find my wife dead within a week of my touching +land, and you begin to chatter to me about my beard—you, her father!" +</P><P> +"True! true!" muttered the old man, wiping his bloodshot eyes; "a sad +shock, a sad shock, my dear George. If you'd only been here a week +earlier." +</P><P> +"If I had," cried George, in an outburst of grief and passion, "I +scarcely think that I would have let her die. I would have disputed for +her with death. I would! I would! Oh God! why did not the <i>Argus</i> go +down with every soul on board her before I came to see this day?" +</P><P> +He began to walk up and down the beach, his father-in-law looking +helplessly at him, rubbing his feeble eyes with a handkerchief. +</P><P> +"I've a strong notion that that old man didn't treat his daughter too +well," thought Robert, as he watched the half-pay lieutenant. "He seems, +for some reason or other, to be half afraid of George." +</P><P> +While the agitated young man walked up and down in a fever of regret and +despair, the child ran to his grandfather, and clung about the tails of +his coat. +</P><P> +"Come home, grandpa, come home," he said. "I'm tired." +</P><P> +George Talboys turned at the sound of the babyish voice, and looked long +and earnestly at the boy. +</P><P> +He had his father's brown eyes and dark hair. +</P><P> +"My darling! my darling!" said George, taking the child in his arms, "I +am your father, come across the sea to find you. Will you love me?" +</P><P> +The little fellow pushed him away. "I don't know you," he said. "I love +grandpa and Mrs. Monks at Southampton." +</P><P> +"Georgey has a temper of his own, sir," said the old man. "He has been +spoiled." +</P><P> +They walked slowly back to the cottage, and once more George Talboys +told the history of that desertion which had seemed so cruel. He told, +too, of the twenty thousand pounds banked by him the day before. He had +not the heart to ask any questions about the past, and his father-in-law +only told him that a few months after his departure they had gone from +the place where George left them to live at Southampton, where Helen got +a few pupils for the piano, and where they managed pretty well till her +health failed, and she fell into the decline of which she died. Like +most sad stories it was a very brief one. +</P><P> +"The boy seems fond of you, Mr. Maldon," said George, after a pause. +</P><P> +"Yes, yes," answered the old man, smoothing the child's curling hair; +"yes. Georgey is very fond of his grandfather." +</P><P> +"Then he had better stop with you. The interest of my money will be +about six hundred a year. You can draw a hundred of that for Georgey's +education, leaving the rest to accumulate till he is of age. My friend +here will be trustee, and if he will undertake the charge, I will +appoint him guardian to the boy, allowing him for the present to remain +under your care." +</P><P> +"But why not take care of him yourself, George?" asked Robert Audley. +</P><P> +"Because I shall sail in the very next vessel that leaves Liverpool for +Australia. I shall be better in the diggings or the backwoods than ever +I could be here. I'm broken for a civilized life from this hour, Bob." +</P><P> +The old man's weak eyes sparkled as George declared this determination. +</P><P> +"My poor boy, I think you're right," he said, "I really think you're +right. The change, the wild life, the—the—" He hesitated and broke +down as Robert looked earnestly at him. +</P><P> +"You're in a great hurry to get rid of your son-in-law, I think, Mr. +Maldon," he said, gravely. +</P><P> +"Get rid of him, dear boy! Oh, no, no! But for his own sake, my dear +sir, for his own sake, you know." +</P><P> +"I think for his own sake he'd much better stay in England and look +after his son," said Robert. +</P><P> +"But I tell you I can't," cried George; "every inch of this accursed +ground is hateful to me—I want to run out of it as I would out of a +graveyard. I'll go back to town to-night, get that business about the +money settled early to-morrow morning, and start for Liverpool without a +moment's delay. I shall be better when I've put half the world between +me and her grave." +</P><P> +"Before he left the house he stole out to the landlady, and asked same +more questions about his dead wife. +</P><P> +"Were they poor?" he asked, "were they pinched for money while she was +ill?" +</P><P> +"Oh, no!" the woman answered; "though the captain dresses shabby, he has +always plenty of sovereigns in his purse. The poor lady wanted for +nothing." +</P><P> +George was relieved at this, though it puzzled him to know where the +drunken half-pay lieutenant could have contrived to find money for all +the expenses of his daughter's illness. +</P><P> +But he was too thoroughly broken down by the calamity which had befallen +him to be able to think much of anything, so he asked no further +questions, but walked with his father-in-law and Robert Audley down to +the boat by which they were to cross to Portsmouth. +</P><P> +The old man bade Robert a very ceremonious adieu. +</P><P> +"You did not introduce me to your friend, by-the-bye, my dear boy," he +said. George stared at him, muttered something indistinct, and ran down +the ladder to the boat before Mr. Maldon could repeat his request. The +steamer sped away through the sunset, and the outline of the island +melted in the horizon as they neared the opposite shore. +</P><P> +"To think," said George, "that two nights ago, at this time, I was +steaming into Liverpool, full of the hope of clasping her to my heart, +and to-night I am going away from her grave!" +</P><P> +The document which appointed Robert Audley as guardian to little George +Talboys was drawn up in a solicitor's office the next morning. +</P><P> +"It's a great responsibility," exclaimed Robert; "I, guardian to anybody +or anything! I, who never in my life could take care of myself!" +</P><P> +"I trust in your noble heart, Bob," said George. "I know you will take +care of my poor orphan boy, and see that he is well used by his +grandfather. I shall only draw enough from Georgey's fortune to take me +back to Sydney, and then begin my old work again." +</P><P> +But it seemed as if George was destined to be himself the guardian of +his son; for when he reached Liverpool, he found that a vessel had just +sailed, and that there would not be another for a month; so he returned +to London, and once more threw himself upon Robert Audley's hospitality. +</P><P> +The barrister received him with open arms; he gave him the room with the +birds and flowers, and had a bed put up in his dressing-room for +himself. Grief is so selfish that George did not know the sacrifices his +friend made for his comfort. He only knew that for him the sun was +darkened, and the business of life done. He sat all day long smoking +cigars, and staring at the flowers and canaries, chafing for the time to +pass that he might be far out at sea. +</P><P> +But just as the hour was drawing near for the sailing of the vessel, +Robert Audley came in one day, full of a great scheme. +</P><P> +A friend of his, another of those barristers whose last thought is of a +brief, was going to St. Petersburg to spend the winter, and wanted +Robert to accompany him. Robert would only go on condition that George +went too. +</P><P> +For a long time the young man resisted; but when he found that Robert +was, in a quiet way, thoroughly determined upon not going without him, +he gave in, and consented to join the party. What did it matter? he +said. One place was the same to him as another; anywhere out of England; +what did he care where? +</P><P> +This was not a very cheerful way of looking at things, but Robert Audley +was quite satisfied with having won his consent. +</P><P> +The three young men started under very favorable circumstances, carrying +letters of introduction to the most influential inhabitants of the +Russian capital. +</P><P> +Before leaving England, Robert wrote to his cousin Alicia, telling her +of his intended departure with his old friend George Talboys, whom he +had lately met for the first time after a lapse of years, and who had +just lost his wife. +</P><P> +Alicia's reply came by return post, and ran thus: +</P><P> +"MY DEAR ROBERT—How cruel of you to run away to that horrid St. +Petersburg before the hunting season! I have heard that people lose +their noses in that disagreeable climate, and as yours is rather a long +one, I should advise you to return before the very severe weather sets +in. What sort of person is this Mr. Talboys? If he is very agreeable you +may bring him to the Court as soon as you return from your travels. Lady +Audley tells me to request you to secure her a set of sables. You are +not to consider the price, but to be sure that they are the handsomest +that can be obtained. Papa is perfectly absurd about his new wife, and +she and I cannot get on together at all; not that she is, disagreeable +to me, for, as far as that goes, she makes herself agreeable to every +one; but she is so irretrievably childish and silly. +</P><P> +"Believe me to be, my dear Robert. +</P><P> +"Your affectionate cousin, +</P><P> +"ALICIA AUDLEY." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER VII.</H2> +<H3>AFTER A YEAR.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +The first year of George Talboys' widowhood passed away, the deep band +of crepe about his hat grew brown and dusty, and as the last burning day +of another August faded out, he sat smoking cigars in the quiet chambers +of Figtree Court, much as he had done the year before, when the horror +of his grief was new to him, and every object in life, however trifling +or however important, seemed saturated with his one great sorrow. +</P><P> +But the big ex-dragoon had survived his affliction by a twelvemonth, and +hard as it may be to have to tell it, he did not look much the worse for +it. Heaven knows what wasted agonies of remorse and self-reproach may +not have racked George's honest heart, as he lay awake at nights +thinking of the wife he had abandoned in the pursuit of a fortune, which +she never lived to share. +</P><P> +Once, while they were abroad, Robert Audley ventured to congratulate him +upon his recovered spirits. He burst into a bitter laugh. +</P><P> +"Do you know, Bob," he said, "that when some of our fellows were wounded +in India, they came home, bringing bullets inside them. They did not +talk of them, and they were stout and hearty, and looked as well, +perhaps, as you or I; but every change in the weather, however slight, +every variation of the atmosphere, however trifling, brought back the +old agony of their wounds as sharp as ever they had felt it on the +battle-field. I've had my wound, Bob; I carry the bullet still, and I +shall carry it into my coffin." +</P><P> +The travelers returned from St. Petersburg in the spring, and George +again took up his quarters at his old friend's chambers, only leaving +them now and then to run down to Southampton and take a look at his +little boy. He always went loaded with toys and sweetmeats to give to +the child; but, for all this, Georgey would not become very familiar +with his papa, and the young man's heart sickened as he began to fancy +that even his child was lost to him. +</P><P> +"What can I do?" he thought. "If I take him away from his grandfather, I +shall break his heart; if I let him remain, he will grow up a stranger +to me, and care more for that drunken old hypocrite than for his own +father. But then, what could an ignorant, heavy dragoon like me do with +such a child? What could I teach him, except to smoke cigars and idle +around all day with his hands in his pockets?" +</P><P> +So the anniversary of that 30th of August, upon which George had seen +the advertisement of his wife's death in the <i>Times</i> newspaper, came +round for the first time, and the young man put off his black clothes +and the shabby crape from his hat, and laid his mournful garments in a +trunk in which he kept a packet of his wife's letters, her portrait, and +that lock of hair which had been cut from her head after death. Robert +Audley had never seen either the letters, the portrait, or the long +tress of silky hair; nor, indeed, had George ever mentioned the name of +his dead wife after that one day at Ventnor, on which he learned the +full particulars of her decease. +</P><P> +"I shall write to my cousin Alicia to-day, George," the young barrister +said, upon this very 30th of August. "Do you know that the day after +to-morrow is the 1st of September? I shall write and tell her that we +will both run down to the Court for a week's shooting." +</P><P> +"No, no, Bob; go by yourself; they don't want me, and I'd rather—" +</P><P> +"Bury yourself in Figtree Court, with no company but my dogs and +canaries! No, George, you shall do nothing of the kind." +</P><P> +"But I don't care for shooting." +</P><P> +"And do you suppose <i>I</i> care for it?" cried Robert, with charming +<i>naivete</i>. "Why, man, I don't know a partridge from a pigeon, and it +might be the 1st of April, instead of the 1st of September, for aught I +care. I never hurt a bird in my life, but I have hurt my own shoulder +with the weight of my gun. I only go down to Essex for the change of +air, the good dinners, and the sight of my uncle's honest, handsome +face. Besides, this time I've another inducement, as I want to see this +fair-haired paragon—my new aunt. You'll go with me, George?" +</P><P> +"Yes, if you really wish it." +</P><P> +The quiet form his grief had taken after its first brief violence, left +him as submissive as a child to the will of his friend; ready to go +anywhere or do anything; never enjoying himself, or originating any +enjoyment, but joining in the pleasures of others with a hopeless, +uncomplaining, unobtrusive resignation peculiar to his simple nature. +But the return of post brought a letter from Alicia Audley, to say that +the two young men could not be received at the Court. +</P><P> +"There are seventeen spare bed-rooms," wrote the young lady, in an +indignant running hand, "but for all that, my dear Robert, you can't +come; for my lady has taken it into her silly head that she is too ill +to entertain visitors (there is no more the matter with her than there +is with me), and she cannot have gentlemen (great, rough men, she says) +in the house. Please apologize to your friend Mr. Talboys, and tell him +that papa expects to see you both in the hunting season." +</P><P> +"My lady's airs and graces shan't keep us out of Essex for all that," +said Robert, as he twisted the letter into a pipe-light for his big +meerschaum. "I'll tell you what we'll do, George: there's a glorious inn +at Audley, and plenty of fishing in the neighborhood; we'll go there and +have a week's sport. Fishing is much better than shooting; you've only +to lie on a bank and stare at your line; I don't find that you often +catch anything, but it's very pleasant." +</P><P> +He held the twisted letter to the feeble spark of fire glimmering in the +grate, as he spoke, and then changing his mind, deliberately unfolded +it, and smoothed the crumpled paper with his hand. +</P><P> +"Poor little Alicia!" he said, thoughtfully; "it's rather hard to treat +her letter so cavalierly—I'll keep it;" upon which Mr. Robert Audley +put the note back into its envelope, and afterward thrust it into a +pigeon-hole in his office desk, marked <i>important</i>. Heaven knows what +wonderful documents there were in this particular pigeon-hole, but I do +not think it likely to have contained anything of great judicial value. +If any one could at that moment have told the young barrister that so +simple a thing as his cousin's brief letter would one day come to be a +link in that terrible chain of evidence afterward to be slowly forged in +the only criminal case in which he was ever to be concerned, perhaps Mr. +Robert Audley would have lifted his eyebrows a little higher than usual. +</P><P> +So the two young men left London the next day, with one portmanteau and +a rod and tackle between them, and reached the straggling, +old-fashioned, fast-decaying village of Audley, in time to order a good +dinner at the Sun Inn. +</P><P> +Audley Court was about three-quarters of a mile from the village, lying, +as I have said, deep down in the hollow, shut in by luxuriant timber. +You could only reach it by a cross-road bordered by trees, and as trimly +kept as the avenues in a gentleman's park. It was a lonely place enough, +even in all its rustic beauty, for so bright a creature as the late Miss +Lucy Graham, but the generous baronet had transformed the interior of +the gray old mansion into a little palace for his young wife, and Lady +Audley seemed as happy as a child surrounded by new and costly toys. +</P><P> +In her better fortunes, as in her old days of dependence, wherever she +went she seemed to take sunshine and gladness with her. In spite of Miss +Alicia's undisguised contempt for her step-mother's childishness and +frivolity, Lucy was better loved and more admired than the baronet's +daughter. That very childishness had a charm which few could resist. The +innocence and candor of an infant beamed in Lady Audley's fair face, and +shone out of her large and liquid blue eyes. The rosy lips, the delicate +nose, the profusion of fair ringlets, all contributed to preserve to her +beauty the character of extreme youth and freshness. She owned to twenty +years of age, but it was hard to believe her more than seventeen. Her +fragile figure, which she loved to dress in heavy velvets, and stiff, +rustling silks, till she looked like a child tricked out for a +masquerade, was as girlish as if she had just left the nursery. All her +amusements were childish. She hated reading, or study of any kind, and +loved society. Rather than be alone, she would admit Phoebe Marks into +her confidence, and loll on one of the sofas in her luxurious +dressing-room, discussing a new costume for some coming dinner-party; or +sit chattering to the girl with her jewel-box beside her, upon the satin +cushions, and Sir Michael's presents spread out in her lap, while she +counted and admired her treasures. +</P><P> +She had appeared at several public balls at Chelmsford and Colchester, +and was immediately established as the belle of the county. Pleased with +her high position and her handsome house; with every caprice gratified, +every whim indulged; admired and caressed wherever she went; fond of her +generous husband; rich in a noble allowance of pin-money; with no poor +relations to worry her with claims upon her purse or patronage; it would +have been hard to find in the County of Essex a more fortunate creature +than Lucy, Lady Audley. +</P><P> +The two young men loitered over the dinner-table in the private +sitting-room at the Sun Inn. The windows were thrown wide open, and the +fresh country air blew in upon them as they dined. The weather was +lovely; the foliage of the woods touched here and there with faint +gleams of the earliest tints of autumn; the yellow corn still standing +in some of the fields, in others just falling under the shining sickle; +while in the narrow lanes you met great wagons drawn by broad-chested +cart-horses, carrying home the rich golden store. To any one who has +been, during the hot summer months, pent up in London, there is in the +first taste of rustic life a kind of sensuous rapture scarcely to be +described. George Talboys felt this, and in this he experienced the +nearest approach to enjoyment that he had ever known since his wife's +death. +</P><P> +The clock struck five as they finished dinner. +</P><P> +"Put on your hat, George," said Robert Audley; "they don't dine at the +Court till seven; we shall have time to stroll down and see the old +place and its inhabitants." +</P><P> +The landlord, who had come into the room with a bottle of wine, looked +up as the young man spoke. +</P><P> +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Audley," he said, "but if you want to see your +uncle, you'll lose your time by going to the Court just now. Sir Michael +and my lady and Miss Alicia have all gone to the races up at Chorley, +and they won't be back till nigh upon eight o'clock, most likely. They +must pass by here to go home." +</P><P> +Under these circumstances of course it was no use going to the Court, so +the two young men strolled through the village and looked at the old +church, and then went and reconnoitered the streams in which they were +to fish the next day, and by such means beguiled the time until after +seven o'clock. At about a quarter past that hour they returned to the +inn, and seating themselves in the open window, lit their cigars and +looked out at the peaceful prospect. +</P><P> +We hear every day of murders committed in the country. Brutal and +treacherous murders; slow, protracted agonies from poisons administered +by some kindred hand; sudden and violent deaths by cruel blows, +inflicted with a stake cut from some spreading oak, whose every shadow +promised—peace. In the county of which I write, I have been shown a +meadow in which, on a quiet summer Sunday evening, a young farmer +murdered the girl who had loved and trusted him; and yet, even now, with +the stain of that foul deed upon it, the aspect of the spot is—peace. +No species of crime has ever been committed in the worst rookeries about +Seven Dials that has not been also done in the face of that rustic calm +which still, in spite of all, we look on with a tender, half-mournful +yearning, and associate with—peace. +</P><P> +It was dusk when gigs and chaises, dog-carts and clumsy farmers' +phaetons, began to rattle through the village street, and under the +windows of the Sun Inn; deeper dusk still when an open carriage and four +drew suddenly up beneath the rocking sign-post. +</P><P> +It was Sir Michael Audley's barouche which came to so sudden a stop +before the little inn. The harness of one of the leaders had become out +of order, and the foremost postillion dismounted to set it right. +</P><P> +"Why, it's my uncle," cried Robert Audley, as the carriage stopped. +"I'll run down and speak to him." +</P><P> +George lit another cigar, and, sheltered by the window-curtains, looked +out at the little party. Alicia sat with her back to the horses, and he +could perceive, even in the dusk, that she was a handsome brunette; but +Lady Audley was seated on the side of the carriage furthest from the +inn, and he could see nothing of the fair-haired paragon of whom he had +heard so much. +</P><P> +"Why, Robert," exclaimed Sir Michael, as his nephew emerged from the +inn, "this is a surprise!" +</P><P> +"I have not come to intrude upon you at the Court, my dear uncle," said +the young man, as the baronet shook him by the hand in his own hearty +fashion. "Essex is my native county, you know, and about this time of +year I generally have a touch of homesickness; so George and I have come +down to the inn for two or three day's fishing." +</P><P> +"George—George who?" +</P><P> +"George Talboys." +</P><P> +"What, has he come?" cried Alicia. "I'm so glad; for I'm dying to see +this handsome young widower." +</P><P> +"Are you, Alicia?" said her cousin, "Then egad, I'll run and fetch him, +and introduce you to him at once." +</P><P> +Now, so complete was the dominion which Lady Audley had, in her own +childish, unthinking way, obtained over her devoted husband, that it was +very rarely that the baronet's eyes were long removed from his wife's +pretty face. When Robert, therefore, was about to re-enter the inn, it +needed but the faintest elevation of Lucy's eyebrows, with a charming +expression of weariness and terror, to make her husband aware that she +did not want to be bored by an introduction to Mr. George Talboys. +</P><P> +"Never mind to-night, Bob," he said. "My wife is a little tired after +our long day's pleasure. Bring your friend to dinner to-morrow, and then +he and Alicia can make each other's acquaintance. Come round and speak +to Lady Audley, and then we'll drive home." +</P><P> +My lady was so terribly fatigued that she could only smile sweetly, and +hold out a tiny gloved hand to her nephew by marriage. +</P><P> +"You will come and dine with us to-morrow, and bring your interesting +friend?" she said, in a low and tired voice. She had been the chief +attraction of the race-course, and was wearied out by the exertion of +fascinating half the county. +</P><P> +"It's a wonder she didn't treat you to her never-ending laugh," +whispered Alicia, as she leaned over the carriage-door to bid Robert +good-night; "but I dare say she reserves that for your delectation +to-morrow. I suppose <i>you</i> are fascinated as well as everybody else?" +added the young lady, rather snappishly. +</P><P> +"She is a lovely creature, certainly," murmured Robert, with placid +admiration. +</P><P> +"Oh, of course! Now, she is the first woman of whom I ever heard you say +a civil word, Robert Audley. I'm sorry to find you can only admire wax +dolls." +</P><P> +Poor Alicia had had many skirmishes with her cousin upon that particular +temperament of his, which, while it enabled him to go through life with +perfect content and tacit enjoyment, entirely precluded his feeling one +spark of enthusiasm upon any subject whatever. +</P><P> +"As to his ever falling in love," thought the young lady sometimes, "the +idea is preposterous. If all the divinities on earth were ranged before +him, waiting for his sultanship to throw the handkerchief, he would only +lift his eyebrows to the middle of his forehead, and tell them to +scramble for it." +</P><P> +But, for once in his life, Robert was almost enthusiastic. +</P><P> +"She's the prettiest little creature you ever saw in your life, George," +he cried, when the carriage had driven off and he returned to his +friend. "Such blue eyes, such ringlets, such a ravishing smile, such a +fairy-like bonnet—all of a-tremble with heart's-ease and dewy spangles, +shining out of a cloud of gauze. George Talboys, I feel like the hero of +a French novel: I am falling in love with my aunt." +</P><P> +The widower only sighed and puffed his cigar fiercely out of the open +window. Perhaps he was thinking of that far-away time—little better +than five years ago, in fact; but such an age gone by to him—when he +first met the woman for whom he had worn crape round his hat three days +before. They returned, all those old unforgotten feelings; they came +back, with the scene of their birth-place. Again he lounged with his +brother officers upon the shabby pier at the shabby watering-place, +listening to a dreary band with a cornet that was a note and a half +flat. Again he heard the old operatic airs, and again <i>she</i> came +tripping toward him, leaning on her old father's arm, and pretending +(with such a charming, delicious, serio-comic pretense) to be listening +to the music, and quite unaware of the admiration of half a dozen +open-mouthed cavalry officers. Again the old fancy came back that she +was something too beautiful for earth, or earthly uses, and that to +approach her was to walk in a higher atmosphere and to breathe a purer +air. And since this she had been his wife, and the mother of his child. +She lay in the little churchyard at Ventnor, and only a year ago he had +given the order for her tombstone. A few slow, silent tears dropped upon +his waistcoat as he thought of these things in the quiet and darkening +room. +</P><P> +Lady Audley was so exhausted when she reached home, that she excused +herself from the dinner-table, and retired at once to her dressing-room, +attended by her maid, Phoebe Marks. +</P><P> +She was a little capricious in her conduct to this maid—sometimes very +confidential, sometimes rather reserved; but she was a liberal mistress, +and the girl had every reason to be satisfied with her situation. +</P><P> +This evening, in spite of her fatigue, she was in extremely high +spirits, and gave an animated account of the races, and the company +present at them. +</P><P> +"I am tired to death, though, Phoebe," she said, by-and-by. "I am afraid +I must look a perfect fright, after a day in the hot sun." +</P><P> +There were lighted candles on each side of the glass before which Lady +Audley was standing unfastening her dress. She looked full at her maid +as she spoke, her blue eyes clear and bright, and the rosy childish lips +puckered into an arch smile. +</P><P> +"You are a little pale, my lady," answered the girl, "but you look as +pretty as ever." +</P><P> +"That's right, Phoebe," she said, flinging herself into a chair, and +throwing back her curls at the maid, who stood, brush in hand, ready to +arrange the luxuriant hair for the night. "Do you know, Phoebe, I have +heard some people say that you and I are alike?" +</P><P> +"I have heard them say so, too, my lady," said the girl, quietly "but +they must be very stupid to say it, for your ladyship is a beauty, and I +am a poor, plain creature." +</P><P> +"Not at all, Phoebe," said the little lady, superbly; "you <i>are</i> like +me, and your features are very nice; it is only color that you want. My +hair is pale yellow shot with gold, and yours is drab; my eyebrows and +eyelashes are dark brown, and yours are almost—I scarcely like to say +it, but they're almost white, my dear Phoebe. Your complexion is sallow, +and mine is pink and rosy. Why, with a bottle of hair-dye, such as we +see advertised in the papers, and a pot of rouge, you'd be as +good-looking as I, any day, Phoebe." +</P><P> +She prattled on in this way for a long time, talking of a hundred +different subjects, and ridiculing the people she had met at the races, +for her maid's amusement. Her step-daughter came into the dressing-room +to bid her good-night, and found the maid and mistress laughing aloud +over one of the day's adventures. Alicia, who was never familiar with +her servants, withdrew in disgust at my lady's frivolity. +</P><P> +"Go on brushing my hair, Phoebe," Lady Audley said, every time the girl +was about to complete her task, "I quite enjoy a chat with you." +</P><P> +At last, just as she had dismissed her maid, she suddenly called her +back. "Phoebe Marks," she said, "I want you to do me a favor." +</P><P> +"Yes, my lady." +</P><P> +"I want you to go to London by the first train to-morrow morning to +execute a little commission for me. You may take a day's holiday +afterward, as I know you have friends in town; and I shall give you a +five-pound note if you do what I want, and keep your own counsel about +it." +</P><P> +"Yes, my lady." +</P><P> +"See that that door is securely shut, and come and sit on this stool at +my feet." +</P><P> +The girl obeyed. Lady Audley smoothed her maid's neutral-tinted hair +with her plump, white, and bejeweled hand as she reflected for a few +moments. +</P><P> +"And now listen, Phoebe. What I want you to do is very simple." +</P><P> +It was so simple that it was told in five minutes, and then Lady Audley +retired into her bed-room, and curled herself up cozily under the +eider-down quilt. She was a chilly creature, and loved to bury herself +in soft wrappings of satin and fur. +</P><P> +"Kiss me, Phoebe," she said, as the girl arranged the curtains. "I hear +Sir Michael's step in the anteroom; you will meet him as you go out, and +you may as well tell him that you are going up by the first train +to-morrow morning to get my dress from Madam Frederick for the dinner at +Morton Abbey." +</P><P> +It was late the next morning when Lady Audley went down to +breakfast—past ten o'clock. While she was sipping her coffee a servant +brought her a sealed packet, and a book for her to sign. +</P><P> +"A telegraphic message!" she cried; for the convenient word telegram had +not yet been invented. "What can be the matter?" +</P><P> +She looked up at her husband with wide-open, terrified eyes, and seemed +half afraid to break the seal. The envelope was addressed to Miss Lucy +Graham, at Mr. Dawson's, and had been sent on from the village. +</P><P> +"Read it, my darling," he said, "and do not be alarmed; it may be +nothing of any importance." +</P><P> +It came from a Mrs. Vincent, the schoolmistress with whom she had lived +before entering Mr. Dawson's family. The lady was dangerously ill, and +implored her old pupil to go and see her. +</P><P> +"Poor soul! she always meant to leave me her money," said Lucy, with a +mournful smile. "She has never heard of the change in my fortunes. Dear +Sir Michael, I must go to her." +</P><P> +"To be sure you must, dearest. If she was kind to my poor girl in her +adversity, she has a claim upon her prosperity that shall never be +forgotten. Put on your bonnet, Lucy; we shall be in time to catch the +express." +</P><P> +"You will go with me?" +</P><P> +"Of course, my darling. Do you suppose I would let you go alone?" +</P><P> +"I was sure you would go with me," she said, thoughtfully. +</P><P> +"Does your friend send any address?" +</P><P> +"No; but she always lived at Crescent Villa, West Brompton; and no doubt +she lives there still." +</P><P> +There was only time for Lady Audley to hurry on her bonnet and shawl +before she heard the carriage drive round to the door, and Sir Michael +calling to her at the foot of the staircase. +</P><P> +Her suite of rooms, as I have said, opened one out of another, and +terminated in an octagon antechamber hung with oil-paintings. Even in +her haste she paused deliberately at the door of this room, +double-locked it, and dropped the key into her pocket. This door once +locked cut off all access to my lady's apartments. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER VIII.</H2> +<H3>BEFORE THE STORM.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +So the dinner at Audley Court was postponed, and Miss Alicia had to wait +still longer for an introduction to the handsome young widower, Mr. +George Talboys. +</P><P> +I am afraid, if the real truth is to be told, there was, perhaps, +something of affectation in the anxiety this young lady expressed to +make George's acquaintance; but if poor Alicia for a moment calculated +upon arousing any latent spark of jealousy lurking in her cousin's +breast by this exhibition of interest, she was not so well acquainted +with Robert Audley's disposition as she might have been. Indolent, +handsome, and indifferent, the young barrister took life as altogether +too absurd a mistake for any one event in its foolish course to be for a +moment considered seriously by a sensible man. +</P><P> +His pretty, gipsy-faced cousin might have been over head and ears in +love with him; and she might have told him so, in some charming, +roundabout, womanly fashion, a hundred times a day for all the three +hundred and sixty-five days in the year; but unless she had waited for +some privileged 29th of February, and walked straight up to him, saying, +"Robert, please will you marry me?" I very much doubt if he would ever +have discovered the state of her feelings. +</P><P> +Again, had he been in love with her himself, I fancy that the tender +passion would, with him, have been so vague and feeble a sentiment that +he might have gone down to his grave with a dim sense of some uneasy +sensation which might be love or indigestion, and with, beyond this, no +knowledge whatever of his state. +</P><P> +So it was not the least use, my poor Alicia, to ride about the lanes +around Audley during those three days which the two young men spent in +Essex; it was wasted trouble to wear that pretty cavalier hat and plume, +and to be always, by the most singular of chances, meeting Robert and +his friend. The black curls (nothing like Lady Audley's feathery +ringlets, but heavy clustering locks, that clung about your slender +brown throat), the red and pouting lips, the nose inclined to be +<i>retrousse</i>, the dark complexion, with its bright crimson flush, always +ready to glance up like a signal light in a dusky sky, when you came +suddenly upon your apathetic cousin—all this coquettish <i>espiegle</i>, +brunette beauty was thrown away upon the dull eyes of Robert Audley, and +you might as well have taken your rest in the cool drawing-room at the +Court, instead of working your pretty mare to death under the hot +September sun. +</P><P> +Now fishing, except to the devoted disciple of Izaak Walton, is not the +most lively of occupations; therefore, it is scarcely, perhaps, to be +wondered that on the day after Lady Audley's departure, the two young +men (one of whom was disabled by that heart wound which he bore so +quietly, from really taking pleasure in anything, and the other of whom +looked upon almost all pleasure as a negative kind of trouble) began to +grow weary of the shade of the willows overhanging the winding streams +about Audley. +</P><P> +"Figtree Court is not gay in the long vacation," said Robert, +reflectively: "but I think, upon the whole, it's better than this; at +any rate, it's near a tobacconist's," he added, puffing resignedly at an +execrable cigar procured from the landlord of the Sun Inn. +</P><P> +George Talboys, who had only consented to the Essex expedition in +passive submission to his friend, was by no means inclined to object to +their immediate return to London. "I shall be glad to get back, Bob," he +said, "for I want to take a run down to Southampton; I haven't seen the +little one for upward of a month." +</P><P> +He always spoke of his son as "the little one;" always spoke of him +mournfully rather than hopefully. He accounted for this by saying that +he had a fancy that the child would never learn to love him; and worse +even than this fancy, a dim presentiment that he would not live to see +his little Georgey reach manhood. +</P><P> +"I'm not a romantic man, Bob," he would say sometimes, "and I never read +a line of poetry in my life that was any more to me than so many words +and so much jingle; but a feeling has come over me, since my wife's +death, that I am like a man standing upon a long, low shore, with +hideous cliffs frowning down upon him from behind, and the rising tide +crawling slowly but surely about his feet. It seems to grow nearer and +nearer every day, that black, pitiless tide; not rushing upon me with a +great noise and a mighty impetus, but crawling, creeping, stealing, +gliding toward me, ready to close in above my head when I am least +prepared for the end." +</P><P> +Robert Audley stared at his friend in silent amazement; and, after a +pause of profound deliberation, said solemnly, "George Talboys, I could +understand this if you had been eating heavy suppers. Cold pork, now, +especially if underdone, might produce this sort of thing. You want +change of air, my dear boy; you want the refreshing breezes of Figtree +Court, and the soothing air of Fleet street. Or, stay," he added, +suddenly, "I have it! You've been smoking our friend the landlord's +cigars; that accounts for everything." +</P><P> +They met Alicia Audley on her mare about half an hour after they had +come to the determination of leaving Essex early the next morning. The +young lady was very much surprised and disappointed at hearing her +cousin's determination, and for that very reason pretended to take the +matter with supreme indifference. +</P><P> +"You are very soon tired of Audley, Robert," she said, carelessly; "but +of course you have no friends here, except your relations at the Court; +while in London, no doubt, you have the most delightful society and—" +</P><P> +"I get good tobacco," murmured Robert, interrupting his cousin. "Audley +is the dearest old place, but when a man has to smoke dried cabbage +leaves, you know, Alicia—" +</P><P> +"Then you are really going to-morrow morning?" +</P><P> +"Positively—by the express train that leaves at 10.50." +</P><P> +"Then Lady Audley will lose an introduction to Mr. Talboys, and Mr. +Talboys will lose the chance of seeing the prettiest woman in Essex." +</P><P> +"Really—" stammered George. +</P><P> +"The prettiest woman in Essex would have a poor chance of getting much +admiration out of my friend, George Talboys," said Robert. "His heart is +at Southampton, where he has a curly-headed little urchin, about as high +as his knee, who calls him 'the big gentleman,' and asks him for +sugar-plums." +</P><P> +"I am going to write to my step-mother by to-night's post," said Alicia. +"She asked me particularly in her letter how long you were going to +stop, and whether there was any chance of her being back in time to +receive you." +</P><P> +Miss Audley took a letter from the pocket of her riding-jacket as she +spoke—a pretty, fairy-like note, written on shining paper of a peculiar +creamy hue. +</P><P> +"She says in her postcript, 'Be sure you answer my question about Mr. +Audley and his friend, you volatile, forgetful Alicia!'" +</P><P> +"What a pretty hand she writes!" said Robert, as his cousin folded the +note. +</P><P> +"Yes, it is pretty, is it not? Look at it, Robert." +</P><P> +She put the letter into his hand, and he contemplated it lazily for a +few minutes, while Alicia patted the graceful neck of her chestnut mare, +which was anxious to be off once more. +</P><P> +"Presently, Atalanta, presently. Give me back my note, Bob." +</P><P> +"It is the prettiest, most coquettish little hand I ever saw. Do you +know, Alicia, I have no great belief in those fellows who ask you for +thirteen postage stamps, and offer to tell you what you have never been +able to find out yourself; but upon my word I think that if I had never +seen your aunt, I should know what she was like by this slip of paper. +Yes, here it all is—the feathery, gold-shot, flaxen curls, the penciled +eyebrows, the tiny, straight nose, the winning, childish smile; all to +be guessed in these few graceful up-strokes and down-strokes. George, +look here!" +</P><P> +But absent-minded and gloomy George Talboys had strolled away along the +margin of the ditch, and stood striking the bulrushes with his cane, +half a dozen paces away from Robert and Alicia. +</P><P> +"Nevermind," said the young lady, impatiently; for she by no means +relished this long disquisition upon my lady's note. "Give me the +letter, and let me go; it's past eight, and I must answer it by +to-night's post. Come, Atalanta! Good-by, Robert—good-by, Mr. Talboys. +A pleasant journey to town." +</P><P> +The chestnut mare cantered briskly through the lane, and Miss Audley was +out of sight before those two big, bright tears that stood in her eyes +for one moment, before her pride sent them, back again, rose from her +angry heart. +</P><P> +"To have only one cousin in the world," she cried, passionately, "my +nearest relation after papa, and for him to care about as much for me as +he would for a dog!" +</P><P> +By the merest of accidents, however, Robert and his friend did not go by +the 10.50 express on the following morning, for the young barrister +awoke with such a splitting headache, that he asked George to send him a +cup of the strongest green tea that had ever been made at the Sun, and +to be furthermore so good as to defer their journey until the next day. +Of course George assented, and Robert Audley spent the forenoon in a +darkened room with a five-days'-old Chelmsford paper to entertain +himself withal. +</P><P> +"It's nothing but the cigars, George," he said, repeatedly. "Get me out +of the place without my seeing the landlord; for if that man and I meet +there will be bloodshed." +</P><P> +Fortunately for the peace of Audley, it happened to be market-day at +Chelmsford; and the worthy landlord had ridden off in his chaise-cart to +purchase supplies for his house—among other things, perhaps, a fresh +stock of those very cigars which had been so fatal in their effect upon +Robert. +</P><P> +The young men spent a dull, dawdling, stupid, unprofitable day; and +toward dusk Mr. Audley proposed that they should stroll down to the +Court, and ask Alicia to take them over the house. +</P><P> +"It will kill a couple of hours, you know, George: and it seems a great +pity to drag you away from Audley without having shown you the old +place, which, I give you my honor, is very well worth seeing." +</P><P> +The sun was low in the skies as they took a short cut through the +meadows, and crossed a stile into the avenue leading to the archway—a +lurid, heavy-looking, ominous sunset, and a deathly stillness in the +air, which frightened the birds that had a mind to sing, and left the +field open to a few captious frogs croaking in the ditches. Still as the +atmosphere was, the leaves rustled with that sinister, shivering motion +which proceeds from no outer cause, but is rather an instinctive shudder +of the frail branches, prescient of a coming storm. That stupid clock, +which knew no middle course, and always skipped from one hour to the +other, pointed to seven as the young men passed under the archway; but, +for all that, it was nearer eight. +</P><P> +They found Alicia in the lime-walk, wandering listlessly up and down +under the black shadow of the trees, from which every now and then a +withered leaf flapped slowly to the ground. +</P><P> +Strange to say, George Talboys, who very seldom observed anything, took +particular notice of this place. +</P><P> +"It ought to be an avenue in a churchyard," he said. "How peacefully the +dead might sleep under this somber shade! I wish the churchyard at +Ventnor was like this." +</P><P> +They walked on to the ruined well; and Alicia told them some old legend +connected with the spot—some gloomy story, such as those always +attached to an old house, as if the past were one dark page of sorrow +and crime. +</P><P> +"We want to see the house before it is dark, Alicia," said Robert. +</P><P> +"Then we must be quick." she answered. "Come." +</P><P> +She led the way through an open French window, modernized a few years +before, into the library, and thence to the hall. +</P><P> +In the hall they passed my lady's pale-faced maid, who looked furtively +under her white eyelashes at the two young men. +</P><P> +They were going up-stairs, when Alicia turned and spoke to the girl. +</P><P> +"After we have been in the drawing-room, I should like to show these +gentlemen Lady Audley's rooms. Are they in good order, Phoebe?" +</P><P> +"Yes, miss; but the door of the anteroom is locked, and I fancy that my +lady has taken the key to London." +</P><P> +"Taken the key! Impossible!" cried Alicia. +</P><P> +"Indeed, miss, I think she has. I cannot find it, and it always used to +be in the door." +</P><P> +"I declare," said Alicia, impatiently, "that is not at all unlike my +lady to have taken this silly freak into her head. I dare say she was +afraid we should go into her rooms, and pry about among her pretty +dresses, and meddle with her jewelry. It is very provoking, for the best +pictures in the house are in that antechamber. There is her own +portrait, too, unfinished but wonderfully like." +</P><P> +"Her portrait!" exclaimed Robert Audley. "I would give anything to see +it, for I have only an imperfect notion of her face. Is there no other +way of getting into the room, Alicia?" +</P><P> +"Another way?" +</P><P> +"Yes; is there any door, leading through some of the other rooms, by +which we can contrive to get into hers?" +</P><P> +His cousin shook her head, and conducted them into a corridor where +there were some family portraits. She showed them a tapestried chamber, +the large figures upon the faded canvas looking threatening in the dusky +light. +</P><P> +"That fellow with the battle-ax looks as if he wanted to split George's +head open," said Mr. Audley, pointing to a fierce warrior, whose +uplifted arm appeared above George Talboys' dark hair. +</P><P> +"Come out of this room, Alicia," added the young man, nervously; "I +believe it's damp, or else haunted. Indeed, I believe all ghosts to be +the result of damp or dyspepsia. You sleep in a damp bed—you awake +suddenly in the dead of the night with a cold shiver, and see an old +lady in the court costume of George the First's time, sitting at the +foot of the bed. The old lady's indigestion, and the cold shiver is a +damp sheet." +</P><P> +There were lighted candles in the drawing-room. No new-fangled lamps had +ever made their appearance at Audley Court. Sir Michael's rooms were +lighted by honest, thick, yellow-looking wax candles, in massive silver +candlesticks, and in sconces against the walls. +</P><P> +There was very little to see in the drawing-room; and George Talboys +soon grew tired of staring at the handsome modern furniture, and at a +few pictures of some of the Academicians. +</P><P> +"Isn't there a secret passage, or an old oak chest, or something of that +kind, somewhere about the place, Alicia?" asked Robert. +</P><P> +"To be sure!" cried Miss Audley, with a vehemence that startled her +cousin; "of course. Why didn't I think of it before? How stupid of me, +to be sure!" +</P><P> +"Why stupid?" +</P><P> +"Because, if you don't mind crawling upon your hands and knees, you can +see my lady's apartments, for that passage communicates with her +dressing-room. She doesn't know of it herself, I believe. How astonished +she'd be if some black-visored burglar, with a dark-lantern, were to +rise through the floor some night as she sat before her looking-glass, +having her hair dressed for a party!" +</P><P> +"Shall we try the secret passage, George?" asked Mr. Audley. +</P><P> +"Yes, if you wish it." +</P><P> +Alicia led them into the room which had once been her nursery. It was +now disused, except on very rare occasions when the house was full of +company. +</P><P> +Robert Audley lifted a corner of the carpet, according to his cousin's +directions, and disclosed a rudely-cut trap-door in the oak flooring. +</P><P> +"Now listen to me," said Alicia. "You must let yourself down by the +hands into the passage, which is about four feet high; stoop your head, +walk straight along it till you come to a sharp turn which will take you +to the left, and at the extreme end of it you will find a short ladder +below a trap-door like this, which you will have to unbolt; that door +opens into the flooring of my lady's dressing-room, which is only +covered with a square Persian carpet that you can easily manage to +raise. You understand me?" +</P><P> +"Perfectly." +</P><P> +"Then take the light; Mr. Talboys will follow you. I give you twenty +minutes for your inspection of the paintings—that is, about a minute +apiece—and at the end of that time I shall expect to see you return." +</P><P> +Robert obeyed her implicitly, and George submissively following his +friend, found himself, in five minutes, standing amidst the elegant +disorder of Lady Audley's dressing-room. +</P><P> +She had left the house in a hurry on her unlooked-for journey to London, +and the whole of her glittering toilette apparatus lay about on the +marble dressing-table. The atmosphere of the room was almost oppressive +for the rich odors of perfumes in bottles whose gold stoppers had not +been replaced. A bunch of hot-house flowers was withering upon a tiny +writing-table. Two or three handsome dresses lay in a heap upon the +ground, and the open doors of a wardrobe revealed the treasures within. +Jewelry, ivory-backed hair-brushes, and exquisite china were scattered +here and there about the apartment. George Talboys saw his bearded face +and tall, gaunt figure reflected in the glass, and wondered to see how +out of place he seemed among all these womanly luxuries. +</P><P> +They went from the dressing-room to the boudoir, and through the boudoir +into the ante-chamber, in which there were, as Alicia had said, about +twenty valuable paintings, besides my lady's portrait. +</P><P> +My lady's portrait stood on an easel, covered with a green baize in the +center of the octagonal chamber. It had been a fancy of the artist to +paint her standing in this very room, and to make his background a +faithful reproduction of the pictured walls. I am afraid the young man +belonged to the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, for he had spent a most +unconscionable time upon the accessories of this picture—upon my lady's +crispy ringlets and the heavy folds of her crimson velvet dress. +</P><P> +The two young men looked at the paintings on the walls first, leaving +this unfinished portrait for a <i>bonne bouche</i>. +</P><P> +By this time it was dark, the candle carried by Robert only making one +nucleus of light as he moved about holding it before the pictures one by +one. The broad, bare window looked out upon the pale sky, tinged with +the last cold flicker of the twilight. The ivy rustled against the glass +with the same ominous shiver as that which agitated every leaf in the +garden, prophetic of the storm that was to come. +</P><P> +"There are our friend's eternal white horses," said Robert, standing +beside a Wouvermans. "Nicholas Poussin—Salvator—ha—hum! Now for the +portrait." +</P><P> +He paused with his hand on the baize, and solemnly addressed his friend. +</P><P> +"George Talboys," he said, "we have between us only one wax candle, a +very inadequate light with which to look at a painting. Let me, +therefore, request that you will suffer us to look at it one at a time; +if there is one thing more disagreeable than another, it is to have a +person dodging behind your back and peering over your shoulder, when +you're trying to see what a picture's made of." +</P><P> +George fell back immediately. He took no more interest in any lady's +picture than in all the other wearinesses of this troublesome world. He +fell back, and leaning his forehead against the window-panes, looked out +at the night. +</P><P> +When he turned round he saw that Robert had arranged the easel very +conveniently, and that he had seated himself on a chair before it for +the purpose of contemplating the painting at his leisure. +</P><P> +He rose as George turned round. +</P><P> +"Now, then, for your turn, Talboys," he said. "It's an extraordinary +picture." +</P><P> +He took George's place at the window, and George seated himself in the +chair before the easel. +</P><P> +Yes, the painter must have been a pre-Raphaelite. No one but a +pre-Raphaelite would have painted, hair by hair, those feathery masses +of ringlets, with every glimmer of gold, and every shadow of pale brown. +No one but a pre-Raphaelite would have so exaggerated every attribute of +that delicate face as to give a lurid brightness to the blonde +complexion, and a strange, sinister light to the deep blue eyes. No one +but a pre-Raphaelite could have given to that pretty pouting mouth the +hard and almost wicked look it had in the portrait. +</P><P> +It was so like, and yet so unlike. It was as if you had burned +strange-colored fires before my lady's face, and by their influence +brought out new lines and new expressions never seen in it before. The +perfection of feature, the brilliancy of coloring, were there; but I +suppose the painter had copied quaint mediaeval monstrosities until his +brain had grown bewildered, for my lady, in his portrait of her, had +something of the aspect of a beautiful fiend. +</P><P> +Her crimson dress, exaggerated like all the rest in this strange +picture, hung about her in folds that looked like flames, her fair head +peeping out of the lurid mass of color as if out of a raging furnace. +Indeed the crimson dress, the sunshine on the face, the red gold +gleaming in the yellow hair, the ripe scarlet of the pouting lips, the +glowing colors of each accessory of the minutely painted background, all +combined to render the first effect of the painting by no means an +agreeable one. +</P><P> +But strange as the picture was, it could not have made any great +impression on George Talboys, for he sat before it for about a quarter +of an hour without uttering a word—only staring blankly at the painted +canvas, with the candlestick grasped in his strong right hand, and his +left arm hanging loosely by his side. He sat so long in this attitude, +that Robert turned round at last. +</P><P> +"Why, George, I thought you had gone to sleep!" +</P><P> +"I had almost." +</P><P> +"You've caught a cold from standing in that damp tapestried room. Mark +my words, George Talboys, you've caught a cold; you're as hoarse as a +raven. But come along." +</P><P> +Robert Audley took the candle from his friend's hand, and crept back +through the secret passage, followed by George—very quiet, but scarcely +more quiet than usual. +</P><P> +They found Alicia in the nursery waiting for them. +</P><P> +"Well?" she said, interrogatively. +</P><P> +"We managed it capitally. But I don't like the portrait; there's +something odd about it." +</P><P> +"There is," said Alicia; "I've a strange fancy on that point. I think +that sometimes a painter is in a manner inspired, and is able to see, +through the normal expression of the face, another expression that is +equally a part of it, though not to be perceived by common eyes. We have +never seen my lady look as she does in that picture; but I think that +she <i>could</i> look so." +</P><P> +"Alicia," said Robert Audley, imploringly, "don't be German!" +</P><P> +"But, Robert—" +</P><P> +"Don't be German, Alicia, if you love me. The picture is—the picture: +and my lady is—my lady. That's my way of taking things, and I'm not +metaphysical; don't unsettle me." +</P><P> +He repeated this several times with an air of terror that was perfectly +sincere; and then, having borrowed an umbrella in case of being +overtaken by the coming storm, left the Court, leading passive George +Talboys away with him. The one hand of the stupid clock had skipped to +nine by the time they reached the archway; but before they could pass +under its shadow they had to step aside to allow a carriage to dash past +them. It was a fly from the village, but Lady Audley's fair face peeped +out at the window. Dark as it was, she could see the two figures of the +young men black against the dusk. +</P><P> +"Who is that?" she asked, putting out her head. "Is it the gardener?" +</P><P> +"No, my dear aunt," said Robert, laughing; "it is your most dutiful +nephew." +</P><P> +He and George stopped by the archway while the fly drew up at the door, +and the surprised servants came out to welcome their master and +mistress. +</P><P> +"I think the storm will hold off to-night," said the baronet looking up +at the sky; "but we shall certainly have it tomorrow." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER IX.</H2> +<H3>AFTER THE STORM.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Sir Michael was mistaken in his prophecy upon the weather. The storm did +not hold off until next day, but burst with terrible fury over the +village of Audley about half an hour before midnight. +</P><P> +Robert Audley took the thunder and lightning with the same composure +with which he accepted all the other ills of life. He lay on a sofa in +the sitting-room, ostensibly reading the five-days-old Chelmsford paper, +and regaling himself occasionally with a few sips from a large tumbler +of cold punch. But the storm had quite a different effect upon George +Talboys. His friend was startled when he looked at the young man's white +face as he sat opposite the open window listening to the thunder, and +staring at the black sky, rent every now and then by forked streaks of +steel-blue lightning. +</P><P> +"George," said Robert, after watching him for some time, "are you +frightened of the lightning?" +</P><P> +"No," he answered, curtly. +</P><P> +"But, dear boy, some of the most courageous men have been frightened of +it. It is scarcely to be called a fear: it is constitutional. I am sure +you are frightened of it." +</P><P> +"No, I am not." +</P><P> +"But, George, if you could see yourself, white and haggard, with your +great hollow eyes staring out at the sky as if they were fixed upon a +ghost. I tell you I know that you are frightened." +</P><P> +"And I tell you that I am not." +</P><P> +"George Talboys, you are not only afraid of the lightning, but you are +savage with yourself for being afraid, and with me for telling you of +your fear." +</P><P> +"Robert Audley, if you say another word to me, I shall knock you down," +cried George, furiously; having said which, Mr. Talboys strode out of +the room, banging the door after him with a violence that shook the +house. Those inky clouds, which had shut in the sultry earth as if with +a roof of hot iron, poured out their blackness in a sudden deluge as +George left the room; but if the young man was afraid of the lightning, +he certainly was not afraid of the rain; for he walked straight +down-stairs to the inn door, and went out into the wet high road. He +walked up and down, up and down, in the soaking shower for about twenty +minutes, and then, re-entering the inn, strode up to his bedroom. +</P><P> +Robert Audley met him on the landing, with his hair beaten about his +white face, and his garments dripping wet. +</P><P> +"Are you going to bed, George?" +</P><P> +"Yes." +</P><P> +"But you have no candle." +</P><P> +"I don't want one." +</P><P> +"But look at your clothes, man! Do you see the wet streaming down your +coat-sleeves? What on earth made you go out upon such a night?" +</P><P> +"I am tired, and want to go to bed—don't bother me." +</P><P> +"You'll take some hot brandy-and-water, George?" +</P><P> +Robert Audley stood in his friend's way as he spoke, anxious to prevent +his going to bed in the state he was in; but George pushed him fiercely +aside, and, striding past him, said, in the same hoarse voice Robert had +noticed at the Court: +</P><P> +"Let me alone, Robert Audley, and keep clear of me if you can." +</P><P> +Robert followed George to his bedroom, but the young man banged the door +in his face, so there was nothing for it but to leave Mr. Talboys to +himself, to recover his temper as best he might. +</P><P> +"He was irritated at my noticing his terror of the lightning," though +Robert, as he calmly retired to rest, serenely indifferent to the +thunder, which seemed to shake him in his bed, and the lightning playing +fitfully round the razors in his open dressing-case. +</P><P> +The storm rolled away from the quiet village of Audley, and when Robert +awoke the next morning it was to see bright sunshine, and a peep of +cloudless sky between the white curtains of his bedroom window. +</P><P> +It was one of those serene and lovely mornings that sometimes succeed a +storm. The birds sung loud and cheerily, the yellow corn uplifted itself +in the broad fields, and waved proudly after its sharp tussle with the +tempest, which had done its best to beat down the heavy ears with cruel +wind and driving rain half the night through. The vine-leaves clustering +round Robert's window fluttered with a joyous rustling, shaking the +rain-drops in diamond showers from every spray and tendril. +</P><P> +Robert Audley found his friend waiting for him at the breakfast-table. +</P><P> +George was very pale, but perfectly tranquil—if anything, indeed, more +cheerful than usual. +</P><P> +He shook Robert by the hand with something of that hearty manner for +which he had been distinguished before the one affliction of his life +overtook and shipwrecked him. +</P><P> +"Forgive me, Bob," he said, frankly, "for my surly temper of last night. +You were quite correct in your assertion; the thunderstorm <i>did</i> upset +me. It always had the same effect upon me in my youth." +</P><P> +"Poor old boy! Shall we go up by the express, or shall we stop here and +dine with my uncle to-night?" asked Robert. +</P><P> +"To tell the truth, Bob, I would rather do neither. It's a glorious +morning. Suppose we stroll about all day, take another turn with the rod +and line, and go up to town by the train that leaves here at 6.15 in the +evening?" +</P><P> +Robert Audley would have assented to a far more disagreeable proposition +than this, rather than have taken the trouble to oppose his friend, so +the matter was immediately agreed upon; and after they had finished +their breakfast, and ordered a four o'clock dinner, George Talboys took +the fishing-rod across his broad shoulders, and strode out of the house +with his friend and companion. +</P><P> +But if the equable temperament of Mr. Robert Audley had been undisturbed +by the crackling peals of thunder that shook the very foundations of the +Sun Inn, it had not been so with the more delicate sensibilties of his +uncle's young wife. Lady Audley confessed herself terribly frightened of +the lightning. She had her bedstead wheeled into a corner of the room, +and with the heavy curtains drawn tightly round her, she lay with her +face buried in the pillow, shuddering convulsively at every sound of the +tempest without. Sir Michael, whose stout heart had never known a fear, +almost trembled for this fragile creature, whom it was his happy +privilege to protect and defend. My lady would not consent to undress +till nearly three o'clock in the morning, when the last lingering peal +of thunder had died away among the distant hills. Until that hour she +lay in the handsome silk dress in which she had traveled, huddled +together among the bedclothes, only looking up now and then with a +scared face to ask if the storm was over. +</P><P> +Toward four o'clock her husband, who spent the night in watching by her +bedside, saw her drop off into a deep sleep, from which she did not +awake for nearly five hours. +</P><P> +But she came into the breakfast-room, at half-past nine o'clock, singing +a little Scotch melody, her cheeks tinged with as delicate a pink as the +pale hue of her muslin morning dress. Like the birds and the flowers, +she seemed to recover her beauty and joyousness in the morning sunshine. +She tripped lightly out onto the lawn, gathering a last lingering +rosebud here and there, and a sprig or two of geranium, and returning +through the dewy grass, warbling long cadences for very happiness of +heart, and looking as fresh and radiant as the flowers in her hands. The +baronet caught her in his strong arms as she came in through the open +window. +</P><P> +"My pretty one," he said, "my darling, what happiness to see you your +own merry self again! Do you know, Lucy, that once last night, when you +looked out through the dark-green bed-curtains, with your poor, white +face, and the purple rims round your hollow eyes, I had almost a +difficulty to recognize my little wife in that terrified, +agonized-looking creature, crying out about the storm. Thank God for the +morning sun, which has brought back the rosy cheeks and bright smile! I +hope to Heaven, Lucy, I shall never again see you look as you did last +night." +</P><P> +She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and then was only tall enough to reach +his white beard. She told him, laughing, that she had always been a +silly, frightened creature—frightened of dogs, frightened of cattle, +frightened of a thunderstorm, frightened of a rough sea. "Frightened of +everything and everybody but my dear, noble, handsome husband," she +said. +</P><P> +She had found the carpet in her dressing-room disarranged, and had +inquired into the mystery of the secret passage. She chid Miss Alicia in +a playful, laughing way, for her boldness in introducing two great men +into my lady's rooms. +</P><P> +"And they had the audacity to look at my picture, Alicia," she said, +with mock indignation. "I found the baize thrown on the ground, and a +great man's glove on the carpet. Look!" +</P><P> +"She held up a thick driving glove as she spoke. It was George's, which +he had dropped looking at the picture. +</P><P> +"I shall go up to the Sun, and ask those boys to dinner," Sir Michael +said, as he left the Court upon his morning walk around his farm. +</P><P> +Lady Audley flitted from room to room in the bright September +sunshine—now sitting down to the piano to trill out a ballad, or the +first page of an Italian bravura, or running with rapid fingers through +a brilliant waltz—now hovering about a stand of hot-house flowers, +doing amateur gardening with a pair of fairy-like, silver-mounted +embroidery scissors—now strolling into her dressing-room to talk to +Phoebe Marks, and have her curls rearranged for the third or fourth +time; for the ringlets were always getting into disorder, and gave no +little trouble to Lady Audley's maid. +</P><P> +My dear lady seemed, on this particular September day, restless from +very joyousness of spirit, and unable to stay long in one place, or +occupy herself with one thing. +</P><P> +While Lady Audley amused herself in her own frivolous fashion, the two +young men strolled slowly along the margin of the stream until they +reached a shady corner where the water was deep and still, and the long +branches of the willows trailed into the brook. +</P><P> +George Talboys took the fishing-rod, while Robert stretched himself at +full length on a railway rug, and balancing his hat upon his nose as a +screen from the sunshine, fell fast asleep. +</P><P> +Those were happy fish in the stream on the banks of which Mr. Talboys +was seated. They might have amused themselves to their hearts' content +with timid nibbles at this gentleman's bait without in any manner +endangering their safety; for George only stared vacantly in the water, +holding his rod in a loose, listless hand, and with a strange, far-away +look in his eyes. As the church clock struck two he threw down his rod, +and, striding away along the bank, left Robert Audley to enjoy a nap +which, according to that gentleman's habits, was by no means unlikely to +last for two or three hours. About a quarter of a mile further on George +crossed a rustic bridge, and struck into the meadows which led to Audley +Court. +</P><P> +The birds had sung so much all the morning, that they had, perhaps, by +this time grown tired; the lazy cattle were asleep in the meadows; Sir +Michael was still away on his morning's ramble; Miss Alicia had +scampered off an hour before on her chestnut mare; the servants were all +at dinner in the back part of the house; and my lady had strolled, book +in hand, into the shadowy lime-walk; so the gray old building had never +worn a more peaceful aspect than on that bright afternoon when George +Talboys walked across the lawn to ring a sonorous peal at the sturdy, +iron-bound oak door. +</P><P> +The servant who answered his summons told him that Sir Michael was out, +and my lady walking in the lime-tree avenue. +</P><P> +He looked a little disappointed at this intelligence, and muttering +something about wishing to see my lady, or going to look for my lady +(the servant did not clearly distinguish his words), strode away from +the door without leaving either card or message for the family. +</P><P> +It was full an hour and a half after this when Lady Audley returned to +the house, not coming from the lime-walk, but from exactly the opposite +direction, carrying her open book in her hand, and singing as she came. +Alicia had just dismounted from her mare, and stood in the low-arched +doorway, with her great Newfoundland dog by her side. +</P><P> +The dog, which had never liked my lady, showed his teeth with a +suppressed growl. +</P><P> +"Send that horrid animal away, Alicia," Lady Audley said, impatiently. +"The brute knows that I am frightened of him, and takes advantage of my +terror. And yet they call the creatures generous and noble-hearted! Bah, +Caesar! I hate you, and you hate me; and if you met me in the dark in +some narrow passage you would fly at my throat and strangle me, wouldn't +you?" +</P><P> +My lady, safely sheltered behind her step-daughter, shook her yellow +curls at the angry animal, and defied him maliciously. +</P><P> +"Do you know, Lady Audley, that Mr. Talboys, the young widower, has been +here asking for Sir Michael and you?" +</P><P> +Lucy Audley lifted her penciled eyebrows. "I thought they were coming to +dinner," she said. "Surely we shall have enough of them then." +</P><P> +She had a heap of wild autumn flowers in the skirt of her muslin dress. +She had come through the fields at the back of the Court, gathering the +hedge-row blossoms in her way. She ran lightly up the broad staircase to +her own rooms. George's glove lay on her boudoir table. Lady Audley rung +the bell violently, and it was answered by Phoebe Marks. "Take that +litter away," she said, sharply. The girl collected the glove and a few +withered flowers and torn papers lying on the table into her apron. +</P><P> +"What have you been doing all this morning?" asked my lady. "Not wasting +your time, I hope?" +</P><P> +"No, my lady, I have been altering the blue dress. It is rather dark on +this side of the house, so I took it up to my own room, and worked at +the window." +</P><P> +The girl was leaving the room as she spoke, but she turned around and +looked at Lady Audley as if waiting for further orders. +</P><P> +Lucy looked up at the same moment, and the eyes of the two women met. +</P><P> +"Phoebe Marks," said my lady, throwing herself into an easy-chair, and +trifling with the wild flowers in her lap, "you are a good, industrious +girl, and while I live and am prosperous, you shall never want a firm +friend or a twenty-pound note." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER X.</H2> +<H3>MISSING.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +When Robert Audley awoke he was surprised to see the fishing-rod lying +on the bank, the line trailing idly in the water, and the float bobbing +harmlessly up and down in the afternoon sunshine. The young barrister +was a long time stretching his arms and legs in various directions to +convince himself, by means of such exercise, that he still retained the +proper use of those members; then, with a mighty effort, he contrived to +rise from the grass, and having deliberately folded his railway rug into +a convenient shape for carrying over his shoulder, he strolled away to +look for George Talboys. +</P><P> +Once or twice he gave a sleepy shout, scarcely loud enough to scare the +birds in the branches above his head, or the trout in the stream at his +feet: but receiving no answer, grew tired of the exertion, and dawdled +on, yawning as he went, and still looking for George Talboys. +</P><P> +By-and-by he took out his watch, and was surprised to find that it was a +quarter past four. +</P><P> +"Why, the selfish beggar must have gone home to his dinner!" he +muttered, reflectively; "and yet that isn't much like him, for he seldom +remembers even his meals unless I jog his memory." +</P><P> +Even a good appetite, and the knowledge that his dinner would very +likely suffer by this delay, could not quicken Mr. Robert Audley's +constitutional dawdle, and by the time he strolled in at the front door +of the Sun, the clocks were striking five. He so fully expected to find +George Talboys waiting for him in the little sitting-room, that the +absence of that gentleman seemed to give the apartment a dreary look, +and Robert groaned aloud. +</P><P> +"This is lively!" he said. "A cold dinner, and nobody to eat it with!" +</P><P> +The landlord of the Sun came himself to apologize for his ruined dishes. +</P><P> +"As fine a pair of ducks, Mr. Audley, as ever you clapped eyes on, but +burnt up to a cinder, along of being kep' hot." +</P><P> +"Never mind the ducks," Robert said impatiently; "where's Mr. Talboys?" +</P><P> +"He ain't been in, sir, since you went out together this morning." +</P><P> +"What!" cried Robert. "Why, in heaven's name, what has the man done with +himself?" +</P><P> +He walked to the window and looked out upon the broad, white high road. +There was a wagon laden with trusses of hay crawling slowly past, the +lazy horses and the lazy wagoner drooping their heads with a weary stoop +under the afternoon's sunshine. There was a flock of sheep straggling +about the road, with a dog running himself into a fever in the endeavor +to keep them decently together. There were some bricklayers just +released from work—a tinker mending some kettles by the roadside; there +was a dog-cart dashing down the road, carrying the master of the Audley +hounds to his seven o'clock dinner; there were a dozen common village +sights and sounds that mixed themselves up into a cheerful bustle and +confusion; but there was no George Talboys. +</P><P> +"Of all the extraordinary things that ever happened to me in the whole +course of my life," said Mr. Robert Audley, "this is the most +miraculous!" +</P><P> +The landlord still in attendance, opened his eyes as Robert made this +remark. What could there be extraordinary in the simple fact of a +gentleman being late for his dinner?" +</P><P> +"I shall go and look for him," said Robert, snatching up his hat and +walking straight out of the house. +</P><P> +But the question was where to look for him. He certainly was not by the +trout stream, so it was no good going back there in search of him. +Robert was standing before the inn, deliberating on what was best to be +done, when the landlord came out after him. +</P><P> +"I forgot to tell you, Mr. Audley, as how your uncle called here five +minutes after you was gone, and left a message, asking of you and the +other gentleman to go down to dinner at the Court." +</P><P> +"Then I shouldn't wonder," said Robert, "if George Talboys has gone down +to the Court to call upon my uncle. It isn't like him, but it's just +possible that he has done it." +</P><P> +It was six o'clock when Robert knocked at the door of his uncle's house. +He did not ask to see any of the family, but inquired at once for his +friend. +</P><P> +Yes, the servant told him; Mr. Talboys had been there at two o'clock or +a little after. +</P><P> +"And not since?" +</P><P> +"No, not since." +</P><P> +Was the man sure that it was at two Mr. Talboys called? Robert asked. +</P><P> +"Yes, perfectly sure. He remembered the hour because it was the +servants' dinner hour, and he had left the table to open the door to Mr. +Talboys. +</P><P> +"Why, what can have become of the man?" thought Robert, as he turned his +back upon the Court. "From two till six—four good hours—and no signs +of him!" +</P><P> +If any one had ventured to tell Mr. Robert Audley that he could possibly +feel a strong attachment to any creature breathing, that cynical +gentleman would have elevated his eyebrows in supreme contempt at the +preposterous notion. Yet here he was, flurried and anxious, bewildering +his brain by all manner of conjectures about his missing friend; and +false to every attribute of his nature, walking fast. +</P><P> +"I haven't walked fast since I was at Eton," he murmured, as he hurried +across one of Sir Michael's meadows in the direction of the village; +"and the worst of it is, that I haven't the most remote idea where I am +going." +</P><P> +Here he crossed another meadow, and then seating himself upon a stile, +rested his elbows upon his knees, buried his face in his hands, and set +himself seriously to think the matter out. +</P><P> +"I have it," he said, after a few minutes' thought; "the railway +station!" He sprang over the stile, and started off in the direction of +the little red brick building. +</P><P> +There was no train expected for another half hour, and the clerk was +taking his tea in an apartment on one side of the office, on the door of +which was inscribed in large, white letters, "Private." +</P><P> +But Mr. Audley was too much occupied with the one idea of looking for +his friend to pay any attention to this warning. He strode at once to +the door, and rattling his cane against it, brought the clerk out of his +sanctum in a perspiration from hot tea, and with his mouth full of bread +and butter. +</P><P> +"Do you remember the gentleman that came down to Audley with me, +Smithers?" asked Robert. +</P><P> +"Well, to tell you the real truth, Mr. Audley, I can't say that I do. +You came by the four o'clock, if you remember, and there's always a good +many passengers by that train." +</P><P> +"You don't remember him, then?" +</P><P> +"Not to my knowledge, sir." +</P><P> +"That's provoking! I want to know, Smithers, whether he has taken a +ticket for London since two o'clock to-day. He's a tall, broad-chested +young fellow, with a big brown beard. You couldn't well mistake him." +</P><P> +"There was four or five gentlemen as took tickets for the 3.30 up," said +the clerk rather vaguely, casting an anxious glance over his shoulder at +his wife, who looked by no means pleased at this interruption to the +harmony of the tea-table. +</P><P> +"Four or five gentlemen! But did either of them answer to the +description of my friend?" +</P><P> +"Well, I think one of them had a beard, sir." +</P><P> +"A dark-brown beard?" +</P><P> +"Well, I don't know, but it was brownish-like." +</P><P> +"Was he dressed in gray?" +</P><P> +"I believe it was gray; a great many gents wear gray. He asked for the +ticket sharp and short-like, and when he'd got it walked straight out +onto the platform whistling." +</P><P> +"That's George," said Robert. "Thank you, Smithers; I needn't trouble +you any more. It's as clear as daylight," he muttered, as he left the +station; "he's got one of his gloomy fits on him, and he's gone back to +London without saying a word about it. I'll leave Audley myself +to-morrow morning; and for to-night—why, I may as well go down to the +Court and make the acquaintance of my uncle's young wife. They don't +dine till seven; if I get back across the fields I shall be in time. +Bob—otherwise Robert Audley—this sort of thing will never do; you are +falling over head and ears in love with your aunt." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XI.</H2> +<H3>THE MARK UPON MY LADY'S WRIST.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Robert found Sir Michael and Lady Audley in the drawing-room. My lady +was sitting on a music-stool before the grand piano, turning over the +leaves of some new music. She twirled upon the revolving seat, making a +rustling with her silk flounces, as Mr. Robert Audley's name was +announced; then, leaving the piano, she made her nephew a pretty, mock +ceremonious courtesy. +</P><P> +"Thank you so much for the sables," she said, holding out her little +fingers, all glittering and twinkling with the diamonds she wore upon +them; "thank you for those beautiful sables. How good it was of you to +get them for me." +</P><P> +Robert had almost forgotten the commission he had executed for Lady +Audley during his Russian expedition. His mind was so full of George +Talboys that he only acknowledged nay lady's gratitude by a bow. +</P><P> +"Would you believe it, Sir Michael?" he said. "That foolish chum of mine +has gone back to London leaving me in the lurch." +</P><P> +"Mr. George Talboys returned to town?" exclaimed my lady, lifting her +eyebrows. "What a dreadful catastrophe!" said Alicia, maliciously, +"since Pythias, in the person of Mr. Robert Audley, cannot exist for +half an hour without Damon, commonly known as George Talboys." +</P><P> +"He's a very good fellow," Robert said, stoutly; "and to tell the honest +truth, I'm rather uneasy about him." +</P><P> +"Uneasy about him!" My lady was quite anxious to know why Robert was +uneasy about his friend. +</P><P> +"I'll tell you why, Lady Audley," answered the young barrister. "George +had a bitter blow a year ago in the death of his wife. He has never got +over that trouble. He takes life pretty quietly—almost as quietly as I +do—but he often talks very strangely, and I sometimes think that one +day this grief will get the better of him, and he will do something +rash." +</P><P> +Mr. Robert Audley spoke vaguely, but all three of his listeners knew +that the something rash to which he alluded was that one deed for which +there is no repentance. +</P><P> +There was a brief pause, during which Lady Audley arranged her yellow +ringlets by the aid of the glass over the console table opposite to her. +</P><P> +"Dear me!" she said, "this is very strange. I did not think men were +capable of these deep and lasting affections. I thought that one pretty +face was as good as another pretty face to them; and that when number +one with blue eyes and fair hair died, they had only to look out for +number two, with dark eyes and black hair, by way of variety." +</P><P> +"George Talboys is not one of those men. I firmly believe that his +wife's death broke his heart." +</P><P> +"How sad!" murmured Lady Audley. "It seems almost cruel of Mrs. Talboys +to die, and grieve her poor husband so much." +</P><P> +"Alicia was right, she is childish," thought Robert as he looked at his +aunt's pretty face. +</P><P> +My lady was very charming at the dinner-table; she professed the most +bewitching incapacity for carving the pheasant set before her, and +called Robert to her assistance. +</P><P> +"I could carve a leg of mutton at Mr. Dawson's," she said, laughing; +"but a leg of mutton is so easy, and then I used to stand up." +</P><P> +Sir Michael watched the impression my lady made upon his nephew with a +proud delight in her beauty and fascination. +</P><P> +"I am so glad to see my poor little woman in her usual good spirits once +more," he said. "She was very down-hearted yesterday at a disappointment +she met with in London." +</P><P> +"A disappointment!" +</P><P> +"Yes, Mr. Audley, a very cruel one," answered my lady. "I received the +other morning a telegraphic message from my dear old friend and +school-mistress, telling me that she was dying, and that if I wanted to +see her again, I must hasten to her immediately. The telegraphic +dispatch contained no address, and of course, from that very +circumstance, I imagined that she must be living in the house in which I +left her three years ago. Sir Michael and I hurried up to town +immediately, and drove straight to the old address. The house was +occupied by strange people, who could give me no tidings of my friend. +It is in a retired place, where there are very few tradespeople about. +Sir Michael made inquiries at the few shops there are, but, after taking +an immense deal of trouble, could discover nothing whatever likely to +lead to the information we wanted. I have no friends in London, and had +therefore no one to assist me except my dear, generous husband, who did +all in his power, but in vain, to find my friend's new residence." +</P><P> +"It was very foolish not to send the address in the telegraphic +message," said Robert. +</P><P> +"When people are dying it is not so easy to think of all these things," +murmured my lady, looking reproachfully at Mr. Audley with her soft blue +eyes. +</P><P> +In spite of Lady Audley's fascination, and in spite of Robert's very +unqualified admiration of her, the barrister could not overcome a vague +feeling of uneasiness on this quiet September evening. +</P><P> +As he sat in the deep embrasure of a mullioned window, talking to my +lady, his mind wandered away to shady Figtree Court, and he thought of +poor George Talboys smoking his solitary cigar in the room with the +birds and canaries. +</P><P> +"I wish I'd never felt any friendliness for the fellow," he thought. "I +feel like a man who has an only son whose life has gone wrong with him. +I wish to Heaven I could give him back his wife, and send him down to +Ventnor to finish his days in peace." +</P><P> +Still my lady's pretty musical prattle ran on as merrily and +continuously as the babble in some brook; and still Robert's thoughts +wandered, in spite of himself, to George Talboys. +</P><P> +He thought of him hurrying down to Southampton by the mail train to see +his boy. He thought of him as he had often seen him spelling over the +shipping advertisements in the <i>Times</i>, looking for a vessel to take him +back to Australia. Once he thought of him with a shudder, lying cold and +stiff at the bottom of some shallow stream with his dead face turned +toward the darkening sky. +</P><P> +Lady Audley noticed his abstraction, and asked him what he was thinking +of. +</P><P> +"George Talboys," he answered abruptly. +</P><P> +She gave a little nervous shudder. +</P><P> +"Upon my word," she said, "you make me quite uncomfortable by the way in +which you talk of Mr. Talboys. One would think that something +extraordinary had happened to him." +</P><P> +"God forbid! But I cannot help feeling uneasy about him." +</P><P> +Later in the evening Sir Michael asked for some music, and my lady went +to the piano. Robert Audley strolled after her to the instrument to turn +over the leaves of her music; but she played from memory, and he was +spared the trouble his gallantry would have imposed upon him. +</P><P> +He carried a pair of lighted candles to the piano, and arranged them +conveniently for the pretty musician. She struck a few chords, and then +wandered into a pensive sonata of Beethoven's. It was one of the many +paradoxes in her character, that love of somber and melancholy melodies, +so opposite to her gay nature. +</P><P> +Robert Audley lingered by her side, and as he had no occupation in +turning over the leaves of her music, he amused himself by watching her +jeweled, white hands gliding softly over the keys, with the lace sleeves +dropping away from, her graceful, arched wrists. He looked at her pretty +fingers one by one; this one glittering with a ruby heart; that +encircled by an emerald serpent; and about them all a starry glitter of +diamonds. From the fingers his eyes wandered to the rounded wrists: the +broad, flat, gold bracelet upon her right wrist dropped over her hand, +as she executed a rapid passage. She stopped abruptly to rearrange it; +but before she could do so Robert Audley noticed a bruise upon her +delicate skin. +</P><P> +"You have hurt your arm, Lady Audley!" he exclaimed. She hastily +replaced the bracelet. +</P><P> +"It is nothing," she said. "I am unfortunate in having a skin which the +slightest touch bruises." +</P><P> +She went on playing, but Sir Michael came across the room to look into +the matter of the bruise upon his wife's pretty wrist. +</P><P> +"What is it, Lucy?" he asked; "and how did it happen?" +</P><P> +"How foolish you all are to trouble yourselves about anything so +absurd!" said Lady Audley, laughing. "I am rather absent in mind, and +amused myself a few days ago by tying a piece of ribbon around my arm so +tightly, that it left a bruise when I removed it." +</P><P> +"Hum!" thought Robert. "My lady tells little childish white lies; the +bruise is of a more recent date than a few days ago; the skin has only +just begun to change color." +</P><P> +Sir Michael took the slender wrist in his strong hand. +</P><P> +"Hold the candle, Robert," he said, "and let us look at this poor little +arm." +</P><P> +It was not one bruise, but four slender, purple marks, such as might +have been made by the four fingers of a powerful hand, that had grasped +the delicate wrist a shade too roughly. A narrow ribbon, bound tightly, +might have left some such marks, it is true, and my lady protested once +more that, to the best of her recollection, that must have been how they +were made. +</P><P> +Across one of the faint purple marks there was a darker tinge, as if a +ring worn on one of those strong and cruel fingers had been ground into +the tender flesh. +</P><P> +"I am sure my lady must tell white lies," thought Robert, "for I can't +believe the story of the ribbon." +</P><P> +He wished his relations good-night and good-by at about half past ten +o'clock; he should run up to London by the first train to look for +George in Figtree Court. +</P><P> +"If I don't find him there I shall go to Southampton," he said; "and if +I don't find him there—" +</P><P> +"What then?" asked my lady. +</P><P> +"I shall think that something strange has happened." +</P><P> +Robert Audley felt very low-spirited as he walked slowly home between +the shadowy meadows; more low-spirited still when he re-entered the +sitting room at Sun Inn, where he and George had lounged together, +staring out of the window and smoking their cigars. +</P><P> +"To think," he said, meditatively, "that it is possible to care so much +for a fellow! But come what may, I'll go up to town after him the first +thing to-morrow morning; and, sooner than be balked in finding him, I'll +go to the very end of the world." +</P><P> +With Mr. Audley's lymphatic nature, determination was so much the +exception rather than the rule, that when he did for once in his life +resolve upon any course of action, he had a certain dogged, iron-like +obstinacy that pushed him on to the fulfillment of his purpose. +</P><P> +The lazy bent of his mind, which prevented him from thinking of half a +dozen things at a time, and not thinking thoroughly of any one of them, +as is the manner of your more energetic people, made him remarkably +clear-sighted upon any point to which he ever gave his serious +attention. +</P><P> +Indeed, after all, though solemn benchers laughed at him, and rising +barristers shrugged their shoulders under rustling silk gowns, when +people spoke of Robert Audley, I doubt if, had he ever taken the trouble +to get a brief, he might not have rather surprised the magnates who +underrated his abilities. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XII.</H2> +<H3>STILL MISSING.