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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Charlotte's Inheritance, by M. E. Braddon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Charlotte's Inheritance
+
+Author: M. E. Braddon
+
+Posting Date: August 8, 2012 [EBook #9259]
+Release Date: November, 2005
+First Posted: September 15, 2003
+[Last updated: August 10, 2013]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Mary Meehan and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE
+
+                                   By
+
+                             M. E. Braddon
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+Book the First.
+
+DE PROFUNDIS.
+
+   I.  LENOBLE OF BEAUBOCAGE
+
+  II.  IN THIS WIDE WORLD I STAND ALONE
+
+ III.  PAST HOPE, AND IN DESPAIR
+
+  IV.  A DECREE OF BANISHMENT
+
+
+Book the Second.
+
+DOWNHILL.
+
+   I.  THE FATE OF SUSAN LENOBLE
+
+  II.  FORGIVEN TOO LATE
+
+ III.  GUSTAVE THE SECOND
+
+
+Book the Third.
+
+THE HORATIAD.
+
+   I.  CHIEFLY RETROSPECTIVE
+
+  II.  EPISTOLARY
+
+ III.  TOO CLEVER FOR A CATSPAW
+
+  IV.  CAPTAIN PAGET IS PATERNAL
+
+   V.  THE CAPTAIN'S COADJUTOR
+
+
+Book the Fourth.
+
+GUSTAVE IN ENGLAND.
+
+   I.  HALCYON DAYS
+
+  II.  CAPTAIN PAGET AWAKENS TO A SENSE OF HIS DUTY
+
+ III.  WHAT DO WE HERE, MY HEART AND I?
+
+  IV.  SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH
+
+
+Book the Fifth.
+
+THE FIRST ACT OF MR. SHELDON'S DRAMA.
+
+   I.  TAKEN BY STORM
+
+  II.  FIRM AS A ROCK
+
+ III.  AGAINST WIND AND TIDE
+
+  IV.  DIANA ASKS FOR A HOLIDAY
+
+   V.  ASSURANCE DOUBLY SURE
+
+
+Book the Sixth.
+
+DIANA IN NORMANDY.
+
+   I.  AT CÔTENOIR
+
+
+Book the Seventh.
+
+A CLOUD OF FEAR.
+
+   I.  THE BEGINNING OF SORROW
+
+  II.  FADING
+
+ III.  MRS. WOOLPER IS ANXIOUS
+
+  IV.  VALENTINE'S SKELETON
+
+   V.  AT HAROLD'S HILL
+
+  VI.  DESPERATE MEASURES
+
+
+Book the Eighth.
+
+A FIGHT AGAINST TIME.
+
+   I.  A DREAD REVELATION
+
+  II.  PHOENICIANS ARE RISING
+
+ III.  THE SORTES VIRGILIANÆ
+
+
+Book the Ninth.
+
+THROUGH THE FURNACE.
+
+   I.  SOMETHING TOO MUCH
+
+  II.  DR. JEDD'S OPINION
+
+ III.  NON DORMIT JUDAS
+
+  IV.  COUNTING THE COST
+
+   V.  THE BEGINNING OF THE END
+
+  VI.  CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED
+
+ VII.  THERE IS A WORD WILL PRIAM TURN TO STONE
+
+
+Book the Tenth.
+
+HARBOUR, AFTER MANY SHIPWRECKS.
+
+   I.  OUT OF THE DARK VALLEY
+
+  II.  AFTER THE WEDDING
+
+ III.  GREEK AGAINST GREEK
+
+  IV.  ONLY A DREAM
+
+   V.  BOHEMIAN INDEPENDENCE
+
+  VI.  BEYOND THE VEIL
+
+ VII.  BETTER THAN GOLD
+
+VIII. LOST SIGHT OF
+
+  IX.  ETEOCLES AND POLYNICES
+
+   X.  "ACCORDING TO THEIR DEEDS."
+
+
+
+
+CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE
+
+
+
+Book the first.
+
+
+
+DE PROFUNDIS.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+LENOBLE OF BEAUBOCAGE.
+
+In the days when the Bourbon reigned over Gaul, before the "simple,
+sensuous, passionate" verse of Alfred de Musset had succeeded the
+_débonnaire_ Muse of Béranger in the affections of young France,--in days
+when the site of the Trocadero was a remote and undiscovered country, and
+the word "exposition" unknown in the Academic dictionary, and the Gallic
+Augustus destined to rebuild the city yet an exile,--a young law-student
+boarded, in common with other students, in a big dreary-looking house at
+the corner of the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle, abutting on the Place Lauzun,
+and within some ten minutes walk of the Luxembourg. It was a very dingy
+quarter, though noble gentlemen and lovely ladies had once occupied the
+great ghastly mansions, and disported themselves in the gruesome gardens.
+But the young students were in nowise oppressed by the ghastliness of
+their abode. They sang their Béranger, and they pledged each other in
+cheap Bordeaux, and clinked their glasses noisily in their boisterous
+good-fellowship, and ate the messes compounded for them in a darksome
+cupboard, known as the kitchen, by old Nanon the cook, purblind,
+stone-deaf, and all but imbecile, and popularly supposed to be the
+venerable mother of Madame Magnotte. The youngsters grumbled to each
+other about the messes when they were unusually mysterious; and it must
+be owned that there were _vol-au-vents_ and _fricandeaux_ consumed in
+that establishment which were awful and wonderful in their nature; but
+they ventured on no complaint to the mistress of the mansion. She was a
+grim and terrible personage. Her terms were low, and she treated her
+boarders _de haute en bas_. If they were not content with her viands,
+they might go and find more agreeable viands elsewhere.
+
+Madame Magnotte was altogether mysterious and inscrutable. Some people
+said that she was a countess, and that the wealth and lands of her family
+had been confiscated by the committee of public unsafety in '93. Others
+declared that she had been a popular actress in a small theatre in the
+days of Napoleon. She was tall and thin--nay, of an exceptional
+leanness--and her complexion was of a more agreeable yellow than the
+butter that appeared on her hospitable board; but she had flashing black
+eyes, and a certain stateliness of gait and grandeur of manner that
+impressed those young Bohemians, her boarders, with a kind of awe. They
+talked of her as the "countess," and by that name she was known to all
+inmates of the mansion; but in all their dealings with her they treated
+her with unfailing respect.
+
+One of the quietest among the young men who enjoyed the privileges of
+Madame Magnotte's abode was a certain Gustave Lenoble, a law-student, the
+only son of a very excellent couple who lived on their own estate, near
+an obscure village in Normandy. The estate was of the smallest; a
+dilapidated old house, known in the immediate neighbourhood as "the
+Château," and very dear to those who resided therein; a garden, in which
+everything seemed to have run to seed; and about forty acres of the
+poorest land in Normandy. These possessions constituted the patrimonial
+estate of François Lenoble, _propriétaire_, of Beaubocage, near
+Vevinordin, the department of Eure.
+
+The people amongst whom the good man lived his simple life called him M.
+Lenoble de Beaubocage, but he did not insist upon this distinction; and
+on sending out his only son to begin the battle of life in the great
+world of Paris, he recommended the young man to call himself Lenoble,
+_tout court_.
+
+The young man had never cherished any other design. He was of all
+creatures the least presuming or pretentious. The father was Legitimist
+to the very marrow; the son half Buonapartist, half republican. The
+father and son had quarrelled about these differences of opinion
+sometimes in a pleasantly disputatious manner; but no political
+disagreement could lesser the love between these two. Gustave loved
+his parents as only a Frenchman can venture to love his father and
+mother--with a devotion for the gentleman that bordered on enthusiasm,
+with a fond reverence for the lady that was the very essence of chivalry.
+There was a sister, who regarded her brother Gustave as the embodiment of
+all that is perfect in youthful mankind; and there were a couple of old
+house-servants, a very stupid clumsy lad in the stables, and half a dozen
+old mongrel dogs, born and bred on the premises, who seemed to share the
+young lady's opinions. There was not a little discussion upon the subject
+of Gustave Lenoble's future career; and it was not without difficulty
+that the father could be persuaded to approve the choice of a profession
+which the young man had made. The seigneur of Beaubocage cherished an
+exaggerated pride of race little suspected by those who saw his simple
+life, and were pleased by his kindly unaffected manners. The house of
+Lenoble, at some remote and almost mythical period of history, had
+distinguished itself in divers ways; and those bygone grandeurs, vague
+and shadowy in the minds of all others, seemed very real to Monsieur
+Lenoble. He assured his son that no Lenoble had ever been a lawyer. They
+had been always lords of the soil, living on their own lands, which had
+once stretched wide and far in that Norman province; a fact proved by
+certain maps in M. Lenoble's possession, the paper whereof was worn and
+yellow with age. They had stooped to no profession save that of arms. One
+seigneur of Beaubocage had fought under Bayard himself; another had
+fallen at Pavia, on that great day when all was lost _hormis l'honneur_;
+another had followed the white plume of the Bernais; another--but was
+there any need to tell of the glories of that house upon which Gustave
+was so eager to inflict the disgrace of a learned profession?
+
+Thus argued the father; but the mother had spent her girlhood amidst the
+clamour of the Buonapartist campaigns, and the thought of war was very
+terrible to her. The memory of the retreat from Russia was not yet twenty
+years old. There were men alive to tell the story, to depict those days
+and nights of horror, that mighty march of death. It was she and her
+daughter Cydalise who had helped to persuade Gustave that he was born to
+distinguish himself in the law. They wanted him to study in Paris--the
+young man himself had a wild desire to enjoy the delights of that
+wondrous capital--and to return in a few years to set up for himself as
+_avocat_ at the town of Vevinord, some half-dozen leagues from the
+patrimonial estate. He was created to plead for the innocent, to denounce
+the guilty, to be grand and brave and fiery-hot with enthusiasm in
+defence of virtuous peasants charged unjustly with the stealing of sheep,
+or firing of corn-ricks. It never struck these simple souls that he might
+sometimes be called upon to defend the guilty, or to denounce the
+innocent.
+
+It was all settled at last. Gustave was to go to Paris, and enter himself
+as a student of law. There were plenty of boarding-houses in the
+neighbourhood of the Ecole de Droit where a young man might find a home;
+and to one of these Gustave was recommended by a friend of his family. It
+was the Pension Magnotte to which they had sent him, the big dreary
+house, _entre cour et jardin_, which had once been so grand and noble. A
+printer now occupied the lower chambers, and a hand painted on the wall
+pointed to the _Pension Magnotte, au premier. Tirez le cordon, s.v.p._
+
+Gustave was twenty-one years of age when he came to Paris; tall,
+stalwart, broad of shoulders and deep of chest, with a fair frank face,
+an auburn moustache, candid, kind blue eyes--a physiognomy rather Saxon
+than Celtic. He was a man who made friends quickly, and was soon at home
+among the students, roaring their favourite songs, and dancing their
+favourite dances at the dancing-places of that day, joining with a
+pleasant heartiness in all their innocent dissipations. For guilty
+dissipation the young provincial had no taste. Did he not carry the
+images of two kind and pure women about with him wherever he went, like
+two attendant angels ever protecting his steps; and could he leave them
+sorrowing on thresholds _they_ could not pass? Ah, no! He was loud and
+boisterous and wild of spirits in those early days, but incapable of
+meanness or vice.
+
+"It is a brave heart," Madame Magnotte said of him, "though for the
+breaking of glasses a scourge--_un fléau_."
+
+The ladies of the Pension Magnotte were for the most part of mature age
+and unattractive appearance--two or three lonely spinsters, eking out
+their pitiful little incomes as best they might, by the surreptitious
+sale of delicate embroideries, confectioned in their dismal leisure; and
+a fat elderly widow, popularly supposed to be enormously rich, but of
+miserly propensities. "It is the widow of Harpagon himself," Madame
+Magnotte told her gossips--an old woman with two furiously ugly
+daughters, who for the last fifteen years had lived a nomadic life in
+divers boarding-houses, fondly clinging to the hope that, amongst so many
+strange bachelors, husbands for these two solitary ones must at last be
+found.
+
+These, with a pale young lady who gave music lessons in the quarter, were
+all the feminine inmates of the mansion; and amongst these Gustave
+Lenoble was chief favourite. His tender courtesy for these lonely women
+seemed in some manner an evidence of that good old blood whereof the
+young man's father boasted. Francis the First, who listened with bent
+knee and bare head to his mother's discourse, was not more reverential to
+that noble Savoyarde than was Gustave to the shabby-genteel maiden ladies
+of the Pension Magnotte. In truth, this young man had a heart pitiful and
+tender as the heart of woman. To be unfortunate was to possess a sure
+claim upon his pity and regard; to be poor and friendless was the best
+appeal to his kindness. He spent his evenings sometimes in the great
+dreary desert of a salon, and listened respectfully while Mademoiselle
+Servin, the young music-teacher, played dismal sonatas of Gluck or Grétry
+on a cracked old piano that had been one of the earliest made of those
+instruments, and was now attenuated and feeble as the very ghost of
+music. He listened to Madame Magnotte's stories of departed splendour. To
+him she opened her heart as she never had opened it to those other young
+men.
+
+"They mock themselves of everything--even the religion!" she exclaimed,
+with horror. "They are Diderots and Holbachs in the bud, less the talent.
+But you do not come of that gutter in which they were born. You are of
+the old blood of France, M. Lenoble, and I can trust myself to you as I
+cannot to them. I, who speak to you--I, too, come of a good old race, and
+there is sympathy between we others."
+
+And then, after babbling to him of her lost station, the lady would
+entertain him with some dainty little supper with which she was wont to
+indulge herself and her lady boarders, when the students--who were
+treated something after the manner of school-boys--were out of doors.
+
+For four years the law-student had enjoyed his Parisian life--not
+altogether idle, but not altogether industrious--amusing himself a great
+deal, and learning very little; moderate in his expenditure, when
+compared with his fellow-students, but no small drain upon the funds of
+the little family at home. In sooth, this good old Norman family had in a
+pecuniary sense sunk very low. There was real poverty in the tumble-down
+house at Beaubocage, though it was poverty that wore a cheerful face, and
+took things pleasantly. A very humble English farmer would have despised
+the income which supported M. Lenoble's household; and it was only the
+economy and skill of the matron and her daughter which sustained the
+dignity of the small establishment.
+
+There was one great hope cherished alike by the proud simple-minded old
+father, the fond mother, the devoted sister, and that was the hope in the
+grand things to be done, in the dim future, by Gustave, the son, the
+heir, the pole-star of the household.
+
+Out of poverty, out of obscurity, into the broad light of honour and
+riches, was the house of Lenoble to be lifted by this young law-student.
+On the broad shoulders of this modern Atlas the Lenoble world was to be
+sustained. To him they looked, of him they thought, in the long dreary
+winter evenings during which the mother nodded over her knitting, the
+father slept in his capacious easy-chair, the sister toiled at her
+needle-work by her little table of _palissandre_.
+
+He had paid them more than one visit during his two years of study,
+bringing with him life and light and gladness, as it seemed to the two
+women who adored him; and now, in the winter of 1828, they expected
+another visit. He was to be with them on the first day of the new year.
+He was to stay with them till his Mother's fête--the 17th of January.
+
+The father looked to this special visit with an unusual anxiety. The
+mother too was more than ever anxious. The sister, if she who loved her
+brother with a somewhat morbid intensity could be more anxious than
+usual, was more so now. A dreadful plot, a dire conspiracy, of which
+Gustave was to be the subject and victim, had been concocted beneath that
+innocent-seeming roof. Father, mother, and sister, seated round the
+family hearth, fatal as some domestic Parcæ, had hatched their horrid
+scheme, while the helpless lad amused himself yonder in the great city,
+happily unconscious of the web that was being woven to enmesh him.
+
+The cord which monsieur unwound, the mesh which madame held, the
+needle which dexterous mademoiselle wielded, were employed in the
+fabrication of a matrimonial net. These unsophisticated conspirators
+were bent upon bringing about the marriage of their victim, a marriage
+which should at once elevate and enrich the Lenobles of Beaubocage, in
+the person of Gustave.
+
+François Lenoble's best friend and nearest neighbour was a certain Baron
+Frehlter, of Germanic origin, but for some generations past naturalised
+to the Gallic soil. The Baron was proprietor of an estate which could
+show ten acres for one of the lands of Beaubocage. The Baron boasted a
+family tree which derived its root from a ramification of the
+Hohenzollern pedigree; but, less proud and more prudent than the
+Lenobles, the Frehlters had not scorned to intermingle their Prussian
+blue blood with less pure streams of commercial France. The _épicier_
+element had prevailed in the fair brides of the house of Frehlter for the
+last three or four generations, and the house of Frehlter had
+considerably enriched itself by this sacrifice of its family pride.
+
+The present Baron had married a lady ten years his senior, the widow of a
+Rouen merchant, alike wealthy and pious, but famous rather for these
+attributes than for any personal charm. One only child, a girl, had
+blessed this union. She was now a young person of something under twenty
+years of age, newly emerged from her convent, and pining for some share
+in the gaieties and delights of a worldly paradise, which had already
+been open to many of her schoolfellows.
+
+Mademoiselle Frehlter's companions had, for the most part, left school to
+be married. She had heard of the _corbeille_, the wedding dress, the
+wedding festivities, and occasionally a word or two about that secondary
+consideration the bridegroom. The young lady was therefore somewhat
+inclined to take it ill of her father that he had not secured for her the
+_éclat_ of an early marriage. Her departure from the convent of the Sacré
+Coeur, at Vevinord, was flat and tame to an extreme degree. The future
+lay before her, a dreary desert of home life, to be spent with a father
+who gorged himself daily at a greasy and savoury banquet, and who slept
+away the greater part of his existence; and with a mother who divided her
+affections between a disagreeable poodle and a still more disagreeable
+priest--a priest who took upon himself to lecture the demoiselle Frehlter
+on the smallest provocation.
+
+The château of the Frehlters was a very grand abode as compared to the
+tumble-down house of Beaubocage; but it was cold and stony to a
+depressing degree, and the furniture must have been shabby in the days of
+the Fronde. Faithful old servants kept the mansion in a state of spotless
+purity, and ruled the Baron and his wife with a rod of iron. Mademoiselle
+execrated these devoted retainers, and would have welcomed the sauciest
+of modern domestics who would have released her from the bondage of these
+servants of the old school.
+
+Mademoiselle had been at home a year--a year of discontent and
+ill-humour. She had quarrelled with her father, because he would not take
+her to Paris; with her mother, because she would not give her more new
+gowns and bonnets and feathers and fur-belows; with the priest, the
+poodle, with the autocracy below-stairs, with everybody and everything.
+So at last the Baron decided that mademoiselle should marry, whereby he
+might be rid of her, and of her complaints, vagaries, ill-tempers, and
+general dissatisfaction.
+
+Having once made up his mind as to the wisdom of a matrimonial
+arrangement, Baron Frehlter was not slow to fix upon a bridegroom. He was
+a very rich man, and Madelon was his only child, and he was furthermore a
+very lazy man; so, instead of looking far afield for a wealthy or
+distinguished suitor for his daughter, he was inclined to take the first
+that came to hand. It is possible that the Baron, who was of a somewhat
+cynical turn of mind, may have cherished no very exalted idea of his
+daughter's attractions, either personal or mental. However this might be,
+it is certain that when the demoiselle had ill-treated the poodle, and
+insulted the priest, and quarrelled with the cook--that high-priestess of
+the kitchen who alone, in all Normandy, could concoct those messes which
+the Baron loved--the master of Côtenoir decided on marrying his heiress
+out of hand.
+
+He communicated this design to his old crony, François Lenoble, one day
+when the Beaubocage family dined at Château Côtenoir.
+
+"I think of marrying my daughter," he said to his friend, when the ladies
+were safely out of hearing at the other end of the long dreary saloon.
+"Now thy son Gustave is a fine fellow--brave, handsome, and of a good
+race. It is true he is not as rich as Madelon will be by-and-by; but I am
+no huckster, to sell my daughter to the best bidder" ("and I doubt if
+there would be many bidders for her, if I were so inclined," thought the
+Baron, in parenthesis); "and if thy son should take a fancy to her, and
+she to him, it would please me well enough, friend François."
+
+Friend François pricked up his ears, and in his old eyes flickered a
+feeble light. Côtenoir and Beaubocage united in the person of his son
+Gustave! Lenoble of Beaubocage and Côtenoir--Lenoble of Côtenoir and
+Beaubocage! So splendid a vision had never shone before his eyes in all
+the dreams that he had dreamed about the only son of whom he was so
+proud. He could not have shaped to himself so bold a project as the union
+of those two estates. And here was the Baron offering it to him, with his
+snuff-box, _en passant_.
+
+"It would be a great marriage," he said, "a very great marriage. For
+Gustave I can answer without hesitation. He could not but be charmed by
+such a union--so amiable a bride would enchant him."
+
+He looked down the room to the spot where Madelon and Cydalise were
+standing, side by side, admiring Madame Frehlter's poodle. Madelon could
+afford to be civil to the poodle before company. The contrast between the
+two girls was sufficiently striking. Cydalise was fair and
+bright-looking--Mademoiselle Frehlter was square and ungainly of figure,
+swarthy of complexion, dark of brow.
+
+"He could not but be charmed," repeated the old man, with feeble
+gallantry.
+
+He was thinking of the joining together of Beaubocage and Côtenoir; and
+it seemed a very small thing to him that such a union of estates would
+involve the joining of a man and woman, who were to hold to each other
+and love each other until death should part them.
+
+"It shall be no marriage of convenience," said the Baron, in a generous
+spirit; "my daughter is somewhat ill-tem--that is to say, my daughter
+finds her life somewhat dull with her old father and mother, and I think
+she might be happier in the society of a husband. I like your son; and
+my wife, too, likes him better than any other young man of our
+acquaintance. Madelon has seen a good deal of him when she has been home
+from the convent in her holidays, and I have reason to think she does
+not dislike him. If he likes her and she likes him, and the idea is
+pleasing to you and madame, we will make a match of it. If not, let it
+pass; we will say no more."
+
+Again the seigneur of Beaubocage assured his friend that Gustave would be
+enchanted with the proposal; and again it was of Côtenoir that he
+thought, and not of the heart or the inclinations of his son.
+
+This conversation took place late in autumn, and at the new year Gustave
+was to come. Nothing was to be said to him about his intended wife until
+he arrived; that was a point upon which the Baron insisted.
+
+"The young man may have fallen in love with some fine young person in
+Paris," he said; "and in that case we will say nothing to him of Madelon.
+But if we find him with the heart free, and inclined to take to my
+daughter, we may give him encouragement."
+
+This was solemnly agreed between the two fathers. Nor was Mademoiselle
+Frehlter to be told of the matrimonial scheme until it ripened. But after
+this dinner at Côtenoir the household at Beaubocage talked of little else
+than of the union of the two families. What grandeur, what wealth, what
+happiness! Gustave the lord of Côtenoir! Poor Cydalise had never seen a
+finer mansion than the old château, with its sugar-loaf towers and stone
+terraces, and winding stairs, and tiny inconvenient turret chambers, and
+long dreary salon and _salle-à-manger_. She could picture to herself
+nothing more splendid. For Gustave to be offered the future possession of
+Côtenoir was as if he were suddenly to be offered the succession to a
+kingdom. She could not bring herself to consider that Madelon was neither
+agreeable nor attractive, and that, after all, the wife must count for
+something in every marriage contract. She could see nothing, she could
+think of nothing, but Côtenoir. The glory and grandeur of that estate
+absorbed every other consideration.
+
+No one of those three conspirators feared any opposition on the part of
+their victim. It was just possible that Gustave might have fallen in love
+with some Parisian damsel, though his letters gave no hint of any such
+calamity. But if such a misfortune had happened, he would, of course,
+fall out of love again, return the damsel her troth and obtain the return
+of his own, and straightway offer the second-hand commodity to
+Mademoiselle Frehlter.
+
+The object of all these cares and hopes and dreams arrived at last, full
+of life and spirits, with plenty to tell about Paris in general, and very
+little to tell about himself in particular. The women questioned him
+unmercifully. They insisted on a graphic description of every female
+inmate of the boarding-house, and would scarcely believe that all except
+the little music-mistress were elderly and unattractive. Of the
+music-mistress herself they were inclined to be very suspicious, and were
+not altogether reassured by Gustave's assertion that she was neither
+pretty nor fascinating.
+
+"She is a dear, good, industrious little thing," he said, "and works
+harder than I do. But she is no miracle of beauty; and her life is so
+dreary that I often wonder she does not go into a convent. It would be
+gayer and pleasanter for her than to live with those old women at the
+Pension Magnotte."
+
+"I suppose there are many beautiful women in Paris?" said Cydalise, bent
+upon knowing the worst.
+
+"Well, I dare say there are," Gustave answered frankly; "but we students
+don't see much of them in our quarter. One sees a pretty little
+milliner's girl now and then, or a washerwoman. In short, there are a
+good many grisettes in our part of the world," added the young man,
+blushing, but for no sin of his own. "We get a glimpse of a handsome
+woman sometimes, rattling past in her carriage; but in Paris handsome
+women do not go on foot. I have seen prettier girls at Vevinord than in
+Paris."
+
+Cydalise was enchanted with this confession.
+
+"Yes," she exclaimed, "our Normandy is the place for pretty girls.
+Madelon Frehlter, for example, is not she a very--amiable girl?"
+
+"I dare say she's amiable enough," answered Gustave; "but if there were
+no prettier girls than Mademoiselle Frehlter in this part of the world,
+we should have no cause to boast. But there are prettier girls, Cydalise,
+and thou art thyself one of them."
+
+After this speech the young man bestowed upon his sister a resounding
+kiss. Yes; it was clear that he was heart-whole. These noisy, boisterous
+good spirits were not characteristic of a lover. Even innocent Cydalise
+knew that to be in love was to be miserable.
+
+From this time mother and sister tormented their victim with the merits
+and charms of his predestined bride. Madelon on the piano was miraculous;
+Madelon's little songs were enchanting; Madelon's worsted-work was a
+thing to worship; Madelon's devotion to her mother and her mother's
+poodle was unequalled; Madelon's respectful bearing to the good Abbé St.
+Velours--her mother's director--was positively beyond all praise. It was
+virtue seraphic, supernal. Such a girl was too good for earth--too good
+for anything except Gustave.
+
+The young man heard and wondered.
+
+"How you rave about Madelon Frehlter!" he exclaimed. "She seems to me the
+most commonplace young person I ever encountered. She has nothing to say
+for herself; she never appears to know where to put her elbows. I never
+saw such elbows; they are everywhere at once. And her shoulders!--O
+heaven, then, her shoulders!--it ought to be forbidden to wear low
+dresses when one has such shoulders."
+
+This was discouraging, but the schemers bore up even against this. The
+mother dwelt on the intellectual virtues of Madelon; and what were
+shoulders compared to mind, piety, amiability--all the Christian graces?
+Cydalise owned that dear Madelon was somewhat _gauche_; Gustave called
+her _bête_. The father remonstrated with his son. Was it not frightful to
+use a word of the barracks in connection with this charming young lady?
+
+At last the plot revealed itself. After a dinner at Côtenoir and a dinner
+at Beaubocage, on both which occasions Gustave had made himself very
+agreeable to the ladies of the Baron's household--since, indeed, it was
+not in his nature to be otherwise than kind and courteous to the weaker
+sex--the mother told her son of the splendid destiny that had been shaped
+for him. It was a matter of surprise and grief to her to find that the
+revelation gave Gustave no pleasure.
+
+"Marriage was the last thing in my thoughts, dear mother," he said,
+gravely; "and Madelon Frehlter is the very last woman I should think of
+for a wife. Nevertheless, I am gratified by the honour Monsieur le Baron
+has done me. That goes without saying."
+
+"But the two estates!--together they would make you a great proprietor.
+You would not surely refuse such fortune?"
+
+Cydalise gave a little scream of horror.
+
+"Côtenoir! to refuse Côtenoir! Ah, surely that would be impossible! But
+figure to yourself, then, Gustave--"
+
+"Nay, Cydalise, you forget the young lady goes with the château; a
+fixture that we cannot dispense with."
+
+"But she, so amiable, so pious--"
+
+"So plain, so stupid--"
+
+"So modest, so charitable--"
+
+"In short, so admirably adapted for a Sister of Charity," replied
+Gustave. "But no, dear Cydalise. Côtenoir is a grand old place; but I
+would as soon spend my life at Toulon, dragging a cannon-ball at my
+heels, as in that dreary salon where Madame Frehlter nurses her maladies
+and her poodle, and where the good-humoured, easy-going old Baron snores
+away existence. 'Tis very well for those elderly folks, you see, my
+sister, and for Madelon--for hers is an elderly mind in a youthful body;
+but for a young man full of hope and gaiety and activity--bah! It would
+be of all living deaths the worst. From the galleys there is always the
+hope of escaping--an underground passage, burrowed out with one's
+finger-nails in the dead of the night--a work lasting twenty years or so,
+but with a feeble star of hope always glimmering at the end of the
+passage. But from the salon, and mamma, and the poodle, and the good,
+unctuous, lazy old director, and papa's apoplectic snoring, and the
+plaintive little songs and monotonous embroideries of one's wife, there
+would be no escape. Ah, bah!"
+
+Gustave shuddered, and the two women shuddered as they heard him. The
+prospect was by no means promising; but Madame Lenoble and her daughter
+did not utterly despair. Gustave's heart was disengaged. That was a great
+point; and for the rest, surely persuasion might do much.
+
+Then came that phenomenon seen very often in this life--a
+generous-minded, right-thinking young man talked into a position which of
+all others is averse from his own inclinations. The mother persuaded, the
+sister pleaded, the father dwelt dismally upon the poverty of Beaubocage,
+the wealth of Côtenoir. It was the story of auld Robin Gray reversed.
+Gustave perceived that his refusal to avail himself of this splendid
+destiny would be a bitter and lasting grief to these people who loved him
+so fondly--whom he loved as fondly in return. Must he not be a churl to
+disappoint hopes so unselfish, to balk an ambition so innocent? And only
+because Madelon was not the most attractive or the prettiest of women!
+
+The young man stood firm against all their arguments, he was unmoved by
+all their pleading. It was only when his anxious kindred had given up the
+battle for lost that Gustave wavered. Their mute despair moved him more
+than the most persuasive eloquence; and the end was submission. He left
+Beaubocage the plighted lover of that woman who, of all others, he would
+have been the last to choose for his wife. It had all been settled very
+pleasantly--the dowry, the union of the two estates, the two names. For
+six months Gustave was to enjoy his freedom to finish his studies; and
+then he was to return to Normandy for his marriage.
+
+"I have heard very good accounts of you from Paris," said the Baron. "You
+are not like some young men, wild, mad-brained. One can confide in your
+honour, your steadiness."
+
+The good folks of Beaubocage were in ecstacies. They congratulated
+Gustave--they congratulated each other. A match so brilliant would be the
+redemption of the family. The young man at last began to fancy himself
+the favoured of the gods. What if Madelon seemed a little dull--a little
+wanting in that vivacity which is so pleasing to frivolous minds? she was
+doubtless so much the more profound, so much the more virtuous. If she
+was not bright and varied and beautiful as some limpid fountain dancing
+in summer sunlight, she was perhaps changeless and steady as a rock; and
+who would not rather have the security of a rock than the summer-day
+beauty of a fountain?
+
+Before Gustave departed from his paternal home he had persuaded himself
+that he was a very lucky fellow; and he had paid Mademoiselle Frehlter
+some pretty little stereotyped compliments, and had listened with sublime
+patience to her pretty little stereotyped songs. He left the young lady
+profoundly impressed by his merits; he left his own household supremely
+happy; and he carried away with him a heart in which Madelon Frehlter's
+image had no place.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+IN THIS WIDE WORLD I STAND ALONE.
+
+Gustave went back to his old life, and was not much disturbed by the
+grandeur of his destiny as future seigneur of Côtenoir and Beaubocage. It
+sometimes occurred to him that he had a weight upon his mind; and, on
+consideration, he found that the weight was Madelon Frehlter. But he
+continued to carry that burden very lightly, and his easy-going student
+life went on, unbroken by thoughts of the future. He sent polite messages
+to the demoiselle Frehlter in his letters to Cydalise; and he received
+from Cydalise much information, more graphic than interesting, upon the
+subject of the family at Côtenoir; and so his days went on with pleasant
+monotony. This was the brief summer of his youth; but, alas, how near at
+hand was the dark and dismal winter that was to freeze this honest joyous
+heart! That heart, so compassionate for all suffering, so especially
+tender for all womankind, was to be attacked upon its weaker side.
+
+It was Gustave Lenoble's habit to cross the gardens of the Luxembourg
+every morning, on his way from the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle to the Ecole
+de Droit. Sometimes, when he was earlier than usual, he carried a book
+with him, and paced one of the more obscure alleys, reading for an odd
+half-hour before he went to the daily mill-grinding in the big building
+beyond those quiet gardens.
+
+Walking with his book one morning--it was a volume of Boileau, which
+the student knew by heart, and the pages whereof did not altogether
+absorb his attention--he passed and repassed a bench on which a lady
+sat, pensive and solitary, tracing shapeless figures on the ground with
+the point of her parasol. He glanced at her somewhat carelessly the
+first time of passing, more curiously on the second occasion, and
+the third time with considerable attention. Something in her
+attitude--helplessness, hopelessness, nay indeed, despair itself, all
+expressed in the drooping head, the listless hand tracing those idle
+characters on the gravel--enlisted the sympathies of Gustave Lenoble. He
+had pitied her even before his gaze had penetrated the cavernous depths
+of the capacious bonnet of those days; but one glimpse of the pale
+plaintive face inspired him with compassion unspeakable. Never had he
+seen despair more painfully depicted on the human countenance--a despair
+that sought no sympathy, a sorrow that separated the sufferer from the
+outer world. Never had he seen a face so beautiful, even in despair. He
+could have fancied it the face of Andromache, when all that made her
+world had been reft from her; or of Antigone, when the dread fiat had
+gone forth--that funeral rites or sepulture for the last accursed scion
+of an accursed race there were to be none.
+
+He put Boileau into his pocket. That glimpse of a suffering human mind,
+which had been unconsciously revealed to him, possessed an interest more
+absorbing than the grandest flight of poet and satirist. As he passed for
+the fifth time, he looked at the mournful lady still more searchingly,
+and this time the sad eyes were lifted, and met his pitying looks. The
+beautiful lips moved, and murmured something in tones so tremulous as to
+be quite unintelligible.
+
+The student took off his hat, and approached the lady, deferential as
+knight-errant of old awaiting the behest of his liege mistress.
+
+"In what can I have the happiness to be agreeable to you, madame?"
+
+"You are very good, monsieur," murmured the lady in very decent French,
+but with an accent unmistakably foreign--English, as Gustave opined.
+"I--I--am quite a stranger in Paris, and--and--I have heard there are
+numerous lodging-houses in this quarter--where one may obtain a
+lodging--cheaply. I have asked several nursemaids, and other women, in
+the gardens this morning; but they seem very stupid, and can tell me
+nothing; and I do not care to ask at the hotel where I am staying."
+
+Gustave pondered. Yes, there were many lodgings, he informed the lady.
+And then he thought of Madame Magnotte. Was it not his duty to secure
+this stray lodger for that worthy woman, if possible?
+
+"If madame has no objection to a boarding-house--" he began.
+
+Madame shook her head. "A boarding-house would suit me just as well," she
+said; "but it must not be expensive. I cannot afford to pay much."
+
+"I know of a boarding-house very near this place, where madame might find
+a comfortable home on very reasonable terms. It is, in point of fact, the
+house in which I myself reside," added Gustave, with some timidity.
+
+"If you will kindly direct me to the house--" said the lady, looking
+straight before her with sad unseeing eyes, and evidently supremely
+indifferent as to the residence or non-residence of M. Lenoble in the
+habitation referred to.
+
+"Nay, madame, if you will permit me to conduct you there. It is but a
+walk of five minutes."
+
+The stranger accepted the courtesy with a gentle indifference that was
+not ingratitude, but rather incapacity for any feeling except that one
+great sorrow which seemed to absorb her mind.
+
+Gustave wondered what calamity could thus overwhelm one so young and
+beautiful.
+
+The lady was quite silent during the little walk from the gardens to the
+Rue Grande-Mademoiselle, and Gustave observed her attentively as he
+walked by her side. She was evidently not more than four-and-twenty years
+of age, and she was certainly the prettiest woman he had ever seen. It
+was a fair delicate English beauty, a little worn and faded, as if by
+care, but idealized and sublimated in the process. At her brightest this
+stranger must have been strikingly beautiful; in her sorrow she was
+touchingly lovely. It was what Gustave's countrymen call a _beauté
+navrante_.
+
+Gustave watched her, and wondered about her. The dress she wore was
+sufficiently elegant, but had lost the gloss of newness. Her shawl, which
+she carried as gracefully as a Frenchwoman, was darned. Gustave perceived
+the neat careful stitches, and divined the poverty of the wearer. That
+she should be poor was no subject for surprise; but that she, so
+sorrowful, so lonely, should seek a home in a strange city, was an enigma
+not easy to solve.
+
+To Madame Magnotte Gustave introduced the stranger. She gave just one
+look round the dreary saloon; but to Gustave's fancy that one look seemed
+eloquent. "Ah me!" it said; "is this the fairest home I am to find upon
+this inhospitable earth?"
+
+"She does not seem to belong to this world," the young man thought, as
+he went back to the garden where he had found his fair stranger, having
+been very coolly dismissed by Madame Magnotte after his introduction had
+been made.
+
+And then M. Lenoble, being of a romantic turn of mind, remembered how a
+lady had been found by a student sitting on the lowest steps of the
+guillotine, desolate and helpless, at night; and how the student had
+taken her home and sheltered her, and had straightway fallen desperately
+in love with her, to discover, with unutterable horror, that her head had
+been severed from her fair shoulders by the cruel knife twelve hours
+before, and that her melancholy loveliness was altogether phantasmal and
+delusive.
+
+Was this English stranger whom Gustave had found in the gardens of the
+Luxembourg twin sister to that ghostly lady of the familiar legend? Her
+despair and her beauty seemed to him greater than earthly sorrow or
+earthly beauty; and he was half inclined to wonder whether she could be
+of the same race as Madelon Frehlter. And from this hour the sense of a
+weight upon his mind, before so vague and intermittent, became an
+enduring oppression, not to be shaken off by any effort of his will.
+
+All through that day he found himself thinking more of the unknown
+Englishwoman than was consistent with a strict performance of his duties.
+He was vexed with himself on account of this foolish distraction of mind.
+
+"What a frivolous fellow I must be," he said to himself, "to dwell upon
+such a trifle! This comes of leading such a monotonous life."
+
+At dinner he looked for the lady; but she did not appear at the long
+table, where the shrill old ladies, the epicurean old bachelors, the
+noisy students, daily devoured and grumbled at the four or five courses
+which old Nanon developed out of her inner consciousness and a rather
+scantily furnished larder. He questioned Madame Magnotte after dinner,
+and was told that the lady was in the house, but was too tired to dine
+with the other inmates.
+
+"I have to thank thee for a new boarder, my friend," she said. "Madame
+Meynell will not pay largely; but she seems a quiet and respectable
+person, and we shall doubtless be well pleased with each other."
+
+"Madame Meynell!" repeated Gustave, congratulating himself on finding
+that the Englishwoman was an inhabitant of the house he lived in. "She is
+a widow, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, she is a widow. I asked that question, and she answered, yes.
+But she told me nothing of her late husband. She is not at all
+communicative."
+
+This was all Gustave could obtain from Madame Magnotte. She was not
+communicative. No; she was, indeed, scarcely less silent than that
+ghostly lady who had been found sitting at the foot of the guillotine.
+There was some kind of mystery involved in her sorrowful face, her silent
+apathy. It was possibly the fact of this mystery which interested M.
+Lenoble. Certain it is that the young man's interest had been aroused by
+this unknown Englishwoman, and that his mind was more occupied by the
+image of her whom he had seen but once than by that of his plighted wife.
+
+He waited anxiously for the next day; but on the next day Madame Meynell
+still pleaded fatigue and illness. It was only on the third day that she
+appeared at the noisy banquet, pale, silent, absent-minded, sheltering
+herself under the wing of Madame Magnotte, who was disposed to be kind to
+this helpless stranger. To Gustave the young English widow seemed like a
+ghost at that crowded board. He looked at her every now and then from his
+distant seat, and saw her always with the same hopeless far-away look in
+her sad eyes. He himself was silent and _distrait_.
+
+"Of what dost thou dream, my droll one?" said his nearest neighbour.
+"Thou art positively insupportable."
+
+M. Lenoble could not become vivacious or entertaining at the behest of
+his fellow-student. The consciousness of that strange pale face haunted
+and oppressed him. He hoped to have a few minutes' talk with the English
+lady after dinner, but she disappeared before the removal of those
+recondite preparations which in the Pension Magnotte went by the generic
+name of "dessert."
+
+For more than a week she appeared thus at the dinner-table, eating very
+little, speaking not at all, except such monosyllabic replies as the
+hostess now and then extorted from her pale lips. A creature at once so
+beautiful and so profoundly sad became an object of interest to others
+besides Gustave; but in no breast was the sympathy which her sadness and
+beauty excited so poignant as in his. Her face haunted him. The familiar
+pleasures and amusements became distasteful to him. He spent his evenings
+at home in the dismal salon, and was content to listen to the chatter of
+the old women, the little music-mistress's dreary sonatas, the monotonous
+roll of wheels on the distant quay--anything rather than the hackneyed
+round of student-life that had once been agreeable to him. He did not
+fail to write his weekly letter to Cydalise; but, for some reason or
+other, he refrained from any allusion to the English stranger, although
+it was his custom to relate all his adventures for the amusement of the
+family at Beaubocage.
+
+An evening came at last on which Madame Meynell was persuaded to remain
+with the other ladies after dinner.
+
+"It must be very cold and cheerless for you in your bedroom," said
+Madame Magnotte; "why not spend your evening with us, in a pleasant and
+social manner?"
+
+"You are very good, madame," murmured the Englishwoman, in the slow timid
+accents that had so plaintive a sound to Gustave's ear; "if you wish it,
+I will stay."
+
+She seemed to submit rather from utter weakness and inability to refuse
+anything asked of her than from any hope of finding pleasure in the
+society of the Magnotte salon.
+
+It was an evening in March--cold, blustrous, dreary. The east wind blew
+clouds of dust athwart the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle, and the few
+foot-passengers in that dull thoroughfare looked pinched and wretched.
+The old ladies gathered round the great black stove, and gossipped in the
+twilight; the music-mistress went to her feeble piano, and played,
+unasked, unheeded; for Gustave, who was wont to turn the leaves, or sit
+attentive by the piano, seemed this evening unconscious of the music.
+Madame Meynell sat in one of the windows, alone, half-hidden by the faded
+yellow damask curtains, looking out into the street.
+
+Something--some impulse which he tried to resist, but could not--drew
+Gustave towards that lonely figure by the window. He went close up to the
+strange lady. This evening, as in the gardens of the Luxembourg, she
+seemed to him a living statue of despair. Now, as then, he felt an
+interest in her sorrow which he was powerless to combat. He had a vague
+idea that even this compassionate sympathy was in some manner an offence
+against Madelon Frehlter, the woman to whom he belonged, and yet he
+yielded to the fatal weakness.
+
+"Yes, I belong to her," he said to himself; "I belong to Madelon
+Frehlter. She is neither pretty nor fascinating; but I have every reason
+to believe her very good, very amiable; and she is the only woman, except
+those of my own kindred, in whom I have any right to be interested."
+
+He did not say this in so many words; but this was the shape which his
+thoughts assumed as he yielded to the tempter, and walked straight to the
+distant window by which Madame Meynell had seated herself.
+
+She started slightly as he approached her, and then looked up and
+recognized him as her acquaintance of the Luxembourg.
+
+"Good evening, monsieur," she said; "I have to thank you for having
+helped me to find a comfortable home."
+
+Having said this in a low gentle voice, she looked out into the street
+once more with her mournful unseeing eyes. It was evident that she had no
+more to say to M. Lenoble.
+
+The student, however, had no idea of leaving the window just yet,
+although he knew--yes, knew--that his presence there was a wrong done to
+Madelon Frehlter; but a wrong so small, so infinitesimal, that it was
+really not worth consideration.
+
+"I am enchanted to think that I was of some slight service to you,
+madame," he said; "but I fear you will find this quarter of Paris
+very dull."
+
+She did not take any notice of this remark until Gustave had repeated it,
+and then she spoke as if suddenly awakened from a trance.
+
+"Dull?" she said. "No, I have not found it dull. I do not care for
+gaiety."
+
+After this M. Lenoble felt that he could say no more. The lady relapsed
+into her waking trance. The dust-clouds in the silent street seemed more
+interesting to her than M. Lenoble of Beaubocage. He lingered a few
+minutes in the neighbourhood of her chair, thoughtfully observant of the
+delicate profile, the pale clear tints of a complexion that had lost its
+bloom but not its purity, the settled sadness of the perfect mouth, the
+dreamy pensiveness of the dark-grey eye, and then was fain to retire.
+
+After this, the English widow lady spent many evenings in Madame
+Magnotte's salon. The old Frenchwoman gossipped and wondered about
+her; but the most speculative could fashion no story from a page so
+blank as this joyless existence. Even slander could scarcely assail
+a creature so unobtrusive as the English boarder. The elderly ladies
+shrugged their shoulders and pursed up their lips with solemn
+significance. There must needs be something--a secret, a mystery, sorrow,
+or wrong-doing--somewhere; but of Madame Meynell herself no one could
+suspect any harm.
+
+Gustave Lenoble heard little of this gossip about the stranger, but she
+filled his thoughts nevertheless. The vision of her face came between him
+and his work; and when he thought of the future, and of the damsel who
+had been allotted to him for a wife, his thoughts were very bitter.
+
+"Fate is like Laban," he said to himself; "a man works and does his duty
+for seven years, and then Fate gives him Leah instead of Rachel. No doubt
+Leah is a very good young woman; one has no complaint to make against
+her, except that she is not Rachel."
+
+This was not a hopeful manner of looking at things for the destined
+master of Côtenoir. M. Lenoble's letters to the anxious folks at
+Beaubocage became, about this time, somewhat brief and unsatisfactory. He
+no longer gave ample details of his student-life--he no longer wrote in
+his accustomed good spirits. His letters seemed stiff and constrained.
+
+"I am afraid he is studying too much," said the mother.
+
+"I daresay the rascal is wasting his time in dissipation," suggested
+the father.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"PAST HOPE, AND IN DESPAIR."
+
+Two months had elapsed since the bleak spring morning on which Gustave
+Lenoble found the solitary lady under the leafless trees of the
+Luxembourg gardens. The inmates of the Pension Magnotte had grown
+accustomed to her presence, to her silence, her settled sadness, and
+troubled themselves no further respecting herself or her antecedents. The
+lapse of time had brought no improvement to her spirits; indeed, Gustave,
+who watched her closely, perceived that she had grown paler and thinner
+since that March morning when he met her in the public garden. Her life
+must have been painfully monotonous. She very rarely went out of doors,
+and on no occasion ventured beyond the gardens of the Luxembourg. No one
+visited her. She neither wrote nor received any letters. She was wont to
+make a pretence of reading as she sat in her retired corner of the salon;
+but Gustave had discovered that she gave little attention to her book.
+The open volume in her hand seemed no more than an excuse for brooding
+upon her sorrows.
+
+If people, prompted by curiosity or by compassion, endeavoured to get
+into conversation with this lonely lady, the result was always the same.
+She would answer their questions in a low gentle voice, with a quiet
+politeness; but she never assisted them in the smallest degree to
+interchange thoughts with her. It seemed as if she sought neither friend
+nor sympathizer, or as if her case was so entirely hopeless as to admit
+of neither. She paid for her board and lodging weekly with a punctilious
+exactness, though weekly payments were not the rule of the house.
+
+"My movements are uncertain," she said to Madame Magnotte. "I cannot
+tell how long I may be with you. It will therefore be better for me to
+pay you weekly."
+
+She had been in the house two months, dining every day at the public
+table, spending all her evenings in the public saloon; and during that
+time her settled gloom had never been broken by any outburst of grief or
+passion. She might have been a creature of ice, a statue of despair
+modelled in snow by a Michael Angelo. But one night the ice melted, the
+statue of snow became in a moment a passionate, grief-stricken woman.
+
+It was one bright evening late in May. Ah, how near at hand was the
+appointed date of those nuptials to which the household of Beaubocage
+looked forward with supreme happiness! The old ladies of the Pension
+Magnotte were for the most part out of doors. The long saloon was almost
+empty. There were only Gustave, Madame Magnotte, and the little
+music-mistress, who sat at her piano, with the western sunlight shining
+full upon her, rosy-hued and glorious, surrounding her with its soft
+radiance until she looked like a humble St. Cecilia.
+
+Madame Meynell had seated herself close to the piano, and was listening
+to the music. Gustave hovered near, pretending to be occupied with a limp
+little sheet of news published that evening.
+
+Mademoiselle Servin, the teacher of music, upon this occasion deserted
+her favourite masters. She seemed in a somewhat dreamy and sentimental
+humour, and played tender little melodies and simple plaintive airs, that
+were more agreeable to Gustave than those grand examples of the
+mathematics of counter-point which she so loved to interpret.
+
+"You like this melody of Grétry's," said the music-mistress, as M.
+Lenoble seated himself close to the piano. "I do not think you care for
+classic sonatas--the great works of Gluck, or Bach, or Beethoven?"
+
+"No," replied the young man frankly; "I do not care about anything I
+can't understand. I like music that goes to one's heart."
+
+"And you, too, Madame Meynell, like simple melodies?" mademoiselle asked
+of that lady, who was not wont to come so near the little piano, or to
+pay so much attention to Mademoiselle Servin's performance.
+
+"O yes," murmured the Englishwoman, "I like such music as that."
+
+"And you, too, think that Beethoven never composed simple plaintive
+airs--for example," exclaimed the pianist, playing softly while she
+spoke. "You think he wrote only sonatas, quartettes, fugues, grand
+operas, like _Fidelio_. Have you never heard this by your scientific
+Beethoven?"
+
+Hereupon she played "Hope told a flattering tale," with much tenderness
+and delicacy. Her two hearers listened, mute and deeply moved. And then
+from that familiar melody she glided softly into another, most musical,
+most melancholy, which has been set to some of the sweetest verses that
+Thomas Moore ever composed:
+
+"Those evening bells, those evening bells!
+How many a tale their music tells
+Of youth and home, and that sweet time
+When last I heard their soothing chime!"
+
+All the world sang the verses of Ireland's divine bard in those days. The
+song was one which the Englishwoman had sung years ago in a happy home.
+What recollections, what associations, were evoked by that plaintive
+melody, who shall say? The words came back with the music to which they
+have been eternally wedded. The words, their mournful meaning, the faces
+of the friends amongst whom she had last sung them, the picture of the
+peaceful home whose walls had echoed the music,--all these things arose
+before her in a vision too painfully vivid; and the lonely boarder at the
+Pension Magnotte covered her face with her hands, and sobbed aloud.
+
+The passion of tears lasted but a minute. Madame Meynell dried her eyes,
+and rose to leave the room.
+
+"Do not question me," she said, perceiving that her two companions were
+about to offer her their sympathy. "I cannot tell you the memories that
+were conjured up by that music. It brought back a home I shall never see
+again, and the faces of the dead--worse than dead to me--and the
+happiness I have lost, and the hopes and dreams that once were mine. Oh,
+I pray God I may never hear that melody again."
+
+There was a passion, a depth of feeling, in her tone quite new to Gustave
+Lenoble. He opened the door for her without a word, and she passed out of
+the salon quietly, like a ghost--the ghost of that bright young creature
+who had once borne her shape, and been called by her name, in a pleasant
+farmhouse among the Yorkshire wolds.
+
+"Ah, but how that poor soul must have suffered!" cried the sympathetic
+Mademoiselle Servin, as the door closed on the Englishwoman. "I did
+not think it was in her to feel so deeply. I thought she was stone, and
+now I begin to think it must be of such stone as Niobe--the
+petrification of despair."
+
+Upon Gustave Lenoble this scene made a profound impression. He lay awake
+during the greater part of that night, thinking of the lonely lady's
+tears and anguish. The music of "Those evening bells" pervaded his
+dreams. He rose unrefreshed, feverish, forgetful of Côtenoir and Madelon
+Frehlter, as if that place and that person had never emerged from the
+shapeless substances of chaos. He wanted to see _her_ again, to console
+her, if that were possible. Oh, that it might be his privilege to console
+her! He pitied her with a compassion so intense, that thus to
+compassionate her woes, was himself to suffer a poignant anguish. He
+pitied her. Yes, he told himself again and again that this sentiment
+which so absorbed his heart and mind was no more than pity. But oh, if
+this were pity, what were love? That was a question which also presented
+itself to the mind of M. Gustave Lenoble, of Beaubocage _in esse_, and
+Côtenoir _in posse_.
+
+Madame Meynell rarely appeared at the common breakfast in the grim
+dining-room of the Pension Magnotte. Gustave was therefore in nowise
+surprised to miss her on this particular morning. He took a cup of
+coffee, and hurried off to his daily duties. There was a fever on him
+which he could neither understand nor shake off, and he hastened to the
+gardens of the Luxembourg, as if there were some special necessity for
+speed. So do men often hasten unconsciously to their predestined doom,
+defiant of augury. Soothsayers may menace, and wives may dream dreams;
+but when his hour comes, Cæsar will go to the appointed spot where the
+daggers of his assassins await him.
+
+In the alley where he had first looked upon her sad face, beneath
+the umbrage of young limes and chestnuts just bursting into bloom,
+he saw the Englishwoman to-day, seated on the same bench, almost in
+the same attitude.
+
+He went up to her, and bade her good morning; and then, intensely
+conscious of his own temerity, seated himself by her side.
+
+"I did not expect to find you here so early."
+
+"No, I seldom come out so soon; but this morning I have to make some
+inquiries upon a matter of business, and I am only resting here before
+going to make them."
+
+She gave a little weary sigh at the end of this speech. It seemed a
+strange manner of transacting business to rest in the Luxembourg gardens,
+which were distant but a few hundred yards from her home. Gustave divined
+that it was for very forlornness she lingered there, shrinking from some
+difficult encounter that lay before her.
+
+"Can I not make the inquiries for you?" he asked. "Pray command me. It
+will be my happiness to be useful to you."
+
+"You are very good. I cannot trouble you so much."
+
+"Pray do not talk of trouble. It can be no trouble to me to aid you in
+any manner. Ah, madame, you do not know how much I would sacrifice to be
+useful to you!"
+
+She must have been dull indeed had she failed to perceive the earnestness
+of his tone. She did perceive it, and was vaguely conscious that in this
+student of law she had a friend.
+
+"I want to know when the diligence for Calais leaves Paris, and from what
+office," she said. "I am going back to England."
+
+She was surprised to see the young man's face blanch as she announced
+this simple fact. The young man himself was surprised by the sudden
+anguish inflicted by her announcement. It was in this moment that he
+first discovered how completely he had given his heart into this strange
+woman's keeping.
+
+"You are really going to leave Paris?--for ever?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Yes. I have been here too long already. I have no business here. I ought
+to have gone back to England that day when I first met you here, but I
+put off the day of my return. I can put it off no longer."
+
+"And you are going back to your friends?" Gustave asked, in a very
+mournful tone.
+
+"I am going back to my friends? Yes!" Her lips quivered a little, and the
+unbidden tears came to her eyes.
+
+Ah, what was the sorrow that oppressed this beauteous lonely creature?
+What agony of grief or self-reproach was this pain which consumed her?
+Gustave remembered her passion of tears on the previous night; her talk
+of friends that were dead, and happiness lost; and now to-day she talked
+of going home to her friends: but O the bitterness of expression with
+which she had spoken that word "friends!"
+
+"Are you going alone, Madame Meynell?" he inquired, after a pause. He
+could not tear himself from that seat by her side. He could not be manly
+or rational where she was concerned. The image of Madelon Frehlter rose
+before his mental vision, reproachful, menacing; but a thick fog
+intervened to obscure that unwelcome image. His whole life resolved
+itself into those thrilling moments in which he sat here, on this common
+garden bench, by this stranger's side; the entire universe was contracted
+into this leafy walk where they two sat.
+
+"Yes, I am going alone," madame replied, with a little laugh. "Who should
+I have to go with me? I am quite alone in the world. I think I had better
+make these inquiries myself, M. Lenoble. There is no reason why I should
+give you so much trouble."
+
+"There is no such thing as trouble. I will bring you all necessary
+information to-day at dinner, if that will be soon enough."
+
+"Quite soon enough, I thank you, monsieur," she answered, with a sigh. "I
+must ask you kindly to ascertain for me also the expense of the journey."
+
+"Most certainly, madame."
+
+This request set him wondering whether she were poor, and how poor. But
+she had evidently no more to say to him; she had again become
+impenetrable. He would fain have stayed, though honour and conscience
+were clamorous in their demands for his departure. Happily for honour and
+conscience, the lady was silent as death, impervious as marble; so M.
+Lenoble presently bowed and departed.
+
+He thought of her all day long. The farce of pity was ended. He knew now
+that he loved this Englishwoman with an affection at once foolish and
+sinful,--foolish, since he knew not who or what this woman was; sinful,
+since the indulgence of this passion involved the forfeiture of his
+plighted word, the disappointment of those who loved him.
+
+"No, no, no," he said to himself; "I cannot do this base and wicked
+thing. I must marry Madelon. All the hopes of my mother and father rest
+on that marriage; and to disappoint them because this stranger's face has
+bewitched me? Ah, no, it cannot be. And even if I were willing to trample
+my honour in the dust, how do I know that she would value or accept the
+sacrifice?"
+
+M. Lenoble made all necessary inquiries at the office of the Messageries,
+and carried the intelligence to Madame Meynell. He could see that she
+winced a little when he told her the cost of the journey, which in those
+days was heavy.
+
+"She must certainly be poor," he said to himself; and it rent his heart
+to think that even in this paltry matter he could be of no use to her.
+The destined master of Beaubocage and Côtenoir was entirely without ready
+money. He had his watch. He put his hand upon that clumsy timekeeper as
+he talked to madame.
+
+"_Je te porterai chez ma tante, mon gars_," he said to himself. But he
+doubted whether the high priests of the pious mountain--the Dordona of
+Pauperism--would advance much upon this antique specimen of the
+watchmaker's art.
+
+After this evening he looked forward daily, hourly, to the anguish of her
+departure. She would vanish out of his life, intangible as a melted
+snow-flake, and only memory would stay behind to tell him he had known
+and loved her. Why should this be so hard to bear? If she stayed, he
+dared not tell her she was dear to him; he dared not stretch forth his
+hand to help her. In all the world there was no creature more utterly
+apart from him than she, whether she lived in the same house with him or
+was distant as the Antipodes. What did it matter, then, since she was
+destined to disappear from his life, whether she vanished to-day or a
+year hence? He argued with himself that it could be a question of no
+moment to him. There was a death-blow that must descend upon him, cruel,
+inevitable. Let it come when it would.
+
+Every day when he came home to dinner, M. Lenoble expected to behold a
+vacant place by the side of his hostess; every day he was pleasantly
+disappointed. The pale hopeless face was still to be seen, ghost-like, at
+that noisy board. The face was more pale, more hopeless, as it seemed to
+Gustave, every day he looked upon it.
+
+He asked Madame Magnotte when the English lady was going to leave, but
+she could not tell.
+
+"She talks of leaving from day to day," said madame; "it will no doubt be
+soon. I am sorry to lose her. She is very gentle, and gives no trouble to
+any one. But she is sad--ah, how sad she is! She has suffered, monsieur."
+
+Gustave agreed to this. Yes, she had suffered; but what, and how?
+
+He watched her closely, but she was always the same. She no longer spent
+her evenings in the salon, but in her own apartment. He saw her only at
+dinner-time, and had no opportunity of speaking to her.
+
+At last the day came upon which he missed her at the usual hour. He sat
+through the tedious meal without speaking; eating a little, drinking a
+little, mechanically, but with no consciousness of what he ate or drank.
+There was a mist before his eyes, a confusion of voices in his ears; but
+the faculties of sight and hearing seemed suspended. The agony he
+suffered during that miserable hour was bitter as death.
+
+"O, my God, how I love her!" he said to himself, while Raoul's bass roar
+brayed in his ear on one side, and Leon's shrill squeal tortured him on
+the other.
+
+He made his way to Madame Magnotte directly after dinner.
+
+"She is gone?" he exclaimed.
+
+"But who, my friend? Ah, yes; it is of that poor Madame Meynell you
+speak. How you are interested in her! No, she is not gone, poor woman.
+She remains always. She has the air of a person who knows not her own
+mind. Yet I am sure she thinks of going. To-day, for the first time, she
+has been writing letters. Reine came to tell me she had seen her occupied
+in her own room for the first time. It is not her habit to occupy
+herself."
+
+Gustave's heart gave a great jump. She was not gone; he might see her
+again--if it were but a glimpse of her pale face looking out of the
+diligence as it drove out of the Cour de Messageries. One look, one
+glance; it would be something to carry in his heart all his life. All his
+life! He looked forward and shuddered. What a dreary life it must needs
+be! Côtenoir, Beaubocage, Madelon, the law; to plead, to read papers, to
+study dry as dust books. He shrank appalled from the contemplation of
+that dreary desert of existence--a life without her.
+
+She had been writing letters--doubtless letters to her friends to
+announce her return. Her departure must be very near at hand.
+
+Gustave refused to go out that evening. His fellow-students were bent on
+a night's pleasure at a dancing-garden then in vogue, where there would
+be twinkling lamps and merry music under the May moon. The lamp-lit
+parterres, the joyous waltzes, had no attractions for Gustave Lenoble. He
+haunted the dull salon, dim and dreary in the twilight; for Madame
+Magnotte was chary of lamps and candles, and prolonged to its utmost
+limits the pensive interval between day and night. He walked softly up
+and down the room, unheeded by the ladies clustered in a group by one of
+the windows. Restless and unhappy, he could neither go nor stay. She was
+not coming down to the salon this evening. He had clung to the faint hope
+that she might appear; but the faint hope died away in his breast as the
+night deepened. What purpose could be served by his remaining in that
+dismal room? He was no nearer her than he would have been in the
+remotest wilds of Central America. He would go out--not to the odious
+dancing-garden, but to the cool dark streets, where the night wind might
+blow this fever from his brain.
+
+He left the room suddenly, and hurried downstairs. At the bottom of the
+staircase he almost stumbled against a woman, who turned and looked at
+him in the light of a little oil-lamp that hung over the door of the
+portress's lodge.
+
+It was the Englishwoman, deadly pale, and with a wild look in her face
+that Gustave had never seen there before. She gave him no sign of
+recognition, but passed out of the courtyard, and walked rapidly away.
+That unusual look in her face, the strangeness of the fact that she
+should be leaving the house at this hour, inspired him with a vague
+terror, and he followed her, not stealthily, without a thought that he
+was doing any wrong by such an act--rather, indeed, with the conviction
+that he had a right so to follow her.
+
+She walked very quickly--at a more rapid pace than Gustave would have
+supposed possible for so fragile a creature. She chose the lonelier
+streets, and Gustave had no difficulty in following her; she never looked
+back, but went straight on her course, without pause or slackening of her
+pace, as if with a settled purpose.
+
+"Where can she be going?" Gustave asked himself; and an answer, vague,
+hideous, terrible, suggested itself to his mind. The idea that occurred
+to him was one that would scarcely have occurred to an Englishman under
+the same circumstances, but to a Frenchman it was a very familiar idea.
+
+It was dark now--the darkness that reigns between early sunset and late
+moonrise. As the lonely woman went farther along the dreary streets
+parallel with the quay, the dreadful suspicion grew stronger in Gustave's
+mind. From that instant he had but one thought; in that moment he put
+away from him for ever all sense of obligation to Madelon Frehlter; he
+shook off father, mother, sister, old associations, home ties, ambition,
+fortune--he lived alone for this woman, and the purpose of his life was
+to save her from despair and death.
+
+They emerged upon the quay at last. The long stretch of pavement was
+deserted. Ah, now she looked back--she looked on every side with wild
+unseeing eyes--and now there could be little doubt as to the purpose that
+brought her here. She crossed the road, and went upon the bridge, Gustave
+following close; in the next minute she was standing on the stone bench,
+a tremulous, fluttering figure, with arms stretched towards the water; in
+a breath she was clasped to Gustave's breast, clasped by arms that meant
+to hold her for ever.
+
+The shock of that surprise utterly unnerved the wretched creature. She
+shivered violently, and struggled to free herself from those strong arms.
+
+"Let me go!" she cried in English. "Let me go!" And then, finding herself
+powerless, she turned and looked at her captor. "M. Lenoble! O, why do
+you persecute me? Why do you follow me?"
+
+"Because I want to save you."
+
+"To save me! To snatch me back when I was going to find rest--an end for
+my weary life! O yes, I know that it is a sinful end; but my life has
+been all sin."
+
+"Your life all sin! Foolish one, I will never believe that."
+
+"It is true," she cried, with passionate self-reproach. "The sin of
+selfishness, and pride, and disobedience. There is no fate too hard for
+me--but, O, my fate is very hard! Why did you keep me from that river?
+You do not know how miserable my life is--you do not know. I paid my
+last penny to Madame Magnotte this morning. I have no money to take me
+back to England, even if I dared go there--and I dare not. I have prayed
+for courage, for strength to go back, but my prayers have not been
+heard; and there is nothing for me but to die. What would be the sin of
+my throwing myself into that river! I must die; I shall die of
+starvation in the streets."
+
+"No, no," cried Gustave passionately; "do you think I have dragged you
+back from death to give you to loneliness and despair? My dear one, you
+are mine--mine by right of this night. These arms that have kept you
+from death shall shelter you,--ah, let them shelter you! These hands
+shall work for you. My love, my love! you cannot tell how dear you are
+to me. If there must be want or trouble for either of us, it shall come
+to me first."
+
+He had placed her on the stone bench, bewildered and unresisting, and had
+seated himself by her side. The fragile figure, shivering still, even in
+the mild atmosphere of the spring night, was sustained by his encircling
+arm. He felt that she was his, irrevocably and entirely--given to him by
+the Providence which would have seemed to have abandoned her, but for the
+love it had implanted for her in this one faithful heart. His tone had
+all the pleading tenderness of a lover's, but it had something more--an
+authority, a sense of possession.
+
+"Providence sent me here to save you," he said, with that gentle yet
+authoritative tone; "I am your providence, am I not, dearest? Fate made
+me love you--fondly, hopelessly, as I thought. Yesterday you seemed as
+far away from me as those pale stars, shining up yonder--as
+incomprehensible as that faint silvery mist above the rising moon--and
+to-night you are my own."
+
+He knew not what ties might be broken by this act. He had indeed a vague
+consciousness that the step which he was now taking would cause a
+lifelong breach between himself and his father. But the time had gone by
+in which he could count the cost.
+
+"Let me go back, M. Lenoble," the Englishwoman said presently. The
+faintness of terror was passing away, and she spoke almost calmly. "Let
+me go back to the house. It is you that have saved me from a dreadful
+sin. I promise you that I will not again think of committing that deadly
+sin. I will wait for the end to come. Let me go, my kind friend. Ah, no,
+no; do not detain me! Forget that you have ever known me."
+
+"That is not in my power. I will take you back to the Pension Magnotte
+directly; but you must first promise to be my wife."
+
+"Your wife! O, no, no, no! That is impossible."
+
+"Because you do not love me," said Gustave, with mournful gravity.
+
+"Because I am not worthy of you."
+
+Humiliation and self-reproach unspeakable were conveyed in those few
+words.
+
+"You are worth all the stars to me. If I had them in my hands, those
+lamps shining up there, I would throw them away, to hold you," said the
+student passionately. "You cannot understand my love, perhaps. I seem a
+stranger to you, and all I say sounds wild and foolish. My love, it is
+true as the heaven above us--true as life or death--death that was so
+near you just now. I have loved you ever since that bleak March morning
+on which I saw you sitting under the leafless trees yonder. You held me
+from that moment. I was subjugated--possessed--yours at once and for
+ever. I would not confess even to myself that my heart had resigned
+itself to you; but I know now that it was so from the first. Is there any
+hope that you will ever pay me back one tithe of my love?"
+
+"You love me," the Englishwoman repeated slowly, as if the words were
+almost beyond her comprehension,--"you love _me_, a creature so lost, so
+friendless! Ah, but you do not know my wretched story!"
+
+"I do not ask to know it. I only ask one question--will you be my wife?"
+
+"You must be mad to offer your name, your honour to me."
+
+"Yes, I am mad--madly in love. And I am waiting for your answer. You
+will be my wife? My angel, you will say yes! It is not much that I offer
+you--a life of uncertainty, perhaps even of poverty; but a fond and
+constant heart, and a head and hands that will work for you while God
+gives them strength. It is better than the river."
+
+All that was thoughtless and hopeful in his disposition was expressed in
+these words. The woman to whom he pleaded was weakened by sorrow, and
+the devotion of this brave true heart brought her strength, comfort,
+almost hope.
+
+"Will you be my friend?" she said gently. "Your words seem to bring me
+back to life. I wanted to die because I was so wretched, so lonely. I
+have friends in England--friends who were once all that is dear and kind;
+but I dare not go to them. I think a cruel look from one of those friends
+would kill me with a pain more bitter than any other death could give.
+And I have no right to hope for kind looks from them. Yours are the only
+words of friendship I have heard for a long time."
+
+"And you will give me the right to work for you--to protect you? You will
+be my wife?"
+
+"I would rather be your servant," she answered, with sad humility. "What
+right have I to accept so great a sacrifice? What folly can be so foolish
+as your love for me--if it is indeed love, and not a wild fancy of
+to-night!"
+
+"It is a fancy that will last my life."
+
+"Ah, you do not know how such fancies change."
+
+"I know nothing except that mine is changeless. Come, my love, it is
+growing late and cold. Let me take you home. The portress will wonder.
+You must slip past her quietly with your veil down. Did you give old
+Margot your key when you came down stairs to-night?"
+
+"No, it is in my pocket. I was not thinking--I--"
+
+She stopped with a sudden shudder. Gustave understood that shudder; he
+also shuddered. She had left her room that night possessed by the
+suicide's madness; she had left it to come straight to death. Happily his
+strong arm had come between her and that cruel grave by which they were
+still lingering.
+
+They walked slowly back to the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle under the light of
+the newly-risen moon. The Englishwoman's wasted hand rested for the first
+time on M. Lenoble's arm. She was his--his by the intervention and by the
+decree of Providence! That became a conviction in the young man's mind.
+He covered her late return to the house with diplomatic art, engaging the
+portress in conversation while the dark figure glided past in the dim
+lamplight. On the staircase he paused to bid her good night.
+
+"You will walk with me in the Luxembourg garden to-morrow morning,
+dearest," he said. "I have so much to say--so much. Until then, adieu!"
+
+He kissed her hand, and left her on the threshold of her apartment, and
+then went to his own humble bachelor's chamber, singing a little drinking
+song in his deep manly voice, happy beyond all measure.
+
+They walked together next day in the gardens of the Luxembourg. The poor
+lonely creature whom Gustave had rescued seemed already to look up to him
+as a friend and protector, if not in the character of a future husband.
+It was no longer this fair stranger who held possession of Gustave; it
+was Gustave who had taken possession of her. The stronger nature had
+subjugated the weaker. So friendless, so utterly destitute--penniless,
+helpless, in a strange land, it is little matter for wonder that Susan
+Meynell accepted the love that was at once a refuge and a shelter.
+
+"Let me tell you my wretched story," she pleaded, as she walked under the
+chestnut-trees by her lover's side. "Let me tell you everything. And if,
+when you have heard what an unhappy creature I am, you still wish to give
+me your heart, your name, I will be obedient to your wish. I will not
+speak to you of gratitude. If you could understand how debased an outcast
+I seemed to myself last night when I went to the river, you would know
+how I must feel your goodness. But you can never understand--you can
+never know what you seem to me."
+
+And then in a low voice, and with infinite shame and hesitation, she told
+him her story.
+
+"My father was a tradesman in the city of London," she said. "We were
+very well off, and my home ought to have been a happy one. Ah, how happy
+such a home would seem to me now! But I was idle and frivolous and
+discontented in those days, and was dissatisfied with our life in the
+city because it seemed dull and monotonous to me. When I look back now
+and remember how poor a return I gave for the love that was given to
+me--my mother's anxiety, my father's steady, unpretending kindness--I
+feel how well I have deserved the sorrows that have come to me since
+then."
+
+She paused here, but Gustave did not interrupt her. His interest was too
+profound for any conventional expression. He was listening to the story
+of his future wife's youth. That there could be any passage in that
+history which would hinder him from claiming this woman as his wife was a
+possibility he did not for a moment contemplate. If there were shame
+involved in the story, as Madame Meynell's manner led him to suppose
+there must be, so much the worse was it for him, since the shame must be
+his, as she was his.
+
+"When my father and mother died, I went into Yorkshire to live with my
+married sister. I cannot find words to tell you how kind they were to
+me--my sister and her husband. I had a little money left me by my father,
+and I spent the greater part of it on fine dress, and on foolish presents
+to my sister and her children. I was happier in Yorkshire than I had been
+in London; for I saw more people, and my life seemed gayer and brighter
+than in the city. One day I saw a gentleman, the brother of a nobleman
+who lived in the neighbourhood of my sister's house. We met by accident
+in a field on my brother-in-law's farm, where the gentleman was shooting;
+and after that he came to the house. He had seen my sister before, and
+made some excuse for renewing his acquaintance. He came very often, and
+before long he asked me to marry him; and I promised to be his wife, with
+my sister's knowledge and consent. She loved me so dearly, and was so
+proud of me out of her dear love, that she saw nothing wonderful in this
+engagement, especially as Mr. Kingdon, the gentleman I am speaking of,
+was a younger son, and by no means a rich man."
+
+Again she stopped, and waited a little before continuing her story. Only
+by a gentle pressure of the tremulous hand resting on his arm did Gustave
+express his sympathy.
+
+"I cannot tell you, how happy I was in those days--so bright, so brief. I
+cannot tell you how I loved Montague Kingdon. When I look back to that
+time of my life, it seems like a picture standing out against a
+background of darkness, with some strange vivid light shining upon it. It
+was arranged between Montague and my sister that we should be married as
+soon as his brother, Lord Durnsville, had paid his debts. The payment of
+the debts was an old promise of Lord Durnsville's, and an imprudent
+marriage on his brother's part might have prevented the performance of
+it. This is what Montague told my sister Charlotte. She begged him to
+confide in her husband, my kind brother-in-law, but this he refused to
+do. There came a day very soon after this when James Halliday, my
+brother-in-law, was told about Montague Kingdon's visits to the farm. He
+came home and found Mr. Kingdon with us; and then there was a dreadful
+scene between them. James forbade Mr. Kingdon ever again to set foot in
+his house. He scolded my sister, he warned me. It was all no use. I loved
+Montague Kingdon as you say you love me--foolishly, recklessly. I could
+not disbelieve or doubt him. When he told me of his plans for our
+marriage, which was to be kept secret until Lord Durnsville had paid his
+debts, I consented to leave Newhall with him to be married in London. If
+he had asked me for my life, I must have given it to him. And how should
+I disbelieve his promises when I had lived only amongst people who were
+truth itself? He knew that I had friends in London, and it was arranged
+between us that I was to be married from the house of one of them, who
+had been my girlish companion, and who was now well married. I was to
+write, telling her of my intended journey to town; and on the following
+night I was to leave Newhall secretly with Montague Kingdon. I was to
+make my peace with my sister and her husband after my marriage. How shall
+I tell you the rest? From the first to last he deceived me. The carriage
+that was, as I believed, to have taken us to London, carried us to Hull.
+From Hull we crossed to Hamburg. From that time my story is all shame and
+misery. I think my heart broke in the hour in which I discovered that I
+had been cheated. I loved him, and clung to him long after I knew him to
+be selfish and false and cruel. It seemed to be a part of my nature to
+love him. My life was not the kind of life one reads of in novels. It was
+no existence of splendour and luxury and riot, but one long struggle with
+debt and difficulty. We lived abroad--not for our pleasure, but because
+Mr. Kingdon could not venture to appear in England. His brother, Lord
+Durnsville, had never promised to pay his debts. That was a falsehood
+invented to deceive my sister. For seven long weary years I was his
+slave, a true and faithful slave; his nurse in illness, his patient
+drudge at all times. We had been wandering about France for two years,
+when he brought me to Paris; and it was here he first began to neglect
+me. O, if you could know the dreary days and nights I have spent at the
+hotel on the other side of the river, where we lived, you would pity me."
+
+"My dear love, my heart is all pity for you," said Gustave. "Do not tell
+me any more. I can guess the end of the story. There came a day in which
+neglect gave place to desertion."
+
+"Yes; Mr. Kingdon left me one day without a warning word to break the
+blow. I had been waiting and watching for him through two weary days and
+nights, when there came a letter to tell me he was on his way to Vienna
+with a West Indian gentleman and his daughter. He was to be married to
+the daughter. It was his poverty, he told me, which compelled this step.
+He advised me to go back to my friends in Yorkshire. To go back!--as if
+he did not know that death would be easier to me. There was a small sum
+of money in the letter, on which I have lived since that time. When you
+first met me here, I had not long received that letter."
+
+This was the end of her story. In the depth of her humiliation she dared
+not lift her eyes to the face of her companion; but she felt his hand
+clasp hers, and knew that he was still her friend. This was all she asked
+of Providence.
+
+To Gustave Lenoble the story had been unutterably painful. He had hoped
+to hear a tragedy untarnished by shame, and the shame was very bitter to
+him. This woman whom he loved so fondly was no spotless martyr, the
+victim of inevitable fate, beautiful and sublime in her affliction. She
+was only a weak vain, village beauty who had suffered herself to be lured
+away from her peaceful home by the falsehoods of a commonplace scoundrel.
+
+The story was common, the shame was common, but it seemed to M. Lenoble
+that the woman by his side was his destiny; and then, prompt to the
+rescue of offended pride, of outraged love--tortured to think that she,
+so distant and pure a creature to him, should have been trampled in the
+dust by another--came the white-winged angel Pity. By her weakness, by
+her humiliation, by the memory of her suffering, Pity conjured him to
+love her so much the more dearly.
+
+"My darling," he said softly, "it is a very sad story, and you and I will
+never speak of it again. We will bury the memory of Montague Kingdon in
+the deepest grave that was ever dug for bitter remembrances; and we will
+begin a new life together."
+
+This was the end of M. Lenoble's wooing. He could not speak of his love
+any more while the sound of Montague Kingdon's name had but lately died
+away on Susan Meynell's lips. He had taken her to himself, with all her
+sorrows and sins, in the hour in which he snatched her from death; and
+between these two there was no need of passionate protestations or
+sentimental rapture.
+
+M. Lenoble speedily discovered that the law had made no provision for the
+necessities of a chivalrous young student eager to unite himself with a
+friendless foreign woman, who could not produce so much as one of the
+thirty witnesses required to establish her identity. A very little
+consideration showed Gustave that a marriage between him and Susan
+Meynell in France was an impossibility. He explained this, and asked her
+if she would trust him as she had trusted Montague Kingdon. In Jersey the
+marriage might easily be solemnised. Would she go with him to Jersey, to
+stay there so long as the English law required for the solemnization of
+their union?
+
+"Why should you take so much trouble about me?" said Susan, in her low
+sad voice. "You are too good, too generous. I am not worth so much care
+and thought from you."
+
+"Does that mean that you will not trust me, Susan?"
+
+"I would trust you with my life in a desert, thousands of miles from the
+rest of mankind--with a happier life than mine. I have no feeling in my
+heart but love for you, and faith in you."
+
+After this the rest was easy. The lovers left the Pension Magnotte one
+bright summer morning, and journeyed to Jersey, where, after a
+fortnight's sojourn, the English Protestant church united them in the
+bonds of matrimony.
+
+Susan was a Protestant, Gustave a Catholic, but the difference of
+religion divided them no more than the difference of country. They came
+back to Paris directly after the marriage, and M. Lenoble took a very
+modest lodging for himself and his wife in a narrow street near the
+Pantheon--a fourth story, very humbly furnished. M. Lenoble had provided
+for himself an opportunity of testing the truth of that adage which
+declares that a purse large enough for one is also large enough for two.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+A DECREE OF BANISHMENT.
+
+After those stormy emotions which accompany the doing of a desperate
+deed, there comes in the minds of men a dead calm. The still small voice
+of Wisdom, unheard while Passion's tempest was raging, whispers grave
+counsel or mild reproof; and Folly, who, seen athwart the storm-cloud,
+sublime in the glare of the lightning, seemed inspiration, veils her face
+in the clear, common light of day.
+
+Let it not for a moment be supposed that with M. Lenoble time and
+reflection brought repentance in their train. It was not so. The love
+which he felt for his English wife was no capricious emotion; it was a
+passion deep and strong as destiny. The worst that afterthought could
+reveal to him was the fact that the step he had taken was a very
+desperate one. Before him lay an awful necessity--the necessity of going
+to Beaubocage to tell those who loved him how their air-built castles had
+been shattered by this deed of his.
+
+The letters from Cydalise--nay, indeed, more than one letter from his
+mother, with whom letter-writing was an exceptional business--had of late
+expressed much anxiety. In less than a month the marriage-contract would
+be made ready for his signature. Every hour's delay was a new dishonour.
+He told his wife that he must go home for a few days; and she prepared
+his travelling gear, with a sweet dutiful care that seemed to him like
+the ministration of an angel.
+
+"My darling girl, can I ever repay you for the happiness you have brought
+me!" he exclaimed, as he watched the slight girlish figure flitting about
+the room, busy with the preparations for his journey.
+
+And then he thought of Madelon Frehlter--commonplace, stiff, and
+unimpressionable--the most conventional of school-girls, heavy in face,
+in figure, in step, in mind even, as it had seemed to him, despite his
+sister's praises.
+
+He had been too generous to tell Susan of his engagement, of the
+brilliant prospects he forfeited by his marriage, or the risk which he
+ran of offending his father by that rash step. But to-night, when he
+thought of Madelon's dulness and commonness, it seemed to him as if Susan
+had in manner rescued him from a dreadful fate--as maidens were rescued
+from sea-monsters in the days of Perseus and Heracles.
+
+"Madelon is not unlike a whale," he thought. "They tell us that whales
+are of a sagacious and amiable temper,--and Cydalise was always talking
+of Madelon's good sense and amiablity. I am sure it is quite as easy to
+believe in the unparalleled virtues of the whale as in the unparalleled
+virtues of Madelon Frehlter."
+
+His valise was packed, and he departed for Beaubocage, after a sad and
+tender parting from his wife. The journey was a long one in those days,
+when no express train had yet thundered across the winding Seine,
+cleaving its iron way through the bosom of fertile Norman valleys. M.
+Lenoble had ample time for reflection as he jogged along in the ponderous
+diligence; and his heart grew more and more heavy as the lumbering
+vehicle approached nearer to the town of Vevinord, whence he was to make
+his way to the paternal mansion as best he might.
+
+He walked to Beaubocage, attended by a peasant lad, who carried his
+portmanteau. The country was very pleasant in the quiet summer
+evening, but conscious guilt oppressed the heart and perplexity
+disturbed the mind of M. Gustave Lenoble, and his spirits were in
+nowise elevated by the walk.
+
+Lights in the lower chambers gleamed dimly athwart the trim garden at
+Beaubocage. One faint twinkling candle shone in a little pepper-castor
+turret, his sister's room. The thought of their glad welcome smote his
+heart. How could he shape the words that must inform them of their
+disappointment? And then he thought of the gentle pensive wife in the
+Parisian lodging, so grateful for his devotion, so tender and
+submissive,--the wife he had rescued from death and eternal condemnation,
+as it seemed to his pious Catholic mind. The thought of this dear one
+gave him courage.
+
+"I owe much to my parents," he thought to himself, "but not the privilege
+to sell me for money. The marriage they want to bring about would be a
+sordid barter of my heart and my honour."
+
+In a few minutes after this he was standing in the little salon at
+Beaubocage, with his mother and sister hanging about him and caressing
+him, his father standing near, less demonstrative, but evidently well
+pleased by this unexpected arrival of the son and heir.
+
+"I heard thy voice in the hall," cried Cydalise, "and flew down from my
+room to welcome thee. It seems to me that one can fly on these occasions.
+And how thou art looking well, and how thou art handsome, and how I adore
+thee!" cries the damsel, more ecstatic than an English sister on a like
+occasion. "Dost thou know that we began to alarm ourselves about thee?
+Thy letters became so infrequent, so cold. And all the while thou didst
+plot this surprise for us. Ah, how it is sweet to see thee again!"
+
+And then the mother took up the strain, and anon was spoken the dreaded
+name of Madelon. She too would be glad--she too had been anxious. The
+prodigal made no answer. He could not speak, his heart sank within him,
+he grew cold and pale; to inflict pain on those who loved him was a
+sharper pain than death.
+
+"Gustave!" cried the mother, in sudden alarm, "thou growest pale--thou
+art ill! Look then, François, thy son is ill!"
+
+"No, mother, I am not ill," the young man replied gravely. He kissed his
+mother, and put her gently away from him. In all the years of her
+after-life she remembered that kiss, cold as death, for it was the
+farewell kiss of her son.
+
+"I wish to speak a few words with you alone, father," said Gustave.
+
+The father was surprised, but in no manner alarmed by this request. He
+led the way to his den, a small and dingy chamber, where there were some
+dusty editions of the French classics, and where the master of Beaubocage
+kept accounts and garden-seeds and horse-medicines.
+
+When they were gone, the mother and sister sat by one of the open
+windows, waiting for them. Without all was still. Distant lights
+glimmered through the summer twilight, the lighted windows of Côtenoir.
+
+"How pleased Madelon will be," said Cydalise, looking towards those
+glimmering windows. She had really taught herself to believe that the
+demoiselle Frehlter was a most estimable young person; but she would have
+been glad to find more enthusiasm, more brightness and vivacity, in her
+future sister-in-law.
+
+The interview between the father and son seemed long to Madame Lenoble
+and Cydalise. The two women were curious--nay, indeed, somewhat anxious.
+
+"I fear he has made debts," said the mother, "and is telling thy father
+of his follies. I know not how they are to be paid, unless with the dowry
+of Madelon, and that would seem a dishonourable use of her money."
+
+It was half an hour before any sound broke the stillness of that quiet
+house. Twilight had thickened into night, when there came a banging of
+doors and heavy footsteps in the hall. The door of the salon was
+opened, and M. Lenoble came in alone. At the same moment the outer door
+closed heavily.
+
+M. Lenoble went straight to the open window and closed the Venetian
+shutters. He went from thence to the second window, the shutters whereof
+he fastened carefully, while the women stared at him wonderingly, for it
+was not his habit to perform this office.
+
+"I am shutting out a vagabond," he said, in a cold, cruel voice.
+
+"Where is Gustave?" cried the mother, alarmed.
+
+"He is gone."
+
+"But he is coming back, is he not, directly?"
+
+"Never while I live!" answered M. Lenoble. "He has married an English
+adventuress, and is no longer any son of mine."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Second.
+
+
+
+DOWNHILL.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+THE FATE OF SUSAN LENOBLE.
+
+Seven years after that miserable summer night at Beaubocage on which
+Gustave Lenoble was disowned by his father, a man and woman, with a boy
+five years of age, were starving in a garret amongst the housetops and
+chimneys of Rouen. In the busy city these people lived lonely as in a
+forest, and were securely hidden from the eyes of all who had ever
+known them. The man--haggard, dying--cherished a pride that had grown
+fiercer as the grip of poverty tightened upon him. The woman lived only
+for her husband and her child.
+
+The man was Gustave Lenoble. The world had gone ill with him since he
+cast his destiny into the lap of the woman he loved. In all these years
+no olive-bearing dove had spanned the gulf that yawned between the
+prodigal and his father. The seigneur of Beaubocage had been marble. A
+narrow-minded old man, living his narrow life, and nursing one idea with
+fanatical devotion, was of all men the least likely to forgive. Vain had
+been the tears and entreaties of mother and sister. The doors of that
+joyless dwelling on the fertile flats beyond Vevinord were sealed against
+the offender with a seal not to be broken, even had he come thither to
+plead for pardon, which he did not.
+
+"My father would have sold me as negro slaves are sold _là-bas_," he said,
+on those rare occasions when he opened his old wounds, which were to the
+last unhealed: "I am glad that I escaped the contemptible barter."
+
+He was in very truth glad. Poverty and hardship seemed to him easier to
+bear than the dreary prosperity of Côtenoir and a wife he could not have
+loved. The distinguishing qualities of this man's mind were courage and
+constancy. There are such noble souls born into the world, some to shine
+with lustre supernal, many to burn and die in social depths, obscure as
+ocean's deepest cavern.
+
+In his love for the woman he had chosen Gustave Lenoble never wavered. He
+worked for her, he endured for her, he hoped against hope for her sake;
+and it was only when bodily strength failed that this nameless
+foot-soldier began to droop and falter in life's bitter battle. Things
+had gone ill with him. He had tried his fate as an advocate in Paris, in
+Caen, in Rouen--but clients would not come. He had been a clerk, now in
+one counting-house, now in another, and Susan and he had existed somehow
+during the seven years of their married life.
+
+They clung to each other with affection that seemed to grow with every
+new sorrow; nor did love exhibit any inclination to spread his wings and
+take flight from the window, though poverty came in every day at the
+door, and sat by the hearth, a familiar companion and inevitable guest.
+
+The mother and sister contrived to help this poor castaway with the
+veriest scrapings of a miserly household. The old man, soured by his
+great disappointment, grew sordid and covetous with increasing years, and
+the lives of the women were hard and hopeless. By little cheats, and
+petty contrivances, and pitiful falsifications of financial statements,
+they managed to scrape together a few louis now and then for the
+struggling exile; and to do this was the sole delight of their patient
+lives. They contrived also to correspond secretly with Gustave, and were
+informed of the birth of his son.
+
+"Ah, if thou couldst see how beautiful he is," wrote the father, "this
+child of pure and true love, thou wouldst no longer regret my breach of
+faith with Madelon Frehlter. I knew not until now how like infant
+children are to angels. I knew not how true to nature are the angels in
+the pictures of Raffaelle and Murillo. Thou knowest the print of
+Murillo's Assumption; the picture is in the Louvre. If thou canst
+remember that picture, dear mother, thou hast but to recall the face of
+one of the cherubim about the feet of our Lady, and thou hast the
+portrait of my boy. He opens his eyes, and looks at me as I write. Ah!
+that he and I and my Susan were with thee in the little salon at
+Beaubocage--my sister, Susan, you, and I united round this darling's
+cradle. He has been born in poverty, but his birth has made us very
+happy."
+
+The sentiment of this letter was no spurious or transient feeling. For
+this child Gustave Lenoble evinced an unchanging fondness. It was indeed
+no part of his nature to change. The little one was his comfort in
+affliction, his joy during every brief interval of prosperity. When the
+battle was well nigh fought, and he began to feel himself beaten; his
+chief anxieties, his ever-returning fears, were for his wife and child.
+
+To Susan the thought of parting from him was a despair too deep for
+tears. She would have been something less than woman if she had not loved
+her husband with more than common affection. She watched the change that
+illness brought in the frank face, the stalwart figure; and little by
+little the awful truth came home to her. The hour was at hand in which
+she must lose him.
+
+"If you could have rest, Gustave, better medical advice, more comforts,
+you would soon be strong again. I am sure your father would not refuse to
+forgive you now. Write to him, dearest. Go back to Beaubocage, and let
+your mother and sister nurse you. I will stay here with the little one.
+It shall be forgotten that you have a wife and child."
+
+"No, dear one; I will not desert you, even for a day, to buy back my
+father's love. I would rather be here with you than in the pleasantest
+home without you. But we must face the future, Susan; we must be brave
+and wise, for the little one's sake. You are not so strong that you can
+afford to trust blindly in your power to protect him by-and-by. I have
+written a letter to my father. He has proved himself a hard man to me,
+cruel and obdurate beyond all my fears; but I know he is not altogether
+heartless. When I am dead, you will take the letter in one hand, the
+child in the other, and go to Beaubocage. I believe he will adopt the
+boy, and that the little one will give him the comfort and happiness he
+hoped from me. He must be very lonely; and I cannot doubt that his heart
+will melt when he sees the child's face, and hears that he has no longer
+a son. As for yourself, my poor girl, I see for you no hope except in the
+old Yorkshire home, and the friends you fear to see again."
+
+"I no longer fear them," said his wife, with unwonted energy, "I could
+not go to them seven years ago; but I can go to them as your wife."
+
+"Ah, thank God, the poor name is worth something for you."
+
+"Yes, dear; and I will go back to them--to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow!"
+
+"To-morrow, Gustave. I have been selfish and cruel to delay so long. The
+old dread of seeing my sister's reproachful face has been strong enough
+to hold me back, when a little courage might have enabled me to help you.
+The burden has been all on you, and I have done nothing. O, what a wretch
+I must have been to sit idly by and see you suffer, and make no effort to
+help you!"
+
+"But, my darling, you have not been idle. You have been the dearest and
+most industrious of wives, and have helped me to bear my burden. You have
+done more, dear--you have made my burden pleasant to me."
+
+"I will try to lighten it, Gustave," cried Susan, with excitement. "O,
+why, why did I never try before! My sister and her husband are well
+off--rich perhaps. If they are still living, if no cruel changes have
+come to pass at Newhall, they could help us with a little money. They
+might even give us a home. I will start for England to-morrow."
+
+"Nay, my dear, you are not strong enough to travel so far alone. It
+seems, indeed, a happy thought this of your rich relations; but you must
+not undertake such a journey. You might write."
+
+"No, Gustave, I will trust to no letter; I will go. It will be no pain
+for me to humble myself for your sake. I will go straight to my sister. I
+know what a tender compassionate heart it is that I shall appeal to."
+
+There was much discussion; but Susan was resolute. To scrape together the
+money for the journey she made efforts that were heroic in a nature so
+weak as hers. She went to the Monte de Piété with the last of her little
+treasures, that one dear trinket to which she had clung even when hunger
+was at the door--the gimmal or alliance ring that Gustave had placed upon
+her finger before God's altar--the double symbolic circlet which bore on
+one side her name, on the other her husband's. This dearest of all her
+possessions she surrendered for a few francs, to make up the sum needful
+for her journey.
+
+What it cost her to do this, what it cost her to tear herself away
+from her sick husband and her only child, who shall say? There are
+pangs that cannot be counted, agonies that will come within no
+calculation--the infinite of pain. She went. Two kind souls, a labourer
+and his wife, lodgers in the same garret-story, promised to care for
+and help the invalid and child. There is no desolation in which a child
+will not find a friend.
+
+The journey was long and fatiguing; the anguish of her poor aching heart
+almost too much for endurance--a heart so heavy that even hope could
+scarce flutter it. It was dull damp weather, though in the middle of
+summer. The solitary traveller caught cold on the journey, and arrived in
+London in a high fever. Ill, faint, and helpless, the great city seemed
+to her unspeakably dismal--most stony of all stony-hearted mothers to
+this wretched orphan. She could go no farther than the darksome city inn
+where the coach from Southampton brought her. She had come _viâ_ Havre.
+Here she sank prostrate, and had barely sufficient strength to write an
+incoherent letter to her sister, Mrs. Halliday, of Newhall Farm, near
+Huxter's Cross, Yorkshire.
+
+The sister came as fast as the fastest coach on the great northern road
+could carry her. There was infinite joy in that honest sisterly heart
+over this one sinner's repentance. Fourteen years had gone by since the
+young city-bred beauty had fled with that falsest of men, and most
+hardened of profligates, Montague Kingdon; and tidings from Susan were
+unlooked for and thrilling as a message from the grave.
+
+Alas for the adverse fate of Susan Meynell! The false step of her youth
+had set her for ever wrong upon life's highway. When kind Mrs. Halliday
+came, Gustave Lenoble's wife was past her help; wandering in her mind; a
+girl again, but newly run away from her peaceful home; and with no
+thought save of remorse for her misdeeds.
+
+The seven years of her married life seemed to have faded out of her mind.
+She raved of Montague Kingdon's baseness, of her own folly, her vain
+regret, her yearning for pardon; but of the dying husband in the garret
+at Rouen she uttered no word. And so, with her weary head upon her
+sister's breast, she passed away, her story untold, no wedding-ring on
+her wasted finger to bear witness that she died an honest man's wife; no
+letters or papers in her poor little trunk to throw light on the fourteen
+years in which she had been a castaway.
+
+Mrs. Halliday stayed in London to see the wanderer laid in the quiet city
+churchyard where her family rested, and where for her was chosen an
+obscure corner in which she might repose forgotten and unknown.
+
+But not quite nameless. Mrs. Halliday could not leave the grave unmarked
+by any record of the sister she had loved. The stone above the grave of
+Gustave's wife bore her maiden name, and the comforting familiar text
+about the one sinner who repenteth.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FORGIVEN TOO LATE.
+
+For a week of long days and longer nights there was no step sounded on
+the stair, no opening or shutting of a door in the old dilapidated house
+where he lay languishing on the brink of an open grave, that did not move
+Gustave Lenoble with a sudden emotion of hope. But the footsteps came and
+went, the doors were opened and shut again and again, and the traveller
+so waited, so hoped for did not return.
+
+The boy--the brave bright son, who seemed to inherit all that was noblest
+and best in his father's nature--pined for his mother. The man endured a
+martyrdom worse than the agony of Damiens, the slow tortures of La Barre.
+What had befallen her? That she could desert him or his child was a
+possibility that never shaped itself in his mind. _That_ drop of poison
+was happily wanting in his cup; and the bitterness of death was sweet
+compared to the scorpion-sting of such a supposition.
+
+She did not return. Calamity in some shape had overtaken her--calamity
+dire as death; for, with life and reason, she could not have failed to
+send some token, some tidings, to those she loved. The sick man waited a
+week after the day on which he had begun to expect her return. At the end
+of that time he rose, with death in his face, and went out to look for
+her--to look for her in Rouen; for her whom the instinct of his heart
+told him was far away from that city--as far as death from life. He went
+to the Cour de Messageries, and loitered and waited amidst the bustle of
+arriving and departing diligences, with a half-imbecile hope that she
+would alight from one of them. The travellers came and went, pushing and
+hustling him in their selfish haste. When night came he went back to his
+garret. All was quiet. The boy slept with the children of his good
+neighbour, and was comforted by the warmth of that strange hearth.
+
+Gustave lit his candle, a last remaining morsel.
+
+"You will last my time, friend," he said, with a wan smile.
+
+He seated himself at the little table, pushed aside the medicine-bottles,
+searched for a stray sheet of letter-paper, and then began to write.
+
+He wrote to his mother, telling her that death was at hand, and that the
+time had come in which she must succour her son's orphan child. With this
+he enclosed a letter to his father--that letter of which he had spoken to
+his wife, and which had been written in the early days of his illness.
+This packet he directed to Madame Lenoble, at Beaubocage. There was no
+longer need for secrecy.
+
+"When those letters are delivered I shall be past blame, and past
+forgiveness," he thought.
+
+In the morning he was dead.
+
+The neighbours posted the letter. The neighbours comforted and protected
+the child for two days; and then there came a lady, very sad, very quiet,
+who wept bitterly in the stillness of that attic chamber where Gustave
+Lenoble lay; and who afterwards, with a gentle calmness of manner that
+was very sweet to see, made all necessary arrangements for a humble, but
+not a mean or ignominious, funeral.
+
+"He was my brother," she said to the good friends of the neighbouring
+garret. "We did our best to help him, my mother and I; but we little
+thought how bitterly he wanted help. The brave heart would not suffer us
+to know that."
+
+And then she thanked them with much tenderness for their charity to the
+dead man; and with these good people she went on foot through the narrow
+streets of the city to see her brother laid in his grave.
+
+Until this was done the mournful lady, who was not yet thirty years of
+age, and of a placid nun-like beauty, abandoned herself to no transport
+of love for her orphan nephew; but when that last office of affection had
+been performed, she took the little one on her knees, and folded him to
+her breast, and gave him her heart, as she had given it long ago to his
+father; for this gentle unselfish creature was one who must needs have
+some shrine at which to offer her daily sacrifice of self. Already she
+was beginning to think how the orphan was to be cared for and the widow
+also, for whose return she looked daily.
+
+For the return of Susan Lenoble Cydalise waited at Rouen several days
+after the funeral. She had, happily, an old school-fellow comfortably
+established in the city; and in the house of this old friend she found a
+home. No one but her mother and this friend, whom she could trust, knew
+of the business that had brought her from Beaubocage. In seven years the
+father had never uttered his only son's name; in all the seven years that
+name had never been spoken in his hearing.
+
+When three weeks had gone by since the departure of Susan for England,
+all hope of her return was abandoned by Mademoiselle Lenoble and the
+neighbours who had known the absent woman.
+
+"She had the stamp of death on her face when she went away," said the
+labourer's wife, "as surely as it was on him that she left. I told her
+she had no strength for the journey; but she would go: there was no
+moving her from that. She had rich friends _là-bas_, who might help her
+husband. It was for that she went. That thought seemed to give her a kind
+of fever, and the strength of fever."
+
+"And there has come no letter--nothing?"
+
+"Nothing, mademoiselle."
+
+On this Cydalise determined to return to Beaubocage. She could not well
+leave the child longer on the hands of these friendly people, even by
+paying for his maintenance, which she insisted on doing, though they
+would fain have shared their humble _pot-à-feu_ and coarse loaf with
+him unrecompensed. She determined on a desperate step. She would take
+her brother's orphan child back with her, and leave the rest to
+Providence--to the chance of some sudden awakening of natural affection
+in a heart that had long languished in a kind of torpor that was almost
+death.
+
+The little fellow pined sadly for those dear familiar faces, those tender
+soothing voices, that had vanished so suddenly from his life. But the
+voice of his aunt was very sweet and tender, and had a tone that recalled
+the father who was gone. With this kind aunt he left Rouen in the
+lumbering old vehicle that plied daily betwixt that city and Vevinord.
+
+"Thou canst call me Cydalise for a while, my little one," she said to
+him; for she did not wish the child to proclaim the relationship between
+them yet awhile.
+
+Ah, what bitter tears the two women shed over the soft fair curls of that
+little head, when they had the boy all to themselves in the turret
+chamber at Beaubocage, on whose white walls the eyes of Cydalise had
+opened almost every morning of her pure eventless life!
+
+"Why dost thou cry so, madame?" the child asked of his grandmother, as
+she held him in her arms, kissing and weeping over him; "and what have
+they done with my father--and mamma too? She went away one day, but she
+told me that she would come back, so quickly, ah, so quickly! and the
+days passed, and they shut papa in his room, and would not let me go to
+him; and mamma did not come, though I asked the Blessed Virgin to send
+her back to me."
+
+"Dear child, thy father and mother are in a brighter place than this hard
+world, where they had so much sorrow," Madame Lenoble answered, gently.
+
+"Yes, they were often sorry," murmured the boy thoughtfully. "It was
+because of money; but then, when there was no money, mamma cried and
+kissed me, and kissed papa, and the good papa kissed us both, and somehow
+it always ended in happiness."
+
+François Lenoble was, happily, absent on this day of tribulation. The
+women took their fill of sorrow, but it was sorrow mingled with a strange
+bitter sweetness that was almost joy. The seigneur of Beaubocage had gone
+to dine, as he still often did, with his old friend Baron Frehlter; for
+the breach of faith which had caused a lifelong disunion of father and
+son had not divided the two proprietors. Nay, indeed the Baron had been
+generous enough to plead the cause of the castaway.
+
+"A man cannot dispose at will of his affections, my friend," he urged;
+"and it was more generous in your son to break faith with my daughter
+before marriage than after."
+
+Mademoiselle Frehlter had not broken her heart on account of her lover's
+falsehood. She had been sufficiently indignant on the occasion, and had
+been more impatient of her mother's pet priest and pet poodle during the
+brief period in which she wore the willow. She had recovered her good
+humour, however, on being wooed by a young subaltern in a cavalry
+regiment stationed at Vevinord, the offshoot of a grander house than that
+of Lenoble, and whose good looks and good lineage had ultimately
+prevailed with the Baron. That gentleman had by no means too good an
+opinion of the son-in-law thus forced upon him; but peace was the highest
+good (with unlimited tobacco) to which his Germanic soul aspired; and for
+the sake of peace in the present he was content to hazard his daughter's
+happiness in the future.
+
+"_That_ is very brilliant," he said of M. Paul de Nérague, the young
+lieutenant of light cavalry; "but it is not solid, like Gustave. Your son
+is honest, candid--a brave heart. It is for that I would have given him
+Madelon. But it is Providence which disposes of us, as our good father
+St. Velours tells us often; and one must be content. Young Nérague
+pleases my daughter, and I must swallow him, though for me he smells too
+strong of the barracks: _ça flaire la caserne, mon ami_."
+
+That odour of the barracks which distinguished the sub-lieutenant Paul de
+Nérague became more odious after his marriage with the virtuous Madelon,
+when he was established--_niché_, as he himself called it--in very
+comfortable, though somewhat gruesome, apartments at Côtenoir. His
+riotous deportment, his hospitable disposition (as displayed in the
+frequent entertainment of his brothers-in-arms at the expense of his
+father-in-law), his Don Juan-like demeanour in relation to the housemaids
+and kitchen-wenches of the château--innocent enough in the main, but on
+that account so much the more audacious--struck terror to the hearts of
+Madame Frehlter and her daughter; and the elder lady was much gratified
+by that thirst for foreign territory which carried the greater part of
+the French army and the regiment of the vivacious Paul to the distant
+wilds of Algeria.
+
+The virtuous Madelon was too stolid to weep for her husband. But even her
+stolidity was not proof against the fiery influence of jealousy, and,
+waking and sleeping, her visions were of veiled damsels of Orient
+assailing the too inflammable heart of Lieutenant de Nérague.
+
+The young officer was yet absent at that period in which Cydalise
+returned from Rouen with her brother's child.
+
+The little boy was sleeping peacefully in a cot beside his aunt's bed (it
+had been his father's cot thirty years ago) when François Lenoble
+returned from Côtenoir that night.
+
+It was not till the next day that he saw the child. He had been making
+his usual morning's round in the gardens and orchards, when he came into
+the salon, and saw the little boy seated near his grandmother's chair,
+playing with some dominoes. Something--perhaps the likeness to his dead
+son--the boy's black clothes, for Cydalise had contrived to dress him in
+decent mourning--struck suddenly on the old man's heart. "Who is that
+boy?" he asked, with a strange earnestness.
+
+"Your son Gustave's only child," answered his wife gently,--"his
+orphan child."
+
+François Lenoble looked at her, and from her to the boy; tried to speak,
+but could not; beckoned the child, and then dropped heavily into a chair
+and sobbed aloud. Until this moment no one had ever seen him shed a tear
+for the son he had put away from his home--and, as it had seemed, from
+his heart. Not by one sigh, not by one mournful utterance of the familiar
+name, had he betrayed the depth of that wound which he had endured,
+silently, obstinately, in all these years.
+
+They suffered him to bemoan his dead son unhindered by stereotyped
+consolations. The two women stood by, and pitied him in silence. The
+little boy stared wonderingly, and at last crept up to the
+sorrow-stricken father. "Why do you cry, poor old man?" he asked. "You
+have not lost your papa and mamma, as I have lost mine, have you? I want
+to stay with you and be your little boy, please. She told me to say
+that," he added, pointing to Cydalise.--"And I have said it right,
+haven't I?" he asked of the same lady.--"I think I shall love you,
+because you are like my papa, only older and uglier," the little one
+concluded, with angelic candour.
+
+The seigneur of Beaubocage dried his tears with an effort.
+Beaubocage--Côtenoir. Ah, me! what empty sounds those two once magic
+names seemed to him now that his son's life had been sacrificed to so
+paltry an ambition, so sordid a passion, so vile and grovelling a desire!
+He took the boy on his knee, and kissed him tenderly. His thoughts
+bridged over a chasm of five-and-twenty years as his lips pressed
+that fair young brow; and it was his own son--the son whom he had
+disowned--whose soft hair was mingling itself now with the grey bristles
+on his rugged chin.
+
+"My child," he murmured softly, "the fear is that I shall love thee too
+well, and be to thee as much too weakly indulgent as I was wickedly stern
+to thy father. Anything is easier to humanity than justice."
+
+This was said to himself rather than to the boy.
+
+"Tell me thy name, little one," he asked presently, after a few moments'
+pensive meditation.
+
+"I have two names, monsieur."
+
+"Thou must call me grandfather. And the two names?"
+
+"François Gustave."
+
+"I shall call thee Gustave."
+
+"But papa always called me François, and mamma said it was the name of a
+cruel man; but papa said he loved the name--"
+
+"Ah, no more, little one!" cried the lord of Beaubocage suddenly;
+"thou knowest not with what dagger-thrusts thou dost pierce this poor
+old heart."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+GUSTAVE THE SECOND.
+
+The little Gustave grew and flourished. Such love was lavished on him as
+rarely falls to the lot of children, though the spring of many lives may
+be rich in love's pure white blossom. The existence of this child seemed
+all happiness. He brought hope, and a sense of atonement, and all sweet
+things, to the quiet family at Beaubocage; and as he grew from childhood
+to boyhood, from boyhood to manhood, it seemed to that household as if
+the first Gustave of their love had never been taken from them. That
+Orphic fable of Zagreus repeats itself in many households. For the one
+bright creature lost another is given; and then comes a time when it is
+almost difficult to separate the image of the missing one from the dear
+substitute who so nearly fills his place.
+
+François Lenoble and his wife enjoyed a green old age, and the affection
+of their grandson made the cup of life sweet for them to the very dregs.
+There are, happily, some natures which indulgence cannot injure; some
+luxuriant flowers which attain strength as well as beauty under the
+influence of these tropical heats of affection. Gustave the second
+possessed all the noble qualities of Gustave the first. Frank, generous,
+brave, constant, affectionate, light-hearted, he shone on the failing
+eyes of his kindred radiant as a young Apollo, brave as a mortal
+Hercules.
+
+Those things which the ignorant heart has at some time so passionately
+desired are apt to be granted when the desire has grown somewhat cold and
+dead. Thus it was with the ambition of François Lenoble. He lived to see
+the lands of Côtenoir and Beaubocage united in the person of his
+grandson, who married Clarice, the only surviving child of M. and Madame
+de Nérague. Two sons and a daughter had been born at Côtenoir; but the
+sons withered and faded in early boyhood, and even the daughter, though
+considered a flourishing plant in that poor garden of weakling blossoms,
+was but a fragile creature.
+
+The old people at Beaubocage survived the seigneur and châtelaine of
+Côtenoir by some years, and survived also the fiery lieutenant, who fell
+in Algeria without having attained his captaincy, or added any military
+renown to the good old name of de Nérague in his own magnificent person.
+
+François saw his grandson established at Côtenoir before he died. He
+expired with his hand in that of Gustave, whom, in the half-consciousness
+of that last hour, he mistook for the son he had disowned.
+
+"What door was that that shut?" he asked, in an eager whisper. "Who said
+I turned my son out of doors--my only son? It's false! I couldn't have
+done it! Hark! there's the door shutting again! It sounds like the door
+of a tomb."
+
+After this he dozed a little, and woke with a smile on his face.
+
+"I have been dreaming of thy father, Gustave," he said calmly. "I thought
+that I saw him with a light shining in his face, and that he kissed and
+forgave me."
+
+This was the end. The faithful wife was not slow to follow her husband to
+the grave, and there was now only a placid maiden lady at Beaubocage,
+Mademoiselle Cydalise Lenoble, whom everyone within ten leagues of
+Vevinord knew and loved,--a lay abbess, a Sister of Mercy in all save the
+robes; a tender creature, who lived only to do good.
+
+Ten years passed, and M. Lenoble of Côtenoir was a widower with two
+fair young daughters at a convent school on the outskirts of Vevinord,
+and a boisterous son at an academy in Rouen. Gustave had never followed
+any profession; the lands of Beaubocage secured him a competence,
+so prudently had the small estate been managed by the kindred who
+adored him. His marriage had given him fortune. He had no need of
+trade or profession. His life was laid out for him like a prim Dutch
+flower-garden. He was to live at Côtenoir, and look after his estate, and
+smoke his pipe, as Baron Frehlter had done, and be a good husband to his
+wife, a kind father to his children. This latter part of his duty came
+natural to M. Lenoble. It was not in him to be otherwise than kind to
+women and children. His invalid wife praised him as a model of marital
+perfection. It was Gustave who wheeled her sofa from one room to another,
+Gustave who prepared her medicines, Gustave whose careful hands adjusted
+curtains and _portières_. The poor woman lived and died believing herself
+the happiest of wives. She mistook kindness for love.
+
+M. Lenoble bore his wife's demise with Christian calmness. He was sorry
+that the fragile creature should have been taken so early from the
+pleasant home that was hers by right, but of passionate grief, or dreary
+sense of irreparable loss, there was none in that manly heart. There were
+times when the widower reproached himself for this want of feeling; but
+in very truth Madame Lenoble, _jeune_, had lived and died a nonentity.
+Her departure left no empty place; even her children scarcely missed her.
+The father was all-in-all.
+
+Gustave had married at twenty years of age. He was twenty-nine when his
+wife died. His eldest daughter, Clarice, eight; his second, Madelon,
+seven; the boy, a spoilt young dog of five, not yet despatched to the
+great school at Rouen.
+
+But in '65 Mademoiselle Clarice was fifteen years of age, and a very
+charming performer on the pianoforte, as the good nuns at the Convent of
+the Sacred Heart, at Vevinord, told the father. Mademoiselle Madelon was
+looking forward to her fourteenth anniversary, and she, too, was a very
+pretty pianist, and altogether a young prodigy of learning and goodness,
+as the nuns told the master of Côtenoir. The demoiselles of Côtenoir
+stood high in the estimation of pupils and mistress; they were a kind of
+noblesse; and the simple-minded superioress spoke of these young persons
+with some pride when she described her establishment to a stranger. It
+was a very comfortable little colony, a small world enclosed by high
+walls. The good mothers who taught and cherished the children were for
+the greater part ladies of superior and even exalted station; and there
+was a gentleness, a tenderness, in their care for these young lambs not
+always to be insured by the payment of an annual stipend. It must be
+confessed that the young lambs were apt to be troublesome, and required a
+good deal of watching. To the eye of the philosopher that convent school
+would have afforded scope for curious study; for it is singular to
+discover what exceptional vices the youthful mind can develop from its
+inner consciousness, in homes as pure as this. There were black sheep
+even in the convent of the Sacré Coeur, damsels marked with a sign that
+meant "dangerous."
+
+Happily for Gustave Lenoble, his daughters were amongst the brightest and
+the purest of those girl-graduates. They gave him no trouble, except when
+they asked him for a home.
+
+"It seems so dull and dreary at Côtenoir, papa," they said, "though you
+are always so kind. It doesn't seem like home. Beaubocage is more
+home-like. At Côtenoir, when you are out, there is no one to talk to; and
+we have no little parties, no excursions into the country, none of those
+pleasures which the other girls tell us they have during the holidays."
+
+This was the gist of the lamentations of Mademoiselles Clarice and
+Madelon; and the father knew not how to supply the mysterious something
+which was wanting to make Côtenoir a pleasant home. The girls could
+complain of no restraint, or pine for no indulgence, since their father
+was always prompt to gratify every whim. But there was some element of
+happiness wanting, nevertheless; and M. Lenoble perceived that it was so.
+The life at Côtenoir was desultory, straggling; an existence of perpetual
+dawdling; a life of shreds and patches, half-formed resolutions, projects
+begun and broken off in the middle. The good genius, the household angel,
+order, was wanting in that mansion. There was waste, dirt, destruction of
+all kinds, in the rambling old château; old servants, too weak or too
+lazy to work; old tradesmen, presuming on old-established habits of
+imposition, unquestioned so long as to have become a right--for the
+feudal system of fine and forfeiture has only changed hands. The power
+still flourishes, only it is the villein who takes tithe of his lord.
+
+The servants at Côtenoir had gone their own ways with but little
+interference since the death of Madame de Nérague, which occurred two
+years before that of her daughter, Clarice Lenoble. Poor invalid Clarice
+had been quite unable to superintend her household; and since her death
+Mademoiselle Cydalise had been too feeble of health to assume any
+authority in her nephew's establishment, even if the household of
+Côtenoir would have submitted to interference from Beaubocage, which in
+all likelihood they would not.
+
+Thus it happened that things had taken their own course at the château,
+and the course had been somewhat erratic. There is nothing so costly as
+muddle, and Gustave Lenoble had of late begun to perceive that he had the
+maximum of expense with the minimum of comfort. Meanwhile the kind old
+aunt at Beaubocage gave her nieces much valuable advice against the time
+when they should be old enough to assume the management of their father's
+house. The sweet unselfish lady of Beaubocage had indeed undergone hard
+experience in the acquirement of the domestic art. Heaven and her own
+memory alone recorded those scrapings and pinchings and nice calculations
+of morsels by which she had contrived to save a few pounds for her
+outcast brother. Such sordid economics show but poorly on earth; but it
+is probable that in the mass of documentary evidence which goes before
+the Great Judge, Mademoiselle Lenoble's account-book will be placed on
+the right side.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Third.
+
+
+
+THE HORATIAD.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+CHIEFLY RETROSPECTIVE.
+
+Captain Paget went his way to Rouen in a placid but not an exulting mood,
+after parting with his young friend Valentine Hawkehurst at the London
+Bridge terminus of the Brighton line. He was setting out upon an
+adventure wild and impracticable as the quest of Jason and his Argonauts;
+and this gallant captain was a carpet-knight, sufficiently adventurous
+and audacious in the diplomatic crusades of society, but in nowise eager
+to hazard his life on tented field and in thick press of war. If the
+Fates had allowed the accomplished Horatio to choose his own destiny, he
+would have elected to live in the immediate neighbourhood of St. James's
+Street, from the first day to the last of the London season, and to dine
+artistically and discreetly at one of those older and more exclusive
+clubs dear and familiar to him from the bright years of his youth. He was
+by nature a _flâneur_, a gossip, a lover of expensive luxuries and
+frivolous pleasures. He was not only incapable of a high thought himself,
+but was an unbeliever in the possibility of high thoughts or noble
+principles in the world he lived in. He measured the universe by that
+narrow scrap of tape which was the span of his own littleness. To him
+Cæsar was an imperial brigand, Cicero a hypocritical agitator. To him
+all great warriors were greedy time-servers like John Churchill; all
+statesmen plausible placemen; all reformers self-seeking pretenders. Nor
+did Captain Paget wish that it should be otherwise. In his ideal
+republic, unselfishness and earnestness would have rendered a man rather
+a nuisance than otherwise. With the vices of his fellow-men the
+diplomatic Horatio was fully competent to deal; but some of his most
+subtle combinations on the chess-board of life would have been checkmated
+by an unexpected encounter with intractable virtue.
+
+The necessity of living was the paramount consideration to which this
+gentleman had given his mind from the time when he found himself a
+popular subaltern in a crack regiment, admired for his easy manners and
+good looks, respected by meaner men for his good blood, and rich in
+everything except that vulgar dross without which the life of West-end
+London is so hollow a delusion, so bitter a comedy of mean shifts and
+lying devices.
+
+That freebooter of civilization, the man who lives by his wits, is
+subject to strange fluctuations from prosperity to adversity. He is the
+miner or gold-digger of civilized life; and as there are times when his
+pickaxe strikes suddenly on a rich lode, so there are dreary intervals in
+which his spade turns up nothing but valueless clay, and the end of each
+day's work leaves him with no better evidence of his wasted labour than
+the aching limbs which he drags at nightfall to his dismal shanty.
+
+For some months Captain Paget had found Philip Sheldon a very useful
+acquaintance. The stockbroker had been the secret inaugurator of two or
+three joint-stock companies, though figuring to the outer world only as
+director; and in the getting-up of these companies Horatio had been a
+useful instrument, and had received liberal payment for his labours.
+Unhappily, so serene an occupation as promoting cannot go on for ever; or
+rather, cannot remain for ever in the same hands. The human mind is
+naturally imitative, and the plagiarisms of commerce are infinitely more
+audacious than the small larcenies of literature. The joint-stock company
+market became day by day more crowded. No sooner did Philip Sheldon float
+the Non-destructive Laundry Company, the admirable organization of which
+would offer a guarantee against the use of chloride of lime and other
+destructive agencies in the wash-tub, than a rival power launched a
+colourable imitation thereof, in the Union-is-Strength Domestic Lavatory
+Company, with a professor of chemistry specially retained as inspector of
+wash-tubs. Thus it was that, after the profitable ripening of three such
+schemes, Mr. Sheldon deemed it advisable to retire from the field, and
+await a fitter time for the further exercise of his commercial genius.
+
+Captain Paget's relations with the stockbroker did not, however,
+terminate with the cessation of his labours as secretary,
+jack-of-all-trades, and promoter. Having found him, so far, clever, and
+to all appearance trustworthy--and this was an important point, for no
+man so much needs honourable service as a rogue--Philip Sheldon
+determined upon confiding to Horatio the conduct of a more delicate
+business than anything purely commercial. After that discovery of the
+telegraphic message sent by his brother George to Valentine Hawkehurst,
+and the further discovery of the advertisement relating to the unclaimed
+wealth of the lately deceased John Haygarth, Mr. Sheldon lost no time in
+organizing his plans for his own aggrandizement at the expense of his
+brother.
+
+"George refused to let me in for a share of chances when I showed myself
+willing to help him," thought Philip. "He may discover by-and-by that I
+have contrived to let myself into his secrets; and that he might have
+played a better game by consenting to a partnership."
+
+A life devoted to his own interests, and a consistent habit of
+selfishness, had rendered Mr. Sheldon, of the Lawn, Bayswater, and Stags
+Court, City, very quick of apprehension in all matters connected,
+immediately or remotely, with the making of money. The broken sentences
+of the telegram betrayed by the blotting-pad told him a great deal. They
+told him that there was a certain Goodge, in the town of Ullerton, who
+possessed letters so valuable to George Sheldon, as to be bought by his
+agent Valentine Hawkehurst. Letters for which Sheldon was willing to give
+money must needs be of considerable importance, since money was a very
+scarce commodity with that hunter of unconscious heirs-at-law. Again, a
+transaction which required the use of so expensive a medium as the
+electric telegraph rather than the penny post, might be fairly supposed a
+transaction of some moment. The letters in question might relate to some
+other estate than that of John Haygarth, for it was quite possible that
+the schemer of Gray's Inn had other irons in the fire. But this was a
+question of no moment to Philip Sheldon.
+
+If the letters--or the information contained therein--were likely to be
+useful to George, they might be useful to him. If George found it worth
+his while to employ an agent at Ullerton, why should not he (Philip) have
+his agent in the same town? The pecuniary risk, which might be a serious
+affair to George, was child's play for Philip, who had always plenty of
+money, or, at any rate, the command of money. The whole business of
+heir-at-law hunting seemed to the stockbroker a very vague and shadowy
+piece of work, as compared to the kind of speculation that was familiar
+to him; but he knew that men had made money in such a manner, and any
+business by which money could be made, was interesting to him. Beyond
+this, the notion of cutting the ground from under his brother's feet had
+a certain attraction for him. George's manner to him had been somewhat
+offensive to him on more than one occasion since--well, since Tom
+Halliday's death. Mr. Sheldon had borne that offensiveness in mind, with
+the determination to "take it out of" his brother on the earliest
+opportunity.
+
+It seemed as if the opportunity had arrived, and Philip was not one of
+those men who wait shivering on the shore when Fortune's tide is at the
+flood. Mr. Sheldon launched his bark upon the rising waters, and within
+two hours of his discovery in the telegraph-office was closeted with
+Horatio Paget in the little parlour in Omega Street, making arrangements
+for the Captain's journey to Ullerton.
+
+That Horatio was the right man for the work he wanted done, Mr. Sheldon
+had been quick to perceive.
+
+"He knows Hawkehurst, and will be able to reckon up any manoeuvres of his
+better than a stranger; and is, I think, altogether as deep an old
+gentleman as one could hope to meet with, barring _the_ traditional
+gentleman who did odd jobs for Dr. Faustus," the stockbroker said to
+himself, as his hansom sped along Park Lane on its way to Chelsea. The
+eagerness with which Captain Paget took up the idea of this business was
+very agreeable to his patron.
+
+"This is an affair in which success hinges on time," said Mr. Sheldon;
+"so, if you mean to go in for the business, you must start for Ullerton
+by the two o'clock express. You'll have just time to throw your razors
+and a clean shirt into a carpet-bag while I talk to you. I've got a cab
+outside, and a good one, that will take you to Euston Square in half an
+hour."
+
+The Captain showed himself prompt in action. His bedchamber was a small
+apartment at the back of the parlour, and here he packed his bag while
+conversing with his employer.
+
+"If you get upon the ground in time, you may obtain a look at the letters
+before they are handed over to Hawkehurst, or you may outbid him for
+them," said Mr. Sheldon; "but remember, whatever you do must be so done
+as to keep Hawkehurst and George completely in the dark as to our
+proceedings. If once they find out we are on their track, our chances
+will be gone, for they have got the information and we haven't; and it's
+only by following close in their footsteps we can hope to do anything."
+
+"That is understood," replied the Captain, stooping over his bag; "I
+shall keep myself as close as possible, you may depend upon it. And it
+shan't be my fault if Valentine sees me or hears of me. I shall want
+money, by the bye; for one can't stir a step in this sort of affair
+without ready cash."
+
+"I am quite aware of that. I stopped at the West-end branch of the Unitas
+and cashed a cheque for forty pounds. You can do a good deal in the way
+of bribery for forty pounds, in such a place as Ullerton. What you have
+to do is to keep your eye on Hawkehurst, and follow up every channel of
+information that he opens for you. He has the clue to the labyrinth,
+remember, the reel of cotton, or whatever it was, that the young woman
+gave that Roman fellow. All you have to do is to get hold of it, and
+follow your leader." continued Philip, with his watch in his hand. "This
+business of the letters will be sharp work, for the chances are against
+us here, as it's more than likely the papers will have changed hands
+before you can get to Ullerton. But if you can't buy the letters, you may
+buy the information contained in them, and that is the next best thing.
+Your first move will be to ferret out this man Goodge. Everybody knows
+everybody else in such a place as Ullerton, large and busy as the town
+is, and you won't find that difficult. When you see Goodge, you'll know
+how to deal with him. The mode and manner of your dealing I leave to
+yourself. You are a man of the world, and will know how to manipulate the
+gentleman, whoever he may be. And now lock your bag and cut downstairs as
+fast as you can. Time's up. Here's your money--three tens, two fives.
+Good day."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+EPISTOLARY.
+
+_From Horatio Paget to Philip Sheldon_.
+
+Royal Hotel, Ullerton, Oct. 7, 186--.
+
+My dear sir,--I arrived here last evening just in time to run against
+Hawkehurst on the platform, which was rather a provoking encounter at the
+outset. He went further north by the same train that brought me from
+London. This train only stops at three places after Ullerton--Slowport,
+Black Harbour, and Manchester; and I shall take pains to discover which
+of these towns was Hawkehurst's destination. There was one satisfaction
+in seeing his departure by this train, inasmuch as it assured me that I
+had the ground clear for my own operations.
+
+I had no difficulty in discovering the whereabouts of Goodge--_the_
+Goodge we want--and at eight o'clock was comfortably seated in that
+gentleman's parlour, talking over the affair of the letters. Tolerably
+quick work, I think you will allow, my dear sir, for a man whose years
+have fallen into the sere and yellow leaf.
+
+Mr. Goodge is a Methodist parson--a class of person I have always
+detested. I found him peculiarly amenable to monetary influence. I need
+scarcely tell you that I was careful to conceal my identity from this
+person. I made so bold as to borrow the cognomen of an old-established
+firm of solicitors in the Fields, and took a somewhat high tone
+throughout the interview. I informed Mr. Goodge that the young man who
+had called on him with reference to certain letters connected with the
+affairs of the Haygarth family--and I perceived from Mr. Goodge's face
+that we were on the right track--was a person of disreputable character,
+engaged in an underhand transaction calculated to injure a respected
+client of our house. I saw that the words "house" and "our" were
+talismanic in their effect upon the Methodist parson. You see, my dear
+sir, there is no one can manage this sort of thing so well as a
+gentleman. It comes natural to him. Your vulgar diplomatist seldom knows
+how to begin, and never knows when to stop. Here I had this low-bred
+Methodist fellow impressed by the idea of my individual and collective
+importance after five minutes' conversation. "But this comes too near the
+praising of myself; therefore hear other things," as the bard observes.
+
+A very little further conversation rendered Mr. Goodge malleable. I found
+that Hawkehurst had approached him in the character of your brother's
+articled clerk, but under his own proper name. This is one point gained,
+since it assures me that Valentine is not skulking here under a feigned
+name; and will enable me to shape my future inquiries about him
+accordingly. I also ascertained Hawkehurst's whereabouts when in
+Ullerton. He stays at a low commercial house called the Black Swan. It
+appears that the man Goodge possesses a packet of letters written by a
+certain Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth, wife of one Matthew Haygarth. In what
+relationship this Matthew may stand to the intestate is to be discovered.
+It is evident he is an important link in the chain, or your brother would
+not want the letters. I need not trouble you with our conversation in
+detail. In gross it amounted to this: Mr. Goodge had pledged himself to
+hand over Mrs. Haygarth's letters, forty or so in number, to Hawkehurst
+in consideration of twenty pounds. They would have been already in
+Hawkehurst's possession, if Mr. Goodge had not objected to part with them
+except for ready money. In consideration of a payment of twenty pounds
+from me, he was willing to let me read all the letters, and select any
+ten I pleased to take. This bargain was not arrived at without
+considerable discussion, but it certainly struck me as a good one.
+
+I opened the packet of papers then and there, and sat up until six
+o'clock the next morning, reading Mrs. Haygarth's letters in Mr. Goodge's
+parlour. Very fatiguing occupation for a man of my years. Mr. Goodge's
+hospitality began and ended in a cup of coffee. Such coffee! and I
+remember the mocha I used to get at Arthur's thirty years ago,--a
+Promethean beverage, that illumined the dullest smoking-room bore with a
+flash of wit or a glimmer of wisdom.
+
+I enclose the ten letters which I have selected. They appear to me to
+tell the history of Mrs. Haygarth and her husband pretty plainly; but
+there is evidently something mysterious lurking behind the commonplace
+existence of the husband. That is a matter for future consideration. All
+I have to do in the present is to keep you as well informed as your
+brother. It may strike you that the letters I forward herewith, which are
+certainly the cream of the correspondence, and the notes I have made from
+the remaining letters, are scarcely worth the money paid for them. In
+reply to such an objection, I can only say that you get more for _your_
+money than your brother George will get for his.
+
+The hotel at which I have taken up my quarters is but a few paces from
+the commoner establishment where Hawkehurst is stopping. He is to call on
+Goodge for the letters to-day; so his excursion will be of brief
+duration. I find that the name of Haygarth is not unknown in this town,
+as there are a family of Judsons, some of whom call themselves Haygarth
+Judson. I intend inviting my landlord--a very superior person for his
+station--to discuss a bottle of wine with me after my chop this evening,
+and hope to obtain some information from him. In the meantime I shall
+keep myself close. It is of vital consequence that I should remain unseen
+by Hawkehurst. I do not believe he saw me on the platform last night,
+though we were as close to each other as we well could be.
+
+Let me know what you think of the letters, and believe me to be, my
+dear sir, very faithfully yours,
+
+H. N. C. PAGET.
+
+PHILIP SHELDON, Esq., &c. &c. &c.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Philip Sheldon to Horatio Paget_.
+
+Bayswater, Oct. 8,186-.
+
+DEAR PAGET,--The letters are mysterious, and I don't see my way to
+getting much good out of them, but heartily approve your management of
+matters, and give you _carte blanche_ to proceed, according to your own
+lights.
+
+Yours truly, P.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Horatio Paget to Philip Sheldon_.
+
+Royal Hotel, Oct. 9, 186-.
+
+MY DEAR SIR,--The cultivation of my landlord has been very profitable.
+The house is the oldest in the town, and the business has descended in a
+direct line from father to son since the time of George the Second. This
+man's grandfather entertained the officers of William Duke of Cumberland,
+honoured by his contemporaries with the soubriquet of Billy the Butcher,
+during the "forty-five." I had to listen to and applaud a good many
+stories about Billy the Butcher before I could lead my landlord round to
+the subject of the Haygarths. But he was not more prosy than many men I
+have met at dinner-parties in the days when the highest circles in the
+land were open to your humble servant.
+
+The Haygarth family, of which the intestate John Haygarth was the last
+male descendant, were for a long period inhabitants of this town, and
+obtained their wealth by trading as grocers and general dealers in a shop
+not three hundred yards from the room in which I write. The building is
+still standing, and a curious, old-fashioned-looking place it is. The
+last of the Haygarths who carried on business therein was one Jonathan,
+whose son Matthew was the father of that Reverend John Haygarth, lately
+deceased, intestate. You will thus perceive that the letters I sent you
+are of much importance, as they relate solely to this Matthew, father of
+our intestate.
+
+My next inquiries related to the Judson family, who are, it appears,
+descended from the issue of a certain Ruth Haygarth's marriage with one
+Peter Judson. This Ruth Haygarth was the only sister of the Matthew
+alluded to in the letters, and therefore was aunt of the intestate. It
+would herefrom appear that in this Judson family we must naturally look
+for the rightful claimant to the fortune of the deceased John Haygarth.
+Possessed of this conviction, I proceeded to interrogate my landlord very
+cautiously as to the status, &c. of the Judson family, and amongst other
+questions, asked him with a complete assumption of indifference, whether
+he had ever heard that the Judsons expected to inherit property from any
+branch of the Haygarth family.
+
+This careless interrogatory produced information of, as I imagine, a very
+valuable character. A certain Theodore Judson, attorney of this town,
+calls himself heir-at-law to the Haygarth estates; but before he can
+establish his claim, this Theodore must produce evidence of the demise,
+without heirs, of one Peter Judson, eldest surviving grandson of Ruth
+Haygarth's eldest son, a scamp and ne'er-do-well--if living, supposed to
+be somewhere in India, where he went, as supercargo to a merchant vessel
+about, the year '41--who stands prior to Theodore Judson in the
+succession. I conclude that the said Theodore, who, as a lawyer, is
+likely to do things _secundum artem_, is doing his _possible_ to obtain
+the necessary evidence; but in the meantime he is at a dead lock, and the
+whole affair appears to be in a charming condition for speculative
+interference. I opine, therefore, that your brother really has hit upon a
+good thing this time; and my only wonder is, that instead of allowing his
+agent, Hawkehurst, to waste his time hunting up old letters of Matthew
+Haygarth's (to all appearance valueless as documentary evidence), he does
+not send Valentine to India to hunt for Peter Judson, who, if living, is
+the rightful heir to the intestate's fortune, and who, as a reckless
+extravagant fellow, would be likely to make very liberal terms with any
+one who offered to procure him a large lump of money.
+
+I confess that I am quite at a loss to understand why your brother George
+does not take this very obvious course, and why Valentine potters about
+in this neighbourhood, when a gold mine is waiting to be _exploité_ on
+the other side.
+
+I shall be very glad to have your views upon this subject, for at the
+present moment I am fain to acknowledge that I do not see my way to
+taking any further steps in this business, unless by commencing a search
+for the missing Peter.
+
+I am, my dear Sir, very truly yours,
+
+H. N. C. PAGET.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Philip Sheldon to Horatio Paget_.
+
+Bayswater, Oct. 10, 186--.
+
+DEAR PAGET,--When so old a stager as G. S. does not take the obvious
+course, the inference is that there is a better course to be taken--_not_
+obvious to the uninitiated.
+
+You have done very well so far, but the information you have obtained
+from your landlord is only such information as any one else may obtain
+from the current gossip of Ullerton. You haven't yet got to the _dessous
+des cartes_. Remember what I told you in London. G. S. _has_ the clue to
+this labyrinth; and what you have to do is to hold on to the coat-tails
+(in a figurative sense) of his agent, V. H.
+
+Don't put your trust in prosy old landlords, but continue to set a watch
+upon that young man, and follow up his trail as you did in the matter of
+the letters.
+
+If the Peter Judson who went to India three-and-twenty years ago were the
+right man to follow, G.S. would scarcely give twenty pounds for the
+letters of Mrs. Matthew Haygarth. It appears to me that G. must be
+looking for an heir on the Haygarth side of the house; and if so, rely
+upon it he has his reasons. Don't bewilder yourself by trying to
+theorize, but get to the bottom of G.'s theory.
+
+Yours truly, P. S.
+
+_Horatio Paget to Philip Sheldon_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Royal Hotel, Oct. 12, 186.--
+
+MY DEAR SIR,--Considering the advice contained in your last very good, I
+lost no time in acting upon it. I need hardly tell you, that to employ
+the services of a hired spy, and to degrade myself in some sort to the
+level of a private inquirer, was somewhat revolting to a man, who, in the
+decadence of his fortunes, has ever striven to place some limit on the
+outrages which that hard taskmaster, poverty, may have from time to time
+compelled him to inflict upon his self-respect. But in the furtherance of
+a cause which I conclude is in no manner dishonourable, since an
+unclaimed heritage must needs be a prize open to all, I submitted to this
+temporary degradation of my higher feelings, and I trust that when the
+time arrives for the settlement of any pecuniary consideration which
+I am to derive from these irksome and uncongenial labours, my wounded
+self-respect may not be omitted from the reckoning. The above exordium
+may appear to you tedious, but it is only just to myself to remind you
+that you are not dealing with a vulgar hireling. My first step, after
+duly meditating your suggestions, was to find a fitting watch for the
+movements of Hawkehurst. I opined that the best person to play the spy
+would be that class of man whose existence seems for the most part
+devoted to the lounging at street corners, the chewing of straw, and that
+desultory kind of industry known in the _patois_ of this race as
+"fetching errands." This is the man, or boy, who starts up from the
+pavement (as through a trap-door in the flags) whenever one alights from
+or would enter any kind of vehicle. Unbidden, unrequired, and obnoxious,
+the creature arises, and opens a door, or lays some rag of his wretched
+attire on a muddy wheel, and then whines, piteous, for a copper. Such a
+man, or such a boy, I felt convinced must exist among the hangers-on of
+the Royal Hotel; nor was I mistaken. On inquiring for a handy lad,
+capable of attending upon my needs at all hours in the day, and not a
+servant in the hotel, but a person who would be wholly at my own
+disposal, I was informed that the Boots had a younger brother who was
+skilled in the fetching of errands, and who would be happy to wait upon
+me for a very reasonable remuneration, or in the words of the waiter
+himself, would be ready to leave it--i.e. the remuneration--to my own
+generosity. I know that there are no people who expect so much as those
+who leave the assessment of their claims to your own generosity; but
+as I wanted good service, I was prepared to pay well. The younger Boots
+made his appearance in due course--a sharp young fellow enough--and I
+forthwith made him my slave by the promise of five shillings a day for
+every day in which I should require his services. I then told him that it
+was my misfortune to own--with a strong inclination to disown--a
+reprobate nephew, now an inhabitant of that very town. This nephew, I had
+reason to believe, was going at a very rapid rate to the dogs; but my
+affectionate feelings would not allow him to consummate his own
+destruction without one last effort to reclaim him. I had therefore
+followed him to Ullerton, whither I believed him to be led by the worst
+possible motives; and having done so, my next business was to keep myself
+informed of his whereabouts.
+
+Seeing that the younger Boots accepted these statements with
+unquestioning faith, I went on to inquire whether he felt himself equal
+to the delicate duty of hanging about the yard of the Black Swan, and
+watching the doors of exit from that hotel, with a view to following my
+recreant nephew wherever he might go, even if considerably beyond the
+limits of Ullerton. I saw that the lad's intelligence was likely to be
+equal to this transaction, unless there should arise any difficult or
+complicated position by reason of the suspicion of Hawkehurst, or other
+mischance. "Do you think you can watch the gentleman without being
+observed?" I asked. "I'm pretty well sure I can, sir," answered the boy,
+who is of an enterprising, and indeed audacious, temper. "Very well,"
+said I, "you will go to the Black Swan Inn. Hawkehurst is the name by
+which my nephew is known there, and it will be your duty to find him
+out." I gave the boy a minute account of Valentine's appearance, and
+other instructions with which I need not trouble you. I further furnished
+him with money, so that he might be able to follow Hawkehurst by rail, or
+any other mode of conveyance, if necessary; and then despatched him, with
+an order to come back to me when he had seen our man safely lodged in the
+Black Swan after his day's perambulations. "And if he shouldn't go out at
+all?" suggested the lad. "In that case you must stick to your post till
+nightfall, and pick up all the information you can about my unfortunate
+nephew from the hangers-on of the hotel," said I. "I suppose you know
+some one at the Black Swan?" The boy informed me, in his untutored
+language, that he knew "a'most all of 'em," and thereupon departed.
+
+At nine o'clock at night he again appeared before me, big with the
+importance of his day's work. He had seen my nephew issue forth from the
+Black Swan within an hour of leaving my presence, and had followed him,
+first to Mr. William Judson's in Ferrygate, where he waited and hung
+about nearly an hour, keeping himself well out of view round the corner
+of Chalkin Street, a turning close to Mr. Judson's house. After leaving
+this gentleman's house, my renegade nephew had proceeded--carrying a
+letter in his hand, and walking as if in very good spirits (but that
+fellow Hawkehurst would walk to the gallows in good spirits)--to the
+Lancaster Road, where he was admitted into Lochiel Villa, a house
+belonging, as my Mercury ascertained from a passing baker's boy, to Miss
+Judson, sister of the William Judson of Ferrygate. You will perceive that
+this town appears to teem with the Judson family. My messenger, with
+praiseworthy art, contrived to engage in a game of tip-cat (what, I
+wonder, _is_ a tip-cat?) with some vagrant boys disporting themselves in
+the roadway, within view of Miss Judson's house. Hence, after the lapse
+of more than an hour, Boots-Mercury beheld my recreant relative emerge,
+and from this point followed him--always with extreme caution--back to
+the Black Swan. Here he hung about the yard, favoured by his close
+acquaintance with the ostler, until eight o'clock in the evening, no
+event of the smallest importance occurring during all those hours. But at
+eight there arrived a young woman, with a packet from Miss Judson to Mr.
+Hawkehurst. The packet was small, and was sealed with red wax. This was
+all my Mercury could ascertain respecting it; but this was something.
+
+I at once divined that this packet must needs contain letters. I asked
+myself whether those letters or papers had been sold to Hawkehurst, or
+only lent to him, and I immediately concluded that they could only have
+been lent. It was all very well for Goodge, the Methodist parson, to
+traffic in the epistles of Mrs. Matthew Haygarth, but it was to the last
+degree unlikely that a well-to-do maiden lady would part with family
+letters or papers for any pecuniary consideration whatever. "No," I said
+to myself, "the documents have been lent, and will have to be returned;"
+and thereupon I laid my plans for the next day's campaign, with a view to
+obtaining a peep at those letters, by fair means or foul. I told the boy
+to be at his post in the inn yard early the next morning, and if my
+nephew did not leave the inn, my agent was to ascertain what he was
+doing, and to bring me word thereof. "I'll tell you what it is, Boots," I
+said; "I have reason to believe that sadly disposed nephew of mine has
+some wicked intention with regard to Miss Judson, who is nearly related
+to a young lady with whom that unprincipled young man is, or pretends to
+be, in love; and I very much fear that he means to send her some letters,
+written by this foolish niece of hers to my more foolish nephew, and
+eminently calculated to wound the good lady's feelings. Now, in order to
+prevent this very shameful conduct on his part, I want to intercept any
+packet or letter which that mistaken youth may send to Miss Judson. Do
+you feel yourself capable of getting hold of such a packet, on
+consideration of a bonus of half-a-sovereign in addition to the five
+shillings per diem already agreed upon?"
+
+This, in more direct and vulgar phraseology, was what I said to the boy;
+and the boy departed, after pledging himself to bring me any packet which
+Hawkehurst might despatch from the Swan Inn. The only fear was that
+Hawkehurst might carry the packet himself, and this contingency appeared
+unpleasantly probable.
+
+Fortune favoured us. My reprobate nephew was too ill to go out. He
+intrusted Miss Hudson's packet to his waiter, the waiter confided it to
+the Boots, the Boots resigned the responsibility in favour of my boy
+Mercury, who kindly offered to save that functionary the trouble of a
+walk to the Lancaster Road.
+
+At eleven A.M. the packet was in my hands. I have devoted the best part
+of to-day to the contents of this packet. They consist of letters written
+by Matthew Haygarth, and distinguished by a most abominable orthography;
+but I remember my own father's epistolary composition to have been
+somewhat deficient in this respect; nor is it singular that the humble
+citizen should have been a poor hand at spelling in an age when royal
+personages indulged in a phonetic style of orthography which would
+provoke the laughter of a modern charity-boy. That the pretender to the
+crown of England should murder the two languages in which he wrote seems
+a small thing; but that Frederick the Great, the most accomplished of
+princes, bosom-friend of Voltaire, and sworn patron of the literati,
+should not have been able to spell, is a matter for some astonishment. I
+could but remember this fact, as I perused the epistles of Matthew
+Haygarth. I felt that these letters had in all probability been carefully
+numbered by the lady to whom they belong, and that to tamper with them to
+any serious extent might be dangerous. I have therefore only ventured to
+retain one insignificant scrawl as an example of Matthew Haygarth's
+caligraphy and signature. From the rest I have taken copious notes. It
+appears to me that these letters relate to some _liaison_ of the
+gentleman's youth; though I am fain to confess myself surprised to
+discover that, even in a period notorious for looseness of morals, a man
+should enter into such details in a correspondence with his sister.
+_Autres temps, autres moeurs_. I have selected my extracts with great
+care, and hope that you may be able to make more use of them than I can
+at present imagine possible. I shall post this letter and enclosure with
+my own hands, though in order to do so I must pass the Black Swan. I
+shall despatch my messenger to Lochiel Villa, with Miss Judson's packet,
+under cover of the darkness.
+
+In much haste, to catch the London mail,
+
+Truly yours, H.N.C.P.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_From Philip Sheldon to Horatio Paget_. City, Oct. 12, 186--
+
+Dear Paget,--Come back to town. You are only wasting money, time, and
+trouble. Yours, P.S.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+TOO CLEVER, FOR A CATSPAW.
+
+Captain Paget returned to town, mystified by that sudden summons from his
+patron, and eager to know what new aspect of affairs rendered his further
+presence in Ullerton useless or undesirable.
+
+Horatio arrived in the great city half-a-dozen hours before his sometime
+protégé, and was comfortably installed when Valentine returned to those
+lodgings in Omega Street, Chelsea, which the two men occupied in common.
+
+Captain Paget went into the City to see Philip Sheldon on the day of his
+return, but did not succeed in finding the stockbroker. The evening's
+post brought him a letter from Philip, appointing an interview at
+Bayswater, at three o'clock on the following day--the day after
+Valentine's return from Ullerton.
+
+Punctual to the moment appointed by this letter, Captain Paget appeared
+at the Lawn on the following day. He was ushered into Mr. Sheldon's
+study, where he found that gentleman awaiting him, grave and meditative
+of mood, but friendly, and indeed cordial, in his manner to the returning
+traveller.
+
+"My dear Paget, sit down; I am delighted to see you. Your trip has made
+you look five years younger, by Jove! I was sorry to find you had called
+while I was out, and had waited for me upwards of an hour yesterday. I
+have a good deal of worry on my shoulders just now; commerce is all
+worry, you know. The Marquis of Lambeth has come into the market and
+bought up two-thirds of the Astrakhan Grand Trunk debenture bonds, just
+as our house had speculated for the fall. And since it has got wind that
+the Marquis is sweet upon the concern, the bonds are going up like a
+skyrocket. Such is life. I thought we had better have our little talk
+here; it's quieter than in the City. Have some sherry and soda; you like
+that Manzanilla of mine, I know."
+
+And the hospitable Philip rang the bell, without thinking it necessary to
+wait for his guest's answer.
+
+There was a cordiality, a conciliating friendliness about the
+stockbroker's manner which Horatio Paget did not like.
+
+"He's too civil by half," the Captain said to himself; "he means to do
+me."
+
+"And now about this Ullerton business," Mr. Sheldon began, when the wine
+and soda-water had been brought, and a tall tumbler of that refreshing
+compound filled for the Captain; "you have really managed matters
+admirably. I cannot too much applaud your diplomatic tact. You would have
+put a what's-his-name--that fellow of Napoleon's--to the blush by your
+management of the whole business. But, unfortunately, when it's all done
+it comes to nothing; the whole affair is evidently, from beginning to
+end, a mare's-nest. It is one of those wild geese which my brother George
+has been chasing for the last ten years, and which never have resulted in
+profit to him or anybody else; and I should be something worse than a
+fool if I were to lend myself any longer to such a folly."
+
+"Humph," muttered the Captain, "here is a change indeed!"
+
+"Well, yes," Mr. Sheldon answered coolly. "I dare say my conduct does
+seem rather capricious; but you see George put me out of temper the other
+day, and I was determined, if he had got a good thing, to cut the ground
+from under his feet. All your communications from Ullerton tend to show
+me that he has not got hold of a good thing, and that in any attempt to
+circumvent him I should only be circumventing myself, wasting your time,
+and my own money. This Judson family seems numberless; and it is evident
+to me that the Reverend John Haygarth's fortune will be a bone of
+contention amongst the Judsons in the High Court of Chancery for any
+indefinite number of years between this and the milennium. So I really
+think, my dear Paget, we'd better consider this transaction finished. I
+will give you whatever honorarium you think fit to name for your trouble,
+and we'll close the affair. I shall find plenty more business as good, or
+better, for you to do."
+
+"You are very good," replied the Captain, in nowise satisfied by this
+promise. It was all too smooth, too conciliatory. And there was a
+suddenness in this change of plan that was altogether mysterious. So
+indeed might a capricious man be expected to drop a speculation he had
+been eager to inaugurate, but Philip Sheldon was the last of men to be
+suspected of caprice.
+
+"You must have taken an immense deal of trouble with those extracts,
+now," said the stockbroker carelessly, as Horatio rose to depart,
+offended and angry, but anxious to conceal his anger. "What, are you off
+so soon? I thought you would stop and take a chop with us."
+
+"No, thanks; I have an engagement elsewhere. Yes, I took an
+inordinate trouble with those extracts, and I am sorry to think they
+should be useless."
+
+"Well, yes, it is rather provoking to you, I dare say. The extracts would
+be very interesting from a social point of view, no doubt, to people who
+care about such things; but in a legal sense they are waste-paper. I
+can't understand why Hawkehurst was in Ullerton; for, as you yourself
+suggested, that Peter Judson who went to India must be the Judson wanted
+for this case."
+
+"Your brother may be in league with some other branch of the Judson
+family. Or what if he is hunting for an heir on the Haygarth side?" asked
+the Captain, with a very close watch upon Mr. Sheldon's face. Let the
+stockbroker be never so skilful a navigator of the high seas of life,
+there was no undercurrent, no cross trade-wind, no unexplained veering of
+the magnetic needle to the west, in the mysteries whereof the Captain was
+not also versed. When Columbus wanted to keep his sailors quiet on that
+wondrous voyage over an unknown ocean to the Western world, the
+diplomatic admiral made so bold as to underrate the length of each day's
+sail in an unveracious log, which he kept for the inspection of his crew;
+but no doctoring of the social log-book could mislead the acute Horatio.
+
+"How about the Haygarth side of the house?" he asked again; for it had
+seemed to him that at his first mention of the name of Haygarth Mr.
+Sheldon had winced, ever so little. This time, however, he betrayed not
+the faintest concern; but he was doubtless now on his guard.
+
+"Well, I don't see how there can be any claimant on that side of the
+house," he said carelessly. "You see, according to your old landlord's
+statement--which I take to be correct--Jonathan Haygarth had but one son,
+a certain Matthew, who married one Rebecca So-and-so, and had, in his
+turn one only son, the intestate John. Now, in that case, where is your
+heir to come from, except through Matthew's sister Ruth, who married
+Peter Judson?"
+
+"Isn't it just possible that Matthew Haygarth may have married twice, and
+had other children? Those letters certainly suggest the idea of a secret
+alliance of some kind on Haygarth's part, and the existence of a family,
+to whom he appears to have been warmly attached. My first idea of this
+affair was that it must have been a low _liaison_; but I could hardly
+realize the fact of Matthew's confiding in his sister under any such
+circumstances, however lax in his morals that gentleman may have been.
+Mrs. Matthew Haygarth's letters hint at some mystery in her husband's
+life. Is it not likely that this hidden family was a legitimate one?"
+
+"I can't quite see my way to that idea," Mr. Sheldon answered, in a
+meditative tone. "It seems very unlikely that any marriage of Haygarth's
+could have remained unknown to his townsmen; and even if it were so, I
+doubt the possibility of our tracing the heirs from such a marriage. No,
+my dear Paget, I have resolved to wash my hands of the business, and
+leave my brother George in undisturbed possession of his ground."
+
+"In that case, perhaps, you will return my notes; they are
+interesting to me."
+
+Here again the faintest indication of annoyance in the stockbroker's face
+told its tale to Captain Paget. For your accomplished navigator of the
+unknown seas there is no ocean bird, no floating weed, that has not a
+language and a significance.
+
+"You can have your notes, if you want them," answered Mr. Sheldon; "they
+are at my office. I'll hunt them up and send them to you; or you had
+better look in upon me in the City early next week, and I can give you a
+cheque at the same time."
+
+"Thanks. I will be sure and do so."
+
+"You say the orthography of the original letters was queer. I suppose
+your copies were faithful in all matters except the orthography. And in
+the names, you of course adhered to the original spelling?"
+
+"Most decidedly," replied Captain Paget, opening the door to depart,
+and with a somewhat cynical smile upon his face, which was hidden from
+Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"I suppose there is no doubt of your accuracy with regard to the name of
+Meynell, now?"
+
+"Not the least. Good afternoon. Ah, there's our young friend Hawkehurst!"
+exclaimed the Captain, in his "society" voice, as he looked out into the
+hall, where Valentine was parting with Diana.
+
+He came and greeted his young friend, and they left the house together.
+
+This was the occasion upon which Valentine was startled by hearing the
+name "Meynell" pronounced by the lips of Philip Sheldon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+CAPTAIN PAGET IS PATERNAL.
+
+Horatio Paget left the Lawn after the foregoing interview, fully
+convinced that Mr. Sheldon was only desirous to throw him off the scent,
+in order to follow up the chase alone, for his sole profit and advantage.
+
+"My last letter conveyed some intelligence that altered his whole plan of
+action," thought the Captain; "that is perfectly clear. He was somewhat
+wanting in tact when he recalled me so suddenly. But I suppose he thought
+it would be easy to throw dust in my poor old eyes. What was the
+intelligence that made him change his mind? That is the grand question."
+Captain Paget dined alone at a West-End restaurant that evening. He dined
+well, for he had in hand certain moneys advanced by his patron, and he
+was not disposed to be parsimonious. He sat for some time in meditative
+mood over his pint bottle of Chambertin, and the subject of his
+meditation was Philip Sheldon.
+
+"Yes," he murmured at last, "that is it. The charm is in the name of
+Meynell. Why else should he question me about the orthography of that
+name? I sent him information about Matthew Haygarth in the wife's
+letters, and he took no special notice of that information. It was only
+when the name of Meynell cropped up that he changed his tactics and tried
+to throw me over. It seems to me that he must have some knowledge of this
+Meynell branch, and therefore thinks himself strong enough to act alone,
+and to throw me over the bridge. To throw me over," the Captain repeated
+to himself slowly. "Well, we'll see about that. We'll see; yes, we'll
+see."
+
+At noon on the following day Captain Paget presented himself again at the
+Bayswater villa, where his daughter ate the bread of dependence. He
+appeared this time in a purely paternal character. He came to call upon
+his only child. Before paying this visit the Captain had improved the
+shining hour by a careful study of the current and two or three back
+volumes of the Post-Office and Trade Directories; but all his researches
+in those interesting volumes had failed to reveal to him the existence of
+any metropolitan Meynells.
+
+"The Meynells whom Sheldon knows may be in the heart of the country," he
+said to himself, after these futile labours.
+
+It was a fine autumnal morning, and as Miss Paget was at home and
+disengaged, her affectionate father suggested that she should take a walk
+with him in Kensington Gardens. Such a promenade had very little
+attraction for the young lady; but she had a vague idea that she owed a
+kind of duty to her father not remitted by his neglect of all duties to
+her; so she assented with a smile, and went out with him, looking very
+handsome and stylish in her simple but fashionable attire, no part of
+which had been provided by the parent she accompanied.
+
+The Captain surveyed her with some sense of family pride. "Upon my word,
+my dear, you do me credit!" he exclaimed, with a somewhat patronising
+kindness of tone and manner; "indeed any man might be proud of such a
+daughter. You are every inch a Paget."
+
+"I hope not, papa," said the girl involuntarily; but the Captain's more
+delicate instincts had been considerably blunted in the press and jostle
+of life, and he did not feel the sting of this remark.
+
+"Well, perhaps you are right, my love," he replied blandly; "the Pagets
+_are_ an unlucky family. Like those Grecian people, the Atri--,
+what's-his-name--the man who was killed in his bath, you know. His wife,
+or the other young person who had come to visit his daughters, made the
+water too hot, you know--and that kind of thing. I am not quite clear
+about the story, but it's one of those farragos of rubbish they make
+young men learn at public schools. Yes, my dear, I really am amazingly
+pleased by your improved appearance. Those Sheldon people dress you very
+nicely; and I consider your residence in that family a very agreeable
+arrangement for all parties. You confer a favour on the girl by your
+society, and so on, and the mother provides you with a comfortable home;
+All I wonder is that your good looks haven't made their mark before this
+with some of Sheldon's rich stockbroking fellows."
+
+"We see very little of the stockbroking fellows, as you call them, at the
+Lawn, papa."
+
+"Indeed! I thought Sheldon kept a great deal of company."
+
+"O no. He gives a dinner now and then, a gentleman's dinner usually; and
+poor Mrs. Sheldon is very anxious that it should all go off well, as she
+says; but I don't think he is a person who cares much for society."
+
+"Really, now?"
+
+"His mind seems completely occupied by his business, you see, papa. That
+horrible pursuit of gain seems to require all his thoughts, and all his
+time. He is always reading commercial papers, the _Money Market_ and _On
+Change_, and the _Stockbrokers' Vade Mecum_, and publications of that
+kind. When he is not reading he is thinking; and by his manner one would
+fancy his thoughts were always gloomy and unpleasant. What a miserable,
+hateful, unholy life to lead! I would not be that man for all the money
+in the Bank of England. But it is a kind of treachery to tell these
+things. Mr. Sheldon is very good to me. He lets me sit at his table and
+share the comforts of his home, and I must be very ungrateful to speak
+against him. I do _not_ mean to speak against him, you see, papa--I only
+mean that a life devoted to money-making is in itself hateful."
+
+"My dear child, you may be assured that anything you say to _me_ will go
+no further," said the Captain, with dignity; "and in whom should you
+confide, if not in your father? I have a profound respect for Sheldon and
+his family--yes, my love, a profound respect; and I think that girl
+Sarah--no, I mean Charlotte--a very charming young person. I need
+scarcely tell you that the smallest details of your life in that family
+possess a keen interest for me. I am not without a father's feelings,
+Diana, though circumstances have never permitted me to perform a father's
+duties."
+
+And here the solitary tear which the accomplished Horatio could produce
+at will trembled in his eye. This one tear was always at his command. For
+the life of him he could not have produced a second; but the single drop
+never failed him, and he found one tear as effective as a dozen, in
+giving point and finish to a pathetic speech.
+
+Diana looked at him, and wondered, and doubted. Alas, she knew him only
+too well! Any other creature in this wide world he might deceive, but not
+her. She had lived with him; she had tasted the bitterness of dependence
+upon him--ten times more bitter than dependence on strangers. She had
+shown him her threadbare garments day after day, and had pleaded for a
+little money, to be put off with a lying excuse. She could not forget
+this. She had forgiven him long ago, being of too generous a nature to
+brood upon past injuries. But she could not forget what manner of man he
+was, and thank him for pretty speeches which she knew to be meaningless.
+
+They talked a little more of Mr. Sheldon and his family, but Diana did
+not again permit herself to be betrayed into any vehement expressions of
+her opinions. She answered all her father's questions without restraint,
+for they were very commonplace questions, of a kind that might be
+answered without any breach of faith.
+
+"Amongst the Sheldons' acquaintances did you ever hear of any people
+called Meynell?" Captain Paget asked at length.
+
+"Yes," Diana replied, after a moment's thought; "the name is certainly
+very familiar to me;" and then, after a pause, she exclaimed, "Why, the
+Meynells were relations of Charlotte's! Yes, her grandmother was a Miss
+Meynell; I perfectly remember hearing Mrs. Sheldon talk about the
+Meynells. But I do not think there are any descendants of that family now
+living. Why do you ask the question, papa? What interest have you in the
+Meynells?"
+
+"Well, my dear, I have my reasons, but they in no manner concern Mr.
+Sheldon or his family; and I must beg you to be careful not to mention
+the subject in your conversation with those worthy people. I want to know
+all about this Meynell family. I have come across some people of that
+name, and I want to ascertain the precise relationship existing between
+these people and the Sheldons. But the Sheldons must know nothing of this
+inquiry for the present. The people I speak of are poor and proud, and
+they would perish rather than press a relationship upon a rich man,
+unless fully justified by the closeness of family ties. I am sure you
+understand all this, Diana?"
+
+"Not very clearly, papa."
+
+"Well, my dear, it is a delicate position, and perhaps somewhat difficult
+for the comprehension of a third party. All you need understand is the
+one fact, that any information respecting the Meynell family will be
+vitally interesting to my friends, and, through them, serviceable to me.
+There is, in fact, a legacy which these friends of mine could claim,
+under a certain will, if once assured as to the degree of their
+relationship to your friend Charlotte's kindred on the Meynell side of
+the house. To give them the means of securing this legacy would be to
+help the ends of justice; and I am sure, Diana, you would wish to do
+that."
+
+"Of course, papa, if I can do so without any breach of faith with my
+employers. Can you promise me that no harm will result to the Sheldons,
+above all to Charlotte Halliday, from any information I may procure for
+you respecting the Meynell family?"
+
+"Certainly, Diana, I can promise you that. I repeat most solemnly,
+that by obtaining such information for me you will be aiding the cause
+of justice."
+
+If Horatio Paget might ever be betrayed into the inconsistency of a
+truthful assertion, it seemed to his daughter that it was likely to be in
+this moment. His words sounded like truth; and, on reflection, Diana
+failed to perceive that she could by any possibility inflict wrong on her
+friends by obliging her father in this small affair.
+
+"Let me think the matter over, papa," she said.
+
+"Nonsense, Diana; what thinking over can be wanted about such a trifle? I
+never before asked you a favour. Surely you cannot refuse to grant so
+simple a request, after the trouble I have taken to explain my reasons
+for making it."
+
+There was some further discussion, which ended in Miss Paget consenting
+to oblige her father.
+
+"And you will manage matters with tact?" urged the Captain, at parting.
+
+"There is no especial tact required, papa," replied Diana; "the matter is
+easy enough. Mrs. Sheldon is very fond of talking about her own affairs.
+I have only to ask her some leading question about the Meynells, and she
+will run on for an hour, telling me the minutest details of family
+history connected with them. I dare say I have heard the whole story
+before, and have not heeded it: I often find my thoughts wandering when
+Mrs. Sheldon is talking."
+
+Three days after this Captain Paget called on Mr. Sheldon in the City,
+when he received a very handsome recompense for his labours at Ullerton,
+and became repossessed of the extracts he had made from Matthew
+Haygarth's letters, but not of the same Mr. Haygarth's autograph letter:
+that document Mr. Sheldon confessed to having mislaid.
+
+"He has mislaid the original letter, and he has had ample leisure for
+copying my extracts; and he thinks I am such a consummate fool as not to
+see all that," thought Horatio, as he left the stockbroker's office,
+enriched but not satisfied.
+
+In the course of the same day he received a long letter from Diana
+containing the whole history of the Meynells, as known to Mrs. Sheldon.
+Once set talking, Georgy had told all she could tell, delighted to find
+herself listened to with obvious interest by her companion.
+
+"I trust that you have not deceived me, my dear father," Diana concluded,
+after setting forth the Meynell history. "The dear good soul was so
+candid and confiding, and seemed so pleased by the interest I showed in
+her family affairs, that I should feel myself the vilest of wretches if
+any harm could result to her, or those she loves, from the information
+thus obtained."
+
+The information was very complete. Mrs. Sheldon had a kindly and amiable
+nature, but she was not one of those sensitive souls who instinctively
+shrink from a story of bitter shame or profound sorrow as from a cureless
+wound. She told Diana, with many lamentations, and much second-hand
+morality, the sad history of Susan Meynell's elopement, and of the
+return, fourteen years afterwards, of the weary wanderer. Even the poor
+little trunk, with the name of the Rouen trunk-maker, Mrs. Sheldon dwelt
+upon with graphic insistence. A certain womanly delicacy had prevented
+her ever telling this story in the presence of her brother-in-law, George
+Sheldon, whose hard worldly manner in no way invited any sentimental
+revelation. Thus it happened that George had never heard the name of
+Meynell in connection with his friend Tom Halliday's family, or had heard
+it so seldom as to have entirely forgotten it. To Horatio his daughter's
+letter was priceless. It placed him at once in as good a position as
+Philip Sheldon, or as George Sheldon and his coadjutor, Valentine
+Hawkehurst. There were thus three different interests involved in the
+inheritance of the Reverend John Haygarth.
+
+Captain Paget sat late by a comfortable fire, in his own bedchamber, that
+night, enjoying an excellent cigar, and meditating the following jottings
+from a pedigree:--
+
+CHARLOTTE MEYNELL, married JAMES HALLIDAY.
+       |
+THOMAS HALLIDAY, only son of above, married GEORGINA, now Mrs. SHELDON;
+       |         had issue,
+CHARLOTTE HALLIDAY.
+
+SUSAN MEYNELL, only and elder sister of the above-named Charlotte, ran
+away from her home, in Yorkshire, with a Mr. Kingdon, brother to Lord
+Darnsville. Fate unknown during fourteen years of her life. Died in
+London, 1835. Buried under her maiden name; but no positive evidence to
+show that she was unmarried.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE CAPTAIN'S COADJUTOR.
+
+Once in possession of the connection between the intestate John Haygarth
+and the Halliday family, Captain Paget's course was an easy one. He
+understood now why his investigations had been so suddenly brought to a
+standstill. Philip Sheldon had discovered the unexpected connection, and
+was eager to put a stop to researches that might lead to a like discovery
+on the part of his coadjutor.
+
+"And Sheldon expects to prove his stepdaughter's claim to this fortune?"
+thought the Captain. "He will affect ignorance of the whole transaction
+until his plans are ripe, and then spring them suddenly upon his brother
+George. I wonder if there is anything to be made out of George by letting
+him into the secret of his brother's interference? No; I think not.
+George is as poor as a church mouse, and Philip must always be the more
+profitable acquaintance."
+
+On the broad basis afforded by Diana's letter Captain Paget was able to
+build up the whole scheme of the Haygarthian succession. The pedigree of
+the Meynells was sufficiently simple, if their legitimate descent from
+Matthew Haygarth could be fairly proved. Charlotte Halliday was
+heiress-at-law to the fortune of John Haygarth, always provided that her
+great-aunt Susan died without legitimate issue.
+
+Here was the one chance which appeared to the adventurous mind of Horatio
+Paget worth some trouble in the way of research. Fourteen years of Susan
+Meynell's life had been spent away from all who knew her. It was
+certainly possible that in that time she might have formed some
+legitimate alliance.
+
+This was the problem which Horatio set himself to solve. Your adventurer
+is, of all manner of men, the most sanguine. Sir Walter Raleigh sees
+visions of gold and glory where grave statesmen see only a fool's
+paradise of dreams and fancies. To the hopeful mind of the Captain these
+fourteen unrecorded years of Susan Meynell's life seemed a very Golconda.
+
+He did not, however, rest satisfied with the information afforded by
+Diana's letter.
+
+"I will have the story of these Meynells at first-hand as well as at
+second-hand," he said to himself; and he lost no time in presenting
+himself again at the Villa--this time as a visitor to Mrs. Sheldon.
+
+With Georgy he had been always a favourite. His little stories of the
+great world--the Prince and Perdita, Brummel and Sheridan--though by no
+means novel to those acquainted with that glorious period of British
+history, were very agreeable to Georgy. The Captain's florid flatteries
+pleased her; and she contrasted the ceremonious manners of that gentleman
+with the curt business-like style of her husband, very much to the
+Captain's advantage. He came to thank her for her goodness to his child,
+and this occasion gave him ample opportunity for sentiment. He had asked
+to see Mrs. Sheldon alone, as his daughter's presence would have been
+some hindrance to the carrying out of his design.
+
+"There are things I have to say which I should scarcely care to utter
+before my daughter, you see, my dear Mrs. Sheldon," he said, with
+pathetic earnestness. "I should not wish to remind the dear child of her
+desolate position; and I need scarcely tell you that position is _very_
+desolate. A father who, at his best, cannot provide a fitting home for a
+delicately nurtured girl, and who at any moment may be snatched away, is
+but a poor protector. And were it not for your friendship, I know not
+what my child's fate might be. The dangers and temptations that beset a
+handsome young woman are very terrible, my dear Mrs. Sheldon."
+
+This was intended to lead up to the subject of Susan Meynell, but Georgy
+did not rise to the bait. She only shook her head plaintively in assent
+to the Captain's proposition.
+
+"Yes, madam; beauty, unallied with strength of mind and high principles,
+is apt to be a fatal dower. In every family there are sad histories,"
+murmured the sentimental Horatio.
+
+Even this remark did not produce the required result; so the Captain drew
+upon his invention for a specimen history from the annals of his own
+house, which was a colourable imitation of Susan Meynell's story.
+
+"And what was the end of this lovely Belinda Paget's career, my dear Mrs.
+Sheldon?" he concluded. "The gentleman was a man of high rank, but a
+scoundrel and a dastard. Sophia's brother, a cornet in the First Life
+Guards, called him out, and there was a meeting on Wimbledon Common, in
+which Lavinia's seducer was mortally wounded. There was a trial, and the
+young captain of Hussars, Amelia's brother, was sentenced to
+transportation for life. I need scarcely tell you that the sentence was
+never carried out. The young man fell gloriously at Waterloo, at the head
+of his own regiment, the Scotch Fusiliers, and Lavinia--I beg pardon,
+Amelia; nay, what am I saying? the girl's name was Belinda--embraced the
+Roman Catholic faith, and expired from the effects of stigmata inflicted
+by her own hands in a paroxysm of remorse for her brother's untimely
+death at the hands of her seducer."
+
+This lively little impromptu sketch had the desired effect. Melted by the
+woes of Belinda, or Sophia, or Amelia, or Lavinia Paget, Mrs. Sheldon was
+moved to relate a sad event in her husband's family; and encouraged by
+the almost tearful sympathy of the Captain, she again repeated every
+detail of Susan Meynell's life, as known to her kindred. And as this
+recital had flowed spontaneously from the good soul's lips, she would be
+scarcely likely to allude to it afterwards in conversation with Mr.
+Sheldon; more especially as that gentleman was not in the habit of
+wasting much of his valuable time in small-talk with the members of his
+own household.
+
+Captain Paget had duly calculated this, and every other hazard that
+menaced the intricate path he had mapped out for himself.
+
+Satisfied by Mrs. Sheldon's repetition of Susan Meynell's story, and
+possessed of all the information he could hope to obtain from that
+quarter, Horatio set himself to consider what steps must next be taken.
+Much serious reflection convinced even his sanguine mind that the
+enterprise was a difficult one, and could scarcely be carried through
+successfully without help from some skilled genealogist.
+
+"George Sheldon has given his lifetime to this sort of thing, and is a
+skilled lawyer to boot," Captain Paget said to himself. "If I hope to go
+in against him, I must have someone at my elbow as well versed in this
+sort of business as he is."
+
+Having once admitted this necessity, the Captain set himself to consider
+where he was to find the right person. A very brief meditation settled
+this question. One among the numerous business transactions of Captain
+Paget's life had brought him in contact with a very respectable little
+French gentleman called Fleurus, who had begun his career as a notary,
+but, finding that profession unprofitable, had become a hunter of
+pedigrees and heirs-at-law--for the most part to insignificant legacies,
+unclaimed stock, and all other jetsam and flotsam thrown up on the
+shadowy shores of the Court of Chancery. M. Fleurus had not often been so
+fortunate as to put his industrious fingers into any large pie, but he
+had contrived to make a good deal of money out of small affairs, and had
+found his clients grateful.
+
+"The man of men," thought Horatio Paget; and he betook himself to the
+office of M. Fleurus early next day, provided with all documents relating
+to the Haygarthian succession.
+
+His interview with the little Frenchman was long and satisfactory. On
+certain conditions as to future reward, said reward to be contingent on
+success, M. Fleurus was ready to devote himself heart and soul to the
+interests of Captain Paget.
+
+"To begin: we must find legal evidence of this Matthew Haygarth's
+marriage to the mother of this child C., who came afterwards to marry the
+man Meynell; and after we will go to Susan Meynell. Her box came from
+Rouen--that we know. Where her box came from she is likely to have come
+from. So it is at Rouen, or near Rouen, we must look for her. Let me see:
+she die in 1835! that is long time. To look for the particulars of her
+life is like to dive into the ocean for to find the lost cargo of a ship
+that is gone down to the bottom, no one knows where. But to a man really
+expert in these things there is nothing of impossible. I will find you
+your Susan Meynell in less than six months; the evidence of her marriage;
+if she was married; her children, if she had children."
+
+In less than six months--the margin seemed a wide one to the impatient
+Horatio. But he knew that such an investigation must needs be slow, and
+he left the matters in the hands of his new ally with a sense that he had
+done the best thing that could be done. Then followed for Horatio Paget
+two months of patient attendance upon fortune. He was not idle during
+this time; for Mr. Sheldon, who seemed particularly anxious to conciliate
+him, threw waifs and strays of business into his way. Before the middle
+of November M. Fleurus had found the register of Matthew Haygarth's
+marriage, as George Sheldon had found it before him, working in the same
+groove, and with the same order of intelligence. After this important
+step M. Fleurus departed for his native shores, where he had other
+business besides the Meynell affair to claim his attention. Meanwhile the
+astute Horatio kept a close eye upon his young friend Valentine. He knew
+from Diana that the young man had been in Yorkshire; and he guessed the
+motive of his visit to Newhall, not for a moment supposing that his
+presence in that farmhouse could have been accidental. The one turn of
+affairs that utterly and completely mystified him was Mr. Sheldon's
+sanction of the engagement between Valentine and Charlotte. This was a
+mystery for which he could for some time find no solution.
+
+"Sheldon will try to establish his stepdaughter's claim to the fortune;
+that is clear. But why does he allow her to throw herself away on a
+penniless adventurer like Hawkehurst? If she were to marry him before
+recovering the Haygarth estate, she would recover it as his wife, and the
+fortune would be thrown unprotected into his hands."
+
+More deliberate reflection cast a faint light upon Philip Sheldon's
+motives for so quixotic a course.
+
+"The girl had fallen in love with Val. It was too late to prevent that.
+She is of age, and can marry whom she pleases. By showing himself opposed
+to her engagement with Val, he might have hurried her into rebellion, and
+an immediate marriage. By affecting to consent to the engagement, he
+would, on the contrary, gain time, and the advantage of all those chances
+that are involved in the lapse of time."
+
+Within a few days of Christmas came the following letter from M.
+Fleurus:--
+
+
+_From Jacques Rousseau Fleurus to Horatio Paget_.
+
+Hotel de la Pucelle, place Jeanne d'Arc, Rouen, 21st December, 186--.
+
+MONSIEUR,--After exertions incalculable, after labours herculean, I come
+to learn something of your Susan Meynell,--more, I come to learn of her
+marriage. But I will begin at the beginning of things. The labours, the
+time, the efforts, the courage, the patience, the--I will say it without
+to blush--the genius which this enterprise has cost me, I will not
+enlarge upon. There are things which cannot tell themselves. To commence,
+I will tell you how I went to Rouen, how I advertised in the journals of
+Rouen, and asked among the people of Rouen--at shops, at hotels, by the
+help of my allies, the police, by means which you, in your inexperience
+of this science of research, could not even figure to yourself--always
+seeking the trace of this woman Meynell. It was all pain lost. Of this
+woman Meynell in Rouen there was no trace.
+
+In the end I enraged myself. "Imbecile!" I said to myself, "why seek in
+this dull commercial city, among this heavy people, for that which thou
+shouldst seek only in the centre of all things? As the rivers go to the
+ocean, so flow all the streams of human life to the one great central
+ocean of humanity--PARIS! It is there the Alpha and the Omega--there the
+mighty heart through which the blood of all the body must be pumped, and
+is pumping always," I say to myself, unconsciously rising to the
+sublimity of my great countryman, Hugo, in whose verse I find an echo of
+my own soul, and whose compositions I flatter myself I could have
+surpassed, if I had devoted to the Muses the time and the powers which I
+have squandered on a _vilain_ metier, that demands the genius of a
+Talleyrand, and rewards with the crust of an artisan.
+
+In Paris, then, I will seek the woman Meynell, and to Paris I go. In my
+place an inexperienced person would advertise in the most considerable
+papers; would invite Susan Meynell to hear of something to her
+advantage; and would bring together a crowd of false Susan Meynells,
+greedy to obtain the benefice. Me, I do nothing in this style there. On
+the contrary, in the most obscure little journals of Paris I publish a
+modest little advertisement as from the brother of Susan Meynell, who
+implores his sister to visit him on his deathbed.
+
+Here are follies, you will say. Since Susan Meynell is dead it is thirty
+years, and her brother is dead also. Ah, how you are dull, you insulars,
+and how impossible for your foggy island to produce a Fouché, a Canler, a
+genius of police, a Columbus of the subterranean darknesses of your city.
+
+The brother, dying, advertises for the sister, dead; and who will answer
+that letter, think you? Some good Christian soul who has pity for the
+sick man, and who will not permit him to languish in waiting the sister
+who will come to him never. For us of the Roman Catholic religion the
+duty of charity is paramount. You of the Anglican faith--bah, how you are
+cold, how you are hard, how you are unpitiable!
+
+My notice appears once, my notice appears twice, three times, four times,
+many times. I occupy myself about my other business, and I wait. I do not
+wait unusefully. In effect, a letter arrives at last at the address of
+the dying, from a lady who knew Susan Meynell _before her marriage with
+M. Lenoble._
+
+Think you not that to me this was a moment of triumph? _Before her
+marriage with M. Lenoble!_ Those words appear under my eyes in the
+writing of the unknown lady. "It is found!" I cry to myself; and then I
+hasten myself to reply to the unknown lady. Will she permit me to see
+her?
+
+With all politeness I make the request; with all politeness it is
+answered. The lady calls herself Mademoiselle Servin. She resides in the
+street Grande-Mademoiselle, at the corner of the Place Lauzun. It is of
+all the streets of Paris the most miserable. One side is already removed.
+In face of the windows of those houses that still stand they are making a
+new Boulevard. Behind they are pulling down edifices of all kinds in the
+formation of a new square. At the side there is a yawning chasm between
+two tall houses, through which they pierce a new street. One sees the
+interior of many rooms rising one above another for seven stories. Here
+the gay hangings of an apartment of little master; there the still
+gaudier decoration of a boudoir of these ladies. High above these
+luxurious salons--ah, but how much more near to the skies!--one sees the
+poor grey paper, blackened and smoky, of a garret of sempstress, or
+workman, and the hearths black, deserted. These interiors thus exposed
+tighten me the heart. It is the autopsy of the domestic hearth.
+
+I find the Mademoiselle Servin an old lady, grey and wan. The house where
+she now resides is the house which she has inhabited five-and-thirty
+years. They talk of pulling it down, and to her the idea of leaving it is
+exquisite pain. She is alone, a teacher of music. She has seen
+proprietors come and go. The _pension_ has changed mistresses many times.
+Students of law and of medicine have come and passed like the shadows of
+a magic lantern; but this poor soul has remained still in her little room
+on the fourth, and has kept always her little old piano.
+
+It was here she knew Susan Meynell, and a young Frenchman who became in
+love with her, for she was beautiful like the angels, this lady said to
+me.
+
+Until we meet for all details. Enough that I come to discover where the
+marriage took place, that I come to obtain a copy of the register, and
+that I do all things in rule. Enough that the marriage is a good
+marriage--a regular marriage, and that I have placed myself already in
+communication with the heir of that marriage, who resides within some few
+leagues of this city.
+
+My labours, my successes I will not describe. It must that they will be
+recompensed in the future. I have dispensed much money during these
+transactions.
+
+Agree, monsieur, that I am your devoted servitor,
+
+JACQUES ROUSSEAU FLEURUS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in consequence of the receipt of this missive that the Captain
+trusted himself to the winds and waves in the cheerless December weather.
+He was well pleased to find that M. Fleurus had made discoveries so
+important; but he had no idea of letting that astute practitioner absorb
+all the power into his own hands.
+
+"I must see Susan Meynell's heir," he said to himself; "I must give him
+clearly to understand that to me he owes the discovery of his claims, and
+that in this affair the Frenchman Fleurus is no more than a paid agent."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Fourth.
+
+
+
+GUSTAVE IN ENGLAND.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+HALCYON DAYS.
+
+Once having offered up the fondest desires of her own heart on the
+shrine of duty, Diana Paget was not a person to repent herself of the
+pious sacrifice. After that Christmas night on which she had knelt at
+Charlotte's feet to confess her sad secret, and to resign all claim to
+the man she had loved so foolishly, so tenderly, with such a romantic
+and unselfish devotion, Miss Paget put away all thought of the past from
+her heart and mind. Heart and mind seemed empty and joyless without
+those loved tenants, though the tenants had been only fair wraiths of
+dreams that were dead. There was a sense of something missing in her
+life--a blank, dull calm, which was at first very painful. But for
+Charlotte's sake she was careful to hide all outward token of
+despondency, and the foolish grief, put down by so strong a hand, was
+ere long well-nigh stifled.
+
+Those dark days which succeeded Christmas were a period of halcyon peace
+for Valentine and Charlotte. The accepted lover came to the villa when he
+pleased, but was still careful not to encroach on the license allowed
+him. Once a week he permitted himself the delight of five-o'clock tea in
+Mrs. Sheldon's drawing-room, on which occasions he brought Charlotte all
+the news of his small literary world, and a good deal of useful
+information out of the books he had been reading. When Mr. Sheldon
+pleased to invite him to dinner on Sunday he gladly accepted the
+invitation, and this Sunday dinner became in due course an established
+institution.
+
+"You may as well make this your home on a Sunday," said Mr. Sheldon one
+day, with careless cordiality; "I dare say you find Sunday dull in your
+lodgings."
+
+"Yes, papa," cried Charlotte, "he does find it very dull--dreadfully
+dull--don't you, Valentine?"
+
+And she regarded him with that pretty, tender, almost motherly look,
+which young ladies who are engaged are apt to bestow on their affianced
+lovers.
+
+Miss Halliday was very grateful to her stepfather for his kindness to her
+landless adorer, and showed her appreciation of his conduct in many
+pretty little caressing ways, which would have been infinitely bewitching
+to a person of sentiment.
+
+Unfortunately Mr. Sheldon was not sentimental, and any exhibition of
+feeling appeared to have an irritating effect upon his nerves. There were
+times when he shrank from some little sudden caress of Charlotte's as
+from the sting of an adder. Aversion, surprise, fear--what was it that
+showed in the expression of his face at these moments? Whatever that
+strange look was, it departed too quickly for analysis; and the
+stockbroker thanked his stepdaughter for her little affectionate
+demonstration with his wonted smile--the smile he smiled on Change, the
+smile which was sometimes on his lips when his mind was a nest of
+scorpions.
+
+To Valentine, in these rosy hours, life seemed full of hope and
+brightness. He transferred his goods and chattels from Omega Street,
+Chelsea, to the pleasant lodging in the Edgware Road, where he was nearer
+Charlotte, and out of the way of his late patron Captain Paget, in the
+event of that gentleman's return from the Continent.
+
+Fortune favoured him. The gaiety of heart which came with his happiness
+lent a grace to his pen. Pleasant thoughts and fancies bedecked his
+pages. He saw everything in the rosy light of love and beauty, and there
+was a buoyant freshness in all he wrote. The Pegasus might be but a
+common hackney, but the hack was young and fresh, and galloped gaily as
+he scented the dewy morning air. It is not every poet whose Pegasus
+clears at a bound a space as wide as all that waste of land and sea the
+watchman views from his tall tower on the rock.
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst's papers on Lauzun, Brummel, Sardanapalus, Rabelais, Lord
+Chesterfield, Erasmus, Beau Nash, Apelles, Galileo, and Philip of
+Orleans, were in demand, and the reading public wondered at this prodigy
+of book-making. He had begun to save money, and had opened a deposit
+account at the Unitas Bank. How he gloated over the deposit receipts in
+the stillness of the night, when he added a fresh one to his store! When
+he had three, for sums amounting in all to forty pounds, he took them to
+Charlotte, and she looked at them, and he looked at them, as if the poor
+little bits of printed paper had been specimens of virgin ore from some
+gold mine newly discovered by Mr. Hawkehurst. And then these foolish
+lovers kissed each other, as William Lee and his wife may have embraced
+after the penniless young student had perfected his invention of the
+stocking-frame.
+
+"Forty pounds!" exclaimed Miss Halliday, "all won by your pen, and your
+poor fingers, and your poor, poor head! How it must ache after a long
+day's work! How clever you must be, Valentine!"
+
+"Yes, dear; amazingly clever. Clever enough to know that you are the
+dearest girl in Christendom."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, sir! You are not clever enough to have the
+privilege of doing that yet awhile. I mean, how learned you must be to
+know such lots of things, all about Erasmus, and Galileo, and--"
+
+"No, my darling, not Erasmus and Galileo. I knew all about Erasmus last
+week; but I am working at my paper on Galileo now, an exhaustive review
+of all the books that were ever written on the subject, in ten pages. I
+don't ask other people to remember what I write, you know, my dear, and I
+don't pledge myself to remember it. That sort of thing won't keep. There
+is a kind of sediment, no doubt, in one's note-book; but the
+effervescence of that vintage goes off rather quickly."
+
+"I only know that you are a very clever person, and that one obtains an
+immensity of information from your writings," said Charlotte.
+
+"Yes, dearest, there is a kind of wine that must be made into negus for
+such pretty little topers as you--the 'Wine of Cyprus,' as Mrs. Browning
+called it. It is better for pretty girls to have the negus than to have
+nothing, or only weak home-brewed stuff that results in head-ache. My
+dearest, Fate has been very good to me, and I love my profession of
+letters. I am sure that of all educational processes there is none better
+than book-making; and the man who begins by making books must be a dolt,
+dunce, and dunderhead, if he do not end by writing them. So you may yet
+hope to see the morning that shall make your Valentine famous--for a
+fortnight. What man can hope to be famous for _more_ than a fortnight in
+such a railroad age as this?"
+
+During this halcyon period, in which Mr. Hawkehurst cultivated
+alternately the society of the Muses and his mistress, he saw little or
+nothing of George Sheldon. He had washed his hands of all share in the
+work of establishing Charlotte Halliday's claim to the Reverend John
+Haygarth's thousands. Indeed, since that interview in which Philip
+Sheldon had made so light of his stepdaughter's chances, and ratified his
+consent to her marriage with so humble a literary adventurer as himself,
+Mr. Hawkehurst had come to consider the Haygarthian inheritance as
+altogether a visionary business. If it were certain, or even probable,
+that Charlotte was to inherit a hundred thousand pounds, was it likely
+that Mr. Sheldon would encourage such an alliance? This question Mr.
+Hawkehurst always answered in the negative; and as days and weeks went
+by, and he heard no more of the Haygarth fortune, the idea of Charlotte's
+wealth became more and more shadowy.
+
+If there were anything doing in this matter, the two brothers were now
+working together, and George had no further need of Valentine's help.
+
+The two brothers were not working entirely together. Philip Sheldon had
+taken the matter into his own strong hand, and George found it very
+difficult to hold an inch of ground against that formidable antagonist.
+The papers and information which George had boasted of to Valentine, and
+the possession whereof was, as he asserted, the very keystone of the
+arch, proved to be of such small account that he ultimately consented to
+hand them over to his brother on the payment of expenses out of pocket,
+and a bonus of one hundred and fifty pounds, together with a written
+undertaking from Miss Halliday to pay him the fifth share of any fortune
+recovered by means of those papers.
+
+This undertaking had been executed in the easiest manner.
+
+"My brother has taken it into his wise head that there is some unclaimed
+stock standing in your grandfather's name which you are entitled to,
+Lotta," Mr. Sheldon said one morning; "and he wants to recover the amount
+for you, on condition of receiving a clear fifth when the sum is
+recovered. Have you any objection to sign such an undertaking?"
+
+"Dear papa, how can I object?" cried Charlotte gaily. "Why, stocks are
+money, are they not? How fortunate we are, and how rich we are getting!"
+
+"We!"
+
+"Valentine and I," murmured the girl, blushing. "I cannot help thinking
+of him when any windfall of good fortune comes to me. What do you think,
+papa? He has saved forty pounds in little more than three months--all
+earned by his pen!
+
+"Behold
+The arch-enchanter's wand! Itself a nothing;
+But taking sorcery from the master-hand
+To paralyze the Caesars, and to strike
+The loud earth breathless!"
+
+And Miss Halliday spouted the glowing lines of the noble dramatist with
+charming enthusiasm. She signed the required undertaking without looking
+at it, and it was duly witnessed by her stepfather.
+
+"In your talk with your mother and Valentine, I should advise you to be
+as silent about this small business as about your own little fortune,"
+Mr. Sheldon remarked presently.
+
+"Mustn't I tell Valentine?" cried Charlotte, making a wry face; "I should
+so like to tell him--just about these stocks. I daresay _he_ knows what
+stocks are; and it would be such cheering news for him, after he has
+worked his poor brain so for that forty pounds. I don't so much care
+about telling poor mamma; for she does exclaim and wonder so about
+things, that it is quite fatiguing to hear her. But please let me tell
+Valentine?"
+
+Miss Halliday pursed-up her lips and offered her stepfather one of those
+kisses which she had of late been prompted to bestow on him out of the
+gratitude of a heart overflowing with girlish joy. He took the kiss as he
+might have taken a dose of medicine, but did not grant the request
+preferred by it.
+
+"If you want to be a fool, you can tell your lover of this windfall; but
+if you wish to prove yourself a sensible girl, you will hold your tongue.
+He has saved forty pounds by hard work in the last three months, you say:
+do you think he would have saved forty pence if he had known that you had
+five thousand pounds at his disposal? I know that class of men; look at
+Goldsmith, the man who wrote the "Vicar of Wakefield," and "Rasselas,"
+and "Clarissa Harlowe," and so on. I have read somewhere that he never
+wrote except under coercion--that is to say, want of money."
+
+Charlotte acknowledged the wisdom of this argument, and submitted. She
+was not what was called a strong-minded woman; and, indeed, strength of
+mind is not a plant indigenous to the female nature, but an exceptional
+growth developed by exceptional circumstances. In Charlotte's life there
+had been nothing exceptional, and she was in all things soft and womanly,
+ready to acknowledge, and to be guided by, the wisdom of her seniors. So
+Valentine heard nothing of the undertaking executed by his lady-love.
+
+After this, Mr. Sheldon took counsel's opinion, and set to work in real
+earnest to recover the estate of the deceased John Haygarth from the
+yawning jaws of that tame but all-devouring monster, the Crown. The work
+was slow, and the dry as dust details thereof need not be recorded here.
+It had but just begun when Horatio Paget suddenly returned from his
+Continental expedition, and established himself once more in the Omega
+Street lodgings.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+CAPTAIN PAGET AWAKENS TO A SENSE OF HIS DUTY.
+
+Captain Paget's return was made known to the Sheldon circle by a letter
+from the returning wanderer to his daughter. The Captain was laid up with
+rheumatic gout, and wrote quite piteously to implore a visit from Diana.
+Miss Paget, always constant to the idea of a duty to be performed on her
+side, even to this _père prodigue_, obeyed the summons promptly, with the
+full approval of Georgy, always good-natured after her own fussy manner.
+
+"And if you'd like to take your papa a bottle of Mr. Sheldon's old port,
+Diana, remember it's at your disposal. I'm sure I've heard people say
+that old port is good for the gout--or perhaps, by the bye, what I heard
+was that it _wasn't_ good. I know old port and gout seem to run together
+in my head somehow. But if there's anything in the house your papa would
+like, Diana--wine, or gunpowder tea, or the eider-down coverlet off the
+spare bed, or the parlour croquet, to amuse him of an evening, or a new
+novel--surely one couldn't forfeit one's subscription by lending a book
+to a non-subscribing invalid?"
+
+While Georgy was suggesting the loan of almost every portable object in
+the house as a specific for Captain Paget's gout, Charlotte sent for a
+cab and made things smooth for her friend's departure. She wrapped her
+warmly against the February blast, and insisted upon going out to see her
+seated in the cab, whereby she offered to the pedestrians of that
+neighbourhood a seraphic vision of loveliness with tumbled hair.
+Charlotte had been always delightful, but Charlotte engaged to Valentine
+Hawkehurst was a creature of supernal sweetness and brightness--a radiant
+ministering angel, hovering lightly above a world too common for her foot
+to rest upon.
+
+Miss Paget found her father suffering from a by no means severe attack of
+a respectable family gout, a little peevish from the effects of this
+affliction, but not at all depressed in mind. He had, indeed, the manner
+of a man with whom things are going pleasantly. There was a satisfaction
+in his tone, a placidity in his face, except when distorted for the
+moment by a twinge of pain, that were new to Diana, who had not been
+accustomed to behold the brighter side of her father's disposition. He
+seemed grateful for his daughter's visit, and received her with unwonted
+kindness of manner.
+
+"You have come very promptly, my dear, and I am gratified by your early
+compliance with my request," he said with dignified affection, after he
+had given his daughter the kiss of greeting. "I was a great sufferer last
+night, Diana, a great sufferer, a prisoner to this chair, and the woman
+below attempted to send me up a dinner--_such_ a dinner! One would think
+a very small degree of education necessary for the stewing of a kidney,
+but the things that woman gave me last night were like morsels of stewed
+leather. I am not an epicure, Diana; but with such a constitution as
+mine, good cooking is a vital necessity. Life in lodgings for a man of my
+age is a sore trial, my dear. I wish you were well married, Diana, and
+could give your father a humble corner at your fireside."
+
+Diana smiled. It was a somewhat bitter smile; and there was scorn of
+herself, as well as scorn of her father in that bitterness.
+
+"I am not the sort of person to marry well, papa," she said.
+
+"Who knows? You are handsomer than nine-tenths of the women who marry
+well."
+
+"No, papa; that is your sanguine manner of looking at your own property.
+And even if I were married to some one to whom I might give obedience and
+duty, and all that kind of thing, in exchange for a comfortable home, as
+they say in the advertisements, would you be content with a peaceful
+corner by my fireside? Do you think you would never pine for clubs and
+gaming-tables--nay, even for creditors to--to diplomatize with, and
+difficulties to surmount?"
+
+"No, my dear. I am an old man; the clubs and gaming-houses have done with
+me, and I with them. I went to see a man at Arthur's a few months ago. I
+had written to him on a little matter of business--in fact, to be candid
+with you, my love, for the loan of a five-pound note--and I called at the
+club for his reply. I caught sight of my face in a distant glass as I was
+waiting in the strangers' room, and I thought I was looking at a ghost.
+There comes a time towards the close of a long troublesome life in which
+a man begins to feel like a ghost. His friends are gone, and his money is
+gone, his health is gone, his good looks are gone; and the only mistake
+seems to be that the man himself should be left behind. I remember an
+observation of Lord Chesterfield's: 'Lord ---- and I have been dead for
+the last two years, but we don't tell anyone so,' he said; and there are
+few old men who couldn't say the same. But I am not down-hearted to-day,
+my dear. No, the habit of hoping has never quite deserted me; and it is
+only now and then that I take a dismal view of life. Come, my love, lay
+aside your bonnet and things. Dear me! what a handsome black silk dress,
+and how well you look in it!"
+
+"It is a present from Charlotte, papa. She has a very liberal allowance
+of pocket-money, and is generosity itself. I don't like to take so much
+from her, but I only wound her by a refusal."
+
+"Of course, my dear. There is nothing so ungracious as a refusal, and no
+mark of high breeding so rare as the art of gracious acceptance. Any
+booby can give a present; but to receive a gift without churlish
+reticence or florid rapture is no easy accomplishment. I am always
+pleased to see you well-dressed, my love"--Diana winced as she remembered
+her shabby hat and threadbare gown at Fôretdechêne--"and I am especially
+pleased to see you elegantly attired this evening, as I expect a
+gentleman by-and-by."
+
+"A gentleman, papa!" exclaimed Miss Paget, with considerable surprise; "I
+thought that you had sent for me because you were ill and depressed and
+lonely."
+
+"Well, yes, Diana, I certainly am ill; and I suppose it is scarcely
+unnatural that a father should wish to see his only daughter."
+
+Diana was silent. A father's wish to see his daughter was indeed natural
+and common; but that Captain Paget, who in no period of his daughter's
+life had evinced for her the common affection of paternity, should be
+seized all of a sudden with a yearning for her society, was somewhat
+singular. But Diana's nature had been ennobled and fortified by the
+mental struggle and the impalpable sacrifice of the last few months, and
+she was in nowise disposed to repel any affectionate feeling of her
+father's even at this eleventh hour.
+
+"_He_ tells us the eleventh hour is not too late," she thought. "If it is
+not too late in the sight of that Divine Judge, shall it be thought too
+late by an erring creature like me?"
+
+After a few minutes of thoughtful silence, she knelt down by her father's
+chair and kissed him.
+
+"My dear father," she murmured softly, "believe me, I am very pleased to
+think you should wish to see me. I will come to you whenever you like to
+send for me. I am glad not to be a burden to you; but I should wish to be
+a comfort when I can."
+
+The Captain shed his stock tear. It signified something nearer akin to
+real emotion than usual.
+
+"My dear girl," he said, "this is very pleasing, very pleasing
+indeed. The day may come--I cannot just now say when--and events may
+arise--which--the nature of which I am not yet in a position to indicate
+to you--but the barren fig-tree may not be always fruitless. In its old
+age the withered trunk may put forth fresh branches. We will say no more
+of this, my love; and I will only remark that you may not go unrequited
+for any affection bestowed on your poor old father."
+
+Diana smiled, and this time it was a pensive rather than a bitter smile.
+She had often heard her father talk like this before. She had often heard
+these oracular hints of some grand event looming mighty in the immediate
+future; but she had never seen the vague prophecy accomplished. Always a
+schemer, and always alternating between the boastful confidence of hope
+and the peevish bewailings of despair, the Captain had built his castle
+to-day to sit among its ruins to-morrow, ever since she had known him.
+
+So she set little value on his hopeful talk of this evening, but was
+content to see him in good spirits. He contemplated her admiringly as she
+knelt by his easy-chair, and smoothed the shining coils of her dark hair
+with a gentle hand, as he looked downward at the thoughtful face--proud
+and grave, but not ungentle.
+
+"You are a very handsome girl, Diana," he murmured, as much to himself as
+to his daughter; "yes, very handsome. Egad, I had no idea how handsome!"
+
+"What has put such a fancy into your head to-night, papa?" asked Diana,
+laughing. "I do not believe in the good looks you are so kind as to
+attribute to me. When I see my face in the glass I perceive a pale gloomy
+countenance that is by no means pleasing."
+
+"You may be out of spirits when you look in the glass. I hope you are not
+unhappy at Bayswater."
+
+"Why should I be unhappy, papa? No sister was ever kinder or more loving
+than Charlotte Halliday is to me. I should be very ungrateful to
+Providence as well as to her if I did not appreciate such affection. How
+many lonely girls, like me, go through life without picking up a sister?"
+
+"Yes, you are right, my dear. Those Sheldon people have been very useful
+to you. They are not the kind of people I should have wished a daughter
+of mine to be _liée_ with, if I were in the position my birth entitles me
+to occupy; but as I am not in that position, I submit. That black silk
+becomes you admirably. And now, my love, be so kind as to ring the bell
+for lights and tea."
+
+They had been sitting in the firelight--the mystic magical capricious
+firelight--which made even that tawdry lodging-house parlour seem a
+pleasant chamber. The tea-tray was brought, and candles. Diana seated
+herself at the table, and made tea with the contents of a little
+mahogany caddy.
+
+"Don't pour out the tea just yet," said the Captain; "I expect a
+gentleman. I don't suppose he'll take tea, but it will look more civil to
+wait for him."
+
+"And who is this mysterious gentleman, papa?"
+
+"A Frenchman; a man I met while I was abroad."
+
+"_Really_ a gentleman?"
+
+"Certainly, Diana," replied her father, with offended dignity. "Do you
+think I should admit any person to my friendship who is not a gentleman?
+My business relations I am powerless to govern; but friendship is a
+different matter. There is no man more exclusive than Horatio Paget.
+M. Lenoble is a gentleman of ancient lineage and amiable character."
+
+"And rich, I suppose, papa?" asked Diana. She thought that her father
+would scarcely speak of the gentleman in a tone so profoundly respectful
+if he were not rich.
+
+"Yes, Diana. M. Lenoble is master of a very fair estate, and is likely to
+be much richer before he dies."
+
+"And he has been kind to you, papa?"
+
+"Yes, he has shown me hospitality during my residence in Normandy. You
+need not speak of him to your friends the Sheldons."
+
+"Not even to Charlotte?"
+
+"Not even to Charlotte. I do not care to have my affairs discussed by
+that class of people."
+
+"But, dear papa, why make a mystery about so unimportant a matter.
+
+"I do not make a mystery; but I hate gossip. Mrs. Sheldon is an
+incorrigible gossip, and I daresay her daughter is no better."
+
+"Charlotte is an angel, papa."
+
+"That is very possible. But I beg that you will refrain from discussing
+my friend M. Lenoble in her angelic presence."
+
+"As you please, papa," said Diana gravely. She felt herself bound to obey
+her father in this small matter; but the idea of this mystery and secrecy
+was very unwelcome to her. It implied that her father's acquaintance with
+this Frenchman was only a part of some new scheme. It was no honest
+friendship, which the Captain might be proud to own, glad to show the
+world that in these days of decadence he could still point to a friend.
+It was only some business alliance, underhand and stealthy; a social
+conspiracy, that must needs be conducted in darkness.
+
+"Why did papa summon me here if he wants his acquaintance with this man
+kept secret?" she asked herself; and the question seemed unanswerable.
+
+She pictured this M. Lenoble to herself--a wizened, sallow-faced
+Macchiavellian individual, whose business in England must needs be
+connected with conspiracy, treason, commercial fraud, anything or
+everything stealthy and criminal.
+
+"I wish you would let me go back to Bayswater before this gentleman
+comes, papa," she said presently. "I heard it strike seven just now, and
+I know I shall be expected early. I can come again whenever you like."
+
+"No, no, my love; you must stop to see my friend. And now tell me a
+little about the Sheldons. Has anything been stirring since I saw them
+last?"
+
+"Nothing whatever, papa. Charlotte is very happy; she always had a
+happy disposition, but she is gayer than ever since her engagement
+with--Valentine."
+
+"What an absurd infatuation!" muttered the Captain.
+
+"And he--Valentine--is very good, and works very hard at his literary
+profession--and loves her very dearly."
+
+It cost her an effort to say this even now, even now when she fancied
+herself cured of that folly which had once been so sweet to her. To speak
+of him like this--to put him away out of her own life, and contemplate
+him as an element in the life of another--could not be done without some
+touch of the old anguish.
+
+There was a loud double-knock at the street-door as she said this, and a
+step sounded presently in the passage; a quick, firm tread. There was
+nothing stealthy about that, at any rate.
+
+"My friend Lenoble," said the Captain; and in the next instant a
+gentleman entered the room, a gentleman who was in every quality the
+opposite of the person whom Diana had expected to see.
+
+These speculative pictures are seldom good portraits. Miss Paget had
+expected to find her father's ally small and shrivelled, old and ugly,
+dried-up and withered in the fiery atmosphere of fraud and conspiracy; in
+outward semblance a monkey, in soul a tiger. And instead of this
+obnoxious creature there burst into the room a man of four-and-thirty
+years of age, tall, stalwart, with a fair frank face, somewhat browned by
+summer suns; thick auburn hair and beard, close trimmed and cropped in
+the approved Gallic fashion--clear earnest blue eyes, and a mouth whose
+candour and sweetness a moustache could not hide. Henry of Navarre,
+before the white lilies of France had dazzled his eyes with their fatal
+splendour, before the court of the Medici had taught the Bearnois to
+dissemble, before the sometime Protestant champion had put on that
+apparel of stainless white in which he went forth to stain his soul with
+the sin of a diplomatic apostasy.
+
+Such a surprise as this makes a kind of crisis in the eventless record of
+a woman's life. Diana found herself blushing as the stranger stood near
+the door awaiting her father's introduction. She was ashamed to think of
+the wrong her imagination had done him.
+
+"My daughter, Diana Paget--M. Lenoble. I have been telling Diana how much
+I owed to your hospitality during my stay in Normandy," continued the
+Captain, with his grandest air, "I regret that I can only receive you in
+an apartment quite unworthy the seigneur of Côtenoir.--A charming place,
+my dear Diana, which I should much like you to see on some future
+occasion.--Will you take some tea, Lenoble?--Diana, a cup of tea.--The
+Pagets are a fallen race, you see, my dear sir, and a cup of tea in a
+lodging-house parlour is the best entertainment I can give to a friend.
+The Cromie Pagets of Hertfordshire will give you dinner in gold plate,
+with a footman standing behind the chair of every guest; but our branch
+is a younger and a poorer one, and I, among others, am paying the price
+of youthful follies."
+
+Gustave Lenoble looked sympathetic, but the glance of sympathy was
+directed to Diana, and not to the male representative of the younger
+Pagets. To pity the distressed damsel was an attribute of the Lenoble
+mind; and Gustave had already begun to pity Miss Paget, and to wonder
+what her fate in life would be, with no better protector than a father
+who was confessedly a pauper. He saw that the young lady was very
+handsome, and he divined, from some indefinable expression of her face,
+that she was proud; and as he thought of his own daughters, and their
+easy life and assured future, the contrast seemed to him very cruel.
+
+Chivalrous as the house of Lenoble might be by nature, he could scarcely
+have felt so keen an interest in Captain Paget's daughter at the first
+glance, if his sympathies had not been already enlisted for her. The
+noble Horatio, though slow to act a father's part, had shown himself
+quick to make capital out of his daughter's beauty and virtues when the
+occasion offered.
+
+In his intercourse with the seigneur of Côtenoir, which had developed
+from a mere business acquaintance into friendship, Captain Paget had
+discoursed with much eloquence upon the subject of his motherless
+daughter; and M. Lenoble, having daughters of his own, also motherless,
+lent him the ear of sympathy.
+
+"I have heard much of you, Miss Paget," said Gustave presently, "and of
+your devotion to your father. He has no more favourite theme than your
+goodness."
+
+Diana blushed, and Diana's father blushed also. That skilled diplomatist
+felt the awkwardness of the situation, and was prompt to the rescue.
+
+"Yes," he said, "my daughter has been a heroine. There are Antigones,
+sir, who show their heroic nature by other service than the leading to
+and fro of a blind father. From the earliest age my poor child has
+striven to stand alone; too proud, too noble to be a burden on a parent
+whose love would have given all, but whose means could give but little.
+And now she comes to me from her home among strangers, to soothe my hour
+of pain and infirmity. I trust your daughters may prove as worthy of your
+love, M. Lenoble."
+
+"They are very dear girls," answered the Frenchman; "but for them life
+has been all sunshine. They have never known a sorrow except the death of
+their mother. It is the storm that tests the temper of the tree. I wish
+they might prove as noble in adversity as Miss Paget has shown herself."
+
+This was more than Diana could bear without some kind of protest.
+
+"You must not take papa's praises _au pied de la lettre_, M. Lenoble,"
+she said; "I have been by no means brave or patient under adversity.
+There are troubles which one must bear. I have borne mine somehow; but I
+claim no praise for having submitted to the inevitable."
+
+This was spoken with a certain noble pride which impressed Gustave more
+than all the father's florid eloquence had done. After this the
+conversation became less personal. M. Lenoble talked of England. It was
+not his first visit; but he had only the excursionist's knowledge of the
+British Isles.
+
+"I have been to Scotland," he said. "Your Scotland is grand,
+mountainous--all that there is of the most savage and poetic. It is a
+Switzerland lined with Brittany. But that which most speaks to the heart
+of a stranger is the peaceful beauty of your English landscape."
+
+"You like England, M. Lenoble?" said Diana.
+
+"Have I not reason? My mother was English. I was only five years old when
+I lost her. She went out of my life like a dream; but I can still recall
+a faint shadow of her face--an English face--a countenance of placid
+sadness, very sweet and tender. But why do I talk of these things?"
+
+On this the Frenchman's talk took a gayer turn. This M. Lenoble showed
+himself a lively and agreeable companion. He talked of Normandy, his
+daughters and their convent, his little son at Rouen, his aunt Cydalise,
+the quiet old lady at Beaubocage; his grandfather, his grandmother, the
+old servants, and everything familiar and dear to him. He told of his
+family history with boyish candour, untainted by egotism, and seemed much
+pleased by Diana's apparent interest in his unstudied talk. He was quite
+unconscious that the diplomatic Horatio was leading him on to talk of
+these things, with a view to making the conversation supremely
+interesting to him. That arch diplomatist knew that there is nothing a
+man likes better than talking of his own affairs, if he can have a decent
+excuse for such discourse.
+
+The clock struck nine while Diana was listening, really interested. This
+glimpse of a life so far apart from her own was a relief, after the
+brooding introspective reveries which of late had constituted so large a
+portion of her existence. She started up at the sound of the clock.
+
+"What now, Cinderella?" cried her father. "Have you stopped beyond your
+time, and will your fairy godmother be angry?"
+
+"No one will be angry, papa; but I did not mean to stay so late. I am
+sorry your description of Normandy has been so interesting, M. Lenoble."
+
+"Come and see Vevinord and Côtenoir, and you will judge for yourself. The
+town-hall of Vevinord is almost as fine as that of Louvain; and we have a
+church that belongs to the time of Dagobert."
+
+"She shall see them before long," said the Captain; "I shall have
+business in Rouen again before the next month is out; and if my daughter
+is a good girl, I will take her over there with me."
+
+Diana stared at her father in utter bewilderment. What could be the
+meaning of this sudden display of affection?
+
+"I should not be free to go with you, papa, even if you were able to take
+me," she replied, somewhat coldly; "I have other duties."
+
+She felt assured that there was some lurking motive, some diplomatic art
+at the bottom of the Captain's altered conduct, and she could not
+altogether repress her scorn. The astute Horatio saw that he had gone a
+little too far, and that his only child was not of the stuff to be
+moulded at will by his dexterous hands.
+
+"You will come and see me again, Diana?" he said in a pleading tone: "I
+am likely to be a prisoner in this room for a week or more."
+
+"Certainly, papa; I will come if you wish it. When shall I come?"
+
+"Well, let me see--to-day is Thursday; can you come on Monday?"
+
+"Yes, I will come on Monday."
+
+A cab was procured, and Miss Paget was conducted to that vehicle by her
+new acquaintance, who showed a gallant anxiety for her comfort on the
+journey, and was extremely careful about the closing of the windows. She
+arrived at Bayswater before ten, but being forbidden to talk of M.
+Lenoble, could give but a scanty account of her evening.
+
+"And was your papa kind, dear?" asked Charlotte, "and did he seem pleased
+to see you?"
+
+"He was much kinder and more affectionate than usual, Lotta dear; so much
+so, that he set me wondering. Now, if I were as confiding and eager to
+think well of people as you are, I should be quite delighted by this
+change. As it is, I am only mystified. I should be very glad if my father
+and I could be drawn closer together; very glad if my influence could
+bring about an amendment in his life."
+
+While Miss Paget was discussing her father's affectionate and novel
+behaviour, the noble Horatio was meditating, by his solitary hearth, upon
+the events of the evening.
+
+"I'm half-inclined to think he's hit already," mused the Captain. "I must
+not allow myself to be deluded by manner. A Frenchman's gallantry rarely
+means much; but Lenoble is one of those straightforward fellows whose
+thoughts may be read by a child. He certainly seemed pleased with her;
+interested and sympathetic, and all that kind of thing. And she is an
+uncommonly handsome girl, and might marry any one if she had the
+opportunity. I had no idea she was so handsome until to-night. I suppose
+I never noticed her by candlelight before. By Jove! I ought to have made
+her an actress, or singer, or something of that kind. And so I might, if
+I'd known her face would light up as it does. I wish she wasn't so
+impracticable--always cutting in with some awkward speech, that makes me
+look like a fool, when, if she had an ounce of common sense, she might
+see that I'm trying to make her fortune. Yes, egad, and such a fortune as
+few girls drop into now-a-days! Some of your straitlaced church-going
+people would call me a neglectful father to that girl, I daresay; but I
+think if I succeed in making her the wife of Gustave Lenoble, I shall
+have done my duty in a way that very few fathers can hope to surpass.
+Such a high-principled fellow as Lenoble is too!--and _that_ is a
+consideration."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"WHAT DO WE HERE, MY HEART AND I?"
+
+After that first summons to Chelsea, Diana went many times--twice and
+three times a week--to comfort and tend her invalid father. Captain
+Paget's novel regard for his only child seemed to increase with the
+familiarity of frequent intercourse. "I have had very great pleasure in
+making your acquaintance, my dear Diana," he said one day, in the course
+of a _tête-à-tête_ with his daughter; "and I am charmed to find you
+everything that a well-born and well-bred young woman ought to be. I am
+sure you have excellent reason to be grateful to your cousin, Priscilla
+Paget, for the excellent education you received in her abode; and you
+have some cause to thank me for the dash and style imparted to your
+carriage and manner by our foreign wanderings."
+
+The Captain said this with the air of a man who had accompanied his
+daughter on the grand tour solely with a view to her intellectual
+improvement. He really thought she had reason to be grateful to him for
+those accidents of his nomadic life which had secured her a good accent
+for French and German, and the art of putting on her shawl.
+
+"Yes, my dear child," he continued with dignity, "it affords me real
+gratification to know you better. I need scarcely say that when you were
+the associate of my pilgrimage, you were not of an age to be available as
+a companion. To a man of the world like myself, a young person who has
+not done growing must always savour somewhat of the schoolroom and the
+nursery. I am not going to repeat the Byronic impertinence about
+bread-and-butter; but the society of a girl of the hobbledehoy age is apt
+to be insipid. You are now a young woman, and a young woman of whom any
+father might with justice be proud."
+
+After a few such speeches as these, Diana began to think that it was just
+possible her father might really experience some novel feeling of regard
+for her. It might be true that his former coldness had been no more than
+a prejudice against the awkwardness of girlhood.
+
+"I was shabby and awkward, I daresay, in those days," she thought; "and
+then I was always asking papa for money to buy new clothes; and that may
+have set him against me. And now that I am no burden upon him, and can
+talk to him and amuse him, he may feel more kindly disposed towards me."
+
+There was some foundation for this idea. Captain Paget had felt himself
+more kindly disposed towards his only child from the moment in which she
+ceased to be an encumbrance upon him. Her sudden departure from
+Forêtdechêne had been taken in very good part by him.
+
+"A very spirited thing for her to do, Val," he had said, when informed of
+the fact by Mr. Hawkehurst; "and by far the best thing she could do,
+under the circumstances."
+
+From that time his daughter had never asked him for a sixpence, and from
+that time she had risen steadily in his estimation. But the feeling which
+he now exhibited was more than placid approval; it was an affection at
+once warm and exacting. The fact was, that Horatio Paget saw in his
+daughter the high-road to the acquirement of a handsome competence for
+his declining years. His affection was sincere so far as it went; a
+sentiment inspired by feelings purely mercenary, but not a hypocritical
+assumption. Diana was, therefore, so much the more likely to be softened
+and touched by it.
+
+She was softened, deeply touched by this late awakening of feeling. The
+engagement of Valentine and Charlotte had left her own life very blank,
+very desolate. It was not alone the man she loved who was lost to her;
+Charlotte, the friend, the sister, seemed also slipping away from her. As
+kind, as loving, as tender as of old, this dear friend and adopted sister
+still might be, but no longer wholly her own. Over the hearts of the
+purest Eros reigns with a too despotic power, and mild affection is apt
+to sneak away into some corner of the temple on whose shrine Love has
+descended. This mild affection is but a little twinkling taper, that will
+burn steadily on, perhaps unseen amidst the dazzling glory of Love's
+supernal lamp, to be found shining benignantly when the lamp is
+shattered.
+
+For Charlotte, Valentine--and for Valentine, Charlotte--made the
+sum-total of the universe at this time; or, at best, there was but a
+small balance which included all the other cares and duties, affections
+and pleasures, of life. Of this balance Diana had the lion's share; but
+she felt that things had changed since those days of romantic school-girl
+friendship in which Charlotte had talked of never marrying, and
+travelling with her dearest friend Diana amongst all the beautiful scenes
+they had read of, until they found the loveliest spot in the world, where
+they would establish themselves in an ideal cottage, and live together
+for the rest of their lives, cultivating their minds and their
+flower-garden, working berlin-wool chairs for their ideal drawing-room,
+and doing good to an ideal peasantry, who would be just poor enough to be
+interesting, and sickly enough to require frequent gifts of calf's-foot
+jelly and green tea.
+
+Those foolish dreams were done with now; and that other dream, of a life
+to be spent with the reckless companion of her girlhood, was lost to
+Diana Paget. There was no point to which she could look forward in the
+future, no star to lure her onward upon life's journey. Her present
+position was sufficiently comfortable; and she told herself that she must
+needs be weak and wicked if she were not content with her lot. But beyond
+the present she dared not look, so blank was the prospect--a desert,
+without even the mirage; for her dreams and delusions were gone with her
+hope.
+
+Possessed by such a sense of loneliness, it is scarcely strange if
+there seemed to her a gleam of joy, a faint glimmer of hope, in the
+newly awakened affection of her father. She began to believe him, and
+to take comfort from the thought that he was drifting to a haven where
+he might lie moored, with other battered old hulks of pirate and
+privateer, inglorious and at rest. To work for him and succour him in his
+declining years seemed a brighter prospect to this hopeless woman of
+four-and-twenty than a future of lonely independence. "It is the nature
+of woman to lean," says the masculine philosopher; but is it not rather
+her nature to support and sustain, or else why to her is entrusted the
+sublime responsibility of maternity? Diana was pleased to think that a
+remorseful reprobate might be dependent on her toil, and owe his
+reformation to her influence. She was indeed a new Antigone, ready to
+lead him in his moral blindness to an altar of atonement more pure than
+the ensanguined shrine of the Athenian Eumenides.
+
+Her visits to Omega Street were not entirely devoted to _tête-a-têtes_
+with her father. By reason of those coincidences which are so common to
+the lives of some people, it generally happened that M. Lenoble dropped
+in upon his invalid friend on the very day of Miss Paget's visit. M.
+Lenoble was in London on business, and this business apparently
+necessitated frequent interviews with Captain Paget. Of course such
+interviews could not take place in the presence of Diana. Gustave was
+wont, therefore, to wait with praiseworthy patience until the conclusion
+of the young lady's visit; and would even, with an inconsistent
+gallantry, urge her to prolong her stay to its utmost limit.
+
+"It will always be time for my affairs, Miss Paget," he urged, "and I
+know how your father values your society; and he well may value it. I
+only hope my daughters will be as good to me, if I have the gout,
+by-and-by."
+
+Diana had spent nearly a dozen evenings in Omega Street, and on each of
+those evenings had happened to meet M. Lenoble. She liked him better on
+every occasion of these accidental meetings. He was indeed a person whom
+it was difficult for any one to dislike, and in the thirty-four years of
+his life had never made an enemy. She had been pleased with him on the
+first evening; his bright handsome face, his courteous reverence for her
+sex--expressed in every word, every tone, every look--his sympathy with
+all good thoughts, his freshness and candour, were calculated to charm
+the coldest and most difficult of judges. Diana liked, and even admired
+him, but it was from an abstract point of view. He seemed a creature as
+remote from her own life as a portrait of Henry of Navarre, seen and
+admired in some royal picture-gallery to-day, to fade out of her memory
+to-morrow.
+
+There was only one point in connection with Gustave Lenoble which
+occupied her serious thoughts; and this was the nature of his relations
+with her father.
+
+This was a subject that sorely troubled her. Hope as she might for the
+future, she could not shut her eyes to the past. She knew that her
+father had lived for years as a cheat and a trickster--now by one
+species of falsehood and trickery, now by another--rarely incautious,
+but always unscrupulous. How had this village seigneur of Normandy
+fallen into the Captain's toils; and what was the nature of the net that
+was spread for him?
+
+The talk of business, the frequent interviews, the evident elation of her
+father's spirits, combined to assure her that some great scheme was in
+progress, some commercial enterprise, perhaps not entirely dishonest--nay
+even honest, when regarded from the sanguine speculator's point of view,
+but involving the hazard of Gustave Lenoble's fortune.
+
+"It is quite as easy for my father to delude himself as it is for him to
+delude others. This M. Lenoble is ignorant of English commerce, no doubt,
+and will be ready to believe anything papa tells him. And he is so
+candid, so trusting, it would be very hard if he were to be a loser
+through his confidence in papa. His daughters, too; the hazard of his
+fortune is peril to their future." Such doubts and fears, gradually
+developed by reflection took stronger hold on Miss Paget's mind after
+every fresh visit to Omega Street. She saw the Frenchman's light-hearted
+confidence in all humanity, her father's specious manner and air of
+quixotic honour. His sanguine tone, his excellent spirits, filled her
+with intolerable alarm. Alas! when had she ever seen her father in good
+spirits, except when some gentlemanly villany was in progress?
+
+Miss Paget endured this uneasiness of mind as long as she could, and then
+determined to warn the supposed victim. She planned the mode of her
+warning, and arranged for herself a diplomatic form which would reflect
+the least possible discredit upon her father; and having once come to
+this resolution, she was not slow to put it into effect.
+
+When her father was about to send for a cab to convey her back to
+Bayswater, after her next visit to Omega Street, she surprised him by
+intercepting his order.
+
+"There is a cab-stand in Sloane Square, papa," she said; "and if M.
+Lenoble will be so kind as to take me there, I--I would rather get the
+cab from the stand. The man charges more when he is fetched off the rank,
+I believe."
+
+She could think of no better excuse for seeing Gustave alone than this
+most sordid pretence. She blushed as she thought how mean a sound it must
+have in the ears of the man for whose advantage she was plotting. Happily
+M. Lenoble was not among the people who see nothing but meanness in the
+desire to save sixpence. His aunt Cydalise had shown him the loveliness
+of poverty; for there are vows of holy poverty that need no spoken
+formula, and that are performed without the cloister.
+
+"Poor girl!" thought M. Lenoble; "I dare say even the cost of her coach
+is a consideration with her; and one dare not pay the coachman."
+
+This was how Gustave read that blush of shame which for a moment dyed
+Diana's cheek. Her father's was a very different reading.
+
+"The minx sees my game, and is playing into my hands," thought he. "So
+demure as she is, too! I should never have supposed her capable of such
+a clever manoeuvre to secure ten minutes' _tête-a-tête_ with an
+eligible admirer."
+
+He bade his daughter good night with more than usual effusion. He began
+to think that she might prove herself worthy of him after all.
+
+The district between Omega Street and Sloane Square is after dusk of all
+places the most solitary. It is the border-land of Pimlico, or, to borrow
+from Sidney Smith, the knuckle end of Belgravia. In these regions of
+desolation and smoke-blackened stucco Diana and her companion were as
+secure from the interruption of the jostling crowd as they might have
+been in the primeval forests of Central America.
+
+Miss Paget's task was not a pleasant one. Shape her warning as she might,
+it must reflect some discredit upon her father. He had of late been kind
+to her; she felt this keenly to-night, and it seemed that the thing she
+was about to do was a sort of parricide. Not against her father's life
+was her cruel hand to be lifted; but her still more cruel tongue was to
+slay her father's good name.
+
+"This M. Lenoble likes him and trusts him," she thought to herself. "What
+a happiness for that poor broken-down old man to have so kind a friend!
+And I am going to interfere in a manner that may put an end to this
+friendship?"
+
+This is the shape which her thoughts assumed as she walked silently by
+Gustave's side, with her hand lying lightly on his arm. He spoke to her
+two or three times about the dulness of the neighbourhood, the coldness
+of the night, or some other equally thrilling subject; but, finding by
+her replies that she was thinking deeply, he made no further attempt at
+conversation.
+
+"Poor child! she has some trouble on her mind, perhaps," he thought to
+himself sadly, for his sympathy with this young lady was a very profound
+feeling. This was the first occasion on which he had ever been alone
+with her, and he wondered to find what a strange emotion was developed
+by the novelty of the situation. He had married at twenty years of age,
+and had never known those brief fancies or foolish passions which waste
+the freshness of mind and heart. He had married a wife whom he never
+learned to love; but his nature was so essentially a happy one, that he
+had failed to discover the something wanting in his life. In all
+relations--as grandson, husband, father, master--he had been "all simply
+perfect," as Mademoiselle Cydalise pronounced him; and in a mind occupied
+by cares for the welfare and happiness of others, he had never found that
+blank which needed to be filled in order to make his own life completely
+happy. Only of late, in his thirty-fourth year, had he come to the
+knowledge of a feeling deeper than dutiful regard for an invalid wife, or
+affectionate solicitude for motherless children; only of late had he felt
+his heart stirred by a more thrilling emotion than that placid
+resignation to the will of Providence which had distinguished his
+courtship of Mademoiselle de Nérague.
+
+They had nearly reached Sloane Square before Diana took courage to broach
+the subject so naturally repugnant to her. She had need to remember that
+the welfare of M. Lenoble and all belonging to him might be dependent on
+her fortitude.
+
+"M. Lenoble," she began at last, "I am going to say something I shall
+find it most painful to utter, but which I feel it my duty to say to you.
+I can only ask you to receive it in a generous spirit."
+
+"But, my dear Miss Paget, I pray you not to say anything that is
+disagreeable to you. Why should you give yourself pain?--why--"
+
+"Because it is my duty to warn you of a danger which I know only too
+well, and of which you may be quite ignorant. You are my father's friend,
+M. Lenoble; and he has very few friends. I should be sorry if anything I
+were to say should rob him of your regard."
+
+"Nothing that you say shall rob him of my friendship. But why should
+you persist thus to say anything that is painful? What can you tell me
+that I do not know, or that I cannot guess? Will you tell me that he is
+poor? But I know it. That he is a broken-down gentleman? And that also
+I know. What, then, would you tell me? That he has a daughter who is to
+him a treasure without price? Ah, mademoiselle, what must I be if I did
+not know that also?--I, who have contemplated that daughter so many
+times--ah, so many!--when she could not know with what sympathy my eyes
+watched her dutiful looks, with what profound emotion my heart
+interpreted her life of affectionate sacrifice."
+
+There was a warmth, a tenderness in his tones which touched Diana's heart
+as it had not been touched of late. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the full
+meaning of those tender accents came home to her. The love that she had
+once dreamed of from the lips of another spoke to her to-night in the
+words of this stranger. The sympathy for which she had yearned long ago,
+in the days of her wanderings with Valentine, was given to her to-night
+without stint or measure. Unhappily it came too late; and it did not come
+from the only lips which, as it seemed to her to-night, could make
+sympathy precious or love divine. But to this lonely girl a good man's
+affection seemed a treasure for which she must needs be deeply grateful.
+It was something to discover that she could be loved.
+
+"I too," she said to herself,--"I, of whose presence Valentine is
+scarcely conscious when he enters a room where Charlotte and I are
+together; I, whom he greets day after day with the same careless words,
+the same indifferent look; I, who might fade and waste day by day with
+some slow disease, until I sank into the grave, before he would be
+conscious of any change in my face,--is it possible that amongst the same
+race of beings there can be any creature so widely different from
+Valentine Hawkehurst as to love _me_?"
+
+This was the bitter complaint of her heart as she compared the tenderness
+of this stranger with the indifference of the man to whom, for three long
+years of her girlhood, she had given every dream, every thought, every
+hope of her existence. She could not put him away from her heart all at
+once. The weak heart still fondly clung to the dear familiar image. But
+the more intensely she had felt the cold neglect of Valentine, the more
+grateful to her seemed the unsought affection of Gustave Lenoble.
+
+"You know me as little as you know my father, M. Lenoble," she said,
+after a long pause, during which they had walked to the end of the long
+dull street, and were close to the square. "Let us go back a little way,
+please; I have much more to say. I wish you to be my father's friend
+always, but, if possible, without danger to yourself. My father is one of
+those sanguine people who are always ready to embark in some new
+enterprise, and who go on hoping and dreaming, after the failure of a
+dozen schemes. He has no money, that I know of, to lose himself, and that
+fact may make him, unconsciously, reckless of other people's money. I
+have heard him speak of business relations with you, M. Lenoble, and it
+is on that account I venture to speak so plainly. I do not want my poor
+father to delude you, as he has often deluded himself. If you have
+already permitted him to involve you in any speculation, I entreat you
+to try to withdraw from it--to lose a little money, if necessary, rather
+than to lose all. If you are not yet involved, let my warning save you
+from any hazard."
+
+"My dear Miss Paget, I thank you a thousand times for your advice, your
+noble thoughtfulness for others. But no, there is no hazard. The
+business in which your father is occupied for me is not a speculation. It
+involves no risk beyond the expenditure of a few thousand francs, which,
+happily, I can afford to lose. I am not at liberty to tell you the nature
+of the business in question, because I have promised your father to keep
+that a secret. Dear young lady, you need have no fear for me. I am not a
+rash speculator. The first years of my life were passed in extreme
+poverty--the poverty that is near neighbour to starvation. That is a
+lesson one cannot forget. How shall I thank you for your concern for
+me?--so generous, so noble!"
+
+"It was only my duty to warn you of my poor father's weakness," replied
+Diana. "If I needed thanks, your kindness to him is the only boon I could
+ask. He has bitter need of a friend."
+
+"And he shall never lack one while I live, if only for your sake." The
+last half of the sentence was spoken in lower tones than the first. Diana
+was conscious of the lurking tenderness of those few words, and the
+consciousness embarrassed her. Happily they had reached the end of the
+quiet street by this time, and had emerged into the busier square. No
+more was said till they reached the cab-stand, when Diana wished her
+companion good night.
+
+"I am going back to Normandy in a week, Miss Paget; shall I see you again
+before I leave England?"
+
+"I really don't know; our meetings are generally accidental, you see."
+
+"O yes, of course, always accidental," replied Gustave, smiling.
+
+"I am sorry you are going to leave London--for papa's sake."
+
+"And I, too, am sorry--for my own sake. But, you see, when one has
+daughters, and a farm, and a chateau, one must be on the spot. I came to
+England for one week only, and I have stayed six."
+
+"You have found so much to amuse you in London?"
+
+"Nay, mademoiselle, so much to interest me."
+
+"It is almost the same thing, is it not?"
+
+"A thousand times no! To be amused and to be interested--ah, what can be
+so widely different as those two conditions of mind!"
+
+"Indeed! Good night, Mr. Lenoble. Please ask the cabman to drive as fast
+as he can venture to do with consideration for his horse. I am afraid I
+shall be late, and my friends will be anxious about me."
+
+"You will be late. You consider your friends at Bayswater, and you
+consider even the cabman's horse. You are charity itself. Will you not
+consider me a little also, Miss Paget?"
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Let me see you before I go back to Normandy. Your papa likes to see you
+twice a week, I know. This is Monday night; will you come to see him on
+Thursday?"
+
+"If he wishes it."
+
+"He does wish it. Ah, how he wishes it! You will come?"
+
+"If Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte can spare me."
+
+"They cannot spare you. No one can spare you. That cannot be. It
+is amongst the things that are impossible. But they will have pity
+upon--your father, and they will let you come."
+
+"Please ask the cabman to start. Indeed, I shall be late. Good night,
+M. Lenoble."
+
+"Good night."
+
+He took her hand in his, and kissed it, with the grace of a Bayard. He
+loved her, and took no trouble to conceal his passion. No shadow of doubt
+darkened that bright horizon to which M. Lenoble looked with hopeful
+eyes. He loved this penniless, motherless girl, as it was in the blood of
+the Lenobles to love the poor and the helpless; especially when poverty
+and helplessness presented themselves in the guise of youth and beauty.
+He loved her, and she would love him. But why not? He was ten years her
+senior, but that makes nothing. His auburn hair and beard, in the style
+of Henry the Great, could show no streak of grey. His eyes had the
+brightness of one-and-twenty; for the eyes of a man whose soul preserves
+its youthfulness will keep their clear lustre for half a century. The
+tall figure, straight as a dart; the frank handsome face which M. Lenoble
+saw in the glass when he made his toilet, were not calculated to
+dishearten a hopeful lover; and Gustave, by nature sanguine, enjoyed his
+dream of happiness, untroubled by one morbid apprehension.
+
+He loved her, and he would ask her for his wife. She would accept his
+offer; her father would rejoice in so fortunate an alliance; her friends
+of Bayswater would felicitate a change so desirable. And when he returned
+to Normandy he would take her with him, and say to his children, "Behold
+your mother!" And then the great rambling mansion of Côtenoir would
+assume a home-like aspect. The ponderous old furniture would be replaced
+by lightsome appointments of modern fashion; except, of course, in the
+grand drawing-room, where there were tapestries said to be from the
+designs of Boucher, and chairs and sofas in the true Louis Quinze style,
+of immovable bulkiness.
+
+There was but one trifling hitch in the whole scheme of happiness--Diana
+was a Protestant. Ah, but what then! A creature so sweet, so noble, could
+not long remain the slave of Anglican heresy. A little talk with
+Cydalise, a week's "retreat" at the Sacré Coeur, and the thing would be
+done. The dear girl would renounce her errors, and enter the bosom of the
+Mother Church. Pouff! M. Lenoble blew the little difficulty away from his
+finger-tips, and then wafted a kiss from the same finger-tips to his
+absent beloved.
+
+"And this noble heart warned me against her own father!" M. Lenoble said
+to himself, as he walked towards the hotel at Blackfriars where he had
+taken up his abode, quite unconscious that the foot of Blackfriars Bridge
+was not the centre of West End London. "How noble, how disinterested!
+Poor old man! He is, no doubt, a speculator--something even of an
+Adventurer. What then? He shall have an apartment at Côtenoir, his place
+at the family table, his _fauteuil_ by the hearth; and there he can do no
+harm."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a strange sentiment in Diana's mind after this evening's
+conversation with Gustave Lenoble. To feel herself beloved, to know that
+there was some one creature in the wide crowded world interested in, nay,
+even attached to her, was a mystery, a surprise, and in some sort a
+source of pleasure to her. That Gustave Lenoble could ever be any nearer
+to her than he was at the present time did not occur to her as being
+within the limits of possibility. She had thrust Valentine from her
+heart, but the empty chamber could receive no new tenant. It was not
+swept and garnished; nay, indeed, it was sadly littered with the shreds
+and patches left by the late occupant. But, while this was so, to know
+that she could be loved was in some manner sweet to her.
+
+"Ah, now I know that the poet is right," she said to herself. "There is
+no creature so desolate but some heart responds unto its own. And I have
+found the generous responsive heart that can pity and love me because
+I seem so sorely to need love and pity. All my life--my blank, empty
+life--I will remember and be grateful to him, the first good man who ever
+called my father friend; the first of all mankind who thought this poor
+hand worthy to be lifted to his lips."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH.
+
+Having pledged herself to visit Omega Street on Thursday, Diana
+considered herself bound to perform that promise. She felt, however, that
+there was some touch of absurdity in the position, for to keep a promise
+so made was in a manner to keep an appointment with M. Lenoble.
+
+"I dare say he has a habit of falling in love with every young woman he
+meets," she thought, when she considered his conduct from a more prosaic
+standpoint than the grateful enthusiasm his generous sympathy had at
+first awakened in her mind. "I have heard that it is a Frenchman's
+faculty to consider himself irresistible, and to avow his adoration for a
+new divinity every week. And I was so foolish as to fancy there was a
+depth of feeling in his tone and manner! I am sure he is all that is good
+and generous; but the falling in love is no doubt a national failing."
+
+She remembered the impertinent advances of divers unknown foreigners whom
+she had encountered on pier or _digue_, kursaal or beach, in the
+frequently unprotected hours of her continental wanderings.
+
+She had not seen the best side of the foreign mind in her character of
+unattended and doubtfully attired English demoiselle. She knew that
+Gustave Lenoble was of a very different stamp from those specimens of the
+genus tiger whose impertinent admiration had often wounded and distressed
+her; but she was inclined to attribute the fault of shallowness to a
+nature so frank and buoyant as that of her father's friend.
+
+She walked from Bayswater to Chelsea on the appointed Thursday, for the
+cost of frequent journeys in cabs was more than her purse could supply.
+The walk across the Park was pleasant even in the bleak March weather,
+and she entered the little parlour in Omega Street with the bloom of
+damask roses upon her cheeks.
+
+"How do you do, papa dear?" she began, as she came into the dusky room;
+but the figure sitting in her father's accustomed place was not that of
+her father. It was M. Lenoble, who rose to welcome her.
+
+"Is papa worse?" she asked, surprised by the Captain's absence.
+
+"On the contrary, he is better, and has gone out in a hired carriage for
+a breath of fresh air. I persuaded him to go. He will be back very
+shortly."
+
+"I wrote to tell him I should be here to-day, but I am very glad he has
+gone out, for I am sure the air will do him good. Was he well wrapped up,
+do you know, M. Lenoble?"
+
+"Enveloped in railway-rugs and shawls to his very nose. I arranged all
+that with my own hands. He looked like an ambassador from all the
+Russias."
+
+"How kind of you to think of such things!" said Diana gratefully.
+
+"And tell me why should I not think of such things? Do you imagine that
+it is not a pleasure to me to wait upon your father--for your sake?"
+
+There was some amount of awkwardness in this kind of thing. Diana busied
+herself with the removal of her hat and jacket, which she laid neatly
+upon a stony-hearted horsehair sofa. After doing this she placed herself
+near the window, whence she contemplated the dusky street, appearing much
+interested in the movements of the lamp lighter.
+
+"What an admirable way they have of lighting the lamps now," she
+remarked, with the conversational brilliance which usually marks this
+kind of situation; "how much more convenient it must be than the old
+method with the ladder, you know!"
+
+"Yes, I have no doubt," said Gustave, bringing himself to her side with a
+couple of steps, and planting himself deliberately in a chair next to
+hers; "but don't you think, as I start for Normandy to-morrow, we might
+talk of something more interesting than the lamplighter, Miss Paget?"
+
+"I am ready to talk of anything you like," replied Miss Paget, with that
+charming assumption of unconsciousness which every woman can command on
+these occasions.
+
+"You are very good. Do you know that when I persuaded your father to go
+out for an airing, I was prompted by a motive so selfish as to render the
+proceeding quite diabolical? Don't be alarmed! The doctor gave his
+permission for the airing, or I should not have attempted such a thing.
+Hypocrisy I am capable of, but not assassination. You cannot imagine the
+diplomacy which I exhibited; and all to what end? Can you imagine that?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"That I might secure one half-hour's uninterrupted talk with you; and,
+unhappily, you are so late that I expect your father's return every
+minute. He was to be back again before dusk, and the appearance of the
+lamplighter demonstrates that the dusk has come. I have so much to say,
+and so little time to say it; so much, Diane--"
+
+She started as he called her thus, as if in that moment of surprise she
+would have risen from her chair by his side. She knew what was coming,
+and having expected nothing so desperate, knew not how to arrest the
+confession that she would fain have avoided hearing. M. Lenoble laid his
+hand firmly on hers.
+
+"So much, Diane; and yet so little, that all can be told in three words.
+I love you."
+
+"M. Lenoble!"
+
+"Ah, you are surprised, you wonder, you look at me with eyes of sweet
+amazement! Dear angel, do you think it is possible to see you and not to
+love you? To see you once is to respect, to admire, to bow the knee
+before beauty and goodness; but to see you many times, as I have done,
+the patient consoler of an invalid and somewhat difficult father--ah, my
+sweet love, who is there so hard amongst mankind that he should escape
+from loving you, seeing all that?"
+
+The question had a significance that the speaker knew not. Who amongst
+mankind? Why, was there not one man for whom she would have been content
+to be the veriest slave that ever abnegated every personal delight for
+the love of a hard master? And he had passed her by, indifferent,
+unseeing. She had worshipped him on her knees, as it seemed to her; and
+he had left her kneeling in the dust, while he went on to offer himself,
+heart and soul, at another shrine.
+
+She could not forget these things. The memory and the bitterness of them
+came back with renewed poignancy at this moment, when the voice of a
+stranger told her she was beloved.
+
+"My dear one, will you not answer me?" pleaded Gustave, in nowise alarmed
+by Diana's silence, which seemed to him only the natural expression of a
+maidenly emotion. "Tell me that you will give me measure for measure;
+that you will love me as my mother loved my father--with a love that
+trouble and poverty could never lessen; with a love that was strongest
+when fate was darkest--a star which the dreary night of sorrow could not
+obscure. I am ten years older than you by my baptismal register, Diane;
+but my heart is young. I never knew what love was until I knew you. And
+yet those who know me best will tell you that I was no unkind husband,
+and that my poor wife and I lived happily. I shall never know love again,
+except for you. The hour comes, I suppose, in every man's life; and the
+angel of his life comes in that appointed hour. Mine came when I saw you.
+I have spoken to your father, and have his warm approval. He was all
+encouragement, and hinted that I might be assured of your love. Had he
+sufficient justification for that half-promise, Diane?"
+
+"He had none," Miss Paget answered gravely, "none except his own wishes.
+You have made me hear more than I wished to hear, M. Lenoble, for the
+treasure you offer me is one that I cannot accept. With all my heart I
+thank you for the love you tell me of. Even if it is, as I can but think
+it, a passing fancy, I thank you, nevertheless. It is sweet to win the
+love of a good man. I pray you to believe that with all my heart and mind
+I honour your generous nature, your noble sympathy with the weak and
+friendless. If you can give me your friendship, you shall find how I can
+value a good man's regard, but I cannot accept your love."
+
+"Why not?" asked Gustave, aghast.
+
+"Because I cannot give you measure for measure, and I will not give you
+less."
+
+"But in time, Diane, in time?"
+
+"Time cannot show me your character in a nobler light than that in which
+I see it now. You do not lack the power to win a woman's heart, but I
+have no heart to give. If you will be my friend, time will increase my
+affection for you--but time cannot restore the dead."
+
+"Which means that your heart is dead, Diane?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, with unutterable sadness.
+
+"You love some one younger, happier than I?"
+
+"No, M. Lenoble, no one."
+
+"But you have loved? Yes!--a scoundrel, perhaps; a villain, who--"
+
+A spasm of pain contracted his face as he looked at the girl's drooping
+head; her face, in that dim light, he could not see.
+
+"Tell me this, Diane," he said presently, in an altered voice; "there is
+no barrier between us--no irrevocable obstacle that must part us for
+ever? There is no one who can claim you by any right--" He paused; and
+then added, in a lower voice, "by any wrong?"
+
+"No one," answered Miss Paget, lifting her head, and looking her lover
+full in the face. Even in that uncertain light he could see the proud
+steady gaze that seemed the fittest answer of all doubts.
+
+"Thank God!" he whispered. "Ah, how could I fear, even for one moment,
+that you could be anything but what you seem--the purest among the pure?
+Why, then, do you reject me? You do not love me, but you ask my
+friendship; you offer me your friendship, even your affection. Ah,
+believe me, if those are but real, time will ripen them into love. Your
+heart is dead. Ah, why should that young heart be dead? It is not dead,
+Diane; it needs but the fire of true love to warm it into life again. Why
+should you reject me, since you tell me that you love me; unless you love
+another? What should divide us?"
+
+"Shadows and memories," Diana replied mournfully,--"vague and foolish;
+wicked, perhaps; but they come between you and me, M. Lenoble. And since
+I cannot give you a whole heart, I will give you nothing."
+
+"You have loved some one, some one who did not value your love? Tell me
+the truth, Diane; you owe me at least as much as that."
+
+"I do owe you the truth. Yes; I have been very foolish. For two or three
+years of my life there was a person who was our daily companion. He
+travelled with us--with my father and me; and we saw many changes and
+troubles together. For a long time he was like my brother; and I doubt if
+many brothers are as kind to their sisters as he was to me. In his heart
+that feeling never changed. He was always equally kind, equally careless.
+Once I deluded myself with the fancy that in his looks and tones, and
+even in his words, there was some deeper feeling than this careless
+brotherly kindness; but it was no more than a delusion. My eyes were
+opened rudely enough. I saw his heart bestowed elsewhere. Do not think
+that I am so weak, or so wicked, as to abandon myself to despair because
+I have been awakened from my foolish dream. I can look the realities of
+life in the face, M. Lenoble; and I have taught myself to wish all good
+things for the dear girl who has won the heart that I once thought was
+mine. The person I am speaking of can boast no superior graces of mind or
+person. He is only a very commonplace young man, with a certain amount of
+talent, a disposition inclined to good rather than to evil. But he was
+the companion of my girlhood; and in losing him it seems to me as if I
+had lost a part of my youth itself."
+
+To Diana's mind this seemed the end of the discussion. She expected M.
+Lenoble to bow his head to the inevitable, to utter a friendly farewell,
+and depart for his Norman home, convinced, if not satisfied. But the
+light-hearted, easy-tempered Gustave was not a lover of the despairing
+order, nor an easily answered suppliant.
+
+"And that is all!" he exclaimed, in the cheeriest tone. "A companion of
+your girlhood, for whom you had a girl's romantic fancy! And the memory
+of this unspeakable idiot--great Heaven! but how idiotic must this wretch
+have been, to be loved by you, and not even to know it!--the memory of
+this last of the last is to come between you and me, and divide us for
+ever? The phantom of this miserable, who could be loved by an angel
+without knowing it, is to lift its phantasmal hand and thrust me
+aside--me, Gustave Lenoble, a man, and not an idiot? Ah, thus we blow him
+to the uttermost end of the world!" cried M. Lenoble, blowing an
+imaginary rival from the tips of his fingers. "Thus we dismiss him to the
+Arctic regions, the torrid zone--to the Caucasus, where await vultures to
+gnaw his liver--wherever earth is most remote and uncomfortable--he and
+the bread-and-butter miss whom he prefers to my Diane!"
+
+This manner of taking things was quite unexpected by Diana. It was much
+more pleasant than gloomy despair or sullen resentment; but it was, at
+the same time, much more difficult to deal with.
+
+"He is gone!" cried Gustave presently; "he is on the topmost heights of
+Caucasus, and the vultures are sharpening their beaks! And now, tell me,
+Diane--you will be my wife, will you not? You will be a mother to my
+children? You will transform the old chateau of Côtenoir into a pleasant
+home? You will cease to live amongst strangers? You will come to those
+who will love and cherish you as their own, their dearest and best and
+brightest? You will give your poor old father a corner by your fireside?
+He is old and needs a home for his last years. For his sake, Diane, for
+mine, for my children, let your answer be yes! Ah, not so fast!" he
+cried, as she was about to speak. "Why are you so quick to pronounce your
+fatal judgment? Think how much depends on your reply--your father's
+happiness, my children's, mine!"
+
+"It is of yours only I must think," Miss Paget answered earnestly. "You
+fancy it is so easy for me to say no. Believe me, it would be much easier
+to say yes. When you speak of my father's declining years, I, who know
+his weary life so well, would be hard of heart indeed if I were not
+tempted by the haven you offer. Every word that you say gives me some new
+proof of your goodness, your generosity. But I will not wrong you because
+you are generous. I shall always be your grateful friend, but you must
+seek elsewhere for a wife, M. Lenoble. You will have little difficulty in
+finding one worthier than I."
+
+"I will seek nowhere else for a wife; I will have no wife but you. I have
+had a wife of other people's choosing; I will choose one for myself this
+time. Let us be friends, Diane, since your decision is as irrevocable as
+the laws of Draco. You are stone, you are adamant; but no matter, we can
+be friends. Your father will be disappointed. But what then? He is no
+doubt accustomed to disappointments. My daughters--for them it is a
+profound affliction to be motherless, but they must support it. Côtenoir
+must go to wreck and ruin a little longer--a few more rats behind the
+panelling, a few more moths in the tapestry, that is all. My children
+say, 'Papa, our home is not comfortable; all is upside-down;' and I
+reply. 'But what will you, my children? A home without a wife is always
+upside down.' And then I take them between my arms, in weeping. It is a
+poignant picture to rend the heart. But what does it matter, Miss Paget?
+What is that verse of your grand Will?--
+
+  Blow, blow, thou wintry wind;
+  And let go weep the stricken land,
+  While harts ungalled go play.
+
+Perhaps I have mixed him up somehow; but the meaning is clear."
+
+A hollow-sounding and somewhat awful cough heralded the approach of
+Captain Paget, who entered the room at this juncture. If the Captain had
+prolonged his first airing, after six weeks' confinement to the house,
+until this late period of the afternoon, he would have committed an
+imprudence which might have cost him dearly. Happily, he had done nothing
+of the kind, but had re-entered the house unobserved, while Diana and
+Gustave were conversing close to the window, having preferred to leave
+his fly at the end of the street, rather than to incur the hazard of
+interrupting a critical tête-à-tête. The interval that had elapsed since
+his return had been spent by the Captain in his own bedchamber, and in
+the immediate neighbourhood of the folding-doors between that apartment
+and the parlour. What he had heard had been by no means satisfactory to
+him; and if a look could annihilate, Miss Paget might have perished
+beneath the Parthian glance which her father shot at her as he came
+towards the window, with a stereotyped smile upon his lips and
+unspeakable anger in his heart.
+
+He had heard just enough of the conversation to know that Gustave had
+been rejected--Gustave, with Côtenoir and a handsome independence in the
+present, and the late John Haygarth's fortune in the future. Rejected by
+a penniless young woman, who at any moment might find herself without a
+roof to shelter her from the winds of heaven! Was ever folly, madness,
+wickedness supreme as this?
+
+Horatio trembled with rage as he took his daughter's hand. She had the
+insolence to extend her hand for the customary salutation. The Captain's
+greeting was a grip that made her wince.
+
+"Good-night, Miss Paget," said Gustave gravely, but with by no means the
+despondent tone of a hopeless lover; "I--well, I shall see you again,
+perhaps, before I go to Normandy. I doubt if I shall go to-morrow. I
+have my own reasons for staying--unreasonable reasons, perhaps, but I
+shall stay."
+
+All this was said in a tone too low to reach Captain Paget's ear.
+
+"Are you going to leave us, Lenoble?" he asked in a quavering voice. "You
+will not stop and let Di give you a cup of tea as usual?"
+
+"Not to-night, Captain. Good-bye."
+
+He wrung the old man's hand and departed. Captain Paget dropped heavily
+into a chair, and for some minutes there was silence. Diana was the
+first to speak.
+
+"I am glad your doctor considered you well enough to go out for a drive,
+papa," she said.
+
+"Indeed, my dear," answered her father with a groan; "I hope my next
+drive may be in a different kind of vehicle--the last journey I shall
+ever take, until they cart away my bones for manure. I believe they do
+make manure from the bones of paupers in our utilitarian age."
+
+"Papa, how can you talk so horribly! You are better, are you not? M.
+Lenoble said you were better."
+
+"Yes, I am better, God help me!" answered the old man, too weak alike in
+mind and body to hide the passion that possessed, him. "That is one of
+the contradictions of the long farce we call life. If I had been a rich
+man, with a circle of anxious relations and all the noted men of Savile
+Row dancing attendance round my bed, I dare say I should have died; but
+as I happen to be a penniless castaway, with only a lodging-house drudge
+and a half-starved apothecary to take care of me, and with nothing before
+me but a workhouse, I live. It is all very well for a man to take things
+easily when he is ill and helpless, too weak even to think. _That_ is not
+the trying time. The real trial arrives when a little strength comes back
+to him, and his landlady begins to worry him for her rent, and the
+lodging-house drudge gets tired of pitying him, and the apothecary sends
+in his bill, and the wretched high-road lies bare and broad before him,
+and he hears the old order to move on. The moving-on time has come for
+me, Di; and the Lord alone knows how little I know where I am to go."
+
+"Papa, you are not friendless; even I can give you a little help."
+
+"Yes," answered the Captain with a bitter laugh; "a sovereign once a
+quarter--the scrapings of your pittance! That help won't save me from
+the workhouse."
+
+"There is M. Lenoble."
+
+"Yes, there is M. Lenoble; the man who would have given me a home for my
+old age: he told me so to-day--a home fit for a gentleman--for the
+position he now occupies is nothing compared to that which he may occupy
+a year hence. He would have received me as his father-in-law, without
+thought or question of my antecedents; and if I have not lived like a
+gentleman, I might have died like one. This is what he would have done
+for me. But do you think I can ask anything of him now, after you have
+refused him? I know of your refusal to be that man's wife. I heard--I saw
+it in his face. You--a beggar, a friendless wretch, dependent on the
+patronage of a stockbroker's silly wife--_you_ must needs give yourself
+grand airs, and refuse such a man as that! Do you think such men go
+begging among young ladies like you, or that they run about the streets,
+like the roast pigs in the story, begad, with knives and forks in their
+backs, asking to be eaten?"
+
+The Captain was walking up and down the room in a fever of rage. Diana
+looked at him with sad wondering eyes. Yes, it was the old selfish
+nature. The leopard cannot change his spots; and the Horatio Paget of the
+present was the Horatio Paget of the past.
+
+"Pray don't be angry with me, papa," said Diana sorrowfully; "I believe
+that I have done my duty."
+
+"Done your fiddlesticks!" cried the Captain, too angry to be careful of
+his diction. "Your duty to whom? Did you happen to remember, miss, that
+you owe some duty to me, your father, but for whom you wouldn't be
+standing there talking of duty like a tragedy queen? By Jove! I suppose
+you are too grand a person to consider my trouble in this matter; the
+pains I took to get Lenoble over to England; the way I made the most of
+my gout even, in order to have you about me; the way I finessed and
+diplomatized to bring this affair to a successful issue. And now, when I
+have succeeded beyond my hopes, you spoil everything, and then dare to
+stand before me and preach about duty. What do you want in a husband, I
+should like to know? A rich man? Lenoble is that. A handsome man? Lenoble
+is that. A gentleman, with good blood in his veins? Lenoble comes of as
+pure a race as any man in that part of France. A good man? Lenoble is one
+of the best fellows upon this earth. What is it, then, that you want?"
+
+"I want to give my heart to the man who gives me his."
+
+"And what, in the name of all that's preposterous, is to prevent you
+giving Gustave Lenoble your heart?"
+
+"I cannot tell you."
+
+"No, nor any one else. But let us have no more of this nonsense. If you
+call yourself a daughter of mine, you will marry Gustave Lenoble. If
+not--"
+
+The Captain found himself brought to a sudden stop in his unconscious
+paraphrase of Signor Capulet's menace to his recalcitrant daughter,
+Juliet. With what threat could the noble Horatio terrify his daughter to
+obedience? Before you talk of turning your rebellious child out of doors,
+you must provide a home from which to cast her. Captain Paget remembered
+this, and was for the moment reduced to sudden and ignominious silence.
+And yet there must surely be some way of bringing this besotted young
+woman to reason.
+
+He sat for some minutes in silence, with his head leaning on his hand,
+his face hidden from Diana. This silence, this attitude, so expressive of
+utter despondency, touched her more keenly than his anger. She knew that
+he was mean and selfish, that it was of his own loss he thought; and yet
+she pitied him. He was old and helpless and miserable; so much the more
+pitiable because of his selfishness and meanness. For the heroic soul
+there is always some comfort; but for the grovelling nature suffering
+knows no counterbalance. The ills that flesh is heir to seem utterly
+bitter when there is no grand spirit to dominate the flesh, and soar
+triumphant above the regions of earthly pain. Captain Paget's mind, to
+him, was not a kingdom. He could not look declining years of poverty in
+the face; he was tired of work. The schemes and trickeries of his life
+were becoming very odious to him; they were for the most part worn out,
+and had ceased to pay. Of course he had great hopes, in any event, from
+Gustave Lenoble; but those hopes were dependent on Gustave's inheritance
+of John Haygarth's estate. He wanted something more tangible than
+this--he wanted immediate security; and his daughter's marriage with
+Gustave would have given him that security, and still grander hopes for
+the future. He had fancied himself reigning over the vassals of Côtenoir,
+a far more important personage than the real master of that château. He
+had pictured to himself a _pied-à-terre_ in Paris which it might be
+agreeable for him to secure, for existence in Normandy might occasionally
+prove _ennuyeux_. These things were what he meant when he talked of a
+haven for his declining years; and against the daughter who, for some
+caprice of her own, could hinder his possession of these things, he had
+no feeling but anger.
+
+Diana compassionated this weak old man, to whose lips the cup of
+prosperity had seemed so near, from whose lips her hand had thrust it.
+He had been promised a home, comfort, respectability, friendship--"all
+that should accompany old age"--and she had prevented the fulfilment of
+the promise. Heaven knows how pure her motives had been; but as she
+watched that drooping head, with its silvered hair, she felt that she
+had been cruel.
+
+"Papa," she began presently, laying her hand caressingly upon her
+father's neck; but he pushed aside the timid, caressing hand--"papa, you
+think me very unkind, only because I have done what I believe to be
+right; indeed it is so, papa dear. In what I said to Gustave Lenoble this
+evening, I was governed only by my sense of right."
+
+"Indeed!" cried the Captain, with a strident laugh; "and where did you
+pick up your sense of right, madam, I should like to know? From what
+Methodist parson's hypocritical twaddle have you learnt to lay down the
+law to your poor old father about the sense of right? 'Honour your father
+and your mother, that your days may be long in the land,' miss, _that's_
+what your Bible teaches you; but the Bible has gone out of fashion, I
+dare say, since I was a young man; and your model young woman of the
+present generation taunts her father with her sense of right. Will your
+sense of right be satisfied when you hear of your father rotting in the
+old-men's ward of a workhouse, or dying on the London stones?"
+
+"I am not unfeeling, papa. With all my heart I pity you; but it is cruel
+on your part to exaggerate the misery of your position, as I am sure you
+must be doing. Why should your means of living fail because I refuse to
+marry M. Lenoble? You have lived hitherto without my help, as I have
+lived of late without yours. Nothing could give me greater happiness than
+to know that you were exempt from care; and if my toil can procure you a
+peaceful home in the future--as I believe it can, or education and will
+to work must go for nothing--there shall be no lack of industry on my
+part. I will work for you, I will indeed, papa--willingly, happily."
+
+"When your work can give me such a home as Côtenoir--a home that one word
+of yours would secure for me--I will thank you."
+
+"If you will only wait, papa, if you will only have patience--"
+
+"Patience! Wait! Do you know what you are talking about? Do you prate of
+patience, and waiting, and hope in the future to a man who has no
+future--to a man whose days are numbered, and who feels the creeping
+chills of death stealing over him every day as he sits beside his
+wretched hearth, or labours through his daily drudgery? I can live as I
+have always lived! Yes; but do you know, or care to know, that with every
+day life becomes more difficult for me? Your fine friends at Bayswater
+have done with me. I have spent the last sixpence I shall ever see from
+Philip Sheldon. Hawkehurst has cut me, like the ungrateful hound he is.
+When they have squeezed the orange, they throw away the rind. Didn't
+Voltaire say that, when Frederick of Prussia gave him the go-by? Heaven
+knows it's true enough; and now you, who by a word might secure yourself
+a splendid position--yes, I say splendid for a poor drudge and dependent
+like you, and insure a home for me--you, forsooth, must needs favour me
+with your high-flown sentiments about your sense of right, and promise me
+a home in the future, if I will wait and hope! No, Diana, waiting and
+hoping are done with for me, and I can find a home in the bed of the
+river without your help."
+
+"You would not be so wicked as to do that!" cried Diana, aghast.
+
+"I don't know about the wickedness of the act. But, rely upon it, when my
+choice lies between the workhouse and the river, I shall prefer the
+river. The modern workhouse is no inviting sanctuary, and I dare say many
+a homeless wretch makes the same choice."
+
+For some minutes there was silence. Diana stood with her elbows resting
+on the chimneypiece, her face covered with her hands.
+
+"O Lord, teach me to do the thing which is right!" she prayed, and in the
+next breath acted on the impulse of the moment.
+
+"What would you have me do?" she asked.
+
+"What any one but an idiot would do of her own accord--accept the good
+fortune that has dropped into your lap. Do you think such luck as yours
+goes begging every day?"
+
+"You would have me accept Gustave Lenoble's offer, no matter what
+falsehoods may be involved in my acceptance of it?"
+
+"I can see no reason for falsehood. Any one but an idiot would honour
+such a man; any one but an idiot would thank Providence for such good
+fortune."
+
+"Very well, papa," exclaimed Diana, with a laugh that had no mirthful
+music, "I will not be the exceptional idiot. If M. Lenoble does me the
+honour to repeat his offer--and I think from his manner he means to do
+so--I will accept it."
+
+"He shall repeat it!" cried the Captain, throwing off his assumption of
+the tragic father. The Oedipus Coloneus, the Lear--the venerable victim
+of winter winds and men's ingratitude--was transformed in a moment into
+an elderly Jeremy Diddler, lined with Lord Foppington. "He shall repeat
+it; I will have him at your feet to-morrow. Yes, Di, my love, I pledge
+myself to bring that about, without compromise to your maidenly pride or
+the dignity of a Paget. My dear child, I ought to have known that
+reflection would show you where your duty lies. I fear I have been
+somewhat harsh, but you must forgive me, Di; I have set my heart on this
+match, for your happiness as well as my own. I could not stand the
+disappointment; though I admired, and still admire, the high feeling,
+and all that kind of thing, which prompted your refusal. A school-girlish
+sentimentality, child, but with something noble in it; not the
+sentimentality of a vulgar schoolgirl. The blue blood will show itself,
+my love; and now--no, no, don't cry. You will live to thank me for
+to-night's work; yes, my child, to thank me, when you look round your
+comfortable home by-and-by--when my poor old bones are mouldering in
+their unpretending sepulchre--and say to yourself, 'I have my father to
+thank for this. Adverse circumstances forbade his doing his duty as
+happier fathers are allowed the privilege of doing theirs, but it was his
+forethought, his ever-watchful care, which secured me an admirable
+husband and a happy home.' Mark my words, the time will come when you
+will say this, my dear."
+
+"I will try to think of you always kindly, papa," Miss Paget answered in
+a low sad voice; "and if my marriage can secure your happiness and
+Gustave Lenoble's, I am content. I only fear to take too much, and give
+too little."
+
+"My love, you must certainly be the lineal descendant of Don Quixote. Too
+much, and too little, forsooth! Let Lenoble find a handsomer woman, or a
+more elegant woman, by gad, elsewhere! Such a woman as a duke might be
+proud to make his duchess, by Jove! There shall be no sense of obligation
+on our side, my love. Gustave Lenoble shall be made to feel that he gets
+change for his shilling. Kiss me, child, and tell me you forgive me for
+being a little rough with you, just now."
+
+"Forgive you?--yes, papa. I dare say you are wiser than I. Why should I
+refuse M. Lenoble? He is good and kind, and will give us a happy home?
+What more can I want? Do I want to be like Charlotte, to whom life seems
+all poetry and brightness?"
+
+"And who is going to throw herself away upon a penny-a-liner, by Jove!"
+interjected the Captain.
+
+"Can I hope to be like that girl, with her happy ignorance of life, her
+boundless love and trust! O, no, no, papa; those things are not for me."
+
+She laid her head upon her father's breast, and sobbed like a child. This
+was her second farewell to the man she had loved, the dreams she had
+dreamed. The Captain comforted her with a paternal embrace, but was as
+powerless to comprehend her emotion as if he had found himself suddenly
+called upon to console the sorrows of a Japanese widow.
+
+"Hysterical," he murmured. "These noble natures are subject to that kind
+of thing. And now, my love," he continued, in a more business-like tone,
+"let us talk seriously. I think it would be very advisable for you to
+leave Bayswater, and take up your abode in these humble lodgings with me
+immediately."
+
+"Why, papa?"
+
+"The reason is sufficiently obvious, my love. It is not right that you
+should continue to eat the bread of dependence. As the future wife of
+Gustave Lenoble--and in this case, the word future means immediately--"
+
+"Papa," cried Diana suddenly, "you will not hurry me into this marriage?
+I have consented for your sake. You will not be so ungenerous as to--"
+
+"As to hurry you? No, my dear, of course not. There shall be no indecent
+haste. Your wishes, your delicate and disinterested motives, shall be
+consulted before all things; yes, my love," cried the Captain, sorely
+afraid of some wavering on the part of his daughter, and painfully
+anxious to conciliate her, "all shall be in accordance with your wishes.
+But I must urge your immediate removal from Bayswater; first, because M.
+Lenoble will naturally wish to see you oftener than he can while you are
+residing with people whose acquaintance I do not want him to make; and
+secondly, because you have no further need of Mrs. Sheldon's patronage."
+
+"It has been kindness, affection, papa--never patronage. I could not
+leave Mrs. Sheldon or Charlotte abruptly or ungraciously, upon any
+consideration. They gave me a home when I most bitterly needed one.
+They took me away from the dull round of schoolroom drudgery, that was
+fast changing me into a hard hopeless joyless automaton. My first duty
+is to them."
+
+The Captain's angry sniff alone expressed the indignation which this
+impious remark inspired.
+
+"My next shall be to you and M. Lenoble. Let me give Mrs. Sheldon due
+notice of the change in our plans."
+
+"What do you call due notice?" asked Horatio, peevishly.
+
+"A quarter's notice."
+
+"O, indeed! Then for three months you are to dance attendance upon Mrs.
+Sheldon, while M. Lenoble is waiting to make you his wife."
+
+"I must consult the wishes of my friends, papa."
+
+"Very well, my dear," replied the Captain, with a sigh that was next of
+kin to a groan; "you must please yourself and your friends, I suppose;
+your poor old father is a secondary consideration." And then, timeously
+mindful of the skirmish he had just had with his daughter, Captain Paget
+made haste to assure her of his regard and submission.
+
+"All shall be as you please, my love," he murmured. "There, go into my
+room, and smooth your hair, and bathe your eyes, while I ring for the
+tea."
+
+Diana obeyed. She found eau-de-cologne and the most delicate of Turkey
+sponges on her father's wash-handstand; jockey-club, and ivory-backed
+brushes, somewhat yellow with age, but bearing crest and monogram, on his
+dressing-table. The workhouse did not seem quite so near at hand as the
+Captain had implied; but with these sanguine people it is but a step from
+disappointment to despair.
+
+"What am I to tell Mrs. Sheldon, papa?" she asked, when she was pouring
+out her father's tea.
+
+"Well, I think you had better say nothing, except that my circumstances
+have somewhat improved, and that my failing health requires your care."
+
+"I hate secrets, papa."
+
+"So do I, my dear; but half-confidences are more disagreeable than
+secrets."
+
+Diana submitted. She secretly reserved to herself the right to tell
+Charlotte anything she pleased. From that dear adopted sister she would
+hide nothing.
+
+"If M. Lenoble should repeat his offer, and I should accept it, I will
+tell her all," she thought. "It will make that dear girl happy to know
+that there is some one who loves me, besides herself."
+
+And then she thought of the strange difference of fate that gave to
+this Charlotte Halliday, with her rich stepfather and comfortable
+surroundings, a penniless soldier of fortune for a lover, while to her,
+the spendthrift adventurer's daughter, came a wealthy suitor.
+
+"Will hers be the dinner of herbs, and mine the stalled ox?" she thought.
+"Ah, Heaven forbid! Why is it so difficult to love wisely, so easy to
+love too well?"
+
+She remembered the cynical French proverb, "When we can not have what
+we love, we must love what we have." But the cynical proverb brought her
+no comfort.
+
+She went back to Bayswater with a strange bewildered feeling; after
+having promised her father to go to Omega Street whenever he sent for
+her. There was no actual pain in her mind, no passionate desire to recall
+her promise, no dread horror of the step to which she had pledged
+herself. The feeling that oppressed her was the sense that such a step
+should have been the spontaneous election of her grateful heart, proud of
+a good man's preference, instead of a weak submission to a father's
+helplessness.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Fifth.
+
+
+
+THE FIRST ACT OF MR. SHELDON'S DRAMA.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+TAKEN BY STORM.
+
+Two days after her interview with Gustave Lenoble, Miss Paget received a
+brief note from her father, summoning her again to Omega Street.
+
+"He has not gone back to Normandy," wrote the Captain.
+
+"My child, he positively worships the ground you walk upon. Ah, my love,
+_it is something to have a father_! I need scarcely tell you that his
+first idea of your excellence was inspired by those glowing descriptions
+of your goodness, your beauty, your heroism, which I favoured him with,
+_en passant_, during our conversations at Côtenoir, where the happy
+accident of a business transaction first introduced me to him. The
+interests of my only child have ever been near and dear to me; and where
+a duller man would have perceived only a wealthy stranger, my paternal
+instincts recognized at a glance the predestined husband of my daughter.
+It needed my wide experience of life--and, as I venture to believe, my
+subtle knowledge of the human heart--to understand that a man who had
+lived for five-and-thirty years buried alive in a French province--a
+charming place, my love, and for your refined taste replete with
+interest--never seeing a mortal except his immediate neighbours, would be
+the man of men to fall in love with the first attractive young woman he
+met among strangers. Come to me this afternoon without fail, and come
+early.--Yours,
+
+"H.N.C.P."
+
+Diana obeyed this summons submissively, but still troubled by that
+strange sense of bewilderment which had affected her since her stormy
+interview with Captain Paget. She was not quite certain of herself. The
+old dreams--the sweet foolish girlish fancies--were not yet put away
+altogether from her mind; but she knew that they were foolish, and she
+was half-inclined to believe that there had been some wisdom in her
+father's scorn.
+
+"What do I want more?" she asked herself. "He is good and brave and true,
+and he loves me. If I were a princess, my marriage would be negotiated
+for me by other people, and I should have reason to consider myself very
+happy if the man whom the state selected for my husband should prove as
+good a man as Gustave Lenoble. And he loves me; me, who have never before
+had power over a man's heart!"
+
+She walked across Hyde Park on this occasion, as on the last; and her
+thoughts, though always confused--mere rags and scraps of thought--were
+not all unpleasant. There was a smile, half shy, half tender, on her face
+as she went into the little sitting-room where Gustave was waiting for
+her. She had seen his hat and overcoat in the passage, and knew that he
+was there waiting for her. To this poor desolate soul there was something
+sweet in the idea of being waited for.
+
+As she stood but a little within the doorway, blushing, almost trembling
+with the sense of her changed position, her lover came across the room
+and took her in his arms. The strong brave arms held her to his breast;
+and in that one embrace he took her to his heart, and made her his own
+for ever.
+
+In every story of life-long affection, there is one moment in which the
+bond is sealed. Diana looked up at the frank tender face, and felt that
+she had found her conqueror. Master, friend, protector, husband, adoring
+and devoted lover, gallant and fearless champion--he was all; and she
+divined his power and his worth as she glanced shyly upward, ashamed to
+be so lightly won.
+
+"M. Lenoble," she faltered, trying to withdraw herself from the strong
+encircling arm that held her, as if by right.
+
+"Gustave, now and for ever, my Diane! There shall be no more Monsieur
+Lenoble. And in a few weeks it shall be 'my husband.' Your father has
+given me to you. He tells me to laugh at your refusals your scruples; to
+assail you like your Shakespeare's Petruchio assails his Katherine--with
+audacious insolence that will not be denied. And I shall take his advice.
+Look up into my face, dear angel, and defy me to take his advice."
+
+Happily the dear angel looked only downwards. But M Lenoble was resolved
+to have an agreeable response.
+
+"See, then, thou canst not defy me!" he cried, in the only language he
+spoke; and the "_tu_" for the first time sounded very tender, very sweet.
+"Thou canst not tell me thou art angry with me. And the other--the
+imbecile;--he is gone for ever, is he not? Ah, say yes!"
+
+"Yes, he is gone," said Diana, almost in a whisper.
+
+"Is he quite gone? The door of thine heart locked against him, his
+luggage thrown out of the window?"
+
+"He is gone!" she murmured softly. "He could not hold his place against
+you--you are so strong--so brave; and he was only a shadow. Yes, he is
+gone."
+
+She said this with a little sigh of relief. It was in all sincerity that
+she answered her suitor's question. She felt that a crisis had come in
+her life--the first page of a new volume; and the old sad tear-blotted
+book might be cast away.
+
+"Dear angel, wilt thou ever learn to love me?" asked Gustave, in a
+half-whisper, bending down his bearded face till his lips almost touched
+her cheek.
+
+"It is impossible not to love you," she answered softly. And indeed it
+seemed to her as if this chivalrous Gaul was a creature to command the
+love of women, the fear of men; an Achilles _en frac_; a Bayard without
+his coat of mail; Don Quixote in his youth, generous, brave,
+compassionate, tender, and with a brain not as yet distempered by the
+reading of silly romances.
+
+Captain Paget emerged from his den as the little love scene ended. He
+affected a gentlemanly unconsciousness of the poetry involved in the
+situation, was pleasantly anxious about the tea-tray, the candles, and
+minor details of life; and thus afforded the lovers ample time in which
+to recover their composure. The Frenchman was in no wise discomposed; he
+was only abnormally gay, with a little air of triumph that was not
+unpleasing. Diana was pale; but there was an unwonted light in her eyes,
+and she had by no means the appearance of a victim newly offered on the
+sacrificial altar of filial duty. In sober truth, Miss Paget was happier
+to-night than she had been for a long time. At three-and-twenty she was
+girl enough to rejoice in the knowledge that she was truly loved, and
+woman enough to value the sense of peace involved in the security of a
+prosperous future.
+
+If she was grateful to her lover--and the affection he had inspired in
+her heart had grown out of gratitude--it was no mercenary consideration
+as to his income or position that made her grateful. She thanked him for
+his love--that treasure which she had never expected to possess; she
+thanked him because he had taken her by the hand, and led her out of the
+ranks of lonely dependent womanhood, and seated her upon a throne, on the
+steps whereof he was content to kneel. Whether the throne were a rushen
+chair in some rustic cottage, or a gilded _fauteuil_ in a palace, she
+cared very little. It was the subject's devotion that was new and sweet
+to her.
+
+She went to Charlotte's room that night, when Mr. Sheldon's small
+household was at rest; as she had gone on Christmas Eve to renounce her
+lover and to bless her rival. This time it was a new confession she went
+to make, and a confession that involved some shame. There is nothing so
+hard to confess as inconstancy; and every woman is not so philosophic as
+Rahel Varnhagen, who declared that to be constant was not always to love
+the same person, but always to love some one.
+
+Miss Paget seated herself at Charlotte's feet, as she had done on that
+previous occasion. The weather was still cold enough to make a fire very
+pleasant, though it was more than two months since the Christmas bells
+had rung out upon the frosty air. Diana sat on a low hassock, playing
+with the tassels of her friend's dressing-gown, anxious to make her
+confession, and solely at a loss for words in which to shape so
+humiliating an avowal.
+
+"Charlotte," she began abruptly at last, "have you any idea when you and
+Valentine are to be married?"
+
+Miss Halliday gave a little cry of surprise.
+
+"Why, of course not, Di! How can you ask such a question? Our marriage
+is what uncle George calls a remote contingency. We are not to be married
+for ages--not until Valentine has obtained a secure position in
+literature, and an income that seems almost impossible. That was the
+special condition upon which Mr. Sheldon--papa--gave his consent to our
+engagement. Of course it was very proper and prudent of him to think of
+these things; and as he has been very kind and liberal-minded in his
+conduct to me throughout, I should be a most ungrateful person if I
+refused to be guided by his advice."
+
+"And I suppose that means that your engagement is to be a long one?"
+
+"The longest of long engagements. And what can be happier than a long
+engagement? One gets to know and understand the man one is to marry so
+thoroughly. I think I know every turn of thought in Valentine's mind;
+every taste, every fancy; and I feel myself every day growing to think
+more and more like him. I read the books he reads, so as to be able to
+talk to him, you know; but I am not so clever as you, Di, and Valentine's
+favourite authors do sometimes seem rather dry to me. But I struggle on,
+you know; and the harder I find the struggle, the more I admire my dear
+love's cleverness. Think of him, Di--three different articles in three
+different magazines last month! The paper on Apollodorus, in the
+_Cheapside_, you know; and that story in the Charing Cross--'How I lost
+my Gingham Umbrella, and gained the Acquaintance of Mr. Gozzleton.' _So_
+funny! And the exhaustive treatise on the Sources of Light, in the
+_Scientific Saturday_. And think of the fuss they make about Homer, a
+blind old person who wrote a long rigmarole of a poem about battles, and
+wrote it so badly that to this day no one knows whether it's one complete
+poem, or a lot of odds-and-ends in the way of poetry, put together by a
+man with an unpronounceable Greek name. When I think of what Valentine
+accomplishes in comparison to Homer, and the little notice the reviewers
+take of him, except to make him low-spirited by telling him that he is
+shallow and frivolous, I begin to think that literature must be going to
+the dogs."
+
+And here Charlotte became meditative, absorbed in the contemplation of
+Mr. Hawkehurst's genius. Diana had begun the conversation very artfully,
+intending to proceed by a gentle transition from Charlotte's love affairs
+to her own; but the conversation was drifting away from the subject into
+a discussion upon literature, and the brilliant young essayist whose
+first adventurous flights seemed grand as the soaring of Theban eagle to
+this tender and admiring watcher of his skyward progress.
+
+"Lotta," said Miss Paget, after a pause, "should you be very sorry if I
+were to leave you before your marriage?"
+
+"Leave me before my marriage, Diana! Is it not arranged that you are to
+live with mamma, and be a daughter to her, when I am gone? And you will
+come and stay with Valentine and me at our cottage; and you will advise
+me about my house-keeping, and teach me how to be a sensible, useful,
+economical wife, as well as a devoted one. Leave us, Di! What have I
+done, or mamma, or Mr. Sheldon, or anybody, that you should talk of
+anything so dreadful?"
+
+"What have you done, dear girl, dear friend, dear sister? Everything to
+win my undying love and gratitude. You have changed me from a hard
+disappointed bitter-minded woman--envious, at times, even of you--into
+your loving and devoted friend. You have changed me from a miserable
+creature into a contented and hopeful one. You have taught me to forget
+that my childhood and youth were one long night of wretchedness and
+degradation. You have taught me to forgive the father who suffered my
+life to be what it was, and made no one poor effort to lift me out of the
+slough of despond to which he had sunk. I can say no more, Charlotte.
+There are things that cannot be told by words."
+
+"And you want to leave me!" said Charlotte, in accents half-wondering,
+half-reproachful.
+
+"My father wants me to leave you, Lotta; and some one else--some one whom
+you must know and like before I can be sure I like him myself."
+
+"Him!" cried Charlotte, with a faint shriek of surprise. "Diana, WHAT are
+you going to tell me?"
+
+"A secret, Lotta; something which my father has forbidden me to tell any
+one, but which I will not hide from you. My poor father has found a kind
+friend--a friend who is almost as good to him as you are to me. How
+merciful Heaven is in raising up friends for outcasts! And I have seen a
+good deal of this gentleman who is so kind to papa, and the result is
+that--chiefly for papa's sake, and because I know that he is generous and
+brave and true, I mean papa's friend, M. Lenoble--I have consented to be
+his wife."
+
+"Diana!" cried Charlotte, with a sternness of manner that was alarming in
+so gentle a creature, "it shall never be!"
+
+"What dear?"
+
+"The sacrifice! No, dear, no! I understand it all. For your cruel
+mercenary heartless designing father's sake, you are going to marry a man
+whom you can't love. You are going to offer up your poor bruised desolate
+heart on the altar of duty. Ah, dear, you can't think I forget what you
+told me only two short months ago--though I seem selfish and frivolous,
+and am always talking about _him_, and parading my happiness, as it must
+seem to you, reckless of the wounds so newly healed in your noble
+unselfish heart. But I do not altogether forget, Diana, and such a
+sacrifice as this I will not allow. I know you have resigned him to me--I
+know you have thrust him from your heart, as you told me that night. But
+the hollow aching void that is left in your lonely heart shall be sacred,
+Di. No stranger's image shall pollute it. You shall not sacrifice your
+own peace to your father's selfishness. No, dear, no! With mamma and me
+you will always have a home. You need stoop to no cruel barter such as
+this marriage."
+
+And hereupon Miss Halliday wept over and caressed her friend, as the
+confidante of Agamemnon's daughter may have wept over and caressed that
+devoted young princess after the divination of Calchas had become common
+talk in the royal household.
+
+"But if I think it my duty to accept M. Lenoble's offer, Lotta?" urged
+Miss Paget with some embarrassment of manner. "M. Lenoble is as rich as
+he is generous, and my marriage with him will secure a happy home for my
+father. The foolish dreams I told you about on Christmas Eve had faded
+from my mind before I dared to speak of them. I could only confess my
+folly when I knew that I was learning to be wise. Pray do not think that
+I am sordid or mercenary. It is not because M. Lenoble is rich that I am
+inclined to marry him, it is because--"
+
+"Because you want to throw yourself away for the advantage of your
+selfish heartless father," interjected Charlotte. "He has neglected you
+all your life, and now wants to profit by the sacrifice of your
+happiness. Be firm, Di, darling; your Charlotte will stand by you, and
+find a home for you always, come what may. Who is this M. Lenoble? Some
+horrible ugly old creature, I dare say."
+
+Miss Paget smiled and blushed. The vision of Gustave's frank handsome
+face arose before her very vividly as Charlotte said this.
+
+"No, dear," she replied. "M. Lenoble is not an old
+man--five-and-thirty at most."
+
+"Five-and-thirty!" repeated Charlotte, with a wry face; "you don't call
+that young? And what is he like?"
+
+"Well, dear, I think he is the sort of man whom most people would call
+handsome. I'm sure you would like him, Lotta. He is so candid, so
+animated, so full of strength and courage. The sort of man to whom one
+would naturally look in any emergency or danger; the sort of man in whose
+company fear would be impossible."
+
+"Diana," cried Charlotte, suddenly, "you are in love with him!"
+
+"Lotta!"
+
+"Yes, dear, you are in love with him," repeated Miss Halliday, embracing
+her friend with effusion; "yes, over head and ears in love with him. And
+you are ashamed to confess the truth to me; and you are half ashamed to
+confess it even to yourself--as if you could deceive an old stager like
+me!" cried Charlotte, laughing. "Why, you dear inconstant thing, while I
+have felt myself the guiltiest and most selfish creature in the world for
+robbing you of Valentine, you have been quietly transferring your
+affections to this M. Gustave Lenoble--who is very rich, and brave, and
+true, and generous, and what most people would call handsome! Bless you,
+a thousand times, my darling! You have made me so happy!"
+
+"Indeed, Lotta!"
+
+"Yes, dear. The thought that there was a blank in your life made a dark
+cloud in mine. I know I have been very selfish, very thoughtless, but I
+could never have been quite free from a sense of self-reproach. But now
+there is nothing for me but happiness. O darling, I so long to see your
+M. Lenoble!"
+
+"You shall see him, dear."
+
+"And in the meantime tell me what he is like."
+
+Miss Halliday insisted upon a full, true, and particular account of M.
+Lenoble's personal appearance. Diana gave it, but not without some sense
+of embarrassment. She could not bring herself to be enthusiastic about
+Gustave Lenoble, though in her heart there was a warmth of feeling that
+surprised her. "What a hypocrite you are, Di!" exclaimed Charlotte
+presently. "I know you love this good Frenchman almost as dearly as I
+love Valentine, and that the thought of his affection makes you happy;
+and yet you speak of him in little measured sentences, and you won't be
+enthusiastic even about his good looks."
+
+"It is difficult to pass from dreams to realities, Lotta. I have lived so
+long among dreams, that the waking world seems strange to me."
+
+"That is only a poetical way of saying that you are ashamed of having
+changed your mind. I will tell M. Lenoble what a lukewarm creature you
+are, and how unworthy of his love!"
+
+"You shall tell him what you please. But remember, dear, my engagement
+must not be spoken about yet awhile, not even to your mamma. Papa makes a
+strong point of this, and I have promised to obey, though I am quite in
+the dark as to his reasons."
+
+Miss Halliday submitted to anything her friend wished; only entreating
+that she might be introduced to M. Lenoble. Diana promised her this
+privilege; but it speedily transpired that Diana's promise was not all
+that was wanted on this occasion.
+
+For some time past, in fact from the very commencement of Charlotte's
+engagement, Mr. Sheldon had shown himself punctilious to an exceeding
+degree with regard to his stepdaughter. The places to which she went, and
+the people with whom she consorted, appeared to be matters of supreme
+importance in his mind. When speaking of these things he gave those about
+him to understand that his ideas had been the same from the time of
+Charlotte's leaving school; but Diana knew that this was not true. Mr.
+Sheldon's theories had been much less strict, and Mr. Sheldon's practice
+had been much more careless, prior to Miss Halliday's engagement.
+
+No stately principal of a school for young ladies could have been more
+particular as to the movements of her charges--more apprehensive of
+wolf-in-sheep's-clothing in the shape of singing or drawing-master--than
+Mr. Sheldon seemed to be in these latter days. Even those pleasant walks
+in Kensington Gardens, which had been one of the regular occupations of
+the day, were now forbidden. Mr. Sheldon did not like that his daughter
+should walk in public with no better protector than Diana Paget.
+
+"There is something disreputable in two girls marching about those
+gardens together according to my ideas," said this ultra-refined
+stockbroker, one morning at the family breakfast-table. "I don't like to
+see my stepdaughter do anything I should forbid my own daughter to do.
+And if I had a daughter, I should most decidedly forbid all lonely
+rambles in Kensington Gardens. You see, Lotta, two girls as attractive
+as you and Miss Paget can't be too particular where you go, and what you
+do. When you want air and exercise, you can get both in the garden; and
+when you want change of scene, and a peep at the fashions, you can drive
+out with Mrs. Sheldon."
+
+To this deprivation Charlotte submitted, somewhat unwillingly, but with
+no sign of open rebellion. She thought her stepfather foolish and
+unreasonable; but she always bore in mind the fact that he had been kind
+and disinterested in the matter of her engagement, and she was content to
+prove her gratitude by any little sacrifice of this kind. Was not her
+lover permitted to spend his Sundays in her society, and to call on her,
+at his discretion, during the week? And what were walks in Kensington
+Gardens compared with the delight of his dear presence! It is true that
+she had sometimes been favoured with Mr. Hawkehurst's society in the
+course of her airing; but she knew that he sacrificed his hours of work
+or study for the chance of half an hour in her society; and she felt that
+there might be gain to him in her loss of liberty.
+
+She told him, when next they met, that the morning walks were forbidden;
+and, so jealous a passion is love, that Mr. Hawkehurst was nowise sorry
+to find that his pearl was strictly watched and carefully guarded.
+
+"Well, it seems very particular of Mr. Sheldon, of course," he said;
+"but, upon my word, I think he's right. Such a girl as you oughtn't to go
+about with no better protection than Diana can give you. Fellows will
+stare so at a pretty girl, you know; and I can't bear to think my pearl
+should be stared at by impertinent strangers."
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst did not, however, find the strict notions of his
+lady-love's stepfather quite so agreeable when he wanted to take his
+"pearl" to the winter exhibitions of pictures. He was told that Miss
+Halliday could go nowhere, except accompanied by her mamma; and as Georgy
+did not care about pictures, and found herself unequal to the fatigue of
+attending the winter exhibitions, he was obliged to forego the delight of
+seeing them with Lotta on his arm. He pronounced Mr. Sheldon on this
+occasion to be a narrow-minded idiot; but withdrew the remark in a
+contrite spirit when Charlotte reminded him of that gentleman's
+generosity.
+
+"Yes, dear, he has certainly been very kind and very disinterested--more
+disinterested than even you think; but, somehow, I can't make him out."
+
+It was very well for Miss Halliday that she had submitted to this novel
+restriction with as good a grace, inasmuch as Mr. Sheldon had prepared
+himself for active opposition. He had given orders to his wife, and
+further orders to Mrs. Woolper to the effect that his step-daughter
+should not be permitted to go out of doors, except in his own or her
+mother's company.
+
+"She is a very good girl, you see, Nancy," he said to the old
+housekeeper, "but she's young, and she's giddy; and of course I can't
+take upon myself to answer for Miss Paget, who may or may not be a good
+girl. She comes of a very bad stock, however; and I am bound to remember
+that. Some people think that you can't give a girl too much liberty. My
+ideas lean the other way. I think you can't take too much care of a very
+pretty girl whom you are bound by duty to protect."
+
+All this sounded very noble and very conscientious. It sounded thus even
+to Mrs. Woolper, who in her intercourse with Philip Sheldon could never
+quite divest herself of one appalling memory. That memory was the death
+of Tom Halliday, and the horrible thoughts and fears that had for a time
+possessed her mind in relation to that death. The shadow of that old
+ghastly terror sometimes came between her and Mr. Sheldon, even now,
+though she had long ago assured herself that the terror had been alike
+groundless and unreasonable.
+
+"Didn't I see my own nephew carried off by a fever twice as sudden as the
+fever that carried off poor Mr. Halliday?" she said to herself; "and am I
+to think horrid things of him as I nursed a baby, because a cup of greasy
+beef-tea turned my stomach?"
+
+Convinced by such reasoning as this that she had done her master a
+grievous wrong, and grateful for the timely shelter afforded in her old
+age, Mrs. Woolper felt that she could not do too much in her benefactor's
+service. She had already shown herself a clever managing housekeeper; had
+reformed abuses, and introduced a new system of care and economy
+below-stairs, to the utter bewilderment of poor Georgy, for whom the
+responsibilities of the gothic villa had been an overwhelming burden.
+Georgy was not particularly grateful to the energetic old Yorkshirewoman
+who had taken this burden off her hands, but she was submissive.
+
+"I never felt myself much in the house, my dear," she said to Lotta; "but
+I am sure since Ann Woolper has been here I have felt myself a cipher."
+
+Mrs. Woolper, naturally sharp and observant, was not slow to perceive
+that Mr. Sheldon was abnormally anxious about his stepdaughter. She
+ascribed this anxiety to a suspicious nature, an inherent distrust of
+other people on the part of her master, and in some measure to his
+ignorance of womankind.
+
+"He seems to think that she'd run away and get married on the sly, at a
+word from that young man; but he doesn't know what a dear innocent soul
+she is, and how sorry she'd be to displease any one that's kind to her. I
+don't know anything about Miss Paget. She's more stand-offish than our
+own Miss, though she is little better than a genteel kind of servant;
+but she seems fair-spoken enough. As to our Miss, bless her dear heart!
+she wants no watching, I'll lay. But I daresay those City folks, with
+their stocks going up and going down, and always bringing about the ruin
+of somebody or other, go which way they will, get their poor heads so
+muddled with figures that they can't believe there's such a thing as
+honesty in the world."
+
+This was the gist of Mrs. Woolper's evening musing in the snug little
+housekeeper's room at the Lawn. It was a very comfortable little room,
+and held sacred to Mrs. Woolper; the three young females, and the boy in
+buttons, who formed Mr. Sheldon's in-door establishment, preferring the
+license of the kitchen to the strict etiquette of the housekeeper's room.
+
+This apartment, as well as every other room in the stockbroker's house,
+bore the stamp of prosperity. A comfortable easy-chair reposed the limbs
+of Mrs. Woolper; a bright little fire burned in a bright little grate,
+and its ruddy light was reflected in a bright little fender. Prints of
+the goody class adorned the walls; and a small round table, with a
+somewhat gaudy cover, supported Mrs. Woolper's work-box and family Bible,
+both of which she made it a point of honour to carry about with her, and
+to keep religiously, through good fortune and through evil fortune;
+neither of which, however, afforded her much employment. She felt herself
+to be much nearer grace with the family Bible by her side than she would
+have been without it; she felt, indeed, that the maintenance and due
+exhibition of the family Bible was in itself a kind of religion. But that
+she should peruse its pages was not in the bond. Her eyes were old and
+weak--sharp enough to discover the short-comings of Mr. Sheldon's young
+maid-servants, but too feeble even for long-primer.
+
+As she looked round that snug little chamber of an evening, when her
+day's labours were ended, and her own particular Britannia-metal tea-pot
+was basking in the fender, her own special round of toast frizzling on
+the trivet, she was very grateful to the man to whom she owed these
+comforts.
+
+"What should I be but for him?" she asked herself with a shudder; for
+the vision of that darksome abode shut in by high black walls--the
+metropolitan workhouse--arose before her. She did not know what
+difficulties would have barred her entrance even to that dreary
+asylum; she only thought of the horrors of that sanctuary, and she
+blessed her master for the benevolence that had accepted the service
+of her failing hands.
+
+This was the servant on whom Philip Sheldon relied. He saw that she was
+grateful, and that she was ready to serve him with an almost slavish
+devotion. He knew that she had suspected him in the past, and he saw that
+she had outlived her suspicion.
+
+"There is a statute of limitations to these things as well as for debt,"
+he said to himself. "A man can live down anything, if he knows what he
+is about."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FIRM AS A BOOK.
+
+After that midnight interview between the two girls in Miss Halliday's
+bedroom, life went very smoothly at the gothic villa for two or three
+days, during which the impulsive Charlotte, being forbidden to talk
+openly of the change in her friend's position, was fain to give vent to
+her feelings by furtive embraces and hand-squeezings, sly nods and
+meaning becks, and mischievous twinkling of her arch grey eyes.
+
+She talked of Valentine more than ever now, feeling herself at liberty to
+sing what pæans she pleased in praise of her hero, now that her friend
+had also a fitting subject for pæans.
+
+"And now it's your turn to talk of M. Lenoble, dear," she would say
+naïvely, when she had entertained Diana with the minute details of her
+last conversation with her lover, or a lively sketch of the delights of
+that ideal cottage which she loved to furnish and unfurnish in accordance
+with the new fancy of the hour.
+
+Diana was pleased to listen to her girlish talk: to hang and rehang the
+ideal draperies, to fill and refill the ideal bookcase, to plan and
+replan the arrangements of that ideal existence which was to be all joy
+and love and harmony; but when her turn came, and she was asked to be
+rapturous about her own lover, she could say nothing: that which she felt
+was too deep for words. The thought of her lover was strange to her; the
+fact of his love was mysterious and wonderful. She could not talk of him
+with the customary frivolous school-girl talk; and love for him had so
+newly taken root in her heart that there were as yet no blossoms to be
+gathered from that magical plant.
+
+"Don't ask me to talk of him, Lotta, dear;" she said. "I am not yet sure
+that I love him; I only feel that it is sweet to be loved by him. I think
+Providence must have sent him to me in pity for my desolation."
+
+This was almost the same fancy that had occurred to Susan Meynell
+five-and-thirty years before this time, when Gustave the first had
+rescued her from the suicide's unrepentable sin.
+
+That chivalrous turn of mind which was hereditary in the race of Lenoble
+predisposed these men to pity loneliness and beauty, weakness and sorrow.
+This pity for helplessness may have been indeed only an element of their
+exceeding strength. Was not the rescue of weaklings and women an
+unfailing attribute in the mighty men of old? Who so prompt as Hercules
+to fly to the rescue of Hesione? Who so swift as Perseus to save
+Andromeda? And what sea-monster more terrible than loneliness and
+poverty?
+
+In a few days there came another letter from Captain Paget, containing a
+fresh summons to Omega Street.
+
+"Lenoble positively returns to Normandy to-morrow," he wrote, "to see his
+girls, and, no doubt, break the news of his approaching marriage. He much
+wants to see you, and, as I have forbidden his calling on you at the
+Lawn, can only meet you here. He is to drink tea with me at the usual
+time to-morrow evening, and I shall expect to see you early in the
+afternoon."
+
+This afforded an opportunity for that introduction to which Miss Halliday
+looked forward with so much interest.
+
+"If Mr. Sheldon and your mamma will let you come with me this afternoon,
+dear, I shall be very pleased to take you," said Diana; and she felt that
+she would appear less in the character of a lamb led to the slaughter if
+she could go to meet her betrothed accompanied by Charlotte.
+
+But in this matter both the young ladies were doomed to disappointment.
+Mr. Sheldon showed himself a social Draco in all things relating to his
+stepdaughter. Being forbidden to reveal the existence of Gustave Lenoble,
+Charlotte could only urge a frivolous desire to accompany her friend in a
+pilgrimage dictated by filial duty. To the practical mind of Philip
+Sheldon this desire appeared altogether absurd and unreasonable, and he
+did not hesitate to express himself to that effect in a _tête-a-tête_
+with his stepdaughter.
+
+"What good on earth can you do by going to see a gouty old man, who has
+his own daughter to dance attendance upon him?" asked Mr. Sheldon.
+"Really, Charlotte, I am surprised to hear such a proposition from a
+girl of your good sense. Miss Paget is your companion, not your visitor.
+It is her duty to indulge your whims, but it is not your place to give
+way to hers."
+
+"But this is a whim of mine, papa; I should really like to spend the
+afternoon at Chelsea. It would be a change, you know."
+
+Mr. Sheldon looked at his stepdaughter with a sharp and searching gaze, a
+gaze in which there was suspicion as well as curiosity.
+
+"It is a very discreditable whim for a young lady in your position,"
+he said sternly; "and I beg that such a proposition may not be made to
+me again."
+
+This was decisive. Charlotte submitted, and Diana went alone to Omega
+Street. She found Gustave waiting for her. He proposed a walk, and
+Captain Paget was enthusiastic upon the subject of fresh air, and the
+benefits arising therefrom. So the lovers went out in the bleak winter
+afternoon, and wandered in the dreary Pimlico region as far as St.
+James's Park--Gustave delighted to have Diana's hand upon his arm, and
+Diana almost bewildered by a sense of happiness, which seemed unreal by
+reason of its very novelty.
+
+Gustave was all enthusiasm, full of plans for the future. He would have
+had the marriage take place immediately, if such a thing had been
+possible; but Diana showed him that it would not be possible. Her first
+duty was to the only friends she had ever known. Gustave argued the point
+resolutely for nearly an hour, during which time they made their way to
+the very gates of St. James's Park, but Diana was more resolute still.
+
+"What a tyrannical wife I shall have by-and-by!" said Gustave. "I think
+you care for these Sheldons more than for me, Diane."
+
+"These Sheldons have been so good to me in the past."
+
+"And I mean to be so good to you in the future," answered Gustave. "You
+shall be the happiest wife in Normandy, if a foolish doting husband's
+devotion can make you happy."
+
+"What have I done to deserve so much devotion?" Diana murmured
+wonderingly.
+
+"What have you done? Nothing, less than nothing. You will not even run
+the hazard of offending your family of Sheldon in order to make me happy.
+But Fate has said, 'At the feet of that girl with the dark eyes and pale
+proud face shall poor Lenoble of Côtenoir put down his heart.' Do you
+know what I said to myself when I saw you first in the little parlour
+yonder? Ah, no! How should you guess? 'She is there,' said I; 'behold
+her! It is thy destiny, Lenoble, on which thou gazest!' And thou, love,
+wert calm and voiceless as Fate. Quiet as the goddess of marble before
+which the pagans offered their sacrifices, across whose cold knees they
+laid their rich garments. I put my treasures in your lap, my love; my
+heart, my hopes,--all the treasures I had to offer."
+
+This was all very sweet, but there was a sting even mingled with that
+sweetness. Diana told herself that love like this should only be offered
+on the purest shrine; and when she remembered the many stains upon her
+father's honour, it seemed to her that a part of the shame must needs
+cleave to her.
+
+"Gustave," she said presently, after an absent meditative mood, from
+which her lover had vainly tried to beguile her, "does it not seem to you
+that there is something foolish in this talk of love and confidence
+between you and me; and that all your promises have been a little too
+lightly made? What do you know of me? You see me sitting in my father's
+room, and because my eyes happen to please you, or for some reason as
+foolish as that, you ask me to be your wife. I might have been one of the
+worst of women."
+
+"You might have been?--yes, dear, but you are not. And if you had been,
+Gustave Lenoble would not have flung his heart into your lap, even if
+your eyes had been sweeter than they are. We impulsive people are people
+of quick perceptions, and know what we are doing better than our
+reflective friends imagine. I did not need to be an hour in your company,
+dear love, in order to know that you are noble and true. There are tones
+in the voice, there are expressions of the face, that tell these things
+better than words can tell them; for, you see, words can lie, while tones
+and looks are apt to be true. Yes, my angel, I knew you from that first
+night. My heart leapt across all conventional barriers, and found its way
+straight to yours."
+
+"I can see that you think much better of me than I deserve; but even
+supposing you not to be deceived as to myself, I fear you are much
+deceived as to my surroundings."
+
+"I know that your father is poor, and that the burden of his poverty
+weighs heavily on you. That is enough for me to know."
+
+"No, M. Lenoble; it is not enough for you to know. If I am to be your
+wife, I will not enter your family as an impostor. I told you the truth
+about myself the other day when you questioned me, and I am bound to tell
+you the truth about my father."
+
+And then she told him, in the plainest frankest language, the story of
+her father's life. She inflicted no unnecessary shame on Captain Paget;
+she made no complaint of her neglected childhood and joyless youth; but
+she told Gustave that her father had been an adventurer, keeping doubtful
+company, and earning his bread by doubtful means.
+
+"I hope and believe that if a peaceful home could be secured for his
+declining years, he would live the rest of his life like a gentleman and
+a Christian; and that, the bitter struggle for existence being ended, he
+would be sorry for the past. I doubt if the sense of shame ever deserted
+him when he was living that wretched wandering life, leaving debts and
+difficulties behind him everywhere--always harassed and hunted by
+creditors, who had good cause to be angry. Yes, Gustave, I do believe
+that if it should please Providence to give my father a peaceful home at
+last, he will be thankful for God's mercy, and will repent the sins of
+life. And now I have told you the kind of heritage I can bring my
+husband."
+
+"My dear love, I will accept the heritage, for the sake of her who brings
+it. I never meant to be less than a son to your father; and if he is not
+the best of fathers, as regards the past, we will try to make him a
+decent kind of father as regards the future. I have long understood that
+Captain Paget is something--ever so little--of an adventurer. It was the
+pursuit of fortune that brought him to me; and without knowing it, he
+brought me my fortune in the shape of his daughter."
+
+Diana blushed as she remembered that Captain Paget had not been so
+innocent of any design in this matter as the Frenchman imagined.
+
+"And you will receive even papa for my sake?" asked Diana.
+
+"With all my heart."
+
+"Ah, you are indeed a generous lover!"
+
+"A lover who is not generous is--bah! there is nothing in creation so
+mean as the wretch whom love does not render generous. When one sees the
+woman whom Fate intends for one's wife, is one to stop to inquire the
+character of her father, her mother, her sister, her cousin?--for there
+is no stopping when you begin that. A man who loves makes no inquiries.
+If he finds his jewel in the gutter, he picks it out of the mud and
+carries it away in his bosom, too proud of his treasure to remember where
+he found it; always provided that the jewel is no counterfeit, but the
+real gem, fit for a king's crown. And my diamond is of the purest water.
+By-and-by we will try to drain the gutter--that is to say, we will try to
+pay those small debts of which you speak, to lodging-house keepers, and
+tradesmen who have trusted your father."
+
+"You would pay papa's debts!" cried Diana in amazement.
+
+"But why not? All these little debts, the thought of which is so bitter
+to you, might be discharged for two or three thousand pounds. Your father
+tells me I am to be very rich by-and-by."
+
+"My father tells you! Ah, then, you have allowed him to involve you in
+some kind of speculation!"
+
+"He has involved me in no speculation, and in no risk that two or three
+hundred pounds will not cover."
+
+"The whole business seems very mysterious, Gustave."
+
+"Perhaps; it has to do with a secret which I am pledged to keep. I will
+not allow your father to lead me into any quagmire of speculation,
+believe me, dear one."
+
+After this they went back to Omega Street in the winter gloaming, and
+Diana loved and admired this man with all her heart and mind. A new life
+lay before her, very bright and fair. There, where had been only the
+barren desert, was now a fair landscape, shining in the sunlight of hope.
+
+"Do you think your children will ever love me, Gustave?" she asked, not
+without some sense of wonder that this impulsive light-hearted lover
+should be the owner of children. She fancied that a responsibility so
+grave as paternity must needs have impressed some stamp of solemnity upon
+the man who bore it.
+
+"Ever love thee!" cried Gustave. "Child, they will adore thee. They ask
+only some one to love. Their hearts are gardens of flowers; and thou
+shalt gather the flowers. But wilt thou be happy at Côtenoir, thou? It is
+somewhat sad, perhaps--the grave old château with the long sombre
+corridors. But thou shalt choose new furniture, new garnitures at Rouen,
+and we will make all bright and gay, like the heart of thy affianced. Thou
+wilt not be dull?"
+
+"Dull, with you and yours! I shall thank God for my happy home day and
+night, as I never thought to thank Him a few months ago, when I was
+dissatisfied, wicked, tired of my life."
+
+"And when you thought of that other one? Ah, how he was an imbecile, that
+other one! But thou wilt never think of him again; it is a dream that is
+past," said M. Lenoble.
+
+That self-confidence which was an attribute of his sanguine nature
+rendered the idea of a rival not altogether unpleasant to him. He was
+gratified by the idea of his own victory, and the base rival's
+annihilation.
+
+"Diane, I want to show thee the home that is to be thine," he said
+presently. "Your Sheldon family must give thee at least a holiday, if
+they refuse to let thee go altogether. Thou wilt come to Normandy with
+thy father. He is coming for a week or two, now that his gout is better.
+I want to show thee Côtenoir--and Beaubocage, the place where my father
+was born. It will seem dreary, perhaps, to thine English eyes; but to me
+it is very dear."
+
+"Nothing that is dear to you shall appear dreary to me," said Diana.
+
+By this time they had arrived at Omega Street. Again Miss Paget made tea
+for her lover. Strange to say, the operation seemed to grow more
+agreeable with every repetition. While taking his tea from the hands of
+his beloved, Gustave pressed the question of Diana's visit to Normandy.
+
+"About her Sheldon family she is adamant," he said to Captain Paget, who
+sipped his tea and smiled at the lovers with the air of an aristocratic
+patriarch. "There is to be no marriage till it pleases Mrs. Sheldon to
+set her free. I consent to this only as man must consent to the
+inevitable; but I say to her, can she not come to Normandy for a
+fortnight--say but one short fortnight--to see her home? She will come
+with you. She has but to ask a holiday of her friends, and it is done."
+
+"Of course," exclaimed the Captain, "she shall come with me. If
+necessary, I myself will ask it of Sheldon.--But it will be best not to
+mention where you are going, Diana. There are reasons, best known to our
+friend Gustave and myself, which render secrecy advisable just at
+present. You can say Rouen. That is quite near enough to the mark to come
+within the limits of truth," added Horatio, with the tone of a man who
+had never quite outstepped those limits. "Yes, Rouen. And you will come
+with me."
+
+"With us," said Gustave. "I will put off my journey for a day or two for
+the sake of going with you. You have to meet Fleurus in Rouen haven't
+you?"
+
+"Yes; he is to be there on the fifth of March, and this is the last day
+of February. I had a letter from him this morning. All goes swimmingly."
+
+Diana wondered what it could be which went swimmingly; but she was
+obliged to content herself with her lover's assurance that he had not
+allowed her father to involve him in any kind of speculation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+AGAINST WIND AND TIDE.
+
+Between Philip Sheldon and his brother there was at this time a state of
+feeling somewhat akin to the relations between a subjugated country and
+its conqueror. The vanquished is fain to accept whatever the victor is
+pleased to give, though discontent and impotent rage may be gnawing his
+entrails. George Sheldon had been a loser in that game in which the
+Haygarthian inheritance was the stake. He had held good cards, and had
+played them with considerable cleverness; but no play could prevail
+against his antagonist's ace of trumps. The ace of trumps was Charlotte
+Halliday; and as to his mode and matter of playing this card, Mr. Sheldon
+was for the present profoundly mysterious.
+
+"I have known a good many inscrutable cards in my time," the solicitor of
+Gray's Inn observed to his elder brother, in the course of fraternal
+converse; "but I think for inscrutability you put the topper on the lot.
+What do you expect to get out of this Haygarth estate? Come, Phil, let us
+have your figures in plain English. I am to have a fifth--that's all
+signed and sealed. But how about your share? What agreement have you got
+from Miss Halliday?"
+
+"None."
+
+"None!"
+
+"What would the world think of me if I extorted money, or the promise of
+money, from my wife's daughter? Do you think I could enforce any deed
+between her and me?"
+
+"Ah, I see; you go in for respectability. And you are going to leave the
+settlement of your claims to your stepdaughter's generosity. You will let
+her marry Hawkehurst, with her hundred thousand pounds; and then you will
+say to those two, 'Mr. and Mrs. Hawkehurst, be so kind as to hand over my
+share of the plunder.' That is not _like_ you, Phil."
+
+"Perhaps you will be good enough to spare yourself the trouble of
+speculating about my motives. Go your way, and leave me to go mine."
+
+"But this is a case in which I have an interest. If Charlotte marries
+Hawkehurst, I don't see how you are to profit, to any extent that you
+would care about, by the Haygarth fortune. But, on the other hand, if she
+should die unmarried, without a will, the money would go to your wife. O
+my God! Philip Sheldon, is _THAT_ what you mean?"
+
+The question was so sudden, the tone of horror in which it was spoken so
+undisguised, that Mr. Sheldon the stockbroker was for one moment thrown
+off his guard. His breath thickened; he tried to speak, but his dry lips
+could shape no word. It was only one moment that he faltered. In the next
+he turned upon his brother angrily, and asked what he meant.
+
+"You've been promised _your_ reward," he said; "leave me to look after
+mine. You'll take those papers round to Greenwood and Greenwood; they
+want to talk to you about them."
+
+"Yes, I'll take the papers."
+
+Greenwood and Greenwood were Mr. Sheldon's own solicitors--a firm of some
+distinction, on whose acumen and experience the stockbroker placed
+implicit reliance. They were men of unblemished respectability, and to
+them Mr. Sheldon had confided the care of his stepdaughter's interests,
+always reserving the chief power in his own hands. These gentlemen
+thought well of the young lady's prospects, and were handling the case in
+that slow and stately manner which marks the handling of such cases by
+eminent firms of the slow-and-stately class.
+
+Mr. Sheldon wished his brother good-day, and was about to depart, when
+George planted himself suddenly before the door.
+
+"Look you here, Phil," he said, with an intensity of manner that was by
+no means common to him; "I want to say a few words to you, and I will say
+them. There was an occasion, ten years ago, on which I ought to have
+spoken out, and didn't. I have never ceased to regret my cowardice. Yes,
+by Jove! I hate myself for it; and there are times when I feel as if my
+share in that wretched business was almost as bad as yours."
+
+"I don't know what you mean."
+
+"Of course not. That's your text, and you'll stick to it. But you _do_
+know what I mean, and you shall know what I mean, if plain words can tell
+you. You and I had a friend, Phil. He was a good friend to me, and I
+liked him as much as a man of the world can afford to like anybody. If I
+had been down in the world, and had asked him for a hundred pounds to
+give me a new start in life, I think he'd have said, 'George, here's a
+cheque for you.' _That's_ my notion of a friend. And yet I stood by that
+man's deathbed, and saw him sinking, and knew what ailed him, and didn't
+stretch out my hand to save him."
+
+"Be so good as to move away from that door," said Mr. Sheldon, livid to
+the lips with smothered fury, but able to put on a bold front
+nevertheless. "I didn't come here to listen to rhodomontade of this kind,
+or to bandy words with you. Get out of my way."
+
+"Not till I've said my say. There shall be no rhodomontade this time. I
+stood by and saw my best friend murdered--by you. I kept my counsel for
+your sake, and when you had made your fortune--by his death--I asked you
+for a little money. You know how much you gave me, and how graciously you
+gave it. If you had given me twenty times the sum you gained by Tom
+Halliday's death, I would give it back, and twenty times as much again,
+to bring him back to life, and to feel that I had never aided and abetted
+a murderer. Yes, by God, I would! though I'm not straitlaced or
+over-scrupulous at the best of times. But that's past, and all the money
+in the Bank of England wouldn't undo what you did in Fitzgeorge Street.
+But if you try on any such tricks with Tom Halliday's daughter, if
+_that's_ the scheme you've hatched for getting hold of this money, as
+surely as we two live, I'll let in the light upon your doings, and save
+the girl whose father you murdered. I will, Philip, let come what may.
+You can't get _me_ out of the way when it suits you, you see. _I know
+you._ That's the best antidote against your medicines."
+
+"If you'll be so good as to say these things on 'Change, I can bring an
+action for libel, or get you put into a madhouse. There's no good in
+saying them here."
+
+Philip Sheldon, even in this crisis, was less agitated than his brother,
+being of a harder nature, and less subject to random impulses of good or
+evil. He caught his accuser by the collar of his coat, and flung him
+violently from the doorway. Thus ended his visit to Gray's Inn.
+
+Boldly as he had borne himself during the interview, he went to his
+office profoundly depressed and dispirited.
+
+"So I am to have him against me?" he said to himself. "He can do me no
+real harm; but he can harass and annoy me. If he should drop any hint to
+Hawkehurst?--but he'll scarcely do that. Perhaps I've ridden him a little
+too roughly in the past. And yet if I'd been smoother, where would his
+demands have ended? No; concession in these cases means ruin."
+
+He shut himself in his office, and sat down to his desk to confront
+his difficulties. For a long time the bark which was freighted with
+Philip Sheldon's fortunes had been sailing in troubled waters. He had
+been an unconscious disciple of Lord Bacon, inasmuch as the boldness
+inculcated by that philosopher had been the distinguishing characteristic
+of his conduct in all the operations of life. As a speculator, his
+boldness had served him well. Adventures from which timid spirits shrunk
+appalled had brought golden harvests to this daring gamester. When some
+rich argosy upon the commercial ocean fired her minute-guns, and sent up
+signals of distress, menaced by the furious tempest, lifted high on the
+crest of mountainous waves, below which, black and fathomless, yawn the
+valleys of death,--a frail ark hovering above the ravening jaws of
+all-devouring Poseidon,--Philip Sheldon was among that chosen band of
+desperate wreckers who dared to face the storm, and profit by the
+tempest and terror. From such argosies, while other men watched and
+waited for a gleam of sunlight on the dark horizon, Mr. Sheldon had
+obtained for himself goodly merchandise. The debenture of railways that
+were in bad odour; Unitas Bank shares, immediately after the discovery of
+gigantic embezzlements by Swillenger, the Unitas-Bank secretary; the
+Mole-and-Burrow railway stock, when the Mole-and-Burrow scheme was as yet
+in the clouds, and the wiseacres prognosticated its failure; the shares
+in foreign loans, which the Rothschilds were buying _sub rosa_;--these,
+and such as these, had employed Mr. Sheldon's capital; and from the
+skilful manipulation of capital thus employed, Mr. Sheldon had trebled
+the fortune secured by his alliance with Tom Halliday's widow.
+
+It had been the stockbroker's fate to enter the money market at a time
+when fortunes were acquired with an abnormal facility. He had made the
+most of his advantages, and neglected none of his opportunities. He had
+seized Good Fortune by the forelock, and not waited to find the
+harridan's bald and slippery crown turned to him in pitiless derision. He
+had made only one mistake--and that he made in common with many of his
+fellow-players in the great game of speculation always going on eastward
+of Temple Bar--he had mistaken the abnormal for the normal: he had
+imagined that these splendid opportunities were the natural evolvements
+of an endless sequence of everyday events; and when the sequence was
+abruptly broken, and when last of the seven fat kine vanished off the
+transitory scene of life, to make way for a dismal succession of lean
+kine, there was no sanguine youngster newly admitted to the sacred
+privileges of "The House" more astounded by the change than Mr. Sheldon.
+
+The panic came like a thief in the night, and it found Mr. Sheldon a
+speculator for the rise. The Melampuses and Amphiaräuses of the Stock
+Exchange had agreed in declaring that a man who bought into consols at 90
+_must_ see his capital increased; and what was true of this chief among
+securities was of course true of other securities. The panic came, and
+from 90, consols declined dismally, slowly, hopelessly, to 85-1/2;
+securities less secure sank with a rapidity corresponding with their
+constitutional weakness. As during the ravages of an epidemic the weaker
+are first to fall victims to the destroyer, so while this fever raged on
+'Change, the feeble enterprises, the "risky" transactions, sank at an
+appalling rate, some to total expiry. The man who holds a roaring lion by
+the tail could scarcely be worse off than the speculator in these
+troublous times. To let go is immediate loss, to hold on for a certain
+time might be redemption, could one but know the exact moment in which it
+would be wise to let go. But to hold on until the beast grows more and
+more furious, and then to let go and be eaten up alive, is what many men
+did in that awful crisis.
+
+If Philip Sheldon had accepted his first loss, and been warned by the
+first indication that marked the turning of the tide, he would have been
+a considerable loser; but he would not accept his loss, and he would not
+be warned by that early indication. He had implicit belief in his own
+cleverness; and he fancied if every other bark in that tempest-tossed
+ocean foundered and sank, his boat might ride triumphantly across the
+harbour-bar, secure by virtue of his science and daring as a navigator.
+It was not till he had seen a small fortune melt away in the payment of
+contango, that he consented to the inevitable. The mistakes of one year
+devoured the fruits of nine years' successful enterprise, and the Philip
+Sheldon of this present year was no richer than the man who had stood by
+Tom Halliday's bedside and waited the advent of the equal foot that knows
+no difference between the threshold of kingly palace or pauper refuge.
+Not only did he find himself as poor a man as in that hateful stage of
+his existence--to remember which was a dull dead pain even to _him_--but
+a man infinitely more heavily burdened. He had made for himself a certain
+position, and the fall from that must needs be a cruel and damaging fall,
+the utter annihilation of all his chances in life.
+
+The stockbroker's fitful slumbers at this time began to be haunted by the
+vision of a black board fixed against the wall of a public resort, a
+black board on which appeared his own name. In what strange places
+feverish dreams showed him this hideous square of painted deal!--Now it
+was on the walls of the rooms he lived in; now on the door of a church,
+like Luther's propositions; now at a street-corner, where should have
+been the name of the street; now inky-black against the fair white
+headstone of his own grave. Miserable dream, miserable man, for whom the
+scraping together of sordid dross was life's only object, and who, in
+losing money, lost all!
+
+This agonizing consciousness of loss and of close-impending disgrace was
+the wolf which this Spartan stockbroker concealed beneath his waistcoat
+day after day, while the dull common, joyless course of his existence
+went on; and his shallow wife smiled at him from the opposite side of his
+hearth, more interested in a new stitch for her crotchet or berlin-wool
+work than by the inner life of her husband; and Charlotte and her lover
+contemplated existence from their own point of view, and cherished their
+own dreams and their own hopes, and were, in all things, as far away from
+the moody meditator as if they had been natives of Upper India.
+
+The ruin which impended over the unlucky speculator was not immediate,
+but it was not far off; the shadow of it already wrapped him in a
+twilight obscurity. His repute as a clever and a safe man had left him.
+He was described now as a daring man; and the wiseacres shook their heads
+as they talked of him.
+
+"One of the next to go will be Sheldon," said the wiseacres; but in these
+days of commercial epidemic there was no saying who would be the first to
+go. It was the end of the world in little. One was taken, and another
+left. The Gazette overran its customary column like a swollen river, and
+flooded a whole page of the Times newspaper; and men looked to the lists
+of names in the Wednesday and Saturday papers as to the trump of
+archangels sounding the destruction of the universe.
+
+For some time the bark in which Mr. Sheldon had breasted those turbulent
+waters had been made of paper. This was nothing. Paper boats were the
+prevailing shipping in those waters; but Captain Sheldon's bark needed
+refitting, and the captain feared a scarcity of paper, or, worse still,
+the awful edict issued from some commercial Areopagus that for him there
+should be no more paper.
+
+Once before, Mr. Sheldon had found himself face to face with ruin
+complete and irredeemable. When all common expedients had been exhausted,
+and his embarrassments had become desperate, he had found a desperate
+expedient, and had extricated himself from those embarrassments. The time
+had come in which a new means of extrication must be found as desperate
+as the last, if need were. As Philip Sheldon had faced the situation
+before, he faced it now--unshrinkingly, though with a gloomy anger
+against destiny. It was hard for him that such a thing should have to be
+repeated. If he pitied anybody, he pitied himself; and this kind of
+compassion is very common with this kind of character. Do not the Casket
+letters show us--if we may trust them to show us anything--that Mary
+Stuart was very sorry for herself when she found herself called upon to
+make an end of Darnley? In Mr. Swinburne's wonderful study in morbid
+anatomy, there are perhaps no finer touches than those which reveal the
+Queen's selfish compassion for her own heartlessness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+DIANA ASKS FOR A HOLIDAY.
+
+Diana informed Mrs. Sheldon of her father's wish that she should leave
+Bayswater. Before doing this, she had obtained the Captain's consent to
+the revelation of her engagement to be married.
+
+"I don't like to leave them in a mysterious manner, papa," she said. "I
+have told Charlotte a good deal already, under a promise of secrecy; but
+I should like to tell Mrs. Sheldon that there is a real reason for my
+leaving her."
+
+"Very well, my love, since you are so amazingly squeam--honourable,"
+interposed the Captain, remembering how much depended on his daughter's
+marriage, and what a very difficult person he had found her. "Yes, my
+dear, of course; I respect your honourable feeling; and--er--yes--you may
+tell Mrs. Sheldon--and that of course includes Mr. Sheldon, since the
+lady is but an inoffensive cipher--that you are about to be married--to a
+French gentleman of position. You will, of course, be obliged to mention
+his name, and then will arise the question as to where and how you met
+him; and, upon my word, it's confoundedly awkward that you should insist
+on enlightening these people. You see, my dear girl, what I want to
+avoid, for the present, is any chance of collision between the Sheldons
+and Lenoble."
+
+"Papa!" exclaimed Diana, impatiently, "why must there be all this
+scheming?"
+
+"O, very well, Miss Paget; tell them what you like!" cried the Captain,
+aggravated beyond endurance by such inherent perversity. "All I can say
+is, that a young woman who quarrels with her bread-and-butter is likely
+to come to dry bread; and very little of that, perhaps. I wash my hands
+of the business. Tell them what you like."
+
+"I will not tell them more than I feel to be actually necessary, papa,"
+the young lady replied calmly. "I do not think Mr. Sheldon will trouble
+himself about M. Lenoble. He seems very much occupied by his own
+affairs."
+
+"Humph! Sheldon seems harassed, anxious, does he?"
+
+"Well, yes, papa; I have thought so for the last few months. If I may
+venture to judge by the expression of his face, as he sits at home in the
+evening, reading the paper, or staring at the fire, I am sure he has many
+anxieties--troubles even. Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte do not appear to
+notice these things. They are accustomed to see him quiet and reserved,
+and they don't perceive the change in him as I do."
+
+"O, there is a change, is there?"
+
+"Yes, a decided change."
+
+"Why the deuce couldn't you tell me this before!"
+
+"Why should I tell you that Mr. Sheldon seems anxious? I should not have
+told you now, if you had not appeared to dread his interference in our
+affairs. I can't help observing these things; but I don't want to play
+the part of a spy."
+
+"No, you're so infernally punct--so delicate-minded, my love," said the
+Captain, pulling himself up suddenly, for the second time. "Forgive me if
+I was impatient just now. You look at these things from a higher point of
+view than that of a battered old man of the world like me. But if you
+should see anything remarkable in Mr. Sheldon's conduct on another
+occasion, my love, I should be obliged to you if you would be more
+communicative. He and I have been allied in business, you see, and it is
+important for me to know these things."
+
+"I have not seen anything remarkable in Mr. Sheldon's conduct, papa; I
+have only seen him thoughtful and dispirited. And I suppose anxieties are
+common to every man of business."
+
+Georgy received Miss Paget's announcement with mingled lamentations and
+congratulations.
+
+"I am sure I am heartily glad for your sake, Diana," she said; "but what
+we shall do without you, I don't know. Who is to see to the drawing-room
+being dusted every morning, when you are gone? I'm sure I tremble for the
+glass shades. Don't imagine I'm not pleased to think you should settle in
+life advantageously, my love. I'm not so selfish as that; though I will
+say that there never was a girl with more natural talent for making-up
+pretty little caps than you. The one I have on has been admired by
+everybody. Even Ann Woolper this morning, when I was going into the
+butcher's book with her--for I insist upon going into the butcher's book
+with her weekly, whether she likes it or not; though the way that man
+puts down the items is so bewildering that I feel myself a perfect baby
+in her hands,--even Ann admired it, and said how young-looking it is. And
+then she brought up the time in Fitzgeorge Street, and poor Tom's
+illness, and almost upset me for the rest of the day. And now, dear, let
+me offer you my sincere congratulations. Of course, you know that you
+would always have had a home with me; but service, or at least
+companionship, is no inheritance, as the proverb says; and for your own
+sake I'm very glad to think that you are going to have a house of your
+own. And now tell me what he is like, Monsieur what's-his-name?"
+
+Mrs. Sheldon had been told, but had not remembered the name. Her great
+anxiety, as well as Charlotte's, was to know what manner of man the
+affianced lover was. If Diana's future happiness had been contingent on
+the shape of her husband's nose, or the colour of his eyes, these two
+ladies could not have been more anxious upon the subject.
+
+"Has he long eyelashes, and a dreamy look in his eyes, like Valentine?"
+asked Charlotte, secretly convinced that her lover had a copyright in
+these personal graces.
+
+"Does he wear whiskers?" asked Georgy. "I remember, when I was quite a
+girl, and went to parties at Barlingford, being struck by Mr. Sheldon's
+whiskers. And I was quite offended with papa, who was always making
+sarcastic remarks, for calling them mutton-chop whiskers; but they
+really were the shape of mutton-cutlets at that time. He wears them
+differently now."
+
+Mrs. Sheldon branched off into a disquisition on whiskers, and Diana
+escaped from the task of describing her lover. She could not have
+described him to Georgy.
+
+By-and-by she asked permission to leave Bayswater for a fortnight, in
+order to see her lover's home and friends.
+
+"I will come back to you, and stay as long as you like, dear Mrs.
+Sheldon," she said, "and make you as many caps as you please. And I will
+make them for you by and by, when I am living abroad, and send them over
+to you in a bandbox. It will be a great delight to me to be of some
+little service to a friend who has been so kind. And perhaps you will
+fancy the caps are prettier when they can boast of being French."
+
+"You darling generous-minded girl! And you won't go away for a fortnight
+and never come back again, will you, dear? I had a cook who did that, and
+left me with a large dinner-party hanging over my head; and how I got
+through it--with a strange man-cook, who charged a guinea, and used fresh
+butter, at twentypence, a pound, as if it had been dirt, and two strange
+men to wait--I don't know. It all seemed like a dream. And since then we
+have generally had everything from the confectioner's; and I assure you,
+to feel that you can wash your hands of the whole thing, and sit down at
+the head of your table with your mind as free from care as if you were a
+visitor, is worth all the expense."
+
+Diana promised she would not behave like the cook; and two days after
+this conversation left the London Bridge terminus with her father and
+Gustave Lenoble.
+
+Mr. Sheldon troubled himself very little about this departure. He was
+informed of Miss Paget's intended marriage; and the information awakened
+neither surprise nor interest in his heavily-burdened mind.
+
+"A Frenchman, a friend of her father's!" he said; "some swindling
+adventurer, no doubt," he thought. And this was as much consideration
+as he could afford to bestow upon Miss Paget's love affairs at this
+present time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+ASSURANCE DOUBLY SURE.
+
+On the day after Miss Paget's departure Mr. Sheldon came home from the
+City rather earlier than usual, and found Charlotte alone in the
+drawing-room, reading a ponderous volume from Mudie of an instructive and
+edifying character, with a view to making herself clever, in order that
+she might better understand that prodigy of learning, Mr. Hawkehurst.
+
+She was somewhat inclined to yawn over the big book, which contained a
+graphic account of recent discoveries of an antiquarian nature. Her mind
+was not yet attuned to the comprehension of the sublimer elements in such
+discoveries. She saw only a dry as dust record of futile gropings in
+desert sand for the traces of perished empires. Her imagination was not
+cultivated to that point whereat the gift which Mr. Lewes calls "insight"
+becomes the daily companion, nay, indeed, the ever-haunting and
+nightmare-bringing influence of the dreamer. For her sands were only
+sands, the stones were only stones. No splendour of fallen palaces, no
+glory and pride of perished kings, no clash and clamour of vanished
+courts, arose from those barren sands, with all their pomp and
+circumstance, conjured into being by half a word on a broken pillar, or a
+date upon a Punic monument. Miss Halliday looked up with a sigh of
+fatigue as her stepfather came into the room. It was not a room that he
+particularly affected, and she was surprised when he seated himself in
+the easy-chair opposite her, and poked the fire, as if with the intention
+of remaining.
+
+"You shouldn't read by firelight, my dear," he said; "it is most
+destructive to the eyesight."
+
+"I dare say my sight will last my time, papa," the young lady replied
+carelessly; "but it's very kind of you to think of it, and I won't read
+any more."
+
+Mr. Sheldon made no reply to this observation. He sat looking at the
+fire, with that steady gaze which was habitual to him--the gaze of the
+man who plans and calculates.
+
+"My dear," he said by-and-by, "it seems that this money to which you may
+or may not be entitled is more than we thought at first; in fact, it
+appears that the sum is a considerable one. I have been, and still am,
+particularly anxious to guard against disappointment on your part, as I
+know the effect that such a disappointment is apt to produce upon a
+person's life. The harassing slowness of Chancery proceedings is
+proverbial; I am therefore especially desirous that you should not count
+upon this money."
+
+"I shall never do that, papa. I should certainly like a fine edition of
+the Encyclopædia Britannica for Valentine, by-and-by, as he says that is
+essential for a literary man; and a horse, for people say literary men
+ought to take horse exercise. But beyond that--"
+
+"We need scarcely go into these details, my dear. I want you to
+understand the broad facts of the case. While, on the one hand, our
+success in obtaining the inheritance which we are about to claim for you
+is uncertain, on the other hand the inheritance is large. Of course, when
+I presented you with the sum of five thousand pounds, I had no idea of
+this possible inheritance."
+
+"O, of course not, papa."
+
+"But I now find that there is such a possibility as your becoming
+a--well--a rich woman."
+
+"O papa!"
+
+"In which case I may conclude that your mother would benefit in some
+measure from your good fortune."
+
+"Can you doubt that, papa? There should be no measure to her benefit from
+any money obtained by me."
+
+"I do not doubt that, my dear. And it is with that idea that I wish to
+make a proposition to you--for your mother's possible advantage."
+
+"I shall be happy to do anything you wish, papa."
+
+"It must be done as a spontaneous act of your own, Charlotte, not in
+accordance with any wish of mine."
+
+"What is it that I am to do?" asked Charlotte.
+
+"Well, my dear, you see it is agreed between us that if you do get this
+money, your mother is certain to benefit considerably. But unhappily the
+proceedings are likely to drag on for an indefinite time; and in the
+course of that time it comes within the limits of possibility that your
+decease may precede that of your mother."
+
+"Yes, papa."
+
+"In which case your mother would lose all hope of any such advantage."
+
+"Of course, papa."
+
+Charlotte could not help thinking that there was something sordid in this
+discussion--this calculation of possible gain or loss contingent on her
+fresh young life. But she concluded that it was the nature of business
+men to see everything from a debased standpoint, and that Mr. Sheldon was
+no more sordid than other men of his class.
+
+"Well, papa?" she asked presently, after some moments of silence, during
+which she and her stepfather had both been absorbed in the contemplation
+of the fire.
+
+"Well, my dear," replied Mr. Sheldon slowly, "I have been thinking that
+the natural and easy way of guarding against all contingencies would be
+by your effecting an insurance on your life in your mother's favour."
+
+"No, no, papa!" cried Charlotte, with unwonted vehemence; "I would rather
+do anything than that!"
+
+"What can be your objection to such a very simple arrangement?"
+
+"I dare say my objection seems foolish, childish even, papa; but I really
+have a horror of life assurances. I always think of papa--my own poor
+father, whom I loved so dearly. It seemed as if he put a price upon his
+life for us. He was so anxious to insure his life--I remember hearing him
+talk of it at Hyley, when I was a child--to make things straight, as he
+said, for us; and, you see, very soon afterwards he died."
+
+"But you can't suppose the insurance of his life had anything to do with
+his death?"
+
+"Of course not, I am not so childish as that; only--"
+
+"Only you have a foolish lackadaisical prejudice against the only means
+by which you can protect your mother against a contingency that is so
+remote as to be scarcely worth consideration. Let it pass."
+
+There was more anger in the tone than in the words. It was not that angry
+tone, but the mention of her mother, that impressed Miss Halliday. She
+began to consider that her objections were both foolish and selfish.
+
+"If you really think I ought to insure my life, I will do so," she said
+presently. "Papa did as much for those he loved; why should I be less
+thoughtful of others?"
+
+Having once brought Miss Halliday to this frame of mind, the rest was
+easy. It was agreed between them that as Valentine Hawkehurst was to be
+kept in ignorance of his betrothed's claim to certain moneys now in the
+shadowy under-world of Chancery, so he must be kept in ignorance of the
+insurance.
+
+It was only one more secret, and Charlotte had learned that it was
+possible to keep a secret from her lover.
+
+"I suppose before we are married I shall able to tell him everything?"
+she said.
+
+"Certainly, my dear. All I want is to test his endurance and his
+prudence. If the course of events proves him worthy of being trusted, I
+will trust him."
+
+"I am not afraid of that, papa."
+
+"Of course not, my dear. But, you see, I have to protect your interests;
+and I cannot afford to see this gentleman with your eyes. I am compelled
+to be prudent."
+
+The stockbroker sighed as he said this--a sigh of utter weariness.
+Remorse was unknown to him; the finer fibres upon which that chord is
+struck had not been employed in the fabrication of his heart. But there
+is a mental fatigue which is a spurious kind of remorse, and has all the
+anguish of the nobler feeling. It is an utter weariness and prostration
+of spirit--a sickness of heart and mind--a bitter longing to lie down and
+die--the weariness of a beaten hound rather than of a baffled man.
+
+This was what Mr. Sheldon felt, as the threads of the web which he was
+weaving multiplied, and grew daily and hourly more difficult of
+manipulation. Success in the work which he had to do depended on so many
+contingencies. Afar off glittered the splendid goal--the undisputed
+possession of the late John Haygarth's hundred thousand pounds; but
+between the schemer and that chief end and aim of all his plottings what
+a sea of troubles! He folded his arms behind his head, and looked across
+the girlish face of his companion into the shadow and the darkness. In
+those calculations which were for ever working themselves out in this
+man's brain, Charlotte Halliday was only one among many figures. She had
+her fixed value in every sum; but her beauty, her youth, her innocence,
+her love, her trust, made no unit of that fixed figure, nor weighed in
+the slightest degree with him who added up the sum. Had she been old,
+ugly, obnoxious, a creature scarcely fit to live, she would have
+represented exactly the same amount in the calculations of Philip
+Sheldon. The graces that made her beautiful were graces that he had no
+power to estimate. He knew she was a pretty woman; but he knew also that
+there were pretty women to be seen in any London street; and the
+difference between his stepdaughter and the lowest of womankind who
+passed him in his daily walks was to him little more than a social
+prejudice.
+
+The insurance business being once decided on, Mr. Sheldon lost no time in
+putting it into execution. Although he made a point of secrecy as
+regarded Mr. Hawkehurst, he went to work in no underhand manner, but
+managed matters after a highly artistic and superior fashion. He took his
+stepdaughter to the offices of Greenwood and Greenwood, and explained her
+wishes to one of those gentlemen in her presence. If he dwelt a little
+more on Miss Halliday's anxiety for her mother's pecuniary advantage than
+his previous conversation with Miss Halliday warranted, the young lady
+was too confiding and too diffident to contradict him. She allowed him to
+state, or rather to imply, that the proposed insurance was her
+spontaneous wish, an emanation of her anxious and affectionate heart, the
+natural result of an almost morbid care for her mother's welfare.
+
+Mr. Hargrave Greenwood, of Greenwood and Greenwood, seemed at first
+inclined to throw cold water on the proposition, but after some little
+debate, agreed that extreme caution would certainly counsel such a step.
+
+"I should imagine there was no better life amongst the inhabitants of
+London," he said, "than Miss Shel--pardon me--Miss Halliday's. But, as
+the young lady herself suggests, 'in the midst of life we are--'; and, as
+the young lady herself has observed, these things are--ahem--beyond
+human foresight. If there were any truth in the aphorisms of poets, I
+should say Miss Halliday cannot insure too quickly; for the remark of
+Cowper--or, stay, I believe Pope--'whom the gods love die young,' might
+very well be supposed to apply to so charming a young lady. Happily, the
+secretaries of insurance offices know very little about the poets,
+unless, indeed, Miss Halliday were to go to the Royal Widow's and
+Orphan's Hope, the secretary of which is the author of dramas that may
+fairly rank with the works of Knowles and Lytton."
+
+Mr. Greenwood, an elderly gentleman of the ponderous and port-wine
+school, laughed at his own small jokes, and took things altogether
+pleasantly. He gave Mr. Sheldon a letter of introduction to the secretary
+of his pet insurance company, the value of which to that gentleman was
+considerable. Nor was this the only advantage derived from the interview.
+The lawyer's approval of the transaction reassured Charlotte; and though
+she had heard her own views somewhat misrepresented, she felt that an
+operation which appeared wise in the sight of such a lawyer, standing on
+such a Turkey hearthrug, commanding such gentlemanly-looking clerks as
+those who came and went at Mr. Greenwood's bidding, must inevitably be a
+proceeding at once prudent and proper.
+
+The business of the insurance was not quite so easy as the interview with
+the lawyer. The doctor to whom Miss Halliday was introduced seemed very
+well satisfied with that young lady's appearance of health and spirits,
+but in a subsequent interview with Mr. Sheldon asked several questions,
+and shook his head gravely when told that her father had died at
+thirty-seven years of age. But he looked less grave when informed that
+Mr. Halliday had died of a bilious fever.
+
+"Did Mr. Halliday die in London?" he asked.
+
+"He did."
+
+"I should like--ahem--if it were possible, to see the medical man who
+attended him. These fevers rarely prove fatal unless there is some
+predisposing cause."
+
+"In this case there was none."
+
+"You speak rather confidently, Mr. Sheldon, as a non-professional man."
+
+"I speak with a certain amount of professional knowledge. I knew Tom
+Halliday for many years."
+
+Mr. Sheldon forebore to state that Tom Halliday had died in his house,
+and had been attended by him. It is, perhaps, only natural that Philip
+Sheldon, the stockbroker of repute, should wish to escape identification
+with Philip Sheldon, the unsuccessful dentist of Bloomsbury.
+
+After a little more conversational skirmishing, the confidential
+physician of the Prudential Step Assurance Company agreed to consider
+that Mr. Halliday's constitution had been in no manner compromised by his
+early death, and to pass Charlotte's life. The motives for effecting the
+insurance were briefly touched upon in Mr. Greenwood's letter of
+introduction, and appeared very proper and feasible in the eyes of the
+directors; so, after a delay of a few days, the young lady found herself
+accepted, and Mr. Sheldon put away among his more important papers a
+large oblong envelope, containing a policy of assurance on his
+stepdaughter's life for five thousand pounds. He did not, however, stop
+here, but made assurance doubly sure by effecting a second insurance upon
+the same young life with the Widow's and Orphan's Hope Society, within a
+few days of the first transaction.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Sixth.
+
+
+
+DIANA IN NORMANDY.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+AT CÔTENOIR.
+
+Beaubocage, near Vevinord, March 15, 186--.
+
+My darling Lotta,--As you extorted from me a solemn pledge that I would
+write you a full and detailed account of my adventures, I seat myself in
+Mademoiselle Lenoble's pretty little turret-chamber, in the hope of
+completing the first instalment of my work before papa or Gustave summons
+me to prepare for a drive and visit to the Convent of the Sacred Heart,
+which, I believe, has been planned for to-day.
+
+What am I to tell you, dear, and how shall I begin my story? Let me
+fancy myself sitting at your feet before your bedroom fire, and you
+looking down at me with that pretty inquisitive look in your dear grey
+eyes. Do you know that M. Lenoble's eyes are almost the colour of yours,
+Lotta? You asked me a dozen questions about his eyes the other day, and I
+could give you no clear description of them; but yesterday, as he stood
+at the window looking out across the garden, I saw their real colour. It
+is grey, a deep clear grey, and his lashes are dark, like yours. How
+shall I begin? That is the grand difficulty! I suppose you will want to
+know something even about the journey. Everything was very pleasant, in
+spite of the cold blusterous March weather. Do you know what my last
+journey was like, Lotta? It was the long dreary journey from Forêtdechêne
+to St. Katharine's Wharf, when Mr. Hawkehurst advised and arranged my
+return to England. I had been sitting quite alone in a balcony
+overlooking the little town. It was after midnight, but the lights were
+still burning: I can see the lamplit windows shining through the night
+mist as I write this, and the sense of the hopeless misery of that time
+comes back to me like the breath of some freezing wind. I can find no
+words to tell you how desolate I was that night, or how hopeless.
+
+I dared not think of my future life; or of the next day, that was to be
+the beginning of that hopeless future. I was obliged to bind my thoughts
+to the present and all its dreariness; and a kind of dull apathetic
+feeling, which was too dull for despair, took possession of me that
+night. While I was sitting there Mr. Hawkehurst came to me, and told me
+that my father had become involved in a quarrel, under circumstances of a
+very shameful nature, which I need not tell you, darling. He recommended
+me to leave Forêtdechêne--indeed, almost insisted that I should do so. He
+wanted to rescue me from that miserable life. Your lover had noble and
+generous impulses even then, you see, dear; at his worst he was not all
+bad, and needed only your gentle influence to purify and elevate his
+character. He gave me all the money he possessed to pay the expenses of
+my journey. Ah, what a dreary journey! I left Forêtdechêne in the chill
+daybreak, and travelled third class, with dreadful Belgians who smelt of
+garlic, to Antwerp. I slept at a very humble inn near the quay, and
+started for England by the Baron Osy at noon next day. I cannot tell you
+how lonely I felt on board the steamer. I had travelled uncomfortably
+before, but never without my father and Valentine--and he had been always
+kind to me. If we were shabbily dressed, and people thought ill of us, I
+did not care. The spirit of Bohemianism must have been very strong with
+me in those days. I remembered how we had sat together on the same boat
+watching the sleepy shores of Holland, or making fun of our respectable
+fellow-passengers. Now I was quite alone. People stared at me rudely and
+unkindly, as I thought. I could not afford to dine or breakfast with the
+rest; and I was weak enough to feel wounded by the idea that people would
+guess my motive for shunning the savoury banquets that sent up such
+horrid odours to the deck where I sat, trying to read a tattered
+Tauchnitz novel. And the end of my journey? Ah, Charlotte, you can never
+imagine what it is to travel like that, without knowing whether there is
+any haven, any shelter for you at the end of your wanderings! I knew that
+at a certain hour we were to arrive at St. Katharine's Dock, but beyond
+that I knew nothing. I counted my money. There was just enough to pay for
+a cab that would carry me to Hyde Lodge. I should land there penniless.
+And what if my cousin Priscilla should refuse to receive me? For a moment
+I fancied even that possible; and I pictured myself walking about London,
+hungry and homeless.
+
+This was my last journey. I have dwelt upon it longer than I need have
+done; but I want you to understand what it is that makes Gustave Lenoble
+dear to me. If you could feel the contrast between the past and the
+present as I felt it when I stood on the deck of the Dover packet with
+him by my side, you would know why I love him, and am grateful to him. We
+stood side by side, watching the waves and talking of our future, while
+my father enjoyed a nap in one of the little deck cabins. To Gustave that
+future seems very bright and clear; to me it seems unutterably strange
+that the future _can_ be anything but a dismal _terra incognita_, from
+the contemplation of which it is wise to refrain.
+
+Papa stays with Gustave at Côtenoir; but it had been arranged for me to
+visit Mademoiselle Lenoble, Gustave's aunt, at Beaubocage, and to remain
+with her during my stay in Normandy. I at once understood the delicate
+feeling which prompted this arrangement. We dined at Rouen, and came to
+Vevinord in a coach. At Vevinord a queer little countrified vehicle met
+us, with a very old man, of the farm-servant class, as coachman. Gustave
+took the reins from the old man's hand and drove to Beaubocage, where
+Mademoiselle Lenoble received me with much cordiality. She is a dear old
+lady, with silvery bands of hair neatly arranged under the prettiest of
+caps. Her gown is black silk, and her collar and cuffs of snowy
+whiteness; everything about her exquisitely neat, and of the fashion of
+twenty, or perhaps thirty, years ago.
+
+And now, I suppose, you will want to know what Beaubocage is like. Well,
+dear, much as I admire Mademoiselle Lenoble, I must confess that her
+ancestral mansion is neither grand nor pretty. It might have made a very
+tolerable farmhouse, but has been spoiled by the architect's
+determination to make it a château. It is a square white building, with
+two pepper-castor-like turrets, in one of which I write this letter.
+Between the garden and the high road there is a wall, surmounted with
+plaster vases. The garden is for the greater part utilitarian; but in
+front of the salon windows there is a grassplot, bordered by stiff
+gravel-walks, and relieved by a couple of flower-beds. A row of tall
+poplars alone screens the house from the dusty high road. At the back of
+it there is an orchard; on one side a farmyard; behind the orchard lie
+the fields that compose the farm of Beaubocage and the paternal estate of
+the Lenoble family. All around the country is very flat. The people seem
+to be kind and simple, and devotedly attached to "Mademoiselle." There is
+a rustic peacefulness pervading everything which, for me, stands instead
+of beauty.
+
+I am hypocrite enough to pretend to be pleased with everything, for I can
+perceive how anxiously M. Lenoble watches me in order to discover whether
+I like his native country. He was not born at Beaubocage, but in Paris.
+Mademoiselle Lenoble told me the story of his childhood, and how she
+brought him to Beaubocage, when quite a little fellow, from Rouen, where
+his father died. About his mother there seems to have been some mystery.
+Mademoiselle told me nothing of this, except that her brother, Gustave
+the elder, made a love-match, and thereby offended his father. She has
+the little crib in which her nephew, Gustave the younger, slept on the
+night of his coming. It had been his father's little bed thirty years
+before. She shed tears as she told me the story, and how she sat and
+watched by the little fellow as he cried himself to sleep with his head
+lying on her arm, and the summer moonlight shining full upon his face.
+
+I was deeply touched by her manner as she told me these things; and I
+think, if I had not already learned to love M. Lenoble, I should love him
+for the sake of his aunt. She is charming; a creature so innocent and
+pure, that one considers one's words in speaking to her, almost as if she
+were a child. She is about forty years older than I; yet for worlds I
+would not tell her of the people and the scenes I have beheld at foreign
+watering-places and gambling-rooms. She has spent the sixty years of her
+life so completely out of the world, that she has retained the freshness
+and sweetness of her youth untainted in the least degree. Can there be
+magical philtre equal to this--a pure unselfish life, far away from the
+clamour of cities?
+
+The old servant who waits upon me is seventy-five years of age, and
+remembers Ma'amselle Cydalise from her childhood. She is always singing
+the praises of her mistress, and she sees that I like to hear them. "Ah,
+ma'amselle," she said to me, "to marry a Lenoble is to marry one of the
+angels. I will not say that the old seigneur was not hard towards his
+son. Ah, yes, but it was a noble heart. And the young monsieur--that one
+who died in Rouen, the Poor!--ah, that he was kind, that he was gracious!
+What of tears, what of regrets, when the Old chased him!"
+
+My position is quite recognised. I think the very cowboy in the
+farmyard--a broad-shouldered lad, with a good-natured mindless face, and
+prodigious wooden shoes like clumsy canoes--even the cowboy knows that I
+am to be Madame Lenoble of Côtenoir. Côtenoir is the Windsor Castle of
+this district; Beaubocage is only Frogmore. Yes, dear, the bond is signed
+and sealed. Even if I did not love M. Lenoble, I have bound myself to
+marry him; but I do love him, and thank him with all my heart for having
+given a definite end and aim to my life. Don't think I underrate your
+kindness, darling; I know that I should never want a home while you could
+give me one. But 'tis hard to be a hanger-on in any household; and
+Valentine will exact all his sweet young wife's love and care.
+
+I have written you a letter which I am sure will require double postage;
+so I will say no more except goodbye. Take care of yourself, dear one.
+Practise your part in our favourite duets; remember your morning walk in
+the garden; and don't wear out your eyes over the big books that Mr.
+Hawkehurst is obliged to read.
+
+Ever your affectionate
+
+DIANA.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_From Charlotte Halliday to Diana Paget_.
+
+The dullest house in Christendom, Monday.
+
+EVER DEAREST Di,--Your letter was a welcome relief to the weariness
+of my existence. How I wish I were with you! But that is too bright a
+dream. I am sure I should idolise Beaubocage. I should not mind the
+dismal row of poplars, or the flat landscape, or the dusty road, or
+anything, so long as it was not like Bayswater. I languish for a change,
+dear. I have seen so little of the world, except the dear moorland
+farmhouse at Newhall. I don't think I was ever created to be "cabined,
+cribbed, confined," in such a narrow life as this, amid such a dull,
+unchanging round of daily commonplace. Sometimes, when the cold spring
+moon is shining over the tree-tops in Kensington-Gardens, I think of
+Switzerland, and the snow-clad mountains and fair Alpine valleys we have
+read of and talked of, until my heart aches at the thought that I may
+never see them; and to think that there are people in whom the word
+'Savoy' awakes no fairer image than a cabbage! Ah, my poor dear! isn't it
+almost wicked of me to complain, when _you_ have had such bitter
+experience of the hard cruel world?
+
+I am quite in love with your dear Mademoiselle Lenoble; almost as deeply
+as I am in love with your magnanimous, chivalrous, generous,
+audacious--everything ending in _ous_--Monsieur Lenoble.
+
+How dare you call him M. Lenoble, by the bye? I have counted the
+occasions on which you write of him in your nice long letter, and for one
+Gustave there are half a dozen M. Lenobles. It must be Gustave in future
+to me, remember.
+
+What shall I tell you, dear? I have nothing to tell, really nothing. To
+say that I wish you were with me is only to confess that I am very
+selfish; but I _do_ wish for you, dear--my friend and adopted sister,
+my old school companion, from whom, willingly, I have never concealed
+one thought.
+
+Valentine called on Tuesday afternoon; but I have nothing to tell you
+even about him. Mamma dozed in her corner after her cup of tea, and Val
+and I sat by the fire talking over our future, just like you and M.
+Lenoble on board the Calais boat. How much engaged people find to say
+about the future! Is it our love that makes it seem so bright, so
+different from all that has gone before? I cannot fancy life with
+Valentine otherwise than happy. I strive to picture trials, and fancy
+myself in prison with him, the wind blowing in at broken windows, the
+rain coming through the dilapidated roof and pattering on the carpetless
+floor; but the most dismal picture I can paint won't seem dismal if his
+figure is a part of it. We would stop the broken windows with rags and
+paper, we would wipe up the rain with our pocket-handkerchiefs, and sit
+side by side and talk of the future, as we do now. Hope could never
+abandon us while we were together. And then, sometimes, while I am
+looking at Valentine, the thought that he might die comes to me suddenly,
+like the touch of an icy hand upon my heart.
+
+I lie awake at night sometimes thinking of this, and of papa's early
+death. He came home one night with a cold, and from that hour grew worse
+until he died. Ah, think what misery for a wife to suffer! Happily for
+mamma, she is not capable of suffering intensely. She was very sorry, and
+even now when she speaks of papa she cries a little; but the tears don't
+hurt her. I think, indeed, they give her a kind of pleasure.
+
+See, dear, what a long egotistical letter I have written, after all. I
+will say no more, except that while I am delighted to think of your
+pleasure among new friends and new scenes, my selfish heart still longs
+for the hour that is to bring you back to me.
+
+Pray tell me all you can about your daughters that are to be.
+
+Ever and ever your loving CHARLOTTE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_From Diana Paget to Charlotte Halliday_.
+
+Beaubocage, near Vevinord, March 30, 186--.
+
+MY DEAR LOTTA,--In three days more I hope to be with you; but I suppose,
+in the meantime, I must keep my promise, and send you a faithful account
+of my life here. Everyone here is more kind to me than words can tell;
+and I have nothing left to wish for, except that you were here to be
+delighted, as I am sure you would be, with the freshness and the
+strangeness of everything. If I ever do become Madame Lenoble--and even
+yet I _cannot_ picture to myself that such a thing will be--you must come
+to Côtenoir, you and Valentine. I was taken through every room in the old
+château the day before yesterday, and I fixed in my own mind upon the
+rooms I will give you, if these things come to pass. They are very old
+rooms, and I can fancy what strange people must have lived in them, and
+died in them perhaps, in the days that are gone. But if you come to them,
+they shall be made bright and pretty, and we will chase the shadows of
+the mediæval age away. There are old pictures, old musical instruments,
+quaint spindle-legged chairs and tables, tapestries that crumble as you
+touch them--the ashes and relics of many generations. Gustave says we
+will sweep these poor vestiges away, and begin a new life, when I come to
+Côtenoir; but I cannot find it in my heart to obliterate every trace of
+those dead feet that have come and gone in all the dusky passages of my
+future home.
+
+And now I must tell you about my daughters that are to be--my daughter
+that is, I may say of the elder--for I love her so well already that no
+breach between Gustave and me could rob her of my affection. She is the
+dearest, most loving of creatures; and she reminds me of you! I dare say
+you will laugh at this, dear; and, mind, I do not say that Clarice
+Lenoble is actually like you in complexion or feature--those common
+attributes which every eye can see; the resemblance is far more subtle.
+There is a look in this dear girl's face, a smile, an I-know-not-what,
+which every now and then recalls your own bright countenance. You will
+say this is mere fancy--and that is what I told myself at the first; but
+I found afterwards that it is no fancy, but really one of those vague,
+indefinable, accidental likenesses which one perceives so often. To me it
+seems a very happy accident; for my first glance at my daughter's face
+told me that I should love her for your sake.
+
+We went to the convent the day before yesterday. It is a curious old
+place, and was once a stately château, the habitation of a noble family.
+A little portress, in the black robes of a lay sister, admitted us, and
+conducted us to the parlour, a fine old room, decorated with pictures of
+a religious character, painted by members of the sisterhood. Here Gustave
+and I were received by the superioress, an elderly woman, with a mild
+holy face, and a quiet grace of manner which might become a duchess. She
+sent for the demoiselles Lenoble, and after a delay of a quarter of an
+hour--you remember the toilet the girls at Hyde Lodge were obliged to
+make before they went to the drawing-room, Lotta--Mademoiselle Lenoble
+came, a tall, slim, lovely and lovable girl, who reminded me of the
+dearest friend I have in this world. She ran to her papa first, and
+saluted him with an enthusiastic hug; and then she stood for a moment
+looking shyly at me, confused and doubtful. It was only for a moment
+she was left in doubt. Gustave bent down to whisper something in her
+ear--something for which his letters had in some manner prepared her. The
+fair young face brightened, the clear grey eyes looked up at me with a
+sweet affectionate gaze, and she came to me and kissed me. "I shall love
+you very much," she whispered. "And I love you very much already," I
+answered, in the same confidential manner. And I think these few words,
+that one pretty confiding look in her innocent eyes, made a tie between
+us that it would take much to loosen. Ah, Lotta, what a wide gulf between
+the Diana Paget who landed alone at St. Katharine's Wharf, in the dim
+cheerless dawn, and uncertain where to find a shelter in all that busy
+city, and the same creature redeemed by your affection, and exalted by
+the love and trust of Gustave Lenoble!
+
+After this my second daughter appeared--a pretty young hoyden, with
+lovable clinging ways; and then the superioress asked if I would like to
+see the garden. Of course I said yes; and we were taken through the long
+corridors, out into a fine old garden, where the pupils, who looked like
+the Hyde Lodge girls translated into French, were prancing and scampering
+about in the usual style. After the garden we went to the chapel, where
+there were more pictures, and flower-bedecked altars, and pale twinkling
+tapers burning here and there in the chill sunlight. Here there were
+damsels engaged in pious meditation, from five years old upwards. They
+send even the little ones to meditate, Clarice tells me; and there are
+these infants kneeling before the flower-bedecked altars, rapt in
+religious contemplation, like so many Thomas à Kempises. The young
+meditators glanced shyly at us as we passed. When they had shown me
+everything of special interest in the pleasant old place, Clarice and
+Madelon ran off to dress for walking, in order to accompany us to
+Côtenoir, where we were to dine.
+
+It was quite a family party. Mademoiselle Lenoble was there, and papa. He
+arrived at the château while Gustave and I were paying our visit to the
+convent. He is in the highest spirits, and treats me with an amount of
+affection and courtesy I have not been accustomed to receive at his
+hands. Of course I know the cause of this change; the future mistress of
+Côtenoir is a very different person from that wretched girl who was
+nothing to him but a burden and an encumbrance. But even while I despise
+him I cannot refuse to pity him. One forgives anything in old age. In
+this, at least, it is a second childhood; and my father is very old,
+Lotta. I saw the look of age in his face more plainly at Côtenoir, where
+he assumed his usual _debonnaire_ man-of-the-world tone and manner, than
+I had seen it in London, when he was a professed invalid. He is much
+changed since I was with him at Forêtdechêne. It seems as if he had kept
+Time at bay very long, and now at last, the common enemy will be held at
+arm's-length no longer. He still braces himself up in the old military
+manner, still holds himself more erect than many men of half his age;
+but, in spite of all this, I can see that he is very feeble; shaken and
+worn by a long life of difficulty. I am glad to think that there will be
+a haven for him at last; and if I did not thank Gustave with my whole
+heart for giving me a home and a place in the world, I should thank him
+for giving a shelter to my father.
+
+And now, dear, as I hope to be with you so very soon, I shall say no
+more. I am to spend a day in Rouen before we come back--papa and I, that
+is to say; Gustave stays in Normandy to make some arrangements before he
+comes back to England. I cannot comprehend the business relations between
+him and papa; but there is some business going on--law business, as it
+seems to me--about which papa is very important and elated.
+
+I am to see the cathedral and churches at Rouen, and I shall contrive to
+see the shops, and to bring you something pretty. Papa has given me
+money--the first he ever gave me unasked. I have very little doubt it
+comes from Gustave; but I have no sense of shame in accepting it. M.
+Lenoble's seems to me a royal nature, formed to bestow benefits and
+bounties on every side.
+
+Tell Mrs. Sheldon that I shall bring her the prettiest cap I can find in
+Rouen; and,
+
+with all love, believe me ever your affectionate
+DIANA.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THE SEVENTH.
+
+
+
+A CLOUD OF FEAR.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE BEGINNING OF SORROW.
+
+Who heeds the cloud no bigger than a man's hand amidst a broad expanse of
+blue ether? The faint, scarce perceptible menace of that one little cloud
+is lost in the wide brightness of a summer sky. The traveller jogs on
+contented and unthinking, till the hoarse roar of stormy winds, or the
+first big drops of the thunder-shower, startle him with a sudden
+consciousness of the coming storm.
+
+It was early May, and the young leaves were green in the avenues of
+Kensington Gardens; Bayswater was bright and gay with fashionable people;
+and Mrs. Sheldon found herself strong enough to enjoy her afternoon drive
+in Hyde Park, where the contemplation of the bonnets afforded her
+perennial delight.
+
+"I think they are actually smaller than ever this year," she remarked
+every season; and every season the headgear of fashionable London did
+indeed seem to shrink and dwindle, "fine by degrees, and beautifully
+less." The coalscuttle-shaped headdress of our grandmothers had not yet
+resolved itself into a string of beads and a rosebud in these days, but
+was obviously tending thitherward.
+
+Charlotte and Diana accompanied Mrs. Sheldon in her drives. The rapture
+of contemplating the bonnets was not complete unless the lady had some
+sympathising spirit to share her delight. The two girls were very well
+pleased to mingle in that brilliant crowd, and to go back to their own
+quiet life when the mystic hour came, and that bright vision of colour
+and beauty melted into the twilight loneliness. It had seemed just
+lately, however, as if Charlotte was growing a little weary of the
+gorgeous spectacle--the ever-changing, ever-splendid diorama of West End
+life. She no longer exclaimed at the sight of each exceptional toilette;
+she no longer smiled admiringly on the thoroughbred horses champing their
+bits in the immediate neighbourhood of her bonnet; she no longer gave a
+little cry of delight when the big drags came slowly along the crowded
+ranks, the steel bars shining as they swung loosely in the low afternoon
+sunlight, the driver, conscious of his glory, grave and tranquil, with
+the pride that apes humility.
+
+"See, Lotta," said Miss Paget, upon an especially bright May evening, as
+one of these gorgeous equipages went past Mr. Sheldon's landau, "there's
+another drag. Did you see it?"
+
+"Yes, dear, I saw it."
+
+"And are you tired of four-in-hands? You used to admire them so much."
+
+"I admire them as much as ever, dear."
+
+"And yet you scarcely gave those four splendid roans a glance."
+
+"No," Charlotte answered, with a faint sigh.
+
+"Are you tired, Lotta?" Miss Paget asked, rather anxiously. There was
+something in Charlotte's manner of late that had inspired her with a
+vague sense of anxiety; some change which she could scarcely define--a
+change so gradual that it was only by comparing the Charlotte of some
+months ago with the Charlotte of the present that she perceived how real
+a change it was. The buoyancy and freshness, the girlish vivacity of Miss
+Halliday's manner, were rapidly giving place to habitual listlessness.
+"Are you tired, dear?" she repeated, anxiously; and Mrs. Sheldon looked
+round from her contemplation of the bonnets.
+
+"No, Di, dearest, not tired; but--I don't feel very well this afternoon."
+
+This was the first confession which Charlotte Halliday made of a sense of
+weakness and languor that had been creeping upon her during the last two
+months, so slowly, so gradually, that the change seemed too insignificant
+for notice.
+
+"You feel ill, Lotta dear?" Diana asked.
+
+"Well, no, not exactly ill. I can scarcely call it illness; I feel rather
+weak--that is really all."
+
+At this point Mrs. Sheldon chimed in, with her eyes on a passing bonnet
+as she spoke.
+
+"You see, you are so dreadfully neglectful of your papa's advice, Lotta,"
+she said, in a complaining tone. "Do _you_ like pink roses with mauve
+areophane, Diana? I do not. Look at that primrose tulle, with dead
+ivy-leaves and scarlet berries, in the barouche. I dare say you have not
+taken your glass of old port this morning, Charlotte, and have only
+yourself to thank if you feel weak."
+
+"I did take a glass of port this morning, mamma. I don't like it; but I
+take it every morning."
+
+"Don't like old tawny port, that your papa bought at the sale of a bishop
+of somewhere? It's perfectly absurd of you, Lotta, to talk of not liking
+wine that cost fifteen shillings a bottle, and which your papa's friends
+declare to be worth five-and-thirty."
+
+"I am sorry it is so expensive, mamma; but I can't teach myself to think
+it nice," answered Charlotte, with a smile that sadly lacked the
+brightness of a few weeks ago. "I think one requires to go into the City,
+and become a merchant or a stockbroker, before one can like that sort of
+wine. What was it Valentine quoted in the _Cheapside_, about some lady
+whom somebody loved?--'To love her was a liberal education.' I think to
+like old port is a commercial education."
+
+"I am sure such wine _ought_ to do you good," said Georgy, almost
+querulously. She thought this bright blooming creature had no right to be
+ill. The headaches, and little weaknesses and languors and ladylike
+ailments, were things for which she (Georgy) had taken out a patent; and
+this indisposition of her daughter's was an infringement of copyright.
+
+"I dare say the port will do me good, mamma, in time. No doubt I shall be
+as strong as that person who strangled lions and snakes and dogs with
+incalculable heads, and all that kind of thing."
+
+"I really wish you would not talk in that absurd manner, my dear," said
+Mrs. Sheldon with offended dignity. "I think you really cannot be too
+grateful for your papa's kind thoughtfulness and anxiety about you. I am
+sure I myself am not so anxious as he is; but of course his medical
+knowledge makes him doubly careful. Six weeks ago he noticed that you
+wanted strength--tone is what he calls it. 'Georgina,' he said to me,
+'Charlotte wants tone. She is beginning to stoop in a really lamentable
+manner: we must make her take port or bark, or something of a
+strengthening kind.' And then a day or two afterwards he decided on port,
+and gave me the key of the cellar--which is a thing he rarely gives out
+of his own hands--and told me the number of the bin from which I was to
+take the wine--some old wine that he had laid by on purpose for some
+special occasion; and no one is to have it but you, and you are to take a
+glass daily at eleven o'clock. Mr. Sheldon is most particular about the
+hour. The regularity of the thing is half the battle in these cases, he
+says; and I am sure if you do not observe his wishes and mine, Charlotte,
+it will be really ungrateful of you."
+
+"But, dear mamma, I do observe Mr.--papa's wishes. I take my glass of
+port every morning at eleven. I go to your cupboard in the breakfast-room
+and take out my special decanter, and my special glass, in the most
+punctiliously precise manner. I don't like the wine, and I don't like the
+trouble involved in the ceremony of drinking it; but I go through it most
+religiously, to please you and papa."
+
+"And do you mean to say that you do not feel stronger after taking that
+expensive old port regularly for nearly six weeks.
+
+"I am sorry to say that I do not, mamma. I think if there is any change,
+it is that I am weaker."
+
+"Dear, dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Sheldon captiously, "you are really a
+most extraordinary girl."
+
+Mrs. Sheldon could almost have found it in her heart to say, a most
+ungrateful girl. There did seem a kind of ingratitude in this futile
+consumption of old port at fifteen shillings a bottle.
+
+"I'll tell you what it is, Lotta," she said presently, "I am convinced
+that your illness--or your weakness--is all fancy."
+
+"Why so, mamma?"
+
+"Because, if it were real weakness, that old port must have made you
+stronger. And the fact that the port does you no good, is a proof that
+your weakness is only fancy. Girls of your age are so full of fancies.
+Look at me, and the martyrdom I go through with my nervous headaches,
+which perfectly prostrate me, after the least worry or excitement. The
+nerves of my head, after going into the butcher's book, are perfect
+agony. When you come to have a house to look after, and find what it is
+to have the same saddle of mutton charged for twice over, with the most
+daring impudence--or to have capers and currie-powder, that you _know_
+you've never had, staring at you from every page of your grocer's book,
+and nothing but your memory between you and utter ruin--you'll discover
+what it is to be really ill."
+
+In this easy manner did Mrs. Sheldon dismiss the subject of her daughter's
+illness. But it was not so easily dismissed by Diana Paget, who loved her
+friend with a profound and pure affection, than which no sister's love
+was ever warmer or stronger. Even Valentine's preference for this happy
+rival had not lessened Diana's love for her friend and benefactress. She
+had been jealous of Charlotte's happier fate: but in the hour when this
+jealousy was most bitter there had been no wavering in her attachment to
+this one true and generous friend.
+
+Miss Paget was very silent during the homeward drive. She understood now
+what that change had been in her friend which until now had so perplexed
+her. It was a decay of physical strength which had robbed Lotta's smile
+of its brightness, her laugh of its merry music. It was physical languor
+that made her so indifferent to the things which had once awakened her
+girlish enthusiasm. The discovery was a very painful one. Diana
+remembered her experience of Hyde Lodge: the girls who had grown day by
+day more listless, now in the doctor's hands for a day or two, now well
+again and toiling at the old treadmill round of study, now sinking into
+confirmed invalids; until the bitter hour in which parents are summoned,
+and the doctor urges rest, and the fond mother carries her darling home,
+assured that home comfort and tenderness will, speedily restore her. Her
+schoolfellows cluster round the carriage to bid her "good-bye until next
+half," full of hopeful talk about her swift recovery. But when the
+vacation is over, and Black Monday comes, she is not amongst the
+returning scholars. Has she not gone up to the higher school, and
+answered _Adsum_ to the call of the Great Master?
+
+Diana remembered these old experiences with cruel pain.
+
+"Girls, as bright and lovable as she is, have drooped and faded away,
+just when they seem brightest and happiest," she thought as she watched
+Charlotte, and perceived to-day for the first time that the outline of
+her fair young cheek had lost its perfect roundness.
+
+But in such a case love can do nothing except watch and wait. That night,
+in the course of that girlish talk in Charlotte's bedroom, which had
+become a habit with the two girls, Diana extorted from her friend a full
+account of the symptoms which had affected her within the last few weeks.
+
+"Pray don't look so anxious, dear Di," she said gaily; "it is really
+nothing worth talking of; and I knew that if I confessed to feeling ill
+you and mamma would straightway begin to worry yourselves about me. I
+have felt a little sick and faint sometimes; and now and then a sudden
+dizziness has come over me. It is nothing of any consequence, and it
+passes away very quickly. Sometimes I have a kind of torpid languid
+feeling, which is scarcely unpleasant, only strange, you know. But what
+does it all amount to, except that I am nervous?"
+
+"You must have change of air, Lotta," said Diana resolutely, "and change
+of scene. Yes, no doubt you are nervous. You have been kept almost a
+prisoner in the house through Mr. Sheldon's punctilious nonsense. You
+miss our brisk morning walks in the Gardens, I dare say. If you were to
+go to Yorkshire, now, to your friends at Newhall, you would like that
+change, dear, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Yes, I should dearly like to see Aunt Dorothy and uncle Joe; but--"
+
+"But what, darling?"
+
+"I should scarcely like being at Newhall, unless--you'll think me very
+foolish, Di--unless Valentine was with me. We were so happy there, you
+see, dear; and it was there he first told me he loved me. No, Di, I
+couldn't bear Newhall without him."
+
+"Poor Aunt Dorothy, poor uncle Joe! feathers when weighed in the scale
+against a young man whom their niece has known less than a twelvemonth!"
+
+No more was said about Charlotte's illness; Diana was too prudent to
+alarm her friend by any expression of uneasiness. She adopted a cheering
+tone, and the conversation drifted into other channels.
+
+While Diana's concern for her friend's altered health was yet a new
+feeling, she found herself called upon to attend her father once more
+in the character of a ministering angel. And this time Captain Paget's
+illness was something more than gout. It was, according to his
+doctors--he had on this occasion two medical attendants--a general
+breaking up of the system. The poor old wanderer,--the weary Odysseus,
+hero of so many trickeries, such varied adventures,--laid himself down to
+rest, within view of the Promised Land for which his soul yearned.
+
+He was very ill. Gustave Lenoble, who came back to London, did not
+conceal from Diana that the illness threatened to end fatally. At his
+instigation the Captain had been removed from Omega Street to pleasant
+lodgings at the back of Knightsbridge Road, overlooking Hyde Park. This
+was nearer Bayswater, and it was very pleasant for the fading old
+worldling. He could see the stream of fashion flowing past as he sat in
+his easy-chair, propped up with pillows, with the western sunlight on his
+face. He pointed out the liveries and armorial bearings; and told many
+scandalous and entertaining anecdotes of their past and present owners to
+Gustave Lenoble, who devoted much of his time to the solacement of the
+invalid. Everything that affection could do to smooth this dreary time
+was done for the tired Ulysses. Pleasant books were read to him; earnest
+thoughts were suggested by earnest words; hothouse flowers adorned his
+cheerful sitting-room; hothouse fruits gladdened his eye by their rich
+warmth of colour, and invited his parched lips to taste their cool
+ripeness. Gustave had a piano brought in, so that Diana might sing to her
+father in the dusky May evenings, when it should please him to hear her.
+Upon the last feeble footsteps of this old man, whose life had been very
+selfish and wicked, pity waited with a carefulness so fond and tender
+that he might well mistake it for love. Was it fair that his last days
+should be so peaceful and luxurious, when many a good man falls down to
+die in the streets, worn out with the life-long effort to bear the burden
+laid upon his weary shoulders? In the traditions of the Rabbins it is
+written that those are the elect of God who suffer His chastisement in
+the flesh. For the others, for those who on earth drain the goblet of
+pleasure, and riot in the raptures of sin, for them comes the dread
+retribution after death. They are plunged in the fire, and driven before
+the wind; they take the shape of loathsome reptiles, and ascend by
+infinitesimal degrees through all the grades of creation, until their
+storm-tost wearied degraded souls re-enter human semblance once more. But
+even then their old stand-point is not yet regained; their dread penance
+not yet performed. As men they are the lowest and worst of men; slaves
+toiling in the desert; dirt to be trampled under the feet of their
+prosperous brethren. Inch by inch the wretched soul regains its lost
+inheritance; cycles must elapse before the awful sentence is fulfilled.
+
+Our Christian faith knows no such horrors. Even for the penitent of the
+eleventh hour there is promise of pardon. The most earnest desire of
+Diana's heart was that her father should enroll himself amongst those
+late penitents--those last among the last who crowd in to the marriage
+feast, half afraid to show their shame-darkened faces in that glorious
+company.
+
+If we forgive all things to old age, so much the more surely do we
+forgive all injuries to the fading enemy. That she had suffered much
+cruelty and neglect at the hands of her father, was a fact that Diana
+could not forget, any more than she could forget the name which he had
+given her. It was a part of her life not to be put off or done away with.
+But in these last days, with all her heart she forgave and pitied him.
+She pitied him for the crooked paths into which his feet had wandered at
+the very outset of life, and from which so weak a soul could find no
+issue. She pitied him for that moral blindness which had kept him
+pleasantly unconscious of the supreme depth of his degradation--a social
+Laplander, who never having seen a western summer, had no knowledge that
+his own land was dark and benighted.
+
+Happily for Diana and her generous lover, the Captain was not a
+difficult penitent. He was indeed a man who, having lost the capacity
+and the need for sin, took very kindly to penitence, as a species of
+sentimental luxury.
+
+"Yes, my dear," he said complacently--for even in the hour of his
+penitence he insisted on regarding himself as a social martyr--"my life
+has been a very hard one. Fortune has not been kind to me. In the words
+of the immortal bard, my lines have _not_ been set in pleasant places. I
+should have been glad if Providence had allowed me to be a better father
+to you, a better husband to your poor mother--a better Christian, in
+fact--and had spared me the repeated humiliation of going through the
+Insolvent Debtors' Court. It is not always easy to understand the justice
+of these things: and it has often appeared to me that something of the
+favouritism which is the bane of our governments on earth must needs
+obtain at a higher tribunal. One man enters life with an entailed estate
+worth seventy thousand a-year, while another finds himself in the hands
+of the Jews before he is twenty years of age. 'There's something in this
+world amiss shall be unriddled by-and-by,' as the poet observes. The
+circumstances of my own existence I have ever regarded as dark and
+enigmatic. And, indeed, the events of this life are altogether
+inexplicable, my love. There is that fellow Sheldon, now, who began
+life as a country dentist, a man without family or connections,
+who--well, I will not repine. If I am spared to behold my daughter
+mistress of a fine estate, although in a foreign country, I can depart in
+peace. But you must have a house in town, my dear. Yes, London must be
+your head-quarters. You must not be buried alive in Normandy. There is no
+place like London. Take the word of a man who has seen the finest
+Continental cities, and lived in them--that is the point, my love--lived
+in them. For a fine afternoon in the beginning of May, an apartment in
+the Champs Elysées, or the Boulevard, is an earthly paradise; but the
+Champs Elysées in a wet December--the Boulevard in a sweltering August!
+London is the only spot upon earth that is never intolerable. And your
+husband will be a rich man, my dear girl, a really wealthy man; and you
+must see that he makes a fitting use of his wealth, and does his duty to
+society. The parable of the Talents, which you were reading to me this
+afternoon, is a moral lesson your husband must not forget."
+
+After this fashion did the invalid discourse. Gustave and Diana perceived
+that he still hoped to have his share in their future life, still looked
+to pleasant days to come in a world which he had loved, not wisely, but
+too well. Nor could they find it in their hearts to tell him that his
+journey was drawing to a close, and that on the very threshold of the
+peaceful home which his diplomatic arts had helped to secure, he was to
+abandon life's weary race.
+
+They indulged his hopes a little, in order to win him the more easily to
+serious thoughts; but though at times quite ready to abandon himself to a
+penitential mood that was almost maudlin, there were other times when the
+old Adam asserted himself, and the Captain resented this intrusion of
+serious subjects as a kind of impertinence.
+
+"I am not aware that I am at my last gasp, Diana," he said with dignity,
+on one of these occasions; "or that I need to be talked to by my own
+daughter as if I were on my deathbed. I can show you men some years my
+senior driving their phætons-and-pairs in that Park. The Gospel is all
+very well in its place--during Sunday-morning service, and after morning
+prayers, in your good old county families, where the household is large
+enough to make a fair show at the end of the dining-room, without
+bringing in hulking lads who smell of the stables: but I consider that
+when a man is ill, there is a considerable want of tact in bringing the
+subject of religion before him in any obtrusive manner."
+
+Thus the Captain alternated from sentimental penitence to captious
+worldliness, during many days and weeks. The business of the Haygarthian
+inheritance was progressing slowly, but surely. Documents were being
+prepared, attested copies of certificates of marriages, births, baptisms,
+and burials were being procured, and all was tending towards the grand
+result. Once, and sometimes twice a week, M. Fleurus came to see Captain
+Paget, and discussed the great affair with that invalid diplomatist. The
+Captain had long ago been aware that in entering upon an alliance with
+that gentleman, he had invoked the aid of a coadjutor likely to prove too
+strong for him. The event had justified his fears. M. Fleurus had
+something of Victor Hugo's famous _Poulpe_ in his nature. Powerful as
+flexible were the arms he stretched forth to grasp all prizes in the way
+of heirs-at-law and disputed heritages, unclaimed railway-stock, and
+forgotten consols. If the Captain had not played his cards very cleverly,
+and contrived to obtain a personal influence over Gustave Lenoble, he
+might have found himself thrust entirely out of the business by one of
+the Frenchman's gelatinous arms. Happily for his own success, however,
+the Captain did obtain a strong hold upon Gustave. This enabled him to
+protect his own interests throughout the negotiation, and to keep the
+insidious Fleurus at bay.
+
+"My good friend," he said, in his grand Carlton-House manner, "I am bound
+to protect the interests of my friend M. Lenoble, in any agreement to be
+entered upon in this matter. I cannot permit M. Lenoble's generosity or
+M. Lenoble's inexperience to be imposed upon. My own interests are of
+secondary importance. That I expect to profit by the extraordinary
+discovery made by me--by ME--alone and unaided, I do not affect to deny.
+But I will not profit at the expense of a too generous friend."
+
+"And what recompense am I to have for my work--a work at once painful and
+impoverishing?" asked the little Frenchman, with an angry and suspicious
+look. "Do you believe that I do that to amuse me? To run the streets, to
+go by here, by there, in hunting the papers of that marriage, or this
+baptism? Believe you that is so agreeable, Monsieur the Captain? No; I
+desire to be paid for my work. I must have my part in the heritage which
+I have help to win."
+
+"It is not won yet. We will talk of your recompense by-and-by."
+
+"We will talk of it this instant--upon the field. It must that I
+comprehend where I am in this affair. I will not of mystifications, of
+prevarications, of lies--"
+
+"M. Fleurus!" cried the Captain, with a hand stretched towards the bell.
+
+"You will sound--you will chase me! Ah, but no!--you cannot afford to
+chase me yet. I have to find more papers of baptisms and burials. Go,
+then, we will talk of this affair as friends."
+
+This friendly talk ended in Captain Paget's complete victory. M. Fleurus
+consented to accept his costs out of pocket in the present, and three per
+cent, of the heritage in the future. It was further agreed that the
+Captain should select the English attorney who should conduct M.
+Lenoble's case in the Court of Chancery.
+
+This conversation occurred at Rouen, and a day or two afterwards the
+necessary document was drawn up. Gustave pledged himself to pay over a
+fourth share of the Haygarthian fortune to Horatio Paget, and three
+per cent, upon the whole amount to Jean François Fleurus. The document
+was very formal, very complete; but whether such an agreement would
+hold water, if Gustave Lenoble should choose to contest it, was open
+to question.
+
+The solicitor to whom Horatio Paget introduced M. Lenoble was a Mr.
+Dashwood, of the firm of Dashwood and Vernon; a man whom the Captain had
+known in the past, and from whom he had received good service in some of
+the most difficult crises of his difficult career. To this gentleman he
+confided the conduct of the case; and explained his apprehensions with
+regard to the two Sheldons.
+
+"You see, as the case now stands, they think they have the claimant to
+this money in Miss Halliday--Sheldon's stepdaughter. But if they got an
+inkling of Susan Meynell's marriage--and, in point of fact--the actual
+state of the case--they might try to get hold of my friend, Gustave
+Lenoble. They could _not_ get hold of him, mind you, Dashwood, but they
+would try it on, and I don't want trying on of that kind."
+
+"Of course not. I know Sheldon, of Gray's Inn. He is rather--well, say
+_shady_. That's hardly an actionable epithet, and it expresses what I
+mean. Your friend's case seems to me tolerably clear. That little
+Frenchman is useful, but officious. It is not a speculative affair, I
+suppose? There is money to meet the current expenses of the business?"
+
+"Yes, there is money. Within reasonable limits my friend is prepared to
+pay for the advancement of his claims."
+
+After this the Haygarthian business progressed, slowly, quietly. The work
+was up to this point underground work. There were still papers
+wanting--final links of the chain to be fitted together; and to the
+fitting of these links Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon devoted themselves, in
+conjunction with M. Fleurus.
+
+This was how matters stood when Captain Paget drooped and languished, and
+was fain to abandon all active share in the struggle.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FADING.
+
+While the invalid in the pleasant lodgings overlooking Hyde Park
+grew day by day weaker, there was a change as marked in the bright
+young creature whose loving spirit had first brought the influence of
+affection to bear upon Diana Paget's character. Charlotte Halliday was
+ill--very ill. It was with everyday increasing anxiety that Diana watched
+the slow change--slow in its progress, but awfully rapid to look back
+upon. The pain, the regret, with which she noted her father's decay were
+little indeed compared with the sharp agony which rent her heart as she
+perceived the alteration in this dear friend, the blighting of this fair
+young flower.
+
+That the withered leaves of autumn should fall is sad, but natural, and
+we submit to the gloomy inevitable fact of decay and death. But to see
+our rose of roses, the pride and glory of the garden, fade and perish in
+its midsummer prime, is a calamity inexplicable and mysterious. Diana
+watched her father's decline with a sense of natural sorrow and pity; but
+there was neither surprise nor horror in the thought that for him the end
+of all things was drawing nigh. How different was it with Charlotte--with
+that happy soul for whom life and love wore their brightest smile, before
+whose light joyous footsteps stretched so fair a pathway!
+
+The illness, whatever it was--and neither Mr. Sheldon nor the portly and
+venerable physician whom he called in could find a name for it--crept
+upon the patient with stealthy and insidious steps. Dizziness, trembling,
+faintness; trembling, faintness, dizziness; the symptoms alternated day
+by day. Sometimes there was a respite of a few days; and Charlotte--the
+youthful, the sanguine, the happy--declared that her enemy had left her.
+
+"I am sure mamma is right, Di," she said on these occasions. "My nerves
+are the beginning and end of the mischief; and if I could get the better
+of my nerves, I should be as well as ever. I don't wonder that the idea
+of my symptoms makes mamma almost cross. You see, she has been accustomed
+to have the symptoms all to herself; and for me to plagiarise them, as it
+were, must seem quite an impertinence. For a strong young thing like me,
+you know, Di dear--who have only just broken myself of plunging
+downstairs two and three steps at a time, and plunging upstairs in the
+same vulgar manner--to intrude on mamma's shattered nerves, and pirate
+mamma's low spirits, is utterly absurd and abominable; so I have resolved
+to look my nerves straight in the face, and get the better of them."
+
+"My darling, you will get the better of them if you try," said Diana, who
+did at times beguile herself with the hope that her friend's ailments
+were mental rather than bodily. "I dare say your monotonous life has
+something to do with your altered health; you want change of scene,
+dear."
+
+"Change of scene, when I have you and Valentine! No, Di. It would
+certainly be very nice to have the background shifted now and then; to
+see Capability Brown's prim gardens melt into Alpine heights or
+southern vineyards, or even into Russian steppes or Hungarian forests.
+One does get a little tired of _toujours_ Bayswater; and Mr. Sheldon;
+and crimped skate; and sirloin of beef, and the inevitable discussion as
+to whether it is in a cannibal state of rawness or burnt to a cinder;
+and the glasses of pale sherry; and the red worsted doyleys and blue
+finger-glasses; and the almonds and raisins, and crisp biscuits, that
+nobody ever eats; and the dreary, dreary funereal business of dinner,
+when we all talk vapid nonsense, with an ever-present consciousness of
+the parlourmaid. I am tired of the dull dinners, and of mamma's peevish
+complaints about Ann Woolper's ascendancy downstairs; and of Mr.
+Sheldon's perpetual newspapers, that crackle, crackle, crackle all the
+evening through; and _such_ papers!--_Money Market Monitor, Stockholder's
+Vade-Mecum_, and all sorts of dreadful things of that kind, with not so
+much as an interesting advertisement in one of them. I used never to feel
+these things an annoyance, you know, dear, till I made the acquaintance
+of my nerves; but from the moment I allowed my nerves to get the better
+of me, all these trifles have worried and excruciated me. But I am happy
+with you, darling; and I am happy with Valentine. Poor Valentine!"
+
+She pronounced his name with a sigh; and then, after a pause, repeated
+mournfully, "Poor Valentine!"
+
+"Why do you speak of him so sadly, dear?" asked Diana, very pale.
+
+"Because--because we have planned such a happy life together, dear,
+and--"
+
+"Is that a thing to be sad about, darling?"
+
+"And--if it should happen, after all, that we have to part, and he go on
+alone, the world may seem so sad and lonely to him."
+
+"Charlotte!" cried Diana, with a laugh that was almost choked by a sob,
+"is this looking your nerves in the face? Why, my dear one, this is
+indeed plagiarism of your mamma's low spirits. Lotta, you shall have
+change of air; yes, I am determined on that. The stately physician who
+came in his carriage the other day, and who looked at your tongue, and
+said 'Ah!' and then felt your pulse and said 'Ah!' again, and then called
+for pen-and-ink and wrote a little prescription, is not the doctor we
+want for you. We want Dr. Yorkshire; we want the breezes from the
+Yorkshire moors, and the smell of the farmyard, and our dear Aunt
+Dorothy's sillabubs, and our uncle Joe to take us for long walks across
+his clover-fields."
+
+"I don't want to go to Newhall, Di. I couldn't bear to leave--him."
+
+"But what is to prevent your meeting _him_ at the white gate this time,
+as you met him last October? Might not accident take _him_ to Huxter's
+Cross again? The archæological work--of which we have heard no more, by
+the bye--might necessitate further investigations in that district. If
+you will go to Newhall, Lotta, I will pledge myself for Mr. Hawkehurst's
+speedy appearance at the white gate you have so often described to me."
+
+"My dearest Di, you are all kindness; but even if I were inclined to go
+to Newhall, I doubt if mamma or Mr. Sheldon would like me to go."
+
+"I am sure they would be pleased with any arrangement that was likely to
+benefit your health. But I will talk to your mamma about it. I have set
+my heart on your going to Newhall."
+
+Miss Paget lost no time in carrying out her idea. She took possession of
+Georgy that afternoon, while teaching her a new stitch in _tricot_, and
+succeeded in impressing her with the conviction that change of air was
+necessary for Charlotte.
+
+"But you don't think Lotta really ill?" asked Mrs. Sheldon, nervously.
+
+"I trust she is not really ill, dear Mrs. Sheldon; but I am sure she is
+much changed. In talking to her, I affect to think that her illness is
+only an affair of the nerves; but I sadly fear that it is something more
+than that."
+
+"But what is the matter with her?" exclaimed Georgy, with a piteous air
+of perplexity; "that is the question which I am always asking. People
+can't be ill, you know, Diana, without having something the matter with
+them; and that is what I can't make out in Charlotte's case. Mr. Sheldon
+says she wants tone; the physician who came in a carriage and pair, and
+ought to know what he is talking about, says there is a lack of vigour.
+But what does that all amount to? I'm sure I've wanted tone all my life.
+Perhaps there never was a creature so devoid of tone as I am; and the
+internal sinking I feel just before luncheon is something that no one but
+myself can realize. I dare say Lotta is not so strong as she might be;
+but I do not see that she can be ill, unless her illness is something
+definite. My poor first husband's illness, now, was the kind of thing
+that any one could understand--bilious fever. The merest child knows what
+it is to be bilious, and the merest child knows what it is to be
+feverish. There can be nothing mysterious in bilious fever."
+
+"But, dear Mrs. Sheldon," said Diana, gravely, "don't you think that the
+weakness of constitution which rendered Charlotte's father liable to be
+taken off in the prime of life by a fever is a weakness that Charlotte
+may possibly have inherited?"
+
+"Good heavens, Diana!" cried Georgy, with sudden terror; "you don't mean
+to say that you think my Charlotte is going to die?"
+
+It was but one step with Mrs. Sheldon from peevish incredulity to frantic
+alarm; and Diana found it as difficult to tranquillise her newly-awakened
+fears as it had been to rouse her from absolute apathy.
+
+Change of air--yes, of course--Charlotte must have change of air that
+instant. Let a cab be sent for immediately to take them to the terminus.
+Change of air, of course. To Newhall--to Nice--to the Isle of Wight--to
+Malta; Mrs. Sheldon had heard of people going to Malta. Where should they
+go? Would Diana advise, and send for a cab, and pack a travelling bag
+without an instant's delay? The rest of the things could be sent
+afterwards. What did luggage matter, when Charlotte's life was at stake?
+
+At this point a flood of tears happily relieved poor Georgy's excited
+feelings, and then common sense and Diana Paget came to the rescue.
+
+"My dear Mrs. Sheldon," she said, with a quiet cheerful tone that went
+far to reassure the excited lady, "in the first place we must, above all
+things, refrain from any appearance of alarm. Her illness may, after all,
+be only an affair of the nerves; and there is certainly no cause for
+immediate fear."
+
+Georgy was tranquillised, and agreed to take matters quietly. She
+promised to arrange Charlotte's departure for Newhall, with Mr. Sheldon,
+that evening.
+
+"Of course, you know, my dear, I like to consult him about everything,"
+she said, apologetically. "It is a duty which one owes one's husband, you
+know, and a duty which, as a young woman about to marry, I cannot too
+much impress upon you; but in this case it is quite a matter of form: Mr.
+Sheldon never has objected to Charlotte's going to Newhall, and he is not
+likely to object now."
+
+The event proved Mrs. Sheldon mistaken as to this matter. Georgy proposed
+the visit to Newhall that evening, while the two girls were strolling
+listlessly in the dusky garden, and Mr. Sheldon most decidedly rejected
+the proposition.
+
+"If she wants change of air--and Dr. Doddleson recommended nothing of the
+kind--Newhall is not the place for her."
+
+"Why not, dear?"
+
+"It is too cold. Northerly aspect--no shelter--three hundred feet above
+York minster."
+
+"But Dorothy Mercer is such a kind motherly creature; she'd delight in
+nursing Lotta."
+
+"Yes," answered Mr. Sheldon, with a laugh, "and in quacking her. I know
+what those good motherly creatures are when they get an excuse for dosing
+some unhappy victim with their quack nostrums. If Charlotte went to
+Newhall, Mrs. Mercer would poi--would make her ten times worse than
+she is with old woman's remedies. Besides, as I said before, the place is
+too cold. That is a conclusive argument, I suppose?"
+
+He said this with some impatience of tone and manner. There was a haggard
+look in his face, a hurried harassed manner pervading him this evening,
+which had been growing upon him of late. Georgy was too slow of
+perception to remark this; but Diana Paget had remarked it, and had
+attributed the change in the stockbroker's manner to a blending of two
+anxieties.
+
+"He is anxious about money matters," she had said to herself, "and he is
+anxious about Charlotte's health. His lips, moving in whispered
+calculations, as he sits brooding by the fire, tell me of the first
+anxiety; his eyes, wandering furtively to his step-daughter's face every
+now and then, tell me of the second."
+
+This furtive anxiety of Mr. Sheldon's increased Diana Paget's anxiety.
+This man, who had a certain amount of medical knowledge, could no doubt
+read the diagnostics of that strange insidious illness, which had, as
+yet, no name. Diana, furtively watching his furtive looks, told herself
+that he read of danger.
+
+"If Charlotte wants change of air, let her go to Hastings," he said;
+"that is the kind of place for an invalid. I want rest myself; and
+there's such utter stagnation in the City nowadays that I can very well
+afford to give myself a holiday. We'll run down to Hastings, or the
+immediate neighbourhood of Hastings, for a week or two."
+
+"O Philip, how kind and considerate you are! I am sure, as I was
+observing to Miss Paget only today, you--"
+
+"Ah, by the bye, there's Miss Paget. Is it absolutely necessary that Miss
+Paget should go to Hastings with us?"
+
+"Well, dear, you see she has so kindly desired to remain with me for the
+quarter, so as to give me time to turn round, you know, with regard to
+caps and summer things, and so on--for, really, she has such taste, and
+does strike out such excellent ideas about turning, and dipping, and
+dyeing, that I don't know what will become of me when she leaves us; and
+it would look so pointed to--"
+
+"Yes; she had better go with us. But why all this fuss about Charlotte?
+Who put it into your head that she wants change of air?"
+
+Mr. Sheldon evidently considered it an established fact that any idea in
+his wife's head must needs have been put there by someone or other.
+
+"Well, you see, Diana and I were talking of Lotta this afternoon, and
+Diana quite alarmed me."
+
+"How so?" asked Mr. Sheldon, with a quick frown.
+
+"Why, she said it was evident, by the fact of poor dear Tom's dying of a
+fever, that his constitution must have been originally weak. And she said
+that perhaps Charlotte had inherited Tom's weak constitution--and
+frightened me dreadfully."
+
+"There is no occasion for you to be frightened; Charlotte will get on
+very well, I dare say, with care. But Miss Paget is a very sensible
+young woman, and is right in what she says. Charlotte's constitution is
+not strong."
+
+"O Philip!" said Georgy, in a faint wailing voice.
+
+"I dare say she will live to follow you and me to our graves," said Mr.
+Sheldon, with a hard laugh. "Ah, here she is!"
+
+Here she was, coming towards the open window near which her stepfather
+sat. Here she was, pale and tired, with her sauntering walk, dressed in
+white, and spectral in the gloaming. To the sad eyes of her mother she
+looked like a ghost. To the eyes of Philip Sheldon, a man not prone to
+poetic fancies, she looked even more ghostlike.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+MRS. WOOLPER IS ANXIOUS.
+
+Since the beginning of her illness, Charlotte Halliday had been the
+object and subject of many anxious thoughts in the minds of several
+people. That her stepfather had his anxieties about her--anxieties which
+he tried to hide--was obvious to the one person in the Bayswater villa
+who noted his looks, and tried to read the thoughts they indicated.
+
+Mrs. Sheldon's alarm, once fairly awakened, was not to be lulled to rest.
+And in Valentine Hawkehurst's heart there was an aching pain--a dull dead
+load of care, which had never been lightened from the hour when he first
+perceived the change in his dear one's face.
+
+There was one other person, an inhabitant of the Bayswater villa, who
+watched Charlotte Halliday at this time with a care as unresting as the
+care of mother or stepfather, bosom friend or plighted lover. This person
+was Ann Woolper. Mrs. Woolper had come to the villa prepared to find in
+Miss Halliday a frivolous self-satisfied young person, between whom and
+an old broken-down woman like herself there could be no sympathy. She had
+expected to be contemptuously--or, at the best, indifferently--entreated
+by the prosperous well-placed young lady, whom Mr. Sheldon had spoken of
+as a good girl, as girls go; a vague species of commendation, which, to
+the mind of Mrs. Woolper, promised very little.
+
+As clearly as Philip Sheldon dared express his wishes with regard to
+Charlotte Halliday, he had expressed them to Ann Woolper. What he would
+fain have said, was, "Watch my stepdaughter, and keep me well acquainted
+with every step she takes." Thus much he dared not say; but by
+insinuating that Tom Halliday's daughter was frivolous and reckless, and
+that her lover was not to be trusted, he had contrived to put Mrs.
+Woolper on the _qui vive_.
+
+"Mr. Philip's afraid she may go and marry this young man on the sly,
+before he's got the means to support a wife," she said to herself, as she
+meditated upon the meaning of her master's injunctions; "and well he may
+be. There's no knowing what young women are up to nowadays; and the more
+innocent and inexperienced a young woman is, the more she wants looking
+after. And Miss Georgy Craddock always was a poor fondy, up to naught but
+dressing herself fine, and streaming up and down Barlingford High Street
+with her old schoolfellows. Such as she ain't fit to be trusted with a
+daughter; and Mr. Philip knows that. He always was a deep one. But I'm
+glad he looks after Missy: there's many men, having got fast hold of th'
+father's brass, would let th' daughter marry Old Scratch, for the sake of
+gettin' rid of her."
+
+This is how Mrs. Woolper argued the matter. She came of a prudent race;
+and anything like prudence seemed to her a commendable virtue. She wished
+to think well of her master; for her he had been a Providence in the hour
+of calamity and old age. Where else could she look, if not to him? And to
+suspect him, or think ill of him, was to reject the one refuge offered to
+her distress. A magnanimous independence of spirit is not an easy virtue
+for the old and friendless and poor. The drowning wretch will scarcely
+question the soundness of the plank that sustains him upon the
+storm-tossed billows; nor was Mrs. Woolper inclined to question the
+motives of the man to whom she now owed her daily bread.
+
+It is possible that before invoking Mrs. Woolper from the ashes of the
+past to take her seat by the hearthstone of the present, Mr. Sheldon may
+have contemplated the question of her return in all its bearings, and
+may have assured himself that she was his own, by a tie not easily
+broken--his bond-slave, fettered hand and foot by the bondage of
+necessity.
+
+"What choice can she have, except the choice between my house and the
+workhouse?" he may naturally have asked himself; "and is it likely she
+will quarrel with her bread-and-butter in order to fall back upon dry
+bread?" Mr. Sheldon, contemplating this and all other questions from his
+one unchanging standpoint, may reasonably have concluded that Mrs.
+Woolper would do nothing opposed to her own interests; and that so long
+as it suited her interest to remain at the Lawn, and to serve him, she
+would there remain, his docile and unquestioning slave.
+
+The influence of affection, the force of generous impulse, were qualities
+that did not come into Mr. Sheldon's calculations upon this subject. His
+addition and subtraction, division and multiplication, were all based on
+one system.
+
+That happy and unconscious art by which Charlotte Halliday made herself
+dear to all who knew her had a speedy effect upon the old housekeeper.
+The girl's amiable consideration for her age and infirmities; the pretty
+affectionate familiarity with which she treated this countrywoman, who
+had known her father, and who could talk to her of Yorkshire and
+Yorkshire people, soon made their way to Nancy Woolper's heart of hearts.
+For Miss Halliday to come to the housekeeper's room with some message
+from her mother, and to linger for a few minutes' chat, was a delight to
+Mrs. Woolper. She would have detained the bright young visitant for hours
+instead of minutes, if she could have found any excuse for so doing. Nor
+was there any treason against Mr. Sheldon in her growing attachment to
+his stepdaughter. Whenever Nancy spoke of that master and benefactor, she
+spoke with unfeigned gratitude and affection.
+
+"I nursed your step-papa as a baby, Miss Halliday," she said very often
+on these occasions. "You wouldn't think, to look at him now, that he ever
+was _that_, would you? But he was one of the finest babies you could wish
+to see--tall, and strong, and with eyes that pierced one through, they
+were so bright and big and black. He was rather stubborn-spirited with
+his teething; but what baby isn't trying at such times? I had rare work
+with him, I can tell you, Miss, walking him about of nights, and jogging
+him till there wasn't a jog left in me, as you may say, from sleepiness.
+I often wonder if he thinks of this now, when I see him looking so grave
+and stern. But, you see, being jogged doesn't impress the mind like
+having to jog; and though I can bring that time back as plain as if it
+was yesterday, with the very nursery I slept in at Barlingford, and the
+rushlight in a tall iron cage on the floor, and the shadow of the cage on
+the bare whitewashed walls--it's clean gone out of his mind, I dare say."
+
+"I'm afraid it has, Nancy."
+
+"But, O, I was fond of him, Miss Halliday; and what I went through with
+him about his teeth made me only the fonder of him. He was the first baby
+I ever nursed, you see, and the last; for before Master George came to
+town I'd taken to the cooking, and Mrs. Sheldon hired another girl as
+nurse; a regular softy _she_ was, and it isn't her fault that Master
+George has got anything christian-like in the way of a back, for the way
+she carried that blessed child used to make my blood run cold."
+
+Thus would Mrs. Woolper discourse whenever she had a fair excuse for
+detaining Miss Halliday in her comfortable apartment. Charlotte did not
+perceive much interest in these reminiscences of Mr. Sheldon's infancy,
+but she was much too kind to bring them abruptly to a close by any show
+of impatience. When she could get Nancy to talk of Barlingford and Hyley,
+and the people whom Charlotte herself had known as a child, the
+conversation was really interesting; and these recollections formed a
+link between the old woman and the fair young damsel.
+
+When the change arose in Charlotte's health and spirits, Mrs. Woolper was
+one of the first to perceive it. She was skilled in those old woman's
+remedies which Mr. Sheldon held in such supreme contempt, and she would
+fain have dosed the invalid with nauseous decoctions of hops, or
+home-brewed quinine. Charlotte appreciated the kindness of the intent,
+but she rebelled against the home-brewed medicines, and pinned her faith
+to the more scientific and less obnoxious preparations procured from the
+chemist's.
+
+For some time Nancy made light of the girl's ailments, though she watched
+her with unfailing attention.
+
+"You ain't a-done growing yet, miss, I'll lay," she said.
+
+"But I'm more than twenty-one, Nancy. People don't grow after they're of
+age, do they?"
+
+"I've known them as have, miss; I don't say it's common, but it has been
+done. And then there's the weakness that comes after you've done growing.
+Girls of your age are apt to be faint and lollopy-like, as you may say;
+especially when they're stived up in a smoky place like London. You ought
+to go to Hyley, miss, where you was born; that's the place to set you
+up."
+
+The time had come when the change was no longer matter for doubt. Day by
+day Charlotte grew weaker and paler; day by day that bright and joyous
+creature, whose presence had made an atmosphere of youth and gladness
+even in that prim dwelling-place, receded farther into the dimness of
+the past; until to think of what she had been seemed like recalling the
+image of the dead. Nancy marked the alteration with a strange pain, so
+sharp, so bitter, that its sharpness and bitterness were a perpetual
+perplexity to her.
+
+"If the poor dear young thing is meant to go, there's no need for me to
+fret about it all day long, and wake up sudden in the night with cold
+water standing out upon my forehead at the thought of it. I haven't known
+her six months; and if she is pretty and sweet-spoken, it's not my place
+to give way at the thoughts of losing her. She's not my own flesh and
+blood; and I've sat by to watch them go, times and often, without feeling
+as I do when I see the change in her day after day. Why should it seem so
+dreadful to me?"
+
+Why indeed? This was a question for which Mrs. Woolper could find no
+answer. She knew that the pain and horror which she felt were something
+more than natural, but beyond this point her thoughts refused to travel.
+A superstitious feeling arose at this point, to usurp the office of
+reason, and she accounted for the strangeness of Miss Halliday's illness
+as she might have done had she lived in the sixteenth century, and been
+liable to the suspicion of nocturnal careerings on broomsticks.
+
+"I'm sorry Mr. Philip's house should be unlucky to that sweet young
+creature," she said to herself. "It was unlucky to the father; and now it
+seems as if it was going to be unlucky to the daughter. And Mr. Philip
+won't be any richer for her death. Mrs. Sheldon has told me times and
+often that all Tom Halliday's money went to my master when she married
+him, and he has doubled and trebled it by his cleverness. Miss
+Charlotte's death wouldn't bring him a sixpence."
+
+This was the gist of Mrs. Woolper's meditations very often nowadays. But
+the strange sense of perplexity, the nameless fear, the vague horror,
+were not to be banished from her mind. A sense of some shapeless presence
+for ever at her side haunted her by day and night. What was it? What did
+its presence portend? It was as if a figure, shrouded from head to foot,
+was there, dark and terrible, at her elbow, and she would not turn to
+meet the horror face to face. Sometimes the phantom hand lifted a corner
+of the veil, and the shade said, "Look at me! See who and what I am! You
+have seen me before. I am here again! and this time you shall not refuse
+to meet me face to face! I am the shadow of the horror you suspected in
+the past!"
+
+The shadowy fears which oppressed Mrs. Woolper during this period did not
+in any way lessen her practical usefulness. From the commencement of
+Charlotte's slow decline she had shown herself attentive, and even
+officious, in all matters relating to the invalid. With her own hands she
+decanted the famous port which Georgy fetched from the particular bin in
+Mr. Sheldon's carefully arranged cellar. When the physician was called
+in, and wrote his harmless little prescription, it was Mrs. Woolper who
+carried the document to the dispensing chemist, and brought back the
+innocent potion, which might, peradventure, effect some slight good, and
+was too feeble a decoction to do any harm. Charlotte duly appreciated all
+this kindness; but she repeatedly assured the housekeeper that her
+ailments were not worthy of so much care.
+
+It was Mrs. Woolper whom Mr. Sheldon employed to get lodgings for the
+family, when it had been ultimately decided that a change to the seaside
+was the best cure for Miss Halliday.
+
+"I am too busy to go to Hastings myself this week," he said; "but I
+shall be prepared to spend a fortnight there after next Monday. What I
+want you to do, Nancy, is to slip down tomorrow, with a second-class
+return-ticket, and look about for a nice place for us. I don't care about
+being in Hastings; there's too much cockneyism in the place at this time
+of year. There's a little village called Harold's Hill, within a mile or
+so of St. Leonard's--a dull, out-of-the-way place, but rustic and
+picturesque, and all that kind of thing--the sort of place that women
+like. Now, I'd rather stay at that place than at Hastings. So you can
+take a fly at the station, drive straight to Harold's Hill, and secure
+the best lodgings you can get."
+
+"You think as the change of air will do Miss Halliday good?" asked Mrs.
+Woolper anxiously, after she had promised to do all her kind master
+required of her.
+
+"Do I think it will do her good? Of course I do. Sea-air and
+sea-bathing will set her up in no time; there's nothing particular the
+matter with her."
+
+"No, Mr. Philip; that's what bothers me about the whole thing. There's
+nothing particular the matter with her; and yet she pines and dwindles,
+and dwindles and pines, till it makes one's heart ache to see her."
+
+Philip Sheldon's face darkened, and he threw himself back in his chair
+with an impatient movement. If he had chosen to do so, he could have
+prevented that darkening of his face; but he did not consider Mrs.
+Woolper a person of sufficient importance to necessitate the regulation
+of his countenance. What was she but an ignorant, obstinate old woman,
+who would most probably perish in the streets if he chose to turn her out
+of doors? There are men who consider their clerks and retainers such very
+dirt, that they would continue the forging of a bill of exchange, or
+complete the final touches of a murder, with a junior clerk putting coals
+on the fire, or an errand-boy standing cap in hand on the threshold of
+the door. They cannot realize the fact that dirt such as this is flesh
+and blood, and may denounce them by-and-by in a witness-box.
+
+Of all contingencies Mr. Sheldon least expected that this old woman could
+prove troublesome to him--this abject wretch, whose daily bread depended
+on his will. He could not imagine that there are circumstances under
+which such abject creatures will renounce their daily bread, and die of
+hunger, rather than accept the means of life from one hateful hand.
+
+"If you want to know anything about Miss Halliday's illness," he said in
+his hardest voice, and with his hardest look, "you had better apply to
+Dr. Doddleson, the physician who has prescribed for her. I do not attend
+her, you see, and I am in no way responsible for her health. When I was
+attending her father you favoured me by doubting my skill, if I judged
+rightly as to your tone and manner on one occasion. I don't want to be
+brought to book by you, Mrs. Woolper, about Miss Halliday's altered looks
+or Miss Halliday's illness; I have nothing to do with either."
+
+"How should I think you had, sir? Don't be angry with me, or hard upon
+me, Mr. Phil. I nursed you when you was but a baby, and you're nearer and
+dearer to me than any other master could be. Why, I have but to shut my
+eyes now, and I can feel your little hand upon my neck, as it used to lie
+there, so soft and dear. And then I look down at the hand on the table,
+strong and dark, and clenched so firm, and I ask myself, Can it be the
+same? For the sake of that time, Mr. Phil, don't be hard upon me. There's
+nothing I wouldn't do to serve you; there's nothing you could do that
+would turn me from you. There's no man living in this world, sir, that
+oughtn't to be glad to know of one person that nothing can turn from
+him."
+
+"That's a very fine sentiment, my good soul," replied Mr. Sheldon coolly;
+"but, you see, it's only an _ex parte_ statement; and as the case stands
+there is no opportunity for the display of those fine feelings you talk
+about. You happen to want a home in your old age, and I happen to be able
+to give you a home. Under such circumstances, your own good sense will
+show you that all sentimental talk about standing by me, and not turning
+away from me, is absolute bosh."
+
+The old woman sighed heavily. She had offered her master a fidelity which
+involved the abnegation of all impulses of her own heart and mind, and he
+rejected her love and her service. And then, after the first dreary sense
+of his coldness, she felt better pleased that it should be so. The man
+who spoke to her in this harsh uncompromising way could have no cause to
+fear her. In the mind of such a man there could surely be no secret
+chamber within which she had, with his knowledge, almost penetrated.
+
+"I won't trouble you any more, sir," she said mournfully. "I dare say I'm
+a foolish old woman."
+
+"You are, Nancy. We don't get wiser as we grow older, you see; and when
+we let our tongues wag, we're apt to talk nonsense. The quieter you keep
+your tongue, the better for yourself, in more ways than one. To a useful
+old woman about the place I've no objection; but a chattering old woman I
+will not have at any price."
+
+After this everything was settled in the most agreeable manner. Nancy
+Woolper's journey to Hastings was fully arranged; and early the next
+morning she started, brisk and active, in spite of her sixty-eight years
+of age. She returned at night, having secured very pleasant lodgings at
+the village of Harold's Hill.
+
+"And a very sweet place it is, my dear Miss Lotta," she said to Charlotte
+the next day, when she described her adventures. "The apartments are at a
+farmhouse overlooking the sea; and the smell of the cows under your
+windows, and the sea-breezes blowing across the farmyard, can't fail to
+bring the colour back to your pretty cheeks, and the brightness back to
+your pretty eyes."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+VALENTINE'S SKELETON.
+
+The idea of this visit to the Sussex village by the sea seemed delightful
+to every one except Gustave Lenoble, who was still in town, and who
+thought it a hard thing that he should be deprived of Diana's society
+during an entire fortnight, for the sake of this sickly Miss Halliday.
+
+For the rest, there was hope and gladness in the thought of this change
+of dwelling. Charlotte languished for fresher breezes and more rustic
+prospects than the breezes and prospects of Bayswater; Diana looked to
+the sea-air as the doctor of doctors for her fading friend; and Valentine
+cherished the same hope.
+
+On Valentine Hawkehurst the burden of an unlooked-for sorrow had weighed
+very heavily. To see this dear girl, who was the beginning, middle, and
+end of all his hopes, slowly fading before his eyes, was, of all agonies
+that could have fallen to his lot, the sharpest and most bitter. Not
+Ugolino sitting silent amidst his famishing children--not Helen, when she
+would fain that the tempest had swept her from earth's surface on that
+evil day when she was born--not Penelope, when she cried on Diana, the
+high-priestess of death, to release her from the weariness of her
+days--not Agamemnon, when the fatal edict had gone forth, and his fair
+young daughter looked into his face, and asked him if it was true that
+she was to die--not one of these typical mourners could have suffered a
+keener torture than that which rent this young man's heart, as he marked
+the stealthy steps of the Destroyer drawing nearer and nearer the woman
+he loved. Of all possible calamities, this was the last he had ever
+contemplated. Sometimes, in moments of doubt or despondency, he had
+thought it possible that poverty, the advice of friends, caprice or
+inconstancy on the part of Charlotte herself, should sever them. But
+among the possible enemies to his happiness he had never counted Death.
+What had Death to do with so fair and happy a creature as Charlotte
+Halliday? she who, until some two months before this time, might have
+been the divine Hygieia in person--so fresh was her youthful bloom, so
+buoyant her step, so bright her glances. Valentine's hardest penance was
+the necessity for the concealment of his anxiety. The idea that
+Charlotte's illness might be--nay, must be--for the greater part an
+affair of the nerves was always paramount in his mind. He and Diana had
+talked of the subject together whenever they found an opportunity for so
+doing, and had comforted themselves with the assurance that the nerves
+alone were to blame; and they were the more inclined to think this from
+the conduct of Dr. Doddleson, on that physician's visits to Miss
+Halliday. Mrs. Sheldon had been present on each occasion, and to Mrs.
+Sheldon alone had the physician given utterance to his opinion of the
+case. That opinion, though expressed with a certain amount of
+professional dignity, amounted to very little. "Our dear young friend
+wanted strength; and what we had to do was to give our dear young friend
+strength--vital power. Yes--er--um, that was the chief point. And what
+kind of diet might our dear young friend take now? Was it a light diet, a
+little roast mutton--not too much done, but not underdone? O dear, no.
+And a light pudding? what he would call--if he might be permitted to have
+his little joke--a nursery pudding." And then the old gentleman had
+indulged in a senile chuckle, and patted Charlotte's head with his fat
+old fingers. "And our dear young friend's room, now, was it a large
+room?--good! and what was the aspect now, south?--good again! nothing
+better, unless, perhaps, south-west; but, of course, everyone's
+rooms can't look south-west. A little tonic draught, and gentle daily
+exercise in that nice garden, will set our dear young friend right again.
+Our temperament is nervous we are a sensitive plant, and want care." And
+then the respectable septuagenarian took his fee, and shuffled off to his
+carriage. And this was all that Mrs. Sheldon could tell Diana, or Nancy
+Woolper, both of whom questioned her closely about her interview with the
+doctor. To Diana and to Valentine there was hope to be gathered from the
+very vagueness of the physician's opinion. If there had been anything
+serious the matter, the medical adviser must needs have spoken more
+seriously. He came again and again. He found the pulse a little weaker,
+the patient a little more nervous, with a slight tendency to hysteria,
+and so on; but he still declared that there were no traces of organic
+disease, and he still talked of Miss Halliday's ailments with a cheery
+easy-going manner that was very reassuring.
+
+In his moments of depression Valentine pinned his faith upon Dr.
+Doddleson. Without organic disease, he told himself, his darling could
+not perish. He looked for Dr. Doddleson's name in the Directory, and took
+comfort from the fact of that physician's residence in a fashionable West
+End square. He took further comfort from the splendour of the doctor's
+equipage, as depicted to him by Mrs. Sheldon; and from the doctor's age
+and experience, as copiously described by the same lady.
+
+"There is only one fact that I have ever reproached myself with in
+relation to my poor Tom," said Georgy, who, in talking to strangers of
+her first husband, was apt to impress them with the idea that she was
+talking of a favourite cat; "and that is, the youthfulness of the
+doctor Mr. Sheldon employed. Of course I am well aware that Mr. Sheldon
+would not have consulted the young man if he had not thought him
+clever; but I could lay my head upon my pillow at night with a clearer
+conscience if poor Tom's doctor had been an older and more experienced
+person. Now, that's what I like about Dr. Doddleson. There's a gravity--a
+weight--about a man of that age which inspires one with immediate
+confidence. I'm sure the serious manner with which he questioned me about
+Lotta's diet, and the aspect of her room, was quite delightful."
+
+In Dr. Doddleson, under Providence, Valentine was fain to put his trust.
+He did not know that the worthy doctor was one of those harmless
+inanities who, by the aid of money and powerful connections, are
+sometimes forced into a position which nature never intended them to
+occupy. Among the real working men of that great and admirable
+brotherhood, the medical profession, Dr. Doddleson had no rank; but he
+was the pet physician of fashionable dowagers suffering from chronic
+laziness or periodical attacks of ill-humour. For the spleen or the
+vapours no one was a better adviser than Dr. Doddleson. He could afford
+to waste half an hour upon the asking of questions which the fair
+patient's maid might as well have asked, and the suggestions of remedies
+which any intelligent abigail could as easily have suggested. Elderly
+ladies believed in him because he was pompous and ponderous, lived in an
+expensive neighbourhood, and drove a handsome equipage. He wore
+mourning-rings left him by patients who never had anything particular the
+matter with them, and who, dying of sheer old age, or sheer over-eating,
+declared with their final gasp that Dr. Doddleson had been the guardian
+angel of their frail lives during the last twenty years.
+
+This was the man who, of all the medical profession resident in London,
+Mr. Sheldon had selected as his stepdaughter's medical adviser in a case
+so beyond common experience, that a man of wide practice and keen
+perception was especially needed for its treatment.
+
+Dr. Doddleson, accustomed to attribute the fancied ailments of
+fashionable dowagers to want of tone, and accustomed to prescribe the
+mildest preparations with satisfaction to his patients and profit to
+himself dwelt upon the same want of tone, and prescribed the same
+harmless remedies, in his treatment of Charlotte Halliday. When he found
+her no better--nay, even worse--after some weeks of this treatment, he
+was puzzled; and for one harmless remedy he substituted another harmless
+remedy, and waited another week to see what effect the second harmless
+remedy might have on this somewhat obstinate young person.
+
+And this was the broken reed to which Valentine clung in the day of
+his trouble.
+
+Bitter were his days and sleepless were his nights in this dark period of
+his existence. He went to the Bayswater villa nearly every day now. It
+was no longer time for etiquette or ceremony. His darling was fading day
+by day; and it was his right to watch the slow sad change, and, if it
+were possible, to keep the enemy at arm's-length. Every day he came to
+spend one too brief hour with his dear love; every day he greeted her
+with the same fond smile, and beguiled her with the same hopeful talk. He
+brought her new books and flowers, and any foolish trifle which he
+fancied might beguile her thoughts from the contemplation of that
+mysterious malady which seemed beyond the reach of science and Dr.
+Doddleson. He sat and talked with her of the future--that future which in
+their secret thoughts both held to be a sweet sad fable--the hyperborean
+garden of their dreams. And after spending this too sweet, too bitter
+hour with his beloved, Mr. Hawkehurst would diplomatise in order to have
+a little talk with Diana as he left the house. Did Diana think his dear
+girl better to-day, or worse--surely not worse? He had fancied she had
+more colour, more of her old gaiety of manner. She had seemed a little
+feverish; but that might be the excitement of his visit. And so on, and
+so on, with sad and dreary repetition.
+
+And then, having gone away from that house with an aching heart, the
+young magazine-writer went back to his lodgings, and plunged into the
+dashing essay or the smart pleasant story which was to constitute his
+monthly contribution to the _Cheapside_ or the _Charing Cross_. Gaiety,
+movement, rollicking, Harry Lorrequer-like spirits were demanded for the
+_Cheapside_; a graceful union of brilliancy and depth was required for
+the _Charing Cross_. And, O, be sure the critics lay in wait to catch the
+young scribbler tripping! An anachronism here, a secondhand idea there,
+and the _West End Wasp_ shrieked its war-whoop in an occasional note; or
+the _Minerva_ published a letter from a correspondent in the Scilly
+Islands, headed "Another Literary Jack Sheppard," to say that in his
+"Imperial Dictionary" he had discovered with profound indignation a whole
+column of words feloniously and mendaciously appropriated by the writer
+of such and such an article in the _Cheapside_. While the sunlight of
+hope had shone upon him, Mr. Hawkehurst had found the hardest work
+pleasant. Was he not working for _her_ sake? Did not his future union
+with that dear girl depend upon his present industry? It had seemed to
+him as if she stood at his elbow while he wrote, as Pallas stood beside
+Achilles at the council, invisible to all but her favourite. It was that
+mystic presence which lent swiftness to his pen. When he was tired and
+depressed, the thought of Charlotte had revived his courage and
+vanquished his fatigue. Pleasant images crowded upon him when he thought
+of her. What could be easier than for him to write a love-story? He had
+but to create a shadowy Charlotte for his heroine, and the stream of
+foolish lover's babble flowed from his pen perennial and inexhaustible.
+To his reading she lent a charm and a grace that made the most perfect
+poetry still more poetical. It was not Achilles and Helen who met on
+Mount Ida, but Valentine and Charlotte; it was not Paolo and Francesca
+who read the fatal book together, but Valentine and Charlotte, in an
+unregenerate and mediæval state of mind. The mere coincidence of a name
+made the "Sorrows of Werter" delightful. The all-pervading presence was
+everywhere and in everything. His religion was not Pantheism, but
+Charlottism.
+
+Now all was changed. A brooding care was with him in every moment. The
+mystic presence was still close to him in every hour of his lonely days
+and nights; but that image, which had been fair and blooming as the
+incarnation of youth and spring-time, was now a pale shrouded phantom
+which he dared not contemplate. He still wrote on--for it is marvellous
+how the pen will travel and the mind will project itself into the
+shadow-world of fancy while cankerous care gnaws the weary heart. Nay, it
+is perhaps at these times that the imagination is most active; for the
+world of shadows is a kind of refuge for the mind that dare not dwell
+upon realities. Who can say what dull, leaden, care may have weighed down
+the heart of William Shakespeare when his mind conceived that monster of
+a poet's grand imaginings, Othello! There is the flavour of racking care
+in that mighty creation. The strong soul wantonly tortured by a sordid
+wretch; the noble spirit distraught, the honourable life wrecked for so
+poor a motive; that sense of the "something in this world amiss," which
+the poet, of all other creatures, feels most keenly.
+
+With grief and fear as his constant companions, Valentine Hawkehurst
+toiled on bravely, patiently. Hope had not deserted him; but between hope
+and fear the contest was unceasing. Sometimes hope had the best of it for
+a while, and the toiler comforted himself with the thought that this dark
+cloud would pass anon from the horizon of his life; and then he counted
+his gains, and found that the fruit of his labours was increasing
+monthly, as his name gained rank among the band of young _littérateurs_.
+The day when he might count upon that income which Mr. Sheldon demanded
+as his qualification for matrimony did not appear far distant. Given a
+certain amount of natural ability, and the industrious and indefatigable
+young writer may speedily emerge from obscurity, and take his place in
+the great army of those gallant soldiers whose only weapon is the pen.
+Whatever good fortune had come to Valentine Hawkehurst he had worked for
+with all honesty of purpose. The critics were not slow to remark that he
+worked at a white-hot haste, and must needs be a shallow pretender
+because he was laborious and indefatigable.
+
+Before the beginning of Charlotte's slow decline he had fancied himself
+the happiest of men. There were more deposit-receipts in his desk. The
+nest-egg, about the hatching whereof there had been such cackling and
+crowing some months ago, was now one of many eggs; for the hard-working
+scribbler had no leisure in which to be extravagant, had he been so
+minded. The purchase of a half-circlet of diamonds for his betrothed's
+slim finger had been his only folly.
+
+Charlotte had remonstrated with him on the impropriety of such an
+extravagance, and had exacted from him a promise that this wild and
+Monte-Christo-like course should be pursued no further; but she was very
+proud of her half-hoop of diamonds nevertheless, and was wont to press it
+tenderly to her lips before she laid it aside for the night.
+
+"There must be no more such extravagance, sir," she said to her lover,
+when he sat by her side twisting the ring round and round on her pretty
+finger. Alas, how loose the ring had become since it had first been
+placed there!
+
+"Consider the future, Valentine," continued the girl, hopeful of mood
+while her hand rested in his. "Do you suppose we can furnish our cottage
+at Wimbledon if we rush into such wild expenses as diamond rings? Do you
+know that _I_ am saving money, Valentine? Yes, positively. Papa gives me
+a very good allowance for my dresses, and bonnets, and things, you know,
+and I used to be extravagant and spend it all. But now I have become the
+most miserly creature; and I have a little packet of money upstairs which
+you shall put in the Unitas Bank with the rest of your wealth. Diana and
+I have been darning, and patching, and cutting, and contriving, in the
+most praiseworthy manner. Even this silk has been turned. You did not
+think that, did you, when you admired it so?"
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst looked at his beloved with a tender smile. The exact
+significance of the operation of turning, as applied to silk dresses, was
+somewhat beyond his comprehension; but he felt sure that to turn must be
+a laudable action, else why that air of pride with which Charlotte
+informed him of the fact?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+AT HAROLD'S HILL.
+
+The summer sun shone upon the village of Harold's Hill when Charlotte
+arrived there with Mrs. Sheldon and Diana Paget. Mr. Sheldon was to
+follow them on the same day by a later train; and Valentine was to come
+two days afterwards to spend the peaceful interval between Saturday and
+Monday with his betrothed. He had seen the travellers depart from the
+London Bridge terminus, but Mr. Sheldon had been there also, and there
+had been no opportunity for confidential communication between the
+lovers.
+
+Of all Sussex villages Harold's Hill is perhaps the prettiest. The grey
+old Saxon church, the scattered farmhouses and pleasant rustic cottages,
+are built on the slope of a hill, and all the width of ocean lies below
+the rustic windows. The roses and fuchsias of the cottage gardens seem
+all the brighter by contrast with that broad expanse of blue. The fresh
+breath of the salt sea blends with the perfume of new-mown hay and all
+the homely odours of the farmyard. The lark sings high in the blue vault
+of heaven above the church, and over the blue of the sea the gull skims
+white in the sunshine. The fisherman and the farm labourer have their
+cottages side by side, nestling cosily to leeward of the hilly winding
+road.
+
+This hilly winding road in the July afternoon seemed to Charlotte almost
+like the way to Paradise.
+
+"It is like going to heaven, Di!" she cried, with her eyes fixed on the
+square tower of the old grey church. She wondered why sudden tears sprang
+to Diana's eyes as she said this. Miss Paget brushed the unbidden tears
+away with a quick gesture of her hand, and smiled at her friend.
+
+"Yes, dear, the village is very pretty, isn't it?"
+
+"It looks awfully dull!" said Mrs. Sheldon, with a shudder; "and, Diana,
+I declare there isn't a single shop. Where are we to get our provisions?
+I told Mr. Sheldon St. Leonards would have been a better place for us."
+
+"O mamma, St. Leonards is the very essence of all that is tame and
+commonplace, compared to this darling rural village! Look, do look, at
+that fisherman's cottage, with the nets hanging out to dry in the
+sunshine; just like a picture of Hook's!"
+
+"What's the use of going on about fishermen's cottages, Lotta?" Mrs.
+Sheldon demanded, peevishly. "Fishermen's cottages won't provide us with
+butcher's meat. Where are we to get your little bit of roast mutton? Dr.
+Doddleson laid such a stress upon the roast mutton."
+
+"The sea-air will do me more good than all the mutton that ever was
+roasted at Eton, mamma. O, dear, is this our farmhouse?" cried Charlotte,
+as the vehicle drew up at a picturesque gate. "O, what a love of a house!
+what diamond-paned windows! what sweet white curtains! and a cow staring
+at me quite in the friendliest way across the gate! O, can we be so happy
+as to live here?"
+
+"Diana," cried Mrs. Sheldon, in a solemn voice, "not a single shop have
+we passed--not so much as a post-office! And as to haberdashery, I'm sure
+you might be reduced to rags in this place before you could get so much
+as a yard of glazed lining!"
+
+The farmhouse was one of those ideal homesteads which, to the dweller in
+cities, seems fair as the sapphire-ceiled chambers of the house of
+Solomon. Charlotte was enraptured by the idea that this was to be her
+home for the next fortnight.
+
+"I wish it could be for ever, Di," she said, as the two girls were
+inspecting the rustic, dimity-draperied, lavender-and-rose-leaf-perfumed
+bedchambers. "Who would wish to go back to prim suburban Bayswater after
+this? Valentine and I could lodge here after our marriage. It is better
+than Wimbledon. Grand thoughts would come to him with the thunder of the
+stormy waves; and on calm bright days like this the rippling water would
+whisper pretty fancies into his ear. Why, to live here would make any one
+a poet. I think I could write a novel myself, if I lived here long
+enough."
+
+After this they arranged the pretty sitting-room, and placed an
+easy-chair by the window for Charlotte, an arm-chair opposite this for
+Mrs. Sheldon, and between the two a little table for the fancy work and
+books and flowers, and all the small necessities of feminine existence.
+And then--while Mrs. Sheldon prowled about the rooms, and discovered so
+many faults and made so many objections as to give evidence of a fine
+faculty for invention unsuspected in her hitherto--Charlotte and Diana
+explored the garden and peeped at the farmyard, where the friendly cow
+still stared over the white gate, just as she had stared when the fly
+came to a stop, as if she had not yet recovered from the astonishment
+created in her pastoral mind by that phenomenal circumstance. And then
+Charlotte was suddenly tired, and there came upon her that strange
+dizziness which was one of her most frequent symptoms. Diana led her
+immediately back to the house, and established her comfortably in her
+easy-chair.
+
+"I must be very ill," she said, plaintively; "for even the novelty of
+this pretty place cannot make me happy long."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Sheldon arrived in the evening, bringing with him a supply of that
+simple medicine which Charlotte took three times a day. He had remembered
+that there was no dispensing chemist at Harold's Hill, and that it would
+be necessary to send to St. Leonards for the medicine, and had therefore
+brought with him a double quantity of the mild tonic.
+
+"It was very kind of you to think of it, though I really don't believe
+the stuff does me any good," said Charlotte. "Nancy Woolper used to get
+it for me at Bayswater. She made quite a point of fetching it from the
+chemist's herself."
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon. "Nancy troubled herself about your
+medicine, did she?"
+
+"Yes, papa; and about me altogether. If I were her own daughter she could
+scarcely have seemed more anxious."
+
+The stockbroker made a mental note of this in the memorandum-book of his
+brain. Mrs. Woolper was officious, was she, and suspicious?--altogether a
+troublesome sort of person.
+
+"I think a few weeks of workhouse fare would be wholesome for that old
+lady," he said to himself. "There are some people who never know when
+they are well off."
+
+Saturday afternoon came in due course, after a long and dreary interval,
+as it seemed to Charlotte, for whom time travelled very slowly, so
+painful was the weariness of illness. Now and then a sudden flash of
+excitement brought the old brightness to her face, the old gaiety to her
+accents; but the brightness faded very soon, and the languor of illness
+was very perceptible.
+
+Punctual to the hour at which he was expected, Mr. Hawkehurst appeared,
+in radiant spirits, laden with new magazines, delighted with the village,
+enraptured with the garden, enchanted with the sea; full of talk and
+animation, with all sorts of news to tell his beloved. Such and such a
+book was a failure, such and such a comedy was a fiasco; Jones's novel
+had made a hit; Brown's picture was the talk of the year; and Charlotte
+must see the picture that had been talked about, and the play that had
+been condemned, when she returned to town.
+
+For an hour the lovers sat in the pretty farmhouse parlour talking
+together thus, the summer sea and the garden flowers before them, and a
+bird singing high in the calm blue heaven. Charlotte's talk was somewhat
+languid, though it was perfect happiness for her to be seated thus, with
+her betrothed by her side; but Valentine's gaiety of spirits never
+flagged; and when Mrs. Sheldon hinted to him that too long a conversation
+might fatigue the dear invalid, he left the parlour with a smile upon his
+face, and a cheery promise to return after an hour's ramble.
+
+He did not ramble far. He went straight to a little wooden summer-house
+in the remotest corner of the humble garden; and thither Diana Paget
+followed him. She had learned the language of his face in the time of
+their daily companionship, and she had seen a look as he left the house
+which told her of the struggle his cheerfulness had cost him.
+
+"You must not be downhearted, Valentine," she said, as she went into the
+summer-house, where he sat in a listless attitude, with his arms lying
+loosely folded on the rustic table.
+
+He did not answer her.
+
+"You don't think her worse--much worse--do you, Valentine?"
+
+"Worse? I have seen death in her face to-day!" he cried; and then he let
+his forehead fall upon his folded arms, and sobbed aloud.
+
+Diana stood by his side watching that outburst of grief. When the
+passionate storm of tears was past, she comforted him as best she might.
+The change so visible to him was not so plain to her. He had hoped that
+the breath of the ocean would have magical power to restore the invalid.
+He had come to Harold's Hill full of hope, and instead of the beginning
+of an improvement he saw the progress of decay.
+
+"Why did not Sheldon send for the doctor," he asked, indignantly,--"the
+physician who has attended her? He might have telegraphed to that man."
+
+"Charlotte is taking Dr. Doddleson's medicine," said Diana, "and all his
+directions are most carefully obeyed."
+
+"What of that, if she grows worse? The doctor should see her daily,
+hourly, if necessary. And if he cannot cure her, another doctor should be
+sent for. Good heavens, Diana! are we to let her fade and sink from us
+before our eyes? I will go back to London at once, and bring that man
+Doddleson down by the night mail."
+
+"Your going back to London would grieve and alarm Charlotte. You can
+telegraph for the doctor; or, at least, Mr. Sheldon can do so. It would
+not do for you to interfere without his permission."
+
+"It would not do!" echoed Valentine, angrily. "Do you think that I
+am going to stand upon punctilio, or to consider what will do or
+will not do?"
+
+"Above all things, you must avoid alarming Charlotte," pleaded Diana.
+
+"Do you think I do not know that? Do you think I did not feel that just
+now, when I sat by her side, talking inane rubbish about books and plays
+and pictures, while every stolen glance at my darling's face was like a
+dagger thrust into my heart? I will not alarm her. I will consult Mr.
+Sheldon--will do anything, everything, to save her! To save her! O my
+God, has it come to that?"
+
+He grew a little calmer presently under Diana's influence, and went
+slowly back to the house. He avoided the open window by which Charlotte
+was sitting. He had not yet schooled himself to meet her questioning
+looks. He went to the room where they were to dine, a duller and darker
+apartment than the parlour, and here he found Mr. Sheldon reading a
+paper, one of the eternal records of the eternal money-market.
+
+The stockbroker had been in and out of the house all day, now sauntering
+by the sea-shore, now leaning moodily, with folded arms, on the garden
+gate, meditative and silent as the cow that stared at Charlotte; now
+pacing the garden walks, with his hands in his pockets and his head bent.
+Diana, who in her anxiety kept a close watch upon Mr. Sheldon's
+movements, had noted his restlessness, and perceived in it the sign of
+growing anxiety on his part. She knew that he had once called himself
+surgeon-dentist, and had some medical knowledge, if not so much as he
+took credit for possessing. He must, therefore, be better able to judge
+the state of Charlotte's health than utterly ignorant observers. If he
+were uneasy, there must be real cause for uneasiness. It was on this
+account, and on this account only, that Diana watched him.
+
+"He must love her better than I gave him credit for being able to love
+any one," Miss Paget said to herself. "Dear girl! The coldest heart is
+touched by her sweetness."
+
+Mr. Sheldon looked up from his newspaper as Valentine came into the room,
+and saluted the visitor with a friendly nod.
+
+"Glad to see you, Hawkehurst," he said. "_Semper fidelis_, and that
+kind of thing; the very model of devoted lovers. Why, man alive, how
+glum you look!"
+
+"I think I have reason to look glum," answered Valentine, gravely; "I
+have seen Charlotte."
+
+"Yes? And don't you find her improving?--gradually, of course. That
+constitutional languor is not shaken off in a hurry. But surely you think
+her improving--brightening--"
+
+"Brightening with the light that never shone on earth or sea. God help
+me! I--I--am the merest child, the veriest coward, the--" He made a great
+effort, and stifled the sob that had well-nigh broken his voice. "Mr.
+Sheldon," he continued quietly, "I believe your stepdaughter is dying."
+
+"Dying! Good heavens!--my dear Hawkehurst, this alarm is most--most
+premature. There is no cause for fear--at present, no cause--I give you
+my word as a medical man."
+
+"No cause for alarm at present? That means my darling will not be taken
+from me to-night, or to-morrow. I shall have a few days breathing-time.
+Yes, I understand. The doom is upon us. I saw the shadow of death upon
+her face to-day."
+
+"My dear Hawkehurst--"
+
+"My dear Sheldon, for pity's sake don't treat me as if I were a woman or
+a child. Let me know my fate. If--if--this, the worst, most bitter of all
+calamities God's hand--raised against me in punishment of past sins,
+sinned lightly and recklessly, in the days when my heart had no stake in
+the game of destiny--can inflict upon me; if this deadly sorrow is
+bearing down upon me, let me meet it like a man. Let me die with my eyes
+uncovered. O, my dearest, my fondest, redeeming angel of my ill-spent
+life! have you been only a supernal visitant, after all, shining on me
+for a little while, to depart when your mission of redemption is
+accomplished?"
+
+"Powers above!" thought Mr. Sheldon, "what nonsense these sentimental
+magazine-writers can talk!"
+
+He was in nowise melted by the lover's anguish, though it was very real.
+Such a grief as this was outside the circle in which his thoughts
+revolved. This display of grief was unpleasant to him. It grated
+painfully upon his nerves, as some of poor Tom Halliday's little speeches
+had done of old, when the honest-hearted Yorkshireman lay on his
+deathbed; and the young man's presence and the young man's anxiety were
+alike inconvenient.
+
+"Tell me the truth, Mr. Sheldon," Valentine said presently, with
+suppressed intensity. "Is there any hope for my darling, any hope?"
+
+Mr. Sheldon considered for some moments before he replied to this
+question. He pursed-up his lips and bent his brows with the same air of
+business-like deliberation that he might have assumed while weighing the
+relative merits of the first and second debenture bonds of some doubtful
+railway company.
+
+"You ask me a trying question, Hawkehurst," he said at last. "If you ask
+me plainly whether I like the turn which Charlotte's illness has taken
+within the last few weeks, I must tell you frankly, I do not. There is a
+persistent want of tone--a visible decay of vital power--which, I must
+confess, has caused me some uneasiness. You see, the fact is, there is a
+radical weakness of constitution--as Miss Paget, a very sensible girl and
+acute observer--herself has remarked, indeed a hereditary weakness; and
+against this medicine is sometimes unavailing. You need apprehend no
+neglect on my part, Hawkehurst; all that can possibly be done is being
+done. Dr. Doddleson's instructions are carefully obeyed, and--"
+
+"Is this Dr. Doddleson competent to grapple with the case?" asked
+Valentine; "I never heard of him as a great man."
+
+"That fact proves how little you know of the medical profession."
+
+"I know nothing of it; I have had no need for doctors in my life. And you
+think this Dr. Doddleson really clever?"
+
+"His position is a sufficient answer to that question."
+
+"Will you let me telegraph for him--this afternoon--immediately?"
+
+"You cannot telegraph from this place."
+
+"No, but from St. Leonards I can. Do you think I am afraid of a
+five-mile walk?"
+
+"But why send for Dr. Doddleson? The treatment he prescribed is the
+treatment we are now following to the letter. To summon him down here
+would be the merest folly. Our poor Charlotte's illness is, so far, free
+from all alarming symptoms."
+
+"You do not see the change in her that I can see," cried Valentine
+piteously. "For mercy's sake, Mr. Sheldon, let me have my way in this. I
+cannot stand by and see my dear one fading and do nothing--nothing to
+save her. Let me send for this man. Let me see him myself, and hear what
+he says. You can have no objection to his coming, since he is the man you
+have chosen for Charlotte's adviser? It can only be a question of
+expense. Let this particular visit be my affair."
+
+"I can afford to pay for my stepdaughter's medical attendance without any
+help from your purse, Mr. Hawkehurst," said the stockbroker with offended
+pride. "There is one element in the case which you appear to ignore."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"The alarm which this summoning of a doctor from London must cause in
+Charlotte's mind."
+
+"It need cause no alarm. She can be told that Dr. Doddleson has come to
+this part of the world for a Sunday's change of air. The visit can appear
+to be made _en passant._ It will be easy to arrange that with the doctor
+before he sees her."
+
+"As you please, Mr. Hawkehurst," the stockbroker replied coldly. "I
+consider such a visit to the last degree unnecessary; but if Dr.
+Doddleson's coming can give you any satisfaction, by all means let him
+come. The expense involved in summoning him is of the smallest
+consideration to me. My position with regard to my wife's daughter is one
+of extreme responsibility, and I am ready to perform all the obligations
+of that position."
+
+"You are very good: your conduct in relation to Charlotte and myself has
+been beyond all praise. It is quite possible that I am over-anxious; but
+there was a look in that dear face--no--I cannot forget that look; it
+struck terror to my heart. I will go at once to St. Leonards. I can tell
+Charlotte that I am obliged to telegraph to the printer about my copy.
+You will not object to that white lie?"
+
+"Not at all. I think it essential that Charlotte should not be alarmed.
+You had better stop to dine; there will be time for the telegram after
+dinner."
+
+"I will not risk that," answered Valentine. "I cannot eat or drink till I
+have done something to lessen this wretched anxiety."
+
+He went back to the room where Charlotte was sitting by the open window,
+through which there came the murmur of waves, the humming of drowsy bees,
+the singing of birds, all the happy voices of happy nature in a
+harmonious chorus.
+
+"O God, wilt thou take her away from such a beautiful world," he asked,
+"and change all the glory of earth to darkness and desolation for me?"
+
+His heart rebelled against the idea of her death. To save her, to win her
+back to himself from the jaws of death, he was ready to promise anything,
+to do anything.
+
+"All my days will I give to Thy service, if Thou wilt spare her to me,"
+in his heart he said to his God. "If Thou dost not, I will be an infidel
+and a pagan--the vilest and most audacious of sinners. Better to serve
+Lucifer than the God who could so afflict me."
+
+And this is where the semi-enlightened Christian betrays the weakness of
+his faith. While the sun shines, and the sweet gospel story reads to him
+like some tender Arcadian idyl, all love and promise, he is firm in his
+allegiance; but when the dark hour comes, he turns his face to the wall,
+with anger and disappointment in his heart, and will have no further
+commune with the God who has chastised him. His faith is the faith of the
+grateful leper, who, being healed, was eager to return and bless his
+divine benefactor. It is not the faith of Abraham or of Job, of Paul or
+of Stephen.
+
+Valentine told his story about the printers and the copy for the
+_Cheapside_ magazine, about which there had arisen some absurd mistake,
+only to be set right by a telegram.
+
+It was not a very clear account; but Charlotte did not perceive the
+vagueness of the story; she thought only of the one fact, that Valentine
+must leave her for some hours.
+
+"The evening will seem so long without you," she said. "That is the worst
+part of my illness; the time is so long--so weary. Diana is the dearest
+and kindest of friends. She is always trying to amuse me, and reads to me
+for hours, though I know she must often be tired of reading aloud so
+long. But even the books I was once so fond of do not amuse me. The words
+seem to float indistinctly in my brain, and all sorts of strange images
+mix themselves up with the images of the people in the book. Di has been
+reading "The Bride of Lammermoor" all this morning; but the pain and
+weariness I feel seemed to be entangled with Lucy and Edgar somehow, and
+the dear book gave me no pleasure."
+
+"My darling, you--you are too weak to listen to Diana's reading. It is
+very kind of her to try to amuse you; but--but it would be better for you
+to rest altogether. Any kind of mental exertion may help to retard your
+recovery."
+
+He had placed himself behind her chair, and was bending over the pillows
+to speak to her. Just now he felt himself unequal to the command of his
+countenance. He bent his head until his lips touched the soft brown hair,
+and kissed those loose soft tresses passionately. The thought occurred to
+him that a day might come when he should again kiss that soft brown hair,
+with a deeper passion, with a sharper pain, and when Charlotte would not
+know of his kisses, or pity his pain.
+
+"O Valentine!" cried Charlotte, "you are crying; I can see your face in
+the glass."
+
+He had forgotten the glass; the little rococo mirror, with an eagle
+hovering over the top of the frame, which hung above the old-fashioned
+chiffonier.
+
+"I am not so very ill, dear; I am not indeed," the girl continued,
+turning in her chair with an effort, and clasping her lover's hands; "you
+must not distress yourself like this, Valentine--dear Valentine! I shall
+be better by-and-by. I cannot think that I shall be taken from you."
+
+He had broken down altogether by this time. He buried his face in the
+pillows, and contrived to stifle the sobs that would come; and then,
+after a sharp struggle, he lifted his face, and bent over the chair once
+more to kiss the invalid's pale upturned forehead.
+
+"My dear one, you shall not, if love can guard and keep you. No, dear,
+I _cannot_ believe that God will take you from me. Heaven may be your
+fittest habitation; but such sweet spirits as yours are sorely needed
+upon earth. I will be brave, dearest one; brave and hopeful in the
+mercy of Heaven. And now I must go and telegraph to my tiresome
+printer. _Au revoir_!"
+
+He hurried away from the farmhouse, and started at a rattling pace along
+the pleasant road, with green waving corn on his left, and broad blue
+ocean on his right.
+
+"I can get a fly to bring me back from St. Leonard's" he thought; "I
+should only lose time by hunting for a vehicle here."
+
+He was at St. Leonards station within an hour after leaving the farm.
+He despatched the message in Mr. Sheldon's name, and took care to make
+it urgent.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+DESPERATE MEASURES.
+
+Fitful and feverish were the slumbers which visited Mr. Hawkehurst on
+that balmy summer's night. His waking hours were anxious and unhappy; but
+his sleeping hours were still more painful. To sleep was to be the
+feverish fool of vague wild visions, in which Charlotte and Dr.
+Doddleson, the editor of the _Cheapside_, the officials of the British
+Museum reading-room, Diana Paget, and the Sheldons, figured amidst
+inextricable confusion of circumstances and places. Throughout these
+wretched dreams he had some consciousness of himself and the room in
+which he was lying, the July moon shining upon him, broad and bright,
+through the diamond-paned lattice. And O, what torturing visions were
+those in which Charlotte smiled upon him, radiant with health and
+happiness; and there had been no such thing as her illness, no such thing
+as his grief. And then came hurried dreams, in which Dr. Doddleson was
+knocking at the farmhouse door, with the printer of the _Cheapside_. And
+then he was a spectator in a mighty theatre, large as those Roman
+amphitheatres, wherein the audience seemed a mass of flies, looking down
+on the encounter of two other flies, and all the glory of an imperial
+court only a little spot of purple and gold, gleaming afar in the
+sunshine. To the dreamer it was no surprise that this unknown theatre of
+his dreams should be vast as the gladiatorial arena. And then came the
+deep thunderous music of innumerable bass-viols and bassoons: and some
+one told him it was the first night of a great tragedy. He felt the
+breathless hush of expectation; the solemn bass music sank deeper; dark
+curtains were drawn aside, with a motion slow and solemn, like the waving
+of mountain pines, and there appeared a measureless stage, revealing a
+moonlit expanse, thickly studded with the white headstones of unnumbered
+graves, and on the foremost of these--revealed to him by what power he
+knew not, since mortal sight could never have reached a point so
+distant--he read the name of Charlotte Halliday. He awoke with a sharp
+cry of pain. It was broad day, and the waves were dancing gaily in the
+morning sunlight. He rose and dressed himself. Sleep, such as he had
+known that night, was worse than the weariest waking. He went out into
+the garden by-and-by, and paced slowly up and down the narrow pathways,
+beside which box of a century's growth rose dark and high. Pale yellow
+lights were in the upper windows. He wondered which of those sickly
+tapers flickered on the face he loved so fondly.
+
+"It is only a year since I first saw her," he thought: "one year! And to
+love her has been my 'liberal education;' to lose her would be my
+desolation and despair."
+
+To lose her! His thoughts approached that dread possibility, but could
+not realize it; not even yet.
+
+At eight o'clock Diana came to summon him to breakfast.
+
+"Shall I see Charlotte?" he asked.
+
+"No; for some time past she has not come down to breakfast."
+
+"What kind of night has she had?"
+
+"A very quiet night, she tells me; but I am not quite sure that she tells
+me the truth, she is so afraid of giving us uneasiness."
+
+"She tells you. But do you not sleep in her room, now that she is so
+ill?"
+
+"No. I was anxious to sleep on a sofa at the foot of her bed, and
+proposed doing so, but Mr. Sheldon objects to my being in the room. He
+thinks that Charlotte is more quiet entirely alone, and that there is
+more air in the room with only one sleeper. Her illness is not of a kind
+to require attention of any sort in the night."
+
+"Still I should have thought it better for her to have you with her, to
+cheer and comfort her.
+
+"Believe me, Valentine, I wished to be with her."
+
+"I am sure of that, dear," he answered kindly.
+
+"It was only Mr. Sheldon's authority, as a man of some medical
+experience, that conquered my wish."
+
+"Well, I suppose he is right. And now we must go in to breakfast. Ah, the
+dreary regularity of these breakfasts and dinners, which go on just the
+same when our hearts are breaking!"
+
+The breakfast was indeed a dreary soul-dispiriting meal. Farmhouse
+luxuries, in the way of new-laid eggs and home-cured bacon, abounded; but
+no one had any inclination for these things. Valentine remembered the
+homestead among the Yorkshire hills, with all the delight that he had
+known there; and the "sorrow's crown of sorrow" was very bitter. Mr.
+Sheldon gave his Sabbath-morning meditations to the study of a
+Saturday-evening share-list; and Georgy plunged ever and anon into the
+closely printed pages of a Dissenting preacher's biography, which she
+declared to be "comforting."
+
+Diana and Valentine sat silent and anxious; and after the faintest
+pretence of eating and drinking, they both left the table, to stroll
+drearily in the garden. The bells were ringing cheerily from the grey
+stone tower near at hand; but Valentine had no inclination for church on
+this particular morning. Were not all his thoughts prayers--humble
+piteous entreaties--for one priceless boon?
+
+"Will you see the doctor when he comes, and manage matters so as not to
+alarm Charlotte?" he asked of Mr. Sheldon. That gentleman agreed to do
+so, and went out into the little front-garden to lie in wait for the
+great Doddleson--"Dowager Doddleson" as he was surnamed by some
+irreverent unbelievers.
+
+A St. Leonards fly brought the doctor while the bells were still ringing
+for morning service. Mr. Sheldon received him at the gate; and explained
+the motive of his summons.
+
+The doctor was full of pompous solicitude about "our sweet young
+patient."
+
+"Really one of the most interesting cases I ever had upon my hands,"
+the West-end physician said blandly; "as I was remarking to a very
+charming patient of mine--in point of fact, the amiable and
+accomplished Countess of Kassel-Kumberterre, only last Tuesday
+morning. A case so nearly resembling the Countess's own condition as to
+be highly interesting to her."
+
+"I really ought to apologize for bringing you down," said Mr. Sheldon, as
+he led the doctor into the house. "I only consented to your being sent
+for in order to tranquillize this young fellow Hawkehurst, who is engaged
+to my daughter; a rising man, I believe, in his own particular line, but
+rather wild and impracticable. There is really no change for the worse,
+absolutely none; and as we have not been here more than three days, there
+has been positively no opportunity for testing the effect of change and
+sea air, and so on."
+
+This seemed rather like giving the learned physician his cue. And there
+were those among Dr. Doddleson's professional rivals who said that the
+worthy doctor was never slow to take a cue so given, not being prejudiced
+by any opinions of his own.
+
+Charlotte had by this time been established in her easy-chair by the open
+window of the sitting-room, and here Dr. Doddleson saw her, in the
+presence of Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon; and here Dr. Doddleson went through the
+usual Abracadabra of his art, and assented to the opinions advanced, with
+all deference, by Mr. Sheldon.
+
+To Georgy this interview, in which Mr. Sheldon's opinions were pompously
+echoed by the West-end physician, proved even more comforting than the
+benignant career of the Dissenting minister, who was wont to allude to
+that solemn passing hence of which the ancients spoke in dim suggestive
+phrase, as "going upstairs."
+
+Diana and Valentine strolled in the garden while the physician saw his
+patient. Dr. Doddleson's ponderous polysyllables floated out upon the
+summer air like the droning of a humble-bee. It was a relief to Valentine
+to know that the doctor was with his patient: but he had no intention to
+let that gentleman depart unquestioned.
+
+"I will take no secondhand information," he thought; "I will hear this
+man's opinion from his own lips."
+
+He went round to the front of the house directly the droning had ceased,
+and was in the way when Dr. Doddleson and Mr. Sheldon came out of the
+rose-hung porch.
+
+"If you have no objection," he said to Mr. Sheldon, "I should like to ask
+Dr. Doddleson a few questions."
+
+"_I_ have no objection," replied the stockbroker; "but it is really
+altogether such an unusual thing, and I doubt if Dr. Doddleson will
+consent to--"
+
+And here he cast a deprecating glance at the doctor, as who should say,
+"Can you permit yourself to comply with a demand so entirely unwarranted
+by precedent?"
+
+Dowager Doddleson was eminently good-natured.
+
+"And this is our sweet young friend's _fiancé_," he said; "dear
+me--dee-ar me!"
+
+And then he looked at Valentine with bland pale-blue eyes that twinkled
+behind his gold-framed spectacles; while Valentine was taking his
+measure, so far as the measure of any man's moral and intellectual force
+can be taken by the eyes of another man. "And this is the man who is
+chosen to snatch my darling from the jaws of death!" he said to himself,
+with burning rage in his heart, while the amiable physician repeated
+blandly:
+
+"And this is our sweet young patient's _fiancé_. Dee-ar me, how very
+interesting!"
+
+The three men strolled round to the garden behind the house, Mr. Sheldon
+close at the physician's elbow.
+
+"For God's sake tell me the truth, Dr. Doddleson!" said Valentine in a
+low hoarse voice, directly they were beyond ear-shot of the house. "I am
+a man, and I can steel myself to hear the worst you can tell."
+
+"But really, Hawkehurst, there is no occasion for this kind of thing,"
+interjected Philip Sheldon; "Dr. Doddleson agrees with me, that the case
+is one of extreme languor, and no more."
+
+"Unquestionably," said the doctor in a fat voice.
+
+"And Dr. Doddleson also coincides with me in the opinion that all we can
+do is to wait the reviving influence of sea-air."
+
+"Undoubtedly," said the doctor, with a solemn nod.
+
+"And is this all?" asked Valentine hopelessly.
+
+"My dear sir, what else can I say?" said the doctor; "as my good friend
+Mr. Sheldon has just remarked, there is extreme languor; and as my good
+friend Mr. Sheldon further observes, we must await the effect of change
+of air. The--aw--invigorating sea-breezes, the--aw--enlivening influence
+of new surroundings, and--aw--so forth. Dr. Poseidon, my dear sir, is a
+very valuable coadjutor."
+
+"And you think your patient no worse, Dr. Doddleson?"
+
+"The doctor has just left Mrs. Sheldon much comforted by his assurance
+that her daughter is better," said the stockbroker.
+
+"No, no!" exclaimed Dr. Doddleson; "no, no! _there_ my good friend Mr.
+Sheldon somewhat misrepresents me. I said that our patient was not
+obviously worse. I did not say that our patient was better. There is a
+dilatation of the pupil of the eye which I don't quite understand."
+
+"Mental excitement," said Mr. Sheldon, somewhat hastily; "Charlotte is
+nervous to an extreme degree, and your sudden arrival was calculated to
+shake her nerves."
+
+"Undoubtedly," rejoined the doctor; "and it is unquestionable that such a
+dilatation of the pupil might, under certain circumstances, be occasioned
+by mental excitement. I am sorry to find that our patient's attacks of
+dizziness--"
+
+"Which are purely the effect of fancy," interjected Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"Which are no doubt, in some measure, attributable to a hypochondriacal
+condition of mind," continued the doctor in his fat voice. "I am sorry to
+find that this periodical dizziness has been somewhat increased of late.
+But here again we must look to Dr. Poseidon. Tepid sea-baths, if they can
+be managed, in the patient's own room; and by-and-by a dip in the waves
+yonder, may do wonders."
+
+Valentine asked no further questions; and the physician departed in the
+St. Leonards fly, to turn his excursion to profitable use by calling on
+two or three dowagers in Warrior Square and Marina, who would doubtless
+be glad of an unexpected visit from their pet doctor.
+
+"Well, Hawkehurst," said Mr. Sheldon, when the fly had driven away, "I
+hope you are satisfied now?"
+
+"Satisfied!" cried Valentine; "yes, I am satisfied that your stepdaughter
+is being murdered!"
+
+"Murdered!" echoed the stockbroker, his voice thick and faint; but
+Valentine did not heed the change in it.
+
+"Yes, murdered--sacrificed to the utter incompetence of that old idiot
+who has just left us."
+
+Philip Sheldon drew a long breath.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed; "do you doubt Doddleson's skill?"
+
+"Do you believe in it? Do you? No; I cannot think that a man of your keen
+perception in all other matters--half a medical man yourself--can be the
+dupe of so shallow an impostor. And it is to that man's judgment my
+darling's life has been confided; and it is to that man I have looked,
+with hope and comfort in the thought of his power to save my treasure!
+Good God! what a reed on which to rely! And of all the medical men of
+London, this is the one you have chosen!"
+
+"I must really protest against this rant, Hawkehurst," said Philip
+Sheldon. "I hold myself responsible for the selection which I made, and
+will not have that selection questioned in this violent and outrageous
+manner by you. Your anxiety for Charlotte's recovery may excuse a great
+deal, but it cannot excuse this kind of thing; and if you cannot command
+yourself better, I must beg you to absent yourself from my house until my
+stepdaughter's recovery puts an end to all this fuss."
+
+"Do you believe in Dr. Doddleson's skill?" asked Valentine doggedly. He
+wanted to have that question answered at any cost.
+
+"Most decidedly I do, with the rest of the medical world. My choice of
+this gentleman as Charlotte's adviser was governed by his reputation as a
+safe and conscientious man. His opinions are sound, trustworthy--"
+
+"His opinions!" cried Valentine with a bitter laugh; "what in heaven's
+name do you call his opinions? The only opinions I could extract from him
+to-day were solemn echoes of yours. And the man himself! I took the
+measure of him before I asked him a question; and physiology is a lie if
+that man is anything better than an impostor."
+
+"His position is the answer to that."
+
+"His position is no answer. He is not the first impostor who has attained
+position, and is not likely to be the last. You must forgive me, if I
+speak with some violence, Mr. Sheldon. I feel too deeply to remember the
+conventionalities of my position. The dear girl yonder, hovering between
+life and death, is my promised wife. As your stepdaughter she is very
+dear to you, no doubt, and you are of course anxious to do your duty as
+her stepfather. But she is all the world to me--my one sweet memory of
+the past, my sole hope for the future. I will not trust her to the care
+of Dr. Doddleson; I claim the right to choose another physician--as that
+man's coadjutor, if you please. I have no wish to offend the doctor of
+your choice."
+
+"This is all sheer nonsense," said Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"It is nonsense about which you must let me have my own way," replied
+Valentine, resolutely. "My stake on this hazard is too heavy for careless
+play. I shall go back to town at once and seek out a physician."
+
+"Do you know any great man?"
+
+"No; but I will find one."
+
+"If you go today, you will inevitably alarm Charlotte."
+
+"True; and disappoint her into the bargain. I suppose in such a case
+tomorrow will do as well as to-day?"
+
+"Decidedly."
+
+"I can go by the first train, and return with my doctor in the afternoon.
+Yes, I will go tomorrow."
+
+Mr. Sheldon breathed more freely. There are cases in which to obtain time
+for thought seems the one essential thing--cases in which a reprieve is
+as good as a pardon.
+
+"Pray let us consider this business quietly," he said, with a faint sigh
+of weariness. "There is no necessity for all this excitement. You can go
+to town to-morrow, by the first train, as you say. If it is any
+satisfaction to you to bring down a physician, bring one; bring half a
+dozen, if you please. But, for the last time, I most emphatically assure
+you that anything that tends to alarm Charlotte is the one thing of all
+others most sure to hinder her recovery."
+
+"I know that. She shall not be frightened; but she shall have a better
+adviser than Dr. Doddleson. And now I will go back to the house. She will
+wonder at my absence."
+
+He went to the bright, airy room where Charlotte was seated, her head
+lying back upon the pillows, her face paler, her glances and tones more
+languid than on the previous day as it seemed to Valentine. Diana was
+near her, solicitous and tender; and on the other side of the window sat
+Mrs. Sheldon, with her Dissenting minister's biography open on her lap.
+
+All through that day Valentine Hawkehurst played his part bravely: it was
+a hard and bitter part to play--the part of hope and confidence while
+unutterable fears were rending his heart. He read the epistle and gospel
+of the day to his betrothed; and afterwards some chapters of St.
+John--those profoundly mournful chapters that foreshadow the agonising
+close. It was Charlotte who selected these chapters, and her lover could
+find no excuse for disputing her choice.
+
+It was the first time that they had shared any religious exercise, and
+the hearts of both were deeply touched by the thought of this.
+
+"How frivolous all our talk must have been, Valentine, when it seems so
+new to us to be reading these beautiful words together?"
+
+Her head was half supported by the pillows, half resting on her lover's
+shoulder, and her eyes travelled along the lines as he read, in a calm
+low voice, which was unbroken to the end.
+
+Early in the evening Charlotte retired, worn out by the day's physical
+weariness, in spite of Valentine's fond companionship. Later, when it was
+dusk, Diana came downstairs with the news that the invalid was sleeping
+quietly. Mrs. Sheldon was dozing in her arm-chair, the Dissenting
+minister having fallen to the ground; and Valentine was leaning, with
+folded arms, on the broad window-sill looking out into the shadowy
+garden. Mr. Sheldon had given them very little of his society during that
+day. He went out immediately after his interview with Valentine, on a
+sea-coast ramble, which lasted till dinner-time. After dinner he remained
+in the room where they had dined. He was there now. The light of the
+candles, by which he read his papers, shone out upon the dusk.
+
+"Will you come for a stroll with me, Diana?" asked Valentine.
+
+Miss Paget assented promptly; and they went out into the garden, beyond
+the reach of Mr. Sheldon's ears, had that gentleman been disposed to
+place himself at his open window in the character of a listener.
+
+"I want to tell you my plans about Charlotte," Valentine began. "I am
+going to London to-morrow to search for a greater physician than Dr.
+Doddleson. I shall find my man in an hour or so; and, if possible, shall
+return with him in the evening. There is no apparent reason to anticipate
+any sudden change for the worse; but if such a change should take place,
+I rely on you, dear, to give me the earliest tidings of it. I suppose you
+can get a fly here, if you want one?"
+
+"I can get to St. Leonards, if that is what you mean," Miss Paget
+answered promptly. "I dare say there is a fly to be had; if not, I can
+walk there. I am not afraid of a few miles' walk, by day or night. If
+there should be a change, Valentine--which God forbid--I will telegraph
+the tidings of it to you."
+
+"You had better address the message to me at Rancy's, Covent Garden; the
+house where the Ragamuffins have their rooms, you know, dear. That is a
+more central point than my lodgings, and nearer the terminus. I will call
+there two or three times in the course of the day."
+
+"You may trust my vigilance, Valentine. I did not think it was in my
+nature to love any one as I love Charlotte Halliday."
+
+Gustave Lenoble's letters lying unanswered in her desk asserted the
+all-absorbing nature of Diana's affection for the fading girl. She _was_
+fading. The consciousness of this made all other love sacrilege, as it
+seemed to Diana. She sat up late that night to answer Gustave's last
+letter of piteous complaint.
+
+"She had forgotten him. Ah, that he had been foolish--insensate--to
+confide himself in her love! Was he not old and grey in comparison to
+such youth--such freshness--a venerable dotard of thirty-five? What had
+he with dreams of love and marriage? Fie, then. He humiliated himself in
+the dust beneath her _mignon_ feet. He invited her to crush him with
+those cruel feet. But if she did not answer his letters, he would come to
+Harold's Hill. He would mock himself of that ferocious Sheldon--of a
+battalion of Sheldons still more ferocious--of all the world, at
+last--to be near her."
+
+"Believe me, dear Gustave, I do not forget," wrote Diana, in reply to
+these serio-comic remonstrances. "I was truly sorry to leave town, on
+your account and on my father's. But my dear adopted sister is paramount
+with me now. You will not grudge her my care or my love, for she may not
+long be with me to claim them. There is nothing but sorrow here in all
+our hearts; sorrow, and an ever-present dread."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Eighth.
+
+
+
+A FIGHT AGAINST TIME.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+A DREAD REVELATION.
+
+The early fast train by which Valentine Hawkehurst travelled brought him
+into town at a quarter past nine o'clock. During the journey he had been
+meditating on the way in which he should set to work when he arrived in
+London. No ignorance could be more profound than his on all points
+relating to the medical profession. Dimly floating in his brain there
+were the names of doctors whom he had heard of as celebrated men--one for
+the chest, another for the liver, another for the skin, another for the
+eyes; but, among all these famous men, who was the man best able to cope
+with the mysterious wasting away, the gradual, almost imperceptible
+ebbing of that one dear life which Valentine wanted to save?
+
+This question must be answered by some one; and Valentine was sorely
+puzzled as to who that some one must be.
+
+The struggling young writer had but few friends. He had, indeed, worked
+too hard for the possibility of friendship. The cultivation of the
+severer Muses is rarely compatible with a wide circle of acquaintances;
+and Valentine, if not a cultivator of these severe ones, had been a hard
+and honest worker during the later reputable portion of his life. His
+friendships of the previous portion had been the friendships of the
+railway-carriage and the smoking room, the _café_ and the gaming-table.
+He could count upon his fingers the people to whom he could apply for
+counsel in this crisis of his life. There was George Sheldon, a man for
+whom he entertained a most profound contempt; Captain Paget, a man who
+might or might not be able to give him good advice, but who would
+inevitably sacrifice Charlotte Halliday's welfare to self-interest, if
+self-interest could be served by the recommendation of an incompetent
+adviser.
+
+"He would send me to some idiot of the Doddleson class, if he thought he
+could get a guinea or a dinner by the recommendation," Valentine said to
+himself, and decided that to Horatio Paget he would not apply. There were
+his employers, the editors and proprietors of the magazines for which he
+worked; all busy over-burdened workers in the great mill, spending the
+sunny hours of their lives between a pile of unanswered letters and a
+waste-paper basket; men who would tell him to look in the Post-office
+Directory, without lifting their eyes from the paper over which their
+restless pens were speeding.
+
+No. Amongst these was not the counsellor whom Valentine Hawkehurst needed
+in this dire hour of difficulty.
+
+"There are some very good fellows among the Ragamuffins," he said to
+himself, as he thought of the only literary and artistic club of which he
+was a member; "fellows who stuck by me when I was down in the world, and
+who would do anything to serve me now they know me for an honest worker.
+But, unfortunately, farce writers and burlesque writers, and young
+meerschaum-smoking painters, are not the sort of men to give good advice:
+I want the advice of a medical man."
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst almost bounded from his seat as he said this. The advice
+of a medical man? Yes; and was there not a medical man among the
+Ragamuffins? and something more than a medical man? That very doctor, who
+of all other men upon this earth could best give him counsel--the doctor
+who had stood by the deathbed of Charlotte Halliday's father.
+
+He remembered the conversation that had occurred at Bayswater, on the
+evening of Christmas day, upon this very subject. He remembered how from
+the talk about ghosts they had drifted somehow into talking of Tom
+Halliday; whereupon Mrs. Sheldon had been melted to tears, and had gone
+on to praise Philip Sheldon's conduct to his dying friend, and to speak
+of Mr. Burkham, the strange doctor, called in too late to save, or, it
+might have been, incapable to save.
+
+"Sheldon seems to have a genius for calling in incapable doctors," he
+thought bitterly.
+
+Incapable as Mr. Burkham might have been for the exigencies of this
+particular case, he would at least be able to inform Valentine who among
+the medical celebrities of London would be best adapted to advise in such
+an illness as Charlotte Halliday's.
+
+"And if, as Diana has sometimes suggested, there is any hereditary
+disease, this Burkham may be able to throw some light upon the nature of
+it," thought Valentine.
+
+He went straight from the railway terminus to the quiet tavern upon the
+first floor of which the Ragamuffins had their place of rendezvous. It
+was not an hour for the encounter of many Ragamuffins. A meek-looking
+young man, of clerical aspect, who had adapted a Palais Royal farce, and
+had awoke in the morning to find himself famous, and eligible for
+admission amongst the Ragamuffins, was sipping his sherry and soda-water
+while he skimmed the morning papers. Him Mr. Hawkehurst saluted with an
+absent nod, and went in search of the steward of the club, from whom he
+obtained Mr. Burkham's address, with some little trouble in the way of
+hunting through old and obscure documents.
+
+It was the old address; the old dingy, comfortable, muffin-bell-haunted
+street in which Mr. Burkham had lived ten years before, when he was
+summoned to attend the sick Yorkshire farmer.
+
+Mr. Burkham's career had not been brightened by the sunshine of
+prosperity. He had managed to live somehow, and to find food and raiment
+for his young wife, who, when she considered the lilies of the field, may
+have envied their shining robes of pure whiteness, so dingy and dark was
+her own apparel. When children came, the young surgeon contrived to find
+food and raiment for them also, but not without daily and hourly
+struggles with that grim wolf who haunts the thresholds of so many
+dwellings, and will not be thrust from the door. Sometimes a little
+glimmering ray of light illumined Mr. Burkham's pathway, and he was
+humbly grateful to Providence for the brief glimpse of sunshine. But for
+a meek fair-faced man, with a nervous desire to do well, a very poor
+opinion of his own merits, and a diffident, not to say depressed manner,
+the world is apt to be a hard battle-ground.
+
+Mr. Burkham sometimes found himself well-nigh beaten in the cruel strife;
+and at such times, in the dead silence of the night, with mortal agonies,
+and writhings as of Pythoness upon tripod, Mr. Burkham gave himself up to
+the composition of a farce, adapted, not from the French, but from his
+memories of Wright and Bedford in the jovial old student days, when the
+pit of the Adelphi Theatre had been the pleasant resort of his evenings.
+He could no longer afford the luxury of theatrical entertainments, except
+when provided with a free admission. But from the hazy reminiscences
+floating in his poor tired brain he concocted little pieces which he
+fondly hoped might win him money and fame.
+
+With much effort and interest he contrived to get himself elected a
+Ragamuffin; believing that to be a Ragmuffin was to secure a position as
+a dramatic writer. But with one or two fortunate exceptions, his pieces
+were refused. The managers would not have the poor little feeble
+phantasmagoria of bygone fun, even supported by the whole clan of
+Ragamuffins. So Mr. Burkham had gradually melted into the dimness of
+Bloomsbury, and haunted the club-room of the Ragamuffins no more.
+
+A hansom carried Valentine Hawkehurst swiftly to these regions of
+Bloomsbury. It was no time for the saving of cab-hire. The soldier
+of fortune thought no longer of his nest-eggs--his Unitas Bank
+deposit-notes. He was fighting with time and with death; foes dire and
+dreadful, against whose encroachments the sturdiest of mortal warriors
+can make but a feeble stand. He found the dingy-looking house in the
+dingy-looking street; and the humble drudge who opened the door informed
+him that Mr. Burkham was at home, and ushered him into a darksome and
+dreary surgery at the back of the house, where a phrenological head,
+considerably the worse for London smoke, surmounted a dingy bookcase
+filled with the dingiest of books. A table, upon which were a
+blotting-book and inkstand, and two shabby horsehair chairs, composed the
+rest of the furniture. Valentine sent his card to the surgeon, and seated
+himself on one of the horsehair chairs, to await that gentleman's
+appearance.
+
+He came after a brief delay, which seemed long to his visitor. He came
+from regions in the back of the house, rubbing his hands, which seemed
+to have been newly washed, and the odour of senna and aloes hung about
+his garments.
+
+"I doubt if you remember my name, Mr. Burkham," said Valentine; "but you
+and I are members of the same club, and that a club among the members of
+which considerable good feeling prevails. I come to ask a favour"--Mr.
+Burkham winced, for this sounded like genteel begging, and for genteel
+beggars this struggling surgeon had no spare cash--"which it will
+scarcely cause you a moment's thought to grant. I am in great
+distress"--Mr. Burkham winced again, for this sounded still more like
+begging--"mental distress"--Mr. Burkham gave a little sigh of
+relief--"and I come to you for advice." Mr. Burkham gave a more profound
+sigh of relief.
+
+"I can assure you that my best advice is at your command," he said,
+seating himself, and motioning to his visitor to be seated. "I am
+beginning to remember your face amongst the members of the club, though
+the name on your card did not strike me as familiar. You see, I have
+never been able to afford much time for relaxation at the Ragamuffins',
+though I assure you I found the agreeable conversation there, the
+literary _on dits_, and so on, a very great relief. But my own little
+efforts in the dramatic line were not successful, and I found myself
+compelled to devote myself more to my profession. And now I have said
+quite enough about myself; let me hear how I can be useful to you."
+
+"In the first place, let me ask you a question. Do you know anything of a
+certain Dr. Doddleson?"
+
+"Of Plantagenet Square?"
+
+"Yes; of Plantagenet Square."
+
+"Well, not much. I have heard him called Dowager Doddleson; and I believe
+he is very popular among hypochondriac old ladies who have more money
+than they know what to do with, and very little common sense to regulate
+their disposal of it."
+
+"Is Dr. Doddleson a man to whom you would intrust the life of your
+dearest friend?"
+
+"Most emphatically no!" cried the surgeon, growing red with excitement.
+
+"Very well, Mr. Burkham; my dearest friend, a young lady--well, in plain
+truth, the woman who was to have been my wife, and whom I love as it is
+not the lot of every plighted wife to be loved--this dear girl has been
+wasting away for the last two or three months under the influence of an
+inscrutable malady, and Dr. Doddleson is the only man called to attend
+her in all that time."
+
+"A mistake!" said Mr. Burkham, gravely; "a very great mistake! Dr.
+Doddleson lives in a fine square, and drives a fine carriage, and has a
+reputation amongst the class I have spoken of; but he is about the last
+man I would consult as to the health of any one dear to me."
+
+"That is precisely the opinion which I formed after ten minutes'
+conversation with him. Now, what I want from you, Mr. Burkham, is the
+name and address of the man to whom I can intrust this dear girl's life."
+
+"Let me see. There are so many men, you know, and great men. Is it a case
+of consumption?"
+
+"No, thank God!"
+
+"Heart-disease, perhaps?"
+
+"No; there is no organic disease. It is a languor--a wasting away."
+
+Mr. Burkham suggested other diseases whereof the outward sign was languor
+and wasting.
+
+"No," replied Valentine; "according to Dr. Doddleson there is actually no
+disease--nothing but this extreme prostration--this gradual vanishing of
+vital power. And now I come to another point upon which I want your
+advice. It has been suggested that this constitutional weakness may be
+inherited; and here I think you can help me."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You attended the lady's father."
+
+"Indeed!" cried Mr. Burkham, delighted. "This is really interesting. In
+what year did I attend this gentleman? If you will allow me, I will refer
+to some of my old case-books."
+
+He drew out a clumsy drawer in the clumsy table, in order to hunt for old
+memoranda.
+
+"I am not quite certain as to the year," answered Valentine; "but it was
+more than ten years ago. The gentleman died close by here, in Fitzgeorge
+Street. His name was Halliday."
+
+Mr. Burkham had drawn out the drawer to its farthest extent. As Valentine
+pronounced this name, he let it drop to the ground with a crash, and sat,
+statue-like, staring at the speaker. All other names given to mortal man
+he might forget; but this one never. Valentine saw the sudden horror in
+his face, before he could recompose his features into something of their
+conventional aspect.
+
+"Yes," he said, looking down at the fallen drawer with its scattered
+papers and case-books, "yes, I have some recollection of the name of
+Halliday."
+
+"Some very strange and agitating recollection it would seem by your
+manner, Mr. Burkham," said Valentine, at once assured that there was
+something more than common in the surgeon's look and gesture; and
+determined to fathom the mystery, let it be what it might.
+
+"O dear no," said the surgeon nervously; "I was not agitated, only
+surprised. It was surprising to me to hear the name of a patient so long
+forgotten. And so the lady to whom you are engaged is a daughter of Mr.
+Halliday's? The wife--Mrs. Halliday--is still living, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; but the lady who was then Mrs. Halliday is now Mrs. Sheldon."
+
+"Of course; he married her," said Mr. Burkham. "Yes; I remember hearing
+of the marriage."
+
+He had tried in vain to recover his old composure. He was white to the
+lips, and his hand shook as he tried to arrange his scattered papers.
+
+"What does it mean?" thought Valentine. "Mrs. Sheldon talked of this
+man's inexperience. Can it be that his incompetency lost the life of his
+patient, and that he knows it was so?"
+
+"Mrs. Halliday is now Mrs. Sheldon," repeated the surgeon, in a feeble
+manner. "Yes, I remember; and Mr. Sheldon--the dentist, who at that time
+resided in Fitzgeorge Street--is he still living?"
+
+"He is still living. It was he who called in Dr. Doddleson to attend upon
+Miss Halliday. As her stepfather, he has some amount of authority, you
+see; not legal authority--for my dear girl is of age--but social
+authority. He called in Doddleson, and appears to place confidence in
+him; and as he is something of a medical man himself, and pretends to
+understand Miss Halliday's case thoroughly--"
+
+"Stop!" cried Mr. Burkham, suddenly abandoning all pretence of calmness.
+"Has he--Sheldon--any interest in his stepdaughter's death?"
+
+"No, certainly not. All her father's money went to him upon his marriage
+with her mother. He can gain nothing by her death; on the contrary, he
+may lose a good deal, for she is the heir-at-law to a large fortune."
+
+"And if she dies, that fortune will go--"
+
+"I really don't know where it will go," Valentine answered carelessly:
+he thought the subject was altogether beside the question of Mr.
+Burkham's agitation, and it was the cause of that agitation which he was
+anxious to discover.
+
+"If Mr. Sheldon can gain by his stepdaughter's death, fear him!"
+exclaimed the surgeon, with sudden passion; "fear him as you would fear
+death itself--worse than death, for death is neither so stealthy nor so
+treacherous as he is!"
+
+"What in Heaven's name do you mean?"
+
+"That which I thought my lips would never utter to mortal hearing--that
+which I dare not publicly proclaim, at the hazard of taking the bread out
+of the mouths of my wife and children. I have kept this hateful secret
+for eleven years--through many a sleepless night and dreary day. I will
+tell it to you; for if there is another life in peril, that life shall be
+lost through no cowardice of mine."
+
+"What secret?" cried Valentine.
+
+"The secret of that poor fellow's death. My God! I can remember the clasp
+of his hand, and the friendly look of his eyes, the day before he died.
+He was poisoned by Philip Sheldon!"
+
+"You must be mad!" gasped Valentine, in a faint voice.
+
+For one moment of astonishment and incredulity he thought this man must
+needs be a fool or a lunatic, so wildly improbable did the accusation
+seem. But in the next instant the curtain was lifted, and he knew that
+Philip Sheldon was a villain, and knew that he had never wholly trusted
+him.
+
+"Never until to-day have I told this secret," said the surgeon; "not even
+to my wife."
+
+"I thank you," answered Valentine, in the same faint voice; "with all my
+heart, I thank you."
+
+Yes, the curtain was lifted. This mysterious illness, this slow silent
+decay of bloom and beauty, by a process inscrutable as the devilry of
+medieval poisoner or Hecate-serving witch--this was murder. Murder! The
+disease, which had hitherto been nameless, had found its name at last. It
+was all clear now. Philip Sheldon's anxiety; the selection of an utterly
+incompetent adviser; certain looks and tones that had for a moment
+mystified him, and had been forgotten in the next, came back to him with
+a strange distinctness, with all their hidden meaning made clear and
+plain as the broad light of day.
+
+But the motive? What motive could prompt the slow destruction of that
+innocent life? A fortune was at stake, it is true; but that fortune, as
+Valentine understood the business, depended on the life of Charlotte
+Halliday. Beyond this point he had never looked. In all his consideration
+of the circumstances relating to the Haygarthian estate, he had never
+thought of what might happen in the event of Charlotte's decease.
+
+"It is a diabolical mystery," he said to himself. "There can be no
+motive--_none_. To destroy Thomas Halliday was to clear his way to
+fortune; to destroy Charlotte is to destroy his chance of fortune."
+
+And then he remembered the dark speeches of George Sheldon.
+
+"My God! and this was what he meant, as plainly as he dared tell me! He
+did tell me that his brother was an unutterable scoundrel; and I turned a
+deaf ear to his warning, because it suited my own interest to believe
+that villain. For her dear sake I believed him. I would have believed in
+Beelzebub, if he had promised me her dear hand. And I let myself be duped
+by the lying promise, and left my darling in the power of Beelzebub!"
+
+Thoughts followed each other swift as lightning through his overwrought
+brain. It seemed but a moment that he had been sitting with his
+clenched hands pressed against his forehead, when he turned suddenly
+upon the surgeon.
+
+"For God's sake, help me, guide me!" he said. "You have struck a blow
+that has numbed my senses. What am I to do? My future wife is in that
+man's keeping--dying, as I believe. How am I to save her?"
+
+"I cannot tell you. You may take the cleverest man in London to see her;
+but it is a question if that man will perceive the danger so clearly as
+to take prompt measures. In these cases there is always room for doubt;
+and a man would rather doubt his own perceptions than believe the hellish
+truth. It is by this natural hesitation so many lives are lost. While the
+doctor deliberates, the patient dies. And then, if the secret of the
+death transpires--by circumstantial evidence, perhaps, which never came
+to the doctor's knowledge,--there is a public outcry. The doctor's
+practice is ruined, and his heart broken. The outcry would have been
+still louder if he had told the truth in time to save the patient, and
+had not been able to prove his words. You think me a coward and a
+scoundrel because I dared not utter my suspicion when I saw Mr. Halliday
+dying. While it was only a suspicion it would have been certain ruin for
+me to give utterance to it. The day came when it was almost a conviction.
+I went back to that man Sheldon's house, determined to insist upon the
+calling in of a physician who would have made that conviction certainty.
+My resolution came too late. It is possible that Sheldon had perceived my
+suspicions, and had hastened matters. My patient was dead before I
+reached the house."
+
+"How am I to save her?" repeated Valentine, with the same helpless
+manner. He could not bring himself to consider Tom Halliday's death. The
+subject was too far away from him--remote as the dim shadows of departed
+centuries. In all the universe there were but two figures standing out in
+lurid brightness against the dense night of chaos--a helpless girl held
+in the clutches of a secret assassin; and it was his work to rescue her.
+
+"What am I to do?" he asked. "Tell me what I am to do."
+
+"What it may be wisest to do I cannot tell you," answered Mr. Burkham,
+almost as helplessly as the other had asked the question. "I can give you
+the name of the best man to get to the bottom of such a case--a man who
+gave evidence on the Fryar trial--Jedd. You have heard of Jedd, I
+daresay. You had better go straight to Jedd, and take him down with you
+to Miss Halliday. His very name will frighten Sheldon."
+
+"I will go at once. Stay--the address! Where am I to find Dr. Jedd?"
+
+"In Burlington Row. But there is one thing to be considered."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The interference of Jedd may only make that man desperate. He may hasten
+matters now as he hastened matters before. If you had seen his coolness
+at that time; if you had seen him, as I saw him, standing by that poor
+fellow's deathbed, comforting him--yes, with friendly speeches--laughing
+and joking, watching the agonising pain and the miserable sickness, and
+all the dreary wretchedness of such a death, and _never_ swerving from
+his work; if you had seen him, you would understand why I am afraid to
+advise you. That man was as desperate as he was cool when he murdered his
+friend. He will be more reckless this time."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he has reached a higher stage in the science of murder. The
+symptoms of that poor Yorkshireman were the symptoms of arsenical
+poisoning; the symptoms of which you have told me to-day denote a
+vegetable poison. _That_ affords very vague diagnosis, and leaves no
+trace. That was the agent which enabled the Borgias to decimate Rome.
+It is older than classic Greece, and simple as _a b c_, and will remain
+so until the medical expert is a recognized officer of the law, the
+faithful guardian of the bed over which the suspected poisoner
+loiters--past-master of the science in which the murderer is rarely more
+than an experimentalist, and protected from all the hazards of plain
+speaking by the nature of his office."
+
+"Great Heaven, how am I to save her?" exclaimed Valentine. He could not
+contemplate the subject in its broad social aspect; he could only think
+of this one dear life at stake. "To send this Dr. Jedd might be to hasten
+her death; to send a less efficient man would be mere childishness. WHAT
+shall I do?"
+
+He looked despairingly at the surgeon, and in that one glance perceived
+what a frail reed this was upon which he was leaning. And then, like
+the sudden gleam of lightning, a name flashed across his mind,--George
+Sheldon, the lawyer, the schemer, the man who of all the world best
+knew this vile enemy and assassin against whom he was matched; he it
+was of whom counsel should be asked in this crisis. Once perceiving
+this, Valentine was prompt to act. It was the first flash of light in
+the darkness.
+
+"You mean to stand by me in this, don't you?" he asked Mr. Burkham.
+
+"With all my heart and soul."
+
+"Good. Then you must go to Dr. Jedd instantly. Tell him all you know--Tom
+Halliday's death; the symptoms of Charlotte's decline, as you have heard
+them from me--_everything_; and let him hold himself in readiness to
+start for Hastings directly he hears from or sees me. I am going to a man
+who of all men can tell me how to deal with Philip Sheldon. I shall try
+to be in Burlington Row in an hour from this time; but in any case you
+will wait there till I come. I suppose, in a desperate case like this,
+Dr. Jedd will put aside all less urgent work?"
+
+"No doubt of that."
+
+"I trust to you to secure his sympathy," said Valentine.
+
+He was in the darksome entrance-hall by this time. Mr. Burkham followed,
+and opened the door for him.
+
+"Have no fear of me," he said. "Good bye."
+
+The two men shook hands with a grip significant as masonic sign-manual.
+It meant on the one part hearty co-operation, on the other implicit
+confidence. In the next moment Valentine sprang into the cab.
+
+"King's Road--entrance to Gray's Inn, and drive like mad!" he shouted to
+the driver. The hansom rattled across the stones, dashed round corners,
+struck consternation to scudding children in pinafores, all but
+annihilated more than one perambulator, and in less than ten minutes
+after leaving Mr. Burkham's door, ground against the kerbstone before the
+little gate of Gray's Inn.
+
+"God grant that George Sheldon may be at home!" Valentine said to
+himself, as he hurried towards that gentleman's office. George Sheldon
+was at home. In this fight against time, Mr. Hawkehurst had so far found
+the odds in his favour.
+
+"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the lawyer, looking up from his desk, as
+Valentine appeared on the threshold of the door, pale and breathless; "to
+what do I owe the unusual honour of a visit from Mr. Hawkehurst? I
+thought that rising _littérateur_ had cut all old acquaintances, and gone
+in for the upper circles."
+
+"I have come to you on a matter of life and death, George Sheldon," said
+Valentine; "this is no time to talk of why I haven't been to you before.
+When you and I last met, you advised me to beware of your brother Philip.
+It wasn't the first, or the second, or the third time that you so warned
+me. And now speak out like an honest man, and tell me what you meant by
+that warning? For God's sake, speak plainly this time."
+
+"I cannot afford to speak more plainly than I have spoken half a dozen
+times already. I told you to beware of my brother Phil, and I meant that
+warning in its fullest significance. If you had chosen to take my advice,
+you would have placed Charlotte Halliday's fortune, and Charlotte
+Halliday herself, beyond his power, by an immediate marriage. You didn't
+choose to do that, and there was an end of the matter. I have been a
+heavy loser by your pigheaded obstinacy; and I dare say before you and
+Phil Sheldon have done with each other, you too will find yourself a
+loser."
+
+"God help me, yes!" cried Valentine, with a groan; "I stand to make the
+heaviest loss that was ever made by man."
+
+"What do you mean?" exclaimed George.
+
+"Shall I tell you what you meant when you warned me against your own
+brother? Shall I tell you why you so warned me? You know that Philip
+Sheldon murdered Tom Halliday."
+
+"Great God!"
+
+"Yes; the secret is out. You knew it; how or when you discovered it I
+cannot tell. You knew of that one hellish crime, and would have prevented
+the commission of a second murder. You should have spoken more plainly.
+To know what you knew, and to confine yourself to cautious hints and
+vague suggestions, as you did, was to have part in that devilish work. If
+Charlotte Halliday dies, her blood be upon your head--upon yours--as well
+as upon his!"
+
+The young man had risen in his passion, and stood before George Sheldon
+with uplifted hands, and eyes that flashed angry lightnings. It seemed
+almost as if he would have called down the Divine vengeance upon this
+man's head.
+
+"If Charlotte Halliday dies!" repeated George, in a horror-stricken
+whisper; "why should you suggest such a thing?"
+
+"Because she is dying."
+
+There was a pause. Valentine flung himself passionately upon the chair
+from which he had just risen, with his back to George Sheldon, and his
+face bent over the back of the chair. The lawyer sat looking straight
+before him, with a ghastly countenance.
+
+"I told him he meant _this_," he said to himself, in a hoarse whisper. "I
+told him in this office not six months ago. Powers of hell, what a
+villain he is! And there are people who do not believe there is a devil!"
+
+For a few moments Valentine gave free vent to his passion of grief. These
+tears of rage, of agony the most supreme, were the first he had shed
+since he had bent his face over Charlotte's soft brown hair, to hide the
+evidence of his sorrow. When he had dashed these bitter drops away from
+his burning eyes, he turned to confront George Sheldon, pale as death,
+but very calm. And after this he gave way no more to his passion. He was
+matched against Time, of all enemies the most pitiless and unrelenting,
+and every minute wasted was a point scored by his foe.
+
+"I want your help, George Sheldon," he said. "If you have ever been sorry
+that you made no effort to save Charlotte Halliday's father, prove
+yourself his friend by trying to save her."
+
+"_If_ I have ever been sorry!" echoed the lawyer. "Why, my miserable
+dreams have never been free from the horror of that man's face. You don't
+know what it is--murder! Nobody knows who hasn't been concerned in it.
+You read of murders in your newspapers. A shot B, or C poisoned D, and so
+on, all through the letters of the alphabet, with a fresh batch for every
+Sunday; but it never comes home to you. You think of the horror of it in
+a shadowy kind of way, as you might think of having a snake twisted round
+your waist and legs, like that blessed man and boys one never sees the
+last of. But if you were to look at that plaster cast all your life, you
+couldn't realize ten per cent of the horror you'd feel if the snake was
+_there_, alive, crushing your bones, and hissing in your ear. I have been
+face to face with murder, Valentine Hawkehurst; and if I were to live a
+century, I should never forget what I felt when I stood by Tom Halliday's
+deathbed, and it flashed upon me, all at once, that my brother Phil was
+poisoning him."
+
+"And you did not try to save him--your friend?" cried Valentine.
+
+"Why, you see," replied the other, in a strange slow way, "it was too
+late to save him: I knew that, and--I held my tongue. What could I do?
+Against my own brother! That sort of thing in a family is ruin for every
+one! Do you think anybody would have brought their business to me after
+my brother had stood in the Old Bailey dock to take his trial for murder?
+No; my only course was to keep my own counsel, and I kept it. Phil made
+eighteen thousand pounds by his marriage with poor Tom's widow, and a
+paltry hundred or two is all _I_ ever touched of that money."
+
+"And you _could_ touch that money?" cried Valentine, aghast.
+
+"Money carries no infection. Did you ever ask any questions about the
+money you won at German gaming-tables. I dare say some of your napoleons
+and ten-thaler notes could have told queer stories if they had been able
+to talk. Taking Phil's money has never weighed upon my conscience. I'm
+not very inquisitive about the antecedents of a five-pound note; but I'll
+tell you what it is, Hawkehurst, I'd give all I have, and all I ever
+hope to have, and would go out and sweep a crossing to-morrow, if I could
+get Tom Halliday's face out of my mind, with the look that he turned upon
+me the last time I saw him. 'Ah, George,' he said, 'in illness a man
+feels the comfort of being among friends!' And he took my hand and
+squeezed it, in his old hearty way. We had been boys together,
+Hawkehurst, birds-nesting in Hyley Woods; on the same side in our
+Barlingford cricket-matches. And I shook his hand, and went away, and
+left him to die!"
+
+And here Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn, the Sheldon who was in with the
+money-lenders, sharpest of legal prestigitators, most ruthless of
+opponents, most unscrupulous of allies, buried his face in a flaming
+bandanna, and fairly sobbed aloud. When the passion had passed, he got up
+and walked hastily to the window, more ashamed of this one touch of
+honest emotion than of all the falsehoods and chicaneries of his career.
+
+"I didn't think I could have been such an ass," he muttered sheepishly.
+
+"I did not hope that you could feel so deeply," answered Valentine. "And
+now help me to save the only child of your ill-fated friend. I am sure
+that you can help me."
+
+Without waiting to be questioned, Valentine related the circumstances of
+Charlotte's illness, and of his interview with Mr. Burkham.
+
+"I did not even know that the poor girl was ill," said George Sheldon. "I
+have not seen Phil for months. He came here one day, and I gave him a bit
+of my mind. I told him if he tried to harm her I'd let the light in upon
+him and his doings. And I'll keep my word."
+
+"But his motive? What, in the name of Heaven, can be his motive for
+taking her innocent life? He knows of the Haygarth estate, and must hope
+to profit by her fortune if she lives."
+
+"Yes, and to secure the whole of that fortune if she dies. Her death
+would make her mother sole heir to that estate, and the mother is the
+merest tool in his hands. He may even have induced Charlotte to make a
+will in his favour, so that he himself may stand in her shoes."
+
+"She would not have made a will without telling me of it."
+
+"You don't know that. My brother Phil can do anything. It would be as
+easy for him to persuade her to maintain secrecy about the transaction as
+to persuade her to make the will. Do you suppose _he_ shrinks from
+multiplying lies and forgeries and hypocrisies? Do you suppose anything
+in that small way comes amiss to the man who has once brought his mind to
+murder? Why, look at the Scotch play of that fellow Shakespeare's. At the
+beginning, your Macbeth is a respectable trustworthy sort of person,
+anxious to get on in life, and so on, and that's all; but no sooner has
+he made an end of poor old Duncan, than he lays about him right and
+left--Banquo, Fleance, anybody and everybody that happens to be in his
+way. It was lucky for that Tartar of a wife of his that _she_ hook'd it,
+or he'd soon have put a stop to her sleep-walking. There's no such wide
+difference between a man and a tiger, after all. The tiger's a decent
+fellow enough till he has tasted human blood; but when once he _has_,
+Lord save the country-side from the jaws of the man-eater!"
+
+"For Heaven's sake let us waste no time in talk!" Valentine cried,
+impetuously. "I am to meet Burkham in Burlington Row directly I have got
+your advice."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To see Dr. Jedd, and take him down to Hastings, if possible."
+
+"That won't do."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because Jedd's appearance would give Phil the office. Jedd gave evidence
+on the Fryar trial, and must be a marked man to him. All Jedd can tell
+you is that Charlotte is being poisoned. You know that already. Of course
+she'll want medical treatment, and so on, to bring her round; but she
+can't get that under my brother's roof. What you have to do is to get her
+away from that house."
+
+"You do not know how ill she is. I doubt if she could bear the removal."
+
+"Anything is better than to remain. _That_ is certain death."
+
+"But your brother would surely dispute her removal."
+
+"He would, and oppose it inch by inch. We must get him away, before we
+attempt to remove her."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I will find the means for that. I know something of his business
+relations, and can invent some false cry for luring him off the trail. We
+_must_ get him away. The poor girl was not in actual danger when you left
+her, was she?"
+
+"No, thank God, there was no appearance of immediate danger. But she was
+very ill. And that man holds her life in his hand. He knows that I have
+come to London in search of a doctor. What if--"
+
+"Keep yourself quiet, Hawkehurst. He will not hasten her death unless he
+is desperate; for a death occurring immediately after your first
+expression of alarm would seem sudden. He'll avoid any appearance of
+suddenness, if he can, depend upon it. The first thing is to get him
+away. But the question is, how to do it? There must be a bait. What bait?
+Don't talk to me, Hawkehurst. Let me think it out, if I can."
+
+The lawyer leaned his elbows on the table, and abandoned himself to
+profound cogitation, with his forehead supported by his clenched hands.
+Valentine waited patiently while he thus cogitated.
+
+"I must go down to Phil's office," he said at last, "and ferret out some
+of his secrets. Nothing but stock-exchange business, of an important
+character, would induce him to leave Charlotte Halliday. But if I can
+telegraph such a message as will bring him to town, I'll do it. Leave all
+that to me. And now, what about your work?"
+
+"I am at a loss what to do, if I am not to take Dr. Jedd to Harold's
+Hill."
+
+"Take him to St. Leonards; and if I get my brother out of the way, you
+can have Charlotte conveyed to an hotel in St. Leonard's, where she can
+stop till she picks up strength enough to come to London."
+
+"Do you think her mother will consent to her removal?
+
+"Do I think you will be such an idiot as to ask for her consent?" cried
+George Sheldon impatiently. "My brother's wife is so weak a fool, that
+the chances are she'd insist on her daughter stopping quietly, to be
+poisoned. No; you must get Mrs. Sheldon out of the way somehow. Send her
+to look at the shops, or to bathe, or to pick up shells on the beach, or
+anything else equally inane. She's easy enough to deal with. There's that
+young woman, Paget's daughter, with them still, I suppose? Yes. Very
+well, then, you and she can get Charlotte away between you."
+
+"But for me to take those two girls to an hotel--the chance of scandal,
+of wonder, of inquiry? There ought to be some other person--some nurse.
+Stay, there's Nancy Woolper--the very woman! My darling has told me of
+that old woman's affectionate anxiety about her health--an anxiety which
+was singularly intense, it seemed to Lotta. Good God! do you think she,
+Nancy Woolper, could have suspected the cause of Mr. Halliday's death?"
+
+"I dare say she did. She was in the house when he died, and nursed him
+all through his illness. She's a clever old woman. Yes, you might take
+her down with you; I think she would be of use in getting Charlotte
+away."
+
+"I'll take her, if she will go."
+
+"I am not sure of that; our north-country folks have stiffish notions
+about fidelity to old masters, and that kind of thing. Nancy Woolper
+nursed my brother Phil."
+
+"If she knows or suspects the fate of Charlotte's father, she will try to
+save Charlotte," said Valentine, with conviction. "And now, good bye! I
+trust to you for getting your brother out of the way, George Sheldon;
+remember that."
+
+He held out his hand; the lawyer took it with a muscular grip, which, on
+this occasion, meant something more than that base coin of jolly good
+fellowship which so often passes current for friendship's virgin gold.
+
+"You may trust me," George Sheldon said gravely. "Stop a moment, though;
+I have a proposition to make. If my brother Philip has induced that girl
+to make a will, as it is my belief he has, we must counter him. Come down
+with me to Doctors' Commons. You've a cab? Yes; the business won't take
+half an hour."
+
+"What business?"
+
+"A special licence for your marriage with Charlotte Halliday."
+
+"A marriage?"
+
+"Yes; her marriage invalidates her will, if she has made one, and does
+away with Phil's motive. Come along; we'll get the licence."
+
+"But the delay?"
+
+"Exactly half an hour. Come!"
+
+The lawyer dashed out of his office. "At home in an hour," he shouted
+to the clerk, and then ran downstairs, followed closely by Valentine,
+and did not cease running until he was in the King's Road, where the
+cab was waiting.
+
+"Newgate Street and Warwick Lane to Doctors' Commons!" he cried to the
+cabman; and Valentine was fain to take his seat in the cab without
+further remonstrance.
+
+"I don't understand--" he began, as the cabman drove away.
+
+"I do. It's all right; you'll put the licence in your pocket, and call at
+the church nearest which you hang out, Edgware Road way, give notice of
+the marriage, and so on; and as soon as Charlotte can bear the journey,
+bring her to London and marry her. I told you your course six months ago.
+Your obstinacy has caused the hazard of that young woman's life. Don't
+let us have a second edition of it."
+
+"I will be governed by your advice," answered Valentine, submissively.
+"It is the delay that tortures me."
+
+The delay was indeed torture to him. Everything and everybody in Doctors'
+Commons seemed the very incarnation of slowness. The hansom cab might
+tear and grind the pavement, the hansom cabman might swear until even
+monster waggons swerved aside to give him passage; but neither tearing
+nor swearing could move the incarnate stolidity of Doctors' Commons. When
+he left that quaint sanctuary of old usages, he carried with him the
+Archbishop of Canterbury's benign permission for his union with Charlotte
+Halliday. But he knew not whether it was only a morsel of waste paper
+which he carried in his pocket; and whether there might not ere long be
+need of a ghastlier certificate, giving leave and licence for the
+rendering back of "ashes to ashes, and dust to dust."
+
+Valentine's first call, after leaving George Sheldon at the gate of
+Doctors' Commons, was at the head-quarters of the Ragamuffins. His heart
+sank as he ran into the bar of the hostelry to ask for the telegram which
+might be waiting for him.
+
+Happily there was no telegram. To find no tidings of a change for the
+worse seemed to him almost equivalent to hearing of a change for the
+better. What had he not feared after his interview with the surgeon of
+Bloomsbury!
+
+From Covent Garden the hansom bowled swiftly to Burlington Row. Here
+Valentine found Mr. Burkham, pale and anxious, waiting in a little den of
+a third room, on the ground-floor--a ghastly little room, hung with
+anatomical plates, and with some wax preparations in jars, on the
+mantelpiece, by way of ornament. To them presently came Dr. Jedd, as
+lively and business-like as if Miss Halliday's case had been a question
+of taking out a double-tooth.
+
+"Very sad!" he said; "these vegetable poisons--hands of unscrupulous man.
+Very interesting article in the _Medical Quarterly_--speculative analysis
+of the science of toxicology as known to the ancients."
+
+"You will come down to Harold's Hill at once, sir?" said Valentine,
+imploringly.
+
+"Well, yes; your friend here, Mr. Burkham, has persuaded me to do so,
+though I need hardly tell you that such a journey will be to the last
+degree inconvenient."
+
+"It is an affair of life and death," faltered the young man.
+
+"Of course, my dear sir. But then, you see, I have half-a-dozen other
+affairs of life and death on my hands at this moment. However, I have
+promised. My consultations will be over in half an hour; I have a round
+of visits after that, and by--well, say by the five o'clock express, I
+will go to St. Leonards."
+
+"The delay will be very long," said Valentine.
+
+"It cannot be done sooner. I ought to go down to Hertfordshire this
+evening--most interesting case--carbuncle--three operations in three
+consecutive weeks--Swain as operator. At five o'clock I shall be at the
+London Bridge station. Until then, gentlemen, good day. Lawson, the
+door."
+
+Dr. Jedd left his visitors to follow the respectable white-cravatted
+butler, and darted back to his consulting-room.
+
+Mr. Burkham and Valentine walked slowly up and down Burlington Row before
+the latter returned to his cab.
+
+"I thank you heartily for your help," said Valentine to the surgeon; "and
+I believe, with God's grace, we shall save this dear girl's life. It was
+the hand of Providence that guided me to you this morning. I can but
+believe the same hand will guide me to the end."
+
+On this they parted. Valentine told his cabman to drive to the Edgware
+Road; and in one of the churches of the immediate neighbourhood of that
+thoroughfare he gave notice of his intention to enter the bonds of holy
+matrimony. He had some difficulty in arranging matters with the clerk,
+whom he saw in his private abode and non-official guise. That functionary
+was scarcely able to grasp the idea of an intending Benedick who would
+not state positively when he wanted to be married. Happily, however, the
+administration of half-a-sovereign considerably brightened the clerk's
+perceptions.
+
+"I see what you want," he said. "Young lady a invalid, which she wants to
+leave her home as she finds uncomfortable, she being over twenty-one
+years of age and her own mistress. It's what you may call a runaway
+match, although the parties ain't beholden to any one, in a manner of
+speaking. _I_ understand. You give me half an hour's notice any morning
+within the legal hours, and I'll have one of our young curates ready for
+you as soon as you're ready for them; and have you and the young lady
+tied up tight enough before you know where you are. We ain't very long
+over _our_ marriages, unless it is something out of the common way."
+
+The clerk's familiarity was more good-natured than flattering to the
+applicant's self-esteem; but Valentine was in no mood to object to this
+easy-going treatment of the affair. He promised to give the clerk the
+required notice; and having arranged everything in strictly legal manner,
+hurried back to his cab, and directed the man to drive to the Lawn.
+
+It was now three o'clock. At five he was to meet Dr. Jedd at the station.
+He had two hours for his interview with Nancy Woolper, and his drive from
+Bayswater to London Bridge.
+
+He had tasted nothing since daybreak; but the necessity to eat and drink
+never occurred to him. He was dimly conscious of feeling sick and faint,
+but the reason of this sickness and faintness did not enter into his
+thoughts. He took off his hat, and leant his head back against the
+cushion of the hansom as that vehicle rattled across the squares of
+Paddington. The summer day, the waving of green trees in those suburban
+squares; the busy life and motion of the world through which he went,
+mixed themselves into one jarring whirl of light and colour, noise and
+motion. He found himself wondering how long it was since he left
+Harold's Hill. Between the summer morning in which he had walked along
+the dusty high-road, with fields of ripening corn upon his left, and all
+the broad blue sea upon his right, and the summer afternoon in which he
+drove in a jingling cab through the noisy streets and squares of
+Bayswater, there seemed to him a gulf so wide, that his tried brain
+shrank from scanning it.
+
+He struggled with this feeling of helplessness and bewilderment, and
+overcame it.
+
+"Let me remember what I have to do," he said to himself; "and let me keep
+my wits about me till that is done."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+PHOENICIANS ARE RISING.
+
+While Mr. Hawkehurst arranged his affairs with the clerk of St.
+Matthias-in-the-fields, in the parish of Marylebone, George Sheldon sat
+in his brother's office writing a letter to that distinguished
+stockbroker. The pretext of writing a letter was the simplest pretext for
+being alone in his brother's room; and to be alone in Philip Sheldon's
+room was the first step in the business which George had to do.
+
+The room was distractingly neat, and as handsomely furnished as it is
+possible for an office to be within the closest official limits. A
+Spanish mahogany desk with a cylinder cover, and innumerable drawers
+fitted with invisible Bramah locks, occupied the centre of the room; and
+four ponderous Spanish mahogany chairs, with padded backs, and seats
+covered with crimson morocco, were primly ranged against the wall. Upon
+the mantelpiece ticked a skeleton clock; above which there hung the
+sternest and grimmest of almanacks, on either whereof were fastened
+divers lists and calendars of awful character, affected by gentlemen on
+'Change.
+
+Before penetrating to this innermost and sacred chamber, George Sheldon
+wasted some little time in agreeable gossip with a gentleman whom he
+found yawning over the _Times_ newspaper in an outer and less richly
+furnished apartment. This gentleman was Philip Sheldon's clerk, the
+younger son of a rich Yorkshire farmer, who had come to London with the
+intention of making his fortune on the Stock Exchange, and whose father
+had paid a considerable sum in order to obtain for this young man the
+privilege of reading the Times in Mr. Sheldon's office, and picking up
+whatever knowledge might be obtained from the business transactions of
+his employer.
+
+The career of Philip Sheldon had been watched with some interest by his
+fellow-townsmen of Barlingford. They had seen him leave that town with a
+few hundreds in his pocket, and they had heard of him twelve years
+afterwards as a prosperous stockbroker, with a handsome house and a
+handsome carriage, and the reputation of being one of the sharpest men in
+the City. The accounts of him that came to Barlingford were all more or
+less exaggerated; and the men who discussed his cleverness and his good
+luck were apt to forget that he owed the beginning of his fortunes to Tom
+Halliday's eighteen thousand pounds. The one fact that impressed Philip
+Sheldon's townsmen was the fact that a Barlingford man had made money on
+the Stock Exchange; and the one inference they drew therefrom was the
+inference that other Barlingford men might do the same.
+
+Thus it had happened that Mr. Stephen Orcott, of Plymley Rise farm, near
+Barlingford, being at a loss what to do with a somewhat refractory
+younger son, resolved upon planting his footsteps in the path so
+victoriously trodden by Philip Sheldon. He wrote to Philip, asking him to
+receive the young man as clerk, assistant, secretary--anything, with a
+view to an ultimate junior partnership; and Philip consented, upon
+certain conditions. The sum he demanded was rather a stiff one, as it
+seemed to Stephen Orcott, but he opined that such a sum would not have
+been asked if the advantages had not been proportionately large. The
+bargain was therefore concluded, and Mr. Frederick Orcott came to London.
+He was a young man of horsey propensities, gifted with a sublime contempt
+for any kind of business requiring application or industry, and with a
+supreme belief in his own merits.
+
+George Sheldon had known Frederick Orcott as a boy, and had been in his
+society some half-dozen times since his coming to London. He apprehended
+no difficulty in obtaining from this young gentleman any information he
+had the power to afford.
+
+"How do, Orcott?" he said, with agreeable familiarity. "My brother Phil
+not come back yet?"
+
+"No," replied the other, sulkily. "There have been ever so many people
+here bothering me about him. Where has he gone? and when will he be back?
+and so on. I might as well be some d----d footman, if I'm to sit here
+answering questions all day. High Wickham races are on to-day, and I
+wanted to see Barmaid run before I put my money on her for Goodwood. She
+was bred down our way, you see, and I know she's like enough to win the
+cup, if she's fit. They don't know much about her this way, either,
+though she's own sister to Boots, that won the Chester Cup last year,
+owing to Topham's being swindled into letting him off with seven lbs. He
+ran at the York Spring, you see, for a twopenny-halfpenny plate, and the
+boy that rode him pulled his head half off--I saw him do it--and then he
+won the Chester, and brought his owners a pot of money."
+
+This information was not exactly what George Sheldon wanted, but he
+planted himself on the hearthrug in an easy attitude, with his back
+against the mantelpiece, and appeared much interested in Mr. Orcott's
+discourse.
+
+"Anything stirring in the City?" he asked presently.
+
+"Stirring? No--nothing stirring but stagnation, as some fellow said in a
+play I saw the other night. Barlingford folks say your brother Philip has
+made a heap of money on the Stock Exchange; but if he has, he must have
+done a good deal more business before I came to him than he has done
+lately. I can't see how a man is to develop into a Rothschild out of an
+occasional two-and-sixpence per cent on the transfer of some old woman's
+savings from railway stock to consols; and that's about the only kind of
+business I've seen much of lately. Of course Phil Sheldon has got irons
+of his own in the fire; for he's an uncommonly deep card, you see, that
+brother of yours, and it isn't to be expected he'll tell _me_ all he's up
+to. I know he's up to his eyebrows in companies, but I don't see how he's
+to make his fortune out of _them_, for limited liability now-a-days seems
+only another name for unlimited crash. However, I don't care. It pleased
+my governor to get me into Sheldon's office, and it suited my book to
+come to London; but if the author of my being thinks I'm going to addle
+my blessed brains with the decline and fall of the money market, he's a
+greater fool than I took him for--and that's saying a great deal."
+
+And here Mr. Frederick Orcott lapsed into admiring contemplation of his
+boots, which were the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of a sporting bootmaker; boots
+that were of the ring, ringy, and of the corner, cornery.
+
+"Ah," said George, "and Phil doesn't tell you much of his affairs,
+doesn't he? That's rather a bad sign, I should think. Looks as if he was
+rather down upon his luck, eh?"
+
+"Well, there's no knowing, you see, with that sort of close fish. He may
+have made his book for a great haul, and may be keeping himself quiet
+till the event comes off. He may be laying on to something with all his
+might, you know, on safe information. But there's one thing I know he
+stands to lose by."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"The Phoenician Loan. He speculated in the bonds when they began to go
+down; and I'm blessed if they haven't been dropping ever since, an
+eighth a day, as regular as the day comes round. He bought them for the
+March account, and has been paying contango since then, and holding on in
+hopes of a rise. I don't know whether the purchase was a large one, but I
+know he's been uncommonly savage about the drop. He bought on the
+strength of private information from the other side of the Channel. The
+Emperor was putting his own money into the Phoenician business, and it
+was the best game out, and so on. But he seems to have been made a fool
+of, for once in a way."
+
+"The bonds may steady themselves."
+
+"Yes, they _may_; but, on the other hand, they mayn't. There are the
+Stock Exchange lists, with Phoenicians ticked off by your brother's own
+pen. A steady drop, you see. 'Let me have a telegram if there's a sudden
+rise,' said Sheldon to me the day he left London; 'they'll go up with
+rush when they do move.' But they've been moving the other way ever
+since; and I think if he stayed away till doomsday it would be pretty
+much the same."
+
+"_Phoenicians are rising rapidly. Come back to town._"
+
+These were the words of the telegraphic despatch which shaped itself in
+George Sheldon's brain, as his brother's clerk revealed the secrets of
+his employer.
+
+It was found--the solution of the one great question as to how Philip
+Sheldon was to be lured away from the bedside of his unconscious victim.
+Here was the bait.
+
+"I knew I could do it; I knew I could get all I wanted to know out of
+this shallow-brained idiot," he said to himself, triumphantly.
+
+And then he told the shallow-brained idiot that he thought he would write
+a line to his brother; and on that pretence went into Philip's office.
+
+Here, use his eyes as he might, he could discover nothing; he could glean
+no stray scrap of information. The secrets that could be guarded by
+concealed Bramah locks and iron safes, with mystic words to be learned by
+the man who would open them, Philip Sheldon knew how to protect.
+Unhappily for himself, he had been compelled to confide some of his
+secrets to human receptacles not to be guarded by Bramah locks or mystic
+words.
+
+The lawyer did not waste much time in his brother's office. A very hasty
+investigation showed him there was nothing to be learned from those bare
+walls and that inviolable cylinder-topped desk. He scribbled a few lines
+of commonplace at a table by the window, sealed and addressed his note,
+and then departed to despatch his telegram, "Phoenicians are rising
+rapidly," he wrote, and that was all. He signed the despatch Frederick
+Orcott.
+
+"Phil and Orcott may settle the business between them," he said to
+himself, as he forged the Yorkshireman's name. "What I have to do is to
+get Phil away, and give Hawkehurst a chance of saving Tom Halliday's
+daughter; and I shan't stand upon trifles in the doing of it."
+
+After having despatched this telegram, George Sheldon found himself much
+too restless and excited for ordinary business. He, so renowned even
+amongst cool hands for exceptional coolness, was on this occasion
+thoroughly unnerved. He dropped into a City tavern, and refreshed himself
+with a dram. But, amidst all the bustle and clatter of a crowded bar, the
+face of Tom Halliday, haggard and worn with illness, was before his eyes,
+and the sound of Tom Halliday's voice was in his ears. "I can't settle to
+anything this afternoon," he said to himself. "I'll run down to
+Bayswater, and see whether Hawkehurst has managed matters with Nancy
+Woolper."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+THE SORTES VIRGILIANÆ.
+
+While George Sheldon was still in the depths of the City Valentine
+Hawkehurst arrived at the gothic villa, where he asked to see Mrs.
+Woolper. Of the woman herself he knew very little: he had seen her once
+or twice when some special mission brought her to the drawing-room; and
+from Charlotte he had heard much of her affectionate solicitude. To have
+been kind to his Charlotte was the strongest claim to his regard.
+
+"This woman's help would be of inestimable service," he thought; "her
+age, her experience of sickness, her familiarity with the patient,
+especially adapt her for the office she will be required to fill. If Dr.
+Jedd should order a nurse to watch by the sick-bed, here is the nurse. If
+it should prove possible to remove the dear sufferer, here is the
+guardian best calculated to protect and attend her removal." That the
+desperate step of an immediate marriage would be a wise step Valentine
+could not doubt, since it would at once annihilate Mr. Sheldon's chances,
+and destroy his motive. But in contemplating this desperate step
+Valentine had to consider the reputation as well as the safety of his
+future wife. He was determined that there should be no opportunity for
+scandal in the circumstances of his stolen marriage, no scope for future
+mischief from the malignity of that baffled villain to whose schemes
+their marriage would give the death-blow. He, who from his cradle had
+been familiar with the darker side of life, knew how often the innocent
+carry a lifelong burden, and perform a perpetual pennance for the sins or
+the follies of others. And over his darling's life in the future, should
+it please God that he might save her, he would have no shadow cast by
+imprudence of his in the present.
+
+"This sharp-witted, sharp-tongued Yorkshirewoman will be the woman of
+women to protect her," he thought, as he seated himself in Mr. Sheldon's
+study, whither the prim parlour-maid had ushered him.
+
+"Mrs. Woolper have just gone upstairs to clean herself," she said; "which
+we are a-having the dining-room and droring-room carpets up, while the
+family are away. Would you please to wait?"
+
+Valentine looked at his watch.
+
+"I cannot wait very long," he said; "and I shall be obliged if you will
+tell Mrs. Woolper that I wish to see her on very important business."
+
+The parlour-maid departed, and Valentine was left to endure the weariness
+of waiting until Mrs. Woolper should have "cleaned herself."
+
+Mr. Sheldon's study at Bayswater did not offer much more to the eye of
+the investigator than Mr. Sheldon's office in the City. There were the
+handsomely bound books behind the inviolable plate-glass doors, and there
+was the neat writing-table with the machine for weighing letters, and the
+large business-like looking blotting-pad, and the ponderous brass-rimmed
+inkstand, with no nonsense about it; and yonder, on a clumsy little oak
+table with thick legs, appeared the copying machine, with a big black
+iron lever, and a massive screw with which to screw all the spontaneous
+feeling out of every letter that came beneath its crushing influence.
+
+Up and down this joyless den Valentine Hawkehurst paced, with the demon
+of impatience raging in his breast. The July sunshine blazed hot upon the
+window, and the voices of croquêt-players in adjacent gardens rose shrill
+upon the summer air. And there were girls playing croquêt while she, his
+"rose of the garden, garden of girls," lay sick unto death! O, why could
+he not offer a hecatomb of these common creatures as a substitute for
+that one fair spirit?
+
+He looked into the garden--the prim modern garden, but a few years
+reclaimed from that abomination of desolation, the "eligible lot of
+building land." Across the well-kept lawn there brooded no shadow of
+Old-World cedar; no century-old espaliers divided flower and kitchen
+ground; no box-edging of the early Hanoverian era bordered the beds of
+roses and mignonette. From one boundary-wall to the other there was not a
+bush old enough to hang an association upon. The stereotyped bed of
+flaming yellow calceolaria balanced the conventional bed of flaming
+crimson verbena; the lavender heliotrope faced the scarlet geranium, like
+the four corners in a quadrille. The garden was the modern nurserymen's
+ideal of suburban horticulture, and no more. But to Valentine this
+half-acre of smooth lawn and Wimbledon gravel pathway had seemed fair as
+those pleasure gardens of Semiramis, at the foot of the Bagistanos
+mountain, the fame whereof tempted Alexander to turn aside from the
+direct road, during his march from Chelone to the Nysaic horse pastures.
+
+To-day the contemplation of that commonplace garden gave him direful
+pain. Should he ever walk there again with his dear love, or in any other
+garden upon earth?
+
+And then he thought of fairer gardens, in supernal regions whither his
+soul was slow to travel. "Not easy is the journey from earth to the
+stars," says the sage; and from this young wanderer the stain of earthly
+travel had yet to be washed away.
+
+"If she is taken from me, shall I ever be pure enough to follow her?" he
+asked himself. "Will a life that began in such darkness ever rise to the
+light which is her natural element? If she is taken, and I stay behind,
+and bear my burden patiently in the hope to follow her, will there not be
+a gate closed against me in the skies, beyond which I shall see her,
+shining among her kindred spirits, in the white robes of perfect
+innocence? Ah, my love, my love, as between us on this earth must for
+ever be a gulf your pure soul cannot pass, so between us in the skies
+will rise a barrier to sever me from your sweet company!"
+
+The thought of probable separation upon earth, of possible separation in
+heaven, was too bitter to him.
+
+"I will not think of these things," he said to himself; "I will not
+believe in that possibility of this sacrifice. Ah, no! she will be
+saved. Against the bright young life the awful fiat has not gone
+forth. Providence has been with me to-day. Providence will go with me
+till the end."
+
+He thought how other men had so stood, as he was standing now, face to
+face with the great uncertainty, the crisis, the turning-point--the pivot
+on which life itself revolved. The pendulum of the mighty clock swings
+solemnly to and fro; with every vibration a moment; with every moment
+each man's shrouded fates move another step in their inexorable progress.
+And the end? What was the goal towards which those dark relentless shapes
+were moving?
+
+He thought of Rousseau, balancing the awful question of his soul's
+salvation--his poor weak soul adrift upon a sea of doubt.
+
+"Behold yonder tree which faces me, as I sit and meditate the problem of
+my destiny--the destiny of me, Jean Jacques Rousseau, self-conscious
+genius, and future regenerator of my age. I pick up a pebble, and
+poise it between my fingers before taking my aim. In another moment
+the question will be answered. If the pebble hits the tree, I, Jean
+Jacques, am reserved for salvation. If I miss--O awful, overwhelming
+possibility!--my name will blaze upon that dreadful scroll which numbers
+the damned."
+
+Happily the tree is bulky, and within but a few yards of the
+speculator; and the great enigma of the Calvinistic church is answered
+in favour of Madame de Warenne's protégé, whose propensities and
+proclivities at that period did not very strongly indicate his claim to
+a place among the elect.
+
+Valentine remembered the _sortes Virgilianæ_--the Wesleyan's drawing of
+inferences from Bible texts. Ah, could he not find an answer to the
+question that was the one thought of his mind? He would find some
+answer--a lying oracle, perhaps. It might be a voice from heaven,--some
+temporary assuagement of this storm of doubt that raged in his breast. "I
+doubt if Mr. Sheldon owns either a Bible or an 'Æneid,'" he said to
+himself, as he stopped in his rapid pacing of the room; "I will open the
+first book I can put my hand upon, and from the first line my eye falls
+on will draw an augury."
+
+He looked about the room. Behind the glazed doors of the mahogany
+bookcase appeared Hume and Smollett, Scott and Shakespeare; and
+conspicuous among these a handsome family Bible. But the glazed doors
+were locked. In Mr. Sheldon's study there appeared to be no other books
+than these few standard works. Yes, on some obscure little shelves, low
+down in one of the recesses formed by the projection of the fireplace and
+the chimney, there were three rows of large quarto volumes, in dingy
+dark-green cloth cases.
+
+What these volumes might contain Valentine Hawkehurst knew not; and the
+very fact of his ignorance rendered these books all the more suitable for
+the purpose of augury. To dip for a sentence into any of these unknown
+volumes would be a leap in darkness more profound than he could find in
+the Bible or the "Æneid," where his own foreknowledge of the text might
+unwittingly influence the oracle. He went over to the recess, bent down,
+and ran his hand along the backs of the volumes, with his face turned
+away from the books towards the window.
+
+"The first obstruction that arrests my hand shall determine my choice of
+the volume," he said to himself.
+
+His hand ran easily along the volumes on the upper shelf--easily along
+the volumes on the second shelf; and he began to doubt whether this mode
+of determining his choice could be persisted in. But in its progress
+along the third and lowest range of volumes, his hand was arrested midway
+by a book which projected about half an inch beyond its fellows.
+
+He took this book out and carried it to the table, still without looking
+at it. He opened it, or rather let its leaves fall open of their own
+accord--still without looking at it; and then, with a strange
+superstitious fear--mingled in his mind with the natural shame that
+accompanied his conscious folly--he looked at the page before him. The
+line on which he fixed his eye was the heading of a letter. It was in
+larger type than the rest of the page, and it was very plain to him as he
+stood a little way from the table, looking down at the open book.
+
+The line ran thus:
+
+"ON THE FALLIBILITY OF COPPER GAUZE AS A TEST FOR THE DETECTION OF
+ARSENIC."
+
+The book was a volume of the _Lancet_; the date twenty years ago.
+
+"What an oracle!" thought Valentine, with a cynical laugh at his own
+folly, and some slight sense of relief. In all feeble tamperings with
+powers invisible there lurks a sense of terror in the weak human heart.
+He had tempted those invisible ones, and the oracle he only half believed
+in might have spoken to his confusion and dismay. He was glad to think
+the oracle meant nothing.
+
+And yet, even in this dry as dust title of a scientific communication
+from a distinguished toxicologist there was some sinister significance.
+It was the letter of a great chemist, who demonstrated therein the
+fallibility of all tests in relation to a certain poison. It was one of
+those papers which, while they aid the cause of science, may also further
+the dark processes of the poisoner, by showing him the forces he has to
+encounter, and the weapons with which he may defend himself from their
+power. It is needless to dwell here upon the contents of this letter--one
+of a series on the same subject, or range of subjects. Valentine read it
+with eager interest. For him it had a terrible importance in its relation
+to the past and to the present.
+
+"I let the book fall open, and it opened at that letter," he thought to
+himself. "Will it open there a second time, I wonder?"
+
+He repeated the experiment, and the book opened in the same place. Again;
+and again the book opened as before. Again, many times, and the result
+was still the same.
+
+After this he examined the book, and found that it had been pressed open
+at this page, as by a reader leaning on the opened volume. He examined it
+still more closely, and found here and there on the page faint
+indications of a pencil, which had under-scored certain lines, and the
+marks of which had been as far as possible erased. The deduction to be
+drawn from these small facts seemed only too clear to Valentine
+Hawkehurst. By some one reader the pages had been deliberately and
+carefully studied. Could he doubt that reader to have been the man in
+whose possession he found the book, the man whom that very day he had
+heard plainly denounced as a poisoner?
+
+He drew out the previous volume, and in this a rapid search revealed to
+him a second fact, significant as the last.
+
+An old envelope marked the place where appeared an article on the
+coincidences common to the diagnostics of a certain type of low fever and
+the diagnostics of a certain class of poisons. Here the volume again
+opened of itself, and a blot of ink on the page seemed to indicate that
+the open book had been leant upon by a person engaged in making memoranda
+of its contents. Nor was this all. The forgotten envelope that marked the
+place had its own dismal significance. The postmark bore the date of the
+year and the month in which Charlotte's father had died.
+
+While this volume was still open in his hand the door opened suddenly,
+and Mrs. Woolper came into the room.
+
+She had kept Valentine waiting more than half an hour. He had little more
+than half an hour at most in which to break the ice of absolute
+strangeness, and sound the very depths of this woman's character. If she
+had come to him earlier, when his plan of action was clear and definite,
+his imagination in abeyance, he would have gone cautiously to work, with
+slowness and deliberation. Coming to him now, when his mind, unsettled by
+the discovery of fresh evidence against Philip Sheldon, was divided
+between the past and the present, she took him off his guard, and he
+plunged at once into the subject that absorbed all his thoughts.
+
+Mrs. Woolper looked from Valentine to the open books on the table with a
+vague terror in her face.
+
+"I am sorry I was so long, sir; but I'd been polishing the grates and
+fenders, and such like, and my hands and face were blacker than a
+sweep's. I hope there's nothing wrong at the seaside, where Miss--"
+
+"There is much that's wrong, Mrs. Woolper--hopelessly, irrecoverably
+wrong. Miss Halliday is ill, very ill--doomed to die, if she remain in
+your master's keeping."
+
+"Lord help us, Mr. Hawkehurst! what do you mean?"
+
+The terror in her face was no longer a vague terror. It had taken a form
+and substance, and was a terror unutterably hideous, if ever human
+countenance gave expression to human thought.
+
+"I mean that your master is better skilled in the use of the agents that
+kill than the agents that cure. Charlotte's father came to Philip
+Sheldon's house a hale strong man, in the very prime of manhood. In that
+house he sickened of a nameless disease, and died, carefully tended by
+his watchful friend. The same careful watcher stands by Charlotte
+Halliday's deathbed, and she is dying!"
+
+"Dying! O, sir, for God's sake, don't say that!"
+
+"She is dying, as her father died before her, by the hand of Philip
+Sheldon."
+
+"O, sir! Mr. Hawkehurst!" cried the old woman, with clasped hands lifted
+in piteous supplication towards her master's denouncer. "It's not true.
+It is not true. For God's dear love don't tell me it is true! I nursed
+him when he was a baby, sir; and there wasn't a little trouble I had to
+bear with him that didn't make him all the dearer to me. I have sat up
+all the night through, sir, times and often, when he was ill, and have
+heard Barlingford church clock strike every hour of the long night; and
+O, if I had known that this could ever come to him, I should have wished
+him dead in the little crib where he lay and seemed so innocent. I tell
+you, sir, it can't be true! His father and mother had been respected and
+looked up to in Barlingford for many a year,--his grandfather and
+grandmother before them. There isn't a name that stands better in those
+parts than the name of Sheldon. Do you think such a man would poison his
+friend?"
+
+"_I_ said nothing about poison, Mrs. Woolper," said Valentine, sternly.
+
+This woman had known all, and had held her tongue, like the rest, it
+seemed. To Valentine there was unutterable horror in the thought that a
+cold-blooded murder could be thus perpetrated in the sight of several
+people, and yet no voice be raised to denounce the assassin.
+
+"And this is our modern civilization!" he said to himself. "Give me the
+desert or the jungle. The sons of Bowanee are no worse than Mr. Sheldon,
+and one might be on one's guard against them."
+
+Nancy Woolper looked at him aghast. He had said nothing about poison!
+What, then--had she betrayed her master?
+
+He saw that she had known, or strongly suspected, the worst in the case
+of Tom Halliday, and that she would easily be influenced to do all he
+wanted of her.
+
+"Mrs. Woolper, you must help me to save Charlotte," he said, with
+intensity. "You made no attempt to save her father, though you suspected
+the cause of his death. I have this day seen Mr. Burkham, the doctor who
+attended Mr. Halliday, and from his lips I have heard the truth. I want
+you to accompany me to Hastings, and to take your place by Charlotte's
+bed, as her nurse and guardian. If Mr. Sheldon suspects your knowledge of
+the past, and I have little doubt that he does"--a look in the
+housekeeper's face told him that he was right--"you are of all people
+best fitted to guard that dear girl. Your part will not be a difficult
+one. If we dare remove her, we will remove her beyond the reach of that
+man's power. If not, your task will be to prevent food or medicine, that
+his hand has touched, from approaching her lips. You _can_ do it. It will
+only be a question of tact and firmness. We shall have one of the
+greatest doctors in London for our guide. Will you come?"
+
+"I don't believe my master poisoned his friend," said Nancy Woolper,
+doggedly; "nor I won't believe it. You can't force me to think bad of him
+I loved when he was little and helpless, and I carried him in my arms.
+What are you and your fine London doctor, Mr. Burkham--he was but a poor
+fondy, as I mind well--that I should take your word against my master? If
+that young man thought as Mr. Halliday was being poisoned, why didn't he
+speak out, like a man, then? It's a fine piece of work to bring it up
+against my master eleven years afterwards. As for young missy, she's as
+sweet a young creature as ever lived, and I'd do anything to serve her.
+But I won't think, and I can't think, that my master would hurt a hair of
+her head. What would he gain by it?"
+
+"He has settled that with himself. He has gained by the death of Tom
+Halliday, and depend upon it he has made his plans to gain by the death
+of Tom Halliday's daughter."
+
+"I won't believe it," the old woman repeated in the same dogged tone.
+
+For such resistance as this Mr. Hawkehurst was in no manner prepared. He
+looked at his watch. The half hour was nearly gone. There was little more
+time for argument.
+
+"Great Heaven!" he said to himself, "what argument can I employ to
+influence this woman's obdurate heart?"
+
+What argument, indeed? He knew of none stronger than those he had used.
+He stood for some moments battled and helpless, staring absently at the
+face of his watch, and wondering what he was to do next.
+
+As Valentine Hawkehurst stood thus, there came a loud ringing of the
+bell, following quickly on the sound of wheels grinding against the
+kerbstone.
+
+Mrs. Woolper opened the door and looked out into the hall.
+
+"It's master!" cried one of the maids, emerging from the disorganized
+dining-room, "and missus, and Miss Halliday, and Mass Paget--and all the
+house topsy-turvy!"
+
+"Charlotte here!" exclaimed Valentine. "You are dreaming, girl!"
+
+"And you told me she was dying!" said Mrs. Woolper, with a look of
+triumph. "What becomes of your fine story now?"
+
+"It _is_ Miss Halliday!" cried the housemaid, as she opened the door.
+"And O my!" she added, looking back into the hall with a sorrowful face,
+"how bad she do look!"
+
+Valentine ran out to the gate. Yes; there were two cabs, one laden with
+luggage, the two cabmen busy about the doors of the vehicles, a little
+group of stragglers waiting to see the invalid young lady alight. It was
+the next best thing to a funeral.
+
+"O, don't she look white!" cried a shrill girl with a baby in her arms.
+
+"In a decline, I dessay, pore young thing," said a matron, in an audible
+aside to her companion.
+
+Valentine dashed amongst the group of stragglers. He pushed away the girl
+with the baby, the housemaid who had run out behind him, Mr. Sheldon, the
+cabman, every one; and in the next moment Charlotte was in his arms, and
+he was carrying her into the house.
+
+He felt as if he had been in a dream; and all that exceptional force
+which the dreamer sometimes feels he felt in this crisis. He carried his
+dear burden into the study, followed by Mr. Sheldon and Diana Paget. The
+face that dropped upon his shoulder showed deadly white against his
+dark-blue coat; the hand which he clasped in his, ah, how listless and
+feeble!
+
+"Valentine!" the girl said, in a low drowsy voice, lifting her eyes to
+his face, "is this you? I have been so ill, so tired; and they would
+bring me away. To be near the doctors, papa says. Do you think any
+doctors will be able to cure me?"
+
+"Yes, dear, with God's help. I am glad he has brought you here. And now
+I must run away," he said; when he had placed Charlotte in Mr. Sheldon's
+arm-chair, "for a very little while, darling. I have seen a doctor, a
+man in whom I have more confidence than I have in Dr. Doddleson. I am
+going to fetch him, my dearest," he added tenderly, as he felt the
+feeble hand cling to his; "I shall not be long. Do you think I shall not
+hurry back to you? My dearest one, when I return, it will be to stay
+with you--for ever."
+
+She was too ill to note the significance of his words; she only knew that
+they gave her comfort. He hurried from the room. In less than an hour he
+must be at the London Bridge terminus, or in all probability the five
+o'clock train would carry Dr. Jedd to St. Leonards; and on Dr. Jedd his
+chief hope rested.
+
+"Do you believe me now?" he asked of Mrs. Woolper as he went out
+into the hall.
+
+"I do," she answered in a whisper; "and I will do what you want."
+
+She took his hand in her wrinkled horny palm and grasped it firmly. He
+felt that in this firm pressure there was a promise sacred as any oath
+ever registered on earth. He met Mr. Sheldon on the threshold, and
+passed him without a word. The time might come in which he would have to
+mask his thoughts, and stoop to the hateful hypocrisy of civility to
+this man; but he had not yet schooled himself to do this. At the gate he
+met George Sheldon.
+
+"What's up now?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"Did you send your message?"
+
+"Yes; I telegraphed to Phil."
+
+"It has been trouble wasted. He has brought her home."
+
+"What does that mean?"
+
+"Who knows? I pray God that he may have overreached himself. I have set a
+watch upon my dear love, and no further harm shall come to her. I am
+going to fetch Dr. Jedd."
+
+"And you are not afraid of Phil's smelling a rat?"
+
+"I am afraid of nothing that he can do henceforward. If it is not too
+late to save her, I will save her."
+
+He waited for no more, but jumped into the cab. "London Bridge terminus!
+You must get me there by a quarter to five," he said to the driver.
+
+George Sheldon went no further than the gate of his brother's domain.
+
+"I wonder whether the Harold's Hill people will send that telegram after
+him," he thought. "It'll be rather unpleasant for Fred Orcott if they do.
+But it's ten to one they won't. The normal condition of every seaside
+lodging-house keeper in one degree removed from idiotcy."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Ninth.
+
+
+
+THROUGH THE FURNACE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+SOMETHING TOO MUCH.
+
+"Is that young man mad?" asked Philip Sheldon, as he went into his study
+immediately after Valentine had passed him in the hall.
+
+The question was not addressed to any particular individual; and Diana,
+who was standing near the door by which Mr. Sheldon entered, took upon
+herself to answer it.
+
+"I think he is very anxious," she said in a half whisper.
+
+"What brought him here just now? He did not know we were coming home."
+
+Mrs. Woolper answered this question.
+
+"He came for something for Miss Charlotte, sir; some books as she'd had
+from the library. They'd not been sent back; and he came to see about
+their being sent."
+
+"What books?" murmured Charlotte. But a pressure from Mrs. Woolper's hand
+prevented her saying more.
+
+"I never encountered any one with so little self-command," said Mr.
+Sheldon. "If he is going to rush in and out of my house in that manner, I
+must really put a stop to his visits altogether. I cannot suffer that
+kind of thing. For Charlotte's welfare quiet is indispensable; and if Mr.
+Hawkehurst's presence is to bring noise and excitement, Mr. Hawkehurst
+must not cross this threshold."
+
+He spoke with suppressed anger; with such evident effort to restrain his
+anger, that it would have seemed as if his indignation against Valentine
+was no common wrath.
+
+Charlotte caught his last words.
+
+"Dear papa," she pleaded in her faint voice, "pray do not be angry with
+Valentine; he is so anxious about me."
+
+"I am not angry with him; but while you are ill, I will have quiet--at
+any price."
+
+"Then I'm sure you should not have brought Charlotte home," exclaimed
+Georgy, in tones of wailing and lamentation; "for of all the miseries in
+life, there is nothing worse than coming home in the very midst of a
+general cleaning. It was agreed between Ann Woolper and me that there
+should be a general cleaning while we were away at the seaside. We were
+to be away a fortnight, and everything was to be as neat as a new pin
+when we came home. But here we are back in less than a week, and
+everything at sixes-and-sevens. Where we are to dine I know not; and as
+for the carpets, they are all away at the beating-place, and Ann tells me
+they won't be home till Friday."
+
+"We can exist without carpets," answered Mr. Sheldon, in a hard dry
+voice. "I suppose they are seeing to Miss Halliday's room?" he added,
+addressing himself to Mrs. Woolper. "Why don't you go and look after
+them, Nancy?"
+
+"Sarah knows what she has to do. The bed-rooms was done first; and
+there's not much amiss in Miss Charlotte's room."
+
+Mr. Sheldon dropped wearily into a chair. He looked pale and haggard.
+Throughout the journey he had been unfailing in his attention to the
+invalid; but the journey had been fatiguing; for Charlotte Halliday was
+very ill--so ill as to be unable to avoid inflicting trouble upon
+others. The weariness--the dizziness--the dull intervals of
+semi-consciousness--the helpless tottering walk, which was like the
+walk of intoxication rather than ordinary weakness--the clouded
+sight--all the worst symptoms of this nameless disease, had every hour
+grown more alarming.
+
+Against this journey to London Mrs. Sheldon and Diana had pleaded--Georgy
+with as much earnestness as she could command; Diana as forcibly as she
+dared argue a question in which her voice had so little weight.
+
+But upon this point Mr. Sheldon was adamant.
+
+"She will be better off in London," he said resolutely. "This trip to the
+seaside was a whim of my wife's; and, like most other whims of my wife's,
+it has entailed trouble and expense upon me. Of course I know that Georgy
+did it for the best," he added, in reply to a reproachful "O Philip!"
+from Mrs. Sheldon. "But the whole business has been a mistake. No sooner
+are we comfortably settled down here, than Hawkehurst takes it into his
+head to be outrageously alarmed about Charlotte, and wants to bring
+half-a-dozen doctors round the poor girl's bed, to her inevitable peril;
+for in an illness which begins and ends in mental depression, all
+appearance of alarm is calculated to do mischief."
+
+Having said this, Mr. Sheldon lost no time in making arrangements for the
+journey. A carriage was ordered; all possible preparations were made for
+the comfort of the invalid--everything that care or kindness could do was
+done; but the cruelty of the removal was not the less obvious. Georgy
+wailed piteously about the sixes-and-sevens to which they were being
+taken. Diana cared nothing about sixes-and-sevens; but she felt supreme
+indignation against Charlotte's stepfather, and she did not attempt to
+conceal her feelings.
+
+Nor was it without an effort to oppose Mr. Sheldon's authority that Miss
+Paget succumbed to the force of circumstances. She appealed to his wife.
+
+"Dear Mrs. Sheldon, I beg you not to suffer Lotta's removal," she said
+earnestly. "You do not know how ill she is--nor can Mr. Sheldon know, or
+he would not take such a step. As her mother, your authority is superior
+to his; you have but to say that she shall not be taken from this house
+in her present state of prostration and sickness."
+
+"I have only to say!" cried Georgy, piteously. "O Diana, how can you say
+such a thing? What would be Mr. Sheldon's feelings if I were to stand up
+against him, and declare that Charlotte should not be moved? And he so
+anxious too, and so clever. I'm sure his conduct about my poor dear Lotta
+is positively beautiful. I never saw such anxiety. Why, he has grown ten
+years older in his looks since the beginning of her illness. People go on
+about stepfather this, and stepfather that, until a poor young widow is
+almost frightened to marry again. But I don't believe a real father ever
+was more thoughtful or more careful about a real daughter than Philip has
+been about Lotta. And what a poor return it would be if I were to oppose
+him now, when he says that the removal will be for Charlotte's good, and
+that she will be near clever doctors--if she should require clever
+doctors! You don't know how experienced he is, and how thoughtful. I
+shall never forget his kindness to poor Tom."
+
+"Yes," exclaimed Miss Paget impatiently, "but Mr. Halliday died."
+
+"O Diana," whimpered Georgy, "I did not think you could be so unkind as
+to remind me of that."
+
+"I only want to remind you that Mr. Sheldon is not infallible."
+
+Mr. Sheldon entered the room at this juncture, and Diana left it,
+passionately indignant against the poor weak creature, to whom no crisis,
+no danger, could give strength of mind or will.
+
+"A sheep would make some struggle for her lamb," she thought, angrily.
+"Mrs. Sheldon is lower than a sheep."
+
+It was the first time she had thought unkindly of this weak soul, and her
+anger soon melted to pity for the powerless nature which Mr. Sheldon held
+in such supreme control. She made no further attempt at resistance after
+this; but went to Charlotte's room and prepared for the journey.
+
+"O, why am I to be moved, dear?" the girl asked piteously. "I am too ill
+to be moved."
+
+"It is for your good, darling. Mr. Sheldon wants you to be near the great
+physicians, who can give you health and strength."
+
+"There are no physicians who can do that. Let me stay here, Di. Beg papa
+to let me stay here."
+
+Diana hid her face upon the invalid's shoulder. Her tears choked her. To
+repress her grief was agony scarcely endurable. But she did hide all
+trace of anger and sorrow, and cheered the helpless traveller throughout
+the weariness of the journey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charlotte was lying on a sofa in her bedroom, with Mrs. Woolper in
+attendance upon her, when Dr. Jedd arrived. It was a quarter to six, and
+the low western sunshine flooded the room.
+
+The physician came with Valentine, and did not ask to see Mr. Sheldon
+before going to his patient's room. He told the housemaid who admitted
+him to show the way to Miss Halliday's room.
+
+"The nurse is there, I suppose?" he said to the girl.
+
+"Yes, sir; leastways, Mrs. Woolper."
+
+"That will do."
+
+Mr. Sheldon heard the voice in the hall, and came out of the library as
+the doctor mounted the step of the stairs.
+
+"Who is this? What is this?" he asked of Valentine Hawkehurst.
+
+"I told you I was not satisfied with Dr. Doddleson's opinion," answered
+the young man coolly. "This gentleman is here by appointment with me."
+
+"And pray by what right do you bring a doctor of your own choosing to
+visit my stepdaughter without previous consultation with me?"
+
+"By the right of my love for her. I am not satisfied as to the medical
+treatment your stepdaughter has received in this house, Mr. Sheldon, and
+I want to be satisfied. Miss Halliday is something more than your
+stepdaughter, remember: she is my promised wife. Dr. Jedd's opinion will
+be more assuring to me than the opinion of Dr. Doddleson."
+
+At the sound of Dr. Jedd's name Mr. Sheldon started slightly. It was a
+name he knew only too well--a name he had seen among the medical
+witnesses in the great Fryar trial, the record of which had for him
+possessed a hideous fascination. He had fancied himself in the poisoner
+Fryar's place; and the fancy had sent an icy chill through his veins. But
+in the next minute he had said to himself, "I am not such a reckless fool
+as that man Fryar was; and have run no such risks as he ran."
+
+At the name of Jedd the same icy shiver ran through his veins again. His
+tone of suppressed anger changed to a tone of civility which was almost
+sycophantic.
+
+"I have the honour to know Dr. Jedd by repute very well indeed, and I
+withdraw my objection to your course of proceeding, my dear Hawkehurst;
+though I am sure Dr. Jedd will agree with me that such a course is
+completely against all professional etiquette, and that Dr. Doddleson
+will have the right to consider himself aggrieved."
+
+"There are cases in which one hardly considers professional etiquette. I
+shall be very happy to meet Dr. Doddleson to-morrow morning. But as Mr.
+Hawkehurst was very anxious that I should see Miss Halliday to-night, I
+consented to waive all ceremony, and come with him on the spot."
+
+"I cannot blame his anxiety to secure so valuable an opinion. I only
+wonder what lucky star guided him to so excellent an adviser."
+
+Mr. Sheldon looked from Dr. Jedd to Valentine Hawkehurst as he said this.
+The physician's face told him no more than he might have learnt from a
+blank sheet of paper. Valentine's face was dark and gloomy; but that
+gloomy darkness might mean no more than natural grief.
+
+"I will take you to my stepdaughter's room at once," he said to the
+physician.
+
+"I think it will be better for me to see the young lady alone," the
+doctor answered coolly: "that is to say, in the presence of her nurse
+only."
+
+"As you please," Mr. Sheldon replied.
+
+He went back to his study. Georgy was sitting there, whimpering in a
+feeble way at intervals; and near her sat Diana, silent and gloomy. A
+settled gloom, as of the grave itself, brooded over the house. Mr.
+Sheldon flung himself into a chair with an impatient gesture. He had
+sneered at the inconvenience involved in uncarpeted floors, but he was
+beginning to feel the aggravation of that inconvenience. These two women
+in his study were insupportable to him. It seemed as if there was no room
+in the house in which he could be alone; and just now he had bitter need
+of solitary meditation.
+
+"Let them arrange the dining-room somehow, carpet or no carpet," he said
+to his wife. "We must have some room to dine in; and I can't have you
+here, Georgy; I have letters to write."
+
+Mrs. Sheldon and Diana were not slow to take the hint.
+
+"I'm sure I don't want to be here, or anywhere," exclaimed Georgy in
+piteous accents; "I feel so miserable about Charlotte, that if I could
+lie down and die, it would be a comfort to me. And it really seems a
+mockery having dinner at such a time. It's just as it was during poor
+Tom's illness; there were fowls and all sorts of things cooked, and no
+one ever ate them."
+
+"For God's sake go away!" cried Mr. Sheldon passionately; "your perpetual
+clack is torture to me."
+
+Georgy hurried from the room, followed closely by Diana.
+
+"Did you ever see any one more anxious?" Mrs. Sheldon asked, with
+something like pride.
+
+"I would rather see Mr. Sheldon less anxious!" Diana answered gravely.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+DR. JEDD'S OPINION.
+
+Alone, Philip Sheldon breathed more freely. He paced the room, waiting
+for the appearance of the doctor; and with almost every turn he looked at
+the clock upon the chimneypiece.
+
+How intolerable seemed the slow progress of the moments! How long that
+man Jedd was staying in the sick-room! And yet not long; it was he,
+Philip Sheldon, who was losing count of time. Where was Valentine? He
+opened the door of the room, and looked out. Yes, there was a figure on
+the stairs. The lover was waiting the physician's verdict.
+
+A door on the landing above opened, and the step of the Doctor sounded on
+the upper flight. Mr. Sheldon waited for Dr. Jedd's appearance.
+
+"I shall be glad to hear your opinion," he said quietly; and the Doctor
+followed him into the study. Valentine followed the Doctor, to Mr.
+Sheldon's evident surprise.
+
+"Mr. Hawkehurst is very anxious to hear what I have to say," said Dr.
+Jedd; "and I really see no objection to his hearing it."
+
+"If you have no objection, I can have none," Mr. Sheldon answered. "I
+must confess, your course of proceeding appears to me altogether
+exceptional, and--"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Sheldon; but then, you see, the case is altogether an
+exceptional case," said the physician, gravely.
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Decidedly. The young lady is in extreme danger. Yes, Mr. Sheldon, in
+extreme danger. The mistake involved in her removal to-day is a mistake
+which I cannot denounce too strongly. If you had wanted to kill your
+stepdaughter, you could scarcely have pursued a more likely course for
+the attainment of your object. No doubt you were actuated by the most
+amiable motives. I can only regret that you should have acted without
+competent advice."
+
+"I believed myself to be acting for the best," replied Philip Sheldon, in
+a strange mechanical way.
+
+He was trying to estimate the true meaning of the Doctor's address. Was
+he merely expressing anger against an error of ignorance or stupidity, or
+was there a more fatal significance in his words?
+
+"You overwhelm me," the stockbroker said presently; "you positively
+overwhelm me by your view of my daughter's condition. Dr. Doddleson
+apprehended no danger. He saw our dear girl on Sunday morning--yesterday
+morning," added Mr. Sheldon, wonder-stricken to find that the interval
+was so brief between the time in which he had walked with Valentine and
+Dr. Doddleson in the garden at Harold's Hill and the present moment. To
+Valentine it seemed still more wonderful. What a bridgeless gulf between
+yesterday morning and to-night! All his knowledge of this man Sheldon,
+all the horror involved in Tom Halliday's death, had come upon him in
+that brief span.
+
+"I should like to see Dr. Doddleson's prescriptions," said Dr. Jedd, with
+grave politeness.
+
+Mr. Sheldon produced them from his pocket-book with an unshaken hand. No
+change of countenance, no tremulous hand, no broken voice, betrayed his
+apprehension. The one distinguishing mark of his manner was an absent,
+half-mechanical tone, as of a man whose mind is employed otherwise than
+in the conversation of the moment. Prompt at calculation always, he was
+at this crisis engaged in a kind of mental arithmetic. "The chances of
+defeat, so much; the chances of detection--?"
+
+A rapid survey of his position told him what those chances were.
+Detection by Dr. Jedd? Yes. That had come to him already perhaps. But
+would any actual harm to him come of such detection?
+
+He calculated the chances for and against this--and the result was in his
+favour. That Dr. Jedd should form certain opinions of Miss Halliday's
+case was one thing; that he should give public utterance to those
+opinions was another thing.
+
+"What can his opinion matter to me?" Mr. Sheldon asked himself; "opinion
+cannot touch me in a case where there is no such thing as certainty. He
+has seen the dilatation of the pupil--even that old fool Doddleson saw
+it--and has taken fright. But no jury in England would hang a man on such
+evidence as that; or if a jury could be found to put the rope round a
+man's neck, the British public and the British press would be pretty sure
+to get the rope taken off again."
+
+"Chloric æther, spirits of ammonia--hum, ha, hum--yes," muttered Dr.
+Jedd, looking at one prescription. "Quinine, yes; aqua pura," he
+murmured, looking at another.
+
+He threw them aside with a half-contemptuous gesture, and then took up a
+pen and began to write.
+
+"My mode of treatment will be quite different from that adopted by Dr.
+Doddleson," he said; "but I apprehend no difficulty in bringing that
+gentleman round to my view of the case when we meet."
+
+As he wrote his prescription Philip Sheldon rose and looked over his
+shoulder.
+
+The form of the prescription told him that Dr. Jedd knew--all! He had
+suspected this from the first, and the confirmation of this suspicion did
+not shake him. He grew firmer, indeed; for now he knew on what ground he
+was standing, and what forces were arrayed against him.
+
+"I really do not understand the basis of your treatment," he said, still
+looking over the physician's shoulder.
+
+Dr. Jedd turned his chair with a sudden movement, and faced him.
+
+"Am I talking to Mr. Sheldon the stockbroker, or Mr. Sheldon the
+surgeon-dentist?" he asked.
+
+_This_ was a blow. This allusion to the past was a sharper stroke than
+any that Philip Sheldon had before received. He looked at Valentine; from
+Valentine to the physician. What did it mean, this mention of the past?
+That blabbing fool George had talked to his friend of the days in
+Fitzgeorge Street, no doubt; and Valentine had blabbed Mr. Sheldon's
+antecedents to the physician.
+
+Was this what it all meant? Or did it mean more than this? Whatever it
+might mean, he faced the hidden danger, and met the uncertainties of his
+position as calmly as he met its certainties.
+
+"I have no desire to interfere with your treatment," he said, very
+quietly; "but I have some knowledge of the Pharmacopoeia, and I confess
+myself quite at a loss to understand your prescription."
+
+"Dr. Doddleson will understand it when he has heard my opinion. There is
+no time to be lost--Mr. Hawkehurst, will you take this to the chemist,
+and wait for the medicine? Miss Halliday cannot take it too soon. I shall
+be here to-morrow at nine o'clock.--If you wish me to see Dr. Doddleson,
+Mr. Sheldon, you will perhaps arrange an appointment with him for that
+hour."
+
+"It is rather an early hour."
+
+"No hour is too early in a case attended with so much danger. Perhaps it
+will be as well for me to call on Dr. Doddleson as I drive home. I shall
+make a point of seeing Miss Halliday twice a day. I find your housekeeper
+a very sensible person. She will remain in close attendance upon the
+sick-room; and I must beg that there is no quackery--no home-made
+remedies. I have given your housekeeper all directions as to treatment
+and diet, and she has my orders to allow no one but herself in the
+invalid's room. There is a marked tendency to delirium, and quiet is
+indispensable."
+
+"I have said as much myself," answered Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"Mr. Hawkehurst will undertake to see to the making-up of my
+prescriptions," continued Dr. Jedd, as he drew on his gloves. "He is very
+anxious about the young lady, and it will afford him some relief of mind
+to be employed in her service. No, thanks," he said, putting aside Mr.
+Sheldon's hand as that gentleman offered him his fee. "I have already
+received my honorarium from Mr. Hawkehurst."
+
+There was no more to be said. The physician wished the two men good
+evening, and returned to his carriage, to be driven home to dinner by way
+of Plantagenet Square, where he saw Dr. Doddleson, and appointed to meet
+him next day, much to the delight of that individual, who was proud to be
+engaged in a case with the great Jedd.
+
+Valentine left the house on the heels of the Doctor. He came back in
+about twenty minutes with the medicine. He did not go to the principal
+gate, but to a little side gate, near the offices of the gothic villa--a
+gate to which butchers and bakers came with their wares in the morning.
+
+"I want to see Miss Paget," he said to the maid who answered his summons;
+"and I want to see her without disturbing Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon. Do you
+know where to find her?"
+
+"Yes, sir; she's in her own room. I took her a cup of tea there ten
+minutes ago. She's got a headache with fretting about our poor young
+lady, and she won't go down to dinner with master and missus."
+
+"Will you ask her to step out here and speak to me for a few minutes?"
+
+"Won't you come indoors and see her, sir?"
+
+"No; I'd rather see her in the garden."
+
+It was still daylight here, but it was growing shadowy among the avenues
+in Kensington Gardens. The gate near which Valentine waited was not to be
+seen from the windows of dining or drawing-room.
+
+The housemaid ran off to summon Miss Paget; and in less than five minutes
+Diana appeared, dressed in her hat and garden jacket.
+
+"Will you come out into the road with me, dear?" asked Valentine. "I have
+something serious to say to you."
+
+"And I am so anxious to hear what the Doctor has said," answered Diana,
+as she took Valentine's arm.
+
+The road before the Lawn was very quiet at this hour of the evening, and
+here they were safely beyond Mr. Sheldon's ken.
+
+"Tell me the Doctor's opinion, Valentine," Diana said, eagerly. "Does he
+think the case very serious?"
+
+"He does. It is more serious than you or I could have imagined, if
+Providence had not helped me to discover the truth."
+
+"What do you mean, Valentine?"
+
+He gave her in brief the story of his day's work. She listened to him
+breathlessly, but uttered no exclamation until his story was finished.
+
+"It is most horrible," she said at last; "but I believe it is most true.
+There has been so much in that man's conduct that has mystified me; and
+_this_ explains all. But what earthly motive can have prompted this
+hideous crime?"
+
+"He believes that he has a beneficial interest in her death. I cannot
+fully understand his motive; but, rely upon it, there is a motive, and a
+sufficient one. And I have let that man delude me into belief in his
+honesty after I had been warned against him! But there is no time for
+regrets. Diana, I look to you to help me in saving my dear love."
+
+"It is not too late to save her?"
+
+"Dr. Jedd will commit himself to no positive statement. He tells me she
+is in danger, but he does not refuse all hope. Now listen, my dear. In
+that house I have only two people to help me--Ann Woolper and yourself.
+Ann Woolper I hold only by a feeble bond. I think she will be true to us;
+but I am not sure of her. Sheldon's influence over her is a powerful one;
+and God knows what concession he might extort from her. She is the
+ostensible guardian of Charlotte's room; you must contrive to be the real
+guardian. You must keep custody over the custodian. How is your room
+situated in relation to Charlotte's room?"
+
+"The doors of the two rooms are exactly opposite."
+
+"Providence favours us there. Can you keep watch over Charlotte's door
+from your room without making your guardianship too apparent?"
+
+"I can."
+
+"Day and night?"
+
+"Day and night."
+
+"God bless you, dear! Her life may be saved by your fidelity."
+
+"I would do as much to render her a smaller service."
+
+"My dear girl! And now go back to the house. Here is the medicine. You
+will give that into Mrs. Woolper's hands; she has received her
+instructions from Dr. Jedd, and those instructions leave no room for
+doubt. If she permits Sheldon to tamper with the medicine or the food of
+her patient, she will be the wilful accomplice of a murderer. I think she
+may be trusted."
+
+"I will watch her."
+
+"The charge of procuring the medicine is mine. I shall come to this house
+many times in the course of every day; but I am bound to prepare myself
+for the hour in which Mr. Sheldon may forbid me his house. In that event
+I shall come to this gate. I suppose the servants would stand by me if
+you pleaded for me?"
+
+"I am sure they would."
+
+"And now, dear, go; the medicine is wanted. I shall come back in a few
+hours to inquire if there is any change for the better. Go."
+
+They had returned to the gate ere this. He grasped the hand which she
+held out to him, and stood by the little gate watching her till she had
+disappeared through the door of the servants' quarters. When the door
+closed, he walked slowly away. He had done all that it was possible for
+him to do, and now came his worst misery. There was nothing left for him
+but to wait the issue of events.
+
+What was he to do? Go home to his lodgings--eat, drink, sleep? Was it
+possible for him to eat or to sleep while that precious life trembled in
+the balance? He walked slowly along the endless roads and terraces in a
+purposeless way. Careless people pushed against him, or he pushed against
+them; children brushed past him as they ran. What a noisy, busy,
+clattering world it seemed! And she lay dying! O, the droning, dreary
+organs, and the hackneyed, common tunes, how excruciating they were to
+him to-night!
+
+He emerged into the high road by-and-by, in all the bustle and riot of
+Notting Hill. The crowded shops, the clamorous people, seemed strange to
+him. It was like the clamour of a foreign city. He walked on past the
+bustle and riot, by the quieter terraces near Holland Park, and still
+held on to Shepherd's Bush, where he went into a little public-house and
+called for some brandy.
+
+There was a bench on one side of the space in front of the bar, and
+towards this he pushed his way.
+
+"Where are you shoving to, my young swell?" growled a sturdy cabman,
+indignant at the outrage inflicted by Valentine's elbows; but in the next
+moment the sturdy cabman dashed suddenly forward and caught the young
+swell in his strong arms.
+
+"My eye, young un!" he cried; "where do you want to go to? Here, some one
+bring a mug of cold water: I'm blest if he ain't in a fit!"
+
+Happily it was no fit, only a dead faint into which Mr. Hawkehurst had
+fallen. He came back to consciousness presently, after a few spoonfuls of
+brandy had been forced into his mouth, and looked about him with a
+helpless stare.
+
+"I'm jiggered if I don't believe he's fainted for the want of wittles!"
+cried the cabman. "They keeps up till they drop, sometimes, these seedy
+swells--walks about, lookin' like so many Dossays, on a hempty stomach.
+Here, some one bring a plate o' cold meat, and look sharp about it. I'll
+stand sam."
+
+Valentine looked up with a faint smile.
+
+"And I'll stand sam for anything you like to order, my friend," he said,
+holding out his hand to the good-natured cabman. "I've eaten nothing
+since last night; but I haven't fasted for want of money. There are worse
+troubles than an empty pocket,--and I'm not unacquainted with _that_."
+
+"I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir," said the man, sheepishly, very much
+ashamed of his benevolence; "but, you see, it ain't the fust time I've
+seen a swell come to the pavement with a cropper, in consequence of
+having gone it too fast, and cleaned hisself out, in a manner of
+speaking."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+NON DORMIT JUDAS.
+
+The summer darkness closed round the Bayswater villa, but of sleep there
+was little for any one in that household during this sad night. Is there
+not, in almost every household, a memory of such days and nights--dread
+intervals in which the common course of life and time seems to be
+suspended, and all the interests of the universe hang upon the fitful
+breath of one dear sufferer?
+
+Lonely were the watchers in Mr. Sheldon's house. Georgy was in her own
+room, forbidden to disturb the invalid by her restless presence--now
+lying down, now pacing to and fro, now praying a little, now crying a
+little--the very ideal of helpless misery.
+
+In the sick-room there was no one but the invalid and Ann Woolper. In
+the room opposite watched Diana Paget, her door ajar, her senses
+sharpened by anxiety, quick to hear the faintest sound of footfall on
+the stairs, or to feel the slightest vibration from stealthily opened
+door on the story below.
+
+Alone in the study sat Philip Sheldon, at the table where he was
+accustomed to write--a blank sheet of paper before him, a pen held
+loosely in his outstretched hand, and his eyes fixed in an unseeing gaze
+upon the bookcase opposite--the living image of care. Now that the
+turmoil of the day was done, and there was silence in the house, he had
+set himself to face his position. It was no trifling task which he had to
+perform. Not one difficulty, or one set of difficulties, had he to meet
+and master. The armed enemies up-springing from the dragon's teeth which
+he had sown were not to be set fighting amongst themselves, nor were they
+to be smashed by any rocks that he could hurl amongst them. They stood
+around him in an awful circle, and turn which way he would, he saw the
+same appalling figure, armed to the teeth, and invincible as death.
+
+What had he to fear?
+
+Detection of a past crime? No, that was a fool's terror which shook him
+at the sound of Tom Halliday's name--a child's fear of the nursery bogie.
+Detection in the present was more to be dreaded. The work that he had
+done was, according to his belief, work that could not be proved against
+him. But there are crimes of which to be accused is to be condemned.
+Lawyers may plead, and juries may acquit; but the fiat of public opinion
+goes forth against the suspected wretch, and on _his_ forehead for ever
+shows the dark brand of Cain.
+
+For the criminal of almost every shade of colour, save this one dread
+hue, society has a sanctuary and earth a refuge. The forger may find a
+circle in which the signing of another man's name, under the pressure of
+circumstances, is held to be a misfortune rather than an offence. The
+swindler has the gentlemanly brotherhood and sisterhood of Macaire for
+his family, and need never be lonely. The thief may dance away his jovial
+nights among kindred spirits, and be carried to his grave by sorrowing
+fellow-artists. The coiner may be jolly in his hiding-place among his
+chosen band of brother coiners. But for the murderer there is no such
+thing as human sympathy; and, when the blood of Nancy dyes his cruel
+hand, Bill Sykes may thank God if he has a dog that will follow him to
+his wretched end, for from mankind he can hope nothing.
+
+Mr. Sheldon did not contemplate his position from any sentimental point
+of view; but he told himself that to be suspected of having poisoned his
+friend, and to be accused of poisoning, or attempting to poison, his
+daughter, would be ruin--ruin social and commercial, ruin complete and
+irretrievable.
+
+And having faced one of these dread armed antagonists, he passed on to
+another shadowy enemy.
+
+What if Charlotte recovered, and he escaped the taint of uttered
+suspicion--for Dr. Jedd's private opinion he cared very little--what
+then?
+
+Then the grim antagonist lifted his visor, and showed him the countenance
+of Commercial Disgrace.
+
+Unless within the next few weeks he could command from eight to ten
+thousand pounds, his disgrace as a member of the Stock Exchange was
+inevitable. Charlotte's death would give him the means of raising as much
+upon the policies of assurance obtained by her, and which, by the terms
+of her will, he would inherit. The life-insurance people might be
+somewhat slow to settle his claims; but he had all possible facilities
+for the raising of money upon any tangible security, and he could count
+upon immediate cash, in the event of Charlotte's death.
+
+But what if she should not die? What if this nameless languor, this
+mysterious atrophy, taken vigorously in hand by Dr. Jedd, should be
+vanquished, and the girl should live?
+
+What indeed? A sharp spasm contracted the stockbroker's hard cold face as
+he pictured to himself the result of failure.
+
+He saw the crowd of busy faces in the House, and heard the low hum of
+many voices, and the dull sound of the big half-glass doors swinging to
+and fro, and the constant tread of hurrying feet. He heard the buzz of
+voices and the tramp of feet stop as suddenly as if that busy tide of
+human life had been arrested by an enchanter's wand. The enchanter is no
+other than the head-waiter of the Stock Exchange, who takes his position
+by a stand in the midst of that great meeting-place, and removes his hat.
+
+After that sudden silence comes a faint sound of anxious whisperings; and
+then again a second silence, still more profound, prevails in that
+assembly. Three times, with wooden hammer sounding dull against the
+woodwork of his stand, the waiter raps his awful rap. To some it is the
+call of doom. The commercial Nemesis hides her awful countenance. Slow
+and solemn sound those three deliberate strokes of the wooden hammer. You
+can hear the stertorous breathing of an apoplectic stockbroker, the short
+panting respiration of some eager speculator--the rest is silence. And
+then the voice of the waiter--proxy for the commercial Nemesis--calmly
+enunciates the dread decree.
+
+"Philip Sheldon begs to inform the members of the House that he cannot
+comply with his bargains."
+
+A sudden flutter of the leaves of many note-books follows that awful
+announcement. Voices rise loud in united utterance of surprise or
+indignation. The doors swing to and fro, as hurrying members dash in and
+out to scan the market and ascertain how far they may be affected by this
+unlooked-for failure.
+
+This was the scene which the watcher pictured to himself; and for him
+Fate could wear no aspect more terrible. Respectability, solvency,
+success--these were the idols to which he had given worship and tribute
+in all the days of his life. To propitiate these inexorable ones he had
+sacrificed all the dearest and best blessings which earth and heaven
+offer to mankind. Rest or happiness, as other men consider these
+blessings, he had never known; the sense of triumph in success of the
+present, the feverish expectation of success in the future--these had
+stood to him in the place of love and hope, pleasure and idlesse, all the
+joys and comforts of this lower world, and all the holy dreams of purer
+pleasures in a world to come.
+
+One vague brief thought of all that he had sacrificed flashed across
+his brain; and swift upon his track followed the thought of what he
+stood to lose.
+
+Something more than his position upon the Stock Exchange was at stake. He
+had done desperate things in the vain hope of sustaining that position
+against the destroying sweep of Fortune's turning tide. Bills were afloat
+which he must meet, or stand before the world a detected forger,--bills
+drawn upon companies that were shadowy as the regions of their supposed
+operations. Bills amounting to five thousand pounds, drawn, upon the
+Honduras Mahogany Company, Limited; other bills amounting to upwards of
+three thousand pounds, against the Pennsylvanian Anthracite Coal
+Corporation, Limited. The sum he might raise on the policies of insurance
+would about cover these bills; and, simultaneously with their withdrawal,
+fresh bills might be floated, and the horse-leech cry of the brokers for
+contango might be satisfied until there came a reaction in the City, and
+the turning tide should float him into some harbour of safety. Beyond
+this harbour shone a splendid beacon, the dead girl's inheritance--his,
+to claim by right of the same will that would give him the sum insured
+upon her life.
+
+Without this immediate ready money there was no extraction from the
+hideous labyrinth. His position had been already too long sustained by
+bills of exchange. There were people in the City who wanted, in vulgar
+parlance, to see the colour of his money. He knew this--and knew how
+frail the tenure by which he held his position, and how dire the crash
+which would hurl him down to ruin.
+
+After the proclamation of his inability to meet his differences--the
+Deluge: and, looking gloomily athwart the flood and tempest, he saw
+neither ark nor Ararat.
+
+Charlotte's death was the one chance of redemption; and to that event he
+looked as to a figure in a mathematical proposition. Of this girl
+herself, with all her wealth of beauty and goodness, of hope and love, he
+had scarcely any definite idea. She had so long been no more to him than
+an important figure in the mathematics of his life, that he had lost the
+power to behold her in any other light.
+
+The hardness of his nature was something lower than absolute cruelty of
+heart. It was less human than the half-insane ferocity of a Nero. It was
+a calm indifference to the waste of human life, which, displayed upon a
+larger field of operation, would have made a monster cold and passionless
+as Sphinx or Chimæra.
+
+"I must see Ann Woolper," he said to himself, presently, "she will not
+dare to exclude me from that room."
+
+He listened to the striking of the Bayswater clocks. Two o'clock. Within
+and without the house reigned a profound silence. The room immediately
+over Mr. Sheldon's study was Charlotte's room, and here there had been
+for a long time no sound of life or movement.
+
+"Asleep, I dare say," muttered Mr. Sheldon, "invalid and nurse both."
+
+He exchanged his boots for slippers, which he kept in a little cupboard
+below the bookshelves, among old newspapers, and went softly from the
+room. The gas was burning dimly on the stairs and on the landing above.
+He opened the door of the invalid's room softly, and went in.
+
+Mrs. Woolper was seated beside the bed. She looked up at him with
+unwinking eyes.
+
+"I thought you was abed, sir," she said.
+
+"No; I am too anxious to sleep."
+
+"I think every one is anxious, sir," Mrs. Woolper answered, gravely.
+
+"How is your patient?"
+
+The pretty white curtains of the little brass Arabian bedstead were
+drawn.
+
+"She is asleep, sir. She sleeps a great deal. The doctor said that was
+only natural."
+
+"She has taken her medicine, I suppose?" said Mr. Sheldon.
+
+He glanced round the room as he asked this question, but could see no
+trace of medicine-bottle or glass.
+
+"Yes, sir; she has taken it twice, the poor dear."
+
+"Let me look at the medicine."
+
+"The strange doctor said as I was to let no one touch it, sir."
+
+"Very likely; but that direction doesn't apply to me."
+
+"He said no one, sir."
+
+"You are an old fool!" muttered Mr. Sheldon, savagely.
+
+"Ah no, sir," the housekeeper answered, with a profound sigh; "I am wiser
+than I was when poor Mr. Halliday died."
+
+This answer, and the sigh, and the look of solemn sadness which
+accompanied it, told him that this woman knew all. She had suspected him
+long ago; but against her unsupported suspicion the mere force of his
+character had prevailed. She was wiser now; for on this occasion
+suspicion was confirmed by the voice of science.
+
+He stood for a few minutes looking at his old nurse, with a dark moody
+face. What could he feel except supreme indignation against this woman,
+who dared to oppose him when he had the best right to rely on her
+faithful service? She had promised him her fidelity, and at the first
+hint from a stranger she coolly deserted him and went over to the enemy.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you refuse to let me look at the medicine which
+you have been giving to my stepdaughter?" he asked.
+
+"I mean to say that I will obey the orders given me by the strange
+doctor," the old woman answered, with a calm sadness of tone, "even if it
+turns you against me--you that have given me a comfortable home when
+there was nothing before me but the workhouse; you that I carried in my
+arms forty years ago. If it was anything less than her dear life that was
+in danger, sir, and if I hadn't stood by her father's deathbed, I
+couldn't stand against you like this. But knowing what I do, I will stand
+firm as a rock between you and her; and think myself all the more truly
+your faithful servant because I do not fear to offend you."
+
+"That's so much arrant humbug, Mrs. Woolper. I suppose you've made your
+book with Miss Halliday and Miss Halliday's lover, and think you can
+serve your turn best by sticking to them and throwing me over the bridge.
+It's only the way of the world. You're genuine Yorkshire, and know how to
+pack your cards for winning the trick. But suppose I were to spoil your
+game by turning you out of doors neck and crop? What then?"
+
+"I don't think you'll do that, sir."
+
+"Why not, pray?"
+
+"I don't think you dare do it, in the face of that strange doctor."
+
+"You don't? And so Dr. Jedd is the master of this house, is he?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Till that poor dear young lady is well again, if ever that day
+comes, I think Dr. Jedd will be the real master in this house."
+
+"By ----! Mrs. Woolper, you're a cool hand, I must say!"
+
+He could say no more. Of passionate or declamatory language he had no
+command. The symbols of thought that obtained in his world were of a
+limited and primitive range.
+
+"You're a cool hand," he repeated, under his breath. And then he turned
+and left the room, opening and closing the door less cautiously than on
+his entrance.
+
+The door of the opposite room was opened softly as he came out into
+the corridor, and Diana Paget stood before him, dressed as she had
+been in the day.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed, impatiently, "are you up too?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Sheldon. I cannot sleep while Lotta is so ill."
+
+"Humph! I suppose you mean to get yourself on the sick-list, and give us
+another invalid to nurse."
+
+"I will not trouble you to nurse me if I should be ill."
+
+"Ah!" growled the stockbroker, as he went to his own room, "you are a
+pack of silly women altogether; and your fine friend Hawkehurst is more
+womanish than the silliest of you. Goodnight."
+
+He went into his own room, where he found his wife still awake. Her weak
+lamentings and bewailings were insupportable to him; and at three o'clock
+he went downstairs, put on his boots and a light overcoat, and went out
+into the dim regions of Bayswater, whence he saw the sun rise red above
+the eastern roofs and chimneys, and where he walked until the first
+clatter of hoofs and roll of wheels began to echo through the empty
+streets, and, with faint distant cries of sweeps and milk-women, life's
+chorus recommenced.
+
+It was seven o'clock when he went back to his house, and let himself in
+softly with his latchkey. He knew that he had been walking a long time,
+and that he had seen the sun rise; but what streets or squares he had
+been walking in he did not know. He crept upstairs to his dressing-room
+with stealthy footsteps, and made an elaborate toilet. At eight o'clock
+he was seated at breakfast in the hastily-arranged dining-room, with the
+newspapers by the side of his cup and saucer. At nine he went into the
+hall to receive Dr. Jedd and Dr. Doddleson, who arrived almost
+simultaneously. His carefully-arranged hair and whiskers, his well made
+unpretentious clothes, his spotless linen, would have done credit to an
+archbishop. Of all the cares and calculations of his long dreary night
+there was no trace, except a certain dulness in his eyes, and the dark
+half-circles below them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+COUNTING THE COST.
+
+For four days and four nights there were fear and watching in Mr.
+Sheldon's house; and in all that time the master never quitted it, except
+stealthily, in the dead of the night, or at early daybreak, to roam in a
+purposeless manner he knew not where. The doctors came and went--Dr.
+Doddleson once a day, Dr. Jedd two or three times a day--and every one in
+villas adjoining and villas opposite, and even in villas round the
+corner, knew that the stockbroker's stepdaughter lay sick unto death; for
+the white horses of Dr. Jedd's landau were as the pale horse of the Pale
+Rider himself, and where they came was danger or death. Ah, thank God! to
+some they have brought hope and blessing; not always the dread answer,
+"You have called me in vain."
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst came many times in the day, but between him and Mr.
+Sheldon there could be no safe meeting; and the lover came quietly to the
+little gate, where a kindly housemaid gave him a little note from Diana
+Paget. Miss Paget wrote half a dozen little notes of this kind in the
+course of every day, but she never left her post in the room opposite the
+sick-chamber. She complained of headache, or of some vague illness which
+prevented her taking her meals in the dining-room, and Mr. Sheldon was
+fain to be satisfied with this explanation of her conduct.
+
+She was on guard; and the wretched master of the house knew that she was
+on guard, and that if Ann Woolper could be bought over, or frightened
+into compliance with his wishes, this girl would still remain, faithful
+as watchdog, by the door of her friend and companion. He asked himself
+whether by violent or diplomatic process, he could rid himself of this
+second watcher; and the answer was in the negative. The circle around him
+was a circle not to be broken.
+
+His wife, as yet, had been told nothing of the suspicions that reigned in
+the breasts of other people. He knew this; for in his wife's face there
+was no token of that dark knowledge, and she, of all people, would be
+least skilled to deceive his scrutinizing eyes. Nor had the younger
+servants of his household any share in the hideous suspicion. He had
+watched the countenance of the maid who waited on him, and had convinced
+himself of this.
+
+It was something to know that even these were not yet leagued against
+him; but he could not tell at what moment they too might be sworn into
+that secret society which was growing up against him in his own house.
+Power to carry out his own schemes in the face of these people he felt
+that he had none. Upon the dark road which he had travelled until of late
+without let or hindrance, there had arisen, all at once, an
+insurmountable barrier, with the fatal inscription, Here there is no
+Thoroughfare.
+
+Beyond this barrier he could not pass. Sudden as the dread arrest of
+Lot's wife was the mandate which had checked his progress. He was brought
+to a dead stop; and there was nothing for him to do but to wait the issue
+of Fate. He stood, defiant, unabashed, face to face with the figure of
+Nemesis, and calmly awaited the lifting of the veil.
+
+He hoped that Charlotte Halliday would die. If by her death he could tide
+over his difficulties and drift into smooth water, it would be but a very
+small thing to him that Dr. Jedd, and Dr. Doddleson enlightened by his
+colleague, and Valentine Hawkehurst, and Diana Paget, and a stupid
+pig-headed old Yorkshirewoman, should carry in their minds for the
+remainder of their lives the suspicion that by his means that fair young
+life had been brought to its early close.
+
+What would it amount to in the future of his own existence? Prudential
+considerations would induce these people to lock the secret of this
+suspicion in their own breasts. Dr. Jedd would bow to him somewhat
+coldly, perhaps, if they met in the streets of London, or possibly might
+refuse to make any return to his passing salutation; but the cut direct
+from Dr. Jedd would not cast a shadow over his commercial career, or even
+weaken his social position. If, by the loud folly of Hawkehurst, some
+evil rumour about him should float as far eastward as the Stock Exchange,
+who would be found to give credence to the dark report? Men would shrug
+their shoulders and shake their heads incredulously; and one of these
+wise men of the east would remark that, "A fellow in Sheldon's position
+doesn't do that kind of thing, you know;" while another would say, "I
+dined with him at Greenwich last summer, and a remarkably good dinner he
+gave us. Dawkins, the great shipbuilder, and M'Pherson, of M'Pherson and
+Flinders, the Glasgow merchants, were there. Very jolly affair, I assure
+you. Deuced gentlemanly fellow, Phil Sheldon." And so the matter would
+end.
+
+Would there be an inquest in the event of his stepdaughter's death? Well,
+no. Jedd knew that in such a case all _post-mortem_ inquiry must end in
+confusion and perplexity, statement and counter-statement from medical
+witnesses, who would contradict one another persistently in the support
+of their pet theories, and who would regard the investigation as a very
+convenient opportunity for ventilating their own opinions and airing
+their own importance. A considerable number of the canine race would be
+slaughtered, perhaps, in the process of dilettante experiments; the broad
+principles of chemical science would be discussed from every point of
+view, in innumerable letters published in the _Zeus,_ and the _Diurnal
+Hermes_; and the fact that an amiable and innocent young woman had been
+foully murdered would be swept out of the minds of mankind before a
+whirlwind of technical debate. Jedd was the last man to stake his
+reputation upon such a hazard. No: Mr. Sheldon knew that he had played a
+cautious game; and if he should ultimately lose the stake for which he
+had ventured, it would be because he had been just a little too cautious.
+
+"These things are generally done too quickly," he said to himself. "My
+mistake has been to make matters too slow."
+
+Come what might, of after-consequences to himself from Charlotte
+Halliday's illness or death he had no apprehension.
+
+Thus it was that he met Dr. Jedd day after day with a face as calm as the
+stony countenance of that distinguished physician himself. Such anxiety
+as an affectionate stepfather should feel during the peril of his
+stepdaughter Mr. Sheldon took care to express. Greater anxiety than this
+by no look or gesture did he betray. He knew that he was watched; and
+that the people about him were inimical to himself and to his interests;
+and he was never off his guard.
+
+It had been necessary for him to come to London in order to be within
+easy reach of that troubled sea, the money-market. But perilous though
+the voyage of his bark across that tempestuous ocean was, he could not
+guide the helm in person. He was obliged to confide matters to the care
+of Mr. Frederick Orcott, whom he harassed with telegraphic despatches at
+all hours of the day, and who at this period seemed to spend his life
+between the stockbroker's office and Bayswater.
+
+It seemed as if Mr. Sheldon meant to hold his ground in that house until
+the issue of events was determined. Valentine Hawkehurst and George
+Sheldon met at the solicitor's offices, and there was a long and serious
+consultation between them.
+
+"One thing seems pretty clear," said George, conclusively, "and that is,
+that my brother Phil isn't to be got off the premises except by some very
+deep move. The question is, what move can be deep enough to trap such a
+man as he? He's a man who knows the inside of your mind better than you
+do yourself; and can reckon you up as easily as the simplest sum in
+arithmetic."
+
+The two men talked together very seriously for some time after this, and
+on the same day Valentine lay in wait for Dr. Jedd as he left Philip
+Sheldon's house, and was driven back to town in that gentleman's
+carriage. On the road there was much serious talk between Miss Halliday's
+physician and Miss Halliday's lover. Valentine was still very grave and
+very anxious when he took his leave of Dr. Jedd; but he was more hopeful
+than he had been for the last few days.
+
+On the same evening Gustave Lenoble received a brief epistle from his
+plighted wife.
+
+"MY DEAR GUSTAVE,--I regret to find from your letter that the doctors
+consider my father weaker than when I was last at Knightsbridge; but,
+even knowing this, I cannot come to him just yet. The duty which detains
+me here is even more sacred than his claim upon my care. And I know your
+goodness to him, and feel that in you he has a better friend and
+comforter than I could be to him. I thank you, dear, for your kindness to
+this poor broken-down wanderer even more than for your generous devotion
+to me. And now I am going to ask you a favour. It is, that you will
+afford Mr. Hawkehurst, the person who will give you this letter, the help
+of your friendship and counsel in very difficult and critical
+circumstances, which he will explain to you. I have spoken to you of him
+very little, though his devotion to my dear adopted sister, Charlotte
+Halliday, brings him very near to me. Her long, and of late dangerous,
+illness has been a bitter time of trial to him, even more than to me; but
+the trial has proved him true as steel. I think your counsel may be of
+some service to him just now, and I am sure your friendship will help to
+support him in a period of acute anxiety.
+
+"Do not ask to see me, dear Gustave. I _cannot_ leave this house while
+Charlotte is in danger; but if it please God to remove that danger, I
+shall then be free to go where I please, and my future life shall be at
+your disposal. Do not think me cold or ungrateful; I am only faithful to
+the first friend I ever knew.--Yours always, with all affection,
+
+"DIANA PAGET."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
+
+Three days elapsed after the delivery of this letter. Upwards of a week
+had gone by since the return of Mr. Sheldon and his family from Harold's
+Hill: and as yet Philip Sheldon knew not what the issue of events was to
+be. Very vague were the oracular sentences which his questioning extorted
+from Dr. Jedd, and he had tried in vain to obtain a _tête-à-tête_
+interview with Dr. Doddleson. The physician of Burlington Row took care
+that his feeble colleague should not fall alone and defenceless into the
+pathway of Philip Sheldon. Of Charlotte's actual condition her
+stepfather, therefore, knew very little. He was told that her state was
+attended by danger; and the solemn faces which greeted him on every side
+implied that the danger was extreme. From her room he was in a manner
+excluded. If he went to her door to make some benevolent and paternal
+inquiry, he was met on the threshold by Ann Woolper, the sleepless and
+unresting. If he hinted a natural desire to see his invalid stepdaughter,
+he was told that she had that moment fallen asleep, or that she was too
+ill to see him. There was always some plausible reason why he should not
+be admitted to her room; and finding that this was so, he did not press
+the question.
+
+He had taken Mrs. Woolper's measure, and had found that she was too
+strong for him; doubly strong since she was supported and sustained by
+that second sleepless watcher, Diana Paget, whom Mr. Sheldon had long ago
+pronounced to be a strong-minded and superior young person.
+
+From his wife he could obtain no real information--nothing but weepings
+and lamentations; weak apprehensions of future woe, weaker retrospective
+reflections on the fatal illness and untimely end of her first husband.
+Georgy was admitted once or twice a day to the sick-room; but she emerged
+therefrom no wiser than she entered it. Sorrow in the present, and the
+fear of greater sorrow to come, had utterly prostrated this poor weak
+soul. She believed what other people told her to believe, she hoped what
+they told her to hope. She was the very incarnation and express image of
+helpless misery.
+
+So, in utter darkness of mind, Mr. Sheldon awaited his destiny. The day
+drew very near on which he must find certain sums of ready money, or must
+accept the dreary alternative of ruin and disgrace. He had the policies
+of assurance in his cash-box, together with the will which made him
+Charlotte's sole legatee; he had fixed in his own mind upon the man to
+whom he could apply for an advance of four thousand pounds on one of the
+two policies, and he relied on getting his banker to lend him money on
+the security of the second. But for the one needful event he had yet to
+wait. That event was Charlotte Halliday's death.
+
+Of his dreary wanderings in the early morning the household knew nothing.
+The time which he chose for these purposeless rambles was just the time
+when no one was astir. The watchers in the two rooms above heard neither
+his going out nor his coming in, so stealthy were his movements on every
+occasion. But without this intermission from the dreadful concentration
+of his life, without this amount of physical exercise and fresh air,
+Philip Sheldon could scarcely have lived through this period. The
+solitude of shipwrecked mariner cast upon a desolate island could hardly
+be more lonely than this man's life had been since his return from
+Harold's Hill. From his study to the dining-room, and from the
+dining-room back to his study, was the only variety of his dreary days
+and nights. He had an iron bedstead put up in his study, and there he lay
+in the earlier hours of the night, taking such rest as he could from
+fitful dozing that was scarcely sleep, or from brief intervals of heavy
+slumber made horrible by torturing dreams.
+
+In this room he could hear every sudden movement in the hall, every
+footstep on the stairs, every opening and shutting of the outer door.
+Here, too, he could keep his watch, holding himself ready to counter the
+movements of his enemies, should any opportunity arise for action on his
+part, defensive or aggressive.
+
+To this room he stealthily returned one brilliant summer morning as the
+clocks were striking six. He had been walking in the Bayswater Road,
+amidst all the pleasant stir and bustle of early morning. Waggons coming
+in from the country, milkwomen setting forth on their daily rounds,
+clamorous young rooks cawing among the topmost branches of the elms,
+song-birds chirruping and gurgling their glad morning hymn; and over all
+things the glory and the freshness of the summer sunshine.
+
+But to Philip Sheldon it was as if these things were not. For the last
+twelve or fifteen years of his life he had taken no heed of the change
+of the seasons, except insomuch as the passage of time affected his
+bill-book, or the condition of that commercial world which was the
+beginning and end of his life. Now, less than ever, had he an ear for
+the carolling of birds, or an eye for the glory of summer sunlight, or
+the flickering shadows of summer leaves faintly stirred by the soft
+summer wind.
+
+He re-entered his house with a half-dazed sense of the stir and life that
+had been about him in the high road. It was a relief to him to escape
+this life and brightness, and to take shelter in the gloom of his study,
+where the shutters were closed, and only a faint glimmer of day crept
+through a chink in the shrunken woodwork.
+
+For the first time since the beginning of this dreary period of idleness
+and suspense he felt himself thoroughly beaten, and instead of going up
+to his dressing-room for his careful morning toilet, as it was his habit
+to do at this hour, he flung himself, dressed as he was, upon the low
+iron bedstead, and fell into a heavy slumber.
+
+Yes, there they were--the familiar tortures of his slumbers, the
+shadows of busy, eager faces; and upon all one universal expression of
+mingled anger and surprise. The sound of a wooden hammer striking three
+solemn strokes; the faint tones of Tom Halliday's voice, thanking him for
+his friendly care; the dying look in Tom Halliday's face, turned to him
+with such depth of trust and affection. And then across the shadowy
+realm of dreams there swept the slow solemn progress of a funeral
+_cortege_--plumed hearses, blacker than blackest night; innumerable
+horses, with funereal trappings and plumed headgear waving in an icy
+wind; long trains of shrouded figures stretching on into infinite space,
+in spectral procession that knew neither beginning nor end. And in all
+the solemn crowd passing perpetually with the same unceasing motion,
+there was no sound of human footfall, no tramp of horse's hoof, only that
+dismal waving of black plumage in an icy wind, and the deep boom of a
+bell tolling for the dead.
+
+He awoke with a start, and exclaimed, "If this is what it is to sleep, I
+will never sleep again!"
+
+In the next minute he recovered himself. He had been lying on his back.
+The endless pageant, the dreadful tolling of the funeral bell, meant no
+more than nightmare, the common torment of all humanity.
+
+"What a fool I must be!" he muttered to himself, as he wiped his
+forehead, which had grown cold and damp in the agony of his dream.
+
+He opened the shutters, and then looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.
+To his surprise he found that he had been sleeping three hours. It was
+nine o'clock. He went upstairs to dress. There was an unusual stir in the
+corridor above. Ann Woolper was standing there, with her hand on the door
+of the sick-room, talking to Diana, who covered her face suddenly as he
+approached, and disappeared into her own room.
+
+The beating of his heart quickened suddenly. Something had happened to
+disturb the common course of events. Something? What was likely to
+happen, except the one dread circumstance for which he hoped and waited
+with such horrible eagerness?
+
+In Ann Woolper's solemn face he read an answer to his thought. For the
+first time he was well nigh losing his self-possession. It was with an
+effort that he steadied himself sufficiently to ask the usual
+conventional question in the usual conventional tone.
+
+"Is she any better this morning, Ann?"
+
+"Yes, sir, she is much better," the Yorkshirewoman answered solemnly.
+"She is where none can harm her now."
+
+Yes; it was the usual periphrase of these vulgar people. He knew all
+their cant by heart.
+
+"You mean to say--she--is dead?"
+
+He no longer tried to conceal his agitation. It was a part of his duty to
+be agitated by the news of his stepdaughter's untimely death.
+
+"O, sir, you may well be sorry," said the Yorkshirewoman, with deep
+feeling. "She was the sweetest, most forgiving creature that ever came
+into this world; and to the last no hard or cruel word ever passed her
+innocent lips. Yes, sir, she is gone; she is beyond the power of any one
+to harm her."
+
+"All that sort of stuff is so much hypocritical twaddle, Mrs. Woolper,"
+muttered Mr. Sheldon impatiently; "and I recommend you to keep it for the
+chaplain of the workhouse in which you are likely to end your days. At
+what time--did--did this--sad event--happen?
+
+"About an hour ago."
+
+In the very hour when, in his hideous dream, he had beheld the solemn
+funeral train winding on for ever through the dim realms of sleep. Was
+there some meaning in such foolish shadows, after all?
+
+"And why was I not sent for?"
+
+"You were asleep, sir. I came downstairs myself, and looked into your
+room. You were fast asleep, and I wouldn't disturb you."
+
+"That was very wrong; but it was of a piece with the rest of your
+conduct, which has been from first to last antagonistic to me. I suppose
+I can see my stepdaughter now," Mr. Sheldon added, with a grim smile.
+"There is no further excuse--about headache--or sleep."
+
+"No, sir, you cannot see her yet. In an hour, if you wish to come into
+this room, you can come."
+
+"You are extremely obliging. I begin to doubt whether I am really in my
+own house. In an hour, then, I will come. Where is my wife?"
+
+"In her own room, sir, lying down; asleep, I believe."
+
+"I will not disturb her. How about the registration, by-the-by? That
+must be seen to."
+
+"Dr. Jedd has promised to attend to that, sir."
+
+"Has Dr. Jedd been here?"
+
+"He was here an hour ago."
+
+"Very good. And he will see to that," muttered Mr. Sheldon thoughtfully.
+
+The event for which he had been so long waiting seemed at the last a
+little sudden. It had shaken his nerves more than he had supposed it
+possible that they could be shaken.
+
+He went to his dressing-room, and on this occasion made a very hasty
+toilet. The event had been tardy, and he had no time to lose in
+discounting it now that it had come to pass. He went from his
+dressing-room back to his study, took the jacket containing the policies
+of assurance and the will from the deed-box, and left the house.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED.
+
+A cab conveyed Mr. Sheldon swiftly to a dingy street in the City--a
+street which might have been called the pavement of wasted footsteps, so
+many an impecunious wretch tramped to and fro upon those dreary flags in
+vain.
+
+The person whom Mr. Sheldon came to see was a distinguished
+bill-discounter, who had served him well in more than one crisis, and on
+whose service he fancied he could now rely.
+
+Mr. Kaye, the bill-discounter, was delighted to see his worthy friend Mr.
+Sheldon. He had just come up from his family at Brighton, and had quite a
+little court awaiting him in an outer chamber, through which Mr. Sheldon
+had been ushered to the inner office.
+
+"It's rather early for such a visitor as you," Mr. Kaye said, after a few
+commonplaces. "I have not been in town half an hour."
+
+"My business is too important for any consideration about hours,"
+answered Mr. Sheldon, "or I should not be here at all. I have just come
+from the deathbed of my wife's daughter."
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed the bill-discounter, looking inexpressibly
+shocked. Until that moment he had lived in supreme ignorance of the
+fact that Mr. Sheldon had a stepdaughter; but his sorrow-stricken
+expression of countenance might have implied that he had known and
+esteemed the young lady.
+
+"Yes, it's very sad," said Mr. Sheldon; "and something more than sad for
+me. The poor girl had great expectations, and would have come into a very
+fine fortune if she had lived a year or two longer."
+
+"Ha! dear me, how very unfortunate! Poor young lady!"
+
+"Jedd and Doddleson--you know them by repute, of course--have been
+attending her for the last six weeks. There will be no end of expense for
+me; and it has been all of no use."
+
+"Consumption, I suppose?"
+
+"Well, no; not pulmonary disease. A kind of atrophy. I scarcely know what
+to call it. Now, look here, Kaye. This illness has thrown all my affairs
+into a muddle. Taken in conjunction with the depressed state of the
+money-market, it has been altogether an upset for me. I have been staying
+at home looking after this poor girl and my wife--who of course is
+dreadfully cut up, and that sort of thing--when I ought to have been in
+the City. Luckily for me, and for my wife, in whose interests I acted, I
+took the precaution to get her daughter's life insured eight or nine
+months ago; in point of fact, immediately after finding she was
+heir-at-law to a considerable fortune. The policy is for five thousand
+pounds. I want you to give me four thousand immediately upon the strength
+of the document and of my stepdaughter's will."
+
+"Give you four thousand!" exclaimed Mr. Kaye, with a little unctuous
+laugh. "Do you suppose I keep such a balance as that at my banker's?"
+
+"I suppose that you can give me the money if you like."