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +The September sunlight sparkled upon the fountain in the Temple Gardens +when Robert Audley returned to Figtree Court early the following +morning. +</P><P> +He found the canaries singing in the pretty little room in which George +had slept, but the apartment was in the same prim order in which the +laundress had arranged it after the departure of the two young men—not +a chair displaced, or so much as the lid of a cigar-box lifted, to +bespeak the presence of George Talboys. With a last, lingering hope, he +searched upon the mantelpieces and tables of his rooms, on the chance of +finding some letter left by George. +</P><P> +"He may have slept here last night, and started for Southampton early +this morning," he thought. "Mrs. Maloney has been here, very likely, to +make everything tidy after him." +</P><P> +But as he sat looking lazily around the room, now and then whistling to +his delighted canaries, a slipshod foot upon the staircase without +bespoke the advent of that very Mrs. Maloney who waited upon the two +young men. +</P><P> +No, Mr. Talboys had not come home; she had looked in as early as six +o'clock that morning, and found the chambers empty. +</P><P> +"Had anything happened to the poor, dear gentleman?" she asked, seeing +Robert Audley's pale face. +</P><P> +He turned around upon her quite savagely at this question. +</P><P> +Happened to him! What should happen to him? They had only parted at two +o'clock the day before. +</P><P> +Mrs. Maloney would have related to him the history of a poor dear young +engine-driver, who had once lodged with her, and who went out, after +eating a hearty dinner, in the best of spirits, to meet with his death +from the concussion of an express and a luggage train; but Robert put on +his hat again, and walked straight out of the house before the honest +Irishwoman could begin her pitiful story. +</P><P> +It was growing dusk when he reached Southampton. He knew his way to the +poor little terrace of houses, in a full street leading down to the +water, where George's father-in-law lived. Little Georgey was playing at +the open parlor window as the young man walked down the street. +</P><P> +Perhaps it was this fact, and the dull and silent aspect of the house, +which filled Robert Audley's mind with a vague conviction that the man +he came to look for was not there. The old man himself opened the door, +and the child peeped out of the parlor to see the strange gentleman. +</P><P> +He was a handsome boy, with his father's brown eyes and dark waving +hair, and with some latent expression which was not his father's and +which pervaded his whole face, so that although each feature of the +child resembled the same feature in George Talboys, the boy was not +actually like him. +</P><P> +Mr. Maldon was delighted to see Robert Audley; he remembered having had +the pleasure of meeting him at Ventnor, on the melancholy occasion +of—He wiped his watery old eyes by way of conclusion to the sentence. +Would Mr. Audley walk in? Robert strode into the parlor. The furniture +was shabby and dingy, and the place reeked with the smell of stale +tobacco and brandy-and-water. The boy's broken playthings, and the old +man's broken clay pipes and torn, brandy-and-water-stained newspapers +were scattered upon the dirty carpet. Little Georgey crept toward the +visitor, watching him furtively out of his big, brown eyes. Robert took +the boy on his knee, and gave him his watch-chain to play with while he +talked to the old man. +</P><P> +"I need scarcely ask the question that I come to ask," he said; "I was +in hopes I should have found your son-in-law here." +</P><P> +"What! you knew that he was coming to Southampton?" +</P><P> +"Knew that he was coming?" cried Robert, brightening up. "He <i>is</i> here, +then?" +</P><P> +"No, he is not here now; but he has been here." +</P><P> +"When?" +</P><P> +"Late last night; he came by the mail." +</P><P> +"And left again immediately?" +</P><P> +"He stayed little better than an hour." +</P><P> +"Good Heaven!" said Robert, "what useless anxiety that man has given me! +What can be the meaning of all this?" +</P><P> +"You knew nothing of his intention, then?" +</P><P> +"Of what intention?" +</P><P> +"I mean of his determination to go to Australia." +</P><P> +"I know that it was always in his mind more or less, but not more just +now than usual." +</P><P> +"He sails to-night from Liverpool. He came here at one o'clock this +morning to have a look at the boy, he said, before he left England, +perhaps never to return. He told me he was sick of the world, and that +the rough life out there was the only thing to suit him. He stayed an +hour, kissed the boy without awaking him, and left Southampton by the +mail that starts at a quarter-past two." +</P><P> +"What can be the meaning of all this?" said Robert. "What could be his +motive for leaving England in this manner, without a word to me, his +most intimate friend—without even a change of clothes; for he has left +everything at my chambers? It is the most extraordinary proceeding!" +</P><P> +The old man looked very grave. "Do you know, Mr. Audley," he said, +tapping his forehead significantly, "I sometimes fancy that Helen's +death had a strange effect upon poor George." +</P><P> +"Pshaw!" cried Robert, contemptuously; "he felt the blow most cruelly, +but his brain was as sound as yours or mine." +</P><P> +"Perhaps he will write to you from Liverpool," said George's +father-in-law. He seemed anxious to smooth over any indignation that +Robert might feel at his friend's conduct. +</P><P> +"He ought," said Robert, gravely, "for we've been good friends from the +days when we were together at Eton. It isn't kind of George Talboys to +treat me like this." +</P><P> +But even at the moment that be uttered the reproach a strange thrill of +remorse shot through his heart. +</P><P> +"It isn't like him," he said, "it isn't like George Talboys." +</P><P> +Little Georgey caught at the sound. "That's my name," he said, "and my +papa's name—the big gentleman's name." +</P><P> +"Yes, little Georgey, and your papa came last night and kissed you in +your sleep. Do you remember?" +</P><P> +"No," said the boy, shaking his curly little head. +</P><P> +"You must have been very fast asleep, little Georgey, not to see poor +papa." +</P><P> +The child did not answer, but presently, fixing his eyes upon Robert's +face, he said abruptly: +</P><P> +"Where's the pretty lady?" +</P><P> +"What pretty lady?" +</P><P> +"The pretty lady that used to come a long while ago." +</P><P> +"He means his poor mamma," said the old man. +</P><P> +"No," cried the boy resolutely, "not mamma. Mamma was always crying. I +didn't like mamma—" +</P><P> +"Hush, little Georgey!" +</P><P> +"But I didn't, and she didn't like me. She was always crying. I mean the +pretty lady; the lady that was dressed so fine, and that gave me my gold +watch." +</P><P> +"He means the wife of my old captain—an excellent creature, who took a +great fancy to Georgey, and gave him some handsome presents." +</P><P> +"Where's my gold watch? Let me show the gentleman my gold watch," cried +Georgey. +</P><P> +"It's gone to be cleaned, Georgey," answered his grandfather. +</P><P> +"It's always going to be cleaned," said the boy. +</P><P> +"The watch is perfectly safe, I assure you, Mr. Audley," murmured the +old man, apologetically; and taking out a pawnbroker's duplicate, he +handed it to Robert. +</P><P> +It was made out in the name of Captain Mortimer: "Watch, set with +diamonds, £11." +</P><P> +"I'm often hard pressed for a few shillings, Mr. Audley," said the old +man. "My son-in-law has been very liberal to me; but there are others, +there are others, Mr. Audley—and—and—I've not been treated well." He +wiped away some genuine tears as he said this in a pitiful, crying +voice. "Come, Georgey, it's time the brave little man was in bed. Come +along with grandpa. Excuse me for a quarter of an hour, Mr. Audley." +</P><P> +The boy went very willingly. At the door of the room the old man looked +back at his visitor, and said in the same peevish voice, "This is a poor +place for me to pass my declining years in, Mr. Audley. I've made many +sacrifices, and I make them still, but I've not been treated well." +</P><P> +Left alone in the dusky little sitting-room, Robert Audley folded his +arms, and sat absently staring at the floor. +</P><P> +George was gone, then; he might receive some letter of explanation +perhaps, when he returned to London; but the chances were that he would +never see his old friend again. +</P><P> +"And to think that I should care so much for the fellow!" he said, +lifting his eyebrows to the center of his forehead. +</P><P> +"The place smells of stale tobacco like a tap-room," he muttered +presently; "there can be no harm in my smoking a cigar here." +</P><P> +He took one from the case in his pocket: there was a spark of fire in +the little grate, and he looked about for something to light his cigar +with. +</P><P> +A twisted piece of paper lay half burned upon the hearthrug; he picked +it up, and unfolded it, in order to get a better pipe-light by folding +it the other way of the paper. As he did so, absently glancing at the +penciled writing upon the fragment of thin paper, a portion of a name +caught his eye—a portion of the name that was most in his thoughts. He +took the scrap of paper to the window, and examined it by the declining +light. +</P><P> +It was part of a telegraphic dispatch. The upper portion had been burnt +away, but the more important part, the greater part of the message +itself, remained. +</P><P> +"—alboys came to last night, and left by the +mail for London, on his way to Liverpool, whence he was to sail for +Sydney." +</P><P> +The date and the name and address of the sender of the message had been +burnt with the heading. Robert Audley's face blanched to a deathly +whiteness. He carefully folded the scrap of paper, and placed it between +the leaves of his pocket-book. +</P><P> +"My God!" he said, "what is the meaning of this? I shall go to Liverpool +to-night, and make inquiries there!" +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XIII.</H2> +<H3>TROUBLED DREAMS.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Robert Audley left Southampton by the mail, and let himself into his +chambers just as the dawn was creeping cold and gray into the solitary +rooms, and the canaries were beginning to rustle their feathers feebly +in the early morning. +</P><P> +There were several letters in the box behind the door, but there was +none from George Talboys. +</P><P> +The young barrister was worn out by a long day spent in hurrying from +place to place. The usual lazy monotony of his life had been broken as +it had never been broken before in eight-and-twenty tranquil, easy-going +years. His mind was beginning to grow confused upon the point of time. +It seemed to him months since he had lost sight of George Talboys. It +was so difficult to believe that it was less than forty-eight hours ago +that the young man had left him asleep under the willows by the trout +stream. +</P><P> +His eyes were painfully weary for want of sleep. He searched about the +room for some time, looking in all sorts of impossible places for a +letter from George Talboys, and then threw himself dressed upon his +friend's bed, in the room with the canaries and geraniums. +</P><P> +"I shall wait for to-morrow morning's post," he said; "and if that +brings no letter from George, I shall start for Liverpool without a +moment's delay." +</P><P> +He was thoroughly exhausted, and fell into a heavy sleep—a sleep which +was profound without being in any way refreshing, for he was tormented +all the time by disagreeable dreams—dreams which were painful, not from +any horror in themselves, but from a vague and wearying sense of their +confusion and absurdity. +</P><P> +At one time he was pursuing strange people and entering strange houses +in the endeavor to unravel the mystery of the telegraphic dispatch; at +another time he was in the church-yard at Ventnor, gazing at the +headstone George had ordered for the grave of his dead wife. Once in the +long, rambling mystery of these dreams he went to the grave, and found +this headstone gone, and on remonstrating with the stonemason, was told +that the man had a reason for removing the inscription; a reason that +Robert would some day learn. +</P><P> +In another dream he saw the grave of Helen Talboys open, and while he +waited, with the cold horror lifting up his hair, to see the dead woman +rise and stand before him with her stiff, charnel-house drapery clinging +about her rigid limbs, his uncle's wife tripped gaily put of the open +grave, dressed in the crimson velvet robes in which the artist had +painted her, and with her ringlets flashing like red gold in the +unearthly light that shone about her. +</P><P> +But into all these dreams the places he had last been in, and the people +with whom he had last been concerned, were dimly interwoven—sometimes +his uncle; sometimes Alicia; oftenest of all my lady; the trout stream +in Essex; the lime-walk at the Court. Once he was walking in the black +shadows of this long avenue, with Lady Audley hanging on his arm, when +suddenly they heard a great knocking in the distance, and his uncle's +wife wound her slender arms around him, crying out that it was the day +of judgment, and that all wicked secrets must now be told. Looking at +her as she shrieked this in his ear, he saw that her face had grown +ghastly white, and that her beautiful golden ringlets were changing into +serpents, and slowly creeping down her fair neck. +</P><P> +He started from his dream to find that there was some one really +knocking at the outer door of his chambers. +</P><P> +It was a dreary, wet morning, the rain beating against the windows, and +the canaries twittering dismally to each other—complaining, perhaps, of +the bad weather. Robert could not tell how long the person had been +knocking. He had mixed the sound with his dreams, and when he woke he +was only half conscious of other things. +</P><P> +"It's that stupid Mrs. Maloney, I dare say," he muttered. "She may knock +again for all I care. Why can't she use her duplicate key, instead of +dragging a man out of bed when he's half dead with fatigue." +</P><P> +The person, whoever it was, did knock again, and then desisted, +apparently tired out; but about a minute afterward a key turned in the +door. +</P><P> +"She had her key with her all the time, then," said Robert. "I'm very +glad I didn't get up." +</P><P> +The door between the sitting-room and bed-room was half open, and he +could see the laundress bustling about, dusting the furniture, and +rearranging things that had never been disarranged. +</P><P> +"Is that you, Mrs. Maloney?" he asked. +</P><P> +"Yes, sir," +</P><P> +"Then why, in goodness' name, did you make that row at the door, when +you had a key with you all the time?" +</P><P> +"A row at the door, sir?" +</P><P> +"Yes; that infernal knocking." +</P><P> +"Sure I never knocked, Mister Audley, but walked straight in with my +kay—" +</P><P> +"Then who did knock? There's been some one kicking up a row at that door +for a quarter of an hour, I should think; you must have met him going +down-stairs." +</P><P> +"But I'm rather late this morning, sir, for I've been in Mr. Martin's +rooms first, and I've come straight from the floor above." +</P><P> +"Then you didn't see any one at the door, or on the stairs?" +</P><P> +"Not a mortal soul, sir." +</P><P> +"Was ever anything so provoking?" said Robert. "To think that I should +have let this person go away without ascertaining who he was, or what he +wanted! How do I know that it was not some one with a message or a +letter from George Talboys?" +</P><P> +"Sure if it was, sir, he'll come again," said Mrs. Maloney, soothingly. +</P><P> +"Yes, of course, if it was anything of consequence he'll come again," +muttered Robert. The fact was, that from the moment of finding the +telegraphic message at Southampton, all hope of hearing of George had +faded out of his mind. He felt that there was some mystery involved in +the disappearance of his friend—some treachery toward himself, or +toward George. What if the young man's greedy old father-in-law had +tried to separate them on account of the monetary trust lodged in Robert +Audley's hands? Or what if, since even in these civilized days all kinds +of unsuspected horrors are constantly committed—what if the old man had +decoyed George down to Southampton, and made away with him in order to +get possession of that £20,000, left in Robert's custody for little +Georgey's use? +</P><P> +But neither of these suppositions explained the telegraphic message, and +it was the telegraphic message which had filled Robert's mind with a +vague sense of alarm. The postman brought no letter from George Talboys, +and the person who had knocked at the door of the chambers did not +return between seven and nine o'clock, so Robert Audley left Figtree +Court once more in search of his friend. This time he told the cabman to +drive to the Euston Station, and in twenty minutes he was on the +platform, making inquiries about the trains. +</P><P> +The Liverpool express had started half an hour before he reached the +station, and he had to wait an hour and a quarter for a slow train to +take him to his destination. +</P><P> +Robert Audley chafed cruelly at this delay. Half a dozen vessels might +sail for Australia while he roamed up and down the long platform, +tumbling over trucks and porters, and swearing at his ill-luck. +</P><P> +He bought the <i>Times</i> newspaper, and looked instinctively at the second +column, with a morbid interest in the advertisements of people +missing—sons, brothers, and husbands who had left their homes, never to +return or to be heard of more. +</P><P> +There was one advertisement of a young man found drowned somewhere on +the Lambeth shore. +</P><P> +What if that should have been George's fate? No; the telegraphic message +involved his father-in-law in the fact of his disappearance, and every +speculation about him must start from that one point. +</P><P> +It was eight o'clock in the evening when Robert got into Liverpool; too +late for anything except to make inquiries as to what vessel had sailed +within the last two days for the antipodes. +</P><P> +An emigrant ship had sailed at four o'clock that afternoon—the +<i>Victoria Regia</i>, bound for Melbourne. +</P><P> +The result of his inquiries amounted to this—If he wanted to find out +who had sailed in the <i>Victoria Regia</i>, he must wait till the next +morning, and apply for information of that vessel. +</P><P> +Robert Audley was at the office at nine o'clock the next morning, and +was the first person after the clerks who entered it. +</P><P> +He met with every civility from the clerk to whom he applied. The young +man referred to his books, and running his pen down the list of +passengers who had sailed in the <i>Victoria Regia</i>, told Robert that +there was no one among them of the name of Talboys. He pushed his +inquiries further. Had any of the passengers entered their names within +a short time of the vessel's sailing? +</P><P> +One of the other clerks looked up from his desk as Robert asked this +question. Yes, he said; he remembered a young man's coming into the +office at half-past three o'clock in the afternoon, and paying his +passage money. His name was the last on the list—Thomas Brown. +</P><P> +Robert Audley shrugged his shoulders. There could have been no possible +reason for George's taking a feigned name. He asked the clerk who had +last spoken if he could remember the appearance of this Mr. Thomas +Brown. +</P><P> +No; the office was crowded at the time; people were running in and out, +and he had not taken any particular notice of this last passenger. +</P><P> +Robert thanked them for their civility, and wished them good-morning. As +he was leaving the office, one of the young men called after him: +</P><P> +"Oh, by-the-by, sir," he said, "I remember one thing about this Mr. +Thomas Brown—his arm was in a sling." +</P><P> +There was nothing more for Robert Audley to do but to return to town. He +re-entered his chambers at six o'clock that evening, thoroughly worn out +once more with his useless search. +</P><P> +Mrs. Maloney brought him his dinner and a pint of wine from a tavern in +the Strand. The evening was raw and chilly, and the laundress had +lighted a good fire in the sitting-room grate. +</P><P> +After eating about half a mutton-chop, Robert sat with his wine untasted +upon the table before him, smoking cigars and staring into the blaze. +</P><P> +"George Talboys never sailed for Australia," he said, after long and +painful reflection. "If he is alive, he is still in England; and if he +is dead, his body is hidden in some corner of England." +</P><P> +He sat for hours smoking and thinking—trouble and gloomy thoughts +leaving a dark shadow upon his moody face, which neither the brilliant +light of the gas nor the red blaze of the fire could dispel. +</P><P> +Very late in the evening he rose from his chair, pushed away the table, +wheeled his desk over to the fire-place, took out a sheet of fools-cap, +and dipped a pen in the ink. +</P><P> +But after doing this he paused, leaned his forehead upon his hand, and +once more relapsed into thought. +</P><P> +"I shall draw up a record of all that has occurred between our going +down to Essex and to-night, beginning at the very beginning." +</P><P> +He drew up this record in short, detached sentences, which he numbered +as he wrote. +</P><P> +It ran thus: +</P><P> +"<i>Journal of Facts connected with the Disappearance of George Talboys, +inclusive of Facts which have no apparent Relation to that +Circumstance.</i>" +</P><P> +In spite of the troubled state of his mind, he was rather inclined to be +proud of the official appearance of this heading. He sat for some time +looking at it with affection, and with the feather of his pen in his +mouth. "Upon my word," he said, "I begin to think that I ought to have +pursued my profession, instead of dawdling my life away as I have done." +</P><P> +He smoked half a cigar before he had got his thoughts in proper train, +and then began to write: +</P><P> +"1. I write to Alicia, proposing to take George down to the Court." +</P><P> +"2. Alicia writes, objecting to the visit, on the part of Lady Audley." +</P><P> +"3. We go to Essex in spite of that objection. I see my lady. My lady +refuses to be introduced to George on that particular evening on the +score of fatigue." +</P><P> +"4. Sir Michael invites George and me to dinner for the following +evening." +</P><P> +"5. My lady receives a telegraphic dispatch the next morning which +summons her to London." +</P><P> +"6. Alicia shows me a letter from my lady, in which she requests to be +told when I and my friend, Mr. Talboys, mean to leave Essex. To this +letter is subjoined a postscript, reiterating the above request." +</P><P> +"7. We call at the Court, and ask to see the house. My lady's apartments +are locked." +</P><P> +"8. We get at the aforesaid apartments by means of a secret passage, the +existence of which is unknown to my lady. In one of the rooms we find +her portrait." +</P><P> +"9. George is frightened at the storm. His conduct is exceedingly +strange for the rest of the evening." +</P><P> +"10. George quite himself again the following morning. I propose leaving +Audley Court immediately; he prefers remaining till the evening." +</P><P> +"11. We go out fishing. George leaves me to go to the Court." +</P><P> +"12. The last positive information I can obtain of him in Essex is at +the Court, where the servant says he thinks Mr. Talboys told him he +would go and look for my lady in the grounds." +</P><P> +"13. I receive information about him at the station which may or may not +be correct." +</P><P> +"14. I hear of him positively once more at Southampton, where, according +to his father-in-law, he had been for an hour on the previous night." +</P><P> +"15. The telegraphic message." +</P><P> +When Robert Audley had completed this brief record, which he drew up +with great deliberation, and with frequent pauses for reflection, +alterations and erasures, he sat for a long time contemplating the +written page. +</P><P> +At last he read it carefully over, stopping at some of the numbered +paragraphs, and marking some of them with a pencil cross; then he folded +the sheet of foolscap, went over to a cabinet on the opposite side of +the room, unlocked it, and placed the paper in that very pigeon-hole +into which he had thrust Alicia's letter—the pigeon-hole marked +<i>Important</i>. +</P><P> +Having done this, he returned to his easy-chair by the fire, pushed away +his desk, and lighted a cigar. "It's as dark as midnight from first to +last," he said; "and the clew to the mystery must be found either at +Southampton or in Essex. Be it how it may, my mind is made up. I shall +first go to Audley Court, and look for George Talboys in a narrow +radius." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XIV.</H2> +<H3>PHOEBE'S SUITOR.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +"Mr. George Talboys.—Any person who has met this gentleman since the +7th inst., or who possesses any information respecting him subsequent to +that date, will be liberally rewarded on communicating with A.Z., 14 +Chancery Lane." +</P><P> +Sir Michael Audley read the above advertisement in the second column of +the <i>Times</i>, as he sat at breakfast with my lady and Alicia two or three +days after Robert's return to town. +</P><P> +"Robert's friend has not yet been heard of, then," said the baronet, +after reading the advertisement to his wife and daughter. +</P><P> +"As for that," replied my lady, "I cannot help wondering that any one +can be silly enough to advertise for him. The young man was evidently of +a restless, roving disposition—a sort of Bamfyld Moore Carew of modern +life, whom no attraction could ever keep in one spot." +</P><P> +Though the advertisement appeared three successive times, the party at +the Court attached very little importance to Mr. Talboys disappearance; +and after this one occasion his name was never again mentioned by either +Sir Michael, my lady, or Alicia. +</P><P> +Alicia Audley and her pretty stepmother were by no means any better +friends after that quiet evening on which the young barrister had dined +at the Court. +</P><P> +"She is a vain, frivolous, heartless little coquette," said Alicia, +addressing herself to her Newfoundland dog Caesar, who was the sole +recipient of the young lady's confidences; "she is a practiced and +consummate flirt, Caesar; and not contented with setting her yellow +ringlets and her silly giggle at half the men in Essex, she must needs +make that stupid cousin of mine dance attendance upon her. I haven't +common patience with her." +</P><P> +In proof of which last assertion Miss Alice Audley treated her +stepmother with such very palpable impertinence that Sir Michael felt +himself called upon to remonstrate with his only daughter. +</P><P> +"The poor little woman is very sensitive, you know, Alicia," the baronet +said, gravely, "and she feels your conduct most acutely." +</P><P> +"I don't believe it a bit, papa," answered Alicia, stoutly. "You think +her sensitive because she has soft little white hands, and big blue eyes +with long lashes, and all manner of affected, fantastical ways, which +you stupid men call fascinating. Sensitive! Why, I've seen her do cruel +things with those slender white fingers, and laugh at the pain she +inflicted. I'm very sorry, papa," she added, softened a little by her +father's look of distress; "though she has come between us, and robbed +poor Alicia of the love of that dear, generous heart, I wish I could +like her for your sake; but I can't, I can't, and no more can Caesar. +She came up to him once with her red lips apart, and her little white +teeth glistening between them, and stroked his great head with her soft +hand; but if I had not had hold of his collar, he would have flown at +her throat and strangled her. She may bewitch every man in Essex, but +she'd never make friends with my dog." +</P><P> +"Your dog shall be shot," answered Sir Michael angrily, "if his vicious +temper ever endangers Lucy." +</P><P> +The Newfoundland rolled his eyes slowly round in the direction of the +speaker, as if he understood every word that had been said. Lady Audley +happened to enter the room at this very moment, and the animal cowered +down by the side of his mistress with a suppressed growl. There was +something in the manner of the dog which was, if anything, more +indicative of terror than of fury; incredible as it appears that Caesar +should be frightened by so fragile a creature as Lucy Audley. +</P><P> +Amicable as was my lady's nature, she could not live long at the Court +without discovering Alicia's dislike to her. She never alluded to it but +once; then, shrugging her graceful white shoulders, she said, with a +sigh: +</P><P> +"It seems very hard that you cannot love me, Alicia, for I have never +been used to make enemies; but since it seems that it must be so, I +cannot help it. If we cannot be friends, let us be neutral. You won't +try to injure me?" +</P><P> +"Injure you!" exclaimed Alicia; "how should I injure you?" +</P><P> +"You'll not try to deprive me of your father's affection?" +</P><P> +"I may not be as amiable as you are, my lady, and I may not have the +same sweet smiles and pretty words for every stranger I meet, but I am +not capable of a contemptible meanness; and even if I were, I think you +are so secure of my father's love, that nothing but your own act will +ever deprive you of it." +</P><P> +"What a severe creature you are, Alicia!" said my lady, making a little +grimace. "I suppose you mean to infer by all that, that I'm deceitful. +Why, I can't help smiling at people, and speaking prettily to them. I +know I'm no <i>better</i> than the rest of the world; but I can't help it if +I'm <i>pleasanter</i>. It's constitutional." +</P><P> +Alicia having thus entirely shut the door upon all intimacy between Lady +Audley and herself, and Sir Michael being chiefly occupied in +agricultural pursuits and manly sports, which kept him away from home, +it was perhaps natural that my lady, being of an eminently social +disposition, should find herself thrown a good deal upon her +white-eyelashed maid for society. +</P><P> +Phoebe Marks was exactly the sort of a girl who is generally promoted +from the post of lady's maid to that of companion. She had just +sufficient education to enable her to understand her mistress when Lucy +chose to allow herself to run riot in a species of intellectual +tarantella, in which her tongue went mad to the sound of its own rattle, +as the Spanish dancer at the noise of his castanets. Phoebe knew enough +of the French language to be able to dip into the yellow-paper-covered +novels which my lady ordered from the Burlington Arcade, and to +discourse with her mistress upon the questionable subjects of these +romances. The likeness which the lady's maid bore to Lucy Audley was, +perhaps, a point of sympathy between the two women. It was not to be +called a striking likeness; a stranger might have seen them both +together, and yet have failed to remark it. But there were certain dim +and shadowy lights in which, meeting Phoebe Marks gliding softly through +the dark oak passages of the Court, or under the shrouded avenues in the +garden, you might have easily mistaken her for my lady. +</P><P> +Sharp October winds were sweeping the leaves from the limes in the long +avenue, and driving them in withered heaps with a ghostly rustling noise +along the dry gravel walks. The old well must have been half choked up +with the leaves that drifted about it, and whirled in eddying circles +into its black, broken mouth. On the still bosom of the fish-pond the +same withered leaves slowly rotted away, mixing themselves with the +tangled weeds that discolored the surface of the water. All the +gardeners Sir Michael could employ could not keep the impress of +autumn's destroying hand from the grounds about the Court. +</P><P> +"How I hate this desolate month!" my lady said, as she walked about the +garden, shivering beneath her sable mantle. "Every thing dropping to +ruin and decay, and the cold flicker of the sun lighting up the ugliness +of the earth, as the glare of gas-lamps lights the wrinkles of an old +woman. Shall I ever grow old, Phoebe? Will my hair ever drop off as the +leaves are falling from those trees, and leave me wan and bare like +them? What is to become of me when I grow old?" +</P><P> +She shivered at the thought of this more than she had done at the cold, +wintry breeze, and muffling herself closely in her fur, walked so fast +that her maid had some difficulty in keeping up with her. +</P><P> +"Do you remember, Phoebe," she said, presently, relaxing her pace, "do +you remember that French story we read—the story of a beautiful woman +who had committed some crime—I forget what—in the zenith of her power +and loveliness, when all Paris drank to her every night, and when the +people ran away from the carriage of the king to flock about hers, and +get a peep at her face? Do you remember how she kept the secret of what +she had done for nearly half a century, spending her old age in her +family chateau, beloved and honored by all the province as an +uncanonized saint and benefactress to the poor; and how, when her hair +was white, and her eyes almost blind with age, the secret was revealed +through one of those strange accidents by which such secrets always are +revealed in romances, and she was tried, found guilty, and condemned to +be burned alive? The king who had worn her colors was dead and gone; the +court of which she had been a star had passed away; powerful +functionaries and great magistrates, who might perhaps have helped her, +were moldering in the graves; brave young cavaliers, who would have died +for her, had fallen upon distant battle-fields; she had lived to see the +age to which she had belonged fade like a dream; and she went to the +stake, followed by only a few ignorant country people, who forgot all +her bounties, and hooted at her for a wicked sorceress." +</P><P> +"I don't care for such dismal stories, my lady," said Phoebe Marks with +a shudder. "One has no need to read books to give one the horrors in +this dull place." +</P><P> +Lady Audley shrugged her shoulders and laughed at her maid's candor. +</P><P> +"It is a dull place, Phoebe," she said, "though it doesn't do to say so +to my dear old husband. Though I am the wife of one of the most +influential men in the county, I don't know that I wasn't nearly as well +off at Mr. Dawson's; and yet it's something to wear sables that cost +sixty guineas, and have a thousand pounds spent on the decoration of +one's apartments." +</P><P> +Treated as a companion by her mistress, in the receipt of the most +liberal wages, and with perquisites such as perhaps lady's maid never +had before, it was strange that Phoebe Marks should wish to leave her +situation; but it was not the less a fact that she was anxious to +exchange all the advantages of Audley Court for the very unpromising +prospect which awaited her as the wife of her Cousin Luke. +</P><P> +The young man had contrived in some manner to associate himself with the +improved fortunes of his sweetheart. He had never allowed Phoebe any +peace till she had obtained for him, by the aid of my lady's +interference, a situation as undergroom of the Court. +</P><P> +He never rode out with either Alicia or Sir Michael; but on one of the +few occasions upon which my lady mounted the pretty little gray +thoroughbred reserved for her use, he contrived to attend her in her +ride. He saw enough, in the very first half hour they were out, to +discover that, graceful as Lucy Audley might look in her long blue cloth +habit, she was a timid horsewoman, and utterly unable to manage the +animal she rode. +</P><P> +Lady Audley remonstrated with her maid upon her folly in wishing to +marry the uncouth groom. +</P><P> +The two women were seated together over the fire in my lady's +dressing-room, the gray sky closing in upon the October afternoon, and +the black tracery of ivy darkening the casement windows. +</P><P> +"You surely are not in love with the awkward, ugly creature are you, +Phoebe?" asked my lady sharply. +</P><P> +The girl was sitting on a low stool at her mistress feet. She did not +answer my lady's question immediately, but sat for some time looking +vacantly into the red abyss in the hollow fire. +</P><P> +Presently she said, rather as if she had been thinking aloud than +answering Lucy's question: +</P><P> +"I don't think I can love him. We have been together from children, and +I promised, when I was little better than fifteen, that I'd be his wife. +I daren't break that promise now. There have been times when I've made +up the very sentence I meant to say to him, telling him that I couldn't +keep my faith with him; but the words have died upon my lips, and I've +sat looking at him, with a choking sensation, in my throat that wouldn't +let me speak. I daren't refuse to marry him. I've often watched and +watched him, as he has sat slicing away at a hedge-stake with his great +clasp-knife, till I have thought that it is just such men as he who have +decoyed their sweethearts into lonely places, and murdered them for +being false to their word. When he was a boy he was always violent and +revengeful. I saw him once take up that very knife in a quarrel with his +mother. I tell you, my lady, I must marry him." +</P><P> +"You silly girl, you shall do nothing of the kind!" answered Lucy. "You +think he'll murder you, do you? Do you think, then, if murder is in him, +you would be any safer as his wife? If you thwarted him, or made him +jealous; if he wanted to marry another woman, or to get hold of some +poor, pitiful bit of money of yours, couldn't he murder you then? I tell +you you sha'n't marry him, Phoebe. In the first place I hate the man; +and, in the next place I can't afford to part with you. We'll give him a +few pounds and send him about his business." +</P><P> +Phoebe Marks caught my lady's hand in hers, and clasped them +convulsively. +</P><P> +"My lady—my good, kind mistress!" she cried, vehemently, "don't try to +thwart me in this—don't ask me to thwart him. I tell you I must marry +him. You don't know what he is. It will be my ruin, and the ruin of +others, if I break my word. I must marry him!" +</P><P> +"Very well, then, Phoebe," answered her mistress, "I can't oppose you. +There must be some secret at the bottom of all this." "There is, my +lady," said the girl, with her face turned away from Lucy. +</P><P> +"I shall be very sorry to lose you; but I have promised to stand your +friend in all things. What does your cousin mean to do for a living +when, you are married?" +</P><P> +"He would like to take a public house." +</P><P> +"Then he shall take a public house, and the sooner he drinks himself to +death the better. Sir Michael dines at a bachelor's party at Major +Margrave's this evening, and my step-daughter is away with her friends +at the Grange. You can bring your cousin into the drawing-room after +dinner, and I'll tell him what I mean to do for him." +</P><P> +"You are very good, my lady," Phoebe answered with a sigh. +</P><P> +Lady Audley sat in the glow of firelight and wax candles in the +luxurious drawing-room; the amber damask cushions of the sofa +contrasting with her dark violet velvet dress, and her rippling hair +falling about her neck in a golden haze. Everywhere around her were the +evidences of wealth and splendor; while in strange contrast to all this, +and to her own beauty; the awkward groom stood rubbing his bullet head +as my lady explained to him what she intended to do for her confidential +maid. Lucy's promises were very liberal, and she had expected that, +uncouth as the man was, he would, in his own rough manner, have +expressed his gratitude. +</P><P> +To her surprise he stood staring at the floor without uttering a word in +answer to her offer. Phoebe was standing close to his elbow, and seemed +distressed at the man's rudeness. +</P><P> +"Tell my lady how thankful you are, Luke," she said. +</P><P> +"But I'm not so over and above thankful," answered her lover, savagely. +"Fifty pound ain't much to start a public. You'll make it a hundred, my +lady?" +</P><P> +"I shall do nothing of the kind," said Lady Audley, her clear blue eyes +flashing with indignation, "and I wonder at your impertinence in asking +it." +</P><P> +"Oh, yes, you will, though," answered Luke, with quiet insolence that +had a hidden meaning. "You'll make it a hundred, my lady." +</P><P> +Lady Audley rose from her seat, looked the man steadfastly in the face +till his determined gaze sunk under hers; then walking straight up to +her maid, she said in a high, piercing voice, peculiar to her in moments +of intense agitation: +</P><P> +"Phoebe Marks, you have told <i>this man</i>!" +</P><P> +The girl fell on her knees at my lady's feet. +</P><P> +"Oh, forgive me, forgive me!" she cried. "He forced it from me, or I +would never, never have told!" +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XV.</H2> +<H3>ON THE WATCH.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Upon a lowering morning late in November, with the yellow fog low upon +the flat meadows, and the blinded cattle groping their way through the +dim obscurity, and blundering stupidly against black and leafless +hedges, or stumbling into ditches, undistinguishable in the hazy +atmosphere; with the village church looming brown and dingy through the +uncertain light; with every winding path and cottage door, every gable +end and gray old chimney, every village child and straggling cur seeming +strange and weird of aspect in the semi-darkness, Phoebe Marks and her +Cousin Luke made their way through the churchyard of Audley, and +presented themselves before a shivering curate, whose surplice hung in +damp folds, soddened by the morning mist, and whose temper was not +improved by his having waited five minutes for the bride and bridegroom. +</P><P> +Luke Marks, dressed in his ill-fitting Sunday clothes, looked by no +means handsomer than in his every-day apparel; but Phoebe, arrayed in a +rustling silk of delicate gray, that had been worn about half a dozen +times by her mistress, looked, as the few spectators of the ceremony +remarked, "quite the lady." +</P><P> +A very dim and shadowy lady, vague of outline, and faint of coloring, +with eyes, hair, complexion and dress all melting into such pale and +uncertain shades that, in the obscure light of the foggy November +morning a superstitious stranger might have mistaken the bride for the +ghost of some other bride, dead and buried in the vault below the +church. +</P><P> +Mr. Luke Marks, the hero of the occasion, thought very little of all +this. He had secured the wife of his choice, and the object of his +life-long ambition—a public house. My lady had provided the +seventy-five pounds necessary for the purchase of the good-will and +fixtures, with the stock of ales and spirits, of a small inn in the +center of a lonely little village, perched on the summit of a hill, and +called Mount Stanning. It was not a very pretty house to look at; it had +something of a tumble-down, weather-beaten appearance, standing, as it +did, upon high ground, sheltered only by four or five bare and overgrown +poplars, that had shot up too rapidly for their strength, and had a +blighted, forlorn look in consequence. The wind had had its own way with +the Castle Inn, and had sometimes made cruel use of its power. It was +the wind that battered and bent the low, thatched roofs of outhouses and +stables, till they hung over and lurched forward, as a slouched hat +hangs over the low forehead of some village ruffian; it was the wind +that shook and rattled the wooden shutters before the narrow casements, +till they hung broken and dilapidated upon their rusty hinges; it was +the wind that overthrew the pigeon house, and broke the vane that had +been imprudently set up to tell the movements of its mightiness; it, was +the wind that made light of any little bit of wooden trellis-work, or +creeping plant, or tiny balcony, or any modest decoration whatsoever, +and tore and scattered it in its scornful fury; it was the wind that +left mossy secretions on the discolored surface of the plaster walls; it +was the wind, in short, that shattered, and ruined, and rent, and +trampled upon the tottering pile of buildings, and then flew shrieking +off, to riot and glory in its destroying strength. The dispirited +proprietor grew tired of his long struggle with this mighty enemy; so +the wind was left to work its own will, and the Castle Inn fell slowly +to decay. But for all that it suffered without, it was not the less +prosperous within doors. Sturdy drovers stopped to drink at the little +bar; well-to-do farmers spent their evenings and talked politics in the +low, wainscoted parlor, while their horses munched some suspicious +mixture of moldy hay and tolerable beans in the tumble-down stables. +Sometimes even the members of the Audley hunt stopped to drink and bait +their horses at the Castle Inn; while, on one grand and +never-to-be-forgotten occasion, a dinner had been ordered by the master +of the hounds for some thirty gentlemen, and the proprietor driven +nearly mad by the importance of the demand. +</P><P> +So Luke Marks, who was by no means troubled with an eye for the +beautiful, thought himself very fortunate in becoming the landlord of +the Castle Inn, Mount Stanning. +</P><P> +A chaise-cart was waiting in the fog to convey the bride and bridegroom +to their new home; and a few of the villagers, who had known Phoebe from +a child, were lingering around the churchyard gate to bid her good-by. +Her pale eyes were still paler from the tears she had shed, and the red +rims which surrounded them. The bridegroom was annoyed at this +exhibition of emotion. +</P><P> +"What are you blubbering for, lass?" he said, fiercely. "If you didn't +want to marry me you should have told me so. I ain't going to murder +you, am I?" +</P><P> +The lady's maid shivered as he spoke to her, and dragged her little silk +mantle closely around her. +</P><P> +"You're cold in all this here finery," said Luke, staring at her costly +dress with no expression of good-will. "Why can't women dress according +to their station? You won't have no silk gownds out of my pocket, I can +tell you." +</P><P> +He lifted the shivering girl into the chaise, wrapped a rough great-coat +about her, and drove off through the yellow fog, followed by a feeble +cheer from two or three urchins clustered around the gate. +</P><P> +A new maid was brought from London to replace Phoebe Marks about the +person of my lady—a very showy damsel, who wore a black satin gown, and +rose-colored ribbons in her cap, and complained bitterly of the dullness +of Audley Court. +</P><P> +But Christmas brought visitors to the rambling old mansion. A country +squire and his fat wife occupied the tapestried chamber; merry girls +scampered up and down the long passages, and young men stared out of the +latticed windows, watching for southerly winds and cloudy skies; there +was not an empty stall in the roomy old stables; an extempore forge had +been set up in the yard for the shoeing of hunters; yelping dogs made +the place noisy with their perpetual clamor; strange servants herded +together on the garret story; and every little casement hidden away +under some pointed gable, and every dormer window in the quaint old +roof, glimmered upon the winter's night with its separate taper, till, +coming suddenly upon Audley Court, the benighted stranger, misled by the +light, and noise, and bustle of the place, might have easily fallen into +young Marlowe's error, and have mistaken the hospitable mansion for a +good, old-fashioned inn, such as have faded from this earth since the +last mail coach and prancing tits took their last melancholy journey to +the knacker's yard. +</P><P> +Among other visitors Mr. Robert Audley came down to Essex for the +hunting season, with half a dozen French novels, a case of cigars, and +three pounds of Turkish tobacco in his portmanteau. +</P><P> +The honest young country squires, who talked all breakfast time of +Flying Dutchman fillies and Voltigeur colts; of glorious runs of seven +hours' hard riding over three counties, and a midnight homeward ride of +thirty miles upon their covert hacks; and who ran away from the +well-spread table with their mouths full of cold sirloin, to look at +that off pastern, or that sprained forearm, or the colt that had just +come back from the veterinary surgeon's, set down Robert Audley, +dawdling over a slice of bread and marmalade, as a person utterly +unworthy of any remark whatsoever. +</P><P> +The young barrister had brought a couple of dogs with him; and the +country gentleman who gave fifty pounds for a pointer; and traveled a +couple of hundred miles to look at a leash of setters before be struck a +bargain, laughed aloud at the two miserable curs, one of which had +followed Robert Audley through Chancery Lane, and half the length of +Holborn; while his companion had been taken by the barrister <i>vi et +armis</i> from a coster-monger who was ill-using him. And as Robert +furthermore insisted on having these two deplorable animals under his +easy-chair in the drawing-room, much to the annoyance of my lady, who, +as we know, hated all dogs, the visitors at Audley Court looked upon the +baronet's nephew as an inoffensive species of maniac. +</P><P> +During other visits to the Court Robert Audley had made a feeble show of +joining in the sports of the merry assembly. He had jogged across half a +dozen ploughed fields on a quiet gray pony of Sir Michael's, and drawing +up breathless and panting at door of some farm-house, had expressed his +intention of following the hounds no further <i>that</i> morning. He had even +gone so far as to put on, with great labor, a pair of skates, with a +view to taking a turn on the frozen surface of the fishpond, and had +fallen ignominously at the first attempt, lying placidly extended on the +flat of his back until such time as the bystanders should think fit to +pick him up. He had occupied the back seat in a dog-cart during a +pleasant morning drive, vehemently protesting against being taken up +hill, and requiring the vehicle to be stopped every ten minutes in order +to readjust the cushions. But this year he showed no inclination for any +of these outdoor amusements, and he spent his time entirely in lounging +in the drawing-room, and making himself agreeable, after his own lazy +fashion, to my lady and Alicia. +</P><P> +Lady Audley received her nephew's attentions in that graceful +half-childish fashion which her admirers found so charming; but Alicia +was indignant at the change in her cousin's conduct. +</P><P> +"You were always a poor, spiritless fellow, Bob," said the young lady, +contemptuously, as she bounced into the drawing-room in her +riding-habit, after a hunting breakfast, from which Robert had absented +himself, preferring a cup of tea in my lady's boudoir; "but this year I +don't know what has come to you. You are good for nothing but to hold a +skein of silk or read Tennyson to Lady Audley." +</P><P> +"My dear, hasty, impetuous Alicia, don't be violent," said the young man +imploringly. "A conclusion isn't a five-barred gate; and you needn't +give your judgment its head, as you give your mare Atalanta hers, when +you're flying across country at the heels of an unfortunate fox. Lady +Audley interests me, and my uncle's county friends do not. Is that a +sufficient answer, Alicia?" +</P><P> +Miss Audley gave her head a little scornful toss. +</P><P> +"It's as good an answer as I shall ever get from, you, Bob," she said, +impatiently; "but pray amuse yourself in your own way; loll in an +easy-chair all day, with those two absurd dogs asleep on your knees; +spoil my lady's window-curtains with your cigars and annoy everybody in +the house with your stupid, inanimate countenance." +</P><P> +Mr. Robert Audley opened his handsome gray eyes to their widest extent +at this tirade, and looked helplessly at Miss Alicia. +</P><P> +The young lady was walking up and down the room, slashing the skirt of +her habit with her riding-whip. Her eyes sparkled with an angry flash, +and a crimson glow burned under her clear brown skin. The young +barrister knew very well, by these diagnostics, that his cousin was in a +passion. +</P><P> +"Yes," she repeated, "your stupid, inanimate countenance. Do you know, +Robert Audley, that with all your mock amiability, you are brimful of +conceit and superciliousness. You look down upon our amusements; you +lift up your eyebrows, and shrug your shoulders, and throw yourself back +in your chair, and wash your hands of us and our pleasures. You are a +selfish, cold-hearted Sybarite—" +</P><P> +"Alicia! Good—gracious—me!" +</P><P> +The morning paper dropped out of his hands, and he sat feebly staring at +his assailant. +</P><P> +"Yes, <i>selfish</i>, Robert Audley! You take home half-starved dogs, because +you like half-starved dogs. You stoop down, and pat the head of every +good-for-nothing cur in the village street, because you like +good-for-nothing curs. You notice little children, and give them +halfpence, because it amuses you to do so. But you lift your eyebrows a +quarter of a yard when poor Sir Harry Towers tells a stupid story, and +stare the poor fellow out of countenance with your lazy insolence. As to +your amiability, you would let a man hit you, and say 'Thank you' for +the blow, rather than take the trouble to hit him again; but you +wouldn't go half a mile out of your way to serve your dearest friend. +Sir Harry is worth twenty of you, though he <i>did</i> write to ask if my +m-a-i-r Atalanta had recovered from the sprain. He can't spell, or lift +his eyebrows to the roots of his hair; but he would go through fire and +water for the girl he loves; while <i>you</i>—" +</P><P> +At this very point, when Robert was most prepared to encounter his +cousin's violence, and when Miss Alicia seemed about to make her +strongest attack, the young lady broke down altogether, and burst into +tears. +</P><P> +Robert sprang from his easy-chair, upsetting his dogs on the carpet. +</P><P> +"Alicia, my darling, what is it?" +</P><P> +"It's—it's—it's the feather of my hat that got into my eyes," sobbed +his cousin; and before he could investigate the truth of this assertion +Alicia had darted out of the room. +</P><P> +Robert Audley was preparing to follow her, when he heard her voice in +the court-yard below, amidst the tramping of horses and the clamor of +visitors, dogs, and grooms. Sir Harry Towers, the most aristocratic +young sportsman in the neighborhood, had just taken her little foot in +his hand as she sprung into her saddle. +</P><P> +"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Robert, as he watched the merry party of +equestrians until they disappeared under the archway. "What does all +this mean? How charmingly she sits her horse! What a pretty figure, too, +and a fine, candid, brown, rosy face: but to fly at a fellow like that, +without the least provocation! That's the consequence of letting a girl +follow the hounds. She learns to look at everything in life as she does +at six feet of timber or a sunk fence; she goes through the world as she +goes across country—straight ahead, and over everything. Such a nice +girl as she might have been, too, if she'd been brought up in Figtree +Court! If ever I marry, and have daughters (which remote contingency may +Heaven forefend!) they shall be educated in Paper Buildings, take their +sole exercise in the Temple Gardens, and they shall never go beyond the +gates till they are marriageable, when I will walk them straight across +Fleet street to St. Dunstan's church, and deliver them into the hands of +their husbands." +</P><P> +With such reflections as these did Mr. Robert Audley beguile the time +until my lady re-entered the drawing-room, fresh and radiant in her +elegant morning costume, her yellow curls glistening with the perfumed +waters in which she had bathed, and her velvet-covered sketch-book in +her arms. She planted a little easel upon a table by the window, seated +herself before it, and began to mix the colors upon her palette, Robert +watching her out of his half-closed eyes. +</P><P> +"You are sure my cigar does not annoy you, Lady Audley?" +</P><P> +"Oh, no indeed; I am quite used to the smell of tobacco. Mr. Dawson, the +surgeon, smoked all the evening when I lived in his house." +</P><P> +"Dawson is a good fellow, isn't he?" Robert asked, carelessly. +</P><P> +My lady burst into her pretty, gushing laugh. +</P><P> +"The dearest of good creatures," she said. "He paid me five-and-twenty +pounds a year—only fancy, five-and-twenty pounds! That made six pounds +five a quarter. How well I remember receiving the money—six dingy old +sovereigns, and a little heap of untidy, dirty silver, that came +straight from the till in the surgery! And then how glad I was to get +it! While <i>now</i>—I can't help laughing while I think of it—these colors +I am using cost a guinea each at Winsor & Newton's—the carmine and +ultramarine thirty shillings. I gave Mrs. Dawson one of my silk dresses +the other day, and the poor thing kissed me, and the surgeon carried the +bundle home under his cloak." +</P><P> +My lady laughed long and joyously at the thought. Her colors were mixed; +she was copying a water-colored sketch of an impossibly Turneresque +atmosphere. The sketch was nearly finished, and she had only to put in +some critical little touches with the most delicate of her sable +pencils. She prepared herself daintily for the work, looking sideways at +the painting. +</P><P> +All this time Mr. Robert Audley's eyes were fixed intently on her pretty +face. +</P><P> +"It <i>is</i> a change," he said, after so long a pause that my lady might +have forgotten what she had been talking of, "it <i>is</i> a change! Some +women would do a great deal to accomplish such a change as that." +</P><P> +Lady Audley's clear blue eyes dilated as she fixed them suddenly on the +young barrister. The wintry sunlight, gleaming full upon her face from a +side window, lit up the azure of those beautiful eyes, till their color +seemed to flicker and tremble betwixt blue and green, as the opal tints +of the sea change upon a summer's day. The small brush fell from her +hand, and blotted out the peasant's face under a widening circle of +crimson lake. +</P><P> +Robert Audley was tenderly coaxing the crumbled leaf of his cigar with +cautious fingers. +</P><P> +"My friend at the corner of Chancery Lane has not given me such good +Manillas as usual," he murmured. "If ever you smoke, my dear aunt (and I +am told that many women take a quiet weed under the rose), be very +careful how you choose your cigars." +</P><P> +My lady drew a long breath, picked up her brush, and laughed aloud at +Robert's advice. +</P><P> +"What an eccentric creature you are, Mr. Audley I Do you know that you +sometimes puzzle me—" +</P><P> +"Not more than you puzzle me, dear aunt." +</P><P> +My lady put away her colors and sketch book, and seating herself in the +deep recess of another window, at a considerable distance from Robert +Audley, settled to a large piece of Berlin-wool work—a piece of +embroidery which the Penelopes of ten or twelve years ago were very fond +of exercising their ingenuity upon—the Olden Time at Bolton Abbey. +</P><P> +Seated in the embrasure of this window, my lady was separated from +Robert Audley by the whole length of the room, and the young man could +only catch an occasional glimpse of her fair face, surrounded by its +bright aureole of hazy, golden hair. +</P><P> +Robert Audley had been a week at the Court, but as yet neither he nor my +lady had mentioned the name of George Talboys. +</P><P> +This morning, however, after exhausting the usual topics of +conversation, Lady Audley made an inquiry about her nephew's friend; +"That Mr. George—George—" she said, hesitating. +</P><P> +"Talboys," suggested Robert. +</P><P> +"Yes, to be sure—Mr. George Talboys. Rather a singular name, by-the-by, +and certainly, by all accounts, a very singular person. Have you seen +him lately?" +</P><P> +"I have not seen him since the 7th of September last—the day upon which +he left me asleep in the meadows on the other side of the village." +</P><P> +"Dear me!" exclaimed my lady, "what a very strange young man this Mr. +George Talboys must be! Pray tell me all about it." +</P><P> +Robert told, in a few words, of his visit to Southampton and his journey +to Liverpool, with their different results, my lady listening very +attentively. +</P><P> +In order to tell this story to better advantage, the young man left his +chair, and, crossing the room, took up his place opposite to Lady +Audley, in the embrasure of the window. +</P><P> +"And what do you infer from all this?" asked my lady, after a pause. +</P><P> +"It is so great a mystery to me," he answered, "that I scarcely dare to +draw any conclusion whatever; but in the obscurity I think I can grope +my way to two suppositions, which to me seem almost certainties." +</P><P> +"And they are—" +</P><P> +"First, that George Talboys never went beyond Southampton. Second, that +he never went to Southampton at all." +</P><P> +"But you traced him there. His father-in-law had seen him." +</P><P> +"I have reason to doubt his father-in-law's integrity." +</P><P> +"Good gracious me!" cried my lady, piteously. "What do you mean by all +this?" +</P><P> +"Lady Audley," answered the young man, gravely, "I have never practiced +as a barrister. I have enrolled myself in the ranks of a profession, the +members of which hold solemn responsibilities and have sacred duties to +perform; and I have shrunk from those responsibilities and duties, as I +have from all the fatigues of this troublesome life. But we are +sometimes forced into the very position we have most avoided, and I have +found myself lately compelled to think of these things. Lady Audley, did +you ever study the theory of circumstantial evidence?" +</P><P> +"How can you ask a poor little woman about such horrid things?" +exclaimed my lady. +</P><P> +"Circumstantial evidence," continued the young man, as if he scarcely +heard Lady Audley's interruption—"that wonderful fabric which is built +out of straws collected at every point of the compass, and which is yet +strong enough to hang a man. Upon what infinitesimal trifles may +sometimes hang the whole secret of some wicked mystery, inexplicable +heretofore to the wisest upon the earth! A scrap of paper, a shred of +some torn garment, the button off a coat, a word dropped incautiously +from the overcautious lips of guilt, the fragment of a letter, the +shutting or opening of a door, a shadow on a window-blind, the accuracy +of a moment tested by one of Benson's watches—a thousand circumstances +so slight as to be forgotten by the criminal, but links of iron in the +wonderful chain forged by the science of the detective officer; and lo! +the gallows is built up; the solemn bell tolls through the dismal gray +of the early morning, the drop creaks under the guilty feet, and the +penalty of crime is paid." +</P><P> +Faint shadows of green and crimson fell upon my lady's face from the +painted escutcheons in the mullioned window by which she sat; but every +trace of the natural color of that face had faded out, leaving it a +ghastly ashen gray. +</P><P> +Sitting quietly in her chair, her head fallen back upon the amber damask +cushions, and her little hands lying powerless in her lap, Lady Audley +had fainted away. +</P><P> +"The radius grows narrower day by day," said Robert Audley. "George +Talboys never reached Southampton." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XVI.</H2> +<H3>ROBERT AUDLEY GETS HIS CONGE.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +The Christmas week was over, and one by one the country visitors dropped +away from Audley Court. The fat squire and his wife abandoned the gray, +tapestried chamber, and left the black-browed warriors looming from the +wall to scowl upon and threaten new guests, or to glare vengefully upon +vacancy. The merry girls on the second story packed, or caused to be +packed, their trunks and imperials, and tumbled gauze ball-dresses were +taken home that had been brought fresh to Audley. Blundering old family +chariots, with horses whose untrimmed fetlocks told of rougher work than +even country roads, were brought round to the broad space before the +grim oak door, and laden with chaotic heaps of womanly luggage. Pretty +rosy faces peeped out of carriage windows to smile the last farewell +upon the group at the hall door, as the vehicle rattled and rumbled +under the ivied archway. Sir Michael was in request everywhere. Shaking +hands with the young sportsmen; kissing the rosy-cheeked girls; +sometimes even embracing portly matrons who came to thank him for their +pleasant visit; everywhere genial, hospitable, generous, happy, and +beloved, the baronet hurried from room to room, from the hall to the +stables, from the stables to the court-yard, from the court-yard to the +arched gateway to speed the parting guest. +</P><P> +My lady's yellow curls flashed hither and thither like wandering gleams +of sunshine on these busy days of farewell. Her great blue eyes had a +pretty, mournful look, in charming unison with the soft pressure of her +little hand, and that friendly, though perhaps rather stereotyped +speech, in which she told her visitors how she was so sorry to lose +them, and how she didn't know what she should do till they came once +more to enliven the court by their charming society. +</P><P> +But however sorry my lady might be to lose her visitors, there was at +least one guest whose society she was not deprived of. Robert Audley +showed no intention of leaving his uncle's house. He had no professional +duties, he said; Figtree Court was delightfully shady in hot weather, +but there was a sharp corner round which the wind came in the summer +months, armed with avenging rheumatisms and influenzas. Everybody was so +good to him at the Court, that really he had no inclination to hurry +away. +</P><P> +Sir Michael had but one answer to this: "Stay, my dear boy; stay, my +dear Bob, as long as ever you like. I have no son, and you stand to me +in the place of one. Make yourself agreeable to Lucy, and make the Court +your home as long as you live." +</P><P> +To which Robert would merely reply by grasping his uncle's hand +vehemently, and muttering something about "a jolly old prince." +</P><P> +It was to be observed that there was sometimes a certain vague sadness +in the young man's tone when he called Sir Michael "a jolly old prince;" +some shadow of affectionate regret that brought a mist into Robert's +eyes, as he sat in a corner of the room looking thoughtfully at the +white-bearded baronet. +</P><P> +Before the last of the young sportsmen departed, Sir Harry Towers +demanded and obtained an interview with Miss Alicia Audley in the oak +library—an interview in which considerable emotion was displayed by the +stalwart young fox-hunter; so much emotion, indeed, and of such a +genuine and honest character, that Alicia fairly broke down as she told +him she should forever esteem and respect him for his true and noble +heart, but that he must never, never, unless he wished to cause her the +most cruel distress, ask more from her than this esteem and respect. +</P><P> +Sir Harry left the library by the French window opening into the +pond-garden. He strolled into that very lime-walk which George Talboys +had compared to an avenue in a churchyard, and under the leafless trees +fought the battle of his brave young heart. +</P><P> +"What a fool I am to feel it like this!" he cried, stamping his foot +upon the frosty ground. "I always knew it would be so; I always knew +that she was a hundred times too good for me. God bless her! How nobly +and tenderly she spoke; how beautiful she looked with the crimson +blushes under her brown skin, and the tears in her big, gray +eyes—almost as handsome as the day she took the sunk fence, and let me +put the brush in her hat as we rode home! God bless her! I can get over +anything as long as she doesn't care for that sneaking lawyer. But I +couldn't stand that." +</P><P> +That sneaking lawyer, by which appellation Sir Harry alluded to Mr. +Robert Audley, was standing in the hall, looking at a map of the midland +counties, when Alicia came out of the library, with red eyes, after her +interview with the fox-hunting baronet. +</P><P> +Robert, who was short-sighted, had his eyes within half an inch of the +surface of the map as the young lady approached him. +</P><P> +"Yes," he said, "Norwich <i>is</i> in Norfolk, and that fool, young Vincent, +said it was in Herefordshire. Ha, Alicia, is that you?" +</P><P> +He turned round so as to intercept Miss Audley on her way to the +staircase. +</P><P> +"Yes," replied his cousin curtly, trying to pass him. +</P><P> +"Alicia, you have been crying." +</P><P> +The young lady did not condescend to reply. +</P><P> +"You have been crying, Alicia. Sir Harry Towers, of Towers Park, in the +county of Herts, has been making you an offer of his hand, eh?" +</P><P> +"Have you been listening at the door, Mr. Audley?" +</P><P> +"I have not, Miss Audley. On principle, I object to listen, and in +practice I believe it to be a very troublesome proceeding; but I am a +barrister, Miss Alicia, and able to draw a conclusion by induction. Do +you know what inductive evidence is, Miss Audley?" +</P><P> +"No," replied Alicia, looking at her cousin as a handsome young panther +might look at its daring tormentor. +</P><P> +"I thought not. I dare say Sir Harry would ask if it was a new kind of +horse-ball. I knew by induction that the baronet was going to make you +an offer; first, because he came downstairs with his hair parted on the +wrong side, and his face as pale as a tablecloth; secondly, because he +couldn't eat any breakfast, and let his coffee go the wrong way; and, +thirdly, because he asked for an interview with you before he left the +Court. Well, how's it to be, Alicia? Do we marry the baronet, and is +poor Cousin Bob to be the best man at the wedding?" +</P><P> +"Sir Harry Towers is a noble-hearted young man," said Alicia, still +trying to pass her cousin. +</P><P> +"But do we accept him—yes or no? Are we to be Lady Towers, with a +superb estate in Hertfordshire, summer quarters for our hunters, and a +drag with outriders to drive us across to papa's place in Essex? Is it +to be so, Alicia, or not?" +</P><P> +"What is that to you, Mr. Robert Audley?" cried Alicia, passionately. +"What do <i>you</i> care what becomes of me, or whom I marry? If I married a +chimney-sweep you'd only lift up your eyebrows and say, 'Bless my soul, +she was always eccentric.' I have refused Sir Harry Towers; but when I +think of his generous and unselfish affection, and compare it with the +heartless, lazy, selfish, supercilious indifference of other men, I've a +good mind to run after him and tell him—" +</P><P> +"That you'll retract, and be my Lady Towers?" +</P><P> +"Yes." +</P><P> +"Then don't, Alicia, don't," said Robert Audley, grasping his cousin's +slender little wrist, and leading her up-stairs. "Come into the +drawing-room with me, Alicia, my poor little cousin; my charming, +impetuous, alarming little cousin. Sit down here in this mullioned +window, and let us talk seriously and leave off quarreling if we can." +</P><P> +The cousins had the drawing-room all to themselves. Sir Michael was out, +my lady in her own apartments, and poor Sir Harry Towers walking up and +down upon the gravel walk, darkened with the flickering shadows of the +leafless branches in the cold winter sunshine. +</P><P> +"My poor little Alicia," said Robert, as tenderly as if he had been +addressing some spoiled child, "do you suppose that because people don't +wear vinegar tops, or part their hair on the wrong side, or conduct +themselves altogether after the manner of well-meaning maniacs, by way +of proving the vehemence of their passion—do you suppose because of +this, Alicia Audley, that they may not be just as sensible of the merits +of a dear little warm-hearted and affectionate girl as ever their +neighbors can be? Life is such a very troublesome matter, when all is +said and done, that it's as well even to take its blessings quietly. I +don't make a great howling because I can get good cigars one door from +the corner of Chancery Lane, and have a dear, good girl for my cousin; +but I am not the less grateful to Providence that it is so." +</P><P> +Alicia opened her gray eyes to their widest extent, looking her cousin +full in the face with a bewildered stare. Robert had picked up the +ugliest and leanest of his attendant curs, and was placidly stroking the +animal's ears. +</P><P> +"Is this all you have to say to me, Robert?" asked Miss Audley, meekly. +</P><P> +"Well, yes, I think so," replied her cousin, after considerable +deliberation. "I fancy that what I wanted to say was this—don't marry +the fox-hunting baronet if you like anybody else better; for if you'll +only be patient and take life easily, and try and reform yourself of +banging doors, bouncing in and out rooms, talking of the stables, and +riding across country, I've no doubt the person you prefer will make you +a very excellent husband." +</P><P> +"Thank you, cousin," said Miss Audley, crimsoning with bright, indignant +blushes up to the roots of her waving brown hair; "but as you may not +know the person I prefer, I think you had better not take upon yourself +to answer for him." +</P><P> +Robert pulled the dog's ears thoughtfully for some moments. +</P><P> +"No, to be sure," he said, after a pause. "Of course, if I don't know +him—I thought I did." +</P><P> +"<i>Did you?</i>" exclaimed Alicia; and opening the door with a violence that +made her cousin shiver, she bounced out of the drawing-room. +</P><P> +"I only said I thought I knew him," Robert called after her; and, then, +as he sunk into an easy-chair, he murmured thoughtfully: "Such a nice +girl, too, if she didn't bounce." +</P><P> +So poor Sir Harry Towers rode away from Audley Court, looking very +crestfallen and dismal. +</P><P> +He had very little pleasure in returning to the stately mansion, hidden +among sheltering oaks and venerable beeches. The square, red brick +house, gleaming at the end of a long arcade of leafless trees was to be +forever desolate, he thought, since Alicia would not come to be its +mistress. +</P><P> +A hundred improvements planned and thought of were dismissed from his +mind as useless now. The hunter that Jim the trainer was breaking in for +a lady; the two pointer pups that were being reared for the next +shooting season; the big black retriever that would have carried +Alicia's parasol; the pavilion in the garden, disused since his mother's +death, but which he had meant to have restored for Miss Audley—all +these things were now so much vanity and vexation of spirit. +</P><P> +"What's the good of being rich if one has no one to help spend one's +money?" said the young baronet. "One only grows a selfish beggar, and +takes to drinking too much port. It's a hard thing that a girl can +refuse a true heart and such stables as we've got at the park. It +unsettles a man somehow." +</P><P> +Indeed, this unlooked for rejection had very much unsettled the few +ideas which made up the small sum of the baronet's mind. +</P><P> +He had been desperately in love with Alicia ever since the last hunting +season, when he had met her at the county ball. His passion, cherished +through the slow monotony of a summer, had broken out afresh in the +merry winter months, and the young man's <i>mauvaise honte</i> alone had +delayed the offer of his hand. But he had never for a moment supposed +that he would be refused; he was so used to the adulation of mothers who +had daughters to marry, and of even the daughters themselves; he had +been so accustomed to feel himself the leading personage in an assembly, +although half the wits of the age had been there, and he could only say +"Haw, to be sure!" and "By Jove—hum!" he had been so spoiled by the +flatteries of bright eyes that looked, or seemed to look, the brighter +when he drew near, that without being possessed of one shadow of +personal vanity, he had yet come to think that he had only to make an +offer to the prettiest girl in Essex to behold himself immediately +accepted. +</P><P> +"Yes," he would say complacently to some admiring satellite, "I know I'm +a good match, and I know what makes the gals so civil. They're very +pretty, and they're very friendly to a fellow; but I don't care about +'em. They're all alike—they can only drop their eyes and say, 'Lor', +Sir Harry, why do you call that curly black dog a retriever?' or 'Oh Sir +Harry, and did the poor mare really sprain her pastern shoulder-blade?' +I haven't got much brains myself, I know," the baronet would add +deprecatingly; "and I don't want a strong-minded woman, who writes books +and wears green spectacles; but, hang it! I like a gal who knows what +she's talking about." +</P><P> +So when Alicia said "No," or rather made that pretty speech about esteem +and respect, which well-bred young ladies substitute for the obnoxious +monosyllable, Sir Harry Towers felt that the whole fabric of the future +he had built so complacently was shivered into a heap of dingy ruins. +</P><P> +Sir Michael grasped him warmly by the hand just before the young man +mounted his horse in the court-yard. +</P><P> +"I'm very sorry, Towers," he said. "You're as good a fellow as ever +breathed, and would have made my girl an excellent husband; but you know +there's a cousin, and I think that—" +</P><P> +"Don't say that, Sir Michael," interrupted the fox-hunter, +energetically. "I can get over anything but that. A fellow whose hand +upon the curb weighs half a ton (why, he pulled the Cavalier's mouth to +pieces, sir, the day you let him ride the horse); a fellow who turns his +collars down, and eats bread and marmalade! No, no, Sir Michael; it's a +queer world, but I can't think that of Miss Audley. There must be some +one in the background, sir; it can't be the cousin." +</P><P> +Sir Michael shook his head as the rejected suitor rode away. +</P><P> +"I don't know about that," he muttered. "Bob's a good lad, and the girl +might do worse; but he hangs back as if he didn't care for her. There's +some mystery—there's some mystery!" +</P><P> +The old baronet said this in that semi-thoughtful tone with which we +speak of other people's affairs. The shadows of the early winter +twilight, gathering thickest under the low oak ceiling of the hall, and +the quaint curve of the arched doorway, fell darkly round his handsome +head; but the light of his declining life, his beautiful and beloved +young wife, was near him, and he could see no shadows when she was by. +</P><P> +She came skipping through the hall to meet him, and, shaking her golden +ringlets, buried her bright head on her husband's breast. +</P><P> +"So the last of our visitors is gone, dear, and we're all alone," she +said. "Isn't that nice?" +</P><P> +"Yes, darling," he answered fondly, stroking her bright hair. +</P><P> +"Except Mr. Robert Audley. How long is that nephew of yours going to +stay here?" +</P><P> +"As long as he likes, my pet; he's always welcome," said the baronet; +and then, as if remembering himself, he added, tenderly: "But not unless +his visit is agreeable to you, darling; not if his lazy habits, or his +smoking, or his dogs, or anything about him is displeasing to you." +</P><P> +Lady Audley pursed up her rosy lips and looked thoughtfully at the +ground. +</P><P> +"It isn't that," she said, hesitatingly. "Mr. Audley is a very agreeable +young man, and a very honorable young man; but you know, Sir Michael, +I'm rather a young aunt for such a nephew, and—" +</P><P> +"And what, Lucy?" asked the baronet, fiercely. +</P><P> +"Poor Alicia is rather jealous of any attention Mr. Audley pays me, +and—and—I think it would be better for her happiness if your nephew +were to bring his visit to a close." +</P><P> +"He shall go to-night, Lucy," exclaimed Sir Michael. "I am a blind, +neglectful fool not to have thought of this before. My lovely little +darling, it was scarcely just to Bob to expose the poor lad to your +fascinations. I know him to be as good and true-hearted a fellow as ever +breathed, but—but—he shall go tonight." +</P><P> +"But you won't be too abrupt, dear? You won't be rude?" +</P><P> +"Rude! No, Lucy. I left him smoking in the lime-walk. I'll go and tell +him that he must get out of the house in an hour." +</P><P> +So in that leafless avenue, under whose gloomy shade George Talboys had +stood on that thunderous evening before the day of his disappearance, +Sir Michael Audley told his nephew that the Court was no home for him, +and that my lady was too young and pretty to accept the attentions of a +handsome nephew of eight-and-twenty. +</P><P> +Robert only shrugged his shoulders and elevated his thick, black +eyebrows as Sir Michael delicately hinted all this. +</P><P> +"I have been attentive to my lady," he said. "She interests me;" and +then, with a change in his voice, and an emotion not common to him, he +turned to the baronet, and grasping his hand, exclaimed, "God forbid, my +dear uncle, that I should ever bring trouble upon such a noble heart as +yours! God forbid that the slightest shadow of dishonor should ever fall +upon your honored head—least of all through agency of mine." +</P><P> +The young man uttered these few words in a broken and disjointed fashion +in which Sir Michael had never heard him speak, before, and then turning +away his head, fairly broke down. +</P><P> +He left the court that night, but he did not go far. Instead of taking +the evening train for London, he went straight up to the little village +of Mount Stanning, and walking into the neatly-kept inn, asked Phoebe +Marks if he could be accommodated with apartments. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XVII.</H2> +<H3>AT THE CASTLE INN.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +The little sitting-room into which Phoebe Marks ushered the baronet's +nephew was situated on the ground floor, and only separated by a +lath-and-plaster partition from the little bar-parlor occupied by the +innkeeper and his wife. +</P><P> +It seemed as though the wise architect who had superintended the +building of the Castle Inn had taken especial care that nothing but the +frailest and most flimsy material should be used, and that the wind, +having a special fancy for this unprotected spot, should have full play +for the indulgence of its caprices. +</P><P> +To this end pitiful woodwork had been used instead of solid masonry; +rickety ceilings had been propped up by fragile rafters, and beams that +threatened on every stormy night to fall upon the heads of those beneath +them; doors whose specialty was never to be shut, yet always to be +banging; windows constructed with a peculiar view to letting in the +draft when they were shut, and keeping out the air when they were open. +The hand of genius had devised this lonely country inn; and there was +not an inch of woodwork, or trowelful of plaster employed in all the +rickety construction that did not offer its own peculiar weak point to +every assault of its indefatigable foe. +</P><P> +Robert looked about him with a feeble smile of resignation. +</P><P> +It was a change, decidedly, from the luxurious comforts of Audley Court, +and it was rather a strange fancy of the young barrister to prefer +loitering at this dreary village hostelry to returning to his snug +chambers in Figtree Court. +</P><P> +But he had brought his Lares and Penates with him, in the shape of his +German pipe, his tobacco canister, half a dozen French novels, and his +two ill-conditioned, canine favorites, which sat shivering before the +smoky little fire, barking shortly and sharply now and then, by way of +hinting for some slight refreshment. +</P><P> +While Mr. Robert Audley contemplated his new quarters, Phoebe Marks +summoned a little village lad who was in the habit of running errands +for her, and taking him into the kitchen, gave him a tiny note, +carefully folded and sealed. +</P><P> +"You know Audley Court?" +</P><P> +"Yes, mum." +</P><P> +"If you'll run there with this letter to-night, and see that it's put +safely in Lady Audley's hands, I'll give you a shilling." +</P><P> +"Yes, mum." +</P><P> +"You understand? Ask to see my lady; you can say you've a message—not a +note, mind—but a message from Phoebe Marks; and when you see her, give +this into her own hand." +</P><P> +"Yes, mum." +</P><P> +"You won't forget?" +</P><P> +"No, mum." +</P><P> +"Then be off with you." +</P><P> +The boy waited for no second bidding, but in another moment was scudding +along the lonely high road, down the sharp descent that led to Audley. +</P><P> +Phoebe Marks went to the window, and looked out at the black figure of +the lad hurrying through the dusky winter evening. +</P><P> +"If there's any bad meaning in his coming here," she thought, "my lady +will know of it in time, at any rate," +</P><P> +Phoebe herself brought the neatly arranged tea-tray, and the little +covered dish of ham and eggs which had been prepared for this +unlooked-for visitor. Her pale hair was as smoothly braided, and her +light gray dress fitted as precisely as of old. The same neutral tints +pervaded her person and her dress; no showy rose-colored ribbons or +rustling silk gown proclaimed the well-to-do innkeeper's wife. Phoebe +Marks was a person who never lost her individuality. Silent and +self-constrained, she seemed to hold herself within herself, and take no +color from the outer world. +</P><P> +Robert looked at her thoughtfully as she spread the cloth, and drew the +table nearer to the fireplace. +</P><P> +"That," he thought, "is a woman who could keep a secret." +</P><P> +The dogs looked rather suspiciously at the quiet figure of Mrs. Marks +gliding softly about the room, from the teapot to the caddy, and from +the caddy to the kettle singing on the hob. +</P><P> +"Will you pour out my tea for me, Mrs. Marks?" said Robert, seating +himself on a horsehair-covered arm-chair, which fitted him as tightly in +every direction as if he had been measured for it. +</P><P> +"You have come straight from the Court, sir?" said Phoebe, as she handed +Robert the sugar-basin. +</P><P> +"Yes; I only left my uncle's an hour ago." +</P><P> +"And my lady, sir, was she quite well?" +</P><P> +"Yes, quite well." +</P><P> +"As gay and light-hearted as ever, sir?" +</P><P> +"As gay and light-hearted as ever." +</P><P> +Phoebe retired respectfully after having given Mr. Audley his tea, but +as she stood with her hand upon the lock of the door he spoke again. +</P><P> +"You knew Lady Audley when she was Miss Lucy Graham, did you not?" he +asked. +</P><P> +"Yes, sir. I lived at Mrs. Dawson's when my lady was governess there." +</P><P> +"Indeed! Was she long in the surgeon's family?" +</P><P> +"A year and a half, sir." +</P><P> +"And she came from London?" +</P><P> +"Yes, sir." +</P><P> +"And she was an orphan, I believe?" +</P><P> +"Yes, sir." +</P><P> +"Always as cheerful as she is now?" +</P><P> +"Always, sir." +</P><P> +Robert emptied his teacup and handed it to Mrs. Marks. Their eyes met—a +lazy look in his, and an active, searching glance in hers. +</P><P> +"This woman would be good in a witness-box," he thought; "it would take a +clever lawyer to bother her in a cross-examination." +</P><P> +He finished his second cup of tea, pushed away his plate, fed his dogs, +and lighted his pipe, while Phoebe carried off the tea-tray. +</P><P> +The wind came whistling up across the frosty open country, and through +the leafless woods, and rattled fiercely at the window-frames. +</P><P> +"There's a triangular draught from those two windows and the door that +scarcely adds to the comfort of this apartment," murmured Robert; "and +there certainly are pleasanter sensations than that of standing up to +one's knees in cold water." +</P><P> +He poked the fire, patted his dogs, put on his great coat, rolled a +rickety old sofa close to the hearth, wrapped his legs in his railway +rug, and stretching himself at full length upon the narrow horsehair +cushion, smoked his pipe, and watched the bluish-gray wreaths curling +upward to the dingy ceiling. +</P><P> +"No," he murmured, again; "that is a woman who can keep a secret. A +counsel for the prosecution could get very little out of her." +</P><P> +I have said that the bar-parlor was only separated from the sitting-room +occupied by Robert by a lath-and-plaster partition. The young barrister +could hear the two or three village tradesmen and a couple of farmers +laughing and talking round the bar, while Luke Marks served them from +his stock of liquors. +</P><P> +Very often he could even hear their words, especially the landlord's, +for he spoke in a coarse, loud voice, and had a more boastful manner +than any of his customers. +</P><P> +"The man is a fool," said Robert, as he laid down his pipe. "I'll go and +talk to him by-and-by." +</P><P> +He waited till the few visitors to the Castle had dropped away one by +one, and when Luke Marks had bolted the door upon the last of his +customers, he strolled quietly into the bar-parlor, where the landlord +was seated with his wife. +</P><P> +Phoebe was busy at a little table, upon which stood a prim work-box, +with every reel of cotton and glistening steel bodkin in its appointed +place. She was darning the coarse gray stockings that adorned her +husband's awkward feet, but she did her work as daintily as if they had +been my lady's delicate silken hose. +</P><P> +I say that she took no color from external things, and that the vague +air of refinement that pervaded her nature clung to her as closely in +the society of her boorish husband at the Castle Inn as in Lady Audley's +boudoir at the Court. +</P><P> +She looked up suddenly as Robert entered the bar-parlor. There was some +shade of vexation in her pale gray eyes, which changed to an expression +of anxiety—nay, rather of almost terror—as she glanced from Mr. Audley +to Luke Marks. +</P><P> +"I have come in for a few minutes' chat before I go to bed," said +Robert, settling himself very comfortably before the cheerful fire. +"Would you object to a cigar, Mrs. Marks? I mean, of course, to my +smoking one," he added, explanatorily. +</P><P> +"Not at all, sir." +</P><P> +"It would be a good 'un her objectin' to a bit o' 'bacca," growled Mr. +Marks, "when me and the customers smokes all day." +</P><P> +Robert lighted his cigar with a gilt-paper match of Phoebe's making that +adorned the chimney-piece, and took half a dozen reflective puffs before +he spoke. +</P><P> +"I want you to tell me all about Mount Stanning, Mr. Marks," he said, +presently. +</P><P> +"Then that's pretty soon told," replied Luke, with a harsh, grating +laugh. "Of all the dull holes as ever a man set foot in, this is about +the dullest. Not that the business don't pay pretty tidy; I don't +complain of that; but I should ha' liked a public at Chelmsford, or +Brentwood, or Romford, or some place where there's a bit of life in the +streets; and I might have had it," he added, discontentedly, "if folks +hadn't been so precious stingy." +</P><P> +As her husband muttered this complaint in a grumbling undertone, Phoebe +looked up from her work and spoke to him. +</P><P> +"We forgot the brew-house door, Luke," she said. "Will you come with me +and help me put up the bar?" +</P><P> +"The brew-house door can bide for to-night," said Mr. Marks; "I ain't +agoin' to move now. I've seated myself for a comfortable smoke." +</P><P> +He took a long clay pipe from a corner of the fender as he spoke, and +began to fill it deliberately. +</P><P> +"I don't feel easy about that brew-house door, Luke," remonstrated his +wife; "there are always tramps about, and they can get in easily when +the bar isn't up." +</P><P> +"Go and put the bar up yourself, then, can't you?" answered Mr. Marks. +</P><P> +"It's too heavy for me to lift." +</P><P> +"Then let it bide, if you're too fine a lady to see to it yourself. +You're very anxious all of a sudden about this here brew-house door. I +suppose you don't want me to open my mouth to this here gent, that's +about it. Oh, you needn't frown at me to stop my speaking! You're always +putting in your tongue and clipping off my words before I've half said +'em; but I won't stand it." +</P><P> +"Do you hear? I won't stand it!" +</P><P> +Phoebe Marks shrugged her shoulders, folded her work, shut her work-box, +and crossing her hands in her lap, sat with her gray eyes fixed upon her +husband's bull-like face. +</P><P> +"Then you don't particularly care to live at Mount Stanning?" said +Robert, politely, as if anxious to change the conversation. +</P><P> +"No, I don't," answered Luke; "and I don't care who knows it; and, as I +said before, if folks hadn't been so precious stingy, I might have had a +public in a thrivin' market town, instead of this tumble-down old place, +where a man has his hair blowed off his head on a windy day. What's +fifty pound, or what's a hundred pound—" +</P><P> +"Luke! Luke!" +</P><P> +"No, you're not goin' to stop my mouth with all your 'Luke, Lukes!'" +answered Mr. Marks to his wife's remonstrance. "I say again, what's a +hundred pound?" +</P><P> +"No," answered Robert Audley, with wonderful distinctness, and +addressing his words to Luke Marks, but fixing his eyes upon Phoebe's +anxious face. "What, indeed, is a hundred pounds to a man possessed of +the power which you hold, or rather which your wife holds, over the +person in question." +</P><P> +"Phoebe's face, at all times almost colorless, seemed scarcely capable +of growing paler; but as her eyelids drooped under Robert Audley's +searching glance, a visible change came over the pallid hues of her +complexion. +</P><P> +"A quarter to twelve," said Robert, looking at his watch. +</P><P> +"Late hours for such a quiet village as Mount Stanning. Good-night, my +worthy host. Good-night, Mrs. Marks. You needn't send me my shaving +water till nine o'clock to-morrow morning." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XVIII.</H2> +<H3>ROBERT RECEIVES A VISITOR WHOM HE HAD SCARCELY EXPECTED.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Eleven o'clock struck the next morning, and found Mr. Robert Audley +still lounging over the well ordered little breakfast table, with one of +his dogs at each side of his arm-chair, regarding him with watchful eyes +and opened mouths, awaiting the expected morsel of ham or toast. Robert +had a county paper on his knees, and made a feeble effort now and then +to read the first page, which was filled with advertisements of farming +stock, quack medicines, and other interesting matter. +</P><P> +The weather had changed, and the snow, which had for the last few days +been looming blackly in the frosty sky, fell in great feathery flakes +against the windows, and lay piled in the little bit of garden-ground +without. +</P><P> +The long, lonely road leading toward Audley seemed untrodden by a +footstep, as Robert Audley looked out at the wintry landscape. +</P><P> +"Lively," he said, "for a man used to the fascinations of Temple Bar." +</P><P> +As he watched the snow-flakes falling every moment thicker and faster +upon the lonely road, he was surprised by seeing a brougham driving +slowly up the hill. +</P><P> +"I wonder what unhappy wretch has too restless a spirit to stop at home +on such a morning as this," he muttered, as he returned to the arm-chair +by the fire. +</P><P> +He had only reseated himself a few moments when Phoebe Marks entered the +room to announce Lady Audley. +</P><P> +"Lady Audley! Pray beg her to come in," said Robert; and then, as Phoebe +left the room to usher in this unexpected visitor, he muttered between +his teeth—"A false move, my lady, and one I never looked for from you." +</P><P> +Lucy Audley was radiant on this cold and snowy January morning. Other +people's noses are rudely assailed by the sharp fingers of the grim +ice-king, but not my lady's; other people's lips turn pale and blue with +the chilling influence of the bitter weather, but my lady's pretty +little rosebud of a mouth retained its brightest coloring and cheeriest +freshness. +</P><P> +She was wrapped in the very sables which Robert Audley had brought from +Russia, and carried a muff that the young man thought seemed almost as +big as herself. +</P><P> +She looked a childish, helpless, babyfied little creature; and Robert +looked down upon her with some touch of pity in his eyes, as she came up +to the hearth by which he was standing, and warmed her tiny gloved hands +at the blaze. +</P><P> +"What a morning, Mr. Audley!" she said, "what a morning!" +</P><P> +"Yes, indeed! Why did you come out in such weather?" +</P><P> +"Because I wished to see you—particularly." +</P><P> +"Indeed!" +</P><P> +"Yes," said my lady, with an air of considerable embarrassment, playing +with the button of her glove, and almost wrenching it off in her +restlessness—"yes, Mr. Audley, I felt that you had not been well +treated; that—that you had, in short, reason to complain; and that an +apology was due to you." +</P><P> +"I do not wish for any apology, Lady Audley." +</P><P> +"But you are entitled to one," answered my lady, quietly. "Why, my dear +Robert, should we be so ceremonious toward each other? You were very +comfortable at Audley; we were very glad to have you there; but, my +dear, silly husband must needs take it into his foolish head that it is +dangerous for his poor little wife's peace of mind to have a nephew of +eight or nine and twenty smoking his cigars in her boudoir, and, behold! +our pleasant little family circle is broken up." +</P><P> +Lucy Audley spoke with that peculiar childish vivacity which seemed so +natural to her, Robert looking down almost sadly at her bright, animated +face. +</P><P> +"Lady Audley," he said, "Heaven forbid that either you or I should ever +bring grief or dishonor upon my uncle's generous heart! Better, perhaps, +that I should be out of the house—better, perhaps, that I had never +entered it!" +</P><P> +My lady had been looking at the fire while her nephew spoke, but at his +last words she lifted her head suddenly, and looked him full in the face +with a wondering expression—an earnest, questioning gaze, whose full +meaning the young barrister understood. +</P><P> +"Oh, pray do not be alarmed, Lady Audley," he said, gravely. "You have +no sentimental nonsense, no silly infatuation, borrowed from Balzac or +Dumas <i>fils</i>, to fear from me. The benchers of the Inner Temple will +tell you that Robert Audley is troubled with none of the epidemics whose +outward signs are turn-down collars and Byronic neckties. I say that I +wish I had never entered my uncle's house during the last year; but I +say it with a far more solemn meaning than any sentimental one." +</P><P> +My lady shrugged her shoulders. +</P><P> +"If you insist on talking in enigmas, Mr. Audley," she said, "you must +forgive a poor little woman if she declines to answer them." +</P><P> +Robert made no reply to this speech. +</P><P> +"But tell me," said my lady, with an entire change of tone, "what could +have induced you to come up to this dismal place?" +</P><P> +"Curiosity." +</P><P> +"Curiosity?" +</P><P> +"Yes; I felt an interest in that bull-necked man, with the dark-red hair +and wicked gray eyes. A dangerous man, my lady—a man in whose power I +should not like to be." +</P><P> +A sudden change came over Lady Audley's face; the pretty, roseate flush +faded out from her cheeks, and left them waxen white, and angry flashes +lightened in her blue eyes. +</P><P> +"What have I done to you, Robert Audley," she cried, passionately—"what +have I done to you that you should hate me so?" +</P><P> +He answered her very gravely: +</P><P> +"I had a friend, Lady Audley, whom I loved very dearly, and since I have +lost him I fear that my feelings toward other people are strangely +embittered." +</P><P> +"You mean the Mr. Talboys who went to Australia?" +</P><P> +"Yes, I mean the Mr. Talboys who I was told set out for Liverpool with +the idea of going to Australia." +</P><P> +"And you do not believe in his having sailed for Australia?" +</P><P> +"I do not." +</P><P> +"But why not?" +</P><P> +"Forgive me, Lady Audley, if I decline to answer that question." +</P><P> +"As you please," she said, carelessly. +</P><P> +"A week after my friend disappeared," continued Robert, "I posted an +advertisement to the Sydney and Melbourne papers, calling upon him if he +was in either city when the advertisement appeared, to write and tell me +of his whereabouts, and also calling on any one who had met him, either +in the colonies or on the voyage out, to give me any information +respecting him. George Talboys left Essex, or disappeared from Essex, on +the 6th of September last. I ought to receive some answer to this +advertisement by the end of this month. To-day is the 27th; the time +draws very near." +</P><P> +"And if you receive no answer?" asked Lady Audley. +</P><P> +"If I receive no answer I shall think that my fears have been not +unfounded, and I shall do my best to act." +</P><P> +"What do you mean by that?" +</P><P> +"Ah, Lady Audley, you remind me how very powerless I am in this matter. +My friend might have been made away with in this very inn, and I might +stay here for a twelvemonth, and go away at the last as ignorant of his +fate as if I had never crossed the threshold. What do we know of the +mysteries that may hang about the houses we enter? If I were to go +to-morrow into that commonplace, plebeian, eight-roomed house in which +Maria Manning and her husband murdered their guest, I should have no +awful prescience of that bygone horror. Foul deeds have been done under +the most hospitable roofs; terrible crimes have been committed amid the +fairest scenes, and have left no trace upon the spot where they were +done. I do not believe in mandrake, or in bloodstains that no time can +efface. I believe rather that we may walk unconsciously in an atmosphere +of crime, and breathe none the less freely. I believe that we may look +into the smiling face of a murderer, and admire its tranquil beauty." +</P><P> +My lady laughed at Robert's earnestness. +</P><P> +"You seem to have quite a taste for discussing these horrible subjects," +she said, rather scornfully; "you ought to have been a detective police +officer." +</P><P> +"I sometimes think I should have been a good one." +</P><P> +"Why?" +</P><P> +"Because I am patient." +</P><P> +"But to return to Mr. George Talboys, whom we lost sight of in your +eloquent discussion. What if you receive no answer to your +advertisements?" +</P><P> +"I shall then consider myself justified in concluding my friend is +dead." +</P><P> +"Yes, and then—?" +</P><P> +"I shall examine the effects he left at my chambers." +</P><P> +"Indeed! and what are they? Coats, waistcoats, varnished boots, and +meerschaum pipes, I suppose," said Lady Audley, laughing. +</P><P> +"No; letters—letters from his friends, his old schoolfellows, his +father, his brother officers." +</P><P> +"Yes?" +</P><P> +"Letters, too, from his wife." +</P><P> +My lady was silent for some few moments, looking thoughtfully at the +fire. +</P><P> +"Have you ever seen any of the letters written by the late Mrs. +Talboys?" she asked presently. +</P><P> +"Never. Poor soul! her letters are not likely to throw much light upon +my friend's fate. I dare say she wrote the usual womanly scrawl. There +are very few who write so charming and uncommon a hand as yours, Lady +Audley." +</P><P> +"Ah, you know my hand, of course." +</P><P> +"Yes, I know it very well indeed." +</P><P> +My lady warmed her hands once more, and then taking up the big muff +which she had laid aside upon a chair, prepared to take her departure. +</P><P> +"You have refused to accept my apology, Mr. Audley," she said; "but I +trust you are not the less assured of my feelings toward you." +</P><P> +"Perfectly assured, Lady Audley." +</P><P> +"Then good-by, and let me recommend you not to stay long in this +miserable draughty place, if you do not wish to take rheumatism back to +Figtree Court." +</P><P> +"I shall return to town to-morrow morning to see after my letters." +</P><P> +"Then once more good-by." +</P><P> +She held out her hand; he took it loosely in his own. It seemed such a +feeble little hand that he might have crushed it in his strong grasp, +had he chosen to be so pitiless. +</P><P> +He attended her to her carriage, and watched it as it drove off, not +toward Audley, but in the direction of Brentwood, which was about six +miles from Mount Stanning. +</P><P> +About an hour and a half after this, as Robert stood at the door of the +inn, smoking a cigar and watching the snow falling in the whitened +fields opposite, he saw the brougham drive back, empty this time, to the +door of the inn. +</P><P> +"Have you taken Lady Audley back to the Court?" he said to the coachman, +who had stopped to call for a mug of hot spiced ale. +</P><P> +"No, sir; I've just come from the Brentwood station. My lady started for +London by the 12.40 train." +</P><P> +"For town?" +</P><P> +"Yes, sir." +</P><P> +"My lady gone to London!" said Robert, as he returned to the little +sitting-room. "Then I'll follow her by the next train; and if I'm not +very much mistaken, I know where to find her." +</P><P> +He packed his portmanteau, paid his bill, fastened his dogs together +with a couple of leathern collars and a chain, and stepped into the +rumbling fly kept by the Castle Inn for the convenience of Mount +Stanning. He caught an express that left Brentwood at three o'clock, and +settled himself comfortably in a corner of an empty first-class +carriage, coiled up in a couple of railway rugs, and smoking a cigar in +mild defiance of the authorities. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XIX.</H2> +<H3>THE WRITING IN THE BOOK.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +It was exactly five minutes past four as Mr. Robert Audley stepped out +upon the platform at Shoreditch, and waited placidly until such time as +his dogs and his portmanteau should be delivered up to the attendant +porter who had called his cab, and undertaken the general conduct of his +affairs, with that disinterested courtesy which does such infinite +credit to a class of servitors who are forbidden to accept the tribute +of a grateful public. +</P><P> +Robert Audley waited with consummate patience for a considerable time; +but as the express was generally a long train, and as there were a great +many passengers from Norfolk carrying guns and pointers, and other +paraphernalia of a critical description, it took a long while to make +matters agreeable to all claimants, and even the barrister's seraphic +indifference to mundane affairs nearly gave way. +</P><P> +"Perhaps, when that gentleman who is making such a noise about a pointer +with liver-colored spots, has discovered the particular pointer and +spots that he wants—which happy combination of events scarcely seems +likely to arrive—they'll give me my luggage and let me go. The +designing wretches knew at a glance that I was born to be imposed upon; +and that if they were to trample the life out of me upon this very +platform, I should never have the spirit to bring an action against the +company." +</P><P> +Suddenly an idea seemed to strike him, and he left the porter to +struggle for the custody of his goods, and walked round to the other +side of the station. +</P><P> +He heard a bell ring, and looking at the clock, had remembered that the +down train for Colchester started at this time. He had learned what it +was to have an earnest purpose since the disappearance of George +Talboys; and he reached the opposite platform in time to see the +passengers take their seats. +</P><P> +There was one lady who had evidently only just arrived at the station; +for she hurried on to the platform at the very moment that Robert +approached the train, and almost ran against that gentleman in her haste +and excitement. +</P><P> +"I beg your pardon," she began, ceremoniously; then raising her eyes +from Mr. Audley's waistcoat, which was about on a level with her pretty +face, she exclaimed, "Robert, you in London already?" +</P><P> +"Yes, Lady Audley; you were quite right; the Castle Inn is a dismal +place, and—" +</P><P> +"You got tired of it—I knew you would. Please open the carriage door +for me: the train will start in two minutes." +</P><P> +Robert Audley was looking at his uncle's wife with rather a puzzled +expression of countenance. +</P><P> +"What does it mean?" he thought. "She is altogether a different being to +the wretched, helpless creature who dropped her mask for a moment, and +looked at me with her own pitiful face, in the little room at Mount +Stanning, four hours ago. What has happened to cause the change?" +</P><P> +He opened the door for her while he thought this, and helped her to +settle herself in her seat, spreading her furs over her knees, and +arranging the huge velvet mantle in which her slender little figure was +almost hidden. +</P><P> +"Thank you very much; how good you are to me," she said, as he did this. +"You will think me very foolish to travel upon such a day, without my +dear darling's knowledge too; but I went up to town to settle a very +terrific milliner's bill, which I did not wish my best of husbands to +see; for, indulgent as he is, he might think me extravagant; and I +cannot bear to suffer even in his thoughts." +</P><P> +"Heaven forbid that you ever should, Lady Audley," Robert said, gravely. +</P><P> +She looked at him for a moment with a smile, which had something defiant +in its brightness. +</P><P> +"Heaven forbid it, indeed," she murmured. "I don't think I ever shall." +</P><P> +The second bell rung, and the train moved as she spoke. The last Robert +Audley saw of her was that bright defiant smile. +</P><P> +"Whatever object brought her to London has been successfully +accomplished," he thought. "Has she baffled me by some piece of womanly +jugglery? Am I never to get any nearer to the truth, but am I to be +tormented all my life by vague doubts, and wretched suspicions, which +may grow upon me till I become a monomaniac? Why did she come to +London?" +</P><P> +He was still mentally asking himself this question as he ascended the +stairs in Figtree Court, with one of his dogs under each arm, and his +railway rugs over his shoulder. +</P><P> +He found his chambers in their accustomed order. The geraniums had been +carefully tended, and the canaries had retired for the night under cover +of a square of green baize, testifying to the care of honest Mrs. +Maloney. Robert cast a hurried glance round the sitting-room; then +setting down the dogs upon the hearth-rug, he walked straight into the +little inner chamber which served as his dressing-room. +</P><P> +It was in this room that he kept disused portmanteaus, battered japanned +cases, and other lumber; and it was in this room that George Talboys had +left his luggage. Robert lifted a portmanteau from the top of a large +trunk, and kneeling down before it with a lighted candle in his hand, +carefully examined the lock. +</P><P> +To all appearance it was exactly in the same condition in which George +had left it, when he laid his mourning garments aside and placed them in +this shabby repository with all other memorials of his dead wife. Robert +brushed his coat sleeve across the worn, leather-covered lid, upon which +the initials G. T. were inscribed with big brass-headed nails; but Mrs. +Maloney, the laundress, must have been the most precise of housewives, +for neither the portmanteau nor the trunk were dusty. +</P><P> +Mr. Audley dispatched a boy to fetch his Irish attendant, and paced up +and down his sitting-room waiting anxiously for her arrival. +</P><P> +She came in about ten minutes, and, after expressing her delight in the +return of "the master," humbly awaited his orders. +</P><P> +"I only sent for you to ask if anybody has been here; that is to say, if +anybody has applied to you for the key of my rooms to-day—any lady?" +</P><P> +"Lady? No, indeed, yer honor; there's been no lady for the kay; barrin' +it's the blacksmith." +</P><P> +"The blacksmith!" +</P><P> +"Yes; the blacksmith your honor ordered to come to-day." +</P><P> +"I order a blacksmith!" exclaimed Robert. "I left a bottle of French +brandy in the cupboard," he thought, "and Mrs. M. has been evidently +enjoying herself." +</P><P> +"Sure, and the blacksmith your honor tould to see to the locks," replied +Mrs. Maloney. "It's him that lives down in one of the little streets by +the bridge," she added, giving a very lucid description of the man's +whereabouts. +</P><P> +Robert lifted his eyebrows in mute despair. +</P><P> +"If you'll sit down and compose yourself, Mrs. M.," he said—he +abbreviated her name thus on principle, for the avoidance of unnecessary +labor—"perhaps we shall be able by and by to understand each other. You +say a blacksmith has been here?" +</P><P> +"Sure and I did, sir." +</P><P> +"To-day?" +</P><P> +"Quite correct, sir." +</P><P> +Step by step Mr. Audley elicited the following information. A locksmith +had called upon Mrs. Maloney that afternoon at three o'clock, and had +asked for the key of Mr. Audley's chambers, in order that he might look +to the locks of the doors, which he stated were all out of repair. He +declared that he was acting upon Mr. Audley's own orders, conveyed to +him by a letter from the country, where the gentleman was spending his +Christmas. Mrs. Maloney, believing in the truth of this statement, had +admitted the man to the chambers, where he stayed about half an hour. +</P><P> +"But you were with him while he examined the locks, I suppose?" Mr. +Audley asked. +</P><P> +"Sure I was, sir, in and out, as you may say, all the time, for I've +been cleaning the stairs this afternoon, and I took the opportunity to +begin my scouring while the man was at work." +</P><P> +"Oh, you were in and out all the time. If you <i>could</i> conveniently give +me a plain answer, Mrs. M., I should be glad to know what was the +longest time that you were <i>out</i> while the locksmith was in my +chambers?" +</P><P> +But Mrs. Maloney could not give a plain answer. It might have been ten +minutes; though she didn't think it was as much. It might have been a +quarter of an hour; but she was sure it wasn't more. It didn't <i>seem</i> to +her more than five minutes, but "thim stairs, your honor;" and here she +rambled off into a disquisition upon the scouring of stairs in general, +and the stairs outside Robert's chambers in particular. +</P><P> +Mr. Audley sighed the weary sigh of mournful resignation. +</P><P> +"Never mind, Mrs. M.," he said; "the locksmith had plenty of time to do +anything he wanted to do, I dare say, without your being any the wiser." +</P><P> +Mrs. Maloney stared at her employer with mingled surprise and alarm. +</P><P> +"Sure, there wasn't anything for him to stale, your honor, barrin' the +birds and the geran'ums, and—" +</P><P> +"No, no, I understand. There, that'll do, Mrs. M. Tell me where the man +lives, and I'll go and see him." +</P><P> +"But you'll have a bit of dinner first, sir?" +</P><P> +"I'll go and see the locksmith before I have my dinner." +</P><P> +He took up his hat as he announced his determination, and walked toward +the door. +</P><P> +"The man's address, Mrs. M?" +</P><P> +The Irishwoman directed him to a small street at the back of St. Bride's +Church, and thither Mr. Robert Audley quietly strolled, through the miry +slush which simple Londoners call <i>snow</i>. +</P><P> +He found the locksmith, and, at the sacrifice of the crown of his hat, +contrived to enter the low, narrow doorway of a little open shop. A jet +of gas was flaring in the unglazed window, and there was a very merry +party in the little room behind the shop; but no one responded to +Robert's "Hulloa!" The reason of this was sufficiently obvious. The +merry party was so much absorbed in its own merriment as to be deaf to +all commonplace summonses from the outer world; and it was only when +Robert, advancing further into the cavernous little shop, made so bold +as to open the half-glass door which separated him from the +merry-makers, that he succeeded in obtaining their attention. +</P><P> +A very jovial picture of the Teniers school was presented to Mr. Robert +Audley upon the opening of this door. +</P><P> +The locksmith, with his wife and family, and two or three droppers-in of +the female sex, were clustered about a table, which was adorned by two +bottles; not vulgar bottles of that colorless extract of the juniper +berry, much affected by the masses; but of <i>bona fide</i> port and +sherry—fiercely strong sherry, which left a fiery taste in the mouth, +nut-brown sherry—rather unnaturally brown, if anything—and fine old +port; no sickly vintage, faded and thin from excessive age: but a rich, +full-bodied wine, sweet and substantial and high colored. +</P><P> +The locksmith was speaking as Robert Audley opened the door. +</P><P> +"And with that," he said, "she walked off, as graceful as you please." +</P><P> +The whole party was thrown into confusion by the appearance of Mr. +Audley, but it was to be observed that the locksmith was more +embarrassed than his companions. He set down his glass so hurriedly, +that he spilt his wine, and wiped his mouth nervously with the back of +his dirty hand. +</P><P> +"You called at my chambers to-day," Robert said, quietly. "Don't let me +disturb you, ladies." This to the droppers-in. "You called at my +chambers to-day, Mr. White, and—" +</P><P> +The man interrupted him. +</P><P> +"I hope, sir, you will be so good as to look over the mistake," he +stammered. "I'm sure, sir, I'm very sorry it should have occurred. I was +sent for to another gentleman's chambers, Mr. Aulwin, in Garden Court; +and the name slipped my memory; and havin' done odd jobs before for you, +I thought it must be you as wanted me to-day; and I called at Mrs. +Maloney's for the key accordin'; but directly I see the locks in your +chambers, I says to myself, the gentleman's locks ain't out of order; +the gentleman don't want all his locks repaired." +</P><P> +"But you stayed half an hour." +</P><P> +"Yes, sir; for there was <i>one</i> lock out of order—the door nighest the +staircase—and I took it off and cleaned it and put it on again. I won't +charge you nothin' for the job, and I hope as you'll be as good as to +look over the mistake as has occurred, which I've been in business +thirteen years come July, and—" +</P><P> +"Nothing of this kind ever happened before, I suppose," said Robert, +gravely. "No, it's altogether a singular kind of business, not likely to +come about every day. You've been enjoying yourself this evening I see, +Mr. White. You've done a good stroke of work to-day, I'll wager—made a +lucky hit, and you're what you call 'standing treat,' eh?" +</P><P> +Robert Audley looked straight into the man's dingy face as he spoke. The +locksmith was not a bad-looking fellow, and there was nothing that he +need have been ashamed of in his face, except the dirt, and that, as +Hamlet's mother says, "is common;" but in spite of this, Mr. White's +eyelids dropped under the young barrister's calm scrutiny, and he +stammered out some apologetic sort of speech about his "missus," and his +missus' neighbors, and port wine and sherry wine, with as much confusion +as if he, an honest mechanic in a free country, were called upon to +excuse himself to Robert Audley for being caught in the act of enjoying +himself in his own parlor. +</P><P> +Robert cut him short with a careless nod. +</P><P> +"Pray don't apologize," he said; "I like to see people enjoy themselves. +Good-night, Mr. White good-night, ladies." +</P><P> +He lifted his hat to "the missus," and the missus' neighbors, who were +much fascinated by his easy manner and his handsome face, and left the +shop. +</P><P> +"And so," he muttered to himself as he went back to his chambers, "'with +that she walked off as graceful as you please.'Who was it that walked +off; and what was the story which the locksmith was telling when I +interrupted him at that sentence? Oh, George Talboys, George Talboys, am +I ever to come any I nearer to the secret of your fate? Am I coming +nearer to it now, slowly but surely? Is the radius to grow narrower day +by day until it draws a dark circle around the home of those I love? How +is it all to end?" +</P><P> +He sighed wearily as he walked slowly back across the flagged +quadrangles in the Temple to his own solitary chambers. +</P><P> +Mrs. Maloney had prepared for him that bachelor's dinner, which, however +excellent and nutritious in itself, has no claim to the special charm of +novelty. She had cooked for him a mutton-chop, which was soddening +itself between two plates upon the little table near the fire. +</P><P> +Robert Audley sighed as he sat down to the familiar meal, remembering +his uncle's cook with a fond, regretful sorrow. +</P><P> +"Her cutlets a la Maintenon made mutton seem more than mutton; a +sublimated meat that could scarcely have grown upon any mundane sheep," +he murmured sentimentally, "and Mrs. Maloney's chops are apt to be +tough; but such is life—what does it matter?" +</P><P> +He pushed away his plate impatiently after eating a few mouthfuls. +</P><P> +"I have never eaten a good dinner at this table since I lost George +Talboys," he said. "The place seems as gloomy as if the poor fellow had +died in the next room, and had never been taken away to be buried. How +long ago that September afternoon appears as I look back at it—that +September afternoon upon which I parted with him alive and well; and +lost him as suddenly and unaccountably as if a trap-door had opened in +the solid earth and let him through to the antipodes!" +</P><P> +Mr. Audley rose from the dinner-table and walked over to the cabinet in +which he kept the document he had drawn up relating to George Talboys. +He unlocked the doors of his cabinet, took the paper from the +pigeon-hole marked important, and seated himself at his desk to write. +He added several paragraphs to those in the document, numbering the +fresh paragraphs as carefully as he had numbered the old ones. +</P><P> +"Heaven help us all," he muttered once; "is this paper with which no +attorney has had any hand to be my first brief?" +</P><P> +He wrote for about half an hour, then replaced the document in the +pigeon-hole, and locked the cabinet. When he had done this, he took a +candle in his hand, and went into the room in which were his own +portmanteaus and the trunk belonging to George Talboys. +</P><P> +He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and tried them one by one. The +lock of the shabby old trunk was a common one, and at the fifth trial +the key turned easily. +</P><P> +"There'd be no need for any one to break open such a lock as this," +muttered Robert, as he lifted the lid of the trunk. +</P><P> +He slowly emptied it of its contents, taking out each article +separately, and laying it carefully upon a chair by his side. He handled +the things with a respectful tenderness, as if he had been lifting the +dead body of his lost friend. One by one he laid the neatly folded +mourning garments on the chair. He found old meerschaum pipes, and +soiled, crumpled gloves that had once been fresh from the Parisian +maker; old play-bills, whose biggest letters spelled the names of actors +who were dead and gone; old perfume-bottles, fragrant with essences, +whose fashion had passed away; neat little parcels of letters, each +carefully labeled with the name of the writer; fragments of old +newspapers; and a little heap of shabby, dilapidated books, each of +which tumbled into as many pieces as a pack of cards in Robert's +incautious hand. But among all the mass of worthless litter, each scrap +of which had once had its separate purpose, Robert Audley looked in vain +for that which he sought—the packet of letters written to the missing +man by his dead wife Helen Talboys. He had heard George allude more than +once to the existence of these letters. He had seen him once sorting the +faded papers with a reverent hand; and he had seen him replace them, +carefully tied together with a faded ribbon which had once been Helen's, +among the mourning garments in the trunk. Whether he had afterward +removed them, or whether they had been removed since his disappearance +by some other hand, it was not easy to say; but they were gone. +</P><P> +Robert Audley sighed wearily as he replaced the things in the empty box, +one by one, as he had taken them out. He stopped with the little heap of +tattered books in his hand, and hesitated for a moment. +</P><P> +"I will keep these out," he muttered, "there maybe something to help me +in one of them." +</P><P> +George's library was no very brilliant collection of literature. There +was an old Greek Testament and the Eton Latin Grammar; a French pamphlet +on the cavalry sword-exercise; an odd volume of Tom Jones with one half +of its stiff leather cover hanging to it by a thread; Byron's Don Juan, +printed in a murderous type, which must have been invented for the +special advantage of oculists and opticians; and a fat book in a faded +gilt and crimson cover. +</P><P> +Robert Audley locked the trunk and took the books under his arm. Mrs. +Maloney was clearing away the remains of his repast when he returned to +the sitting-room. He put the books aside on a little table in a corner +of the fire-place, and waited patiently while the laundress finished her +work. He was in no humor even for his meerschaum, consoler; the +yellow-papered fictions on the shelves above his head seemed stale and +profitless—he opened a volume of Balzac, but his uncle's wife's golden +curls danced and trembled in a glittering haze, alike upon the +metaphysical diablerie of the <i>Peau de Chagrin</i>, and the hideous social +horrors of "<i>Cousine Bette</i>." The volume dropped from his hand, and he +sat wearily watching Mrs. Maloney as she swept up the ashes on the +hearth, replenished the fire, drew the dark damask curtains, supplied +the simple wants of the canaries, and put on her bonnet in the disused +clerk's office, prior to bidding her employer good-night. As the door +closed upon the Irishwoman, he arose impatiently from his chair, and +paced up and down the room. +</P><P> +"Why do I go on with this," he said, "when I know that it is leading me, +step by step, day by day, hour by hour, nearer to that conclusion which, +of all others, I should avoid? Am I tied to a wheel, and must I go with +its every revolution, let it take me where it will? Or can I sit down +here to-night and say I have done my duty to my missing friend, I have +searched for him patiently, but I have searched in vain? Should I be +justified in doing this? Should I be justified in letting the chain +which I have slowly put together, link by link, drop at this point, or +must I go on adding fresh links to that fatal chain until the last rivet +drops into its place and the circle is complete? I think, and I believe, +that I shall never see my friend's face again; and that no exertion of +mine can ever be of any benefit to him. In plainer, crueler words I +believe him to be dead. Am I bound to discover how and where he died? or +being, as I think, on the road to that discovery, shall I do a wrong to +the memory of George Talboys by turning back or stopping still? What am +I to do?—what am I to do?" +</P><P> +He rested his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands. The +one purpose which had slowly grown up in his careless nature until it +had become powerful enough to work a change in that very nature, made +him what he had never been before—a Christian; conscious of his own +weakness; anxious to keep to the strict line of duty; fearful to swerve +from the conscientious discharge of the strange task that had been +forced upon him; and reliant on a stronger hand than his own to point +the way which he was to go. Perhaps he uttered his first earnest prayer +that night, seated by his lonely fireside, thinking of George Talboys. +When he raised his head from that long and silent revery, his eyes had a +bright, determined glance, and every feature in his face seemed to wear +a new expression. +</P><P> +"Justice to the dead first," he said; "mercy to the living afterward." +</P><P> +He wheeled his easy-chair to the table, trimmed the lamp, and settled +himself to the examination of the books. +</P><P> +He took them up, one by one, and looked carefully through them, first +looking at the page on which the name of the owner is ordinarily +written, and then searching for any scrap of paper which might have been +left within the leaves. On the first page of the Eton Latin Grammar the +name of Master Talboys was written in a prim, scholastic hand; the +French pamphlet had a careless G.T. scrawled on the cover in pencil, in +George's big, slovenly calligraphy: the Tom Jones had evidently been +bought at a book-stall, and bore an inscription, dated March 14th, 1788, +setting forth that the book was a tribute of respect to Mr. Thos. +Scrowton, from his obedient servant, James Anderley; the Don Juan and +the Testament were blank. Robert Audley breathed more freely; he had +arrived at the last but one of the books without any result whatever, +and there only remained the fat gilt-and-crimson-bound volume to be +examined before his task was finished. +</P><P> +It was an annual of the year 1845. The copper-plate engravings of lovely +ladies, who had flourished in that day, were yellow and spotted with +mildew; the costumes grotesque and outlandish; the simpering beauties +faded and commonplace. Even the little clusters of verses (in which the +poet's feeble candle shed its sickly light upon the obscurities of the +artist's meaning) had an old-fashioned twang; like music on a lyre, +whose strings are slackened by the damps of time. Robert Audley did not +stop to read any of the mild productions. He ran rapidly through the +leaves, looking for any scrap of writing or fragment of a letter which +might have been used to mark a place. He found nothing but a bright ring +of golden hair, of that glittering hue which is so rarely seen except +upon the head of a child—a sunny lock, which curled as naturally as the +tendril of a vine; and was very opposite in texture, if not different in +hue, to the soft, smooth tresses which the landlady at Ventnor had given +to George Talboys after his wife's death. Robert Audley suspended his +examination of the book, and folded this yellow lock in a sheet of +letter paper, which he sealed with his signet-ring, and laid aside, with +the memorandum about George Talboys and Alicia's letter, in the +pigeon-hole marked important. He was going to replace the fat annual +among the other books, when he discovered that the two blank leaves at +the beginning were stuck together. He was so determined to prosecute his +search to the very uttermost, that he took the trouble to part these +leaves with the sharp end of his paper-knife, and he was rewarded for +his perseverance by finding an inscription upon one of them. This +inscription was in three parts, and in three different hands. The first +paragraph was dated as far back as the year in which the annual had been +published, and set forth that the book was the property of a certain +Miss Elizabeth Ann Bince, who had obtained the precious volume as a +reward for habits of order, and for obedience to the authorities of +Camford House Seminary, Torquay. The second paragraph was dated five +years later, and was in the handwriting of Miss Bince herself, who +presented the book, as a mark of undying affection and unfading esteem +(Miss Bince was evidently of a romantic temperament) to her beloved +friend, Helen Maldon. The third paragraph was dated September, 1853, and +was in the hand of Helen Maldon, who gave the annual to George Talboys; +and it was at the sight of this third paragraph that Mr. Robert Audley's +face changed from its natural hue to a sickly, leaden pallor. +</P><P> +"I thought it would be so," said the young man, shutting the book with a +weary sigh. "God knows I was prepared for the worst, and the worst has +come. I can understand all now. My next visit must be to Southampton. I +must place the boy in better hands." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XX.</H2> +<H3>MRS. PLOWSON.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Among the packet of letters which Robert Audley had found in George's +trunk, there was one labeled with the name of the missing man's +father—the father, who had never been too indulgent a friend to his +younger son, and who had gladly availed himself of the excuse afforded +by George's imprudent marriage to abandon the young man to his own +resources. Robert Audley had never seen Mr. Harcourt Talboys; but +George's careless talk of his father had given his friend some notion of +that gentleman's character. He had written to Mr. Talboys immediately +after the disappearance of George, carefully wording his letter, which +vaguely hinted at the writer's fear of some foul play in the mysterious +business; and, after the lapse of several weeks, he had received a +formal epistle, in which Mr. Harcourt Talboys expressly declared that he +had washed his hands of all responsibility in his son George's affairs +upon the young man's wedding-day; and that his absurd disappearance was +only in character with his preposterous marriage. The writer of this +fatherly letter added in a postscript that if George Talboys had any low +design of alarming his friends by this pretended disappearance, and +thereby playing on their feelings with a view to pecuniary advantage, he +was most egregiously deceived in the character of those persons with +whom he had to deal. +</P><P> +Robert Audley had answered this letter by a few indignant lines, +informing Mr. Talboys that his son was scarcely likely to hide himself +for the furtherance of any deep-laid design on the pockets of his +relatives, as he had left twenty thousand pounds in his bankers' hands +at the time of his disappearance. After dispatching this letter, Robert +had abandoned all thought of assistance from the man who, in the natural +course of things, should have been most interested in George's fate; but +now that he found himself advancing every day some step nearer to the +end that lay so darkly before him, his mind reverted to this heartlessly +indifferent Mr. Harcourt Talboys. +</P><P> +"I will run into Dorsetshire after I leave Southampton," he said, "and +see this man. If <i>he</i> is content to let his son's fate rest a dark and +cruel mystery to all who knew him—if he is content to go down to his +grave uncertain to the last of this poor fellow's end—why should I try +to unravel the tangled skein, to fit the pieces of the terrible puzzle, +and gather together the stray fragments which, when collected, may make +such a hideous whole? I will go to him and lay my darkest doubts freely +before him. It will be for him to say what I am to do." +</P><P> +Robert Audley started by an early express for Southampton. The snow lay +thick and white upon the pleasant country through which he went; and the +young barrister had wrapped himself in so many comforters and railway +rugs as to appear a perambulating mass of woollen goods, rather than a +living member of a learned profession. He looked gloomily out of the +misty window, opaque with the breath of himself and an elderly Indian +officer, who was his only companion, and watched the fleeting landscape, +which had a certain phantom-like appearance in its shroud of snow. He +wrapped himself in the vast folds of his railway rug, with a peevish +shiver, and felt inclined to quarrel with the destiny which compelled +him to travel by an early train upon a pitiless winter's day. +</P><P> +"Who would have thought that I could have grown so fond of the fellow," +he muttered, "or feel so lonely without him? I've a comfortable little +fortune in the three per cents.; I'm heir presumptive to my uncle's +title; and I know of a certain dear little girl who, as I think, would +do her best to make me happy; but I declare that I would freely give up +all, and stand penniless in the world to-morrow, if this mystery could +be satisfactorily cleared away, and George Talboys could stand by my +side." +</P><P> +He reached Southampton between eleven and twelve o'clock, and walked +across the platform, with the snow drifting in his face, toward the pier +and the lower end of the town. The clock of St. Michael's Church was +striking twelve as he crossed the quaint old square in which that +edifice stands, and groped his way through the narrow streets leading +down to the water. +</P><P> +Mr. Maldon had established his slovenly household gods in one of those +dreary thoroughfares which speculative builders love to raise upon some +miserable fragment of waste ground hanging to the skirts of a prosperous +town. Brigsome's Terrace was, perhaps, one of the most dismal blocks of +building that was ever composed of brick and mortar since the first +mason plied his trowel and the first architect drew his plan. The +builder who had speculated in the ten dreary eight-roomed prison-houses +had hung himself behind the parlor door of an adjacent tavern while the +carcases were yet unfinished. The man who had bought the brick and +mortar skeletons had gone through the bankruptcy court while the +paper-hangers were still busy in Brigsome's Terrace, and had whitewashed +his ceilings and himself simultaneously. Ill luck and insolvency clung +to the wretched habitations. The bailiff and the broker's man were as +well known as the butcher and the baker to the noisy children who played +upon the waste ground in front of the parlor windows. Solvent tenants +were disturbed at unhallowed hours by the noise of ghostly furniture +vans creeping stealthily away in the moonless night. Insolvent tenants +openly defied the collector of the water-rate from their ten-roomed +strongholds, and existed for weeks without any visible means of +procuring that necessary fluid. +</P><P> +Robert Audley looked about him with a shudder as he turned from the +waterside into this poverty-stricken locality. A child's funeral was +leaving one of the houses as he approached, and he thought with a thrill +of horror that if the little coffin had held George's son, he would have +been in some measure responsible for the boy's death. +</P><P> +"The poor child shall not sleep another night in this wretched hovel," +he thought, as he knocked at the door of Mr. Maldon's house. "He is the +legacy of my best friend, and it shall be my business to secure his +safety." +</P><P> +A slipshod servant girl opened the door and looked at Mr. Audley rather +suspiciously as she asked him, very much through her nose, what he +pleased to want. The door of the little sitting room was ajar, and +Robert could hear the clattering of knives and forks and the childish +voice of little George prattling gayly. He told the servant that he had +come from London, that he wanted to see Master Talboys, and that he +would announce himself; and walking past her, without further ceremony +he opened the door of the parlor. The girl stared at him aghast as he +did this; and as if struck by some sudden and terrible conviction, threw +her apron over her head and ran out into the snow. She darted across the +waste ground, plunged into a narrow alley, and never drew breath till +she found herself upon the threshold of a certain tavern called the +Coach and Horses, and much affected by Mr. Maldon. The lieutenant's +faithful retainer had taken Robert Audley for some new and determined +collector of poor's rates—rejecting that gentleman's account of himself +as an artful fiction devised for the destruction of parochial +defaulters—and had hurried off to give her master timely warning of the +enemy's approach. +</P><P> +When Robert entered the sitting-room he was surprised to find little +George seated opposite to a woman who was doing the honors of a shabby +repast, spread upon a dirty table-cloth, and flanked by a pewter beer +measure. The woman rose as Robert entered, and courtesied very humbly to +the young barrister. She looked about fifty years of age, and was +dressed in rusty widow's weeds. Her complexion was insipidly fair, and +the two smooth bands of hair beneath her cap were of that sunless, +flaxen hue which generally accompanies pink cheeks and white eyelashes. +She had been a rustic beauty, perhaps, in her time, but her features, +although tolerably regular in their shape, had a mean, pinched look, as +if they had been made too small for her face. This defect was peculiarly +noticeable in her mouth, which was an obvious misfit for the set of +teeth it contained. She smiled as she courtesied to Mr. Robert Audley, +and her smile, which laid bare the greater part of this set of square, +hungry-looking teeth, by no means added to the beauty of her personal +appearance. +</P><P> +"Mr. Maldon is not at home, sir," she said, with insinuating civility; +"but if it's for the water-rate, he requested me to say that—" +</P><P> +She was interrupted by little George Talboys, who scrambled down from +the high chair upon which he had been perched, and ran to Robert Audley. +</P><P> +"I know you," he said; "you came to Ventnor with the big gentleman, and +you came here once, and you gave me some money, and I gave it to gran'pa +to take care of, and gran'pa kept it, and he always does." +</P><P> +Robert Audley took the boy in his arms, and carried him to a little +table in the window. +</P><P> +"Stand there, Georgey," he said, "I want to have a good look at you." +</P><P> +He turned the boy's face to the light, and pushed the brown curls off +his forehead with both hands. +</P><P> +"You are growing more like your father every day, Georgey; and you're +growing quite a man, too," he said; "would you like to go to school?" +</P><P> +"Oh, yes, please, I should like it very much," the boy answered, +eagerly. "I went to school at Miss Pevins' once—day-school, you +know—round the corner in the next street; but I caught the measles, and +gran'pa wouldn't let me go any more, for fear I should catch the measles +again; and gran'pa won't let me play with the little boys in the street, +because they're rude boys; he said blackguard boys; but he said I +mustn't say blackguard boys, because it's naughty. He says damn and +devil, but he says he may because he's old. I shall say damn and devil +when I'm old; and I should like to go to school, please, and I can go +to-day, if you like; Mrs. Plowson will get my frocks ready, won't you, +Mrs. Plowson?" +</P><P> +"Certainly, Master Georgey, if your grandpapa wishes it," the woman +answered, looking rather uneasily at Mr. Robert Audley. +</P><P> +"What on earth is the matter with this woman," thought Robert as he +turned from the boy to the fair-haired widow, who was edging herself +slowly toward the table upon which little George Talboys stood talking +to his guardian. "Does she still take me for a tax-collector with +inimical intentions toward these wretched goods and chattels; or can the +cause of her fidgety manner lie deeper still. That's scarcely likely, +though; for whatever secrets Lieutenant Maldon may have, it's not very +probable that this woman has any knowledge of them." +</P><P> +Mrs. Plowson had edged herself close to the little table by this time, +and was making a stealthy descent upon the boy, when Robert turned +sharply round. +</P><P> +"What are you going to do with the child?" he said. +</P><P> +"I was only going to take him away to wash his pretty face, sir, and +smooth his hair," answered the woman, in the most insinuating tone in +which she had spoken of the water-rate. "You don't see him to any +advantage, sir, while his precious face is dirty. I won't be five +minutes making him as neat as a new pin." +</P><P> +She had her long, thin arms about the boy as she spoke, and she was +evidently going to carry him off bodily, when Robert stopped her. +</P><P> +"I'd rather see him as he is, thank you," he said. "My time in +Southampton isn't very long, and I want to hear all that the little man +can tell me." +</P><P> +The little man crept closer to Robert, and looked confidingly into the +barrister's gray eyes. +</P><P> +"I like you very much," he said. "I was frightened of you when you came +before, because I was shy. I am not shy now—I am nearly six years old." +</P><P> +Robert patted the boy's head encouragingly, but he was not looking at +little George; he was watching the fair-haired widow, who had moved to +the window, and was looking out at the patch of waste ground. +</P><P> +"You're rather fidgety about some one, ma'am, I'm afraid," said Robert. +</P><P> +She colored violently as the barrister made this remark, and answered +him in a confused manner. +</P><P> +"I was looking for Mr. Maldon, sir," she said; "he'll be so disappointed +if he doesn't see you." +</P><P> +"You know who I am, then?" +</P><P> +"No, sir, but—" +</P><P> +The boy interrupted her by dragging a little jeweled watch from his +bosom and showing it to Robert. +</P><P> +"This is the watch the pretty lady gave me," he said. "I've got it +now—but I haven't had it long, because the jeweler who cleans it is an +idle man, gran'pa says, and always keeps it such a long time; and +gran'pa says it will have to be cleaned again, because of the taxes. He +always takes it to be cleaned when there's taxes—but he says if he were +to lose it the pretty lady would give me another. Do you know the pretty +lady?" +</P><P> +"No, Georgey, but tell me about her." +</P><P> +Mrs. Plowson made another descent upon the boy. She was armed with a +pocket-handkerchief this time, and displayed great anxiety about the +state of little George's nose, but Robert warded off the dreaded weapon, +and drew the child away from his tormentor. +</P><P> +"The boy will do very well, ma'am," he said, "if you'll be good enough +to let him alone for five minutes. Now, Georgey, suppose you sit on my +knee, and tell me all about the pretty lady." +</P><P> +The child clambered from the table onto Mr. Audley's knees, assisting +his descent by a very unceremonious manipulation of his guardian's +coat-collar. +</P><P> +"I'll tell you all about the pretty lady," he said, "because I like you +very much. Gran'pa told me not to tell anybody, but I'll tell you, you +know, because I like you, and because you're going to take me to school. +The pretty lady came here one night—long ago—oh, so long ago," said +the boy, shaking his head, with a face whose solemnity was expressive of +some prodigious lapse of time. "She came when I was not nearly so big as +I am now—and she came at night—after I'd gone to bed, and she came up +into my room, and sat upon the bed, and cried—and she left the watch +under my pillow, and she—Why do you make faces at me, Mrs. Plowson? I +may tell this gentleman," Georgey added, suddenly addressing the widow, +who was standing behind Robert's shoulder. +</P><P> +Mrs. Plowson mumbled some confused apology to the effect that she was +afraid Master George was troublesome. +</P><P> +"Suppose you wait till I say so, ma'am, before you stop the little +fellow's mouth," said Robert Audley, sharply. "A suspicious person might +think from your manner that Mr. Maldon and you had some conspiracy +between you, and that you were afraid of what the boy's talk may let +slip." +</P><P> +He rose from his chair, and looked full at Mrs. Plowson as he said this. +The fair-haired widow's face was as white as her cap when she tried to +answer him, and her pale lips were so dry that she was compelled to wet +them with her tongue before the words would come. +</P><P> +The little boy relieved her embarrassment. +</P><P> +"Don't be cross to Mrs. Plowson," he said. "Mrs. Plowson is very kind to +me. Mrs. Plowson is Matilda's mother. You don't know Matilda. Poor +Matilda was always crying; she was ill, she—" +</P><P> +The boy was stopped by the sudden appearance of Mr. Maldon, who stood on +the threshold of the parlor door staring at Robert Audley with a +half-drunken, half-terrified aspect, scarcely consistent with the +dignity of a retired naval officer. The servant girl, breathless and +panting, stood close behind her master. Early in the day though it was, +the old man's speech was thick and confused, as he addressed himself +fiercely to Mrs. Plowson. +</P><P> +"You're a prett' creature to call yoursel' sensible woman?" he said. +"Why don't you take th' chile 'way, er wash 's face? D'yer want to ruin +me? D'yer want to 'stroy me? Take th' chile 'way! Mr. Audley, sir, I'm +ver' glad to see yer; ver' 'appy to 'ceive yer in m' humbl' 'bode," the +old man added with tipsy politeness, dropping into a chair as he spoke, +and trying to look steadily at his unexpected visitor. +</P><P> +"Whatever this man's secrets are," thought Robert, as Mrs. Plowson +hustled little George Talboys out of the room, "that woman has no +unimportant share of them. Whatever the mystery may be, it grows darker +and thicker at every step; but I try in vain to draw back or to stop +short upon the road, for a stronger hand than my own is pointing the way +to my lost friend's unknown grave." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXI.</H2> +<H3>LITTLE GEORGEY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +"I am going to take your grandson away with me, Mr. Maldon," Robert said +gravely, as Mrs. Plowson retired with her young charge. +</P><P> +The old man's drunken imbecility was slowly clearing away like the heavy +mists of a London fog, through which the feeble sunshine struggles dimly +to appear. The very uncertain radiance of Lieutenant Maldon's intellect +took a considerable time in piercing the hazy vapors of rum-and-water; +but the flickering light at last faintly glimmered athwart the clouds, +and the old man screwed his poor wits to the sticking-point. +</P><P> +"Yes, yes," he said, feebly; "take the boy away from his poor old +grandfather; I always thought so." +</P><P> +"You always thought that I should take him away?" scrutinizing the +half-drunken countenance with a searching glance. "Why did you think so, +Mr. Maldon?" +</P><P> +The fogs of intoxication got the better of the light of sobriety for a +moment, and the lieutenant answered vaguely: +</P><P> +"Thought so—'cause I thought so." +</P><P> +Meeting the young barrister's impatient frown, he made another effort, +and the light glimmered again. +</P><P> +"Because I thought you or his father would fetch 'm away." +</P><P> +"When I was last in this house, Mr. Maldon, you told me that George +Talboys had sailed for Australia." +</P><P> +"Yes, yes—I know, I know," the old man answered, confusedly, shuffling +his scanty limp gray hairs with his two wandering hands—"I know; but he +might have come back—mightn't he? He was restless, and—and—queer in +his mind, perhaps, sometimes. He might have come back." +</P><P> +He repeated this two or three times in feeble, muttering tones; groping +about on the littered mantle-piece for a dirty-looking clay pipe, and +filling and lighting it with hands that trembled violently. +</P><P> +Robert Audley watched those poor, withered, tremulous fingers dropping +shreds of tobacco upon the hearth rug, and scarcely able to kindle a +lucifer for their unsteadiness. Then walking once or twice up and down +the little room, he left the old man to take a few puffs from the great +consoler. +</P><P> +Presently he turned suddenly upon the half-pay lieutenant with a dark +solemnity in his handsome face. +</P><P> +"Mr. Maldon," he said, slowly watching the effect of every syllable as +he spoke, "George Talboys never sailed for Australia—that I know. More +than this, he never came to Southampton; and the lie you told me on the +8th of last September was dictated to you by the telegraphic message +which you received on that day." +</P><P> +The dirty clay pipe dropped from the tremulous hand, and shivered +against the iron fender, but the old man made no effort to find a fresh +one; he sat trembling in every limb, and looking, Heaven knows how +piteously, at Robert Audley. +</P><P> +"The lie was dictated to you, and you repeated your lesson. But you no +more saw George Talboys here on the 7th of September than I see him in +this room now. You thought you had burnt the telegraphic message, but +you had only burnt a part of it—the remainder is in my possession." +</P><P> +Lieutenant Maldon was quite sober now. +</P><P> +"What have I done?" he murmured, hopelessly. "Oh, my God! what have I +done?" +</P><P> +"At two o'clock on the 7th of September last," continued the pitiless, +accusing voice, "George Talboys was seen alive and well at a house in +Essex." +</P><P> +Robert paused to see the effect of these words. They had produced no +change in the old man. He still sat trembling from head to foot, and +staring with the fixed and solid gaze of some helpless wretch whose +every sense is gradually becoming numbed by terror. +</P><P> +"At two o'clock on that day," remarked Robert Audley, "my poor friend +was seen alive and well at ——, at the house of which I speak. From +that hour to this I have never been able to hear that he has been seen +by any living creature. I have taken such steps as <i>must</i> have resulted +in procuring the information of his whereabouts, were he alive. I have +done this patiently and carefully—at first, even hopefully. Now I know +that he is dead." +</P><P> +Robert Audley had been prepared to witness some considerable agitation +in the old man's manner, but he was not prepared for the terrible +anguish, the ghastly terror, which convulsed Mr. Maldon's haggard face +as he uttered the last word. +</P><P> +"No, no, no, no," reiterated the lieutenant, in a shrill, half-screaming +voice; "no, no! For God's sake, don't say that! Don't think it—don't +let <i>me</i> think it—don't let me dream of it! Not dead—anything but +dead! Hidden away, perhaps—bribed to keep out of the way, perhaps; but +not dead—not dead—not dead!" +</P><P> +He cried these words aloud, like one beside himself, beating his hands +upon his gray head, and rocking backward and forward in his chair. His +feeble hands trembled no longer—they were strengthened by some +convulsive force that gave them a new power. +</P><P> +"I believe," said Robert, in the same solemn, relentless voice, "that my +friend left Essex; and I believe he died on the 7th of September last." +</P><P> +The wretched old man, still beating his hands among his thin gray hair, +slid from his chair to the ground, and groveled at Robert's feet. +</P><P> +"Oh! no, no—for God's, no!" he shrieked hoarsely. "No! you don't know +what you say—you don't know what your words mean!" +</P><P> +"I know their weight and value only too well—as well as I see you do, +Mr. Maldon. God help us!" +</P><P> +"Oh, what am I doing? what am I doing?" muttered the old man, feebly; +then raising himself from the ground with an effort, he drew himself to +his full hight, and said, in a manner which was new to him, and which +was not without a certain dignity of his own—that dignity which must be +always attached to unutterable misery, in whatever form it may +appear—he said, gravely: +</P><P> +"You have no right to come here and terrify a man who has been drinking, +and who is not quite himself. You have no right to do it, Mr. Audley. +Even the—the officer, sir, who—who—." He did not stammer, but his +lips trembled so violently that his words seemed to be shaken into +pieces by their motion. "The officer, I repeat, sir, who arrests +a—thief, or a—." He stopped to wipe his lips, and to still them if he +could by doing so, which he could not. "A thief or a murderer—" His +voice died suddenly away upon the last word, and it was only by the +motion of those trembling lips that Robert knew what he meant. "Gives +him warning, sir, fair warning, that he may say nothing which shall +commit himself—or—or—other people. The—the—law, sir, has that +amount of mercy for a—a—suspected criminal. But you, sir,—you come to +my house, and you come at a time when—when—contrary to my usual +habits—which, as people will tell you, are sober—you take the +opportunity to—terrify me—and it is not right, sir—it is—" +</P><P> +Whatever he would have said died away into inarticulate gasps, which +seemed to choke him, and sinking into a chair, he dropped his face upon +the table, and wept aloud. Perhaps in all the dismal scenes of domestic +misery which had been acted in those spare and dreary houses—in all the +petty miseries, the burning shames, the cruel sorrows, the bitter +disgraces which own poverty for their father—there had never been such +a scene as this. An old man hiding his face from the light of day, and +sobbing aloud in his wretchedness. Robert Audley contemplated the +painful picture with a hopeless and pitying face. +</P><P> +"If I had known this," he thought, "I might have spared him. It would +have been better, perhaps, to have spared him." +</P><P> +The shabby room, the dirt, the confusion, the figure of the old man, +with his gray head upon the soiled tablecloth, amid the muddled <i>debris</i> +of a wretched dinner, grew blurred before the sight of Robert Audley as +he thought of another man, as old as this one, but, ah! how widely +different in every other quality! who might come by and by to feel the +same, or even a worse anguish, and to shed, perhaps, yet bitterer tears. +The moment in which the tears rose to his eyes and dimmed the piteous +scene before him, was long enough to take him back to Essex, and to show +him the image of his uncle, stricken by agony and shame. +</P><P> +"Why do I go on with this?" he thought; "how pitiless I am, and how +relentlessly I am carried on. It is not myself; it is the hand which is +beckoning me further and further upon the dark road, whose end I dare +not dream of." +</P><P> +He thought this, and a hundred times more than this, while the old man +sat with his face still hidden, wrestling with his anguish, but without +power to keep it down. +</P><P> +"Mr. Maldon," Robert Audley said, after a pause, "I do not ask you to +forgive me for what I have brought upon you, for the feeling is strong +within me that it must have come to you sooner or later—if not through +me, through some one else. There are—" he stopped for a moment +hesitating. The sobbing did not cease; it was sometimes low, sometimes +loud, bursting out with fresh violence, or dying away for an instant, +but never ceasing. "There are some things which, as people say, cannot +be hidden. I think there is truth in that common saying which had its +origin in that old worldly wisdom which people gathered from experience +and not from books. If—if I were content to let my friend rest in his +hidden grave, it is but likely that some stranger who had never heard +the name of George Talboys, might fall by the remotest accident upon the +secret of his death. To-morrow, perhaps; or ten years hence, or in +another generation, when the—the hand that wronged him is as cold as +his own. If I <i>could</i> let the matter rest; if—if I could leave England +forever, and purposely fly from the possibility of ever coming across +another clew to the secret, I would do it—I would gladly, thankfully do +it—but I <i>cannot</i>! A hand which is stronger than my own beckons me on. +I wish to take no base advantage of you, less than of all other people; +but I must go on; I must go on. If there is any warning you would give +to any one, give it. If the secret toward which I am traveling day by +day, hour by hour, involves any one in whom you have an interest, let +that person fly before I come to the end. Let them leave this country; +let them leave all who know them—all whose peace their wickedness has +endangered; let them go away—they shall not be pursued. But if they +slight your warning—if they try to hold their present position in +defiance of what it will be in your power to tell them—let them beware +of me, for, when the hour comes, I swear that I will not spare them." +</P><P> +The old man looked up for the first time, and wiped his wrinkled face +upon a ragged silk handkerchief. +</P><P> +"I declare to you that I do not understand you," he said. "I solemnly +declare to you that I cannot understand; and I do not believe that +George Talboys is dead." +</P><P> +"I would give ten years of my own life if I could see him alive," +answered Robert, sadly. "I am sorry for you, Mr. Malden—I am sorry for +all of us." +</P><P> +"I do not believe that my son-in-law is dead," said the lieutenant; "I +do not believe that the poor lad is dead." +</P><P> +He endeavored in a feeble manner to show to Robert Audley that his wild +outburst of anguish had been caused by his grief for the loss of George; +but the pretense was miserably shallow. +</P><P> +Mrs. Plowson re-entered the room, leading little Georgey, whose face +shone with that brilliant polish which yellow soap and friction can +produce upon the human countenance. +</P><P> +"Dear heart alive!" exclaimed Mrs. Plowson, "what has the poor old +gentleman been taking on about? We could hear him in the passage, +sobbin' awful." +</P><P> +Little George crept up to his grandfather, and smoothed the wet and +wrinkled face with his pudgy hand. +</P><P> +"Don't cry, gran'pa," he said, "don't cry. You shall have my watch to be +cleaned, and the kind jeweler shall lend you the money to pay the taxman +while he cleans the watch—I don't mind, gran'pa. Let's go to the +jeweler, the jeweler in High street, you know, with golden balls painted +upon his door, to show that he comes from Lombar—Lombardshire," said +the boy, making a dash at the name. "Come, gran'pa." +</P><P> +The little fellow took the jeweled toy from his bosom and made for the +door, proud of being possessed of a talisman, which he had seen so often +made useful. +</P><P> +"There are wolves at Southampton," he said, with rather a triumphant nod +to Robert Audley. "My gran'pa says when he takes my watch that he does +it to keep the wolf from the door. Are there wolves where you live?" +</P><P> +The young barrister did not answer the child's question, but stopped him +as he was dragging his grandfather toward the door. +</P><P> +"Your grandpapa does not want the watch to-day, Georgey," he said, +gravely. +</P><P> +"Why is he sorry, then?" asked Georgey, naively; "when he wants the +watch he is always sorry, and beats his poor forehead so"—the boy +stopped to pantomime with his small fists—"and says that she—the pretty +lady, I think he means—uses him very hard, and that he can't keep the +wolf from the door; and then I say, 'Gran'pa, have the watch;' and then +he takes me in his arms, and says, 'Oh, my blessed angel! how can I rob +my blessed angel?' and then he cries, but not like to-day—not loud, you +know; only tears running down his poor cheeks, not so that you could +hear him in the passage." +</P><P> +Painful as the child's prattle was to Robert Audley, it seemed a relief +to the old man. He did not hear the boy's talk, but walked two or three +times up and down the little room and smoothed his rumpled hair and +suffered his cravat to be arranged by Mrs. Plowson, who seemed very +anxious to find out the cause of his agitation. +</P><P> +"Poor dear old gentleman," she said, looking at Robert. +</P><P> +"What has happened to upset him so?" +</P><P> +"His son-in-law is dead," answered Mr. Audley, fixing his eyes upon Mrs. +Plowson's sympathetic face. "He died, within a year and a half after the +death of Helen Talboys, who lies burried in Ventnor churchyard." +</P><P> +The face into which he was looking changed very slightly, but the eyes +that had been looking at him shifted away as he spoke, and Mrs. Plowson +was obliged to moisten her white lips with her tongue before she +answered him. +</P><P> +"Poor Mr. Talboys dead!" she said; "that is bad news indeed, sir." +</P><P> +Little George looked wistfully up at his guardian's face as this was +said. +</P><P> +"Who's dead?" he said. "George Talboys is my name. Who's dead?" +</P><P> +"Another person whose name is Talboys, Georgey." +</P><P> +"Poor person! Will he go to the pit-hole?" +</P><P> +The boy had that notion of death which is generally imparted to children +by their wise elders, and which always leads the infant mind to the open +grave and rarely carries it any higher. +</P><P> +"I should like to <i>see</i> him put in the pit-hole," Georgey remarked, +after a pause. He had attended several infant funerals in the +neighborhood, and was considered valuable as a mourner on account of his +interesting appearance. He had come, therefore, to look upon the +ceremony of interment as a solemn festivity; in which cake and wine, and +a carriage drive were the leading features. +</P><P> +"You have no objection to my taking Georgey away with me, Mr. Maldon?" +asked Robert Audley. +</P><P> +The old man's agitation had very much subsided by this time. He had +found another pipe stuck behind the tawdry frame of the looking-glass, +and was trying to light it with a bit of twisted newspaper. +</P><P> +"You do not object, Mr. Maldon?" +</P><P> +"No, sir—no, sir; you are his guardian, and you have a right to take +him where you please. He has been a very great comfort to me in my +lonely old age, but I have been prepared to lose him. I—I may not have +always done my duty to him, sir, in—in the way of schooling, and—and +boots. The number of boots which boys of his age wear out, sir, is not +easily realized by the mind of a young man like yourself; he has been +kept away from school, perhaps, sometimes, and occasionally worn shabby +boots when our funds have got low; but he has not been unkindly treated. +No, sir; if you were to question him for a week, I don't think you'd +hear that his poor old grandfather ever said a harsh word to him." +</P><P> +Upon this, Georgie, perceiving the distress of his old protector, set up +a terrible howl, and declared that he would never leave him. +</P><P> +"Mr. Maldon," said Robert Audley, with a tone which was half-mournful, +half-compassionate, "when I looked at my position last night, I did not +believe that I could ever come to think it more painful than I thought +it then. I can only say—God have mercy upon us all. I feel it my duty +to take the child away, but I shall take him straight from your house to +the best school in Southampton; and I give you my honor that I will +extort nothing from his innocent simplicity which can in any manner—I +mean," he said, breaking off abruptly, "I mean this. I will not seek to +come one step nearer the secret through him. I—I am not a detective +officer, and I do not think the most accomplished detective would like +to get his information from a child." +</P><P> +The old man did not answer; he sat with his face shaded by his hand, and +with his extinguished pipe between the listless fingers of the other. +</P><P> +"Take the boy away, Mrs. Plowson," he said, after a pause; "take him +away and put his things on. He is going with Mr. Audley." +</P><P> +"Which I do say that it's not kind of the gentleman to take his poor +grandpa's pet away," Mrs. Plowson exclaimed, suddenly, with respectful +indignation. +</P><P> +"Hush, Mrs. Plowson," the old man answered, piteously; "Mr. Audley is +the best judge. I—I haven't many years to live; I sha'n't trouble +anybody long." +</P><P> +The tears oozed slowly through the dirty fingers with which he shaded +his blood-shot eyes, as he said this. +</P><P> +"God knows, I never injured your friend, sir," he said, by-and-by, when +Mrs. Plowson and Georgey had returned, "nor even wished him any ill. He +was a good son-in-law to me—better than many a son. I never did him any +wilful wrong, sir. I—I spent his money, perhaps, but I am sorry for +it—I am very sorry for it now. But I don't believe he is dead—no, sir; +no, I don't believe it!" exclaimed the old man, dropping his hand from +his eyes, and looking with new energy at Robert Audley. "I—I don't +believe it, sir! How—how should he be dead?" +</P><P> +Robert did not answer this eager questioning. He shook his head +mournfully, and, walking to the little window, looked out across a row +of straggling geraniums at the dreary patch of waste ground on which the +children were at play. +</P><P> +Mrs. Plowson returned with little Georgey muffled in a coat and +comforter, and Robert took the boy's hand. +</P><P> +The little fellow sprung toward the old man, and clinging about him, +kissed the dirty tears from his faded cheeks. +</P><P> +"Don't be sorry for me, gran'pa," he said; "I am going to school to +learn to be a clever man, and I shall come home to see you and Mrs. +Plowson, sha'n't I?" he added, turning to Robert. +</P><P> +"Yes, my dear, by-and-by." +</P><P> +"Take him away, sir—take him away," cried Mr. Maldon; "you are breaking +my heart." +</P><P> +The little fellow trotted away contentedly at Robert's side. He was very +well pleased at the idea of going to school, though he had been happy +enough with his drunken old grandfather, who had always displayed a +maudlin affection for the pretty child, and had done his best to spoil +Georgey, by letting him have his own way in everything; in consequence +of which indulgence, Master Talboys had acquired a taste for late hours, +hot suppers of the most indigestible nature, and sips of rum-and-water +from his grandfather's glass. +</P><P> +He communicated his sentiments upon many subjects to Robert Audley, as +they walked to the Dolphin Hotel; but the barrister did not encourage +him to talk. +</P><P> +It was no very difficult matter to find a good school in such a place as +Southampton. Robert Audley was directed to a pretty house between the +Bar and the Avenue, and leaving Georgey to the care of a good-natured +waiter, who seemed to have nothing to do but to look out of the window, +and whisk invisible dust off the brightly polished tables, the barrister +walked up the High street toward Mr. Marchmont's academy for young +gentlemen. +</P><P> +He found Mr. Marchmont a very sensible man, and he met a file of +orderly-looking young gentlemen walking townward under the escort of a +couple of ushers as he entered the house. +</P><P> +He told the schoolmaster that little George Talboys had been left in his +charge by a dear friend, who had sailed for Australia some months +before, and whom he believed to be dead. He confided him to Mr. +Marchmont's especial care, and he further requested that no visitors +should be admitted to see the boy unless accredited by a letter from +himself. Having arranged the matter in a very few business-like words, +he returned to the hotel to fetch Georgey. +</P><P> +He found the little man on intimate terms with the idle waiter, who had +been directing Master Georgey's attention to the different objects of +interest in the High street. +</P><P> +Poor Robert had about as much notion of the requirements of a child as +he had of those of a white elephant. He had catered for silkworms, +guinea-pigs, dormice, canary-birds, and dogs, without number, during his +boyhood, but he had never been called upon to provide for a young person +of five years old. +</P><P> +He looked back five-and-twenty years, and tried to remember his own diet +at the age of five. +</P><P> +"I've a vague recollection of getting a good deal of bread and milk and +boiled mutton," he thought; "and I've another vague recollection of not +liking them. I wonder if this boy likes bread and milk and boiled +mutton." +</P><P> +He stood pulling his thick mustache and staring thoughtfully at the +child for some minutes before he could get any further. +</P><P> +"I dare say you're hungry, Georgey?" he said, at last. +</P><P> +The boy nodded, and the waiter whisked some more invisible dust from the +nearest table as a preparatory step toward laying a cloth. +</P><P> +"Perhaps you'd like some lunch?" Mr. Audley suggested, still pulling his +mustache. +</P><P> +The boy burst out laughing. +</P><P> +"Lunch!" he cried. "Why, it's afternoon, and I've had my dinner." +</P><P> +Robert Audley felt himself brought to a standstill. What refreshment +could he possibly provide for a boy who called it afternoon at three +o'clock? +</P><P> +"You shall have some bread and milk, Georgey," he said, presently. +"Waiter, bread and milk, and a pint of hock." +</P><P> +Master Talboys made a wry face. +</P><P> +"I never have bread and milk," he said, "I don't like it. I like what +gran'pa calls something savory. I should like a veal cutlet. Gran'pa +told me he dined here once, and the veal cutlets were lovely, gran'pa +said. Please may I have a veal cutlet, with egg and bread-crumb, you +know, and lemon-juice you know?" he added to the waiter: "Gran'pa knows +the cook here. The cook's such a nice gentleman, and once gave me a +shilling, when gran'pa brought me here. The cook wears better clothes +than gran'pa—better than yours, even," said Master Georgey, pointing to +Robert's rough great-coat with a depreciating nod. +</P><P> +Robert Audley stared aghast. How was he to deal with this epicure of +five years old, who rejected bread and milk and asked for veal cutlets? +</P><P> +"I'll tell you what I'll do with you, little Georgey," he exclaimed, +after a pause—"<i>I'll give you a dinner!</i>" +</P><P> +The waiter nodded briskly. +</P><P> +"Upon my word, sir," he said, approvingly, "I think the little gentleman +will know how to eat it." +</P><P> +"I'll give you a dinner, Georgey," repeated Robert—"some stewed eels, a +little Julienne, a dish of cutlets, a bird, and a pudding. What do you +say to that, Georgey?" +</P><P> +"I don't think the young gentleman will object to it when he sees it, +sir," said the waiter. "Eels, Julienne, cutlets, bird, pudding—I'll go +and tell the cook, sir. What time, sir?" +</P><P> +"Well, we'll say six, and Master Georgey will get to his new school by +bedtime. You can contrive to amuse the child for this afternoon, I dare +say. I have some business to settle, and sha'n't be able to take him +out. I shall sleep here to-night. Good-by, Georgey; take care of +yourself and try and get your appetite in order against six o'clock." +</P><P> +Robert Audley left the boy in charge of the idle waiter, and strolled +down to the water side, choosing that lonely bank which leads away under +the moldering walls of the town toward the little villages beside the +narrowing river. +</P><P> +He had purposely avoided the society of the child, and he walked through +the light drifting snow till the early darkness closed upon him. +</P><P> +He went back to the town, and made inquiries at the station about the +trains for Dorsetshire. +</P><P> +"I shall start early to-morrow morning," he thought, "and see George's +father before nightfall. I will tell him all—all but the interest which +I take in—in the suspected person, and he shall decide what is next to +be done." +</P><P> +Master Georgey did very good justice to the dinner which Robert had +ordered. He drank Bass' pale ale to an extent which considerably alarmed +his entertainer, and enjoyed himself amazingly, showing an appreciation +of roast pheasant and bread-sauce which was beyond his years. At eight +o'clock a fly was brought out for his accommodation, and he departed in +the highest spirits, with a sovereign in his pocket, and a letter from +Robert to Mr. Marchmont, inclosing a check for the young gentleman's +outfit. +</P><P> +"I'm glad I'm going to have new clothes," he said, as he bade Robert +good-by; "for Mrs. Plowson has mended the old ones ever so many times. +She can have them now, for Billy." +</P><P> +"Who's Billy?" Robert asked, laughing at the boy's chatter. +</P><P> +"Billy is poor Matilda's little boy. He's a common boy, you know. +Matilda was common, but she—" +</P><P> +But the flyman snapping his whip at this moment, the old horse jogged +off, and Robert Audley heard no more of Matilda. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXII.</H2> +<H3>COMING TO A STANDSTILL.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Mr. Harcourt Talboys lived in a prim, square, red-brick mansion, within +a mile of a little village called Grange Heath, in Dorsetshire. The +prim, square, red-brick mansion stood in the center of prim, square +grounds, scarcely large enough to be called a park, too large to be +called anything else—so neither the house nor the grounds had any name, +and the estate was simply designated Squire Talboys'. +</P><P> +Perhaps Mr. Harcourt Talboys was the last person in this world with whom +it was possible to associate the homely, hearty, rural old English title +of squire. He neither hunted nor farmed. He had never worn crimson, +pink, or top-boots in his life. A southerly wind and a cloudy sky were +matters of supreme indifference to him, so long as they did not in any +way interfere with his own prim comforts; and he only cared for the +state of the crops inasmuch as it involved the hazard of certain rents +which he received for the farms upon his estate. He was a man of about +fifty years of age, tall, straight, bony and angular, with a square, +pale face, light gray eyes, and scanty dark hair, brushed from either +ear across a bald crown, and thus imparting to his physiognomy some +faint resemblance to that of a terrier—a sharp, uncompromising, +hard-headed terrier—a terrier not to be taken in by the cleverest +dog-stealer who ever distinguished himself in his profession. +</P><P> +Nobody ever remembered getting upon what is popularly called the blind +side of Harcourt Talboys. He was like his own square-built, +northern-fronted, shelterless house. There were no shady nooks in his +character into which one could creep for shelter from his hard daylight. +He was all daylight. He looked at everything in the same broad glare of +intellectual sunlight, and would see no softening shadows that might +alter the sharp outlines of cruel facts, subduing them to beauty. I do +not know if I express what I mean, when I say that there were no curves +in his character—that his mind ran in straight lines, never diverging +to the right or the left to round off their pitiless angles. With him +right was right, and wrong was wrong. He had never in his merciless, +conscientious life admitted the idea that circumstances might mitigate +the blackness of wrong or weaken the force of right. He had cast off his +only son because his only son had disobeyed him, and he was ready to +cast off his only daughter at five minutes' notice for the same reason. +</P><P> +If this square-built, hard-headed man could be possessed of such a +weakness as vanity, he was certainly vain of his hardness. He was vain +of that inflexible squareness of intellect, which made him the +disagreeable creature that he was. He was vain of that unwavering +obstinacy which no influence of love or pity had ever been known to bend +from its remorseless purpose. He was vain of the negative force of a +nature which had never known the weakness of the affections, or the +strength which may be born of that very weakness. +</P><P> +If he had regretted his son's marriage, and the breach of his own +making, between himself and George, his vanity had been more powerful +than his regret, and had enabled him to conceal it. Indeed, unlikely as +it appears at the first glance that such a man as this could have been +vain, I have little doubt that vanity was the center from which radiated +all the disagreeable lines in the character of Mr. Harcourt Talboys. I +dare say Junius Brutus was vain, and enjoyed the approval of +awe-stricken Rome when he ordered his son off for execution. Harcourt +Talboys would have sent poor George from his presence between the +reversed fasces of the lictors, and grimly relished his own agony. +Heaven only knows how bitterly this hard man may have felt the +separation between himself and his only son, or how much the more +terrible the anguish might have been made by that unflinching +self-conceit which concealed the torture. +</P><P> +"My son did me an unpardonable wrong by marrying the daughter of a +drunken pauper," Mr. Talboys would answer to any one who had the +temerity to speak to him about George, "and from that hour I had no +longer a son. I wish him no ill. He is simply dead to me. I am sorry for +him, as I am sorry for his mother who died nineteen years ago. If you +talk to me of him as you would talk of the dead, I shall be ready to +hear you. If you speak of him as you would speak of the living, I must +decline to listen." +</P><P> +I believe that Harcourt Talboys hugged himself upon the gloomy Roman +grandeur of this speech, and that he would like to have worn a toga, and +wrapped himself sternly in its folds, as he turned his back upon poor +George's intercessor. George never in his own person made any effort to +soften his father's verdict. He knew his father well enough to know that +the case was hopeless. +</P><P> +"If I write to him, he will fold my letter with the envelope inside, and +indorse it with my name and the date of its arrival," the young man +would say, "and call everybody in the house to witness that it had not +moved him to one softening recollection or one pitiful thought. He will +stick to his resolution to his dying day. I dare say, if the truth was +known, he is glad that his only son has offended him and given him the +opportunity of parading his Roman virtues." +</P><P> +George had answered his wife thus when she and her father had urged him +to ask assistance from Harcourt Talboys. +</P><P> +"No my darling," he would say, conclusively. "It's very hard, perhaps, +to be poor, but we will bear it. We won't go with pitiful faces to the +stern father, and ask him to give us food and shelter, only to be +refused in long, Johnsonian sentences, and made a classical example for +the benefit of the neighborhood. No, my pretty one; it is easy to +starve, but it is difficult to stoop." +</P><P> +Perhaps poor Mrs. George did not agree very heartily to the first of +these two propositions. She had no great fancy for starving, and she +whimpered pitifully when the pretty pint bottles of champagne, with +Cliquot's and Moet's brands upon their corks, were exchanged for +sixpenny ale, procured by a slipshod attendant from the nearest +beer-shop. George had been obliged to carry his own burden and lend a +helping hand with that of his wife, who had no idea of keeping her +regrets or disappointments a secret. +</P><P> +"I thought dragoons were always rich," she used to say, peevishly. +"Girls always want to marry dragoons; and tradespeople always want to +serve dragoons; and hotel-keepers to entertain dragoons; and theatrical +managers to be patronized by dragoons. Who could have ever expected that +a dragoon would drink sixpenny ale, smoke horrid bird's-eye tobacco, and +let his wife wear a shabby bonnet?" +</P><P> +If there were any selfish feelings displayed in such speeches as these, +George Talboys had never discovered it. He had loved and believed in his +wife from the first to the last hour of his brief married life. The love +that is not blind is perhaps only a spurious divinity after all; for +when Cupid takes the fillet from his eyes it is a fatally certain +indication that he is preparing to spread his wings for a flight. George +never forgot the hour in which he had first become bewitched by +Lieutenant Maldon's pretty daughter, and however she might have changed, +the image which had charmed him then, unchanged and unchanging, +represented her in his heart. +</P><P> +Robert Audley left Southampton by a train which started before daybreak, +and reached Wareham station early in the day. He hired a vehicle at +Wareham to take him over to Grange Heath. +</P><P> +The snow had hardened upon the ground, and the day was clear and frosty, +every object in the landscape standing in sharp outline against the cold +blue sky. The horses' hoofs clattered upon the ice-bound road, the iron +shoes striking on the ground that was almost as iron as themselves. The +wintry day bore some resemblance to the man to whom Robert was going. +Like him, it was sharp, frigid, and uncompromising: like him, it was +merciless to distress and impregnable to the softening power of +sunshine. It would accept no sunshine but such January radiance as would +light up the bleak, bare country without brightening it; and thus +resembled Harcourt Talboys, who took the sternest side of every truth, +and declared loudly to the disbelieving world that there never had been, +and never could be, any other side. +</P><P> +Robert Audley's heart sunk within him as the shabby hired vehicle +stopped at a stern-looking barred fence, and the driver dismounted to +open a broad iron gate which swung back with a clanking noise and was +caught by a great iron tooth, planted in the ground, which snapped at +the lowest bar of the gate as if it wanted to bite. +</P><P> +This iron gate opened into a scanty plantation of straight-limbed +fir-trees, that grew in rows and shook their sturdy winter foliage +defiantly in the very teeth of the frosty breeze. A straight graveled +carriage-drive ran between these straight trees across a smoothly kept +lawn to a square red-brick mansion, every window of which winked and +glittered in the January sunlight as if it had been that moment cleaned +by some indefatigable housemaid. +</P><P> +I don't know whether Junius Brutus was a nuisance in his own house, but +among other of his Roman virtues, Mr. Talboys owned an extreme aversion +to disorder, and was the terror of every domestic in his establishment. +</P><P> +The windows winked and the flight of stone steps glared in the sunlight, +the prim garden walks were so freshly graveled that they gave a sandy, +gingery aspect to the place, reminding one unpleasantly of red hair. The +lawn was chiefly ornamented with dark, wintry shrubs of a funereal +aspect which grew in beds that looked like problems in algebra; and the +flight of stone steps leading to the square half-glass door of the hall +was adorned with dark-green wooden tubs containing the same sturdy +evergreens. +</P><P> +"If the man is anything like his house," Robert thought, "I don't wonder +that poor George and he parted." +</P><P> +At the end of a scanty avenue the carriage-drive turned a sharp corner +(it would have been made to describe a curve in any other man's grounds) +and ran before the lower windows of the house. The flyman dismounted at +the steps, ascended them, and rang a brass-handled bell, which flew back +to its socket, with an angry, metallic snap, as if it had been insulted +by the plebeian touch of the man's hand. +</P><P> +A man in black trousers and a striped linen jacket, which was evidently +fresh from the hands of the laundress, opened the door. Mr. Talboys was +at home. Would the gentleman send in his card? +</P><P> +Robert waited in the hall while his card was taken to the master of the +house. +</P><P> +The hall was large and lofty, paved with stone. The panels of the oaken +wainscot shone with the same uncompromising polish which was on every +object within and without the red-bricked mansion. +</P><P> +Some people are so weak-minded as to affect pictures and statues. Mr. +Harcourt Talboys was far too practical to indulge in any foolish +fancies. A barometer and an umbrella-stand were the only adornments of +his entrance-hall. +</P><P> +Robert Audley looked at these while his name was being submitted to +George's father. +</P><P> +The linen-jacketed servant returned presently. He was a square, +pale-faced man of almost forty, and had the appearance of having +outlived every emotion to which humanity is subject. +</P><P> +"If you will step this way, sir," he said, "Mr. Talboys will see you, +although he is at breakfast. He begged me to state that everybody in +Dorsetshire was acquainted with his breakfast hour." +</P><P> +This was intended as a stately reproof to Mr. Robert Audley. It had, +however, very small effect upon the young barrister. He merely lifted +his eyebrows in placid deprecation of himself and everybody else. +</P><P> +"I don't belong to Dorsetshire," he said. "Mr. Talboys might have known +that, if he'd done me the honor to exercise his powers of ratiocination. +Drive on, my friend." +</P><P> +The emotionless man looked at Robert Audley with a vacant stare of +unmitigated horror, and opening one of the heavy oak doors, led the way +into a large dining-room furnished with the severe simplicity of an +apartment which is meant to be ate in, but never lived in; and at top of +a table which would have accommodated eighteen persons Robert beheld Mr. +Harcourt Talboys. +</P><P> +Mr. Talboys was robed in a dressing-gown of gray cloth, fastened about +his waist with a girdle. It was a severe looking garment, and was +perhaps the nearest approach to the toga to be obtained within the range +of modern costume. He wore a buff waistcoat, a stiffly starched cambric +cravat, and a faultless shirt collar. The cold gray of his dressing gown +was almost the same as the cold gray of his eyes, and the pale buff of +his waistcoat was the pale buff of his complexion. +</P><P> +Robert Audley had not expected to find Harcourt Talboys at all like +George in his manners or disposition, but he had expected to see some +family likeness between the father and the son. There was none. It would +have been impossible to imagine any one more unlike George than the +author of his existence. Robert scarcely wondered at the cruel letter he +received from Mr. Talboys when he saw the writer of it. Such a man could +scarcely have written otherwise. +</P><P> +There was a second person in the large room, toward whom Robert glanced +after saluting Harcourt Talboys, doubtful how to proceed. This second +person was a lady, who sat at the last of a range of four windows, +employed with some needlework, the kind which is generally called plain +work, and with a large wicker basket, filled with calicoes and flannels, +standing by her. +</P><P> +The whole length of the room divided this lady from Robert, but he could +see that she was young, and that she was like George Talboys. +</P><P> +"His sister!" he thought in that one moment, during which he ventured to +glance away from the master of the house toward the female figure at the +window. "His sister, no doubt. He was fond of her, I know. Surely, she +is not utterly indifferent as to his fate?" +</P><P> +The lady half rose from her seat, letting her work, which was large and +awkward, fall from her lap as she did so, and dropping a reel of cotton, +which rolled away upon the polished oaken flooring beyond the margin of +the Turkey carpet. +</P><P> +"Sit down, Clara," said the hard voice of Mr. Talboys. +</P><P> +That gentleman did not appear to address his daughter, nor had his face +been turned toward her when she rose. It seemed as if he had known it by +some social magnetism peculiar to himself; it seemed, as his servants +were apt disrespectfully to observe, as if he had eyes in the back of +his head. +</P><P> +"Sit down, Clara," he repeated, "and keep your cotton in your workbox." +</P><P> +The lady blushed at this reproof, and stooped to look for the cotton. +Mr. Robert Audley, who was unabashed by the stern presence of the master +of the house, knelt on the carpet, found the reel, and restored it to +its owner; Harcourt Talboys staring at the proceeding with an expression +of unmitigated astonishment. +</P><P> +"Perhaps, Mr. ——, Mr. Robert Audley!" he said, looking at the card +which he held between his finger and thumb, "perhaps when you have +finished looking for reels of cotton, you will be good enough to tell me +to what I owe the honor of this visit?" +</P><P> +He waved his well-shaped hand with a gesture which might have been +admired in the stately John Kemble; and the servant, understanding the +gesture, brought forward a ponderous red-morocco chair. +</P><P> +The proceeding was so slow and solemn, that Robert had at first thought +that something extraordinary was about to be done; but the truth dawned +upon him at last, and he dropped into the massive chair. +</P><P> +"You may remain, Wilson," said Mr. Talboys, as the servant was about to +withdraw; "Mr. Audley would perhaps like coffee." +</P><P> +Robert had eaten nothing that morning, but he glanced at the long +expanse of dreary table-cloth, the silver tea and coffee equipage, the +stiff splendor, and the very little appearance of any substantial +entertainment, and he declined Mr. Talboys' invitation. +</P><P> +"Mr. Audley will not take coffee, Wilson," said the master of the house. +"You may go." +</P><P> +The man bowed and retired, opening and shutting the door as cautiously +as if he were taking a liberty in doing it at all, or as if the respect +due to Mr. Talboys demanded his walking straight through the oaken panel +like a ghost in a German story. +</P><P> +Mr. Harcourt Talboys sat with his gray eyes fixed severely on his +visitor, his elbows on the red-morocco arms of his chair, and his +finger-tips joined. It was the attitude in which, had he been Junius +Brutus, he would have sat at the trial of his son. Had Robert Audley +been easily to be embarrassed, Mr. Talboys might have succeeded in +making him feel so: as he would have sat with perfect tranquility upon +an open gunpowder barrel lighting his cigar, he was not at all disturbed +upon this occasion. The father's dignity seemed a very small thing to +him when he thought of the possible causes of the son's disappearance. +</P><P> +"I wrote to you some time since, Mr. Talboys," he said quietly, when he +saw that he was expected to open the conversation. +</P><P> +Harcourt Talboys bowed. He knew that it was of his lost son that Robert +came to speak. Heaven grant that his icy stoicism was the paltry +affectation of a vain man, rather than the utter heartlessness which +Robert thought it. He bowed across his finger-tips at his visitor. The +trial had begun, and Junius Brutus was enjoying himself. +</P><P> +"I received your communication, Mr. Audley," he said. "It is among other +business letters: it was duly answered." +</P><P> +"That letter concerned your son." +</P><P> +There was a little rustling noise at the window where the lady sat, as +Robert said this: he looked at her almost instantaneously, but she did +not seem to have stirred. She was not working, but she was perfectly +quiet. +</P><P> +"She's as heartless as her father, I expect, though she is like George," +thought Mr. Audley. +</P><P> +"If your letter concerned the person who was once my son, perhaps, sir," +said Harcourt Talboys, "I must ask you to remember that I have no longer +a son." +</P><P> +"You have no reason to remind me of that, Mr. Talboys," answered Robert, +gravely; "I remember it only too well. I have fatal reason to believe +that you have no longer a son. I have bitter cause to think that he is +dead." +</P><P> +It may be that Mr. Talboys' complexion faded to a paler shade of buff as +Robert said this; but he only elevated his bristling gray eyebrows and +shook his head gently. +</P><P> +"No," he said, "no, I assure you, no." +</P><P> +"I believe that George Talboys died in the month of September." +</P><P> +The girl who had been addressed as Clara, sat with work primly folded +upon her lap, and her hands lying clasped together on her work, and +never stirred when Robert spoke of his friend's death. He could not +distinctly see her face, for she was seated at some distance from him, +and with her back to the window. +</P><P> +"No, no, I assure you," repeated Mr. Talboys, "you labor under a sad +mistake." +</P><P> +"You believe that I am mistaken in thinking your son dead?" asked +Robert. +</P><P> +"Most certainly," replied Mr. Talboys, with a smile, expressive of the +serenity of wisdom. "Most certainly, my dear sir. The disappearance was +a very clever trick, no doubt, but it was not sufficiently clever to +deceive me. You must permit me to understand this matter a little better +than you, Mr. Audley, and you must also permit me to assure you of three +things. In the first place, your friend is not dead. In the second +place, he is keeping out of the way for the purpose of alarming me, of +trifling with my feelings as a—as a man who was once his father, and of +ultimately obtaining my forgiveness. In the third place, he will not +obtain that forgiveness, however long he may please to keep out of the +way; and he would therefore act wisely by returning to his ordinary +residence and avocations without delay." +</P><P> +"Then you imagine him to purposely hide himself from all who know him, +for the purpose of—" +</P><P> +"For the purpose of influencing <i>me</i>," exclaimed Mr. Talboys, who, +taking a stand upon his own vanity, traced every event in life from that +one center, and resolutely declined to look at it from any other point +of view. "For the purpose of influencing me. He knew the inflexibility +of my character; to a certain degree he was acquainted with me, and knew +that all attempts at softening my decision, or moving me from the fixed +purpose of my life, would fail. He therefore tried extraordinary means; +he has kept out of the way in order to alarm me, and when after due time +he discovers that he has not alarmed me, he will return to his old +haunts. When he does so," said Mr. Talboys, rising to sublimity, "I will +forgive him. Yes, sir, I will forgive him. I shall say to him: You have +attempted to deceive me, and I have shown you that I am not to be +deceived; you have tried to frighten me, and I have convinced you that I +am not to be frightened; you did not believe in my generosity, I will +show you that I can be generous." +</P><P> +Harcourt Talboys delivered himself of these superb periods with a +studied manner, that showed they had been carefully composed long ago. +</P><P> +Robert Audley sighed as he heard them. +</P><P> +"Heaven grant that you may have an opportunity of saying this to your +son, sir," he answered sadly. "I am very glad to find that you are +willing to forgive him, but I fear that you will never see him again +upon this earth. I have a great deal to say to you upon this—this sad +subject, Mr. Talboys; but I would rather say it to you alone," he added, +glancing at the lady in the window. +</P><P> +"My daughter knows my ideas upon this subject, Mr. Audley," said +Harcourt Talboys; "there is no reason why she should not hear all you +have to say. Miss Clara Talboys, Mr. Robert Audley," he added, waving +his hand majestically. +</P><P> +The young lady bent her head in recognition of Robert's bow. +</P><P> +"Let her hear it," he thought. "If she has so little feeling as to show +no emotion upon such a subject, let her hear the worst I have to tell." +</P><P> +There was a few minutes' pause, during which Robert took some papers +from his pocket; among them the document which he had written +immediately after George's disappearance. +</P><P> +"I shall require all your attention, Mr. Talboys," he said, "for that +which I have to disclose to you is of a very painful nature. Your son +was my very dear friend—dear to me for many reasons. Perhaps most of +all dear, because I had known him and been with him through the great +trouble of his life; and because he stood comparatively alone in the +world—cast off by you who should have been his best friend, bereft of +the only woman he had ever loved." +</P><P> +"The daughter of a drunken pauper," Mr. Talboys remarked, +parenthetically. +</P><P> +"Had he died in his bed, as I sometimes thought be would," continued +Robert Audley, "of a broken heart, I should have mourned for him very +sincerely, even though I had closed his eyes with my own hands, and had +seen him laid in his quiet resting-place. I should have grieved for my +old schoolfellow, and for the companion who had been dear to me. But +this grief would have been a very small one compared to that which I +feel now, believing, as I do only too firmly, that my poor friend has +been murdered." +</P><P> +"Murdered!" +</P><P> +The father and daughter simultaneously repeated the horrible word. The +father's face changed to a ghastly duskiness of hue; the daughter's face +dropped upon her clasped hands, and was never lifted again throughout +the interview. +</P><P> +"Mr. Audley, you are mad!" exclaimed Harcourt Talboys; "you are mad, or +else you are commissioned by your friend to play upon my feelings. I +protest against this proceeding as a conspiracy, and I—I revoke my +intended forgiveness of the person who was once my son!" +</P><P> +He was himself again as he said this. The blow had been a sharp one, but +its effect had been momentary. +</P><P> +"It is far from my wish to alarm you unnecessarily, sir," answered +Robert. "Heaven grant that you may be right and I wrong. I pray for it, +but I cannot think it—I cannot even hope it. I come to you for advice. +I will state to you plainly and dispassionately the circumstances which +have aroused my suspicions. If you say those suspicions are foolish and +unfounded I am ready to submit to your better judgment. I will leave +England; and I abandon my search for the evidence wanting to—to confirm +my fears. If you say go on, I will go on." +</P><P> +Nothing could be more gratifying to the vanity of Mr. Harcourt Talboys +than this appeal. He declared himself ready to listen to all that Robert +might have to say, and ready to assist him to the uttermost of his +power. +</P><P> +He laid some stress upon this last assurance, deprecating the value of +his advice with an affectation that was as transparent as his vanity +itself. +</P><P> +Robert Audley drew his chair nearer to that of Mr. Talboys, and +commenced a minutely detailed account of all that had occurred to George +from the time of his arrival in England to the hour of his +disappearance, as well as all that had occurred since his disappearance +in any way touching upon that particular subject. Harcourt Talboys +listened with demonstrative attention, now and then interrupting the +speaker to ask some magisterial kind of question. Clara Talboys never +once lifted her face from her clasped hands. +</P><P> +The hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past eleven when Robert +began his story. The clock struck twelve as he finished. +</P><P> +He had carefully suppressed the names of his uncle and his uncle's wife +in relating the circumstances in which they had been concerned. +</P><P> +"Now, sir," he said, when the story had been told, "I await your +decision. You have heard my reasons for coming to this terrible +conclusion. In what manner do these reasons influence you?" +</P><P> +"They don't in any way turn me from my previous opinion," answered Mr. +Harcourt Talboys, with the unreasoning pride of an obstinate man. "I +still think, as I thought before, that my son is alive, and that his +disappearance is a conspiracy against myself. I decline to become the +victim of that conspiracy," +</P><P> +"And you tell me to stop?" asked Robert, solemnly. +</P><P> +"I tell you only this: If you go on, you go on for your own +satisfaction, not for mine. I see nothing in what you have told me to +alarm me for the safety of—your friend." +</P><P> +"So be it, then!" exclaimed Robert, suddenly; "from this moment I wash +my hands of this business. From this moment the purpose of my life shall +be to forget it." +</P><P> +He rose as he spoke, and took his hat from the table on which he had +placed it. He looked at Clara Talboys. Her attitude had never changed +since she had dropped her face upon her hands. "Good morning, Mr. +Talboys," he said, gravely. "God grant that you are right. God grant +that I am wrong. But I fear a day will come when you will have reason to +regret your apathy respecting the untimely fate of your only son." +</P><P> +He bowed gravely to Mr. Harcourt Talboys and to the lady, whose face was +hidden by her hands. +</P><P> +He lingered for a moment looking at Miss Talboys, thinking that she +would look up, that she would make some sign, or show some desire to +detain him. +</P><P> +Mr. Talboys rang for the emotionless servant, who led Robert off to the +hall-door with the solemnity of manner which would have been in perfect +keeping had he been leading him to execution. +</P><P> +"She is like her father," thought Mr. Audley, as he glanced for the last +time at the drooping head. "Poor George, you had need of one friend in +this world, for you have had very few to love you." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXIII.</H2> +<H3>CLARA.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Robert Audley found the driver asleep upon the box of his lumbering +vehicle. He had been entertained with beer of so hard a nature as to +induce temporary strangulation in the daring imbiber thereof, and he was +very glad to welcome the return of his fare. The old white horse, who +looked as if he had been foaled in the year in which the carriage had +been built, and seemed, like the carriage, to have outlived the fashion, +was as fast asleep as his master, and woke up with a jerk as Robert came +down the stony flight of steps, attended by his executioner, who waited +respectfully till Mr. Audley had entered the vehicle and been turned +off. +</P><P> +The horse, roused by a smack of his driver's whip and a shake of the +shabby reins, crawled off in a semi-somnambulent state; and Robert, with +his hat very much over his eyes, thought of his missing friend. +</P><P> +He had played in these stiff gardens, and under these dreary firs, years +ago, perhaps—if it were possible for the most frolicsome youth to be +playful within the range of Mr. Harcourt Talboys' hard gray eyes. He had +played beneath these dark trees, perhaps, with the sister who had heard +of his fate to day without a tear. Robert Audley looked at the rigid +primness of the orderly grounds, wondering how George could have grown +up in such a place to be the frank, generous, careless friend whom he +had known. How was it that with his father perpetually before his eyes, +he had not grown up after the father's disagreeable model, to be a +nuisance to his fellow-men? How was it? Because we have Some One higher +than our parents to thank for the souls which make us great or small; +and because, while family noses and family chins may descend in orderly +sequence from father to son, from grandsire to grandchild, as the +fashion of the fading flowers of one year is reproduced in the budding +blossoms of the next, the spirit, more subtle than the wind which blows +among those flowers, independent of all earthly rule, owns no order but +the harmonious law of God. +</P><P> +"Thank God!" thought Robert Audley; "thank God! it is over. My poor +friend must rest in his unknown grave; and I shall not be the means of +bringing disgrace upon those I love. It will come, perhaps, sooner or +later, but it will not come through me. The crisis is past, and I am +free." +</P><P> +He felt an unutterable relief in this thought. His generous nature +revolted at the office into which he had found himself drawn—the office +of spy, the collector of damning facts that led on to horrible +deductions. +</P><P> +He drew a long breath—a sigh of relief at his release. It was all over +now. +</P><P> +The fly was crawling out of the gate of the plantation as he thought +this, and he stood up in the vehicle to look back at the dreary +fir-trees, the gravel paths, the smooth grass, and the great +desolate-looking, red-brick mansion. +</P><P> +He was startled by the appearance of a woman running, almost flying, +along the carriage-drive by which he had come, and waving a handkerchief +in her uplifted hand. +</P><P> +He stared at this singular apparition for some moments in silent wonder +before he was able to reduce his stupefaction into words. +</P><P> +"Is it <i>me</i> the flying female wants?" he exclaimed, at last. "You'd +better stop, perhaps" he added, to the flyman. "It is an age of +eccentricity, an abnormal era of the world's history. She may want me. +Very likely I left my pocket-handkerchief behind me, and Mr. Talboys has +sent this person with it. Perhaps I'd better get out and go and meet +her. It's civil to send my handkerchief." +</P><P> +Mr. Robert Audley deliberately descended from the fly and walked slowly +toward the hurrying female figure, which gained upon him rapidly. +</P><P> +He was rather short sighted, and it was not until she came very near to +him that he saw who she was. +</P><P> +"Good Heaven!" he exclaimed, "it's Miss Talboys." +</P><P> +It was Miss Talboys, flushed and breathless, with a woolen shawl thrown +over her head. +</P><P> +Robert Audley now saw her face clearly for the first time, and he saw +that she was very handsome. She had brown eyes, like George's, a pale +complexion (she had been flushed when she approached him, but the color +faded away as she recovered her breath), regular features, with a +mobility of expression which bore record of every change of feeling. He +saw all this in a few moments, and he wondered only the more at the +stoicism of her manner during his interview with Mr. Talboys. There were +no tears in her eyes, but they were bright with a feverish +luster—terribly bright and dry—and he could see that her lips trembled +as she spoke to him. +</P><P> +"Miss Talboys," he said, "what can I—why—" +</P><P> +She interrupted him suddenly, catching at his wrist with her disengaged +hand—she was holding her shawl in the other. +</P><P> +"Oh, let me speak to you," she cried—"let me speak to you, or I shall +go mad. I heard it all. I believe what you believe, and I shall go mad +unless I can do something—something toward avenging his death." +</P><P> +For a few moments Robert Audley was too much bewildered to answer her. +Of all things possible upon earth he had least expected to behold her +thus. +</P><P> +"Take my arm, Miss Talboys," he said. "Pray calm yourself. Let us walk a +little way back toward the house, and talk quietly. I would not have +spoken as I did before you had I known—" +</P><P> +"Had you known that I loved my brother?" she said, quickly. "How should +you know that I loved him? How should any one think that I loved him, +when I have never had power to give him a welcome beneath that roof, or +a kindly word from his father? How should I dare to betray my love for +him in that house when I knew that even a sister's affection would be +turned to his disadvantage? You do not know my father, Mr. Audley. I do. +I knew that to intercede for George would have been to ruin his cause. I +knew that to leave matters in my father's hands, and to trust to time, +was my only chance of ever seeing that dear brother again. And I +waited—waited patiently, always hoping for the best; for I knew that my +father loved his only son. I see your contemptuous smile, Mr. Audley, +and I dare say it is difficult for a stranger to believe that underneath +his affected stoicism my father conceals some degree of affection for +his children—no very warm attachment perhaps, for he has always ruled +his life by the strict law of duty. Stop," she said, suddenly, laying +her hand upon his arm, and looking back through the straight avenue of +pines; "I ran out of the house by the back way. Papa must not see me +talking to you, Mr. Audley, and he must not see the fly standing at the +gate. Will you go into the high-road and tell the man to drive on a +little way? I will come out of the plantation by a little gate further +on, and meet you in the road." +</P><P> +"But you will catch cold, Miss Talboys," remonstrated Robert, looking at +her anxiously, for he saw that she was trembling. "You are shivering +now." +</P><P> +"Not with cold," she answered. "I am thinking of my brother George. If +you have any pity for the only sister of your lost friend, do what I ask +you, Mr. Audley. I must speak to you—I must speak to you—calmly, if I +can." +</P><P> +She put her hand to her head as if trying to collect her thoughts, and +then pointed to the gate. Robert bowed and left her. He told the man to +drive slowly toward the station, and walked on by the side of the tarred +fence surrounding Mr. Talboys' grounds. About a hundred yards beyond the +principal entrance he came to a little wooden gate in the fence, and +waited at it for Miss Talboys. +</P><P> +She joined him presently, with her shawl still over her head, and her +eyes still bright and tearless. +</P><P> +"Will you walk with me inside the plantation?" she said. "We might be +observed on the high-road." +</P><P> +He bowed, passed through the gate, and shut it behind him. +</P><P> +When she took his offered arm he found that she was still +trembling—trembling very violently. +</P><P> +"Pray, pray calm yourself, Miss Talboys," he said; "I may have been +deceived in the opinion which I have formed; I may—" +</P><P> +"No, no, no," she exclaimed, "you are not deceived. My brother has been +murdered. Tell me the name of that woman—the woman whom you suspect of +being concerned in his disappearance—in his murder." +</P><P> +"That I cannot do until—" +</P><P> +"Until when?" +</P><P> +"Until I know that she is guilty." +</P><P> +"You told my father that you would abandon all idea of discovering the +truth—that you would rest satisfied to leave my brother's fate a +horrible mystery never to be solved upon this earth; but you will not do +so, Mr. Audley—you will not be false to the memory of your friend. You +will see vengeance done upon those who have destroyed him. You will do +this, will you not?" +</P><P> +A gloomy shadow spread itself like a dark veil over Robert Audley's +handsome face. +</P><P> +He remembered what he had said the day before at Southampton: +</P><P> +"A hand that is stronger than my own is beckoning me onward, upon the +dark road." +</P><P> +A quarter of an hour before, he had believed that all was over, and that +he was released from the dreadful duty of discovering the secret of +George's death. Now this girl, this apparently passionless girl, had +found a voice, and was urging him on toward his fate. +</P><P> +"If you knew what misery to me may be involved in discovering the truth, +Miss Talboys," he said, "you would scarcely ask me to pursue this +business any farther?" +</P><P> +"But I do ask you," she answered, with suppressed passion—I do ask you. +I ask you to avenge my brother's untimely death. Will you do so? Yes or +no?" +</P><P> +"What if I answer no?" +</P><P> +"Then I will do it myself," she exclaimed, looking at him with her +bright brown eyes. "I myself will follow up the clew to this mystery; I +will find this woman—though you refuse to tell me in what part of +England my brother disappeared. I will travel from one end of the world +to the other to find the secret of his fate, if you refuse to find it +for me. I am of age; my own mistress; rich, for I have money left me by +one of my aunts; I shall be able to employ those who will help me in my +search, and I will make it to their interest to serve me well. Choose +between the two alternatives, Mr. Audley. Shall you or I find my +brother's murderer?" +</P><P> +He looked in her face, and saw that her resolution was the fruit of no +transient womanish enthusiasm which would give way under the iron hand +of difficulty. Her beautiful features, naturally statuesque in their +noble outlines, seemed transformed into marble by the rigidity of her +expression. The face in which he looked was the face of a woman whom +death only could turn from her purpose. +</P><P> +"I have grown up in an atmosphere of suppression," she said, quietly; "I +have stifled and dwarfed the natural feelings of my heart, until they +have become unnatural in their intensity; I have been allowed neither +friends nor lovers. My mother died when I was very young. My father has +always been to me what you saw him to-day. I have had no one but my +brother. All the love that my heart can hold has been centered upon him. +Do you wonder, then, that when I hear that his young life has been ended +by the hand of treachery, that I wish to see vengeance done upon the +traitor? Oh, my God," she cried, suddenly clasping her hands, and +looking up at the cold winter sky, "lead me to the murderer of my +brother, and let mine be the hand to avenge his untimely death." +</P><P> +Robert Audley stood looking at her with awe-stricken admiration. Her +beauty was elevated into sublimity by the intensity of her suppressed +passion. She was different to all other women that he had ever seen. His +cousin was pretty, his uncle's wife was lovely, but Clara Talboys was +beautiful. Niobe's face, sublimated by sorrow, could scarcely have been +more purely classical than hers. Even her dress, puritan in its gray +simplicity, became her beauty better than a more beautiful dress would +have become a less beautiful woman. +</P><P> +"Miss Talboys," said Robert, after a pause, "your brother shall not be +unavenged. He shall not be forgotten. I do not think that any +professional aid which you could procure would lead you as surely to the +secret of this mystery as I can lead you, if you are patient and trust +me." +</P><P> +"I will trust you," she answered, "for I see that you will help me." +</P><P> +"I believe that it is my destiny to do so," she said, solemnly. +</P><P> +In the whole course of his conversation with Harcourt Talboys, Robert +Audley had carefully avoided making any deductions from the +circumstances which he had submitted to George's father. He had simply +told the story of the missing man's life, from the hour of his arriving +in London to that of his disappearance; but he saw that Clara Talboys +had arrived at the same conclusion as himself, and that it was tacitly +understood between them. +</P><P> +"Have you any letters of your brother's, Miss Talboys?" he asked. +</P><P> +"Two. One written soon after his marriage, the other written at +Liverpool, the night before he sailed for Australia." +</P><P> +"Will you let me see them?" +</P><P> +"Yes, I will send them to you if you will give me your address You will +write to me from time to time, will you not, to tell me whether you are +approaching the truth. I shall be obliged to act secretly here, but I am +going to leave home in two or three months, and I shall be perfectly +free then to act as I please." +</P><P> +"You are not going to leave England?" Robert asked. +</P><P> +"Oh no! I am only going to pay a long-promised visit to some friends in +Essex." +</P><P> +Robert started so violently as Clara Talboys said this, that she looked +suddenly at his face. The agitation visible there, betrayed a part of +his secret. +</P><P> +"My brother George disappeared in Essex," she said. +</P><P> +He could not contradict her. +</P><P> +"I am sorry you have discovered so much," he replied. "My position +becomes every day more complicated, every day more painful. Good-bye." +</P><P> +She gave him her hand mechanically, when he held out his; but it was +cold as marble, and lay listlessly in his own, and fell like a log at +her side when he released it. +</P><P> +"Pray lose no time in returning to the house," he said earnestly. "I +fear you will suffer from this morning's work." +</P><P> +"Suffer!" she exclaimed, scornfully. "You talk to me of suffering, when +the only creature in this world who ever loved me has been taken from it +in the bloom of youth. What can there be for me henceforth but +suffering? What is the cold to me?" she said, flinging back her shawl +and baring her beautiful head to the bitter wind. "I would walk from +here to London barefoot through the snow, and never stop by the way, if +I could bring him back to life. What would I not do to bring him back? +What would I not do?" +</P><P> +The words broke from her in a wail of passionate sorrow; and clasping +her hands before her face, she wept for the first time that day. The +violence of her sobs shook her slender frame, and she was obliged to +lean against the trunk of a tree for support. +</P><P> +Robert looked at her with a tender compassion in his face; she was so +like the friend whom he had loved and lost, that it was impossible for +him to think of her as a stranger; impossible to remember that they had +met that morning for the first time. +</P><P> +"Pray, pray be calm," he said: "hope even against hope. We may both be +deceived; your brother may still live." +</P><P> +"Oh! if it were so," she murmured, passionately; "if it could be so." +</P><P> +"Let us try and hope that it may be so." +</P><P> +"No," she answered, looking at him through her tears, "let us hope for +nothing but revenge. Good-by, Mr. Audley. Stop; your address." +</P><P> +He gave her a card, which she put into the pocket of her dress. +</P><P> +"I will send you George's letters," she said; "they may help you. +Good-by." +</P><P> +She left him half bewildered by the passionate energy of her manner, and +the noble beauty of her face. He watched her as she disappeared among +the straight trunks of the fir-trees, and then walked slowly out of the +plantation. +</P><P> +"Heaven help those who stand between me and the secret," he thought, +"for they will be sacrificed to the memory of George Talboys." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXIV.</H2> +<H3>GEORGE'S LETTERS.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Robert Audley did not return to Southampton, but took a ticket for the +first up town train that left Wareham, and reached Waterloo Bridge an +hour or two after dark. The snow, which had been hard and crisp in +Dorsetshire, was a black and greasy slush in the Waterloo Road, thawed +by the flaring lamps of the gin-palaces and the glaring gas in the +butchers' shops. +</P><P> +Robert Audley shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the dingy streets +through which the Hansom carried him, the cab-man choosing—with that +delicious instinct which seems innate in the drivers of hackney +vehicles—all those dark and hideous thoroughfares utterly unknown to +the ordinary pedestrian. +</P><P> +"What a pleasant thing life is," thought the barrister. "What an +unspeakable boon—what an overpowering blessing! Let any man make a +calculation of his existence, subtracting the hours in which he has been +<i>thoroughly</i> happy—really and entirely at his ease, without one +<i>arriere pensee</i> to mar his enjoyment—without the most infinitesimal +cloud to overshadow the brightness of his horizon. Let him do this, and +surely he will laugh in utter bitterness of soul when he sets down the +sum of his felicity, and discovers the pitiful smallness of the amount. +He will have enjoyed himself for a week or ten days in thirty years, +perhaps. In thirty years of dull December, and blustering March, and +showery April, and dark November weather, there may have been seven or +eight glorious August days, through which the sun has blazed in +cloudless radiance, and the summer breezes have breathed perpetual balm. +How fondly we recollect these solitary days of pleasure, and hope for +their recurrence, and try to plan the circumstances that made them +bright; and arrange, and predestinate, and diplomatize with fate for a +renewal of the remembered joy. As if any joy could ever be built up out +of such and such constituent parts! As if happiness were not essentially +accidental—a bright and wandering bird, utterly irregular in its +migrations; with us one summer's day, and forever gone from us on the +next! Look at marriages, for instance," mused Robert, who was as +meditative in the jolting vehicle, for whose occupation he was to pay +sixpence a mile, as if he had been riding a mustang on the wild +loneliness of the prairies. "Look at marriage! Who is to say which shall +be the one judicious selection out of nine hundred and ninety-nine +mistakes! Who shall decide from the first aspect of the slimy creature, +which is to be the one eel out of the colossal bag of snakes? That girl +on the curbstone yonder, waiting to cross the street when my chariot +shall have passed, may be the one woman out of every female creature in +this vast universe who could make me a happy man. Yet I pass her +by—bespatter her with the mud from my wheels, in my helpless ignorance, +in my blind submission to the awful hand of fatality. If that girl, +Clara Talboys, had been five minutes later, I should have left +Dorsetshire thinking her cold, hard, and unwomanly, and should have gone +to my grave with that mistake part and parcel of my mind. I took her for +a stately and heartless automaton; I know her now to be a noble and +beautiful woman. What an incalculable difference this may make in my +life. When I left that house, I went out into the winter day with the +determination of abandoning all further thought of the secret of +George's death. I see her, and she forces me onward upon the loathsome +path—the crooked by-way of watchfulness and suspicion. How can I say to +this sister of my dead friend, 'I believe that your brother has been +murdered! I believe that I know by whom, but I will take no step to set +my doubts at rest, or to confirm my fears'? I cannot say this. This +woman knows half my secret; she will soon possess herself of the rest, +and then—and then—" +</P><P> +The cab stopped in the midst of Robert Audley's meditation, and he had +to pay the cabman, and submit to all the dreary mechanism of life, which +is the same whether we are glad or sorry—whether we are to be married +or hung, elevated to the woolsack, or disbarred by our brother benchers +on some mysterious technical tangle of wrong-doing, which is a social +enigma to those outside the <i>forum domesticum</i> of the Middle Temple. +</P><P> +We are apt to be angry with this cruel hardness in our life—this +unflinching regularity in the smaller wheels and meaner mechanism of the +human machine, which knows no stoppage or cessation, though the +mainspring be forever hollow, and the hands pointing to purposeless +figures on a shattered dial. +</P><P> +Who has not felt, in the first madness of sorrow, an unreasoning rage +against the mute propriety of chairs and tables, the stiff squareness of +Turkey carpets, the unbending obstinacy of the outward apparatus of +existence? We want to root up gigantic trees in a primeval forest, and +to tear their huge branches asunder in our convulsive grasp; and the +utmost that we can do for the relief of our passion is to knock over an +easy-chair, or smash a few shillings' worth of Mr. Copeland's +manufacture. +</P><P> +Madhouses are large and only too numerous; yet surely it is strange they +are not larger, when we think of how many helpless wretches must beat +their brains against this hopeless persistency of the orderly outward +world, as compared with the storm and tempest, the riot and confusion +within—when we remember how many minds must tremble upon the narrow +boundary between reason and unreason, mad to-day and sane to-morrow, mad +yesterday and sane to-day. +</P><P> +Robert Audley had directed the cabman to drop him at the corner of +Chancery Lane, and he ascended the brilliantly-lighted staircase leading +to the dining-saloon of The London, and seated himself at one of the +snug tables with a confused sense of emptiness and weariness, rather +than any agreeable sensation of healthy hunger. He had come to the +luxurious eating-house to dine, because it was absolutely necessary to +eat something somewhere, and a great deal easier to get a very good +dinner from Mr. Sawyer than a very bad one from Mrs. Maloney, whose mind +ran in one narrow channel of chops and steaks, only variable by small +creeks and outlets in the way of "broiled sole" or "boiled +mack'-<i>rill</i>." The solicitous waiter tried in vain to rouse poor Robert +to a proper sense of the solemnity of the dinner question. He muttered +something to the effect that the man might bring him anything he liked, +and the friendly waiter, who knew Robert as a frequent guest at the +little tables, went back to his master with a doleful face, to say that +Mr. Audley, from Figtree Court, was evidently out of spirits. Robert ate +his dinner, and drank a pint of Moselle; but he had poor appreciation of +the excellence of the viands or the delicate fragrance of the wine. The +mental monologue still went on, and the young philosopher of the modern +school was arguing the favorite modern question of the nothingness of +everything, and the folly of taking too much trouble to walk upon a road +that went nowhere, or to compass a work that meant nothing. +</P><P> +"I accept the dominion of that pale girl, with the statuesque features +and the calm brown eyes," he thought. "I recognize the power of a mind +superior to my own, and I yield to it, and bow down to it. I've been +acting for myself, and thinking for myself, for the last few months, and +I'm tired of the unnatural business. I've been false to the leading +principle of my life, and I've suffered for the folly. I found two gray +hairs in my head the week before last, and an impertinent crow has +planted a delicate impression of his foot under my right eye. Yes, I'm +getting old upon the right side; and why—why should it be so?" +</P><P> +He pushed away his plate and lifted his eyebrows, staring at the crumbs +upon the glistening damask, as he pondered the question. +</P><P> +"What the devil am I doing in this <i>galere</i>?" he asked. "But I am in it, +and I can't get out of it; so I better submit myself to the brown-eyed +girl, and do what she tells me patiently and faithfully. What a +wonderful solution to life's enigma there is in petticoat government! +Man might lie in the sunshine, and eat lotuses, and fancy it 'always +afternoon,' if his wife would let him! But she won't, bless her +impulsive heart and active mind! She knows better than that. Who ever +heard of a woman taking life as it ought to be taken? Instead of +supporting it as an unavoidable nuisance, only redeemable by its +brevity, she goes through it as if it were a pageant or a procession. +She dresses for it, and simpers and grins, and gesticulates for it. She +pushes her neighbors, and struggles for a good place in the dismal +march; she elbows, and writhes, and tramples, and prances to the one end +of making the most of the misery. She gets up early and sits up late, +and is loud, and restless, and noisy, and unpitying. She drags her +husband on to the woolsack, or pushes him into Parliament. She drives +him full butt at the dear, lazy machinery of government, and knocks and +buffets him about the wheels, and cranks, and screws, and pulleys; until +somebody, for quiet's sake, makes him something that she wanted him to +be made. That's why incompetent men sometimes sit in high places, and +interpose their poor, muddled intellects between the things to be done +and the people that can do them, making universal confusion in the +helpless innocence of well-placed incapacity. The square men in the +round holes are pushed into them by their wives. The Eastern potentate +who declared that women were at the bottom of all mischief, should have +gone a little further and seen why it is so. It is because women are +<i>never lazy</i>. They don't know what it is to be quiet. They are +Semiramides, and Cleopatras, and Joans of Arc, Queen Elizabeths, and +Catharines the Second, and they riot in battle, and murder, and clamor +and desperation. If they can't agitate the universe and play at ball +with hemispheres, they'll make mountains of warfare and vexation out of +domestic molehills, and social storms in household teacups. Forbid them +to hold forth upon the freedom of nations and the wrongs of mankind, and +they'll quarrel with Mrs. Jones about the shape of a mantle or the +character of a small maid-servant. To call them the weaker sex is to +utter a hideous mockery. They are the stronger sex, the noisier, the +more persevering, the most self-assertive sex. They want freedom of +opinion, variety of occupation, do they? Let them have it. Let them be +lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers, soldiers, legislators—anything +they like—but let them be quiet—if they can." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley pushed his hands through the thick luxuriance of his straight +brown hair, and uplifted the dark mass in his despair. +</P><P> +"I hate women," he thought, savagely. "They're bold, brazen, abominable +creatures, invented for the annoyance and destruction of their +superiors. Look at this business of poor George's! It's all woman's work +from one end to the other. He marries a woman, and his father casts him +off penniless and professionless. He hears of the woman's death and he +breaks his heart—his good honest, manly heart, worth a million of the +treacherous lumps of self-interest and mercenary calculation which beats +in women's breasts. He goes to a woman's house and he is never seen +alive again. And now I find myself driven into a corner by another +woman, of whose existence I had never thought until this day. And—and +then," mused Mr. Audley, rather irrelevantly, "there's Alicia, too; +<i>she's</i> another nuisance. She'd like me to marry her I know; and she'll +make me do it, I dare say, before she's done with me. But I'd much +rather not; though she is a dear, bouncing, generous thing, bless her +poor little heart." +</P><P> +Robert paid his bill and rewarded the waiter liberally. The young +barrister was very willing to distribute his comfortable little income +among the people who served him, for he carried his indifference to all +things in the universe, even to the matter of pounds, shillings and +pence. Perhaps he was rather exceptional in this, as you may frequently +find that the philosopher who calls life an empty delusion is pretty +sharp in the investment of his moneys, and recognizes the tangible +nature of India bonds, Spanish certificates, and Egyptian scrip—as +contrasted with the painful uncertainty of an Ego or a non-Ego in +metaphysics. +</P><P> +The snug rooms in Figtree Court seemed dreary in their orderly quiet to +Robert Audley upon this particular evening. He had no inclination for +his French novels, though there was a packet of uncut romances, comic +and sentimental, ordered a month before, waiting his pleasure upon one +of the tables. He took his favorite meerschaum and dropped into his +favorite chair with a sigh. +</P><P> +"It's comfortable, but it seems so deuced lonely to-night. If poor +George were sitting opposite to me, or—or even George's sister—she's +very like him—existence might be a little more endurable. But when a +fellow's lived by himself for eight or ten years he begins to be bad +company." +</P><P> +He burst out laughing presently as he finished his first pipe. +</P><P> +"The idea of my thinking of George's sister," he thought; "what a +preposterous idiot I am!" +</P><P> +The next day's post brought him a letter in a firm but feminine hand, +which was strange to him. He found the little packet lying on his +breakfast-table, beside the warm French roll wrapped in a napkin by Mrs. +Maloney's careful but rather dirty hands. He contemplated the envelope +for some minutes before opening it—not in any wonder as to his +correspondent, for the letter bore the postmark of Grange Heath, and he +knew that there was only one person who was likely to write to him from +that obscure village, but in that lazy dreaminess which was a part of +his character. +</P><P> +"From Clara Talboys," he murmured slowly, as he looked critically at the +clearly-shaped letters of his name and address. "Yes, from Clara +Talboys, most decidedly; I recognized a feminine resemblance to poor +George's hand; neater than his, and more decided than his, but very +like, very like." +</P><P> +He turned the letter over and examined the seal, which bore his friend's +familiar crest. +</P><P> +"I wonder what she says to me?" he thought. "It's a long letter, I dare +say; she's the kind of woman who would write a long letter—a letter +that will urge me on, drive me forward, wrench me out of myself, I've no +doubt. But that can't be helped—so here goes!" +</P><P> +He tore open the envelope with a sigh of resignation. It contained +nothing but George's two letters, and a few words written on the flap: +"I send the letters; please preserve and return them—C.T." +</P><P> +The letter, written from Liverpool, told nothing of the writer's life +except his sudden determination of starting for a new world, to redeem +the fortunes that had been ruined in the old. The letter written almost +immediately after George's marriage, contained a full description of his +wife—such a description as a man could only write within three weeks of +a love match—a description in which every feature was minutely +catalogued, every grace of form or beauty of expression fondly dwelt +upon, every charm of manner lovingly depicted. +</P><P> +Robert Audley read the letter three times before he laid it down. +</P><P> +"If George could have known for what a purpose this description would +serve when he wrote it," thought the young barrister, "surely his hand +would have fallen paralyzed by horror, and powerless to shape one +syllable of these tender words." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXV.</H2> +<H3>RETROGRADE INVESTIGATION.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +The dreary London January dragged its dull length slowly out. The last +slender records of Christmas time were swept away, and Robert Audley +still lingered in town—still spent his lonely evenings in his quiet +sitting-room in Figtree Court—still wandered listlessly in the Temple +Gardens on sunny mornings, absently listening to the children's babble, +idly watching their play. He had many friends among the inhabitants of +the quaint old buildings round him; he had other friends far away in +pleasant country places, whose spare bedrooms were always at Bob's +service, whose cheerful firesides had snugly luxurious chairs specially +allotted to him. But he seemed to have lost all taste for companionship, +all sympathy with the pleasures and occupations of his class, since the +disappearance of George Talboys. Elderly benchers indulged in facetious +observations upon the young man's pale face and moody manner. They +suggested the probability of some unhappy attachment, some feminine +ill-usage as the secret cause of the change. They told him to be of good +cheer, and invited him to supper-parties, at which "lovely woman, with +all her faults, God bless her," was drunk by gentlemen who shed tears as +they proposed the toast, and were maudlin and unhappy in their cups +toward the close of the entertainment. Robert had no inclination for the +wine-bibbing and the punch-making. The one idea of his life had become +his master. He was the bonden slave of one gloomy thought—one horrible +presentiment. A dark cloud was brooding above his uncle's house, and it +was his hand which was to give the signal for the thunder-clap, and the +tempest that was to ruin that noble life. +</P><P> +"If she would only take warning and run away," he said to himself +sometimes. "Heaven knows, I have given her a fair chance. Why doesn't +she take it and run away?" +</P><P> +He heard sometimes from Sir Michael, sometimes from Alicia. The young +lady's letter rarely contained more than a few curt lines informing him +that her papa was well; and that Lady Audley was in very high spirits, +amusing herself in her usual frivolous manner, and with her usual +disregard for other people. +</P><P> +A letter from Mr. Marchmont, the Southampton schoolmaster, informed +Robert that little Georgey was going on very well, but that he was +behindhand in his education, and had not yet passed the intellectual +Rubicon of words of two syllables. Captain Maldon had called to see his +grandson, but that privilege had been withheld from him, in accordance +with Mr. Audley's instructions. The old man had furthermore sent a +parcel of pastry and sweetmeats to the little boy, which had also been +rejected on the ground of indigestible and bilious tendencies in the +edibles. +</P><P> +Toward the close of February, Robert received a letter from his cousin +Alicia, which hurried him one step further forward toward his destiny, +by causing him to return to the house from which he had become in a +manner exiled at the instigation of his uncle's wife, +</P><P> +"Papa is very ill," Alicia wrote; "not dangerously ill, thank God; but +confined to his room by an attack of low fever which has succeeded a +violent cold. Come and see him, Robert, if you have any regard for your +nearest relations. He has spoken about you several times; and I know he +will be glad to have you with him. Come at once, but say nothing about +this letter. +</P><P> +"From your affectionate cousin, ALICIA." +</P><P> +A sick and deadly terror chilled Robert Audley's heart, as he read this +letter—a vague yet hideous fear, which he dared not shape into any +definite form. +</P><P> +"Have I done right?" he thought, in the first agony of this new +horror—"have I done right to tamper with justice; and to keep the +secret of my doubts in the hope that I was shielding those I love from +sorrow and disgrace? What shall I do if I find him ill, very ill, dying +perhaps, dying upon her breast! What shall I do?" +</P><P> +One course lay clear before him; and the first step of that course was a +rapid journey to Audley Court. He packed his portmanteau, jumped into a +cab, and reached the railway station within an hour of his receipt of +Alicia's letter, which had come by the afternoon post. +</P><P> +The dim village lights flickered faintly through the growing dusk when +Robert reached Audley. He left his portmanteau with the station-master, +and walked at a leisurely pace through the quiet lanes that led away to +the still loneliness of the Court. The over-arching trees stretched +their leafless branches above his head, bare and weird in the dusky +light. A low moaning wind swept across the flat meadow land, and tossed +those rugged branches hither and thither against the dark gray sky. They +looked like the ghostly arms of shrunken and withered giants, beckoning +Robert to his uncle's house. They looked like threatening phantoms in +the chill winter twilight, gesticulating to him to hasten upon his +journey. The long avenue so bright and pleasant when the perfumed limes +scattered their light bloom upon the pathway, and the dog-rose leaves +floated on the summer air, was terribly bleak and desolate in the +cheerless interregnum that divides the homely joys of Christmas from the +pale blush of coming spring—a dead pause in the year, in which Nature +seems to lie in a tranced sleep, awaiting the wondrous signal for the +budding of the flower. +</P><P> +A mournful presentiment crept into Robert Audley's heart as he drew +nearer to his uncle's house. Every changing outline in the landscape was +familiar to him; every bend of the trees; every caprice of the +untrammeled branches; every undulation in the bare hawthorn hedge, +broken by dwarf horse-chestnuts, stunted willows, blackberry and hazel +bushes. +</P><P> +Sir Michael had been a second father to the young man, a generous and +noble friend, a grave and earnest adviser; and perhaps the strongest +sentiment of Robert's heart was his love for the gray-bearded baronet. +But the grateful affection was so much a part of himself, that it seldom +found an outlet in words, and a stranger would never have fathomed the +depth of feeling which lay, a deep and powerful current, beneath the +stagnant surface of the barrister's character. +</P><P> +"What would become of this place if my uncle were to die?" he thought, +and he drew nearer to the ivied archway, and the still water-pools, +coldly gray in the twilight. "Would other people live in the old house, +and sit under the low oak ceilings in the homely familiar rooms?" +</P><P> +That wonderful faculty of association, so interwoven with the inmost +fibers of even the hardest nature, filled the young man's breast with a +prophetic pain as he remembered that, however long or late, the day must +come on which the oaken shutters would be closed for awhile, and the +sunshine shut out of the house he loved. It was painful to him even to +remember this; as it must always be painful to think of the narrow lease +the greatest upon this earth can ever hold of its grandeurs. Is it so +wonderful that some wayfarers drop asleep under the hedges, scarcely +caring to toil onward on a journey that leads to no abiding habitation? +Is it wonderful that there have been quietists in the world ever since +Christ's religion was first preached upon earth. Is it strange that +there is a patient endurance and tranquil resignation, calm expectation +of that which is to come on the further shore of the dark flowing river? +Is it not rather to be wondered that anybody should ever care to be +great for greatness' sake; for any other reason than pure +conscientiousness; the simple fidelity of the servant who fears to lay +his talents by in a napkin, knowing that indifference is near akin to +dishonesty? If Robert Audley had lived in the time of Thomas a'Kempis, +he would very likely have built himself a narrow hermitage amid some +forest loneliness, and spent his life in tranquil imitation of the +reputed author of <i>The Imitation</i>. As it was, Figtree Court was a +pleasant hermitage in its way, and for breviaries and Books of Hours, I +am ashamed to say the young barrister substituted Paul de Kock and +Dumas, fils. But his sins were of so simply negative an order, that it +would have been very easy for him to have abandoned them for negative +virtues. +</P><P> +Only one solitary light was visible in the long irregular range of +windows facing the archway, as Robert passed under the gloomy shade of +the rustling ivy, restless in the chill moaning of the wind. He +recognized that lighted window as the large oriel in his uncle's room. +When last he had looked at the old house it had been gay with visitors, +every window glittering like a low star in the dusk; now, dark and +silent, it faced the winter's night like some dismal baronial +habitation, deep in a woodland solitude. +</P><P> +The man who opened the door to the unlooked-for visitor, brightened as +he recognized his master's nephew. +</P><P> +"Sir Michael will be cheered up a bit, sir, by the sight of you," he +said, as he ushered Robert Audley into the fire-lit library, which +seemed desolate by reason of the baronet's easy-chair standing empty on +the broad hearth-rug. "Shall I bring you some dinner here, sir, before +you go up-stairs?" the servant asked. "My lady and Miss Audley have +dined early during my master's illness, but I can bring you anything you +would please to take, sir." +</P><P> +"I'll take nothing until I have seen my uncle," Robert answered, +hurriedly; "that is to say, if I can see him at once. He is not too ill +to receive me, I suppose?" he added, anxiously. +</P><P> +"Oh, no, sir—not too ill; only a little low, sir. This way, if you +please." +</P><P> +He conducted Robert up the short flight of shallow oaken stairs to the +octagon chamber in which George Talboys had sat long five months before, +staring absently at my lady's portrait. The picture was finished now, +and hung in the post of honor opposite the window, amidst Claudes, +Poussins and Wouvermans, whose less brilliant hues were killed by the +vivid coloring of the modern artist. The bright face looked out of that +tangled glitter of golden hair, in which the Pre-Raphaelites delight, +with a mocking smile, as Robert paused for a moment to glance at the +well-remembered picture. Two or three moments afterward he had passed +through my lady's boudoir and dressing-room and stood upon the threshold +of Sir Michael's room. The baronet lay in a quiet sleep, his arm laying +outside the bed, and his strong hand clasped in his young wife's +delicate fingers. Alicia sat in a low chair beside the broad open +hearth, on which the huge logs burned fiercely in the frosty atmosphere. +The interior of this luxurious bedchamber might have made a striking +picture for an artist's pencil. The massive furniture, dark and somber, +yet broken up and relieved here and there by scraps of gilding, and +masses of glowing color; the elegance of every detail, in which wealth +was subservient to purity of taste; and last, but greatest in +importance, the graceful figures of the two women, and the noble form of +the old man would have formed a worthy study for any painter. +</P><P> +Lucy Audley, with her disordered hair in a pale haze of yellow gold +about her thoughtful face, the flowing lines of her soft muslin +dressing-gown falling in straight folds to her feet, and clasped at the +waist by a narrow circlet of agate links might have served as a model +for a mediaeval saint, in one of the tiny chapels hidden away in the +nooks and corners of a gray old cathedral, unchanged by Reformation or +Cromwell; and what saintly martyr of the Middle Ages could have borne a +holier aspect than the man whose gray beard lay upon the dark silken +coverlet of the stately bed? +</P><P> +Robert paused upon the threshold, fearful of awaking his uncle. The two +ladies had heard his step, cautious though he had been, and lifted their +heads to look at him. My lady's face, quietly watching the sick man, had +worn an anxious earnestness which made it only more beautiful; but the +same face recognizing Robert Audley, faded from its delicate brightness, +and looked scared and wan in the lamplight. +</P><P> +"Mr. Audley!" she cried, in a faint, tremulous voice. +</P><P> +"Hush!" whispered Alicia, with a warning gesture; "you will wake papa. +How good of you to come, Robert," she added, in the same whispered +tones, beckoning to her cousin to take an empty chair near the bed. +</P><P> +The young man seated himself in the indicated seat at the bottom of the +bed, and opposite to my lady, who sat close beside the pillows. He +looked long and earnestly at the face of the sleeper; still longer, +still more earnestly at the face of Lady Audley, which was slowly +recovering its natural hues. +</P><P> +"He has not been very ill, has he?" Robert asked, in the same key as +that in which Alicia had spoken. +</P><P> +My lady answered the question. +</P><P> +"Oh, no, not dangerously ill," she said, without taking her eyes from +her husband's face; "but still we have been anxious, very, very +anxious." +</P><P> +Robert never relaxed his scrutiny of that pale face. +</P><P> +"She shall look at me," he thought; "I will make her meet my eyes, and I +will read her as I have read her before. She shall know how useless her +artifices are with me." +</P><P> +He paused for a few minutes before he spoke again. The regular breathing +of the sleeper the ticking of a gold hunting-watch at the head of the +bed, and the crackling of the burning logs, were the only sounds that +broke the stillness. +</P><P> +"I have no doubt you have been anxious, Lady Audley," Robert said, after +a pause, fixing my lady's eyes as they wandered furtively to his face. +"There is no one to whom my uncle's life I can be of more value than to +you. Your happiness, your prosperity, your <i>safety</i> depend alike upon +his existence." +</P><P> +The whisper in which he uttered these words was too low to reach the +other side of the room, where Alicia sat. +</P><P> +Lucy Audley's eyes met those of the speaker with some gleam of triumph +in their light. +</P><P> +"I know that," she said. "Those who strike me must strike through him." +</P><P> +She pointed to the sleeper as she spoke, still looking at Robert Audley. +She defied him with her blue eyes, their brightness intensified by the +triumph in their glance. She defied him with her quiet smile—a smile of +fatal beauty, full of lurking significance and mysterious meaning—the +smile which the artist had exaggerated in his portrait of Sir Michael's +wife. +</P><P> +Robert turned away from the lovely face, and shaded his eyes with his +hand; putting a barrier between my lady and himself; a screen which +baffled her penetration and provoked her curiosity. Was he still +watching her or was he thinking? and of what was he thinking? +</P><P> +Robert had been seated at the bedside for upward of an hour before his +uncle awoke. The baronet was delighted at his nephew's coming. +</P><P> +"It was very good of you to come to me, Bob," he said. "I have been +thinking of you a good deal since I have been ill. You and Lucy must be +good friends, you know, Bob; and you must learn to think of her as your +aunt, sir; though she is young and beautiful; and—and—you understand, +eh?" +</P><P> +Robert grasped his uncle's hand, but he looked down as he answered: "I +do understand you, sir," he said, quietly; "and I give you my word of +honor that I am steeled against my lady's fascinations. She knows that +as well as I do." +</P><P> +Lucy Audley made a little grimace with her pretty little lips. "Bah, you +silly Robert," she exclaimed; "you take everything <i>au serieux</i>. If I +thought you were rather too young for a nephew, it was only in my fear +of other people's foolish gossip; not from any—" +</P><P> +She hesitated for a moment, and escaped any conclusion to her sentence +by the timely intervention of Mr. Dawson, her late employer, who entered +the room upon his evening visit while she was speaking. +</P><P> +He felt the patient's pulse; asked two or three questions; pronounced +the baronet to be steadily improving; exchanged a few commonplace +remarks with Alicia and Lady Audley, and prepared to leave the room. +Robert rose and accompanied him to the door. +</P><P> +"I will light you to the staircase," he said, taking a candle from one +of the tables, and lighting it at the lamp. +</P><P> +"No, no, Mr. Audley, pray do not trouble yourself," expostulated the +surgeon; "I know my way very well indeed." +</P><P> +Robert insisted, and the two men left the room together. As they entered +the octagon ante-chamber the barrister paused and shut the door behind +him. +</P><P> +"Will you see that the door is closed, Mr. Dawson?" he said, pointing to +that which opened upon the staircase. "I wish to have a few moments' +private conversation with you." +</P><P> +"With much pleasure," replied the surgeon, complying with Robert's +request; "but if you are at all alarmed about your uncle, Mr. Audley, I +can set your mind at rest. There is no occasion for the least +uneasiness. Had his illness been at all serious I should have +telegraphed immediately for the family physician." +</P><P> +"I am sure that you would have done your duty, sir," answered Robert, +gravely. "But I am not going to speak of my uncle. I wish to ask you two +or three questions about another person." +</P><P> +"Indeed." +</P><P> +"The person who once lived in your family as Miss Lucy Graham; the +person who is now Lady Audley." +</P><P> +Mr. Dawson looked up with an expression of surprise upon his quiet face. +</P><P> +"Pardon me, Mr. Audley," he answered; "you can scarcely expect me to +answer any questions about your uncle's wife without Sir Michael's +express permission. I can understand no motive which can prompt you to +ask such questions—no worthy motive, at least." He looked severely at +the young man, as much as to say: "You have been falling in love with +your uncle's pretty wife, sir, and you want to make me a go-between in +some treacherous flirtation; but it won't do, sir, it won't do." +</P><P> +"I always respected the lady as Miss Graham, sir," he said, "and I +esteem her doubly as Lady Audley—not on account of her altered +position, but because she is the wife of one of the noblest men in +Christendom." +</P><P> +"You cannot respect my uncle or my uncle's honor more sincerely than I +do," answered Robert. "I have no unworthy motive for the questions I am +about to ask; and you must answer them." +</P><P> +"<i>Must!</i>" echoed Mr. Dawson, indignantly. +</P><P> +"Yes, you are my uncle's friend. It was at your house he met the woman +who is now his wife. She called herself an orphan, I believe, and +enlisted his pity as well as his admiration in her behalf. She told him +that she stood alone in the world, did she not?—without a friend or +relative. This was all I could ever learn of her antecedents." +</P><P> +"What reason have you to wish to know more?" asked the surgeon. +</P><P> +"A very terrible reason," answered Robert Audley. "For some months past +I have struggled with doubts and suspicions which have embittered my +life. They have grown stronger every day; and they will not be set at +rest by the commonplace sophistries and the shallow arguments with which +men try to deceive themselves rather than believe that which of all +things upon earth they most fear to believe. I do not think that the +woman who bears my uncle's name, is worthy to be his wife. I may wrong +her. Heaven grant that it is so. But if I do, the fatal chain of +circumstantial evidence never yet linked itself so closely about an +innocent person. I wish to set my doubts at rest or—or to confirm my +fears. There is but one manner in which I can do this. I must trace the +life of my uncle's wife backward, minutely and carefully, from this +night to a period of six years ago. This is the twenty-fourth of +February, fifty-nine. I want to know every record of her life between +to-night and the February of the year fifty-three." +</P><P> +"And your motive is a worthy one?" +</P><P> +"Yes, I wish to clear her from a very dreadful suspicion." +</P><P> +"Which exists only in your mind?" +</P><P> +"And in the mind of one other person." +</P><P> +"May I ask who that person is?" +</P><P> +"No, Mr. Dawson," answered Robert, decisively; "I cannot reveal anything +more than what I have already told you. I am a very irresolute, +vacillating man in most things. In this matter I am compelled to be +decided. I repeat once more that I <i>must</i> know the history of Lucy +Graham's life. If you refuse to help me to the small extent in your +power, I will find others who will help me. Painful as it would become, +I will ask my uncle for the information which you would withhold, rather +than be baffled in the first step of my investigation." +</P><P> +Mr. Dawson was silent for some minutes. +</P><P> +"I cannot express how much you have astonished and alarmed me, Mr. +Audley." he said. "I can tell you so little about Lady Audley's +antecedents, that it would be mere obstinacy to withhold the small +amount of information I possess. I have always considered your uncle's +wife one of the most amiable of women. I <i>cannot</i> bring myself to think +her otherwise. It would be an uprooting of one of the strongest +convictions of my life were I compelled to think her otherwise. You wish +to follow her life backward from the present hour to the year +fifty-three?" +</P><P> +"I do." +</P><P> +"She was married to your uncle last June twelvemonth, in the midsummer +of fifty-seven. She had lived in my house a little more than thirteen +months. She became a member of my household upon the fourteenth of May, +in the year fifty-six." +</P><P> +"And she came to you—" +</P><P> +"From a school at Brompton, a school kept by a lady of the name of +Vincent. It was Mrs. Vincent's strong recommendation that induced me to +receive Miss Graham into my family without any more special knowledge of +her antecedents." +</P><P> +"Did you see this Mrs. Vincent?" +</P><P> +"I did not. I advertised for a governess, and Miss Graham answered my +advertisement. In her letter she referred me to Mrs. Vincent, the +proprietress of a school in which she was then residing as junior +teacher. My time is always so fully occupied, that I was glad to escape +the necessity of a day's loss in going from Audley to London to inquire +about the young lady's qualifications. I looked for Mrs. Vincent's name +in the directory, found it, and concluded that she was a responsible +person, and wrote to her. Her reply was perfectly satisfactory;—Miss +Lucy Graham was assiduous and conscientious; as well as fully qualified +for the situation I offered. I accepted this reference, and I had no +cause to regret what may have been an indiscretion. And now, Mr. Audley, +I have told you all that I have the power to tell." +</P><P> +"Will you be so kind as to give me the address of this Mrs. Vincent?" +asked Robert, taking out his pocketbook. +</P><P> +"Certainly; she was then living at No. 9 Crescent Villas, Brompton." +</P><P> +"Ah, to be sure," muttered Mr. Audley, a recollection of last September +flashing suddenly back upon him as the surgeon spoke. +</P><P> +"Crescent Villas—yes, I have heard the address before from Lady Audley +herself. This Mrs. Vincent telegraphed to my uncle's wife early in last +September. She was ill—dying, I believe—and sent for my lady; but had +removed from her old house and was not to be found." +</P><P> +"Indeed! I never heard Lady Audley mention the circumstance." +</P><P> +"Perhaps not. It occurred while I was down here. Thank you, Mr. Dawson, +for the information you have so kindly and honestly given me. It takes +me back two and a-half years in the history of my lady's life; but I +have still a blank of three years to fill up before I can exonerate her +from my terrible suspicion. Good evening." +</P><P> +Robert shook hands with the surgeon and returned to his uncle's room. He +had been away about a quarter of an hour. Sir Michael had fallen asleep +once more, and my lady's loving hands had lowered the heavy curtains and +shaded the lamp by the bedside. Alicia and her father's wife were taking +tea in Lady Audley's boudoir, the room next to the antechamber in which +Robert and Mr. Dawson had been seated. +</P><P> +Lucy Audley looked up from her occupation among the fragile china cups +and watched Robert rather anxiously as he walked softly to his uncle's +room and back again to the boudoir. She looked very pretty and innocent, +seated behind the graceful group of delicate opal china and glittering +silver. Surely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea. +The most feminine and most domestic of all occupations imparts a magic +harmony to her every movement, a witchery to her every glance. The +floating mists from the boiling liquid in which she infuses the soothing +herbs; whose secrets are known to her alone, envelope her in a cloud of +scented vapor, through which she seems a social fairy, weaving potent +spells with Gunpowder and Bohea. At the tea-table she reigns omnipotent, +unapproachable. What do men know of the mysterious beverage? Read how +poor Hazlitt made his tea, and shudder at the dreadful barbarism. How +clumsily the wretched creatures attempt to assist the witch president of +the tea-tray; how hopelessly they hold the kettle, how continually they +imperil the frail cups and saucers, or the taper hands of the priestess. +To do away with the tea-table is to rob woman of her legitimate empire. +To send a couple of hulking men about among your visitors, distributing +a mixture made in the housekeeper's room, is to reduce the most social +and friendly of ceremonies to a formal giving out of rations. Better the +pretty influence of the tea cups and saucers gracefully wielded in a +woman's hand than all the inappropriate power snatched at the point of +the pen from the unwilling sterner sex. Imagine all the women of England +elevated to the high level of masculine intellectuality, superior to +crinoline; above pearl powder and Mrs. Rachael Levison; above taking the +pains to be pretty; above tea-tables and that cruelly scandalous and +rather satirical gossip which even strong men delight in; and what a +drear, utilitarian, ugly life the sterner sex must lead. +</P><P> +My lady was by no means strong-minded. The starry diamonds upon her +white fingers flashed hither and thither among the tea-things, and she +bent her pretty head over the marvelous Indian tea-caddy of sandal-wood +and silver, with as much earnestness as if life held no higher purpose +than the infusion of Bohea. +</P><P> +"You'll take a cup of tea with us, Mr. Audley?" she asked, pausing with +the teapot in her hand to look up at Robert, who was standing near the +door. +</P><P> +"If you please." +</P><P> +"But you have not dined, perhaps? Shall I ring and tell them to bring +you something a little more substantial than biscuits and transparent +bread and butter?" +</P><P> +"No, thank you, Lady Audley. I took some lunch before I left town. I'll +trouble you for nothing but a cup of tea." +</P><P> +He seated himself at the little table and looked across it at his Cousin +Alicia, who sat with a book in her lap, and had the air of being very +much absorbed by its pages. The bright brunette complexion had lost its +glowing crimson, and the animation of the young lady's manner was +suppressed—on account of her father's illness, no doubt, Robert +thought. +</P><P> +"Alicia, my dear," the barrister said, after a very leisurely +contemplation of his cousin, "you're not looking well." +</P><P> +Miss Audley shrugged her shoulders, but did not condescend to lift her +eyes from her book. +</P><P> +"Perhaps not," she answered, contemptuously. "What does it matter? I'm +growing a philosopher of your school, Robert Audley. What does it +matter? Who cares whether I am well or ill?" +</P><P> +"What a spitfire she is," thought the barrister. He always knew his +cousin was angry with him when she addressed him as "Robert Audley." +</P><P> +"You needn't pitch into a fellow because he asks you a civil question, +Alicia," he said, reproachfully. "As to nobody caring about your health, +that's nonsense. <i>I</i> care." Miss Audley looked up with a bright smile. +"Sir Harry Towers cares." Miss Audley returned to her book with a frown. +</P><P> +"What are you reading there, Alicia?" Robert asked, after a pause, +during which he had sat thoughtfully stirring his tea. +</P><P> +"<i>Changes and Chances</i>." +</P><P> +"A novel?" +</P><P> +"Yes." +</P><P> +"Who is it by?" +</P><P> +"The author of <i>Follies and Faults</i>," answered Alicia, still pursuing +her study of the romance upon her lap. +</P><P> +"Is it interesting?" +</P><P> +Miss Audley pursed up her mouth and shrugged her shoulders. +</P><P> +"Not particularly," she said. +</P><P> +"Then I think you might have better manners than to read it while your +first cousin is sitting opposite you," observed Mr. Audley, with some +gravity, "especially as he has only come to pay you a flying visit, and +will be off to-morrow morning." +</P><P> +"To-morrow morning!" exclaimed my lady, looking up suddenly. +</P><P> +Though the look of joy upon Lady Audley's face was as brief as a flash +of lightning on a summer sky, it was not unperceived by Robert. +</P><P> +"Yes," he said; "I shall be obliged to run up to London to-morrow on +business, but I shall return the next day, if you will allow me, Lady +Audley, and stay here till my uncle recovers." +</P><P> +"But you are not seriously alarmed about him, are you?" asked my lady, +anxiously. +</P><P> +"You do not think him very ill?" +</P><P> +"No," answered Robert. "Thank Heaven, I think there is not the slightest +cause for apprehension." +</P><P> +My lady sat silent for a few moments, looking at the empty teacups with +a prettily thoughtful face—a face grave with the innocent seriousness +of a musing child. +</P><P> +"But you were closeted such a long time with Mr. Dawson, just now," she +said, after this brief pause. "I was quite alarmed at the length of your +conversation. Were you talking of Sir Michael all the time?" +</P><P> +"No; not all the time?" +</P><P> +My lady looked down at the teacups once more. +</P><P> +"Why, what could you find to say to Mr. Dawson, or he to say to you?" +she asked, after another pause. "You are almost strangers to each +other." +</P><P> +"Suppose Mr. Dawson wished to consult me about some law business." +</P><P> +"Was it that?" cried Lady Audley, eagerly. +</P><P> +"It would be rather unprofessional to tell you if it were so, my lady," +answered Robert, gravely. +</P><P> +My lady bit her lip, and relapsed into silence. Alicia threw down her +book, and watched her cousin's preoccupied face. He talked to her now +and then for a few minutes, but it was evidently an effort to him to +arouse himself from his revery. +</P><P> +"Upon my word, Robert Audley, you are a very agreeable companion," +exclaimed Alicia at length, her rather limited stock of patience quite +exhausted by two or three of these abortive attempts at conversation. +"Perhaps the next time you come to the Court you will be good enough to +bring your <i>mind</i> with you. By your present inanimate appearance, I +should imagine that you had left your intellect, such as it is, +somewhere in the Temple. You were never one of the liveliest of people, +but latterly you have really grown almost unendurable. I suppose you are +in love, Mr. Audley, and are thinking of the honored object of your +affections." +</P><P> +He was thinking of Clara Talboys' uplifted face, sublime in its +unutterable grief; of her impassioned words still ringing in his ears as +clearly as when they were first spoken. Again he saw her looking at him +with her bright brown eyes. Again he heard that solemn question: "Shall +you or I find my brother's murderer?" And he was in Essex; in the little +village from which he firmly believed George Talboys had never departed. +He was on the spot at which all record of his friend's life ended as +suddenly as a story ends when the reader shuts the book. And could he +withdraw now from the investigation in which he found himself involved? +Could he stop now? For any consideration? No; a thousand times no! Not +with the image of that grief-stricken face imprinted on his mind. Not +with the accents of that earnest appeal ringing on his ear. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXVI.</H2> +<H3>SO FAR AND NO FARTHER.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Robert left Audley the next morning by an early train, and reached +Shoreditch a little after nine o'clock. He did not return to his +chambers, but called a cab and drove straight to Crescent Villas, West +Brompton. He knew that he should fail in finding the lady he went to +seek at this address, as his uncle had failed a few months before, but +he thought it possible to obtain some clew to the schoolmistress' new +residence, in spite of Sir Michael's ill-success. +</P><P> +"Mrs. Vincent was in a dying state, according to the telegraphic +message," Robert thought. "If I do find her, I shall at least succeed in +discovering whether that message was genuine." +</P><P> +He found Crescent Villas after some difficulty. The houses were large, +but they lay half imbedded among the chaos of brick and rising mortar +around them. New terraces, new streets, new squares led away into +hopeless masses of stone and plaster on every side. The roads were +sticky with damp clay, which clogged the wheels of the cab and buried +the fetlocks of the horse. The desolations—that awful aspect of +incompleteness and discomfort which pervades a new and unfinished +neighborhood—had set its dismal seal upon the surrounding streets which +had arisen about and intrenched Crescent Villas; and Robert wasted forty +minutes by his watch, and an hour and a quarter by the cabman's +reckoning, in driving up and down uninhabited streets and terraces, +trying to find the Villase; whose chimney-tops were frowning down upon +him black and venerable, amid groves of virgin plaster, undimmed by time +or smoke. +</P><P> +But having at last succeeded in reaching his destination, Mr. Audley +alighted from the cab, directed the driver to wait for him at a certain +corner, and set out upon his voyage of discovery. +</P><P> +"If I were a distinguished Q.C., I could not do this sort of thing," he +thought; "my time would be worth a guinea or so a minute, and I should +be retained in the great case of Hoggs vs. Boggs, going forward this +very day before a special jury at Westminster Hall. As it is, I can +afford to be patient." +</P><P> +He inquired for Mrs. Vincent at the number which Mr. Dawson had given +him. The maid who opened the door had never heard that lady's name; but +after going to inquire of her mistress, she returned to tell Robert that +Mrs. Vincent had lived there, but that she had left two months before +the present occupants had entered the house, "and missus has been here +fifteen months," the girl added emphatically. +</P><P> +"But you cannot tell where she went on leaving here?" Robert asked, +despondingly. +</P><P> +"No, sir; missus says she believes the lady failed, and that she left +sudden like, and didn't want her address to be known in the +neighborhood." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley felt himself at a standstill once more. If Mrs. Vincent had +left the place in debt, she had no doubt scrupulously concealed her +whereabouts. There was little hope, then, of learning her address from +the tradespeople; and yet, on the other hand, it was just possible that +some of her sharpest creditors might have made it their business to +discover the defaulter's retreat. +</P><P> +He looked about him for the nearest shops, and found a baker's, a +stationer's, and a fruiterer's a few paces from the Crescent. Three +empty-looking, pretentious shops, with plate-glass windows, and a +hopeless air of gentility. +</P><P> +He stopped at the baker's, who called himself a pastrycook and +confectioner, and exhibited some specimens of petrified sponge-cake in +glass bottles, and some highly-glazed tarts, covered with green gauze. +</P><P> +"She <i>must</i> have bought bread," Robert thought, as he deliberated before +the baker's shop; "and she is likely to have bought it at the handiest +place. I'll try the baker." +</P><P> +The baker was standing behind his counter, disputing the items of a bill +with a shabby-genteel young woman. He did not trouble himself to attend +to Robert Audley until he had settled the dispute, but he looked up as +he was receipting the bill, and asked the barrister what he pleased to +want. +</P><P> +"Can you tell me the address of a Mrs. Vincent, who lived at No. 9 +Crescent Villas a year and a half ago?" Mr. Audley inquired, mildly. +</P><P> +"No, I can't," answered the baker, growing very red in the face, and +speaking in an unnecessarily loud voice; "and what's more, I wish I +could. That lady owes me upward of eleven pound for bread, and it's +rather more than I can afford to lose. If anybody can tell me where she +lives, I shall be much obliged to 'em for so doing." +</P><P> +Robert Audley shrugged his shoulders and wished the man good-morning. He +felt that his discovery of the lady's whereabouts would involve more +trouble than he had expected. He might have looked for Mrs. Vincent's +name in the Post-Office directory, but he thought it scarcely likely +that a lady who was on such uncomfortable terms with her creditors, +would afford them so easy a means of ascertaining her residence. +</P><P> +"If the baker can't find her, how should I find her?" he thought, +despairingly. "If a resolute, sanguine, active and energetic creature, +such as the baker, fail to achieve this business, how can a lymphatic +wretch like me hope to accomplish it? Where the baker has been defeated, +what preposterous folly it would be for me to try to succeed." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley abandoned himself to these gloomy reflections as he walked +slowly back toward the corner at which he had left the cab. About +half-way between the baker's shop and this corner he was arrested by +hearing a woman's step close at his side, and a woman's voice asking him +to stop. He turned and found himself face to face with the +shabbily-dressed woman whom he had left settling her account with the +baker. +</P><P> +"Eh, what?" he asked, vaguely. "Can I do anything for you, ma'am? Does +Mrs. Vincent owe <i>you</i> money, too?" +</P><P> +"Yes, sir," the woman answered, with a semi-genteel manner which +corresponded with the shabby gentility of her dress. "Mrs. Vincent is in +my debt; but it isn't that, sir. I—I want to know, please, what your +business may be with her—because—because—" +</P><P> +"You can give me her address if you choose, ma'am. That's what you mean +to say, isn't it?" +</P><P> +The woman hesitated a little, looking rather suspiciously at Robert. +</P><P> +"You're not connected with—with the tally business, are you, sir?" she +asked, after considering Mr. Audley's personal appearance for a few +moments. +</P><P> +"The <i>what</i>, ma'am?" asked the young barrister, staring aghast at his +questioner. +</P><P> +"I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir," exclaimed the little woman, seeing +that she had made some awful mistake. "I thought you might have been, +you know. Some of the gentlemen who collect for the tally shops do dress +so very handsome; and I know Mrs. Vincent owes a good deal of money." +</P><P> +Robert Audley laid his hand upon the speaker's arm. +</P><P> +"My dear madam," he said, "I want to know nothing of Mrs. Vincent's +affairs. So far from being concerned in what you call <i>the tally +business</i>, I have not the remotest idea what you mean by that +expression. You may mean a political conspiracy; you may mean some new +species of taxes. Mrs. Vincent does not owe <i>me</i> any money, however +badly she may stand with that awful-looking baker. I never saw her in my +life; but I wish to see her to-day for the simple purpose of asking her +a few very plain questions about a young lady who once resided in her +house. If you know where Mrs. Vincent lives and will give me her +address, you will be doing me a great favor." +</P><P> +He took out his card-case and handed a card to the woman, who examined +the slip of pasteboard anxiously before she spoke again. +</P><P> +"I'm sure you look and speak like a gentleman, sir," she said, after a +brief pause, "and I hope you will excuse me if I've seemed mistrustful +like; but poor Mrs. Vincent has had dreadful difficulties, and I'm the +only person hereabouts that she's trusted with her addresses. I'm a +dressmaker, sir, and I've worked for her for upward of six years, and +though she doesn't pay me regular, you know, sir, she gives me a little +money on account now and then, and I get on as well as I can. I may tell +you where she lives, then, sir? You haven't deceived me, have you?" +</P><P> +"On my honor, no." +</P><P> +"Well, then sir," said the dressmaker, dropping her voice as if she +thought the pavement beneath her feet, or the iron railings before the +houses by her side, might have ears to hear her, "it's Acacia Cottage, +Peckham Grove. I took a dress there yesterday for Mrs. Vincent." +</P><P> +"Thank you," said Robert, writing the address in his pocketbook. "I am +very much obliged to you, and you may rely upon it, Mrs. Vincent shall +not suffer any inconvenience through me." +</P><P> +He lifted his hat, bowed to the little dressmaker, and turned back to +the cab. +</P><P> +"I have beaten the baker, at any rate," he thought. "Now for the second +stage, traveling backward, in my lady's life." +</P><P> +The drive from Brompton to the Peckham Road was a very long one, and +between Crescent Villas and Acacia Cottage, Robert Audley had ample +leisure for reflection. He thought of his uncle lying weak and ill in +the oak-room at Audley Court. He thought of the beautiful blue eyes +watching Sir Michael's slumbers; the soft, white hands tending on his +waking moments; the low musical voice soothing his loneliness, cheering +and consoling his declining years. What a pleasant picture it might have +been, had he been able to look upon it ignorantly, seeing no more than +others saw, looking no further than a stranger could look. But with the +black cloud which he saw brooding over it, what an arch mockery, what a +diabolical delusion it seemed. +</P><P> +Peckham Grove—pleasant enough in the summer-time—has rather a dismal +aspect upon a dull February day, when the trees are bare and leafless, +and the little gardens desolate. Acacia Cottage bore small token of the +fitness of its nomenclature, and faced the road with its stuccoed walls +sheltered only by a couple of attenuated poplars. But it announced that +it was Acacia Cottage by means of a small brass plate upon one of the +gate-posts, which was sufficient indication for the sharp-sighted +cabman, who dropped Mr. Audley upon the pavement before the little gate. +</P><P> +Acacia Cottage was much lower in the social scale than Crescent Villas, +and the small maid-servant who came to the low wooden gate and parleyed +with Mr. Audley, was evidently well used to the encounter of relentless +creditors across the same feeble barricade. +</P><P> +She murmured the familiar domestic fiction of the uncertainty regarding +her mistress's whereabouts; and told Robert that if he would please to +state his name and business, she would go and see if Mrs. Vincent was at +home. +</P><P> +Mr. Audley produced a card, and wrote in pencil under his own name: "a +connection of the late Miss Graham." +</P><P> +He directed the small servant to carry his card to her mistress, and +quietly awaited the result. +</P><P> +The servant returned in about five minutes with the key of the gate. Her +mistress was at home, she told Robert as she admitted him, and would be +happy to see the gentleman. +</P><P> +The square parlor into which Robert was ushered bore in every scrap of +ornament, in every article of furniture, the unmistakable stamp of that +species of poverty which is most comfortless because it is never +stationary. The mechanic who furnishes his tiny sitting-room with +half-a-dozen cane chairs, a Pembroke table, a Dutch clock, a tiny +looking-glass, a crockery shepherd and shepherdess, and a set of +gaudily-japanned iron tea-trays, makes the most of his limited +possessions, and generally contrives to get some degree of comfort out +of them; but the lady who loses the handsome furniture of the house she +is compelled to abandon and encamps in some smaller habitation with the +shabby remainder—bought in by some merciful friend at the sale of her +effects—carries with her an aspect of genteel desolation and tawdry +misery not easily to be paralleled in wretchedness by any other phase +which poverty can assume. +</P><P> +The room which Robert Audley surveyed was furnished with the shabbier +scraps snatched from the ruin which had overtaken the imprudent +schoolmistress in Crescent Villas. A cottage piano, a chiffonier, six +sizes too large for the room, and dismally gorgeous in gilded moldings +that were chipped and broken; a slim-legged card-table, placed in the +post of honor, formed the principal pieces of furniture. A threadbare +patch of Brussels carpet covered the center of the room, and formed an +oasis of roses and lilies upon a desert of shabby green drugget. Knitted +curtains shaded the windows, in which hung wire baskets of +horrible-looking plants of the cactus species, that grew downward, like +some demented class of vegetation, whose prickly and spider-like members +had a fancy for standing on their heads. +</P><P> +The green-baize covered card-table was adorned with gaudily-bound +annuals or books of beauty, placed at right angles; but Robert Audley +did not avail himself of these literary distractions. He seated himself +upon one of the rickety chairs, and waited patiently for the advent of +the schoolmistress. He could hear the hum of half-a-dozen voices in a +room near him, and the jingling harmonies of a set of variations in <i>Deh +Conte</i>, upon a piano, whose every wire was evidently in the last stage +of attenuation. +</P><P> +He had waited for about a quarter of an hour, when the door was opened, +and a lady, very much dressed, and with the setting sunlight of faded +beauty upon her face, entered the room. +</P><P> +"Mr. Audley, I presume," she said, motioning to Robert to reseat +himself, and placing herself in an easy-chair opposite to him. "You will +pardon me, I hope, for detaining you so long; my duties—" +</P><P> +"It is I who should apologize for intruding upon you," Robert answered, +politely; "but my motive for calling upon you is a very serious one, and +must plead my excuse. You remember the lady whose name I wrote upon my +card?" +</P><P> +"Perfectly." +</P><P> +"May I ask how much you know of that lady's history since her departure +from your house?" +</P><P> +"Very little. In point of fact, scarcely anything at all. Miss Graham, I +believe, obtained a situation in the family of a surgeon resident in +Essex. Indeed, it was I who recommended her to that gentleman. I have +never heard from her since she left me." +</P><P> +"But you have communicated with her?" Robert asked, eagerly. +</P><P> +"No, indeed." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley was silent for a few moments, the shadow of gloomy thoughts +gathering darkly on his face. +</P><P> +"May I ask if you sent a telegraphic dispatch to Miss Graham early in +last September, stating that you were dangerously ill, and that you +wished to see her?" +</P><P> +Mrs. Vincent smiled at her visitor's question. +</P><P> +"I had no occasion to send such a message," she said; "I have never been +seriously ill in my life." +</P><P> +Robert Audley paused before he asked any further questions, and scrawled +a few penciled words in his note-book. +</P><P> +"If I ask you a few straightforward questions about Miss Lucy Graham, +madam," he said. "Will you do me the favor to answer them without asking +my motive in making such inquiries?" +</P><P> +"Most certainly," replied Mrs. Vincent. "I know nothing to Miss Graham's +disadvantage, and have no justification for making a mystery of the +little I do know." +</P><P> +"Then will you tell me at what date the young lady first came to you?" +</P><P> +Mrs. Vincent smiled and shook her head. She had a pretty smile—the +frank smile of a woman who had been admired, and who has too long felt +the certainty of being able to please, to be utterly subjugated by any +worldly misfortune. +</P><P> +"It's not the least use to ask me, Mr. Audley," she said. "I'm the most +careless creature in the world; I never did, and never could remember +dates, though I do all in my power to impress upon my girls how +important it is for their future welfare that they should know when +William the Conqueror began to reign, and all that kind of thing. But I +haven't the remotest idea when Miss Graham came to me, although I know +it was ages ago, for it was the very summer I had my peach-colored silk. +But we must consult Tonks—Tonks is sure to be right." +</P><P> +Robert Audley wondered who or what Tonks could be; a diary, perhaps, or +a memorandum-book—some obscure rival of Letsome. +</P><P> +Mrs. Vincent rung the bell, which was answered by the maid-servant who +had admitted Robert. +</P><P> +"Ask Miss Tonks to come to me," she said. "I want to see her +particularly." +</P><P> +In less than five minutes Miss Tonks made her appearance. She was wintry +and rather frost-bitten in aspect, and seemed to bring cold air in the +scanty folds of her somber merino dress. She was no age in particular, +and looked as if she had never been younger, and would never grow older, +but would remain forever working backward and forward in her narrow +groove, like some self-feeding machine for the instruction of young +ladies. +</P><P> +"Tonks, my dear," said Mrs. Vincent, without ceremony, "this gentleman +is a relative of Miss Graham's. Do you remember how long it is since she +came to us at Crescent Villas?" +</P><P> +"She came in August, 1854," answered Miss Tonks; "I think it was the +eighteenth of August, but I'm not quite sure that it wasn't the +seventeenth. I know it was on a Tuesday." +</P><P> +"Thank you, Tonks; you are a most invaluable darling," exclaimed Mrs. +Vincent, with her sweetest smile. It was, perhaps, because of the +invaluable nature of Miss Tonks' services that she had received no +remuneration whatever from her employer for the last three or four +years. Mrs. Vincent might have hesitated to pay from very contempt for +the pitiful nature of the stipend as compared with the merits of the +teacher. +</P><P> +"Is there anything else that Tonks or I can tell you, Mr. Audley?" asked +the schoolmistress. "Tonks has a far better memory than I have." +</P><P> +"Can you tell me where Miss Graham came from when she entered your +household?" Robert inquired. +</P><P> +"Not very precisely," answered Mrs. Vincent. "I have a vague notion that +Miss Graham said something about coming from the seaside, but she didn't +say where, or if she did I have forgotten it. Tonks, did Miss Graham +tell you where she came from?" +</P><P> +"Oh, no!" replied Miss Tonks, shaking her grim little head +significantly. "Miss Graham told me nothing; she was too clever for +that. She knows how to keep her own secrets, in spite of her innocent +ways and her curly hair," Miss Tonks added, spitefully. +</P><P> +"You think she had secrets?" Robert asked, rather eagerly. +</P><P> +"I know she had," replied Miss Tonks, with frosty decision; "all manner +of secrets. I wouldn't have engaged such a person as junior teacher in a +respectable school, without so much as one word of recommendation from +any living creature." +</P><P> +"You had no reference, then, from Miss Graham?" asked Robert, addressing +Mrs. Vincent. +</P><P> +"No," the lady answered, with some little embarrassment; "I waived that. +Miss Graham waived the question of salary; I could not do less than +waive the question of reference. She quarreled with her papa, she told +me, and she wanted to find a home away from all the people she had ever +known. She wished to keep herself quite separate from these people. She +had endured so much, she said, young as she was, and she wanted to +escape from her troubles. How could I press her for a reference under +these circumstances, especially when I saw that she was a perfect lady. +You know that Lucy Graham was a perfect lady, Tonks, and it is very +unkind for you to say such cruel things about my taking her without a +reference." +</P><P> +"When people make favorites, they are apt to be deceived in them," Miss +Tonks answered, with icy sententiousness, and with no very perceptible +relevance to the point in discussion. +</P><P> +"I never made her a favorite, you jealous Tonks," Mrs. Vincent answered, +reproachfully. "I never said she was as useful as you, dear. You know I +never did." +</P><P> +"Oh, no!" replied Miss Tonks, with a chilling accent, "you never said +she was useful. She was only ornamental; a person to be shown off to +visitors, and to play fantasias on the drawing-room piano." +</P><P> +"Then you can give me no clew to Miss Graham's previous history?" Robert +asked, looking from the schoolmistress to her teacher. He saw very +clearly that Miss Tonks bore an envious grudge against Lucy Graham—a +grudge which even the lapse of time had not healed. +</P><P> +"If this woman knows anything to my lady's detriment, she will tell it," +he thought. "She will tell it only too willingly." +</P><P> +But Miss Tonks appeared to know nothing whatever; except that Miss +Graham had sometimes declared herself an ill-used creature, deceived by +the baseness of mankind, and the victim of unmerited sufferings, in the +way of poverty and deprivation. Beyond this, Miss Tonks could tell +nothing; and although she made the most of what she did know, Robert +soon sounded the depth of her small stock of information. +</P><P> +"I have only one more question to ask," he said at last. "It is this: +Did Miss Graham leave any books or knick-knacks, or any other kind of +property whatever, behind her, when she left your establishment?" +</P><P> +"Not to my knowledge," Mrs. Vincent replied. +</P><P> +"Yes," cried Miss Tonks, sharply. "She did leave something. She left a +box. It's up-stairs in my room. I've got an old bonnet in it. Would you +like to see the box?" she asked, addressing Robert. +</P><P> +"If you will be so good as to allow me," he answered, "I should very +much like to see it." +</P><P> +"I'll fetch it down," said Miss Tonks. "It's not very big." +</P><P> +She ran out of the room before Mr. Audley had time to utter any polite +remonstrance. +</P><P> +"How pitiless these women are to each other," he thought, while the +teacher was absent. "This one knows intuitively that there is some +danger to the other lurking beneath my questions. She sniffs the coming +trouble to her fellow female creature, and rejoices in it, and would +take any pains to help me. What a world it is, and how these women take +life out of her hands. Helen Maldon, Lady Audley, Clara Talboys, and now +Miss Tonks—all womankind from beginning to end." +</P><P> +Miss Tonks re-entered while the young barrister was meditating upon the +infamy of her sex. She carried a dilapidated paper-covered bonnet-box, +which she submitted to Robert's inspection. +</P><P> +Mr. Audley knelt down to examine the scraps of railway labels and +addresses which were pasted here and there upon the box. It had been +battered upon a great many different lines of railway, and had evidently +traveled considerably. Many of the labels had been torn off, but +fragments of some of them remained, and upon one yellow scrap of paper +Robert read the letters, TURI. +</P><P> +"The box has been to Italy," he thought. "Those are the first four +letters of the word Turin, and the label is a foreign one." +</P><P> +The only direction which had not been either defaced or torn away was +the last, which bore the name of Miss Graham, passenger to London. +Looking very closely at this label, Mr. Audley discovered that it had +been pasted over another. +</P><P> +"Will you be so good as to let me have a little water and a piece of +sponge?" he said. "I want to get off this upper label. Believe me that I +am justified in what I am doing." +</P><P> +Miss Tonks ran out of the room and returned immediately with a basin of +water and a sponge. +</P><P> +"Shall I take off the label?" she asked. +</P><P> +"No, thank you," Robert answered, coldly. "I can do it very well +myself." +</P><P> +He damped the upper label several times before he could loosen the edges +of the paper; but after two or three careful attempts the moistened +surface peeled off, without injury to the underneath address. +</P><P> +Miss Tonks could not contrive to read this address across Robert's +shoulder, though she exhibited considerable dexterity in her endeavors +to accomplish that object. +</P><P> +Mr. Audley repeated his operations upon the lower label, which he +removed from the box, and placed very carefully between two blank leaves +of his pocket-book. +</P><P> +"I need intrude upon you no longer, ladies," he said, when he had done +this. "I am extremely obliged to you for having afforded me all the +information in your power. I wish you good-morning." +</P><P> +Mrs. Vincent smiled and bowed, murmuring some complacent conventionality +about the delight she had felt in Mr. Audley's visit. Miss Tonks, more +observant, stared at the white change, which had come over the young +man's face since he had removed the upper label from the box. +</P><P> +Robert walked slowly away from Acacia Cottage. "If that which I have +found to-day is no evidence for a jury," he thought, "it is surely +enough to convince my uncle that he has married a designing and infamous +woman." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXVII.</H2> +<H3>BEGINNING AT THE OTHER END.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Robert Audley walked slowly through the leafless grove, under the bare +and shadowless trees in the gray February atmosphere, thinking as he +went of the discovery he had just made. +</P><P> +"I have that in my pocket-book," he pondered, "which forms the +connecting link between the woman whose death George Talboys read of in +the <i>Times</i> newspaper and the woman who rules in my uncle's house. The +history of Lucy Graham ends abruptly on the threshold of Mrs. Vincent's +school. She entered that establishment in August, 1854. The +schoolmistress and her assistant can tell me this but they cannot tell +me whence she came. They cannot give me one clew to the secrets of her +life from the day of her birth until the day she entered that house. I +can go no further in this backward investigation of my lady's +antecedents. What am I to do, then, if I mean to keep my promise to +Clara Talboys?" +</P><P> +He walked on for a few paces revolving this question in his mind, with a +darker shadow than the shadows of the gathering winter twilight on his +face, and a heavy oppression of mingled sorrow and dread weighing down +his heart. +</P><P> +"My duty is clear enough," he thought—"not the less clear because it +leads me step by step, carrying ruin and desolation with me, to the home +I love. I must begin at the other end—I must begin at the other end, +and discover the history of Helen Talboys from the hour of George's +departure until the day of the funeral in the churchyard at Ventnor." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley hailed a passing hansom, and drove back to his chambers. +</P><P> +He reached Figtree Court in time to write a few lines to Miss Talboys, +and to post his letter at St. Martin's-le-Grand off before six o'clock. +</P><P> +"It will save me a day," he thought, as he drove to the General Post +Office with this brief epistle. +</P><P> +He had written to Clara Talboys to inquire the name of the little +seaport town in which George had met Captain Maldon and his daughter: +for in spite of the intimacy between the two young men, Robert Audley +knew very few particulars of his friend's brief married life. +</P><P> +From the hour in which George Talboys had read the announcement of his +wife's death in the columns of the <i>Times</i>, he had avoided all mention +of the tender history which had been so cruelly broken, the familiar +record which had been so darkly blotted out. +</P><P> +There was so much that was painful in that brief story! There was such +bitter self-reproach involved in the recollection of that desertion +which must have seemed so cruel to her who waited and watched at home! +Robert Audley comprehended this, and he did not wonder at his friend's +silence. The sorrowful story had been tacitly avoided by both, and +Robert was as ignorant of the unhappy history of this one year in his +schoolfellow's life as if they had never lived together in friendly +companionship in those snug Temple chambers. +</P><P> +The letter, written to Miss Talboys by her brother George, within a +month of his marriage, was dated Harrowgate. It was at Harrowgate, +therefore, Robert concluded, the young couple spent their honeymoon. +</P><P> +Robert Audley had requested Clara Talboys to telegraph an answer to his +question, in order to avoid the loss of a day in the accomplishment of +the investigation he had promised to perform. +</P><P> +The telegraphic answer reached Figtree Court before twelve o'clock the +next day. +</P><P> +The name of the seaport town was Wildernsea, Yorkshire. +</P><P> +Within an hour of the receipt of this message, Mr. Audley arrived at the +King's-cross station, and took his ticket for Wildernsea by an express +train that started at a quarter before two. +</P><P> +The shrieking engine bore him on the dreary northward journey, whirling +him over desert wastes of flat meadow-land and bare cornfields, faintly +tinted with fresh sprouting green. This northern road was strange and +unfamiliar to the young barrister, and the wide expanse of the wintry +landscape chilled him by its aspect of bare loneliness. The knowledge of +the purpose of his journey blighted every object upon which his absent +glances fixed themselves for a moment, only to wander wearily away; only +to turn inward upon that far darker picture always presenting itself to +his anxious mind. +</P><P> +It was dark when the train reached the Hull terminus, but Mr. Audley's +journey was not ended. Amidst a crowd of porters and scattered heaps of +that incongruous and heterogeneous luggage with which travelers incumber +themselves, he was led, bewildered and half asleep, to another train +which was to convey him along the branch line that swept past +Wildernsea, and skirted the border of the German Ocean. +</P><P> +Half an hour after leaving Hull, Robert felt the briny freshness of the +sea upon the breeze that blew in at the open window of the carriage, and +an hour afterward the train stopped at a melancholy station, built amid +a sandy desert, and inhabited by two or three gloomy officials, one of +whom rung a terrific peal upon a harshly clanging bell as the train +approached. +</P><P> +Mr. Audley was the only passenger who alighted at the dismal station. +The train swept on to the gayer scenes before the barrister had time to +collect his senses, or to pick up the portmanteau which had been +discovered with some difficulty amid a black cavern of baggage only +illuminated by one lantern. +</P><P> +"I wonder whether settlers in the backwoods of America feel as solitary +and strange as I feel to-night?" he thought, as he stared hopelessly +about him in the darkness. +</P><P> +He called to one of the officials, and pointed to his portmanteau. +</P><P> +"Will you carry that to the nearest hotel for me?" he asked—"that is to +say, if I can get a good bed there." +</P><P> +The man laughed as he shouldered the portmanteau. +</P><P> +"You can get thirty beds, I dare say, sir, if you wanted 'em," he said. +"We ain't over busy at Wildernsea at this time o' year. This way, sir." +</P><P> +The porter opened a wooden door in the station wall, and Robert Audley +found himself upon a wide bowling-green of smooth grass, which +surrounded a huge, square building, that loomed darkly on him through +the winter's night, its black solidity only relieved by two lighted +windows, far apart from each other, and glimmering redly like beacons on +the darkness. +</P><P> +"This is the Victoria Hotel, sir," said the porter. "You wouldn't +believe the crowds of company we have down here in the summer." +</P><P> +In the face of the bare grass-plat, the tenantless wooden alcoves, and +the dark windows of the hotel, it was indeed rather difficult to imagine +that the place was ever gay with merry people taking pleasure in the +bright summer weather; but Robert Audley declared himself willing to +believe anything the porter pleased to tell him, and followed his guide +meekly to a little door at the side of the big hotel, which led into a +comfortable bar, where the humbler classes of summer visitors were +accommodated with such refreshments as they pleased to pay for, without +running the gantlet of the prim, white-waistcoated waiters on guard at +the principal entrance. +</P><P> +But there were very few attendants retained at the hotel in the bleak +February season, and it was the landlord himself who ushered Robert into +a dreary wilderness of polished mahogany tables and horsehair cushioned +chairs, which he called the coffee-room. +</P><P> +Mr. Audley seated himself close to the wide steel fender, and stretched +his cramped legs upon the hearth-rug, while the landlord drove the poker +into the vast pile of coal, and sent a ruddy blaze roaring upward +through the chimney. +</P><P> +"If you would prefer a private room, sir—" the man began. +</P><P> +"No, thank you," said Robert, indifferently; "this room seems quite +private enough just now. If you will order me a mutton chop and a pint +of sherry, I shall be obliged." +</P><P> +"Certainly, sir." +</P><P> +"And I shall be still more obliged if you will favor me with a few +minutes' conversation before you do so." +</P><P> +"With very great pleasure, sir," the landlord answered, good-naturedly. +"We see so very little company at this season of the year, that we are +only too glad to oblige those gentlemen who do visit us. Any information +which I can afford you respecting the neighborhood of Wildernsea and its +attractions," added the landlord, unconsciously quoting a small +hand-book of the watering-place which he sold in the bar, "I shall be +most happy to—" +</P><P> +"But I don't want to know anything about the neighborhood of +Wildernsea," interrupted Robert, with a feeble protest against the +landlord's volubility. "I want to ask you a few questions about some +people who once lived here." +</P><P> +The landlord bowed and smiled, with an air which implied his readiness +to recite the biographies of all the inhabitants of the little seaport, +if required by Mr. Audley to do so. +</P><P> +"How many years have you lived here?" Robert asked, taking his +memorandum book from his pocket. "Will it annoy you if I make notes of +your replies to my questions?" +</P><P> +"Not at all, sir," replied the landlord, with a pompous enjoyment of the +air of solemnity and importance which pervaded this business. "Any +information which I can afford that is likely to be of ultimate value—" +</P><P> +"Yes, thank you," Robert murmured, interrupting the flow of words. "You +have lived here—" +</P><P> +"Six years, sir." +</P><P> +"Since the year fifty-three?" +</P><P> +"Since November, in the year fifty-two, sir. I was in business at Hull +prior to that time. This house was only completed in the October before +I entered it." +</P><P> +"Do you remember a lieutenant in the navy, on half-pay, I believe, at +that time, called Maldon?" +</P><P> +"Captain Maldon, sir?" +</P><P> +"Yes, commonly called Captain Maldon. I see you do remember him." +</P><P> +"Yes, sir. Captain Maldon was one of our best customers. He used to +spend his evenings in this very room, though the walls were damp at that +time, and we weren't able to paper the place for nearly a twelvemonth +afterward. His daughter married a young officer that came here with his +regiment, at Christmas time in fifty-two. They were married here, sir, +and they traveled on the Continent for six months, and came back here +again. But the gentleman ran away to Australia, and left the lady, a +week or two after her baby was born. The business made quite a sensation +in Wildernsea, sir, and Mrs.—Mrs.—I forgot the name—" +</P><P> +"Mrs. Talboys," suggested Robert. +</P><P> +"To be sure, sir, Mrs. Talboys. Mrs. Talboys was very much pitied by the +Wildernsea folks, sir, I was going to say, for she was very pretty, and +had such nice winning ways that she was a favorite with everybody who +knew her." +</P><P> +"Can you tell me how long Mr. Maldon and his daughter remained at +Wildernsea after Mr. Talboys left them?" Robert asked. +</P><P> +"Well—no, sir," answered the landlord, after a few moments' +deliberation. "I can't say exactly how long it was. I know Mr. Maldon +used to sit here in this very parlor, and tell people how badly his +daughter had been treated, and how he'd been deceived by a young man +he'd put so much confidence in; but I can't say how long it was before +he left Wildernsea. But Mrs. Barkamb could tell you, sir," added the +landlord, briskly. +</P><P> +"Mrs. Barkamb." +</P><P> +"Yes, Mrs. Barkamb is the person who owns No. 17 North Cottages, the +house in which Mr. Maldon and his daughter lived. She's a nice, civil +spoken, motherly woman, sir, and I'm sure she'll tell you anything you +may want to know." +</P><P> +"Thank you, I will call upon Mrs. Barkamb to-morrow. Stay—one more +question. Should you recognize Mrs. Talboys if you were to see her?" +</P><P> +"Certainly, sir. As sure as I should recognize one of my own daughters." +</P><P> +Robert Audley wrote Mrs. Barkamb's address in his pocket-book, ate his +solitary dinner, drank a couple of glasses of sherry, smoked a cigar, +and then retired to the apartment in which a fire had been lighted for +his comfort. +</P><P> +He soon fell asleep, worn out with the fatigue of hurrying from place to +place during the last two days; but his slumber was not a heavy one, and +he heard the disconsolate moaning of the wind upon the sandy wastes, and +the long waves rolling in monotonously upon the flat shore. Mingling +with these dismal sounds, the melancholy thoughts engendered by his +joyless journey repeated themselves in never-varying succession in the +chaos of his slumbering brain, and made themselves into visions of +things that never had been and never could be upon this earth, but which +had some vague relation to real events remembered by the sleeper. +</P><P> +In those troublesome dreams he saw Audley Court, rooted up from amidst +the green pastures and the shady hedgerows of Essex, standing bare and +unprotected upon that desolate northern shore, threatened by the rapid +rising of a boisterous sea, whose waves seemed gathering upward to +descend and crush the house he loved. As the hurrying waves rolled +nearer and nearer to the stately mansion, the sleeper saw a pale, starry +face looking out of the silvery foam, and knew that it was my lady, +transformed into a mermaid, beckoning his uncle to destruction. Beyond +that rising sea great masses of cloud, blacker than the blackest ink, +more dense than the darkest night, lowered upon the dreamer's eye; but +as he looked at the dismal horizon the storm-clouds slowly parted, and +from a narrow rent in the darkness a ray of light streamed out upon the +hideous waves, which slowly, very slowly, receded, leaving the old +mansion safe and firmly rooted on the shore. +</P><P> +Robert awoke with the memory of this dream in his mind, and a sensation +of physical relief, as if some heavy weight, which had oppressed him all +the night, had been lifted from his breast. +</P><P> +He fell asleep again, and did not awake until the broad winter sunlight +shone upon the window-blind, and the shrill voice of the chambermaid at +his door announced that it was half-past eight o'clock. At a +quarter-before ten he had left Victoria Hotel, and was making his way +along the lonely platform in front of a row of shadowless houses that +faced the sea. +</P><P> +This row of hard, uncompromising, square-built habitations stretched +away to the little harbor, in which two or three merchant vessels and a +couple of colliers were anchored. Beyond the harbor there loomed, gray +and cold upon the wintry horizon, a dismal barrack, parted from the +Wildernsea houses by a narrow creek, spanned by an iron drawbridge. The +scarlet coat of the sentinel who walked backward and forward between two +cannons, placed at remote angles before the barrack wall, was the only +scrap of color that relieved the neutral-tinted picture of the gray +stone houses and the leaden sea. +</P><P> +On one side of the harbor a long stone pier stretched out far away into +the cruel loneliness of the sea, as if built for the especial +accommodation of some modern Timon, too misanthropical to be satisfied +even with the solitude of Wildernsea, and anxious to get still further +away from his fellow-creatures. +</P><P> +It was on that pier George Talboys had first met his wife, under the +blazing glory of a midsummer sky, and to the music of a braying band. It +was there that the young cornet had first yielded to that sweet +delusion, that fatal infatuation which had exercised so dark an +influence upon his after-life. +</P><P> +Robert looked savagely at this solitary watering-place—the shabby +seaport. +</P><P> +"It is such a place as this," he thought, "that works a strong man's +ruin. He comes here, heart whole and happy, with no better experience of +women than is to be learned at a flower-show or in a ball-room; with no +more familiar knowledge of the creature than he has of the far-away +satellites or the remoter planets; with a vague notion that she is a +whirling teetotum in pink or blue gauze, or a graceful automaton for the +display of milliners' manufacture. He comes to some place of this kind, +and the universe is suddenly narrowed into about half a dozen acres; the +mighty scheme of creation is crushed into a bandbox. The far-away +creatures whom he had seen floating about him, beautiful and indistinct, +are brought under his very nose; and before he has time to recover his +bewilderment, hey presto, the witchcraft has begun; the magic circle is +drawn around him! the spells are at work, the whole formula of sorcery +is in full play, and the victim is as powerless to escape as the +marble-legged prince in the Eastern story." +</P><P> +Ruminating in this wise, Robert Audley reached the house to which he had +been directed as the residence of Mrs. Barkamb. He was admitted +immediately by a prim, elderly servant, who ushered him into a +sitting-room as prim and elderly-looking as herself. Mrs. Barkamb, a +comfortable matron of about sixty years of age, was sitting in an +arm-chair before a bright handful of fire in the shining grate. An +elderly terrier, whose black-and-tan coat was thickly sprinkled with +gray, reposed in Mrs. Barkamb's lap. Every object in the quiet +sitting-room had an elderly aspect of simple comfort and precision, +which is the evidence of outward repose. +</P><P> +"I should like to live here," Robert thought, "and watch the gray sea +slowly rolling over the gray sand under the still, gray sky. I should +like to live here, and tell the beads upon my rosary, and repent and +rest." +</P><P> +He seated himself in the arm-chair opposite Mrs. Barkamb, at that lady's +invitation, and placed his hat upon the ground. The elderly terrier +descended from his mistress' lap to bark at and otherwise take objection +to this hat. +</P><P> +"You were wishing, I suppose, sir, to take one—be quiet, Dash—one of +the cottages," suggested Mrs. Barkamb, whose mind ran in one narrow +groove, and whose life during the last twenty years had been an +unvarying round of house-letting. +</P><P> +Robert Audley explained the purpose of his visit. +</P><P> +"I come to ask one simple question," he said, in conclusion, "I wish to +discover the exact date of Mrs. Talboys' departure from Wildernsea. The +proprietor of the Victoria Hotel informed me that you were the most +likely person to afford me that information." +</P><P> +Mrs. Barkamb deliberated for some moments. +</P><P> +"I can give you the date of Captain Maldon's departure," she said, "for +he left No. 17 considerably in my debt, and I have the whole business in +black and white; but with regard to Mrs. Talboys—" +</P><P> +Mrs. Barkamb paused for a few moments before resuming. +</P><P> +"You are aware that Mrs. Talboys left rather abruptly?" she asked. +</P><P> +"I was not aware of that fact." +</P><P> +"Indeed! Yes, she left abruptly, poor little woman! She tried to support +herself after her husband's desertion by giving music lessons; she was a +very brilliant pianist, and succeeded pretty well, I believe. But I +suppose her father took her money from her, and spent it in public +houses. However that might be, they had a very serious misunderstanding +one night; and the next morning Mrs. Talboys left Wildernsea, leaving +her little boy, who was out at nurse in the neighborhood." +</P><P> +"But you cannot tell me the date of her leaving?" +</P><P> +"I'm afraid not," answered Mrs. Barkamb; "and yet, stay. Captain Maldon +wrote to me upon the day his daughter left. He was in very great +distress, poor old gentleman, and he always came to me in his troubles. +If I could find that letter, it might be dated, you know—mightn't it, +now?" +</P><P> +Mr. Audley said that it was only probable the letter was dated. +</P><P> +Mrs. Barkamb retired to a table in the window on which stood an +old-fashioned mahogany desk, lined with green baize, and suffering from +a plethora of documents, which oozed out of it in every direction. +Letters, receipts, bills, inventories and tax-papers were mingled in +hopeless confusion; and among these Mrs. Barkamb set to work to search +for Captain Maldon's letter. +</P><P> +Mr. Audley waited very patiently, watching the gray clouds sailing +across the gray sky, the gray vessels gliding past upon the gray sea. +</P><P> +After about ten minutes' search, and a great deal of rustling, +crackling, folding and unfolding of the papers, Mrs. Barkamb uttered an +exclamation of triumph. +</P><P> +"I've got the letter," she said; "and there's a note inside it from Mrs. +Talboys." +</P><P> +Robert Audley's pale face flushed a vivid crimson as he stretched out +his hand to receive the papers. +</P><P> +"The persons who stole Helen Maldon's love-letters from George's trunk +in my chambers might have saved themselves the trouble," he thought. +</P><P> +The letter from the old lieutenant was not long, but almost every other +word was underscored. +</P><P> +"My generous friend," the writer began—Mr. Maldon had tried the lady's +generosity pretty severely during his residence in her house, rarely +paying his rent until threatened with the intruding presence of the +broker's man—"I am in the depths of despair. My daughter has left me! +You may imagine my feelings! We had a few words last night upon the +subject of money matters, which subject has always been a disagreeable +one between us, and on rising this morning I found I was deserted! The +enclosed from Helen was waiting for me on the parlor table. +</P><P> +"Yours in distraction and despair, +</P><P> +"HENRY MALDON. +</P><P> +"NORTH COTTAGES, August 16th, 1854." +</P><P> +The note from Mrs. Talboys was still more brief. It began abruptly thus: +</P><P> +"I am weary of my life here, and wish, if I can, to find a new one. I go +out into the world, dissevered from every link which binds me to the +hateful past, to seek another home and another fortune. Forgive me if I +have been fretful, capricious, changeable. You should forgive me, for +you know why I have been so. You know the secret which is the key to my +life. +</P><P> +"HELEN TALBOYS." +</P><P> +These lines were written in a hand that Robert Audley knew only too +well. +</P><P> +He sat for a long time pondering silently over the letter written by +Helen Talboys. +</P><P> +What was the meaning of those two last sentences—"You should forgive +me, for you know <i>why</i> I have been so. You know the <i>secret</i> which is +the key to my life?" +</P><P> +He wearied his brain in endeavoring to find a clew to the signification +of these two sentences. He could remember nothing, nor could he imagine +anything that would throw a light upon their meaning. The date of +Helen's departure, according to Mr. Maldon's letter, was the 16th of +August, 1854. Miss Tonks had declared that Lucy Graham entered the +school at Crescent Villas upon the 17th or 18th of August in the same +year. Between the departure of Helen Talboys from the Yorkshire +watering-place and the arrival of Lucy Graham at the Brompton school, +not more than eight-and-forty hours could have elapsed. This made a very +small link in the chain of circumstantial evidence, perhaps; but it was +a link, nevertheless, and it fitted neatly into its place. +</P><P> +"Did Mr. Maldon hear from his daughter after she had left Wildernsea?" +Robert asked. +</P><P> +"Well, I believe he did hear from her," Mrs. Barkamb answered; "but I +didn't see much of the old gentleman after that August. I was obliged to +sell him up in November, poor fellow, for he owed me fifteen months' +rent; and it was only by selling his poor little bits of furniture that +I could get him out of my place. We parted very good friends, in spite +of my sending in the brokers; and the old gentleman went to London with +the child, who was scarcely a twelvemonth old." +</P><P> +Mrs. Barkamb had nothing more to tell, and Robert had no further +questions to ask. He requested permission to retain the two letters +written by the lieutenant and his daughter, and left the house with them +in his pocket-book. +</P><P> +He walked straight back to the hotel, where he called for a time-table. +An express for London left Wildernsea at a quarter past one. Robert sent +his portmanteau to the station, paid his bill, and walked up and down +the stone terrace fronting the sea, waiting for the starting of the +train. +</P><P> +"I have traced the histories of Lucy Graham and Helen Talboys to a +vanishing point," he thought; "my next business is to discover the +history of the woman who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXVIII.</H2> +<H3>HIDDEN IN THE GRAVE.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Upon his return from Wildernsea, Robert Audley found a letter from his +Cousin Alicia, awaiting him at his chambers. +</P><P> +"Papa is much better," the young lady wrote, "and is very anxious to +have you at the Court. For some inexplicable reason, my stepmother has +taken it into her head that your presence is extremely desirable, and +worries me with her frivolous questions about your movements. So pray +come without delay, and set these people at rest. Your affectionate +cousin, A.A." +</P><P> +"So my lady is anxious to know my movements," thought Robert Audley, as +he sat brooding and smoking by his lonely fireside. "She is anxious; and +she questions her step-daughter in that pretty, childlike manner which +has such a bewitching air of innocent frivolity. Poor little creature; +poor unhappy little golden-haired sinner; the battle between us seems +terribly unfair. Why doesn't she run away while there is still time? I +have given her fair warning, I have shown her my cards, and worked +openly enough in this business, Heaven knows. Why doesn't she run away?" +</P><P> +He repeated this question again and again as he filled and emptied his +meerschaum, surrounding himself with the blue vapor from his pipe until +he looked like some modern magician seated in his laboratory. +</P><P> +"Why doesn't she run away? I would bring no needless shame upon that +house, of all other houses upon this wide earth. I would only do my duty +to my missing friend, and to that brave and generous man who has pledged +his faith to a worthless woman. Heaven knows I have no wish to punish. +Heaven knows I was never born to be the avenger of guilt or the +persecutor of the guilty. I only wish to do my duty. I will give her one +more warning, a full and fair one, and then—" +</P><P> +His thoughts wandered away to that gloomy prospect in which he saw no +gleam of brightness to relieve the dull, black obscurity that +encompassed the future, shutting in his pathway on every side, and +spreading a dense curtain around and about him, which Hope was powerless +to penetrate. He was forever haunted by the vision of his uncle's +anguish, forever tortured by the thought of that ruin and desolation +which, being brought about by his instrumentality, would seem in a +manner his handiwork. But amid all, and through all, Clara Talboys, with +an imperious gesture, beckoned him onward to her brother's unknown +grave. +</P><P> +"Shall I go down to Southampton," he thought, "and endeavor to discover +the history of the woman who died at Ventnor? Shall I work underground, +bribing the paltry assistants in that foul conspiracy, until I find my +way to the thrice guilty principal? No! not till I have tried other +means of discovering the truth. Shall I go to that miserable old man, +and charge him with his share in the shameful trick which I believe to +have been played upon my poor friend? No; I will not torture that +terror-stricken wretch as I tortured him a few weeks ago. I will go +straight to that arch-conspirator, and will tear away the beautiful veil +under which she hides her wickedness, and will wring from her the secret +of my friend's fate, and banish her forever from the house which her +presence has polluted." +</P><P> +He started early the next morning for Essex, and reached Audley before +eleven o'clock. +</P><P> +Early as it was, my lady was out. She had driven to Chelmsford upon a +shopping expedition with her step-daughter. She had several calls to +make in the neighborhood of the town, and was not likely to return until +dinner-time. Sir Michael's health was very much improved, and he would +come down stairs in the afternoon. Would Mr. Audley go to his uncle's +room? +</P><P> +No; Robert had no wish to meet that generous kinsman. What could he say +to him? How could he smooth the way to the trouble that was to +come?—how soften the cruel blow of the great grief that was preparing +for that noble and trusting heart? +</P><P> +"If I could forgive her the wrong done to my friend," Robert thought, "I +should still abhor her for the misery her guilt must bring upon the man +who has believed in her." +</P><P> +He told his uncle's servant that he would stroll into the village, and +return before dinner. He walked slowly away from the Court, wandering +across the meadows between his uncle's house and the village, +purposeless and indifferent, with the great trouble and perplexity of +his life stamped upon his face and reflected in his manner. +</P><P> +"I will go into the churchyard," he thought, "and stare at the +tombstones. There is nothing I can do that will make me more gloomy than +I am." +</P><P> +He was in those very meadows through which he had hurried from Audley +Court to the station upon the September day in which George Talboys had +disappeared. He looked at the pathway by which he had gone upon that +day, and remembered his unaccustomed hurry, and the vague feeling of +terror which had taken possession of him immediately upon losing sight +of his friend. +</P><P> +"Why did that unaccountable terror seize upon me," he thought. "Why was +it that I saw some strange mystery in my friend's disappearance? Was it +a monition, or a monomania? What if I am wrong after all? What if this +chain of evidence which I have constructed link by link, is woven out of +my own folly? What if this edifice of horror and suspicion is a mere +collection of crotchets—the nervous fancies of a hypochondriacal +bachelor? Mr. Harcourt Talboys sees no meaning in the events out of +which I have made myself a horrible mystery. I lay the separate links of +the chain before him, and he cannot recognize their fitness. He is +unable to put them together. Oh, my God, if it should be in myself all +this time that the misery lies; if—" he smiled bitterly, and shook his +head. "I have the handwriting in my pocket-book which is the evidence of +the conspiracy," he thought. "It remains for me to discover the darker +half of my lady's secret." +</P><P> +He avoided the village, still keeping to the meadows. The church lay a +little way back from the straggling High street, and a rough wooden gate +opened from the churchyard into a broad meadow, that was bordered by a +running stream, and sloped down into a grassy valley dotted by groups of +cattle. +</P><P> +Robert slowly ascended the narrow hillside pathway leading up to the +gate in the churchyard. The quiet dullness of the lonely landscape +harmonized with his own gloom. The solitary figure of an old man +hobbling toward a stile at the further end of the wide meadow was the +only human creature visible upon the area over which the young barrister +looked. The smoke slowly ascending from the scattered houses in the long +High street was the only evidence of human life. The slow progress of +the hands of the old clock in the church steeple was the only token by +which a traveler could perceive that a sluggish course of rustic life +had not come to a full stop in the village of Audley. +</P><P> +Yes, there was one other sign. As Robert opened the gate of the +churchyard, and strolled listessly into the little inclosure, he became +aware of the solemn music of an organ, audible through a half-open +window in the steeple. +</P><P> +He stopped and listened to the slow harmonies of a dreamy melody that +sounded like an extempore composition of an accomplished player. +</P><P> +"Who would have believed that Audley church could boast such an organ?" +thought Robert. "When last I was here, the national schoolmaster used to +accompany his children by a primitive performance of common chords. I +didn't think the old organ had such music in it." +</P><P> +He lingered at the gate, not caring to break the lazy spell woven about +him by the monotonous melancholy of the organist's performance. The +tones of the instrument, now swelling to their fullest power, now +sinking to a low, whispering softness, floated toward him upon the misty +winter atmosphere, and had a soothing influence, that seemed to comfort +him in his trouble. +</P><P> +He closed the gate softly, and crossed the little patch of gravel before +the door of the church. The door had been left ajar—by the organist, +perhaps. Robert Audley pushed it open, and walked into the square porch, +from which a flight of narrow stone steps wound upward to the organ-loft +and the belfry. Mr. Audley took off his hat, and opened the door between +the porch and the body of the church. He stepped softly into the holy +edifice, which had a damp, moldy smell upon week-days. He walked down +the narrow aisle to the altar-rails, and from that point of observation +took a survey of the church. The little gallery was exactly opposite to +him, but the scanty green curtains before the organ were closely drawn, +and he could not get a glimpse of the player. +</P><P> +The music, still rolled on. The organist had wandered into a melody of +Mendelssohn's, a strain whose dreamy sadness went straight to Robert's +heart. He loitered in the nooks and corners of the church, examining the +dilapidated memorials of the well-nigh forgotten dead, and listening to +the music. +</P><P> +"If my poor friend, George Talboys, had died in my arms, and I had +buried him in this quiet church, in one corner of the vaults over which +I tread to-day, how much anguish of mind, vacillation and torment I +might have escaped," thought Robert Audley, as he read the faded +inscriptions upon tablets of discolored marble; "I should have known his +fate—I should have known his fate! Ah, how much there would have been +in that. It is this miserable uncertainty, this horrible suspicion which +has poisoned my very life." +</P><P> +He looked at his watch. +</P><P> +"Half-past one," he muttered. "I shall have to wait four or five dreary +hours before my lady comes home from her morning calls—her pretty +visits of ceremony or friendliness. Good Heaven! what an actress this +woman is. What an arch trickster—what an all-accomplished deceiver. But +she shall play her pretty comedy no longer under my uncle's roof. I have +diplomatized long enough. She has refused to accept an indirect warning. +To-night I will speak plainly." +</P><P> +The music of the organ ceased, and Robert heard the closing of the +instrument. +</P><P> +"I'll have a look at this new organist," he thought, "who can afford to +bury his talents at Audley, and play Mendelssohn's finest fugues for a +stipend of sixteen pounds a year." He lingered in the porch, waiting for +the organist to descend the awkward little stair-case. In the weary +trouble of his mind, and with the prospect of getting through the five +hours in the best way he could, Mr. Audley was glad to cultivate any +diversion of thought, however idle. He therefore freely indulged his +curiosity about the new organist. +</P><P> +The first person who appeared upon the steep stone steps was a boy in +corduroy trousers and a dark linen smock-frock, who shambled down the +stairs with a good deal of unnecessary clatter of his hobnailed shoes, +and who was red in the face from the exertion of blowing the bellows of +the old organ. Close behind this boy came a young lady, very plainly +dressed in a black silk gown and a large gray shawl, who started and +turned pale at sight of Mr. Audley. +</P><P> +This young lady was Clara Talboys. +</P><P> +Of all people in the world she was the last whom Robert either expected +or wished to see. She had told him that she was going to pay a visit to +some friends who lived in Essex; but the county is a wide one, and the +village of Audley one of the most obscure and least frequented spots in +the whole of its extent. That the sister of his lost friend should be +here—here where she could watch his every action, and from those +actions deduce the secret workings of his mind, tracing his doubts home +to their object, made a complication of his difficulties that he could +never have anticipated. It brought him back to that consciousness of his +own helplessness, in which he had exclaimed: +</P><P> +"A hand that is stronger than my own is beckoning me onward on the dark +road that leads to my lost friend's unknown grave." +</P><P> +Clara Talboys was the first to speak. +</P><P> +"You are surprised to see me here, Mr. Audley," she said. +</P><P> +"Very much surprised." +</P><P> +"I told you that I was coming to Essex. I left home day before +yesterday. I was leaving home when I received your telegraphic message. +The friend with whom I am staying is Mrs. Martyn, the wife of the new +rector of Mount Stanning. I came down this morning to see the village +and church, and as Mrs. Martyn had to pay a visit to the school with the +curate and his wife, I stopped here and amused myself by trying the old +organ. I was not aware till I came here that there was a village called +Audley. The place takes its name from your family, I suppose?" +</P><P> +"I believe so," Robert answered, wondering at the lady's calmness, in +contradistinction to his own embarrassment. "I have a vague recollection +of hearing the story of some ancestor who was called Audley of Audley in +the reign of Edward the Fourth. The tomb inside the rails near the altar +belongs to one of the knights of Audley, but I have never taken the +trouble to remember his achievements. Are you going to wait here for +your friends, Miss Talboys?" +</P><P> +"Yes; they are to return here for me after they have finished their +rounds." +</P><P> +"And you go back to Mount Stanning with them this afternoon?" +</P><P> +"Yes." +</P><P> +Robert stood with his hat in his hand, looking absently out at the +tombstones and the low wall of the church yard. Clara Talboys watched +his pale face, haggard under the deepening shadow that had rested upon +it so long. +</P><P> +"You have been ill since I saw you last, Mr. Audley," she said, in a low +voice, that had the same melodious sadness as the notes of the old organ +under her touch. +</P><P> +"No, I have not been ill; I have been only harassed, wearied by a +hundred doubts and perplexities." +</P><P> +He was thinking as he spoke to her: +</P><P> +"How much does she guess? How much does she suspect?" +</P><P> +He had told the story of George's disappearance and of his own +suspicions, suppressing only the names of those concerned in the +mystery; but what if this girl should fathom this slender disguise, and +discover for herself that which he had chosen to withhold. +</P><P> +Her grave eyes were fixed upon his face, and he knew that she was trying +to read the innermost secrets of his mind. +</P><P> +"What am I in her hands?" he thought. "What am I in the hands of this +woman, who has my lost friend's face and the manner of Pallas Athene. +She reads my pitiful, vacillating soul, and plucks the thoughts out of +my heart with the magic of her solemn brown eyes. How unequal the fight +must be between us, and how can I ever hope to conquer against the +strength of her beauty and her wisdom?" +</P><P> +Mr. Audley was clearing his throat preparatory to bidding his beautiful +companion good-morning, and making his escape from the thraldom of her +presence into the lonely meadow outside the churchyard, when Clare +Talboys arrested him by speaking upon that very subject which he was +most anxious to avoid. +</P><P> +"You promised to write to me, Mr. Audley," she said, "if you made any +discovery which carried you nearer to the mystery of my brother's +disappearance. You have not written to me, and I imagine, therefore, +that you have discovered nothing." +</P><P> +Robert Audley was silent for some moments. How could he answer this +direct question? +</P><P> +"The chain of circumstantial evidence which unites the mystery of your +brother's fate with the person whom I suspect," he said, after a pause, +"is formed of very slight links. I think that I have added another link +to that chain since I saw you in Dorsetshire." +</P><P> +"And you refuse to tell me what it is that you have discovered?" +</P><P> +"Only until I have discovered more." +</P><P> +"I thought from your message that you were going to Wildernsea." +</P><P> +"I have been there." +</P><P> +"Indeed! It was there that you made some discovery, then?" +</P><P> +"It was," answered Robert. "You must remember, Miss Talboys that the +sole ground upon which my suspicions rest is the identity of two +individuals who have no apparent connection—the identity of a person +who is supposed to be dead with one who is living. The conspiracy of +which I believe your brother to have been the victim hinges upon this. +If his wife, Helen Talboys, died when the papers recorded her death—if +the woman who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard was indeed the woman +whose name is inscribed on the headstone of the grave—I have no case, I +have no clew to the mystery of your brother's fate. I am about to put +this to the test. I believe that I am now in a position to play a bold +game, and I believe that I shall soon arrive at the truth." +</P><P> +He spoke in a low voice, and with a solemn emphasis that betrayed the +intensity of his feeling. Miss Talboys stretched out her ungloved hand, +and laid it in his own. The cold touch of that slender hand sent a +shivering thrill through his frame. +</P><P> +"You will not suffer my brother's fate to remain a mystery, Mr. Audley," +she said, quietly. "I know that you will do your duty to your friend." +</P><P> +The rector's wife and her two companions entered the churchyard as Clara +Talboys said this. Robert Audley pressed the hand that rested in his +own, and raised it to his lips. +</P><P> +"I am a lazy, good-for-nothing fellow, Miss Talboys," he said; "but if I +could restore your brother George to life and happiness, I should care +very little for any sacrifice of my own feeling, fear that the most I +can do is to fathom the secret of his fate and in doing that I must +sacrifice those who are dearer to me than myself." +</P><P> +He put on his hat, and hurried through the gateway leading into the +field as Mrs. Martyn came up to the porch. +</P><P> +"Who is that handsome young man I caught <i>tete-a-tete</i> with you, Clara?" +she asked, laughing. +</P><P> +"He is a Mr. Audley, a friend of my poor brother's." +</P><P> +"Indeed! He is some relation of Sir Michael Audley, I suppose?" +</P><P> +"Sir Michael Audley!" +</P><P> +"Yes, my dear; the most important personage in the parish of Audley. But +we'll call at the Court in a day or two, and you shall see the baronet +and his pretty young wife." +</P><P> +"His young wife!" replied Clara Talboys, looking earnestly at her +friend. "Has Sir Michael Audley lately married, then?" +</P><P> +"Yes. He was a widower for sixteen years, and married a penniless young +governess about a year and a half ago. The story is quite romantic, and +Lady Audley is considered the belle of the county. But come, my dear +Clara, the pony is tired of waiting for us, and we've a long drive +before dinner." +</P><P> +Clara Talboys took her seat in the little basket-carriage which was +waiting at the principal gate of the churchyard, in the care of the boy +who had blown the organ-bellows. Mrs. Martyn shook the reins, and the +sturdy chestnut cob trotted off in the direction of Mount Stanning. +</P><P> +"Will you tell me more about this Lady Audley, Fanny?" Miss Talboys +said, after a long pause. "I want to know all about her. Have you heard +her maiden name?" +</P><P> +"Yes; she was a Miss Graham." +</P><P> +"And she is very pretty?" +</P><P> +"Yes, very, very pretty. Rather a childish beauty though, with large, +clear blue eyes, and pale golden ringlets, that fall in a feathery +shower over her throat and shoulders." +</P><P> +Clara Talboys was silent. She did not ask any further questions about my +lady. +</P><P> +She was thinking of a passage in that letter which George had written to +her during his honeymoon—a passage in which he said: "My childish +little wife is watching me as I write this—Ah! how I wish you could +see her, Clara! Her eyes are as blue and as clear as the skies on a +bright summer's day, and her hair falls about her face like the pale +golden halo you see round the head of a Madonna in an Italian picture." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXIX.</H2> +<H3>IN THE LIME-WALK.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Robert Audley was loitering upon the broad grass-plat in front of the +Court as the carriage containing my lady and Alicia drove under the +archway, and drew up at the low turret-door. Mr. Audley presented +himself in time to hand the ladies out of the vehicle. +</P><P> +My lady looked very pretty in a delicate blue bonnet and the sables +which her nephew had bought for her at St. Petersburg. She seemed very +well pleased to see Robert, and smiled most bewitchingly as she gave him +her exquisitely gloved little hand. +</P><P> +"So you have come back to us, truant?" she said, laughing. "And now that +you have returned, we shall keep you prisoner. We won't let him run away +again, will we, Alicia?" +</P><P> +Miss Audley gave her head a scornful toss that shook the heavy curls +under her cavalier hat. +</P><P> +"I have nothing to do with the movements of so erratic an individual," +she said. "Since Robert Audley has taken it into his head to conduct +himself like some ghost-haunted hero in a German story, I have given up +attempting to understand him." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley looked at his cousin with an expression of serio-comic +perplexity. "She's a nice girl," he thought, "but she's a nuisance. I +don't know how it is, but she seems more a nuisance than she used to +be." +</P><P> +He pulled his mustaches reflectively as he considered this question. His +mind wandered away for a few moments from the great trouble of his life +to dwell upon this minor perplexity. +</P><P> +"She's a dear girl," he thought; "a generous-hearted, bouncing, noble +English lassie; and yet—" He lost himself in a quagmire of doubt and +difficulty. There was some hitch in his mind which he could not +understand; some change in himself, beyond the change made in him by his +anxiety about George Talboys, which mystified and bewildered him. +</P><P> +"And pray where have you been wandering during the last day or two, Mr. +Audley?" asked my lady, as she lingered with her step-daughter upon the +threshold of the turret-door, waiting until Robert should be pleased to +stand aside and allow them to pass. The young man started as she asked +this question and looked up at her suddenly. Something in the aspect of +her bright young beauty, something in the childish innocence of her +expression, seemed to smite him to the heart, and his face grew ghastly +pale as he looked at her. +</P><P> +"I have been—in Yorkshire," he said; "at the little watering place +where my poor friend George Talboys lived at the time of his marriage." +</P><P> +The white change in my lady's face was the only sign of her having heard +these words. She smiled, a faint, sickly smile, and tried to pass her +husband's nephew. +</P><P> +"I must dress for dinner," she said. "I am going to a dinner-party, Mr. +Audley; please let me go in." +</P><P> +"I must ask you to spare me half an hour, Lady Audley," Robert answered, +in a low voice. "I came down to Essex on purpose to speak to you." +</P><P> +"What about?" asked my lady. +</P><P> +She had recovered herself from any shock which she might have sustained +a few moments before, and it was in her usual manner that she asked this +question. Her face expressed the mingled bewilderment and curiosity of a +puzzled child, rather than the serious surprise of a woman. +</P><P> +"What can you want to talk to me about, Mr. Audley?" she repeated. +</P><P> +"I will tell you when we are alone," Robert said, glancing at his +cousin, who stood a little way behind my lady, watching this +confidential little dialogue. +</P><P> +"He is in love with my step-mother's wax-doll beauty," thought Alicia, +"and it is for her sake he has become such a disconsolate object. He's +just the sort of person to fall in love with his aunt." +</P><P> +Miss Audley walked away to the grass-plat, turning her back upon Robert +and my lady. +</P><P> +"The absurd creature turned as white as a sheet when he saw her," she +thought. "So he can be in love, after all. That slow lump of torpidity +he calls his heart can beat, I suppose, once in a quarter of a century; +but it seems that nothing but a blue-eyed wax-doll can set it going. I +should have given him up long ago if I'd known that his idea of beauty +was to be found in a toy-shop." +</P><P> +Poor Alicia crossed the grass-plat and disappeared upon the opposite +side of the quadrangle, where there was a Gothic gate that communicated +with the stables. I am sorry to say that Sir Michael Audley's daughter +went to seek consolation from her dog Caesar and her chestnut mare +Atalanta, whose loose box the young lady was in the habit of visiting +every day. +</P><P> +"Will you come into the lime-walk, Lady Audley?" said Robert, as his +cousin left the garden. "I wish to talk to you without fear of +interruption or observation. I think we could choose no safer place than +that. Will you come there with me?" +</P><P> +"If you please," answered my lady. Mr. Audley could see that she was +trembling, and that she glanced from side to side as if looking for some +outlet by which she might escape him. +</P><P> +"You are shivering, Lady Audley," he said. +</P><P> +"Yes, I am very cold. I would rather speak to you some other day, +please. Let it be to-morrow, if you will. I have to dress for dinner, +and I want to see Sir Michael; I have not seen him since ten o'clock +this morning. Please let it be to-morrow." +</P><P> +There was a painful piteousness in her tone. Heaven knows how painful to +Robert's heart. Heaven knows what horrible images arose in his mind as +he looked down at that fair young face and thought of the task that lay +before him. +</P><P> +"I <i>must</i> speak to you, Lady Audley," he said. "If I am cruel, it is you +who have made me cruel. You might have escaped this ordeal. You might +have avoided me. I gave you fair warning. But you have chosen to defy +me, and it is your own folly which is to blame if I no longer spare you. +Come with me. I tell you again I must speak to you." +</P><P> +There was a cold determination in his tone which silenced my lady's +objections. She followed him submissively to the little iron gate which +communicated with the long garden behind the house—the garden in which +a little rustic wooden bridge led across the quiet fish-pond into the +lime-walk. +</P><P> +The early winter twilight was closing in, and the intricate tracery of +the leafless branches that overarched the lonely pathway looked black +against the cold gray of the evening sky. The lime-walk seemed like some +cloister in this uncertain light. +</P><P> +"Why do you bring me to this horrible place to frighten me out of my +poor wits?" cried my lady, peevishly. "You ought to know how nervous I +am." +</P><P> +"You are nervous, my lady?" +</P><P> +"Yes, dreadfully nervous. I am worth a fortune to poor Mr. Dawson. He is +always sending me camphor, and sal volatile, and red lavender, and all +kinds of abominable mixtures, but he can't cure me." +</P><P> +"Do you remember what Macbeth tells his physician, my lady?" asked +Robert, gravely. "Mr. Dawson may be very much more clever than the +Scottish leech, but I doubt if even <i>he</i> can minister to the mind that +is diseased." +</P><P> +"Who said that my mind was diseased?" exclaimed Lady Audley. +</P><P> +"I say so, my lady," answered Robert. "You tell me that you are nervous, +and that all the medicines your doctor can prescribe are only so much +physic that might as well be thrown to the dogs. Let me be the physician +to strike to the root of your malady, Lady Audley. Heaven knows that I +wish to be merciful—that I would spare you as far as it is in my power +to spare you in doing justice to others—but justice must be done. Shall +I tell you why you are nervous in this house, my lady?" +</P><P> +"If you can," she answered, with a little laugh. +</P><P> +"Because for you this house is haunted." +</P><P> +"Haunted?" +</P><P> +"Yes, haunted by the ghost of George Talboys." +</P><P> +Robert Audley heard my lady's quickened breathing, he fancied he could +almost hear the loud beating of her heart as she walked by his side, +shivering now and then, and with her sable cloak wrapped tightly around +her. +</P><P> +"What do you mean?" she cried suddenly, after a pause of some moments. +"Why do you torment me about this George Talboys, who happens to have +taken it into his head to keep out of your way for a few months? Are you +going mad, Mr. Audley, and do you select me as the victim of your +monomania? What is George Talboys to me that you should worry me about +him?" +</P><P> +"He was a stranger to you, my lady, was he not?" +</P><P> +"Of course!" answered Lady Audley. "What should he be but a stranger?" +</P><P> +"Shall I tell you the story of my friend's disappearance as I read that +story, my lady?" asked Robert. +</P><P> +"No," cried Lady Audley; "I wish to know nothing of your friend. If he +is dead, I am sorry for him. If he lives, I have no wish either to see +him or to hear of him. Let me go in to see my husband, if you please, +Mr. Audley, unless you wish to detain me in this gloomy place until I +catch my death of cold." +</P><P> +"I wish to detain you until you have heard what I have to say, Lady +Audley," answered Robert, resolutely. "I will detain you no longer than +is necessary, and when you have heard me you shall take your own course +of action." +</P><P> +"Very well, then; pray lose no time in saying what you have to say," +replied my lady, carelessly. "I promise you to attend very patiently." +</P><P> +"When my friend, George Talboys, returned to England," Robert began, +gravely, "the thought which was uppermost in his mind was the thought of +his wife." +</P><P> +"Whom he had deserted," said my lady, quickly. "At least," she added, +more deliberately, "I remember your telling us something to that effect +when you first told us your friend's story." +</P><P> +Robert Audley did not notice this observation. +</P><P> +"The thought that was uppermost in his mind was the thought of his wife," +he repeated. "His fairest hope in the future was the hope of making her +happy, and lavishing upon her the pittance which he had won by the force +of his own strong arm in the gold-fields of Australia. I saw him within +a few hours of his reaching England, and I was a witness to the joyful +pride with which he looked forward to his re-union with his wife. I was +also a witness to the blow which struck him to the very heart—which +changed him from the man he had been to a creature as unlike that former +self as one human being can be unlike another. The blow which made that +cruel change was the announcement of his wife's death in the <i>Times</i> +newspaper. I now believe that that announcement was a black and bitter +lie." +</P><P> +"Indeed!" said my lady; "and what reason could any one have for +announcing the death of Mrs. Talboys, if Mrs. Talboys had been alive?" +</P><P> +"The lady herself might have had a reason," Robert answered, quietly. +</P><P> +"What reason?" +</P><P> +"How if she had taken advantage of George's absence to win a richer +husband? How if she had married again, and wished to throw my poor +friend off the scent by this false announcement?" +</P><P> +Lady Audley shrugged her shoulders. +</P><P> +"Your suppositions are rather ridiculous, Mr. Audley," she said; "it is +to be hoped that you have some reasonable grounds for them." +</P><P> +"I have examined a file of each of the newspapers published in +Chelmsford and Colchester," continued Robert, without replying to my +lady's last observation, "and I find in one of the Colchester papers, +dated July the 2d, 1850, a brief paragraph among numerous miscellaneous +scraps of information copied from other newspapers, to the effect that a +Mr. George Talboys, an English gentleman, had arrived at Sydney from the +gold-fields, carrying with him nuggets and gold-dust to the amount of +twenty thousand pounds, and that he had realized his property and sailed +for Liverpool in the fast-sailing clipper <i>Argus</i>. This is a very small +fact, of course, Lady Audley, but it is enough to prove that any person +residing in Essex in the July of the year fifty-seven, was likely to +become aware of George Talboys' return from Australia. Do you follow +me?" +</P><P> +"Not very clearly," said my lady. "What have the Essex papers to do with +the death of Mrs. Talboys?" +</P><P> +"We will come to that by-and-by, Lady Audley. I say that I believe the +announcement in the <i>Times</i> to have been a false announcement, and a +part of the conspiracy which was carried out by Helen Talboys and +Lieutenant Maldon against my poor friend." +</P><P> +"A conspiracy!" +</P><P> +"Yes, a conspiracy concocted by an artful woman, who had speculated upon +the chances of her husband's death, and had secured a splendid position +at the risk of committing a crime; a bold woman, my lady, who thought to +play her comedy out to the end without fear of detection; a wicked +woman, who did not care what misery she might inflict upon the honest +heart of the man she betrayed; but a foolish woman, who looked at life +as a game of chance, in which the best player was likely to hold the +winning cards, forgetting that there is a Providence above the pitiful +speculators, and that wicked secrets are never permitted to remain long +hidden. If this woman of whom I speak had never been guilty of any +blacker sin than the publication of that lying announcement in the +<i>Times</i> newspaper, I should still hold her as the most detestable and +despicable of her sex—the most pitiless and calculating of human +creatures. That cruel lie was a base and cowardly blow in the dark; it +was the treacherous dagger-thrust of an infamous assassin." +</P><P> +"But how do you know that the announcement was a false one?" asked my +lady. "You told us that you had been to Ventnor with Mr. Talboys to see +his wife's grave. Who was it who died at Ventnor if it was not Mrs. +Talboys?" +</P><P> +"Ah, Lady Audley," said Robert, "that is a question which only two or +three people can answer, and one or other of those persons shall answer +it to me before long. I tell you, my lady, that I am determined to +unravel the mystery of George Talboy's death. Do you think I am to be +put off by feminine prevarication—by womanly trickery? No! Link by link +I have put together the chain of evidence, which wants but a link here +and there to be complete in its terrible strength. Do you think I will +suffer myself to be baffled? Do you think I shall fail to discover those +missing links? No, Lady Audley, I shall not fail, for <i>I know where to +look for them!</i> There is a fair-haired woman at Southampton—a woman +called Plowson, who has some share in the secrets of the father of my +friend's wife. I have an idea that she can help me to discover the +history of the woman who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard, and I will +spare no trouble in making that discovery, unless—" +</P><P> +"Unless what?" asked my lady, eagerly. +</P><P> +"Unless the woman I wish to save from degradation and punishment accepts +the mercy I offer her, and takes warning while there is still time." +</P><P> +My lady shrugged her graceful shoulders, and flashed bright defiance out +of her blue eyes. +</P><P> +"She would be a very foolish woman if she suffered herself to be +influenced by any such absurdity," she said. "You are hypochondriacal, +Mr. Audley, and you must take camphor, or red lavender, or sal volatile. +What can be more ridiculous than this idea which you have taken into +your head? You lose your friend George Talboys in rather a mysterious +manner—that is to say, that gentleman chooses to leave England without +giving you due notice. What of that? You confess that he became an +altered man after his wife's death. He grew eccentric and +misanthropical; he affected an utter indifference as to what became of +him. What more likely, then, than that he grew tired of the monotony of +civilized life, and ran away to those savage gold-fields to find a +distraction for his grief? It is rather a romantic story, but by no +means an uncommon one. But you are not satisfied with this simple +interpretation of your friend's disappearance, and you build up some +absurd theory of a conspiracy which has no existence except in your own +overheated brain. Helen Talboys is dead. The <i>Times</i> newspaper declares +she is dead. Her own father tells you that she is dead. The headstone of +the grave in Ventnor churchyard bears record of her death. By what +right," cried my lady, her voice rising to that shrill and piercing tone +peculiar to her when affected by any intense agitation—"by what right, +Mr. Audley, do you come to me, and torment me about George Talboys—by +what right do you dare to say that his wife is still alive?" +</P><P> +"By the right of circumstantial evidence, Lady Audley," answered +Robert—"by the right of that circumstantial evidence which will +sometimes fix the guilt of a man's murder upon that person who, on the +first hearing of the case, seems of all other men the most unlikely to +be guilty." +</P><P> +"What circumstantial evidence?" +</P><P> +"The evidence of time and place. The evidence of handwriting. When Helen +Talboys left her father's at Wildernsea, she left a letter behind her—a +letter in which she declared that she was weary of her old life, and +that she wished to seek a new home and a new fortune. That letter is in +my possession." +</P><P> +"Indeed." +</P><P> +"Shall I tell you whose handwriting resembles that of Helen Talboys so +closely, that the most dexterous expert could perceive no distinction +between the two?" +</P><P> +"A resemblance between the handwriting of two women is no very uncommon +circumstance now-a-days," replied my lady carelessly. "I could show you +the caligraphies of half-a-dozen female correspondents, and defy you to +discover any great difference in them." +</P><P> +"But what if the handwriting is a very uncommon one, presenting marked +peculiarities by which it may be recognized among a hundred?" +</P><P> +"Why, in that case the coincidence is rather curious," answered my lady; +"but it is nothing more than a coincidence. You cannot deny the fact of +Helen Talboys death on the ground that her handwriting resembles that of +some surviving person." +</P><P> +"But if a series of such coincidences lead up to the same point," said +Robert. "Helen Talboys left her father's house, according to the +declaration in her own handwriting, because she was weary of her old +life, and wished to begin a new one. Do you know what I infer from +this?" +</P><P> +My lady shrugged her shoulders. +</P><P> +"I have not the least idea," she said; "and as you have detained me in +this gloomy place nearly half-an-hour, I must beg that you will release +me, and let me go and dress for dinner." +</P><P> +"No, Lady Audley," answered Robert, with a cold sternness that was so +strange to him as to transform him into another creature—a pitiless +embodiment of justice, a cruel instrument of retribution—"no, Lady +Audley," he repeated, "I have told you that womanly prevarication will +not help you; I tell you now that defiance will not serve you. I have +dealt fairly with you, and have given you fair warning. I gave you +indirect notice of your danger two months ago." +</P><P> +"What do you mean?" asked my lady, suddenly. +</P><P> +"You did not choose to take that warning, Lady Audley," pursued Robert, +"and the time has come in which I must speak very plainly to you. Do you +think the gifts which you have played against fortune are to hold you +exempt from retribution? No, my lady, your youth and beauty, your grace +and refinement, only make the horrible secret of your life more +horrible. I tell you that the evidence against you wants only one link +to be strong enough for your condemnation, and that link shall be added. +Helen Talboys never returned to her father's house. When she deserted +that poor old father, she went away from his humble shelter with the +declared intention of washing her hands of that old life. What do people +generally do when they wish to begin a new existence—to start for a +second time in the race of life, free from the incumbrances that had +fettered their first journey. <i>They change their names</i>, Lady Audley. +Helen Talboys deserted her infant son—she went away from Wildernsea +with the predetermination of sinking her identity. She disappeared as +Helen Talboys upon the 16th of August, 1854, and upon the 17th of that +month she reappeared as Lucy Graham, the friendless girl who undertook a +profitless duty in consideration of a home in which she was asked no +questions." +</P><P> +"You are mad, Mr. Audley!" cried my lady. "You are mad, and my husband +shall protect me from your insolence. What if this Helen Talboys ran +away from her home upon one day, and I entered my employer's house upon +the next, what does that prove?" +</P><P> +"By itself, very little," replied Robert Audley; "but with the help of +other evidence—" +</P><P> +"What evidence?" +</P><P> +"The evidence of two labels, pasted one over the other, upon a box left +by you in possession of Mrs. Vincent, the upper label bearing the name +of Miss Graham, the lower that of Mrs. George Talboys." +</P><P> +My lady was silent. Robert Audley could not see her face in the dusk, +but he could see that her two small hands were clasped convulsively over +her heart, and he knew that the shot had gone home to its mark. +</P><P> +"God help her, poor, wretched creature," he thought. "She knows now that +she is lost. I wonder if the judges of the land feel as I do now when +they put on the black cap and pass sentence of death upon some poor, +shivering wretch, who has never done them any wrong. Do they feel a +heroic fervor of virtuous indignation, or do they suffer this dull +anguish which gnaws my vitals as I talk to this helpless woman?" +</P><P> +He walked by my lady's side, silently, for some minutes. They had been +pacing up and down the dim avenue, and they were now drawing near the +leafless shrubbery at one end of the lime-walk—the shrubbery in which +the ruined well sheltered its unheeded decay among the tangled masses of +briery underwood. +</P><P> +A winding pathway, neglected and half-choked with weeds, led toward this +well. Robert left the lime-walk, and struck into this pathway. There was +more light in the shrubbery than in the avenue, and Mr. Audley wished to +see my lady's face. +</P><P> +He did not speak until they reached the patch of rank grass beside the +well. The massive brickwork had fallen away here and there, and loose +fragments of masonry lay buried amidst weeds and briars. The heavy posts +which had supported the wooden roller still remained, but the iron +spindle had been dragged from its socket and lay a few paces from the +well, rusty, discolored, and forgotten. +</P><P> +Robert Audley leaned against one of the moss-grown posts and looked down +at my lady's face, very pale in the chill winter twilight. The moon had +newly risen, a feebly luminous crescent in the gray heavens, and a +faint, ghostly light mingled with the misty shadows of the declining +day. My lady's face seemed like that face which Robert Audley had seen +in his dreams looking out of the white foam-flakes on the green sea +waves and luring his uncle to destruction. +</P><P> +"Those two labels are in my possession, Lady Audley," he resumed. "I +took them from the box left by you at Crescent Villas. I took them in +the presence of Mrs. Vincent and Miss Tonks. Have you any proofs to +offer against this evidence? You say to me, 'I am Lucy Graham and I have +nothing whatever to do with Helen Talboys.' In that case you will +produce witnesses who will declare your antecedents. Where had you been +living prior to your appearance at Crescent Villas? You must have +friends, relations, connections, who can come forward to prove as much +as this for you? If you were the most desolate creature upon this earth, +you would be able to point to someone who could identify you with the +past." +</P><P> +"Yes," cried my lady, "if I were placed in a criminal dock I could, no +doubt, bring forward witnesses to refute your absurd accusation. But I +am not in a criminal dock, Mr. Audley, and I do not choose to do +anything but laugh at your ridiculous folly. I tell you that you are +mad! If you please to say that Helen Talboys is not dead, and that I am +Helen Talboys, you may do so. If you choose to go wandering about in the +places in which I have lived, and to the places in which this Mrs. +Talboys has lived, you must follow the bent of your own inclination, but +I would warn you that such fancies have sometimes conducted people, as +apparently sane as yourself, to the life-long imprisonment of a private +lunatic-asylum." +</P><P> +Robert Audley started and recoiled a few paces among the weeds and +brushwood as my lady said this. +</P><P> +"She would be capable of any new crime to shield her from the +consequences of the old one," he thought. "She would be capable of using +her influence with my uncle to place me in a mad-house." +</P><P> +I do not say that Robert Audley was a coward, but I will admit that a +shiver of horror, something akin to fear, chilled him to the heart as he +remembered the horrible things that have been done by women since that +day upon which Eve was created to be Adam's companion and help-meet in +the garden of Eden. "What if this woman's hellish power of dissimulation +should be stronger than the truth, and crush him? She had not spared +George Talboys when he stood in her way and menaced her with a certain +peril; would she spare him who threatened her with a far greater danger? +Are women merciful, or loving, or kind in proportion to their beauty and +grace? Was there not a certain Monsieur Mazers de Latude, who had the +bad fortune to offend the all-accomplished Madam de Pompadour, who +expiated his youthful indiscretion by a life-long imprisonment; who +twice escaped from prison, to be twice cast back into captivity; who, +trusting in the tardy generosity of his beautiful foe, betrayed himself +to an implacable fiend? Robert Audley looked at the pale face of the +woman standing by his side; that fair and beautiful face, illumined by +starry-blue eyes, that had a strange and surely a dangerous light in +them; and remembering a hundred stories of womanly perfidy, shuddered as +he thought how unequal the struggle might be between himself and his +uncle's wife. +</P><P> +"I have shown her my cards," he thought, "but she has kept hers hidden +from me. The mask that she wears is not to be plucked away. My uncle +would rather think me mad than believe her guilty." +</P><P> +The pale face of Clara Talboys—that grave and earnest face, so +different in its character to my lady's fragile beauty—arose before +him. +</P><P> +"What a coward I am to think of myself or my own danger," he thought. +"The more I see of this woman the more reason I have to dread her +influence upon others; the more reason to wish her far away from this +house." +</P><P> +He looked about him in the dusky obscurity. The lonely garden was as +quiet as some solitary grave-yard, walled in and hidden away from the +world of the living. +</P><P> +"It was somewhere in this garden that she met George Talboys upon the +day of his disappearance," he thought. "I wonder where it was they met; +I wonder where it was that he looked into her cruel face and taxed her +with her falsehood?" +</P><P> +My lady, with her little hand resting lightly upon the opposite post to +that against which Robert leaned, toyed with her pretty foot among the +long weeds, but kept a furtive watch upon her enemy's face. +</P><P> +"It is to be a duel to the death, then, my lady," said Robert Audley, +solemnly. "You refuse to accept my warning. You refuse to run away and +repent of your wickedness in some foreign place, far from the generous +gentleman you have deceived and fooled by your false witcheries. You +choose to remain here and defy me." +</P><P> +"I do," answered Lady Audley, lifting her head and looking full at the +young barrister. "It is no fault of mine if my husband's nephew goes +mad, and chooses me for the victim of his monomania." +</P><P> +"So be it, then, my lady," answered Robert. "My friend George Talboys +was last seen entering these gardens by the little iron gate by which we +came in to-night. He was last heard inquiring for you. He was seen to +enter these gardens, but he was never seen to leave them. I believe that +he met his death within the boundary of these grounds; and that his body +lies hidden below some quiet water, or in some forgotten corner of this +place. I will have such a search made as shall level that house to the +earth and root up every tree in these gardens, rather than I will fail +in finding the grave of my murdered friend." +</P><P> +Lucy Audley uttered a long, low, wailing cry, and threw up her arms +above her head with a wild gesture of despair, but she made no answer to +the ghastly charge of her accuser. Her arms slowly dropped, and she +stood staring at Robert Audley, her white face gleaming through the +dusk, her blue eyes glittering and dilated. +</P><P> +"You shall never live to do this," she said. "<i>I will kill you first</i>. +Why have you tormented me so? Why could you not let me alone? What harm +had I ever done you that you should make yourself my persecutor, and dog +my steps, and watch my looks, and play the spy upon me? Do you want to +drive me mad? Do you know what it is to wrestle with a mad-woman? No," +cried my lady, with a laugh, "you do not, or you would never—" +</P><P> +She stopped abruptly and drew herself suddenly to her fullest hight. It +was the same action which Robert had seen in the old half-drunken +lieutenant; and it had that same dignity—the sublimity of extreme +misery. +</P><P> +"Go away, Mr. Audley," she said. "You are mad, I tell you, you are mad." +</P><P> +"I am going, my lady," answered Robert, quietly. "I would have condoned +your crimes out of pity to your wretcheness. You have refused to accept +my mercy. I wished to have pity upon the living. I shall henceforth only +remember my duty to the dead." +</P><P> +He walked away from the lonely well under the shadow of the limes. My +lady followed him slowly down that long, gloomy avenue, and across the +rustic bridge to the iron gate. As he passed through the gate, Alicia +came out of a little half-glass door that opened from an oak-paneled +breakfast-room at one angle of the house, and met her cousin upon the +threshold of the gateway. +</P><P> +"I have been looking for you everywhere, Robert," she said. "Papa has +come down to the library, and will be glad to see you." +</P><P> +The young man started at the sound of his cousin's fresh young voice. +"Good Heaven!" he thought, "can these two women be of the same clay? Can +this frank, generous-hearted girl, who cannot conceal any impulse of her +innocent nature, be of the same flesh and blood as that wretched +creature whose shadow falls upon the path beside me!" +</P><P> +He looked from his cousin to Lady Audley, who stood near the gateway, +waiting for him to stand aside and let her pass him. +</P><P> +"I don't know what has come to your cousin, my dear Alicia," said my +lady. "He is so absent-minded and eccentric as to be quite beyond my +comprehension." +</P><P> +"Indeed," exclaimed Miss Audley; "and yet I should imagine, from the +length of your <i>tete-a-tete</i>, that you had made some effort to +understand him." +</P><P> +"Oh, yes," said Robert, quietly, "my lady and I understand each other +very well; but as it is growing late I will wish you good-evening, +ladies. I shall sleep to-night at Mount Stanning, as I have some +business to attend to up there, and I will come down and see my uncle +to-morrow." +</P><P> +"What, Robert," cried Alicia, "you surely won't go away without seeing +papa?" +</P><P> +"Yes, my dear," answered the young man. "I am a little disturbed by some +disagreeable business in which I am very much concerned, and I would +rather not see my uncle. Good-night, Alicia. I will come or write +to-morrow." +</P><P> +He pressed his cousin's hand, bowed to Lady Audley, and walked away +under the black shadows of the archway, and out into the quiet avenue +beyond the Court. +</P><P> +My lady and Alicia stood watching him until he was out of sight. +</P><P> +"What in goodness' name is the matter with my Cousin Robert?" exclaimed +Miss Audley, impatiently, as the barrister disappeared. "What does he +mean by these absurd goings-on? Some disagreeable business that disturbs +him, indeed! I suppose the unhappy creature has had a brief forced upon +him by some evil-starred attorney, and is sinking into a state of +imbecility from a dim consciousness of his own incompetence." +</P><P> +"Have you ever studied your cousin's character, Alicia?" asked my lady, +very seriously, after a pause. +</P><P> +"Studied his character! No, Lady Audley. Why should I study his +character?" said Alicia. "There is very little study required to +convince anybody that he is a lazy, selfish Sybarite, who cares for +nothing in the world except his own ease and comfort." +</P><P> +"But have you never thought him eccentric?" +</P><P> +"Eccentric!" repeated Alicia, pursing up her red lips and shrugging up +her shoulders. "Well, yes—I believe that is the excuse generally made +for such people. I suppose Bob is eccentric." +</P><P> +"I have never heard you speak of his father and mother," said my lady, +thoughtfully. "Do you remember them?" +</P><P> +"I never saw his mother. She was a Miss Dalrymple, a very dashing girl, +who ran away with my uncle, and lost a very handsome fortune in +consequence. She died at Nice when poor Bob was five years old." +</P><P> +"Did you ever hear anything particular about her?" +</P><P> +"How do you mean 'particular?'" asked Alicia. +</P><P> +"Did you ever hear that she was eccentric—what people call 'odd?'" +</P><P> +"Oh, no," said Alicia, laughing. "My aunt was a very reasonable woman, I +believe, though she did marry for love. But you must remember that she +died before I was born, and I have not, therefore, felt very much +curiosity about her." +</P><P> +"But you recollect your uncle, I suppose." +</P><P> +"My Uncle Robert?" said Alicia. "Oh, yes, I remember him very well, +indeed." +</P><P> +"Was <i>he</i> eccentric—I mean to say, peculiar in his habits, like your +cousin?" +</P><P> +"Yes, I believe Robert inherits all his absurdities from his father. My +uncle expressed the same indifference for his fellow-creatures as my +cousin, but as he was a good husband, an affectionate father, and a kind +master, nobody ever challenged his opinions." +</P><P> +"But he <i>was</i> eccentric?" +</P><P> +"Yes; I suppose he was generally thought a little eccentric." +</P><P> +"Ah," said my lady, gravely, "I thought as much. Do you know, Alicia, +that madness is more often transmitted from father to daughter, and from +mother to daughter than from mother to son? Your cousin, Robert Audley, +is a very handsome young man, and I believe, a very good-hearted young +man, but he must be watched, Alicia, for he is <i>mad</i>!" +</P><P> +"Mad!" cried Miss Audley, indignantly; "you are dreaming, my lady, +or—or—you are trying to frighten me," added the young lady, with +considerable alarm. +</P><P> +"I only wish to put you on your guard, Alicia," answered my lady. "Mr. +Audley may be as you say, merely eccentric; but he has talked to me this +evening in a manner that has filled me with absolute terror, and I +believe that he is going mad? I shall speak very seriously to Sir +Michael this very night." +</P><P> +"Speak to papa," exclaimed Alicia; "you surely won't distress papa by +suggesting such a possibility!" +</P><P> +"I shall only put him on his guard, my dear Alicia." +</P><P> +"But he'll never believe you," said Miss Audley; "he will laugh at such +an idea." +</P><P> +"No, Alicia; he will believe anything that I tell him," answered my +lady, with a quiet smile. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXX.</H2> +<H3>PREPARING THE GROUND.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Lady Audley went from the garden to the library, a pleasant, +oak-paneled, homely apartment in which Sir Michael liked to sit reading +or writing, or arranging the business of his estate with his steward, a +stalwart countryman, half agriculturalist, half lawyer, who rented a +small farm a few miles from the Court. +</P><P> +The baronet was seated in a capacious easy-chair near the hearth. The +bright blaze of the fire rose and fell, flashing now upon the polished +carvings of the black-oak bookcase, now upon the gold and scarlet +bindings of the books; sometimes glimmering upon the Athenian helmet of +a marble Pallas, sometimes lighting up the forehead of Sir Robert Peel. +</P><P> +The lamp upon the reading-table had not yet been lighted, and Sir +Michael sat in the firelight waiting for the coming of his young wife. +</P><P> +It is impossible for me ever to tell the purity of his generous love—it +is impossible to describe that affection which was as tender as the love +of a young mother for her first born, as brave and chivalrous as the +heroic passion of a Bayard for his liege mistress. +</P><P> +The door opened while he was thinking of this fondly-loved wife, and +looking up, the baronet saw the slender form standing in the doorway. +</P><P> +"Why, my darling!" he exclaimed, as my lady closed the door behind her, +and came toward his chair, "I have been thinking of you and waiting for +you for an hour. Where have you been, and what have you been doing?" +</P><P> +My lady, standing in the shadow rather than the light, paused a few +moments before replying to this question. +</P><P> +"I have been to Chelmsford," she said, "shopping; and—" +</P><P> +She hesitated—twisting her bonnet strings in her thin white fingers +with an air of pretty embarrassment. +</P><P> +"And what, my dear?" asked the baronet—"what have you been doing since +you came from Chelmsford? I heard a carriage stop at the door an hour +ago. It was yours, was it not?" +</P><P> +"Yes, I came home an hour ago," answered my lady, with the same air of +embarrassment. +</P><P> +"And what have you been doing since you came home?" +</P><P> +Sir Michael Audley asked this question with a slightly reproachful +accent. His young wife's presence made the sunshine of his life; and +though he could not bear to chain her to his side, it grieved him to +think that she could willingly remain unnecessarily absent from him, +frittering away her time in some childish talk or frivolous occupation. +</P><P> +"What have you been doing since you came home, my dear?" he repeated. +"What has kept you so long away from me?" +</P><P> +"I have been—talking—to—Mr. Robert Audley." +</P><P> +She still twisted her bonnet-string round and round her fingers. +</P><P> +She still spoke with the same air of embarrassment. +</P><P> +"Robert!" exclaimed the baronet; "is Robert here?" +</P><P> +"He was here a little while ago." +</P><P> +"And is here still, I suppose?" +</P><P> +"No, he has gone away." +</P><P> +"Gone away!" cried Sir Michael. "What do you mean, my darling?" +</P><P> +"I mean that your nephew came to the Court this afternoon. Alicia and I +found him idling about the gardens. He stayed here till about a quarter +of an hour ago talking to me, and then he hurried off without a word of +explanation; except, indeed, some ridiculous excuse about business at +Mount Stanning." +</P><P> +"Business at Mount Stanning! Why, what business can he possibly have in +that out-of-the-way place? He has gone to sleep at Mount Stanning, then, +I suppose? +</P><P> +"Yes; I think he said something to that effect." +</P><P> +"Upon my word," exclaimed the baronet, "I think that boy is half mad." +</P><P> +My lady's face was so much in shadow, that Sir Michael Audley was +unaware of the bright change that came over its sickly pallor as he made +this very commonplace observation. A triumphant smile illuminated Lucy +Audley's countenance, a smile that plainly said, "It is coming—it is +coming; I can twist him which way I like. I can put black before him, +and if I say it is white, he will believe me." +</P><P> +But Sir Michael Audley in declaring that his nephew's wits were +disordered, merely uttered that commonplace ejaculation which is +well-known to have very little meaning. The baronet had, it is true, no +very great estimate of Robert's faculty for the business of this +everyday life. He was in the habit of looking upon his nephew as a +good-natured nonentity—a man whose heart had been amply stocked by +liberal Nature with all the best things the generous goddess had to +bestow, but whose brain had been somewhat overlooked in the distribution +of intellectual gifts. Sir Michael Audley made that mistake which is +very commonly made by easy-going, well-to-do-observers, who have no +occasion to look below the surface. He mistook laziness for incapacity. +He thought because his nephew was idle, he must necessarily be stupid. +He concluded that if Robert did not distinguish himself, it was because +he could not. +</P><P> +He forgot the mute inglorious Miltons, who die voiceless and +inarticulate for want of that dogged perseverance, that blind courage, +which the poet must possess before he can find a publisher; he forgot +the Cromwells, who see the noble vessels of the state floundering upon a +sea of confusion, and going down in a tempest of noisy bewilderment, and +who yet are powerless to get at the helm; forbidden even to send out a +life-boat to the sinking ship. Surely it is a mistake to judge of what a +man can do by that which he has done. +</P><P> +The world's Valhalla is a close borough, and perhaps the greatest men +may be those who perish silently far away from the sacred portal. +Perhaps the purest and brightest spirits are those who shrink from the +turmoil of the race-course—the tumult and confusion of the struggle. +The game of life is something like the game of <i>ecarte</i>, and it may be +that the very best cards are sometimes left in the pack. +</P><P> +My lady threw off her bonnet, and seated herself upon a velvet-covered +footstool at Sir Michael's feet. There was nothing studied or affected +in this girlish action. It was so natural to Lucy Audley to be childish, +that no one would have wished to see her otherwise. It would have seemed +as foolish to expect dignified reserve or womanly gravity from this +amber-haired siren, as to wish for rich basses amid the clear treble of +a sky-lark's song. +</P><P> +She sat with her pale face turned away from the firelight, and with her +hands locked together upon the arm of her husband's easy-chair. They +were very restless, these slender white hands. My lady twisted the +jeweled fingers in and out of each other as she talked to her husband. +</P><P> +"I wanted to come to you, you know, dear," said she—"I wanted to come +to you directly I got home, but Mr. Audley insisted upon my stopping to +talk to him." +</P><P> +"But what about, my love?" asked the baronet. "What could Robert have to +say to you?" +</P><P> +My lady did not answer this question. Her fair head dropped upon her +husband's knee, her rippling, yellow curls fell over her face. +</P><P> +Sir Michael lifted that beautiful head with his strong hands, and raised +my lady's face. The firelight shining on that pale face lit up the +large, soft blue eyes and showed them drowned in tears. +</P><P> +"Lucy, Lucy!" cried the baronet, "what is the meaning of this? My love, +my love! what has happened to distress you in this manner?" +</P><P> +Lady Audley tried to speak, but the words died inarticulately upon her +trembling lips. A choking sensation in her throat seemed to strangle +those false and plausible words, her only armor against her enemies. She +could not speak. The agony she had endured silently in the dismal +lime-walk had grown too strong for her, and she broke into a tempest of +hysterical sobbing. It was no simulated grief that shook her slender +frame and tore at her like some ravenous beast that would have rent her +piecemeal with its horrible strength. It was a storm of real anguish and +terror, of remorse and misery. It was the one wild outcry, in which the +woman's feebler nature got the better of the siren's art. +</P><P> +It was not thus that she had meant to fight her terrible duel with +Robert Audley. Those were not the weapons which she had intended to use; +but perhaps no artifice which she could have devised would have served +her so well as this one outburst of natural grief. It shook her husband +to the very soul. It bewildered and terrified him. It reduced the strong +intellect of the man to helpless confusion and perplexity. It struck at +the one weak point in a good man's nature. It appealed straight to Sir +Michael Audley's affection for his wife. +</P><P> +Ah, Heaven help a strong man's tender weakness for the woman he loves! +Heaven pity him when the guilty creature has deceived him and comes with +her tears and lamentations to throw herself at his feet in +self-abandonment and remorse; torturing him with the sight of her agony; +rending <i>his</i> heart with her sobs, lacerating <i>his</i> breast with her +groans—multiplying her sufferings into a great anguish for him to bear! +multiplying them by twenty-fold; multiplying them in a ratio of a brave +man's capacity for endurance. Heaven forgive him, if maddened by that +cruel agony, the balance wavers for a moment, and he is ready to forgive +<i>anything</i>; ready to take this wretched one to the shelter of his +breast, and to pardon that which the stern voice of manly honor urges +must not be pardoned. Pity him, pity him! The wife's worst remorse when +she stands without the threshold of the home she may never enter more is +not equal to the agony of the husband who closes the portal on that +familiar and entreating face. The anguish of the mother who may never +look again upon her children is less than the torment of the father who +has to say to those little ones, "My darlings, you are henceforth +motherless." +</P><P> +Sir Michael Audley rose from his chair, trembling with indignation, and +ready to do immediate battle with the person who had caused his wife's +grief. +</P><P> +"Lucy," he said, "Lucy, I insist upon your telling me what and who has +distressed you. I insist upon it. Whoever has annoyed you shall answer +to me for your grief. Come, my love, tell me directly what it is." +</P><P> +He seated himself and bent over the drooping figure at his feet, calming +his own agitation in his desire to soothe his wife's distress. +</P><P> +"Tell me what it is, my dear," he whispered, tenderly. +</P><P> +The sharp paroxysm had passed away, and my lady looked up. A glittering +light shone through the tears in her eyes, and the lines about her +pretty rosy mouth, those hard and cruel lines which Robert Audley had +observed in the pre-Raphaelite portrait, were plainly visible in the +firelight. +</P><P> +"I am very silly," she said; "but really he has made me quite +hysterical." +</P><P> +"Who—who has made you hysterical?" +</P><P> +"Your nephew—Mr. Robert Audley." +</P><P> +"Robert," cried the baronet. "Lucy, what do you mean?" +</P><P> +"I told you that Mr. Audley insisted upon my going into the lime-walk, +dear," said my lady. "He wanted to talk to me, he said, and I went, and +he said such horrible things that—" +</P><P> +"What horrible things, Lucy?" +</P><P> +Lady Audley shuddered, and clung with convulsive fingers to the strong +hand that had rested caressingly upon her shoulder. +</P><P> +"What did he say, Lucy?" +</P><P> +"Oh, my dear love, how can I tell you?" cried my lady. "I know that I +shall distress you—or you will laugh at me, and then—" +</P><P> +"Laugh at you? no, Lucy." +</P><P> +Lady Audley was silent for a moment. She sat looking straight before her +into the fire, with her fingers still locked about her husband's hand. +</P><P> +"My dear," she said, slowly, hesitating now and then between her words, +as if she almost shrunk from uttering them, "have you ever—I am so +afraid of vexing you—have you ever thought Mr. Audley a little—a +little—" +</P><P> +"A little what, my darling?" +</P><P> +"A little out of his mind?" faltered Lady Audley. +</P><P> +"Out of his mind!" cried Sir Michael. "My dear girl, what are you +thinking of?" +</P><P> +"You said just now, dear, that you thought he was half mad." +</P><P> +"Did I, my love?" said the baronet, laughing. "I don't remember saying +it, and it was a mere <i>façon de parler</i>, that meant nothing whatever. +Robert may be a little eccentric—a little stupid, perhaps—he mayn't be +overburdened with wits, but I don't think he has brains enough for +madness. I believe it's generally your great intellects that get out of +order." +</P><P> +"But madness is sometimes hereditary," said my lady. "Mr. Audley may +have inherited—" +</P><P> +"He has inherited no madness from his father's family," interrupted Sir +Michael. "The Audleys have never peopled private lunatic asylums or feed +mad doctors." +</P><P> +"Nor from his mother's family?" +</P><P> +"Not to my knowledge." +</P><P> +"People generally keep these things a secret," said my lady, gravely. +"There may have been madness in your sister-in-law's family." +</P><P> +"I don't think so, my dear," replied Sir Michael. "But, Lucy, tell me +what, in Heaven's name, has put this idea into your head." +</P><P> +"I have been trying to account for your nephew's conduct. I can account +for it in no other manner. If you had heard the things he said to me +to-night, Sir Michael, you too might have thought him mad." +</P><P> +"But what did he say, Lucy?" +</P><P> +"I can scarcely tell you. You can see how much he has stupefied and +bewildered me. I believe he has lived too long alone in those solitary +Temple chambers. Perhaps he reads too much, or smokes too much. You know +that some physicians declare madness to be a mere illness of the +brain—an illness to which any one is subject, and which may be produced +by given causes, and cured by given means." +</P><P> +Lady Audley's eyes were still fixed upon the burning coals in the wide +grate. She spoke as if she had been discussing a subject that she had +often heard discussed before. She spoke as if her mind had almost +wandered away from the thought of her husband's nephew to the wider +question of madness in the abstract. +</P><P> +"Why should he not be mad?" resumed my lady. "People are insane for +years and years before their insanity is found out. <i>They</i> know that +they are mad, but they know how to keep their secret; and, perhaps, they +may sometimes keep it till they die. Sometimes a paroxysm seizes them, +and in an evil hour they betray themselves. They commit a crime, +perhaps. The horrible temptation of opportunity assails them; the knife +is in their hand, and the unconscious victim by their side. They may +conquer the restless demon and go away and die innocent of any violent +deed; but they <i>may</i> yield to the horrible temptation—the frightful, +passionate, hungry craving for violence and horror. They sometimes yield +and are lost." +</P><P> +Lady Audley's voice rose as she argued this dreadful question, The +hysterical excitement from which she had only just recovered had left +its effects upon her, but she controlled herself, and her tone grew +calmer as she resumed: +</P><P> +"Robert Audley is mad," she said, decisively. "What is one of the +strangest diagnostics of madness—what is the first appalling sign of +mental aberration? The mind becomes stationary; the brain stagnates; the +even current of reflection is interrupted; the thinking power of the +brain resolves itself into a monotone. As the waters of a tideless pool +putrefy by reason of their stagnation, the mind becomes turbid and +corrupt through lack of action; and the perpetual reflection upon one +subject resolves itself into monomania. Robert Audley is a monomaniac. +The disappearance of his friend, George Talboys, grieved and bewildered +him. He dwelt upon this one idea until he lost the power of thinking of +anything else. The one idea looked at perpetually became distorted to +his mental vision. Repeat the commonest word in the English language +twenty times, and before the twentieth repetition you will have begun to +wonder whether the word which you repeat is really the word you mean to +utter. Robert Audley has thought of his friend's disappearance until the +one idea has done its fatal and unhealthy work. He looks at a common +event with a vision that is diseased, and he distorts it into a gloomy +horror engendered of his own monomania. If you do not want to make me as +mad as he is, you must never let me see him again. He declared to-night +that George Talboys was murdered in this place, and that he will root up +every tree in the garden, and pull down every brick in the house in +search for—" +</P><P> +My lady paused. The words died away upon her lips. She had exhausted +herself by the strange energy with which she had spoken. She had been +transformed from a frivolous, childish beauty into a woman, strong to +argue her own cause and plead her own defense. +</P><P> +"Pull down this house?" cried the baronet. "George Talboys murdered at +Audley Court! Did Robert say this, Lucy?" +</P><P> +"He said something of that kind—something that frightened me very +much." +</P><P> +"Then he must be mad," said Sir Michael, gravely. "I'm bewildered by +what you tell me. Did he really say this, Lucy, or did you misunderstand +him?" +</P><P> +"I—I—don't think I did," faltered my lady. "You saw how frightened I +was when I first came in. I should not have been so much agitated if he +hadn't said something horrible." +</P><P> +Lady Audley had availed herself of the very strongest arguments by which +she could help her cause. +</P><P> +"To be sure, my darling, to be sure," answered the baronet. "What could +have put such a horrible fancy into the unhappy boy's head. This Mr. +Talboys—a perfect stranger to all of us—murdered at Audley Court! +I'll go to Mount Stanning to-night, and see Robert. I have known him +ever since he was a baby, and I cannot be deceived in him. If there is +really anything wrong, he will not be able to conceal it from me." +</P><P> +My lady shrugged her shoulders. +</P><P> +"That is rather an open question," she said. "It is generally a stranger +who is the first to observe any psychological peculiarity." +</P><P> +The big words sounded strange from my lady's rosy lips; but her +newly-adopted wisdom had a certain quaint prettiness about it, which +charmed and bewildered her husband. +</P><P> +"But you must not go to Mount Stanning, my dear darling," she said, +tenderly. "Remember that you are under strict orders to stay in doors +until the weather is milder, and the sun shines upon this cruel +ice-bound country." +</P><P> +Sir Michael Audley sank back in his capacious chair with a sigh of +resignation. +</P><P> +"That's true, Lucy," he said; "we must obey Mr. Dawson. I suppose Robert +will come to see me to-morrow." +</P><P> +"Yes, dear. I think he said he would." +</P><P> +"Then we must wait till to-morrow, my darling. I can't believe that +there really is anything wrong with the poor boy—I can't believe it, +Lucy." +</P><P> +"Then how do you account for this extraordinary delusion about this Mr. +Talboys?" asked my lady. +</P><P> +Sir Michael shook his head. +</P><P> +"I don't know, Lucy—I don't know," he answered. "It is always so +difficult to believe that any one of the calamities that continually +befall our fellow-men will ever happen to us. I can't believe that my +nephew's mind is impaired—I can't believe it. I—I'll get him to stop +here, Lucy, and I'll watch him closely. I tell you, my love, if there is +anything wrong I am sure to find it out. I can't be mistaken in a young +man who has always been the same to me as my own son. But, my darling, +why were you so frightened by Robert's wild talk? It could not affect +you." +</P><P> +My lady sighed piteously. +</P><P> +"You must think me very strong-minded, Sir Michael," she said, with +rather an injured air, "if you imagine I can hear of these sort of +things indifferently. I know I shall never be able to see Mr. Audley +again." +</P><P> +"And you shall not, my dear—you shall not." +</P><P> +"You said just now you would have him here," murmured Lady Audley. +</P><P> +"But I will not, my darling girl, if his presence annoys you. Good +Heaven! Lucy, can you imagine for a moment that I have any higher wish +than to promote your happiness? I will consult some London physician +about Robert, and let him discover if there is really anything the +matter with my poor brother's only son. <i>You</i> shall not be annoyed, +Lucy." +</P><P> +"You must think me very unkind, dear," said my lady, "and I know I +<i>ought</i> not to be annoyed by the poor fellow; but he really seems to +have taken some absurd notion into his head about me." +</P><P> +"About <i>you</i>, Lucy!" cried Sir Michael. +</P><P> +"Yes, dear. He seems to connect me in some vague manner—which I cannot +quite understand—with the disappearance of this Mr. Talboys." +</P><P> +"Impossible, Lucy! You must have misunderstood him." +</P><P> +"I don't think so." +</P><P> +"Then he must be mad," said the baronet—"he must be mad. I will wait +till he goes back to town, and then send some one to his chambers to +talk to him. Good Heaven! what a mysterious business this is." +</P><P> +"I fear I have distressed you, darling," murmured Lady Audley. +</P><P> +"Yes, my dear, I am very much distressed by what you have told me; but +you were quite right to talk to me frankly about this dreadful business. +I must think it over, dearest, and try and decide what is best to be +done." +</P><P> +My lady rose from the low ottoman on which she had been seated. The fire +had burned down, and there was only a faint glow of red light in the +room. Lucy Audley bent over her husband's chair, and put her lips to his +broad forehead. +</P><P> +"How good you have always been to me, dear," she whispered softly. "You +would never let any one influence you against me, would you, dear?" +</P><P> +"Influence me against you?" repeated the baronet. "No, my love." +</P><P> +"Because you know, dear," pursued my lady, "there are wicked people as +well as mad people in the world, and there may be some persons to whose +interest it would be to injure me." +</P><P> +"They had better not try it, then, my dear," answered Sir Michael; "they +would find themselves in rather a dangerous position if they did." +</P><P> +Lady Audley laughed aloud, with a gay, triumphant, silvery peal of +laughter that vibrated through the quiet room. +</P><P> +"My own dear darling," she said, "I know you love me. And now I must run +away, dear, for it's past seven o'clock. I was engaged to dine at Mrs. +Montford's, but I must send a groom with a message of apology, for Mr. +Audley has made me quite unfit for company. I shall stay at home and +nurse you, dear. You'll go to bed very early, won't you, and take great +care of yourself?" +</P><P> +"Yes, dear." +</P><P> +My lady tripped out of the room to give her orders about the message +that was to be carried to the house at which she was to have dined. She +paused for a moment as she closed the library door—she paused, and laid +her hand upon her breast to check the rapid throbbing of her heart. +</P><P> +"I have been afraid of you, Mr. Robert Audley," she thought; "but +perhaps the time may come in which you will have cause to be afraid of +me." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXXI.</H2> +<H3>PHOEBE'S PETITION.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +The division between Lady Audley and her step-daughter had not become +any narrower in the two months which had elapsed since the pleasant +Christmas holiday time had been kept at Audley Court. There was no open +warfare between the two women; there was only an armed neutrality, +broken every now and then by brief feminine skirmishes and transient +wordy tempests. I am sorry to say that Alicia would very much have +preferred a hearty pitched battle to this silent and undemonstrative +disunion; but it was not very easy to quarrel with my lady. She had soft +answers for the turning away of wrath. She could smile bewitchingly at +her step-daughter's open petulance, and laugh merrily at the young +lady's ill-temper. Perhaps had she been less amiable, had she been more +like Alicia in disposition, the two ladies might have expended their +enmity in one tremendous quarrel, and might ever afterward have been +affectionate and friendly. But Lucy Audley would not make war. She +carried forward the sum of her dislike, and put it out at a steady rate +of interest, until the breach between her step-daughter and herself, +widening a little every day, became a great gulf, utterly impassable by +olive-branch-bearing doves from either side of the abyss. There can be +no reconciliation where there is no open warfare. There must be a +battle, a brave, boisterous battle, with pennants waving and cannon +roaring, before there can be peaceful treaties and enthusiastic shaking +of hands. Perhaps the union between France and England owes its greatest +force to the recollection of Cressy and Waterloo, Navarino and +Trafalgar. We have hated each other and licked each other and <i>had it +out</i>, as the common phrase goes; and we can afford now to fall into each +others' arms and vow eternal friendship and everlasting brotherhood. Let +us hope that when Northern Yankeedom has decimated and been decimated, +blustering Jonathan may fling himself upon his Southern brother's +breast, forgiving and forgiven. +</P><P> +Alicia Audley and her father's pretty wife had plenty of room for the +comfortable indulgence of their dislike in the spacious old mansion. My +lady had her own apartments, as we know—luxurious chambers, in which +all conceivable elegancies had been gathered for the comfort of their +occupant. Alicia had her own rooms in another part of the large house. +She had her favorite mare, her Newfoundland dog, and her drawing +materials, and she made herself tolerably happy. She was not very happy, +this frank, generous-hearted girl, for it was scarcely possible that she +could be altogether at ease in the constrained atmosphere of the Court. +Her father was changed; that dear father over whom she had once reigned +supreme with the boundless authority of a spoiled child, had accepted +another ruler and submitted to a new dynasty. Little by little my lady's +petty power made itself felt in that narrow household; and Alicia saw +her father gradually lured across the gulf that divided Lady Audley from +her step-daughter, until he stood at last quite upon the other side of +the abyss, and looked coldly upon his only child across that widening +chasm. +</P><P> +<BR> +Alicia felt that he was lost to her. My lady's beaming smiles, my lady's +winning words, my lady's radiant glances and bewitching graces had done +their work of enchantment, and Sir Michael had grown to look upon his +daughter as a somewhat wilful and capricious young person who had +behaved with determined unkindness to the wife he loved. +</P><P> +Poor Alicia saw all this, and bore her burden as well as she could. It +seemed very hard to be a handsome, gray-eyed heiress, with dogs and +horses and servants at her command, and yet to be so much alone in the +world as to know of not one friendly ear into which she might pour her +sorrows. +</P><P> +"If Bob was good for anything I could have told him how unhappy I am," +thought Miss Audley; "but I may just as well tell Caesar my troubles for +any consolation I should get from Cousin Robert." +</P><P> +Sir Michael Audley obeyed his pretty nurse, and went to bed a little +after nine o'clock upon this bleak March evening. Perhaps the baronet's +bedroom was about the pleasantest retreat that an invalid could have +chosen in such cold and cheerless weather. The dark-green velvet +curtains were drawn before the windows and about the ponderous bed. The +wood fire burned redly upon the broad hearth. The reading lamp was +lighted upon a delicious little table close to Sir Michael's pillow, and +a heap of magazines and newspapers had been arranged by my lady's own +fair hands for the pleasure of the invalid. +</P><P> +Lady Audley sat by the bedside for about ten minutes, talking to her +husband, talking very seriously, about this strange and awful +question—Robert Audley's lunacy; but at the end of that time she rose +and bade her husband good-night. +</P><P> +She lowered the green silk shade before the reading lamp, adjusting it +carefully for the repose of the baronet's eyes. +</P><P> +"I shall leave you, dear," she said. "If you can sleep, so much the +better. If you wish to read, the books and papers are close to you. I +will leave the doors between the rooms open, and I shall hear your voice +if you call me." +</P><P> +Lady Audley went through her dressing-room into the boudoir, where she +had sat with her husband since dinner. +</P><P> +Every evidence of womanly refinement was visible in the elegant chamber. +My lady's piano was open, covered with scattered sheets of music and +exquisitely-bound collections of scenas and fantasias which no master +need have disdained to study. My lady's easel stood near the window, +bearing witness to my lady's artistic talent, in the shape of a +water-colored sketch of the Court and gardens. My lady's fairy-like +embroideries of lace and muslin, rainbow-hued silks, and +delicately-tinted wools littered the luxurious apartment; while the +looking-glasses, cunningly placed at angles and opposite corners by an +artistic upholsterer, multiplied my lady's image, and in that image +reflected the most beautiful object in the enchanted chamber. +</P><P> +Amid all this lamplight, gilding, color, wealth, and beauty, Lucy Audley +sat down on a low seat by the fire to think. +</P><P> +If Mr. Holman Hunt could have peeped into the pretty boudoir, I think +the picture would have been photographed upon his brain to be reproduced +by-and-by upon a bishop's half-length for the glorification of the +pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. My lady in that half-recumbent attitude, +with her elbow resting on one knee, and her perfect chin supported by +her hand, the rich folds of drapery falling away in long undulating +lines from the exquisite outline of her figure, and the luminous, +rose-colored firelight enveloping her in a soft haze, only broken by the +golden glitter of her yellow hair—beautiful in herself, but made +bewilderingly beautiful by the gorgeous surroundings which adorn the +shrine of her loveliness. Drinking-cups of gold and ivory, chiseled by +Benvenuto Cellini; cabinets of buhl and porcelain, bearing the cipher of +Austrain Marie-Antoinette, amid devices of rosebuds and true-lovers' +knots, birds and butterflies, cupidons and shepherdesses, goddesses, +courtiers, cottagers, and milkmaids; statuettes of Parian marble and +biscuit china; gilded baskets of hothouse flowers; fantastical caskets +of Indian filigree-work; fragile tea-cups of turquoise china, adorned by +medallion miniatures of Louis the Great and Louis the Well-beloved, +Louise de la Valliere, Athenais de Montespan, and Marie Jeanne Gomard de +Vaubernier: cabinet pictures and gilded mirrors, shimmering satin and +diaphanous lace; all that gold can buy or art devise had been gathered +together for the beautification of this quiet chamber in which my lady +sat listening to the mourning of the shrill March wind, and the flapping +of the ivy leaves against the casements, and looking into the red chasms +in the burning coals. +</P><P> +I should be preaching a very stale sermon, and harping upon a very +familiar moral, if I were to seize this opportunity of declaiming +against art and beauty, because my lady was more wretched in this +elegant apartment than many a half-starved seamstress in her dreary +garret. She was wretched by reason of a wound which lay too deep for the +possibility of any solace from such plasters as wealth and luxury; but +her wretchedness was of an abnormal nature, and I can see no occasion +for seizing upon the fact of her misery as an argument in favor of +poverty and discomfort as opposed to opulence. The Benvenuto Cellini +carvings and the Sevres porcelain could not give her happiness, because +she had passed out of their region. She was no longer innocent; and the +pleasure we take in art and loveliness being an innocent pleasure, had +passed beyond her reach. Six or seven years before, she would have been +happy in the possession of this little Aladdin's palace; but she had +wandered out of the circle of careless, pleasure seeking creatures, she +had strayed far away into a desolate labyrinth of guilt and treachery, +terror and crime, and all the treasures that had been collected for her +could have given her no pleasure but one, the pleasure of flinging them +into a heap beneath her feet and trampling upon them and destroying them +in her cruel despair. +</P><P> +There were some things that would have inspired her with an awful joy, a +horrible rejoicing. If Robert Audley, her pitiless enemy, her +unrelenting pursuer, had lain dead in the adjoining chamber, she would +have exulted over his bier. +</P><P> +What pleasures could have remained for Lucretia Borgia and Catharine de +Medici, when the dreadful boundary line between innocence and guilt was +passed, and the lost creatures stood upon the lonely outer side? Only +horrible, vengeful joys, and treacherous delights were left for these +miserable women. With what disdainful bitterness they must have watched +the frivolous vanities, the petty deceptions, the paltry sins of +ordinary offenders. Perhaps they took a horrible pride in the enormity +of their wickedness; in this "Divinity of Hell," which made them +greatest among sinful creatures. +</P><P> +My lady, brooding by the fire in her lonely chamber, with her large, +clear blue eyes fixed upon the yawning gulfs of lurid crimson in the +burning coals, may have thought of many things very far away from the +terribly silent struggle in which she was engaged. She may have thought +of long-ago years of childish innocence, childish follies and +selfishness, of frivolous, feminine sins that had weighed very lightly +upon her conscience. Perhaps in that retrospective revery she recalled +that early time in which she had first looked in the glass and +discovered that she was beautiful; that fatal early time in which she +had first begun to look upon her loveliness as a right divine, a +boundless possession which was to be a set-off against all girlish +shortcomings, a counterbalance of every youthful sin. Did she remember +the day in which that fairy dower of beauty had first taught her to be +selfish and cruel, indifferent to the joys and sorrows of others, +cold-hearted and capricious, greedy of admiration, exacting and +tyrannical with that petty woman's tyranny which is the worst of +despotism? Did she trace every sin of her life back to its true source? +and did she discover that poisoned fountain in her own exaggerated +estimate of the value of a pretty face? Surely, if her thoughts wandered +so far along the backward current of her life, she must have repented in +bitterness and despair of that first day in which the master-passions of +her life had become her rulers, and the three demons of Vanity, +Selfishness, and Ambition, had joined hands and said, "This woman is our +slave, let us see what she will become under our guidance." +</P><P> +How small those first youthful errors seemed as my lady looked back upon +them in that long revery by the lonely hearth! What small vanities, what +petty cruelties! A triumph over a schoolfellow; a flirtation with the +lover of a friend; an assertion of the right divine invested in blue +eyes and shimmering golden-tinted hair. But how terribly that narrow +pathway had widened out into the broad highroad of sin, and how swift +the footsteps had become upon the now familiar way! +</P><P> +My lady twisted her fingers in her loose amber curls, and made as if she +would have torn them from her head. But even in that moment of mute +despair the unyielding dominion of beauty asserted itself, and she +released the poor tangled glitter of ringlets, leaving them to make a +halo round her head in the dim firelight. +</P><P> +"I was not wicked when I was young," she thought, as she stared +gloomingly at the fire, "I was only thoughtless. I never did any +harm—at least, wilfully. Have I ever been really <i>wicked</i>, I wonder?" +she mused. "My worst wickednesses have bean the result of wild impulses, +and not of deeply-laid plots. I am not like the women I have read of, +who have lain night after night in the horrible darkness and stillness, +planning out treacherous deeds, and arranging every circumstance of an +appointed crime. I wonder whether they suffered—those women—whether +they ever suffered as—" +</P><P> +Her thoughts wandered away into a weary maze of confusion. Suddenly she +drew herself up with a proud, defiant gesture, and her eyes glittered +with a light that was not entirely reflected from the fire. +</P><P> +"You are mad, Mr. Robert Audley," she said, "you are mad, and your +fancies are a madman's fancies. I know what madness is. I know its signs +and tokens, and I say that you are mad." +</P><P> +She put her hand to her head, as if thinking of something which confused +and bewildered her, and which she found it difficult to contemplate with +calmness. +</P><P> +"Dare I defy him?" she muttered. "Dare I? dare I? Will he stop, now that +he has once gone so far? Will he stop for fear of me? Will he stop for +fear of me, when the thought of what his uncle must suffer has not +stopped him? Will anything stop him—but death?" +</P><P> +She pronounced the last words in an awful whisper; and with her head +bent forward, her eyes dilated, and her lips still parted as they had +been parted in her utterance of that final word "death," she sat blankly +staring at the fire. +</P><P> +"I can't plot horrible things," she muttered, presently; "my brain isn't +strong enough, or I'm not wicked enough, or brave enough. If I met +Robert Audley in those lonely gardens, as I—" +</P><P> +The current of her thoughts was interrupted by a cautious knocking at +her door. She rose suddenly, startled by any sound in the stillness of +her room. She rose, and threw herself into a low chair near the fire. +She flung her beautiful head back upon the soft cushions, and took a +book from the table near her. Insignificant as this action was, it spoke +very plainly. It spoke very plainly of ever-recurring fears—of fatal +necessities for concealment—of a mind that in its silent agonies was +ever alive to the importance of outward effect. It told more plainly +than anything else could have told how complete an actress my lady had +been made by the awful necessity of her life. +</P><P> +The modest rap at the door was repeated. +</P><P> +"Come in," cried Lady Audley, in her liveliest tone. +</P><P> +The door was opened with that respectful noiselessness peculiar to a +well-bred servant, and a young woman, plainly dressed, and carrying some +of the cold March winds in the folds of her garments, crossed the +threshold of the apartment and lingered near the door, waiting +permission to approach the inner regions of my lady's retreat. +</P><P> +It was Phoebe Marks, the pale-faced wife of the Mount Stanning +innkeeper. +</P><P> +"I beg pardon, my lady, for intruding without leave," she said; "but I +thought I might venture to come straight up without waiting for +permission." +</P><P> +"Yes, yes, Phoebe, to be sure. Take off your bonnet, you wretched, +cold-looking creature, and come sit down here." +</P><P> +Lady Audley pointed to the low ottoman upon which she had herself been +seated a few minutes before. The lady's maid had often sat upon it +listening to her mistress' prattle in the old days, when she had been my +lady's chief companion and <i>confidante</i>, +</P><P> +"Sit down here, Phoebe," Lady Audley repeated; "sit down here and talk +to me; I'm very glad you came here to-night. I was horribly lonely in +this dreary place." +</P><P> +My lady shivered and looked round at the bright collection of +<i>bric-a-brac</i>, as if the Sevres and bronze, the buhl and ormolu, had +been the moldering adornments of some ruined castle. The dreary +wretchedness of her thoughts had communicated itself to every object +about her, and all outer things took their color from that weary inner +life which held its slow course of secret anguish in her breast. She had +spoken the entire truth in saying that she was glad of her lady's maid's +visit. Her frivolous nature clung to this weak shelter in the hour of +her fear and suffering. There were sympathies between her and this girl, +who was like herself, inwardly as well as outwardly—like herself, +selfish, and cold, and cruel, eager for her own advancement, and greedy +of opulence and elegance; angry with the lot that had been cast her, and +weary of dull dependence. My lady hated Alicia for her frank, +passionate, generous, daring nature; she hated her step-daughter, and +clung to this pale-faced, pale-haired girl, whom she thought neither +better nor worse than herself. +</P><P> +Phoebe Marks obeyed her late mistress' commands, and took off her bonnet +before seating herself on the ottoman at Lady Audley's feet. Her smooth +bands of light hair were unruffled by the March winds; her trimly-made +drab dress and linen collar were as neatly arranged as they could have +been had she only that moment completed her toilet. +</P><P> +"Sir Michael is better, I hope, my lady," she said. +</P><P> +"Yes, Phoebe, much better. He is asleep. You may close that door," added +Lady Audley, with a motion of her head toward the door of communication +between the rooms, which had been left open. +</P><P> +Mrs. Marks obeyed submissively, and then returned to her seat. +</P><P> +"I am very, very unhappy, Phoebe," my lady said, fretfully; "wretchedly +miserable." +</P><P> +"About the—secret?" asked Mrs. Marks, in a half whisper. +</P><P> +My lady did not notice that question. She resumed in the same +complaining tone. She was glad to be able to complain even to this +lady's maid. She had brooded over her fears, and had suffered in secret +so long, that it was an inexpressible relief to her to bemoan her fate +aloud. +</P><P> +"I am cruelly persecuted and harassed, Phoebe Marks," she said. "I am +pursued and tormented by a man whom I never injured, whom I have never +wished to injure. I am never suffered to rest by this relentless +tormentor, and—" +</P><P> +She paused, staring at the fire again, as she had done in her +loneliness. Lost again in the dark intricacies of thoughts which +wandered hither and thither in a dreadful chaos of terrified +bewilderments, she could not come to any fixed conclusion. +</P><P> +Phoebe Marks watched my lady's face, looking upward at her late mistress +with pale, anxious eyes, that only relaxed their watchfulness when Lady +Audley's glance met that of her companion. +</P><P> +"I think I know whom you mean, my lady," said the innkeeper's wife, +after a pause; "I think I know who it is who is so cruel to you." +</P><P> +"Oh, of course," answered my lady, bitterly; "my secrets are everybody's +secrets. You know all about it, no doubt." +</P><P> +"The person is a gentleman—is he not, my lady?" +</P><P> +"Yes." +</P><P> +"A gentleman who came to the Castle Inn two months ago, when I warned +you—" +</P><P> +"Yes, yes," answered my lady, impatiently. +</P><P> +"I thought so. The same gentleman is at our place to-night, my lady." +</P><P> +Lady Audley started up from her chair—started up as if she would have +done something desperate in her despairing fury; but she sank back again +with a weary, querulous sigh. What warfare could such a feeble creature +wage against her fate? What could she do but wind like a hunted hare +till she found her way back to the starting-point of the cruel chase, to +be there trampled down by her pursuers? +</P><P> +"At the Castle Inn?" she cried. "I might have known as much. He has gone +there to wring my secrets from your husband. Fool!" she exclaimed, +suddenly turning upon Phoebe Marks in a transport of anger, "do you want +to destroy me that you have left those two men together?" +</P><P> +Mrs. Marks clasped her hands piteously. +</P><P> +"I didn't come away of my own free will, my lady," she said; "no one +could have been more unwilling to leave the house than I was this night. +I was sent here." +</P><P> +"Who sent you here?" +</P><P> +"Luke, my lady. You can't tell how hard he can be upon me if I go +against him." +</P><P> +"Why did he send you?" +</P><P> +The innkeeper's wife dropped her eyelids under Lady Audley's angry +glances, and hesitated confusedly before she answered this question. +</P><P> +"Indeed, my lady," she stammered, "I didn't want to come. I told Luke +that it was too bad for us to worry you, first asking this favor, and +then asking that, and never leaving you alone for a month together; +but—but—he bore me down with his loud, blustering talk, and he made me +come." +</P><P> +"Yes, yes," cried Lady Audley, impatiently. "I know that. I want to know +why you have come." +</P><P> +"Why, you know, my lady," answered Phoebe, half reluctantly, "Luke is +very extravagant; and all I can say to him, I can't get him to be +careful or steady. He's not sober; and when he's drinking with a lot of +rough countrymen, and drinking, perhaps even more than they do, it isn't +likely that his head can be very clear for accounts. If it hadn't been +for me we should have been ruined before this; and hard as I've tried, I +haven't been able to keep the ruin off. You remember giving me the money +for the brewer's bill, my lady?" +</P><P> +"Yes, I remember very well," answered Lady Audley, with a bitter laugh, +"for I wanted that money to pay my own bills." +</P><P> +"I know you did, my lady, and it was very, very hard for me to have to +come and ask you for it, after all that we'd received from you before. +But that isn't the worst: when Luke sent me down here to beg the favor +of that help he never told me that the Christmas rent was still owing; +but it was, my lady, and it's owing now, and—and there's a bailiff in +the house to-night, and we're to be sold up to-morrow unless—" +</P><P> +"Unless I pay your rent, I suppose," cried Lucy Audley. "I might have +guessed what was coming." +</P><P> +"Indeed, indeed, my lady, I wouldn't have asked it," sobbed Phoebe +Marks, "but he made me come." +</P><P> +"Yes," answered my lady, bitterly, "he made you come; and he will make +you come whenever he pleases, and whenever he wants money for the +gratification of his low vices; and you and he are my pensioners as long +as I live, or as long as I have any money to give; for I suppose when my +purse is empty and my credit ruined, you and your husband will turn upon +me and sell me to the highest bidder. Do you know, Phoebe Marks, that my +jewel-case has been half emptied to meet your claims? Do you know that +my pin-money, which I thought such a princely allowance when my marriage +settlement was made, and when I was a poor governess at Mr. Dawson's, +Heaven help me! my pin-money has been overdrawn half a year to satisfy +your demands? What can I do to appease you? Shall I sell my Marie +Antoinette cabinet, or my pompadour china, Leroy's and Benson's ormolu +clocks, or my Gobelin tapestried chairs and ottomans? How shall I +satisfy you next?" +</P><P> +"Oh, my lady, my lady," cried Phoebe, piteously, "don't be so cruel to +me; you know, you know that it isn't I who want to impose upon you." +</P><P> +"I know nothing," exclaimed Lady Audley, "except that I am the most +miserable of women. Let me think," she cried, silencing Phoebe's +consolatory murmurs with an imperious gesture. "Hold your tongue, girl, +and let me think of this business, if I can." +</P><P> +She put her hands to her forehead, clasping her slender fingers across +her brow, as if she would have controlled the action of her brain by +their convulsive pressure. +</P><P> +"Robert Audley is with your husband," she said, slowly, speaking to +herself rather than to her companion. "These two men are together, and +there are bailiffs in the house, and your brutal husband is no doubt +brutally drunk by this time, and brutally obstinate and ferocious in his +drunkenness. If I refuse to pay this money his ferocity will be +multiplied by a hundredfold. There's little use in discussing that +matter. The money must be paid." +</P><P> +"But if you do pay it," said Phoebe, earnestly, "I hope you will impress +upon Luke that it is the last money you will ever give him while he +stops in that house." +</P><P> +"Why?" asked Lady Audley, letting her hands fall on her lap, and looking +inquiringly at Mrs. Marks. +</P><P> +"Because I want Luke to leave the Castle." +</P><P> +"But why do you want him to leave?" +</P><P> +"Oh, for ever so many reasons, my lady," answered Phoebe. "He's not fit +to be the landlord of a public-house. I didn't know that when I married +him, or I would have gone against the business, and tried to persuade +him to take to the farming line. Not that I suppose he'd have given up +his own fancy, either; for he's obstinate enough, as you know, my lady. +He's not fit for his present business. He's scarcely ever sober after +dark; and when he's drunk he gets almost wild, and doesn't seem to know +what he does. We've had two or three narrow escapes with him already." +</P><P> +"Narrow escapes!" repeated Lady Audley. "What do you mean?" +</P><P> +"Why, we've run the risk of being burnt in our beds through his +carelessness." +</P><P> +"Burnt in your beds through his carelessness! Why, how was that?" asked +my lady, rather listlessly. She was too selfish, and too deeply absorbed +in her own troubles to take much interest in any danger which had +befallen her some-time lady's-maid. +</P><P> +"You know what a queer old place the Castle is, my lady; all tumble-down +wood-work, and rotten rafters, and such like. The Chelmsford Insurance +Company won't insure it; for they say if the place did happen to catch +fire of a windy night it would blaze away like so much tinder, and +nothing in the world could save it. Well, Luke knows this; and the +landlord has warned him of it times and often, for he lives close +against us, and he keeps a pretty sharp eye upon all my husband's goings +on; but when Luke's tipsy he doesn't know what he's about, and only a +week ago he left a candle burning in one of the out-houses, and the +flame caught one of the rafters of the sloping roof, and if it hadn't +been for me finding it out when I went round the house the last thing, +we should have all been burnt to death, perhaps. And that's the third +time the same kind of thing has happened in the six months we've had the +place, and you can't wonder that I'm frightened, can you, my lady?" +</P><P> +My lady had not wondered, she had not thought about the business at all. +She had scarcely listened to these commonplace details; why should she +care for this low-born waiting-woman's perils and troubles? Had she not +her own terrors, her own soul-absorbing perplexities to usurp every +thought of which her brain was capable? +</P><P> +She did not make any remark upon that which poor Phoebe just told her; +she scarcely comprehended what had been said, until some moments after +the girl had finished speaking, when the words assumed their full +meaning, as some words do after they have been heard without being +heeded. +</P><P> +"Burnt in your beds," said the young lady, at last. "It would have been +a good thing for me if that precious creature, your husband, had been +burnt in his bed before to-night." +</P><P> +A vivid picture had flashed upon her as she spoke. The picture of that +frail wooden tenement, the Castle Inn, reduced to a roofless chaos of +lath and plaster, vomiting flames from its black mouth, and spitting +blazing sparks upward toward the cold night sky. +</P><P> +She gave a weary sigh as she dismissed this image from her restless +brain. She would be no better off even if this enemy should be for ever +silenced. She had another and far more dangerous foe—a foe who was not +to be bribed or bought off, though she had been as rich as an empress. +</P><P> +"I'll give you the money to send this bailiff away," my lady said, after +a pause. "I must give you the last sovereign in my purse, but what of +that? you know as well as I do that I dare not refuse you." +</P><P> +Lady Audley rose and took the lighted lamp from her writing-table. "The +money is in my dressing-room," she said; "I will go and fetch it." +</P><P> +"Oh, my lady," exclaimed Phoebe, suddenly, "I forgot something; I was in +such a way about this business that I quite forgot it." +</P><P> +"Quite forgot what?" +</P><P> +"A letter that was given me to bring to you, my lady, just before I left +home." +</P><P> +"What letter?" +</P><P> +"A letter from Mr. Audley. He heard my husband mention that I was coming +down here, and he asked me to carry this letter." +</P><P> +Lady Audley set the lamp down upon the table nearest to her, and held +out her hand to receive the letter. Phoebe Marks could scarcely fail to +observe that the little jeweled hand shook like a leaf. +</P><P> +"Give it me—give it me," she cried; "let me see what more he has to +say." +</P><P> +Lady Audley almost snatched the letter from Phoebe's hand in her wild +impatience. She tore open the envelope and flung it from her; she could +scarcely unfold the sheet of note-paper in her eager excitement. +</P><P> +The letter was very brief. It contained only these words: +</P><P> +"Should Mrs. George Talboys really have survived the date of her +supposed death, as recorded in the public prints, and upon the tombstone +in Ventnor churchyard, and should she exist in the person of the lady +suspected and accused by the writer of this, there can be no great +difficulty in finding some one able and willing to identify her. Mrs. +Barkamb, the owner of North Cottages, Wildernsea, would no doubt consent +to throw some light upon this matter; either to dispel a delusion or to +confirm a suspicion. +</P><P> +"ROBERT AUDLEY. +</P><P> +"March 3, 1859. +</P><P> +"The Castle Inn, Mount Stanning." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXXII.</H2> +<H3>THE RED LIGHT IN THE SKY.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +My lady crushed the letter fiercely in her hand, and flung it from her +into the flames. +</P><P> +"If he stood before me now, and I could kill him," she muttered in a +strange, inward whisper, "I would do it—I would do it!" She snatched up +the lamp and rushed into the adjoining room. She shut the door behind +her. She could not endure any witness of her horrible despair—she could +endure nothing, neither herself nor her surroundings. +</P><P> +The door between my lady's dressing-room and the bed-chamber in which +Sir Michael lay, had been left open. The baronet slept peacefully, his +noble face plainly visible in the subdued lamplight. His breathing was +low and regular, his lips curved into a half smile—a smile of tender +happiness which he often wore when he looked at his beautiful wife, the +smile of an all-indulgent father, who looks admiringly at his favorite +child. +</P><P> +Some touch of womanly feeling, some sentiment of compassion softened +Lady Audley's glance as it fell upon that noble, reposing figure. For a +moment the horrible egotism of her own misery yielded to her pitying +tenderness for another. It was perhaps only a semi-selfish tenderness +after all, in which pity for herself was as powerful as pity for her +husband; but for once in a way, her thoughts ran out of the narrow +groove of her own terrors and her own troubles to dwell with prophetic +grief upon the coming sorrows of another. +</P><P> +"If they make him believe, how wretched he will be," she thought. But +intermingled with that thought there was another—there was the thought +of her lovely face, her bewitching manner, her arch smile, her low, +musical laugh, which was like a peal of silvery bells ringing across a +broad expanse of flat meadow-land and a rippling river in the misty +summer evening. She thought of all these things with a transient thrill +of triumph, which was stronger even than her terror. +</P><P> +If Sir Michael Audley lived to be a hundred years old, whatever he might +learn to believe of her, however he might grow to despise her, would he +ever be able to disassociate her from these attributes? No; a thousand +times no. To the last hour of his life his memory would present her to +him invested with the loveliness that had first won his enthusiastic +admiration, his devoted affection. Her worst enemies could not rob her +of that fairy dower which had been so fatal in its influence upon her +frivolous mind. +</P><P> +She paced up and down the dressing-room in the silvery lamplight, +pondering upon the strange letter which she had received from Robert +Audley. She walked backward and forward in that monotonous wandering for +some time before she was able to steady her thoughts—before she was +able to bring the scattered forces of her narrow intellect to bear upon +the one all-important subject of the threat contained in the barrister's +letter. +</P><P> +"He will do it," she said, between her set teeth—"he will do it, unless +I get him into a lunatic-asylum first; or unless—" +</P><P> +She did not finish the thought in words. She did not even think out the +sentence; but some new and unnatural impulse in her heart seemed to beat +each syllable against her breast. +</P><P> +The thought was this: "He will do it, unless some strange calamity +befalls him, and silences him for ever." The red blood flashed up into +my lady's face with as sudden and transient a blaze as the flickering +flame of a fire, and died as suddenly away, leaving her more pale than +winter snow. Her hands, which had before been locked convulsively +together, fell apart and dropped heavily at her sides. She stopped in +her rapid pacing to and fro—stopped as Lot's wife may have stopped, +after that fatal backward glance at the perishing city—with every pulse +slackening, with every drop of blood congealing in her veins, in the +terrible process that was to transform her from a woman into a statue. +</P><P> +Lady Audley stood still for about five minutes in that strangely +statuesque attitude, her head erect, her eyes staring straight before +her—staring far beyond the narrow boundary of her chamber wall, into +dark distances of peril and horror. +</P><P> +But by-and-by she started from that rigid attitude almost as abruptly as +she had fallen into it. She roused herself from that semi-lethargy. She +walked rapidly to her dressing-table, and, seating herself before it, +pushed away the litter of golden-stoppered bottles and delicate china +essence-boxes, and looked at her reflection in the large, oval glass. +She was very pale; but there was no other trace of agitation visible in +her girlish face. The lines of her exquisitely molded lips were so +beautiful, that it was only a very close observer who could have +perceived a certain rigidity that was unusual to them. She saw this +herself, and tried to smile away that statue-like immobility: but +to-night the rosy lips refused to obey her; they were firmly locked, and +were no longer the slaves of her will and pleasure. All the latent +forces of her character concentrated themselves in this one feature. She +might command her eyes, but she could not control the muscles of her +mouth. She rose from before her dressing-table, and took a dark velvet +cloak and bonnet from the recesses of her wardrobe, and dressed herself +for walking. The little ormolu clock on the chimney-piece struck the +quarter after eleven while Lady Audley was employed in this manner; five +minutes afterward she re-entered the room in which she had left Phoebe +Marks. +</P><P> +The innkeeper's wife was sitting before the low fender very much in the +same attitude as that in which her late mistress had brooded over that +lonely hearth earlier in the evening. Phoebe had replenished the fire, +and had reassumed her bonnet and shawl. She was anxious to get home to +that brutal husband, who was only too apt to fall into some mischief in +her absence. She looked up as Lady Audley entered the room, and uttered +an exclamation of surprise at seeing her late mistress in a +walking-costume. +</P><P> +"My lady," she cried, "you are not going out to-night?" +</P><P> +"Yes, I am, Phoebe," Lady Audley answered, very quietly. "I am going to +Mount Stanning with you to see this bailiff, and to pay and dismiss him +myself." +</P><P> +"But, my lady, you forget what the time is; you can't go out at such an +hour." +</P><P> +Lady Audley did not answer. She stood with her finger resting lightly +upon the handle of the bell, meditating quietly. +</P><P> +"The stables are always locked, and the men in bed by ten o'clock," she +murmured, "when we are at home. It will make a terrible hubbub to get a +carriage ready; but yet I dare say one of the servants could manage the +matter quietly for me." +</P><P> +"But why should you go to-night, my lady?" cried Phoebe Marks. +"To-morrow will do quite as well. A week hence will do as well. Our +landlord would take the man away if he had your promise to settle the +debt." +</P><P> +Lady Audley took no notice of this interruption. She went hastily into +the dressing-room, and flung off her bonnet and cloak, and then returned +to the boudoir, in her simple dinner-costume, with her curls brushed +carelessly away from her face. +</P><P> +"Now, Phoebe Marks, listen to me," she said, grasping her confidante's +wrist, and speaking in a low, earnest voice, but with a certain +imperious air that challenged contradiction and commanded obedience. +"Listen to me, Phoebe," she repeated. "I am going to the Castle Inn +to-night; whether it is early or late is of very little consequence to +me; I have set my mind upon going, and I shall go. You have asked me +why, and I have told you. I am going in order that I may pay this debt +myself; and that I may see for myself that the money I give is applied +to the purpose for which I give it. There is nothing out of the common +course of life in my doing this. I am going to do what other women in my +position very often do. I am going to assist a favorite servant." +</P><P> +"But it's getting on for twelve o'clock, my lady," pleaded Phoebe. +</P><P> +Lady Audley frowned impatiently at this interruption. +</P><P> +"If my going to your house to pay this man should be known," she +continued, still retaining her hold of Phoebe's wrist, "I am ready to +answer for my conduct; but I would rather that the business should be +kept quiet. I think that I can leave this house without being seen by +any living creature, if you will do as I tell you." +</P><P> +"I will do anything you wish, my lady," answered Phoebe, submissively. +</P><P> +"Then you will wish me good-night presently, when my maid comes into the +room, and you will suffer her to show you out of the house. You will +cross the courtyard and wait for me in the avenue upon the other side of +the archway. It may be half an hour before I am able to join you, for I +must not leave my room till the servants have all gone to bed, but you +may wait for me patiently, for come what may I will join you." +</P><P> +Lady Audley's face was no longer pale. An unnatural luster gleamed in +her great blue eyes. She spoke with an unnatural rapidity. She had +altogether the appearance and manner of a person who has yielded to the +dominant influence of some overpowering excitement. Phoebe Marks stared +at her late mistress in mute bewilderment. She began to fear that my +lady was going mad. +</P><P> +The bell which Lady Audley rang was answered by the smart lady's-maid +who wore rose-colored ribbons, and black silk gowns, and other +adornments which were unknown to the humble people who sat below the +salt in the good old days when servants wore linsey-woolsey. +</P><P> +"I did not know that it was so late, Martin," said my lady, in that +gentle tone which always won for her the willing service of her +inferiors. "I have been talking with Mrs. Marks and have let the time +slip by me. I sha'n't want anything to-night, so you may go to bed when +you please." +</P><P> +"Thank you, my lady," answered the girl, who looked very sleepy, and had +some difficulty in repressing a yawn even in her mistress' presence, for +the Audley household usually kept very early hours. "I'd better show +Mrs. Marks out, my lady, hadn't I?" asked the maid, "before I go to +bed?" +</P><P> +"Oh, yes, to be sure; you can let Phoebe out. All the other servants +have gone to bed, then, I suppose?" +</P><P> +"Yes, my lady." +</P><P> +Lady Audley laughed as she glanced at the timepiece. +</P><P> +"We have been terrible dissipated up here, Phoebe," she said. +"Good-night. You may tell your husband that his rent shall be paid." +</P><P> +"Thank you very much, my lady, and good-night," murmured Phoebe as she +backed out of the room, followed by the lady's maid. +</P><P> +Lady Audley listened at the door, waiting till the muffled sounds of +their footsteps died away in the octagon chamber and on the carpeted +staircase. +</P><P> +"Martin sleeps at the top of the house," she said, "half a mile away +from this room. In ten minutes I may safely make my escape." +</P><P> +She went back into her dressing-room, and put on her cloak and bonnet +for the second time. The unnatural color still burnt like a flame in her +cheeks; the unnatural light still glittered in her eyes. The excitement +which she was under held her in so strong a spell that neither her mind +nor her body seemed to have any consciousness of fatigue. However +verbose I may be in my description of her feelings, I can never describe +a tithe of her thoughts or her sufferings. She suffered agonies that +would fill closely printed volumes, bulky with a thousand pages, in that +one horrible night. She underwent volumes of anguish, and doubt, and +perplexity; sometimes repeating the same chapters of her torments over +and over again; sometimes hurrying through a thousand pages of her +misery without one pause, without one moment of breathing time. She +stood by the low fender in her boudoir, watching the minute-hand of the +clock, and waiting till it should be time for her to leave the house in +safety. +</P><P> +"I will wait ten minutes," she said, "not a moment beyond, before I +enter on my new peril." +</P><P> +She listened to the wild roaring of the March wind, which seemed to have +risen with the stillness and darkness of the night. +</P><P> +The hand slowly made its inevitable way to the figures which told that +the ten minutes were past. It was exactly a quarter to twelve when my +lady took her lamp in her hand, and stole softly from the room. Her +footfall was as light as that of some graceful wild animal, and there +was no fear of that airy step awakening any echo upon the carpeted stone +corridors and staircase. She did not pause until she reached the +vestibule upon the ground floor. Several doors opened out of the +vestibule, which was octagon, like my lady's ante-chamber. One of these +doors led into the library, and it was this door which Lady Audley +opened softly and cautiously. +</P><P> +To have attempted to leave the house secretly by any of the principal +outlets would have been simple madness, for the housekeeper herself +superintended the barricading of the great doors, back and front. The +secrets of the bolts, and bars, and chains, and bells which secured +these doors, and provided for the safety of Sir Michael Audley's +plate-room, the door of which was lined with sheet-iron, were known only +to the servants who had to deal with them. But although all these +precautions were taken with the principal entrances to the citadel, a +wooden shutter and a slender iron bar, light enough to be lifted by a +child, were considered sufficient safeguard for the half-glass door +which opened out of the breakfast-room into the graveled pathway and +smooth turf in the courtyard. +</P><P> +It was by this outlet that Lady Audley meant to make her escape. She +could easily remove the bar and unfasten the shutter, and she might +safely venture to leave the window ajar while she was absent. There was +little fear of Sir Michael's awaking for some time, as he was a heavy +sleeper in the early part of the night, and had slept more heavily than +usual since his illness. +</P><P> +Lady Audley crossed the library, and opened the door of the +breakfast-room, which communicated with it. This latter apartment was +one of the later additions to the Court. It was a simple, cheerful +chamber, with brightly papered walls and pretty maple furniture, and was +more occupied by Alicia than any one else. The paraphernalia of that +young lady's favorite pursuits were scattered about the +room—drawing-materials, unfinished scraps of work, tangled skeins of +silk, and all the other tokens of a careless damsel's presence; while +Miss Audley's picture—a pretty crayon sketch of a rosy-faced hoyden in +a riding-habit and hat—hung over the quaint Wedgewood ornaments on the +chimneypiece. My lady looked upon these familiar objects with scornful +hatred flaming in her blue eyes. +</P><P> +"How glad she will be if any disgrace befalls me," she thought; "how she +will rejoice if I am driven out of this house!" +</P><P> +Lady Audley set the lamp upon a table near the fireplace, and went to +the window. She removed the iron-bar and the light wooden shutter, and +then opened the glass-door. The March night was black and moonless, and +a gust of wind blew in upon her as she opened this door, and filled the +room with its chilly breath, extinguishing the lamp upon the table. +</P><P> +"No matter," my lady muttered, "I could not have left it burning. I +shall know how to find my way through the house when I come back. I have +left all the doors ajar." +</P><P> +She stepped quickly out upon the smooth gravel, and closed the +glass-door behind her. She was afraid lest that treacherous wind should +blow-to the door opening into the library, and thus betray her. +</P><P> +She was in the quadrangle now, with that chill wind sweeping against +her, and swirling her silken garments round her with a shrill, rustling +noise, like the whistling of a sharp breeze against the sails of a +yacht. She crossed the quadrangle and looked back—looked back for a +moment at the firelight gleaming between the rosy-tinted curtains in her +boudoir, and the dim gleam of the lamp through the mullioned windows in +the room where Sir Michael Audley lay asleep. +</P><P> +"I feel as if I were running away," she thought; "I feel as if I were +running away secretly in the dead of the night, to lose myself and be +forgotten. Perhaps it would be wiser in me to run away, to take this +man's warning, and escape out of his power forever. If I were to run +away and disappear as—as George Talboys disappeared. But where could I +go? what would become of me? I have no money; my jewels are not worth a +couple of hundred pounds, now that I have got rid of the best part of +them. What could I do? I must go back to the old life, the old, hard, +cruel, wretched life—the life of poverty, and humiliation, and +vexation, and discontent. I should have to go back and wear myself out +in that long struggle, and die—as my mother died, perhaps!" +</P><P> +My lady stood still for a moment on the smooth lawn between the +quadrangle and the archway, with her head drooping upon her breast and +her hands locked together, debating this question in the unnatural +activity of her mind. Her attitude reflected the state of that mind—it +expressed irresolution and perplexity. But presently a sudden change +came over her; she lifted her head—lifted it with an action of defiance +and determination. +</P><P> +"No! Mr. Robert Audley," she said, aloud, in a low, clear voice; "I will +not go back—I will not go back. If the struggle between us is to be a +duel to the death, you shall not find me drop my weapon." +</P><P> +She walked with a firm and rapid step under the archway. As she passed +under that massive arch, it seemed as if she disappeared into some black +gulf that had waited open to receive her. The stupid clock struck +twelve, and the whole archway seemed to vibrate under its heavy strokes, +as Lady Audley emerged upon the other side and joined Phoebe Marks, who +had waited for her late mistress very near the gateway of the Court. +</P><P> +"Now, Phoebe," she said, "it is three miles from here to Mount Stanning, +isn't it?" +</P><P> +"Yes, my lady." +</P><P> +"Then we can walk the distance in an hour and a half." +</P><P> +Lady Audley had not stopped to say this; she was walking quickly along +the avenue with her humble companion by her side. Fragile and delicate +as she was in appearance, she was a very good walker. She had been in +the habit of taking long country rambles with Mr. Dawson's children in +her old days of dependence, and she thought very little of a distance of +three miles. +</P><P> +"Your beautiful husband will sit up for you, I suppose, Phoebe?" she +said, as they struck across an open field that was used as a short cut +from Audley Court to the high-road. +</P><P> +"Oh, yes, my lady; he's sure to sit up. He'll be drinking with the man, +I dare say." +</P><P> +"The man! What man?" +</P><P> +"The man that's in possession, my lady." +</P><P> +"Ah, to be sure," said Lady Audley, indifferently. +</P><P> +It was strange that Phoebe's domestic troubles should seem so very far +away from her thoughts at the time she was taking such an extraordinary +step toward setting things right at the Castle Inn. +</P><P> +The two women crossed the field and turned into the high road. The way +to Mount Stanning was all up hill, and the long road looked black and +dreary in the dark night; but my lady walked on with a desperate +courage, which was no common constituent in her selfish sensuous nature, +but a strange faculty born out of her great despair. She did not speak +again to her companion until they were close upon the glimmering lights +at the top of the hill. One of these village lights, glaring redly +through a crimson curtain, marked out the particular window behind which +it was likely that Luke Marks sat nodding drowsily over his liquor, and +waiting for the coming of his wife. +</P><P> +"He has not gone to bed, Phoebe," said my lady, eagerly. "But there is +no other light burning at the inn. I suppose Mr. Audley is in bed and +asleep." +</P><P> +"Yes, my lady, I suppose so." +</P><P> +"You are sure he was going to stay at the Castle to night?" +</P><P> +"Oh, yes, my lady. I helped the girl to get his room ready before I came +away." +</P><P> +The wind, boisterous everywhere, was even shriller and more pitiless in +the neighborhood of that bleak hill-top upon which the Castle Inn reared +its rickety walls. The cruel blasts raved wildly round that frail +erection. They disported themselves with the shattered pigeon-house, the +broken weathercock, the loose tiles, and unshapely chimneys; they +rattled at the window-panes, and whistled in the crevices; they mocked +the feeble building from foundation to roof, and battered, and banged, +and tormented it in their fierce gambols, until it trembled and rocked +with the force of their rough play. +</P><P> +Mr. Luke Marks had not troubled himself to secure the door of his +dwelling-house before sitting down to booze with the man who held +provisional possession of his goods and chattels. The landlord of the +Castle Inn was a lazy, sensual brute, who had no thought higher than a +selfish concern for his own enjoyments, and a virulent hatred for +anybody who stood in the way of his gratification. +</P><P> +Phoebe pushed open the door with her hand, and went into the house, +followed by my lady. The gas was flaring in the bar, and smoking the low +plastered ceiling. The door of the bar-parlor was half open, and Lady +Audley heard the brutal laughter of Mr. Marks as she crossed the +threshold of the inn. +</P><P> +"I'll tell him you're here, my lady," whispered Phoebe to her late +mistress. "I know he'll be tipsy. You—you won't be offended, my lady, +if he should say anything rude? You know it wasn't my wish that you +should come." +</P><P> +"Yes, yes," answered Lady Audley, impatiently, "I know that. What should +I care for his rudeness! Let him say what he likes." +</P><P> +Phoebe Marks pushed open the parlor door, leaving my lady in the bar +close behind her. +</P><P> +Luke sat with his clumsy legs stretched out upon the hearth. He held a +glass of gin-and-water in one hand and the poker in the other. He had +just thrust the poker into a heap of black coals, and was scattering +them to make a blaze, when his wife appeared upon the threshold of the +room. +</P><P> +He snatched the poker from between the bars, and made a half drunken, +half threatening motion with it as he saw her. +</P><P> +"So you've condescended to come home at last, ma'am," he said; "I +thought you was never coming no more." +</P><P> +He spoke in a thick and drunken voice, and was by no means too +intelligible. He was steeped to the very lips in alcohol. His eyes were +dim and watery; his hands were unsteady; his voice was choked and +muffled with drink. A brute, even when most sober; a brute, even on his +best behavior, he was ten times more brutal in his drunkenness, when the +few restraints which held his ignorant, every day brutality in check +were flung aside in the indolent recklessness of intoxication. +</P><P> +"I—I've been longer than I intended to be, Luke," Phoebe answered, in +her most conciliatory manner; "but I've seen my lady, and she's been +very kind, and—and she'll settle this business for us." +</P><P> +"She's been very kind, has she?" muttered Mr. Marks, with a drunken +laugh; "thank her for nothing. I know the vally of her kindness. She'd +be oncommon kind, I dessay, if she warn't obligated to be it." +</P><P> +The man in possession, who had fallen into a maudlin and +semi-unconscious state of intoxication upon about a third of the liquor +that Mr. Marks had consumed, only stared in feeble wonderment at his +host and hostess. He sat near the table. Indeed, he had hooked himself +on to it with his elbows, as a safeguard against sliding under it, and +he was making imbecile attempts to light his pipe at the flame of a +guttering tallow candle near him. +</P><P> +"My lady has promised to settle the business for us, Luke," Phoebe +repeated, without noticing Luke's remarks. She knew her husband's dogged +nature well enough by this time to know that it was worse than useless +to try to stop him from doing or saying anything which his own stubborn +will led him to do or say. "My lady will settle it," she said, "and +she's come down here to see about it to-night," she added. +</P><P> +The poker dropped from the landlord's hand, and fell clattering among +the cinders on the hearth. +</P><P> +"My Lady Audley come here to-night!" he said. +</P><P> +"Yes, Luke." +</P><P> +My lady appeared upon the threshold of the door as Phoebe spoke. +</P><P> +"Yes, Luke Marks," she said, "I have come to pay this man, and to send +him about his business." +</P><P> +Lady Audley said these words in a strange, semi-mechanical manner; very +much as if she had learned the sentence by rote, and were repeating it +without knowing what she said. +</P><P> +Mr. Marks gave a discontented growl, and set his empty glass down upon +the table with an impatient gesture. +</P><P> +"You might have given the money to Phoebe," he said, "as well as have +brought it yourself. We don't want no fine ladies up here, pryin' and +pokin' their precious noses into everythink." +</P><P> +"Luke, Luke!" remonstrated Phoebe, "when my lady has been so kind!" +</P><P> +"Oh, damn her kindness!" cried Mr. Marks; "it ain't her kindness as we +want, gal, it's her money. She won't get no snivelin' gratitood from me. +Whatever she does for us she does because she is obliged; and if she +wasn't obliged she wouldn't do it—" +</P><P> +Heaven knows how much more Luke Marks might have said, had not my lady +turned upon him suddenly and awed him into silence by the unearthly +glitter of her beauty. Her hair had been blown away from her face, and +being of a light, feathery quality, had spread itself into a tangled +mass that surrounded her forehead like a yellow flame. There was another +flame in her eyes—a greenish light, such as might flash from the +changing-hued orbs of an angry mermaid. +</P><P> +"Stop," she cried. "I didn't come up here in the dead of night to listen +to your insolence. How much is this debt?" +</P><P> +"Nine pound." +</P><P> +Lady Audley produced her purse—a toy of ivory, silver, and +turquoise—she took from it a note and four sovereigns. She laid these +upon the table. +</P><P> +"Let that man give me a receipt for the money," she said, "before I go." +</P><P> +It was some time before the man could be roused into sufficient +consciousness for the performance of this simple duty, and it was only +by dipping a pen into the ink and pushing it between his clumsy fingers, +that he was at last made to comprehend that his autograph was wanted at +the bottom of the receipt which had been made out by Phoebe Marks. Lady +Audley took the document as soon as the ink was dry, and turned to leave +the parlor. Phoebe followed her. +</P><P> +"You mustn't go home alone, my lady," she said. "You'll let me go with +you?" +</P><P> +"Yes, yes; you shall go home with me." +</P><P> +The two women were standing near the door of the inn as my lady said +this. Phoebe stared wonderingly at her patroness. She had expected that +Lady Audley would be in a hurry to return home after settling this +business which she had capriciously taken upon herself; but it was not +so; my lady stood leaning against the inn door and staring into vacancy, +and again Mrs. Marks began to fear that trouble had driven her late +mistress mad. +</P><P> +A little Dutch clock in the bar struck two while Lady Audley lingered in +this irresolute, absent manner. She started at the sound and began to +tremble violently. +</P><P> +"I think I am going to faint, Phoebe," she said; "where can I get some +cold water?" +</P><P> +"The pump is in the wash-house, my lady; I'll run and get you a glass of +cold water." +</P><P> +"No, no, no," cried my lady, clutching Phoebe's arm as she was about to +run away upon this errand; "I'll get it myself. I must dip my head in a +basin of water if I want to save myself from fainting. In which room +does Mr. Audley sleep?" +</P><P> +There was something so irrelevant in this question that Phoebe Marks +stared aghast at her mistress before she answered it. +</P><P> +"It was number three that I got ready, my lady—the front room—the room +next to ours," she replied, after that pause of astonishment. +</P><P> +"Give me a candle," said my lady. "I'll go into your room, and get some +water for my head; stay where you are, and see that that brute of a +husband of yours does not follow me!" +</P><P> +She snatched the candle which Phoebe had lighted from the girl's hand +and ran up the rickety, winding staircase which led to the narrow +corridor upon the upper floor. Five bed-rooms opened out of this +low-ceilinged, close-smelling corridor; the numbers of these rooms were +indicated by squat black figures painted upon the panels of the doors. +Lady Audley had driven up to Mount Stanning to inspect the house when +she bought the business for her servant's bridegroom, and she knew her +way about the dilapidated old place; she knew where to find Phoebe's +bedroom, but she stopped before the door of that other chamber which had +been prepared for Mr. Robert Audley. +</P><P> +She stopped and looked at the number on the door. The key was in the +lock, and her hand dropped upon it as if unconsciously. But presently +she suddenly began to tremble again, as she had trembled a few minutes +before at the striking of the clock. She stood for a few moments +trembling thus, with her hand still upon the key; then a horrible +expression came over her face, and she turned the key in the lock. She +turned it twice, double locking the door. +</P><P> +There was no sound from within; the occupant of the chamber made no sign +of having heard that ominous creaking of the rusty key in the rusty +lock. +</P><P> +Lady Audley hurried into the next room. She set the candle on the +dressing-table, flung off her bonnet and slung it loosely across her +arm; then she went to the wash-stand and filled the basin with water. +She plunged her golden hair into this water, and then stood for a few +moments in the center of the room looking about her, with a white, +earnest face, and an eager gaze that seemed to take in every object in +the poorly furnished chamber. Phoebe's bedroom was certainly very +shabbily furnished; she had been compelled to select all the most decent +things for those best bedrooms which were set apart for any chance +traveler who might stop for a night's lodging at the Castle Inn; but +Phoebe Marks had done her best to atone for the lack of substantial +furniture in her apartment by a superabundance of drapery. Crisp +curtains of cheap chintz hung from the tent-bedstead; festooned drapery +of the same material shrouded the narrow window shutting out the light +of day, and affording a pleasant harbor for tribes of flies and +predatory bands of spiders. Even the looking-glass, a miserably cheap +construction which distorted every face whose owner had the hardihood to +look into it, stood upon a draperied altar of starched muslin and pink +glazed calico, and was adorned with frills of lace and knitted work. +</P><P> +My lady smiled as she looked at the festoons and furbelows which met her +eyes upon every side. She had reason, perhaps, to smile, remembering the +costly elegance of her own apartments; but there was something in that +sardonic smile that seemed to have a deeper meaning than any natural +contempt for Phoebe's attempts at decoration. She went to the +dressing-table and, smoothed her wet hair before the looking-glass, and +then put on her bonnet. She was obliged to place the flaming tallow +candle very close to the lace furbelows about the glass; so close that +the starched muslin seemed to draw the flame toward it by some power of +attraction in its fragile tissue. +</P><P> +Phoebe waited anxiously by the inn door for my lady's coming She watched +the minute hand of the little Dutch clock, wondering at the slowness of +its progress. It was only ten minutes past two when Lady Audley came +down-stairs, with her bonnet on and her hair still wet, but without the +candle. +</P><P> +Phoebe was immediately anxious about this missing candle. +</P><P> +"The light, my lady," she said, "you have left it up-stairs!" +</P><P> +"The wind blew it out as I was leaving your room," Lady Audley answered, +quietly. "I left it there." +</P><P> +"In my room, my lady?" +</P><P> +"Yes." +</P><P> +"And it was quite out?" +</P><P> +"Yes, I tell you; why do you worry me about your candle? It is past two +o'clock. Come." +</P><P> +She took the girl's arm, and half led, half dragged her from the house. +The convulsive pressure of her slight hand held her firmly as an iron +vise could have held her. The fierce March wind banged to the door of +the house, and left the two women standing outside it. The long, black +road lay bleak and desolate before them, dimly visible between straight +lines of leafless hedges. +</P><P> +A walk of three miles' length upon a lonely country road, between the +hours of two and four on a cold winter's morning, is scarcely a pleasant +task for a delicate woman—a woman whose inclinations lean toward ease +and luxury. But my lady hurried along the hard, dry highway, dragging +her companion with her as if she had been impelled by some horrible +demoniac force which knew no abatement. With the black night above +them—with the fierce wind howling around them, sweeping across a broad +expanse of hidden country, blowing as if it had arisen simultaneously +from every point of the compass, and making those wanderers the focus of +its ferocity—the two women walked through the darkness down the hill +upon which Mount Stanning stood, along a mile and a half of flat road, +and then up another hill, on the western side of which Audley Court lay +in that sheltered valley, which seemed to shut in the old house from all +the clamor and hubbub of the everyday world. +</P><P> +My lady stopped upon the summit of this hill to draw breath and to clasp +her hands upon her heart, in the vain hope that she might still its +cruel beating. They were now within three-quarters of a mile of the +Court, and they had been walking for nearly an hour since they had left +the Castle Inn. +</P><P> +Lady Audley stopped to rest, with her face still turned toward the place +of her destination. Phoebe Marks, stopping also, and very glad of a +moment's pause in that hurried journey, looked back into the far +darkness beneath which lay that dreary shelter that had given her so +much uneasiness. And she did so, she uttered a shrill cry of horror, and +clutched wildly at her companion's cloak. +</P><P> +The night sky was no longer all dark. The thick blackness was broken by +one patch of lurid light. +</P><P> +"My lady, my lady!" cried Phoebe, pointing to this lurid patch; "do you +see?" +</P><P> +"Yes, child, I see," answered Lady Audley, trying to shake the clinging +hands from her garments. "What's the matter?" +</P><P> +"It's a fire—a fire, my lady!" +</P><P> +"Yes, I am afraid it is a fire. At Brentwood, most likely. Let me go, +Phoebe; it's nothing to us." +</P><P> +"Yes, yes, my lady; it's nearer than Brentwood—much nearer; it's at +Mount Stanning." +</P><P> +Lady Audley did not answer. She was trembling again, with the cold +perhaps, for the wind had torn her heavy cloak from her shoulders, and +had left her slender figure exposed to the blast. +</P><P> +"It's at Mount Stanning, my lady!" cried Phoebe Marks. "It's the Castle +that's on fire—I know it is, I know it is! I thought of fire to-night, +and I was fidgety and uneasy, for I knew this would happen some day. I +wouldn't mind if it was only the wretched place, but there'll be life +lost, there'll be life lost!" sobbed the girl, distractedly. "There's +Luke, too tipsy to help himself, unless others help him; there's Mr. +Audley asleep—" +</P><P> +Phoebe Marks stopped suddenly at the mention of Robert's name, and fell +upon her knees, clasping her uplifted hands, and appealing wildly to +Lady Audley. +</P><P> +"Oh, my God!" she cried. "Say it's not true, my lady, say it's not true! +It's too horrible, it's too horrible, it's too horrible!" +</P><P> +"What's too horrible?" +</P><P> +"The thought that's in my mind; the terrible thought that's in my mind." +</P><P> +"What do you mean, girl?" cried my lady, fiercely. +</P><P> +"Oh, God forgive me if I'm wrong!" the kneeling woman gasped in detached +sentences, "and God grant I may be. Why did you go up to the Castle, my +lady? Why were you so set on going against all I could say—you who are +so bitter against Mr. Audley and against Luke, and who knew they were +both under that roof? Oh, tell me that I do you a cruel wrong, my lady; +tell me so—tell me! for as there is a Heaven above me I think that you +went to that place to-night on purpose to set fire to it. Tell me that +I'm wrong, my lady; tell me that I'm doing you a wicked wrong." +</P><P> +"I will tell you nothing, except that you are a mad woman," answered +Lady Audley; in a cold, hard voice. "Get up; fool, idiot, coward! Is +your husband such a precious bargain that you should be groveling there, +lamenting and groaning for him? What is Robert Audley to you, that you +behave like a maniac, because you think he is in danger? How do you know +the fire is at Mount Stanning? You see a red patch in the sky, and you +cry out directly that your own paltry hovel is in flames, as if there +were no place in the world that could burn except that. The fire may be +at Brentwood, or further away—at Romford, or still further away, on the +eastern side of London, perhaps. Get up, mad woman, and go back and look +after your goods and chattels, and your husband and your lodger. Get up +and go: I don't want you." +</P><P> +"Oh! my lady, my lady, forgive me," sobbed Phoebe; "there's nothing you +can say to me that's hard enough for having done you such a wrong, even +in my thoughts. I don't mind your cruel words—I don't mind anything if +I'm wrong." +</P><P> +"Go back and see for yourself," answered Lady Audley, sternly. "I tell +you again, I don't want you." +</P><P> +She walked away in the darkness, leaving Phoebe Marks still kneeling +upon the hard road, where she had cast herself in that agony of +supplication. Sir Michael's wife walked toward the house in which her +husband slept with the red blaze lighting up the skies behind her, and +with nothing but the blackness of the night before. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXXIII.</H2> +<H3>THE BEARER OF THE TIDINGS.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +It was very late the next morning when Lady Audley emerged from her +dressing-room, exquisitely dressed in a morning costume of delicate +muslin, delicate laces, and embroideries; but with a very pale face, and +with half-circles of purple shadow under her eyes. She accounted for +this pale face and these hollow eyes by declaring that she had sat up +reading until a very late hour on the previous night. +</P><P> +Sir Michael and his young wife breakfasted in the library at a +comfortable round table, wheeled close to the blazing fire; and Alicia +was compelled to share this meal with her step-mother, however she might +avoid that lady in the long interval between breakfast and dinner. +</P><P> +The March morning was bleak and dull, and a drizzling rain fell +incessantly, obscuring the landscape and blotting out the distance. +There were very few letters by the morning post; the daily newspapers +did not arrive until noon; and such aids to conversation being missing, +there was very little talk at the breakfast table. +</P><P> +Alicia looked out at the drizzling rain drifting against the broad +window-panes. +</P><P> +"No riding to-day," she said; "and no chance of any callers to enliven +us, unless that ridiculous Bob comes crawling through the wet from Mount +Stanning." +</P><P> +Have you ever heard anybody, whom you knew to be dead, alluded to in a +light, easy going manner by another person who did not know of his +death—alluded to as doing that or this, as performing some trivial +everyday operation—when <i>you</i> know that he has vanished away from the +face of this earth, and separated himself forever from all living +creatures and their commonplace pursuits in the awful solemnity of +death? Such a chance allusion, insignificant though it may be, is apt to +send a strange thrill of pain through the mind. The ignorant remark jars +discordantly upon the hyper-sensitive brain; the King of Terrors is +desecrated by that unwitting disrespect. Heaven knows what hidden reason +my lady may have had for experiencing some such revulsion of feeling on +the sudden mention of Mr. Audley's name, but her pale face blanched to a +sickly white as Alicia Audley spoke of her cousin. +</P><P> +"Yes, he will come down here in the wet, perhaps," the young lady +continued, "with his hat sleek and shining as if it had been brushed +with a pat of fresh butter, and with white vapors steaming out of his +clothes, and making him look like an awkward genie just let out of his +bottle. He will come down here and print impressions of his muddy boots +all over the carpet, and he'll sit on your Gobelin tapestry, my lady, in +his wet overcoat; and he'll abuse you if you remonstrate, and will ask +why people have chairs that are not to be sat upon, and why you don't +live in Figtree Court, and—" +</P><P> +Sir Michael Audley watched his daughter with a thoughtful countenance as +she talked of her cousin. She very often talked of him, ridiculing him +and inveighing against him in no very measured terms. But perhaps the +baronet thought of a certain Signora Beatrice who very cruelly entreated +a gentleman called Benedick, but who was, it may be, heartily in love +with him at the same time. +</P><P> +"What do you think Major Melville told me when he called here yesterday, +Alicia?" Sir Michael asked, presently. +</P><P> +"I haven't the remotest idea," replied Alicia, rather disdainfully. +"Perhaps he told you that we should have another war before long, by +Ged, sir; or perhaps he told you that we should have a new ministry, by +Ged, sir, for that those fellows are getting themselves into a mess, +sir; or that those other fellows were reforming this, and cutting down +that, and altering the other in the army, until, by Ged, sir, we shall +have no army at all, by-and-by—nothing but a pack of boys, sir, crammed +up to the eyes with a lot of senseless schoolmasters' rubbish, and +dressed in shell-jackets and calico helmets. Yes, sir, they're fighting +in Oudh in calico helmets at this very day, sir." +</P><P> +"You're an impertinent minx, miss," answered the baronet. "Major +Melville told me nothing of the kind; but he told me that a very devoted +admirer of you, a certain Sir Harry Towers, has forsaken his place in +Hertfordshire, and his hunting stable, and has gone on the continent for +a twelvemonths' tour." +</P><P> +Miss Audley flushed up suddenly at the mention of her old adorer, but +recovered herself very quickly. +</P><P> +"He has gone on the continent, has he?" she said indifferently. "He told +me that he meant to do so—if—if he didn't have everything his own way. +Poor fellow! he's a, dear, good-hearted, stupid creature, and twenty +times better than that peripatetic, patent refrigerator, Mr. Robert +Audley." +</P><P> +"I wish, Alicia, you were not so fond of ridiculing Bob," Sir Michael +said, gravely. "Bob is a good fellow, and I'm as fond of him as if he'd +been my own son; and—and—I've been very uncomfortable about him +lately. He has changed very much within the last few days, and he has +taken all sorts of absurd ideas into his head, and my lady has alarmed +me about him. She thinks—" +</P><P> +Lady Audley interrupted her husband with a grave shake of her head. +</P><P> +"It is better not to say too much about it as yet awhile," she said; +"Alicia knows what I think." +</P><P> +"Yes," replied Miss Audley, "my lady thinks that Bob is going mad, but I +know better than that. He's not at all the sort of person to go mad. How +should such a sluggish ditch-pond of an intellect as his ever work +itself into a tempest? He may move about for the rest of his life, +perhaps, in a tranquil state of semi-idiotcy, imperfectly comprehending +who he is, and where he's going, and what he's doing—but he'll never go +mad." +</P><P> +Sir Michael did not reply to this. He had been very much disturbed by +his conversation with my lady on the previous evening, and had silently +debated the painful question, in his mind ever since. +</P><P> +His wife—the woman he best loved and most believed in—had told him, +with all appearance of regret and agitation, her conviction of his +nephew's insanity. He tried in vain to arrive at the conclusion he +wished most ardently to attain; he tried in vain to think that my lady +was misled by her own fancies, and had no foundation for what she said. +But then, again, it suddenly flashed upon him, that to think this was to +arrive at a worse conclusion; it was to transfer the horrible suspicion +from his nephew to his wife. She appeared to be possessed with an actual +conviction of Robert's insanity. To imagine her wrong was to imagine +some weakness in her own mind. The longer he thought of the subject the +more it harassed and perplexed him. It was most certain that the young +man had always been eccentric. He was sensible, he was tolerably clever, +he was honorable and gentlemanlike in feeling, though perhaps a little +careless in the performance of certain minor social duties; but there +were some slight differences, not easily to be defined, that separated +him from other men of his age and position. Then, again, it was equally +true that he had very much changed within the period that had succeeded +the disappearance of George Talboys. He had grown moody and thoughtful, +melancholy and absent-minded. He had held himself aloof from society, +had sat for hours without speaking; had talked at other points by fits +and starts; and had excited himself unusually in the discussion of +subjects which apparently lay far out of the region of his own life and +interests. Then there was even another region which seemed to strengthen +my lady's case against this unhappy young man. He had been brought up in +the frequent society of his cousin, Alicia—his pretty, genial +cousin—to whom interest, and one would have thought affection, +naturally pointed as his most fitting bride. More than this, the girl +had shown him, in the innocent guilelessness of a transparent nature, +that on her side at least, affection was not wanting; and yet, in spite +of all this, he had held himself aloof, and had allowed others to +propose for her hand, and to be rejected by her, and had still made no +sign. +</P><P> +Now love is so very subtle an essence, such an indefinable metaphysical +marvel, that its due force, though very cruelly felt by the sufferer +himself, is never clearly understood by those who look on at its +torments and wonder why he takes the common fever so badly. Sir Michael +argued that because Alicia was a pretty girl and an amiable girl it was +therefore extraordinary and unnatural in Robert Audley not to have duly +fallen in love with her. This baronet, who close upon his sixtieth +birthday, had for the first time encountered that one woman who out of +all the women in the world had power to quicken the pulses of his heart, +wondered why Robert failed to take the fever from the first breath of +contagion that blew toward him. He forgot that there are men who go +their ways unscathed amidst legions of lovely and generous women, to +succumb at last before some harsh-featured virago, who knows the secret +of that only philter which can intoxicate and bewitch him. He had forgot +that there are certain Jacks who go through life without meeting the +Jill appointed for them by Nemesis, and die old bachelors, perhaps, with +poor Jill pining an old maid upon the other side of the party-wall. He +forgot that love, which is a madness, and a scourge, and a fever, and a +delusion, and a snare, is also a mystery, and very imperfectly +understood by everyone except the individual sufferer who writhes under +its tortures. Jones, who is wildly enamored of Miss Brown, and who lies +awake at night until he loathes his comfortable pillow and tumbles his +sheets into two twisted rags of linen in his agonies, as if he were a +prisoner and wanted to wind them into impromptu ropes; this same Jones +who thinks Russell Square a magic place because his divinity inhabits +it, who thinks the trees in that inclosure and the sky above it greener +and bluer than other trees or sky, and who feels a pang, yes, an actual +pang, of mingled hope, and joy, and expectation, and terror, when he +emerges from Guilford street, descending from the hights of Islington, +into those sacred precincts; this very Jones is hard and callous toward +the torments of Smith, who adores Miss Robinson, and cannot imagine what +the infatuated fellow can see in the girl. So it was with Sir Michael +Audley. He looked at his nephew as a sample of a very large class of +young men, and his daughter as a sample of an equally extensive class of +feminine goods, and could not see why the two samples should not make a +very respectable match. He ignored all those infinitesimal differences +in nature which make the wholesome food of one man the deadly poison of +another. How difficult it is to believe sometimes that a man doesn't +like such and such a favorite dish. If at a dinner-party, a meek looking +guest refuses early salmon and cucumbers, or green peas in February, we +set him down as a poor relation whose instincts warn him off those +expensive plates. If an alderman were to declare that he didn't like +green fat, he would be looked upon as a social martyr, a Marcus Curtius +of the dinner-table, who immolated himself for the benefit of his kind. +His fellow-aldermen would believe in anything rather than an heretical +distaste for the city ambrosia of the soup tureen. But there are people +who dislike salmon, and white-bait, and spring ducklings, and all manner +of old-established delicacies, and there are other people who affect +eccentric and despicable dishes, generally stigmatized as nasty. +</P><P> +Alas, my pretty Alicia, your cousin did not love you! He admired your +rosy English face, and had a tender affection for you which might +perhaps have expanded by-and-by into something warm enough for +matrimony, that every-day jog-trot species of union which demands no +very passionate devotion, but for a sudden check which it had received +in Dorsetshire. Yes, Robert Audley's growing affection for his cousin, a +plant of very slow growth, I am fain to confess, had been suddenly +dwarfed and stunted upon that bitter February day on which he had stood +beneath the pine-trees talking to Clara Talboys. Since that day the +young man had experienced an unpleasant sensation in thinking of poor +Alicia. He looked at her as being in some vague manner an incumbrance +upon the freedom of his thoughts; he had a haunting fear that he was in +some tacit way pledged to her; that she had a species of claim upon him, +which forbade to him the right of thinking of another woman. I believe +it was the image of Miss Audley presented to him in this light that +goaded the young barrister into those outbursts of splenetic rage +against the female sex which he was liable to at certain times. He was +strictly honorable, so honorable that he would rather have immolated +himself upon the altar of truth and Alicia than have done her the +remotest wrong, though by so doing he might have secured his own comfort +and happiness. +</P><P> +"If the poor little girl loves me," he thought, "and if she thinks that +I love her, and has been led to think so by any word or act of mine, I'm +in duty bound to let her think so to the end of time, and to fulfill any +tacit promise which I may have unconsciously made. I thought once—I +meant once to—to make her an offer by-and-by when this horrible mystery +about George Talboys should have been cleared up and everything +peacefully settled—but now—" +</P><P> +His thoughts would ordinarily wander away at this point of his +reflections, carrying him where he never had intended to go; carrying +him back under the pine-trees in Dorsetshire, and setting him once more +face to face with the sister of his missing friend, and it was generally +a very laborious journey by which he traveled back to the point from +which he strayed. It was so difficult for him to tear himself away from +the stunted turf and the pine-trees. +</P><P> +"Poor little girl!" he would think on coming back to Alicia. "How good +it is of her to love me, and how grateful ought I to be for her +tenderness. How many fellows would think such a generous, loving heart +the highest boon that earth could give them. There's Sir Harry Towers +stricken with despair at his rejection. He would give me half his +estate, all his estate, twice his estate, if he had it, to be in the +shoes which I am anxious to shake off my ungrateful feet. Why don't I +love her? Why is it that although I know her to be pretty, and pure, and +good, and truthful, I don't love her? Her image never haunts me, except +reproachfully. I never see her in my dreams. I never wake up suddenly in +the dead of the night with her eyes shining upon me and her warm breath +upon my cheek, or with the fingers of her soft hand clinging to mine. +No, I'm not in love with her, I can't fall in love with her." +</P><P> +He raged and rebelled against his ingratitude. He tried to argue himself +into a passionate attachment for his cousin, but he failed +ignominiously, and the more he tried to think of Alicia the more he +thought of Clara Talboys. I am speaking now of his feelings in the +period that elapsed between his return from Dorsetshire and his visit to +Grange Heath. +</P><P> +Sir Michael sat by the library fire after breakfast upon this wretched +rainy morning, writing letters and reading the newspapers. Alicia shut +herself in her own apartment to read the third volume of a novel. Lady +Audley locked the door of the octagon ante-chamber, and roamed up and +down the suit of rooms from the bedroom to the boudoir all through that +weary morning. +</P><P> +She had locked the door to guard against the chance of any one coming in +suddenly and observing her before she was aware—before she had had +sufficient warning to enable her to face their scrutiny. Her pale face +seemed to grow paler as the morning advanced. A tiny medicine-chest was +open upon the dressing-table, and little stoppered bottles of red +lavender, sal-volatile, chloroform, chlorodyne, and ether were scattered +about. Once my lady paused before this medicine-chest, and took out the +remaining bottles, half-absently, perhaps, until she came to one which +was filled with a thick, dark liquid, and labeled "opium—poison." +</P><P> +She trifled a long time with this last bottle; holding it up to the +light, and even removing the stopper and smelling the sickly liquid. But +she put it from her suddenly with a shudder. "If I could!" she muttered, +"if I could only do it! And yet why should I <i>now</i>?" +</P><P> +She clinched her small hands as she uttered the last words, and walked +to the window of the dressing-room, which looked straight toward that +ivied archway under which any one must come who came from Mount Stanning +to the Court. +</P><P> +There were smaller gates in the gardens which led into the meadows +behind the Court, but there was no other way of coming from Mount +Stanning or Brentwood than by the principal entrance. +</P><P> +The solitary hand of the clock over the archway was midway between one +and two when my lady looked at it. +</P><P> +"How slow the time is," she said, wearily; "how slow, how slow! Shall I +grow old like this, I wonder, with every minute of my life seeming like +an hour?" +</P><P> +She stood for a few minutes watching the archway, but no one passed +under it while she looked, and she turned impatiently away from the +window to resume her weary wandering about the rooms. +</P><P> +Whatever fire that had been which had reflected itself vividly in the +black sky, no tidings of it had as yet come to Audley Court. The day was +miserably wet and windy, altogether the very last day upon which even +the most confirmed idler and gossip would care to venture out. It was +not a market-day, and there were therefore very few passengers upon the +road between Brentwood and Chelmsford, so that as yet no news of the +fire, which had occurred in the dead of the wintry night, had reached +the village of Audley, or traveled from the village to the Court. +</P><P> +The girl with the rose-colored ribbons came to the door of the anteroom +to summon her mistress to luncheon, but Lady Audley only opened the door +a little way, and intimated her intention of taking no luncheon. +</P><P> +"My head aches terribly, Martin," she said; "I shall go and lie down +till dinner-time. You may come at five to dress me." +</P><P> +Lady Audley said this with the predetermination of dressing at four, and +thus dispensing with the services of her attendant. Among all privileged +spies, a lady's-maid has the highest privileges; it is she who bathes +Lady Theresa's eyes with eau-de-cologne after her ladyship's quarrel +with the colonel; it is she who administers sal-volatile to Miss Fanny +when Count Beaudesert, of the Blues, has jilted her. She has a hundred +methods for the finding out of her mistress' secrets. She knows by the +manner in which her victim jerks her head from under the hair-brush, or +chafes at the gentlest administration of the comb, what hidden tortures +are racking her breast—what secret perplexities are bewildering her +brain. That well-bred attendant knows how to interpret the most obscure +diagnosis of all mental diseases that can afflict her mistress; she +knows when the ivory complexion is bought and paid for—when the pearly +teeth are foreign substances fashioned by the dentist—when the glossy +plaits are the relics of the dead, rather than the property of the +living; and she knows other and more sacred secrets than these; she +knows when the sweet smile is more false than Madame Levison's enamel, +and far less enduring—when the words that issue from between gates of +borrowed pearl are more disguised and painted than the lips which help +to shape them—when the lovely fairy of the ball-room re-enters the +dressing-room after the night's long revelry, and throws aside her +voluminous burnous and her faded bouquet, and drops her mask, and like +another Cinderella loses the glass-slipper, by whose glitter she has +been distinguished, and falls back into her rags and dirt, the lady's +maid is by to see the transformation. The valet who took wages from the +prophet of Korazin must have seen his master sometimes unveiled, and +must have laughed in his sleeve at the folly of the monster's +worshipers. +</P><P> +Lady Audley had made no <i>confidante</i> of her new maid, and on this day of +all others she wished to be alone. +</P><P> +She did lie down; she cast herself wearily upon the luxurious sofa in +the dressing-room, and buried her face in the down pillows and tried to +sleep. Sleep!