+
+"I might be able to get it for you."
+
+"Yes; that's a kind of humbug a hundred years old. We've heard all about
+little Premium and his friend in the City, and so on, from that man who
+wrote plays and cut a figure in Parliament. You can give me the money on
+the spot if you like, Kaye; and if I didn't want ready money very badly I
+shouldn't come to you. The insurance company will give me five thousand
+in a month or two. I can give you my bill at two months' date, and
+deposit the policy in your hands as collateral security. I might get this
+money from other quarters--from my bankers', for instance; but I don't
+want to let them know too much."
+
+Mr. Kaye deliberated. He had assisted Mr. Sheldon's financial operations,
+and had profited thereby. Money advanced upon such a security must be as
+safe as money invested in Consols, unless there were anything doubtful in
+the circumstances of the policy; and that, with a man of Mr. Sheldon's
+respectability, was to the last degree unlikely.
+
+"When do you want this money?" he asked at last.
+
+"At the beginning of next week. On the twenty-fifth at latest."
+
+"And this is the twentieth. Sharp work."
+
+"Not at all. You could give me the money this afternoon, if you pleased."
+
+"Well, I'll think it over. It's a matter in which I feel myself bound to
+take my solicitor's opinion. Suppose you meet him here to-morrow at
+twelve o'clock? You can bring the necessary evidence to support the
+claim--the doctor's and registrar's certificate, and so on?"
+
+"Yes," Mr. Sheldon answered, thoughtfully; "I will bring the documentary
+evidence. To-morrow at twelve, then."
+
+Very little more was said. Mr. Sheldon left the will and the policy in
+the bill-discounter's possession, and departed. Things had gone as
+smoothly as he could fairly expect them to go. From Mr. Kaye's office he
+went to the Unitas Bank, where he had a very friendly, but not altogether
+satisfactory, interview with the secretary. He wanted the Unitas people
+to advance him money on the strength of the second policy of assurance;
+but his balance had been very low of late, and the secretary could not
+promise compliance with his desires. Those Unitas shares valued at five
+thousand pounds, which he had transferred to his beloved stepdaughter,
+had been retransferred by the young lady some months before, with a view
+to the more profitable investment of the money.
+
+This money, as well as all else that Philip Sheldon could command, had
+gone to the same bottomless pit of unlucky speculation. From the bank the
+stockbroker went to his office, where he saw Frederick Orcott, to whom he
+announced his stepdaughter's death with all due appearance of sorrow. He
+sat for an hour in his office, arranging his affairs for the following
+day, then sent for another cab, and drove back to Bayswater. The noonday
+press and noise of the City seemed strange to him, almost as they might
+have seemed to a man newly returned from lonely wanderings in distant
+wildernesses.
+
+The blinds were down at the Lawn. His own handsome bedchamber and
+adjoining dressing-room faced the road, and it was at the windows of
+these two rooms he looked. He fancied his weak foolish wife wailing and
+lamenting behind those lowered blinds.
+
+"And I shall have to endure her lamentations," he thought, with a
+shudder. "I shall have no further excuse for avoiding her. But, on the
+other hand, I shall have the pleasure of giving Mrs. Woolper and Miss
+Paget notice to quit."
+
+He derived a grim satisfaction from this thought. Yes; insolence from
+those two women he would endure no longer. The time had come in which he
+would assert his right to be master in his own house. The game had been
+played against him boldly by Jedd and these people, and had been lost by
+them. He was the winner. He could not dismiss doctors, nurse, friend,
+lover. Charlotte Halliday's death made him master of the situation.
+
+He went into his house with the determination to assert his authority at
+once. Within all was very quiet. He looked into the dining-room--it was
+quite empty; into the study--also empty. He went slowly upstairs,
+composing his face into the appropriate expression. At the door of that
+chamber which to him should have seemed of all earthly chambers the most
+awful, he knocked softly.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+He knocked a little louder, but there was still no answer. A little
+louder again, and with the same result.
+
+"Is there no one there?" he asked himself. "No one, except--?"
+
+He opened the door, and went in, with unshaken nerves, to look upon that
+one quiet sleeper whom his summons could not awaken, whom his presence
+could not disturb.
+
+There was no nurse or watcher by the bed. Everything was arranged with
+extreme neatness and precision; but it seemed to him that there were
+objects missing in the room, objects that had been familiar to him during
+the dead girl's illness, and which were associated with her presence,--the
+clock that had stood on the table by her bed, a stand of books, a low
+easy-chair, with embroidered cover worked by her mother and Diana Paget.
+The room looked blank and empty without these things, and Mr. Sheldon
+wondered what officious hand had removed them.
+
+Yonder stood the pretty little bedstead, shrouded by closely drawn white
+curtains. Philip Sheldon walked slowly across the room, and drew aside
+one of the curtains. He had looked upon the death-sleep of Charlotte
+Halliday's father, why not upon hers?
+
+She was not there! Those closely drawn curtains shrouded only the bed on
+which she had slept in the tranquil slumbers of her careless girlhood.
+That cold lifeless form, whose rigid outline Philip Sheldon had steeled
+himself to see, had no place here.
+
+He put his hand to his head, bewildered. "What does it mean?" he asked
+himself; "surely she died in this room!"
+
+He went hurriedly to his wife's room. They had taken Charlotte there,
+perhaps, shortly before her death. Some feverish fancy might have
+possessed her with the desire to be taken thither.
+
+He opened the door and went in; but here again all was blank and empty.
+The room was arranged after its usual fashion; but of his wife's presence
+there was no token. His sense of mystification and bewilderment grew
+suddenly into a sense of fear. What did it mean? What hellish fooling had
+he been the dupe of?
+
+He went to Diana's room. That, too, was empty. A trunk and a portmanteau,
+covered and strapped as if for removal, occupied the centre of the room.
+
+There was no other room upon this floor. Above this floor there were only
+the rooms of the servants.
+
+He went downstairs to the dining-room and rang the bell The parlour-maid
+came in answer to his summons.
+
+"Where is your mistress?" he asked.
+
+"Gone out, sir; she went at eight o'clock this morning. And O, if you
+please, sir, Dr. Jedd called, and said I was to give you this--with the
+certificate."
+
+The certificate! Yes, the certificate of Charlotte Halliday's death,--the
+certificate which he must produce to-morrow, with other evidence, for the
+satisfaction of the bill-discounter and his legal adviser. He stared at
+the girl, still possessed by the sense of bewilderment which had come
+upon him on seeing those empty rooms upstairs. He took the letter from
+her almost mechanically, and tore it open without looking at the address.
+The certificate dropped to the ground. He picked it up with a tremulous
+hand, and for some moments stood staring at it with dazzled, unseeing
+eyes. He could see that it was a document with dates and names written in
+a clerkly hand. For some moments he could see no more. And then words and
+names shone out of the confusion of letters that spun and whirled, like
+motes in the sunshine, before his dazzled eyes.
+
+"Valentine Hawkehurst, bachelor, author, Carlyle Terrace, Edgware Road,
+son of Arthur Hawkehurst, journalist; Charlotte Halliday, spinster, of
+the Lawn, Bayswater, daughter of Thomas Halliday, farmer."
+
+He read no more.
+
+It was a copy of a certificate of marriage--not a certificate of
+death--that had been brought to him.
+
+"You can go," he said to the servant hoarsely.
+
+He had a vague consciousness that she was staring at him with curious
+looks, and that it was not good for him to be watched by any one just
+now.
+
+"About dinner, sir, if you please?" the young woman began timidly.
+
+"What do I know about dinner?"
+
+"You will dine at home, sir?"
+
+"Dine at home? Yes; Mrs. Woolper can give you your orders."
+
+"Mrs. Woolper has gone out, sir. She has gone for good, I believe, sir;
+she took her boxes. And Miss Paget's luggage will be sent for, if you
+please, sir. There's a letter, sir, that Mrs. Woolper left for you on the
+mantelpiece."
+
+"She was very good. That will do; you can go."
+
+The girl departed, bewildered like her fellow-servants by the strangeness
+of the day's proceedings, still more bewildered by the strangeness of her
+master's manner.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+"THERE IS A WORD WILL PRIAM TURN TO STONE."
+
+When the servant was gone, Mr. Sheldon sat down and examined the document
+she had given him.
+
+Yes, it was in due form. A certified copy of the certificate
+of a marriage performed that morning at the church of St.
+Matthias-in-the-fields, Paddington, and duly witnessed by the registrar
+of that parish. If this document were indeed genuine, as to all
+appearance it was, Valentine Hawkehurst and Charlotte Halliday had been
+married that morning; and the will and the policy of assurance deposited
+with Mr. Kaye the bill-discounter were so much waste-paper.
+
+And they had fooled him, Philip Sheldon, as easily as this! The furious
+rage which he felt against all these people, and, more than against them,
+against his own besotted folly for allowing himself to be so fooled, was
+a sharper agony than had ever yet rent his cruel heart. He had been a
+scoundrel all his life, and had felt some of the pains and penalties of
+his position; but to be a defeated scoundrel was a new sensation to him;
+and a savage impotent hate and anger against himself and the universe
+took possession of his mind.
+
+He walked up and down the room for some time, abandoned wholly to the
+ungovernable rage that consumed him, and with no thought beyond that
+blind useless fury. And then there came upon him the feeling that was
+almost a part of his mind--the consciousness that something must be done,
+and promptly. Whatever his position was, he must face it. His hurried
+pacing to and fro came to a sudden stop, and he took the crumpled
+document from his packet, and examined it once more.
+
+There seemed little doubt that it was genuine; and a visit to the church
+where the marriage was stated to have been performed would immediately
+place the matter beyond all doubt. With the copy of the certificate, he
+had taken from his pocket the letter that had enclosed it. He saw now
+that the envelope was addressed in Hawkehurst's hand.
+
+"Favoured by Dr. Jedd," he had written in a corner of the envelope.
+
+Why should Dr. Jedd "favour" Mr. Hawkehurst's letter? Why, indeed, unless
+there had been a conspiracy concocted by these men against his authority
+and his interests?
+
+Valentine's letter was brief and business-like.
+
+"SIR,--With the full approbation of her mother and only near relation, my
+dear Charlotte has this day become my wife. The enclosed attested copy of
+the certificate of our marriage will afford you all particulars. I shall
+refrain from entering upon any explanation of my conduct; and I believe
+such explanation to be wholly unnecessary. You can scarcely fail to
+understand why I have acted in this manner, and why I congratulate myself
+and my dear wife on her departure from your house as on an escape from
+imminent peril. It will be, I fear, little satisfaction to you to hear
+that the doctors have pronounced your stepdaughter to be out of danger,
+though still in very weak health. She is now comfortably established in a
+temporary home, with her mother and Diana Paget; and in all probability
+some months must elapse before she and I can begin our new life together.
+To afford my darling girl the legal protection of marriage was the object
+of this sudden and secret union. You, of all men, will most fully
+comprehend how necessary such protection had become to ensure her safety.
+
+"Should you, however, require farther enlightenment as to the motives
+that prompted this step, Dr. Jedd will be the fittest person to give you
+such information; and has expressed his willingness to answer any
+questions you may please to put to him.
+
+"For the rest, I beg to assure you that the rights of Mrs. Hawkehurst in
+relation to the inheritance of the late John Haygarth's wealth will be as
+carefully protected as those of Miss Halliday; nor will the hasty
+marriage of this morning hinder the execution of any deed of settlement
+calculated to guard her interests in the future.
+
+"With this assurance, I remain, sir,
+Your obedient servant,
+VALENTINE HAWKEHURST.
+Carlyle Terrace, Edgware Road."
+
+Enclosed with this there was a second letter--from his wife.
+
+He read it with a countenance that expressed mingled anger and contempt.
+
+"Fool!" he muttered; "this is about the only service she could do me."
+
+The letter was long and incoherent; blotted with tears--in places
+completely illegible. Mr. Sheldon cared only to master the main facts
+contained in it, which were these:--His wife had left him for ever. Dr.
+Jedd and Valentine Hawkehurst had told her of something--something that
+affected the safety of her darling and only child--and the knowledge of
+which must separate her for ever from him. Of the money which she had
+brought to him she claimed nothing. Even her jewels, which were in his
+keeping, in the iron safe where he kept his papers, she did not attempt
+to obtain from him. Valentine would not allow her to starve. The humblest
+shelter, the poorest food, would suffice her in the future; but no home
+of his providing could she ever inhabit again.
+
+"What I have suffered in this last few days is only known to myself and
+to heaven," she wrote. "O Philip, how could you--how could you even shape
+the thought of such a deed as this, which you have been doing, day after
+day, for the last two months? I could not have believed what they have
+told me, if I had not seen my child fade hour by hour under your care,
+slowly, surely--and recover as surely directly you were excluded from any
+part in our care of her. If it were possible not to believe these people,
+I would disbelieve them, and would cling to you faithfully still; but the
+voices against you are too many, the proofs against you are too strong.
+
+"Do not seek to see me. I am with my poor child, who was but just able to
+bear the removal from your house, and to go through the ceremony that was
+performed this morning. Little did I ever think my daughter would have
+such a wedding. What a mockery all my plans seem now!--and I had chosen
+the six bridesmaids, and arranged all the dresses in my own mind. To see
+my dear girl dressed anyhow, in her oldest bonnet, standing before the
+altar huddled up in a shawl, and given away by a strange doctor, who kept
+looking at his watch in a most disrespectful manner during the ceremony,
+was very bitter to me."
+
+Mr. Sheldon flung aside the letter with an oath. He had no time to waste
+upon such twaddle as this. He tore open Nancy Woolper's letter. It was a
+poor honest scrawl, telling him how faithfully she had served him, how
+truly she had loved him in the past, and how she could henceforth serve
+him no more. It exhorted him, in humble ill-spelt phrases, to repentance.
+It might not yet be too late even for such a sinner as he had been.
+
+He tore these two epistles into infinitesimal fragments, and flung them
+into the fireplace. Valentine Hawkehurst's letter he kept. It was a
+document of some legal importance.
+
+For a moment there had flashed across his brain the thought that he might
+punish these people for their interference with his affairs. He might
+bring an action against Dr. Jedd for slander, and compel the physician to
+prove the charges insinuated against him, or pay the penalty attendant
+upon an unjustifiable accusation. He was well assured that Dr. Jedd could
+prove very little; and a jury, if properly worked, might award him
+exemplary damages.
+
+But on the other hand, the circumstantial evidence against him was very
+strong; and evidence which might be insufficient to prove him guilty in a
+trial for his life might be a sufficient defence for his enemies against
+an action for slander; if, indeed, the course which Dr. Jedd and
+Valentine Hawkehurst had taken did in itself constitute a slanderous and
+malicious imputation. Nor could any such action invalidate the marriage
+solemnized that morning; and that one fact comprised his utter ruin.
+Charlotte's interests were merged in the interests of her husband. No
+shadow of claim upon John Haygarth's wealth remained to him.
+
+His ruin was complete and dire. For a long time his circumstances had
+been desperate--no avenue of escape open to him but the one dark way
+which he had trodden; and now that last road was closed against him. The
+day was very near at hand when his fictitious bills on shadowy companies
+must be dishonoured; and with the dishonour of those bills came the end
+of all things for him,--a complete revelation of all those dishonest
+artifices by which he had kept his piratical bark afloat on the
+commercial waters.
+
+He surveyed his position in every light, calmly and deliberately, and saw
+there was no hope. The whole scheme of his existence was reduced to the
+question of how much ready-money he could carry out of that house in his
+pocket, and in what direction he should betake himself after leaving it.
+
+His first care must be to ascertain whether the marriage described in the
+duplicate certificate had really taken place; his next, to repossess
+himself of the papers left with Mr. Kaye.
+
+Before leaving the house he went to his study, where he examined his
+banker's book. Yes, it was as they had told him at the bank. He was
+overdrawn. Among the letters lying unopened on his writing-table he found
+a letter from one of the officials of the Unitas, calling his attention,
+politely and respectfully, to that oversight upon his part. He read the
+letter, and crumpled it into his pocket with an angry gesture.
+
+"I am just about as well off now as I was twelve years ago, before Tom
+Halliday came to Fitzgeorge Street," he said to himself; "and I have the
+advantage of being twelve years older."
+
+Yes, this is what it all came to, after all. He had been travelling in a
+circle. The discovery was humiliating. Mr. Sheldon began to think that
+his line of life had not been a paying one.
+
+He opened his iron safe, and forced the lock of the jewel-case in which
+his wife had kept the few handsome ornaments that he had given her in the
+early days of their marriage, as a reward for being good--that is to say,
+for allowing her second husband to dispose of her first husband's
+patrimony without let or hindrance. The jewels were only a few rings, a
+brooch, a pair of earrings, and a bracelet; but they were good of their
+kind, and in all worth something like two hundred pounds.
+
+These, and the gold chronometer which he carried in his waistcoat-pocket,
+constituted all the worldly wealth which Mr. Sheldon could command, now
+that the volcanic ground upon which his commercial position had been
+built began to crumble beneath his feet, and the bubbling of the crater
+warned him of his peril. He put the trinkets into his pocket without
+compunction, and then went upstairs to his dressing-room, where he
+proceeded to pack his clothes in a capacious portmanteau, which in itself
+might constitute his credentials among strangers, so eminently
+respectable was its appearance.
+
+In this dread crisis of his life he thought of everything that affected
+his own interests. To what was he going? That question was for the moment
+unanswerable. In every quarter of the globe there are happy
+hunting-grounds for the soldier of fortune. Some plan for the future
+would shape itself in his mind by-and-by. His wife's desertion had left
+him thoroughly independent. He had no tie to restrain his movements,
+nothing to dread except such proceedings as might be taken against him by
+the holders of those bills. And such proceedings are slow, while modern
+locomotion is swift.
+
+What was he leaving? That was easily answered. A labyrinth of debt and
+difficulty. The fine house, the handsome furniture, were held in the same
+bondage of the law as his household goods in Fitzgeorge Street had been.
+He had given a bill of sale upon everything he possessed six months
+before, to obtain ready-money. The final terrible resource had not been
+resorted to until all other means had been exhausted. Let this fact at
+least be recorded to his credit. He was like the lady whom the poet
+sings, who,
+
+  "tolerably mild,
+  To make a wash would _hardly_ boil a child:"
+
+that is to say, she would try all other materials for her cosmetic
+preparation first; and if they failed, would at last resort, unwillingly,
+to the boiling of children.
+
+No; he had nothing to lose by flight--of that fact it was easy for him to
+assure himself.
+
+He went downstairs, and rang for the servant.
+
+"I am going out," he said, "to join my wife and her daughter, and return
+with them to the sea-side. There is a portmanteau upstairs in my room,
+ready packed. You will give it to the messenger I shall send in the
+course of the next day or two. At what time did Mrs. Sheldon and Miss
+Halliday leave this morning?"
+
+"At eight o'clock, sir. Mr. Hawkehurst came to fetch them in a carriage.
+They went out by the kitchen passage and the side gate, sir, because you
+were asleep, Mrs. Woolper said, and was not to be disturbed."
+
+"At eight. Yes. And Mrs. Woolper and Miss Paget?"
+
+"They went a'most directly after you was gone out, sir. There was two
+cabs to take Miss Halliday's and Mrs. Sheldon's things, and such
+like,--just as there was when you came from Harold's Hill."
+
+"Yes; I understand."
+
+He was half inclined to ask the young woman if she had heard the
+direction given to the drivers of these two cabs. But he refrained from
+doing so. What could it profit him to know where his wife and
+stepdaughter were to be found? Whether they were in the next street or at
+the antipodes could matter very little to him, except so far as the
+knowledge of their place of habitation might guide him in his avoidance
+of them. Between him and them there was a gulf wider than all the waters
+of the world, and to consider them was only foolish waste of time and
+thought. He left the house, which for the last five years of his life had
+been the outward and visible sign of his social status, fully conscious
+that he left it for ever; and he left it without a sigh. For him the word
+home had no tender associations, and the domestic hearth had never
+inspired him with any sense of comfort or pleasure with which he might
+not have been inspired by the luxurious fireside of a first-class
+coffee-room. He was a man who would have chosen to spend his existence in
+joint-stock hotels, if there had not been solidity of position to be
+acquired from the possession of a handsome house.
+
+He went to the Paddington church. It was only five o'clock in the
+afternoon by the clock of that edifice. The church was closely shut, but
+Mr. Sheldon found the clerk, who, in consideration of a handsome
+donation, took him to the vestry, and there showed him the register of
+marriages--the last entry therein.
+
+Yes, there was Charlotte Halliday's signature, a little uncertain and
+tremulous.
+
+"I suppose you are one of the young lady's relations, sir," said the
+clerk. "It was rather a strange affair; but the young lady's ma was with
+her; and the young lady was over age, so, you see, there's nothing to be
+said against it."
+
+Mr. Sheldon had nothing to say against the marriage. If any false
+statement of his, however base or cruel, could have invalidated the
+ceremonial, he would have spared no pains to devise such a falsehood. If
+he had been a citizen of the Southern States, he might have suborned
+witnesses to prove that there was black blood in the veins of Valentine
+Hawkehurst. If he had not been opposed to so strong an opponent as Dr.
+Jedd, he might have tried to get a commission of lunacy to declare
+Charlotte Halliday a madwoman, and thus invalidate her marriage. As it
+was, he knew that he could do nothing. He had failed. All was said in
+those three words.
+
+He wasted no time at the church, but hurried on to the City, where he was
+just in time to catch Mr. Kaye leaving his office.
+
+"Have you sent those papers to your solicitor?" he asked.
+
+"No; I was just going to take them round to him. I have been thinking
+that it will be necessary to ascertain that there is no will of Miss
+Halliday's subsequent to this; and that will be rather difficult to find
+out. Women never know when to leave off making wills, if they once begin
+making them. They have a positive rage for multiplying documents, you
+know. If the testator in that great codicil case had been a woman, a jury
+would scarcely have refused to believe in the story of half a dozen
+different codicils hidden away in half a dozen different holes and
+corners. Women like that sort of thing. Of course, I quite understand
+that you bring me the will in all good faith; but I foresee difficulties
+in raising money upon such a security."
+
+"You need give yourself no further trouble about the matter," said Mr.
+Sheldon coolly. "I find that I can do without the money, and I've come to
+reclaim the papers."
+
+Mr. Kaye handed them to his client. He was not altogether pleased by this
+turn of affairs; for he had expected to profit considerably by Mr.
+Sheldon's necessities. That gentleman honoured him with no further
+explanations, but put the papers in his pocket, and wished the
+bill-discounter good day.
+
+And this was the last time that Philip Sheldon was ever seen in his
+character of a solid and respectable citizen of London. He went from the
+bill-discounter's office to a pawnbroker in the City, with whom he
+pledged Georgy's trinkets and his own watch for the sum of a hundred and
+twenty pounds. From the pawnbroker's he went back to Bayswater for his
+portmanteau, and thence to the Euston Hotel, where he dined temperately
+in the coffee-room. After dinner he went out into the dull back streets
+that lurk behind Euston Square, and found an obscure little barber's
+shop, where he had his whiskers shaved off, and his hyacinthine locks
+cropped as close as the barber's big scissors could crop them.
+
+The sacrifice of these hirsute adornments made an extraordinary change
+in this man. All the worst characteristics of his countenance came out
+with a new force; and the face of Mr. Sheldon, undisguised by the
+whiskers that had hidden the corners of his mouth, or the waving locks
+that had given height and breadth to his forehead, was a face that no one
+would be likely to trust.
+
+From the Euston Station he departed by the night mail for Liverpool,
+under the cover of darkness. In that city he quietly awaited the
+departure of the Cunard steamer for New York, and was so fortunate as to
+leave England one day before that fatal date on which the first of his
+fictitious bills arrived at maturity.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Tenth.
+
+
+
+HARBOUR, AFTER MANY SHIPWRECKS.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+OUT OF THE DARK VALLEY.
+
+Not with pomp or with splendour, with rejoicing or strewing of summer
+blossoms in the pathway of bride and bridegroom, had the marriage of
+Valentine and Charlotte been solemnized. Simple and secret had been the
+ceremonial, dark with clouds was the sky above them; and yet it is
+doubtful if happier bridegroom ever trod this earth than Valentine
+Hawkehurst as he went to his lonely lodging under the starry summer sky,
+after leaving his young wife to her mother's care in the new home that
+had been found for them.
+
+He had reason to rejoice; for he had passed through the valley of the
+shadow of death. He had seen, very near, that dread presence before which
+the angels of faith and love can avail nothing. Fearless as Alcides had
+he gone down to the realms of darkness; triumphant and glad as the
+demigod he returned from the under-world, bearing his precious burden in
+his strong arms. The struggle had been dire, the agony of suspense a
+supreme torture; but from the awful contest the man came forth a better
+and a wiser man. Whatever strength of principle had been wanting to
+complete the work of reformation inaugurated by love, had been gained by
+Valentine Hawkehurst during the period of Charlotte's illness. His
+promised wife, his redeeming angel, she for whose affection he had first
+learned to render thanks to his God, had seemed to be slipping away from
+him. In the happiest hour of his prosperous courtship he had known
+himself unworthy of her, with no right, no claim, to so fair a prize,
+except the right of pure and unselfish love. When the hour of trial came
+to him he had said, "Behold the avenger!" and in that hour it seemed to
+him that a lurking anticipation of future woe had been ever present with
+him in the midst of his happiness,--it seemed so natural, so reasonable
+that this treasure should be taken away from him. What had he done, that
+he should go unpunished for all the errors and follies of his youth?
+
+He looked back, and asked himself if he had been so vile a sinner as in
+these hours of self-reproach he was inclined to esteem himself? Could his
+life have been otherwise? Had he not been set in a groove, his young feet
+planted in the crooked ways, before he knew that life's journey might be
+travelled by a straighter road?
+
+Alas, the answer given at the tribunal of conscience went against him!
+Other men had come into this world amidst surroundings as bad, nay,
+indeed, worse than the surroundings of his cradle. And of these men some
+had emerged from their native mire spotless and pure as from newly-fallen
+snow. The natural force of character which had saved these men had not
+been given to him. His feet had been set in the crooked ways, and he had
+travelled on, reckless, defiant, dimly conscious that the road was a bad
+one, and that his garments were bespattered with more mud-stains than
+would be agreeable to some travellers.
+
+It was only when the all-powerful influence of love was brought to bear
+upon this plastic nature that Valentine Hawkehurst became fully awakened
+to the degradation of his position, and possessed with an earnest desire
+to emerge from the great dismal swamp of bad company. Then, and then
+only, began the transformation which was ultimately to become so complete
+a change. Some influence, even beyond that of happy love, was needed to
+give force to this man's character; and in the great terror of the last
+three months that influence had been found. The very foundations of
+Valentine Hawkehurst's life had been shaken, and, come what might, he
+could never be again what he had been.
+
+He had almost lost her. All was said in that. She had been almost taken
+from him--she, who to this man was father, mother, wife, household, past,
+present, future, glory, ambition, happiness--everything except that God
+who ruled above and held her life and his peace in the hollow of His
+hand. He had been face to face with death; and never, in all the years to
+come--never in the brightest hour of future happiness, could he forget
+the peril that had come upon him, and might come again. He had learned to
+understand that he held her, not as a free gift, but as a loan--a
+treasure to be reclaimed at any moment by the God who lent her.
+
+The darksome valley was past, and Valentine stood by his darling's side,
+safe upon the sunlit uplands.
+
+The doctors had declared their patient safe. The hour of danger had been
+passed in safety, and the mischief worked by the poisoner's slow process
+had been well nigh counteracted by medical skill.
+
+"In six weeks' time you may take your wife for her honeymoon tour, Mr.
+Hawkehurst, with her health and spirits thoroughly re-established,"
+said Dr. Jedd.
+
+"What is that you say about honeymoon tours?" cried Gustave Lenoble.
+"Hawkehurst and his wife will spend their honeymoon at Côtenoir; is it
+not, Diana?"
+
+Diana replied that it was to be, and must be so.
+
+It was impossible to imagine a happier party than that which met day
+after day in those pleasant lodgings at Kilburn, wherein Georgy and Diana
+and Charlotte had been established with much devotion and care on the
+parts of Valentine and Gustave. Mr. Hawkehurst had chosen the apartments,
+and M. Lenoble had spent the day before the wedding in rushing to and fro
+between the West End and Kilburn, carrying hot-house flowers, comestibles
+of all kinds from Fortnum and Mason's, bonbon boxes, perfumery, new
+books, new music, and superintending the delivery of luxurious
+easy-chairs, hired from expensive upholsterers, a grand piano, and a
+harmonium.
+
+"We will have music in the evenings," he said to Diana, upon her
+expressing surprise on beholding these arrangements, "when we are
+assembled here, all. How thou dost open thine eyes on beholding these
+nothings! Do you think it has been no pleasure to me to testify my
+affection for one who has been so good to thee--thy friend, thine
+adopted sister? I wished that all things should look bright around her,
+when they brought her here, after that she had come to escape from the
+jaws of death. And thou, was it not that thou wert also coming to make
+thy home here for some days, until thy day of marriage? Thy father
+astonishes himself to hear of such sudden events. Thou wilt go to see
+him, soon, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, dear Gustave. I will go to-morrow."
+
+She went on the next day, and found Captain Paget much weaker than on her
+last visit.
+
+It was evident that for him the end was very near. He was much changed
+and subdued by his long illness; but the spirit of worldliness had not
+been altogether exorcised even in this dismal period of self-communion.
+
+"What does it all mean, Diana?" he asked. "I don't understand being kept
+in the dark like this. Here are you suddenly leaving Mr. Sheldon's house
+without rhyme or reason, to take up your quarters in lodgings with Mrs.
+Sheldon. Here is a mysterious marriage taking place at a time when I have
+been given to understand that one of the parties is at death's door; and
+here is Lenoble introduced to Valentine Hawkehurst, in express opposition
+to my particular request that my future son-in-law should be introduced
+to none of the Sheldon set."
+
+"Valentine is not one of the Sheldon set, papa. I do not think it likely
+that he will ever see Philip Sheldon again."
+
+"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Captain Paget. "There has been something
+serious going on, then, surely?"
+
+After this he insisted on an explanation, and Diana told him the story of
+the last two or three weeks: Charlotte's increasing illness--so
+mysterious and incurable; the sudden return from Harold's Hill;
+Valentine's fears; Dr. Jedd's boldly-expressed opinion that the patient
+was the victim of foul play; the systematic exclusion of Philip Sheldon
+from the sick-room, followed immediately by symptoms of amelioration,
+leading to gradual recovery.
+
+All this Captain Paget heard with an awe-stricken countenance. The
+distance that divides the shedder of blood from all other wrong-doers is
+so great, that the minor sinner feels himself a saint when he
+contemplates the guilt of the greater criminal.
+
+"Great God! is this possible?" exclaimed the Captain, with a shudder.
+"And I have taken that man's hand!"
+
+Later in the evening, when Diana had left him, and he had been thinking
+seriously of his own career, and those many transactions of his troubled
+life which, in the slang denomination of the day, would be called
+"shady," he derived some scrap of comfort from one consideration.
+
+"I never hurt a worm," he murmured to himself, complacently. "No, I can
+lay my hand upon my heart and say, I never hurt a worm."
+
+The Captain did not pause to reflect that some of the merit involved in
+this amiable trait of character might have been referable to the fact,
+that he had never happened to fall upon a state of society in which a
+comfortable living was to be made by the hurting of worms. He thought
+only of the story he had heard about Philip Sheldon; and he told himself
+that not in the direst necessity of his life could his brain have
+fashioned the thought of such a deed as that, in the doing of which this
+man had persevered for nearly three months.
+
+For Charlotte Hawkehurst the summer days which succeeded her marriage
+passed very quietly. She had not been told the real motive of that hasty
+and stolen marriage which had given her to the man she loved and trusted
+so completely. Valentine and Diana had between them contrived to mould
+Mrs. Sheldon to their will; and it was at her request that Charlotte had
+consented to so strange a step.
+
+The fable invented to account for this desire on the part of Mrs. Sheldon
+was very innocent. The doctors had ordered a milder climate than England
+for the dear convalescent--Madeira, Algeria, Malta--or some other equally
+remote quarter of the globe. It was impossible that Mr. or Mrs. Sheldon
+could take so long a journey; Mr. Sheldon being bound hand and foot to
+the mill-wheel of City life, Mrs. Sheldon being the slave and helpmeet of
+her husband. Nor could dear Charlotte go to Malta alone, or attended only
+by faithful Diana Paget. In short, there was no course so obvious or so
+prudent as a hasty marriage, which would enable the invalid to seek a
+milder clime, accompanied and guarded by her natural protector--a
+husband.
+
+"Consent, dearest, I entreat you," wrote Valentine, in the little note
+which supported Mrs. Sheldon's request, "however strange our wishes may
+seem to you. Believe that it is for the best, for your own sake, for the
+sake of all who love you, and ask no questions. Say only yes."
+
+To the prayer in this letter, to the entreaties of her mother and Diana,
+Charlotte yielded. She wondered why Mr. Sheldon avoided her, and asked
+anxiously, on more than one occasion, why she did not see that gentleman.
+
+"Is papa ill," she asked, "that he never comes to see how I am?"
+
+"The doctors have forbidden many people in your room, dear."
+
+"Yes, a few days ago, when I was so very ill; but now that I am better,
+papa might come. I want to thank him for all his anxious care of me, and
+to be sure that _he_ consents to this marriage."
+
+"My darling, be assured the marriage is for the best," pleaded Diana.
+
+And the marriage took place.
+
+Charlotte's innocent soul was thus spared the pain of a revelation which
+must have cast a dark shadow on the bright beginning of her wedded life.
+Georgy pledged herself to keep the fatal secret from her daughter; and
+Diana Paget rewarded her discretion by the most patient attention to her
+piteous and prosy lamentations upon the iniquity of mankind in general,
+and Philip Sheldon in particular.
+
+Of that hideous secret of the past, lately revealed by Mr. Burkham, Mrs.
+Sheldon had been told nothing. No good end could have been served by such
+a revelation. The criminal law has its statute of limitations--unwritten,
+but not the less existent. A crime which would have been difficult of
+proof at the time of its commission must after the lapse of twelve years
+have travelled beyond the pale of justice. For three people to come
+forward and declare that at the time of Mr. Halliday's death they had
+suspected Mr. Sheldon of poisoning him, would be to prove nothing to the
+minds of a British jury, except that the three people in question were
+libellous and ill-disposed persons. The greater the issue, the wider the
+chances of escape given to the accused; and a petty offender will be
+condemned for picking a pocket upon much lighter grounds than will be
+considered sufficient to prove a man guilty of blowing up the Houses of
+Parliament.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+AFTER THE WEDDING.
+
+The manner in which Mr. Sheldon would act in the future was a matter of
+considerable fear to his wife. She had a hazy idea that he would come to
+the pleasant Kilburn lodgings to claim her, and insist upon her sharing
+his dreary future.
+
+"If I could only have a divorce," she said piteously, when she discussed
+the subject with her son-in-law. "There ought to be divorces for such
+dreadful things; but I never heard of one before Sir Creswick,
+or the new judge, whose name I can't remember. O Valentine, I cannot live
+with him; I cannot sit down to dinner day after day with such a man as
+that. And to think that I should have known him when I was the merest
+girl, and have danced my very first polka with him when it first came in,
+and people wore polka boots and polka jackets, and wrote their notes of
+invitation upon polka paper, and sang polka songs, and worked polking
+peasants in Berlin wool, and went on altogether in the most absurd
+manner. And O Valentine, whom can one trust, if not the man one has known
+all one's life!"
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst pledged himself to protect his mother-in-law from any
+attempt at persecution upon the part of her husband. He did not know what
+difficulties he might have to encounter in the performance of this
+pledge; for, in his ignorance of the stockbroker's desperate
+circumstances, he imagined that Philip Sheldon would make some attempt to
+right himself in the eyes of the world, by compelling his wife to
+reassume her position in his house.
+
+He went to George Sheldon's office within a few days after his marriage
+to take counsel from that astute adviser. He found the lawyer hard at
+work, and in very good spirits. It was by his advice the marriage had
+been hurried on; Charlotte's stealthy removal from the house while Philip
+Sheldon slumbered had been planned by him; and he was triumphant in the
+thought that the plot had succeeded so well, and that Philip, the coolest
+and deepest of schemers, had been so completely baffled.
+
+"That Ann Woolper is a treasure," he said; "I didn't think it was in her
+to do what she has done. Nothing could be neater than the way she kept
+Phil at bay; and nothing could be better than her tact and cleverness in
+getting Charlotte and her mother quietly off the other morning while my
+precious brother was in the land of nod."
+
+"Yes, she has been invaluable to us."
+
+"And that girl Paget, too; she has turned out a regular trump. I used to
+think her a very stiff, consequential piece of goods when I saw her at
+the Lawn; but, egad, she has shown herself the genuine metal all through
+this business. Now that's a young woman I wouldn't mind making Mrs.
+George Sheldon any day in the week."
+
+"You do her too much honour," said Valentine, with an internal shiver.
+"Unhappily, a prior engagement will prevent Miss Paget's availing herself
+of so excellent an opportunity."
+
+"It mayn't be such a very bad chance as you seem to think it, my friend,"
+George replied, with some indignation. "Whenever the Reverend John
+Haygarth's estate drops in, I stand to win fifty thousand pounds. And
+that's not so bad for a start in life. I suppose you haven't forgotten
+that your wife is heir-at-law to a hundred thousand pounds?"
+
+"No, I have not forgotten her position in relation to the Haygarth
+estate."
+
+"Humph! I should rather think not. People don't generally forget that
+kind of thing. But you are uncommonly cool about the business."
+
+"Yes, I have passed through a fiery furnace in which all the bullion in
+the Bank of England will not serve a man. That kind of ordeal upsets
+one's old notions as to the value of money. And, again, I have never been
+able to contemplate Charlotte's inheritance of that fortune as anything
+but a remote contingency; the business is so slow."
+
+"Yes, but it has been going on. Affidavits have been made; the whole
+affair is in progress."
+
+"I am glad to hear it. Don't think that I pretend not to value the
+prospect of wealth; I have only learnt to know that money is not the
+be-all and end-all of life. I could be very happy with my dear wife if
+there were no prospect of this Haygarthian inheritance; but if it does
+come to us, we shall, no doubt, be all the happier. The millionaire sees
+the world from a very pleasant point of view. I should like my dear girl
+to be the mistress of as fair a home as money can buy for her."
+
+"Yes, and you'd like to have your name stand high in the statistics of
+Government stockholders. Don't be sentimental, Hawkehurst; that kind of
+thing won't wash. Thank God, we managed to save poor Tom's daughter from
+the fangs of my brother Phil. But you can't suppose that I am going to
+shut my eyes to the fact that this affair has been a very good thing for
+you, and that you owe your chances of a great fortune entirely to me? You
+don't pretend to forget _that_, I suppose?" said George Sheldon, with
+some acrimony.
+
+"Why should I pretend to forget that, or any circumstance of our business
+relations? I am perfectly aware that you started the hunt of the
+Haygarths, and that to your investigations is to be traced the discovery
+that proves my wife a claimant to the estate now held by the Crown."
+
+"Very good; that's outspoken and honest, at any rate. And now, how about
+our agreement? It's only a parole agreement, but an honest man's word is
+as good as his bond."
+
+"Our agreement!" repeated Valentine, with a puzzled expression of
+countenance. "Upon my word, I forget."
+
+"Ah, I thought it would come to that; I thought you would manage to
+forget the terms agreed upon by you and me in the event of your marriage
+with Charlotte Halliday. My memory is not so short as yours; and I can
+swear to a conversation between you and me in this room, in which you
+consented to my taking half the Haygarthian estate as the price of my
+discovery and the fair reward of my labours."
+
+"Yes," said Valentine, "I remember that conversation; and I remember
+saying that the demand was a stiff one, but that I, as Charlotte's future
+husband, would not oppose such a demand."
+
+"You remember that?"
+
+"I do; and if my wife is willing to consent to your terms, I will hold to
+my promise."
+
+"Your wife's consent is not wanted. She married you without a settlement,
+and her rights are merged in yours. To all intents and purposes, _you_
+are heir-at-law to John Haygarth's estate."
+
+Valentine laughed aloud; the whole affair seemed a tremendous joke. He,
+the homeless, penniless, friendless reprobate of but one year ago--he,
+the son and heir of a man who had been always on the verge of social
+shipwreck for want of five pounds--he, of all other men upon this earth,
+claimant against the Crown for an estate worth one hundred thousand
+pounds!
+
+"The whole affair seems ridiculously improbable," he said.
+
+"My brother wouldn't have done what he did if the whole thing had seemed
+improbable to him. However, we needn't estimate the chances for or
+against; all I want is a legal agreement between you and me, securing my
+share of the plunder."
+
+"I am ready to execute any reasonable agreement; but I am bound to
+protect my wife's interests, and I must have a solicitor to act for me in
+this affair. Greek must meet Greek, you know."
+
+"Very good. I could have conducted the business myself without the
+interference of strangers; but if you are going in for extreme caution,
+you'd better leave your wife's affairs in the hands of Messrs. Greenwood
+and Greenwood, who have acted for her hitherto, and have all papers
+relating to the case in their possession."
+
+"Greenwood and Greenwood? My dear girl told me she had signed some
+document, and had seen some lawyers; but she did not tell me the nature
+of the document, or the name of the lawyers. I have forborne to speak to
+her on business matters. The treatment that she has undergone has left
+her very nervous, and we try to keep all unpleasant subjects out of her
+mind."
+
+"Yes, that's all very well; but business is business, you know. You'd
+better see Messrs. Greenwood and Greenwood at once. Tell them of your
+marriage. You'll have to keep Phil's conduct dark, of course; that is
+understood between us. You must say the marriage was a love-match
+against my brother's wish, romantic, sentimental, and so on. They'll
+raise no objections when they find you are willing to leave the case in
+their hands."
+
+"You have heard nothing of your brother?"
+
+"Well, no--nothing, or next to nothing. I called at his office yesterday.
+He has not been there since the beginning of Charlotte's illness, and
+there has been no letter or message for Orcott since your wedding-day.
+Things look rather piscatorial, altogether. Orcott hints that Phil's
+affairs are in queer street; but he's a shallow-headed fool, and knows
+very little. It seems, by his account, that Phil was a Bull, and that
+the fall in every species of stock has been ruin to him. You see, when a
+man once goes in for the Bull business, he never by any chance turns
+Bear--and _vice versa_. There's a kind of infatuation in the thing, and a
+man sticks to his line until he's cleaned out--at least, that's what
+stockbrokers have told me--and I believe it's pretty near the truth."
+
+This was all that Valentine could ascertain about Mr. Sheldon at present.
+Every knock fluttered Georgy; every accidental visitor at the Kilburn
+villa seemed like the swooping of eagle on dovecote.
+
+"I cannot get over the feeling that he will come and take me away with
+him," she said. "If Sir Wilde Creswick would only do something, so that
+my second husband mayn't be able to insist upon my living in that
+dreadful, dreadful house, where I suffered such nights and days of agony,
+that I am convinced the sight of chintz curtains lined with pink will
+make me wretched as long as I live!"
+
+"My dear Mrs. Sheldon, he shall not come," said Valentine.
+
+"If I could only go ever so far away from him, and feel that there was
+the sea, or something of that kind, between us!"
+
+"We will take you away--across the British Channel, or further still, if
+you like. Diana and M. Lenoble are to be married soon; and directly
+Lotta is strong enough for the journey we are to go over to Normandy, to
+their chateau."
+
+"Chateau, indeed!" Mrs. Sheldon exclaimed peevishly. "The idea of Diana
+Paget, without a sixpence, and with a regular scamp of a father, marrying
+a man with a chateau, while my poor Charlotte--! I don't wish to wound
+your feelings, Mr. Hawkehurst, but it really does seem hard."
+
+"It is hard that Lotta should not have married a prince--all the
+grandeurs of a prince in a fairy tale would only be her due; but it
+happens fortunately, you see, dear Mrs. Sheldon, that our sweet girl has
+simple tastes, and does not languish for jewels or palaces. If she should
+ever become rich--"
+
+"Ah," sighed, Georgy despondently, "I don't expect that. I can't
+understand anything about this idea of a fine fortune that Mr. Sheldon
+had got into his head. I know that my husband's mother was a Miss
+Meynell, the daughter of a carpet-warehouseman in the city, and I can't
+see how any grand fortune is to come to Charlotte through her. And as for
+the Hallidays--Hyley and Newhall farms were all the property they ever
+owned within the memory of man."
+
+"The fortune for which Charlotte is a claimant comes from the maternal
+ancestor of Christian Meynell. I do not count upon her possession of it
+as a certain good in the future. If it comes we will be thankful."
+
+"Is it a very large sum of money?"
+
+"Well, yes; I believe it is a considerable sum."
+
+"Twenty thousand pounds, perhaps?"
+
+"I have been told that it is as much."
+
+He did not want Georgy's weak mind to become possessed of the idea of
+shadowy wealth. He remembered what Philip Sheldon had said to him on the
+Christmas night in which they had paced the little Bayswater garden
+together, and he felt that there was a substratum of common sense in that
+scoundrel's artful warning.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+GREEK AGAINST GREEK.
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst called upon Mr. Greenwood, of the firm of Greenwood
+and Greenwood, within a week of his marriage, and exhibited the
+certificate to that gentleman. Mr. Greenwood received the information
+with much solemnity, and even severity, of manner.
+
+"Are you aware that this is a very serious step which you have taken,
+Mr. Hawkehurst?" he demanded, sternly. "You entrap--that is to say,
+you persuade a lady into a hasty marriage--without consultation with
+her legal advisers, without settlements of any kind whatever--while at
+the same time you are aware that the lady in question is heir-at-law
+to a very large fortune, proceedings for the recovery of which are
+now pending. Pardon me if I observe that there is a want of
+delicacy--of--a--hem--right-mindedness in the transaction."
+
+"The imputation contained in your remarks is not a pleasant one, Mr.
+Greenwood," Valentine remarked quietly; "but I am quite willing to pardon
+any injustice which you may inflict upon me by your desire to protect the
+interests of your client. I think you will speedily discover that those
+interests are in no way endangered by the lady's marriage with me. There
+are social complications which are not to be settled by either law or
+equity. Miss Halliday's surroundings of the last few months were of a
+very painful nature; so painful, that the legal protection of marriage
+became the only means of saving her from imminent peril. I cannot enter
+more fully into those painful circumstances. I can only assure you that I
+married your client with the consent and approval of her only near
+relation, and uninfluenced in the smallest degree by mercenary
+considerations. Whatever post-nuptial settlement you please to make for
+my wife's protection I shall promptly execute."
+
+"You express yourself in a very honourable and highly creditable manner,
+Mr. Hawkehurst," exclaimed the lawyer, with sudden cordiality; "and I beg
+distinctly to withdraw any offensive observations I may have made just
+now. Your own affairs are, I conclude, in a sufficiently solvent state?"
+
+"I do not owe a sixpence."
+
+"Good; and Mr. Sheldon, the lady's stepfather and my client--had you his
+approval for this hasty marriage?"
+
+"The marriage took place without Mr. Sheldon's knowledge or consent."
+
+"May I ask your reason for this secrecy?"
+
+"No, Mr. Greenwood; it is just that one reason that I cannot tell you.
+Accept my assurance that it was an all-powerful reason."
+
+"I am compelled to do so, if you decline to confide in my discretion; but
+as Mr. Sheldon is my client, I am bound to think of his interests as well
+as those of Miss Halliday--er--Mrs. Hawkehurst. I am somewhat surprised
+that he has not called upon me since the marriage. He has been made aware
+of that circumstance, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; I wrote to him immediately after the ceremony, enclosing him a copy
+of the certificate."
+
+"The marriage will make a considerable difference to him."
+
+"In what manner?"
+
+"Well, in the event of his stepdaughter's death. If she had died
+unmarried and intestate, this fortune would have gone to her mother;
+besides which, there was the insurance on Miss Halliday's life."
+
+"An insurance!"
+
+"Yes. Were you not apprised of that fact? Mr. Sheldon, with very natural
+precaution, insured his stepdaughter's life for a considerable sum--in
+point of fact, as I believe, five thousand pounds; so that, in case of
+her death prior to the recovery of the Haygarth estate, her mother might
+receive some solatium."
+
+"He had insured her life!" said Valentine, under his breath.
+
+This, then, was the key to the mystery. The Haygarthian inheritance was
+but a remote contingency, a shadowy prize, which could scarcely have
+tempted the secret assassin; but the insurance had offered the prospect
+of immediate gain. The one link wanting to complete the chain of evidence
+against Philip Sheldon was found. There was no longer a question as to
+his motive.
+
+"This man knows of one insurance on her life," Valentine thought to
+himself; "there may have been more than one."
+
+After a brief silence, in which Mr. Hawkehurst had been lost in thought,
+the lawyer proceeded to discuss the terms of the post-nuptial settlement
+necessary for the protection of his client's interests. In the course of
+this discussion Valentine explained his position in relation to George
+Sheldon, and stated the demands of that sharp practitioner.
+
+Mr. Greenwood was utterly aghast upon hearing Mr. Hawkehurst's views on
+this subject.
+
+"You mean to tell me that this man claims a clear half of the Haygarth
+estate--fifty thousand pounds--in consideration of his paltry
+discoveries!"
+
+"Such is the demand he has made, and which I have pledged myself not to
+oppose. He certainly does open his mouth very wide; but we are bound to
+consider that but for these discoveries of his, my wife and my wife's
+relatives would in all probability have gone down to their graves in
+ignorance of their claim to this estate."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Hawkehurst. If Mr. George Sheldon had not made
+the discovery, some one else would have made it sooner or later, depend
+upon it. There would have been a little loss of time, that is all. There
+are plenty of men of George Sheldon's class always on the look-out for
+such chances as this--and for very small chances in comparison to this.
+Why, I know a fellow, a Frenchman, called Fleurus, who will take as much
+trouble about a few hundred pounds' worth of unclaimed stock as this man,
+George Sheldon, has taken about the Haygarth succession. And he has
+really the impudence to claim fifty thousand pounds from you?"
+
+"A claim which I have pledged myself not to oppose."
+
+"But which you have not pledged yourself to support. My dear Mr.
+Hawkehurst, this is a business which you must allow me to settle for you,
+as your wife's legal adviser. We will consider you quite out of the
+question, if you please; you will thus come out of your relations to Mr.
+George Sheldon with perfectly clean hands. You will not oppose his claim;
+but I shall oppose him in my character of legal adviser to your wife.
+Why, are you aware that this man executed an agreement with his brother,
+consenting to receive a fifth share of the estate, and costs out of
+pocket, in complete acquittance of all claims? I have an abstract of the
+agreement, amongst Miss Halliday's--Mrs. Hawkehurst's papers."
+
+After some further discussion, Valentine agreed to leave the whole matter
+in Mr. Greenwood's hands. Greek must meet Greek. Gray's Inn and the
+Fields must settle this business between themselves.
+
+"I am only prince consort," he said, with a smile. "I pretend to no
+actual interest in my wife's estate. I doubt, indeed, whether I should
+not have felt more complete happiness in our marriage if she had not been
+heiress to so large a fortune."
+
+At this Mr. Greenwood laughed outright.
+
+"Come, come, Mr. Hawkehurst," he exclaimed, "that really won't do. I am
+an old stager, you know--a man of the world;--and you mustn't ask me to
+believe that the idea of your wife's expectations can afford you anything
+but unqualified satisfaction."
+
+"You cannot believe? No, perhaps not," Valentine answered, thoughtfully.
+"But you do not know how nearly these expectations have lost me my wife.
+And even now, when she is mine by virtue of a bond that only death can
+loosen, it seems to me as if her wealth would make a kind of division
+between us. There are people who will always consider me a lucky
+adventurer, and look at my marriage as the result of clever scheming. I
+cannot advertise to the world the fact that I loved Charlotte Halliday
+from the first hour in which I saw her, and asked her to be my wife three
+days before I discovered her claim to John Haygarth's estate. A man can't
+go through the world with his justification pinned upon his breast. I
+think it will be my fate to be misjudged all my life. A twelvemonth ago I
+cared very little about the opinions of my fellow-men; but I want to be
+worthy of my wife in the esteem of mankind, as well as in the depths of
+my own moral consciousness."
+
+"Go and finish your honeymoon," said the lawyer, digging his client in
+the ribs with elephantine playfulness; "the moon must be in her first
+quarter, I should think. Go along with you, and leave me to tackle Mr.
+George Sheldon."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+ONLY A DREAM.
+
+"I say, Lenoble," Captain Paget began abruptly one afternoon when his
+daughter and his future son-in-law were in attendance upon his sofa,
+"when are you and Diana to be married? There is nothing to hinder your
+marriage now, you know."
+
+Diana looked at the speaker with a grave countenance.
+
+"Dear papa, there can be no marriage while you are so ill," she said
+gently.
+
+"And afterwards, when I'm gone, you won't like to marry within six months
+of your father's funeral; and you will be left alone in the world. You
+can't hang on to Hawkehurst and his wife. The best thing you can do,
+Lenoble, is to marry her out of hand, and let me see her by my bedside as
+Madame Lenoble of Côtenoir. It will be some consolation for me to see
+that day. I thought to have shared your home, with a run to Paris
+occasionally just to freshen myself up a little; but that's all over now.
+It does seem rather hard to me sometimes; and I think of Moses, and his
+forty years in the Desert with those ill-conditioned Israelites, who were
+always getting into some scrape or other--setting up golden calves, and
+that kind of thing--if he turned his back on them for twenty-four hours.
+A pack of ungrateful beggars too, always ready for mutiny--regular
+radicals, begad! And he went through it all: the sand, and the _toujours_
+quails, and the ingratitude; and after forty years of it, when he saw the
+Promised Land stretched before him green and fertile on the other side of
+the river--he died! I've been through my desert, the dreary wanderings
+over the barren sand, and the ingratitude of men I've served. Yes, I've
+gone through it all; and just as I catch a glimpse of Canaan, the curtain
+drops."
+
+On this they comforted him; and sustained him with the promise of a
+brighter Canaan than Côtenoir.
+
+"Yes," he said in a dreamy voice, "I read about it very often. A city
+with foundations of jasper and chalcedony, emerald and sardonyx; gates of
+pearl, pavements of gold. That's what St. John the Evangelist saw in his
+vision; and we've only his word for it. But there's something that I can
+believe and can understand: 'In my Father's house there are many
+mansions.' There's more hope for a sinful man of the world in that
+promise than in all St. John's dreams about gates of pearl and
+foundations of emerald."
+
+The Captain was failing fast. He had exchanged his easy-chair for a sofa
+now; and the time seemed near at hand when he must exchange the sofa for
+his bed. After that there would remain but one last change, to the
+contemplation whereof the sick man was becoming daily more reconciled.
+
+He had read his Gospel more diligently of late, and had taken comfort
+from those sublime pages. Do they not contain consolation, hope, promise
+for all--for the weary man of the world as well as for the saint? There
+is to be found the only creed that can adapt itself to every condition
+of life, and has a margin wide enough for every weakness of erring
+humanity. Buddhism may contain a scheme of morality almost as perfect;
+Mahomet may have expounded hopes that seem well-nigh as divine; but in
+the Gospel is the only system that will adapt itself at once to the
+culture of the spiritual man, and the active life of the practical
+worker in this lower world.
+
+Gustave Lenoble was only too glad to claim his promised wife a little
+sooner than he had hoped to claim her. "Thou hast put me off long enough,
+cruel," he said; "and now it is thy father's wish that our marriage
+should be soon. It shall be this week; I will take no longer thine
+excuses. We shall be the sooner ready to receive thy friends, thy
+Charlotte and her Hawkehurst."
+
+Diana smiled.
+
+"Dear Gustave, you are always kind," she said.
+
+It was very sweet to her to think that her new home would afford a
+pleasant haven for that dear friend who had sheltered her. And with
+Charlotte, the dear adopted sister, would come the man she had once
+loved, to share whose cares had once been the brightest dream.
+
+She wondered at her own inconstancy on perceiving how completely the
+dream had flown. Before the stern realities of life--before sickness and
+sorrow and the dread shadow of death--that schoolgirl's vision had
+utterly melted away. It is just possible that Gustave's manly outspoken
+love may have helped to blot from the tablet of her mind the fantastic
+picture of the life that might have been. She scarcely knew whether this
+was so; but she did know that a new and happier existence began for her
+from the hour in which she gave her heart in all truth and loyalty to
+Gustave Lenoble.
+
+The wedding was arranged to take place within a week of Captain Paget's
+expressly declared wish. It was to be solemnised at a church near
+Knightsbridge, and again at a Catholic chapel in the neighbourhood of
+Sloane-street; by which double ceremonial a knot would be tied that no
+legal quibble could hereafter loosen. Charlotte was just sufficiently
+recovered to obtain permission to be present at the ceremonial, after
+some little exercise of her persuasive powers with the medical
+practitioner to whose care Dr. Jedd had committed her when all danger was
+past.
+
+The Captain protested, with an eager insistence, that the wedding
+breakfast should be eaten at his domicile.
+
+"And Val," he said, "be sure Val is with you. I have a secret to tell
+him--a kind of atonement to make; some news to give him that he won't
+quite relish, perhaps. But that's no fault of mine."
+
+"No bad news, I hope, papa; for Charlotte's sake as well as for
+Valentine's."
+
+"That depends upon how they both take it. Your friend Charlotte is not
+particularly fond of money, is she?"
+
+"Fond of money, papa? A baby knows as much of the value of money as
+Lotta. Except to give to beggars in the streets, or to buy pretty
+frivolous presents for her friends, she has neither use nor desire for
+money. She is the most generous, most disinterested of created beings."
+
+"I'm very glad to hear it," said the Captain, drily. "And how about
+Hawkehurst, now? Do you think it was a real love-match, his marriage with
+Miss Halliday? No _arrière pensée_--no looking out for the main chance at
+the bottom of his romantic attachment, eh, Di?"
+
+"No, papa. I am sure there was never truer love than his. I saw him under
+most trying circumstances, and I can pledge myself for the truth of his
+devotion."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it. Be sure you bring Hawkehurst and his wife to
+my little breakfast. A chicken, a pine, a bottle of sparkling hock, and
+a fond father's blessing, are all I shall give you; but the chicken and
+the hock will be from Gunter, and the blessing from the bottom of a
+paternal heart."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bright shone the day that gave Diana to her husband, and very beautiful
+looked the bride in her simple dress. Gustave Lenoble's marriage was no
+less quietly performed than that union which had secured the safety of
+Charlotte Halliday and the happiness of Valentine Hawkehurst. The shadow
+of death hovered very near bride and bridegroom; for they knew full well
+that he who was to preside that day at their simple marriage-feast would
+soon have tasted that last sacred cup which has no after-flavour of
+bitterness.
+
+The breakfast promised by the Captain was arranged with much elegance.
+Hothouse flowers and fruits; wines with the icedew sparkling on the dark
+glass; chickens and tongue, idealized by the confectioner's art, and
+scarcely recognizable beneath rich glazings and embellishments of jellies
+and forcemeats; the airiest and least earthly of lobster salads, and a
+pyramid of coffee-ice, testified to the glory of the Belgravian purveyor.
+It had been pleasant to Captain Paget to send his orders to Gunter,
+certain of funds to meet the bill. It was almost a glimpse of that land
+of milk and honey, that Canaan in Normandy, which he was never to
+inhabit.
+
+He was very weak, very ill; but the excitement of the occasion in some
+measure sustained and revivified him. The man who had been engaged to
+nurse and wait upon him had attired him with much care in a dressing-gown
+as elegant as the robe in which he had disported himself, a penniless
+young cornet, in his luxurious garrison quarters, some fifty years
+before. His loose white locks were crowned with an embroidered
+smoking-cap; his patrician instep was set off by a dainty scarlet
+slipper. He had put away the Gospel, and all thoughts of that dread
+reckoning which he had really some shadowy desire and hope to settle
+satisfactorily, by some poor dividend which might discharge his
+obligations to that merciful Creditor who forgives so many just debts.
+To-day he was of the world, worldly. It was a kind of _ante-mortem_
+lying-in-state--his last levee; and he was equal to the occasion.
+
+The prettily adorned table was drawn near the sofa where the invalid host
+reclined, supported by numerous pillows. His daughter and her husband,
+Valentine, Charlotte, and Georgy, made a little circle about him. His own
+man, and a clerical-looking person from Gunter's, assisted at the airy
+banquet. Very little was eaten by any of the guests, and it was a relief
+to every one when the clerical personage and Captain Paget's factotum
+retired, after serving tea and coffee with funereal solemnity.
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst was all gentleness and cordiality towards his old
+taskmaster. The wrong must indeed be dire which is considered in such an
+hour as this. Valentine remembered only that with this old man he had
+seen many troubled days; and that for him the end of all earthly
+wanderings was very near.
+
+The little banquet was not served in Captain Paget's ordinary
+sitting-room. For this distinguished occasion the landlady had lent a
+dining-room and drawing-room on the ground floor, just deserted by a
+fashionable bachelor lodger who had left town at the close of the season.
+This drawing-room on the ground floor, like the room above, overlooked
+the Park, and to this apartment the Captain requested his guests to
+adjourn, with the exception of Mr. Hawkehurst, some little time after the
+departure of the servants.
+
+"I want to have a few words with Val in private," he said; "I have a
+secret to communicate. Diana, show Mrs. Hawkehurst the Drive. You can see
+the Bow from my room, but not from these lower windows. There are a good
+many carriages still, but it is too late for the _crême de la crême_. I
+remember when the West End was a desert at this time of year; but I have
+lived to see the levelling of all distinctions, those of time as well as
+of class."
+
+Charlotte and Diana retired to the adjoining room with Mrs. Sheldon and
+M. Lenoble. Valentine was at a loss to imagine what manner of
+confidential communication his late patron and employer could desire to
+impart to him. The cautious Horatio waited until the rest of the party
+were quite out of hearing, talking gaily by the open window, beyond which
+appeared all the fluttering life and motion of summer leaves, all the
+brightness of summer green below, and deep blue sky above. When they
+seemed to him to be quite engaged with their own conversation, Captain
+Paget turned to his old companion.
+
+"Val," he said, "we have seen hard times together; we've roughed it among
+strange places and strange people, you know and so on; and I think there
+is a friendly kind of feeling between us?"
+
+He held out his poor wasted hand, and Valentine grasped it firmly in his
+own with prompt cordiality.
+
+"My dear governor, I have no feeling in my heart that is not friendly to
+you."
+
+This was perfectly true.
+
+"And even if I had been inclined to bear any grudge against you on
+account of the old days, when, you know, you were a little apt to be
+indifferent as to what scrape you left me in, provided you got off
+scot-free yourself; if I had been inclined to remember that kind of thing
+(which, on my honour, I am not), your daughter's noble courage and
+devotion in the time of my dear wife's peril should have stood against
+that old wrong. I cannot tell you how deeply I feel her goodness in that
+bitter time."
+
+"She is a Paget," murmured the Captain, complacently. "_Noblesse
+oblige._"
+
+Valentine could scarcely refrain from a smile as he remembered the many
+occasions upon which the obligations of a noble lineage had weighed very
+lightly on his aristocratic patron.
+
+"Yes, Val," the Captain resumed, in a dreamy tone, "we have seen many
+strange things together. When I began my travels through this world, in
+the palmy days of the Regency, I little thought what a weary journey it
+was to be, and what queer people I was to encounter among my
+fellow-passengers. However, I've come to the last stage of the long
+journey now, and I thank Providence that it ends so comfortably."
+
+To this Valentine assented kindly, but he was at a loss to understand why
+Captain Paget should have required the adjournment of the rest of the
+party before giving utterance to these mild commonplaces.
+
+For some moments the invalid relapsed into thoughtful silence. Then,
+rousing himself as if with an effort, he took a few sips of a cooling
+drink that stood by his side, and began with a startling abruptness.
+
+"You remember your journey to Dorking, Val, last October, when you went
+to see that mysterious old aunt of yours, eh?"
+
+Valentine blushed as the Captain recalled this cunningly-devised fable.
+
+"Yes," he said gravely; "I remember telling you that I was going to see
+an aunt at Dorking."
+
+"An aunt who had a little bit of money, eh, Val?" asked the Captain,
+with a grin.
+
+"Yes. I may have gone so far as to speak of a little bit of money."
+
+"And neither the aunt nor the bit of money ever existed, eh, Val? They
+were mere figments of the brain; and instead of going to Dorking you went
+to Ullerton, eh, Val? You stole a march upon me there. You wanted to
+throw your old chum off the scent, eh? You thought you had got hold of a
+good thing, and you were afraid your friend and companion might get a
+share of it."
+
+"Well, you see, my friend and companion had a knack of getting the
+lion's share. Besides, this good thing was not my own affair. I had to
+protect the interest of another person--my employer, in point of fact;
+and it was by his suggestion, and in compliance with his request, that
+I invented that harmless fiction about Dorking. I don't think there
+was any dishonourable dealing in the matter. We were soldiers of
+fortune both; and the stratagem with which I protected myself against
+you was a very innocent one. You would have employed any stratagem or
+invented any fiction under the same circumstances. It was a case of
+diamond cut diamond."
+
+"Precisely; and if the older soldier, if the free lance of many a
+campaign, got the best of it in the long run, the younger freebooter
+could hardly think himself ill-used--could he now, Val?"
+
+"Well, no, I suppose not," replied Valentine, puzzled by the significance
+in the face of his old companion. That sly twinkle in the Captain's eyes,
+that triumphant smile wreathing the Captain's lips, must surely mean
+mischief.
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst remembered the vague suspicion that had flashed into
+his mind on that Christmas Eve when Captain Paget and he had dined
+together at a West End restaurant, and the Captain had toasted Charlotte
+Halliday with a smile of sinister meaning. He began to anticipate some
+startling and unpleasant revelation. He began to understand that in some
+manner this inscrutible schemer had contrived to overreach him.
+
+"What are you going to tell me?" he asked. "I see there is some lurking
+mischief in your mind. How was it you were at Ullerton when I was there?
+I met you on the platform of the station, and I had a vague half
+suspicion that you followed me up on more than one occasion. I saw a
+glove in a man's parlour--a glove which I could have sworn to as yours.
+But when I came back, you were so plausible with your talk of promoting
+business, and so on, that I was fool enough to believe you. And I suppose
+you cheated and tricked me after all?"
+
+"Cheated and tricked are hard words, my dear Val," said the Captain, with
+delightful blandness. "I had as much right to transact imaginary business
+in the promoting line at Ullerton as you had to visit a fictitious aunt
+at Dorking. Self-interest was the governing principle in both cases. I do
+not think you can have any right to consider yourself injured by me if I
+did steal a march upon you, and follow close upon your heels throughout
+that Ullerton business. I do not think that you can have, on moral
+grounds, any justification for making a complaint against your old ally."
+
+"Well, I suppose you are right enough in that," said Valentine.
+
+"Shake hands upon it, then. I have not very long to live, and I want to
+feel myself at peace with mankind. You see, if you had come to me in the
+first place, in a frank and generous spirit, and had said, 'My dear
+friend, here is a good thing; let us go into it together, and see what
+there is to be made out of it,' you would have placed the matter on such
+a footing that, as a man of honour, I should have been bound to regard
+your interests as my own. But when you set up a separate interest, when
+you try to throw dust in my eyes, to hoodwink me--me, Horatio Paget,
+a man of the world, possessed of some little genius for social
+diplomacy--you attempt to do that which no man ever yet succeeded in
+doing, and you immediately release me from those obligations which an
+honourable man holds sacred. It was my glove which you saw in Mr.
+Goodge's parlour. I had a very satisfactory interview with that reverend
+person while you were absent from Ullerton on some short excursion, as to
+the purpose of which I am still in the dark. On certain terms Mr. Goodge
+agreed to give me the privilege of selecting a stated number from the
+letters of Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth. I have reason to believe that I made a
+judicious choice; for the information thus obtained placed me at once
+upon a track which I followed industriously until it led me to a
+triumphant result."
+
+"I do not understand--" began Valentine; but the Captain did not allow
+him time to say more.
+
+"You do not understand that there could be any other genealogical line
+than that which you and George Sheldon fitted together so neatly. You
+have neither of you the experience of life which alone gives wideness of
+vision. You discovered the connections of the Haygarth and the Meynell
+families in the past. That was a step in the right direction. The
+discovery, so far as it went, was a triumph. You allowed the sense of
+that triumph to intoxicate you. In a business which of all businesses
+within the range of man's intellect most requires deliberation and
+sobriety, you went to work in a fever of haste and excitement. Instead
+of searching out _all_ the descendants of Christian Meynell, you pounce
+upon the first descendant who comes to hand, and elect her, at your own
+pleasure, sole heiress to the estate of the deceased John Haygarth.
+You forget that there may be other descendants of the said Christian
+Meynell--descendants standing prior to your wife Charlotte in the line of
+succession."
+
+"I can imagine no such descendants existing," said Valentine, with a
+puzzled manner. "You seem to have made yourself master of our business;
+but there is one point upon which you are mistaken. George Sheldon and I
+did not go to work in a fever of haste. We did fully and thoroughly
+examine the pedigree of that person whom we--and legal advisers of
+considerable standing--believe to be the sole heir-at-law to the Haygarth
+estate; and we took good care to convince ourselves that there was no
+other claimant in existence."
+
+"What do you call convincing yourselves?"
+
+"Christian Meynell had only three children--Samuel, Susan, and Charlotte.
+The last, Charlotte, married James Halliday, of Newhall and Hyley farms;
+the other two died unmarried."
+
+"How do you know that? How do you propose to demonstrate that Samuel and
+Susan Meynell died unmarried?"
+
+"Susan was buried in her maiden name. Mrs. Halliday, her sister, was with
+her when she died. There was no question of marriage; nor is there the
+record of any marriage contracted by Samuel."
+
+"All that is no proof."
+
+"Indeed! I should have thought the evidence sufficient. But, in any case,
+the _onus probandi_ is not upon us. Can you prove the marriage of the
+Samuel Meynell who died at Calais, or of the Susan Meynell who died in
+London?"
+
+"I can. Susan Meynell's legitimate son is in the next room. It's an
+unpleasant kind of revelation to make, Val; as he, the son of one sister,
+stands prior to your wife, the granddaughter of the other sister, in the
+order of succession. AND HE TAKES ALL!"
+
+"He takes all!" repeated Valentine, bewildered. "He! Susan Meynell's
+son?--in the next room? What does all this mean?"
+
+"It means that when Susan was deserted by the scoundrel who took her away
+from her home, she found an honest fellow to marry her. The name of her
+husband was Lenoble. Gustave Lenoble yonder, my daughter's husband, is
+her only child by that marriage. A perfectly legal marriage, my dear
+Val--everything _en regle_, I assure you. The business is in the hands of
+Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon of Whitehall--a first-class firm; counsel's
+opinion most decided as to Lenoble's position. They have been rather slow
+about the preliminary steps; and, _entre nous_, I have not cared to hurry
+them, for I wanted to get my daughter's marriage over quietly before we
+began our proceedings in Chancery. It comes rather hard upon you, Val, I
+allow; but, you see, if you had acted generously, not to say honourably,
+towards me in the first instance, you'd have had the advantage of my
+experience. As it is, you have been working in the dark. However, things
+are not so bad as they might be. You might have married some ugly old
+harridan for the sake of this Haygarth estate; you have secured a pretty
+and amiable wife, and you mustn't be downhearted if you find yourself,
+from a financial point of view, most outrageously sold."
+
+The Captain could not refrain from a laugh as he contemplated his young
+friend's surprise. The laugh degenerated into a fit of coughing, and it
+was some little time before the enfeebled Horatio was ready to resume the
+interrupted conversation. In this pause Valentine had leisure to face
+this new position. There was for the moment a sharp sense of
+disappointment. It is not possible for humanity to be quite indifferent
+to a hundred thousand pounds. So much of the "light and sweetness" of
+life is attainable for that sum,--such pleasures, of the purest and
+noblest, are in the power of the possessor. But in this moment Valentine
+fully realized the fact that he had never taken the idea of this fortune
+into his mind--never made it part and parcel of himself, to be plucked
+out of his heart with anguish, and to leave a bleeding wound in the place
+where it had grown. It seemed to him as if he had been wakened abruptly
+from some bright bewildering dream; but the sharp pang of mercenary
+desires disappointed, of sordid hopes suddenly reft, was not for him.
+
+Beyond this sense of uncertainty, which had made the Haygarthian fortune
+seem at best such "stuff as dreams are made of," there had been ever
+present in his mind of late the dismal association connected with this
+money. For this, and to get power over this through the rights of his
+weak wife, had Philip Sheldon plotted against the life of that sweet girl
+who was but newly rescued from the jaws of the grave. The bitter memory
+of those days and nights of suspense could never have been quite
+dissociated from the money that had been the primary cause of all this
+slow torture.
+
+"Do you think I shall love my wife any less because she has no claim to
+the Haygarth estate?" he exclaimed presently, looking with
+half-contemptuous indignation upon the broken-down Bohemer. "I loved her
+long before I knew the name of Haygarth; I should have loved her if I had
+found her a beggar in the London streets, a peasant-girl weeding for
+sixpence a day in some dismal swamp of agricultural poverty and
+ignorance. I am not going to say that this money would not have brought
+us pleasure; pictures and gardens, and bright rooms, and books without
+number, and intercourse with congenial acquaintance and delightful
+journeyings to all the fairest places upon the earth, and the power to do
+some good in our generation, and a sense of security for our future, and
+by-and-by, perhaps, for the future of dear children, for whose prosperity
+we should be more anxious than for our own. Pleasure the money would most
+probably have brought for us in abundance; but I doubt if it could buy us
+more perfect happiness than we may know in the simplest home that my toil
+can support. Ah, Captain, I question if you ever knew the sweetest
+sensation life can give--the delight of working for those we love."
+
+Captain Paget stared at his sometime protégé in a kind of rapture of
+wonder, not entirely unmingled with admiration.
+
+"Egad!" he exclaimed, "I have read of this kind of thing in novels; but
+in the whole course of my experience I never met with anything equal to
+it. My son-in-law, Lenoble yonder, is a generous foo--fellow enough; but
+then, since infancy, he has never known the want of money. And generosity
+from that kind of man is no more of a virtue than the foolhardiness of a
+child who pokes his finger into the candle, not knowing the properties of
+the thing he has to deal with. But anything like generosity from you,
+from a man reared as you were reared, is, I freely confess, a little
+beyond my comprehension."
+
+"Yes; it is a transformation, is it not? But I don't think I was ever
+inordinately fond of money. Your genuine Bohemian rarely is. He is too
+well schooled in the art of living without cash, and he asks so little
+here below. His pipe, his friend, his dog, his books, his garret, his
+billiards, his beer. It is all a question of a few pounds a week. And if,
+some day, the divine enchanter Love takes the poor fellow under his
+guidance, and teaches him to do without billiards and beer, your Bohemian
+settles down into the purest and best of men. Think what Goldy might have
+been if some good woman had taken compassion upon him and married him,
+and henpecked him ever afterwards. He might have written as many novels
+as Sir Walter Scott, and died master of some Hibernian Abbotsford, some
+fair domain among the bright green hills that look down upon broad
+Shannon's silvery falls. No, Captain; your intelligence has not
+annihilated me. I can face the future boldly with my dear young wife upon
+my arm."
+
+"Upon my soul, Val, you're a very noble fellow!" exclaimed Horatio Paget,
+with real enthusiasm; "and I am sorry I have kept you in the dark so
+long."
+
+"You have kept me in the dark? Yes; to be sure. How long have you known
+this--about Susan Meynell?"
+
+"Well, my dear boy, not very long."
+
+"But how long? A month--two months? Yes; you have known Lenoble's
+position ever since you knew him; and Charlotte told me three months ago
+of Diana's engagement to Lenoble. Do you know that if Sheldon had
+succeeded, Charlotte's blood would have been upon your head? If you had
+not concealed the truth, his villany would never have been attempted."
+
+"But, my dear Val," exclaimed the Captain piteously, "I was not to
+know--"
+
+"No; you were not to know that there could be such a wretch as Philip
+Sheldon upon this earth. We will say no more of that. I kept my secret,
+you kept yours. Mischief unspeakable well-nigh came of all this underhand
+work. But heaven has been merciful to us. We have passed through the
+valley of the shadow of death; and if anything could make my wife dearer
+to me than she was when first I won her promise to be mine, it would be
+the sorrow of the last few months. And now I will go and shake hands with
+Lenoble, my wife's kinsman. He is a fine fellow, and well deserves his
+good fortune. Stay; one word. Did Diana know this? did she know that her
+lover is heir to the Haygarth estate?"
+
+"She does not know it now. She has never heard the name of Haygarth. And,
+between you and me, Val, it cost me a world of trouble to persuade her to
+say yes to Lenoble's offer, though he is a very decent match for her,
+even without reference to the Haygarth estate."
+
+"I am glad she knew nothing of this," said Valentine; "I am very glad."
+
+After this he again shook hands with Captain Paget, at that gentleman's
+request, and the Captain expressed himself much relieved by the
+conversation, and by his late protégé's very generous behaviour. He
+called to his daughter and the rest presently, and they came at his
+summons.
+
+"Is your long talk finished, papa?" asked Diana.
+
+"And is the secret told?" demanded Charlotte of her obedient husband
+and slave.
+
+"Yes, dear, it is told," he answered gravely.
+
+"I hope it is a pleasant secret."
+
+"I do not think the knowledge of it will give you much pain, dearest.
+You have learnt to think yourself a--a kind of an heiress of late,
+have you not?"
+
+"Papa--Mr. Sheldon--told me that I had a claim to some money; but I have
+not thought much about it, except that I should give you Grote and
+Macaulay in dark-brown calf, with bevelled boards and red edges, like
+that edition you saw at the auctioneer's in Bond Street, and have talked
+about ever since; and a horse, perhaps; and a glass porch to our
+cottage."
+
+"Well, darling, the books in dark-brown calf, and the horse, and the
+glass porch, may all be ours in the future; but the money was only a
+dream--it has melted away, dear."
+
+"Is that all?" asked Charlotte. "Why, I dare say the day will come when
+you will be as rich as Sir Walter Scott."
+
+"In the meantime I have something to give you instead of the money."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Yes; a cousin. Will that do as well, my love?"
+
+"A cousin? I shall like her very much if she is nice."
+
+"The cousin I mean is a gentleman."
+
+"But where is he to come from?" cried Charlotte, laughing. Has he
+dropped from the moon? The only relations I have the world are Uncle and
+Aunt Mercer. How can you pretend to find me a cousin?"
+
+"Do you remember telling me of your grandmother's only sister--Susan
+Meynell?"
+
+"Yes," said Charlotte, with a sudden blush; "I remember."
+
+"That Miss Meynell married a gentleman of Normandy, and left one only
+child, a son. His name is Gustave Lenoble, and he is standing by your
+side. He is heir-at-law to a very large fortune, which it was once
+supposed you could claim. Are you sorry, Lotta, to find a kinsman and
+lose a fortune?--and are you contented to begin the world with no hope
+except in your husband's patience and courage?"
+
+"And genius!" cried Charlotte, with enthusiasm.
+
+The sweet, blinding glamour of love shone upon this young scribbler, and
+she believed that he was indeed worthy to take rank among the greatest of
+that grand brotherhood of which he was so humble a member. She looked up
+at him with the prettiest confidence; her clinging hand clasped his with
+love and trust immeasurable. He felt and knew that love like this was a
+treasure beside which the Reverend John Haygarth's hoarded thousands must
+needs seem but sorry dross.
+
+After this there was much explanation and congratulation. Gustave Lenoble
+was delighted to claim so fair a kinswoman.
+
+"Thou art like my eldest, my cousin," he said; "Diana saw the likeness at
+the Sacré Coeur when she beheld my daughter; and I too saw my eldest's
+look in thine eyes when I first met thee. Remember, it was convened
+between us that Côtenoir should be a home for thee and for Hawkehurst
+before I knew what link bound thee to the house of Lenoble. Now thou and
+thy husband will be of our family."
+
+Diana was bewildered, grieved, indignant with the father who had deceived
+her by his studious suppression of the truth. She found herself placed in
+the position of rival to Charlotte, and the whole proceeding seemed to
+her mean and treacherous.
+
+But it was no time for remonstrance or open expression of indignant
+feeling. Her father's days were numbered. She knew this, and she held her
+peace. Nor did Mrs. Sheldon utter any word of complaint, though the
+disappointment she experienced upon hearing this revelation was very
+keen. The idea of the four or five thousand pounds which were to come to
+Charlotte had been a consolation to her in the midst of that confusion
+and desolation which had newly come upon her life. She left Knightsbridge
+that evening somewhat depressed in spirits, and half inclined to be angry
+with Charlotte and her husband for their gaiety of manner, and evident
+happiness in each other's society.
+
+"It seems hard to have to begin the world at my age," she murmured
+hopelessly, "after being accustomed to have everything nice about me, as
+I had at the Lawn; though I own that the trouble and care of the servants
+was wearing me to the grave."
+
+"Dear mamma," exclaimed Charlotte tenderly, "there is no fear of trouble
+or poverty for you or for us. Valentine has plenty of money, and is on
+the high road to securing a comfortable income. Authors do not starve in
+garrets now, you know, as they used to do, poor things, when Doctor
+Johnson ate his dinner in a cave, or something dreadful of that kind; and
+when Sir Richard Steele thought it quite a wonderful thing to get a pound
+of tea for his wife. And Valentine's heart is in his profession, and he
+will work for us."
+
+"As long as I have a hand that can write, and a brain that can guide my
+pen," interposed Mr. Hawkehurst, gaily. "I have given hostages to
+Fortune. I can face the hazard boldly. I feel as confident and as happy as
+if we lived in the golden age, when there was neither care nor toil for
+innocent mankind, and all the brightest things of earth were the
+spontaneous gift of the gods."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+BOHEMIAN INDEPENDENCE.
+
+Monsieur and Madame Lenoble went to Brighton for their honeymoon. A
+letter or a telegraphic message would bring them thence swiftly to the
+bedside of the dying Captain, should the last fatal change set in
+suddenly. Diana had wished to stay with her father, but Horatio insisted
+upon the honeymoon trip, and that everything should be done in a correct
+and gentlemanly manner.
+
+"You can engage rooms at the Albion," Captain Paget had said to his
+son-in-law a few days before the quiet wedding. "The house is extremely
+comfortable; and you will be received by a compatriot. The proprietor is
+a Frenchman, and a very gentlemanly person, I assure you; the _cuisine_
+irreproachable. I remember the old Steyne when Mrs. FitzHerbert lived
+close by, and received all the best people, in the days when the Cockney
+had not yet taken possession of Brighthelmstone, and the Chinese dragons
+and pagodas were bright and fresh in the Pavilion."
+
+To Brighton, therefore, the bride and bridegroom departed; Diana attended
+by a maid, an appanage which the Captain had insisted upon. Poor Diana
+was sorely puzzled as to what she should find for the maid to do when her
+hair had been dressed early in the morning, and her costume laid out in
+state for the day.
+
+"I think I must buy some handkerchiefs for her to hem," she said to
+Gustave; "it will be quite dreadful for her to have nothing to do all
+day long."
+
+The weather was warm and bright. The sea danced and sparkled under the
+windows. Gustave was always in the same happy frame of mind. An elegant
+landau had been secured for the period of their visit, and a pair of
+capital horses carried them out on long and pleasant expeditions to the
+pretty Sussex villages, or across the broad bare downs, beyond which the
+sea stretched blue and bright.
+
+In the evening, when the lamp was lighted and the urn hissed gaily, Diana
+felt that she and her husband were at home. It was the first home she had
+known--the first time she had been sole mistress and centre of a
+household. She looked back at all the old desolation, the dreary shifting
+from lodging to lodging, the degradation, the self-abasement, the dull
+apathy of despair; and then she looked across at her husband as he
+lounged in his easy-chair, contemplating her with dreamy adoring eye, in
+a kind of lazy worship; and she knew that for this man she was the centre
+of the universe, the very keystone in the arch of life.
+
+She stretched out her hand to him with a smile, and he pressed it fondly
+to his lips. There were twinkling jewels upon the slender fingers; for
+the prettiest shop in Brighton--the brightest shop in Brighton--had been
+ransacked that morning by the fond, frivolous, happy husband, as pleased
+to bedeck his wife as a child to dress her last new doll.
+
+"How can I ever be worthy of so much affection, Gustave!" she exclaimed,
+as he kissed the twinkling fingers.
+
+And it did indeed seem to her that for this free gift of love she could
+never render a sufficient recompense.
+
+"Thou wilt make Côtenoir a home," he said; "thou knowest not how I have
+sighed for a home. This room, with the lamplight shining on thy face, and
+thy white hands moving about the teacups, and thy sweet smile, which
+greets me every now and then when thou lookest by here,--it is more of
+home than I have ever known since I left Beaubocage, that modest dwelling
+where lived those two angels of kindness, my aunt and my grandmother."
+
+In one of those long pleasant drives to a distant village nestling under
+the lee of a steep hill, the husband and wife had much serious talk about
+the position of the former with reference to the Haygarth estate. The
+result of that conversation was shown in a letter which Charlotte
+Hawkehurst received the next day from her friend Diana Lenoble.
+
+"Albion Hotel, Brighton.
+
+"EVER DEAR LOTTA,--Gustave and I have discussed the Haygarth business
+with great satisfaction to ourselves, since it transpired in the course
+of our conversation that we are both of one mind in the matter. It is
+agreed between us that, as he is very well off already, and as he never
+hoped or expected to inherit a fortune from his maternal ancestor, it is
+only just that he should divide this unlooked-for wealth with his dear
+cousin, whose claim to that inheritance he recognizes as equal to his
+own; the mere fact of seniority making only a legal and not a moral
+difference in the degree of relationship to the Reverend John Haygarth.
+Do you understand, darling?--_you_ are to have half this money. My
+husband will not step in between you and good fortune. I cannot tell you
+how happy this determination of Gustave's has made me. I felt myself in a
+manner base and ungrateful when I thought I was to share wealth that
+might have been yours; but I ought to have better understood the justice
+of my husband's mind. And now, dearest, all will be arranged very simply;
+Gustave will come to London and see his lawyers, and execute some kind of
+deed, and the whole affair will be settled.
+
+"We have had some charming drive," &c. &c.
+
+Here the young wife branched off into a description of the simple
+pleasures of their honeymoon holiday.
+
+This letter was answered by Valentine Hawkehurst in person. He came down
+to Brighton to thank his friends for their generous desire to enrich his
+wife, and to decline, on her part, any share in John Haygarth's wealth.
+
+It was in vain that Gustave and Diana argued the point, Mr. Hawkehurst
+was fixed as fate.
+
+"Believe me, it is better as it is," he said. "Charlotte and I have
+arrived at this conviction with all due thought and deliberation. We are
+both young, and the world is all before us. There is much in the past
+that I have to redeem, as Diana well knows. It is better that I should
+fight the battle of life unaided, and rise from the ranks by right of my
+merit as a soldier. If ever we have need of help--if ever I find myself
+breaking down--you may be sure that it is to you I shall come. By and by,
+if Providence gives me children to work for, I will refuse no bounty that
+you may bestow on them. Their future may be rendered secure by your
+generosity, if you please, Lenoble; they will be your kindred. But for an
+alien like myself there is no discipline so wholesome as honest hard
+work. I am as rich as John Milton when he set up a school in St. Bride's
+Churchyard."
+
+To this resolution Mr. Hawkehurst adhered with a gentle firmness.
+
+"Thou art chivalrous like Don Quixote," said Gustave Lenoble; "but it
+shall be as thou wouldest. Touch there."
+
+He offered his hand, which the other grasped with all heartiness.
+
+"I will be godfather to thy little first one, and I will settle on him
+ten thousand pounds before he cuts his first tooth," said Gustave
+decisively.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+BEYOND THE VEIL.
+
+Diana and her husband did not linger long at Brighton; they went back to
+town in time to see the last of that old wayfarer whose troubled journey
+came to so peaceful an ending. It was a very calm haven in which this
+battered old privateer lay at anchor after life's tempestuous course; but
+to the Captain himself it seemed a hard thing that he should not have
+been permitted one brief cruise upon that summer sea which danced so
+gaily beneath the keel of the Lenobles' prosperous bark.
+
+"We have shared adversity, my love," he said sadly, when he talked with
+his daughter in the last few days; "but your prosperity I am to have no
+share in. Well, I suppose I have no right to complain. My life has been
+an erring one; but poverty is the most vicious companion that a man can
+consort with. If I had come into six or seven thousand a year, I might
+have been as starch in my notions as a bishop; but I have been obliged to
+live, Diana--that was the primary necessity, and I learnt to accommodate
+myself to it."
+
+That he had erred, the Captain was very ready to acknowledge. That he had
+sinned deeply, and had much need to repent himself of his iniquity, he
+was very slow to perceive. But sometimes, in the still watches of the
+night, when the faint lamplight on the shadowy wall was more gloomy than
+darkness, when the nurse, hired to assist his own man in these last days,
+dozed in her comfortable chair, the truth came home to his shallow soul,
+and Horatio Paget knew that he had been indeed a sinner, and very vile
+among sinners. Then, for a moment, the veil of self-deception was lifted,
+and he saw his past life as it had really been,--selfish, dishonourable,
+cruel beyond measure in reckless injury of others. For a moment the awful
+book was opened, and the sinner saw the fearful sum set against his name.
+
+"What can wipe out the dread account?" he asked himself. "Is there such a
+thing as forgiveness for a selfish useless life--a life which is one long
+offence against God and man?"
+
+In these long wakeful nights the dying man thought much of his wife. The
+sweet tender face came back to him, with its mournful wondering look. He
+knew, now, how his falsehoods and dishonours had wounded and oppressed
+that gentle soul. He remembered how often she had pleaded for the right,
+and how he had ridiculed her arguments, and set at naught her tender
+pleadings. He had fancied her in a manner inimical to himself when she
+urged the cause of some angry creditor or meek deluded landlady. Now,
+with the light that is not upon earth or sea shining on the picture of
+his past career, he could see and understand things as he had never seen
+or understood them before. He knew now that it was for his own sake that
+faithful and devoted wife had pleaded, his own interest that had been
+near to her pitying heart, as well as the interest of bakers and
+butchers, landladies and tailors.
+
+"She might have made a good man of me, if I had let her have her way," he
+thought to himself. "I know that she is in heaven. Will she plead for me,
+I wonder, at the foot of the Great Throne? I used to laugh at her bad
+English, or fly in a passion with her sometimes, poor soul, when I wanted
+her to pass for a lady, and she broke down outrageously. But there her
+voice will be heard when mine appeals in vain. Dear soul! I wonder who
+taught her to be so pure and unselfish, and trusting and faithful? She
+was a Christian without knowing it. 'I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of
+heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and
+prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.'"
+
+He thought of his wife's lonely deathbed, and compared it with his own.
+For him there was luxury; by him watched a devoted and all-forgiving
+daughter, a generous friend and son-in-law. All that could be done to
+soothe the painful descent was done for him. For her there had been
+nothing but loneliness and sorrow.
+
+"But she might be certain of a speedy welcome in a better home," thought
+Horatio; "and I--? Ah, dear kind creature, _there_ the difference was all
+in her favour."
+
+As the closing scene grew nearer, he thought more and more of his gentle
+low-born wife, whose hold upon him in life had been so slender, whose
+memory had occupied until now so insignificant a place in his mind. His
+daughter watched with him unceasingly in the last two days and nights.
+His mind wandered. On the day of his death he mistook Diana for that
+long-lost companion.
+
+"I have not been a kind husband, Mary, my dear," he faltered "but
+the world has been hard upon me--debts--difficulties--crack
+regiment--expensive mess--set of gamblers--no pity on a young man without
+fortune--force of example--tied a millstone round my wretched neck before
+I was twenty-one years of age."
+
+Later, when the doctor had felt his pulse for the last time, he cried out
+suddenly, "I have made a statement of my affairs, the liabilities are
+numerous--the assets nil; but I rely on the clemency of this court."
+
+These were his last words. He sank into a kind of stupor betwixt sleeping
+and waking, and in this he died.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+BETTER THAN GOLD.
+
+The little fleet of paper boats which Mr. Sheldon had pioneered so
+skilfully over the commercial seas came to grief very soon after the
+disappearance of the admiral. A bill drawn upon the Honduras Mahogany
+Company, Limited, was the first to reach maturity. The bill was referred
+to the drawer--the drawer was not to be found.
+
+"I have not seen Sheldon for the last fortnight," Mr. Orcott informed the
+gentleman who brought him the document.
+
+"Out of business for a fortnight?"
+
+"He has not been in business for a month. His stepdaughter has been very
+ill--at death's door, and all that kind of thing, and my governor was
+awfully cut up about it. There used to be a couple of doctors at the
+house every day, and no end of fuss. I took Sheldon his letters, and
+managed matters for him here, and so on. And one fine morning my young
+lady runs off and gets married on the quiet; so I suspect there was a
+good deal of shamming about the illness--and those old fogies, the
+doctors, winked at it. Between them all, I fancy Sheldon was completely
+sold; and he has turned savage and gone off somewhere in the sulks."
+
+"I wish he had chosen any other time for his sulks," said the holder of
+the bill; "my partner and I have discounted several acceptances for him.
+He gave us liberal terms, and we considered any paper of his as safe as a
+Bank of England note; and now this confounded bill comes back to us
+through our bankers, noted, 'Refer to drawer'--a most unpleasant thing,
+you know, and very inconsiderate of Sheldon to leave us in such a fix."
+
+"He has forgotten the bill, I suppose," said Mr. Orcott.
+
+"Well, but you see, really now, a business man ought not to forget that
+kind of thing. And so Miss Halliday has made a runaway match, has she? I
+remember seeing her when I dined at Bayswater--an uncommonly fine girl.
+And she has gone and thrown herself away upon some penniless scapegrace,
+most likely? Now, by the bye, how about this Honduras Company, Mr.
+Orcott; they don't seem to have any London offices?"
+
+"I believe not. We've some of their prospectuses somewhere about, I
+think. Would you like to see one?"
+
+"I should, very much."
+
+Mr. Orcott opened two or three drawers, and after some little trouble
+produced the required document.
+
+It was a very flourishing prospectus, setting forth the enormous
+benefits to be derived by shareholders from the profitable dealings of the
+company. Some good high-sounding names figured in the list of directors,
+and the chairman was Captain H. N. Cromie Paget. The prospectus looked
+well enough, but the holder of Mr. Sheldon's dishonoured bill was not
+able to derive much comfort from high-sounding phrases and high-sounding
+names.
+
+"I'll go down to Bayswater, and see if I can hear anything of your
+governor," he said to Mr. Orcott.
+
+"He was not there yesterday when I called, and his servants could tell me
+nothing of his whereabouts," the young Yorkshireman said very coolly.
+
+"Indeed!" cried the holder of the dishonoured bill in some alarm. "Now,
+really, that is not right; a business man ought not to do that kind of
+thing."
+
+He called a cab and drove to the Lawn. There was the smart gothic villa,
+with its pointed gables, and florid chimneys, and oriel windows, and in
+the Tudor casements of the ground-floor appeared the bills of a West-end
+auctioneer, announcing in large letters that the lease of this charming
+mansion, together with the nearly new furniture, linen, books, china,
+plate, carefully-selected proof-prints after distinguished modern
+artists, small cellar of choice wines, &c., &c., &c., would be disposed
+of by auction on the following day.
+
+Mr. Sheldon's victim went into the house, where he found some men
+preparing for the forthcoming sale.
+
+"What is the meaning of all this?" he asked, aghast.
+
+"A bill of sale, sir. Messrs. Napthali and Zabulon."
+
+This was enough. The holder of the bill went back to the City. Another
+bill came due on the following day, and before the members of the Stock
+Exchange took their luncheon, it was known that Philip Sheldon's credit
+was among the things of the past.
+
+"I always thought he was out of his depth," said one set of talkers.
+
+"He was the last man I should have expected to see come to grief," said
+another set of talkers.
+
+On settling-day came the awful proclamation--Philip Sheldon had
+absconded, and would not meet his differences.
+
+On the same day came a terrible revelation to Mr. George Sheldon, of
+Gray's Inn, solicitor, genealogist, and pedigree hunter. The first
+official step in the advancement of Gustave Lenoble's claim against the
+Crown was taken by Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon, the solicitors, of
+Whitehall; and George Sheldon discovered that between Charlotte
+Hawkehurst and the Haygarth estate there stood a prior claimant, whereby
+all his toil, trouble, costs out of pocket, and wear and tear of body and
+mind, had been wasted.
+
+"It is enough to make a man go and cut his throat," cried George, in his
+first savage sense of utter disappointment.
+
+He went into his slovenly bedroom, and took out one of his razors, and
+felt the corrugated surface of the left side of his neck meditatively.
+But the razor was blunt, and the corrugated surface seemed very tough and
+unmanageable; so George Sheldon decided that this kind of operation was
+an affair which might be deferred.
+
+He heard the next day that his brother was _non est_, and, in his own
+phraseology, that there was a pretty kettle of fish in the City.
+
+"Upon my word, Phil and I seem to have brought our pigs to a very nice
+market," he said. "I dare say, wherever that fellow has gone, he has
+carried a well-lined purse with him. But I wouldn't have his conscience
+for all the wealth of the Rothschilds. It's bad enough to see Tom
+Halliday's face as I see it sometimes. What must it be to _him_?"
+
+A little more than a year after this, and the yellow corn was waving on
+the fertile plains of Normandy, fruit ripening in orchards on hillside
+and in valley; merry holiday folks splashing and dabbling in the waves
+that wash the yellow sands of Dieppe; horses coming to grief in Norman
+steeplechases; desperate gamesters losing their francs and half-francs in
+all kinds of frivolous games in the Dieppe _établissement_; and yonder,
+in the heart of Normandy, beyond the tall steeples of Rouen, a happy
+family assembled at the Chateau Côtenoir.
+
+One happy family--two happy families rather, but so closely united by the
+bonds of love and friendship as to seem indeed one. Here are Gustave
+Lenoble and his young wife Diana, with two tall slender damsels by their
+side; and here is Valentine Hawkehurst, the successful young scribbler,
+with his fair young wife Charlotte; and out on the terrace yonder are two
+nurses walking with two babies, at that early, and, to some minds,
+obnoxious stage of babyhood in which a perpetual rocking, and pacing to
+and fro, and swaying backwards and forwards in the air, is necessary for
+the preservation of anything approaching tranquillity. But to the minds
+of the two young mothers and the two proud fathers, these small creatures
+in their long white robes seem something too bright for earth. The united
+ages of the babies do not amount to six months; but the mothers have
+counted every gradual stage of these young lives, and to both it seems as
+if there had been no time in which the children were not, with so firm a
+hold have they possessed themselves of every thought in the foolish
+maternal mind, of every impulse in the weak maternal heart.
+
+Mrs. Hawkehurst has brought her son to see his aunt Diana; for Diana has
+insisted upon assuming that relationship by letters-patent, as it were.
+Madame Lenoble's baby is a daughter, and this fact in itself seems to the
+two friends to be a special interposition of Providence.
+
+"Would it not be delightful if they should grow up to love each other and
+marry?" exclaimed Diana; and Charlotte agreed with her that such an event
+in the future did indeed seem in a manner foreshadowed by the conduct of
+the infants in the present.
+
+"He takes notice of her already!" she exclaimed, looking out at the
+little creature in white muslin robes, held up against the warm blue sky;
+"see, they are cooing at each other! I am sure that must be cooing."
+
+And then the two mothers went out upon the sunny terrace-walk and fondly
+contemplated these domestic treasures, until the domestic treasures were
+seized with some of the inexplicable throes and mysterious agonies of
+early babyhood, and had to be borne off shrieking to their nurseries.
+
+"Dear angel," said Gustave, of his "little last one," "she has the very
+shriek of Clarice here, poignant and penetrating, until to drown the
+heart. Dost thou figure to thyself that thy voice was penetrating as
+that, my beautiful, in the time?"
+
+He kissed his beautiful, and she ran off to join the procession following
+the two babies,--alarmed nurses, distracted mammas, shrieking infants,
+anxious damsels.
+
+"_C'est un vrai tourbillon_," as Gustave remarked to his companion
+Valentine Hawkehurst; "these women, how they love their children! What of
+saints, what of Madonnas, what of angels!"
+
+Whereupon he spouted Victor Hugo:
+
+"Lorsque l'enfant paraît, le cercle de famille
+Applaudit à grands cris; son doux regard qui brille
+Fait briller tous les yeux;
+Et les plus tristes fronts, les plus souillés peut-être,
+Se dérident soudain à voir l'enfant paraître,
+Innocent et joyeux."
+
+All things had gone well for M. Lenoble. His direct descent from Matthew
+Haygarth, the father of the intestate, had been proved to the
+satisfaction of Crown lawyers and High Court of Chancery, and he had been
+in due course placed in possession of the reverend intestate's estate, to
+the profit and pleasure of his solicitors and M. Fleurus, and to the
+unspeakable aggravation of George Sheldon, who washed his hands at once
+and for ever of all genealogical research, and fell back in an embittered
+and angry spirit upon the smaller profits to be derived from petty
+transactions in the bill-discounting line, and a championship of
+penniless sufferers of all classes, from a damsel who considered herself
+jilted by a fickle swain, in proof of whose inconstancy she could produce
+documentary evidence of the "pork-chop and tomato sauce" order, to a
+pedestrian who knocked his head against a projecting shutter in the
+Strand, and straightway walked home to Holloway to lay himself up for a
+twelvemonth in a state of mental and bodily incapacity requiring large
+pecuniary redress from the owner of the fatal shutter. To this noble
+protection of the rights of the weak did George Sheldon devote his
+intellect; and when malicious enemies stigmatized these Quixotic
+endeavours as "speculative actions," or when, in the breaking-down of
+some oppressed damsel's cause by reason of the slender evidence afforded
+by some reticent lover's epistolary effusions, unjust judges told him
+that he "ought to be ashamed of himself" for bringing such an action, the
+generous attorney no doubt took consolation from an approving conscience,
+and went forth from that court, to look for other oppressed damsels or
+injured wayfarers, erect and unshaken.
+
+Some little profit Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn did derive from the Haygarth
+estate; for at the request of Gustave Lenoble Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon
+sent him a cheque for one thousand pounds, as the price of those early
+investigations which had set the artful Captain upon the right track. He
+wrote a ceremoniously grateful letter to Gustave Lenoble on receiving
+this honorarium. It is always well to be grateful for benefits received
+from a rich man; but in the depths of his heart he execrated the
+fortunate inheritor of the Haygarthian thousands.
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst was not quite so vehement in the expression of his
+feelings as that lively Celt, Gustave; but deep in his heart there was a
+sense of happiness no less pure and exalted.
+
+Providence had given him more than he had ever dared to hope; not
+John Haygarth's thousands; not a life of luxurious idleness, and
+dinner-giving, and Derby days, and boxes on the grand tier, and
+carriage-horses at five hundred guineas a pair; not a palace in
+Belgravia, and a shooting-box in the Highlands, and a villa at Cowes;
+not these things, in which he would once have perceived the _summum
+bonum_; but a fair price for his labour, a dear young wife, a tranquil
+home.
+
+Nor had his researches among the dusty records of the departed Haygarths
+been profitless in a pecuniary sense to himself. Gustave Lenoble insisted
+that he should accept that honorarium of three thousand pounds which had
+been promised by George Sheldon as the reward of his success.
+
+"Captain Paget would never have been put on the right track if he had
+not filched your secrets from you," said the son and heir of Susan
+Meynell. "It is to your researches, in the first place, that I owe
+this inheritance; and you cannot refuse to accept the agreed price of
+your labour."
+
+Valentine did not refuse this fairly-earned reward, nor did he oppose the
+settlement which Gustave made in favour of Charlotte's infant son. It
+seemed to him only just that some share of the heritage should fall to
+the descendant of poor Susan's younger sister and faithful friend.
+
+With this capital of three thousand pounds comfortably invested in
+consols, and with the interest of that sum of ten thousand pounds settled
+on his infant son, Mr. Hawkehurst began the world, in his new character
+of a husband and a father, very pleasantly.
+
+Of his literary career very little need be said here. He was yet at the
+beginning of the long dusty road that leads to the temple of Fame. It is
+enough to state that he found the dusty high-road rather difficult
+walking, and that he was pelted with more mud, flung by nameless
+assailants hidden behind the hedges, than he had anticipated when he set
+out upon the first stage of his journey. Happily, he found pleasant
+fellow-travellers and kindly encouragement from an indulgent public, and
+was thus able to accept the mud which bespattered his garments in a very
+placid spirit, and to make light of all obstacles in the great highway.
+
+The cottage at Wimbledon was no longer a dream. It was a pleasant
+reality, the pride and delight of Mrs. Sheldon and Ann Woolper. It was a
+picturesque dwelling-place, half cottage, half villa, situated on the
+broad high-road from London to Kingston, with all the woodland of
+Richmond Park to be seen from the windows at the back. Only a wall
+divided Mr. Hawkehurst's gardens from the coverts of the Queen. It was
+like a royal demesne, Charlotte said; whereupon her husband insisted that
+it should be christened by the name of a royal dwelling, and so called it
+Charlottenburgh.
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst had secured this delightful abode for a considerable term
+of years, and upon the furnishing and decoration of the pretty rustic
+rooms Charlotte and he lavished unmeasured care. The delicious excitement
+of "picking up," or, in more elegant parlance, "collecting," was to these
+two happy people an inexhaustible source of pleasure. Every eccentric
+little table, every luxurious chair, had its special history, and had
+been the subject of negotiation and diplomacy that might have sufficed a
+Burleigh in the reorganization of Western Europe. The little Dresden and
+Vienna cups and saucers in the maple cabinet had been every one bought
+from a different dealer. The figures on the mantelpiece were Old Chelsea,
+of a quality that would have excited the envy of a Bernal or a Bonn, and
+had only fallen to the proud possessors by a sequence of fortuitous
+circumstances, the history of which was almost as thrilling as the
+story of Boehmer's diamond-necklace. The curtains in the drawing-room
+had draped the _portières_ of the lovely Lady Blessington, and had been
+bought for a song by Valentine Hawkehurst, after passing through the
+hands of brokers and dealers innumerable. The tapestry-covered
+Louis-Quatorze chairs had belonged to Madame de Sévigné, and had
+furnished that dull country house whence she wrote the liveliest letters
+extant to her disreputable cousin, Bussy, Count of Babutin. These
+inestimable treasures had been picked up by Mr. and Mrs. Hawkehurst from
+a bric-à-brac merchant in a little court at the back of the Rue Vivienne,
+whither the young couple had gone arm-in-arm to choose a bonnet on their
+first pleasure-trip to Paris. The clock in the modest dining-room had
+been secured from the repository of the same merchant, and was warranted
+to have sounded the last domestic hours of Maximilian Robespierre in his
+humble lodging _chez le Menuisier_. The inkstand into which Mr.
+Hawkehurst dipped his rapid pen had served the literary career of
+Voltaire; the blotting-book on which he wrote had been used by Balzac.
+
+To the plausible fictions of the second-hand dealer Mr. and Mrs.
+Hawkehurst lent willing ears, and it seemed to them as if these
+associations, for which they had paid somewhat dearly, imparted a new
+grace to their home.
+
+The arrangement and superintendence of all these treasures gave poor
+Georgy endless pleasure and employment; but in her heart of hearts she
+believed in the prim splendours of the dismantled Lawn as much superior
+to these second-hand objects of art and upholstery. Nor did Ann Woolper
+regard the Chelsea figures and Dresden teacups and old black Albert-Dürer
+engravings as anything better than an innocent eccentricity on the part
+of the master of the house, for the saving of whose purse she managed and
+economized as faithfully as she had done for that lost master whereof the
+memory was so bitter.
+
+It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. Hawkehurst with a wife, a
+mother-in-law, and a faithful old servant, was likely to be well taken
+care of; a little spoiled perhaps by "much cherishing," but carefully
+guarded from all those temptations which are supposed to assail the
+bachelor man-of-letters, toiling alone and neglected in Temple chambers.
+For him the days passed in a pleasant monotony of constant labour,
+lightened always by the thought of those for whom he worked, cheered ever
+by the fond hope of future fame. He was no longer a bookmaker. He had
+written a book, the proceeds of which had enabled him to furnish the
+Wimbledon villa; and he was engaged in writing a second book, the fruits
+whereof would secure the needs of the immediate future. He had insured
+his life for a considerable amount, and had shown himself in all things
+prudent to a degree that verged upon Philistinism. But the policies taken
+out on Charlotte's life by Mr. Sheldon had been suffered to lapse.
+Valentine would have no money staked on that dear head.
+
+The steed which Charlotte had desired for her husband's pleasure, the
+library which she had catalogued so often, were yet among the delights of
+the future; but life has lost half its brightness when there is no
+unfulfilled desire left to the dreamer; and the horse which Mr.
+Hawkehurst was to ride in time to come, and the noble library which he
+was to collect, were the pleasant themes of Charlotte's conversation very
+often, as she and her husband walked on the heights of Wimbledon in the
+twilight, when his day's work was done.
+
+These twilight walks were the happy holidays of his life, and a part of
+his liberal education. He told his wife everything, every literary
+scheme, every fancy, every shadowy outline of future work, every new
+discovery in the boundless realms of Bookland. His enthusiasm; his
+hero-worship; his setting-up of one favourite and knocking-down of
+another; his unchristian pleasure in that awful slating of poor Jones in
+this week's _Saturday_, or the flaying alive of Robinson in the _Bond
+Street Backbiter_;--in a word, his "shop" never became wearisome to
+Charlotte. She listened always with a like rapture and sympathy; she
+worshipped his favourites of Bookland; she welcomed his friends and
+fellow-workers with unvarying sweetness; she devised and superintended the
+fitting-up of a smoking-room that was perfectly paradisaical, a glimpse
+of the Alhambra in miniature; and that obnoxious dish, the cold shoulder,
+was never served in Mr. Hawkehurst's dwelling. So sweet a wife, so
+pleasant a home, popularized the institution of matrimony among the young
+writer's bachelor friends; and that much-abused and cruelly maligned
+member of the human race, the mother-in-law, was almost rehabilitated by
+Mrs. Sheldon's easy good-nature and evident regard for the interests of
+her daughter's husband.
+
+And after all the groping among dry as dust records of a bygone century,
+after all the patient following of those faint traces on the sands of
+time left by the feet of Matthew Haygarth, _this_ was Charlotte's
+Inheritance,--a heart whose innocence and affection made home a kind of
+earthly paradise, and gave to life's commonest things a charm that all
+the gold ever found in California could not have imparted to them. This
+was Charlotte's Inheritance,--the tender, unselfish nature of the
+Haygarths and Hallidays; and thus dowered, her husband would not have
+exchanged her for the wealthiest heiress whose marriage was ever
+chronicled in _Court Circular_ or _Court Journal_.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+LOST SIGHT OF.
+
+A year and a half had passed since the disappearance of Philip Sheldon
+from the circle in which he had been considered a person of some
+importance. The repudiation of those bills by which he had sustained his
+exhausted credit, or rather the discovery that the companies upon which
+the bills pretended to be drawn were of all shadows the most shadowy, had
+brought consternation upon many, and ruin upon some. Bitter and
+unmeasured were the terms in which City men spoke of that Phil Sheldon
+with whom they had eaten the sacred bait and quaffed the social moselle
+in the taverns of Greenwich and Blackwall.
+
+There is a saying current on the Stock Exchange to the effect that the
+man who fails, and disappears from among his fellows behind a curtain of
+commercial cloud, is sure to return sooner or later to his old circle,
+with a moustache and a brougham. For Philip Sheldon there was, however,
+no coming back. The moustache and the brougham of the chastened and
+penitent defaulter were not for him. By his deliberate and notorious
+dishonour he had shut the door against the possibility of return. It may
+be supposed that the defaulter knew this, for he did not come back; and
+since he had no lack of moral courage, he would scarcely have refrained
+from showing himself once more in his old haunts, if it had been possible
+for him to face the difficulties of his position.
+
+Time passed, and there came no tidings of the missing man, though a
+detective was despatched to America in search of him by one vengeful
+sufferer among the many victims of the fictitious bills-of-exchange. It
+was supposed that he must inevitably go to America, and thither went his
+pursuer, but with no result except the expenditure of money and the
+further exasperation of the vengeful sufferer.
+
+"What will you do with him, if you get him?" asked a philosophical friend
+of the sufferer. "He has nothing to surrender. Zabulon had a bill-of-sale
+on his furniture."
+
+"Furniture!" cried the infuriated victim; "I don't want his furniture. I
+want his flesh and bones. I want to shut him up in Dartmoor Prison, or to
+get him twenty years' hard labour at Portland Island."
+
+"That sort of man would get a ticket-of-leave in less than twelve
+months," replied the philosophic friend. "I'm afraid you are only
+throwing good money after bad."
+
+The event proved this gentleman but too able a seer. In the monster city
+of New York Philip Sheldon had disappeared like a single drop of water
+flung upon the Atlantic Ocean. There was no trace of him: too intangible
+for the grasp of international law, he melted into the mass of humanity,
+only one struggler the more in the great army perpetually fighting life's
+desperate battle.
+
+From among all those who had known him this man had utterly vanished,
+and not one sigh of regret followed him in his unknown wanderings--not
+one creature amongst all those who had taken his hand and given him
+friendly greeting thought of him kindly, or cared to know whither he
+went or how he prospered. He had not left in the house that had
+sheltered him for years so much as a dog to whine at his door or listen
+for his returning footstep.
+
+This fact, if he had known it or considered it, would have troubled him
+very little. He had played his game for a certain stake, and had lost it.
+This he felt, and cursed his own too cautious play as the cause of his
+defeat. That there were higher stakes for which he might have played an
+easier game, was a fact that never occurred to him. In his philosophy
+there was indeed nothing higher given to the hopes of man than worldly
+success, and a dull, cold, prosperous life spent among prosperous
+acquaintance.
+
+He was gone, and those who remembered him most keenly--Valentine
+Hawkehurst, Diana Paget, Ann Woolper--remembered him with a shudder. The
+old Yorkshirewoman thought of him sometimes as she bent over the little
+muslin-bedecked cradle where the hope of the Hawkehursts slumbered, and
+looked round fearfully in the gloaming, half expecting to see his dreaded
+face glower upon her, dark and threatening, from between the curtains of
+the window.
+
+It was a belief of all ancient races, nay indeed, a belief still current
+amongst modern nations, that it is not given to man to behold the beings
+of another world and live. The Arab who meets a phantom in the desert
+goes home to his tent to die. He knows that the hand of doom is upon him.
+He has seen that upon which, for mortal eyes, it is fatal to look. And it
+is thus in some measure with those who are admitted within the dark
+precincts of murder's dread sanctuary. Not swiftly does the curtain fall
+which has once been lifted from the hidden horrors of that ghastly
+temple. The revelations of an utterly wicked soul leave a lasting impress
+upon the mind which unwillingly becomes recipient of those awful secrets.
+
+The circumstances of Tom Halliday's death and of Charlotte's illness were
+not to be forgotten by Ann Woolper. The shadow of that dark cruel face,
+which had lain upon her bosom forty years before, haunted many a peaceful
+hour of her quiet old age. Her ignorance, and that faint tinge of
+superstition which generally accompanies ignorance, exaggerated the
+terror of those dark memories. The thought that Philip Sheldon still
+lived, still had the power to plot and plan evil against the innocent,
+was an ever-present source of terror to her. She could not understand
+that such an element could exist among the forces of evil without fatal
+result to some one. It seemed to her as if a devil were at large, and
+there could be neither peace nor security until the evil spirit was
+exorcised, the baneful presence laid in nethermost depths of unfathomable
+sea.
+
+These feelings and these fears would scarcely have arisen in the old
+woman's breast, had she alone been subject to the possible plottings of
+that evil nature. For herself she had little fear. Her span of life was
+nearly ended; very few were the sands that had yet to run; and, for her
+own sake, she would have cared little if some rough hand had spilt them
+untimely. But a new interest in life had been given to Mrs. Woolper just
+as life drew near its close. That peerless child, the son and heir of the
+Hawkehursts, had been intrusted to the old woman's care; and this infant
+she loved with an affection much more intense than that which had once
+made Philip Sheldon so dear to her.
+
+It was by the cradle of this much-treasured child that Ann Woolper nursed
+her fear of her old master. She knew that he had been counter-plotted and
+beaten ignominiously in that deadly game which he had played so boldly.
+And she asked herself whether he was the man to submit to such utter
+defeat without any effort to revenge himself upon those who had helped to
+compass his failure.
+
+On that night when Charlotte Halliday had lain between life and death,
+suffering on the one hand from the effects of a prolonged and gradual
+course of poison, on the other from the violent measures taken to
+eliminate that poisonous element from her system,--on that night when the
+precious life yet trembled in the balance, Ann Woolper had seen murderous
+looks in the face of the man whom she dared boldly to defy, and who knew
+in that hour that his ghastly plot was discovered. Even now, secure in a
+haven of safety, she could not forget that baneful look in Philip
+Sheldon's eyes. She could not find perfect rest while she knew not where
+that man might be, or what mischief he might be plotting against those
+she loved.
+
+Her fears showed themselves in many ways. When she read of dark and
+vengeful deeds in her newspaper, she thought of her old master, and how,
+in such or such an act, his fatal hand might reveal itself. He might lie
+in wait for Valentine some night on the dark road between Charlottenburgh
+and the distant railway-station. She could fancy the young wife's agony
+of terror as the night wore on, and her husband did not return; the
+unspeakable horror that would come over all that happy household when the
+news came that its young master had been found on the lonely road slain
+by some unknown hand. Open utterance to her fears she was too wise to
+give; but she warned Mr. Hawkehurst of the dangers on that dark road, and
+besought him to arm himself with a trusty bludgeon wherewith to meet and
+vanquish any chance assailant. Valentine laughed at her anxious warning;
+but when Charlotte took up the cry he was fain to content her by the
+purchase of a sturdy stick, which he swung cheerily to and fro as he
+walked homewards in the gloaming, planning a chapter in his new book, and
+composing powerful and eloquent sentences which eluded his mental grasp
+when he tried to reduce his evening reverie to pen-and-ink.
+
+"When the air blows fresh across the common, and the distant lights
+twinkle, and the bright stars peep out in the pale-yellow sky, my
+language flows as it never does when I sit at my desk, Lotta," he said to
+his wife. "I feel myself a Swift or a Junius out there; equal to the
+tackling of any social question that ever arose upon this earth, from the
+Wood halfpence to the policy of American taxation, and triennial
+elections. At home I am only Valentine Hawkehurst, with an ever-present
+consciousness that so many pages of copy are required from me within a
+given time, and that my son-and-heir is cutting his teeth, and making
+more fuss about it than I ever made about _my_ teeth; and that the man
+about the water-rate is waiting to see me, please, and is desperately
+anxious about making-up his books; and that I have the dearest wife in
+Christendom, who opens my door, and puts her pretty head into my room
+once in half an hour to see how I am getting on, or to ask whether I want
+any more coals, or to borrow my ink to make-up her washing-book."
+
+"You mean, sir, that I prevent your becoming a Junius?" cried Charlotte,
+with an enchanting _moue_.
+
+"Yes, dear. I begin to understand why Swift kept his poor ill-used wife
+at a respectful distance. She would have made him too happy if he had
+allowed her to be on the premises. She would have given the cruel
+indignation no chance of lacerating his heart; and such writing as
+Swift's is only produced by a man whose heart is so lacerated. No, my
+darling, I shall never be a Swift or a Junius while your pretty head is
+thrust into my room once or twice an hour; but I may hope to be something
+better, if bright eyes can inspire bright thoughts, and innocent smiles
+give birth to pleasant fancies."
+
+Upon this there was the usual little demonstration of affection between
+this young couple; and Charlotte praised her husband as the most
+brilliant and admirable of men; after which pleasing flattery she
+favoured him with a little interesting information about the baby's last
+tooth, and the contumacious behaviour of the new housemaid, between whom
+and Mrs. Woolper there had been a species of disagreement, which the
+Yorkshirewoman described as a "standfurther."
+
+Thus occupied in simple pleasures and simple cares, the lives of Mr. and
+Mrs. Hawkehurst went on, untroubled by any fear of that crime-burdened
+wretch whose image haunted the dreams and meditations of Ann Woolper. For
+these two Mr. Sheldon was numbered among the dead. To Charlotte the
+actual truth had never been revealed; but she had been, in the course of
+time, given to understand that her stepfather had committed some
+unpardonable sin, which must for ever separate him from herself and her
+mother. She had been told as much as this, and had been told that she
+must seek to know no more. To this she submitted without questioning.
+
+"I am very sorry for him," she said, "and for mamma."
+
+She concluded that the unpardonable offence must needs have been some sin
+against her mother, some long-hidden infidelity brought suddenly to
+light, with all the treachery and falsehood involved therein. She never
+mentioned her stepfather after this but in her prayers the sinner was not
+forgotten.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+ETEOCLES AND POLYNICES.
+
+George Sheldon went his ways, picking up as good a living as he could
+from that chivalrous assertion of the rights of the weak which has been
+already described; and the thought of his brother's sin-burdened soul
+troubled him very little. He did think of Tom Halliday; for that last
+grasp of the honest Yorkshireman's hand, that last look in his old
+friend's face, were haunting memories which this sharp practitioner had
+found himself powerless to exorcise. If his brother, after an absence of
+many years in the remote regions of the East Indies, had come home to his
+fatherland with a colossal fortune, and the reputation of having
+strangled a few natives during the process of amassing that fortune,
+George Sheldon would have welcomed the returning wanderer, and would, in
+his own parlance, have "swallowed the natives." A few niggers, more or
+less, sent untimely to Gehenna, would have seemed scarcely sufficient
+cause for quarrel with a fraternal and liberally-disposed millionaire.
+But the circumstances of Tom Halliday's death had brought all the horror
+of crime and treachery home to the spectator of that deliberate
+assassination, and had produced such an impression as no other
+circumstances could on so hard a nature.
+
+It was some satisfaction to George Sheldon to know that his old friend's
+daughter had found a happy home; and he was apt to take some credit from
+his own share in his brother's discomfiture. He met Valentine sometimes
+in the course of his peregrinations in the neighbourhood of the British
+Museum, and the greeting between the two men was sufficiently cordial;
+but Mr. Hawkehurst did not invite his old employer to Charlottenburgh,
+and George was able to comprehend that to that household no one bearing
+the name of Sheldon could be a welcome visitor.
+
+He jogged on comfortably enough in his own way; living in his chambers,
+and consorting with a few chosen friends and kindred spirits of the
+jolly-good-fellow class, whom he met at an old-established tavern in the
+west-central district, and in whose society, and the society of the
+subscription-ground in the Farringdon Road, he found the _summum bonum_
+in the way of social intercourse. He did a little speculation upon the
+turf, and discounted the bills of needy bookmakers, or bought up their
+bad debts, and thereby gained introductions to the noble patrons of the
+humble "scums," and pushed his business into new grooves. He had no idea
+that such an existence was in any way ignoble; nay, indeed, when he had
+paid his rent, and his clerk, and his laundress, and his tavern score,
+and "stood glasses round" amongst his friends, he lighted his cigar, and
+thrust his hands into the depths of his pockets, and paced the flags of
+Holborn happy in the belief that he had performed the whole duty of man.
+
+"There are men whose business obliges them to keep up an establishment,
+and go to church twice a day, and all that kind of thing," he said; "and
+I dare say they find it pay. My clients don't care a doit where I live,
+or how I spend my Sundays; and I'd rather have five pounds a week and my
+liberty than the best family connection in the Fields."
+
+The fate of that wretched man, who had dropped out of his old circle
+and vanished no one knew whither, in no manner disturbed the peace of
+George Sheldon.
+
+"Take my word for it, that gentleman has fallen on his feet," he said, on
+the only occasion when the fate of Philip was discussed by Valentine and
+himself. "He's doing well enough, somewhere or other, you may depend; but
+I don't think he'll ever be able to show his nose in London after those
+bill transactions. There's a very strong feeling against him on Change.
+He's looked upon as a discredit to the order, and that sort of thing, you
+see. It isn't often a member of the House goes to the bad like that. No,
+I don't think Phil will ever show himself in London again; but such a man
+as that can always find a platform somewhere--"
+
+"And go on to the end of his days unpunished, I suppose," remarked Mr.
+Hawkehurst, with some bitterness.
+
+"Well, yes; I don't see what's to touch him in the future. Of course he
+could be dropped upon for those bills, if he came in the way of being
+dropped upon; but, as I said before, he's too deep a card for that."
+
+Thus did George Sheldon dismiss the subject. That his brother was an
+exile for life from his native land he did not doubt; but he took it for
+granted that in whatever distant spot of earth Philip had found a refuge,
+he would there contrive to prosper and to show a bold front in the city
+of his adoption.
+
+This belief Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn cherished until one snowy Christmas
+Eve, a year and a half after that event, or series of events, which the
+lawyer briefly designated "the burst-up at Bayswater."
+
+Bleak and bitter was that December, a December not long gone by. The
+heart of the prosperous British nation melted as the heart of one man.
+The columns of the _Zeus_ and the _Diurnal Hermes_, the _Flag_ and the
+_Hesper_, overflowed with the record of subscriptions to charity funds;
+and the leaders of the morning journals all preached the same kindly
+sermon on the same Christian text. Thick lay the snow upon the housetops;
+"thick and slab" the greasy slush upon the pavements of crowded
+thoroughfares; merry the rogues and ragamuffins of the great city. The
+ideal Christmas of our dreams seemed to have come at last, and the heart
+of every true Briton rejoiced; while skaters in the parks made merry, and
+cabmen demanded fabulous sums of helpless wayfarers; and luckless,
+overworked, under-fed horses stumbled and fell at every turn, and the
+familiar steep of Holborn was dangerous as Alpine mountain.
+
+To George Sheldon neither the weather nor the Christmas season made much
+difference. The even current of his life was little disturbed by festive
+pleasures or dissipations. An extra glass at his tavern, an invitation to
+dinner from some friend in the bill-discounting line, were the most
+exciting events the season was likely to bring him. He saw the shops
+brighten suddenly with semi-supernal glories of crystallized fruits and
+gorgeous bonbon-boxes, and he was aware of a kind of movement in the
+streets that was brisker and gayer than the plodding hurry of everyday
+life. He stood aside and let the mummeries go by him, and was glad when
+these Christmas follies were done with, and the law-courts in full swing
+once more. In the happiest and most innocent days of his youth, Christmas
+had brought him no more than extraordinary indulgences in the way of
+eating and drinking, swiftly followed by that dread avenger, the demon of
+the bilious.
+
+Upon this particular occasion Mr. Sheldon had pledged himself to dine
+with a horsey publican lately retired from business, and big with all the
+pride and glory of a "place" at Hornsey.
+
+"Come down and see my place, Sheldon," this gentleman had said. "I don't
+pretend to do the swell thing; but I force my own pines and grow my own
+grapes, and can put as good a dessert on my table as you could buy in
+Covent Garden for a five-pun' note. That's my missus's fad, that is, and
+I can afford it; so why shouldn't I do it? You come and eat your
+Christmas dinner with us, Sheldon. I've got a friend coming that can
+sing as good a song as Reeves hisself, and might make a fortune, if he
+wasn't above coming out at one of them music-halls. And I'll give you a
+bottle of Madeira that you won't match at any nobleman's table, if
+noblemen's tables was in your line of business, which you and I know
+they ain't, old fellow."
+
+And then the jolly good fellow dug his fat fingers into George Sheldon's
+ribs, and George accepted the invitation; not with any elation of
+spirits, but sufficiently pleased to secure a good dinner with a man who
+promised to be a profitable client, and whose house was within a
+reasonable cab-fare from the west-central district.
+
+"The cabmen are trying it on, anyhow, just now," thought Mr. Sheldon;
+"but I don't think they'll try it on with me. And if they do, there's the
+Marylebone stage. I'm not afraid of a five-mile walk."
+
+Having accepted this invitation, and thus disposed of his Christmas-day,
+George Sheldon refrained from the delights of social converse at his
+tavern on Christmas-eve, and occupied himself with business. His clerk
+left him at the usual hour; but the master sat, long after dark, writing
+letters and reading law-papers, while the snow drifted against his
+windows and whitened the quiet quadrangle below.
+
+He had just laid aside his papers and lighted a cigar, when he was
+startled by a stealthy knocking at his door. He was not unaccustomed to
+late visitors, as he was known to live at his chambers, and to work after
+office-hours; but the knocking of to-night was not the loud rollicking
+rat-a-tat of his jolly-good-fellow friends or clients. If he had been a
+student of light literature, and imbued with the ghostly associations of
+the season, he would have gone to his door expecting to behold a weird
+figure clothed in the vestments of the last century; or an old woman in
+ruff and martingale, whose figure in the flesh had once haunted those
+legal precincts; or the ghostly semblance of the Baron of Verulam
+himself, revisiting the glimpses of the moon and the avenue of elms that
+were planted by his order.
+
+In George Sheldon's nature there was, however, no lurking dread of fiend
+or phantom. His ideas in connection with ghosts were limited to a white
+sheet, a broomstick, and a hollow turnip with a lighted candle inside it;
+and he would have set down the most awful apparition that ever was
+revealed to German ghost-seer, with a scornful grin, as a member of the
+sheet and-hollow-turnip confraternity.
+
+"I know how it's done," he would have said, if the spectral form had
+glowered upon him in midnight churchyard or ruined abbey. "You'd better
+go and try it on somewhere else, my friend."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To a superstitious mind the THING which crept across the dark lobby
+and dragged itself into the glare of the gas-lighted office might
+have seemed, indeed, some creature too loathsome for humanity. A
+plague-stricken corpse galvanized into a spasmodic life could scarcely
+have lifted to the light a more awful countenance than that on which
+George Sheldon looked with mingled anger and disgust.
+
+"What do you want here" he asked. "Do you take this for the workhouse?"
+
+"No," the creature answered, in a faint hoarse voice; "but I take you for
+my brother."
+
+"WHAT!" cried George Sheldon, aghast.
+
+He bent down and looked at the awful face. Yes, from the cavernous
+hollows of those sunken cheeks, beneath the shaggy penthouse of those
+bony brows, the fierce black eyes of Philip Sheldon looked out at him
+with a savage glare that he had never seen in them before--even when the
+savage nature of the man had revealed itself most nakedly--the fierce
+glare of fever and starvation.
+
+This walking horror, this mass of loathsome rags endued with motion, this
+living disease, was the sometime prosperous stockbroker, the man whom it
+had been impossible to think of except furnished with linen of spotless
+whiteness, and the glossy broad-cloth, and well-made boots, and keyless
+chronometer, and silk umbrella of commercial success.
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed George, horror-stricken, "is it you?"
+
+"Yes, it's I," answered the creature in his strange husky accents; and
+the change--nay, indeed, the degradation, of the voice was as complete as
+the degradation of the man. "Yes, George, it's I; your brother Phil.
+You're surprised to see me fallen so low in the world, I suppose; but you
+can't be more surprised than I am myself. I've tried hard enough to hold
+my head above water. There's scarcely any trade that mortal man ever
+tried to earn his bread by, that I haven't tried--and failed in. It has
+been the experience of Fitzgeorge-street over and over again, in every
+trade and every profession. I started as doctor in Philadelphia, and was
+doing well;--till--till a patient died--and things went against me. I've
+been clerk in more offices than you can count on your ten fingers; but
+there was always something--my employer levanted, or was bankrupt, or
+died, or dismissed me. I've been travelling-dentist, auctioneer,
+commission-agent, tout, pedlar, out yonder; but it all came to the same
+thing--ruin, starvation, the hospital, or the pauper's ward. I have swept
+crossings in the city, and camped out in the wilderness among the bears
+and opossums. One day I thought I'd come home. 'There's George,' I said
+to myself; 'if I can get money enough to take me across the Atlantic, I
+shall be all right. George will give me a lift.' I don't stand alone in
+the world. A man's own flesh and blood won't let him starve--can't let
+him starve. Blood's thicker than water, you know, George. So I came home.
+I got the money; never you mind how. I needn't tell you what it cost me
+to scrape half-a-dozen pounds together. When a man's as low down in the
+world as I am, there's not a shilling he earns that doesn't cost him a
+drop of his heart's blood; there's not a pound he gets together that
+isn't bought by the discount of so much of his life. I found money enough
+for my passage in an emigrant vessel; and here I am, ready for anything.
+I'll work like your bought nigger. I'll do the work your clerk does for a
+quarter of his wages. I'll sweep out your office, and run errands for
+you. You'll give me something to keep body and soul together, won't you,
+George?"
+
+Nothing could be more utterly abject than the tone of this most abject
+wretch.
+
+This man, who in prosperity had been the very personification of hardness
+and insolence, was transformed into a grovelling, cringing supplicant,
+ready to lie face downward in the dust beneath the feet of that brother
+whose patronage, or charity, he besought.
+
+Mr. Sheldon the younger contemplated the supplicant with looks of
+undisguised gratification. He walked a few paces backward from the spot
+where his brother had fallen, in a half-sitting, half-crouching attitude,
+and where he remained, hugging himself in his rags, too abject to be
+acutely conscious of his degradation. A year ago and he would have held
+himself obstinately aloof from all old associations, and would have
+declared himself ready to face starvation, rather than accept, still less
+supplicate, relief from his younger brother. The events of that one year
+had involved alternations and convulsions that change a year into a
+cycle. He had faced starvation; he had walked with hunger for his
+travelling companion; he had lain down night after night in such lairs
+as the tramp can find for his refuge, with sickness and pain for his
+bed-fellows. The crucible through which he had passed had left in him no
+more of humanity than its outward semblance, and scarcely that; for when
+the moral man sinks to the level of the beasts of prey, the physical man
+undergoes an assimilative process only less marked than that which
+transforms the mental nature.
+
+For six months this man had lived by fawning upon or threatening his
+fellow-men; by violence or craft; by the degradation of the vagrant or
+the audacity of the thief. There is no limit to man's capacity for infamy
+which he had not touched. Vilest amongst the vile, he had been cast forth
+from the haunts of beggars and reprobates, as no fitting company for
+honourable thieves or cadgers of good repute.
+
+George Sheldon seated himself astride upon a chair, and, with his folded
+arms resting on the back of it, contemplated this hideous spectacle. It
+was a picture that he had never thought to see, and the feeling with
+which he surveyed it was not unmingled with pleasure.
+
+"When you rode me rough-shod, my friend, I used to think how I should
+enjoy taking my change out of you," he said; "but I never thought I
+should have such an opportunity as this--never, by Jove! I thought you
+would ride the high horse to the end of the journey; I didn't think your
+steed would land you in the gutter. And so you've tried every move, have
+you?--tumbled upon every platform?--and you've found all your cleverness
+no go upon the other side of the three thousand miles of everlasting wet,
+as my Yankee friends call the Atlantic; and you've come back whining to
+me, and I'm to help you, am I, and to give you a fresh start in life, I
+suppose, and make you my clerk, or my junior partner, eh?--that would be
+better. Messrs. Sheldon and Sheldon wouldn't look bad on my door. That's
+about what you mean when you talk of blood being thicker than water,
+isn't it?"
+
+The abject wretch who had once been Philip Sheldon felt that his brother
+was trifling with him, savouring to the last drop that cup of triumph
+which the chances of fortune had offered to his lips.
+
+"Don't play the fool with me, George," he said piteously. "I don't ask
+you much--a crust of bread, a corner to sleep in, and a cast-off suit of
+clothes: that's not much for one brother to ask of another."
+
+"Perhaps not," replied George Sheldon; "but it's a great deal for you to
+ask of me. You've had your turn, Phil; and you made the most of it, and
+contrived to keep me at arm's length. My turn has come at last, and you
+may depend upon it I shall contrive now to keep _you_ at arm's length."
+
+The vagrant stared at him aghast. Here he had felt secure of food and
+shelter; and he had endured miseries and deprivations that reduce a man
+to a state in which food and shelter seem to constitute the supreme good
+that can be obtained in this life.
+
+"You won't refuse to do something for me, George," he whined piteously.
+
+"I will do nothing for you. Do you hear that, my man? Nothing! You taught
+me that blood is not thicker than water twelve years ago, when you
+married Tom Halliday's widow, and drew your purse-strings, after flinging
+me a beggarly hundred as you'd throw a bone to a dog. You made me
+understand that was all I should ever get out of your brotherly love, or
+your fear of my telling the world what I knew. You gave me a dinner now
+and then, because it suited you to keep your eye upon me; and you had
+generally some piece of dirty work on hand that made the advice of a
+sharp practitioner like me uncommonly useful to you. I don't believe that
+you ever gave me so much as a dinner that you didn't take payment for in
+meal or in malt. Don't come howling here now, trying to persuade me that
+blood is thicker than water, or that brotherhood means anything more than
+the accident of birth. And now I've said all I have to say; and the
+sooner you make yourself scarce, the better for both of us."
+
+"George!" cried the miserable suppliant, clasping his bony hands
+convulsively, and whimpering as he had whimpered when he begged his bread
+in the streets of New York, "you can't mean to turn me out of doors on
+such a night. Look at me. It was as much as I could do to crawl to this
+room. I have walked every step of the way from Liverpool; my wretched
+limbs have been frost-bitten, and ulcered, and bruised, and racked with
+rheumatism, and bent double with cramp. I came over in an emigrant
+vessel, with a herd of miserable creatures who had tried their luck on
+the other side of the Atlantic, and had failed, like me, and were coming
+home to their native workhouses. You don't know what some of your
+emigrant ships are, perhaps. People talk about the Black Hole of
+Calcutta, and the Middle Passage; but let them try the cabin of an
+emigrant vessel, and they'll have a pretty fair idea of what human beings
+have to suffer when Poverty drives the ship. I landed in Liverpool with
+half-a-dollar in my pocket, and I've had neither decent food nor decent
+shelter since I landed. Give me some hole to lie in, George, till you can
+get me an order for the nearest hospital. It's a toss-up whether I ever
+come out of it."
+
+"Do you think I'd sleep under the roof that sheltered you?" cried George.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why not! Because I'm afraid of you. Because I'd as soon have a cobra
+for my companion, or a wolf for my bedfellow. I know you. I've seen what
+you can do, and how you can do it. And if you could do those things when
+the only pressure upon you was one that you could have cast off by going
+through the _Gazette_, what would you _not_ do now when you are as
+desperate as a famished wolf, and governed by no better law than that
+which governs a wolf--the law of self-preservation? Am I to trust a
+tiger because he tells me he is hungry? No, Phil Sheldon; neither will I
+trust you."
+
+"You will give me some money--enough to keep me alive for a week or two."
+
+"Not one sixpence. I'll establish no precedent; I'll acknowledge no tie
+between us. You'd better march. I don't want to send for a policeman; but
+if you won't go quietly, you must do the other thing."
+
+"You mean that?"
+
+"Most emphatically yes."
+
+"I didn't think it was in you to be so hard upon me," faltered the
+wretch in that faint hoarse voice which had grown fainter and hoarser
+during this interview.
+
+"Did you think that I would trust you?" cried George. "Trust _you_! You
+call me hard because I won't give you a corner to lie in. And if I did,
+you would creep out of your corner to poison me, or cut my throat. You
+would crawl into my room in the dead of the night and put a pillow over
+my face, and kneel upon it till you'd done the trick for me; and then
+you'd walk off with as much as you could carry, and begin the same kind
+of work over again with some one else. I tell you, Mr. Phil Sheldon, I
+will hold no intercourse with you. You've escaped hanging, but there's
+something that's worse than hanging, to my mind, and that is the state of
+a man whom nobody will trust. You've come to that; and if you had a spark
+of gentlemanly feeling, you'd have bought two-pennyworth of rope and hung
+yourself rather than come cringing to me."
+
+"Suppose I don't cringe," said the outcast, dropping the fawning tone of
+the mendicant for the threatening ferocity of the social wolf; "you'd
+better give me a trifle to keep body and soul together for the next few
+weeks. I'm a desperate man, George! You and I are alone up here. You are
+pretty sure to have ready money about you. And there's your watch; that's
+worth something. I didn't come here to go away empty-handed. AND I
+WON'T!"
+
+He sprang to his feet, and in the next moment the lawyer heard the sharp
+clicking noise made by the opening of a clasp-knife.
+
+"O," cried he, "that's what you want, is it!"
+
+He bent over his desk, with his eyes fixed on those other evil eyes that
+still retained some likeness to his own, and with his left arm raised in
+a boxer's defensive attitude, to guard his head, while his right hand
+groped for something in a drawer. It was a moment's work. Philip had
+seized that uplifted left arm, and was hanging on to it like a cat, with
+his knife between his teeth, when George clapped the muzzle of a revolver
+to his brow.
+
+"There are plenty of wild beasts in London besides you," he said, "and I
+am not such a fool as to be without the means of settling a chance
+visitor of your sort. Drop your knife, and march."
+
+The outcast dropped his knife submissively. He was too weak for anything
+more than a spasmodic violence.
+
+"Take your pistol away from my head," he whined.
+
+"Certainly, when you are outside my door."
+
+"You might give me a handful of silver, George. I haven't a week's life
+left in me."
+
+"All the better for society if you hadn't an hour's life in you. Be off.
+I'm tired of holding this revolver to your head, and I don't mean to let
+it go till you're off my premises."
+
+Philip saw that there was no hope. Food and shelter were all he had
+hoped for; but even these blessings were not for him. He backed out of
+the office, closely followed by George, holding the muzzle of the
+revolver within an inch or so of the fraternal brains. Upon the
+threshold only did he pause.
+
+"Tell me one thing," he said. "You won't give me sixpence to buy a loaf
+of bread or a glass of gin. Give me one scrap of comfort. It need cost
+you nothing. Tell me something bad of Valentine Hawkehurst: that he's
+gone to the dogs, or drowned himself; that his wife has run away from
+him, or his house been burned to the ground. Tell me that he's had a
+taste of my luck; and that Ann Woolper has died in a workhouse. It will
+be as good as meat and drink to me, and it will cost you nothing."
+
+"If I told you anything of the kind, I should tell you a lie; Valentine
+Hawkehurst is doing uncommonly well, and has got one of the prettiest
+little boxes between Wimbledon and Kingston. Ann Woolper lives with them,
+and is in better feather than she ever was in your time."
+
+With this, Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn pushed his brother out on to the
+staircase, and shut his door. Philip sat upon the stairs, and drew his
+rags together a little, and rubbed his wretched limbs, while the bolts
+and chains whereby the lawyer defended his citadel clanked close behind
+him.
+
+"I wonder whether he'll pay Hawkehurst a visit," thought George, as he
+bolted his door; and he had a kind of grim satisfaction in the idea that
+Valentine's Christmas peace might be disturbed by the advent of that
+grisly visitor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+"ACCORDING TO THEIR DEEDS."
+
+"Between Wimbledon and Kingston," muttered the tramp. "If I can drag
+myself as far as that, I'll go there this night."
+
+He went down stairs and out into the pitiless cold and snow, and made his
+way down Fetter Lane, and across Blackfriars Bridge to the Surrey side of
+the water, stopping to beg here and there.
+
+Upon this snowy Christmas night there were plenty of people abroad;
+and amongst them Philip Sheldon found pitying matrons, who explored
+the depths of their capacious pockets to find him a halfpenny, and
+good-natured young men, who flung the "copper" he besought with piteous
+professional whine.
+
+When he had collected the price of a glass of gin, he went into the first
+public-house he came to, and spent his money. He was too ill to stay the
+cravings of his stomach with substantial food. Gin gave him temporary
+warmth and temporary strength, and enabled him to push on vigorously for
+a little while; and then came dreary periods of faintness and exhaustion,
+in which every step was sheer pain and weariness.
+
+Something of his old self, some remnant of that hard strength of purpose
+which had once characterized him, remained with him still, utterly fallen
+and brutalized as he was. As a savage creature of the jungle might pursue
+a given course, pushing always onward to that camp or village whence the
+scent of human flesh and blood was wafted to his quivering nostrils, so
+Philip Sheldon pushed on towards the dwelling-place of that man and that
+woman whom of all creatures upon this earth he most savagely hated.
+
+"There's nothing left for me but to turn housebreaker," he said to
+himself; "and the first house I'll try my hand upon shall be Valentine
+Hawkehurst's."
+
+The idea of violence in such a creature was the idea of a madman. Weapon
+he had none, nor the physical strength that would have enabled him to
+grapple with a boy of twelve years old. Half intoxicated with the spirits
+he had consumed on his long tramp, half delirious with fever, he had a
+vague notion that he could make an entrance into some ill-defended house
+under cover of night, and steal something that should procure him food
+and shelter. And let the house be Valentine Hawkehurst's, the man who had
+baffled his plans and crushed him!
+
+If blood must be shed, let the blood be his! Never was man better primed
+for murder than the man who tramped across Wimbledon Common at eleven
+o'clock this night, with the snow drifting against his face, and his
+limbs shaken every now and then by an ague-fit.
+
+Happily for the interests of society, his hand lacked the power to
+execute that iniquity which his heart willed.
+
+He reached a little wayside inn near the Robin Hood gate of Richmond
+Park, just as the shutters were being closed, and asked a man if any one
+of the name of Hawkehurst lived in that neighbourhood.
+
+"What do _you_ want with Mr. Hawkehurst?" asked the man, contemptuously.
+
+"I've got a letter for him."
+
+"Have you? A begging letter, I should think, from the look of you."
+
+"No; it's a business letter. You'd better show me where he lives, if he's
+a customer of yours. The business is particular."
+
+"Is it? You're a queer kind of messenger to trust with particular
+business. Mr. Hawkehurst's house is the third you come to on the opposite
+side of the way. But I don't suppose you'll find anybody up as late as
+this. Their lights are out by eleven, in a general way."
+
+The third house on the opposite side of the road was half a mile distant
+from the little run. Lights shone bright in the lower windows as the
+tramp dragged his tired limbs to the stout oaken gate. The gate was
+fastened only by a latch, and offered no resistance to the intruder. He
+crept with stealthy footsteps along the smooth gravel walk, sheltered by
+dark laurels, on which the light flashed cheerily from those bright
+windows. Sounds of laughter and of music pealed out upon the wintry air.
+Shadows flitted across the blinds of the broad bay windows. Philip
+Sheldon crept into a sheltered nook beside the rustic porch, and sank
+down exhausted in the shadow of the laurels.
+
+He sat there in a kind of stupor. He had lost the power of thought,
+somehow, on that dreary journey. It seemed almost as if he had left some
+portion of his being out yonder in the cold and darkness. He had
+difficulty in remembering why he had come to this place, and what that
+deed was which he meant to do.
+
+"Hawkehurst," he muttered to himself--"Hawkehurst, the man who leagued
+against me with Jedd! I swore to be even with him if ever I found the
+opportunity--if ever! And George refused me a few shillings; my brother,
+my only brother, refused to stand my friend!"
+
+Hawkehurst and George--his only brother--the images of these two men
+floated confusedly in his brain: he could scarcely separate them.
+Sometimes it seemed to him that he was still sitting outside his
+brother's door, on the staircase in Gray's Inn, hugging himself in his
+rags, and cursing his unnatural kinsman's cruelty; then in the next
+moment he remembered where he was, and breathed bitter curses upon that
+unconscious enemy whose laugh pealed out every now and then amid a chorus
+of light-hearted laughter.
+
+There was a little Christmas party at Charlottenburgh. Two flys were
+waiting in the laurel-avenue to convey Mr. Hawkehurst's guests to distant
+abodes. The door was opened presently, and all the bustle of departure
+made itself heard by that wretched wayfarer who found it so difficult to
+keep his hold upon the consciousness of these things.
+
+"What is it?" he said to himself--"a party! Hawkehurst has been giving a
+party."
+
+He had lived through too much degradation, he had descended into too deep
+a gulf of wretchedness, to be conscious of the contrast between his
+present situation and his position in those days when he had played the
+host, and seen handsome carriages bear prosperous guests away from his
+door. In that cycle of misery which he had endured, these things and the
+memory of them had faded from him as completely as if they had been
+obliterated by the passage of a century. The hapless wretch tried to give
+sustained attention to all the animated discussion that attended the
+departure of the merry guests. Half-a-dozen people seemed to be talking
+at once. Valentine was giving his friends counsel about the way home.
+
+"You will keep to the lower road, you know, Fred. Lawsley's cab can
+follow yours. You came a couple of miles out of your way. And tell that
+fellow Battersea Bridge is a mistake."
+
+And then followed Charlotte's friendly questioning about wraps, and
+hoods, and comforters, and other feminine gear.
+
+"And when are you coming to dine at Fulham?" cried one voice.
+
+"I shall certainly get those quadrilles of Offenbach's," said another.
+
+"How delightfully Mr. Lawsley sang that song of Santley's!"
+
+And anon a chorus of "Never enjoyed myself more!" "Most delightful
+evening!" "Pray don't come out in the cold." "Thanks; well, yes, yours
+are always capital." "No, I won't light up till I'm on the road." "Give
+my book a lift in the _D.H._, eh, old fellow?" "Are you _quite_ sure that
+shawl is warm enough?" "Take a rug for your feet." "Thanks, no."
+"Good-night." "See you on Tuesday." "Don't forget the box for D.L." "All
+right, old fellow!" "Lower Road, Roehampton Lane, Putney Bridge.
+Good-night."
+
+Among the confusion of voices Philip Sheldon had recognized more than one
+voice that was familiar to him. There were Charlotte's gentle tones, and
+Valentine's hearty barytone, and another that he knew.
+
+Diana Paget! Yes, it was her voice. Diana Paget, whom he had cause to
+hate for her interference with his affairs.
+
+"A beggar," he muttered to himself, "and the daughter of a beggar! She
+was a nice young lady to set herself in opposition to the man who gave
+her a home."
+
+The vehicles drove away, but there was still a little group in the rustic
+porch. Valentine and Charlotte, with Monsieur and Madame Lenoble, who had
+come to spend their Christmas with their English friends.
+
+"How we have been gay this evening!" cried Gustave. "There is nothing
+like your English interior for that which you call the comfortable, the
+jolly, you others. Thy friends are the jollity itself, Hawkehurst. And
+our acting charades, when that we all talked at once, and with a such
+emphasis on the word we would make to know. Was it not that our
+spectators were cunning to divine the words? And your friend Lawsley--it
+is a mixture of Got and Sanson. It is a true genius. Think, then, Diane,
+while we were amusing ourselves, our girls were at the midnight mass at
+the Sacré Coeur? Dear pious children, their innocent prayers ascended
+towards the heavens for we who are absent. Come, Madame Hawkehurst,
+Diane, it makes cold."
+
+"But we are sheltered here. And the stars are so bright after the snow,"
+said Charlotte. "Do you remember the Christmas-day you spent at the Lawn,
+Valentine, when we walked in Kensington Gardens together, just when we
+were first engaged?" the young wife added shyly.
+
+"Do I not remember? It was the first time the holiness of Christmas came
+home to my heart. And now let us go back to the drawing-room, and sit
+round the fire, and tell ghost stories. Lenoble shall give us the legends
+of Côtenoir."
+
+"Valentine," murmured Charlotte, "do you know that it is nearly one
+o'clock?"
+
+"And we must put in an appearance at church to-morrow morning. And
+Lenoble has to walk to Kingston to early mass. We will postpone our ghost
+stories to New-Year's eve. And Lenoble shall read Tennyson's _New Year_,
+to demonstrate his improvement in the English language. Lead the way,
+Mrs. Hawkehurst; your obedient slave obeys. Mamma is waiting for us in
+the drawing-room, marvelling at our delay, no doubt. And Nancy Woolper
+stalks ghost-like through the house, oppressed by the awful
+responsibility of to-morrow's pudding."
+
+Anon came a clanking of bolts and bars; and Philip Sheldon, for the
+second time that night, heard a door shut against him. As the voices died
+away, his consciousness of external things died with him. He fancied
+himself on the Gray's-Inn staircase.
+
+"Don't be so hard upon me, George," he muttered faintly. "If my own kith
+and kin turn against me, whom shall I look to?"
+
+Mrs. Woolper opened the door early next day, when night was yet at odds
+with morning. All through the night the silent snow-flakes had been
+falling thick and fast; and they had woven the shroud of Philip Sheldon.
+The woman who had watched his infant slumbers forty years before, was the
+first to look upon him in that deeper sleep, of whose waking we know so
+little. It was not until she had looked long and closely at the dead face
+that she knew why it was that the aspect of that countenance had affected
+her with so strange a pang. She did recognize that altered wretch, and
+kept her counsel.
+
+Before the bells rang for morning service the tramp was lying in the
+dead-house of Kingston Union, whither he had been conveyed very quietly
+in the early morning, unknown to any one but the constable who
+superintended the removal, and the servants of Mr. Hawkehurst's
+household. Only the next day did Ann Woolper tell Valentine what had
+happened. There was to be an inquest. It would be well that some one
+should identify the dead man, and establish the fact of Philip Sheldon's
+decease.
+
+Valentine was able to do this unaided. He attended the inquest, and made
+arrangements for the outcast's decent burial; and in due course he gave
+Mrs. Sheldon notice of her freedom. Beyond that nameless grave whose
+fancy shall dare follow Philip Sheldon? He died and made no sign. And in
+the last dread day, when the dead, small and great, from the sea and from
+the grave, press together at the foot of the great white Throne, and the
+books of doom are opened; when above shines the city whose light is the
+glory of God, and below yawns the lake of fire,--what voice shall plead
+for Philip Sheldon, what entreating cry shall Pity send forth that
+sentence against him may be stayed?
+
+Surely none; unless it issue from the lips of that one confiding friend,
+whose last words upon earth thanked and blessed him, and whose long
+agonies he watched with unshaken purpose, conscious that in every
+convulsive change in the familiar face, and every pang that shook the
+stalwart form, he saw the result of his own work.
+
+Perhaps at that dread Judgment Day, when every other tongue is silent,
+the voice of Tom Halliday may be heard pleading for the man who murdered
+him.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Charlotte's Inheritance, by M. E. Braddon
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Charlotte's Inheritance, by M. E. Braddon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Charlotte's Inheritance
+
+Author: M. E. Braddon
+
+Posting Date: August 8, 2012 [EBook #9259]
+Release Date: November, 2005
+First Posted: September 15, 2003
+[Last updated: August 10, 2013]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Mary Meehan and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE
+
+                                   By
+
+                             M. E. Braddon
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+Book the First.
+
+DE PROFUNDIS.
+
+   I.  LENOBLE OF BEAUBOCAGE
+
+  II.  IN THIS WIDE WORLD I STAND ALONE
+
+ III.  PAST HOPE, AND IN DESPAIR
+
+  IV.  A DECREE OF BANISHMENT
+
+
+Book the Second.
+
+DOWNHILL.
+
+   I.  THE FATE OF SUSAN LENOBLE
+
+  II.  FORGIVEN TOO LATE
+
+ III.  GUSTAVE THE SECOND
+
+
+Book the Third.
+
+THE HORATIAD.
+
+   I.  CHIEFLY RETROSPECTIVE
+
+  II.  EPISTOLARY
+
+ III.  TOO CLEVER FOR A CATSPAW
+
+  IV.  CAPTAIN PAGET IS PATERNAL
+
+   V.  THE CAPTAIN'S COADJUTOR
+
+
+Book the Fourth.
+
+GUSTAVE IN ENGLAND.
+
+   I.  HALCYON DAYS
+
+  II.  CAPTAIN PAGET AWAKENS TO A SENSE OF HIS DUTY
+
+ III.  WHAT DO WE HERE, MY HEART AND I?
+
+  IV.  SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH
+
+
+Book the Fifth.
+
+THE FIRST ACT OF MR. SHELDON'S DRAMA.
+
+   I.  TAKEN BY STORM
+
+  II.  FIRM AS A ROCK
+
+ III.  AGAINST WIND AND TIDE
+
+  IV.  DIANA ASKS FOR A HOLIDAY
+
+   V.  ASSURANCE DOUBLY SURE
+
+
+Book the Sixth.
+
+DIANA IN NORMANDY.
+
+   I.  AT COTENOIR
+
+
+Book the Seventh.
+
+A CLOUD OF FEAR.
+
+   I.  THE BEGINNING OF SORROW
+
+  II.  FADING
+
+ III.  MRS. WOOLPER IS ANXIOUS
+
+  IV.  VALENTINE'S SKELETON
+
+   V.  AT HAROLD'S HILL
+
+  VI.  DESPERATE MEASURES
+
+
+Book the Eighth.
+
+A FIGHT AGAINST TIME.
+
+   I.  A DREAD REVELATION
+
+  II.  PHOENICIANS ARE RISING
+
+ III.  THE SORTES VIRGILIANAE
+
+
+Book the Ninth.
+
+THROUGH THE FURNACE.
+
+   I.  SOMETHING TOO MUCH
+
+  II.  DR. JEDD'S OPINION
+
+ III.  NON DORMIT JUDAS
+
+  IV.  COUNTING THE COST
+
+   V.  THE BEGINNING OF THE END
+
+  VI.  CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED
+
+ VII.  THERE IS A WORD WILL PRIAM TURN TO STONE
+
+
+Book the Tenth.
+
+HARBOUR, AFTER MANY SHIPWRECKS.
+
+   I.  OUT OF THE DARK VALLEY
+
+  II.  AFTER THE WEDDING
+
+ III.  GREEK AGAINST GREEK
+
+  IV.  ONLY A DREAM
+
+   V.  BOHEMIAN INDEPENDENCE
+
+  VI.  BEYOND THE VEIL
+
+ VII.  BETTER THAN GOLD
+
+VIII. LOST SIGHT OF
+
+  IX.  ETEOCLES AND POLYNICES
+
+   X.  "ACCORDING TO THEIR DEEDS."
+
+
+
+
+CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE
+
+
+
+Book the first.
+
+
+
+DE PROFUNDIS.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+LENOBLE OF BEAUBOCAGE.
+
+In the days when the Bourbon reigned over Gaul, before the "simple,
+sensuous, passionate" verse of Alfred de Musset had succeeded the
+_debonnaire_ Muse of Beranger in the affections of young France,--in days
+when the site of the Trocadero was a remote and undiscovered country, and
+the word "exposition" unknown in the Academic dictionary, and the Gallic
+Augustus destined to rebuild the city yet an exile,--a young law-student
+boarded, in common with other students, in a big dreary-looking house at
+the corner of the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle, abutting on the Place Lauzun,
+and within some ten minutes walk of the Luxembourg. It was a very dingy
+quarter, though noble gentlemen and lovely ladies had once occupied the
+great ghastly mansions, and disported themselves in the gruesome gardens.
+But the young students were in nowise oppressed by the ghastliness of
+their abode. They sang their Beranger, and they pledged each other in
+cheap Bordeaux, and clinked their glasses noisily in their boisterous
+good-fellowship, and ate the messes compounded for them in a darksome
+cupboard, known as the kitchen, by old Nanon the cook, purblind,
+stone-deaf, and all but imbecile, and popularly supposed to be the
+venerable mother of Madame Magnotte. The youngsters grumbled to each
+other about the messes when they were unusually mysterious; and it must
+be owned that there were _vol-au-vents_ and _fricandeaux_ consumed in
+that establishment which were awful and wonderful in their nature; but
+they ventured on no complaint to the mistress of the mansion. She was a
+grim and terrible personage. Her terms were low, and she treated her
+boarders _de haute en bas_. If they were not content with her viands,
+they might go and find more agreeable viands elsewhere.
+
+Madame Magnotte was altogether mysterious and inscrutable. Some people
+said that she was a countess, and that the wealth and lands of her family
+had been confiscated by the committee of public unsafety in '93. Others
+declared that she had been a popular actress in a small theatre in the
+days of Napoleon. She was tall and thin--nay, of an exceptional
+leanness--and her complexion was of a more agreeable yellow than the
+butter that appeared on her hospitable board; but she had flashing black
+eyes, and a certain stateliness of gait and grandeur of manner that
+impressed those young Bohemians, her boarders, with a kind of awe. They
+talked of her as the "countess," and by that name she was known to all
+inmates of the mansion; but in all their dealings with her they treated
+her with unfailing respect.
+
+One of the quietest among the young men who enjoyed the privileges of
+Madame Magnotte's abode was a certain Gustave Lenoble, a law-student, the
+only son of a very excellent couple who lived on their own estate, near
+an obscure village in Normandy. The estate was of the smallest; a
+dilapidated old house, known in the immediate neighbourhood as "the
+Chateau," and very dear to those who resided therein; a garden, in which
+everything seemed to have run to seed; and about forty acres of the
+poorest land in Normandy. These possessions constituted the patrimonial
+estate of Francois Lenoble, _proprietaire_, of Beaubocage, near
+Vevinordin, the department of Eure.
+
+The people amongst whom the good man lived his simple life called him M.
+Lenoble de Beaubocage, but he did not insist upon this distinction; and
+on sending out his only son to begin the battle of life in the great
+world of Paris, he recommended the young man to call himself Lenoble,
+_tout court_.
+
+The young man had never cherished any other design. He was of all
+creatures the least presuming or pretentious. The father was Legitimist
+to the very marrow; the son half Buonapartist, half republican. The
+father and son had quarrelled about these differences of opinion
+sometimes in a pleasantly disputatious manner; but no political
+disagreement could lesser the love between these two. Gustave loved
+his parents as only a Frenchman can venture to love his father and
+mother--with a devotion for the gentleman that bordered on enthusiasm,
+with a fond reverence for the lady that was the very essence of chivalry.
+There was a sister, who regarded her brother Gustave as the embodiment of
+all that is perfect in youthful mankind; and there were a couple of old
+house-servants, a very stupid clumsy lad in the stables, and half a dozen
+old mongrel dogs, born and bred on the premises, who seemed to share the
+young lady's opinions. There was not a little discussion upon the subject
+of Gustave Lenoble's future career; and it was not without difficulty
+that the father could be persuaded to approve the choice of a profession
+which the young man had made. The seigneur of Beaubocage cherished an
+exaggerated pride of race little suspected by those who saw his simple
+life, and were pleased by his kindly unaffected manners. The house of
+Lenoble, at some remote and almost mythical period of history, had
+distinguished itself in divers ways; and those bygone grandeurs, vague
+and shadowy in the minds of all others, seemed very real to Monsieur
+Lenoble. He assured his son that no Lenoble had ever been a lawyer. They
+had been always lords of the soil, living on their own lands, which had
+once stretched wide and far in that Norman province; a fact proved by
+certain maps in M. Lenoble's possession, the paper whereof was worn and
+yellow with age. They had stooped to no profession save that of arms. One
+seigneur of Beaubocage had fought under Bayard himself; another had
+fallen at Pavia, on that great day when all was lost _hormis l'honneur_;
+another had followed the white plume of the Bernais; another--but was
+there any need to tell of the glories of that house upon which Gustave
+was so eager to inflict the disgrace of a learned profession?
+
+Thus argued the father; but the mother had spent her girlhood amidst the
+clamour of the Buonapartist campaigns, and the thought of war was very
+terrible to her. The memory of the retreat from Russia was not yet twenty
+years old. There were men alive to tell the story, to depict those days
+and nights of horror, that mighty march of death. It was she and her
+daughter Cydalise who had helped to persuade Gustave that he was born to
+distinguish himself in the law. They wanted him to study in Paris--the
+young man himself had a wild desire to enjoy the delights of that
+wondrous capital--and to return in a few years to set up for himself as
+_avocat_ at the town of Vevinord, some half-dozen leagues from the
+patrimonial estate. He was created to plead for the innocent, to denounce
+the guilty, to be grand and brave and fiery-hot with enthusiasm in
+defence of virtuous peasants charged unjustly with the stealing of sheep,
+or firing of corn-ricks. It never struck these simple souls that he might
+sometimes be called upon to defend the guilty, or to denounce the
+innocent.
+
+It was all settled at last. Gustave was to go to Paris, and enter himself
+as a student of law. There were plenty of boarding-houses in the
+neighbourhood of the Ecole de Droit where a young man might find a home;
+and to one of these Gustave was recommended by a friend of his family. It
+was the Pension Magnotte to which they had sent him, the big dreary
+house, _entre cour et jardin_, which had once been so grand and noble. A
+printer now occupied the lower chambers, and a hand painted on the wall
+pointed to the _Pension Magnotte, au premier. Tirez le cordon, s.v.p._
+
+Gustave was twenty-one years of age when he came to Paris; tall,
+stalwart, broad of shoulders and deep of chest, with a fair frank face,
+an auburn moustache, candid, kind blue eyes--a physiognomy rather Saxon
+than Celtic. He was a man who made friends quickly, and was soon at home
+among the students, roaring their favourite songs, and dancing their
+favourite dances at the dancing-places of that day, joining with a
+pleasant heartiness in all their innocent dissipations. For guilty
+dissipation the young provincial had no taste. Did he not carry the
+images of two kind and pure women about with him wherever he went, like
+two attendant angels ever protecting his steps; and could he leave them
+sorrowing on thresholds _they_ could not pass? Ah, no! He was loud and
+boisterous and wild of spirits in those early days, but incapable of
+meanness or vice.
+
+"It is a brave heart," Madame Magnotte said of him, "though for the
+breaking of glasses a scourge--_un fleau_."
+
+The ladies of the Pension Magnotte were for the most part of mature age
+and unattractive appearance--two or three lonely spinsters, eking out
+their pitiful little incomes as best they might, by the surreptitious
+sale of delicate embroideries, confectioned in their dismal leisure; and
+a fat elderly widow, popularly supposed to be enormously rich, but of
+miserly propensities. "It is the widow of Harpagon himself," Madame
+Magnotte told her gossips--an old woman with two furiously ugly
+daughters, who for the last fifteen years had lived a nomadic life in
+divers boarding-houses, fondly clinging to the hope that, amongst so many
+strange bachelors, husbands for these two solitary ones must at last be
+found.
+
+These, with a pale young lady who gave music lessons in the quarter, were
+all the feminine inmates of the mansion; and amongst these Gustave
+Lenoble was chief favourite. His tender courtesy for these lonely women
+seemed in some manner an evidence of that good old blood whereof the
+young man's father boasted. Francis the First, who listened with bent
+knee and bare head to his mother's discourse, was not more reverential to
+that noble Savoyarde than was Gustave to the shabby-genteel maiden ladies
+of the Pension Magnotte. In truth, this young man had a heart pitiful and
+tender as the heart of woman. To be unfortunate was to possess a sure
+claim upon his pity and regard; to be poor and friendless was the best
+appeal to his kindness. He spent his evenings sometimes in the great
+dreary desert of a salon, and listened respectfully while Mademoiselle
+Servin, the young music-teacher, played dismal sonatas of Gluck or Gretry
+on a cracked old piano that had been one of the earliest made of those
+instruments, and was now attenuated and feeble as the very ghost of
+music. He listened to Madame Magnotte's stories of departed splendour. To
+him she opened her heart as she never had opened it to those other young
+men.
+
+"They mock themselves of everything--even the religion!" she exclaimed,
+with horror. "They are Diderots and Holbachs in the bud, less the talent.
+But you do not come of that gutter in which they were born. You are of
+the old blood of France, M. Lenoble, and I can trust myself to you as I
+cannot to them. I, who speak to you--I, too, come of a good old race, and
+there is sympathy between we others."
+
+And then, after babbling to him of her lost station, the lady would
+entertain him with some dainty little supper with which she was wont to
+indulge herself and her lady boarders, when the students--who were
+treated something after the manner of school-boys--were out of doors.
+
+For four years the law-student had enjoyed his Parisian life--not
+altogether idle, but not altogether industrious--amusing himself a great
+deal, and learning very little; moderate in his expenditure, when
+compared with his fellow-students, but no small drain upon the funds of
+the little family at home. In sooth, this good old Norman family had in a
+pecuniary sense sunk very low. There was real poverty in the tumble-down
+house at Beaubocage, though it was poverty that wore a cheerful face, and
+took things pleasantly. A very humble English farmer would have despised
+the income which supported M. Lenoble's household; and it was only the
+economy and skill of the matron and her daughter which sustained the
+dignity of the small establishment.
+
+There was one great hope cherished alike by the proud simple-minded old
+father, the fond mother, the devoted sister, and that was the hope in the
+grand things to be done, in the dim future, by Gustave, the son, the
+heir, the pole-star of the household.
+
+Out of poverty, out of obscurity, into the broad light of honour and
+riches, was the house of Lenoble to be lifted by this young law-student.
+On the broad shoulders of this modern Atlas the Lenoble world was to be
+sustained. To him they looked, of him they thought, in the long dreary
+winter evenings during which the mother nodded over her knitting, the
+father slept in his capacious easy-chair, the sister toiled at her
+needle-work by her little table of _palissandre_.
+
+He had paid them more than one visit during his two years of study,
+bringing with him life and light and gladness, as it seemed to the two
+women who adored him; and now, in the winter of 1828, they expected
+another visit. He was to be with them on the first day of the new year.
+He was to stay with them till his Mother's fete--the 17th of January.
+
+The father looked to this special visit with an unusual anxiety. The
+mother too was more than ever anxious. The sister, if she who loved her
+brother with a somewhat morbid intensity could be more anxious than
+usual, was more so now. A dreadful plot, a dire conspiracy, of which
+Gustave was to be the subject and victim, had been concocted beneath that
+innocent-seeming roof. Father, mother, and sister, seated round the
+family hearth, fatal as some domestic Parcae, had hatched their horrid
+scheme, while the helpless lad amused himself yonder in the great city,
+happily unconscious of the web that was being woven to enmesh him.
+
+The cord which monsieur unwound, the mesh which madame held, the
+needle which dexterous mademoiselle wielded, were employed in the
+fabrication of a matrimonial net. These unsophisticated conspirators
+were bent upon bringing about the marriage of their victim, a marriage
+which should at once elevate and enrich the Lenobles of Beaubocage, in
+the person of Gustave.
+
+Francois Lenoble's best friend and nearest neighbour was a certain Baron
+Frehlter, of Germanic origin, but for some generations past naturalised
+to the Gallic soil. The Baron was proprietor of an estate which could
+show ten acres for one of the lands of Beaubocage. The Baron boasted a
+family tree which derived its root from a ramification of the
+Hohenzollern pedigree; but, less proud and more prudent than the
+Lenobles, the Frehlters had not scorned to intermingle their Prussian
+blue blood with less pure streams of commercial France. The _epicier_
+element had prevailed in the fair brides of the house of Frehlter for the
+last three or four generations, and the house of Frehlter had
+considerably enriched itself by this sacrifice of its family pride.
+
+The present Baron had married a lady ten years his senior, the widow of a
+Rouen merchant, alike wealthy and pious, but famous rather for these
+attributes than for any personal charm. One only child, a girl, had
+blessed this union. She was now a young person of something under twenty
+years of age, newly emerged from her convent, and pining for some share
+in the gaieties and delights of a worldly paradise, which had already
+been open to many of her schoolfellows.
+
+Mademoiselle Frehlter's companions had, for the most part, left school to
+be married. She had heard of the _corbeille_, the wedding dress, the
+wedding festivities, and occasionally a word or two about that secondary
+consideration the bridegroom. The young lady was therefore somewhat
+inclined to take it ill of her father that he had not secured for her the
+_eclat_ of an early marriage. Her departure from the convent of the Sacre
+Coeur, at Vevinord, was flat and tame to an extreme degree. The future
+lay before her, a dreary desert of home life, to be spent with a father
+who gorged himself daily at a greasy and savoury banquet, and who slept
+away the greater part of his existence; and with a mother who divided her
+affections between a disagreeable poodle and a still more disagreeable
+priest--a priest who took upon himself to lecture the demoiselle Frehlter
+on the smallest provocation.
+
+The chateau of the Frehlters was a very grand abode as compared to the
+tumble-down house of Beaubocage; but it was cold and stony to a
+depressing degree, and the furniture must have been shabby in the days of
+the Fronde. Faithful old servants kept the mansion in a state of spotless
+purity, and ruled the Baron and his wife with a rod of iron. Mademoiselle
+execrated these devoted retainers, and would have welcomed the sauciest
+of modern domestics who would have released her from the bondage of these
+servants of the old school.
+
+Mademoiselle had been at home a year--a year of discontent and
+ill-humour. She had quarrelled with her father, because he would not take
+her to Paris; with her mother, because she would not give her more new
+gowns and bonnets and feathers and fur-belows; with the priest, the
+poodle, with the autocracy below-stairs, with everybody and everything.
+So at last the Baron decided that mademoiselle should marry, whereby he
+might be rid of her, and of her complaints, vagaries, ill-tempers, and
+general dissatisfaction.
+
+Having once made up his mind as to the wisdom of a matrimonial
+arrangement, Baron Frehlter was not slow to fix upon a bridegroom. He was
+a very rich man, and Madelon was his only child, and he was furthermore a
+very lazy man; so, instead of looking far afield for a wealthy or
+distinguished suitor for his daughter, he was inclined to take the first
+that came to hand. It is possible that the Baron, who was of a somewhat
+cynical turn of mind, may have cherished no very exalted idea of his
+daughter's attractions, either personal or mental. However this might be,
+it is certain that when the demoiselle had ill-treated the poodle, and
+insulted the priest, and quarrelled with the cook--that high-priestess of
+the kitchen who alone, in all Normandy, could concoct those messes which
+the Baron loved--the master of Cotenoir decided on marrying his heiress
+out of hand.
+
+He communicated this design to his old crony, Francois Lenoble, one day
+when the Beaubocage family dined at Chateau Cotenoir.
+
+"I think of marrying my daughter," he said to his friend, when the ladies
+were safely out of hearing at the other end of the long dreary saloon.
+"Now thy son Gustave is a fine fellow--brave, handsome, and of a good
+race. It is true he is not as rich as Madelon will be by-and-by; but I am
+no huckster, to sell my daughter to the best bidder" ("and I doubt if
+there would be many bidders for her, if I were so inclined," thought the
+Baron, in parenthesis); "and if thy son should take a fancy to her, and
+she to him, it would please me well enough, friend Francois."
+
+Friend Francois pricked up his ears, and in his old eyes flickered a
+feeble light. Cotenoir and Beaubocage united in the person of his son
+Gustave! Lenoble of Beaubocage and Cotenoir--Lenoble of Cotenoir and
+Beaubocage! So splendid a vision had never shone before his eyes in all
+the dreams that he had dreamed about the only son of whom he was so
+proud. He could not have shaped to himself so bold a project as the union
+of those two estates. And here was the Baron offering it to him, with his
+snuff-box, _en passant_.
+
+"It would be a great marriage," he said, "a very great marriage. For
+Gustave I can answer without hesitation. He could not but be charmed by
+such a union--so amiable a bride would enchant him."
+
+He looked down the room to the spot where Madelon and Cydalise were
+standing, side by side, admiring Madame Frehlter's poodle. Madelon could
+afford to be civil to the poodle before company. The contrast between the
+two girls was sufficiently striking. Cydalise was fair and
+bright-looking--Mademoiselle Frehlter was square and ungainly of figure,
+swarthy of complexion, dark of brow.
+
+"He could not but be charmed," repeated the old man, with feeble
+gallantry.
+
+He was thinking of the joining together of Beaubocage and Cotenoir; and
+it seemed a very small thing to him that such a union of estates would
+involve the joining of a man and woman, who were to hold to each other
+and love each other until death should part them.
+
+"It shall be no marriage of convenience," said the Baron, in a generous
+spirit; "my daughter is somewhat ill-tem--that is to say, my daughter
+finds her life somewhat dull with her old father and mother, and I think
+she might be happier in the society of a husband. I like your son; and
+my wife, too, likes him better than any other young man of our
+acquaintance. Madelon has seen a good deal of him when she has been home
+from the convent in her holidays, and I have reason to think she does
+not dislike him. If he likes her and she likes him, and the idea is
+pleasing to you and madame, we will make a match of it. If not, let it
+pass; we will say no more."
+
+Again the seigneur of Beaubocage assured his friend that Gustave would be
+enchanted with the proposal; and again it was of Cotenoir that he
+thought, and not of the heart or the inclinations of his son.
+
+This conversation took place late in autumn, and at the new year Gustave
+was to come. Nothing was to be said to him about his intended wife until
+he arrived; that was a point upon which the Baron insisted.
+
+"The young man may have fallen in love with some fine young person in
+Paris," he said; "and in that case we will say nothing to him of Madelon.
+But if we find him with the heart free, and inclined to take to my
+daughter, we may give him encouragement."
+
+This was solemnly agreed between the two fathers. Nor was Mademoiselle
+Frehlter to be told of the matrimonial scheme until it ripened. But after
+this dinner at Cotenoir the household at Beaubocage talked of little else
+than of the union of the two families. What grandeur, what wealth, what
+happiness! Gustave the lord of Cotenoir! Poor Cydalise had never seen a
+finer mansion than the old chateau, with its sugar-loaf towers and stone
+terraces, and winding stairs, and tiny inconvenient turret chambers, and
+long dreary salon and _salle-a-manger_. She could picture to herself
+nothing more splendid. For Gustave to be offered the future possession of
+Cotenoir was as if he were suddenly to be offered the succession to a
+kingdom. She could not bring herself to consider that Madelon was neither
+agreeable nor attractive, and that, after all, the wife must count for
+something in every marriage contract. She could see nothing, she could
+think of nothing, but Cotenoir. The glory and grandeur of that estate
+absorbed every other consideration.
+
+No one of those three conspirators feared any opposition on the part of
+their victim. It was just possible that Gustave might have fallen in love
+with some Parisian damsel, though his letters gave no hint of any such
+calamity. But if such a misfortune had happened, he would, of course,
+fall out of love again, return the damsel her troth and obtain the return
+of his own, and straightway offer the second-hand commodity to
+Mademoiselle Frehlter.
+
+The object of all these cares and hopes and dreams arrived at last, full
+of life and spirits, with plenty to tell about Paris in general, and very
+little to tell about himself in particular. The women questioned him
+unmercifully. They insisted on a graphic description of every female
+inmate of the boarding-house, and would scarcely believe that all except
+the little music-mistress were elderly and unattractive. Of the
+music-mistress herself they were inclined to be very suspicious, and were
+not altogether reassured by Gustave's assertion that she was neither
+pretty nor fascinating.
+
+"She is a dear, good, industrious little thing," he said, "and works
+harder than I do. But she is no miracle of beauty; and her life is so
+dreary that I often wonder she does not go into a convent. It would be
+gayer and pleasanter for her than to live with those old women at the
+Pension Magnotte."
+
+"I suppose there are many beautiful women in Paris?" said Cydalise, bent
+upon knowing the worst.
+
+"Well, I dare say there are," Gustave answered frankly; "but we students
+don't see much of them in our quarter. One sees a pretty little
+milliner's girl now and then, or a washerwoman. In short, there are a
+good many grisettes in our part of the world," added the young man,
+blushing, but for no sin of his own. "We get a glimpse of a handsome
+woman sometimes, rattling past in her carriage; but in Paris handsome
+women do not go on foot. I have seen prettier girls at Vevinord than in
+Paris."
+
+Cydalise was enchanted with this confession.
+
+"Yes," she exclaimed, "our Normandy is the place for pretty girls.
+Madelon Frehlter, for example, is not she a very--amiable girl?"
+
+"I dare say she's amiable enough," answered Gustave; "but if there were
+no prettier girls than Mademoiselle Frehlter in this part of the world,
+we should have no cause to boast. But there are prettier girls, Cydalise,
+and thou art thyself one of them."
+
+After this speech the young man bestowed upon his sister a resounding
+kiss. Yes; it was clear that he was heart-whole. These noisy, boisterous
+good spirits were not characteristic of a lover. Even innocent Cydalise
+knew that to be in love was to be miserable.
+
+From this time mother and sister tormented their victim with the merits
+and charms of his predestined bride. Madelon on the piano was miraculous;
+Madelon's little songs were enchanting; Madelon's worsted-work was a
+thing to worship; Madelon's devotion to her mother and her mother's
+poodle was unequalled; Madelon's respectful bearing to the good Abbe St.
+Velours--her mother's director--was positively beyond all praise. It was
+virtue seraphic, supernal. Such a girl was too good for earth--too good
+for anything except Gustave.
+
+The young man heard and wondered.
+
+"How you rave about Madelon Frehlter!" he exclaimed. "She seems to me the
+most commonplace young person I ever encountered. She has nothing to say
+for herself; she never appears to know where to put her elbows. I never
+saw such elbows; they are everywhere at once. And her shoulders!--O
+heaven, then, her shoulders!--it ought to be forbidden to wear low
+dresses when one has such shoulders."
+
+This was discouraging, but the schemers bore up even against this. The
+mother dwelt on the intellectual virtues of Madelon; and what were
+shoulders compared to mind, piety, amiability--all the Christian graces?
+Cydalise owned that dear Madelon was somewhat _gauche_; Gustave called
+her _bete_. The father remonstrated with his son. Was it not frightful to
+use a word of the barracks in connection with this charming young lady?
+
+At last the plot revealed itself. After a dinner at Cotenoir and a dinner
+at Beaubocage, on both which occasions Gustave had made himself very
+agreeable to the ladies of the Baron's household--since, indeed, it was
+not in his nature to be otherwise than kind and courteous to the weaker
+sex--the mother told her son of the splendid destiny that had been shaped
+for him. It was a matter of surprise and grief to her to find that the
+revelation gave Gustave no pleasure.
+
+"Marriage was the last thing in my thoughts, dear mother," he said,
+gravely; "and Madelon Frehlter is the very last woman I should think of
+for a wife. Nevertheless, I am gratified by the honour Monsieur le Baron
+has done me. That goes without saying."
+
+"But the two estates!--together they would make you a great proprietor.
+You would not surely refuse such fortune?"
+
+Cydalise gave a little scream of horror.
+
+"Cotenoir! to refuse Cotenoir! Ah, surely that would be impossible! But
+figure to yourself, then, Gustave--"
+
+"Nay, Cydalise, you forget the young lady goes with the chateau; a
+fixture that we cannot dispense with."
+
+"But she, so amiable, so pious--"
+
+"So plain, so stupid--"
+
+"So modest, so charitable--"
+
+"In short, so admirably adapted for a Sister of Charity," replied
+Gustave. "But no, dear Cydalise. Cotenoir is a grand old place; but I
+would as soon spend my life at Toulon, dragging a cannon-ball at my
+heels, as in that dreary salon where Madame Frehlter nurses her maladies
+and her poodle, and where the good-humoured, easy-going old Baron snores
+away existence. 'Tis very well for those elderly folks, you see, my
+sister, and for Madelon--for hers is an elderly mind in a youthful body;
+but for a young man full of hope and gaiety and activity--bah! It would
+be of all living deaths the worst. From the galleys there is always the
+hope of escaping--an underground passage, burrowed out with one's
+finger-nails in the dead of the night--a work lasting twenty years or so,
+but with a feeble star of hope always glimmering at the end of the
+passage. But from the salon, and mamma, and the poodle, and the good,
+unctuous, lazy old director, and papa's apoplectic snoring, and the
+plaintive little songs and monotonous embroideries of one's wife, there
+would be no escape. Ah, bah!"
+
+Gustave shuddered, and the two women shuddered as they heard him. The
+prospect was by no means promising; but Madame Lenoble and her daughter
+did not utterly despair. Gustave's heart was disengaged. That was a great
+point; and for the rest, surely persuasion might do much.
+
+Then came that phenomenon seen very often in this life--a
+generous-minded, right-thinking young man talked into a position which of
+all others is averse from his own inclinations. The mother persuaded, the
+sister pleaded, the father dwelt dismally upon the poverty of Beaubocage,
+the wealth of Cotenoir. It was the story of auld Robin Gray reversed.
+Gustave perceived that his refusal to avail himself of this splendid
+destiny would be a bitter and lasting grief to these people who loved him
+so fondly--whom he loved as fondly in return. Must he not be a churl to
+disappoint hopes so unselfish, to balk an ambition so innocent? And only
+because Madelon was not the most attractive or the prettiest of women!
+
+The young man stood firm against all their arguments, he was unmoved by
+all their pleading. It was only when his anxious kindred had given up the
+battle for lost that Gustave wavered. Their mute despair moved him more
+than the most persuasive eloquence; and the end was submission. He left
+Beaubocage the plighted lover of that woman who, of all others, he would
+have been the last to choose for his wife. It had all been settled very
+pleasantly--the dowry, the union of the two estates, the two names. For
+six months Gustave was to enjoy his freedom to finish his studies; and
+then he was to return to Normandy for his marriage.
+
+"I have heard very good accounts of you from Paris," said the Baron. "You
+are not like some young men, wild, mad-brained. One can confide in your
+honour, your steadiness."
+
+The good folks of Beaubocage were in ecstacies. They congratulated
+Gustave--they congratulated each other. A match so brilliant would be the
+redemption of the family. The young man at last began to fancy himself
+the favoured of the gods. What if Madelon seemed a little dull--a little
+wanting in that vivacity which is so pleasing to frivolous minds? she was
+doubtless so much the more profound, so much the more virtuous. If she
+was not bright and varied and beautiful as some limpid fountain dancing
+in summer sunlight, she was perhaps changeless and steady as a rock; and
+who would not rather have the security of a rock than the summer-day
+beauty of a fountain?
+
+Before Gustave departed from his paternal home he had persuaded himself
+that he was a very lucky fellow; and he had paid Mademoiselle Frehlter
+some pretty little stereotyped compliments, and had listened with sublime
+patience to her pretty little stereotyped songs. He left the young lady
+profoundly impressed by his merits; he left his own household supremely
+happy; and he carried away with him a heart in which Madelon Frehlter's
+image had no place.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+IN THIS WIDE WORLD I STAND ALONE.
+
+Gustave went back to his old life, and was not much disturbed by the
+grandeur of his destiny as future seigneur of Cotenoir and Beaubocage. It
+sometimes occurred to him that he had a weight upon his mind; and, on
+consideration, he found that the weight was Madelon Frehlter. But he
+continued to carry that burden very lightly, and his easy-going student
+life went on, unbroken by thoughts of the future. He sent polite messages
+to the demoiselle Frehlter in his letters to Cydalise; and he received
+from Cydalise much information, more graphic than interesting, upon the
+subject of the family at Cotenoir; and so his days went on with pleasant
+monotony. This was the brief summer of his youth; but, alas, how near at
+hand was the dark and dismal winter that was to freeze this honest joyous
+heart! That heart, so compassionate for all suffering, so especially
+tender for all womankind, was to be attacked upon its weaker side.
+
+It was Gustave Lenoble's habit to cross the gardens of the Luxembourg
+every morning, on his way from the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle to the Ecole
+de Droit. Sometimes, when he was earlier than usual, he carried a book
+with him, and paced one of the more obscure alleys, reading for an odd
+half-hour before he went to the daily mill-grinding in the big building
+beyond those quiet gardens.
+
+Walking with his book one morning--it was a volume of Boileau, which
+the student knew by heart, and the pages whereof did not altogether
+absorb his attention--he passed and repassed a bench on which a lady
+sat, pensive and solitary, tracing shapeless figures on the ground with
+the point of her parasol. He glanced at her somewhat carelessly the
+first time of passing, more curiously on the second occasion, and
+the third time with considerable attention. Something in her
+attitude--helplessness, hopelessness, nay indeed, despair itself, all
+expressed in the drooping head, the listless hand tracing those idle
+characters on the gravel--enlisted the sympathies of Gustave Lenoble. He
+had pitied her even before his gaze had penetrated the cavernous depths
+of the capacious bonnet of those days; but one glimpse of the pale
+plaintive face inspired him with compassion unspeakable. Never had he
+seen despair more painfully depicted on the human countenance--a despair
+that sought no sympathy, a sorrow that separated the sufferer from the
+outer world. Never had he seen a face so beautiful, even in despair. He
+could have fancied it the face of Andromache, when all that made her
+world had been reft from her; or of Antigone, when the dread fiat had
+gone forth--that funeral rites or sepulture for the last accursed scion
+of an accursed race there were to be none.
+
+He put Boileau into his pocket. That glimpse of a suffering human mind,
+which had been unconsciously revealed to him, possessed an interest more
+absorbing than the grandest flight of poet and satirist. As he passed for
+the fifth time, he looked at the mournful lady still more searchingly,
+and this time the sad eyes were lifted, and met his pitying looks. The
+beautiful lips moved, and murmured something in tones so tremulous as to
+be quite unintelligible.
+
+The student took off his hat, and approached the lady, deferential as
+knight-errant of old awaiting the behest of his liege mistress.
+
+"In what can I have the happiness to be agreeable to you, madame?"
+
+"You are very good, monsieur," murmured the lady in very decent French,
+but with an accent unmistakably foreign--English, as Gustave opined.
+"I--I--am quite a stranger in Paris, and--and--I have heard there are
+numerous lodging-houses in this quarter--where one may obtain a
+lodging--cheaply. I have asked several nursemaids, and other women, in
+the gardens this morning; but they seem very stupid, and can tell me
+nothing; and I do not care to ask at the hotel where I am staying."
+
+Gustave pondered. Yes, there were many lodgings, he informed the lady.
+And then he thought of Madame Magnotte. Was it not his duty to secure
+this stray lodger for that worthy woman, if possible?
+
+"If madame has no objection to a boarding-house--" he began.
+
+Madame shook her head. "A boarding-house would suit me just as well," she
+said; "but it must not be expensive. I cannot afford to pay much."
+
+"I know of a boarding-house very near this place, where madame might find
+a comfortable home on very reasonable terms. It is, in point of fact, the
+house in which I myself reside," added Gustave, with some timidity.
+
+"If you will kindly direct me to the house--" said the lady, looking
+straight before her with sad unseeing eyes, and evidently supremely
+indifferent as to the residence or non-residence of M. Lenoble in the
+habitation referred to.
+
+"Nay, madame, if you will permit me to conduct you there. It is but a
+walk of five minutes."
+
+The stranger accepted the courtesy with a gentle indifference that was
+not ingratitude, but rather incapacity for any feeling except that one
+great sorrow which seemed to absorb her mind.
+
+Gustave wondered what calamity could thus overwhelm one so young and
+beautiful.
+
+The lady was quite silent during the little walk from the gardens to the
+Rue Grande-Mademoiselle, and Gustave observed her attentively as he
+walked by her side. She was evidently not more than four-and-twenty years
+of age, and she was certainly the prettiest woman he had ever seen. It
+was a fair delicate English beauty, a little worn and faded, as if by
+care, but idealized and sublimated in the process. At her brightest this
+stranger must have been strikingly beautiful; in her sorrow she was
+touchingly lovely. It was what Gustave's countrymen call a _beaute
+navrante_.
+
+Gustave watched her, and wondered about her. The dress she wore was
+sufficiently elegant, but had lost the gloss of newness. Her shawl, which
+she carried as gracefully as a Frenchwoman, was darned. Gustave perceived
+the neat careful stitches, and divined the poverty of the wearer. That
+she should be poor was no subject for surprise; but that she, so
+sorrowful, so lonely, should seek a home in a strange city, was an enigma
+not easy to solve.
+
+To Madame Magnotte Gustave introduced the stranger. She gave just one
+look round the dreary saloon; but to Gustave's fancy that one look seemed
+eloquent. "Ah me!" it said; "is this the fairest home I am to find upon
+this inhospitable earth?"
+
+"She does not seem to belong to this world," the young man thought, as
+he went back to the garden where he had found his fair stranger, having
+been very coolly dismissed by Madame Magnotte after his introduction had
+been made.
+
+And then M. Lenoble, being of a romantic turn of mind, remembered how a
+lady had been found by a student sitting on the lowest steps of the
+guillotine, desolate and helpless, at night; and how the student had
+taken her home and sheltered her, and had straightway fallen desperately
+in love with her, to discover, with unutterable horror, that her head had
+been severed from her fair shoulders by the cruel knife twelve hours
+before, and that her melancholy loveliness was altogether phantasmal and
+delusive.
+
+Was this English stranger whom Gustave had found in the gardens of the
+Luxembourg twin sister to that ghostly lady of the familiar legend? Her
+despair and her beauty seemed to him greater than earthly sorrow or
+earthly beauty; and he was half inclined to wonder whether she could be
+of the same race as Madelon Frehlter. And from this hour the sense of a
+weight upon his mind, before so vague and intermittent, became an
+enduring oppression, not to be shaken off by any effort of his will.
+
+All through that day he found himself thinking more of the unknown
+Englishwoman than was consistent with a strict performance of his duties.
+He was vexed with himself on account of this foolish distraction of mind.
+
+"What a frivolous fellow I must be," he said to himself, "to dwell upon
+such a trifle! This comes of leading such a monotonous life."
+
+At dinner he looked for the lady; but she did not appear at the long
+table, where the shrill old ladies, the epicurean old bachelors, the
+noisy students, daily devoured and grumbled at the four or five courses
+which old Nanon developed out of her inner consciousness and a rather
+scantily furnished larder. He questioned Madame Magnotte after dinner,
+and was told that the lady was in the house, but was too tired to dine
+with the other inmates.
+
+"I have to thank thee for a new boarder, my friend," she said. "Madame
+Meynell will not pay largely; but she seems a quiet and respectable
+person, and we shall doubtless be well pleased with each other."
+
+"Madame Meynell!" repeated Gustave, congratulating himself on finding
+that the Englishwoman was an inhabitant of the house he lived in. "She is
+a widow, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, she is a widow. I asked that question, and she answered, yes.
+But she told me nothing of her late husband. She is not at all
+communicative."
+
+This was all Gustave could obtain from Madame Magnotte. She was not
+communicative. No; she was, indeed, scarcely less silent than that
+ghostly lady who had been found sitting at the foot of the guillotine.
+There was some kind of mystery involved in her sorrowful face, her silent
+apathy. It was possibly the fact of this mystery which interested M.
+Lenoble. Certain it is that the young man's interest had been aroused by
+this unknown Englishwoman, and that his mind was more occupied by the
+image of her whom he had seen but once than by that of his plighted wife.
+
+He waited anxiously for the next day; but on the next day Madame Meynell
+still pleaded fatigue and illness. It was only on the third day that she
+appeared at the noisy banquet, pale, silent, absent-minded, sheltering
+herself under the wing of Madame Magnotte, who was disposed to be kind to
+this helpless stranger. To Gustave the young English widow seemed like a
+ghost at that crowded board. He looked at her every now and then from his
+distant seat, and saw her always with the same hopeless far-away look in
+her sad eyes. He himself was silent and _distrait_.
+
+"Of what dost thou dream, my droll one?" said his nearest neighbour.
+"Thou art positively insupportable."
+
+M. Lenoble could not become vivacious or entertaining at the behest of
+his fellow-student. The consciousness of that strange pale face haunted
+and oppressed him. He hoped to have a few minutes' talk with the English
+lady after dinner, but she disappeared before the removal of those
+recondite preparations which in the Pension Magnotte went by the generic
+name of "dessert."
+
+For more than a week she appeared thus at the dinner-table, eating very
+little, speaking not at all, except such monosyllabic replies as the
+hostess now and then extorted from her pale lips. A creature at once so
+beautiful and so profoundly sad became an object of interest to others
+besides Gustave; but in no breast was the sympathy which her sadness and
+beauty excited so poignant as in his. Her face haunted him. The familiar
+pleasures and amusements became distasteful to him. He spent his evenings
+at home in the dismal salon, and was content to listen to the chatter of
+the old women, the little music-mistress's dreary sonatas, the monotonous
+roll of wheels on the distant quay--anything rather than the hackneyed
+round of student-life that had once been agreeable to him. He did not
+fail to write his weekly letter to Cydalise; but, for some reason or
+other, he refrained from any allusion to the English stranger, although
+it was his custom to relate all his adventures for the amusement of the
+family at Beaubocage.
+
+An evening came at last on which Madame Meynell was persuaded to remain
+with the other ladies after dinner.
+
+"It must be very cold and cheerless for you in your bedroom," said
+Madame Magnotte; "why not spend your evening with us, in a pleasant and
+social manner?"
+
+"You are very good, madame," murmured the Englishwoman, in the slow timid
+accents that had so plaintive a sound to Gustave's ear; "if you wish it,
+I will stay."
+
+She seemed to submit rather from utter weakness and inability to refuse
+anything asked of her than from any hope of finding pleasure in the
+society of the Magnotte salon.
+
+It was an evening in March--cold, blustrous, dreary. The east wind blew
+clouds of dust athwart the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle, and the few
+foot-passengers in that dull thoroughfare looked pinched and wretched.
+The old ladies gathered round the great black stove, and gossipped in the
+twilight; the music-mistress went to her feeble piano, and played,
+unasked, unheeded; for Gustave, who was wont to turn the leaves, or sit
+attentive by the piano, seemed this evening unconscious of the music.
+Madame Meynell sat in one of the windows, alone, half-hidden by the faded
+yellow damask curtains, looking out into the street.
+
+Something--some impulse which he tried to resist, but could not--drew
+Gustave towards that lonely figure by the window. He went close up to the
+strange lady. This evening, as in the gardens of the Luxembourg, she
+seemed to him a living statue of despair. Now, as then, he felt an
+interest in her sorrow which he was powerless to combat. He had a vague
+idea that even this compassionate sympathy was in some manner an offence
+against Madelon Frehlter, the woman to whom he belonged, and yet he
+yielded to the fatal weakness.
+
+"Yes, I belong to her," he said to himself; "I belong to Madelon
+Frehlter. She is neither pretty nor fascinating; but I have every reason
+to believe her very good, very amiable; and she is the only woman, except
+those of my own kindred, in whom I have any right to be interested."
+
+He did not say this in so many words; but this was the shape which his
+thoughts assumed as he yielded to the tempter, and walked straight to the
+distant window by which Madame Meynell had seated herself.
+
+She started slightly as he approached her, and then looked up and
+recognized him as her acquaintance of the Luxembourg.
+
+"Good evening, monsieur," she said; "I have to thank you for having
+helped me to find a comfortable home."
+
+Having said this in a low gentle voice, she looked out into the street
+once more with her mournful unseeing eyes. It was evident that she had no
+more to say to M. Lenoble.
+
+The student, however, had no idea of leaving the window just yet,
+although he knew--yes, knew--that his presence there was a wrong done to
+Madelon Frehlter; but a wrong so small, so infinitesimal, that it was
+really not worth consideration.
+
+"I am enchanted to think that I was of some slight service to you,
+madame," he said; "but I fear you will find this quarter of Paris
+very dull."
+
+She did not take any notice of this remark until Gustave had repeated it,
+and then she spoke as if suddenly awakened from a trance.
+
+"Dull?" she said. "No, I have not found it dull. I do not care for
+gaiety."
+
+After this M. Lenoble felt that he could say no more. The lady relapsed
+into her waking trance. The dust-clouds in the silent street seemed more
+interesting to her than M. Lenoble of Beaubocage. He lingered a few
+minutes in the neighbourhood of her chair, thoughtfully observant of the
+delicate profile, the pale clear tints of a complexion that had lost its
+bloom but not its purity, the settled sadness of the perfect mouth, the
+dreamy pensiveness of the dark-grey eye, and then was fain to retire.
+
+After this, the English widow lady spent many evenings in Madame
+Magnotte's salon. The old Frenchwoman gossipped and wondered about
+her; but the most speculative could fashion no story from a page so
+blank as this joyless existence. Even slander could scarcely assail
+a creature so unobtrusive as the English boarder. The elderly ladies
+shrugged their shoulders and pursed up their lips with solemn
+significance. There must needs be something--a secret, a mystery, sorrow,
+or wrong-doing--somewhere; but of Madame Meynell herself no one could
+suspect any harm.
+
+Gustave Lenoble heard little of this gossip about the stranger, but she
+filled his thoughts nevertheless. The vision of her face came between him
+and his work; and when he thought of the future, and of the damsel who
+had been allotted to him for a wife, his thoughts were very bitter.
+
+"Fate is like Laban," he said to himself; "a man works and does his duty
+for seven years, and then Fate gives him Leah instead of Rachel. No doubt
+Leah is a very good young woman; one has no complaint to make against
+her, except that she is not Rachel."
+
+This was not a hopeful manner of looking at things for the destined
+master of Cotenoir. M. Lenoble's letters to the anxious folks at
+Beaubocage became, about this time, somewhat brief and unsatisfactory. He
+no longer gave ample details of his student-life--he no longer wrote in
+his accustomed good spirits. His letters seemed stiff and constrained.
+
+"I am afraid he is studying too much," said the mother.
+
+"I daresay the rascal is wasting his time in dissipation," suggested
+the father.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"PAST HOPE, AND IN DESPAIR."
+
+Two months had elapsed since the bleak spring morning on which Gustave
+Lenoble found the solitary lady under the leafless trees of the
+Luxembourg gardens. The inmates of the Pension Magnotte had grown
+accustomed to her presence, to her silence, her settled sadness, and
+troubled themselves no further respecting herself or her antecedents. The
+lapse of time had brought no improvement to her spirits; indeed, Gustave,
+who watched her closely, perceived that she had grown paler and thinner
+since that March morning when he met her in the public garden. Her life
+must have been painfully monotonous. She very rarely went out of doors,
+and on no occasion ventured beyond the gardens of the Luxembourg. No one
+visited her. She neither wrote nor received any letters. She was wont to
+make a pretence of reading as she sat in her retired corner of the salon;
+but Gustave had discovered that she gave little attention to her book.
+The open volume in her hand seemed no more than an excuse for brooding
+upon her sorrows.
+
+If people, prompted by curiosity or by compassion, endeavoured to get
+into conversation with this lonely lady, the result was always the same.
+She would answer their questions in a low gentle voice, with a quiet
+politeness; but she never assisted them in the smallest degree to
+interchange thoughts with her. It seemed as if she sought neither friend
+nor sympathizer, or as if her case was so entirely hopeless as to admit
+of neither. She paid for her board and lodging weekly with a punctilious
+exactness, though weekly payments were not the rule of the house.
+
+"My movements are uncertain," she said to Madame Magnotte. "I cannot
+tell how long I may be with you. It will therefore be better for me to
+pay you weekly."
+
+She had been in the house two months, dining every day at the public
+table, spending all her evenings in the public saloon; and during that
+time her settled gloom had never been broken by any outburst of grief or
+passion. She might have been a creature of ice, a statue of despair
+modelled in snow by a Michael Angelo. But one night the ice melted, the
+statue of snow became in a moment a passionate, grief-stricken woman.
+
+It was one bright evening late in May. Ah, how near at hand was the
+appointed date of those nuptials to which the household of Beaubocage
+looked forward with supreme happiness! The old ladies of the Pension
+Magnotte were for the most part out of doors. The long saloon was almost
+empty. There were only Gustave, Madame Magnotte, and the little
+music-mistress, who sat at her piano, with the western sunlight shining
+full upon her, rosy-hued and glorious, surrounding her with its soft
+radiance until she looked like a humble St. Cecilia.
+
+Madame Meynell had seated herself close to the piano, and was listening
+to the music. Gustave hovered near, pretending to be occupied with a limp
+little sheet of news published that evening.
+
+Mademoiselle Servin, the teacher of music, upon this occasion deserted
+her favourite masters. She seemed in a somewhat dreamy and sentimental
+humour, and played tender little melodies and simple plaintive airs, that
+were more agreeable to Gustave than those grand examples of the
+mathematics of counter-point which she so loved to interpret.
+
+"You like this melody of Gretry's," said the music-mistress, as M.
+Lenoble seated himself close to the piano. "I do not think you care for
+classic sonatas--the great works of Gluck, or Bach, or Beethoven?"
+
+"No," replied the young man frankly; "I do not care about anything I
+can't understand. I like music that goes to one's heart."
+
+"And you, too, Madame Meynell, like simple melodies?" mademoiselle asked
+of that lady, who was not wont to come so near the little piano, or to
+pay so much attention to Mademoiselle Servin's performance.
+
+"O yes," murmured the Englishwoman, "I like such music as that."
+
+"And you, too, think that Beethoven never composed simple plaintive
+airs--for example," exclaimed the pianist, playing softly while she
+spoke. "You think he wrote only sonatas, quartettes, fugues, grand
+operas, like _Fidelio_. Have you never heard this by your scientific
+Beethoven?"
+
+Hereupon she played "Hope told a flattering tale," with much tenderness
+and delicacy. Her two hearers listened, mute and deeply moved. And then
+from that familiar melody she glided softly into another, most musical,
+most melancholy, which has been set to some of the sweetest verses that
+Thomas Moore ever composed:
+
+"Those evening bells, those evening bells!
+How many a tale their music tells
+Of youth and home, and that sweet time
+When last I heard their soothing chime!"
+
+All the world sang the verses of Ireland's divine bard in those days. The
+song was one which the Englishwoman had sung years ago in a happy home.
+What recollections, what associations, were evoked by that plaintive
+melody, who shall say? The words came back with the music to which they
+have been eternally wedded. The words, their mournful meaning, the faces
+of the friends amongst whom she had last sung them, the picture of the
+peaceful home whose walls had echoed the music,--all these things arose
+before her in a vision too painfully vivid; and the lonely boarder at the
+Pension Magnotte covered her face with her hands, and sobbed aloud.
+
+The passion of tears lasted but a minute. Madame Meynell dried her eyes,
+and rose to leave the room.
+
+"Do not question me," she said, perceiving that her two companions were
+about to offer her their sympathy. "I cannot tell you the memories that
+were conjured up by that music. It brought back a home I shall never see
+again, and the faces of the dead--worse than dead to me--and the
+happiness I have lost, and the hopes and dreams that once were mine. Oh,
+I pray God I may never hear that melody again."
+
+There was a passion, a depth of feeling, in her tone quite new to Gustave
+Lenoble. He opened the door for her without a word, and she passed out of
+the salon quietly, like a ghost--the ghost of that bright young creature
+who had once borne her shape, and been called by her name, in a pleasant
+farmhouse among the Yorkshire wolds.
+
+"Ah, but how that poor soul must have suffered!" cried the sympathetic
+Mademoiselle Servin, as the door closed on the Englishwoman. "I did
+not think it was in her to feel so deeply. I thought she was stone, and
+now I begin to think it must be of such stone as Niobe--the
+petrification of despair."
+
+Upon Gustave Lenoble this scene made a profound impression. He lay awake
+during the greater part of that night, thinking of the lonely lady's
+tears and anguish. The music of "Those evening bells" pervaded his
+dreams. He rose unrefreshed, feverish, forgetful of Cotenoir and Madelon
+Frehlter, as if that place and that person had never emerged from the
+shapeless substances of chaos. He wanted to see _her_ again, to console
+her, if that were possible. Oh, that it might be his privilege to console
+her! He pitied her with a compassion so intense, that thus to
+compassionate her woes, was himself to suffer a poignant anguish. He
+pitied her. Yes, he told himself again and again that this sentiment
+which so absorbed his heart and mind was no more than pity. But oh, if
+this were pity, what were love? That was a question which also presented
+itself to the mind of M. Gustave Lenoble, of Beaubocage _in esse_, and
+Cotenoir _in posse_.
+
+Madame Meynell rarely appeared at the common breakfast in the grim
+dining-room of the Pension Magnotte. Gustave was therefore in nowise
+surprised to miss her on this particular morning. He took a cup of
+coffee, and hurried off to his daily duties. There was a fever on him
+which he could neither understand nor shake off, and he hastened to the
+gardens of the Luxembourg, as if there were some special necessity for
+speed. So do men often hasten unconsciously to their predestined doom,
+defiant of augury. Soothsayers may menace, and wives may dream dreams;
+but when his hour comes, Caesar will go to the appointed spot where the
+daggers of his assassins await him.
+
+In the alley where he had first looked upon her sad face, beneath
+the umbrage of young limes and chestnuts just bursting into bloom,
+he saw the Englishwoman to-day, seated on the same bench, almost in
+the same attitude.
+
+He went up to her, and bade her good morning; and then, intensely
+conscious of his own temerity, seated himself by her side.
+
+"I did not expect to find you here so early."
+
+"No, I seldom come out so soon; but this morning I have to make some
+inquiries upon a matter of business, and I am only resting here before
+going to make them."
+
+She gave a little weary sigh at the end of this speech. It seemed a
+strange manner of transacting business to rest in the Luxembourg gardens,
+which were distant but a few hundred yards from her home. Gustave divined
+that it was for very forlornness she lingered there, shrinking from some
+difficult encounter that lay before her.
+
+"Can I not make the inquiries for you?" he asked. "Pray command me. It
+will be my happiness to be useful to you."
+
+"You are very good. I cannot trouble you so much."
+
+"Pray do not talk of trouble. It can be no trouble to me to aid you in
+any manner. Ah, madame, you do not know how much I would sacrifice to be
+useful to you!"
+
+She must have been dull indeed had she failed to perceive the earnestness
+of his tone. She did perceive it, and was vaguely conscious that in this
+student of law she had a friend.
+
+"I want to know when the diligence for Calais leaves Paris, and from what
+office," she said. "I am going back to England."
+
+She was surprised to see the young man's face blanch as she announced
+this simple fact. The young man himself was surprised by the sudden
+anguish inflicted by her announcement. It was in this moment that he
+first discovered how completely he had given his heart into this strange
+woman's keeping.
+
+"You are really going to leave Paris?--for ever?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Yes. I have been here too long already. I have no business here. I ought
+to have gone back to England that day when I first met you here, but I
+put off the day of my return. I can put it off no longer."
+
+"And you are going back to your friends?" Gustave asked, in a very
+mournful tone.
+
+"I am going back to my friends? Yes!" Her lips quivered a little, and the
+unbidden tears came to her eyes.
+
+Ah, what was the sorrow that oppressed this beauteous lonely creature?
+What agony of grief or self-reproach was this pain which consumed her?
+Gustave remembered her passion of tears on the previous night; her talk
+of friends that were dead, and happiness lost; and now to-day she talked
+of going home to her friends: but O the bitterness of expression with
+which she had spoken that word "friends!"
+
+"Are you going alone, Madame Meynell?" he inquired, after a pause. He
+could not tear himself from that seat by her side. He could not be manly
+or rational where she was concerned. The image of Madelon Frehlter rose
+before his mental vision, reproachful, menacing; but a thick fog
+intervened to obscure that unwelcome image. His whole life resolved
+itself into those thrilling moments in which he sat here, on this common
+garden bench, by this stranger's side; the entire universe was contracted
+into this leafy walk where they two sat.
+
+"Yes, I am going alone," madame replied, with a little laugh. "Who should
+I have to go with me? I am quite alone in the world. I think I had better
+make these inquiries myself, M. Lenoble. There is no reason why I should
+give you so much trouble."
+
+"There is no such thing as trouble. I will bring you all necessary
+information to-day at dinner, if that will be soon enough."
+
+"Quite soon enough, I thank you, monsieur," she answered, with a sigh. "I
+must ask you kindly to ascertain for me also the expense of the journey."
+
+"Most certainly, madame."
+
+This request set him wondering whether she were poor, and how poor. But
+she had evidently no more to say to him; she had again become
+impenetrable. He would fain have stayed, though honour and conscience
+were clamorous in their demands for his departure. Happily for honour and
+conscience, the lady was silent as death, impervious as marble; so M.
+Lenoble presently bowed and departed.
+
+He thought of her all day long. The farce of pity was ended. He knew now
+that he loved this Englishwoman with an affection at once foolish and
+sinful,--foolish, since he knew not who or what this woman was; sinful,
+since the indulgence of this passion involved the forfeiture of his
+plighted word, the disappointment of those who loved him.
+
+"No, no, no," he said to himself; "I cannot do this base and wicked
+thing. I must marry Madelon. All the hopes of my mother and father rest
+on that marriage; and to disappoint them because this stranger's face has
+bewitched me? Ah, no, it cannot be. And even if I were willing to trample
+my honour in the dust, how do I know that she would value or accept the
+sacrifice?"
+
+M. Lenoble made all necessary inquiries at the office of the Messageries,
+and carried the intelligence to Madame Meynell. He could see that she
+winced a little when he told her the cost of the journey, which in those
+days was heavy.
+
+"She must certainly be poor," he said to himself; and it rent his heart
+to think that even in this paltry matter he could be of no use to her.
+The destined master of Beaubocage and Cotenoir was entirely without ready
+money. He had his watch. He put his hand upon that clumsy timekeeper as
+he talked to madame.
+
+"_Je te porterai chez ma tante, mon gars_," he said to himself. But he
+doubted whether the high priests of the pious mountain--the Dordona of
+Pauperism--would advance much upon this antique specimen of the
+watchmaker's art.
+
+After this evening he looked forward daily, hourly, to the anguish of her
+departure. She would vanish out of his life, intangible as a melted
+snow-flake, and only memory would stay behind to tell him he had known
+and loved her. Why should this be so hard to bear? If she stayed, he
+dared not tell her she was dear to him; he dared not stretch forth his
+hand to help her. In all the world there was no creature more utterly
+apart from him than she, whether she lived in the same house with him or
+was distant as the Antipodes. What did it matter, then, since she was
+destined to disappear from his life, whether she vanished to-day or a
+year hence? He argued with himself that it could be a question of no
+moment to him. There was a death-blow that must descend upon him, cruel,
+inevitable. Let it come when it would.
+
+Every day when he came home to dinner, M. Lenoble expected to behold a
+vacant place by the side of his hostess; every day he was pleasantly
+disappointed. The pale hopeless face was still to be seen, ghost-like, at
+that noisy board. The face was more pale, more hopeless, as it seemed to
+Gustave, every day he looked upon it.
+
+He asked Madame Magnotte when the English lady was going to leave, but
+she could not tell.
+
+"She talks of leaving from day to day," said madame; "it will no doubt be
+soon. I am sorry to lose her. She is very gentle, and gives no trouble to
+any one. But she is sad--ah, how sad she is! She has suffered, monsieur."
+
+Gustave agreed to this. Yes, she had suffered; but what, and how?
+
+He watched her closely, but she was always the same. She no longer spent
+her evenings in the salon, but in her own apartment. He saw her only at
+dinner-time, and had no opportunity of speaking to her.
+
+At last the day came upon which he missed her at the usual hour. He sat
+through the tedious meal without speaking; eating a little, drinking a
+little, mechanically, but with no consciousness of what he ate or drank.
+There was a mist before his eyes, a confusion of voices in his ears; but
+the faculties of sight and hearing seemed suspended. The agony he
+suffered during that miserable hour was bitter as death.
+
+"O, my God, how I love her!" he said to himself, while Raoul's bass roar
+brayed in his ear on one side, and Leon's shrill squeal tortured him on
+the other.
+
+He made his way to Madame Magnotte directly after dinner.
+
+"She is gone?" he exclaimed.
+
+"But who, my friend? Ah, yes; it is of that poor Madame Meynell you
+speak. How you are interested in her! No, she is not gone, poor woman.
+She remains always. She has the air of a person who knows not her own
+mind. Yet I am sure she thinks of going. To-day, for the first time, she
+has been writing letters. Reine came to tell me she had seen her occupied
+in her own room for the first time. It is not her habit to occupy
+herself."
+
+Gustave's heart gave a great jump. She was not gone; he might see her
+again--if it were but a glimpse of her pale face looking out of the
+diligence as it drove out of the Cour de Messageries. One look, one
+glance; it would be something to carry in his heart all his life. All his
+life! He looked forward and shuddered. What a dreary life it must needs
+be! Cotenoir, Beaubocage, Madelon, the law; to plead, to read papers, to
+study dry as dust books. He shrank appalled from the contemplation of
+that dreary desert of existence--a life without her.
+
+She had been writing letters--doubtless letters to her friends to
+announce her return. Her departure must be very near at hand.
+
+Gustave refused to go out that evening. His fellow-students were bent on
+a night's pleasure at a dancing-garden then in vogue, where there would
+be twinkling lamps and merry music under the May moon. The lamp-lit
+parterres, the joyous waltzes, had no attractions for Gustave Lenoble. He
+haunted the dull salon, dim and dreary in the twilight; for Madame
+Magnotte was chary of lamps and candles, and prolonged to its utmost
+limits the pensive interval between day and night. He walked softly up
+and down the room, unheeded by the ladies clustered in a group by one of
+the windows. Restless and unhappy, he could neither go nor stay. She was
+not coming down to the salon this evening. He had clung to the faint hope
+that she might appear; but the faint hope died away in his breast as the
+night deepened. What purpose could be served by his remaining in that
+dismal room? He was no nearer her than he would have been in the
+remotest wilds of Central America. He would go out--not to the odious
+dancing-garden, but to the cool dark streets, where the night wind might
+blow this fever from his brain.
+
+He left the room suddenly, and hurried downstairs. At the bottom of the
+staircase he almost stumbled against a woman, who turned and looked at
+him in the light of a little oil-lamp that hung over the door of the
+portress's lodge.
+
+It was the Englishwoman, deadly pale, and with a wild look in her face
+that Gustave had never seen there before. She gave him no sign of
+recognition, but passed out of the courtyard, and walked rapidly away.
+That unusual look in her face, the strangeness of the fact that she
+should be leaving the house at this hour, inspired him with a vague
+terror, and he followed her, not stealthily, without a thought that he
+was doing any wrong by such an act--rather, indeed, with the conviction
+that he had a right so to follow her.
+
+She walked very quickly--at a more rapid pace than Gustave would have
+supposed possible for so fragile a creature. She chose the lonelier
+streets, and Gustave had no difficulty in following her; she never looked
+back, but went straight on her course, without pause or slackening of her
+pace, as if with a settled purpose.
+
+"Where can she be going?" Gustave asked himself; and an answer, vague,
+hideous, terrible, suggested itself to his mind. The idea that occurred
+to him was one that would scarcely have occurred to an Englishman under
+the same circumstances, but to a Frenchman it was a very familiar idea.
+
+It was dark now--the darkness that reigns between early sunset and late
+moonrise. As the lonely woman went farther along the dreary streets
+parallel with the quay, the dreadful suspicion grew stronger in Gustave's
+mind. From that instant he had but one thought; in that moment he put
+away from him for ever all sense of obligation to Madelon Frehlter; he
+shook off father, mother, sister, old associations, home ties, ambition,
+fortune--he lived alone for this woman, and the purpose of his life was
+to save her from despair and death.
+
+They emerged upon the quay at last. The long stretch of pavement was
+deserted. Ah, now she looked back--she looked on every side with wild
+unseeing eyes--and now there could be little doubt as to the purpose that
+brought her here. She crossed the road, and went upon the bridge, Gustave
+following close; in the next minute she was standing on the stone bench,
+a tremulous, fluttering figure, with arms stretched towards the water; in
+a breath she was clasped to Gustave's breast, clasped by arms that meant
+to hold her for ever.
+
+The shock of that surprise utterly unnerved the wretched creature. She
+shivered violently, and struggled to free herself from those strong arms.
+
+"Let me go!" she cried in English. "Let me go!" And then, finding herself
+powerless, she turned and looked at her captor. "M. Lenoble! O, why do
+you persecute me? Why do you follow me?"
+
+"Because I want to save you."
+
+"To save me! To snatch me back when I was going to find rest--an end for
+my weary life! O yes, I know that it is a sinful end; but my life has
+been all sin."
+
+"Your life all sin! Foolish one, I will never believe that."
+
+"It is true," she cried, with passionate self-reproach. "The sin of
+selfishness, and pride, and disobedience. There is no fate too hard for
+me--but, O, my fate is very hard! Why did you keep me from that river?
+You do not know how miserable my life is--you do not know. I paid my
+last penny to Madame Magnotte this morning. I have no money to take me
+back to England, even if I dared go there--and I dare not. I have prayed
+for courage, for strength to go back, but my prayers have not been
+heard; and there is nothing for me but to die. What would be the sin of
+my throwing myself into that river! I must die; I shall die of
+starvation in the streets."
+
+"No, no," cried Gustave passionately; "do you think I have dragged you
+back from death to give you to loneliness and despair? My dear one, you
+are mine--mine by right of this night. These arms that have kept you
+from death shall shelter you,--ah, let them shelter you! These hands
+shall work for you. My love, my love! you cannot tell how dear you are
+to me. If there must be want or trouble for either of us, it shall come
+to me first."
+
+He had placed her on the stone bench, bewildered and unresisting, and had
+seated himself by her side. The fragile figure, shivering still, even in
+the mild atmosphere of the spring night, was sustained by his encircling
+arm. He felt that she was his, irrevocably and entirely--given to him by
+the Providence which would have seemed to have abandoned her, but for the
+love it had implanted for her in this one faithful heart. His tone had
+all the pleading tenderness of a lover's, but it had something more--an
+authority, a sense of possession.
+
+"Providence sent me here to save you," he said, with that gentle yet
+authoritative tone; "I am your providence, am I not, dearest? Fate made
+me love you--fondly, hopelessly, as I thought. Yesterday you seemed as
+far away from me as those pale stars, shining up yonder--as
+incomprehensible as that faint silvery mist above the rising moon--and
+to-night you are my own."
+
+He knew not what ties might be broken by this act. He had indeed a vague
+consciousness that the step which he was now taking would cause a
+lifelong breach between himself and his father. But the time had gone by
+in which he could count the cost.
+
+"Let me go back, M. Lenoble," the Englishwoman said presently. The
+faintness of terror was passing away, and she spoke almost calmly. "Let
+me go back to the house. It is you that have saved me from a dreadful
+sin. I promise you that I will not again think of committing that deadly
+sin. I will wait for the end to come. Let me go, my kind friend. Ah, no,
+no; do not detain me! Forget that you have ever known me."
+
+"That is not in my power. I will take you back to the Pension Magnotte
+directly; but you must first promise to be my wife."
+
+"Your wife! O, no, no, no! That is impossible."
+
+"Because you do not love me," said Gustave, with mournful gravity.
+
+"Because I am not worthy of you."
+
+Humiliation and self-reproach unspeakable were conveyed in those few
+words.
+
+"You are worth all the stars to me. If I had them in my hands, those
+lamps shining up there, I would throw them away, to hold you," said the
+student passionately. "You cannot understand my love, perhaps. I seem a
+stranger to you, and all I say sounds wild and foolish. My love, it is
+true as the heaven above us--true as life or death--death that was so
+near you just now. I have loved you ever since that bleak March morning
+on which I saw you sitting under the leafless trees yonder. You held me
+from that moment. I was subjugated--possessed--yours at once and for
+ever. I would not confess even to myself that my heart had resigned
+itself to you; but I know now that it was so from the first. Is there any
+hope that you will ever pay me back one tithe of my love?"
+
+"You love me," the Englishwoman repeated slowly, as if the words were
+almost beyond her comprehension,--"you love _me_, a creature so lost, so
+friendless! Ah, but you do not know my wretched story!"
+
+"I do not ask to know it. I only ask one question--will you be my wife?"
+
+"You must be mad to offer your name, your honour to me."
+
+"Yes, I am mad--madly in love. And I am waiting for your answer. You
+will be my wife? My angel, you will say yes! It is not much that I offer
+you--a life of uncertainty, perhaps even of poverty; but a fond and
+constant heart, and a head and hands that will work for you while God
+gives them strength. It is better than the river."
+
+All that was thoughtless and hopeful in his disposition was expressed in
+these words. The woman to whom he pleaded was weakened by sorrow, and
+the devotion of this brave true heart brought her strength, comfort,
+almost hope.
+
+"Will you be my friend?" she said gently. "Your words seem to bring me
+back to life. I wanted to die because I was so wretched, so lonely. I
+have friends in England--friends who were once all that is dear and kind;
+but I dare not go to them. I think a cruel look from one of those friends
+would kill me with a pain more bitter than any other death could give.
+And I have no right to hope for kind looks from them. Yours are the only
+words of friendship I have heard for a long time."
+
+"And you will give me the right to work for you--to protect you? You will
+be my wife?"
+
+"I would rather be your servant," she answered, with sad humility. "What
+right have I to accept so great a sacrifice? What folly can be so foolish
+as your love for me--if it is indeed love, and not a wild fancy of
+to-night!"
+
+"It is a fancy that will last my life."
+
+"Ah, you do not know how such fancies change."
+
+"I know nothing except that mine is changeless. Come, my love, it is
+growing late and cold. Let me take you home. The portress will wonder.
+You must slip past her quietly with your veil down. Did you give old
+Margot your key when you came down stairs to-night?"
+
+"No, it is in my pocket. I was not thinking--I--"
+
+She stopped with a sudden shudder. Gustave understood that shudder; he
+also shuddered. She had left her room that night possessed by the
+suicide's madness; she had left it to come straight to death. Happily his
+strong arm had come between her and that cruel grave by which they were
+still lingering.
+
+They walked slowly back to the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle under the light of
+the newly-risen moon. The Englishwoman's wasted hand rested for the first
+time on M. Lenoble's arm. She was his--his by the intervention and by the
+decree of Providence! That became a conviction in the young man's mind.
+He covered her late return to the house with diplomatic art, engaging the
+portress in conversation while the dark figure glided past in the dim
+lamplight. On the staircase he paused to bid her good night.
+
+"You will walk with me in the Luxembourg garden to-morrow morning,
+dearest," he said. "I have so much to say--so much. Until then, adieu!"
+
+He kissed her hand, and left her on the threshold of her apartment, and
+then went to his own humble bachelor's chamber, singing a little drinking
+song in his deep manly voice, happy beyond all measure.
+
+They walked together next day in the gardens of the Luxembourg. The poor
+lonely creature whom Gustave had rescued seemed already to look up to him
+as a friend and protector, if not in the character of a future husband.
+It was no longer this fair stranger who held possession of Gustave; it
+was Gustave who had taken possession of her. The stronger nature had
+subjugated the weaker. So friendless, so utterly destitute--penniless,
+helpless, in a strange land, it is little matter for wonder that Susan
+Meynell accepted the love that was at once a refuge and a shelter.
+
+"Let me tell you my wretched story," she pleaded, as she walked under the
+chestnut-trees by her lover's side. "Let me tell you everything. And if,
+when you have heard what an unhappy creature I am, you still wish to give
+me your heart, your name, I will be obedient to your wish. I will not
+speak to you of gratitude. If you could understand how debased an outcast
+I seemed to myself last night when I went to the river, you would know
+how I must feel your goodness. But you can never understand--you can
+never know what you seem to me."
+
+And then in a low voice, and with infinite shame and hesitation, she told
+him her story.
+
+"My father was a tradesman in the city of London," she said. "We were
+very well off, and my home ought to have been a happy one. Ah, how happy
+such a home would seem to me now! But I was idle and frivolous and
+discontented in those days, and was dissatisfied with our life in the
+city because it seemed dull and monotonous to me. When I look back now
+and remember how poor a return I gave for the love that was given to
+me--my mother's anxiety, my father's steady, unpretending kindness--I
+feel how well I have deserved the sorrows that have come to me since
+then."
+
+She paused here, but Gustave did not interrupt her. His interest was too
+profound for any conventional expression. He was listening to the story
+of his future wife's youth. That there could be any passage in that
+history which would hinder him from claiming this woman as his wife was a
+possibility he did not for a moment contemplate. If there were shame
+involved in the story, as Madame Meynell's manner led him to suppose
+there must be, so much the worse was it for him, since the shame must be
+his, as she was his.
+
+"When my father and mother died, I went into Yorkshire to live with my
+married sister. I cannot find words to tell you how kind they were to
+me--my sister and her husband. I had a little money left me by my father,
+and I spent the greater part of it on fine dress, and on foolish presents
+to my sister and her children. I was happier in Yorkshire than I had been
+in London; for I saw more people, and my life seemed gayer and brighter
+than in the city. One day I saw a gentleman, the brother of a nobleman
+who lived in the neighbourhood of my sister's house. We met by accident
+in a field on my brother-in-law's farm, where the gentleman was shooting;
+and after that he came to the house. He had seen my sister before, and
+made some excuse for renewing his acquaintance. He came very often, and
+before long he asked me to marry him; and I promised to be his wife, with
+my sister's knowledge and consent. She loved me so dearly, and was so
+proud of me out of her dear love, that she saw nothing wonderful in this
+engagement, especially as Mr. Kingdon, the gentleman I am speaking of,
+was a younger son, and by no means a rich man."
+
+Again she stopped, and waited a little before continuing her story. Only
+by a gentle pressure of the tremulous hand resting on his arm did Gustave
+express his sympathy.
+
+"I cannot tell you, how happy I was in those days--so bright, so brief. I
+cannot tell you how I loved Montague Kingdon. When I look back to that
+time of my life, it seems like a picture standing out against a
+background of darkness, with some strange vivid light shining upon it. It
+was arranged between Montague and my sister that we should be married as
+soon as his brother, Lord Durnsville, had paid his debts. The payment of
+the debts was an old promise of Lord Durnsville's, and an imprudent
+marriage on his brother's part might have prevented the performance of
+it. This is what Montague told my sister Charlotte. She begged him to
+confide in her husband, my kind brother-in-law, but this he refused to
+do. There came a day very soon after this when James Halliday, my
+brother-in-law, was told about Montague Kingdon's visits to the farm. He
+came home and found Mr. Kingdon with us; and then there was a dreadful
+scene between them. James forbade Mr. Kingdon ever again to set foot in
+his house. He scolded my sister, he warned me. It was all no use. I loved
+Montague Kingdon as you say you love me--foolishly, recklessly. I could
+not disbelieve or doubt him. When he told me of his plans for our
+marriage, which was to be kept secret until Lord Durnsville had paid his
+debts, I consented to leave Newhall with him to be married in London. If
+he had asked me for my life, I must have given it to him. And how should
+I disbelieve his promises when I had lived only amongst people who were
+truth itself? He knew that I had friends in London, and it was arranged
+between us that I was to be married from the house of one of them, who
+had been my girlish companion, and who was now well married. I was to
+write, telling her of my intended journey to town; and on the following
+night I was to leave Newhall secretly with Montague Kingdon. I was to
+make my peace with my sister and her husband after my marriage. How shall
+I tell you the rest? From the first to last he deceived me. The carriage
+that was, as I believed, to have taken us to London, carried us to Hull.
+From Hull we crossed to Hamburg. From that time my story is all shame and
+misery. I think my heart broke in the hour in which I discovered that I
+had been cheated. I loved him, and clung to him long after I knew him to
+be selfish and false and cruel. It seemed to be a part of my nature to
+love him. My life was not the kind of life one reads of in novels. It was
+no existence of splendour and luxury and riot, but one long struggle with
+debt and difficulty. We lived abroad--not for our pleasure, but because
+Mr. Kingdon could not venture to appear in England. His brother, Lord
+Durnsville, had never promised to pay his debts. That was a falsehood
+invented to deceive my sister. For seven long weary years I was his
+slave, a true and faithful slave; his nurse in illness, his patient
+drudge at all times. We had been wandering about France for two years,
+when he brought me to Paris; and it was here he first began to neglect
+me. O, if you could know the dreary days and nights I have spent at the
+hotel on the other side of the river, where we lived, you would pity me."
+
+"My dear love, my heart is all pity for you," said Gustave. "Do not tell
+me any more. I can guess the end of the story. There came a day in which
+neglect gave place to desertion."
+
+"Yes; Mr. Kingdon left me one day without a warning word to break the
+blow. I had been waiting and watching for him through two weary days and
+nights, when there came a letter to tell me he was on his way to Vienna
+with a West Indian gentleman and his daughter. He was to be married to
+the daughter. It was his poverty, he told me, which compelled this step.
+He advised me to go back to my friends in Yorkshire. To go back!--as if
+he did not know that death would be easier to me. There was a small sum
+of money in the letter, on which I have lived since that time. When you
+first met me here, I had not long received that letter."
+
+This was the end of her story. In the depth of her humiliation she dared
+not lift her eyes to the face of her companion; but she felt his hand
+clasp hers, and knew that he was still her friend. This was all she asked
+of Providence.
+
+To Gustave Lenoble the story had been unutterably painful. He had hoped
+to hear a tragedy untarnished by shame, and the shame was very bitter to
+him. This woman whom he loved so fondly was no spotless martyr, the
+victim of inevitable fate, beautiful and sublime in her affliction. She
+was only a weak vain, village beauty who had suffered herself to be lured
+away from her peaceful home by the falsehoods of a commonplace scoundrel.
+
+The story was common, the shame was common, but it seemed to M. Lenoble
+that the woman by his side was his destiny; and then, prompt to the
+rescue of offended pride, of outraged love--tortured to think that she,
+so distant and pure a creature to him, should have been trampled in the
+dust by another--came the white-winged angel Pity. By her weakness, by
+her humiliation, by the memory of her suffering, Pity conjured him to
+love her so much the more dearly.
+
+"My darling," he said softly, "it is a very sad story, and you and I will
+never speak of it again. We will bury the memory of Montague Kingdon in
+the deepest grave that was ever dug for bitter remembrances; and we will
+begin a new life together."
+
+This was the end of M. Lenoble's wooing. He could not speak of his love
+any more while the sound of Montague Kingdon's name had but lately died
+away on Susan Meynell's lips. He had taken her to himself, with all her
+sorrows and sins, in the hour in which he snatched her from death; and
+between these two there was no need of passionate protestations or
+sentimental rapture.
+
+M. Lenoble speedily discovered that the law had made no provision for the
+necessities of a chivalrous young student eager to unite himself with a
+friendless foreign woman, who could not produce so much as one of the
+thirty witnesses required to establish her identity. A very little
+consideration showed Gustave that a marriage between him and Susan
+Meynell in France was an impossibility. He explained this, and asked her
+if she would trust him as she had trusted Montague Kingdon. In Jersey the
+marriage might easily be solemnised. Would she go with him to Jersey, to
+stay there so long as the English law required for the solemnization of
+their union?
+
+"Why should you take so much trouble about me?" said Susan, in her low
+sad voice. "You are too good, too generous. I am not worth so much care
+and thought from you."
+
+"Does that mean that you will not trust me, Susan?"
+
+"I would trust you with my life in a desert, thousands of miles from the
+rest of mankind--with a happier life than mine. I have no feeling in my
+heart but love for you, and faith in you."
+
+After this the rest was easy. The lovers left the Pension Magnotte one
+bright summer morning, and journeyed to Jersey, where, after a
+fortnight's sojourn, the English Protestant church united them in the
+bonds of matrimony.
+
+Susan was a Protestant, Gustave a Catholic, but the difference of
+religion divided them no more than the difference of country. They came
+back to Paris directly after the marriage, and M. Lenoble took a very
+modest lodging for himself and his wife in a narrow street near the
+Pantheon--a fourth story, very humbly furnished. M. Lenoble had provided
+for himself an opportunity of testing the truth of that adage which
+declares that a purse large enough for one is also large enough for two.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+A DECREE OF BANISHMENT.
+
+After those stormy emotions which accompany the doing of a desperate
+deed, there comes in the minds of men a dead calm. The still small voice
+of Wisdom, unheard while Passion's tempest was raging, whispers grave
+counsel or mild reproof; and Folly, who, seen athwart the storm-cloud,
+sublime in the glare of the lightning, seemed inspiration, veils her face
+in the clear, common light of day.
+
+Let it not for a moment be supposed that with M. Lenoble time and
+reflection brought repentance in their train. It was not so. The love
+which he felt for his English wife was no capricious emotion; it was a
+passion deep and strong as destiny. The worst that afterthought could
+reveal to him was the fact that the step he had taken was a very
+desperate one. Before him lay an awful necessity--the necessity of going
+to Beaubocage to tell those who loved him how their air-built castles had
+been shattered by this deed of his.
+
+The letters from Cydalise--nay, indeed, more than one letter from his
+mother, with whom letter-writing was an exceptional business--had of late
+expressed much anxiety. In less than a month the marriage-contract would
+be made ready for his signature. Every hour's delay was a new dishonour.
+He told his wife that he must go home for a few days; and she prepared
+his travelling gear, with a sweet dutiful care that seemed to him like
+the ministration of an angel.
+
+"My darling girl, can I ever repay you for the happiness you have brought
+me!" he exclaimed, as he watched the slight girlish figure flitting about
+the room, busy with the preparations for his journey.
+
+And then he thought of Madelon Frehlter--commonplace, stiff, and
+unimpressionable--the most conventional of school-girls, heavy in face,
+in figure, in step, in mind even, as it had seemed to him, despite his
+sister's praises.
+
+He had been too generous to tell Susan of his engagement, of the
+brilliant prospects he forfeited by his marriage, or the risk which he
+ran of offending his father by that rash step. But to-night, when he
+thought of Madelon's dulness and commonness, it seemed to him as if Susan
+had in manner rescued him from a dreadful fate--as maidens were rescued
+from sea-monsters in the days of Perseus and Heracles.
+
+"Madelon is not unlike a whale," he thought. "They tell us that whales
+are of a sagacious and amiable temper,--and Cydalise was always talking
+of Madelon's good sense and amiablity. I am sure it is quite as easy to
+believe in the unparalleled virtues of the whale as in the unparalleled
+virtues of Madelon Frehlter."
+
+His valise was packed, and he departed for Beaubocage, after a sad and
+tender parting from his wife. The journey was a long one in those days,
+when no express train had yet thundered across the winding Seine,
+cleaving its iron way through the bosom of fertile Norman valleys. M.
+Lenoble had ample time for reflection as he jogged along in the ponderous
+diligence; and his heart grew more and more heavy as the lumbering
+vehicle approached nearer to the town of Vevinord, whence he was to make
+his way to the paternal mansion as best he might.
+
+He walked to Beaubocage, attended by a peasant lad, who carried his
+portmanteau. The country was very pleasant in the quiet summer
+evening, but conscious guilt oppressed the heart and perplexity
+disturbed the mind of M. Gustave Lenoble, and his spirits were in
+nowise elevated by the walk.
+
+Lights in the lower chambers gleamed dimly athwart the trim garden at
+Beaubocage. One faint twinkling candle shone in a little pepper-castor
+turret, his sister's room. The thought of their glad welcome smote his
+heart. How could he shape the words that must inform them of their
+disappointment? And then he thought of the gentle pensive wife in the
+Parisian lodging, so grateful for his devotion, so tender and
+submissive,--the wife he had rescued from death and eternal condemnation,
+as it seemed to his pious Catholic mind. The thought of this dear one
+gave him courage.
+
+"I owe much to my parents," he thought to himself, "but not the privilege
+to sell me for money. The marriage they want to bring about would be a
+sordid barter of my heart and my honour."
+
+In a few minutes after this he was standing in the little salon at
+Beaubocage, with his mother and sister hanging about him and caressing
+him, his father standing near, less demonstrative, but evidently well
+pleased by this unexpected arrival of the son and heir.
+
+"I heard thy voice in the hall," cried Cydalise, "and flew down from my
+room to welcome thee. It seems to me that one can fly on these occasions.
+And how thou art looking well, and how thou art handsome, and how I adore
+thee!" cries the damsel, more ecstatic than an English sister on a like
+occasion. "Dost thou know that we began to alarm ourselves about thee?
+Thy letters became so infrequent, so cold. And all the while thou didst
+plot this surprise for us. Ah, how it is sweet to see thee again!"
+
+And then the mother took up the strain, and anon was spoken the dreaded
+name of Madelon. She too would be glad--she too had been anxious. The
+prodigal made no answer. He could not speak, his heart sank within him,
+he grew cold and pale; to inflict pain on those who loved him was a
+sharper pain than death.
+
+"Gustave!" cried the mother, in sudden alarm, "thou growest pale--thou
+art ill! Look then, Francois, thy son is ill!"
+
+"No, mother, I am not ill," the young man replied gravely. He kissed his
+mother, and put her gently away from him. In all the years of her
+after-life she remembered that kiss, cold as death, for it was the
+farewell kiss of her son.
+
+"I wish to speak a few words with you alone, father," said Gustave.
+
+The father was surprised, but in no manner alarmed by this request. He
+led the way to his den, a small and dingy chamber, where there were some
+dusty editions of the French classics, and where the master of Beaubocage
+kept accounts and garden-seeds and horse-medicines.
+
+When they were gone, the mother and sister sat by one of the open
+windows, waiting for them. Without all was still. Distant lights
+glimmered through the summer twilight, the lighted windows of Cotenoir.
+
+"How pleased Madelon will be," said Cydalise, looking towards those
+glimmering windows. She had really taught herself to believe that the
+demoiselle Frehlter was a most estimable young person; but she would have
+been glad to find more enthusiasm, more brightness and vivacity, in her
+future sister-in-law.
+
+The interview between the father and son seemed long to Madame Lenoble
+and Cydalise. The two women were curious--nay, indeed, somewhat anxious.
+
+"I fear he has made debts," said the mother, "and is telling thy father
+of his follies. I know not how they are to be paid, unless with the dowry
+of Madelon, and that would seem a dishonourable use of her money."
+
+It was half an hour before any sound broke the stillness of that quiet
+house. Twilight had thickened into night, when there came a banging of
+doors and heavy footsteps in the hall. The door of the salon was
+opened, and M. Lenoble came in alone. At the same moment the outer door
+closed heavily.
+
+M. Lenoble went straight to the open window and closed the Venetian
+shutters. He went from thence to the second window, the shutters whereof
+he fastened carefully, while the women stared at him wonderingly, for it
+was not his habit to perform this office.
+
+"I am shutting out a vagabond," he said, in a cold, cruel voice.
+
+"Where is Gustave?" cried the mother, alarmed.
+
+"He is gone."
+
+"But he is coming back, is he not, directly?"
+
+"Never while I live!" answered M. Lenoble. "He has married an English
+adventuress, and is no longer any son of mine."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Second.
+
+
+
+DOWNHILL.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+THE FATE OF SUSAN LENOBLE.
+
+Seven years after that miserable summer night at Beaubocage on which
+Gustave Lenoble was disowned by his father, a man and woman, with a boy
+five years of age, were starving in a garret amongst the housetops and
+chimneys of Rouen. In the busy city these people lived lonely as in a
+forest, and were securely hidden from the eyes of all who had ever
+known them. The man--haggard, dying--cherished a pride that had grown
+fiercer as the grip of poverty tightened upon him. The woman lived only
+for her husband and her child.
+
+The man was Gustave Lenoble. The world had gone ill with him since he
+cast his destiny into the lap of the woman he loved. In all these years
+no olive-bearing dove had spanned the gulf that yawned between the
+prodigal and his father. The seigneur of Beaubocage had been marble. A
+narrow-minded old man, living his narrow life, and nursing one idea with
+fanatical devotion, was of all men the least likely to forgive. Vain had
+been the tears and entreaties of mother and sister. The doors of that
+joyless dwelling on the fertile flats beyond Vevinord were sealed against
+the offender with a seal not to be broken, even had he come thither to
+plead for pardon, which he did not.
+
+"My father would have sold me as negro slaves are sold _la-bas_," he said,
+on those rare occasions when he opened his old wounds, which were to the
+last unhealed: "I am glad that I escaped the contemptible barter."
+
+He was in very truth glad. Poverty and hardship seemed to him easier to
+bear than the dreary prosperity of Cotenoir and a wife he could not have
+loved. The distinguishing qualities of this man's mind were courage and
+constancy. There are such noble souls born into the world, some to shine
+with lustre supernal, many to burn and die in social depths, obscure as
+ocean's deepest cavern.
+
+In his love for the woman he had chosen Gustave Lenoble never wavered. He
+worked for her, he endured for her, he hoped against hope for her sake;
+and it was only when bodily strength failed that this nameless
+foot-soldier began to droop and falter in life's bitter battle. Things
+had gone ill with him. He had tried his fate as an advocate in Paris, in
+Caen, in Rouen--but clients would not come. He had been a clerk, now in
+one counting-house, now in another, and Susan and he had existed somehow
+during the seven years of their married life.
+
+They clung to each other with affection that seemed to grow with every
+new sorrow; nor did love exhibit any inclination to spread his wings and
+take flight from the window, though poverty came in every day at the
+door, and sat by the hearth, a familiar companion and inevitable guest.
+
+The mother and sister contrived to help this poor castaway with the
+veriest scrapings of a miserly household. The old man, soured by his
+great disappointment, grew sordid and covetous with increasing years, and
+the lives of the women were hard and hopeless. By little cheats, and
+petty contrivances, and pitiful falsifications of financial statements,
+they managed to scrape together a few louis now and then for the
+struggling exile; and to do this was the sole delight of their patient
+lives. They contrived also to correspond secretly with Gustave, and were
+informed of the birth of his son.
+
+"Ah, if thou couldst see how beautiful he is," wrote the father, "this
+child of pure and true love, thou wouldst no longer regret my breach of
+faith with Madelon Frehlter. I knew not until now how like infant
+children are to angels. I knew not how true to nature are the angels in
+the pictures of Raffaelle and Murillo. Thou knowest the print of
+Murillo's Assumption; the picture is in the Louvre. If thou canst
+remember that picture, dear mother, thou hast but to recall the face of
+one of the cherubim about the feet of our Lady, and thou hast the
+portrait of my boy. He opens his eyes, and looks at me as I write. Ah!
+that he and I and my Susan were with thee in the little salon at
+Beaubocage--my sister, Susan, you, and I united round this darling's
+cradle. He has been born in poverty, but his birth has made us very
+happy."
+
+The sentiment of this letter was no spurious or transient feeling. For
+this child Gustave Lenoble evinced an unchanging fondness. It was indeed
+no part of his nature to change. The little one was his comfort in
+affliction, his joy during every brief interval of prosperity. When the
+battle was well nigh fought, and he began to feel himself beaten. His
+chief anxieties, his ever-returning fears, were for his wife and child.
+
+To Susan the thought of parting from him was a despair too deep for
+tears. She would have been something less than woman if she had not loved
+her husband with more than common affection. She watched the change that
+illness brought in the frank face, the stalwart figure; and little by
+little the awful truth came home to her. The hour was at hand in which
+she must lose him.
+
+"If you could have rest, Gustave, better medical advice, more comforts,
+you would soon be strong again. I am sure your father would not refuse to
+forgive you now. Write to him, dearest. Go back to Beaubocage, and let
+your mother and sister nurse you. I will stay here with the little one.
+It shall be forgotten that you have a wife and child."
+
+"No, dear one; I will not desert you, even for a day, to buy back my
+father's love. I would rather be here with you than in the pleasantest
+home without you. But we must face the future, Susan; we must be brave
+and wise, for the little one's sake. You are not so strong that you can
+afford to trust blindly in your power to protect him by-and-by. I have
+written a letter to my father. He has proved himself a hard man to me,
+cruel and obdurate beyond all my fears; but I know he is not altogether
+heartless. When I am dead, you will take the letter in one hand, the
+child in the other, and go to Beaubocage. I believe he will adopt the
+boy, and that the little one will give him the comfort and happiness he
+hoped from me. He must be very lonely; and I cannot doubt that his heart
+will melt when he sees the child's face, and hears that he has no longer
+a son. As for yourself, my poor girl, I see for you no hope except in the
+old Yorkshire home, and the friends you fear to see again."
+
+"I no longer fear them," said his wife, with unwonted energy, "I could
+not go to them seven years ago; but I can go to them as your wife."
+
+"Ah, thank God, the poor name is worth something for you."
+
+"Yes, dear; and I will go back to them--to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow!"
+
+"To-morrow, Gustave. I have been selfish and cruel to delay so long. The
+old dread of seeing my sister's reproachful face has been strong enough
+to hold me back, when a little courage might have enabled me to help you.
+The burden has been all on you, and I have done nothing. O, what a wretch
+I must have been to sit idly by and see you suffer, and make no effort to
+help you!"
+
+"But, my darling, you have not been idle. You have been the dearest and
+most industrious of wives, and have helped me to bear my burden. You have
+done more, dear--you have made my burden pleasant to me."
+
+"I will try to lighten it, Gustave," cried Susan, with excitement. "O,
+why, why did I never try before! My sister and her husband are well
+off--rich perhaps. If they are still living, if no cruel changes have
+come to pass at Newhall, they could help us with a little money. They
+might even give us a home. I will start for England to-morrow."
+
+"Nay, my dear, you are not strong enough to travel so far alone. It
+seems, indeed, a happy thought this of your rich relations; but you must
+not undertake such a journey. You might write."
+
+"No, Gustave, I will trust to no letter; I will go. It will be no pain
+for me to humble myself for your sake. I will go straight to my sister. I
+know what a tender compassionate heart it is that I shall appeal to."
+
+There was much discussion; but Susan was resolute. To scrape together the
+money for the journey she made efforts that were heroic in a nature so
+weak as hers. She went to the Monte de Piete with the last of her little
+treasures, that one dear trinket to which she had clung even when hunger
+was at the door--the gimmal or alliance ring that Gustave had placed upon
+her finger before God's altar--the double symbolic circlet which bore on
+one side her name, on the other her husband's. This dearest of all her
+possessions she surrendered for a few francs, to make up the sum needful
+for her journey.
+
+What it cost her to do this, what it cost her to tear herself away
+from her sick husband and her only child, who shall say? There are
+pangs that cannot be counted, agonies that will come within no
+calculation--the infinite of pain. She went. Two kind souls, a labourer
+and his wife, lodgers in the same garret-story, promised to care for
+and help the invalid and child. There is no desolation in which a child
+will not find a friend.
+
+The journey was long and fatiguing; the anguish of her poor aching heart
+almost too much for endurance--a heart so heavy that even hope could
+scarce flutter it. It was dull damp weather, though in the middle of
+summer. The solitary traveller caught cold on the journey, and arrived in
+London in a high fever. Ill, faint, and helpless, the great city seemed
+to her unspeakably dismal--most stony of all stony-hearted mothers to
+this wretched orphan. She could go no farther than the darksome city inn
+where the coach from Southampton brought her. She had come _via_ Havre.
+Here she sank prostrate, and had barely sufficient strength to write an
+incoherent letter to her sister, Mrs. Halliday, of Newhall Farm, near
+Huxter's Cross, Yorkshire.
+
+The sister came as fast as the fastest coach on the great northern road
+could carry her. There was infinite joy in that honest sisterly heart
+over this one sinner's repentance. Fourteen years had gone by since the
+young city-bred beauty had fled with that falsest of men, and most
+hardened of profligates, Montague Kingdon; and tidings from Susan were
+unlooked for and thrilling as a message from the grave.
+
+Alas for the adverse fate of Susan Meynell! The false step of her youth
+had set her for ever wrong upon life's highway. When kind Mrs. Halliday
+came, Gustave Lenoble's wife was past her help; wandering in her mind; a
+girl again, but newly run away from her peaceful home; and with no
+thought save of remorse for her misdeeds.
+
+The seven years of her married life seemed to have faded out of her mind.
+She raved of Montague Kingdon's baseness, of her own folly, her vain
+regret, her yearning for pardon; but of the dying husband in the garret
+at Rouen she uttered no word. And so, with her weary head upon her
+sister's breast, she passed away, her story untold, no wedding-ring on
+her wasted finger to bear witness that she died an honest man's wife; no
+letters or papers in her poor little trunk to throw light on the fourteen
+years in which she had been a castaway.
+
+Mrs. Halliday stayed in London to see the wanderer laid in the quiet city
+churchyard where her family rested, and where for her was chosen an
+obscure corner in which she might repose forgotten and unknown.
+
+But not quite nameless. Mrs. Halliday could not leave the grave unmarked
+by any record of the sister she had loved. The stone above the grave of
+Gustave's wife bore her maiden name, and the comforting familiar text
+about the one sinner who repenteth.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FORGIVEN TOO LATE.
+
+For a week of long days and longer nights there was no step sounded on
+the stair, no opening or shutting of a door in the old dilapidated house
+where he lay languishing on the brink of an open grave, that did not move
+Gustave Lenoble with a sudden emotion of hope. But the footsteps came and
+went, the doors were opened and shut again and again, and the traveller
+so waited, so hoped for did not return.
+
+The boy--the brave bright son, who seemed to inherit all that was noblest
+and best in his father's nature--pined for his mother. The man endured a
+martyrdom worse than the agony of Damiens, the slow tortures of La Barre.
+What had befallen her? That she could desert him or his child was a
+possibility that never shaped itself in his mind. _That_ drop of poison
+was happily wanting in his cup; and the bitterness of death was sweet
+compared to the scorpion-sting of such a supposition.
+
+She did not return. Calamity in some shape had overtaken her--calamity
+dire as death; for, with life and reason, she could not have failed to
+send some token, some tidings, to those she loved. The sick man waited a
+week after the day on which he had begun to expect her return. At the end
+of that time he rose, with death in his face, and went out to look for
+her--to look for her in Rouen; for her whom the instinct of his heart
+told him was far away from that city--as far as death from life. He went
+to the Cour de Messageries, and loitered and waited amidst the bustle of
+arriving and departing diligences, with a half-imbecile hope that she
+would alight from one of them. The travellers came and went, pushing and
+hustling him in their selfish haste. When night came he went back to his
+garret. All was quiet. The boy slept with the children of his good
+neighbour, and was comforted by the warmth of that strange hearth.
+
+Gustave lit his candle, a last remaining morsel.
+
+"You will last my time, friend," he said, with a wan smile.
+
+He seated himself at the little table, pushed aside the medicine-bottles,
+searched for a stray sheet of letter-paper, and then began to write.
+
+He wrote to his mother, telling her that death was at hand, and that the
+time had come in which she must succour her son's orphan child. With this
+he enclosed a letter to his father--that letter of which he had spoken to
+his wife, and which had been written in the early days of his illness.
+This packet he directed to Madame Lenoble, at Beaubocage. There was no
+longer need for secrecy.
+
+"When those letters are delivered I shall be past blame, and past
+forgiveness," he thought.
+
+In the morning he was dead.
+
+The neighbours posted the letter. The neighbours comforted and protected
+the child for two days; and then there came a lady, very sad, very quiet,
+who wept bitterly in the stillness of that attic chamber where Gustave
+Lenoble lay; and who afterwards, with a gentle calmness of manner that
+was very sweet to see, made all necessary arrangements for a humble, but
+not a mean or ignominious, funeral.
+
+"He was my brother," she said to the good friends of the neighbouring
+garret. "We did our best to help him, my mother and I; but we little
+thought how bitterly he wanted help. The brave heart would not suffer us
+to know that."
+
+And then she thanked them with much tenderness for their charity to the
+dead man; and with these good people she went on foot through the narrow
+streets of the city to see her brother laid in his grave.
+
+Until this was done the mournful lady, who was not yet thirty years of
+age, and of a placid nun-like beauty, abandoned herself to no transport
+of love for her orphan nephew; but when that last office of affection had
+been performed, she took the little one on her knees, and folded him to
+her breast, and gave him her heart, as she had given it long ago to his
+father; for this gentle unselfish creature was one who must needs have
+some shrine at which to offer her daily sacrifice of self. Already she
+was beginning to think how the orphan was to be cared for and the widow
+also, for whose return she looked daily.
+
+For the return of Susan Lenoble Cydalise waited at Rouen several days
+after the funeral. She had, happily, an old school-fellow comfortably
+established in the city; and in the house of this old friend she found a
+home. No one but her mother and this friend, whom she could trust, knew
+of the business that had brought her from Beaubocage. In seven years the
+father had never uttered his only son's name; in all the seven years that
+name had never been spoken in his hearing.
+
+When three weeks had gone by since the departure of Susan for England,
+all hope of her return was abandoned by Mademoiselle Lenoble and the
+neighbours who had known the absent woman.
+
+"She had the stamp of death on her face when she went away," said the
+labourer's wife, "as surely as it was on him that she left. I told her
+she had no strength for the journey; but she would go: there was no
+moving her from that. She had rich friends _la-bas_, who might help her
+husband. It was for that she went. That thought seemed to give her a kind
+of fever, and the strength of fever."
+
+"And there has come no letter--nothing?"
+
+"Nothing, mademoiselle."
+
+On this Cydalise determined to return to Beaubocage. She could not well
+leave the child longer on the hands of these friendly people, even by
+paying for his maintenance, which she insisted on doing, though they
+would fain have shared their humble _pot-a-feu_ and coarse loaf with
+him unrecompensed. She determined on a desperate step. She would take
+her brother's orphan child back with her, and leave the rest to
+Providence--to the chance of some sudden awakening of natural affection
+in a heart that had long languished in a kind of torpor that was almost
+death.
+
+The little fellow pined sadly for those dear familiar faces, those tender
+soothing voices, that had vanished so suddenly from his life. But the
+voice of his aunt was very sweet and tender, and had a tone that recalled
+the father who was gone. With this kind aunt he left Rouen in the
+lumbering old vehicle that plied daily betwixt that city and Vevinord.
+
+"Thou canst call me Cydalise for a while, my little one," she said to
+him; for she did not wish the child to proclaim the relationship between
+them yet awhile.
+
+Ah, what bitter tears the two women shed over the soft fair curls of that
+little head, when they had the boy all to themselves in the turret
+chamber at Beaubocage, on whose white walls the eyes of Cydalise had
+opened almost every morning of her pure eventless life!
+
+"Why dost thou cry so, madame?" the child asked of his grandmother, as
+she held him in her arms, kissing and weeping over him; "and what have
+they done with my father--and mamma too? She went away one day, but she
+told me that she would come back, so quickly, ah, so quickly! and the
+days passed, and they shut papa in his room, and would not let me go to
+him; and mamma did not come, though I asked the Blessed Virgin to send
+her back to me."
+
+"Dear child, thy father and mother are in a brighter place than this hard
+world, where they had so much sorrow," Madame Lenoble answered, gently.
+
+"Yes, they were often sorry," murmured the boy thoughtfully. "It was
+because of money; but then, when there was no money, mamma cried and
+kissed me, and kissed papa, and the good papa kissed us both, and somehow
+it always ended in happiness."
+
+Francois Lenoble was, happily, absent on this day of tribulation. The
+women took their fill of sorrow, but it was sorrow mingled with a strange
+bitter sweetness that was almost joy. The seigneur of Beaubocage had gone
+to dine, as he still often did, with his old friend Baron Frehlter; for
+the breach of faith which had caused a lifelong disunion of father and
+son had not divided the two proprietors. Nay, indeed the Baron had been
+generous enough to plead the cause of the castaway.
+
+"A man cannot dispose at will of his affections, my friend," he urged;
+"and it was more generous in your son to break faith with my daughter
+before marriage than after."
+
+Mademoiselle Frehlter had not broken her heart on account of her lover's
+falsehood. She had been sufficiently indignant on the occasion, and had
+been more impatient of her mother's pet priest and pet poodle during the
+brief period in which she wore the willow. She had recovered her good
+humour, however, on being wooed by a young subaltern in a cavalry
+regiment stationed at Vevinord, the offshoot of a grander house than that
+of Lenoble, and whose good looks and good lineage had ultimately
+prevailed with the Baron. That gentleman had by no means too good an
+opinion of the son-in-law thus forced upon him; but peace was the highest
+good (with unlimited tobacco) to which his Germanic soul aspired; and for
+the sake of peace in the present he was content to hazard his daughter's
+happiness in the future.
+
+"_That_ is very brilliant," he said of M. Paul de Nerague, the young
+lieutenant of light cavalry; "but it is not solid, like Gustave. Your son
+is honest, candid--a brave heart. It is for that I would have given him
+Madelon. But it is Providence which disposes of us, as our good father
+St. Velours tells us often; and one must be content. Young Nerague
+pleases my daughter, and I must swallow him, though for me he smells too
+strong of the barracks: _ca flaire la caserne, mon ami_."
+
+That odour of the barracks which distinguished the sub-lieutenant Paul de
+Nerague became more odious after his marriage with the virtuous Madelon,
+when he was established--_niche_, as he himself called it--in very
+comfortable, though somewhat gruesome, apartments at Cotenoir. His
+riotous deportment, his hospitable disposition (as displayed in the
+frequent entertainment of his brothers-in-arms at the expense of his
+father-in-law), his Don Juan-like demeanour in relation to the housemaids
+and kitchen-wenches of the chateau--innocent enough in the main, but on
+that account so much the more audacious--struck terror to the hearts of
+Madame Frehlter and her daughter; and the elder lady was much gratified
+by that thirst for foreign territory which carried the greater part of
+the French army and the regiment of the vivacious Paul to the distant
+wilds of Algeria.
+
+The virtuous Madelon was too stolid to weep for her husband. But even her
+stolidity was not proof against the fiery influence of jealousy, and,
+waking and sleeping, her visions were of veiled damsels of Orient
+assailing the too inflammable heart of Lieutenant de Nerague.
+
+The young officer was yet absent at that period in which Cydalise
+returned from Rouen with her brother's child.
+
+The little boy was sleeping peacefully in a cot beside his aunt's bed (it
+had been his father's cot thirty years ago) when Francois Lenoble
+returned from Cotenoir that night.
+
+It was not till the next day that he saw the child. He had been making
+his usual morning's round in the gardens and orchards, when he came into
+the salon, and saw the little boy seated near his grandmother's chair,
+playing with some dominoes. Something--perhaps the likeness to his dead
+son--the boy's black clothes, for Cydalise had contrived to dress him in
+decent mourning--struck suddenly on the old man's heart. "Who is that
+boy?" he asked, with a strange earnestness.
+
+"Your son Gustave's only child," answered his wife gently,--"his
+orphan child."
+
+Francois Lenoble looked at her, and from her to the boy; tried to speak,
+but could not; beckoned the child, and then dropped heavily into a chair
+and sobbed aloud. Until this moment no one had ever seen him shed a tear
+for the son he had put away from his home--and, as it had seemed, from
+his heart. Not by one sigh, not by one mournful utterance of the familiar
+name, had he betrayed the depth of that wound which he had endured,
+silently, obstinately, in all these years.
+
+They suffered him to bemoan his dead son unhindered by stereotyped
+consolations. The two women stood by, and pitied him in silence. The
+little boy stared wonderingly, and at last crept up to the
+sorrow-stricken father. "Why do you cry, poor old man?" he asked. "You
+have not lost your papa and mamma, as I have lost mine, have you? I want
+to stay with you and be your little boy, please. She told me to say
+that," he added, pointing to Cydalise.--"And I have said it right,
+haven't I?" he asked of the same lady.--"I think I shall love you,
+because you are like my papa, only older and uglier," the little one
+concluded, with angelic candour.
+
+The seigneur of Beaubocage dried his tears with an effort.
+Beaubocage--Cotenoir. Ah, me! what empty sounds those two once magic
+names seemed to him now that his son's life had been sacrificed to so
+paltry an ambition, so sordid a passion, so vile and grovelling a desire!
+He took the boy on his knee, and kissed him tenderly. His thoughts
+bridged over a chasm of five-and-twenty years as his lips pressed
+that fair young brow; and it was his own son--the son whom he had
+disowned--whose soft hair was mingling itself now with the grey bristles
+on his rugged chin.
+
+"My child," he murmured softly, "the fear is that I shall love thee too
+well, and be to thee as much too weakly indulgent as I was wickedly stern
+to thy father. Anything is easier to humanity than justice."
+
+This was said to himself rather than to the boy.
+
+"Tell me thy name, little one," he asked presently, after a few moments'
+pensive meditation.
+
+"I have two names, monsieur."
+
+"Thou must call me grandfather. And the two names?"
+
+"Francois Gustave."
+
+"I shall call thee Gustave."
+
+"But papa always called me Francois, and mamma said it was the name of a
+cruel man; but papa said he loved the name--"
+
+"Ah, no more, little one!" cried the lord of Beaubocage suddenly;
+"thou knowest not with what dagger-thrusts thou dost pierce this poor
+old heart."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+GUSTAVE THE SECOND.
+
+The little Gustave grew and flourished. Such love was lavished on him as
+rarely falls to the lot of children, though the spring of many lives may
+be rich in love's pure white blossom. The existence of this child seemed
+all happiness. He brought hope, and a sense of atonement, and all sweet
+things, to the quiet family at Beaubocage; and as he grew from childhood
+to boyhood, from boyhood to manhood, it seemed to that household as if
+the first Gustave of their love had never been taken from them. That
+Orphic fable of Zagreus repeats itself in many households. For the one
+bright creature lost another is given; and then comes a time when it is
+almost difficult to separate the image of the missing one from the dear
+substitute who so nearly fills his place.
+
+Francois Lenoble and his wife enjoyed a green old age, and the affection
+of their grandson made the cup of life sweet for them to the very dregs.
+There are, happily, some natures which indulgence cannot injure; some
+luxuriant flowers which attain strength as well as beauty under the
+influence of these tropical heats of affection. Gustave the second
+possessed all the noble qualities of Gustave the first. Frank, generous,
+brave, constant, affectionate, light-hearted, he shone on the failing
+eyes of his kindred radiant as a young Apollo, brave as a mortal
+Hercules.
+
+Those things which the ignorant heart has at some time so passionately
+desired are apt to be granted when the desire has grown somewhat cold and
+dead. Thus it was with the ambition of Francois Lenoble. He lived to see
+the lands of Cotenoir and Beaubocage united in the person of his
+grandson, who married Clarice, the only surviving child of M. and Madame
+de Nerague. Two sons and a daughter had been born at Cotenoir; but the
+sons withered and faded in early boyhood, and even the daughter, though
+considered a flourishing plant in that poor garden of weakling blossoms,
+was but a fragile creature.
+
+The old people at Beaubocage survived the seigneur and chatelaine of
+Cotenoir by some years, and survived also the fiery lieutenant, who fell
+in Algeria without having attained his captaincy, or added any military
+renown to the good old name of de Nerague in his own magnificent person.
+
+Francois saw his grandson established at Cotenoir before he died. He
+expired with his hand in that of Gustave, whom, in the half-consciousness
+of that last hour, he mistook for the son he had disowned.
+
+"What door was that that shut?" he asked, in an eager whisper. "Who said
+I turned my son out of doors--my only son? It's false! I couldn't have
+done it! Hark! there's the door shutting again! It sounds like the door
+of a tomb."
+
+After this he dozed a little, and woke with a smile on his face.
+
+"I have been dreaming of thy father, Gustave," he said calmly. "I thought
+that I saw him with a light shining in his face, and that he kissed and
+forgave me."
+
+This was the end. The faithful wife was not slow to follow her husband to
+the grave, and there was now only a placid maiden lady at Beaubocage,
+Mademoiselle Cydalise Lenoble, whom everyone within ten leagues of
+Vevinord knew and loved,--a lay abbess, a Sister of Mercy in all save the
+robes; a tender creature, who lived only to do good.
+
+Ten years passed, and M. Lenoble of Cotenoir was a widower with two
+fair young daughters at a convent school on the outskirts of Vevinord,
+and a boisterous son at an academy in Rouen. Gustave had never followed
+any profession; the lands of Beaubocage secured him a competence,
+so prudently had the small estate been managed by the kindred who
+adored him. His marriage had given him fortune. He had no need of
+trade or profession. His life was laid out for him like a prim Dutch
+flower-garden. He was to live at Cotenoir, and look after his estate, and
+smoke his pipe, as Baron Frehlter had done, and be a good husband to his
+wife, a kind father to his children. This latter part of his duty came
+natural to M. Lenoble. It was not in him to be otherwise than kind to
+women and children. His invalid wife praised him as a model of marital
+perfection. It was Gustave who wheeled her sofa from one room to another,
+Gustave who prepared her medicines, Gustave whose careful hands adjusted
+curtains and _portieres_. The poor woman lived and died believing herself
+the happiest of wives. She mistook kindness for love.
+
+M. Lenoble bore his wife's demise with Christian calmness. He was sorry
+that the fragile creature should have been taken so early from the
+pleasant home that was hers by right, but of passionate grief, or dreary
+sense of irreparable loss, there was none in that manly heart. There were
+times when the widower reproached himself for this want of feeling; but
+in very truth Madame Lenoble, _jeune_, had lived and died a nonentity.
+Her departure left no empty place; even her children scarcely missed her.
+The father was all-in-all.
+
+Gustave had married at twenty years of age. He was twenty-nine when his
+wife died. His eldest daughter, Clarice, eight; his second, Madelon,
+seven; the boy, a spoilt young dog of five, not yet despatched to the
+great school at Rouen.
+
+But in '65 Mademoiselle Clarice was fifteen years of age, and a very
+charming performer on the pianoforte, as the good nuns at the Convent of
+the Sacred Heart, at Vevinord, told the father. Mademoiselle Madelon was
+looking forward to her fourteenth anniversary, and she, too, was a very
+pretty pianist, and altogether a young prodigy of learning and goodness,
+as the nuns told the master of Cotenoir. The demoiselles of Cotenoir
+stood high in the estimation of pupils and mistress; they were a kind of
+noblesse; and the simple-minded superioress spoke of these young persons
+with some pride when she described her establishment to a stranger. It
+was a very comfortable little colony, a small world enclosed by high
+walls. The good mothers who taught and cherished the children were for
+the greater part ladies of superior and even exalted station; and there
+was a gentleness, a tenderness, in their care for these young lambs not
+always to be insured by the payment of an annual stipend. It must be
+confessed that the young lambs were apt to be troublesome, and required a
+good deal of watching. To the eye of the philosopher that convent school
+would have afforded scope for curious study; for it is singular to
+discover what exceptional vices the youthful mind can develop from its
+inner consciousness, in homes as pure as this. There were black sheep
+even in the convent of the Sacre Coeur, damsels marked with a sign that
+meant "dangerous."
+
+Happily for Gustave Lenoble, his daughters were amongst the brightest and
+the purest of those girl-graduates. They gave him no trouble, except when
+they asked him for a home.
+
+"It seems so dull and dreary at Cotenoir, papa," they said, "though you
+are always so kind. It doesn't seem like home. Beaubocage is more
+home-like. At Cotenoir, when you are out, there is no one to talk to; and
+we have no little parties, no excursions into the country, none of those
+pleasures which the other girls tell us they have during the holidays."
+
+This was the gist of the lamentations of Mademoiselles Clarice and
+Madelon; and the father knew not how to supply the mysterious something
+which was wanting to make Cotenoir a pleasant home. The girls could
+complain of no restraint, or pine for no indulgence, since their father
+was always prompt to gratify every whim. But there was some element of
+happiness wanting, nevertheless; and M. Lenoble perceived that it was so.
+The life at Cotenoir was desultory, straggling; an existence of perpetual
+dawdling; a life of shreds and patches, half-formed resolutions, projects
+begun and broken off in the middle. The good genius, the household angel,
+order, was wanting in that mansion. There was waste, dirt, destruction of
+all kinds, in the rambling old chateau; old servants, too weak or too
+lazy to work; old tradesmen, presuming on old-established habits of
+imposition, unquestioned so long as to have become a right--for the
+feudal system of fine and forfeiture has only changed hands. The power
+still flourishes, only it is the villein who takes tithe of his lord.
+
+The servants at Cotenoir had gone their own ways with but little
+interference since the death of Madame de Nerague, which occurred two
+years before that of her daughter, Clarice Lenoble. Poor invalid Clarice
+had been quite unable to superintend her household; and since her death
+Mademoiselle Cydalise had been too feeble of health to assume any
+authority in her nephew's establishment, even if the household of
+Cotenoir would have submitted to interference from Beaubocage, which in
+all likelihood they would not.
+
+Thus it happened that things had taken their own course at the chateau,
+and the course had been somewhat erratic. There is nothing so costly as
+muddle, and Gustave Lenoble had of late begun to perceive that he had the
+maximum of expense with the minimum of comfort. Meanwhile the kind old
+aunt at Beaubocage gave her nieces much valuable advice against the time
+when they should be old enough to assume the management of their father's
+house. The sweet unselfish lady of Beaubocage had indeed undergone hard
+experience in the acquirement of the domestic art. Heaven and her own
+memory alone recorded those scrapings and pinchings and nice calculations
+of morsels by which she had contrived to save a few pounds for her
+outcast brother. Such sordid economics show but poorly on earth; but it
+is probable that in the mass of documentary evidence which goes before
+the Great Judge, Mademoiselle Lenoble's account-book will be placed on
+the right side.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Third.
+
+
+
+THE HORATIAD.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+CHIEFLY RETROSPECTIVE.
+
+Captain Paget went his way to Rouen in a placid but not an exulting mood,
+after parting with his young friend Valentine Hawkehurst at the London
+Bridge terminus of the Brighton line. He was setting out upon an
+adventure wild and impracticable as the quest of Jason and his Argonauts;
+and this gallant captain was a carpet-knight, sufficiently adventurous
+and audacious in the diplomatic crusades of society, but in nowise eager
+to hazard his life on tented field and in thick press of war. If the
+Fates had allowed the accomplished Horatio to choose his own destiny, he
+would have elected to live in the immediate neighbourhood of St. James's
+Street, from the first day to the last of the London season, and to dine
+artistically and discreetly at one of those older and more exclusive
+clubs dear and familiar to him from the bright years of his youth. He was
+by nature a _flaneur_, a gossip, a lover of expensive luxuries and
+frivolous pleasures. He was not only incapable of a high thought himself,
+but was an unbeliever in the possibility of high thoughts or noble
+principles in the world he lived in. He measured the universe by that
+narrow scrap of tape which was the span of his own littleness. To him
+Caesar was an imperial brigand, Cicero a hypocritical agitator. To him
+all great warriors were greedy time-servers like John Churchill; all
+statesmen plausible placemen; all reformers self-seeking pretenders. Nor
+did Captain Paget wish that it should be otherwise. In his ideal
+republic, unselfishness and earnestness would have rendered a man rather
+a nuisance than otherwise. With the vices of his fellow-men the
+diplomatic Horatio was fully competent to deal; but some of his most
+subtle combinations on the chess-board of life would have been checkmated
+by an unexpected encounter with intractable virtue.
+
+The necessity of living was the paramount consideration to which this
+gentleman had given his mind from the time when he found himself a
+popular subaltern in a crack regiment, admired for his easy manners and
+good looks, respected by meaner men for his good blood, and rich in
+everything except that vulgar dross without which the life of West-end
+London is so hollow a delusion, so bitter a comedy of mean shifts and
+lying devices.
+
+That freebooter of civilization, the man who lives by his wits, is
+subject to strange fluctuations from prosperity to adversity. He is the
+miner or gold-digger of civilized life; and as there are times when his
+pickaxe strikes suddenly on a rich lode, so there are dreary intervals in
+which his spade turns up nothing but valueless clay, and the end of each
+day's work leaves him with no better evidence of his wasted labour than
+the aching limbs which he drags at nightfall to his dismal shanty.
+
+For some months Captain Paget had found Philip Sheldon a very useful
+acquaintance. The stockbroker had been the secret inaugurator of two or
+three joint-stock companies, though figuring to the outer world only as
+director; and in the getting-up of these companies Horatio had been a
+useful instrument, and had received liberal payment for his labours.
+Unhappily, so serene an occupation as promoting cannot go on for ever; or
+rather, cannot remain for ever in the same hands. The human mind is
+naturally imitative, and the plagiarisms of commerce are infinitely more
+audacious than the small larcenies of literature. The joint-stock company
+market became day by day more crowded. No sooner did Philip Sheldon float
+the Non-destructive Laundry Company, the admirable organization of which
+would offer a guarantee against the use of chloride of lime and other
+destructive agencies in the wash-tub, than a rival power launched a
+colourable imitation thereof, in the Union-is-Strength Domestic Lavatory
+Company, with a professor of chemistry specially retained as inspector of
+wash-tubs. Thus it was that, after the profitable ripening of three such
+schemes, Mr. Sheldon deemed it advisable to retire from the field, and
+await a fitter time for the further exercise of his commercial genius.
+
+Captain Paget's relations with the stockbroker did not, however,
+terminate with the cessation of his labours as secretary,
+jack-of-all-trades, and promoter. Having found him, so far, clever, and
+to all appearance trustworthy--and this was an important point, for no
+man so much needs honourable service as a rogue--Philip Sheldon
+determined upon confiding to Horatio the conduct of a more delicate
+business than anything purely commercial. After that discovery of the
+telegraphic message sent by his brother George to Valentine Hawkehurst,
+and the further discovery of the advertisement relating to the unclaimed
+wealth of the lately deceased John Haygarth, Mr. Sheldon lost no time in
+organizing his plans for his own aggrandizement at the expense of his
+brother.
+
+"George refused to let me in for a share of chances when I showed myself
+willing to help him," thought Philip. "He may discover by-and-by that I
+have contrived to let myself into his secrets; and that he might have
+played a better game by consenting to a partnership."
+
+A life devoted to his own interests, and a consistent habit of
+selfishness, had rendered Mr. Sheldon, of the Lawn, Bayswater, and Stags
+Court, City, very quick of apprehension in all matters connected,
+immediately or remotely, with the making of money. The broken sentences
+of the telegram betrayed by the blotting-pad told him a great deal. They
+told him that there was a certain Goodge, in the town of Ullerton, who
+possessed letters so valuable to George Sheldon, as to be bought by his
+agent Valentine Hawkehurst. Letters for which Sheldon was willing to give
+money must needs be of considerable importance, since money was a very
+scarce commodity with that hunter of unconscious heirs-at-law. Again, a
+transaction which required the use of so expensive a medium as the
+electric telegraph rather than the penny post, might be fairly supposed a
+transaction of some moment. The letters in question might relate to some
+other estate than that of John Haygarth, for it was quite possible that
+the schemer of Gray's Inn had other irons in the fire. But this was a
+question of no moment to Philip Sheldon.
+
+If the letters--or the information contained therein--were likely to be
+useful to George, they might be useful to him. If George found it worth
+his while to employ an agent at Ullerton, why should not he (Philip) have
+his agent in the same town? The pecuniary risk, which might be a serious
+affair to George, was child's play for Philip, who had always plenty of
+money, or, at any rate, the command of money. The whole business of
+heir-at-law hunting seemed to the stockbroker a very vague and shadowy
+piece of work, as compared to the kind of speculation that was familiar
+to him; but he knew that men had made money in such a manner, and any
+business by which money could be made, was interesting to him. Beyond
+this, the notion of cutting the ground from under his brother's feet had
+a certain attraction for him. George's manner to him had been somewhat
+offensive to him on more than one occasion since--well, since Tom
+Halliday's death. Mr. Sheldon had borne that offensiveness in mind, with
+the determination to "take it out of" his brother on the earliest
+opportunity.
+
+It seemed as if the opportunity had arrived, and Philip was not one of
+those men who wait shivering on the shore when Fortune's tide is at the
+flood. Mr. Sheldon launched his bark upon the rising waters, and within
+two hours of his discovery in the telegraph-office was closeted with
+Horatio Paget in the little parlour in Omega Street, making arrangements
+for the Captain's journey to Ullerton.
+
+That Horatio was the right man for the work he wanted done, Mr. Sheldon
+had been quick to perceive.
+
+"He knows Hawkehurst, and will be able to reckon up any manoeuvres of his
+better than a stranger; and is, I think, altogether as deep an old
+gentleman as one could hope to meet with, barring _the_ traditional
+gentleman who did odd jobs for Dr. Faustus," the stockbroker said to
+himself, as his hansom sped along Park Lane on its way to Chelsea. The
+eagerness with which Captain Paget took up the idea of this business was
+very agreeable to his patron.
+
+"This is an affair in which success hinges on time," said Mr. Sheldon;
+"so, if you mean to go in for the business, you must start for Ullerton
+by the two o'clock express. You'll have just time to throw your razors
+and a clean shirt into a carpet-bag while I talk to you. I've got a cab
+outside, and a good one, that will take you to Euston Square in half an
+hour."
+
+The Captain showed himself prompt in action. His bedchamber was a small
+apartment at the back of the parlour, and here he packed his bag while
+conversing with his employer.
+
+"If you get upon the ground in time, you may obtain a look at the letters
+before they are handed over to Hawkehurst, or you may outbid him for
+them," said Mr. Sheldon; "but remember, whatever you do must be so done
+as to keep Hawkehurst and George completely in the dark as to our
+proceedings. If once they find out we are on their track, our chances
+will be gone, for they have got the information and we haven't; and it's
+only by following close in their footsteps we can hope to do anything."
+
+"That is understood," replied the Captain, stooping over his bag; "I
+shall keep myself as close as possible, you may depend upon it. And it
+shan't be my fault if Valentine sees me or hears of me. I shall want
+money, by the bye; for one can't stir a step in this sort of affair
+without ready cash."
+
+"I am quite aware of that. I stopped at the West-end branch of the Unitas
+and cashed a cheque for forty pounds. You can do a good deal in the way
+of bribery for forty pounds, in such a place as Ullerton. What you have
+to do is to keep your eye on Hawkehurst, and follow up every channel of
+information that he opens for you. He has the clue to the labyrinth,
+remember, the reel of cotton, or whatever it was, that the young woman
+gave that Roman fellow. All you have to do is to get hold of it, and
+follow your leader." continued Philip, with his watch in his hand. "This
+business of the letters will be sharp work, for the chances are against
+us here, as it's more than likely the papers will have changed hands
+before you can get to Ullerton. But if you can't buy the letters, you may
+buy the information contained in them, and that is the next best thing.
+Your first move will be to ferret out this man Goodge. Everybody knows
+everybody else in such a place as Ullerton, large and busy as the town
+is, and you won't find that difficult. When you see Goodge, you'll know
+how to deal with him. The mode and manner of your dealing I leave to
+yourself. You are a man of the world, and will know how to manipulate the
+gentleman, whoever he may be. And now lock your bag and cut downstairs as
+fast as you can. Time's up. Here's your money--three tens, two fives.
+Good day."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+EPISTOLARY.
+
+_From Horatio Paget to Philip Sheldon_.
+
+Royal Hotel, Ullerton, Oct. 7, 186--.
+
+My dear sir,--I arrived here last evening just in time to run against
+Hawkehurst on the platform, which was rather a provoking encounter at the
+outset. He went further north by the same train that brought me from
+London. This train only stops at three places after Ullerton--Slowport,
+Black Harbour, and Manchester; and I shall take pains to discover which
+of these towns was Hawkehurst's destination. There was one satisfaction
+in seeing his departure by this train, inasmuch as it assured me that I
+had the ground clear for my own operations.
+
+I had no difficulty in discovering the whereabouts of Goodge--_the_
+Goodge we want--and at eight o'clock was comfortably seated in that
+gentleman's parlour, talking over the affair of the letters. Tolerably
+quick work, I think you will allow, my dear sir, for a man whose years
+have fallen into the sere and yellow leaf.
+
+Mr. Goodge is a Methodist parson--a class of person I have always
+detested. I found him peculiarly amenable to monetary influence. I need
+scarcely tell you that I was careful to conceal my identity from this
+person. I made so bold as to borrow the cognomen of an old-established
+firm of solicitors in the Fields, and took a somewhat high tone
+throughout the interview. I informed Mr. Goodge that the young man who
+had called on him with reference to certain letters connected with the
+affairs of the Haygarth family--and I perceived from Mr. Goodge's face
+that we were on the right track--was a person of disreputable character,
+engaged in an underhand transaction calculated to injure a respected
+client of our house. I saw that the words "house" and "our" were
+talismanic in their effect upon the Methodist parson. You see, my dear
+sir, there is no one can manage this sort of thing so well as a
+gentleman. It comes natural to him. Your vulgar diplomatist seldom knows
+how to begin, and never knows when to stop. Here I had this low-bred
+Methodist fellow impressed by the idea of my individual and collective
+importance after five minutes' conversation. "But this comes too near the
+praising of myself; therefore hear other things," as the bard observes.
+
+A very little further conversation rendered Mr. Goodge malleable. I found
+that Hawkehurst had approached him in the character of your brother's
+articled clerk, but under his own proper name. This is one point gained,
+since it assures me that Valentine is not skulking here under a feigned
+name; and will enable me to shape my future inquiries about him
+accordingly. I also ascertained Hawkehurst's whereabouts when in
+Ullerton. He stays at a low commercial house called the Black Swan. It
+appears that the man Goodge possesses a packet of letters written by a
+certain Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth, wife of one Matthew Haygarth. In what
+relationship this Matthew may stand to the intestate is to be discovered.
+It is evident he is an important link in the chain, or your brother would
+not want the letters. I need not trouble you with our conversation in
+detail. In gross it amounted to this: Mr. Goodge had pledged himself to
+hand over Mrs. Haygarth's letters, forty or so in number, to Hawkehurst
+in consideration of twenty pounds. They would have been already in
+Hawkehurst's possession, if Mr. Goodge had not objected to part with them
+except for ready money. In consideration of a payment of twenty pounds
+from me, he was willing to let me read all the letters, and select any
+ten I pleased to take. This bargain was not arrived at without
+considerable discussion, but it certainly struck me as a good one.
+
+I opened the packet of papers then and there, and sat up until six
+o'clock the next morning, reading Mrs. Haygarth's letters in Mr. Goodge's
+parlour. Very fatiguing occupation for a man of my years. Mr. Goodge's
+hospitality began and ended in a cup of coffee. Such coffee! and I
+remember the mocha I used to get at Arthur's thirty years ago,--a
+Promethean beverage, that illumined the dullest smoking-room bore with a
+flash of wit or a glimmer of wisdom.
+
+I enclose the ten letters which I have selected. They appear to me to
+tell the history of Mrs. Haygarth and her husband pretty plainly; but
+there is evidently something mysterious lurking behind the commonplace
+existence of the husband. That is a matter for future consideration. All
+I have to do in the present is to keep you as well informed as your
+brother. It may strike you that the letters I forward herewith, which are
+certainly the cream of the correspondence, and the notes I have made from
+the remaining letters, are scarcely worth the money paid for them. In
+reply to such an objection, I can only say that you get more for _your_
+money than your brother George will get for his.
+
+The hotel at which I have taken up my quarters is but a few paces from
+the commoner establishment where Hawkehurst is stopping. He is to call on
+Goodge for the letters to-day; so his excursion will be of brief
+duration. I find that the name of Haygarth is not unknown in this town,
+as there are a family of Judsons, some of whom call themselves Haygarth
+Judson. I intend inviting my landlord--a very superior person for his
+station--to discuss a bottle of wine with me after my chop this evening,
+and hope to obtain some information from him. In the meantime I shall
+keep myself close. It is of vital consequence that I should remain unseen
+by Hawkehurst. I do not believe he saw me on the platform last night,
+though we were as close to each other as we well could be.
+
+Let me know what you think of the letters, and believe me to be, my
+dear sir, very faithfully yours,
+
+H. N. C. PAGET.
+
+PHILIP SHELDON, Esq., &c. &c. &c.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Philip Sheldon to Horatio Paget_.
+
+Bayswater, Oct. 8,186-.
+
+DEAR PAGET,--The letters are mysterious, and I don't see my way to
+getting much good out of them, but heartily approve your management of
+matters, and give you _carte blanche_ to proceed, according to your own
+lights.
+
+Yours truly, P.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Horatio Paget to Philip Sheldon_.
+
+Royal Hotel, Oct. 9, 186-.
+
+MY DEAR SIR,--The cultivation of my landlord has been very profitable.
+The house is the oldest in the town, and the business has descended in a
+direct line from father to son since the time of George the Second. This
+man's grandfather entertained the officers of William Duke of Cumberland,
+honoured by his contemporaries with the soubriquet of Billy the Butcher,
+during the "forty-five." I had to listen to and applaud a good many
+stories about Billy the Butcher before I could lead my landlord round to
+the subject of the Haygarths. But he was not more prosy than many men I
+have met at dinner-parties in the days when the highest circles in the
+land were open to your humble servant.
+
+The Haygarth family, of which the intestate John Haygarth was the last
+male descendant, were for a long period inhabitants of this town, and
+obtained their wealth by trading as grocers and general dealers in a shop
+not three hundred yards from the room in which I write. The building is
+still standing, and a curious, old-fashioned-looking place it is. The
+last of the Haygarths who carried on business therein was one Jonathan,
+whose son Matthew was the father of that Reverend John Haygarth, lately
+deceased, intestate. You will thus perceive that the letters I sent you
+are of much importance, as they relate solely to this Matthew, father of
+our intestate.
+
+My next inquiries related to the Judson family, who are, it appears,
+descended from the issue of a certain Ruth Haygarth's marriage with one
+Peter Judson. This Ruth Haygarth was the only sister of the Matthew
+alluded to in the letters, and therefore was aunt of the intestate. It
+would herefrom appear that in this Judson family we must naturally look
+for the rightful claimant to the fortune of the deceased John Haygarth.
+Possessed of this conviction, I proceeded to interrogate my landlord very
+cautiously as to the status, &c. of the Judson family, and amongst other
+questions, asked him with a complete assumption of indifference, whether
+he had ever heard that the Judsons expected to inherit property from any
+branch of the Haygarth family.
+
+This careless interrogatory produced information of, as I imagine, a very
+valuable character. A certain Theodore Judson, attorney of this town,
+calls himself heir-at-law to the Haygarth estates; but before he can
+establish his claim, this Theodore must produce evidence of the demise,
+without heirs, of one Peter Judson, eldest surviving grandson of Ruth
+Haygarth's eldest son, a scamp and ne'er-do-well--if living, supposed to
+be somewhere in India, where he went, as supercargo to a merchant vessel
+about, the year '41--who stands prior to Theodore Judson in the
+succession. I conclude that the said Theodore, who, as a lawyer, is
+likely to do things _secundum artem_, is doing his _possible_ to obtain
+the necessary evidence; but in the meantime he is at a dead lock, and the
+whole affair appears to be in a charming condition for speculative
+interference. I opine, therefore, that your brother really has hit upon a
+good thing this time; and my only wonder is, that instead of allowing his
+agent, Hawkehurst, to waste his time hunting up old letters of Matthew
+Haygarth's (to all appearance valueless as documentary evidence), he does
+not send Valentine to India to hunt for Peter Judson, who, if living, is
+the rightful heir to the intestate's fortune, and who, as a reckless
+extravagant fellow, would be likely to make very liberal terms with any
+one who offered to procure him a large lump of money.
+
+I confess that I am quite at a loss to understand why your brother George
+does not take this very obvious course, and why Valentine potters about
+in this neighbourhood, when a gold mine is waiting to be _exploite_ on
+the other side.
+
+I shall be very glad to have your views upon this subject, for at the
+present moment I am fain to acknowledge that I do not see my way to
+taking any further steps in this business, unless by commencing a search
+for the missing Peter.
+
+I am, my dear Sir, very truly yours,
+
+H. N. C. PAGET.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Philip Sheldon to Horatio Paget_.
+
+Bayswater, Oct. 10, 186--.
+
+DEAR PAGET,--When so old a stager as G. S. does not take the obvious
+course, the inference is that there is a better course to be taken--_not_
+obvious to the uninitiated.
+
+You have done very well so far, but the information you have obtained
+from your landlord is only such information as any one else may obtain
+from the current gossip of Ullerton. You haven't yet got to the _dessous
+des cartes_. Remember what I told you in London. G. S. _has_ the clue to
+this labyrinth; and what you have to do is to hold on to the coat-tails
+(in a figurative sense) of his agent, V. H.
+
+Don't put your trust in prosy old landlords, but continue to set a watch
+upon that young man, and follow up his trail as you did in the matter of
+the letters.
+
+If the Peter Judson who went to India three-and-twenty years ago were the
+right man to follow, G.S. would scarcely give twenty pounds for the
+letters of Mrs. Matthew Haygarth. It appears to me that G. must be
+looking for an heir on the Haygarth side of the house; and if so, rely
+upon it he has his reasons. Don't bewilder yourself by trying to
+theorize, but get to the bottom of G.'s theory.
+
+Yours truly, P. S.
+
+_Horatio Paget to Philip Sheldon_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Royal Hotel, Oct. 12, 186.--
+
+MY DEAR SIR,--Considering the advice contained in your last very good, I
+lost no time in acting upon it. I need hardly tell you, that to employ
+the services of a hired spy, and to degrade myself in some sort to the
+level of a private inquirer, was somewhat revolting to a man, who, in the
+decadence of his fortunes, has ever striven to place some limit on the
+outrages which that hard taskmaster, poverty, may have from time to time
+compelled him to inflict upon his self-respect. But in the furtherance of
+a cause which I conclude is in no manner dishonourable, since an
+unclaimed heritage must needs be a prize open to all, I submitted to this
+temporary degradation of my higher feelings, and I trust that when the
+time arrives for the settlement of any pecuniary consideration which
+I am to derive from these irksome and uncongenial labours, my wounded
+self-respect may not be omitted from the reckoning. The above exordium
+may appear to you tedious, but it is only just to myself to remind you
+that you are not dealing with a vulgar hireling. My first step, after
+duly meditating your suggestions, was to find a fitting watch for the
+movements of Hawkehurst. I opined that the best person to play the spy
+would be that class of man whose existence seems for the most part
+devoted to the lounging at street corners, the chewing of straw, and that
+desultory kind of industry known in the _patois_ of this race as
+"fetching errands." This is the man, or boy, who starts up from the
+pavement (as through a trap-door in the flags) whenever one alights from
+or would enter any kind of vehicle. Unbidden, unrequired, and obnoxious,
+the creature arises, and opens a door, or lays some rag of his wretched
+attire on a muddy wheel, and then whines, piteous, for a copper. Such a
+man, or such a boy, I felt convinced must exist among the hangers-on of
+the Royal Hotel; nor was I mistaken. On inquiring for a handy lad,
+capable of attending upon my needs at all hours in the day, and not a
+servant in the hotel, but a person who would be wholly at my own
+disposal, I was informed that the Boots had a younger brother who was
+skilled in the fetching of errands, and who would be happy to wait upon
+me for a very reasonable remuneration, or in the words of the waiter
+himself, would be ready to leave it--i.e. the remuneration--to my own
+generosity. I know that there are no people who expect so much as those
+who leave the assessment of their claims to your own generosity; but
+as I wanted good service, I was prepared to pay well. The younger Boots
+made his appearance in due course--a sharp young fellow enough--and I
+forthwith made him my slave by the promise of five shillings a day for
+every day in which I should require his services. I then told him that it
+was my misfortune to own--with a strong inclination to disown--a
+reprobate nephew, now an inhabitant of that very town. This nephew, I had
+reason to believe, was going at a very rapid rate to the dogs; but my
+affectionate feelings would not allow him to consummate his own
+destruction without one last effort to reclaim him. I had therefore
+followed him to Ullerton, whither I believed him to be led by the worst
+possible motives; and having done so, my next business was to keep myself
+informed of his whereabouts.
+
+Seeing that the younger Boots accepted these statements with
+unquestioning faith, I went on to inquire whether he felt himself equal
+to the delicate duty of hanging about the yard of the Black Swan, and
+watching the doors of exit from that hotel, with a view to following my
+recreant nephew wherever he might go, even if considerably beyond the
+limits of Ullerton. I saw that the lad's intelligence was likely to be
+equal to this transaction, unless there should arise any difficult or
+complicated position by reason of the suspicion of Hawkehurst, or other
+mischance. "Do you think you can watch the gentleman without being
+observed?" I asked. "I'm pretty well sure I can, sir," answered the boy,
+who is of an enterprising, and indeed audacious, temper. "Very well,"
+said I, "you will go to the Black Swan Inn. Hawkehurst is the name by
+which my nephew is known there, and it will be your duty to find him
+out." I gave the boy a minute account of Valentine's appearance, and
+other instructions with which I need not trouble you. I further furnished
+him with money, so that he might be able to follow Hawkehurst by rail, or
+any other mode of conveyance, if necessary; and then despatched him, with
+an order to come back to me when he had seen our man safely lodged in the
+Black Swan after his day's perambulations. "And if he shouldn't go out at
+all?" suggested the lad. "In that case you must stick to your post till
+nightfall, and pick up all the information you can about my unfortunate
+nephew from the hangers-on of the hotel," said I. "I suppose you know
+some one at the Black Swan?" The boy informed me, in his untutored
+language, that he knew "a'most all of 'em," and thereupon departed.
+
+At nine o'clock at night he again appeared before me, big with the
+importance of his day's work. He had seen my nephew issue forth from the
+Black Swan within an hour of leaving my presence, and had followed him,
+first to Mr. William Judson's in Ferrygate, where he waited and hung
+about nearly an hour, keeping himself well out of view round the corner
+of Chalkin Street, a turning close to Mr. Judson's house. After leaving
+this gentleman's house, my renegade nephew had proceeded--carrying a
+letter in his hand, and walking as if in very good spirits (but that
+fellow Hawkehurst would walk to the gallows in good spirits)--to the
+Lancaster Road, where he was admitted into Lochiel Villa, a house
+belonging, as my Mercury ascertained from a passing baker's boy, to Miss
+Judson, sister of the William Judson of Ferrygate. You will perceive that
+this town appears to teem with the Judson family. My messenger, with
+praiseworthy art, contrived to engage in a game of tip-cat (what, I
+wonder, _is_ a tip-cat?) with some vagrant boys disporting themselves in
+the roadway, within view of Miss Judson's house. Hence, after the lapse
+of more than an hour, Boots-Mercury beheld my recreant relative emerge,
+and from this point followed him--always with extreme caution--back to
+the Black Swan. Here he hung about the yard, favoured by his close
+acquaintance with the ostler, until eight o'clock in the evening, no
+event of the smallest importance occurring during all those hours. But at
+eight there arrived a young woman, with a packet from Miss Judson to Mr.
+Hawkehurst. The packet was small, and was sealed with red wax. This was
+all my Mercury could ascertain respecting it; but this was something.
+
+I at once divined that this packet must needs contain letters. I asked
+myself whether those letters or papers had been sold to Hawkehurst, or
+only lent to him, and I immediately concluded that they could only have
+been lent. It was all very well for Goodge, the Methodist parson, to
+traffic in the epistles of Mrs. Matthew Haygarth, but it was to the last
+degree unlikely that a well-to-do maiden lady would part with family
+letters or papers for any pecuniary consideration whatever. "No," I said
+to myself, "the documents have been lent, and will have to be returned;"
+and thereupon I laid my plans for the next day's campaign, with a view to
+obtaining a peep at those letters, by fair means or foul. I told the boy
+to be at his post in the inn yard early the next morning, and if my
+nephew did not leave the inn, my agent was to ascertain what he was
+doing, and to bring me word thereof. "I'll tell you what it is, Boots," I
+said; "I have reason to believe that sadly disposed nephew of mine has
+some wicked intention with regard to Miss Judson, who is nearly related
+to a young lady with whom that unprincipled young man is, or pretends to
+be, in love; and I very much fear that he means to send her some letters,
+written by this foolish niece of hers to my more foolish nephew, and
+eminently calculated to wound the good lady's feelings. Now, in order to
+prevent this very shameful conduct on his part, I want to intercept any
+packet or letter which that mistaken youth may send to Miss Judson. Do
+you feel yourself capable of getting hold of such a packet, on
+consideration of a bonus of half-a-sovereign in addition to the five
+shillings per diem already agreed upon?"
+
+This, in more direct and vulgar phraseology, was what I said to the boy;
+and the boy departed, after pledging himself to bring me any packet which
+Hawkehurst might despatch from the Swan Inn. The only fear was that
+Hawkehurst might carry the packet himself, and this contingency appeared
+unpleasantly probable.
+
+Fortune favoured us. My reprobate nephew was too ill to go out. He
+intrusted Miss Hudson's packet to his waiter, the waiter confided it to
+the Boots, the Boots resigned the responsibility in favour of my boy
+Mercury, who kindly offered to save that functionary the trouble of a
+walk to the Lancaster Road.
+
+At eleven A.M. the packet was in my hands. I have devoted the best part
+of to-day to the contents of this packet. They consist of letters written
+by Matthew Haygarth, and distinguished by a most abominable orthography;
+but I remember my own father's epistolary composition to have been
+somewhat deficient in this respect; nor is it singular that the humble
+citizen should have been a poor hand at spelling in an age when royal
+personages indulged in a phonetic style of orthography which would
+provoke the laughter of a modern charity-boy. That the pretender to the
+crown of England should murder the two languages in which he wrote seems
+a small thing; but that Frederick the Great, the most accomplished of
+princes, bosom-friend of Voltaire, and sworn patron of the literati,
+should not have been able to spell, is a matter for some astonishment. I
+could but remember this fact, as I perused the epistles of Matthew
+Haygarth. I felt that these letters had in all probability been carefully
+numbered by the lady to whom they belong, and that to tamper with them to
+any serious extent might be dangerous. I have therefore only ventured to
+retain one insignificant scrawl as an example of Matthew Haygarth's
+caligraphy and signature. From the rest I have taken copious notes. It
+appears to me that these letters relate to some _liaison_ of the
+gentleman's youth; though I am fain to confess myself surprised to
+discover that, even in a period notorious for looseness of morals, a man
+should enter into such details in a correspondence with his sister.
+_Autres temps, autres moeurs_. I have selected my extracts with great
+care, and hope that you may be able to make more use of them than I can
+at present imagine possible. I shall post this letter and enclosure with
+my own hands, though in order to do so I must pass the Black Swan. I
+shall despatch my messenger to Lochiel Villa, with Miss Judson's packet,
+under cover of the darkness.
+
+In much haste, to catch the London mail,
+
+Truly yours, H.N.C.P.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_From Philip Sheldon to Horatio Paget_. City, Oct. 12, 186--
+
+Dear Paget,--Come back to town. You are only wasting money, time, and
+trouble. Yours, P.S.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+TOO CLEVER, FOR A CATSPAW.
+
+Captain Paget returned to town, mystified by that sudden summons from his
+patron, and eager to know what new aspect of affairs rendered his further
+presence in Ullerton useless or undesirable.
+
+Horatio arrived in the great city half-a-dozen hours before his sometime
+protege, and was comfortably installed when Valentine returned to those
+lodgings in Omega Street, Chelsea, which the two men occupied in common.
+
+Captain Paget went into the City to see Philip Sheldon on the day of his
+return, but did not succeed in finding the stockbroker. The evening's
+post brought him a letter from Philip, appointing an interview at
+Bayswater, at three o'clock on the following day--the day after
+Valentine's return from Ullerton.
+
+Punctual to the moment appointed by this letter, Captain Paget appeared
+at the Lawn on the following day. He was ushered into Mr. Sheldon's
+study, where he found that gentleman awaiting him, grave and meditative
+of mood, but friendly, and indeed cordial, in his manner to the returning
+traveller.
+
+"My dear Paget, sit down; I am delighted to see you. Your trip has made
+you look five years younger, by Jove! I was sorry to find you had called
+while I was out, and had waited for me upwards of an hour yesterday. I
+have a good deal of worry on my shoulders just now; commerce is all
+worry, you know. The Marquis of Lambeth has come into the market and
+bought up two-thirds of the Astrakhan Grand Trunk debenture bonds, just
+as our house had speculated for the fall. And since it has got wind that
+the Marquis is sweet upon the concern, the bonds are going up like a
+skyrocket. Such is life. I thought we had better have our little talk
+here; it's quieter than in the City. Have some sherry and soda; you like
+that Manzanilla of mine, I know."
+
+And the hospitable Philip rang the bell, without thinking it necessary to
+wait for his guest's answer.
+
+There was a cordiality, a conciliating friendliness about the
+stockbroker's manner which Horatio Paget did not like.
+
+"He's too civil by half," the Captain said to himself; "he means to do
+me."
+
+"And now about this Ullerton business," Mr. Sheldon began, when the wine
+and soda-water had been brought, and a tall tumbler of that refreshing
+compound filled for the Captain; "you have really managed matters
+admirably. I cannot too much applaud your diplomatic tact. You would have
+put a what's-his-name--that fellow of Napoleon's--to the blush by your
+management of the whole business. But, unfortunately, when it's all done
+it comes to nothing; the whole affair is evidently, from beginning to
+end, a mare's-nest. It is one of those wild geese which my brother George
+has been chasing for the last ten years, and which never have resulted in
+profit to him or anybody else; and I should be something worse than a
+fool if I were to lend myself any longer to such a folly."
+
+"Humph," muttered the Captain, "here is a change indeed!"
+
+"Well, yes," Mr. Sheldon answered coolly. "I dare say my conduct does
+seem rather capricious; but you see George put me out of temper the other
+day, and I was determined, if he had got a good thing, to cut the ground
+from under his feet. All your communications from Ullerton tend to show
+me that he has not got hold of a good thing, and that in any attempt to
+circumvent him I should only be circumventing myself, wasting your time,
+and my own money. This Judson family seems numberless; and it is evident
+to me that the Reverend John Haygarth's fortune will be a bone of
+contention amongst the Judsons in the High Court of Chancery for any
+indefinite number of years between this and the milennium. So I really
+think, my dear Paget, we'd better consider this transaction finished. I
+will give you whatever honorarium you think fit to name for your trouble,
+and we'll close the affair. I shall find plenty more business as good, or
+better, for you to do."
+
+"You are very good," replied the Captain, in nowise satisfied by this
+promise. It was all too smooth, too conciliatory. And there was a
+suddenness in this change of plan that was altogether mysterious. So
+indeed might a capricious man be expected to drop a speculation he had
+been eager to inaugurate, but Philip Sheldon was the last of men to be
+suspected of caprice.
+
+"You must have taken an immense deal of trouble with those extracts,
+now," said the stockbroker carelessly, as Horatio rose to depart,
+offended and angry, but anxious to conceal his anger. "What, are you off
+so soon? I thought you would stop and take a chop with us."
+
+"No, thanks; I have an engagement elsewhere. Yes, I took an
+inordinate trouble with those extracts, and I am sorry to think they
+should be useless."
+
+"Well, yes, it is rather provoking to you, I dare say. The extracts would
+be very interesting from a social point of view, no doubt, to people who
+care about such things; but in a legal sense they are waste-paper. I
+can't understand why Hawkehurst was in Ullerton; for, as you yourself
+suggested, that Peter Judson who went to India must be the Judson wanted
+for this case."
+
+"Your brother may be in league with some other branch of the Judson
+family. Or what if he is hunting for an heir on the Haygarth side?" asked
+the Captain, with a very close watch upon Mr. Sheldon's face. Let the
+stockbroker be never so skilful a navigator of the high seas of life,
+there was no undercurrent, no cross trade-wind, no unexplained veering of
+the magnetic needle to the west, in the mysteries whereof the Captain was
+not also versed. When Columbus wanted to keep his sailors quiet on that
+wondrous voyage over an unknown ocean to the Western world, the
+diplomatic admiral made so bold as to underrate the length of each day's
+sail in an unveracious log, which he kept for the inspection of his crew;
+but no doctoring of the social log-book could mislead the acute Horatio.
+
+"How about the Haygarth side of the house?" he asked again; for it had
+seemed to him that at his first mention of the name of Haygarth Mr.
+Sheldon had winced, ever so little. This time, however, he betrayed not
+the faintest concern; but he was doubtless now on his guard.
+
+"Well, I don't see how there can be any claimant on that side of the
+house," he said carelessly. "You see, according to your old landlord's
+statement--which I take to be correct--Jonathan Haygarth had but one son,
+a certain Matthew, who married one Rebecca So-and-so, and had, in his
+turn one only son, the intestate John. Now, in that case, where is your
+heir to come from, except through Matthew's sister Ruth, who married
+Peter Judson?"
+
+"Isn't it just possible that Matthew Haygarth may have married twice, and
+had other children? Those letters certainly suggest the idea of a secret
+alliance of some kind on Haygarth's part, and the existence of a family,
+to whom he appears to have been warmly attached. My first idea of this
+affair was that it must have been a low _liaison_; but I could hardly
+realize the fact of Matthew's confiding in his sister under any such
+circumstances, however lax in his morals that gentleman may have been.
+Mrs. Matthew Haygarth's letters hint at some mystery in her husband's
+life. Is it not likely that this hidden family was a legitimate one?"
+
+"I can't quite see my way to that idea," Mr. Sheldon answered, in a
+meditative tone. "It seems very unlikely that any marriage of Haygarth's
+could have remained unknown to his townsmen; and even if it were so, I
+doubt the possibility of our tracing the heirs from such a marriage. No,
+my dear Paget, I have resolved to wash my hands of the business, and
+leave my brother George in undisturbed possession of his ground."
+
+"In that case, perhaps, you will return my notes; they are
+interesting to me."
+
+Here again the faintest indication of annoyance in the stockbroker's face
+told its tale to Captain Paget. For your accomplished navigator of the
+unknown seas there is no ocean bird, no floating weed, that has not a
+language and a significance.
+
+"You can have your notes, if you want them," answered Mr. Sheldon; "they
+are at my office. I'll hunt them up and send them to you; or you had
+better look in upon me in the City early next week, and I can give you a
+cheque at the same time."
+
+"Thanks. I will be sure and do so."
+
+"You say the orthography of the original letters was queer. I suppose
+your copies were faithful in all matters except the orthography. And in
+the names, you of course adhered to the original spelling?"
+
+"Most decidedly," replied Captain Paget, opening the door to depart,
+and with a somewhat cynical smile upon his face, which was hidden from
+Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"I suppose there is no doubt of your accuracy with regard to the name of
+Meynell, now?"
+
+"Not the least. Good afternoon. Ah, there's our young friend Hawkehurst!"
+exclaimed the Captain, in his "society" voice, as he looked out into the
+hall, where Valentine was parting with Diana.
+
+He came and greeted his young friend, and they left the house together.
+
+This was the occasion upon which Valentine was startled by hearing the
+name "Meynell" pronounced by the lips of Philip Sheldon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+CAPTAIN PAGET IS PATERNAL.
+
+Horatio Paget left the Lawn after the foregoing interview, fully
+convinced that Mr. Sheldon was only desirous to throw him off the scent,
+in order to follow up the chase alone, for his sole profit and advantage.
+
+"My last letter conveyed some intelligence that altered his whole plan of
+action," thought the Captain; "that is perfectly clear. He was somewhat
+wanting in tact when he recalled me so suddenly. But I suppose he thought
+it would be easy to throw dust in my poor old eyes. What was the
+intelligence that made him change his mind? That is the grand question."
+Captain Paget dined alone at a West-End restaurant that evening. He dined
+well, for he had in hand certain moneys advanced by his patron, and he
+was not disposed to be parsimonious. He sat for some time in meditative
+mood over his pint bottle of Chambertin, and the subject of his
+meditation was Philip Sheldon.
+
+"Yes," he murmured at last, "that is it. The charm is in the name of
+Meynell. Why else should he question me about the orthography of that
+name? I sent him information about Matthew Haygarth in the wife's
+letters, and he took no special notice of that information. It was only
+when the name of Meynell cropped up that he changed his tactics and tried
+to throw me over. It seems to me that he must have some knowledge of this
+Meynell branch, and therefore thinks himself strong enough to act alone,
+and to throw me over the bridge. To throw me over," the Captain repeated
+to himself slowly. "Well, we'll see about that. We'll see; yes, we'll
+see."
+
+At noon on the following day Captain Paget presented himself again at the
+Bayswater villa, where his daughter ate the bread of dependence. He
+appeared this time in a purely paternal character. He came to call upon
+his only child. Before paying this visit the Captain had improved the
+shining hour by a careful study of the current and two or three back
+volumes of the Post-Office and Trade Directories; but all his researches
+in those interesting volumes had failed to reveal to him the existence of
+any metropolitan Meynells.
+
+"The Meynells whom Sheldon knows may be in the heart of the country," he
+said to himself, after these futile labours.
+
+It was a fine autumnal morning, and as Miss Paget was at home and
+disengaged, her affectionate father suggested that she should take a walk
+with him in Kensington Gardens. Such a promenade had very little
+attraction for the young lady; but she had a vague idea that she owed a
+kind of duty to her father not remitted by his neglect of all duties to
+her; so she assented with a smile, and went out with him, looking very
+handsome and stylish in her simple but fashionable attire, no part of
+which had been provided by the parent she accompanied.
+
+The Captain surveyed her with some sense of family pride. "Upon my word,
+my dear, you do me credit!" he exclaimed, with a somewhat patronising
+kindness of tone and manner; "indeed any man might be proud of such a
+daughter. You are every inch a Paget."
+
+"I hope not, papa," said the girl involuntarily; but the Captain's more
+delicate instincts had been considerably blunted in the press and jostle
+of life, and he did not feel the sting of this remark.
+
+"Well, perhaps you are right, my love," he replied blandly; "the Pagets
+_are_ an unlucky family. Like those Grecian people, the Atri--,
+what's-his-name--the man who was killed in his bath, you know. His wife,
+or the other young person who had come to visit his daughters, made the
+water too hot, you know--and that kind of thing. I am not quite clear
+about the story, but it's one of those farragos of rubbish they make
+young men learn at public schools. Yes, my dear, I really am amazingly
+pleased by your improved appearance. Those Sheldon people dress you very
+nicely; and I consider your residence in that family a very agreeable
+arrangement for all parties. You confer a favour on the girl by your
+society, and so on, and the mother provides you with a comfortable home;
+All I wonder is that your good looks haven't made their mark before this
+with some of Sheldon's rich stockbroking fellows."
+
+"We see very little of the stockbroking fellows, as you call them, at the
+Lawn, papa."
+
+"Indeed! I thought Sheldon kept a great deal of company."
+
+"O no. He gives a dinner now and then, a gentleman's dinner usually; and
+poor Mrs. Sheldon is very anxious that it should all go off well, as she
+says; but I don't think he is a person who cares much for society."
+
+"Really, now?"
+
+"His mind seems completely occupied by his business, you see, papa. That
+horrible pursuit of gain seems to require all his thoughts, and all his
+time. He is always reading commercial papers, the _Money Market_ and _On
+Change_, and the _Stockbrokers' Vade Mecum_, and publications of that
+kind. When he is not reading he is thinking; and by his manner one would
+fancy his thoughts were always gloomy and unpleasant. What a miserable,
+hateful, unholy life to lead! I would not be that man for all the money
+in the Bank of England. But it is a kind of treachery to tell these
+things. Mr. Sheldon is very good to me. He lets me sit at his table and
+share the comforts of his home, and I must be very ungrateful to speak
+against him. I do _not_ mean to speak against him, you see, papa--I only
+mean that a life devoted to money-making is in itself hateful."
+
+"My dear child, you may be assured that anything you say to _me_ will go
+no further," said the Captain, with dignity; "and in whom should you
+confide, if not in your father? I have a profound respect for Sheldon and
+his family--yes, my love, a profound respect; and I think that girl
+Sarah--no, I mean Charlotte--a very charming young person. I need
+scarcely tell you that the smallest details of your life in that family
+possess a keen interest for me. I am not without a father's feelings,
+Diana, though circumstances have never permitted me to perform a father's
+duties."
+
+And here the solitary tear which the accomplished Horatio could produce
+at will trembled in his eye. This one tear was always at his command. For
+the life of him he could not have produced a second; but the single drop
+never failed him, and he found one tear as effective as a dozen, in
+giving point and finish to a pathetic speech.
+
+Diana looked at him, and wondered, and doubted. Alas, she knew him only
+too well! Any other creature in this wide world he might deceive, but not
+her. She had lived with him; she had tasted the bitterness of dependence
+upon him--ten times more bitter than dependence on strangers. She had
+shown him her threadbare garments day after day, and had pleaded for a
+little money, to be put off with a lying excuse. She could not forget
+this. She had forgiven him long ago, being of too generous a nature to
+brood upon past injuries. But she could not forget what manner of man he
+was, and thank him for pretty speeches which she knew to be meaningless.
+
+They talked a little more of Mr. Sheldon and his family, but Diana did
+not again permit herself to be betrayed into any vehement expressions of
+her opinions. She answered all her father's questions without restraint,
+for they were very commonplace questions, of a kind that might be
+answered without any breach of faith.
+
+"Amongst the Sheldons' acquaintances did you ever hear of any people
+called Meynell?" Captain Paget asked at length.
+
+"Yes," Diana replied, after a moment's thought; "the name is certainly
+very familiar to me;" and then, after a pause, she exclaimed, "Why, the
+Meynells were relations of Charlotte's! Yes, her grandmother was a Miss
+Meynell; I perfectly remember hearing Mrs. Sheldon talk about the
+Meynells. But I do not think there are any descendants of that family now
+living. Why do you ask the question, papa? What interest have you in the
+Meynells?"
+
+"Well, my dear, I have my reasons, but they in no manner concern Mr.
+Sheldon or his family; and I must beg you to be careful not to mention
+the subject in your conversation with those worthy people. I want to know
+all about this Meynell family. I have come across some people of that
+name, and I want to ascertain the precise relationship existing between
+these people and the Sheldons. But the Sheldons must know nothing of this
+inquiry for the present. The people I speak of are poor and proud, and
+they would perish rather than press a relationship upon a rich man,
+unless fully justified by the closeness of family ties. I am sure you
+understand all this, Diana?"
+
+"Not very clearly, papa."
+
+"Well, my dear, it is a delicate position, and perhaps somewhat difficult
+for the comprehension of a third party. All you need understand is the
+one fact, that any information respecting the Meynell family will be
+vitally interesting to my friends, and, through them, serviceable to me.
+There is, in fact, a legacy which these friends of mine could claim,
+under a certain will, if once assured as to the degree of their
+relationship to your friend Charlotte's kindred on the Meynell side of
+the house. To give them the means of securing this legacy would be to
+help the ends of justice; and I am sure, Diana, you would wish to do
+that."
+
+"Of course, papa, if I can do so without any breach of faith with my
+employers. Can you promise me that no harm will result to the Sheldons,
+above all to Charlotte Halliday, from any information I may procure for
+you respecting the Meynell family?"
+
+"Certainly, Diana, I can promise you that. I repeat most solemnly,
+that by obtaining such information for me you will be aiding the cause
+of justice."
+
+If Horatio Paget might ever be betrayed into the inconsistency of a
+truthful assertion, it seemed to his daughter that it was likely to be in
+this moment. His words sounded like truth; and, on reflection, Diana
+failed to perceive that she could by any possibility inflict wrong on her
+friends by obliging her father in this small affair.
+
+"Let me think the matter over, papa," she said.
+
+"Nonsense, Diana; what thinking over can be wanted about such a trifle? I
+never before asked you a favour. Surely you cannot refuse to grant so
+simple a request, after the trouble I have taken to explain my reasons
+for making it."
+
+There was some further discussion, which ended in Miss Paget consenting
+to oblige her father.
+
+"And you will manage matters with tact?" urged the Captain, at parting.
+
+"There is no especial tact required, papa," replied Diana; "the matter is
+easy enough. Mrs. Sheldon is very fond of talking about her own affairs.
+I have only to ask her some leading question about the Meynells, and she
+will run on for an hour, telling me the minutest details of family
+history connected with them. I dare say I have heard the whole story
+before, and have not heeded it: I often find my thoughts wandering when
+Mrs. Sheldon is talking."
+
+Three days after this Captain Paget called on Mr. Sheldon in the City,
+when he received a very handsome recompense for his labours at Ullerton,
+and became repossessed of the extracts he had made from Matthew
+Haygarth's letters, but not of the same Mr. Haygarth's autograph letter:
+that document Mr. Sheldon confessed to having mislaid.
+
+"He has mislaid the original letter, and he has had ample leisure for
+copying my extracts; and he thinks I am such a consummate fool as not to
+see all that," thought Horatio, as he left the stockbroker's office,
+enriched but not satisfied.
+
+In the course of the same day he received a long letter from Diana
+containing the whole history of the Meynells, as known to Mrs. Sheldon.
+Once set talking, Georgy had told all she could tell, delighted to find
+herself listened to with obvious interest by her companion.
+
+"I trust that you have not deceived me, my dear father," Diana concluded,
+after setting forth the Meynell history. "The dear good soul was so
+candid and confiding, and seemed so pleased by the interest I showed in
+her family affairs, that I should feel myself the vilest of wretches if
+any harm could result to her, or those she loves, from the information
+thus obtained."
+
+The information was very complete. Mrs. Sheldon had a kindly and amiable
+nature, but she was not one of those sensitive souls who instinctively
+shrink from a story of bitter shame or profound sorrow as from a cureless
+wound. She told Diana, with many lamentations, and much second-hand
+morality, the sad history of Susan Meynell's elopement, and of the
+return, fourteen years afterwards, of the weary wanderer. Even the poor
+little trunk, with the name of the Rouen trunk-maker, Mrs. Sheldon dwelt
+upon with graphic insistence. A certain womanly delicacy had prevented
+her ever telling this story in the presence of her brother-in-law, George
+Sheldon, whose hard worldly manner in no way invited any sentimental
+revelation. Thus it happened that George had never heard the name of
+Meynell in connection with his friend Tom Halliday's family, or had heard
+it so seldom as to have entirely forgotten it. To Horatio his daughter's
+letter was priceless. It placed him at once in as good a position as
+Philip Sheldon, or as George Sheldon and his coadjutor, Valentine
+Hawkehurst. There were thus three different interests involved in the
+inheritance of the Reverend John Haygarth.
+
+Captain Paget sat late by a comfortable fire, in his own bedchamber, that
+night, enjoying an excellent cigar, and meditating the following jottings
+from a pedigree:--
+
+CHARLOTTE MEYNELL, married JAMES HALLIDAY.
+       |
+THOMAS HALLIDAY, only son of above, married GEORGINA, now Mrs. SHELDON;
+       |         had issue,
+CHARLOTTE HALLIDAY.
+
+SUSAN MEYNELL, only and elder sister of the above-named Charlotte, ran
+away from her home, in Yorkshire, with a Mr. Kingdon, brother to Lord
+Darnsville. Fate unknown during fourteen years of her life. Died in
+London, 1835. Buried under her maiden name; but no positive evidence to
+show that she was unmarried.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE CAPTAIN'S COADJUTOR.
+
+Once in possession of the connection between the intestate John Haygarth
+and the Halliday family, Captain Paget's course was an easy one. He
+understood now why his investigations had been so suddenly brought to a
+standstill. Philip Sheldon had discovered the unexpected connection, and
+was eager to put a stop to researches that might lead to a like discovery
+on the part of his coadjutor.
+
+"And Sheldon expects to prove his stepdaughter's claim to this fortune?"
+thought the Captain. "He will affect ignorance of the whole transaction
+until his plans are ripe, and then spring them suddenly upon his brother
+George. I wonder if there is anything to be made out of George by letting
+him into the secret of his brother's interference? No; I think not.
+George is as poor as a church mouse, and Philip must always be the more
+profitable acquaintance."
+
+On the broad basis afforded by Diana's letter Captain Paget was able to
+build up the whole scheme of the Haygarthian succession. The pedigree of
+the Meynells was sufficiently simple, if their legitimate descent from
+Matthew Haygarth could be fairly proved. Charlotte Halliday was
+heiress-at-law to the fortune of John Haygarth, always provided that her
+great-aunt Susan died without legitimate issue.
+
+Here was the one chance which appeared to the adventurous mind of Horatio
+Paget worth some trouble in the way of research. Fourteen years of Susan
+Meynell's life had been spent away from all who knew her. It was
+certainly possible that in that time she might have formed some
+legitimate alliance.
+
+This was the problem which Horatio set himself to solve. Your adventurer
+is, of all manner of men, the most sanguine. Sir Walter Raleigh sees
+visions of gold and glory where grave statesmen see only a fool's
+paradise of dreams and fancies. To the hopeful mind of the Captain these
+fourteen unrecorded years of Susan Meynell's life seemed a very Golconda.
+
+He did not, however, rest satisfied with the information afforded by
+Diana's letter.
+
+"I will have the story of these Meynells at first-hand as well as at
+second-hand," he said to himself; and he lost no time in presenting
+himself again at the Villa--this time as a visitor to Mrs. Sheldon.
+
+With Georgy he had been always a favourite. His little stories of the
+great world--the Prince and Perdita, Brummel and Sheridan--though by no
+means novel to those acquainted with that glorious period of British
+history, were very agreeable to Georgy. The Captain's florid flatteries
+pleased her; and she contrasted the ceremonious manners of that gentleman
+with the curt business-like style of her husband, very much to the
+Captain's advantage. He came to thank her for her goodness to his child,
+and this occasion gave him ample opportunity for sentiment. He had asked
+to see Mrs. Sheldon alone, as his daughter's presence would have been
+some hindrance to the carrying out of his design.
+
+"There are things I have to say which I should scarcely care to utter
+before my daughter, you see, my dear Mrs. Sheldon," he said, with
+pathetic earnestness. "I should not wish to remind the dear child of her
+desolate position; and I need scarcely tell you that position is _very_
+desolate. A father who, at his best, cannot provide a fitting home for a
+delicately nurtured girl, and who at any moment may be snatched away, is
+but a poor protector. And were it not for your friendship, I know not
+what my child's fate might be. The dangers and temptations that beset a
+handsome young woman are very terrible, my dear Mrs. Sheldon."
+
+This was intended to lead up to the subject of Susan Meynell, but Georgy
+did not rise to the bait. She only shook her head plaintively in assent
+to the Captain's proposition.
+
+"Yes, madam; beauty, unallied with strength of mind and high principles,
+is apt to be a fatal dower. In every family there are sad histories,"
+murmured the sentimental Horatio.
+
+Even this remark did not produce the required result; so the Captain drew
+upon his invention for a specimen history from the annals of his own
+house, which was a colourable imitation of Susan Meynell's story.
+
+"And what was the end of this lovely Belinda Paget's career, my dear Mrs.
+Sheldon?" he concluded. "The gentleman was a man of high rank, but a
+scoundrel and a dastard. Sophia's brother, a cornet in the First Life
+Guards, called him out, and there was a meeting on Wimbledon Common, in
+which Lavinia's seducer was mortally wounded. There was a trial, and the
+young captain of Hussars, Amelia's brother, was sentenced to
+transportation for life. I need scarcely tell you that the sentence was
+never carried out. The young man fell gloriously at Waterloo, at the head
+of his own regiment, the Scotch Fusiliers, and Lavinia--I beg pardon,
+Amelia; nay, what am I saying? the girl's name was Belinda--embraced the
+Roman Catholic faith, and expired from the effects of stigmata inflicted
+by her own hands in a paroxysm of remorse for her brother's untimely
+death at the hands of her seducer."
+
+This lively little impromptu sketch had the desired effect. Melted by the
+woes of Belinda, or Sophia, or Amelia, or Lavinia Paget, Mrs. Sheldon was
+moved to relate a sad event in her husband's family; and encouraged by
+the almost tearful sympathy of the Captain, she again repeated every
+detail of Susan Meynell's life, as known to her kindred. And as this
+recital had flowed spontaneously from the good soul's lips, she would be
+scarcely likely to allude to it afterwards in conversation with Mr.
+Sheldon; more especially as that gentleman was not in the habit of
+wasting much of his valuable time in small-talk with the members of his
+own household.
+
+Captain Paget had duly calculated this, and every other hazard that
+menaced the intricate path he had mapped out for himself.
+
+Satisfied by Mrs. Sheldon's repetition of Susan Meynell's story, and
+possessed of all the information he could hope to obtain from that
+quarter, Horatio set himself to consider what steps must next be taken.
+Much serious reflection convinced even his sanguine mind that the
+enterprise was a difficult one, and could scarcely be carried through
+successfully without help from some skilled genealogist.
+
+"George Sheldon has given his lifetime to this sort of thing, and is a
+skilled lawyer to boot," Captain Paget said to himself. "If I hope to go
+in against him, I must have someone at my elbow as well versed in this
+sort of business as he is."
+
+Having once admitted this necessity, the Captain set himself to consider
+where he was to find the right person. A very brief meditation settled
+this question. One among the numerous business transactions of Captain
+Paget's life had brought him in contact with a very respectable little
+French gentleman called Fleurus, who had begun his career as a notary,
+but, finding that profession unprofitable, had become a hunter of
+pedigrees and heirs-at-law--for the most part to insignificant legacies,
+unclaimed stock, and all other jetsam and flotsam thrown up on the
+shadowy shores of the Court of Chancery. M. Fleurus had not often been so
+fortunate as to put his industrious fingers into any large pie, but he
+had contrived to make a good deal of money out of small affairs, and had
+found his clients grateful.
+
+"The man of men," thought Horatio Paget; and he betook himself to the
+office of M. Fleurus early next day, provided with all documents relating
+to the Haygarthian succession.
+
+His interview with the little Frenchman was long and satisfactory. On
+certain conditions as to future reward, said reward to be contingent on
+success, M. Fleurus was ready to devote himself heart and soul to the
+interests of Captain Paget.
+
+"To begin: we must find legal evidence of this Matthew Haygarth's
+marriage to the mother of this child C., who came afterwards to marry the
+man Meynell; and after we will go to Susan Meynell. Her box came from
+Rouen--that we know. Where her box came from she is likely to have come
+from. So it is at Rouen, or near Rouen, we must look for her. Let me see:
+she die in 1835! that is long time. To look for the particulars of her
+life is like to dive into the ocean for to find the lost cargo of a ship
+that is gone down to the bottom, no one knows where. But to a man really
+expert in these things there is nothing of impossible. I will find you
+your Susan Meynell in less than six months; the evidence of her marriage;
+if she was married; her children, if she had children."
+
+In less than six months--the margin seemed a wide one to the impatient
+Horatio. But he knew that such an investigation must needs be slow, and
+he left the matters in the hands of his new ally with a sense that he had
+done the best thing that could be done. Then followed for Horatio Paget
+two months of patient attendance upon fortune. He was not idle during
+this time; for Mr. Sheldon, who seemed particularly anxious to conciliate
+him, threw waifs and strays of business into his way. Before the middle
+of November M. Fleurus had found the register of Matthew Haygarth's
+marriage, as George Sheldon had found it before him, working in the same
+groove, and with the same order of intelligence. After this important
+step M. Fleurus departed for his native shores, where he had other
+business besides the Meynell affair to claim his attention. Meanwhile the
+astute Horatio kept a close eye upon his young friend Valentine. He knew
+from Diana that the young man had been in Yorkshire; and he guessed the
+motive of his visit to Newhall, not for a moment supposing that his
+presence in that farmhouse could have been accidental. The one turn of
+affairs that utterly and completely mystified him was Mr. Sheldon's
+sanction of the engagement between Valentine and Charlotte. This was a
+mystery for which he could for some time find no solution.
+
+"Sheldon will try to establish his stepdaughter's claim to the fortune;
+that is clear. But why does he allow her to throw herself away on a
+penniless adventurer like Hawkehurst? If she were to marry him before
+recovering the Haygarth estate, she would recover it as his wife, and the
+fortune would be thrown unprotected into his hands."
+
+More deliberate reflection cast a faint light upon Philip Sheldon's
+motives for so quixotic a course.
+
+"The girl had fallen in love with Val. It was too late to prevent that.
+She is of age, and can marry whom she pleases. By showing himself opposed
+to her engagement with Val, he might have hurried her into rebellion, and
+an immediate marriage. By affecting to consent to the engagement, he
+would, on the contrary, gain time, and the advantage of all those chances
+that are involved in the lapse of time."
+
+Within a few days of Christmas came the following letter from M.
+Fleurus:--
+
+
+_From Jacques Rousseau Fleurus to Horatio Paget_.
+
+Hotel de la Pucelle, place Jeanne d'Arc, Rouen, 21st December, 186--.
+
+MONSIEUR,--After exertions incalculable, after labours herculean, I come
+to learn something of your Susan Meynell,--more, I come to learn of her
+marriage. But I will begin at the beginning of things. The labours, the
+time, the efforts, the courage, the patience, the--I will say it without
+to blush--the genius which this enterprise has cost me, I will not
+enlarge upon. There are things which cannot tell themselves. To commence,
+I will tell you how I went to Rouen, how I advertised in the journals of
+Rouen, and asked among the people of Rouen--at shops, at hotels, by the
+help of my allies, the police, by means which you, in your inexperience
+of this science of research, could not even figure to yourself--always
+seeking the trace of this woman Meynell. It was all pain lost. Of this
+woman Meynell in Rouen there was no trace.
+
+In the end I enraged myself. "Imbecile!" I said to myself, "why seek in
+this dull commercial city, among this heavy people, for that which thou
+shouldst seek only in the centre of all things? As the rivers go to the
+ocean, so flow all the streams of human life to the one great central
+ocean of humanity--PARIS! It is there the Alpha and the Omega--there the
+mighty heart through which the blood of all the body must be pumped, and
+is pumping always," I say to myself, unconsciously rising to the
+sublimity of my great countryman, Hugo, in whose verse I find an echo of
+my own soul, and whose compositions I flatter myself I could have
+surpassed, if I had devoted to the Muses the time and the powers which I
+have squandered on a _vilain_ metier, that demands the genius of a
+Talleyrand, and rewards with the crust of an artisan.
+
+In Paris, then, I will seek the woman Meynell, and to Paris I go. In my
+place an inexperienced person would advertise in the most considerable
+papers; would invite Susan Meynell to hear of something to her
+advantage; and would bring together a crowd of false Susan Meynells,
+greedy to obtain the benefice. Me, I do nothing in this style there. On
+the contrary, in the most obscure little journals of Paris I publish a
+modest little advertisement as from the brother of Susan Meynell, who
+implores his sister to visit him on his deathbed.
+
+Here are follies, you will say. Since Susan Meynell is dead it is thirty
+years, and her brother is dead also. Ah, how you are dull, you insulars,
+and how impossible for your foggy island to produce a Fouche, a Canler, a
+genius of police, a Columbus of the subterranean darknesses of your city.
+
+The brother, dying, advertises for the sister, dead; and who will answer
+that letter, think you? Some good Christian soul who has pity for the
+sick man, and who will not permit him to languish in waiting the sister
+who will come to him never. For us of the Roman Catholic religion the
+duty of charity is paramount. You of the Anglican faith--bah, how you are
+cold, how you are hard, how you are unpitiable!
+
+My notice appears once, my notice appears twice, three times, four times,
+many times. I occupy myself about my other business, and I wait. I do not
+wait unusefully. In effect, a letter arrives at last at the address of
+the dying, from a lady who knew Susan Meynell _before her marriage with
+M. Lenoble._
+
+Think you not that to me this was a moment of triumph? _Before her
+marriage with M. Lenoble!_ Those words appear under my eyes in the
+writing of the unknown lady. "It is found!" I cry to myself; and then I
+hasten myself to reply to the unknown lady. Will she permit me to see
+her?
+
+With all politeness I make the request; with all politeness it is
+answered. The lady calls herself Mademoiselle Servin. She resides in the
+street Grande-Mademoiselle, at the corner of the Place Lauzun. It is of
+all the streets of Paris the most miserable. One side is already removed.
+In face of the windows of those houses that still stand they are making a
+new Boulevard. Behind they are pulling down edifices of all kinds in the
+formation of a new square. At the side there is a yawning chasm between
+two tall houses, through which they pierce a new street. One sees the
+interior of many rooms rising one above another for seven stories. Here
+the gay hangings of an apartment of little master; there the still
+gaudier decoration of a boudoir of these ladies. High above these
+luxurious salons--ah, but how much more near to the skies!--one sees the
+poor grey paper, blackened and smoky, of a garret of sempstress, or
+workman, and the hearths black, deserted. These interiors thus exposed
+tighten me the heart. It is the autopsy of the domestic hearth.
+
+I find the Mademoiselle Servin an old lady, grey and wan. The house where
+she now resides is the house which she has inhabited five-and-thirty
+years. They talk of pulling it down, and to her the idea of leaving it is
+exquisite pain. She is alone, a teacher of music. She has seen
+proprietors come and go. The _pension_ has changed mistresses many times.
+Students of law and of medicine have come and passed like the shadows of
+a magic lantern; but this poor soul has remained still in her little room
+on the fourth, and has kept always her little old piano.
+
+It was here she knew Susan Meynell, and a young Frenchman who became in
+love with her, for she was beautiful like the angels, this lady said to
+me.
+
+Until we meet for all details. Enough that I come to discover where the
+marriage took place, that I come to obtain a copy of the register, and
+that I do all things in rule. Enough that the marriage is a good
+marriage--a regular marriage, and that I have placed myself already in
+communication with the heir of that marriage, who resides within some few
+leagues of this city.
+
+My labours, my successes I will not describe. It must that they will be
+recompensed in the future. I have dispensed much money during these
+transactions.
+
+Agree, monsieur, that I am your devoted servitor,
+
+JACQUES ROUSSEAU FLEURUS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in consequence of the receipt of this missive that the Captain
+trusted himself to the winds and waves in the cheerless December weather.
+He was well pleased to find that M. Fleurus had made discoveries so
+important; but he had no idea of letting that astute practitioner absorb
+all the power into his own hands.
+
+"I must see Susan Meynell's heir," he said to himself; "I must give him
+clearly to understand that to me he owes the discovery of his claims, and
+that in this affair the Frenchman Fleurus is no more than a paid agent."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Fourth.
+
+
+
+GUSTAVE IN ENGLAND.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+HALCYON DAYS.
+
+Once having offered up the fondest desires of her own heart on the
+shrine of duty, Diana Paget was not a person to repent herself of the
+pious sacrifice. After that Christmas night on which she had knelt at
+Charlotte's feet to confess her sad secret, and to resign all claim to
+the man she had loved so foolishly, so tenderly, with such a romantic
+and unselfish devotion, Miss Paget put away all thought of the past from
+her heart and mind. Heart and mind seemed empty and joyless without
+those loved tenants, though the tenants had been only fair wraiths of
+dreams that were dead. There was a sense of something missing in her
+life--a blank, dull calm, which was at first very painful. But for
+Charlotte's sake she was careful to hide all outward token of
+despondency, and the foolish grief, put down by so strong a hand, was
+ere long well-nigh stifled.
+
+Those dark days which succeeded Christmas were a period of halcyon peace
+for Valentine and Charlotte. The accepted lover came to the villa when he
+pleased, but was still careful not to encroach on the license allowed
+him. Once a week he permitted himself the delight of five-o'clock tea in
+Mrs. Sheldon's drawing-room, on which occasions he brought Charlotte all
+the news of his small literary world, and a good deal of useful
+information out of the books he had been reading. When Mr. Sheldon
+pleased to invite him to dinner on Sunday he gladly accepted the
+invitation, and this Sunday dinner became in due course an established
+institution.
+
+"You may as well make this your home on a Sunday," said Mr. Sheldon one
+day, with careless cordiality; "I dare say you find Sunday dull in your
+lodgings."
+
+"Yes, papa," cried Charlotte, "he does find it very dull--dreadfully
+dull--don't you, Valentine?"
+
+And she regarded him with that pretty, tender, almost motherly look,
+which young ladies who are engaged are apt to bestow on their affianced
+lovers.
+
+Miss Halliday was very grateful to her stepfather for his kindness to her
+landless adorer, and showed her appreciation of his conduct in many
+pretty little caressing ways, which would have been infinitely bewitching
+to a person of sentiment.
+
+Unfortunately Mr. Sheldon was not sentimental, and any exhibition of
+feeling appeared to have an irritating effect upon his nerves. There were
+times when he shrank from some little sudden caress of Charlotte's as
+from the sting of an adder. Aversion, surprise, fear--what was it that
+showed in the expression of his face at these moments? Whatever that
+strange look was, it departed too quickly for analysis; and the
+stockbroker thanked his stepdaughter for her little affectionate
+demonstration with his wonted smile--the smile he smiled on Change, the
+smile which was sometimes on his lips when his mind was a nest of
+scorpions.
+
+To Valentine, in these rosy hours, life seemed full of hope and
+brightness. He transferred his goods and chattels from Omega Street,
+Chelsea, to the pleasant lodging in the Edgware Road, where he was nearer
+Charlotte, and out of the way of his late patron Captain Paget, in the
+event of that gentleman's return from the Continent.
+
+Fortune favoured him. The gaiety of heart which came with his happiness
+lent a grace to his pen. Pleasant thoughts and fancies bedecked his
+pages. He saw everything in the rosy light of love and beauty, and there
+was a buoyant freshness in all he wrote. The Pegasus might be but a
+common hackney, but the hack was young and fresh, and galloped gaily as
+he scented the dewy morning air. It is not every poet whose Pegasus
+clears at a bound a space as wide as all that waste of land and sea the
+watchman views from his tall tower on the rock.
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst's papers on Lauzun, Brummel, Sardanapalus, Rabelais, Lord
+Chesterfield, Erasmus, Beau Nash, Apelles, Galileo, and Philip of
+Orleans, were in demand, and the reading public wondered at this prodigy
+of book-making. He had begun to save money, and had opened a deposit
+account at the Unitas Bank. How he gloated over the deposit receipts in
+the stillness of the night, when he added a fresh one to his store! When
+he had three, for sums amounting in all to forty pounds, he took them to
+Charlotte, and she looked at them, and he looked at them, as if the poor
+little bits of printed paper had been specimens of virgin ore from some
+gold mine newly discovered by Mr. Hawkehurst. And then these foolish
+lovers kissed each other, as William Lee and his wife may have embraced
+after the penniless young student had perfected his invention of the
+stocking-frame.
+
+"Forty pounds!" exclaimed Miss Halliday, "all won by your pen, and your
+poor fingers, and your poor, poor head! How it must ache after a long
+day's work! How clever you must be, Valentine!"
+
+"Yes, dear; amazingly clever. Clever enough to know that you are the
+dearest girl in Christendom."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, sir! You are not clever enough to have the
+privilege of doing that yet awhile. I mean, how learned you must be to
+know such lots of things, all about Erasmus, and Galileo, and--"
+
+"No, my darling, not Erasmus and Galileo. I knew all about Erasmus last
+week; but I am working at my paper on Galileo now, an exhaustive review
+of all the books that were ever written on the subject, in ten pages. I
+don't ask other people to remember what I write, you know, my dear, and I
+don't pledge myself to remember it. That sort of thing won't keep. There
+is a kind of sediment, no doubt, in one's note-book; but the
+effervescence of that vintage goes off rather quickly."
+
+"I only know that you are a very clever person, and that one obtains an
+immensity of information from your writings," said Charlotte.
+
+"Yes, dearest, there is a kind of wine that must be made into negus for
+such pretty little topers as you--the 'Wine of Cyprus,' as Mrs. Browning
+called it. It is better for pretty girls to have the negus than to have
+nothing, or only weak home-brewed stuff that results in head-ache. My
+dearest, Fate has been very good to me, and I love my profession of
+letters. I am sure that of all educational processes there is none better
+than book-making; and the man who begins by making books must be a dolt,
+dunce, and dunderhead, if he do not end by writing them. So you may yet
+hope to see the morning that shall make your Valentine famous--for a
+fortnight. What man can hope to be famous for _more_ than a fortnight in
+such a railroad age as this?"
+
+During this halcyon period, in which Mr. Hawkehurst cultivated
+alternately the society of the Muses and his mistress, he saw little or
+nothing of George Sheldon. He had washed his hands of all share in the
+work of establishing Charlotte Halliday's claim to the Reverend John
+Haygarth's thousands. Indeed, since that interview in which Philip
+Sheldon had made so light of his stepdaughter's chances, and ratified his
+consent to her marriage with so humble a literary adventurer as himself,
+Mr. Hawkehurst had come to consider the Haygarthian inheritance as
+altogether a visionary business. If it were certain, or even probable,
+that Charlotte was to inherit a hundred thousand pounds, was it likely
+that Mr. Sheldon would encourage such an alliance? This question Mr.
+Hawkehurst always answered in the negative; and as days and weeks went
+by, and he heard no more of the Haygarth fortune, the idea of Charlotte's
+wealth became more and more shadowy.
+
+If there were anything doing in this matter, the two brothers were now
+working together, and George had no further need of Valentine's help.
+
+The two brothers were not working entirely together. Philip Sheldon had
+taken the matter into his own strong hand, and George found it very
+difficult to hold an inch of ground against that formidable antagonist.
+The papers and information which George had boasted of to Valentine, and
+the possession whereof was, as he asserted, the very keystone of the
+arch, proved to be of such small account that he ultimately consented to
+hand them over to his brother on the payment of expenses out of pocket,
+and a bonus of one hundred and fifty pounds, together with a written
+undertaking from Miss Halliday to pay him the fifth share of any fortune
+recovered by means of those papers.
+
+This undertaking had been executed in the easiest manner.
+
+"My brother has taken it into his wise head that there is some unclaimed
+stock standing in your grandfather's name which you are entitled to,
+Lotta," Mr. Sheldon said one morning; "and he wants to recover the amount
+for you, on condition of receiving a clear fifth when the sum is
+recovered. Have you any objection to sign such an undertaking?"
+
+"Dear papa, how can I object?" cried Charlotte gaily. "Why, stocks are
+money, are they not? How fortunate we are, and how rich we are getting!"
+
+"We!"
+
+"Valentine and I," murmured the girl, blushing. "I cannot help thinking
+of him when any windfall of good fortune comes to me. What do you think,
+papa? He has saved forty pounds in little more than three months--all
+earned by his pen!
+
+"Behold
+The arch-enchanter's wand! Itself a nothing;
+But taking sorcery from the master-hand
+To paralyze the Caesars, and to strike
+The loud earth breathless!"
+
+And Miss Halliday spouted the glowing lines of the noble dramatist with
+charming enthusiasm. She signed the required undertaking without looking
+at it, and it was duly witnessed by her stepfather.
+
+"In your talk with your mother and Valentine, I should advise you to be
+as silent about this small business as about your own little fortune,"
+Mr. Sheldon remarked presently.
+
+"Mustn't I tell Valentine?" cried Charlotte, making a wry face; "I should
+so like to tell him--just about these stocks. I daresay _he_ knows what
+stocks are; and it would be such cheering news for him, after he has
+worked his poor brain so for that forty pounds. I don't so much care
+about telling poor mamma; for she does exclaim and wonder so about
+things, that it is quite fatiguing to hear her. But please let me tell
+Valentine?"
+
+Miss Halliday pursed-up her lips and offered her stepfather one of those
+kisses which she had of late been prompted to bestow on him out of the
+gratitude of a heart overflowing with girlish joy. He took the kiss as he
+might have taken a dose of medicine, but did not grant the request
+preferred by it.
+
+"If you want to be a fool, you can tell your lover of this windfall; but
+if you wish to prove yourself a sensible girl, you will hold your tongue.
+He has saved forty pounds by hard work in the last three months, you say:
+do you think he would have saved forty pence if he had known that you had
+five thousand pounds at his disposal? I know that class of men; look at
+Goldsmith, the man who wrote the "Vicar of Wakefield," and "Rasselas,"
+and "Clarissa Harlowe," and so on. I have read somewhere that he never
+wrote except under coercion--that is to say, want of money."
+
+Charlotte acknowledged the wisdom of this argument, and submitted. She
+was not what was called a strong-minded woman; and, indeed, strength of
+mind is not a plant indigenous to the female nature, but an exceptional
+growth developed by exceptional circumstances. In Charlotte's life there
+had been nothing exceptional, and she was in all things soft and womanly,
+ready to acknowledge, and to be guided by, the wisdom of her seniors. So
+Valentine heard nothing of the undertaking executed by his lady-love.
+
+After this, Mr. Sheldon took counsel's opinion, and set to work in real
+earnest to recover the estate of the deceased John Haygarth from the
+yawning jaws of that tame but all-devouring monster, the Crown. The work
+was slow, and the dry as dust details thereof need not be recorded here.
+It had but just begun when Horatio Paget suddenly returned from his
+Continental expedition, and established himself once more in the Omega
+Street lodgings.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+CAPTAIN PAGET AWAKENS TO A SENSE OF HIS DUTY.
+
+Captain Paget's return was made known to the Sheldon circle by a letter
+from the returning wanderer to his daughter. The Captain was laid up with
+rheumatic gout, and wrote quite piteously to implore a visit from Diana.
+Miss Paget, always constant to the idea of a duty to be performed on her
+side, even to this _pere prodigue_, obeyed the summons promptly, with the
+full approval of Georgy, always good-natured after her own fussy manner.
+
+"And if you'd like to take your papa a bottle of Mr. Sheldon's old port,
+Diana, remember it's at your disposal. I'm sure I've heard people say
+that old port is good for the gout--or perhaps, by the bye, what I heard
+was that it _wasn't_ good. I know old port and gout seem to run together
+in my head somehow. But if there's anything in the house your papa would
+like, Diana--wine, or gunpowder tea, or the eider-down coverlet off the
+spare bed, or the parlour croquet, to amuse him of an evening, or a new
+novel--surely one couldn't forfeit one's subscription by lending a book
+to a non-subscribing invalid?"
+
+While Georgy was suggesting the loan of almost every portable object in
+the house as a specific for Captain Paget's gout, Charlotte sent for a
+cab and made things smooth for her friend's departure. She wrapped her
+warmly against the February blast, and insisted upon going out to see her
+seated in the cab, whereby she offered to the pedestrians of that
+neighbourhood a seraphic vision of loveliness with tumbled hair.
+Charlotte had been always delightful, but Charlotte engaged to Valentine
+Hawkehurst was a creature of supernal sweetness and brightness--a radiant
+ministering angel, hovering lightly above a world too common for her foot
+to rest upon.
+
+Miss Paget found her father suffering from a by no means severe attack of
+a respectable family gout, a little peevish from the effects of this
+affliction, but not at all depressed in mind. He had, indeed, the manner
+of a man with whom things are going pleasantly. There was a satisfaction
+in his tone, a placidity in his face, except when distorted for the
+moment by a twinge of pain, that were new to Diana, who had not been
+accustomed to behold the brighter side of her father's disposition. He
+seemed grateful for his daughter's visit, and received her with unwonted
+kindness of manner.
+
+"You have come very promptly, my dear, and I am gratified by your early
+compliance with my request," he said with dignified affection, after he
+had given his daughter the kiss of greeting. "I was a great sufferer last
+night, Diana, a great sufferer, a prisoner to this chair, and the woman
+below attempted to send me up a dinner--_such_ a dinner! One would think
+a very small degree of education necessary for the stewing of a kidney,
+but the things that woman gave me last night were like morsels of stewed
+leather. I am not an epicure, Diana; but with such a constitution as
+mine, good cooking is a vital necessity. Life in lodgings for a man of my
+age is a sore trial, my dear. I wish you were well married, Diana, and
+could give your father a humble corner at your fireside."
+
+Diana smiled. It was a somewhat bitter smile; and there was scorn of
+herself, as well as scorn of her father in that bitterness.
+
+"I am not the sort of person to marry well, papa," she said.
+
+"Who knows? You are handsomer than nine-tenths of the women who marry
+well."
+
+"No, papa; that is your sanguine manner of looking at your own property.
+And even if I were married to some one to whom I might give obedience and
+duty, and all that kind of thing, in exchange for a comfortable home, as
+they say in the advertisements, would you be content with a peaceful
+corner by my fireside? Do you think you would never pine for clubs and
+gaming-tables--nay, even for creditors to--to diplomatize with, and
+difficulties to surmount?"
+
+"No, my dear. I am an old man; the clubs and gaming-houses have done with
+me, and I with them. I went to see a man at Arthur's a few months ago. I
+had written to him on a little matter of business--in fact, to be candid
+with you, my love, for the loan of a five-pound note--and I called at the
+club for his reply. I caught sight of my face in a distant glass as I was
+waiting in the strangers' room, and I thought I was looking at a ghost.
+There comes a time towards the close of a long troublesome life in which
+a man begins to feel like a ghost. His friends are gone, and his money is
+gone, his health is gone, his good looks are gone; and the only mistake
+seems to be that the man himself should be left behind. I remember an
+observation of Lord Chesterfield's: 'Lord ---- and I have been dead for
+the last two years, but we don't tell anyone so,' he said; and there are
+few old men who couldn't say the same. But I am not down-hearted to-day,
+my dear. No, the habit of hoping has never quite deserted me; and it is
+only now and then that I take a dismal view of life. Come, my love, lay
+aside your bonnet and things. Dear me! what a handsome black silk dress,
+and how well you look in it!"
+
+"It is a present from Charlotte, papa. She has a very liberal allowance
+of pocket-money, and is generosity itself. I don't like to take so much
+from her, but I only wound her by a refusal."
+
+"Of course, my dear. There is nothing so ungracious as a refusal, and no
+mark of high breeding so rare as the art of gracious acceptance. Any
+booby can give a present; but to receive a gift without churlish
+reticence or florid rapture is no easy accomplishment. I am always
+pleased to see you well-dressed, my love"--Diana winced as she remembered
+her shabby hat and threadbare gown at Foretdechene--"and I am especially
+pleased to see you elegantly attired this evening, as I expect a
+gentleman by-and-by."
+
+"A gentleman, papa!" exclaimed Miss Paget, with considerable surprise; "I
+thought that you had sent for me because you were ill and depressed and
+lonely."
+
+"Well, yes, Diana, I certainly am ill; and I suppose it is scarcely
+unnatural that a father should wish to see his only daughter."
+
+Diana was silent. A father's wish to see his daughter was indeed natural
+and common; but that Captain Paget, who in no period of his daughter's
+life had evinced for her the common affection of paternity, should be
+seized all of a sudden with a yearning for her society, was somewhat
+singular. But Diana's nature had been ennobled and fortified by the
+mental struggle and the impalpable sacrifice of the last few months, and
+she was in nowise disposed to repel any affectionate feeling of her
+father's even at this eleventh hour.
+
+"_He_ tells us the eleventh hour is not too late," she thought. "If it is
+not too late in the sight of that Divine Judge, shall it be thought too
+late by an erring creature like me?"
+
+After a few minutes of thoughtful silence, she knelt down by her father's
+chair and kissed him.
+
+"My dear father," she murmured softly, "believe me, I am very pleased to
+think you should wish to see me. I will come to you whenever you like to
+send for me. I am glad not to be a burden to you; but I should wish to be
+a comfort when I can."
+
+The Captain shed his stock tear. It signified something nearer akin to
+real emotion than usual.
+
+"My dear girl," he said, "this is very pleasing, very pleasing
+indeed. The day may come--I cannot just now say when--and events may
+arise--which--the nature of which I am not yet in a position to indicate
+to you--but the barren fig-tree may not be always fruitless. In its old
+age the withered trunk may put forth fresh branches. We will say no more
+of this, my love; and I will only remark that you may not go unrequited
+for any affection bestowed on your poor old father."
+
+Diana smiled, and this time it was a pensive rather than a bitter smile.
+She had often heard her father talk like this before. She had often heard
+these oracular hints of some grand event looming mighty in the immediate
+future; but she had never seen the vague prophecy accomplished. Always a
+schemer, and always alternating between the boastful confidence of hope
+and the peevish bewailings of despair, the Captain had built his castle
+to-day to sit among its ruins to-morrow, ever since she had known him.
+
+So she set little value on his hopeful talk of this evening, but was
+content to see him in good spirits. He contemplated her admiringly as she
+knelt by his easy-chair, and smoothed the shining coils of her dark hair
+with a gentle hand, as he looked downward at the thoughtful face--proud
+and grave, but not ungentle.
+
+"You are a very handsome girl, Diana," he murmured, as much to himself as
+to his daughter; "yes, very handsome. Egad, I had no idea how handsome!"
+
+"What has put such a fancy into your head to-night, papa?" asked Diana,
+laughing. "I do not believe in the good looks you are so kind as to
+attribute to me. When I see my face in the glass I perceive a pale gloomy
+countenance that is by no means pleasing."
+
+"You may be out of spirits when you look in the glass. I hope you are not
+unhappy at Bayswater."
+
+"Why should I be unhappy, papa? No sister was ever kinder or more loving
+than Charlotte Halliday is to me. I should be very ungrateful to
+Providence as well as to her if I did not appreciate such affection. How
+many lonely girls, like me, go through life without picking up a sister?"
+
+"Yes, you are right, my dear. Those Sheldon people have been very useful
+to you. They are not the kind of people I should have wished a daughter
+of mine to be _liee_ with, if I were in the position my birth entitles me
+to occupy; but as I am not in that position, I submit. That black silk
+becomes you admirably. And now, my love, be so kind as to ring the bell
+for lights and tea."
+
+They had been sitting in the firelight--the mystic magical capricious
+firelight--which made even that tawdry lodging-house parlour seem a
+pleasant chamber. The tea-tray was brought, and candles. Diana seated
+herself at the table, and made tea with the contents of a little
+mahogany caddy.
+
+"Don't pour out the tea just yet," said the Captain; "I expect a
+gentleman. I don't suppose he'll take tea, but it will look more civil to
+wait for him."
+
+"And who is this mysterious gentleman, papa?"
+
+"A Frenchman; a man I met while I was abroad."
+
+"_Really_ a gentleman?"
+
+"Certainly, Diana," replied her father, with offended dignity. "Do you
+think I should admit any person to my friendship who is not a gentleman?
+My business relations I am powerless to govern; but friendship is a
+different matter. There is no man more exclusive than Horatio Paget.
+M. Lenoble is a gentleman of ancient lineage and amiable character."
+
+"And rich, I suppose, papa?" asked Diana. She thought that her father
+would scarcely speak of the gentleman in a tone so profoundly respectful
+if he were not rich.
+
+"Yes, Diana. M. Lenoble is master of a very fair estate, and is likely to
+be much richer before he dies."
+
+"And he has been kind to you, papa?"
+
+"Yes, he has shown me hospitality during my residence in Normandy. You
+need not speak of him to your friends the Sheldons."
+
+"Not even to Charlotte?"
+
+"Not even to Charlotte. I do not care to have my affairs discussed by
+that class of people."
+
+"But, dear papa, why make a mystery about so unimportant a matter.
+
+"I do not make a mystery; but I hate gossip. Mrs. Sheldon is an
+incorrigible gossip, and I daresay her daughter is no better."
+
+"Charlotte is an angel, papa."
+
+"That is very possible. But I beg that you will refrain from discussing
+my friend M. Lenoble in her angelic presence."
+
+"As you please, papa," said Diana gravely. She felt herself bound to obey
+her father in this small matter; but the idea of this mystery and secrecy
+was very unwelcome to her. It implied that her father's acquaintance with
+this Frenchman was only a part of some new scheme. It was no honest
+friendship, which the Captain might be proud to own, glad to show the
+world that in these days of decadence he could still point to a friend.
+It was only some business alliance, underhand and stealthy; a social
+conspiracy, that must needs be conducted in darkness.
+
+"Why did papa summon me here if he wants his acquaintance with this man
+kept secret?" she asked herself; and the question seemed unanswerable.
+
+She pictured this M. Lenoble to herself--a wizened, sallow-faced
+Macchiavellian individual, whose business in England must needs be
+connected with conspiracy, treason, commercial fraud, anything or
+everything stealthy and criminal.
+
+"I wish you would let me go back to Bayswater before this gentleman
+comes, papa," she said presently. "I heard it strike seven just now, and
+I know I shall be expected early. I can come again whenever you like."
+
+"No, no, my love; you must stop to see my friend. And now tell me a
+little about the Sheldons. Has anything been stirring since I saw them
+last?"
+
+"Nothing whatever, papa. Charlotte is very happy; she always had a
+happy disposition, but she is gayer than ever since her engagement
+with--Valentine."
+
+"What an absurd infatuation!" muttered the Captain.
+
+"And he--Valentine--is very good, and works very hard at his literary
+profession--and loves her very dearly."
+
+It cost her an effort to say this even now, even now when she fancied
+herself cured of that folly which had once been so sweet to her. To speak
+of him like this--to put him away out of her own life, and contemplate
+him as an element in the life of another--could not be done without some
+touch of the old anguish.
+
+There was a loud double-knock at the street-door as she said this, and a
+step sounded presently in the passage; a quick, firm tread. There was
+nothing stealthy about that, at any rate.
+
+"My friend Lenoble," said the Captain; and in the next instant a
+gentleman entered the room, a gentleman who was in every quality the
+opposite of the person whom Diana had expected to see.
+
+These speculative pictures are seldom good portraits. Miss Paget had
+expected to find her father's ally small and shrivelled, old and ugly,
+dried-up and withered in the fiery atmosphere of fraud and conspiracy; in
+outward semblance a monkey, in soul a tiger. And instead of this
+obnoxious creature there burst into the room a man of four-and-thirty
+years of age, tall, stalwart, with a fair frank face, somewhat browned by
+summer suns; thick auburn hair and beard, close trimmed and cropped in
+the approved Gallic fashion--clear earnest blue eyes, and a mouth whose
+candour and sweetness a moustache could not hide. Henry of Navarre,
+before the white lilies of France had dazzled his eyes with their fatal
+splendour, before the court of the Medici had taught the Bearnois to
+dissemble, before the sometime Protestant champion had put on that
+apparel of stainless white in which he went forth to stain his soul with
+the sin of a diplomatic apostasy.
+
+Such a surprise as this makes a kind of crisis in the eventless record of
+a woman's life. Diana found herself blushing as the stranger stood near
+the door awaiting her father's introduction. She was ashamed to think of
+the wrong her imagination had done him.
+
+"My daughter, Diana Paget--M. Lenoble. I have been telling Diana how much
+I owed to your hospitality during my stay in Normandy," continued the
+Captain, with his grandest air, "I regret that I can only receive you in
+an apartment quite unworthy the seigneur of Cotenoir.--A charming place,
+my dear Diana, which I should much like you to see on some future
+occasion.--Will you take some tea, Lenoble?--Diana, a cup of tea.--The
+Pagets are a fallen race, you see, my dear sir, and a cup of tea in a
+lodging-house parlour is the best entertainment I can give to a friend.
+The Cromie Pagets of Hertfordshire will give you dinner in gold plate,
+with a footman standing behind the chair of every guest; but our branch
+is a younger and a poorer one, and I, among others, am paying the price
+of youthful follies."
+
+Gustave Lenoble looked sympathetic, but the glance of sympathy was
+directed to Diana, and not to the male representative of the younger
+Pagets. To pity the distressed damsel was an attribute of the Lenoble
+mind; and Gustave had already begun to pity Miss Paget, and to wonder
+what her fate in life would be, with no better protector than a father
+who was confessedly a pauper. He saw that the young lady was very
+handsome, and he divined, from some indefinable expression of her face,
+that she was proud; and as he thought of his own daughters, and their
+easy life and assured future, the contrast seemed to him very cruel.
+
+Chivalrous as the house of Lenoble might be by nature, he could scarcely
+have felt so keen an interest in Captain Paget's daughter at the first
+glance, if his sympathies had not been already enlisted for her. The
+noble Horatio, though slow to act a father's part, had shown himself
+quick to make capital out of his daughter's beauty and virtues when the
+occasion offered.
+
+In his intercourse with the seigneur of Cotenoir, which had developed
+from a mere business acquaintance into friendship, Captain Paget had
+discoursed with much eloquence upon the subject of his motherless
+daughter; and M. Lenoble, having daughters of his own, also motherless,
+lent him the ear of sympathy.
+
+"I have heard much of you, Miss Paget," said Gustave presently, "and of
+your devotion to your father. He has no more favourite theme than your
+goodness."
+
+Diana blushed, and Diana's father blushed also. That skilled diplomatist
+felt the awkwardness of the situation, and was prompt to the rescue.
+
+"Yes," he said, "my daughter has been a heroine. There are Antigones,
+sir, who show their heroic nature by other service than the leading to
+and fro of a blind father. From the earliest age my poor child has
+striven to stand alone; too proud, too noble to be a burden on a parent
+whose love would have given all, but whose means could give but little.
+And now she comes to me from her home among strangers, to soothe my hour
+of pain and infirmity. I trust your daughters may prove as worthy of your
+love, M. Lenoble."
+
+"They are very dear girls," answered the Frenchman; "but for them life
+has been all sunshine. They have never known a sorrow except the death of
+their mother. It is the storm that tests the temper of the tree. I wish
+they might prove as noble in adversity as Miss Paget has shown herself."
+
+This was more than Diana could bear without some kind of protest.
+
+"You must not take papa's praises _au pied de la lettre_, M. Lenoble,"
+she said; "I have been by no means brave or patient under adversity.
+There are troubles which one must bear. I have borne mine somehow; but I
+claim no praise for having submitted to the inevitable."
+
+This was spoken with a certain noble pride which impressed Gustave more
+than all the father's florid eloquence had done. After this the
+conversation became less personal. M. Lenoble talked of England. It was
+not his first visit; but he had only the excursionist's knowledge of the
+British Isles.
+
+"I have been to Scotland," he said. "Your Scotland is grand,
+mountainous--all that there is of the most savage and poetic. It is a
+Switzerland lined with Brittany. But that which most speaks to the heart
+of a stranger is the peaceful beauty of your English landscape."
+
+"You like England, M. Lenoble?" said Diana.
+
+"Have I not reason? My mother was English. I was only five years old when
+I lost her. She went out of my life like a dream; but I can still recall
+a faint shadow of her face--an English face--a countenance of placid
+sadness, very sweet and tender. But why do I talk of these things?"
+
+On this the Frenchman's talk took a gayer turn. This M. Lenoble showed
+himself a lively and agreeable companion. He talked of Normandy, his
+daughters and their convent, his little son at Rouen, his aunt Cydalise,
+the quiet old lady at Beaubocage; his grandfather, his grandmother, the
+old servants, and everything familiar and dear to him. He told of his
+family history with boyish candour, untainted by egotism, and seemed much
+pleased by Diana's apparent interest in his unstudied talk. He was quite
+unconscious that the diplomatic Horatio was leading him on to talk of
+these things, with a view to making the conversation supremely
+interesting to him. That arch diplomatist knew that there is nothing a
+man likes better than talking of his own affairs, if he can have a decent
+excuse for such discourse.
+
+The clock struck nine while Diana was listening, really interested. This
+glimpse of a life so far apart from her own was a relief, after the
+brooding introspective reveries which of late had constituted so large a
+portion of her existence. She started up at the sound of the clock.
+
+"What now, Cinderella?" cried her father. "Have you stopped beyond your
+time, and will your fairy godmother be angry?"
+
+"No one will be angry, papa; but I did not mean to stay so late. I am
+sorry your description of Normandy has been so interesting, M. Lenoble."
+
+"Come and see Vevinord and Cotenoir, and you will judge for yourself. The
+town-hall of Vevinord is almost as fine as that of Louvain; and we have a
+church that belongs to the time of Dagobert."
+
+"She shall see them before long," said the Captain; "I shall have
+business in Rouen again before the next month is out; and if my daughter
+is a good girl, I will take her over there with me."
+
+Diana stared at her father in utter bewilderment. What could be the
+meaning of this sudden display of affection?
+
+"I should not be free to go with you, papa, even if you were able to take
+me," she replied, somewhat coldly; "I have other duties."
+
+She felt assured that there was some lurking motive, some diplomatic art
+at the bottom of the Captain's altered conduct, and she could not
+altogether repress her scorn. The astute Horatio saw that he had gone a
+little too far, and that his only child was not of the stuff to be
+moulded at will by his dexterous hands.
+
+"You will come and see me again, Diana?" he said in a pleading tone: "I
+am likely to be a prisoner in this room for a week or more."
+
+"Certainly, papa; I will come if you wish it. When shall I come?"
+
+"Well, let me see--to-day is Thursday; can you come on Monday?"
+
+"Yes, I will come on Monday."
+
+A cab was procured, and Miss Paget was conducted to that vehicle by her
+new acquaintance, who showed a gallant anxiety for her comfort on the
+journey, and was extremely careful about the closing of the windows. She
+arrived at Bayswater before ten, but being forbidden to talk of M.
+Lenoble, could give but a scanty account of her evening.
+
+"And was your papa kind, dear?" asked Charlotte, "and did he seem pleased
+to see you?"
+
+"He was much kinder and more affectionate than usual, Lotta dear; so much
+so, that he set me wondering. Now, if I were as confiding and eager to
+think well of people as you are, I should be quite delighted by this
+change. As it is, I am only mystified. I should be very glad if my father
+and I could be drawn closer together; very glad if my influence could
+bring about an amendment in his life."
+
+While Miss Paget was discussing her father's affectionate and novel
+behaviour, the noble Horatio was meditating, by his solitary hearth, upon
+the events of the evening.
+
+"I'm half-inclined to think he's hit already," mused the Captain. "I must
+not allow myself to be deluded by manner. A Frenchman's gallantry rarely
+means much; but Lenoble is one of those straightforward fellows whose
+thoughts may be read by a child. He certainly seemed pleased with her;
+interested and sympathetic, and all that kind of thing. And she is an
+uncommonly handsome girl, and might marry any one if she had the
+opportunity. I had no idea she was so handsome until to-night. I suppose
+I never noticed her by candlelight before. By Jove! I ought to have made
+her an actress, or singer, or something of that kind. And so I might, if
+I'd known her face would light up as it does. I wish she wasn't so
+impracticable--always cutting in with some awkward speech, that makes me
+look like a fool, when, if she had an ounce of common sense, she might
+see that I'm trying to make her fortune. Yes, egad, and such a fortune as
+few girls drop into now-a-days! Some of your straitlaced church-going
+people would call me a neglectful father to that girl, I daresay; but I
+think if I succeed in making her the wife of Gustave Lenoble, I shall
+have done my duty in a way that very few fathers can hope to surpass.
+Such a high-principled fellow as Lenoble is too!--and _that_ is a
+consideration."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"WHAT DO WE HERE, MY HEART AND I?"
+
+After that first summons to Chelsea, Diana went many times--twice and
+three times a week--to comfort and tend her invalid father. Captain
+Paget's novel regard for his only child seemed to increase with the
+familiarity of frequent intercourse. "I have had very great pleasure in
+making your acquaintance, my dear Diana," he said one day, in the course
+of a _tete-a-tete_ with his daughter; "and I am charmed to find you
+everything that a well-born and well-bred young woman ought to be. I am
+sure you have excellent reason to be grateful to your cousin, Priscilla
+Paget, for the excellent education you received in her abode; and you
+have some cause to thank me for the dash and style imparted to your
+carriage and manner by our foreign wanderings."
+
+The Captain said this with the air of a man who had accompanied his
+daughter on the grand tour solely with a view to her intellectual
+improvement. He really thought she had reason to be grateful to him for
+those accidents of his nomadic life which had secured her a good accent
+for French and German, and the art of putting on her shawl.
+
+"Yes, my dear child," he continued with dignity, "it affords me real
+gratification to know you better. I need scarcely say that when you were
+the associate of my pilgrimage, you were not of an age to be available as
+a companion. To a man of the world like myself, a young person who has
+not done growing must always savour somewhat of the schoolroom and the
+nursery. I am not going to repeat the Byronic impertinence about
+bread-and-butter; but the society of a girl of the hobbledehoy age is apt
+to be insipid. You are now a young woman, and a young woman of whom any
+father might with justice be proud."
+
+After a few such speeches as these, Diana began to think that it was just
+possible her father might really experience some novel feeling of regard
+for her. It might be true that his former coldness had been no more than
+a prejudice against the awkwardness of girlhood.
+
+"I was shabby and awkward, I daresay, in those days," she thought; "and
+then I was always asking papa for money to buy new clothes; and that may
+have set him against me. And now that I am no burden upon him, and can
+talk to him and amuse him, he may feel more kindly disposed towards me."
+
+There was some foundation for this idea. Captain Paget had felt himself
+more kindly disposed towards his only child from the moment in which she
+ceased to be an encumbrance upon him. Her sudden departure from
+Foretdechene had been taken in very good part by him.
+
+"A very spirited thing for her to do, Val," he had said, when informed of
+the fact by Mr. Hawkehurst; "and by far the best thing she could do,
+under the circumstances."
+
+From that time his daughter had never asked him for a sixpence, and from
+that time she had risen steadily in his estimation. But the feeling which
+he now exhibited was more than placid approval; it was an affection at
+once warm and exacting. The fact was, that Horatio Paget saw in his
+daughter the high-road to the acquirement of a handsome competence for
+his declining years. His affection was sincere so far as it went; a
+sentiment inspired by feelings purely mercenary, but not a hypocritical
+assumption. Diana was, therefore, so much the more likely to be softened
+and touched by it.
+
+She was softened, deeply touched by this late awakening of feeling. The
+engagement of Valentine and Charlotte had left her own life very blank,
+very desolate. It was not alone the man she loved who was lost to her;
+Charlotte, the friend, the sister, seemed also slipping away from her. As
+kind, as loving, as tender as of old, this dear friend and adopted sister
+still might be, but no longer wholly her own. Over the hearts of the
+purest Eros reigns with a too despotic power, and mild affection is apt
+to sneak away into some corner of the temple on whose shrine Love has
+descended. This mild affection is but a little twinkling taper, that will
+burn steadily on, perhaps unseen amidst the dazzling glory of Love's
+supernal lamp, to be found shining benignantly when the lamp is
+shattered.
+
+For Charlotte, Valentine--and for Valentine, Charlotte--made the
+sum-total of the universe at this time; or, at best, there was but a
+small balance which included all the other cares and duties, affections
+and pleasures, of life. Of this balance Diana had the lion's share; but
+she felt that things had changed since those days of romantic school-girl
+friendship in which Charlotte had talked of never marrying, and
+travelling with her dearest friend Diana amongst all the beautiful scenes
+they had read of, until they found the loveliest spot in the world, where
+they would establish themselves in an ideal cottage, and live together
+for the rest of their lives, cultivating their minds and their
+flower-garden, working berlin-wool chairs for their ideal drawing-room,
+and doing good to an ideal peasantry, who would be just poor enough to be
+interesting, and sickly enough to require frequent gifts of calf's-foot
+jelly and green tea.
+
+Those foolish dreams were done with now; and that other dream, of a life
+to be spent with the reckless companion of her girlhood, was lost to
+Diana Paget. There was no point to which she could look forward in the
+future, no star to lure her onward upon life's journey. Her present
+position was sufficiently comfortable; and she told herself that she must
+needs be weak and wicked if she were not content with her lot. But beyond
+the present she dared not look, so blank was the prospect--a desert,
+without even the mirage; for her dreams and delusions were gone with her
+hope.
+
+Possessed by such a sense of loneliness, it is scarcely strange if
+there seemed to her a gleam of joy, a faint glimmer of hope, in the
+newly awakened affection of her father. She began to believe him, and
+to take comfort from the thought that he was drifting to a haven where
+he might lie moored, with other battered old hulks of pirate and
+privateer, inglorious and at rest. To work for him and succour him in his
+declining years seemed a brighter prospect to this hopeless woman of
+four-and-twenty than a future of lonely independence. "It is the nature
+of woman to lean," says the masculine philosopher; but is it not rather
+her nature to support and sustain, or else why to her is entrusted the
+sublime responsibility of maternity? Diana was pleased to think that a
+remorseful reprobate might be dependent on her toil, and owe his
+reformation to her influence. She was indeed a new Antigone, ready to
+lead him in his moral blindness to an altar of atonement more pure than
+the ensanguined shrine of the Athenian Eumenides.
+
+Her visits to Omega Street were not entirely devoted to _tete-a-tetes_
+with her father. By reason of those coincidences which are so common to
+the lives of some people, it generally happened that M. Lenoble dropped
+in upon his invalid friend on the very day of Miss Paget's visit. M.
+Lenoble was in London on business, and this business apparently
+necessitated frequent interviews with Captain Paget. Of course such
+interviews could not take place in the presence of Diana. Gustave was
+wont, therefore, to wait with praiseworthy patience until the conclusion
+of the young lady's visit; and would even, with an inconsistent
+gallantry, urge her to prolong her stay to its utmost limit.
+
+"It will always be time for my affairs, Miss Paget," he urged, "and I
+know how your father values your society; and he well may value it. I
+only hope my daughters will be as good to me, if I have the gout,
+by-and-by."
+
+Diana had spent nearly a dozen evenings in Omega Street, and on each of
+those evenings had happened to meet M. Lenoble. She liked him better on
+every occasion of these accidental meetings. He was indeed a person whom
+it was difficult for any one to dislike, and in the thirty-four years of
+his life had never made an enemy. She had been pleased with him on the
+first evening; his bright handsome face, his courteous reverence for her
+sex--expressed in every word, every tone, every look--his sympathy with
+all good thoughts, his freshness and candour, were calculated to charm
+the coldest and most difficult of judges. Diana liked, and even admired
+him, but it was from an abstract point of view. He seemed a creature as
+remote from her own life as a portrait of Henry of Navarre, seen and
+admired in some royal picture-gallery to-day, to fade out of her memory
+to-morrow.
+
+There was only one point in connection with Gustave Lenoble which
+occupied her serious thoughts; and this was the nature of his relations
+with her father.
+
+This was a subject that sorely troubled her. Hope as she might for the
+future, she could not shut her eyes to the past. She knew that her
+father had lived for years as a cheat and a trickster--now by one
+species of falsehood and trickery, now by another--rarely incautious,
+but always unscrupulous. How had this village seigneur of Normandy
+fallen into the Captain's toils; and what was the nature of the net that
+was spread for him?
+
+The talk of business, the frequent interviews, the evident elation of her
+father's spirits, combined to assure her that some great scheme was in
+progress, some commercial enterprise, perhaps not entirely dishonest--nay
+even honest, when regarded from the sanguine speculator's point of view,
+but involving the hazard of Gustave Lenoble's fortune.
+
+"It is quite as easy for my father to delude himself as it is for him to
+delude others. This M. Lenoble is ignorant of English commerce, no doubt,
+and will be ready to believe anything papa tells him. And he is so
+candid, so trusting, it would be very hard if he were to be a loser
+through his confidence in papa. His daughters, too; the hazard of his
+fortune is peril to their future." Such doubts and fears, gradually
+developed by reflection took stronger hold on Miss Paget's mind after
+every fresh visit to Omega Street. She saw the Frenchman's light-hearted
+confidence in all humanity, her father's specious manner and air of
+quixotic honour. His sanguine tone, his excellent spirits, filled her
+with intolerable alarm. Alas! when had she ever seen her father in good
+spirits, except when some gentlemanly villany was in progress?
+
+Miss Paget endured this uneasiness of mind as long as she could, and then
+determined to warn the supposed victim. She planned the mode of her
+warning, and arranged for herself a diplomatic form which would reflect
+the least possible discredit upon her father; and having once come to
+this resolution, she was not slow to put it into effect.
+
+When her father was about to send for a cab to convey her back to
+Bayswater, after her next visit to Omega Street, she surprised him by
+intercepting his order.
+
+"There is a cab-stand in Sloane Square, papa," she said; "and if M.
+Lenoble will be so kind as to take me there, I--I would rather get the
+cab from the stand. The man charges more when he is fetched off the rank,
+I believe."
+
+She could think of no better excuse for seeing Gustave alone than this
+most sordid pretence. She blushed as she thought how mean a sound it must
+have in the ears of the man for whose advantage she was plotting. Happily
+M. Lenoble was not among the people who see nothing but meanness in the
+desire to save sixpence. His aunt Cydalise had shown him the loveliness
+of poverty; for there are vows of holy poverty that need no spoken
+formula, and that are performed without the cloister.
+
+"Poor girl!" thought M. Lenoble; "I dare say even the cost of her coach
+is a consideration with her; and one dare not pay the coachman."
+
+This was how Gustave read that blush of shame which for a moment dyed
+Diana's cheek. Her father's was a very different reading.
+
+"The minx sees my game, and is playing into my hands," thought he. "So
+demure as she is, too! I should never have supposed her capable of such
+a clever manoeuvre to secure ten minutes' _tete-a-tete_ with an
+eligible admirer."
+
+He bade his daughter good night with more than usual effusion. He began
+to think that she might prove herself worthy of him after all.
+
+The district between Omega Street and Sloane Square is after dusk of all
+places the most solitary. It is the border-land of Pimlico, or, to borrow
+from Sidney Smith, the knuckle end of Belgravia. In these regions of
+desolation and smoke-blackened stucco Diana and her companion were as
+secure from the interruption of the jostling crowd as they might have
+been in the primeval forests of Central America.
+
+Miss Paget's task was not a pleasant one. Shape her warning as she might,
+it must reflect some discredit upon her father. He had of late been kind
+to her; she felt this keenly to-night, and it seemed that the thing she
+was about to do was a sort of parricide. Not against her father's life
+was her cruel hand to be lifted; but her still more cruel tongue was to
+slay her father's good name.
+
+"This M. Lenoble likes him and trusts him," she thought to herself. "What
+a happiness for that poor broken-down old man to have so kind a friend!
+And I am going to interfere in a manner that may put an end to this
+friendship?"
+
+This is the shape which her thoughts assumed as she walked silently by
+Gustave's side, with her hand lying lightly on his arm. He spoke to her
+two or three times about the dulness of the neighbourhood, the coldness
+of the night, or some other equally thrilling subject; but, finding by
+her replies that she was thinking deeply, he made no further attempt at
+conversation.
+
+"Poor child! she has some trouble on her mind, perhaps," he thought to
+himself sadly, for his sympathy with this young lady was a very profound
+feeling. This was the first occasion on which he had ever been alone
+with her, and he wondered to find what a strange emotion was developed
+by the novelty of the situation. He had married at twenty years of age,
+and had never known those brief fancies or foolish passions which waste
+the freshness of mind and heart. He had married a wife whom he never
+learned to love; but his nature was so essentially a happy one, that he
+had failed to discover the something wanting in his life. In all
+relations--as grandson, husband, father, master--he had been "all simply
+perfect," as Mademoiselle Cydalise pronounced him; and in a mind occupied
+by cares for the welfare and happiness of others, he had never found that
+blank which needed to be filled in order to make his own life completely
+happy. Only of late, in his thirty-fourth year, had he come to the
+knowledge of a feeling deeper than dutiful regard for an invalid wife, or
+affectionate solicitude for motherless children; only of late had he felt
+his heart stirred by a more thrilling emotion than that placid
+resignation to the will of Providence which had distinguished his
+courtship of Mademoiselle de Nerague.
+
+They had nearly reached Sloane Square before Diana took courage to broach
+the subject so naturally repugnant to her. She had need to remember that
+the welfare of M. Lenoble and all belonging to him might be dependent on
+her fortitude.
+
+"M. Lenoble," she began at last, "I am going to say something I shall
+find it most painful to utter, but which I feel it my duty to say to you.
+I can only ask you to receive it in a generous spirit."
+
+"But, my dear Miss Paget, I pray you not to say anything that is
+disagreeable to you. Why should you give yourself pain?--why--"
+
+"Because it is my duty to warn you of a danger which I know only too
+well, and of which you may be quite ignorant. You are my father's friend,
+M. Lenoble; and he has very few friends. I should be sorry if anything I
+were to say should rob him of your regard."
+
+"Nothing that you say shall rob him of my friendship. But why should
+you persist thus to say anything that is painful? What can you tell me
+that I do not know, or that I cannot guess? Will you tell me that he is
+poor? But I know it. That he is a broken-down gentleman? And that also
+I know. What, then, would you tell me? That he has a daughter who is to
+him a treasure without price? Ah, mademoiselle, what must I be if I did
+not know that also?--I, who have contemplated that daughter so many
+times--ah, so many!--when she could not know with what sympathy my eyes
+watched her dutiful looks, with what profound emotion my heart
+interpreted her life of affectionate sacrifice."
+
+There was a warmth, a tenderness in his tones which touched Diana's heart
+as it had not been touched of late. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the full
+meaning of those tender accents came home to her. The love that she had
+once dreamed of from the lips of another spoke to her to-night in the
+words of this stranger. The sympathy for which she had yearned long ago,
+in the days of her wanderings with Valentine, was given to her to-night
+without stint or measure. Unhappily it came too late; and it did not come
+from the only lips which, as it seemed to her to-night, could make
+sympathy precious or love divine. But to this lonely girl a good man's
+affection seemed a treasure for which she must needs be deeply grateful.
+It was something to discover that she could be loved.
+
+"I too," she said to herself,--"I, of whose presence Valentine is
+scarcely conscious when he enters a room where Charlotte and I are
+together; I, whom he greets day after day with the same careless words,
+the same indifferent look; I, who might fade and waste day by day with
+some slow disease, until I sank into the grave, before he would be
+conscious of any change in my face,--is it possible that amongst the same
+race of beings there can be any creature so widely different from
+Valentine Hawkehurst as to love _me_?"
+
+This was the bitter complaint of her heart as she compared the tenderness
+of this stranger with the indifference of the man to whom, for three long
+years of her girlhood, she had given every dream, every thought, every
+hope of her existence. She could not put him away from her heart all at
+once. The weak heart still fondly clung to the dear familiar image. But
+the more intensely she had felt the cold neglect of Valentine, the more
+grateful to her seemed the unsought affection of Gustave Lenoble.
+
+"You know me as little as you know my father, M. Lenoble," she said,
+after a long pause, during which they had walked to the end of the long
+dull street, and were close to the square. "Let us go back a little way,
+please; I have much more to say. I wish you to be my father's friend
+always, but, if possible, without danger to yourself. My father is one of
+those sanguine people who are always ready to embark in some new
+enterprise, and who go on hoping and dreaming, after the failure of a
+dozen schemes. He has no money, that I know of, to lose himself, and that
+fact may make him, unconsciously, reckless of other people's money. I
+have heard him speak of business relations with you, M. Lenoble, and it
+is on that account I venture to speak so plainly. I do not want my poor
+father to delude you, as he has often deluded himself. If you have
+already permitted him to involve you in any speculation, I entreat you
+to try to withdraw from it--to lose a little money, if necessary, rather
+than to lose all. If you are not yet involved, let my warning save you
+from any hazard."
+
+"My dear Miss Paget, I thank you a thousand times for your advice, your
+noble thoughtfulness for others. But no, there is no hazard. The
+business in which your father is occupied for me is not a speculation. It
+involves no risk beyond the expenditure of a few thousand francs, which,
+happily, I can afford to lose. I am not at liberty to tell you the nature
+of the business in question, because I have promised your father to keep
+that a secret. Dear young lady, you need have no fear for me. I am not a
+rash speculator. The first years of my life were passed in extreme
+poverty--the poverty that is near neighbour to starvation. That is a
+lesson one cannot forget. How shall I thank you for your concern for
+me?--so generous, so noble!"
+
+"It was only my duty to warn you of my poor father's weakness," replied
+Diana. "If I needed thanks, your kindness to him is the only boon I could
+ask. He has bitter need of a friend."
+
+"And he shall never lack one while I live, if only for your sake." The
+last half of the sentence was spoken in lower tones than the first. Diana
+was conscious of the lurking tenderness of those few words, and the
+consciousness embarrassed her. Happily they had reached the end of the
+quiet street by this time, and had emerged into the busier square. No
+more was said till they reached the cab-stand, when Diana wished her
+companion good night.
+
+"I am going back to Normandy in a week, Miss Paget; shall I see you again
+before I leave England?"
+
+"I really don't know; our meetings are generally accidental, you see."
+
+"O yes, of course, always accidental," replied Gustave, smiling.
+
+"I am sorry you are going to leave London--for papa's sake."
+
+"And I, too, am sorry--for my own sake. But, you see, when one has
+daughters, and a farm, and a chateau, one must be on the spot. I came to
+England for one week only, and I have stayed six."
+
+"You have found so much to amuse you in London?"
+
+"Nay, mademoiselle, so much to interest me."
+
+"It is almost the same thing, is it not?"
+
+"A thousand times no! To be amused and to be interested--ah, what can be
+so widely different as those two conditions of mind!"
+
+"Indeed! Good night, Mr. Lenoble. Please ask the cabman to drive as fast
+as he can venture to do with consideration for his horse. I am afraid I
+shall be late, and my friends will be anxious about me."
+
+"You will be late. You consider your friends at Bayswater, and you
+consider even the cabman's horse. You are charity itself. Will you not
+consider me a little also, Miss Paget?"
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Let me see you before I go back to Normandy. Your papa likes to see you
+twice a week, I know. This is Monday night; will you come to see him on
+Thursday?"
+
+"If he wishes it."
+
+"He does wish it. Ah, how he wishes it! You will come?"
+
+"If Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte can spare me."
+
+"They cannot spare you. No one can spare you. That cannot be. It
+is amongst the things that are impossible. But they will have pity
+upon--your father, and they will let you come."
+
+"Please ask the cabman to start. Indeed, I shall be late. Good night,
+M. Lenoble."
+
+"Good night."
+
+He took her hand in his, and kissed it, with the grace of a Bayard. He
+loved her, and took no trouble to conceal his passion. No shadow of doubt
+darkened that bright horizon to which M. Lenoble looked with hopeful
+eyes. He loved this penniless, motherless girl, as it was in the blood of
+the Lenobles to love the poor and the helpless; especially when poverty
+and helplessness presented themselves in the guise of youth and beauty.
+He loved her, and she would love him. But why not? He was ten years her
+senior, but that makes nothing. His auburn hair and beard, in the style
+of Henry the Great, could show no streak of grey. His eyes had the
+brightness of one-and-twenty; for the eyes of a man whose soul preserves
+its youthfulness will keep their clear lustre for half a century. The
+tall figure, straight as a dart; the frank handsome face which M. Lenoble
+saw in the glass when he made his toilet, were not calculated to
+dishearten a hopeful lover; and Gustave, by nature sanguine, enjoyed his
+dream of happiness, untroubled by one morbid apprehension.
+
+He loved her, and he would ask her for his wife. She would accept his
+offer; her father would rejoice in so fortunate an alliance; her friends
+of Bayswater would felicitate a change so desirable. And when he returned
+to Normandy he would take her with him, and say to his children, "Behold
+your mother!" And then the great rambling mansion of Cotenoir would
+assume a home-like aspect. The ponderous old furniture would be replaced
+by lightsome appointments of modern fashion; except, of course, in the
+grand drawing-room, where there were tapestries said to be from the
+designs of Boucher, and chairs and sofas in the true Louis Quinze style,
+of immovable bulkiness.
+
+There was but one trifling hitch in the whole scheme of happiness--Diana
+was a Protestant. Ah, but what then! A creature so sweet, so noble, could
+not long remain the slave of Anglican heresy. A little talk with
+Cydalise, a week's "retreat" at the Sacre Coeur, and the thing would be
+done. The dear girl would renounce her errors, and enter the bosom of the
+Mother Church. Pouff! M. Lenoble blew the little difficulty away from his
+finger-tips, and then wafted a kiss from the same finger-tips to his
+absent beloved.
+
+"And this noble heart warned me against her own father!" M. Lenoble said
+to himself, as he walked towards the hotel at Blackfriars where he had
+taken up his abode, quite unconscious that the foot of Blackfriars Bridge
+was not the centre of West End London. "How noble, how disinterested!
+Poor old man! He is, no doubt, a speculator--something even of an
+Adventurer. What then? He shall have an apartment at Cotenoir, his place
+at the family table, his _fauteuil_ by the hearth; and there he can do no
+harm."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a strange sentiment in Diana's mind after this evening's
+conversation with Gustave Lenoble. To feel herself beloved, to know that
+there was some one creature in the wide crowded world interested in, nay,
+even attached to her, was a mystery, a surprise, and in some sort a
+source of pleasure to her. That Gustave Lenoble could ever be any nearer
+to her than he was at the present time did not occur to her as being
+within the limits of possibility. She had thrust Valentine from her
+heart, but the empty chamber could receive no new tenant. It was not
+swept and garnished; nay, indeed, it was sadly littered with the shreds
+and patches left by the late occupant. But, while this was so, to know
+that she could be loved was in some manner sweet to her.
+
+"Ah, now I know that the poet is right," she said to herself. "There is
+no creature so desolate but some heart responds unto its own. And I have
+found the generous responsive heart that can pity and love me because
+I seem so sorely to need love and pity. All my life--my blank, empty
+life--I will remember and be grateful to him, the first good man who ever
+called my father friend; the first of all mankind who thought this poor
+hand worthy to be lifted to his lips."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH.
+
+Having pledged herself to visit Omega Street on Thursday, Diana
+considered herself bound to perform that promise. She felt, however, that
+there was some touch of absurdity in the position, for to keep a promise
+so made was in a manner to keep an appointment with M. Lenoble.
+
+"I dare say he has a habit of falling in love with every young woman he
+meets," she thought, when she considered his conduct from a more prosaic
+standpoint than the grateful enthusiasm his generous sympathy had at
+first awakened in her mind. "I have heard that it is a Frenchman's
+faculty to consider himself irresistible, and to avow his adoration for a
+new divinity every week. And I was so foolish as to fancy there was a
+depth of feeling in his tone and manner! I am sure he is all that is good
+and generous; but the falling in love is no doubt a national failing."
+
+She remembered the impertinent advances of divers unknown foreigners whom
+she had encountered on pier or _digue_, kursaal or beach, in the
+frequently unprotected hours of her continental wanderings.
+
+She had not seen the best side of the foreign mind in her character of
+unattended and doubtfully attired English demoiselle. She knew that
+Gustave Lenoble was of a very different stamp from those specimens of the
+genus tiger whose impertinent admiration had often wounded and distressed
+her; but she was inclined to attribute the fault of shallowness to a
+nature so frank and buoyant as that of her father's friend.
+
+She walked from Bayswater to Chelsea on the appointed Thursday, for the
+cost of frequent journeys in cabs was more than her purse could supply.
+The walk across the Park was pleasant even in the bleak March weather,
+and she entered the little parlour in Omega Street with the bloom of
+damask roses upon her cheeks.
+
+"How do you do, papa dear?" she began, as she came into the dusky room;
+but the figure sitting in her father's accustomed place was not that of
+her father. It was M. Lenoble, who rose to welcome her.
+
+"Is papa worse?" she asked, surprised by the Captain's absence.
+
+"On the contrary, he is better, and has gone out in a hired carriage for
+a breath of fresh air. I persuaded him to go. He will be back very
+shortly."
+
+"I wrote to tell him I should be here to-day, but I am very glad he has
+gone out, for I am sure the air will do him good. Was he well wrapped up,
+do you know, M. Lenoble?"
+
+"Enveloped in railway-rugs and shawls to his very nose. I arranged all
+that with my own hands. He looked like an ambassador from all the
+Russias."
+
+"How kind of you to think of such things!" said Diana gratefully.
+
+"And tell me why should I not think of such things? Do you imagine that
+it is not a pleasure to me to wait upon your father--for your sake?"
+
+There was some amount of awkwardness in this kind of thing. Diana busied
+herself with the removal of her hat and jacket, which she laid neatly
+upon a stony-hearted horsehair sofa. After doing this she placed herself
+near the window, whence she contemplated the dusky street, appearing much
+interested in the movements of the lamp lighter.
+
+"What an admirable way they have of lighting the lamps now," she
+remarked, with the conversational brilliance which usually marks this
+kind of situation; "how much more convenient it must be than the old
+method with the ladder, you know!"
+
+"Yes, I have no doubt," said Gustave, bringing himself to her side with a
+couple of steps, and planting himself deliberately in a chair next to
+hers; "but don't you think, as I start for Normandy to-morrow, we might
+talk of something more interesting than the lamplighter, Miss Paget?"
+
+"I am ready to talk of anything you like," replied Miss Paget, with that
+charming assumption of unconsciousness which every woman can command on
+these occasions.
+
+"You are very good. Do you know that when I persuaded your father to go
+out for an airing, I was prompted by a motive so selfish as to render the
+proceeding quite diabolical? Don't be alarmed! The doctor gave his
+permission for the airing, or I should not have attempted such a thing.
+Hypocrisy I am capable of, but not assassination. You cannot imagine the
+diplomacy which I exhibited; and all to what end? Can you imagine that?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"That I might secure one half-hour's uninterrupted talk with you; and,
+unhappily, you are so late that I expect your father's return every
+minute. He was to be back again before dusk, and the appearance of the
+lamplighter demonstrates that the dusk has come. I have so much to say,
+and so little time to say it; so much, Diane--"
+
+She started as he called her thus, as if in that moment of surprise she
+would have risen from her chair by his side. She knew what was coming,
+and having expected nothing so desperate, knew not how to arrest the
+confession that she would fain have avoided hearing. M. Lenoble laid his
+hand firmly on hers.
+
+"So much, Diane; and yet so little, that all can be told in three words.
+I love you."
+
+"M. Lenoble!"
+
+"Ah, you are surprised, you wonder, you look at me with eyes of sweet
+amazement! Dear angel, do you think it is possible to see you and not to
+love you? To see you once is to respect, to admire, to bow the knee
+before beauty and goodness; but to see you many times, as I have done,
+the patient consoler of an invalid and somewhat difficult father--ah, my
+sweet love, who is there so hard amongst mankind that he should escape
+from loving you, seeing all that?"
+
+The question had a significance that the speaker knew not. Who amongst
+mankind? Why, was there not one man for whom she would have been content
+to be the veriest slave that ever abnegated every personal delight for
+the love of a hard master? And he had passed her by, indifferent,
+unseeing. She had worshipped him on her knees, as it seemed to her; and
+he had left her kneeling in the dust, while he went on to offer himself,
+heart and soul, at another shrine.
+
+She could not forget these things. The memory and the bitterness of them
+came back with renewed poignancy at this moment, when the voice of a
+stranger told her she was beloved.
+
+"My dear one, will you not answer me?" pleaded Gustave, in nowise alarmed
+by Diana's silence, which seemed to him only the natural expression of a
+maidenly emotion. "Tell me that you will give me measure for measure;
+that you will love me as my mother loved my father--with a love that
+trouble and poverty could never lessen; with a love that was strongest
+when fate was darkest--a star which the dreary night of sorrow could not
+obscure. I am ten years older than you by my baptismal register, Diane;
+but my heart is young. I never knew what love was until I knew you. And
+yet those who know me best will tell you that I was no unkind husband,
+and that my poor wife and I lived happily. I shall never know love again,
+except for you. The hour comes, I suppose, in every man's life; and the
+angel of his life comes in that appointed hour. Mine came when I saw you.
+I have spoken to your father, and have his warm approval. He was all
+encouragement, and hinted that I might be assured of your love. Had he
+sufficient justification for that half-promise, Diane?"
+
+"He had none," Miss Paget answered gravely, "none except his own wishes.
+You have made me hear more than I wished to hear, M. Lenoble, for the
+treasure you offer me is one that I cannot accept. With all my heart I
+thank you for the love you tell me of. Even if it is, as I can but think
+it, a passing fancy, I thank you, nevertheless. It is sweet to win the
+love of a good man. I pray you to believe that with all my heart and mind
+I honour your generous nature, your noble sympathy with the weak and
+friendless. If you can give me your friendship, you shall find how I can
+value a good man's regard, but I cannot accept your love."
+
+"Why not?" asked Gustave, aghast.
+
+"Because I cannot give you measure for measure, and I will not give you
+less."
+
+"But in time, Diane, in time?"
+
+"Time cannot show me your character in a nobler light than that in which
+I see it now. You do not lack the power to win a woman's heart, but I
+have no heart to give. If you will be my friend, time will increase my
+affection for you--but time cannot restore the dead."
+
+"Which means that your heart is dead, Diane?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, with unutterable sadness.
+
+"You love some one younger, happier than I?"
+
+"No, M. Lenoble, no one."
+
+"But you have loved? Yes!--a scoundrel, perhaps; a villain, who--"
+
+A spasm of pain contracted his face as he looked at the girl's drooping
+head; her face, in that dim light, he could not see.
+
+"Tell me this, Diane," he said presently, in an altered voice; "there is
+no barrier between us--no irrevocable obstacle that must part us for
+ever? There is no one who can claim you by any right--" He paused; and
+then added, in a lower voice, "by any wrong?"
+
+"No one," answered Miss Paget, lifting her head, and looking her lover
+full in the face. Even in that uncertain light he could see the proud
+steady gaze that seemed the fittest answer of all doubts.
+
+"Thank God!" he whispered. "Ah, how could I fear, even for one moment,
+that you could be anything but what you seem--the purest among the pure?
+Why, then, do you reject me? You do not love me, but you ask my
+friendship; you offer me your friendship, even your affection. Ah,
+believe me, if those are but real, time will ripen them into love. Your
+heart is dead. Ah, why should that young heart be dead? It is not dead,
+Diane; it needs but the fire of true love to warm it into life again. Why
+should you reject me, since you tell me that you love me; unless you love
+another? What should divide us?"
+
+"Shadows and memories," Diana replied mournfully,--"vague and foolish;
+wicked, perhaps; but they come between you and me, M. Lenoble. And since
+I cannot give you a whole heart, I will give you nothing."
+
+"You have loved some one, some one who did not value your love? Tell me
+the truth, Diane; you owe me at least as much as that."
+
+"I do owe you the truth. Yes; I have been very foolish. For two or three
+years of my life there was a person who was our daily companion. He
+travelled with us--with my father and me; and we saw many changes and
+troubles together. For a long time he was like my brother; and I doubt if
+many brothers are as kind to their sisters as he was to me. In his heart
+that feeling never changed. He was always equally kind, equally careless.
+Once I deluded myself with the fancy that in his looks and tones, and
+even in his words, there was some deeper feeling than this careless
+brotherly kindness; but it was no more than a delusion. My eyes were
+opened rudely enough. I saw his heart bestowed elsewhere. Do not think
+that I am so weak, or so wicked, as to abandon myself to despair because
+I have been awakened from my foolish dream. I can look the realities of
+life in the face, M. Lenoble; and I have taught myself to wish all good
+things for the dear girl who has won the heart that I once thought was
+mine. The person I am speaking of can boast no superior graces of mind or
+person. He is only a very commonplace young man, with a certain amount of
+talent, a disposition inclined to good rather than to evil. But he was
+the companion of my girlhood; and in losing him it seems to me as if I
+had lost a part of my youth itself."
+
+To Diana's mind this seemed the end of the discussion. She expected M.
+Lenoble to bow his head to the inevitable, to utter a friendly farewell,
+and depart for his Norman home, convinced, if not satisfied. But the
+light-hearted, easy-tempered Gustave was not a lover of the despairing
+order, nor an easily answered suppliant.
+
+"And that is all!" he exclaimed, in the cheeriest tone. "A companion of
+your girlhood, for whom you had a girl's romantic fancy! And the memory
+of this unspeakable idiot--great Heaven! but how idiotic must this wretch
+have been, to be loved by you, and not even to know it!--the memory of
+this last of the last is to come between you and me, and divide us for
+ever? The phantom of this miserable, who could be loved by an angel
+without knowing it, is to lift its phantasmal hand and thrust me
+aside--me, Gustave Lenoble, a man, and not an idiot? Ah, thus we blow him
+to the uttermost end of the world!" cried M. Lenoble, blowing an
+imaginary rival from the tips of his fingers. "Thus we dismiss him to the
+Arctic regions, the torrid zone--to the Caucasus, where await vultures to
+gnaw his liver--wherever earth is most remote and uncomfortable--he and
+the bread-and-butter miss whom he prefers to my Diane!"
+
+This manner of taking things was quite unexpected by Diana. It was much
+more pleasant than gloomy despair or sullen resentment; but it was, at
+the same time, much more difficult to deal with.
+
+"He is gone!" cried Gustave presently; "he is on the topmost heights of
+Caucasus, and the vultures are sharpening their beaks! And now, tell me,
+Diane--you will be my wife, will you not? You will be a mother to my
+children? You will transform the old chateau of Cotenoir into a pleasant
+home? You will cease to live amongst strangers? You will come to those
+who will love and cherish you as their own, their dearest and best and
+brightest? You will give your poor old father a corner by your fireside?
+He is old and needs a home for his last years. For his sake, Diane, for
+mine, for my children, let your answer be yes! Ah, not so fast!" he
+cried, as she was about to speak. "Why are you so quick to pronounce your
+fatal judgment? Think how much depends on your reply--your father's
+happiness, my children's, mine!"
+
+"It is of yours only I must think," Miss Paget answered earnestly. "You
+fancy it is so easy for me to say no. Believe me, it would be much easier
+to say yes. When you speak of my father's declining years, I, who know
+his weary life so well, would be hard of heart indeed if I were not
+tempted by the haven you offer. Every word that you say gives me some new
+proof of your goodness, your generosity. But I will not wrong you because
+you are generous. I shall always be your grateful friend, but you must
+seek elsewhere for a wife, M. Lenoble. You will have little difficulty in
+finding one worthier than I."
+
+"I will seek nowhere else for a wife; I will have no wife but you. I have
+had a wife of other people's choosing; I will choose one for myself this
+time. Let us be friends, Diane, since your decision is as irrevocable as
+the laws of Draco. You are stone, you are adamant; but no matter, we can
+be friends. Your father will be disappointed. But what then? He is no
+doubt accustomed to disappointments. My daughters--for them it is a
+profound affliction to be motherless, but they must support it. Cotenoir
+must go to wreck and ruin a little longer--a few more rats behind the
+panelling, a few more moths in the tapestry, that is all. My children
+say, 'Papa, our home is not comfortable; all is upside-down;' and I
+reply. 'But what will you, my children? A home without a wife is always
+upside down.' And then I take them between my arms, in weeping. It is a
+poignant picture to rend the heart. But what does it matter, Miss Paget?
+What is that verse of your grand Will?--
+
+  Blow, blow, thou wintry wind;
+  And let go weep the stricken land,
+  While harts ungalled go play.
+
+Perhaps I have mixed him up somehow; but the meaning is clear."
+
+A hollow-sounding and somewhat awful cough heralded the approach of
+Captain Paget, who entered the room at this juncture. If the Captain had
+prolonged his first airing, after six weeks' confinement to the house,
+until this late period of the afternoon, he would have committed an
+imprudence which might have cost him dearly. Happily, he had done nothing
+of the kind, but had re-entered the house unobserved, while Diana and
+Gustave were conversing close to the window, having preferred to leave
+his fly at the end of the street, rather than to incur the hazard of
+interrupting a critical tete-a-tete. The interval that had elapsed since
+his return had been spent by the Captain in his own bedchamber, and in
+the immediate neighbourhood of the folding-doors between that apartment
+and the parlour. What he had heard had been by no means satisfactory to
+him; and if a look could annihilate, Miss Paget might have perished
+beneath the Parthian glance which her father shot at her as he came
+towards the window, with a stereotyped smile upon his lips and
+unspeakable anger in his heart.
+
+He had heard just enough of the conversation to know that Gustave had
+been rejected--Gustave, with Cotenoir and a handsome independence in the
+present, and the late John Haygarth's fortune in the future. Rejected by
+a penniless young woman, who at any moment might find herself without a
+roof to shelter her from the winds of heaven! Was ever folly, madness,
+wickedness supreme as this?
+
+Horatio trembled with rage as he took his daughter's hand. She had the
+insolence to extend her hand for the customary salutation. The Captain's
+greeting was a grip that made her wince.
+
+"Good-night, Miss Paget," said Gustave gravely, but with by no means the
+despondent tone of a hopeless lover; "I--well, I shall see you again,
+perhaps, before I go to Normandy. I doubt if I shall go to-morrow. I
+have my own reasons for staying--unreasonable reasons, perhaps, but I
+shall stay."
+
+All this was said in a tone too low to reach Captain Paget's ear.
+
+"Are you going to leave us, Lenoble?" he asked in a quavering voice. "You
+will not stop and let Di give you a cup of tea as usual?"
+
+"Not to-night, Captain. Good-bye."
+
+He wrung the old man's hand and departed. Captain Paget dropped heavily
+into a chair, and for some minutes there was silence. Diana was the
+first to speak.
+
+"I am glad your doctor considered you well enough to go out for a drive,
+papa," she said.
+
+"Indeed, my dear," answered her father with a groan; "I hope my next
+drive may be in a different kind of vehicle--the last journey I shall
+ever take, until they cart away my bones for manure. I believe they do
+make manure from the bones of paupers in our utilitarian age."
+
+"Papa, how can you talk so horribly! You are better, are you not? M.
+Lenoble said you were better."
+
+"Yes, I am better, God help me!" answered the old man, too weak alike in
+mind and body to hide the passion that possessed, him. "That is one of
+the contradictions of the long farce we call life. If I had been a rich
+man, with a circle of anxious relations and all the noted men of Savile
+Row dancing attendance round my bed, I dare say I should have died; but
+as I happen to be a penniless castaway, with only a lodging-house drudge
+and a half-starved apothecary to take care of me, and with nothing before
+me but a workhouse, I live. It is all very well for a man to take things
+easily when he is ill and helpless, too weak even to think. _That_ is not
+the trying time. The real trial arrives when a little strength comes back
+to him, and his landlady begins to worry him for her rent, and the
+lodging-house drudge gets tired of pitying him, and the apothecary sends
+in his bill, and the wretched high-road lies bare and broad before him,
+and he hears the old order to move on. The moving-on time has come for
+me, Di; and the Lord alone knows how little I know where I am to go."
+
+"Papa, you are not friendless; even I can give you a little help."
+
+"Yes," answered the Captain with a bitter laugh; "a sovereign once a
+quarter--the scrapings of your pittance! That help won't save me from
+the workhouse."
+
+"There is M. Lenoble."
+
+"Yes, there is M. Lenoble; the man who would have given me a home for my
+old age: he told me so to-day--a home fit for a gentleman--for the
+position he now occupies is nothing compared to that which he may occupy
+a year hence. He would have received me as his father-in-law, without
+thought or question of my antecedents; and if I have not lived like a
+gentleman, I might have died like one. This is what he would have done
+for me. But do you think I can ask anything of him now, after you have
+refused him? I know of your refusal to be that man's wife. I heard--I saw
+it in his face. You--a beggar, a friendless wretch, dependent on the
+patronage of a stockbroker's silly wife--_you_ must needs give yourself
+grand airs, and refuse such a man as that! Do you think such men go
+begging among young ladies like you, or that they run about the streets,
+like the roast pigs in the story, begad, with knives and forks in their
+backs, asking to be eaten?"
+
+The Captain was walking up and down the room in a fever of rage. Diana
+looked at him with sad wondering eyes. Yes, it was the old selfish
+nature. The leopard cannot change his spots; and the Horatio Paget of the
+present was the Horatio Paget of the past.
+
+"Pray don't be angry with me, papa," said Diana sorrowfully; "I believe
+that I have done my duty."
+
+"Done your fiddlesticks!" cried the Captain, too angry to be careful of
+his diction. "Your duty to whom? Did you happen to remember, miss, that
+you owe some duty to me, your father, but for whom you wouldn't be
+standing there talking of duty like a tragedy queen? By Jove! I suppose
+you are too grand a person to consider my trouble in this matter; the
+pains I took to get Lenoble over to England; the way I made the most of
+my gout even, in order to have you about me; the way I finessed and
+diplomatized to bring this affair to a successful issue. And now, when I
+have succeeded beyond my hopes, you spoil everything, and then dare to
+stand before me and preach about duty. What do you want in a husband, I
+should like to know? A rich man? Lenoble is that. A handsome man? Lenoble
+is that. A gentleman, with good blood in his veins? Lenoble comes of as
+pure a race as any man in that part of France. A good man? Lenoble is one
+of the best fellows upon this earth. What is it, then, that you want?"
+
+"I want to give my heart to the man who gives me his."
+
+"And what, in the name of all that's preposterous, is to prevent you
+giving Gustave Lenoble your heart?"
+
+"I cannot tell you."
+
+"No, nor any one else. But let us have no more of this nonsense. If you
+call yourself a daughter of mine, you will marry Gustave Lenoble. If
+not--"
+
+The Captain found himself brought to a sudden stop in his unconscious
+paraphrase of Signor Capulet's menace to his recalcitrant daughter,
+Juliet. With what threat could the noble Horatio terrify his daughter to
+obedience? Before you talk of turning your rebellious child out of doors,
+you must provide a home from which to cast her. Captain Paget remembered
+this, and was for the moment reduced to sudden and ignominious silence.
+And yet there must surely be some way of bringing this besotted young
+woman to reason.
+
+He sat for some minutes in silence, with his head leaning on his hand,
+his face hidden from Diana. This silence, this attitude, so expressive of
+utter despondency, touched her more keenly than his anger. She knew that
+he was mean and selfish, that it was of his own loss he thought; and yet
+she pitied him. He was old and helpless and miserable; so much the more
+pitiable because of his selfishness and meanness. For the heroic soul
+there is always some comfort; but for the grovelling nature suffering
+knows no counterbalance. The ills that flesh is heir to seem utterly
+bitter when there is no grand spirit to dominate the flesh, and soar
+triumphant above the regions of earthly pain. Captain Paget's mind, to
+him, was not a kingdom. He could not look declining years of poverty in
+the face; he was tired of work. The schemes and trickeries of his life
+were becoming very odious to him; they were for the most part worn out,
+and had ceased to pay. Of course he had great hopes, in any event, from
+Gustave Lenoble; but those hopes were dependent on Gustave's inheritance
+of John Haygarth's estate. He wanted something more tangible than
+this--he wanted immediate security; and his daughter's marriage with
+Gustave would have given him that security, and still grander hopes for
+the future. He had fancied himself reigning over the vassals of Cotenoir,
+a far more important personage than the real master of that chateau. He
+had pictured to himself a _pied-a-terre_ in Paris which it might be
+agreeable for him to secure, for existence in Normandy might occasionally
+prove _ennuyeux_. These things were what he meant when he talked of a
+haven for his declining years; and against the daughter who, for some
+caprice of her own, could hinder his possession of these things, he had
+no feeling but anger.
+
+Diana compassionated this weak old man, to whose lips the cup of
+prosperity had seemed so near, from whose lips her hand had thrust it.
+He had been promised a home, comfort, respectability, friendship--"all
+that should accompany old age"--and she had prevented the fulfilment of
+the promise. Heaven knows how pure her motives had been; but as she
+watched that drooping head, with its silvered hair, she felt that she
+had been cruel.
+
+"Papa," she began presently, laying her hand caressingly upon her
+father's neck; but he pushed aside the timid, caressing hand--"papa, you
+think me very unkind, only because I have done what I believe to be
+right; indeed it is so, papa dear. In what I said to Gustave Lenoble this
+evening, I was governed only by my sense of right."
+
+"Indeed!" cried the Captain, with a strident laugh; "and where did you
+pick up your sense of right, madam, I should like to know? From what
+Methodist parson's hypocritical twaddle have you learnt to lay down the
+law to your poor old father about the sense of right? 'Honour your father
+and your mother, that your days may be long in the land,' miss, _that's_
+what your Bible teaches you; but the Bible has gone out of fashion, I
+dare say, since I was a young man; and your model young woman of the
+present generation taunts her father with her sense of right. Will your
+sense of right be satisfied when you hear of your father rotting in the
+old-men's ward of a workhouse, or dying on the London stones?"
+
+"I am not unfeeling, papa. With all my heart I pity you; but it is cruel
+on your part to exaggerate the misery of your position, as I am sure you
+must be doing. Why should your means of living fail because I refuse to
+marry M. Lenoble? You have lived hitherto without my help, as I have
+lived of late without yours. Nothing could give me greater happiness than
+to know that you were exempt from care; and if my toil can procure you a
+peaceful home in the future--as I believe it can, or education and will
+to work must go for nothing--there shall be no lack of industry on my
+part. I will work for you, I will indeed, papa--willingly, happily."
+
+"When your work can give me such a home as Cotenoir--a home that one word
+of yours would secure for me--I will thank you."
+
+"If you will only wait, papa, if you will only have patience--"
+
+"Patience! Wait! Do you know what you are talking about? Do you prate of
+patience, and waiting, and hope in the future to a man who has no
+future--to a man whose days are numbered, and who feels the creeping
+chills of death stealing over him every day as he sits beside his
+wretched hearth, or labours through his daily drudgery? I can live as I
+have always lived! Yes; but do you know, or care to know, that with every
+day life becomes more difficult for me? Your fine friends at Bayswater
+have done with me. I have spent the last sixpence I shall ever see from
+Philip Sheldon. Hawkehurst has cut me, like the ungrateful hound he is.
+When they have squeezed the orange, they throw away the rind. Didn't
+Voltaire say that, when Frederick of Prussia gave him the go-by? Heaven
+knows it's true enough; and now you, who by a word might secure yourself
+a splendid position--yes, I say splendid for a poor drudge and dependent
+like you, and insure a home for me--you, forsooth, must needs favour me
+with your high-flown sentiments about your sense of right, and promise me
+a home in the future, if I will wait and hope! No, Diana, waiting and
+hoping are done with for me, and I can find a home in the bed of the
+river without your help."
+
+"You would not be so wicked as to do that!" cried Diana, aghast.
+
+"I don't know about the wickedness of the act. But, rely upon it, when my
+choice lies between the workhouse and the river, I shall prefer the
+river. The modern workhouse is no inviting sanctuary, and I dare say many
+a homeless wretch makes the same choice."
+
+For some minutes there was silence. Diana stood with her elbows resting
+on the chimneypiece, her face covered with her hands.
+
+"O Lord, teach me to do the thing which is right!" she prayed, and in the
+next breath acted on the impulse of the moment.
+
+"What would you have me do?" she asked.
+
+"What any one but an idiot would do of her own accord--accept the good
+fortune that has dropped into your lap. Do you think such luck as yours
+goes begging every day?"
+
+"You would have me accept Gustave Lenoble's offer, no matter what
+falsehoods may be involved in my acceptance of it?"
+
+"I can see no reason for falsehood. Any one but an idiot would honour
+such a man; any one but an idiot would thank Providence for such good
+fortune."
+
+"Very well, papa," exclaimed Diana, with a laugh that had no mirthful
+music, "I will not be the exceptional idiot. If M. Lenoble does me the
+honour to repeat his offer--and I think from his manner he means to do
+so--I will accept it."
+
+"He shall repeat it!" cried the Captain, throwing off his assumption of
+the tragic father. The Oedipus Coloneus, the Lear--the venerable victim
+of winter winds and men's ingratitude--was transformed in a moment into
+an elderly Jeremy Diddler, lined with Lord Foppington. "He shall repeat
+it; I will have him at your feet to-morrow. Yes, Di, my love, I pledge
+myself to bring that about, without compromise to your maidenly pride or
+the dignity of a Paget. My dear child, I ought to have known that
+reflection would show you where your duty lies. I fear I have been
+somewhat harsh, but you must forgive me, Di; I have set my heart on this
+match, for your happiness as well as my own. I could not stand the
+disappointment; though I admired, and still admire, the high feeling,
+and all that kind of thing, which prompted your refusal. A school-girlish
+sentimentality, child, but with something noble in it; not the
+sentimentality of a vulgar schoolgirl. The blue blood will show itself,
+my love; and now--no, no, don't cry. You will live to thank me for
+to-night's work; yes, my child, to thank me, when you look round your
+comfortable home by-and-by--when my poor old bones are mouldering in
+their unpretending sepulchre--and say to yourself, 'I have my father to
+thank for this. Adverse circumstances forbade his doing his duty as
+happier fathers are allowed the privilege of doing theirs, but it was his
+forethought, his ever-watchful care, which secured me an admirable
+husband and a happy home.' Mark my words, the time will come when you
+will say this, my dear."
+
+"I will try to think of you always kindly, papa," Miss Paget answered in
+a low sad voice; "and if my marriage can secure your happiness and
+Gustave Lenoble's, I am content. I only fear to take too much, and give
+too little."
+
+"My love, you must certainly be the lineal descendant of Don Quixote. Too
+much, and too little, forsooth! Let Lenoble find a handsomer woman, or a
+more elegant woman, by gad, elsewhere! Such a woman as a duke might be
+proud to make his duchess, by Jove! There shall be no sense of obligation
+on our side, my love. Gustave Lenoble shall be made to feel that he gets
+change for his shilling. Kiss me, child, and tell me you forgive me for
+being a little rough with you, just now."
+
+"Forgive you?--yes, papa. I dare say you are wiser than I. Why should I
+refuse M. Lenoble? He is good and kind, and will give us a happy home?
+What more can I want? Do I want to be like Charlotte, to whom life seems
+all poetry and brightness?"
+
+"And who is going to throw herself away upon a penny-a-liner, by Jove!"
+interjected the Captain.
+
+"Can I hope to be like that girl, with her happy ignorance of life, her
+boundless love and trust! O, no, no, papa; those things are not for me."
+
+She laid her head upon her father's breast, and sobbed like a child. This
+was her second farewell to the man she had loved, the dreams she had
+dreamed. The Captain comforted her with a paternal embrace, but was as
+powerless to comprehend her emotion as if he had found himself suddenly
+called upon to console the sorrows of a Japanese widow.
+
+"Hysterical," he murmured. "These noble natures are subject to that kind
+of thing. And now, my love," he continued, in a more business-like tone,
+"let us talk seriously. I think it would be very advisable for you to
+leave Bayswater, and take up your abode in these humble lodgings with me
+immediately."
+
+"Why, papa?"
+
+"The reason is sufficiently obvious, my love. It is not right that you
+should continue to eat the bread of dependence. As the future wife of
+Gustave Lenoble--and in this case, the word future means immediately--"
+
+"Papa," cried Diana suddenly, "you will not hurry me into this marriage?
+I have consented for your sake. You will not be so ungenerous as to--"
+
+"As to hurry you? No, my dear, of course not. There shall be no indecent
+haste. Your wishes, your delicate and disinterested motives, shall be
+consulted before all things; yes, my love," cried the Captain, sorely
+afraid of some wavering on the part of his daughter, and painfully
+anxious to conciliate her, "all shall be in accordance with your wishes.
+But I must urge your immediate removal from Bayswater; first, because M.
+Lenoble will naturally wish to see you oftener than he can while you are
+residing with people whose acquaintance I do not want him to make; and
+secondly, because you have no further need of Mrs. Sheldon's patronage."
+
+"It has been kindness, affection, papa--never patronage. I could not
+leave Mrs. Sheldon or Charlotte abruptly or ungraciously, upon any
+consideration. They gave me a home when I most bitterly needed one.
+They took me away from the dull round of schoolroom drudgery, that was
+fast changing me into a hard hopeless joyless automaton. My first duty
+is to them."
+
+The Captain's angry sniff alone expressed the indignation which this
+impious remark inspired.
+
+"My next shall be to you and M. Lenoble. Let me give Mrs. Sheldon due
+notice of the change in our plans."
+
+"What do you call due notice?" asked Horatio, peevishly.
+
+"A quarter's notice."
+
+"O, indeed! Then for three months you are to dance attendance upon Mrs.
+Sheldon, while M. Lenoble is waiting to make you his wife."
+
+"I must consult the wishes of my friends, papa."
+
+"Very well, my dear," replied the Captain, with a sigh that was next of
+kin to a groan; "you must please yourself and your friends, I suppose;
+your poor old father is a secondary consideration." And then, timeously
+mindful of the skirmish he had just had with his daughter, Captain Paget
+made haste to assure her of his regard and submission.
+
+"All shall be as you please, my love," he murmured. "There, go into my
+room, and smooth your hair, and bathe your eyes, while I ring for the
+tea."
+
+Diana obeyed. She found eau-de-cologne and the most delicate of Turkey
+sponges on her father's wash-handstand; jockey-club, and ivory-backed
+brushes, somewhat yellow with age, but bearing crest and monogram, on his
+dressing-table. The workhouse did not seem quite so near at hand as the
+Captain had implied; but with these sanguine people it is but a step from
+disappointment to despair.
+
+"What am I to tell Mrs. Sheldon, papa?" she asked, when she was pouring
+out her father's tea.
+
+"Well, I think you had better say nothing, except that my circumstances
+have somewhat improved, and that my failing health requires your care."
+
+"I hate secrets, papa."
+
+"So do I, my dear; but half-confidences are more disagreeable than
+secrets."
+
+Diana submitted. She secretly reserved to herself the right to tell
+Charlotte anything she pleased. From that dear adopted sister she would
+hide nothing.
+
+"If M. Lenoble should repeat his offer, and I should accept it, I will
+tell her all," she thought. "It will make that dear girl happy to know
+that there is some one who loves me, besides herself."
+
+And then she thought of the strange difference of fate that gave to
+this Charlotte Halliday, with her rich stepfather and comfortable
+surroundings, a penniless soldier of fortune for a lover, while to her,
+the spendthrift adventurer's daughter, came a wealthy suitor.
+
+"Will hers be the dinner of herbs, and mine the stalled ox?" she thought.
+"Ah, Heaven forbid! Why is it so difficult to love wisely, so easy to
+love too well?"
+
+She remembered the cynical French proverb, "When we can not have what
+we love, we must love what we have." But the cynical proverb brought her
+no comfort.
+
+She went back to Bayswater with a strange bewildered feeling; after
+having promised her father to go to Omega Street whenever he sent for
+her. There was no actual pain in her mind, no passionate desire to recall
+her promise, no dread horror of the step to which she had pledged
+herself. The feeling that oppressed her was the sense that such a step
+should have been the spontaneous election of her grateful heart, proud of
+a good man's preference, instead of a weak submission to a father's
+helplessness.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Fifth.
+
+
+
+THE FIRST ACT OF MR. SHELDON'S DRAMA.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+TAKEN BY STORM.
+
+Two days after her interview with Gustave Lenoble, Miss Paget received a
+brief note from her father, summoning her again to Omega Street.
+
+"He has not gone back to Normandy," wrote the Captain.
+
+"My child, he positively worships the ground you walk upon. Ah, my love,
+_it is something to have a father_! I need scarcely tell you that his
+first idea of your excellence was inspired by those glowing descriptions
+of your goodness, your beauty, your heroism, which I favoured him with,
+_en passant_, during our conversations at Cotenoir, where the happy
+accident of a business transaction first introduced me to him. The
+interests of my only child have ever been near and dear to me; and where
+a duller man would have perceived only a wealthy stranger, my paternal
+instincts recognized at a glance the predestined husband of my daughter.
+It needed my wide experience of life--and, as I venture to believe, my
+subtle knowledge of the human heart--to understand that a man who had
+lived for five-and-thirty years buried alive in a French province--a
+charming place, my love, and for your refined taste replete with
+interest--never seeing a mortal except his immediate neighbours, would be
+the man of men to fall in love with the first attractive young woman he
+met among strangers. Come to me this afternoon without fail, and come
+early.--Yours,
+
+"H.N.C.P."
+
+Diana obeyed this summons submissively, but still troubled by that
+strange sense of bewilderment which had affected her since her stormy
+interview with Captain Paget. She was not quite certain of herself. The
+old dreams--the sweet foolish girlish fancies--were not yet put away
+altogether from her mind; but she knew that they were foolish, and she
+was half-inclined to believe that there had been some wisdom in her
+father's scorn.
+
+"What do I want more?" she asked herself. "He is good and brave and true,
+and he loves me. If I were a princess, my marriage would be negotiated
+for me by other people, and I should have reason to consider myself very
+happy if the man whom the state selected for my husband should prove as
+good a man as Gustave Lenoble. And he loves me; me, who have never before
+had power over a man's heart!"
+
+She walked across Hyde Park on this occasion, as on the last; and her
+thoughts, though always confused--mere rags and scraps of thought--were
+not all unpleasant. There was a smile, half shy, half tender, on her face
+as she went into the little sitting-room where Gustave was waiting for
+her. She had seen his hat and overcoat in the passage, and knew that he
+was there waiting for her. To this poor desolate soul there was something
+sweet in the idea of being waited for.
+
+As she stood but a little within the doorway, blushing, almost trembling
+with the sense of her changed position, her lover came across the room
+and took her in his arms. The strong brave arms held her to his breast;
+and in that one embrace he took her to his heart, and made her his own
+for ever.
+
+In every story of life-long affection, there is one moment in which the
+bond is sealed. Diana looked up at the frank tender face, and felt that
+she had found her conqueror. Master, friend, protector, husband, adoring
+and devoted lover, gallant and fearless champion--he was all; and she
+divined his power and his worth as she glanced shyly upward, ashamed to
+be so lightly won.
+
+"M. Lenoble," she faltered, trying to withdraw herself from the strong
+encircling arm that held her, as if by right.
+
+"Gustave, now and for ever, my Diane! There shall be no more Monsieur
+Lenoble. And in a few weeks it shall be 'my husband.' Your father has
+given me to you. He tells me to laugh at your refusals your scruples; to
+assail you like your Shakespeare's Petruchio assails his Katherine--with
+audacious insolence that will not be denied. And I shall take his advice.
+Look up into my face, dear angel, and defy me to take his advice."
+
+Happily the dear angel looked only downwards. But M Lenoble was resolved
+to have an agreeable response.
+
+"See, then, thou canst not defy me!" he cried, in the only language he
+spoke; and the "_tu_" for the first time sounded very tender, very sweet.
+"Thou canst not tell me thou art angry with me. And the other--the
+imbecile;--he is gone for ever, is he not? Ah, say yes!"
+
+"Yes, he is gone," said Diana, almost in a whisper.
+
+"Is he quite gone? The door of thine heart locked against him, his
+luggage thrown out of the window?"
+
+"He is gone!" she murmured softly. "He could not hold his place against
+you--you are so strong--so brave; and he was only a shadow. Yes, he is
+gone."
+
+She said this with a little sigh of relief. It was in all sincerity that
+she answered her suitor's question. She felt that a crisis had come in
+her life--the first page of a new volume; and the old sad tear-blotted
+book might be cast away.
+
+"Dear angel, wilt thou ever learn to love me?" asked Gustave, in a
+half-whisper, bending down his bearded face till his lips almost touched
+her cheek.
+
+"It is impossible not to love you," she answered softly. And indeed it
+seemed to her as if this chivalrous Gaul was a creature to command the
+love of women, the fear of men; an Achilles _en frac_; a Bayard without
+his coat of mail; Don Quixote in his youth, generous, brave,
+compassionate, tender, and with a brain not as yet distempered by the
+reading of silly romances.
+
+Captain Paget emerged from his den as the little love scene ended. He
+affected a gentlemanly unconsciousness of the poetry involved in the
+situation, was pleasantly anxious about the tea-tray, the candles, and
+minor details of life; and thus afforded the lovers ample time in which
+to recover their composure. The Frenchman was in no wise discomposed; he
+was only abnormally gay, with a little air of triumph that was not
+unpleasing. Diana was pale; but there was an unwonted light in her eyes,
+and she had by no means the appearance of a victim newly offered on the
+sacrificial altar of filial duty. In sober truth, Miss Paget was happier
+to-night than she had been for a long time. At three-and-twenty she was
+girl enough to rejoice in the knowledge that she was truly loved, and
+woman enough to value the sense of peace involved in the security of a
+prosperous future.
+
+If she was grateful to her lover--and the affection he had inspired in
+her heart had grown out of gratitude--it was no mercenary consideration
+as to his income or position that made her grateful. She thanked him for
+his love--that treasure which she had never expected to possess; she
+thanked him because he had taken her by the hand, and led her out of the
+ranks of lonely dependent womanhood, and seated her upon a throne, on the
+steps whereof he was content to kneel. Whether the throne were a rushen
+chair in some rustic cottage, or a gilded _fauteuil_ in a palace, she
+cared very little. It was the subject's devotion that was new and sweet
+to her.
+
+She went to Charlotte's room that night, when Mr. Sheldon's small
+household was at rest; as she had gone on Christmas Eve to renounce her
+lover and to bless her rival. This time it was a new confession she went
+to make, and a confession that involved some shame. There is nothing so
+hard to confess as inconstancy; and every woman is not so philosophic as
+Rahel Varnhagen, who declared that to be constant was not always to love
+the same person, but always to love some one.
+
+Miss Paget seated herself at Charlotte's feet, as she had done on that
+previous occasion. The weather was still cold enough to make a fire very
+pleasant, though it was more than two months since the Christmas bells
+had rung out upon the frosty air. Diana sat on a low hassock, playing
+with the tassels of her friend's dressing-gown, anxious to make her
+confession, and solely at a loss for words in which to shape so
+humiliating an avowal.
+
+"Charlotte," she began abruptly at last, "have you any idea when you and
+Valentine are to be married?"
+
+Miss Halliday gave a little cry of surprise.
+
+"Why, of course not, Di! How can you ask such a question? Our marriage
+is what uncle George calls a remote contingency. We are not to be married
+for ages--not until Valentine has obtained a secure position in
+literature, and an income that seems almost impossible. That was the
+special condition upon which Mr. Sheldon--papa--gave his consent to our
+engagement. Of course it was very proper and prudent of him to think of
+these things; and as he has been very kind and liberal-minded in his
+conduct to me throughout, I should be a most ungrateful person if I
+refused to be guided by his advice."
+
+"And I suppose that means that your engagement is to be a long one?"
+
+"The longest of long engagements. And what can be happier than a long
+engagement? One gets to know and understand the man one is to marry so
+thoroughly. I think I know every turn of thought in Valentine's mind;
+every taste, every fancy; and I feel myself every day growing to think
+more and more like him. I read the books he reads, so as to be able to
+talk to him, you know; but I am not so clever as you, Di, and Valentine's
+favourite authors do sometimes seem rather dry to me. But I struggle on,
+you know; and the harder I find the struggle, the more I admire my dear
+love's cleverness. Think of him, Di--three different articles in three
+different magazines last month! The paper on Apollodorus, in the
+_Cheapside_, you know; and that story in the Charing Cross--'How I lost
+my Gingham Umbrella, and gained the Acquaintance of Mr. Gozzleton.' _So_
+funny! And the exhaustive treatise on the Sources of Light, in the
+_Scientific Saturday_. And think of the fuss they make about Homer, a
+blind old person who wrote a long rigmarole of a poem about battles, and
+wrote it so badly that to this day no one knows whether it's one complete
+poem, or a lot of odds-and-ends in the way of poetry, put together by a
+man with an unpronounceable Greek name. When I think of what Valentine
+accomplishes in comparison to Homer, and the little notice the reviewers
+take of him, except to make him low-spirited by telling him that he is
+shallow and frivolous, I begin to think that literature must be going to
+the dogs."
+
+And here Charlotte became meditative, absorbed in the contemplation of
+Mr. Hawkehurst's genius. Diana had begun the conversation very artfully,
+intending to proceed by a gentle transition from Charlotte's love affairs
+to her own; but the conversation was drifting away from the subject into
+a discussion upon literature, and the brilliant young essayist whose
+first adventurous flights seemed grand as the soaring of Theban eagle to
+this tender and admiring watcher of his skyward progress.
+
+"Lotta," said Miss Paget, after a pause, "should you be very sorry if I
+were to leave you before your marriage?"
+
+"Leave me before my marriage, Diana! Is it not arranged that you are to
+live with mamma, and be a daughter to her, when I am gone? And you will
+come and stay with Valentine and me at our cottage; and you will advise
+me about my house-keeping, and teach me how to be a sensible, useful,
+economical wife, as well as a devoted one. Leave us, Di! What have I
+done, or mamma, or Mr. Sheldon, or anybody, that you should talk of
+anything so dreadful?"
+
+"What have you done, dear girl, dear friend, dear sister? Everything to
+win my undying love and gratitude. You have changed me from a hard
+disappointed bitter-minded woman--envious, at times, even of you--into
+your loving and devoted friend. You have changed me from a miserable
+creature into a contented and hopeful one. You have taught me to forget
+that my childhood and youth were one long night of wretchedness and
+degradation. You have taught me to forgive the father who suffered my
+life to be what it was, and made no one poor effort to lift me out of the
+slough of despond to which he had sunk. I can say no more, Charlotte.
+There are things that cannot be told by words."
+
+"And you want to leave me!" said Charlotte, in accents half-wondering,
+half-reproachful.
+
+"My father wants me to leave you, Lotta; and some one else--some one whom
+you must know and like before I can be sure I like him myself."
+
+"Him!" cried Charlotte, with a faint shriek of surprise. "Diana, WHAT are
+you going to tell me?"
+
+"A secret, Lotta; something which my father has forbidden me to tell any
+one, but which I will not hide from you. My poor father has found a kind
+friend--a friend who is almost as good to him as you are to me. How
+merciful Heaven is in raising up friends for outcasts! And I have seen a
+good deal of this gentleman who is so kind to papa, and the result is
+that--chiefly for papa's sake, and because I know that he is generous and
+brave and true, I mean papa's friend, M. Lenoble--I have consented to be
+his wife."
+
+"Diana!" cried Charlotte, with a sternness of manner that was alarming in
+so gentle a creature, "it shall never be!"
+
+"What dear?"
+
+"The sacrifice! No, dear, no! I understand it all. For your cruel
+mercenary heartless designing father's sake, you are going to marry a man
+whom you can't love. You are going to offer up your poor bruised desolate
+heart on the altar of duty. Ah, dear, you can't think I forget what you
+told me only two short months ago--though I seem selfish and frivolous,
+and am always talking about _him_, and parading my happiness, as it must
+seem to you, reckless of the wounds so newly healed in your noble
+unselfish heart. But I do not altogether forget, Diana, and such a
+sacrifice as this I will not allow. I know you have resigned him to me--I
+know you have thrust him from your heart, as you told me that night. But
+the hollow aching void that is left in your lonely heart shall be sacred,
+Di. No stranger's image shall pollute it. You shall not sacrifice your
+own peace to your father's selfishness. No, dear, no! With mamma and me
+you will always have a home. You need stoop to no cruel barter such as
+this marriage."
+
+And hereupon Miss Halliday wept over and caressed her friend, as the
+confidante of Agamemnon's daughter may have wept over and caressed that
+devoted young princess after the divination of Calchas had become common
+talk in the royal household.
+
+"But if I think it my duty to accept M. Lenoble's offer, Lotta?" urged
+Miss Paget with some embarrassment of manner. "M. Lenoble is as rich as
+he is generous, and my marriage with him will secure a happy home for my
+father. The foolish dreams I told you about on Christmas Eve had faded
+from my mind before I dared to speak of them. I could only confess my
+folly when I knew that I was learning to be wise. Pray do not think that
+I am sordid or mercenary. It is not because M. Lenoble is rich that I am
+inclined to marry him, it is because--"
+
+"Because you want to throw yourself away for the advantage of your
+selfish heartless father," interjected Charlotte. "He has neglected you
+all your life, and now wants to profit by the sacrifice of your
+happiness. Be firm, Di, darling; your Charlotte will stand by you, and
+find a home for you always, come what may. Who is this M. Lenoble? Some
+horrible ugly old creature, I dare say."
+
+Miss Paget smiled and blushed. The vision of Gustave's frank handsome
+face arose before her very vividly as Charlotte said this.
+
+"No, dear," she replied. "M. Lenoble is not an old
+man--five-and-thirty at most."
+
+"Five-and-thirty!" repeated Charlotte, with a wry face; "you don't call
+that young? And what is he like?"
+
+"Well, dear, I think he is the sort of man whom most people would call
+handsome. I'm sure you would like him, Lotta. He is so candid, so
+animated, so full of strength and courage. The sort of man to whom one
+would naturally look in any emergency or danger; the sort of man in whose
+company fear would be impossible."
+
+"Diana," cried Charlotte, suddenly, "you are in love with him!"
+
+"Lotta!"
+
+"Yes, dear, you are in love with him," repeated Miss Halliday, embracing
+her friend with effusion; "yes, over head and ears in love with him. And
+you are ashamed to confess the truth to me; and you are half ashamed to
+confess it even to yourself--as if you could deceive an old stager like
+me!" cried Charlotte, laughing. "Why, you dear inconstant thing, while I
+have felt myself the guiltiest and most selfish creature in the world for
+robbing you of Valentine, you have been quietly transferring your
+affections to this M. Gustave Lenoble--who is very rich, and brave, and
+true, and generous, and what most people would call handsome! Bless you,
+a thousand times, my darling! You have made me so happy!"
+
+"Indeed, Lotta!"
+
+"Yes, dear. The thought that there was a blank in your life made a dark
+cloud in mine. I know I have been very selfish, very thoughtless, but I
+could never have been quite free from a sense of self-reproach. But now
+there is nothing for me but happiness. O darling, I so long to see your
+M. Lenoble!"
+
+"You shall see him, dear."
+
+"And in the meantime tell me what he is like."
+
+Miss Halliday insisted upon a full, true, and particular account of M.
+Lenoble's personal appearance. Diana gave it, but not without some sense
+of embarrassment. She could not bring herself to be enthusiastic about
+Gustave Lenoble, though in her heart there was a warmth of feeling that
+surprised her. "What a hypocrite you are, Di!" exclaimed Charlotte
+presently. "I know you love this good Frenchman almost as dearly as I
+love Valentine, and that the thought of his affection makes you happy;
+and yet you speak of him in little measured sentences, and you won't be
+enthusiastic even about his good looks."
+
+"It is difficult to pass from dreams to realities, Lotta. I have lived so
+long among dreams, that the waking world seems strange to me."
+
+"That is only a poetical way of saying that you are ashamed of having
+changed your mind. I will tell M. Lenoble what a lukewarm creature you
+are, and how unworthy of his love!"
+
+"You shall tell him what you please. But remember, dear, my engagement
+must not be spoken about yet awhile, not even to your mamma. Papa makes a
+strong point of this, and I have promised to obey, though I am quite in
+the dark as to his reasons."
+
+Miss Halliday submitted to anything her friend wished; only entreating
+that she might be introduced to M. Lenoble. Diana promised her this
+privilege; but it speedily transpired that Diana's promise was not all
+that was wanted on this occasion.
+
+For some time past, in fact from the very commencement of Charlotte's
+engagement, Mr. Sheldon had shown himself punctilious to an exceeding
+degree with regard to his stepdaughter. The places to which she went, and
+the people with whom she consorted, appeared to be matters of supreme
+importance in his mind. When speaking of these things he gave those about
+him to understand that his ideas had been the same from the time of
+Charlotte's leaving school; but Diana knew that this was not true. Mr.
+Sheldon's theories had been much less strict, and Mr. Sheldon's practice
+had been much more careless, prior to Miss Halliday's engagement.
+
+No stately principal of a school for young ladies could have been more
+particular as to the movements of her charges--more apprehensive of
+wolf-in-sheep's-clothing in the shape of singing or drawing-master--than
+Mr. Sheldon seemed to be in these latter days. Even those pleasant walks
+in Kensington Gardens, which had been one of the regular occupations of
+the day, were now forbidden. Mr. Sheldon did not like that his daughter
+should walk in public with no better protector than Diana Paget.
+
+"There is something disreputable in two girls marching about those
+gardens together according to my ideas," said this ultra-refined
+stockbroker, one morning at the family breakfast-table. "I don't like to
+see my stepdaughter do anything I should forbid my own daughter to do.
+And if I had a daughter, I should most decidedly forbid all lonely
+rambles in Kensington Gardens. You see, Lotta, two girls as attractive
+as you and Miss Paget can't be too particular where you go, and what you
+do. When you want air and exercise, you can get both in the garden; and
+when you want change of scene, and a peep at the fashions, you can drive
+out with Mrs. Sheldon."
+
+To this deprivation Charlotte submitted, somewhat unwillingly, but with
+no sign of open rebellion. She thought her stepfather foolish and
+unreasonable; but she always bore in mind the fact that he had been kind
+and disinterested in the matter of her engagement, and she was content to
+prove her gratitude by any little sacrifice of this kind. Was not her
+lover permitted to spend his Sundays in her society, and to call on her,
+at his discretion, during the week? And what were walks in Kensington
+Gardens compared with the delight of his dear presence! It is true that
+she had sometimes been favoured with Mr. Hawkehurst's society in the
+course of her airing; but she knew that he sacrificed his hours of work
+or study for the chance of half an hour in her society; and she felt that
+there might be gain to him in her loss of liberty.
+
+She told him, when next they met, that the morning walks were forbidden;
+and, so jealous a passion is love, that Mr. Hawkehurst was nowise sorry
+to find that his pearl was strictly watched and carefully guarded.
+
+"Well, it seems very particular of Mr. Sheldon, of course," he said;
+"but, upon my word, I think he's right. Such a girl as you oughtn't to go
+about with no better protection than Diana can give you. Fellows will
+stare so at a pretty girl, you know; and I can't bear to think my pearl
+should be stared at by impertinent strangers."
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst did not, however, find the strict notions of his
+lady-love's stepfather quite so agreeable when he wanted to take his
+"pearl" to the winter exhibitions of pictures. He was told that Miss
+Halliday could go nowhere, except accompanied by her mamma; and as Georgy
+did not care about pictures, and found herself unequal to the fatigue of
+attending the winter exhibitions, he was obliged to forego the delight of
+seeing them with Lotta on his arm. He pronounced Mr. Sheldon on this
+occasion to be a narrow-minded idiot; but withdrew the remark in a
+contrite spirit when Charlotte reminded him of that gentleman's
+generosity.
+
+"Yes, dear, he has certainly been very kind and very disinterested--more
+disinterested than even you think; but, somehow, I can't make him out."
+
+It was very well for Miss Halliday that she had submitted to this novel
+restriction with as good a grace, inasmuch as Mr. Sheldon had prepared
+himself for active opposition. He had given orders to his wife, and
+further orders to Mrs. Woolper to the effect that his step-daughter
+should not be permitted to go out of doors, except in his own or her
+mother's company.
+
+"She is a very good girl, you see, Nancy," he said to the old
+housekeeper, "but she's young, and she's giddy; and of course I can't
+take upon myself to answer for Miss Paget, who may or may not be a good
+girl. She comes of a very bad stock, however; and I am bound to remember
+that. Some people think that you can't give a girl too much liberty. My
+ideas lean the other way. I think you can't take too much care of a very
+pretty girl whom you are bound by duty to protect."
+
+All this sounded very noble and very conscientious. It sounded thus even
+to Mrs. Woolper, who in her intercourse with Philip Sheldon could never
+quite divest herself of one appalling memory. That memory was the death
+of Tom Halliday, and the horrible thoughts and fears that had for a time
+possessed her mind in relation to that death. The shadow of that old
+ghastly terror sometimes came between her and Mr. Sheldon, even now,
+though she had long ago assured herself that the terror had been alike
+groundless and unreasonable.
+
+"Didn't I see my own nephew carried off by a fever twice as sudden as the
+fever that carried off poor Mr. Halliday?" she said to herself; "and am I
+to think horrid things of him as I nursed a baby, because a cup of greasy
+beef-tea turned my stomach?"
+
+Convinced by such reasoning as this that she had done her master a
+grievous wrong, and grateful for the timely shelter afforded in her old
+age, Mrs. Woolper felt that she could not do too much in her benefactor's
+service. She had already shown herself a clever managing housekeeper; had
+reformed abuses, and introduced a new system of care and economy
+below-stairs, to the utter bewilderment of poor Georgy, for whom the
+responsibilities of the gothic villa had been an overwhelming burden.
+Georgy was not particularly grateful to the energetic old Yorkshirewoman
+who had taken this burden off her hands, but she was submissive.
+
+"I never felt myself much in the house, my dear," she said to Lotta; "but
+I am sure since Ann Woolper has been here I have felt myself a cipher."
+
+Mrs. Woolper, naturally sharp and observant, was not slow to perceive
+that Mr. Sheldon was abnormally anxious about his stepdaughter. She
+ascribed this anxiety to a suspicious nature, an inherent distrust of
+other people on the part of her master, and in some measure to his
+ignorance of womankind.
+
+"He seems to think that she'd run away and get married on the sly, at a
+word from that young man; but he doesn't know what a dear innocent soul
+she is, and how sorry she'd be to displease any one that's kind to her. I
+don't know anything about Miss Paget. She's more stand-offish than our
+own Miss, though she is little better than a genteel kind of servant;
+but she seems fair-spoken enough. As to our Miss, bless her dear heart!
+she wants no watching, I'll lay. But I daresay those City folks, with
+their stocks going up and going down, and always bringing about the ruin
+of somebody or other, go which way they will, get their poor heads so
+muddled with figures that they can't believe there's such a thing as
+honesty in the world."
+
+This was the gist of Mrs. Woolper's evening musing in the snug little
+housekeeper's room at the Lawn. It was a very comfortable little room,
+and held sacred to Mrs. Woolper; the three young females, and the boy in
+buttons, who formed Mr. Sheldon's in-door establishment, preferring the
+license of the kitchen to the strict etiquette of the housekeeper's room.
+
+This apartment, as well as every other room in the stockbroker's house,
+bore the stamp of prosperity. A comfortable easy-chair reposed the limbs
+of Mrs. Woolper; a bright little fire burned in a bright little grate,
+and its ruddy light was reflected in a bright little fender. Prints of
+the goody class adorned the walls; and a small round table, with a
+somewhat gaudy cover, supported Mrs. Woolper's work-box and family Bible,
+both of which she made it a point of honour to carry about with her, and
+to keep religiously, through good fortune and through evil fortune;
+neither of which, however, afforded her much employment. She felt herself
+to be much nearer grace with the family Bible by her side than she would
+have been without it; she felt, indeed, that the maintenance and due
+exhibition of the family Bible was in itself a kind of religion. But that
+she should peruse its pages was not in the bond. Her eyes were old and
+weak--sharp enough to discover the short-comings of Mr. Sheldon's young
+maid-servants, but too feeble even for long-primer.
+
+As she looked round that snug little chamber of an evening, when her
+day's labours were ended, and her own particular Britannia-metal tea-pot
+was basking in the fender, her own special round of toast frizzling on
+the trivet, she was very grateful to the man to whom she owed these
+comforts.
+
+"What should I be but for him?" she asked herself with a shudder; for
+the vision of that darksome abode shut in by high black walls--the
+metropolitan workhouse--arose before her. She did not know what
+difficulties would have barred her entrance even to that dreary
+asylum; she only thought of the horrors of that sanctuary, and she
+blessed her master for the benevolence that had accepted the service
+of her failing hands.
+
+This was the servant on whom Philip Sheldon relied. He saw that she was
+grateful, and that she was ready to serve him with an almost slavish
+devotion. He knew that she had suspected him in the past, and he saw that
+she had outlived her suspicion.
+
+"There is a statute of limitations to these things as well as for debt,"
+he said to himself. "A man can live down anything, if he knows what he
+is about."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FIRM AS A BOOK.
+
+After that midnight interview between the two girls in Miss Halliday's
+bedroom, life went very smoothly at the gothic villa for two or three
+days, during which the impulsive Charlotte, being forbidden to talk
+openly of the change in her friend's position, was fain to give vent to
+her feelings by furtive embraces and hand-squeezings, sly nods and
+meaning becks, and mischievous twinkling of her arch grey eyes.
+
+She talked of Valentine more than ever now, feeling herself at liberty to
+sing what paeans she pleased in praise of her hero, now that her friend
+had also a fitting subject for paeans.
+
+"And now it's your turn to talk of M. Lenoble, dear," she would say
+naively, when she had entertained Diana with the minute details of her
+last conversation with her lover, or a lively sketch of the delights of
+that ideal cottage which she loved to furnish and unfurnish in accordance
+with the new fancy of the hour.
+
+Diana was pleased to listen to her girlish talk: to hang and rehang the
+ideal draperies, to fill and refill the ideal bookcase, to plan and
+replan the arrangements of that ideal existence which was to be all joy
+and love and harmony; but when her turn came, and she was asked to be
+rapturous about her own lover, she could say nothing: that which she felt
+was too deep for words. The thought of her lover was strange to her; the
+fact of his love was mysterious and wonderful. She could not talk of him
+with the customary frivolous school-girl talk; and love for him had so
+newly taken root in her heart that there were as yet no blossoms to be
+gathered from that magical plant.
+
+"Don't ask me to talk of him, Lotta, dear;" she said. "I am not yet sure
+that I love him; I only feel that it is sweet to be loved by him. I think
+Providence must have sent him to me in pity for my desolation."
+
+This was almost the same fancy that had occurred to Susan Meynell
+five-and-thirty years before this time, when Gustave the first had
+rescued her from the suicide's unrepentable sin.
+
+That chivalrous turn of mind which was hereditary in the race of Lenoble
+predisposed these men to pity loneliness and beauty, weakness and sorrow.
+This pity for helplessness may have been indeed only an element of their
+exceeding strength. Was not the rescue of weaklings and women an
+unfailing attribute in the mighty men of old? Who so prompt as Hercules
+to fly to the rescue of Hesione? Who so swift as Perseus to save
+Andromeda? And what sea-monster more terrible than loneliness and
+poverty?
+
+In a few days there came another letter from Captain Paget, containing a
+fresh summons to Omega Street.
+
+"Lenoble positively returns to Normandy to-morrow," he wrote, "to see his
+girls, and, no doubt, break the news of his approaching marriage. He much
+wants to see you, and, as I have forbidden his calling on you at the
+Lawn, can only meet you here. He is to drink tea with me at the usual
+time to-morrow evening, and I shall expect to see you early in the
+afternoon."
+
+This afforded an opportunity for that introduction to which Miss Halliday
+looked forward with so much interest.
+
+"If Mr. Sheldon and your mamma will let you come with me this afternoon,
+dear, I shall be very pleased to take you," said Diana; and she felt that
+she would appear less in the character of a lamb led to the slaughter if
+she could go to meet her betrothed accompanied by Charlotte.
+
+But in this matter both the young ladies were doomed to disappointment.
+Mr. Sheldon showed himself a social Draco in all things relating to his
+stepdaughter. Being forbidden to reveal the existence of Gustave Lenoble,
+Charlotte could only urge a frivolous desire to accompany her friend in a
+pilgrimage dictated by filial duty. To the practical mind of Philip
+Sheldon this desire appeared altogether absurd and unreasonable, and he
+did not hesitate to express himself to that effect in a _tete-a-tete_
+with his stepdaughter.
+
+"What good on earth can you do by going to see a gouty old man, who has
+his own daughter to dance attendance upon him?" asked Mr. Sheldon.
+"Really, Charlotte, I am surprised to hear such a proposition from a
+girl of your good sense. Miss Paget is your companion, not your visitor.
+It is her duty to indulge your whims, but it is not your place to give
+way to hers."
+
+"But this is a whim of mine, papa; I should really like to spend the
+afternoon at Chelsea. It would be a change, you know."
+
+Mr. Sheldon looked at his stepdaughter with a sharp and searching gaze, a
+gaze in which there was suspicion as well as curiosity.
+
+"It is a very discreditable whim for a young lady in your position,"
+he said sternly; "and I beg that such a proposition may not be made to
+me again."
+
+This was decisive. Charlotte submitted, and Diana went alone to Omega
+Street. She found Gustave waiting for her. He proposed a walk, and
+Captain Paget was enthusiastic upon the subject of fresh air, and the
+benefits arising therefrom. So the lovers went out in the bleak winter
+afternoon, and wandered in the dreary Pimlico region as far as St.
+James's Park--Gustave delighted to have Diana's hand upon his arm, and
+Diana almost bewildered by a sense of happiness, which seemed unreal by
+reason of its very novelty.
+
+Gustave was all enthusiasm, full of plans for the future. He would have
+had the marriage take place immediately, if such a thing had been
+possible; but Diana showed him that it would not be possible. Her first
+duty was to the only friends she had ever known. Gustave argued the point
+resolutely for nearly an hour, during which time they made their way to
+the very gates of St. James's Park, but Diana was more resolute still.
+
+"What a tyrannical wife I shall have by-and-by!" said Gustave. "I think
+you care for these Sheldons more than for me, Diane."
+
+"These Sheldons have been so good to me in the past."
+
+"And I mean to be so good to you in the future," answered Gustave. "You
+shall be the happiest wife in Normandy, if a foolish doting husband's
+devotion can make you happy."
+
+"What have I done to deserve so much devotion?" Diana murmured
+wonderingly.
+
+"What have you done? Nothing, less than nothing. You will not even run
+the hazard of offending your family of Sheldon in order to make me happy.
+But Fate has said, 'At the feet of that girl with the dark eyes and pale
+proud face shall poor Lenoble of Cotenoir put down his heart.' Do you
+know what I said to myself when I saw you first in the little parlour
+yonder? Ah, no! How should you guess? 'She is there,' said I; 'behold
+her! It is thy destiny, Lenoble, on which thou gazest!' And thou, love,
+wert calm and voiceless as Fate. Quiet as the goddess of marble before
+which the pagans offered their sacrifices, across whose cold knees they
+laid their rich garments. I put my treasures in your lap, my love; my
+heart, my hopes,--all the treasures I had to offer."
+
+This was all very sweet, but there was a sting even mingled with that
+sweetness. Diana told herself that love like this should only be offered
+on the purest shrine; and when she remembered the many stains upon her
+father's honour, it seemed to her that a part of the shame must needs
+cleave to her.
+
+"Gustave," she said presently, after an absent meditative mood, from
+which her lover had vainly tried to beguile her, "does it not seem to you
+that there is something foolish in this talk of love and confidence
+between you and me; and that all your promises have been a little too
+lightly made? What do you know of me? You see me sitting in my father's
+room, and because my eyes happen to please you, or for some reason as
+foolish as that, you ask me to be your wife. I might have been one of the
+worst of women."
+
+"You might have been?--yes, dear, but you are not. And if you had been,
+Gustave Lenoble would not have flung his heart into your lap, even if
+your eyes had been sweeter than they are. We impulsive people are people
+of quick perceptions, and know what we are doing better than our
+reflective friends imagine. I did not need to be an hour in your company,
+dear love, in order to know that you are noble and true. There are tones
+in the voice, there are expressions of the face, that tell these things
+better than words can tell them; for, you see, words can lie, while tones
+and looks are apt to be true. Yes, my angel, I knew you from that first
+night. My heart leapt across all conventional barriers, and found its way
+straight to yours."
+
+"I can see that you think much better of me than I deserve; but even
+supposing you not to be deceived as to myself, I fear you are much
+deceived as to my surroundings."
+
+"I know that your father is poor, and that the burden of his poverty
+weighs heavily on you. That is enough for me to know."
+
+"No, M. Lenoble; it is not enough for you to know. If I am to be your
+wife, I will not enter your family as an impostor. I told you the truth
+about myself the other day when you questioned me, and I am bound to tell
+you the truth about my father."
+
+And then she told him, in the plainest frankest language, the story of
+her father's life. She inflicted no unnecessary shame on Captain Paget;
+she made no complaint of her neglected childhood and joyless youth; but
+she told Gustave that her father had been an adventurer, keeping doubtful
+company, and earning his bread by doubtful means.
+
+"I hope and believe that if a peaceful home could be secured for his
+declining years, he would live the rest of his life like a gentleman and
+a Christian; and that, the bitter struggle for existence being ended, he
+would be sorry for the past. I doubt if the sense of shame ever deserted
+him when he was living that wretched wandering life, leaving debts and
+difficulties behind him everywhere--always harassed and hunted by
+creditors, who had good cause to be angry. Yes, Gustave, I do believe
+that if it should please Providence to give my father a peaceful home at
+last, he will be thankful for God's mercy, and will repent the sins of
+life. And now I have told you the kind of heritage I can bring my
+husband."
+
+"My dear love, I will accept the heritage, for the sake of her who brings
+it. I never meant to be less than a son to your father; and if he is not
+the best of fathers, as regards the past, we will try to make him a
+decent kind of father as regards the future. I have long understood that
+Captain Paget is something--ever so little--of an adventurer. It was the
+pursuit of fortune that brought him to me; and without knowing it, he
+brought me my fortune in the shape of his daughter."
+
+Diana blushed as she remembered that Captain Paget had not been so
+innocent of any design in this matter as the Frenchman imagined.
+
+"And you will receive even papa for my sake?" asked Diana.
+
+"With all my heart."
+
+"Ah, you are indeed a generous lover!"
+
+"A lover who is not generous is--bah! there is nothing in creation so
+mean as the wretch whom love does not render generous. When one sees the
+woman whom Fate intends for one's wife, is one to stop to inquire the
+character of her father, her mother, her sister, her cousin?--for there
+is no stopping when you begin that. A man who loves makes no inquiries.
+If he finds his jewel in the gutter, he picks it out of the mud and
+carries it away in his bosom, too proud of his treasure to remember where
+he found it; always provided that the jewel is no counterfeit, but the
+real gem, fit for a king's crown. And my diamond is of the purest water.
+By-and-by we will try to drain the gutter--that is to say, we will try to
+pay those small debts of which you speak, to lodging-house keepers, and
+tradesmen who have trusted your father."
+
+"You would pay papa's debts!" cried Diana in amazement.
+
+"But why not? All these little debts, the thought of which is so bitter
+to you, might be discharged for two or three thousand pounds. Your father
+tells me I am to be very rich by-and-by."
+
+"My father tells you! Ah, then, you have allowed him to involve you in
+some kind of speculation!"
+
+"He has involved me in no speculation, and in no risk that two or three
+hundred pounds will not cover."
+
+"The whole business seems very mysterious, Gustave."
+
+"Perhaps; it has to do with a secret which I am pledged to keep. I will
+not allow your father to lead me into any quagmire of speculation,
+believe me, dear one."
+
+After this they went back to Omega Street in the winter gloaming, and
+Diana loved and admired this man with all her heart and mind. A new life
+lay before her, very bright and fair. There, where had been only the
+barren desert, was now a fair landscape, shining in the sunlight of hope.
+
+"Do you think your children will ever love me, Gustave?" she asked, not
+without some sense of wonder that this impulsive light-hearted lover
+should be the owner of children. She fancied that a responsibility so
+grave as paternity must needs have impressed some stamp of solemnity upon
+the man who bore it.
+
+"Ever love thee!" cried Gustave. "Child, they will adore thee. They ask
+only some one to love. Their hearts are gardens of flowers; and thou
+shalt gather the flowers. But wilt thou be happy at Cotenoir, thou? It is
+somewhat sad, perhaps--the grave old chateau with the long sombre
+corridors. But thou shalt choose new furniture, new garnitures at Rouen,
+and we will make all bright and gay, like the heart of thy affianced. Thou
+wilt not be dull?"
+
+"Dull, with you and yours! I shall thank God for my happy home day and
+night, as I never thought to thank Him a few months ago, when I was
+dissatisfied, wicked, tired of my life."
+
+"And when you thought of that other one? Ah, how he was an imbecile, that
+other one! But thou wilt never think of him again; it is a dream that is
+past," said M. Lenoble.
+
+That self-confidence which was an attribute of his sanguine nature
+rendered the idea of a rival not altogether unpleasant to him. He was
+gratified by the idea of his own victory, and the base rival's
+annihilation.
+
+"Diane, I want to show thee the home that is to be thine," he said
+presently. "Your Sheldon family must give thee at least a holiday, if
+they refuse to let thee go altogether. Thou wilt come to Normandy with
+thy father. He is coming for a week or two, now that his gout is better.
+I want to show thee Cotenoir--and Beaubocage, the place where my father
+was born. It will seem dreary, perhaps, to thine English eyes; but to me
+it is very dear."
+
+"Nothing that is dear to you shall appear dreary to me," said Diana.
+
+By this time they had arrived at Omega Street. Again Miss Paget made tea
+for her lover. Strange to say, the operation seemed to grow more
+agreeable with every repetition. While taking his tea from the hands of
+his beloved, Gustave pressed the question of Diana's visit to Normandy.
+
+"About her Sheldon family she is adamant," he said to Captain Paget, who
+sipped his tea and smiled at the lovers with the air of an aristocratic
+patriarch. "There is to be no marriage till it pleases Mrs. Sheldon to
+set her free. I consent to this only as man must consent to the
+inevitable; but I say to her, can she not come to Normandy for a
+fortnight--say but one short fortnight--to see her home? She will come
+with you. She has but to ask a holiday of her friends, and it is done."
+
+"Of course," exclaimed the Captain, "she shall come with me. If
+necessary, I myself will ask it of Sheldon.--But it will be best not to
+mention where you are going, Diana. There are reasons, best known to our
+friend Gustave and myself, which render secrecy advisable just at
+present. You can say Rouen. That is quite near enough to the mark to come
+within the limits of truth," added Horatio, with the tone of a man who
+had never quite outstepped those limits. "Yes, Rouen. And you will come
+with me."
+
+"With us," said Gustave. "I will put off my journey for a day or two for
+the sake of going with you. You have to meet Fleurus in Rouen haven't
+you?"
+
+"Yes; he is to be there on the fifth of March, and this is the last day
+of February. I had a letter from him this morning. All goes swimmingly."
+
+Diana wondered what it could be which went swimmingly; but she was
+obliged to content herself with her lover's assurance that he had not
+allowed her father to involve him in any kind of speculation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+AGAINST WIND AND TIDE.
+
+Between Philip Sheldon and his brother there was at this time a state of
+feeling somewhat akin to the relations between a subjugated country and
+its conqueror. The vanquished is fain to accept whatever the victor is
+pleased to give, though discontent and impotent rage may be gnawing his
+entrails. George Sheldon had been a loser in that game in which the
+Haygarthian inheritance was the stake. He had held good cards, and had
+played them with considerable cleverness; but no play could prevail
+against his antagonist's ace of trumps. The ace of trumps was Charlotte
+Halliday; and as to his mode and matter of playing this card, Mr. Sheldon
+was for the present profoundly mysterious.
+
+"I have known a good many inscrutable cards in my time," the solicitor of
+Gray's Inn observed to his elder brother, in the course of fraternal
+converse; "but I think for inscrutability you put the topper on the lot.
+What do you expect to get out of this Haygarth estate? Come, Phil, let us
+have your figures in plain English. I am to have a fifth--that's all
+signed and sealed. But how about your share? What agreement have you got
+from Miss Halliday?"
+
+"None."
+
+"None!"
+
+"What would the world think of me if I extorted money, or the promise of
+money, from my wife's daughter? Do you think I could enforce any deed
+between her and me?"
+
+"Ah, I see; you go in for respectability. And you are going to leave the
+settlement of your claims to your stepdaughter's generosity. You will let
+her marry Hawkehurst, with her hundred thousand pounds; and then you will
+say to those two, 'Mr. and Mrs. Hawkehurst, be so kind as to hand over my
+share of the plunder.' That is not _like_ you, Phil."
+
+"Perhaps you will be good enough to spare yourself the trouble of
+speculating about my motives. Go your way, and leave me to go mine."
+
+"But this is a case in which I have an interest. If Charlotte marries
+Hawkehurst, I don't see how you are to profit, to any extent that you
+would care about, by the Haygarth fortune. But, on the other hand, if she
+should die unmarried, without a will, the money would go to your wife. O
+my God! Philip Sheldon, is _THAT_ what you mean?"
+
+The question was so sudden, the tone of horror in which it was spoken so
+undisguised, that Mr. Sheldon the stockbroker was for one moment thrown
+off his guard. His breath thickened; he tried to speak, but his dry lips
+could shape no word. It was only one moment that he faltered. In the next
+he turned upon his brother angrily, and asked what he meant.
+
+"You've been promised _your_ reward," he said; "leave me to look after
+mine. You'll take those papers round to Greenwood and Greenwood; they
+want to talk to you about them."
+
+"Yes, I'll take the papers."
+
+Greenwood and Greenwood were Mr. Sheldon's own solicitors--a firm of some
+distinction, on whose acumen and experience the stockbroker placed
+implicit reliance. They were men of unblemished respectability, and to
+them Mr. Sheldon had confided the care of his stepdaughter's interests,
+always reserving the chief power in his own hands. These gentlemen
+thought well of the young lady's prospects, and were handling the case in
+that slow and stately manner which marks the handling of such cases by
+eminent firms of the slow-and-stately class.
+
+Mr. Sheldon wished his brother good-day, and was about to depart, when
+George planted himself suddenly before the door.
+
+"Look you here, Phil," he said, with an intensity of manner that was by
+no means common to him; "I want to say a few words to you, and I will say
+them. There was an occasion, ten years ago, on which I ought to have
+spoken out, and didn't. I have never ceased to regret my cowardice. Yes,
+by Jove! I hate myself for it; and there are times when I feel as if my
+share in that wretched business was almost as bad as yours."
+
+"I don't know what you mean."
+
+"Of course not. That's your text, and you'll stick to it. But you _do_
+know what I mean, and you shall know what I mean, if plain words can tell
+you. You and I had a friend, Phil. He was a good friend to me, and I
+liked him as much as a man of the world can afford to like anybody. If I
+had been down in the world, and had asked him for a hundred pounds to
+give me a new start in life, I think he'd have said, 'George, here's a
+cheque for you.' _That's_ my notion of a friend. And yet I stood by that
+man's deathbed, and saw him sinking, and knew what ailed him, and didn't
+stretch out my hand to save him."
+
+"Be so good as to move away from that door," said Mr. Sheldon, livid to
+the lips with smothered fury, but able to put on a bold front
+nevertheless. "I didn't come here to listen to rhodomontade of this kind,
+or to bandy words with you. Get out of my way."
+
+"Not till I've said my say. There shall be no rhodomontade this time. I
+stood by and saw my best friend murdered--by you. I kept my counsel for
+your sake, and when you had made your fortune--by his death--I asked you
+for a little money. You know how much you gave me, and how graciously you
+gave it. If you had given me twenty times the sum you gained by Tom
+Halliday's death, I would give it back, and twenty times as much again,
+to bring him back to life, and to feel that I had never aided and abetted
+a murderer. Yes, by God, I would! though I'm not straitlaced or
+over-scrupulous at the best of times. But that's past, and all the money
+in the Bank of England wouldn't undo what you did in Fitzgeorge Street.
+But if you try on any such tricks with Tom Halliday's daughter, if
+_that's_ the scheme you've hatched for getting hold of this money, as
+surely as we two live, I'll let in the light upon your doings, and save
+the girl whose father you murdered. I will, Philip, let come what may.
+You can't get _me_ out of the way when it suits you, you see. _I know
+you._ That's the best antidote against your medicines."
+
+"If you'll be so good as to say these things on 'Change, I can bring an
+action for libel, or get you put into a madhouse. There's no good in
+saying them here."
+
+Philip Sheldon, even in this crisis, was less agitated than his brother,
+being of a harder nature, and less subject to random impulses of good or
+evil. He caught his accuser by the collar of his coat, and flung him
+violently from the doorway. Thus ended his visit to Gray's Inn.
+
+Boldly as he had borne himself during the interview, he went to his
+office profoundly depressed and dispirited.
+
+"So I am to have him against me?" he said to himself. "He can do me no
+real harm; but he can harass and annoy me. If he should drop any hint to
+Hawkehurst?--but he'll scarcely do that. Perhaps I've ridden him a little
+too roughly in the past. And yet if I'd been smoother, where would his
+demands have ended? No; concession in these cases means ruin."
+
+He shut himself in his office, and sat down to his desk to confront
+his difficulties. For a long time the bark which was freighted with
+Philip Sheldon's fortunes had been sailing in troubled waters. He had
+been an unconscious disciple of Lord Bacon, inasmuch as the boldness
+inculcated by that philosopher had been the distinguishing characteristic
+of his conduct in all the operations of life. As a speculator, his
+boldness had served him well. Adventures from which timid spirits shrunk
+appalled had brought golden harvests to this daring gamester. When some
+rich argosy upon the commercial ocean fired her minute-guns, and sent up
+signals of distress, menaced by the furious tempest, lifted high on the
+crest of mountainous waves, below which, black and fathomless, yawn the
+valleys of death,--a frail ark hovering above the ravening jaws of
+all-devouring Poseidon,--Philip Sheldon was among that chosen band of
+desperate wreckers who dared to face the storm, and profit by the
+tempest and terror. From such argosies, while other men watched and
+waited for a gleam of sunlight on the dark horizon, Mr. Sheldon had
+obtained for himself goodly merchandise. The debenture of railways that
+were in bad odour; Unitas Bank shares, immediately after the discovery of
+gigantic embezzlements by Swillenger, the Unitas-Bank secretary; the
+Mole-and-Burrow railway stock, when the Mole-and-Burrow scheme was as yet
+in the clouds, and the wiseacres prognosticated its failure; the shares
+in foreign loans, which the Rothschilds were buying _sub rosa_;--these,
+and such as these, had employed Mr. Sheldon's capital; and from the
+skilful manipulation of capital thus employed, Mr. Sheldon had trebled
+the fortune secured by his alliance with Tom Halliday's widow.
+
+It had been the stockbroker's fate to enter the money market at a time
+when fortunes were acquired with an abnormal facility. He had made the
+most of his advantages, and neglected none of his opportunities. He had
+seized Good Fortune by the forelock, and not waited to find the
+harridan's bald and slippery crown turned to him in pitiless derision. He
+had made only one mistake--and that he made in common with many of his
+fellow-players in the great game of speculation always going on eastward
+of Temple Bar--he had mistaken the abnormal for the normal: he had
+imagined that these splendid opportunities were the natural evolvements
+of an endless sequence of everyday events; and when the sequence was
+abruptly broken, and when last of the seven fat kine vanished off the
+transitory scene of life, to make way for a dismal succession of lean
+kine, there was no sanguine youngster newly admitted to the sacred
+privileges of "The House" more astounded by the change than Mr. Sheldon.
+
+The panic came like a thief in the night, and it found Mr. Sheldon a
+speculator for the rise. The Melampuses and Amphiaraeuses of the Stock
+Exchange had agreed in declaring that a man who bought into consols at 90
+_must_ see his capital increased; and what was true of this chief among
+securities was of course true of other securities. The panic came, and
+from 90, consols declined dismally, slowly, hopelessly, to 85-1/2;
+securities less secure sank with a rapidity corresponding with their
+constitutional weakness. As during the ravages of an epidemic the weaker
+are first to fall victims to the destroyer, so while this fever raged on
+'Change, the feeble enterprises, the "risky" transactions, sank at an
+appalling rate, some to total expiry. The man who holds a roaring lion by
+the tail could scarcely be worse off than the speculator in these
+troublous times. To let go is immediate loss, to hold on for a certain
+time might be redemption, could one but know the exact moment in which it
+would be wise to let go. But to hold on until the beast grows more and
+more furious, and then to let go and be eaten up alive, is what many men
+did in that awful crisis.
+
+If Philip Sheldon had accepted his first loss, and been warned by the
+first indication that marked the turning of the tide, he would have been
+a considerable loser; but he would not accept his loss, and he would not
+be warned by that early indication. He had implicit belief in his own
+cleverness; and he fancied if every other bark in that tempest-tossed
+ocean foundered and sank, his boat might ride triumphantly across the
+harbour-bar, secure by virtue of his science and daring as a navigator.
+It was not till he had seen a small fortune melt away in the payment of
+contango, that he consented to the inevitable. The mistakes of one year
+devoured the fruits of nine years' successful enterprise, and the Philip
+Sheldon of this present year was no richer than the man who had stood by
+Tom Halliday's bedside and waited the advent of the equal foot that knows
+no difference between the threshold of kingly palace or pauper refuge.
+Not only did he find himself as poor a man as in that hateful stage of
+his existence--to remember which was a dull dead pain even to _him_--but
+a man infinitely more heavily burdened. He had made for himself a certain
+position, and the fall from that must needs be a cruel and damaging fall,
+the utter annihilation of all his chances in life.
+
+The stockbroker's fitful slumbers at this time began to be haunted by the
+vision of a black board fixed against the wall of a public resort, a
+black board on which appeared his own name. In what strange places
+feverish dreams showed him this hideous square of painted deal!--Now it
+was on the walls of the rooms he lived in; now on the door of a church,
+like Luther's propositions; now at a street-corner, where should have
+been the name of the street; now inky-black against the fair white
+headstone of his own grave. Miserable dream, miserable man, for whom the
+scraping together of sordid dross was life's only object, and who, in
+losing money, lost all!
+
+This agonizing consciousness of loss and of close-impending disgrace was
+the wolf which this Spartan stockbroker concealed beneath his waistcoat
+day after day, while the dull common, joyless course of his existence
+went on; and his shallow wife smiled at him from the opposite side of his
+hearth, more interested in a new stitch for her crotchet or berlin-wool
+work than by the inner life of her husband; and Charlotte and her lover
+contemplated existence from their own point of view, and cherished their
+own dreams and their own hopes, and were, in all things, as far away from
+the moody meditator as if they had been natives of Upper India.
+
+The ruin which impended over the unlucky speculator was not immediate,
+but it was not far off; the shadow of it already wrapped him in a
+twilight obscurity. His repute as a clever and a safe man had left him.
+He was described now as a daring man; and the wiseacres shook their heads
+as they talked of him.
+
+"One of the next to go will be Sheldon," said the wiseacres; but in these
+days of commercial epidemic there was no saying who would be the first to
+go. It was the end of the world in little. One was taken, and another
+left. The Gazette overran its customary column like a swollen river, and
+flooded a whole page of the Times newspaper; and men looked to the lists
+of names in the Wednesday and Saturday papers as to the trump of
+archangels sounding the destruction of the universe.
+
+For some time the bark in which Mr. Sheldon had breasted those turbulent
+waters had been made of paper. This was nothing. Paper boats were the
+prevailing shipping in those waters; but Captain Sheldon's bark needed
+refitting, and the captain feared a scarcity of paper, or, worse still,
+the awful edict issued from some commercial Areopagus that for him there
+should be no more paper.
+
+Once before, Mr. Sheldon had found himself face to face with ruin
+complete and irredeemable. When all common expedients had been exhausted,
+and his embarrassments had become desperate, he had found a desperate
+expedient, and had extricated himself from those embarrassments. The time
+had come in which a new means of extrication must be found as desperate
+as the last, if need were. As Philip Sheldon had faced the situation
+before, he faced it now--unshrinkingly, though with a gloomy anger
+against destiny. It was hard for him that such a thing should have to be
+repeated. If he pitied anybody, he pitied himself; and this kind of
+compassion is very common with this kind of character. Do not the Casket
+letters show us--if we may trust them to show us anything--that Mary
+Stuart was very sorry for herself when she found herself called upon to
+make an end of Darnley? In Mr. Swinburne's wonderful study in morbid
+anatomy, there are perhaps no finer touches than those which reveal the
+Queen's selfish compassion for her own heartlessness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+DIANA ASKS FOR A HOLIDAY.
+
+Diana informed Mrs. Sheldon of her father's wish that she should leave
+Bayswater. Before doing this, she had obtained the Captain's consent to
+the revelation of her engagement to be married.
+
+"I don't like to leave them in a mysterious manner, papa," she said. "I
+have told Charlotte a good deal already, under a promise of secrecy; but
+I should like to tell Mrs. Sheldon that there is a real reason for my
+leaving her."
+
+"Very well, my love, since you are so amazingly squeam--honourable,"
+interposed the Captain, remembering how much depended on his daughter's
+marriage, and what a very difficult person he had found her. "Yes, my
+dear, of course; I respect your honourable feeling; and--er--yes--you may
+tell Mrs. Sheldon--and that of course includes Mr. Sheldon, since the
+lady is but an inoffensive cipher--that you are about to be married--to a
+French gentleman of position. You will, of course, be obliged to mention
+his name, and then will arise the question as to where and how you met
+him; and, upon my word, it's confoundedly awkward that you should insist
+on enlightening these people. You see, my dear girl, what I want to
+avoid, for the present, is any chance of collision between the Sheldons
+and Lenoble."
+
+"Papa!" exclaimed Diana, impatiently, "why must there be all this
+scheming?"
+
+"O, very well, Miss Paget; tell them what you like!" cried the Captain,
+aggravated beyond endurance by such inherent perversity. "All I can say
+is, that a young woman who quarrels with her bread-and-butter is likely
+to come to dry bread; and very little of that, perhaps. I wash my hands
+of the business. Tell them what you like."
+
+"I will not tell them more than I feel to be actually necessary, papa,"
+the young lady replied calmly. "I do not think Mr. Sheldon will trouble
+himself about M. Lenoble. He seems very much occupied by his own
+affairs."
+
+"Humph! Sheldon seems harassed, anxious, does he?"
+
+"Well, yes, papa; I have thought so for the last few months. If I may
+venture to judge by the expression of his face, as he sits at home in the
+evening, reading the paper, or staring at the fire, I am sure he has many
+anxieties--troubles even. Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte do not appear to
+notice these things. They are accustomed to see him quiet and reserved,
+and they don't perceive the change in him as I do."
+
+"O, there is a change, is there?"
+
+"Yes, a decided change."
+
+"Why the deuce couldn't you tell me this before!"
+
+"Why should I tell you that Mr. Sheldon seems anxious? I should not have
+told you now, if you had not appeared to dread his interference in our
+affairs. I can't help observing these things; but I don't want to play
+the part of a spy."
+
+"No, you're so infernally punct--so delicate-minded, my love," said the
+Captain, pulling himself up suddenly, for the second time. "Forgive me if
+I was impatient just now. You look at these things from a higher point of
+view than that of a battered old man of the world like me. But if you
+should see anything remarkable in Mr. Sheldon's conduct on another
+occasion, my love, I should be obliged to you if you would be more
+communicative. He and I have been allied in business, you see, and it is
+important for me to know these things."
+
+"I have not seen anything remarkable in Mr. Sheldon's conduct, papa; I
+have only seen him thoughtful and dispirited. And I suppose anxieties are
+common to every man of business."
+
+Georgy received Miss Paget's announcement with mingled lamentations and
+congratulations.
+
+"I am sure I am heartily glad for your sake, Diana," she said; "but what
+we shall do without you, I don't know. Who is to see to the drawing-room
+being dusted every morning, when you are gone? I'm sure I tremble for the
+glass shades. Don't imagine I'm not pleased to think you should settle in
+life advantageously, my love. I'm not so selfish as that; though I will
+say that there never was a girl with more natural talent for making-up
+pretty little caps than you. The one I have on has been admired by
+everybody. Even Ann Woolper this morning, when I was going into the
+butcher's book with her--for I insist upon going into the butcher's book
+with her weekly, whether she likes it or not; though the way that man
+puts down the items is so bewildering that I feel myself a perfect baby
+in her hands,--even Ann admired it, and said how young-looking it is. And
+then she brought up the time in Fitzgeorge Street, and poor Tom's
+illness, and almost upset me for the rest of the day. And now, dear, let
+me offer you my sincere congratulations. Of course, you know that you
+would always have had a home with me; but service, or at least
+companionship, is no inheritance, as the proverb says; and for your own
+sake I'm very glad to think that you are going to have a house of your
+own. And now tell me what he is like, Monsieur what's-his-name?"
+
+Mrs. Sheldon had been told, but had not remembered the name. Her great
+anxiety, as well as Charlotte's, was to know what manner of man the
+affianced lover was. If Diana's future happiness had been contingent on
+the shape of her husband's nose, or the colour of his eyes, these two
+ladies could not have been more anxious upon the subject.
+
+"Has he long eyelashes, and a dreamy look in his eyes, like Valentine?"
+asked Charlotte, secretly convinced that her lover had a copyright in
+these personal graces.
+
+"Does he wear whiskers?" asked Georgy. "I remember, when I was quite a
+girl, and went to parties at Barlingford, being struck by Mr. Sheldon's
+whiskers. And I was quite offended with papa, who was always making
+sarcastic remarks, for calling them mutton-chop whiskers; but they
+really were the shape of mutton-cutlets at that time. He wears them
+differently now."
+
+Mrs. Sheldon branched off into a disquisition on whiskers, and Diana
+escaped from the task of describing her lover. She could not have
+described him to Georgy.
+
+By-and-by she asked permission to leave Bayswater for a fortnight, in
+order to see her lover's home and friends.
+
+"I will come back to you, and stay as long as you like, dear Mrs.
+Sheldon," she said, "and make you as many caps as you please. And I will
+make them for you by and by, when I am living abroad, and send them over
+to you in a bandbox. It will be a great delight to me to be of some
+little service to a friend who has been so kind. And perhaps you will
+fancy the caps are prettier when they can boast of being French."
+
+"You darling generous-minded girl! And you won't go away for a fortnight
+and never come back again, will you, dear? I had a cook who did that, and
+left me with a large dinner-party hanging over my head; and how I got
+through it--with a strange man-cook, who charged a guinea, and used fresh
+butter, at twentypence, a pound, as if it had been dirt, and two strange
+men to wait--I don't know. It all seemed like a dream. And since then we
+have generally had everything from the confectioner's; and I assure you,
+to feel that you can wash your hands of the whole thing, and sit down at
+the head of your table with your mind as free from care as if you were a
+visitor, is worth all the expense."
+
+Diana promised she would not behave like the cook; and two days after
+this conversation left the London Bridge terminus with her father and
+Gustave Lenoble.
+
+Mr. Sheldon troubled himself very little about this departure. He was
+informed of Miss Paget's intended marriage; and the information awakened
+neither surprise nor interest in his heavily-burdened mind.
+
+"A Frenchman, a friend of her father's!" he said; "some swindling
+adventurer, no doubt," he thought. And this was as much consideration
+as he could afford to bestow upon Miss Paget's love affairs at this
+present time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+ASSURANCE DOUBLY SURE.
+
+On the day after Miss Paget's departure Mr. Sheldon came home from the
+City rather earlier than usual, and found Charlotte alone in the
+drawing-room, reading a ponderous volume from Mudie of an instructive and
+edifying character, with a view to making herself clever, in order that
+she might better understand that prodigy of learning, Mr. Hawkehurst.
+
+She was somewhat inclined to yawn over the big book, which contained a
+graphic account of recent discoveries of an antiquarian nature. Her mind
+was not yet attuned to the comprehension of the sublimer elements in such
+discoveries. She saw only a dry as dust record of futile gropings in
+desert sand for the traces of perished empires. Her imagination was not
+cultivated to that point whereat the gift which Mr. Lewes calls "insight"
+becomes the daily companion, nay, indeed, the ever-haunting and
+nightmare-bringing influence of the dreamer. For her sands were only
+sands, the stones were only stones. No splendour of fallen palaces, no
+glory and pride of perished kings, no clash and clamour of vanished
+courts, arose from those barren sands, with all their pomp and
+circumstance, conjured into being by half a word on a broken pillar, or a
+date upon a Punic monument. Miss Halliday looked up with a sigh of
+fatigue as her stepfather came into the room. It was not a room that he
+particularly affected, and she was surprised when he seated himself in
+the easy-chair opposite her, and poked the fire, as if with the intention
+of remaining.
+
+"You shouldn't read by firelight, my dear," he said; "it is most
+destructive to the eyesight."
+
+"I dare say my sight will last my time, papa," the young lady replied
+carelessly; "but it's very kind of you to think of it, and I won't read
+any more."
+
+Mr. Sheldon made no reply to this observation. He sat looking at the
+fire, with that steady gaze which was habitual to him--the gaze of the
+man who plans and calculates.
+
+"My dear," he said by-and-by, "it seems that this money to which you may
+or may not be entitled is more than we thought at first; in fact, it
+appears that the sum is a considerable one. I have been, and still am,
+particularly anxious to guard against disappointment on your part, as I
+know the effect that such a disappointment is apt to produce upon a
+person's life. The harassing slowness of Chancery proceedings is
+proverbial; I am therefore especially desirous that you should not count
+upon this money."
+
+"I shall never do that, papa. I should certainly like a fine edition of
+the Encyclopaedia Britannica for Valentine, by-and-by, as he says that is
+essential for a literary man; and a horse, for people say literary men
+ought to take horse exercise. But beyond that--"
+
+"We need scarcely go into these details, my dear. I want you to
+understand the broad facts of the case. While, on the one hand, our
+success in obtaining the inheritance which we are about to claim for you
+is uncertain, on the other hand the inheritance is large. Of course, when
+I presented you with the sum of five thousand pounds, I had no idea of
+this possible inheritance."
+
+"O, of course not, papa."
+
+"But I now find that there is such a possibility as your becoming
+a--well--a rich woman."
+
+"O papa!"
+
+"In which case I may conclude that your mother would benefit in some
+measure from your good fortune."
+
+"Can you doubt that, papa? There should be no measure to her benefit from
+any money obtained by me."
+
+"I do not doubt that, my dear. And it is with that idea that I wish to
+make a proposition to you--for your mother's possible advantage."
+
+"I shall be happy to do anything you wish, papa."
+
+"It must be done as a spontaneous act of your own, Charlotte, not in
+accordance with any wish of mine."
+
+"What is it that I am to do?" asked Charlotte.
+
+"Well, my dear, you see it is agreed between us that if you do get this
+money, your mother is certain to benefit considerably. But unhappily the
+proceedings are likely to drag on for an indefinite time; and in the
+course of that time it comes within the limits of possibility that your
+decease may precede that of your mother."
+
+"Yes, papa."
+
+"In which case your mother would lose all hope of any such advantage."
+
+"Of course, papa."
+
+Charlotte could not help thinking that there was something sordid in this
+discussion--this calculation of possible gain or loss contingent on her
+fresh young life. But she concluded that it was the nature of business
+men to see everything from a debased standpoint, and that Mr. Sheldon was
+no more sordid than other men of his class.
+
+"Well, papa?" she asked presently, after some moments of silence, during
+which she and her stepfather had both been absorbed in the contemplation
+of the fire.
+
+"Well, my dear," replied Mr. Sheldon slowly, "I have been thinking that
+the natural and easy way of guarding against all contingencies would be
+by your effecting an insurance on your life in your mother's favour."
+
+"No, no, papa!" cried Charlotte, with unwonted vehemence; "I would rather
+do anything than that!"
+
+"What can be your objection to such a very simple arrangement?"
+
+"I dare say my objection seems foolish, childish even, papa; but I really
+have a horror of life assurances. I always think of papa--my own poor
+father, whom I loved so dearly. It seemed as if he put a price upon his
+life for us. He was so anxious to insure his life--I remember hearing him
+talk of it at Hyley, when I was a child--to make things straight, as he
+said, for us; and, you see, very soon afterwards he died."
+
+"But you can't suppose the insurance of his life had anything to do with
+his death?"
+
+"Of course not, I am not so childish as that; only--"
+
+"Only you have a foolish lackadaisical prejudice against the only means
+by which you can protect your mother against a contingency that is so
+remote as to be scarcely worth consideration. Let it pass."
+
+There was more anger in the tone than in the words. It was not that angry
+tone, but the mention of her mother, that impressed Miss Halliday. She
+began to consider that her objections were both foolish and selfish.
+
+"If you really think I ought to insure my life, I will do so," she said
+presently. "Papa did as much for those he loved; why should I be less
+thoughtful of others?"
+
+Having once brought Miss Halliday to this frame of mind, the rest was
+easy. It was agreed between them that as Valentine Hawkehurst was to be
+kept in ignorance of his betrothed's claim to certain moneys now in the
+shadowy under-world of Chancery, so he must be kept in ignorance of the
+insurance.
+
+It was only one more secret, and Charlotte had learned that it was
+possible to keep a secret from her lover.
+
+"I suppose before we are married I shall able to tell him everything?"
+she said.
+
+"Certainly, my dear. All I want is to test his endurance and his
+prudence. If the course of events proves him worthy of being trusted, I
+will trust him."
+
+"I am not afraid of that, papa."
+
+"Of course not, my dear. But, you see, I have to protect your interests;
+and I cannot afford to see this gentleman with your eyes. I am compelled
+to be prudent."
+
+The stockbroker sighed as he said this--a sigh of utter weariness.
+Remorse was unknown to him; the finer fibres upon which that chord is
+struck had not been employed in the fabrication of his heart. But there
+is a mental fatigue which is a spurious kind of remorse, and has all the
+anguish of the nobler feeling. It is an utter weariness and prostration
+of spirit--a sickness of heart and mind--a bitter longing to lie down and
+die--the weariness of a beaten hound rather than of a baffled man.
+
+This was what Mr. Sheldon felt, as the threads of the web which he was
+weaving multiplied, and grew daily and hourly more difficult of
+manipulation. Success in the work which he had to do depended on so many
+contingencies. Afar off glittered the splendid goal--the undisputed
+possession of the late John Haygarth's hundred thousand pounds; but
+between the schemer and that chief end and aim of all his plottings what
+a sea of troubles! He folded his arms behind his head, and looked across
+the girlish face of his companion into the shadow and the darkness. In
+those calculations which were for ever working themselves out in this
+man's brain, Charlotte Halliday was only one among many figures. She had
+her fixed value in every sum; but her beauty, her youth, her innocence,
+her love, her trust, made no unit of that fixed figure, nor weighed in
+the slightest degree with him who added up the sum. Had she been old,
+ugly, obnoxious, a creature scarcely fit to live, she would have
+represented exactly the same amount in the calculations of Philip
+Sheldon. The graces that made her beautiful were graces that he had no
+power to estimate. He knew she was a pretty woman; but he knew also that
+there were pretty women to be seen in any London street; and the
+difference between his stepdaughter and the lowest of womankind who
+passed him in his daily walks was to him little more than a social
+prejudice.
+
+The insurance business being once decided on, Mr. Sheldon lost no time in
+putting it into execution. Although he made a point of secrecy as
+regarded Mr. Hawkehurst, he went to work in no underhand manner, but
+managed matters after a highly artistic and superior fashion. He took his
+stepdaughter to the offices of Greenwood and Greenwood, and explained her
+wishes to one of those gentlemen in her presence. If he dwelt a little
+more on Miss Halliday's anxiety for her mother's pecuniary advantage than
+his previous conversation with Miss Halliday warranted, the young lady
+was too confiding and too diffident to contradict him. She allowed him to
+state, or rather to imply, that the proposed insurance was her
+spontaneous wish, an emanation of her anxious and affectionate heart, the
+natural result of an almost morbid care for her mother's welfare.
+
+Mr. Hargrave Greenwood, of Greenwood and Greenwood, seemed at first
+inclined to throw cold water on the proposition, but after some little
+debate, agreed that extreme caution would certainly counsel such a step.
+
+"I should imagine there was no better life amongst the inhabitants of
+London," he said, "than Miss Shel--pardon me--Miss Halliday's. But, as
+the young lady herself suggests, 'in the midst of life we are--'; and, as
+the young lady herself has observed, these things are--ahem--beyond
+human foresight. If there were any truth in the aphorisms of poets, I
+should say Miss Halliday cannot insure too quickly; for the remark of
+Cowper--or, stay, I believe Pope--'whom the gods love die young,' might
+very well be supposed to apply to so charming a young lady. Happily, the
+secretaries of insurance offices know very little about the poets,
+unless, indeed, Miss Halliday were to go to the Royal Widow's and
+Orphan's Hope, the secretary of which is the author of dramas that may
+fairly rank with the works of Knowles and Lytton."
+
+Mr. Greenwood, an elderly gentleman of the ponderous and port-wine
+school, laughed at his own small jokes, and took things altogether
+pleasantly. He gave Mr. Sheldon a letter of introduction to the secretary
+of his pet insurance company, the value of which to that gentleman was
+considerable. Nor was this the only advantage derived from the interview.
+The lawyer's approval of the transaction reassured Charlotte; and though
+she had heard her own views somewhat misrepresented, she felt that an
+operation which appeared wise in the sight of such a lawyer, standing on
+such a Turkey hearthrug, commanding such gentlemanly-looking clerks as
+those who came and went at Mr. Greenwood's bidding, must inevitably be a
+proceeding at once prudent and proper.
+
+The business of the insurance was not quite so easy as the interview with
+the lawyer. The doctor to whom Miss Halliday was introduced seemed very
+well satisfied with that young lady's appearance of health and spirits,
+but in a subsequent interview with Mr. Sheldon asked several questions,
+and shook his head gravely when told that her father had died at
+thirty-seven years of age. But he looked less grave when informed that
+Mr. Halliday had died of a bilious fever.
+
+"Did Mr. Halliday die in London?" he asked.
+
+"He did."
+
+"I should like--ahem--if it were possible, to see the medical man who
+attended him. These fevers rarely prove fatal unless there is some
+predisposing cause."
+
+"In this case there was none."
+
+"You speak rather confidently, Mr. Sheldon, as a non-professional man."
+
+"I speak with a certain amount of professional knowledge. I knew Tom
+Halliday for many years."
+
+Mr. Sheldon forebore to state that Tom Halliday had died in his house,
+and had been attended by him. It is, perhaps, only natural that Philip
+Sheldon, the stockbroker of repute, should wish to escape identification
+with Philip Sheldon, the unsuccessful dentist of Bloomsbury.
+
+After a little more conversational skirmishing, the confidential
+physician of the Prudential Step Assurance Company agreed to consider
+that Mr. Halliday's constitution had been in no manner compromised by his
+early death, and to pass Charlotte's life. The motives for effecting the
+insurance were briefly touched upon in Mr. Greenwood's letter of
+introduction, and appeared very proper and feasible in the eyes of the
+directors; so, after a delay of a few days, the young lady found herself
+accepted, and Mr. Sheldon put away among his more important papers a
+large oblong envelope, containing a policy of assurance on his
+stepdaughter's life for five thousand pounds. He did not, however, stop
+here, but made assurance doubly sure by effecting a second insurance upon
+the same young life with the Widow's and Orphan's Hope Society, within a
+few days of the first transaction.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Sixth.
+
+
+
+DIANA IN NORMANDY.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+AT COTENOIR.
+
+Beaubocage, near Vevinord, March 15, 186--.
+
+My darling Lotta,--As you extorted from me a solemn pledge that I would
+write you a full and detailed account of my adventures, I seat myself in
+Mademoiselle Lenoble's pretty little turret-chamber, in the hope of
+completing the first instalment of my work before papa or Gustave summons
+me to prepare for a drive and visit to the Convent of the Sacred Heart,
+which, I believe, has been planned for to-day.
+
+What am I to tell you, dear, and how shall I begin my story? Let me
+fancy myself sitting at your feet before your bedroom fire, and you
+looking down at me with that pretty inquisitive look in your dear grey
+eyes. Do you know that M. Lenoble's eyes are almost the colour of yours,
+Lotta? You asked me a dozen questions about his eyes the other day, and I
+could give you no clear description of them; but yesterday, as he stood
+at the window looking out across the garden, I saw their real colour. It
+is grey, a deep clear grey, and his lashes are dark, like yours. How
+shall I begin? That is the grand difficulty! I suppose you will want to
+know something even about the journey. Everything was very pleasant, in
+spite of the cold blusterous March weather. Do you know what my last
+journey was like, Lotta? It was the long dreary journey from Foretdechene
+to St. Katharine's Wharf, when Mr. Hawkehurst advised and arranged my
+return to England. I had been sitting quite alone in a balcony
+overlooking the little town. It was after midnight, but the lights were
+still burning: I can see the lamplit windows shining through the night
+mist as I write this, and the sense of the hopeless misery of that time
+comes back to me like the breath of some freezing wind. I can find no
+words to tell you how desolate I was that night, or how hopeless.
+
+I dared not think of my future life; or of the next day, that was to be
+the beginning of that hopeless future. I was obliged to bind my thoughts
+to the present and all its dreariness; and a kind of dull apathetic
+feeling, which was too dull for despair, took possession of me that
+night. While I was sitting there Mr. Hawkehurst came to me, and told me
+that my father had become involved in a quarrel, under circumstances of a
+very shameful nature, which I need not tell you, darling. He recommended
+me to leave Foretdechene--indeed, almost insisted that I should do so. He
+wanted to rescue me from that miserable life. Your lover had noble and
+generous impulses even then, you see, dear; at his worst he was not all
+bad, and needed only your gentle influence to purify and elevate his
+character. He gave me all the money he possessed to pay the expenses of
+my journey. Ah, what a dreary journey! I left Foretdechene in the chill
+daybreak, and travelled third class, with dreadful Belgians who smelt of
+garlic, to Antwerp. I slept at a very humble inn near the quay, and
+started for England by the Baron Osy at noon next day. I cannot tell you
+how lonely I felt on board the steamer. I had travelled uncomfortably
+before, but never without my father and Valentine--and he had been always
+kind to me. If we were shabbily dressed, and people thought ill of us, I
+did not care. The spirit of Bohemianism must have been very strong with
+me in those days. I remembered how we had sat together on the same boat
+watching the sleepy shores of Holland, or making fun of our respectable
+fellow-passengers. Now I was quite alone. People stared at me rudely and
+unkindly, as I thought. I could not afford to dine or breakfast with the
+rest; and I was weak enough to feel wounded by the idea that people would
+guess my motive for shunning the savoury banquets that sent up such
+horrid odours to the deck where I sat, trying to read a tattered
+Tauchnitz novel. And the end of my journey? Ah, Charlotte, you can never
+imagine what it is to travel like that, without knowing whether there is
+any haven, any shelter for you at the end of your wanderings! I knew that
+at a certain hour we were to arrive at St. Katharine's Dock, but beyond
+that I knew nothing. I counted my money. There was just enough to pay for
+a cab that would carry me to Hyde Lodge. I should land there penniless.
+And what if my cousin Priscilla should refuse to receive me? For a moment
+I fancied even that possible; and I pictured myself walking about London,
+hungry and homeless.
+
+This was my last journey. I have dwelt upon it longer than I need have
+done; but I want you to understand what it is that makes Gustave Lenoble
+dear to me. If you could feel the contrast between the past and the
+present as I felt it when I stood on the deck of the Dover packet with
+him by my side, you would know why I love him, and am grateful to him. We
+stood side by side, watching the waves and talking of our future, while
+my father enjoyed a nap in one of the little deck cabins. To Gustave that
+future seems very bright and clear; to me it seems unutterably strange
+that the future _can_ be anything but a dismal _terra incognita_, from
+the contemplation of which it is wise to refrain.
+
+Papa stays with Gustave at Cotenoir; but it had been arranged for me to
+visit Mademoiselle Lenoble, Gustave's aunt, at Beaubocage, and to remain
+with her during my stay in Normandy. I at once understood the delicate
+feeling which prompted this arrangement. We dined at Rouen, and came to
+Vevinord in a coach. At Vevinord a queer little countrified vehicle met
+us, with a very old man, of the farm-servant class, as coachman. Gustave
+took the reins from the old man's hand and drove to Beaubocage, where
+Mademoiselle Lenoble received me with much cordiality. She is a dear old
+lady, with silvery bands of hair neatly arranged under the prettiest of
+caps. Her gown is black silk, and her collar and cuffs of snowy
+whiteness; everything about her exquisitely neat, and of the fashion of
+twenty, or perhaps thirty, years ago.
+
+And now, I suppose, you will want to know what Beaubocage is like. Well,
+dear, much as I admire Mademoiselle Lenoble, I must confess that her
+ancestral mansion is neither grand nor pretty. It might have made a very
+tolerable farmhouse, but has been spoiled by the architect's
+determination to make it a chateau. It is a square white building, with
+two pepper-castor-like turrets, in one of which I write this letter.
+Between the garden and the high road there is a wall, surmounted with
+plaster vases. The garden is for the greater part utilitarian; but in
+front of the salon windows there is a grassplot, bordered by stiff
+gravel-walks, and relieved by a couple of flower-beds. A row of tall
+poplars alone screens the house from the dusty high road. At the back of
+it there is an orchard; on one side a farmyard; behind the orchard lie
+the fields that compose the farm of Beaubocage and the paternal estate of
+the Lenoble family. All around the country is very flat. The people seem
+to be kind and simple, and devotedly attached to "Mademoiselle." There is
+a rustic peacefulness pervading everything which, for me, stands instead
+of beauty.
+
+I am hypocrite enough to pretend to be pleased with everything, for I can
+perceive how anxiously M. Lenoble watches me in order to discover whether
+I like his native country. He was not born at Beaubocage, but in Paris.
+Mademoiselle Lenoble told me the story of his childhood, and how she
+brought him to Beaubocage, when quite a little fellow, from Rouen, where
+his father died. About his mother there seems to have been some mystery.
+Mademoiselle told me nothing of this, except that her brother, Gustave
+the elder, made a love-match, and thereby offended his father. She has
+the little crib in which her nephew, Gustave the younger, slept on the
+night of his coming. It had been his father's little bed thirty years
+before. She shed tears as she told me the story, and how she sat and
+watched by the little fellow as he cried himself to sleep with his head
+lying on her arm, and the summer moonlight shining full upon his face.
+
+I was deeply touched by her manner as she told me these things; and I
+think, if I had not already learned to love M. Lenoble, I should love him
+for the sake of his aunt. She is charming; a creature so innocent and
+pure, that one considers one's words in speaking to her, almost as if she
+were a child. She is about forty years older than I; yet for worlds I
+would not tell her of the people and the scenes I have beheld at foreign
+watering-places and gambling-rooms. She has spent the sixty years of her
+life so completely out of the world, that she has retained the freshness
+and sweetness of her youth untainted in the least degree. Can there be
+magical philtre equal to this--a pure unselfish life, far away from the
+clamour of cities?
+
+The old servant who waits upon me is seventy-five years of age, and
+remembers Ma'amselle Cydalise from her childhood. She is always singing
+the praises of her mistress, and she sees that I like to hear them. "Ah,
+ma'amselle," she said to me, "to marry a Lenoble is to marry one of the
+angels. I will not say that the old seigneur was not hard towards his
+son. Ah, yes, but it was a noble heart. And the young monsieur--that one
+who died in Rouen, the Poor!--ah, that he was kind, that he was gracious!
+What of tears, what of regrets, when the Old chased him!"
+
+My position is quite recognised. I think the very cowboy in the
+farmyard--a broad-shouldered lad, with a good-natured mindless face, and
+prodigious wooden shoes like clumsy canoes--even the cowboy knows that I
+am to be Madame Lenoble of Cotenoir. Cotenoir is the Windsor Castle of
+this district; Beaubocage is only Frogmore. Yes, dear, the bond is signed
+and sealed. Even if I did not love M. Lenoble, I have bound myself to
+marry him; but I do love him, and thank him with all my heart for having
+given a definite end and aim to my life. Don't think I underrate your
+kindness, darling; I know that I should never want a home while you could
+give me one. But 'tis hard to be a hanger-on in any household; and
+Valentine will exact all his sweet young wife's love and care.
+
+I have written you a letter which I am sure will require double postage;
+so I will say no more except goodbye. Take care of yourself, dear one.
+Practise your part in our favourite duets; remember your morning walk in
+the garden; and don't wear out your eyes over the big books that Mr.
+Hawkehurst is obliged to read.
+
+Ever your affectionate
+
+DIANA.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_From Charlotte Halliday to Diana Paget_.
+
+The dullest house in Christendom, Monday.
+
+EVER DEAREST Di,--Your letter was a welcome relief to the weariness
+of my existence. How I wish I were with you! But that is too bright a
+dream. I am sure I should idolise Beaubocage. I should not mind the
+dismal row of poplars, or the flat landscape, or the dusty road, or
+anything, so long as it was not like Bayswater. I languish for a change,
+dear. I have seen so little of the world, except the dear moorland
+farmhouse at Newhall. I don't think I was ever created to be "cabined,
+cribbed, confined," in such a narrow life as this, amid such a dull,
+unchanging round of daily commonplace. Sometimes, when the cold spring
+moon is shining over the tree-tops in Kensington-Gardens, I think of
+Switzerland, and the snow-clad mountains and fair Alpine valleys we have
+read of and talked of, until my heart aches at the thought that I may
+never see them; and to think that there are people in whom the word
+'Savoy' awakes no fairer image than a cabbage! Ah, my poor dear! isn't it
+almost wicked of me to complain, when _you_ have had such bitter
+experience of the hard cruel world?
+
+I am quite in love with your dear Mademoiselle Lenoble; almost as deeply
+as I am in love with your magnanimous, chivalrous, generous,
+audacious--everything ending in _ous_--Monsieur Lenoble.
+
+How dare you call him M. Lenoble, by the bye? I have counted the
+occasions on which you write of him in your nice long letter, and for one
+Gustave there are half a dozen M. Lenobles. It must be Gustave in future
+to me, remember.
+
+What shall I tell you, dear? I have nothing to tell, really nothing. To
+say that I wish you were with me is only to confess that I am very
+selfish; but I _do_ wish for you, dear--my friend and adopted sister,
+my old school companion, from whom, willingly, I have never concealed
+one thought.
+
+Valentine called on Tuesday afternoon; but I have nothing to tell you
+even about him. Mamma dozed in her corner after her cup of tea, and Val
+and I sat by the fire talking over our future, just like you and M.
+Lenoble on board the Calais boat. How much engaged people find to say
+about the future! Is it our love that makes it seem so bright, so
+different from all that has gone before? I cannot fancy life with
+Valentine otherwise than happy. I strive to picture trials, and fancy
+myself in prison with him, the wind blowing in at broken windows, the
+rain coming through the dilapidated roof and pattering on the carpetless
+floor; but the most dismal picture I can paint won't seem dismal if his
+figure is a part of it. We would stop the broken windows with rags and
+paper, we would wipe up the rain with our pocket-handkerchiefs, and sit
+side by side and talk of the future, as we do now. Hope could never
+abandon us while we were together. And then, sometimes, while I am
+looking at Valentine, the thought that he might die comes to me suddenly,
+like the touch of an icy hand upon my heart.
+
+I lie awake at night sometimes thinking of this, and of papa's early
+death. He came home one night with a cold, and from that hour grew worse
+until he died. Ah, think what misery for a wife to suffer! Happily for
+mamma, she is not capable of suffering intensely. She was very sorry, and
+even now when she speaks of papa she cries a little; but the tears don't
+hurt her. I think, indeed, they give her a kind of pleasure.
+
+See, dear, what a long egotistical letter I have written, after all. I
+will say no more, except that while I am delighted to think of your
+pleasure among new friends and new scenes, my selfish heart still longs
+for the hour that is to bring you back to me.
+
+Pray tell me all you can about your daughters that are to be.
+
+Ever and ever your loving CHARLOTTE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_From Diana Paget to Charlotte Halliday_.
+
+Beaubocage, near Vevinord, March 30, 186--.
+
+MY DEAR LOTTA,--In three days more I hope to be with you; but I suppose,
+in the meantime, I must keep my promise, and send you a faithful account
+of my life here. Everyone here is more kind to me than words can tell;
+and I have nothing left to wish for, except that you were here to be
+delighted, as I am sure you would be, with the freshness and the
+strangeness of everything. If I ever do become Madame Lenoble--and even
+yet I _cannot_ picture to myself that such a thing will be--you must come
+to Cotenoir, you and Valentine. I was taken through every room in the old
+chateau the day before yesterday, and I fixed in my own mind upon the
+rooms I will give you, if these things come to pass. They are very old
+rooms, and I can fancy what strange people must have lived in them, and
+died in them perhaps, in the days that are gone. But if you come to them,
+they shall be made bright and pretty, and we will chase the shadows of
+the mediaeval age away. There are old pictures, old musical instruments,
+quaint spindle-legged chairs and tables, tapestries that crumble as you
+touch them--the ashes and relics of many generations. Gustave says we
+will sweep these poor vestiges away, and begin a new life, when I come to
+Cotenoir; but I cannot find it in my heart to obliterate every trace of
+those dead feet that have come and gone in all the dusky passages of my
+future home.
+
+And now I must tell you about my daughters that are to be--my daughter
+that is, I may say of the elder--for I love her so well already that no
+breach between Gustave and me could rob her of my affection. She is the
+dearest, most loving of creatures; and she reminds me of you! I dare say
+you will laugh at this, dear; and, mind, I do not say that Clarice
+Lenoble is actually like you in complexion or feature--those common
+attributes which every eye can see; the resemblance is far more subtle.
+There is a look in this dear girl's face, a smile, an I-know-not-what,
+which every now and then recalls your own bright countenance. You will
+say this is mere fancy--and that is what I told myself at the first; but
+I found afterwards that it is no fancy, but really one of those vague,
+indefinable, accidental likenesses which one perceives so often. To me it
+seems a very happy accident; for my first glance at my daughter's face
+told me that I should love her for your sake.
+
+We went to the convent the day before yesterday. It is a curious old
+place, and was once a stately chateau, the habitation of a noble family.
+A little portress, in the black robes of a lay sister, admitted us, and
+conducted us to the parlour, a fine old room, decorated with pictures of
+a religious character, painted by members of the sisterhood. Here Gustave
+and I were received by the superioress, an elderly woman, with a mild
+holy face, and a quiet grace of manner which might become a duchess. She
+sent for the demoiselles Lenoble, and after a delay of a quarter of an
+hour--you remember the toilet the girls at Hyde Lodge were obliged to
+make before they went to the drawing-room, Lotta--Mademoiselle Lenoble
+came, a tall, slim, lovely and lovable girl, who reminded me of the
+dearest friend I have in this world. She ran to her papa first, and
+saluted him with an enthusiastic hug; and then she stood for a moment
+looking shyly at me, confused and doubtful. It was only for a moment
+she was left in doubt. Gustave bent down to whisper something in her
+ear--something for which his letters had in some manner prepared her. The
+fair young face brightened, the clear grey eyes looked up at me with a
+sweet affectionate gaze, and she came to me and kissed me. "I shall love
+you very much," she whispered. "And I love you very much already," I
+answered, in the same confidential manner. And I think these few words,
+that one pretty confiding look in her innocent eyes, made a tie between
+us that it would take much to loosen. Ah, Lotta, what a wide gulf between
+the Diana Paget who landed alone at St. Katharine's Wharf, in the dim
+cheerless dawn, and uncertain where to find a shelter in all that busy
+city, and the same creature redeemed by your affection, and exalted by
+the love and trust of Gustave Lenoble!
+
+After this my second daughter appeared--a pretty young hoyden, with
+lovable clinging ways; and then the superioress asked if I would like to
+see the garden. Of course I said yes; and we were taken through the long
+corridors, out into a fine old garden, where the pupils, who looked like
+the Hyde Lodge girls translated into French, were prancing and scampering
+about in the usual style. After the garden we went to the chapel, where
+there were more pictures, and flower-bedecked altars, and pale twinkling
+tapers burning here and there in the chill sunlight. Here there were
+damsels engaged in pious meditation, from five years old upwards. They
+send even the little ones to meditate, Clarice tells me; and there are
+these infants kneeling before the flower-bedecked altars, rapt in
+religious contemplation, like so many Thomas a Kempises. The young
+meditators glanced shyly at us as we passed. When they had shown me
+everything of special interest in the pleasant old place, Clarice and
+Madelon ran off to dress for walking, in order to accompany us to
+Cotenoir, where we were to dine.
+
+It was quite a family party. Mademoiselle Lenoble was there, and papa. He
+arrived at the chateau while Gustave and I were paying our visit to the
+convent. He is in the highest spirits, and treats me with an amount of
+affection and courtesy I have not been accustomed to receive at his
+hands. Of course I know the cause of this change; the future mistress of
+Cotenoir is a very different person from that wretched girl who was
+nothing to him but a burden and an encumbrance. But even while I despise
+him I cannot refuse to pity him. One forgives anything in old age. In
+this, at least, it is a second childhood; and my father is very old,
+Lotta. I saw the look of age in his face more plainly at Cotenoir, where
+he assumed his usual _debonnaire_ man-of-the-world tone and manner, than
+I had seen it in London, when he was a professed invalid. He is much
+changed since I was with him at Foretdechene. It seems as if he had kept
+Time at bay very long, and now at last, the common enemy will be held at
+arm's-length no longer. He still braces himself up in the old military
+manner, still holds himself more erect than many men of half his age;
+but, in spite of all this, I can see that he is very feeble; shaken and
+worn by a long life of difficulty. I am glad to think that there will be
+a haven for him at last; and if I did not thank Gustave with my whole
+heart for giving me a home and a place in the world, I should thank him
+for giving a shelter to my father.
+
+And now, dear, as I hope to be with you so very soon, I shall say no
+more. I am to spend a day in Rouen before we come back--papa and I, that
+is to say; Gustave stays in Normandy to make some arrangements before he
+comes back to England. I cannot comprehend the business relations between
+him and papa; but there is some business going on--law business, as it
+seems to me--about which papa is very important and elated.
+
+I am to see the cathedral and churches at Rouen, and I shall contrive to
+see the shops, and to bring you something pretty. Papa has given me
+money--the first he ever gave me unasked. I have very little doubt it
+comes from Gustave; but I have no sense of shame in accepting it. M.
+Lenoble's seems to me a royal nature, formed to bestow benefits and
+bounties on every side.
+
+Tell Mrs. Sheldon that I shall bring her the prettiest cap I can find in
+Rouen; and,
+
+with all love, believe me ever your affectionate
+DIANA.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THE SEVENTH.
+
+
+
+A CLOUD OF FEAR.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE BEGINNING OF SORROW.
+
+Who heeds the cloud no bigger than a man's hand amidst a broad expanse of
+blue ether? The faint, scarce perceptible menace of that one little cloud
+is lost in the wide brightness of a summer sky. The traveller jogs on
+contented and unthinking, till the hoarse roar of stormy winds, or the
+first big drops of the thunder-shower, startle him with a sudden
+consciousness of the coming storm.
+
+It was early May, and the young leaves were green in the avenues of
+Kensington Gardens; Bayswater was bright and gay with fashionable people;
+and Mrs. Sheldon found herself strong enough to enjoy her afternoon drive
+in Hyde Park, where the contemplation of the bonnets afforded her
+perennial delight.
+
+"I think they are actually smaller than ever this year," she remarked
+every season; and every season the headgear of fashionable London did
+indeed seem to shrink and dwindle, "fine by degrees, and beautifully
+less." The coalscuttle-shaped headdress of our grandmothers had not yet
+resolved itself into a string of beads and a rosebud in these days, but
+was obviously tending thitherward.
+
+Charlotte and Diana accompanied Mrs. Sheldon in her drives. The rapture
+of contemplating the bonnets was not complete unless the lady had some
+sympathising spirit to share her delight. The two girls were very well
+pleased to mingle in that brilliant crowd, and to go back to their own
+quiet life when the mystic hour came, and that bright vision of colour
+and beauty melted into the twilight loneliness. It had seemed just
+lately, however, as if Charlotte was growing a little weary of the
+gorgeous spectacle--the ever-changing, ever-splendid diorama of West End
+life. She no longer exclaimed at the sight of each exceptional toilette;
+she no longer smiled admiringly on the thoroughbred horses champing their
+bits in the immediate neighbourhood of her bonnet; she no longer gave a
+little cry of delight when the big drags came slowly along the crowded
+ranks, the steel bars shining as they swung loosely in the low afternoon
+sunlight, the driver, conscious of his glory, grave and tranquil, with
+the pride that apes humility.
+
+"See, Lotta," said Miss Paget, upon an especially bright May evening, as
+one of these gorgeous equipages went past Mr. Sheldon's landau, "there's
+another drag. Did you see it?"
+
+"Yes, dear, I saw it."
+
+"And are you tired of four-in-hands? You used to admire them so much."
+
+"I admire them as much as ever, dear."
+
+"And yet you scarcely gave those four splendid roans a glance."
+
+"No," Charlotte answered, with a faint sigh.
+
+"Are you tired, Lotta?" Miss Paget asked, rather anxiously. There was
+something in Charlotte's manner of late that had inspired her with a
+vague sense of anxiety; some change which she could scarcely define--a
+change so gradual that it was only by comparing the Charlotte of some
+months ago with the Charlotte of the present that she perceived how real
+a change it was. The buoyancy and freshness, the girlish vivacity of Miss
+Halliday's manner, were rapidly giving place to habitual listlessness.
+"Are you tired, dear?" she repeated, anxiously; and Mrs. Sheldon looked
+round from her contemplation of the bonnets.
+
+"No, Di, dearest, not tired; but--I don't feel very well this afternoon."
+
+This was the first confession which Charlotte Halliday made of a sense of
+weakness and languor that had been creeping upon her during the last two
+months, so slowly, so gradually, that the change seemed too insignificant
+for notice.
+
+"You feel ill, Lotta dear?" Diana asked.
+
+"Well, no, not exactly ill. I can scarcely call it illness; I feel rather
+weak--that is really all."
+
+At this point Mrs. Sheldon chimed in, with her eyes on a passing bonnet
+as she spoke.
+
+"You see, you are so dreadfully neglectful of your papa's advice, Lotta,"
+she said, in a complaining tone. "Do _you_ like pink roses with mauve
+areophane, Diana? I do not. Look at that primrose tulle, with dead
+ivy-leaves and scarlet berries, in the barouche. I dare say you have not
+taken your glass of old port this morning, Charlotte, and have only
+yourself to thank if you feel weak."
+
+"I did take a glass of port this morning, mamma. I don't like it; but I
+take it every morning."
+
+"Don't like old tawny port, that your papa bought at the sale of a bishop
+of somewhere? It's perfectly absurd of you, Lotta, to talk of not liking
+wine that cost fifteen shillings a bottle, and which your papa's friends
+declare to be worth five-and-thirty."
+
+"I am sorry it is so expensive, mamma; but I can't teach myself to think
+it nice," answered Charlotte, with a smile that sadly lacked the
+brightness of a few weeks ago. "I think one requires to go into the City,
+and become a merchant or a stockbroker, before one can like that sort of
+wine. What was it Valentine quoted in the _Cheapside_, about some lady
+whom somebody loved?--'To love her was a liberal education.' I think to
+like old port is a commercial education."
+
+"I am sure such wine _ought_ to do you good," said Georgy, almost
+querulously. She thought this bright blooming creature had no right to be
+ill. The headaches, and little weaknesses and languors and ladylike
+ailments, were things for which she (Georgy) had taken out a patent; and
+this indisposition of her daughter's was an infringement of copyright.
+
+"I dare say the port will do me good, mamma, in time. No doubt I shall be
+as strong as that person who strangled lions and snakes and dogs with
+incalculable heads, and all that kind of thing."
+
+"I really wish you would not talk in that absurd manner, my dear," said
+Mrs. Sheldon with offended dignity. "I think you really cannot be too
+grateful for your papa's kind thoughtfulness and anxiety about you. I am
+sure I myself am not so anxious as he is; but of course his medical
+knowledge makes him doubly careful. Six weeks ago he noticed that you
+wanted strength--tone is what he calls it. 'Georgina,' he said to me,
+'Charlotte wants tone. She is beginning to stoop in a really lamentable
+manner: we must make her take port or bark, or something of a
+strengthening kind.' And then a day or two afterwards he decided on port,
+and gave me the key of the cellar--which is a thing he rarely gives out
+of his own hands--and told me the number of the bin from which I was to
+take the wine--some old wine that he had laid by on purpose for some
+special occasion; and no one is to have it but you, and you are to take a
+glass daily at eleven o'clock. Mr. Sheldon is most particular about the
+hour. The regularity of the thing is half the battle in these cases, he
+says; and I am sure if you do not observe his wishes and mine, Charlotte,
+it will be really ungrateful of you."
+
+"But, dear mamma, I do observe Mr.--papa's wishes. I take my glass of
+port every morning at eleven. I go to your cupboard in the breakfast-room
+and take out my special decanter, and my special glass, in the most
+punctiliously precise manner. I don't like the wine, and I don't like the
+trouble involved in the ceremony of drinking it; but I go through it most
+religiously, to please you and papa."
+
+"And do you mean to say that you do not feel stronger after taking that
+expensive old port regularly for nearly six weeks.
+
+"I am sorry to say that I do not, mamma. I think if there is any change,
+it is that I am weaker."
+
+"Dear, dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Sheldon captiously, "you are really a
+most extraordinary girl."
+
+Mrs. Sheldon could almost have found it in her heart to say, a most
+ungrateful girl. There did seem a kind of ingratitude in this futile
+consumption of old port at fifteen shillings a bottle.
+
+"I'll tell you what it is, Lotta," she said presently, "I am convinced
+that your illness--or your weakness--is all fancy."
+
+"Why so, mamma?"
+
+"Because, if it were real weakness, that old port must have made you
+stronger. And the fact that the port does you no good, is a proof that
+your weakness is only fancy. Girls of your age are so full of fancies.
+Look at me, and the martyrdom I go through with my nervous headaches,
+which perfectly prostrate me, after the least worry or excitement. The
+nerves of my head, after going into the butcher's book, are perfect
+agony. When you come to have a house to look after, and find what it is
+to have the same saddle of mutton charged for twice over, with the most
+daring impudence--or to have capers and currie-powder, that you _know_
+you've never had, staring at you from every page of your grocer's book,
+and nothing but your memory between you and utter ruin--you'll discover
+what it is to be really ill."
+
+In this easy manner did Mrs. Sheldon dismiss the subject of her daughter's
+illness. But it was not so easily dismissed by Diana Paget, who loved her
+friend with a profound and pure affection, than which no sister's love
+was ever warmer or stronger. Even Valentine's preference for this happy
+rival had not lessened Diana's love for her friend and benefactress. She
+had been jealous of Charlotte's happier fate: but in the hour when this
+jealousy was most bitter there had been no wavering in her attachment to
+this one true and generous friend.
+
+Miss Paget was very silent during the homeward drive. She understood now
+what that change had been in her friend which until now had so perplexed
+her. It was a decay of physical strength which had robbed Lotta's smile
+of its brightness, her laugh of its merry music. It was physical languor
+that made her so indifferent to the things which had once awakened her
+girlish enthusiasm. The discovery was a very painful one. Diana
+remembered her experience of Hyde Lodge: the girls who had grown day by
+day more listless, now in the doctor's hands for a day or two, now well
+again and toiling at the old treadmill round of study, now sinking into
+confirmed invalids; until the bitter hour in which parents are summoned,
+and the doctor urges rest, and the fond mother carries her darling home,
+assured that home comfort and tenderness will, speedily restore her. Her
+schoolfellows cluster round the carriage to bid her "good-bye until next
+half," full of hopeful talk about her swift recovery. But when the
+vacation is over, and Black Monday comes, she is not amongst the
+returning scholars. Has she not gone up to the higher school, and
+answered _Adsum_ to the call of the Great Master?
+
+Diana remembered these old experiences with cruel pain.
+
+"Girls, as bright and lovable as she is, have drooped and faded away,
+just when they seem brightest and happiest," she thought as she watched
+Charlotte, and perceived to-day for the first time that the outline of
+her fair young cheek had lost its perfect roundness.
+
+But in such a case love can do nothing except watch and wait. That night,
+in the course of that girlish talk in Charlotte's bedroom, which had
+become a habit with the two girls, Diana extorted from her friend a full
+account of the symptoms which had affected her within the last few weeks.
+
+"Pray don't look so anxious, dear Di," she said gaily; "it is really
+nothing worth talking of; and I knew that if I confessed to feeling ill
+you and mamma would straightway begin to worry yourselves about me. I
+have felt a little sick and faint sometimes; and now and then a sudden
+dizziness has come over me. It is nothing of any consequence, and it
+passes away very quickly. Sometimes I have a kind of torpid languid
+feeling, which is scarcely unpleasant, only strange, you know. But what
+does it all amount to, except that I am nervous?"
+
+"You must have change of air, Lotta," said Diana resolutely, "and change
+of scene. Yes, no doubt you are nervous. You have been kept almost a
+prisoner in the house through Mr. Sheldon's punctilious nonsense. You
+miss our brisk morning walks in the Gardens, I dare say. If you were to
+go to Yorkshire, now, to your friends at Newhall, you would like that
+change, dear, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Yes, I should dearly like to see Aunt Dorothy and uncle Joe; but--"
+
+"But what, darling?"
+
+"I should scarcely like being at Newhall, unless--you'll think me very
+foolish, Di--unless Valentine was with me. We were so happy there, you
+see, dear; and it was there he first told me he loved me. No, Di, I
+couldn't bear Newhall without him."
+
+"Poor Aunt Dorothy, poor uncle Joe! feathers when weighed in the scale
+against a young man whom their niece has known less than a twelvemonth!"
+
+No more was said about Charlotte's illness; Diana was too prudent to
+alarm her friend by any expression of uneasiness. She adopted a cheering
+tone, and the conversation drifted into other channels.
+
+While Diana's concern for her friend's altered health was yet a new
+feeling, she found herself called upon to attend her father once more
+in the character of a ministering angel. And this time Captain Paget's
+illness was something more than gout. It was, according to his
+doctors--he had on this occasion two medical attendants--a general
+breaking up of the system. The poor old wanderer,--the weary Odysseus,
+hero of so many trickeries, such varied adventures,--laid himself down to
+rest, within view of the Promised Land for which his soul yearned.
+
+He was very ill. Gustave Lenoble, who came back to London, did not
+conceal from Diana that the illness threatened to end fatally. At his
+instigation the Captain had been removed from Omega Street to pleasant
+lodgings at the back of Knightsbridge Road, overlooking Hyde Park. This
+was nearer Bayswater, and it was very pleasant for the fading old
+worldling. He could see the stream of fashion flowing past as he sat in
+his easy-chair, propped up with pillows, with the western sunlight on his
+face. He pointed out the liveries and armorial bearings; and told many
+scandalous and entertaining anecdotes of their past and present owners to
+Gustave Lenoble, who devoted much of his time to the solacement of the
+invalid. Everything that affection could do to smooth this dreary time
+was done for the tired Ulysses. Pleasant books were read to him; earnest
+thoughts were suggested by earnest words; hothouse flowers adorned his
+cheerful sitting-room; hothouse fruits gladdened his eye by their rich
+warmth of colour, and invited his parched lips to taste their cool
+ripeness. Gustave had a piano brought in, so that Diana might sing to her
+father in the dusky May evenings, when it should please him to hear her.
+Upon the last feeble footsteps of this old man, whose life had been very
+selfish and wicked, pity waited with a carefulness so fond and tender
+that he might well mistake it for love. Was it fair that his last days
+should be so peaceful and luxurious, when many a good man falls down to
+die in the streets, worn out with the life-long effort to bear the burden
+laid upon his weary shoulders? In the traditions of the Rabbins it is
+written that those are the elect of God who suffer His chastisement in
+the flesh. For the others, for those who on earth drain the goblet of
+pleasure, and riot in the raptures of sin, for them comes the dread
+retribution after death. They are plunged in the fire, and driven before
+the wind; they take the shape of loathsome reptiles, and ascend by
+infinitesimal degrees through all the grades of creation, until their
+storm-tost wearied degraded souls re-enter human semblance once more. But
+even then their old stand-point is not yet regained; their dread penance
+not yet performed. As men they are the lowest and worst of men; slaves
+toiling in the desert; dirt to be trampled under the feet of their
+prosperous brethren. Inch by inch the wretched soul regains its lost
+inheritance; cycles must elapse before the awful sentence is fulfilled.
+
+Our Christian faith knows no such horrors. Even for the penitent of the
+eleventh hour there is promise of pardon. The most earnest desire of
+Diana's heart was that her father should enroll himself amongst those
+late penitents--those last among the last who crowd in to the marriage
+feast, half afraid to show their shame-darkened faces in that glorious
+company.
+
+If we forgive all things to old age, so much the more surely do we
+forgive all injuries to the fading enemy. That she had suffered much
+cruelty and neglect at the hands of her father, was a fact that Diana
+could not forget, any more than she could forget the name which he had
+given her. It was a part of her life not to be put off or done away with.
+But in these last days, with all her heart she forgave and pitied him.
+She pitied him for the crooked paths into which his feet had wandered at
+the very outset of life, and from which so weak a soul could find no
+issue. She pitied him for that moral blindness which had kept him
+pleasantly unconscious of the supreme depth of his degradation--a social
+Laplander, who never having seen a western summer, had no knowledge that
+his own land was dark and benighted.
+
+Happily for Diana and her generous lover, the Captain was not a
+difficult penitent. He was indeed a man who, having lost the capacity
+and the need for sin, took very kindly to penitence, as a species of
+sentimental luxury.
+
+"Yes, my dear," he said complacently--for even in the hour of his
+penitence he insisted on regarding himself as a social martyr--"my life
+has been a very hard one. Fortune has not been kind to me. In the words
+of the immortal bard, my lines have _not_ been set in pleasant places. I
+should have been glad if Providence had allowed me to be a better father
+to you, a better husband to your poor mother--a better Christian, in
+fact--and had spared me the repeated humiliation of going through the
+Insolvent Debtors' Court. It is not always easy to understand the justice
+of these things: and it has often appeared to me that something of the
+favouritism which is the bane of our governments on earth must needs
+obtain at a higher tribunal. One man enters life with an entailed estate
+worth seventy thousand a-year, while another finds himself in the hands
+of the Jews before he is twenty years of age. 'There's something in this
+world amiss shall be unriddled by-and-by,' as the poet observes. The
+circumstances of my own existence I have ever regarded as dark and
+enigmatic. And, indeed, the events of this life are altogether
+inexplicable, my love. There is that fellow Sheldon, now, who began
+life as a country dentist, a man without family or connections,
+who--well, I will not repine. If I am spared to behold my daughter
+mistress of a fine estate, although in a foreign country, I can depart in
+peace. But you must have a house in town, my dear. Yes, London must be
+your head-quarters. You must not be buried alive in Normandy. There is no
+place like London. Take the word of a man who has seen the finest
+Continental cities, and lived in them--that is the point, my love--lived
+in them. For a fine afternoon in the beginning of May, an apartment in
+the Champs Elysees, or the Boulevard, is an earthly paradise; but the
+Champs Elysees in a wet December--the Boulevard in a sweltering August!
+London is the only spot upon earth that is never intolerable. And your
+husband will be a rich man, my dear girl, a really wealthy man; and you
+must see that he makes a fitting use of his wealth, and does his duty to
+society. The parable of the Talents, which you were reading to me this
+afternoon, is a moral lesson your husband must not forget."
+
+After this fashion did the invalid discourse. Gustave and Diana perceived
+that he still hoped to have his share in their future life, still looked
+to pleasant days to come in a world which he had loved, not wisely, but
+too well. Nor could they find it in their hearts to tell him that his
+journey was drawing to a close, and that on the very threshold of the
+peaceful home which his diplomatic arts had helped to secure, he was to
+abandon life's weary race.
+
+They indulged his hopes a little, in order to win him the more easily to
+serious thoughts; but though at times quite ready to abandon himself to a
+penitential mood that was almost maudlin, there were other times when the
+old Adam asserted himself, and the Captain resented this intrusion of
+serious subjects as a kind of impertinence.
+
+"I am not aware that I am at my last gasp, Diana," he said with dignity,
+on one of these occasions; "or that I need to be talked to by my own
+daughter as if I were on my deathbed. I can show you men some years my
+senior driving their phaetons-and-pairs in that Park. The Gospel is all
+very well in its place--during Sunday-morning service, and after morning
+prayers, in your good old county families, where the household is large
+enough to make a fair show at the end of the dining-room, without
+bringing in hulking lads who smell of the stables: but I consider that
+when a man is ill, there is a considerable want of tact in bringing the
+subject of religion before him in any obtrusive manner."
+
+Thus the Captain alternated from sentimental penitence to captious
+worldliness, during many days and weeks. The business of the Haygarthian
+inheritance was progressing slowly, but surely. Documents were being
+prepared, attested copies of certificates of marriages, births, baptisms,
+and burials were being procured, and all was tending towards the grand
+result. Once, and sometimes twice a week, M. Fleurus came to see Captain
+Paget, and discussed the great affair with that invalid diplomatist. The
+Captain had long ago been aware that in entering upon an alliance with
+that gentleman, he had invoked the aid of a coadjutor likely to prove too
+strong for him. The event had justified his fears. M. Fleurus had
+something of Victor Hugo's famous _Poulpe_ in his nature. Powerful as
+flexible were the arms he stretched forth to grasp all prizes in the way
+of heirs-at-law and disputed heritages, unclaimed railway-stock, and
+forgotten consols. If the Captain had not played his cards very cleverly,
+and contrived to obtain a personal influence over Gustave Lenoble, he
+might have found himself thrust entirely out of the business by one of
+the Frenchman's gelatinous arms. Happily for his own success, however,
+the Captain did obtain a strong hold upon Gustave. This enabled him to
+protect his own interests throughout the negotiation, and to keep the
+insidious Fleurus at bay.
+
+"My good friend," he said, in his grand Carlton-House manner, "I am bound
+to protect the interests of my friend M. Lenoble, in any agreement to be
+entered upon in this matter. I cannot permit M. Lenoble's generosity or
+M. Lenoble's inexperience to be imposed upon. My own interests are of
+secondary importance. That I expect to profit by the extraordinary
+discovery made by me--by ME--alone and unaided, I do not affect to deny.
+But I will not profit at the expense of a too generous friend."
+
+"And what recompense am I to have for my work--a work at once painful and
+impoverishing?" asked the little Frenchman, with an angry and suspicious
+look. "Do you believe that I do that to amuse me? To run the streets, to
+go by here, by there, in hunting the papers of that marriage, or this
+baptism? Believe you that is so agreeable, Monsieur the Captain? No; I
+desire to be paid for my work. I must have my part in the heritage which
+I have help to win."
+
+"It is not won yet. We will talk of your recompense by-and-by."
+
+"We will talk of it this instant--upon the field. It must that I
+comprehend where I am in this affair. I will not of mystifications, of
+prevarications, of lies--"
+
+"M. Fleurus!" cried the Captain, with a hand stretched towards the bell.
+
+"You will sound--you will chase me! Ah, but no!--you cannot afford to
+chase me yet. I have to find more papers of baptisms and burials. Go,
+then, we will talk of this affair as friends."
+
+This friendly talk ended in Captain Paget's complete victory. M. Fleurus
+consented to accept his costs out of pocket in the present, and three per
+cent, of the heritage in the future. It was further agreed that the
+Captain should select the English attorney who should conduct M.
+Lenoble's case in the Court of Chancery.
+
+This conversation occurred at Rouen, and a day or two afterwards the
+necessary document was drawn up. Gustave pledged himself to pay over a
+fourth share of the Haygarthian fortune to Horatio Paget, and three
+per cent, upon the whole amount to Jean Francois Fleurus. The document
+was very formal, very complete; but whether such an agreement would
+hold water, if Gustave Lenoble should choose to contest it, was open
+to question.
+
+The solicitor to whom Horatio Paget introduced M. Lenoble was a Mr.
+Dashwood, of the firm of Dashwood and Vernon; a man whom the Captain had
+known in the past, and from whom he had received good service in some of
+the most difficult crises of his difficult career. To this gentleman he
+confided the conduct of the case; and explained his apprehensions with
+regard to the two Sheldons.
+
+"You see, as the case now stands, they think they have the claimant to
+this money in Miss Halliday--Sheldon's stepdaughter. But if they got an
+inkling of Susan Meynell's marriage--and, in point of fact--the actual
+state of the case--they might try to get hold of my friend, Gustave
+Lenoble. They could _not_ get hold of him, mind you, Dashwood, but they
+would try it on, and I don't want trying on of that kind."
+
+"Of course not. I know Sheldon, of Gray's Inn. He is rather--well, say
+_shady_. That's hardly an actionable epithet, and it expresses what I
+mean. Your friend's case seems to me tolerably clear. That little
+Frenchman is useful, but officious. It is not a speculative affair, I
+suppose? There is money to meet the current expenses of the business?"
+
+"Yes, there is money. Within reasonable limits my friend is prepared to
+pay for the advancement of his claims."
+
+After this the Haygarthian business progressed, slowly, quietly. The work
+was up to this point underground work. There were still papers
+wanting--final links of the chain to be fitted together; and to the
+fitting of these links Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon devoted themselves, in
+conjunction with M. Fleurus.
+
+This was how matters stood when Captain Paget drooped and languished, and
+was fain to abandon all active share in the struggle.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FADING.
+
+While the invalid in the pleasant lodgings overlooking Hyde Park
+grew day by day weaker, there was a change as marked in the bright
+young creature whose loving spirit had first brought the influence of
+affection to bear upon Diana Paget's character. Charlotte Halliday was
+ill--very ill. It was with everyday increasing anxiety that Diana watched
+the slow change--slow in its progress, but awfully rapid to look back
+upon. The pain, the regret, with which she noted her father's decay were
+little indeed compared with the sharp agony which rent her heart as she
+perceived the alteration in this dear friend, the blighting of this fair
+young flower.
+
+That the withered leaves of autumn should fall is sad, but natural, and
+we submit to the gloomy inevitable fact of decay and death. But to see
+our rose of roses, the pride and glory of the garden, fade and perish in
+its midsummer prime, is a calamity inexplicable and mysterious. Diana
+watched her father's decline with a sense of natural sorrow and pity; but
+there was neither surprise nor horror in the thought that for him the end
+of all things was drawing nigh. How different was it with Charlotte--with
+that happy soul for whom life and love wore their brightest smile, before
+whose light joyous footsteps stretched so fair a pathway!
+
+The illness, whatever it was--and neither Mr. Sheldon nor the portly and
+venerable physician whom he called in could find a name for it--crept
+upon the patient with stealthy and insidious steps. Dizziness, trembling,
+faintness; trembling, faintness, dizziness; the symptoms alternated day
+by day. Sometimes there was a respite of a few days; and Charlotte--the
+youthful, the sanguine, the happy--declared that her enemy had left her.
+
+"I am sure mamma is right, Di," she said on these occasions. "My nerves
+are the beginning and end of the mischief; and if I could get the better
+of my nerves, I should be as well as ever. I don't wonder that the idea
+of my symptoms makes mamma almost cross. You see, she has been accustomed
+to have the symptoms all to herself; and for me to plagiarise them, as it
+were, must seem quite an impertinence. For a strong young thing like me,
+you know, Di dear--who have only just broken myself of plunging
+downstairs two and three steps at a time, and plunging upstairs in the
+same vulgar manner--to intrude on mamma's shattered nerves, and pirate
+mamma's low spirits, is utterly absurd and abominable; so I have resolved
+to look my nerves straight in the face, and get the better of them."
+
+"My darling, you will get the better of them if you try," said Diana, who
+did at times beguile herself with the hope that her friend's ailments
+were mental rather than bodily. "I dare say your monotonous life has
+something to do with your altered health; you want change of scene,
+dear."
+
+"Change of scene, when I have you and Valentine! No, Di. It would
+certainly be very nice to have the background shifted now and then; to
+see Capability Brown's prim gardens melt into Alpine heights or
+southern vineyards, or even into Russian steppes or Hungarian forests.
+One does get a little tired of _toujours_ Bayswater; and Mr. Sheldon;
+and crimped skate; and sirloin of beef, and the inevitable discussion as
+to whether it is in a cannibal state of rawness or burnt to a cinder;
+and the glasses of pale sherry; and the red worsted doyleys and blue
+finger-glasses; and the almonds and raisins, and crisp biscuits, that
+nobody ever eats; and the dreary, dreary funereal business of dinner,
+when we all talk vapid nonsense, with an ever-present consciousness of
+the parlourmaid. I am tired of the dull dinners, and of mamma's peevish
+complaints about Ann Woolper's ascendancy downstairs; and of Mr.
+Sheldon's perpetual newspapers, that crackle, crackle, crackle all the
+evening through; and _such_ papers!--_Money Market Monitor, Stockholder's
+Vade-Mecum_, and all sorts of dreadful things of that kind, with not so
+much as an interesting advertisement in one of them. I used never to feel
+these things an annoyance, you know, dear, till I made the acquaintance
+of my nerves; but from the moment I allowed my nerves to get the better
+of me, all these trifles have worried and excruciated me. But I am happy
+with you, darling; and I am happy with Valentine. Poor Valentine!"
+
+She pronounced his name with a sigh; and then, after a pause, repeated
+mournfully, "Poor Valentine!"
+
+"Why do you speak of him so sadly, dear?" asked Diana, very pale.
+
+"Because--because we have planned such a happy life together, dear,
+and--"
+
+"Is that a thing to be sad about, darling?"
+
+"And--if it should happen, after all, that we have to part, and he go on
+alone, the world may seem so sad and lonely to him."
+
+"Charlotte!" cried Diana, with a laugh that was almost choked by a sob,
+"is this looking your nerves in the face? Why, my dear one, this is
+indeed plagiarism of your mamma's low spirits. Lotta, you shall have
+change of air; yes, I am determined on that. The stately physician who
+came in his carriage the other day, and who looked at your tongue, and
+said 'Ah!' and then felt your pulse and said 'Ah!' again, and then called
+for pen-and-ink and wrote a little prescription, is not the doctor we
+want for you. We want Dr. Yorkshire; we want the breezes from the
+Yorkshire moors, and the smell of the farmyard, and our dear Aunt
+Dorothy's sillabubs, and our uncle Joe to take us for long walks across
+his clover-fields."
+
+"I don't want to go to Newhall, Di. I couldn't bear to leave--him."
+
+"But what is to prevent your meeting _him_ at the white gate this time,
+as you met him last October? Might not accident take _him_ to Huxter's
+Cross again? The archaeological work--of which we have heard no more, by
+the bye--might necessitate further investigations in that district. If
+you will go to Newhall, Lotta, I will pledge myself for Mr. Hawkehurst's
+speedy appearance at the white gate you have so often described to me."
+
+"My dearest Di, you are all kindness; but even if I were inclined to go
+to Newhall, I doubt if mamma or Mr. Sheldon would like me to go."
+
+"I am sure they would be pleased with any arrangement that was likely to
+benefit your health. But I will talk to your mamma about it. I have set
+my heart on your going to Newhall."
+
+Miss Paget lost no time in carrying out her idea. She took possession of
+Georgy that afternoon, while teaching her a new stitch in _tricot_, and
+succeeded in impressing her with the conviction that change of air was
+necessary for Charlotte.
+
+"But you don't think Lotta really ill?" asked Mrs. Sheldon, nervously.
+
+"I trust she is not really ill, dear Mrs. Sheldon; but I am sure she is
+much changed. In talking to her, I affect to think that her illness is
+only an affair of the nerves; but I sadly fear that it is something more
+than that."
+
+"But what is the matter with her?" exclaimed Georgy, with a piteous air
+of perplexity; "that is the question which I am always asking. People
+can't be ill, you know, Diana, without having something the matter with
+them; and that is what I can't make out in Charlotte's case. Mr. Sheldon
+says she wants tone; the physician who came in a carriage and pair, and
+ought to know what he is talking about, says there is a lack of vigour.
+But what does that all amount to? I'm sure I've wanted tone all my life.
+Perhaps there never was a creature so devoid of tone as I am; and the
+internal sinking I feel just before luncheon is something that no one but
+myself can realize. I dare say Lotta is not so strong as she might be;
+but I do not see that she can be ill, unless her illness is something
+definite. My poor first husband's illness, now, was the kind of thing
+that any one could understand--bilious fever. The merest child knows what
+it is to be bilious, and the merest child knows what it is to be
+feverish. There can be nothing mysterious in bilious fever."
+
+"But, dear Mrs. Sheldon," said Diana, gravely, "don't you think that the
+weakness of constitution which rendered Charlotte's father liable to be
+taken off in the prime of life by a fever is a weakness that Charlotte
+may possibly have inherited?"
+
+"Good heavens, Diana!" cried Georgy, with sudden terror; "you don't mean
+to say that you think my Charlotte is going to die?"
+
+It was but one step with Mrs. Sheldon from peevish incredulity to frantic
+alarm; and Diana found it as difficult to tranquillise her newly-awakened
+fears as it had been to rouse her from absolute apathy.
+
+Change of air--yes, of course--Charlotte must have change of air that
+instant. Let a cab be sent for immediately to take them to the terminus.
+Change of air, of course. To Newhall--to Nice--to the Isle of Wight--to
+Malta; Mrs. Sheldon had heard of people going to Malta. Where should they
+go? Would Diana advise, and send for a cab, and pack a travelling bag
+without an instant's delay? The rest of the things could be sent
+afterwards. What did luggage matter, when Charlotte's life was at stake?
+
+At this point a flood of tears happily relieved poor Georgy's excited
+feelings, and then common sense and Diana Paget came to the rescue.
+
+"My dear Mrs. Sheldon," she said, with a quiet cheerful tone that went
+far to reassure the excited lady, "in the first place we must, above all
+things, refrain from any appearance of alarm. Her illness may, after all,
+be only an affair of the nerves; and there is certainly no cause for
+immediate fear."
+
+Georgy was tranquillised, and agreed to take matters quietly. She
+promised to arrange Charlotte's departure for Newhall, with Mr. Sheldon,
+that evening.
+
+"Of course, you know, my dear, I like to consult him about everything,"
+she said, apologetically. "It is a duty which one owes one's husband, you
+know, and a duty which, as a young woman about to marry, I cannot too
+much impress upon you; but in this case it is quite a matter of form: Mr.
+Sheldon never has objected to Charlotte's going to Newhall, and he is not
+likely to object now."
+
+The event proved Mrs. Sheldon mistaken as to this matter. Georgy proposed
+the visit to Newhall that evening, while the two girls were strolling
+listlessly in the dusky garden, and Mr. Sheldon most decidedly rejected
+the proposition.
+
+"If she wants change of air--and Dr. Doddleson recommended nothing of the
+kind--Newhall is not the place for her."
+
+"Why not, dear?"
+
+"It is too cold. Northerly aspect--no shelter--three hundred feet above
+York minster."
+
+"But Dorothy Mercer is such a kind motherly creature; she'd delight in
+nursing Lotta."
+
+"Yes," answered Mr. Sheldon, with a laugh, "and in quacking her. I know
+what those good motherly creatures are when they get an excuse for dosing
+some unhappy victim with their quack nostrums. If Charlotte went to
+Newhall, Mrs. Mercer would poi--would make her ten times worse than
+she is with old woman's remedies. Besides, as I said before, the place is
+too cold. That is a conclusive argument, I suppose?"
+
+He said this with some impatience of tone and manner. There was a haggard
+look in his face, a hurried harassed manner pervading him this evening,
+which had been growing upon him of late. Georgy was too slow of
+perception to remark this; but Diana Paget had remarked it, and had
+attributed the change in the stockbroker's manner to a blending of two
+anxieties.
+
+"He is anxious about money matters," she had said to herself, "and he is
+anxious about Charlotte's health. His lips, moving in whispered
+calculations, as he sits brooding by the fire, tell me of the first
+anxiety; his eyes, wandering furtively to his step-daughter's face every
+now and then, tell me of the second."
+
+This furtive anxiety of Mr. Sheldon's increased Diana Paget's anxiety.
+This man, who had a certain amount of medical knowledge, could no doubt
+read the diagnostics of that strange insidious illness, which had, as
+yet, no name. Diana, furtively watching his furtive looks, told herself
+that he read of danger.
+
+"If Charlotte wants change of air, let her go to Hastings," he said;
+"that is the kind of place for an invalid. I want rest myself; and
+there's such utter stagnation in the City nowadays that I can very well
+afford to give myself a holiday. We'll run down to Hastings, or the
+immediate neighbourhood of Hastings, for a week or two."
+
+"O Philip, how kind and considerate you are! I am sure, as I was
+observing to Miss Paget only today, you--"
+
+"Ah, by the bye, there's Miss Paget. Is it absolutely necessary that Miss
+Paget should go to Hastings with us?"
+
+"Well, dear, you see she has so kindly desired to remain with me for the
+quarter, so as to give me time to turn round, you know, with regard to
+caps and summer things, and so on--for, really, she has such taste, and
+does strike out such excellent ideas about turning, and dipping, and
+dyeing, that I don't know what will become of me when she leaves us; and
+it would look so pointed to--"
+
+"Yes; she had better go with us. But why all this fuss about Charlotte?
+Who put it into your head that she wants change of air?"
+
+Mr. Sheldon evidently considered it an established fact that any idea in
+his wife's head must needs have been put there by someone or other.
+
+"Well, you see, Diana and I were talking of Lotta this afternoon, and
+Diana quite alarmed me."
+
+"How so?" asked Mr. Sheldon, with a quick frown.
+
+"Why, she said it was evident, by the fact of poor dear Tom's dying of a
+fever, that his constitution must have been originally weak. And she said
+that perhaps Charlotte had inherited Tom's weak constitution--and
+frightened me dreadfully."
+
+"There is no occasion for you to be frightened; Charlotte will get on
+very well, I dare say, with care. But Miss Paget is a very sensible
+young woman, and is right in what she says. Charlotte's constitution is
+not strong."
+
+"O Philip!" said Georgy, in a faint wailing voice.
+
+"I dare say she will live to follow you and me to our graves," said Mr.
+Sheldon, with a hard laugh. "Ah, here she is!"
+
+Here she was, coming towards the open window near which her stepfather
+sat. Here she was, pale and tired, with her sauntering walk, dressed in
+white, and spectral in the gloaming. To the sad eyes of her mother she
+looked like a ghost. To the eyes of Philip Sheldon, a man not prone to
+poetic fancies, she looked even more ghostlike.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+MRS. WOOLPER IS ANXIOUS.
+
+Since the beginning of her illness, Charlotte Halliday had been the
+object and subject of many anxious thoughts in the minds of several
+people. That her stepfather had his anxieties about her--anxieties which
+he tried to hide--was obvious to the one person in the Bayswater villa
+who noted his looks, and tried to read the thoughts they indicated.
+
+Mrs. Sheldon's alarm, once fairly awakened, was not to be lulled to rest.
+And in Valentine Hawkehurst's heart there was an aching pain--a dull dead
+load of care, which had never been lightened from the hour when he first
+perceived the change in his dear one's face.
+
+There was one other person, an inhabitant of the Bayswater villa, who
+watched Charlotte Halliday at this time with a care as unresting as the
+care of mother or stepfather, bosom friend or plighted lover. This person
+was Ann Woolper. Mrs. Woolper had come to the villa prepared to find in
+Miss Halliday a frivolous self-satisfied young person, between whom and
+an old broken-down woman like herself there could be no sympathy. She had
+expected to be contemptuously--or, at the best, indifferently--entreated
+by the prosperous well-placed young lady, whom Mr. Sheldon had spoken of
+as a good girl, as girls go; a vague species of commendation, which, to
+the mind of Mrs. Woolper, promised very little.
+
+As clearly as Philip Sheldon dared express his wishes with regard to
+Charlotte Halliday, he had expressed them to Ann Woolper. What he would
+fain have said, was, "Watch my stepdaughter, and keep me well acquainted
+with every step she takes." Thus much he dared not say; but by
+insinuating that Tom Halliday's daughter was frivolous and reckless, and
+that her lover was not to be trusted, he had contrived to put Mrs.
+Woolper on the _qui vive_.
+
+"Mr. Philip's afraid she may go and marry this young man on the sly,
+before he's got the means to support a wife," she said to herself, as she
+meditated upon the meaning of her master's injunctions; "and well he may
+be. There's no knowing what young women are up to nowadays; and the more
+innocent and inexperienced a young woman is, the more she wants looking
+after. And Miss Georgy Craddock always was a poor fondy, up to naught but
+dressing herself fine, and streaming up and down Barlingford High Street
+with her old schoolfellows. Such as she ain't fit to be trusted with a
+daughter; and Mr. Philip knows that. He always was a deep one. But I'm
+glad he looks after Missy: there's many men, having got fast hold of th'
+father's brass, would let th' daughter marry Old Scratch, for the sake of
+gettin' rid of her."
+
+This is how Mrs. Woolper argued the matter. She came of a prudent race;
+and anything like prudence seemed to her a commendable virtue. She wished
+to think well of her master; for her he had been a Providence in the hour
+of calamity and old age. Where else could she look, if not to him? And to
+suspect him, or think ill of him, was to reject the one refuge offered to
+her distress. A magnanimous independence of spirit is not an easy virtue
+for the old and friendless and poor. The drowning wretch will scarcely
+question the soundness of the plank that sustains him upon the
+storm-tossed billows; nor was Mrs. Woolper inclined to question the
+motives of the man to whom she now owed her daily bread.
+
+It is possible that before invoking Mrs. Woolper from the ashes of the
+past to take her seat by the hearthstone of the present, Mr. Sheldon may
+have contemplated the question of her return in all its bearings, and
+may have assured himself that she was his own, by a tie not easily
+broken--his bond-slave, fettered hand and foot by the bondage of
+necessity.
+
+"What choice can she have, except the choice between my house and the
+workhouse?" he may naturally have asked himself; "and is it likely she
+will quarrel with her bread-and-butter in order to fall back upon dry
+bread?" Mr. Sheldon, contemplating this and all other questions from his
+one unchanging standpoint, may reasonably have concluded that Mrs.
+Woolper would do nothing opposed to her own interests; and that so long
+as it suited her interest to remain at the Lawn, and to serve him, she
+would there remain, his docile and unquestioning slave.
+
+The influence of affection, the force of generous impulse, were qualities
+that did not come into Mr. Sheldon's calculations upon this subject. His
+addition and subtraction, division and multiplication, were all based on
+one system.
+
+That happy and unconscious art by which Charlotte Halliday made herself
+dear to all who knew her had a speedy effect upon the old housekeeper.
+The girl's amiable consideration for her age and infirmities; the pretty
+affectionate familiarity with which she treated this countrywoman, who
+had known her father, and who could talk to her of Yorkshire and
+Yorkshire people, soon made their way to Nancy Woolper's heart of hearts.
+For Miss Halliday to come to the housekeeper's room with some message
+from her mother, and to linger for a few minutes' chat, was a delight to
+Mrs. Woolper. She would have detained the bright young visitant for hours
+instead of minutes, if she could have found any excuse for so doing. Nor
+was there any treason against Mr. Sheldon in her growing attachment to
+his stepdaughter. Whenever Nancy spoke of that master and benefactor, she
+spoke with unfeigned gratitude and affection.
+
+"I nursed your step-papa as a baby, Miss Halliday," she said very often
+on these occasions. "You wouldn't think, to look at him now, that he ever
+was _that_, would you? But he was one of the finest babies you could wish
+to see--tall, and strong, and with eyes that pierced one through, they
+were so bright and big and black. He was rather stubborn-spirited with
+his teething; but what baby isn't trying at such times? I had rare work
+with him, I can tell you, Miss, walking him about of nights, and jogging
+him till there wasn't a jog left in me, as you may say, from sleepiness.
+I often wonder if he thinks of this now, when I see him looking so grave
+and stern. But, you see, being jogged doesn't impress the mind like
+having to jog; and though I can bring that time back as plain as if it
+was yesterday, with the very nursery I slept in at Barlingford, and the
+rushlight in a tall iron cage on the floor, and the shadow of the cage on
+the bare whitewashed walls--it's clean gone out of his mind, I dare say."
+
+"I'm afraid it has, Nancy."
+
+"But, O, I was fond of him, Miss Halliday; and what I went through with
+him about his teeth made me only the fonder of him. He was the first baby
+I ever nursed, you see, and the last; for before Master George came to
+town I'd taken to the cooking, and Mrs. Sheldon hired another girl as
+nurse; a regular softy _she_ was, and it isn't her fault that Master
+George has got anything christian-like in the way of a back, for the way
+she carried that blessed child used to make my blood run cold."
+
+Thus would Mrs. Woolper discourse whenever she had a fair excuse for
+detaining Miss Halliday in her comfortable apartment. Charlotte did not
+perceive much interest in these reminiscences of Mr. Sheldon's infancy,
+but she was much too kind to bring them abruptly to a close by any show
+of impatience. When she could get Nancy to talk of Barlingford and Hyley,
+and the people whom Charlotte herself had known as a child, the
+conversation was really interesting; and these recollections formed a
+link between the old woman and the fair young damsel.
+
+When the change arose in Charlotte's health and spirits, Mrs. Woolper was
+one of the first to perceive it. She was skilled in those old woman's
+remedies which Mr. Sheldon held in such supreme contempt, and she would
+fain have dosed the invalid with nauseous decoctions of hops, or
+home-brewed quinine. Charlotte appreciated the kindness of the intent,
+but she rebelled against the home-brewed medicines, and pinned her faith
+to the more scientific and less obnoxious preparations procured from the
+chemist's.
+
+For some time Nancy made light of the girl's ailments, though she watched
+her with unfailing attention.
+
+"You ain't a-done growing yet, miss, I'll lay," she said.
+
+"But I'm more than twenty-one, Nancy. People don't grow after they're of
+age, do they?"
+
+"I've known them as have, miss; I don't say it's common, but it has been
+done. And then there's the weakness that comes after you've done growing.
+Girls of your age are apt to be faint and lollopy-like, as you may say;
+especially when they're stived up in a smoky place like London. You ought
+to go to Hyley, miss, where you was born; that's the place to set you
+up."
+
+The time had come when the change was no longer matter for doubt. Day by
+day Charlotte grew weaker and paler; day by day that bright and joyous
+creature, whose presence had made an atmosphere of youth and gladness
+even in that prim dwelling-place, receded farther into the dimness of
+the past; until to think of what she had been seemed like recalling the
+image of the dead. Nancy marked the alteration with a strange pain, so
+sharp, so bitter, that its sharpness and bitterness were a perpetual
+perplexity to her.
+
+"If the poor dear young thing is meant to go, there's no need for me to
+fret about it all day long, and wake up sudden in the night with cold
+water standing out upon my forehead at the thought of it. I haven't known
+her six months; and if she is pretty and sweet-spoken, it's not my place
+to give way at the thoughts of losing her. She's not my own flesh and
+blood; and I've sat by to watch them go, times and often, without feeling
+as I do when I see the change in her day after day. Why should it seem so
+dreadful to me?"
+
+Why indeed? This was a question for which Mrs. Woolper could find no
+answer. She knew that the pain and horror which she felt were something
+more than natural, but beyond this point her thoughts refused to travel.
+A superstitious feeling arose at this point, to usurp the office of
+reason, and she accounted for the strangeness of Miss Halliday's illness
+as she might have done had she lived in the sixteenth century, and been
+liable to the suspicion of nocturnal careerings on broomsticks.
+
+"I'm sorry Mr. Philip's house should be unlucky to that sweet young
+creature," she said to herself. "It was unlucky to the father; and now it
+seems as if it was going to be unlucky to the daughter. And Mr. Philip
+won't be any richer for her death. Mrs. Sheldon has told me times and
+often that all Tom Halliday's money went to my master when she married
+him, and he has doubled and trebled it by his cleverness. Miss
+Charlotte's death wouldn't bring him a sixpence."
+
+This was the gist of Mrs. Woolper's meditations very often nowadays. But
+the strange sense of perplexity, the nameless fear, the vague horror,
+were not to be banished from her mind. A sense of some shapeless presence
+for ever at her side haunted her by day and night. What was it? What did
+its presence portend? It was as if a figure, shrouded from head to foot,
+was there, dark and terrible, at her elbow, and she would not turn to
+meet the horror face to face. Sometimes the phantom hand lifted a corner
+of the veil, and the shade said, "Look at me! See who and what I am! You
+have seen me before. I am here again! and this time you shall not refuse
+to meet me face to face! I am the shadow of the horror you suspected in
+the past!"
+
+The shadowy fears which oppressed Mrs. Woolper during this period did not
+in any way lessen her practical usefulness. From the commencement of
+Charlotte's slow decline she had shown herself attentive, and even
+officious, in all matters relating to the invalid. With her own hands she
+decanted the famous port which Georgy fetched from the particular bin in
+Mr. Sheldon's carefully arranged cellar. When the physician was called
+in, and wrote his harmless little prescription, it was Mrs. Woolper who
+carried the document to the dispensing chemist, and brought back the
+innocent potion, which might, peradventure, effect some slight good, and
+was too feeble a decoction to do any harm. Charlotte duly appreciated all
+this kindness; but she repeatedly assured the housekeeper that her
+ailments were not worthy of so much care.
+
+It was Mrs. Woolper whom Mr. Sheldon employed to get lodgings for the
+family, when it had been ultimately decided that a change to the seaside
+was the best cure for Miss Halliday.
+
+"I am too busy to go to Hastings myself this week," he said; "but I
+shall be prepared to spend a fortnight there after next Monday. What I
+want you to do, Nancy, is to slip down tomorrow, with a second-class
+return-ticket, and look about for a nice place for us. I don't care about
+being in Hastings; there's too much cockneyism in the place at this time
+of year. There's a little village called Harold's Hill, within a mile or
+so of St. Leonard's--a dull, out-of-the-way place, but rustic and
+picturesque, and all that kind of thing--the sort of place that women
+like. Now, I'd rather stay at that place than at Hastings. So you can
+take a fly at the station, drive straight to Harold's Hill, and secure
+the best lodgings you can get."
+
+"You think as the change of air will do Miss Halliday good?" asked Mrs.
+Woolper anxiously, after she had promised to do all her kind master
+required of her.
+
+"Do I think it will do her good? Of course I do. Sea-air and
+sea-bathing will set her up in no time; there's nothing particular the
+matter with her."
+
+"No, Mr. Philip; that's what bothers me about the whole thing. There's
+nothing particular the matter with her; and yet she pines and dwindles,
+and dwindles and pines, till it makes one's heart ache to see her."
+
+Philip Sheldon's face darkened, and he threw himself back in his chair
+with an impatient movement. If he had chosen to do so, he could have
+prevented that darkening of his face; but he did not consider Mrs.
+Woolper a person of sufficient importance to necessitate the regulation
+of his countenance. What was she but an ignorant, obstinate old woman,
+who would most probably perish in the streets if he chose to turn her out
+of doors? There are men who consider their clerks and retainers such very
+dirt, that they would continue the forging of a bill of exchange, or
+complete the final touches of a murder, with a junior clerk putting coals
+on the fire, or an errand-boy standing cap in hand on the threshold of
+the door. They cannot realize the fact that dirt such as this is flesh
+and blood, and may denounce them by-and-by in a witness-box.
+
+Of all contingencies Mr. Sheldon least expected that this old woman could
+prove troublesome to him--this abject wretch, whose daily bread depended
+on his will. He could not imagine that there are circumstances under
+which such abject creatures will renounce their daily bread, and die of
+hunger, rather than accept the means of life from one hateful hand.
+
+"If you want to know anything about Miss Halliday's illness," he said in
+his hardest voice, and with his hardest look, "you had better apply to
+Dr. Doddleson, the physician who has prescribed for her. I do not attend
+her, you see, and I am in no way responsible for her health. When I was
+attending her father you favoured me by doubting my skill, if I judged
+rightly as to your tone and manner on one occasion. I don't want to be
+brought to book by you, Mrs. Woolper, about Miss Halliday's altered looks
+or Miss Halliday's illness; I have nothing to do with either."
+
+"How should I think you had, sir? Don't be angry with me, or hard upon
+me, Mr. Phil. I nursed you when you was but a baby, and you're nearer and
+dearer to me than any other master could be. Why, I have but to shut my
+eyes now, and I can feel your little hand upon my neck, as it used to lie
+there, so soft and dear. And then I look down at the hand on the table,
+strong and dark, and clenched so firm, and I ask myself, Can it be the
+same? For the sake of that time, Mr. Phil, don't be hard upon me. There's
+nothing I wouldn't do to serve you; there's nothing you could do that
+would turn me from you. There's no man living in this world, sir, that
+oughtn't to be glad to know of one person that nothing can turn from
+him."
+
+"That's a very fine sentiment, my good soul," replied Mr. Sheldon coolly;
+"but, you see, it's only an _ex parte_ statement; and as the case stands
+there is no opportunity for the display of those fine feelings you talk
+about. You happen to want a home in your old age, and I happen to be able
+to give you a home. Under such circumstances, your own good sense will
+show you that all sentimental talk about standing by me, and not turning
+away from me, is absolute bosh."
+
+The old woman sighed heavily. She had offered her master a fidelity which
+involved the abnegation of all impulses of her own heart and mind, and he
+rejected her love and her service. And then, after the first dreary sense
+of his coldness, she felt better pleased that it should be so. The man
+who spoke to her in this harsh uncompromising way could have no cause to
+fear her. In the mind of such a man there could surely be no secret
+chamber within which she had, with his knowledge, almost penetrated.
+
+"I won't trouble you any more, sir," she said mournfully. "I dare say I'm
+a foolish old woman."
+
+"You are, Nancy. We don't get wiser as we grow older, you see; and when
+we let our tongues wag, we're apt to talk nonsense. The quieter you keep
+your tongue, the better for yourself, in more ways than one. To a useful
+old woman about the place I've no objection; but a chattering old woman I
+will not have at any price."
+
+After this everything was settled in the most agreeable manner. Nancy
+Woolper's journey to Hastings was fully arranged; and early the next
+morning she started, brisk and active, in spite of her sixty-eight years
+of age. She returned at night, having secured very pleasant lodgings at
+the village of Harold's Hill.
+
+"And a very sweet place it is, my dear Miss Lotta," she said to Charlotte
+the next day, when she described her adventures. "The apartments are at a
+farmhouse overlooking the sea; and the smell of the cows under your
+windows, and the sea-breezes blowing across the farmyard, can't fail to
+bring the colour back to your pretty cheeks, and the brightness back to
+your pretty eyes."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+VALENTINE'S SKELETON.
+
+The idea of this visit to the Sussex village by the sea seemed delightful
+to every one except Gustave Lenoble, who was still in town, and who
+thought it a hard thing that he should be deprived of Diana's society
+during an entire fortnight, for the sake of this sickly Miss Halliday.
+
+For the rest, there was hope and gladness in the thought of this change
+of dwelling. Charlotte languished for fresher breezes and more rustic
+prospects than the breezes and prospects of Bayswater; Diana looked to
+the sea-air as the doctor of doctors for her fading friend; and Valentine
+cherished the same hope.
+
+On Valentine Hawkehurst the burden of an unlooked-for sorrow had weighed
+very heavily. To see this dear girl, who was the beginning, middle, and
+end of all his hopes, slowly fading before his eyes, was, of all agonies
+that could have fallen to his lot, the sharpest and most bitter. Not
+Ugolino sitting silent amidst his famishing children--not Helen, when she
+would fain that the tempest had swept her from earth's surface on that
+evil day when she was born--not Penelope, when she cried on Diana, the
+high-priestess of death, to release her from the weariness of her
+days--not Agamemnon, when the fatal edict had gone forth, and his fair
+young daughter looked into his face, and asked him if it was true that
+she was to die--not one of these typical mourners could have suffered a
+keener torture than that which rent this young man's heart, as he marked
+the stealthy steps of the Destroyer drawing nearer and nearer the woman
+he loved. Of all possible calamities, this was the last he had ever
+contemplated. Sometimes, in moments of doubt or despondency, he had
+thought it possible that poverty, the advice of friends, caprice or
+inconstancy on the part of Charlotte herself, should sever them. But
+among the possible enemies to his happiness he had never counted Death.
+What had Death to do with so fair and happy a creature as Charlotte
+Halliday? she who, until some two months before this time, might have
+been the divine Hygieia in person--so fresh was her youthful bloom, so
+buoyant her step, so bright her glances. Valentine's hardest penance was
+the necessity for the concealment of his anxiety. The idea that
+Charlotte's illness might be--nay, must be--for the greater part an
+affair of the nerves was always paramount in his mind. He and Diana had
+talked of the subject together whenever they found an opportunity for so
+doing, and had comforted themselves with the assurance that the nerves
+alone were to blame; and they were the more inclined to think this from
+the conduct of Dr. Doddleson, on that physician's visits to Miss
+Halliday. Mrs. Sheldon had been present on each occasion, and to Mrs.
+Sheldon alone had the physician given utterance to his opinion of the
+case. That opinion, though expressed with a certain amount of
+professional dignity, amounted to very little. "Our dear young friend
+wanted strength; and what we had to do was to give our dear young friend
+strength--vital power. Yes--er--um, that was the chief point. And what
+kind of diet might our dear young friend take now? Was it a light diet, a
+little roast mutton--not too much done, but not underdone? O dear, no.
+And a light pudding? what he would call--if he might be permitted to have
+his little joke--a nursery pudding." And then the old gentleman had
+indulged in a senile chuckle, and patted Charlotte's head with his fat
+old fingers. "And our dear young friend's room, now, was it a large
+room?--good! and what was the aspect now, south?--good again! nothing
+better, unless, perhaps, south-west; but, of course, everyone's
+rooms can't look south-west. A little tonic draught, and gentle daily
+exercise in that nice garden, will set our dear young friend right again.
+Our temperament is nervous we are a sensitive plant, and want care." And
+then the respectable septuagenarian took his fee, and shuffled off to his
+carriage. And this was all that Mrs. Sheldon could tell Diana, or Nancy
+Woolper, both of whom questioned her closely about her interview with the
+doctor. To Diana and to Valentine there was hope to be gathered from the
+very vagueness of the physician's opinion. If there had been anything
+serious the matter, the medical adviser must needs have spoken more
+seriously. He came again and again. He found the pulse a little weaker,
+the patient a little more nervous, with a slight tendency to hysteria,
+and so on; but he still declared that there were no traces of organic
+disease, and he still talked of Miss Halliday's ailments with a cheery
+easy-going manner that was very reassuring.
+
+In his moments of depression Valentine pinned his faith upon Dr.
+Doddleson. Without organic disease, he told himself, his darling could
+not perish. He looked for Dr. Doddleson's name in the Directory, and took
+comfort from the fact of that physician's residence in a fashionable West
+End square. He took further comfort from the splendour of the doctor's
+equipage, as depicted to him by Mrs. Sheldon; and from the doctor's age
+and experience, as copiously described by the same lady.
+
+"There is only one fact that I have ever reproached myself with in
+relation to my poor Tom," said Georgy, who, in talking to strangers of
+her first husband, was apt to impress them with the idea that she was
+talking of a favourite cat; "and that is, the youthfulness of the
+doctor Mr. Sheldon employed. Of course I am well aware that Mr. Sheldon
+would not have consulted the young man if he had not thought him
+clever; but I could lay my head upon my pillow at night with a clearer
+conscience if poor Tom's doctor had been an older and more experienced
+person. Now, that's what I like about Dr. Doddleson. There's a gravity--a
+weight--about a man of that age which inspires one with immediate
+confidence. I'm sure the serious manner with which he questioned me about
+Lotta's diet, and the aspect of her room, was quite delightful."
+
+In Dr. Doddleson, under Providence, Valentine was fain to put his trust.
+He did not know that the worthy doctor was one of those harmless
+inanities who, by the aid of money and powerful connections, are
+sometimes forced into a position which nature never intended them to
+occupy. Among the real working men of that great and admirable
+brotherhood, the medical profession, Dr. Doddleson had no rank; but he
+was the pet physician of fashionable dowagers suffering from chronic
+laziness or periodical attacks of ill-humour. For the spleen or the
+vapours no one was a better adviser than Dr. Doddleson. He could afford
+to waste half an hour upon the asking of questions which the fair
+patient's maid might as well have asked, and the suggestions of remedies
+which any intelligent abigail could as easily have suggested. Elderly
+ladies believed in him because he was pompous and ponderous, lived in an
+expensive neighbourhood, and drove a handsome equipage. He wore
+mourning-rings left him by patients who never had anything particular the
+matter with them, and who, dying of sheer old age, or sheer over-eating,
+declared with their final gasp that Dr. Doddleson had been the guardian
+angel of their frail lives during the last twenty years.
+
+This was the man who, of all the medical profession resident in London,
+Mr. Sheldon had selected as his stepdaughter's medical adviser in a case
+so beyond common experience, that a man of wide practice and keen
+perception was especially needed for its treatment.
+
+Dr. Doddleson, accustomed to attribute the fancied ailments of
+fashionable dowagers to want of tone, and accustomed to prescribe the
+mildest preparations with satisfaction to his patients and profit to
+himself dwelt upon the same want of tone, and prescribed the same
+harmless remedies, in his treatment of Charlotte Halliday. When he found
+her no better--nay, even worse--after some weeks of this treatment, he
+was puzzled; and for one harmless remedy he substituted another harmless
+remedy, and waited another week to see what effect the second harmless
+remedy might have on this somewhat obstinate young person.
+
+And this was the broken reed to which Valentine clung in the day of
+his trouble.
+
+Bitter were his days and sleepless were his nights in this dark period of
+his existence. He went to the Bayswater villa nearly every day now. It
+was no longer time for etiquette or ceremony. His darling was fading day
+by day; and it was his right to watch the slow sad change, and, if it
+were possible, to keep the enemy at arm's-length. Every day he came to
+spend one too brief hour with his dear love; every day he greeted her
+with the same fond smile, and beguiled her with the same hopeful talk. He
+brought her new books and flowers, and any foolish trifle which he
+fancied might beguile her thoughts from the contemplation of that
+mysterious malady which seemed beyond the reach of science and Dr.
+Doddleson. He sat and talked with her of the future--that future which in
+their secret thoughts both held to be a sweet sad fable--the hyperborean
+garden of their dreams. And after spending this too sweet, too bitter
+hour with his beloved, Mr. Hawkehurst would diplomatise in order to have
+a little talk with Diana as he left the house. Did Diana think his dear
+girl better to-day, or worse--surely not worse? He had fancied she had
+more colour, more of her old gaiety of manner. She had seemed a little
+feverish; but that might be the excitement of his visit. And so on, and
+so on, with sad and dreary repetition.
+
+And then, having gone away from that house with an aching heart, the
+young magazine-writer went back to his lodgings, and plunged into the
+dashing essay or the smart pleasant story which was to constitute his
+monthly contribution to the _Cheapside_ or the _Charing Cross_. Gaiety,
+movement, rollicking, Harry Lorrequer-like spirits were demanded for the
+_Cheapside_; a graceful union of brilliancy and depth was required for
+the _Charing Cross_. And, O, be sure the critics lay in wait to catch the
+young scribbler tripping! An anachronism here, a secondhand idea there,
+and the _West End Wasp_ shrieked its war-whoop in an occasional note; or
+the _Minerva_ published a letter from a correspondent in the Scilly
+Islands, headed "Another Literary Jack Sheppard," to say that in his
+"Imperial Dictionary" he had discovered with profound indignation a whole
+column of words feloniously and mendaciously appropriated by the writer
+of such and such an article in the _Cheapside_. While the sunlight of
+hope had shone upon him, Mr. Hawkehurst had found the hardest work
+pleasant. Was he not working for _her_ sake? Did not his future union
+with that dear girl depend upon his present industry? It had seemed to
+him as if she stood at his elbow while he wrote, as Pallas stood beside
+Achilles at the council, invisible to all but her favourite. It was that
+mystic presence which lent swiftness to his pen. When he was tired and
+depressed, the thought of Charlotte had revived his courage and
+vanquished his fatigue. Pleasant images crowded upon him when he thought
+of her. What could be easier than for him to write a love-story? He had
+but to create a shadowy Charlotte for his heroine, and the stream of
+foolish lover's babble flowed from his pen perennial and inexhaustible.
+To his reading she lent a charm and a grace that made the most perfect
+poetry still more poetical. It was not Achilles and Helen who met on
+Mount Ida, but Valentine and Charlotte; it was not Paolo and Francesca
+who read the fatal book together, but Valentine and Charlotte, in an
+unregenerate and  state of mind. The mere coincidence of a name
+made the "Sorrows of Werter" delightful. The all-pervading presence was
+everywhere and in everything. His religion was not Pantheism, but
+Charlottism.
+
+Now all was changed. A brooding care was with him in every moment. The
+mystic presence was still close to him in every hour of his lonely days
+and nights; but that image, which had been fair and blooming as the
+incarnation of youth and spring-time, was now a pale shrouded phantom
+which he dared not contemplate. He still wrote on--for it is marvellous
+how the pen will travel and the mind will project itself into the
+shadow-world of fancy while cankerous care gnaws the weary heart. Nay, it
+is perhaps at these times that the imagination is most active; for the
+world of shadows is a kind of refuge for the mind that dare not dwell
+upon realities. Who can say what dull, leaden, care may have weighed down
+the heart of William Shakespeare when his mind conceived that monster of
+a poet's grand imaginings, Othello! There is the flavour of racking care
+in that mighty creation. The strong soul wantonly tortured by a sordid
+wretch; the noble spirit distraught, the honourable life wrecked for so
+poor a motive; that sense of the "something in this world amiss," which
+the poet, of all other creatures, feels most keenly.
+
+With grief and fear as his constant companions, Valentine Hawkehurst
+toiled on bravely, patiently. Hope had not deserted him; but between hope
+and fear the contest was unceasing. Sometimes hope had the best of it for
+a while, and the toiler comforted himself with the thought that this dark
+cloud would pass anon from the horizon of his life; and then he counted
+his gains, and found that the fruit of his labours was increasing
+monthly, as his name gained rank among the band of young _litterateurs_.
+The day when he might count upon that income which Mr. Sheldon demanded
+as his qualification for matrimony did not appear far distant. Given a
+certain amount of natural ability, and the industrious and indefatigable
+young writer may speedily emerge from obscurity, and take his place in
+the great army of those gallant soldiers whose only weapon is the pen.
+Whatever good fortune had come to Valentine Hawkehurst he had worked for
+with all honesty of purpose. The critics were not slow to remark that he
+worked at a white-hot haste, and must needs be a shallow pretender
+because he was laborious and indefatigable.
+
+Before the beginning of Charlotte's slow decline he had fancied himself
+the happiest of men. There were more deposit-receipts in his desk. The
+nest-egg, about the hatching whereof there had been such cackling and
+crowing some months ago, was now one of many eggs; for the hard-working
+scribbler had no leisure in which to be extravagant, had he been so
+minded. The purchase of a half-circlet of diamonds for his betrothed's
+slim finger had been his only folly.
+
+Charlotte had remonstrated with him on the impropriety of such an
+extravagance, and had exacted from him a promise that this wild and
+Monte-Christo-like course should be pursued no further; but she was very
+proud of her half-hoop of diamonds nevertheless, and was wont to press it
+tenderly to her lips before she laid it aside for the night.
+
+"There must be no more such extravagance, sir," she said to her lover,
+when he sat by her side twisting the ring round and round on her pretty
+finger. Alas, how loose the ring had become since it had first been
+placed there!
+
+"Consider the future, Valentine," continued the girl, hopeful of mood
+while her hand rested in his. "Do you suppose we can furnish our cottage
+at Wimbledon if we rush into such wild expenses as diamond rings? Do you
+know that _I_ am saving money, Valentine? Yes, positively. Papa gives me
+a very good allowance for my dresses, and bonnets, and things, you know,
+and I used to be extravagant and spend it all. But now I have become the
+most miserly creature; and I have a little packet of money upstairs which
+you shall put in the Unitas Bank with the rest of your wealth. Diana and
+I have been darning, and patching, and cutting, and contriving, in the
+most praiseworthy manner. Even this silk has been turned. You did not
+think that, did you, when you admired it so?"
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst looked at his beloved with a tender smile. The exact
+significance of the operation of turning, as applied to silk dresses, was
+somewhat beyond his comprehension; but he felt sure that to turn must be
+a laudable action, else why that air of pride with which Charlotte
+informed him of the fact?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+AT HAROLD'S HILL.
+
+The summer sun shone upon the village of Harold's Hill when Charlotte
+arrived there with Mrs. Sheldon and Diana Paget. Mr. Sheldon was to
+follow them on the same day by a later train; and Valentine was to come
+two days afterwards to spend the peaceful interval between Saturday and
+Monday with his betrothed. He had seen the travellers depart from the
+London Bridge terminus, but Mr. Sheldon had been there also, and there
+had been no opportunity for confidential communication between the
+lovers.
+
+Of all Sussex villages Harold's Hill is perhaps the prettiest. The grey
+old Saxon church, the scattered farmhouses and pleasant rustic cottages,
+are built on the slope of a hill, and all the width of ocean lies below
+the rustic windows. The roses and fuchsias of the cottage gardens seem
+all the brighter by contrast with that broad expanse of blue. The fresh
+breath of the salt sea blends with the perfume of new-mown hay and all
+the homely odours of the farmyard. The lark sings high in the blue vault
+of heaven above the church, and over the blue of the sea the gull skims
+white in the sunshine. The fisherman and the farm labourer have their
+cottages side by side, nestling cosily to leeward of the hilly winding
+road.
+
+This hilly winding road in the July afternoon seemed to Charlotte almost
+like the way to Paradise.
+
+"It is like going to heaven, Di!" she cried, with her eyes fixed on the
+square tower of the old grey church. She wondered why sudden tears sprang
+to Diana's eyes as she said this. Miss Paget brushed the unbidden tears
+away with a quick gesture of her hand, and smiled at her friend.
+
+"Yes, dear, the village is very pretty, isn't it?"
+
+"It looks awfully dull!" said Mrs. Sheldon, with a shudder; "and, Diana,
+I declare there isn't a single shop. Where are we to get our provisions?
+I told Mr. Sheldon St. Leonards would have been a better place for us."
+
+"O mamma, St. Leonards is the very essence of all that is tame and
+commonplace, compared to this darling rural village! Look, do look, at
+that fisherman's cottage, with the nets hanging out to dry in the
+sunshine; just like a picture of Hook's!"
+
+"What's the use of going on about fishermen's cottages, Lotta?" Mrs.
+Sheldon demanded, peevishly. "Fishermen's cottages won't provide us with
+butcher's meat. Where are we to get your little bit of roast mutton? Dr.
+Doddleson laid such a stress upon the roast mutton."
+
+"The sea-air will do me more good than all the mutton that ever was
+roasted at Eton, mamma. O, dear, is this our farmhouse?" cried Charlotte,
+as the vehicle drew up at a picturesque gate. "O, what a love of a house!
+what diamond-paned windows! what sweet white curtains! and a cow staring
+at me quite in the friendliest way across the gate! O, can we be so happy
+as to live here?"
+
+"Diana," cried Mrs. Sheldon, in a solemn voice, "not a single shop have
+we passed--not so much as a post-office! And as to haberdashery, I'm sure
+you might be reduced to rags in this place before you could get so much
+as a yard of glazed lining!"
+
+The farmhouse was one of those ideal homesteads which, to the dweller in
+cities, seems fair as the sapphire-ceiled chambers of the house of
+Solomon. Charlotte was enraptured by the idea that this was to be her
+home for the next fortnight.
+
+"I wish it could be for ever, Di," she said, as the two girls were
+inspecting the rustic, dimity-draperied, lavender-and-rose-leaf-perfumed
+bedchambers. "Who would wish to go back to prim suburban Bayswater after
+this? Valentine and I could lodge here after our marriage. It is better
+than Wimbledon. Grand thoughts would come to him with the thunder of the
+stormy waves; and on calm bright days like this the rippling water would
+whisper pretty fancies into his ear. Why, to live here would make any one
+a poet. I think I could write a novel myself, if I lived here long
+enough."
+
+After this they arranged the pretty sitting-room, and placed an
+easy-chair by the window for Charlotte, an arm-chair opposite this for
+Mrs. Sheldon, and between the two a little table for the fancy work and
+books and flowers, and all the small necessities of feminine existence.
+And then--while Mrs. Sheldon prowled about the rooms, and discovered so
+many faults and made so many objections as to give evidence of a fine
+faculty for invention unsuspected in her hitherto--Charlotte and Diana
+explored the garden and peeped at the farmyard, where the friendly cow
+still stared over the white gate, just as she had stared when the fly
+came to a stop, as if she had not yet recovered from the astonishment
+created in her pastoral mind by that phenomenal circumstance. And then
+Charlotte was suddenly tired, and there came upon her that strange
+dizziness which was one of her most frequent symptoms. Diana led her
+immediately back to the house, and established her comfortably in her
+easy-chair.
+
+"I must be very ill," she said, plaintively; "for even the novelty of
+this pretty place cannot make me happy long."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Sheldon arrived in the evening, bringing with him a supply of that
+simple medicine which Charlotte took three times a day. He had remembered
+that there was no dispensing chemist at Harold's Hill, and that it would
+be necessary to send to St. Leonards for the medicine, and had therefore
+brought with him a double quantity of the mild tonic.
+
+"It was very kind of you to think of it, though I really don't believe
+the stuff does me any good," said Charlotte. "Nancy Woolper used to get
+it for me at Bayswater. She made quite a point of fetching it from the
+chemist's herself."
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon. "Nancy troubled herself about your
+medicine, did she?"
+
+"Yes, papa; and about me altogether. If I were her own daughter she could
+scarcely have seemed more anxious."
+
+The stockbroker made a mental note of this in the memorandum-book of his
+brain. Mrs. Woolper was officious, was she, and suspicious?--altogether a
+troublesome sort of person.
+
+"I think a few weeks of workhouse fare would be wholesome for that old
+lady," he said to himself. "There are some people who never know when
+they are well off."
+
+Saturday afternoon came in due course, after a long and dreary interval,
+as it seemed to Charlotte, for whom time travelled very slowly, so
+painful was the weariness of illness. Now and then a sudden flash of
+excitement brought the old brightness to her face, the old gaiety to her
+accents; but the brightness faded very soon, and the languor of illness
+was very perceptible.
+
+Punctual to the hour at which he was expected, Mr. Hawkehurst appeared,
+in radiant spirits, laden with new magazines, delighted with the village,
+enraptured with the garden, enchanted with the sea; full of talk and
+animation, with all sorts of news to tell his beloved. Such and such a
+book was a failure, such and such a comedy was a fiasco; Jones's novel
+had made a hit; Brown's picture was the talk of the year; and Charlotte
+must see the picture that had been talked about, and the play that had
+been condemned, when she returned to town.
+
+For an hour the lovers sat in the pretty farmhouse parlour talking
+together thus, the summer sea and the garden flowers before them, and a
+bird singing high in the calm blue heaven. Charlotte's talk was somewhat
+languid, though it was perfect happiness for her to be seated thus, with
+her betrothed by her side; but Valentine's gaiety of spirits never
+flagged; and when Mrs. Sheldon hinted to him that too long a conversation
+might fatigue the dear invalid, he left the parlour with a smile upon his
+face, and a cheery promise to return after an hour's ramble.
+
+He did not ramble far. He went straight to a little wooden summer-house
+in the remotest corner of the humble garden; and thither Diana Paget
+followed him. She had learned the language of his face in the time of
+their daily companionship, and she had seen a look as he left the house
+which told her of the struggle his cheerfulness had cost him.
+
+"You must not be downhearted, Valentine," she said, as she went into the
+summer-house, where he sat in a listless attitude, with his arms lying
+loosely folded on the rustic table.
+
+He did not answer her.
+
+"You don't think her worse--much worse--do you, Valentine?"
+
+"Worse? I have seen death in her face to-day!" he cried; and then he let
+his forehead fall upon his folded arms, and sobbed aloud.
+
+Diana stood by his side watching that outburst of grief. When the
+passionate storm of tears was past, she comforted him as best she might.
+The change so visible to him was not so plain to her. He had hoped that
+the breath of the ocean would have magical power to restore the invalid.
+He had come to Harold's Hill full of hope, and instead of the beginning
+of an improvement he saw the progress of decay.
+
+"Why did not Sheldon send for the doctor," he asked, indignantly,--"the
+physician who has attended her? He might have telegraphed to that man."
+
+"Charlotte is taking Dr. Doddleson's medicine," said Diana, "and all his
+directions are most carefully obeyed."
+
+"What of that, if she grows worse? The doctor should see her daily,
+hourly, if necessary. And if he cannot cure her, another doctor should be
+sent for. Good heavens, Diana! are we to let her fade and sink from us
+before our eyes? I will go back to London at once, and bring that man
+Doddleson down by the night mail."
+
+"Your going back to London would grieve and alarm Charlotte. You can
+telegraph for the doctor; or, at least, Mr. Sheldon can do so. It would
+not do for you to interfere without his permission."
+
+"It would not do!" echoed Valentine, angrily. "Do you think that I
+am going to stand upon punctilio, or to consider what will do or
+will not do?"
+
+"Above all things, you must avoid alarming Charlotte," pleaded Diana.
+
+"Do you think I do not know that? Do you think I did not feel that just
+now, when I sat by her side, talking inane rubbish about books and plays
+and pictures, while every stolen glance at my darling's face was like a
+dagger thrust into my heart? I will not alarm her. I will consult Mr.
+Sheldon--will do anything, everything, to save her! To save her! O my
+God, has it come to that?"
+
+He grew a little calmer presently under Diana's influence, and went
+slowly back to the house. He avoided the open window by which Charlotte
+was sitting. He had not yet schooled himself to meet her questioning
+looks. He went to the room where they were to dine, a duller and darker
+apartment than the parlour, and here he found Mr. Sheldon reading a
+paper, one of the eternal records of the eternal money-market.
+
+The stockbroker had been in and out of the house all day, now sauntering
+by the sea-shore, now leaning moodily, with folded arms, on the garden
+gate, meditative and silent as the cow that stared at Charlotte; now
+pacing the garden walks, with his hands in his pockets and his head bent.
+Diana, who in her anxiety kept a close watch upon Mr. Sheldon's
+movements, had noted his restlessness, and perceived in it the sign of
+growing anxiety on his part. She knew that he had once called himself
+surgeon-dentist, and had some medical knowledge, if not so much as he
+took credit for possessing. He must, therefore, be better able to judge
+the state of Charlotte's health than utterly ignorant observers. If he
+were uneasy, there must be real cause for uneasiness. It was on this
+account, and on this account only, that Diana watched him.
+
+"He must love her better than I gave him credit for being able to love
+any one," Miss Paget said to herself. "Dear girl! The coldest heart is
+touched by her sweetness."
+
+Mr. Sheldon looked up from his newspaper as Valentine came into the room,
+and saluted the visitor with a friendly nod.
+
+"Glad to see you, Hawkehurst," he said. "_Semper fidelis_, and that
+kind of thing; the very model of devoted lovers. Why, man alive, how
+glum you look!"
+
+"I think I have reason to look glum," answered Valentine, gravely; "I
+have seen Charlotte."
+
+"Yes? And don't you find her improving?--gradually, of course. That
+constitutional languor is not shaken off in a hurry. But surely you think
+her improving--brightening--"
+
+"Brightening with the light that never shone on earth or sea. God help
+me! I--I--am the merest child, the veriest coward, the--" He made a great
+effort, and stifled the sob that had well-nigh broken his voice. "Mr.
+Sheldon," he continued quietly, "I believe your stepdaughter is dying."
+
+"Dying! Good heavens!--my dear Hawkehurst, this alarm is most--most
+premature. There is no cause for fear--at present, no cause--I give you
+my word as a medical man."
+
+"No cause for alarm at present? That means my darling will not be taken
+from me to-night, or to-morrow. I shall have a few days breathing-time.
+Yes, I understand. The doom is upon us. I saw the shadow of death upon
+her face to-day."
+
+"My dear Hawkehurst--"
+
+"My dear Sheldon, for pity's sake don't treat me as if I were a woman or
+a child. Let me know my fate. If--if--this, the worst, most bitter of all
+calamities God's hand--raised against me in punishment of past sins,
+sinned lightly and recklessly, in the days when my heart had no stake in
+the game of destiny--can inflict upon me; if this deadly sorrow is
+bearing down upon me, let me meet it like a man. Let me die with my eyes
+uncovered. O, my dearest, my fondest, redeeming angel of my ill-spent
+life! have you been only a supernal visitant, after all, shining on me
+for a little while, to depart when your mission of redemption is
+accomplished?"
+
+"Powers above!" thought Mr. Sheldon, "what nonsense these sentimental
+magazine-writers can talk!"
+
+He was in nowise melted by the lover's anguish, though it was very real.
+Such a grief as this was outside the circle in which his thoughts
+revolved. This display of grief was unpleasant to him. It grated
+painfully upon his nerves, as some of poor Tom Halliday's little speeches
+had done of old, when the honest-hearted Yorkshireman lay on his
+deathbed; and the young man's presence and the young man's anxiety were
+alike inconvenient.
+
+"Tell me the truth, Mr. Sheldon," Valentine said presently, with
+suppressed intensity. "Is there any hope for my darling, any hope?"
+
+Mr. Sheldon considered for some moments before he replied to this
+question. He pursed-up his lips and bent his brows with the same air of
+business-like deliberation that he might have assumed while weighing the
+relative merits of the first and second debenture bonds of some doubtful
+railway company.
+
+"You ask me a trying question, Hawkehurst," he said at last. "If you ask
+me plainly whether I like the turn which Charlotte's illness has taken
+within the last few weeks, I must tell you frankly, I do not. There is a
+persistent want of tone--a visible decay of vital power--which, I must
+confess, has caused me some uneasiness. You see, the fact is, there is a
+radical weakness of constitution--as Miss Paget, a very sensible girl and
+acute observer--herself has remarked, indeed a hereditary weakness; and
+against this medicine is sometimes unavailing. You need apprehend no
+neglect on my part, Hawkehurst; all that can possibly be done is being
+done. Dr. Doddleson's instructions are carefully obeyed, and--"
+
+"Is this Dr. Doddleson competent to grapple with the case?" asked
+Valentine; "I never heard of him as a great man."
+
+"That fact proves how little you know of the medical profession."
+
+"I know nothing of it; I have had no need for doctors in my life. And you
+think this Dr. Doddleson really clever?"
+
+"His position is a sufficient answer to that question."
+
+"Will you let me telegraph for him--this afternoon--immediately?"
+
+"You cannot telegraph from this place."
+
+"No, but from St. Leonards I can. Do you think I am afraid of a
+five-mile walk?"
+
+"But why send for Dr. Doddleson? The treatment he prescribed is the
+treatment we are now following to the letter. To summon him down here
+would be the merest folly. Our poor Charlotte's illness is, so far, free
+from all alarming symptoms."
+
+"You do not see the change in her that I can see," cried Valentine
+piteously. "For mercy's sake, Mr. Sheldon, let me have my way in this. I
+cannot stand by and see my dear one fading and do nothing--nothing to
+save her. Let me send for this man. Let me see him myself, and hear what
+he says. You can have no objection to his coming, since he is the man you
+have chosen for Charlotte's adviser? It can only be a question of
+expense. Let this particular visit be my affair."
+
+"I can afford to pay for my stepdaughter's medical attendance without any
+help from your purse, Mr. Hawkehurst," said the stockbroker with offended
+pride. "There is one element in the case which you appear to ignore."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"The alarm which this summoning of a doctor from London must cause in
+Charlotte's mind."
+
+"It need cause no alarm. She can be told that Dr. Doddleson has come to
+this part of the world for a Sunday's change of air. The visit can appear
+to be made _en passant._ It will be easy to arrange that with the doctor
+before he sees her."
+
+"As you please, Mr. Hawkehurst," the stockbroker replied coldly. "I
+consider such a visit to the last degree unnecessary; but if Dr.
+Doddleson's coming can give you any satisfaction, by all means let him
+come. The expense involved in summoning him is of the smallest
+consideration to me. My position with regard to my wife's daughter is one
+of extreme responsibility, and I am ready to perform all the obligations
+of that position."
+
+"You are very good: your conduct in relation to Charlotte and myself has
+been beyond all praise. It is quite possible that I am over-anxious; but
+there was a look in that dear face--no--I cannot forget that look; it
+struck terror to my heart. I will go at once to St. Leonards. I can tell
+Charlotte that I am obliged to telegraph to the printer about my copy.
+You will not object to that white lie?"
+
+"Not at all. I think it essential that Charlotte should not be alarmed.
+You had better stop to dine; there will be time for the telegram after
+dinner."
+
+"I will not risk that," answered Valentine. "I cannot eat or drink till I
+have done something to lessen this wretched anxiety."
+
+He went back to the room where Charlotte was sitting by the open window,
+through which there came the murmur of waves, the humming of drowsy bees,
+the singing of birds, all the happy voices of happy nature in a
+harmonious chorus.