—she had almost forgotten what it was, that tender +restorer of tired nature, it seemed so long now since she had slept. It +was only about eight-and-forty hours perhaps, but it appeared an +intolerable time. Her fatigue of the night before, and her unnatural +excitement, had worn her out at last. She did fall asleep; she fell into +a heavy slumber that was almost like stupor. She had taken a few drops +out of the opium bottle in a glass of water before lying down. +</P><P> +The clock over the mantelpiece chimed the quarter before four as she +woke suddenly and started up, with the cold perspiration breaking out in +icy drops upon her forehead. She had dreamt that every member of the +household was clamoring at the door, eager to tell her of a dreadful +fire that had happened in the night. +</P><P> +There was no sound but the flapping of the ivy-leaves against the glass, +the occasional falling of a cinder, and the steady ticking of the clock. +</P><P> +"Perhaps I shall be always dreaming these sort of dreams," my lady +thought, "until the terror of them kills me!" +</P><P> +The rain had ceased, and the cold spring sunshine was glittering upon +the windows. Lady Audley dressed herself rapidly but carefully. I do not +say that even in her supremest hour of misery she still retained her +pride in her beauty. It was not so; she looked upon that beauty as a +weapon, and she felt that she had now double need to be well armed. She +dressed herself in her most gorgeous silk, a voluminous robe of silvery, +shimmering blue, that made her look as if she had been arrayed in +moonbeams. She shook out her hair into feathery showers of glittering +gold, and, with a cloak of white cashmere about her shoulders, went +down-stairs into the vestibule. +</P><P> +She opened the door of the library and looked in. Sir Michael Audley was +asleep in his easy-chair. As my lady softly closed this door Alicia +descended the stairs from her own room. The turret door was open, and +the sun was shining upon the wet grass-plat in the quadrangle. The firm +gravel-walks were already very nearly dry, for the rain had ceased for +upward of two hours. +</P><P> +"Will you take a walk with me in the quadrangle?" Lady Audley asked as +her step-daughter approached. The armed neutrality between the two women +admitted of any chance civility such as this. +</P><P> +"Yes, if you please, my lady," Alicia answered, rather listlessly. "I +have been yawning over a stupid novel all the morning, and shall be very +glad of a little fresh air." +</P><P> +Heaven help the novelist whose fiction Miss Audley had been perusing, if +he had no better critics than that young lady. She had read page after +page without knowing what she had been reading, and had flung aside the +volume half a dozen times to go to the window and watch for that visitor +whom she had so confidently expected. +</P><P> +Lady Audley led the way through the low doorway and on to the smooth +gravel drive, by which carriages approached the house. She was still +very pale, but the brightness of her dress and of her feathery golden +ringlets, distracted an observer's eyes from her pallid face. All mental +distress is, with some show of reason, associated in our minds with +loose, disordered garments and dishabilled hair, and an appearance in +every way the reverse of my lady's. Why had she come out into the chill +sunshine of that March afternoon to wander up and down that monotonous +pathway with the step-daughter she hated? She came because she was under +the dominion of a horrible restlessness, which, would not suffer her to +remain within the house waiting for certain tidings which she knew must +too surely come. At first she had wished to ward them off—at first she +had wished that strange convulsions of nature might arise to hinder +their coming—that abnormal winter lightnings might wither and destroy +the messenger who carried them—that the ground might tremble and yawn +beneath his hastening feet, and that impassable gulfs might separate the +spot from which the tidings were to come and the place to which they +were to be carried. She wished that the earth might stand still, and the +paralyzed elements cease from their natural functions, that the progress +of time might stop, that the Day of Judgment might come, and that she +might thus be brought before an unearthly tribunal, and so escape the +intervening shame and misery of any earthly judgment. In the wild chaos +of her brain, every one of these thoughts had held its place, and in her +short slumber on the sofa in her dressing-room she had dreamed all these +things and a hundred other things, all bearing upon the same subject. +She had dreamed that a brook, a tiny streamlet when she first saw it, +flowed across the road between Mount Stanning and Audley, and gradually +swelled into a river, and from a river became an ocean, till the village +on the hill receded far away out of sight and only a great waste of +waters rolled where it once had been. She dreamt that she saw the +messenger, now one person, now another, but never any probable person, +hindered by a hundred hinderances, now startling and terrible, now +ridiculous and trivial, but never either natural or probable; and going +down into the quiet house with the memory of these dreams strong upon +her, she had been bewildered by the stillness which had betokened that +the tidings had not yet come. +</P><P> +And now her mind underwent a complete change. She no longer wished to +delay the dreaded intelligence. She wished the agony, whatever it was to +be, over and done with, the pain suffered, and the release attained. It +seemed to her as if the intolerable day would never come to an end, as +if her mad wishes had been granted, and the progress of time had +actually stopped. +</P><P> +"What a long day it has been!" exclaimed Alicia, as if taking up the +burden of my lady's thoughts; "nothing but drizzle and mist and wind! +And now that it's too late for anybody to go out, it must needs be +fine," the young lady added, with an evident sense of injury. +</P><P> +Lady Audley did not answer. She was looking at the stupid one-handed +clock, and waiting for the news which must come sooner or later, which +could not surely fail to come very speedily. +</P><P> +"They have been afraid to come and tell him," she thought; "they have +been afraid to break the news to Sir Michael. Who will come to tell it, +at last, I wonder? The rector of Mount Stanning, perhaps, or the doctor; +some important person at least." +</P><P> +If she could have gone out into the leafless avenues, or onto the high +road beyond them; if she could have gone so far as that hill upon which +she had so lately parted with Phoebe, she would have gladly done so. She +would rather have suffered anything than that slow suspense, that +corroding anxiety, that metaphysical dryrot in which heart and mind +seemed to decay under an insufferable torture. She tried to talk, and by +a painful effort contrived now and then to utter some commonplace +remark. Under any ordinary circumstances her companion would have +noticed her embarrassment, but Miss Audley, happening to be very much +absorbed by her own vexations, was quite as well inclined to be silent +as my lady herself. The monotonous walk up and down the graveled pathway +suited Alicia's humor. I think that she even took a malicious pleasure +in the idea that she was very likely catching cold, and that her Cousin +Robert was answerable for her danger. If she could have brought upon +herself inflammation of the lungs, or ruptured blood-vessels, by that +exposure to the chill March atmosphere, I think she would have felt a +gloomy satisfaction in her sufferings. +</P><P> +"Perhaps Robert might care for me, if I had inflammation of the lungs," +she thought. "He couldn't insult me by calling me a bouncer then. +Bouncers don't have inflammation of the lungs." +</P><P> +I believe she drew a picture of herself in the last stage of +consumption, propped up by pillows in a great easy-chair, looking out of +a window in the afternoon sunshine, with medicine bottles, a bunch of +grapes and a Bible upon a table by her side, and with Robert, all +contrition and tenderness, summoned to receive her farewell blessing. +She preached a whole chapter to him in that parting benediction, talking +a great deal longer than was in keeping with her prostrate state, and +very much enjoying her dismal castle in the air. Employed in this +sentimental manner, Miss Audley took very little notice of her +step-mother, and the one hand of the blundering clock had slipped to six +by the time Robert had been blessed and dismissed. +</P><P> +"Good gracious me!" she cried, suddenly—"six o'clock, and I'm not +dressed." +</P><P> +The half-hour bell rung in a cupola upon the roof while Alicia was +speaking. +</P><P> +"I must go in, my lady," she said. "Won't you come?" +</P><P> +"Presently," answered Lady Audley. "I'm dressed, you see." +</P><P> +Alicia ran off, but Sir Michael's wife still lingered in the quadrangle, +still waited for those tidings which were so long coming. +</P><P> +It was nearly dark. The blue mists of evening had slowly risen from the +ground. The flat meadows were filled with a gray vapor, and a stranger +might have fancied Audley Court a castle on the margin of a sea. Under +the archway the shadows of fastcoming night lurked darkly, like traitors +waiting for an opportunity to glide stealthily into the quadrangle. +Through the archway a patch of cold blue sky glimmered faintly, streaked +by one line of lurid crimson, and lighted by the dim glitter of one +wintry-looking star. Not a creature was stirring in the quadrangle but +the restless woman who paced up and down the straight pathways, +listening for a footstep whose coming was to strike terror to her soul. +She heard it at last!—a footstep in the avenue upon the other side of +the archway. But was it the footstep? Her sense of hearing, made +unnaturally acute by excitement, told her that it was a man's +footstep—told even more, that it was the tread of a gentleman, no +slouching, lumbering pedestrian in hobnailed boots, but a gentleman who +walked firmly and well. +</P><P> +Every sound fell like a lump of ice upon my lady's heart. She could not +wait, she could not contain herself, she lost all self-control, all +power of endurance, all capability of self-restraint, and she rushed +toward the archway. +</P><P> +She paused beneath its shadow, for the stranger was close upon her. She +saw him, oh, God! she saw him in that dim evening light. Her brain +reeled, her heart stopped beating. She uttered no cry of surprise, no +exclamation of terror, but staggered backward and clung for support to +the ivied buttress of the archway. With her slender figure crouched into +the angle formed by the buttress and the wall which it supported, she +stood staring at the new-comer. +</P><P> +As he approached her more closely her knees sunk under her, and she +dropped to the ground, not fainting, or in any manner unconscious, but +sinking into a crouching attitude, and still crushed into the angle of +the wall, as if she would have made a tomb for herself in the shadow of +that sheltering brickwork. +</P><P> +"My lady!" +</P><P> +The speaker was Robert Audley. He whose bedroom door she had +double-locked seventeen hours before at the Castle Inn. +</P><P> +"What is the matter with you?" he said, in a strange, constrained +manner. "Get up, and let me take you indoors." +</P><P> +He assisted her to rise, and she obeyed him very submissively. He took +her arm in his strong hand and led her across the quadrangle and into +the lamp-lit hall. She shivered more violently than he had ever seen any +woman shiver before, but she made no attempt at resistance to his will. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXXIV.</H2> +<H3>MY LADY TELLS THE TRUTH.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +"Is there any room in which I can talk to you alone?" Robert Audley +asked, as he looked dubiously round the hall. +</P><P> +My lady only bowed her head in answer. She pushed open the door of the +library, which had been left ajar. Sir Michael had gone to his +dressing-room to prepare for dinner after a day of lazy enjoyment, +perfectly legitimate for an invalid. The apartment was quite empty, only +lighted by the blaze of the fire, as it had been upon the previous +evening. +</P><P> +Lady Audley entered the room, followed by Robert, who closed the door +behind him. The wretched, shivering woman went to the fireplace and +knelt down before the blaze, as if any natural warmth, could have power +to check that unnatural chill. The young man followed her, and stood +beside her upon the hearth, with his arm resting upon the chimney-piece. +</P><P> +"Lady Audley," he said, in a voice whose icy sternness held out no hope +of any tenderness or compassion, "I spoke to you last-night very +plainly, but you refused to listen to me. To-night I must speak to you +still more plainly, and you must no longer refuse to listen to me." +</P><P> +My lady, crouching before the fire with her face hidden in her hands, +uttered a low, sobbing sound which was almost a moan, but made no other +answer. +</P><P> +"There was a fire last night at Mount Stanning, Lady Audley," the +pitiless voice proceeded; "the Castle Inn, the house in which I slept, +was burned to the ground. Do you know how I escaped perishing in that +destruction?" +</P><P> +"No." +</P><P> +"I escaped by a most providential circumstance which seems a very simple +one. I did not sleep in the room which had been prepared for me. The +place seemed wretchedly damp and chilly, the chimney smoked abominably +when an attempt was made at lighting a fire, and I persuaded the servant +to make me up a bed on the sofa in the small ground-floor sitting-room +which I had occupied during the evening." +</P><P> +He paused for a moment, watching the crouching figure. The only change +in my lady's attitude was that her head had fallen a little lower. +</P><P> +"Shall I tell you by whose agency the destruction of the Castle Inn was +brought about, my lady?" +</P><P> +There was no answer. +</P><P> +"Shall I tell you?" +</P><P> +Still the same obstinate silence. +</P><P> +"My Lady Audley," cried Robert, suddenly, "<i>you</i> are the incendiary. It +was you whose murderous hand kindled those flames. It was you who +thought by that thrice-horrible deed to rid yourself of me, your enemy +and denouncer. What was it to you that other lives might be sacrificed? +If by a second massacre of Saint Bartholomew you could have ridded +yourself of <i>me</i> you would have sacrificed an army of victims. The day +is past for tenderness and mercy. For you I can no longer know pity or +compunction. So far as by sparing your shame I can spare others who must +suffer by your shame, I will be merciful, but no further. If there were +any secret tribunal before which you might be made to answer for your +crimes, I would have little scruple in being your accuser, but I would +spare that generous and high-born gentleman upon whose noble name your +infamy would be reflected." +</P><P> +His voice softened as he made this allusion, and for a moment he broke +down, but he recovered himself by an effort and continued: +</P><P> +"No life was lost in the fire of last night. I slept lightly, my lady, +for my mind was troubled, as it has been for a long time, by the misery +which I knew was lowering upon this house. It was I who discovered the +breaking out of the fire in time to give the alarm and to save the +servant girl and the poor drunken wretch, who was very much burnt in +spite of efforts, and who now lies in a precarious state at his mother's +cottage. It was from him and from his wife that I learned who had +visited the Castle Inn in the dead of the night. The woman was almost +distracted when she saw me, and from her I discovered the particulars of +last night. Heaven knows what other secrets of yours she may hold, my +lady, or how easily they might be extorted from her if I wanted her aid, +which I do not. My path lies very straight before me. I have sworn to +bring the murderer of George Talboys to justice, and I will keep my +oath. I say that it was by your agency my friend met with his death. If +I have wondered sometimes, as it was only natural I should, whether I +was not the victim of some horrible hallucination, whether such an +alternative was not more probable than that a young and lovely woman +should be capable of so foul and treacherous a murder, all wonder is +past. After last night's deed of horror, there is no crime you could +commit, however vast and unnatural, which could make me wonder. +Henceforth you must seem to me no longer a woman, a guilty woman with a +heart which in its worst wickedness has yet some latent power to suffer +and feel; I look upon you henceforth as the demoniac incarnation of some +evil principle. But you shall no longer pollute this place by your +presence. Unless you will confess what you are and who you are in the +presence of the man you have deceived so long, and accept from him and +from me such mercy as we may be inclined to extend to you, I will gather +together the witnesses who shall swear to your identity, and at peril of +any shame to myself and those I love, I will bring upon you the just and +awful punishment of your crime." +</P><P> +The woman rose suddenly and stood before him erect and resolute, with +her hair dashed away from her face and her eyes glittering. +</P><P> +"Bring Sir Michael!" she cried; "bring him here, and I will confess +anything—everything. What do I care? God knows I have struggled hard +enough against you, and fought the battle patiently enough; but you have +conquered, Mr. Robert Audley. It is a great triumph, is it not—a +wonderful victory? You have used your cool, calculating, frigid, +luminous intellect to a noble purpose. You have conquered—a MAD WOMAN!" +</P><P> +"A mad woman!" cried Mr. Audley. +</P><P> +"Yes, a mad woman. When you say that I killed George Talboys, you say +the truth. When you say that I murdered him treacherously and foully, +you lie. I killed him because I AM MAD! because my intellect is a little +way upon the wrong side of that narrow boundary-line between sanity and +insanity; because, when George Talboys goaded me, as you have goaded me, +and reproached me, and threatened me, my mind, never properly balanced, +utterly lost its balance, and <i>I was mad</i>! Bring Sir Michael; and bring +him quickly. If he is to be told one thing let him be told everything; +let him hear the secret of my life!" +</P><P> +Robert Audley left the room to look for his uncle. He went in search of +that honored kinsman with God knows how heavy a weight of anguish at his +heart, for he knew he was about to shatter the day-dream of his uncle's +life; and he knew that our dreams are none the less terrible to lose, +because they have never been the realities for which we have mistaken +them. But even in the midst of his sorrow for Sir Michael, he could not +help wondering at my lady's last words—"the secret of my life." He +remembered those lines in the letter written by Helen Talboys upon the +eve of her flight from Wildernsea, which had so puzzled him. He +remembered those appealing sentences—"You should forgive me, for you +know <i>why</i> I have been so. You know the <i>secret</i> of my life." +</P><P> +He met Sir Michael in the hall. He made no attempt to prepare the way +for the terrible revelation which the baronet was to hear. He only drew +him into the fire-lit library, and there for the first time addressed +him quietly thus: "Lady Audley has a confession to make to you, sir—a +confession which I know will be a most cruel surprise, a most bitter +grief. But it is necessary for your present honor, and for your future +peace, that you should hear it. She has deceived you, I regret to say, +most basely; but it is only right that you should hear from her own lips +any excuses which she may have to offer for her wickedness. May God +soften this blow for you!" sobbed the young man, suddenly breaking down; +"I cannot!" +</P><P> +Sir Michael lifted his hand as if he would command his nephew to be +silent, but that imperious hand dropped feeble and impotent at his side. +He stood in the center of the fire-lit room rigid and immovable. +</P><P> +"Lucy!" he cried, in a voice whose anguish struck like a blow upon the +jarred nerves of those who heard it, as the cry of a wounded animal +pains the listener—"Lucy, tell me that this man is a madman! tell me +so, my love, or I shall kill him!" +</P><P> +There was a sudden fury in his voice as he turned upon Robert, as if he +could indeed have felled his wife's accuser to the earth with the +strength of his uplifted arm. +</P><P> +But my lady fell upon her knees at his feet, interposing herself between +the baronet and his nephew, who stood leaning on the back of an +easy-chair, with his face hidden by his hand. +</P><P> +"He has told you the truth," said my lady, "and he is not mad! I have +sent him for you that I may confess everything to you. I should be sorry +for you if I could, for you have been very, very good to me, much better +to me than I ever deserved; but I can't, I can't—I can feel nothing but +my own misery. I told you long ago that I was selfish; I am selfish +still—more selfish than ever in my misery. Happy, prosperous people may +feel for others. I laugh at other people's sufferings; they seem so +small compared to my own." +</P><P> +When first my lady had fallen on her knees, Sir Michael had attempted to +raise her, and had remonstrated with her; but as she spoke he dropped +into a chair close to the spot upon which she knelt, and with his hands +clasped together, and with his head bent to catch every syllable of +those horrible words, he listened as if his whole being had been +resolved into that one sense of hearing. +</P><P> +"I must tell you the story of my life, in order to tell you why I have +become the miserable wretch who has no better hope than to be allowed to +run away and hide in some desolate corner of the earth. I must tell you +the story of my life," repeated my lady, "but you need not fear that I +shall dwell long upon it. It has not been so pleasant to me that I +should wish to remember it. When I was a very little child I remember +asking a question which it was natural enough that I should ask, God +help me! I asked where my mother was. I had a faint remembrance of a +face, like what my own is now, looking at me when I was very little +better than a baby; but I had missed the face suddenly, and had never +seen it since. They told me that mother was away. I was not happy, for +the woman who had charge of me was a disagreeable woman and the place in +which we lived was a lonely place, a village upon the Hampshire coast, +about seven miles from Portsmouth. My father, who was in the navy, only +came now and then to see me; and I was left almost entirely to the +charge of this woman, who was irregularly paid, and who vented her rage +upon me when my father was behindhand in remitting her money. So you see +that at a very early age I found out what it was to be poor. +</P><P> +"Perhaps it was more from being discontented with my dreary life than +from any wonderful impulse of affection, that I asked very often the +same question about my mother. I always received the same answer—she +was away. When I asked where, I was told that that was a secret. When I +grew old enough to understand the meaning of the word death, I asked if +my mother was dead, and I was told—'No, she was not dead; she was ill, +and she was away.' I asked how long she had been ill, and I was told +that she had been so some years, ever since I was a baby. +</P><P> +"At last the secret came out. I worried my foster-mother with the old +question one day when the remittances had fallen very much in arrear, +and her temper had been unusually tried. She flew into a passion, and +told me that my mother was a mad woman, and that she was in a madhouse +forty miles away. She had scarcely said this when she repented, and told +me that it was not the truth, and that I was not to believe it, or to +say that she had told me such a thing. I discovered afterward that my +father had made her promise most solemnly never to tell me the secret of +my mother's fate. +</P><P> +"I brooded horribly upon the thought of my mother's madness. It haunted +me by day and night. I was always picturing to myself this mad woman +pacing up and down some prison cell, in a hideous garment that bound her +tortured limbs. I had exaggerated ideas of the horror of her situation. +I had no knowledge of the different degrees of madness, and the image +that haunted me was that of a distraught and violent creature, who would +fall upon me and kill me if I came within her reach. This idea grew upon +me until I used to awake in the dead of night, screaming aloud in an +agony of terror, from a dream in which I had felt my mother's icy grasp +upon my throat, and heard her ravings in my ear. +</P><P> +"When I was ten years old my father came to pay up the arrears due to my +protectress, and to take me to school. He had left me in Hampshire +longer than he had intended, from his inability to pay this money; so +there again I felt the bitterness of poverty, and ran the risk of +growing up an ignorant creature among coarse rustic children, because my +father was poor." +</P><P> +My lady paused for a moment, but only to take breath, for she had spoken +rapidly, as if eager to tell this hated story, and to have done with it. +She was still on her knees, but Sir Michael made no effort to raise her. +</P><P> +He sat silent and immovable. What was this story that he was listening +to? Whose was it, and to what was it to lead? It could not be his +wife's; he had heard her simple account of her youth, and had believed +it as he had believed in the Gospel. She had told him a very brief story +of an early orphanage, and a long, quiet, colorless youth spent in the +conventional seclusion of an English boarding-school. +</P><P> +"My father came at last, and I told him what I had discovered. He was +very much affected when I spoke of my mother. He was not what the world +generally calls a good man, but I learned afterward that he had loved +his wife very dearly, and that he would have willingly sacrificed his +life to her, and constituted himself her guardian, had he not been +compelled to earn the daily bread of the mad woman and her child by the +exercise of his profession. So here again I beheld what a bitter thing +it is to be poor. My mother, who might have been tended by a devoted +husband, was given over to the care of hired nurses. +</P><P> +"Before my father sent me to school at Torquay, he took me to see my +mother. This visit served at least to dispel the idea which had so often +terrified me. I saw no raving, straight-waist-coated maniac, guarded by +zealous jailers, but a golden-haired, blue-eyed, girlish creature, who +seemed as frivolous as a butterfly, and who skipped toward us with her +yellow curls decorated with natural flowers, and saluted us with radiant +smiles, and gay, ceaseless chatter. +</P><P> +"But she didn't know us. She would have spoken in the same manner to any +stranger who had entered the gates of the garden about her prison-house. +Her madness was an hereditary disease transmitted to her from her +mother, who had died mad. She, my mother, had been, or had appeared sane +up to the hour of my birth, but from that hour her intellect had +decayed, and she had become what I saw her. +</P><P> +"I went away with the knowledge of this, and with the knowledge that the +only inheritance I had to expect from my mother was—insanity! +</P><P> +"I went away with this knowledge in my mind, and with something more—a +secret to keep. I was a child of ten years only, but I felt all the +weight of that burden. I was to keep the secret of my mother's madness; +for it was a secret that might affect me injuriously in after-life. I +was to remember this. +</P><P> +"I did remember this; and it was, perhaps, this that made me selfish and +heartless, for I suppose I am heartless. As I grew older I was told that +I was pretty—beautiful—lovely—bewitching. I heard all these things at +first indifferently, but by-and-by I listened to them greedily, and +began to think that in spite of the secret of my life I might be more +successful in the world's great lottery than my companions. I had learnt +that which in some indefinite manner or other every school-girl learns +sooner or later—I learned that my ultimate fate in life depended upon +my marriage, and I concluded that if I was indeed prettier than my +schoolfellows, I ought to marry better than any one of them. +</P><P> +"I left school before I was seventeen years of age, with this thought in +my mind, and I went to live at the other extremity of England with my +father, who had retired upon his half-pay, and had established himself +at Wildernsea, with the idea that the place was cheap and select. +</P><P> +"The place was indeed select. I had not been there a month before I +discovered that even the prettiest girl might wait a long time for a +rich husband. I wish to hurry over this part of my life. I dare say I +was very despicable. You and your nephew, Sir Michael, have been rich +all your lives, and can very well afford to despise me; but I knew how +far poverty can affect a life, and I looked forward with a sickening +dread to a life so affected. At last the rich suitor, the wandering +prince came." +</P><P> +She paused for a moment, and shuddered convulsively. It was impossible +to see any of the changes in her countenance, for her face was +obstinately bent toward the floor. Throughout her long confession she +never lifted it; throughout her long confession her voice was never +broken by a tear. What she had to tell she told in a cold, hard tone, +very much the tone in which some criminal, dogged and sullen to the +last, might have confessed to a jail chaplain. +</P><P> +"The wandering prince came," she repeated; "he was called George +Talboys." +</P><P> +For the first time since his wife's confession had begun, Sir Michael +Audley started. He began to understand it all now. A crowd of unheeded +words and forgotten circumstances that had seemed too insignificant for +remark or recollection, flashed back upon him as vividly as if they had +been the leading incidents of his past life. +</P><P> +"Mr. George Talboys was a cornet in a dragoon regiment. He was the only +son of a rich country gentleman. He fell in love with me, and married me +three months after my seventeenth birthday. I think I loved him as much +as it was in my power to love anybody; not more than I have loved you, +Sir Michael—not so much, for when you married me you elevated me to a +position that he could never have given me." +</P><P> +The dream was broken. Sir Michael Audley remembered that summer's +evening, nearly two years ago, when he had first declared his love for +Mr. Dawson's governess; he remembered the sick, half-shuddering +sensation of regret and disappointment that had come over him then, and +he felt as if it had in some manner dimly foreshadowed the agony of +to-night. +</P><P> +But I do not believe that even in his misery he felt that entire and +unmitigated surprise, that utter revulsion of feeling that is felt when +a good woman wanders away from herself and becomes the lost creature +whom her husband is bound in honor to abjure. I do not believe that Sir +Michael Audley had ever <i>really</i> believed in his wife. He had loved her +and admired her; he had been bewitched by her beauty and bewildered by +her charms; but that sense of something wanting, that vague feeling of +loss and disappointment which had come upon him on the summer's night of +his betrothal had been with him more or less distinctly ever since. I +cannot believe that an honest man, however pure and single may be his +mind, however simply trustful his nature, is ever really deceived by +falsehood. There is beneath the voluntary confidence an involuntary +distrust, not to be conquered by any effort of the will. +</P><P> +"We were married," my lady continued, "and I loved him very well, quite +well enough to be happy with him as long as his money lasted, and while +we were on the Continent, traveling in the best style and always staying +at the best hotels. But when we came back to Wildernsea and lived with +papa, and all the money was gone, and George grew gloomy and wretched, +and was always thinking of his troubles, and appeared to neglect me, I +was very unhappy, and it seemed as if this fine marriage had only given +me a twelvemonth's gayety and extravagance after all. I begged George to +appeal to his father, but he refused. I persuaded him to try and get +employment, and he failed. My baby was born, and the crisis which had +been fatal to my mother arose for me. I escaped, but I was more +irritable perhaps after my recovery, less inclined to fight the hard +battle of the world, more disposed to complain of poverty and neglect. I +did complain one day, loudly and bitterly; I upbraided George Talboys +for his cruelty in having allied a helpless girl to poverty and misery, +and he flew into a passion with me and ran out of the house. When I +awoke the next morning, I found a letter lying on the table by my bed, +telling me that he was going to the antipodes to seek his fortune, and +that he would never see me again until he was a rich man. +</P><P> +"I looked upon this as a desertion, and I resented it bitterly—resented +it by hating the man who had left me with no protector but a weak, tipsy +father, and with a child to support. I had to work hard for my living, +and in every hour of labor—and what labor is more wearisome than the +dull slavery of a governess?—I recognized a separate wrong done me by +George Talboys. His father was rich, his sister was living in luxury and +respectability, and I, his wife, and the mother of his son, was a slave +allied to beggary and obscurity. People pitied me, and I hated them for +their pity. I did not love the child, for he had been left a burden upon +my hands. The hereditary taint that was in my blood had never until this +time showed itself by any one sign or token; but at this time I became +subject to fits of violence and despair. At this time I think my mind +first lost its balance, and for the first time I crossed that invisible +line which separates reason from madness. I have seen my father's eyes +fixed upon me in horror and alarm. I have known him soothe me as only +mad people and children are soothed, and I have chafed against his petty +devices, I have resented even his indulgence. +</P><P> +"At last these fits of desperation resolved themselves into a desperate +purpose. I determined to run away from this wretched home which my +slavery supported. I determined to desert this father who had more fear +of me than love for me. I determined to go to London and lose myself in +that great chaos of humanity. +</P><P> +"I had seen an advertisement in the <i>Times</i> while I was at Wildernsea, +and I presented myself to Mrs. Vincent, the advertiser, under a feigned +name. She accepted me, waiving all questions as to my antecedents. You +know the rest. I came here, and you made me an offer, the acceptance of +which would lift me at once into the sphere to which my ambition had +pointed ever since I was a school-girl, and heard for the first time +that I was pretty. +</P><P> +"Three years had passed, and I had received no token of my husband's +existence; for, I argued, that if he had returned to England, he would +have succeeded in finding me under any name and in any place. I knew the +energy of his character well enough to know this. +</P><P> +"I said 'I have a right to think that he is dead, or that he wishes me +to believe him dead, and his shadow shall not stand between me and +prosperity.' I said this, and I became your wife, Sir Michael, with +every resolution to be as good a wife as it was in my nature to be. The +common temptations that assail and shipwreck some women had no terror +for me. I would have been your true and pure wife to the end of time, +though I had been surrounded by a legion of tempters. The mad folly that +the world calls love had never had any part in my madness, and here at +least extremes met, and the vice of heartlessness became the virtue of +constancy. +</P><P> +"I was very happy in the first triumph and grandeur of my new position, +very grateful to the hand that had lifted me to it. In the sunshine of +my own happiness I felt, for the first time in my life, for the miseries +of others. I had been poor myself, and I was now rich, and could afford +to pity and relieve the poverty of my neighbors. I took pleasure in acts +of kindness and benevolence. I found out my father's address and sent +him large sums of money, anonymously, for I did not wish him to discover +what had become of me. I availed myself to the full of the privilege +your generosity afforded me. I dispensed happiness on every side. I saw +myself loved as well as admired, and I think I might have been a good +woman for the rest of my life, if fate would have allowed me to be so. +</P><P> +"I believe that at this time my mind regained its just balance. I had +watched myself very closely since leaving Wildernsea; I had held a check +upon myself. I had often wondered while sitting in the surgeon's quiet +family circle whether any suspicion of that invisible, hereditary taint +had ever occurred to Mr. Dawson. +</P><P> +"Fate would not suffer me to be good. My destiny compelled me to be a +wretch. Within a month of my marriage, I read in one of the Essex papers +of the return of a certain Mr. Talboys, a fortunate gold-seeker, from +Australia. The ship had sailed at the time I read the paragraph. What +was to be done? +</P><P> +"I said just now that I knew the energy of George's character. I knew +that the man who had gone to the antipodes and won a fortune for his +wife would leave no stone unturned in his efforts to find her. It was +hopeless to think of hiding myself from him. +</P><P> +"Unless he could be induced to believe that I was dead, he would never +cease in his search for me. +</P><P> +"My brain was dazed as I thought of my peril. Again the balance +trembled, again the invisible boundary was passed, again I was mad. +</P><P> +"I went down to Southampton and found my father, who was living there +with my child. You remember how Mrs. Vincent's name was used as an +excuse for this hurried journey, and how it was contrived I should go +with no other escort than Phoebe Marks, whom I left at the hotel while I +went to my father's house. +</P><P> +"I confided to my father the whole secret of my peril. He was not very +much shocked at what I had done, for poverty had perhaps blunted his +sense of honor and principle. He was not very much shocked, but he was +frightened, and he promised to do all in his power to assist me in my +horrible emergency. +</P><P> +"He had received a letter addressed to me at Wildernsea, by George, and +forwarded from there to my father. This letter had been written within a +few days of the sailing of the <i>Argus</i>, and it announced the probable +date of the ship's arrival at Liverpool. This letter gave us, therefore, +data upon which to act. +</P><P> +"We decided at once upon the first step. This was that on the date of +the probable arrival of the <i>Argus</i>, or a few days later, an +advertisement of my death should be inserted in the <i>Times</i>. +</P><P> +"But almost immediately after deciding upon this, we saw that there were +fearful difficulties in the carrying out of such a simple plan. The date +of the death, and the place in which I died, must be announced, as well +as the death itself. George would immediately hurry to that place, +however distant it might be, however comparatively inaccessible, and the +shallow falsehood would be discovered. +</P><P> +"I knew enough of his sanguine temperament, his courage and +determination, his readiness to hope against hope, to know that unless +he saw the grave in which I was buried, and the register of my death, he +would never believe that I was lost to him. +</P><P> +"My father was utterly dumfounded and helpless. He could only shed +childish tears of despair and terror. He was of no use to me in this +crisis. +</P><P> +"I was hopeless of any issue out of my difficulties. I began to think +that I must trust to the chapter of accidents, and hope that among other +obscure corners of the earth, Audley Court might be undreamt of by my +husband. +</P><P> +"I sat with my father, drinking tea with him in his miserable hovel, and +playing with the child, who was pleased with my dress and jewels, but +quite unconscious that I was anything but a stranger to him. I had the +boy in my arms, when a woman who attended him came to fetch him that she +might make him more fit to be seen by the lady, as she said. +</P><P> +"I was anxious to know how the boy was treated, and I detained this +woman in conversation with me while my father dozed over the tea-table. +</P><P> +"She was a pale-faced, sandy-haired woman of about five-and-forty and +she seemed very glad to get the chance of talking to me as long as I +pleased to allow her. She soon left off talking of the boy, however, to +tell me of her own troubles. She was in very great trouble, she told me. +Her eldest daughter had been obliged to leave her situation from +ill-health; in fact, the doctor said the girl was in a decline; and it +was a hard thing for a poor widow who had seen better days to have a +sick daughter to support, as well as a family of young children. +</P><P> +"I let the woman run on for a long time in this manner, telling me the +girl's ailments, and the girl's age, and the girl's doctor's stuff, and +piety, and sufferings, and a great deal more. But I neither listened to +her nor heeded her. I heard her, but only in a far-away manner, as I +heard the traffic in the street, or the ripple of the stream at the +bottom of it. What were this woman's troubles to me? I had miseries of +my own, and worse miseries than her coarse nature could ever have to +endure. These sort of people always had sick husbands or sick children, +and expected to be helped in their illness by the rich. It was nothing +out of the common. I was thinking this, and I was just going to dismiss +the woman with a sovereign for her sick daughter, when an idea flashed +upon me with such painful suddenness that it sent the blood surging up +to my brain, and set my heart beating, as it only beats when I am mad. +</P><P> +"I asked the woman her name. She was a Mrs. Plowson, and she kept a +small general shop, she said, and only ran in now and then to look after +Georgey, and to see that the little maid-of-all-work took care of him. +Her daughter's name was Matilda. I asked her several questions about +this girl Matilda, and I ascertained that she was four-and-twenty, that +she had always been consumptive, and that she was now, as the doctor +said, going off in a rapid decline. He had declared that she could not +last much more than a fortnight. +</P><P> +"It was in three weeks that the ship that carried George Talboys was +expected to anchor in the Mersey. +</P><P> +"I need not dwell upon this business. I visited the sick girl. She was +fair and slender. Her description, carelessly given, might tally nearly +enough with my own, though she bore no shadow of resemblance to me, +except in these two particulars. I was received by the girl as a rich +lady who wished to do her a service. I bought the mother, who was poor +and greedy, and who for a gift of money, more money than she had ever +before received, consented to submit to anything I wished. Upon the +second day after my introduction to this Mrs. Plowson, my father went +over to Ventnor, and hired lodgings for his invalid daughter and her +little boy. Early the next morning he carried over the dying girl and +Georgey, who had been bribed to call her 'mamma.' She entered the house +as Mrs. Talboys; she was attended by a Ventnor medical man as Mrs. +Talboys; she died, and her death and burial were registered in that +name. +</P><P> +"The advertisement was inserted in the <i>Times</i>, and upon the second day +after its insertion George Talboys visited Ventnor, and ordered the +tombstone which at this hour records the death of his wife, Helen +Talboys." +</P><P> +Sir Michael Audley rose slowly, and with a stiff, constrained action, as +if every physical sense had been benumbed by that one sense of misery. +</P><P> +"I cannot hear any more," he said, in a hoarse whisper; "if there is +anything more to be told I cannot hear it. Robert, it is you who have +brought about this discovery, as I understand. I want to know nothing +more. Will you take upon yourself the duty of providing for the safety +and comfort of this lady whom I have thought my wife? I need not ask you +to remember in all you do, that I have loved her very dearly and truly. +I cannot say farewell to her. I will not say it until I can think of her +without bitterness—until I can pity her, as I now pray that God may +pity her this night." +</P><P> +Sir Michael walked slowly from the room. He did not trust himself to +look at that crouching figure. He did not wish to see the creature whom +he had cherished. He went straight to his dressing-room, rung for his +valet, and ordered him to pack a portmanteau, and make all necessary +arrangements for accompanying his master by the last up-train. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXXV.</H2> +<H3>THE HUSH THAT SUCCEEDS THE TEMPEST.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Robert Audley followed his uncle into the vestibule after Sir Michael +had spoken those few quiet words which sounded the death-knell of his +hope and love. Heaven knows how much the young man had feared the coming +of this day. It had come; and though there had been no great outburst of +despair, no whirlwind of stormy grief, no loud tempest of anguish and +tears, Robert took no comforting thought from the unnatural stillness. +He knew enough to know that Sir Michael Audley went away with the barbed +arrow, which his nephew's hand had sent home to its aim, rankling in his +tortured heart; he knew that this strange and icy calm was the first +numbness of a heart stricken by grief so unexpected as for a time to be +rendered almost incomprehensible by a blank stupor of astonishment; he +knew that when this dull quiet had passed away, when little by little, +and one by one, each horrible feature of the sufferer's sorrow became +first dimly apparent and then terribly familiar to him, the storm would +burst in fatal fury, and tempests of tears and cruel thunder-claps of +agony would rend that generous heart. +</P><P> +Robert had heard of cases in which men of his uncle's age had borne some +great grief, as Sir Michael had borne this, with a strange quiet; and +had gone away from those who would have comforted them, and whose +anxieties have been relieved by this patient stillness, to fall down +upon the ground and die under the blow which at first had only stunned +him. He remembered cases in which paralysis and apoplexy had stricken +men as strong as his uncle in the first hour of the horrible affliction; +and he lingered in the lamp-lit vestibule, wondering whether it was not +his duty to be with Sir Michael—to be near him, in case of any +emergency, and to accompany him wherever he went. +</P><P> +Yet would it be wise to force himself upon that gray-headed sufferer in +this cruel hour, in which he had been awakened from the one delusion of +a blameless life to discover that he had been the dupe of a false face, +and the fool of a nature which was too coldly mercenary, too cruelly +heartless, to be sensible of its own infamy? +</P><P> +"No," thought Robert Audley, "I will not intrude upon the anguish of +this wounded heart. There is humiliation mingled with this bitter grief. +It is better he should fight the battle alone. I have done what I +believe to have been my solemn duty, yet I should scarcely wonder if I +had rendered myself forever hateful to him. It is better he should fight +the battle alone. <i>I</i> can do nothing to make the strife less terrible. +Better that it should be fought alone." +</P><P> +While the young man stood with his hand upon the library door, still +half-doubtful whether he should follow his uncle or re-enter the room in +which he had left that more wretched creature whom it had been his +business to unmask, Alicia Audley opened the dining-room door, and +revealed to him the old-fashioned oak-paneled apartment, the long table +covered with showy damask, and bright with a cheerful glitter of glass +and silver. +</P><P> +"Is papa coming to dinner?" asked Miss Audley. "I'm so hungry; and poor +Tomlins has sent up three times to say the fish will be spoiled. It must +be reduced to a species of isinglass soup, by this time, I should +think," added the young lady, as she came out into the vestibule with +the <i>Times</i> newspaper in her hand. +</P><P> +She had been sitting by the fire reading the paper, and waiting for her +seniors to join her at the dinner table. +</P><P> +"Oh, it's you, Mr. Robert Audley." she remarked, indifferently. "You +dine with us of course. Pray go and find papa. It must be nearly eight +o'clock, and we are supposed to dine at six." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley answered his cousin rather sternly. Her frivolous manner +jarred upon him, and he forgot in his irrational displeasure that Miss +Audley had known nothing of the terrible drama which had been so long +enacting under her very nose. +</P><P> +"Your papa has just endured a very great grief, Alicia," the young man +said, gravely. +</P><P> +The girl's arch, laughing face changed in a moment to a tenderly earnest +look of sorrow and anxiety. Alicia Audley loved her father very dearly. +</P><P> +"A grief?" she exclaimed; "papa grieved! Oh! Robert, what has happened?" +</P><P> +"I can tell you nothing yet, Alicia," Robert answered in a low voice. +</P><P> +He took his cousin by the wrist, and drew her into the dining-room as he +spoke. He closed the door carefully behind him before he continued: +</P><P> +"Alicia, can I trust you?" he asked, earnestly. +</P><P> +"Trust me to do what?" +</P><P> +"To be a comfort and a friend to your poor father under a very heavy +affliction." +</P><P> +"<i>Yes</i>!" cried Alicia, passionately. "How can you ask me such a +question? Do you think there is anything I would not do to lighten any +sorrow of my father's? Do you think there is anything I would not suffer +if my suffering could lighten his?" +</P><P> +The rushing tears rose to Miss Audley's bright gray eyes as she spoke. +</P><P> +"Oh, Robert! Robert! could you think so badly of me as to think I would +not try to be a comfort to my father in his grief?" she said, +reproachfully. +</P><P> +"No, no, my dear," answered the young man, quietly; "I never doubted +your affection, I only doubted your discretion. May I rely upon that?" +</P><P> +"You may, Robert," said Alicia, resolutely. +</P><P> +"Very well, then, my dear girl, I will trust you. Your father is going +to leave the Court, for a time at least. The grief which he has just +endured—a sudden and unlooked-for sorrow, remember—has no doubt made +this place hateful to him. He is going away; but he must not go alone, +must he, Alicia?" +</P><P> +"Alone? no! no! But I suppose my lady—" +</P><P> +"Lady Audley will not go with him," said Robert, gravely; "he is about +to separate himself from her." +</P><P> +"For a time?" +</P><P> +"No, forever." +</P><P> +"Separate himself from her forever!" exclaimed Alicia. "Then this +grief—" +</P><P> +"Is connected with Lady Audley. Lady Audley is the cause of your +father's sorrow." +</P><P> +Alicia's face, which had been pale before, flushed crimson. Sorrow, of +which my lady was the cause—a sorrow which was to separate Sir Michael +forever from his wife! There had been no quarrel between them—there had +never been anything but harmony and sunshine between Lady Audley and her +generous husband. This sorrow must surely then have arisen from some +sudden discovery; it was, no doubt, a sorrow associated with disgrace. +Robert Audley understood the meaning of that vivid blush. +</P><P> +"You will offer to accompany your father wherever he may choose to go, +Alicia," he said. "You are his natural comforter at such a time as this, +but you will best befriend him in this hour of trial by avoiding all +intrusion upon his grief. Your very ignorance of the particulars of that +grief will be a security for your discretion. Say nothing to your father +that you might not have said to him two years ago, before he married a +second wife. Try and be to him what you were before the woman in yonder +room came between you and your father's love." +</P><P> +"I will," murmured Alicia, "I will." +</P><P> +"You will naturally avoid all mention of Lady Audley's name. If your +father is often silent, be patient; if it sometimes seems to you that +the shadow of this great sorrow will never pass away from his life, be +patient still; and remember that there can be no better hope of a cure +of his grief than the hope that his daughter's devotion may lead him to +remember there is one woman upon this earth who will love him truly and +purely until the last." +</P><P> +"Yes—yes, Robert, dear cousin, I will remember." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley, for the first time since he had been a schoolboy, took his +cousin in his arms and kissed her broad forehead. +</P><P> +"My dear Alicia," he said, "do this and you will make me happy. I have +been in some measure the means of bringing this sorrow upon your father. +Let me hope that it is not an enduring one. Try and restore my uncle to +happiness, Alicia, and I will love you more dearly than brother ever +loved a noble-hearted sister; and a brotherly affection may be worth +having, perhaps, after all, my dear, though it is very different to poor +Sir Harry's enthusiastic worship." +</P><P> +Alicia's head was bent and her face hidden from her cousin while he +spoke, but she lifted her head when he had finished, and looked him full +in the face with a smile that was only the brighter for her eyes being +filled with tears. +</P><P> +"You are a good fellow, Bob," she said; "and I've been very foolish and +wicked to feel angry with you because—" +</P><P> +The young lady stopped suddenly. +</P><P> +"Because what, my dear?" asked Mr. Audley. +</P><P> +"Because I'm silly, Cousin Robert," Alicia said, quickly; "never mind +that, Bob, I'll do all you wish, and it shall not be my fault if my +dearest father doesn't forget his troubles before long. I'd go to the +end of the world with him, poor darling, if I thought there was any +comfort to be found for him in the journey. I'll go and get ready +directly. Do you think papa will go to-night?" +</P><P> +"Yes, my dear; I don't think Sir Michael will rest another night under +this roof yet awhile." +</P><P> +"The mail goes at twenty minutes past nine," said Alicia; "we must leave +the house in an hour if we are to travel by it. I shall see you again +before we go, Robert?" +</P><P> +"Yes, dear." +</P><P> +Miss Audley ran off to her room to summon her maid, and make all +necessary preparations for the sudden journey, of whose ultimate +destination she was as yet quite ignorant. +</P><P> +She went heart and soul into the carrying out of the duty which Robert +had dictated to her. She assisted in the packing of her portmanteaus, +and hopelessly bewildered her maid by stuffing silk dresses into her +bonnet-boxes and satin shoes into her dressing-case. She roamed about +her rooms, gathering together drawing-materials, music-books, +needle-work, hair-brushes, jewelry, and perfume-bottles, very much as +she might have done had she been about to sail for some savage country, +devoid of all civilized resources. She was thinking all the time of her +father's unknown grief, and perhaps a little of the serious face and +earnest voice which had that night revealed her Cousin Robert to her in +a new character. +</P><P> +Mr. Audley went up-stairs after his cousin, and found his way to Sir +Michael's dressing-room. He knocked at the door and listened, Heaven +knows how anxiously, for the expected answer. There was a moment's +pause, during which the young man's heart beat loud and fast, and then +the door was opened by the baronet himself. Robert saw that his uncle's +valet was already hard at work preparing for his master's hurried +journey. +</P><P> +Sir Michael came out into the corridor. +</P><P> +"Have you anything more to say to me, Robert?" he asked, quietly. +</P><P> +"I only came to ascertain if I could assist in any of your arrangements. +You go to London by the mail?" +</P><P> +"Yes." +</P><P> +"Have you any idea of where you will stay." +</P><P> +"Yes, I shall stop at the Clarendon; I am known there. Is that all you +have to say?" +</P><P> +"Yes; except that Alicia will accompany you?" +</P><P> +"Alicia!" +</P><P> +"She could not very well stay here, you know, just now. It would be best +for her to leave the Court until—" +</P><P> +"Yes, yes, I understand," interrupted the baronet; "but is there nowhere +else that she could go—must she be with me?" +</P><P> +"She could go nowhere else so immediately, and she would not be happy +anywhere else." +</P><P> +"Let her come, then," said Sir Michael, "let her come." +</P><P> +He spoke in a strange, subdued voice, and with an apparent effort, as if +it were painful to him to have to speak at all; as if all this ordinary +business of life were a cruel torture to him, and jarred so much upon +his grief as to be almost worse to bear than that grief itself. +</P><P> +"Very well, my dear uncle, then all is arranged; Alicia will be ready to +start at nine o'clock." +</P><P> +"Very good, very good," muttered the baronet; "let her come if she +pleases, poor child, let her come." +</P><P> +He sighed heavily as he spoke in that half pitying tone of his daughter. +He was thinking how comparatively indifferent he had been toward that +only child for the sake of the woman now shut in the fire-lit room +below. +</P><P> +"I shall see you again before you go, sir," said Robert; "I will leave +you till then." +</P><P> +"Stay!" said Sir Michael, suddenly; "have you told Alicia?" +</P><P> +"I have told her nothing, except that you are about to leave the Court +for some time." +</P><P> +"You are very good, my boy, you are very good," the baronet murmured in +a broken voice. +</P><P> +He stretched out his hand. His nephew took it in both his own, and +pressed it to his lips. +</P><P> +"Oh, sir! how can I ever forgive myself?" he said; "how can I ever cease +to hate myself for having brought this grief upon you?" +</P><P> +"No, no, Robert, you did right; I wish that God had been so merciful to +me as to take my miserable life before this night; but you did right." +</P><P> +Sir Michael re-entered his dressing-room, and Robert slowly returned to +the vestibule. He paused upon the threshold of that chamber in which he +had left Lucy—Lady Audley, otherwise Helen Talboys, the wife of his +lost friend. +</P><P> +She was lying upon the floor, upon the very spot in which she had +crouched at her husband's feet telling her guilty story. Whether she was +in a swoon, or whether she lay there in the utter helplessness of her +misery, Robert scarcely cared to know. He went out into the vestibule, +and sent one of the servants to look for her maid, the smart, +be-ribboned damsel who was loud in wonder and consternation at the sight +of her mistress. +</P><P> +"Lady Audley is very ill," he said; "take her to her room and see that +she does not leave it to-night. You will be good enough to remain near +her, but do not either talk to her or suffer her to excite herself by +talking." +</P><P> +My lady had not fainted; she allowed the girl to assist her, and rose +from the ground upon which she had groveled. Her golden hair fell in +loose, disheveled masses about her ivory throat and shoulders, her face +and lips were colorless, her eyes terrible in their unnatural light. +</P><P> +"Take me away," she said, "and let me sleep! Let me sleep, for my brain +is on fire!" +</P><P> +As she was leaving the room with her maid, she turned and looked at +Robert. "Is Sir Michael gone?" she asked. +</P><P> +"He will leave in half an hour." +</P><P> +"There were no lives lost in the fire at Mount Stanning?" +</P><P> +"None." +</P><P> +"I am glad of that." +</P><P> +"The landlord of the house, Marks, was very terribly burned, and lies in +a precarious state at his mother's cottage; but he may recover." +</P><P> +"I am glad of that—I am glad no life was lost. Good-night, Mr. Audley." +</P><P> +"I shall ask to see you for half an hour's conversation in the course of +to-morrow, my lady." +</P><P> +"Whenever you please. Good night." +</P><P> +"Good night." +</P><P> +She went away quietly leaning upon her maid's shoulder, and leaving +Robert with a sense of strange bewilderment that was very painful to +him. +</P><P> +He sat down by the broad hearth upon which the red embers were fading, +and wondered at the change in that old house which, until the day of his +friend's disappearance, had been so pleasant a home for all who +sheltered beneath its hospitable roof. He sat brooding over the desolate +hearth, and trying to decide upon what must be done in this sudden +crisis. He sat helpless and powerless to determine upon any course of +action, lost in a dull revery, from which he was aroused by the sound of +carriage-wheels driving up to the little turret entrance. +</P><P> +The clock in the vestibule struck nine as Robert opened the library +door. Alicia had just descended the stairs with her maid; a rosy-faced +country girl. +</P><P> +"Good-by, Robert," said Miss Audley, holding out her hand to her cousin; +"good-by, and God bless you! You may trust me to take care of papa." +</P><P> +"I am sure I may. God bless you, my dear." +</P><P> +For the second time that night Robert Audley pressed his lips to his +cousin's candid forehead, and for the second time the embrace was of a +brotherly or paternal character, rather than the rapturous proceeding +which it would have been had Sir Harry Towers been the privileged +performer. +</P><P> +It was five minutes past nine when Sir Michael came down-stairs, +followed by his valet, grave and gray-haired like himself. The baronet +was pale, but calm and self-possessed. The hand which he gave to his +nephew was as cold as ice, but it was with a steady voice that he bade +the young man good-by. +</P><P> +"I leave all in your hands, Robert," he said, as he turned to leave the +house in which he had lived so long. "I may not have heard the end, but +I have heard enough. Heaven knows I have no need to hear more. I leave +all to you, but you will not be cruel—you will remember how much I +loved—" +</P><P> +His voice broke huskily before he could finish the sentence. +</P><P> +"I will remember you in everything, sir," the young man answered. "I +will do everything for the best." +</P><P> +A treacherous mist of tears blinded him and shut out his uncle's face, +and in another minute the carriage had driven away, and Robert Audley +sat alone in the dark library, where only one red spark glowed among the +pale gray ashes. He sat alone, trying to think what he ought to do, and +with the awful responsibility of a wicked woman's fate upon his +shoulders. +</P><P> +"Good Heaven!" he thought; "surely this must be God's judgment upon the +purposeless, vacillating life I led up to the seventh day of last +September. Surely this awful responsibility has been forced upon me in +order that I may humble myself to an offended Providence, and confess +that a man cannot choose his own life. He cannot say, 'I will take +existence lightly, and keep out of the way of the wretched, mistaken, +energetic creatures, who fight so heartily in the great battle.' He +cannot say, 'I will stop in the tents while the strife is fought, and +laugh at the fools who are trampled down in the useless struggle.' He +cannot do this. He can only do, humbly and fearfully, that which the +Maker who created him has appointed for him to do. If he has a battle to +fight, let him fight it faithfully; but woe betide him if he skulks when +his name is called in the mighty muster-roll, woe betide him if he hides +in the tents when the tocsin summons him to the scene of war!" +</P><P> +One of the servants brought candles into the library and relighted the +fire, but Robert Audley did not stir from his seat by the hearth. He sat +as he had often sat in his chambers in Figtree Court, with his elbows +resting upon the arms of his chair, and his chin upon his hand. +</P><P> +But he lifted his head as the servant was about to leave the room. +</P><P> +"Can I send a message from here to London?" he asked. +</P><P> +"It can be sent from Brentwood, sir—not from here." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley looked at his watch thoughtfully. +</P><P> +"One of the men can ride over to Brentwood, sir, if you wish any message +to be sent." +</P><P> +"I do wish to send a message; will you manage it for me, Richards?" +</P><P> +"Certainly, sir." +</P><P> +"You can wait, then, while I write the message." +</P><P> +"Yes, sir." +</P><P> +The man brought writing materials from one of the side-tables, and +placed them before Mr. Audley. +</P><P> +Robert dipped a pen in the ink, and stared thoughtfully at one of the +candles for a few moments before he began to write. +</P><P> +The message ran thus: +</P><P> +"From Robert Audley, of Audley Court, Essex, to Francis Wilmington, of +Paper-buildings, Temple. +</P><P> +"DEAR WILMINGTON—If you know any physician experienced in cases of +mania, and to be trusted with a secret, be so good as to send me his +address by telegraph." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley sealed this document in a stout envelope, and handed it to +the man, with a sovereign. +</P><P> +"You will see that this is given to a trustworthy person, Richards," he +said, "and let the man wait at the station for the return message. He +ought to get it in an hour and a half." +</P><P> +Mr. Richards, who had known Robert Audley in jackets and turn-down +collars, departed to execute his commission. Heaven forbid that we +should follow him into the comfortable servants' hall at the Court, +where the household sat round the blazing fire, discussing in utter +bewilderment the events of the day. +</P><P> +Nothing could be wider from the truth than the speculations of these +worthy people. What clew had they to the mystery of that firelit room in +which a guilty woman had knelt at their master's feet to tell the story +of her sinful life? They only knew that which Sir Michael's valet had +told them of this sudden journey. How his master was as pale as a sheet, +and spoke in a strange voice that didn't sound like his own, somehow, +and how you might have knocked him—Mr. Parsons, the valet—down with a +feather, if you had been minded to prostrate him by the aid of so feeble +a weapon. +</P><P> +The wiseheads of the servants' hall decided that Sir Michael had +received sudden intelligence through Mr. Robert—they were wise enough +to connect the young man with the catastrophe—either of the death of +some near and dear relation—the elder servants decimated the Audley +family in their endeavors to find a likely relation—or of some alarming +fall in the funds, or of the failure of some speculation or bank in +which the greater part of the baronet's money was invested. The general +leaning was toward the failure of a bank, and every member of the +assembly seemed to take a dismal and raven-like delight in the fancy, +though such a supposition involved their own ruin in the general +destruction of that liberal household. +</P><P> +Robert sat by the dreary hearth, which seemed dreary even now when the +blaze of a great wood-fire roared in the wide chimney, and listened to +the low wail of the March wind moaning round the house and lifting the +shivering ivy from the walls it sheltered. He was tired and worn out, +for remember that he had been awakened from his sleep at two o'clock +that morning by the hot breath of blazing timber and the sharp crackling +of burning woodwork. But for his presence of mind and cool decision, Mr. +Luke Marks would have died a dreadful death. He still bore the traces of +the night's peril, for the dark hair had been singed upon one side of +his forehead, and his left hand was red and inflamed, from the effect of +the scorching atmosphere out of which he had dragged the landlord of the +Castle Inn. He was thoroughly exhausted with fatigue and excitement, and +he fell into a heavy sleep in his easy-chair before the bright fire, +from which he was only awakened by the entrance of Mr. Richards with the +return message. +</P><P> +This return message was very brief. +</P><P> +"DEAR AUDLEY—Always glad to oblige. Alwyn Mosgrave, M.D., 12 Saville +Row. Safe." +</P><P> +This with names and addresses, was all that it contained. +</P><P> +"I shall want another message taken to Brentwood to-morrow morning, +Richards," said Mr. Audley, as he folded the telegram. "I should be glad +if the man would ride over with it before breakfast. He shall have half +a sovereign for his trouble." +</P><P> +Mr. Richards bowed. +</P><P> +"Thank you, sir—not necessary, sir; but as you please, of course, sir," +he murmured. "At what hour might you wish the man to go?" +</P><P> +Mr. Audley might wish the man to go as early as he could, so it was +decided that he should go at six. +</P><P> +"My room is ready, I suppose, Richards?" said Robert. +</P><P> +"Yes, sir—your old room." +</P><P> +"Very good. I shall go to bed at once. Bring me a glass of brandy and +water as hot as you can make it, and wait for the telegram." +</P><P> +This second message was only a very earnest request to Doctor Mosgrave +to pay an immediate visit to Audley Court on a matter of serious moment. +</P><P> +Having written this message, Mr. Audley felt that he had done all that +he could do. He drank his brandy and water. He had actual need of the +diluted alcohol, for he had been chilled to the bone by his adventures +during the fire. He slowly sipped the pale golden liquid and thought of +Clara Talboys, of that earnest girl whose brother's memory was now +avenged, whose brother's destroyer was humiliated in the dust. Had she +heard of the fire at the Castle Inn? How could she have done otherwise +than hear of it in such a place as Mount Stanning? But had she heard +that <i>he</i> had been in danger, and that he had distinguished himself by +the rescue of a drunken boor? I fear that, even sitting by that desolate +hearth, and beneath the roof whose noble was an exile from his own +house, Robert Audley was weak enough to think of these things—weak +enough to let his fancy wander away to the dismal fir-trees under the +cold March sky, and the dark-brown eyes that were so like the eyes of +his lost friend. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXXVI.</H2> +<H3>DR. MOSGRAVE'S ADVICE.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +My lady slept. Through that long winter night she slept soundly. +Criminals have often so slept their last sleep upon earth; and have been +found in the gray morning slumbering peacefully, by the jailer who came +to wake them. +</P><P> +The game had been played and lost. I do not think that my lady had +thrown away a card, or missed the making of a trick which she might by +any possibility have made; but her opponent's hand had been too powerful +for her, and he had won. +</P><P> +She looked upon herself as a species of state prisoner, who would have +to be taken good care of. A second Iron Mask, who must be provided for +in some comfortable place of confinement. She abandoned herself to a +dull indifference. She had lived a hundred lives within the space of the +last few days of her existence, and she had worn out her capacity for +suffering—for a time at least. +</P><P> +She ate her breakfast, and took her morning bath, and emerged, with +perfumed hair and in the most exquisitely careless of morning toilets, +from her luxurious dressing-room. She looked at herself in the +cheval-glass before she left the room. A long night's rest had brought +back the delicate rose-tints of her complexion, and the natural luster +of her blue eyes. That unnatural light which had burned so fearfully the +day before had gone, and my lady smiled triumphantly as she contemplated +the reflection of her beauty. The days were gone in which her enemies +could have branded her with white-hot irons, and burned away the +loveliness which had done such mischief. Whatever they did to her they +must leave her her beauty, she thought. At the worst, they were +powerless to rob her of that. +</P><P> +The March day was bright and sunny, with a cheerless sunshine certainly. +My lady wrapped herself in an Indian shawl; a shawl that had cost Sir +Michael a hundred guineas. I think she had an idea that it would be well +to wear this costly garment; so that if hustled suddenly away, she might +carry at least one of her possessions with her. Remember how much she +had periled for a fine house and gorgeous furniture, for carriages and +horses, jewels and laces; and do not wonder if she clings with a +desperate tenacity to gauds and gew-gaws, in the hour of her despair. If +she had been Judas, she would have held to her thirty pieces of silver +to the last moment of her shameful life. +</P><P> +Mr. Robert Audley breakfasted in the library. He sat long over his +solitary cup of tea, smoking his meerschaum pipe, and meditating darkly +upon the task that lay before him. +</P><P> +"I will appeal to the experience of this Dr. Mosgrave," he though; +"physicians and lawyers are the confessors of this prosaic nineteenth +century. Surely, he will be able to help me." +</P><P> +The first fast train from London arrived at Audley at half-past ten +o'clock, and at five minutes before eleven, Richards, the grave servant, +announced Dr. Alwyn Mosgrave. +</P><P> +The physician from Saville Row was a tall man of about fifty years of +age. He was thin and sallow, with lantern jaws, and eyes of a pale, +feeble gray, that seemed as if they had once been blue, and had faded by +the progress of time to their present neutral shade. However powerful +the science of medicine as wielded by Dr. Alwyn Mosgrave, it had not +been strong enough to put flesh upon his bones, or brightness into his +face. He had a strangely expressionless, and yet strangely attentive +countenance. He had the face of a man who had spent the greater part of +his life in listening to other people, and who had parted with his own +individuality and his own passions at the very outset of his career. +</P><P> +He bowed to Robert Audley, took the opposite seat indicated by him, and +addressed his attentive face to the young barrister. Robert saw that the +physician's glance for a moment lost its quiet look of attention, and +became earnest and searching. +</P><P> +"He is wondering whether I am the patient," thought Mr. Audley, "and is +looking for the diagnoses of madness in my face." +</P><P> +Dr. Mosgrave spoke as if in answer to this thought. +</P><P> +"Is it not about your own—health—that you wish to consult me?" he +said, interrogatively. +</P><P> +"Oh, no!" +</P><P> +Dr. Mosgrave looked at his watch, a fifty-guinea Benson-made +chronometer, which he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket as +carelessly as if it had been a potato. +</P><P> +"I need not remind you that my time is precious," he said; "your +telegram informed me that my services were required in a case +of—danger—as I apprehend, or I should not be here this morning." +</P><P> +Robert Audley had sat looking gloomily at the fire, wondering how he +should begin the conversation, and had needed this reminder of the +physician's presence. +</P><P> +"You are very good, Dr. Mosgrave," he said, rousing himself by an +effort, "and I thank you very much for having responded to my summons. I +am about to appeal to you upon a subject which is more painful to me +than words can describe. I am about to implore your advice in a most +difficult case, and I trust almost blindly to your experience to rescue +me, and others who are very dear to me, from a cruel and complicated +position." +</P><P> +The business-like attention in Dr. Mosgrave's face grew into a look of +interest as he listened to Robert Audley. +</P><P> +"The revelation made by the patient to the physician is, I believe, as +sacred as the confession of a penitent to his priest?" Robert asked, +gravely. +</P><P> +"Quite as sacred." +</P><P> +"A solemn confidence, to be violated under no circumstances?" +</P><P> +"Most certainly." +</P><P> +Robert Audley looked at the fire again. How much should he tell, or how +little, of the dark history of his uncle's second wife? +</P><P> +"I have been given to understand, Dr. Mosgrave, that you have devoted +much of your attention to the treatment of insanity." +</P><P> +"Yes, my practice is almost confined to the treatment of mental +diseases." +</P><P> +"Such being the case, I think I may venture to conclude that you +sometimes receive strange, and even terrible, revelations." +</P><P> +Dr. Mosgrave bowed. +</P><P> +He looked like a man who could have carried, safely locked in his +passionless breast, the secrets of a nation, and who would have suffered +no inconvenience from the weight of such a burden. +</P><P> +"The story which I am about to tell you is not my own story," said +Robert, after a pause; "you will forgive me, therefore, if I once more +remind you that I can only reveal it upon the understanding that under +no circumstances, or upon no apparent justification, is that confidence +to be betrayed." +</P><P> +Dr. Mosgrave bowed again. A little sternly, perhaps, this time. +</P><P> +"I am all attention, Mr. Audley," he said coldly. +</P><P> +Robert Audley drew his chair nearer to that of the physician, and in a +low voice began the story which my lady had told upon her knees in that +same chamber upon the previous night. Dr. Mosgrave's listening face, +turned always toward the speaker, betrayed no surprise at that strange +revelation. He smiled once, a grave, quiet smile, when Mr. Audley came +to that part of the story which told of the conspiracy at Ventnor; but +he was not surprised. Robert Audley ended his story at the point at +which Sir Michael Audley had interrupted my lady's confession. He told +nothing of the disappearance of George Talboys, nor of the horrible +suspicions that had grown out of that disappearance. He told nothing of +the fire at the Castle Inn. +</P><P> +Dr. Mosgrave shook his head, gravely, when Mr. Audley came to the end of +his story. +</P><P> +"You have nothing further to tell me?" he said. +</P><P> +"No. I do not think there is anything more that need be told," Robert +answered, rather evasively. +</P><P> +"You would wish to prove that this lady is mad, and therefore +irresponsible for her actions, Mr. Audley?" said the physician. +</P><P> +Robert Audley stared, wondering at the mad doctor. By what process had +he so rapidly arrived at the young man's secret desire? +</P><P> +"Yes, I would rather, if possible, think her mad; I should be glad to +find that excuse for her." +</P><P> +"And to save the <i>esclandre</i> of a Chancery suit, I suppose, Mr, Audley," +said Dr. Mosgrave. +</P><P> +Robert shuddered as he bowed an assent to this remark. It was something +worse than a Chancery suit that he dreaded with a horrible fear. It was +a trial for murder that had so long haunted his dreams. How often he had +awoke, in an agony of shame, from a vision of a crowded court-house, and +his uncle's wife in a criminal dock, hemmed in on every side by a sea of +eager faces. +</P><P> +"I fear that I shall not be of any use to you," the physician said, +quietly; "I will see the lady, if you please, but I do not believe that +she is mad." +</P><P> +"Why not?" +</P><P> +"Because there is no evidence of madness in anything she has done. She +ran away from her home, because her home was not a pleasant one, and she +left in the hope of finding a better. There is no madness in that. She +committed the crime of bigamy, because by that crime she obtained +fortune and position. There is no madness there. When she found herself +in a desperate position, she did not grow desperate. She employed +intelligent means, and she carried out a conspiracy which required +coolness and deliberation in its execution. There is no madness in +that." +</P><P> +"But the traits of hereditary insanity—" +</P><P> +"May descend to the third generation, and appear in the lady's children, +if she have any. Madness is not necessarily transmitted from mother to +daughter. I should be glad to help you, if I could, Mr. Audley, but I do +not think there is any proof of insanity in the story you have told me. +I do not think any jury in England would accept the plea of insanity in +such a case as this. The best thing you can do with this lady is to send +her back to her first husband; if he will have her." +</P><P> +Robert started at this sudden mention of his friend. +</P><P> +"Her first husband is dead," he answered, "at least, he has been missing +for some time—and I have reason to believe that he is dead." +</P><P> +Dr. Mosgrave saw the startled movement, and heard the embarrassment in +Robert Audley's voice as he spoke of George Talboys. +</P><P> +"The lady's first husband is missing," he said, with a strange emphasis +on the word—"you think that he is dead?" +</P><P> +He paused for a few moments and looked at the fire, as Robert had looked +before. +</P><P> +"Mr. Audley," he said, presently, "there must be no half-confidences +between us. You have not told me all." +</P><P> +Robert, looking up suddenly, plainly expressed in his face the surprise +he felt at these words. +</P><P> +"I should be very poorly able to meet the contingencies of my +professional experience," said Dr. Mosgrave, "if I could not perceive +where confidence ends and reservation begins. You have only told me half +this lady's story, Mr. Audley. You must tell me more before I can offer +you any advice. What has become of the first husband?" +</P><P> +He asked this question in a decisive tone, as if he knew it to be the +key-stone of an arch. +</P><P> +"I have already told you, Dr. Mosgrave, that I do not know." +</P><P> +"Yes," answered the physician, "but your face has told me what you have +withheld from me; it has told me that you <i>suspect</i>." +</P><P> +Robert Audley was silent. +</P><P> +"If I am to be of use to you, you must trust me, Mr. Audley," said the +physician. "The first husband disappeared—how and when? I want to know +the history of his disappearance." +</P><P> +Robert paused for some time before he replied to this speech; but, by +and by, he lifted his head, which had been bent in an attitude of +earnest thought, and addressed the physician. +</P><P> +"I will trust you, Dr. Mosgrave," he said. "I will confide entirely in +your honor and goodness. I do not ask you to do any wrong to society; +but I ask you to save our stainless name from degradation and shame, if +you can do so conscientiously." +</P><P> +He told the story of George's disappearance, and of his own doubts and +fears, Heaven knows how reluctantly. +</P><P> +Dr. Mosgrave listened as quietly as he had listened before. Robert +concluded with an earnest appeal to the physician's best feelings. He +implored him to spare the generous old man whose fatal confidence in a +wicked woman had brought much misery upon his declining years. +</P><P> +It was impossible to draw any conclusion, either favorable or otherwise, +from Dr. Mosgrave's attentive face. He rose, when Robert had finished +speaking, and looked at his watch once more. +</P><P> +"I can only spare you twenty minutes," he said. "I will see the lady, if +you please. You say her mother died in a madhouse?" +</P><P> +"She did. Will you see Lady Audley alone?" +</P><P> +"Yes, alone, if you please." +</P><P> +Robert rung for my lady's maid, and under convoy of that smart young +damsel the physician found his way to the octagon antechamber, and the +fairy boudoir with which it communicated. +</P><P> +Ten minutes afterward, he returned to the library, in which Robert sat +waiting for him. +</P><P> +"I have talked to the lady," he said, quietly, "and we understand each +other very well. There is latent insanity! Insanity which might never +appear; or which might appear only once or twice in a lifetime. It would +be a <i>dementia</i> in its worst phase, perhaps; acute mania; but its +duration would be very brief, and it would only arise under extreme +mental pressure. The lady is not mad; but she has the hereditary taint +in her blood. She has the cunning of madness, with the prudence of +intelligence. I will tell you what she is, Mr. Audley. She is +dangerous!" +</P><P> +Dr. Mosgrave walked up and down the room once or twice before he spoke +again. +</P><P> +"I will not discuss the probabilities of the suspicion which distresses +you, Mr. Audley," he said, presently, "but I will tell you this much, I +do not advise any <i>esclandre</i>. This Mr. George Talboys has disappeared, +but you have no evidence of his death. If you could produce evidence of +his death, you could produce no evidence against this lady, beyond the +one fact that she had a powerful motive for getting rid of him. No jury +in the United Kingdom would condemn her upon such evidence as that." +</P><P> +Robert Audley interrupted Dr. Mosgrave, hastily. +</P><P> +"I assure you, my dear sir," he said, "that my greatest fear is the +necessity of any exposure—any disgrace." +</P><P> +"Certainly, Mr. Audley," answered the physician, coolly, "but you cannot +expect me to assist you to condone one of the worst offenses against +society. If I saw adequate reason for believing that a murder had been +committed by this woman, I should refuse to assist you in smuggling her +away out of the reach of justice, although the honor of a hundred noble +families might be saved by my doing so. But I do not see adequate reason +for your suspicions; and I will do my best to help you." +</P><P> +Robert Audley grasped the physician's hands in both his own. +</P><P> +"I will thank you when I am better able to do so," he said, with +emotion; "I will thank you in my uncle's name as well as in my own." +</P><P> +"I have only five minutes more, and I have a letter to write," said Dr. +Mosgrave, smiling at the young man's energy. +</P><P> +He seated himself at a writing-table in the window, dipped his pen in +the ink, and wrote rapidly for about seven minutes. He had filled three +sides of a sheet of note-paper, when he threw down his pen and folded +his letter. +</P><P> +He put this letter into an envelope, and delivered it, unsealed, to +Robert Audley. +</P><P> +The address which it bore was: +</P><P> +"Monsieur Val, +</P><P> +"Villebrumeuse, +</P><P> +"Belgium." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley looked rather doubtfully from this address to the doctor, who +was putting on his gloves as deliberately as if his life had never known +a more solemn purpose than the proper adjustment of them. +</P><P> +"That letter," he said, in answer to Robert Audley's inquiring look, "is +written to my friend Monsieur Val, the proprietor and medical +superintendent of a very excellent <i>maison de sante</i> in the town of +Villebrumeuse. We have known each other for many years, and he will no +doubt willingly receive Lady Audley into his establishment, and charge +himself with the full responsibility of her future life; it will not be +a very eventful one!" +</P><P> +Robert Audley would have spoken, he would have once more expressed his +gratitude for the help which had been given to him, but Dr. Mosgrave +checked him with an authoritative gesture. +</P><P> +"From the moment in which Lady Audley enters that house," he said, "her +life, so far as life is made up of action and variety, will be finished. +Whatever secrets she may have will be secrets forever! Whatever crimes +she may have committed she will be able to commit no more. If you were +to dig a grave for her in the nearest churchyard and bury her alive in +it, you could not more safely shut her from the world and all worldly +associations. But as a physiologist and as an honest man, I believe you +could do no better service to society than by doing this; for physiology +is a lie if the woman I saw ten minutes ago is a woman to be trusted at +large. If she could have sprung at my throat and strangled me with her +little hands, as I sat talking to her just now, she would have done it." +</P><P> +"She suspected your purpose, then!" +</P><P> +"She knew it. 'You think I am mad like my mother, and you have come to +question me,' she said. 'You are watching for some sign of the dreadful +taint in my blood.' Good-day to you, Mr. Audley," the physician added +hurriedly, "my time was up ten minutes ago; it is as much as I shall do +to catch the train." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXXVII.</H2> +<H3>BURIED ALIVE.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Robert Audley sat alone in the library with the physician's letter upon +the table before him, thinking of the work which was still to be done. +</P><P> +The young barrister had constituted himself the denouncer of this +wretched woman. He had been her judge; and he was now her jailer. Not +until he had delivered the letter which lay before him to its proper +address, not until he had given up his charge into the safe-keeping of +the foreign mad-house doctor, not until then would the dreadful burden +be removed from him and his duty done. +</P><P> +He wrote a few lines to my lady, telling her that he was going to carry +her away from Audley Court to a place from which she was not likely to +return, and requesting her to lose no time in preparing for the journey. +He wished to start that evening, if possible, he told her. +</P><P> +Miss Susan Martin, the lady's maid, thought it a very hard thing to have +to pack her mistress' trunks in such a hurry, but my lady assisted in +the task. She toiled resolutely in directing and assisting her servant, +who scented bankruptcy and ruin in all this packing up and hurrying +away, and was therefore rather languid and indifferent in the discharge +of her duties; and at six o'clock in the evening she sent her attendant +to tell Mr. Audley that she was ready to depart as soon as he pleased. +</P><P> +Robert had consulted a volume of Bradshaw, and had discovered that +Villebrumeuse lay out of the track of all railway traffic, and was only +approachable by diligence from Brussels. The mail for Dover left London +Bridge at nine o'clock, and could be easily caught by Robert and his +charge, as the seven o'clock up-train from Audley reached Shoreditch at +a quarter past eight. Traveling by the Dover and Calais route, they +would reach Villebrumeuse by the following afternoon or evening. +</P><P> +It was late in the afternoon of the next day when the diligence bumped +and rattled over the uneven paving of the principal street in +Villebrumeuse. +</P><P> +Robert Audley and my lady had had the <i>coupe</i> of the diligence to +themselves for the whole of the journey, for there were not many +travelers between Brussels and Villebrumeuse, and the public conveyance +was supported by the force of tradition rather than any great profit +attaching to it as a speculation. +</P><P> +My lady had not spoken during the journey, except to decline some +refreshments which Robert had offered her at a halting place upon the +road. Her heart sunk when they left Brussels behind, for she had hoped +that city might have been the end of her journey, and she had turned +with a feeling of sickness and despair from the dull Belgian landscape. +</P><P> +She looked up at last as the vehicle jolted into a great stony +quadrangle, which had been the approach to a monastery once, but which +was now the court yard of a dismal hotel, in whose cellars legions of +rats skirmished and squeaked even while the broad sunshine was bright in +the chambers above. +</P><P> +Lady Audley shuddered as she alighted from the diligence, and found +herself in that dreary court yard. Robert was surrounded by chattering +porters, who clamored for his "baggages," and disputed among themselves +as to the hotel at which he was to rest. One of these men ran away to +fetch a hackney-coach at Mr. Audley's behest, and reappeared presently, +urging on a pair of horses—which were so small as to suggest the idea +that they had been made out of one ordinary-sized animal—with wild +shrieks and whoops that had a demoniac sound in the darkness. +</P><P> +Mr. Audley left my lady in a dreary coffee-room in the care of a drowsy +attendant while he drove away to some distant part of the quiet city. +There was official business to be gone through before Sir Michael's wife +could be quietly put away in the place suggested by Dr. Mosgrave. Robert +had to see all manner of important personages; and to take numerous +oaths; and to exhibit the English physician's letter; and to go through +much ceremony of signing and countersigning before he could take his +lost friend's cruel wife to the home which was to be her last upon +earth. Upward of two hours elapsed before all this was arranged, and the +young man was free to return to the hotel, where he found his charge +staring absently at a pair of wax-candles, with a cup of untasted coffee +standing cold and stagnant before her. +</P><P> +Robert handed my lady into the hired vehicle, and took his seat opposite +to her once more. +</P><P> +"Where are you going to take me?" she asked, at last. "I am tired of +being treated like some naughty child, who is put into a dark cellar as +a punishment for its offenses. Where are you taking me?" +</P><P> +"To a place in which you will have ample leisure to repent the past, +Mrs. Talboys," Robert answered, gravely. +</P><P> +They had left the paved streets behind them, and had emerged out of a +great gaunt square, in which there appeared to be about half a dozen +cathedrals, into a small boulevard, a broad lamp-lit road, on which the +shadows of the leafless branches went and came tremblingly, like the +shadows of a paralytic skeleton. There were houses here and there upon +this boulevard; stately houses, <i>entre cour et jardin</i>, and with plaster +vases of geraniums on the stone pillars of the ponderous gateways. The +rumbling hackney-carriage drove upward of three-quarters of a mile along +this smooth roadway before it drew up against a gateway, older and more +ponderous than any of those they had passed. +</P><P> +My lady gave a little scream as she looked out of the coach-window. The +gaunt gateway was lighted by an enormous lamp; a great structure of iron +and glass, in which one poor little shivering flame struggled with the +March wind. +</P><P> +The coachman rang the bell, and a little wooden door at the side of the +gate was opened by a gray-haired man, who looked out at the carriage, +and then retired. He reappeared three minutes afterward behind the +folding iron gates, which he unlocked and threw back to their full +extent, revealing a dreary desert of stone-paved courtyard. +</P><P> +The coachman led his wretched horses into the courtyard, and piloted the +vehicle to the principal doorway of the house, a great mansion of gray +stone, with several long ranges of windows, many of which were dimly +lighted, and looked out like the pale eyes of weary watchers upon the +darkness of the night. +</P><P> +My lady, watchful and quiet as the cold stars in the wintry sky, looked +up at these casements with an earnest and scrutinizing gaze. One of the +windows was shrouded by a scanty curtain of faded red; and upon this +curtain there went and came a dark shadow, the shadow of a woman with a +fantastic head dress, the shadow of a restless creature, who paced +perpetually backward and forward before the window. +</P><P> +Sir Michael Audley's wicked wife laid her hand suddenly upon Robert's +arm, and pointed with the other hand to this curtained window. +</P><P> +"I know where you have brought me," she said. "This is a MAD-HOUSE." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley did not answer her. He had been standing at the door of the +coach when she addressed him, and he quietly assisted her to alight, and +led her up a couple of shallow stone steps, and into the entrance-hall +of the mansion. He handed Dr. Mosgrave's letter to a neatly-dressed, +cheerful-looking, middle-aged woman, who came tripping out of a little +chamber which opened out of the hall, and was very much like the bureau +of an hotel. This person smilingly welcome Robert and his charge: and +after dispatching a servant with the letter, invited them into her +pleasant little apartment, which was gayly furnished with bright amber +curtains and heated by a tiny stove. +</P><P> +"Madam finds herself very much fatigued?" the Frenchwoman said, +interrogatively, with a look of intense sympathy, as she placed an +arm-chair for my lady. +</P><P> +"Madam" shrugged her shoulders wearily, and looked round the little +chamber with a sharp glance of scrutiny that betokened no very great +favor. +</P><P> +"WHAT is this place, Robert Audley?" she cried fiercely. "Do you think I +am a baby, that you may juggle with and deceive me—what is it? It is +what I said just now, is it not?" +</P><P> +"It is a <i>maison de sante</i>, my lady," the young man answered, gravely. +"I have no wish to juggle with or to deceive you." +</P><P> +My lady paused for a few moments, looking reflectively at Robert. +</P><P> +"A <i>maison de sante</i>," she repeated. "Yes, they manage these things +better in France. In England we should call it a madhouse. This a house +for mad people, this, is it not, madam?" she said in French, turning +upon the woman, and tapping the polished floor with her foot. +</P><P> +"Ah, but no, madam," the woman answered with a shrill scream of protest. +"It is an establishment of the most agreeable, where one amuses one's +self—" +</P><P> +She was interrupted by the entrance of the principal of this agreeable +establishment, who came beaming into the room with a radiant smile +illuminating his countenance, and with Dr. Mosgrave's letter open in his +hand. +</P><P> +It was impossible to say <i>how</i> enchanted he was to make the acquaintance +of M'sieu. There was nothing upon earth which he was not ready to do for +M'sieu in his own person, and nothing under heaven which he would not +strive to accomplish for him, as the friend of his acquaintance, so very +much distinguished, the English doctor. Dr. Mosgrave's letter had given +him a brief synopsis of the case, he informed Robert, in an undertone, +and he was quite prepared to undertake the care of the charming and very +interesting "Madam—Madam—" +</P><P> +He rubbed his hands politely, and looked at Robert. Mr. Audley +remembered, for the first time, that he had been recommended to +introduce his wretched charge under a feigned name. +</P><P> +He affected not to hear the proprietor's question. It might seem a very +easy matter to have hit upon a heap of names, any one of which would +have answered his purpose; but Mr. Audley appeared suddenly to have +forgotten that he had ever heard any mortal appellation except that of +himself and of his lost friend. +</P><P> +Perhaps the proprietor perceived and understood his embarrassment. He at +any rate relieved it by turning to the woman who had received them, and +muttering something about No. 14, Bis. The woman took a key from a long +range of others, that hung over the mantel-piece, and a wax candle from +a bracket in a corner of the room, and having lighted the candle, led +the way across the stone-paved hall, and up a broad, slippery staircase +of polished wood. +</P><P> +The English physician had informed his Belgian colleague that money +would be of minor consequence in any arrangements made for the comfort +of the English lady who was to be committed to his care. Acting upon +this hint, Monsieur Val opened the outer doer of a stately suite of +apartments, which included a lobby, paved with alternate diamonds of +black and white marble, but of a dismal and cellar-like darkness; a +saloon furnished with gloomy velvet draperies, and with a certain +funereal splendor which is not peculiarly conducive to the elevation of +the spirits; and a bed-chamber, containing a bed so wondrously made, as +to appear to have no opening whatever in its coverings, unless the +counterpane had been split asunder with a pen-knife. +</P><P> +My lady stared dismally round at the range of rooms, which looked dreary +enough in the wan light of a single wax-candle. This solitary flame, +pale and ghost-like in itself, was multiplied by paler phantoms of its +ghostliness, which glimmered everywhere about the rooms; in the shadowy +depths of the polished floors and wainscot, or the window-panes, in the +looking-glasses, or in those great expanses of glimmering something +which adorned the rooms, and which my lady mistook for costly mirrors, +but which were in reality wretched mockeries of burnished tin. +</P><P> +Amid all the faded splendor of shabby velvet, and tarnished gilding, and +polished wood, the woman dropped into an arm-chair, and covered her face +with her hands. The whiteness of them, and the starry light of diamonds +trembling about them, glittered in the dimly-lighted chamber. She sat +silent, motionless, despairing, sullen, and angry, while Robert and the +French doctor retired to an outer chamber, and talked together in +undertones. Mr. Audley had very little to say that had not been already +said for him, with a far better grace than he himself could have +expressed it, by the English physician. He had, after great trouble of +mind, hit upon the name of Taylor, as a safe and simple substitute for +that other name, to which alone my lady had a right. He told the +Frenchman that this Mrs. Taylor was distantly related to him—that she +had inherited the seeds of madness from her mother, as indeed Dr. +Mosgrave had informed Monsieur Val; and that she had shown some fearful +tokens of the lurking taint that was latent in her mind; but that she +was not to be called "mad." He begged that she might be treated with all +tenderness and compassion; that she might receive all reasonable +indulgences; but he impressed upon Monsieur Val, that under no +circumstances was she to be permitted to leave the house and grounds +without the protection of some reliable person, who should be answerable +for her safe-keeping. He had only one other point to urge, and that was, +that Monsieur Val, who, as he had understood, was himself a +Protestant—the doctor bowed—would make arrangements with some kind and +benevolent Protestant clergyman, through whom spiritual advice and +consolation might be secured for the invalid lady; who had especial +need, Robert added, gravely, of such advantages. +</P><P> +This—with all necessary arrangements as to pecuniary matters, which +were to be settled from time to time between Mr. Audley and the doctor, +unassisted by any agents whatever—was the extent of the conversation +between the two men, and occupied about a quarter of an hour. +</P><P> +My lady sat in the same attitude when they re-entered the bedchamber in +which they had left her, with her ringed hands still clasped over her +face. +</P><P> +Robert bent over to whisper in her ear. +</P><P> +"Your name is Madam Taylor here," he said. "I do not think you would +wish to be known by your real name." +</P><P> +She only shook her head in answer to him, and did not even remove her +hands from over her face. +</P><P> +"Madam will have an attendant entirely devoted to her service." said +Monsieur Val. "Madam will have all her wishes obeyed; her <i>reasonable</i> +wishes, but that goes without saying," monsieur adds, with a quaint +shrug. "Every effort will be made to render madam's sojourn at +Villebrumeuse agreeable. The inmates dine together when it is wished. I +dine with the inmates sometimes; my subordinate, a clever and a worthy +man always. I reside with my wife and children in a little pavilion in +the grounds; my subordinate resides in the establishment. Madam may rely +upon our utmost efforts being exerted to insure her comfort." +</P><P> +Monsieur is saying a great deal more to the same effect, rubbing his +hands and beaming radiantly upon Robert and his charge, when madam rises +suddenly, erect and furious, and dropping her jeweled fingers from +before her face, tells him to hold his tongue. +</P><P> +"Leave me alone with the man who has brought me here." she cried, +between her set teeth. "Leave me!" +</P><P> +She points to the door with a sharp, imperious gesture; so rapid that +the silken drapery about her arm makes a swooping sound as she lifts her +hand. The sibilant French syllables hiss through her teeth as she utters +them, and seem better fitted to her mood and to herself than the +familiar English she has spoken hitherto. +</P><P> +The French doctor shrugs his shoulders as he goes out into the lobby, +and mutters something about a "beautiful devil," and a gesture worthy of +"the Mars." My lady walked with a rapid footstep to the door between the +bed-chamber and the saloon; closed it, and with the handle of the door +still in her hand, turned and looked at Robert Audley. +</P><P> +"You have brought me to my grave, Mr. Audley," she cried; "you have used +your power basely and cruelly, and have brought me to a living grave." +</P><P> +"I have done that which I thought just to others and merciful to you," +Robert answered, quietly. "I should have been a traitor to society had I +suffered you to remain at liberty after—the disappearance of George +Talboys and the fire at Castle Inn. I have brought you to a place in +which you will be kindly treated by people who have no knowledge of your +story—no power to taunt or to reproach you. You will lead a quiet and +peaceful life, my lady; such a life as many a good and holy woman in +this Catholic country freely takes upon herself, and happily endures +until the end. The solitude of your existence in this place will be no +greater than that of a king's daughter, who, flying from the evil of the +time, was glad to take shelter in a house as tranquil as this. Surely, +it is a small atonement which I ask you to render for your sins, a light +penance which I call upon you to perform. Live here and repent; nobody +will assail you, nobody will torment you. I only say to you, repent!" +</P><P> +"I <i>cannot!