+
+"O God, wilt thou take her away from such a beautiful world," he asked,
+"and change all the glory of earth to darkness and desolation for me?"
+
+His heart rebelled against the idea of her death. To save her, to win her
+back to himself from the jaws of death, he was ready to promise anything,
+to do anything.
+
+"All my days will I give to Thy service, if Thou wilt spare her to me,"
+in his heart he said to his God. "If Thou dost not, I will be an infidel
+and a pagan--the vilest and most audacious of sinners. Better to serve
+Lucifer than the God who could so afflict me."
+
+And this is where the semi-enlightened Christian betrays the weakness of
+his faith. While the sun shines, and the sweet gospel story reads to him
+like some tender Arcadian idyl, all love and promise, he is firm in his
+allegiance; but when the dark hour comes, he turns his face to the wall,
+with anger and disappointment in his heart, and will have no further
+commune with the God who has chastised him. His faith is the faith of the
+grateful leper, who, being healed, was eager to return and bless his
+divine benefactor. It is not the faith of Abraham or of Job, of Paul or
+of Stephen.
+
+Valentine told his story about the printers and the copy for the
+_Cheapside_ magazine, about which there had arisen some absurd mistake,
+only to be set right by a telegram.
+
+It was not a very clear account; but Charlotte did not perceive the
+vagueness of the story; she thought only of the one fact, that Valentine
+must leave her for some hours.
+
+"The evening will seem so long without you," she said. "That is the worst
+part of my illness; the time is so long--so weary. Diana is the dearest
+and kindest of friends. She is always trying to amuse me, and reads to me
+for hours, though I know she must often be tired of reading aloud so
+long. But even the books I was once so fond of do not amuse me. The words
+seem to float indistinctly in my brain, and all sorts of strange images
+mix themselves up with the images of the people in the book. Di has been
+reading "The Bride of Lammermoor" all this morning; but the pain and
+weariness I feel seemed to be entangled with Lucy and Edgar somehow, and
+the dear book gave me no pleasure."
+
+"My darling, you--you are too weak to listen to Diana's reading. It is
+very kind of her to try to amuse you; but--but it would be better for you
+to rest altogether. Any kind of mental exertion may help to retard your
+recovery."
+
+He had placed himself behind her chair, and was bending over the pillows
+to speak to her. Just now he felt himself unequal to the command of his
+countenance. He bent his head until his lips touched the soft brown hair,
+and kissed those loose soft tresses passionately. The thought occurred to
+him that a day might come when he should again kiss that soft brown hair,
+with a deeper passion, with a sharper pain, and when Charlotte would not
+know of his kisses, or pity his pain.
+
+"O Valentine!" cried Charlotte, "you are crying; I can see your face in
+the glass."
+
+He had forgotten the glass; the little rococo mirror, with an eagle
+hovering over the top of the frame, which hung above the old-fashioned
+chiffonier.
+
+"I am not so very ill, dear; I am not indeed," the girl continued,
+turning in her chair with an effort, and clasping her lover's hands; "you
+must not distress yourself like this, Valentine--dear Valentine! I shall
+be better by-and-by. I cannot think that I shall be taken from you."
+
+He had broken down altogether by this time. He buried his face in the
+pillows, and contrived to stifle the sobs that would come; and then,
+after a sharp struggle, he lifted his face, and bent over the chair once
+more to kiss the invalid's pale upturned forehead.
+
+"My dear one, you shall not, if love can guard and keep you. No, dear,
+I _cannot_ believe that God will take you from me. Heaven may be your
+fittest habitation; but such sweet spirits as yours are sorely needed
+upon earth. I will be brave, dearest one; brave and hopeful in the
+mercy of Heaven. And now I must go and telegraph to my tiresome
+printer. _Au revoir_!"
+
+He hurried away from the farmhouse, and started at a rattling pace along
+the pleasant road, with green waving corn on his left, and broad blue
+ocean on his right.
+
+"I can get a fly to bring me back from St. Leonard's" he thought; "I
+should only lose time by hunting for a vehicle here."
+
+He was at St. Leonards station within an hour after leaving the farm.
+He despatched the message in Mr. Sheldon's name, and took care to make
+it urgent.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+DESPERATE MEASURES.
+
+Fitful and feverish were the slumbers which visited Mr. Hawkehurst on
+that balmy summer's night. His waking hours were anxious and unhappy; but
+his sleeping hours were still more painful. To sleep was to be the
+feverish fool of vague wild visions, in which Charlotte and Dr.
+Doddleson, the editor of the _Cheapside_, the officials of the British
+Museum reading-room, Diana Paget, and the Sheldons, figured amidst
+inextricable confusion of circumstances and places. Throughout these
+wretched dreams he had some consciousness of himself and the room in
+which he was lying, the July moon shining upon him, broad and bright,
+through the diamond-paned lattice. And O, what torturing visions were
+those in which Charlotte smiled upon him, radiant with health and
+happiness; and there had been no such thing as her illness, no such thing
+as his grief. And then came hurried dreams, in which Dr. Doddleson was
+knocking at the farmhouse door, with the printer of the _Cheapside_. And
+then he was a spectator in a mighty theatre, large as those Roman
+amphitheatres, wherein the audience seemed a mass of flies, looking down
+on the encounter of two other flies, and all the glory of an imperial
+court only a little spot of purple and gold, gleaming afar in the
+sunshine. To the dreamer it was no surprise that this unknown theatre of
+his dreams should be vast as the gladiatorial arena. And then came the
+deep thunderous music of innumerable bass-viols and bassoons: and some
+one told him it was the first night of a great tragedy. He felt the
+breathless hush of expectation; the solemn bass music sank deeper; dark
+curtains were drawn aside, with a motion slow and solemn, like the waving
+of mountain pines, and there appeared a measureless stage, revealing a
+moonlit expanse, thickly studded with the white headstones of unnumbered
+graves, and on the foremost of these--revealed to him by what power he
+knew not, since mortal sight could never have reached a point so
+distant--he read the name of Charlotte Halliday. He awoke with a sharp
+cry of pain. It was broad day, and the waves were dancing gaily in the
+morning sunlight. He rose and dressed himself. Sleep, such as he had
+known that night, was worse than the weariest waking. He went out into
+the garden by-and-by, and paced slowly up and down the narrow pathways,
+beside which box of a century's growth rose dark and high. Pale yellow
+lights were in the upper windows. He wondered which of those sickly
+tapers flickered on the face he loved so fondly.
+
+"It is only a year since I first saw her," he thought: "one year! And to
+love her has been my 'liberal education;' to lose her would be my
+desolation and despair."
+
+To lose her! His thoughts approached that dread possibility, but could
+not realize it; not even yet.
+
+At eight o'clock Diana came to summon him to breakfast.
+
+"Shall I see Charlotte?" he asked.
+
+"No; for some time past she has not come down to breakfast."
+
+"What kind of night has she had?"
+
+"A very quiet night, she tells me; but I am not quite sure that she tells
+me the truth, she is so afraid of giving us uneasiness."
+
+"She tells you. But do you not sleep in her room, now that she is so
+ill?"
+
+"No. I was anxious to sleep on a sofa at the foot of her bed, and
+proposed doing so, but Mr. Sheldon objects to my being in the room. He
+thinks that Charlotte is more quiet entirely alone, and that there is
+more air in the room with only one sleeper. Her illness is not of a kind
+to require attention of any sort in the night."
+
+"Still I should have thought it better for her to have you with her, to
+cheer and comfort her.
+
+"Believe me, Valentine, I wished to be with her."
+
+"I am sure of that, dear," he answered kindly.
+
+"It was only Mr. Sheldon's authority, as a man of some medical
+experience, that conquered my wish."
+
+"Well, I suppose he is right. And now we must go in to breakfast. Ah, the
+dreary regularity of these breakfasts and dinners, which go on just the
+same when our hearts are breaking!"
+
+The breakfast was indeed a dreary soul-dispiriting meal. Farmhouse
+luxuries, in the way of new-laid eggs and home-cured bacon, abounded; but
+no one had any inclination for these things. Valentine remembered the
+homestead among the Yorkshire hills, with all the delight that he had
+known there; and the "sorrow's crown of sorrow" was very bitter. Mr.
+Sheldon gave his Sabbath-morning meditations to the study of a
+Saturday-evening share-list; and Georgy plunged ever and anon into the
+closely printed pages of a Dissenting preacher's biography, which she
+declared to be "comforting."
+
+Diana and Valentine sat silent and anxious; and after the faintest
+pretence of eating and drinking, they both left the table, to stroll
+drearily in the garden. The bells were ringing cheerily from the grey
+stone tower near at hand; but Valentine had no inclination for church on
+this particular morning. Were not all his thoughts prayers--humble
+piteous entreaties--for one priceless boon?
+
+"Will you see the doctor when he comes, and manage matters so as not to
+alarm Charlotte?" he asked of Mr. Sheldon. That gentleman agreed to do
+so, and went out into the little front-garden to lie in wait for the
+great Doddleson--"Dowager Doddleson" as he was surnamed by some
+irreverent unbelievers.
+
+A St. Leonards fly brought the doctor while the bells were still ringing
+for morning service. Mr. Sheldon received him at the gate; and explained
+the motive of his summons.
+
+The doctor was full of pompous solicitude about "our sweet young
+patient."
+
+"Really one of the most interesting cases I ever had upon my hands,"
+the West-end physician said blandly; "as I was remarking to a very
+charming patient of mine--in point of fact, the amiable and
+accomplished Countess of Kassel-Kumberterre, only last Tuesday
+morning. A case so nearly resembling the Countess's own condition as to
+be highly interesting to her."
+
+"I really ought to apologize for bringing you down," said Mr. Sheldon, as
+he led the doctor into the house. "I only consented to your being sent
+for in order to tranquillize this young fellow Hawkehurst, who is engaged
+to my daughter; a rising man, I believe, in his own particular line, but
+rather wild and impracticable. There is really no change for the worse,
+absolutely none; and as we have not been here more than three days, there
+has been positively no opportunity for testing the effect of change and
+sea air, and so on."
+
+This seemed rather like giving the learned physician his cue. And there
+were those among Dr. Doddleson's professional rivals who said that the
+worthy doctor was never slow to take a cue so given, not being prejudiced
+by any opinions of his own.
+
+Charlotte had by this time been established in her easy-chair by the open
+window of the sitting-room, and here Dr. Doddleson saw her, in the
+presence of Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon; and here Dr. Doddleson went through the
+usual Abracadabra of his art, and assented to the opinions advanced, with
+all deference, by Mr. Sheldon.
+
+To Georgy this interview, in which Mr. Sheldon's opinions were pompously
+echoed by the West-end physician, proved even more comforting than the
+benignant career of the Dissenting minister, who was wont to allude to
+that solemn passing hence of which the ancients spoke in dim suggestive
+phrase, as "going upstairs."
+
+Diana and Valentine strolled in the garden while the physician saw his
+patient. Dr. Doddleson's ponderous polysyllables floated out upon the
+summer air like the droning of a humble-bee. It was a relief to Valentine
+to know that the doctor was with his patient: but he had no intention to
+let that gentleman depart unquestioned.
+
+"I will take no secondhand information," he thought; "I will hear this
+man's opinion from his own lips."
+
+He went round to the front of the house directly the droning had ceased,
+and was in the way when Dr. Doddleson and Mr. Sheldon came out of the
+rose-hung porch.
+
+"If you have no objection," he said to Mr. Sheldon, "I should like to ask
+Dr. Doddleson a few questions."
+
+"_I_ have no objection," replied the stockbroker; "but it is really
+altogether such an unusual thing, and I doubt if Dr. Doddleson will
+consent to--"
+
+And here he cast a deprecating glance at the doctor, as who should say,
+"Can you permit yourself to comply with a demand so entirely unwarranted
+by precedent?"
+
+Dowager Doddleson was eminently good-natured.
+
+"And this is our sweet young friend's _fiance_," he said; "dear
+me--dee-ar me!"
+
+And then he looked at Valentine with bland pale-blue eyes that twinkled
+behind his gold-framed spectacles; while Valentine was taking his
+measure, so far as the measure of any man's moral and intellectual force
+can be taken by the eyes of another man. "And this is the man who is
+chosen to snatch my darling from the jaws of death!" he said to himself,
+with burning rage in his heart, while the amiable physician repeated
+blandly:
+
+"And this is our sweet young patient's _fiance_. Dee-ar me, how very
+interesting!"
+
+The three men strolled round to the garden behind the house, Mr. Sheldon
+close at the physician's elbow.
+
+"For God's sake tell me the truth, Dr. Doddleson!" said Valentine in a
+low hoarse voice, directly they were beyond ear-shot of the house. "I am
+a man, and I can steel myself to hear the worst you can tell."
+
+"But really, Hawkehurst, there is no occasion for this kind of thing,"
+interjected Philip Sheldon; "Dr. Doddleson agrees with me, that the case
+is one of extreme languor, and no more."
+
+"Unquestionably," said the doctor in a fat voice.
+
+"And Dr. Doddleson also coincides with me in the opinion that all we can
+do is to wait the reviving influence of sea-air."
+
+"Undoubtedly," said the doctor, with a solemn nod.
+
+"And is this all?" asked Valentine hopelessly.
+
+"My dear sir, what else can I say?" said the doctor; "as my good friend
+Mr. Sheldon has just remarked, there is extreme languor; and as my good
+friend Mr. Sheldon further observes, we must await the effect of change
+of air. The--aw--invigorating sea-breezes, the--aw--enlivening influence
+of new surroundings, and--aw--so forth. Dr. Poseidon, my dear sir, is a
+very valuable coadjutor."
+
+"And you think your patient no worse, Dr. Doddleson?"
+
+"The doctor has just left Mrs. Sheldon much comforted by his assurance
+that her daughter is better," said the stockbroker.
+
+"No, no!" exclaimed Dr. Doddleson; "no, no! _there_ my good friend Mr.
+Sheldon somewhat misrepresents me. I said that our patient was not
+obviously worse. I did not say that our patient was better. There is a
+dilatation of the pupil of the eye which I don't quite understand."
+
+"Mental excitement," said Mr. Sheldon, somewhat hastily; "Charlotte is
+nervous to an extreme degree, and your sudden arrival was calculated to
+shake her nerves."
+
+"Undoubtedly," rejoined the doctor; "and it is unquestionable that such a
+dilatation of the pupil might, under certain circumstances, be occasioned
+by mental excitement. I am sorry to find that our patient's attacks of
+dizziness--"
+
+"Which are purely the effect of fancy," interjected Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"Which are no doubt, in some measure, attributable to a hypochondriacal
+condition of mind," continued the doctor in his fat voice. "I am sorry to
+find that this periodical dizziness has been somewhat increased of late.
+But here again we must look to Dr. Poseidon. Tepid sea-baths, if they can
+be managed, in the patient's own room; and by-and-by a dip in the waves
+yonder, may do wonders."
+
+Valentine asked no further questions; and the physician departed in the
+St. Leonards fly, to turn his excursion to profitable use by calling on
+two or three dowagers in Warrior Square and Marina, who would doubtless
+be glad of an unexpected visit from their pet doctor.
+
+"Well, Hawkehurst," said Mr. Sheldon, when the fly had driven away, "I
+hope you are satisfied now?"
+
+"Satisfied!" cried Valentine; "yes, I am satisfied that your stepdaughter
+is being murdered!"
+
+"Murdered!" echoed the stockbroker, his voice thick and faint; but
+Valentine did not heed the change in it.
+
+"Yes, murdered--sacrificed to the utter incompetence of that old idiot
+who has just left us."
+
+Philip Sheldon drew a long breath.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed; "do you doubt Doddleson's skill?"
+
+"Do you believe in it? Do you? No; I cannot think that a man of your keen
+perception in all other matters--half a medical man yourself--can be the
+dupe of so shallow an impostor. And it is to that man's judgment my
+darling's life has been confided; and it is to that man I have looked,
+with hope and comfort in the thought of his power to save my treasure!
+Good God! what a reed on which to rely! And of all the medical men of
+London, this is the one you have chosen!"
+
+"I must really protest against this rant, Hawkehurst," said Philip
+Sheldon. "I hold myself responsible for the selection which I made, and
+will not have that selection questioned in this violent and outrageous
+manner by you. Your anxiety for Charlotte's recovery may excuse a great
+deal, but it cannot excuse this kind of thing; and if you cannot command
+yourself better, I must beg you to absent yourself from my house until my
+stepdaughter's recovery puts an end to all this fuss."
+
+"Do you believe in Dr. Doddleson's skill?" asked Valentine doggedly. He
+wanted to have that question answered at any cost.
+
+"Most decidedly I do, with the rest of the medical world. My choice of
+this gentleman as Charlotte's adviser was governed by his reputation as a
+safe and conscientious man. His opinions are sound, trustworthy--"
+
+"His opinions!" cried Valentine with a bitter laugh; "what in heaven's
+name do you call his opinions? The only opinions I could extract from him
+to-day were solemn echoes of yours. And the man himself! I took the
+measure of him before I asked him a question; and physiology is a lie if
+that man is anything better than an impostor."
+
+"His position is the answer to that."
+
+"His position is no answer. He is not the first impostor who has attained
+position, and is not likely to be the last. You must forgive me, if I
+speak with some violence, Mr. Sheldon. I feel too deeply to remember the
+conventionalities of my position. The dear girl yonder, hovering between
+life and death, is my promised wife. As your stepdaughter she is very
+dear to you, no doubt, and you are of course anxious to do your duty as
+her stepfather. But she is all the world to me--my one sweet memory of
+the past, my sole hope for the future. I will not trust her to the care
+of Dr. Doddleson; I claim the right to choose another physician--as that
+man's coadjutor, if you please. I have no wish to offend the doctor of
+your choice."
+
+"This is all sheer nonsense," said Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"It is nonsense about which you must let me have my own way," replied
+Valentine, resolutely. "My stake on this hazard is too heavy for careless
+play. I shall go back to town at once and seek out a physician."
+
+"Do you know any great man?"
+
+"No; but I will find one."
+
+"If you go today, you will inevitably alarm Charlotte."
+
+"True; and disappoint her into the bargain. I suppose in such a case
+tomorrow will do as well as to-day?"
+
+"Decidedly."
+
+"I can go by the first train, and return with my doctor in the afternoon.
+Yes, I will go tomorrow."
+
+Mr. Sheldon breathed more freely. There are cases in which to obtain time
+for thought seems the one essential thing--cases in which a reprieve is
+as good as a pardon.
+
+"Pray let us consider this business quietly," he said, with a faint sigh
+of weariness. "There is no necessity for all this excitement. You can go
+to town to-morrow, by the first train, as you say. If it is any
+satisfaction to you to bring down a physician, bring one; bring half a
+dozen, if you please. But, for the last time, I most emphatically assure
+you that anything that tends to alarm Charlotte is the one thing of all
+others most sure to hinder her recovery."
+
+"I know that. She shall not be frightened; but she shall have a better
+adviser than Dr. Doddleson. And now I will go back to the house. She will
+wonder at my absence."
+
+He went to the bright, airy room where Charlotte was seated, her head
+lying back upon the pillows, her face paler, her glances and tones more
+languid than on the previous day as it seemed to Valentine. Diana was
+near her, solicitous and tender; and on the other side of the window sat
+Mrs. Sheldon, with her Dissenting minister's biography open on her lap.
+
+All through that day Valentine Hawkehurst played his part bravely: it was
+a hard and bitter part to play--the part of hope and confidence while
+unutterable fears were rending his heart. He read the epistle and gospel
+of the day to his betrothed; and afterwards some chapters of St.
+John--those profoundly mournful chapters that foreshadow the agonising
+close. It was Charlotte who selected these chapters, and her lover could
+find no excuse for disputing her choice.
+
+It was the first time that they had shared any religious exercise, and
+the hearts of both were deeply touched by the thought of this.
+
+"How frivolous all our talk must have been, Valentine, when it seems so
+new to us to be reading these beautiful words together?"
+
+Her head was half supported by the pillows, half resting on her lover's
+shoulder, and her eyes travelled along the lines as he read, in a calm
+low voice, which was unbroken to the end.
+
+Early in the evening Charlotte retired, worn out by the day's physical
+weariness, in spite of Valentine's fond companionship. Later, when it was
+dusk, Diana came downstairs with the news that the invalid was sleeping
+quietly. Mrs. Sheldon was dozing in her arm-chair, the Dissenting
+minister having fallen to the ground; and Valentine was leaning, with
+folded arms, on the broad window-sill looking out into the shadowy
+garden. Mr. Sheldon had given them very little of his society during that
+day. He went out immediately after his interview with Valentine, on a
+sea-coast ramble, which lasted till dinner-time. After dinner he remained
+in the room where they had dined. He was there now. The light of the
+candles, by which he read his papers, shone out upon the dusk.
+
+"Will you come for a stroll with me, Diana?" asked Valentine.
+
+Miss Paget assented promptly; and they went out into the garden, beyond
+the reach of Mr. Sheldon's ears, had that gentleman been disposed to
+place himself at his open window in the character of a listener.
+
+"I want to tell you my plans about Charlotte," Valentine began. "I am
+going to London to-morrow to search for a greater physician than Dr.
+Doddleson. I shall find my man in an hour or so; and, if possible, shall
+return with him in the evening. There is no apparent reason to anticipate
+any sudden change for the worse; but if such a change should take place,
+I rely on you, dear, to give me the earliest tidings of it. I suppose you
+can get a fly here, if you want one?"
+
+"I can get to St. Leonards, if that is what you mean," Miss Paget
+answered promptly. "I dare say there is a fly to be had; if not, I can
+walk there. I am not afraid of a few miles' walk, by day or night. If
+there should be a change, Valentine--which God forbid--I will telegraph
+the tidings of it to you."
+
+"You had better address the message to me at Rancy's, Covent Garden; the
+house where the Ragamuffins have their rooms, you know, dear. That is a
+more central point than my lodgings, and nearer the terminus. I will call
+there two or three times in the course of the day."
+
+"You may trust my vigilance, Valentine. I did not think it was in my
+nature to love any one as I love Charlotte Halliday."
+
+Gustave Lenoble's letters lying unanswered in her desk asserted the
+all-absorbing nature of Diana's affection for the fading girl. She _was_
+fading. The consciousness of this made all other love sacrilege, as it
+seemed to Diana. She sat up late that night to answer Gustave's last
+letter of piteous complaint.
+
+"She had forgotten him. Ah, that he had been foolish--insensate--to
+confide himself in her love! Was he not old and grey in comparison to
+such youth--such freshness--a venerable dotard of thirty-five? What had
+he with dreams of love and marriage? Fie, then. He humiliated himself in
+the dust beneath her _mignon_ feet. He invited her to crush him with
+those cruel feet. But if she did not answer his letters, he would come to
+Harold's Hill. He would mock himself of that ferocious Sheldon--of a
+battalion of Sheldons still more ferocious--of all the world, at
+last--to be near her."
+
+"Believe me, dear Gustave, I do not forget," wrote Diana, in reply to
+these serio-comic remonstrances. "I was truly sorry to leave town, on
+your account and on my father's. But my dear adopted sister is paramount
+with me now. You will not grudge her my care or my love, for she may not
+long be with me to claim them. There is nothing but sorrow here in all
+our hearts; sorrow, and an ever-present dread."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Eighth.
+
+
+
+A FIGHT AGAINST TIME.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+A DREAD REVELATION.
+
+The early fast train by which Valentine Hawkehurst travelled brought him
+into town at a quarter past nine o'clock. During the journey he had been
+meditating on the way in which he should set to work when he arrived in
+London. No ignorance could be more profound than his on all points
+relating to the medical profession. Dimly floating in his brain there
+were the names of doctors whom he had heard of as celebrated men--one for
+the chest, another for the liver, another for the skin, another for the
+eyes; but, among all these famous men, who was the man best able to cope
+with the mysterious wasting away, the gradual, almost imperceptible
+ebbing of that one dear life which Valentine wanted to save?
+
+This question must be answered by some one; and Valentine was sorely
+puzzled as to who that some one must be.
+
+The struggling young writer had but few friends. He had, indeed, worked
+too hard for the possibility of friendship. The cultivation of the
+severer Muses is rarely compatible with a wide circle of acquaintances;
+and Valentine, if not a cultivator of these severe ones, had been a hard
+and honest worker during the later reputable portion of his life. His
+friendships of the previous portion had been the friendships of the
+railway-carriage and the smoking room, the _cafe_ and the gaming-table.
+He could count upon his fingers the people to whom he could apply for
+counsel in this crisis of his life. There was George Sheldon, a man for
+whom he entertained a most profound contempt; Captain Paget, a man who
+might or might not be able to give him good advice, but who would
+inevitably sacrifice Charlotte Halliday's welfare to self-interest, if
+self-interest could be served by the recommendation of an incompetent
+adviser.
+
+"He would send me to some idiot of the Doddleson class, if he thought he
+could get a guinea or a dinner by the recommendation," Valentine said to
+himself, and decided that to Horatio Paget he would not apply. There were
+his employers, the editors and proprietors of the magazines for which he
+worked; all busy over-burdened workers in the great mill, spending the
+sunny hours of their lives between a pile of unanswered letters and a
+waste-paper basket; men who would tell him to look in the Post-office
+Directory, without lifting their eyes from the paper over which their
+restless pens were speeding.
+
+No. Amongst these was not the counsellor whom Valentine Hawkehurst needed
+in this dire hour of difficulty.
+
+"There are some very good fellows among the Ragamuffins," he said to
+himself, as he thought of the only literary and artistic club of which he
+was a member; "fellows who stuck by me when I was down in the world, and
+who would do anything to serve me now they know me for an honest worker.
+But, unfortunately, farce writers and burlesque writers, and young
+meerschaum-smoking painters, are not the sort of men to give good advice:
+I want the advice of a medical man."
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst almost bounded from his seat as he said this. The advice
+of a medical man? Yes; and was there not a medical man among the
+Ragamuffins? and something more than a medical man? That very doctor, who
+of all other men upon this earth could best give him counsel--the doctor
+who had stood by the deathbed of Charlotte Halliday's father.
+
+He remembered the conversation that had occurred at Bayswater, on the
+evening of Christmas day, upon this very subject. He remembered how from
+the talk about ghosts they had drifted somehow into talking of Tom
+Halliday; whereupon Mrs. Sheldon had been melted to tears, and had gone
+on to praise Philip Sheldon's conduct to his dying friend, and to speak
+of Mr. Burkham, the strange doctor, called in too late to save, or, it
+might have been, incapable to save.
+
+"Sheldon seems to have a genius for calling in incapable doctors," he
+thought bitterly.
+
+Incapable as Mr. Burkham might have been for the exigencies of this
+particular case, he would at least be able to inform Valentine who among
+the medical celebrities of London would be best adapted to advise in such
+an illness as Charlotte Halliday's.
+
+"And if, as Diana has sometimes suggested, there is any hereditary
+disease, this Burkham may be able to throw some light upon the nature of
+it," thought Valentine.
+
+He went straight from the railway terminus to the quiet tavern upon the
+first floor of which the Ragamuffins had their place of rendezvous. It
+was not an hour for the encounter of many Ragamuffins. A meek-looking
+young man, of clerical aspect, who had adapted a Palais Royal farce, and
+had awoke in the morning to find himself famous, and eligible for
+admission amongst the Ragamuffins, was sipping his sherry and soda-water
+while he skimmed the morning papers. Him Mr. Hawkehurst saluted with an
+absent nod, and went in search of the steward of the club, from whom he
+obtained Mr. Burkham's address, with some little trouble in the way of
+hunting through old and obscure documents.
+
+It was the old address; the old dingy, comfortable, muffin-bell-haunted
+street in which Mr. Burkham had lived ten years before, when he was
+summoned to attend the sick Yorkshire farmer.
+
+Mr. Burkham's career had not been brightened by the sunshine of
+prosperity. He had managed to live somehow, and to find food and raiment
+for his young wife, who, when she considered the lilies of the field, may
+have envied their shining robes of pure whiteness, so dingy and dark was
+her own apparel. When children came, the young surgeon contrived to find
+food and raiment for them also, but not without daily and hourly
+struggles with that grim wolf who haunts the thresholds of so many
+dwellings, and will not be thrust from the door. Sometimes a little
+glimmering ray of light illumined Mr. Burkham's pathway, and he was
+humbly grateful to Providence for the brief glimpse of sunshine. But for
+a meek fair-faced man, with a nervous desire to do well, a very poor
+opinion of his own merits, and a diffident, not to say depressed manner,
+the world is apt to be a hard battle-ground.
+
+Mr. Burkham sometimes found himself well-nigh beaten in the cruel strife;
+and at such times, in the dead silence of the night, with mortal agonies,
+and writhings as of Pythoness upon tripod, Mr. Burkham gave himself up to
+the composition of a farce, adapted, not from the French, but from his
+memories of Wright and Bedford in the jovial old student days, when the
+pit of the Adelphi Theatre had been the pleasant resort of his evenings.
+He could no longer afford the luxury of theatrical entertainments, except
+when provided with a free admission. But from the hazy reminiscences
+floating in his poor tired brain he concocted little pieces which he
+fondly hoped might win him money and fame.
+
+With much effort and interest he contrived to get himself elected a
+Ragamuffin; believing that to be a Ragmuffin was to secure a position as
+a dramatic writer. But with one or two fortunate exceptions, his pieces
+were refused. The managers would not have the poor little feeble
+phantasmagoria of bygone fun, even supported by the whole clan of
+Ragamuffins. So Mr. Burkham had gradually melted into the dimness of
+Bloomsbury, and haunted the club-room of the Ragamuffins no more.
+
+A hansom carried Valentine Hawkehurst swiftly to these regions of
+Bloomsbury. It was no time for the saving of cab-hire. The soldier
+of fortune thought no longer of his nest-eggs--his Unitas Bank
+deposit-notes. He was fighting with time and with death; foes dire and
+dreadful, against whose encroachments the sturdiest of mortal warriors
+can make but a feeble stand. He found the dingy-looking house in the
+dingy-looking street; and the humble drudge who opened the door informed
+him that Mr. Burkham was at home, and ushered him into a darksome and
+dreary surgery at the back of the house, where a phrenological head,
+considerably the worse for London smoke, surmounted a dingy bookcase
+filled with the dingiest of books. A table, upon which were a
+blotting-book and inkstand, and two shabby horsehair chairs, composed the
+rest of the furniture. Valentine sent his card to the surgeon, and seated
+himself on one of the horsehair chairs, to await that gentleman's
+appearance.
+
+He came after a brief delay, which seemed long to his visitor. He came
+from regions in the back of the house, rubbing his hands, which seemed
+to have been newly washed, and the odour of senna and aloes hung about
+his garments.
+
+"I doubt if you remember my name, Mr. Burkham," said Valentine; "but you
+and I are members of the same club, and that a club among the members of
+which considerable good feeling prevails. I come to ask a favour"--Mr.
+Burkham winced, for this sounded like genteel begging, and for genteel
+beggars this struggling surgeon had no spare cash--"which it will
+scarcely cause you a moment's thought to grant. I am in great
+distress"--Mr. Burkham winced again, for this sounded still more like
+begging--"mental distress"--Mr. Burkham gave a little sigh of
+relief--"and I come to you for advice." Mr. Burkham gave a more profound
+sigh of relief.
+
+"I can assure you that my best advice is at your command," he said,
+seating himself, and motioning to his visitor to be seated. "I am
+beginning to remember your face amongst the members of the club, though
+the name on your card did not strike me as familiar. You see, I have
+never been able to afford much time for relaxation at the Ragamuffins',
+though I assure you I found the agreeable conversation there, the
+literary _on dits_, and so on, a very great relief. But my own little
+efforts in the dramatic line were not successful, and I found myself
+compelled to devote myself more to my profession. And now I have said
+quite enough about myself; let me hear how I can be useful to you."
+
+"In the first place, let me ask you a question. Do you know anything of a
+certain Dr. Doddleson?"
+
+"Of Plantagenet Square?"
+
+"Yes; of Plantagenet Square."
+
+"Well, not much. I have heard him called Dowager Doddleson; and I believe
+he is very popular among hypochondriac old ladies who have more money
+than they know what to do with, and very little common sense to regulate
+their disposal of it."
+
+"Is Dr. Doddleson a man to whom you would intrust the life of your
+dearest friend?"
+
+"Most emphatically no!" cried the surgeon, growing red with excitement.
+
+"Very well, Mr. Burkham; my dearest friend, a young lady--well, in plain
+truth, the woman who was to have been my wife, and whom I love as it is
+not the lot of every plighted wife to be loved--this dear girl has been
+wasting away for the last two or three months under the influence of an
+inscrutable malady, and Dr. Doddleson is the only man called to attend
+her in all that time."
+
+"A mistake!" said Mr. Burkham, gravely; "a very great mistake! Dr.
+Doddleson lives in a fine square, and drives a fine carriage, and has a
+reputation amongst the class I have spoken of; but he is about the last
+man I would consult as to the health of any one dear to me."
+
+"That is precisely the opinion which I formed after ten minutes'
+conversation with him. Now, what I want from you, Mr. Burkham, is the
+name and address of the man to whom I can intrust this dear girl's life."
+
+"Let me see. There are so many men, you know, and great men. Is it a case
+of consumption?"
+
+"No, thank God!"
+
+"Heart-disease, perhaps?"
+
+"No; there is no organic disease. It is a languor--a wasting away."
+
+Mr. Burkham suggested other diseases whereof the outward sign was languor
+and wasting.
+
+"No," replied Valentine; "according to Dr. Doddleson there is actually no
+disease--nothing but this extreme prostration--this gradual vanishing of
+vital power. And now I come to another point upon which I want your
+advice. It has been suggested that this constitutional weakness may be
+inherited; and here I think you can help me."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You attended the lady's father."
+
+"Indeed!" cried Mr. Burkham, delighted. "This is really interesting. In
+what year did I attend this gentleman? If you will allow me, I will refer
+to some of my old case-books."
+
+He drew out a clumsy drawer in the clumsy table, in order to hunt for old
+memoranda.
+
+"I am not quite certain as to the year," answered Valentine; "but it was
+more than ten years ago. The gentleman died close by here, in Fitzgeorge
+Street. His name was Halliday."
+
+Mr. Burkham had drawn out the drawer to its farthest extent. As Valentine
+pronounced this name, he let it drop to the ground with a crash, and sat,
+statue-like, staring at the speaker. All other names given to mortal man
+he might forget; but this one never. Valentine saw the sudden horror in
+his face, before he could recompose his features into something of their
+conventional aspect.
+
+"Yes," he said, looking down at the fallen drawer with its scattered
+papers and case-books, "yes, I have some recollection of the name of
+Halliday."
+
+"Some very strange and agitating recollection it would seem by your
+manner, Mr. Burkham," said Valentine, at once assured that there was
+something more than common in the surgeon's look and gesture; and
+determined to fathom the mystery, let it be what it might.
+
+"O dear no," said the surgeon nervously; "I was not agitated, only
+surprised. It was surprising to me to hear the name of a patient so long
+forgotten. And so the lady to whom you are engaged is a daughter of Mr.
+Halliday's? The wife--Mrs. Halliday--is still living, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; but the lady who was then Mrs. Halliday is now Mrs. Sheldon."
+
+"Of course; he married her," said Mr. Burkham. "Yes; I remember hearing
+of the marriage."
+
+He had tried in vain to recover his old composure. He was white to the
+lips, and his hand shook as he tried to arrange his scattered papers.
+
+"What does it mean?" thought Valentine. "Mrs. Sheldon talked of this
+man's inexperience. Can it be that his incompetency lost the life of his
+patient, and that he knows it was so?"
+
+"Mrs. Halliday is now Mrs. Sheldon," repeated the surgeon, in a feeble
+manner. "Yes, I remember; and Mr. Sheldon--the dentist, who at that time
+resided in Fitzgeorge Street--is he still living?"
+
+"He is still living. It was he who called in Dr. Doddleson to attend upon
+Miss Halliday. As her stepfather, he has some amount of authority, you
+see; not legal authority--for my dear girl is of age--but social
+authority. He called in Doddleson, and appears to place confidence in
+him; and as he is something of a medical man himself, and pretends to
+understand Miss Halliday's case thoroughly--"
+
+"Stop!" cried Mr. Burkham, suddenly abandoning all pretence of calmness.
+"Has he--Sheldon--any interest in his stepdaughter's death?"
+
+"No, certainly not. All her father's money went to him upon his marriage
+with her mother. He can gain nothing by her death; on the contrary, he
+may lose a good deal, for she is the heir-at-law to a large fortune."
+
+"And if she dies, that fortune will go--"
+
+"I really don't know where it will go," Valentine answered carelessly:
+he thought the subject was altogether beside the question of Mr.
+Burkham's agitation, and it was the cause of that agitation which he was
+anxious to discover.
+
+"If Mr. Sheldon can gain by his stepdaughter's death, fear him!"
+exclaimed the surgeon, with sudden passion; "fear him as you would fear
+death itself--worse than death, for death is neither so stealthy nor so
+treacherous as he is!"
+
+"What in Heaven's name do you mean?"
+
+"That which I thought my lips would never utter to mortal hearing--that
+which I dare not publicly proclaim, at the hazard of taking the bread out
+of the mouths of my wife and children. I have kept this hateful secret
+for eleven years--through many a sleepless night and dreary day. I will
+tell it to you; for if there is another life in peril, that life shall be
+lost through no cowardice of mine."
+
+"What secret?" cried Valentine.
+
+"The secret of that poor fellow's death. My God! I can remember the clasp
+of his hand, and the friendly look of his eyes, the day before he died.
+He was poisoned by Philip Sheldon!"
+
+"You must be mad!" gasped Valentine, in a faint voice.
+
+For one moment of astonishment and incredulity he thought this man must
+needs be a fool or a lunatic, so wildly improbable did the accusation
+seem. But in the next instant the curtain was lifted, and he knew that
+Philip Sheldon was a villain, and knew that he had never wholly trusted
+him.
+
+"Never until to-day have I told this secret," said the surgeon; "not even
+to my wife."
+
+"I thank you," answered Valentine, in the same faint voice; "with all my
+heart, I thank you."
+
+Yes, the curtain was lifted. This mysterious illness, this slow silent
+decay of bloom and beauty, by a process inscrutable as the devilry of
+medieval poisoner or Hecate-serving witch--this was murder. Murder! The
+disease, which had hitherto been nameless, had found its name at last. It
+was all clear now. Philip Sheldon's anxiety; the selection of an utterly
+incompetent adviser; certain looks and tones that had for a moment
+mystified him, and had been forgotten in the next, came back to him with
+a strange distinctness, with all their hidden meaning made clear and
+plain as the broad light of day.
+
+But the motive? What motive could prompt the slow destruction of that
+innocent life? A fortune was at stake, it is true; but that fortune, as
+Valentine understood the business, depended on the life of Charlotte
+Halliday. Beyond this point he had never looked. In all his consideration
+of the circumstances relating to the Haygarthian estate, he had never
+thought of what might happen in the event of Charlotte's decease.
+
+"It is a diabolical mystery," he said to himself. "There can be no
+motive--_none_. To destroy Thomas Halliday was to clear his way to
+fortune; to destroy Charlotte is to destroy his chance of fortune."
+
+And then he remembered the dark speeches of George Sheldon.
+
+"My God! and this was what he meant, as plainly as he dared tell me! He
+did tell me that his brother was an unutterable scoundrel; and I turned a
+deaf ear to his warning, because it suited my own interest to believe
+that villain. For her dear sake I believed him. I would have believed in
+Beelzebub, if he had promised me her dear hand. And I let myself be duped
+by the lying promise, and left my darling in the power of Beelzebub!"
+
+Thoughts followed each other swift as lightning through his overwrought
+brain. It seemed but a moment that he had been sitting with his
+clenched hands pressed against his forehead, when he turned suddenly
+upon the surgeon.
+
+"For God's sake, help me, guide me!" he said. "You have struck a blow
+that has numbed my senses. What am I to do? My future wife is in that
+man's keeping--dying, as I believe. How am I to save her?"
+
+"I cannot tell you. You may take the cleverest man in London to see her;
+but it is a question if that man will perceive the danger so clearly as
+to take prompt measures. In these cases there is always room for doubt;
+and a man would rather doubt his own perceptions than believe the hellish
+truth. It is by this natural hesitation so many lives are lost. While the
+doctor deliberates, the patient dies. And then, if the secret of the
+death transpires--by circumstantial evidence, perhaps, which never came
+to the doctor's knowledge,--there is a public outcry. The doctor's
+practice is ruined, and his heart broken. The outcry would have been
+still louder if he had told the truth in time to save the patient, and
+had not been able to prove his words. You think me a coward and a
+scoundrel because I dared not utter my suspicion when I saw Mr. Halliday
+dying. While it was only a suspicion it would have been certain ruin for
+me to give utterance to it. The day came when it was almost a conviction.
+I went back to that man Sheldon's house, determined to insist upon the
+calling in of a physician who would have made that conviction certainty.
+My resolution came too late. It is possible that Sheldon had perceived my
+suspicions, and had hastened matters. My patient was dead before I
+reached the house."
+
+"How am I to save her?" repeated Valentine, with the same helpless
+manner. He could not bring himself to consider Tom Halliday's death. The
+subject was too far away from him--remote as the dim shadows of departed
+centuries. In all the universe there were but two figures standing out in
+lurid brightness against the dense night of chaos--a helpless girl held
+in the clutches of a secret assassin; and it was his work to rescue her.
+
+"What am I to do?" he asked. "Tell me what I am to do."
+
+"What it may be wisest to do I cannot tell you," answered Mr. Burkham,
+almost as helplessly as the other had asked the question. "I can give you
+the name of the best man to get to the bottom of such a case--a man who
+gave evidence on the Fryar trial--Jedd. You have heard of Jedd, I
+daresay. You had better go straight to Jedd, and take him down with you
+to Miss Halliday. His very name will frighten Sheldon."
+
+"I will go at once. Stay--the address! Where am I to find Dr. Jedd?"
+
+"In Burlington Row. But there is one thing to be considered."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The interference of Jedd may only make that man desperate. He may hasten
+matters now as he hastened matters before. If you had seen his coolness
+at that time; if you had seen him, as I saw him, standing by that poor
+fellow's deathbed, comforting him--yes, with friendly speeches--laughing
+and joking, watching the agonising pain and the miserable sickness, and
+all the dreary wretchedness of such a death, and _never_ swerving from
+his work; if you had seen him, you would understand why I am afraid to
+advise you. That man was as desperate as he was cool when he murdered his
+friend. He will be more reckless this time."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he has reached a higher stage in the science of murder. The
+symptoms of that poor Yorkshireman were the symptoms of arsenical
+poisoning; the symptoms of which you have told me to-day denote a
+vegetable poison. _That_ affords very vague diagnosis, and leaves no
+trace. That was the agent which enabled the Borgias to decimate Rome.
+It is older than classic Greece, and simple as _a b c_, and will remain
+so until the medical expert is a recognized officer of the law, the
+faithful guardian of the bed over which the suspected poisoner
+loiters--past-master of the science in which the murderer is rarely more
+than an experimentalist, and protected from all the hazards of plain
+speaking by the nature of his office."
+
+"Great Heaven, how am I to save her?" exclaimed Valentine. He could not
+contemplate the subject in its broad social aspect; he could only think
+of this one dear life at stake. "To send this Dr. Jedd might be to hasten
+her death; to send a less efficient man would be mere childishness. WHAT
+shall I do?"
+
+He looked despairingly at the surgeon, and in that one glance perceived
+what a frail reed this was upon which he was leaning. And then, like
+the sudden gleam of lightning, a name flashed across his mind,--George
+Sheldon, the lawyer, the schemer, the man who of all the world best
+knew this vile enemy and assassin against whom he was matched; he it
+was of whom counsel should be asked in this crisis. Once perceiving
+this, Valentine was prompt to act. It was the first flash of light in
+the darkness.
+
+"You mean to stand by me in this, don't you?" he asked Mr. Burkham.
+
+"With all my heart and soul."
+
+"Good. Then you must go to Dr. Jedd instantly. Tell him all you know--Tom
+Halliday's death; the symptoms of Charlotte's decline, as you have heard
+them from me--_everything_; and let him hold himself in readiness to
+start for Hastings directly he hears from or sees me. I am going to a man
+who of all men can tell me how to deal with Philip Sheldon. I shall try
+to be in Burlington Row in an hour from this time; but in any case you
+will wait there till I come. I suppose, in a desperate case like this,
+Dr. Jedd will put aside all less urgent work?"
+
+"No doubt of that."
+
+"I trust to you to secure his sympathy," said Valentine.
+
+He was in the darksome entrance-hall by this time. Mr. Burkham followed,
+and opened the door for him.
+
+"Have no fear of me," he said. "Good bye."
+
+The two men shook hands with a grip significant as masonic sign-manual.
+It meant on the one part hearty co-operation, on the other implicit
+confidence. In the next moment Valentine sprang into the cab.
+
+"King's Road--entrance to Gray's Inn, and drive like mad!" he shouted to
+the driver. The hansom rattled across the stones, dashed round corners,
+struck consternation to scudding children in pinafores, all but
+annihilated more than one perambulator, and in less than ten minutes
+after leaving Mr. Burkham's door, ground against the kerbstone before the
+little gate of Gray's Inn.
+
+"God grant that George Sheldon may be at home!" Valentine said to
+himself, as he hurried towards that gentleman's office. George Sheldon
+was at home. In this fight against time, Mr. Hawkehurst had so far found
+the odds in his favour.
+
+"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the lawyer, looking up from his desk, as
+Valentine appeared on the threshold of the door, pale and breathless; "to
+what do I owe the unusual honour of a visit from Mr. Hawkehurst? I
+thought that rising _litterateur_ had cut all old acquaintances, and gone
+in for the upper circles."
+
+"I have come to you on a matter of life and death, George Sheldon," said
+Valentine; "this is no time to talk of why I haven't been to you before.
+When you and I last met, you advised me to beware of your brother Philip.
+It wasn't the first, or the second, or the third time that you so warned
+me. And now speak out like an honest man, and tell me what you meant by
+that warning? For God's sake, speak plainly this time."
+
+"I cannot afford to speak more plainly than I have spoken half a dozen
+times already. I told you to beware of my brother Phil, and I meant that
+warning in its fullest significance. If you had chosen to take my advice,
+you would have placed Charlotte Halliday's fortune, and Charlotte
+Halliday herself, beyond his power, by an immediate marriage. You didn't
+choose to do that, and there was an end of the matter. I have been a
+heavy loser by your pigheaded obstinacy; and I dare say before you and
+Phil Sheldon have done with each other, you too will find yourself a
+loser."
+
+"God help me, yes!" cried Valentine, with a groan; "I stand to make the
+heaviest loss that was ever made by man."
+
+"What do you mean?" exclaimed George.
+
+"Shall I tell you what you meant when you warned me against your own
+brother? Shall I tell you why you so warned me? You know that Philip
+Sheldon murdered Tom Halliday."
+
+"Great God!"
+
+"Yes; the secret is out. You knew it; how or when you discovered it I
+cannot tell. You knew of that one hellish crime, and would have prevented
+the commission of a second murder. You should have spoken more plainly.
+To know what you knew, and to confine yourself to cautious hints and
+vague suggestions, as you did, was to have part in that devilish work. If
+Charlotte Halliday dies, her blood be upon your head--upon yours--as well
+as upon his!"
+
+The young man had risen in his passion, and stood before George Sheldon
+with uplifted hands, and eyes that flashed angry lightnings. It seemed
+almost as if he would have called down the Divine vengeance upon this
+man's head.
+
+"If Charlotte Halliday dies!" repeated George, in a horror-stricken
+whisper; "why should you suggest such a thing?"
+
+"Because she is dying."
+
+There was a pause. Valentine flung himself passionately upon the chair
+from which he had just risen, with his back to George Sheldon, and his
+face bent over the back of the chair. The lawyer sat looking straight
+before him, with a ghastly countenance.
+
+"I told him he meant _this_," he said to himself, in a hoarse whisper. "I
+told him in this office not six months ago. Powers of hell, what a
+villain he is! And there are people who do not believe there is a devil!"
+
+For a few moments Valentine gave free vent to his passion of grief. These
+tears of rage, of agony the most supreme, were the first he had shed
+since he had bent his face over Charlotte's soft brown hair, to hide the
+evidence of his sorrow. When he had dashed these bitter drops away from
+his burning eyes, he turned to confront George Sheldon, pale as death,
+but very calm. And after this he gave way no more to his passion. He was
+matched against Time, of all enemies the most pitiless and unrelenting,
+and every minute wasted was a point scored by his foe.
+
+"I want your help, George Sheldon," he said. "If you have ever been sorry
+that you made no effort to save Charlotte Halliday's father, prove
+yourself his friend by trying to save her."
+
+"_If_ I have ever been sorry!" echoed the lawyer. "Why, my miserable
+dreams have never been free from the horror of that man's face. You don't
+know what it is--murder! Nobody knows who hasn't been concerned in it.
+You read of murders in your newspapers. A shot B, or C poisoned D, and so
+on, all through the letters of the alphabet, with a fresh batch for every
+Sunday; but it never comes home to you. You think of the horror of it in
+a shadowy kind of way, as you might think of having a snake twisted round
+your waist and legs, like that blessed man and boys one never sees the
+last of. But if you were to look at that plaster cast all your life, you
+couldn't realize ten per cent of the horror you'd feel if the snake was
+_there_, alive, crushing your bones, and hissing in your ear. I have been
+face to face with murder, Valentine Hawkehurst; and if I were to live a
+century, I should never forget what I felt when I stood by Tom Halliday's
+deathbed, and it flashed upon me, all at once, that my brother Phil was
+poisoning him."
+
+"And you did not try to save him--your friend?" cried Valentine.
+
+"Why, you see," replied the other, in a strange slow way, "it was too
+late to save him: I knew that, and--I held my tongue. What could I do?
+Against my own brother! That sort of thing in a family is ruin for every
+one! Do you think anybody would have brought their business to me after
+my brother had stood in the Old Bailey dock to take his trial for murder?
+No; my only course was to keep my own counsel, and I kept it. Phil made
+eighteen thousand pounds by his marriage with poor Tom's widow, and a
+paltry hundred or two is all _I_ ever touched of that money."
+
+"And you _could_ touch that money?" cried Valentine, aghast.
+
+"Money carries no infection. Did you ever ask any questions about the
+money you won at German gaming-tables. I dare say some of your napoleons
+and ten-thaler notes could have told queer stories if they had been able
+to talk. Taking Phil's money has never weighed upon my conscience. I'm
+not very inquisitive about the antecedents of a five-pound note; but I'll
+tell you what it is, Hawkehurst, I'd give all I have, and all I ever
+hope to have, and would go out and sweep a crossing to-morrow, if I could
+get Tom Halliday's face out of my mind, with the look that he turned upon
+me the last time I saw him. 'Ah, George,' he said, 'in illness a man
+feels the comfort of being among friends!' And he took my hand and
+squeezed it, in his old hearty way. We had been boys together,
+Hawkehurst, birds-nesting in Hyley Woods; on the same side in our
+Barlingford cricket-matches. And I shook his hand, and went away, and
+left him to die!"
+
+And here Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn, the Sheldon who was in with the
+money-lenders, sharpest of legal prestigitators, most ruthless of
+opponents, most unscrupulous of allies, buried his face in a flaming
+bandanna, and fairly sobbed aloud. When the passion had passed, he got up
+and walked hastily to the window, more ashamed of this one touch of
+honest emotion than of all the falsehoods and chicaneries of his career.
+
+"I didn't think I could have been such an ass," he muttered sheepishly.
+
+"I did not hope that you could feel so deeply," answered Valentine. "And
+now help me to save the only child of your ill-fated friend. I am sure
+that you can help me."
+
+Without waiting to be questioned, Valentine related the circumstances of
+Charlotte's illness, and of his interview with Mr. Burkham.
+
+"I did not even know that the poor girl was ill," said George Sheldon. "I
+have not seen Phil for months. He came here one day, and I gave him a bit
+of my mind. I told him if he tried to harm her I'd let the light in upon
+him and his doings. And I'll keep my word."
+
+"But his motive? What, in the name of Heaven, can be his motive for
+taking her innocent life? He knows of the Haygarth estate, and must hope
+to profit by her fortune if she lives."
+
+"Yes, and to secure the whole of that fortune if she dies. Her death
+would make her mother sole heir to that estate, and the mother is the
+merest tool in his hands. He may even have induced Charlotte to make a
+will in his favour, so that he himself may stand in her shoes."
+
+"She would not have made a will without telling me of it."
+
+"You don't know that. My brother Phil can do anything. It would be as
+easy for him to persuade her to maintain secrecy about the transaction as
+to persuade her to make the will. Do you suppose _he_ shrinks from
+multiplying lies and forgeries and hypocrisies? Do you suppose anything
+in that small way comes amiss to the man who has once brought his mind to
+murder? Why, look at the Scotch play of that fellow Shakespeare's. At the
+beginning, your Macbeth is a respectable trustworthy sort of person,
+anxious to get on in life, and so on, and that's all; but no sooner has
+he made an end of poor old Duncan, than he lays about him right and
+left--Banquo, Fleance, anybody and everybody that happens to be in his
+way. It was lucky for that Tartar of a wife of his that _she_ hook'd it,
+or he'd soon have put a stop to her sleep-walking. There's no such wide
+difference between a man and a tiger, after all. The tiger's a decent
+fellow enough till he has tasted human blood; but when once he _has_,
+Lord save the country-side from the jaws of the man-eater!"
+
+"For Heaven's sake let us waste no time in talk!" Valentine cried,
+impetuously. "I am to meet Burkham in Burlington Row directly I have got
+your advice."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To see Dr. Jedd, and take him down to Hastings, if possible."
+
+"That won't do."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because Jedd's appearance would give Phil the office. Jedd gave evidence
+on the Fryar trial, and must be a marked man to him. All Jedd can tell
+you is that Charlotte is being poisoned. You know that already. Of course
+she'll want medical treatment, and so on, to bring her round; but she
+can't get that under my brother's roof. What you have to do is to get her
+away from that house."
+
+"You do not know how ill she is. I doubt if she could bear the removal."
+
+"Anything is better than to remain. _That_ is certain death."
+
+"But your brother would surely dispute her removal."
+
+"He would, and oppose it inch by inch. We must get him away, before we
+attempt to remove her."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I will find the means for that. I know something of his business
+relations, and can invent some false cry for luring him off the trail. We
+_must_ get him away. The poor girl was not in actual danger when you left
+her, was she?"
+
+"No, thank God, there was no appearance of immediate danger. But she was
+very ill. And that man holds her life in his hand. He knows that I have
+come to London in search of a doctor. What if--"
+
+"Keep yourself quiet, Hawkehurst. He will not hasten her death unless he
+is desperate; for a death occurring immediately after your first
+expression of alarm would seem sudden. He'll avoid any appearance of
+suddenness, if he can, depend upon it. The first thing is to get him
+away. But the question is, how to do it? There must be a bait. What bait?
+Don't talk to me, Hawkehurst. Let me think it out, if I can."
+
+The lawyer leaned his elbows on the table, and abandoned himself to
+profound cogitation, with his forehead supported by his clenched hands.
+Valentine waited patiently while he thus cogitated.
+
+"I must go down to Phil's office," he said at last, "and ferret out some
+of his secrets. Nothing but stock-exchange business, of an important
+character, would induce him to leave Charlotte Halliday. But if I can
+telegraph such a message as will bring him to town, I'll do it. Leave all
+that to me. And now, what about your work?"
+
+"I am at a loss what to do, if I am not to take Dr. Jedd to Harold's
+Hill."
+
+"Take him to St. Leonards; and if I get my brother out of the way, you
+can have Charlotte conveyed to an hotel in St. Leonard's, where she can
+stop till she picks up strength enough to come to London."
+
+"Do you think her mother will consent to her removal?
+
+"Do I think you will be such an idiot as to ask for her consent?" cried
+George Sheldon impatiently. "My brother's wife is so weak a fool, that
+the chances are she'd insist on her daughter stopping quietly, to be
+poisoned. No; you must get Mrs. Sheldon out of the way somehow. Send her
+to look at the shops, or to bathe, or to pick up shells on the beach, or
+anything else equally inane. She's easy enough to deal with. There's that
+young woman, Paget's daughter, with them still, I suppose? Yes. Very
+well, then, you and she can get Charlotte away between you."
+
+"But for me to take those two girls to an hotel--the chance of scandal,
+of wonder, of inquiry? There ought to be some other person--some nurse.
+Stay, there's Nancy Woolper--the very woman! My darling has told me of
+that old woman's affectionate anxiety about her health--an anxiety which
+was singularly intense, it seemed to Lotta. Good God! do you think she,
+Nancy Woolper, could have suspected the cause of Mr. Halliday's death?"
+
+"I dare say she did. She was in the house when he died, and nursed him
+all through his illness. She's a clever old woman. Yes, you might take
+her down with you; I think she would be of use in getting Charlotte
+away."
+
+"I'll take her, if she will go."
+
+"I am not sure of that; our north-country folks have stiffish notions
+about fidelity to old masters, and that kind of thing. Nancy Woolper
+nursed my brother Phil."
+
+"If she knows or suspects the fate of Charlotte's father, she will try to
+save Charlotte," said Valentine, with conviction. "And now, good bye! I
+trust to you for getting your brother out of the way, George Sheldon;
+remember that."
+
+He held out his hand; the lawyer took it with a muscular grip, which, on
+this occasion, meant something more than that base coin of jolly good
+fellowship which so often passes current for friendship's virgin gold.
+
+"You may trust me," George Sheldon said gravely. "Stop a moment, though;
+I have a proposition to make. If my brother Philip has induced that girl
+to make a will, as it is my belief he has, we must counter him. Come down
+with me to Doctors' Commons. You've a cab? Yes; the business won't take
+half an hour."
+
+"What business?"
+
+"A special licence for your marriage with Charlotte Halliday."
+
+"A marriage?"
+
+"Yes; her marriage invalidates her will, if she has made one, and does
+away with Phil's motive. Come along; we'll get the licence."
+
+"But the delay?"
+
+"Exactly half an hour. Come!"
+
+The lawyer dashed out of his office. "At home in an hour," he shouted
+to the clerk, and then ran downstairs, followed closely by Valentine,
+and did not cease running until he was in the King's Road, where the
+cab was waiting.
+
+"Newgate Street and Warwick Lane to Doctors' Commons!" he cried to the
+cabman; and Valentine was fain to take his seat in the cab without
+further remonstrance.
+
+"I don't understand--" he began, as the cabman drove away.
+
+"I do. It's all right; you'll put the licence in your pocket, and call at
+the church nearest which you hang out, Edgware Road way, give notice of
+the marriage, and so on; and as soon as Charlotte can bear the journey,
+bring her to London and marry her. I told you your course six months ago.
+Your obstinacy has caused the hazard of that young woman's life. Don't
+let us have a second edition of it."
+
+"I will be governed by your advice," answered Valentine, submissively.
+"It is the delay that tortures me."
+
+The delay was indeed torture to him. Everything and everybody in Doctors'
+Commons seemed the very incarnation of slowness. The hansom cab might
+tear and grind the pavement, the hansom cabman might swear until even
+monster waggons swerved aside to give him passage; but neither tearing
+nor swearing could move the incarnate stolidity of Doctors' Commons. When
+he left that quaint sanctuary of old usages, he carried with him the
+Archbishop of Canterbury's benign permission for his union with Charlotte
+Halliday. But he knew not whether it was only a morsel of waste paper
+which he carried in his pocket; and whether there might not ere long be
+need of a ghastlier certificate, giving leave and licence for the
+rendering back of "ashes to ashes, and dust to dust."
+
+Valentine's first call, after leaving George Sheldon at the gate of
+Doctors' Commons, was at the head-quarters of the Ragamuffins. His heart
+sank as he ran into the bar of the hostelry to ask for the telegram which
+might be waiting for him.
+
+Happily there was no telegram. To find no tidings of a change for the
+worse seemed to him almost equivalent to hearing of a change for the
+better. What had he not feared after his interview with the surgeon of
+Bloomsbury!
+
+From Covent Garden the hansom bowled swiftly to Burlington Row. Here
+Valentine found Mr. Burkham, pale and anxious, waiting in a little den of
+a third room, on the ground-floor--a ghastly little room, hung with
+anatomical plates, and with some wax preparations in jars, on the
+mantelpiece, by way of ornament. To them presently came Dr. Jedd, as
+lively and business-like as if Miss Halliday's case had been a question
+of taking out a double-tooth.
+
+"Very sad!" he said; "these vegetable poisons--hands of unscrupulous man.
+Very interesting article in the _Medical Quarterly_--speculative analysis
+of the science of toxicology as known to the ancients."
+
+"You will come down to Harold's Hill at once, sir?" said Valentine,
+imploringly.
+
+"Well, yes; your friend here, Mr. Burkham, has persuaded me to do so,
+though I need hardly tell you that such a journey will be to the last
+degree inconvenient."
+
+"It is an affair of life and death," faltered the young man.
+
+"Of course, my dear sir. But then, you see, I have half-a-dozen other
+affairs of life and death on my hands at this moment. However, I have
+promised. My consultations will be over in half an hour; I have a round
+of visits after that, and by--well, say by the five o'clock express, I
+will go to St. Leonards."
+
+"The delay will be very long," said Valentine.
+
+"It cannot be done sooner. I ought to go down to Hertfordshire this
+evening--most interesting case--carbuncle--three operations in three
+consecutive weeks--Swain as operator. At five o'clock I shall be at the
+London Bridge station. Until then, gentlemen, good day. Lawson, the
+door."
+
+Dr. Jedd left his visitors to follow the respectable white-cravatted
+butler, and darted back to his consulting-room.
+
+Mr. Burkham and Valentine walked slowly up and down Burlington Row before
+the latter returned to his cab.
+
+"I thank you heartily for your help," said Valentine to the surgeon; "and
+I believe, with God's grace, we shall save this dear girl's life. It was
+the hand of Providence that guided me to you this morning. I can but
+believe the same hand will guide me to the end."
+
+On this they parted. Valentine told his cabman to drive to the Edgware
+Road; and in one of the churches of the immediate neighbourhood of that
+thoroughfare he gave notice of his intention to enter the bonds of holy
+matrimony. He had some difficulty in arranging matters with the clerk,
+whom he saw in his private abode and non-official guise. That functionary
+was scarcely able to grasp the idea of an intending Benedick who would
+not state positively when he wanted to be married. Happily, however, the
+administration of half-a-sovereign considerably brightened the clerk's
+perceptions.
+
+"I see what you want," he said. "Young lady a invalid, which she wants to
+leave her home as she finds uncomfortable, she being over twenty-one
+years of age and her own mistress. It's what you may call a runaway
+match, although the parties ain't beholden to any one, in a manner of
+speaking. _I_ understand. You give me half an hour's notice any morning
+within the legal hours, and I'll have one of our young curates ready for
+you as soon as you're ready for them; and have you and the young lady
+tied up tight enough before you know where you are. We ain't very long
+over _our_ marriages, unless it is something out of the common way."
+
+The clerk's familiarity was more good-natured than flattering to the
+applicant's self-esteem; but Valentine was in no mood to object to this
+easy-going treatment of the affair. He promised to give the clerk the
+required notice; and having arranged everything in strictly legal manner,
+hurried back to his cab, and directed the man to drive to the Lawn.
+
+It was now three o'clock. At five he was to meet Dr. Jedd at the station.
+He had two hours for his interview with Nancy Woolper, and his drive from
+Bayswater to London Bridge.
+
+He had tasted nothing since daybreak; but the necessity to eat and drink
+never occurred to him. He was dimly conscious of feeling sick and faint,
+but the reason of this sickness and faintness did not enter into his
+thoughts. He took off his hat, and leant his head back against the
+cushion of the hansom as that vehicle rattled across the squares of
+Paddington. The summer day, the waving of green trees in those suburban
+squares; the busy life and motion of the world through which he went,
+mixed themselves into one jarring whirl of light and colour, noise and
+motion. He found himself wondering how long it was since he left
+Harold's Hill. Between the summer morning in which he had walked along
+the dusty high-road, with fields of ripening corn upon his left, and all
+the broad blue sea upon his right, and the summer afternoon in which he
+drove in a jingling cab through the noisy streets and squares of
+Bayswater, there seemed to him a gulf so wide, that his tried brain
+shrank from scanning it.
+
+He struggled with this feeling of helplessness and bewilderment, and
+overcame it.
+
+"Let me remember what I have to do," he said to himself; "and let me keep
+my wits about me till that is done."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+PHOENICIANS ARE RISING.
+
+While Mr. Hawkehurst arranged his affairs with the clerk of St.
+Matthias-in-the-fields, in the parish of Marylebone, George Sheldon sat
+in his brother's office writing a letter to that distinguished
+stockbroker. The pretext of writing a letter was the simplest pretext for
+being alone in his brother's room; and to be alone in Philip Sheldon's
+room was the first step in the business which George had to do.
+
+The room was distractingly neat, and as handsomely furnished as it is
+possible for an office to be within the closest official limits. A
+Spanish mahogany desk with a cylinder cover, and innumerable drawers
+fitted with invisible Bramah locks, occupied the centre of the room; and
+four ponderous Spanish mahogany chairs, with padded backs, and seats
+covered with crimson morocco, were primly ranged against the wall. Upon
+the mantelpiece ticked a skeleton clock; above which there hung the
+sternest and grimmest of almanacks, on either whereof were fastened
+divers lists and calendars of awful character, affected by gentlemen on
+'Change.
+
+Before penetrating to this innermost and sacred chamber, George Sheldon
+wasted some little time in agreeable gossip with a gentleman whom he
+found yawning over the _Times_ newspaper in an outer and less richly
+furnished apartment. This gentleman was Philip Sheldon's clerk, the
+younger son of a rich Yorkshire farmer, who had come to London with the
+intention of making his fortune on the Stock Exchange, and whose father
+had paid a considerable sum in order to obtain for this young man the
+privilege of reading the Times in Mr. Sheldon's office, and picking up
+whatever knowledge might be obtained from the business transactions of
+his employer.
+
+The career of Philip Sheldon had been watched with some interest by his
+fellow-townsmen of Barlingford. They had seen him leave that town with a
+few hundreds in his pocket, and they had heard of him twelve years
+afterwards as a prosperous stockbroker, with a handsome house and a
+handsome carriage, and the reputation of being one of the sharpest men in
+the City. The accounts of him that came to Barlingford were all more or
+less exaggerated; and the men who discussed his cleverness and his good
+luck were apt to forget that he owed the beginning of his fortunes to Tom
+Halliday's eighteen thousand pounds. The one fact that impressed Philip
+Sheldon's townsmen was the fact that a Barlingford man had made money on
+the Stock Exchange; and the one inference they drew therefrom was the
+inference that other Barlingford men might do the same.
+
+Thus it had happened that Mr. Stephen Orcott, of Plymley Rise farm, near
+Barlingford, being at a loss what to do with a somewhat refractory
+younger son, resolved upon planting his footsteps in the path so
+victoriously trodden by Philip Sheldon. He wrote to Philip, asking him to
+receive the young man as clerk, assistant, secretary--anything, with a
+view to an ultimate junior partnership; and Philip consented, upon
+certain conditions. The sum he demanded was rather a stiff one, as it
+seemed to Stephen Orcott, but he opined that such a sum would not have
+been asked if the advantages had not been proportionately large. The
+bargain was therefore concluded, and Mr. Frederick Orcott came to London.
+He was a young man of horsey propensities, gifted with a sublime contempt
+for any kind of business requiring application or industry, and with a
+supreme belief in his own merits.
+
+George Sheldon had known Frederick Orcott as a boy, and had been in his
+society some half-dozen times since his coming to London. He apprehended
+no difficulty in obtaining from this young gentleman any information he
+had the power to afford.
+
+"How do, Orcott?" he said, with agreeable familiarity. "My brother Phil
+not come back yet?"
+
+"No," replied the other, sulkily. "There have been ever so many people
+here bothering me about him. Where has he gone? and when will he be back?
+and so on. I might as well be some d----d footman, if I'm to sit here
+answering questions all day. High Wickham races are on to-day, and I
+wanted to see Barmaid run before I put my money on her for Goodwood. She
+was bred down our way, you see, and I know she's like enough to win the
+cup, if she's fit. They don't know much about her this way, either,
+though she's own sister to Boots, that won the Chester Cup last year,
+owing to Topham's being swindled into letting him off with seven lbs. He
+ran at the York Spring, you see, for a twopenny-halfpenny plate, and the
+boy that rode him pulled his head half off--I saw him do it--and then he
+won the Chester, and brought his owners a pot of money."
+
+This information was not exactly what George Sheldon wanted, but he
+planted himself on the hearthrug in an easy attitude, with his back
+against the mantelpiece, and appeared much interested in Mr. Orcott's
+discourse.
+
+"Anything stirring in the City?" he asked presently.
+
+"Stirring? No--nothing stirring but stagnation, as some fellow said in a
+play I saw the other night. Barlingford folks say your brother Philip has
+made a heap of money on the Stock Exchange; but if he has, he must have
+done a good deal more business before I came to him than he has done
+lately. I can't see how a man is to develop into a Rothschild out of an
+occasional two-and-sixpence per cent on the transfer of some old woman's
+savings from railway stock to consols; and that's about the only kind of
+business I've seen much of lately. Of course Phil Sheldon has got irons
+of his own in the fire; for he's an uncommonly deep card, you see, that
+brother of yours, and it isn't to be expected he'll tell _me_ all he's up
+to. I know he's up to his eyebrows in companies, but I don't see how he's
+to make his fortune out of _them_, for limited liability now-a-days seems
+only another name for unlimited crash. However, I don't care. It pleased
+my governor to get me into Sheldon's office, and it suited my book to
+come to London; but if the author of my being thinks I'm going to addle
+my blessed brains with the decline and fall of the money market, he's a
+greater fool than I took him for--and that's saying a great deal."
+
+And here Mr. Frederick Orcott lapsed into admiring contemplation of his
+boots, which were the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of a sporting bootmaker; boots
+that were of the ring, ringy, and of the corner, cornery.
+
+"Ah," said George, "and Phil doesn't tell you much of his affairs,
+doesn't he? That's rather a bad sign, I should think. Looks as if he was
+rather down upon his luck, eh?"
+
+"Well, there's no knowing, you see, with that sort of close fish. He may
+have made his book for a great haul, and may be keeping himself quiet
+till the event comes off. He may be laying on to something with all his
+might, you know, on safe information. But there's one thing I know he
+stands to lose by."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"The Phoenician Loan. He speculated in the bonds when they began to go
+down; and I'm blessed if they haven't been dropping ever since, an
+eighth a day, as regular as the day comes round. He bought them for the
+March account, and has been paying contango since then, and holding on in
+hopes of a rise. I don't know whether the purchase was a large one, but I
+know he's been uncommonly savage about the drop. He bought on the
+strength of private information from the other side of the Channel. The
+Emperor was putting his own money into the Phoenician business, and it
+was the best game out, and so on. But he seems to have been made a fool
+of, for once in a way."
+
+"The bonds may steady themselves."
+
+"Yes, they _may_; but, on the other hand, they mayn't. There are the
+Stock Exchange lists, with Phoenicians ticked off by your brother's own
+pen. A steady drop, you see. 'Let me have a telegram if there's a sudden
+rise,' said Sheldon to me the day he left London; 'they'll go up with
+rush when they do move.' But they've been moving the other way ever
+since; and I think if he stayed away till doomsday it would be pretty
+much the same."
+
+"_Phoenicians are rising rapidly. Come back to town._"
+
+These were the words of the telegraphic despatch which shaped itself in
+George Sheldon's brain, as his brother's clerk revealed the secrets of
+his employer.
+
+It was found--the solution of the one great question as to how Philip
+Sheldon was to be lured away from the bedside of his unconscious victim.
+Here was the bait.
+
+"I knew I could do it; I knew I could get all I wanted to know out of
+this shallow-brained idiot," he said to himself, triumphantly.
+
+And then he told the shallow-brained idiot that he thought he would write
+a line to his brother; and on that pretence went into Philip's office.
+
+Here, use his eyes as he might, he could discover nothing; he could glean
+no stray scrap of information. The secrets that could be guarded by
+concealed Bramah locks and iron safes, with mystic words to be learned by
+the man who would open them, Philip Sheldon knew how to protect.
+Unhappily for himself, he had been compelled to confide some of his
+secrets to human receptacles not to be guarded by Bramah locks or mystic
+words.
+
+The lawyer did not waste much time in his brother's office. A very hasty
+investigation showed him there was nothing to be learned from those bare
+walls and that inviolable cylinder-topped desk. He scribbled a few lines
+of commonplace at a table by the window, sealed and addressed his note,
+and then departed to despatch his telegram, "Phoenicians are rising
+rapidly," he wrote, and that was all. He signed the despatch Frederick
+Orcott.
+
+"Phil and Orcott may settle the business between them," he said to
+himself, as he forged the Yorkshireman's name. "What I have to do is to
+get Phil away, and give Hawkehurst a chance of saving Tom Halliday's
+daughter; and I shan't stand upon trifles in the doing of it."
+
+After having despatched this telegram, George Sheldon found himself much
+too restless and excited for ordinary business. He, so renowned even
+amongst cool hands for exceptional coolness, was on this occasion
+thoroughly unnerved. He dropped into a City tavern, and refreshed himself
+with a dram. But, amidst all the bustle and clatter of a crowded bar, the
+face of Tom Halliday, haggard and worn with illness, was before his eyes,
+and the sound of Tom Halliday's voice was in his ears. "I can't settle to
+anything this afternoon," he said to himself. "I'll run down to
+Bayswater, and see whether Hawkehurst has managed matters with Nancy
+Woolper."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+THE SORTES VIRGILIANAE.
+
+While George Sheldon was still in the depths of the City Valentine
+Hawkehurst arrived at the gothic villa, where he asked to see Mrs.
+Woolper. Of the woman herself he knew very little: he had seen her once
+or twice when some special mission brought her to the drawing-room; and
+from Charlotte he had heard much of her affectionate solicitude. To have
+been kind to his Charlotte was the strongest claim to his regard.
+
+"This woman's help would be of inestimable service," he thought; "her
+age, her experience of sickness, her familiarity with the patient,
+especially adapt her for the office she will be required to fill. If Dr.
+Jedd should order a nurse to watch by the sick-bed, here is the nurse. If
+it should prove possible to remove the dear sufferer, here is the
+guardian best calculated to protect and attend her removal." That the
+desperate step of an immediate marriage would be a wise step Valentine
+could not doubt, since it would at once annihilate Mr. Sheldon's chances,
+and destroy his motive. But in contemplating this desperate step
+Valentine had to consider the reputation as well as the safety of his
+future wife. He was determined that there should be no opportunity for
+scandal in the circumstances of his stolen marriage, no scope for future
+mischief from the malignity of that baffled villain to whose schemes
+their marriage would give the death-blow. He, who from his cradle had
+been familiar with the darker side of life, knew how often the innocent
+carry a lifelong burden, and perform a perpetual pennance for the sins or
+the follies of others. And over his darling's life in the future, should
+it please God that he might save her, he would have no shadow cast by
+imprudence of his in the present.
+
+"This sharp-witted, sharp-tongued Yorkshirewoman will be the woman of
+women to protect her," he thought, as he seated himself in Mr. Sheldon's
+study, whither the prim parlour-maid had ushered him.
+
+"Mrs. Woolper have just gone upstairs to clean herself," she said; "which
+we are a-having the dining-room and droring-room carpets up, while the
+family are away. Would you please to wait?"
+
+Valentine looked at his watch.
+
+"I cannot wait very long," he said; "and I shall be obliged if you will
+tell Mrs. Woolper that I wish to see her on very important business."
+
+The parlour-maid departed, and Valentine was left to endure the weariness
+of waiting until Mrs. Woolper should have "cleaned herself."
+
+Mr. Sheldon's study at Bayswater did not offer much more to the eye of
+the investigator than Mr. Sheldon's office in the City. There were the
+handsomely bound books behind the inviolable plate-glass doors, and there
+was the neat writing-table with the machine for weighing letters, and the
+large business-like looking blotting-pad, and the ponderous brass-rimmed
+inkstand, with no nonsense about it; and yonder, on a clumsy little oak
+table with thick legs, appeared the copying machine, with a big black
+iron lever, and a massive screw with which to screw all the spontaneous
+feeling out of every letter that came beneath its crushing influence.
+
+Up and down this joyless den Valentine Hawkehurst paced, with the demon
+of impatience raging in his breast. The July sunshine blazed hot upon the
+window, and the voices of croquet-players in adjacent gardens rose shrill
+upon the summer air. And there were girls playing croquet while she, his
+"rose of the garden, garden of girls," lay sick unto death! O, why could
+he not offer a hecatomb of these common creatures as a substitute for
+that one fair spirit?
+
+He looked into the garden--the prim modern garden, but a few years
+reclaimed from that abomination of desolation, the "eligible lot of
+building land." Across the well-kept lawn there brooded no shadow of
+Old-World cedar; no century-old espaliers divided flower and kitchen
+ground; no box-edging of the early Hanoverian era bordered the beds of
+roses and mignonette. From one boundary-wall to the other there was not a
+bush old enough to hang an association upon. The stereotyped bed of
+flaming yellow calceolaria balanced the conventional bed of flaming
+crimson verbena; the lavender heliotrope faced the scarlet geranium, like
+the four corners in a quadrille. The garden was the modern nurserymen's
+ideal of suburban horticulture, and no more. But to Valentine this
+half-acre of smooth lawn and Wimbledon gravel pathway had seemed fair as
+those pleasure gardens of Semiramis, at the foot of the Bagistanos
+mountain, the fame whereof tempted Alexander to turn aside from the
+direct road, during his march from Chelone to the Nysaic horse pastures.
+
+To-day the contemplation of that commonplace garden gave him direful
+pain. Should he ever walk there again with his dear love, or in any other
+garden upon earth?
+
+And then he thought of fairer gardens, in supernal regions whither his
+soul was slow to travel. "Not easy is the journey from earth to the
+stars," says the sage; and from this young wanderer the stain of earthly
+travel had yet to be washed away.
+
+"If she is taken from me, shall I ever be pure enough to follow her?" he
+asked himself. "Will a life that began in such darkness ever rise to the
+light which is her natural element? If she is taken, and I stay behind,
+and bear my burden patiently in the hope to follow her, will there not be
+a gate closed against me in the skies, beyond which I shall see her,
+shining among her kindred spirits, in the white robes of perfect
+innocence? Ah, my love, my love, as between us on this earth must for
+ever be a gulf your pure soul cannot pass, so between us in the skies
+will rise a barrier to sever me from your sweet company!"
+
+The thought of probable separation upon earth, of possible separation in
+heaven, was too bitter to him.
+
+"I will not think of these things," he said to himself; "I will not
+believe in that possibility of this sacrifice. Ah, no! she will be
+saved. Against the bright young life the awful fiat has not gone
+forth. Providence has been with me to-day. Providence will go with me
+till the end."
+
+He thought how other men had so stood, as he was standing now, face to
+face with the great uncertainty, the crisis, the turning-point--the pivot
+on which life itself revolved. The pendulum of the mighty clock swings
+solemnly to and fro; with every vibration a moment; with every moment
+each man's shrouded fates move another step in their inexorable progress.
+And the end? What was the goal towards which those dark relentless shapes
+were moving?
+
+He thought of Rousseau, balancing the awful question of his soul's
+salvation--his poor weak soul adrift upon a sea of doubt.
+
+"Behold yonder tree which faces me, as I sit and meditate the problem of
+my destiny--the destiny of me, Jean Jacques Rousseau, self-conscious
+genius, and future regenerator of my age. I pick up a pebble, and
+poise it between my fingers before taking my aim. In another moment
+the question will be answered. If the pebble hits the tree, I, Jean
+Jacques, am reserved for salvation. If I miss--O awful, overwhelming
+possibility!--my name will blaze upon that dreadful scroll which numbers
+the damned."
+
+Happily the tree is bulky, and within but a few yards of the
+speculator; and the great enigma of the Calvinistic church is answered
+in favour of Madame de Warenne's protege, whose propensities and
+proclivities at that period did not very strongly indicate his claim to
+a place among the elect.
+
+Valentine remembered the _sortes Virgilianae_--the Wesleyan's drawing of
+inferences from Bible texts. Ah, could he not find an answer to the
+question that was the one thought of his mind? He would find some
+answer--a lying oracle, perhaps. It might be a voice from heaven,--some
+temporary assuagement of this storm of doubt that raged in his breast. "I
+doubt if Mr. Sheldon owns either a Bible or an 'AEneid,'" he said to
+himself, as he stopped in his rapid pacing of the room; "I will open the
+first book I can put my hand upon, and from the first line my eye falls
+on will draw an augury."
+
+He looked about the room. Behind the glazed doors of the mahogany
+bookcase appeared Hume and Smollett, Scott and Shakespeare; and
+conspicuous among these a handsome family Bible. But the glazed doors
+were locked. In Mr. Sheldon's study there appeared to be no other books
+than these few standard works. Yes, on some obscure little shelves, low
+down in one of the recesses formed by the projection of the fireplace and
+the chimney, there were three rows of large quarto volumes, in dingy
+dark-green cloth cases.
+
+What these volumes might contain Valentine Hawkehurst knew not; and the
+very fact of his ignorance rendered these books all the more suitable for
+the purpose of augury. To dip for a sentence into any of these unknown
+volumes would be a leap in darkness more profound than he could find in
+the Bible or the "AEneid," where his own foreknowledge of the text might
+unwittingly influence the oracle. He went over to the recess, bent down,
+and ran his hand along the backs of the volumes, with his face turned
+away from the books towards the window.
+
+"The first obstruction that arrests my hand shall determine my choice of
+the volume," he said to himself.
+
+His hand ran easily along the volumes on the upper shelf--easily along
+the volumes on the second shelf; and he began to doubt whether this mode
+of determining his choice could be persisted in. But in its progress
+along the third and lowest range of volumes, his hand was arrested midway
+by a book which projected about half an inch beyond its fellows.
+
+He took this book out and carried it to the table, still without looking
+at it. He opened it, or rather let its leaves fall open of their own
+accord--still without looking at it; and then, with a strange
+superstitious fear--mingled in his mind with the natural shame that
+accompanied his conscious folly--he looked at the page before him. The
+line on which he fixed his eye was the heading of a letter. It was in
+larger type than the rest of the page, and it was very plain to him as he
+stood a little way from the table, looking down at the open book.
+
+The line ran thus:
+
+"ON THE FALLIBILITY OF COPPER GAUZE AS A TEST FOR THE DETECTION OF
+ARSENIC."
+
+The book was a volume of the _Lancet_; the date twenty years ago.
+
+"What an oracle!" thought Valentine, with a cynical laugh at his own
+folly, and some slight sense of relief. In all feeble tamperings with
+powers invisible there lurks a sense of terror in the weak human heart.
+He had tempted those invisible ones, and the oracle he only half believed
+in might have spoken to his confusion and dismay. He was glad to think
+the oracle meant nothing.
+
+And yet, even in this dry as dust title of a scientific communication
+from a distinguished toxicologist there was some sinister significance.
+It was the letter of a great chemist, who demonstrated therein the
+fallibility of all tests in relation to a certain poison. It was one of
+those papers which, while they aid the cause of science, may also further
+the dark processes of the poisoner, by showing him the forces he has to
+encounter, and the weapons with which he may defend himself from their
+power. It is needless to dwell here upon the contents of this letter--one
+of a series on the same subject, or range of subjects. Valentine read it
+with eager interest. For him it had a terrible importance in its relation
+to the past and to the present.
+
+"I let the book fall open, and it opened at that letter," he thought to
+himself. "Will it open there a second time, I wonder?"
+
+He repeated the experiment, and the book opened in the same place. Again;
+and again the book opened as before. Again, many times, and the result
+was still the same.
+
+After this he examined the book, and found that it had been pressed open
+at this page, as by a reader leaning on the opened volume. He examined it
+still more closely, and found here and there on the page faint
+indications of a pencil, which had under-scored certain lines, and the
+marks of which had been as far as possible erased. The deduction to be
+drawn from these small facts seemed only too clear to Valentine
+Hawkehurst. By some one reader the pages had been deliberately and
+carefully studied. Could he doubt that reader to have been the man in
+whose possession he found the book, the man whom that very day he had
+heard plainly denounced as a poisoner?
+
+He drew out the previous volume, and in this a rapid search revealed to
+him a second fact, significant as the last.
+
+An old envelope marked the place where appeared an article on the
+coincidences common to the diagnostics of a certain type of low fever and
+the diagnostics of a certain class of poisons. Here the volume again
+opened of itself, and a blot of ink on the page seemed to indicate that
+the open book had been leant upon by a person engaged in making memoranda
+of its contents. Nor was this all. The forgotten envelope that marked the
+place had its own dismal significance. The postmark bore the date of the
+year and the month in which Charlotte's father had died.
+
+While this volume was still open in his hand the door opened suddenly,
+and Mrs. Woolper came into the room.
+
+She had kept Valentine waiting more than half an hour. He had little more
+than half an hour at most in which to break the ice of absolute
+strangeness, and sound the very depths of this woman's character. If she
+had come to him earlier, when his plan of action was clear and definite,
+his imagination in abeyance, he would have gone cautiously to work, with
+slowness and deliberation. Coming to him now, when his mind, unsettled by
+the discovery of fresh evidence against Philip Sheldon, was divided
+between the past and the present, she took him off his guard, and he
+plunged at once into the subject that absorbed all his thoughts.
+
+Mrs. Woolper looked from Valentine to the open books on the table with a
+vague terror in her face.
+
+"I am sorry I was so long, sir; but I'd been polishing the grates and
+fenders, and such like, and my hands and face were blacker than a
+sweep's. I hope there's nothing wrong at the seaside, where Miss--"
+
+"There is much that's wrong, Mrs. Woolper--hopelessly, irrecoverably
+wrong. Miss Halliday is ill, very ill--doomed to die, if she remain in
+your master's keeping."
+
+"Lord help us, Mr. Hawkehurst! what do you mean?"
+
+The terror in her face was no longer a vague terror. It had taken a form
+and substance, and was a terror unutterably hideous, if ever human
+countenance gave expression to human thought.
+
+"I mean that your master is better skilled in the use of the agents that
+kill than the agents that cure. Charlotte's father came to Philip
+Sheldon's house a hale strong man, in the very prime of manhood. In that
+house he sickened of a nameless disease, and died, carefully tended by
+his watchful friend. The same careful watcher stands by Charlotte
+Halliday's deathbed, and she is dying!"
+
+"Dying! O, sir, for God's sake, don't say that!"
+
+"She is dying, as her father died before her, by the hand of Philip
+Sheldon."
+
+"O, sir! Mr. Hawkehurst!" cried the old woman, with clasped hands lifted
+in piteous supplication towards her master's denouncer. "It's not true.
+It is not true. For God's dear love don't tell me it is true! I nursed
+him when he was a baby, sir; and there wasn't a little trouble I had to
+bear with him that didn't make him all the dearer to me. I have sat up
+all the night through, sir, times and often, when he was ill, and have
+heard Barlingford church clock strike every hour of the long night; and
+O, if I had known that this could ever come to him, I should have wished
+him dead in the little crib where he lay and seemed so innocent. I tell
+you, sir, it can't be true! His father and mother had been respected and
+looked up to in Barlingford for many a year,--his grandfather and
+grandmother before them. There isn't a name that stands better in those
+parts than the name of Sheldon. Do you think such a man would poison his
+friend?"
+
+"_I_ said nothing about poison, Mrs. Woolper," said Valentine, sternly.
+
+This woman had known all, and had held her tongue, like the rest, it
+seemed. To Valentine there was unutterable horror in the thought that a
+cold-blooded murder could be thus perpetrated in the sight of several
+people, and yet no voice be raised to denounce the assassin.
+
+"And this is our modern civilization!" he said to himself. "Give me the
+desert or the jungle. The sons of Bowanee are no worse than Mr. Sheldon,
+and one might be on one's guard against them."
+
+Nancy Woolper looked at him aghast. He had said nothing about poison!
+What, then--had she betrayed her master?
+
+He saw that she had known, or strongly suspected, the worst in the case
+of Tom Halliday, and that she would easily be influenced to do all he
+wanted of her.
+
+"Mrs. Woolper, you must help me to save Charlotte," he said, with
+intensity. "You made no attempt to save her father, though you suspected
+the cause of his death. I have this day seen Mr. Burkham, the doctor who
+attended Mr. Halliday, and from his lips I have heard the truth. I want
+you to accompany me to Hastings, and to take your place by Charlotte's
+bed, as her nurse and guardian. If Mr. Sheldon suspects your knowledge of
+the past, and I have little doubt that he does"--a look in the
+housekeeper's face told him that he was right--"you are of all people
+best fitted to guard that dear girl. Your part will not be a difficult
+one. If we dare remove her, we will remove her beyond the reach of that
+man's power. If not, your task will be to prevent food or medicine, that
+his hand has touched, from approaching her lips. You _can_ do it. It will
+only be a question of tact and firmness. We shall have one of the
+greatest doctors in London for our guide. Will you come?"
+
+"I don't believe my master poisoned his friend," said Nancy Woolper,
+doggedly; "nor I won't believe it. You can't force me to think bad of him
+I loved when he was little and helpless, and I carried him in my arms.
+What are you and your fine London doctor, Mr. Burkham--he was but a poor
+fondy, as I mind well--that I should take your word against my master? If
+that young man thought as Mr. Halliday was being poisoned, why didn't he
+speak out, like a man, then? It's a fine piece of work to bring it up
+against my master eleven years afterwards. As for young missy, she's as
+sweet a young creature as ever lived, and I'd do anything to serve her.
+But I won't think, and I can't think, that my master would hurt a hair of
+her head. What would he gain by it?"
+
+"He has settled that with himself. He has gained by the death of Tom
+Halliday, and depend upon it he has made his plans to gain by the death
+of Tom Halliday's daughter."
+
+"I won't believe it," the old woman repeated in the same dogged tone.
+
+For such resistance as this Mr. Hawkehurst was in no manner prepared. He
+looked at his watch. The half hour was nearly gone. There was little more
+time for argument.
+
+"Great Heaven!" he said to himself, "what argument can I employ to
+influence this woman's obdurate heart?"
+
+What argument, indeed? He knew of none stronger than those he had used.
+He stood for some moments battled and helpless, staring absently at the
+face of his watch, and wondering what he was to do next.
+
+As Valentine Hawkehurst stood thus, there came a loud ringing of the
+bell, following quickly on the sound of wheels grinding against the
+kerbstone.
+
+Mrs. Woolper opened the door and looked out into the hall.
+
+"It's master!" cried one of the maids, emerging from the disorganized
+dining-room, "and missus, and Miss Halliday, and Mass Paget--and all the
+house topsy-turvy!"
+
+"Charlotte here!" exclaimed Valentine. "You are dreaming, girl!"
+
+"And you told me she was dying!" said Mrs. Woolper, with a look of
+triumph. "What becomes of your fine story now?"
+
+"It _is_ Miss Halliday!" cried the housemaid, as she opened the door.
+"And O my!" she added, looking back into the hall with a sorrowful face,
+"how bad she do look!"
+
+Valentine ran out to the gate. Yes; there were two cabs, one laden with
+luggage, the two cabmen busy about the doors of the vehicles, a little
+group of stragglers waiting to see the invalid young lady alight. It was
+the next best thing to a funeral.
+
+"O, don't she look white!" cried a shrill girl with a baby in her arms.
+
+"In a decline, I dessay, pore young thing," said a matron, in an audible
+aside to her companion.
+
+Valentine dashed amongst the group of stragglers. He pushed away the girl
+with the baby, the housemaid who had run out behind him, Mr. Sheldon, the
+cabman, every one; and in the next moment Charlotte was in his arms, and
+he was carrying her into the house.
+
+He felt as if he had been in a dream; and all that exceptional force
+which the dreamer sometimes feels he felt in this crisis. He carried his
+dear burden into the study, followed by Mr. Sheldon and Diana Paget. The
+face that dropped upon his shoulder showed deadly white against his
+dark-blue coat; the hand which he clasped in his, ah, how listless and
+feeble!
+
+"Valentine!" the girl said, in a low drowsy voice, lifting her eyes to
+his face, "is this you? I have been so ill, so tired; and they would
+bring me away. To be near the doctors, papa says. Do you think any
+doctors will be able to cure me?"
+
+"Yes, dear, with God's help. I am glad he has brought you here. And now
+I must run away," he said; when he had placed Charlotte in Mr. Sheldon's
+arm-chair, "for a very little while, darling. I have seen a doctor, a
+man in whom I have more confidence than I have in Dr. Doddleson. I am
+going to fetch him, my dearest," he added tenderly, as he felt the
+feeble hand cling to his; "I shall not be long. Do you think I shall not
+hurry back to you? My dearest one, when I return, it will be to stay
+with you--for ever."
+
+She was too ill to note the significance of his words; she only knew that
+they gave her comfort. He hurried from the room. In less than an hour he
+must be at the London Bridge terminus, or in all probability the five
+o'clock train would carry Dr. Jedd to St. Leonards; and on Dr. Jedd his
+chief hope rested.
+
+"Do you believe me now?" he asked of Mrs. Woolper as he went out
+into the hall.
+
+"I do," she answered in a whisper; "and I will do what you want."
+
+She took his hand in her wrinkled horny palm and grasped it firmly. He
+felt that in this firm pressure there was a promise sacred as any oath
+ever registered on earth. He met Mr. Sheldon on the threshold, and
+passed him without a word. The time might come in which he would have to
+mask his thoughts, and stoop to the hateful hypocrisy of civility to
+this man; but he had not yet schooled himself to do this. At the gate he
+met George Sheldon.
+
+"What's up now?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"Did you send your message?"
+
+"Yes; I telegraphed to Phil."
+
+"It has been trouble wasted. He has brought her home."
+
+"What does that mean?"
+
+"Who knows? I pray God that he may have overreached himself. I have set a
+watch upon my dear love, and no further harm shall come to her. I am
+going to fetch Dr. Jedd."
+
+"And you are not afraid of Phil's smelling a rat?"
+
+"I am afraid of nothing that he can do henceforward. If it is not too
+late to save her, I will save her."
+
+He waited for no more, but jumped into the cab. "London Bridge terminus!
+You must get me there by a quarter to five," he said to the driver.
+
+George Sheldon went no further than the gate of his brother's domain.
+
+"I wonder whether the Harold's Hill people will send that telegram after
+him," he thought. "It'll be rather unpleasant for Fred Orcott if they do.
+But it's ten to one they won't. The normal condition of every seaside
+lodging-house keeper in one degree removed from idiotcy."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Ninth.
+
+
+
+THROUGH THE FURNACE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+SOMETHING TOO MUCH.
+
+"Is that young man mad?" asked Philip Sheldon, as he went into his study
+immediately after Valentine had passed him in the hall.
+
+The question was not addressed to any particular individual; and Diana,
+who was standing near the door by which Mr. Sheldon entered, took upon
+herself to answer it.
+
+"I think he is very anxious," she said in a half whisper.
+
+"What brought him here just now? He did not know we were coming home."
+
+Mrs. Woolper answered this question.
+
+"He came for something for Miss Charlotte, sir; some books as she'd had
+from the library. They'd not been sent back; and he came to see about
+their being sent."
+
+"What books?" murmured Charlotte. But a pressure from Mrs. Woolper's hand
+prevented her saying more.
+
+"I never encountered any one with so little self-command," said Mr.
+Sheldon. "If he is going to rush in and out of my house in that manner, I
+must really put a stop to his visits altogether. I cannot suffer that
+kind of thing. For Charlotte's welfare quiet is indispensable; and if Mr.
+Hawkehurst's presence is to bring noise and excitement, Mr. Hawkehurst
+must not cross this threshold."
+
+He spoke with suppressed anger; with such evident effort to restrain his
+anger, that it would have seemed as if his indignation against Valentine
+was no common wrath.
+
+Charlotte caught his last words.
+
+"Dear papa," she pleaded in her faint voice, "pray do not be angry with
+Valentine; he is so anxious about me."
+
+"I am not angry with him; but while you are ill, I will have quiet--at
+any price."
+
+"Then I'm sure you should not have brought Charlotte home," exclaimed
+Georgy, in tones of wailing and lamentation; "for of all the miseries in
+life, there is nothing worse than coming home in the very midst of a
+general cleaning. It was agreed between Ann Woolper and me that there
+should be a general cleaning while we were away at the seaside. We were
+to be away a fortnight, and everything was to be as neat as a new pin
+when we came home. But here we are back in less than a week, and
+everything at sixes-and-sevens. Where we are to dine I know not; and as
+for the carpets, they are all away at the beating-place, and Ann tells me
+they won't be home till Friday."
+
+"We can exist without carpets," answered Mr. Sheldon, in a hard dry
+voice. "I suppose they are seeing to Miss Halliday's room?" he added,
+addressing himself to Mrs. Woolper. "Why don't you go and look after
+them, Nancy?"
+
+"Sarah knows what she has to do. The bed-rooms was done first; and
+there's not much amiss in Miss Charlotte's room."
+
+Mr. Sheldon dropped wearily into a chair. He looked pale and haggard.
+Throughout the journey he had been unfailing in his attention to the
+invalid; but the journey had been fatiguing; for Charlotte Halliday was
+very ill--so ill as to be unable to avoid inflicting trouble upon
+others. The weariness--the dizziness--the dull intervals of
+semi-consciousness--the helpless tottering walk, which was like the
+walk of intoxication rather than ordinary weakness--the clouded
+sight--all the worst symptoms of this nameless disease, had every hour
+grown more alarming.
+
+Against this journey to London Mrs. Sheldon and Diana had pleaded--Georgy
+with as much earnestness as she could command; Diana as forcibly as she
+dared argue a question in which her voice had so little weight.
+
+But upon this point Mr. Sheldon was adamant.
+
+"She will be better off in London," he said resolutely. "This trip to the
+seaside was a whim of my wife's; and, like most other whims of my wife's,
+it has entailed trouble and expense upon me. Of course I know that Georgy
+did it for the best," he added, in reply to a reproachful "O Philip!"
+from Mrs. Sheldon. "But the whole business has been a mistake. No sooner
+are we comfortably settled down here, than Hawkehurst takes it into his
+head to be outrageously alarmed about Charlotte, and wants to bring
+half-a-dozen doctors round the poor girl's bed, to her inevitable peril;
+for in an illness which begins and ends in mental depression, all
+appearance of alarm is calculated to do mischief."
+
+Having said this, Mr. Sheldon lost no time in making arrangements for the
+journey. A carriage was ordered; all possible preparations were made for
+the comfort of the invalid--everything that care or kindness could do was
+done; but the cruelty of the removal was not the less obvious. Georgy
+wailed piteously about the sixes-and-sevens to which they were being
+taken. Diana cared nothing about sixes-and-sevens; but she felt supreme
+indignation against Charlotte's stepfather, and she did not attempt to
+conceal her feelings.
+
+Nor was it without an effort to oppose Mr. Sheldon's authority that Miss
+Paget succumbed to the force of circumstances. She appealed to his wife.
+
+"Dear Mrs. Sheldon, I beg you not to suffer Lotta's removal," she said
+earnestly. "You do not know how ill she is--nor can Mr. Sheldon know, or
+he would not take such a step. As her mother, your authority is superior
+to his; you have but to say that she shall not be taken from this house
+in her present state of prostration and sickness."
+
+"I have only to say!" cried Georgy, piteously. "O Diana, how can you say
+such a thing? What would be Mr. Sheldon's feelings if I were to stand up
+against him, and declare that Charlotte should not be moved? And he so
+anxious too, and so clever. I'm sure his conduct about my poor dear Lotta
+is positively beautiful. I never saw such anxiety. Why, he has grown ten
+years older in his looks since the beginning of her illness. People go on
+about stepfather this, and stepfather that, until a poor young widow is
+almost frightened to marry again. But I don't believe a real father ever
+was more thoughtful or more careful about a real daughter than Philip has
+been about Lotta. And what a poor return it would be if I were to oppose
+him now, when he says that the removal will be for Charlotte's good, and
+that she will be near clever doctors--if she should require clever
+doctors! You don't know how experienced he is, and how thoughtful. I
+shall never forget his kindness to poor Tom."
+
+"Yes," exclaimed Miss Paget impatiently, "but Mr. Halliday died."
+
+"O Diana," whimpered Georgy, "I did not think you could be so unkind as
+to remind me of that."
+
+"I only want to remind you that Mr. Sheldon is not infallible."
+
+Mr. Sheldon entered the room at this juncture, and Diana left it,
+passionately indignant against the poor weak creature, to whom no crisis,
+no danger, could give strength of mind or will.
+
+"A sheep would make some struggle for her lamb," she thought, angrily.
+"Mrs. Sheldon is lower than a sheep."
+
+It was the first time she had thought unkindly of this weak soul, and her
+anger soon melted to pity for the powerless nature which Mr. Sheldon held
+in such supreme control. She made no further attempt at resistance after
+this; but went to Charlotte's room and prepared for the journey.
+
+"O, why am I to be moved, dear?" the girl asked piteously. "I am too ill
+to be moved."
+
+"It is for your good, darling. Mr. Sheldon wants you to be near the great
+physicians, who can give you health and strength."
+
+"There are no physicians who can do that. Let me stay here, Di. Beg papa
+to let me stay here."
+
+Diana hid her face upon the invalid's shoulder. Her tears choked her. To
+repress her grief was agony scarcely endurable. But she did hide all
+trace of anger and sorrow, and cheered the helpless traveller throughout
+the weariness of the journey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charlotte was lying on a sofa in her bedroom, with Mrs. Woolper in
+attendance upon her, when Dr. Jedd arrived. It was a quarter to six, and
+the low western sunshine flooded the room.
+
+The physician came with Valentine, and did not ask to see Mr. Sheldon
+before going to his patient's room. He told the housemaid who admitted
+him to show the way to Miss Halliday's room.
+
+"The nurse is there, I suppose?" he said to the girl.
+
+"Yes, sir; leastways, Mrs. Woolper."
+
+"That will do."
+
+Mr. Sheldon heard the voice in the hall, and came out of the library as
+the doctor mounted the step of the stairs.
+
+"Who is this? What is this?" he asked of Valentine Hawkehurst.
+
+"I told you I was not satisfied with Dr. Doddleson's opinion," answered
+the young man coolly. "This gentleman is here by appointment with me."
+
+"And pray by what right do you bring a doctor of your own choosing to
+visit my stepdaughter without previous consultation with me?"
+
+"By the right of my love for her. I am not satisfied as to the medical
+treatment your stepdaughter has received in this house, Mr. Sheldon, and
+I want to be satisfied. Miss Halliday is something more than your
+stepdaughter, remember: she is my promised wife. Dr. Jedd's opinion will
+be more assuring to me than the opinion of Dr. Doddleson."
+
+At the sound of Dr. Jedd's name Mr. Sheldon started slightly. It was a
+name he knew only too well--a name he had seen among the medical
+witnesses in the great Fryar trial, the record of which had for him
+possessed a hideous fascination. He had fancied himself in the poisoner
+Fryar's place; and the fancy had sent an icy chill through his veins. But
+in the next minute he had said to himself, "I am not such a reckless fool
+as that man Fryar was; and have run no such risks as he ran."
+
+At the name of Jedd the same icy shiver ran through his veins again. His
+tone of suppressed anger changed to a tone of civility which was almost
+sycophantic.
+
+"I have the honour to know Dr. Jedd by repute very well indeed, and I
+withdraw my objection to your course of proceeding, my dear Hawkehurst;
+though I am sure Dr. Jedd will agree with me that such a course is
+completely against all professional etiquette, and that Dr. Doddleson
+will have the right to consider himself aggrieved."
+
+"There are cases in which one hardly considers professional etiquette. I
+shall be very happy to meet Dr. Doddleson to-morrow morning. But as Mr.
+Hawkehurst was very anxious that I should see Miss Halliday to-night, I
+consented to waive all ceremony, and come with him on the spot."
+
+"I cannot blame his anxiety to secure so valuable an opinion. I only
+wonder what lucky star guided him to so excellent an adviser."
+
+Mr. Sheldon looked from Dr. Jedd to Valentine Hawkehurst as he said this.
+The physician's face told him no more than he might have learnt from a
+blank sheet of paper. Valentine's face was dark and gloomy; but that
+gloomy darkness might mean no more than natural grief.
+
+"I will take you to my stepdaughter's room at once," he said to the
+physician.
+
+"I think it will be better for me to see the young lady alone," the
+doctor answered coolly: "that is to say, in the presence of her nurse
+only."
+
+"As you please," Mr. Sheldon replied.
+
+He went back to his study. Georgy was sitting there, whimpering in a
+feeble way at intervals; and near her sat Diana, silent and gloomy. A
+settled gloom, as of the grave itself, brooded over the house. Mr.
+Sheldon flung himself into a chair with an impatient gesture. He had
+sneered at the inconvenience involved in uncarpeted floors, but he was
+beginning to feel the aggravation of that inconvenience. These two women
+in his study were insupportable to him. It seemed as if there was no room
+in the house in which he could be alone; and just now he had bitter need
+of solitary meditation.
+
+"Let them arrange the dining-room somehow, carpet or no carpet," he said
+to his wife. "We must have some room to dine in; and I can't have you
+here, Georgy; I have letters to write."
+
+Mrs. Sheldon and Diana were not slow to take the hint.
+
+"I'm sure I don't want to be here, or anywhere," exclaimed Georgy in
+piteous accents; "I feel so miserable about Charlotte, that if I could
+lie down and die, it would be a comfort to me. And it really seems a
+mockery having dinner at such a time. It's just as it was during poor
+Tom's illness; there were fowls and all sorts of things cooked, and no
+one ever ate them."
+
+"For God's sake go away!" cried Mr. Sheldon passionately; "your perpetual
+clack is torture to me."
+
+Georgy hurried from the room, followed closely by Diana.
+
+"Did you ever see any one more anxious?" Mrs. Sheldon asked, with
+something like pride.
+
+"I would rather see Mr. Sheldon less anxious!" Diana answered gravely.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+DR. JEDD'S OPINION.
+
+Alone, Philip Sheldon breathed more freely. He paced the room, waiting
+for the appearance of the doctor; and with almost every turn he looked at
+the clock upon the chimneypiece.
+
+How intolerable seemed the slow progress of the moments! How long that
+man Jedd was staying in the sick-room! And yet not long; it was he,
+Philip Sheldon, who was losing count of time. Where was Valentine? He
+opened the door of the room, and looked out. Yes, there was a figure on
+the stairs. The lover was waiting the physician's verdict.
+
+A door on the landing above opened, and the step of the Doctor sounded on
+the upper flight. Mr. Sheldon waited for Dr. Jedd's appearance.
+
+"I shall be glad to hear your opinion," he said quietly; and the Doctor
+followed him into the study. Valentine followed the Doctor, to Mr.
+Sheldon's evident surprise.
+
+"Mr. Hawkehurst is very anxious to hear what I have to say," said Dr.
+Jedd; "and I really see no objection to his hearing it."
+
+"If you have no objection, I can have none," Mr. Sheldon answered. "I
+must confess, your course of proceeding appears to me altogether
+exceptional, and--"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Sheldon; but then, you see, the case is altogether an
+exceptional case," said the physician, gravely.
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Decidedly. The young lady is in extreme danger. Yes, Mr. Sheldon, in
+extreme danger. The mistake involved in her removal to-day is a mistake
+which I cannot denounce too strongly. If you had wanted to kill your
+stepdaughter, you could scarcely have pursued a more likely course for
+the attainment of your object. No doubt you were actuated by the most
+amiable motives. I can only regret that you should have acted without
+competent advice."
+
+"I believed myself to be acting for the best," replied Philip Sheldon, in
+a strange mechanical way.
+
+He was trying to estimate the true meaning of the Doctor's address. Was
+he merely expressing anger against an error of ignorance or stupidity, or
+was there a more fatal significance in his words?
+
+"You overwhelm me," the stockbroker said presently; "you positively
+overwhelm me by your view of my daughter's condition. Dr. Doddleson
+apprehended no danger. He saw our dear girl on Sunday morning--yesterday
+morning," added Mr. Sheldon, wonder-stricken to find that the interval
+was so brief between the time in which he had walked with Valentine and
+Dr. Doddleson in the garden at Harold's Hill and the present moment. To
+Valentine it seemed still more wonderful. What a bridgeless gulf between
+yesterday morning and to-night! All his knowledge of this man Sheldon,
+all the horror involved in Tom Halliday's death, had come upon him in
+that brief span.
+
+"I should like to see Dr. Doddleson's prescriptions," said Dr. Jedd, with
+grave politeness.
+
+Mr. Sheldon produced them from his pocket-book with an unshaken hand. No
+change of countenance, no tremulous hand, no broken voice, betrayed his
+apprehension. The one distinguishing mark of his manner was an absent,
+half-mechanical tone, as of a man whose mind is employed otherwise than
+in the conversation of the moment. Prompt at calculation always, he was
+at this crisis engaged in a kind of mental arithmetic. "The chances of
+defeat, so much; the chances of detection--?"
+
+A rapid survey of his position told him what those chances were.
+Detection by Dr. Jedd? Yes. That had come to him already perhaps. But
+would any actual harm to him come of such detection?
+
+He calculated the chances for and against this--and the result was in his
+favour. That Dr. Jedd should form certain opinions of Miss Halliday's
+case was one thing; that he should give public utterance to those
+opinions was another thing.
+
+"What can his opinion matter to me?" Mr. Sheldon asked himself; "opinion
+cannot touch me in a case where there is no such thing as certainty. He
+has seen the dilatation of the pupil--even that old fool Doddleson saw
+it--and has taken fright. But no jury in England would hang a man on such
+evidence as that; or if a jury could be found to put the rope round a
+man's neck, the British public and the British press would be pretty sure
+to get the rope taken off again."
+
+"Chloric aether, spirits of ammonia--hum, ha, hum--yes," muttered Dr.
+Jedd, looking at one prescription. "Quinine, yes; aqua pura," he
+murmured, looking at another.
+
+He threw them aside with a half-contemptuous gesture, and then took up a
+pen and began to write.
+
+"My mode of treatment will be quite different from that adopted by Dr.
+Doddleson," he said; "but I apprehend no difficulty in bringing that
+gentleman round to my view of the case when we meet."
+
+As he wrote his prescription Philip Sheldon rose and looked over his
+shoulder.
+
+The form of the prescription told him that Dr. Jedd knew--all! He had
+suspected this from the first, and the confirmation of this suspicion did
+not shake him. He grew firmer, indeed; for now he knew on what ground he
+was standing, and what forces were arrayed against him.
+
+"I really do not understand the basis of your treatment," he said, still
+looking over the physician's shoulder.
+
+Dr. Jedd turned his chair with a sudden movement, and faced him.
+
+"Am I talking to Mr. Sheldon the stockbroker, or Mr. Sheldon the
+surgeon-dentist?" he asked.
+
+_This_ was a blow. This allusion to the past was a sharper stroke than
+any that Philip Sheldon had before received. He looked at Valentine; from
+Valentine to the physician. What did it mean, this mention of the past?
+That blabbing fool George had talked to his friend of the days in
+Fitzgeorge Street, no doubt; and Valentine had blabbed Mr. Sheldon's
+antecedents to the physician.
+
+Was this what it all meant? Or did it mean more than this? Whatever it
+might mean, he faced the hidden danger, and met the uncertainties of his
+position as calmly as he met its certainties.
+
+"I have no desire to interfere with your treatment," he said, very
+quietly; "but I have some knowledge of the Pharmacopoeia, and I confess
+myself quite at a loss to understand your prescription."
+
+"Dr. Doddleson will understand it when he has heard my opinion. There is
+no time to be lost--Mr. Hawkehurst, will you take this to the chemist,
+and wait for the medicine? Miss Halliday cannot take it too soon. I shall
+be here to-morrow at nine o'clock.--If you wish me to see Dr. Doddleson,
+Mr. Sheldon, you will perhaps arrange an appointment with him for that
+hour."
+
+"It is rather an early hour."
+
+"No hour is too early in a case attended with so much danger. Perhaps it
+will be as well for me to call on Dr. Doddleson as I drive home. I shall
+make a point of seeing Miss Halliday twice a day. I find your housekeeper
+a very sensible person. She will remain in close attendance upon the
+sick-room; and I must beg that there is no quackery--no home-made
+remedies. I have given your housekeeper all directions as to treatment
+and diet, and she has my orders to allow no one but herself in the
+invalid's room. There is a marked tendency to delirium, and quiet is
+indispensable."
+
+"I have said as much myself," answered Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"Mr. Hawkehurst will undertake to see to the making-up of my
+prescriptions," continued Dr. Jedd, as he drew on his gloves. "He is very
+anxious about the young lady, and it will afford him some relief of mind
+to be employed in her service. No, thanks," he said, putting aside Mr.
+Sheldon's hand as that gentleman offered him his fee. "I have already
+received my honorarium from Mr. Hawkehurst."
+
+There was no more to be said. The physician wished the two men good
+evening, and returned to his carriage, to be driven home to dinner by way
+of Plantagenet Square, where he saw Dr. Doddleson, and appointed to meet
+him next day, much to the delight of that individual, who was proud to be
+engaged in a case with the great Jedd.
+
+Valentine left the house on the heels of the Doctor. He came back in
+about twenty minutes with the medicine. He did not go to the principal
+gate, but to a little side gate, near the offices of the gothic villa--a
+gate to which butchers and bakers came with their wares in the morning.
+
+"I want to see Miss Paget," he said to the maid who answered his summons;
+"and I want to see her without disturbing Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon. Do you
+know where to find her?"
+
+"Yes, sir; she's in her own room. I took her a cup of tea there ten
+minutes ago. She's got a headache with fretting about our poor young
+lady, and she won't go down to dinner with master and missus."
+
+"Will you ask her to step out here and speak to me for a few minutes?"
+
+"Won't you come indoors and see her, sir?"
+
+"No; I'd rather see her in the garden."
+
+It was still daylight here, but it was growing shadowy among the avenues
+in Kensington Gardens. The gate near which Valentine waited was not to be
+seen from the windows of dining or drawing-room.
+
+The housemaid ran off to summon Miss Paget; and in less than five minutes
+Diana appeared, dressed in her hat and garden jacket.
+
+"Will you come out into the road with me, dear?" asked Valentine. "I have
+something serious to say to you."
+
+"And I am so anxious to hear what the Doctor has said," answered Diana,
+as she took Valentine's arm.
+
+The road before the Lawn was very quiet at this hour of the evening, and
+here they were safely beyond Mr. Sheldon's ken.
+
+"Tell me the Doctor's opinion, Valentine," Diana said, eagerly. "Does he
+think the case very serious?"
+
+"He does. It is more serious than you or I could have imagined, if
+Providence had not helped me to discover the truth."
+
+"What do you mean, Valentine?"
+
+He gave her in brief the story of his day's work. She listened to him
+breathlessly, but uttered no exclamation until his story was finished.
+
+"It is most horrible," she said at last; "but I believe it is most true.
+There has been so much in that man's conduct that has mystified me; and
+_this_ explains all. But what earthly motive can have prompted this
+hideous crime?"
+
+"He believes that he has a beneficial interest in her death. I cannot
+fully understand his motive; but, rely upon it, there is a motive, and a
+sufficient one. And I have let that man delude me into belief in his
+honesty after I had been warned against him! But there is no time for
+regrets. Diana, I look to you to help me in saving my dear love."
+
+"It is not too late to save her?"
+
+"Dr. Jedd will commit himself to no positive statement. He tells me she
+is in danger, but he does not refuse all hope. Now listen, my dear. In
+that house I have only two people to help me--Ann Woolper and yourself.
+Ann Woolper I hold only by a feeble bond. I think she will be true to us;
+but I am not sure of her. Sheldon's influence over her is a powerful one;
+and God knows what concession he might extort from her. She is the
+ostensible guardian of Charlotte's room; you must contrive to be the real
+guardian. You must keep custody over the custodian. How is your room
+situated in relation to Charlotte's room?"
+
+"The doors of the two rooms are exactly opposite."
+
+"Providence favours us there. Can you keep watch over Charlotte's door
+from your room without making your guardianship too apparent?"
+
+"I can."
+
+"Day and night?"
+
+"Day and night."
+
+"God bless you, dear! Her life may be saved by your fidelity."
+
+"I would do as much to render her a smaller service."
+
+"My dear girl! And now go back to the house. Here is the medicine. You
+will give that into Mrs. Woolper's hands; she has received her
+instructions from Dr. Jedd, and those instructions leave no room for
+doubt. If she permits Sheldon to tamper with the medicine or the food of
+her patient, she will be the wilful accomplice of a murderer. I think she
+may be trusted."
+
+"I will watch her."
+
+"The charge of procuring the medicine is mine. I shall come to this house
+many times in the course of every day; but I am bound to prepare myself
+for the hour in which Mr. Sheldon may forbid me his house. In that event
+I shall come to this gate. I suppose the servants would stand by me if
+you pleaded for me?"
+
+"I am sure they would."
+
+"And now, dear, go; the medicine is wanted. I shall come back in a few
+hours to inquire if there is any change for the better. Go."
+
+They had returned to the gate ere this. He grasped the hand which she
+held out to him, and stood by the little gate watching her till she had
+disappeared through the door of the servants' quarters. When the door
+closed, he walked slowly away. He had done all that it was possible for
+him to do, and now came his worst misery. There was nothing left for him
+but to wait the issue of events.
+
+What was he to do? Go home to his lodgings--eat, drink, sleep? Was it
+possible for him to eat or to sleep while that precious life trembled in
+the balance? He walked slowly along the endless roads and terraces in a
+purposeless way. Careless people pushed against him, or he pushed against
+them; children brushed past him as they ran. What a noisy, busy,
+clattering world it seemed! And she lay dying! O, the droning, dreary
+organs, and the hackneyed, common tunes, how excruciating they were to
+him to-night!
+
+He emerged into the high road by-and-by, in all the bustle and riot of
+Notting Hill. The crowded shops, the clamorous people, seemed strange to
+him. It was like the clamour of a foreign city. He walked on past the
+bustle and riot, by the quieter terraces near Holland Park, and still
+held on to Shepherd's Bush, where he went into a little public-house and
+called for some brandy.
+
+There was a bench on one side of the space in front of the bar, and
+towards this he pushed his way.
+
+"Where are you shoving to, my young swell?" growled a sturdy cabman,
+indignant at the outrage inflicted by Valentine's elbows; but in the next
+moment the sturdy cabman dashed suddenly forward and caught the young
+swell in his strong arms.
+
+"My eye, young un!" he cried; "where do you want to go to? Here, some one
+bring a mug of cold water: I'm blest if he ain't in a fit!"
+
+Happily it was no fit, only a dead faint into which Mr. Hawkehurst had
+fallen. He came back to consciousness presently, after a few spoonfuls of
+brandy had been forced into his mouth, and looked about him with a
+helpless stare.
+
+"I'm jiggered if I don't believe he's fainted for the want of wittles!"
+cried the cabman. "They keeps up till they drop, sometimes, these seedy
+swells--walks about, lookin' like so many Dossays, on a hempty stomach.
+Here, some one bring a plate o' cold meat, and look sharp about it. I'll
+stand sam."
+
+Valentine looked up with a faint smile.
+
+"And I'll stand sam for anything you like to order, my friend," he said,
+holding out his hand to the good-natured cabman. "I've eaten nothing
+since last night; but I haven't fasted for want of money. There are worse
+troubles than an empty pocket,--and I'm not unacquainted with _that_."
+
+"I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir," said the man, sheepishly, very much
+ashamed of his benevolence; "but, you see, it ain't the fust time I've
+seen a swell come to the pavement with a cropper, in consequence of
+having gone it too fast, and cleaned hisself out, in a manner of
+speaking."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+NON DORMIT JUDAS.
+
+The summer darkness closed round the Bayswater villa, but of sleep there
+was little for any one in that household during this sad night. Is there
+not, in almost every household, a memory of such days and nights--dread
+intervals in which the common course of life and time seems to be
+suspended, and all the interests of the universe hang upon the fitful
+breath of one dear sufferer?
+
+Lonely were the watchers in Mr. Sheldon's house. Georgy was in her own
+room, forbidden to disturb the invalid by her restless presence--now
+lying down, now pacing to and fro, now praying a little, now crying a
+little--the very ideal of helpless misery.
+
+In the sick-room there was no one but the invalid and Ann Woolper. In
+the room opposite watched Diana Paget, her door ajar, her senses
+sharpened by anxiety, quick to hear the faintest sound of footfall on
+the stairs, or to feel the slightest vibration from stealthily opened
+door on the story below.
+
+Alone in the study sat Philip Sheldon, at the table where he was
+accustomed to write--a blank sheet of paper before him, a pen held
+loosely in his outstretched hand, and his eyes fixed in an unseeing gaze
+upon the bookcase opposite--the living image of care. Now that the
+turmoil of the day was done, and there was silence in the house, he had
+set himself to face his position. It was no trifling task which he had to
+perform. Not one difficulty, or one set of difficulties, had he to meet
+and master. The armed enemies up-springing from the dragon's teeth which
+he had sown were not to be set fighting amongst themselves, nor were they
+to be smashed by any rocks that he could hurl amongst them. They stood
+around him in an awful circle, and turn which way he would, he saw the
+same appalling figure, armed to the teeth, and invincible as death.
+
+What had he to fear?
+
+Detection of a past crime? No, that was a fool's terror which shook him
+at the sound of Tom Halliday's name--a child's fear of the nursery bogie.
+Detection in the present was more to be dreaded. The work that he had
+done was, according to his belief, work that could not be proved against
+him. But there are crimes of which to be accused is to be condemned.
+Lawyers may plead, and juries may acquit; but the fiat of public opinion
+goes forth against the suspected wretch, and on _his_ forehead for ever
+shows the dark brand of Cain.
+
+For the criminal of almost every shade of colour, save this one dread
+hue, society has a sanctuary and earth a refuge. The forger may find a
+circle in which the signing of another man's name, under the pressure of
+circumstances, is held to be a misfortune rather than an offence. The
+swindler has the gentlemanly brotherhood and sisterhood of Macaire for
+his family, and need never be lonely. The thief may dance away his jovial
+nights among kindred spirits, and be carried to his grave by sorrowing
+fellow-artists. The coiner may be jolly in his hiding-place among his
+chosen band of brother coiners. But for the murderer there is no such
+thing as human sympathy; and, when the blood of Nancy dyes his cruel
+hand, Bill Sykes may thank God if he has a dog that will follow him to
+his wretched end, for from mankind he can hope nothing.
+
+Mr. Sheldon did not contemplate his position from any sentimental point
+of view; but he told himself that to be suspected of having poisoned his
+friend, and to be accused of poisoning, or attempting to poison, his
+daughter, would be ruin--ruin social and commercial, ruin complete and
+irretrievable.
+
+And having faced one of these dread armed antagonists, he passed on to
+another shadowy enemy.
+
+What if Charlotte recovered, and he escaped the taint of uttered
+suspicion--for Dr. Jedd's private opinion he cared very little--what
+then?
+
+Then the grim antagonist lifted his visor, and showed him the countenance
+of Commercial Disgrace.
+
+Unless within the next few weeks he could command from eight to ten
+thousand pounds, his disgrace as a member of the Stock Exchange was
+inevitable. Charlotte's death would give him the means of raising as much
+upon the policies of assurance obtained by her, and which, by the terms
+of her will, he would inherit. The life-insurance people might be
+somewhat slow to settle his claims; but he had all possible facilities
+for the raising of money upon any tangible security, and he could count
+upon immediate cash, in the event of Charlotte's death.
+
+But what if she should not die? What if this nameless languor, this
+mysterious atrophy, taken vigorously in hand by Dr. Jedd, should be
+vanquished, and the girl should live?
+
+What indeed? A sharp spasm contracted the stockbroker's hard cold face as
+he pictured to himself the result of failure.
+
+He saw the crowd of busy faces in the House, and heard the low hum of
+many voices, and the dull sound of the big half-glass doors swinging to
+and fro, and the constant tread of hurrying feet. He heard the buzz of
+voices and the tramp of feet stop as suddenly as if that busy tide of
+human life had been arrested by an enchanter's wand. The enchanter is no
+other than the head-waiter of the Stock Exchange, who takes his position
+by a stand in the midst of that great meeting-place, and removes his hat.
+
+After that sudden silence comes a faint sound of anxious whisperings; and
+then again a second silence, still more profound, prevails in that
+assembly. Three times, with wooden hammer sounding dull against the
+woodwork of his stand, the waiter raps his awful rap. To some it is the
+call of doom. The commercial Nemesis hides her awful countenance. Slow
+and solemn sound those three deliberate strokes of the wooden hammer. You
+can hear the stertorous breathing of an apoplectic stockbroker, the short
+panting respiration of some eager speculator--the rest is silence. And
+then the voice of the waiter--proxy for the commercial Nemesis--calmly
+enunciates the dread decree.
+
+"Philip Sheldon begs to inform the members of the House that he cannot
+comply with his bargains."
+
+A sudden flutter of the leaves of many note-books follows that awful
+announcement. Voices rise loud in united utterance of surprise or
+indignation. The doors swing to and fro, as hurrying members dash in and
+out to scan the market and ascertain how far they may be affected by this
+unlooked-for failure.
+
+This was the scene which the watcher pictured to himself; and for him
+Fate could wear no aspect more terrible. Respectability, solvency,
+success--these were the idols to which he had given worship and tribute
+in all the days of his life. To propitiate these inexorable ones he had
+sacrificed all the dearest and best blessings which earth and heaven
+offer to mankind. Rest or happiness, as other men consider these
+blessings, he had never known; the sense of triumph in success of the
+present, the feverish expectation of success in the future--these had
+stood to him in the place of love and hope, pleasure and idlesse, all the
+joys and comforts of this lower world, and all the holy dreams of purer
+pleasures in a world to come.
+
+One vague brief thought of all that he had sacrificed flashed across
+his brain; and swift upon his track followed the thought of what he
+stood to lose.
+
+Something more than his position upon the Stock Exchange was at stake. He
+had done desperate things in the vain hope of sustaining that position
+against the destroying sweep of Fortune's turning tide. Bills were afloat
+which he must meet, or stand before the world a detected forger,--bills
+drawn upon companies that were shadowy as the regions of their supposed
+operations. Bills amounting to five thousand pounds, drawn, upon the
+Honduras Mahogany Company, Limited; other bills amounting to upwards of
+three thousand pounds, against the Pennsylvanian Anthracite Coal
+Corporation, Limited. The sum he might raise on the policies of insurance
+would about cover these bills; and, simultaneously with their withdrawal,
+fresh bills might be floated, and the horse-leech cry of the brokers for
+contango might be satisfied until there came a reaction in the City, and
+the turning tide should float him into some harbour of safety. Beyond
+this harbour shone a splendid beacon, the dead girl's inheritance--his,
+to claim by right of the same will that would give him the sum insured
+upon her life.
+
+Without this immediate ready money there was no extraction from the
+hideous labyrinth. His position had been already too long sustained by
+bills of exchange. There were people in the City who wanted, in vulgar
+parlance, to see the colour of his money. He knew this--and knew how
+frail the tenure by which he held his position, and how dire the crash
+which would hurl him down to ruin.
+
+After the proclamation of his inability to meet his differences--the
+Deluge: and, looking gloomily athwart the flood and tempest, he saw
+neither ark nor Ararat.
+
+Charlotte's death was the one chance of redemption; and to that event he
+looked as to a figure in a mathematical proposition. Of this girl
+herself, with all her wealth of beauty and goodness, of hope and love, he
+had scarcely any definite idea. She had so long been no more to him than
+an important figure in the mathematics of his life, that he had lost the
+power to behold her in any other light.
+
+The hardness of his nature was something lower than absolute cruelty of
+heart. It was less human than the half-insane ferocity of a Nero. It was
+a calm indifference to the waste of human life, which, displayed upon a
+larger field of operation, would have made a monster cold and passionless
+as Sphinx or Chimaera.
+
+"I must see Ann Woolper," he said to himself, presently, "she will not
+dare to exclude me from that room."
+
+He listened to the striking of the Bayswater clocks. Two o'clock. Within
+and without the house reigned a profound silence. The room immediately
+over Mr. Sheldon's study was Charlotte's room, and here there had been
+for a long time no sound of life or movement.
+
+"Asleep, I dare say," muttered Mr. Sheldon, "invalid and nurse both."
+
+He exchanged his boots for slippers, which he kept in a little cupboard
+below the bookshelves, among old newspapers, and went softly from the
+room. The gas was burning dimly on the stairs and on the landing above.
+He opened the door of the invalid's room softly, and went in.
+
+Mrs. Woolper was seated beside the bed. She looked up at him with
+unwinking eyes.
+
+"I thought you was abed, sir," she said.
+
+"No; I am too anxious to sleep."
+
+"I think every one is anxious, sir," Mrs. Woolper answered, gravely.
+
+"How is your patient?"
+
+The pretty white curtains of the little brass Arabian bedstead were
+drawn.
+
+"She is asleep, sir. She sleeps a great deal. The doctor said that was
+only natural."
+
+"She has taken her medicine, I suppose?" said Mr. Sheldon.
+
+He glanced round the room as he asked this question, but could see no
+trace of medicine-bottle or glass.
+
+"Yes, sir; she has taken it twice, the poor dear."
+
+"Let me look at the medicine."
+
+"The strange doctor said as I was to let no one touch it, sir."
+
+"Very likely; but that direction doesn't apply to me."
+
+"He said no one, sir."
+
+"You are an old fool!" muttered Mr. Sheldon, savagely.
+
+"Ah no, sir," the housekeeper answered, with a profound sigh; "I am wiser
+than I was when poor Mr. Halliday died."
+
+This answer, and the sigh, and the look of solemn sadness which
+accompanied it, told him that this woman knew all. She had suspected him
+long ago; but against her unsupported suspicion the mere force of his
+character had prevailed. She was wiser now; for on this occasion
+suspicion was confirmed by the voice of science.
+
+He stood for a few minutes looking at his old nurse, with a dark moody
+face. What could he feel except supreme indignation against this woman,
+who dared to oppose him when he had the best right to rely on her
+faithful service? She had promised him her fidelity, and at the first
+hint from a stranger she coolly deserted him and went over to the enemy.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you refuse to let me look at the medicine which
+you have been giving to my stepdaughter?" he asked.
+
+"I mean to say that I will obey the orders given me by the strange
+doctor," the old woman answered, with a calm sadness of tone, "even if it
+turns you against me--you that have given me a comfortable home when
+there was nothing before me but the workhouse; you that I carried in my
+arms forty years ago. If it was anything less than her dear life that was
+in danger, sir, and if I hadn't stood by her father's deathbed, I
+couldn't stand against you like this. But knowing what I do, I will stand
+firm as a rock between you and her; and think myself all the more truly
+your faithful servant because I do not fear to offend you."
+
+"That's so much arrant humbug, Mrs. Woolper. I suppose you've made your
+book with Miss Halliday and Miss Halliday's lover, and think you can
+serve your turn best by sticking to them and throwing me over the bridge.
+It's only the way of the world. You're genuine Yorkshire, and know how to
+pack your cards for winning the trick. But suppose I were to spoil your
+game by turning you out of doors neck and crop? What then?"
+
+"I don't think you'll do that, sir."
+
+"Why not, pray?"
+
+"I don't think you dare do it, in the face of that strange doctor."
+
+"You don't? And so Dr. Jedd is the master of this house, is he?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Till that poor dear young lady is well again, if ever that day
+comes, I think Dr. Jedd will be the real master in this house."
+
+"By ----! Mrs. Woolper, you're a cool hand, I must say!"
+
+He could say no more. Of passionate or declamatory language he had no
+command. The symbols of thought that obtained in his world were of a
+limited and primitive range.
+
+"You're a cool hand," he repeated, under his breath. And then he turned
+and left the room, opening and closing the door less cautiously than on
+his entrance.
+
+The door of the opposite room was opened softly as he came out into
+the corridor, and Diana Paget stood before him, dressed as she had
+been in the day.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed, impatiently, "are you up too?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Sheldon. I cannot sleep while Lotta is so ill."
+
+"Humph! I suppose you mean to get yourself on the sick-list, and give us
+another invalid to nurse."
+
+"I will not trouble you to nurse me if I should be ill."
+
+"Ah!" growled the stockbroker, as he went to his own room, "you are a
+pack of silly women altogether; and your fine friend Hawkehurst is more
+womanish than the silliest of you. Goodnight."
+
+He went into his own room, where he found his wife still awake. Her weak
+lamentings and bewailings were insupportable to him; and at three o'clock
+he went downstairs, put on his boots and a light overcoat, and went out
+into the dim regions of Bayswater, whence he saw the sun rise red above
+the eastern roofs and chimneys, and where he walked until the first
+clatter of hoofs and roll of wheels began to echo through the empty
+streets, and, with faint distant cries of sweeps and milk-women, life's
+chorus recommenced.
+
+It was seven o'clock when he went back to his house, and let himself in
+softly with his latchkey. He knew that he had been walking a long time,
+and that he had seen the sun rise; but what streets or squares he had
+been walking in he did not know. He crept upstairs to his dressing-room
+with stealthy footsteps, and made an elaborate toilet. At eight o'clock
+he was seated at breakfast in the hastily-arranged dining-room, with the
+newspapers by the side of his cup and saucer. At nine he went into the
+hall to receive Dr. Jedd and Dr. Doddleson, who arrived almost
+simultaneously. His carefully-arranged hair and whiskers, his well made
+unpretentious clothes, his spotless linen, would have done credit to an
+archbishop. Of all the cares and calculations of his long dreary night
+there was no trace, except a certain dulness in his eyes, and the dark
+half-circles below them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+COUNTING THE COST.
+
+For four days and four nights there were fear and watching in Mr.
+Sheldon's house; and in all that time the master never quitted it, except
+stealthily, in the dead of the night, or at early daybreak, to roam in a
+purposeless manner he knew not where. The doctors came and went--Dr.
+Doddleson once a day, Dr. Jedd two or three times a day--and every one in
+villas adjoining and villas opposite, and even in villas round the
+corner, knew that the stockbroker's stepdaughter lay sick unto death; for
+the white horses of Dr. Jedd's landau were as the pale horse of the Pale
+Rider himself, and where they came was danger or death. Ah, thank God! to
+some they have brought hope and blessing; not always the dread answer,
+"You have called me in vain."
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst came many times in the day, but between him and Mr.
+Sheldon there could be no safe meeting; and the lover came quietly to the
+little gate, where a kindly housemaid gave him a little note from Diana
+Paget. Miss Paget wrote half a dozen little notes of this kind in the
+course of every day, but she never left her post in the room opposite the
+sick-chamber. She complained of headache, or of some vague illness which
+prevented her taking her meals in the dining-room, and Mr. Sheldon was
+fain to be satisfied with this explanation of her conduct.
+
+She was on guard; and the wretched master of the house knew that she was
+on guard, and that if Ann Woolper could be bought over, or frightened
+into compliance with his wishes, this girl would still remain, faithful
+as watchdog, by the door of her friend and companion. He asked himself
+whether by violent or diplomatic process, he could rid himself of this
+second watcher; and the answer was in the negative. The circle around him
+was a circle not to be broken.
+
+His wife, as yet, had been told nothing of the suspicions that reigned in
+the breasts of other people. He knew this; for in his wife's face there
+was no token of that dark knowledge, and she, of all people, would be
+least skilled to deceive his scrutinizing eyes. Nor had the younger
+servants of his household any share in the hideous suspicion. He had
+watched the countenance of the maid who waited on him, and had convinced
+himself of this.
+
+It was something to know that even these were not yet leagued against
+him; but he could not tell at what moment they too might be sworn into
+that secret society which was growing up against him in his own house.
+Power to carry out his own schemes in the face of these people he felt
+that he had none. Upon the dark road which he had travelled until of late
+without let or hindrance, there had arisen, all at once, an
+insurmountable barrier, with the fatal inscription, Here there is no
+Thoroughfare.
+
+Beyond this barrier he could not pass. Sudden as the dread arrest of
+Lot's wife was the mandate which had checked his progress. He was brought
+to a dead stop; and there was nothing for him to do but to wait the issue
+of Fate. He stood, defiant, unabashed, face to face with the figure of
+Nemesis, and calmly awaited the lifting of the veil.
+
+He hoped that Charlotte Halliday would die. If by her death he could tide
+over his difficulties and drift into smooth water, it would be but a very
+small thing to him that Dr. Jedd, and Dr. Doddleson enlightened by his
+colleague, and Valentine Hawkehurst, and Diana Paget, and a stupid
+pig-headed old Yorkshirewoman, should carry in their minds for the
+remainder of their lives the suspicion that by his means that fair young
+life had been brought to its early close.
+
+What would it amount to in the future of his own existence? Prudential
+considerations would induce these people to lock the secret of this
+suspicion in their own breasts. Dr. Jedd would bow to him somewhat
+coldly, perhaps, if they met in the streets of London, or possibly might
+refuse to make any return to his passing salutation; but the cut direct
+from Dr. Jedd would not cast a shadow over his commercial career, or even
+weaken his social position. If, by the loud folly of Hawkehurst, some
+evil rumour about him should float as far eastward as the Stock Exchange,
+who would be found to give credence to the dark report? Men would shrug
+their shoulders and shake their heads incredulously; and one of these
+wise men of the east would remark that, "A fellow in Sheldon's position
+doesn't do that kind of thing, you know;" while another would say, "I
+dined with him at Greenwich last summer, and a remarkably good dinner he
+gave us. Dawkins, the great shipbuilder, and M'Pherson, of M'Pherson and
+Flinders, the Glasgow merchants, were there. Very jolly affair, I assure
+you. Deuced gentlemanly fellow, Phil Sheldon." And so the matter would
+end.
+
+Would there be an inquest in the event of his stepdaughter's death? Well,
+no. Jedd knew that in such a case all _post-mortem_ inquiry must end in
+confusion and perplexity, statement and counter-statement from medical
+witnesses, who would contradict one another persistently in the support
+of their pet theories, and who would regard the investigation as a very
+convenient opportunity for ventilating their own opinions and airing
+their own importance. A considerable number of the canine race would be
+slaughtered, perhaps, in the process of dilettante experiments; the broad
+principles of chemical science would be discussed from every point of
+view, in innumerable letters published in the _Zeus,_ and the _Diurnal
+Hermes_; and the fact that an amiable and innocent young woman had been
+foully murdered would be swept out of the minds of mankind before a
+whirlwind of technical debate. Jedd was the last man to stake his
+reputation upon such a hazard. No: Mr. Sheldon knew that he had played a
+cautious game; and if he should ultimately lose the stake for which he
+had ventured, it would be because he had been just a little too cautious.
+
+"These things are generally done too quickly," he said to himself. "My
+mistake has been to make matters too slow."
+
+Come what might, of after-consequences to himself from Charlotte
+Halliday's illness or death he had no apprehension.
+
+Thus it was that he met Dr. Jedd day after day with a face as calm as the
+stony countenance of that distinguished physician himself. Such anxiety
+as an affectionate stepfather should feel during the peril of his
+stepdaughter Mr. Sheldon took care to express. Greater anxiety than this
+by no look or gesture did he betray. He knew that he was watched; and
+that the people about him were inimical to himself and to his interests;
+and he was never off his guard.
+
+It had been necessary for him to come to London in order to be within
+easy reach of that troubled sea, the money-market. But perilous though
+the voyage of his bark across that tempestuous ocean was, he could not
+guide the helm in person. He was obliged to confide matters to the care
+of Mr. Frederick Orcott, whom he harassed with telegraphic despatches at
+all hours of the day, and who at this period seemed to spend his life
+between the stockbroker's office and Bayswater.
+
+It seemed as if Mr. Sheldon meant to hold his ground in that house until
+the issue of events was determined. Valentine Hawkehurst and George
+Sheldon met at the solicitor's offices, and there was a long and serious
+consultation between them.
+
+"One thing seems pretty clear," said George, conclusively, "and that is,
+that my brother Phil isn't to be got off the premises except by some very
+deep move. The question is, what move can be deep enough to trap such a
+man as he? He's a man who knows the inside of your mind better than you
+do yourself; and can reckon you up as easily as the simplest sum in
+arithmetic."
+
+The two men talked together very seriously for some time after this, and
+on the same day Valentine lay in wait for Dr. Jedd as he left Philip
+Sheldon's house, and was driven back to town in that gentleman's
+carriage. On the road there was much serious talk between Miss Halliday's
+physician and Miss Halliday's lover. Valentine was still very grave and
+very anxious when he took his leave of Dr. Jedd; but he was more hopeful
+than he had been for the last few days.
+
+On the same evening Gustave Lenoble received a brief epistle from his
+plighted wife.
+
+"MY DEAR GUSTAVE,--I regret to find from your letter that the doctors
+consider my father weaker than when I was last at Knightsbridge; but,
+even knowing this, I cannot come to him just yet. The duty which detains
+me here is even more sacred than his claim upon my care. And I know your
+goodness to him, and feel that in you he has a better friend and
+comforter than I could be to him. I thank you, dear, for your kindness to
+this poor broken-down wanderer even more than for your generous devotion
+to me. And now I am going to ask you a favour. It is, that you will
+afford Mr. Hawkehurst, the person who will give you this letter, the help
+of your friendship and counsel in very difficult and critical
+circumstances, which he will explain to you. I have spoken to you of him
+very little, though his devotion to my dear adopted sister, Charlotte
+Halliday, brings him very near to me. Her long, and of late dangerous,
+illness has been a bitter time of trial to him, even more than to me; but
+the trial has proved him true as steel. I think your counsel may be of
+some service to him just now, and I am sure your friendship will help to
+support him in a period of acute anxiety.
+
+"Do not ask to see me, dear Gustave. I _cannot_ leave this house while
+Charlotte is in danger; but if it please God to remove that danger, I
+shall then be free to go where I please, and my future life shall be at
+your disposal. Do not think me cold or ungrateful; I am only faithful to
+the first friend I ever knew.--Yours always, with all affection,
+
+"DIANA PAGET."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
+
+Three days elapsed after the delivery of this letter. Upwards of a week
+had gone by since the return of Mr. Sheldon and his family from Harold's
+Hill: and as yet Philip Sheldon knew not what the issue of events was to
+be. Very vague were the oracular sentences which his questioning extorted
+from Dr. Jedd, and he had tried in vain to obtain a _tete-a-tete_
+interview with Dr. Doddleson. The physician of Burlington Row took care
+that his feeble colleague should not fall alone and defenceless into the
+pathway of Philip Sheldon. Of Charlotte's actual condition her
+stepfather, therefore, knew very little. He was told that her state was
+attended by danger; and the solemn faces which greeted him on every side
+implied that the danger was extreme. From her room he was in a manner
+excluded. If he went to her door to make some benevolent and paternal
+inquiry, he was met on the threshold by Ann Woolper, the sleepless and
+unresting. If he hinted a natural desire to see his invalid stepdaughter,
+he was told that she had that moment fallen asleep, or that she was too
+ill to see him. There was always some plausible reason why he should not
+be admitted to her room; and finding that this was so, he did not press
+the question.
+
+He had taken Mrs. Woolper's measure, and had found that she was too
+strong for him; doubly strong since she was supported and sustained by
+that second sleepless watcher, Diana Paget, whom Mr. Sheldon had long ago
+pronounced to be a strong-minded and superior young person.
+
+From his wife he could obtain no real information--nothing but weepings
+and lamentations; weak apprehensions of future woe, weaker retrospective
+reflections on the fatal illness and untimely end of her first husband.
+Georgy was admitted once or twice a day to the sick-room; but she emerged
+therefrom no wiser than she entered it. Sorrow in the present, and the
+fear of greater sorrow to come, had utterly prostrated this poor weak
+soul. She believed what other people told her to believe, she hoped what
+they told her to hope. She was the very incarnation and express image of
+helpless misery.
+
+So, in utter darkness of mind, Mr. Sheldon awaited his destiny. The day
+drew very near on which he must find certain sums of ready money, or must
+accept the dreary alternative of ruin and disgrace. He had the policies
+of assurance in his cash-box, together with the will which made him
+Charlotte's sole legatee; he had fixed in his own mind upon the man to
+whom he could apply for an advance of four thousand pounds on one of the
+two policies, and he relied on getting his banker to lend him money on
+the security of the second. But for the one needful event he had yet to
+wait. That event was Charlotte Halliday's death.
+
+Of his dreary wanderings in the early morning the household knew nothing.
+The time which he chose for these purposeless rambles was just the time
+when no one was astir. The watchers in the two rooms above heard neither
+his going out nor his coming in, so stealthy were his movements on every
+occasion. But without this intermission from the dreadful concentration
+of his life, without this amount of physical exercise and fresh air,
+Philip Sheldon could scarcely have lived through this period. The
+solitude of shipwrecked mariner cast upon a desolate island could hardly
+be more lonely than this man's life had been since his return from
+Harold's Hill. From his study to the dining-room, and from the
+dining-room back to his study, was the only variety of his dreary days
+and nights. He had an iron bedstead put up in his study, and there he lay
+in the earlier hours of the night, taking such rest as he could from
+fitful dozing that was scarcely sleep, or from brief intervals of heavy
+slumber made horrible by torturing dreams.
+
+In this room he could hear every sudden movement in the hall, every
+footstep on the stairs, every opening and shutting of the outer door.
+Here, too, he could keep his watch, holding himself ready to counter the
+movements of his enemies, should any opportunity arise for action on his
+part, defensive or aggressive.
+
+To this room he stealthily returned one brilliant summer morning as the
+clocks were striking six. He had been walking in the Bayswater Road,
+amidst all the pleasant stir and bustle of early morning. Waggons coming
+in from the country, milkwomen setting forth on their daily rounds,
+clamorous young rooks cawing among the topmost branches of the elms,
+song-birds chirruping and gurgling their glad morning hymn; and over all
+things the glory and the freshness of the summer sunshine.
+
+But to Philip Sheldon it was as if these things were not. For the last
+twelve or fifteen years of his life he had taken no heed of the change
+of the seasons, except insomuch as the passage of time affected his
+bill-book, or the condition of that commercial world which was the
+beginning and end of his life. Now, less than ever, had he an ear for
+the carolling of birds, or an eye for the glory of summer sunlight, or
+the flickering shadows of summer leaves faintly stirred by the soft
+summer wind.
+
+He re-entered his house with a half-dazed sense of the stir and life that
+had been about him in the high road. It was a relief to him to escape
+this life and brightness, and to take shelter in the gloom of his study,
+where the shutters were closed, and only a faint glimmer of day crept
+through a chink in the shrunken woodwork.
+
+For the first time since the beginning of this dreary period of idleness
+and suspense he felt himself thoroughly beaten, and instead of going up
+to his dressing-room for his careful morning toilet, as it was his habit
+to do at this hour, he flung himself, dressed as he was, upon the low
+iron bedstead, and fell into a heavy slumber.
+
+Yes, there they were--the familiar tortures of his slumbers, the
+shadows of busy, eager faces; and upon all one universal expression of
+mingled anger and surprise. The sound of a wooden hammer striking three
+solemn strokes; the faint tones of Tom Halliday's voice, thanking him for
+his friendly care; the dying look in Tom Halliday's face, turned to him
+with such depth of trust and affection. And then across the shadowy
+realm of dreams there swept the slow solemn progress of a funeral
+_cortege_--plumed hearses, blacker than blackest night; innumerable
+horses, with funereal trappings and plumed headgear waving in an icy
+wind; long trains of shrouded figures stretching on into infinite space,
+in spectral procession that knew neither beginning nor end. And in all
+the solemn crowd passing perpetually with the same unceasing motion,
+there was no sound of human footfall, no tramp of horse's hoof, only that
+dismal waving of black plumage in an icy wind, and the deep boom of a
+bell tolling for the dead.
+
+He awoke with a start, and exclaimed, "If this is what it is to sleep, I
+will never sleep again!"
+
+In the next minute he recovered himself. He had been lying on his back.
+The endless pageant, the dreadful tolling of the funeral bell, meant no
+more than nightmare, the common torment of all humanity.
+
+"What a fool I must be!" he muttered to himself, as he wiped his
+forehead, which had grown cold and damp in the agony of his dream.
+
+He opened the shutters, and then looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.
+To his surprise he found that he had been sleeping three hours. It was
+nine o'clock. He went upstairs to dress. There was an unusual stir in the
+corridor above. Ann Woolper was standing there, with her hand on the door
+of the sick-room, talking to Diana, who covered her face suddenly as he
+approached, and disappeared into her own room.
+
+The beating of his heart quickened suddenly. Something had happened to
+disturb the common course of events. Something? What was likely to
+happen, except the one dread circumstance for which he hoped and waited
+with such horrible eagerness?
+
+In Ann Woolper's solemn face he read an answer to his thought. For the
+first time he was well nigh losing his self-possession. It was with an
+effort that he steadied himself sufficiently to ask the usual
+conventional question in the usual conventional tone.
+
+"Is she any better this morning, Ann?"
+
+"Yes, sir, she is much better," the Yorkshirewoman answered solemnly.
+"She is where none can harm her now."
+
+Yes; it was the usual periphrase of these vulgar people. He knew all
+their cant by heart.
+
+"You mean to say--she--is dead?"
+
+He no longer tried to conceal his agitation. It was a part of his duty to
+be agitated by the news of his stepdaughter's untimely death.
+
+"O, sir, you may well be sorry," said the Yorkshirewoman, with deep
+feeling. "She was the sweetest, most forgiving creature that ever came
+into this world; and to the last no hard or cruel word ever passed her
+innocent lips. Yes, sir, she is gone; she is beyond the power of any one
+to harm her."
+
+"All that sort of stuff is so much hypocritical twaddle, Mrs. Woolper,"
+muttered Mr. Sheldon impatiently; "and I recommend you to keep it for the
+chaplain of the workhouse in which you are likely to end your days. At
+what time--did--did this--sad event--happen?
+
+"About an hour ago."
+
+In the very hour when, in his hideous dream, he had beheld the solemn
+funeral train winding on for ever through the dim realms of sleep. Was
+there some meaning in such foolish shadows, after all?
+
+"And why was I not sent for?"
+
+"You were asleep, sir. I came downstairs myself, and looked into your
+room. You were fast asleep, and I wouldn't disturb you."
+
+"That was very wrong; but it was of a piece with the rest of your
+conduct, which has been from first to last antagonistic to me. I suppose
+I can see my stepdaughter now," Mr. Sheldon added, with a grim smile.
+"There is no further excuse--about headache--or sleep."
+
+"No, sir, you cannot see her yet. In an hour, if you wish to come into
+this room, you can come."
+
+"You are extremely obliging. I begin to doubt whether I am really in my
+own house. In an hour, then, I will come. Where is my wife?"
+
+"In her own room, sir, lying down; asleep, I believe."
+
+"I will not disturb her. How about the registration, by-the-by? That
+must be seen to."
+
+"Dr. Jedd has promised to attend to that, sir."
+
+"Has Dr. Jedd been here?"
+
+"He was here an hour ago."
+
+"Very good. And he will see to that," muttered Mr. Sheldon thoughtfully.
+
+The event for which he had been so long waiting seemed at the last a
+little sudden. It had shaken his nerves more than he had supposed it
+possible that they could be shaken.
+
+He went to his dressing-room, and on this occasion made a very hasty
+toilet. The event had been tardy, and he had no time to lose in
+discounting it now that it had come to pass. He went from his
+dressing-room back to his study, took the jacket containing the policies
+of assurance and the will from the deed-box, and left the house.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED.
+
+A cab conveyed Mr. Sheldon swiftly to a dingy street in the City--a
+street which might have been called the pavement of wasted footsteps, so
+many an impecunious wretch tramped to and fro upon those dreary flags in
+vain.
+
+The person whom Mr. Sheldon came to see was a distinguished
+bill-discounter, who had served him well in more than one crisis, and on
+whose service he fancied he could now rely.
+
+Mr. Kaye, the bill-discounter, was delighted to see his worthy friend Mr.
+Sheldon. He had just come up from his family at Brighton, and had quite a
+little court awaiting him in an outer chamber, through which Mr. Sheldon
+had been ushered to the inner office.
+
+"It's rather early for such a visitor as you," Mr. Kaye said, after a few
+commonplaces. "I have not been in town half an hour."
+
+"My business is too important for any consideration about hours,"
+answered Mr. Sheldon, "or I should not be here at all. I have just come
+from the deathbed of my wife's daughter."
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed the bill-discounter, looking inexpressibly
+shocked. Until that moment he had lived in supreme ignorance of the
+fact that Mr. Sheldon had a stepdaughter; but his sorrow-stricken
+expression of countenance might have implied that he had known and
+esteemed the young lady.
+
+"Yes, it's very sad," said Mr. Sheldon; "and something more than sad for
+me. The poor girl had great expectations, and would have come into a very
+fine fortune if she had lived a year or two longer."
+
+"Ha! dear me, how very unfortunate! Poor young lady!"
+
+"Jedd and Doddleson--you know them by repute, of course--have been
+attending her for the last six weeks. There will be no end of expense for
+me; and it has been all of no use."
+
+"Consumption, I suppose?"
+
+"Well, no; not pulmonary disease. A kind of atrophy. I scarcely know what
+to call it. Now, look here, Kaye. This illness has thrown all my affairs
+into a muddle. Taken in conjunction with the depressed state of the
+money-market, it has been altogether an upset for me. I have been staying
+at home looking after this poor girl and my wife--who of course is
+dreadfully cut up, and that sort of thing--when I ought to have been in
+the City. Luckily for me, and for my wife, in whose interests I acted, I
+took the precaution to get her daughter's life insured eight or nine
+months ago; in point of fact, immediately after finding she was
+heir-at-law to a considerable fortune. The policy is for five thousand
+pounds. I want you to give me four thousand immediately upon the strength
+of the document and of my stepdaughter's will."
+
+"Give you four thousand!" exclaimed Mr. Kaye, with a little unctuous
+laugh. "Do you suppose I keep such a balance as that at my banker's?"
+
+"I suppose that you can give me the money if you like."
+
+"I might be able to get it for you."
+
+"Yes; that's a kind of humbug a hundred years old. We've heard all about
+little Premium and his friend in the City, and so on, from that man who
+wrote plays and cut a figure in Parliament. You can give me the money on
+the spot if you like, Kaye; and if I didn't want ready money very badly I
+shouldn't come to you. The insurance company will give me five thousand
+in a month or two. I can give you my bill at two months' date, and
+deposit the policy in your hands as collateral security. I might get this
+money from other quarters--from my bankers', for instance; but I don't
+want to let them know too much."
+
+Mr. Kaye deliberated. He had assisted Mr. Sheldon's financial operations,
+and had profited thereby. Money advanced upon such a security must be as
+safe as money invested in Consols, unless there were anything doubtful in
+the circumstances of the policy; and that, with a man of Mr. Sheldon's
+respectability, was to the last degree unlikely.
+
+"When do you want this money?" he asked at last.
+
+"At the beginning of next week. On the twenty-fifth at latest."
+
+"And this is the twentieth. Sharp work."
+
+"Not at all. You could give me the money this afternoon, if you pleased."
+
+"Well, I'll think it over. It's a matter in which I feel myself bound to
+take my solicitor's opinion. Suppose you meet him here to-morrow at
+twelve o'clock? You can bring the necessary evidence to support the
+claim--the doctor's and registrar's certificate, and so on?"
+
+"Yes," Mr. Sheldon answered, thoughtfully; "I will bring the documentary
+evidence. To-morrow at twelve, then."
+
+Very little more was said. Mr. Sheldon left the will and the policy in
+the bill-discounter's possession, and departed. Things had gone as
+smoothly as he could fairly expect them to go. From Mr. Kaye's office he
+went to the Unitas Bank, where he had a very friendly, but not altogether
+satisfactory, interview with the secretary. He wanted the Unitas people
+to advance him money on the strength of the second policy of assurance;
+but his balance had been very low of late, and the secretary could not
+promise compliance with his desires. Those Unitas shares valued at five
+thousand pounds, which he had transferred to his beloved stepdaughter,
+had been retransferred by the young lady some months before, with a view
+to the more profitable investment of the money.
+
+This money, as well as all else that Philip Sheldon could command, had
+gone to the same bottomless pit of unlucky speculation. From the bank the
+stockbroker went to his office, where he saw Frederick Orcott, to whom he
+announced his stepdaughter's death with all due appearance of sorrow. He
+sat for an hour in his office, arranging his affairs for the following
+day, then sent for another cab, and drove back to Bayswater. The noonday
+press and noise of the City seemed strange to him, almost as they might
+have seemed to a man newly returned from lonely wanderings in distant
+wildernesses.
+
+The blinds were down at the Lawn. His own handsome bedchamber and
+adjoining dressing-room faced the road, and it was at the windows of
+these two rooms he looked. He fancied his weak foolish wife wailing and
+lamenting behind those lowered blinds.
+
+"And I shall have to endure her lamentations," he thought, with a
+shudder. "I shall have no further excuse for avoiding her. But, on the
+other hand, I shall have the pleasure of giving Mrs. Woolper and Miss
+Paget notice to quit."
+
+He derived a grim satisfaction from this thought. Yes; insolence from
+those two women he would endure no longer. The time had come in which he
+would assert his right to be master in his own house. The game had been
+played against him boldly by Jedd and these people, and had been lost by
+them. He was the winner. He could not dismiss doctors, nurse, friend,
+lover. Charlotte Halliday's death made him master of the situation.
+
+He went into his house with the determination to assert his authority at
+once. Within all was very quiet. He looked into the dining-room--it was
+quite empty; into the study--also empty. He went slowly upstairs,
+composing his face into the appropriate expression. At the door of that
+chamber which to him should have seemed of all earthly chambers the most
+awful, he knocked softly.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+He knocked a little louder, but there was still no answer. A little
+louder again, and with the same result.
+
+"Is there no one there?" he asked himself. "No one, except--?"
+
+He opened the door, and went in, with unshaken nerves, to look upon that
+one quiet sleeper whom his summons could not awaken, whom his presence
+could not disturb.
+
+There was no nurse or watcher by the bed. Everything was arranged with
+extreme neatness and precision; but it seemed to him that there were
+objects missing in the room, objects that had been familiar to him during
+the dead girl's illness, and which were associated with her presence,--the
+clock that had stood on the table by her bed, a stand of books, a low
+easy-chair, with embroidered cover worked by her mother and Diana Paget.
+The room looked blank and empty without these things, and Mr. Sheldon
+wondered what officious hand had removed them.
+
+Yonder stood the pretty little bedstead, shrouded by closely drawn white
+curtains. Philip Sheldon walked slowly across the room, and drew aside
+one of the curtains. He had looked upon the death-sleep of Charlotte
+Halliday's father, why not upon hers?
+
+She was not there! Those closely drawn curtains shrouded only the bed on
+which she had slept in the tranquil slumbers of her careless girlhood.
+That cold lifeless form, whose rigid outline Philip Sheldon had steeled
+himself to see, had no place here.
+
+He put his hand to his head, bewildered. "What does it mean?" he asked
+himself; "surely she died in this room!"
+
+He went hurriedly to his wife's room. They had taken Charlotte there,
+perhaps, shortly before her death. Some feverish fancy might have
+possessed her with the desire to be taken thither.
+
+He opened the door and went in; but here again all was blank and empty.
+The room was arranged after its usual fashion; but of his wife's presence
+there was no token. His sense of mystification and bewilderment grew
+suddenly into a sense of fear. What did it mean? What hellish fooling had
+he been the dupe of?
+
+He went to Diana's room. That, too, was empty. A trunk and a portmanteau,
+covered and strapped as if for removal, occupied the centre of the room.
+
+There was no other room upon this floor. Above this floor there were only
+the rooms of the servants.
+
+He went downstairs to the dining-room and rang the bell The parlour-maid
+came in answer to his summons.
+
+"Where is your mistress?" he asked.
+
+"Gone out, sir; she went at eight o'clock this morning. And O, if you
+please, sir, Dr. Jedd called, and said I was to give you this--with the
+certificate."
+
+The certificate! Yes, the certificate of Charlotte Halliday's death,--the
+certificate which he must produce to-morrow, with other evidence, for the
+satisfaction of the bill-discounter and his legal adviser. He stared at
+the girl, still possessed by the sense of bewilderment which had come
+upon him on seeing those empty rooms upstairs. He took the letter from
+her almost mechanically, and tore it open without looking at the address.
+The certificate dropped to the ground. He picked it up with a tremulous
+hand, and for some moments stood staring at it with dazzled, unseeing
+eyes. He could see that it was a document with dates and names written in
+a clerkly hand. For some moments he could see no more. And then words and
+names shone out of the confusion of letters that spun and whirled, like
+motes in the sunshine, before his dazzled eyes.
+
+"Valentine Hawkehurst, bachelor, author, Carlyle Terrace, Edgware Road,
+son of Arthur Hawkehurst, journalist; Charlotte Halliday, spinster, of
+the Lawn, Bayswater, daughter of Thomas Halliday, farmer."
+
+He read no more.
+
+It was a copy of a certificate of marriage--not a certificate of
+death--that had been brought to him.
+
+"You can go," he said to the servant hoarsely.
+
+He had a vague consciousness that she was staring at him with curious
+looks, and that it was not good for him to be watched by any one just
+now.
+
+"About dinner, sir, if you please?" the young woman began timidly.
+
+"What do I know about dinner?"
+
+"You will dine at home, sir?"
+
+"Dine at home? Yes; Mrs. Woolper can give you your orders."
+
+"Mrs. Woolper has gone out, sir. She has gone for good, I believe, sir;
+she took her boxes. And Miss Paget's luggage will be sent for, if you
+please, sir. There's a letter, sir, that Mrs. Woolper left for you on the
+mantelpiece."
+
+"She was very good. That will do; you can go."
+
+The girl departed, bewildered like her fellow-servants by the strangeness
+of the day's proceedings, still more bewildered by the strangeness of her
+master's manner.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+"THERE IS A WORD WILL PRIAM TURN TO STONE."
+
+When the servant was gone, Mr. Sheldon sat down and examined the document
+she had given him.
+
+Yes, it was in due form. A certified copy of the certificate
+of a marriage performed that morning at the church of St.
+Matthias-in-the-fields, Paddington, and duly witnessed by the registrar
+of that parish. If this document were indeed genuine, as to all
+appearance it was, Valentine Hawkehurst and Charlotte Halliday had been
+married that morning; and the will and the policy of assurance deposited
+with Mr. Kaye the bill-discounter were so much waste-paper.
+
+And they had fooled him, Philip Sheldon, as easily as this! The furious
+rage which he felt against all these people, and, more than against them,
+against his own besotted folly for allowing himself to be so fooled, was
+a sharper agony than had ever yet rent his cruel heart. He had been a
+scoundrel all his life, and had felt some of the pains and penalties of
+his position; but to be a defeated scoundrel was a new sensation to him;
+and a savage impotent hate and anger against himself and the universe
+took possession of his mind.
+
+He walked up and down the room for some time, abandoned wholly to the
+ungovernable rage that consumed him, and with no thought beyond that
+blind useless fury. And then there came upon him the feeling that was
+almost a part of his mind--the consciousness that something must be done,
+and promptly. Whatever his position was, he must face it. His hurried
+pacing to and fro came to a sudden stop, and he took the crumpled
+document from his packet, and examined it once more.
+
+There seemed little doubt that it was genuine; and a visit to the church
+where the marriage was stated to have been performed would immediately
+place the matter beyond all doubt. With the copy of the certificate, he
+had taken from his pocket the letter that had enclosed it. He saw now
+that the envelope was addressed in Hawkehurst's hand.
+
+"Favoured by Dr. Jedd," he had written in a corner of the envelope.
+
+Why should Dr. Jedd "favour" Mr. Hawkehurst's letter? Why, indeed, unless
+there had been a conspiracy concocted by these men against his authority
+and his interests?
+
+Valentine's letter was brief and business-like.
+
+"SIR,--With the full approbation of her mother and only near relation, my
+dear Charlotte has this day become my wife. The enclosed attested copy of
+the certificate of our marriage will afford you all particulars. I shall
+refrain from entering upon any explanation of my conduct; and I believe
+such explanation to be wholly unnecessary. You can scarcely fail to
+understand why I have acted in this manner, and why I congratulate myself
+and my dear wife on her departure from your house as on an escape from
+imminent peril. It will be, I fear, little satisfaction to you to hear
+that the doctors have pronounced your stepdaughter to be out of danger,
+though still in very weak health. She is now comfortably established in a
+temporary home, with her mother and Diana Paget; and in all probability
+some months must elapse before she and I can begin our new life together.
+To afford my darling girl the legal protection of marriage was the object
+of this sudden and secret union. You, of all men, will most fully
+comprehend how necessary such protection had become to ensure her safety.
+
+"Should you, however, require farther enlightenment as to the motives
+that prompted this step, Dr. Jedd will be the fittest person to give you
+such information; and has expressed his willingness to answer any
+questions you may please to put to him.
+
+"For the rest, I beg to assure you that the rights of Mrs. Hawkehurst in
+relation to the inheritance of the late John Haygarth's wealth will be as
+carefully protected as those of Miss Halliday; nor will the hasty
+marriage of this morning hinder the execution of any deed of settlement
+calculated to guard her interests in the future.
+
+"With this assurance, I remain, sir,
+Your obedient servant,
+VALENTINE HAWKEHURST.
+Carlyle Terrace, Edgware Road."
+
+Enclosed with this there was a second letter--from his wife.
+
+He read it with a countenance that expressed mingled anger and contempt.
+
+"Fool!" he muttered; "this is about the only service she could do me."
+
+The letter was long and incoherent; blotted with tears--in places
+completely illegible. Mr. Sheldon cared only to master the main facts
+contained in it, which were these:--His wife had left him for ever. Dr.
+Jedd and Valentine Hawkehurst had told her of something--something that
+affected the safety of her darling and only child--and the knowledge of
+which must separate her for ever from him. Of the money which she had
+brought to him she claimed nothing. Even her jewels, which were in his
+keeping, in the iron safe where he kept his papers, she did not attempt
+to obtain from him. Valentine would not allow her to starve. The humblest
+shelter, the poorest food, would suffice her in the future; but no home
+of his providing could she ever inhabit again.
+
+"What I have suffered in this last few days is only known to myself and
+to heaven," she wrote. "O Philip, how could you--how could you even shape
+the thought of such a deed as this, which you have been doing, day after
+day, for the last two months? I could not have believed what they have
+told me, if I had not seen my child fade hour by hour under your care,
+slowly, surely--and recover as surely directly you were excluded from any
+part in our care of her. If it were possible not to believe these people,
+I would disbelieve them, and would cling to you faithfully still; but the
+voices against you are too many, the proofs against you are too strong.
+
+"Do not seek to see me. I am with my poor child, who was but just able to
+bear the removal from your house, and to go through the ceremony that was
+performed this morning. Little did I ever think my daughter would have
+such a wedding. What a mockery all my plans seem now!--and I had chosen
+the six bridesmaids, and arranged all the dresses in my own mind. To see
+my dear girl dressed anyhow, in her oldest bonnet, standing before the
+altar huddled up in a shawl, and given away by a strange doctor, who kept
+looking at his watch in a most disrespectful manner during the ceremony,
+was very bitter to me."
+
+Mr. Sheldon flung aside the letter with an oath. He had no time to waste
+upon such twaddle as this. He tore open Nancy Woolper's letter. It was a
+poor honest scrawl, telling him how faithfully she had served him, how
+truly she had loved him in the past, and how she could henceforth serve
+him no more. It exhorted him, in humble ill-spelt phrases, to repentance.
+It might not yet be too late even for such a sinner as he had been.
+
+He tore these two epistles into infinitesimal fragments, and flung them
+into the fireplace. Valentine Hawkehurst's letter he kept. It was a
+document of some legal importance.
+
+For a moment there had flashed across his brain the thought that he might
+punish these people for their interference with his affairs. He might
+bring an action against Dr. Jedd for slander, and compel the physician to
+prove the charges insinuated against him, or pay the penalty attendant
+upon an unjustifiable accusation. He was well assured that Dr. Jedd could
+prove very little; and a jury, if properly worked, might award him
+exemplary damages.
+
+But on the other hand, the circumstantial evidence against him was very
+strong; and evidence which might be insufficient to prove him guilty in a
+trial for his life might be a sufficient defence for his enemies against
+an action for slander; if, indeed, the course which Dr. Jedd and
+Valentine Hawkehurst had taken did in itself constitute a slanderous and
+malicious imputation. Nor could any such action invalidate the marriage
+solemnized that morning; and that one fact comprised his utter ruin.
+Charlotte's interests were merged in the interests of her husband. No
+shadow of claim upon John Haygarth's wealth remained to him.
+
+His ruin was complete and dire. For a long time his circumstances had
+been desperate--no avenue of escape open to him but the one dark way
+which he had trodden; and now that last road was closed against him. The
+day was very near at hand when his fictitious bills on shadowy companies
+must be dishonoured; and with the dishonour of those bills came the end
+of all things for him,--a complete revelation of all those dishonest
+artifices by which he had kept his piratical bark afloat on the
+commercial waters.
+
+He surveyed his position in every light, calmly and deliberately, and saw
+there was no hope. The whole scheme of his existence was reduced to the
+question of how much ready-money he could carry out of that house in his
+pocket, and in what direction he should betake himself after leaving it.
+
+His first care must be to ascertain whether the marriage described in the
+duplicate certificate had really taken place; his next, to repossess
+himself of the papers left with Mr. Kaye.
+
+Before leaving the house he went to his study, where he examined his
+banker's book. Yes, it was as they had told him at the bank. He was
+overdrawn. Among the letters lying unopened on his writing-table he found
+a letter from one of the officials of the Unitas, calling his attention,
+politely and respectfully, to that oversight upon his part. He read the
+letter, and crumpled it into his pocket with an angry gesture.
+
+"I am just about as well off now as I was twelve years ago, before Tom
+Halliday came to Fitzgeorge Street," he said to himself; "and I have the
+advantage of being twelve years older."
+
+Yes, this is what it all came to, after all. He had been travelling in a
+circle. The discovery was humiliating. Mr. Sheldon began to think that
+his line of life had not been a paying one.
+
+He opened his iron safe, and forced the lock of the jewel-case in which
+his wife had kept the few handsome ornaments that he had given her in the
+early days of their marriage, as a reward for being good--that is to say,
+for allowing her second husband to dispose of her first husband's
+patrimony without let or hindrance. The jewels were only a few rings, a
+brooch, a pair of earrings, and a bracelet; but they were good of their
+kind, and in all worth something like two hundred pounds.
+
+These, and the gold chronometer which he carried in his waistcoat-pocket,
+constituted all the worldly wealth which Mr. Sheldon could command, now
+that the volcanic ground upon which his commercial position had been
+built began to crumble beneath his feet, and the bubbling of the crater
+warned him of his peril. He put the trinkets into his pocket without
+compunction, and then went upstairs to his dressing-room, where he
+proceeded to pack his clothes in a capacious portmanteau, which in itself
+might constitute his credentials among strangers, so eminently
+respectable was its appearance.
+
+In this dread crisis of his life he thought of everything that affected
+his own interests. To what was he going? That question was for the moment
+unanswerable. In every quarter of the globe there are happy
+hunting-grounds for the soldier of fortune. Some plan for the future
+would shape itself in his mind by-and-by. His wife's desertion had left
+him thoroughly independent. He had no tie to restrain his movements,
+nothing to dread except such proceedings as might be taken against him by
+the holders of those bills. And such proceedings are slow, while modern
+locomotion is swift.
+
+What was he leaving? That was easily answered. A labyrinth of debt and
+difficulty. The fine house, the handsome furniture, were held in the same
+bondage of the law as his household goods in Fitzgeorge Street had been.
+He had given a bill of sale upon everything he possessed six months
+before, to obtain ready-money. The final terrible resource had not been
+resorted to until all other means had been exhausted. Let this fact at
+least be recorded to his credit. He was like the lady whom the poet
+sings, who,
+
+  "tolerably mild,
+  To make a wash would _hardly_ boil a child:"
+
+that is to say, she would try all other materials for her cosmetic
+preparation first; and if they failed, would at last resort, unwillingly,
+to the boiling of children.
+
+No; he had nothing to lose by flight--of that fact it was easy for him to
+assure himself.
+
+He went downstairs, and rang for the servant.
+
+"I am going out," he said, "to join my wife and her daughter, and return
+with them to the sea-side. There is a portmanteau upstairs in my room,
+ready packed. You will give it to the messenger I shall send in the
+course of the next day or two. At what time did Mrs. Sheldon and Miss
+Halliday leave this morning?"
+
+"At eight o'clock, sir. Mr. Hawkehurst came to fetch them in a carriage.
+They went out by the kitchen passage and the side gate, sir, because you
+were asleep, Mrs. Woolper said, and was not to be disturbed."
+
+"At eight. Yes. And Mrs. Woolper and Miss Paget?"
+
+"They went a'most directly after you was gone out, sir. There was two
+cabs to take Miss Halliday's and Mrs. Sheldon's things, and such
+like,--just as there was when you came from Harold's Hill."
+
+"Yes; I understand."
+
+He was half inclined to ask the young woman if she had heard the
+direction given to the drivers of these two cabs. But he refrained from
+doing so. What could it profit him to know where his wife and
+stepdaughter were to be found? Whether they were in the next street or at
+the antipodes could matter very little to him, except so far as the
+knowledge of their place of habitation might guide him in his avoidance
+of them. Between him and them there was a gulf wider than all the waters
+of the world, and to consider them was only foolish waste of time and
+thought. He left the house, which for the last five years of his life had
+been the outward and visible sign of his social status, fully conscious
+that he left it for ever; and he left it without a sigh. For him the word
+home had no tender associations, and the domestic hearth had never
+inspired him with any sense of comfort or pleasure with which he might
+not have been inspired by the luxurious fireside of a first-class
+coffee-room. He was a man who would have chosen to spend his existence in
+joint-stock hotels, if there had not been solidity of position to be
+acquired from the possession of a handsome house.
+
+He went to the Paddington church. It was only five o'clock in the
+afternoon by the clock of that edifice. The church was closely shut, but
+Mr. Sheldon found the clerk, who, in consideration of a handsome
+donation, took him to the vestry, and there showed him the register of
+marriages--the last entry therein.
+
+Yes, there was Charlotte Halliday's signature, a little uncertain and
+tremulous.
+
+"I suppose you are one of the young lady's relations, sir," said the
+clerk. "It was rather a strange affair; but the young lady's ma was with
+her; and the young lady was over age, so, you see, there's nothing to be
+said against it."
+
+Mr. Sheldon had nothing to say against the marriage. If any false
+statement of his, however base or cruel, could have invalidated the
+ceremonial, he would have spared no pains to devise such a falsehood. If
+he had been a citizen of the Southern States, he might have suborned
+witnesses to prove that there was black blood in the veins of Valentine
+Hawkehurst. If he had not been opposed to so strong an opponent as Dr.
+Jedd, he might have tried to get a commission of lunacy to declare
+Charlotte Halliday a madwoman, and thus invalidate her marriage. As it
+was, he knew that he could do nothing. He had failed. All was said in
+those three words.
+
+He wasted no time at the church, but hurried on to the City, where he was
+just in time to catch Mr. Kaye leaving his office.
+
+"Have you sent those papers to your solicitor?" he asked.
+
+"No; I was just going to take them round to him. I have been thinking
+that it will be necessary to ascertain that there is no will of Miss
+Halliday's subsequent to this; and that will be rather difficult to find
+out. Women never know when to leave off making wills, if they once begin
+making them. They have a positive rage for multiplying documents, you
+know. If the testator in that great codicil case had been a woman, a jury
+would scarcely have refused to believe in the story of half a dozen
+different codicils hidden away in half a dozen different holes and
+corners. Women like that sort of thing. Of course, I quite understand
+that you bring me the will in all good faith; but I foresee difficulties
+in raising money upon such a security."
+
+"You need give yourself no further trouble about the matter," said Mr.
+Sheldon coolly. "I find that I can do without the money, and I've come to
+reclaim the papers."
+
+Mr. Kaye handed them to his client. He was not altogether pleased by this
+turn of affairs; for he had expected to profit considerably by Mr.
+Sheldon's necessities. That gentleman honoured him with no further
+explanations, but put the papers in his pocket, and wished the
+bill-discounter good day.
+
+And this was the last time that Philip Sheldon was ever seen in his
+character of a solid and respectable citizen of London. He went from the
+bill-discounter's office to a pawnbroker in the City, with whom he
+pledged Georgy's trinkets and his own watch for the sum of a hundred and
+twenty pounds. From the pawnbroker's he went back to Bayswater for his
+portmanteau, and thence to the Euston Hotel, where he dined temperately
+in the coffee-room. After dinner he went out into the dull back streets
+that lurk behind Euston Square, and found an obscure little barber's
+shop, where he had his whiskers shaved off, and his hyacinthine locks
+cropped as close as the barber's big scissors could crop them.
+
+The sacrifice of these hirsute adornments made an extraordinary change
+in this man. All the worst characteristics of his countenance came out
+with a new force; and the face of Mr. Sheldon, undisguised by the
+whiskers that had hidden the corners of his mouth, or the waving locks
+that had given height and breadth to his forehead, was a face that no one
+would be likely to trust.
+
+From the Euston Station he departed by the night mail for Liverpool,
+under the cover of darkness. In that city he quietly awaited the
+departure of the Cunard steamer for New York, and was so fortunate as to
+leave England one day before that fatal date on which the first of his
+fictitious bills arrived at maturity.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Tenth.
+
+
+
+HARBOUR, AFTER MANY SHIPWRECKS.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+OUT OF THE DARK VALLEY.
+
+Not with pomp or with splendour, with rejoicing or strewing of summer
+blossoms in the pathway of bride and bridegroom, had the marriage of
+Valentine and Charlotte been solemnized. Simple and secret had been the
+ceremonial, dark with clouds was the sky above them; and yet it is
+doubtful if happier bridegroom ever trod this earth than Valentine
+Hawkehurst as he went to his lonely lodging under the starry summer sky,
+after leaving his young wife to her mother's care in the new home that
+had been found for them.
+
+He had reason to rejoice; for he had passed through the valley of the
+shadow of death. He had seen, very near, that dread presence before which
+the angels of faith and love can avail nothing. Fearless as Alcides had
+he gone down to the realms of darkness; triumphant and glad as the
+demigod he returned from the under-world, bearing his precious burden in
+his strong arms. The struggle had been dire, the agony of suspense a
+supreme torture; but from the awful contest the man came forth a better
+and a wiser man. Whatever strength of principle had been wanting to
+complete the work of reformation inaugurated by love, had been gained by
+Valentine Hawkehurst during the period of Charlotte's illness. His
+promised wife, his redeeming angel, she for whose affection he had first
+learned to render thanks to his God, had seemed to be slipping away from
+him. In the happiest hour of his prosperous courtship he had known
+himself unworthy of her, with no right, no claim, to so fair a prize,
+except the right of pure and unselfish love. When the hour of trial came
+to him he had said, "Behold the avenger!" and in that hour it seemed to
+him that a lurking anticipation of future woe had been ever present with
+him in the midst of his happiness,--it seemed so natural, so reasonable
+that this treasure should be taken away from him. What had he done, that
+he should go unpunished for all the errors and follies of his youth?
+
+He looked back, and asked himself if he had been so vile a sinner as in
+these hours of self-reproach he was inclined to esteem himself? Could his
+life have been otherwise? Had he not been set in a groove, his young feet
+planted in the crooked ways, before he knew that life's journey might be
+travelled by a straighter road?
+
+Alas, the answer given at the tribunal of conscience went against him!
+Other men had come into this world amidst surroundings as bad, nay,
+indeed, worse than the surroundings of his cradle. And of these men some
+had emerged from their native mire spotless and pure as from newly-fallen
+snow. The natural force of character which had saved these men had not
+been given to him. His feet had been set in the crooked ways, and he had
+travelled on, reckless, defiant, dimly conscious that the road was a bad
+one, and that his garments were bespattered with more mud-stains than
+would be agreeable to some travellers.
+
+It was only when the all-powerful influence of love was brought to bear
+upon this plastic nature that Valentine Hawkehurst became fully awakened
+to the degradation of his position, and possessed with an earnest desire
+to emerge from the great dismal swamp of bad company. Then, and then
+only, began the transformation which was ultimately to become so complete
+a change. Some influence, even beyond that of happy love, was needed to
+give force to this man's character; and in the great terror of the last
+three months that influence had been found. The very foundations of
+Valentine Hawkehurst's life had been shaken, and, come what might, he
+could never be again what he had been.
+
+He had almost lost her. All was said in that. She had been almost taken
+from him--she, who to this man was father, mother, wife, household, past,
+present, future, glory, ambition, happiness--everything except that God
+who ruled above and held her life and his peace in the hollow of His
+hand. He had been face to face with death; and never, in all the years to
+come--never in the brightest hour of future happiness, could he forget
+the peril that had come upon him, and might come again. He had learned to
+understand that he held her, not as a free gift, but as a loan--a
+treasure to be reclaimed at any moment by the God who lent her.
+
+The darksome valley was past, and Valentine stood by his darling's side,
+safe upon the sunlit uplands.
+
+The doctors had declared their patient safe. The hour of danger had been
+passed in safety, and the mischief worked by the poisoner's slow process
+had been well nigh counteracted by medical skill.
+
+"In six weeks' time you may take your wife for her honeymoon tour, Mr.
+Hawkehurst, with her health and spirits thoroughly re-established,"
+said Dr. Jedd.
+
+"What is that you say about honeymoon tours?" cried Gustave Lenoble.
+"Hawkehurst and his wife will spend their honeymoon at Cotenoir; is it
+not, Diana?"
+
+Diana replied that it was to be, and must be so.
+
+It was impossible to imagine a happier party than that which met day
+after day in those pleasant lodgings at Kilburn, wherein Georgy and Diana
+and Charlotte had been established with much devotion and care on the
+parts of Valentine and Gustave. Mr. Hawkehurst had chosen the apartments,
+and M. Lenoble had spent the day before the wedding in rushing to and fro
+between the West End and Kilburn, carrying hot-house flowers, comestibles
+of all kinds from Fortnum and Mason's, bonbon boxes, perfumery, new
+books, new music, and superintending the delivery of luxurious
+easy-chairs, hired from expensive upholsterers, a grand piano, and a
+harmonium.
+
+"We will have music in the evenings," he said to Diana, upon her
+expressing surprise on beholding these arrangements, "when we are
+assembled here, all. How thou dost open thine eyes on beholding these
+nothings! Do you think it has been no pleasure to me to testify my
+affection for one who has been so good to thee--thy friend, thine
+adopted sister? I wished that all things should look bright around her,
+when they brought her here, after that she had come to escape from the
+jaws of death. And thou, was it not that thou wert also coming to make
+thy home here for some days, until thy day of marriage? Thy father
+astonishes himself to hear of such sudden events. Thou wilt go to see
+him, soon, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, dear Gustave. I will go to-morrow."
+
+She went on the next day, and found Captain Paget much weaker than on her
+last visit.
+
+It was evident that for him the end was very near. He was much changed
+and subdued by his long illness; but the spirit of worldliness had not
+been altogether exorcised even in this dismal period of self-communion.
+
+"What does it all mean, Diana?" he asked. "I don't understand being kept
+in the dark like this. Here are you suddenly leaving Mr. Sheldon's house
+without rhyme or reason, to take up your quarters in lodgings with Mrs.
+Sheldon. Here is a mysterious marriage taking place at a time when I have
+been given to understand that one of the parties is at death's door; and
+here is Lenoble introduced to Valentine Hawkehurst, in express opposition
+to my particular request that my future son-in-law should be introduced
+to none of the Sheldon set."
+
+"Valentine is not one of the Sheldon set, papa. I do not think it likely
+that he will ever see Philip Sheldon again."
+
+"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Captain Paget. "There has been something
+serious going on, then, surely?"
+
+After this he insisted on an explanation, and Diana told him the story of
+the last two or three weeks: Charlotte's increasing illness--so
+mysterious and incurable; the sudden return from Harold's Hill;
+Valentine's fears; Dr. Jedd's boldly-expressed opinion that the patient
+was the victim of foul play; the systematic exclusion of Philip Sheldon
+from the sick-room, followed immediately by symptoms of amelioration,
+leading to gradual recovery.
+
+All this Captain Paget heard with an awe-stricken countenance. The
+distance that divides the shedder of blood from all other wrong-doers is
+so great, that the minor sinner feels himself a saint when he
+contemplates the guilt of the greater criminal.
+
+"Great God! is this possible?" exclaimed the Captain, with a shudder.
+"And I have taken that man's hand!"
+
+Later in the evening, when Diana had left him, and he had been thinking
+seriously of his own career, and those many transactions of his troubled
+life which, in the slang denomination of the day, would be called
+"shady," he derived some scrap of comfort from one consideration.
+
+"I never hurt a worm," he murmured to himself, complacently. "No, I can
+lay my hand upon my heart and say, I never hurt a worm."
+
+The Captain did not pause to reflect that some of the merit involved in
+this amiable trait of character might have been referable to the fact,
+that he had never happened to fall upon a state of society in which a
+comfortable living was to be made by the hurting of worms. He thought
+only of the story he had heard about Philip Sheldon; and he told himself
+that not in the direst necessity of his life could his brain have
+fashioned the thought of such a deed as that, in the doing of which this
+man had persevered for nearly three months.
+
+For Charlotte Hawkehurst the summer days which succeeded her marriage
+passed very quietly. She had not been told the real motive of that hasty
+and stolen marriage which had given her to the man she loved and trusted
+so completely. Valentine and Diana had between them contrived to mould
+Mrs. Sheldon to their will; and it was at her request that Charlotte had
+consented to so strange a step.
+
+The fable invented to account for this desire on the part of Mrs. Sheldon
+was very innocent. The doctors had ordered a milder climate than England
+for the dear convalescent--Madeira, Algeria, Malta--or some other equally
+remote quarter of the globe. It was impossible that Mr. or Mrs. Sheldon
+could take so long a journey; Mr. Sheldon being bound hand and foot to
+the mill-wheel of City life, Mrs. Sheldon being the slave and helpmeet of
+her husband. Nor could dear Charlotte go to Malta alone, or attended only
+by faithful Diana Paget. In short, there was no course so obvious or so
+prudent as a hasty marriage, which would enable the invalid to seek a
+milder clime, accompanied and guarded by her natural protector--a
+husband.
+
+"Consent, dearest, I entreat you," wrote Valentine, in the little note
+which supported Mrs. Sheldon's request, "however strange our wishes may
+seem to you. Believe that it is for the best, for your own sake, for the
+sake of all who love you, and ask no questions. Say only yes."
+
+To the prayer in this letter, to the entreaties of her mother and Diana,
+Charlotte yielded. She wondered why Mr. Sheldon avoided her, and asked
+anxiously, on more than one occasion, why she did not see that gentleman.
+
+"Is papa ill," she asked, "that he never comes to see how I am?"
+
+"The doctors have forbidden many people in your room, dear."
+
+"Yes, a few days ago, when I was so very ill; but now that I am better,
+papa might come. I want to thank him for all his anxious care of me, and
+to be sure that _he_ consents to this marriage."
+
+"My darling, be assured the marriage is for the best," pleaded Diana.
+
+And the marriage took place.
+
+Charlotte's innocent soul was thus spared the pain of a revelation which
+must have cast a dark shadow on the bright beginning of her wedded life.
+Georgy pledged herself to keep the fatal secret from her daughter; and
+Diana Paget rewarded her discretion by the most patient attention to her
+piteous and prosy lamentations upon the iniquity of mankind in general,
+and Philip Sheldon in particular.
+
+Of that hideous secret of the past, lately revealed by Mr. Burkham, Mrs.
+Sheldon had been told nothing. No good end could have been served by such
+a revelation. The criminal law has its statute of limitations--unwritten,
+but not the less existent. A crime which would have been difficult of
+proof at the time of its commission must after the lapse of twelve years
+have travelled beyond the pale of justice. For three people to come
+forward and declare that at the time of Mr. Halliday's death they had
+suspected Mr. Sheldon of poisoning him, would be to prove nothing to the
+minds of a British jury, except that the three people in question were
+libellous and ill-disposed persons. The greater the issue, the wider the
+chances of escape given to the accused; and a petty offender will be
+condemned for picking a pocket upon much lighter grounds than will be
+considered sufficient to prove a man guilty of blowing up the Houses of
+Parliament.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+AFTER THE WEDDING.
+
+The manner in which Mr. Sheldon would act in the future was a matter of
+considerable fear to his wife. She had a hazy idea that he would come to
+the pleasant Kilburn lodgings to claim her, and insist upon her sharing
+his dreary future.
+
+"If I could only have a divorce," she said piteously, when she discussed
+the subject with her son-in-law. "There ought to be divorces for such
+dreadful things; but I never heard of one before Sir Creswick,
+or the new judge, whose name I can't remember. O Valentine, I cannot live
+with him; I cannot sit down to dinner day after day with such a man as
+that. And to think that I should have known him when I was the merest
+girl, and have danced my very first polka with him when it first came in,
+and people wore polka boots and polka jackets, and wrote their notes of
+invitation upon polka paper, and sang polka songs, and worked polking
+peasants in Berlin wool, and went on altogether in the most absurd
+manner. And O Valentine, whom can one trust, if not the man one has known
+all one's life!"
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst pledged himself to protect his mother-in-law from any
+attempt at persecution upon the part of her husband. He did not know what
+difficulties he might have to encounter in the performance of this
+pledge; for, in his ignorance of the stockbroker's desperate
+circumstances, he imagined that Philip Sheldon would make some attempt to
+right himself in the eyes of the world, by compelling his wife to
+reassume her position in his house.
+
+He went to George Sheldon's office within a few days after his marriage
+to take counsel from that astute adviser. He found the lawyer hard at
+work, and in very good spirits. It was by his advice the marriage had
+been hurried on; Charlotte's stealthy removal from the house while Philip
+Sheldon slumbered had been planned by him; and he was triumphant in the
+thought that the plot had succeeded so well, and that Philip, the coolest
+and deepest of schemers, had been so completely baffled.
+
+"That Ann Woolper is a treasure," he said; "I didn't think it was in her
+to do what she has done. Nothing could be neater than the way she kept
+Phil at bay; and nothing could be better than her tact and cleverness in
+getting Charlotte and her mother quietly off the other morning while my
+precious brother was in the land of nod."
+
+"Yes, she has been invaluable to us."
+
+"And that girl Paget, too; she has turned out a regular trump. I used to
+think her a very stiff, consequential piece of goods when I saw her at
+the Lawn; but, egad, she has shown herself the genuine metal all through
+this business. Now that's a young woman I wouldn't mind making Mrs.
+George Sheldon any day in the week."
+
+"You do her too much honour," said Valentine, with an internal shiver.
+"Unhappily, a prior engagement will prevent Miss Paget's availing herself
+of so excellent an opportunity."
+
+"It mayn't be such a very bad chance as you seem to think it, my friend,"
+George replied, with some indignation. "Whenever the Reverend John
+Haygarth's estate drops in, I stand to win fifty thousand pounds. And
+that's not so bad for a start in life. I suppose you haven't forgotten
+that your wife is heir-at-law to a hundred thousand pounds?"
+
+"No, I have not forgotten her position in relation to the Haygarth
+estate."
+
+"Humph! I should rather think not. People don't generally forget that
+kind of thing. But you are uncommonly cool about the business."
+
+"Yes, I have passed through a fiery furnace in which all the bullion in
+the Bank of England will not serve a man. That kind of ordeal upsets
+one's old notions as to the value of money. And, again, I have never been
+able to contemplate Charlotte's inheritance of that fortune as anything
+but a remote contingency; the business is so slow."
+
+"Yes, but it has been going on. Affidavits have been made; the whole
+affair is in progress."
+
+"I am glad to hear it. Don't think that I pretend not to value the
+prospect of wealth; I have only learnt to know that money is not the
+be-all and end-all of life. I could be very happy with my dear wife if
+there were no prospect of this Haygarthian inheritance; but if it does
+come to us, we shall, no doubt, be all the happier. The millionaire sees
+the world from a very pleasant point of view. I should like my dear girl
+to be the mistress of as fair a home as money can buy for her."
+
+"Yes, and you'd like to have your name stand high in the statistics of
+Government stockholders. Don't be sentimental, Hawkehurst; that kind of
+thing won't wash. Thank God, we managed to save poor Tom's daughter from
+the fangs of my brother Phil. But you can't suppose that I am going to
+shut my eyes to the fact that this affair has been a very good thing for
+you, and that you owe your chances of a great fortune entirely to me? You
+don't pretend to forget _that_, I suppose?" said George Sheldon, with
+some acrimony.
+
+"Why should I pretend to forget that, or any circumstance of our business
+relations? I am perfectly aware that you started the hunt of the
+Haygarths, and that to your investigations is to be traced the discovery
+that proves my wife a claimant to the estate now held by the Crown."
+
+"Very good; that's outspoken and honest, at any rate. And now, how about
+our agreement? It's only a parole agreement, but an honest man's word is
+as good as his bond."
+
+"Our agreement!" repeated Valentine, with a puzzled expression of
+countenance. "Upon my word, I forget."
+
+"Ah, I thought it would come to that; I thought you would manage to
+forget the terms agreed upon by you and me in the event of your marriage
+with Charlotte Halliday. My memory is not so short as yours; and I can
+swear to a conversation between you and me in this room, in which you
+consented to my taking half the Haygarthian estate as the price of my
+discovery and the fair reward of my labours."
+
+"Yes," said Valentine, "I remember that conversation; and I remember
+saying that the demand was a stiff one, but that I, as Charlotte's future
+husband, would not oppose such a demand."
+
+"You remember that?"
+
+"I do; and if my wife is willing to consent to your terms, I will hold to
+my promise."
+
+"Your wife's consent is not wanted. She married you without a settlement,
+and her rights are merged in yours. To all intents and purposes, _you_
+are heir-at-law to John Haygarth's estate."
+
+Valentine laughed aloud; the whole affair seemed a tremendous joke. He,
+the homeless, penniless, friendless reprobate of but one year ago--he,
+the son and heir of a man who had been always on the verge of social
+shipwreck for want of five pounds--he, of all other men upon this earth,
+claimant against the Crown for an estate worth one hundred thousand
+pounds!
+
+"The whole affair seems ridiculously improbable," he said.
+
+"My brother wouldn't have done what he did if the whole thing had seemed
+improbable to him. However, we needn't estimate the chances for or
+against; all I want is a legal agreement between you and me, securing my
+share of the plunder."
+
+"I am ready to execute any reasonable agreement; but I am bound to
+protect my wife's interests, and I must have a solicitor to act for me in
+this affair. Greek must meet Greek, you know."
+
+"Very good. I could have conducted the business myself without the
+interference of strangers; but if you are going in for extreme caution,
+you'd better leave your wife's affairs in the hands of Messrs. Greenwood
+and Greenwood, who have acted for her hitherto, and have all papers
+relating to the case in their possession."
+
+"Greenwood and Greenwood? My dear girl told me she had signed some
+document, and had seen some lawyers; but she did not tell me the nature
+of the document, or the name of the lawyers. I have forborne to speak to
+her on business matters. The treatment that she has undergone has left
+her very nervous, and we try to keep all unpleasant subjects out of her
+mind."
+
+"Yes, that's all very well; but business is business, you know. You'd
+better see Messrs. Greenwood and Greenwood at once. Tell them of your
+marriage. You'll have to keep Phil's conduct dark, of course; that is
+understood between us. You must say the marriage was a love-match
+against my brother's wish, romantic, sentimental, and so on. They'll
+raise no objections when they find you are willing to leave the case in
+their hands."
+
+"You have heard nothing of your brother?"
+
+"Well, no--nothing, or next to nothing. I called at his office yesterday.
+He has not been there since the beginning of Charlotte's illness, and
+there has been no letter or message for Orcott since your wedding-day.
+Things look rather piscatorial, altogether. Orcott hints that Phil's
+affairs are in queer street; but he's a shallow-headed fool, and knows
+very little. It seems, by his account, that Phil was a Bull, and that
+the fall in every species of stock has been ruin to him. You see, when a
+man once goes in for the Bull business, he never by any chance turns
+Bear--and _vice versa_. There's a kind of infatuation in the thing, and a
+man sticks to his line until he's cleaned out--at least, that's what
+stockbrokers have told me--and I believe it's pretty near the truth."
+
+This was all that Valentine could ascertain about Mr. Sheldon at present.
+Every knock fluttered Georgy; every accidental visitor at the Kilburn
+villa seemed like the swooping of eagle on dovecote.
+
+"I cannot get over the feeling that he will come and take me away with
+him," she said. "If Sir Wilde Creswick would only do something, so that
+my second husband mayn't be able to insist upon my living in that
+dreadful, dreadful house, where I suffered such nights and days of agony,
+that I am convinced the sight of chintz curtains lined with pink will
+make me wretched as long as I live!"
+
+"My dear Mrs. Sheldon, he shall not come," said Valentine.
+
+"If I could only go ever so far away from him, and feel that there was
+the sea, or something of that kind, between us!"
+
+"We will take you away--across the British Channel, or further still, if
+you like. Diana and M. Lenoble are to be married soon; and directly
+Lotta is strong enough for the journey we are to go over to Normandy, to
+their chateau."
+
+"Chateau, indeed!" Mrs. Sheldon exclaimed peevishly. "The idea of Diana
+Paget, without a sixpence, and with a regular scamp of a father, marrying
+a man with a chateau, while my poor Charlotte--! I don't wish to wound
+your feelings, Mr. Hawkehurst, but it really does seem hard."
+
+"It is hard that Lotta should not have married a prince--all the
+grandeurs of a prince in a fairy tale would only be her due; but it
+happens fortunately, you see, dear Mrs. Sheldon, that our sweet girl has
+simple tastes, and does not languish for jewels or palaces. If she should
+ever become rich--"
+
+"Ah," sighed, Georgy despondently, "I don't expect that. I can't
+understand anything about this idea of a fine fortune that Mr. Sheldon
+had got into his head. I know that my husband's mother was a Miss
+Meynell, the daughter of a carpet-warehouseman in the city, and I can't
+see how any grand fortune is to come to Charlotte through her. And as for
+the Hallidays--Hyley and Newhall farms were all the property they ever
+owned within the memory of man."
+
+"The fortune for which Charlotte is a claimant comes from the maternal
+ancestor of Christian Meynell. I do not count upon her possession of it
+as a certain good in the future. If it comes we will be thankful."
+
+"Is it a very large sum of money?"
+
+"Well, yes; I believe it is a considerable sum."
+
+"Twenty thousand pounds, perhaps?"
+
+"I have been told that it is as much."
+
+He did not want Georgy's weak mind to become possessed of the idea of
+shadowy wealth. He remembered what Philip Sheldon had said to him on the
+Christmas night in which they had paced the little Bayswater garden
+together, and he felt that there was a substratum of common sense in that
+scoundrel's artful warning.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+GREEK AGAINST GREEK.
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst called upon Mr. Greenwood, of the firm of Greenwood
+and Greenwood, within a week of his marriage, and exhibited the
+certificate to that gentleman. Mr. Greenwood received the information
+with much solemnity, and even severity, of manner.
+
+"Are you aware that this is a very serious step which you have taken,
+Mr. Hawkehurst?" he demanded, sternly. "You entrap--that is to say,
+you persuade a lady into a hasty marriage--without consultation with
+her legal advisers, without settlements of any kind whatever--while at
+the same time you are aware that the lady in question is heir-at-law
+to a very large fortune, proceedings for the recovery of which are
+now pending. Pardon me if I observe that there is a want of
+delicacy--of--a--hem--right-mindedness in the transaction."
+
+"The imputation contained in your remarks is not a pleasant one, Mr.
+Greenwood," Valentine remarked quietly; "but I am quite willing to pardon
+any injustice which you may inflict upon me by your desire to protect the
+interests of your client. I think you will speedily discover that those
+interests are in no way endangered by the lady's marriage with me. There
+are social complications which are not to be settled by either law or
+equity. Miss Halliday's surroundings of the last few months were of a
+very painful nature; so painful, that the legal protection of marriage
+became the only means of saving her from imminent peril. I cannot enter
+more fully into those painful circumstances. I can only assure you that I
+married your client with the consent and approval of her only near
+relation, and uninfluenced in the smallest degree by mercenary
+considerations. Whatever post-nuptial settlement you please to make for
+my wife's protection I shall promptly execute."
+
+"You express yourself in a very honourable and highly creditable manner,
+Mr. Hawkehurst," exclaimed the lawyer, with sudden cordiality; "and I beg
+distinctly to withdraw any offensive observations I may have made just
+now. Your own affairs are, I conclude, in a sufficiently solvent state?"
+
+"I do not owe a sixpence."
+
+"Good; and Mr. Sheldon, the lady's stepfather and my client--had you his
+approval for this hasty marriage?"
+
+"The marriage took place without Mr. Sheldon's knowledge or consent."
+
+"May I ask your reason for this secrecy?"
+
+"No, Mr. Greenwood; it is just that one reason that I cannot tell you.
+Accept my assurance that it was an all-powerful reason."
+
+"I am compelled to do so, if you decline to confide in my discretion; but
+as Mr. Sheldon is my client, I am bound to think of his interests as well
+as those of Miss Halliday--er--Mrs. Hawkehurst. I am somewhat surprised
+that he has not called upon me since the marriage. He has been made aware
+of that circumstance, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; I wrote to him immediately after the ceremony, enclosing him a copy
+of the certificate."
+
+"The marriage will make a considerable difference to him."
+
+"In what manner?"
+
+"Well, in the event of his stepdaughter's death. If she had died
+unmarried and intestate, this fortune would have gone to her mother;
+besides which, there was the insurance on Miss Halliday's life."
+
+"An insurance!"
+
+"Yes. Were you not apprised of that fact? Mr. Sheldon, with very natural
+precaution, insured his stepdaughter's life for a considerable sum--in
+point of fact, as I believe, five thousand pounds; so that, in case of
+her death prior to the recovery of the Haygarth estate, her mother might
+receive some solatium."
+
+"He had insured her life!" said Valentine, under his breath.
+
+This, then, was the key to the mystery. The Haygarthian inheritance was
+but a remote contingency, a shadowy prize, which could scarcely have
+tempted the secret assassin; but the insurance had offered the prospect
+of immediate gain. The one link wanting to complete the chain of evidence
+against Philip Sheldon was found. There was no longer a question as to
+his motive.
+
+"This man knows of one insurance on her life," Valentine thought to
+himself; "there may have been more than one."
+
+After a brief silence, in which Mr. Hawkehurst had been lost in thought,
+the lawyer proceeded to discuss the terms of the post-nuptial settlement
+necessary for the protection of his client's interests. In the course of
+this discussion Valentine explained his position in relation to George
+Sheldon, and stated the demands of that sharp practitioner.
+
+Mr. Greenwood was utterly aghast upon hearing Mr. Hawkehurst's views on
+this subject.
+
+"You mean to tell me that this man claims a clear half of the Haygarth
+estate--fifty thousand pounds--in consideration of his paltry
+discoveries!"
+
+"Such is the demand he has made, and which I have pledged myself not to
+oppose. He certainly does open his mouth very wide; but we are bound to
+consider that but for these discoveries of his, my wife and my wife's
+relatives would in all probability have gone down to their graves in
+ignorance of their claim to this estate."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Hawkehurst. If Mr. George Sheldon had not made
+the discovery, some one else would have made it sooner or later, depend
+upon it. There would have been a little loss of time, that is all. There
+are plenty of men of George Sheldon's class always on the look-out for
+such chances as this--and for very small chances in comparison to this.
+Why, I know a fellow, a Frenchman, called Fleurus, who will take as much
+trouble about a few hundred pounds' worth of unclaimed stock as this man,
+George Sheldon, has taken about the Haygarth succession. And he has
+really the impudence to claim fifty thousand pounds from you?"
+
+"A claim which I have pledged myself not to oppose."
+
+"But which you have not pledged yourself to support. My dear Mr.
+Hawkehurst, this is a business which you must allow me to settle for you,
+as your wife's legal adviser. We will consider you quite out of the
+question, if you please; you will thus come out of your relations to Mr.
+George Sheldon with perfectly clean hands. You will not oppose his claim;
+but I shall oppose him in my character of legal adviser to your wife.
+Why, are you aware that this man executed an agreement with his brother,
+consenting to receive a fifth share of the estate, and costs out of
+pocket, in complete acquittance of all claims? I have an abstract of the
+agreement, amongst Miss Halliday's--Mrs. Hawkehurst's papers."
+
+After some further discussion, Valentine agreed to leave the whole matter
+in Mr. Greenwood's hands. Greek must meet Greek. Gray's Inn and the
+Fields must settle this business between themselves.
+
+"I am only prince consort," he said, with a smile. "I pretend to no
+actual interest in my wife's estate. I doubt, indeed, whether I should
+not have felt more complete happiness in our marriage if she had not been
+heiress to so large a fortune."
+
+At this Mr. Greenwood laughed outright.
+
+"Come, come, Mr. Hawkehurst," he exclaimed, "that really won't do. I am
+an old stager, you know--a man of the world;--and you mustn't ask me to
+believe that the idea of your wife's expectations can afford you anything
+but unqualified satisfaction."
+
+"You cannot believe? No, perhaps not," Valentine answered, thoughtfully.
+"But you do not know how nearly these expectations have lost me my wife.
+And even now, when she is mine by virtue of a bond that only death can
+loosen, it seems to me as if her wealth would make a kind of division
+between us. There are people who will always consider me a lucky
+adventurer, and look at my marriage as the result of clever scheming. I
+cannot advertise to the world the fact that I loved Charlotte Halliday
+from the first hour in which I saw her, and asked her to be my wife three
+days before I discovered her claim to John Haygarth's estate. A man can't
+go through the world with his justification pinned upon his breast. I
+think it will be my fate to be misjudged all my life. A twelvemonth ago I
+cared very little about the opinions of my fellow-men; but I want to be
+worthy of my wife in the esteem of mankind, as well as in the depths of
+my own moral consciousness."
+
+"Go and finish your honeymoon," said the lawyer, digging his client in
+the ribs with elephantine playfulness; "the moon must be in her first
+quarter, I should think. Go along with you, and leave me to tackle Mr.
+George Sheldon."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+ONLY A DREAM.
+
+"I say, Lenoble," Captain Paget began abruptly one afternoon when his
+daughter and his future son-in-law were in attendance upon his sofa,
+"when are you and Diana to be married? There is nothing to hinder your
+marriage now, you know."
+
+Diana looked at the speaker with a grave countenance.
+
+"Dear papa, there can be no marriage while you are so ill," she said
+gently.
+
+"And afterwards, when I'm gone, you won't like to marry within six months
+of your father's funeral; and you will be left alone in the world. You
+can't hang on to Hawkehurst and his wife. The best thing you can do,
+Lenoble, is to marry her out of hand, and let me see her by my bedside as
+Madame Lenoble of Cotenoir. It will be some consolation for me to see
+that day. I thought to have shared your home, with a run to Paris
+occasionally just to freshen myself up a little; but that's all over now.
+It does seem rather hard to me sometimes; and I think of Moses, and his
+forty years in the Desert with those ill-conditioned Israelites, who were
+always getting into some scrape or other--setting up golden calves, and
+that kind of thing--if he turned his back on them for twenty-four hours.
+A pack of ungrateful beggars too, always ready for mutiny--regular
+radicals, begad! And he went through it all: the sand, and the _toujours_
+quails, and the ingratitude; and after forty years of it, when he saw the
+Promised Land stretched before him green and fertile on the other side of
+the river--he died! I've been through my desert, the dreary wanderings
+over the barren sand, and the ingratitude of men I've served. Yes, I've
+gone through it all; and just as I catch a glimpse of Canaan, the curtain
+drops."
+
+On this they comforted him; and sustained him with the promise of a
+brighter Canaan than Cotenoir.
+
+"Yes," he said in a dreamy voice, "I read about it very often. A city
+with foundations of jasper and chalcedony, emerald and sardonyx; gates of
+pearl, pavements of gold. That's what St. John the Evangelist saw in his
+vision; and we've only his word for it. But there's something that I can
+believe and can understand: 'In my Father's house there are many
+mansions.' There's more hope for a sinful man of the world in that
+promise than in all St. John's dreams about gates of pearl and
+foundations of emerald."
+
+The Captain was failing fast. He had exchanged his easy-chair for a sofa
+now; and the time seemed near at hand when he must exchange the sofa for
+his bed. After that there would remain but one last change, to the
+contemplation whereof the sick man was becoming daily more reconciled.
+
+He had read his Gospel more diligently of late, and had taken comfort
+from those sublime pages. Do they not contain consolation, hope, promise
+for all--for the weary man of the world as well as for the saint? There
+is to be found the only creed that can adapt itself to every condition
+of life, and has a margin wide enough for every weakness of erring
+humanity. Buddhism may contain a scheme of morality almost as perfect;
+Mahomet may have expounded hopes that seem well-nigh as divine; but in
+the Gospel is the only system that will adapt itself at once to the
+culture of the spiritual man, and the active life of the practical
+worker in this lower world.
+
+Gustave Lenoble was only too glad to claim his promised wife a little
+sooner than he had hoped to claim her. "Thou hast put me off long enough,
+cruel," he said; "and now it is thy father's wish that our marriage
+should be soon. It shall be this week; I will take no longer thine
+excuses. We shall be the sooner ready to receive thy friends, thy
+Charlotte and her Hawkehurst."
+
+Diana smiled.
+
+"Dear Gustave, you are always kind," she said.
+
+It was very sweet to her to think that her new home would afford a
+pleasant haven for that dear friend who had sheltered her. And with
+Charlotte, the dear adopted sister, would come the man she had once
+loved, to share whose cares had once been the brightest dream.
+
+She wondered at her own inconstancy on perceiving how completely the
+dream had flown. Before the stern realities of life--before sickness and
+sorrow and the dread shadow of death--that schoolgirl's vision had
+utterly melted away. It is just possible that Gustave's manly outspoken
+love may have helped to blot from the tablet of her mind the fantastic
+picture of the life that might have been. She scarcely knew whether this
+was so; but she did know that a new and happier existence began for her
+from the hour in which she gave her heart in all truth and loyalty to
+Gustave Lenoble.
+
+The wedding was arranged to take place within a week of Captain Paget's
+expressly declared wish. It was to be solemnised at a church near
+Knightsbridge, and again at a Catholic chapel in the neighbourhood of
+Sloane-street; by which double ceremonial a knot would be tied that no
+legal quibble could hereafter loosen. Charlotte was just sufficiently
+recovered to obtain permission to be present at the ceremonial, after
+some little exercise of her persuasive powers with the medical
+practitioner to whose care Dr. Jedd had committed her when all danger was
+past.
+
+The Captain protested, with an eager insistence, that the wedding
+breakfast should be eaten at his domicile.
+
+"And Val," he said, "be sure Val is with you. I have a secret to tell
+him--a kind of atonement to make; some news to give him that he won't
+quite relish, perhaps. But that's no fault of mine."
+
+"No bad news, I hope, papa; for Charlotte's sake as well as for
+Valentine's."
+
+"That depends upon how they both take it. Your friend Charlotte is not
+particularly fond of money, is she?"
+
+"Fond of money, papa? A baby knows as much of the value of money as
+Lotta. Except to give to beggars in the streets, or to buy pretty
+frivolous presents for her friends, she has neither use nor desire for
+money. She is the most generous, most disinterested of created beings."
+
+"I'm very glad to hear it," said the Captain, drily. "And how about
+Hawkehurst, now? Do you think it was a real love-match, his marriage with
+Miss Halliday? No _arriere pensee_--no looking out for the main chance at
+the bottom of his romantic attachment, eh, Di?"
+
+"No, papa. I am sure there was never truer love than his. I saw him under
+most trying circumstances, and I can pledge myself for the truth of his
+devotion."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it. Be sure you bring Hawkehurst and his wife to
+my little breakfast. A chicken, a pine, a bottle of sparkling hock, and
+a fond father's blessing, are all I shall give you; but the chicken and
+the hock will be from Gunter, and the blessing from the bottom of a
+paternal heart."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bright shone the day that gave Diana to her husband, and very beautiful
+looked the bride in her simple dress. Gustave Lenoble's marriage was no
+less quietly performed than that union which had secured the safety of
+Charlotte Halliday and the happiness of Valentine Hawkehurst. The shadow
+of death hovered very near bride and bridegroom; for they knew full well
+that he who was to preside that day at their simple marriage-feast would
+soon have tasted that last sacred cup which has no after-flavour of
+bitterness.
+
+The breakfast promised by the Captain was arranged with much elegance.
+Hothouse flowers and fruits; wines with the icedew sparkling on the dark
+glass; chickens and tongue, idealized by the confectioner's art, and
+scarcely recognizable beneath rich glazings and embellishments of jellies
+and forcemeats; the airiest and least earthly of lobster salads, and a
+pyramid of coffee-ice, testified to the glory of the Belgravian purveyor.
+It had been pleasant to Captain Paget to send his orders to Gunter,
+certain of funds to meet the bill. It was almost a glimpse of that land
+of milk and honey, that Canaan in Normandy, which he was never to
+inhabit.
+
+He was very weak, very ill; but the excitement of the occasion in some
+measure sustained and revivified him. The man who had been engaged to
+nurse and wait upon him had attired him with much care in a dressing-gown
+as elegant as the robe in which he had disported himself, a penniless
+young cornet, in his luxurious garrison quarters, some fifty years
+before. His loose white locks were crowned with an embroidered
+smoking-cap; his patrician instep was set off by a dainty scarlet
+slipper. He had put away the Gospel, and all thoughts of that dread
+reckoning which he had really some shadowy desire and hope to settle
+satisfactorily, by some poor dividend which might discharge his
+obligations to that merciful Creditor who forgives so many just debts.
+To-day he was of the world, worldly. It was a kind of _ante-mortem_
+lying-in-state--his last levee; and he was equal to the occasion.
+
+The prettily adorned table was drawn near the sofa where the invalid host
+reclined, supported by numerous pillows. His daughter and her husband,
+Valentine, Charlotte, and Georgy, made a little circle about him. His own
+man, and a clerical-looking person from Gunter's, assisted at the airy
+banquet. Very little was eaten by any of the guests, and it was a relief
+to every one when the clerical personage and Captain Paget's factotum
+retired, after serving tea and coffee with funereal solemnity.
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst was all gentleness and cordiality towards his old
+taskmaster. The wrong must indeed be dire which is considered in such an
+hour as this. Valentine remembered only that with this old man he had
+seen many troubled days; and that for him the end of all earthly
+wanderings was very near.
+
+The little banquet was not served in Captain Paget's ordinary
+sitting-room. For this distinguished occasion the landlady had lent a
+dining-room and drawing-room on the ground floor, just deserted by a
+fashionable bachelor lodger who had left town at the close of the season.
+This drawing-room on the ground floor, like the room above, overlooked
+the Park, and to this apartment the Captain requested his guests to
+adjourn, with the exception of Mr. Hawkehurst, some little time after the
+departure of the servants.
+
+"I want to have a few words with Val in private," he said; "I have a
+secret to communicate. Diana, show Mrs. Hawkehurst the Drive. You can see
+the Bow from my room, but not from these lower windows. There are a good
+many carriages still, but it is too late for the _creme de la creme_. I
+remember when the West End was a desert at this time of year; but I have
+lived to see the levelling of all distinctions, those of time as well as
+of class."
+
+Charlotte and Diana retired to the adjoining room with Mrs. Sheldon and
+M. Lenoble. Valentine was at a loss to imagine what manner of
+confidential communication his late patron and employer could desire to
+impart to him. The cautious Horatio waited until the rest of the party
+were quite out of hearing, talking gaily by the open window, beyond which
+appeared all the fluttering life and motion of summer leaves, all the
+brightness of summer green below, and deep blue sky above. When they
+seemed to him to be quite engaged with their own conversation, Captain
+Paget turned to his old companion.
+
+"Val," he said, "we have seen hard times together; we've roughed it among
+strange places and strange people, you know and so on; and I think there
+is a friendly kind of feeling between us?"
+
+He held out his poor wasted hand, and Valentine grasped it firmly in his
+own with prompt cordiality.
+
+"My dear governor, I have no feeling in my heart that is not friendly to
+you."
+
+This was perfectly true.
+
+"And even if I had been inclined to bear any grudge against you on
+account of the old days, when, you know, you were a little apt to be
+indifferent as to what scrape you left me in, provided you got off
+scot-free yourself; if I had been inclined to remember that kind of thing
+(which, on my honour, I am not), your daughter's noble courage and
+devotion in the time of my dear wife's peril should have stood against
+that old wrong. I cannot tell you how deeply I feel her goodness in that
+bitter time."
+
+"She is a Paget," murmured the Captain, complacently. "_Noblesse
+oblige._"
+
+Valentine could scarcely refrain from a smile as he remembered the many
+occasions upon which the obligations of a noble lineage had weighed very
+lightly on his aristocratic patron.
+
+"Yes, Val," the Captain resumed, in a dreamy tone, "we have seen many
+strange things together. When I began my travels through this world, in
+the palmy days of the Regency, I little thought what a weary journey it
+was to be, and what queer people I was to encounter among my
+fellow-passengers. However, I've come to the last stage of the long
+journey now, and I thank Providence that it ends so comfortably."
+
+To this Valentine assented kindly, but he was at a loss to understand why
+Captain Paget should have required the adjournment of the rest of the
+party before giving utterance to these mild commonplaces.
+
+For some moments the invalid relapsed into thoughtful silence. Then,
+rousing himself as if with an effort, he took a few sips of a cooling
+drink that stood by his side, and began with a startling abruptness.
+
+"You remember your journey to Dorking, Val, last October, when you went
+to see that mysterious old aunt of yours, eh?"
+
+Valentine blushed as the Captain recalled this cunningly-devised fable.
+
+"Yes," he said gravely; "I remember telling you that I was going to see
+an aunt at Dorking."
+
+"An aunt who had a little bit of money, eh, Val?" asked the Captain,
+with a grin.
+
+"Yes. I may have gone so far as to speak of a little bit of money."
+
+"And neither the aunt nor the bit of money ever existed, eh, Val? They
+were mere figments of the brain; and instead of going to Dorking you went
+to Ullerton, eh, Val? You stole a march upon me there. You wanted to
+throw your old chum off the scent, eh? You thought you had got hold of a
+good thing, and you were afraid your friend and companion might get a
+share of it."
+
+"Well, you see, my friend and companion had a knack of getting the
+lion's share. Besides, this good thing was not my own affair. I had to
+protect the interest of another person--my employer, in point of fact;
+and it was by his suggestion, and in compliance with his request, that
+I invented that harmless fiction about Dorking. I don't think there
+was any dishonourable dealing in the matter. We were soldiers of
+fortune both; and the stratagem with which I protected myself against
+you was a very innocent one. You would have employed any stratagem or
+invented any fiction under the same circumstances. It was a case of
+diamond cut diamond."
+
+"Precisely; and if the older soldier, if the free lance of many a
+campaign, got the best of it in the long run, the younger freebooter
+could hardly think himself ill-used--could he now, Val?"
+
+"Well, no, I suppose not," replied Valentine, puzzled by the significance
+in the face of his old companion. That sly twinkle in the Captain's eyes,
+that triumphant smile wreathing the Captain's lips, must surely mean
+mischief.
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst remembered the vague suspicion that had flashed into
+his mind on that Christmas Eve when Captain Paget and he had dined
+together at a West End restaurant, and the Captain had toasted Charlotte
+Halliday with a smile of sinister meaning. He began to anticipate some
+startling and unpleasant revelation. He began to understand that in some
+manner this inscrutible schemer had contrived to overreach him.
+
+"What are you going to tell me?" he asked. "I see there is some lurking
+mischief in your mind. How was it you were at Ullerton when I was there?
+I met you on the platform of the station, and I had a vague half
+suspicion that you followed me up on more than one occasion. I saw a
+glove in a man's parlour--a glove which I could have sworn to as yours.
+But when I came back, you were so plausible with your talk of promoting
+business, and so on, that I was fool enough to believe you. And I suppose
+you cheated and tricked me after all?"
+
+"Cheated and tricked are hard words, my dear Val," said the Captain, with
+delightful blandness. "I had as much right to transact imaginary business
+in the promoting line at Ullerton as you had to visit a fictitious aunt
+at Dorking. Self-interest was the governing principle in both cases. I do
+not think you can have any right to consider yourself injured by me if I
+did steal a march upon you, and follow close upon your heels throughout
+that Ullerton business. I do not think that you can have, on moral
+grounds, any justification for making a complaint against your old ally."
+
+"Well, I suppose you are right enough in that," said Valentine.
+
+"Shake hands upon it, then. I have not very long to live, and I want to
+feel myself at peace with mankind. You see, if you had come to me in the
+first place, in a frank and generous spirit, and had said, 'My dear
+friend, here is a good thing; let us go into it together, and see what
+there is to be made out of it,' you would have placed the matter on such
+a footing that, as a man of honour, I should have been bound to regard
+your interests as my own. But when you set up a separate interest, when
+you try to throw dust in my eyes, to hoodwink me--me, Horatio Paget,
+a man of the world, possessed of some little genius for social
+diplomacy--you attempt to do that which no man ever yet succeeded in
+doing, and you immediately release me from those obligations which an
+honourable man holds sacred. It was my glove which you saw in Mr.
+Goodge's parlour. I had a very satisfactory interview with that reverend
+person while you were absent from Ullerton on some short excursion, as to
+the purpose of which I am still in the dark. On certain terms Mr. Goodge
+agreed to give me the privilege of selecting a stated number from the
+letters of Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth. I have reason to believe that I made a
+judicious choice; for the information thus obtained placed me at once
+upon a track which I followed industriously until it led me to a
+triumphant result."
+
+"I do not understand--" began Valentine; but the Captain did not allow
+him time to say more.
+
+"You do not understand that there could be any other genealogical line
+than that which you and George Sheldon fitted together so neatly. You
+have neither of you the experience of life which alone gives wideness of
+vision. You discovered the connections of the Haygarth and the Meynell
+families in the past. That was a step in the right direction. The
+discovery, so far as it went, was a triumph. You allowed the sense of
+that triumph to intoxicate you. In a business which of all businesses
+within the range of man's intellect most requires deliberation and
+sobriety, you went to work in a fever of haste and excitement. Instead
+of searching out _all_ the descendants of Christian Meynell, you pounce
+upon the first descendant who comes to hand, and elect her, at your own
+pleasure, sole heiress to the estate of the deceased John Haygarth.
+You forget that there may be other descendants of the said Christian
+Meynell--descendants standing prior to your wife Charlotte in the line of
+succession."
+
+"I can imagine no such descendants existing," said Valentine, with a
+puzzled manner. "You seem to have made yourself master of our business;
+but there is one point upon which you are mistaken. George Sheldon and I
+did not go to work in a fever of haste. We did fully and thoroughly
+examine the pedigree of that person whom we--and legal advisers of
+considerable standing--believe to be the sole heir-at-law to the Haygarth
+estate; and we took good care to convince ourselves that there was no
+other claimant in existence."
+
+"What do you call convincing yourselves?"
+
+"Christian Meynell had only three children--Samuel, Susan, and Charlotte.
+The last, Charlotte, married James Halliday, of Newhall and Hyley farms;
+the other two died unmarried."
+
+"How do you know that? How do you propose to demonstrate that Samuel and
+Susan Meynell died unmarried?"
+
+"Susan was buried in her maiden name. Mrs. Halliday, her sister, was with
+her when she died. There was no question of marriage; nor is there the
+record of any marriage contracted by Samuel."
+
+"All that is no proof."
+
+"Indeed! I should have thought the evidence sufficient. But, in any case,
+the _onus probandi_ is not upon us. Can you prove the marriage of the
+Samuel Meynell who died at Calais, or of the Susan Meynell who died in
+London?"
+
+"I can. Susan Meynell's legitimate son is in the next room. It's an
+unpleasant kind of revelation to make, Val; as he, the son of one sister,
+stands prior to your wife, the granddaughter of the other sister, in the
+order of succession. AND HE TAKES ALL!"
+
+"He takes all!" repeated Valentine, bewildered. "He! Susan Meynell's
+son?--in the next room? What does all this mean?"
+
+"It means that when Susan was deserted by the scoundrel who took her away
+from her home, she found an honest fellow to marry her. The name of her
+husband was Lenoble. Gustave Lenoble yonder, my daughter's husband, is
+her only child by that marriage. A perfectly legal marriage, my dear
+Val--everything _en regle_, I assure you. The business is in the hands of
+Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon of Whitehall--a first-class firm; counsel's
+opinion most decided as to Lenoble's position. They have been rather slow
+about the preliminary steps; and, _entre nous_, I have not cared to hurry
+them, for I wanted to get my daughter's marriage over quietly before we
+began our proceedings in Chancery. It comes rather hard upon you, Val, I
+allow; but, you see, if you had acted generously, not to say honourably,
+towards me in the first instance, you'd have had the advantage of my
+experience. As it is, you have been working in the dark. However, things
+are not so bad as they might be. You might have married some ugly old
+harridan for the sake of this Haygarth estate; you have secured a pretty
+and amiable wife, and you mustn't be downhearted if you find yourself,
+from a financial point of view, most outrageously sold."
+
+The Captain could not refrain from a laugh as he contemplated his young
+friend's surprise. The laugh degenerated into a fit of coughing, and it
+was some little time before the enfeebled Horatio was ready to resume the
+interrupted conversation. In this pause Valentine had leisure to face
+this new position. There was for the moment a sharp sense of
+disappointment. It is not possible for humanity to be quite indifferent
+to a hundred thousand pounds. So much of the "light and sweetness" of
+life is attainable for that sum,--such pleasures, of the purest and
+noblest, are in the power of the possessor. But in this moment Valentine
+fully realized the fact that he had never taken the idea of this fortune
+into his mind--never made it part and parcel of himself, to be plucked
+out of his heart with anguish, and to leave a bleeding wound in the place
+where it had grown. It seemed to him as if he had been wakened abruptly
+from some bright bewildering dream; but the sharp pang of mercenary
+desires disappointed, of sordid hopes suddenly reft, was not for him.
+
+Beyond this sense of uncertainty, which had made the Haygarthian fortune
+seem at best such "stuff as dreams are made of," there had been ever
+present in his mind of late the dismal association connected with this
+money. For this, and to get power over this through the rights of his
+weak wife, had Philip Sheldon plotted against the life of that sweet girl
+who was but newly rescued from the jaws of the grave. The bitter memory
+of those days and nights of suspense could never have been quite
+dissociated from the money that had been the primary cause of all this
+slow torture.
+
+"Do you think I shall love my wife any less because she has no claim to
+the Haygarth estate?" he exclaimed presently, looking with
+half-contemptuous indignation upon the broken-down Bohemer. "I loved her
+long before I knew the name of Haygarth; I should have loved her if I had
+found her a beggar in the London streets, a peasant-girl weeding for
+sixpence a day in some dismal swamp of agricultural poverty and
+ignorance. I am not going to say that this money would not have brought
+us pleasure; pictures and gardens, and bright rooms, and books without
+number, and intercourse with congenial acquaintance and delightful
+journeyings to all the fairest places upon the earth, and the power to do
+some good in our generation, and a sense of security for our future, and
+by-and-by, perhaps, for the future of dear children, for whose prosperity
+we should be more anxious than for our own. Pleasure the money would most
+probably have brought for us in abundance; but I doubt if it could buy us
+more perfect happiness than we may know in the simplest home that my toil
+can support. Ah, Captain, I question if you ever knew the sweetest
+sensation life can give--the delight of working for those we love."
+
+Captain Paget stared at his sometime protege in a kind of rapture of
+wonder, not entirely unmingled with admiration.
+
+"Egad!" he exclaimed, "I have read of this kind of thing in novels; but
+in the whole course of my experience I never met with anything equal to
+it. My son-in-law, Lenoble yonder, is a generous foo--fellow enough; but
+then, since infancy, he has never known the want of money. And generosity
+from that kind of man is no more of a virtue than the foolhardiness of a
+child who pokes his finger into the candle, not knowing the properties of
+the thing he has to deal with. But anything like generosity from you,
+from a man reared as you were reared, is, I freely confess, a little
+beyond my comprehension."
+
+"Yes; it is a transformation, is it not? But I don't think I was ever
+inordinately fond of money. Your genuine Bohemian rarely is. He is too
+well schooled in the art of living without cash, and he asks so little
+here below. His pipe, his friend, his dog, his books, his garret, his
+billiards, his beer. It is all a question of a few pounds a week. And if,
+some day, the divine enchanter Love takes the poor fellow underhis
+guidance, and teaches him to do without billiards and beer, your Bohemian
+settles down into the purest and best of men. Think what Goldy might have
+been if some good woman had taken compassion upon him and married him,
+and henpecked him ever afterwards. He might have written as many novels
+as Sir Walter Scott, and died master of some Hibernian Abbotsford, some
+fair domain among the bright green hills that look down upon broad
+Shannon's silvery falls. No, Captain; your intelligence has not
+annihilated me. I can face the future boldly with my dear young wife upon
+my arm."
+
+"Upon my soul, Val, you're a very noble fellow!" exclaimed Horatio Paget,
+with real enthusiasm; "and I am sorry I have kept you in the dark so
+long."
+
+"You have kept me in the dark? Yes; to be sure. How long have you known
+this--about Susan Meynell?"
+
+"Well, my dear boy, not very long."
+
+"But how long? A month--two months? Yes; you have known Lenoble's
+position ever since you knew him; and Charlotte told me three months ago
+of Diana's engagement to Lenoble. Do you know that if Sheldon had
+succeeded, Charlotte's blood would have been upon your head? If you had
+not concealed the truth, his villany would never have been attempted."
+
+"But, my dear Val," exclaimed the Captain piteously, "I was not to
+know--"
+
+"No; you were not to know that there could be such a wretch as Philip
+Sheldon upon this earth. We will say no more of that. I kept my secret,
+you kept yours. Mischief unspeakable well-nigh came of all this underhand
+work. But heaven has been merciful to us. We have passed through the
+valley of the shadow of death; and if anything could make my wife dearer
+to me than she was when first I won her promise to be mine, it would be
+the sorrow of the last few months. And now I will go and shake hands with
+Lenoble, my wife's kinsman. He is a fine fellow, and well deserves his
+good fortune. Stay; one word. Did Diana know this? did she know that her
+lover is heir to the Haygarth estate?"
+
+"She does not know it now. She has never heard the name of Haygarth. And,
+between you and me, Val, it cost me a world of trouble to persuade her to
+say yes to Lenoble's offer, though he is a very decent match for her,
+even without reference to the Haygarth estate."
+
+"I am glad she knew nothing of this," said Valentine; "I am very glad."
+
+After this he again shook hands with Captain Paget, at that gentleman's
+request, and the Captain expressed himself much relieved by the
+conversation, and by his late protege's very generous behaviour. He
+called to his daughter and the rest presently, and they came at his
+summons.
+
+"Is your long talk finished, papa?" asked Diana.
+
+"And is the secret told?" demanded Charlotte of her obedient husband
+and slave.
+
+"Yes, dear, it is told," he answered gravely.
+
+"I hope it is a pleasant secret."
+
+"I do not think the knowledge of it will give you much pain, dearest.
+You have learnt to think yourself a--a kind of an heiress of late,
+have you not?"
+
+"Papa--Mr. Sheldon--told me that I had a claim to some money; but I have
+not thought much about it, except that I should give you Grote and
+Macaulay in dark-brown calf, with bevelled boards and red edges, like
+that edition you saw at the auctioneer's in Bond Street, and have talked
+about ever since; and a horse, perhaps; and a glass porch to our
+cottage."
+
+"Well, darling, the books in dark-brown calf, and the horse, and the
+glass porch, may all be ours in the future; but the money was only a
+dream--it has melted away, dear."
+
+"Is that all?" asked Charlotte. "Why, I dare say the day will come when
+you will be as rich as Sir Walter Scott."
+
+"In the meantime I have something to give you instead of the money."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Yes; a cousin. Will that do as well, my love?"
+
+"A cousin? I shall like her very much if she is nice."
+
+"The cousin I mean is a gentleman."
+
+"But where is he to come from?" cried Charlotte, laughing. Has he
+dropped from the moon? The only relations I have the world are Uncle and
+Aunt Mercer. How can you pretend to find me a cousin?"
+
+"Do you remember telling me of your grandmother's only sister--Susan
+Meynell?"
+
+"Yes," said Charlotte, with a sudden blush; "I remember."
+
+"That Miss Meynell married a gentleman of Normandy, and left one only
+child, a son. His name is Gustave Lenoble, and he is standing by your
+side. He is heir-at-law to a very large fortune, which it was once
+supposed you could claim. Are you sorry, Lotta, to find a kinsman and
+lose a fortune?--and are you contented to begin the world with no hope
+except in your husband's patience and courage?"
+
+"And genius!" cried Charlotte, with enthusiasm.
+
+The sweet, blinding glamour of love shone upon this young scribbler, and
+she believed that he was indeed worthy to take rank among the greatest of
+that grand brotherhood of which he was so humble a member. She looked up
+at him with the prettiest confidence; her clinging hand clasped his with
+love and trust immeasurable. He felt and knew that love like this was a
+treasure beside which the Reverend John Haygarth's hoarded thousands must
+needs seem but sorry dross.
+
+After this there was much explanation and congratulation. Gustave Lenoble
+was delighted to claim so fair a kinswoman.
+
+"Thou art like my eldest, my cousin," he said; "Diana saw the likeness at
+the Sacre Coeur when she beheld my daughter; and I too saw my eldest's
+look in thine eyes when I first met thee. Remember, it was convened
+between us that Cotenoir should be a home for thee and for Hawkehurst
+before I knew what link bound thee to the house of Lenoble. Now thou and
+thy husband will be of our family."
+
+Diana was bewildered, grieved, indignant with the father who had deceived
+her by his studious suppression of the truth. She found herself placed in
+the position of rival to Charlotte, and the whole proceeding seemed to
+her mean and treacherous.
+
+But it was no time for remonstrance or open expression of indignant
+feeling. Her father's days were numbered. She knew this, and she held her
+peace. Nor did Mrs. Sheldon utter any word of complaint, though the
+disappointment she experienced upon hearing this revelation was very
+keen. The idea of the four or five thousand pounds which were to come to
+Charlotte had been a consolation to her in the midst of that confusion
+and desolation which had newly come upon her life. She left Knightsbridge
+that evening somewhat depressed in spirits, and half inclined to be angry
+with Charlotte and her husband for their gaiety of manner, and evident
+happiness in each other's society.
+
+"It seems hard to have to begin the world at my age," she murmured
+hopelessly, "after being accustomed to have everything nice about me, as
+I had at the Lawn; though I own that the trouble and care of the servants
+was wearing me to the grave."
+
+"Dear mamma," exclaimed Charlotte tenderly, "there is no fear of trouble
+or poverty for you or for us. Valentine has plenty of money, and is on
+the high road to securing a comfortable income. Authors do not starve in
+garrets now, you know, as they used to do, poor things, when Doctor
+Johnson ate his dinner in a cave, or something dreadful of that kind; and
+when Sir Richard Steele thought it quite a wonderful thing to get a pound
+of tea for his wife. And Valentine's heart is in his profession, and he
+will work for us."
+
+"As long as I have a hand that can write, and a brain that can guide my
+pen," interposed Mr. Hawkehurst, gaily. "I have given hostages to
+Fortune. I can face the hazard boldly. I feel as confident and as happy as
+if we lived in the golden age, when there was neither care nor toil for
+innocent mankind, and all the brightest things of earth were the
+spontaneous gift of the gods."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+BOHEMIAN INDEPENDENCE.
+
+Monsieur and Madame Lenoble went to Brighton for their honeymoon. A
+letter or a telegraphic message would bring them thence swiftly to the
+bedside of the dying Captain, should the last fatal change set in
+suddenly. Diana had wished to stay with her father, but Horatio insisted
+upon the honeymoon trip, and that everything should be done in a correct
+and gentlemanly manner.
+
+"You can engage rooms at the Albion," Captain Paget had said to his
+son-in-law a few days before the quiet wedding. "The house is extremely
+comfortable; and you will be received by a compatriot. The proprietor is
+a Frenchman, and a very gentlemanly person, I assure you; the _cuisine_
+irreproachable. I remember the old Steyne when Mrs. FitzHerbert lived
+close by, and received all the best people, in the days when the Cockney
+had not yet taken possession of Brighthelmstone, and the Chinese dragons
+and pagodas were bright and fresh in the Pavilion."
+
+To Brighton, therefore, the bride and bridegroom departed; Diana attended
+by a maid, an appanage which the Captain had insisted upon. Poor Diana
+was sorely puzzled as to what she should find for the maid to do when her
+hair had been dressed early in the morning, and her costume laid out in
+state for the day.
+
+"I think I must buy some handkerchiefs for her to hem," she said to
+Gustave; "it will be quite dreadful for her to have nothing to do all
+day long."
+
+The weather was warm and bright. The sea danced and sparkled under the
+windows. Gustave was always in the same happy frame of mind. An elegant
+landau had been secured for the period of their visit, and a pair of
+capital horses carried them out on long and pleasant expeditions to the
+pretty Sussex villages, or across the broad bare downs, beyond which the
+sea stretched blue and bright.
+
+In the evening, when the lamp was lighted and the urn hissed gaily, Diana
+felt that she and her husband were at home. It was the first home she had
+known--the first time she had been sole mistress and centre of a
+household. She looked back at all the old desolation, the dreary shifting
+from lodging to lodging, the degradation, the self-abasement, the dull
+apathy of despair; and then she looked across at her husband as he
+lounged in his easy-chair, contemplating her with dreamy adoring eye, in
+a kind of lazy worship; and she knew that for this man she was the centre
+of the universe, the very keystone in the arch of life.
+
+She stretched out her hand to him with a smile, and he pressed it fondly
+to his lips. There were twinkling jewels upon the slender fingers; for
+the prettiest shop in Brighton--the brightest shop in Brighton--had been
+ransacked that morning by the fond, frivolous, happy husband, as pleased
+to bedeck his wife as a child to dress her last new doll.
+
+"How can I ever be worthy of so much affection, Gustave!" she exclaimed,
+as he kissed the twinkling fingers.
+
+And it did indeed seem to her that for this free gift of love she could
+never render a sufficient recompense.
+
+"Thou wilt make Cotenoir a home," he said; "thou knowest not how I have
+sighed for a home. This room, with the lamplight shining on thy face, and
+thy white hands moving about the teacups, and thy sweet smile, which
+greets me every now and then when thou lookest by here,--it is more of
+home than I have ever known since I left Beaubocage, that modest dwelling
+where lived those two angels of kindness, my aunt and my grandmother."
+
+In one of those long pleasant drives to a distant village nestling under
+the lee of a steep hill, the husband and wife had much serious talk about
+the position of the former with reference to the Haygarth estate. The
+result of that conversation was shown in a letter which Charlotte
+Hawkehurst received the next day from her friend Diana Lenoble.
+
+"Albion Hotel, Brighton.
+
+"EVER DEAR LOTTA,--Gustave and I have discussed the Haygarth business
+with great satisfaction to ourselves, since it transpired in the course
+of our conversation that we are both of one mind in the matter. It is
+agreed between us that, as he is very well off already, and as he never
+hoped or expected to inherit a fortune from his maternal ancestor, it is
+only just that he should divide this unlooked-for wealth with his dear
+cousin, whose claim to that inheritance he recognizes as equal to his
+own; the mere fact of seniority making only a legal and not a moral
+difference in the degree of relationship to the Reverend John Haygarth.
+Do you understand, darling?--_you_ are to have half this money. My
+husband will not step in between you and good fortune. I cannot tell you
+how happy this determination of Gustave's has made me. I felt myself in a
+manner base and ungrateful when I thought I was to share wealth that
+might have been yours; but I ought to have better understood the justice
+of my husband's mind. And now, dearest, all will be arranged very simply;
+Gustave will come to London and see his lawyers, and execute some kind of
+deed, and the whole affair will be settled.
+
+"We have had some charming drive," &c. &c.
+
+Here the young wife branched off into a description of the simple
+pleasures of their honeymoon holiday.
+
+This letter was answered by Valentine Hawkehurst in person. He came down
+to Brighton to thank his friends for their generous desire to enrich his
+wife, and to decline, on her part, any share in John Haygarth's wealth.
+
+It was in vain that Gustave and Diana argued the point, Mr. Hawkehurst
+was fixed as fate.
+
+"Believe me, it is better as it is," he said. "Charlotte and I have
+arrived at this conviction with all due thought and deliberation. We are
+both young, and the world is all before us. There is much in the past
+that I have to redeem, as Diana well knows. It is better that I should
+fight the battle of life unaided, and rise from the ranks by right of my
+merit as a soldier. If ever we have need of help--if ever I find myself
+breaking down--you may be sure that it is to you I shall come. By and by,
+if Providence gives me children to work for, I will refuse no bounty that
+you may bestow on them. Their future may be rendered secure by your
+generosity, if you please, Lenoble; they will be your kindred. But for an
+alien like myself there is no discipline so wholesome as honest hard
+work. I am as rich as John Milton when he set up a school in St. Bride's
+Churchyard."
+
+To this resolution Mr. Hawkehurst adhered with a gentle firmness.
+
+"Thou art chivalrous like Don Quixote," said Gustave Lenoble; "but it
+shall be as thou wouldest. Touch there."
+
+He offered his hand, which the other grasped with all heartiness.
+
+"I will be godfather to thy little first one, and I will settle on him
+ten thousand pounds before he cuts his first tooth," said Gustave
+decisively.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+BEYOND THE VEIL.
+
+Diana and her husband did not linger long at Brighton; they went back to
+town in time to see the last of that old wayfarer whose troubled journey
+came to so peaceful an ending. It was a very calm haven in which this
+battered old privateer lay at anchor after life's tempestuous course; but
+to the Captain himself it seemed a hard thing that he should not have
+been permitted one brief cruise upon that summer sea which danced so
+gaily beneath the keel of the Lenobles' prosperous bark.
+
+"We have shared adversity, my love," he said sadly, when he talked with
+his daughter in the last few days; "but your prosperity I am to have no
+share in. Well, I suppose I have no right to complain. My life has been
+an erring one; but poverty is the most vicious companion that a man can
+consort with. If I had come into six or seven thousand a year, I might
+have been as starch in my notions as a bishop; but I have been obliged to
+live, Diana--that was the primary necessity, and I learnt to accommodate
+myself to it."
+
+That he had erred, the Captain was very ready to acknowledge. That he had
+sinned deeply, and had much need to repent himself of his iniquity, he
+was very slow to perceive. But sometimes, in the still watches of the
+night, when the faint lamplight on the shadowy wall was more gloomy than
+darkness, when the nurse, hired to assist his own man in these last days,
+dozed in her comfortable chair, the truth came home to his shallow soul,
+and Horatio Paget knew that he had been indeed a sinner, and very vile
+among sinners. Then, for a moment, the veil of self-deception was lifted,
+and he saw his past life as it had really been,--selfish, dishonourable,
+cruel beyond measure in reckless injury of others. For a moment the awful
+book was opened, and the sinner saw the fearful sum set against his name.
+
+"What can wipe out the dread account?" he asked himself. "Is there such a
+thing as forgiveness for a selfish useless life--a life which is one long
+offence against God and man?"
+
+In these long wakeful nights the dying man thought much of his wife. The
+sweet tender face came back to him, with its mournful wondering look. He
+knew, now, how his falsehoods and dishonours had wounded and oppressed
+that gentle soul. He remembered how often she had pleaded for the right,
+and how he had ridiculed her arguments, and set at naught her tender
+pleadings. He had fancied her in a manner inimical to himself when she
+urged the cause of some angry creditor or meek deluded landlady. Now,
+with the light that is not upon earth or sea shining on the picture of
+his past career, he could see and understand things as he had never seen
+or understood them before. He knew now that it was for his own sake that
+faithful and devoted wife had pleaded, his own interest that had been
+near to her pitying heart, as well as the interest of bakers and
+butchers, landladies and tailors.
+
+"She might have made a good man of me, if I had let her have her way," he
+thought to himself. "I know that she is in heaven. Will she plead for me,
+I wonder, at the foot of the Great Throne? I used to laugh at her bad
+English, or fly in a passion with her sometimes, poor soul, when I wanted
+her to pass for a lady, and she broke down outrageously. But there her
+voice will be heard when mine appeals in vain. Dear soul! I wonder who
+taught her to be so pure and unselfish, and trusting and faithful? She
+was a Christian without knowing it. 'I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of
+heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and
+prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.'"
+
+He thought of his wife's lonely deathbed, and compared it with his own.
+For him there was luxury; by him watched a devoted and all-forgiving
+daughter, a generous friend and son-in-law. All that could be done to
+soothe the painful descent was done for him. For her there had been
+nothing but loneliness and sorrow.
+
+"But she might be certain of a speedy welcome in a better home," thought
+Horatio; "and I--? Ah, dear kind creature, _there_ the difference was all
+in her favour."
+
+As the closing scene grew nearer, he thought more and more of his gentle
+low-born wife, whose hold upon him in life had been so slender, whose
+memory had occupied until now so insignificant a place in his mind. His
+daughter watched with him unceasingly in the last two days and nights.
+His mind wandered. On the day of his death he mistook Diana for that
+long-lost companion.
+
+"I have not been a kind husband, Mary, my dear," he faltered "but
+the world has been hard upon me--debts--difficulties--crack
+regiment--expensive mess--set of gamblers--no pity on a young man without
+fortune--force of example--tied a millstone round my wretched neck before
+I was twenty-one years of age."
+
+Later, when the doctor had felt his pulse for the last time, he cried out
+suddenly, "I have made a statement of my affairs, the liabilities are
+numerous--the assets nil; but I rely on the clemency of this court."
+
+These were his last words. He sank into a kind of stupor betwixt sleeping
+and waking, and in this he died.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+BETTER THAN GOLD.
+
+The little fleet of paper boats which Mr. Sheldon had pioneered so
+skilfully over the commercial seas came to grief very soon after the
+disappearance of the admiral. A bill drawn upon the Honduras Mahogany
+Company, Limited, was the first to reach maturity. The bill was referred
+to the drawer--the drawer was not to be found.
+
+"I have not seen Sheldon for the last fortnight," Mr. Orcott informed the
+gentleman who brought him the document.
+
+"Out of business for a fortnight?"
+
+"He has not been in business for a month. His stepdaughter has been very
+ill--at death's door, and all that kind of thing, and my governor was
+awfully cut up about it. There used to be a couple of doctors at the
+house every day, and no end of fuss. I took Sheldon his letters, and
+managed matters for him here, and so on. And one fine morning my young
+lady runs off and gets married on the quiet; so I suspect there was a
+good deal of shamming about the illness--and those old fogies, the
+doctors, winked at it. Between them all, I fancy Sheldon was completely
+sold; and he has turned savage and gone off somewhere in the sulks."
+
+"I wish he had chosen any other time for his sulks," said the holder of
+the bill; "my partner and I have discounted several acceptances for him.
+He gave us liberal terms, and we considered any paper of his as safe as a
+Bank of England note; and now this confounded bill comes back to us
+through our bankers, noted, 'Refer to drawer'--a most unpleasant thing,
+you know, and very inconsiderate of Sheldon to leave us in such a fix."
+
+"He has forgotten the bill, I suppose," said Mr. Orcott.
+
+"Well, but you see, really now, a business man ought not to forget that
+kind of thing. And so Miss Halliday has made a runaway match, has she? I
+remember seeing her when I dined at Bayswater--an uncommonly fine girl.
+And she has gone and thrown herself away upon some penniless scapegrace,
+most likely? Now, by the bye, how about this Honduras Company, Mr.
+Orcott; they don't seem to have any London offices?"
+
+"I believe not. We've some of their prospectuses somewhere about, I
+think. Would you like to see one?"
+
+"I should, very much."
+
+Mr. Orcott opened two or three drawers, and after some little trouble
+produced the required document.
+
+It was a very flourishing prospectus, setting forth the enormous
+benefits to be derived by shareholders from the profitable dealings of the
+company. Some good high-sounding names figured in the list of directors,
+and the chairman was Captain H. N. Cromie Paget. The prospectus looked
+well enough, but the holder of Mr. Sheldon's dishonoured bill was not
+able to derive much comfort from high-sounding phrases and high-sounding
+names.
+
+"I'll go down to Bayswater, and see if I can hear anything of your
+governor," he said to Mr. Orcott.
+
+"He was not there yesterday when I called, and his servants could tell me
+nothing of his whereabouts," the young Yorkshireman said very coolly.
+
+"Indeed!" cried the holder of the dishonoured bill in some alarm. "Now,
+really, that is not right; a business man ought not to do that kind of
+thing."
+
+He called a cab and drove to the Lawn. There was the smart gothic villa,
+with its pointed gables, and florid chimneys, and oriel windows, and in
+the Tudor casements of the ground-floor appeared the bills of a West-end
+auctioneer, announcing in large letters that the lease of this charming
+mansion, together with the nearly new furniture, linen, books, china,
+plate, carefully-selected proof-prints after distinguished modern
+artists, small cellar of choice wines, &c., &c., &c., would be disposed
+of by auction on the following day.
+
+Mr. Sheldon's victim went into the house, where he found some men
+preparing for the forthcoming sale.
+
+"What is the meaning of all this?" he asked, aghast.
+
+"A bill of sale, sir. Messrs. Napthali and Zabulon."
+
+This was enough. The holder of the bill went back to the City. Another
+bill came due on the following day, and before the members of the Stock
+Exchange took their luncheon, it was known that Philip Sheldon's credit
+was among the things of the past.
+
+"I always thought he was out of his depth," said one set of talkers.
+
+"He was the last man I should have expected to see come to grief," said
+another set of talkers.
+
+On settling-day came the awful proclamation--Philip Sheldon had
+absconded, and would not meet his differences.
+
+On the same day came a terrible revelation to Mr. George Sheldon, of
+Gray's Inn, solicitor, genealogist, and pedigree hunter. The first
+official step in the advancement of Gustave Lenoble's claim against the
+Crown was taken by Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon, the solicitors, of
+Whitehall; and George Sheldon discovered that between Charlotte
+Hawkehurst and the Haygarth estate there stood a prior claimant, whereby
+all his toil, trouble, costs out of pocket, and wear and tear of body and
+mind, had been wasted.
+
+"It is enough to make a man go and cut his throat," cried George, in his
+first savage sense of utter disappointment.
+
+He went into his slovenly bedroom, and took out one of his razors, and
+felt the corrugated surface of the left side of his neck meditatively.
+But the razor was blunt, and the corrugated surface seemed very tough and
+unmanageable; so George Sheldon decided that this kind of operation was
+an affair which might be deferred.
+
+He heard the next day that his brother was _non est_, and, in his own
+phraseology, that there was a pretty kettle of fish in the City.
+
+"Upon my word, Phil and I seem to have brought our pigs to a very nice
+market," he said. "I dare say, wherever that fellow has gone, he has
+carried a well-lined purse with him. But I wouldn't have his conscience
+for all the wealth of the Rothschilds. It's bad enough to see Tom
+Halliday's face as I see it sometimes. What must it be to _him_?"
+
+A little more than a year after this, and the yellow corn was waving on
+the fertile plains of Normandy, fruit ripening in orchards on hillside
+and in valley; merry holiday folks splashing and dabbling in the waves
+that wash the yellow sands of Dieppe; horses coming to grief in Norman
+steeplechases; desperate gamesters losing their francs and half-francs in
+all kinds of frivolous games in the Dieppe _etablissement_; and yonder,
+in the heart of Normandy, beyond the tall steeples of Rouen, a happy
+family assembled at the Chateau Cotenoir.
+
+One happy family--two happy families rather, but so closely united by the
+bonds of love and friendship as to seem indeed one. Here are Gustave
+Lenoble and his young wife Diana, with two tall slender damsels by their
+side; and here is Valentine Hawkehurst, the successful young scribbler,
+with his fair young wife Charlotte; and out on the terrace yonder are two
+nurses walking with two babies, at that early, and, to some minds,
+obnoxious stage of babyhood in which a perpetual rocking, and pacing to
+and fro, and swaying backwards and forwards in the air, is necessary for
+the preservation of anything approaching tranquillity. But to the minds
+of the two young mothers and the two proud fathers, these small creatures
+in their long white robes seem something too bright for earth. The united
+ages of the babies do not amount to six months; but the mothers have
+counted every gradual stage of these young lives, and to both it seems as
+if there had been no time in which the children were not, with so firm a
+hold have they possessed themselves of every thought in the foolish
+maternal mind, of every impulse in the weak maternal heart.
+
+Mrs. Hawkehurst has brought her son to see his aunt Diana; for Diana has
+insisted upon assuming that relationship by letters-patent, as it were.
+Madame Lenoble's baby is a daughter, and this fact in itself seems to the
+two friends to be a special interposition of Providence.
+
+"Would it not be delightful if they should grow up to love each other and
+marry?" exclaimed Diana; and Charlotte agreed with her that such an event
+in the future did indeed seem in a manner foreshadowed by the conduct of
+the infants in the present.
+
+"He takes notice of her already!" she exclaimed, looking out at the
+little creature in white muslin robes, held up against the warm blue sky;
+"see, they are cooing at each other! I am sure that must be cooing."
+
+And then the two mothers went out upon the sunny terrace-walk and fondly
+contemplated these domestic treasures, until the domestic treasures were
+seized with some of the inexplicable throes and mysterious agonies of
+early babyhood, and had to be borne off shrieking to their nurseries.
+
+"Dear angel," said Gustave, of his "little last one," "she has the very
+shriek of Clarice here, poignant and penetrating, until to drown the
+heart. Dost thou figure to thyself that thy voice was penetrating as
+that, my beautiful, in the time?"
+
+He kissed his beautiful, and she ran off to join the procession following
+the two babies,--alarmed nurses, distracted mammas, shrieking infants,
+anxious damsels.
+
+"_C'est un vrai tourbillon_," as Gustave remarked to his companion
+Valentine Hawkehurst; "these women, how they love their children! What of
+saints, what of Madonnas, what of angels!"
+
+Whereupon he spouted Victor Hugo:
+
+"Lorsque l'enfant parait, le cercle de famille
+Applaudit a grands cris; son doux regard qui brille
+Fait briller tous les yeux;
+Et les plus tristes fronts, les plus souilles peut-etre,
+Se derident soudain a voir l'enfant paraitre,
+Innocent et joyeux."
+
+All things had gone well for M. Lenoble. His direct descent from Matthew
+Haygarth, the father of the intestate, had been proved to the
+satisfaction of Crown lawyers and High Court of Chancery, and he had been
+in due course placed in possession of the reverend intestate's estate, to
+the profit and pleasure of his solicitors and M. Fleurus, and to the
+unspeakable aggravation of George Sheldon, who washed his hands at once
+and for ever of all genealogical research, and fell back in an embittered
+and angry spirit upon the smaller profits to be derived from petty
+transactions in the bill-discounting line, and a championship of
+penniless sufferers of all classes, from a damsel who considered herself
+jilted by a fickle swain, in proof of whose inconstancy she could produce
+documentary evidence of the "pork-chop and tomato sauce" order, to a
+pedestrian who knocked his head against a projecting shutter in the
+Strand, and straightway walked home to Holloway to lay himself up for a
+twelvemonth in a state of mental and bodily incapacity requiring large
+pecuniary redress from the owner of the fatal shutter. To this noble
+protection of the rights of the weak did George Sheldon devote his
+intellect; and when malicious enemies stigmatized these Quixotic
+endeavours as "speculative actions," or when, in the breaking-down of
+some oppressed damsel's cause by reason of the slender evidence afforded
+by some reticent lover's epistolary effusions, unjust judges told him
+that he "ought to be ashamed of himself" for bringing such an action, the
+generous attorney no doubt took consolation from an approving conscience,
+and went forth from that court, to look for other oppressed damsels or
+injured wayfarers, erect and unshaken.
+
+Some little profit Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn did derive from the Haygarth
+estate; for at the request of Gustave Lenoble Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon
+sent him a cheque for one thousand pounds, as the price of those early
+investigations which had set the artful Captain upon the right track. He
+wrote a ceremoniously grateful letter to Gustave Lenoble on receiving
+this honorarium. It is always well to be grateful for benefits received
+from a rich man; but in the depths of his heart he execrated the
+fortunate inheritor of the Haygarthian thousands.
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst was not quite so vehement in the expression of his
+feelings as that lively Celt, Gustave; but deep in his heart there was a
+sense of happiness no less pure and exalted.
+
+Providence had given him more than he had ever dared to hope; not
+John Haygarth's thousands; not a life of luxurious idleness, and
+dinner-giving, and Derby days, and boxes on the grand tier, and
+carriage-horses at five hundred guineas a pair; not a palace in
+Belgravia, and a shooting-box in the Highlands, and a villa at Cowes;
+not these things, in which he would once have perceived the _summum
+bonum_; but a fair price for his labour, a dear young wife, a tranquil
+home.
+
+Nor had his researches among the dusty records of the departed Haygarths
+been profitless in a pecuniary sense to himself. Gustave Lenoble insisted
+that he should accept that honorarium of three thousand pounds which had
+been promised by George Sheldon as the reward of his success.
+
+"Captain Paget would never have been put on the right track if he had
+not filched your secrets from you," said the son and heir of Susan
+Meynell. "It is to your researches, in the first place, that I owe
+this inheritance; and you cannot refuse to accept the agreed price of
+your labour."
+
+Valentine did not refuse this fairly-earned reward, nor did he oppose the
+settlement which Gustave made in favour of Charlotte's infant son. It
+seemed to him only just that some share of the heritage should fall to
+the descendant of poor Susan's younger sister and faithful friend.
+
+With this capital of three thousand pounds comfortably invested in
+consols, and with the interest of that sum of ten thousand pounds settled
+on his infant son, Mr. Hawkehurst began the world, in his new character
+of a husband and a father, very pleasantly.
+
+Of his literary career very little need be said here. He was yet at the
+beginning of the long dusty road that leads to the temple of Fame. It is
+enough to state that he found the dusty high-road rather difficult
+walking, and that he was pelted with more mud, flung by nameless
+assailants hidden behind the hedges, than he had anticipated when he set
+out upon the first stage of his journey. Happily, he found pleasant
+fellow-travellers and kindly encouragement from an indulgent public, and
+was thus able to accept the mud which bespattered his garments in a very
+placid spirit, and to make light of all obstacles in the great highway.
+
+The cottage at Wimbledon was no longer a dream. It was a pleasant
+reality, the pride and delight of Mrs. Sheldon and Ann Woolper. It was a
+picturesque dwelling-place, half cottage, half villa, situated on the
+broad high-road from London to Kingston, with all the woodland of
+Richmond Park to be seen from the windows at the back. Only a wall
+divided Mr. Hawkehurst's gardens from the coverts of the Queen. It was
+like a royal demesne, Charlotte said; whereupon her husband insisted that
+it should be christened by the name of a royal dwelling, and so called it
+Charlottenburgh.
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst had secured this delightful abode for a considerable term
+of years, and upon the furnishing and decoration of the pretty rustic
+rooms Charlotte and he lavished unmeasured care. The delicious excitement
+of "picking up," or, in more elegant parlance, "collecting," was to these
+two happy people an inexhaustible source of pleasure. Every eccentric
+little table, every luxurious chair, had its special history, and had
+been the subject of negotiation and diplomacy that might have sufficed a
+Burleigh in the reorganization of Western Europe. The little Dresden and
+Vienna cups and saucers in the maple cabinet had been every one bought
+from a different dealer. The figures on the mantelpiece were Old Chelsea,
+of a quality that would have excited the envy of a Bernal or a Bonn, and
+had only fallen to the proud possessors by a sequence of fortuitous
+circumstances, the history of which was almost as thrilling as the
+story of Boehmer's diamond-necklace. The curtains in the drawing-room
+had draped the _portieres_ of the lovely Lady Blessington, and had been
+bought for a song by Valentine Hawkehurst, after passing through the
+hands of brokers and dealers innumerable. The tapestry-covered
+Louis-Quatorze chairs had belonged to Madame de Sevigne, and had
+furnished that dull country house whence she wrote the liveliest letters
+extant to her disreputable cousin, Bussy, Count of Babutin. These
+inestimable treasures had been picked up by Mr. and Mrs. Hawkehurst from
+a bric-a-brac merchant in a little court at the back of the Rue Vivienne,
+whither the young couple had gone arm-in-arm to choose a bonnet on their
+first pleasure-trip to Paris. The clock in the modest dining-room had
+been secured from the repository of the same merchant, and was warranted
+to have sounded the last domestic hours of Maximilian Robespierre in his
+humble lodging _chez le Menuisier_. The inkstand into which Mr.
+Hawkehurst dipped his rapid pen had served the literary career of
+Voltaire; the blotting-book on which he wrote had been used by Balzac.
+
+To the plausible fictions of the second-hand dealer Mr. and Mrs.
+Hawkehurst lent willing ears, and it seemed to them as if these
+associations, for which they had paid somewhat dearly, imparted a new
+grace to their home.
+
+The arrangement and superintendence of all these treasures gave poor
+Georgy endless pleasure and employment; but in her heart of hearts she
+believed in the prim splendours of the dismantled Lawn as much superior
+to these second-hand objects of art and upholstery. Nor did Ann Woolper
+regard the Chelsea figures and Dresden teacups and old black Albert-Duerer
+engravings as anything better than an innocent eccentricity on the part
+of the master of the house, for the saving of whose purse she managed and
+economized as faithfully as she had done for that lost master whereof the
+memory was so bitter.
+
+It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. Hawkehurst with a wife, a
+mother-in-law, and a faithful old servant, was likely to be well taken
+care of; a little spoiled perhaps by "much cherishing," but carefully
+guarded from all those temptations which are supposed to assail the
+bachelor man-of-letters, toiling alone and neglected in Temple chambers.
+For him the days passed in a pleasant monotony of constant labour,
+lightened always by the thought of those for whom he worked, cheered ever
+by the fond hope of future fame. He was no longer a bookmaker. He had
+written a book, the proceeds of which had enabled him to furnish the
+Wimbledon villa; and he was engaged in writing a second book, the fruits
+whereof would secure the needs of the immediate future. He had insured
+his life for a considerable amount, and had shown himself in all things
+prudent to a degree that verged upon Philistinism. But the policies taken
+out on Charlotte's life by Mr. Sheldon had been suffered to lapse.
+Valentine would have no money staked on that dear head.
+
+The steed which Charlotte had desired for her husband's pleasure, the
+library which she had catalogued so often, were yet among the delights of
+the future; but life has lost half its brightness when there is no
+unfulfilled desire left to the dreamer; and the horse which Mr.
+Hawkehurst was to ride in time to come, and the noble library which he
+was to collect, were the pleasant themes of Charlotte's conversation very
+often, as she and her husband walked on the heights of Wimbledon in the
+twilight, when his day's work was done.
+
+These twilight walks were the happy holidays of his life, and a part of
+his liberal education. He told his wife everything, every literary
+scheme, every fancy, every shadowy outline of future work, every new
+discovery in the boundless realms of Bookland. His enthusiasm; his
+hero-worship; his setting-up of one favourite and knocking-down of
+another; his unchristian pleasure in that awful slating of poor Jones in
+this week's _Saturday_, or the flaying alive of Robinson in the _Bond
+Street Backbiter_;--in a word, his "shop" never became wearisome to
+Charlotte. She listened always with a like rapture and sympathy; she
+worshipped his favourites of Bookland; she welcomed his friends and
+fellow-workers with unvarying sweetness; she devised and superintended the
+fitting-up of a smoking-room that was perfectly paradisaical, a glimpse
+of the Alhambra in miniature; and that obnoxious dish, the cold shoulder,
+was never served in Mr. Hawkehurst's dwelling. So sweet a wife, so
+pleasant a home, popularized the institution of matrimony among the young
+writer's bachelor friends; and that much-abused and cruelly maligned
+member of the human race, the mother-in-law, was almost rehabilitated by
+Mrs. Sheldon's easy good-nature and evident regard for the interests of
+her daughter's husband.
+
+And after all the groping among dry as dust records of a bygone century,
+after all the patient following of those faint traces on the sands of
+time left by the feet of Matthew Haygarth, _this_ was Charlotte's
+Inheritance,--a heart whose innocence and affection made home a kind of
+earthly paradise, and gave to life's commonest things a charm that all
+the gold ever found in California could not have imparted to them. This
+was Charlotte's Inheritance,--the tender, unselfish nature of the
+Haygarths and Hallidays; and thus dowered, her husband would not have
+exchanged her for the wealthiest heiress whose marriage was ever
+chronicled in _Court Circular_ or _Court Journal_.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+LOST SIGHT OF.
+
+A year and a half had passed since the disappearance of Philip Sheldon
+from the circle in which he had been considered a person of some
+importance. The repudiation of those bills by which he had sustained his
+exhausted credit, or rather the discovery that the companies upon which
+the bills pretended to be drawn were of all shadows the most shadowy, had
+brought consternation upon many, and ruin upon some. Bitter and
+unmeasured were the terms in which City men spoke of that Phil Sheldon
+with whom they had eaten the sacred bait and quaffed the social moselle
+in the taverns of Greenwich and Blackwall.
+
+There is a saying current on the Stock Exchange to the effect that the
+man who fails, and disappears from among his fellows behind a curtain of
+commercial cloud, is sure to return sooner or later to his old circle,
+with a moustache and a brougham. For Philip Sheldon there was, however,
+no coming back. The moustache and the brougham of the chastened and
+penitent defaulter were not for him. By his deliberate and notorious
+dishonour he had shut the door against the possibility of return. It may
+be supposed that the defaulter knew this, for he did not come back; and
+since he had no lack of moral courage, he would scarcely have refrained
+from showing himself once more in his old haunts, if it had been possible
+for him to face the difficulties of his position.
+
+Time passed, and there came no tidings of the missing man, though a
+detective was despatched to America in search of him by one vengeful
+sufferer among the many victims of the fictitious bills-of-exchange. It
+was supposed that he must inevitably go to America, and thither went his
+pursuer, but with no result except the expenditure of money and the
+further exasperation of the vengeful sufferer.
+
+"What will you do with him, if you get him?" asked a philosophical friend
+of the sufferer. "He has nothing to surrender. Zabulon had a bill-of-sale
+on his furniture."
+
+"Furniture!" cried the infuriated victim; "I don't want his furniture. I
+want his flesh and bones. I want to shut him up in Dartmoor Prison, or to
+get him twenty years' hard labour at Portland Island."
+
+"That sort of man would get a ticket-of-leave in less than twelve
+months," replied the philosophic friend. "I'm afraid you are only
+throwing good money after bad."
+
+The event proved this gentleman but too able a seer. In the monster city
+of New York Philip Sheldon had disappeared like a single drop of water
+flung upon the Atlantic Ocean. There was no trace of him: too intangible
+for the grasp of international law, he melted into the mass of humanity,
+only one struggler the more in the great army perpetually fighting life's
+desperate battle.
+
+From among all those who had known him this man had utterly vanished,
+and not one sigh of regret followed him in his unknown wanderings--not
+one creature amongst all those who had taken his hand and given him
+friendly greeting thought of him kindly, or cared to know whither he
+went or how he prospered. He had not left in the house that had
+sheltered him for years so much as a dog to whine at his door or listen
+for his returning footstep.
+
+This fact, if he had known it or considered it, would have troubled him
+very little. He had played his game for a certain stake, and had lost it.
+This he felt, and cursed his own too cautious play as the cause of his
+defeat. That there were higher stakes for which he might have played an
+easier game, was a fact that never occurred to him. In his philosophy
+there was indeed nothing higher given to the hopes of man than worldly
+success, and a dull, cold, prosperous life spent among prosperous
+acquaintance.
+
+He was gone, and those who remembered him most keenly--Valentine
+Hawkehurst, Diana Paget, Ann Woolper--remembered him with a shudder. The
+old Yorkshirewoman thought of him sometimes as she bent over the little
+muslin-bedecked cradle where the hope of the Hawkehursts slumbered, and
+looked round fearfully in the gloaming, half expecting to see his dreaded
+face glower upon her, dark and threatening, from between the curtains of
+the window.
+
+It was a belief of all ancient races, nay indeed, a belief still current
+amongst modern nations, that it is not given to man to behold the beings
+of another world and live. The Arab who meets a phantom in the desert
+goes home to his tent to die. He knows that the hand of doom is upon him.
+He has seen that upon which, for mortal eyes, it is fatal to look. And it
+is thus in some measure with those who are admitted within the dark
+precincts of murder's dread sanctuary. Not swiftly does the curtain fall
+which has once been lifted from the hidden horrors of that ghastly
+temple. The revelations of an utterly wicked soul leave a lasting impress
+upon the mind which unwillingly becomes recipient of those awful secrets.
+
+The circumstances of Tom Halliday's death and of Charlotte's illness were
+not to be forgotten by Ann Woolper. The shadow of that dark cruel face,
+which had lain upon her bosom forty years before, haunted many a peaceful
+hour of her quiet old age. Her ignorance, and that faint tinge of
+superstition which generally accompanies ignorance, exaggerated the
+terror of those dark memories. The thought that Philip Sheldon still
+lived, still had the power to plot and plan evil against the innocent,
+was an ever-present source of terror to her. She could not understand
+that such an element could exist among the forces of evil without fatal
+result to some one. It seemed to her as if a devil were at large, and
+there could be neither peace nor security until the evil spirit was
+exorcised, the baneful presence laid in nethermost depths of unfathomable
+sea.
+
+These feelings and these fears would scarcely have arisen in the old
+woman's breast, had she alone been subject to the possible plottings of
+that evil nature. For herself she had little fear. Her span of life was
+nearly ended; very few were the sands that had yet to run; and, for her
+own sake, she would have cared little if some rough hand had spilt them
+untimely. But a new interest in life had been given to Mrs. Woolper just
+as life drew near its close. That peerless child, the son and heir of the
+Hawkehursts, had been intrusted to the old woman's care; and this infant
+she loved with an affection much more intense than that which had once
+made Philip Sheldon so dear to her.
+
+It was by the cradle of this much-treasured child that Ann Woolper nursed
+her fear of her old master. She knew that he had been counter-plotted and
+beaten ignominiously in that deadly game which he had played so boldly.
+And she asked herself whether he was the man to submit to such utter
+defeat without any effort to revenge himself upon those who had helped to
+compass his failure.
+
+On that night when Charlotte Halliday had lain between life and death,
+suffering on the one hand from the effects of a prolonged and gradual
+course of poison, on the other from the violent measures taken to
+eliminate that poisonous element from her system,--on that night when the
+precious life yet trembled in the balance, Ann Woolper had seen murderous
+looks in the face of the man whom she dared boldly to defy, and who knew
+in that hour that his ghastly plot was discovered. Even now, secure in a
+haven of safety, she could not forget that baneful look in Philip
+Sheldon's eyes. She could not find perfect rest while she knew not where
+that man might be, or what mischief he might be plotting against those
+she loved.
+
+Her fears showed themselves in many ways. When she read of dark and
+vengeful deeds in her newspaper, she thought of her old master, and how,
+in such or such an act, his fatal hand might reveal itself. He might lie
+in wait for Valentine some night on the dark road between Charlottenburgh
+and the distant railway-station. She could fancy the young wife's agony
+of terror as the night wore on, and her husband did not return; the
+unspeakable horror that would come over all that happy household when the
+news came that its young master had been found on the lonely road slain
+by some unknown hand. Open utterance to her fears she was too wise to
+give; but she warned Mr. Hawkehurst of the dangers on that dark road, and
+besought him to arm himself with a trusty bludgeon wherewith to meet and
+vanquish any chance assailant. Valentine laughed at her anxious warning;
+but when Charlotte took up the cry he was fain to content her by the
+purchase of a sturdy stick, which he swung cheerily to and fro as he
+walked homewards in the gloaming, planning a chapter in his new book, and
+composing powerful and eloquent sentences which eluded his mental grasp
+when he tried to reduce his evening reverie to pen-and-ink.
+
+"When the air blows fresh across the common, and the distant lights
+twinkle, and the bright stars peep out in the pale-yellow sky, my
+language flows as it never does when I sit at my desk, Lotta," he said to
+his wife. "I feel myself a Swift or a Junius out there; equal to the
+tackling of any social question that ever arose upon this earth, from the
+Wood halfpence to the policy of American taxation, and triennial
+elections. At home I am only Valentine Hawkehurst, with an ever-present
+consciousness that so many pages of copy are required from me within a
+given time, and that my son-and-heir is cutting his teeth, and making
+more fuss about it than I ever made about _my_ teeth; and that the man
+about the water-rate is waiting to see me, please, and is desperately
+anxious about making-up his books; and that I have the dearest wife in
+Christendom, who opens my door, and puts her pretty head into my room
+once in half an hour to see how I am getting on, or to ask whether I want
+any more coals, or to borrow my ink to make-up her washing-book."
+
+"You mean, sir, that I prevent your becoming a Junius?" cried Charlotte,
+with an enchanting _moue_.
+
+"Yes, dear. I begin to understand why Swift kept his poor ill-used wife
+at a respectful distance. She would have made him too happy if he had
+allowed her to be on the premises. She would have given the cruel
+indignation no chance of lacerating his heart; and such writing as
+Swift's is only produced by a man whose heart is so lacerated. No, my
+darling, I shall never be a Swift or a Junius while your pretty head is
+thrust into my room once or twice an hour; but I may hope to be something
+better, if bright eyes can inspire bright thoughts, and innocent smiles
+give birth to pleasant fancies."
+
+Upon this there was the usual little demonstration of affection between
+this young couple; and Charlotte praised her husband as the most
+brilliant and admirable of men; after which pleasing flattery she
+favoured him with a little interesting information about the baby's last
+tooth, and the contumacious behaviour of the new housemaid, between whom
+and Mrs. Woolper there had been a species of disagreement, which the
+Yorkshirewoman described as a "standfurther."
+
+Thus occupied in simple pleasures and simple cares, the lives of Mr. and
+Mrs. Hawkehurst went on, untroubled by any fear of that crime-burdened
+wretch whose image haunted the dreams and meditations of Ann Woolper. For
+these two Mr. Sheldon was numbered among the dead. To Charlotte the
+actual truth had never been revealed; but she had been, in the course of
+time, given to understand that her stepfather had committed some
+unpardonable sin, which must for ever separate him from herself and her
+mother. She had been told as much as this, and had been told that she
+must seek to know no more. To this she submitted without questioning.
+
+"I am very sorry for him," she said, "and for mamma."
+
+She concluded that the unpardonable offence must needs have been some sin
+against her mother, some long-hidden infidelity brought suddenly to
+light, with all the treachery and falsehood involved therein. She never
+mentioned her stepfather after this but in her prayers the sinner was not
+forgotten.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+ETEOCLES AND POLYNICES.
+
+George Sheldon went his ways, picking up as good a living as he could
+from that chivalrous assertion of the rights of the weak which has been
+already described; and the thought of his brother's sin-burdened soul
+troubled him very little. He did think of Tom Halliday; for that last
+grasp of the honest Yorkshireman's hand, that last look in his old
+friend's face, were haunting memories which this sharp practitioner had
+found himself powerless to exorcise. If his brother, after an absence of
+many years in the remote regions of the East Indies, had come home to his
+fatherland with a colossal fortune, and the reputation of having
+strangled a few natives during the process of amassing that fortune,
+George Sheldon would have welcomed the returning wanderer, and would, in
+his own parlance, have "swallowed the natives." A few niggers, more or
+less, sent untimely to Gehenna, would have seemed scarcely sufficient
+cause for quarrel with a fraternal and liberally-disposed millionaire.
+But the circumstances of Tom Halliday's death had brought all the horror
+of crime and treachery home to the spectator of that deliberate
+assassination, and had produced such an impression as no other
+circumstances could on so hard a nature.
+
+It was some satisfaction to George Sheldon to know that his old friend's
+daughter had found a happy home; and he was apt to take some credit from
+his own share in his brother's discomfiture. He met Valentine sometimes
+in the course of his peregrinations in the neighbourhood of the British
+Museum, and the greeting between the two men was sufficiently cordial;
+but Mr. Hawkehurst did not invite his old employer to Charlottenburgh,
+and George was able to comprehend that to that household no one bearing
+the name of Sheldon could be a welcome visitor.
+
+He jogged on comfortably enough in his own way; living in his chambers,
+and consorting with a few chosen friends and kindred spirits of the
+jolly-good-fellow class, whom he met at an old-established tavern in the
+west-central district, and in whose society, and the society of the
+subscription-ground in the Farringdon Road, he found the _summum bonum_
+in the way of social intercourse. He did a little speculation upon the
+turf, and discounted the bills of needy bookmakers, or bought up their
+bad debts, and thereby gained introductions to the noble patrons of the
+humble "scums," and pushed his business into new grooves. He had no idea
+that such an existence was in any way ignoble; nay, indeed, when he had
+paid his rent, and his clerk, and his laundress, and his tavern score,
+and "stood glasses round" amongst his friends, he lighted his cigar, and
+thrust his hands into the depths of his pockets, and paced the flags of
+Holborn happy in the belief that he had performed the whole duty of man.
+
+"There are men whose business obliges them to keep up an establishment,
+and go to church twice a day, and all that kind of thing," he said; "and
+I dare say they find it pay. My clients don't care a doit where I live,
+or how I spend my Sundays; and I'd rather have five pounds a week and my
+liberty than the best family connection in the Fields."
+
+The fate of that wretched man, who had dropped out of his old circle
+and vanished no one knew whither, in no manner disturbed the peace of
+George Sheldon.
+
+"Take my word for it, that gentleman has fallen on his feet," he said, on
+the only occasion when the fate of Philip was discussed by Valentine and
+himself. "He's doing well enough, somewhere or other, you may depend; but
+I don't think he'll ever be able to show his nose in London after those
+bill transactions. There's a very strong feeling against him on Change.
+He's looked upon as a discredit to the order, and that sort of thing, you
+see. It isn't often a member of the House goes to the bad like that. No,
+I don't think Phil will ever show himself in London again; but such a man
+as that can always find a platform somewhere--"
+
+"And go on to the end of his days unpunished, I suppose," remarked Mr.
+Hawkehurst, with some bitterness.
+
+"Well, yes; I don't see what's to touch him in the future. Of course he
+could be dropped upon for those bills, if he came in the way of being
+dropped upon; but, as I said before, he's too deep a card for that."
+
+Thus did George Sheldon dismiss the subject. That his brother was an
+exile for life from his native land he did not doubt; but he took it for
+granted that in whatever distant spot of earth Philip had found a refuge,
+he would there contrive to prosper and to show a bold front in the city
+of his adoption.
+
+This belief Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn cherished until one snowy Christmas
+Eve, a year and a half after that event, or series of events, which the
+lawyer briefly designated "the burst-up at Bayswater."
+
+Bleak and bitter was that December, a December not long gone by. The
+heart of the prosperous British nation melted as the heart of one man.
+The columns of the _Zeus_ and the _Diurnal Hermes_, the _Flag_ and the
+_Hesper_, overflowed with the record of subscriptions to charity funds;
+and the leaders of the morning journals all preached the same kindly
+sermon on the same Christian text. Thick lay the snow upon the housetops;
+"thick and slab" the greasy slush upon the pavements of crowded
+thoroughfares; merry the rogues and ragamuffins of the great city. The
+ideal Christmas of our dreams seemed to have come at last, and the heart
+of every true Briton rejoiced; while skaters in the parks made merry, and
+cabmen demanded fabulous sums of helpless wayfarers; and luckless,
+overworked, under-fed horses stumbled and fell at every turn, and the
+familiar steep of Holborn was dangerous as Alpine mountain.
+
+To George Sheldon neither the weather nor the Christmas season made much
+difference. The even current of his life was little disturbed by festive
+pleasures or dissipations. An extra glass at his tavern, an invitation to
+dinner from some friend in the bill-discounting line, were the most
+exciting events the season was likely to bring him. He saw the shops
+brighten suddenly with semi-supernal glories of crystallized fruits and
+gorgeous bonbon-boxes, and he was aware of a kind of movement in the
+streets that was brisker and gayer than the plodding hurry of everyday
+life. He stood aside and let the mummeries go by him, and was glad when
+these Christmas follies were done with, and the law-courts in full swing
+once more. In the happiest and most innocent days of his youth, Christmas
+had brought him no more than extraordinary indulgences in the way of
+eating and drinking, swiftly followed by that dread avenger, the demon of
+the bilious.
+
+Upon this particular occasion Mr. Sheldon had pledged himself to dine
+with a horsey publican lately retired from business, and big with all the
+pride and glory of a "place" at Hornsey.
+
+"Come down and see my place, Sheldon," this gentleman had said. "I don't
+pretend to do the swell thing; but I force my own pines and grow my own
+grapes, and can put as good a dessert on my table as you could buy in
+Covent Garden for a five-pun' note. That's my missus's fad, that is, and
+I can afford it; so why shouldn't I do it? You come and eat your
+Christmas dinner with us, Sheldon. I've got a friend coming that can
+sing as good a song as Reeves hisself, and might make a fortune, if he
+wasn't above coming out at one of them music-halls. And I'll give you a
+bottle of Madeira that you won't match at any nobleman's table, if
+noblemen's tables was in your line of business, which you and I know
+they ain't, old fellow."
+
+And then the jolly good fellow dug his fat fingers into George Sheldon's
+ribs, and George accepted the invitation; not with any elation of
+spirits, but sufficiently pleased to secure a good dinner with a man who
+promised to be a profitable client, and whose house was within a
+reasonable cab-fare from the west-central district.
+
+"The cabmen are trying it on, anyhow, just now," thought Mr. Sheldon;
+"but I don't think they'll try it on with me. And if they do, there's the
+Marylebone stage. I'm not afraid of a five-mile walk."
+
+Having accepted this invitation, and thus disposed of his Christmas-day,
+George Sheldon refrained from the delights of social converse at his
+tavern on Christmas-eve, and occupied himself with business. His clerk
+left him at the usual hour; but the master sat, long after dark, writing
+letters and reading law-papers, while the snow drifted against his
+windows and whitened the quiet quadrangle below.
+
+He had just laid aside his papers and lighted a cigar, when he was
+startled by a stealthy knocking at his door. He was not unaccustomed to
+late visitors, as he was known to live at his chambers, and to work after
+office-hours; but the knocking of to-night was not the loud rollicking
+rat-a-tat of his jolly-good-fellow friends or clients. If he had been a
+student of light literature, and imbued with the ghostly associations of
+the season, he would have gone to his door expecting to behold a weird
+figure clothed in the vestments of the last century; or an old woman in
+ruff and martingale, whose figure in the flesh had once haunted those
+legal precincts; or the ghostly semblance of the Baron of Verulam
+himself, revisiting the glimpses of the moon and the avenue of elms that
+were planted by his order.
+
+In George Sheldon's nature there was, however, no lurking dread of fiend
+or phantom. His ideas in connection with ghosts were limited to a white
+sheet, a broomstick, and a hollow turnip with a lighted candle inside it;
+and he would have set down the most awful apparition that ever was
+revealed to German ghost-seer, with a scornful grin, as a member of the
+sheet and-hollow-turnip confraternity.
+
+"I know how it's done," he would have said, if the spectral form had
+glowered upon him in midnight churchyard or ruined abbey. "You'd better
+go and try it on somewhere else, my friend."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To a superstitious mind the THING which crept across the dark lobby
+and dragged itself into the glare of the gas-lighted office might
+have seemed, indeed, some creature too loathsome for humanity. A
+plague-stricken corpse galvanized into a spasmodic life could scarcely
+have lifted to the light a more awful countenance than that on which
+George Sheldon looked with mingled anger and disgust.
+
+"What do you want here" he asked. "Do you take this for the workhouse?"
+
+"No," the creature answered, in a faint hoarse voice; "but I take you for
+my brother."
+
+"WHAT!" cried George Sheldon, aghast.
+
+He bent down and looked at the awful face. Yes, from the cavernous
+hollows of those sunken cheeks, beneath the shaggy penthouse of those
+bony brows, the fierce black eyes of Philip Sheldon looked out at him
+with a savage glare that he had never seen in them before--even when the
+savage nature of the man had revealed itself most nakedly--the fierce
+glare of fever and starvation.
+
+This walking horror, this mass of loathsome rags endued with motion, this
+living disease, was the sometime prosperous stockbroker, the man whom it
+had been impossible to think of except furnished with linen of spotless
+whiteness, and the glossy broad-cloth, and well-made boots, and keyless
+chronometer, and silk umbrella of commercial success.
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed George, horror-stricken, "is it you?"
+
+"Yes, it's I," answered the creature in his strange husky accents; and
+the change--nay, indeed, the degradation, of the voice was as complete as
+the degradation of the man. "Yes, George, it's I; your brother Phil.
+You're surprised to see me fallen so low in the world, I suppose; but you
+can't be more surprised than I am myself. I've tried hard enough to hold
+my head above water. There's scarcely any trade that mortal man ever
+tried to earn his bread by, that I haven't tried--and failed in. It has
+been the experience of Fitzgeorge-street over and over again, in every
+trade and every profession. I started as doctor in Philadelphia, and was
+doing well;--till--till a patient died--and things went against me. I've
+been clerk in more offices than you can count on your ten fingers; but
+there was always something--my employer levanted, or was bankrupt, or
+died, or dismissed me. I've been travelling-dentist, auctioneer,
+commission-agent, tout, pedlar, out yonder; but it all came to the same
+thing--ruin, starvation, the hospital, or the pauper's ward. I have swept
+crossings in the city, and camped out in the wilderness among the bears
+and opossums. One day I thought I'd come home. 'There's George,' I said
+to myself; 'if I can get money enough to take me across the Atlantic, I
+shall be all right. George will give me a lift.' I don't stand alone in
+the world. A man's own flesh and blood won't let him starve--can't let
+him starve. Blood's thicker than water, you know, George. So I came home.
+I got the money; never you mind how. I needn't tell you what it cost me
+to scrape half-a-dozen pounds together. When a man's as low down in the
+world as I am, there's not a shilling he earns that doesn't cost him a
+drop of his heart's blood; there's not a pound he gets together that
+isn't bought by the discount of so much of his life. I found money enough
+for my passage in an emigrant vessel; and here I am, ready for anything.
+I'll work like your bought nigger. I'll do the work your clerk does for a
+quarter of his wages. I'll sweep out your office, and run errands for
+you. You'll give me something to keep body and soul together, won't you,
+George?"
+
+Nothing could be more utterly abject than the tone of this most abject
+wretch.
+
+This man, who in prosperity had been the very personification of hardness
+and insolence, was transformed into a grovelling, cringing supplicant,
+ready to lie face downward in the dust beneath the feet of that brother
+whose patronage, or charity, he besought.
+
+Mr. Sheldon the younger contemplated the supplicant with looks of
+undisguised gratification. He walked a few paces backward from the spot
+where his brother had fallen, in a half-sitting, half-crouching attitude,
+and where he remained, hugging himself in his rags, too abject to be
+acutely conscious of his degradation. A year ago and he would have held
+himself obstinately aloof from all old associations, and would have
+declared himself ready to face starvation, rather than accept, still less
+supplicate, relief from his younger brother. The events of that one year
+had involved alternations and convulsions that change a year into a
+cycle. He had faced starvation; he had walked with hunger for his
+travelling companion; he had lain down night after night in such lairs
+as the tramp can find for his refuge, with sickness and pain for his
+bed-fellows. The crucible through which he had passed had left in him no
+more of humanity than its outward semblance, and scarcely that; for when
+the moral man sinks to the level of the beasts of prey, the physical man
+undergoes an assimilative process only less marked than that which
+transforms the mental nature.
+
+For six months this man had lived by fawning upon or threatening his
+fellow-men; by violence or craft; by the degradation of the vagrant or
+the audacity of the thief. There is no limit to man's capacity for infamy
+which he had not touched. Vilest amongst the vile, he had been cast forth
+from the haunts of beggars and reprobates, as no fitting company for
+honourable thieves or cadgers of good repute.
+
+George Sheldon seated himself astride upon a chair, and, with his folded
+arms resting on the back of it, contemplated this hideous spectacle. It
+was a picture that he had never thought to see, and the feeling with
+which he surveyed it was not unmingled with pleasure.
+
+"When you rode me rough-shod, my friend, I used to think how I should
+enjoy taking my change out of you," he said; "but I never thought I
+should have such an opportunity as this--never, by Jove! I thought you
+would ride the high horse to the end of the journey; I didn't think your
+steed would land you in the gutter. And so you've tried every move, have
+you?--tumbled upon every platform?--and you've found all your cleverness
+no go upon the other side of the three thousand miles of everlasting wet,
+as my Yankee friends call the Atlantic; and you've come back whining to
+me, and I'm to help you, am I, and to give you a fresh start in life, I
+suppose, and make you my clerk, or my junior partner, eh?--that would be
+better. Messrs. Sheldon and Sheldon wouldn't look bad on my door. That's
+about what you mean when you talk of blood being thicker than water,
+isn't it?"
+
+The abject wretch who had once been Philip Sheldon felt that his brother
+was trifling with him, savouring to the last drop that cup of triumph
+which the chances of fortune had offered to his lips.
+
+"Don't play the fool with me, George," he said piteously. "I don't ask
+you much--a crust of bread, a corner to sleep in, and a cast-off suit of
+clothes: that's not much for one brother to ask of another."
+
+"Perhaps not," replied George Sheldon; "but it's a great deal for you to
+ask of me. You've had your turn, Phil; and you made the most of it, and
+contrived to keep me at arm's length. My turn has come at last, and you
+may depend upon it I shall contrive now to keep _you_ at arm's length."
+
+The vagrant stared at him aghast. Here he had felt secure of food and
+shelter; and he had endured miseries and deprivations that reduce a man
+to a state in which food and shelter seem to constitute the supreme good
+that can be obtained in this life.
+
+"You won't refuse to do something for me, George," he whined piteously.
+
+"I will do nothing for you. Do you hear that, my man? Nothing! You taught
+me that blood is not thicker than water twelve years ago, when you
+married Tom Halliday's widow, and drew your purse-strings, after flinging
+me a beggarly hundred as you'd throw a bone to a dog. You made me
+understand that was all I should ever get out of your brotherly love, or
+your fear of my telling the world what I knew. You gave me a dinner now
+and then, because it suited you to keep your eye upon me; and you had
+generally some piece of dirty work on hand that made the advice of a
+sharp practitioner like me uncommonly useful to you. I don't believe that
+you ever gave me so much as a dinner that you didn't take payment for in
+meal or in malt. Don't come howling here now, trying to persuade me that
+blood is thicker than water, or that brotherhood means anything more than
+the accident of birth. And now I've said all I have to say; and the
+sooner you make yourself scarce, the better for both of us."
+
+"George!" cried the miserable suppliant, clasping his bony hands
+convulsively, and whimpering as he had whimpered when he begged his bread
+in the streets of New York, "you can't mean to turn me out of doors on
+such a night. Look at me. It was as much as I could do to crawl to this
+room. I have walked every step of the way from Liverpool; my wretched
+limbs have been frost-bitten, and ulcered, and bruised, and racked with
+rheumatism, and bent double with cramp. I came over in an emigrant
+vessel, with a herd of miserable creatures who had tried their luck on
+the other side of the Atlantic, and had failed, like me, and were coming
+home to their native workhouses. You don't know what some of your
+emigrant ships are, perhaps. People talk about the Black Hole of
+Calcutta, and the Middle Passage; but let them try the cabin of an
+emigrant vessel, and they'll have a pretty fair idea of what human beings
+have to suffer when Poverty drives the ship. I landed in Liverpool with
+half-a-dollar in my pocket, and I've had neither decent food nor decent
+shelter since I landed. Give me some hole to lie in, George, till you can
+get me an order for the nearest hospital. It's a toss-up whether I ever
+come out of it."
+
+"Do you think I'd sleep under the roof that sheltered you?" cried George.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why not! Because I'm afraid of you. Because I'd as soon have a cobra
+for my companion, or a wolf for my bedfellow. I know you. I've seen what
+you can do, and how you can do it. And if you could do those things when
+the only pressure upon you was one that you could have cast off by going
+through the _Gazette_, what would you _not_ do now when you are as
+desperate as a famished wolf, and governed by no better law than that
+which governs a wolf--the law of self-preservation? Am I to trust a
+tiger because he tells me he is hungry? No, Phil Sheldon; neither will I
+trust you."
+
+"You will give me some money--enough to keep me alive for a week or two."
+
+"Not one sixpence. I'll establish no precedent; I'll acknowledge no tie
+between us. You'd better march. I don't want to send for a policeman; but
+if you won't go quietly, you must do the other thing."
+
+"You mean that?"
+
+"Most emphatically yes."
+
+"I didn't think it was in you to be so hard upon me," faltered the
+wretch in that faint hoarse voice which had grown fainter and hoarser
+during this interview.
+
+"Did you think that I would trust you?" cried George. "Trust _you_! You
+call me hard because I won't give you a corner to lie in. And if I did,
+you would creep out of your corner to poison me, or cut my throat. You
+would crawl into my room in the dead of the night and put a pillow over
+my face, and kneel upon it till you'd done the trick for me; and then
+you'd walk off with as much as you could carry, and begin the same kind
+of work over again with some one else. I tell you, Mr. Phil Sheldon, I
+will hold no intercourse with you. You've escaped hanging, but there's
+something that's worse than hanging, to my mind, and that is the state of
+a man whom nobody will trust. You've come to that; and if you had a spark
+of gentlemanly feeling, you'd have bought two-pennyworth of rope and hung
+yourself rather than come cringing to me."
+
+"Suppose I don't cringe," said the outcast, dropping the fawning tone of
+the mendicant for the threatening ferocity of the social wolf; "you'd
+better give me a trifle to keep body and soul together for the next few
+weeks. I'm a desperate man, George! You and I are alone up here. You are
+pretty sure to have ready money about you. And there's your watch; that's
+worth something. I didn't come here to go away empty-handed. AND I
+WON'T!"
+
+He sprang to his feet, and in the next moment the lawyer heard the sharp
+clicking noise made by the opening of a clasp-knife.
+
+"O," cried he, "that's what you want, is it!"
+
+He bent over his desk, with his eyes fixed on those other evil eyes that
+still retained some likeness to his own, and with his left arm raised in
+a boxer's defensive attitude, to guard his head, while his right hand
+groped for something in a drawer. It was a moment's work. Philip had
+seized that uplifted left arm, and was hanging on to it like a cat, with
+his knife between his teeth, when George clapped the muzzle of a revolver
+to his brow.
+
+"There are plenty of wild beasts in London besides you," he said, "and I
+am not such a fool as to be without the means of settling a chance
+visitor of your sort. Drop your knife, and march."
+
+The outcast dropped his knife submissively. He was too weak for anything
+more than a spasmodic violence.
+
+"Take your pistol away from my head," he whined.
+
+"Certainly, when you are outside my door."
+
+"You might give me a handful of silver, George. I haven't a week's life
+left in me."
+
+"All the better for society if you hadn't an hour's life in you. Be off.
+I'm tired of holding this revolver to your head, and I don't mean to let
+it go till you're off my premises."
+
+Philip saw that there was no hope. Food and shelter were all he had
+hoped for; but even these blessings were not for him. He backed out of
+the office, closely followed by George, holding the muzzle of the
+revolver within an inch or so of the fraternal brains. Upon the
+threshold only did he pause.
+
+"Tell me one thing," he said. "You won't give me sixpence to buy a loaf
+of bread or a glass of gin. Give me one scrap of comfort. It need cost
+you nothing. Tell me something bad of Valentine Hawkehurst: that he's
+gone to the dogs, or drowned himself; that his wife has run away from
+him, or his house been burned to the ground. Tell me that he's had a
+taste of my luck; and that Ann Woolper has died in a workhouse. It will
+be as good as meat and drink to me, and it will cost you nothing."
+
+"If I told you anything of the kind, I should tell you a lie; Valentine
+Hawkehurst is doing uncommonly well, and has got one of the prettiest
+little boxes between Wimbledon and Kingston. Ann Woolper lives with them,
+and is in better feather than she ever was in your time."
+
+With this, Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn pushed his brother out on to the
+staircase, and shut his door. Philip sat upon the stairs, and drew his
+rags together a little, and rubbed his wretched limbs, while the bolts
+and chains whereby the lawyer defended his citadel clanked close behind
+him.
+
+"I wonder whether he'll pay Hawkehurst a visit," thought George, as he
+bolted his door; and he had a kind of grim satisfaction in the idea that
+Valentine's Christmas peace might be disturbed by the advent of that
+grisly visitor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+"ACCORDING TO THEIR DEEDS."
+
+"Between Wimbledon and Kingston," muttered the tramp. "If I can drag
+myself as far as that, I'll go there this night."
+
+He went down stairs and out into the pitiless cold and snow, and made his
+way down Fetter Lane, and across Blackfriars Bridge to the Surrey side of
+the water, stopping to beg here and there.
+
+Upon this snowy Christmas night there were plenty of people abroad;
+and amongst them Philip Sheldon found pitying matrons, who explored
+the depths of their capacious pockets to find him a halfpenny, and
+good-natured young men, who flung the "copper" he besought with piteous
+professional whine.
+
+When he had collected the price of a glass of gin, he went into the first
+public-house he came to, and spent his money. He was too ill to stay the
+cravings of his stomach with substantial food. Gin gave him temporary
+warmth and temporary strength, and enabled him to push on vigorously for
+a little while; and then came dreary periods of faintness and exhaustion,
+in which every step was sheer pain and weariness.
+
+Something of his old self, some remnant of that hard strength of purpose
+which had once characterized him, remained with him still, utterly fallen
+and brutalized as he was. As a savage creature of the jungle might pursue
+a given course, pushing always onward to that camp or village whence the
+scent of human flesh and blood was wafted to his quivering nostrils, so
+Philip Sheldon pushed on towards the dwelling-place of that man and that
+woman whom of all creatures upon this earth he most savagely hated.
+
+"There's nothing left for me but to turn housebreaker," he said to
+himself; "and the first house I'll try my hand upon shall be Valentine
+Hawkehurst's."
+
+The idea of violence in such a creature was the idea of a madman. Weapon
+he had none, nor the physical strength that would have enabled him to
+grapple with a boy of twelve years old. Half intoxicated with the spirits
+he had consumed on his long tramp, half delirious with fever, he had a
+vague notion that he could make an entrance into some ill-defended house
+under cover of night, and steal something that should procure him food
+and shelter. And let the house be Valentine Hawkehurst's, the man who had
+baffled his plans and crushed him!
+
+If blood must be shed, let the blood be his! Never was man better primed
+for murder than the man who tramped across Wimbledon Common at eleven
+o'clock this night, with the snow drifting against his face, and his
+limbs shaken every now and then by an ague-fit.
+
+Happily for the interests of society, his hand lacked the power to
+execute that iniquity which his heart willed.
+
+He reached a little wayside inn near the Robin Hood gate of Richmond
+Park, just as the shutters were being closed, and asked a man if any one
+of the name of Hawkehurst lived in that neighbourhood.
+
+"What do _you_ want with Mr. Hawkehurst?" asked the man, contemptuously.
+
+"I've got a letter for him."
+
+"Have you? A begging letter, I should think, from the look of you."
+
+"No; it's a business letter. You'd better show me where he lives, if he's
+a customer of yours. The business is particular."
+
+"Is it? You're a queer kind of messenger to trust with particular
+business. Mr. Hawkehurst's house is the third you come to on the opposite
+side of the way. But I don't suppose you'll find anybody up as late as
+this. Their lights are out by eleven, in a general way."
+
+The third house on the opposite side of the road was half a mile distant
+from the little run. Lights shone bright in the lower windows as the
+tramp dragged his tired limbs to the stout oaken gate. The gate was
+fastened only by a latch, and offered no resistance to the intruder. He
+crept with stealthy footsteps along the smooth gravel walk, sheltered by
+dark laurels, on which the light flashed cheerily from those bright
+windows. Sounds of laughter and of music pealed out upon the wintry air.
+Shadows flitted across the blinds of the broad bay windows. Philip
+Sheldon crept into a sheltered nook beside the rustic porch, and sank
+down exhausted in the shadow of the laurels.
+
+He sat there in a kind of stupor. He had lost the power of thought,
+somehow, on that dreary journey. It seemed almost as if he had left some
+portion of his being out yonder in the cold and darkness. He had
+difficulty in remembering why he had come to this place, and what that
+deed was which he meant to do.
+
+"Hawkehurst," he muttered to himself--"Hawkehurst, the man who leagued
+against me with Jedd! I swore to be even with him if ever I found the
+opportunity--if ever! And George refused me a few shillings; my brother,
+my only brother, refused to stand my friend!"
+
+Hawkehurst and George--his only brother--the images of these two men
+floated confusedly in his brain: he could scarcely separate them.
+Sometimes it seemed to him that he was still sitting outside his
+brother's door, on the staircase in Gray's Inn, hugging himself in his
+rags, and cursing his unnatural kinsman's cruelty; then in the next
+moment he remembered where he was, and breathed bitter curses upon that
+unconscious enemy whose laugh pealed out every now and then amid a chorus
+of light-hearted laughter.
+
+There was a little Christmas party at Charlottenburgh. Two flys were
+waiting in the laurel-avenue to convey Mr. Hawkehurst's guests to distant
+abodes. The door was opened presently, and all the bustle of departure
+made itself heard by that wretched wayfarer who found it so difficult to
+keep his hold upon the consciousness of these things.
+
+"What is it?" he said to himself--"a party! Hawkehurst has been giving a
+party."
+
+He had lived through too much degradation, he had descended into too deep
+a gulf of wretchedness, to be conscious of the contrast between his
+present situation and his position in those days when he had played the
+host, and seen handsome carriages bear prosperous guests away from his
+door. In that cycle of misery which he had endured, these things and the
+memory of them had faded from him as completely as if they had been
+obliterated by the passage of a century. The hapless wretch tried to give
+sustained attention to all the animated discussion that attended the
+departure of the merry guests. Half-a-dozen people seemed to be talking
+at once. Valentine was giving his friends counsel about the way home.
+
+"You will keep to the lower road, you know, Fred. Lawsley's cab can
+follow yours. You came a couple of miles out of your way. And tell that
+fellow Battersea Bridge is a mistake."
+
+And then followed Charlotte's friendly questioning about wraps, and
+hoods, and comforters, and other feminine gear.
+
+"And when are you coming to dine at Fulham?" cried one voice.
+
+"I shall certainly get those quadrilles of Offenbach's," said another.
+
+"How delightfully Mr. Lawsley sang that song of Santley's!"
+
+And anon a chorus of "Never enjoyed myself more!" "Most delightful
+evening!" "Pray don't come out in the cold." "Thanks; well, yes, yours
+are always capital." "No, I won't light up till I'm on the road." "Give
+my book a lift in the _D.H._, eh, old fellow?" "Are you _quite_ sure that
+shawl is warm enough?" "Take a rug for your feet." "Thanks, no."
+"Good-night." "See you on Tuesday." "Don't forget the box for D.L." "All
+right, old fellow!" "Lower Road, Roehampton Lane, Putney Bridge.
+Good-night."
+
+Among the confusion of voices Philip Sheldon had recognized more than one
+voice that was familiar to him. There were Charlotte's gentle tones, and
+Valentine's hearty barytone, and another that he knew.
+
+Diana Paget! Yes, it was her voice. Diana Paget, whom he had cause to
+hate for her interference with his affairs.
+
+"A beggar," he muttered to himself, "and the daughter of a beggar! She
+was a nice young lady to set herself in opposition to the man who gave
+her a home."
+
+The vehicles drove away, but there was still a little group in the rustic
+porch. Valentine and Charlotte, with Monsieur and Madame Lenoble, who had
+come to spend their Christmas with their English friends.
+
+"How we have been gay this evening!" cried Gustave. "There is nothing
+like your English interior for that which you call the comfortable, the
+jolly, you others. Thy friends are the jollity itself, Hawkehurst. And
+our acting charades, when that we all talked at once, and with a such
+emphasis on the word we would make to know. Was it not that our
+spectators were cunning to divine the words? And your friend Lawsley--it
+is a mixture of Got and Sanson. It is a true genius. Think, then, Diane,
+while we were amusing ourselves, our girls were at the midnight mass at
+the Sacre Coeur? Dear pious children, their innocent prayers ascended
+towards the heavens for we who are absent. Come, Madame Hawkehurst,
+Diane, it makes cold."
+
+"But we are sheltered here. And the stars are so bright after the snow,"
+said Charlotte. "Do you remember the Christmas-day you spent at the Lawn,
+Valentine, when we walked in Kensington Gardens together, just when we
+were first engaged?" the young wife added shyly.
+
+"Do I not remember? It was the first time the holiness of Christmas came
+home to my heart. And now let us go back to the drawing-room, and sit
+round the fire, and tell ghost stories. Lenoble shall give us the legends
+of Cotenoir."
+
+"Valentine," murmured Charlotte, "do you know that it is nearly one
+o'clock?"
+
+"And we must put in an appearance at church to-morrow morning. And
+Lenoble has to walk to Kingston to early mass. We will postpone our ghost
+stories to New-Year's eve. And Lenoble shall read Tennyson's _New Year_,
+to demonstrate his improvement in the English language. Lead the way,
+Mrs. Hawkehurst; your obedient slave obeys. Mamma is waiting for us in
+the drawing-room, marvelling at our delay, no doubt. And Nancy Woolper
+stalks ghost-like through the house, oppressed by the awful
+responsibility of to-morrow's pudding."
+
+Anon came a clanking of bolts and bars; and Philip Sheldon, for the
+second time that night, heard a door shut against him. As the voices died
+away, his consciousness of external things died with him. He fancied
+himself on the Gray's-Inn staircase.
+
+"Don't be so hard upon me, George," he muttered faintly. "If my own kith
+and kin turn against me, whom shall I look to?"
+
+Mrs. Woolper opened the door early next day, when night was yet at odds
+with morning. All through the night the silent snow-flakes had been
+falling thick and fast; and they had woven the shroud of Philip Sheldon.
+The woman who had watched his infant slumbers forty years before, was the
+first to look upon him in that deeper sleep, of whose waking we know so
+little. It was not until she had looked long and closely at the dead face
+that she knew why it was that the aspect of that countenance had affected
+her with so strange a pang. She did recognize that altered wretch, and
+kept her counsel.
+
+Before the bells rang for morning service the tramp was lying in the
+dead-house of Kingston Union, whither he had been conveyed very quietly
+in the early morning, unknown to any one but the constable who
+superintended the removal, and the servants of Mr. Hawkehurst's
+household. Only the next day did Ann Woolper tell Valentine what had
+happened. There was to be an inquest. It would be well that some one
+should identify the dead man, and establish the fact of Philip Sheldon's
+decease.
+
+Valentine was able to do this unaided. He attended the inquest, and made
+arrangements for the outcast's decent burial; and in due course he gave
+Mrs. Sheldon notice of her freedom. Beyond that nameless grave whose
+fancy shall dare follow Philip Sheldon? He died and made no sign. And in
+the last dread day, when the dead, small and great, from the sea and from
+the grave, press together at the foot of the great white Throne, and the
+books of doom are opened; when above shines the city whose light is the
+glory of God, and below yawns the lake of fire,--what voice shall plead
+for Philip Sheldon, what entreating cry shall Pity send forth that
+sentence against him may be stayed?
+
+Surely none; unless it issue from the lips of that one confiding friend,
+whose last words upon earth thanked and blessed him, and whose long
+agonies he watched with unshaken purpose, conscious that in every
+convulsive change in the familiar face, and every pang that shook the
+stalwart form, he saw the result of his own work.
+
+Perhaps at that dread Judgment Day, when every other tongue is silent,
+the voice of Tom Halliday may be heard pleading for the man who murdered
+him.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Charlotte's Inheritance, by M. E. Braddon
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Charlotte's Inheritance, by M. E. Braddon
+#4 in our series by M. E. Braddon
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Charlotte's Inheritance
+
+Author: M. E. Braddon
+
+Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9259]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 15, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Mary Meehan and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+                        CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE
+
+                                   By
+
+                             M. E. Braddon
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+Book the First.
+
+DE PROFUNDIS.
+
+   I.  LENOBLE OF BEAUBOCAGE
+
+  II.  IN THIS WIDE WORLD I STAND ALONE
+
+ III.  PAST HOPE, AND IN DESPAIR
+
+  IV.  A DECREE OF BANISHMENT
+
+
+Book the Second.
+
+DOWNHILL.
+
+   I.  THE FATE OF SUSAN LENOBLE
+
+  II.  FORGIVEN TOO LATE
+
+ III.  GUSTAVE THE SECOND
+
+
+Book the Third.
+
+THE HORATIAD.
+
+   I.  CHIEFLY RETROSPECTIVE
+
+  II.  EPISTOLARY
+
+ III.  TOO CLEVER FOR A CATSPAW
+
+  IV.  CAPTAIN PAGET IS PATERNAL
+
+   V.  THE CAPTAIN'S COADJUTOR
+
+
+Book the Fourth.
+
+GUSTAVE IN ENGLAND.
+
+   I.  HALCYON DAYS
+
+  II.  CAPTAIN PAGET AWAKENS TO A SENSE OF HIS DUTY
+
+ III.  WHAT DO WE HERE, MY HEART AND I?
+
+  IV.  SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH
+
+
+Book the Fifth.
+
+THE FIRST ACT OF MR. SHELDON'S DRAMA.
+
+   I.  TAKEN BY STORM
+
+  II.  FIRM AS A ROCK
+
+ III.  AGAINST WIND AND TIDE
+
+  IV.  DIANA ASKS FOR A HOLIDAY
+
+   V.  ASSURANCE DOUBLY SURE
+
+
+Book the Sixth.
+
+DIANA IN NORMANDY.
+
+   I.  AT COTENOIR
+
+
+Book the Seventh.
+
+A CLOUD OF FEAR.
+
+   I.  THE BEGINNING OF SORROW
+
+  II.  FADING
+
+ III.  MRS. WOOLPER IS ANXIOUS
+
+  IV.  VALENTINE'S SKELETON
+
+   V.  AT HAROLD'S HILL
+
+  VI.  DESPERATE MEASURES
+
+
+Book the Eighth.
+
+A FIGHT AGAINST TIME.
+
+   I.  A DREAD REVELATION
+
+  II.  PHOENICIANS ARE RISING
+
+ III.  THE SORTES VIRGILIANAE
+
+
+Book the Ninth.
+
+THROUGH THE FURNACE.
+
+   I.  SOMETHING TOO MUCH
+
+  II.  DR. JEDD'S OPINION
+
+ III.  NON DORMIT JUDAS
+
+  IV.  COUNTING THE COST
+
+   V.  THE BEGINNING OF THE END
+
+  VI.  CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED
+
+ VII.  THERE IS A WORD WILL PRIAM TURN TO STONE
+
+
+Book the Tenth.
+
+HARBOUR, AFTER MANY SHIPWRECKS.
+
+   I.  OUT OF THE DARK VALLEY
+
+  II.  AFTER THE WEDDING
+
+ III.  GREEK AGAINST GREEK
+
+  IV.  ONLY A DREAM
+
+   V.  BOHEMIAN INDEPENDENCE
+
+  VI.  BEYOND THE VEIL
+
+ VII.  BETTER THAN GOLD
+
+VIII. LOST SIGHT OF
+
+  IX.  ETEOCLES AND POLYNICES
+
+   X.  "ACCORDING TO THEIR DEEDS."
+
+
+
+
+CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE
+
+
+
+Book the first.
+
+
+
+DE PROFUNDIS.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+LENOBLE OF BEAUBOCAGE.
+
+In the days when the Bourbon reigned over Gaul, before the "simple,
+sensuous, passionate" verse of Alfred de Musset had succeeded the
+_debonnaire_ Muse of Beranger in the affections of young France,--in days
+when the site of the Trocadero was a remote and undiscovered country, and
+the word "exposition" unknown in the Academic dictionary, and the Gallic
+Augustus destined to rebuild the city yet an exile,--a young law-student
+boarded, in common with other students, in a big dreary-looking house at
+the corner of the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle, abutting on the Place Lauzun,
+and within some ten minutes walk of the Luxembourg. It was a very dingy
+quarter, though noble gentlemen and lovely ladies had once occupied the
+great ghastly mansions, and disported themselves in the gruesome gardens.
+But the young students were in nowise oppressed by the ghastliness of
+their abode. They sang their Beranger, and they pledged each other in
+cheap Bordeaux, and clinked their glasses noisily in their boisterous
+good-fellowship, and ate the messes compounded for them in a darksome
+cupboard, known as the kitchen, by old Nanon the cook, purblind,
+stone-deaf, and all but imbecile, and popularly supposed to be the
+venerable mother of Madame Magnotte. The youngsters grumbled to each
+other about the messes when they were unusually mysterious; and it must
+be owned that there were _vol-au-vents_ and _fricandeaux_ consumed in
+that establishment which were awful and wonderful in their nature; but
+they ventured on no complaint to the mistress of the mansion. She was a
+grim and terrible personage. Her terms were low, and she treated her
+boarders _de haute en bas_. If they were not content with her viands,
+they might go and find more agreeable viands elsewhere.
+
+Madame Magnotte was altogether mysterious and inscrutable. Some people
+said that she was a countess, and that the wealth and lands of her family
+had been confiscated by the committee of public unsafety in '93. Others
+declared that she had been a popular actress in a small theatre in the
+days of Napoleon. She was tall and thin--nay, of an exceptional
+leanness--and her complexion was of a more agreeable yellow than the
+butter that appeared on her hospitable board; but she had flashing black
+eyes, and a certain stateliness of gait and grandeur of manner that
+impressed those young Bohemians, her boarders, with a kind of awe. They
+talked of her as the "countess," and by that name she was known to all
+inmates of the mansion; but in all their dealings with her they treated
+her with unfailing respect.
+
+One of the quietest among the young men who enjoyed the privileges of
+Madame Magnotte's abode was a certain Gustave Lenoble, a law-student, the
+only son of a very excellent couple who lived on their own estate, near
+an obscure village in Normandy. The estate was of the smallest; a
+dilapidated old house, known in the immediate neighbourhood as "the
+Chateau," and very dear to those who resided therein; a garden, in which
+everything seemed to have run to seed; and about forty acres of the
+poorest land in Normandy. These possessions constituted the patrimonial
+estate of Francois Lenoble, _proprietaire_, of Beaubocage, near
+Vevinordin, the department of Eure.
+
+The people amongst whom the good man lived his simple life called him M.
+Lenoble de Beaubocage, but he did not insist upon this distinction; and
+on sending out his only son to begin the battle of life in the great
+world of Paris, he recommended the young man to call himself Lenoble,
+_tout court_.
+
+The young man had never cherished any other design. He was of all
+creatures the least presuming or pretentious. The father was Legitimist
+to the very marrow; the son half Buonapartist, half republican. The
+father and son had quarrelled about these differences of opinion
+sometimes in a pleasantly disputatious manner; but no political
+disagreement could lesser the love between these two. Gustave loved
+his parents as only a Frenchman can venture to love his father and
+mother--with a devotion for the gentleman that bordered on enthusiasm,
+with a fond reverence for the lady that was the very essence of chivalry.
+There was a sister, who regarded her brother Gustave as the embodiment of
+all that is perfect in youthful mankind; and there were a couple of old
+house-servants, a very stupid clumsy lad in the stables, and half a dozen
+old mongrel dogs, born and bred on the premises, who seemed to share the
+young lady's opinions. There was not a little discussion upon the subject
+of Gustave Lenoble's future career; and it was not without difficulty
+that the father could be persuaded to approve the choice of a profession
+which the young man had made. The seigneur of Beaubocage cherished an
+exaggerated pride of race little suspected by those who saw his simple
+life, and were pleased by his kindly unaffected manners. The house of
+Lenoble, at some remote and almost mythical period of history, had
+distinguished itself in divers ways; and those bygone grandeurs, vague
+and shadowy in the minds of all others, seemed very real to Monsieur
+Lenoble. He assured his son that no Lenoble had ever been a lawyer. They
+had been always lords of the soil, living on their own lands, which had
+once stretched wide and far in that Norman province; a fact proved by
+certain maps in M. Lenoble's possession, the paper whereof was worn and
+yellow with age. They had stooped to no profession save that of arms. One
+seigneur of Beaubocage had fought under Bayard himself; another had
+fallen at Pavia, on that great day when all was lost _hormis l'honneur_;
+another had followed the white plume of the Bernais; another--but was
+there any need to tell of the glories of that house upon which Gustave
+was so eager to inflict the disgrace of a learned profession?
+
+Thus argued the father; but the mother had spent her girlhood amidst the
+clamour of the Buonapartist campaigns, and the thought of war was very
+terrible to her. The memory of the retreat from Russia was not yet twenty
+years old. There were men alive to tell the story, to depict those days
+and nights of horror, that mighty march of death. It was she and her
+daughter Cydalise who had helped to persuade Gustave that he was born to
+distinguish himself in the law. They wanted him to study in Paris--the
+young man himself had a wild desire to enjoy the delights of that
+wondrous capital--and to return in a few years to set up for himself as
+_avocat_ at the town of Vevinord, some half-dozen leagues from the
+patrimonial estate. He was created to plead for the innocent, to denounce
+the guilty, to be grand and brave and fiery-hot with enthusiasm in
+defence of virtuous peasants charged unjustly with the stealing of sheep,
+or firing of corn-ricks. It never struck these simple souls that he might
+sometimes be called upon to defend the guilty, or to denounce the
+innocent.
+
+It was all settled at last. Gustave was to go to Paris, and enter himself
+as a student of law. There were plenty of boarding-houses in the
+neighbourhood of the Ecole de Droit where a young man might find a home;
+and to one of these Gustave was recommended by a friend of his family. It
+was the Pension Magnotte to which they had sent him, the big dreary
+house, _entre cour et jardin_, which had once been so grand and noble. A
+printer now occupied the lower chambers, and a hand painted on the wall
+pointed to the _Pension Magnotte, au premier. Tirez le cordon, s.v.p._
+
+Gustave was twenty-one years of age when he came to Paris; tall,
+stalwart, broad of shoulders and deep of chest, with a fair frank face,
+an auburn moustache, candid, kind blue eyes--a physiognomy rather Saxon
+than Celtic. He was a man who made friends quickly, and was soon at home
+among the students, roaring their favourite songs, and dancing their
+favourite dances at the dancing-places of that day, joining with a
+pleasant heartiness in all their innocent dissipations. For guilty
+dissipation the young provincial had no taste. Did he not carry the
+images of two kind and pure women about with him wherever he went, like
+two attendant angels ever protecting his steps; and could he leave them
+sorrowing on thresholds _they_ could not pass? Ah, no! He was loud and
+boisterous and wild of spirits in those early days, but incapable of
+meanness or vice.
+
+"It is a brave heart," Madame Magnotte said of him, "though for the
+breaking of glasses a scourge--_un fleau_."
+
+The ladies of the Pension Magnotte were for the most part of mature age
+and unattractive appearance--two or three lonely spinsters, eking out
+their pitiful little incomes as best they might, by the surreptitious
+sale of delicate embroideries, confectioned in their dismal leisure; and
+a fat elderly widow, popularly supposed to be enormously rich, but of
+miserly propensities. "It is the widow of Harpagon himself," Madame
+Magnotte told her gossips--an old woman with two furiously ugly
+daughters, who for the last fifteen years had lived a nomadic life in
+divers boarding-houses, fondly clinging to the hope that, amongst so many
+strange bachelors, husbands for these two solitary ones must at last be
+found.
+
+These, with a pale young lady who gave music lessons in the quarter, were
+all the feminine inmates of the mansion; and amongst these Gustave
+Lenoble was chief favourite. His tender courtesy for these lonely women
+seemed in some manner an evidence of that good old blood whereof the
+young man's father boasted. Francis the First, who listened with bent
+knee and bare head to his mother's discourse, was not more reverential to
+that noble Savoyarde than was Gustave to the shabby-genteel maiden ladies
+of the Pension Magnotte. In truth, this young man had a heart pitiful and
+tender as the heart of woman. To be unfortunate was to possess a sure
+claim upon his pity and regard; to be poor and friendless was the best
+appeal to his kindness. He spent his evenings sometimes in the great
+dreary desert of a salon, and listened respectfully while Mademoiselle
+Servin, the young music-teacher, played dismal sonatas of Gluck or Gretry
+on a cracked old piano that had been one of the earliest made of those
+instruments, and was now attenuated and feeble as the very ghost of
+music. He listened to Madame Magnotte's stories of departed splendour. To
+him she opened her heart as she never had opened it to those other young
+men.
+
+"They mock themselves of everything--even the religion!" she exclaimed,
+with horror. "They are Diderots and Holbachs in the bud, less the talent.
+But you do not come of that gutter in which they were born. You are of
+the old blood of France, M. Lenoble, and I can trust myself to you as I
+cannot to them. I, who speak to you--I, too, come of a good old race, and
+there is sympathy between we others."
+
+And then, after babbling to him of her lost station, the lady would
+entertain him with some dainty little supper with which she was wont to
+indulge herself and her lady boarders, when the students--who were
+treated something after the manner of school-boys--were out of doors.
+
+For four years the law-student had enjoyed his Parisian life--not
+altogether idle, but not altogether industrious--amusing himself a great
+deal, and learning very little; moderate in his expenditure, when
+compared with his fellow-students, but no small drain upon the funds of
+the little family at home. In sooth, this good old Norman family had in a
+pecuniary sense sunk very low. There was real poverty in the tumble-down
+house at Beaubocage, though it was poverty that wore a cheerful face, and
+took things pleasantly. A very humble English farmer would have despised
+the income which supported M. Lenoble's household; and it was only the
+economy and skill of the matron and her daughter which sustained the
+dignity of the small establishment.
+
+There was one great hope cherished alike by the proud simple-minded old
+father, the fond mother, the devoted sister, and that was the hope in the
+grand things to be done, in the dim future, by Gustave, the son, the
+heir, the pole-star of the household.
+
+Out of poverty, out of obscurity, into the broad light of honour and
+riches, was the house of Lenoble to be lifted by this young law-student.
+On the broad shoulders of this modern Atlas the Lenoble world was to be
+sustained. To him they looked, of him they thought, in the long dreary
+winter evenings during which the mother nodded over her knitting, the
+father slept in his capacious easy-chair, the sister toiled at her
+needle-work by her little table of _palissandre_.
+
+He had paid them more than one visit during his two years of study,
+bringing with him life and light and gladness, as it seemed to the two
+women who adored him; and now, in the winter of 1828, they expected
+another visit. He was to be with them on the first day of the new year.
+He was to stay with them till his Mother's fete--the 17th of January.
+
+The father looked to this special visit with an unusual anxiety. The
+mother too was more than ever anxious. The sister, if she who loved her
+brother with a somewhat morbid intensity could be more anxious than
+usual, was more so now. A dreadful plot, a dire conspiracy, of which
+Gustave was to be the subject and victim, had been concocted beneath that
+innocent-seeming roof. Father, mother, and sister, seated round the
+family hearth, fatal as some domestic Parcae, had hatched their horrid
+scheme, while the helpless lad amused himself yonder in the great city,
+happily unconscious of the web that was being woven to enmesh him.
+
+The cord which monsieur unwound, the mesh which madame held, the
+needle which dexterous mademoiselle wielded, were employed in the
+fabrication of a matrimonial net. These unsophisticated conspirators
+were bent upon bringing about the marriage of their victim, a marriage
+which should at once elevate and enrich the Lenobles of Beaubocage, in
+the person of Gustave.
+
+Francois Lenoble's best friend and nearest neighbour was a certain Baron
+Frehlter, of Germanic origin, but for some generations past naturalised
+to the Gallic soil. The Baron was proprietor of an estate which could
+show ten acres for one of the lands of Beaubocage. The Baron boasted a
+family tree which derived its root from a ramification of the
+Hohenzollern pedigree; but, less proud and more prudent than the
+Lenobles, the Frehlters had not scorned to intermingle their Prussian
+blue blood with less pure streams of commercial France. The _epicier_
+element had prevailed in the fair brides of the house of Frehlter for the
+last three or four generations, and the house of Frehlter had
+considerably enriched itself by this sacrifice of its family pride.
+
+The present Baron had married a lady ten years his senior, the widow of a
+Rouen merchant, alike wealthy and pious, but famous rather for these
+attributes than for any personal charm. One only child, a girl, had
+blessed this union. She was now a young person of something under twenty
+years of age, newly emerged from her convent, and pining for some share
+in the gaieties and delights of a worldly paradise, which had already
+been open to many of her schoolfellows.
+
+Mademoiselle Frehlter's companions had, for the most part, left school to
+be married. She had heard of the _corbeille_, the wedding dress, the
+wedding festivities, and occasionally a word or two about that secondary
+consideration the bridegroom. The young lady was therefore somewhat
+inclined to take it ill of her father that he had not secured for her the
+_eclat_ of an early marriage. Her departure from the convent of the Sacre
+Coeur, at Vevinord, was flat and tame to an extreme degree. The future
+lay before her, a dreary desert of home life, to be spent with a father
+who gorged himself daily at a greasy and savoury banquet, and who slept
+away the greater part of his existence; and with a mother who divided her
+affections between a disagreeable poodle and a still more disagreeable
+priest--a priest who took upon himself to lecture the demoiselle Frehlter
+on the smallest provocation.
+
+The chateau of the Frehlters was a very grand abode as compared to the
+tumble-down house of Beaubocage; but it was cold and stony to a
+depressing degree, and the furniture must have been shabby in the days of
+the Fronde. Faithful old servants kept the mansion in a state of spotless
+purity, and ruled the Baron and his wife with a rod of iron. Mademoiselle
+execrated these devoted retainers, and would have welcomed the sauciest
+of modern domestics who would have released her from the bondage of these
+servants of the old school.
+
+Mademoiselle had been at home a year--a year of discontent and
+ill-humour. She had quarrelled with her father, because he would not take
+her to Paris; with her mother, because she would not give her more new
+gowns and bonnets and feathers and fur-belows; with the priest, the
+poodle, with the autocracy below-stairs, with everybody and everything.
+So at last the Baron decided that mademoiselle should marry, whereby he
+might be rid of her, and of her complaints, vagaries, ill-tempers, and
+general dissatisfaction.
+
+Having once made up his mind as to the wisdom of a matrimonial
+arrangement, Baron Frehlter was not slow to fix upon a bridegroom. He was
+a very rich man, and Madelon was his only child, and he was furthermore a
+very lazy man; so, instead of looking far afield for a wealthy or
+distinguished suitor for his daughter, he was inclined to take the first
+that came to hand. It is possible that the Baron, who was of a somewhat
+cynical turn of mind, may have cherished no very exalted idea of his
+daughter's attractions, either personal or mental. However this might be,
+it is certain that when the demoiselle had ill-treated the poodle, and
+insulted the priest, and quarrelled with the cook--that high-priestess of
+the kitchen who alone, in all Normandy, could concoct those messes which
+the Baron loved--the master of Cotenoir decided on marrying his heiress
+out of hand.
+
+He communicated this design to his old crony, Francois Lenoble, one day
+when the Beaubocage family dined at Chateau Cotenoir.
+
+"I think of marrying my daughter," he said to his friend, when the ladies
+were safely out of hearing at the other end of the long dreary saloon.
+"Now thy son Gustave is a fine fellow--brave, handsome, and of a good
+race. It is true he is not as rich as Madelon will be by-and-by; but I am
+no huckster, to sell my daughter to the best bidder" ("and I doubt if
+there would be many bidders for her, if I were so inclined," thought the
+Baron, in parenthesis); "and if thy son should take a fancy to her, and
+she to him, it would please me well enough, friend Francois."
+
+Friend Francois pricked up his ears, and in his old eyes flickered a
+feeble light. Cotenoir and Beaubocage united in the person of his son
+Gustave! Lenoble of Beaubocage and Cotenoir--Lenoble of Cotenoir and
+Beaubocage! So splendid a vision had never shone before his eyes in all
+the dreams that he had dreamed about the only son of whom he was so
+proud. He could not have shaped to himself so bold a project as the union
+of those two estates. And here was the Baron offering it to him, with his
+snuff-box, _en passant_.
+
+"It would be a great marriage," he said, "a very great marriage. For
+Gustave I can answer without hesitation. He could not but be charmed by
+such a union--so amiable a bride would enchant him."
+
+He looked down the room to the spot where Madelon and Cydalise were
+standing, side by side, admiring Madame Frehlter's poodle. Madelon could
+afford to be civil to the poodle before company. The contrast between the
+two girls was sufficiently striking. Cydalise was fair and
+bright-looking--Mademoiselle Frehlter was square and ungainly of figure,
+swarthy of complexion, dark of brow.
+
+"He could not but be charmed," repeated the old man, with feeble
+gallantry.
+
+He was thinking of the joining together of Beaubocage and Cotenoir; and
+it seemed a very small thing to him that such a union of estates would
+involve the joining of a man and woman, who were to hold to each other
+and love each other until death should part them.
+
+"It shall be no marriage of convenience," said the Baron, in a generous
+spirit; "my daughter is somewhat ill-tem--that is to say, my daughter
+finds her life somewhat dull with her old father and mother, and I think
+she might be happier in the society of a husband. I like your son; and
+my wife, too, likes him better than any other young man of our
+acquaintance. Madelon has seen a good deal of him when she has been home
+from the convent in her holidays, and I have reason to think she does
+not dislike him. If he likes her and she likes him, and the idea is
+pleasing to you and madame, we will make a match of it. If not, let it
+pass; we will say no more."
+
+Again the seigneur of Beaubocage assured his friend that Gustave would be
+enchanted with the proposal; and again it was of Cotenoir that he
+thought, and not of the heart or the inclinations of his son.
+
+This conversation took place late in autumn, and at the new year Gustave
+was to come. Nothing was to be said to him about his intended wife until
+he arrived; that was a point upon which the Baron insisted.
+
+"The young man may have fallen in love with some fine young person in
+Paris," he said; "and in that case we will say nothing to him of Madelon.
+But if we find him with the heart free, and inclined to take to my
+daughter, we may give him encouragement."
+
+This was solemnly agreed between the two fathers. Nor was Mademoiselle
+Frehlter to be told of the matrimonial scheme until it ripened. But after
+this dinner at Cotenoir the household at Beaubocage talked of little else
+than of the union of the two families. What grandeur, what wealth, what
+happiness! Gustave the lord of Cotenoir! Poor Cydalise had never seen a
+finer mansion than the old chateau, with its sugar-loaf towers and stone
+terraces, and winding stairs, and tiny inconvenient turret chambers, and
+long dreary salon and _salle-a-manger_. She could picture to herself
+nothing more splendid. For Gustave to be offered the future possession of
+Cotenoir was as if he were suddenly to be offered the succession to a
+kingdom. She could not bring herself to consider that Madelon was neither
+agreeable nor attractive, and that, after all, the wife must count for
+something in every marriage contract. She could see nothing, she could
+think of nothing, but Cotenoir. The glory and grandeur of that estate
+absorbed every other consideration.
+
+No one of those three conspirators feared any opposition on the part of
+their victim. It was just possible that Gustave might have fallen in love
+with some Parisian damsel, though his letters gave no hint of any such
+calamity. But if such a misfortune had happened, he would, of course,
+fall out of love again, return the damsel her troth and obtain the return
+of his own, and straightway offer the second-hand commodity to
+Mademoiselle Frehlter.
+
+The object of all these cares and hopes and dreams arrived at last, full
+of life and spirits, with plenty to tell about Paris in general, and very
+little to tell about himself in particular. The women questioned him
+unmercifully. They insisted on a graphic description of every female
+inmate of the boarding-house, and would scarcely believe that all except
+the little music-mistress were elderly and unattractive. Of the
+music-mistress herself they were inclined to be very suspicious, and were
+not altogether reassured by Gustave's assertion that she was neither
+pretty nor fascinating.
+
+"She is a dear, good, industrious little thing," he said, "and works
+harder than I do. But she is no miracle of beauty; and her life is so
+dreary that I often wonder she does not go into a convent. It would be
+gayer and pleasanter for her than to live with those old women at the
+Pension Magnotte."
+
+"I suppose there are many beautiful women in Paris?" said Cydalise, bent
+upon knowing the worst.
+
+"Well, I dare say there are," Gustave answered frankly; "but we students
+don't see much of them in our quarter. One sees a pretty little
+milliner's girl now and then, or a washerwoman. In short, there are a
+good many grisettes in our part of the world," added the young man,
+blushing, but for no sin of his own. "We get a glimpse of a handsome
+woman sometimes, rattling past in her carriage; but in Paris handsome
+women do not go on foot. I have seen prettier girls at Vevinord than in
+Paris."
+
+Cydalise was enchanted with this confession.
+
+"Yes," she exclaimed, "our Normandy is the place for pretty girls.
+Madelon Frehlter. for example, is not she a very--amiable girl?"
+
+"I dare say she's amiable enough," answered Gustave; "but if there were
+no prettier girls than Mademoiselle Frehlter in this part of the world,
+we should have no cause to boast. But there are prettier girls, Cydalise,
+and thou art thyself one of them."
+
+After this speech the young man bestowed upon his sister a resounding
+kiss. Yes; it was clear that he was heart-whole. These noisy, boisterous
+good spirits were not characteristic of a lover. Even innocent Cydalise
+knew that to be in love was to be miserable.
+
+From this time mother and sister tormented their victim with the merits
+and charms of his predestined bride. Madelon on the piano was miraculous;
+Madelon's little songs were enchanting; Madelon's worsted-work was a
+thing to worship; Madelon's devotion to her mother and her mother's
+poodle was unequalled; Madelon's respectful bearing to the good Abbe St.
+Velours--her mother's director--was positively beyond all praise. It was
+virtue seraphic, supernal. Such a girl was too good for earth--too good
+for anything except Gustave.
+
+The young man heard and wondered.
+
+"How you rave about Madelon Frehlter!" he exclaimed. "She seems to me the
+most commonplace young person I ever encountered. She has nothing to say
+for herself; she never appears to know where to put her elbows. I never
+saw such elbows; they are everywhere at once. And her shoulders!--O
+heaven, then, her shoulders!--it ought to be forbidden to wear low
+dresses when one has such shoulders."
+
+This was discouraging, but the schemers bore up even against this. The
+mother dwelt on the intellectual virtues of Madelon; and what were
+shoulders compared to mind, piety, amiability--all the Christian graces?
+Cydalise owned that dear Madelon was somewhat _gauche_; Gustave called
+her _bete_. The father remonstrated with his son. Was it not frightful to
+use a word of the barracks in connection with this charming young lady?
+
+At last the plot revealed itself. After a dinner at Cotenoir and a dinner
+at Beaubocage, on both which occasions Gustave had made himself very
+agreeable to the ladies of the Baron's household--since, indeed, it was
+not in his nature to be otherwise than kind and courteous to the weaker
+sex--the mother told her son of the splendid destiny that had been shaped
+for him. It was a matter of surprise and grief to her to find that the
+revelation gave Gustave no pleasure.
+
+"Marriage was the last thing in my thoughts, dear mother," he said,
+gravely; "and Madelon Frehlter is the very last woman I should think of
+for a wife. Nevertheless, I am gratified by the honour Monsieur le Baron
+has done me. That goes without saying."
+
+"But the two estates!--together they would make you a great proprietor.
+You would not surely refuse such fortune?"
+
+Cydalise gave a little scream of horror.
+
+"Cotenoir! to refuse Cotenoir! Ah, surely that would be impossible! But
+figure to yourself, then, Gustave--"
+
+"Nay, Cydalise, you forget the young lady goes with the chateau; a
+fixture that we cannot dispense with."
+
+"But she, so amiable, so pious--"
+
+"So plain, so stupid--"
+
+"So modest, so charitable--"
+
+"In short, so admirably adapted for a Sister of Charity," replied
+Gustave. "But no, dear Cydalise. Cotenoir is a grand old place; but I
+would as soon spend my life at Toulon, dragging a cannon-ball at my
+heels, as in that dreary salon where Madame Frehlter nurses her maladies
+and her poodle, and where the good-humoured, easy-going old Baron snores
+away existence. 'Tis very well for those elderly folks, you see, my
+sister, and for Madelon--for hers is an elderly mind in a youthful body;
+but for a young man full of hope and gaiety and activity--bah! It would
+be of all living deaths the worst. From the galleys there is always the
+hope of escaping--an underground passage, burrowed out with one's
+finger-nails in the dead of the night--a work lasting twenty years or so,
+but with a feeble star of hope always glimmering at the end of the
+passage. But from the salon, and mamma, and the poodle, and the good,
+unctuous, lazy old director, and papa's apoplectic snoring, and the
+plaintive little songs and monotonous embroideries of one's wife, there
+would be no escape. Ah, bah!"
+
+Gustave shuddered, and the two women shuddered as they heard him. The
+prospect was by no means promising; but Madame Lenoble and her daughter
+did not utterly despair. Gustave's heart was disengaged. That was a great
+point; and for the rest, surely persuasion might do much.
+
+Then came that phenomenon seen very often in this life--a
+generous-minded, right-thinking young man talked into a position which of
+all others is averse from his own inclinations. The mother persuaded, the
+sister pleaded, the father dwelt dismally upon the poverty of Beaubocage,
+the wealth of Cotenoir. It was the story of auld Robin Gray reversed.
+Gustave perceived that his refusal to avail himself of this splendid
+destiny would be a bitter and lasting grief to these people who loved him
+so fondly--whom he loved as fondly in return. Must he not be a churl to
+disappoint hopes so unselfish, to balk an ambition so innocent? And only
+because Madelon was not the most attractive or the prettiest of women!
+
+The young man stood firm against all their arguments, he was unmoved by
+all their pleading. It was only when his anxious kindred had given up the
+battle for lost that Gustave wavered. Their mute despair moved him more
+than the most persuasive eloquence; and the end was submission. He left
+Beaubocage the plighted lover of that woman who, of all others, he would
+have been the last to choose for his wife. It had all been settled very
+pleasantly--the dowry, the union of the two estates, the two names. For
+six months Gustave was to enjoy his freedom to finish his studies; and
+then he was to return to Normandy for his marriage.
+
+"I have heard very good accounts of you from Paris," said the Baron. "You
+are not like some young men, wild, mad-brained. One can confide in your
+honour, your steadiness."
+
+The good folks of Beaubocage were in ecstacies. They congratulated
+Gustave--they congratulated each other. A match so brilliant would be the
+redemption of the family. The young man at last began to fancy himself
+the favoured of the gods. What if Madelon seemed a little dull--a little
+wanting in that vivacity which is so pleasing to frivolous minds? she was
+doubtless so much the more profound, so much the more virtuous. If she
+was not bright and varied and beautiful as some limpid fountain dancing
+in summer sunlight, she was perhaps changeless and steady as a rock; and
+who would not rather have the security of a rock than the summer-day
+beauty of a fountain?
+
+Before Gustave departed from his paternal home he had persuaded himself
+that he was a very lucky fellow; and he had paid Mademoiselle Frehlter
+some pretty little stereotyped compliments, and had listened with sublime
+patience to her pretty little stereotyped songs. He left the young lady
+profoundly impressed by his merits; he left his own household supremely
+happy; and he carried away with him a heart in which Madelon Frehlter's
+image had no place.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+IN THIS WIDE WORLD I STAND ALONE.
+
+Gustave went back to his old life, and was not much disturbed by the
+grandeur of his destiny as future seigneur of Cotenoir and Beaubocage. It
+sometimes occurred to him that he had a weight upon his mind; and, on
+consideration, he found that the weight was Madelon Frehlter. But he
+continued to carry that burden very lightly, and his easy-going student
+life went on, unbroken by thoughts of the future. He sent polite messages
+to the demoiselle Frehlter in his letters to Cydalise; and he received
+from Cydalise much information, more graphic than interesting, upon the
+subject of the family at Cotenoir; and so his days went on with pleasant
+monotony. This was the brief summer of his youth; but, alas, how near at
+hand was the dark and dismal winter that was to freeze this honest joyous
+heart! That heart, so compassionate for all suffering, so especially
+tender for all womankind, was to be attacked upon its weaker side.
+
+It was Gustave Lenoble's habit to cross the gardens of the Luxembourg
+every morning, on his way from the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle to the Ecole
+de Droit. Sometimes, when he was earlier than usual, he carried a book
+with him, and paced one of the more obscure alleys, reading for an odd
+half-hour before he went to the daily mill-grinding in the big building
+beyond those quiet gardens.
+
+Walking with his book one morning--it was a volume of Boileau, which
+the student knew by heart, and the pages whereof did not altogether
+absorb his attention--he passed and repassed a bench on which a lady
+sat, pensive and solitary, tracing shapeless figures on the ground with
+the point of her parasol. He glanced at her somewhat carelessly the
+first time of passing, more curiously on the second occasion, and
+the third time with considerable attention. Something in her
+attitude--helplessness, hopelessness, nay indeed, despair itself, all
+expressed in the drooping head, the listless hand tracing those idle
+characters on the gravel--enlisted the sympathies of Gustave Lenoble. He
+had pitied her even before his gaze had penetrated the cavernous depths
+of the capacious bonnet of those days; but one glimpse of the pale
+plaintive face inspired him with compassion unspeakable. Never had he
+seen despair more painfully depicted on the human countenance--a despair
+that sought no sympathy, a sorrow that separated the sufferer from the
+outer world. Never had he seen a face so beautiful, even in despair. He
+could have fancied it the face of Andromache, when all that made her
+world had been reft from her; or of Antigone, when the dread fiat had
+gone forth--that funeral rites or sepulture for the last accursed scion
+of an accursed race there were to be none.
+
+He put Boileau into his pocket. That glimpse of a suffering human mind,
+which had been unconsciously revealed to him, possessed an interest more
+absorbing than the grandest flight of poet and satirist. As he passed for
+the fifth time, he looked at the mournful lady still more searchingly,
+and this time the sad eyes were lifted, and met his pitying looks. The
+beautiful lips moved, and murmured something in tones so tremulous as to
+be quite unintelligible.
+
+The student took off his hat, and approached the lady, deferential as
+knight-errant of old awaiting the behest of his liege mistress.
+
+"In what can I have the happiness to be agreeable to you, madame?"
+
+"You are very good, monsieur," murmured the lady in very decent French,
+but with an accent unmistakably foreign--English, as Gustave opined.
+"I--I--am quite a stranger in Paris, and--and--I have heard there are
+numerous lodging-houses in this quarter--where one may obtain a
+lodging--cheaply. I have asked several nursemaids, and other women, in
+the gardens this morning; but they seem very stupid, and can tell me
+nothing; and I do not care to ask at the hotel where I am staying."
+
+Gustave pondered. Yes, there were many lodgings, he informed the lady.
+And then he thought of Madame Magnotte. Was it not his duty to secure
+this stray lodger for that worthy woman, if possible?
+
+"If madame has no objection to a boarding-house--" he began.
+
+Madame shook her head. "A boarding-house would suit me just as well," she
+said; "but it must not be expensive. I cannot afford to pay much."
+
+"I know of a boarding-house very near this place, where madame might find
+a comfortable home on very reasonable terms. It is, in point of fact, the
+house in which I myself reside," added Gustave, with some timidity.
+
+"If you will kindly direct me to the house--" said the lady, looking
+straight before her with sad unseeing eyes, and evidently supremely
+indifferent as to the residence or non-residence of M. Lenoble in the
+habitation referred to.
+
+"Nay, madame, if you will permit me to conduct you there. It is but a
+walk of five minutes."
+
+The stranger accepted the courtesy with a gentle indifference that was
+not ingratitude, but rather incapacity for any feeling except that one
+great sorrow which seemed to absorb her mind.
+
+Gustave wondered what calamity could thus overwhelm one so young and
+beautiful.
+
+The lady was quite silent during the little walk from the gardens to the
+Rue Grande-Mademoiselle, and Gustave observed her attentively as he
+walked by her side. She was evidently not more than four-and-twenty years
+of age, and she was certainly the prettiest woman he had ever seen. It
+was a fair delicate English beauty, a little worn and faded, as if by
+care, but idealized and sublimated in the process. At her brightest this
+stranger must have been strikingly beautiful; in her sorrow she was
+touchingly lovely. It was what Gustave's countrymen call a _beaute
+navrante_.
+
+Gustave watched her, and wondered about her. The dress she wore was
+sufficiently elegant, but had lost the gloss of newness. Her shawl, which
+she carried as gracefully as a Frenchwoman, was darned. Gustave perceived
+the neat careful stitches, and divined the poverty of the wearer. That
+she should be poor was no subject for surprise; but that she, so
+sorrowful, so lonely, should seek a home in a strange city, was an enigma
+not easy to solve.
+
+To Madame Magnotte Gustave introduced the stranger. She gave just one
+look round the dreary saloon; but to Gustave's fancy that one look seemed
+eloquent. "Ah me!" it said; "is this the fairest home I am to find upon
+this inhospitable earth?"
+
+"She does not seem to belong to this world," the young man thought, as
+he went back to the garden where he had found his fair stranger, having
+been very coolly dismissed by Madame Magnotte after his introduction had
+been made.
+
+And then M. Lenoble, being of a romantic turn of mind, remembered how a
+lady had been found by a student sitting on the lowest steps of the
+guillotine, desolate and helpless, at night; and how the student had
+taken her home and sheltered her, and had straightway fallen desperately
+in love with her, to discover, with unutterable horror, that her head had
+been severed from her fair shoulders by the cruel knife twelve hours
+before, and that her melancholy loveliness was altogether phantasmal and
+delusive.
+
+Was this English stranger whom Gustave had found in the gardens of the
+Luxembourg twin sister to that ghostly lady of the familiar legend? Her
+despair and her beauty seemed to him greater than earthly sorrow or
+earthly beauty; and he was half inclined to wonder whether she could be
+of the same race as Madelon Frehlter. And from this hour the sense of a
+weight upon his mind, before so vague and intermittent, became an
+enduring oppression, not to be shaken off by any effort of his will.
+
+All through that day he found himself thinking more of the unknown
+Englishwoman than was consistent with a strict performance of his duties.
+He was vexed with himself on account of this foolish distraction of mind.
+
+"What a frivolous fellow I must be," he said to himself, "to dwell upon
+such a trifle! This comes of leading such a monotonous life."
+
+At dinner he looked for the lady; but she did not appear at the long
+table, where the shrill old ladies, the epicurean old bachelors, the
+noisy students, daily devoured and grumbled at the four or five courses
+which old Nanon developed out of her inner consciousness and a rather
+scantily furnished larder. He questioned Madame Magnotte after dinner,
+and was told that the lady was in the house, but was too tired to dine
+with the other inmates.
+
+"I have to thank thee for a new boarder, my friend," she said. "Madame
+Meynell will not pay largely; but she seems a quiet and respectable
+person, and we shall doubtless be well pleased with each other."
+
+"Madame Meynell!" repeated Gustave, congratulating himself on finding
+that the Englishwoman was an inhabitant of the house he lived in. "She is
+a widow, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, she is a widow. I asked that question, and she answered, yes.
+But she told me nothing of her late husband. She is not at all
+communicative."
+
+This was all Gustave could obtain from Madame Magnotte. She was not
+communicative. No; she was, indeed, scarcely less silent than that
+ghostly lady who had been found sitting at the foot of the guillotine.
+There was some kind of mystery involved in her sorrowful face, her silent
+apathy. It was possibly the fact of this mystery which interested M.
+Lenoble. Certain it is that the young man's interest had been aroused by
+this unknown Englishwoman, and that his mind was more occupied by the
+image of her whom he had seen but once than by that of his plighted wife.
+
+He waited anxiously for the next day; but on the next day Madame Meynell
+still pleaded fatigue and illness. It was only on the third day that she
+appeared at the noisy banquet, pale, silent, absent-minded, sheltering
+herself under the wing of Madame Magnotte, who was disposed to be kind to
+this helpless stranger. To Gustave the young English widow seemed like a
+ghost at that crowded board. He looked at her every now and then from his
+distant seat, and saw her always with the same hopeless far-away look in
+her sad eyes. He himself was silent and _distrait_.
+
+"Of what dost thou dream, my droll one?" said his nearest neighbour.
+"Thou art positively insupportable."
+
+M. Lenoble could not become vivacious or entertaining at the behest of
+his fellow-student. The consciousness of that strange pale face haunted
+and oppressed him. He hoped to have a few minutes' talk with the English
+lady after dinner, but she disappeared before the removal of those
+recondite preparations which in the Pension Magnotte went by the generic
+name of "dessert."
+
+For more than a week she appeared thus at the dinner-table, eating very
+little, speaking not at all, except such monosyllabic replies as the
+hostess now and then extorted from her pale lips. A creature at once so
+beautiful and so profoundly sad became an object of interest to others
+besides Gustave; but in no breast was the sympathy which her sadness and
+beauty excited so poignant as in his. Her face haunted him. The familiar
+pleasures and amusements became distasteful to him. He spent his evenings
+at home in the dismal salon, and was content to listen to the chatter of
+the old women, the little music-mistress's dreary sonatas, the monotonous
+roll of wheels on the distant quay--anything rather than the hackneyed
+round of student-life that had once been agreeable to him. He did not
+fail to write his weekly letter to Cydalise; but, for some reason or
+other, he refrained from any allusion to the English stranger, although
+it was his custom to relate all his adventures for the amusement of the
+family at Beaubocage.
+
+An evening came at last on which Madame Meynell was persuaded to remain
+with the other ladies after dinner.
+
+"It must be very cold and cheerless for you in your bedroom," said
+Madame Magnotte; "why not spend your evening with us, in a pleasant and
+social manner?"
+
+"You are very good, madame," murmured the Englishwoman, in the slow timid
+accents that had so plaintive a sound to Gustave's ear; "if you wish it,
+I will stay."
+
+She seemed to submit rather from utter weakness and inability to refuse
+anything asked of her than from any hope of finding pleasure in the
+society of the Magnotte salon.
+
+It was an evening in March--cold, blustrous, dreary. The east wind blew
+clouds of dust athwart the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle, and the few
+foot-passengers in that dull thoroughfare looked pinched and wretched.
+The old ladies gathered round the great black stove, and gossipped in the
+twilight; the music-mistress went to her feeble piano, and played,
+unasked, unheeded; for Gustave, who was wont to turn the leaves, or sit
+attentive by the piano, seemed this evening unconscious of the music.
+Madame Meynell sat in one of the windows, alone, half-hidden by the faded
+yellow damask curtains, looking out into the street.
+
+Something--some impulse which he tried to resist, but could not--drew
+Gustave towards that lonely figure by the window. He went close up to the
+strange lady. This evening, as in the gardens of the Luxembourg, she
+seemed to him a living statue of despair. Now, as then, he felt an
+interest in her sorrow which he was powerless to combat. He had a vague
+idea that even this compassionate sympathy was in some manner an offence
+against Madelon Frehlter, the woman to whom he belonged, and yet he
+yielded to the fatal weakness.
+
+"Yes, I belong to her," he said to himself; "I belong to Madelon
+Frehlter. She is neither pretty nor fascinating; but I have every reason
+to believe her very good, very amiable; and she is the only woman, except
+those of my own kindred, in whom I have any right to be interested."
+
+He did not say this in so many words; but this was the shape which his
+thoughts assumed as he yielded to the tempter, and walked straight to the
+distant window by which Madame Meynell had seated herself.
+
+She started slightly as he approached her, and then looked up and
+recognized him as her acquaintance of the Luxembourg.
+
+"Good evening, monsieur," she said; "I have to thank you for having
+helped me to find a comfortable home."
+
+Having said this in a low gentle voice, she looked out into the street
+once more with her mournful unseeing eyes. It was evident that she had no
+more to say to M. Lenoble.
+
+The student, however, had no idea of leaving the window just yet,
+although he knew--yes, knew--that his presence there was a wrong done to
+Madelon Frehlter; but a wrong so small, so infinitesimal, that it was
+really not worth consideration.
+
+"I am enchanted to think that I was of some slight service to you,
+madame," he said; "but I fear you will find this quarter of Paris
+very dull."
+
+She did not take any notice of this remark until Gustave had repeated it,
+and then she spoke as if suddenly awakened from a trance.
+
+"Dull?" she said. "No, I have not found it dull. I do not care for
+gaiety."
+
+After this M. Lenoble felt that he could say no more. The lady relapsed
+into her waking trance. The dust-clouds in the silent street seemed more
+interesting to her than M. Lenoble of Beaubocage. He lingered a few
+minutes in the neighbourhood of her chair, thoughtfully observant of the
+delicate profile, the pale clear tints of a complexion that had lost its
+bloom but not its purity, the settled sadness of the perfect mouth, the
+dreamy pensiveness of the dark-grey eye, and then was fain to retire.
+
+After this, the English widow lady spent many evenings in Madame
+Magnotte's salon. The old Frenchwoman gossipped and wondered about
+her; but the most speculative could fashion no story from a page so
+blank as this joyless existence. Even slander could scarcely assail
+a creature so unobtrusive as the English boarder. The elderly ladies
+shrugged their shoulders and pursed up their lips with solemn
+significance. There must needs be something--a secret, a mystery, sorrow,
+or wrong-doing--somewhere; but of Madame Meynell herself no one could
+suspect any harm.
+
+Gustave Lenoble heard little of this gossip about the stranger, but she
+filled his thoughts nevertheless. The vision of her face came between him
+and his work; and when he thought of the future, and of the damsel who
+had been allotted to him for a wife, his thoughts were very bitter.
+
+"Fate is like Laban," he said to himself; "a man works and does his duty
+for seven years, and then Fate gives him Leah instead of Rachel. No doubt
+Leah is a very good young woman; one has no complaint to make against
+her, except that she is not Rachel."
+
+This was not a hopeful manner of looking at things for the destined
+master of Cotenoir. M. Lenoble's letters to the anxious folks at
+Beaubocage became, about this time, somewhat brief and unsatisfactory. He
+no longer gave ample details of his student-life--he no longer wrote in
+his accustomed good spirits. His letters seemed stiff and constrained.
+
+"I am afraid he is studying too much," said the mother.
+
+"I daresay the rascal is wasting his time in dissipation," suggested
+the father.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"PAST HOPE, AND IN DESPAIR."
+
+Two months had elapsed since the bleak spring morning on which Gustave
+Lenoble found the solitary lady under the leafless trees of the
+Luxembourg gardens. The inmates of the Pension Magnotte had grown
+accustomed to her presence, to her silence, her settled sadness, and
+troubled themselves no further respecting herself or her antecedents. The
+lapse of time had brought no improvement to her spirits; indeed, Gustave,
+who watched her closely, perceived that she had grown paler and thinner
+since that March morning when he met her in the public garden. Her life
+must have been painfully monotonous. She very rarely went out of doors,
+and on no occasion ventured beyond the gardens of the Luxembourg. No one
+visited her. She neither wrote nor received any letters. She was wont to
+make a pretence of reading as she sat in her retired corner of the salon;
+but Gustave had discovered that she gave little attention to her book.
+The open volume in her hand seemed no more than an excuse for brooding
+upon her sorrows.
+
+If people, prompted by curiosity or by compassion, endeavoured to get
+into conversation with this lonely lady, the result was always the same.
+She would answer their questions in a low gentle voice, with a quiet
+politeness; but she never assisted them in the smallest degree to
+interchange thoughts with her. It seemed as if she sought neither friend
+nor sympathizer, or as if her case was so entirely hopeless as to admit
+of neither. She paid for her board and lodging weekly with a punctilious
+exactness, though weekly payments were not the rule of the house.
+
+"My movements are uncertain," she said to Madame Magnotte. "I cannot
+tell how long I may be with you. It will therefore be better for me to
+pay you weekly."
+
+She had been in the house two months, dining every day at the public
+table, spending all her evenings in the public saloon; and during that
+time her settled gloom had never been broken by any outburst of grief or
+passion. She might have been a creature of ice, a statue of despair
+modelled in snow by a Michael Angelo. But one night the ice melted, the
+statue of snow became in a moment a passionate, grief-stricken woman.
+
+It was one bright evening late in May. Ah, how near at hand was the
+appointed date of those nuptials to which the household of Beaubocage
+looked forward with supreme happiness! The old ladies of the Pension
+Magnotte were for the most part out of doors. The long saloon was almost
+empty. There were only Gustave, Madame Magnotte, and the little
+music-mistress, who sat at her piano, with the western sunlight shining
+full upon her, rosy-hued and glorious, surrounding her with its soft
+radiance until she looked like a humble St. Cecilia.
+
+Madame Meynell had seated herself close to the piano, and was listening
+to the music. Gustave hovered near, pretending to be occupied with a limp
+little sheet of news published that evening.
+
+Mademoiselle Servin, the teacher of music, upon this occasion deserted
+her favourite masters. She seemed in a somewhat dreamy and sentimental
+humour, and played tender little melodies and simple plaintive airs, that
+were more agreeable to Gustave than those grand examples of the
+mathematics of counter-point which she so loved to interpret.
+
+"You like this melody of Gretry's," said the music-mistress, as M.
+Lenoble seated himself close to the piano. "I do not think you care for
+classic sonatas--the great works of Gluck, or Bach, or Beethoven?"
+
+"No," replied the young man frankly; "I do not care about anything I
+can't understand. I like music that goes to one's heart."
+
+"And you, too, Madame Meynell, like simple melodies?" mademoiselle asked
+of that lady, who was not wont to come so near the little piano, or to
+pay so much attention to Mademoiselle Servin's performance.
+
+"O yes," murmured the Englishwoman, "I like such music as that."
+
+"And you, too, think that Beethoven never composed simple plaintive
+airs--for example," exclaimed the pianist, playing softly while she
+spoke. "You think he wrote only sonatas, quartettes, fugues, grand,
+operas, like _Fidelio_. Have you never heard this by your scientific
+Beethoven?"
+
+Hereupon she played "Hope told a flattering tale," with much tenderness
+and delicacy. Her two hearers listened, mute and deeply moved. And then
+from that familiar melody she glided softly into another, most musical,
+most melancholy, which has been set to some of the sweetest verses that
+Thomas Moore ever composed:
+
+"Those evening bells, those evening bells!
+How many a tale their music tells
+Of youth and home, and that sweet time
+When last I heard their soothing chime!"
+
+All the world sang the verses of Ireland's divine bard in those days. The
+song was one which the Englishwoman had sung years ago in a happy home.
+What recollections, what associations, were evoked by that plaintive
+melody, who shall say? The words came back with the music to which they
+have been eternally wedded. The words, their mournful meaning, the faces
+of the friends amongst whom she had last sung them, the picture of the
+peaceful home whose walls had echoed the music,--all these things arose
+before her in a vision too painfully vivid; and the lonely boarder at the
+Pension Magnotte covered her face with her hands, and sobbed aloud.
+
+The passion of tears lasted but a minute. Madame Meynell dried her eyes,
+and rose to leave the room.
+
+"Do not question me," she said, perceiving that her two companions were
+about to offer her their sympathy. "I cannot tell you the memories that
+were conjured up by that music. It brought back a home I shall never see
+again, and the faces of the dead--worse than dead to me--and the
+happiness I have lost, and the hopes and dreams that once were mine. Oh,
+I pray God I may never hear that melody again."
+
+There was a passion, a depth of feeling, in her tone quite new to Gustave
+Lenoble. He opened the door for her without a word, and she passed out of
+the salon quietly, like a ghost--the ghost of that bright young creature
+who had once borne her shape, and been called by her name, in a pleasant
+farmhouse among the Yorkshire wolds.
+
+"Ah, but how that poor soul must have suffered!" cried the sympathetic
+Mademoiselle Servin, as the door closed on the Englishwoman. "I did
+not think it was in her to feel so deeply. I thought she was stone, and
+now I begin to think it must be of such stone as Niobe--the
+petrification of despair."
+
+Upon Gustave Lenoble this scene made a profound impression. He lay awake
+during the greater part of that night, thinking of the lonely lady's
+tears and anguish. The music of "Those evening bells" pervaded his
+dreams. He rose unrefreshed, feverish, forgetful of Cotenoir and Madelon
+Frehlter, as if that place and that person had never emerged from the
+shapeless substances of chaos. He wanted to see _her_ again, to console
+her, if that were possible. Oh, that it might be his privilege to console
+her! He pitied her with a compassion so intense, that thus to
+compassionate her woes, was himself to suffer a poignant anguish. He
+pitied her. Yes, he told himself again and again that this sentiment
+which so absorbed his heart and mind was no more than pity. But oh, if
+this were pity, what were love? That was a question which also presented
+itself to the mind of M. Gustave Lenoble, of Beaubocage _in esse_, and
+Cotenoir _in posse_.
+
+Madame Meynell rarely appeared at the common breakfast in the grim
+dining-room of the Pension Magnotte. Gustave was therefore in nowise
+surprised to miss her on this particular morning. He took a cup of
+coffee, and hurried off to his daily duties. There was a fever on him
+which he could neither understand nor shake off, and he hastened to the
+gardens of the Luxembourg, as if there were some special necessity for
+speed. So do men often hasten unconsciously to their predestined doom,
+defiant of augury. Soothsayers may menace, and wives may dream dreams;
+but when his hour comes, Caesar will go to the appointed spot where the
+daggers of his assassins await him.
+
+In the alley where he had first looked upon her sad face, beneath
+the umbrage of young limes and chestnuts just bursting into bloom,
+he saw the Englishwoman to-day, seated on the same bench, almost in
+the same attitude.
+
+He went up to her, and bade her good morning; and then, intensely
+conscious of his own temerity, seated himself by her side.
+
+"I did not expect to find you here so early."
+
+"No, I seldom come out so soon; but this morning I have to make some
+inquiries upon a matter of business, and I am only resting here before
+going to make them."
+
+She gave a little weary sigh at the end of this speech. It seemed a
+strange manner of transacting business to rest in the Luxembourg gardens,
+which were distant but a few hundred yards from her home. Gustave divined
+that it was for very forlornness she lingered there, shrinking from some
+difficult encounter that lay before her.
+
+"Can I not make the inquiries for you?" he asked. "Pray command me. It
+will be my happiness to be useful to you."
+
+"You are very good. I cannot trouble you so much."
+
+"Pray do not talk of trouble. It can be no trouble to me to aid you in
+any manner. Ah, madame, you do not know how much I would sacrifice to be
+useful to you!"
+
+She must have been dull indeed had she failed to perceive the earnestness
+of his tone. She did perceive it, and was vaguely conscious that in this
+student of law she had a friend.
+
+"I want to know when the diligence for Calais leaves Paris, and from what
+office," she said. "I am going back to England."
+
+She was surprised to see the young man's face blanch as she announced
+this simple fact. The young man himself was surprised by the sudden
+anguish inflicted by her announcement. It was in this moment that he
+first discovered how completely he had given his heart into this strange
+woman's keeping.
+
+"You are really going to leave Paris?--for ever?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Yes. I have been here too long already. I have no business here. I ought
+to have gone back to England that day when I first met you here, but I
+put off the day of my return. I can put it off no longer."
+
+"And you are going back to your friends?" Gustave asked, in a very
+mournful tone.
+
+"I am going back to my friends? Yes!" Her lips quivered a little, and the
+unbidden tears came to her eyes.
+
+Ah, what was the sorrow that oppressed this beauteous lonely creature?
+What agony of grief or self-reproach was this pain which consumed her?
+Gustave remembered her passion of tears on the previous night; her talk
+of friends that were dead, and happiness lost; and now to-day she talked
+of going home to her friends: but O the bitterness of expression with
+which she had spoken that word "friends!"
+
+"Are you going alone, Madame Meynell?" he inquired, after a pause. He
+could not tear himself from that seat by her side. He could not be manly
+or rational where she was concerned. The image of Madelon Frehlter rose
+before his mental vision, reproachful, menacing; but a thick fog
+intervened to obscure that unwelcome image. His whole life resolved
+itself into those thrilling moments in which he sat here, on this common
+garden bench, by this stranger's side; the entire universe was contracted
+into this leafy walk where they two sat.
+
+"Yes, I am going alone," madame replied, with a little laugh. "Who should
+I have to go with me? I am quite alone in the world. I think I had better
+make these inquiries myself, M. Lenoble. There is no reason why I should
+give you so much trouble."
+
+"There is no such thing as trouble. I will bring you all necessary
+information to-day at dinner, if that will be soon enough."
+
+"Quite soon enough, I thank you, monsieur," she answered, with a sigh. "I
+must ask you kindly to ascertain for me also the expense of the journey."
+
+"Most certainly, madame."
+
+This request set him wondering whether she were poor, and how poor. But
+she had evidently no more to say to him; she had again become
+impenetrable. He would fain have stayed, though honour and conscience
+were clamorous in their demands for his departure. Happily for honour and
+conscience, the lady was silent as death, impervious as marble; so M.
+Lenoble presently bowed and departed.
+
+He thought of her all day long. The farce of pity was ended. He knew now
+that he loved this Englishwoman with an affection at once foolish and
+sinful,--foolish, since he knew not who or what this woman was; sinful,
+since the indulgence of this passion involved the forfeiture of his
+plighted word, the disappointment of those who loved him.
+
+"No, no, no," he said to himself; "I cannot do this base and wicked
+thing. I must marry Madelon. All the hopes of my mother and father rest
+on that marriage; and to disappoint them because this stranger's face has
+bewitched me? Ah, no, it cannot be. And even if I were willing to trample
+my honour in the dust, how do I know that she would value or accept the
+sacrifice?"
+
+M. Lenoble made all necessary inquiries at the office of the Messageries,
+and carried the intelligence to Madame Meynell. He could see that she
+winced a little when he told her the cost of the journey, which in those
+days was heavy.
+
+"She must certainly be poor," he said to himself; and it rent his heart
+to think that even in this paltry matter he could be of no use to her.
+The destined master of Beaubocage and Cotenoir was entirely without ready
+money. He had his watch. He put his hand upon that clumsy timekeeper as
+he talked to madame.
+
+"_Je te porterai chez ma tante, mon gars_," he said to himself. But he
+doubted whether the high priests of the pious mountain--the Dordona of
+Pauperism--would advance much upon this antique specimen of the
+watchmaker's art.
+
+After this evening he looked forward daily, hourly, to the anguish of her
+departure. She would vanish out of his life, intangible as a melted
+snow-flake, and only memory would stay behind to tell him he had known
+and loved her. Why should this be so hard to bear? If she stayed, he
+dared not tell her she was dear to him; he dared not stretch forth his
+hand to help her. In all the world there was no creature more utterly
+apart from him than she, whether she lived in the same house with him or
+was distant as the Antipodes. What did it matter, then, since she was
+destined to disappear from his life, whether she vanished to-day or a
+year hence? He argued with himself that it could be a question of no
+moment to him. There was a death-blow that must descend upon him, cruel,
+inevitable. Let it come when it would.
+
+Every day when he came home to dinner, M. Lenoble expected to behold a
+vacant place by the side of his hostess; every day he was pleasantly
+disappointed. The pale hopeless face was still to be seen, ghost-like, at
+that noisy board. The face was more pale, more hopeless, as it seemed to
+Gustave, every day he looked upon it.
+
+He asked Madame Magnotte when the English lady was going to leave, but
+she could not tell.
+
+"She talks of leaving from day to day," said madame; "it will no doubt be
+soon. I am sorry to lose her. She is very gentle, and gives no trouble to
+any one. But she is sad--ah, how sad she is! She has suffered, monsieur."
+
+Gustave agreed to this. Yes, she had suffered; but what, and how?
+
+He watched her closely, but she was always the same. She no longer spent
+her evenings in the salon, but in her own apartment. He saw her only at
+dinner-time, and had no opportunity of speaking to her.
+
+At last the day came upon which he missed her at the usual hour. He sat
+through the tedious meal without speaking; eating a little, drinking a
+little, mechanically, but with no consciousness of what he ate or drank.
+There was a mist before his eyes, a confusion of voices in his ears; but
+the faculties of sight and hearing seemed suspended. The agony he
+suffered during that miserable hour was bitter as death.
+
+"O, my God, how I love her!" he said to himself, while Raoul's bass roar
+brayed in his ear on one side, and Leon's shrill squeal tortured him on
+the other.
+
+He made his way to Madame Magnotte directly after dinner.
+
+"She is gone?" he exclaimed.
+
+"But who, my friend? Ah, yes; it is of that poor Madame Meynell you
+speak. How you are interested in her! No, she is not gone, poor woman.
+She remains always. She has the air of a person who knows not her own
+mind. Yet I am sure she thinks of going. To-day, for the first time, she
+has been writing letters. Reine came to tell me she had seen her occupied
+in her own room for the first time. It is not her habit to occupy
+herself."
+
+Gustave's heart gave a great jump. She was not gone; he might see her
+again--if it were but a glimpse of her pale face looking out of the
+diligence as it drove out of the Cour de Messageries. One look, one
+glance; it would be something to carry in his heart all his life. All his
+life! He looked forward and shuddered. What a dreary life it must needs
+be! Cotenoir, Beaubocage, Madelon, the law; to plead, to read papers, to
+study dry as dust books. He shrank appalled from the contemplation of
+that dreary desert of existence--a life without her.
+
+She had been writing letters--doubtless letters to her friends to
+announce her return. Her departure must be very near at hand.
+
+Gustave refused to go out that evening. His fellow-students were bent on
+a night's pleasure at a dancing-garden then in vogue, where there would
+be twinkling lamps and merry music under the May moon. The lamp-lit
+parterres, the joyous waltzes, had no attractions for Gustave Lenoble. He
+haunted the dull salon, dim and dreary in the twilight; for Madame
+Magnotte was chary of lamps and candles, and prolonged to its utmost
+limits the pensive interval between day and night. He walked softly up
+and down the room, unheeded by the ladies clustered in a group by one of
+the windows. Restless and unhappy, he could neither go nor stay. She was
+not coming down to the salon this evening. He had clung to the faint hope
+that she might appear; but the faint hope died away in his breast as the
+night deepened. What purpose could be served by his remaining in that
+dismal room? He was no nearer her than he would have been in the
+remotest wilds of Central America. He would go out--not to the odious
+dancing-garden, but to the cool dark streets, where the night wind might
+blow this fever from his brain.
+
+He left the room suddenly, and hurried downstairs. At the bottom of the
+staircase he almost stumbled against a woman, who turned and looked at
+him in the light of a little oil-lamp that hung over the door of the
+portress's lodge.
+
+It was the Englishwoman, deadly pale, and with a wild look in her face
+that Gustave had never seen there before. She gave him no sign of
+recognition, but passed out of the courtyard, and walked rapidly away.
+That unusual look in her face, the strangeness of the fact that she
+should be leaving the house at this hour, inspired him with a vague
+terror, and he followed her, not stealthily, without a thought that he
+was doing any wrong by such an act--rather, indeed, with the conviction
+that he had a right so to follow her.
+
+She walked very quickly--at a more rapid pace than Gustave would have
+supposed possible for so fragile a creature. She chose the lonelier
+streets, and Gustave had no difficulty in following her; she never looked
+back, but went straight on her course, without pause or slackening of her
+pace, as if with a settled purpose.
+
+"Where can she be going?" Gustave asked himself; and an answer, vague,
+hideous, terrible, suggested itself to his mind. The idea that occurred
+to him was one that would scarcely have occurred to an Englishman under
+the same circumstances, but to a Frenchman it was a very familiar idea.
+
+It was dark now--the darkness that reigns between early sunset and late
+moonrise. As the lonely woman went farther along the dreary streets
+parallel with the quay, the dreadful suspicion grew stronger in Gustave's
+mind. From that instant he had but one thought; in that moment he put
+away from him for ever all sense of obligation to Madelon Frehlter; he
+shook off father, mother, sister, old associations, home ties, ambition,
+fortune--he lived alone for this woman, and the purpose of his life was
+to save her from despair and death.
+
+They emerged upon the quay at last. The long stretch of pavement was
+deserted. Ah, now she looked back--she looked on every side with wild
+unseeing eyes--and now there could be little doubt as to the purpose that
+brought her here. She crossed the road, and went upon the bridge, Gustave
+following close; in the next minute she was standing on the stone bench,
+a tremulous, fluttering figure, with arms stretched towards the water; in
+a breath she was clasped to Gustave's breast, clasped by arms that meant
+to hold her for ever.
+
+The shock of that surprise utterly unnerved the wretched creature. She
+shivered violently, and struggled to free herself from those strong arms.
+
+"Let me go!" she cried in English. "Let me go!" And then, finding herself
+powerless, she turned and looked at her captor. "M. Lenoble! O, why do
+you persecute me? Why do you follow me?"
+
+"Because I want to save you."
+
+"To save me! To snatch me back when I was going to find rest--an end for
+my weary life! O yes, I know that it is a sinful end; but my life has
+been all sin."
+
+"Your life all sin! Foolish one, I will never believe that."
+
+"It is true," she cried, with passionate self-reproach. "The sin of
+selfishness, and pride, and disobedience. There is no fate too hard for
+me--but, O, my fate is very hard! Why did you keep me from that river?
+You do not know how miserable my life is--you do not know. I paid my
+last penny to Madame Magnotte this morning. I have no money to take me
+back to England, even if I dared go there--and I dare not. I have prayed
+for courage, for strength to go back, but my prayers have not been
+heard; and there is nothing for me but to die. What would be the sin of
+my throwing myself into that river! I must die; I shall die of
+starvation in the streets."
+
+"No, no," cried Gustave passionately; "do you think I have dragged you
+back from death to give you to loneliness and despair? My dear one, you
+are mine--mine by right of this night. These arms that have kept you
+from death shall shelter you,--ah, let them shelter you! These hands
+shall work for you. My love, my love! you cannot tell how dear you are
+to me. If there must be want or trouble for either of us, it shall come
+to me first."
+
+He had placed her on the stone bench, bewildered and unresisting, and had
+seated himself by her side. The fragile figure, shivering still, even in
+the mild atmosphere of the spring night, was sustained by his encircling
+arm. He felt that she was his, irrevocably and entirely--given to him by
+the Providence which would have seemed to have abandoned her, but for the
+love it had implanted for her in this one faithful heart. His tone had
+all the pleading tenderness of a lover's, but it had something more--an
+authority, a sense of possession.
+
+"Providence sent me here to save you," he said, with that gentle yet
+authoritative tone; "I am your providence, am I not, dearest? Fate made
+me love you--fondly, hopelessly, as I thought. Yesterday you seemed as
+far away from me as those pale stars, shining up yonder--as
+incomprehensible as that faint silvery mist above the rising moon--and
+to-night you are my own."
+
+He knew not what ties might be broken by this act. He had indeed a vague
+consciousness that the step which he was now taking would cause a
+lifelong breach between himself and his father. But the time had gone by
+in which he could count the cost.
+
+"Let me go back, M. Lenoble," the Englishwoman said presently. The
+faintness of terror was passing away, and she spoke almost calmly. "Let
+me go back to the house. It is you that have saved me from a dreadful
+sin. I promise you that I will not again think of committing that deadly
+sin. I will wait for the end to come. Let me go, my kind friend. Ah, no,
+no; do not detain me! Forget that you have ever known me."
+
+"That is not in my power. I will take you back to the Pension Magnotte
+directly; but you must first promise to be my wife."
+
+"Your wife! O, no, no, no! That is impossible."
+
+"Because you do not love me," said Gustave, with mournful gravity.
+
+"Because I am not worthy of you."
+
+Humiliation and self-reproach unspeakable were conveyed in those few
+words.
+
+"You are worth all the stars to me. If I had them in my hands, those
+lamps shining up there, I would throw them away, to hold you," said the
+student passionately. "You cannot understand my love, perhaps. I seem a
+stranger to you, and all I say sounds wild and foolish. My love, it is
+true as the heaven above us--true as life or death--death that was so
+near you just now. I have loved you ever since that bleak March morning
+on which I saw you sitting under the leafless trees yonder. You held me
+from that moment. I was subjugated--possessed--yours at once and for
+ever. I would not confess even to myself that my heart had resigned
+itself to you; but I know now that it was so from the first. Is there any
+hope that you will ever pay me back one tithe of my love?"
+
+"You love me," the Englishwoman repeated slowly, as if the words were
+almost beyond her comprehension,--"you love _me_, a creature so lost, so
+friendless! Ah, but you do not know my wretched story!"
+
+"I do not ask to know it. I only ask one question--will you be my wife?"
+
+"You must be mad to offer your name, your honour to me."
+
+"Yes, I am mad--madly in love. And I am waiting for your answer. You
+will be my wife? My angel, you will say yes! It is not much that I offer
+you--a life of uncertainty, perhaps even of poverty; but a fond and
+constant heart, and a head and hands that will work for you while God
+gives them strength. It is better than the river."
+
+All that was thoughtless and hopeful in his disposition was expressed in
+these words. The woman to whom he pleaded was weakened by sorrow, and
+the devotion of this brave true heart brought her strength, comfort,
+almost hope.
+
+"Will you be my friend?" she said gently. "Your words seem to bring me
+back to life. I wanted to die because I was so wretched, so lonely. I
+have friends in England--friends who were once all that is dear and kind;
+but I dare not go to them. I think a cruel look from one of those friends
+would kill me with a pain more bitter than any other death could give.
+And I have no right to hope for kind looks from them. Yours are the only
+words of friendship I have heard for a long time."
+
+"And you will give me the right to work for you--to protect you? You will
+be my wife?"
+
+"I would rather be your servant," she answered, with sad humility. "What
+right have I to accept so great a sacrifice? What folly can be so foolish
+as your love for me--if it is indeed love, and not a wild fancy of
+to-night!"
+
+"It is a fancy that will last my life."
+
+"Ah, you do not know how such fancies change."
+
+"I know nothing except that mine is changeless. Come, my love, it is
+growing late and cold. Let me take you home. The portress will wonder.
+You must slip past her quietly with your veil down. Did you give old
+Margot your key when you came down stairs to-night?"
+
+"No, it is in my pocket. I was not thinking--I--"
+
+She stopped with a sudden shudder. Gustave understood that shudder; he
+also shuddered. She had left her room that night possessed by the
+suicide's madness; she had left it to come straight to death. Happily his
+strong arm had come between her and that cruel grave by which they were
+still lingering.
+
+They walked slowly back to the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle under the light of
+the newly-risen moon. The Englishwoman's wasted hand rested for the first
+time on M. Lenoble's arm. She was his--his by the intervention and by the
+decree of Providence! That became a conviction in the young man's mind.
+He covered her late return to the house with diplomatic art, engaging the
+portress in conversation while the dark figure glided past in the dim
+lamplight. On the staircase he paused to bid her good night.
+
+"You will walk with me in the Luxembourg garden to-morrow morning,
+dearest," he said. "I have so much to say--so much. Until then, adieu!"
+
+He kissed her hand, and left her on the threshold of her apartment, and
+then went to his own humble bachelor's chamber, singing a little drinking
+song in his deep manly voice, happy beyond all measure.
+
+They walked together next day in the gardens of the Luxembourg. The poor
+lonely creature whom Gustave had rescued seemed already to look up to him
+as a friend and protector, if not in the character of a future husband.
+It was no longer this fair stranger who held possession of Gustave; it
+was Gustave who had taken possession of her. The stronger nature had
+subjugated the weaker. So friendless, so utterly destitute--penniless,
+helpless, in a strange land, it is little matter for wonder that Susan
+Meynell accepted the love that was at once a refuge and a shelter.
+
+"Let me tell you my wretched story," she pleaded, as she walked under the
+chestnut-trees by her lover's side. "Let me tell you everything. And if,
+when you have heard what an unhappy creature I am, you still wish to give
+me your heart, your name, I will be obedient to your wish. I will not
+speak to you of gratitude. If you could understand how debased an outcast
+I seemed to myself last night when I went to the river, you would know
+how I must feel your goodness. But you can never understand--you can
+never know what you seem to me."
+
+And then in a low voice, and with infinite shame and hesitation, she told
+him her story.
+
+"My father was a tradesman in the city of London," she said. "We were
+very well off, and my home ought to have been a happy one. Ah, how happy
+such a home would seem to me now! But I was idle and frivolous and
+discontented in those days, and was dissatisfied with our life in the
+city because it seemed dull and monotonous to me. When I look back now
+and remember how poor a return I gave for the love that was given to
+me--my mother's anxiety, my father's steady, unpretending kindness--I
+feel how well I have deserved the sorrows that have come to me since
+then."
+
+She paused here, but Gustave did not interrupt her. His interest was too
+profound for any conventional expression. He was listening to the story
+of his future wife's youth. That there could be any passage in that
+history which would hinder him from claiming this woman as his wife was a
+possibility he did not for a moment contemplate. If there were shame
+involved in the story, as Madame Meynell's manner led him to suppose
+there must be, so much the worse was it for him, since the shame must be
+his, as she was his.
+
+"When my father and mother died, I went into Yorkshire to live with my
+married sister. I cannot find words to tell you how kind they were to
+me--my sister and her husband. I had a little money left me by my father,
+and I spent the greater part of it on fine dress, and on foolish presents
+to my sister and her children. I was happier in Yorkshire than I had been
+in London; for I saw more people, and my life seemed gayer and brighter
+than in the city. One day I saw a gentleman, the brother of a nobleman
+who lived in the neighbourhood of my sister's house. We met by accident
+in a field on my brother-in-law's farm, where the gentleman was shooting;
+and after that he came to the house. He had seen my sister before, and
+made some excuse for renewing his acquaintance. He came very often, and
+before long he asked me to marry him; and I promised to be his wife, with
+my sister's knowledge and consent. She loved me so dearly, and was so
+proud of me out of her dear love, that she saw nothing wonderful in this
+engagement, especially as Mr. Kingdon, the gentleman I am speaking of,
+was a younger son, and by no means a rich man."
+
+Again she stopped, and waited a little before continuing her story. Only
+by a gentle pressure of the tremulous hand resting on his arm did Gustave
+express his sympathy.
+
+"I cannot tell you, how happy I was in those days--so bright, so brief. I
+cannot tell you how I loved Montague Kingdon. When I look back to that
+time of my life, it seems like a picture standing out against a
+background of darkness, with some strange vivid light shining upon it. It
+was arranged between Montague and my sister that we should be married as
+soon as his brother, Lord Durnsville, had paid his debts. The payment of
+the debts was an old promise of Lord Durnsville's, and an imprudent
+marriage on his brother's part might have prevented the performance of
+it. This is what Montague told my sister Charlotte. She begged him to
+confide in her husband, my kind brother-in-law, but this he refused to
+do. There came a day very soon after this when James Halliday, my
+brother-in-law, was told about Montague Kingdon's visits to the farm. He
+came home and found Mr. Kingdon with us; and then there was a dreadful
+scene between them. James forbade Mr. Kingdon ever again to set foot in
+his house. He scolded my sister, he warned me. It was all no use. I loved
+Montague Kingdon as you say you love me--foolishly, recklessly. I could
+not disbelieve or doubt him. When he told me of his plans for our
+marriage, which was to be kept secret until Lord Durnsville had paid his
+debts, I consented to leave Newhall with him to be married in London. If
+he had asked me for my life, I must have given it to him. And how should
+I disbelieve his promises when I had lived only amongst people who were
+truth itself? He knew that I had friends in London, and it was arranged
+between us that I was to be married from the house of one of them, who
+had been my girlish companion, and who was now well married. I was to
+write, telling her of my intended journey to town; and on the following
+night I was to leave Newhall secretly with Montague Kingdon. I was to
+make my peace with my sister and her husband after my marriage. How shall
+I tell you the rest? From the first to last he deceived me. The carriage
+that was, as I believed, to have taken us to London, carried us to Hull.
+From Hull we crossed to Hamburg. From that time my story is all shame and
+misery. I think my heart broke in the hour in which I discovered that I
+had been cheated. I loved him, and clung to him long after I knew him to
+be selfish and false and cruel. It seemed to be a part of my nature to
+love him. My life was not the kind of life one reads of in novels. It was
+no existence of splendour and luxury and riot, but one long struggle with
+debt and difficulty. We lived abroad--not for our pleasure, but because
+Mr. Kingdon could not venture to appear in England. His brother, Lord
+Durnsville, had never promised to pay his debts. That was a falsehood
+invented to deceive my sister. For seven long weary years I was his
+slave, a true and faithful slave; his nurse in illness, his patient
+drudge at all times. We had been wandering about France for two years,
+when he brought me to Paris; and it was here he first began to neglect
+me. O, if you could know the dreary days and nights I have spent at the
+hotel on the other side of the river, where we lived, you would pity me."
+
+"My dear love, my heart is all pity for you," said Gustave. "Do not tell
+me any more. I can guess the end of the story. There came a day in which
+neglect gave place to desertion."
+
+"Yes; Mr. Kingdon left me one day without a warning word to break the
+blow. I had been waiting and watching for him through two weary days and
+nights, when there came a letter to tell me he was on his way to Vienna
+with a West Indian gentleman and his daughter. He was to be married to
+the daughter. It was his poverty, he told me, which compelled this step.
+He advised me to go back to my friends in Yorkshire. To go back!--as if
+he did not know that death would be easier to me. There was a small sum
+of money in the letter, on which I have lived since that time. When you
+first met me here, I had not long received that letter."
+
+This was the end of her story. In the depth of her humiliation she dared
+not lift her eyes to the face of her companion; but she felt his hand
+clasp hers, and knew that he was still her friend. This was all she asked
+of Providence.
+
+To Gustave Lenoble the story had been unutterably painful. He had hoped
+to hear a tragedy untarnished by shame, and the shame was very bitter to
+him. This woman whom he loved so fondly was no spotless martyr, the
+victim of inevitable fate, beautiful and sublime in her affliction. She
+was only a weak vain, village beauty who had suffered herself to be lured
+away from her peaceful home by the falsehoods of a commonplace scoundrel.
+
+The story was common, the shame was common, but it seemed to M. Lenoble
+that the woman by his side was his destiny; and then, prompt to the
+rescue of offended pride, of outraged love--tortured to think that she,
+so distant and pure a creature to him, should have been trampled in the
+dust by another--came the white-winged angel Pity. By her weakness, by
+her humiliation, by the memory of her suffering, Pity conjured him to
+love her so much the more dearly.
+
+"My darling," he said softly, "it is a very sad story, and you and I will
+never speak of it again. We will bury the memory of Montague Kingdon in
+the deepest grave that was ever dug for bitter remembrances; and we will
+begin a new life together."
+
+This was the end of M. Lenoble's wooing. He could not speak of his love
+any more while the sound of Montague Kingdon's name had but lately died
+away on Susan Meynell's lips. He had taken her to himself, with all her
+sorrows and sins, in the hour in which he snatched her from death; and
+between these two there was no need of passionate protestations or
+sentimental rapture.
+
+M. Lenoble speedily discovered that the law had made no provision for the
+necessities of a chivalrous young student eager to unite himself with a
+friendless foreign woman, who could not produce so much as one of the
+thirty witnesses required to establish her identity. A very little
+consideration showed Gustave that a marriage between him and Susan
+Meynell in France was an impossibility. He explained this, and asked her
+if she would trust him as she had trusted Montague Kingdon. In Jersey the
+marriage might easily be solemnised. Would she go with him to Jersey, to
+stay there so long as the English law required for the solemnization of
+their union?
+
+"Why should you take so much trouble about me?" said Susan, in her low
+sad voice. "You are too good, too generous. I am not worth so much care
+and thought from you."
+
+"Does that mean that you will not trust me, Susan?"
+
+"I would trust you with my life in a desert, thousands of miles from the
+rest of mankind--with a happier life than mine. I have no feeling in my
+heart but love for you, and faith in you."
+
+After this the rest was easy. The lovers left the Pension Magnotte one
+bright summer morning, and journeyed to Jersey, where, after a
+fortnight's sojourn, the English Protestant church united them in the
+bonds of matrimony.
+
+Susan was a Protestant, Gustave a Catholic, but the difference of
+religion divided them no more than the difference of country. They came
+back to Paris directly after the marriage, and M. Lenoble took a very
+modest lodging for himself and his wife in a narrow street near the
+Pantheon--a fourth story, very humbly furnished. M. Lenoble had provided
+for himself an opportunity of testing the truth of that adage which
+declares that a purse large enough for one is also large enough for two.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+A DECREE OF BANISHMENT.
+
+After those stormy emotions which accompany the doing of a desperate
+deed, there comes in the minds of men a dead calm. The still small voice
+of Wisdom, unheard while Passion's tempest was raging, whispers grave
+counsel or mild reproof; and Folly, who, seen athwart the storm-cloud,
+sublime in the glare of the lightning, seemed inspiration, veils her face
+in the clear, common light of day.
+
+Let it not for a moment be supposed that with M. Lenoble time and
+reflection brought repentance in their train. It was not so. The love
+which he felt for his English wife was no capricious emotion; it was a
+passion deep and strong as destiny. The worst that afterthought could
+reveal to him was the fact that the step he had taken was a very
+desperate one. Before him lay an awful necessity--the necessity of going
+to Beaubocage to tell those who loved him how their air-built castles had
+been shattered by this deed of his.
+
+The letters from Cydalise--nay, indeed, more than one letter from his
+mother, with whom letter-writing was an exceptional business--had of late
+expressed much anxiety. In less than a month the marriage-contract would
+be made ready for his signature. Every hour's delay was a new dishonour.
+He told his wife that he must go home for a few days; and she prepared
+his travelling gear, with a sweet dutiful care that seemed to him like
+the ministration of an angel.
+
+"My darling girl, can I ever repay you for the happiness you have brought
+me!" he exclaimed, as he watched the slight girlish figure flitting about
+the room, busy with the preparations for his journey.
+
+And then he thought of Madelon Frehlter--commonplace, stiff, and
+unimpressionable--the most conventional of school-girls, heavy in face,
+in figure, in step, in mind even, as it had seemed to him, despite his
+sister's praises.
+
+He had been too generous to tell Susan of his engagement, of the
+brilliant prospects he forfeited by his marriage, or the risk which he
+ran of offending his father by that rash step. But to-night, when he
+thought of Madelon's dulness and commonness, it seemed to him as if Susan
+had in manner rescued him from a dreadful fate--as maidens were rescued
+from sea-monsters in the days of Perseus and Heracles.
+
+"Madelon is not unlike a whale," he thought. "They tell us that whales
+are of a sagacious and amiable temper,--and Cydalise was always talking
+of Madelon's good sense and amiablity. I am sure it is quite as easy to
+believe in the unparalleled virtues of the whale as in the unparalleled
+virtues of Madelon Frehlter."
+
+His valise was packed, and he departed for Beaubocage, after a sad and
+tender parting from his wife. The journey was a long one in those days,
+when no express train had yet thundered across the winding Seine,
+cleaving its iron way through the bosom of fertile Norman valleys. M.
+Lenoble had ample time for reflection as he jogged along in the ponderous
+diligence; and his heart grew more and more heavy as the lumbering
+vehicle approached nearer to the town of Vevinord, whence he was to make
+his way to the paternal mansion as best he might.
+
+He walked to Beaubocage, attended by a peasant lad, who carried his
+portmanteau. The country was very pleasant in the quiet summer
+evening, but conscious guilt oppressed the heart and perplexity
+disturbed the mind of M. Gustave Lenoble, and his spirits were in
+nowise elevated by the walk.
+
+Lights in the lower chambers gleamed dimly athwart the trim garden at
+Beaubocage. One faint twinkling candle shone in a little pepper-castor
+turret, his sister's room. The thought of their glad welcome smote his
+heart. How could he shape the words that must inform them of their
+disappointment? And then he thought of the gentle pensive wife in the
+Parisian lodging, so grateful for his devotion, so tender and
+submissive,--the wife he had rescued from death and eternal condemnation,
+as it seemed to his pious Catholic mind. The thought of this dear one
+gave him courage.
+
+"I owe much to my parents," he thought to himself, "but not the privilege
+to sell me for money. The marriage they want to bring about would be a
+sordid barter of my heart and my honour."
+
+In a few minutes after this he was standing in the little salon at
+Beaubocage, with his mother and sister hanging about him and caressing
+him, his father standing near, less demonstrative, but evidently well
+pleased by this unexpected arrival of the son and heir.
+
+"I heard thy voice in the hall," cried Cydalise, "and flew down from my
+room to welcome thee. It seems to me that one can fly on these occasions.
+And how thou art looking well, and how thou art handsome, and how I adore
+thee!" cries the damsel, more ecstatic than an English sister on a like
+occasion. "Dost thou know that we began to alarm ourselves about thee?
+Thy letters became so infrequent, so cold. And all the while thou didst
+plot this surprise for us. Ah, how it is sweet to see thee again!"
+
+And then the mother took up the strain, and anon was spoken the dreaded
+name of Madelon. She too would be glad--she too had been anxious. The
+prodigal made no answer. He could not speak, his heart sank within him,
+he grew cold and pale; to inflict pain on those who loved him was a
+sharper pain than death.
+
+"Gustave!" cried the mother, in sudden alarm, "thou growest pale--thou
+art ill! Look then, Francois, thy son is ill!"
+
+"No, mother, I am not ill," the young man replied gravely. He kissed his
+mother, and put her gently away from him. In all the years of her
+after-life she remembered that kiss, cold as death, for it was the
+farewell kiss of her son.
+
+"I wish to speak a few words with you alone, father," said Gustave.
+
+The father was surprised, but in no manner alarmed by this request. He
+led the way to his den, a small and dingy chamber, where there were some
+dusty editions of the French classics, and where the master of Beaubocage
+kept accounts and garden-seeds and horse-medicines.
+
+When they were gone, the mother and sister sat by one of the open
+windows, waiting for them. Without all was still. Distant lights
+glimmered through the summer twilight, the lighted windows of Cotenoir.
+
+"How pleased Madelon will be," said Cydalise, looking towards those
+glimmering windows. She had really taught herself to believe that the
+demoiselle Frehlter was a most estimable young person; but she would have
+been glad to find more enthusiasm, more brightness and vivacity, in her
+future sister-in-law.
+
+The interview between the father and son seemed long to Madame Lenoble
+and Cydalise. The two women were curious--nay, indeed, somewhat anxious.
+
+"I fear he has made debts," said the mother, "and is telling thy father
+of his follies. I know not how they are to be paid, unless with the dowry
+of Madelon, and that would seem a dishonourable use of her money."
+
+It was half an hour before any sound broke the stillness of that quiet
+house. Twilight had thickened into night, when there came a banging of
+doors and heavy footsteps in the hall. The door of the salon was
+opened, and M. Lenoble came in alone. At the same moment the outer door
+closed heavily.
+
+M. Lenoble went straight to the open window and closed the Venetian
+shutters. He went from thence to the second window, the shutters whereof
+he fastened carefully, while the women stared at him wonderingly, for it
+was not his habit to perform this office.
+
+"I am shutting out a vagabond," he said, in a cold, cruel voice.
+
+"Where is Gustave?" cried the mother, alarmed.
+
+"He is gone."
+
+"But he is coming back, is he not, directly?"
+
+"Never while I live!" answered M. Lenoble. "He has married an English
+adventuress, and is no longer any son of mine."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Second.
+
+
+
+DOWNHILL.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+THE FATE OP SUSAN LENOBLE.
+
+Seven years after that miserable summer night at Beaubocage on which
+Gustave Lenoble was disowned by his father, a man and woman, with a boy
+five years of age, were starving in a garret amongst the housetops and
+chimneys of Rouen. In the busy city these people lived lonely as in a
+forest, and were securely hidden from the eyes of all who had ever
+known them. The man--haggard, dying--cherished a pride that had grown
+fiercer as the grip of poverty tightened upon him. The woman lived only
+for her husband and her child.
+
+The man was Gustave Lenoble. The world had gone ill with him since he
+cast his destiny into the lap of the woman he loved. In all these years
+no olive-bearing dove had spanned the gulf that yawned between the
+prodigal and his father. The seigneur of Beaubocage had been marble. A
+narrow-minded old man, living his narrow life, and nursing one idea with
+fanatical devotion, was of all men the least likely to forgive. Vain had
+been the tears and entreaties of mother and sister. The doors of that
+joyless dwelling on the fertile flats beyond Vevinord were sealed against
+the offender with a seal not to be broken, even had he come thither to
+plead for pardon, which he did not.
+
+"My father would have sold me as negro slaves are sold _labas_," he said,
+on those rare occasions when he opened his old wounds, which were to the
+last unhealed: "I am glad that I escaped the contemptible barter."
+
+He was in very truth glad. Poverty and hardship seemed to him easier to
+bear than the dreary prosperity of Cotenoir and a wife he could not have
+loved. The distinguishing qualities of this man's mind were courage and
+constancy. There are such noble souls born into the world, some to shine
+with lustre supernal, many to burn and die in social depths, obscure as
+ocean's deepest cavern.
+
+In his love for the woman he had chosen Gustave Lenoble never wavered. He
+worked for her, he endured for her, he hoped against hope for her sake;
+and it was only when bodily strength failed that this nameless
+foot-soldier began to droop and falter in life's bitter battle. Things
+had gone ill with him. He had tried his fate as an advocate in Paris, in
+Caen, in Rouen--but clients would not come. He had been a clerk, now in
+one counting-house, now in another, and Susan and he had existed somehow
+during the seven years of their married life.
+
+They clung to each other with affection that seemed to grow with every
+new sorrow; nor did love exhibit any inclination to spread his wings and
+take flight from the window, though poverty came in every day at the
+door, and sat by the hearth, a familiar companion and inevitable guest.
+
+The mother and sister contrived to help this poor castaway with the
+veriest scrapings of a miserly household. The old man, soured by his
+great disappointment, grew sordid and covetous with increasing years, and
+the lives of the women were hard and hopeless. By little cheats, and
+petty contrivances, and pitiful falsifications of financial statements,
+they managed to scrape together a few louis now and then for the
+struggling exile; and to do this was the sole delight of their patient
+lives. They contrived also to correspond secretly with Gustave, and were
+informed of the birth of his son.
+
+"Ah, if thou couldst see how beautiful he is," wrote the father, "this
+child of pure and true love, thou wouldst no longer regret my breach of
+faith with Madelon Frehlter. I knew not until now how like infant
+children are to angels. I knew not how true to nature are the angels in
+the pictures of Raffaelle and Murillo. Thou knowest the print of
+Murillo's Assumption; the picture is in the Louvre. If thou canst
+remember that picture, dear mother, thou hast but to recall the face of
+one of the cherubim about the feet of our Lady, and thou hast the
+portrait of my boy. He opens his eyes, and looks at me as I write. Ah!
+that he and I and my Susan were with thee in the little salon at
+Beaubocage--my sister, Susan, you, and I united round this darling's
+cradle. He has been born in poverty, but his birth has made us very
+happy."
+
+The sentiment of this letter was no spurious or transient feeling. For
+this child Gustave Lenoble evinced an unchanging fondness. It was indeed
+no part of his nature to change. The little one was his comfort in
+affliction, his joy during every brief interval of prosperity. When the
+battle was well nigh fought, and he began to feel himself beaten. His
+chief anxieties, his ever-returning fears, were for his wife and child.
+
+To Susan the thought of parting from him was a despair too deep for
+tears. She would have been something less than woman if she had not loved
+her husband with more than common affection. She watched the change that
+illness brought in the frank face, the stalwart figure; and little by
+little the awful truth came home to her. The hour was at hand in which
+she must lose him.
+
+"If you could have rest, Gustave, better medical advice, more comforts,
+you would soon be strong again, I am sure your father would not refuse to
+forgive you now. Write to him, dearest. Go back to Beaubocage, and let
+your mother and sister nurse you. I will stay here with the little one.
+It shall be forgotten that you have a wife and child."
+
+"No, dear one; I will not desert you, even for a day, to buy back my
+father's love. I would rather be here with you than in the pleasantest
+home without you. But we must face the future, Susan; we must be brave
+and wise, for the little one's sake. You are not so strong that you can
+afford to trust blindly in your power to protect him by-and-by. I have
+written a letter to my father. He has proved himself a hard man to me,
+cruel and obdurate beyond all my fears; but I know he is not altogether
+heartless. When I am dead, you will take the letter in one hand, the
+child in the other, and go to Beaubocage. I believe he will adopt the
+boy, and that the little one will give him the comfort and happiness he
+hoped from me. He must be very lonely; and I cannot doubt that his heart
+will melt when he sees the child's face, and hears that he has no longer
+a son. As for yourself, my poor girl, I see for you no hope except in the
+old Yorkshire home, and the friends you fear to see again."
+
+"I no longer fear them," said his wife, with unwonted energy, "I could
+not go to them seven years ago; but I can go to them as your wife."
+
+"Ah, thank God, the poor name is worth something for you."
+
+"Yes, dear; and I will go back to them--to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow!"
+
+"To-morrow, Gustave. I have been selfish and cruel to delay so long. The
+old dread of seeing my sister's reproachful face has been strong enough
+to hold me back, when a little courage might have enabled me to help you.
+The burden has been all on you, and I have done nothing. O, what a wretch
+I must have been to sit idly by and see you suffer, and make no effort to
+help you!"
+
+"But, my darling, you have not been idle. You have been the dearest and
+most industrious of wives, and have helped me to bear my burden. You have
+done more, dear--you have made my burden pleasant to me."
+
+"I will try to lighten it, Gustave," cried Susan, with excitement. "O,
+why, why did I never try before! My sister and her husband are well
+off--rich perhaps. If they are still living, if no cruel changes have
+come to pass at Newhall, they could help us with a little money. They
+might even give us a home. I will start for England to-morrow."
+
+"Nay, my dear, you are not strong enough to travel so far alone. It
+seems, indeed, a happy thought this of your rich relations; but you must
+not undertake such a journey. You might write."
+
+"No, Gustave, I will trust to no letter; I will go. It will be no pain
+for me to humble myself for your sake. I will go straight to my sister. I
+know what a tender compassionate heart it is that I shall appeal to."
+
+There was much discussion; but Susan was resolute. To scrape together the
+money for the journey she made efforts that were heroic in a nature so
+weak as hers. She went to the Monte de Piete with the last of her little
+treasures, that one dear trinket to which she had clung even when hunger
+was at the door--the gimmal or alliance ring that Gustave had placed upon
+her finger before God's altar--the double symbolic circlet which bore on
+one side her name, on the other her husband's. This dearest of all her
+possessions she surrendered for a few francs, to make up the sum needful
+for her journey.
+
+What it cost her to do this, what it cost her to tear herself away
+from her sick husband and her only child, who shall say? There are
+pangs that cannot be counted, agonies that will come within no
+calculation--the infinite of pain. She went. Two kind souls, a labourer
+and his wife, lodgers in the same garret-story, promised to care for
+and help the invalid and child. There is no desolation in which a child
+will not find a friend.
+
+The journey was long and fatiguing; the anguish of her poor aching heart
+almost too much for endurance--a heart so heavy that even hope could
+scarce flutter it. It was dull damp weather, though in the middle of
+summer. The solitary traveller caught cold on the journey, and arrived in
+London in a high fever. Ill, faint, and helpless, the great city seemed
+to her unspeakably dismal--most stony of all stony-hearted mothers to
+this wretched orphan. She could go no farther than the darksome city inn
+where the coach from Southampton brought her. She had come _via_ Havre.
+Here she sank prostrate, and had barely sufficient strength to write an
+incoherent letter to her sister, Mrs. Halliday, of Newhall Farm, near
+Huxter's Cross, Yorkshire.
+
+The sister came as fast as the fastest coach on the great northern road
+could carry her. There was infinite joy in that honest sisterly heart
+over this one sinner's repentance. Fourteen years had gone by since the
+young city-bred beauty had fled with that falsest of men, and most
+hardened of profligates, Montague Kingdon; and tidings from Susan were
+unlooked for and thrilling as a message from the grave.
+
+Alas for the adverse fate of Susan Meynell! The false step of her youth
+had set her for ever wrong upon life's highway. When kind Mrs. Halliday
+came, Gustave Lenoble's wife was past her help; wandering in her mind; a
+girl again, but newly run away from her peaceful home; and with no
+thought save of remorse for her misdeeds.
+
+The seven years of her married life seemed to have faded out of her mind.
+She raved of Montague Kingdon's baseness, of her own folly, her vain
+regret, her yearning for pardon; but of the dying husband in the garret
+at Rouen she uttered no word. And so, with her weary head upon her
+sister's breast, she passed away, her story untold, no wedding-ring on
+her wasted finger to bear witness that she died an honest man's wife; no
+letters or papers in her poor little trunk to throw light on the fourteen
+years in which she had been a castaway.
+
+Mrs. Halliday stayed in London to see the wanderer laid in the quiet city
+churchyard where her family rested, and where for her was chosen an
+obscure corner in which she might repose forgotten and unknown.
+
+But not quite nameless. Mrs. Halliday could not leave the grave unmarked
+by any record of the sister she had loved. The stone above the grave of
+Gustave's wife bore her maiden name, and the comforting familiar text
+about the one sinner who repenteth.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FORGIVEN TOO LATE.
+
+For a week of long days and longer nights there was no step sounded on
+the stair, no opening or shutting of a door in the old dilapidated house
+where he lay languishing on the brink of an open grave, that did not move
+Gustave Lenoble with a sudden emotion of hope. But the footsteps came and
+went, the doors were opened and shut again and again, and the traveller
+so waited, so hoped for did not return.
+
+The boy--the brave bright son, who seemed to inherit all that was noblest
+and best in his father's nature--pined for his mother. The man endured a
+martyrdom worse than the agony of Damiens, the slow tortures of La Barre.
+What had befallen her? That she could desert him or his child was a
+possibility that never shaped itself in his mind. _That_ drop of poison
+was happily wanting in his cup; and the bitterness of death was sweet
+compared to the scorpion-sting of such a supposition.
+
+She did not return. Calamity in some shape had overtaken her--calamity
+dire as death; for, with life and reason, she could not have failed to
+send some token, some tidings, to those she loved. The sick man waited a
+week after the day on which he had begun to expect her return. At the end
+of that time he rose, with death in his face, and went out to look for
+her--to look for her in Rouen; for her whom the instinct of his heart
+told him was far away from that city--as far as death from life. He went
+to the Cour de Messageries, and loitered and waited amidst the bustle of
+arriving and departing diligences, with a half-imbecile hope that she
+would alight from one of them. The travellers came and went, pushing and
+hustling him in their selfish haste. When night came he went back to his
+garret. All was quiet. The boy slept with the children of his good
+neighbour, and was comforted by the warmth of that strange hearth.
+
+Gustave lit his candle, a last remaining morsel.
+
+"You will last my time, friend," he said, with a wan smile.
+
+He seated himself at the little table, pushed aside the medicine-bottles,
+searched for a stray sheet of letter-paper, and then began to write.
+
+He wrote to his mother, telling her that death was at hand, and that the
+time had come in which she must succour her son's orphan child. With this
+he enclosed a letter to his father--that letter of which he had spoken to
+his wife, and which had been written in the early days of his illness.
+This packet he directed to Madame Lenoble, at Beaubocage. There was no
+longer need for secrecy.
+
+"When those letters are delivered I shall be past blame, and past
+forgiveness," he thought.
+
+In the morning he was dead.
+
+The neighbours posted the letter. The neighbours comforted and protected
+the child for two days; and then there came a lady, very sad, very quiet,
+who wept bitterly in the stillness of that attic chamber where Gustave
+Lenoble lay; and who afterwards, with a gentle calmness of manner that
+was very sweet to see, made all necessary arrangements for a humble, but
+not a mean or ignominious, funeral.
+
+"He was my brother," she said to the good friends of the neighbouring
+garret. "We did our best to help him, my mother and I; but we little
+thought how bitterly he wanted help. The brave heart would not suffer us
+to know that."
+
+And then she thanked them with much tenderness for their charity to the
+dead man; and with these good people she went on foot through the narrow
+streets of the city to see her brother laid in his grave.
+
+Until this was done the mournful lady, who was not yet thirty years of
+age, and of a placid nun-like beauty, abandoned herself to no transport
+of love for her orphan nephew; but when that last office of affection had
+been performed, she took the little one on her knees, and folded him to
+her breast, and gave him her heart, as she had given it long ago to his
+father; for this gentle unselfish creature was one who must needs have
+some shrine at which to offer her daily sacrifice of self. Already she
+was beginning to think how the orphan was to be cared for and the widow
+also, for whose return she looked daily.
+
+For the return of Susan Lenoble Cydalise waited at Rouen several days
+after the funeral. She had, happily, an old school-fellow comfortably
+established in the city; and in the house of this old friend she found a
+home. No one but her mother and this friend, whom she could trust, knew
+of the business that had brought her from Beaubocage. In seven years the
+father had never uttered his only son's name; in all the seven years that
+name had never been spoken in his hearing.
+
+When three weeks had gone by since the departure of Susan for England,
+all hope of her return was abandoned by Mademoiselle Lenoble and the
+neighbours who had known the absent woman.
+
+"She had the stamp of death on her face when she went away," said the
+labourer's wife, "as surely as it was on him that she left. I told her
+she had no strength for the journey; but she would go: there was no
+moving her from that. She had rich friends _la-bas_, who might help her
+husband. It was for that she went. That thought seemed to give her a kind
+of fever, and the strength of fever."
+
+"And there has come no letter--nothing?"
+
+"Nothing, mademoiselle."
+
+On this Cydalise determined to return to Beaubocage. She could not well
+leave the child longer on the hands of these friendly people, even by
+paying for his maintenance, which she insisted on doing, though they
+would fain have shared their humble _pot-a-feu_ and coarse loaf with
+him unrecompensed. She determined on a desperate step. She would take
+her brother's orphan child back with her, and leave the rest to
+Providence--to the chance of some sudden awakening of natural affection
+in a heart that had long languished in a kind of torpor that was almost
+death.
+
+The little fellow pined sadly for those dear familiar faces, those tender
+soothing voices, that had vanished so suddenly from his life. But the
+voice of his aunt was very sweet and tender, and had a tone that recalled
+the father who was gone. With this kind aunt he left Rouen in the
+lumbering old vehicle that plied daily betwixt that city and Vevinord.
+
+"Thou canst call me Cydalise for a while, my little one," she said to
+him; for she did not wish the child to proclaim the relationship between
+them yet awhile.
+
+Ah, what bitter tears the two women shed over the soft fair curls of that
+little head, when they had the boy all to themselves in the turret
+chamber at Beaubocage, on whose white walls the eyes of Cydalise had
+opened almost every morning of her pure eventless life!
+
+"Why dost thou cry so, madame?" the child asked of his grandmother, as
+she held him in her arms, kissing and weeping over him; "and what have
+they done with my father--and mamma too? She went away one day, but she
+told me that she would come back, so quickly, ah, so quickly! and the
+days passed, and they shut papa in his room, and would not let me go to
+him; and mamma did not come, though I asked the Blessed Virgin to send
+her back to me."
+
+"Dear child, thy father and mother are in a brighter place than this hard
+world, where they had so much sorrow," Madame Lenoble answered, gently.
+
+"Yes, they were often sorry," murmured the boy thoughtfully. "It was
+because of money; but then, when there was no money, mamma cried and
+kissed me, and kissed papa, and the good papa kissed us both, and somehow
+it always ended in happiness."
+
+Francois Lenoble was, happily, absent on this day of tribulation. The
+women took their fill of sorrow, but it was sorrow mingled with a strange
+bitter sweetness that was almost joy. The seigneur of Beaubocage had gone
+to dine, as he still often did, with his old friend Baron Frehlter; for
+the breach of faith which had caused a lifelong disunion of father and
+son had not divided the two proprietors. Nay, indeed the Baron had been
+generous enough to plead the cause of the castaway.
+
+"A man cannot dispose at will of his affections, my friend," he urged;
+"and it was more generous in your son to break faith with my daughter
+before marriage than after."
+
+Mademoiselle Frehlter had not broken her heart on account of her lover's
+falsehood. She had been sufficiently indignant on the occasion, and had
+been more impatient of her mother's pet priest and pet poodle during the
+brief period in which she wore the willow. She had recovered her good
+humour, however, on being wooed by a young subaltern in a cavalry
+regiment stationed at Vevinord, the offshoot of a grander house than that
+of Lenoble, and whose good looks and good lineage had ultimately
+prevailed with the Baron. That gentleman had by no means too good an
+opinion of the son-in-law thus forced upon him; but peace was the highest
+good (with unlimited tobacco) to which his Germanic soul aspired; and for
+the sake of peace in the present he was content to hazard his daughter's
+happiness in the future.
+
+"_That_ is very brilliant," he said of M. Paul de Nerague, the young
+lieutenant of light cavalry; "but it is not solid, like Gustave. Your son
+is honest, candid--a brave heart. It is for that I would have given him
+Madelon. But it is Providence which disposes of us, as our good father
+St. Velours tells us often; and one must be content. Young Nerague
+pleases my daughter, and I must swallow him, though for me he smells too
+strong of the barracks: _ca flaire la caserne, mon ami_."
+
+That odour of the barracks which distinguished the sub-lieutenant Paul de
+Nerague became more odious after his marriage with the virtuous Madelon,
+when he was established--_niche_, as he himself called it--in very
+comfortable, though somewhat gruesome, apartments at Cotenoir. His
+riotous deportment, his hospitable disposition (as displayed in the
+frequent entertainment of his brothers-in-arms at the expense of his
+father-in-law), his Don Juan-like demeanour in relation to the housemaids
+and kitchen-wenches of the chateau--innocent enough in the main, but on
+that account so much the more audacious--struck terror to the hearts of
+Madame Frehlter and her daughter; and the elder lady was much gratified
+by that thirst for foreign territory which carried the greater part of
+the French army and the regiment of the vivacious Paul to the distant
+wilds of Algeria.
+
+The virtuous Madelon was too stolid to weep for her husband. But even her
+stolidity was not proof against the fiery influence of jealousy, and,
+waking and sleeping, her visions were of veiled damsels of Orient
+assailing the too inflammable heart of Lieutenant de Nerague.
+
+The young officer was yet absent at that period in which Cydalise
+returned from Rouen with her brother's child.
+
+The little boy was sleeping peacefully in a cot beside his aunt's bed (it
+had been his father's cot thirty years ago) when Francois Lenoble
+returned from Cotenoir that night.
+
+It was not till the next day that he saw the child. He had been making
+his usual morning's round in the gardens and orchards, when he came into
+the salon, and saw the little boy seated near his grandmother's chair,
+playing with some dominoes. Something--perhaps the likeness to his dead
+son--the boy's black clothes, for Cydalise had contrived to dress him in
+decent mourning--struck suddenly on the old man's heart. "Who is that
+boy?" he asked, with a strange earnestness.
+
+"Your son Gustave's only child," answered his wife gently,--"his
+orphan child."
+
+Francois Lenoble looked at her, and from her to the boy; tried to speak,
+but could not; beckoned the child, and then dropped heavily into a chair
+and sobbed aloud. Until this moment no one had ever seen him shed a tear
+for the son he had put away from his home--and, as it had seemed, from
+his heart. Not by one sigh, not by one mournful utterance of the familiar
+name, had he betrayed the depth of that wound which he had endured,
+silently, obstinately, in all these years.
+
+They suffered him to bemoan his dead son unhindered by stereotyped
+consolations. The two women stood by, and pitied him in silence. The
+little boy stared wonderingly, and at last crept up to the
+sorrow-stricken father. "Why do you cry, poor old man?" he asked. "You
+have not lost your papa and mamma, as I have lost mine, have you? I want
+to stay with you and be your little boy, please. She told me to say
+that," he added, pointing to Cydalise.--"And I have said it right,
+haven't I?" he asked of the same lady.--"I think I shall love you,
+because you are like my papa, only older and uglier," the little one
+concluded, with angelic candour.
+
+The seigneur of Beaubocage dried his tears with an effort.
+Beaubocage--Cotenoir. Ah, me! what empty sounds those two once magic
+names seemed to him now that his son's life had been sacrificed to so
+paltry an ambition, so sordid a passion, so vile and grovelling a desire!
+He took the boy on his knee, and kissed him tenderly. His thoughts
+bridged over a chasm of five-and-twenty years as his lips pressed
+that fair young brow; and it was his own son--the son whom he had
+disowned--whose soft hair was mingling itself now with the grey bristles
+on his rugged chin.
+
+"My child," he murmured softly, "the fear is that I shall love thee too
+well, and be to thee as much too weakly indulgent as I was wickedly stern
+to thy father. Anything is easier to humanity than justice."
+
+This was said to himself rather than to the boy.
+
+"Tell me thy name, little one," he asked presently, after a few moments'
+pensive meditation.
+
+"I have two names, monsieur."
+
+"Thou must call me grandfather. And the two names?"
+
+"Francois Gustave."
+
+"I shall call thee Gustave."
+
+"But papa always called me Francois, and mamma said it was the name of a
+cruel man; but papa said he loved the name--"
+
+"Ah, no more, little one!" cried the lord of Beaubocage suddenly;
+"thou knowest not with what dagger-thrusts thou dost pierce this poor
+old heart."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+GUSTAVE THE SECOND.
+
+The little Gustave grew and flourished. Such love was lavished on him as
+rarely falls to the lot of children, though the spring of many lives may
+be rich in love's pure white blossom. The existence of this child seemed
+all happiness. He brought hope, and a sense of atonement, and all sweet
+things, to the quiet family at Beaubocage; and as he grew from childhood
+to boyhood, from boyhood to manhood, it seemed to that household as if
+the first Gustave of their love had never been taken from them. That
+Orphic fable of Zagreus repeats itself in many households. For the one
+bright creature lost another is given; and then comes a time when it is
+almost difficult to separate the image of the missing one from the dear
+substitute who so nearly fills his place.
+
+Francois Lenoble and his wife enjoyed a green old age, and the affection
+of their grandson made the cup of life sweet for them to the very dregs.
+There are, happily, some natures which indulgence cannot injure; some
+luxuriant flowers which attain strength as well as beauty under the
+influence of these tropical heats of affection. Gustave the second
+possessed all the noble qualities of Gustave the first. Frank, generous,
+brave, constant, affectionate, light-hearted, he shone on the failing
+eyes of his kindred radiant as a young Apollo, brave as a mortal
+Hercules.
+
+Those things which the ignorant heart has at some time so passionately
+desired are apt to be granted when the desire has grown somewhat cold and
+dead. Thus it was with the ambition of Francois Lenoble. He lived to see
+the lands of Cotenoir and Beaubocage united in the person of his
+grandson, who married Clarice, the only surviving child of M. and Madame
+de Nerague. Two sons and a daughter had been born at Cotenoir; but the
+sons withered and faded in early boyhood, and even the daughter, though
+considered a flourishing plant in that poor garden of weakling blossoms,
+was but a fragile creature.
+
+The old people at Beaubocage survived the seigneur and chatelaine of
+Cotenoir by some years, and survived also the fiery lieutenant, who fell
+in Algeria without having attained his captaincy, or added any military
+renown to the good old name of de Nerague in his own magnificent person.
+
+Francois saw his grandson established at Cotenoir before he died. He
+expired with his hand in that of Gustave, whom, in the half-consciousness
+of that last hour, he mistook for the son he had disowned.
+
+"What door was that that shut?" he asked, in an eager whisper. "Who said
+I turned my son out of doors--my only son? It's false! I couldn't have
+done it! Hark! there's the door shutting again! It sounds like the door
+of a tomb."
+
+After this he dozed a little, and woke with a smile on his face.
+
+"I have been dreaming of thy father, Gustave," he said calmly. "I thought
+that I saw him with a light shining in his face, and that he kissed and
+forgave me."
+
+This was the end. The faithful wife was not slow to follow her husband to
+the grave, and there was now only a placid maiden lady at Beaubocage,
+Mademoiselle Cydalise Lenoble, whom everyone within ten leagues of
+Vevinord knew and loved,--a lay abbess, a Sister of Mercy in all save the
+robes; a tender creature, who lived only to do good.
+
+Ten years passed, and M. Lenoble of Cotenoir was a widower with two
+fair young daughters at a convent school on the outskirts of Vevinord,
+and a boisterous son at an academy in Rouen. Gustave had never followed
+any profession; the lands of Beaubocage secured him a competence,
+so prudently had the small estate been managed by the kindred who
+adored him. His marriage had given him fortune. He had no need of
+trade or profession. His life was laid out for him like a prim Dutch
+flower-garden. He was to live at Cotenoir, and look after his estate, and
+smoke his pipe, as Baron Frehlter had done, and be a good husband to his
+wife, a kind father to his children. This latter part of his duty came
+natural to M. Lenoble. It was not in him to be otherwise than kind to
+women and children. His invalid wife praised him as a model of marital
+perfection. It was Gustave who wheeled her sofa from one room to another,
+Gustave who prepared her medicines, Gustave whose careful hands adjusted
+curtains and _portieres_. The poor woman lived and died believing herself
+the happiest of wives. She mistook kindness for love.
+
+M. Lenoble bore his wife's demise with Christian calmness. He was sorry
+that the fragile creature should have been taken so early from the
+pleasant home that was hers by right, but of passionate grief, or dreary
+sense of irreparable loss, there was none in that manly heart. There were
+times when the widower reproached himself for this want of feeling; but
+in very truth Madame Lenoble, _jeune_, had lived and died a nonentity.
+Her departure left no empty place; even her children scarcely missed her.
+The father was all-in-all.
+
+Gustave had married at twenty years of age. He was twenty-nine when his
+wife died. His eldest daughter, Clarice, eight; his second, Madelon,
+seven; the boy, a spoilt young dog of five, not yet despatched to the
+great school at Rouen.
+
+But in '65 Mademoiselle Clarice was fifteen years of age, and a very
+charming performer on the pianoforte, as the good nuns at the Convent of
+the Sacred Heart, at Vevinord, told the father. Mademoiselle Madelon was
+looking forward to her fourteenth anniversary, and she, too, was a very
+pretty pianist, and altogether a young prodigy of learning and goodness,
+as the nuns told the master of Cotenoir. The demoiselles of Cotenoir
+stood high in the estimation of pupils and mistress; they were a kind of
+noblesse; and the simple-minded superioress spoke of these young persons
+with some pride when she described her establishment to a stranger. It
+was a very comfortable little colony, a small world enclosed by high
+walls. The good mothers who taught and cherished the children were for
+the greater part ladies of superior and even exalted station; and there
+was a gentleness, a tenderness, in their care for these young lambs not
+always to be insured by the payment of an annual stipend. It must be
+confessed that the young lambs were apt to be troublesome, and required a
+good deal of watching. To the eye of the philosopher that convent school
+would have afforded scope for curious study; for it is singular to
+discover what exceptional vices the youthful mind can develop from its
+inner consciousness, in homes as pure as this. There were black sheep
+even in the convent of the Sacre Coeur, damsels marked with a sign that
+meant "dangerous."
+
+Happily for Gustave Lenoble, his daughters were amongst the brightest and
+the purest of those girl-graduates. They gave him no trouble, except when
+they asked him for a home.
+
+"It seems so dull and dreary at Cotenoir, papa," they said, "though you
+are always so kind. It doesn't seem like home. Beaubocage is more
+home-like. At Cotenoir, when you are out, there is no one to talk to; and
+we have no little parties, no excursions into the country, none of those
+pleasures which the other girls tell us they have during the holidays."
+
+This was the gist of the lamentations of Mademoiselles Clarice and
+Madelon; and the father knew not how to supply the mysterious something
+which was wanting to make Cotenoir a pleasant home. The girls could
+complain of no restraint, or pine for no indulgence, since their father
+was always prompt to gratify every whim. But there was some element of
+happiness wanting, nevertheless; and M. Lenoble perceived that it was so.
+The life at Cotenoir was desultory, straggling; an existence of perpetual
+dawdling; a life of shreds and patches, half-formed resolutions, projects
+begun and broken off in the middle. The good genius, the household angel,
+order, was wanting in that mansion. There was waste, dirt, destruction of
+all kinds, in the rambling old chateau; old servants, too weak or too
+lazy to work; old tradesmen, presuming on old-established habits of
+imposition, unquestioned so long as to have become a right--for the
+feudal system of fine and forfeiture has only changed hands. The power
+still flourishes, only it is the villein who takes tithe of his lord.
+
+The servants at Cotenoir had gone their own ways with but little
+interference since the death of Madame de Nerague, which occurred two
+years before that of her daughter, Clarice Lenoble. Poor invalid Clarice
+had been quite unable to superintend her household; and since her death
+Mademoiselle Cydalise had been too feeble of health to assume any
+authority in her nephew's establishment, even if the household of
+Cotenoir would have submitted to interference from Beaubocage, which in
+all likelihood they would not.
+
+Thus it happened that things had taken their own course at the chateau,
+and the course had been somewhat erratic. There is nothing so costly as
+muddle, and Gustave Lenoble had of late begun to perceive that he had the
+maximum of expense with the minimum of comfort. Meanwhile the kind old
+aunt at Beaubocage gave her nieces much valuable advice against the time
+when they should be old enough to assume the management of their father's
+house. The sweet unselfish lady of Beaubocage had indeed undergone hard
+experience in the acquirement of the domestic art. Heaven and her own
+memory alone recorded those scrapings and pinchings and nice calculations
+of morsels by which she had contrived to save a few pounds for her
+outcast brother. Such sordid economics show but poorly on earth; but it
+is probable that in the mass of documentary evidence which goes before
+the Great Judge, Mademoiselle Lenoble's account-book will be placed on
+the right side.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Third.
+
+
+
+THE HORATIAD.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+CHIEFLY RETROSPECTIVE.
+
+Captain Paget went his way to Rouen in a placid but not an exulting mood,
+after parting with his young friend Valentine Hawkehurst at the London
+Bridge terminus of the Brighton line. He was setting out upon an
+adventure wild and impracticable as the quest of Jason and his Argonauts;
+and this gallant captain was a carpet-knight, sufficiently adventurous
+and audacious in the diplomatic crusades of society, but in nowise eager
+to hazard his life on tented field and in thick press of war. If the
+Fates had allowed the accomplished Horatio to choose his own destiny, he
+would have elected to live in the immediate neighbourhood of St. James's
+Street, from the first day to the last of the London season, and to dine
+artistically and discreetly at one of those older and more exclusive
+clubs dear and familiar to him from the bright years of his youth. He was
+by nature a _flaneur_, a gossip, a lover of expensive luxuries and
+frivolous pleasures. He was not only incapable of a high thought himself,
+but was an unbeliever in the possibility of high thoughts or noble
+principles in the world he lived in. He measured the universe by that
+narrow scrap of tape which was the span of his own littleness. To him
+Caesar was an imperial brigand, Cicero a hypocritical agitator. To him
+all great warriors were greedy time-servers like John Churchill; all
+statesmen plausible placemen; all reformers self-seeking pretenders. Nor
+did Captain Paget wish that it should be otherwise. In his ideal
+republic, unselfishness and earnestness would have rendered a man rather
+a nuisance than otherwise. With the vices of his fellow-men the
+diplomatic Horatio was fully competent to deal; but some of his most
+subtle combinations on the chess-board of life would have been checkmated
+by an unexpected encounter with intractable virtue.
+
+The necessity of living was the paramount consideration to which this
+gentleman had given his mind from the time when he found himself a
+popular subaltern in a crack regiment, admired for his easy manners and
+good looks, respected by meaner men for his good blood, and rich in
+everything except that vulgar dross without which the life of West-end
+London is so hollow a delusion, so bitter a comedy of mean shifts and
+lying devices.
+
+That freebooter of civilization, the man who lives by his wits, is
+subject to strange fluctuations from prosperity to adversity. He is the
+miner or gold-digger of civilized life; and as there are times when his
+pickaxe strikes suddenly on a rich lode, so there are dreary intervals in
+which his spade turns up nothing but valueless clay, and the end of each
+day's work leaves him with no better evidence of his wasted labour than
+the aching limbs which he drags at nightfall to his dismal shanty.
+
+For some months Captain Paget had found Philip Sheldon a very useful
+acquaintance. The stockbroker had been the secret inaugurator of two or
+three joint-stock companies, though figuring to the outer world only as
+director; and in the getting-up of these companies Horatio had been a
+useful instrument, and had received liberal payment for his labours.
+Unhappily, so serene an occupation as promoting cannot go on for ever; or
+rather, cannot remain for ever in the same hands. The human mind is
+naturally imitative, and the plagiarisms of commerce are infinitely more
+audacious than the small larcenies of literature. The joint-stock company
+market became day by day more crowded. No sooner did Philip Sheldon float
+the Non-destructive Laundry Company, the admirable organization of which
+would offer a guarantee against the use of chloride of lime and other
+destructive agencies in the wash-tub, than a rival power launched a
+colourable imitation thereof, in the Union-is-Strength Domestic Lavatory
+Company, with a professor of chemistry specially retained as inspector of
+wash-tubs. Thus it was that, after the profitable ripening of three such
+schemes, Mr. Sheldon deemed it advisable to retire from the field, and
+await a fitter time for the further exercise of his commercial genius.
+
+Captain Paget's relations with the stockbroker did not, however,
+terminate with the cessation of his labours as secretary,
+jack-of-all-trades, and promoter. Having found him, so far, clever, and
+to all appearance trustworthy--and this was an important point, for no
+man so much needs honourable service as a rogue--Philip Sheldon
+determined upon confiding to Horatio the conduct of a more delicate
+business than anything purely commercial. After that discovery of the
+telegraphic message sent by his brother George to Valentine Hawkehurst,
+and the further discovery of the advertisement relating to the unclaimed
+wealth of the lately deceased John Haygarth, Mr. Sheldon lost no time in
+organizing his plans for his own aggrandizement at the expense of his
+brother.
+
+"George refused to let me in for a share of chances when I showed myself
+willing to help him," thought Philip. "He may discover by-and-by that I
+have contrived to let myself into his secrets; and that he might have
+played a better game by consenting to a partnership."
+
+A life devoted to his own interests, and a consistent habit of
+selfishness, had rendered Mr. Sheldon, of the Lawn, Bayswater, and Stags
+Court, City, very quick of apprehension in all matters connected,
+immediately or remotely, with the making of money. The broken sentences
+of the telegram betrayed by the blotting-pad told him a great deal. They
+told him that there was a certain Goodge, in the town of Ullerton, who
+possessed letters so valuable to George Sheldon, as to be bought by his
+agent Valentine Hawkehurst. Letters for which Sheldon was willing to give
+money must needs be of considerable importance, since money was a very
+scarce commodity with that hunter of unconscious heirs-at-law. Again, a
+transaction which required the use of so expensive a medium as the
+electric telegraph rather than the penny post, might be fairly supposed a
+transaction of some moment. The letters in question might relate to some
+other estate than that of John Haygarth, for it was quite possible that
+the schemer of Gray's Inn had other irons in the fire. But this was a
+question of no moment to Philip Sheldon.
+
+If the letters--or the information contained therein--were likely to be
+useful to George, they might be useful to him. If George found it worth
+his while to employ an agent at Ullerton, why should not he (Philip) have
+his agent in the same town? The pecuniary risk, which might be a serious
+affair to George, was child's play for Philip, who had always plenty of
+money, or, at any rate, the command of money. The whole business of
+heir-at-law hunting seemed to the stockbroker a very vague and shadowy
+piece of work, as compared to the kind of speculation that was familiar
+to him; but he knew that men had made money in such a manner, and any
+business by which money could be made, was interesting to him. Beyond
+this, the notion of cutting the ground from under his brother's feet had
+a certain attraction for him. George's manner to him had been somewhat
+offensive to him on more than one occasion since--well, since Tom
+Halliday's death. Mr. Sheldon had borne that offensiveness in mind, with
+the determination to "take it out of" his brother on the earliest
+opportunity.
+
+It seemed as if the opportunity had arrived, and Philip was not one of
+those men who wait shivering on the shore when Fortune's tide is at the
+flood. Mr. Sheldon launched his bark upon the rising waters, and within
+two hours of his discovery in the telegraph-office was closeted with
+Horatio Paget in the little parlour in Omega Street, making arrangements
+for the Captain's journey to Ullerton.
+
+That Horatio was the right man for the work he wanted done, Mr. Sheldon
+had been quick to perceive.
+
+"He knows Hawkehurst, and will be able to reckon up any manoeuvres of his
+better than a stranger; and is, I think, altogether as deep an old
+gentleman as one could hope to meet with, barring _the_ traditional
+gentleman who did odd jobs for Dr. Faustus," the stockbroker said to
+himself, as his hansom sped along Park Lane on its way to Chelsea. The
+eagerness with which Captain Paget took up the idea of this business was
+very agreeable to his patron.
+
+"This is an affair in which success hinges on time," said Mr. Sheldon;
+"so, if you mean to go in for the business, you must start for Ullerton
+by the two o'clock express. You'll have just time to throw your razors
+and a clean shirt into a carpet-bag while I talk to you. I've got a cab
+outside, and a good one, that will take you to Euston Square in half an
+hour."
+
+The Captain showed himself prompt in action. His bedchamber was a small
+apartment at the back of the parlour, and here he packed his bag while
+conversing with his employer.
+
+"If you get upon the ground in time, you may obtain a look at the letters
+before they are handed over to Hawkehurst, or you may outbid him for
+them," said Mr. Sheldon; "but remember, whatever you do must be so done
+as to keep Hawkehurst and George completely in the dark as to our
+proceedings. If once they find out we are on their track, our chances
+will be gone, for they have got the information and we haven't; and it's
+only by following close in their footsteps we can hope to do anything."
+
+"That is understood," replied the Captain, stooping over his bag; "I
+shall keep myself as close as possible, you may depend upon it. And it
+shan't be my fault if Valentine sees me or hears of me. I shall want
+money, by the bye; for one can't stir a step in this sort of affair
+without ready cash."
+
+"I am quite aware of that. I stopped at the West-end branch of the Unitas
+and cashed a cheque for forty pounds. You can do a good deal in the way
+of bribery for forty pounds, in such a place as Ullerton. What you have
+to do is to keep your eye on Hawkehurst, and follow up every channel of
+information that he opens for you. He has the clue to the labyrinth,
+remember, the reel of cotton, or whatever it was, that the young woman
+gave that Roman fellow. All you have to do is to get hold of it, and
+follow your leader." continued Philip, with his watch in his hand. "This
+business of the letters will be sharp work, for the chances are against
+us here, as it's more than likely the papers will have changed hands
+before you can get to Ullerton. But if you can't buy the letters, you may
+buy the information contained in them, and that is the next best thing.
+Your first move will be to ferret out this man Goodge. Everybody knows
+everybody else in such a place as Ullerton, large and busy as the town
+is, and you won't find that difficult. When you see Goodge, you'll know
+how to deal with him. The mode and manner of your dealing I leave to
+yourself. You are a man of the world, and will know how to manipulate the
+gentleman, whoever he may be. And now lock your bag and cut downstairs as
+fast as you can. Time's up. Here's your money--three tens, two fives.
+Good day."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+EPISTOLARY.
+
+_From Horatio Paget to Philip Sheldon_.
+
+Royal Hotel, Ullerton, Oct. 7, 186--.
+
+My dear sir,--I arrived here last evening just in time to run against
+Hawkehurst on the platform, which was rather a provoking encounter at the
+outset. He went further north by the same train that brought me from
+London. This train only stops at three places after Ullerton--Slowport,
+Black Harbour, and Manchester; and I shall take pains to discover which
+of these towns was Hawkehurst's destination. There was one satisfaction
+in seeing his departure by this train, inasmuch as it assured me that I
+had the ground clear for my own operations.
+
+I had no difficulty in discovering the whereabouts of Goodge--_the_
+Goodge we want--and at eight o'clock was comfortably seated in that
+gentleman's parlour, talking over the affair of the letters. Tolerably
+quick work, I think you will allow, my dear sir, for a man whose years
+have fallen into the sere and yellow leaf.
+
+Mr. Goodge is a Methodist parson--a class of person I have always
+detested. I found him peculiarly amenable to monetary influence. I need
+scarcely tell you that I was careful to conceal my identity from this
+person. I made so bold as to borrow the cognomen of an old-established
+firm of solicitors in the Fields, and took a somewhat high tone
+throughout the interview. I informed Mr. Goodge that the young man who
+had called on him with reference to certain letters connected with the
+affairs of the Haygarth family--and I perceived from Mr. Goodge's face
+that we were on the right track--was a person of disreputable character,
+engaged in an underhand transaction calculated to injure a respected
+client of our house. I saw that the words "house" and "our" were
+talismanic in their effect upon the Methodist parson. You see, my dear
+sir, there is no one can manage this sort of thing so well as a
+gentleman. It comes natural to him. Your vulgar diplomatist seldom knows
+how to begin, and never knows when to stop. Here I had this low-bred
+Methodist fellow impressed by the idea of my individual and collective
+importance after five minutes' conversation. "But this comes too near the
+praising of myself; therefore hear other things," as the bard observes.
+
+A very little further conversation rendered Mr. Goodge malleable. I found
+that Hawkehurst had approached him in the character of your brother's
+articled clerk, but under his own proper name. This is one point gained,
+since it assures me that Valentine is not skulking here under a feigned
+name; and will enable me to shape my future inquiries about him
+accordingly. I also ascertained Hawkehurst's whereabouts when in
+Ullerton. He stays at a low commercial house called the Black Swan. It
+appears that the man Goodge possesses a packet of letters written by a
+certain Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth, wife of one Matthew Haygarth. In what
+relationship this Matthew may stand to the intestate is to be discovered.
+It is evident he is an important link in the chain, or your brother would
+not want the letters. I need not trouble you with our conversation in
+detail. In gross it amounted to this: Mr. Goodge had pledged himself to
+hand over Mrs. Haygarth's letters, forty or so in number, to Hawkehurst
+in consideration of twenty pounds. They would have been already in
+Hawkehurst's possession, if Mr. Goodge had not objected to part with them
+except for ready money. In consideration of a payment of twenty pounds
+from me, he was willing to let me read all the letters, and select any
+ten I pleased to take. This bargain was not arrived at without
+considerable discussion, but it certainly struck me as a good one.
+
+I opened the packet of papers then and there, and sat up until six
+o'clock the next morning, reading Mrs. Haygarth's letters in Mr. Goodge's
+parlour. Very fatiguing occupation for a man of my years. Mr. Goodge's
+hospitality began and ended in a cup of coffee. Such coffee! and I
+remember the mocha I used to get at Arthur's thirty years ago,--a
+Promethean beverage, that illumined the dullest smoking-room bore with a
+flash of wit or a glimmer of wisdom.
+
+I enclose the ten letters which I have selected. They appear to me to
+tell the history of Mrs. Haygarth and her husband pretty plainly; but
+there is evidently something mysterious lurking behind the commonplace
+existence of the husband. That is a matter for future consideration. All
+I have to do in the present is to keep you as well informed as your
+brother. It may strike you that the letters I forward herewith, which are
+certainly the cream of the correspondence, and the notes I have made from
+the remaining letters, are scarcely worth the money paid for them. In
+reply to such an objection, I can only say that you get more for _your_
+money than your brother George will get for his.
+
+The hotel at which I have taken up my quarters is but a few paces from
+the commoner establishment where Hawkehurst is stopping. He is to call on
+Goodge for the letters to-day; so his excursion will be of brief
+duration. I find that the name of Haygarth is not unknown in this town,
+as there are a family of Judsons, some of whom call themselves Haygarth
+Judson. I intend inviting my landlord--a very superior person for his
+station--to discuss a bottle of wine with me after my chop this evening,
+and hope to obtain some information from him. In the meantime I shall
+keep myself close. It is of vital consequence that I should remain unseen
+by Hawkehurst. I do not believe he saw me on the platform last night,
+though we were as close to each other as we well could be.
+
+Let me know what you think of the letters, and believe me to be, my
+dear sir, very faithfully yours,
+
+H. N. C. PAGET. PHILIP SHELDON, Esq.,
+&c. &c. &c.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Philip Sheldon to Horatio Paget_.
+
+Bayswater, Oct. 8,186-.
+
+DEAR PAGET,--The letters are mysterious, and I don't see my way to
+getting much good out of them, but heartily approve your management of
+matters, and give you _carte blanche_ to proceed, according to your own
+lights.
+
+Yours truly, P.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Horatio Paget to Philip Sheldon_.
+
+Royal Hotel, Oct. 9, 186-.
+
+MY DEAR SIR,--The cultivation of my landlord has been very profitable.
+The house is the oldest in the town, and the business has descended in a
+direct line from father to son since the time of George the Second. This
+man's grandfather entertained the officers of William Duke of Cumberland,
+honoured by his contemporaries with the soubriquet of Billy the Butcher,
+during the "forty-five." I had to listen to and applaud a good many
+stories about Billy the Butcher before I could lead my landlord round to
+the subject of the Haygarths. But he was not more prosy than many men I
+have met at dinner-parties in the days when the highest circles in the
+land were open to your humble servant.
+
+The Haygarth family, of which the intestate John Haygarth was the last
+male descendant, were for a long period inhabitants of this town, and
+obtained their wealth by trading as grocers and general dealers in a shop
+not three hundred yards from the room in which I write. The building is
+still standing, and a curious, old-fashioned-looking place it is. The
+last of the Haygarths who carried on business therein was one Jonathan,
+whose son Matthew was the father of that Reverend John Haygarth, lately
+deceased, intestate. You will thus perceive that the letters I sent you
+are of much importance, as they relate solely to this Matthew, father of
+our intestate.
+
+My next inquiries related to the Judson family, who are, it appears,
+descended from the issue of a certain Ruth Haygarth's marriage with one
+Peter Judson. This Ruth Haygarth was the only sister of the Matthew
+alluded to in the letters, and therefore was aunt of the intestate. It
+would herefrom appear that in this Judson family we must naturally look
+for the rightful claimant to the fortune of the deceased John Haygarth.
+Possessed of this conviction, I proceeded to interrogate my landlord very
+cautiously as to the status, &c. of the Judson family, and amongst other
+questions, asked him with a complete assumption of indifference, whether
+he had ever heard that the Judsons expected to inherit property from any
+branch of the Haygarth family.
+
+This careless interrogatory produced information of, as I imagine, a very
+valuable character. A certain Theodore Judson, attorney of this town,
+calls himself heir-at-law to the Haygarth estates; but before he can
+establish his claim, this Theodore must produce evidence of the demise,
+without heirs, of one Peter Judson, eldest surviving grandson of Ruth
+Haygarth's eldest son, a scamp and ne'er-do-well--if living, supposed to
+be somewhere in India, where he went, as supercargo to a merchant vessel
+about, the year '41--who stands prior to Theodore Judson in the
+succession. I conclude that the said Theodore, who, as a lawyer, is
+likely to do things _secundum artem_, is doing his _possible_ to obtain
+the necessary evidence; but in the meantime he is at a dead lock, and the
+whole affair appears to be in a charming condition for speculative
+interference. I opine, therefore, that your brother really has hit upon a
+good thing this time; and my only wonder is, that instead of allowing his
+agent, Hawkehurst, to waste his time hunting up old letters of Matthew
+Haygarth's (to all appearance valueless as documentary evidence), he does
+not send Valentine to India to hunt for Peter Judson, who, if living, is
+the rightful heir to the intestate's fortune, and who, as a reckless
+extravagant fellow, would be likely to make very liberal terms with any
+one who offered to procure him a large lump of money.
+
+I confess that I am quite at a loss to understand why your brother George
+does not take this very obvious course, and why Valentine potters about
+in this neighbourhood, when a gold mine is waiting to be _exploite_ on
+the other side.
+
+I shall be very glad to have your views upon this subject, for at the
+present moment I am fain to acknowledge that I do not see my way to
+taking any further steps in this business, unless by commencing a search
+for the missing Peter.
+
+I am, my dear Sir, very truly yours,
+
+H. N. C. PAGET.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Philip Sheldon to Horatio Paget_.
+
+Bayswater, Oct. 10, 186--.
+
+DEAR PAGET,--When so old a stager as G. S. does not take the obvious
+course, the inference is that there is a better course to be taken--_not_
+obvious to the uninitiated.
+
+You have done very well so far, but the information you have obtained
+from your landlord is only such information as any one else may obtain
+from the current gossip of Ullerton. You haven't yet got to the _dessous
+des cartes_. Remember what I told you in London. G. S. _has_ the clue to
+this labyrinth; and what you have to do is to hold on to the coat-tails
+(in a figurative sense) of his agent, V. H.
+
+Don't put your trust in prosy old landlords, but continue to set a watch
+upon that young man, and follow up his trail as you did in the matter of
+the letters.
+
+If the Peter Judson who went to India three-and-twenty years ago were the
+right man to follow, G.S. would scarcely give twenty pounds for the
+letters of Mrs. Matthew Haygarth. It appears to me that G. must be
+looking for an heir on the Haygarth side of the house; and if so, rely
+upon it he has his reasons. Don't bewilder yourself by trying to
+theorize, but get to the bottom of G.'s theory.
+
+Yours truly, P. S.
+
+_Horatio Paget to Philip Sheldon_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Royal Hotel, Oct. 12, 186.--
+
+MY DEAR SIR,--Considering the advice contained in your last very good, I
+lost no time in acting upon it. I need hardly tell you, that to employ
+the services of a hired spy, and to degrade myself in some sort to the
+level of a private inquirer, was somewhat revolting to a man, who, in the
+decadence of his fortunes, has ever striven to place some limit on the
+outrages which that hard taskmaster, poverty, may have from time to time
+compelled him to inflict upon his self-respect. But in the furtherance of
+a cause which I conclude is in no manner dishonourable, since an
+unclaimed heritage must needs be a prize open to all, I submitted to this
+temporary degradation of my higher feelings, and I trust that when the
+time arrives for the settlement of any pecuniary consideration which
+I am to derive from these irksome and uncongenial labours, my wounded
+self-respect may not be omitted from the reckoning. The above exordium
+may appear to you tedious, but it is only just to myself to remind you
+that you are not dealing with a vulgar hireling. My first step, after
+duly meditating your suggestions, was to find a fitting watch for the
+movements of Hawkehurst. I opined that the best person to play the spy
+would be that class of man whose existence seems for the most part
+devoted to the lounging at street corners, the chewing of straw, and that
+desultory kind of industry known in the _patois_ of this race as
+"fetching errands." This is the man, or boy, who starts up from the
+pavement (as through a trap-door in the flags) whenever one alights from
+or would enter any kind of vehicle. Unbidden, unrequired, and obnoxious,
+the creature arises, and opens a door, or lays some rag of his wretched
+attire on a muddy wheel, and then whines, piteous, for a copper. Such a
+man, or such a boy, I felt convinced must exist among the hangers-on of
+the Royal Hotel; nor was I mistaken. On inquiring for a handy lad,
+capable of attending upon my needs at all hours in the day, and not a
+servant in the hotel, but a person who would be wholly at my own
+disposal, I was informed that the Boots had a younger brother who was
+skilled in the fetching of errands, and who would be happy to wait upon
+me for a very reasonable remuneration, or in the words of the waiter
+himself, would be ready to leave it--i.e. the remuneration--to my own
+generosity. I know that there are no people who expect so much as those
+who leave the assessment of their claims to your own generosity; but
+as I wanted good service, I was prepared to pay well. The younger Boots
+made his appearance in due course--a sharp young fellow enough--and I
+forthwith made him my slave by the promise of five shillings a day for
+every day in which I should require his services. I then told him that it
+was my misfortune to own--with a strong inclination to disown--a
+reprobate nephew, now an inhabitant of that very town. This nephew, I had
+reason to believe, was going at a very rapid rate to the dogs; but my
+affectionate feelings would not allow him to consummate his own
+destruction without one last effort to reclaim him. I had therefore
+followed him to Ullerton, whither I believed him to be led by the worst
+possible motives; and having done so, my next business was to keep myself
+informed of his whereabouts.
+
+Seeing that the younger Boots accepted these statements with
+unquestioning faith, I went on to inquire whether he felt himself equal
+to the delicate duty of hanging about the yard of the Black Swan, and
+watching the doors of exit from that hotel, with a view to following my
+recreant nephew wherever he might go, even if considerably beyond the
+limits of Ullerton. I saw that the lad's intelligence was likely to be
+equal to this transaction, unless there should arise any difficult or
+complicated position by reason of the suspicion of Hawkehurst, or other
+mischance. "Do you think you can watch the gentleman without being
+observed?" I asked. "I'm pretty well sure I can, sir," answered the boy,
+who is of an enterprising, and indeed audacious, temper. "Very well,"
+said I, "you will go to the Black Swan Inn. Hawkehurst is the name by
+which my nephew is known there, and it will be your duty to find him
+out." I gave the boy a minute account of Valentine's appearance, and
+other instructions with which I need not trouble you. I further furnished
+him with money, so that he might be able to follow Hawkehurst by rail, or
+any other mode of conveyance, if necessary; and then despatched him, with
+an order to come back to me when he had seen our man safely lodged in the
+Black Swan after his day's perambulations. "And if he shouldn't go out at
+all?" suggested the lad. "In that case you must stick to your post till
+nightfall, and pick up all the information you can about my unfortunate
+nephew from the hangers-on of the hotel," said I. "I suppose you know
+some one at the Black Swan?" The boy informed me, in his untutored
+language, that he knew "a'most all of 'em," and thereupon departed.
+
+At nine o'clock at night he again appeared before me, big with the
+importance of his day's work. He had seen my nephew issue forth from the
+Black Swan within an hour of leaving my presence, and had followed him,
+first to Mr. William Judson's in Ferrygate, where he waited and hung
+about nearly an hour, keeping himself well out of view round the corner
+of Chalkin Street, a turning close to Mr. Judson's house. After leaving
+this gentleman's house, my renegade nephew had proceeded--carrying a
+letter in his hand, and walking as if in very good spirits (but that
+fellow Hawkehurst would walk to the gallows in good spirits)--to the
+Lancaster Road, where he was admitted into Lochiel Villa, a house
+belonging, as my Mercury ascertained from a passing baker's boy, to Miss
+Judson, sister of the William Judson of Ferrygate. You will perceive that
+this town appears to teem with the Judson family. My messenger, with
+praiseworthy art, contrived to engage in a game of tip-cat (what, I
+wonder, _is_ a tip-cat?) with some vagrant boys disporting themselves in
+the roadway, within view of Miss Judson's house. Hence, after the lapse
+of more than an hour, Boots-Mercury beheld my recreant relative emerge,
+and from this point followed him--always with extreme caution--back to
+the Black Swan. Here he hung about the yard, favoured by his close
+acquaintance with the ostler, until eight o'clock in the evening, no
+event of the smallest importance occurring during all those hours. But at
+eight there arrived a young woman, with a packet from Miss Judson to Mr.
+Hawkehurst. The packet was small, and was sealed with red wax. This was
+all my Mercury could ascertain respecting it; but this was something.
+
+I at once divined that this packet must needs contain letters. I asked
+myself whether those letters or papers had been sold to Hawkehurst, or
+only lent to him, and I immediately concluded that they could only have
+been lent. It was all very well for Goodge, the Methodist parson, to
+traffic in the epistles of Mrs. Matthew Haygarth, but it was to the last
+degree unlikely that a well-to-do maiden lady would part with family
+letters or papers for any pecuniary consideration whatever. "No," I said
+to myself, "the documents have been lent, and will have to be returned;"
+and thereupon I laid my plans for the next day's campaign, with a view to
+obtaining a peep at those letters, by fair means or foul. I told the boy
+to be at his post in the inn yard early the next morning, and if my
+nephew did not leave the inn, my agent was to ascertain what he was
+doing, and to bring me word thereof. "I'll tell you what it is, Boots," I
+said; "I have reason to believe that sadly disposed nephew of mine has
+some wicked intention with regard to Miss Judson, who is nearly related
+to a young lady with whom that unprincipled young man is, or pretends to
+be, in love; and I very much fear that he means to send her some letters,
+written by this foolish niece of hers to my more foolish nephew, and
+eminently calculated to wound the good lady's feelings. Now, in order to
+prevent this very shameful conduct on his part, I want to intercept any
+packet or letter which that mistaken youth may send to Miss Judson. Do
+you feel yourself capable of getting hold of such a packet, on
+consideration of a bonus of half-a-sovereign in addition to the five
+shillings per diem already agreed upon?"
+
+This, in more direct and vulgar phraseology, was what I said to the boy;
+and the boy departed, after pledging himself to bring me any packet which
+Hawkehurst might despatch from the Swan Inn. The only fear was that
+Hawkehurst might carry the packet himself, and this contingency appeared
+unpleasantly probable.
+
+Fortune favoured us. My reprobate nephew was too ill to go out. He
+intrusted Miss Hudson's packet to his waiter, the waiter confided it to
+the Boots, the Boots resigned the responsibility in favour of my boy
+Mercury, who kindly offered to save that functionary the trouble of a
+walk to the Lancaster Road.
+
+At eleven A.M. the packet was in my hands. I have devoted the best part
+of to-day to the contents of this packet. They consist of letters written
+by Matthew Haygarth, and distinguished by a most abominable orthography;
+but I remember my own father's epistolary composition to have been
+somewhat deficient in this respect; nor is it singular that the humble
+citizen should have been a poor hand at spelling in an age when royal
+personages indulged in a phonetic style of orthography which would
+provoke the laughter of a modern charity-boy. That the pretender to the
+crown of England should murder the two languages in which he wrote seems
+a small thing; but that Frederick the Great, the most accomplished of
+princes, bosom-friend of Voltaire, and sworn patron of the literati,
+should not have been able to spell, is a matter for some astonishment. I
+could but remember this fact, as I perused the epistles of Matthew
+Haygarth. I felt that these letters had in all probability been carefully
+numbered by the lady to whom they belong, and that to tamper with them to
+any serious extent might be dangerous. I have therefore only ventured to
+retain one insignificant scrawl as an example of Matthew Haygarth's
+caligraphy and signature. From the rest I have taken copious notes. It
+appears to me that these letters relate to some _liaison_ of the
+gentleman's youth; though I am fain to confess myself surprised to
+discover that, even in a period notorious for looseness of morals, a man
+should enter into such details in a correspondence with his sister.
+_Autres temps, autres moeurs_. I have selected my extracts with great
+care, and hope that you may be able to make more use of them than I can
+at present imagine possible. I shall post this letter and enclosure with
+my own hands, though in order to do so I must pass the Black Swan. I
+shall despatch my messenger to Lochiel Villa, with Miss Judson's packet,
+under cover of the darkness.
+
+In much haste, to catch the London mail,
+
+Truly yours, H.N.C.P.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_From Philip Sheldon to Horatio Paget_. City, Oct. 12, 186--
+
+Dear Paget,--Come back to town. You are only wasting money, time, and
+trouble. Yours, P.S.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+TOO CLEVER, FOR A CATSPAW.
+
+Captain Paget returned to town, mystified by that sudden summons from his
+patron, and eager to know what new aspect of affairs rendered his further
+presence in Ullerton useless or undesirable.
+
+Horatio arrived in the great city half-a-dozen hours before his sometime
+protege, and was comfortably installed when Valentine returned to those
+lodgings in Omega Street, Chelsea, which the two men occupied in common.
+
+Captain Paget went into the City to see Philip Sheldon on the day of his
+return, but did not succeed in finding the stockbroker. The evening's
+post brought him a letter from Philip, appointing an interview at
+Bayswater, at three o'clock on the following day--the day after
+Valentine's return from Ullerton.
+
+Punctual to the moment appointed by this letter, Captain Paget appeared
+at the Lawn on the following day. He was ushered into Mr. Sheldon's
+study, where he found that gentleman awaiting him, grave and meditative
+of mood, but friendly, and indeed cordial, in his manner to the returning
+traveller.
+
+"My dear Paget, sit down; I am delighted to see you. Your trip has made
+you look five years younger, by Jove! I was sorry to find you had called
+while I was out, and had waited for me upwards of an hour yesterday. I
+have a good deal of worry on my shoulders just now; commerce is all
+worry, you know. The Marquis of Lambeth has come into the market and
+bought up two-thirds of the Astrakhan Grand Trunk debenture bonds, just
+as our house had speculated for the fall. And since it has got wind that
+the Marquis is sweet upon the concern, the bonds are going up like a
+skyrocket. Such is life. I thought we had better have our little talk
+here; it's quieter than in the City. Have some sherry and soda; you like
+that Manzanilla of mine, I know."
+
+And the hospitable Philip rang the bell, without thinking it necessary to
+wait for his guest's answer.
+
+There was a cordiality, a conciliating friendliness about the
+stockbroker's manner which Horatio Paget did not like.
+
+"He's too civil by half," the Captain said to himself; "he means to do
+me."
+
+"And now about this Ullerton business," Mr. Sheldon began, when the wine
+and soda-water had been brought, and a tall tumbler of that refreshing
+compound filled for the Captain; "you have really managed matters
+admirably. I cannot too much applaud your diplomatic tact. You would have
+put a what's-his-name--that fellow of Napoleon's--to the blush by your
+management of the whole business. But, unfortunately, when it's all done
+it comes to nothing; the whole affair is evidently, from beginning to
+end, a mare's-nest. It is one of those wild geese which my brother George
+has been chasing for the last ten years, and which never have resulted in
+profit to him or anybody else; and I should be something worse than a
+fool if I were to lend myself any longer to such a folly."
+
+"Humph," muttered the Captain, "here is a change indeed!"
+
+"Well, yes," Mr. Sheldon answered coolly. "I dare say my conduct does
+seem rather capricious; but you see George put me out of temper the other
+day, and I was determined, if he had got a good thing, to cut the ground
+from under his feet. All your communications from Ullerton tend to show
+me that he has not got hold of a good thing, and that in any attempt to
+circumvent him I should only be circumventing myself, wasting your time,
+and my own money. This Judson family seems numberless; and it is evident
+to me that the Reverend John Haygarth's fortune will be a bone of
+contention amongst the Judsons in the High Court of Chancery for any
+indefinite number of years between this and the milennium. So I really
+think, my dear Paget, we'd better consider this transaction finished. I
+will give you whatever honorarium you think fit to name for your trouble,
+and we'll close the affair. I shall find plenty more business as good, or
+better, for you to do."
+
+"You are very good," replied the Captain, in nowise satisfied by this
+promise. It was all too smooth, too conciliatory. And there was a
+suddenness in this change of plan that was altogether mysterious. So
+indeed might a capricious man be expected to drop a speculation he had
+been eager to inaugurate, but Philip Sheldon was the last of men to be
+suspected of caprice.
+
+"You must have taken an immense deal of trouble with those extracts,
+now," said the stockbroker carelessly, as Horatio rose to depart,
+offended and angry, but anxious to conceal his anger. "What, are you off
+so soon? I thought you would stop and take a chop with us."
+
+"No, thanks; I have an engagement elsewhere. Yes, I took an
+inordinate trouble with those extracts, and I am sorry to think they
+should be useless."
+
+"Well, yes, it is rather provoking to you, I dare say. The extracts would
+be very interesting from a social point of view, no doubt, to people who
+care about such things; but in a legal sense they are waste-paper. I
+can't understand why Hawkehurst was in Ullerton; for, as you yourself
+suggested, that Peter Judson who went to India must be the Judson wanted
+for this case."
+
+"Your brother may be in league with some other branch of the Judson
+family. Or what if he is hunting for an heir on the Haygarth side?" asked
+the Captain, with a very close watch upon Mr. Sheldon's face. Let the
+stockbroker be never so skilful a navigator of the high seas of life,
+there was no undercurrent, no cross trade-wind, no unexplained veering of
+the magnetic needle to the west, in the mysteries whereof the Captain was
+not also versed. When Columbus wanted to keep his sailors quiet on that
+wondrous voyage over an unknown ocean to the Western world, the
+diplomatic admiral made so bold as to underrate the length of each day's
+sail in an unveracious log, which he kept for the inspection of his crew;
+but no doctoring of the social log-book could mislead the acute Horatio.
+
+"How about the Haygarth side of the house?" he asked again; for it had
+seemed to him that at his first mention of the name of Haygarth Mr.
+Sheldon had winced, ever so little. This time, however, he betrayed not
+the faintest concern; but he was doubtless now on his guard.
+
+"Well, I don't see how there can be any claimant on that side of the
+house," he said carelessly. "You see, according to your old landlord's
+statement--which I take to be correct--Jonathan Haygarth had but one son,
+a certain Matthew, who married one Rebecca So-and-so, and had, in his
+turn one only son, the intestate John. Now, in that case, where is your
+heir to come from, except through Matthew's sister Ruth, who married
+Peter Judson?"
+
+"Isn't it just possible that Matthew Haygarth may have married twice, and
+had other children? Those letters certainly suggest the idea of a secret
+alliance of some kind on Haygarth's part, and the existence of a family,
+to whom he appears to have been warmly attached. My first idea of this
+affair was that it must have been a low _liaison_; but I could hardly
+realize the fact of Matthew's confiding in his sister under any such
+circumstances, however lax in his morals that gentleman may have been.
+Mrs. Matthew Haygarth's letters hint at some mystery in her husband's
+life. Is it not likely that this hidden family was a legitimate one?"
+
+"I can't quite see my way to that idea," Mr. Sheldon answered, in a
+meditative tone. "It seems very unlikely that any marriage of Haygarth's
+could have remained unknown to his townsmen; and even if it were so, I
+doubt the possibility of our tracing the heirs from such a marriage. No,
+my dear Paget, I have resolved to wash my hands of the business, and
+leave my brother George in undisturbed possession of his ground."
+
+"In that case, perhaps, you will return my notes; they are
+interesting to me."
+
+Here again the faintest indication of annoyance in the stockbroker's face
+told its tale to Captain Paget. For your accomplished navigator of the
+unknown seas there is no ocean bird, no floating weed, that has not a
+language and a significance.
+
+"You can have your notes, if you want them," answered Mr. Sheldon; "they
+are at my office. I'll hunt them up and send them to you; or you had
+better look in upon me in the City early next week, and I can give you a
+cheque at the same time."
+
+"Thanks. I will be sure and do so."
+
+"You say the orthography of the original letters was queer. I suppose
+your copies were faithful in all matters except the orthography. And in
+the names, you of course adhered to the original spelling?"
+
+"Most decidedly," replied Captain Paget, opening the door to depart,
+and with a somewhat cynical smile upon his face, which was hidden from
+Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"I suppose there is no doubt of your accuracy with regard to the name of
+Meynell, now?"
+
+"Not the least. Good afternoon. Ah, there's our young friend Hawkehurst!"
+exclaimed the Captain, in his "society" voice, as he looked out into the
+hall, where Valentine was parting with Diana.
+
+He came and greeted his young friend, and they left the house together.
+
+This was the occasion upon which Valentine was startled by hearing the
+name "Meynell" pronounced by the lips of Philip Sheldon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+CAPTAIN PAGET IS PATERNAL.
+
+Horatio Paget left the Lawn after the foregoing interview, fully
+convinced that Mr. Sheldon was only desirous to throw him off the scent,
+in order to follow up the chase alone, for his sole profit and advantage.
+
+"My last letter conveyed some intelligence that altered his whole plan of
+action," thought the Captain; "that is perfectly clear. He was somewhat
+wanting in tact when he recalled me so suddenly. But I suppose he thought
+it would be easy to throw dust in my poor old eyes. What was the
+intelligence that made him change his mind? That is the grand question."
+Captain Paget dined alone at a West-End restaurant that evening. He dined
+well, for he had in hand certain moneys advanced by his patron, and he
+was not disposed to be parsimonious. He sat for some time in meditative
+mood over his pint bottle of Chambertin, and the subject of his
+meditation was Philip Sheldon.
+
+"Yes," he murmured at last, "that is it. The charm is in the name of
+Meynell. Why else should he question me about the orthography of that
+name? I sent him information about Matthew Haygarth in the wife's
+letters, and he took no special notice of that information. It was only
+when the name of Meynell cropped up that he changed his tactics and tried
+to throw me over. It seems to me that he must have some knowledge of this
+Meynell branch, and therefore thinks himself strong enough to act alone,
+and to throw me over the bridge. To throw me over," the Captain repeated
+to himself slowly. "Well, we'll see about that. We'll see; yes, we'll
+see."
+
+At noon on the following day Captain Paget presented himself again at the
+Bayswater villa, where his daughter ate the bread of dependence. He
+appeared this time in a purely paternal character. He came to call upon
+his only child. Before paying this visit the Captain had improved the
+shining hour by a careful study of the current and two or three back
+volumes of the Post-Office and Trade Directories; but all his researches
+in those interesting volumes had failed to reveal to him the existence of
+any metropolitan Meynells.
+
+"The Meynells whom Sheldon knows may be in the heart of the country," he
+said to himself, after these futile labours.
+
+It was a fine autumnal morning, and as Miss Paget was at home and
+disengaged, her affectionate father suggested that she should take a walk
+with him in Kensington Gardens. Such a promenade had very little
+attraction for the young lady; but she had a vague idea that she owed a
+kind of duty to her father not remitted by his neglect of all duties to
+her; so she assented with a smile, and went out with him, looking very
+handsome and stylish in her simple but fashionable attire, no part of
+which had been provided by the parent she accompanied.
+
+The Captain surveyed her with some sense of family pride. "Upon my word,
+my dear, you do me credit!" he exclaimed, with a somewhat patronising
+kindness of tone and manner; "indeed any man might be proud of such a
+daughter. You are every inch a Paget."
+
+"I hope not, papa," said the girl involuntarily; but the Captain's more
+delicate instincts had been considerably blunted in the press and jostle
+of life, and he did not feel the sting of this remark.
+
+"Well, perhaps you are right, my love," he replied blandly; "the Pagets
+_are_ an unlucky family. Like those Grecian people, the Atri--,
+what's-his-name--the man who was killed in his bath, you know. His wife,
+or the other young person who had come to visit his daughters, made the
+water too hot, you know--and that kind of thing. I am not quite clear
+about the story, but it's one of those farragos of rubbish they make
+young men learn at public schools. Yes, my dear, I really am amazingly
+pleased by your improved appearance. Those Sheldon people dress you very
+nicely; and I consider your residence in that family a very agreeable
+arrangement for all parties. You confer a favour on the girl by your
+society, and so on, and the mother provides you with a comfortable home;
+All I wonder is that your good looks haven't made their mark before this
+with some of Sheldon's rich stockbroking fellows."
+
+"We see very little of the stockbroking fellows, as you call them, at the
+Lawn, papa."
+
+"Indeed! I thought Sheldon kept a great deal of company."
+
+"O no. He gives a dinner now and then, a gentleman's dinner usually; and
+poor Mrs. Sheldon is very anxious that it should all go off well, as she
+says; but I don't think he is a person who cares much for society."
+
+"Really, now?"
+
+"His mind seems completely occupied by his business, you see, papa. That
+horrible pursuit of gain seems to require all his thoughts, and all his
+time. He is always reading commercial papers, the _Money Market_ and _On
+Change_, and the _Stockbrokers' Vade Mecum_, and publications of that
+kind. When he is not reading he is thinking; and by his manner one would
+fancy his thoughts were always gloomy and unpleasant. What a miserable,
+hateful, unholy life to lead! I would not be that man for all the money
+in the Bank of England. But it is a kind of treachery to tell these
+things. Mr. Sheldon is very good to me. He lets me sit at his table and
+share the comforts of his home, and I must be very ungrateful to speak
+against him. I do _not_ mean to speak against him, you see, papa--I only
+mean that a life devoted to money-making is in itself hateful."
+
+"My dear child, you may be assured that anything you say to _me_ will go
+no further," said the Captain, with dignity; "and in whom should you
+confide, if not in your father? I have a profound respect for Sheldon and
+his family--yes, my love, a profound respect; and I think that girl
+Sarah--no, I mean Charlotte--a very charming young person. I need
+scarcely tell you that the smallest details of your life in that family
+possess a keen interest for me. I am not without a father's feelings,
+Diana, though circumstances have never permitted me to perform a father's
+duties."
+
+And here the solitary tear which the accomplished Horatio could produce
+at will trembled in his eye. This one tear was always at his command. For
+the life of him he could not have produced a second; but the single drop
+never failed him, and he found one tear as effective as a dozen, in
+giving point and finish to a pathetic speech.
+
+Diana looked at him, and wondered, and doubted. Alas, she knew him only
+too well! Any other creature in this wide world he might deceive, but not
+her. She had lived with him; she had tasted the bitterness of dependence
+upon him--ten times more bitter than dependence on strangers. She had
+shown him her threadbare garments day after day, and had pleaded for a
+little money, to be put off with a lying excuse. She could not forget
+this. She had forgiven him long ago, being of too generous a nature to
+brood upon past injuries. But she could not forget what manner of man he
+was, and thank him for pretty speeches which she knew to be meaningless.
+
+They talked a little more of Mr. Sheldon and his family, but Diana did
+not again permit herself to be betrayed into any vehement expressions of
+her opinions. She answered all her father's questions without restraint,
+for they were very commonplace questions, of a kind that might be
+answered without any breach of faith.
+
+"Amongst the Sheldons' acquaintances did you ever hear of any people
+called Meynell?" Captain Paget asked at length.
+
+"Yes," Diana replied, after a moment's thought; "the name is certainly
+very familiar to me;" and then, after a pause, she exclaimed, "Why, the
+Meynells were relations of Charlotte's! Yes, her grandmother was a Miss
+Meynell; I perfectly remember hearing Mrs. Sheldon talk about the
+Meynells. But I do not think there are any descendants of that family now
+living. Why do you ask the question, papa? What interest have you in the
+Meynells?"
+
+"Well, my dear, I have my reasons, but they in no manner concern Mr.
+Sheldon or his family; and I must beg you to be careful not to mention
+the subject in your conversation with those worthy people. I want to know
+all about this Meynell family. I have come across some people of that
+name, and I want to ascertain the precise relationship existing between
+these people and the Sheldons. But the Sheldons must know nothing of this
+inquiry for the present. The people I speak of are poor and proud, and
+they would perish rather than press a relationship upon a rich man,
+unless fully justified by the closeness of family ties. I am sure you
+understand all this, Diana?"
+
+"Not very clearly, papa."
+
+"Well, my dear, it is a delicate position, and perhaps somewhat difficult
+for the comprehension of a third party. All you need understand is the
+one fact, that any information respecting the Meynell family will be
+vitally interesting to my friends, and, through them, serviceable to me.
+There is, in fact, a legacy which these friends of mine could claim,
+under a certain will, if once assured as to the degree of their
+relationship to your friend Charlotte's kindred on the Meynell side of
+the house. To give them the means of securing this legacy would be to
+help the ends of justice; and I am sure, Diana, you would wish to do
+that."
+
+"Of course, papa, if I can do so without any breach of faith with my
+employers. Can you promise me that no harm will result to the Sheldons,
+above all to Charlotte Halliday, from any information I may procure for
+you respecting the Meynell family?"
+
+"Certainly, Diana, I can promise you that. I repeat most solemnly,
+that by obtaining such information for me you will be aiding the cause
+of justice."
+
+If Horatio Paget might ever be betrayed into the inconsistency of a
+truthful assertion, it seemed to his daughter that it was likely to be in
+this moment. His words sounded like truth; and, on reflection, Diana
+failed to perceive that she could by any possibility inflict wrong on her
+friends by obliging her father in this small affair.
+
+"Let me think the matter over, papa," she said.
+
+"Nonsense, Diana; what thinking over can be wanted about such a trifle? I
+never before asked you a favour. Surely you cannot refuse to grant so
+simple a request, after the trouble I have taken to explain my reasons
+for making it."
+
+There was some further discussion, which ended in Miss Paget consenting
+to oblige her father.
+
+"And you will manage matters with tact?" urged the Captain, at parting.
+
+"There is no especial tact required, papa," replied Diana; "the matter is
+easy enough. Mrs. Sheldon is very fond of talking about her own affairs.
+I have only to ask her some leading question about the Meynells, and she
+will run on for an hour, telling me the minutest details of family
+history connected with them. I dare say I have heard the whole story
+before, and have not heeded it: I often find my thoughts wandering when
+Mrs. Sheldon is talking."
+
+Three days after this Captain Paget called on Mr. Sheldon in the City,
+when he received a very handsome recompense for his labours at Ullerton,
+and became repossessed of the extracts he had made from Matthew
+Haygarth's letters, but not of the same Mr. Haygarth's autograph letter:
+that document Mr. Sheldon confessed to having mislaid.
+
+"He has mislaid the original letter, and he has had ample leisure for
+copying my extracts; and he thinks I am such a consummate fool as not to
+see all that," thought Horatio, as he left the stockbroker's office,
+enriched but not satisfied.
+
+In the course of the same day he received a long letter from Diana
+containing the whole history of the Meynells, as known to Mrs. Sheldon.
+Once set talking, Georgy had told all she could tell, delighted to find
+herself listened to with obvious interest by her companion.
+
+"I trust that you have not deceived me, my dear father," Diana concluded,
+after setting forth the Meynell history. "The dear good soul was so
+candid and confiding, and seemed so pleased by the interest I showed in
+her family affairs, that I should feel myself the vilest of wretches if
+any harm could result to her, or those she loves, from the information
+thus obtained."
+
+The information was very complete. Mrs. Sheldon had a kindly and amiable
+nature, but she was not one of those sensitive souls who instinctively
+shrink from a story of bitter shame or profound sorrow as from a cureless
+wound. She told Diana, with many lamentations, and much second-hand
+morality, the sad history of Susan Meynell's elopement, and of the
+return, fourteen years afterwards, of the weary wanderer. Even the poor
+little trunk, with the name of the Rouen trunk-maker, Mrs. Sheldon dwelt
+upon with graphic insistence. A certain womanly delicacy had prevented
+her ever telling this story in the presence of her brother-in-law, George
+Sheldon, whose hard worldly manner in no way invited any sentimental
+revelation. Thus it happened that George had never heard the name of
+Meynell in connection with his friend Tom Halliday's family, or had heard
+it so seldom as to have entirely forgotten it. To Horatio his daughter's
+letter was priceless. It placed him at once in as good a position as
+Philip Sheldon, or as George Sheldon and his coadjutor, Valentine
+Hawkehurst. There were thus three different interests involved in the
+inheritance of the Reverend John Haygarth.
+
+Captain Paget sat late by a comfortable fire, in his own bedchamber, that
+night, enjoying an excellent cigar, and meditating the following jottings
+from a pedigree:--
+
+CHARLOTTE MEYNELL, married JAMES HALLIDAY.
+       |
+THOMAS HALLIDAY, only son of above, married GEORGINA, now Mrs. SHELDON;
+       |         had issue,
+CHARLOTTE HALLIDAY.
+
+SUSAN MEYNELL, only and elder sister of the above-named Charlotte, ran
+away from her home, in Yorkshire, with a Mr. Kingdon, brother to Lord
+Darnsville. Fate unknown during fourteen years of her life. Died in
+London, 1835. Buried under her maiden name; but no positive evidence to
+show that she was unmarried.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE CAPTAIN'S COADJUTOR.
+
+Once in possession of the connection between the intestate John Haygarth
+and the Halliday family, Captain Paget's course was an easy one. He
+understood now why his investigations had been so suddenly brought to a
+standstill. Philip Sheldon had discovered the unexpected connection, and
+was eager to put a stop to researches that might lead to a like discovery
+on the part of his coadjutor.
+
+"And Sheldon expects to prove his stepdaughter's claim to this fortune?"
+thought the Captain. "He will affect ignorance of the whole transaction
+until his plans are ripe, and then spring them suddenly upon his brother
+George. I wonder if there is anything to be made out of George by letting
+him into the secret of his brother's interference? No; I think not.
+George is as poor as a church mouse, and Philip must always be the more
+profitable acquaintance."
+
+On the broad basis afforded by Diana's letter Captain Paget was able to
+build up the whole scheme of the Haygarthian succession. The pedigree of
+the Meynells was sufficiently simple, if their legitimate descent from
+Matthew Haygarth could be fairly proved. Charlotte Halliday was
+heiress-at-law to the fortune of John Haygarth, always provided that her
+great-aunt Susan died without legitimate issue.
+
+Here was the one chance which appeared to the adventurous mind of Horatio
+Paget worth some trouble in the way of research. Fourteen years of Susan
+Meynell's life had been spent away from all who knew her. It was
+certainly possible that in that time she might have formed some
+legitimate alliance.
+
+This was the problem which Horatio set himself to solve. Your adventurer
+is, of all manner of men, the most sanguine. Sir Walter Raleigh sees
+visions of gold and glory where grave statesman see only a fool's
+paradise of dreams and fancies. To the hopeful mind of the Captain these
+fourteen unrecorded years of Susan Meynell's life seemed a very Golconda.
+
+He did not, however, rest satisfied with the information afforded by
+Diana's letter.
+
+"I will have the story of these Meynells at first-hand as well as at
+second-hand," he said to himself; and he lost no time in presenting
+himself again at the Villa--this time as a visitor to Mrs. Sheldon.
+
+With Georgy he had been always a favourite. His little stories of the
+great world--the Prince and Perdita, Brummel and Sheridan--though by no
+means novel to those acquainted with that glorious period of British
+history, were very agreeable to Georgy. The Captain's florid flatteries
+pleased her; and she contrasted the ceremonious manners of that gentleman
+with the curt business-like style of her husband, very much to the
+Captain's advantage. He came to thank her for her goodness to his child,
+and this occasion gave him ample opportunity for sentiment. He had asked
+to see Mrs. Sheldon alone, as his daughter's presence would have been
+some hindrance to the carrying out of his design.
+
+"There are things I have to say which I should scarcely care to utter
+before my daughter, you see, my dear Mrs. Sheldon," he said, with
+pathetic earnestness. "I should not wish to remind the dear child of her
+desolate position; and I need scarcely tell you that position is _very_
+desolate. A father who, at his best, cannot provide a fitting home for a
+delicately nurtured girl, and who at any moment may be snatched away, is
+but a poor protector. And were it not for your friendship, I know not
+what my child's fate might be. The dangers and temptations that beset a
+handsome young woman are very terrible, my dear Mrs. Sheldon."
+
+This was intended to lead up to the subject of Susan Meynell, but Georgy
+did not rise to the bait. She only shook her head plaintively in assent
+to the Captain's proposition.
+
+"Yes, madam; beauty, unallied with strength of mind and high principles,
+is apt to be a fatal dower. In every family there are sad histories,"
+murmured the sentimental Horatio.
+
+Even this remark did not produce the required result; so the Captain drew
+upon his invention for a specimen history from the annals of his own
+house, which was a colourable imitation of Susan Meynell's story.
+
+"And what was the end of this lovely Belinda Paget's career, my dear Mrs.
+Sheldon?" he concluded. "The gentleman was a man of high rank, but a
+scoundrel and a dastard. Sophia's brother, a cornet in the First Life
+Guards, called him out, and there was a meeting on Wimbledon Common, in
+which Lavinia's seducer was mortally wounded. There was a trial, and the
+young captain of Hussars, Amelia's brother, was sentenced to
+transportation for life. I need scarcely tell you that the sentence was
+never carried out. The young man fell gloriously at Waterloo, at the head
+of his own regiment, the Scotch Fusiliers, and Lavinia--I beg pardon,
+Amelia; nay, what am I saying? the girl's name was Belinda--embraced the
+Roman Catholic faith, and expired from the effects of stigmata inflicted
+by her own hands in a paroxysm of remorse for her brother's untimely
+death at the hands of her seducer."
+
+This lively little impromptu sketch had the desired effect. Melted by the
+woes of Belinda, or Sophia, or Amelia, or Lavinia Paget, Mrs. Sheldon was
+moved to relate a sad event in her husband's family; and encouraged by
+the almost tearful sympathy of the Captain, she again repeated every
+detail of Susan Meynell's life, as known to her kindred. And as this
+recital had flowed spontaneously from the good soul's lips, she would he
+scarcely likely to allude to it afterwards in conversation with Mr.
+Sheldon; more especially as that gentleman was not in the habit of
+wasting much of his valuable time in small-talk with the members of his
+own household.
+
+Captain Paget had duly calculated this, and every other hazard that
+menaced the intricate path he had mapped out for himself.
+
+Satisfied by Mrs. Sheldon's repetition of Susan Meynell's story, and
+possessed of all the information he could hope to obtain from that
+quarter, Horatio set himself to consider what steps must next be taken.
+Much serious reflection convinced even his sanguine mind that the
+enterprise was a difficult one, and could scarcely be carried through
+successfully without help from some skilled genealogist.
+
+"George Sheldon has given his lifetime to this sort of thing, and is a
+skilled lawyer to boot," Captain Paget said to himself. "If I hope to go
+in against him, I must have someone at my elbow as well versed in this
+sort of business as he is."
+
+Having once admitted this necessity, the Captain set himself to consider
+where he was to find the right person. A very brief meditation settled
+this question. One among the numerous business transactions of Captain
+Paget's life had brought him in contact with a very respectable little
+French gentleman called Fleurus, who had begun his career as a notary,
+but, finding that profession unprofitable, had become a hunter of
+pedigrees and heirs-at-law--for the most part to insignificant legacies,
+unclaimed stock, and all other jetsam and flotsam thrown up on the
+shadowy shores of the Court of Chancery. M. Fleurus had not often been so
+fortunate as to put his industrious fingers into any large pie, but he
+had contrived to make a good deal of money out of small affairs, and had
+found his clients grateful.
+
+"The man of men," thought Horatio Paget; and he betook himself to the
+office of M. Fleurus early next day, provided with all documents relating
+to the Haygarthian succession.
+
+His interview with the little Frenchman was long and satisfactory. On
+certain conditions as to future reward, said reward to be contingent on
+success, M. Fleurus was ready to devote himself heart and soul to the
+interests of Captain Paget.
+
+"To begin: we must find legal evidence of this Matthew Haygarth's
+marriage to the mother of this child C., who came afterwards to marry the
+man Meynell; and after we will go to Susan Meynell. Her box came from
+Rouen--that we know. Where her box came from she is likely to have come
+from. So it is at Rouen, or near Rouen, we must look for her. Let me see:
+she die in 1835! that is long time. To look for the particulars of her
+life is like to dive into the ocean for to find the lost cargo of a ship
+that is gone down to the bottom, no one knows where. But to a man really
+expert in these things there is nothing of impossible. I will find you
+your Susan Meynell in less than six months; the evidence of her marriage;
+if she was married; her children, if she had children."
+
+In less than six months--the margin seemed a wide one to the impatient
+Horatio. But he knew that such an investigation must needs be slow, and
+he left the matters in the hands of his new ally with a sense that he had
+done the best thing that could be done. Then followed for Horatio Paget
+two months of patient attendance upon fortune. He was not idle during
+this time; for Mr. Sheldon, who seemed particularly anxious to conciliate
+him, threw waifs and strays of business into his way. Before the middle
+of November M. Fleurus had found the register of Matthew Haygarth's
+marriage, as George Sheldon had found it before him, working in the same
+groove, and with the same order of intelligence. After this important
+step M. Fleurus departed for his native shores, where he had other
+business besides the Meynell affair to claim his attention. Meanwhile the
+astute Horatio kept a close eye upon his young friend Valentine. He knew
+from Diana that the young man had been in Yorkshire; and he guessed the
+motive of his visit to Newhall, not for a moment supposing that his
+presence in that farmhouse could have been accidental. The one turn of
+affairs that utterly and completely mystified him was Mr. Sheldon's
+sanction of the engagement between Valentine and Charlotte. This was a
+mystery for which he could for some time find no solution.
+
+"Sheldon will try to establish his stepdaughter's claim to the fortune;
+that is clear. But why does he allow her to throw herself away on a
+penniless adventurer like Hawkehurst? If she were to marry him before
+recovering the Haygarth estate, she would recover it as his wife, and the
+fortune would be thrown unprotected into his hands."
+
+More deliberate reflection cast a faint light upon Philip Sheldon's
+motives for so quixotic a course.
+
+"The girl had fallen in love with Val. It was too late to prevent that.
+She is of age, and can marry whom she pleases. By showing himself opposed
+to her engagement with Val, he might have hurried her into rebellion, and
+an immediate marriage. By affecting to consent to the engagement, he
+would, on the contrary, gain time, and the advantage of all those chances
+that are involved in the lapse of time."
+
+Within a few days of Christmas came the following letter from M.
+Fleurus:--
+
+
+_From Jacques Rousseau Fleurus to Horatio Paget_.
+
+Hotel de la Pucelle, place Jeanne d'Arc, Rouen, 21st December, 186--.
+
+MONSIEUR,--After exertions incalculable, after labours herculean, I come
+to learn something of your Susan Meynell,--more, I come to learn of her
+marriage. But I will begin at the beginning of things. The labours, the
+time, the efforts, the courage, the patience, the--I will say it without
+to blush--the genius which this enterprise has cost me, I will not
+enlarge upon. There are things which cannot tell themselves. To commence,
+I will tell you how I went to Rouen, how I advertised in the journals of
+Rouen, and asked among the people of Rouen--at shops, at hotels, by the
+help of my allies, the police, by means which you, in your inexperience
+of this science of research, could not even figure to yourself--always
+seeking the trace of this woman Meynell. It was all pain lost. Of this
+woman Meynell in Rouen there was no trace.
+
+In the end I enraged myself. "Imbecile!" I said to myself, "why seek in
+this dull commercial city, among this heavy people, for that which thou
+shouldst seek only in the centre of all things? As the rivers go to the
+ocean, so flow all the streams of human life to the one great central
+ocean of humanity--PARIS! It is there the Alpha and the Omega--there the
+mighty heart through which the blood of all the body must be pumped, and
+is pumping always," I say to myself, unconsciously rising to the
+sublimity of my great countryman, Hugo, in whose verse I find an echo of
+my own soul, and whose compositions I flatter myself I could have
+surpassed, if I had devoted to the Muses the time and the powers which I
+have squandered on a _vilain_ metier, that demands the genius of a
+Talleyrand, and rewards with the crust of an artisan.
+
+In Paris, then, I will seek the woman Meynell, and to Paris I go. In my
+place an inexperienced person would advertise in the most considerable
+papers; would invite Susan Meynell to hear of something to her
+advantage; and would bring together a crowd of false Susan Meynells,
+greedy to obtain the benefice. Me, I do nothing in this style there. On
+the contrary, in the most obscure little journals of Paris I publish a
+modest little advertisement as from the brother of Susan Meynell, who
+implores his sister to visit him on his deathbed.
+
+Here are follies, you will say. Since Susan Meynell is dead it is thirty
+years, and her brother is dead also. Ah, how you are dull, you insulars,
+and how impossible for your foggy island to produce a Fouche, a Canler, a
+genius of police, a Columbus of the subterranean darknesses of your city.
+
+The brother, dying, advertises for the sister, dead; and who will answer
+that letter, think you? Some good Christian soul who has pity for the
+sick man, and who will not permit him to languish in waiting the sister
+who will come to him never. For us of the Roman Catholic religion the
+duty of charity is paramount. You of the Anglican faith--bah, how you are
+cold, how you are hard, how you are unpitiable!
+
+My notice appears once, my notice appears twice, three times, four times,
+many times. I occupy myself about my other business, and I wait. I do not
+wait unusefully. In effect, a letter arrives at last at the address of
+the dying, from a lady who knew Susan Meynell _before her marriage with
+M. Lenoble._
+
+Think you not that to me this was a moment of triumph? _Before her
+marriage with M. Lenoble!_ Those words appear under my eyes in the
+writing of the unknown lady. "It is found!" I cry to myself; and then I
+hasten myself to reply to the unknown lady. Will she permit me to see
+her?
+
+With all politeness I make the request; with all politeness it is
+answered. The lady calls herself Mademoiselle Servin. She resides in the
+street Grande-Mademoiselle, at the corner of the Place Lauzun. It is of
+all the streets of Paris the most miserable. One side is already removed.
+In face of the windows of those houses that still stand they are making a
+new Boulevard. Behind they are pulling down edifices of all kinds in the
+formation of a new square. At the side there is a yawning chasm between
+two tall houses, through which they pierce a new street. One sees the
+interior of many rooms rising one above another for seven stories. Here
+the gay hangings of an apartment of little master; there the still
+gaudier decoration of a boudoir of these ladies. High above these
+luxurious salons--ah, but how much more near to the skies!--one sees the
+poor grey paper, blackened and smoky, of a garret of sempstress, or
+workman, and the hearths black, deserted. These interiors thus exposed
+tighten me the heart. It is the autopsy of the domestic hearth.
+
+I find the Mademoiselle Servin an old lady, grey and wan. The house where
+she now resides is the house which she has inhabited five-and-thirty
+years. They talk of pulling it down, and to her the idea of leaving it is
+exquisite pain. She is alone, a teacher of music. She has seen
+proprietors come and go. The _pension_ has changed mistresses many times.
+Students of law and of medicine have come and passed like the shadows of
+a magic lantern; but this poor soul has remained still in her little room
+on the fourth, and has kept always her little old piano.
+
+It was here she knew Susan Meynell, and a young Frenchman who became in
+love with her, for she was beautiful like the angels, this lady said to
+me.
+
+Until we meet for all details. Enough that I come to discover where the
+marriage took place, that I come to obtain a copy of the register, and
+that I do all things in rule. Enough that the marriage is a good
+marriage--a regular marriage, and that I have placed myself already in
+communication with the heir of that marriage, who resides within some few
+leagues of this city.
+
+My labours, my successes I will not describe. It must that they will be
+recompensed in the future. I have dispensed much money during these
+transactions.
+
+Agree, monsieur, that I am your devoted servitor,
+
+JACQUES ROUSSEAU FLEURUS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in consequence of the receipt of this missive that the Captain
+trusted himself to the winds and waves in the cheerless December weather.
+He was well pleased to find that M. Fleurus had made discoveries so
+important; but he had no idea of letting that astute practitioner absorb
+all the power into his own hands.
+
+"I must see Susan Meynell's heir," he said to himself; "I must give him
+clearly to understand that to me he owes the discovery of his claims, and
+that in this affair the Frenchman Fleurus is no more than a paid agent."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Fourth.
+
+
+
+GUSTAVE IN ENGLAND.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+HALCYON DAYS.
+
+Once having offered up the fondest desires of her own heart on the
+shrine of duty, Diana Paget was not a person to repent herself of the
+pious sacrifice. After that Christmas night on which she had knelt at
+Charlotte's feet to confess her sad secret, and to resign all claim to
+the man she had loved so foolishly, so tenderly, with such a romantic
+and unselfish devotion, Miss Paget put away all thought of the past from
+her heart and mind. Heart and mind seemed empty and joyless without
+those loved tenants, though the tenants had been only fair wraiths of
+dreams that were dead. There was a sense of something missing in her
+life--a blank, dull calm, which was at first very painful. But for
+Charlotte's sake she was careful to hide all outward token of
+despondency, and the foolish grief, put down by so strong a hand, was
+ere long well-nigh stifled.
+
+Those dark days which succeeded Christmas were a period of halcyon peace
+for Valentine and Charlotte. The accepted lover came to the villa when he
+pleased, but was still careful not to encroach on the license allowed
+him. Once a week he permitted himself the delight of five-o'clock tea in
+Mrs. Sheldon's drawing-room, on which occasions he brought Charlotte all
+the news of his small literary world, and a good deal of useful
+information out of the books he had been reading. When Mr. Sheldon
+pleased to invite him to dinner on Sunday he gladly accepted the
+invitation, and this Sunday dinner became in due course an established
+institution.
+
+"You may as well make this your home on a Sunday," said Mr. Sheldon one
+day, with careless cordiality; "I dare say you find Sunday dull in your
+lodgings."
+
+"Yes, papa," cried Charlotte, "he does find it very dull--dreadfully
+dull--don't you, Valentine?"
+
+And she regarded him with that pretty, tender, almost motherly look,
+which young ladies who are engaged are apt to bestow on their affianced
+lovers.
+
+Miss Halliday was very grateful to her stepfather for his kindness to her
+landless adorer, and showed her appreciation of his conduct in many
+pretty little caressing ways, which would have been infinitely bewitching
+to a person of sentiment.
+
+Unfortunately Mr. Sheldon was not sentimental, and any exhibition of
+feeling appeared to have an irritating effect upon his nerves. There were
+times when he shrank from some little sudden caress of Charlotte's as
+from the sting of an adder. Aversion, surprise, fear--what was it that
+showed in the expression of his face at these moments? Whatever that
+strange look was, it departed too quickly for analysis; and the
+stockbroker thanked his stepdaughter for her little affectionate
+demonstration with his wonted smile--the smile he smiled on Change, the
+smile which was sometimes on his lips when his mind was a nest of
+scorpions.
+
+To Valentine, in these rosy hours, life seemed full of hope and
+brightness. He transferred his goods and chattels from Omega Street,
+Chelsea, to the pleasant lodging in the Edgware Road, where he was nearer
+Charlotte, and out of the way of his late patron Captain Paget, in the
+event of that gentleman's return from the Continent.
+
+Fortune favoured him. The gaiety of heart which came with his happiness
+lent a grace to his pen. Pleasant thoughts and fancies bedecked his
+pages. He saw everything in the rosy light of love and beauty, and there
+was a buoyant freshness in all he wrote. The Pegasus might be but a
+common hackney, but the hack was young and fresh, and galloped gaily as
+he scented the dewy morning air. It is not every poet whose Pegasus
+clears at a bound a space as wide as all that waste of land and sea the
+watchman views from his tall tower on the rock.
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst's papers on Lauzun, Brummel, Sardanapalus, Rabelais, Lord
+Chesterfield, Erasmus, Beau Nash, Apelles, Galileo, and Philip of
+Orleans, were in demand, and the reading public wondered at this prodigy
+of book-making. He had begun to save money, and had opened a deposit
+account at the Unitas Bank. How he gloated over the deposit receipts in
+the stillness of the night, when he added a fresh one to his store! When
+he had three, for sums amounting in all to forty pounds, he took them to
+Charlotte, and she looked at them, and he looked at them, as if the poor
+little bits of printed paper had been specimens of virgin ore from some
+gold mine newly discovered by Mr. Hawkehurst. And then these foolish
+lovers kissed each other, as William Lee and his wife may have embraced
+after the penniless young student had perfected his invention of the
+stocking-frame.
+
+"Forty pounds!" exclaimed Miss Halliday, "all won by your pen, and your
+poor fingers, and your poor, poor head! How it must ache after a long
+day's work! How clever you must be, Valentine!"
+
+"Yes, dear; amazingly clever. Clever enough to know that you are the
+dearest girl in Christendom."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, sir! You are not clever enough to have the
+privilege of doing that yet awhile. I mean, how learned you must be to
+know such lots of things, all about Erasmus, and Galileo, and--"
+
+"No, my darling, not Erasmus and Galileo. I knew all about Erasmus last
+week; but I am working at my paper on Galileo now, an exhaustive review
+of all the books that were ever written on the subject, in ten pages. I
+don't ask other people to remember what I write, you know, my dear, and I
+don't pledge myself to remember it. That sort of thing won't keep. There
+is a kind of sediment, no doubt, in one's note-book; but the
+effervescence of that vintage goes off rather quickly."
+
+"I only know that you are a very clever person, and that one obtains an
+immensity of information from your writings," said Charlotte.
+
+"Yes, dearest, there is a kind of wine that must be made into negus for
+such pretty little topers as you--the 'Wine of Cyprus,' as Mrs. Browning
+called it. It is better for pretty girls to have the negus than to have
+nothing, or only weak home-brewed stuff that results in head-ache. My
+dearest, Fate has been very good to me, and I love my profession of
+letters. I am sure that of all educational processes there is none better
+than book-making; and the man who begins by making books must be a dolt,
+dunce, and dunderhead, if he do not end by writing them. So you may yet
+hope to see the morning that shall make your Valentine famous--for a
+fortnight. What man can hope to be famous for _more_ than a fortnight in
+such a railroad age as this?"
+
+During this halcyon period, in which Mr. Hawkehurst cultivated
+alternately the society of the Muses and his mistress, he saw little or
+nothing of George Sheldon. He had washed his hands of all share in the
+work of establishing Charlotte Halliday's claim to the Reverend John
+Haygarth's thousands. Indeed, since that interview in which Philip
+Sheldon had made so light of his stepdaughter's chances, and ratified his
+consent to her marriage with so humble a literary adventurer as himself,
+Mr. Hawkehurst had come to consider the Haygarthian inheritance as
+altogether a visionary business. If it were certain, or even probable,
+that Charlotte was to inherit a hundred thousand pounds, was it likely
+that Mr. Sheldon would encourage such an alliance? This question Mr.
+Hawkehurst always answered in the negative; and as days and weeks went
+by, and he heard no more of the Haygarth fortune, the idea of Charlotte's
+wealth became more and more shadowy.
+
+If there were anything doing in this matter, the two brothers were now
+working together, and George had no further need of Valentine's help.
+
+The two brothers were not working entirely together. Philip Sheldon had
+taken the matter into his own strong hand, and George found it very
+difficult to hold an inch of ground against that formidable antagonist.
+The papers and information which George had boasted of to Valentine, and
+the possession whereof was, as he asserted, the very keystone of the
+arch, proved to be of such small account that he ultimately consented to
+hand them over to his brother on the payment of expenses out of pocket,
+and a bonus of one hundred and fifty pounds, together with a written
+undertaking from Miss Halliday to pay him the fifth share of any fortune
+recovered by means of those papers.
+
+This undertaking had been executed in the easiest manner.
+
+"My brother has taken it into his wise head that there is some unclaimed
+stock standing in your grandfather's name which you are entitled to,
+Lotta," Mr. Sheldon said one morning; "and he wants to recover the amount
+for you, on condition of receiving a clear fifth when the sum is
+recovered. Have you any objection to sign such an undertaking?"
+
+"Dear papa, how can I object?" cried Charlotte gaily. "Why, stocks are
+money, are they not? How fortunate we are, and how rich we are getting!"
+
+"We!"
+
+"Valentine and I," murmured the girl, blushing. "I cannot help thinking
+of him when any windfall of good fortune comes to me. What do you think,
+papa? He has saved forty pounds in little more than three months--all
+earned by his pen!
+
+"Behold
+The arch-enchanter's wand! Itself a nothing;
+But taking sorcery from the master-hand
+To paralyze the Caesars, and to strike
+The loud earth breathless!"
+
+And Miss Halliday spouted the glowing lines of the noble dramatist with
+charming enthusiasm. She signed the required undertaking without looking
+at it, and it was duly witnessed by her stepfather.
+
+"In your talk with your mother and Valentine, I should advise you to be
+as silent about this small business as about your own little fortune,"
+Mr. Sheldon remarked presently.
+
+"Mustn't I tell Valentine?" cried Charlotte, making a wry face; "I should
+so like to tell him--just about these stocks. I daresay _he_ knows what
+stocks are; and it would be such cheering news for him, after he has
+worked his poor brain so for that forty pounds. I don't so much care
+about telling poor mamma; for she does exclaim and wonder so about
+things, that it is quite fatiguing to hear her. But please let me tell
+Valentine?"
+
+Miss Halliday pursed-up her lips and offered her stepfather one of those
+kisses which she had of late been prompted to bestow on him out of the
+gratitude of a heart overflowing with girlish joy. He took the kiss as he
+might have taken a dose of medicine, but did not grant the request
+preferred by it.
+
+"If you want to be a fool, you can tell your lover of this windfall; but
+if you wish to prove yourself a sensible girl, you will hold your tongue.
+He has saved forty pounds by hard work in the last three months, you say:
+do you think he would have saved forty pence if he had known that you had
+five thousand pounds at his disposal? I know that class of men; look at
+Goldsmith, the man who wrote the "Vicar of Wakefield," and "Rasselas,"
+and "Clarissa Harlowe," and so on. I have read somewhere that he never
+wrote except under coercion--that is to say, want of money."
+
+Charlotte acknowledged the wisdom of this argument, and submitted. She
+was not what was called a strong-minded woman; and, indeed, strength of
+mind is not a plant indigenous to the female nature, but an exceptional
+growth developed by exceptional circumstances. In Charlotte's life there
+had been nothing exceptional, and she was in all things soft and womanly,
+ready to acknowledge, and to be guided by, the wisdom of her seniors. So
+Valentine heard nothing of the undertaking executed by his lady-love.
+
+After this, Mr. Sheldon took counsel's opinion, and set to work in real
+earnest to recover the estate of the deceased John Haygarth from the
+yawning jaws of that tame but all-devouring monster, the Crown. The work
+was slow, and the dry as dust details thereof need not be recorded here.
+It had but just begun when Horatio Paget suddenly returned from his
+Continental expedition, and established himself once more in the Omega
+Street lodgings.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+CAPTAIN PAGET AWAKENS TO A SENSE OF HIS DUTY.
+
+Captain Paget's return was made known to the Sheldon circle by a letter
+from the returning wanderer to his daughter. The Captain was laid up with
+rheumatic gout, and wrote quite piteously to implore a visit from Diana.
+Miss Paget, always constant to the idea of a duty to be performed on her
+side, even to this _pere prodigue_, obeyed the summons promptly, with the
+full approval of Georgy, always good-natured after her own fussy manner.
+
+"And if you'd like to take your papa a bottle of Mr. Sheldon's old port,
+Diana, remember it's at your disposal. I'm sure I've heard people say
+that old port is good for the gout--or perhaps, by the bye, what I heard
+was that it _wasn't_ good. I know old port and gout seem to run together
+in my head somehow. But if there's anything in the house your papa would
+like, Diana--wine, or gunpowder tea, or the eider-down coverlet off the
+spare bed, or the parlour croquet, to amuse him of an evening, or a new
+novel--surely one couldn't forfeit one's subscription by lending a book
+to a non-subscribing invalid?"
+
+While Georgy was suggesting the loan of almost every portable object in
+the house as a specific for Captain Paget's gout, Charlotte sent for a
+cab and made things smooth for her friend's departure. She wrapped her
+warmly against the February blast, and insisted upon going out to see her
+seated in the cab, whereby she offered to the pedestrians of that
+neighbourhood a seraphic vision of loveliness with tumbled hair.
+Charlotte had been always delightful, but Charlotte engaged to Valentine
+Hawkehurst was a creature of supernal sweetness and brightness--a radiant
+ministering angel, hovering lightly above a world too common for her foot
+to rest upon.
+
+Miss Paget found her father suffering from a by no means severe attack of
+a respectable family gout, a little peevish from the effects of this
+affliction, but not at all depressed in mind. He had, indeed, the manner
+of a man with whom things are going pleasantly. There was a satisfaction
+in his tone, a placidity in his face, except when distorted for the
+moment by a twinge of pain, that were new to Diana, who had not been
+accustomed to behold the brighter side of her father's disposition. He
+seemed grateful for his daughter's visit, and received her with unwonted
+kindness of manner.
+
+"You have come very promptly, my dear, and I am gratified by your early
+compliance with my request," he said with dignified affection, after he
+had given his daughter the kiss of greeting. "I was a great sufferer last
+night, Diana, a great sufferer, a prisoner to this chair, and the woman
+below attempted to send me up a dinner--_such_ a dinner! One would think
+a very small degree of education necessary for the stewing of a kidney,
+but the things that woman gave me last night were like morsels of stewed
+leather. I am not an epicure, Diana; but with such a constitution as
+mine, good cooking is a vital necessity. Life in lodgings for a man of my
+age is a sore trial, my dear. I wish you were well married, Diana, and
+could give your father a humble corner at your fireside."
+
+Diana smiled. It was a somewhat bitter smile; and there was scorn of
+herself, as well as scorn of her father in that bitterness.
+
+"I am not the sort of person to marry well, papa," she said.
+
+"Who knows? You are handsomer than nine-tenths of the women who marry
+well."
+
+"No, papa; that is your sanguine manner of looking at your own property.
+And even if I were married to some one to whom I might give obedience and
+duty, and all that kind of thing, in exchange for a comfortable home, as
+they say in the advertisements, would you be content with a peaceful
+corner by my fireside? Do you think you would never pine for clubs and
+gaming-tables--nay, even for creditors to--to diplomatize with, and
+difficulties to surmount?"
+
+"No, my dear. I am an old man; the clubs and gaming-houses have done with
+me, and I with them. I went to see a man at Arthur's a few months ago. I
+had written to him on a little matter of business--in fact, to be candid
+with you, my love, for the loan of a five-pound note--and I called at the
+club for his reply. I caught sight of my face in a distant glass as I was
+waiting in the strangers' room, and I thought I was looking at a ghost.
+There comes a time towards the close of a long troublesome life in which
+a man begins to feel like a ghost. His friends are gone, and his money is
+gone, his health is gone, his good looks are gone; and the only mistake
+seems to be that the man himself should be left behind. I remember an
+observation of Lord Chesterfield's: 'Lord ---- and I have been dead for
+the last two years, but we don't tell anyone so,' he said; and there are
+few old men who couldn't say the same. But I am not down-hearted to-day,
+my dear. No, the habit of hoping has never quite deserted me; and it is
+only now and then that I take a dismal view of life. Come, my love, lay
+aside your bonnet and things. Dear me! what a handsome black silk dress,
+and how well you look in it!"
+
+"It is a present from Charlotte, papa. She has a very liberal allowance
+of pocket-money, and is generosity itself. I don't like to take so much
+from her, but I only wound her by a refusal."
+
+"Of course, my dear. There is nothing so ungracious as a refusal, and no
+mark of high breeding so rare as the art of gracious acceptance. Any
+booby can give a present; but to receive a gift without churlish
+reticence or florid rapture is no easy accomplishment. I am always
+pleased to see you well-dressed, my love"--Diana winced as she remembered
+her shabby hat and threadbare gown at Foretdechene--"and I am especially
+pleased to see you elegantly attired this evening, as I expect a
+gentleman by-and-by."
+
+"A gentleman, papa!" exclaimed Miss Paget, with considerable surprise; "I
+thought that you had sent for me because you were ill and depressed and
+lonely."
+
+"Well, yes, Diana, I certainly am ill; and I suppose it is scarcely
+unnatural that a father should wish to see his only daughter."
+
+Diana was silent. A father's wish to see his daughter was indeed natural
+and common; but that Captain Paget, who in no period of his daughter's
+life had evinced for her the common affection of paternity, should be
+seized all of a sudden with a yearning for her society, was somewhat
+singular. But Diana's nature had been ennobled and fortified by the
+mental struggle and the impalpable sacrifice of the last few months, and
+she was in nowise disposed to repel any affectionate feeling of her
+father's even at this eleventh hour.
+
+"_He_ tells us the eleventh hour is not too late," she thought. "If it is
+not too late in the sight of that Divine Judge, shall it be thought too
+late by an erring creature like me?"
+
+After a few minutes of thoughtful silence, she knelt down by her father's
+chair and kissed him.
+
+"My dear father," she murmured softly, "believe me, I am very pleased to
+think you should wish to see me. I will come to you whenever you like to
+send for me. I am glad not to be a burden to you; but I should wish to be
+a comfort when I can."
+
+The Captain shed his stock tear. It signified something nearer akin to
+real emotion than usual.
+
+"My dear girl," he said, "this is very pleasing, very pleasing
+indeed. The day may come--I cannot just now say when--and events may
+arise--which--the nature of which I am not yet in a position to indicate
+to you--but the barren fig-tree may not be always fruitless. In its old
+age the withered trunk may put forth fresh branches. We will say no more
+of this, my love; and I will only remark that you may not go unrequited
+for any affection bestowed on your poor old father."
+
+Diana smiled, and this time it was a pensive rather than a bitter smile.
+She had often heard her father talk like this before. She had often heard
+these oracular hints of some grand event looming mighty in the immediate
+future; but she had never seen the vague prophecy accomplished. Always a
+schemer, and always alternating between the boastful confidence of hope
+and the peevish bewailings of despair, the Captain had built his castle
+to-day to sit among its ruins to-morrow, ever since she had known him.
+
+So she set little value on his hopeful talk of this evening, but was
+content to see him in good spirits. He contemplated her admiringly as she
+knelt by his easy-chair, and smoothed the shining coils of her dark hair
+with a gentle hand, as he looked downward at the thoughtful face--proud
+and grave, but not ungentle.
+
+"You are a very handsome girl, Diana," he murmured, as much to himself as
+to his daughter; "yes, very handsome. Egad, I had no idea how handsome!"
+
+"What has put such a fancy into your head to-night, papa?" asked Diana,
+laughing. "I do not believe in the good looks you are so kind as to
+attribute to me. When I see my face in the glass I perceive a pale gloomy
+countenance that is by no means pleasing."
+
+"You may be out of spirits when you look in the glass. I hope you are not
+unhappy at Bayswater."
+
+"Why should I be unhappy, papa? No sister was ever kinder or more loving
+than Charlotte Halliday is to me. I should he very ungrateful to
+Providence as well as to her if I did not appreciate such affection. How
+many lonely girls, like me, go through life without picking up a sister?"
+
+"Yes, you are right, my dear. Those Sheldon people have been very useful
+to you. They are not the kind of people I should have wished a daughter
+of mine to be _live_ with, if I were in the position my birth entitles me
+to occupy; but as I am not in that position, I submit. That black silk
+becomes you admirably. And now, my love, be so kind as to ring the bell
+for lights and tea."
+
+They had been sitting in the firelight--the mystic magical capricious
+firelight--which made even that tawdry lodging-house parlour seem a
+pleasant chamber. The tea-tray was brought, and candles. Diana seated
+herself at the table, and made tea with the contents of a little
+mahogany caddy.
+
+"Don't pour out the tea just yet," said the Captain; "I expect a
+gentleman. I don't suppose he'll take tea, but it will look more civil to
+wait for him."
+
+"And who is this mysterious gentleman, papa?"
+
+"A Frenchman; a man I met while I was abroad."
+
+"_Really_ a gentleman?"
+
+"Certainly, Diana," replied her father, with offended dignity.
+
+"Do you think I should admit any person to my friendship who is not a
+gentleman? My business relations I am powerless to govern; but friendship
+is a different matter. There is no man more exclusive than Horatio Paget.
+M. Lenoble is a gentleman of ancient lineage and amiable character."
+
+"And rich, I suppose, papa?" asked Diana. She thought that her father
+would scarcely speak of the gentleman in a tone so profoundly respectful
+if he were not rich.
+
+"Yes, Diana. M. Lenoble is master of a very fair estate, and is likely to
+be much richer before he dies."
+
+"And he has been kind to you, papa?"
+
+"Yes, he has shown me hospitality during my residence in Normandy. You
+need not speak of him to your friends the Sheldons."
+
+"Not even to Charlotte?"
+
+"Not even to Charlotte. I do not care to have my affairs discussed by
+that class of people."
+
+"But, dear papa, why make a mystery about so unimportant a matter.
+
+"I do not make a mystery; but I hate gossip. Mrs. Sheldon is an
+incorrigible gossip, and I daresay her daughter is no better."
+
+"Charlotte is an angel, papa."
+
+"That is very possible. But I beg that you will refrain from discussing
+my friend M. Lenoble in her angelic presence."
+
+"As you please, papa," said Diana gravely. She felt herself bound to obey
+her father in this small matter; but the idea of this mystery and secrecy
+was very unwelcome to her. It implied that her father's acquaintance with
+this Frenchman was only a part of some new scheme. It was no honest
+friendship, which the Captain might be proud to own, glad to show the
+world that in these days of decadence he could still point to a friend.
+It was only some business alliance, underhand and stealthy; a social
+conspiracy, that must needs be conducted in darkness.
+
+"Why did papa summon me here if he wants his acquaintance with this man
+kept secret?" she asked herself; and the question seemed unanswerable.
+
+She pictured this M. Lenoble to herself--a wizened, sallow-faced
+Macchiavellian individual, whose business in England must needs be
+connected with conspiracy, treason, commercial fraud, anything or
+everything stealthy and criminal.
+
+"I wish you would let me go back to Bayswater before this gentleman
+comes, papa," she said presently. "I heard it strike seven just now, and
+I know I shall be expected early. I can come again whenever you like."
+
+"No, no, my love; you must stop to see my friend. And now tell me a
+little about the Sheldons. Has anything been stirring since I saw them
+last?"
+
+"Nothing whatever, papa. Charlotte is very happy; she always had a
+happy disposition, but she is gayer than ever since her engagement
+with--Valentine."
+
+"What an absurd infatuation!" muttered the Captain.
+
+"And he--Valentine--is very good, and works very hard at his literary
+profession--and loves her very dearly."
+
+It cost her an effort to say this even now, even now when she fancied
+herself cured of that folly which had once been so sweet to her. To speak
+of him like this--to put him away out of her own life, and contemplate
+him as an element in the life of another--could not be done without some
+touch of the old anguish.
+
+There was a loud double-knock at the street-door as she said this, and a
+step sounded presently in the passage; a quick, firm tread. There was
+nothing stealthy about that, at any rate.
+
+"My friend Lenoble," said the Captain; and in the next instant a
+gentleman entered the room, a gentleman who was in every quality the
+opposite of the person whom Diana had expected to see.
+
+These speculative pictures are seldom good portraits. Miss Paget had
+expected to find her father's ally small and shrivelled, old and ugly,
+dried-up and withered in the fiery atmosphere of fraud and conspiracy; in
+outward semblance a monkey, in soul a tiger. And instead of this
+obnoxious creature there burst into the room a man of four-and-thirty
+years of age, tall, stalwart, with a fair frank face, somewhat browned by
+summer suns; thick auburn hair and beard, close trimmed and cropped in
+the approved Gallic fashion--clear earnest blue eyes, and a mouth whose
+candour and sweetness a moustache could not hide. Henry of Navarre,
+before the white lilies of France had dazzled his eyes with their fatal
+splendour, before the court of the Medici had taught the Bearnois to
+dissemble, before the sometime Protestant champion had put on that
+apparel of stainless white in which he went forth to stain his soul with
+the sin of a diplomatic apostasy.
+
+Such a surprise as this makes a kind of crisis in the eventless record of
+a woman's life. Diana found herself blushing as the stranger stood near
+the door awaiting her father's introduction. She was ashamed to think of
+the wrong her imagination had done him.
+
+"My daughter, Diana Paget--M. Lenoble. I have been telling Diana how much
+I owed to your hospitality during my stay in Normandy," continued the
+Captain, with his grandest air, "I regret that I can only receive you in
+an apartment quite unworthy the seigneur of Cotenoir.--A charming place,
+my dear Diana, which I should much like you to see on some future
+occasion.--Will you take some tea, Lenoble?--Diana, a cup of tea.--The
+Pagets are a fallen race, you see, my dear sir, and a cup of tea in a
+lodging-house parlour is the best entertainment I can give to a friend.
+The Cromie Pagets of Hertfordshire will give you dinner in gold plate,
+with a footman standing behind the chair of every guest; but our branch
+is a younger and a poorer one, and I, among others, am paying the price
+of youthful follies."
+
+Gustave Lenoble looked sympathetic, but the glance of sympathy was
+directed to Diana, and not to the male representative of the younger
+Pagets. To pity the distressed damsel was an attribute of the Lenoble
+mind; and Gustave had already begun to pity Miss Paget, and to wonder
+what her fate in life would be, with no better protector than a father
+who was confessedly a pauper. He saw that the young lady was very
+handsome, and he divined, from some indefinable expression of her face,
+that she was proud; and as he thought of his own daughters, and their
+easy life and assured future, the contrast seemed to him very cruel.
+
+Chivalrous as the house of Lenoble might be by nature, he could scarcely
+have felt so keen an interest in Captain Paget's daughter at the first
+glance, if his sympathies had not been already enlisted for her. The
+noble Horatio, though slow to act a father's part, had shown himself
+quick to make capital out of his daughter's beauty and virtues when the
+occasion offered.
+
+In his intercourse with the seigneur of Cotenoir, which had developed
+from a mere business acquaintance into friendship, Captain Paget had
+discoursed with much eloquence upon the subject of his motherless
+daughter; and M. Lenoble, having daughters of his own, also motherless,
+lent him the ear of sympathy.
+
+"I have heard much of you, Miss Paget," said Gustave presently, "and of
+your devotion to your father. He has no more favourite theme than your
+goodness."
+
+Diana blushed, and Diana's father blushed also. That skilled diplomatist
+felt the awkwardness of the situation, and was prompt to the rescue.
+
+"Yes," he said, "my daughter has been a heroine. There are Antigones,
+sir, who show their heroic nature by other service than the leading to
+and fro of a blind father. From the earliest age my poor child has
+striven to stand alone; too proud, too noble to be a burden on a parent
+whose love would have given all, but whose means could give but little.
+And now she comes to me from her home among strangers, to soothe my hour
+of pain and infirmity. I trust your daughters may prove as worthy of your
+love, M. Lenoble."
+
+"They are very dear girls," answered the Frenchman; "but for them life
+has been all sunshine. They have never known a sorrow except the death of
+their mother. It is the storm that tests the temper of the tree. I wish
+they might prove as noble in adversity as Miss Paget has shown herself."
+
+This was more than Diana could bear without some kind of protest.
+
+"You must not take papa's praises _au pied de la lettre_, M. Lenoble,"
+she said; "I have been by no means brave or patient under adversity.
+There are troubles which one must bear. I have borne mine somehow; but I
+claim no praise for having submitted to the inevitable."
+
+This was spoken with a certain noble pride which impressed Gustave more
+than all the father's florid eloquence had done. After this the
+conversation became less personal. M. Lenoble talked of England. It was
+not his first visit; but he had only the excursionist's knowledge of the
+British Isles.
+
+"I have been to Scotland," he said. "Your Scotland is grand,
+mountainous--all that there is of the most savage and poetic. It is a
+Switzerland lined with Brittany. But that which most speaks to the heart
+of a stranger is the peaceful beauty of your English landscape."
+
+"You like England, M. Lenoble?" said Diana.
+
+"Have I not reason? My mother was English. I was only five years old when
+I lost her. She went out of my life like a dream; but I can still recall
+a faint shadow of her face--an English face--a countenance of placid
+sadness, very sweet and tender. But why do I talk of these things?"
+
+On this the Frenchman's talk took a gayer turn. This M. Lenoble showed
+himself a lively and agreeable companion. He talked of Normandy, his
+daughters and their convent, his little son at Rouen, his aunt Cydalise,
+the quiet old lady at Beaubocage; his grandfather, his grandmother, the
+old servants, and everything familiar and dear to him. He told of his
+family history with boyish candour, untainted by egotism, and seemed much
+pleased by Diana's apparent interest in his unstudied talk. He was quite
+unconscious that the diplomatic Horatio was leading him on to talk of
+these things, with a view to making the conversation supremely
+interesting to him. That arch diplomatist knew that there is nothing a
+man likes better than talking of his own affairs, if he can have a decent
+excuse for such discourse.
+
+The clock struck nine while Diana was listening, really interested. This
+glimpse of a life so far apart from her own was a relief, after the
+brooding introspective reveries which of late had constituted so large a
+portion of her existence. She started up at the sound of the clock.
+
+"What now, Cinderella?" cried her father. "Have you stopped beyond your
+time, and will your fairy godmother be angry?"
+
+"No one will be angry, papa; but I did not mean to stay so late. I am
+sorry your description of Normandy has been so interesting, M. Lenoble."
+
+"Come and see Vevinord and Cotenoir, and you will judge for yourself. The
+town-hall of Vevinord is almost as fine as that of Louvain; and we have a
+church that belongs to the time of Dagobert."
+
+"She shall see them before long," said the Captain; "I shall have
+business in Rouen again before the next month is out; and if my daughter
+is a good girl, I will take her over there with me."
+
+Diana stared at her father in utter bewilderment. What could be the
+meaning of this sudden display of affection?
+
+"I should not be free to go with you, papa, even if you were able to take
+me," she replied, somewhat coldly; "I have other duties."
+
+She felt assured that there was some lurking motive, some diplomatic art
+at the bottom of the Captain's altered conduct, and she could not
+altogether repress her scorn. The astute Horatio saw that he had gone a
+little too far, and that his only child was not of the stuff to be
+moulded at will by his dexterous hands.
+
+"You will come and see me again, Diana?" he said in a pleading tone: "I
+am likely to be a prisoner in this room for a week or more."
+
+"Certainly, papa; I will come if you wish it. When shall I come?"
+
+"Well, let me see--to-day is Thursday; can you come on Monday?"
+
+"Yes, I will come on Monday."
+
+A cab was procured, and Miss Paget was conducted to that vehicle by her
+new acquaintance, who showed a gallant anxiety for her comfort on the
+journey, and was extremely careful about the closing of the windows. She
+arrived at Bayswater before ten, but being forbidden to talk of M.
+Lenoble, could give but a scanty account of her evening.
+
+"And was your papa kind, dear?" asked Charlotte, "and did he seem pleased
+to see you?"
+
+"He was much kinder and more affectionate than usual, Lotta dear; so much
+so, that he set me wondering. Now, if I were as confiding and eager to
+think well of people as you are, I should be quite delighted by this
+change. As it is, I am only mystified. I should be very glad if my father
+and I could be drawn closer together; very glad if my influence could
+bring about an amendment in his life."
+
+While Miss Paget was discussing her father's affectionate and novel
+behaviour, the noble Horatio was meditating, by his solitary hearth, upon
+the events of the evening.
+
+"I'm half-inclined to think he's hit already," mused the Captain. "I must
+not allow myself to be deluded by manner. A Frenchman's gallantry rarely
+means much; but Lenoble is one of those straightforward fellows whose
+thoughts may be read by a child. He certainly seemed pleased with her;
+interested and sympathetic, and all that kind of thing. And she is an
+uncommonly handsome girl, and might marry any one if she had the
+opportunity. I had no idea she was so handsome until to-night. I suppose
+I never noticed her by candlelight before. By Jove! I ought to have made
+her an actress, or singer, or something of that kind. And so I might, if
+I'd known her face would light up as it does. I wish she wasn't so
+impracticable--always cutting in with some awkward speech, that makes me
+look like a fool, when, if she had an ounce of common sense, she might
+see that I'm trying to make her fortune. Yes, egad, and such a fortune as
+few girls drop into now-a-days! Some of your straitlaced church-going
+people would call me a neglectful father to that girl, I daresay; but I
+think if I succeed in making her the wife of Gustave Lenoble, I shall
+have done my duty in a way that very few fathers can hope to surpass.
+Such a high-principled fellow as Lenoble is too!--and _that_ is a
+consideration."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"WHAT DO WE HERE, MY HEART AND I?"
+
+After that first summons to Chelsea, Diana went many times--twice and
+three times a week--to comfort and tend her invalid father. Captain
+Paget's novel regard for his only child seemed to increase with the
+familiarity of frequent intercourse. "I have had very great pleasure in
+making your acquaintance, my dear Diana," he said one day, in the course
+of a _tete-a-tete_ with his daughter; "and I am charmed to find you
+everything that a well-born and well-bred young woman ought to be. I am
+sure you have excellent reason to be grateful to your cousin, Priscilla
+Paget, for the excellent education you received in her abode; and you
+have some cause to thank me for the dash and style imparted to your
+carriage and manner by our foreign wanderings."
+
+The Captain said this with the air of a man who had accompanied his
+daughter on the grand tour solely with a view to her intellectual
+improvement. He really thought she had reason to be grateful to him for
+those accidents of his nomadic life which had secured her a good accent
+for French and German, and the art of putting on her shawl.
+
+"Yes, my dear child," he continued with dignity, "it affords me real
+gratification to know you better. I need scarcely say that when you were
+the associate of my pilgrimage, you were not of an age to be available as
+a companion. To a man of the world like myself, a young person who has
+not done growing must always savour somewhat of the schoolroom and the
+nursery. I am not going to repeat the Byronic impertinence about
+bread-and-butter; but the society of a girl of the hobbledehoy age is apt
+to be insipid. You are now a young woman, and a young woman of whom any
+father might with justice be proud."
+
+After a few such speeches as these, Diana began to think that it was just
+possible her father might really experience some novel feeling of regard
+for her. It might be true that his former coldness had been no more than
+a prejudice against the awkwardness of girlhood.
+
+"I was shabby and awkward, I daresay, in those days," she thought; "and
+then I was always asking papa for money to buy new clothes; and that may
+have set him against me. And now that I am no burden upon him, and can
+talk to him and amuse him, he may feel more kindly disposed towards me."
+
+There was some foundation for this idea. Captain Paget had felt himself
+more kindly disposed towards his only child from the moment in which she
+ceased to be an encumbrance upon him. Her sudden departure from
+Foretdechene had been taken in very good part by him.
+
+"A very spirited thing for her to do, Val," he had said, when informed of
+the fact by Mr. Hawkehurst; "and by far the best thing she could do,
+under the circumstances."
+
+From that time his daughter had never asked him for a sixpence, and from
+that time she had risen steadily in his estimation. But the feeling which
+he now exhibited was more than placid approval; it was an affection at
+once warm and exacting. The fact was, that Horatio Paget saw in his
+daughter the high-road to the acquirement of a handsome competence for
+his declining years. His affection was sincere so far as it went; a
+sentiment inspired by feelings purely mercenary, but not a hypocritical
+assumption. Diana was, therefore, so much the more likely to be softened
+and touched by it.
+
+She was softened, deeply touched by this late awakening of feeling. The
+engagement of Valentine and Charlotte had left her own life very blank,
+very desolate. It was not alone the man she loved who was lost to her;
+Charlotte, the friend, the sister, seemed also slipping away from her. As
+kind, as loving, as tender as of old, this dear friend and adopted sister
+still might be, but no longer wholly her own. Over the hearts of the
+purest Eros reigns with a too despotic power, and mild affection is apt
+to sneak away into some corner of the temple on whose shrine Love has
+descended. This mild affection is but a little twinkling taper, that will
+burn steadily on, perhaps unseen amidst the dazzling glory of Love's
+supernal lamp, to be found shining benignantly when the lamp is
+shattered.
+
+For Charlotte, Valentine--and for Valentine, Charlotte--made the
+sum-total of the universe at this time; or, at best, there was but a
+small balance which included all the other cares and duties, affections
+and pleasures, of life. Of this balance Diana had the lion's share; but
+she felt that things had changed since those days of romantic school-girl
+friendship in which Charlotte had talked of never marrying, and
+travelling with her dearest friend Diana amongst all the beautiful scenes
+they had read of, until they found the loveliest spot in the world, where
+they would establish themselves in an ideal cottage, and live together
+for the rest of their lives, cultivating their minds and their
+flower-garden, working berlin-wool chairs for their ideal drawing-room,
+and doing good to an ideal peasantry, who would be just poor enough to be
+interesting, and sickly enough to require frequent gifts of calf's-foot
+jelly and green tea.
+
+Those foolish dreams were done with now; and that other dream, of a life
+to be spent with the reckless companion of her girlhood, was lost to
+Diana Paget. There was no point to which she could look forward in the
+future, no star to lure her onward upon life's journey. Her present
+position was sufficiently comfortable; and she told herself that she must
+needs be weak and wicked if she were not content with her lot. But beyond
+the present she dared not look, so blank was the prospect--a desert,
+without even the mirage; for her dreams and delusions were gone with her
+hope.
+
+Possessed by such a sense of loneliness, it is scarcely strange if
+there seemed to her a gleam of joy, a faint glimmer of hope, in the
+newly awakened affection of her father. She began to believe him, and
+to take comfort from the thought that he was drifting to a haven where
+he might lie moored, with other battered old hulks of pirate and
+privateer, inglorious and at rest. To work for him and succour him in his
+declining years seemed a brighter prospect to this hopeless woman of
+four-and-twenty than a future of lonely independence. "It is the nature
+of woman to lean," says the masculine philosopher; but is it not rather
+her nature to support and sustain, or else why to her is entrusted the
+sublime responsibility of maternity? Diana was pleased to think that a
+remorseful reprobate might be dependent on her toil, and owe his
+reformation to her influence. She was indeed a new Antigone, ready to
+lead him in his moral blindness to an altar of atonement more pure than
+the ensanguined shrine of the Athenian Eumenides.
+
+Her visits to Omega Street were not entirely devoted to _tete-a-tetes_
+with her father. By reason of those coincidences which are so common to
+the lives of some people, it generally happened that M. Lenoble dropped
+in upon his invalid friend on the very day of Miss Paget's visit. M.
+Lenoble was in London on business, and this business apparently
+necessitated frequent interviews with Captain Paget. Of course such
+interviews could not take place in the presence of Diana. Gustave was
+wont, therefore, to wait with praiseworthy patience until the conclusion
+of the young lady's visit; and would even, with an inconsistent
+gallantry, urge her to prolong her stay to its utmost limit.
+
+"It will always be time for my affairs, Miss Paget," he urged, "and I
+know how your father values your society; and he well may value it. I
+only hope my daughters will be as good to me, if I have the gout,
+by-and-by."
+
+Diana had spent nearly a dozen evenings in Omega Street, and on each of
+those evenings had happened to meet M. Lenoble. She liked him better on
+every occasion of these accidental meetings. He was indeed a person whom
+it was difficult for any one to dislike, and in the thirty-four years of
+his life had never made an enemy. She had been pleased with him on the
+first evening; his bright handsome face, his courteous reverence for her
+sex--expressed in every word, every tone, every look--his sympathy with
+all good thoughts, his freshness and candour, were calculated to charm
+the coldest and most difficult of judges. Diana liked, and even admired
+him, but it was from an abstract point of view. He seemed a creature as
+remote from her own life as a portrait of Henry of Navarre, seen and
+admired in some royal picture-gallery to-day, to fade out of her memory
+to-morrow.
+
+There was only one point in connection with Gustave Lenoble which
+occupied her serious thoughts; and this was the nature of his relations
+with her father.
+
+This was a subject that sorely troubled her. Hope as she might for the
+future, she could not shut her eyes to the past. She knew that her
+father had lived for years as a cheat and a trickster--now by one
+species of falsehood and trickery, now by another--rarely incautious,
+but always unscrupulous. How had this village seigneur of Normandy
+fallen into the Captain's toils; and what was the nature of the net that
+was spread for him?
+
+The talk of business, the frequent interviews, the evident elation of her
+father's spirits, combined to assure her that some great scheme was in
+progress, some commercial enterprise, perhaps not entirely dishonest--nay
+even honest, when regarded from the sanguine speculator's point of view,
+but involving the hazard of Gustave Lenoble's fortune.
+
+"It is quite as easy for my father to delude himself as it is for him to
+delude others. This M. Lenoble is ignorant of English commerce, no doubt,
+and will be ready to believe anything papa tells him. And he is so
+candid, so trusting, it would be very hard if he were to be a loser
+through his confidence in papa. His daughters, too; the hazard of his
+fortune is peril to their future." Such doubts and fears, gradually
+developed by reflection took stronger hold on Miss Paget's mind after
+every fresh visit to Omega Street. She saw the Frenchman's light-hearted
+confidence in all humanity, her father's specious manner and air of
+quixotic honour. His sanguine tone, his excellent spirits, filled her
+with intolerable alarm. Alas! when had she ever seen her father in good
+spirits, except when some gentlemanly villany was in progress?
+
+Miss Paget endured this uneasiness of mind as long as she could, and then
+determined to warn the supposed victim. She planned the mode of her
+warning, and arranged for herself a diplomatic form which would reflect
+the least possible discredit upon her father; and having once come to
+this resolution, she was not slow to put it into effect.
+
+When her father was about to send for a cab to convey her back to
+Bayswater, after her next visit to Omega Street, she surprised him by
+intercepting his order.
+
+"There is a cab-stand in Sloane Square, papa," she said; "and if M.
+Lenoble will be so kind as to take me there, I--I would rather get the
+cab from the stand. The man charges more when he is fetched off the rank,
+I believe."
+
+She could think of no better excuse for seeing Gustave alone than this
+most sordid pretence. She blushed as she thought how mean a sound it must
+have in the ears of the man for whose advantage she was plotting. Happily
+M. Lenoble was not among the people who see nothing but meanness in the
+desire to save sixpence. His aunt Cydalise had shown him the loveliness
+of poverty; for there are vows of holy poverty that need no spoken
+formula, and that are performed without the cloister.
+
+"Poor girl!" thought M. Lenoble; "I dare say even the cost of her coach
+is a consideration with her; and one dare not pay the coachman."
+
+This was how Gustave read that blush of shame which for a moment dyed
+Diana's cheek. Her father's was a very different reading.
+
+"The minx sees my game, and is playing into my hands," thought he. "So
+demure as she is, too! I should never have supposed her capable of such
+a clever manoeuvre to secure ten minutes' _tete-a-tete_ with an
+eligible admirer."
+
+He bade his daughter good night with more than usual effusion. He began
+to think that she might prove herself worthy of him after all.
+
+The district between Omega Street and Sloane Square is after dusk of all
+places the most solitary. It is the border-land of Pimlico, or, to borrow
+from Sidney Smith, the knuckle end of Belgravia. In these regions of
+desolation and smoke-blackened stucco Diana and her companion were as
+secure from the interruption of the jostling crowd as they might have
+been in the primeval forests of Central America.
+
+Miss Paget's task was not a pleasant one. Shape her warning as she might,
+it must reflect some discredit upon her father. He had of late been kind
+to her; she felt this keenly to-night, and it seemed that the thing she
+was about to do was a sort of parricide. Not against her father's life
+was her cruel hand to be lifted; but her still more cruel tongue was to
+slay her father's good name.
+
+"This M. Lenoble likes him and trusts him," she thought to herself. "What
+a happiness for that poor broken-down old man to have so kind a friend!
+And I am going to interfere in a manner that may put an end to this
+friendship?"
+
+This is the shape which her thoughts assumed as she walked silently by
+Gustave's side, with her hand lying lightly on his arm. He spoke to her
+two or three times about the dulness of the neighbourhood, the coldness
+of the night, or some other equally thrilling subject; but, finding by
+her replies that she was thinking deeply, he made no further attempt at
+conversation.
+
+"Poor child! she has some trouble on her mind, perhaps," he thought to
+himself sadly, for his sympathy with this young lady was a very profound
+feeling. This was the first occasion on which he had ever been alone
+with her, and he wondered to find what a strange emotion was developed
+by the novelty of the situation. He had married at twenty years of age,
+and had never known those brief fancies or foolish passions which waste
+the freshness of mind and heart. He had married a wife whom he never
+learned to love; but his nature was so essentially a happy one, that he
+had failed to discover the something wanting in his life. In all
+relations--as grandson, husband, father, master--he had been "all simply
+perfect," as Mademoiselle Cydalise pronounced him; and in a mind occupied
+by cares for the welfare and happiness of others, he had never found that
+blank which needed to be filled in order to make his own life completely
+happy. Only of late, in his thirty-fourth year, had he come to the
+knowledge of a feeling deeper than dutiful regard for an invalid wife, or
+affectionate solicitude for motherless children; only of late had he felt
+his heart stirred by a more thrilling emotion than that placid
+resignation to the will of Providence which had distinguished his
+courtship of Mademoiselle de Nerague.
+
+They had nearly reached Sloane Square before Diana took courage to broach
+the subject so naturally repugnant to her. She had need to remember that
+the welfare of M. Lenoble and all belonging to him might be dependent on
+her fortitude.
+
+"M. Lenoble," she began at last, "I am going to say something I shall
+find it most painful to utter, but which I feel it my duty to say to you.
+I can only ask you to receive it in a generous spirit."
+
+"But, my dear Miss Paget, I pray you not to say anything that is
+disagreeable to you. Why should you give yourself pain?--why--"
+
+"Because it is my duty to warn you of a danger which I know only too
+well, and of which you may be quite ignorant. You are my father's friend,
+M. Lenoble; and he has very few friends. I should be sorry if anything I
+were to say should rob him of your regard."
+
+"Nothing that you say shall rob him of my friendship. But why should
+you persist thus to say anything that is painful? What can you tell me
+that I do not know, or that I cannot guess? Will you tell me that he is
+poor? But I know it. That he is a broken-down gentleman? And that also
+I know. What, then, would you tell me? That he has a daughter who is to
+him a treasure without price? Ah, mademoiselle, what must I be if I did
+not know that also?--I, who have contemplated that daughter so many
+times--ah, so many!--when she could not know with what sympathy my eyes
+watched her dutiful looks, with what profound emotion my heart
+interpreted her life of affectionate sacrifice."
+
+There was a warmth, a tenderness in his tones which touched Diana's heart
+as it had not been touched of late. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the full
+meaning of those tender accents came home to her. The love that she had
+once dreamed of from the lips of another spoke to her to-night in the
+words of this stranger. The sympathy for which she had yearned long ago,
+in the days of her wanderings with Valentine, was given to her to-night
+without stint or measure. Unhappily it came too late; and it did not come
+from the only lips which, as it seemed to her to-night, could make
+sympathy precious or love divine. But to this lonely girl a good man's
+affection seemed a treasure for which she must needs be deeply grateful.
+It was something to discover that she could be loved.
+
+"I too," she said to herself,--"I, of whose presence Valentine is
+scarcely conscious when he enters a room where Charlotte and I are
+together; I, whom he greets day after day with the same careless words,
+the same indifferent look; I, who might fade and waste day by day with
+some slow disease, until I sank into the grave, before he would be
+conscious of any change in my face,--is it possible that amongst the same
+race of beings there can be any creature so widely different from
+Valentine Hawkehurst as to love _me_?"
+
+This was the bitter complaint of her heart as she compared the tenderness
+of this stranger with the indifference of the man to whom, for three long
+years of her girlhood, she had given every dream, every thought, every
+hope of her existence. She could not put him away from her heart all at
+once. The weak heart still fondly clung to the dear familiar image. But
+the more intensely she had felt the cold neglect of Valentine, the more
+grateful to her seemed the unsought affection of Gustave Lenoble.
+
+"You know me as little as you know my father, M. Lenoble," she said,
+after a long pause, during which they had walked to the end of the long
+dull street, and were close to the square. "Let us go back a little way,
+please; I have much more to say. I wish you to be my father's friend
+always, but, if possible, without danger to yourself. My father is one of
+those sanguine people who are always ready to embark in some new
+enterprise, and who go on hoping and dreaming, after the failure of a
+dozen schemes. He has no money, that I know of, to lose himself, and that
+fact may make him, unconsciously, reckless of other people's money. I
+have heard him speak of business relations with you, M. Lenoble, and it
+is on that account I venture to speak so plainly. I do not want my poor
+father to delude you, as he has often deluded himself. If you have
+already permitted him to involve you in any speculation, I entreat you
+to try to withdraw from it--to lose a little money, if necessary, rather
+than to lose all. If you are not yet involved, let my warning save you
+from any hazard."
+
+"My dear Miss Paget, I thank you a thousand times for your advice, your
+noble thoughtfulness for others. But no, there is no hazard. The
+business in which your father is occupied for me is not a speculation. It
+involves no risk beyond the expenditure of a few thousand francs, which,
+happily, I can afford to lose. I am not at liberty to tell you the nature
+of the business in question, because I have promised your father to keep
+that a secret. Dear young lady, you need have no fear for me. I am not a
+rash speculator. The first years of my life were passed in extreme
+poverty--the poverty that is near neighbour to starvation. That is a
+lesson one cannot forget. How shall I thank you for your concern for
+me?--so generous, so noble!"
+
+"It was only my duty to warn you of my poor father's weakness," replied
+Diana. "If I needed thanks, your kindness to him is the only boon I could
+ask. He has bitter need of a friend."
+
+"And he shall never lack one while I live, if only for your sake." The
+last half of the sentence was spoken in lower tones than the first. Diana
+was conscious of the lurking tenderness of those few words, and the
+consciousness embarrassed her. Happily they had reached the end of the
+quiet street by this time, and had emerged into the busier square. No
+more was said till they reached the cab-stand, when Diana wished her
+companion good night.
+
+"I am going back to Normandy in a week, Miss Paget; shall I see you again
+before I leave England?"
+
+"I really don't know; our meetings are generally accidental, you see."
+
+"O yes, of course, always accidental," replied Gustave, smiling.
+
+"I am sorry you are going to leave London--for papa's sake."
+
+"And I, too, am sorry--for my own sake. But, you see, when one has
+daughters, and a farm, and a chateau, one must be on the spot. I came to
+England for one week only, and I have stayed six."
+
+"You have found so much to amuse you in London?"
+
+"Nay, mademoiselle, so much to interest me."
+
+"It is almost the same thing, is it not?"
+
+"A thousand times no! To be amused and to be interested--ah, what can be
+so widely different as those two conditions of mind!"
+
+"Indeed! Good night, Mr. Lenoble. Please ask the cabman to drive as fast
+as he can venture to do with consideration for his horse. I am afraid I
+shall be late, and my friends will be anxious about me."
+
+"You will be late. You consider your friends at Bayswater, and you
+consider even the cabman's horse. You are charity itself. Will you not
+consider me a little also, Miss Paget?"
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Let me see you before I go back to Normandy. Your papa likes to see you
+twice a week, I know. This is Monday night; will you come to see him on
+Thursday?"
+
+"If he wishes it."
+
+"He does wish it. Ah, how he wishes it! You will come?"
+
+"If Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte can spare me."
+
+"They cannot spare you. No one can spare you. That cannot be. It
+is amongst the things that are impossible. But they will have pity
+upon--your father, and they will let you come."
+
+"Please ask the cabman to start. Indeed, I shall be late. Good night,
+M. Lenoble."
+
+"Good night."
+
+He took her hand in his, and kissed it, with the grace of a Bayard. He
+loved her, and took no trouble to conceal his passion. No shadow of doubt
+darkened that bright horizon to which M. Lenoble looked with hopeful
+eyes. He loved this penniless, motherless girl, as it was in the blood of
+the Lenobles to love the poor and the helpless; especially when poverty
+and helplessness presented themselves in the guise of youth and beauty.
+He loved her, and she would love him. But why not? He was ten years her
+senior, but that makes nothing. His auburn hair and beard, in the style
+of Henry the Great, could show no streak of grey. His eyes had the
+brightness of one-and-twenty; for the eyes of a man whose soul preserves
+its youthfulness will keep their clear lustre for half a century. The
+tall figure, straight as a dart; the frank handsome face which M. Lenoble
+saw in the glass when he made his toilet, were not calculated to
+dishearten a hopeful lover; and Gustave, by nature sanguine, enjoyed his
+dream of happiness, untroubled by one morbid apprehension.
+
+He loved her, and he would ask her for his wife. She would accept his
+offer; her father would rejoice in so fortunate an alliance; her friends
+of Bayswater would felicitate a change so desirable. And when he returned
+to Normandy he would take her with him, and say to his children, "Behold
+your mother!" And then the great rambling mansion of Cotenoir would
+assume a home-like aspect. The ponderous old furniture would be replaced
+by lightsome appointments of modern fashion; except, of course, in the
+grand drawing-room, where there were tapestries said to be from the
+designs of Boucher, and chairs and sofas in the true Louis Quinze style,
+of immovable bulkiness.
+
+There was but one trifling hitch in the whole scheme of happiness--Diana
+was a Protestant. Ah, but what then! A creature so sweet, so noble, could
+not long remain the slave of Anglican heresy. A little talk with
+Cydalise, a week's "retreat" at the Sacre Coeur, and the thing would be
+done. The dear girl would renounce her errors, and enter the bosom of the
+Mother Church. Pouff! M. Lenoble blew the little difficulty away from his
+finger-tips, and then wafted a kiss from the same finger-tips to his
+absent beloved.
+
+"And this noble heart warned me against her own father!" M. Lenoble said
+to himself, as he walked towards the hotel at Blackfriars where he had
+taken up his abode, quite unconscious that the foot of Blackfriars Bridge
+was not the centre of West End London. "How noble, how disinterested!
+Poor old man! He is, no doubt, a speculator--something even of an
+Adventurer. What then? He shall have an apartment at Cotenoir, his place
+at the family table, his _fauteuil_ by the hearth; and there he can do no
+harm."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a strange sentiment in Diana's mind after this evening's
+conversation with Gustave Lenoble. To feel herself beloved, to know that
+there was some one creature in the wide crowded world interested in, nay,
+even attached to her, was a mystery, a surprise, and in some sort a
+source of pleasure to her. That Gustave Lenoble could ever be any nearer
+to her than he was at the present time did not occur to her as being
+within the limits of possibility. She had thrust Valentine from her
+heart, but the empty chamber could receive no new tenant. It was not
+swept and garnished; nay, indeed, it was sadly littered with the shreds
+and patches left by the late occupant. But, while this was so, to know
+that she could be loved was in some manner sweet to her.
+
+"Ah, now I know that the poet is right," she said to herself. "There is
+no creature so desolate but some heart responds unto its own. And I have
+found the generous responsive heart that can pity and love me because
+I seem so sorely to need love and pity. All my life--my blank, empty
+life--I will remember and be grateful to him, the first good man who ever
+called my father friend; the first of all mankind who thought this poor
+hand worthy to be lifted to his lips."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH.
+
+Having pledged herself to visit Omega Street on Thursday, Diana
+considered herself bound to perform that promise. She felt, however, that
+there was some touch of absurdity in the position, for to keep a promise
+so made was in a manner to keep an appointment with M. Lenoble.
+
+"I dare say he has a habit of falling in love with every young woman he
+meets," she thought, when she considered his conduct from a more prosaic
+standpoint than the grateful enthusiasm his generous sympathy had at
+first awakened in her mind. "I have heard that it is a Frenchman's
+faculty to consider himself irresistible, and to avow his adoration for a
+new divinity every week. And I was so foolish as to fancy there was a
+depth of feeling in his tone and manner! I am sure he is all that is good
+and generous; but the falling in love is no doubt a national failing."
+
+She remembered the impertinent advances of divers unknown foreigners whom
+she had encountered on pier or _digue_, kursaal or beach, in the
+frequently unprotected hours of her continental wanderings.
+
+She had not seen the best side of the foreign mind in her character of
+unattended and doubtfully attired English demoiselle. She knew that
+Gustave Lenoble was of a very different stamp from those specimens of the
+genus tiger whose impertinent admiration had often wounded and distressed
+her; but she was inclined to attribute the fault of shallowness to a
+nature so frank and buoyant as that of her father's friend.
+
+She walked from Bayswater to Chelsea on the appointed Thursday, for the
+cost of frequent journeys in cabs was more than her purse could supply.
+The walk across the Park was pleasant even in the bleak March weather,
+and she entered the little parlour in Omega Street with the bloom of
+damask roses upon her cheeks.
+
+"How do you do, papa dear?" she began, as she came into the dusky room;
+but the figure sitting in her father's accustomed place was not that of
+her father. It was M. Lenoble, who rose to welcome her.
+
+"Is papa worse?" she asked, surprised by the Captain's absence.
+
+"On the contrary, he is better, and has gone out in a hired carriage for
+a breath of fresh air. I persuaded him to go. He will be back very
+shortly."
+
+"I wrote to tell him I should be here to-day, but I am very glad he has
+gone out, for I am sure the air will do him good. Was he well wrapped up,
+do you know, M. Lenoble?"
+
+"Enveloped in railway-rugs and shawls to his very nose. I arranged all
+that with my own hands. He looked like an ambassador from all the
+Russias."
+
+"How kind of you to think of such things!" said Diana gratefully.
+
+"And tell me why should I not think of such things? Do you imagine that
+it is not a pleasure to me to wait upon your father--for your sake?"
+
+There was some amount of awkwardness in this kind of thing. Diana busied
+herself with the removal of her hat and jacket, which she laid neatly
+upon a stony-hearted horsehair sofa. After doing this she placed herself
+near the window, whence she contemplated the dusky street, appearing much
+interested in the movements of the lamp lighter.
+
+"What an admirable way they have of lighting the lamps now," she
+remarked, with the conversational brilliance which usually marks this
+kind of situation; "how much more convenient it must be than the old
+method with the ladder, you know!"
+
+"Yes, I have no doubt," said Gustave, bringing himself to her side with a
+couple of steps, and planting himself deliberately in a chair next to
+hers; "but don't you think, as I start for Normandy to-morrow, we might
+talk of something more interesting than the lamplighter, Miss Paget?"
+
+"I am ready to talk of anything you like," replied Miss Paget, with that
+charming assumption of unconsciousness which every woman can command on
+these occasions.
+
+"You are very good. Do you know that when I persuaded your father to go
+out for an airing, I was prompted by a motive so selfish as to render the
+proceeding quite diabolical? Don't be alarmed! The doctor gave his
+permission for the airing, or I should not have attempted such a thing.
+Hypocrisy I am capable of, but not assassination. You cannot imagine the
+diplomacy which I exhibited; and all to what end? Can you imagine that?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"That I might secure one half-hour's uninterrupted talk with you; and,
+unhappily, you are so late that I expect your father's return every
+minute. He was to be back again before dusk, and the appearance of the
+lamplighter demonstrates that the dusk has come. I have so much to say,
+and so little time to say it; so much, Diane--"
+
+She started as he called her thus, as if in that moment of surprise she
+would have risen from her chair by his side. She knew what was coming,
+and having expected nothing so desperate, knew not how to arrest the
+confession that she would fain have avoided hearing. M. Lenoble laid his
+hand firmly on hers.
+
+"So much, Diane; and yet so little, that all can be told in three words.
+I love you."
+
+"M. Lenoble!"
+
+"Ah, you are surprised, you wonder, you look at me with eyes of sweet
+amazement! Dear angel, do you think it is possible to see you and not to
+love you? To see you once is to respect, to admire, to bow the knee
+before beauty and goodness; but to see you many times, as I have done,
+the patient consoler of an invalid and somewhat difficult father--ah, my
+sweet love, who is there so hard amongst mankind that he should escape
+from loving you, seeing all that?"
+
+The question had a significance that the speaker knew not. Who amongst
+mankind? Why, was there not one man for whom she would have been content
+to be the veriest slave that ever abnegated every personal delight for
+the love of a hard master? And he had passed her by, indifferent,
+unseeing. She had worshipped him on her knees, as it seemed to her; and
+he had left her kneeling in the dust, while he went on to offer himself,
+heart and soul, at another shrine.
+
+She could not forget these things. The memory and the bitterness of them
+came back with renewed poignancy at this moment, when the voice of a
+stranger told her she was beloved.
+
+"My dear one, will you not answer me?" pleaded Gustave, in nowise alarmed
+by Diana's silence, which seemed to him only the natural expression of a
+maidenly emotion. "Tell me that you will give me measure for measure;
+that you will love me as my mother loved my father--with a love that
+trouble and poverty could never lessen; with a love that was strongest
+when fate was darkest--a star which the dreary night of sorrow could not
+obscure. I am ten years older than you by my baptismal register, Diane;
+but my heart is young. I never knew what love was until I knew you. And
+yet those who know me best will tell you that I was no unkind husband,
+and that my poor wife and I lived happily. I shall never know love again,
+except for you. The hour comes, I suppose, in every man's life; and the
+angel of his life comes in that appointed hour. Mine came when I saw you.
+I have spoken to your father, and have his warm approval. He was all
+encouragement, and hinted that I might be assured of your love. Had he
+sufficient justification for that half-promise, Diane?"
+
+"He had none," Miss Paget answered gravely, "none except his own wishes.
+You have made me hear more than I wished to hear, M. Lenoble, for the
+treasure you offer me is one that I cannot accept. With all my heart I
+thank you for the love you tell me of. Even if it is, as I can but think
+it, a passing fancy, I thank you, nevertheless. It is sweet to win the
+love of a good man. I pray you to believe that with all my heart and mind
+I honour your generous nature, your noble sympathy with the weak and
+friendless. If you can give me your friendship, you shall find how I can
+value a good man's regard, but I cannot accept your love."
+
+"Why not?" asked Gustave, aghast.
+
+"Because I cannot give you measure for measure, and I will not give you
+less."
+
+"But in time, Diane, in time?"
+
+"Time cannot show me your character in a nobler light than that in which
+I see it now. You do not lack the power to win a woman's heart, but I
+have no heart to give. If you will be my friend, time will increase my
+affection for you--but time cannot restore the dead."
+
+"Which means that your heart is dead, Diane?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, with unutterable sadness.
+
+"You love some one younger, happier than I?"
+
+"No, M. Lenoble, no one."
+
+"But you have loved? Yes!--a scoundrel, perhaps; a villain, who--"
+
+A spasm of pain contracted his face as he looked at the girl's drooping
+head; her face, in that dim light, he could not see.
+
+"Tell me this, Diane," he said presently, in an altered voice; "there is
+no barrier between us--no irrevocable obstacle that must part us for
+ever? There is no one who can claim you by any right--" He paused; and
+then added, in a lower voice, "by any wrong?"
+
+"No one," answered Miss Paget, lifting her head, and looking her lover
+full in the face. Even in that uncertain light he could see the proud
+steady gaze that seemed the fittest answer of all doubts.
+
+"Thank God!" he whispered. "Ah, how could I fear, even for one moment,
+that you could be anything but what you seem--the purest among the pure?
+Why, then, do you reject me? You do not love me, but you ask my
+friendship; you offer me your friendship, even your affection. Ah,
+believe me, if those are but real, time will ripen them into love. Your
+heart is dead. Ah, why should that young heart be dead? It is not dead,
+Diane; it needs but the fire of true love to warm it into life again. Why
+should you reject me, since you tell me that you love me; unless you love
+another? What should divide us?"
+
+"Shadows and memories," Diana replied mournfully,--"vague and foolish;
+wicked, perhaps; but they come between you and me, M. Lenoble. And since
+I cannot give you a whole heart, I will give you nothing."
+
+"You have loved some one, some one who did not value your love? Tell me
+the truth, Diane; you owe me at least as much as that."
+
+"I do owe you the truth. Yes; I have been very foolish. For two or three
+years of my life there was a person who was our daily companion. He
+travelled with us--with my father and me; and we saw many changes and
+troubles together. For a long time he was like my brother; and I doubt if
+many brothers are as kind to their sisters as he was to me. In his heart
+that feeling never changed. He was always equally kind, equally careless.
+Once I deluded myself with the fancy that in his looks and tones, and
+even in his words, there was some deeper feeling than this careless
+brotherly kindness; but it was no more than a delusion. My eyes were
+opened rudely enough. I saw his heart bestowed elsewhere. Do not think
+that I am so weak, or so wicked, as to abandon myself to despair because
+I have been awakened from my foolish dream. I can look the realities of
+life in the face, M. Lenoble; and I have taught myself to wish all good
+things for the dear girl who has won the heart that I once thought was
+mine. The person I am speaking of can boast no superior graces of mind or
+person. He is only a very commonplace young man, with a certain amount of
+talent, a disposition inclined to good rather than to evil. But he was
+the companion of my girlhood; and in losing him it seems to me as if I
+had lost a part of my youth itself."
+
+To Diana's mind this seemed the end of the discussion. She expected M.
+Lenoble to bow his head to the inevitable, to utter a friendly farewell,
+and depart for his Norman home, convinced, if not satisfied. But the
+light-hearted, easy-tempered Gustave was not a lover of the despairing
+order, nor an easily answered suppliant.
+
+"And that is all!" he exclaimed, in the cheeriest tone. "A companion of
+your girlhood, for whom you had a girl's romantic fancy! And the memory
+of this unspeakable idiot--great Heaven! but how idiotic must this wretch
+have been, to be loved by you, and not even to know it!--the memory of
+this last of the last is to come between you and me, and divide us for
+ever? The phantom of this miserable, who could be loved by an angel
+without knowing it, is to lift its phantasmal hand and thrust me
+aside--me, Gustave Lenoble, a man, and not an idiot? Ah, thus we blow him
+to the uttermost end of the world!" cried M. Lenoble, blowing an
+imaginary rival from the tips of his fingers. "Thus we dismiss him to the
+Arctic regions, the torrid zone--to the Caucasus, where await vultures to
+gnaw his liver--wherever earth is most remote and uncomfortable--he and
+the bread-and-butter miss whom he prefers to my Diane!"
+
+This manner of taking things was quite unexpected by Diana. It was much
+more pleasant than gloomy despair or sullen resentment; but it was, at
+the same time, much more difficult to deal with.
+
+"He is gone!" cried Gustave presently; "he is on the topmost heights of
+Caucasus, and the vultures are sharpening their beaks! And now, tell me,
+Diane--you will be my wife, will you not? You will be a mother to my
+children? You will transform the old chateau of Cotenoir into a pleasant
+home? You will cease to live amongst strangers? You will come to those
+who will love and cherish you as their own, their dearest and best and
+brightest? You will give your poor old father a corner by your fireside?
+He is old and needs a home for his last years. For his sake, Diane, for
+mine, for my children, let your answer be yes! Ah, not so fast!" he
+cried, as she was about to speak. "Why are you so quick to pronounce your
+fatal judgment? Think how much depends on your reply--your father's
+happiness, my children's, mine!"
+
+"It is of yours only I must think," Miss Paget answered earnestly. "You
+fancy it is so easy for me to say no. Believe me, it would be much easier
+to say yes. When you speak of my father's declining years, I, who know
+his weary life so well, would be hard of heart indeed if I were not
+tempted by the haven you offer. Every word that you say gives me some new
+proof of your goodness, your generosity. But I will not wrong you because
+you are generous. I shall always be your grateful friend, but you must
+seek elsewhere for a wife, M. Lenoble. You will have little difficulty in
+finding one worthier than I."
+
+"I will seek nowhere else for a wife; I will have no wife but you. I have
+had a wife of other people's choosing; I will choose one for myself this
+time. Let us be friends, Diane, since your decision is as irrevocable as
+the laws of Draco. You are stone, you are adamant; but no matter, we can
+be friends. Your father will be disappointed. But what then? He is no
+doubt accustomed to disappointments. My daughters--for them it is a
+profound affliction to be motherless, but they must support it. Cotenoir
+must go to wreck and ruin a little longer--a few more rats behind the
+panelling, a few more moths in the tapestry, that is all. My children
+say, 'Papa, our home is not comfortable; all is upside-down;' and I
+reply. 'But what will you, my children? A home without a wife is always
+upside down.' And then I take them between my arms, in weeping. It is a
+poignant picture to rend the heart. But what does it matter, Miss Paget?
+What is that verse of your grand Will?--
+
+Blow, blow, thou wintry wind;
+And let go weep the stricken land,
+While harts ungalled go play.
+
+Perhaps I have mixed him up somehow; but the meaning is clear."
+
+A hollow-sounding and somewhat awful cough heralded the approach of
+Captain Paget, who entered the room at this juncture. If the Captain had
+prolonged his first airing, after six weeks' confinement to the house,
+until this late period of the afternoon, he would have committed an
+imprudence which might have cost him dearly. Happily, he had done nothing
+of the kind, but had re-entered the house unobserved, while Diana and
+Gustave were conversing close to the window, having preferred to leave
+his fly at the end of the street, rather than to incur the hazard of
+interrupting a critical tete-a-tete. The interval that had elapsed since
+his return had been spent by the Captain in his own bedchamber, and in
+the immediate neighbourhood of the folding-doors between that apartment
+and the parlour. What he had heard had been by no means satisfactory to
+him; and if a look could annihilate, Miss Paget might have perished
+beneath the Parthian glance which her father shot at her as he came
+towards the window, with a stereotyped smile upon his lips and
+unspeakable anger in his heart.
+
+He had heard just enough of the conversation to know that Gustave had
+been rejected--Gustave, with Cotenoir and a handsome independence in the
+present, and the late John Haygarth's fortune in the future. Rejected by
+a penniless young woman, who at any moment might find herself without a
+roof to shelter her from the winds of heaven! Was ever folly, madness,
+wickedness supreme as this?
+
+Horatio trembled with rage as he took his daughter's hand. She had the
+insolence to extend her hand for the customary salutation. The Captain's
+greeting was a grip that made her wince.
+
+"Good-night, Miss Paget," said Gustave gravely, but with by no means the
+despondent tone of a hopeless lover; "I--well, I shall see you again,
+perhaps, before I go to Normandy. I doubt if I shall go to-morrow. I
+have my own reasons for staying--unreasonable reasons, perhaps, but I
+shall stay."
+
+All this was said in a tone too low to reach Captain Paget's ear.
+
+"Are you going to leave us, Lenoble?" he asked in a quavering voice. "You
+will not stop and let Di give you a cup of tea as usual?"
+
+"Not to-night, Captain. Good-bye."
+
+He wrung the old man's hand and departed. Captain Paget dropped heavily
+into a chair, and for some minutes there was silence. Diana was the
+first to speak.
+
+"I am glad your doctor considered you well enough to go out for a drive,
+papa," she said.
+
+"Indeed, my dear," answered her father with a groan; "I hope my next
+drive may be in a different kind of vehicle--the last journey I shall
+ever take, until they cart away my bones for manure. I believe they do
+make manure from the bones of paupers in our utilitarian age."
+
+"Papa, how can you talk so horribly! You are better, are you not? M.
+Lenoble said you were better."
+
+"Yes, I am better, God help me!" answered the old man, too weak alike in
+mind and body to hide the passion that possessed, him. "That is one of
+the contradictions of the long farce we call life. If I had been a rich
+man, with a circle of anxious relations and all the noted men of Savile
+Row dancing attendance round my bed, I dare say I should have died; but
+as I happen to be a penniless castaway, with only a lodging-house drudge
+and a half-starved apothecary to take care of me, and with nothing before
+me but a workhouse, I live. It is all very well for a man to take things
+easily when he is ill and helpless, too weak even to think. _That_ is not
+the trying time. The real trial arrives when a little strength comes back
+to him, and his landlady begins to worry him for her rent, and the
+lodging-house drudge gets tired of pitying him, and the apothecary sends
+in his bill, and the wretched high-road lies bare and broad before him,
+and he hears the old order to move on. The moving-on time has come for
+me, Di; and the Lord alone knows how little I know where I am to go."
+
+"Papa, you are not friendless; even I can give you a little help."
+
+"Yes," answered the Captain with a bitter laugh; "a sovereign once a
+quarter--the scrapings of your pittance! That help won't save me from
+the workhouse."
+
+"There is M. Lenoble."
+
+"Yes, there is M. Lenoble; the man who would have given me a home for my
+old age: he told me so to-day--a home fit for a gentleman--for the
+position he now occupies is nothing compared to that which he may occupy
+a year hence. He would have received me as his father-in-law, without
+thought or question of my antecedents; and if I have not lived like a
+gentleman, I might have died like one. This is what he would have done
+for me. But do you think I can ask anything of him now, after you have
+refused him? I know of your refusal to be that man's wife. I heard--I saw
+it in his face. You--a beggar, a friendless wretch, dependent on the
+patronage of a stockbroker's silly wife--_you_ must needs give yourself
+grand airs, and refuse such a man as that! Do you think such men go
+begging among young ladies like you, or that they run about the streets,
+like the roast pigs in the story, begad, with knives and forks in their
+backs, asking to be eaten?"
+
+The Captain was walking up and down the room in a fever of rage. Diana
+looked at him with sad wondering eyes. Yes, it was the old selfish
+nature. The leopard cannot change his spots; and the Horatio Paget of the
+present was the Horatio Paget of the past.
+
+"Pray don't be angry with me, papa," said Diana sorrowfully; "I believe
+that I have done my duty."
+
+"Done your fiddlesticks!" cried the Captain, too angry to be careful of
+his diction. "Your duty to whom? Did you happen to remember, miss, that
+you owe some duty to me, your father, but for whom you wouldn't be
+standing there talking of duty like a tragedy queen? By Jove! I suppose
+you are too grand a person to consider my trouble in this matter; the
+pains I took to get Lenoble over to England; the way I made the most of
+my gout even, in order to have you about me; the way I finessed and
+diplomatized to bring this affair to a successful issue. And now, when I
+have succeeded beyond my hopes, you spoil everything, and then dare to
+stand before me and preach about duty. What do you want in a husband, I
+should like to know? A rich man? Lenoble is that. A handsome man? Lenoble
+is that. A gentleman, with good blood in his veins? Lenoble comes of as
+pure a race as any man in that part of France. A good man? Lenoble is one
+of the best fellows upon this earth. What is it, then, that you want?"
+
+"I want to give my heart to the man who gives me his."
+
+"And what, in the name of all that's preposterous, is to prevent you
+giving Gustave Lenoble your heart?"
+
+"I cannot tell you."
+
+"No, nor any one else. But let us have no more of this nonsense. If you
+call yourself a daughter of mine, you will marry Gustave Lenoble. If
+not--"
+
+The Captain found himself brought to a sudden stop in his unconscious
+paraphrase of Signor Capulet's menace to his recalcitrant daughter,
+Juliet. With what threat could the noble Horatio terrify his daughter to
+obedience? Before you talk of turning your rebellious child out of doors,
+you must provide a home from which to cast her. Captain Paget remembered
+this, and was for the moment reduced to sudden and ignominious silence.
+And yet there must surely be some way of bringing this besotted young
+woman to reason.
+
+He sat for some minutes in silence, with his head leaning on his hand,
+his face hidden from Diana. This silence, this attitude, so expressive of
+utter despondency, touched her more keenly than his anger. She knew that
+he was mean and selfish, that it was of his own loss he thought; and yet
+she pitied him. He was old and helpless and miserable; so much the more
+pitiable because of his selfishness and meanness. For the heroic soul
+there is always some comfort; but for the grovelling nature suffering
+knows no counterbalance. The ills that flesh is heir to seem utterly
+bitter when there is no grand spirit to dominate the flesh, and soar
+triumphant above the regions of earthly pain. Captain Paget's mind, to
+him, was not a kingdom. He could not look declining years of poverty in
+the face; he was tired of work. The schemes and trickeries of his life
+were becoming very odious to him; they were for the most part worn out,
+and had ceased to pay. Of course he had great hopes, in any event, from
+Gustave Lenoble; but those hopes were dependent on Gustave's inheritance
+of John Haygarth's estate. He wanted something more tangible than
+this--he wanted immediate security; and his daughter's marriage with
+Gustave would have given him that security, and still grander hopes for
+the future. He had fancied himself reigning over the vassals of Cotenoir,
+a far more important personage than the real master of that chateau. He
+had pictured to himself a _pied-a-terre_ in Paris which it might be
+agreeable for him to secure, for existence in Normandy might occasionally
+prove _canuyeux_. These things were what he meant when he talked of a
+haven for his declining years; and against the daughter who, for some
+caprice of her own, could hinder his possession of these things, he had
+no feeling but anger.
+
+Diana compassionated this weak old man, to whose lips the cup of
+prosperity had seemed so near, from whose lips her hand had thrust it.
+He had been promised a home, comfort, respectability, friendship--"all
+that should accompany old age"--and she had prevented the fulfilment of
+the promise. Heaven knows how pure her motives had been; but as she
+watched that drooping head, with its silvered hair, she felt that she
+had been cruel.
+
+"Papa," she began presently, laying her hand caressingly upon her
+father's neck; but he pushed aside the timid, caressing hand--"papa, you
+think me very unkind, only because I have done what I believe to be
+right; indeed it is so, papa dear. In what I said to Gustave Lenoble this
+evening, I was governed only by my sense of right."
+
+"Indeed!" cried the Captain, with a strident laugh; "and where did you
+pick up your sense of right, madam, I should like to know? From what
+Methodist parson's hypocritical twaddle have you learnt to lay down the
+law to your poor old father about the sense of right? 'Honour your father
+and your mother, that your days may be long in the land,' miss, _that's_
+what your Bible teaches you; but the Bible has gone out of fashion, I
+dare say, since I was a young man; and your model young woman of the
+present generation taunts her father with her sense of right. Will your
+sense of right be satisfied when you hear of your father rotting in the
+old-men's ward of a workhouse, or dying on the London stones?"
+
+"I am not unfeeling, papa. With all my heart I pity you; but it is cruel
+on your part to exaggerate the misery of your position, as I am sure you
+must be doing. Why should your means of living fail because I refuse to
+marry M. Lenoble? You have lived hitherto without my help, as I have
+lived of late without yours. Nothing could give me greater happiness than
+to know that you were exempt from care; and if my toil can procure you a
+peaceful home in the future--as I believe it can, or education and will
+to work must go for nothing--there shall be no lack of industry on my
+part. I will work for you, I will indeed, papa--willingly, happily."
+
+"When your work can give me such a home as Cotenoir--a home that one word
+of yours would secure for me--I will thank you."
+
+"If you will only wait, papa, if you will only have patience--"
+
+"Patience! Wait! Do you know what you are talking about? Do you prate of
+patience, and waiting, and hope in the future to a man who has no
+future--to a man whose days are numbered, and who feels the creeping
+chills of death stealing over him every day as he sits beside his
+wretched hearth, or labours through his daily drudgery? I can live as I
+have always lived! Yes; but do you know, or care to know, that with every
+day life becomes more difficult for me? Your fine friends at Bayswater
+have done with me. I have spent the last sixpence I shall ever see from
+Philip Sheldon. Hawkehurst has cut me, like the ungrateful hound he is.
+When they have squeezed the orange, they throw away the rind. Didn't
+Voltaire say that, when Frederick of Prussia gave him the go-by? Heaven
+knows it's true enough; and now you, who by a word might secure yourself
+a splendid position--yes, I say splendid for a poor drudge and dependent
+like you, and insure a home for me--you, forsooth, must needs favour me
+with your high-flown sentiments about your sense of right, and promise me
+a home in the future, if I will wait and hope! No, Diana, waiting and
+hoping are done with for me, and I can find a home in the bed of the
+river without your help."
+
+"You would not be so wicked as to do that!" cried Diana, aghast.
+
+"I don't know about the wickedness of the act. But, rely upon it, when my
+choice lies between the workhouse and the river, I shall prefer the
+river. The modern workhouse is no inviting sanctuary, and I dare say many
+a homeless wretch makes the same choice."
+
+For some minutes there was silence. Diana stood with her elbows resting
+on the chimneypiece, her face covered with her hands.
+
+"O Lord, teach me to do the thing which is right!" she prayed, and in the
+next breath acted on the impulse of the moment.
+
+"What would you have me do?" she asked.
+
+"What any one but an idiot would do of her own accord--accept the good
+fortune that has dropped into your lap. Do you think such luck as yours
+goes begging every day?"
+
+"You would have me accept Gustave Lenoble's offer, no matter what
+falsehoods may be involved in my acceptance of it?"
+
+"I can see no reason for falsehood. Any one but an idiot would honour
+such a man; any one but an idiot would thank Providence for such good
+fortune."
+
+"Very well, papa," exclaimed Diana, with a laugh that had no mirthful
+music, "I will not be the exceptional idiot. If M. Lenoble does me the
+honour to repeat his offer--and I think from his manner he means to do
+so--I will accept it."
+
+"He shall repeat it!" cried the Captain, throwing off his assumption of
+the tragic father. The Oedipus Coloneus, the Lear--the venerable victim
+of winter winds and men's ingratitude--was transformed in a moment into
+an elderly Jeremy Diddler, lined with Lord Foppington. "He shall repeat
+it; I will have him at your feet to-morrow. Yes, Di, my love, I pledge
+myself to bring that about, without compromise to your maidenly pride or
+the dignity of a Paget. My dear child, I ought to have known that
+reflection would show you where your duty lies. I fear I have been
+somewhat harsh, but you must forgive me, Di; I have set my heart on this
+match, for your happiness as well as my own. I could not stand the
+disappointment; though I admired, and still admire, the high feeling,
+and all that kind of thing, which prompted your refusal. A school-girlish
+sentimentality, child, but with something noble in it; not the
+sentimentality of a vulgar schoolgirl. The blue blood will show itself,
+my love; and now--no, no, don't cry. You will live to thank me for
+to-night's work; yes, my child, to thank me, when you look round your
+comfortable home by-and-by--when my poor old bones are mouldering in
+their unpretending sepulchre--and say to yourself, 'I have my father to
+thank for this. Adverse circumstances forbade his doing his duty as
+happier fathers are allowed the privilege of doing theirs, but it was his
+forethought, his ever-watchful care, which secured me an admirable
+husband and a happy home.' Mark my words, the time will come when you
+will say this, my dear."
+
+"I will try to think of you always kindly, papa," Miss Paget answered in
+a low sad voice; "and if my marriage can secure your happiness and
+Gustave Lenoble's, I am content. I only fear to take too much, and give
+too little."
+
+"My love, you must certainly be the lineal descendant of Don Quixote. Too
+much, and too little, forsooth! Let Lenoble find a handsomer woman, or a
+more elegant woman, by gad, elsewhere! Such a woman as a duke might be
+proud to make his duchess, by Jove! There shall be no sense of obligation
+on our side, my love. Gustave Lenoble shall be made to feel that he gets
+change for his shilling. Kiss me, child, and tell me you forgive me for
+being a little rough with you, just now."
+
+"Forgive you?--yes, papa. I dare say you are wiser than I. Why should I
+refuse M. Lenoble? He is good and kind, and will give us a happy home?
+What more can I want? Do I want to be like Charlotte, to whom life seems
+all poetry and brightness?"
+
+"And who is going to throw herself away upon a penny-a-liner, by Jove!"
+interjected the Captain.
+
+"Can I hope to be like that girl, with her happy ignorance of life, her
+boundless love and trust! O, no, no, papa; those things are not for me."
+
+She laid her head upon her father's breast, and sobbed like a child. This
+was her second farewell to the man she had loved, the dreams she had
+dreamed. The Captain comforted her with a paternal embrace, but was as
+powerless to comprehend her emotion as if he had found himself suddenly
+called upon to console the sorrows of a Japanese widow.
+
+"Hysterical," he murmured. "These noble natures are subject to that kind
+of thing. And now, my love," he continued, in a more business-like tone,
+"let us talk seriously. I think it would be very advisable for you to
+leave Bayswater, and take up your abode in these humble lodgings with me
+immediately."
+
+"Why, papa?"
+
+"The reason is sufficiently obvious, my love. It is not right that you
+should continue to eat the bread of dependence. As the future wife of
+Gustave Lenoble--and in this case, the word future means immediately--"
+
+"Papa," cried Diana suddenly, "you will not hurry me into this marriage?
+I have consented for your sake. You will not be so ungenerous as to--"
+
+"As to hurry you? No, my dear, of course not. There shall be no indecent
+haste. Your wishes, your delicate and disinterested motives, shall be
+consulted before all things; yes, my love," cried the Captain, sorely
+afraid of some wavering on the part of his daughter, and painfully
+anxious to conciliate her, "all shall be in accordance with your wishes.
+But I must urge your immediate removal from Bayswater; first, because M.
+Lenoble will naturally wish to see you oftener than he can while you are
+residing with people whose acquaintance I do not want him to make; and
+secondly, because you have no further need of Mrs. Sheldon's patronage."
+
+"It has been kindness, affection, papa--never patronage. I could not
+leave Mrs. Sheldon or Charlotte abruptly or ungraciously, upon any
+consideration. They gave me a home when I most bitterly needed one.
+They took me away from the dull round of schoolroom drudgery, that was
+fast changing me into a hard hopeless joyless automaton. My first duty
+is to them."
+
+The Captain's angry sniff alone expressed the indignation which this
+impious remark inspired.
+
+"My next shall be to you and M. Lenoble. Let me give Mrs. Sheldon due
+notice of the change in our plans."
+
+"What do you call due notice?" asked Horatio, peevishly.
+
+"A quarter's notice."
+
+"O, indeed! Then for three months you are to dance attendance upon Mrs.
+Sheldon, while M. Lenoble is waiting to make you his wife."
+
+"I must consult the wishes of my friends, papa."
+
+"Very well, my dear," replied the Captain, with a sigh that was next of
+kin to a groan; "you must please yourself and your friends, I suppose;
+your poor old father is a secondary consideration." And then, timeously
+mindful of the skirmish he had just had with his daughter, Captain Paget
+made haste to assure her of his regard and submission.
+
+"All shall be as you please, my love," he murmured. "There, go into my
+room, and smooth your hair, and bathe your eyes, while I ring for the
+tea."
+
+Diana obeyed. She found eau-de-cologne and the most delicate of Turkey
+sponges on her father's wash-handstand; jockey-club, and ivory-backed
+brushes, somewhat yellow with age, but bearing crest and monogram, on his
+dressing-table. The workhouse did not seem quite so near at hand as the
+Captain had implied; but with these sanguine people it is but a step from
+disappointment to despair.
+
+"What am I to tell Mrs. Sheldon, papa?" she asked, when she was pouring
+out her father's tea.
+
+"Well, I think you had better say nothing, except that my circumstances
+have somewhat improved, and that my failing health requires your care."
+
+"I hate secrets, papa."
+
+"So do I, my dear; but half-confidences are more disagreeable than
+secrets."
+
+Diana submitted. She secretly reserved to herself the right to tell
+Charlotte anything she pleased. From that dear adopted sister she would
+hide nothing.
+
+"If M. Lenoble should repeat his offer, and I should accept it, I will
+tell her all," she thought. "It will make that dear girl happy to know
+that there is some one who loves me, besides herself."
+
+And then she thought of the strange difference of fate that gave to
+this Charlotte Halliday, with her rich stepfather and comfortable
+surroundings, a penniless soldier of fortune for a lover, while to her,
+the spendthrift adventurer's daughter, came a wealthy suitor.
+
+"Will hers be the dinner of herbs, and mine the stalled ox?" she thought.
+"Ah, Heaven forbid! Why is it so difficult to love wisely, so easy to
+love too well?"
+
+She remembered the cynical French proverb, "When we can not have what
+we love, we must love what we have." But the cynical proverb brought her
+no comfort.
+
+She went back to Bayswater with a strange bewildered feeling; after
+having promised her father to go to Omega Street whenever he sent for
+her. There was no actual pain in her mind, no passionate desire to recall
+her promise, no dread horror of the step to which she had pledged
+herself. The feeling that oppressed her was the sense that such a step
+should have been the spontaneous election of her grateful heart, proud of
+a good man's preference, instead of a weak submission to a father's
+helplessness.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Fifth.
+
+
+
+THE FIRST ACT OF MR. SHELDON'S DRAMA.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+TAKEN BY STORM.
+
+Two days after her interview with Gustave Lenoble, Miss Paget received a
+brief note from her father, summoning her again to Omega Street.
+
+"He has not gone back to Normandy," wrote the Captain.
+
+"My child, he positively worships the ground you walk upon. Ah, my love,
+_it is something to have a father_! I need scarcely tell you that his
+first idea of your excellence was inspired by those glowing descriptions
+of your goodness, your beauty, your heroism, which I favoured him with,
+_en passant_, during our conversations at Cotenoir, where the happy
+accident of a business transaction first introduced me to him. The
+interests of my only child have ever been near and dear to me; and where
+a duller man would have perceived only a wealthy stranger, my paternal
+instincts recognized at a glance the predestined husband of my daughter.
+It needed my wide experience of life--and, as I venture to believe, my
+subtle knowledge of the human heart--to understand that a man who had
+lived for five-and-thirty years buried alive in a French province--a
+charming place, my love, and for your refined taste replete with
+interest--never seeing a mortal except his immediate neighbours, would be
+the man of men to fall in love with the first attractive young woman he
+met among strangers. Come to me this afternoon without fail, and come
+early.--Yours,
+
+"H.N.C.P."
+
+Diana obeyed this summons submissively, but still troubled by that
+strange sense of bewilderment which had affected her since her stormy
+interview with Captain Paget. She was not quite certain of herself. The
+old dreams--the sweet foolish girlish fancies--were not yet put away
+altogether from her mind; but she knew that they were foolish, and she
+was half-inclined to believe that there had been some wisdom in her
+father's scorn.
+
+"What do I want more?" she asked herself. "He is good and brave and true,
+and he loves me. If I were a princess, my marriage would be negotiated
+for me by other people, and I should have reason to consider myself very
+happy if the man whom the state selected for my husband should prove as
+good a man as Gustave Lenoble. And he loves me; me, who have never before
+had power over a man's heart!"
+
+She walked across Hyde Park on this occasion, as on the last; and her
+thoughts, though always confused--mere rags and scraps of thought--were
+not all unpleasant. There was a smile, half shy, half tender, on her face
+as she went into the little sitting-room where Gustave was waiting for
+her. She had seen his hat and overcoat in the passage, and knew that he
+was there waiting for her. To this poor desolate soul there was something
+sweet in the idea of being waited for.
+
+As she stood but a little within the doorway, blushing, almost trembling
+with the sense of her changed position, her lover came across the room
+and took her in his arms. The strong brave arms held her to his breast;
+and in that one embrace he took her to his heart, and made her his own
+for ever.
+
+In every story of life-long affection, there is one moment in which the
+bond is sealed. Diana looked up at the frank tender face, and felt that
+she had found her conqueror. Master, friend, protector, husband, adoring
+and devoted lover, gallant and fearless champion--he was all; and she
+divined his power and his worth as she glanced shyly upward, ashamed to
+be so lightly won.
+
+"M. Lenoble," she faltered, trying to withdraw herself from the strong
+encircling arm that held her, as if by right.
+
+"Gustave, now and for ever, my Diane! There shall be no more Monsieur
+Lenoble. And in a few weeks it shall be 'my husband.' Your father has
+given me to you. He tells me to laugh at your refusals your scruples; to
+assail you like your Shakespeare's Petruchio assails his Katherine--with
+audacious insolence that will not be denied. And I shall take his advice.
+Look up into my face, dear angel, and defy me to take his advice."
+
+Happily the dear angel looked only downwards. But M Lenoble was resolved
+to have an agreeable response.
+
+"See, then, thou canst not defy me!" he cried, in the only language he
+spoke; and the "_tu_" for the first time sounded very tender, very sweet.
+"Thou canst not tell me thou art angry with me. And the other--the
+imbecile;--he is gone for ever, is he not? Ah, say yes!"
+
+"Yes, he is gone," said Diana, almost in a whisper.
+
+"Is he quite gone? The door of thine heart locked against him, his
+luggage thrown out of the window?"
+
+"He is gone!" she murmured softly. "He could not hold his place against
+you--you are so strong--so brave; and he was only a shadow. Yes, he is
+gone."
+
+She said this with a little sigh of relief. It was in all sincerity that
+she answered her suitor's question. She felt that a crisis had come in
+her life--the first page of a new volume; and the old sad tear-blotted
+book might be cast away.
+
+"Dear angel, wilt thou ever learn to love me?" asked Gustave, in a
+half-whisper, bending down his bearded face till his lips almost touched
+her cheek.
+
+"It is impossible not to love you," she answered softly. And indeed it
+seemed to her as if this chivalrous Gaul was a creature to command the
+love of women, the fear of men; an Achilles _en frac_; a Bayard without
+his coat of mail; Don Quixote in his youth, generous, brave,
+compassionate, tender, and with a brain not as yet distempered by the
+reading of silly romances.
+
+Captain Paget emerged from his den as the little love scene ended. He
+affected a gentlemanly unconsciousness of the poetry involved in the
+situation, was pleasantly anxious about the tea-tray, the candles, and
+minor details of life; and thus afforded the lovers ample time in which
+to recover their composure. The Frenchman was in no wise discomposed; he
+was only abnormally gay, with a little air of triumph that was not
+unpleasing. Diana was pale; but there was an unwonted light in her eyes,
+and she had by no means the appearance of a victim newly offered on the
+sacrificial altar of filial duty. In sober truth, Miss Paget was happier
+to-night than she had been for a long time. At three-and-twenty she was
+girl enough to rejoice in the knowledge that she was truly loved, and
+woman enough to value the sense of peace involved in the security of a
+prosperous future.
+
+If she was grateful to her lover--and the affection he had inspired in
+her heart had grown out of gratitude--it was no mercenary consideration
+as to his income or position that made her grateful. She thanked him for
+his love--that treasure which she had never expected to possess; she
+thanked him because he had taken her by the hand, and led her out of the
+ranks of lonely dependent womanhood, and seated her upon a throne, on the
+steps whereof he was content to kneel. Whether the throne were a rushen
+chair in some rustic cottage, or a gilded _fauteuil_ in a palace, she
+cared very little. It was the subject's devotion that was new and sweet
+to her.
+
+She went to Charlotte's room that night, when Mr. Sheldon's small
+household was at rest; as she had gone on Christmas Eve to renounce her
+lover and to bless her rival. This time it was a new confession she went
+to make, and a confession that involved some shame. There is nothing so
+hard to confess as inconstancy; and every woman is not so philosophic as
+Rahel Varnhagen, who declared that to be constant was not always to love
+the same person, but always to love some one.
+
+Miss Paget seated herself at Charlotte's feet, as she had done on that
+previous occasion. The weather was still cold enough to make a fire very
+pleasant, though it was more than two months since the Christmas bells
+had rung out upon the frosty air. Diana sat on a low hassock, playing
+with the tassels of her friend's dressing-gown, anxious to make her
+confession, and solely at a loss for words in which to shape so
+humiliating an avowal.
+
+"Charlotte," she began abruptly at last, "have you any idea when you and
+Valentine are to be married?"
+
+Miss Halliday gave a little cry of surprise.
+
+"Why, of course not, Di! How can you ask such a question? Our marriage
+is what uncle George calls a remote contingency. We are not to be married
+for ages--not until Valentine has obtained a secure position in
+literature, and an income that seems almost impossible. That was the
+special condition upon which Mr. Sheldon--papa--gave his consent to our
+engagement. Of course it was very proper and prudent of him to think of
+these things; and as he has been very kind and liberal-minded in his
+conduct to me throughout, I should be a most ungrateful person if I
+refused to be guided by his advice."
+
+"And I suppose that means that your engagement is to be a long one?"
+
+"The longest of long engagements. And what can be happier than a long
+engagement? One gets to know and understand the man one is to marry so
+thoroughly. I think I know every turn of thought in Valentine's mind;
+every taste, every fancy; and I feel myself every day growing to think
+more and more like him. I read the books he reads, so as to be able to
+talk to him, you know; but I am not so clever as you, Di, and Valentine's
+favourite authors do sometimes seem rather dry to me. But I struggle on,
+you know; and the harder I find the struggle, the more I admire my dear
+love's cleverness. Think of him, Di--three different articles in three
+different magazines last month! The paper on Apollodorus, in the
+_Cheapside_, you know; and that story in the Charing Cross--'How I lost
+my Gingham Umbrella, and gained the Acquaintance of Mr. Gozzleton.' _So_
+funny! And the exhaustive treatise on the Sources of Light, in the
+_Scientific Saturday_. And think of the fuss they make about Homer, a
+blind old person who wrote a long rigmarole of a poem about battles, and
+wrote it so badly that to this day no one knows whether it's one complete
+poem, or a lot of odds-and-ends in the way of poetry, put together by a
+man with an unpronounceable Greek name. When I think of what Valentine
+accomplishes in comparison to Homer, and the little notice the reviewers
+take of him, except to make him low-spirited by telling him that he is
+shallow and frivolous, I begin to think that literature must be going to
+the dogs."
+
+And here Charlotte became meditative, absorbed in the contemplation of
+Mr. Hawkehurst's genius. Diana had begun the conversation very artfully,
+intending to proceed by a gentle transition from Charlotte's love affairs
+to her own; but the conversation was drifting away from the subject into
+a discussion upon literature, and the brilliant young essayist whose
+first adventurous flights seemed grand as the soaring of Theban eagle to
+this tender and admiring watcher of his skyward progress.
+
+"Lotta," said Miss Paget, after a pause, "should you be very sorry if I
+were to leave you before your marriage?"
+
+"Leave me before my marriage, Diana! Is it not arranged that you are to
+live with mamma, and be a daughter to her, when I am gone? And you will
+come and stay with Valentine and me at our cottage; and you will advise
+me about my house-keeping, and teach me how to be a sensible, useful,
+economical wife, as well as a devoted one. Leave us, Di! What have I
+done, or mamma, or Mr. Sheldon, or anybody, that you should talk of
+anything so dreadful?"
+
+"What have you done, dear girl, dear friend, dear sister? Everything to
+win my undying love and gratitude. You have changed me from a hard
+disappointed bitter-minded woman--envious, at times, even of you--into
+your loving and devoted friend. You have changed me from a miserable
+creature into a contented and hopeful one. You have taught me to forget
+that my childhood and youth were one long night of wretchedness and
+degradation. You have taught me to forgive the father who suffered my
+life to be what it was, and made no one poor effort to lift me out of the
+slough of despond to which he had sunk. I can say no more, Charlotte.
+There are things that cannot be told by words."
+
+"And you want to leave me!" said Charlotte, in accents half-wondering,
+half-reproachful.
+
+"My father wants me to leave you, Lotta; and some one else--some one whom
+you must know and like before I can be sure I like him myself."
+
+"Him!" cried Charlotte, with a faint shriek of surprise. "Diana, WHAT are
+you going to tell me?"
+
+"A secret, Lotta; something which my father has forbidden me to tell any
+one, but which I will not hide from you. My poor father has found a kind
+friend--a friend who is almost as good to him as you are to me. How
+merciful Heaven is in raising up friends for outcasts! And I have seen a
+good deal of this gentleman who is so kind to papa, and the result is
+that--chiefly for papa's sake, and because I know that he is generous and
+brave and true, I mean papa's friend, M. Lenoble--I have consented to be
+his wife."
+
+"Diana!" cried Charlotte, with a sternness of manner that was alarming in
+so gentle a creature, "it shall never be!"
+
+"What dear?"
+
+"The sacrifice! No, dear, no! I understand it all. For your cruel
+mercenary heartless designing father's sake, you are going to marry a man
+whom you can't love. You are going to offer up your poor bruised desolate
+heart on the altar of duty. Ah, dear, you can't think I forget what you
+told me only two short months ago--though I seem selfish and frivolous,
+and am always talking about _him_, and parading my happiness, as it must
+seem to you, reckless of the wounds so newly healed in your noble
+unselfish heart. But I do not altogether forget, Diana, and such a
+sacrifice as this I will not allow. I know you have resigned him to me--I
+know you have thrust him from your heart, as you told me that night. But
+the hollow aching void that is left in your lonely heart shall be sacred,
+Di. No stranger's image shall pollute it. You shall not sacrifice your
+own peace to your father's selfishness. No, dear, no! With mamma and me
+you will always have a home. You need stoop to no cruel barter such as
+this marriage."
+
+And hereupon Miss Halliday wept over and caressed her friend, as the
+confidante of Agamemnon's daughter may have wept over and caressed that
+devoted young princess after the divination of Calchas had become common
+talk in the royal household.
+
+"But if I think it my duty to accept M. Lenoble's offer, Lotta?" urged
+Miss Paget with some embarrassment of manner. "M. Lenoble is as rich as
+he is generous, and my marriage with him will secure a happy home for my
+father. The foolish dreams I told you about on Christmas Eve had faded
+from my mind before I dared to speak of them. I could only confess my
+folly when I knew that I was learning to be wise. Pray do not think that
+I am sordid or mercenary. It is not because M. Lenoble is rich that I am
+inclined to marry him, it is because--"
+
+"Because you want to throw yourself away for the advantage of your
+selfish heartless father," interjected Charlotte. "He has neglected you
+all your life, and now wants to profit by the sacrifice of your
+happiness. Be firm, Di, darling; your Charlotte will stand by you, and
+find a home for you always, come what may. Who is this M. Lenoble? Some
+horrible ugly old creature, I dare say."
+
+Miss Paget smiled and blushed. The vision of Gustave's frank handsome
+face arose before her very vividly as Charlotte said this.
+
+"No, dear," she replied. "M. Lenoble is not an old
+man--five-and-thirty at most."
+
+"Five-and-thirty!" repeated Charlotte, with a wry face; you don't call
+that young? And what is he like?"
+
+"Well, dear, I think he is the sort of man whom most people would call
+handsome. I'm sure you would like him, Lotta. He is so candid, so
+animated, so full of strength and courage. The sort of man to whom one
+would naturally look in any emergency or danger; the sort of man in whose
+company fear would be impossible."
+
+"Diana," cried Charlotte, suddenly, "you are in love with him!"
+
+"Lotta!"
+
+"Yes, dear, you are in love with him," repeated Miss Halliday, embracing
+her friend with effusion; "yes, over head and ears in love with him. And
+you are ashamed to confess the truth to me; and you are half ashamed to
+confess it even to yourself--as if you could deceive an old stager like
+me!" cried Charlotte, laughing. "Why, you dear inconstant thing, while I
+have felt myself the guiltiest and most selfish creature in the world for
+robbing you of Valentine, you have been quietly transferring your
+affections to this M. Gustave Lenoble--who is very rich, and brave, and
+true, and generous, and what most people would call handsome! Bless you,
+a thousand times, my darling! You have made me so happy!"
+
+"Indeed, Lotta!"
+
+"Yes, dear. The thought that there was a blank in your life made a dark
+cloud in mine. I know I have been very selfish, very thoughtless, but I
+could never have been quite free from a sense of self-reproach. But now
+there is nothing for me but happiness. O darling, I so long to see your
+M. Lenoble!"
+
+"You shall see him, dear."
+
+"And in the meantime tell me what he is like."
+
+Miss Halliday insisted upon a full, true, and particular account of M.
+Lenoble's personal appearance. Diana gave it, but not without some sense
+of embarrassment. She could not bring herself to be enthusiastic about
+Gustave Lenoble, though in her heart there was a warmth of feeling that
+surprised her. "What a hypocrite you are, Di!" exclaimed Charlotte
+presently. "I know you love this good Frenchman almost as dearly as I
+love Valentine, and that the thought of his affection makes you happy;
+and yet you speak of him in little measured sentences, and you won't be
+enthusiastic even about his good looks."
+
+"It is difficult to pass from dreams to realities, Lotta. I have lived so
+long among dreams, that the waking world seems strange to me."
+
+"That is only a poetical way of saying that you are ashamed of having
+changed your mind. I will tell M. Lenoble what a lukewarm creature you
+are, and how unworthy of his love!"
+
+"You shall tell him what you please. But remember, dear, my engagement
+must not be spoken about yet awhile, not even to your mamma. Papa makes a
+strong point of this, and I have promised to obey, though I am quite in
+the dark as to his reasons."
+
+Miss Halliday submitted to anything her friend wished; only entreating
+that she might be introduced to M. Lenoble. Diana promised her this
+privilege; but it speedily transpired that Diana's promise was not all
+that was wanted on this occasion.
+
+For some time past, in fact from the very commencement of Charlotte's
+engagement, Mr. Sheldon had shown himself punctilious to an exceeding
+degree with regard to his stepdaughter. The places to which she went, and
+the people with whom she consorted, appeared to be matters of supreme
+importance in his mind. When speaking of these things he gave those about
+him to understand that his ideas had been the same from the time of
+Charlotte's leaving school; but Diana knew that this was not true. Mr.
+Sheldon's theories had been much less strict, and Mr. Sheldon's practice
+had been much more careless, prior to Miss Halliday's engagement.
+
+No stately principal of a school for young ladies could have been more
+particular as to the movements of her charges--more apprehensive of
+wolf-in-sheep's-clothing in the shape of singing or drawing-master--than
+Mr. Sheldon seemed to be in these latter days. Even those pleasant walks
+in Kensington Gardens, which had been one of the regular occupations of
+the day, were now forbidden. Mr. Sheldon did not like that his daughter
+should walk in public with no better protector than Diana Paget.
+
+"There is something disreputable in two girls marching about those
+gardens together according to my ideas," said this ultra-refined
+stockbroker, one morning at the family breakfast-table. "I don't like to
+see my stepdaughter do anything I should forbid my own daughter to do.
+And if I had a daughter, I should most decidedly forbid all lonely
+rambles in Kensington Gardens. You see, Lotta, two girls as attractive
+as you and Miss Paget can't be too particular where you go, and what you
+do. When you want air and exercise, you can get both in the garden; and
+when you want change of scene, and a peep at the fashions, you can drive
+out with Mrs. Sheldon."
+
+To this deprivation Charlotte submitted, somewhat unwillingly, but with
+no sign of open rebellion. She thought her stepfather foolish and
+unreasonable; but she always bore in mind the fact that he had been kind
+and disinterested in the matter of her engagement, and she was content to
+prove her gratitude by any little sacrifice of this kind. Was not her
+lover permitted to spend his Sundays in her society, and to call on her,
+at his discretion, during the week? And what were walks in Kensington
+Gardens compared with the delight of his dear presence! It is true that
+she had sometimes been favoured with Mr. Hawkehurst's society in the
+course of her airing; but she knew that he sacrificed his hours of work
+or study for the chance of half an hour in her society; and she felt that
+there might be gain to him in her loss of liberty.
+
+She told him, when next they met, that the morning walks were forbidden;
+and, so jealous a passion is love, that Mr. Hawkehurst was nowise sorry
+to find that his pearl was strictly watched and carefully guarded.
+
+"Well, it seems very particular of Mr. Sheldon, of course," he said;
+"but, upon my word, I think he's right. Such a girl as you oughtn't to go
+about with no better protection than Diana can give you. Fellows will
+stare so at a pretty girl, you know; and I can't bear to think my pearl
+should be stared at by impertinent strangers."