</i>" cried my lady, pushing her hair fiercely from her white +forehead, and fixing her dilated eyes upon Robert Audley, "I <i>cannot!</i> +Has my beauty brought me to <i>this</i>? Have I plotted and schemed to shield +myself and laid awake in the long deadly nights, trembling to think of +my dangers, for <i>this</i>? I had better have given up at once, since <i>this</i> +was to be the end. I had better have yielded to the curse that was upon +me, and given up when George Talboys first came back to England." +</P><P> +She plucked at the feathery golden curls as if she would have torn them +from her head. It had served her so little after all, that gloriously +glittering hair, that beautiful nimbus of yellow light that had +contrasted so exquisitely with the melting azure of her eyes. She hated +herself and her beauty. +</P><P> +"I would laugh at you and defy you, if I dared," she cried; "I would +kill myself and defy you, if I dared. But I am a poor, pitiful coward, +and have been so from the first. Afraid of my mother's horrible +inheritance; afraid of poverty; afraid of George Talboys; afraid of +<i>you</i>." +</P><P> +She was silent for a little while, but she held her place by the door, +as if determined to detain Robert as long as it was her pleasure to do +so. +</P><P> +"Do you know what I am thinking of?" she said, presently. "Do you know +what I am thinking of, as I look at you in the dim light of this room? I +am thinking of the day upon which George Talboys disappeared." +</P><P> +Robert started as she mentioned the name of his lost friend; his face +turned pale in the dusky light, and his breathing grew quicker and +louder. +</P><P> +"He was standing opposite me, as you are standing now," continued my +lady. "You said that you would raze the old house to the ground; that +you would root up every tree in the gardens to find your dead friend. +You would have had no need to do so much: the body of George Talboys +lies at the bottom of the old well, in the shrubbery beyond the +lime-walk." +</P><P> +Robert Audley flung his hands and clasped them above his head, with one +loud cry of horror. +</P><P> +"Oh, my God!" he said, after a dreadful pause; "have all the ghastly +things that I have thought prepared me so little for the ghastly truth, +that it should come upon me like this at last?" +</P><P> +"He came to me in the lime-walk," resumed my lady, in the same hard, +dogged tone as that in which she had confessed the wicked story of her +life. "I knew that he would come, and I had prepared myself, as well as +I could, to meet him. I was determined to bribe him, to cajole him, to +defy him; to do anything sooner than abandon the wealth and the position +I had won, and go back to my old life. He came, and he reproached me for +the conspiracy at Ventnor. He declared that so long as he lived he would +never forgive me for the lie that had broken his heart. He told me that +I had plucked his heart out of his breast and trampled upon it; and that +he had now no heart in which to feel one sentiment of mercy for me. That +he would have forgiven me any wrong upon earth, but that one deliberate +and passionless wrong that I had done him. He said this and a great deal +more, and he told me that no power on earth should turn him from his +purpose, which was to take me to the man I had deceived, and make me +tell my wicked story. He did not know the hidden taint that I had sucked +in with my mother's milk. He did not know that it was possible to drive +me mad. He goaded me as you have goaded me; he was as merciless as you +have been merciless. We were in the shrubbery at the end of the +lime-walk. I was seated upon the broken masonry at the mouth of the +well. George Talboys was leaning upon the disused windlass, in which the +rusty iron spindle rattled loosely whenever he shifted his position. I +rose at last, and turned upon him to defy him, as I had determined to +defy him at the worst. I told him that if he denounced me to Sir +Michael, I would declare him to be a madman or a liar, and I defied him +to convince the man who loved me—blindly, as I told him—that he had +any claim to me. I was going to leave him after having told him this, +when he caught me by the wrist and detained me by force. You saw the +bruises that his fingers made upon my wrist, and noticed them, and did +not believe the account I gave of them. I could see that, Mr. Robert +Audley, and I saw that you were a person I should have to fear." +</P><P> +She paused, as if she had expected Robert to speak; but he stood silent +and motionless, waiting for the end. +</P><P> +"George Talboys treated me as you treated me," she said, petulantly. "He +swore that if there was but one witness of my identity, and that witness +was removed from Audley Court by the width of the whole earth, he would +bring him there to swear to my identity, and to denounce me. It was then +that I was mad, it was then that I drew the loose iron spindle from the +shrunken wood, and saw my first husband sink with one horrible cry into +the black mouth of the well. There is a legend of its enormous depth. I +do not know how deep it is. It is dry, I suppose, for I heard no splash, +only a dull thud. I looked down and I saw nothing but black emptiness. I +knelt down and listened, but the cry was not repeated, though I waited +for nearly a quarter of an hour—God knows how long it seemed to me!—by +the mouth of the well." +</P><P> +Robert Audley uttered a word of horror when the story was finished. He +moved a little nearer toward the door against which Helen Talboys stood. +Had there been any other means of exit from the room, he would gladly +have availed himself of it. He shrank from even a momentary contact with +this creature. +</P><P> +"Let me pass you, if you please," he said, in an icy voice. +</P><P> +"You see I do not fear to make my confession to you," said Helen +Talboys; "for two reasons. The first is, that you dare not use it +against me, because you know it would kill your uncle to see me in a +criminal dock; the second is, that the law could pronounce no worse +sentence than this—a life-long imprisonment in a mad-house. You see I +do not thank you for your mercy, Mr. Robert Audley, for I know exactly +what it is worth." +</P><P> +She moved away from the door, and Robert passed her without a word, +without a look. +</P><P> +Half an hour afterward he was in one of the principal hotels at +Villebrumeuse, sitting at a neatly-ordered supper-table, with no power +to eat; with no power to distract his mind, even for a moment, from the +image of that lost friend who had been treacherously murdered in the +thicket at Audley Court. +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</H2> +<H3>GHOST-HAUNTED.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +No feverish sleeper traveling in a strange dream ever looked out more +wonderingly upon a world that seemed unreal than Robert Audley, as he +stared absently at the flat swamps and dismal poplars between +Villebrumeuse and Brussels. Could it be that he was returning to his +uncle's house without the woman who had reigned in it for nearly two +years as queen and mistress? He felt as if he had carried off my lady, +and had made away with her secretly and darkly, and must now render up +an account to Sir Michael of the fate of that woman, whom the baronet +had so dearly loved. +</P><P> +"What shall I tell him?" he thought. "Shall I tell the truth—the +horrible, ghastly truth? No; that would be too cruel. His generous +spirit would sink under the hideous revelation. Yet, in his ignorance of +the extent of this wretched woman's wickedness, he may think, perhaps, +that I have been hard with her." +</P><P> +Brooding thus, Mr. Robert Audley absently watched the cheerless +landscape from the seat in the shabby <i>coupe</i> of the diligence, and +thought how great a leaf had been torn out of his life, now that the +dark story of George Talboys was finished. +</P><P> +What had he to do next? A crowd of horrible thoughts rushed into his +mind as he remembered the story that he had heard from the white lips of +Helen Talboys. His friend—his murdered friend—lay hidden among the +moldering ruins of the old well at Audley Court. He had lain there for +six long months, unburied, unknown; hidden in the darkness of the old +convent well. What was to be done? +</P><P> +To institute a search for the remains of the murdered man was to +inevitably bring about a coroner's inquest. Should such an inquest be +held, it was next to impossible that the history of my lady's crime +could fail to be brought to light. To prove that George Talboys met with +his death at Audley Court, was to prove almost as surely that my lady +had been the instrument of that mysterious death; for the young man had +been known to follow her into the lime-walk upon the day of his +disappearance. +</P><P> +"My God!" Robert exclaimed, as the full horror of his position became +evident to him; "is my friend to rest in this unhallowed burial-place +because I have condoned the offenses of the woman who murdered him?" +</P><P> +He felt that there was no way out of this difficulty. Sometimes he +thought that it little mattered to his dead friend whether he lay +entombed beneath a marble monument, whose workmanship should be the +wonder of the universe, or in that obscure hiding-place in the thicket +at Audley Court. At another time he would be seized with a sudden horror +at the wrong that had been done to the murdered man, and would fain have +traveled even more rapidly than the express between Brussels and Paris +could carry him in his eagerness to reach the end of his journey, that +he might set right this cruel wrong. +</P><P> +He was in London at dusk on the second day after that on which he had +left Audley Court, and he drove straight to the Clarendon, to inquire +after his uncle. He had no intention of seeing Sir Michael, as he had +not yet determined how much or how little he should tell him, but he was +very anxious to ascertain how the old man had sustained the cruel shock +he had so lately endured. +</P><P> +"I will see Alicia," he thought, "she will tell me all about her father. +It is only two days since he left Audley. I can scarcely expect to hear +of any favorable change." +</P><P> +But Mr. Audley was not destined to see his cousin that evening, for the +servants at the Clarendon told him that Sir Michael and his daughter had +left by the morning mail for Paris, on their way to Vienna. +</P><P> +Robert was very well pleased to receive this intelligence; it afforded +him a welcome respite, for it would be decidedly better to tell the +baronet nothing of his guilty wife until he returned to England, with +health unimpaired and spirits re-established, it was to be hoped. +</P><P> +Mr. Audley drove to the Temple. The chambers which had seemed dreary to +him ever since the disappearance of George Talboys, were doubly so +to-night. For that which had been only a dark suspicion had now become a +horrible certainty. There was no longer room for the palest ray, the +most transitory glimmer of hope. His worst terrors had been too well +founded. +</P><P> +George Talboys had been cruelly and treacherously murdered by the wife +he had loved and mourned. +</P><P> +There were three letters waiting for Mr. Audley at his chambers. One was +from Sir Michael, and another from Alicia. The third was addressed in a +hand the young barrister knew only too well, though he had seen it but +once before. His face flushed redly at the sight of the superscription, +and he took the letter in his hand, carefully and tenderly, as if it had +been a living thing, and sentient to his touch. He turned it over and +over in his hands, looking at the crest upon the envelope, at the +post-mark, at the color of the paper, and then put it into the bosom of +his waistcoat with a strange smile upon his face. +</P><P> +"What a wretched and unconscionable fool I am!" he thought. "Have I +laughed at the follies of weak men all my life, and am I to be more +foolish than the weakest of them at last? The beautiful brown-eyed +creature! Why did I ever see her? Why did my relentless Nemesis ever +point the way to that dreary house in Dorsetshire?" +</P><P> +He opened the first two letters. He was foolish enough to keep the last +for a delicious morsel—a fairy-like dessert after the commonplace +substantialities of a dinner. +</P><P> +Alicia's letter told him that Sir Michael had borne his agony with such +a persevering tranquility that she had become at last far more alarmed +by his patient calmness than by any stormy manifestation of despair. In +this difficulty she had secretly called upon the physician who attended +the Audley household in any cases of serious illness, and had requested +this gentleman to pay Sir Michael an apparently accidental visit. He had +done so, and after stopping half an hour with the baronet, had told +Alicia that there was no present danger of any serious consequence from +this great grief, but that it was necessary that every effort should be +made to arouse Sir Michael, and to force him, however unwillingly, into +action. +</P><P> +Alicia had immediately acted upon this advice, had resumed her old +empire as a spoiled child, and reminded her father of a promise he had +made of taking her through Germany. With considerable difficulty she had +induced him to consent to fulfilling this old promise, and having once +gained her point, she had contrived that they should leave England as +soon as it was possible to do so, and she told Robert, in conclusion, +that she would not bring her father back to his old house until she had +taught him to forget the sorrows associated with it. +</P><P> +The baronet's letter was very brief. It contained half a dozen blank +checks on Sir Michael Audley's London bankers. +</P><P> +"You will require money, my dear Robert," he wrote, "for such +arrangements as you may think fit to make for the future comfort of the +person I committed to your care. I need scarcely tell you that those +arrangements cannot be too liberal. But perhaps it is as well that I +should tell you now, for the first and only time, that it is my earnest +wish never again to hear that person's name. I have no wish to be told +the nature of the arrangements you may make for her. I am sure that you +will act conscientiously and mercifully. I seek to know no more. +Whenever you want money, you will draw upon me for any sums that you may +require; but you will have no occasion to tell me for whose use you want +that money." +</P><P> +Robert Audley breathed a long sigh of relief as he folded this letter. +It released him from a duty which it would have been most painful for +him to perform, and it forever decided his course of action with regard +to the murdered man. +</P><P> +George Talboys must lie at peace in his unknown grave, and Sir Michael +Audley must never learn that the woman he had loved bore the red brand +of murder on her soul. +</P><P> +Robert had only the third letter to open—the letter which he had placed +in his bosom while he read the others; he tore open the envelope, +handling it carefully and tenderly as he had done before. +</P><P> +The letter was as brief as Sir Michael's. It contained only these few +lines: +</P><P> +"DEAR MR. AUDLEY—The rector of this place has been twice to see Marks, +the man you saved in the fire at the Castle Inn. He lies in a very +precarious state at his mother's cottage, near Audley Court, and is not +expected to live many days. His wife is attending him, and both he and +she have expressed a most earnest desire that you should see him before +he dies. Pray come without delay. +</P><P> +"Yours very sincerely, +</P><P> +"CLARA TALBOYS. +</P><P> +"Mount Stanning Rectory, March 6." +</P><P> +Robert Audley folded this letter very reverently, and placed it +underneath that part of his waistcoat which might be supposed to cover +the region of his heart. Having done this, he seated himself in his +favorite arm-chair, filled and lighted a pipe and smoked it out, staring +reflectingly at the fire as long as his tobacco lasted. "What can that +man Marks want with me," thought the barrister. "He is afraid to die +until he has made confession, perhaps. He wishes to tell me that which I +know already—the story of my lady's crime. I knew that he was in the +secret. I was sure of it even upon the night on which I first saw him. +He knew the secret, and he traded on it." +</P><P> +Robert Audley shrank strangely from returning to Essex. How should he +meet Clara Talboys now that he knew the secret of her brother's fate? +How many lies he should have to tell, or how much equivocation he must +use in order to keep the truth from her? Yet would there be any mercy in +telling that horrible story, the knowledge of which must cast a blight +upon her youth, and blot out every hope she had even secretly cherished? +He knew by his own experience how possible it was to hope against hope, +and to hope unconsciously; and he could not bear that her heart should +be crushed as his had been by the knowledge of the truth. "Better that +she should hope vainly to the last," he thought; "better that she should +go through life seeking the clew to her lost brother's fate, than that I +should give that clew into her hands, and say, 'Our worst fears are +realized. The brother you loved has been foully murdered in the early +promise of his youth.'" +</P><P> +But Clara Talboys had written to him, imploring him to return to Essex +without delay. Could he refuse to do her bidding, however painful its +accomplishment might be? And again, the man was dying, perhaps, and had +implored to see him. Would it not be cruel to refuse to go—to delay an +hour unnecessarily? He looked at his watch. It wanted only five minutes +to nine. There was no train to Audley after the Ipswich mail, which left +London at half-past eight; but there was a train that left Shoreditch at +eleven, and stopped at Brentwood between twelve and one. Robert decided +upon going by this train, and walking the distance between Brentwood and +Audley, which was upwards of six miles. +</P><P> +He had a long time to wait before it would be necessary to leave the +Temple on his way to Shoreditch, and he sat brooding darkly over the +fire and wondering at the strange events which had filled his life +within the last year and a half, coming like angry shadows between his +lazy inclinations and himself, and investing him with purposes that were +not his own. +</P><P> +"Good Heaven!" he thought, as he smoked his second pipe; "how can I +believe that it was I who used to lounge all day in this easy-chair +reading Paul de Kock, and smoking mild Turkish; who used to drop in at +half price to stand among the pressmen at the back of the boxes and see +a new burlesque and finish the evening with the 'Chough and Crow,' and +chops and pale ale at 'Evans'. Was it I to whom life was such an easy +merry-go-round? Was it I who was one of the boys who sit at ease upon +the wooden horses, while other boys run barefoot in the mud and work +their hardest in the hope of a ride when their work is done? Heaven +knows I have learned the business of life since then: and now I must +needs fall in love and swell the tragic chorus which is always being +sung by the poor addition of my pitiful sighs and, groans. Clara +Talboys! Clara Talboys! Is there any merciful smile latent beneath the +earnest light of your brown eyes? What would you say to me if I told you +that I love you as earnestly and truly as I have mourned for your +brother's fate—that the new strength and purpose of my life, which has +grown out of my friendship for the murdered man, grows even stronger as +it turns to you, and changes me until I wonder at myself? What would she +say to me? Ah! Heaven knows. If she happened to like the color of my +hair or the tone of my voice, she might listen to me, perhaps. But would +she hear me any more because I love her truly, and purely; because I +would be constant and honest and faithful to her? Not she! These things +might move her, perhaps to be a little pitiful to me; but they would +move her no more! If a girl with freckles and white eylashes adored me, +I should only think her a nuisance; but if Clara Talboys had a fancy to +trample upon my uncouth person, I should think she did me a favor. I +hope poor little Alicia may pick up with some fair-haired Saxon in the +course of her travels. I hope—" His thoughts wandered away wearily and +lost themselves. How could he hope for anything or think of anything, +while the memory of his dead friend's unburied body haunted him like a +horrible specter? He remembered a story—a morbid, hideous, yet +delicious story, which had once pleasantly congealed his blood on a +social winter's evening—the story of a man, monomaniac, perhaps, who +had been haunted at every turn by the image of an unburied kinsman who +could not rest in his unhallowed hiding-place. What if that dreadful +story had its double in reality? What if he were henceforth to be +haunted by the phantom of murdered George Talboys? +</P><P> +He pushed his hair away from his face with both hands, and looked rather +nervously around the snug little apartment. There were lurking shadows +in the corners of the room that he scarcely liked. The door opening into +his little dressing-room was ajar; he got up to shut it, and turned the +key in the lock with a sharp click. +</P><P> +"I haven't read Alexander Dumas and Wilkie Collins for nothing," he +muttered. "I'm up to their tricks, sneaking in at doors behind a +fellow's back, and flattening their white faces against window panes, +and making themselves all eyes in the twilight. It's a strange thing +that your generous hearted fellow, who never did a shabby thing in his +life, is capable of any meanness the moment he becomes a ghost. I'll +have the gas laid on to-morrow and I'll engage Mrs. Maloney's eldest son +to sleep under the letter-box in the lobby. The youth plays popular +melodies upon a piece of tissue paper and a small-tooth comb, and it +will be quite pleasant company." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley walked wearily up and down the room, trying to get rid of the +time. It was no use leaving the Temple until ten o'clock, and even then +he would be sure to reach the station half an hour too early. He was +tired of smoking. The soothing narcotic influence might be pleasant +enough in itself, but the man must be of a singularly unsocial +disposition who does not, after a half dozen lonely pipes, feel the need +of some friendly companion, at whom he can stare dreamily athwart the +pale gray mists, and who will stare kindly back at him in return. Do not +think that Robert Audley was without friends, because he so often found +himself alone in his chambers. The solemn purpose which had taken so +powerful a hold upon his careless life had separated him from old +associations, and it was for this reason that he was alone. +</P><P> +He had dropped away from his old friends. How could he sit among them, +at social wine parties, perhaps, or at social little dinners, that were +washed down with nonpareil and chambertin, pomard and champagne? How +could he sit among them, listening to their careless talk of politics +and opera, literature and racing, theaters and science, scandal and +theology, and yet carry in his mind the horrible burden of those dark +terrors and suspicions that were with him by day and by night? He could +not do it! He had shrunk from those men as if he had, indeed, been a +detective police officer, stained with vile associations and unfit +company for honest gentlemen. He had drawn himself away from all +familiar haunts, and shut himself in his lonely rooms with the perpetual +trouble of his mind for his sole companion, until he had grown as +nervous as habitual solitude will eventually make the strongest and the +wisest man, however he may vaunt himself of his strength and wisdom. +</P><P> +The clock of the Temple Church, and the clocks of St. Dunstan's, St. +Clement's Danes, and a crowd of other churches, whose steeples uprear +themselves above the house tops by the river, struck ten at last, and +Mr. Audley, who had put on his hat and overcoat nearly half an hour +before, let himself out of the little lobby, and locked his door behind +him. He mentally reiterated his determination to engage "Parthrick," as +Mrs. Maloney's eldest son was called by his devoted mother. The youth +should enter upon his functions the very night after, and if the ghost +of the hapless George Talboys should invade these gloomy apartments, the +phantom must make its way across Patrick's body before it could reach +the inner chamber in which the proprietor of the premises slept. +</P><P> +Do not laugh at poor George because he grew hypochondriacal after +hearing the horrible story of his friend's death. There is nothing so +delicate, so fragile, as that invisible balance upon which the mind is +always trembling. "Mad to-day and sane to-morrow." +</P><P> +Who can forget that almost terrible picture of Dr. Samuel Johnson? The +awful disputant of the club-room, solemn, ponderous, severe and +merciless, the admiration and the terror of humble Bozzy, the stern +monitor of gentle Oliver, the friend of Garrick and Reynolds to-night; +and before to-morrow sunset a weak, miserable old man, discovered by +good Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, kneeling upon the floor of his lonely chamber, +in an agony of childish terror and confusion, and praying to a merciful +God for the preservation of his wits. I think the memory of that +dreadful afternoon, and of the tender care he then received, should have +taught the doctor to keep his hand steady at Streatham, when he took his +bedroom candlestick, from which it was his habit to shower rivulets of +molten wax upon the costly carpet of his beautiful protectress; and +might have even had a more enduring effect, and taught him to be +merciful, when the brewer's widow went mad in her turn, and married that +dreadful creature, the Italian singer. Who has not been, or in not to be +mad in some lonely hour of life? Who is quite safe from the trembling of +the balance? +</P><P> +Fleet street was quiet and lonely at this late hour, and Robert Audley +being in a ghost-seeing mood, would have been scarcely astonished had he +seen Johnson's set come roystering westward in the lamp-light, or blind +John Milton groping his way down the steps before Saint Bride's Church. +</P><P> +Mr. Audley hailed a hansom at the corner of Farrington street, and was +rattled rapidly away across tenantless Smithfield market, and into a +labyrinth of dingy streets that brought him out upon the broad grandeur +of Finsbury Pavement. +</P><P> +The hansom rattled up the steep and stony approach to Shoreditch +Station, and deposited Robert at the doors of that unlovely temple. +There were very few people going to travel by this midnight train, and +Robert walked up and down the long wooden platform, reading the huge +advertisements whose gaunt lettering looked wan and ghastly in the dim +lamplight. +</P><P> +He had the carriage in which he sat all to himself. All to himself did I +say? Had he not lately summoned to his side that ghostly company which +of all companionship is the most tenacious? The shadow of George Talboys +pursued him, even in the comfortable first-class carriage, and was +behind him when he looked out of the window, and was yet far ahead of +him and the rushing engine, in that thicket toward which the train was +speeding, by the side of the unhallowed hiding-place in which the mortal +remains of the dead man lay, neglected and uncared for. +</P><P> +"I must give my lost friend decent burial," Robert thought, as the chill +wind swept across the flat landscape, and struck him with such frozen +breath as might have emanated from the lips of the dead. "I must do it; +or I shall die of some panic like this which has seized upon me +to-night. I must do it; at any peril; at any cost. Even at the price of +that revelation which will bring the mad woman back from her safe +hiding-place, and place her in a criminal dock." He was glad when the +train stopped at Brentwood at a few minutes after twelve. +</P><P> +It was half-past one o'clock when the night wanderer entered the village +of Audley, and it was only there that he remembered that Clara Talboys +had omitted to give him any direction by which he might find the cottage +in which Luke Marks lay. +</P><P> +"It was Dawson who recommended that the poor creature should be taken to +his mother's cottage," Robert thought, by-and-by, "and, I dare say. +Dawson has attended him ever since the fire. He'll be able to tell me +the way to the cottage." +</P><P> +Acting upon this idea, Mr. Audley stopped at the house in which Helen +Talboys had lived before her second marriage. The door of the little +surgery was ajar, and there was a light burning within. Robert pushed +the door open and peeped in. The surgeon was standing at the mahogany +counter, mixing a draught in a glass measure, with his hat close beside +him. Late as it was, he had evidently only just come in. The harmonious +snoring of his assistant sounded from a little room within the surgery. +</P><P> +"I am sorry to disturb you, Mr. Dawson," Robert said, apologetically, as +the surgeon looked up and recognized him, "but I have come down to see +Marks, who, I hear, is in a very bad way, and I want you to tell me the +way to his mother's cottage." +</P><P> +"I'll show you the way, Mr. Audley," answered the surgeon, "I am going +there this minute." +</P><P> +"The man is very bad, then?" +</P><P> +"So bad that he can be no worse. The change that can happen is that +change which will take him beyond the reach of any earthly suffering." +</P><P> +"Strange!" exclaimed Robert. "He did not appear to be much burned." +</P><P> +"He was not much burnt. Had he been, I should never have recommended his +being removed from Mount Stanning. It is the shock that has done the +business. He has been in a raging fever for the last two days; but +to-night he is much calmer, and I'm afraid, before to-morrow night, we +shall have seen the last of him." +</P><P> +"He has asked to see me, I am told," said Mr. Audley. +</P><P> +"Yes," answered the surgeon, carelessly. "A sick man's fancy, no doubt. +You dragged him out of the house, and did your best to save his life. I +dare say, rough and boorish as the poor fellow is, he thinks a good deal +of that." +</P><P> +They had left the surgery, the door of which Mr. Dawson had locked +behind him. There was money in the till, perhaps, for surely the village +apothecary could not have feared that the most daring housebreaker would +imperil his liberty in the pursuit of blue pill and colocynth, of salts +and senna. +</P><P> +The surgeon led the way along the silent street, and presently turned +into a lane at the end of which Robert Audley saw the wan glimmer of a +light; a light which told of the watch that is kept by the sick and +dying; a pale, melancholy light, which always has a dismal aspect when +looked upon in this silent hour betwixt night and morning. It shone from +the window of the cottage in which Luke Marks lay, watched by his wife +and mother. +</P><P> +Mr. Dawson lifted the latch, and walked into the common room of the +little tenement, followed by Robert Audley. It was empty, but a feeble +tallow candle, with a broken back, and a long, cauliflower-headed wick, +sputtered upon the table. The sick man lay in the room above. +</P><P> +"Shall I tell him you are here?" asked Mr. Dawson. +</P><P> +"Yes, yes, if you please. But be cautious how you tell him, if you think +the news likely to agitate him. I am in no hurry. I can wait. You can +call me when you think I can safely come up-stairs." +</P><P> +The surgeon nodded, and softly ascended the narrow wooden stairs leading +to the upper chamber. +</P><P> +Robert Audley seated himself in a Windsor chair by the cold +hearth-stone, and stared disconsolately about him. But he was relieved +at last by the low voice of the surgeon, who looked down from the top of +the little staircase to tell him that Luke Marks was awake, and would be +glad to see him. +</P><P> +Robert immediately obeyed this summons. He crept softly up the stairs, +and took off his hat before he bent his head to enter at the low doorway +of the humble rustic chamber. He took off his hat in the presence of +this common peasant man, because he knew that there was another and a +more awful presence hovering about the room, and eager to be admitted. +</P><P> +Phoebe Marks was sitting at the foot of the bed, with her eyes fixed +upon her husband's face—not with any very tender expression in the pale +light, but with a sharp, terrified anxiety, which showed that it was the +coming of death itself that she dreaded, rather than the loss of her +husband. The old woman was busy at the fire-place, airing linen, and +preparing some mess of broth which it was not likely the patient would +ever eat. The sick man lay with his head propped up by pillows, his +coarse face deadly pale, and his great hands wandering uneasily about +the coverlet. Phoebe had been reading to him, for an open Testament lay +among the medicine and lotion bottles upon the table near the bed. Every +object in the room was neat and orderly, and bore witness of that +delicate precision which had always been a distinguishing characteristic +of Phoebe. +</P><P> +The young woman rose as Robert Audley crossed the threshold, and hurried +toward him. +</P><P> +"Let me speak to you for a moment, sir, before you talk to Luke," she +said, in an eager whisper. "Pray let me speak to you first." +</P><P> +"What's the gal a-sayin', there?" asked the invalid in a subdued roar, +which died away hoarsely on his lips. He was feebly savage, even in his +weakness. The dull glaze of death was gathering over his eyes, but they +still watched Phoebe with a sharp glance of dissatisfaction. "What's she +up to there?" he said. "I won't have no plottin' and no hatchin' agen +me. I want to speak to Mr. Audley my own self; and whatever I done I'm +goin' to answer for. If I done any mischief, I'm a-goin' to try and undo +it. What's she a-sayin'?" +</P><P> +"She ain't a-sayin' nothin', lovey," answered the old woman, going to +the bedside of her son, who even when made more interesting than usual +by illness, did not seem a very fit subject for this tender appellation. +</P><P> +"She's only a-tellin' the gentleman how bad you've been, my pretty." +</P><P> +"What I'm a-goin' to tell I'm only a-goin' to tell to him, remember," +growled Mr. Mark; "and ketch me a-tellin' of it to him if it warn't for +what he done for me the other night." +</P><P> +"To be sure not, lovey," answered the old woman soothingly. +</P><P> +Phoebe Marks had drawn Mr. Audley out of the room and onto the narrow +landing at the top of the little staircase. This landing was a platform +of about three feet square, and it was as much as the two could manage +to stand upon it without pushing each other against the whitewashed +wall, or backward down the stairs. +</P><P> +"Oh, sir, I wanted to speak to you so badly," Phoebe answered, eagerly; +"you know what I told you when I found you safe and well upon the night +of the fire?" +</P><P> +"Yes, yes." +</P><P> +"I told you what I suspected; what I think still." +</P><P> +"Yes, I remember." +</P><P> +"But I never breathed a word of it to anybody but you, sir, and I think +that Luke has forgotten all about that night; I think that what went +before the fire has gone clean out of his head altogether. He was tipsy, +you know, when my la—when she came to the Castle; and I think he was so +dazed and scared like by the fire that it all went out of his memory. He +doesn't suspect what I suspect, at any rate, or he'd have spoken of it +to anybody or everybody; but he's dreadful spiteful against my lady, for +he says if she'd have let him have a place at Brentwood or Chelmsford, +this wouldn't have happened. So what I wanted to beg of you, sir, is not +to let a word drop before Luke." +</P><P> +"Yes, yes, I understand; I will be careful." +</P><P> +"My lady has left the Court, I hear, sir?" +</P><P> +"Yes." +</P><P> +"Never to come back, sir?" +</P><P> +"Never to come back." +</P><P> +"But she has not gone where she'll be cruelly treated; where she'll be +ill-used?" +</P><P> +"No: she will be very kindly treated." +</P><P> +"I'm glad of that, sir; I beg your pardon for troubling you with the +question, sir, but my lady was a kind mistress to me." +</P><P> +Luke's voice, husky and feeble, was heard within the little chamber at +this period of the conversation, demanding angrily when "that gal would +have done jawing;" upon which Phoebe put her finger to her lips, and led +Mr. Audley back into the sick-room. +</P><P> +"I don't want <i>you</i>" said Mr. Marks, decisively, as his wife re-entered +the chamber—"I don't want <i>you</i>; you've no call to hear what I've got +to say—I only want Mr. Audley, and I wants to speak to him all alone, +with none o' your sneakin' listenin' at doors, d'ye hear? so you may go +down-stairs and keep there till you're wanted; and you may take +mother—no, mother may stay, I shall want her presently." +</P><P> +The sick man's feeble hand pointed to the door, through which his wife +departed very submissively. +</P><P> +"I've no wish to hear anything, Luke," she said, "but I hope you won't +say anything against those that have been good and generous to you." +</P><P> +"I shall say what I like," answered Mr. Marks, fiercely, "and I'm not +a-goin' to be ordered by you. You ain't the parson, as I've ever heerd +of; nor the lawyer neither." +</P><P> +The landlord of the Castle Inn had undergone no moral transformation by +his death-bed sufferings, fierce and rapid as they had been. Perhaps +some faint glimmer of a light that had been far off from his life now +struggled feebly through the black obscurities of ignorance that +darkened his soul. Perhaps a half angry, half sullen penitence urged him +to make some rugged effort to atone for a life that had been selfish and +drunken and wicked. Be it how it might he wiped his white lips, and +turning his haggard eyes earnestly upon Robert Audley, pointed to a +chair by the bedside. +</P><P> +"You made game of me in a general way, Mr. Audley," he said, presently, +"and you've drawed me out, and you've tumbled and tossed me about like +in a gentlemanly way, till I was nothink or anythink in your hands; and +you've looked me through and through, and turned me inside out till you +thought you knowed as much as I knowed. I'd no particular call to be +grateful to you, not before the fire at the Castle t'other night. But I +am grateful to you for that. I'm not grateful to folks in a general way, +p'r'aps, because the things as gentlefolks have give have a'most allus +been the very things I didn't want. They've give me soup, and tracks, +and flannel, and coals; but, Lord, they've made such a precious noise +about it that I'd have been to send 'em all back to 'em. But when a +gentleman goes and puts his own life in danger to save a drunken brute +like me, the drunkenest brute as ever was feels grateful like to that +gentleman, and wishes to say before he dies—which he sees in the +doctor's face as he ain't got long to live—'Thank ye, sir, I'm obliged +to you." +</P><P> +Luke Marks stretched out his left hand—the right hand had been injured +by the fire, and was wrapped in linen—and groped feebly for that of Mr. +Robert Audley. +</P><P> +The young man took the coarse but shrunken hand in both his own, and +pressed it cordially. +</P><P> +"I need no thanks, Luke Marks," he said; "I was very glad to be of +service to you." +</P><P> +Mr. Marks did not speak immediately. He was lying quietly upon his side, +staring reflectingly at Robert Audley. +</P><P> +"You was oncommon fond of that gent as disappeared at the Court, warn't +you, sir?" he said at last. +</P><P> +Robert started at the mention of his dead friend. +</P><P> +"You was oncommon fond of that Mr. Talboys, I've heard say, sir," +repeated Luke. +</P><P> +"Yes, yes," answered Robert, rather impatiently, "he was my very dear +friend." +</P><P> +"I've heard the servants at the Court say how you took on when you +couldn't find him. I've heered the landlord of the Sun Inn say how cut +up you was when you first missed him. 'If the two gents had been +brothers,' the landlord said, 'our gent,' meanin' you, sir, 'couldn't +have been more cut up when he missed the other.'" +</P><P> +"Yes, yes, I know, I know," said Robert; "pray do not speak any more of +this subject. I cannot tell you now much it distresses me." +</P><P> +Was he to be haunted forever by the ghost of his unburied friend? He +came here to comfort the sick man, and even here he was pursued by this +relentless shadow; even here he was reminded of the secret crime which +had darkened his life. +</P><P> +"Listen to me, Marks," he said, earnestly; "believe me that I appreciate +your grateful words, and that I am very glad to have been of service to +you. But before you say anything more, let me make one most solemn +request. If you have sent for me that you may tell me anything of the +fate of my lost friend, I entreat you to spare yourself and to spare me +that horrible story. You can tell me nothing which I do not already +know. The worst you can tell me of the woman who was once in your power, +has already been revealed to me by her own lips. Pray, then, be silent +upon this subject; I say again, you can tell me nothing which I do not +know." +</P><P> +Luke Marks looked musingly at the earnest face of his visitor, and some +shadowy expression, which was almost like a smile, flitted feebly across +the sick man's haggard features. +</P><P> +"I can't tell you nothin' you don't know?" he asked. +</P><P> +"Nothing." +</P><P> +"Then it ain't no good for me to try," said the invalid, thoughtfully. +"Did <i>she</i> tell you?" he asked, after a pause. +</P><P> +"I must beg, Marks, that you will drop the subject," Robert answered, +almost sternly. "I have already told you that I do not wish to hear it +spoken of. Whatever discoveries you made, you made your market out of +them. Whatever guilty secrets you got possession of, you were paid for +keeping silence. You had better keep silence to the end." +</P><P> +"Had I?" cried Luke Marks, in an eager whisper. "Had I really now better +hold my tongue to the last?" +</P><P> +"I think so, most decidedly. You traded on your secret, and you were +paid to keep it. It would be more honest to hold to your bargain, and +keep it still." +</P><P> +"But, suppose I want to tell something," cried Luke, with feverish +energy, "suppose I feel I can't die with a secret on my mind, and have +asked to see you on purpose that I might tell you; suppose that, and +you'll suppose nothing but the truth. I'd have been burnt alive before +I'd have told <i>her</i>." He spoke these words between his set teeth, and +scowled savagely as he uttered them. "I'd have been burnt alive first. I +made her pay for her pretty insolent ways; I made her pay for her airs +and graces; I'd never have told her—never, never! I had my power over +her, and I kept it; I had my secret and was paid for it; and there +wasn't a petty slight as she ever put upon me or mine that I didn't pay +her out for twenty times over!" +</P><P> +"Marks, Marks, for Heaven's sake be calm" said Robert, earnestly. "What +are you talking of? What is it that you could have told?" +</P><P> +"I'm a-goin to tell you," answered Luke, wiping his lips. "Give us a +drink, mother." +</P><P> +The old woman poured out some cooling drink into a mug, and carried it +to her son. +</P><P> +He drank it in an eager hurry, as if he felt that the brief remainder of +his life must be a race with the pitiless pedestrian, Time. +</P><P> +"Stop where you are," he said to his mother, pointing to a chair at the +foot of the bed. +</P><P> +The old woman obeyed, and seated herself meekly opposite to Mr. Audley. +</P><P> +"I'll ask you another question, mother," said Luke, "and I think it'll +be strange if you can't answer it. Do you remember when I was at work +upon Atkinson's farm; before I was married you know, and when I was +livin' down here along of you?" +</P><P> +"Yes, yes," Mrs. Marks answered, nodding triumphantly, "I remember that, +my dear. It were last fall, just about as the apples was bein' gathered +in the orchard across our lane, and about the time as you had your new +sprigged wesket. I remember, Luke, I remember." +</P><P> +Mr. Audley wondered where all this was to lead to, and how long he would +have to sit by the sick man's bed, hearing a conversation that had no +meaning to him. +</P><P> +"If you remember that much, maybe you'll remember more, mother," said +Luke. "Can you call to mind my bringing some one home here one night, +while Atkinsons was stackin' the last o' their corn?" +</P><P> +Once more Mr. Audley started violently, and this time he looked up +earnestly at the face of the speaker, and listened, with a strange, +breathless interest, that he scarcely understood himself, to what Luke +Marks was saying. +</P><P> +"I rek'lect your bringing home Phoebe," the old woman answered, with +great animation. "I rek'lect your bringin' Phoebe home to take a cup o' +tea, or a little snack o' supper, a mort o' times." +</P><P> +"Bother Phoebe," cried Mr. Marks, "who's a talkin' of Phoebe? What's +Phoebe, that anybody should go to put theirselves out about her? Do you +remember my bringin' home a gentleman after ten o'clock, one September +night; a gentleman as was wet through to the skin, and was covered with +mud and slush, and green slime and black muck, from the crown of his +head to the sole of his foot, and had his arm broke, and his shoulder +swelled up awful; and was such a objeck that nobody would ha' knowed +him; a gentleman as had to have his clothes cut off him in some places, +and as sat by the kitchen fire, starin' at the coals as if he had gone +mad or stupid-like, and didn't know where he was, or who he was; and as +had to be cared for like a baby, and dressed, and dried, and washed, and +fed with spoonfuls of brandy, that had to be forced between his locked +teeth, before any life could be got into him? Do you remember that, +mother?" +</P><P> +The old woman nodded, and muttered something to the effect that she +remembered all these circumstances most vividly, now that Luke happened +to mention them. +</P><P> +Robert Audley uttered a wild cry, and fell down upon his knees by the +side of the sick man's bed. +</P><P> +"My God!" he ejaculated, "I think Thee for Thy wondrous mercies. George +Talboys is alive!" +</P><P> +"Wait a bit," said Mr. Marks, "don't you be too fast. Mother, give us +down that tin box on the shelf over against the chest of drawers, will +you?" +</P><P> +The old woman obeyed, and after fumbling among broken teacups and +milk-jugs, lidless wooden cotton-boxes, and a miscellaneous litter of +rags and crockery, produced a tin snuff-box with a sliding lid; a +shabby, dirty-looking box enough. +</P><P> +Robert Audley still knelt by the bedside with his face hidden by his +clasped hands. Luke Marks opened the tin box. +</P><P> +"There ain't no money in it, more's the pity," he said, "or if there had +been it wouldn't have been let stop very long. But there's summat in it +that perhaps you'll think quite as valliable as money, and that's what +I'm goin' to give you as a proof that a drunken brute can feel thankful +to them as is kind to him." +</P><P> +He took out two folded papers, which he gave into Robert Audley's hands. +</P><P> +They were two leaves torn out of a pocket-book, and they were written +upon in pencil, and in a handwriting that was quite strange to Mr. +Audley—a cramped, stiff, and yet scrawling hand, such as some plowman +might have written. +</P><P> +"I don't know this writing," Robert said, as he eagerly unfolded the +first of the two papers. "What has this to do with my friend? Why do you +show me these?" +</P><P> +"Suppose you read 'em first," said Mr. Marks, "and ask me questions +about them afterwards." +</P><P> +The first paper which Robert Audley had unfolded contained the following +lines, written in that cramped, yet scrawling hand which was so strange +to him: +</P><P> +"MY DEAR FRIEND—I write to you in such utter confusion of mind as +perhaps no man ever before suffered. I cannot tell you what has happened +to me, I can only tell you that something has happened which will drive +me from England a broken-hearted man, to seek some corner of the earth +in which I may live and die unknown and forgotten. I can only ask you to +forget me. If your friendship could have done me any good, I would have +appealed to it. If your counsel could have been any help to me, I would +have confided in you. But neither friendship nor counsel can help me; +and all I can say to you is this, God bless you for the past, and teach +you to forget me in the future. G.T." +</P><P> +The second paper was addressed to another person, and its contents were +briefer than those of the first. +</P><P> +"HELEN—May God pity and forgive you for that which you have done +to-day, as truly as I do. Rest in peace. You shall never hear of me +again; to you and to the world I shall henceforth be that which you +wished me to be to-day. You need fear no molestation from me. I leave +England never to return. +</P><P> +"G.T." +</P><P> +Robert Audley sat staring at these lines in hopeless bewilderment. They +were not in his friend's familiar hand, and yet they purported to be +written by him and were signed with his initials. +</P><P> +He looked scrutinizingly at the face of Luke Marks, thinking that +perhaps some trick was being played upon him. +</P><P> +"This was not written by George Talboys," he said. +</P><P> +"It was," answered Luke Marks, "it was written by Mr. Talboys, every +line of it. He wrote it with his own hand; but it was his left hand, for +he couldn't use his right because of his broken arm." +</P><P> +Robert Audley looked up suddenly, and the shadow of suspicion passed +away from his face. +</P><P> +"I understand," he said, "I understand. Tell me all; tell me how it was +that my poor friend was saved." +</P><P> +"I was at work up at Atkinson's farm, last September," said Luke Marks, +"helping to stack the last of the corn, and as the nighest way from the +farm to mother's cottage was through the meadows at the back of the +Court, I used to come that way, and Phoebe used to stand in the garden +wall beyond the lime-walk sometimes, to have a chat with me, knowin' my +time o' comin' home. +</P><P> +"I don't know what Phoebe was a-doin' upon the evenin' of the seventh o' +September—I rek'lect the date because Farmer Atkinson paid me my wages +all of a lump on that day, and I'd had to sign a bit of a receipt for +the money he give me—I don't know what she was a-doin', but she warn't +at the gate agen the lime-walk, so I went round to the other side o' the +gardens and jumped across the dry ditch, for I wanted partic'ler to see +her that night, as I was goin' away to work upon a farm beyond +Chelmsford the next day. Audley church clock struck nine as I was +crossin' the meadows between Atkinson's and the Court, and it must have +been about a quarter past nine when I got into the kitchen garden. +</P><P> +"I crossed the garden, and went into the lime-walk; the nighest way to +the servants' hall took me through the shrubbery and past the dry well. +It was a dark night, but I knew my way well enough about the old place, +and the light in the window of the servants' hall looked red and +comfortable through the darkness. I was close against the mouth of the +dry well when I heard a sound that made my blood creep. It was a +groan—a groan of a man in pain, as was lyin' somewhere hid among the +bushes. I warn't afraid of ghosts and I warn't afraid of anythink in a +general way, but there was somethin in hearin' this groan as chilled me +to the very heart, and for a minute I was struck all of a heap, and +didn't know what to do. But I heard the groan again, and then I began to +search among the bushes. I found a man lyin' hidden under a lot o' +laurels, and I thought at first he was up to no good, and I was a-goin' +to collar him to take him to the house, when he caught me by the wrist +without gettin' up from the ground, but lookin' at me very earnest, as I +could see by the way his face was turned toward me in the darkness, and +asked me who I was, and what I was, and what I had to do with the folks +at the Court. +</P><P> +"There was somethin' in the way he spoke that told me he was a +gentleman, though I didn't know him from Adam, and couldn't see his +face; and I answered his questions civil. +</P><P> +"'I want to get away from this place,' he said, 'without bein' seen by +any livin' creetur, remember that. I've been lyin' here ever since four +o'clock to-day, and I'm half dead, but I want to get away without bein' +seen, mind that.' +</P><P> +"I told him that was easy enough, but I began to think my first thoughts +of him might have been right enough, after all, and that he couldn't +have been up to no good to want to sneak away so precious quiet. +</P><P> +"'Can you take me to any place where I can get a change of dry clothes,' +he says, 'without half a dozen people knowin' it?' +</P><P> +"He'd got up into a sittin' attitude by this time, and I could see that +his right arm hung close by his side, and that he was in pain. +</P><P> +"I pointed to his arm, and asked him what was the matter with it; but he +only answered, very quiet like: 'Broken, my lad, broken. Not that that's +much,' he says in another tone, speaking to himself like, more than to +me. 'There's broken hearts as well as broken limbs, and they're not so +easy mended.' +</P><P> +"I told him I could take him to mother's cottage, and that he could dry +his clothes there and welcome. +</P><P> +"'Can your mother keep a secret?' he asked. +</P><P> +"'Well, she could keep one well enough if she could remember it,' I told +him; 'but you might tell her all the secrets of the Freemasons, and +Foresters, and Buffalers and Oddfellers as ever was, to-night: and she'd +have forgotten all about 'em to-morrow mornin'.' +</P><P> +"He seemed satisfied with this, and he got himself up by holdin' on to +me, for it seemed as if his limbs was cramped, the use of 'em was almost +gone. I felt as he came agen me, that his clothes was wet and mucky. +</P><P> +"'You haven't been and fell into the fish-pond, have you, sir?' I asked. +</P><P> +"He made no answer to my question; he didn't seem even to have heard it. +I could see now he was standin' upon his feet that he was a tall, +fine-made man, a head and shoulders higher than me. +</P><P> +"'Take me to your mother's cottage,' he said, 'and get me some dry +clothes if you can; I'll pay you well for your trouble.' +</P><P> +"I knew that the key was mostly left in the wooden gate in the garden +wall, so I led him that way. He could scarcely walk at first, and it was +only by leanin' heavily upon my shoulder that he managed to get along. I +got him through the gate, leavin' it unlocked behind me, and trustin' to +the chance of that not bein' noticed by the under-gardener, who had the +care of the key, and was a careless chap enough. I took him across the +meadows, and brought him up here, still keepin' away from the village, +and in the fields, where there wasn't a creature to see us at that time +o' night; and so I got him into the room down-stairs, where mother was +a-sittin' over the fire gettin' my bit o' supper ready for me. +</P><P> +"I put the strange chap in a chair agen the fire, and then for the first +time I had a good look at him. I never see anybody in such a state +before. He was all over green damp and muck, and his hands was scratched +and cut to pieces. I got his clothes off him how I could, for he was +like a child in my hands, and sat starin' at the fire as helpless as any +baby; only givin' a long heavy sigh now and then, as if his heart was +a-goin' to bust. At last he dropped into a kind of a doze, a stupid sort +of sleep, and began to nod over the fire, so I ran and got a blanket and +wrapped him in it, and got him to lie down on the press bedstead in the +room under this. I sent mother to bed, and I sat by the fire and watched +him, and kep' the fire up till it was just upon daybreak, when he 'woke +up all of a sudden with a start, and said he must go, directly this +minute. +</P><P> +"I begged him not to think of such a thing and told him he warn't fit to +move for ever so long; but he said he must go, and he got up, and though +he staggered like, and at first could hardly stand steady two minutes +together, he wouldn't be beat, and he got me to dress him in his clothes +as I'd dried and cleaned as well as I could while he laid asleep. I did +manage it at last, but the clothes was awful spoiled, and he looked a +dreadful objeck, with his pale face and a great cut on his forehead that +I'd washed and tied up with a handkercher. He could only get his coat on +by buttoning it on round his neck, for he couldn't put a sleeve upon his +broken arm. But he held out agen everything, though he groaned every now +and then; and what with the scratches and bruises on his hands, and the +cut upon his forehead, and his stiff limbs and broken arm, he'd plenty +of call to groan; and by the time it was broad daylight he was dressed +and ready to go. +</P><P> +"'What's the nearest town to this upon the London road?' he asked me. +</P><P> +"I told him as the nighest town was Brentwood. +</P><P> +"'Very well, then,' he says, 'if you'll go with me to Brentwood, and +take me to some surgeon as'll set my arm, I'll give you a five pound +note for that and all your other trouble.' +</P><P> +"I told him that I was ready and willin' to do anything as he wanted +done; and asked him if I shouldn't go and see if I could borrow a cart +from some of the neighbors to drive him over in, for I told him it was a +good six miles' walk. +</P><P> +"He shook his head. No, no, no, he said, he didn't want anybody to know +anything about him; he'd rather walk it. +</P><P> +"He did walk it; and he walked like a good 'un, too; though I know as +every step he took o' them six miles he took in pain; but he held out as +he'd held out before; I never see such a chap to hold out in all my +blessed life. He had to stop sometimes and lean agen a gateway to get +his breath; but he held out still, till at last we got into Brentwood, +and then he says, 'Take me to the nighest surgeon's,' and I waited while +he had his arm set in splints, which took a precious long time. The +surgeon wanted him to stay in Brentwood till he was better, but he said +it warn't to be heard on, he must get up to London without a minute's +loss of time; so the surgeon made him as comfortable as he could, +considering and tied up his arm in a sling." +</P><P> +Robert Audley started. A circumstance connected with his visit to +Liverpool dashed suddenly back upon his memory. He remembered the clerk +who had called him back to say there was a passenger who took his berth +on board the <i>Victoria Regia</i> within an hour or so of the vessel's +sailing; a young man with his arm in a sling, who had called himself by +some common name, which Robert had forgotten. +</P><P> +"When his arm was dressed," continued Luke, "he says to the surgeon, +'Can you give me a pencil to write something before I go away?' The +surgeon smiles and shakes his head: 'You'll never be able to write with +that there hand to-day,' he says, pointin' to the arm as had just been +dressed. 'P'raps not,' the young chap answers, quiet enough, 'but I can +write with the other,' 'Can't I write it for you?' says the surgeon. +'No, thank you,' answers the other; 'what I've got to write is private. +If you can give me a couple of envelopes, I'll be obliged to you.' +</P><P> +"With that the surgeon goes to fetch the envelopes, and the young chap +takes a pocket-book out of his coat pocket with his left hand; the cover +was wet and dirty, but the inside was clean enough, and he tears out a +couple of leaves and begins to write upon 'em as you see; and he writes +dreadful awk'ard with his left hand, and he writes slow, but he +contrives to finish what you see, and then he puts the two bits o' +writin' into the envelopes as the surgeon brings him, and he seals 'em +up, and he puts a pencil cross upon one of 'em, and nothing on the +other: and then he pays the surgeon for his trouble, and the surgeon +says, ain't there nothin' more he can do for him, and can't he persuade +him to stay in Brentwood till his arm's better; but he says no, no, it +ain't possible; and then he says to me, 'Come along o' me to the railway +station, and I'll give you what I've promised.' +</P><P> +"So I went to the station with him. We was in time to catch the train as +stops at Brentwood at half after eight, and we had five minutes to +spare. So he takes me into a corner of the platform, and he says, 'I +wants you to deliver these here letters for me,' which I told him I was +willin'. 'Very well, then,' he says; 'look here; you know Audley Court?' +'Yes,' I says, 'I ought to, for my sweetheart lives lady's maid there.' +'Whose lady's maid?' he says. So I tells him, 'My lady's, the new lady +what was governess at Mr. Dawson's.' 'Very well, then,' he says; 'this +here letter with the cross upon the envelope is for Lady Audley, but +you're to be sure to give it into her own hands; and remember to take +care as nobody sees you give it.' I promises to do this, and he hands me +the first letter. And then he says, 'Do you know Mr. Audley, as is nevy +to Sir Michael?' and I said, 'Yes, I've heerd tell on him, and I've +heerd as he was a reg'lar swell, but affable and free-spoken' (for I +heerd 'em tell on you, you know)," Luke added, parenthetically. "'Now +look here,' the young chap says, 'you're to give this other letter to +Mr. Robert Audley, whose a-stayin' at the Sun Inn, in the village;' and +I tells him it's all right, as I've know'd the Sun ever since I was a +baby. So then he gives me the second letter, what's got nothing wrote +upon the envelope, and he gives me a five-pound note, accordin' to +promise; and then he says, 'Good-day, and thank you for all your +trouble,'and he gets into a second-class carriage; and the last I sees +of him is a face as white as a sheet of writin' paper, and a great patch +of stickin'-plaster criss-crossed upon his forehead." +</P><P> +"Poor George! poor George!" +</P><P> +"I went back to Audley, and I went straight to the Sun Inn, and asked +for you, meanin' to deliver both letters faithful, so help me God! then; +but the landlord told me as you'd started off that mornin' for London, +and he didn't know when you'd come back, and he didn't know the name o' +the place where you lived in London, though he said he thought it was in +one o' them law courts, such as Westminster Hall or Doctors' Commons, or +somethin' like that. So what was I to do? I couldn't send a letter by +post, not knowin' where to direct to, and I couldn't give it into your +own hands, and I'd been told partickler not to let anybody else know of +it; so I'd nothing to do but to wait and see if you come back, and bide +my time for givin' of it to you. +</P><P> +"I thought I'd go over to the Court in the evenin'and see Phoebe, and +find out from her when there'd be a chance of seein' her lady, for I +know'd she could manage it if she liked. So I didn't go to work that +day, though I ought to ha' done, and I lounged and idled about until it +was nigh upon dusk, and then I goes down to the meadows behind the +Court, and there I finds Phoebe sure enough, waitin' agen the wooden +door in the wall, on the lookout for me. +</P><P> +"I hadn't been talkin' to her long before I see there was somethink +wrong with her and I told her as much. +</P><P> +"Well,' she says, 'I ain't quite myself this evenin', for I had a upset +yesterday, and I ain't got over it yet.' +</P><P> +"'A upset,' I says. 'You had a quarrel with your missus, I suppose.' +</P><P> +"She didn't answer me directly, but she smiled the queerest smile as +ever I see, and presently she says: +</P><P> +"No, Luke, it weren't nothin' o' that kind; and what's more, nobody +could be friendlier toward me than my lady. I think she'd do any think +for me a'most; and I think, whether it was a bit o' farming stock and +furniture or such like, or whether it was the good-will of a +public-house, she wouldn't refuse me anythink as I asked her.' +</P><P> +"I couldn't make out this, for it was only a few days before as she'd +told me her missus was selfish and extravagant, and we might wait a long +time before we could get what we wanted from her. +</P><P> +"So I says to her, 'Why, this is rather sudden like, Phoebe;' and she +says, 'Yes, it is sudden;' and she smiles again, just the same sort of +smile as before. Upon that I turns round upon her sharp, and says: +</P><P> +"I'll tell you what it is, my gal, you're a-keepin' somethink from me; +somethink you've been told, or somethink you've found out; and if you +think you're a-goin' to try that game on with me, you'll find you're +very much mistaken; and so I give you warnin'." +</P><P> +"But she laughed it off like, and says, 'Lor' Luke, what could have put +such fancies into your head?' +</P><P> +"'Perhaps other people can keep secrets as well as you,' I said, 'and +perhaps other people can make friends as well as you. There was a +gentleman came here to see your missus yesterday, warn't there—a tall +young gentleman with a brown beard?' +</P><P> +"Instead of answering of me like a Christian, my Cousin Phoebe bursts +out a-cryin', and wrings her hands, and goes on awful, until I'm dashed +if I can make out what she's up to. +</P><P> +"But little by little I got it out of her, for I wouldn't stand no +nonsense; find she told me how she'd been sittin' at work at the window +of her little room, which was at the top of the house, right up in one +of the gables, and overlooked the lime-walk, and the shrubbery and the +well, when she see my lady walking with a strange gentleman, and they +walked together for a long time, until by-and-by they—" +</P><P> +"Stop!" cried Robert, "I know the rest." +</P><P> +"Well, Phoebe told me all about what she see, and she told me she'd met +her lady almost directly afterward, and somethin' had passed between +'em, not much, but enough to let her missus know that the servant what +she looked down upon had found out that as would put her in that +servant's power to the last day of her life. +</P><P> +"'And she is in my power, Luke,' says Phoebe; 'and she'll do anythin' in +the world for us if we keep her secret.' +</P><P> +"So you see both my Lady Audley and her maid thought as the gentleman as +I'd seen safe off by the London train was lying dead at the bottom of +the well. If I was to give the letter they'd find out the contrary of +this; and if I was to give the letter, Phoebe and me would lose the +chance of gettin' started in life by her missus. +</P><P> +"So I kep' the letter and kep' my secret, and my lady kep' hern. But I +thought if she acted liberal by me, and gave me the money I wanted, free +like, I'd tell her everythink, and make her mind easy. +</P><P> +"But she didn't. Whatever she give me she throwed me as if I'd been a +dog. Whenever she spoke to me, she spoke as she might have spoken to a +dog; and a dog she couldn't abide the sight of. There was no word in her +mouth that was too bad for me; there was no toss as she could give her +head that was too proud and scornful for me; and my blood b'iled agen +her, and I kep' my secret, and let her keep hern. I opened the two +letters, and I read 'em, but I couldn't make much sense out of 'em, and +I hid 'em away; and not a creature but me has seen 'em until this +night." +</P><P> +Luke Marks had finished his story, and lay quietly enough, exhausted by +having talked so long. He watched Robert Audley's face, fully expecting +some reproof, some grave lecture; for he had a vague consciousness that +he had done wrong. +</P><P> +But Robert did not lecture him; he had no fancy for an office which he +did not think himself fitted to perform. +</P><P> +Robert Audley sat until long after daybreak with the sick man, who fell +into a heavy slumber a short time after he had finished his story. The +old woman had dozed comfortably throughout her son's confession. Phoebe +was asleep upon the press bedstead in the room below; so the young +barrister was the only watcher. +</P><P> +He could not sleep; he could only think of the story he had heard. He +could only thank God for his friend's preservation, and pray that he +might be able to go to Clara Talboys, and say, "Your brother still +lives, and has been found." +</P><P> +Phoebe came up-stairs at eight o'clock, ready to take her place at the +sick-bed, and Robert Audley went away, to get a bed at the Sun Inn. It +was nearly dusk when he awoke out of a long dreamless slumber, and +dressed himself before dining in the little sitting-room, in which he +and George had sat together a few months before. +</P><P> +The landlord waited upon him at dinner, and told him that Luke Marks had +died at five o'clock that afternoon. "He went off rather sudden like," +the man said, "but very quiet." +</P><P> +Robert Audley wrote a long letter that evening, addressed to Madame +Taylor, care of Monsieur Val, Villebrumeuse; a long letter in which he +told the wretched woman who had borne so many names, and was to bear a +false one for the rest of her life, the story that the dying man had +told him. +</P><P> +"It may be some comfort to her to hear that her husband did not perish +in his youth by her wicked hand," he thought, "if her selfish soul can +hold any sentiment of pity or sorrow for others." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XL.</H2> +<H3>RESTORED.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Clara Talboys returned to Dorsetshire, to tell her father that his only +son had sailed for Australia upon the 9th of September, and that it was +most probable he yet lived, and would return to claim the forgiveness of +the father he had never very particularly injured; except in the matter +of having made that terrible matrimonial mistake which had exercised so +fatal an influence upon his youth. +</P><P> +Mr. Harcourt-Talboys was fairly nonplused. Junius Brutus had never been +placed in such a position as this, and seeing no way of getting out of +this dilemma by acting after his favorite model, Mr. Talboys was fain to +be natural for once in his life, and to confess that he had suffered +much uneasiness and pain of mind about his only son since his +conversation with Robert Audley, and that he would be heartily glad to +take his poor boy to his arms, whenever he should return to England. But +when was he likely to return? and how was he to be communicated with? +That was the question. Robert Audley remembered the advertisements which +he had caused to be inserted in the Melbourne and Sydney papers. If +George had re-entered either city alive, how was it that no notice had +ever been taken of that advertisement? Was it likely that his friend +would be indifferent to his uneasiness? But then, again, it was just +possible that George Talboys had not happened to see this advertisement; +and, as he had traveled under a feigned name, neither his fellow +passengers nor the captain of the vessel would have been able to +identify him with the person advertised for. What was to be done? Must +they wait patiently till George grew weary of his exile, and returned to +his friends who loved him? or were there any means to be taken by which +his return might be hastened? Robert Audley was at fault! Perhaps, in +the unspeakable relief of mind which he had experienced upon the +discovery of his friend's escape, he was unable to look beyond the one +fact of that providential preservation. +</P><P> +In this state of mind he went down to Dorsetshire to pay a visit to Mr. +Talboys, who had given way to a perfect torrent of generous impulses, +and had gone so far as to invite his son's friend to share the prim +hospitality of the square, red brick mansion. +</P><P> +Mr. Talboys had only two sentiments upon the subject of George's story; +one was a natural relief and happiness in the thought that his son had +been saved, the other was an earnest wish that my lady had been his +wife, and that he might thus have had the pleasure of making a signal +example of her. +</P><P> +"It is not for me to blame you, Mr. Audley," he said, "for having +smuggled this guilty woman out of the reach of justice, and thus, as I +may say, paltered with the laws of your country. I can only remark that, +had the lady fallen into my hands, she would have been very differently +treated." +</P><P> +It was in the middle of April when Robert Audley found himself once more +under those black fir-trees beneath which his wandering thoughts had so +often stayed since his first meeting with Clara Talboys. There were +primroses and early violets in the hedges now, and the streams, which, +upon his first visit, had been hard and frost-bound as the heart of +Harcourt Talboys, had thawed, like that gentleman, and ran merrily under +the blackthorn bushes in the capricious April sunshine. +</P><P> +Robert had a prim bedroom, and an uncompromising dressing-room allotted +him in the square house, and he woke every morning upon a metallic +spring mattress, which always gave him the idea of sleeping upon some +musical instrument, to see the sun glaring in upon him through the +square, white blinds and lighting up the two lackered urns which adorned +the foot of the blue iron bedstead, until they blazed like two tiny +brazen lamps of the Roman period. He emulated Mr. Harcourt Talboys in +the matter of shower-baths and cold water, and emerged prim and blue as +that gentleman himself, as the clock in the hall struck seven, to join +the master of the house in his ante-breakfast constitutional under the +fir-trees in the stiff plantation. +</P><P> +But there was generally a third person who assisted in the +constitutional promenades, and that third person was Clara Talboys, who +used to walk by her father's side, more beautiful than the morning—for +that was sometimes dull and cloudy, while she was always fresh and +bright—in a broad-leaved straw-hat and flapping blue ribbons, one +quarter of an inch of which Mr. Audley would have esteemed a prouder +decoration than ever adorned a favored creature's button-hole. +</P><P> +At first they were very ceremonious toward each other, and were only +familiar and friendly upon the one subject of George's adventures; but +little by little a pleasant intimacy arose between them, and before the +first three weeks of Robert's visit had elapsed, Miss Talboys made him +happy, by taking him seriously in hand and lecturing him on the +purposeless life he had led so long, and the little use he had made of +the talents and opportunities that had been given to him. +</P><P> +How pleasant it was to be lectured by the woman he loved! How pleasant +it was to humiliate himself and depreciate himself before her! How +delightful it was to get such splendid opportunities of hinting that if +his life had been sanctified by an object he might indeed have striven +to be something better than an idle <i>flaneur</i> upon the smooth pathways +that have no particular goal; that, blessed by the ties which would have +given a solemn purpose to every hour of his existence, he might indeed +have fought the battle earnestly and unflinchingly. He generally wound +up with a gloomy insinuation to the effect that it was only likely he +would drop quietly over the edge of the Temple Gardens some afternoon +when the river was bright and placid in the low sunlight, and the little +children had gone home to their tea. +</P><P> +"Do you think I can read French novels and smoke mild Turkish until I am +three-score-and-ten, Miss Talboys?" he asked. "Do you think there will +not come a day in which my meerschaums will be foul, and the French +novels more than usually stupid, and life altogether such a dismal +monotony that I shall want to get rid of it somehow or other?" +</P><P> +I am sorry to say that while this hypocritical young barrister was +holding forth in this despondent way, he had mentally sold up his +bachelor possessions, including all Michel Levy's publications, and half +a dozen solid silver-mounted meerschaums; pensioned off Mrs. Maloney, +and laid out two or three thousand pounds in the purchase of a few acres +of verdant shrubbery and sloping lawn, embosomed amid which there should +be a fairy cottage <i>ornee</i>, whose rustic casements should glimmer out of +bowers of myrtle and clematis to see themselves reflected in the purple +bosom of the lake. +</P><P> +Of course, Clara Talboys was far from discovering the drift of these +melancholy lamentations. She recommended Mr. Audley to read hard and +think seriously of his profession, and begin life in real earnest. It +was a hard, dry sort of existence, perhaps, which she recommended; a +life of serious work and application, in which he should strive to be +useful to his fellow-creatures, and win a reputation for himself. +</P><P> +"I'd do all that," he thought, "and do it earnestly, if I could be sure +of a reward for my labor. If she would accept my reputation when it was +won, and support me in the struggle by her beloved companionship. But +what if she sends me away to fight the battle, and marries some hulking +country squire while my back is turned?" +</P><P> +Being naturally of a vacillating and dilatory disposition, there is no +saying how long Mr. Audley might have kept his secret, fearful to speak +and break the charm of that uncertainty which, though not always +hopeful, was very seldom quite despairing, had not he been hurried by +the impulse of an unguarded moment into a full confession of the truth. +</P><P> +He had stayed five weeks at Grange Heath, and felt that he could not, in +common decency, stay any longer; so he had packed his portmanteau one +pleasant May morning, and had announced his departure. +</P><P> +Mr. Talboys was not the sort of man to utter any passionate lamentations +at the prospect of losing his guest, but he expressed himself with a +cool cordiality which served with him as the strongest demonstration of +friendship. +</P><P> +"We have got on very well together, Mr. Audley," he said, "and you have +been pleased to appear sufficiently happy in the quiet routine of our +orderly household; nay, more, you have conformed to our little domestic +regulations in a manner which I cannot refrain from saying I take as an +especial compliment to myself." +</P><P> +Robert bowed. How thankful he was to the good fortune which had never +suffered him to oversleep the signal of the clanging bell, or led him +away beyond the ken of clocks at Mr. Talboys' luncheon hour. +</P><P> +"I trust as we have got on so remarkably well together," Mr. Talboys +resumed, "you will do me the honor of repeating your visit to +Dorsetshire whenever you feel inclined. You will find plenty of sport +among my farms, and you will meet with every politeness and attention +from my tenants, if you like to bring your gun with you." +</P><P> +Robert responded most heartily to these friendly overtures. He declared +that there was no earthly occupation that was more agreeable to him than +partridge-shooting, and that he should be only too delighted to avail +himself of the privilege so kindly offered to him. He could not help +glancing toward Clara as he said this. The perfect lids drooped a little +over the brown eyes, and the faintest shadow of a blush illuminated the +beautiful face. +</P><P> +But this was the young barrister's last day in Elysium, and there must +be a dreary interval of days and nights and weeks and months before the +first of September would give him an excuse for returning to +Dorsetshire; a dreary interval which fresh colored young squires or fat +widowers of eight-and-forty, might use to his disadvantage. It was no +wonder, therefore, that he contemplated this dismal prospect with moody +despair, and was bad company for Miss Talboys that morning. +</P><P> +But in the evening after dinner, when the sun was low in the west, and +Harcourt Talboys closeted in his library upon some judicial business +with his lawyer and a tenant farmer, Mr. Audley grew a little more +agreeable. He stood by Clara's side in one of the long windows of the +drawing-room, watching the shadows deepening in the sky and the rosy +light growing every moment rosier as the sun died out. He could not help +enjoying that quiet <i>tete-a-tete</i>, though the shadow of the next +morning's express which was to carry him away to London loomed darkly +across the pathway of his joy. He could not help being happy in her +presence; forgetful of the past, reckless of the future. +</P><P> +They talked of the one subject which was always a bond of union between +them. They talked of her lost brother George. She spoke of him in a very +melancholy tone this evening. How could she be otherwise than sad, +remembering that if he lived—and she was not even sure of that—he was +a lonely wanderer far away from all who loved him, and carrying the +memory of a blighted life wherever he went. +</P><P> +"I cannot think how papa can be so resigned to my poor brother's +absence," she said, "for he does love him, Mr. Audley; even you must +have seen lately that he does love him. But I cannot think how he can so +quietly submit to his absence. If I were a man, I would go to Australia, +and find him, and bring him back; if he was still to be found among the +living," she added, in a lower voice. +</P><P> +She turned her face away from Robert, and looked out at the darkening +sky. He laid his hand upon her arm. It trembled in spite of him, and his +voice trembled, too, as he spoke to her. +</P><P> +"Shall <i>I</i> go to look for your brother?" he said. +</P><P> +"<i>You!</i>" She turned her head, and looked at him earnestly through her +tears. "You, Mr. Audley! Do you think that I could ask you to make such +a sacrifice for me, or for those I love?" +</P><P> +"And do you think, Clara, that I should think any sacrifice too great a +one if it were made for you? Do you think there is any voyage I would +refuse to take, if I knew that you would welcome me when I came home, +and thank me for having served you faithfully? I will go from one end of +the continent of Australia to the other to look for your brother, if you +please, Clara; and will never return alive unless I bring him with me, +and will take my chance of what reward you shall give me for my labor." +</P><P> +Her head was bent, and it was some moments before she answered him. +</P><P> +"You are very good and generous, Mr. Audley," she said, at last, "and I +feel this offer too much to be able to thank you for it. But what you +speak of could never be. By what right could I accept such a sacrifice?" +</P><P> +"By the right which makes me your bounden slave forever and ever, +whether you will or no. By right of the love I bear you, Clara," cried +Mr. Audley, dropping on his knees—rather awkwardly, it must be +confessed—and covering a soft little hand, that he had found half +hidden among the folds of a silken dress, with passionate kisses. +</P><P> +"I love you, Clara," he said, "I love you. You may call for your father, +and have me turned out of the house this moment, if you like; but I +shall go on loving you all the same; and I shall love you forever and +ever, whether you will or no." +</P><P> +The little hand was drawn away from his, but not with a sudden or angry +gesture, and it rested for one moment lightly and tremulously upon his +dark hair. +</P><P> +"Clara, Clara!" he murmured, in a low, pleading voice, "shall I go to +Australia to look for your brother?" +</P><P> +There was no answer. I don't know how it is, but there is scarcely +anything more delicious than silence in such cases. Every moment of +hesitation is a tacit avowal; every pause is a tender confession. +</P><P> +"Shall we both go, dearest? Shall we go as man and wife? Shall we go +together, my dear love, and bring our brother back between us?" +</P><P> +Mr. Harcourt Talboys, coming into the lamplit room a quarter of an hour +afterward, found Robert Audley alone, and had to listen to a revelation +which very much surprised him. Like all self-sufficient people, he was +tolerably blind to everything that happened under his nose, and he had +fully believed that his own society, and the Spartan regularity of his +household, had been the attractions which had made Dorsetshire +delightful to his guest. +</P><P> +He was rather disappointed, therefore; but he bore his disappointment +pretty well, and expressed a placid and rather stoical satisfaction at +the turn which affairs had taken. +</P><P> +So Robert Audley went back to London, to surrender his chambers in +Figtree Court, and to make all due inquiries about such ships as sailed +from Liverpool for Sydney in the month of June. +</P><P> +He had lingered until after luncheon at Grange Heath, and it was in the +dusky twilight that he entered the shady Temple courts and found his way +to his chambers. He found Mrs. Maloney scrubbing the stairs, as was her +wont upon a Saturday evening, and he had to make his way upward amidst +an atmosphere of soapy steam, that made the balusters greasy under his +touch. +</P><P> +"There's lots of letters, yer honor," the laundress said, as she rose +from her knees and flattened herself against the wall to enable Robert +to pass her, "and there's some parcels, and there's a gentleman which +has called ever so many times, and is waitin' to-night, for I towld him +you'd written to me to say your rooms were to be aired." +</P><P> +He opened the door of his sitting-room, and walked in. The canaries were +singing their farewell to the setting sun, and the faint, yellow light +was flickering upon the geranium leaves. The visitor, whoever he was, +sat with his back to the window and his head bent upon his breast. But +he started up as Robert Audley entered the room, and the young man +uttered a great cry of delight and surprise, and opened his arms to his +lost friend, George Talboys. +</P><P> +We know how much Robert had to tell. He touched lightly and tenderly +upon that subject which he knew was cruelly painful to his friends; he +said very little of the wretched woman who was wearing out the remnant +of her wicked life in the quiet suburb of the forgotten Belgian city. +</P><P> +George Talboys spoke very briefly of that sunny seventh of September, +upon which he had left his friend sleeping by the trout stream while he +went to accuse his false wife of that conspiracy which had well nigh +broken his heart. +</P><P> +"God knows that from the moment in which I sunk into the black pit, +knowing the treacherous hand that had sent me to what might have been my +death, my chief thought was of the safety of the woman who had betrayed +me. I fell upon my feet upon a mass of slush and mire, but my shoulder +was bruised, and my arm broken against the side of the well. I was +stunned and dazed for a few minutes, but I roused myself by an effort, +for I felt that the atmosphere I breathed was deadly. I had my +Australian experiences to help me in my peril; I could climb like a cat. +The stones of which the well was built were rugged and irregular, and I +was able to work my way upward by planting my feet in the interstices of +the stones, and resting my back at times against the opposite side of +the well, helping myself as well as I could with my hands, though one +arm was crippled. It was hard work, Bob, and it seems strange that a man +who had long professed himself weary of his life, should take so much +trouble to preserve it. I think I must have been working upward of half +an hour before I got to the top; I know the time seemed an eternity of +pain and peril. It was impossible for me to leave the place until after +dark without being observed, so I hid myself behind a clump of +laurel-bushes, and lay down on the grass faint and exhausted to wait for +nightfall. The man who found me there told you the rest. Robert." +</P><P> +"Yes, my poor old friend.—yes, he told me all." +</P><P> +George had never returned to Australia after all. He had gone on board +the <i>Victoria Regia</i>, but had afterward changed his berth for one in +another vessel belonging to the same owners, and had gone to New York, +where he had stayed as long as he could endure the loneliness of an +existence which separated him from every friend he had ever known. +</P><P> +"Jonathan was very kind to me, Bob," he said; "I had enough money to +enable me to get on pretty well in my own quiet way and I meant to have +started for the California gold fields to get more when that was gone. I +might have made plenty of friends had I pleased, but I carried the old +bullet in my breast; and what sympathy could I have with men who knew +nothing of my grief? I yearned for the strong grasp of your hand, Bob; +the friendly touch of the hand which had guided me through the darkest +passage of my life." +</P> +<CENTER> +<HR size=1 width=80> +<H2>CHAPTER XLI.</H2> +<H3>AT PEACE.</H3> +</CENTER> +<P> +Two years have passed since the May twilight in which Robert found his +old friend; and Mr. Audley's dream of a fairy cottage has been realized +between Teddington Locks and Hampton Bridge, where, amid a little forest +of foliage, there is a fantastical dwelling place of rustic woodwork, +whose latticed windows look out upon the river. Here, among the lilies +and the rushes on the sloping bank, a brave boy of eight years old plays +with a toddling baby, who peers wonderingly from his nurse's arms at +that other baby in the purple depth of the quiet water. +</P><P> +Mr. Audley is a rising man upon the home circuit by this time, and has +distinguished himself in the great breach of promise case of Hobbs <i>v.</i> +Nobbs, and has convulsed the court by his deliciously comic rendering of +the faithless Nobb's amatory correspondence. The handsome dark-eyed boy +is Master George Talboys, who declines <i>musa</i> at Eton, and fishes for +tadpoles in the clear water under the spreading umbrage beyond the ivied +walls of the academy. But he comes very often to the fairy cottage to +see his father, who lives there with his sister and his sister's +husband; and he is very happy with his Uncle Robert, his Aunt Clara, and +the pretty baby who has just begun to toddle on the smooth lawn that +slopes down to the water's brink, upon which there is a little Swiss +boat-house and landing-stage where Robert and George moor their slender +wherries. +</P><P> +Other people come to the cottage near Teddington. A bright, +merry-hearted girl, and a gray-bearded gentleman, who has survived he +trouble of his life, and battled with it as a Christian should. +</P><P> +It is more than a year since a black-edged letter, written upon foreign +paper, came to Robert Audley, to announce the death of a certain Madame +Taylor, who had expired peacefully at Villebrumeuse, dying after a long +illness, which Monsieur Val describes as a <i>maladie de langueur</i>. +</P><P> +Another visitor comes to the cottage in this bright summer of 1861—a +frank, generous hearted young man, who tosses the baby and plays with +Georgey, and is especially great in the management of the boats, which +are never idle when Sir Harry Towers is at Teddington. +</P><P> +There is a pretty rustic smoking-room over the Swiss boat-house, in +which the gentlemen sit and smoke in the summer evenings, and whence +they are summoned by Clara and Alicia to drink tea, and eat strawberries +and cream upon the lawn. +</P><P> +Audley Court is shut up, and a grim old housekeeper reigns paramount in +the mansion which my lady's ringing laughter once made musical. A +curtain hangs before the pre-Raphaelite portrait; and the blue mold +which artists dread gathers upon the Wouvermans and Poussins, the Cuyps +and Tintorettis. The house is often shown to inquisitive visitors, +though the baronet is not informed of that fact, and people admire my +lady's rooms, and ask many questions about the pretty, fair-haired woman +who died abroad. +</P><P> +Sir Michael has no fancy to return to the familiar dwelling-place in +which he once dreamed a brief dream of impossible happiness. He remains +in London until Alicia shall be Lady Towers, when he is to remove to a +house he has lately bought in Hertfordshire, on the borders of his +son-in-law's estate. George Talboys is very happy with his sister and +his old friend. He is a young man yet, remember, and it is not quite +impossible that he may, by-and-by, find some one who will console him +for the past. That dark story of the past fades little by little every +day, and there may come a time in which the shadow my lady's wickedness +has cast upon the young man's life will utterly vanish away. +</P><P> +The meerschaum and the French novels have been presented to a young +Templar with whom Robert Audley had been friendly in his bachelor days; +and Mrs. Maloney has a little pension, paid her quarterly, for her care +of the canaries and geraniums. +</P><P> +I hope no one will take objection to my story because the end of it +leaves the good people all happy and at peace. If my experience of life +has not been very long, it has at least been manifold; and I can safely +subscribe to that which a mighty king and a great philosopher declared, +when he said, that neither the experience of his youth nor of his age +had ever shown him "the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their +bread." +</P> +<CENTER><H3>THE END.</H3></CENTER> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Lady Audley's Secret, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET *** + +This file should be named 8lasc10h.htm or 8lasc10h.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8lasc11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8lasc10ah.htm + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Janice Piette and Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart hart@pobox.com + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> |