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst did not, however, find the strict notions of his
+lady-love's stepfather quite so agreeable when he wanted to take his
+"pearl" to the winter exhibitions of pictures. He was told that Miss
+Halliday could go nowhere, except accompanied by her mamma; and as Georgy
+did not care about pictures, and found herself unequal to the fatigue of
+attending the winter exhibitions, he was obliged to forego the delight of
+seeing them with Lotta on his arm. He pronounced Mr. Sheldon on this
+occasion to be a narrow-minded idiot; but withdrew the remark in a
+contrite spirit when Charlotte reminded him of that gentleman's
+generosity.
+
+"Yes, dear, he has certainly been very kind and very disinterested--more
+disinterested than even you think; but, somehow, I can't make him out."
+
+It was very well for Miss Halliday that she had submitted to this novel
+restriction with as good a grace, inasmuch as Mr. Sheldon had prepared
+himself for active opposition. He had given orders to his wife, and
+further orders to Mrs. Woolper to the effect that his step-daughter
+should not be permitted to go out of doors, except in his own or her
+mother's company.
+
+"She is a very good girl, you see, Nancy," he said to the old
+housekeeper, "but she's young, and she's giddy; and of course I can't
+take upon myself to answer for Miss Paget, who may or may not be a good
+girl. She comes of a very bad stock, however; and I am bound to remember
+that. Some people think that you can't give a girl too much liberty. My
+ideas lean the other way. I think you can't take too much care of a very
+pretty girl whom you are bound by duty to protect."
+
+All this sounded very noble and very conscientious. It sounded thus even
+to Mrs. Woolper, who in her intercourse with Philip Sheldon could never
+quite divest herself of one appalling memory. That memory was the death
+of Tom Halliday, and the horrible thoughts and fears that had for a time
+possessed her mind in relation to that death. The shadow of that old
+ghastly terror sometimes came between her and Mr. Sheldon, even now,
+though she had long ago assured herself that the terror had been alike
+groundless and unreasonable.
+
+"Didn't I see my own nephew carried off by a fever twice as sudden as the
+fever that carried off poor Mr. Halliday?" she said to herself; "and am I
+to think horrid things of him as I nursed a baby, because a cup of greasy
+beef-tea turned my stomach?"
+
+Convinced by such reasoning as this that she had done her master a
+grievous wrong, and grateful for the timely shelter afforded in her old
+age, Mrs. Woolper felt that she could not do too much in her benefactor's
+service. She had already shown herself a clever managing housekeeper; had
+reformed abuses, and introduced a new system of care and economy
+below-stairs, to the utter bewilderment of poor Georgy, for whom the
+responsibilities of the gothic villa had been an overwhelming burden.
+Georgy was not particularly grateful to the energetic old Yorkshirewoman
+who had taken this burden off her hands, but she was submissive.
+
+"I never felt myself much in the house, my dear," she said to Lotta; "but
+I am sure since Ann Woolper has been here I have felt myself a cipher."
+
+Mrs. Woolper, naturally sharp and observant, was not slow to perceive
+that Mr. Sheldon was abnormally anxious about his stepdaughter. She
+ascribed this anxiety to a suspicious nature, an inherent distrust of
+other people on the part of her master, and in some measure to his
+ignorance of womankind.
+
+"He seems to think that she'd run away and get married on the sly, at a
+word from that young man; but he doesn't know what a dear innocent soul
+she is, and how sorry she'd be to displease any one that's kind to her. I
+don't know anything about Miss Paget. She's more stand-offish than our
+own Miss, though she is little better than a genteel kind of servant;
+but she seems fair-spoken enough. As to our Miss, bless her dear heart!
+she want's no watching, I'll lay. But I daresay those City folks, with
+their stocks going up and going down, and always bringing about the ruin
+of somebody or other, go which way they will, get their poor heads so
+muddled with figures that they can't believe there's such a thing as
+honesty in the world."
+
+This was the gist of Mrs. Woolper's evening musing in the snug little
+housekeeper's room at the Lawn. It was a very comfortable little room,
+and held sacred to Mrs. Woolper; the three young females, and the boy in
+buttons, who formed Mr. Sheldon's in-door establishment, preferring the
+license of the kitchen to the strict etiquette of the housekeeper's room.
+
+This apartment, as well as every other room in the stockbroker's house,
+bore the stamp of prosperity. A comfortable easy-chair reposed the limbs
+of Mrs. Woolper; a bright little fire burned in a bright little grate,
+and its ruddy light was reflected in a bright little fender. Prints of
+the goody class adorned the walls; and a small round table, with a
+somewhat gaudy cover, supported Mrs. Woolper's work-box and family Bible,
+both of which she made it a point of honour to carry about with her, and
+to keep religiously, through good fortune and through evil fortune;
+neither of which, however, afforded her much employment. She felt herself
+to be much nearer grace with the family Bible by her side than she would
+have been without it; she felt, indeed, that the maintenance and due
+exhibition of the family Bible was in itself a kind of religion. But that
+she should peruse its pages was not in the bond. Her eyes were old and
+weak--sharp enough to discover the short-comings of Mr. Sheldon's young
+maid-servants, but too feeble even for long-primer.
+
+As she looked round that snug little chamber of an evening, when her
+day's labours were ended, and her own particular Britannia-metal tea-pot
+was basking in the fender, her own special round of toast frizzling on
+the trivet, she was very grateful to the man to whom she owed these
+comforts.
+
+"What should I be but for him?" she asked herself with a shudder; for
+the vision of that darksome abode shut in by high black walls--the
+metropolitan workhouse--arose before her. She did not know what
+difficulties would have barred her entrance even to that dreary
+asylum; she only thought of the horrors of that sanctuary, and she
+blessed her master for the benevolence that had accepted the service
+of her failing hands.
+
+This was the servant on whom Philip Sheldon relied. He saw that she was
+grateful, and that she was ready to serve him with an almost slavish
+devotion. He knew that she had suspected him in the past, and he saw that
+she had outlived her suspicion.
+
+"There is a statute of limitations to these things as well as for debt,"
+he said to himself. "A man can live down anything, if he knows what he
+is about."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FIRM AS A BOOK.
+
+After that midnight interview between the two girls in Miss Halliday's
+bedroom, life went very smoothly at the gothic villa for two or three
+days, during which the impulsive Charlotte, being forbidden to talk
+openly of the change in her friend's position, was fain to give vent to
+her feelings by furtive embraces and hand-squeezings, sly nods and
+meaning becks, and mischievous twinkling of her arch grey eyes.
+
+She talked of Valentine more than ever now, feeling herself at liberty to
+sing what paeans she pleased in praise of her hero, now that her friend
+had also a fitting subject for paeans.
+
+"And now it's your turn to talk of M. Lenoble, dear," she would say
+naively, when she had entertained Diana with the minute details of her
+last conversation with her lover, or a lively sketch of the delights of
+that ideal cottage which she loved to furnish and unfurnish in accordance
+with the new fancy of the hour.
+
+Diana was pleased to listen to her girlish talk: to hang and rehang the
+ideal draperies, to fill and refill the ideal bookcase, to plan and
+replan the arrangements of that ideal existence which was to be all joy
+and love and harmony; but when her turn came, and she was asked to be
+rapturous about her own lover, she could say nothing: that which she felt
+was too deep for words. The thought of her lover was strange to her; the
+fact of his love was mysterious and wonderful. She could not talk of him
+with the customary frivolous school-girl talk; and love for him had so
+newly taken root in her heart that there were as yet no blossoms to be
+gathered from that magical plant.
+
+"Don't ask me to talk of him, Lotta, dear;" she said. "I am not yet sure
+that I love him; I only feel that it is sweet to be loved by him. I think
+Providence must have sent him to me in pity for my desolation."
+
+This was almost the same fancy that had occurred to Susan Meynell
+five-and-thirty years before this time, when Gustave the first had
+rescued her from the suicide's unrepentable sin.
+
+That chivalrous turn of mind which was hereditary in the race of Lenoble
+predisposed these men to pity loneliness and beauty, weakness and sorrow.
+This pity for helplessness may have been indeed only an element of their
+exceeding strength. Was not the rescue of weaklings and women an
+unfailing attribute in the mighty men of old? Who so prompt as Hercules
+to fly to the rescue of Hesione? Who so swift as Perseus to save
+Andromeda? And what sea-monster more terrible than loneliness and
+poverty?
+
+In a few days there came another letter from Captain Paget, containing a
+fresh summons to Omega Street.
+
+"Lenoble positively returns to Normandy to-morrow," he wrote, "to see his
+girls, and, no doubt, break the news of his approaching marriage. He much
+wants to see you, and, as I have forbidden his calling on you at the
+Lawn, can only meet you here. He is to drink tea with me at the usual
+time to-morrow evening, and I shall expect to see you early in the
+afternoon."
+
+This afforded an opportunity for that introduction to which Miss Halliday
+looked forward with so much interest.
+
+"If Mr. Sheldon and your mamma will let you come with me this afternoon,
+dear, I shall be very pleased to take you," said Diana; and she felt that
+she would appear less in the character of a lamb led to the slaughter if
+she could go to meet her betrothed accompanied by Charlotte.
+
+But in this matter both the young ladies were doomed to disappointment.
+Mr. Sheldon showed himself a social Draco in all things relating to his
+stepdaughter. Being forbidden to reveal the existence of Gustave Lenoble,
+Charlotte could only urge a frivolous desire to accompany her friend in a
+pilgrimage dictated by filial duty. To the practical mind of Philip
+Sheldon this desire appeared altogether absurd and unreasonable, and he
+did not hesitate to express himself to that effect in a _tete-a-tete_
+with his stepdaughter.
+
+"What good on earth can you do by going to see a gouty old man, who has
+his own daughter to dance attendance upon him?" asked Mr. Sheldon.
+"Really, Charlotte, I am surprised to hear such a proposition from a
+girl of your good sense. Miss Paget is your companion, not your visitor.
+It is her duty to indulge your whims, but it is not your place to give
+way to hers."
+
+"But this is a whim of mine, papa; I should really like to spend the
+afternoon at Chelsea. It would be a change, you know."
+
+Mr. Sheldon looked at his stepdaughter with a sharp and searching gaze, a
+gaze in which there was suspicion as well as curiosity.
+
+"It is a very discreditable whim for a young lady in your position,"
+he said sternly; "and I beg that such a proposition may not be made to
+me again."
+
+This was decisive. Charlotte submitted, and Diana went alone to Omega
+Street. She found Gustave waiting for her. He proposed a walk, and
+Captain Paget was enthusiastic upon the subject of fresh air, and the
+benefits arising therefrom. So the lovers went out in the bleak winter
+afternoon, and wandered in the dreary Pimlico region as far as St.
+James's Park--Gustave delighted to have Diana's hand upon his arm, and
+Diana almost bewildered by a sense of happiness, which seemed unreal by
+reason of its very novelty.
+
+Gustave was all enthusiasm, full of plans for the future. He would have
+had the marriage take place immediately, if such a thing had been
+possible; but Diana showed him that it would not be possible. Her first
+duty was to the only friends she had ever known. Gustave argued the point
+resolutely for nearly an hour, during which time they made their way to
+the very gates of St. James's Park, but Diana was more resolute still.
+
+"What a tyrannical wife I shall have by-and-by!" said Gustave. "I think
+you care for these Sheldons more than for me, Diane."
+
+"These Sheldons have been so good to me in the past."
+
+"And I mean to be so good to you in the future," answered Gustave. "You
+shall be the happiest wife in Normandy, if a foolish doting husband's
+devotion can make you happy."
+
+"What have I done to deserve so much devotion?" Diana murmured
+wonderingly.
+
+"What have you done? Nothing, less than nothing. You will not even run
+the hazard of offending your family of Sheldon in order to make me happy.
+But Fate has said, 'At the feet of that girl with the dark eyes and pale
+proud face shall poor Lenoble of Cotenoir put down his heart.' Do you
+know what I said to myself when I saw you first in the little parlour
+yonder? Ah, no! How should you guess? 'She is there,' said I; 'behold
+her! It is thy destiny, Lenoble, on which thou gazest!' And thou, love,
+wert calm and voiceless as Fate. Quiet as the goddess of marble before
+which the pagans offered their sacrifices, across whose cold knees they
+laid their rich garments. I put my treasures in your hip, my love; my
+heart, my hopes,--all the treasures I had to offer."
+
+This was all very sweet, but there was a sting even mingled with that
+sweetness. Diana told herself that love like this should only be offered
+on the purest shrine; and when she remembered the many stains upon her
+father's honour, it seemed to her that a part of the shame must needs
+cleave to her.
+
+"Gustave," she said presently, after an absent meditative mood, from
+which her lover had vainly tried to beguile her, "does it not seem to you
+that there is something foolish in this talk of love and confidence
+between you and me; and that all your promises have been a little too
+lightly made? What do you know of me? You see me sitting in my father's
+room, and because my eyes happen to please you, or for some reason as
+foolish as that, you ask me to be your wife. I might have been one of the
+worst of women."
+
+"You might have been?--yes, dear, but you are not. And if you had been,
+Gustave Lenoble would not have flung his heart into your lap, even if
+your eyes had been sweeter than they are. We impulsive people are people
+of quick perceptions, and know what we are doing better than our
+reflective friends imagine. I did not need to be an hour in your company,
+dear love, in order to know that you are noble and true. There are tones
+in the voice, there are expressions of the face, that tell these things
+better than words can tell them; for, you see, words can lie, while tones
+and looks are apt to be true. Yes, my angel, I knew you from that first
+night. My heart leapt across all conventional barriers, and found its way
+straight to yours."
+
+"I can see that you think much better of me than I deserve; but even
+supposing you not to be deceived as to myself, I fear you are much
+deceived as to my surroundings."
+
+"I know that your father is poor, and that the burden of his poverty
+weighs heavily on you. That is enough for me to know."
+
+"No, M. Lenoble; it is act enough for you to know. If I am to be your
+wife, I will not enter your family as an impostor. I told you the truth
+about myself the other day when you questioned me, and I am bound to tell
+you the truth about my father."
+
+And then she told him, in the plainest frankest language, the story of
+her father's life. She inflicted no unnecessary shame on Captain Paget;
+she made no complaint of her neglected childhood and joyless youth; but
+she told Gustave that her father had been an adventurer, keeping doubtful
+company, and earning his bread by doubtful means.
+
+"I hope and believe that if a peaceful home could be secured for his
+declining years, he would live the rest of his life like a gentleman and
+a Christian; and that, the bitter struggle for existence being ended, he
+would be sorry for the past. I doubt if the sense of shame ever deserted
+him when he was living that wretched wandering life, leaving debts and
+difficulties behind him everywhere--always harassed and hunted by
+creditors, who had good cause to be angry. Yes, Gustave, I do believe
+that if it should please Providence to give my father a peaceful home at
+last, he will be thankful for God's mercy, and will repent the sins of
+life. And now I have told you the kind of heritage I can bring my
+husband."
+
+"My dear love, I will accept the heritage, for the sake of her who brings
+it. I never meant to be less than a son to your father; and if he is not
+the best of fathers, as regards the past, we will try to make him a
+decent kind of father as regards the future. I have long understood that
+Captain Paget is something--ever so little--of an adventurer. It was the
+pursuit of fortune that brought him to me; and without knowing it, he
+brought me my fortune in the shape of his daughter."
+
+Diana blushed as she remembered that Captain Paget had not been so
+innocent of any design in this matter as the Frenchman imagined.
+
+"And you will receive even papa for my sake?" asked Diana.
+
+"With all my heart."
+
+"Ah, you are indeed a generous lover!"
+
+"A lover who is not generous is--bah! there is nothing in creation so
+mean as the wretch whom love does not render generous. When one sees the
+woman whom Fate intends for one's wife, is one to stop to inquire the
+character of her father, her mother, her sister, her cousin?--for there
+is no stopping when you begin that. A man who loves makes no inquiries.
+If he finds his jewel in the gutter, he picks it out of the mud and
+carries it away in his bosom, too proud of his treasure to remember where
+he found it; always provided that the jewel is no counterfeit, but the
+real gem, fit for a king's crown. And my diamond is of the purest water.
+By-and-by we will try to drain the gutter--that is to say, we will try to
+pay those small debts of which you speak, to lodging-house keepers, and
+tradesmen who have trusted your father."
+
+"You would pay papa's debts!" cried Diana in amazement.
+
+"But why not? All these little debts, the thought of which is so bitter
+to you, might be discharged for two or three thousand pounds. Your father
+tells me I am to be very rich by-and-by."
+
+"My father tells you! Ah, then, you have allowed him to involve you in
+some kind of speculation!"
+
+"He has involved me in no speculation, and in no risk that two or three
+hundred pounds will not cover."
+
+"The whole business seems very mysterious, Gustave."
+
+"Perhaps; it has to do with a secret which I am pledged to keep. I will
+not allow your father to lead me into any quagmire of speculation,
+believe me, dear one."
+
+After this they went back to Omega Street in the winter gloaming, and
+Diana loved and admired this man with all her heart and mind. A new life
+lay before her, very bright and fair. There, where had been only the
+barren desert, was now a fair landscape, shining in the sunlight of hope.
+
+"Do you think your children will ever love me, Gustave?" she asked, not
+without some sense of wonder that this impulsive light-hearted lover
+should be the owner of children. She fancied that a responsibility so
+grave as paternity must needs have impressed some stamp of solemnity upon
+the man who bore it.
+
+"Ever love thee!" cried Gustave. "Child, they will adore thee. They ask
+only some one to love. Their hearts are gardens of flowers; and thou
+shalt gather the flowers. But wilt thou be happy at Cotenoir, thou? It is
+somewhat sad, perhaps--the grave old chateau with the long sombre
+corridors. But thou shalt choose new furniture, new garnitures at Rouen,
+and we will make all bright and gay, like the heart of thy affianced Thou
+wilt not be dull?"
+
+"Dull, with you and yours! I shall thank God for my happy home day and
+night, as I never thought to thank Him a few months ago, when I was
+dissatisfied, wicked, tired of my life."
+
+"And when you thought of that other one? Ah, how he was an imbecile, that
+other one! But thou wilt never think of him again; it is a dream that is
+past," said M. Lenoble.
+
+That self-confidence which was an attribute of his sanguine nature
+rendered the idea of a rival not altogether unpleasant to him. He was
+gratified by the idea of his own victory, and the base rival's
+annihilation.
+
+"Diane, I want to show thee the home that is to be thine," he said
+presently. "Your Sheldon family must give thee at least a holiday, if
+they refuse to let thee go altogether. Thou wilt come to Normandy with
+thy father. He is coming for a week or two, now that his gout is better.
+I want to show thee Cotenoir--and Beaubocage, the place where my father
+was born. It will seem dreary, perhaps, to thine English eyes; but to me
+it is very dear."
+
+"Nothing that is dear to you shall appear dreary to me," said Diana.
+
+By this time they had arrived at Omega Street. Again Miss Paget made tea
+for her lover. Strange to say, the operation seemed to grow more
+agreeable with every repetition. While taking his tea from the hands of
+his beloved, Gustave pressed the question of Diana's visit to Normandy.
+
+"About her Sheldon family she is adamant," he said to Captain Paget, who
+sipped his tea and smiled at the lovers with the air of an aristocratic
+patriarch. "There is to be no marriage till it pleases Mrs. Sheldon to
+set her free. I consent to this only as man must consent to the
+inevitable; but I say to her, can she not come to Normandy for a
+fortnight--say but one short fortnight--to see her home? She will come
+with you. She has but to ask a holiday of her friends, and it is done."
+
+"Of course," exclaimed the Captain, "she shall come with me. If
+necessary, I myself will ask it of Sheldon.--But it will be best not to
+mention where you are going, Diana. There are reasons, best known to our
+friend Gustave and myself, which render secrecy advisable just at
+present. You can say Rouen. That is quite near enough to the mark to come
+within the limits of truth," added Horatio, with the tone of a man who
+had never; quite outstepped those limits. "Yes, Rouen. And you will come
+with me."
+
+"With us," said Gustave. "I will put off my journey for a day or two for
+the sake of going with you. You have to meet Fleurus in Rouen haven't
+you?"
+
+"Yes; he is to be there on the fifth of March, and this is the last day
+of February. I had a letter from him this morning. All goes swimmingly."
+
+Diana wondered what it could be which went swimmingly; but she was
+obliged to content herself with her lover's assurance that he had not
+allowed her father to involve him in any kind of speculation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+AGAINST WIND AND TIDE.
+
+Between Philip Sheldon and his brother there was at this time a state of
+feeling somewhat akin to the relations between a subjugated country and
+its conqueror. The vanquished is fain to accept whatever the victor is
+pleased to give, though discontent and impotent rage may be gnawing his
+entrails. George Sheldon had been a loser in that game in which the
+Haygarthian inheritance was the stake. He had held good cards, and had
+played them with considerable cleverness; but no play could prevail
+against his antagonist's ace of trumps. The ace of trumps was Charlotte
+Halliday; and as to his mode and matter of playing this card, Mr. Sheldon
+was for the present profoundly mysterious.
+
+"I have known a good many inscrutable cards in my time," the solicitor of
+Gray's Inn observed to his elder brother, in the course of fraternal
+converse; "but I think for inscrutability you put the topper on the lot.
+What do you expect to get out of this Haygarth estate? Come, Phil, let us
+have your figures in plain English. I am to have a fifth--that's all
+signed and sealed. But how about your share? What agreement have you got
+from Miss Halliday?"
+
+"None."
+
+"None!"
+
+"What would the world think of me if I extorted money, or the promise of
+money, from my wife's daughter? Do you think I could enforce any deed
+between her and me?"
+
+"Ah, I see; you go in for respectability. And you are going to leave the
+settlement of your claims to your stepdaughter's generosity. You will let
+her marry Hawkehurst, with her hundred thousand pounds; and then you will
+say to those two, 'Mr. and Mrs. Hawkehurst, be so kind as to hand over my
+share of the plunder.' That is not _like_ you, Phil."
+
+"Perhaps you will be good enough to spare yourself the trouble of
+speculating about my motives. Go your way, and leave me to go mine."
+
+"But this is a case in which I have an interest. If Charlotte marries
+Hawkehurst, I don't see how you are to profit, to any extent that you
+would care about, by the Haygarth fortune. But, on the other hand, if she
+should die unmarried, without a will, the money would go to your wife. O
+my God! Philip Sheldon, is _THAT_ what you mean?"
+
+The question was so sudden, the tone of horror in which it was spoken so
+undisguised, that Mr. Sheldon the stockbroker was for one moment thrown
+off his guard. His breath thickened; he tried to speak, but his dry lips
+could shape no word. It was only one moment that he faltered. In the next
+he turned upon his brother angrily, and asked what he meant.
+
+"You've been promised _your_ reward," he said; "leave me to look after
+mine. You'll take those papers round to Greenwood and Greenwood; they
+want to talk to you about them."
+
+"Yes, I'll take the papers."
+
+Greenwood and Greenwood were Mr. Sheldon's own solicitors--a firm of some
+distinction, on whose acumen and experience the stockbroker placed
+implicit reliance. They were men of unblemished respectability, and to
+them Mr. Sheldon had confided the care of his stepdaughter's interests,
+always reserving the chief power in his own hands. These gentlemen
+thought well of the young lady's prospects, and were handling the case in
+that slow and stately manner which marks the handling of such cases by
+eminent firms of the slow-and-stately class.
+
+Mr. Sheldon wished his brother good-day, and was about to depart, when
+George planted himself suddenly before the door.
+
+"Look you here, Phil," he said, with an intensity of manner that was by
+no means common to him; "I want to say a few words to you, and I will say
+them. There was an occasion, ten years ago, on which I ought to have
+spoken out, and didn't. I have never ceased to regret my cowardice. Yes,
+by Jove! I hate myself for it; and there are times when I feel as if my
+share in that wretched business was almost as bad as yours."
+
+"I don't know what you mean."
+
+"Of course not. That's your text, and you'll stick to it. But you _do_
+know what I mean, and you shall know what I mean, if plain words can tell
+you. You and I had a friend, Phil. He was a good friend to me, and I
+liked him as much as a man of the world can afford to like anybody. If I
+had been down in the world, and had asked him for a hundred pounds to
+give me a new start in life, I think he'd have said, 'George, here's a
+cheque for you.' _That's_ my notion of a friend. And yet I stood by that
+man's deathbed, and saw him sinking, and knew what ailed him, and didn't
+stretch out my hand to save him."
+
+"Be so good as to move away from that door," said Mr. Sheldon, livid to
+the lips with smothered fury, but able to put on a bold front
+nevertheless. "I didn't come here to listen to rhodomontade of this kind,
+or to bandy words with you. Get out of my way."
+
+"Not till I've said my say. There shall be no rhodomontade this time. I
+stood by and saw my best friend murdered--by you. I kept my counsel for
+your sake, and when you had made your fortune--by his death--I asked you
+for a little money. You know how much you gave me, and how graciously you
+gave it. If you had given me twenty times the sum you gained by Tom
+Halliday's death, I would give it back, and twenty times as much again,
+to bring him back to life, and to feel that I had never aided and abetted
+a murderer. Yes, by God, I would! though I'm not straitlaced or
+over-scrupulous at the best of times. But that's past, and all the money
+in the Bank of England wouldn't undo what you did in Fitzgeorge Street.
+But if you try on any such tricks with Tom Halliday's daughter, if
+_that's_ the scheme you've hatched for getting hold of this money, as
+surely as we two live, I'll let in the light upon your doings, and save
+the girl whose father you murdered. I will, Philip, let come what may.
+You can't get _me_ out of the way when it suits you, you see. _I know
+you._ That's the best antidote against your medicines."
+
+"If you'll be so good as to say these things on 'Change, I can bring an
+action for libel, or get you put into a madhouse. There's no good in
+saying them here."
+
+Philip Sheldon, even in this crisis, was less agitated than his brother,
+being of a harder nature, and less subject to random impulses of good or
+evil. He caught his accuser by the collar of his coat, and flung him
+violently from the doorway. Thus ended his visit to Gray's Inn.
+
+Boldly as he had borne himself during the interview, he went to his
+office profoundly depressed and dispirited.
+
+"So I am to have him against me?" he said to himself. "He can do me no
+real harm; but he can harass and annoy me. If he should drop any hint to
+Hawkehurst?--but he'll scarcely do that. Perhaps I've ridden him a little
+too roughly in the past. And yet if I'd been smoother, where would his
+demands have ended? No; concession in these cases means ruin."
+
+He shut himself in his office, and sat down to his desk to confront
+his difficulties. For a long time the bark which was freighted with
+Philip Sheldon's fortunes had been sailing in troubled waters. He had
+been an unconscious disciple of Lord Bacon, inasmuch as the boldness
+inculcated by that philosopher had been the distinguishing characteristic
+of his conduct in all the operations of life. As a speculator, his
+boldness had served him well. Adventures from which timid spirits shrunk
+appalled had brought golden harvests to this daring gamester. When some
+rich argosy upon the commercial ocean fired her minute-guns, and sent up
+signals of distress, menaced by the furious tempest, lifted high on the
+crest of mountainous waves, below which, black and fathomless, yawn the
+valleys of death,--a frail ark hovering above the ravening jaws of
+all-devouring Poseidon,--Philip Sheldon was among that chosen band of
+desperate wreckers who dared to face the storm, and profit by the
+tempest and terror. From such argosies, while other men watched and
+waited for a gleam of sunlight on the dark horizon, Mr. Sheldon had
+obtained for himself goodly merchandise. The debenture of railways that
+were in bad odour; Unitas Bank shares, immediately after the discovery of
+gigantic embezzlements by Swillenger, the Unitas-Bank secretary; the
+Mole-and-Burrow railway stock, when the Mole-and-Burrow scheme was as yet
+in the clouds, and the wiseacres prognosticated its failure; the shares
+in foreign loans, which the Rothschilds were buying _sub rosa_;--these,
+and such as these, had employed Mr. Sheldon's capital; and from the
+skilful manipulation of capital thus employed, Mr. Sheldon had trebled
+the fortune secured by his alliance with Tom Halliday's widow.
+
+It had been the stockbroker's fate to enter the money market at a time
+when fortunes were acquired with an abnormal facility. He had made the
+most of his advantages, and neglected none of his opportunities. He had
+seized Good Fortune by the forelock, and not waited to find the
+harridan's bald and slippery crown turned to him in pitiless derision. He
+had made only one mistake--and that he made in common with many of his
+fellow-players in the great game of speculation always going on eastward
+of Temple Bar--he had mistaken the abnormal for the normal: he had
+imagined that these splendid opportunities were the natural evolvements
+of an endless sequence of everyday events; and when the sequence was
+abruptly broken, and when last of the seven fat kine vanished off the
+transitory scene of life, to make way for a dismal succession of lean
+kine, there was no sanguine youngster newly admitted to the sacred
+privileges of "The House" more astounded by the change than Mr. Sheldon.
+
+The panic came like a thief in the night, and it found Mr. Sheldon a
+speculator for the rise. The Melampuses and Amphiaraeuses of the Stock
+Exchange had agreed in declaring that a man who bought into consols at 90
+_must_ see his capital increased; and what was true of this chief among
+securities was of course true of other securities. The panic came, and
+from 90, consols declined dismally, slowly, hopelessly, to 85-1/2;
+securities less secure sank with a rapidity corresponding with their
+constitutional weakness. As during the ravages of an epidemic the weaker
+are first to fall victims to the destroyer, so while this fever raged on
+'Change, the feeble enterprises, the "risky" transactions, sank at an
+appalling rate, some to total expiry. The man who holds a roaring lion by
+the tail could scarcely be worse off than the speculator in these
+troublous times. To let go is immediate loss, to hold on for a certain
+time might be redemption, could one but know the exact moment in which it
+would be wise to let go. But to hold on until the beast grows more and
+more furious, and then to let go and be eaten up alive, is what many men
+did in that awful crisis.
+
+If Philip Sheldon had accepted his first loss, and been warned by the
+first indication that marked the turning of the tide, he would have been
+a considerable loser; but he would not accept his loss, and he would not
+be warned by that early indication. He had implicit belief in his own
+cleverness; and he fancied if every other bark in that tempest-tossed
+ocean foundered and sank, his boat might ride triumphantly across the
+harbour-bar, secure by virtue of his science and daring as a navigator.
+It was not till he had seen a small fortune melt away in the payment of
+contango, that he consented to the inevitable. The mistakes of one year
+devoured the fruits of nine years' successful enterprise, and the Philip
+Sheldon of this present year was no richer than the man who had stood by
+Tom Halliday's bedside and waited the advent of the equal foot that knows
+no difference between the threshold of kingly palace or pauper refuge.
+Not only did he find himself as poor a man as in that hateful stage of
+his existence--to remember which was a dull dead pain even to _him_--but
+a man infinitely more heavily burdened. He had made for himself a certain
+position, and the fall from that must needs be a cruel and damaging fall,
+the utter annihilation of all his chances in life.
+
+The stockbroker's fitful slumbers at this time began to be haunted by the
+vision of a black board fixed against the wall of a public resort, a
+black board on which appeared his own name. In what strange places
+feverish dreams showed him this hideous square of painted deal!--Now it
+was on the walls of the rooms he lived in; now on the door of a church,
+like Luther's propositions; now at a street-corner, where should have
+been the name of the street; now inky-black against the fair white
+headstone of his own grave. Miserable dream, miserable man, for whom the
+scraping together of sordid dross was life's only object, and who, in
+losing money, lost all!
+
+This agonizing consciousness of loss and of close-impending disgrace was
+the wolf which this Spartan stockbroker concealed beneath his waistcoat
+day after day, while the dull common, joyless course of his existence
+went on; and his shallow wife smiled at him from the opposite side of his
+hearth, more interested in a new stitch for her crotchet or berlin-wool
+work than by the inner life of her husband; and Charlotte and her lover
+contemplated existence from their own point of view, and cherished their
+own dreams and their own hopes, and were, in all things, as far away from
+the moody meditator as if they had been natives of Upper India.
+
+The ruin which impended over the unlucky speculator was not immediate,
+but it was not far off; the shadow of it already wrapped him in a
+twilight obscurity. His repute as a clever and a safe man had left him.
+He was described now as a daring man; and the wiseacres shook their heads
+as they talked of him.
+
+"One of the next to go will be Sheldon," said the wiseacres; but in these
+days of commercial epidemic there was no saying who would be the first to
+go. It was the end of the world in little. One was taken, and another
+left. The Gazette overran its customary column like a swollen river, and
+flooded a whole page of the Times newspaper; and men looked to the lists
+of names in the Wednesday and Saturday papers as to the trump of
+archangels sounding the destruction of the universe.
+
+For some time the bark in which Mr. Sheldon had breasted those turbulent
+waters had been made of paper. This was nothing. Paper boats were the
+prevailing shipping in those waters; but Captain Sheldon's bark needed
+refitting, and the captain feared a scarcity of paper, or, worse still,
+the awful edict issued from some commercial Areopagus that for him there
+should be no more paper.
+
+Once before, Mr. Sheldon had found himself face to face with ruin
+complete and irredeemable. When all common expedients had been exhausted,
+and his embarrassments had become desperate, he had found a desperate
+expedient, and had extricated himself from those embarrassments. The time
+had come in which a new means of extrication must be found as desperate
+as the last, if need were. As Philip Sheldon had faced the situation
+before, he faced it now--unshrinkingly, though with a gloomy anger
+against destiny. It was hard for him that such a thing should have to be
+repeated. If he pitied anybody, he pitied himself; and this kind of
+compassion is very common with this kind of character. Do not the Casket
+letters show us--if we may trust them to show us anything--that Mary
+Stuart was very sorry for herself when she found herself called upon to
+make an end of Darnley? In Mr. Swinburne's wonderful study in morbid
+anatomy, there are perhaps no finer touches than those which reveal the
+Queen's selfish compassion for her own heartlessness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+DIANA ASKS FOR A HOLIDAY.
+
+Diana informed Mrs. Sheldon of her father's wish that she should leave
+Bayswater. Before doing this, she had obtained the Captain's consent to
+the revelation of her engagement to be married.
+
+"I don't like to leave them in a mysterious manner, papa," she said. "I
+have told Charlotte a good deal already, under a promise of secrecy; but
+I should like to tell Mrs. Sheldon that there is a real reason for my
+leaving her."
+
+"Very well, my love, since you are so amazingly squeam--honourable,"
+interposed the Captain, remembering how much depended on his daughter's
+marriage, and what a very difficult person he had found her. "Yes, my
+dear, of course; I respect your honourable feeling; and--er--yes--you may
+tell Mrs. Sheldon--and that of course includes Mr. Sheldon, since the
+lady is but an inoffensive cipher--that you are about to be married--to a
+French gentleman of position. You will, of course, be obliged to mention
+his name, and then will arise the question as to where and how you met
+him; and, upon my word, it's confoundedly awkward that you should insist
+on enlightening these people. You see, my dear girl, what I want to
+avoid, for the present, is any chance of collision between the Sheldons
+and Lenoble."
+
+"Papa!" exclaimed Diana, impatiently, "why must there be all this
+scheming?"
+
+"O, very well, Miss Paget; tell them what you like!" cried the Captain,
+aggravated beyond endurance by such inherent perversity. "All I can say
+is, that a young woman who quarrels with her bread-and-butter is likely
+to come to dry bread; and very little of that, perhaps. I wash my hands
+of the business. Tell them what you like."
+
+"I will not tell them more than I feel to be actually necessary, papa,"
+the young lady replied calmly. "I do not think Mr. Sheldon will trouble
+himself about M. Lenoble. He seems very much occupied by his own
+affairs."
+
+"Humph! Sheldon seems harassed, anxious, does he?"
+
+"Well, yes, papa; I have thought so for the last few months. If I may
+venture to judge by the expression of his face, as he sits at home in the
+evening, reading the paper, or staring at the fire, I am sure he has many
+anxieties--troubles even. Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte do not appear to
+notice these things. They are accustomed to see him quiet and reserved,
+and they don't perceive the change in him as I do."
+
+"O, there is a change, is there?"
+
+"Yes, a decided change."
+
+"Why the deuce couldn't you tell me this before!"
+
+"Why should I tell you that Mr. Sheldon seems anxious? I should not have
+told you now, if you had not appeared to dread his interference in our
+affairs. I can't help observing these things; but I don't want to play
+the part of a spy."
+
+"No, you're so infernally punct--so delicate-minded, my love," said the
+Captain, pulling himself up suddenly, for the second time. "Forgive me if
+I was impatient just now. You look at these things from a higher point of
+view than that of a battered old man of the world like me. But if you
+should see anything remarkable in Mr. Sheldon's conduct on another
+occasion, my love, I should be obliged to you if you would be more
+communicative. He and I have been allied in business, you see, and it is
+important for me to know these things."
+
+"I have not seen anything remarkable in Mr. Sheldon's conduct, papa; I
+have only seen him thoughtful and dispirited. And I suppose anxieties are
+common to every man of business."
+
+Georgy received Miss Paget's announcement with mingled lamentations and
+congratulations.
+
+"I am sure I am heartily glad for your sake, Diana," she said; "but what
+we shall do without you, I don't know. Who is to see to the drawing-room
+being dusted every morning, when you are gone? I'm sure I tremble for the
+glass shades. Don't imagine I'm not pleased to think you should settle in
+life advantageously, my love. I'm not so selfish as that; though I will
+say that there never was a girl with more natural talent for making-up
+pretty little caps than you. The one I have on has been admired by
+everybody. Even Ann Woolper this morning, when I was going into the
+butcher's book with her--for I insist upon going into the butcher's book
+with her weekly, whether she likes it or not; though the way that man
+puts down the items is so bewildering that I feel myself a perfect baby
+in her hands,--even Ann admired it, and said how young-looking it is. And
+then she brought up the time in Fitzgeorge Street, and poor Tom's
+illness, and almost upset me for the rest of the day. And now, dear, let
+me offer you my sincere congratulations. Of course, you know that you
+would always have had a home with me; but service, or at least
+companionship, is no inheritance, as the proverb says; and for your own
+sake I'm very glad to think that you are going to have a house of your
+own. And now tell me what he is like, Monsieur what's-his-name?"
+
+Mrs. Sheldon had been told, but had not remembered the name. Her great
+anxiety, as well as Charlotte's, was to know what manner of man the
+affianced lover was. If Diana's future happiness had been contingent on
+the shape of her husband's nose, or the colour of his eyes, these two
+ladies could not have been more anxious upon the subject.
+
+"Has he long eyelashes, and a dreamy look in his eyes, like Valentine?"
+asked Charlotte, secretly convinced that her lover had a copyright in
+these personal graces.
+
+"Does he wear whiskers?" asked Georgy. "I remember, when I was quite a
+girl, and went to parties at Barlingford, being struck by Mr. Sheldon's
+whiskers. And I was quite offended with papa, who was always making
+sarcastic remarks, for calling them mutton-chop whiskers; but they
+really were the shape of mutton-cutlets at that time. He wears them
+differently now."
+
+Mrs. Sheldon branched off into a disquisition on whiskers, and Diana
+escaped from the task of describing her lover. She could not have
+described him to Georgy.
+
+By-and-by she asked permission to leave Bayswater for a fortnight, in
+order to see her lover's home and friends.
+
+"I will come back to you, and stay as long as you like, dear Mrs.
+Sheldon," she said, "and make you as many caps as you please. And I will
+make them for you by and by, when I am living abroad, and send them over
+to you in a bandbox. It will be a great delight to me to be of some
+little service to a friend who has been so kind. And perhaps you will
+fancy the caps are prettier when they can boast of being French."
+
+"You darling generous-minded girl! And you won't go away for a fortnight
+and never come back again, will you, dear? I had a cook who did that, and
+left me with a large dinner-party hanging over my head; and how I got
+through it--with a strange man-cook, who charged a guinea, and used fresh
+butter, at twentypence, a pound, as if it had been dirt, and two strange
+men to wait--I don't know. It all seemed like a dream. And since then we
+have generally had everything from the confectioner's; and I assure you,
+to feel that you can wash your hands of the whole thing, and sit down at
+the head of your table with your mind as free from care as if you were a
+visitor, is worth all the expense."
+
+Diana promised she would not behave like the cook; and two days after
+this conversation left the London Bridge terminus with her father and
+Gustave Lenoble.
+
+Mr. Sheldon troubled himself very little about this departure. He was
+informed of Miss Paget's intended marriage; and the information awakened
+neither surprise nor interest in his heavily-burdened mind.
+
+"A Frenchman, a friend of her father's!" he said; "some swindling
+adventurer, no doubt," he thought. And this was as much consideration
+as he could afford to bestow upon Miss Paget's love affairs at this
+present time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+ASSURANCE DOUBLY SURE.
+
+On the day after Miss Paget's departure Mr. Sheldon came home from the
+City rather earlier than usual, and found Charlotte alone in the
+drawing-room, reading a ponderous volume from Mudie of an instructive and
+edifying character, with a view to making herself clever, in order that
+she might better understand that prodigy of learning, Mr. Hawkehurst.
+
+She was somewhat inclined to yawn over the big book, which contained a
+graphic account of recent discoveries of an antiquarian nature. Her mind
+was not yet attuned to the comprehension of the sublimer elements in such
+discoveries. She saw only a dry as dust record of futile gropings in
+desert sand for the traces of perished empires. Her imagination was not
+cultivated to that point whereat the gift which Mr. Lewes calls "insight"
+becomes the daily companion, nay, indeed, the ever-haunting and
+nightmare-bringing influence of the dreamer. For her sands were only
+sands, the stones were only stones. No splendour of fallen palaces, no
+glory and pride of perished kings, no clash and clamour of vanished
+courts, arose from those barren sands, with all their pomp and
+circumstance, conjured into being by half a word on a broken pillar, or a
+date upon a Punic monument. Miss Halliday looked up with a sigh of
+fatigue as her stepfather came into the room. It was not a room that he
+particularly affected, and she was surprised when he seated himself in
+the easy-chair opposite her, and poked the fire, as if with the intention
+of remaining.
+
+"You shouldn't read by firelight, my dear," he said; "it is most
+destructive to the eyesight."
+
+"I dare say my sight will last my time, papa," the young lady replied
+carelessly; "but it's very kind of you to think of it, and I won't read
+any more."
+
+Mr. Sheldon made no reply to this observation. He sat looking at the
+fire, with that steady gaze which was habitual to him--the gaze of the
+man who plans and calculates.
+
+"My dear," he said by-and-by, "it seems that this money to which you may
+or may not be entitled is more than we thought at first; in fact, it
+appears that the sum is a considerable one. I have been, and still am,
+particularly anxious to guard against disappointment on your part, as I
+know the effect that such a disappointment is apt to produce upon a
+person's life. The harassing slowness of Chancery proceedings is
+proverbial; I am therefore especially desirous that you should not count
+upon this money."
+
+"I shall never do that, papa. I should certainly like a fine edition of
+the Encyclopaedia Britannica for Valentine, by-and-by, as he says that is
+essential for a literary man; and a horse, for people say literary men
+ought to take horse exercise. But beyond that--"
+
+"We need scarcely go into these details, my dear. I want you to
+understand the broad facts of the case. While, on the one hand, our
+success in obtaining the inheritance which we are about to claim for you
+is uncertain, on the other hand the inheritance is large. Of course, when
+I presented you with the sum of five thousand pounds, I had no idea of
+this possible inheritance."
+
+"O, of course not, papa."
+
+"But I now find that there is such a possibility as your becoming
+a--well--a rich woman."
+
+"O papa!"
+
+"In which case I may conclude that your mother would benefit in some
+measure from your good fortune."
+
+"Can you doubt that, papa? There should be no measure to her benefit from
+any money obtained by me."
+
+"I do not doubt that, my dear. And it is with that idea that I wish to
+make a proposition to you--for your mother's possible advantage."
+
+"I shall be happy to do anything you wish, papa."
+
+"It must be done as a spontaneous act of your own, Charlotte, not in
+accordance with any wish of mine."
+
+"What is it that I am to do?" asked Charlotte.
+
+"Well, my dear, you see it is agreed between us that if you do get this
+money, your mother is certain to benefit considerably. But unhappily the
+proceedings are likely to drag on for an indefinite time; and in the
+course of that time it comes within the limits of possibility that your
+decease may precede that of your mother."
+
+"Yes, papa."
+
+"In which case your mother would lose all hope of any such advantage."
+
+"Of course, papa."
+
+Charlotte could not help thinking that there was something sordid in this
+discussion--this calculation of possible gain or loss contingent on her
+fresh young life. But she concluded that it was the nature of business
+men to see everything from a debased standpoint, and that Mr. Sheldon was
+no more sordid than other men of his class.
+
+"Well, papa?" she asked presently, after some moments of silence, during
+which she and her stepfather had both been absorbed in the contemplation
+of the fire.
+
+"Well, my dear," replied Mr. Sheldon slowly, "I have been thinking that
+the natural and easy way of guarding against all contingencies would be
+by your effecting an insurance on your life in your mother's favour."
+
+"No, no, papa!" cried Charlotte, with unwonted vehemence; "I would rather
+do anything than that!"
+
+"What can be your objection to such a very simple arrangement?"
+
+"I dare say my objection seems foolish, childish even, papa; but I really
+have a horror of life assurances. I always think of papa--my own poor
+father, whom I loved so dearly. It seemed as if he put a price upon his
+life for us. He was so anxious to insure his life--I remember hearing him
+talk of it at Hyley, when I was a child--to make things straight, as he
+said, for us; and, you see, very soon afterwards he died."
+
+"But you can't suppose the insurance of his life had anything to do with
+his death?"
+
+"Of course not, I am not so childish as that; only--"
+
+"Only you have a foolish lackadaisical prejudice against the only means
+by which you can protect your mother against a contingency that is so
+remote as to be scarcely worth consideration. Let it pass."
+
+There was more anger in the tone than in the words. It was not that angry
+tone, but the mention of her mother, that impressed Miss Halliday. She
+began to consider that her objections were both foolish and selfish.
+
+"If you really think I ought to insure my life, I will do so," she said
+presently. "Papa did as much for those he loved; why should I be less
+thoughtful of others?"
+
+Having once brought Miss Halliday to this frame of mind, the rest was
+easy. It was agreed between them that as Valentine Hawkehurst was to be
+kept in ignorance of his betrothed's claim to certain moneys now in the
+shadowy under-world of Chancery, so he must be kept in ignorance of the
+insurance.
+
+It was only one more secret, and Charlotte had learned that it was
+possible to keep a secret from her lover.
+
+"I suppose before we are married I shall able to tell him everything?"
+she said.
+
+"Certainly, my dear. All I want is to test his endurance and his
+prudence. If the course of events proves him worthy of being trusted, I
+will trust him."
+
+"I am not afraid of that, papa."
+
+"Of course not, my dear. But, you see, I have to protect your interests;
+and I cannot afford to see this gentleman with your eyes. I am compelled
+to be prudent."
+
+The stockbroker sighed as he said this--a sigh of utter weariness.
+Remorse was unknown to him; the finer fibres upon which that chord is
+struck had not been employed in the fabrication of his heart. But there
+is a mental fatigue which is a spurious kind of remorse, and has all the
+anguish of the nobler feeling. It is an utter weariness and prostration
+of spirit--a sickness of heart and mind--a bitter longing to lie down and
+die--the weariness of a beaten hound rather than of a baffled man.
+
+This was what Mr. Sheldon felt, as the threads of the web which he was
+weaving multiplied, and grew daily and hourly more difficult of
+manipulation. Success in the work which he had to do depended on so many
+contingencies. Afar off glittered the splendid goal--the undisputed
+possession of the late John Haygarth's hundred thousand pounds; but
+between the schemer and that chief end and aim of all his plottings what
+a sea of troubles! He folded his arms behind his head, and looked across
+the girlish face of his companion into the shadow and the darkness. In
+those calculations which were for ever working themselves out in this
+man's brain, Charlotte Halliday was only one among many figures. She had
+her fixed value in every sum; but her beauty, her youth, her innocence,
+her love, her trust, made no unit of that fixed figure, nor weighed in
+the slightest degree with him who added up the sum. Had she been old,
+ugly, obnoxious, a creature scarcely fit to live, she would have
+represented exactly the same amount in the calculations of Philip
+Sheldon. The graces that made her beautiful were graces that he had no
+power to estimate. He knew she was a pretty woman; but he knew also that
+there were pretty women to be seen in any London street; and the
+difference between his stepdaughter and the lowest of womankind who
+passed him in his daily walks was to him little more than a social
+prejudice.
+
+The insurance business being once decided on, Mr. Sheldon lost no time in
+putting it into execution. Although he made a point of secrecy as
+regarded Mr. Hawkehurst, he went to work in no underhand manner, but
+managed matters after a Highly artistic and superior fashion. He took his
+stepdaughter to the offices of Greenwood and Greenwood, and explained her
+wishes to one of those gentlemen in her presence. If he dwelt a little
+more on Miss Halliday's anxiety for her mother's pecuniary advantage than
+his previous conversation with Miss Halliday warranted, the young lady
+was too confiding and too diffident to contradict him. She allowed him to
+state, or rather to imply, that the proposed insurance was her
+spontaneous wish, an emanation of her anxious and affectionate heart, the
+natural result of an almost morbid care for her mother's welfare.
+
+Mr. Hargrave Greenwood, of Greenwood and Greenwood, seemed at first
+inclined to throw cold water on the proposition, but after some little
+debate, agreed that extreme caution would certainly counsel such a step.
+
+"I should imagine there was no better life amongst the inhabitants of
+London," he said, "than Miss Shel--pardon me--Miss Halliday's. But, as
+the young lady herself suggests, 'in the midst of life we are--'; and, as
+the young lady herself has observed, these things are--ahem--beyond
+human foresight. If there were any truth in the aphorisms of poets, I
+should say Miss Halliday cannot insure too quickly; for the remark of
+Cowper--or, stay, I believe Pope--'whom the gods love die young,' might
+very well be supposed to apply to so charming a young lady. Happily, the
+secretaries of insurance offices know very little about the poets,
+unless, indeed, Miss Halliday were to go to the Royal Widow's and
+Orphan's Hope, the secretary of which is the author of dramas that may
+fairly rank with the works of Knowles and Lytton."
+
+Mr. Greenwood, an elderly gentleman of the ponderous and port-wine
+school, laughed at his own small jokes, and took things altogether
+pleasantly. He gave Mr. Sheldon a letter of introduction to the secretary
+of his pet insurance company, the value of which to that gentleman was
+considerable. Nor was this the only advantage derived from the interview.
+The lawyer's approval of the transaction reassured Charlotte; and though
+she had heard her own views somewhat misrepresented, she felt that an
+operation which appeared wise in the sight of such a lawyer, standing on
+such a Turkey hearthrug, commanding such gentlemanly-looking clerks as
+those who came and went at Mr. Greenwood's bidding, must inevitably be a
+proceeding at once prudent and proper.
+
+The business of the insurance was not quite so easy as the interview with
+the lawyer. The doctor to whom Miss Halliday was introduced seemed very
+well satisfied with that young lady's appearance of health and spirits,
+but in a subsequent interview with Mr. Sheldon asked several questions,
+and shook his head gravely when told that her father had died at
+thirty-seven years of age. But he looked less grave when informed that
+Mr. Halliday had died of a bilious fever.
+
+"Did Mr. Halliday die in London?" he asked.
+
+"He did."
+
+"I should like--ahem--if it were possible, to see the medical man who
+attended him. These fevers rarely prove fatal unless there is some
+predisposing cause."
+
+"In this case there was none."
+
+"You speak rather confidently, Mr. Sheldon, as a non-professional man."
+
+"I speak with a certain amount of professional knowledge. I knew Tom
+Halliday for many years."
+
+Mr. Sheldon forebore to state that Tom Halliday had died in his house,
+and had been attended by him. It is, perhaps, only natural that Philip
+Sheldon, the stockbroker of repute, should wish to escape identification
+with Philip Sheldon, the unsuccessful dentist of Bloomsbury.
+
+After a little more conversational skirmishing, the confidential
+physician of the Prudential Step Assurance Company agreed to consider
+that Mr. Halliday's constitution had been in no manner compromised by his
+early death, and to pass Charlotte's life. The motives for effecting the
+insurance were briefly touched upon in Mr. Greenwood's letter of
+introduction, and appeared very proper and feasible in the eyes of the
+directors; so, after a delay of a few days, the young lady found herself
+accepted, and Mr. Sheldon put away among his more important papers a
+large oblong envelope, containing a policy of assurance on his
+stepdaughter's life for five thousand pounds. He did not, however, stop
+here, but made assurance doubly sure by effecting a second insurance upon
+the same young life with the Widow's and Orphan's Hope Society, within a
+few days of the first transaction.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Sixth.
+
+
+
+DIANA IN NORMANDY.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+AT COTENOIR.
+
+Beaubocage, near Vevinord, March 15, 186--.
+
+My darling Lotta,--As you extorted from me a solemn pledge that I would
+write you a full and detailed account of my adventures, I seat myself in
+Mademoiselle Lenoble's pretty little turret-chamber, in the hope of
+completing the first instalment of my work before papa or Gustave summons
+me to prepare for a drive and visit to the Convent of the Sacred Heart,
+which, I believe, has been planned for to-day.
+
+What am I to tell you, dear, and how shall I begin my story? Let me
+fancy myself sitting at your feet before your bedroom fire, and you
+looking down at me with that pretty inquisitive look in your dear grey
+eyes. Do you know that M. Lenoble's eyes are almost the colour of yours,
+Lotta? You asked me a dozen questions about his eyes the other day, and I
+could give you no clear description of them; but yesterday, as he stood
+at the window looking out across the garden, I saw their real colour. It
+is grey, a deep clear grey, and his lashes are dark, like yours. How
+shall I begin? That is the grand difficulty! I suppose you will want to
+know something even about the journey. Everything was very pleasant, in
+spite of the cold blusterous March weather. Do you know what my last
+journey was like, Lotta? It was the long dreary journey from Foretdechene
+to St. Katharine's Wharf, when Mr. Hawkehurst advised and arranged my
+return to England. I had been sitting quite alone in a balcony
+overlooking the little town. It was after midnight, but the lights were
+still burning: I can see the lamplit windows shining through the night
+mist as I write this, end the sense of the hopeless misery of that time
+comes back to me like the breath of some freezing wind. I can find no
+words to tell you how desolate I was that night, or how hopeless.
+
+I dared not think of my future life; or of the next day, that was to be
+the beginning of that hopeless future. I was obliged to bind my thoughts
+to the present and all its dreariness; and a kind of dull apathetic
+feeling, which was too dull for despair, took possession of me that
+night. While I was sitting there Mr. Hawkehurst came to me, and told me
+that my father had become involved in a quarrel, under circumstances of a
+very shameful nature, which I need not tell you, darling. He recommended
+me to leave Foretdechene--indeed, almost insisted that I should do so. He
+wanted to rescue me from that miserable life. Your lover had noble and
+generous impulses even then, you see, dear; at his worst he was not all
+bad, and needed only your gentle influence to purify and elevate his
+character. He gave me all the money he possessed to pay the expenses of
+my journey. Ah, what a dreary journey! I left Foretdechene in the chill
+daybreak, and travelled third class, with dreadful Belgians who smelt of
+garlic, to Antwerp. I slept at a very humble inn near the quay, and
+started for England by the Baron Osy at noon next day. I cannot tell you
+how lonely I felt on board the steamer. I had travelled uncomfortably
+before, but never without my father and Valentine--and he had been always
+kind to me. If we were shabbily dressed, and people thought ill of us, I
+did not care. The spirit of Bohemianism must have been very strong with
+me in those days. I remembered how we had sat together on the same boat
+watching the sleepy shores of Holland, or making fun of our respectable
+fellow-passengers. Now I was quite alone. People stared at me rudely and
+unkindly, as I thought. I could not afford to dine or breakfast with the
+rest; and I was weak enough to feel wounded by the idea that people would
+guess my motive for shunning the savoury banquets that sent up such
+horrid odours to the deck where I sat, trying to read a tattered
+Tauchnitz novel. And the end of my journey? Ah, Charlotte, you can never
+imagine what it is to travel like that, without knowing whether there is
+any haven, any shelter for you at the end of your wanderings! I knew that
+at a certain hour we were to arrive at St. Katharine's Dock, but beyond
+that I knew nothing. I counted my money. There was just enough to pay for
+a cab that would carry me to Hyde Lodge. I should land there penniless.
+And what if my cousin Priscilla should refuse to receive me? For a moment
+I fancied even that possible; and I pictured myself walking about London,
+hungry and homeless.
+
+This was my last journey. I have dwelt upon it longer than I need have
+done; but I want you to understand what it is that makes Gustave Lenoble
+dear to me. If you could feel the contrast between the past and the
+present as I felt it when I stood on the deck of the Dover packet with
+him by my side, you would know why I love him, and am grateful to him. We
+stood side by side, watching the waves and talking of our future, while
+my father enjoyed a nap in one of the little deck cabins. To Gustave that
+future seems very bright and clear; to me it seems unutterably strange
+that the future _can_ be anything but a dismal _terra incognita_, from
+the contemplation of which it is wise to refrain.
+
+Papa stays with Gustave at Cotenoir; but it had been arranged for me to
+visit Mademoiselle Lenoble, Gustave's aunt, at Beaubocage, and to remain
+with her during my stay in Normandy. I at once understood the delicate
+feeling which prompted this arrangement. We dined at Rouen, and came to
+Vevinord in a coach. At Vevinord a queer little countrified vehicle met
+us, with a very old man, of the farm-servant class, as coachman. Gustave
+took the reins from the old man's hand and drove to Beaubocage, where
+Mademoiselle Lenoble received me with much cordiality. She is a dear old
+lady, with silvery bands of hair neatly arranged under the prettiest of
+caps. Her gown is black silk, and her collar and cuffs of snowy
+whiteness; everything about her exquisitely neat, and of the fashion of
+twenty, or perhaps thirty, years ago.
+
+And now, I suppose, you will want to know what Beaubocage is like. Well,
+dear, much as I admire Mademoiselle Lenoble, I must confess that her
+ancestral mansion is neither grand nor pretty. It might have made a very
+tolerable farmhouse, but has been spoiled by the architect's
+determination to make it a chateau. It is a square white building, with
+two pepper-castor-like turrets, in one of which I write this letter.
+Between the garden and the high road there is a wall, surmounted with
+plaster vases. The garden is for the greater part utilitarian; but in
+front of the salon windows there is a grassplot, bordered by stiff
+gravel-walks, and relieved by a couple of flower-beds. A row of tall
+poplars alone screens the house from the dusty high road. At the back of
+it there is an orchard; on one side a farmyard; behind the orchard lie
+the fields that compose the farm of Beaubocage and the paternal estate of
+the Lenoble family. All around the country is very flat. The people seem
+to be kind and simple, and devotedly attached to "Mademoiselle." There is
+a rustic peacefulness pervading everything which, for me, stands instead
+of beauty.
+
+I am hypocrite enough to pretend to be pleased with everything, for I can
+perceive how anxiously M. Lenoble watches me in order to discover whether
+I like his native country. He was not born at Beaubocage, but in Paris.
+Mademoiselle Lenoble told me the story of his childhood, and how she
+brought him to Beaubocage, when quite a little fellow, from Rouen, where
+his father died. About his mother there seems to have been some mystery.
+Mademoiselle told me nothing of this, except that her brother, Gustave
+the elder, made a love-match, and thereby offended his father. She has
+the little crib in which her nephew, Gustave the younger, slept on the
+night of his coming. It had been his father's little bed thirty years
+before. She shed tears as she told me the story, and how she sat and
+watched by the little fellow as he cried himself to sleep with his head
+lying on her arm, and the summer moonlight shining full upon his face.
+
+I was deeply touched by her manner as she told me these things; and I
+think, if I had not already learned to love M. Lenoble, I should love him
+for the sake of his aunt. She is charming; a creature so innocent and
+pure, that one considers one's words in speaking to her, almost as if she
+were a child. She is about forty years older than I; yet for worlds I
+would not tell her of the people and the scenes I have beheld at foreign
+watering-places and gambling-rooms. She has spent the sixty years of her
+life so completely out of the world, that she has retained the freshness
+and sweetness of her youth untainted in the least degree. Can there be
+magical philtre equal to this--a pure unselfish life, far away from the
+clamour of cities?
+
+The old servant who waits upon me is seventy-five years of age, and
+remembers Ma'amselle Cydalise from her childhood. She is always singing
+the praises of her mistress, and she sees that I like to hear them. "Ah,
+ma'amselle," she said to me, "to marry a Lenoble is to marry one of the
+angels. I will not say that the old seigneur was not hard towards his
+son. Ah, yes, but it was a noble heart. And the young monsieur--that one
+who died in Rouen, the Poor!--ah, that he was kind, that he was gracious!
+What of tears, what of regrets, when the Old chased him!"
+
+My position is quite recognised. I think the very cowboy in the
+farmyard--a broad-shouldered lad, with a good-natured mindless face, and
+prodigious wooden shoes like clumsy canoes--even the cowboy knows that I
+am to be Madame Lenoble of Cotenoir. Cotenoir is the Windsor Castle of
+this district; Beaubocage is only Frogmore. Yes, dear, the bond is signed
+and sealed. Even if I did not love M. Lenoble, I have bound myself to
+marry him; but I do love him, and thank him with all my heart for having
+given a definite end and aim to my life. Don't think I underrate your
+kindness, darling; I know that I should never want a home while you could
+give me one. But 'tis hard to be a hanger-on in any household; and
+Valentine will exact all his sweet young wife's love and care.
+
+I have written you a letter which I am sure will require double postage;
+so I will say no more except goodbye. Take care of yourself, dear one.
+Practise your part in our favourite duets; remember your morning walk in
+the garden; and don't wear out your eyes over the big books that Mr.
+Hawkehurst is obliged to read.
+
+Ever your affectionate
+
+DIANA.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_From Charlotte Halliday to Diana Paget_.
+
+The dullest house in Christendom, Monday.
+
+EVER DEAREST Di,--Your letter was a welcome relief to the weariness
+of my existence. How I wish I were with you! But that is too bright a
+dream. I am sure I should idolise Beaubocage. I should not mind the
+dismal row of poplars, or the flat landscape, or the dusty road, or
+anything, so long as it was not like Bayswater. I languish for a change,
+dear. I have seen so little of the world, except the dear moorland
+farmhouse at Newhall. I don't think I was ever created to be "cabined,
+cribbed, confined," in such a narrow life as this, amid such a dull,
+unchanging round of daily commonplace. Sometimes, when the cold spring
+moon is shining over the tree-tops in Kensington-Gardens, I think of
+Switzerland, and the snow-clad mountains and fair Alpine valleys we have
+read of and talked of, until my heart aches at the thought that I may
+never see them; and to think that there are people in whom the word
+'Savoy' awakes no fairer image than a cabbage! Ah, my poor dear! isn't it
+almost wicked of me to complain, when _you_ have had such bitter
+experience of the hard cruel world?
+
+I am quite in love with your dear Mademoiselle Lenoble; almost as deeply
+as I am in love with your magnanimous, chivalrous, generous,
+audacious--everything ending in _ous_--Monsieur Lenoble.
+
+How dare you call him M. Lenoble, by the bye? I have counted the
+occasions on which you write of him in your nice long letter, and for one
+Gustave there are half a dozen M. Lenobles. It must be Gustave in future
+to me, remember.
+
+What shall I tell you, dear? I have nothing to tell, really nothing. To
+say that I wish you were with me is only to confess that I am very
+selfish; but I _do_ wish for you, dear--my friend and adopted sister,
+my old school companion, from whom, willingly, I have never concealed
+one thought.
+
+Valentine called on Tuesday afternoon; but I have nothing to tell you
+even about him. Mamma dozed in her corner after her cup of tea, and Val
+and I sat by the fire talking over our future, just like you and M.
+Lenoble on board the Calais boat. How much engaged people find to say
+about the future! Is it our love that makes it seem so bright, so
+different from all that has gone before? I cannot fancy life with
+Valentine otherwise than happy. I strive to picture trials, and fancy
+myself in prison with him, the wind blowing in at broken windows, the
+rain coming through the dilapidated roof and pattering on the carpetless
+floor; but the most dismal picture I can paint won't seem dismal if his
+figure is a part of it. We would stop the broken windows with rags and
+paper, we would wipe up the rain with our pocket-handkerchiefs, and sit
+side by side and talk of the future, as we do now. Hope could never
+abandon us while we were together. And then, sometimes, while I am
+looking at Valentine, the thought that he might die comes to me suddenly,
+like the touch of an icy hand upon my heart.
+
+I lie awake at night sometimes thinking of this, and of papa's early
+death. He came home one night with a cold, and from that hour grew worse
+until he died. Ah, think what misery for a wife to suffer! Happily for
+mamma, she is not capable of suffering intensely. She was very sorry, and
+even now when she speaks of papa she cries a little; but the tears don't
+hurt her. I think, indeed, they give her a kind of pleasure.
+
+See, dear, what a long egotistical letter I have written, after all. I
+will say no more, except that while I am delighted to think of your
+pleasure among new friends and new scenes, my selfish heart still longs
+for the hour that is to bring you back to me.
+
+Pray tell me all you can about your daughters that are to be.
+
+Ever and ever your loving CHARLOTTE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_From Diana Paget to Charlotte Halliday_.
+
+Beaubocage, near Vevinord, March 30, 186--.
+
+MY DEAR LOTTA,--In three days more I hope to be with you; but I suppose,
+in the meantime, I must keep my promise, and send you a faithful account
+of my life here. Everyone here is more kind to me than words can tell;
+and I have nothing left to wish for, except that you were here to be
+delighted, as I am sure you would be, with the freshness and the
+strangeness of everything. If I ever do become Madame Lenoble--and even
+yet I _cannot_ picture to myself that such a thing will be--you must come
+to Cotenoir, you and Valentine. I was taken through every room in the old
+chateau the day before yesterday, and I fixed in my own mind upon the
+rooms I will give you, if these things come to pass. They are very old
+rooms, and I can fancy what strange people must have lived in them, and
+died in them perhaps, in the days that are gone. But if you come to them,
+they shall be made bright and pretty, and we will chase the shadows of
+the mediaeval age away. There are old pictures, old musical instruments,
+quaint spindle-legged chairs and tables, tapestries that crumble as you
+touch them--the ashes and relics of many generations. Gustave says we
+will sweep these poor vestiges away, and begin a new life, when I come to
+Cotenoir; but I cannot find it in my heart to obliterate every trace of
+those dead feet that have come and gone in all the dusky passages of my
+future home.
+
+And now I must tell you about my daughters that are to be--my daughter
+that is, I may say of the elder--for I love her so well already that no
+breach between Gustave and me could rob her of my affection. She is the
+dearest, most loving of creatures; and she reminds me of you! I dare say
+you will laugh at this, dear; and, mind, I do not say that Clarice
+Lenoble is actually like you in complexion or feature--those common
+attributes which every eye can see; the resemblance is far more subtle.
+There is a look in this dear girl's face, a smile, an I-know-not-what,
+which every now and then recalls your own bright countenance. You will
+say this is mere fancy--and that is what I told myself at the first; but
+I found afterwards that it is no fancy, but really one of those vague,
+indefinable, accidental likenesses which one perceives so often. To me it
+seems a very happy accident; for my first glance at my daughter's face
+told me that I should love her for your sake.
+
+We went to the convent the day before yesterday. It is a curious old
+place, and was once a stately chateau, the habitation of a noble family.
+A little portress, in the black robes of a lay sister, admitted us, and
+conducted us to the parlour, a fine old room, decorated with pictures of
+a religious character, painted by members of the sisterhood. Here Gustave
+and I were received by the superioress, an elderly woman, with a mild
+holy face, and a quiet grace of manner which might become a duchess. She
+sent for the demoiselles Lenoble, and after a delay of a quarter of an
+hour--you remember the toilet the girls at Hyde Lodge were obliged to
+make before they went to the drawing-room, Lotta--Mademoiselle Lenoble
+came, a tall, slim, lovely and lovable girl, who reminded me of the
+dearest friend I have in this world. She ran to her papa first, and
+saluted him with an enthusiastic hug; and then she stood for a moment
+looking shyly at me, confused and doubtful. It was only for a moment
+she was left in doubt. Gustave bent down to whisper something in her
+ear--something for which his letters had in some manner prepared her. The
+fair young face brightened, the clear grey eyes looked up at me with a
+sweet affectionate gaze, and she came to me and kissed me. "I shall love
+you very much," she whispered. "And I love you very much already," I
+answered, in the same confidential manner. And I think these few words,
+that one pretty confiding look in her innocent eyes, made a tie between
+us that it would take much to loosen. Ah, Lotta, what a wide gulf between
+the Diana Paget who landed alone at St. Katharine's Wharf, in the dim
+cheerless dawn, and uncertain where to find a shelter in all that busy
+city, and the same creature redeemed by your affection, and exalted by
+the love and trust of Gustave Lenoble!
+
+After this my second daughter appeared--a pretty young hoyden, with
+lovable clinging ways; and then the superioress asked if I would like to
+see the garden. Of course I said yes; and we were taken through the long
+corridors, out into a fine old garden, where the pupils, who looked like
+the Hyde Lodge girls translated into French, were prancing and scampering
+about in the usual style. After the garden we went to the chapel, where
+there were more pictures, and flower-bedecked altars, and pale twinkling
+tapers burning here and there in the chill sunlight. Here there were
+damsels engaged in pious meditation, from five years old upwards. They
+send even the little ones to meditate, Clarice tells me; and there are
+these infants kneeling before the flower-bedecked altars, rapt in
+religious contemplation, like so many Thomas a Kempises. The young
+meditators glanced shyly at us as we passed. When they had shown me
+everything of special interest in the pleasant old place, Clarice and
+Madelon ran off to dress for walking, in order to accompany us to
+Cotenoir, where we were to dine.
+
+It was quite a family party. Mademoiselle Lenoble was there, and papa. He
+arrived at the chateau while Gustave and I were paying our visit to the
+convent. He is in the highest spirits, and treats me with an amount of
+affection and courtesy I have not been accustomed to receive at his
+hands. Of course I know the cause of this change; the future mistress of
+Cotenoir is a very different person from that wretched girl who was
+nothing to him but a burden and an encumbrance. But even while I despise
+him I cannot refuse to pity him. One forgives anything in old age. In
+this, at least, it is a second childhood; and my father is very old,
+Lotta. I saw the look of age in his face more plainly at Cotenoir, where
+he assumed his usual _debonnaire_ man-of-the-world tone and manner, than
+I had seen it in London, when he was a professed invalid. He is much
+changed since I was with him at Foretdechene. It seems as if he had kept
+Time at bay very long, and now at last, the common enemy will be held at
+arm's-length no longer. He still braces himself up in the old military
+manner, still holds himself more erect than many men of half his age;
+but, in spite of all this, I can see that he is very feeble; shaken and
+worn by a long life of difficulty. I am glad to think that there will he
+a haven for him at last; and if I did not thank Gustave with my whole
+heart for giving me a home and a place in the world, I should thank him
+for giving a shelter to my father.
+
+And now, dear, as I hope to be with you so very soon, I shall say no
+more. I am to spend a day in Rouen before we come back--papa and I, that
+is to say; Gustave stays in Normandy to make some arrangements before he
+comes back to England. I cannot comprehend the business relations between
+him and papa; but there is some business going on--law business, as it
+seems to me--about which papa is very important and elated.
+
+I am to see the cathedral and churches at Rouen, and I shall contrive to
+see the shops, and to bring you something pretty. Papa has given me
+money--the first he ever gave me unasked. I have very little doubt it
+comes from Gustave; but I have no sense of shame in accepting it. M.
+Lenoble's seems to me a royal nature, formed to bestow benefits and
+bounties on every side.
+
+Tell Mrs. Sheldon that I shall bring her the prettiest cap I can find in
+Rouen; and,
+
+with all love, believe me ever your affectionate
+DIANA.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THE SEVENTH.
+
+
+
+A CLOUD OF FEAR.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE BEGINNING OF SORROW.
+
+Who heeds the cloud no bigger than a man's hand amidst a broad expanse of
+blue ether? The faint, scarce perceptible menace of that one little cloud
+is lost in the wide brightness of a summer sky. The traveller jogs on
+contented and unthinking, till the hoarse roar of stormy winds, or the
+first big drops of the thunder-shower, startle him with a sudden
+consciousness of the coming storm.
+
+It was early May, and the young leaves were green in the avenues of
+Kensington Gardens; Bayswater was bright and gay with fashionable people;
+and Mrs. Sheldon found herself strong enough to enjoy her afternoon drive
+in Hyde Park, where the contemplation of the bonnets afforded her
+perennial delight.
+
+"I think they are actually smaller than ever this year," she remarked
+every season; and every season the headgear of fashionable London did
+indeed seem to shrink and dwindle, "fine by degrees, and beautifully
+less." The coalscuttle-shaped headdress of our grandmothers had not yet
+resolved itself into a string of beads and a rosebud in these days, but
+was obviously tending thitherward.
+
+Charlotte and Diana accompanied Mrs. Sheldon in her drives. The rapture
+of contemplating the bonnets was not complete unless the lady had some
+sympathising spirit to share her delight. The two girls were very well
+pleased to mingle in that brilliant crowd, and to go back to their own
+quiet life when the mystic hour came, and that bright vision of colour
+and beauty melted into the twilight loneliness. It had seemed just
+lately, however, as if Charlotte was growing a little weary of the
+gorgeous spectacle--the ever-changing, ever-splendid diorama of West End
+life. She no longer exclaimed at the sight of each exceptional toilette;
+she no longer smiled admiringly on the thoroughbred horses champing their
+bits in the immediate neighbourhood of her bonnet; she no longer gave a
+little cry of delight when the big drags came slowly along the crowded
+ranks, the steel bars shining as they swung loosely in the low afternoon
+sunlight, the driver, conscious of his glory, grave and tranquil, with
+the pride that apes humility.
+
+"See, Lotta," said Miss Paget, upon an especially bright May evening, as
+one of these gorgeous equipages went past Mr. Sheldon's landau, "there's
+another drag. Did you see it?"
+
+"Yes, dear, I saw it."
+
+"And are you tired of four-in-hands? You used to admire them so much."
+
+"I admire them as much as ever, dear."
+
+"And yet you scarcely gave those four splendid roans a glance."
+
+"No," Charlotte answered, with a faint sigh.
+
+"Are you tired, Lotta?" Miss Paget asked, rather anxiously. There was
+something in Charlotte's manner of late that had inspired her with a
+vague sense of anxiety; some change which she could scarcely define--a
+change so gradual that it was only by comparing the Charlotte of some
+months ago with the Charlotte of the present that she perceived how real
+a change it was. The buoyancy and freshness, the girlish vivacity of Miss
+Halliday's manner, were rapidly giving place to habitual listlessness.
+"Are you tired, dear?" she repeated, anxiously; and Mrs. Sheldon looked
+round from her contemplation of the bonnets.
+
+"No, Di, dearest, not tired; but--I don't feel very well this afternoon."
+
+This was the first confession which Charlotte Halliday made of a sense of
+weakness and languor that had been creeping upon her during the last two
+months, so slowly, so gradually, that the change seemed too insignificant
+for notice.
+
+"You feel ill, Lotta dear?" Diana asked.
+
+"Well, no, not exactly ill. I can scarcely call it illness; I feel rather
+weak--that is really all."
+
+At this point Mrs. Sheldon chimed in, with her eyes on a passing bonnet
+as she spoke.
+
+"You see, you are so dreadfully neglectful of your papa's advice, Lotta,"
+she said, in a complaining tone. "Do _you_ like pink roses with mauve
+areophane, Diana? I do not. Look at that primrose tulle, with dead
+ivy-leaves and scarlet berries, in the barouche. I dare say you have not
+taken your glass of old port this morning, Charlotte, and have only
+yourself to thank if you feel weak."
+
+"I did take a glass of port this morning, mamma. I don't like it; but I
+take it every morning."
+
+"Don't like old tawny port, that your papa bought at the sale of a bishop
+of somewhere? It's perfectly absurd of you, Lotta, to talk of not liking
+wine that cost fifteen shillings a bottle, and which your papa's friends
+declare to be worth five-and-thirty."
+
+"I am sorry it is so expensive, mamma; but I can't teach myself to think
+it nice," answered Charlotte, with a smile that sadly lacked the
+brightness of a few weeks ago. "I think one requires to go into the City,
+and become a merchant or a stockbroker, before one can like that sort of
+wine. What was it Valentine quoted in the _Cheapside_, about some lady
+whom somebody loved?--'To love her was a liberal education.' I think to
+like old port is a commercial education."
+
+"I am sure such wine _ought_ to do you good," said Georgy, almost
+querulously. She thought this bright blooming creature had no right to be
+ill. The headaches, and little weaknesses and languors and ladylike
+ailments, were things for which she (Georgy) had taken out a patent; and
+this indisposition of her daughter's was an infringement of copyright.
+
+"I dare say the port will do me good, mamma, in time. No doubt I shall be
+as strong as that person who strangled lions and snakes and dogs with
+incalculable heads, and all that kind of thing."
+
+"I really wish you would not talk in that absurd manner, my dear," said
+Mrs. Sheldon with offended dignity. "I think you really cannot be too
+grateful for your papa's kind thoughtfulness and anxiety about you. I am
+sure I myself am not so anxious as he is; but of course his medical
+knowledge makes him doubly careful. Six weeks ago he noticed that you
+wanted strength--tone is what he calls it. 'Georgina,' he said to me,
+'Charlotte wants tone. She is beginning to stoop in a really lamentable
+manner: we must make her take port or bark, or something of a
+strengthening kind.' And then a day or two afterwards he decided on port,
+and gave me the key of the cellar--which is a thing he rarely gives out
+of his own hands--and told me the number of the bin from which I was to
+take the wine--some old wine that he had laid by on purpose for some
+special occasion; and no one is to have it but you, and you are to take a
+glass daily at eleven o'clock. Mr. Sheldon is most particular about the
+hour. The regularity of the thing is half the battle in these cases, he
+says; and I am sure if you do not observe his wishes and mine, Charlotte,
+it will be really ungrateful of you."
+
+"But, dear mamma, I do observe Mr.--papa's wishes. I take my glass of
+port every morning at eleven. I go to your cupboard in the breakfast-room
+and take out my special decanter, and my special glass, in the most
+punctiliously precise manner. I don't like the wine, and I don't like the
+trouble involved in the ceremony of drinking it; but I go through it most
+religiously, to please you and papa."
+
+"And do you mean to say that you do not feel stronger after taking that
+expensive old port regularly for nearly six weeks.
+
+"I am sorry to say that I do not, mamma. I think if there is any change,
+it is that I am weaker."
+
+"Dear, dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Sheldon captiously, "you are really a
+most extraordinary girl."
+
+Mrs. Sheldon could almost have found it in her heart to say, a most
+ungrateful girl. There did seem a kind of ingratitude in this futile
+consumption of old port at fifteen shillings a bottle.
+
+"I'll tell you what it is, Lotta," she said presently, "I am convinced
+that your illness--or your weakness--is all fancy."
+
+"Why so, mamma?"
+
+"Because, if it were real weakness, that old port must have made you
+stronger. And the fact that the port does you no good, is a proof that
+your weakness is only fancy. Girls of your age are so full of fancies.
+Look at me, and the martyrdom I go through with my nervous headaches,
+which perfectly prostrate me, after the least worry or excitement. The
+nerves of my head, after going into the butcher's book, are perfect
+agony. When you come to have a house to look after, and find what it is
+to have the same saddle of mutton charged for twice over, with the most
+daring impudence--or to have capers and currie-powder, that you _know_
+you've never had, staring at you from every page of your grocer's book,
+and nothing but your memory between you and utter ruin--you'll discover
+what it is to be really ill."
+
+In this easy manner did Mrs. Sheldon dismiss the subject of her daughters
+illness. But it was not so easily dismissed by Diana Paget, who loved her
+friend with a profound and pure affection, than which no sister's love
+was ever warmer or stronger. Even Valentine's preference for this happy
+rival had not lessened Diana's love for her friend and benefactress. She
+had been jealous of Charlotte's happier fate: but in the hour when this
+jealousy was most bitter there had been no wavering in her attachment to
+this one true and generous friend.
+
+Miss Paget was very silent during the homeward drive. She understood now
+what that change had been in her friend which until now had so perplexed
+her. It was a decay of physical strength which had robbed Lotta's smile
+of its brightness, her laugh of its merry music. It was physical languor
+that made her so indifferent to the things which had once awakened her
+girlish enthusiasm. The discovery was a very painful one. Diana
+remembered her experience of Hyde Lodge: the girls who had grown day by
+day more listless, now in the doctor's hands for a day or two, now well
+again and toiling at the old treadmill round of study, now sinking into
+confirmed invalids; until the bitter hour in which parents are summoned,
+and the doctor urges rest, and the fond mother carries her darling home,
+assured that home comfort and tenderness will, speedily restore her. Her
+schoolfellows cluster round the carriage to bid her "good-bye until next
+half," full of hopeful talk about her swift recovery. But when the
+vacation is over, and Black Monday comes, she is not amongst the
+returning scholars. Has she not gone up to the higher school, and
+answered _Adsum_ to the call of the Great Master?
+
+Diana remembered these old experiences with cruel pain.
+
+"Girls, as bright and lovable as she is, have drooped and faded away,
+just when they seem brightest and happiest," she thought as she watched
+Charlotte, and perceived to-day for the first time that the outline of
+her fair young cheek had lost its perfect roundness.
+
+But in such a case love can do nothing except watch and wait. That night,
+in the course of that girlish talk in Charlotte's bedroom, which had
+become a habit with the two girls, Diana extorted from her friend a full
+account of the symptoms which had affected her within the last few weeks.
+
+"Pray don't look so anxious, dear Di," she said gaily; "it is really
+nothing worth talking of; and I knew that if I confessed to feeling ill
+you and mamma would straightway begin to worry yourselves about me. I
+have felt a little sick and faint sometimes; and now and then a sudden
+dizziness has come over me. It is nothing of any consequence, and it
+passes away very quickly. Sometimes I have a kind of torpid languid
+feeling, which is scarcely unpleasant, only strange, you know. But what
+does it all amount to, except that I am nervous?"
+
+"You must have change of air, Lotta," said Diana resolutely, "and change
+of scene. Yes, no doubt you are nervous. You have been kept almost a
+prisoner in the house through Mr. Sheldon's punctilious nonsense. You
+miss our brisk morning walks in the Gardens, I dare say. If you were to
+go to Yorkshire, now, to your friends at Newhall, you would like that
+change, dear, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Yes, I should dearly like to see Aunt Dorothy and uncle Joe; but--"
+
+"But what, darling?"
+
+"I should scarcely like being at Newhall, unless--you'll think me very
+foolish, Di--unless Valentine was with me. We were so happy there, you
+see, dear; and it was there he first told me he loved me. No, Di, I
+couldn't bear Newhall without him."
+
+"Poor Aunt Dorothy, poor uncle Joe! feathers when weighed in the scale
+against a young man whom their niece has known less than a twelvemonth!"
+
+No more was said about Charlotte's illness; Diana was too prudent to
+alarm her friend by any expression of uneasiness. She adopted a cheering
+tone, and the conversation drifted into other channels.
+
+While Diana's concern for her friend's altered health was yet a new
+feeling, she found herself called upon to attend her father once more
+in the character of a ministering angel. And this time Captain Paget's
+illness was something more than gout. It was, according to his
+doctors--he had on this occasion two medical attendants--a general
+breaking up of the system. The poor old wanderer,--the weary Odysseus,
+hero of so many trickeries, such varied adventures,--laid himself down to
+rest, within view of the Promised Land for which his soul yearned.
+
+He was very ill. Gustave Lenoble, who came back to London, did not
+conceal from Diana that the illness threatened to end fatally. At his
+instigation the Captain had been removed from Omega Street to pleasant
+lodgings at the back of Knightsbridge Road, overlooking Hyde Park. This
+was nearer Bayswater, and it was very pleasant for the fading old
+worldling. He could see the stream of fashion flowing past as he sat in
+his easy-chair, propped up with pillows, with the western sunlight on his
+face. He pointed out the liveries and armorial bearings; and told many
+scandalous and entertaining anecdotes of their past and present owners to
+Gustave Lenoble, who devoted much of his time to the solacement of the
+invalid. Everything that affection could do to smooth this dreary time
+was done for the tired Ulysses. Pleasant books were read to him; earnest
+thoughts were suggested by earnest words; hothouse flowers adorned his
+cheerful sitting-room; hothouse fruits gladdened his eye by their rich
+warmth of colour, and invited his parched lips to taste their cool
+ripeness. Gustave had a piano brought in, so that Diana might sing to her
+father in the dusky May evenings, when it should please him to hear her.
+Upon the last feeble footsteps of this old man, whose life had been very
+selfish and wicked, pity waited with a carefulness so fond and tender
+that he might well mistake it for love. Was it fair that his last days
+should be so peaceful and luxurious, when many a good man falls down to
+die in the streets, worn out with the life-long effort to bear the burden
+laid upon his weary shoulders? In the traditions of the Rabbins it is
+written that those are the elect of God who suffer His chastisement in
+the flesh. For the others, for those who on earth drain the goblet of
+pleasure, and riot in the raptures of sin, for them comes the dread
+retribution after death. They are plunged in the fire, and driven before
+the wind; they take the shape of loathsome reptiles, and ascend by
+infinitesimal degrees through all the grades of creation, until their
+storm-tost wearied degraded souls re-enter human semblance once more. But
+even then their old stand-point is not yet regained; their dread penance
+not yet performed. As men they are the lowest and worst of men; slaves
+toiling in the desert; dirt to be trampled under the feet of their
+prosperous brethren. Inch by inch the wretched soul regains its lost
+inheritance; cycles must elapse before the awful sentence is fulfilled.
+
+Our Christian faith knows no such horrors. Even for the penitent of the
+eleventh hour there is promise of pardon. The most earnest desire of
+Diana's heart was that her father should enroll himself amongst those
+late penitents--those last among the last who crowd in to the marriage
+feast, half afraid to show their shame-darkened faces in that glorious
+company.
+
+If we forgive all things to old age, so much the more surely do we
+forgive all injuries to the fading enemy. That she had suffered much
+cruelty and neglect at the hands of her father, was a fact that Diana
+could not forget, any more than she could forget the name which he had
+given her. It was a part of her life not to be put off or done away with.
+But in these last days, with all her heart she forgave and pitied him.
+She pitied him for the crooked paths into which his feet had wandered at
+the very outset of life, and from which so weak a soul could find no
+issue. She pitied him for that moral blindness which had kept him
+pleasantly unconscious of the supreme depth of his degradation--a social
+Laplander, who never having seen a western summer, had no knowledge that
+his own land was dark and benighted.
+
+Happily for Diana and her generous lover, the Captain was not a
+difficult penitent. He was indeed a man who, having lost the capacity
+and the need for sin, took very kindly to penitence, as a species of
+sentimental luxury.
+
+"Yes, my dear," he said complacently--for even in the hour of his
+penitence he insisted on regarding himself as a social martyr--"my life
+has been a very hard one. Fortune has not been kind to me. In the words
+of the immortal bard, my lines have _not_ been set in pleasant places. I
+should have been glad if Providence had allowed me to be a better father
+to you, a better husband to your poor mother--a better Christian, in
+fact--and had spared me the repeated humiliation of going through the
+Insolvent Debtors' Court. It is not always easy to understand the justice
+of these things: and it has often appeared to me that something of the
+favouritism which is the bane of our governments on earth must needs
+obtain at a higher tribunal. One man enters life with an entailed estate
+worth seventy thousand a-year, while another finds himself in the hands
+of the Jews before he is twenty years of age. 'There's something in this
+world amiss shall be unriddled by-and-by,' as the poet observes. The
+circumstances of my own existence I have ever regarded as dark and
+enigmatic. And, indeed, the events of this life are altogether
+inexplicable, my love. There is that fellow Sheldon, now, who began
+life as a country dentist, a man without family or connections,
+who--well, I will not repine. If I am spared to behold my daughter
+mistress of a fine estate, although in a foreign country, I can depart in
+peace. But you must have a house in town, my dear. Yes, London must be
+your head-quarters. You must not be buried alive in Normandy. There is no
+place like London. Take the word of a man who has seen the finest
+Continental cities, and lived in them--that is the point, my love--lived
+in them. For a fine afternoon in the beginning of May, an apartment in
+the Champs Elysees, or the Boulevard, is an earthly paradise; but the
+Champs Elysees in a wet December--the Boulevard in a sweltering August!
+London is the only spot upon earth that is never intolerable. And your
+husband will be a rich man, my dear girl, a really wealthy man; and you
+must see that he makes a fitting use of his wealth, and does his duty to
+society. The parable of the Talents, which you were reading to me this
+afternoon, is a moral lesson your husband must not forget."
+
+After this fashion did the invalid discourse. Gustave and Diana perceived
+that he still hoped to have his share in their future life, still looked
+to pleasant days to come in a world which he had loved, not wisely, but
+too well. Nor could they find it in their hearts to tell him that his
+journey was drawing to a close, and that on the very threshold of the
+peaceful home which his diplomatic arts had helped to secure, he was to
+abandon life's weary race.
+
+They indulged his hopes a little, in order to win him the more easily to
+serious thoughts; but though at times quite ready to abandon himself to a
+penitential mood that was almost maudlin, there were other times when the
+old Adam asserted himself, and the Captain resented this intrusion of
+serious subjects as a kind of impertinence.
+
+"I am not aware that I am at my last gasp, Diana," he said with dignity,
+on one of these occasions; "or that I need to be talked to by my own
+daughter as if I were on my deathbed. I can show you men some years my
+senior driving their phaetons-and-pairs in that Park. The Gospel is all
+very well in its place--during Sunday-morning service, and after morning
+prayers, in your good old county families, where the household is large
+enough to make a fair show at the end of the dining-room, without
+bringing in hulking lads who smell of the stables: but I consider that
+when a man is ill, there is a considerable want of tact in bringing the
+subject of religion before him in any obtrusive manner."
+
+Thus the Captain alternated from sentimental penitence to captious
+worldliness, during may days and weeks. The business of the Haygarthian
+inheritance was progressing slowly, but surely. Documents were being
+prepared, attested copies of certificates of marriages, births, baptisms,
+and burials were being procured, and all was tending towards the grand
+result. Once, and sometimes twice a week, M. Fleurus came to see Captain
+Paget, and discussed the great affair with that invalid diplomatist. The
+Captain had long ago been aware that in entering upon an alliance with
+that gentleman, he had invoked the aid of a coadjutor likely to prove too
+strong for him. The event had justified his fears. M. Fleurus had
+something of Victor Hugo's famous _Poulpe_ in his nature. Powerful as
+flexible were the arms he stretched forth to grasp all prizes in the way
+of heirs-at-law and disputed heritages, unclaimed railway-stock, and
+forgotten consols. If the Captain had not played his cards very cleverly,
+and contrived to obtain a personal influence over Gustave Lenoble, he
+might have found himself thrust entirely out of the business by one of
+the Frenchman's gelatinous arms. Happily for his own success, however,
+the Captain did obtain a strong hold upon Gustave. This enabled him to
+protect his own interests throughout the negotiation, and to keep the
+insidious Fleurus at bay.
+
+"My good friend," he said, in his grand Carlton-House manner, "I am bound
+to protect the interests of my friend M. Lenoble, in any agreement to be
+entered upon in this matter. I cannot permit M. Lenoble's generosity or
+M. Lenoble's inexperience to be imposed upon. My own interests are of
+secondary importance. That I expect to profit by the extraordinary
+discovery made by me--by ME--alone and unaided, I do not affect to deny.
+But I will not profit at the expense of a too generous friend."
+
+"And what recompense am I to have for my work--a work at once painful and
+impoverishing?" asked the little Frenchman, with an angry and suspicious
+look. "Do you believe that I do that to amuse me? To run the streets, to
+go by here, by there, in hunting the papers of that marriage, or this
+baptism? Believe you that is so agreeable, Monsieur the Captain? No; I
+desire to be paid for my work. I must have my part in the heritage which
+I have help to win."
+
+"It is not won yet. We will talk of your recompense by-and-by."
+
+"We will talk of it this instant--upon the field. It must that I
+comprehend where I am in this affair. I will not of mystifications, of
+prevarications, of lies--"
+
+"M. Fleurus!" cried the Captain, with a hand stretched towards the bell.
+
+"You will sound--you will chase me! Ah, but no!--you cannot afford to
+chase me yet. I have to find more papers of baptisms and burials. Go,
+then, we will talk of this affair as friends."
+
+This friendly talk ended in Captain Paget's complete victory. M. Fleurus
+consented to accept his costs out of pocket in the present, and three per
+cent, of the heritage in the future. It was further agreed that the
+Captain should select the English attorney who should conduct M.
+Lenoble's case in the Court of Chancery.
+
+This conversation occurred at Rouen, and a day or two afterwards the
+necessary document was drawn up. Gustave pledged himself to pay over a
+fourth share of the Haygarthian fortune to Horatio Paget, and three
+per cent, upon the whole amount to Jean Francois Fleurus. The document
+was very formal, very complete; but whether such an agreement would
+hold water, if Gustave Lenoble should choose to contest it, was open
+to question.
+
+The solicitor to whom Horatio Paget introduced M. Lenoble was a Mr.
+Dashwood, of the firm of Dashwood and Vernon; a man whom the Captain had
+known in the past, and from whom he had received good service in some of
+the most difficult crises of his difficult career. To this gentleman he
+confided the conduct of the case; and explained his apprehensions with
+regard to the two Sheldons.
+
+"You see, as the case now stands, they think they have the claimant to
+this money in Miss Halliday--Sheldon's stepdaughter. But if they got an
+inkling of Susan Meynell's marriage--and, in point of fact--the actual
+state of the case--they might try to get hold of my friend, Gustave
+Lenoble. They could _not_ get hold of him, mind you, Dashwood, but they
+would try it on, and I don't want trying on of that kind."
+
+"Of course not. I know Sheldon, of Gray's Inn. He is rather--well, say
+_shady_. That's hardly an actionable epithet, and it expresses what I
+mean. Your friend's case seems to me tolerably clear. That little
+Frenchman is useful, but officious. It is not a speculative affair, I
+suppose? There is money to meet the current expenses of the business?"
+
+"Yes, there is money. Within reasonable limits my friend is prepared to
+pay for the advancement of his claims."
+
+After this the Haygarthian business progressed, slowly, quietly. The work
+was up to this point underground work. There were still papers
+wanting--final links of the chain to be fitted together; and to the
+fitting of these links Messrs. Dash and Vernon devoted themselves, in
+conjunction with M. Fleurus.
+
+This was how matters stood when Captain Paget drooped and languished, and
+was fain to abandon all active share in the struggle.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FADING.
+
+While the invalid in the pleasant lodgings overlooking Hyde Park
+grew day by day weaker, there was a change as marked in the bright
+young creature whose loving spirit had first brought the influence of
+affection to bear upon Diana Paget's character. Charlotte Halliday was
+ill--very ill. It was with everyday increasing anxiety that Diana watched
+the slow change--slow in its progress, but awfully rapid to look back
+upon. The pain, the regret, with which she noted her father's decay were
+little indeed compared with the sharp agony which rent her heart as she
+perceived the alteration in this dear friend, the blighting of this fair
+young flower.
+
+That the withered leaves of autumn should fall is sad, but natural, and
+we submit to the gloomy inevitable fact of decay and death. But to see
+our rose of roses, the pride and glory of the garden, fade and perish in
+its midsummer prime, is a calamity inexplicable and mysterious. Diana
+watched her father's decline with a sense of natural sorrow and pity; but
+there was neither surprise nor horror in the thought that for him the end
+of all things was drawing nigh. How different was it with Charlotte--with
+that happy soul for whom life and love wore their brightest smile, before
+whose light joyous footsteps stretched so fair a pathway!
+
+The illness, whatever it was--and neither Mr. Sheldon nor the portly and
+venerable physician whom he called in could find a name for it--crept
+upon the patient with stealthy and insidious steps. Dizziness, trembling,
+faintness; trembling, faintness, dizziness; the symptoms alternated day
+by day. Sometimes there was a respite of a few days; and Charlotte--the
+youthful, the sanguine, the happy--declared that her enemy had left her.
+
+"I am sure mamma is right, Di," she said on these occasions. "My nerves
+are the beginning and end of the mischief; and if I could get the better
+of my nerves, I should be as well as ever. I don't wonder that the idea
+of my symptoms makes mamma almost cross. You see, she has been accustomed
+to have the symptoms all to herself; and for me to plagiarise them, as it
+were, must seem quite an impertinence. For a strong young thing like me,
+you know, Di dear--who have only just broken myself of plunging
+downstairs two and three steps at a time, and plunging upstairs in the
+same vulgar manner--to intrude on mamma's shattered nerves, and pirate
+mamma's low spirits, is utterly absurd and abominable; so I have resolved
+to look my nerves straight in the face, and get the better of them."
+
+"My darling, you will get the better of them if you try," said Diana, who
+did at times beguile herself with the hope that her friend's ailments
+were mental rather than bodily. "I dare say your monotonous life has
+something to do with your altered health; you want change of scene,
+dear."
+
+"Change of scene, when I have you and Valentine! No, Di. It would
+certainly be very nice to have the background shifted now and then; to
+see Capability Brown's prim gardens melt into Alpine heights or
+southern vineyards, or even into Russian steppes or Hungarian forests.
+One does get a little tired of _toujours_ Bayswater; and Mr. Sheldon;
+and crimped skate; and sirloin of beef, and the inevitable discussion as
+to whether it is in a cannibal state of rawness or burnt to a cinder;
+and the glasses of pale sherry; and the red worsted doyleys and blue
+finger-glasses; and the almonds and raisins, and crisp biscuits, that
+nobody ever eats; and the dreary, dreary funereal business of dinner,
+when we all talk vapid nonsense, with an ever-present consciousness of
+the parlourmaid. I am tired of the dull dinners, and of mamma's peevish
+complaints about Ann Woolper's ascendancy downstairs; and of Mr.
+Sheldon's perpetual newspapers, that crackle, crackle, crackle all the
+evening through; and _such_ papers!--_Money Market Monitor, Stockholder's
+Vade-Mecum_, and all sorts of dreadful things of that kind, with not so
+much as an interesting advertisement in one of them. I used never to feel
+these things an annoyance, you know, dear, till I made the acquaintance
+of my nerves; but from the moment I allowed my nerves to get the better
+of me, all these trifles have worried and excruciated me. But I am happy
+with you, darling; and I am happy with Valentine. Poor Valentine!"
+
+She pronounced his name with a sigh; and then, after a pause, repeated
+mournfully, "Poor Valentine!"
+
+"Why do you speak of him so sadly, dear?" asked Diana, very pale.
+
+"Because--because we have planned such a happy life together, dear,
+and--"
+
+"Is that a thing to be sad about, darling?"
+
+"And--if it should happen, after all, that we have to part, and he go on
+alone, the world may seem so sad and lonely to him."
+
+"Charlotte!" cried Diana, with a laugh that was almost choked by a sob,
+"is this looking your nerves in the face? Why, my dear one, this is
+indeed plagiarism of your mamma's low spirits. Lotta, you shall have
+change of air; yes, I am determined on that. The stately physician who
+came in his carriage the other day, and who looked at your tongue, and
+said 'Ah!' and then felt your pulse and said 'Ah!' again, and then called
+for pen-and-ink and wrote a little prescription, is not the doctor we
+want for you. We want Dr. Yorkshire; we want the breezes from the
+Yorkshire moors, and the smell of the farmyard, and our dear Aunt
+Dorothy's sillabubs, and our uncle Joe to take us for long walks across
+his clover-fields."
+
+"I don't want to go to Newhall, Di. I couldn't bear to leave--him."
+
+"But what is to prevent your meeting _him_ at the white gate this time,
+as you met him last October? Might not accident take _him_ to Huxter's
+Cross again? The archaeological work--of which we have heard no more, by
+the bye--might necessitate further investigations in that district. If
+you will go to Newhall, Lotta, I will pledge myself for Mr. Hawkehurst's
+speedy appearance at the white gate you have so often described to me."
+
+"My dearest Di, you are all kindness; but even if I were inclined to go
+to Newhall, I doubt if mamma or Mr. Sheldon would like me to go."
+
+"I am sure they would be pleased with any arrangement that was likely to
+benefit your health. But I will talk to your mamma about it. I have set
+my heart on your going to Newhall."
+
+Miss Paget lost no time in carrying out her idea. She took possession of
+Georgy that afternoon, while teaching her a new stitch in _tricot_, and
+succeeded in impressing her with the conviction that change of air was
+necessary for Charlotte.
+
+"But you don't think Lotta really ill?" asked Mrs. Sheldon, nervously.
+
+"I trust she is not really ill, dear Mrs. Sheldon; but I am sure she is
+much changed. In talking to her, I affect to think that her illness is
+only an affair of the nerves; but I sadly fear that it is something more
+than that."
+
+"But what is the matter with her?" exclaimed Georgy, with a, piteous air
+of perplexity; "that is the question which I am always asking. People
+can't be ill, you know, Diana, without having something the matter with
+them; and that is what I can't make out in Charlotte's case. Mr. Sheldon
+says she wants tone; the physician who came in a carriage and pair, and
+ought to know what he is talking about, says there is a lack of vigour.
+But what does that all amount to? I'm sure I've wanted tone all my life.
+Perhaps there never was a creature so devoid of tone as I am; and the
+internal sinking I feel just before luncheon is something that no one but
+myself can realize. I dare say Lotta is not so strong as she might be;
+but I do not see that she can be ill, unless her illness is something
+definite. My poor first husband's illness, now, was the kind of thing
+that any one could understand--bilious fever. The merest child knows what
+it is to be bilious, and the merest child knows what it is to be
+feverish. There can be nothing mysterious in bilious fever."
+
+"But, dear Mrs. Sheldon," said Diana, gravely, "don't you think that the
+weakness of constitution which rendered Charlotte's father liable to be
+taken off in the prime of life by a fever is a weakness that Charlotte
+may possibly have inherited?"
+
+"Good heavens, Diana!" cried Georgy, with sudden terror; "you don't mean
+to say that you think my Charlotte is going to die?"
+
+It was but one step with Mrs. Sheldon from peevish incredulity to frantic
+alarm; and Diana found it as difficult to tranquillise her newly-awakened
+fears as it had been to rouse her from absolute apathy.
+
+Change of air--yes, of course--Charlotte must have change of air that
+instant. Let a cab be sent for immediately to take them to the terminus.
+Change of air, of course. To Newhall--to Nice--to the Isle of Wight--to
+Malta; Mrs. Sheldon had heard of people going to Malta. Where should they
+go? Would Diana advise, and send for a cab, and pack a travelling bag
+without an instant's delay? The rest of the things could be sent
+afterwards. What did luggage matter, when Charlotte's life was at stake?
+
+At this point a flood of tears happily relieved poor Georgy's excited
+feelings, and then common sense and Diana Paget came to the rescue.
+
+"My dear Mrs. Sheldon," she said, with a quiet cheerful tone that went
+far to reassure the excited lady, "in the first place we must, above all
+things, refrain from any appearance of alarm. Her illness may, after all,
+be only an affair of the nerves; and there is certainly no cause for
+immediate fear."
+
+Georgy was tranquillised, and agreed to take matters quietly. She
+promised to arrange Charlotte's departure for Newhall, with Mr. Sheldon,
+that evening.
+
+"Of course, you know, my dear, I like to consult him about everything,"
+she said, apologetically. "It is a duty which one owes one's husband, you
+know, and a duty which, as a young woman about to marry, I cannot too
+much impress upon you; but in this case it is quite a matter of form: Mr.
+Sheldon never has objected to Charlotte's going to Newhall, and he is not
+likely to object now."
+
+The event proved Mrs. Sheldon mistaken as to this matter. Georgy proposed
+the visit to Newhall that evening, while the two girls were strolling
+listlessly in the dusky garden, and Mr. Sheldon most decidedly rejected
+the proposition.
+
+"If she wants change of air--and Dr. Doddleson recommended nothing of the
+kind--Newhall is not the place for her."
+
+"Why not, dear?"
+
+"It is too cold. Northerly aspect--no shelter--three hundred feet above
+York minster."
+
+"But Dorothy Mercer is such a kind motherly creature; she'd delight in
+nursing Lotta."
+
+"Yes," answered Mr. Sheldon, with a laugh, "and in quacking her. I know
+what those good motherly creatures are when they get an excuse for dosing
+some unhappy victim with their quack nostrums. If Charlotte went to
+Newhall, Mrs. Mercer would poi--would make her ten times worse than
+she is with old woman's remedies. Besides, as I said before, the place is
+too cold. That is a conclusive argument, I suppose?"
+
+He said this with some impatience of tone and manner. There was a haggard
+look in his face, a hurried harassed manner pervading him this evening,
+which had been growing upon him of late. Georgy was too slow of
+perception to remark this; but Diana Paget had remarked it, and had
+attributed the change in the stockbroker's manner to a blending of two
+anxieties.
+
+"He is anxious about money matters," she had said to herself, "and he is
+anxious about Charlotte's health. His lips, moving in whispered
+calculations, as he sits brooding by the fire, tell me of the first
+anxiety; his eyes, wandering furtively to his step-daughter's face every
+now and then, tell me of the second."
+
+This furtive anxiety of Mr. Sheldon's increased Diana Paget's anxiety.
+This man, who had a certain amount of medical knowledge, could no doubt
+read the diagnostics of that strange insidious illness, which had, as
+yet, no name, Diana, furtively watching his furtive looks, told herself
+that he read of danger.
+
+"If Charlotte wants change of air, let her go to Hastings," he said;
+"that is the kind of place for an invalid. I want rest myself; and
+there's such utter stagnation in the City nowadays that I can very well
+afford to give myself a holiday. We'll run down to Hastings, or the
+immediate neighbourhood of Hastings, for a week or two."
+
+"O Philip, how kind and considerate you are! I am sure, as I was
+observing to Miss Paget only today, you--"
+
+"Ah, by the bye, there's Miss Paget. Is it absolutely necessary that Miss
+Paget should go to Hastings with us?"
+
+"Well, dear, you see she has so kindly desired to remain with me for the
+quarter, so as to give me time to turn round, you know, with regard to
+caps and summer things, and so on--for, really, she has such taste, and
+does strike out such excellent ideas about turning, and dipping, and
+dyeing, that I don't know what will become of me when she leaves us; and
+it would look so pointed to--"
+
+"Yes; she had better go with us. But why all this fuss about Charlotte?
+Who put it into your head that she wants change of air?"
+
+Mr. Sheldon evidently considered it an established fact that any idea in
+his wife's head must needs have been put there by someone or other.
+
+"Well, you see, Diana and I were talking of Lotta this afternoon, and
+Diana quite alarmed me."
+
+"How so?" asked Mr. Sheldon, with a quick frown.
+
+"Why, she said it was evident, by the fact of poor dear Tom's dying of a
+fever, that his constitution must have been originally weak. And she said
+that perhaps Charlotte had inherited Tom's weak constitution--and
+frightened me dreadfully."
+
+"There is no occasion for you to be frightened; Charlotte will get on
+very well, I dare say, with care. But Miss Paget is a very sensible
+young woman, and is right in what she says. Charlotte's constitution is
+not strong."
+
+"O Philip!" said Georgy, in a faint wailing voice.
+
+"I dare say she will live to follow you and me to our graves," said Mr.
+Sheldon, with a hard laugh. "Ah, here she is!"
+
+Here she was, coming towards the open window near which her stepfather
+sat. Here she was, pale and tired, with her sauntering walk, dressed in
+white, and spectral in the gloaming. To the sad eyes of her mother she
+looked like a ghost. To the eyes of Philip Sheldon, a man not prone to
+poetic fancies, she looked even more ghostlike.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+MRS. WOOLPER IS ANXIOUS.
+
+Since the beginning of her illness, Charlotte Halliday had been the
+object and subject of many anxious thoughts in the minds of several
+people. That her stepfather had his anxieties about her--anxieties which
+he tried to hide--was obvious to the one person in the Bayswater villa
+who noted his looks, and tried to read the thoughts they indicated.
+
+Mrs. Sheldon's alarm, once fairly awakened, was not to be lulled to rest.
+And in Valentine Hawkehurst's heart there was an aching pain--a dull dead
+load of care, which had never been lightened from the hour when he first
+perceived the change in his dear one's face.
+
+There was one other person, an inhabitant of the Bayswater villa, who
+watched Charlotte Halliday at this time with a care as unresting as the
+care of mother or stepfather, bosom friend or plighted lover. This person
+was Ann Woolper. Mrs. Woolper had come to the villa prepared to find in
+Miss Halliday a frivolous self-satisfied young person, between whom and
+an old broken-down woman like herself there could be no sympathy. She had
+expected to be contemptuously--or, at the best, indifferently--entreated
+by the prosperous well-placed young lady, whom Mr. Sheldon had spoken of
+as a good girl, as girls go; a vague species of commendation, which, to
+the mind of Mrs. Woolper, promised very little.
+
+As clearly as Philip Sheldon dared express his wishes with regard to
+Charlotte Halliday, he had expressed them to Ann Woolper. What he would
+fain have said, was, "Watch my stepdaughter, and keep me well acquainted
+with every step she takes." Thus much he dared not say; but by
+insinuating that Tom Halliday's daughter was frivolous and reckless, and
+that her lover was not to be trusted, he had contrived to put Mrs.
+Woolper on the _qui vive_.
+
+"Mr. Philip's afraid she may go and marry this young man on the sly,
+before he's got the means to support a wife," she said to herself, as she
+meditated upon the meaning of her master's injunctions; "and well he may
+be. There's no knowing what young women are up to nowadays; and the more
+innocent and inexperienced a young woman is, the more she wants looking
+after. And Miss Georgy Craddock always was a poor fondy, up to naught but
+dressing herself fine, and streaming up and down Barlingford High Street
+with her old schoolfellows. Such as she ain't fit to be trusted with a
+daughter; and Mr. Philip knows that. He always was a deep one. But I'm
+glad he looks after Missy: there's many men, having got fast hold of th'
+father's brass, would let th' daughter marry Old Scratch, for the sake of
+gettin' rid of her."
+
+This is how Mrs. Woolper argued the matter. She came of a prudent race;
+and anything like prudence seemed to her a commendable virtue. She wished
+to think well of her master; for her he had been a Providence in the hour
+of calamity and old age. Where else could she look, if not to him? And to
+suspect him, or think ill of him, was to reject the one refuge offered to
+her distress. A magnanimous independence of spirit is not an easy virtue
+for the old and friendless and poor. The drowning wretch will scarcely
+question the soundness of the plank that sustains him upon the
+storm-tossed billows; nor was Mrs. Woolper inclined to question the
+motives of the man to whom she now owed her daily bread.
+
+It is possible that before invoking Mrs. Woolper from the ashes of the
+past to take her seat by the hearthstone of the present, Mr. Sheldon may
+have contemplated the question of her return in all its bearings, and
+may have assured himself that she was his own, by a tie not easily
+broken--his bond-slave, fettered hand and foot by the bondage of
+necessity.
+
+"What choice can she have, except the choice between my house and the
+workhouse?" he may naturally have asked himself; "and is it likely she
+will quarrel with her bread-and-butter in order to fall back upon dry
+bread?" Mr. Sheldon, contemplating this and all other questions from his
+one unchanging standpoint, may reasonably have concluded that Mrs.
+Woolper would do nothing opposed to her own interests; and that so long
+as it suited her interest to remain at the Lawn, and to serve him, she
+would there remain, his docile and unquestioning slave.
+
+The influence of affection, the force of generous impulse, were qualities
+that did not come into Mr. Sheldon's calculations upon this subject. His
+addition and subtraction, division and multiplication, were all based on
+one system.
+
+That happy and unconscious art by which Charlotte Halliday made herself
+dear to all who knew her had a speedy effect upon the old housekeeper.
+The girl's amiable consideration for her age and infirmities; the pretty
+affectionate familiarity with which she treated this countrywoman, who
+had known her father, and who could talk to her of Yorkshire and
+Yorkshire people, soon made their way to Nancy Woolper's heart of hearts.
+For Miss Halliday to come to the housekeeper's room with some message
+from her mother, and to linger for a few minutes' chat, was a delight to
+Mrs. Woolper. She would have detained the bright young visitant for hours
+instead of minutes, if she could have found any excuse for so doing. Nor
+was there any treason against Mr. Sheldon in her growing attachment to
+his stepdaughter. Whenever Nancy spoke of that master and benefactor, she
+spoke with unfeigned gratitude and affection.
+
+"I nursed your step-papa as a baby, Miss Halliday," she said very often
+on these occasions. "You wouldn't think, to look at him now, that he ever
+was _that_, would you? But he was one of the finest babies you could wish
+to see--tall, and strong, and with eyes that pierced one through, they
+were so bright and big and black. He was rather stubborn-spirited with
+his teething; but what baby isn't trying at such times? I had rare work
+with him, I can tell you, Miss, walking him about of nights, and jogging
+him till there wasn't a jog left in me, as you may say, from sleepiness.
+I often wonder if he thinks of this now, when I see him looking so grave
+and stern. But, you see, being jogged doesn't impress the mind like
+having to jog; and though I can bring that time back as plain as if it
+was yesterday, with the very nursery I slept in at Barlingford, and the
+rushlight in a tall iron cage on the floor, and the shadow of the cage on
+the bare whitewashed walls--it's clean gone out of his mind, I dare say."
+
+"I'm afraid it has, Nancy."
+
+"But, O, I was fond of him, Miss Halliday; and what I went through with
+him about his teeth made me only the fonder of him. He was the first baby
+I ever nursed, you see, and the last; for before Master George came to
+town I'd taken to the cooking, and Mrs. Sheldon hired another girl as
+nurse; a regular softy _she_ was, and it isn't her fault that Master
+George has got anything christian-like in the way of a back, for the way
+she carried that blessed child used to make my blood run cold."
+
+Thus would Mrs. Woolper discourse whenever she had a fair excuse for
+detaining Miss Halliday in her comfortable apartment. Charlotte did not
+perceive much interest in these reminiscences of Mr. Sheldon's infancy,
+but she was much too kind to bring them abruptly to a close by any show
+of impatience. When she could get Nancy to talk of Barlingford and Hyley,
+and the people whom Charlotte herself had known as a child, the
+conversation was really interesting; and these recollections formed a
+link between the old woman and the fair young damsel.
+
+When the change arose in Charlotte's health and spirits, Mrs. Woolper was
+one of the first to perceive it. She was skilled in those old woman's
+remedies which Mr. Sheldon held in such supreme contempt, and she would
+fain have dosed the invalid with nauseous decoctions of hops, or
+home-brewed quinine. Charlotte appreciated the kindness of the intent,
+but she rebelled against the home-brewed medicines, and pinned her faith
+to the more scientific and less obnoxious preparations procured from the
+chemist's.
+
+For some time Nancy made light of the girl's ailments, though she watched
+her with unfailing attention.
+
+"You ain't a-done growing yet, miss, I'll lay," she said.
+
+"But I'm more than twenty-one, Nancy. People don't grow after they're of
+age, do they?"
+
+"I've known them as have, miss; I don't say it's common, but it has been
+done. And then there's the weakness that comes after you've done growing.
+Girls of your age are apt to be faint and lollopy-like, as you may say;
+especially when they're stived up in a smoky place like London. You ought
+to go to Hyley, miss, where you was born; that's the place to set you
+up."
+
+The time had come when the change was no longer matter for doubt. Day by
+day Charlotte grew weaker and paler; day by day that bright and joyous
+creature, whose presence had made an atmosphere of youth and gladness
+even in that prim dwelling-place, receded farther into the dimness of
+the past; until to think of what she had been seemed like recalling the
+image of the dead. Nancy marked the alteration with a strange pain, so
+sharp, so bitter, that its sharpness and bitterness were a perpetual
+perplexity to her.
+
+"If the poor dear young thing is meant to go, there's no need for me to
+fret about it all day long, and wake up sudden in the night with cold
+water standing out upon my forehead at the thought of it. I haven't known
+her six months; and if she is pretty and sweet-spoken, it's not my place
+to give way at the thoughts of losing her. She's not my own flesh and
+blood; and I've sat by to watch them go, times and often, without feeling
+as I do when I see the change in her day after day. Why should it seem so
+dreadful to me?"
+
+Why indeed? This was a question for which Mrs. Woolper could find no
+answer. She knew that the pain and horror which she felt were something
+more than natural, but beyond this point her thoughts refused to travel.
+A superstitious feeling arose at this point, to usurp the office of
+reason, and she accounted for the strangeness of Miss Halliday's illness
+as she might have done had she lived in the sixteenth century, and been
+liable to the suspicion of nocturnal careerings on broomsticks.
+
+"I'm sorry Mr. Philip's house should be unlucky to that sweet young
+creature," she said to herself. "It was unlucky to the father; and now it
+seems as if it was going to be unlucky to the daughter. And Mr. Philip
+won't be any richer for her death. Mrs. Sheldon has told me times and
+often that all Tom Halliday's money went to my master when she married
+him, and he has doubled and trebled it by his cleverness. Miss
+Charlotte's death wouldn't bring him a sixpence."
+
+This was the gist of Mrs. Woolper's meditations very often nowadays. But
+the strange sense of perplexity, the nameless fear, the vague horror,
+were not to be banished from her mind. A sense of some shapeless presence
+for ever at her side haunted her by day and night. What was it? What did
+its presence portend? It was as if a figure, shrouded from head to foot,
+was there, dark and terrible, at her elbow, and she would not turn to
+meet the horror face to face. Sometimes the phantom hand lifted a corner
+of the veil, and the shade said, "Look at me! See who and what I am! You
+have seen me before. I am here again! and this time you shall not refuse
+to meet me face to face! I am the shadow of the horror you suspected in
+the past!"
+
+The shadowy fears which oppressed Mrs. Woolper during this period did not
+in any way lessen her practical usefulness. From the commencement of
+Charlotte's slow decline she had shown herself attentive, and even
+officious, in all matters relating to the invalid. With her own hands she
+decanted the famous port which Georgy fetched from the particular bin in
+Mr. Sheldon's carefully arranged cellar. When the physician was called
+in, and wrote his harmless little prescription, it was Mrs. Woolper who
+carried the document to the dispensing chemist, and brought back the
+innocent potion, which might, peradventure, effect some slight good, and
+was too feeble a decoction to do any harm. Charlotte duly appreciated all
+this kindness; but she repeatedly assured the housekeeper that her
+ailments were not worthy of so much care.
+
+It was Mrs. Woolper whom Mr. Sheldon employed to get lodgings for the
+family, when it had been ultimately decided that a change to the seaside
+was the best cure for Miss Halliday.
+
+"I am too busy to go to Hastings myself this week," he said; "but I
+shall be prepared to spend a fortnight there after next Monday. What I
+want you to do, Nancy, is to slip down tomorrow, with a second-class
+return-ticket, and look about for a nice place for us. I don't care about
+being in Hastings; there's too much cockneyism in the place at this time
+of year. There's a little village called Harold's Hill, within a mile or
+so of St. Leonard's--a dull, out-of-the-way place, but rustic and
+picturesque, and all that kind of thing--the sort of place that women
+like. Now, I'd rather stay at that place than at Hastings. So you can
+take a fly at the station, drive straight to Harold's Hill, and secure
+the best lodgings you can get."
+
+"You think as the change of air will do Miss Halliday good?" asked Mrs.
+Woolper anxiously, after she had promised to do all her kind master
+required of her.
+
+"Do I think it will do her good? Of course I do. Sea-air and
+sea-bathing will set her up in no time; there's nothing particular the
+matter with her."
+
+"No, Mr. Philip; that's what bothers me about the whole thing. There's
+nothing particular the matter with her; and yet she pines and dwindles,
+and dwindles and pines, till it makes one's heart ache to see her."
+
+Philip Sheldon's face darkened, and he threw himself back in his chair
+with an impatient movement. If he had chosen to do so, he could have
+prevented that darkening of his face; but he did not consider Mrs.
+Woolper a person of sufficient importance to necessitate the regulation
+of his countenance. What was she but an ignorant, obstinate old woman,
+who would most probably perish in the streets if he chose to turn her out
+of doors? There are men who consider their clerks and retainers such very
+dirt, that they would continue the forging of a bill of exchange, or
+complete the final touches of a murder, with a junior clerk putting coals
+on the fire, or an errand-boy standing cap in hand on the threshold of
+the door. They cannot realize the fact that dirt such as this is flesh
+and blood, and may denounce them by-and-by in a witness-box.
+
+Of all contingencies Mr. Sheldon least expected that this old woman could
+prove troublesome to him--this abject wretch, whose daily bread depended
+on his will. He could not imagine that there are circumstances under
+which such abject creatures will renounce their daily bread, and die of
+hunger, rather than accept the means of life from one hateful hand.
+
+"If you want to know anything about Miss Halliday's illness," he said in
+his hardest voice, and with his hardest look, "you had better apply to
+Dr. Doddleson, the physician who has prescribed for her. I do not attend
+her, you see, and I am in no way responsible for her health. When I was
+attending her father you favoured me by doubting my skill, if I judged
+rightly as to your tone and manner on one occasion. I don't want to be
+brought to book by you, Mrs. Woolper, about Miss Halliday's altered looks
+or Miss Halliday's illness; I have nothing to do with either."
+
+"How should I think you had, sir? Don't be angry with me, or hard upon
+me, Mr. Phil. I nursed you when you was but a baby, and you're nearer and
+dearer to me than any other master could be. Why, I have but to shut my
+eyes now, and I can feel your little hand upon my neck, as it used to lie
+there, so soft and dear. And then I look down at the hand on the table,
+strong and dark, and clenched so firm, and I ask myself, Can it be the
+same? For the sake of that time, Mr. Phil, don't be hard upon me. There's
+nothing I wouldn't do to serve you; there's nothing you could do that
+would turn me from you. There's no man living in this world, sir, that
+oughtn't to be glad to know of one person that nothing can turn from
+him."
+
+"That's a very fine sentiment, my good soul," replied Mr. Sheldon coolly;
+"but, you see, it's only an _ex parte_ statement; and as the case stands
+there is no opportunity for the display of those fine feelings you talk
+about. You happen to want a home in your old age, and I happen to be able
+to give you a home. Under such circumstances, your own good sense will
+show you that all sentimental talk about standing by me, and not turning
+away from me, is absolute bosh."
+
+The old woman sighed heavily. She had offered her master a fidelity which
+involved the abnegation of all impulses of her own heart and mind, and he
+rejected her love and her service. And then, after the first dreary sense
+of his coldness, she felt better pleased that it should be so. The man
+who spoke to her in this harsh uncompromising way could have no cause to
+fear her. In the mind of such a man there could surely be no secret
+chamber within which she had, with his knowledge, almost penetrated.
+
+"I won't trouble you any more, sir," she said mournfully. "I dare say I'm
+a foolish old woman."
+
+"You are, Nancy. We don't get wiser as we grow older, you see; and when
+we let our tongues wag, we're apt to talk nonsense. The quieter you keep
+your tongue, the better for yourself, in more ways than one. To a useful
+old woman about the place I've no objection; but a chattering old woman I
+will not have at any price."
+
+After this everything was settled in the most agreeable manner. Nancy
+Woolper's journey to Hastings was fully arranged; and early the next
+morning she started, brisk and active, in spite of her sixty-eight years
+of age. She returned at night, having secured very pleasant lodgings at
+the village of Harold's Hill.
+
+"And a very sweet place it is, my dear Miss Lotta," she said to Charlotte
+the next day, when she described her adventures. "The apartments are at a
+farmhouse overlooking the sea; and the smell of the cows under your
+windows, and the sea-breezes blowing across the farmyard, can't fail to
+bring the colour back to your pretty cheeks, and the brightness back to
+your pretty eyes."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+VALENTINE'S SKELETON.
+
+The idea of this visit to the Sussex village by the sea seemed delightful
+to every one except Gustave Lenoble, who was still in town, and who
+thought it a hard thing that he should be deprived of Diana's society
+during an entire fortnight, for the sake of this sickly Miss Halliday.
+
+For the rest, there was hope and gladness in the thought of this change
+of dwelling. Charlotte languished for fresher breezes and more rustic
+prospects than the breezes and prospects of Bayswater; Diana looked to
+the sea-air as the doctor of doctors for her fading friend; and Valentine
+cherished the same hope.
+
+On Valentine Hawkehurst the burden of an unlooked-for sorrow had weighed
+very heavily. To see this dear girl, who was the beginning, middle, and
+end of all his hopes, slowly fading before his eyes, was, of all agonies
+that could have fallen to his lot, the sharpest and most bitter. Not
+Ugolino sitting silent amidst his famishing children--not Helen, when she
+would fain that the tempest had swept her from earth's surface on that
+evil day when she was born--not Penelope, when she cried on Diana, the
+high-priestess of death, to release her from the weariness of her
+days--not Agamemnon, when the fatal edict had gone forth, and his fair
+young daughter looked into his face, and asked him if it was true that
+she was to die--not one of these typical mourners could have suffered a
+keener torture than that which rent this young man's heart, as he marked
+the stealthy steps of the Destroyer drawing nearer and nearer the woman
+he loved. Of all possible calamities, this was the last he had ever
+contemplated. Sometimes, in moments of doubt or despondency, he had
+thought it possible that poverty, the advice of friends, caprice or
+inconstancy on the part of Charlotte herself, should sever them. But
+among the possible enemies to his happiness he had never counted Death.
+What had Death to do with so fair and happy a creature as Charlotte
+Halliday? she who, until some two months before this time, might have
+been the divine Hygieia in person--so fresh was her youthful bloom, so
+buoyant her step, so bright her glances. Valentine's hardest penance was
+the necessity for the concealment of his anxiety. The idea that
+Charlotte's illness might be--nay, must be--for the greater part an
+affair of the nerves was always paramount in his mind. He and Diana had
+talked of the subject together whenever they found an opportunity for so
+doing, and had comforted themselves with the assurance that the nerves
+alone were to blame; and they were the more inclined to think this from
+the conduct of Dr. Doddleson, on that physician's visits to Miss
+Halliday. Mrs. Sheldon had been present on each occasion, and to Mrs.
+Sheldon alone had the physician given utterance to his opinion of the
+case. That opinion, though expressed with a certain amount of
+professional dignity, amounted to very little. "Our dear young friend
+wanted strength; and what we had to do was to give our dear young friend
+strength--vital power. Yes--er--um, that was the chief point. And what
+kind of diet might our dear young friend take now? Was it a light diet, a
+little roast mutton--not too much done, but not underdone? O dear, no.
+And a light pudding? what he would call--if he might be permitted to have
+his little joke--a nursery pudding." And then the old gentleman had
+indulged in a senile chuckle, and patted Charlotte's head with his fat
+old fingers. "And our dear young friend's room, now, was it a large
+room?--good! and what was the aspect now, south?--good again! nothing
+better, unless, perhaps, south-west; but, of course, everyone's
+rooms can't look south-west. A little tonic draught, and gentle daily
+exercise in that nice garden, will set our dear young friend right again.
+Our temperament is nervous we are a sensitive plant, and want care." And
+then the respectable septuagenarian took his fee, and shuffled off to his
+carriage. And this was all that Mrs. Sheldon could tell Diana, or Nancy
+Woolper, both of whom questioned her closely about her interview with the
+doctor. To Diana and to Valentine there was hope to be gathered from the
+very vagueness of the physician's opinion. If there had been anything
+serious the matter, the medical adviser must needs have spoken more
+seriously. He came again and again. He found the pulse a little weaker,
+the patient a little more nervous, with a slight tendency to hysteria,
+and so on; but he still declared that there were no traces of organic
+disease, and he still talked of Miss Halliday's ailments with a cheery
+easy-going manner that was very reassuring.
+
+In his moments of depression Valentine pinned his faith upon Dr.
+Doddleson. Without organic disease, he told himself, his darling could
+not perish. He looked for Dr. Doddleson's name in the Directory, and took
+comfort from the fact of that physician's residence in a fashionable West
+End square. He took further comfort from the splendour of the doctor's
+equipage, as depicted to him by Mrs. Sheldon; and from the doctor's age
+and experience, as copiously described by the same lady.
+
+"There is only one fact that I have ever reproached myself with in
+relation to my poor Tom," said Georgy, who, in talking to strangers of
+her first husband, was apt to impress them with the idea that she was
+talking of a favourite cat; "and that is, the youthfulness of the
+doctor Mr. Sheldon employed. Of course I am well aware that Mr. Sheldon
+would not have consulted the young man if he had not thought him
+clever; but I could lay my head upon my pillow at night with a clearer
+conscience if poor Tom's doctor had been an older and more experienced
+person. Now, that's what I like about Dr. Doddleson. There's a gravity--a
+weight--about a man of that age which inspires one with immediate
+confidence. I'm sure the serious manner with which he questioned me about
+Lotta's diet, and the aspect of her room, was quite delightful."
+
+In Dr. Doddleson, under Providence, Valentine was fain to put his trust.
+He did not know that the worthy doctor was one of those harmless
+inanities who, by the aid of money and powerful connections, are
+sometimes forced into a position which nature never intended them to
+occupy. Among the real working men of that great and admirable
+brotherhood, the medical profession, Dr. Doddleson had no rank; but he
+was the pet physician of fashionable dowagers suffering from chronic
+laziness or periodical attacks of ill-humour. For the spleen or the
+vapours no one was a better adviser than Dr. Doddleson. He could afford
+to waste half an hour upon the asking of questions which the fair
+patient's maid might as well have asked, and the suggestions of remedies
+which any intelligent abigail could as easily have suggested. Elderly
+ladies believed in him because he was pompous and ponderous, lived in an
+expensive neighbourhood, and drove a handsome equipage. He wore
+mourning-rings left him by patients who never had anything particular the
+matter with them, and who, dying of sheer old age, or sheer over-eating,
+declared with their final gasp that Dr. Doddleson had been the guardian
+angel of their frail lives during the last twenty years.
+
+This was the man who, of all the medical profession resident in London,
+Mr. Sheldon had selected as his stepdaughter's medical adviser in a case
+so beyond common experience, that a man of wide practice and keen
+perception was especially needed for its treatment.
+
+Dr. Doddleson, accustomed to attribute the fancied ailments of
+fashionable dowagers to want of tone, and accustomed to prescribe the
+mildest preparations with satisfaction to his patients and profit to
+himself dwelt upon the same want of tone, and prescribed the same
+harmless remedies, in his treatment of Charlotte Halliday. When he found
+her no better--nay, even worse--after some weeks of this treatment, he
+was puzzled; and for one harmless remedy he substituted another harmless
+remedy, and waited another week to see what effect the second harmless
+remedy might have on this somewhat obstinate young person.
+
+And this was the broken reed to which Valentine clung in the day of
+his trouble.
+
+Bitter were his days and sleepless were his nights in this dark period of
+his existence. He went to the Bayswater villa nearly every day now. It
+was no longer time for etiquette or ceremony. His darling was fading day
+by day; and it was his right to watch the slow sad change, and, if it
+were possible, to keep the enemy at arm's-length. Every day he came to
+spend one too brief hour with his dear love; every day he greeted her
+with the same fond smile, and beguiled her with the same hopeful talk. He
+brought her new books and flowers, and any foolish trifle which he
+fancied might beguile her thoughts from the contemplation of that
+mysterious malady which seemed beyond the reach of science and Dr.
+Doddleson. He sat and talked with her of the future--that future which in
+their secret thoughts both held to be a sweet sad fable--the hyperborean
+garden of their dreams. And after spending this too sweet, too bitter
+hour with his beloved, Mr. Hawkehurst would diplomatise in order to have
+a little talk with Diana as he left the house. Did Diana think his dear
+girl better to-day, or worse--surely not worse? He had fancied she had
+more colour, more of her old gaiety of manner. She had seemed a little
+feverish; but that might be the excitement of his visit. And so on, and
+so on, with sad and dreary repetition.
+
+And then, having gone away from that house with an aching heart, the
+young magazine-writer went back to his lodgings, and plunged into the
+dashing essay or the smart pleasant story which was to constitute his
+monthly contribution to the _Cheapside_ or the _Charing Cross_. Gaiety,
+movement, rollicking, Harry Lorrequer-like spirits were demanded for the
+_Cheapside_; a graceful union of brilliancy and depth was required for
+the _Charing Cross_. And, O, be sure the critics lay in wait to catch the
+young scribbler tripping! An anachronism here, a secondhand idea there,
+and the _West End Wasp_ shrieked its war-whoop in an occasional note; or
+the _Minerva_ published a letter from a correspondent in the Scilly
+Islands, headed "Another Literary Jack Sheppard," to say that in his
+"Imperial Dictionary" he had discovered with profound indignation a whole
+column of words feloniously and mendaciously appropriated by the writer
+of such and such an article in the _Cheapside_. While the sunlight of
+hope had shone upon him, Mr. Hawkehurst had found the hardest work
+pleasant. Was he not working for _her_ sake? Did not his future union
+with that dear girl depend upon his present industry? It had seemed to
+him as if she stood at his elbow while he wrote, as Pallas stood beside
+Achilles at the council, invisible to all but her favourite. It was that
+mystic presence which lent swiftness to his pen. When he was tired and
+depressed, the thought of Charlotte had revived his courage and
+vanquished his fatigue. Pleasant images crowded upon him when he thought
+of her. What could be easier than for him to write a love-story? He had
+but to create a shadowy Charlotte for his heroine, and the stream of
+foolish lover's babble flowed from his pen perennial and inexhaustible.
+To his reading she lent a charm and a grace that made the most perfect
+poetry still more poetical. It was not Achilles and Helen who met on
+Mount Ida, but Valentine and Charlotte; it was not Paolo and Francesca
+who read the fatal book together, but Valentine and Charlotte, in an
+unregenerate and mediaeval state of mind. The mere coincidence of a name
+made the "Sorrows of Werter" delightful. The all-pervading presence was
+everywhere and in everything. His religion was not Pantheism, but
+Charlottism.
+
+Now all was changed. A brooding care was with him in every moment. The
+mystic presence was still close to him in every hour of his lonely days
+and nights; but that image, which had been fair and blooming as the
+incarnation of youth and spring-time, was now a pale shrouded phantom
+which he dared not contemplate. He still wrote on--for it is marvellous
+how the pen will travel and the mind will project itself into the
+shadow-world of fancy while cankerous care gnaws the weary heart. Nay, it
+is perhaps at these times that the imagination is most active; for the
+world of shadows is a kind of refuge for the mind that dare not dwell
+upon realities. Who can say what dull, leaden, care may have weighed down
+the heart of William Shakespeare when his mind conceived that monster of
+a poet's grand imaginings, Othello! There is the flavour of racking care
+in that mighty creation. The strong soul wantonly tortured by a sordid
+wretch; the noble spirit distraught, the honourable life wrecked for so
+poor a motive; that sense of the "something in this world amiss," which
+the poet, of all other creatures, feels most keenly.
+
+With grief and fear as his constant companions, Valentine Hawkehurst
+toiled on bravely, patiently. Hope had not deserted him; but between hope
+and fear the contest was unceasing. Sometimes hope had the best of it for
+a while, and the toiler comforted himself with the thought that this dark
+cloud would pass anon from the horizon of his life; and then he counted
+his gains, and found that the fruit of his labours was increasing
+monthly, as his name gained rank among the band of young _litterateurs_.
+The day when he might count upon that income which Mr. Sheldon demanded
+as his qualification for matrimony did not appear far distant. Given a
+certain amount of natural ability, and the industrious and indefatigable
+young writer may speedily emerge from obscurity, and take his place in
+the great army of those gallant soldiers whose only weapon is the pen.
+Whatever good fortune had come to Valentine Hawkehurst he had worked for
+with all honesty of purpose. The critics were not slow to remark that he
+worked at a white-hot haste, and must needs be a shallow pretender
+because he was laborious and indefatigable.
+
+Before the beginning of Charlotte's slow decline he had fancied himself
+the happiest of men. There were more deposit-receipts in his desk. The
+nest-egg, about the hatching whereof there had been such cackling and
+crowing some months ago, was now one of many eggs; for the hard-working
+scribbler had no leisure in which to be extravagant, had he been so
+minded. The purchase of a half-circlet of diamonds for his betrothed's
+slim finger had been his only folly.
+
+Charlotte had remonstrated with him on the impropriety of such an
+extravagance, and had exacted from him a promise that this wild and
+Monte-Christo-like course should be pursued no further; but she was very
+proud of her half-hoop of diamonds nevertheless, and was wont to press it
+tenderly to her lips before she laid it aside for the night.
+
+"There must be no more such extravagance, sir," she said to her lover,
+when he sat by her side twisting the ring round and round on her pretty
+finger. Alas, how loose the ring had become since it had first been
+placed there!
+
+"Consider the future, Valentine," continued the girl, hopeful of mood
+while her hand rested in his. "Do you suppose we can furnish our cottage
+at Wimbledon if we rush into such wild expenses as diamond rings? Do you
+know that _I_ am saving money, Valentine? Yes, positively. Papa gives me
+a very good allowance for my dresses, and bonnets, and things, you know,
+and I used to be extravagant and spend it all. But now I have become the
+most miserly creature; and I have a little packet of money upstairs which
+you shall put in the Unitas Bank with the rest of your wealth. Diana and
+I have been darning, and patching, and cutting, and contriving, in the
+most praiseworthy manner. Even this silk has been turned. You did not
+think that, did you, when you admired it so?"
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst looked at his beloved with a tender smile. The exact
+significance of the operation of turning, as applied to silk dresses, was
+somewhat beyond his comprehension; but he felt sure that to turn must be
+a laudable action, else why that air of pride with which Charlotte
+informed him of the fact?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+AT HAROLD'S HILL.
+
+The summer sun shone upon the village of Harold's Hill when Charlotte
+arrived there with Mrs. Sheldon and Diana Paget. Mr. Sheldon was to
+follow them on the same day by a later train; and Valentine was to come
+two days afterwards to spend the peaceful interval between Saturday and
+Monday with his betrothed. He had seen the travellers depart from the
+London Bridge terminus, but Mr. Sheldon had been there also, and there
+had been no opportunity for confidential communication between the
+lovers.
+
+Of all Sussex villages Harold's Hill is perhaps the prettiest. The grey
+old Saxon church, the scattered farmhouses and pleasant rustic cottages,
+are built on the slope of a hill, and all the width of ocean lies below
+the rustic windows. The roses and fuchsias of the cottage gardens seem
+all the brighter by contrast with that broad expanse of blue. The fresh
+breath of the salt sea blends with the perfume of new-mown hay and all
+the homely odours of the farmyard. The lark sings high in the blue vault
+of heaven above the church, and over the blue of the sea the gull skims
+white in the sunshine. The fisherman and the farm labourer have their
+cottages side by side, nestling cosily to leeward of the hilly winding
+road.
+
+This hilly winding road in the July afternoon seemed to Charlotte almost
+like the way to Paradise.
+
+"It is like going to heaven, Di!" she cried, with her eyes fixed on the
+square tower of the old grey church. She wondered why sudden tears sprang
+to Diana's eyes as she said this. Miss Paget brushed the unbidden tears
+away with a quick gesture of her hand, and smiled at her friend.
+
+"Yes, dear, the village is very pretty, isn't it?"
+
+"It looks awfully dull!" said Mrs. Sheldon, with a shudder; "and, Diana,
+I declare there isn't a single shop. Where are we to get our provisions?
+I told Mr. Sheldon St. Leonards would have been a better place for us."
+
+"O mamma, St. Leonards is the very essence of all that is tame and
+commonplace, compared to this darling rural village! Look, do look, at
+that fisherman's cottage, with the nets hanging out to dry in the
+sunshine; just like a picture of Hook's!"
+
+"What's the use of going on about fishermen's cottages, Lotta?" Mrs.
+Sheldon demanded, peevishly. "Fishermen's cottages won't provide us with
+butcher's meat. Where are we to get your little bit of roast mutton? Dr.
+Doddleson laid such a stress upon the roast mutton."
+
+"The sea-air will do me more good than all the mutton that ever was
+roasted at Eton, mamma. O, dear, is this our farmhouse?" cried Charlotte,
+as the vehicle drew up at a picturesque gate. "O, what a love of a house!
+what diamond-paned windows! what sweet white curtains! and a cow staring
+at me quite in the friendliest way across the gate! O, can we be so happy
+as to live here?"
+
+"Diana," cried Mrs. Sheldon, in a solemn voice, "not a single shop have
+we passed--not so much as a post-office! And as to haberdashery, I'm sure
+you might be reduced to rags in this place before you could get so much
+as a yard of glazed lining!"
+
+The farmhouse was one of those ideal homesteads which, to the dweller in
+cities, seems fair as the sapphire-ceiled chambers of the house of
+Solomon. Charlotte was enraptured by the idea that this was to be her
+home for the next fortnight.
+
+"I wish it could be for ever, Di," she said, as the two girls were
+inspecting the rustic, dimity-draperied, lavender-and-rose-leaf-perfumed
+bedchambers. "Who would wish to go back to prim suburban Bayswater after
+this? Valentine and I could lodge here after our marriage. It is better
+than Wimbledon. Grand thoughts would come to him with the thunder of the
+stormy waves; and on calm bright days like this the rippling water would
+whisper pretty fancies into his ear. Why, to live here would make any one
+a poet. I think I could write a novel myself, if I lived here long
+enough."
+
+After this they arranged the pretty sitting-room, and placed an
+easy-chair by the window for Charlotte, an arm-chair opposite this for
+Mrs. Sheldon, and between the two a little table for the fancy work and
+books and flowers, and all the small necessities of feminine existence.
+And then--while Mrs. Sheldon prowled about the rooms, and discovered so
+many faults and made so many objections as to give evidence of a fine
+faculty for invention unsuspected in her hitherto--Charlotte and Diana
+explored the garden and peeped at the farmyard, where the friendly cow
+still stared over the white gate, just as she had stared when the fly
+came to a stop, as if she had not yet recovered from the astonishment
+created in her pastoral mind by that phenomenal circumstance. And then
+Charlotte was suddenly tired, and there came upon her that strange
+dizziness which was one of her most frequent symptoms. Diana led her
+immediately back to the house, and established her comfortably in her
+easy-chair.
+
+"I must be very ill," she said, plaintively; "for even the novelty of
+this pretty place cannot make me happy long."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Sheldon arrived in the evening, bringing with him a supply of that
+simple medicine which Charlotte took three times a day. He had remembered
+that there was no dispensing chemist at Harold's Hill, and that it would
+be necessary to send to St. Leonards for the medicine, and had therefore
+brought with him a double quantity of the mild tonic.
+
+"It was very kind of you to think of it, though I really don't believe
+the stuff does me any good," said Charlotte. "Nancy Woolper used to get
+it for me at Bayswater. She made quite a point of fetching it from the
+chemist's herself."
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon. "Nancy troubled herself about your
+medicine, did she?"
+
+"Yes, papa; and about me altogether. If I were her own daughter she could
+scarcely have seemed more anxious."
+
+The stockbroker made a mental note of this in the memorandum-book of his
+brain. Mrs. Woolper was officious, was she, and suspicious?--altogether a
+troublesome sort of person.
+
+"I think a few weeks of workhouse fare would be wholesome for that old
+lady," he said to himself. "There are some people who never know when
+they are well off."
+
+Saturday afternoon came in due course, after a long and dreary interval,
+as it seemed to Charlotte, for whom time travelled very slowly, so
+painful was the weariness of illness. Now and then a sudden flash of
+excitement brought the old brightness to her face, the old gaiety to her
+accents; but the brightness faded very soon, and the languor of illness
+was very perceptible.
+
+Punctual to the hour at which he was expected, Mr. Hawkehurst appeared,
+in radiant spirits, laden with new magazines, delighted with the village,
+enraptured with the garden, enchanted with the sea; full of talk and
+animation, with all sorts of news to tell his beloved. Such and such a
+book was a failure, such and such a comedy was a fiasco; Jones's novel
+had made a hit; Brown's picture was the talk of the year; and Charlotte
+must see the picture that had been talked about, and the play that had
+been condemned, when she returned to town.
+
+For an hour the lovers sat in the pretty farmhouse parlour talking
+together thus, the summer sea and the garden flowers before them, and a
+bird singing high in the calm blue heaven. Charlotte's talk was somewhat
+languid, though it was perfect happiness for her to be seated thus, with
+her betrothed by her side; but Valentine's gaiety of spirits never
+flagged; and when Mrs. Sheldon hinted to him that too long a conversation
+might fatigue the dear invalid, he left the parlour with a smile upon his
+face, and a cheery promise to return after an hour's ramble.
+
+He did not ramble far. He went straight to a little wooden summer-house
+in the remotest corner of the humble garden; and thither Diana Paget
+followed him. She had learned the language of his face in the time of
+their daily companionship, and she had seen a look as he left the house
+which told her of the struggle his cheerfulness had cost him.
+
+"You must not be downhearted, Valentine," she said, as she went into the
+summer-house, where he sat in a listless attitude, with his arms lying
+loosely folded on the rustic table.
+
+He did not answer her.
+
+"You don't think her worse--much worse--do you, Valentine?"
+
+"Worse? I have seen death in her face to-day!" he cried; and then he let
+his forehead fall upon his folded arms, and sobbed aloud.
+
+Diana stood by his side watching that outburst of grief. When the
+passionate storm of tears was past, she comforted him as best she might.
+The change so visible to him was not so plain to her. He had hoped that
+the breath of the ocean would have magical power to restore the invalid.
+He had come to Harold's Hill full of hope, and instead of the beginning
+of an improvement he saw the progress of decay.
+
+"Why did not Sheldon send for the doctor," he asked, indignantly,--"the
+physician who has attended her? He might have telegraphed to that man."
+
+"Charlotte is taking Dr. Doddleson's medicine," said Diana, "and all his
+directions are most carefully obeyed."
+
+"What of that, if she grows worse? The doctor should see her daily,
+hourly, if necessary. And if he cannot cure her, another doctor should be
+sent for. Good heavens, Diana! are we to let her fade and sink from us
+before our eyes? I will go back to London at once, and bring that man
+Doddleson down by the night mail."
+
+"Your going back to London would grieve and alarm Charlotte. You can
+telegraph for the doctor; or, at least, Mr. Sheldon can do so. It would
+not do for you to interfere without his permission."
+
+"It would not do!" echoed Valentine, angrily. "Do you think that I
+am going to stand upon punctilio, or to consider what will do or
+will not do?"
+
+"Above all things, you must avoid alarming Charlotte," pleaded Diana.
+
+"Do you think I do not know that? Do you think I did not feel that just
+now, when I sat by her side, talking inane rubbish about books and plays
+and pictures, while every stolen glance at my darling's face was like a
+dagger thrust into my heart? I will not alarm her. I will consult Mr.
+Sheldon--will do anything, everything, to save her! To save her! O my
+God, has it come to that?"
+
+He grew a little calmer presently under Diana's influence, and went
+slowly back to the house. He avoided the open window by which Charlotte
+was sitting. He had not yet schooled himself to meet her questioning
+looks. He went to the room where they were to dine, a duller and darker
+apartment than the parlour, and here he found Mr. Sheldon reading a
+paper, one of the eternal records of the eternal money-market.
+
+The stockbroker had been in and out of the house all day, now sauntering
+by the sea-shore, now leaning moodily, with folded arms, on the garden
+gate, meditative and silent as the cow that stared at Charlotte; now
+pacing the garden walks, with his hands in his pockets and his head bent.
+Diana, who in her anxiety kept a close watch upon Mr. Sheldon's
+movements, had noted his restlessness, and perceived in it the sign of
+growing anxiety on his part. She knew that he had once called himself
+surgeon-dentist, and had some medical knowledge, if not so much as he
+took credit for possessing. He must, therefore, be better able to judge
+the state of Charlotte's health than utterly ignorant observers. If he
+were uneasy, there must be real cause for uneasiness. It was on this
+account, and on this account only, that Diana watched him.
+
+"He must love her better than I gave him credit for being able to love
+any one," Miss Paget said to herself. "Dear girl! The coldest heart is
+touched by her sweetness."
+
+Mr. Sheldon looked up from his newspaper as Valentine came into the room,
+and saluted the visitor with a friendly nod.
+
+"Glad to see you, Hawkehurst," he said. "_Semper fidelis_, and that
+kind of thing; the very model of devoted lovers. Why, man alive, how
+glum you look!"
+
+"I think I have reason to look glum," answered Valentine, gravely; "I
+have seen Charlotte."
+
+"Yes? And don't you find her improving?--gradually, of course. That
+constitutional languor is not shaken off in a hurry. But surely you think
+her improving--brightening--"
+
+"Brightening with the light that never shone on earth or sea. God help
+me! I--I--am the merest child, the veriest coward, the--" He made a great
+effort, and stifled the sob that had well-nigh broken his voice. "Mr.
+Sheldon," he continued quietly, "I believe your stepdaughter is dying."
+
+"Dying! Good heavens!--my dear Hawkehurst, this alarm is most--most
+premature. There is no cause for fear--at present, no cause--I give you
+my word as a medical man."
+
+"No cause for alarm at present? That means my darling will not be taken
+from me to-night, or to-morrow. I shall have a few days breathing-time.
+Yes, I understand. The doom is upon us. I saw the shadow of death upon
+her face to-day."
+
+"My dear Hawkehurst--"
+
+"My dear Sheldon, for pity's sake don't treat me as if I were a woman or
+a child. Let me know my fate. If--if--this, the worst, most bitter of all
+calamities God's hand--raised against me in punishment of past sins,
+sinned lightly and recklessly, in the days when my heart had no stake in
+the game of destiny--can inflict upon me; if this deadly sorrow is
+bearing down upon me, let me meet it like a man. Let me die with my eyes
+uncovered. O, my dearest, my fondest, redeeming angel of my ill-spent
+life! have you been only a supernal visitant, after all, shining on me
+for a little while, to depart when your mission of redemption is
+accomplished?"
+
+"Powers above!" thought Mr. Sheldon, "what nonsense these sentimental
+magazine-writers can talk!"
+
+He was in nowise melted by the lover's anguish, though it was very real.
+Such a grief as this was outside the circle in which his thoughts
+revolved. This display of grief was unpleasant to him. It grated
+painfully upon his nerves, as some of poor Tom Halliday's little speeches
+had done of old, when the honest-hearted Yorkshireman lay on his
+deathbed; and the young man's presence and the young man's anxiety were
+alike inconvenient.
+
+"Tell me the truth, Mr. Sheldon," Valentine said presently, with
+suppressed intensity. "Is there any hope for my darling, any hope?"
+
+Mr. Sheldon considered for some moments before he replied to this
+question. He pursed-up his lips and bent his brows with the same air of
+business-like deliberation that he might have assumed while weighing the
+relative merits of the first and second debenture bonds of some doubtful
+railway company.
+
+"You ask me a trying question, Hawkehurst," he said at last. "If you ask
+me plainly whether I like the turn which Charlotte's illness has taken
+within the last few weeks, I must tell you frankly, I do not. There is a
+persistent want of tone--a visible decay of vital power--which, I must
+confess, has caused me some uneasiness. You see, the fact is, there is a
+radical weakness of constitution--as Miss Paget, a very sensible girl and
+acute observer--herself has remarked, indeed a hereditary weakness; and
+against this medicine is sometimes unavailing. You need apprehend no
+neglect on my part, Hawkehurst; all that can possibly be done is being
+done. Dr. Doddleson's instructions are carefully obeyed, and--"
+
+"Is this Dr. Doddleson competent to grapple with the case?" asked
+Valentine; "I never heard of him as a great man."
+
+"That fact proves how little you know of the medical profession."
+
+"I know nothing of it; I have had no need for doctors in my life. And you
+think this Dr. Doddleson really clever?"
+
+"His position is a sufficient answer to that question."
+
+"Will you let me telegraph for him--this afternoon--immediately?"
+
+"You cannot telegraph from this place."
+
+"No, but from St. Leonards I can. Do you think I am afraid of a
+five-mile walk?"
+
+"But why send for Dr. Doddleson? The treatment he prescribed is the
+treatment we are now following to the letter. To summon him down here
+would be the merest folly. Our poor Charlotte's illness is, so far, free
+from all alarming symptoms."
+
+"You do not see the change in her that I can see," cried Valentine
+piteously. "For mercy's sake, Mr. Sheldon, let me have my way in this. I
+cannot stand by and see my dear one fading and do nothing--nothing to
+save her. Let me send for this man. Let me see him myself, and hear what
+he says. You can have no objection to his coming, since he is the man you
+have chosen for Charlotte's adviser? It can only be a question of
+expense. Let this particular visit be my affair."
+
+"I can afford to pay for my stepdaughter's medical attendance without any
+help from your purse, Mr. Hawkehurst," said the stockbroker with offended
+pride. "There is one element in the case which you appear to ignore."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"The alarm which this summoning of a doctor from London must cause in
+Charlotte's mind."
+
+"It need cause no alarm. She can be told that Dr. Doddleson has come to
+this part of the world for a Sunday's change of air. The visit can appear
+to be made _en passant._ It will be easy to arrange that with the doctor
+before he sees her."
+
+"As you please, Mr. Hawkehurst," the stockbroker replied coldly. "I
+consider such a visit to the last degree unnecessary; but if Dr.
+Doddleson's coming can give you any satisfaction, by all means let him
+come. The expense involved in summoning him is of the smallest
+consideration to me. My position with regard to my wife's daughter is one
+of extreme responsibility, and I am ready to perform all the obligations
+of that position."
+
+"You are very good: your conduct in relation to Charlotte and myself has
+been beyond all praise. It is quite possible that I am over-anxious; but
+there was a look in that dear face--no--I cannot forget that look; it
+struck terror to my heart. I will go at once to St. Leonards. I can tell
+Charlotte that I am obliged to telegraph to the printer about my copy.
+You will not object to that white lie?"
+
+"Not at all. I think it essential that Charlotte should not be alarmed.
+You had better stop to dine; there will be time for the telegram after
+dinner."
+
+"I will not risk that," answered Valentine. "I cannot eat or drink till I
+have done something to lessen this wretched anxiety."
+
+He went back to the room where Charlotte was sitting by the open window,
+through which there came the murmur of waves, the humming of drowsy bees,
+the singing of birds, all the happy voices of happy nature in a
+harmonious chorus.
+
+"O God, wilt thou take her away from such a beautiful world," he asked,
+"and change all the glory of earth to darkness and desolation for me?"
+
+His heart rebelled against the idea of her death. To save her, to win her
+back to himself from the jaws of death, he was ready to promise anything,
+to do anything.
+
+"All my days will I give to Thy service, if Thou wilt spare her to me,"
+in his heart he said to his God. "If Thou dost not, I will be an infidel
+and a pagan--the vilest and most audacious of sinners. Better to serve
+Lucifer than the God who could so afflict me."
+
+And this is where the semi-enlightened Christian betrays the weakness of
+his faith. While the sun shines, and the sweet gospel story reads to him
+like some tender Arcadian idyl, all love and promise, he is firm in his
+allegiance; but when the dark hour comes, he turns his face to the wall,
+with anger and disappointment in his heart, and will have no further
+commune with the God who has chastised him. His faith is the faith of the
+grateful leper, who, being healed, was eager to return and bless his
+divine benefactor. It is not the faith of Abraham or of Job, of Paul or
+of Stephen.
+
+Valentine told his story about the printers and the copy for the
+_Cheapside_ magazine, about which there had arisen some absurd mistake,
+only to be set right by a telegram.
+
+It was not a very clear account; but Charlotte did not perceive the
+vagueness of the story; she thought only of the one fact, that Valentine
+must leave her for some hours.
+
+"The evening will seem so long without you," she said. "That is the worst
+part of my illness; the time is so long--so weary. Diana is the dearest
+and kindest of friends. She is always trying to amuse me, and reads to me
+for hours, though I know she must often be tired of reading aloud so
+long. But even the books I was once so fond of do not amuse me. The words
+seem to float indistinctly in my brain, and all sorts of strange images
+mix themselves up with the images of the people in the book. Di has been
+reading "The Bride of Lammermoor" all this morning; but the pain and
+weariness I feel seemed to be entangled with Lucy and Edgar somehow, and
+the dear book gave me no pleasure."
+
+"My darling, you--you are too weak to listen to Diana's reading. It is
+very kind of her to try to amuse you; but--but it would be better for you
+to rest altogether. Any kind of mental exertion may help to retard your
+recovery."
+
+He had placed himself behind her chair, and was bending over the pillows
+to speak to her. Just now he felt himself unequal to the command of his
+countenance. He bent his head until his lips touched the soft brown hair,
+and kissed those loose soft tresses passionately. The thought occurred to
+him that a day might come when he should again kiss that soft brown hair,
+with a deeper passion, with a sharper pain, and when Charlotte would not
+know of his kisses, or pity his pain.
+
+"O Valentine!" cried Charlotte, "you are crying; I can see your face in
+the glass."
+
+He had forgotten the glass; the little rococo mirror, with an eagle
+hovering over the top of the frame, which hung above the old-fashioned
+chiffonier.
+
+"I am not so very ill, dear; I am not indeed," the girl continued,
+turning in her chair with an effort, and clasping her lover's hands; "you
+must not distress yourself like this, Valentine--dear Valentine! I shall
+be better by-and-by. I cannot think that I shall be taken from you."
+
+He had broken down altogether by this time. He buried his face in the
+pillows, and contrived to stifle the sobs that would come; and then,
+after a sharp struggle, he lifted his face, and bent over the chair once
+more to kiss the invalid's pale upturned forehead.
+
+"My dear one, you shall not, if love can guard and keep you. No, dear,
+I _cannot_ believe that God will take you from me. Heaven may be your
+fittest habitation; but such sweet spirits as yours are sorely needed
+upon earth. I will be brave, dearest one; brave and hopeful in the
+mercy of Heaven. And now I must go and telegraph to my tiresome
+printer. _Au revoir_!"
+
+He hurried away from the farmhouse, and started at a rattling pace along
+the pleasant road, with green waving corn on his left, and broad blue
+ocean on his right.
+
+"I can get a fly to bring me back from St. Leonard's" he thought; "I
+should only lose time by hunting for a vehicle here."
+
+He was at St. Leonards station within an hour after leaving the farm.
+He despatched the message in Mr. Sheldon's name, and took care to make
+it urgent.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+DESPERATE MEASURES.
+
+Fitful and feverish were the slumbers which visited Mr. Hawkehurst on
+that balmy summer's night. His waking hours were anxious and unhappy; but
+his sleeping hours were still more painful. To sleep was to be the
+feverish fool of vague wild visions, in which Charlotte and Dr.
+Doddleson, the editor of the _Cheapside_, the officials of the British
+Museum reading-room, Diana Paget, and the Sheldons, figured amidst
+inextricable confusion of circumstances and places. Throughout these
+wretched dreams he had some consciousness of himself and the room in
+which he was lying, the July moon shining upon him, broad and bright,
+through the diamond-paned lattice. And O, what torturing visions were
+those in which Charlotte smiled upon him, radiant with health and
+happiness; and there had been no such thing as her illness, no such thing
+as his grief. And then came hurried dreams, in which Dr. Doddleson was
+knocking at the farmhouse door, with the printer of the _Cheapside_. And
+then he was a spectator in a mighty theatre, large as those Roman
+amphitheatres, wherein the audience seemed a mass of flies, looking down
+on the encounter of two other flies, and all the glory of an imperial
+court only a little spot of purple and gold, gleaming afar in the
+sunshine. To the dreamer it was no surprise that this unknown theatre of
+his dreams should be vast as the gladiatorial arena. And then came the
+deep thunderous music of innumerable bass-viols and bassoons: and some
+one told him it was the first night of a great tragedy. He felt the
+breathless hush of expectation; the solemn bass music sank deeper; dark
+curtains were drawn aside, with a motion slow and solemn, like the waving
+of mountain pines, and there appeared a measureless stage, revealing a
+moonlit expanse, thickly studded with the white headstones of unnumbered
+graves, and on the foremost of these--revealed to him by what power he
+knew not, since mortal sight could never have reached a point so
+distant--he read the name of Charlotte Halliday. He awoke with a sharp
+cry of pain. It was broad day, and the waves were dancing gaily in the
+morning sunlight. He rose and dressed himself. Sleep, such as he had
+known that night, was worse than the weariest waking. He went out into
+the garden by-and-by, and paced slowly up and down the narrow pathways,
+beside which box of a century's growth rose dark and high. Pale yellow
+lights were in the upper windows. He wondered which of those sickly
+tapers flickered on the face he loved so fondly.
+
+"It is only a year since I first saw her," he thought: "one year! And to
+love her has been my 'liberal education;' to lose her would be my
+desolation and despair."
+
+To lose her! His thoughts approached that dread possibility, but could
+not realize it; not even yet.
+
+At eight o'clock Diana came to summon him to breakfast.
+
+"Shall I see Charlotte?" he asked.
+
+"No; for some time past she has not come down to breakfast."
+
+"What kind of night has she had?"
+
+"A very quiet night, she tells me; but I am not quite sure that she tells
+me the truth, she is so afraid of giving us uneasiness."
+
+"She tells you. But do you not sleep in her room, now that she is so
+ill?"
+
+"No. I was anxious to sleep on a sofa at the foot of her bed, and
+proposed doing so, but Mr. Sheldon objects to my being in the room. He
+thinks that Charlotte is more quiet entirely alone, and that there is
+more air in the room with only one sleeper. Her illness is not of a kind
+to require attention of any sort in the night."
+
+"Still I should have thought it better for her to have you with her, to
+cheer and comfort her.
+
+"Believe me, Valentine, I wished to be with her."
+
+"I am sure of that, dear," he answered kindly.
+
+"It was only Mr. Sheldon's authority, as a man of some medical
+experience, that conquered my wish."
+
+"Well, I suppose he is right. And now we must go in to breakfast. Ah, the
+dreary regularity of these breakfasts and dinners, which go on just the
+same when our hearts are breaking!"
+
+The breakfast was indeed a dreary soul-dispiriting meal. Farmhouse
+luxuries, in the way of new-laid eggs and home-cured bacon, abounded; but
+no one had any inclination for these things. Valentine remembered the
+homestead among the Yorkshire hills, with all the delight that he had
+known there; and the "sorrow's crown of sorrow" was very bitter. Mr.
+Sheldon gave his Sabbath-morning meditations to the study of a
+Saturday-evening share-list; and Georgy plunged ever and anon into the
+closely printed pages of a Dissenting preacher's biography, which she
+declared to be "comforting."
+
+Diana and Valentine sat silent and anxious; and after the faintest
+pretence of eating and drinking, they both left the table, to stroll
+drearily in the garden. The bells were ringing cheerily from the grey
+stone tower near at hand; but Valentine had no inclination for church on
+this particular morning. Were not all his thoughts prayers--humble
+piteous entreaties--for one priceless boon?
+
+"Will you see the doctor when he comes, and manage matters so as not to
+alarm Charlotte?" he asked of Mr. Sheldon. That gentleman agreed to do
+so, and went out into the little front-garden to lie in wait for the
+great Doddleson--"Dowager Doddleson" as he was surnamed by some
+irreverent unbelievers.
+
+A St. Leonards fly brought the doctor while the bells were still ringing
+for morning service. Mr. Sheldon received him at the gate; and explained
+the motive of his summons.
+
+The doctor was full of pompous solicitude about "our sweet young
+patient."
+
+"Really one of the most interesting cases I ever had upon my hands,"
+the West-end physician said blandly; "as I was remarking to a very
+charming patient of mine--in point of fact, the amiable and
+accomplished Countess of Kassel-Kumberterre, only last Tuesday
+morning. A case so nearly resembling the Countess's own condition as to
+be highly interesting to her."
+
+"I really ought to apologize for bringing you down," said Mr. Sheldon, as
+he led the doctor into the house. "I only consented to your being sent
+for in order to tranquillize this young fellow Hawkehurst, who is engaged
+to my daughter; a rising man, I believe, in his own particular line, but
+rather wild and impracticable. There is really no change for the worse,
+absolutely none; and as we have not been here more than three days, there
+has been positively no opportunity for testing the effect of change and
+sea air, and so on."
+
+This seemed rather like giving the learned physician his cue. And there
+were those among Dr. Doddleson's professional rivals who said that the
+worthy doctor was never slow to take a cue so given, not being prejudiced
+by any opinions of his own.
+
+Charlotte had by this time been established in her easy-chair by the open
+window of the sitting-room, and here Dr. Doddleson saw her, in the
+presence of Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon; and here Dr. Doddleson went through the
+usual Abracadabra of his art, and assented to the opinions advanced, with
+all deference, by Mr. Sheldon.
+
+To Georgy this interview, in which Mr. Sheldon's opinions were pompously
+echoed by the West-end physician, proved even more comforting than the
+benignant career of the Dissenting minister, who was wont to allude to
+that solemn passing hence of which the ancients spoke in dim suggestive
+phrase, as "going upstairs."
+
+Diana and Valentine strolled in the garden while the physician saw his
+patient. Dr. Doddleson's ponderous polysyllables floated out upon the
+summer air like the droning of a humble-bee. It was a relief to Valentine
+to know that the doctor was with his patient: but he had no intention to
+let that gentleman depart unquestioned.
+
+"I will take no secondhand information," he thought; "I will hear this
+man's opinion from his own lips."
+
+He went round to the front of the house directly the droning had ceased,
+and was in the way when Dr. Doddleson and Mr. Sheldon came out of the
+rose-hung porch.
+
+"If you have no objection," he said to Mr. Sheldon, "I should like to ask
+Dr. Doddleson a few questions."
+
+"_I_ have no objection," replied the stockbroker; "but it is really
+altogether such an unusual thing, and I doubt if Dr. Doddleson will
+consent to--"
+
+And here he cast a deprecating glance at the doctor, as who should say,
+"Can you permit yourself to comply with a demand go entirely unwarranted
+by precedent?"
+
+Dowager Doddleson was eminently good-natured.
+
+"And this is our sweet young friend's _fiance_," he said; "dear
+me--dee-ar me!"
+
+And then he looked at Valentine with bland pale-blue eyes that twinkled
+behind his gold-framed spectacles; while Valentine was taking his
+measure, so far as the measure of any man's moral and intellectual force
+can be taken by the eyes of another man. "And this is the man who is
+chosen to snatch my darling from the jaws of death!" he said to himself,
+with burning rage in his heart, while the amiable physician repeated
+blandly:
+
+"And this is our sweet young patient's _fiance_. Dee-ar me, how very
+interesting!"
+
+The three men strolled round to the garden behind the house, Mr. Sheldon
+close at the physician's elbow.
+
+"For God's sake tell me the truth, Dr. Doddleson!" said Valentine in a
+low hoarse voice, directly they were beyond ear-shot of the house. "I am
+a man, and I can steel myself to hear the worst you can tell."
+
+"But really, Hawkehurst, there is no occasion for this kind of thing,"
+interjected Philip Sheldon; "Dr. Doddleson agrees with me, that the case
+is one of extreme languor, and no more."
+
+"Unquestionably," said the doctor in a fat voice.
+
+"And Dr. Doddleson also coincides with me in the opinion that all we can
+do is to wait the reviving influence of sea-air."
+
+"Undoubtedly," said the doctor, with a solemn nod.
+
+"And is this all?" asked Valentine hopelessly.
+
+"My dear sir, what else can I say?" said the doctor; "as my good friend
+Mr. Sheldon has just remarked, there is extreme languor; and as my good
+friend Mr. Sheldon further observes, we must await the effect of change
+of air. The--aw--invigorating sea-breezes, the--aw--enlivening influence
+of new surroundings, and--aw--so forth. Dr. Poseidon, my dear sir, is a
+very valuable coadjutor."
+
+"And you think your patient no worse, Dr. Doddleson?"
+
+"The doctor has just left Mrs. Sheldon much comforted by his assurance
+that her daughter is better," said the stockbroker.
+
+"No, no!" exclaimed Dr. Doddleson; "no, no! _there_ my good friend Mr.
+Sheldon somewhat misrepresents me. I said that our patient was not
+obviously worse. I did not say that our patient was better. There is a
+dilatation of the pupil of the eye which I don't quite understand."
+
+"Mental excitement," said Mr. Sheldon, somewhat hastily; "Charlotte is
+nervous to an extreme degree, and your sudden arrival was calculated to
+shake her nerves."
+
+"Undoubtedly," rejoined the doctor; "and it is unquestionable that such a
+dilatation of the pupil might, under certain circumstances, be occasioned
+by mental excitement. I am sorry to find that our patient's attacks of
+dizziness--"
+
+"Which are purely the effect of fancy," interjected Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"Which are no doubt, in some measure, attributable to a hypochondriacal
+condition of mind," continued the doctor in his fat voice. "I am sorry to
+find that this periodical dizziness has been somewhat increased of late.
+But here again we must look to Dr. Poseidon. Tepid sea-baths, if they can
+be managed, in the patient's own room; and by-and-by a dip in the waves
+yonder, may do wonders."
+
+Valentine asked no further questions; and the physician departed in the
+St. Leonards fly, to turn his excursion to profitable use by calling on
+two or three dowagers in Warrior Square and Marina, who would doubtless
+be glad of an unexpected visit from their pet doctor.
+
+"Well, Hawkehurst," said Mr. Sheldon, when the fly had driven away, "I
+hope you are satisfied now?"
+
+"Satisfied!" cried Valentine; "yes, I am satisfied that your stepdaughter
+is being murdered!"
+
+"Murdered!" echoed the stockbroker, his voice thick and faint; but
+Valentine did not heed the change in it.
+
+"Yes, murdered--sacrificed to the utter incompetence of that old idiot
+who has just left us."
+
+Philip Sheldon drew a long breath.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed; "do you doubt Doddleson's skill?"
+
+"Do you believe in it? Do you? No; I cannot think that a man of your keen
+perception in all other matters--half a medical man yourself--can be the
+dupe of so shallow an impostor. And it is to that man's judgment my
+darling's life has been confided; and it is to that man I have looked,
+with hope and comfort in the thought of his power to save my treasure!
+Good God! what a reed on which to rely! And of all the medical men of
+London, this is the one you have chosen!"
+
+"I must really protest against this rant, Hawkehurst," said Philip
+Sheldon. "I hold myself responsible for the selection which I made, and
+will not have that selection questioned in this violent and outrageous
+manner by you. Your anxiety for Charlotte's recovery may excuse a great
+deal, but it cannot excuse this kind of thing; and if you cannot command
+yourself better, I must beg you to absent yourself from my house until my
+stepdaughter's recovery puts an end to all this fuss."
+
+"Do you believe in Dr. Doddleson's skill?" asked Valentine doggedly. He
+wanted to have that question answered at any cost.
+
+"Most decidedly I do, with the rest of the medical world. My choice of
+this gentleman as Charlotte's adviser was governed by his reputation as a
+safe and conscientious man. His opinions are sound, trustworthy--"
+
+"His opinions!" cried Valentine with a bitter laugh; "what in heaven's
+name do you call his opinions? The only opinions I could extract from him
+to-day were solemn echoes of yours. And the man himself! I took the
+measure of him before I asked him a question; and physiology is a lie if
+that man is anything better than an impostor."
+
+"His position is the answer to that."
+
+"His position is no answer. He is not the first impostor who has attained
+position, and is not likely to be the last. You must forgive me, if I
+speak with some violence, Mr. Sheldon. I feel too deeply to remember the
+conventionalities of my position. The dear girl yonder, hovering between
+life and death, is my promised wife. As your stepdaughter she is very
+dear to you, no doubt, and you are of course anxious to do your duty as
+her stepfather. But she is all the world to me--my one sweet memory of
+the past, my sole hope for the future. I will not trust her to the care
+of Dr. Doddleson; I claim the right to choose another physician--as that
+man's coadjutor, if you please. I have no wish to offend the doctor of
+your choice."
+
+"This is all sheer nonsense," said Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"It is nonsense about which you must let me have my own way," replied
+Valentine, resolutely. "My stake on this hazard is too heavy for careless
+play. I shall go back to town at once and seek out a physician."
+
+"Do you know any great man?"
+
+"No; but I will find one."
+
+"If you go today, you will inevitably alarm Charlotte."
+
+"True; and disappoint her into the bargain. I suppose in such a case
+tomorrow will do as well as to-day?"
+
+"Decidedly."
+
+"I can go by the first train, and return with my doctor in the afternoon.
+Yes, I will go tomorrow."
+
+Mr. Sheldon breathed more freely. There are cases in which to obtain time
+for thought seems the one essential thing--cases in which a reprieve is
+as good as a pardon.
+
+"Pray let us consider this business quietly," he said, with a faint sigh
+of weariness. "There is no necessity for all this excitement. You can go
+to town to-morrow, by the first train, as you say. If it is any
+satisfaction to you to bring down a physician, bring one; bring half a
+dozen, if you please. But, for the last time, I most emphatically assure
+you that anything that tends to alarm Charlotte is the one thing of all
+others most sure to hinder her recovery."
+
+"I know that. She shall not be frightened; but she shall have a better
+adviser than Dr. Doddleson. And now I will go back to the house. She will
+wonder at my absence."
+
+He went to the bright, airy room where Charlotte was seated, her head
+lying back upon the pillows, her face paler, her glances and tones more
+languid than on the previous day as it seemed to Valentine. Diana was
+near her, solicitous and tender; and on the other side of the window sat
+Mrs. Sheldon, with her Dissenting minister's biography open on her lap.
+
+All through that day Valentine Hawkehurst played his part bravely: it was
+a hard and bitter part to play--the part of hope and confidence while
+unutterable fears were rending his heart. He read the epistle and gospel
+of the day to his betrothed; and afterwards some chapters of St.
+John--those profoundly mournful chapters that foreshadow the agonising
+close. It was Charlotte who selected these chapters, and her lover could
+find no excuse for disputing her choice.
+
+It was the first time that they had shared any religious exercise, and
+the hearts of both were deeply touched by the thought of this.
+
+"How frivolous all our talk must have been, Valentine, when it seems so
+new to us to be reading these beautiful words together?"
+
+Her head was half supported by the pillows, half resting on her lover's
+shoulder, and her eyes travelled along the lines as he read, in a calm
+low voice, which was unbroken to the end.
+
+Early in the evening Charlotte retired, worn out by the day's physical
+weariness, in spite of Valentine's fond companionship. Later, when it was
+dusk, Diana came downstairs with the news that the invalid was sleeping
+quietly. Mrs. Sheldon was dozing in her arm-chair, the Dissenting
+minister having fallen to the ground; and Valentine was leaning, with
+folded arms, on the broad window-sill looking out into the shadowy
+garden. Mr. Sheldon had given them very little of his society during that
+day. He went out immediately after his interview with Valentine, on a
+sea-coast ramble, which lasted till dinner-time. After dinner he remained
+in the room where they had dined. He was there now. The light of the
+candles, by which he read his papers, shone out upon the dusk.
+
+"Will you come for a stroll with me, Diana?" asked Valentine.
+
+Miss Paget assented promptly; and they went out into the garden, beyond
+the reach of Mr. Sheldon's ears, had that gentleman been disposed to
+place himself at his open window in the character of a listener.
+
+"I want to tell you my plans about Charlotte," Valentine began. "I am
+going to London to-morrow to search for a greater physician than Dr.
+Doddleson. I shall find my man in an hour or so; and, if possible, shall
+return with him in the evening. There is no apparent reason to anticipate
+any sudden change for the worse; but if such a change should take place,
+I rely on you, dear, to give me the earliest tidings of it. I suppose you
+can get a fly here, if you want one?"
+
+"I can get to St. Leonards, if that is what you mean," Miss Paget
+answered promptly. "I dare say there is a fly to be had; if not, I can
+walk there. I am not afraid of a few miles' walk, by day or night. If
+there should be a change, Valentine--which God forbid--I will telegraph
+the tidings of it to you."
+
+"You had better address the message to me at Rancy's, Covent Garden; the
+house where the Ragamuffins have their rooms, you know, dear. That is a
+more central point than my lodgings, and nearer the terminus. I will call
+there two or three times in the course of the day."
+
+"You may trust my vigilance, Valentine. I did not think it was in my
+nature to love any one as I love Charlotte Halliday."
+
+Gustave Lenoble's letters lying unanswered in her desk asserted the
+all-absorbing nature of Diana's affection for the fading girl. She _was_
+fading. The consciousness of this made all other love sacrilege, as it
+seemed to Diana. She sat up late that night to answer Gustave's last
+letter of piteous complaint.
+
+"She had forgotten him. Ah, that he had been foolish--insensate--to
+confide himself in her love! Was he not old and grey in comparison to
+such youth--such freshness--a venerable dotard of thirty-five? What had
+he with dreams of love and marriage? Fie, then. He humiliated himself in
+the dust beneath her _mignon_ feet. He invited her to crush him with
+those cruel feet. But if she did not answer his letters, he would come to
+Harold's Hill. He would mock himself of that ferocious Sheldon--of a
+battalion of Sheldons still more ferocious--of all the world, at
+last--to be near her."
+
+"Believe me, dear Gustave, I do not forget," wrote Diana, in reply to
+these serio-comic remonstrances. "I was truly sorry to leave town, on
+your account and on my father's. But my dear adopted sister is paramount
+with me now. You will not grudge her my care or my love, for she may not
+long be with me to claim them. There is nothing but sorrow here in all
+our hearts; sorrow, and an ever-present dread."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Eighth.
+
+
+
+A FIGHT AGAINST TIME.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+A DREAD REVELATION.
+
+The early fast train by which Valentine Hawkehurst travelled brought him
+into town at a quarter past nine o'clock. During the journey he had been
+meditating on the way in which he should set to work when he arrived in
+London. No ignorance could be more profound than his on all points
+relating to the medical profession. Dimly floating in his brain there
+were the names of doctors whom he had heard of as celebrated men--one for
+the chest, another for the liver, another for the skin, another for the
+eyes; but, among all these famous men, who was the man best able to cope
+with the mysterious wasting away, the gradual, almost imperceptible
+ebbing of that one dear life which Valentine wanted to save?
+
+This question must be answered by some one; and Valentine was sorely
+puzzled as to who that some one must be.
+
+The struggling young writer had but few friends. He had, indeed, worked
+too hard for the possibility of friendship. The cultivation of the
+severer Muses is rarely compatible with a wide circle of acquaintances;
+and Valentine, if not a cultivator of these severe ones, had been a hard
+and honest worker during the later reputable portion of his life. His
+friendships of the previous portion had been the friendships of the
+railway-carriage and the smoking room, the _cafe_ and the gaming-table.
+He could count upon his fingers the people to whom he could apply for
+counsel in this crisis of his life. There was George Sheldon, a man for
+whom he entertained a most profound contempt; Captain Paget, a man who
+might or might not be able to give him good advice, but who would
+inevitably sacrifice Charlotte Halliday's welfare to self-interest, if
+self-interest could be served by the recommendation of an incompetent
+adviser.
+
+"He would send me to some idiot of the Doddleson class, if he thought he
+could get a guinea or a dinner by the recommendation," Valentine said to
+himself, and decided that to Horatio Paget he would not apply. There were
+his employers, the editors and proprietors of the magazines for which he
+worked; all busy over-burdened workers in the great mill, spending the
+sunny hours of their lives between a pile of unanswered letters and a
+waste-paper basket; men who would tell him to look in the Post-office
+Directory, without lifting their eyes from the paper over which their
+restless pens were speeding.
+
+No. Amongst these was not the counsellor whom Valentine Hawkehurst needed
+in this dire hour of difficulty.
+
+"There are some very good fellows among the Ragamuffins," he said to
+himself, as he thought of the only literary and artistic club of which he
+was a member; "fellows who stuck by me when I was down in the world, and
+who would do anything to serve me now they know me for an honest worker.
+But, unfortunately, farce writers and burlesque writers, and young
+meerschaum-smoking painters, are not the sort of men to give good advice:
+I want the advice of a medical man."
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst almost bounded from his seat as he said this. The advice
+of a medical man? Yes; and was there not a medical man among the
+Ragamuffins? and something more than a medical man? That very doctor, who
+of all other men upon this earth could best give him counsel--the doctor
+who had stood by the deathbed of Charlotte Halliday's father.
+
+He remembered the conversation that had occurred at Bayswater, on the
+evening of Christmas day, upon this very subject. He remembered how from
+the talk about ghosts they had drifted somehow into talking of Tom
+Halliday; whereupon Mrs. Sheldon had been melted to tears, and had gone
+on to praise Philip Sheldon's conduct to his dying friend, and to speak
+of Mr. Burkham, the strange doctor, called in too late to save, or, it
+might have been, incapable to save.
+
+"Sheldon seems to have a genius for calling in incapable doctors," he
+thought bitterly.
+
+Incapable as Mr. Burkham might have been for the exigencies of this
+particular case, he would at least be able to inform Valentine who among
+the medical celebrities of London would be best adapted to advise in such
+an illness as Charlotte Halliday's.
+
+"And if, as Diana has sometimes suggested, there is any hereditary
+disease, this Burkham may be able to throw some light upon the nature of
+it," thought Valentine.
+
+He went straight from the railway terminus to the quiet tavern upon the
+first floor of which the Ragamuffins had their place of rendezvous. It
+was not an hour for the encounter of many Ragamuffins. A meek-looking
+young man, of clerical aspect, who had adapted a Palais Royal farce, and
+had awoke in the morning to find himself famous, and eligible for
+admission amongst the Ragamuffins, was sipping his sherry and soda-water
+while he skimmed the morning papers. Him Mr. Hawkehurst saluted with an
+absent nod, and went in search of the steward of the club, from whom he
+obtained Mr. Burkham's address, with some little trouble in the way of
+hunting through old and obscure documents.
+
+It was the old address; the old dingy, comfortable, muffin-bell-haunted
+street in which Mr. Burkham had lived ten years before, when he was
+summoned to attend the sick Yorkshire farmer.
+
+Mr. Burkham's career had not been brightened by the sunshine of
+prosperity. He had managed to live somehow, and to find food and raiment
+for his young wife, who, when she considered the lilies of the field, may
+have envied their shining robes of pure whiteness, so dingy and dark was
+her own apparel. When children came, the young surgeon contrived to find
+food and raiment for them also, but not without daily and hourly
+struggles with that grim wolf who haunts the thresholds of so many
+dwellings, and will not be thrust from the door. Sometimes a little
+glimmering ray of light illumined Mr. Burkham's pathway, and he was
+humbly grateful to Providence for the brief glimpse of sunshine. But for
+a meek fair-faced man, with a nervous desire to do well, a very poor
+opinion of his own merits, and a diffident, not to say depressed manner,
+the world is apt to be a hard battle-ground.
+
+Mr. Burkham sometimes found himself well-nigh beaten in the cruel strife;
+and at such times, in the dead silence of the night, with mortal agonies,
+and writhings as of Pythoness upon tripod, Mr. Burkham gave himself up to
+the composition of a farce, adapted, not from the French, but from his
+memories of Wright and Bedford in the jovial old student days, when the
+pit of the Adelphi Theatre had been the pleasant resort of his evenings.
+He could no longer afford the luxury of theatrical entertainments, except
+when provided with a free admission. But from the hazy reminiscences
+floating in his poor tired brain he concocted little pieces which he
+fondly hoped might win him money and fame.
+
+With much effort and interest he contrived to get himself elected a
+Ragamuffin; believing that to be a Ragmuffin was to secure a position as
+a dramatic writer. But with one or two fortunate exceptions, his pieces
+were refused. The managers would not have the poor little feeble
+phantasmagoria of bygone fun, even supported by the whole clan of
+Ragamuffins. So Mr. Burkham had gradually melted into the dimness of
+Bloomsbury, and haunted the club-room of the Ragamuffins no more.
+
+A hansom carried Valentine Hawkehurst swiftly to these regions of
+Bloomsbury. It was no time for the saving of cab-hire. The soldier
+of fortune thought no longer of his nest-eggs--his Unitas Bank
+deposit-notes. He was fighting with time and with death; foes dire and
+dreadful, against whose encroachments the sturdiest of mortal warriors
+can make but a feeble stand. He found the dingy-looking house in the
+dingy-looking street; and the humble drudge who opened the door informed
+him that Mr. Burkham was at home, and ushered him into a darksome and
+dreary surgery at the back of the house, where a phrenological head,
+considerably the worse for London smoke, surmounted a dingy bookcase
+filled with the dingiest of books. A table, upon which were a
+blotting-book and inkstand, and two shabby horsehair chairs, composed the
+rest of the furniture. Valentine sent his card to the surgeon, and seated
+himself on one of the horsehair chairs, to await that gentleman's
+appearance.
+
+He came after a brief delay, which seemed long to his visitor. He came
+from regions in the back of the house, rubbing his hands, which seemed
+to have been newly washed, and the odour of senna and aloes hung about
+his garments.
+
+"I doubt if you remember my name, Mr. Burkham," said Valentine; "but you
+and I are members of the same club, and that a club among the members of
+which considerable good feeling prevails. I come to ask a favour"--Mr.
+Burkham winced, for this sounded like genteel begging, and for genteel
+beggars this struggling surgeon had no spare cash--"which it will
+scarcely cause you a moment's thought to grant. I am in great
+distress"--Mr. Burkham winced again, for this sounded still more like
+begging--"mental distress"--Mr. Burkham gave a little sigh of
+relief--"and I come to you for advice." Mr. Burkham gave a more profound
+sigh of relief.
+
+"I can assure you that my best advice is at your command," he said,
+seating himself, and motioning to his visitor to be seated. "I am
+beginning to remember your face amongst the members of the club, though
+the name on your card did not strike me as familiar. You see, I have
+never been able to afford much time for relaxation at the Ragamuffins',
+though I assure you I found the agreeable conversation there, the
+literary _on dits_, and so on, a very great relief. But my own little
+efforts in the dramatic line were not successful, and I found myself
+compelled to devote myself more to my profession. And now I have said
+quite enough about myself; let me hear how I can be useful to you."
+
+"In the first place, let me ask you a question. Do you know anything of a
+certain Dr. Doddleson?"
+
+"Of Plantagenet Square?"
+
+"Yes; of Plantagenet Square."
+
+"Well, not much. I have heard him called Dowager Doddleson; and I believe
+he is very popular among hypochondriac old ladies who have more money
+than they know what to do with, and very little common sense to regulate
+their disposal of it."
+
+"Is Dr. Doddleson a man to whom you would intrust the life of your
+dearest friend?"
+
+"Most emphatically no!" cried the surgeon, growing red with excitement.
+
+"Very well, Mr. Burkham; my dearest friend, a young lady--well, in plain
+truth, the woman who was to have been my wife, and whom I love as it is
+not the lot of every plighted wife to be loved--this dear girl has been
+wasting away for the last two or three months under the influence of an
+inscrutable malady, and Dr. Doddleson is the only man called to attend
+her in all that time."
+
+"A mistake!" said Mr. Burkham, gravely; "a very great mistake! Dr.
+Doddleson lives in a fine square, and drives a fine carriage, and has a
+reputation amongst the class I have spoken of; but he is about the last
+man I would consult as to the health of any one dear to me."
+
+"That is precisely the opinion which I formed after ten minutes'
+conversation with him. Now, what I want from you, Mr. Burkham, is the
+name and address of the man to whom I can intrust this dear girl's life."
+
+"Let me see. There are so many men, you know, and great men. Is it a case
+of consumption?"
+
+"No, thank God!"
+
+"Heart-disease, perhaps?"
+
+"No; there is no organic disease. It is a languor--a wasting away."
+
+Mr. Burkham suggested other diseases whereof the outward sign was languor
+and wasting.
+
+"No," replied Valentine; "according to Dr. Doddleson there is actually no
+disease--nothing but this extreme prostration--this gradual vanishing of
+vital power. And now I come to another point upon which I want your
+advice. It has been suggested that this constitutional weakness may be
+inherited; and here I think you can help me."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You attended the lady's father."
+
+"Indeed!" cried Mr. Burkham, delighted. "This is really interesting. In
+what year did I attend this gentleman? If you will allow me, I will refer
+to some of my old case-books."
+
+He drew out a clumsy drawer in the clumsy table, in order to hunt for old
+memoranda.
+
+"I am not quite certain as to the year," answered Valentine; "but it was
+more than ten years ago. The gentleman died close by here, in Fitzgeorge
+Street. His name was Halliday."
+
+Mr. Burkham had drawn out the drawer to its farthest extent. As Valentine
+pronounced this name, he let it drop to the ground with a crash, and sat,
+statue-like, staring at the speaker. All other names given to mortal man
+he might forget; but this one never. Valentine saw the sudden horror in
+his face, before he could recompose his features into something of their
+conventional aspect.
+
+"Yes," he said, looking down at the fallen drawer with its scattered
+papers and case-books, "yes, I have some recollection of the name of
+Halliday."
+
+"Some very strange and agitating recollection it would seem by your
+manner, Mr. Burkham," said Valentine, at once assured that there was
+something more than common in the surgeon's look and gesture; and
+determined to fathom the mystery, let it be what it might.
+
+"O dear no," said the surgeon nervously; "I was not agitated, only
+surprised. It was surprising to me to hear the name of a patient so long
+forgotten. And so the lady to whom you are engaged is a daughter of Mr.
+Halliday's? The wife--Mrs. Halliday--is still living, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; but the lady who was then Mrs. Halliday is now Mrs. Sheldon."
+
+"Of course; he married her," said Mr. Burkham. "Yes; I remember hearing
+of the marriage."
+
+He had tried in vain to recover his old composure. He was white to the
+lips, and his hand shook as he tried to arrange his scattered papers.
+
+"What does it mean?" thought Valentine. "Mrs. Sheldon talked of this
+man's inexperience. Can it be that his incompetency lost the life of his
+patient, and that he knows it was so?"
+
+"Mrs. Halliday is now Mrs. Sheldon," repeated the surgeon, in a feeble
+manner. "Yes, I remember; and Mr. Sheldon--the dentist, who at that time
+resided in Fitzgeorge Street--is he still living?"
+
+"He is still living. It was he who called in Dr. Doddleson to attend upon
+Miss Halliday. As her stepfather, he has some amount of authority, you
+see; not legal authority--for my dear girl is of age--but social
+authority. He called in Doddleson, and appears to place confidence in
+him; and as he is something of a medical man himself, and pretends to
+understand Miss Halliday's case thoroughly--"
+
+"Stop!" cried Mr. Burkham, suddenly abandoning all pretence of calmness.
+"Has he--Sheldon--any interest in his stepdaughter's death?"
+
+"No, certainly not. All her father's money went to him upon his marriage
+with her mother. He can gain nothing by her death; on the contrary, he
+may lose a good deal, for she is the heir-at-law to a large fortune."
+
+"And if she dies, that fortune will go--"
+
+"I really don't know where it will go," Valentine answered carelessly:
+he thought the subject was altogether beside the question of Mr.
+Burkham's agitation, and it was the cause of that agitation which he was
+anxious to discover.
+
+"If Mr. Sheldon can gain by his stepdaughter's death, fear him!"
+exclaimed the surgeon, with sudden passion; "fear him as you would fear
+death itself--worse than death, for death is neither so stealthy nor so
+treacherous as he is!"
+
+"What in Heaven's name do you mean?"
+
+"That which I thought my lips would never utter to mortal hearing--that
+which I dare not publicly proclaim, at the hazard of taking the bread out
+of the mouths of my wife and children. I have kept this hateful secret
+for eleven years--through many a sleepless night and dreary day. I will
+tell it to you; for if there is another life in peril, that life shall be
+lost through no cowardice of mine."
+
+"What secret?" cried Valentine.
+
+"The secret of that poor fellow's death. My God! I can remember the clasp
+of his hand, and the friendly look of his eyes, the day before he died.
+He was poisoned by Philip Sheldon!"
+
+"You must be mad!" gasped Valentine, in a faint voice.
+
+For one moment of astonishment and incredulity he thought this man must
+needs be a fool or a lunatic, so wildly improbable did the accusation
+seem. But in the next instant the curtain was lifted, and he knew that
+Philip Sheldon was a villain, and knew that he had never wholly trusted
+him.
+
+"Never until to-day have I told this secret," said the surgeon; "not even
+to my wife."
+
+"I thank you," answered Valentine, in the same faint voice; "with all my
+heart, I thank you."
+
+Yes, the curtain was lifted. This mysterious illness, this slow silent
+decay of bloom and beauty, by a process inscrutable as the devilry of
+medieval poisoner or Hecate-serving witch--this was murder. Murder! The
+disease, which had hitherto been nameless, had found its name at last. It
+was all clear now. Philip Sheldon's anxiety; the selection of an utterly
+incompetent adviser; certain looks and tones that had for a moment
+mystified him, and had been forgotten in the next, came back to him with
+a strange distinctness, with all their hidden meaning made clear and
+plain as the broad light of day.
+
+But the motive? What motive could prompt the slow destruction of that
+innocent life? A fortune was at stake, it is true; but that fortune, as
+Valentine understood the business, depended on the life of Charlotte
+Halliday. Beyond this point he had never looked. In all his consideration
+of the circumstances relating to the Haygarthian estate, he had never
+thought of what might happen in the event of Charlotte's decease.
+
+"It is a diabolical mystery," he said to himself. "There can be no
+motive--_none_. To destroy Thomas Halliday was to clear his way to
+fortune; to destroy Charlotte is to destroy his chance of fortune."
+
+And then he remembered the dark speeches of George Sheldon.
+
+"My God! and this was what he meant, as plainly as he dared tell me! He
+did tell me that his brother was an unutterable scoundrel; and I turned a
+deaf ear to his warning, because it suited my own interest to believe
+that villain. For her dear sake I believed him. I would have believed in
+Beelzebub, if he had promised me her dear hand. And I let myself be duped
+by the lying promise, and left my darling in the power of Beelzebub!"
+
+Thoughts followed each other swift as lightning through his overwrought
+brain. It seemed but a moment that he had been sitting with his
+clenched hands pressed against his forehead, when he turned suddenly
+upon the surgeon.
+
+"For God's sake, help me, guide me!" he said. "You have struck a blow
+that has numbed my senses. What am I to do? My future wife is in that
+man's keeping--dying, as I believe. How am I to save her?"
+
+"I cannot tell you. You may take the cleverest man in London to see her;
+but it is a question if that man will perceive the danger so clearly as
+to take prompt measures. In these cases there is always room for doubt;
+and a man would rather doubt his own perceptions than believe the hellish
+truth. It is by this natural hesitation so many lives are lost. While the
+doctor deliberates, the patient dies. And then, if the secret of the
+death transpires--by circumstantial evidence, perhaps, which never came
+to the doctor's knowledge,--there is a public outcry. The doctor's
+practice is ruined, and his heart broken. The outcry would have been
+still louder if he had told the truth in time to save the patient, and
+had not been able to prove his words. You think me a coward and a
+scoundrel because I dared not utter my suspicion when I saw Mr. Halliday
+dying. While it was only a suspicion it would have been certain ruin for
+me to give utterance to it. The day came when it was almost a conviction.
+I went back to that man Sheldon's house, determined to insist upon the
+calling in of a physician who would have made that conviction certainty.
+My resolution came too late. It is possible that Sheldon had perceived my
+suspicions, and had hastened matters. My patient was dead before I
+reached the house."
+
+"How am I to save her?" repeated Valentine, with the same helpless
+manner. He could not bring himself to consider Tom Halliday's death. The
+subject was too far away from him--remote as the dim shadows of departed
+centuries. In all the universe there were but two figures standing out in
+lurid brightness against the dense night of chaos--a helpless girl held
+in the clutches of a secret assassin; and it was his work to rescue her.
+
+"What am I to do?" he asked. "Tell me what I am to do."
+
+"What it may be wisest to do I cannot tell you," answered Mr. Burkham,
+almost as helplessly as the other had asked the question. "I can give you
+the name of the best man to get to the bottom of such a case--a man who
+gave evidence on the Fryar trial--Jedd. You have heard of Jedd, I
+daresay. You had better go straight to Jedd, and take him down with you
+to Miss Halliday. His very name will frighten Sheldon."
+
+"I will go at once. Stay--the address! Where am I to find Dr. Jedd?"
+
+"In Burlington Row. But there is one thing to be considered."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The interference of Jedd may only make that man desperate. He may hasten
+matters now as he hastened matters before. If you had seen his coolness
+at that time; if you had seen him, as I saw him, standing by that poor
+fellow's deathbed, comforting him--yes, with friendly speeches--laughing
+and joking, watching the agonising pain and the miserable sickness, and
+all the dreary wretchedness of such a death, and _never_ swerving from
+his work; if you had seen him, you would understand why I am afraid to
+advise you. That man was as desperate as he was cool when he murdered his
+friend. He will be more reckless this time."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he has reached a higher stage in the science of murder. The
+symptoms of that poor Yorkshireman were the symptoms of arsenical
+poisoning; the symptoms of which you have told me to-day denote a
+vegetable poison. _That_ affords very vague diagnosis, and leaves no
+trace. That was the agent which enabled the Borgias to decimate Rome.
+It is older than classic Greece, and simple as _a b c_, and will remain
+so until the medical expert is a recognized officer of the law, the
+faithful guardian of the bed over which the suspected poisoner
+loiters--past-master of the science in which the murderer is rarely more
+than an experimentalist, and protected from all the hazards of plain
+speaking by the nature of his office."
+
+"Great Heaven, how am I to save her?" exclaimed Valentine. He could not
+contemplate the subject in its broad social aspect; he could only think
+of this one dear life at stake. "To send this Dr. Jedd might be to hasten
+her death; to send a less efficient man would be mere childishness. WHAT
+shall I do?"
+
+He looked despairingly at the surgeon, and in that one glance perceived
+what a frail reed this was upon which he was leaning. And then, like
+the sudden gleam of lightning, a name flashed across his mind,--George
+Sheldon, the lawyer, the schemer, the man who of all the world best
+knew this vile enemy and assassin against whom he was matched; he it
+was of whom counsel should be asked in this crisis. Once perceiving
+this, Valentine was prompt to act. It was the first flash of light in
+the darkness.
+
+"You mean to stand by me in this, don't you?" he asked Mr. Burkham.
+
+"With all my heart and soul."
+
+"Good. Then you must go to Dr. Jedd instantly. Tell him all you know--Tom
+Halliday's death; the symptoms of Charlotte's decline, as you have heard
+them from me--_everything_; and let him hold himself in readiness to
+start for Hastings directly he hears from or sees me. I am going to a man
+who of all men can tell me how to deal with Philip Sheldon. I shall try
+to be in Burlington Row in an hour from this time; but in any case you
+will wait there till I come. I suppose, in a desperate case like this,
+Dr. Jedd will put aside all less urgent work?"
+
+"No doubt of that."
+
+"I trust to you to secure his sympathy," said Valentine.
+
+He was in the darksome entrance-hall by this time. Mr. Burkham followed,
+and opened the door for him.
+
+"Have no fear of me," he said. "Good bye."
+
+The two men shook hands with a grip significant as masonic sign-manual.
+It meant on the one part hearty co-operation, on the other implicit
+confidence. In the next moment Valentine sprang into the cab.
+
+"King's Road--entrance to Gray's Inn, and drive like mad!" he shouted to
+the driver. The hansom rattled across the stones, dashed round corners,
+struck consternation to scudding children in pinafores, all but
+annihilated more than one perambulator, and in less than ten minutes
+after leaving Mr. Burkham's door, ground against the kerbstone before the
+little gate of Gray's Inn.
+
+"God grant that George Sheldon may be at home!" Valentine said to
+himself, as he hurried towards that gentleman's office. George Sheldon
+was at home. In this fight against time, Mr. Hawkehurst had so far found
+the odds in his favour.
+
+"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the lawyer, looking up from his desk, as
+Valentine appeared on the threshold of the door, pale and breathless; "to
+what do I owe the unusual honour of a visit from Mr. Hawkehurst? I
+thought that rising _litterateur_ had cut all old acquaintances, and gone
+in for the upper circles."
+
+"I have come to you on a matter of life and death, George Sheldon," said
+Valentine; "this is no time to talk of why I haven't been to you before.
+When you and I last met, you advised me to beware of your brother Philip.
+It wasn't the first, or the second, or the third time that you so warned
+me. And now speak out like an honest man, and tell me what you meant by
+that warning? For God's sake, speak plainly this time."
+
+"I cannot afford to speak more plainly than I have spoken half a dozen
+times already. I told you to beware of my brother Phil, and I meant that
+warning in its fullest significance. If you had chosen to take my advice,
+you would have placed Charlotte Halliday's fortune, and Charlotte
+Halliday herself, beyond his power, by an immediate marriage. You didn't
+choose to do that, and there was an end of the matter. I have been a
+heavy loser by your pigheaded obstinacy; and I dare say before you and
+Phil Sheldon have done with each other, you too will find yourself a
+loser."
+
+"God help me, yes!" cried Valentine, with a groan; "I stand to make the
+heaviest loss that was ever made by man."
+
+"What do you mean?" exclaimed George.
+
+"Shall I tell you what you meant when you warned me against your own
+brother? Shall I tell you why you so warned me? You know that Philip
+Sheldon murdered Tom Halliday."
+
+"Great God!"
+
+"Yes; the secret is out. You knew it; how or when you discovered it I
+cannot tell. You knew of that one hellish crime, and would have prevented
+the commission of a second murder. You should have spoken more plainly.
+To know what you knew, and to confine yourself to cautious hints and
+vague suggestions, as you did, was to have part in that devilish work. If
+Charlotte Halliday dies, her blood be upon your head--upon yours--as well
+as upon his!"
+
+The young man had risen in his passion, and stood before George Sheldon
+with uplifted hands, and eyes that flashed angry lightnings. It seemed
+almost as if he would have called down the Divine vengeance upon this
+man's head.
+
+"If Charlotte Halliday dies!" repeated George, in a horror-stricken
+whisper; "why should you suggest such a thing?"
+
+"Because she is dying."
+
+There was a pause. Valentine flung himself passionately upon the chair
+from which he had just risen, with his back to George Sheldon, and his
+face bent over the back of the chair. The lawyer sat looking straight
+before him, with a ghastly countenance.
+
+"I told him he meant _this_," he said to himself, in a hoarse whisper. "I
+told him in this office not six months ago. Powers of hell, what a
+villain he is! And there are people who do not believe there is a devil!"
+
+For a few moments Valentine gave free vent to his passion of grief. These
+tears of rage, of agony the most supreme, were the first he had shed
+since he had bent his face over Charlotte's soft brown hair, to hide the
+evidence of his sorrow. When he had dashed these bitter drops away from
+his burning eyes, he turned to confront George Sheldon, pale as death,
+but very calm. And after this he gave way no more to his passion. He was
+matched against Time, of all enemies the most pitiless and unrelenting,
+and every minute wasted was a point scored by his foe.
+
+"I want your help, George Sheldon," he said. "If you have ever been sorry
+that you made no effort to save Charlotte Halliday's father, prove
+yourself his friend by trying to save her."
+
+"_If_ I have ever been sorry!" echoed the lawyer. "Why, my miserable
+dreams have never been free from the horror of that man's face. You don't
+know what it is--murder! Nobody knows who hasn't been concerned in it.
+You read of murders in your newspapers. A shot B, or C poisoned D, and so
+on, all through the letters of the alphabet, with a fresh batch for every
+Sunday; but it never comes home to you. You think of the horror of it in
+a shadowy kind of way, as you might think of having a snake twisted round
+your waist and legs, like that blessed man and boys one never sees the
+last of. But if you were to look at that plaster cast all your life, you
+couldn't realize ten per cent of the horror you'd feel if the snake was
+_there_, alive, crushing your bones, and hissing in your ear. I have been
+face to face with murder, Valentine Hawkehurst; and if I were to live a
+century, I should never forget what I felt when I stood by Tom Halliday's
+deathbed, and it flashed upon me, all at once, that my brother Phil was
+poisoning him."
+
+"And you did not try to save him--your friend?" cried Valentine.
+
+"Why, you see," replied the other, in a strange slow way, "it was too
+late to save him: I knew that, and--I held my tongue. What could I do?
+Against my own brother! That sort of thing in a family is ruin for every
+one! Do you think anybody would have brought their business to me after
+my brother had stood in the Old Bailey dock to take his trial for murder?
+No; my only course was to keep my own counsel, and I kept it. Phil made
+eighteen thousand pounds by his marriage with poor Tom's widow, and a
+paltry hundred or two is all _I_ ever touched of that money."
+
+"And you _could_ touch that money?" cried Valentine, aghast.
+
+"Money carries no infection. Did you ever ask any questions about the
+money you won at German gaming-tables. I dare say some of your napoleons
+and ten-thaler notes could have told queer stories if they had been able
+to talk. Taking Phil's money has never weighed upon my conscience. I'm
+not very inquisitive about the antecedents of a five-pound note; but I'll
+tell you what it is, Hawkehurst, I'd give all I have, and all I ever
+hope to have, and would go out and sweep a crossing to-morrow, if I could
+get Tom Halliday's face out of my mind, with the look that he turned upon
+me the last time I saw him. 'Ah, George,' he said, 'in illness a man
+feels the comfort of being among friends!' And he took my hand and
+squeezed it, in his old hearty way. We had been boys together,
+Hawkehurst, birds-nesting in Hyley Woods; on the same side in our
+Barlingford cricket-matches. And I shook his hand, and went away, and
+left him to die!"
+
+And here Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn, the Sheldon who was in with the
+money-lenders, sharpest of legal prestigitators, most ruthless of
+opponents, most unscrupulous of allies, buried his face in a flaming
+bandanna, and fairly sobbed aloud. When the passion had passed, he got up
+and walked hastily to the window, more ashamed of this one touch of
+honest emotion than of all the falsehoods and chicaneries of his career.
+
+"I didn't think I could have been such an ass," he muttered sheepishly.
+
+"I did not hope that you could feel so deeply," answered Valentine. "And
+now help me to save the only child of your ill-fated friend. I am sure
+that you can help me."
+
+Without waiting to be questioned, Valentine related the circumstances of
+Charlotte's illness, and of his interview with Mr. Burkham.
+
+"I did not even know that the poor girl was ill," said George Sheldon. "I
+have not seen Phil for months. He came here one day, and I gave him a bit
+of my mind. I told him if he tried to harm her I'd let the light in upon
+him and his doings. And I'll keep my word."
+
+"But his motive? What, in the name of Heaven, can be his motive for
+taking her innocent life? He knows of the Haygarth estate, and must hope
+to profit by her fortune if she lives."
+
+"Yes, and to secure the whole of that fortune if she dies. Her death
+would make her mother sole heir to that estate, and the mother is the
+merest tool in his hands. He may even have induced Charlotte to make a
+will in his favour, so that he himself may stand in her shoes."
+
+"She would not have made a will without telling me of it."
+
+"You don't know that. My brother Phil can do anything. It would be as
+easy for him to persuade her to maintain secrecy about the transaction as
+to persuade her to make the will. Do you suppose _he_ shrinks from
+multiplying lies and forgeries and hypocrisies? Do you suppose anything
+in that small way comes amiss to the man who has once brought his mind to
+murder? Why, look at the Scotch play of that fellow Shakespeare's. At the
+beginning, your Macbeth is a respectable trustworthy sort of person,
+anxious to get on in life, and so on, and that's all; but no sooner has
+he made an end of poor old Duncan, than he lays about him right and
+left--Banquo, Fleance, anybody and everybody that happens to be in his
+way. It was lucky for that Tartar of a wife of his that _she_ hook'd it,
+or he'd soon have put a stop to her sleep-walking. There's no such wide
+difference between a man and a tiger, after all. The tiger's a decent
+fellow enough till he has tasted human blood; but when once he _has_,
+Lord save the country-side from the jaws of the man-eater!"
+
+"For Heaven's sake let us waste no time in talk!" Valentine cried,
+impetuously. "I am to meet Burkham in Burlington Row directly I have got
+your advice."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To see Dr. Jedd, and take him down to Hastings, if possible."
+
+"That won't do."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because Jedd's appearance would give Phil the office. Jedd gave evidence
+on the Fryar trial, and must be a marked man to him. All Jedd can tell
+you is that Charlotte is being poisoned. You know that already. Of course
+she'll want medical treatment, and so on, to bring her round; but she
+can't get that under my brother's roof. What you have to do is to get her
+away from that house."
+
+"You do not know how ill she is. I doubt if she could bear the removal."
+
+"Anything is better than to remain. _That_ is certain death."
+
+"But your brother would surely dispute her removal."
+
+"He would, and oppose it inch by inch. We must get him away, before we
+attempt to remove her."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I will find the means for that. I know something of his business
+relations, and can invent some false cry for luring him off the trail. We
+_must_ get him away. The poor girl was not in actual danger when you left
+her, was she?"
+
+"No, thank God, there was no appearance of immediate danger. But she was
+very ill. And that man holds her life in his hand. He knows that I have
+come to London in search of a doctor. What if--"
+
+"Keep yourself quiet, Hawkehurst. He will not hasten her death unless he
+is desperate; for a death occurring immediately after your first
+expression of alarm would seem sudden. He'll avoid any appearance of
+suddenness, if he can, depend upon it. The first thing is to get him
+away. But the question is, how to do it? There must be a bait. What bait?
+Don't talk to me, Hawkehurst. Let me think it out, if I can."
+
+The lawyer leaned his elbows on the table, and abandoned himself to
+profound cogitation, with his forehead supported by his clenched hands.
+Valentine waited patiently while he thus cogitated.
+
+"I must go down to Phil's office," he said at last, "and ferret out some
+of his secrets. Nothing but stock-exchange business, of an important
+character, would induce him to leave Charlotte Halliday. But if I can
+telegraph such a message as will bring him to town, I'll do it. Leave all
+that to me. And now, what about your work?"
+
+"I am at a loss what to do, if I am not to take Dr. Jedd to Harold's
+Hill."
+
+"Take him to St. Leonards; and if I get my brother out of the way, you
+can have Charlotte conveyed to an hotel in St. Leonard's, where she can
+stop till she picks up strength enough to come to London."
+
+"Do you think her mother will consent to her removal?
+
+"Do I think you will be such an idiot as to ask for her consent?" cried
+George Sheldon impatiently. "My brother's wife is so weak a fool, that
+the chances are she'd insist on her daughter stopping quietly, to be
+poisoned. No; you must get Mrs. Sheldon out of the way somehow. Send her
+to look at the shops, or to bathe, or to pick up shells on the beach, or
+anything else equally inane. She's easy enough to deal with. There's that
+young woman, Paget's daughter, with them still, I suppose? Yes. Very
+well, then, you and she can get Charlotte away between you."
+
+"But for me to take those two girls to an hotel--the chance of scandal,
+of wonder, of inquiry? There ought to be some other person--some nurse.
+Stay, there's Nancy Woolper--the very woman! My darling has told me of
+that old woman's affectionate anxiety about her health--an anxiety which
+was singularly intense, it seemed to Lotta. Good God! do you think she,
+Nancy Woolper, could have suspected the cause of Mr. Halliday's death?"
+
+"I dare say she did. She was in the house when he died, and nursed him
+all through his illness. She's a clever old woman. Yes, you might take
+her down with you; I think she would be of use in getting Charlotte
+away."
+
+"I'll take her, if she will go."
+
+"I am not sure of that; our north-country folks have stiffish notions
+about fidelity to old masters, and that kind of thing. Nancy Woolper
+nursed my brother Phil."
+
+"If she knows or suspects the fate of Charlotte's father, she will try to
+save Charlotte," said Valentine, with conviction. "And now, good bye! I
+trust to you for getting your brother out of the way, George Sheldon;
+remember that."
+
+He held out his hand; the lawyer took it with a muscular grip, which, on
+this occasion, meant something more than that base coin of jolly good
+fellowship which so often passes current for friendship's virgin gold.
+
+"You may trust me," George Sheldon said gravely. "Stop a moment, though;
+I have a proposition to make. If my brother Philip has induced that girl
+to make a will, as it is my belief he has, we must counter him. Come down
+with me to Doctors' Commons. You've a cab? Yes; the business won't take
+half an hour."
+
+"What business?"
+
+"A special licence for your marriage with Charlotte Halliday."
+
+"A marriage?"
+
+"Yes; her marriage invalidates her will, if she has made one, and does
+away with Phil's motive. Come along; we'll get the licence."
+
+"But the delay?"
+
+"Exactly half an hour. Come!"
+
+The lawyer dashed out of his office. "At home in an hour," he shouted
+to the clerk, and then ran downstairs, followed closely by Valentine,
+and did not cease running until he was in the King's Road, where the
+cab was waiting.
+
+"Newgate Street and Warwick Lane to Doctors' Commons!" he cried to the
+cabman; and Valentine was fain to take his seat in the cab without
+further remonstrance.
+
+"I don't understand--" he began, as the cabman drove away.
+
+"I do. It's all right; you'll put the licence in your pocket, and call at
+the church nearest which you hang out, Edgware Road way, give notice of
+the marriage, and so on; and as soon as Charlotte can bear the journey,
+bring her to London and marry her. I told you your course six months ago.
+Your obstinacy has caused the hazard of that young woman's life. Don't
+let us have a second edition of it."
+
+"I will be governed by your advice," answered Valentine, submissively.
+"It is the delay that tortures me."
+
+The delay was indeed torture to him. Everything and everybody in Doctors'
+Commons seemed the very incarnation of slowness. The hansom cab might
+tear and grind the pavement, the hansom cabman might swear until even
+monster waggons swerved aside to give him passage; but neither tearing
+nor swearing could move the incarnate stolidity of Doctors' Commons. When
+he left that quaint sanctuary of old usages, he carried with him the
+Archbishop of Canterbury's benign permission for his union with Charlotte
+Halliday. But he knew not whether it was only a morsel of waste paper
+which he carried in his pocket; and whether there might not ere long be
+need of a ghastlier certificate, giving leave and licence for the
+rendering back of "ashes to ashes, and dust to dust."
+
+Valentine's first call, after leaving George Sheldon at the gate of
+Doctors' Commons, was at the head-quarters of the Ragamuffins. His heart
+sank as he ran into the bar of the hostelry to ask for the telegram which
+might be waiting for him.
+
+Happily there was no telegram. To find no tidings of a change for the
+worse seemed to him almost equivalent to hearing of a change for the
+better. What had he not feared after his interview with the surgeon of
+Bloomsbury!
+
+From Covent Garden the hansom bowled swiftly to Burlington Row. Here
+Valentine found Mr. Burkham, pale and anxious, waiting in a little den of
+a third room, on the ground-floor--a ghastly little room, hung with
+anatomical plates, and with some wax preparations in jars, on the
+mantelpiece, by way of ornament. To them presently came Dr. Jedd, as
+lively and business-like as if Miss Halliday's case had been a question
+of taking out a double-tooth.
+
+"Very sad!" he said; "these vegetable poisons--hands of unscrupulous man.
+Very interesting article in the _Medical Quarterly_--speculative analysis
+of the science of toxicology as known to the ancients."
+
+"You will come down to Harold's Hill at once, sir?" said Valentine,
+imploringly.
+
+"Well, yes; your friend here, Mr. Burkham, has persuaded me to do so,
+though I need hardly tell you that such a journey will be to the last
+degree inconvenient."
+
+"It is an affair of life and death," faltered the young man.
+
+"Of course, my dear sir. But then, you see, I have half-a-dozen other
+affairs of life and death on my hands at this moment. However, I have
+promised. My consultations will be over in half an hour; I have a round
+of visits after that, and by--well, say by the five o'clock express, I
+will go to St. Leonards."
+
+"The delay will be very long," said Valentine.
+
+"It cannot be done sooner. I ought to go down to Hertfordshire this
+evening--most interesting case--carbuncle--three operations in three
+consecutive weeks--Swain as operator. At five o'clock I shall be at the
+London Bridge station. Until then, gentlemen, good day. Lawson, the
+door."
+
+Dr. Jedd left his visitors to follow the respectable white-cravatted
+butler, and darted back to his consulting-room.
+
+Mr. Burkham and Valentine walked slowly up and down Burlington Row before
+the latter returned to his cab.
+
+"I thank you heartily for your help," said Valentine to the surgeon; "and
+I believe, with God's grace, we shall save this dear girl's life. It was
+the hand of Providence that guided me to you this morning. I can but
+believe the same hand will guide me to the end."
+
+On this they parted. Valentine told his cabman to drive to the Edgware
+Road; and in one of the churches of the immediate neighbourhood of that
+thoroughfare he gave notice of his intention to enter the bonds of holy
+matrimony. He had some difficulty in arranging matters with the clerk,
+whom he saw in his private abode and non-official guise. That functionary
+was scarcely able to grasp the idea of an intending Benedick who would
+not state positively when he wanted to be married. Happily, however, the
+administration of half-a-sovereign considerably brightened the clerk's
+perceptions.
+
+"I see what you want," he said. "Young lady a invalid, which she wants to
+leave her home as she finds uncomfortable, she being over twenty-one
+years of age and her own mistress. It's what you may call a runaway
+match, although the parties ain't beholden to any one, in a manner of
+speaking. _I_ understand. You give me half an hour's notice any morning
+within the legal hours, and I'll have one of our young curates ready for
+you as soon as you're ready for them; and have you and the young lady
+tied up tight enough before you know where you are. We ain't very long
+over _our_ marriages, unless it is something out of the common way."
+
+The clerk's familiarity was more good-natured than flattering to the
+applicant's self-esteem; but Valentine was in no mood to object to this
+easy-going treatment of the affair. He promised to give the clerk the
+required notice; and having arranged everything in strictly legal manner,
+hurried back to his cab, and directed the man to drive to the Lawn.
+
+It was now three o'clock. At five he was to meet Dr. Jedd at the station.
+He had two hours for his interview with Nancy Woolper, and his drive from
+Bayswater to London Bridge.
+
+He had tasted nothing since daybreak; but the necessity to eat and drink
+never occurred to him. He was dimly conscious of feeling sick and faint,
+but the reason of this sickness and faintness did not enter into his
+thoughts. He took off his hat, and leant his head back against the
+cushion of the hansom as that vehicle rattled across the squares of
+Paddington. The summer day, the waving of green trees in those suburban
+squares; the busy life and motion of the world through which he went,
+mixed themselves into one jarring whirl of light and colour, noise and
+motion. He found himself wondering how long it was since he left
+Harold's Hill. Between the summer morning in which he had walked along
+the dusty high-road, with fields of ripening corn upon his left, and all
+the broad blue sea upon his right, and the summer afternoon in which he
+drove in a jingling cab through the noisy streets and squares of
+Bayswater, there seemed to him a gulf so wide, that his tried brain
+shrank from scanning it.
+
+He struggled with this feeling of helplessness and bewilderment, and
+overcame it.
+
+"Let me remember what I have to do," he said to himself; "and let me keep
+my wits about me till that is done."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+PHOENICIANS ARE RISING.
+
+While Mr. Hawkehurst arranged his affairs with the clerk of St.
+Matthias-in-the-fields, in the parish of Marylebone, George Sheldon sat
+in his brother's office writing a letter to that distinguished
+stockbroker. The pretext of writing a letter was the simplest pretext for
+being alone in his brother's room; and to be alone in Philip Sheldon's
+room was the first step in the business which George had to do.
+
+The room was distractingly neat, and as handsomely furnished as it is
+possible for an office to be within the closest official limits. A
+Spanish mahogany desk with a cylinder cover, and innumerable drawers
+fitted with invisible Bramah locks, occupied the centre of the room; and
+four ponderous Spanish mahogany chairs, with padded backs, and seats
+covered with crimson morocco, were primly ranged against the wall. Upon
+the mantelpiece ticked a skeleton clock; above which there hung the
+sternest and grimmest of almanacks, on either whereof were fastened
+divers lists and calendars of awful character, affected by gentlemen on
+'Change.
+
+Before penetrating to this innermost and sacred chamber, George Sheldon
+wasted some little time in agreeable gossip with a gentleman whom he
+found yawning over the _Times_ newspaper in an outer and less richly
+furnished apartment. This gentleman was Philip Sheldon's clerk, the
+younger son of a rich Yorkshire farmer, who had come to London with the
+intention of making his fortune on the Stock Exchange, and whose father
+had paid a considerable sum in order to obtain for this young man the
+privilege of reading the Times in Mr. Sheldon's office, and picking up
+whatever knowledge might be obtained from the business transactions of
+his employer.
+
+The career of Philip Sheldon had been watched with some interest by his
+fellow-townsmen of Barlingford. They had seen him leave that town with a
+few hundreds in his pocket, and they had heard of him twelve years
+afterwards as a prosperous stockbroker, with a handsome house and a
+handsome carriage, and the reputation of being one of the sharpest men in
+the City. The accounts of him that came to Barlingford were all more or
+less exaggerated; and the men who discussed his cleverness and his good
+luck were apt to forget that he owed the beginning of his fortunes to Tom
+Halliday's eighteen thousand pounds. The one fact that impressed Philip
+Sheldon's townsmen was the fact that a Barlingford man had made money on
+the Stock Exchange; and the one inference they drew therefrom was the
+inference that other Barlingford men might do the same.
+
+Thus it had happened that Mr. Stephen Orcott, of Plymley Rise farm, near
+Barlingford, being at a loss what to do with a somewhat refractory
+younger son, resolved upon planting his footsteps in the path so
+victoriously trodden by Philip Sheldon. He wrote to Philip, asking him to
+receive the young man as clerk, assistant, secretary--anything, with a
+view to an ultimate junior partnership; and Philip consented, upon
+certain conditions. The sum he demanded was rather a stiff one, as it
+seemed to Stephen Orcott, but he opined that such a sum would not have
+been asked if the advantages had not been proportionately large. The
+bargain was therefore concluded, and Mr. Frederick Orcott came to London.
+He was a young man of horsey propensities, gifted with a sublime contempt
+for any kind of business requiring application or industry, and with a
+supreme belief in his own merits.
+
+George Sheldon had known Frederick Orcott as a boy, and had been in his
+society some half-dozen times since his coming to London. He apprehended
+no difficulty in obtaining from this young gentleman any information he
+had the power to afford.
+
+"How do, Orcott?" he said, with agreeable familiarity. "My brother Phil
+not come back yet?"
+
+"No," replied the other, sulkily. "There have been ever so many people
+here bothering me about him. Where has he gone? and when will he be back?
+and so on. I might as well be some d----d footman, if I'm to sit here
+answering questions all day. High Wickham races are on to-day, and I
+wanted to see Barmaid run before I put my money on her for Goodwood. She
+was bred down our way, you see, and I know she's like enough to win the
+cup, if she's fit. They don't know much about her this way, either,
+though she's own sister to Boots, that won the Chester Cup last year,
+owing to Topham's being swindled into letting him off with seven lbs. He
+ran at the York Spring, you see, for a twopenny-halfpenny plate, and the
+boy that rode him pulled his head half off--I saw him do it--and then he
+won the Chester, and brought his owners a pot of money."
+
+This information was not exactly what George Sheldon wanted, but he
+planted himself on the hearthrug in an easy attitude, with his back
+against the mantelpiece, and appeared much interested in Mr. Orcott's
+discourse.
+
+"Anything stirring in the City?" he asked presently.
+
+"Stirring? No--nothing stirring but stagnation, as some fellow said in a
+play I saw the other night. Barlingford folks say your brother Philip has
+made a heap of money on the Stock Exchange; but if he has, he must have
+done a good deal more business before I came to him than he has done
+lately. I can't see how a man is to develop into a Rothschild out of an
+occasional two-and-sixpence per cent on the transfer of some old woman's
+savings from railway stock to consols; and that's about the only kind of
+business I've seen much of lately. Of course Phil Sheldon has got irons
+of his own in the fire; for he's an uncommonly deep card, you see, that
+brother of yours, and it isn't to be expected he'll tell _me_ all he's up
+to. I know he's up to his eyebrows in companies, but I don't see how he's
+to make his fortune out of _them_, for limited liability now-a-days seems
+only another name for unlimited crash. However, I don't care. It pleased
+my governor to get me into Sheldon's office, and it suited my book to
+come to London; but if the author of my being thinks I'm going to addle
+my blessed brains with the decline and fall of the money market, he's a
+greater fool than I took him for--and that's saying a great deal."
+
+And here Mr. Frederick Orcott lapsed into admiring contemplation of his
+boots, which were the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of a sporting bootmaker; boots
+that were of the ring, ringy, and of the corner, cornery.
+
+"Ah," said George, "and Phil doesn't tell you much of his affairs,
+doesn't he? That's rather a bad sign, I should think. Looks as if he was
+rather down upon his luck, eh?"
+
+"Well, there's no knowing, you see, with that sort of close fish. He may
+have made his book for a great haul, and may be keeping himself quiet
+till the event comes off. He may be laying on to something with all his
+might, you know, on safe information. But there's one thing I know he
+stands to lose by."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"The Phoenician Loan. He speculated in the bonds when they began to go
+down; and I'm blessed if they haven't been dropping ever since, an
+eighth a day, as regular as the day comes round. He bought them for the
+March account, and has been paying contango since then, and holding on in
+hopes of a rise. I don't know whether the purchase was a large one, but I
+know he's been uncommonly savage about the drop. He bought on the
+strength of private information from the other side of the Channel. The
+Emperor was putting his own money into the Phoenician business, and it
+was the best game out, and so on. But he seems to have been made a fool
+of, for once in a way."
+
+"The bonds may steady themselves."
+
+"Yes, they _may_; but, on the other hand, they mayn't. There are the
+Stock Exchange lists, with Phoenicians ticked off by your brother's own
+pen. A steady drop, you see. 'Let me have a telegram if there's a sudden
+rise,' said Sheldon to me the day he left London; 'they'll go up with
+rush when they do move.' But they've been moving the other way ever
+since; and I think if he stayed away till doomsday it would be pretty
+much the same."
+
+"_Phoenicians are rising rapidly. Come back to town._"
+
+These were the words of the telegraphic despatch which shaped itself in
+George Sheldon's brain, as his brother's clerk revealed the secrets of
+his employer.
+
+It was found--the solution of the one great question as to how Philip
+Sheldon was to be lured away from the bedside of his unconscious victim.
+Here was the bait.
+
+"I knew I could do it; I knew I could get all I wanted to know out of
+this shallow-brained idiot," he said to himself, triumphantly.
+
+And then he told the shallow-brained idiot that he thought he would write
+a line to his brother; and on that pretence went into Philip's office.
+
+Here, use his eyes as he might, he could discover nothing; he could glean
+no stray scrap of information. The secrets that could be guarded by
+concealed Bramah locks and iron safes, with mystic words to be learned by
+the man who would open them, Philip Sheldon knew how to protect.
+Unhappily for himself, he had been compelled to confide some of his
+secrets to human receptacles not to be guarded by Bramah locks or mystic
+words.
+
+The lawyer did not waste much time in his brother's office. A very hasty
+investigation showed him there was nothing to be learned from those bare
+walls and that inviolable cylinder-topped desk. He scribbled a few lines
+of commonplace at a table by the window, sealed and addressed his note,
+and then departed to despatch his telegram, "Phoenicians are rising
+rapidly," he wrote, and that was all. He signed the despatch Frederick
+Orcott.
+
+"Phil and Orcott may settle the business between them," he said to
+himself, as he forged the Yorkshireman's name. "What I have to do is to
+get Phil away, and give Hawkehurst a chance of saving Tom Halliday's
+daughter; and I shan't stand upon trifles in the doing of it."
+
+After having despatched this telegram, George Sheldon found himself much
+too restless and excited for ordinary business. He, so renowned even
+amongst cool hands for exceptional coolness, was on this occasion
+thoroughly unnerved. He dropped into a City tavern, and refreshed himself
+with a dram. But, amidst all the bustle and clatter of a crowded bar, the
+face of Tom Halliday, haggard and worn with illness, was before his eyes,
+and the sound of Tom Halliday's voice was in his ears. "I can't settle to
+anything this afternoon," he said to himself. "I'll run down to
+Bayswater, and see whether Hawkehurst has managed matters with Nancy
+Woolper."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+THE SORTES VIRGILIANAE.
+
+While George Sheldon was still in the depths of the City Valentine
+Hawkehurst arrived at the gothic villa, where he asked to see Mrs.
+Woolper. Of the woman herself he knew very little: he had seen her once
+or twice when some special mission brought her to the drawing-room; and
+from Charlotte he had heard much of her affectionate solicitude. To have
+been kind to his Charlotte was the strongest claim to his regard.
+
+"This woman's help would be of inestimable service," he thought; "her
+age, her experience of sickness, her familiarity with the patient,
+especially adapt her for the office she will be required to fill. If Dr.
+Jedd should order a nurse to watch by the sick-bed, here is the nurse. If
+it should prove possible to remove the dear sufferer, here is the
+guardian best calculated to protect and attend her removal." That the
+desperate step of an immediate marriage would be a wise step Valentine
+could not doubt, since it would at once annihilate Mr. Sheldon's chances,
+and destroy his motive. But in contemplating this desperate step
+Valentine had to consider the reputation as well as the safety of his
+future wife. He was determined that there should be no opportunity for
+scandal in the circumstances of his stolen marriage, no scope for future
+mischief from the malignity of that baffled villain to whose schemes
+their marriage would give the death-blow. He, who from his cradle had
+been familiar with the darker side of life, knew how often the innocent
+carry a lifelong burden, and perform a perpetual pennance for the sins or
+the follies of others. And over his darling's life in the future, should
+it please God that he might save her, he would have no shadow cast by
+imprudence of his in the present.
+
+"This sharp-witted, sharp-tongued Yorkshirewoman will be the woman of
+women to protect her," he thought, as he seated himself in Mr. Sheldon's
+study, whither the prim parlour-maid had ushered him.
+
+"Mrs. Woolper have just gone upstairs to clean herself," she said; "which
+we are a-having the dining-room and droring-room carpets up, while the
+family are away. Would you please to wait?"
+
+Valentine looked at his watch.
+
+"I cannot wait very long," he said; "and I shall be obliged if you will
+tell Mrs. Woolper that I wish to see her on very important business."
+
+The parlour-maid departed, and Valentine was left to endure the weariness
+of waiting until Mrs. Woolper should have "cleaned herself."
+
+Mr. Sheldon's study at Bayswater did not offer much more to the eye of
+the investigator than Mr. Sheldon's office in the City. There were the
+handsomely bound books behind the inviolable plate-glass doors, and there
+was the neat writing-table with the machine for weighing letters, and the
+large business-like looking blotting-pad, and the ponderous brass-rimmed
+inkstand, with no nonsense about it; and yonder, on a clumsy little oak
+table with thick legs, appeared the copying machine, with a big black
+iron lever, and a massive screw with which to screw all the spontaneous
+feeling out of every letter that came beneath its crushing influence.
+
+Up and down this joyless den Valentine Hawkehurst paced, with the demon
+of impatience raging in his breast. The July sunshine blazed hot upon the
+window, and the voices of croquet-players in adjacent gardens rose shrill
+upon the summer air. And there were girls playing croquet while she, his
+"rose of the garden, garden of girls," lay sick unto death! O, why could
+he not offer a hecatomb of these common creatures as a substitute for
+that one fair spirit?
+
+He looked into the garden--the prim modern garden, but a few years
+reclaimed from that abomination of desolation, the "eligible lot of
+building land." Across the well-kept lawn there brooded no shadow of
+Old-World cedar; no century-old espaliers divided flower and kitchen
+ground; no box-edging of the early Hanoverian era bordered the beds of
+roses and mignonette. From one boundary-wall to the other there was not a
+bush old enough to hang an association upon. The stereotyped bed of
+flaming yellow calceolaria balanced the conventional bed of flaming
+crimson verbena; the lavender heliotrope faced the scarlet geranium, like
+the four corners in a quadrille. The garden was the modern nurserymen's
+ideal of suburban horticulture, and no more. But to Valentine this
+half-acre of smooth lawn and Wimbledon gravel pathway had seemed fair as
+those pleasure gardens of Semiramis, at the foot of the Bagistanos
+mountain, the fame whereof tempted Alexander to turn aside from the
+direct road, during his march from Chelone to the Nysaic horse pastures.
+
+To-day the contemplation of that commonplace garden gave him direful
+pain. Should he ever walk there again with his dear love, or in any other
+garden upon earth?
+
+And then he thought of fairer gardens, in supernal regions whither his
+soul was slow to travel. "Not easy is the journey from earth to the
+stars," says the sage; and from this young wanderer the stain of earthly
+travel had yet to be washed away.
+
+"If she is taken from me, shall I ever be pure enough to follow her?" he
+asked himself. "Will a life that began in such darkness ever rise to the
+light which is her natural element? If she is taken, and I stay behind,
+and bear my burden patiently in the hope to follow her, will there not be
+a gate closed against me in the skies, beyond which I shall see her,
+shining among her kindred spirits, in the white robes of perfect
+innocence? Ah, my love, my love, as between, us on this earth must for
+ever be a gulf your pure soul cannot pass, so between us in the skies
+will rise a barrier to sever me from your sweet company!"
+
+The thought of probable separation upon earth, of possible separation in
+heaven, was too bitter to him.
+
+"I will not think of these things," he said to himself; "I will not
+believe in that possibility of this sacrifice. Ah, no! she will be
+saved. Against the bright young life the awful fiat has not gone
+forth. Providence has been with me to-day. Providence will go with me
+till the end."
+
+He thought how other men had so stood, as he was standing now, face to
+face with the great uncertainty, the crisis, the turning-point--the pivot
+on which life itself revolved. The pendulum of the mighty clock swings
+solemnly to and fro; with every vibration a moment; with every moment
+each man's shrouded fates move another step in their inexorable progress.
+And the end? What was the goal towards which those dark relentless shapes
+were moving?
+
+He thought of Rousseau, balancing the awful question of his soul's
+salvation--his poor weak soul adrift upon a sea of doubt.
+
+"Behold yonder tree which faces me, as I sit and meditate the problem of
+my destiny--the destiny of me, Jean Jacques Rousseau, self-conscious
+genius, and future regenerator of my age. I pick up a pebble, and
+poise it between my fingers before taking my aim. In another moment
+the question will be answered. If the pebble hits the tree, I, Jean
+Jacques, am reserved for salvation. If I miss--O awful, overwhelming
+possibility!--my name will blaze upon that dreadful scroll which numbers
+the damned."
+
+Happily the tree is bulky, and within but a few yards of the
+speculator; and the great enigma of the Calvinistic church is answered
+in favour of Madame de Warenne's protege, whose propensities and
+proclivities at that period did not very strongly indicate his claim to
+a place among the elect.
+
+Valentine remembered the _sortes Virgilianae_--the Wesleyan's drawing of
+inferences from Bible texts. Ah, could he not find an answer to the
+question that was the one thought of his mind? He would find some
+answer--a lying oracle, perhaps. It might be a voice from heaven,--some
+temporary assuagement of this storm of doubt that raged in his breast. "I
+doubt if Mr. Sheldon owns either a Bible or an, 'AEneid,'" he said to
+himself, as he stopped in his rapid pacing of the room; "I will open the
+first book I can put my hand upon, and from the first line my eye falls
+on will draw an augury."
+
+He looked about the room. Behind the glazed doors of the mahogany
+bookcase appeared Hume and Smollett, Scott and Shakespeare; and
+conspicuous among these a handsome family Bible. But the glazed doors
+were locked. In Mr. Sheldon's study there appeared to be no other books
+than these few standard works. Yes, on some obscure little shelves, low
+down in one of the recesses formed by the projection of the fireplace and
+the chimney, there were three rows of large quarto volumes, in dingy
+dark-green cloth cases.
+
+What these volumes might contain Valentine Hawkehurst knew not; and the
+very fact of his ignorance rendered these books all the more suitable for
+the purpose of augury. To dip for a sentence into any of these unknown
+volumes would be a leap in darkness more profound than he could find in
+the Bible or the "AEneid," where his own foreknowledge of the text might
+unwittingly influence the oracle. He went over to the recess, bent down,
+and ran his hand along the backs of the volumes, with his face turned
+away from the books towards the window.
+
+"The first obstruction that arrests my hand shall determine my choice of
+the volume," he said to himself.
+
+His hand ran easily along the volumes on the upper shelf--easily along
+the volumes on the second shelf; and he began to doubt whether this mode
+of determining his choice could be persisted in. But in its progress
+along the third and lowest range of volumes, his hand was arrested midway
+by a book which projected about half an inch beyond its fellows.
+
+He took this book out and carried it to the table, still without looking
+at it. He opened it, or rather let its leaves fall open of their own
+accord--still without looking at it; and then, with a strange
+superstitious fear--mingled in his mind with the natural shame that
+accompanied his conscious folly--he looked at the page before him. The
+line on which he fixed his eye was the heading of a letter. It was in
+larger type than the rest of the page, and it was very plain to him as he
+stood a little way from the table, looking down at the open book.
+
+The line ran thus:
+
+"ON THE FALLIBILITY OF COPPER GAUZE AS A TEST FOR THE DETECTION OF
+ARSENIC."
+
+The book was a volume of the _Lancet_; the date twenty years ago.
+
+"What an oracle!" thought Valentine, with a cynical laugh at his own
+folly, and some slight sense of relief. In all feeble tamperings with
+powers invisible there lurks a sense of terror in the weak human heart.
+He had tempted those invisible ones, and the oracle he only half believed
+in might have spoken to his confusion and dismay. He was glad to think
+the oracle meant nothing.
+
+And yet, even in this dry as dust title of a scientific communication
+from a distinguished toxicologist there was some sinister significance.
+It was the letter of a great chemist, who demonstrated therein the
+fallibility of all tests in relation to a certain poison. It was one of
+those papers which, while they aid the cause of science, may also further
+the dark processes of the poisoner, by showing him the forces he has to
+encounter, and the weapons with which he may defend himself from their
+power. It is needless to dwell here upon the contents of this letter--one
+of a series on the same subject, or range of subjects. Valentine read it
+with eager interest. For him it had a terrible importance in its relation
+to the past and to the present.
+
+"I let the book fall open, and it opened at that letter," he thought to
+himself. "Will it open there a second time, I wonder?"
+
+He repeated the experiment, and the book opened in the same place. Again;
+and again the book opened as before. Again, many times, and the result
+was still the same.
+
+After this he examined the book, and found that it had been pressed open
+at this page, as by a reader leaning on the opened volume. He examined it
+still more closely, and found here and there on the page faint
+indications of a pencil, which had under-scored certain lines, and the
+marks of which had been as far as possible erased. The deduction to be
+drawn from these small facts seemed only too clear to Valentine
+Hawkehurst. By some one reader the pages had been deliberately and
+carefully studied. Could he doubt that reader to have been the man in
+whose possession he found the book, the man whom that very day he had
+heard plainly denounced as a poisoner?
+
+He drew out the previous volume, and in this a rapid search revealed to
+him a second fact, significant as the last.
+
+An old envelope marked the place where appeared an article on the
+coincidences common to the diagnostics of a certain type of low fever and
+the diagnostics of a certain class of poisons. Here the volume again
+opened of itself, and a blot of ink on the page seemed to indicate that
+the open book had been leant upon by a person engaged in making memoranda
+of its contents. Nor was this all. The forgotten envelope that marked the
+place had its own dismal significance. The postmark bore the date of the
+year and the month in which Charlotte's father had died.
+
+While this volume was still open in his hand the door opened suddenly,
+and Mrs. Woolper came into the room.
+
+She had kept Valentine waiting more than half an hour. He had little more
+than half an hour at most in which to break the ice of absolute
+strangeness, and sound the very depths of this woman's character. If she
+had come to him earlier, when his plan of action was clear and definite,
+his imagination in abeyance, he would have gone cautiously to work, with
+slowness and deliberation. Coming to him now, when his mind, unsettled by
+the discovery of fresh evidence against Philip Sheldon, was divided
+between the past and the present, she took him off his guard, and he
+plunged at once into the subject that absorbed all his thoughts.
+
+Mrs. Woolper looked from Valentine to the open books on the table with a
+vague terror in her face.
+
+"I am sorry I was so long, sir; but I'd been polishing the grates and
+fenders, and such like, and my hands and face were blacker than a
+sweep's. I hope there's nothing wrong at the seaside, where Miss--"
+
+"There is much that's wrong, Mrs. Woolper--hopelessly, irrecoverably
+wrong. Miss Halliday is ill, very ill--doomed to die, if she remain in
+your master's keeping."
+
+"Lord help us, Mr. Hawkehurst! what do you mean?"
+
+The terror in her face was no longer a vague terror. It had taken a form
+and substance, and was a terror unutterably hideous, if ever human
+countenance gave expression to human thought.
+
+"I mean that your master is better skilled in the use of the agents that
+kill than the agents that cure. Charlotte's father came to Philip
+Sheldon's house a hale strong man, in the very prime of manhood. In that
+house he sickened of a nameless disease, and died, carefully tended by
+his watchful friend. The same careful watcher stands by Charlotte
+Halliday's deathbed, and she is dying!"
+
+"Dying! O, sir, for God's sake, don't say that!"
+
+"She is dying, as her father died before her, by the hand of Philip
+Sheldon."
+
+"O, sir! Mr. Hawkehurst!" cried the old woman, with clasped hands lifted
+in piteous supplication towards her master's denouncer. "It's not true.
+It is not true. For God's dear love don't tell me it is true! I nursed
+him when he was a baby, sir; and there wasn't a little trouble I had to
+bear with him that didn't make him all the dearer to me. I have sat up
+all the night through, sir, times and often, when he was ill, and have
+heard Barlingford church clock strike every hour of the long night; and
+O, if I had known that this could ever come to him, I should have wished
+him dead in the little crib where he lay and seemed so innocent. I tell
+you, sir, it can't be true! His father and mother had been respected and
+looked up to in Barlingford for many a year,--his grandfather and
+grandmother before them. There isn't a name that stands better in those
+parts than the name of Sheldon. Do you think such a man would poison his
+friend?"
+
+"_I_ said nothing about poison, Mrs. Woolper," said Valentine, sternly.
+
+This woman had known all, and had held her tongue, like the rest, it
+seemed. To Valentine there was unutterable horror in the thought that a
+cold-blooded murder could be thus perpetrated in the sight of several
+people, and yet no voice be raised to denounce the assassin.
+
+"And this is our modern civilization!" he said to himself. "Give me the
+desert or the jungle. The sons of Bowanee are no worse than Mr. Sheldon,
+and one might be on one's guard against them."
+
+Nancy Woolper looked at him aghast. He had said nothing about poison!
+What, then--had she betrayed her master?
+
+He saw that she had known, or strongly suspected, the worst in the case
+of Tom Halliday, and that she would easily be influenced to do all he
+wanted of her.
+
+"Mrs. Woolper, you must help me to save Charlotte," he said, with
+intensity. "You made no attempt to save her father, though you suspected
+the cause of his death. I have this day seen Mr. Burkham, the doctor who
+attended Mr. Halliday, and from his lips I have heard the truth. I want
+you to accompany me to Hastings, and to take your place by Charlotte's
+bed, as her nurse and guardian. If Mr. Sheldon suspects your knowledge of
+the past, and I have little doubt that he does"--a look in the
+housekeeper's face told him that he was right--"you are of all people
+best fitted to guard that dear girl. Your part will not be a difficult
+one. If we dare remove her, we will remove her beyond the reach of that
+man's power. If not, your task will be to prevent food or medicine, that
+his hand has touched, from approaching her lips. You _can_ do it. It will
+only be a question of tact and firmness. We shall have one of the
+greatest doctors in London for our guide. Will you come?"
+
+"I don't believe my master poisoned his friend," said Nancy Woolper,
+doggedly; "nor I won't believe it. You can't force me to think bad of him
+I loved when he was little and helpless, and I carried him in my arms.
+What are you and your fine London doctor, Mr. Burkham--he was but a poor
+fondy, as I mind well--that I should take your word against my master? If
+that young man thought as Mr. Halliday was being poisoned, why didn't he
+speak out, like a man, then? It's a fine piece of work to bring it up
+against my master eleven years afterwards. As for young missy, she's as
+sweet a young creature as ever lived, and I'd do anything to serve her.
+But I won't think, and I can't think, that my master would hurt a hair of
+her head. What would he gain by it?"
+
+"He has settled that with himself. He has gained by the death of Tom
+Halliday, and depend upon it he has made his plans to gain by the death
+of Tom Halliday's daughter."
+
+"I won't believe it," the old woman repeated in the same dogged tone.
+
+For such resistance as this Mr. Hawkehurst was in no manner prepared. He
+looked at his watch. The half hour was nearly gone. There was little more
+time for argument.
+
+"Great Heaven!" he said to himself, "what argument can I employ to
+influence this woman's obdurate heart?"
+
+What argument, indeed? He knew of none stronger than those he had used.
+He stood for some moments battled and helpless, staring absently at the
+face of his watch, and wondering what he was to do next.
+
+As Valentine Hawkehurst stood thus, there came a loud ringing of the
+bell, following quickly on the sound of wheels grinding against the
+kerbstone.
+
+Mrs. Woolper opened the door and looked out into the hall.
+
+"It's master!" cried one of the maids, emerging from the disorganized
+dining-room, "and missus, and Miss Halliday, and Mass Paget--and all the
+house topsy-turvy!"
+
+"Charlotte here!" exclaimed Valentine. "You are dreaming, girl!"
+
+"And you told me she was dying!" said Mrs. Woolper, with a look of
+triumph. "What becomes of your fine story now?"
+
+"It _is_ Miss Halliday!" cried the housemaid, as she opened the door.
+"And O my!" she added, looking back into the hall with a sorrowful face,
+"how bad she do look!"
+
+Valentine ran out to the gate. Yes; there were two cabs, one laden with
+luggage, the two cabmen busy about the doors of the vehicles, a little
+group of stragglers waiting to see the invalid young lady alight. It was
+the next best thing to a funeral.
+
+"O, don't she look white!" cried a shrill girl with a baby in her arms.
+
+"In a decline, I dessay, pore young thing," said a matron, in an audible
+aside to her companion.
+
+Valentine dashed amongst the group of stragglers. He pushed away the girl
+with the baby, the housemaid who had run out behind him, Mr. Sheldon, the
+cabman, every one; and in the next moment Charlotte was in his arms, and
+he was carrying her into the house.
+
+He felt as if he had been in a dream; and all that exceptional force
+which the dreamer sometimes feels he felt in this crisis. He carried his
+dear burden into the study, followed by Mr. Sheldon and Diana Paget. The
+face that dropped upon his shoulder showed deadly white against his
+dark-blue coat; the hand which he clasped in his, ah, how listless and
+feeble!
+
+"Valentine!" the girl said, in a low drowsy voice, lifting her eyes to
+his face, "is this you? I have been so ill, so tired; and they would
+bring me away. To be near the doctors, papa says. Do you think any
+doctors will be able to cure me?"
+
+"Yes, dear, with God's help. I am glad he has brought you here. And now
+I must run away," he said; when he had placed Charlotte in Mr. Sheldon's
+arm-chair, "for a very little while, darling. I have seen a doctor, a
+man in whom I have more confidence than I have in Dr. Doddleson. I am
+going to fetch him, my dearest," he added tenderly, as he felt the
+feeble hand cling to his; "I shall not be long. Do you think I shall not
+hurry back to you? My dearest one, when I return, it will be to stay
+with you--for ever."
+
+She was too ill to note the significance of his words; she only knew that
+they gave her comfort. He hurried from the room. In less than an hour he
+must be at the London Bridge terminus, or in all probability the five
+o'clock train would carry Dr. Jedd to St. Leonards; and on Dr. Jedd his
+chief hope rested.
+
+"Do you believe me now?" he asked of Mrs. Woolper as he went out
+into the hall.
+
+"I do," she answered in a whisper; "and I will do what you want."
+
+She took his hand in her wrinkled horny palm and grasped it firmly. He
+felt that in this firm pressure there was a promise sacred as any oath
+ever registered on earth. He met Mr. Sheldon on the threshold, and
+passed him without a word. The time might come in which he would have to
+mask his thoughts, and stoop to the hateful hypocrisy of civility to
+this man; but he had not yet schooled himself to do this. At the gate he
+met George Sheldon.
+
+"What's up now?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"Did you send your message?"
+
+"Yes; I telegraphed to Phil."
+
+"It has been trouble wasted. He has brought her home."
+
+"What does that mean?"
+
+"Who knows? I pray God that he may have overreached himself. I have set a
+watch upon my dear love, and no further harm shall come to her. I am
+going to fetch Dr. Jedd."
+
+"And you are not afraid of Phil's smelling a rat?"
+
+"I am afraid of nothing that he can do henceforward. If it is not too
+late to save her, I will save her."
+
+He waited for no more, but jumped into the cab. "London Bridge terminus!
+You must get me there by a quarter to five," he said to the driver.
+
+George Sheldon went no further than the gate of his brother's domain.
+
+"I wonder whether the Harold's Hill people will send that telegram after
+him," he thought. "It'll be rather unpleasant for Fred Orcott if they do.
+But it's ten to one they won't. The normal condition of every seaside
+lodging-house keeper in one degree removed from idiotcy."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Ninth.
+
+
+
+THROUGH THE FURNACE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+SOMETHING TOO MUCH.
+
+"Is that young man mad?" asked Philip Sheldon, as he went into his study
+immediately after Valentine had passed him in the hall.
+
+The question was not addressed to any particular individual; and Diana,
+who was standing near the door by which Mr. Sheldon entered, took upon
+herself to answer it.
+
+"I think he is very anxious," she said in a half whisper.
+
+"What brought him here just now? He did not know we were coming home."
+
+Mrs. Woolper answered this question.
+
+"He came for something for Miss Charlotte, sir; some books as she'd had
+from the library. They'd not been sent back; and he came to see about
+their being sent."
+
+"What books?" murmured Charlotte. But a pressure from Mrs. Woolper's hand
+prevented her saying more.
+
+"I never encountered any one with so little self-command," said Mr.
+Sheldon. "If he is going to rush in and out of my house in that manner, I
+must really put a stop to his visits altogether. I cannot suffer that
+kind of thing. For Charlotte's welfare quiet is indispensable; and if Mr.
+Hawkehurst's presence is to bring noise and excitement, Mr. Hawkehurst
+must not cross this threshold."
+
+He spoke with suppressed anger; with such evident effort to restrain his
+anger, that it would have seemed as if his indignation against Valentine
+was no common wrath.
+
+Charlotte caught his last words.
+
+"Dear papa," she pleaded in her faint voice, "pray do not be angry with
+Valentine; he is so anxious about me."
+
+"I am not angry with him; but while you are ill, I will have quiet--at
+any price."
+
+"Then I'm sure you should not have brought Charlotte home," exclaimed
+Georgy, in tones of wailing and lamentation; "for of all the miseries in
+life, there is nothing worse than coming home in the very midst of a
+general cleaning. It was agreed between Ann Woolper and me that there
+should be a general cleaning while we were away at the seaside. We were
+to be away a fortnight, and everything was to be as neat as a new pin
+when we came home. But here we are back in less than a week, and
+everything at sixes-and-sevens. Where we are to dine I know not; and as
+for the carpets, they are all away at the beating-place, and Ann tells me
+they won't be home till Friday."
+
+"We can exist without carpets," answered Mr. Sheldon, in a hard dry
+voice. "I suppose they are seeing to Miss Halliday's room?" he added,
+addressing himself to Mrs. Woolper. "Why don't you go and look after
+them, Nancy?"
+
+"Sarah knows what she has to do. The bed-rooms was done first; and
+there's not much amiss in Miss Charlotte's room."
+
+Mr. Sheldon dropped wearily into a chair. He looked pale and haggard.
+Throughout the journey he had been unfailing in his attention to the
+invalid; but the journey had been fatiguing; for Charlotte Halliday was
+very ill--so ill as to be unable to avoid inflicting trouble upon
+others. The weariness--the dizziness--the dull intervals of
+semi-consciousness--the helpless tottering walk, which was like the
+walk of intoxication rather than ordinary weakness--the clouded
+sight--all the worst symptoms of this nameless disease, had every hour
+grown more alarming.
+
+Against this journey to London Mrs. Sheldon and Diana had pleaded--Georgy
+with as much earnestness as she could command; Diana as forcibly as she
+dared argue a question in which her voice had so little weight.
+
+But upon this point Mr. Sheldon was adamant.
+
+"She will be better off in London," he said resolutely. "This trip to the
+seaside was a whim of my wife's; and, like most other whims of my wife's,
+it has entailed trouble and expense upon me. Of course I know that Georgy
+did it for the best," he added, in reply to a reproachful "O Philip!"
+from Mrs. Sheldon. "But the whole business has been a mistake. No sooner
+are we comfortably settled down here, than Hawkehurst takes it into his
+head to be outrageously alarmed about Charlotte, and wants to bring
+half-a-dozen doctors round the poor girl's bed, to her inevitable peril;
+for in an illness which begins and ends in mental depression, all
+appearance of alarm is calculated to do mischief."
+
+Having said this, Mr. Sheldon lost no time in making arrangements for the
+journey. A carriage was ordered; all possible preparations were made for
+the comfort of the invalid--everything that care or kindness could do was
+done; but the cruelty of the removal was not the less obvious. Georgy
+wailed piteously about the sixes-and-sevens to which they were being
+taken. Diana cared nothing about sixes-and-sevens; but she felt supreme
+indignation against Charlotte's stepfather, and she did not attempt to
+conceal her feelings.
+
+Nor was it without an effort to oppose Mr. Sheldon's authority that Miss
+Paget succumbed to the force of circumstances. She appealed to his wife.
+
+"Dear Mrs. Sheldon, I beg you not to suffer Lotta's removal," she said
+earnestly. "You do not know how ill she is--nor can Mr. Sheldon know, or
+he would not take such a step. As her mother, your authority is superior
+to his; you have but to say that she shall not be taken from this house
+in her present state of prostration and sickness."
+
+"I have only to say!" cried Georgy, piteously. "O Diana, how can you say
+such a thing? What would be Mr. Sheldon's feelings if I were to stand up
+against him, and declare that Charlotte should not be moved? And he so
+anxious too, and so clever. I'm sure his conduct about my poor dear Lotta
+is positively beautiful. I never saw such anxiety. Why, he has grown ten
+years older in his looks since the beginning of her illness. People go on
+about stepfather this, and stepfather that, until a poor young widow is
+almost frightened to marry again. But I don't believe a real father ever
+was more thoughtful or more careful about a real daughter than Philip has
+been about Lotta. And what a poor return it would be if I were to oppose
+him now, when he says that the removal will be for Charlotte's good, and
+that she will be near clever doctors--if she should require clever
+doctors! You don't know how experienced he is, and how thoughtful. I
+shall never forget his kindness to poor Tom."
+
+"Yes," exclaimed Miss Paget impatiently, "but Mr. Halliday died."
+
+"O Diana," whimpered Georgy, "I did not think you could be so unkind as
+to remind me of that."
+
+"I only want to remind you that Mr. Sheldon is not infallible."
+
+Mr. Sheldon entered the room at this juncture, and Diana left it,
+passionately indignant against the poor weak creature, to whom no crisis,
+no danger, could give strength of mind or will.
+
+"A sheep would make some struggle for her lamb," she thought, angrily.
+"Mrs. Sheldon is lower than a sheep."
+
+It was the first time she had thought unkindly of this weak soul, and her
+anger soon melted to pity for the powerless nature which Mr. Sheldon held
+in such supreme control. She made no further attempt at resistance after
+this; but went to Charlotte's room and prepared for the journey.
+
+"O, why am I to be moved, dear?" the girl asked piteously. "I am too ill
+to be moved."
+
+"It is for your good, darling. Mr. Sheldon wants you to be near the great
+physicians, who can give you health and strength."
+
+"There are no physicians who can do that. Let me stay here, Di. Beg papa
+to let me stay here."
+
+Diana hid her face upon the invalid's shoulder. Her tears choked her. To
+repress her grief was agony scarcely endurable. But she did hide all
+trace of anger and sorrow, and cheered the helpless traveller throughout
+the weariness of the journey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charlotte was lying on a sofa in her bedroom, with Mrs. Woolper in
+attendance upon her, when Dr. Jedd arrived. It was a quarter to six, and
+the low western sunshine flooded the room.
+
+The physician came with Valentine, and did not ask to see Mr. Sheldon
+before going to his patient's room. He told the housemaid who admitted
+him to show the way to Miss Halliday's room.
+
+"The nurse is there, I suppose?" he said to the girl.
+
+"Yes, sir; leastways, Mrs. Woolper."
+
+"That will do."
+
+Mr. Sheldon heard the voice in the hall, and came out of the library as
+the doctor mounted the step of the stairs.
+
+"Who is this? What is this?" he asked of Valentine Hawkehurst.
+
+"I told you I was not satisfied with Dr. Doddleson's opinion," answered
+the young man coolly. "This gentleman is here by appointment with me."
+
+"And pray by what right do you bring a doctor of your own choosing to
+visit my stepdaughter without previous consultation with me?"
+
+"By the right of my love for her. I am not satisfied as to the medical
+treatment your stepdaughter has received in this house, Mr. Sheldon, and
+I want to be satisfied. Miss Halliday is something more than your,
+stepdaughter, remember: she is my promised wife. Dr. Jedd's opinion will
+be more assuring to me than the opinion of Dr. Doddleson."
+
+At the sound of Dr. Jedd's name Mr. Sheldon started slightly. It was a
+name he knew only too well--a name he had seen among the medical
+witnesses in the great Fryar trial, the record of which had for him
+possessed a hideous fascination. He had fancied himself in the poisoner
+Fryar's place; and the fancy had sent an icy chill through his veins. But
+in the next minute he had said to himself, "I am not such a reckless fool
+as that man Fryar was; and have run no such risks as he ran."
+
+At the name of Jedd the same icy shiver ran through his veins again. His
+tone of suppressed anger changed to a tone of civility which was almost
+sycophantic.
+
+"I have the honour to know Dr. Jedd by repute very well indeed, and I
+withdraw my objection to your course of proceeding, my dear Hawkehurst;
+though I am sure Dr. Jedd will agree with me that such a course is
+completely against all professional etiquette, and that Dr. Doddleson
+will have the right to consider himself aggrieved."
+
+"There are cases in which one hardly considers professional etiquette. I
+shall be very happy to meet Dr. Doddleson to-morrow morning. But as Mr.
+Hawkehurst was very anxious that I should see Miss Halliday to-night, I
+consented to waive all ceremony, and come with him on the spot."
+
+"I cannot blame his anxiety to secure so valuable an opinion. I only
+wonder what lucky star guided him to so excellent an adviser."
+
+Mr. Sheldon looked from Dr. Jedd to Valentine Hawkehurst as he said this.
+The physician's face told him no more than he might have learnt from a
+blank sheet of paper. Valentine's face was dark and gloomy; but that
+gloomy darkness might mean no more than natural grief.
+
+"I will take you to my stepdaughter's room at once," he said to the
+physician.
+
+"I think it will be better for me to see the young lady alone," the
+doctor answered coolly: "that is to say, in the presence of her nurse
+only."
+
+"As you please," Mr. Sheldon replied.
+
+He went back to his study. Georgy was sitting there, whimpering in a
+feeble way at intervals; and near her sat Diana, silent and gloomy. A
+settled gloom, as of the grave itself, brooded over the house. Mr.
+Sheldon flung himself into a chair with an impatient gesture. He had
+sneered at the inconvenience involved in uncarpeted floors, but he was
+beginning to feel the aggravation of that inconvenience. These two women
+in his study were insupportable to him. It seemed as if there was no room
+in the house in which he could be alone; and just now he had bitter need
+of solitary meditation.
+
+"Let them arrange the dining-room somehow, carpet or no carpet," he said
+to his wife. "We must have some room to dine in; and I can't have you
+here, Georgy; I have letters to write."
+
+Mrs. Sheldon and Diana were not slow to take the hint.
+
+"I'm sure I don't want to be here, or anywhere," exclaimed Georgy in
+piteous accents; "I feel so miserable about Charlotte, that if I could
+lie down and die, it would be a comfort to me. And it really seems a
+mockery having dinner at such a time. It's just as it was during poor
+Tom's illness; there were fowls and all sorts of things cooked, and no
+one ever ate them."
+
+"For God's sake go away!" cried Mr. Sheldon passionately; "your perpetual
+clack is torture to me."
+
+Georgy hurried from the room, followed closely by Diana.
+
+"Did you ever see any one more anxious?" Mrs. Sheldon asked, with
+something like pride.
+
+"I would rather see Mr. Sheldon less anxious!" Diana answered gravely.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+DR. JEDD'S OPINION.
+
+Alone, Philip Sheldon breathed more freely. He paced the room, waiting
+for the appearance of the doctor; and with almost every turn he looked at
+the clock upon the chimneypiece.
+
+How intolerable seemed the slow progress of the moments! How long that
+man Jedd was staying in the sick-room! And yet not long; it was he,
+Philip Sheldon, who was losing count of time. Where was Valentine? He
+opened the door of the room, and looked out. Yes, there was a figure on
+the stairs. The lover was waiting the physician's verdict.
+
+A door on the landing above opened, and the step of the Doctor sounded on
+the upper flight. Mr. Sheldon waited for Dr. Jedd's appearance.
+
+"I shall be glad to hear your opinion," he said quietly; and the Doctor
+followed him into the study. Valentine followed the Doctor, to Mr.
+Sheldon's evident surprise.
+
+"Mr. Hawkehurst is very anxious to hear what I have to say," said Dr.
+Jedd; "and I really see no objection to his hearing it."
+
+"If you have no objection, I can have none," Mr. Sheldon answered. "I
+must confess, your course of proceeding appears to me altogether
+exceptional, and--"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Sheldon; but then, you see, the case is altogether an
+exceptional case," said the physician, gravely.
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Decidedly. The young lady is in extreme danger. Yes, Mr. Sheldon, in
+extreme danger. The mistake involved in her removal to-day is a mistake
+which I cannot denounce too strongly. If you had wanted to kill your
+stepdaughter, you could scarcely have pursued a more likely course for
+the attainment of your object. No doubt you were actuated by the most
+amiable motives. I can only regret that you should have acted without
+competent advice."
+
+"I believed myself to be acting for the best," replied Philip Sheldon, in
+a strange mechanical way.
+
+He was trying to estimate the true meaning of the Doctor's address. Was
+he merely expressing anger against an error of ignorance or stupidity, or
+was there a more fatal significance in his words?
+
+"You overwhelm me," the stockbroker said presently; "you positively
+overwhelm me by your view of my daughter's condition. Dr. Doddleson
+apprehended no danger. He saw our dear girl on Sunday morning--yesterday
+morning," added Mr. Sheldon, wonder-stricken to find that the interval
+was so brief between the time in which he had walked with Valentine and
+Dr. Doddleson in the garden at Harold's Hill and the present moment. To
+Valentine it seemed still more wonderful. What a bridgeless gulf between
+yesterday morning and to-night! All his knowledge of this man Sheldon,
+all the horror involved in Tom Halliday's death, had come upon him in
+that brief span.
+
+"I should like to see Dr. Doddleson's prescriptions," said Dr. Jedd, with
+grave politeness.
+
+Mr. Sheldon produced them from his pocket-book with an unshaken hand. No
+change of countenance, no tremulous hand, no broken voice, betrayed his
+apprehension. The one distinguishing mark of his manner was an absent,
+half-mechanical tone, as of a man whose mind is employed otherwise than
+in the conversation of the moment. Prompt at calculation always, he was
+at this crisis engaged in a kind of mental arithmetic. "The chances of
+defeat, so much; the chances of detection--?"
+
+A rapid survey of his position told him what those chances were.
+Detection by Dr. Jedd? Yes. That had come to him already perhaps. But
+would any actual harm to him come of such detection?
+
+He calculated the chances for and against this--and the result was in his
+favour. That Dr. Jedd should form certain opinions of Miss Halliday's
+case was one thing; that he should give public utterance to those
+opinions was another thing.
+
+"What can his opinion matter to me?" Mr. Sheldon asked himself; "opinion
+cannot touch me in a case where there is no such thing as certainty. He
+has seen the dilatation of the pupil--even that old fool Doddleson saw
+it--and has taken fright. But no jury in England would hang a man on such
+evidence as that; or if a jury could be found to put the rope round a
+man's neck, the British public and the British press would be pretty sure
+to get the rope taken off again."
+
+"Chloric aether, spirits of ammonia--hum, ha, hum--yes," muttered Dr.
+Jedd, looking at one prescription. "Quinine, yes; aqua pura," he
+murmured, looking at another.
+
+He threw them aside with a half-contemptuous gesture, and then took up a
+pen and began to write.
+
+"My mode of treatment will be quite different from that adopted by Dr.
+Doddleson," he said; "but I apprehend no difficulty in bringing that
+gentleman round to my view of the case when we meet."
+
+As he wrote his prescription Philip Sheldon rose and looked over his
+shoulder.
+
+The form of the prescription told him that Dr. Jedd knew--all! He had
+suspected this from the first, and the confirmation of this suspicion did
+not shake him. He grew firmer, indeed; for now he knew on what ground he
+was standing, and what forces were arrayed against him.
+
+"I really do not understand the basis of your treatment," he said, still
+looking over the physician's shoulder.
+
+Dr. Jedd turned his chair with a sudden movement, and faced him.
+
+"Am I talking to Mr. Sheldon the stockbroker, or Mr. Sheldon the
+surgeon-dentist?" he asked.
+
+_This_ was a blow. This allusion to the past was a sharper stroke than
+any that Philip Sheldon had before received. He looked at Valentine; from
+Valentine to the physician. What did it mean, this mention of the past?
+That blabbing fool George had talked to his friend of the days in
+Fitzgeorge Street, no doubt; and Valentine had blabbed Mr. Sheldon's
+antecedents to the physician.
+
+Was this what it all meant? Or did it mean more than this? Whatever it
+might mean, he faced the hidden danger, and met the uncertainties of his
+position as calmly as he met its certainties.
+
+"I have no desire to interfere with your treatment," he said, very
+quietly; "but I have some knowledge of the Pharmacopoeia, and I confess
+myself quite at a loss to understand your prescription."
+
+"Dr. Doddleson will understand it when he has heard my opinion. There is
+no time to be lost--Mr. Hawkehurst, will you take this to the chemist,
+and wait for the medicine? Miss Halliday cannot take it too soon. I shall
+be here to-morrow at nine o'clock.--If you wish me to see Dr. Doddleson,
+Mr. Sheldon, you will perhaps arrange an appointment with him for that
+hour."
+
+"It is rather an early hour."
+
+"No hour is too early in a case attended with so much danger. Perhaps it
+will be as well for me to call on Dr. Doddleson as I drive home. I shall
+make a point of seeing Miss Halliday twice a day. I find your housekeeper
+a very sensible person. She will remain in close attendance upon the
+sick-room; and I must beg that there is no quackery--no home-made
+remedies. I have given your housekeeper all directions as to treatment
+and diet, and she has my orders to allow no one but herself in the
+invalid's room. There is a marked tendency to delirium, and quiet is
+indispensable."
+
+"I have said as much myself," answered Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"Mr. Hawkehurst will undertake to see to the making-up of my
+prescriptions," continued Dr. Jedd, as he drew on his gloves. "He is very
+anxious about the young lady, and it will afford him some relief of mind
+to be employed in her service. No, thanks," he said, putting aside Mr.
+Sheldon's hand as that gentleman offered him his fee. "I have already
+received my honorarium from Mr. Hawkehurst."
+
+There was no more to be said. The physician wished the two men good
+evening, and returned to his carriage, to be driven home to dinner by way
+of Plantagenet Square, where he saw Dr. Doddleson, and appointed to meet
+him next day, much to the delight of that individual, who was proud to be
+engaged in a case with the great Jedd.
+
+Valentine left the house on the heels of the Doctor. He came back in
+about twenty minutes with the medicine. He did not go to the principal
+gate, but to a little side gate, near the offices of the gothic villa--a
+gate to which butchers and bakers came with their wares in the morning.
+
+"I want to see Miss Paget," he said to the maid who answered his summons;
+"and I want to see her without disturbing Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon. Do you
+know where to find her?"
+
+"Yes, sir; she's in her own room. I took her a cup of tea there ten
+minutes ago. She's got a headache with fretting about our poor young
+lady, and she won't go down to dinner with master and missus."
+
+"Will you ask her to step out here and speak to me for a few minutes?"
+
+"Won't you come indoors and see her, sir?"
+
+"No; I'd rather see her in the garden."
+
+It was still daylight here, but it was growing shadowy among the avenues
+in Kensington Gardens. The gate near which Valentine waited was not to be
+seen from the windows of dining or drawing-room.
+
+The housemaid ran off to summon Miss Paget; and in less than five minutes
+Diana appeared, dressed in her hat and garden jacket.
+
+"Will you come out into the road with me, dear?" asked Valentine. "I have
+something serious to say to you."
+
+"And I am so anxious to hear what the Doctor has said," answered Diana,
+as she took Valentine's arm.
+
+"The road before the Lawn was very quiet at this hour of the evening, and
+here they were safely beyond Mr. Sheldon's ken.
+
+"Tell me the Doctor's opinion, Valentine," Diana said, eagerly. "Does he
+think the case very serious?"
+
+"He does. It is more serious than you or I could have imagined, if
+Providence had not helped me to discover the truth."
+
+"What do you mean, Valentine?"
+
+He gave her in brief the story of his day's work. She listened to him
+breathlessly, but uttered no exclamation until his story was finished.
+
+"It is most horrible," she said at last; "but I believe it is most true.
+There has been so much in that man's conduct that has mystified me; and
+_this_ explains all. But what earthly motive can have prompted this
+hideous crime?"
+
+"He believes that he has a beneficial interest in her death. I cannot
+fully understand his motive; but, rely upon it, there is a motive, and a
+sufficient one. And I have let that man delude me into belief in his
+honesty after I had been warned against him! But there is no time for
+regrets. Diana, I look to you to help me in saving my dear love."
+
+"It is not too late to save her?"
+
+"Dr. Jedd will commit himself to no positive statement. He tells me she
+is in danger, but he does not refuse all hope. Now listen, my dear. In
+that house I have only two people to help me--Ann Woolper and yourself.
+Ann Woolper I hold only by a feeble bond. I think she will be true to us;
+but I am not sure of her. Sheldon's influence over her is a powerful one;
+and God knows what concession he might extort from her. She is the
+ostensible guardian of Charlotte's room; you must contrive to be the real
+guardian. You must keep custody over the custodian. How is your room
+situated in relation to Charlotte's room?"
+
+"The doors of the two rooms are exactly opposite."
+
+"Providence favours us there. Can you keep watch over Charlotte's door
+from your room without making your guardianship too apparent?"
+
+"I can."
+
+"Day and night?"
+
+"Day and night."
+
+"God bless you, dear! Her life may be saved by your fidelity."
+
+"I would do as much to render her a smaller service."
+
+"My dear girl! And now go back to the house. Here is the medicine. You
+will give that into Mrs. Woolper's hands; she has received her
+instructions from Dr. Jedd, and those instructions leave no room for
+doubt. If she permits Sheldon to tamper with the medicine or the food of
+her patient, she will be the wilful accomplice of a murderer. I think she
+may be trusted."
+
+"I will watch her."
+
+"The charge of procuring the medicine is mine. I shall come to this house
+many times in the course of every day; but I am bound to prepare myself
+for the hour in which Mr. Sheldon may forbid me his house. In that event
+I shall come to this gate. I suppose the servants would stand by me if
+you pleaded for me?"
+
+"I am sure they would."
+
+"And now, dear, go; the medicine is wanted. I shall come back in a few
+hours to inquire if there is any change for the better. Go."
+
+They had returned to the gate ere this. He grasped the hand which she
+held out to him, and stood by the little gate watching her till she had
+disappeared through the door of the servants' quarters. When the door
+closed, he walked slowly away. He had done all that it was possible for
+him to do, and now came his worst misery. There was nothing left for him
+but to wait the issue of events.
+
+What was he to do? Go home to his lodgings--eat, drink, sleep? Was it
+possible for him to eat or to sleep while that precious life trembled in
+the balance? He walked slowly along the endless roads and terraces in a
+purposeless way. Careless people pushed against him, or he pushed against
+them; children brushed past him as they ran. What a noisy, busy,
+clattering world it seemed! And she lay dying! O, the droning, dreary
+organs, and the hackneyed, common tunes, how excruciating they were to
+him to-night!
+
+He emerged into the high road by-and-by, in all the bustle and riot of
+Netting Hill. The crowded shops, the clamorous people, seemed strange to
+him. It was like the clamour of a foreign city. He walked on past the
+bustle and riot, by the quieter terraces near Holland Park, and still
+held on to Shepherd's Bush, where he went into a little public-house and
+called for some brandy.
+
+There was a bench on one side of the space in front of the bar, and
+towards this he pushed his way.
+
+"Where are you shoving to, my young swell?" growled a sturdy cabman,
+indignant at the outrage inflicted by Valentine's elbows; but in the next
+moment the sturdy cabman dashed suddenly forward and caught the young
+swell in his strong arms.
+
+"My eye, young un!" he cried; "where do you want to go to? Here, some one
+bring a mug of cold water: I'm blest if he ain't in a fit!"
+
+Happily it was no fit, only a dead faint into which Mr. Hawkehurst had
+fallen. He came back to consciousness presently, after a few spoonfuls of
+brandy had been forced into his mouth, and looked about him with a
+helpless stare.
+
+"I'm jiggered if I don't believe he's fainted for the want of wittles!"
+cried the cabman. "They keeps up till they drop, sometimes, these seedy
+swells--walks about, lookin' like so many Dossays, on a hempty stomach.
+Here, some one bring a plate o' cold meat, and look sharp about it. I'll
+stand sam."
+
+Valentine looked up with a faint smile.
+
+"And I'll stand sam for anything you like to order, my friend," he said,
+holding out his hand to the good-natured cabman. "I've eaten nothing
+since last night; but I haven't fasted for want of money. There are worse
+troubles than an empty pocket,--and I'm not unacquainted with _that_."
+
+"I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir," said the man, sheepishly, very much
+ashamed of his benevolence; "but, you see, it ain't the fust time I've
+seen a swell come to the pavement with a cropper, in consequence of
+having gone it too fast, and cleaned hisself out, in a manner of
+speaking."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+NON DORMIT JUDAS.
+
+The summer darkness closed round the Bayswater villa, but of sleep there
+was little for any one in that household during this sad night. Is there
+not, in almost every household, a memory of such days and nights--dread
+intervals in which the common course of life and time seems to be
+suspended, and all the interests of the universe hang upon the fitful
+breath of one dear sufferer?
+
+Lonely were the watchers in Mr. Sheldon's house. Georgy was in her own
+room, forbidden to disturb the invalid by her restless presence--now
+lying down, now pacing to and fro, now praying a little, now crying a
+little--the very ideal of helpless misery.
+
+In the sick-room there was no one but the invalid and Ann Woolper. In
+the room opposite watched Diana Paget, her door ajar, her senses
+sharpened by anxiety, quick to hear the faintest sound of footfall on
+the stairs, or to feel the slightest vibration from stealthily opened
+door on the story below.
+
+Alone in the study sat Philip Sheldon, at the table where he was
+accustomed to write--a blank sheet of paper before him, a pen held
+loosely in his outstretched hand, and his eyes fixed in an unseeing gaze
+upon the bookcase opposite--the living image of care. Now that the
+turmoil of the day was done, and there was silence in the house, he had
+set himself to face his position. It was no trifling task which he had to
+perform. Not one difficulty, or one set of difficulties, had he to meet
+and master. The armed enemies up-springing from the dragon's teeth which
+he had sown were not to be set fighting amongst themselves, nor were they
+to be smashed by any rocks that he could hurl amongst them. They stood
+around him in an awful circle, and turn which way he would, he saw the
+same appalling figure, armed to the teeth, and invincible as death.
+
+What had he to fear?
+
+Detection of a past crime? No, that was a fool's terror which shook him
+at the sound of Tom Halliday's name--a child's fear of the nursery bogie.
+Detection in the present was more to be dreaded. The work that he had
+done was, according to his belief, work that could not be proved against
+him. But there are crimes of which to be accused is to be condemned.
+Lawyers may plead, and juries may acquit; but the fiat of public opinion
+goes forth against the suspected wretch, and on _his_ forehead for ever
+shows the dark brand of Cain.
+
+For the criminal of almost every shade of colour, save this one dread
+hue, society has a sanctuary and earth a refuge. The forger may find a
+circle in which the signing of another man's name, under the pressure of
+circumstances, is held to be a misfortune rather than an offence. The
+swindler has the gentlemanly brotherhood and sisterhood of Macaire for
+his family, and need never be lonely. The thief may dance away his jovial
+nights among kindred spirits, and be carried to his grave by sorrowing
+fellow-artists. The coiner may be jolly in his hiding-place among his
+chosen band of brother coiners. But for the murderer there is no such
+thing as human sympathy; and, when the blood of Nancy dyes his cruel
+hand, Bill Sykes may thank God if he has a dog that will follow him to
+his wretched end, for from mankind he can hope nothing.
+
+Mr. Sheldon did not contemplate his position from any sentimental point
+of view; but he told himself that to be suspected of having poisoned his
+friend, and to be accused of poisoning, or attempting to poison, his
+daughter, would be ruin--ruin social and commercial, ruin complete and
+irretrievable.
+
+And having faced one of these dread armed antagonists, he passed on to
+another shadowy enemy.
+
+What if Charlotte recovered, and he escaped the taint of uttered
+suspicion--for Dr. Jedd's private opinion he cared very little--what
+then?
+
+Then the grim antagonist lifted his visor, and showed him the countenance
+of Commercial Disgrace.
+
+Unless within the next few weeks he could command from eight to ten
+thousand pounds, his disgrace as a member of the Stock Exchange was
+inevitable. Charlotte's death would give him the means of raising as much
+upon the policies of assurance obtained by her, and which, by the terms
+of her will, he would inherit. The life-insurance people might be
+somewhat slow to settle his claims; but he had all possible facilities
+for the raising of money upon any tangible security, and he could count
+upon immediate cash, in the event of Charlotte's death.
+
+But what if she should not die? What if this nameless languor, this
+mysterious atrophy, taken vigorously in hand by Dr. Jedd, should be
+vanquished, and the girl should live?
+
+What indeed? A sharp spasm contracted the stockbroker's hard cold face as
+he pictured to himself the result of failure.
+
+He saw the crowd of busy faces in the House, and heard the low hum of
+many voices, and the dull sound of the big half-glass doors swinging to
+and fro, and the constant tread of hurrying feet. He heard the buzz of
+voices and the tramp of feet stop as suddenly as if that busy tide of
+human life had been arrested by an enchanter's wand. The enchanter is no
+other than the head-waiter of the Stock Exchange, who takes his position
+by a stand in the midst of that great meeting-place, and removes his hat.
+
+After that sudden silence comes a faint sound of anxious whisperings; and
+then again a second silence, still more profound, prevails in that
+assembly. Three times, with wooden hammer sounding dull against the
+woodwork of his stand, the waiter raps his awful rap. To some it is the
+call of doom. The commercial Nemesis hides her awful countenance. Slow
+and solemn sound those three deliberate strokes of the wooden hammer. You
+can hear the stertorous breathing of an apoplectic stockbroker, the short
+panting respiration of some eager speculator--the rest is silence. And
+then the voice of the waiter--proxy for the commercial Nemesis--calmly
+enunciates the dread decree.
+
+"Philip Sheldon begs to inform the members of the House that he cannot
+comply with his bargains."
+
+A sudden flutter of the leaves of many note-books follows that awful
+announcement. Voices rise loud in united utterance of surprise or
+indignation. The doors swing to and fro, as hurrying members dash in and
+out to scan the market and ascertain how far they may be affected by this
+unlooked-for failure.
+
+This was the scene which the watcher pictured to himself; and for him
+Fate could wear no aspect more terrible. Respectability, solvency,
+success--these were the idols to which he had given worship and tribute
+in all the days of his life. To propitiate these inexorable ones he had
+sacrificed all the dearest and best blessings which earth and heaven
+offer to mankind. Best or happiness, as other men consider these
+blessings, he had never known; the sense of triumph in success of the
+present, the feverish expectation of success in the future--these had
+stood to him in the place of love and hope, pleasure and idlesse, all the
+joys and comforts of this lower world, and all the holy dreams of purer
+pleasures in a world to come.
+
+One vague brief thought of all that he had sacrificed flashed across
+his brain; and swift upon his track followed the thought of what he
+stood to lose.
+
+Something more than his position upon the Stock Exchange was at stake. He
+had done desperate things in the vain hope of sustaining that position
+against the destroying sweep of Fortune's turning tide. Bills were afloat
+which he must meet, or stand before the world a detected forger,--bills
+drawn upon companies that were shadowy as the regions of their supposed
+operations. Bills amounting to five thousand pounds, drawn, upon the
+Honduras Mahogany Company, Limited; other bills amounting to upwards of
+three thousand pounds, against the Pennsylvanian Anthracite Coal
+Corporation, Limited. The sum he might raise on the policies of insurance
+would about cover these bills; and, simultaneously with their withdrawal,
+fresh bills might be floated, and the horse-leech cry of the brokers for
+contango might be satisfied until there came a reaction in the City, and
+the turning tide should float him into some harbour of safety. Beyond
+this harbour shone a splendid beacon, the dead girl's inheritance--his,
+to claim by right of the same will that would give him the sum insured
+upon her life.
+
+Without this immediate ready money there was no extraction from the
+hideous labyrinth. His position had been already too long sustained by
+bills of exchange. There were people in the City who wanted, in vulgar
+parlance, to see the colour of his money. He knew this--and knew how
+frail the tenure by which he held his position, and how dire the crash
+which would hurl him down to ruin.
+
+After the proclamation of his inability to meet his differences--the
+Deluge: and, looking gloomily athwart the flood and tempest, he saw
+neither ark nor Ararat.
+
+Charlotte's death was the one chance of redemption; and to that event he
+looked as to a figure in a mathematical proposition. Of this girl
+herself, with all her wealth of beauty and goodness, of hope and love, he
+had scarcely any definite idea. She had so long been no more to him than
+an important figure in the mathematics of his life, that he had lost the
+power to behold her in any other light.
+
+The hardness of his nature was something lower than absolute cruelty of
+heart. It was less human than the half-insane ferocity of a Nero. It was
+a calm indifference to the waste of human life, which, displayed upon a
+larger field of operation, would have made a monster cold and passionless
+as Sphinx or Chimaera.
+
+"I must see Ann Woolper," he said to himself, presently, "she will not
+dare to exclude me from that room."
+
+He listened to the striking of the Bayswater clocks. Two o'clock. Within
+and without the house reigned a profound silence. The room immediately
+over Mr. Sheldon's study was Charlotte's room, and here there had been
+for a long time no sound of life or movement.
+
+"Asleep, I dare say," muttered Mr. Sheldon, "invalid and nurse both."
+
+He exchanged his boots for slippers, which he kept in a little cupboard
+below the bookshelves, among old newspapers, and went softly from the
+room. The gas was burning dimly on the stairs and on the landing above.
+He opened the door of the invalid's room softly, and went in.
+
+Mrs. Woolper was seated beside the bed. She looked up at him with
+unwinking eyes.
+
+"I thought you was abed, sir," she said.
+
+"No; I am too anxious to sleep."
+
+"I think every one is anxious, sir," Mrs. Woolper answered, gravely.
+
+"How is your patient?"
+
+The pretty white curtains of the little brass Arabian bedstead were
+drawn.
+
+"She is asleep, sir. She sleeps a great deal. The doctor said that was
+only natural."
+
+"She has taken her medicine, I suppose?" said Mr. Sheldon.
+
+He glanced round the room as he asked this question, but could see no
+trace of medicine-bottle or glass.
+
+"Yes, sir; she has taken it twice, the poor dear."
+
+"Let me look at the medicine."
+
+"The strange doctor said as I was to let no one touch it, sir."
+
+"Very likely; but that direction doesn't apply to me."
+
+"He said no one, sir."
+
+"You are an old fool!" muttered Mr. Sheldon, savagely.
+
+"Ah no, sir," the housekeeper answered, with a profound sigh; "I am wiser
+than I was when poor Mr. Halliday died."
+
+This answer, and the sigh, and the look of solemn sadness which
+accompanied it, told him that this woman knew all. She had suspected him
+long ago; but against her unsupported suspicion the mere force of his
+character had prevailed. She was wiser now; for on this occasion
+suspicion was confirmed by the voice of science.
+
+He stood for a few minutes looking at his old nurse, with a dark moody
+face. What could he feel except supreme indignation against this woman,
+who dared to oppose him when he had the best right to rely on her
+faithful service? She had promised him her fidelity, and at the first
+hint from a stranger she coolly deserted him and went over to the enemy.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you refuse to let me look at the medicine which
+you have been giving to my stepdaughter?" he asked.
+
+"I mean to say that I will obey the orders given me by the strange
+doctor," the old woman answered, with a calm sadness of tone, "even if it
+turns you against me--you that have given me a comfortable home when
+there was nothing before me but the workhouse; you that I carried in my
+arms forty years ago. If it was anything less than her dear life that was
+in danger, sir, and if I hadn't stood by her father's deathbed, I
+couldn't stand against you like this. But knowing what I do, I will stand
+firm as a rock between you and her; and think myself all the more truly
+your faithful servant because I do not fear to offend you."
+
+"That's so much arrant humbug, Mrs. Woolper. I suppose you've made your
+book with Miss Halliday and Miss Halliday's lover, and think you can
+serve your turn best by sticking to them and throwing me over the bridge.
+It's only the way of the world. You're genuine Yorkshire, and know how to
+pack your cards for winning the trick. But suppose I were to spoil your
+game by turning you out of doors neck and crop? What then?"
+
+"I don't think you'll do that, sir."
+
+"Why not, pray?"
+
+"I don't think you dare do it, in the face of that strange doctor."
+
+"You don't? And so Dr. Jedd is the master of this house, is he?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Till that poor dear young lady is well again, if ever that day
+comes, I think Dr. Jedd will be the real master in this house."
+
+"By ----! Mrs. Woolper, you're a cool hand, I must say!"
+
+He could say no more. Of passionate or declamatory language he had no
+command. The symbols of thought that obtained in his world were of a
+limited and primitive range.
+
+"You're a cool hand," he repeated, under his breath. And then he turned
+and left the room, opening and closing the door less cautiously than on
+his entrance.
+
+The door of the opposite room was opened softly as he came out into
+the corridor, and Diana Paget stood before him, dressed as she had
+been in the day.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed, impatiently, "are you up too?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Sheldon. I cannot sleep while Lotta is so ill."
+
+"Humph! I suppose you mean to get yourself on the sick-list, and give us
+another invalid to nurse."
+
+"I will not trouble you to nurse me if I should be ill."
+
+"Ah!" growled the stockbroker, as he went to his own room, "you are a
+pack of silly women altogether; and your fine friend Hawkehurst is more
+womanish than the silliest of you. Goodnight."
+
+He went into his own room, where he found his wife still awake. Her weak
+lamentings and bewailings were insupportable to him; and at three o'clock
+he went downstairs, put on his boots and a light overcoat, and went out
+into the dim regions of Bayswater, whence he saw the sun rise red above
+the eastern roofs and chimneys, and where he walked until the first
+clatter of hoofs and roll of wheels began to echo through the empty
+streets, and, with faint distant cries of sweeps and milk-women, life's
+chorus recommenced.
+
+It was seven o'clock when he went back to his house, and let himself in
+softly with his latchkey. He knew that he had been walking a long time,
+and that he had seen the sun rise; but what streets or squares he had
+been walking in he did not know. He crept upstairs to his dressing-room
+with stealthy footsteps, and made an elaborate toilet. At eight o'clock
+he was seated at breakfast in the hastily-arranged dining-room, with the
+newspapers by the side of his cup and saucer. At nine he went into the
+hall to receive Dr. Jedd and Dr. Doddleson, who arrived almost
+simultaneously. His carefully-arranged hair and whiskers, his well made
+unpretentious clothes, his spotless linen, would have done credit to an
+archbishop. Of all the cares and calculations of his long dreary night
+there was no trace, except a certain dulness in his eyes, and the dark
+half-circles below them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+COUNTING THE COST.
+
+For four days and four nights there were fear and watching in Mr.
+Sheldon's house; and in all that time the master never quitted it, except
+stealthily, in the dead of the night, or at early daybreak, to roam in a
+purposeless manner he knew not where. The doctors came and went--Dr.
+Doddleson once a day, Dr. Jedd two or three times a day--and every one in
+villas adjoining and villas opposite, and even in villas round the
+corner, knew that the stockbroker's stepdaughter lay sick unto death; for
+the white horses of Dr. Jedd's landau were as the pale horse of the Pale
+Rider himself, and where they came was danger or death. Ah, thank God! to
+some they have brought hope and blessing; not always the dread answer,
+"You have called me in vain."
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst came many times in the day, but between him and Mr.
+Sheldon there could be no safe meeting; and the lover came quietly to the
+little gate, where a kindly housemaid gave him a little note from Diana
+Paget. Miss Paget wrote half a dozen little notes of this kind in the
+course of every day, but she never left her post in the room opposite the
+sick-chamber. She complained of headache, or of some vague illness which
+prevented her taking her meals in the dining-room, and Mr. Sheldon was
+fain to be satisfied with this explanation of her conduct.
+
+She was on guard; and the wretched master of the house knew that she was
+on guard, and that if Ann Woolper could be bought over, or frightened
+into compliance with his wishes, this girl would still remain, faithful
+as watchdog, by the door of her friend and companion. He asked himself
+whether by violent or diplomatic process, he could rid himself of this
+second watcher; and the answer was in the negative. The circle around him
+was a circle not to be broken.
+
+His wife, as yet, had been told nothing of the suspicions that reigned in
+the breasts of other people. He knew this; for in his wife's face there
+was no token of that dark knowledge, and she, of all people, would be
+least skilled to deceive his scrutinizing eyes. Nor had the younger
+servants of his household any share in the hideous suspicion. He had
+watched the countenance of the maid who waited on him, and had convinced
+himself of this.
+
+It was something to know that even these were not yet leagued against
+him; but he could not tell at what moment they too might be sworn into
+that secret society which was growing up against him in his own house.
+Power to carry out his own schemes in the face of these people he felt
+that he had none. Upon the dark road which he had travelled until of late
+without let or hindrance, there had arisen, all at once, an
+insurmountable barrier, with the fatal inscription, Here there is no
+Thoroughfare.
+
+Beyond this barrier he could not pass. Sudden as the dread arrest of
+Lot's wife was the mandate which had checked his progress. He was brought
+to a dead stop; and there was nothing for him to do but to wait the issue
+of Fate. He stood, defiant, unabashed, face to face with the figure of
+Nemesis, and calmly awaited the lifting of the veil.
+
+He hoped that Charlotte Halliday would die. If by her death he could tide
+over his difficulties and drift into smooth water, it would be but a very
+small thing to him that Dr. Jedd, and Dr. Doddleson enlightened by his
+colleague, and Valentine Hawkehurst, and Diana Paget, and a stupid
+pig-headed old Yorkshirewoman, should carry in their minds for the
+remainder of their lives the suspicion that by his means that fair young
+life had been brought to its early close.
+
+What would it amount to in the future of his own existence? Prudential
+considerations would induce these people to lock the secret of this
+suspicion in their own breasts. Dr. Jedd would bow to him somewhat
+coldly, perhaps, if they met in the streets of London, or possibly might
+refuse to make any return to his passing salutation; but the cut direct
+from Dr. Jedd would not cast a shadow over his commercial career, or even
+weaken his social position. If, by the loud folly of Hawkehurst, some
+evil rumour about him should float as far eastward as the Stock Exchange,
+who would be found to give credence to the dark report? Men would shrug
+their shoulders and shake their heads incredulously; and one of these
+wise men of the east would remark that, "A fellow in Sheldon's position
+doesn't do that kind of thing, you know;" while another would say, "I
+dined with him at Greenwich last summer, and a remarkably good dinner he
+gave us. Dawkins, the great shipbuilder, and M'Pherson, of M'Pherson and
+Flinders, the Glasgow merchants, were there. Very jolly affair, I assure
+you. Deuced gentlemanly fellow, Phil Sheldon." And so the matter would
+end.
+
+Would there be an inquest in the event of his stepdaughter's death? Well,
+no. Jedd knew that in such a case all _post-mortem_ inquiry must end in
+confusion and perplexity, statement and counter-statement from medical
+witnesses, who would contradict one another persistently in the support
+of their pet theories, and who would regard the investigation as a very
+convenient opportunity for ventilating their own opinions and airing
+their own importance. A considerable number of the canine race would be
+slaughtered, perhaps, in the process of dilettante experiments; the broad
+principles of chemical science would be discussed from every point of
+view, in innumerable letters published in the _Zeus,_ and the _Diurnal
+Hermes_; and the fact that an amiable and innocent young woman had been
+foully murdered would be swept out of the minds of mankind before a
+whirlwind of technical debate. Jedd was the last man to stake his
+reputation upon such a hazard. No: Mr. Sheldon knew that he had played a
+cautious game; and if he should ultimately lose the stake for which he
+had ventured, it would be because he had been just a little too cautious.
+
+"These things are generally done too quickly," he said to himself. "My
+mistake has been to make matters too slow."
+
+Come what might, of after-consequences to himself from Charlotte
+Halliday's illness or death he had no apprehension.
+
+Thus it was that he met Dr. Jedd day after day with a face as calm as the
+stony countenance of that distinguished physician himself. Such anxiety
+as an affectionate stepfather should feel during the peril of his
+stepdaughter Mr. Sheldon took care to express. Greater anxiety than this
+by no look or gesture did he betray. He knew that he was watched; and
+that the people about him were inimical to himself and to his interests;
+and he was never off his guard.
+
+It had been necessary for him to come to London in order to be within
+easy reach of that troubled sea, the money-market. But perilous though
+the voyage of his bark across that tempestuous ocean was, he could not
+guide the helm in person. He was obliged to confide matters to the care
+of Mr. Frederick Orcott, whom he harassed with telegraphic despatches at
+all hours of the day, and who at this period seemed to spend his life
+between the stockbroker's office and Bayswater.
+
+It seemed as if Mr. Sheldon meant to hold his ground in that house until
+the issue of events was determined. Valentine Hawkehurst and George
+Sheldon met at the solicitor's offices, and there was a long and serious
+consultation between them.
+
+"One thing seems pretty clear," said George, conclusively, "and that is,
+that my brother Phil isn't to be got off the premises except by some very
+deep move. The question is, what move can be deep enough to trap such a
+man as he? He's a man who knows the inside of your mind better than you
+do yourself; and can reckon you up as easily as the simplest sum in
+arithmetic."
+
+The two men talked together very seriously for some time after this, and
+on the same day Valentine lay in wait for Dr. Jedd as he left Philip
+Sheldon's house, and was driven back to town in that gentleman's
+carriage. On the road there was much serious talk between Miss Halliday's
+physician and Miss Halliday's lover. Valentine was still very grave and
+very anxious when he took his leave of Dr. Jedd; but he was more hopeful
+than he had been for the last few days.
+
+On the same evening Gustave Lenoble received a brief epistle from his
+plighted wife.
+
+"MY DEAR GUSTAVE,--I regret to find from your letter that the doctors
+consider my father weaker than when I was last at Knightsbridge; but,
+even knowing this, I cannot come to him just yet. The duty which detains
+me here is even more sacred than his claim upon my care. And I know your
+goodness to him, and feel that in you he has a better friend and
+comforter than I could be to him. I thank you, dear, for your kindness to
+this poor broken-down wanderer even more than for your generous devotion
+to me. And now I am going to ask you a favour. It is, that you will
+afford Mr. Hawkehurst, the person who will give you this letter, the help
+of your friendship and counsel in very difficult and critical
+circumstances, which he will explain to you. I have spoken to you of him
+very little, though his devotion to my dear adopted sister, Charlotte
+Halliday, brings him very near to me. Her long, and of late dangerous,
+illness has been a bitter time of trial to him, even more than to me; but
+the trial has proved him true as steel. I think your counsel may be of
+some service to him just now, and I am sure your friendship will help to
+support him in a period of acute anxiety.
+
+"Do not ask to see me, dear Gustave. I _cannot_ leave this house while
+Charlotte is in danger; but if it please God to remove that danger, I
+shall then be free to go where I please, and my future life shall be at
+your disposal. Do not think me cold or ungrateful; I am only faithful to
+the first friend I ever knew.--Yours always, with all affection,
+
+"DIANA PAGET."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
+
+Three days elapsed after the delivery of this letter. Upwards of a week
+had gone by since the return of Mr. Sheldon and his family from Harold's
+Hill: and as yet Philip Sheldon knew not what the issue of events was to
+be. Very vague were the oracular sentences which his questioning extorted
+from Dr. Jedd, and he had tried in vain to obtain a _tete-a-tete_
+interview with Dr. Doddleson. The physician of Burlington Row took care
+that his feeble colleague should not fall alone and defenceless into the
+pathway of Philip Sheldon. Of Charlotte's actual condition her
+stepfather, therefore, knew very little. He was told that her state was
+attended by danger; and the solemn faces which greeted him on every side
+implied that the danger was extreme. From her room he was in a manner
+excluded. If he went to her door to make some benevolent and paternal
+inquiry, he was met on the threshold by Ann Woolper, the sleepless and
+unresting. If he hinted a natural desire to see his invalid stepdaughter,
+he was told that she had that moment fallen asleep, or that she was too
+ill to see him. There was always some plausible reason why he should not
+be admitted to her room; and finding that this was so, he did not press
+the question.
+
+He had taken Mrs. Woolper's measure, and had found that she was too
+strong for him; doubly strong since she was supported and sustained by
+that second sleepless watcher, Diana Paget, whom Mr. Sheldon had long ago
+pronounced to be a strong-minded and superior young person.
+
+From his wife he could obtain no real information--nothing but weepings
+and lamentations; weak apprehensions of future woe, weaker retrospective
+reflections on the fatal illness and untimely end of her first husband.
+Georgy was admitted once or twice a day to the sick-room; but she emerged
+therefrom no wiser than she entered it. Sorrow in the present, and the
+fear of greater sorrow to come, had utterly prostrated this poor weak
+soul. She believed what other people told her to believe, she hoped what
+they told her to hope. She was the very incarnation and express image of
+helpless misery.
+
+So, in utter darkness of mind, Mr. Sheldon awaited his destiny. The day
+drew very near on which he must find certain sums of ready money, or must
+accept the dreary alternative of ruin and disgrace. He had the policies
+of assurance in his cash-box, together with the will which made him
+Charlotte's sole legatee; he had fixed in his own mind upon the man to
+whom he could apply for an advance of four thousand pounds on one of the
+two policies, and he relied on getting his banker to lend him money on
+the security of the second. But for the one needful event he had yet to
+wait. That event was Charlotte Halliday's death.
+
+Of his dreary wanderings in the early morning the household knew nothing.
+The time which he chose for these purposeless rambles was just the time
+when no one was astir. The watchers in the two rooms above heard neither
+his going out nor his coming in, so stealthy were his movements on every
+occasion. But without this intermission from the dreadful concentration
+of his life, without this amount of physical exercise and fresh air,
+Philip Sheldon could scarcely have lived through this period. The
+solitude of shipwrecked mariner cast upon a desolate island could hardly
+be more lonely than this man's life had been since his return from
+Harold's Hill. From his study to the dining-room, and from the
+dining-room back to his study, was the only variety of his dreary days
+and nights. He had an iron bedstead put up in his study, and there he lay
+in the earlier hours of the night, taking such rest as he could from
+fitful dozing that was scarcely sleep, or from brief intervals of heavy
+slumber made horrible by torturing dreams.
+
+In this room he could hear every sudden movement in the hall, every
+footstep on the stairs, every opening and shutting of the outer door.
+Here, too, he could keep his watch, holding himself ready to counter the
+movements of his enemies, should any opportunity arise for action on his
+part, defensive or aggressive.
+
+To this room he stealthily returned one brilliant summer morning as the
+clocks were striking six. He had been walking in the Bayswater Road,
+amidst all the pleasant stir and bustle of early morning. Waggons coming
+in from the country, milkwomen setting forth on their daily rounds,
+clamorous young rooks cawing among the topmost branches of the elms,
+song-birds chirruping and gurgling their glad morning hymn; and over all
+things the glory and the freshness of the summer sunshine.
+
+But to Philip Sheldon it was as if these things were not. For the last
+twelve or fifteen years of his life he had taken no heed of the change
+of the seasons, except insomuch as the passage of time affected his
+bill-book, or the condition of that commercial world which was the
+beginning and end of his life. Now, less than ever, had he an ear for
+the carolling of birds, or an eye for the glory of summer sunlight, or
+the flickering shadows of summer leaves faintly stirred by the soft
+summer wind.
+
+He re-entered his house with a half-dazed sense of the stir and life that
+had been about him in the high road. It was a relief to him to escape
+this life and brightness, and to take shelter in the gloom of his study,
+where the shutters were closed, and only a faint glimmer of day crept
+through a chink in the shrunken woodwork.
+
+For the first time since the beginning of this dreary period of idleness
+and suspense he felt himself thoroughly beaten, and instead of going up
+to his dressing-room for his careful morning toilet, as it was his habit
+to do at this hour, he flung himself, dressed as he was, upon the low
+iron bedstead, and fell into a heavy slumber.
+
+Yes, there they were--the familiar tortures of his slumbers, the
+shadows of busy, eager faces; and upon all one universal expression of
+mingled anger and surprise. The sound of a wooden hammer striking three
+solemn strokes; the faint tones of Tom Halliday's voice, thanking him for
+his friendly care; the dying look in Tom Halliday's face, turned to him
+with such depth of trust and affection. And then across the shadowy
+realm of dreams there swept the slow solemn progress of a funeral
+_cortege_--plumed hearses, blacker than blackest night; innumerable
+horses, with funereal trappings and plumed headgear waving in an icy
+wind; long trains of shrouded figures stretching on into infinite space,
+in spectral procession that knew neither beginning nor end. And in all
+the solemn crowd passing perpetually with the same unceasing motion,
+there was no sound of human footfall, no tramp of horse's hoof, only that
+dismal waving of black plumage in an icy wind, and the deep boom of a
+bell tolling for the dead.
+
+He awoke with a start, and exclaimed, "If this is what it is to sleep, I
+will never sleep again!"
+
+In the next minute he recovered himself. He had been lying on his back.
+The endless pageant, the dreadful tolling of the funeral bell, meant no
+more than nightmare, the common torment of all humanity.
+
+"What a fool I must be!" he muttered to himself, as he wiped his
+forehead, which had grown cold and damp in the agony of his dream.
+
+He opened the shutters, and then looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.
+To his surprise he found that he had been sleeping three hours. It was
+nine o'clock. He went upstairs to dress. There was an unusual stir in the
+corridor above. Ann Woolper was standing there, with her hand on the door
+of the sick-room, talking to Diana, who covered her face suddenly as he
+approached, and disappeared into her own room.
+
+The beating of his heart quickened suddenly. Something had happened to
+disturb the common course of events. Something? What was likely to
+happen, except the one dread circumstance for which he hoped and waited
+with such horrible eagerness?
+
+In Ann Woolper's solemn face he read an answer to his thought. For the
+first time he was well nigh losing his self-possession. It was with an
+effort that he steadied himself sufficiently to ask the usual
+conventional question in the usual conventional tone.
+
+"Is she any better this morning, Ann?"
+
+"Yes, sir, she is much better," the Yorkshirewoman answered solemnly.
+"She is where none can harm her now."
+
+Yes; it was the usual periphrase of these vulgar people. He knew all
+their cant by heart.
+
+"You mean to say--she--is dead?"
+
+He no longer tried to conceal his agitation. It was a part of his duty to
+be agitated by the news of his stepdaughter's untimely death.
+
+"O, sir, you may well be sorry," said the Yorkshirewoman, with deep
+feeling. "She was the sweetest, most forgiving creature that ever came
+into this world; and to the last no hard or cruel word ever passed her
+innocent lips. Yes, sir, she is gone; she is beyond the power of any one
+to harm her."
+
+"All that sort of stuff is so much hypocritical twaddle, Mrs. Woolper,"
+muttered Mr. Sheldon impatiently; "and I recommend you to keep it for the
+chaplain of the workhouse in which you are likely to end your days. At
+what time--did--did this--sad event--happen?
+
+"About an hour ago."
+
+In the very hour when, in his hideous dream, he had beheld the solemn
+funeral train winding on for ever through the dim realms of sleep. Was
+there some meaning in such foolish shadows, after all?
+
+"And why was I not sent for?"
+
+"You were asleep, sir. I came downstairs myself, and looked into your
+room. You were fast asleep, and I wouldn't disturb you."
+
+"That was very wrong; but it was of a piece with the rest of your
+conduct, which has been from first to last antagonistic to me. I suppose
+I can see my stepdaughter now," Mr. Sheldon added, with a grim smile.
+"There is no further excuse--about headache--or sleep."
+
+"No, sir, you cannot see her yet. In an hour, if you wish to come into
+this room, you can come."
+
+"You are extremely obliging. I begin to doubt whether I am really in my
+own house. In an hour, then, I will come. Where is my wife?"
+
+"In her own room, sir, lying down; asleep, I believe."
+
+"I will not disturb her. How about the registration, by-the-by? That
+must be seen to."
+
+"Dr. Jedd has promised to attend to that, sir."
+
+"Has Dr. Jedd been here?"
+
+"He was here an hour ago."
+
+"Very good. And he will see to that," muttered Mr. Sheldon thoughtfully.
+
+The event for which he had been so long waiting seemed at the last a
+little sudden. It had shaken his nerves more than he had supposed it
+possible that they could be shaken.
+
+He went to his dressing-room, and on this occasion made a very hasty
+toilet. The event had been tardy, and he had no time to lose in
+discounting it now that it had come to pass. He went from his
+dressing-room back to his study, took the jacket containing the policies
+of assurance and the will from the deed-box, and left the house.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED.
+
+A cab conveyed Mr. Sheldon swiftly to a dingy street in the City--a
+street which might have been called the pavement of wasted footsteps, so
+many an impecunious wretch tramped to and fro upon those dreary flags in
+vain.
+
+The person whom Mr. Sheldon came to see was a distinguished
+bill-discounter, who had served him well in more than one crisis, and on
+whose service he fancied he could now rely.
+
+Mr. Kaye, the bill-discounter, was delighted to see his worthy friend Mr.
+Sheldon. He had just come up from his family at Brighton, and had quite a
+little court awaiting him in an outer chamber, through which Mr. Sheldon
+had been ushered to the inner office.
+
+"It's rather early for such a visitor as you," Mr. Kaye said, after a few
+commonplaces. "I have not been in town half an hour."
+
+"My business is too important for any consideration about hours,"
+answered Mr. Sheldon, "or I should not be here at all. I have just come
+from the deathbed of my wife's daughter."
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed the bill-discounter, looking inexpressibly
+shocked. Until that moment he had lived in supreme ignorance of the
+fact that Mr. Sheldon had a stepdaughter; but his sorrow-stricken
+expression of countenance might have implied that he had known and
+esteemed the young lady.
+
+"Yes, it's very sad," said Mr. Sheldon; "and something more than sad for
+me. The poor girl had great expectations, and would have come into a very
+fine fortune if she had lived a year or two longer."
+
+"Ha! dear me, how very unfortunate! Poor young lady!"
+
+"Jedd and Doddleson--you know them by repute, of course--have been
+attending her for the last six weeks. There will be no end of expense for
+me; and it has been all of no use."
+
+"Consumption, I suppose?"
+
+"Well, no; not pulmonary disease. A kind of atrophy. I scarcely know what
+to call it. Now, look here, Kaye. This illness has thrown all my affairs
+into a muddle. Taken in conjunction with the depressed state of the
+money-market, it has been altogether an upset for me. I have been staying
+at home looking after this poor girl and my wife--who of course is
+dreadfully cut up, and that sort of thing--when I ought to have been in
+the City. Luckily for me, and for my wife, in whose interests I acted, I
+took the precaution to get her daughter's life insured eight or nine
+months ago; in point of fact, immediately after finding she was
+heir-at-law to a considerable fortune. The policy is for five thousand
+pounds. I want you to give me four thousand immediately upon the strength
+of the document and of my stepdaughter's will."
+
+"Give you four thousand!" exclaimed Mr. Kaye, with a little unctuous
+laugh. "Do you suppose I keep such a balance as that at my banker's?"
+
+"I suppose that you can give me the money if you like."
+
+"I might be able to get it for you."
+
+"Yes; that's a kind of humbug a hundred years old. We've heard all about
+little Premium and his friend in the City, and so on, from that man who
+wrote plays and cut a figure in Parliament. You can give me the money on
+the spot if you like, Kaye; and if I didn't want ready money very badly I
+shouldn't come to you. The insurance company will give me five thousand
+in a month or two. I can give you my bill at two months' date, and
+deposit the policy in your hands as collateral security. I might get this
+money from other quarters--from my bankers', for instance; but I don't
+want to let them know too much."
+
+Mr. Kaye deliberated. He had assisted Mr. Sheldon's financial operations,
+and had profited thereby. Money advanced upon such a security must be as
+safe as money invested in Consols, unless there were anything doubtful in
+the circumstances of the policy; and that, with a man of Mr. Sheldon's
+respectability, was to the last degree unlikely.
+
+"When do you want this money?" he asked at last.
+
+"At the beginning of next week. On the twenty-fifth at latest."
+
+"And this is the twentieth. Sharp work."
+
+"Not at all. You could give me the money this afternoon, if you pleased."
+
+"Well, I'll think it over. It's a matter in which I feel myself bound to
+take my solicitor's opinion. Suppose you meet him here to-morrow at
+twelve o'clock? You can bring the necessary evidence to support the
+claim--the doctor's and registrar's certificate, and so on?"
+
+"Yes," Mr. Sheldon answered, thoughtfully; "I will bring the documentary
+evidence. To-morrow at twelve, then."
+
+Very little more was said. Mr. Sheldon left the will and the policy in
+the bill-discounter's possession, and departed. Things had gone as
+smoothly as he could fairly expect them to go. From Mr. Kaye's office he
+went to the Unitas Bank, where he had a very friendly, but not altogether
+satisfactory, interview with the secretary. He wanted the Unitas people
+to advance him money on the strength of the second policy of assurance;
+but his balance had been very low of late, and the secretary could not
+promise compliance with his desires. Those Unitas shares valued at five
+thousand pounds, which he had transferred to his beloved stepdaughter,
+had been retransferred by the young lady some months before, with a view
+to the more profitable investment of the money.
+
+This money, as well as all else that Philip Sheldon could command, had
+gone to the same bottomless pit of unlucky speculation. From the bank the
+stockbroker went to his office, where he saw Frederick Orcott, to whom he
+announced his stepdaughter's death with all due appearance of sorrow. He
+sat for an hour in his office, arranging his affairs for the following
+day, then sent for another cab, and drove back to Bayswater. The noonday
+press and noise of the City seemed strange to him, almost as they might
+have seemed to a man newly returned from lonely wanderings in distant
+wildernesses.
+
+The blinds were down at the Lawn. His own handsome bedchamber and
+adjoining dressing-room faced the road, and it was at the windows of
+these two rooms he looked. He fancied his weak foolish wife wailing and
+lamenting behind those lowered blinds.
+
+"And I shall have to endure her lamentations," he thought, with a
+shudder. "I shall have no further excuse for avoiding her. But, on the
+other hand, I shall have the pleasure of giving Mrs. Woolper and Miss
+Paget notice to quit."
+
+He derived a grim satisfaction from this thought. Yes; insolence from
+those two women he would endure no longer. The time had come in which he
+would assert his right to be master in his own house. The game had been
+played against him boldly by Jedd and these people, and had been lost by
+them. He was the winner. He could not dismiss doctors, nurse, friend,
+lover. Charlotte Halliday's death made him master of the situation.
+
+He went into his house with the determination to assert his authority at
+once. Within all was very quiet. He looked into the dining-room--it was
+quite empty; into the study--also empty. He went slowly upstairs,
+composing his face into the appropriate expression. At the door of that
+chamber which to him should have seemed of all earthly chambers the most
+awful, he knocked softly.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+He knocked a little louder, but there was still no answer. A little
+louder again, and with the same result.
+
+"Is there no one there?" he asked himself. "No one, except--?"
+
+He opened the door, and went in, with unshaken nerves, to look upon that
+one quiet sleeper whom his summons could not awaken, whom his presence
+could not disturb.
+
+There was no nurse or watcher by the bed. Everything was arranged with
+extreme neatness and precision; but it seemed to him that there were
+objects missing in the room, objects that had been familiar to him during
+the dead girl's illness, and which were associated with her presence,--
+the clock that had stood on the table by her bed, a stand of books, a low
+easy-chair, with embroidered cover worked by her mother and Diana Paget.
+The room looked blank and empty without these things, and Mr. Sheldon
+wondered what officious hand had removed them.
+
+Yonder stood the pretty little bedstead, shrouded by closely drawn white
+curtains. Philip Sheldon walked slowly across the room, and drew aside
+one of the curtains. He had looked upon the death-sleep of Charlotte
+Halliday's father, why not upon hers?
+
+She was not there! Those closely drawn curtains shrouded only the bed on
+which she had slept in the tranquil slumbers of her careless girlhood.
+That cold lifeless form, whose rigid outline Philip Sheldon had steeled
+himself to see, had no place here.
+
+He put his hand to his head, bewildered. "What does it mean?" he asked
+himself; "surely she died in this room!"
+
+He went hurriedly to his wife's room. They had taken Charlotte there,
+perhaps, shortly before her death. Some feverish fancy might have
+possessed her with the desire to be taken thither.
+
+He opened the door and went in; but here again all was blank and empty.
+The room was arranged after its usual fashion; but of his wife's presence
+there was no token. His sense of mystification and bewilderment grew
+suddenly into a sense of fear. What did it mean? What hellish fooling had
+he been the dupe of?
+
+He went to Diana's room. That, too, was empty. A trunk and a portmanteau,
+covered and strapped as if for removal, occupied the centre of the room.
+
+There was no other room upon this floor. Above this floor there were only
+the rooms of the servants.
+
+He went downstairs to the dining-room and rang the bell The parlour-maid
+came in answer to his summons.
+
+"Where is your mistress?" he asked.
+
+"Gone out, sir; she went at eight o'clock this morning. And O, if you
+please, sir, Dr. Jedd called, and said I was to give you this--with the
+certificate."
+
+The certificate! Yes, the certificate of Charlotte Halliday's death,--the
+certificate which he must produce to-morrow, with other evidence, for the
+satisfaction of the bill-discounter and his legal adviser. He stared at
+the girl, still possessed by the sense of bewilderment which had come
+upon him on seeing those empty rooms upstairs. He took the letter from
+her almost mechanically, and tore it open without looking at the address.
+The certificate dropped to the ground. He picked it up with a tremulous
+hand, and for some moments stood staring at it with dazzled, unseeing
+eyes. He could see that it was a document with dates and names written in
+a clerkly hand. For some moments he could see no more. And then words and
+names shone out of the confusion of letters that spun and whirled, like
+motes in the sunshine, before his dazzled eyes.
+
+"Valentine Hawkehurst, bachelor, author, Carlyle Terrace, Edgware Road,
+son of Arthur Hawkehurst, journalist; Charlotte Halliday, spinster, of
+the Lawn, Bayswater, daughter of Thomas Halliday, farmer."
+
+He read no more.
+
+It was a copy of a certificate of marriage--not a certificate of
+death--that had been brought to him.
+
+"You can go," he said to the servant hoarsely.
+
+He had a vague consciousness that she was staring at him with curious
+looks, and that it was not good for him to be watched by any one just
+now.
+
+"About dinner, sir, if you please?" the young woman began timidly.
+
+"What do I know about dinner?"
+
+"You will dine at home, sir?"
+
+"Dine at home? Yes; Mrs. Woolper can give you your orders."
+
+"Mrs. Woolper has gone out, sir. She has gone for good, I believe, sir;
+she took her boxes. And Miss Paget's luggage will be sent for, if you
+please, sir. There's a letter, sir, that Mrs. Woolper left for you on the
+mantelpiece."
+
+"She was very good. That will do; you can go."
+
+The girl departed, bewildered like her fellow-servants by the strangeness
+of the day's proceedings, still more bewildered by the strangeness of her
+master's manner.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+"THERE IS A WORD WILL PRIAM TURN TO STONE."
+
+When the servant was gone, Mr. Sheldon sat down and examined the document
+she had given him.
+
+Yes, it was in due form. A certified copy of the certificate
+of a marriage performed that morning at the church of St.
+Matthias-in-the-fields, Paddington, and duly witnessed by the registrar
+of that parish. If this document were indeed genuine, as to all
+appearance it was, Valentine Hawkehurst and Charlotte Halliday had been
+married that morning; and the will and the policy of assurance deposited
+with Mr. Kaye the bill-discounter were so much waste-paper.
+
+And they had fooled him, Philip Sheldon, as easily as this! The furious
+rage which he felt against all these people, and, more than against them,
+against his own besotted folly for allowing himself to be so fooled, was
+a sharper agony than had ever yet rent his cruel heart. He had been a
+scoundrel all his life, and had felt some of the pains and penalties of
+his position; but to be a defeated scoundrel was a new sensation to him;
+and a savage impotent hate and anger against himself and the universe
+took possession of his mind.
+
+He walked up and down the room for some time, abandoned wholly to the
+ungovernable rage that consumed him, and with no thought beyond that
+blind useless fury. And then there came upon him the feeling that was
+almost a part of his mind--the consciousness that something must be done,
+and promptly. Whatever his position was, he must face it. His hurried
+pacing to and fro came to a sudden stop, and he took the crumpled
+document from his packet, and examined it once more.
+
+There seemed little doubt that it was genuine; and a visit to the church
+where the marriage was stated to have been performed would immediately
+place the matter beyond all doubt. With the copy of the certificate, he
+had taken from his pocket the letter that had enclosed it. He saw now
+that the envelope was addressed in Hawkehurst's hand.
+
+"Favoured by Dr. Jedd," he had written in a corner of the envelope.
+
+Why should Dr. Jedd "favour" Mr. Hawkehurst's letter? Why, indeed, unless
+there had been a conspiracy concocted by these men against his authority
+and his interests?
+
+Valentine's letter was brief and business-like.
+
+"SIR,--With the full approbation of her mother and only near relation, my
+dear Charlotte has this day become my wife. The enclosed attested copy of
+the certificate of our marriage will afford you all particulars. I shall
+refrain from entering upon any explanation of my conduct; and I believe
+such explanation to be wholly unnecessary. You can scarcely fail to
+understand why I have acted in this manner, and why I congratulate myself
+and my dear wife on her departure from your house as on an escape from
+imminent peril. It will be, I fear, little satisfaction to you to hear
+that the doctors have pronounced your stepdaughter to be out of danger,
+though still in very weak health. She is now comfortably established in a
+temporary home, with her mother and Diana Paget; and in all probability
+some months must elapse before she and I can begin our new life together.
+To afford my darling girl the legal protection of marriage was the object
+of this sudden and secret union. You, of all men, will most fully
+comprehend how necessary such protection had become to ensure her safety.
+
+"Should you, however, require farther enlightenment as to the motives
+that prompted this step, Dr. Jedd will be the fittest person to give you
+such information; and has expressed his willingness to answer any
+questions you may please to put to him.
+
+"For the rest, I beg to assure you that the rights of Mrs. Hawkehurst in
+relation to the inheritance of the late John Haygarth's wealth will be as
+carefully protected as those of Miss Halliday; nor will the hasty
+marriage of this morning hinder the execution of any deed of settlement
+calculated to guard her interests in the future.
+
+"With this assurance, I remain, sir,
+Your obedient servant,
+VALENTINE HAWKEHURST.
+Carlyle Terrace, Edgware Road."
+
+Enclosed with this there was a second letter--from his wife.
+
+He read it with a countenance that expressed mingled anger and contempt.
+
+"Fool!" he muttered; "this is about the only service she could do me."
+
+The letter was long and incoherent; blotted with tears--in places
+completely illegible. Mr. Sheldon cared only to master the main facts
+contained in it, which were these:--His wife had left him for ever. Dr.
+Jedd and Valentine Hawkehurst had told her of something--something that
+affected the safety of her darling and only child--and the knowledge of
+which must separate her for ever from him. Of the money which she had
+brought to him she claimed nothing. Even her jewels, which were in his
+keeping, in the iron safe where he kept his papers, she did not attempt
+to obtain from him. Valentine would not allow her to starve. The humblest
+shelter, the poorest food, would suffice her in the future; but no home
+of his providing could she ever inhabit again.
+
+"What I have suffered in this last few days is only known to myself and
+to heaven," she wrote. "O Philip, how could you--how could you even shape
+the thought of such a deed as this, which you have been doing, day after
+day, for the last two months? I could not have believed what they have
+told me, if I had not seen my child fade hour by hour under your care,
+slowly, surely--and recover as surely directly you were excluded from any
+part in our care of her. If it were possible not to believe these people,
+I would disbelieve them, and would cling to you faithfully still; but the
+voices against you are too many, the proofs against you are too strong.
+
+"Do not seek to see me. I am with my poor child, who was but just able to
+bear the removal from your house, and to go through the ceremony that was
+performed this morning. Little did I ever think my daughter would have
+such a wedding. What a mockery all my plans seem now!--and I had chosen
+the six bridesmaids, and arranged all the dresses in my own mind. To see
+my dear girl dressed anyhow, in her oldest bonnet, standing before the
+altar huddled up in a shawl, and given away by a strange doctor, who kept
+looking at his watch in a most disrespectful manner during the ceremony,
+was very bitter to me."
+
+Mr. Sheldon flung aside the letter with an oath. He had no time to waste
+upon such twaddle as this. He tore open Nancy Woolper's letter. It was a
+poor honest scrawl, telling him how faithfully she had served him, how
+truly she had loved him in the past, and how she could henceforth serve
+him no more. It exhorted him, in humble ill-spelt phrases, to repentance.
+It might not yet be too late even for such a sinner as he had been.
+
+He tore these two epistles into infinitesimal fragments, and flung them
+into the fireplace. Valentine Hawkehurst's letter he kept. It was a
+document of some legal importance.
+
+For a moment there had flashed across his brain the thought that he might
+punish these people for their interference with his affairs. He might
+bring an action against Dr. Jedd for slander, and compel the physician to
+prove the charges insinuated against him, or pay the penalty attendant
+upon an unjustifiable accusation. He was well assured that Dr. Jedd could
+prove very little; and a jury, if properly worked, might award him
+exemplary damages.
+
+But on the other hand, the circumstantial evidence against him was very
+strong; and evidence which might be insufficient to prove him guilty in a
+trial for his life might be a sufficient defence for his enemies against
+an action for slander; if, indeed, the course which Dr. Jedd and
+Valentine Hawkehurst had taken did in itself constitute a slanderous and
+malicious imputation. Nor could any such action invalidate the marriage
+solemnized that morning; and that one fact comprised his utter ruin.
+Charlotte's interests were merged in the interests of her husband. No
+shadow of claim upon John Haygarth's wealth remained to him.
+
+His ruin was complete and dire. For a long time his circumstances had
+been desperate--no avenue of escape open to him but the one dark way
+which he had trodden; and now that last road was closed against him. The
+day was very near at hand when his fictitious bills on shadowy companies
+must be dishonoured; and with the dishonour of those bills came the end
+of all things for him,--a complete revelation of all those dishonest
+artifices by which he had kept his piratical bark afloat on the
+commercial waters.
+
+He surveyed his position in every light, calmly and deliberately, and saw
+there was no hope. The whole scheme of his existence was reduced to the
+question of how much ready-money he could carry out of that house in his
+pocket, and in what direction he should betake himself after leaving it.
+
+His first care must be to ascertain whether the marriage described in the
+duplicate certificate had really taken place; his next, to repossess
+himself of the papers left with Mr. Kaye.
+
+Before leaving the house he went to his study, where he examined his
+banker's book. Yes, it was as they had told him at the bank. He was
+overdrawn. Among the letters lying unopened on his writing-table he found
+a letter from one of the officials of the Unitas, calling his attention,
+politely and respectfully, to that oversight upon his part. He read the
+letter, and crumpled it into his pocket with an angry gesture.
+
+"I am just about as well off now as I was twelve years ago, before Tom
+Halliday came to Fitzgeorge Street," he said to himself; "and I have the
+advantage of being twelve years older."
+
+Yes, this is what it all came to, after all. He had been travelling in a
+circle. The discovery was humiliating. Mr. Sheldon began to think that
+his line of life had not been a paying one.
+
+He opened his iron safe, and forced the lock of the jewel-case in which
+his wife had kept the few handsome ornaments that he had given her in the
+early days of their marriage, as a reward for being good--that is to say,
+for allowing her second husband to dispose of her first husband's
+patrimony without let or hindrance. The jewels were only a few rings, a
+brooch, a pair of earrings, and a bracelet; but they were good of their
+kind, and in all worth something like two hundred pounds.
+
+These, and the gold chronometer which he carried in his waistcoat-pocket,
+constituted all the worldly wealth which Mr. Sheldon could command, now
+that the volcanic ground upon which his commercial position had been
+built began to crumble beneath his feet, and the bubbling of the crater
+warned him of his peril. He put the trinkets into his pocket without
+compunction, and then went upstairs to his dressing-room, where he
+proceeded to pack his clothes in a capacious portmanteau, which in itself
+might constitute his credentials among strangers, so eminently
+respectable was its appearance.
+
+In this dread crisis of his life he thought of everything that affected
+his own interests. To what was he going? That question was for the moment
+unanswerable. In every quarter of the globe there are happy
+hunting-grounds for the soldier of fortune. Some plan for the future
+would shape itself in his mind by-and-by. His wife's desertion had left
+him thoroughly independent. He had no tie to restrain his movements,
+nothing to dread except such proceedings as might be taken against him by
+the holders of those bills. And such proceedings are slow, while modern
+locomotion is swift.
+
+What was he leaving? That was easily answered. A labyrinth of debt and
+difficulty. The fine house, the handsome furniture, were held in the same
+bondage of the law as his household goods in Fitzgeorge Street had been.
+He had given a bill of sale upon everything he possessed six months
+before, to obtain ready-money. The final terrible resource had not been
+resorted to until all other means had been exhausted. Let this fact at
+least be recorded to his credit. He was like the lady whom the poet
+sings, who,
+
+"tolerably mild,
+To make a wash would _hardly_ boil a child:"
+
+that is to say, she would try all other materials for her cosmetic
+preparation first; and if they failed, would at last resort, unwillingly,
+to the boiling of children.
+
+No; he had nothing to lose by flight--of that fact it was easy for him to
+assure himself.
+
+He went downstairs, and rang for the servant.
+
+"I am going out," he said, "to join my wife and her daughter, and return
+with them to the sea-side. There is a portmanteau upstairs in my room,
+ready packed. You will give it to the messenger I shall send in the
+course of the next day or two. At what time did Mrs. Sheldon and Miss
+Halliday leave this morning?"
+
+"At eight o'clock, sir. Mr. Hawkehurst came to fetch them in a carriage.
+They went out by the kitchen passage and the side gate, sir, because you
+were asleep, Mrs. Woolper said, and was not to be disturbed."
+
+"At eight. Yes. And Mrs. Woolper and Miss Paget?"
+
+"They went a'most directly after you was gone out, sir. There was two
+cabs to take Miss Halliday's and Mrs. Sheldon's things, and such
+like,--just as there was when you came from Harold's Hill."
+
+"Yes; I understand."
+
+He was half inclined to ask the young woman if she had heard the
+direction given to the drivers of these two cabs. But he refrained from
+doing so. What could it profit him to know where his wife and
+stepdaughter were to be found? Whether they were in the next street or at
+the antipodes could matter very little to him, except so far as the
+knowledge of their place of habitation might guide him in his avoidance
+of them. Between him and them there was a gulf wider than all the waters
+of the world, and to consider them was only foolish waste of time and
+thought. He left the house, which for the last five years of his life had
+been the outward and visible sign of his social status, fully conscious
+that he left it for ever; and he left it without a sigh. For him the word
+home had no tender associations, and the domestic hearth had never
+inspired him with any sense of comfort or pleasure with which he might
+not have been inspired by the luxurious fireside of a first-class
+coffee-room. He was a man who would have chosen to spend his existence in
+joint-stock hotels, if there had not been solidity of position to be
+acquired from the possession of a handsome house.
+
+He went to the Paddington church. It was only five o'clock in the
+afternoon by the clock of that edifice. The church was closely shut, but
+Mr. Sheldon found the clerk, who, in consideration of a handsome
+donation, took him to the vestry, and there showed him the register of
+marriages--the last entry therein.
+
+Yes, there was Charlotte Halliday's signature, a little uncertain and
+tremulous.
+
+"I suppose you are one of the young lady's relations, sir," said the
+clerk. "It was rather a strange affair; but the young lady's ma was with
+her; and the young lady was over age, so, you see, there's nothing to be
+said against it."
+
+Mr. Sheldon had nothing to say against the marriage. If any false
+statement of his, however base or cruel, could have invalidated the
+ceremonial, he would have spared no pains to devise such a falsehood. If
+he had been a citizen of the Southern States, he might have suborned
+witnesses to prove that there was black blood in the veins of Valentine
+Hawkehurst. If he had not been opposed to so strong an opponent as Dr.
+Jedd, he might have tried to get a commission of lunacy to declare
+Charlotte Halliday a madwoman, and thus invalidate her marriage. As it
+was, he knew that he could do nothing. He had failed. All was said in
+those three words.
+
+He wasted no time at the church, but hurried on to the City, where he was
+just in time to catch Mr. Kaye leaving his office.
+
+"Have you sent those papers to your solicitor?" he asked.
+
+"No; I was just going to take them round to him. I have been thinking
+that it will be necessary to ascertain that there is no will of Miss
+Halliday's subsequent to this; and that will be rather difficult to find
+out. Women never know when to leave off making wills, if they once begin
+making them. They have a positive rage for multiplying documents, you
+know. If the testator in that great codicil case had been a woman, a jury
+would scarcely have refused to believe in the story of half a dozen
+different codicils hidden away in half a dozen different holes and
+corners. Women like that sort of thing. Of course, I quite understand
+that you bring me the will in all good faith; but I foresee difficulties
+in raising money upon such a security."
+
+"You need give yourself no further trouble about the matter," said Mr.
+Sheldon coolly. "I find that I can do without the money, and I've come to
+reclaim the papers."
+
+Mr. Kaye handed them to his client. He was not altogether pleased by this
+turn of affairs; for he had expected to profit considerably by Mr.
+Sheldon's necessities. That gentleman honoured him with no further
+explanations, but put the papers in his pocket, and wished the
+bill-discounter good day.
+
+And this was the last time that Philip Sheldon was ever seen in his
+character of a solid and respectable citizen of London. He went from the
+bill-discounter's office to a pawnbroker in the City, with whom he
+pledged Georgy's trinkets and his own watch for the sum of a hundred and
+twenty pounds. From the pawnbroker's he went back to Bayswater for his
+portmanteau, and thence to the Euston Hotel, where he dined temperately
+in the coffee-room. After dinner he went out into the dull back streets
+that lurk behind Euston Square, and found an obscure little barber's
+shop, where he had his whiskers shaved off, and his hyacinthine locks
+cropped as close as the barber's big scissors could crop them.
+
+The sacrifice of these hirsute adornments made an extraordinary change
+in this man. All the worst characteristics of his countenance came out
+with a new force; and the face of Mr. Sheldon, undisguised by the
+whiskers that had hidden the corners of his mouth, or the waving locks
+that had given height and breadth to his forehead, was a face that no one
+would be likely to trust.
+
+From the Euston Station he departed by the night mail for Liverpool,
+under the cover of darkness. In that city he quietly awaited the
+departure of the Cunard steamer for New York, and was so fortunate as to
+leave England one day before that fatal date on which the first of his
+fictitious bills arrival at maturity.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Tenth.
+
+
+
+HARBOUR, AFTER MANY SHIPWRECKS.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+OUT OF THE DARK VALLEY.
+
+Not with pomp or with splendour, with rejoicing or strewing of summer
+blossoms in the pathway of bride and bridegroom, had the marriage of
+Valentine and Charlotte been solemnized. Simple and secret had been the
+ceremonial, dark with clouds was the sky above them; and yet it is
+doubtful if happier bridegroom ever trod this earth than Valentine
+Hawkehurst as he went to his lonely lodging under the starry summer sky,
+after leaving his young wife to her mother's care in the new home that
+had been found for them.
+
+He had reason to rejoice; for he had passed through the valley of the
+shadow of death. He had seen, very near, that dread presence before which
+the angels of faith and love can avail nothing. Fearless as Alcides had
+he gone down to the realms of darkness; triumphant and glad as the
+demigod he returned from the under-world, bearing his precious burden in
+his strong arms. The struggle had been dire, the agony of suspense a
+supreme torture; but from the awful contest the man came forth a better
+and a wiser man. Whatever strength of principle had been wanting to
+complete the work of reformation inaugurated by love, had been gained by
+Valentine Hawkehurst during the period of Charlotte's illness. His
+promised wife, his redeeming angel, she for whose affection he had first
+learned to render thanks to his God, had seemed to be slipping away from
+him. In the happiest hour of his prosperous courtship he had known
+himself unworthy of her, with no right, no claim, to so fair a prize,
+except the right of pure and unselfish love. When the hour of trial came
+to him he had said, "Behold the avenger!" and in that hour it seemed to
+him that a lurking anticipation of future woe had been ever present with
+him in the midst of his happiness,--it seemed so natural, go reasonable
+that this treasure should be taken away from him. What had he done, that
+he should go unpunished for all the errors and follies of his youth?
+
+He looked back, and asked himself if he had been so vile a sinner as in
+these hours of self-reproach he was inclined to esteem himself? Could his
+life have been otherwise? Had he not been set in a groove, his young feet
+planted in the crooked ways, before he knew that life's journey might be
+travelled by a straighter road?
+
+Alas, the answer given at the tribunal of conscience went against him!
+Other men had come into this world amidst surroundings as bad, nay,
+indeed, worse than the surroundings of his cradle. And of these men some
+had emerged from their native mire spotless and pure as from newly-fallen
+snow. The natural force of character which had saved these men had not
+been given to him. His feet had been set in the crooked ways, and he had
+travelled on, reckless, defiant, dimly conscious that the road was a bad
+one, and that his garments were bespattered with more mud-stains than
+would be agreeable to some travellers.
+
+It was only when the all-powerful influence of love was brought to bear
+upon this plastic nature that Valentine Hawkehurst became fully awakened
+to the degradation of his position, and possessed with an earnest desire
+to emerge from the great dismal swamp of bad company. Then, and then
+only, began the transformation which was ultimately to become so complete
+a change. Some influence, even beyond that of happy love, was needed to
+give force to this man's character; and in the great terror of the last
+three months that influence had been found. The very foundations of
+Valentine Hawkehurst's life had been shaken, and, come what might, he
+could never be again what he had been.
+
+He had almost lost her. All was said in that. She had been almost taken
+from him--she, who to this man was father, mother, wife, household, past,
+present, future, glory, ambition, happiness--everything except that God
+who ruled above and held her life and his peace in the hollow of His
+hand. He had been face to face with death; and never, in all the years to
+come--never in the brightest hour of future happiness, could he forget
+the peril that had come upon him, and might come again. He had learned to
+understand that he held her, not as a free gift, but as a loan--a
+treasure to be reclaimed at any moment by the God who lent her.
+
+The darksome valley was past, and Valentine stood by his darling's side,
+safe upon the sunlit uplands.
+
+The doctors had declared their patient safe. The hour of danger had been
+passed in safety, and the mischief worked by the poisoner's slow process
+had been well nigh counteracted by medical skill.
+
+"In six weeks' time you may take your wife for her honeymoon tour, Mr.
+Hawkehurst, with her health and spirits thoroughly re-established,"
+said Dr. Jedd.
+
+"What is that you say about honeymoon tours?" cried Gustave Lenoble.
+"Hawkehurst and his wife will spend their honeymoon at Cotenoir; is it
+not, Diana?"
+
+Diana replied that it was to be, and must be so.
+
+It was impossible to imagine a happier party than that which met day
+after day in those pleasant lodgings at Kilburn, wherein Georgy and Diana
+and Charlotte had been established with much devotion and care on the
+parts of Valentine and Gustave. Mr. Hawkehurst had chosen the apartments,
+and M. Lenoble had spent the day before the wedding in rushing to and fro
+between the West End and Kilburn, carrying hot-house flowers, comestibles
+of all kinds from Fortnum and Mason's, bonbon boxes, perfumery, new
+books, new music, and superintending the delivery of luxurious
+easy-chairs, hired from expensive upholsterers, a grand piano, and a
+harmonium.
+
+"We will have music in the evenings," he said to Diana, upon her
+expressing surprise on beholding these arrangements, "when we are
+assembled here, all. How thou dost open thine eyes on beholding these
+nothings! Do you think it has been no pleasure to me to testify my
+affection for one who has been so good to thee--thy friend, thine
+adopted sister? I wished that all things should look bright around her,
+when they brought her here, after that she had come to escape from the
+jaws of death. And thou, was it not that thou wert also coming to make
+thy home here for some days, until thy day of marriage? Thy father
+astonishes himself to hear of such sudden events. Thou wilt go to see
+him, soon, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, dear Gustave. I will go to-morrow."
+
+She went on the next day, and found Captain Paget much weaker than on her
+last visit.
+
+It was evident that for him the end was very near. He was much changed
+and subdued by his long illness; but the spirit of worldliness had not
+been altogether exorcised even in this dismal period of self-communion.
+
+"What does it all mean, Diana?" he asked. "I don't understand being kept
+in the dark like this. Here are you suddenly leaving Mr. Sheldon's house
+without rhyme or reason, to take up your quarters in lodgings with Mrs.
+Sheldon. Here is a mysterious marriage taking place at a time when I have
+been given to understand that one of the parties is at death's door; and
+here is Lenoble introduced to Valentine Hawkehurst, in express opposition
+to my particular request that my future son-in-law should be introduced
+to none of the Sheldon set."
+
+"Valentine is not one of the Sheldon set, papa. I do not think it likely
+that he will ever see Philip Sheldon again."
+
+"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Captain Paget. "There has been something
+serious going on, then, surely?"
+
+After this he insisted on an explanation, and Diana told him the story of
+the last two or three weeks: Charlotte's increasing illness--so
+mysterious and incurable; the sudden return from Harold's Hill;
+Valentine's fears; Dr. Jedd's boldly-expressed opinion that the patient
+was the victim of foul play; the systematic exclusion of Philip Sheldon
+from the sick-room, followed immediately by symptoms of amelioration,
+leading to gradual recovery.
+
+All this Captain Paget heard with an awe-stricken countenance. The
+distance that divides the shedder of blood from all other wrong-doers is
+so great, that the minor sinner feels himself a saint when he
+contemplates the guilt of the greater criminal.
+
+"Great God! is this possible?" exclaimed the Captain, with a shudder.
+"And I have taken that man's hand!"
+
+Later in the evening, when Diana had left him, and he had been thinking
+seriously of his own career, and those many transactions of his troubled
+life which, in the slang denomination of the day, would be called
+"shady," he derived some scrap of comfort from one consideration.
+
+"I never hurt a worm," he murmured to himself, complacently. "No, I can
+lay my hand upon my heart and say, I never hurt a worm."
+
+The Captain did not pause to reflect that some of the merit involved in
+this amiable trait of character might have been referable to the fact,
+that he had never happened to fall upon a state of society in which a
+comfortable living was to be made by the hurting of worms. He thought
+only of the story he had heard about Philip Sheldon; and he told himself
+that not in the direst necessity of his life could his brain have
+fashioned the thought of such a deed as that, in the doing of which this
+man had persevered for nearly three months.
+
+For Charlotte Hawkehurst the summer days which succeeded her marriage
+passed very quietly. She had not been told the real motive of that hasty
+and stolen marriage which had given her to the man she loved and trusted
+so completely. Valentine and Diana had between them contrived to mould
+Mrs. Sheldon to their will; and it was at her request that Charlotte had
+consented to so strange a step.
+
+The fable invented to account for this desire on the part of Mrs. Sheldon
+was very innocent. The doctors had ordered a milder climate than England
+for the dear convalescent--Madeira, Algeria, Malta--or some other equally
+remote quarter of the globe. It was impossible that Mr. or Mrs. Sheldon
+could take so long a journey; Mr. Sheldon being bound hand and foot to
+the mill-wheel of City life, Mrs. Sheldon being the slave and helpmeet of
+her husband. Nor could dear Charlotte go to Malta alone, or attended only
+by faithful Diana Paget. In short, there was no course so obvious or so
+prudent as a hasty marriage, which would enable the invalid to seek a
+milder clime, accompanied and guarded by her natural protector--a
+husband.
+
+"Consent, dearest, I entreat you," wrote Valentine, in the little note
+which supported Mrs. Sheldon's request, "however strange our wishes may
+seem to you. Believe that it is for the best, for your own sake, for the
+sake of all who love you, and ask no questions. Say only yes."
+
+To the prayer in this letter, to the entreaties of her mother and Diana,
+Charlotte yielded. She wondered why Mr. Sheldon avoided her, and asked
+anxiously, on more than one occasion, why she did not see that gentleman.
+
+"Is papa ill," she asked, "that he never comes to see how I am?"
+
+"The doctors have forbidden many people in your room, dear."
+
+"Yes, a few days ago, when I was so very ill; but now that I am better,
+papa might come. I want to thank him for all his anxious care of me, and
+to be sure that _he_ consents to this marriage."
+
+"My darling, be assured the marriage is for the best," pleaded Diana.
+
+And the marriage took place.
+
+Charlotte's innocent soul was thus spared the pain of a revelation which
+must have cast a dark shadow on the bright beginning of her wedded life.
+Georgy pledged herself to keep the fatal secret from her daughter; and
+Diana Paget rewarded her discretion by the most patient attention to her
+piteous and prosy lamentations upon the iniquity of mankind in general,
+and Philip Sheldon in particular.
+
+Of that hideous secret of the past, lately revealed by Mr. Burkham, Mrs.
+Sheldon had been told nothing. No good end could have been served by such
+a revelation. The criminal law has its statute of limitations--unwritten,
+but not the less existent. A crime which would have been difficult of
+proof at the time of its commission must after the lapse of twelve years
+have travelled beyond the pale of justice. For three people to come
+forward and declare that at the time of Mr. Halliday's death they had
+suspected Mr. Sheldon of poisoning him, would be to prove nothing to the
+minds of a British jury, except that the three people in question were
+libellous and ill-disposed persons. The greater the issue, the wider the
+chances of escape given to the accused; and a petty offender will be
+condemned for picking a pocket upon much lighter grounds than will be
+considered sufficient to prove a man guilty of blowing up the Houses of
+Parliament.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+AFTER THE WEDDING.
+
+The manner in which Mr. Sheldon would act in the future was a matter of
+considerable fear to his wife. She had a hazy idea that he would come to
+the pleasant Kilburn lodgings to claim her, and insist upon her sharing
+his dreary future.
+
+"If I could only have a divorce," she said piteously, when she discussed
+the subject with her son-in-law. "There ought to be divorces for such
+dreadful things; but I never heard of one before Sir Creswick,
+or the new judge, whose name I can't remember. O Valentine, I cannot live
+with him; I cannot sit down to dinner day after day with such a man as
+that. And to think that I should have known him when I was the merest
+girl, and have danced my very first polka with him when it first came in,
+and people wore polka boots and polka jackets, and wrote their notes of
+invitation upon polka paper, and sang polka songs, and worked polking
+peasants in Berlin wool, and went on altogether in the most absurd
+manner. And O Valentine, whom can one trust, if not the man one has known
+all one's life!"
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst pledged himself to protect his mother-in-law from any
+attempt at persecution upon the part of her husband. He did not know what
+difficulties he might have to encounter in the performance of this
+pledge; for, in his ignorance of the stockbroker's desperate
+circumstances, he imagined that Philip Sheldon would make some attempt to
+right himself in the eyes of the world, by compelling his wife to
+reassume her position in his house.
+
+He went to George Sheldon's office within a few days after his marriage
+to take counsel from that astute adviser. He found the lawyer hard at
+work, and in very good spirits. It was by his advice the marriage had
+been hurried on; Charlotte's stealthy removal from the house while Philip
+Sheldon slumbered had been planned by him; and he was triumphant in the
+thought that the plot had succeeded so well, and that Philip, the coolest
+and deepest of schemers, had been so completely baffled.
+
+"That Ann Woolper is a treasure," he said; "I didn't think it was in her
+to do what she has done. Nothing could be neater than the way she kept
+Phil at bay; and nothing could be better than her tact and cleverness in
+getting Charlotte and her mother quietly off the other morning while my
+precious brother was in the land of nod."
+
+"Yes, she has been invaluable to us."
+
+"And that girl Paget, too; she has turned out a regular trump. I used to
+think her a very stiff, consequential piece of goods when I saw her at
+the Lawn; but, egad, she has shown herself the genuine metal all through
+this business. Now that's a young woman I wouldn't mind making Mrs.
+George Sheldon any day in the week."
+
+"You do her too much honour," said Valentine, with an internal shiver.
+"Unhappily, a prior engagement will prevent Miss Paget's availing herself
+of so excellent an opportunity."
+
+"It mayn't be such a very bad chance as you seem to think it, my friend,"
+George replied, with some indignation. "Whenever the Reverend John
+Haygarth's estate drops in, I stand to win fifty thousand pounds. And
+that's not so bad for a start in life, I suppose you haven't forgotten
+that your wife is heir-at-law to a hundred thousand pounds?"
+
+"No, I have not forgotten her position in relation to the Haygarth
+estate."
+
+"Humph! I should rather think not. People don't generally forget that
+kind of thing. But you are uncommonly cool about the business."
+
+"Yes, I have passed through a fiery furnace in which all the bullion in
+the Bank of England will not serve a man. That kind of ordeal upsets
+one's old notions as to the value of money. And, again, I have never been
+able to contemplate Charlotte's inheritance of that fortune as anything
+but a remote contingency; the business is so slow."
+
+"Yes, but it has been going on. Affidavits have been made; the whole
+affair is in progress."
+
+"I am glad to hear it. Don't think that I pretend not to value the
+prospect of wealth; I have only learnt to know that money is not the
+be-all and end-all of life. I could be very happy with my dear wife if
+there were no prospect of this Haygarthian inheritance; but if it does
+come to us, we shall, no doubt, be all the happier. The millionaire sees
+the world from a very pleasant point of view. I should like my dear girl
+to be the mistress of as fair a home as money can buy for her."
+
+"Yes, and you'd like to have your name stand high in the statistics of
+Government stockholders. Don't be sentimental, Hawkehurst; that kind of
+thing won't wash. Thank God, we managed to save poor Tom's daughter from
+the fangs of my brother Phil. But you can't suppose that I am going to
+shut my eyes to the fact that this affair has been a very good thing for
+you, and that you owe your chances of a great fortune entirely to me? You
+don't pretend to forget _that_, I suppose?" said George Sheldon, with
+some acrimony.
+
+"Why should I pretend to forget that, or any circumstance of our business
+relations? I am perfectly aware that you started the hunt of the
+Haygarths, and that to your investigations is to be traced the discovery
+that proves my wife a claimant to the estate now held by the Crown."
+
+"Very good; that's outspoken and honest, at any rate. And now, how about
+our agreement? It's only a parole agreement, but an honest man's word is
+as good as his bond."
+
+"Our agreement!" repeated Valentine, with a puzzled expression of
+countenance. "Upon my word, I forget."
+
+"Ah, I thought it would come to that; I thought you would manage to
+forget the terms agreed upon by you and me in the event of your marriage
+with Charlotte Halliday. My memory is not so short as yours; and I can
+swear to a conversation between you and me in this room, in which you
+consented to my taking half the Haygarthian estate as the price of my
+discovery and the fair reward of my labours."
+
+"Yes," said Valentine, "I remember that conversation; and I remember
+saying that the demand was a stiff one, but that I, as Charlotte's future
+husband, would not oppose such a demand."
+
+"You remember that?"
+
+"I do; and if my wife is willing to consent to your terms, I will hold to
+my promise."
+
+"Your wife's consent is not wanted. She married you without a settlement,
+and her rights are merged in yours. To all intents and purposes, _you_
+are heir-at-law to John Haygarth's estate."
+
+Valentine laughed aloud; the whole affair seemed a tremendous joke. He,
+the homeless, penniless, friendless reprobate of but one year ago--he,
+the son and heir of a man who had been always on the verge of social
+shipwreck for want of five pounds--he, of all other men upon this earth,
+claimant against the Crown for an estate worth one hundred thousand
+pounds!
+
+"The whole affair seems ridiculously improbable," he said.
+
+"My brother wouldn't have done what he did if the whole thing had seemed
+improbable to him. However, we needn't estimate the chances for or
+against; all I want is a legal agreement between you and me, securing my
+share of the plunder."
+
+"I am ready to execute any reasonable agreement; but I am bound to
+protect my wife's interests, and I must have a solicitor to act for me in
+this affair. Greek must meet Greek, you know."
+
+"Very good. I could have conducted the business myself without the
+interference of strangers; but if you are going in for extreme caution,
+you'd better leave your wife's affairs in the hands of Messrs. Greenwood
+and Greenwood, who have acted for her hitherto, and have all papers
+relating to the case in their possession."
+
+"Greenwood and Greenwood? My dear girl told me she had signed some
+document, and had seen some lawyers; but she did not tell me the nature
+of the document, or the name of the lawyers. I have forborne to speak to
+her on business matters. The treatment that she has undergone has left
+her very nervous, and we try to keep all unpleasant subjects out of her
+mind."
+
+"Yes, that's all very well; but business is business, you know. You'd
+better see Messrs. Greenwood and Greenwood at once. Tell them of your
+marriage. You'll have to keep Phil's conduct dark, of course; that is
+understood between us. You must say the marriage was a love-match
+against my brother's wish, romantic, sentimental, and so on. They'll
+raise no objections when they find you are willing to leave the case in
+their hands."
+
+"You have heard nothing of your brother?"
+
+"Well, no--nothing, or next to nothing. I called at his office yesterday.
+He has not been there since the beginning of Charlotte's illness, and
+there has been no letter or message for Orcott since your wedding-day.
+Things look rather piscatorial, altogether. Orcott hints that Phil's
+affairs are in queer street; but he's a shallow-headed fool, and knows
+very little. It seems, by his account, that Phil was a Bull, and that
+the fall in every species of stock has been ruin to him. You see, when a
+man once goes in for the Bull business, he never by any chance turns
+Bear--and _vice versa_. There's a kind of infatuation in the thing, and a
+man sticks to his line until he's cleaned out--at least, that's what
+stockbrokers have told me--and I believe it's pretty near the truth."
+
+This was all that Valentine could ascertain about Mr. Sheldon at present.
+Every knock fluttered Georgy; every accidental visitor at the Kilburn
+villa seemed like the swooping of eagle on dovecote.
+
+"I cannot get over the feeling that he will come and take me away with
+him," she said. "If Sir Wilde Creswick would only do something, so that
+my second husband mayn't be able to insist upon my living in that
+dreadful, dreadful house, where I suffered such nights and days of agony,
+that I am convinced the sight of chintz curtains lined with pink will
+make me wretched as long as I live!"
+
+"My dear Mrs. Sheldon, he shall not come," said Valentine.
+
+"If I could only go ever so far away from him, and feel that there was
+the sea, or something of that kind, between us!"
+
+"We will take you away--across the British Channel, or further still, if
+you like. Diana and M. Lenoble are to be married soon; and directly
+Lotta is strong enough for the journey we are to go over to Normandy, to
+their chateau."
+
+"Chateau, indeed!" Mrs. Sheldon exclaimed peevishly. "The idea of Diana
+Paget, without a sixpence, and with a regular scamp of a father, marrying
+a man with a chateau, while my poor Charlotte--! I don't wish to wound
+your feelings, Mr. Hawkehurst, but it really does seem hard."
+
+"It is hard that Lotta should not have married a prince--all the
+grandeurs of a prince in a fairy tale would only be her due; but it
+happens fortunately, you see, dear Mrs. Sheldon, that our sweet girl has
+simple tastes, and does not languish for jewels or palaces. If she should
+ever become rich--"
+
+"Ah," sighed, Georgy despondently, "I don't expect that. I can't
+understand anything about this idea of a fine fortune that Mr. Sheldon
+had got into his head. I know that my husband's mother was a Miss
+Meynell, the daughter of a carpet-warehouseman in the city, and I can't
+see how any grand fortune is to come to Charlotte through her. And as for
+the Hallidays--Hyley and Newhall farms were all the property they ever
+owned within the memory of man."
+
+"The fortune for which Charlotte is a claimant comes from the maternal
+ancestor of Christian Meynell. I do not count upon her possession of it
+as a certain good in the future. If it comes we will be thankful."
+
+"Is it a very large sum of money?"
+
+"Well, yes; I believe it is a considerable sum."
+
+"Twenty thousand pounds, perhaps?"
+
+"I have been told that it is as much."
+
+He did not want Georgy's weak mind to become possessed of the idea of
+shadowy wealth. He remembered what Philip Sheldon had said to him on the
+Christmas night in which they had paced the little Bayswater garden
+together, and he felt that there was a substratum of common sense in that
+scoundrel's artful warning.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+GREEK AGAINST GREEK.
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst called upon Mr. Greenwood, of the firm of Greenwood
+and Greenwood, within a week of his marriage, and exhibited the
+certificate to that gentleman. Mr. Greenwood received the information
+with much solemnity, and even severity, of manner.
+
+"Are you aware that this is a very serious step which you have taken,
+Mr. Hawkehurst?" he demanded, sternly. "You entrap--that is to say,
+you persuade a lady into a hasty marriage--without consultation with
+her legal advisers, without settlements of any kind whatever--while at
+the same time you are aware that the lady in question is heir-at-law
+to a very large fortune, proceedings for the recovery of which are
+now pending. Pardon me if I observe that there is a want of
+delicacy--of--a--hem--right-mindedness in the transaction."
+
+"The imputation contained in your remarks is not a pleasant one, Mr.
+Greenwood," Valentine remarked quietly; "but I am quite willing to pardon
+any injustice which you may inflict upon me by your desire to protect the
+interests of your client. I think you will speedily discover that those
+interests are in no way endangered by the lady's marriage with me. There
+are social complications which are not to be settled by either law or
+equity. Miss Halliday's surroundings of the last few months were of a
+very painful nature; so painful, that the legal protection of marriage
+became the only means of saving her from imminent peril. I cannot enter
+more fully into those painful circumstances. I can only assure you that I
+married your client with the consent and approval of her only near
+relation, and uninfluenced in the smallest degree by mercenary
+considerations. Whatever post-nuptial settlement you please to make for
+my wife's protection I shall promptly execute."
+
+"You express yourself in a very honourable and highly creditable manner,
+Mr. Hawkehurst," exclaimed the lawyer, with sudden cordiality; "and I beg
+distinctly to withdraw any offensive observations I may have made just
+now. Your own affairs are, I conclude, in a sufficiently solvent state?"
+
+"I do not owe a sixpence."
+
+"Good; and Mr. Sheldon, the lady's stepfather and my client--had you his
+approval for this hasty marriage?"
+
+"The marriage took place without Mr. Sheldon's knowledge or consent."
+
+"May I ask your reason for this secrecy?"
+
+"No, Mr. Greenwood; it is just that one reason that I cannot tell you.
+Accept my assurance that it was an all-powerful reason."
+
+"I am compelled to do so, if you decline to confide in my discretion; but
+as Mr. Sheldon is my client, I am bound to think of his interests as well
+as those of Miss Halliday--er--Mrs. Hawkehurst. I am somewhat surprised
+that he has not called upon me since the marriage. He has been made aware
+of that circumstance, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; I wrote to him immediately after the ceremony, enclosing him a copy
+of the certificate."
+
+"The marriage will make a considerable difference to him."
+
+"In what manner?"
+
+"Well, in the event of his stepdaughter's death. If she had died
+unmarried and intestate, this fortune would have gone to her mother;
+besides which, there was the insurance on Miss Halliday's life."
+
+"An insurance!"
+
+"Yes. Were you not apprised of that fact? Mr. Sheldon, with very natural
+precaution, insured his stepdaughter's life for a considerable sum--in
+point of fact, as I believe, five thousand pounds; so that, in case of
+her death prior to the recovery of the Haygarth estate, her mother might
+receive some solatium."
+
+"He had insured her life!" said Valentine, under his breath.
+
+This, then, was the key to the mystery. The Haygarthian inheritance was
+but a remote contingency, a shadowy prize, which could scarcely have
+tempted the secret assassin; but the insurance had offered the prospect
+of immediate gain. The one link wanting to complete the chain of evidence
+against Philip Sheldon was found. There was no longer a question as to
+his motive.
+
+"This man knows of one insurance on her life," Valentine thought to
+himself; "there may have been more than one."
+
+After a brief silence, in which Mr. Hawkehurst had been lost in thought,
+the lawyer proceeded to discuss the terms of the post-nuptial settlement
+necessary for the protection of his client's interests. In the course of
+this discussion Valentine explained his position in relation to George
+Sheldon, and stated the demands of that sharp practitioner.
+
+Mr. Greenwood was utterly aghast upon hearing Mr. Hawkehurst's views on
+this subject.
+
+"You mean to tell me that this man claims a clear half of the Haygarth
+estate--fifty thousand pounds--in consideration of his paltry
+discoveries!"
+
+"Such is the demand he has made, and which I have pledged myself not to
+oppose. He certainly does open his mouth very wide; but we are bound to
+consider that but for these discoveries of his, my wife and my wife's
+relatives would in all probability have gone down to their graves in
+ignorance of their claim to this estate."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Hawkehurst. If Mr. George Sheldon had not made
+the discovery, some one else would have made it sooner or later, depend
+upon it. There would have been a little loss of time, that is all. There
+are plenty of men of George Sheldon's class always on the look-out for
+such chances as this--and for very small chances in comparison to this.
+Why, I know a fellow, a Frenchman, called Fleurus, who will take as much
+trouble about a few hundred pounds' worth of unclaimed stock as this man,
+George Sheldon, has taken about the Haygarth succession. And he has
+really the impudence to claim fifty thousand pounds from you?"
+
+"A claim which I have pledged myself not to oppose."
+
+"But which you have not pledged yourself to support. My dear Mr.
+Hawkehurst, this is a business which you must allow me to settle for you,
+as your wife's legal adviser. We will consider you quite out of the
+question, if you please; you will thus come out of your relations to Mr.
+George Sheldon with perfectly clean hands. You will not oppose his claim;
+but I shall oppose him in my character of legal adviser to your wife.
+Why, are you aware that this man executed an agreement with his brother,
+consenting to receive a fifth share of the estate, and costs out of
+pocket, in complete acquittance of all claims? I have an abstract of the
+agreement, amongst Miss Halliday's--Mrs. Hawkehurst's papers."
+
+After some further discussion, Valentine agreed to leave the whole matter
+in Mr. Greenwood's hands. Greek must meet Greek. Gray's Inn and the
+Fields must settle this business between themselves.
+
+"I am only prince consort," he said, with a smile. "I pretend to no
+actual interest in my wife's estate. I doubt, indeed, whether I should
+not have felt more complete happiness in our marriage if she had not been
+heiress to so large a fortune."
+
+At this Mr. Greenwood laughed outright.
+
+"Come, come, Mr. Hawkehurst," he exclaimed, "that really won't do. I am
+an old stager, you know--a man of the world;--and you mustn't ask me to
+believe that the idea of your wife's expectations can afford you anything
+but unqualified satisfaction."
+
+"You cannot believe? No, perhaps not," Valentine answered, thoughtfully.
+"But you do not know how nearly these expectations have lost me my wife.
+And even now, when she is mine by virtue of a bond that only death can
+loosen, it seems to me as if her wealth would make a kind of division
+between us. There are people who will always consider me a lucky
+adventurer, and look at my marriage as the result of clever scheming. I
+cannot advertise to the world the fact that I loved Charlotte Halliday
+from the first hour in which I saw her, and asked her to be my wife three
+days before I discovered her claim to John Haygarth's estate. A man can't
+go through the world with his justification pinned upon his breast. I
+think it will be my fate to be misjudged all my life. A twelvemonth ago I
+cared very little about the opinions of my fellow-men; but I want to be
+worthy of my wife in the esteem of mankind, as well as in the depths of
+my own moral consciousness."
+
+"Go and finish your honeymoon," said the lawyer, digging his client in
+the ribs with elephantine playfulness; "the moon must be in her first
+quarter, I should think. Go along with you, and leave me to tackle Mr.
+George Sheldon."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+ONLY A DREAM.
+
+"I say, Lenoble," Captain Paget began abruptly one afternoon when his
+daughter and his future son-in-law were in attendance upon his sofa,
+"when are you and Diana to be married? There is nothing to hinder your
+marriage now, you know."
+
+Diana looked at the speaker with a grave countenance.
+
+"Dear papa, there can be no marriage while you are so ill," she said
+gently.
+
+"And afterwards, when I'm gone, you won't like to marry within six months
+of your father's funeral; and you will be left alone in the world. You
+can't hang on to Hawkehurst and his wife. The best thing you can do,
+Lenoble, is to marry her out of hand, and let me see her by my bedside as
+Madame Lenoble of Cotenoir. It will be some consolation for me to see
+that day. I thought to have shared your home, with a run to Paris
+occasionally just to freshen myself up a little; but that's all over now.
+It does seem rather hard to me sometimes; and I think of Moses, and his
+forty years in the Desert with those ill-conditioned Israelites, who were
+always getting into some scrape of other--setting up golden calves, and
+that kind of thing--if he turned his back on them for twenty-four hours.
+A pack of ungrateful beggars too, always ready for mutiny--regular
+radicals, begad! And he went through it all: the sand, and the _toujours_
+quails, and the ingratitude; and after forty years of it, when he saw the
+Promised Land stretched before him green and fertile on the other side of
+the river--he died! I've been through my desert, the dreary wanderings
+over the barren sand, and the ingratitude of men I've served. Yes, I've
+gone through it all; and just as I catch a glimpse of Canaan, the curtain
+drops."
+
+On this they comforted him; and sustained him with the promise of a
+brighter Canaan than Cotenoir.
+
+"Yes," he said in a dreamy voice, "I read about it very often. A city
+with foundations of jasper and chalcedony, emerald and sardonyx; gates of
+pearl, pavements of gold. That's what St. John the Evangelist saw in his
+vision; and we've only his word for it. But there's something that I can
+believe and can understand: 'In my Father's house there are many
+mansions.' There's more hope for a sinful man of the world in that
+promise than is all St. John's dreams about gates of pearl and
+foundations of emerald."
+
+The Captain was failing fast. He had exchanged his easy-chair for a sofa
+now; and the time seemed near at hand when he must exchange the sofa for
+his bed. After that there would remain but one last change, to the
+contemplation whereof the sick man was becoming daily more reconciled.
+
+He had read his Gospel more diligently of late, and had taken comfort
+from those sublime pages. Do they not contain consolation, hope, promise
+for all--for the weary man of the world as well as for the saint? There
+is to be found the only creed that can adapt itself to every condition
+of life, and has a margin wide enough for every weakness of erring
+humanity. Buddhism may contain a scheme of morality almost as perfect;
+Mahomet may have expounded hopes that seem well-nigh as divine; but in
+the Gospel is the only system that will adapt itself at once to the
+culture of the spiritual man, and the active life of the practical
+worker in this lower world.
+
+Gustave Lenoble was only too glad to claim his promised wife a little
+sooner than he had hoped to claim her. "Thou hast put me off long enough,
+cruel," he said; "and now it is thy father's wish that our marriage
+should be soon. It shall be this week; I will take no longer thine
+excuses. We shall be the sooner ready to receive thy friends, thy
+Charlotte and her Hawkehurst."
+
+Diana smiled.
+
+"Dear Gustave, you are always kind," she said.
+
+It was very sweet to her to think that her new home would afford a
+pleasant haven for that dear friend who had sheltered her. And with
+Charlotte, the dear adopted sister, would come the man she had once
+loved, to share whose cares had once been the brightest dream.
+
+She wondered at her own inconstancy on perceiving how completely the
+dream had flown. Before the stern realities of life--before sickness and
+sorrow and the dread shadow of death--that schoolgirl's vision had
+utterly melted away. It is just possible that Gustave's manly outspoken
+love may have helped to blot from the tablet of her mind the fantastic
+picture of the life that might have been. She scarcely knew whether this
+was so; but she did know that a new and happier existence began for her
+from the hour in which she gave her heart in all truth and loyalty to
+Gustave Lenoble.
+
+The wedding was arranged to take place within a week of Captain Paget's
+expressly declared wish. It was to be solemnised at a church near
+Knightsbridge, and again at a Catholic chapel in the neighbourhood of
+Sloane-street; by which double ceremonial a knot would be tied that no
+legal quibble could hereafter loosen. Charlotte was just sufficiently
+recovered to obtain permission to be present at the ceremonial, after
+some little exercise of her persuasive powers with the medical
+practitioner to whose care Dr. Jedd had committed her when all danger was
+past.
+
+The Captain protested, with an eager insistence, that the wedding
+breakfast should be eaten at his domicile.
+
+"And Val," he said, "be sure Val is with you. I have a secret to tell
+him--a kind of atonement to make; some news to give him that he won't
+quite relish, perhaps. But that's no fault of mine."
+
+"No bad news, I hope, papa; for Charlotte's sake as well as for
+Valentine's."
+
+"That depends upon how they both take it. Your friend Charlotte is not
+particularly fond of money, is she?"
+
+"Fond of money, papa? A baby knows as much of the value of money as
+Lotta. Except to give to beggars in the streets, or to buy pretty
+frivolous presents for her friends, she has neither use nor desire for
+money. She is the most generous, most disinterested of created beings."
+
+"I'm very glad to hear it," said the Captain, drily. "And how about
+Hawkehurst, now? Do you think it was a real love-match, his marriage with
+Miss Halliday? No _arriere pensee_--no looking out for the main chance at
+the bottom of his romantic attachment, eh, Di?"
+
+"No, papa. I am sure there was never truer love than his. I saw him under
+most trying circumstances, and I can pledge myself for the truth of his
+devotion."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it. Be sure you bring Hawkehurst and his wife to
+my little breakfast. A chicken, a pine, a bottle of sparkling hock, and
+a fond father's blessing, are all I shall give you; but the chicken and
+the hock will be from Gunter, and the blessing from the bottom of a
+paternal heart."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bright shone the day that gave Diana to her husband, and very beautiful
+looked the bride in her simple dress. Gustave Lenoble's marriage was no
+less quietly performed than that union which had secured the safety of
+Charlotte Halliday and the happiness of Valentine Hawkehurst. The shadow
+of death hovered very near bride and bridegroom; for they knew full well
+that he who was to preside that day at their simple marriage-feast would
+soon have tasted that last sacred cup which has no after-flavour of
+bitterness.
+
+The breakfast promised by the Captain was arranged with much elegance.
+Hothouse flowers and fruits; wines with the icedew sparkling on the dark
+glass; chickens and tongue, idealized by the confectioner's art, and
+scarcely recognizable beneath rich glazings and embellishments of jellies
+and forcemeats; the airiest and least earthly of lobster salads, and a
+pyramid of coffee-ice, testified to the glory of the Belgravian purveyor.
+It had been pleasant to Captain Paget to send his orders to Gunter,
+certain of funds to meet the bill. It was almost a glimpse of that land
+of milk and honey, that Canaan in Normandy, which he was never to
+inhabit.
+
+He was very weak, very ill; but the excitement of the occasion in some
+measure sustained and revivified him. The man who had been engaged to
+nurse and wait upon him had attired him with much care in a dressing-gown
+as elegant as the robe in which he had disported himself, a penniless
+young cornet, in his luxurious garrison quarters, some fifty years
+before. His loose white locks were crowned with an embroidered
+smoking-cap; his patrician instep was set off by a dainty scarlet
+slipper. He had put away the Gospel, and all thoughts of that dread
+reckoning which he had really some shadowy desire and hope to settle
+satisfactorily, by some poor dividend which might discharge his
+obligations to that merciful Creditor who forgives so many just debts.
+To-day he was of the world, worldly. It was a kind of _ante-mortem_
+lying-in-state--his last levee; and he was equal to the occasion.
+
+The prettily adorned table was drawn near the sofa where the invalid host
+reclined, supported by numerous pillows. His daughter and her husband,
+Valentine, Charlotte, and Georgy, made a little circle about him. His own
+man, and a clerical-looking person from Gunter's, assisted at the airy
+banquet. Very little was eaten by any of the guests, and it was a relief
+to every one when the clerical personage and Captain Paget's factotum
+retired, after serving tea and coffee with funereal solemnity.
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst was all gentleness and cordiality towards his old
+taskmaster. The wrong must indeed be dire which is considered in such an
+hour as this. Valentine remembered only that with this old man he had
+seen many troubled days; and that for him the end of all earthly
+wanderings was very near.
+
+The little banquet was not served in Captain Paget's ordinary
+sitting-room. For this distinguished occasion the landlady had lent a
+dining-room and drawing-room on the ground floor, just deserted by a
+fashionable bachelor lodger who had left town at the close of the season.
+This drawing-room on the ground floor, like the room above, overlooked
+the Park, and to this apartment the Captain requested his guests to
+adjourn, with the exception of Mr. Hawkehurst, some little time after the
+departure of the servants.
+
+"I want to have a few words with Val in private," he said; "I have a
+secret to communicate. Diana, show Mrs. Hawkehurst the Drive. You can see
+the Bow from my room, but not from these lower windows. There are a good
+many carriages still, but it is too late for the _creme de la creme_. I
+remember when the West End was a desert at this time of year; but I have
+lived to see the levelling of all distinctions, those of time as well as
+of class."
+
+Charlotte and Diana retired to the adjoining room with Mrs. Sheldon and
+M. Lenoble. Valentine was at a loss to imagine what manner of
+confidential communication his late patron and employer could desire to
+impart to him. The cautious Horatio waited until the rest of the party
+were quite out of hearing, talking gaily by the open window, beyond which
+appeared all the fluttering life and motion of summer leaves, all the
+brightness of summer green below, and deep blue sky above. When they
+seemed to him to be quite engaged with their own conversation, Captain
+Paget turned to his old companion.
+
+"Val," he said, "we have seen hard times together we've roughed it among
+strange places and strange people, you know and so on; and I think there
+is a friendly kind of feeling between us?"
+
+He held out his poor wasted hand, and Valentine grasped it firmly in his
+own with prompt cordiality.
+
+"My dear governor, I have no feeling in my heart that is not friendly to
+you."
+
+This was perfectly true.
+
+"And even if I had been inclined to bear any grudge against you on
+account of the old days, when, you know, you were a little apt to be
+indifferent as to what scrape you left me in, provided you got off
+scot-free yourself; if I had been inclined to remember that kind of thing
+(which, on my honour, I am not), your daughter's noble courage and
+devotion in the time of my dear wife's peril should have stood against
+that old wrong. I cannot tell you how deeply I feel her goodness in that
+bitter time."
+
+"She is a Paget," murmured the Captain, complacently. "_Noblesse
+oblige._"
+
+Valentine could scarcely refrain from a smile as he remembered the many
+occasions upon which the obligations of a noble lineage had weighed very
+lightly on his aristocratic patron.
+
+"Yes, Val," the Captain resumed, in a dreamy tone, "we have seen many
+strange things together. When I began my travels through this world, in
+the palmy days of the Regency, I little thought what a weary journey it
+was to be, and what queer people I was to encounter among my
+fellow-passengers. However, I've come to the last stage of the long
+journey now, and I thank Providence that it ends so comfortably."
+
+To this Valentine assented kindly, but he was at a loss to understand why
+Captain Paget should have required the adjournment of the rest of the
+party before giving utterance to these mild commonplaces.
+
+For some moments the invalid relapsed into thoughtful silence. Then,
+rousing himself as if with an effort, he took a few sips of a cooling
+drink that stood by his side, and began with a startling abruptness.
+
+"You remember your journey to Dorking, Val, last October, when you went
+to see that mysterious old aunt of yours, eh?"
+
+Valentine blushed as the Captain recalled this cunningly-devised fable.
+
+"Yes," he said gravely; "I remember telling you that I was going to see
+an aunt at Dorking."
+
+"An aunt who had a little bit of money, eh, Val?" asked the Captain,
+with a grin.
+
+"Yes. I may have gone so far as to speak of a little bit of money."
+
+"And neither the aunt nor the bit of money ever existed, eh, Val? They
+were mere figments of the brain; and instead of going to Dorking you went
+to Ullerton, eh, Val? You stole a march upon me there. You wanted to
+throw your old chum off the scent, eh? You thought you had got hold of a
+good thing, and you were afraid your friend and companion might get a
+share of it."
+
+"Well, you see, my friend and companion had a knack of getting the
+lion's share. Besides, this good thing was not my own affair. I had to
+protect the interest of another person--my employer, in point of fact;
+and it was by his suggestion, and in compliance with his request, that
+I invented that harmless fiction about Dorking. I don't think there
+was any dishonourable dealing in the matter. We were soldiers of
+fortune both; and the stratagem with which I protected myself against
+you was a very innocent one. You would have employed any stratagem or
+invented any fiction under the same circumstances. It was a case of
+diamond cut diamond."
+
+"Precisely; and if the older soldier, if the free lance of many a
+campaign, got the best of it in the long run, the younger freebooter
+could hardly think himself ill-used--could he now, Val?"
+
+"Well, no, I suppose not," replied Valentine, puzzled by the significance
+in the face of his old companion. That sly twinkle in the Captain's eyes,
+that triumphant smile wreathing the Captain's lips, must surely mean
+mischief.
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst remembered the vague suspicion that had flashed into
+his mind on that Christmas Eve when Captain Paget and he had dined
+together at a West End restaurant, and the Captain had toasted Charlotte
+Halliday with a smile of sinister meaning. He began to anticipate some
+startling and unpleasant revelation. He began to understand that in some
+manner this inscrutible schemer had contrived to overreach him.
+
+"What are you going to tell me?" he asked. "I see there is some lurking
+mischief in your mind. How was it you were at Ullerton when I was there?
+I met you on the platform of the station, and I had a vague half
+suspicion that you followed me up on more than one occasion. I saw a
+glove in a man's parlour--a glove which I could have sworn to as yours.
+But when I came back, you were so plausible with your talk of promoting
+business, and so on, that I was fool enough to believe you. And I suppose
+you cheated and tricked me after all?"
+
+"Cheated and tricked are hard words, my dear Val," said the Captain, with
+delightful blandness. "I had as much right to transact imaginary business
+in the promoting line at Ullerton as you had to visit a fictitious aunt
+at Dorking. Self-interest was the governing principle in both cases. I do
+not think you can have any right to consider yourself injured by me if I
+did steal a march upon you, and follow close upon your heels throughout
+that Ullerton business. I do not think that you can have, on moral
+grounds, any justification for making a complaint against your old ally."
+
+"Well, I suppose you are right enough in that," said Valentine.
+
+"Shake hands upon it, then. I have not very long to live, and I want to
+feel myself at peace with mankind. You see, if you had come to me in the
+first place, in a frank and generous spirit, and had said, 'My dear
+friend, here is a good thing; let us go into it together, and see what
+there is to be made out of it,' you would have placed the matter on such
+a footing that, as a man of honour, I should have been bound to regard
+your interests as my own. But when you set up a separate interest, when
+you try to throw dust in my eyes, to hoodwink me--me, Horatio Paget,
+a man of the world, possessed of some little genius for social
+diplomacy--you attempt to do that which no man ever yet succeeded in
+doing, and you immediately release me from those obligations which an
+honourable man holds sacred. It was my glove which you saw in Mr.
+Goodge's parlour. I had a very satisfactory interview with that reverend
+person while you were absent from Ullerton on some short excursion, as to
+the purpose of which I am still in the dark. On certain terms Mr. Goodge
+agreed to give me the privilege of selecting a stated number from the
+letters of Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth. I have reason to believe that I made a
+judicious choice; for the information thus obtained placed me at once
+upon a track which I followed industriously until it led me to a
+triumphant result."
+
+"I do not understand--" began Valentine; but the Captain did not allow
+him time to say more.
+
+"You do not understand that there could be any other genealogical line
+than that which you and George Sheldon fitted together so neatly. You
+have neither of you the experience of life which alone gives wideness of
+vision. You discovered the connections of the Haygarth and the Meynell
+families in the past. That was a step in the right direction. The
+discovery, so far as it went, was a triumph. You allowed the sense of
+that triumph to intoxicate you. In a business which of all businesses
+within the range of man's intellect most requires deliberation and
+sobriety, you went to work in a fever of haste and excitement. Instead
+of searching out _all_ the descendants of Christian Meynell, you pounce
+upon the first descendant who comes to hand, and elect her, at your own
+pleasure, sole heiress to the estate of the deceased John Haygarth.
+You forget that there may be other descendants of the said Christian
+Meynell--descendants standing prior to your wife Charlotte in the line of
+succession."
+
+"I can imagine no such descendants existing," said Valentine, with a
+puzzled manner. "You seem to have made yourself master of our business;
+but there is one point upon which you are mistaken. George Sheldon and I
+did not go to work in a fever of haste. We did fully and thoroughly
+examine the pedigree of that person whom we--and legal advisers of
+considerable standing--believe to be the sole heir-at-law to the Haygarth
+estate; and we took good care to convince ourselves that there was no
+other claimant in existence."
+
+"What do you call convincing yourselves?"
+
+"Christian Meynell had only three children--Samuel, Susan, and Charlotte.
+The last, Charlotte, married James Halliday, of Newhall and Hyley farms;
+the other two died unmarried."
+
+"How do you know that? How do you propose to demonstrate that Samuel and
+Susan Meynell died unmarried?"
+
+"Susan was buried in her maiden name. Mrs. Halliday, her sister, was with
+her when she died. There was no question of marriage; nor is there the
+record of any marriage contracted by Samuel."
+
+"All that is no proof."
+
+"Indeed! I should have thought the evidence sufficient. But, in any case,
+the _onus probandi_ is not upon us. Can you prove the marriage of the
+Samuel Meynell who died at Calais, or of the Susan Meynell who died in
+London?"
+
+"I can. Susan Meynell's legitimate son is in the next room. It's an
+unpleasant kind of revelation to make, Val; as he, the son of one sister,
+stands prior to your wife, the granddaughter of the other sister, in the
+order of succession. AND HE TAKES ALL!"
+
+"He takes all!" repeated Valentine, bewildered. "He! Susan Meynell's
+son?--in the next room? What does all this mean?"
+
+"It means that when Susan was deserted by the scoundrel who took her away
+from her home, she found an honest fellow to marry her. The name of her
+husband was Lenoble. Gustave Lenoble yonder, my daughter's husband, is
+her only child by that marriage. A perfectly legal marriage, my dear
+Val--everything _en regle_, I assure you. The business is in the hands of
+Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon of Whitehall--a first-class firm; counsel's
+opinion most decided as to Lenoble's position. They have been rather slow
+about the preliminary steps; and, _entre nous_, I have not cared to hurry
+them, for I wanted to get my daughter's marriage over quietly before we
+began our proceedings in Chancery. It comes rather hard upon you, Val, I
+allow; but, you see, if you had acted generously, not to say honourably,
+towards me in the first instance, you'd have had the advantage of my
+experience. As it is, you have been working in the dark. However, things
+are not so bad as they might be. You might have married some ugly old
+harridan for the sake of this Haygarth estate; you have secured a pretty
+and amiable wife, and you mustn't be downhearted if you find yourself,
+from a financial point of view, most outrageously sold."
+
+The Captain could not refrain from a laugh as he contemplated his young
+friend's surprise. The laugh degenerated into a fit of coughing, and it
+was some little time before the enfeebled Horatio was ready to resume the
+interrupted conversation. In this pause Valentine had leisure to face
+this new position. There was for the moment a sharp sense of
+disappointment. It is not possible for humanity to be quite indifferent
+to a hundred thousand pounds. So much of the "light and sweetness" of
+life is attainable for that sum,--such pleasures, of the purest and
+noblest, are in the power of the possessor. But in this moment Valentine
+fully realized the fact that he had never taken the idea of this fortune
+into his mind--never made it part and parcel of himself, to be plucked
+out of his heart with anguish, and to leave a bleeding wound in the place
+where it had grown. It seemed to him as if he had been wakened abruptly
+from some bright bewildering dream; but the sharp pang of mercenary
+desires disappointed, of sordid hopes suddenly reft, was not for him.
+
+Beyond this sense of uncertainty, which had made the Haygarthian fortune
+seem at best such "stuff as dreams are made of," there had been ever
+present in his mind of late the dismal association connected with this
+money. For this, and to get power over this through the rights of his
+weak wife, had Philip Sheldon plotted against the life of that sweet girl
+who was but newly rescued from the jaws of the grave. The bitter memory
+of those days and nights of suspense could never have been quite
+dissociated from the money that had been the primary cause of all this
+slow torture.
+
+"Do you think I shall love my wife any less because she has no claim to
+the Haygarth estate?" he exclaimed presently, looking with
+half-contemptuous indignation upon the broken-down Bohemer. "I loved her
+long before I knew the name of Haygarth; I should have loved her if I had
+found her a beggar in the London streets, a peasant-girl weeding for
+sixpence a day in some dismal swamp of agricultural poverty and
+ignorance. I am not going to say that this money would not have brought
+us pleasure; pictures and gardens, and bright rooms, and books without
+number, and intercourse with congenial acquaintance and delightful
+journeyings to all the fairest places upon the earth, and the power to do
+some good in our generation, and a sense of security for our future, and
+by-and-by, perhaps, for the future of dear children, for whose prosperity
+we should be more anxious than for our own. Pleasure the money would most
+probably have brought for us in abundance; but I doubt if it could buy us
+more perfect happiness than we may know in the simplest home that my toil
+can support. Ah, Captain, I question if you ever knew the sweetest
+sensation life can give--the delight of working for those we love."
+
+Captain Paget stared at his sometime protege in a kind of rapture of
+wonder, not entirely unmingled with admiration.
+
+"Egad!" he exclaimed, "I have read of this kind of thing in novels; but
+in the whole course of my experience I never met with anything equal to
+it. My son-in-law, Lenoble yonder, is a generous foo--fellow enough; but
+then, since infancy, he has never known the want of money. And generosity
+from that kind of man is no more of a virtue than the foolhardiness of a
+child who pokes his finger into the candle, not knowing the properties of
+the thing he has to deal with. But anything like generosity from you,
+from a man reared as you were reared, is, I freely confess, a little
+beyond my comprehension."
+
+"Yes; it is a transformation, is it not? But I don't think I was ever
+inordinately fond of money. Your genuine Bohemian rarely is. He is too
+well schooled in the art of living without cash, and he asks so little
+here below. His pipe, his friend, his dog, his books, his garret, his
+billiards, his beer. It is all a question of a few pounds a week. And if,
+some day, the divine enchanter Love takes the poor fellow underbids
+guidance, and teaches him to do without billiards and beer, your Bohemian
+settles down into the purest and best of men. Think what Goldy might have
+been if some good woman had taken compassion upon him and married him,
+and henpecked him ever afterwards. He might have written as many novels
+as Sir Walter Scott, and died master of some Hibernian Abbotsford, some
+fair domain among the bright green hills that look down upon broad
+Shannon's silvery falls. No, Captain; your intelligence has not
+annihilated me. I can face the future boldly with my dear young wife upon
+my arm."
+
+"Upon my soul, Val, you're a very noble fellow!" exclaimed Horatio Paget,
+with real enthusiasm; "and I am sorry I have kept you in the dark so
+long."
+
+"You have kept me in the dark? Yes; to be sure. How long have you known
+this--about Susan Meynell?"
+
+"Well, my dear boy, not very long."
+
+"But how long? A month--two months? Yes; you have known Lenoble's
+position ever since you knew him; and Charlotte told me three months ago
+of Diana's engagement to Lenoble. Do you know that if Sheldon had
+succeeded, Charlotte's blood would have been upon your head? If you had
+not concealed the truth, his villany would never have been attempted."
+
+"But, my dear Val," exclaimed the Captain piteously, "I was not to
+know--"
+
+"No; you were not to know that there could be such a wretch as Philip
+Sheldon upon this earth. We will say no more of that. I kept my secret,
+you kept yours. Mischief unspeakable well-nigh came of all this underhand
+work. But heaven has been merciful to us. We have passed through the
+valley of the shadow of death; and if anything could make my wife dearer
+to me than she was when first I won her promise to be mine, it would be
+the sorrow of the last few months. And now I will go and shake hands with
+Lenoble, my wife's kinsman. He is a fine fellow, and well deserves his
+good fortune. Stay; one word. Did Diana know this? did she know that her
+lover is heir to the Haygarth estate?"
+
+"She does not know it now. She has never heard the name of Haygarth. And,
+between you and me, Val, it cost me a world of trouble to persuade her to
+say yes to Lenoble's offer, though he is a very decent match for her,
+even without reference to the Haygarth estate."
+
+"I am glad she knew nothing of this," said Valentine; "I am very glad."
+
+After this he again shook hands with Captain Paget, at that gentleman's
+request, and the Captain expressed himself much relieved by the
+conversation, and by his late protege's very generous behaviour. He
+called to his daughter and the rest presently, and they came at his
+summons.
+
+"Is your long talk finished, papa?" asked Diana.
+
+"And is the secret told?" demanded Charlotte of her obedient husband
+and slave.
+
+"Yes, dear, it is told," he answered gravely.
+
+"I hope it is a pleasant secret."
+
+"I do not think the knowledge of it will give you much pain, dearest.
+You have learnt to think yourself a--a kind of an heiress of late,
+have you not?"
+
+"Papa--Mr. Sheldon--told me that I had a claim to some money; but I have
+not thought much about it, except that I should give you Grote and
+Macaulay in dark-brown calf, with bevelled boards and red edges, like
+that edition you saw at the auctioneer's in Bond Street, and have talked
+about ever since; and a horse, perhaps; and a glass porch to our
+cottage."
+
+"Well, darling, the books in dark-brown calf, and the horse, and the
+glass porch, may all be ours in the future; but the money was only a
+dream--it has melted away, dear."
+
+"Is that all?" asked Charlotte. "Why, I dare say the day will come when
+you will be as rich as Sir Walter Scott."
+
+"In the meantime I have something to give you instead of the money."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Yes; a cousin. Will that do as well, my love?"
+
+"A cousin? I shall like her very much if she is nice."
+
+"The cousin I mean is a gentleman."
+
+"But where is he to come from?" cried Charlotte, laughing. Has he
+dropped from the moon? The only relations I have the world are Uncle and
+Aunt Mercer. How can you pretend to find me a cousin?"
+
+"Do you remember telling me of your grandmother's only sister--Susan
+Meynell?"
+
+"Yes," said Charlotte, with a sudden blush; "I remember."
+
+"That Miss Meynell married a gentleman of Normandy, and left one only
+child, a son. His name is Gustave Lenoble, and he is standing by your
+side. He is heir-at-law to a very large fortune, which it was once
+supposed you could claim. Are you sorry, Lotta, to find a kinsman and
+lose a fortune?--and are you contented to begin the world with no hope
+except in your husband's patience and courage?"
+
+"And genius!" cried Charlotte, with enthusiasm.
+
+The sweet, blinding glamour of love shone upon this young scribbler, and
+she believed that he was indeed worthy to take rank among the greatest of
+that grand brotherhood of which he was so humble a member. She looked up
+at him with the prettiest confidence; her clinging hand clasped his with
+love and trust immeasurable. He felt and knew that love like this was a
+treasure beside which the Reverend John Haygarth's hoarded thousands must
+needs seem but sorry dross.
+
+After this there was much explanation and congratulation. Gustave Lenoble
+was delighted to claim so fair a kinswoman.
+
+"Thou art like my eldest, my cousin," he said; "Diana saw the likeness at
+the Sacre Coeur when she beheld my daughter; and I too saw my eldest's
+look in thine eyes when I first met thee. Remember, it was convened
+between us that Cotenoir should be a home for thee and for Hawkehurst
+before I knew what link bound thee to the house of Lenoble. Now thou and
+thy husband will be of our family."
+
+Diana was bewildered, grieved, indignant with the father who had deceived
+her by his studious suppression of the truth. She found herself placed in
+the position of rival to Charlotte, and the whole proceeding seemed to
+her mean and treacherous.
+
+But it was no time for remonstrance or open expression of indignant
+feeling. Her father's days were numbered. She knew this, and she held her
+peace. Nor did Mrs. Sheldon utter any word of complaint, though the
+disappointment she experienced upon hearing this revelation was very
+keen. The idea of the four or five thousand pounds which were to come to
+Charlotte had been a consolation to her in the midst of that confusion
+and desolation which had newly come upon her life. She left Knightsbridge
+that evening somewhat depressed in spirits, and half inclined to be angry
+with Charlotte and her husband for their gaiety of manner, and evident
+happiness in each other's society.
+
+"It seems hard to have to begin the world at my age," she murmured
+hopelessly, "after being accustomed to have everything nice about me, as
+I had at the Lawn; though I own that the trouble and care of the servants
+was wearing me to the grave."
+
+"Dear mamma," exclaimed Charlotte tenderly, "there is no fear of trouble
+or poverty for you or for us. Valentine has plenty of money, and is on
+the high road to securing a comfortable income. Authors do not starve in
+garrets now, you know, as they used to do, poor things, when Doctor
+Johnson ate his dinner in a cave, or something dreadful of that kind; and
+when Sir Richard Steele thought it quite a wonderful thing to get a pound
+of tea for his wife. And Valentine's heart is in his profession, and he
+will work for us."
+
+"As long as I have a hand that can write, and a brain that can guide my
+pen," interposed Mr. Hawkehurst, gaily. "I have given hostages to
+Fortune. I can face the hazard boldly I feel as confident and as happy as
+if we lived in the golden age, when there was neither care nor toil for
+innocent mankind, and all the brightest things of earth were the
+spontaneous gift of the gods."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+BOHEMIAN INDEPENDENCE.
+
+Monsieur and Madame Lenoble went to Brighton for their honeymoon. A
+letter or a telegraphic message would bring them thence swiftly to the
+bedside of the dying Captain, should the last fatal change set in
+suddenly. Diana had wished to stay with her father, but Horatio insisted
+upon the honeymoon trip, and that everything should be done in a correct
+and gentlemanly manner.
+
+"You can engage rooms at the Albion," Captain Paget had said to his
+son-in-law a few days before the quiet wedding. "The house is extremely
+comfortable; and you will be received by a compatriot. The proprietor is
+a Frenchman, and a very gentlemanly person, I assure you; the _cuisine_
+irreproachable. I remember the old Steyne when Mrs. FitzHerbert lived
+close by, and received all the best people, in the days when the Cockney
+had not yet taken possession of Brighthelmstone, and the Chinese dragons
+and pagodas were bright and fresh in the Pavilion."
+
+To Brighton, therefore, the bride and bridegroom departed; Diana attended
+by a maid, an appanage which the Captain had insisted upon. Poor Diana
+was sorely puzzled as to what she should find for the maid to do when her
+hair had been dressed early in the morning, and her costume laid out in
+state for the day.
+
+"I think I must buy some handkerchiefs for her to hem," she said to
+Gustave; "it will be quite dreadful for her to have nothing to do all
+day long."
+
+The weather was warm and bright. The sea danced and sparkled under the
+windows. Gustave was always in the same happy frame of mind. An elegant
+landau had been secured for the period of their visit, and a pair of
+capital horses carried them out on long and pleasant expeditions to the
+pretty Sussex villages, or across the broad bare downs, beyond which the
+sea stretched blue and bright.
+
+In the evening, when the lamp was lighted and the urn hissed gaily, Diana
+felt that she and her husband were at home. It was the first home she had
+known--the first time she had been sole mistress and centre of a
+household. She looked back at all the old desolation, the dreary shifting
+from lodging to lodging, the degradation, the self-abasement, the dull
+apathy of despair; and then she looked across at her husband as he
+lounged in his easy-chair, contemplating her with dreamy adoring eye, in
+a kind of lazy worship; and she knew that for this man she was the centre
+of the universe, the very keystone in the arch of life.
+
+She stretched out her hand to him with a smile, and he pressed it fondly
+to his lips. There were twinkling jewels upon the slender fingers; for
+the prettiest shop in Brighton--the brightest shop in Brighton--had been
+ransacked that morning by the fond, frivolous, happy husband, as pleased
+to bedeck his wife as a child to dress her last new doll.
+
+"How can I ever be worthy of so much affection, Gustave!" she exclaimed,
+as he kissed the twinkling fingers.
+
+And it did indeed seem to her that for this free gift of love she could
+never render a sufficient recompense.
+
+"Thou wilt make Cotenoir a home," he said; "thou knowest not how I have
+sighed for a home. This room, with the lamplight shining on thy face, and
+thy white hands moving about the teacups, and thy sweet smile, which
+greets me every now and then when thou lookest by here,--it is more of
+home than I have ever known since I left Beaubocage, that modest dwelling
+where lived those two angels of kindness, my aunt and my grandmother."
+
+In one of those long pleasant drives to a distant village nestling under
+the lee of a steep hill, the husband and wife had much serious talk about
+the position of the former with reference to the Haygarth estate. The
+result of that conversation was shown in a letter which Charlotte
+Hawkehurst received the next day from her friend Diana Lenoble.
+
+"Albion Hotel, Brighton.
+
+"EVER DEAR LOTTA,--Gustave and I have discussed the Haygarth business
+with great satisfaction to ourselves, since it transpired in the course
+of our conversation that we are both of one mind in the matter. It is
+agreed between us that, as he is very well off already, and as he never
+hoped or expected to inherit a fortune from his maternal ancestor, it is
+only just that he should divide this unlooked-for wealth with his dear
+cousin, whose claim to that inheritance he recognizes as equal to his
+own; the mere fact of seniority making only a legal and not a moral
+difference in the degree of relationship to the Reverend John Haygarth.
+Do you understand, darling?--_you_ are to have half this money. My
+husband will not step in between you and good fortune. I cannot tell you
+how happy this determination of Gustave's has made me. I felt myself in a
+manner base and ungrateful when I thought I was to share wealth that
+might have been yours; but I ought to have better understood the justice
+of my husband's mind. And now, dearest, all will be arranged very simply;
+Gustave will come to London and see his lawyers, and execute some kind of
+deed, and the whole affair will be settled.
+
+"We have had some charming drive," &c. &c.
+
+Here the young wife branched off into a description of the simple
+pleasures of their honeymoon holiday.
+
+This letter was answered by Valentine Hawkehurst in person. He came down
+to Brighton to thank his friends for their generous desire to enrich his
+wife, and to decline, on her part, any share in John Haygarth's wealth.
+
+It was in vain that Gustave and Diana argued the point, Mr. Hawkehurst
+was fixed as fate.
+
+"Believe me, it is better as it is," he said. "Charlotte and I have
+arrived at this conviction with all due thought and deliberation. We are
+both young, and the world is all before us. There is much in the past
+that I have to redeem, as Diana well knows. It is better that I should
+fight the battle of life unaided, and rise from the ranks by right of my
+merit as a soldier. If ever we have need of help--if ever I find myself
+breaking down--you may be sure that it is to you I shall come. By and by,
+if Providence gives me children to work for, I will refuse no bounty that
+you may bestow on them. Their future may be rendered secure by your
+generosity, if you please, Lenoble; they will be your kindred. But for an
+alien like myself there is no discipline so wholesome as honest hard
+work. I am as rich as John Milton when he set up a school in St. Bride's
+Churchyard."
+
+To this resolution Mr. Hawkehurst adhered with a gentle firmness.
+
+"Thou art chivalrous like Don Quixote," said Gustave Lenoble; "but it
+shall be as thou wouldest. Touch there."
+
+He offered his hand, which the other grasped with all heartiness.
+
+"I will be godfather to thy little first one, and I will settle on him
+ten thousand pounds before he cuts his first tooth," said Gustave
+decisively.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+BEYOND THE VEIL.
+
+Diana and her husband did not linger long at Brighton; they went back to
+town in time to see the last of that old wayfarer whose troubled journey
+came to so peaceful an ending. It was a very calm haven in which this
+battered old privateer lay at anchor after life's tempestuous course; but
+to the Captain himself it seemed a hard thing that he should not have
+been permitted one brief cruise upon that summer sea which danced so
+gaily beneath the keel of the Lenobles' prosperous bark.
+
+"We have shared adversity, my love," he said sadly, when he talked with
+his daughter in the last few days; "but your prosperity I am to have no
+share in. Well, I suppose I have no right to complain. My life has been
+an erring one; but poverty is the most vicious companion that a man can
+consort with. If I had come into six or seven thousand a year, I might
+have been as starch in my notions as a bishop; but I have been obliged to
+live, Diana--that was the primary necessity, and I learnt to accommodate
+myself to it."
+
+That he had erred, the Captain was very ready to acknowledge. That he had
+sinned deeply, and had much need to repent himself of his iniquity, he
+was very slow to perceive. But sometimes, in the still watches of the
+night, when the faint lamplight on the shadowy wall was more gloomy than
+darkness, when the nurse, hired to assist his own man in these last days,
+dozed in her comfortable chair, the truth came hope to his shallow soul,
+and Horatio Paget knew that he had been indeed a sinner, and very vile
+among sinners. Then, for a moment, the veil of self-deception was lifted,
+and he saw his past life as it had really been,--selfish, dishonourable,
+cruel beyond measure in reckless injury of others. For a moment the awful
+book was opened, and the sinner saw the fearful sum set against his name.
+
+"What can wipe out the dread account?" he asked himself. "Is there such a
+thing as forgiveness for a selfish useless life--a life which is one long
+offence against God and man?"
+
+In these long wakeful nights the dying man thought much of his wife. The
+sweet tender face came back to him, with its mournful wondering look. He
+knew, now, how his falsehoods and dishonours had wounded and oppressed
+that gentle soul. He remembered how often she had pleaded for the right,
+and how he had ridiculed her arguments, and set at naught her tender
+pleadings. He had fancied her in a manner inimical to himself when she
+urged the cause of some angry creditor or meek deluded landlady. Now,
+with the light that is not upon earth or sea shining on the picture of
+his past career, he could see and understand things as he had never seen
+or understood them before. He knew now that it was for his own sake that
+faithful and devoted wife had pleaded, his own interest that had been
+near to her pitying heart, as well as the interest of bakers and
+butchers, landladies and tailors.
+
+"She might have made a good man of me, if I had let her have her way," he
+thought to himself. "I know that she is in heaven. Will she plead for me,
+I wonder, at the foot of the Great Throne? I used to laugh at her bad
+English, or fly in a passion with her sometimes, poor soul, when I wanted
+her to pass for a lady, and she broke down outrageously. But there her
+voice will be heard when mine appeals in vain. Dear soul! I wonder who
+taught her to be so pure and unselfish, and trusting and faithful? She
+was a Christian without knowing it. 'I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of
+heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and
+prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.'"
+
+He thought of his wife's lonely deathbed, and compared it with his own.
+For him there was luxury; by him watched a devoted and all-forgiving
+daughter, a generous friend and son-in-law. All that could be done to
+soothe the painful descent was done for him. For her there had been
+nothing but loneliness and sorrow.
+
+"But she might be certain of a speedy welcome in a better home," thought
+Horatio; "and I--? Ah, dear kind creature, _there_ the difference was all
+in her favour."
+
+As the closing scene grew nearer, he thought more and more of his gentle
+low-born wife, whose hold upon him in life had been so slender, whose
+memory had occupied until now so insignificant a place in his mind. His
+daughter watched with him unceasingly in the last two days and nights.
+His mind wandered. On the day of his death he mistook Diana for that
+long-lost companion.
+
+"I have not been a kind husband, Mary, my dear," he faltered; "but
+the world has been hard upon me--debts--difficulties--crack
+regiment--expensive mess--set of gamblers--no pity on a young man without
+fortune--force of example--tied a millstone round my wretched neck before
+I was twenty-one years of age."
+
+Later, when the doctor had felt his pulse for the last time, he cried out
+suddenly, "I have made a statement of my affairs, the liabilities are
+numerous--the assets nil; but I rely on the clemency of this court."
+
+These were his last words. He sank into a kind of stupor betwixt sleeping
+and waking, and in this he died.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+BETTER THAN GOLD.
+
+The little fleet of paper boats which Mr. Sheldon had pioneered so
+skilfully over the commercial seas came to grief very soon after the
+disappearance of the admiral. A bill drawn upon the Honduras Mahogany
+Company, Limited, was the first to reach maturity. The bill was referred
+to the drawer--the drawer was not to be found.
+
+"I have not seen Sheldon for the last fortnight," Mr. Orcott informed the
+gentleman who brought him the document.
+
+"Out of business for a fortnight?"
+
+"He has not been in business for a month. His stepdaughter has been very
+ill--at death's door, and all that kind of thing, and my governor was
+awfully cut up about it. There used to be a couple of doctors at the
+house every day, and no end of fuss. I took Sheldon his letters, and
+managed matters for him here, and so on. And one fine morning my young
+lady runs off and gets married on the quiet; so I suspect there was a
+good deal of shamming about the illness--and those old fogies, the
+doctors, winked at it. Between them all, I fancy Sheldon was completely
+sold; and he has turned savage and gone off somewhere in the sulks."
+
+"I wish he had chosen any other time for his sulks," said the holder of
+the bill; "my partner and I have discounted several acceptances for him.
+He gave us liberal terms, and we considered any paper of his as safe as a
+Bank of England note; and now this confounded bill comes back to us
+through our bankers, noted, 'Refer to drawer'--a most unpleasant thing,
+you know, and very inconsiderate of Sheldon to leave us in such a fix."
+
+"He has forgotten the bill, I suppose," said Mr. Orcott.
+
+"Well, but you see, really now, a business man ought not to forget that
+kind of thing. And so Miss Halliday has made a runaway match, has she? I
+remember seeing her when I dined at Bayswater--an uncommonly fine girl.
+And she has gone and thrown herself away upon some penniless scapegrace,
+most likely? Now, by the bye, how about this Honduras Company, Mr.
+Orcott; they don't seem to have any London offices?"
+
+"I believe not. We've some of their prospectuses somewhere about, I
+think. Would you like to see one?"
+
+"I should, very much."
+
+Mr. Orcott opened two or three drawers, and after some little trouble
+produced the required document.
+
+It was a very flourishing prospectus, setting forth the enormous
+benefits to be derived by shareholders from the profitable dealings of the
+company. Some good high-sounding names figured in the list of directors,
+and the chairman was Captain H. N. Cromie Paget. The prospectus looked
+well enough, but the holder of Mr. Sheldon's dishonoured bill was not
+able to derive much comfort from high-sounding phrases and high-sounding
+names.
+
+"I'll go down to Bayswater, and see if I can hear anything of your
+governor," he said to Mr. Orcott.
+
+"He was not there yesterday when I called, and his servants could tell me
+nothing of his whereabouts," the young Yorkshireman said very coolly.
+
+"Indeed!" cried the holder of the dishonoured bill in some alarm. "Now,
+really, that is not right; a business man ought not to do that kind of
+thing."
+
+He called a cab and drove to the Lawn. There was the smart gothic villa,
+with its pointed gables, and florid chimneys, and oriel windows, and in
+the Tudor casements of the ground-floor appeared the bills of a West-end
+auctioneer, announcing in large letters that the lease of this charming
+mansion, together with the nearly new furniture, linen, books, china,
+plate, carefully-selected proof-prints after distinguished modern
+artists, small cellar of choice wines, &c., &c., &c., would be disposed
+of by auction on the following day.
+
+Mr. Sheldon's victim went into the house, where he found some men
+preparing for the forthcoming sale.
+
+"What is the meaning of all this?" he asked, aghast.
+
+"A bill of sale, sir. Messrs. Napthali and Zabulon."
+
+This was enough. The holder of the bill went back to the City. Another
+bill came due on the following day, and before the members of the Stock
+Exchange took their luncheon, it was known that Philip Sheldon's credit
+was among the things of the past.
+
+"I always thought he was out of his depth," said one set of talkers.
+
+"He was the last man I should have expected to see come to grief," said
+another set of talkers.
+
+On settling-day came the awful proclamation--Philip Sheldon had
+absconded, and would not meet his differences.
+
+On the same day came a terrible revelation to Mr. George Sheldon, of
+Gray's Inn, solicitor, genealogist, and pedigree hunter. The first
+official step in the advancement of Gustave Lenoble's claim against the
+Crown was taken by Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon, the solicitors, of
+Whitehall; and George Sheldon discovered that between Charlotte
+Hawkehurst and the Haygarth estate there stood a prior claimant, whereby
+all his toil, trouble, costs out of pocket, and wear and tear of body and
+mind, had been wasted.
+
+"It is enough to make a man go and cut his throat," cried George, in his
+first savage sense of utter disappointment.
+
+He went into his slovenly bedroom, and took out one of his razors, and
+felt the corrugated surface of the left side of his neck meditatively.
+But the razor was blunt, and the corrugated surface seemed very tough and
+unmanageable; so George Sheldon decided that this kind of operation was
+an affair which might be deferred.
+
+He heard the next day that his brother was _non est_, and, in his own
+phraseology, that there was a pretty kettle of fish in the City.
+
+"Upon my word, Phil and I seem to have brought our pigs to a very nice
+market," he said. "I dare say, wherever that fellow has gone, he has
+carried a well-lined purse with him. But I wouldn't have his conscience
+for all the wealth of the Rothschilds. It's bad enough to see Tom
+Halliday's face as I see it sometimes. What must it be to _him_?"
+
+A little more than a year after this, and the yellow corn was waving on
+the fertile plains of Normandy, fruit ripening in orchards on hillside
+and in valley; merry holiday folks splashing and dabbling in the waves
+that wash the yellow sands of Dieppe; horses coming to grief in Norman
+steeplechases; desperate gamesters losing their francs and half-francs in
+all kinds of frivolous games in the Dieppe _etablissement_; and yonder,
+in the heart of Normandy, beyond the tall steeples of Rouen, a happy
+family assembled at the Chateau Cotenoir.
+
+One happy family--two happy families rather, but so closely united by the
+bonds of love and friendship as to seem indeed one. Here are Gustave
+Lenoble and his young wife Diana, with two tall slender damsels by their
+side; and here is Valentine Hawkehurst, the successful young scribbler,
+with his fair young wife Charlotte; and out on the terrace yonder are two
+nurses walking with two babies, at that early, and, to some minds,
+obnoxious stage of babyhood in which a perpetual rocking, and pacing to
+and fro, and swaying backwards and forwards in the air, is necessary for
+the preservation of anything approaching tranquillity. But to the minds
+of the two young mothers and the two proud fathers, these small creatures
+in their long white robes seem something too bright for earth. The united
+ages of the babies do not amount to six months; but the mothers have
+counted every gradual stage of these young lives, and to both it seems as
+if there had been no time in which the children were not, with so firm a
+hold have they possessed themselves of every thought in the foolish
+maternal mind, of every impulse in the weak maternal heart.
+
+Mrs. Hawkehurst has brought her son to see his aunt Diana; for Diana has
+insisted upon assuming that relationship by letters-patent, as it were.
+Madame Lenoble's baby is a daughter, and this fact in itself seems to the
+two friends to be a special interposition of Providence.
+
+"Would it not be delightful if they should grow up to love each other and
+marry?" exclaimed Diana; and Charlotte agreed with her that such an event
+in the future did indeed seem in a manner foreshadowed by the conduct of
+the infants in the present.
+
+"He takes notice of her already!" she exclaimed, looking out at the
+little creature in white muslin robes, held up against the warm blue sky;
+"see, they are cooing at each other! I am sure that must be cooing."
+
+And then the two mothers went out upon the sunny terrace-walk and fondly
+contemplated these domestic treasures, until the domestic treasures were
+seized with some of the inexplicable throes and mysterious agonies of
+early babyhood, and had to be borne off shrieking to their nurseries.
+
+"Dear angel," said Gustave, of his "little last one," "she has the very
+shriek of Clarice here, poignant and penetrating, until to drown the
+heart. Dost thou figure to thyself that thy voice was penetrating as
+that, my beautiful, in the time?"
+
+He kissed his beautiful, and she ran off to join the procession following
+the two babies,--alarmed nurses, distracted mammas, shrieking infants,
+anxious damsels.
+
+"_C'est un vrai tourbillon_," as Gustave remarked to his companion
+Valentine Hawkehurst; "these women, how they love their children! What of
+saints, what of Madonnas, what of angels!"
+
+Whereupon he spouted Victor Hugo:
+
+"Lorsque l'enfant parait, le cercle de famille
+Applaudit a grands cris; son doux regard qui brille
+Fait briller tous les yeux;
+Et les plus tristes fronts, les plus souilles peut-etre,
+Se derident soudain a voir l'enfant paraitre,
+Innocent et joyeux."
+
+All things had gone well for M. Lenoble. His direct descent from Matthew
+Haygarth, the father of the intestate, had been proved to the
+satisfaction of Crown lawyers and High Court of Chancery, and he had been
+in due course placed in possession of the reverend intestate's estate, to
+the profit and pleasure of his solicitors and M. Fleurus, and to the
+unspeakable aggravation of George Sheldon, who washed his hands at once
+and for ever of all genealogical research, and fell back in an embittered
+and angry spirit upon the smaller profits to be derived from petty
+transactions in the bill-discounting line, and a championship of
+penniless sufferers of all classes, from a damsel who considered herself
+jilted by a fickle swain, in proof of whose inconstancy she could produce
+documentary evidence of the "pork-chop and tomato sauce" order, to a
+pedestrian who knocked his head against a projecting shutter in the
+Strand, and straightway walked home to Holloway to lay himself up for a
+twelvemonth in a state of mental and bodily incapacity requiring large
+pecuniary redress from the owner of the fatal shutter. To this noble
+protection of the rights of the weak did George Sheldon devote his
+intellect; and when malicious enemies stigmatized these Quixotic
+endeavours as "speculative actions," or when, in the breaking-down of
+some oppressed damsel's cause by reason of the slender evidence afforded
+by some reticent lover's epistolary effusions, unjust judges told him
+that he "ought to be ashamed of himself" for bringing such an action, the
+generous attorney no doubt took consolation from an approving conscience,
+and went forth from that court, to look for other oppressed damsels or
+injured wayfarers, erect and unshaken.
+
+Some little profit Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn did derive from the Haygarth
+estate; for at the request of Gustave Lenoble Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon
+sent him a cheque for one thousand pounds, as the price of those early
+investigations which had set the artful Captain upon the right track. He
+wrote a ceremoniously grateful letter to Gustave Lenoble on receiving
+this honorarium. It is always well to be grateful for benefits received
+from a rich man; but in the depths of his heart he execrated the
+fortunate inheritor of the Haygarthian thousands.
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst was not quite so vehement in the expression of his
+feelings as that lively Celt, Gustave; but deep in his heart there was a
+sense of happiness no less pure and exalted.
+
+Providence had given him more than he had ever dared to hope; not
+John Haygarth's thousands; not a life of luxurious idleness, and
+dinner-giving, and Derby days, and boxes on the grand tier, and
+carriage-horses at five hundred guineas a pair; not a palace in
+Belgravia, and a shooting-box in the Highlands, and a villa at Cowes;
+not these things, in which he would once have perceived the _summum
+bonum_; but a fair price for his labour, a dear young wife, a tranquil
+home.
+
+Nor had his researches among the dusty records of the departed Haygarths
+been profitless in a pecuniary sense to himself. Gustave Lenoble insisted
+that he should accept that honorarium of three thousand pounds which had
+been promised by George Sheldon as the reward of his success.
+
+"Captain Paget would never have been put on the right track if he had
+not filched your secrets from you," said the son and heir of Susan
+Meynell. "It is to your researches, in the first place, that I owe
+this inheritance; and you cannot refuse to accept the agreed price of
+your labour."
+
+Valentine did not refuse this fairly-earned reward, nor did he oppose the
+settlement which Gustave made in favour of Charlotte's infant son. It
+seemed to him only just that some share of the heritage should fall to
+the descendant of poor Susan's younger sister and faithful friend.
+
+With this capital of three thousand pounds comfortably invested in
+consols, and with the interest of that sum of ten thousand pounds settled
+on his infant son, Mr. Hawkehurst began the world, in his new character
+of a husband and a father, very pleasantly.
+
+Of his literary career very little need be said here. He was yet at the
+beginning of the long dusty road that leads to the temple of Fame. It is
+enough to state that he found the dusty high-road rather difficult
+walking, and that he was pelted with more mud, flung by nameless
+assailants hidden behind the hedges, than he had anticipated when he set
+out upon the first stage of his journey. Happily, he found pleasant
+fellow-travellers and kindly encouragement from an indulgent public, and
+was thus able to accept the mud which bespattered his garments in a very
+placid spirit, and to make light of all obstacles in the great highway.
+
+The cottage at Wimbledon was no longer a dream. It was a pleasant
+reality, the pride and delight of Mrs. Sheldon and Ann Woolper. It was a
+picturesque dwelling-place, half cottage, half villa, situated on the
+broad high-road from London to Kingston, with all the woodland of
+Richmond Park to be seen from the windows at the back. Only a wall
+divided Mr. Hawkehurst's gardens from the coverts of the Queen. It was
+like a royal demesne, Charlotte said; whereupon her husband insisted that
+it should be christened by the name of a royal dwelling, and so called it
+Charlottenburgh.
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst had secured this delightful abode for a considerable term
+of years, and upon the furnishing and decoration of the pretty rustic
+rooms Charlotte and he lavished unmeasured care. The delicious excitement
+of "picking up," or, in more elegant parlance, "collecting," was to these
+two happy people an inexhaustible source of pleasure. Every eccentric
+little table, every luxurious chair, had its special history, and had
+been the subject of negotiation and diplomacy that might have sufficed a
+Burleigh in the reorganization of Western Europe. The little Dresden and
+Vienna cups and saucers in the maple cabinet had been every one bought
+from a different dealer. The figures on the mantelpiece were Old Chelsea,
+of a quality that would have excited the envy of a Bernal or a Bonn, and
+had only fallen to the proud possessors by a sequence of fortuitous
+circumstances, the history of which was almost as thrilling as the
+story of Boehmer's diamond-necklace. The curtains in the drawing-room
+had draped the _portieres_ of the lovely Lady Blessington, and had been
+bought for a song by Valentine Hawkehurst, after passing through the
+hands of brokers and dealers innumerable. The tapestry-covered
+Louis-Quatorze chairs had belonged to Madame de Sevigne, and had
+furnished that dull country house whence she wrote the liveliest letters
+extant to her disreputable cousin, Bussy, Count of Babutin. These
+inestimable treasures had been picked up by Mr. and Mrs. Hawkehurst from
+a bric-a-brac merchant in a little court at the back of the Rue Vivienne,
+whither the young couple had gone arm-in-arm to choose a bonnet on their
+first pleasure-trip to Paris. The clock in the modest dining-room had
+been secured from the repository of the same merchant, and was warranted
+to have sounded the last domestic hours of Maximilian Robespierre in his
+humble lodging _chez le Menuisier_. The inkstand into which Mr.
+Hawkehurst dipped his rapid pen had served the literary career of
+Voltaire; the blotting-book on which he wrote had been used by Balzac.
+
+To the plausible fictions of the second-hand dealer Mr. and Mrs.
+Hawkehurst lent willing ears, and it seemed to them as if these
+associations, for which they had paid somewhat dearly, imparted a new
+grace to their home.
+
+The arrangement and superintendence of all these treasures gave poor
+Georgy endless pleasure and employment; but in her heart of hearts she
+believed in the prim splendours of the dismantled Lawn as much superior
+to these second-hand objects of art and upholstery. Nor did Ann Woolper
+regard the Chelsea figures and Dresden teacups and old black Albert-Duerer
+engravings as anything better than an innocent eccentricity on the part
+of the master of the house, for the saving of whose purse she managed and
+economized as faithfully as she had done for that lost master whereof the
+memory was so bitter.
+
+It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. Hawkehurst with a wife, a
+mother-in-law, and a faithful old servant, was likely to be well taken
+care of; a little spoiled perhaps by "much cherishing," but carefully
+guarded from all those temptations which are supposed to assail the
+bachelor man-of-letters, toiling alone and neglected in Temple chambers.
+For him the days passed in a pleasant monotony of constant labour,
+lightened always by the thought of those for whom he worked, cheered ever
+by the fond hope of future fame. He was no longer a bookmaker. He had
+written a book, the proceeds of which had enabled him to furnish the
+Wimbledon villa; and he was engaged in writing a second book, the fruits
+whereof would secure the needs of the immediate future. He had insured
+his life for a considerable amount, and had shown himself in all things
+prudent to a degree that verged upon Philistinism. But the policies taken
+out on Charlotte's life by Mr. Sheldon had been suffered to lapse.
+Valentine would have no money staked on that dear head.
+
+The steed which Charlotte had desired for her husband's pleasure, the
+library which she had catalogued so often, were yet among the delights of
+the future; but life has lost half its brightness when there is no
+unfulfilled desire left to the dreamer; and the horse which Mr.
+Hawkehurst was to ride in time to come, and the noble library which he
+was to collect, were the pleasant themes of Charlotte's conversation very
+often, as she and her husband walked on the heights of Wimbledon in the
+twilight, when his day's work was done.
+
+These twilight walks were the happy holidays of his life, and a part of
+his liberal education. He told his wife everything, every literary
+scheme, every fancy, every shadowy outline of future work, every new
+discovery in the boundless realms of Bookland. His enthusiasm; his
+hero-worship; his setting-up of one favourite and knocking-down of
+another; his unchristian pleasure in that awful slating of poor Jones in
+this week's _Saturday_, or the flaying alive of Robinson in the _Bond
+Street Backbiter_;--in a word, his "shop" never became wearisome to
+Charlotte. She listened always with a like rapture and sympathy; she
+worshipped his favourites of Bookland; she welcomed his friends and
+fellow-workers with unvarying sweetness she devised and superintended the
+fitting-up of a smoking-room that was perfectly paradisaical, a glimpse
+of the Alhambra in miniature; and that obnoxious dish, the cold shoulder,
+was never served in Mr. Hawkehurst's dwelling. So sweet a wife, so
+pleasant a home, popularized the institution of matrimony among the young
+writer's bachelor friends; and that much-abused and cruelly maligned
+member of the human race, the mother-in-law, was almost rehabilitated by
+Mrs. Sheldon's easy good-nature and evident regard for the interests of
+her daughter's husband.
+
+And after all the groping among dry as dust records of a bygone century,
+after all the patient following of those faint traces on the sands of
+time left by the feet of Matthew Haygarth, _this_ was Charlotte's
+Inheritance,--a heart whose innocence and affection made home a kind of
+earthly paradise, and gave to life's commonest things a charm that all
+the gold ever found in California could not have imparted to them. This
+was Charlotte's Inheritance,--the tender, unselfish nature of the
+Haygarths and Hallidays; and thus dowered, her husband would not have
+exchanged her for the wealthiest heiress whose marriage was ever
+chronicled in _Court Circular_ or _Court Journal_.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+LOST SIGHT OF.
+
+A year and a half had passed since the disappearance of Philip Sheldon
+from the circle in which he had been considered a person of some
+importance. The repudiation of those bills by which he had sustained his
+exhausted credit, or rather the discovery that the companies upon which
+the bills pretended to be drawn were of all shadows the most shadowy, had
+brought consternation upon many, and ruin upon some. Bitter and
+unmeasured were the terms in which City men spoke of that Phil Sheldon
+with whom they had eaten the sacred bait and quaffed the social moselle
+in the taverns of Greenwich and Blackwall.
+
+There is a saying current on the Stock Exchange to the effect that the
+man who fails, and disappears from among his fellows behind a curtain of
+commercial cloud, is sure to return sooner or later to his old circle,
+with a moustache and a brougham. For Philip Sheldon there was, however,
+no coming back. The moustache and the brougham of the chastened and
+penitent defaulter were not for him. By his deliberate and notorious
+dishonour he had shut the door against the possibility of return. It may
+be supposed that the defaulter knew this, for he did not come back; and
+since he had no lack of moral courage, he would scarcely have refrained
+from showing himself once more in his old haunts, if it had been possible
+for him to face the difficulties of his position.
+
+Time passed, and there came no tidings of the missing man, though a
+detective was despatched to America in search of him by one vengeful
+sufferer among the many victims of the fictitious bills-of-exchange. It
+was supposed that he must inevitably go to America, and thither went his
+pursuer, but with no result except the expenditure of money and the
+further exasperation of the vengeful sufferer.
+
+"What will you do with him, if you get him?" asked a philosophical friend
+of the sufferer. "He has nothing to surrender. Zabulon had a bill-of-sale
+on his furniture."
+
+"Furniture!" cried the infuriated victim; "I don't want his furniture. I
+want his flesh and bones. I want to shut him up in Dartmoor Prison, or to
+get him twenty years' hard labour at Portland Island."
+
+"That sort of man would get a ticket-of-leave in less than twelve
+months," replied the philosophic friend. "I'm afraid you are only
+throwing good money after bad."
+
+The event proved this gentleman but too able a seer. In the monster city
+of New York Philip Sheldon had disappeared like a single drop of water
+flung upon the Atlantic Ocean. There was no trace of him: too intangible
+for the grasp of international law, he melted into the mass of humanity,
+only one struggler the more in the great army perpetually fighting life's
+desperate battle.
+
+From among all those who had known him this man had utterly vanished,
+and not one sigh of regret followed him in his unknown wanderings--not
+one creature amongst all those who had taken his hand and given him
+friendly greeting thought of him kindly, or cared to know whither he
+went or how he prospered. He had not left in the house that had
+sheltered him for years so much as a dog to whine at his door or listen
+for his returning footstep.
+
+This fact, if he had known it or considered it, would have troubled him
+very little. He had played his game for a certain stake, and had lost it.
+This he felt, and cursed his own too cautious play as the cause of his
+defeat. That there were higher stakes for which he might have played an
+easier game, was a fact that never occurred to him. In his philosophy
+there was indeed nothing higher given to the hopes of man than worldly
+success, and a dull, cold, prosperous life spent among prosperous
+acquaintance.
+
+He was gone, and those who remembered him most keenly--Valentine
+Hawkehurst, Diana Paget, Ann Woolper--remembered him with a shudder. The
+old Yorkshirewoman thought of him sometimes as she bent over the little
+muslin-bedecked cradle where the hope of the Hawkehursts slumbered, and
+looked round fearfully in the gloaming, half expecting to see his dreaded
+face glower upon her, dark and threatening, from between the curtains of
+the window.
+
+It was a belief of all ancient races, nay indeed, a belief still current
+amongst modern nations, that it is not given to man to behold the beings
+of another world and live. The Arab who meets a phantom in the desert
+goes home to his tent to die. He knows that the hand of doom is upon him.
+He has seen that upon which, for mortal eyes, it is fatal to look. And it
+is thus in some measure with those who are admitted within the dark
+precincts of murder's dread sanctuary. Not swiftly does the curtain fall
+which has once been lifted from the hidden horrors of that ghastly
+temple. The revelations of an utterly wicked soul leave a lasting impress
+upon the mind which unwillingly becomes recipient of those awful secrets.
+
+The circumstances of Tom Halliday's death and of Charlotte's illness were
+not to be forgotten by Ann Woolper. The shadow of that dark cruel face,
+which had lain upon her bosom forty years before, haunted many a peaceful
+hour of her quiet old age. Her ignorance, and that faint tinge of
+superstition which generally accompanies ignorance, exaggerated the
+terror of those dark memories. The thought that Philip Sheldon still
+lived, still had the power to plot and plan evil against the innocent,
+was an ever-present source of terror to her. She could not understand
+that such an element could exist among the forces of evil without fatal
+result to some one. It seemed to her as if a devil were at large, and
+there could be neither peace nor security until the evil spirit was
+exorcised, the baneful presence laid in nethermost depths of unfathomable
+sea.
+
+These feelings and these fears would scarcely have arisen in the old
+woman's breast, had she alone been subject to the possible plottings of
+that evil nature. For herself she had little fear. Her span of life was
+nearly ended; very few were the sands that had yet to run; and, for her
+own sake, she would have cared little if some rough hand had spilt them
+untimely. But a new interest in life had been given to Mrs. Woolper just
+as life drew near its close. That peerless child, the son and heir of the
+Hawkehursts, had been intrusted to the old woman's care; and this infant
+she loved with an affection much more intense than that which had once
+made Philip Sheldon so dear to her.
+
+It was by the cradle of this much-treasured child that Ann Woolper nursed
+her fear of her old master. She knew that he had been counter-plotted and
+beaten ignominiously in that deadly game which he had played so boldly.
+And she asked herself whether he was the man to submit to such utter
+defeat without any effort to revenge himself upon those who had helped to
+compass his failure.
+
+On that night when Charlotte Halliday had lain between life and death,
+suffering on the one hand from the effects of a prolonged and gradual
+course of poison, on the other from the violent measures taken to
+eliminate that poisonous element from her system,--on that night when the
+precious life yet trembled in the balance, Ann Woolper had seen murderous
+looks in the face of the man whom she dared boldly to defy, and who knew
+in that hour that his ghastly plot was discovered. Even now, secure in a
+haven of safety, she could not forget that baneful look in Philip
+Sheldon's eyes. She could not find perfect rest while she knew not where
+that man might be, or what mischief he might be plotting against those
+she loved.
+
+Her fears showed themselves in many ways. When she read of dark and
+vengeful deeds in her newspaper, she thought of her old master, and how,
+in such or such an act, his fatal hand might reveal itself. He might lie
+in wait for Valentine some night on the dark road between Charlottenburgh
+and the distant railway-station. She could fancy the young wife's agony
+of terror as the night wore on, and her husband did not return; the
+unspeakable horror that would come over all that happy household when the
+news came that its young master had been found on the lonely road slain
+by some unknown hand. Open utterance to her fears she was too wise to
+give; but she warned Mr. Hawkehurst of the dangers on that dark road, and
+besought him to arm himself with a trusty bludgeon wherewith to meet and
+vanquish any chance assailant. Valentine laughed at her anxious warning;
+but when Charlotte took up the cry he was fain to content her by the
+purchase of a sturdy stick, which he swung cheerily to and fro as he
+walked homewards in the gloaming, planning a chapter in his new book, and
+composing powerful and eloquent sentences which eluded his mental grasp
+when he tried to reduce his evening reverie to pen-and-ink.
+
+"When the air blows fresh across the common, and the distant lights
+twinkle, and the bright stars peep out in the pale-yellow sky, my
+language flows as it never does when I sit at my desk, Lotta," he said to
+his wife. "I feel myself a Swift or a Junius out there; equal to the
+tackling of any social question that ever arose upon this earth, from the
+Wood halfpence to the policy of American taxation, and triennial
+elections. At home I am only Valentine Hawkehurst, with an ever-present
+consciousness that so many pages of copy are required from me within a
+given time, and that my son-and-heir is cutting his teeth, and making
+more fuss about it than I ever made about _my_ teeth; and that the man
+about the water-rate is waiting to see me, please, and is desperately
+anxious about making-up his books; and that I have the dearest wife in
+Christendom, who opens my door, and puts her pretty head into my room
+once in half an hour to see how I am getting on, or to ask whether I want
+any more coals, or to borrow my ink to make-up her washing-book."
+
+"You mean, sir, that I prevent your becoming a Junius?" cried Charlotte,
+with an enchanting _moue_.
+
+"Yes, dear. I begin to understand why Swift kept his poor ill-used wife
+at a respectful distance. She would have made him too happy if he had
+allowed her to be on the premises. She would have given the cruel
+indignation no chance of lacerating his heart; and such writing as
+Swift's is only produced by a man whose heart is so lacerated. No, my
+darling, I shall never be a Swift or a Junius while your pretty head is
+thrust into my room once or twice an hour; but I may hope to be something
+better, if bright eyes can inspire bright thoughts, and innocent smiles
+give birth to pleasant fancies."
+
+Upon this there was the usual little demonstration of affection between
+this young couple; and Charlotte praised her husband as the most
+brilliant and admirable of men; after which pleasing flattery she
+favoured him with a little interesting information about the baby's last
+tooth, and the contumacious behaviour of the new housemaid, between whom
+and Mrs. Woolper there had been a species of disagreement, which the
+Yorkshirewoman described as a "standfurther."
+
+Thus occupied in simple pleasures and simple cares, the lives of Mr. and
+Mrs. Hawkehurst went on, untroubled by any fear of that crime-burdened
+wretch whose image haunted the dreams and meditations of Ann Woolper. For
+these two Mr. Sheldon was numbered among the dead. To Charlotte the
+actual truth had never been revealed; but she had been, in the course of
+time, given to understand that her stepfather had committed some
+unpardonable sin, which must for ever separate him from herself and her
+mother. She had been told as much as this, and had been told that she
+must seek to know no more. To this she submitted without questioning.
+
+"I am very sorry for him," she said, "and for mamma."
+
+She concluded that the unpardonable offence must needs have been some sin
+against her mother, some long-hidden infidelity brought suddenly to
+light, with all the treachery and falsehood involved therein. She never
+mentioned her stepfather after this but in her prayers the sinner was not
+forgotten.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+ETEOCLES AND POLYNICES.
+
+George Sheldon went his ways, picking up as good a living as he could
+from that chivalrous assertion of the rights of the weak which has been
+already described; and the thought of his brother's sin-burdened soul
+troubled him very little. He did think of Tom Halliday; for that last
+grasp of the honest Yorkshireman's hand, that last look in his old
+friend's face, were haunting memories which this sharp practitioner had
+found himself powerless to exorcise. If his brother, after an absence of
+many years in the remote regions of the East Indies, had come home to his
+fatherland with a colossal fortune, and the reputation of having
+strangled a few natives during the process of amassing that fortune,
+George Sheldon would have welcomed the returning wanderer, and would, in
+his own parlance, have "swallowed the natives." A few niggers, more or
+less, sent untimely to Gehenna, would have seemed scarcely sufficient
+cause for quarrel with a fraternal and liberally-disposed millionaire.
+But the circumstances of Tom Halliday's death had brought all the horror
+of crime and treachery home to the spectator of that deliberate
+assassination, and had produced such an impression as no other
+circumstances could on so hard a nature.
+
+It was some satisfaction to George Sheldon to know that his old friend's
+daughter had found a happy home; and he was apt to take some credit from
+his own share in his brother's discomfiture. He met Valentine sometimes
+in the course of his peregrinations in the neighbourhood of the British
+Museum, and the greeting between the two men was sufficiently cordial;
+but Mr. Hawkehurst did not invite his old employer to Charlottenburgh,
+and George was able to comprehend that to that household no one bearing
+the name of Sheldon could be a welcome visitor.
+
+He jogged on comfortably enough in his own way; living in his chambers,
+and consorting with a few chosen friends and kindred spirits of the
+jolly-good-fellow class, whom he met at an old-established tavern in the
+west-central district, and in whose society, and the society of the
+subscription-ground in the Farringdon Road, he found the _summum bonum_
+in the way of social intercourse. He did a little speculation upon the
+turf, and discounted the bills of needy bookmakers, or bought up their
+bad debts, and thereby gained introductions to the noble patrons of the
+humble "scums," and pushed his business into new grooves. He had no idea
+that such an existence was in any way ignoble; nay, indeed, when he had
+paid his rent, and his clerk, and his laundress, and his tavern score,
+and "stood glasses round" amongst his friends, he lighted his cigar, and
+thrust his hands into the depths of his pockets, and paced the flags of
+Holborn happy in the belief that he had performed the whole duty of man.
+
+"There are men whose business obliges them to keep up an establishment,
+and go to church twice a day, and all that kind of thing," he said; "and
+I dare say they find it pay. My clients don't care a doit where I live,
+or how I spend my Sundays; and I'd rather have five pounds a week and my
+liberty than the best family connection in the Fields."
+
+The fate of that wretched man, who had dropped out of his old circle
+and vanished no one knew whither, in no manner disturbed the peace of
+George Sheldon.
+
+"Take my word for it, that gentleman has fallen on his feet," he said, on
+the only occasion when the fate of Philip was discussed by Valentine and
+himself. "He's doing well enough, somewhere or other, you may depend; but
+I don't think he'll ever be able to show his nose in London after those
+bill transactions. There's a very strong feeling against him on Change.
+He's looked upon as a discredit to the order, and that sort of thing, you
+see. It isn't often a member of the House goes to the bad like that. No,
+I don't think Phil will ever show himself in London again; but such a man
+as that can always find a platform somewhere--"
+
+"And go on to the end of his days unpunished, I suppose," remarked Mr.
+Hawkehurst, with some bitterness.
+
+"Well, yes; I don't see what's to touch him in the future. Of course he
+could be dropped upon for those bills, if he came in the way of being
+dropped upon; but, as I said before, he's too deep a card for that."
+
+Thus did George Sheldon dismiss the subject. That his brother was an
+exile for life from his native land he did not doubt; but he took it for
+granted that in whatever distant spot of earth Philip had found a refuge,
+he would there contrive to prosper and to show a bold front in the city
+of his adoption.
+
+This belief Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn cherished until one snowy Christmas
+Eve, a year and a half after that event, or series of events, which the
+lawyer briefly designated "the burst-up at Bayswater."
+
+Bleak and bitter was that December, a December not long gone by. The
+heart of the prosperous British nation melted as the heart of one man.
+The columns of the _Zeus_ and the _Diurnal Hermes_, the _Flag_ and the
+_Hesper_, overflowed with the record of subscriptions to charity funds;
+and the leaders of the morning journals all preached the same kindly
+sermon on the same Christian text. Thick lay the snow upon the housetops;
+"thick and slab" the greasy slush upon the pavements of crowded
+thoroughfares; merry the rogues and ragamuffins of the great city. The
+ideal Christmas of our dreams seemed to have come at last, and the heart
+of every true Briton rejoiced; while skaters in the parks made merry, and
+cabmen demanded fabulous sums of helpless wayfarers; and luckless,
+overworked, under-fed horses stumbled and fell at every turn, and the
+familiar steep of Holborn was dangerous as Alpine mountain.
+
+To George Sheldon neither the weather nor the Christmas season made much
+difference. The even current of his life was little disturbed by festive
+pleasures or dissipations. An extra glass at his tavern, an invitation to
+dinner from some friend in the bill-discounting line, were the most
+exciting events the season was likely to bring him. He saw the shops
+brighten suddenly with semi-supernal glories of crystallized fruits and
+gorgeous bonbon-boxes, and he was aware of a kind of movement in the
+streets that was brisker and gayer than the plodding hurry of everyday
+life. He stood aside and let the mummeries go by him, and was glad when
+these Christmas follies were done with, and the law-courts in full swing
+once more. In the happiest and most innocent days of his youth, Christmas
+had brought him no more than extraordinary indulgences in the way of
+eating and drinking, swiftly followed by that dread avenger, the demon of
+the bilious.
+
+Upon this particular occasion Mr. Sheldon had pledged himself to dine
+with a horsey publican lately retired from business, and big with all the
+pride and glory of a "place" at Hornsey.
+
+"Come down and see my place, Sheldon," this gentleman had said. "I don't
+pretend to do the swell thing; but I force my own pines and grow my own
+grapes, and can put as good a dessert on my table as you could buy in
+Covent Garden for a five-pun' note. That's my missus's fad, that is, and
+I can afford it; so why shouldn't I do it? You come and eat your
+Christmas dinner with us, Sheldon. I've got a friend coming that can
+sing as good a song as Reeves hisself, and might make a fortune, if he
+wasn't above coming out at one of them music-halls. And I'll give you a
+bottle of Madeira that you won't match at any nobleman's table, if
+noblemen's tables was in your line of business, which you and I know
+they ain't, old fellow."
+
+And then the jolly good fellow dug his fat fingers into George Sheldon's
+ribs, and George accepted the invitation; not with any elation of
+spirits, but sufficiently pleased to secure a good dinner with a man who
+promised to be a profitable client, and whose house was within a
+reasonable cab-fare from the west-central district.
+
+"The cabmen are trying it on, anyhow, just now," thought Mr. Sheldon;
+"but I don't think they'll try it on with me. And if they do, there's the
+Marylebone stage. I'm not afraid of a five-mile walk."
+
+Having accepted this invitation, and thus disposed of his Christmas-day,
+George Sheldon refrained from the delights of social converse at his
+tavern on Christmas-eve, and occupied himself with business. His clerk
+left him at the usual hour; but the master sat, long after dark, writing
+letters and reading law-papers, while the snow drifted against his
+windows and whitened the quiet quadrangle below.
+
+He had just laid aside his papers and lighted a cigar, when he was
+startled by a stealthy knocking at his door. He was not unaccustomed to
+late visitors, as he was known to live at his chambers, and to work after
+office-hours; but the knocking of to-night was not the loud rollicking
+rat-a-tat of his jolly-good-fellow friends or clients. If he had been a
+student of light literature, and imbued with the ghostly associations of
+the season, he would have gone to his door expecting to behold a weird
+figure clothed in the vestments of the last century; or an old woman in
+ruff and martingale, whose figure in the flesh had once haunted those
+legal precincts; or the ghostly semblance of the Baron of Verulam
+himself, revisiting the glimpses of the moon and the avenue of elms that
+were planted by his order.
+
+In George Sheldon's nature there was, however, no lurking dread of fiend
+or phantom. His ideas in connection with ghosts were limited to a white
+sheet, a broomstick, and a hollow turnip with a lighted candle inside it;
+and he would have set down the most awful apparition that ever was
+revealed to German ghost-seer, with a scornful grin, as a member of the
+sheet and-hollow-turnip confraternity.
+
+"I know how it's done," he would have said, if the spectral form had
+glowered upon him in midnight churchyard or ruined abbey. "You'd better
+go and try it on somewhere else, my friend."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To a superstitious mind the THING which crept across the dark lobby
+and dragged itself into the glare of the gas-lighted office might
+have seemed, indeed, some, creature too loathsome for humanity. A
+plague-stricken corpse galvanized into a spasmodic life could scarcely
+have lifted to the light a more awful countenance than that on which
+George Sheldon looked with mingled anger and disgust.
+
+"What do you want here" he asked. "Do you take this for the workhouse?"
+
+"No," the creature answered, in a faint hoarse voice; "but I take you for
+my brother."
+
+"WHAT!" cried George Sheldon, aghast.
+
+He bent down and looked at the awful face. Yes, from the cavernous
+hollows of those sunken cheeks, beneath the shaggy penthouse of those
+bony brows, the fierce black eyes of Philip Sheldon looked out at him
+with a savage glare that he had never seen in them before--even when the
+savage nature of the man had revealed itself most nakedly--the fierce
+glare of fever and starvation.
+
+This walking horror, this mass of loathsome rags endued with motion, this
+living disease, was the sometime prosperous stockbroker, the man whom it
+had been impossible to think of except furnished with linen of spotless
+whiteness, and the glossy broad-cloth, and well-made boots, and keyless
+chronometer, and silk umbrella of commercial success.
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed George, horror-stricken, "is it you?"
+
+"Yes, it's I," answered the creature in his strange husky accents; and
+the change--nay, indeed, the degradation, of the voice was as complete as
+the degradation of the man. "Yes, George, it's I; your brother Phil.
+You're surprised to see me fallen so low in the world, I suppose; but you
+can't be more surprised than I am myself. I've tried hard enough to hold
+my head above water. There's scarcely any trade that mortal man ever
+tried to earn his bread by, that I haven't tried--and failed in. It has
+been the experience of Fitzgeorge-street over and over again, in every
+trade and every profession. I started as doctor in Philadelphia, and was
+doing well;--till--till a patient died--and things went against me. I've
+been clerk in more offices than you can count on your ten fingers; but
+there was always something--my employer levanted, or was bankrupt, or
+died, or dismissed me. I've been travelling-dentist, auctioneer,
+commission-agent, tout, pedlar, out yonder; but it all came to the same
+thing--ruin, starvation, the hospital, or the pauper's ward. I have swept
+crossings in the city, and camped out in the wilderness among the bears
+and opossums. One day I thought I'd come home. 'There's George,' I said
+to myself; 'if I can get money enough to take me across the Atlantic, I
+shall be all right. George will give me a lift.' I don't stand alone in
+the world. A man's own flesh and blood won't let him starve--can't let
+him starve. Blood's thicker than water, you know, George. So I came home.
+I got the money; never you mind how. I needn't tell you what it cost me
+to scrape half-a-dozen pounds together. When a man's as low down in the
+world as I am, there's not a shilling he earns that doesn't cost him a
+drop of his heart's blood; there's not a pound he gets together that
+isn't bought by the discount of so much of his life. I found money enough
+for my passage in an emigrant vessel; and here I am, ready for anything.
+I'll work like your bought nigger. I'll do the work your clerk does for a
+quarter of his wages. I'll sweep out your office, and run errands for
+you. You'll give me something to keep body and soul together, won't you,
+George?"
+
+Nothing could be more utterly abject than the tone of this most abject
+wretch.
+
+This man, who in prosperity had been the very personification of hardness
+and insolence, was transformed into a grovelling, cringing supplicant,
+ready to lie face downward in the dust beneath the feet of that brother
+whose patronage, or charity, he besought.
+
+Mr. Sheldon the younger contemplated the supplicant with looks of
+undisguised gratification. He walked a few paces backward from the spot
+where his brother had fallen, in a half-sitting, half-crouching attitude,
+and where he remained, hugging himself in his rags, too abject to be
+acutely conscious of his degradation. A year ago and he would have held
+himself obstinately aloof from all old associations, and would have
+declared himself ready to face starvation, rather than accept, still less
+supplicate, relief from his younger brother. The events of that one year
+had involved alternations and convulsions that change a year into a
+cycle. He had faced starvation; he had walked with hunger for his
+travelling companion; he had lain down night after night in such lairs
+as the tramp can find for his refuge, with sickness and pain for his
+bed-fellows. The crucible through which he had passed had left in him no
+more of humanity than its outward semblance, and scarcely that; for when
+the moral man sinks to the level of the beasts of prey, the physical man
+undergoes an assimilative process only less marked than that which
+transforms the mental nature.
+
+For six months this man had lived by fawning upon or threatening his
+fellow-men; by violence or craft; by the degradation of the vagrant or
+the audacity of the thief. There is no limit to man's capacity for infamy
+which he had not touched. Vilest amongst the vile, he had been cast forth
+from the haunts of beggars and reprobates, as no fitting company for
+honourable thieves or cadgers of good repute.
+
+George Sheldon seated himself astride upon a chair, and, with his folded
+arms resting on the back of it, contemplated this hideous spectacle. It
+was a picture that he had never thought to see, and the feeling with
+which he surveyed it was not unmingled with pleasure.
+
+"When you rode me rough-shod, my friend, I used to think how I should
+enjoy taking my change out of you," he said; "but I never thought I
+should have such an opportunity as this--never, by Jove! I thought you
+would ride the high horse to the end of the journey; I didn't think your
+steed would land you in the gutter. And so you've tried every move, have
+you?--tumbled upon every platform?--and you've found all your cleverness
+no go upon the other side of the three thousand miles of everlasting wet,
+as my Yankee friends call the Atlantic; and you've come back whining to
+me, and I'm to help you, am I, and to give you a fresh start in life, I
+suppose, and make you my clerk, or my junior partner, eh?--that would be
+better. Messrs. Sheldon and Sheldon wouldn't look bad on my door. That's
+about what you mean when you talk of blood being thicker than water,
+isn't it?"
+
+The abject wretch who had once been Philip Sheldon felt that his brother
+was trifling with him, savouring to the last drop that cup of triumph
+which the chances of fortune had offered to his lips.
+
+"Don't play the fool with me, George," he said piteously. "I don't ask
+you much--a crust of bread, a corner to sleep in, and a cast-off suit of
+clothes: that's not much for one brother to ask of another."
+
+"Perhaps not," replied George Sheldon; "but it's a great deal for you to
+ask of me. You've had your turn, Phil; and you made the most of it, and
+contrived to keep me at arm's length. My turn has come at last, and you
+may depend upon it I shall contrive now to keep _you_ at arm's length."
+
+The vagrant stared at him aghast. Here he had felt secure of food and
+shelter; and he had endured miseries and deprivations that reduce a man
+to a state in which food and shelter seem to constitute the supreme good
+that can be obtained in this life.
+
+"You won't refuse to do something for me, George," he whined piteously.
+
+"I will do nothing for you. Do you hear that, my man? Nothing! You taught
+me that blood is not thicker than water twelve years ago, when you
+married Tom Halliday's widow, and drew your purse-strings, after flinging
+me a beggarly hundred as you'd throw a bone to a dog. You made me
+understand that was all I should ever get out of your brotherly love, or
+your fear of my telling the world what I knew. You gave me a dinner now
+and then, because it suited you to keep your eye upon me; and you had
+generally some piece of dirty work on hand that made the advice of a
+sharp practitioner like me uncommonly useful to you. I don't believe that
+you ever gave me so much as a dinner that you didn't take payment for in
+meal or in malt. Don't come howling here now, trying to persuade me that
+blood is thicker than water, or that brotherhood means anything more than
+the accident of birth. And now I've said all I have to say; and the
+sooner you make yourself scarce, the better for both of us."
+
+"George!" cried the miserable suppliant, clasping his bony hands
+convulsively, and whimpering as he had whimpered when he begged his bread
+in the streets of New York, "you can't mean to turn me out of doors on
+such a night. Look at me. It was as much as I could do to crawl to this
+room. I have walked every step of the way from Liverpool; my wretched
+limbs have been frost-bitten, and ulcered, and bruised, and racked with
+rheumatism, and bent double with cramp. I came over in an emigrant
+vessel, with a herd of miserable creatures who had tried their luck on
+the other side of the Atlantic, and had failed, like me, and were coming
+home to their native workhouses. You don't know what some of your
+emigrant ships are, perhaps. People talk about the Black Hole of
+Calcutta, and the Middle Passage; but let them try the cabin of an
+emigrant vessel, and they'll have a pretty fair idea of what human beings
+have to suffer when Poverty drives the ship. I landed in Liverpool with
+half-a-dollar in my pocket, and I've had neither decent food nor decent
+shelter since I landed. Give me some hole to lie in, George, till you can
+get me an order for the nearest hospital. It's a toss-up whether I ever
+come out of it."
+
+"Do you think I'd sleep under the roof that sheltered you?" cried George.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why not! Because I'm afraid of you. Because I'd as soon have a cobra
+for my companion, or a wolf for my bedfellow. I know you. I've seen what
+you can do, and how you can do it. And if you could do those things when
+the only pressure upon you was one that you could have cast off by going
+through the _Gazette_, what would you _not_ do now when you are as
+desperate as a famished wolf, and governed by no better law than that
+which governs a wolf--the law of self-preservation? Am I to trust a
+tiger because he tells me he is hungry? No, Phil Sheldon; neither will I
+trust you."
+
+"You will give me some money--enough to keep me alive for a week or two."
+
+"Not one sixpence. I'll establish no precedent; I'll acknowledge no tie
+between us. You'd better march. I don't want to send for a policeman; but
+if you won't go quietly, you must do the other thing."
+
+"You mean that?"
+
+"Most emphatically yes."
+
+"I didn't think it was in you to be so hard upon me," faltered; the
+wretch in that faint hoarse voice which had grown fainter and hoarser
+during this interview.
+
+"Did you think that I would trust you?" cried George. "Trust _you_! You
+call me hard because I won't give you a corner to lie in. And if I did,
+you would creep out of your corner to poison me, or cut my throat. You
+would crawl into my room in the dead of the night and put a pillow over
+my face, and kneel upon it till you'd done the trick for me; and then
+you'd walk off with as much as you could carry, and begin the same kind
+of work over again with some one else. I tell you, Mr. Phil Sheldon, I
+will hold no intercourse with you. You've escaped hanging, but there's
+something that's worse than hanging, to my mind, and that is the state of
+a man whom nobody will trust. You've come to that; and if you had a spark
+of gentlemanly feeling, you'd have bought two-pennyworth of rope and hung
+yourself rather than come cringing to me."
+
+"Suppose I don't cringe," said the outcast, dropping the fawning tone of
+the mendicant for the threatening ferocity of the social wolf; "you'd
+better give me a trifle to keep body and soul together for the next few
+weeks. I'm a desperate man, George! You and I are alone up here. You are
+pretty sure to have ready money about you. And there's your watch; that's
+worth something. I didn't come here to go away empty-handed. AND I
+WON'T!"
+
+He sprang to his feet, and in the next moment the lawyer heard the sharp
+clicking noise made by the opening of a clasp-knife.
+
+"O," cried he, "that's what you want, is it!"
+
+He bent over his desk, with his eyes fixed on those other evil eyes that
+still retained some likeness to his own, and with his left arm raised in
+a boxer's defensive attitude, to guard his head, while his right hand
+groped for something in a drawer. It was a moment's work. Philip had
+seized that uplifted left arm, and was hanging on to it like a cat, with
+his knife between his teeth, when George clapped the muzzle of a revolver
+to his brow.
+
+"There are plenty of wild beasts in London besides you," he said, "and I
+am not such a fool as to be without the means of settling a chance
+visitor of your sort. Drop your knife, and march."
+
+The outcast dropped his knife submissively. He was too weak for anything
+more than a spasmodic violence.
+
+"Take your pistol away from my head," he whined.
+
+"Certainly, when you are outside my door."
+
+"You might give me a handful of silver, George. I haven't a week's life
+left in me."
+
+"All the better for society if you hadn't an hour's life in you. Be off.
+I'm tired of holding this revolver to your head, and I don't mean to let
+it go till you're off my premises."
+
+Philip saw that there was no hope. Food and shelter were all he had
+hoped for; but even these blessings were not for him. He backed out of
+the office, closely followed by George, holding the muzzle of the
+revolver within an inch or so of the fraternal brains. Upon the
+threshold only did he pause.
+
+"Tell me one thing," he said. "You won't give me sixpence to buy a loaf
+of bread or a glass of gin. Give me one scrap of comfort. It need cost
+you nothing. Tell me something bad of Valentine Hawkehurst: that he's
+gone to the dogs, or drowned himself; that his wife has run away from
+him, or his house been burned to the ground. Tell me that he's had a
+taste of my luck; and that Ann Woolper has died in a workhouse. It will
+be as good as meat and drink to me, and it will cost you nothing."
+
+"If I told you anything of the kind, I should tell you a lie; Valentine
+Hawkehurst is doing uncommonly well, and has got one of the prettiest
+little boxes between Wimbledon and Kingston. Ann Woolper lives with them,
+and is in better feather than she ever was in your time."
+
+With this, Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn pushed his brother out on to the
+staircase, and shut his door. Philip sat upon the stairs, and drew his
+rags together a little, and rubbed his wretched limbs, while the bolts
+and chains whereby the lawyer defended his citadel clanked close behind
+him.
+
+"I wonder whether he'll pay Hawkehurst a visit," thought George, as he
+bolted his door; and he had a kind of grim satisfaction in the idea that
+Valentine's Christmas peace might be disturbed by the advent of that
+grisly visitor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+"ACCORDING TO THEIR DEEDS."
+
+"Between Wimbledon and Kingston," muttered the tramp. "If I can drag
+myself as far as that, I'll go there this night."
+
+He went down stairs and out into the pitiless cold and snow, and made his
+way down Fetter Lane, and across Blackfriars Bridge to the Surrey side of
+the water, stopping to beg here and there.
+
+Upon this snowy Christmas night there were plenty of people abroad;
+and amongst them Philip Sheldon found pitying matrons, who explored
+the depths of their capacious pockets to find him a halfpenny, and
+good-natured young men, who flung the "copper" he besought with piteous
+professional whine.
+
+When he had collected the price of a glass of gin, he went into the first
+public-house he came to, and spent his money. He was too ill to stay the
+cravings of his stomach with substantial food. Gin gave him temporary
+warmth and temporary strength, and enabled him to push on vigorously for
+a little while; and then came dreary periods of faintness and exhaustion,
+in which every step was sheer pain and weariness.
+
+Something of his old self, some remnant of that hard strength of purpose
+which had once characterized him, remained with him still, utterly fallen
+and brutalized as he was. As a savage creature of the jungle might pursue
+a given course, pushing always onward to that camp or village whence the
+scent of human flesh and blood was wafted to his quivering nostrils, so
+Philip Sheldon pushed on towards the dwelling-place of that man and that
+woman whom of all creatures upon this earth he most savagely hated.
+
+"There's nothing left for me but to turn housebreaker," he said to
+himself; "and the first house I'll try my hand upon shall be Valentine
+Hawkehurst's."
+
+The idea of violence in such a creature was the idea of a madman. Weapon
+he had none, nor the physical strength that would have enabled him to
+grapple with a boy of twelve years old. Half intoxicated with the spirits
+he had consumed on his long tramp, half delirious with fever, he had a
+vague notion that he could make an entrance into some ill-defended house
+under cover of night, and steal something that should procure him food
+and shelter. And let the house be Valentine Hawkehurst's, the man who had
+baffled his plans and crushed him!
+
+If blood must be shed, let the blood be his! Never was man better primed
+for murder than the man who tramped across Wimbledon Common at eleven
+o'clock this night, with the snow drifting against his face, and his
+limbs shaken every now and then by an ague-fit.
+
+Happily for the interests of society, his hand lacked the power to
+execute that iniquity which his heart willed.
+
+He reached a little wayside inn near the Robin Hood gate of Richmond
+Park, just as the shutters were being closed, and asked a man if any one
+of the name of Hawkehurst lived in that neighbourhood.
+
+"What do _you_ want with Mr. Hawkehurst?" asked the man, contemptuously.
+
+"I've got a letter for him."
+
+"Have you? A begging letter, I should think, from the look of you."
+
+"No; it's a business letter. You'd better show me where he lives, if he's
+a customer of yours. The business is particular."
+
+"Is it? You're a queer kind of messenger to trust with particular
+business. Mr. Hawkehurst's house is the third you come to on the opposite
+side of the way. But I don't suppose you'll find anybody up as late as
+this. Their lights are out by eleven, in a general way."
+
+The third house on the opposite side of the road was half a mile distant
+from the little run. Lights shone bright in the lower windows as the
+tramp dragged his tired limbs to the stout oaken gate. The gate was
+fastened only by a latch, and offered no resistance to the intruder. He
+crept with stealthy footsteps along the smooth gravel walk, sheltered by
+dark laurels, on which the light flashed cheerily from those bright
+windows. Sounds of laughter and of music pealed out upon the wintry air.
+Shadows flitted across the blinds of the broad bay windows. Philip
+Sheldon crept into a sheltered nook beside the rustic porch, and sank
+down exhausted in the shadow of the laurels.
+
+He sat there in a kind of stupor. He had lost the power of thought,
+somehow, on that dreary journey. It seemed almost as if he had left some
+portion of his being out yonder in the cold and darkness. He had
+difficulty in remembering why he had come to this place, and what that
+deed was which he meant to do.
+
+"Hawkehurst," he muttered to himself--"Hawkehurst, the man who leagued
+against me with Jedd! I swore to be even with him if ever I found the
+opportunity--if ever! And George refused me a few shillings; my brother,
+my only brother, refused to stand my friend!"
+
+Hawkehurst and George--big only brother--the images of these two men
+floated confusedly in his brain: he could scarcely separate them.
+Sometimes it seemed to him that he was still sitting outside his
+brother's door, on the staircase in Gray's Inn, hugging himself in his
+rags, and cursing his unnatural kinsman's cruelty; then in the next
+moment he remembered where he was, and breathed bitter curses upon that
+unconscious enemy whose laugh pealed out every now and then amid a chorus
+of light-hearted laughter.
+
+There was a little Christmas party at Charlottenburgh. Two flys were
+waiting in the laurel-avenue to convey Mr. Hawkehurst's guests to distant
+abodes. The door was opened presently, and all the bustle of departure
+made itself heard by that wretched wayfarer who found it so difficult to
+keep his hold upon the consciousness of these things.
+
+"What is it?" he said to himself--"a party! Hawkehurst has been giving a
+party."
+
+He had lived through too much degradation, he had descended into too deep
+a gulf of wretchedness, to be conscious of the contrast between his
+present situation and his position in those days when he had played the
+host, and seen handsome carriages bear prosperous guests away from his
+door. In that cycle of misery which he had endured, these things and the
+memory of them had faded from him as completely as if they had been
+obliterated by the passage of a century. The hapless wretch tried to give
+sustained attention to all the animated discussion that attended the
+departure of the merry guests. Half-a-dozen people seemed to be talking
+at once. Valentine was giving his friends counsel about the way home.
+
+"You will keep to the lower road, you know, Fred. Lawsley's cab can
+follow yours. You came a couple of miles out of your way. And tell that
+fellow Battersea Bridge is a mistake."
+
+And then followed Charlotte's friendly questioning about wraps, and
+hoods, and comforters, and other feminine gear.
+
+"And when are you coming to dine at Fulham?" cried one voice.
+
+"I shall certainly get those quadrilles of Offenbach's," said another.
+
+"How delightfully Mr. Lawsley sang that song of Santley's!"
+
+And anon a chorus of "Never enjoyed myself more!" "Most delightful
+evening!" "Pray don't come out in the cold." "Thanks; well, yes, yours
+are always capital." "No, I won't light up till I'm on the road." "Give
+my book a lift in the _D.H._, eh, old fellow?" "Are you _quite_ sure that
+shawl is warm enough?" "Take a rug for your feet." "Thanks, no."
+"Good-night." "See you on Tuesday." "Don't forget the box for D.L." "All
+right, old fellow!" "Lower Road, Roehampton Lane, Putney Bridge.
+Good-night."
+
+Among the confusion of voices Philip Sheldon had recognized more than one
+voice that was familiar to him. There were Charlotte's gentle tones, and
+Valentine's hearty barytone, and another that he knew.
+
+Diana Paget! Yes, it was her voice. Diana Paget, whom he had cause to
+hate for her interference with his affairs.
+
+"A beggar," he muttered to himself, "and the daughter of a beggar! She
+was a nice young lady to set herself in opposition to the man who gave
+her a home."
+
+The vehicles drove away, but there was still a little group in the rustic
+porch. Valentine and Charlotte, with Monsieur and Madame Lenoble, who had
+come to spend their Christmas with their English friends.
+
+"How we have been gay this evening!" cried Gustave. "There is nothing
+like your English interior for that which you call the comfortable, the
+jolly, you others. Thy friends are the jollity itself, Hawkehurst. And
+our acting charades, when that we all talked at once, and with a such
+emphasis on the word we would make to know. Was it not that our
+spectators were cunning to divine the words? And your friend Lawsley--it
+is a mixture of Got and Sanson. It is a true genius. Think, then, Diane,
+while we were amusing ourselves, our girls were at the midnight mass at
+the Sacre Coeur? Dear pious children, their innocent prayers ascended
+towards the heavens for we who are absent. Come, Madame Hawkehurst,
+Diane, it makes cold."
+
+"But we are sheltered here. And the stars are so bright after the snow,"
+said Charlotte. "Do you remember the Christmas-day you spent at the Lawn,
+Valentine, when we walked in Kensington Gardens together, just when we
+were first engaged?" the young wife added shyly.
+
+"Do I not remember? It was the first time the holiness of Christmas came
+home to my heart. And now let us go back to the drawing-room, and sit
+round the fire, and tell ghost stories. Lenoble shall give us the legends
+of Cotenoir."
+
+"Valentine," murmured Charlotte, "do you know that it is nearly one
+o'clock?"
+
+"And we must put in an appearance at church to-morrow morning. And
+Lenoble has to walk to Kingston to early mass. We will postpone our ghost
+stories to New-Year's eve. And Lenoble shall read Tennyson's _New Year_,
+to demonstrate his improvement in the English language. Lead the way,
+Mrs. Hawkehurst; your obedient slave obeys. Mamma is waiting for us in
+the drawing-room, marvelling at our delay, no doubt. And Nancy Woolper
+stalks ghost-like through the house, oppressed by the awful
+responsibility of to-morrow's pudding."
+
+Anon came a clanking of bolts and bars; and Philip Sheldon, for the
+second time that night, heard a door shut against him. As the voices died
+away, his consciousness of external things died with him. He fancied
+himself on the Gray's-Inn staircase.
+
+"Don't be so hard upon me, George," he muttered faintly. "If my own kith
+and kin turn against me, whom shall I look to?"
+
+Mrs. Woolper opened the door early next day, when night was yet at odds
+with morning. All through the night the silent snow-flakes had been
+falling thick and fast; and they had woven the shroud of Philip Sheldon.
+The woman who had watched his infant slumbers forty years before, was the
+first to look upon him in that deeper sleep, of whose waking we know so
+little. It was not until she had looked long and closely at the dead face
+that she knew why it was that the aspect of that countenance had affected
+her with so strange a pang. She did recognize that altered wretch, and
+kept her counsel.
+
+Before the bells rang for morning service the tramp was lying in the
+dead-house of Kingston Union, whither he had been conveyed very quietly
+in the early morning, unknown to any one but the constable who
+superintended the removal, and the servants of Mr. Hawkehurst's
+household. Only the next day did Ann Woolper tell Valentine what had
+happened. There was to be an inquest. It would be well that some one
+should identify the dead man, and establish the fact of Philip Sheldon's
+decease.
+
+Valentine was able to do this unaided. He attended the inquest, and made
+arrangements for the outcast's decent burial; and in due course he gave
+Mrs. Sheldon notice of her freedom. Beyond that nameless grave whose
+fancy shall dare follow Philip Sheldon? He died and made no sign. And in
+the last dread day, when the dead, small and great, from the sea and from
+the grave, press together at the foot of the great white Throne, and the
+books of doom are opened; when above shines the city whose light is the
+glory of God, and below yawns the lake of fire,--what voice shall plead
+for Philip Sheldon, what entreating cry shall Pity send forth that
+sentence against him may be stayed?
+
+Surely none; unless it issue from the lips of that one confiding friend,
+whose last words upon earth thanked and blessed him, and whose long
+agonies he watched with unshaken purpose, conscious that in every
+convulsive change in the familiar face, and every pang that shook the
+stalwart form, he saw the result of his own work.
+
+Perhaps at that dread Judgment Day, when every other tongue is silent,
+the voice of Tom Halliday may be heard pleading for the man who murdered
+him.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Charlotte's Inheritance, by M. E. Braddon
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE ***
+
+This file should be named 7inhr10.txt or 7inhr10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7inhr11.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Charlotte's Inheritance, by M. E. Braddon
+#4 in our series by M. E. Braddon
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Charlotte's Inheritance
+
+Author: M. E. Braddon
+
+Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9259]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 15, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Mary Meehan and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+                        CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE
+
+                                   By
+
+                             M. E. Braddon
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+Book the First.
+
+DE PROFUNDIS.
+
+   I.  LENOBLE OF BEAUBOCAGE
+
+  II.  IN THIS WIDE WORLD I STAND ALONE
+
+ III.  PAST HOPE, AND IN DESPAIR
+
+  IV.  A DECREE OF BANISHMENT
+
+
+Book the Second.
+
+DOWNHILL.
+
+   I.  THE FATE OF SUSAN LENOBLE
+
+  II.  FORGIVEN TOO LATE
+
+ III.  GUSTAVE THE SECOND
+
+
+Book the Third.
+
+THE HORATIAD.
+
+   I.  CHIEFLY RETROSPECTIVE
+
+  II.  EPISTOLARY
+
+ III.  TOO CLEVER FOR A CATSPAW
+
+  IV.  CAPTAIN PAGET IS PATERNAL
+
+   V.  THE CAPTAIN'S COADJUTOR
+
+
+Book the Fourth.
+
+GUSTAVE IN ENGLAND.
+
+   I.  HALCYON DAYS
+
+  II.  CAPTAIN PAGET AWAKENS TO A SENSE OF HIS DUTY
+
+ III.  WHAT DO WE HERE, MY HEART AND I?
+
+  IV.  SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH
+
+
+Book the Fifth.
+
+THE FIRST ACT OF MR. SHELDON'S DRAMA.
+
+   I.  TAKEN BY STORM
+
+  II.  FIRM AS A ROCK
+
+ III.  AGAINST WIND AND TIDE
+
+  IV.  DIANA ASKS FOR A HOLIDAY
+
+   V.  ASSURANCE DOUBLY SURE
+
+
+Book the Sixth.
+
+DIANA IN NORMANDY.
+
+   I.  AT CÔTENOIR
+
+
+Book the Seventh.
+
+A CLOUD OF FEAR.
+
+   I.  THE BEGINNING OF SORROW
+
+  II.  FADING
+
+ III.  MRS. WOOLPER IS ANXIOUS
+
+  IV.  VALENTINE'S SKELETON
+
+   V.  AT HAROLD'S HILL
+
+  VI.  DESPERATE MEASURES
+
+
+Book the Eighth.
+
+A FIGHT AGAINST TIME.
+
+   I.  A DREAD REVELATION
+
+  II.  PHOENICIANS ARE RISING
+
+ III.  THE SORTES VIRGILIANAE
+
+
+Book the Ninth.
+
+THROUGH THE FURNACE.
+
+   I.  SOMETHING TOO MUCH
+
+  II.  DR. JEDD'S OPINION
+
+ III.  NON DORMIT JUDAS
+
+  IV.  COUNTING THE COST
+
+   V.  THE BEGINNING OF THE END
+
+  VI.  CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED
+
+ VII.  THERE IS A WORD WILL PRIAM TURN TO STONE
+
+
+Book the Tenth.
+
+HARBOUR, AFTER MANY SHIPWRECKS.
+
+   I.  OUT OF THE DARK VALLEY
+
+  II.  AFTER THE WEDDING
+
+ III.  GREEK AGAINST GREEK
+
+  IV.  ONLY A DREAM
+
+   V.  BOHEMIAN INDEPENDENCE
+
+  VI.  BEYOND THE VEIL
+
+ VII.  BETTER THAN GOLD
+
+VIII. LOST SIGHT OF
+
+  IX.  ETEOCLES AND POLYNICES
+
+   X.  "ACCORDING TO THEIR DEEDS."
+
+
+
+
+CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE
+
+
+
+Book the first.
+
+
+
+DE PROFUNDIS.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+LENOBLE OF BEAUBOCAGE.
+
+In the days when the Bourbon reigned over Gaul, before the "simple,
+sensuous, passionate" verse of Alfred de Musset had succeeded the
+_débonnaire_ Muse of Béranger in the affections of young France,--in days
+when the site of the Trocadero was a remote and undiscovered country, and
+the word "exposition" unknown in the Academic dictionary, and the Gallic
+Augustus destined to rebuild the city yet an exile,--a young law-student
+boarded, in common with other students, in a big dreary-looking house at
+the corner of the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle, abutting on the Place Lauzun,
+and within some ten minutes walk of the Luxembourg. It was a very dingy
+quarter, though noble gentlemen and lovely ladies had once occupied the
+great ghastly mansions, and disported themselves in the gruesome gardens.
+But the young students were in nowise oppressed by the ghastliness of
+their abode. They sang their Béranger, and they pledged each other in
+cheap Bordeaux, and clinked their glasses noisily in their boisterous
+good-fellowship, and ate the messes compounded for them in a darksome
+cupboard, known as the kitchen, by old Nanon the cook, purblind,
+stone-deaf, and all but imbecile, and popularly supposed to be the
+venerable mother of Madame Magnotte. The youngsters grumbled to each
+other about the messes when they were unusually mysterious; and it must
+be owned that there were _vol-au-vents_ and _fricandeaux_ consumed in
+that establishment which were awful and wonderful in their nature; but
+they ventured on no complaint to the mistress of the mansion. She was a
+grim and terrible personage. Her terms were low, and she treated her
+boarders _de haute en bas_. If they were not content with her viands,
+they might go and find more agreeable viands elsewhere.
+
+Madame Magnotte was altogether mysterious and inscrutable. Some people
+said that she was a countess, and that the wealth and lands of her family
+had been confiscated by the committee of public unsafety in '93. Others
+declared that she had been a popular actress in a small theatre in the
+days of Napoleon. She was tall and thin--nay, of an exceptional
+leanness--and her complexion was of a more agreeable yellow than the
+butter that appeared on her hospitable board; but she had flashing black
+eyes, and a certain stateliness of gait and grandeur of manner that
+impressed those young Bohemians, her boarders, with a kind of awe. They
+talked of her as the "countess," and by that name she was known to all
+inmates of the mansion; but in all their dealings with her they treated
+her with unfailing respect.
+
+One of the quietest among the young men who enjoyed the privileges of
+Madame Magnotte's abode was a certain Gustave Lenoble, a law-student, the
+only son of a very excellent couple who lived on their own estate, near
+an obscure village in Normandy. The estate was of the smallest; a
+dilapidated old house, known in the immediate neighbourhood as "the
+Château," and very dear to those who resided therein; a garden, in which
+everything seemed to have run to seed; and about forty acres of the
+poorest land in Normandy. These possessions constituted the patrimonial
+estate of Francois Lenoble, _propriétaire_, of Beaubocage, near
+Vevinordin, the department of Eure.
+
+The people amongst whom the good man lived his simple life called him M.
+Lenoble de Beaubocage, but he did not insist upon this distinction; and
+on sending out his only son to begin the battle of life in the great
+world of Paris, he recommended the young man to call himself Lenoble,
+_tout court_.
+
+The young man had never cherished any other design. He was of all
+creatures the least presuming or pretentious. The father was Legitimist
+to the very marrow; the son half Buonapartist, half republican. The
+father and son had quarrelled about these differences of opinion
+sometimes in a pleasantly disputatious manner; but no political
+disagreement could lesser the love between these two. Gustave loved
+his parents as only a Frenchman can venture to love his father and
+mother--with a devotion for the gentleman that bordered on enthusiasm,
+with a fond reverence for the lady that was the very essence of chivalry.
+There was a sister, who regarded her brother Gustave as the embodiment of
+all that is perfect in youthful mankind; and there were a couple of old
+house-servants, a very stupid clumsy lad in the stables, and half a dozen
+old mongrel dogs, born and bred on the premises, who seemed to share the
+young lady's opinions. There was not a little discussion upon the subject
+of Gustave Lenoble's future career; and it was not without difficulty
+that the father could be persuaded to approve the choice of a profession
+which the young man had made. The seigneur of Beaubocage cherished an
+exaggerated pride of race little suspected by those who saw his simple
+life, and were pleased by his kindly unaffected manners. The house of
+Lenoble, at some remote and almost mythical period of history, had
+distinguished itself in divers ways; and those bygone grandeurs, vague
+and shadowy in the minds of all others, seemed very real to Monsieur
+Lenoble. He assured his son that no Lenoble had ever been a lawyer. They
+had been always lords of the soil, living on their own lands, which had
+once stretched wide and far in that Norman province; a fact proved by
+certain maps in M. Lenoble's possession, the paper whereof was worn and
+yellow with age. They had stooped to no profession save that of arms. One
+seigneur of Beaubocage had fought under Bayard himself; another had
+fallen at Pavia, on that great day when all was lost _hormis l'honneur_;
+another had followed the white plume of the Bernais; another--but was
+there any need to tell of the glories of that house upon which Gustave
+was so eager to inflict the disgrace of a learned profession?
+
+Thus argued the father; but the mother had spent her girlhood amidst the
+clamour of the Buonapartist campaigns, and the thought of war was very
+terrible to her. The memory of the retreat from Russia was not yet twenty
+years old. There were men alive to tell the story, to depict those days
+and nights of horror, that mighty march of death. It was she and her
+daughter Cydalise who had helped to persuade Gustave that he was born to
+distinguish himself in the law. They wanted him to study in Paris--the
+young man himself had a wild desire to enjoy the delights of that
+wondrous capital--and to return in a few years to set up for himself as
+_avocat_ at the town of Vevinord, some half-dozen leagues from the
+patrimonial estate. He was created to plead for the innocent, to denounce
+the guilty, to be grand and brave and fiery-hot with enthusiasm in
+defence of virtuous peasants charged unjustly with the stealing of sheep,
+or firing of corn-ricks. It never struck these simple souls that he might
+sometimes be called upon to defend the guilty, or to denounce the
+innocent.
+
+It was all settled at last. Gustave was to go to Paris, and enter himself
+as a student of law. There were plenty of boarding-houses in the
+neighbourhood of the Ecole de Droit where a young man might find a home;
+and to one of these Gustave was recommended by a friend of his family. It
+was the Pension Magnotte to which they had sent him, the big dreary
+house, _entre cour et jardin_, which had once been so grand and noble. A
+printer now occupied the lower chambers, and a hand painted on the wall
+pointed to the _Pension Magnotte, au premier. Tirez le cordon, s.v.p._
+
+Gustave was twenty-one years of age when he came to Paris; tall,
+stalwart, broad of shoulders and deep of chest, with a fair frank face,
+an auburn moustache, candid, kind blue eyes--a physiognomy rather Saxon
+than Celtic. He was a man who made friends quickly, and was soon at home
+among the students, roaring their favourite songs, and dancing their
+favourite dances at the dancing-places of that day, joining with a
+pleasant heartiness in all their innocent dissipations. For guilty
+dissipation the young provincial had no taste. Did he not carry the
+images of two kind and pure women about with him wherever he went, like
+two attendant angels ever protecting his steps; and could he leave them
+sorrowing on thresholds _they_ could not pass? Ah, no! He was loud and
+boisterous and wild of spirits in those early days, but incapable of
+meanness or vice.
+
+"It is a brave heart," Madame Magnotte said of him, "though for the
+breaking of glasses a scourge--_un fléau_."
+
+The ladies of the Pension Magnotte were for the most part of mature age
+and unattractive appearance--two or three lonely spinsters, eking out
+their pitiful little incomes as best they might, by the surreptitious
+sale of delicate embroideries, confectioned in their dismal leisure; and
+a fat elderly widow, popularly supposed to be enormously rich, but of
+miserly propensities. "It is the widow of Harpagon himself," Madame
+Magnotte told her gossips--an old woman with two furiously ugly
+daughters, who for the last fifteen years had lived a nomadic life in
+divers boarding-houses, fondly clinging to the hope that, amongst so many
+strange bachelors, husbands for these two solitary ones must at last be
+found.
+
+These, with a pale young lady who gave music lessons in the quarter, were
+all the feminine inmates of the mansion; and amongst these Gustave
+Lenoble was chief favourite. His tender courtesy for these lonely women
+seemed in some manner an evidence of that good old blood whereof the
+young man's father boasted. Francis the First, who listened with bent
+knee and bare head to his mother's discourse, was not more reverential to
+that noble Savoyarde than was Gustave to the shabby-genteel maiden ladies
+of the Pension Magnotte. In truth, this young man had a heart pitiful and
+tender as the heart of woman. To be unfortunate was to possess a sure
+claim upon his pity and regard; to be poor and friendless was the best
+appeal to his kindness. He spent his evenings sometimes in the great
+dreary desert of a salon, and listened respectfully while Mademoiselle
+Servin, the young music-teacher, played dismal sonatas of Gluck or Grétry
+on a cracked old piano that had been one of the earliest made of those
+instruments, and was now attenuated and feeble as the very ghost of
+music. He listened to Madame Magnotte's stories of departed splendour. To
+him she opened her heart as she never had opened it to those other young
+men.
+
+"They mock themselves of everything--even the religion!" she exclaimed,
+with horror. "They are Diderots and Holbachs in the bud, less the talent.
+But you do not come of that gutter in which they were born. You are of
+the old blood of France, M. Lenoble, and I can trust myself to you as I
+cannot to them. I, who speak to you--I, too, come of a good old race, and
+there is sympathy between we others."
+
+And then, after babbling to him of her lost station, the lady would
+entertain him with some dainty little supper with which she was wont to
+indulge herself and her lady boarders, when the students--who were
+treated something after the manner of school-boys--were out of doors.
+
+For four years the law-student had enjoyed his Parisian life--not
+altogether idle, but not altogether industrious--amusing himself a great
+deal, and learning very little; moderate in his expenditure, when
+compared with his fellow-students, but no small drain upon the funds of
+the little family at home. In sooth, this good old Norman family had in a
+pecuniary sense sunk very low. There was real poverty in the tumble-down
+house at Beaubocage, though it was poverty that wore a cheerful face, and
+took things pleasantly. A very humble English farmer would have despised
+the income which supported M. Lenoble's household; and it was only the
+economy and skill of the matron and her daughter which sustained the
+dignity of the small establishment.
+
+There was one great hope cherished alike by the proud simple-minded old
+father, the fond mother, the devoted sister, and that was the hope in the
+grand things to be done, in the dim future, by Gustave, the son, the
+heir, the pole-star of the household.
+
+Out of poverty, out of obscurity, into the broad light of honour and
+riches, was the house of Lenoble to be lifted by this young law-student.
+On the broad shoulders of this modern Atlas the Lenoble world was to be
+sustained. To him they looked, of him they thought, in the long dreary
+winter evenings during which the mother nodded over her knitting, the
+father slept in his capacious easy-chair, the sister toiled at her
+needle-work by her little table of _palissandre_.
+
+He had paid them more than one visit during his two years of study,
+bringing with him life and light and gladness, as it seemed to the two
+women who adored him; and now, in the winter of 1828, they expected
+another visit. He was to be with them on the first day of the new year.
+He was to stay with them till his Mother's fete--the 17th of January.
+
+The father looked to this special visit with an unusual anxiety. The
+mother too was more than ever anxious. The sister, if she who loved her
+brother with a somewhat morbid intensity could be more anxious than
+usual, was more so now. A dreadful plot, a dire conspiracy, of which
+Gustave was to be the subject and victim, had been concocted beneath that
+innocent-seeming roof. Father, mother, and sister, seated round the
+family hearth, fatal as some domestic Parcae, had hatched their horrid
+scheme, while the helpless lad amused himself yonder in the great city,
+happily unconscious of the web that was being woven to enmesh him.
+
+The cord which monsieur unwound, the mesh which madame held, the
+needle which dexterous mademoiselle wielded, were employed in the
+fabrication of a matrimonial net. These unsophisticated conspirators
+were bent upon bringing about the marriage of their victim, a marriage
+which should at once elevate and enrich the Lenobles of Beaubocage, in
+the person of Gustave.
+
+Francois Lenoble's best friend and nearest neighbour was a certain Baron
+Frehlter, of Germanic origin, but for some generations past naturalised
+to the Gallic soil. The Baron was proprietor of an estate which could
+show ten acres for one of the lands of Beaubocage. The Baron boasted a
+family tree which derived its root from a ramification of the
+Hohenzollern pedigree; but, less proud and more prudent than the
+Lenobles, the Frehlters had not scorned to intermingle their Prussian
+blue blood with less pure streams of commercial France. The _épicier_
+element had prevailed in the fair brides of the house of Frehlter for the
+last three or four generations, and the house of Frehlter had
+considerably enriched itself by this sacrifice of its family pride.
+
+The present Baron had married a lady ten years his senior, the widow of a
+Rouen merchant, alike wealthy and pious, but famous rather for these
+attributes than for any personal charm. One only child, a girl, had
+blessed this union. She was now a young person of something under twenty
+years of age, newly emerged from her convent, and pining for some share
+in the gaieties and delights of a worldly paradise, which had already
+been open to many of her schoolfellows.
+
+Mademoiselle Frehlter's companions had, for the most part, left school to
+be married. She had heard of the _corbeille_, the wedding dress, the
+wedding festivities, and occasionally a word or two about that secondary
+consideration the bridegroom. The young lady was therefore somewhat
+inclined to take it ill of her father that he had not secured for her the
+_éclat_ of an early marriage. Her departure from the convent of the Sacré
+Coeur, at Vevinord, was flat and tame to an extreme degree. The future
+lay before her, a dreary desert of home life, to be spent with a father
+who gorged himself daily at a greasy and savoury banquet, and who slept
+away the greater part of his existence; and with a mother who divided her
+affections between a disagreeable poodle and a still more disagreeable
+priest--a priest who took upon himself to lecture the demoiselle Frehlter
+on the smallest provocation.
+
+The château of the Frehlters was a very grand abode as compared to the
+tumble-down house of Beaubocage; but it was cold and stony to a
+depressing degree, and the furniture must have been shabby in the days of
+the Fronde. Faithful old servants kept the mansion in a state of spotless
+purity, and ruled the Baron and his wife with a rod of iron. Mademoiselle
+execrated these devoted retainers, and would have welcomed the sauciest
+of modern domestics who would have released her from the bondage of these
+servants of the old school.
+
+Mademoiselle had been at home a year--a year of discontent and
+ill-humour. She had quarrelled with her father, because he would not take
+her to Paris; with her mother, because she would not give her more new
+gowns and bonnets and feathers and fur-belows; with the priest, the
+poodle, with the autocracy below-stairs, with everybody and everything.
+So at last the Baron decided that mademoiselle should marry, whereby he
+might be rid of her, and of her complaints, vagaries, ill-tempers, and
+general dissatisfaction.
+
+Having once made up his mind as to the wisdom of a matrimonial
+arrangement, Baron Frehlter was not slow to fix upon a bridegroom. He was
+a very rich man, and Madelon was his only child, and he was furthermore a
+very lazy man; so, instead of looking far afield for a wealthy or
+distinguished suitor for his daughter, he was inclined to take the first
+that came to hand. It is possible that the Baron, who was of a somewhat
+cynical turn of mind, may have cherished no very exalted idea of his
+daughter's attractions, either personal or mental. However this might be,
+it is certain that when the demoiselle had ill-treated the poodle, and
+insulted the priest, and quarrelled with the cook--that high-priestess of
+the kitchen who alone, in all Normandy, could concoct those messes which
+the Baron loved--the master of Côtenoir decided on marrying his heiress
+out of hand.
+
+He communicated this design to his old crony, François Lenoble, one day
+when the Beaubocage family dined at Château Côtenoir.
+
+"I think of marrying my daughter," he said to his friend, when the ladies
+were safely out of hearing at the other end of the long dreary saloon.
+"Now thy son Gustave is a fine fellow--brave, handsome, and of a good
+race. It is true he is not as rich as Madelon will be by-and-by; but I am
+no huckster, to sell my daughter to the best bidder" ("and I doubt if
+there would be many bidders for her, if I were so inclined," thought the
+Baron, in parenthesis); "and if thy son should take a fancy to her, and
+she to him, it would please me well enough, friend François."
+
+Friend François pricked up his ears, and in his old eyes flickered a
+feeble light. Côtenoir and Beaubocage united in the person of his son
+Gustave! Lenoble of Beaubocage and Côtenoir--Lenoble of Côtenoir and
+Beaubocage! So splendid a vision had never shone before his eyes in all
+the dreams that he had dreamed about the only son of whom he was so
+proud. He could not have shaped to himself so bold a project as the union
+of those two estates. And here was the Baron offering it to him, with his
+snuff-box, _en passant_.
+
+"It would be a great marriage," he said, "a very great marriage. For
+Gustave I can answer without hesitation. He could not but be charmed by
+such a union--so amiable a bride would enchant him."
+
+He looked down the room to the spot where Madelon and Cydalise were
+standing, side by side, admiring Madame Frehlter's poodle. Madelon could
+afford to be civil to the poodle before company. The contrast between the
+two girls was sufficiently striking. Cydalise was fair and
+bright-looking--Mademoiselle Frehlter was square and ungainly of figure,
+swarthy of complexion, dark of brow.
+
+"He could not but be charmed," repeated the old man, with feeble
+gallantry.
+
+He was thinking of the joining together of Beaubocage and Côtenoir; and
+it seemed a very small thing to him that such a union of estates would
+involve the joining of a man and woman, who were to hold to each other
+and love each other until death should part them.
+
+"It shall be no marriage of convenience," said the Baron, in a generous
+spirit; "my daughter is somewhat ill-tem--that is to say, my daughter
+finds her life somewhat dull with her old father and mother, and I think
+she might be happier in the society of a husband. I like your son; and
+my wife, too, likes him better than any other young man of our
+acquaintance. Madelon has seen a good deal of him when she has been home
+from the convent in her holidays, and I have reason to think she does
+not dislike him. If he likes her and she likes him, and the idea is
+pleasing to you and madame, we will make a match of it. If not, let it
+pass; we will say no more."
+
+Again the seigneur of Beaubocage assured his friend that Gustave would be
+enchanted with the proposal; and again it was of Côtenoir that he
+thought, and not of the heart or the inclinations of his son.
+
+This conversation took place late in autumn, and at the new year Gustave
+was to come. Nothing was to be said to him about his intended wife until
+he arrived; that was a point upon which the Baron insisted.
+
+"The young man may have fallen in love with some fine young person in
+Paris," he said; "and in that case we will say nothing to him of Madelon.
+But if we find him with the heart free, and inclined to take to my
+daughter, we may give him encouragement."
+
+This was solemnly agreed between the two fathers. Nor was Mademoiselle
+Frehlter to be told of the matrimonial scheme until it ripened. But after
+this dinner at Côtenoir the household at Beaubocage talked of little else
+than of the union of the two families. What grandeur, what wealth, what
+happiness! Gustave the lord of Côtenoir! Poor Cydalise had never seen a
+finer mansion than the old château, with its sugar-loaf towers and stone
+terraces, and winding stairs, and tiny inconvenient turret chambers, and
+long dreary salon and _salle-à-manger_. She could picture to herself
+nothing more splendid. For Gustave to be offered the future possession of
+Côtenoir was as if he were suddenly to be offered the succession to a
+kingdom. She could not bring herself to consider that Madelon was neither
+agreeable nor attractive, and that, after all, the wife must count for
+something in every marriage contract. She could see nothing, she could
+think of nothing, but Côtenoir. The glory and grandeur of that estate
+absorbed every other consideration.
+
+No one of those three conspirators feared any opposition on the part of
+their victim. It was just possible that Gustave might have fallen in love
+with some Parisian damsel, though his letters gave no hint of any such
+calamity. But if such a misfortune had happened, he would, of course,
+fall out of love again, return the damsel her troth and obtain the return
+of his own, and straightway offer the second-hand commodity to
+Mademoiselle Frehlter.
+
+The object of all these cares and hopes and dreams arrived at last, full
+of life and spirits, with plenty to tell about Paris in general, and very
+little to tell about himself in particular. The women questioned him
+unmercifully. They insisted on a graphic description of every female
+inmate of the boarding-house, and would scarcely believe that all except
+the little music-mistress were elderly and unattractive. Of the
+music-mistress herself they were inclined to be very suspicious, and were
+not altogether reassured by Gustave's assertion that she was neither
+pretty nor fascinating.
+
+"She is a dear, good, industrious little thing," he said, "and works
+harder than I do. But she is no miracle of beauty; and her life is so
+dreary that I often wonder she does not go into a convent. It would be
+gayer and pleasanter for her than to live with those old women at the
+Pension Magnotte."
+
+"I suppose there are many beautiful women in Paris?" said Cydalise, bent
+upon knowing the worst.
+
+"Well, I dare say there are," Gustave answered frankly; "but we students
+don't see much of them in our quarter. One sees a pretty little
+milliner's girl now and then, or a washerwoman. In short, there are a
+good many grisettes in our part of the world," added the young man,
+blushing, but for no sin of his own. "We get a glimpse of a handsome
+woman sometimes, rattling past in her carriage; but in Paris handsome
+women do not go on foot. I have seen prettier girls at Vevinord than in
+Paris."
+
+Cydalise was enchanted with this confession.
+
+"Yes," she exclaimed, "our Normandy is the place for pretty girls.
+Madelon Frehlter. for example, is not she a very--amiable girl?"
+
+"I dare say she's amiable enough," answered Gustave; "but if there were
+no prettier girls than Mademoiselle Frehlter in this part of the world,
+we should have no cause to boast. But there are prettier girls, Cydalise,
+and thou art thyself one of them."
+
+After this speech the young man bestowed upon his sister a resounding
+kiss. Yes; it was clear that he was heart-whole. These noisy, boisterous
+good spirits were not characteristic of a lover. Even innocent Cydalise
+knew that to be in love was to be miserable.
+
+From this time mother and sister tormented their victim with the merits
+and charms of his predestined bride. Madelon on the piano was miraculous;
+Madelon's little songs were enchanting; Madelon's worsted-work was a
+thing to worship; Madelon's devotion to her mother and her mother's
+poodle was unequalled; Madelon's respectful bearing to the good Abbé St.
+Velours--her mother's director--was positively beyond all praise. It was
+virtue seraphic, supernal. Such a girl was too good for earth--too good
+for anything except Gustave.
+
+The young man heard and wondered.
+
+"How you rave about Madelon Frehlter!" he exclaimed. "She seems to me the
+most commonplace young person I ever encountered. She has nothing to say
+for herself; she never appears to know where to put her elbows. I never
+saw such elbows; they are everywhere at once. And her shoulders!--O
+heaven, then, her shoulders!--it ought to be forbidden to wear low
+dresses when one has such shoulders."
+
+This was discouraging, but the schemers bore up even against this. The
+mother dwelt on the intellectual virtues of Madelon; and what were
+shoulders compared to mind, piety, amiability--all the Christian graces?
+Cydalise owned that dear Madelon was somewhat _gauche_; Gustave called
+her _bête_. The father remonstrated with his son. Was it not frightful to
+use a word of the barracks in connection with this charming young lady?
+
+At last the plot revealed itself. After a dinner at Côtenoir and a dinner
+at Beaubocage, on both which occasions Gustave had made himself very
+agreeable to the ladies of the Baron's household--since, indeed, it was
+not in his nature to be otherwise than kind and courteous to the weaker
+sex--the mother told her son of the splendid destiny that had been shaped
+for him. It was a matter of surprise and grief to her to find that the
+revelation gave Gustave no pleasure.
+
+"Marriage was the last thing in my thoughts, dear mother," he said,
+gravely; "and Madelon Frehlter is the very last woman I should think of
+for a wife. Nevertheless, I am gratified by the honour Monsieur le Baron
+has done me. That goes without saying."
+
+"But the two estates!--together they would make you a great proprietor.
+You would not surely refuse such fortune?"
+
+Cydalise gave a little scream of horror.
+
+"Côtenoir! to refuse Côtenoir! Ah, surely that would be impossible! But
+figure to yourself, then, Gustave--"
+
+"Nay, Cydalise, you forget the young lady goes with the château; a
+fixture that we cannot dispense with."
+
+"But she, so amiable, so pious--"
+
+"So plain, so stupid--"
+
+"So modest, so charitable--"
+
+"In short, so admirably adapted for a Sister of Charity," replied
+Gustave. "But no, dear Cydalise. Côtenoir is a grand old place; but I
+would as soon spend my life at Toulon, dragging a cannon-ball at my
+heels, as in that dreary salon where Madame Frehlter nurses her maladies
+and her poodle, and where the good-humoured, easy-going old Baron snores
+away existence. 'Tis very well for those elderly folks, you see, my
+sister, and for Madelon--for hers is an elderly mind in a youthful body;
+but for a young man full of hope and gaiety and activity--bah! It would
+be of all living deaths the worst. From the galleys there is always the
+hope of escaping--an underground passage, burrowed out with one's
+finger-nails in the dead of the night--a work lasting twenty years or so,
+but with a feeble star of hope always glimmering at the end of the
+passage. But from the salon, and mamma, and the poodle, and the good,
+unctuous, lazy old director, and papa's apoplectic snoring, and the
+plaintive little songs and monotonous embroideries of one's wife, there
+would be no escape. Ah, bah!"
+
+Gustave shuddered, and the two women shuddered as they heard him. The
+prospect was by no means promising; but Madame Lenoble and her daughter
+did not utterly despair. Gustave's heart was disengaged. That was a great
+point; and for the rest, surely persuasion might do much.
+
+Then came that phenomenon seen very often in this life--a
+generous-minded, right-thinking young man talked into a position which of
+all others is averse from his own inclinations. The mother persuaded, the
+sister pleaded, the father dwelt dismally upon the poverty of Beaubocage,
+the wealth of Côtenoir. It was the story of auld Robin Gray reversed.
+Gustave perceived that his refusal to avail himself of this splendid
+destiny would be a bitter and lasting grief to these people who loved him
+so fondly--whom he loved as fondly in return. Must he not be a churl to
+disappoint hopes so unselfish, to balk an ambition so innocent? And only
+because Madelon was not the most attractive or the prettiest of women!
+
+The young man stood firm against all their arguments, he was unmoved by
+all their pleading. It was only when his anxious kindred had given up the
+battle for lost that Gustave wavered. Their mute despair moved him more
+than the most persuasive eloquence; and the end was submission. He left
+Beaubocage the plighted lover of that woman who, of all others, he would
+have been the last to choose for his wife. It had all been settled very
+pleasantly--the dowry, the union of the two estates, the two names. For
+six months Gustave was to enjoy his freedom to finish his studies; and
+then he was to return to Normandy for his marriage.
+
+"I have heard very good accounts of you from Paris," said the Baron. "You
+are not like some young men, wild, mad-brained. One can confide in your
+honour, your steadiness."
+
+The good folks of Beaubocage were in ecstacies. They congratulated
+Gustave--they congratulated each other. A match so brilliant would be the
+redemption of the family. The young man at last began to fancy himself
+the favoured of the gods. What if Madelon seemed a little dull--a little
+wanting in that vivacity which is so pleasing to frivolous minds? she was
+doubtless so much the more profound, so much the more virtuous. If she
+was not bright and varied and beautiful as some limpid fountain dancing
+in summer sunlight, she was perhaps changeless and steady as a rock; and
+who would not rather have the security of a rock than the summer-day
+beauty of a fountain?
+
+Before Gustave departed from his paternal home he had persuaded himself
+that he was a very lucky fellow; and he had paid Mademoiselle Frehlter
+some pretty little stereotyped compliments, and had listened with sublime
+patience to her pretty little stereotyped songs. He left the young lady
+profoundly impressed by his merits; he left his own household supremely
+happy; and he carried away with him a heart in which Madelon Frehlter's
+image had no place.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+IN THIS WIDE WORLD I STAND ALONE.
+
+Gustave went back to his old life, and was not much disturbed by the
+grandeur of his destiny as future seigneur of Côtenoir and Beaubocage. It
+sometimes occurred to him that he had a weight upon his mind; and, on
+consideration, he found that the weight was Madelon Frehlter. But he
+continued to carry that burden very lightly, and his easy-going student
+life went on, unbroken by thoughts of the future. He sent polite messages
+to the demoiselle Frehlter in his letters to Cydalise; and he received
+from Cydalise much information, more graphic than interesting, upon the
+subject of the family at Côtenoir; and so his days went on with pleasant
+monotony. This was the brief summer of his youth; but, alas, how near at
+hand was the dark and dismal winter that was to freeze this honest joyous
+heart! That heart, so compassionate for all suffering, so especially
+tender for all womankind, was to be attacked upon its weaker side.
+
+It was Gustave Lenoble's habit to cross the gardens of the Luxembourg
+every morning, on his way from the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle to the Ecole
+de Droit. Sometimes, when he was earlier than usual, he carried a book
+with him, and paced one of the more obscure alleys, reading for an odd
+half-hour before he went to the daily mill-grinding in the big building
+beyond those quiet gardens.
+
+Walking with his book one morning--it was a volume of Boileau, which
+the student knew by heart, and the pages whereof did not altogether
+absorb his attention--he passed and repassed a bench on which a lady
+sat, pensive and solitary, tracing shapeless figures on the ground with
+the point of her parasol. He glanced at her somewhat carelessly the
+first time of passing, more curiously on the second occasion, and
+the third time with considerable attention. Something in her
+attitude--helplessness, hopelessness, nay indeed, despair itself, all
+expressed in the drooping head, the listless hand tracing those idle
+characters on the gravel--enlisted the sympathies of Gustave Lenoble. He
+had pitied her even before his gaze had penetrated the cavernous depths
+of the capacious bonnet of those days; but one glimpse of the pale
+plaintive face inspired him with compassion unspeakable. Never had he
+seen despair more painfully depicted on the human countenance--a despair
+that sought no sympathy, a sorrow that separated the sufferer from the
+outer world. Never had he seen a face so beautiful, even in despair. He
+could have fancied it the face of Andromache, when all that made her
+world had been reft from her; or of Antigone, when the dread fiat had
+gone forth--that funeral rites or sepulture for the last accursed scion
+of an accursed race there were to be none.
+
+He put Boileau into his pocket. That glimpse of a suffering human mind,
+which had been unconsciously revealed to him, possessed an interest more
+absorbing than the grandest flight of poet and satirist. As he passed for
+the fifth time, he looked at the mournful lady still more searchingly,
+and this time the sad eyes were lifted, and met his pitying looks. The
+beautiful lips moved, and murmured something in tones so tremulous as to
+be quite unintelligible.
+
+The student took off his hat, and approached the lady, deferential as
+knight-errant of old awaiting the behest of his liege mistress.
+
+"In what can I have the happiness to be agreeable to you, madame?"
+
+"You are very good, monsieur," murmured the lady in very decent French,
+but with an accent unmistakably foreign--English, as Gustave opined.
+"I--I--am quite a stranger in Paris, and--and--I have heard there are
+numerous lodging-houses in this quarter--where one may obtain a
+lodging--cheaply. I have asked several nursemaids, and other women, in
+the gardens this morning; but they seem very stupid, and can tell me
+nothing; and I do not care to ask at the hotel where I am staying."
+
+Gustave pondered. Yes, there were many lodgings, he informed the lady.
+And then he thought of Madame Magnotte. Was it not his duty to secure
+this stray lodger for that worthy woman, if possible?
+
+"If madame has no objection to a boarding-house--" he began.
+
+Madame shook her head. "A boarding-house would suit me just as well," she
+said; "but it must not be expensive. I cannot afford to pay much."
+
+"I know of a boarding-house very near this place, where madame might find
+a comfortable home on very reasonable terms. It is, in point of fact, the
+house in which I myself reside," added Gustave, with some timidity.
+
+"If you will kindly direct me to the house--" said the lady, looking
+straight before her with sad unseeing eyes, and evidently supremely
+indifferent as to the residence or non-residence of M. Lenoble in the
+habitation referred to.
+
+"Nay, madame, if you will permit me to conduct you there. It is but a
+walk of five minutes."
+
+The stranger accepted the courtesy with a gentle indifference that was
+not ingratitude, but rather incapacity for any feeling except that one
+great sorrow which seemed to absorb her mind.
+
+Gustave wondered what calamity could thus overwhelm one so young and
+beautiful.
+
+The lady was quite silent during the little walk from the gardens to the
+Rue Grande-Mademoiselle, and Gustave observed her attentively as he
+walked by her side. She was evidently not more than four-and-twenty years
+of age, and she was certainly the prettiest woman he had ever seen. It
+was a fair delicate English beauty, a little worn and faded, as if by
+care, but idealized and sublimated in the process. At her brightest this
+stranger must have been strikingly beautiful; in her sorrow she was
+touchingly lovely. It was what Gustave's countrymen call a _beauté
+navrante_.
+
+Gustave watched her, and wondered about her. The dress she wore was
+sufficiently elegant, but had lost the gloss of newness. Her shawl, which
+she carried as gracefully as a Frenchwoman, was darned. Gustave perceived
+the neat careful stitches, and divined the poverty of the wearer. That
+she should be poor was no subject for surprise; but that she, so
+sorrowful, so lonely, should seek a home in a strange city, was an enigma
+not easy to solve.
+
+To Madame Magnotte Gustave introduced the stranger. She gave just one
+look round the dreary saloon; but to Gustave's fancy that one look seemed
+eloquent. "Ah me!" it said; "is this the fairest home I am to find upon
+this inhospitable earth?"
+
+"She does not seem to belong to this world," the young man thought, as
+he went back to the garden where he had found his fair stranger, having
+been very coolly dismissed by Madame Magnotte after his introduction had
+been made.
+
+And then M. Lenoble, being of a romantic turn of mind, remembered how a
+lady had been found by a student sitting on the lowest steps of the
+guillotine, desolate and helpless, at night; and how the student had
+taken her home and sheltered her, and had straightway fallen desperately
+in love with her, to discover, with unutterable horror, that her head had
+been severed from her fair shoulders by the cruel knife twelve hours
+before, and that her melancholy loveliness was altogether phantasmal and
+delusive.
+
+Was this English stranger whom Gustave had found in the gardens of the
+Luxembourg twin sister to that ghostly lady of the familiar legend? Her
+despair and her beauty seemed to him greater than earthly sorrow or
+earthly beauty; and he was half inclined to wonder whether she could be
+of the same race as Madelon Frehlter. And from this hour the sense of a
+weight upon his mind, before so vague and intermittent, became an
+enduring oppression, not to be shaken off by any effort of his will.
+
+All through that day he found himself thinking more of the unknown
+Englishwoman than was consistent with a strict performance of his duties.
+He was vexed with himself on account of this foolish distraction of mind.
+
+"What a frivolous fellow I must be," he said to himself, "to dwell upon
+such a trifle! This comes of leading such a monotonous life."
+
+At dinner he looked for the lady; but she did not appear at the long
+table, where the shrill old ladies, the epicurean old bachelors, the
+noisy students, daily devoured and grumbled at the four or five courses
+which old Nanon developed out of her inner consciousness and a rather
+scantily furnished larder. He questioned Madame Magnotte after dinner,
+and was told that the lady was in the house, but was too tired to dine
+with the other inmates.
+
+"I have to thank thee for a new boarder, my friend," she said. "Madame
+Meynell will not pay largely; but she seems a quiet and respectable
+person, and we shall doubtless be well pleased with each other."
+
+"Madame Meynell!" repeated Gustave, congratulating himself on finding
+that the Englishwoman was an inhabitant of the house he lived in. "She is
+a widow, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, she is a widow. I asked that question, and she answered, yes.
+But she told me nothing of her late husband. She is not at all
+communicative."
+
+This was all Gustave could obtain from Madame Magnotte. She was not
+communicative. No; she was, indeed, scarcely less silent than that
+ghostly lady who had been found sitting at the foot of the guillotine.
+There was some kind of mystery involved in her sorrowful face, her silent
+apathy. It was possibly the fact of this mystery which interested M.
+Lenoble. Certain it is that the young man's interest had been aroused by
+this unknown Englishwoman, and that his mind was more occupied by the
+image of her whom he had seen but once than by that of his plighted wife.
+
+He waited anxiously for the next day; but on the next day Madame Meynell
+still pleaded fatigue and illness. It was only on the third day that she
+appeared at the noisy banquet, pale, silent, absent-minded, sheltering
+herself under the wing of Madame Magnotte, who was disposed to be kind to
+this helpless stranger. To Gustave the young English widow seemed like a
+ghost at that crowded board. He looked at her every now and then from his
+distant seat, and saw her always with the same hopeless far-away look in
+her sad eyes. He himself was silent and _distrait_.
+
+"Of what dost thou dream, my droll one?" said his nearest neighbour.
+"Thou art positively insupportable."
+
+M. Lenoble could not become vivacious or entertaining at the behest of
+his fellow-student. The consciousness of that strange pale face haunted
+and oppressed him. He hoped to have a few minutes' talk with the English
+lady after dinner, but she disappeared before the removal of those
+recondite preparations which in the Pension Magnotte went by the generic
+name of "dessert."
+
+For more than a week she appeared thus at the dinner-table, eating very
+little, speaking not at all, except such monosyllabic replies as the
+hostess now and then extorted from her pale lips. A creature at once so
+beautiful and so profoundly sad became an object of interest to others
+besides Gustave; but in no breast was the sympathy which her sadness and
+beauty excited so poignant as in his. Her face haunted him. The familiar
+pleasures and amusements became distasteful to him. He spent his evenings
+at home in the dismal salon, and was content to listen to the chatter of
+the old women, the little music-mistress's dreary sonatas, the monotonous
+roll of wheels on the distant quay--anything rather than the hackneyed
+round of student-life that had once been agreeable to him. He did not
+fail to write his weekly letter to Cydalise; but, for some reason or
+other, he refrained from any allusion to the English stranger, although
+it was his custom to relate all his adventures for the amusement of the
+family at Beaubocage.
+
+An evening came at last on which Madame Meynell was persuaded to remain
+with the other ladies after dinner.
+
+"It must be very cold and cheerless for you in your bedroom," said
+Madame Magnotte; "why not spend your evening with us, in a pleasant and
+social manner?"
+
+"You are very good, madame," murmured the Englishwoman, in the slow timid
+accents that had so plaintive a sound to Gustave's ear; "if you wish it,
+I will stay."
+
+She seemed to submit rather from utter weakness and inability to refuse
+anything asked of her than from any hope of finding pleasure in the
+society of the Magnotte salon.
+
+It was an evening in March--cold, blustrous, dreary. The east wind blew
+clouds of dust athwart the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle, and the few
+foot-passengers in that dull thoroughfare looked pinched and wretched.
+The old ladies gathered round the great black stove, and gossipped in the
+twilight; the music-mistress went to her feeble piano, and played,
+unasked, unheeded; for Gustave, who was wont to turn the leaves, or sit
+attentive by the piano, seemed this evening unconscious of the music.
+Madame Meynell sat in one of the windows, alone, half-hidden by the faded
+yellow damask curtains, looking out into the street.
+
+Something--some impulse which he tried to resist, but could not--drew
+Gustave towards that lonely figure by the window. He went close up to the
+strange lady. This evening, as in the gardens of the Luxembourg, she
+seemed to him a living statue of despair. Now, as then, he felt an
+interest in her sorrow which he was powerless to combat. He had a vague
+idea that even this compassionate sympathy was in some manner an offence
+against Madelon Frehlter, the woman to whom he belonged, and yet he
+yielded to the fatal weakness.
+
+"Yes, I belong to her," he said to himself; "I belong to Madelon
+Frehlter. She is neither pretty nor fascinating; but I have every reason
+to believe her very good, very amiable; and she is the only woman, except
+those of my own kindred, in whom I have any right to be interested."
+
+He did not say this in so many words; but this was the shape which his
+thoughts assumed as he yielded to the tempter, and walked straight to the
+distant window by which Madame Meynell had seated herself.
+
+She started slightly as he approached her, and then looked up and
+recognized him as her acquaintance of the Luxembourg.
+
+"Good evening, monsieur," she said; "I have to thank you for having
+helped me to find a comfortable home."
+
+Having said this in a low gentle voice, she looked out into the street
+once more with her mournful unseeing eyes. It was evident that she had no
+more to say to M. Lenoble.
+
+The student, however, had no idea of leaving the window just yet,
+although he knew--yes, knew--that his presence there was a wrong done to
+Madelon Frehlter; but a wrong so small, so infinitesimal, that it was
+really not worth consideration.
+
+"I am enchanted to think that I was of some slight service to you,
+madame," he said; "but I fear you will find this quarter of Paris
+very dull."
+
+She did not take any notice of this remark until Gustave had repeated it,
+and then she spoke as if suddenly awakened from a trance.
+
+"Dull?" she said. "No, I have not found it dull. I do not care for
+gaiety."
+
+After this M. Lenoble felt that he could say no more. The lady relapsed
+into her waking trance. The dust-clouds in the silent street seemed more
+interesting to her than M. Lenoble of Beaubocage. He lingered a few
+minutes in the neighbourhood of her chair, thoughtfully observant of the
+delicate profile, the pale clear tints of a complexion that had lost its
+bloom but not its purity, the settled sadness of the perfect mouth, the
+dreamy pensiveness of the dark-grey eye, and then was fain to retire.
+
+After this, the English widow lady spent many evenings in Madame
+Magnotte's salon. The old Frenchwoman gossipped and wondered about
+her; but the most speculative could fashion no story from a page so
+blank as this joyless existence. Even slander could scarcely assail
+a creature so unobtrusive as the English boarder. The elderly ladies
+shrugged their shoulders and pursed up their lips with solemn
+significance. There must needs be something--a secret, a mystery, sorrow,
+or wrong-doing--somewhere; but of Madame Meynell herself no one could
+suspect any harm.
+
+Gustave Lenoble heard little of this gossip about the stranger, but she
+filled his thoughts nevertheless. The vision of her face came between him
+and his work; and when he thought of the future, and of the damsel who
+had been allotted to him for a wife, his thoughts were very bitter.
+
+"Fate is like Laban," he said to himself; "a man works and does his duty
+for seven years, and then Fate gives him Leah instead of Rachel. No doubt
+Leah is a very good young woman; one has no complaint to make against
+her, except that she is not Rachel."
+
+This was not a hopeful manner of looking at things for the destined
+master of Côtenoir. M. Lenoble's letters to the anxious folks at
+Beaubocage became, about this time, somewhat brief and unsatisfactory. He
+no longer gave ample details of his student-life--he no longer wrote in
+his accustomed good spirits. His letters seemed stiff and constrained.
+
+"I am afraid he is studying too much," said the mother.
+
+"I daresay the rascal is wasting his time in dissipation," suggested
+the father.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"PAST HOPE, AND IN DESPAIR."
+
+Two months had elapsed since the bleak spring morning on which Gustave
+Lenoble found the solitary lady under the leafless trees of the
+Luxembourg gardens. The inmates of the Pension Magnotte had grown
+accustomed to her presence, to her silence, her settled sadness, and
+troubled themselves no further respecting herself or her antecedents. The
+lapse of time had brought no improvement to her spirits; indeed, Gustave,
+who watched her closely, perceived that she had grown paler and thinner
+since that March morning when he met her in the public garden. Her life
+must have been painfully monotonous. She very rarely went out of doors,
+and on no occasion ventured beyond the gardens of the Luxembourg. No one
+visited her. She neither wrote nor received any letters. She was wont to
+make a pretence of reading as she sat in her retired corner of the salon;
+but Gustave had discovered that she gave little attention to her book.
+The open volume in her hand seemed no more than an excuse for brooding
+upon her sorrows.
+
+If people, prompted by curiosity or by compassion, endeavoured to get
+into conversation with this lonely lady, the result was always the same.
+She would answer their questions in a low gentle voice, with a quiet
+politeness; but she never assisted them in the smallest degree to
+interchange thoughts with her. It seemed as if she sought neither friend
+nor sympathizer, or as if her case was so entirely hopeless as to admit
+of neither. She paid for her board and lodging weekly with a punctilious
+exactness, though weekly payments were not the rule of the house.
+
+"My movements are uncertain," she said to Madame Magnotte. "I cannot
+tell how long I may be with you. It will therefore be better for me to
+pay you weekly."
+
+She had been in the house two months, dining every day at the public
+table, spending all her evenings in the public saloon; and during that
+time her settled gloom had never been broken by any outburst of grief or
+passion. She might have been a creature of ice, a statue of despair
+modelled in snow by a Michael Angelo. But one night the ice melted, the
+statue of snow became in a moment a passionate, grief-stricken woman.
+
+It was one bright evening late in May. Ah, how near at hand was the
+appointed date of those nuptials to which the household of Beaubocage
+looked forward with supreme happiness! The old ladies of the Pension
+Magnotte were for the most part out of doors. The long saloon was almost
+empty. There were only Gustave, Madame Magnotte, and the little
+music-mistress, who sat at her piano, with the western sunlight shining
+full upon her, rosy-hued and glorious, surrounding her with its soft
+radiance until she looked like a humble St. Cecilia.
+
+Madame Meynell had seated herself close to the piano, and was listening
+to the music. Gustave hovered near, pretending to be occupied with a limp
+little sheet of news published that evening.
+
+Mademoiselle Servin, the teacher of music, upon this occasion deserted
+her favourite masters. She seemed in a somewhat dreamy and sentimental
+humour, and played tender little melodies and simple plaintive airs, that
+were more agreeable to Gustave than those grand examples of the
+mathematics of counter-point which she so loved to interpret.
+
+"You like this melody of Grétry's," said the music-mistress, as M.
+Lenoble seated himself close to the piano. "I do not think you care for
+classic sonatas--the great works of Gluck, or Bach, or Beethoven?"
+
+"No," replied the young man frankly; "I do not care about anything I
+can't understand. I like music that goes to one's heart."
+
+"And you, too, Madame Meynell, like simple melodies?" mademoiselle asked
+of that lady, who was not wont to come so near the little piano, or to
+pay so much attention to Mademoiselle Servin's performance.
+
+"O yes," murmured the Englishwoman, "I like such music as that."
+
+"And you, too, think that Beethoven never composed simple plaintive
+airs--for example," exclaimed the pianist, playing softly while she
+spoke. "You think he wrote only sonatas, quartettes, fugues, grand,
+operas, like _Fidelio_. Have you never heard this by your scientific
+Beethoven?"
+
+Hereupon she played "Hope told a flattering tale," with much tenderness
+and delicacy. Her two hearers listened, mute and deeply moved. And then
+from that familiar melody she glided softly into another, most musical,
+most melancholy, which has been set to some of the sweetest verses that
+Thomas Moore ever composed:
+
+"Those evening bells, those evening bells!
+How many a tale their music tells
+Of youth and home, and that sweet time
+When last I heard their soothing chime!"
+
+All the world sang the verses of Ireland's divine bard in those days. The
+song was one which the Englishwoman had sung years ago in a happy home.
+What recollections, what associations, were evoked by that plaintive
+melody, who shall say? The words came back with the music to which they
+have been eternally wedded. The words, their mournful meaning, the faces
+of the friends amongst whom she had last sung them, the picture of the
+peaceful home whose walls had echoed the music,--all these things arose
+before her in a vision too painfully vivid; and the lonely boarder at the
+Pension Magnotte covered her face with her hands, and sobbed aloud.
+
+The passion of tears lasted but a minute. Madame Meynell dried her eyes,
+and rose to leave the room.
+
+"Do not question me," she said, perceiving that her two companions were
+about to offer her their sympathy. "I cannot tell you the memories that
+were conjured up by that music. It brought back a home I shall never see
+again, and the faces of the dead--worse than dead to me--and the
+happiness I have lost, and the hopes and dreams that once were mine. Oh,
+I pray God I may never hear that melody again."
+
+There was a passion, a depth of feeling, in her tone quite new to Gustave
+Lenoble. He opened the door for her without a word, and she passed out of
+the salon quietly, like a ghost--the ghost of that bright young creature
+who had once borne her shape, and been called by her name, in a pleasant
+farmhouse among the Yorkshire wolds.
+
+"Ah, but how that poor soul must have suffered!" cried the sympathetic
+Mademoiselle Servin, as the door closed on the Englishwoman. "I did
+not think it was in her to feel so deeply. I thought she was stone, and
+now I begin to think it must be of such stone as Niobe--the
+petrification of despair."
+
+Upon Gustave Lenoble this scene made a profound impression. He lay awake
+during the greater part of that night, thinking of the lonely lady's
+tears and anguish. The music of "Those evening bells" pervaded his
+dreams. He rose unrefreshed, feverish, forgetful of Côtenoir and Madelon
+Frehlter, as if that place and that person had never emerged from the
+shapeless substances of chaos. He wanted to see _her_ again, to console
+her, if that were possible. Oh, that it might be his privilege to console
+her! He pitied her with a compassion so intense, that thus to
+compassionate her woes, was himself to suffer a poignant anguish. He
+pitied her. Yes, he told himself again and again that this sentiment
+which so absorbed his heart and mind was no more than pity. But oh, if
+this were pity, what were love? That was a question which also presented
+itself to the mind of M. Gustave Lenoble, of Beaubocage _in esse_, and
+Côtenoir _in posse_.
+
+Madame Meynell rarely appeared at the common breakfast in the grim
+dining-room of the Pension Magnotte. Gustave was therefore in nowise
+surprised to miss her on this particular morning. He took a cup of
+coffee, and hurried off to his daily duties. There was a fever on him
+which he could neither understand nor shake off, and he hastened to the
+gardens of the Luxembourg, as if there were some special necessity for
+speed. So do men often hasten unconsciously to their predestined doom,
+defiant of augury. Soothsayers may menace, and wives may dream dreams;
+but when his hour comes, Caesar will go to the appointed spot where the
+daggers of his assassins await him.
+
+In the alley where he had first looked upon her sad face, beneath
+the umbrage of young limes and chestnuts just bursting into bloom,
+he saw the Englishwoman to-day, seated on the same bench, almost in
+the same attitude.
+
+He went up to her, and bade her good morning; and then, intensely
+conscious of his own temerity, seated himself by her side.
+
+"I did not expect to find you here so early."
+
+"No, I seldom come out so soon; but this morning I have to make some
+inquiries upon a matter of business, and I am only resting here before
+going to make them."
+
+She gave a little weary sigh at the end of this speech. It seemed a
+strange manner of transacting business to rest in the Luxembourg gardens,
+which were distant but a few hundred yards from her home. Gustave divined
+that it was for very forlornness she lingered there, shrinking from some
+difficult encounter that lay before her.
+
+"Can I not make the inquiries for you?" he asked. "Pray command me. It
+will be my happiness to be useful to you."
+
+"You are very good. I cannot trouble you so much."
+
+"Pray do not talk of trouble. It can be no trouble to me to aid you in
+any manner. Ah, madame, you do not know how much I would sacrifice to be
+useful to you!"
+
+She must have been dull indeed had she failed to perceive the earnestness
+of his tone. She did perceive it, and was vaguely conscious that in this
+student of law she had a friend.
+
+"I want to know when the diligence for Calais leaves Paris, and from what
+office," she said. "I am going back to England."
+
+She was surprised to see the young man's face blanch as she announced
+this simple fact. The young man himself was surprised by the sudden
+anguish inflicted by her announcement. It was in this moment that he
+first discovered how completely he had given his heart into this strange
+woman's keeping.
+
+"You are really going to leave Paris?--for ever?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Yes. I have been here too long already. I have no business here. I ought
+to have gone back to England that day when I first met you here, but I
+put off the day of my return. I can put it off no longer."
+
+"And you are going back to your friends?" Gustave asked, in a very
+mournful tone.
+
+"I am going back to my friends? Yes!" Her lips quivered a little, and the
+unbidden tears came to her eyes.
+
+Ah, what was the sorrow that oppressed this beauteous lonely creature?
+What agony of grief or self-reproach was this pain which consumed her?
+Gustave remembered her passion of tears on the previous night; her talk
+of friends that were dead, and happiness lost; and now to-day she talked
+of going home to her friends: but O the bitterness of expression with
+which she had spoken that word "friends!"
+
+"Are you going alone, Madame Meynell?" he inquired, after a pause. He
+could not tear himself from that seat by her side. He could not be manly
+or rational where she was concerned. The image of Madelon Frehlter rose
+before his mental vision, reproachful, menacing; but a thick fog
+intervened to obscure that unwelcome image. His whole life resolved
+itself into those thrilling moments in which he sat here, on this common
+garden bench, by this stranger's side; the entire universe was contracted
+into this leafy walk where they two sat.
+
+"Yes, I am going alone," madame replied, with a little laugh. "Who should
+I have to go with me? I am quite alone in the world. I think I had better
+make these inquiries myself, M. Lenoble. There is no reason why I should
+give you so much trouble."
+
+"There is no such thing as trouble. I will bring you all necessary
+information to-day at dinner, if that will be soon enough."
+
+"Quite soon enough, I thank you, monsieur," she answered, with a sigh. "I
+must ask you kindly to ascertain for me also the expense of the journey."
+
+"Most certainly, madame."
+
+This request set him wondering whether she were poor, and how poor. But
+she had evidently no more to say to him; she had again become
+impenetrable. He would fain have stayed, though honour and conscience
+were clamorous in their demands for his departure. Happily for honour and
+conscience, the lady was silent as death, impervious as marble; so M.
+Lenoble presently bowed and departed.
+
+He thought of her all day long. The farce of pity was ended. He knew now
+that he loved this Englishwoman with an affection at once foolish and
+sinful,--foolish, since he knew not who or what this woman was; sinful,
+since the indulgence of this passion involved the forfeiture of his
+plighted word, the disappointment of those who loved him.
+
+"No, no, no," he said to himself; "I cannot do this base and wicked
+thing. I must marry Madelon. All the hopes of my mother and father rest
+on that marriage; and to disappoint them because this stranger's face has
+bewitched me? Ah, no, it cannot be. And even if I were willing to trample
+my honour in the dust, how do I know that she would value or accept the
+sacrifice?"
+
+M. Lenoble made all necessary inquiries at the office of the Messageries,
+and carried the intelligence to Madame Meynell. He could see that she
+winced a little when he told her the cost of the journey, which in those
+days was heavy.
+
+"She must certainly be poor," he said to himself; and it rent his heart
+to think that even in this paltry matter he could be of no use to her.
+The destined master of Beaubocage and Côtenoir was entirely without ready
+money. He had his watch. He put his hand upon that clumsy timekeeper as
+he talked to madame.
+
+"_Je te porterai chez ma tante, mon gars_," he said to himself. But he
+doubted whether the high priests of the pious mountain--the Dordona of
+Pauperism--would advance much upon this antique specimen of the
+watchmaker's art.
+
+After this evening he looked forward daily, hourly, to the anguish of her
+departure. She would vanish out of his life, intangible as a melted
+snow-flake, and only memory would stay behind to tell him he had known
+and loved her. Why should this be so hard to bear? If she stayed, he
+dared not tell her she was dear to him; he dared not stretch forth his
+hand to help her. In all the world there was no creature more utterly
+apart from him than she, whether she lived in the same house with him or
+was distant as the Antipodes. What did it matter, then, since she was
+destined to disappear from his life, whether she vanished to-day or a
+year hence? He argued with himself that it could be a question of no
+moment to him. There was a death-blow that must descend upon him, cruel,
+inevitable. Let it come when it would.
+
+Every day when he came home to dinner, M. Lenoble expected to behold a
+vacant place by the side of his hostess; every day he was pleasantly
+disappointed. The pale hopeless face was still to be seen, ghost-like, at
+that noisy board. The face was more pale, more hopeless, as it seemed to
+Gustave, every day he looked upon it.
+
+He asked Madame Magnotte when the English lady was going to leave, but
+she could not tell.
+
+"She talks of leaving from day to day," said madame; "it will no doubt be
+soon. I am sorry to lose her. She is very gentle, and gives no trouble to
+any one. But she is sad--ah, how sad she is! She has suffered, monsieur."
+
+Gustave agreed to this. Yes, she had suffered; but what, and how?
+
+He watched her closely, but she was always the same. She no longer spent
+her evenings in the salon, but in her own apartment. He saw her only at
+dinner-time, and had no opportunity of speaking to her.
+
+At last the day came upon which he missed her at the usual hour. He sat
+through the tedious meal without speaking; eating a little, drinking a
+little, mechanically, but with no consciousness of what he ate or drank.
+There was a mist before his eyes, a confusion of voices in his ears; but
+the faculties of sight and hearing seemed suspended. The agony he
+suffered during that miserable hour was bitter as death.
+
+"O, my God, how I love her!" he said to himself, while Raoul's bass roar
+brayed in his ear on one side, and Leon's shrill squeal tortured him on
+the other.
+
+He made his way to Madame Magnotte directly after dinner.
+
+"She is gone?" he exclaimed.
+
+"But who, my friend? Ah, yes; it is of that poor Madame Meynell you
+speak. How you are interested in her! No, she is not gone, poor woman.
+She remains always. She has the air of a person who knows not her own
+mind. Yet I am sure she thinks of going. To-day, for the first time, she
+has been writing letters. Reine came to tell me she had seen her occupied
+in her own room for the first time. It is not her habit to occupy
+herself."
+
+Gustave's heart gave a great jump. She was not gone; he might see her
+again--if it were but a glimpse of her pale face looking out of the
+diligence as it drove out of the Cour de Messageries. One look, one
+glance; it would be something to carry in his heart all his life. All his
+life! He looked forward and shuddered. What a dreary life it must needs
+be! Côtenoir, Beaubocage, Madelon, the law; to plead, to read papers, to
+study dry as dust books. He shrank appalled from the contemplation of
+that dreary desert of existence--a life without her.
+
+She had been writing letters--doubtless letters to her friends to
+announce her return. Her departure must be very near at hand.
+
+Gustave refused to go out that evening. His fellow-students were bent on
+a night's pleasure at a dancing-garden then in vogue, where there would
+be twinkling lamps and merry music under the May moon. The lamp-lit
+parterres, the joyous waltzes, had no attractions for Gustave Lenoble. He
+haunted the dull salon, dim and dreary in the twilight; for Madame
+Magnotte was chary of lamps and candles, and prolonged to its utmost
+limits the pensive interval between day and night. He walked softly up
+and down the room, unheeded by the ladies clustered in a group by one of
+the windows. Restless and unhappy, he could neither go nor stay. She was
+not coming down to the salon this evening. He had clung to the faint hope
+that she might appear; but the faint hope died away in his breast as the
+night deepened. What purpose could be served by his remaining in that
+dismal room? He was no nearer her than he would have been in the
+remotest wilds of Central America. He would go out--not to the odious
+dancing-garden, but to the cool dark streets, where the night wind might
+blow this fever from his brain.
+
+He left the room suddenly, and hurried downstairs. At the bottom of the
+staircase he almost stumbled against a woman, who turned and looked at
+him in the light of a little oil-lamp that hung over the door of the
+portress's lodge.
+
+It was the Englishwoman, deadly pale, and with a wild look in her face
+that Gustave had never seen there before. She gave him no sign of
+recognition, but passed out of the courtyard, and walked rapidly away.
+That unusual look in her face, the strangeness of the fact that she
+should be leaving the house at this hour, inspired him with a vague
+terror, and he followed her, not stealthily, without a thought that he
+was doing any wrong by such an act--rather, indeed, with the conviction
+that he had a right so to follow her.
+
+She walked very quickly--at a more rapid pace than Gustave would have
+supposed possible for so fragile a creature. She chose the lonelier
+streets, and Gustave had no difficulty in following her; she never looked
+back, but went straight on her course, without pause or slackening of her
+pace, as if with a settled purpose.
+
+"Where can she be going?" Gustave asked himself; and an answer, vague,
+hideous, terrible, suggested itself to his mind. The idea that occurred
+to him was one that would scarcely have occurred to an Englishman under
+the same circumstances, but to a Frenchman it was a very familiar idea.
+
+It was dark now--the darkness that reigns between early sunset and late
+moonrise. As the lonely woman went farther along the dreary streets
+parallel with the quay, the dreadful suspicion grew stronger in Gustave's
+mind. From that instant he had but one thought; in that moment he put
+away from him for ever all sense of obligation to Madelon Frehlter; he
+shook off father, mother, sister, old associations, home ties, ambition,
+fortune--he lived alone for this woman, and the purpose of his life was
+to save her from despair and death.
+
+They emerged upon the quay at last. The long stretch of pavement was
+deserted. Ah, now she looked back--she looked on every side with wild
+unseeing eyes--and now there could be little doubt as to the purpose that
+brought her here. She crossed the road, and went upon the bridge, Gustave
+following close; in the next minute she was standing on the stone bench,
+a tremulous, fluttering figure, with arms stretched towards the water; in
+a breath she was clasped to Gustave's breast, clasped by arms that meant
+to hold her for ever.
+
+The shock of that surprise utterly unnerved the wretched creature. She
+shivered violently, and struggled to free herself from those strong arms.
+
+"Let me go!" she cried in English. "Let me go!" And then, finding herself
+powerless, she turned and looked at her captor. "M. Lenoble! O, why do
+you persecute me? Why do you follow me?"
+
+"Because I want to save you."
+
+"To save me! To snatch me back when I was going to find rest--an end for
+my weary life! O yes, I know that it is a sinful end; but my life has
+been all sin."
+
+"Your life all sin! Foolish one, I will never believe that."
+
+"It is true," she cried, with passionate self-reproach. "The sin of
+selfishness, and pride, and disobedience. There is no fate too hard for
+me--but, O, my fate is very hard! Why did you keep me from that river?
+You do not know how miserable my life is--you do not know. I paid my
+last penny to Madame Magnotte this morning. I have no money to take me
+back to England, even if I dared go there--and I dare not. I have prayed
+for courage, for strength to go back, but my prayers have not been
+heard; and there is nothing for me but to die. What would be the sin of
+my throwing myself into that river! I must die; I shall die of
+starvation in the streets."
+
+"No, no," cried Gustave passionately; "do you think I have dragged you
+back from death to give you to loneliness and despair? My dear one, you
+are mine--mine by right of this night. These arms that have kept you
+from death shall shelter you,--ah, let them shelter you! These hands
+shall work for you. My love, my love! you cannot tell how dear you are
+to me. If there must be want or trouble for either of us, it shall come
+to me first."
+
+He had placed her on the stone bench, bewildered and unresisting, and had
+seated himself by her side. The fragile figure, shivering still, even in
+the mild atmosphere of the spring night, was sustained by his encircling
+arm. He felt that she was his, irrevocably and entirely--given to him by
+the Providence which would have seemed to have abandoned her, but for the
+love it had implanted for her in this one faithful heart. His tone had
+all the pleading tenderness of a lover's, but it had something more--an
+authority, a sense of possession.
+
+"Providence sent me here to save you," he said, with that gentle yet
+authoritative tone; "I am your providence, am I not, dearest? Fate made
+me love you--fondly, hopelessly, as I thought. Yesterday you seemed as
+far away from me as those pale stars, shining up yonder--as
+incomprehensible as that faint silvery mist above the rising moon--and
+to-night you are my own."
+
+He knew not what ties might be broken by this act. He had indeed a vague
+consciousness that the step which he was now taking would cause a
+lifelong breach between himself and his father. But the time had gone by
+in which he could count the cost.
+
+"Let me go back, M. Lenoble," the Englishwoman said presently. The
+faintness of terror was passing away, and she spoke almost calmly. "Let
+me go back to the house. It is you that have saved me from a dreadful
+sin. I promise you that I will not again think of committing that deadly
+sin. I will wait for the end to come. Let me go, my kind friend. Ah, no,
+no; do not detain me! Forget that you have ever known me."
+
+"That is not in my power. I will take you back to the Pension Magnotte
+directly; but you must first promise to be my wife."
+
+"Your wife! O, no, no, no! That is impossible."
+
+"Because you do not love me," said Gustave, with mournful gravity.
+
+"Because I am not worthy of you."
+
+Humiliation and self-reproach unspeakable were conveyed in those few
+words.
+
+"You are worth all the stars to me. If I had them in my hands, those
+lamps shining up there, I would throw them away, to hold you," said the
+student passionately. "You cannot understand my love, perhaps. I seem a
+stranger to you, and all I say sounds wild and foolish. My love, it is
+true as the heaven above us--true as life or death--death that was so
+near you just now. I have loved you ever since that bleak March morning
+on which I saw you sitting under the leafless trees yonder. You held me
+from that moment. I was subjugated--possessed--yours at once and for
+ever. I would not confess even to myself that my heart had resigned
+itself to you; but I know now that it was so from the first. Is there any
+hope that you will ever pay me back one tithe of my love?"
+
+"You love me," the Englishwoman repeated slowly, as if the words were
+almost beyond her comprehension,--"you love _me_, a creature so lost, so
+friendless! Ah, but you do not know my wretched story!"
+
+"I do not ask to know it. I only ask one question--will you be my wife?"
+
+"You must be mad to offer your name, your honour to me."
+
+"Yes, I am mad--madly in love. And I am waiting for your answer. You
+will be my wife? My angel, you will say yes! It is not much that I offer
+you--a life of uncertainty, perhaps even of poverty; but a fond and
+constant heart, and a head and hands that will work for you while God
+gives them strength. It is better than the river."
+
+All that was thoughtless and hopeful in his disposition was expressed in
+these words. The woman to whom he pleaded was weakened by sorrow, and
+the devotion of this brave true heart brought her strength, comfort,
+almost hope.
+
+"Will you be my friend?" she said gently. "Your words seem to bring me
+back to life. I wanted to die because I was so wretched, so lonely. I
+have friends in England--friends who were once all that is dear and kind;
+but I dare not go to them. I think a cruel look from one of those friends
+would kill me with a pain more bitter than any other death could give.
+And I have no right to hope for kind looks from them. Yours are the only
+words of friendship I have heard for a long time."
+
+"And you will give me the right to work for you--to protect you? You will
+be my wife?"
+
+"I would rather be your servant," she answered, with sad humility. "What
+right have I to accept so great a sacrifice? What folly can be so foolish
+as your love for me--if it is indeed love, and not a wild fancy of
+to-night!"
+
+"It is a fancy that will last my life."
+
+"Ah, you do not know how such fancies change."
+
+"I know nothing except that mine is changeless. Come, my love, it is
+growing late and cold. Let me take you home. The portress will wonder.
+You must slip past her quietly with your veil down. Did you give old
+Margot your key when you came down stairs to-night?"
+
+"No, it is in my pocket. I was not thinking--I--"
+
+She stopped with a sudden shudder. Gustave understood that shudder; he
+also shuddered. She had left her room that night possessed by the
+suicide's madness; she had left it to come straight to death. Happily his
+strong arm had come between her and that cruel grave by which they were
+still lingering.
+
+They walked slowly back to the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle under the light of
+the newly-risen moon. The Englishwoman's wasted hand rested for the first
+time on M. Lenoble's arm. She was his--his by the intervention and by the
+decree of Providence! That became a conviction in the young man's mind.
+He covered her late return to the house with diplomatic art, engaging the
+portress in conversation while the dark figure glided past in the dim
+lamplight. On the staircase he paused to bid her good night.
+
+"You will walk with me in the Luxembourg garden to-morrow morning,
+dearest," he said. "I have so much to say--so much. Until then, adieu!"
+
+He kissed her hand, and left her on the threshold of her apartment, and
+then went to his own humble bachelor's chamber, singing a little drinking
+song in his deep manly voice, happy beyond all measure.
+
+They walked together next day in the gardens of the Luxembourg. The poor
+lonely creature whom Gustave had rescued seemed already to look up to him
+as a friend and protector, if not in the character of a future husband.
+It was no longer this fair stranger who held possession of Gustave; it
+was Gustave who had taken possession of her. The stronger nature had
+subjugated the weaker. So friendless, so utterly destitute--penniless,
+helpless, in a strange land, it is little matter for wonder that Susan
+Meynell accepted the love that was at once a refuge and a shelter.
+
+"Let me tell you my wretched story," she pleaded, as she walked under the
+chestnut-trees by her lover's side. "Let me tell you everything. And if,
+when you have heard what an unhappy creature I am, you still wish to give
+me your heart, your name, I will be obedient to your wish. I will not
+speak to you of gratitude. If you could understand how debased an outcast
+I seemed to myself last night when I went to the river, you would know
+how I must feel your goodness. But you can never understand--you can
+never know what you seem to me."
+
+And then in a low voice, and with infinite shame and hesitation, she told
+him her story.
+
+"My father was a tradesman in the city of London," she said. "We were
+very well off, and my home ought to have been a happy one. Ah, how happy
+such a home would seem to me now! But I was idle and frivolous and
+discontented in those days, and was dissatisfied with our life in the
+city because it seemed dull and monotonous to me. When I look back now
+and remember how poor a return I gave for the love that was given to
+me--my mother's anxiety, my father's steady, unpretending kindness--I
+feel how well I have deserved the sorrows that have come to me since
+then."
+
+She paused here, but Gustave did not interrupt her. His interest was too
+profound for any conventional expression. He was listening to the story
+of his future wife's youth. That there could be any passage in that
+history which would hinder him from claiming this woman as his wife was a
+possibility he did not for a moment contemplate. If there were shame
+involved in the story, as Madame Meynell's manner led him to suppose
+there must be, so much the worse was it for him, since the shame must be
+his, as she was his.
+
+"When my father and mother died, I went into Yorkshire to live with my
+married sister. I cannot find words to tell you how kind they were to
+me--my sister and her husband. I had a little money left me by my father,
+and I spent the greater part of it on fine dress, and on foolish presents
+to my sister and her children. I was happier in Yorkshire than I had been
+in London; for I saw more people, and my life seemed gayer and brighter
+than in the city. One day I saw a gentleman, the brother of a nobleman
+who lived in the neighbourhood of my sister's house. We met by accident
+in a field on my brother-in-law's farm, where the gentleman was shooting;
+and after that he came to the house. He had seen my sister before, and
+made some excuse for renewing his acquaintance. He came very often, and
+before long he asked me to marry him; and I promised to be his wife, with
+my sister's knowledge and consent. She loved me so dearly, and was so
+proud of me out of her dear love, that she saw nothing wonderful in this
+engagement, especially as Mr. Kingdon, the gentleman I am speaking of,
+was a younger son, and by no means a rich man."
+
+Again she stopped, and waited a little before continuing her story. Only
+by a gentle pressure of the tremulous hand resting on his arm did Gustave
+express his sympathy.
+
+"I cannot tell you, how happy I was in those days--so bright, so brief. I
+cannot tell you how I loved Montague Kingdon. When I look back to that
+time of my life, it seems like a picture standing out against a
+background of darkness, with some strange vivid light shining upon it. It
+was arranged between Montague and my sister that we should be married as
+soon as his brother, Lord Durnsville, had paid his debts. The payment of
+the debts was an old promise of Lord Durnsville's, and an imprudent
+marriage on his brother's part might have prevented the performance of
+it. This is what Montague told my sister Charlotte. She begged him to
+confide in her husband, my kind brother-in-law, but this he refused to
+do. There came a day very soon after this when James Halliday, my
+brother-in-law, was told about Montague Kingdon's visits to the farm. He
+came home and found Mr. Kingdon with us; and then there was a dreadful
+scene between them. James forbade Mr. Kingdon ever again to set foot in
+his house. He scolded my sister, he warned me. It was all no use. I loved
+Montague Kingdon as you say you love me--foolishly, recklessly. I could
+not disbelieve or doubt him. When he told me of his plans for our
+marriage, which was to be kept secret until Lord Durnsville had paid his
+debts, I consented to leave Newhall with him to be married in London. If
+he had asked me for my life, I must have given it to him. And how should
+I disbelieve his promises when I had lived only amongst people who were
+truth itself? He knew that I had friends in London, and it was arranged
+between us that I was to be married from the house of one of them, who
+had been my girlish companion, and who was now well married. I was to
+write, telling her of my intended journey to town; and on the following
+night I was to leave Newhall secretly with Montague Kingdon. I was to
+make my peace with my sister and her husband after my marriage. How shall
+I tell you the rest? From the first to last he deceived me. The carriage
+that was, as I believed, to have taken us to London, carried us to Hull.
+From Hull we crossed to Hamburg. From that time my story is all shame and
+misery. I think my heart broke in the hour in which I discovered that I
+had been cheated. I loved him, and clung to him long after I knew him to
+be selfish and false and cruel. It seemed to be a part of my nature to
+love him. My life was not the kind of life one reads of in novels. It was
+no existence of splendour and luxury and riot, but one long struggle with
+debt and difficulty. We lived abroad--not for our pleasure, but because
+Mr. Kingdon could not venture to appear in England. His brother, Lord
+Durnsville, had never promised to pay his debts. That was a falsehood
+invented to deceive my sister. For seven long weary years I was his
+slave, a true and faithful slave; his nurse in illness, his patient
+drudge at all times. We had been wandering about France for two years,
+when he brought me to Paris; and it was here he first began to neglect
+me. O, if you could know the dreary days and nights I have spent at the
+hotel on the other side of the river, where we lived, you would pity me."
+
+"My dear love, my heart is all pity for you," said Gustave. "Do not tell
+me any more. I can guess the end of the story. There came a day in which
+neglect gave place to desertion."
+
+"Yes; Mr. Kingdon left me one day without a warning word to break the
+blow. I had been waiting and watching for him through two weary days and
+nights, when there came a letter to tell me he was on his way to Vienna
+with a West Indian gentleman and his daughter. He was to be married to
+the daughter. It was his poverty, he told me, which compelled this step.
+He advised me to go back to my friends in Yorkshire. To go back!--as if
+he did not know that death would be easier to me. There was a small sum
+of money in the letter, on which I have lived since that time. When you
+first met me here, I had not long received that letter."
+
+This was the end of her story. In the depth of her humiliation she dared
+not lift her eyes to the face of her companion; but she felt his hand
+clasp hers, and knew that he was still her friend. This was all she asked
+of Providence.
+
+To Gustave Lenoble the story had been unutterably painful. He had hoped
+to hear a tragedy untarnished by shame, and the shame was very bitter to
+him. This woman whom he loved so fondly was no spotless martyr, the
+victim of inevitable fate, beautiful and sublime in her affliction. She
+was only a weak vain, village beauty who had suffered herself to be lured
+away from her peaceful home by the falsehoods of a commonplace scoundrel.
+
+The story was common, the shame was common, but it seemed to M. Lenoble
+that the woman by his side was his destiny; and then, prompt to the
+rescue of offended pride, of outraged love--tortured to think that she,
+so distant and pure a creature to him, should have been trampled in the
+dust by another--came the white-winged angel Pity. By her weakness, by
+her humiliation, by the memory of her suffering, Pity conjured him to
+love her so much the more dearly.
+
+"My darling," he said softly, "it is a very sad story, and you and I will
+never speak of it again. We will bury the memory of Montague Kingdon in
+the deepest grave that was ever dug for bitter remembrances; and we will
+begin a new life together."
+
+This was the end of M. Lenoble's wooing. He could not speak of his love
+any more while the sound of Montague Kingdon's name had but lately died
+away on Susan Meynell's lips. He had taken her to himself, with all her
+sorrows and sins, in the hour in which he snatched her from death; and
+between these two there was no need of passionate protestations or
+sentimental rapture.
+
+M. Lenoble speedily discovered that the law had made no provision for the
+necessities of a chivalrous young student eager to unite himself with a
+friendless foreign woman, who could not produce so much as one of the
+thirty witnesses required to establish her identity. A very little
+consideration showed Gustave that a marriage between him and Susan
+Meynell in France was an impossibility. He explained this, and asked her
+if she would trust him as she had trusted Montague Kingdon. In Jersey the
+marriage might easily be solemnised. Would she go with him to Jersey, to
+stay there so long as the English law required for the solemnization of
+their union?
+
+"Why should you take so much trouble about me?" said Susan, in her low
+sad voice. "You are too good, too generous. I am not worth so much care
+and thought from you."
+
+"Does that mean that you will not trust me, Susan?"
+
+"I would trust you with my life in a desert, thousands of miles from the
+rest of mankind--with a happier life than mine. I have no feeling in my
+heart but love for you, and faith in you."
+
+After this the rest was easy. The lovers left the Pension Magnotte one
+bright summer morning, and journeyed to Jersey, where, after a
+fortnight's sojourn, the English Protestant church united them in the
+bonds of matrimony.
+
+Susan was a Protestant, Gustave a Catholic, but the difference of
+religion divided them no more than the difference of country. They came
+back to Paris directly after the marriage, and M. Lenoble took a very
+modest lodging for himself and his wife in a narrow street near the
+Pantheon--a fourth story, very humbly furnished. M. Lenoble had provided
+for himself an opportunity of testing the truth of that adage which
+declares that a purse large enough for one is also large enough for two.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+A DECREE OF BANISHMENT.
+
+After those stormy emotions which accompany the doing of a desperate
+deed, there comes in the minds of men a dead calm. The still small voice
+of Wisdom, unheard while Passion's tempest was raging, whispers grave
+counsel or mild reproof; and Folly, who, seen athwart the storm-cloud,
+sublime in the glare of the lightning, seemed inspiration, veils her face
+in the clear, common light of day.
+
+Let it not for a moment be supposed that with M. Lenoble time and
+reflection brought repentance in their train. It was not so. The love
+which he felt for his English wife was no capricious emotion; it was a
+passion deep and strong as destiny. The worst that afterthought could
+reveal to him was the fact that the step he had taken was a very
+desperate one. Before him lay an awful necessity--the necessity of going
+to Beaubocage to tell those who loved him how their air-built castles had
+been shattered by this deed of his.
+
+The letters from Cydalise--nay, indeed, more than one letter from his
+mother, with whom letter-writing was an exceptional business--had of late
+expressed much anxiety. In less than a month the marriage-contract would
+be made ready for his signature. Every hour's delay was a new dishonour.
+He told his wife that he must go home for a few days; and she prepared
+his travelling gear, with a sweet dutiful care that seemed to him like
+the ministration of an angel.
+
+"My darling girl, can I ever repay you for the happiness you have brought
+me!" he exclaimed, as he watched the slight girlish figure flitting about
+the room, busy with the preparations for his journey.
+
+And then he thought of Madelon Frehlter--commonplace, stiff, and
+unimpressionable--the most conventional of school-girls, heavy in face,
+in figure, in step, in mind even, as it had seemed to him, despite his
+sister's praises.
+
+He had been too generous to tell Susan of his engagement, of the
+brilliant prospects he forfeited by his marriage, or the risk which he
+ran of offending his father by that rash step. But to-night, when he
+thought of Madelon's dulness and commonness, it seemed to him as if Susan
+had in manner rescued him from a dreadful fate--as maidens were rescued
+from sea-monsters in the days of Perseus and Heracles.
+
+"Madelon is not unlike a whale," he thought. "They tell us that whales
+are of a sagacious and amiable temper,--and Cydalise was always talking
+of Madelon's good sense and amiablity. I am sure it is quite as easy to
+believe in the unparalleled virtues of the whale as in the unparalleled
+virtues of Madelon Frehlter."
+
+His valise was packed, and he departed for Beaubocage, after a sad and
+tender parting from his wife. The journey was a long one in those days,
+when no express train had yet thundered across the winding Seine,
+cleaving its iron way through the bosom of fertile Norman valleys. M.
+Lenoble had ample time for reflection as he jogged along in the ponderous
+diligence; and his heart grew more and more heavy as the lumbering
+vehicle approached nearer to the town of Vevinord, whence he was to make
+his way to the paternal mansion as best he might.
+
+He walked to Beaubocage, attended by a peasant lad, who carried his
+portmanteau. The country was very pleasant in the quiet summer
+evening, but conscious guilt oppressed the heart and perplexity
+disturbed the mind of M. Gustave Lenoble, and his spirits were in
+nowise elevated by the walk.
+
+Lights in the lower chambers gleamed dimly athwart the trim garden at
+Beaubocage. One faint twinkling candle shone in a little pepper-castor
+turret, his sister's room. The thought of their glad welcome smote his
+heart. How could he shape the words that must inform them of their
+disappointment? And then he thought of the gentle pensive wife in the
+Parisian lodging, so grateful for his devotion, so tender and
+submissive,--the wife he had rescued from death and eternal condemnation,
+as it seemed to his pious Catholic mind. The thought of this dear one
+gave him courage.
+
+"I owe much to my parents," he thought to himself, "but not the privilege
+to sell me for money. The marriage they want to bring about would be a
+sordid barter of my heart and my honour."
+
+In a few minutes after this he was standing in the little salon at
+Beaubocage, with his mother and sister hanging about him and caressing
+him, his father standing near, less demonstrative, but evidently well
+pleased by this unexpected arrival of the son and heir.
+
+"I heard thy voice in the hall," cried Cydalise, "and flew down from my
+room to welcome thee. It seems to me that one can fly on these occasions.
+And how thou art looking well, and how thou art handsome, and how I adore
+thee!" cries the damsel, more ecstatic than an English sister on a like
+occasion. "Dost thou know that we began to alarm ourselves about thee?
+Thy letters became so infrequent, so cold. And all the while thou didst
+plot this surprise for us. Ah, how it is sweet to see thee again!"
+
+And then the mother took up the strain, and anon was spoken the dreaded
+name of Madelon. She too would be glad--she too had been anxious. The
+prodigal made no answer. He could not speak, his heart sank within him,
+he grew cold and pale; to inflict pain on those who loved him was a
+sharper pain than death.
+
+"Gustave!" cried the mother, in sudden alarm, "thou growest pale--thou
+art ill! Look then, François, thy son is ill!"
+
+"No, mother, I am not ill," the young man replied gravely. He kissed his
+mother, and put her gently away from him. In all the years of her
+after-life she remembered that kiss, cold as death, for it was the
+farewell kiss of her son.
+
+"I wish to speak a few words with you alone, father," said Gustave.
+
+The father was surprised, but in no manner alarmed by this request. He
+led the way to his den, a small and dingy chamber, where there were some
+dusty editions of the French classics, and where the master of Beaubocage
+kept accounts and garden-seeds and horse-medicines.
+
+When they were gone, the mother and sister sat by one of the open
+windows, waiting for them. Without all was still. Distant lights
+glimmered through the summer twilight, the lighted windows of Côtenoir.
+
+"How pleased Madelon will be," said Cydalise, looking towards those
+glimmering windows. She had really taught herself to believe that the
+demoiselle Frehlter was a most estimable young person; but she would have
+been glad to find more enthusiasm, more brightness and vivacity, in her
+future sister-in-law.
+
+The interview between the father and son seemed long to Madame Lenoble
+and Cydalise. The two women were curious--nay, indeed, somewhat anxious.
+
+"I fear he has made debts," said the mother, "and is telling thy father
+of his follies. I know not how they are to be paid, unless with the dowry
+of Madelon, and that would seem a dishonourable use of her money."
+
+It was half an hour before any sound broke the stillness of that quiet
+house. Twilight had thickened into night, when there came a banging of
+doors and heavy footsteps in the hall. The door of the salon was
+opened, and M. Lenoble came in alone. At the same moment the outer door
+closed heavily.
+
+M. Lenoble went straight to the open window and closed the Venetian
+shutters. He went from thence to the second window, the shutters whereof
+he fastened carefully, while the women stared at him wonderingly, for it
+was not his habit to perform this office.
+
+"I am shutting out a vagabond," he said, in a cold, cruel voice.
+
+"Where is Gustave?" cried the mother, alarmed.
+
+"He is gone."
+
+"But he is coming back, is he not, directly?"
+
+"Never while I live!" answered M. Lenoble. "He has married an English
+adventuress, and is no longer any son of mine."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Second.
+
+
+
+DOWNHILL.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+THE FATE OP SUSAN LENOBLE.
+
+Seven years after that miserable summer night at Beaubocage on which
+Gustave Lenoble was disowned by his father, a man and woman, with a boy
+five years of age, were starving in a garret amongst the housetops and
+chimneys of Rouen. In the busy city these people lived lonely as in a
+forest, and were securely hidden from the eyes of all who had ever
+known them. The man--haggard, dying--cherished a pride that had grown
+fiercer as the grip of poverty tightened upon him. The woman lived only
+for her husband and her child.
+
+The man was Gustave Lenoble. The world had gone ill with him since he
+cast his destiny into the lap of the woman he loved. In all these years
+no olive-bearing dove had spanned the gulf that yawned between the
+prodigal and his father. The seigneur of Beaubocage had been marble. A
+narrow-minded old man, living his narrow life, and nursing one idea with
+fanatical devotion, was of all men the least likely to forgive. Vain had
+been the tears and entreaties of mother and sister. The doors of that
+joyless dwelling on the fertile flats beyond Vevinord were sealed against
+the offender with a seal not to be broken, even had he come thither to
+plead for pardon, which he did not.
+
+"My father would have sold me as negro slaves are sold _làbas_," he said,
+on those rare occasions when he opened his old wounds, which were to the
+last unhealed: "I am glad that I escaped the contemptible barter."
+
+He was in very truth glad. Poverty and hardship seemed to him easier to
+bear than the dreary prosperity of Côtenoir and a wife he could not have
+loved. The distinguishing qualities of this man's mind were courage and
+constancy. There are such noble souls born into the world, some to shine
+with lustre supernal, many to burn and die in social depths, obscure as
+ocean's deepest cavern.
+
+In his love for the woman he had chosen Gustave Lenoble never wavered. He
+worked for her, he endured for her, he hoped against hope for her sake;
+and it was only when bodily strength failed that this nameless
+foot-soldier began to droop and falter in life's bitter battle. Things
+had gone ill with him. He had tried his fate as an advocate in Paris, in
+Caen, in Rouen--but clients would not come. He had been a clerk, now in
+one counting-house, now in another, and Susan and he had existed somehow
+during the seven years of their married life.
+
+They clung to each other with affection that seemed to grow with every
+new sorrow; nor did love exhibit any inclination to spread his wings and
+take flight from the window, though poverty came in every day at the
+door, and sat by the hearth, a familiar companion and inevitable guest.
+
+The mother and sister contrived to help this poor castaway with the
+veriest scrapings of a miserly household. The old man, soured by his
+great disappointment, grew sordid and covetous with increasing years, and
+the lives of the women were hard and hopeless. By little cheats, and
+petty contrivances, and pitiful falsifications of financial statements,
+they managed to scrape together a few louis now and then for the
+struggling exile; and to do this was the sole delight of their patient
+lives. They contrived also to correspond secretly with Gustave, and were
+informed of the birth of his son.
+
+"Ah, if thou couldst see how beautiful he is," wrote the father, "this
+child of pure and true love, thou wouldst no longer regret my breach of
+faith with Madelon Frehlter. I knew not until now how like infant
+children are to angels. I knew not how true to nature are the angels in
+the pictures of Raffaelle and Murillo. Thou knowest the print of
+Murillo's Assumption; the picture is in the Louvre. If thou canst
+remember that picture, dear mother, thou hast but to recall the face of
+one of the cherubim about the feet of our Lady, and thou hast the
+portrait of my boy. He opens his eyes, and looks at me as I write. Ah!
+that he and I and my Susan were with thee in the little salon at
+Beaubocage--my sister, Susan, you, and I united round this darling's
+cradle. He has been born in poverty, but his birth has made us very
+happy."
+
+The sentiment of this letter was no spurious or transient feeling. For
+this child Gustave Lenoble evinced an unchanging fondness. It was indeed
+no part of his nature to change. The little one was his comfort in
+affliction, his joy during every brief interval of prosperity. When the
+battle was well nigh fought, and he began to feel himself beaten. His
+chief anxieties, his ever-returning fears, were for his wife and child.
+
+To Susan the thought of parting from him was a despair too deep for
+tears. She would have been something less than woman if she had not loved
+her husband with more than common affection. She watched the change that
+illness brought in the frank face, the stalwart figure; and little by
+little the awful truth came home to her. The hour was at hand in which
+she must lose him.
+
+"If you could have rest, Gustave, better medical advice, more comforts,
+you would soon be strong again, I am sure your father would not refuse to
+forgive you now. Write to him, dearest. Go back to Beaubocage, and let
+your mother and sister nurse you. I will stay here with the little one.
+It shall be forgotten that you have a wife and child."
+
+"No, dear one; I will not desert you, even for a day, to buy back my
+father's love. I would rather be here with you than in the pleasantest
+home without you. But we must face the future, Susan; we must be brave
+and wise, for the little one's sake. You are not so strong that you can
+afford to trust blindly in your power to protect him by-and-by. I have
+written a letter to my father. He has proved himself a hard man to me,
+cruel and obdurate beyond all my fears; but I know he is not altogether
+heartless. When I am dead, you will take the letter in one hand, the
+child in the other, and go to Beaubocage. I believe he will adopt the
+boy, and that the little one will give him the comfort and happiness he
+hoped from me. He must be very lonely; and I cannot doubt that his heart
+will melt when he sees the child's face, and hears that he has no longer
+a son. As for yourself, my poor girl, I see for you no hope except in the
+old Yorkshire home, and the friends you fear to see again."
+
+"I no longer fear them," said his wife, with unwonted energy, "I could
+not go to them seven years ago; but I can go to them as your wife."
+
+"Ah, thank God, the poor name is worth something for you."
+
+"Yes, dear; and I will go back to them--to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow!"
+
+"To-morrow, Gustave. I have been selfish and cruel to delay so long. The
+old dread of seeing my sister's reproachful face has been strong enough
+to hold me back, when a little courage might have enabled me to help you.
+The burden has been all on you, and I have done nothing. O, what a wretch
+I must have been to sit idly by and see you suffer, and make no effort to
+help you!"
+
+"But, my darling, you have not been idle. You have been the dearest and
+most industrious of wives, and have helped me to bear my burden. You have
+done more, dear--you have made my burden pleasant to me."
+
+"I will try to lighten it, Gustave," cried Susan, with excitement. "O,
+why, why did I never try before! My sister and her husband are well
+off--rich perhaps. If they are still living, if no cruel changes have
+come to pass at Newhall, they could help us with a little money. They
+might even give us a home. I will start for England to-morrow."
+
+"Nay, my dear, you are not strong enough to travel so far alone. It
+seems, indeed, a happy thought this of your rich relations; but you must
+not undertake such a journey. You might write."
+
+"No, Gustave, I will trust to no letter; I will go. It will be no pain
+for me to humble myself for your sake. I will go straight to my sister. I
+know what a tender compassionate heart it is that I shall appeal to."
+
+There was much discussion; but Susan was resolute. To scrape together the
+money for the journey she made efforts that were heroic in a nature so
+weak as hers. She went to the Monte de Piété with the last of her little
+treasures, that one dear trinket to which she had clung even when hunger
+was at the door--the gimmal or alliance ring that Gustave had placed upon
+her finger before God's altar--the double symbolic circlet which bore on
+one side her name, on the other her husband's. This dearest of all her
+possessions she surrendered for a few francs, to make up the sum needful
+for her journey.
+
+What it cost her to do this, what it cost her to tear herself away
+from her sick husband and her only child, who shall say? There are
+pangs that cannot be counted, agonies that will come within no
+calculation--the infinite of pain. She went. Two kind souls, a labourer
+and his wife, lodgers in the same garret-story, promised to care for
+and help the invalid and child. There is no desolation in which a child
+will not find a friend.
+
+The journey was long and fatiguing; the anguish of her poor aching heart
+almost too much for endurance--a heart so heavy that even hope could
+scarce flutter it. It was dull damp weather, though in the middle of
+summer. The solitary traveller caught cold on the journey, and arrived in
+London in a high fever. Ill, faint, and helpless, the great city seemed
+to her unspeakably dismal--most stony of all stony-hearted mothers to
+this wretched orphan. She could go no farther than the darksome city inn
+where the coach from Southampton brought her. She had come _viâ_ Havre.
+Here she sank prostrate, and had barely sufficient strength to write an
+incoherent letter to her sister, Mrs. Halliday, of Newhall Farm, near
+Huxter's Cross, Yorkshire.
+
+The sister came as fast as the fastest coach on the great northern road
+could carry her. There was infinite joy in that honest sisterly heart
+over this one sinner's repentance. Fourteen years had gone by since the
+young city-bred beauty had fled with that falsest of men, and most
+hardened of profligates, Montague Kingdon; and tidings from Susan were
+unlooked for and thrilling as a message from the grave.
+
+Alas for the adverse fate of Susan Meynell! The false step of her youth
+had set her for ever wrong upon life's highway. When kind Mrs. Halliday
+came, Gustave Lenoble's wife was past her help; wandering in her mind; a
+girl again, but newly run away from her peaceful home; and with no
+thought save of remorse for her misdeeds.
+
+The seven years of her married life seemed to have faded out of her mind.
+She raved of Montague Kingdon's baseness, of her own folly, her vain
+regret, her yearning for pardon; but of the dying husband in the garret
+at Rouen she uttered no word. And so, with her weary head upon her
+sister's breast, she passed away, her story untold, no wedding-ring on
+her wasted finger to bear witness that she died an honest man's wife; no
+letters or papers in her poor little trunk to throw light on the fourteen
+years in which she had been a castaway.
+
+Mrs. Halliday stayed in London to see the wanderer laid in the quiet city
+churchyard where her family rested, and where for her was chosen an
+obscure corner in which she might repose forgotten and unknown.
+
+But not quite nameless. Mrs. Halliday could not leave the grave unmarked
+by any record of the sister she had loved. The stone above the grave of
+Gustave's wife bore her maiden name, and the comforting familiar text
+about the one sinner who repenteth.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FORGIVEN TOO LATE.
+
+For a week of long days and longer nights there was no step sounded on
+the stair, no opening or shutting of a door in the old dilapidated house
+where he lay languishing on the brink of an open grave, that did not move
+Gustave Lenoble with a sudden emotion of hope. But the footsteps came and
+went, the doors were opened and shut again and again, and the traveller
+so waited, so hoped for did not return.
+
+The boy--the brave bright son, who seemed to inherit all that was noblest
+and best in his father's nature--pined for his mother. The man endured a
+martyrdom worse than the agony of Damiens, the slow tortures of La Barre.
+What had befallen her? That she could desert him or his child was a
+possibility that never shaped itself in his mind. _That_ drop of poison
+was happily wanting in his cup; and the bitterness of death was sweet
+compared to the scorpion-sting of such a supposition.
+
+She did not return. Calamity in some shape had overtaken her--calamity
+dire as death; for, with life and reason, she could not have failed to
+send some token, some tidings, to those she loved. The sick man waited a
+week after the day on which he had begun to expect her return. At the end
+of that time he rose, with death in his face, and went out to look for
+her--to look for her in Rouen; for her whom the instinct of his heart
+told him was far away from that city--as far as death from life. He went
+to the Cour de Messageries, and loitered and waited amidst the bustle of
+arriving and departing diligences, with a half-imbecile hope that she
+would alight from one of them. The travellers came and went, pushing and
+hustling him in their selfish haste. When night came he went back to his
+garret. All was quiet. The boy slept with the children of his good
+neighbour, and was comforted by the warmth of that strange hearth.
+
+Gustave lit his candle, a last remaining morsel.
+
+"You will last my time, friend," he said, with a wan smile.
+
+He seated himself at the little table, pushed aside the medicine-bottles,
+searched for a stray sheet of letter-paper, and then began to write.
+
+He wrote to his mother, telling her that death was at hand, and that the
+time had come in which she must succour her son's orphan child. With this
+he enclosed a letter to his father--that letter of which he had spoken to
+his wife, and which had been written in the early days of his illness.
+This packet he directed to Madame Lenoble, at Beaubocage. There was no
+longer need for secrecy.
+
+"When those letters are delivered I shall be past blame, and past
+forgiveness," he thought.
+
+In the morning he was dead.
+
+The neighbours posted the letter. The neighbours comforted and protected
+the child for two days; and then there came a lady, very sad, very quiet,
+who wept bitterly in the stillness of that attic chamber where Gustave
+Lenoble lay; and who afterwards, with a gentle calmness of manner that
+was very sweet to see, made all necessary arrangements for a humble, but
+not a mean or ignominious, funeral.
+
+"He was my brother," she said to the good friends of the neighbouring
+garret. "We did our best to help him, my mother and I; but we little
+thought how bitterly he wanted help. The brave heart would not suffer us
+to know that."
+
+And then she thanked them with much tenderness for their charity to the
+dead man; and with these good people she went on foot through the narrow
+streets of the city to see her brother laid in his grave.
+
+Until this was done the mournful lady, who was not yet thirty years of
+age, and of a placid nun-like beauty, abandoned herself to no transport
+of love for her orphan nephew; but when that last office of affection had
+been performed, she took the little one on her knees, and folded him to
+her breast, and gave him her heart, as she had given it long ago to his
+father; for this gentle unselfish creature was one who must needs have
+some shrine at which to offer her daily sacrifice of self. Already she
+was beginning to think how the orphan was to be cared for and the widow
+also, for whose return she looked daily.
+
+For the return of Susan Lenoble Cydalise waited at Rouen several days
+after the funeral. She had, happily, an old school-fellow comfortably
+established in the city; and in the house of this old friend she found a
+home. No one but her mother and this friend, whom she could trust, knew
+of the business that had brought her from Beaubocage. In seven years the
+father had never uttered his only son's name; in all the seven years that
+name had never been spoken in his hearing.
+
+When three weeks had gone by since the departure of Susan for England,
+all hope of her return was abandoned by Mademoiselle Lenoble and the
+neighbours who had known the absent woman.
+
+"She had the stamp of death on her face when she went away," said the
+labourer's wife, "as surely as it was on him that she left. I told her
+she had no strength for the journey; but she would go: there was no
+moving her from that. She had rich friends _là-bas_, who might help her
+husband. It was for that she went. That thought seemed to give her a kind
+of fever, and the strength of fever."
+
+"And there has come no letter--nothing?"
+
+"Nothing, mademoiselle."
+
+On this Cydalise determined to return to Beaubocage. She could not well
+leave the child longer on the hands of these friendly people, even by
+paying for his maintenance, which she insisted on doing, though they
+would fain have shared their humble _pot-à-feu_ and coarse loaf with
+him unrecompensed. She determined on a desperate step. She would take
+her brother's orphan child back with her, and leave the rest to
+Providence--to the chance of some sudden awakening of natural affection
+in a heart that had long languished in a kind of torpor that was almost
+death.
+
+The little fellow pined sadly for those dear familiar faces, those tender
+soothing voices, that had vanished so suddenly from his life. But the
+voice of his aunt was very sweet and tender, and had a tone that recalled
+the father who was gone. With this kind aunt he left Rouen in the
+lumbering old vehicle that plied daily betwixt that city and Vevinord.
+
+"Thou canst call me Cydalise for a while, my little one," she said to
+him; for she did not wish the child to proclaim the relationship between
+them yet awhile.
+
+Ah, what bitter tears the two women shed over the soft fair curls of that
+little head, when they had the boy all to themselves in the turret
+chamber at Beaubocage, on whose white walls the eyes of Cydalise had
+opened almost every morning of her pure eventless life!
+
+"Why dost thou cry so, madame?" the child asked of his grandmother, as
+she held him in her arms, kissing and weeping over him; "and what have
+they done with my father--and mamma too? She went away one day, but she
+told me that she would come back, so quickly, ah, so quickly! and the
+days passed, and they shut papa in his room, and would not let me go to
+him; and mamma did not come, though I asked the Blessed Virgin to send
+her back to me."
+
+"Dear child, thy father and mother are in a brighter place than this hard
+world, where they had so much sorrow," Madame Lenoble answered, gently.
+
+"Yes, they were often sorry," murmured the boy thoughtfully. "It was
+because of money; but then, when there was no money, mamma cried and
+kissed me, and kissed papa, and the good papa kissed us both, and somehow
+it always ended in happiness."
+
+François Lenoble was, happily, absent on this day of tribulation. The
+women took their fill of sorrow, but it was sorrow mingled with a strange
+bitter sweetness that was almost joy. The seigneur of Beaubocage had gone
+to dine, as he still often did, with his old friend Baron Frehlter; for
+the breach of faith which had caused a lifelong disunion of father and
+son had not divided the two proprietors. Nay, indeed the Baron had been
+generous enough to plead the cause of the castaway.
+
+"A man cannot dispose at will of his affections, my friend," he urged;
+"and it was more generous in your son to break faith with my daughter
+before marriage than after."
+
+Mademoiselle Frehlter had not broken her heart on account of her lover's
+falsehood. She had been sufficiently indignant on the occasion, and had
+been more impatient of her mother's pet priest and pet poodle during the
+brief period in which she wore the willow. She had recovered her good
+humour, however, on being wooed by a young subaltern in a cavalry
+regiment stationed at Vevinord, the offshoot of a grander house than that
+of Lenoble, and whose good looks and good lineage had ultimately
+prevailed with the Baron. That gentleman had by no means too good an
+opinion of the son-in-law thus forced upon him; but peace was the highest
+good (with unlimited tobacco) to which his Germanic soul aspired; and for
+the sake of peace in the present he was content to hazard his daughter's
+happiness in the future.
+
+"_That_ is very brilliant," he said of M. Paul de Nérague, the young
+lieutenant of light cavalry; "but it is not solid, like Gustave. Your son
+is honest, candid--a brave heart. It is for that I would have given him
+Madelon. But it is Providence which disposes of us, as our good father
+St. Velours tells us often; and one must be content. Young Nérague
+pleases my daughter, and I must swallow him, though for me he smells too
+strong of the barracks: _ça flaire la caserne, mon ami_."
+
+That odour of the barracks which distinguished the sub-lieutenant Paul de
+Nérague became more odious after his marriage with the virtuous Madelon,
+when he was established--_niché_, as he himself called it--in very
+comfortable, though somewhat gruesome, apartments at Côtenoir. His
+riotous deportment, his hospitable disposition (as displayed in the
+frequent entertainment of his brothers-in-arms at the expense of his
+father-in-law), his Don Juan-like demeanour in relation to the housemaids
+and kitchen-wenches of the château--innocent enough in the main, but on
+that account so much the more audacious--struck terror to the hearts of
+Madame Frehlter and her daughter; and the elder lady was much gratified
+by that thirst for foreign territory which carried the greater part of
+the French army and the regiment of the vivacious Paul to the distant
+wilds of Algeria.
+
+The virtuous Madelon was too stolid to weep for her husband. But even her
+stolidity was not proof against the fiery influence of jealousy, and,
+waking and sleeping, her visions were of veiled damsels of Orient
+assailing the too inflammable heart of Lieutenant de Nérague.
+
+The young officer was yet absent at that period in which Cydalise
+returned from Rouen with her brother's child.
+
+The little boy was sleeping peacefully in a cot beside his aunt's bed (it
+had been his father's cot thirty years ago) when François Lenoble
+returned from Côtenoir that night.
+
+It was not till the next day that he saw the child. He had been making
+his usual morning's round in the gardens and orchards, when he came into
+the salon, and saw the little boy seated near his grandmother's chair,
+playing with some dominoes. Something--perhaps the likeness to his dead
+son--the boy's black clothes, for Cydalise had contrived to dress him in
+decent mourning--struck suddenly on the old man's heart. "Who is that
+boy?" he asked, with a strange earnestness.
+
+"Your son Gustave's only child," answered his wife gently,--"his
+orphan child."
+
+François Lenoble looked at her, and from her to the boy; tried to speak,
+but could not; beckoned the child, and then dropped heavily into a chair
+and sobbed aloud. Until this moment no one had ever seen him shed a tear
+for the son he had put away from his home--and, as it had seemed, from
+his heart. Not by one sigh, not by one mournful utterance of the familiar
+name, had he betrayed the depth of that wound which he had endured,
+silently, obstinately, in all these years.
+
+They suffered him to bemoan his dead son unhindered by stereotyped
+consolations. The two women stood by, and pitied him in silence. The
+little boy stared wonderingly, and at last crept up to the
+sorrow-stricken father. "Why do you cry, poor old man?" he asked. "You
+have not lost your papa and mamma, as I have lost mine, have you? I want
+to stay with you and be your little boy, please. She told me to say
+that," he added, pointing to Cydalise.--"And I have said it right,
+haven't I?" he asked of the same lady.--"I think I shall love you,
+because you are like my papa, only older and uglier," the little one
+concluded, with angelic candour.
+
+The seigneur of Beaubocage dried his tears with an effort.
+Beaubocage--Côtenoir. Ah, me! what empty sounds those two once magic
+names seemed to him now that his son's life had been sacrificed to so
+paltry an ambition, so sordid a passion, so vile and grovelling a desire!
+He took the boy on his knee, and kissed him tenderly. His thoughts
+bridged over a chasm of five-and-twenty years as his lips pressed
+that fair young brow; and it was his own son--the son whom he had
+disowned--whose soft hair was mingling itself now with the grey bristles
+on his rugged chin.
+
+"My child," he murmured softly, "the fear is that I shall love thee too
+well, and be to thee as much too weakly indulgent as I was wickedly stern
+to thy father. Anything is easier to humanity than justice."
+
+This was said to himself rather than to the boy.
+
+"Tell me thy name, little one," he asked presently, after a few moments'
+pensive meditation.
+
+"I have two names, monsieur."
+
+"Thou must call me grandfather. And the two names?"
+
+"François Gustave."
+
+"I shall call thee Gustave."
+
+"But papa always called me François, and mamma said it was the name of a
+cruel man; but papa said he loved the name--"
+
+"Ah, no more, little one!" cried the lord of Beaubocage suddenly;
+"thou knowest not with what dagger-thrusts thou dost pierce this poor
+old heart."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+GUSTAVE THE SECOND.
+
+The little Gustave grew and flourished. Such love was lavished on him as
+rarely falls to the lot of children, though the spring of many lives may
+be rich in love's pure white blossom. The existence of this child seemed
+all happiness. He brought hope, and a sense of atonement, and all sweet
+things, to the quiet family at Beaubocage; and as he grew from childhood
+to boyhood, from boyhood to manhood, it seemed to that household as if
+the first Gustave of their love had never been taken from them. That
+Orphic fable of Zagreus repeats itself in many households. For the one
+bright creature lost another is given; and then comes a time when it is
+almost difficult to separate the image of the missing one from the dear
+substitute who so nearly fills his place.
+
+François Lenoble and his wife enjoyed a green old age, and the affection
+of their grandson made the cup of life sweet for them to the very dregs.
+There are, happily, some natures which indulgence cannot injure; some
+luxuriant flowers which attain strength as well as beauty under the
+influence of these tropical heats of affection. Gustave the second
+possessed all the noble qualities of Gustave the first. Frank, generous,
+brave, constant, affectionate, light-hearted, he shone on the failing
+eyes of his kindred radiant as a young Apollo, brave as a mortal
+Hercules.
+
+Those things which the ignorant heart has at some time so passionately
+desired are apt to be granted when the desire has grown somewhat cold and
+dead. Thus it was with the ambition of François Lenoble. He lived to see
+the lands of Côtenoir and Beaubocage united in the person of his
+grandson, who married Clarice, the only surviving child of M. and Madame
+de Nérague. Two sons and a daughter had been born at Côtenoir; but the
+sons withered and faded in early boyhood, and even the daughter, though
+considered a flourishing plant in that poor garden of weakling blossoms,
+was but a fragile creature.
+
+The old people at Beaubocage survived the seigneur and châtelaine of
+Côtenoir by some years, and survived also the fiery lieutenant, who fell
+in Algeria without having attained his captaincy, or added any military
+renown to the good old name of de Nérague in his own magnificent person.
+
+François saw his grandson established at Côtenoir before he died. He
+expired with his hand in that of Gustave, whom, in the half-consciousness
+of that last hour, he mistook for the son he had disowned.
+
+"What door was that that shut?" he asked, in an eager whisper. "Who said
+I turned my son out of doors--my only son? It's false! I couldn't have
+done it! Hark! there's the door shutting again! It sounds like the door
+of a tomb."
+
+After this he dozed a little, and woke with a smile on his face.
+
+"I have been dreaming of thy father, Gustave," he said calmly. "I thought
+that I saw him with a light shining in his face, and that he kissed and
+forgave me."
+
+This was the end. The faithful wife was not slow to follow her husband to
+the grave, and there was now only a placid maiden lady at Beaubocage,
+Mademoiselle Cydalise Lenoble, whom everyone within ten leagues of
+Vevinord knew and loved,--a lay abbess, a Sister of Mercy in all save the
+robes; a tender creature, who lived only to do good.
+
+Ten years passed, and M. Lenoble of Côtenoir was a widower with two
+fair young daughters at a convent school on the outskirts of Vevinord,
+and a boisterous son at an academy in Rouen. Gustave had never followed
+any profession; the lands of Beaubocage secured him a competence,
+so prudently had the small estate been managed by the kindred who
+adored him. His marriage had given him fortune. He had no need of
+trade or profession. His life was laid out for him like a prim Dutch
+flower-garden. He was to live at Côtenoir, and look after his estate, and
+smoke his pipe, as Baron Frehlter had done, and be a good husband to his
+wife, a kind father to his children. This latter part of his duty came
+natural to M. Lenoble. It was not in him to be otherwise than kind to
+women and children. His invalid wife praised him as a model of marital
+perfection. It was Gustave who wheeled her sofa from one room to another,
+Gustave who prepared her medicines, Gustave whose careful hands adjusted
+curtains and _portières_. The poor woman lived and died believing herself
+the happiest of wives. She mistook kindness for love.
+
+M. Lenoble bore his wife's demise with Christian calmness. He was sorry
+that the fragile creature should have been taken so early from the
+pleasant home that was hers by right, but of passionate grief, or dreary
+sense of irreparable loss, there was none in that manly heart. There were
+times when the widower reproached himself for this want of feeling; but
+in very truth Madame Lenoble, _jeune_, had lived and died a nonentity.
+Her departure left no empty place; even her children scarcely missed her.
+The father was all-in-all.
+
+Gustave had married at twenty years of age. He was twenty-nine when his
+wife died. His eldest daughter, Clarice, eight; his second, Madelon,
+seven; the boy, a spoilt young dog of five, not yet despatched to the
+great school at Rouen.
+
+But in '65 Mademoiselle Clarice was fifteen years of age, and a very
+charming performer on the pianoforte, as the good nuns at the Convent of
+the Sacred Heart, at Vevinord, told the father. Mademoiselle Madelon was
+looking forward to her fourteenth anniversary, and she, too, was a very
+pretty pianist, and altogether a young prodigy of learning and goodness,
+as the nuns told the master of Côtenoir. The demoiselles of Côtenoir
+stood high in the estimation of pupils and mistress; they were a kind of
+noblesse; and the simple-minded superioress spoke of these young persons
+with some pride when she described her establishment to a stranger. It
+was a very comfortable little colony, a small world enclosed by high
+walls. The good mothers who taught and cherished the children were for
+the greater part ladies of superior and even exalted station; and there
+was a gentleness, a tenderness, in their care for these young lambs not
+always to be insured by the payment of an annual stipend. It must be
+confessed that the young lambs were apt to be troublesome, and required a
+good deal of watching. To the eye of the philosopher that convent school
+would have afforded scope for curious study; for it is singular to
+discover what exceptional vices the youthful mind can develop from its
+inner consciousness, in homes as pure as this. There were black sheep
+even in the convent of the Sacré Coeur, damsels marked with a sign that
+meant "dangerous."
+
+Happily for Gustave Lenoble, his daughters were amongst the brightest and
+the purest of those girl-graduates. They gave him no trouble, except when
+they asked him for a home.
+
+"It seems so dull and dreary at Côtenoir, papa," they said, "though you
+are always so kind. It doesn't seem like home. Beaubocage is more
+home-like. At Côtenoir, when you are out, there is no one to talk to; and
+we have no little parties, no excursions into the country, none of those
+pleasures which the other girls tell us they have during the holidays."
+
+This was the gist of the lamentations of Mademoiselles Clarice and
+Madelon; and the father knew not how to supply the mysterious something
+which was wanting to make Côtenoir a pleasant home. The girls could
+complain of no restraint, or pine for no indulgence, since their father
+was always prompt to gratify every whim. But there was some element of
+happiness wanting, nevertheless; and M. Lenoble perceived that it was so.
+The life at Côtenoir was desultory, straggling; an existence of perpetual
+dawdling; a life of shreds and patches, half-formed resolutions, projects
+begun and broken off in the middle. The good genius, the household angel,
+order, was wanting in that mansion. There was waste, dirt, destruction of
+all kinds, in the rambling old château; old servants, too weak or too
+lazy to work; old tradesmen, presuming on old-established habits of
+imposition, unquestioned so long as to have become a right--for the
+feudal system of fine and forfeiture has only changed hands. The power
+still flourishes, only it is the villein who takes tithe of his lord.
+
+The servants at Côtenoir had gone their own ways with but little
+interference since the death of Madame de Nérague, which occurred two
+years before that of her daughter, Clarice Lenoble. Poor invalid Clarice
+had been quite unable to superintend her household; and since her death
+Mademoiselle Cydalise had been too feeble of health to assume any
+authority in her nephew's establishment, even if the household of
+Côtenoir would have submitted to interference from Beaubocage, which in
+all likelihood they would not.
+
+Thus it happened that things had taken their own course at the château,
+and the course had been somewhat erratic. There is nothing so costly as
+muddle, and Gustave Lenoble had of late begun to perceive that he had the
+maximum of expense with the minimum of comfort. Meanwhile the kind old
+aunt at Beaubocage gave her nieces much valuable advice against the time
+when they should be old enough to assume the management of their father's
+house. The sweet unselfish lady of Beaubocage had indeed undergone hard
+experience in the acquirement of the domestic art. Heaven and her own
+memory alone recorded those scrapings and pinchings and nice calculations
+of morsels by which she had contrived to save a few pounds for her
+outcast brother. Such sordid economics show but poorly on earth; but it
+is probable that in the mass of documentary evidence which goes before
+the Great Judge, Mademoiselle Lenoble's account-book will be placed on
+the right side.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Third.
+
+
+
+THE HORATIAD.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+CHIEFLY RETROSPECTIVE.
+
+Captain Paget went his way to Rouen in a placid but not an exulting mood,
+after parting with his young friend Valentine Hawkehurst at the London
+Bridge terminus of the Brighton line. He was setting out upon an
+adventure wild and impracticable as the quest of Jason and his Argonauts;
+and this gallant captain was a carpet-knight, sufficiently adventurous
+and audacious in the diplomatic crusades of society, but in nowise eager
+to hazard his life on tented field and in thick press of war. If the
+Fates had allowed the accomplished Horatio to choose his own destiny, he
+would have elected to live in the immediate neighbourhood of St. James's
+Street, from the first day to the last of the London season, and to dine
+artistically and discreetly at one of those older and more exclusive
+clubs dear and familiar to him from the bright years of his youth. He was
+by nature a _flâneur_, a gossip, a lover of expensive luxuries and
+frivolous pleasures. He was not only incapable of a high thought himself,
+but was an unbeliever in the possibility of high thoughts or noble
+principles in the world he lived in. He measured the universe by that
+narrow scrap of tape which was the span of his own littleness. To him
+Caesar was an imperial brigand, Cicero a hypocritical agitator. To him
+all great warriors were greedy time-servers like John Churchill; all
+statesmen plausible placemen; all reformers self-seeking pretenders. Nor
+did Captain Paget wish that it should be otherwise. In his ideal
+republic, unselfishness and earnestness would have rendered a man rather
+a nuisance than otherwise. With the vices of his fellow-men the
+diplomatic Horatio was fully competent to deal; but some of his most
+subtle combinations on the chess-board of life would have been checkmated
+by an unexpected encounter with intractable virtue.
+
+The necessity of living was the paramount consideration to which this
+gentleman had given his mind from the time when he found himself a
+popular subaltern in a crack regiment, admired for his easy manners and
+good looks, respected by meaner men for his good blood, and rich in
+everything except that vulgar dross without which the life of West-end
+London is so hollow a delusion, so bitter a comedy of mean shifts and
+lying devices.
+
+That freebooter of civilization, the man who lives by his wits, is
+subject to strange fluctuations from prosperity to adversity. He is the
+miner or gold-digger of civilized life; and as there are times when his
+pickaxe strikes suddenly on a rich lode, so there are dreary intervals in
+which his spade turns up nothing but valueless clay, and the end of each
+day's work leaves him with no better evidence of his wasted labour than
+the aching limbs which he drags at nightfall to his dismal shanty.
+
+For some months Captain Paget had found Philip Sheldon a very useful
+acquaintance. The stockbroker had been the secret inaugurator of two or
+three joint-stock companies, though figuring to the outer world only as
+director; and in the getting-up of these companies Horatio had been a
+useful instrument, and had received liberal payment for his labours.
+Unhappily, so serene an occupation as promoting cannot go on for ever; or
+rather, cannot remain for ever in the same hands. The human mind is
+naturally imitative, and the plagiarisms of commerce are infinitely more
+audacious than the small larcenies of literature. The joint-stock company
+market became day by day more crowded. No sooner did Philip Sheldon float
+the Non-destructive Laundry Company, the admirable organization of which
+would offer a guarantee against the use of chloride of lime and other
+destructive agencies in the wash-tub, than a rival power launched a
+colourable imitation thereof, in the Union-is-Strength Domestic Lavatory
+Company, with a professor of chemistry specially retained as inspector of
+wash-tubs. Thus it was that, after the profitable ripening of three such
+schemes, Mr. Sheldon deemed it advisable to retire from the field, and
+await a fitter time for the further exercise of his commercial genius.
+
+Captain Paget's relations with the stockbroker did not, however,
+terminate with the cessation of his labours as secretary,
+jack-of-all-trades, and promoter. Having found him, so far, clever, and
+to all appearance trustworthy--and this was an important point, for no
+man so much needs honourable service as a rogue--Philip Sheldon
+determined upon confiding to Horatio the conduct of a more delicate
+business than anything purely commercial. After that discovery of the
+telegraphic message sent by his brother George to Valentine Hawkehurst,
+and the further discovery of the advertisement relating to the unclaimed
+wealth of the lately deceased John Haygarth, Mr. Sheldon lost no time in
+organizing his plans for his own aggrandizement at the expense of his
+brother.
+
+"George refused to let me in for a share of chances when I showed myself
+willing to help him," thought Philip. "He may discover by-and-by that I
+have contrived to let myself into his secrets; and that he might have
+played a better game by consenting to a partnership."
+
+A life devoted to his own interests, and a consistent habit of
+selfishness, had rendered Mr. Sheldon, of the Lawn, Bayswater, and Stags
+Court, City, very quick of apprehension in all matters connected,
+immediately or remotely, with the making of money. The broken sentences
+of the telegram betrayed by the blotting-pad told him a great deal. They
+told him that there was a certain Goodge, in the town of Ullerton, who
+possessed letters so valuable to George Sheldon, as to be bought by his
+agent Valentine Hawkehurst. Letters for which Sheldon was willing to give
+money must needs be of considerable importance, since money was a very
+scarce commodity with that hunter of unconscious heirs-at-law. Again, a
+transaction which required the use of so expensive a medium as the
+electric telegraph rather than the penny post, might be fairly supposed a
+transaction of some moment. The letters in question might relate to some
+other estate than that of John Haygarth, for it was quite possible that
+the schemer of Gray's Inn had other irons in the fire. But this was a
+question of no moment to Philip Sheldon.
+
+If the letters--or the information contained therein--were likely to be
+useful to George, they might be useful to him. If George found it worth
+his while to employ an agent at Ullerton, why should not he (Philip) have
+his agent in the same town? The pecuniary risk, which might be a serious
+affair to George, was child's play for Philip, who had always plenty of
+money, or, at any rate, the command of money. The whole business of
+heir-at-law hunting seemed to the stockbroker a very vague and shadowy
+piece of work, as compared to the kind of speculation that was familiar
+to him; but he knew that men had made money in such a manner, and any
+business by which money could be made, was interesting to him. Beyond
+this, the notion of cutting the ground from under his brother's feet had
+a certain attraction for him. George's manner to him had been somewhat
+offensive to him on more than one occasion since--well, since Tom
+Halliday's death. Mr. Sheldon had borne that offensiveness in mind, with
+the determination to "take it out of" his brother on the earliest
+opportunity.
+
+It seemed as if the opportunity had arrived, and Philip was not one of
+those men who wait shivering on the shore when Fortune's tide is at the
+flood. Mr. Sheldon launched his bark upon the rising waters, and within
+two hours of his discovery in the telegraph-office was closeted with
+Horatio Paget in the little parlour in Omega Street, making arrangements
+for the Captain's journey to Ullerton.
+
+That Horatio was the right man for the work he wanted done, Mr. Sheldon
+had been quick to perceive.
+
+"He knows Hawkehurst, and will be able to reckon up any manoeuvres of his
+better than a stranger; and is, I think, altogether as deep an old
+gentleman as one could hope to meet with, barring _the_ traditional
+gentleman who did odd jobs for Dr. Faustus," the stockbroker said to
+himself, as his hansom sped along Park Lane on its way to Chelsea. The
+eagerness with which Captain Paget took up the idea of this business was
+very agreeable to his patron.
+
+"This is an affair in which success hinges on time," said Mr. Sheldon;
+"so, if you mean to go in for the business, you must start for Ullerton
+by the two o'clock express. You'll have just time to throw your razors
+and a clean shirt into a carpet-bag while I talk to you. I've got a cab
+outside, and a good one, that will take you to Euston Square in half an
+hour."
+
+The Captain showed himself prompt in action. His bedchamber was a small
+apartment at the back of the parlour, and here he packed his bag while
+conversing with his employer.
+
+"If you get upon the ground in time, you may obtain a look at the letters
+before they are handed over to Hawkehurst, or you may outbid him for
+them," said Mr. Sheldon; "but remember, whatever you do must be so done
+as to keep Hawkehurst and George completely in the dark as to our
+proceedings. If once they find out we are on their track, our chances
+will be gone, for they have got the information and we haven't; and it's
+only by following close in their footsteps we can hope to do anything."
+
+"That is understood," replied the Captain, stooping over his bag; "I
+shall keep myself as close as possible, you may depend upon it. And it
+shan't be my fault if Valentine sees me or hears of me. I shall want
+money, by the bye; for one can't stir a step in this sort of affair
+without ready cash."
+
+"I am quite aware of that. I stopped at the West-end branch of the Unitas
+and cashed a cheque for forty pounds. You can do a good deal in the way
+of bribery for forty pounds, in such a place as Ullerton. What you have
+to do is to keep your eye on Hawkehurst, and follow up every channel of
+information that he opens for you. He has the clue to the labyrinth,
+remember, the reel of cotton, or whatever it was, that the young woman
+gave that Roman fellow. All you have to do is to get hold of it, and
+follow your leader." continued Philip, with his watch in his hand. "This
+business of the letters will be sharp work, for the chances are against
+us here, as it's more than likely the papers will have changed hands
+before you can get to Ullerton. But if you can't buy the letters, you may
+buy the information contained in them, and that is the next best thing.
+Your first move will be to ferret out this man Goodge. Everybody knows
+everybody else in such a place as Ullerton, large and busy as the town
+is, and you won't find that difficult. When you see Goodge, you'll know
+how to deal with him. The mode and manner of your dealing I leave to
+yourself. You are a man of the world, and will know how to manipulate the
+gentleman, whoever he may be. And now lock your bag and cut downstairs as
+fast as you can. Time's up. Here's your money--three tens, two fives.
+Good day."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+EPISTOLARY.
+
+_From Horatio Paget to Philip Sheldon_.
+
+Royal Hotel, Ullerton, Oct. 7, 186--.
+
+My dear sir,--I arrived here last evening just in time to run against
+Hawkehurst on the platform, which was rather a provoking encounter at the
+outset. He went further north by the same train that brought me from
+London. This train only stops at three places after Ullerton--Slowport,
+Black Harbour, and Manchester; and I shall take pains to discover which
+of these towns was Hawkehurst's destination. There was one satisfaction
+in seeing his departure by this train, inasmuch as it assured me that I
+had the ground clear for my own operations.
+
+I had no difficulty in discovering the whereabouts of Goodge--_the_
+Goodge we want--and at eight o'clock was comfortably seated in that
+gentleman's parlour, talking over the affair of the letters. Tolerably
+quick work, I think you will allow, my dear sir, for a man whose years
+have fallen into the sere and yellow leaf.
+
+Mr. Goodge is a Methodist parson--a class of person I have always
+detested. I found him peculiarly amenable to monetary influence. I need
+scarcely tell you that I was careful to conceal my identity from this
+person. I made so bold as to borrow the cognomen of an old-established
+firm of solicitors in the Fields, and took a somewhat high tone
+throughout the interview. I informed Mr. Goodge that the young man who
+had called on him with reference to certain letters connected with the
+affairs of the Haygarth family--and I perceived from Mr. Goodge's face
+that we were on the right track--was a person of disreputable character,
+engaged in an underhand transaction calculated to injure a respected
+client of our house. I saw that the words "house" and "our" were
+talismanic in their effect upon the Methodist parson. You see, my dear
+sir, there is no one can manage this sort of thing so well as a
+gentleman. It comes natural to him. Your vulgar diplomatist seldom knows
+how to begin, and never knows when to stop. Here I had this low-bred
+Methodist fellow impressed by the idea of my individual and collective
+importance after five minutes' conversation. "But this comes too near the
+praising of myself; therefore hear other things," as the bard observes.
+
+A very little further conversation rendered Mr. Goodge malleable. I found
+that Hawkehurst had approached him in the character of your brother's
+articled clerk, but under his own proper name. This is one point gained,
+since it assures me that Valentine is not skulking here under a feigned
+name; and will enable me to shape my future inquiries about him
+accordingly. I also ascertained Hawkehurst's whereabouts when in
+Ullerton. He stays at a low commercial house called the Black Swan. It
+appears that the man Goodge possesses a packet of letters written by a
+certain Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth, wife of one Matthew Haygarth. In what
+relationship this Matthew may stand to the intestate is to be discovered.
+It is evident he is an important link in the chain, or your brother would
+not want the letters. I need not trouble you with our conversation in
+detail. In gross it amounted to this: Mr. Goodge had pledged himself to
+hand over Mrs. Haygarth's letters, forty or so in number, to Hawkehurst
+in consideration of twenty pounds. They would have been already in
+Hawkehurst's possession, if Mr. Goodge had not objected to part with them
+except for ready money. In consideration of a payment of twenty pounds
+from me, he was willing to let me read all the letters, and select any
+ten I pleased to take. This bargain was not arrived at without
+considerable discussion, but it certainly struck me as a good one.
+
+I opened the packet of papers then and there, and sat up until six
+o'clock the next morning, reading Mrs. Haygarth's letters in Mr. Goodge's
+parlour. Very fatiguing occupation for a man of my years. Mr. Goodge's
+hospitality began and ended in a cup of coffee. Such coffee! and I
+remember the mocha I used to get at Arthur's thirty years ago,--a
+Promethean beverage, that illumined the dullest smoking-room bore with a
+flash of wit or a glimmer of wisdom.
+
+I enclose the ten letters which I have selected. They appear to me to
+tell the history of Mrs. Haygarth and her husband pretty plainly; but
+there is evidently something mysterious lurking behind the commonplace
+existence of the husband. That is a matter for future consideration. All
+I have to do in the present is to keep you as well informed as your
+brother. It may strike you that the letters I forward herewith, which are
+certainly the cream of the correspondence, and the notes I have made from
+the remaining letters, are scarcely worth the money paid for them. In
+reply to such an objection, I can only say that you get more for _your_
+money than your brother George will get for his.
+
+The hotel at which I have taken up my quarters is but a few paces from
+the commoner establishment where Hawkehurst is stopping. He is to call on
+Goodge for the letters to-day; so his excursion will be of brief
+duration. I find that the name of Haygarth is not unknown in this town,
+as there are a family of Judsons, some of whom call themselves Haygarth
+Judson. I intend inviting my landlord--a very superior person for his
+station--to discuss a bottle of wine with me after my chop this evening,
+and hope to obtain some information from him. In the meantime I shall
+keep myself close. It is of vital consequence that I should remain unseen
+by Hawkehurst. I do not believe he saw me on the platform last night,
+though we were as close to each other as we well could be.
+
+Let me know what you think of the letters, and believe me to be, my
+dear sir, very faithfully yours,
+
+H. N. C. PAGET. PHILIP SHELDON, Esq.,
+&c. &c. &c.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Philip Sheldon to Horatio Paget_.
+
+Bayswater, Oct. 8,186-.
+
+DEAR PAGET,--The letters are mysterious, and I don't see my way to
+getting much good out of them, but heartily approve your management of
+matters, and give you _carte blanche_ to proceed, according to your own
+lights.
+
+Yours truly, P.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Horatio Paget to Philip Sheldon_.
+
+Royal Hotel, Oct. 9, 186-.
+
+MY DEAR SIR,--The cultivation of my landlord has been very profitable.
+The house is the oldest in the town, and the business has descended in a
+direct line from father to son since the time of George the Second. This
+man's grandfather entertained the officers of William Duke of Cumberland,
+honoured by his contemporaries with the soubriquet of Billy the Butcher,
+during the "forty-five." I had to listen to and applaud a good many
+stories about Billy the Butcher before I could lead my landlord round to
+the subject of the Haygarths. But he was not more prosy than many men I
+have met at dinner-parties in the days when the highest circles in the
+land were open to your humble servant.
+
+The Haygarth family, of which the intestate John Haygarth was the last
+male descendant, were for a long period inhabitants of this town, and
+obtained their wealth by trading as grocers and general dealers in a shop
+not three hundred yards from the room in which I write. The building is
+still standing, and a curious, old-fashioned-looking place it is. The
+last of the Haygarths who carried on business therein was one Jonathan,
+whose son Matthew was the father of that Reverend John Haygarth, lately
+deceased, intestate. You will thus perceive that the letters I sent you
+are of much importance, as they relate solely to this Matthew, father of
+our intestate.
+
+My next inquiries related to the Judson family, who are, it appears,
+descended from the issue of a certain Ruth Haygarth's marriage with one
+Peter Judson. This Ruth Haygarth was the only sister of the Matthew
+alluded to in the letters, and therefore was aunt of the intestate. It
+would herefrom appear that in this Judson family we must naturally look
+for the rightful claimant to the fortune of the deceased John Haygarth.
+Possessed of this conviction, I proceeded to interrogate my landlord very
+cautiously as to the status, &c. of the Judson family, and amongst other
+questions, asked him with a complete assumption of indifference, whether
+he had ever heard that the Judsons expected to inherit property from any
+branch of the Haygarth family.
+
+This careless interrogatory produced information of, as I imagine, a very
+valuable character. A certain Theodore Judson, attorney of this town,
+calls himself heir-at-law to the Haygarth estates; but before he can
+establish his claim, this Theodore must produce evidence of the demise,
+without heirs, of one Peter Judson, eldest surviving grandson of Ruth
+Haygarth's eldest son, a scamp and ne'er-do-well--if living, supposed to
+be somewhere in India, where he went, as supercargo to a merchant vessel
+about, the year '41--who stands prior to Theodore Judson in the
+succession. I conclude that the said Theodore, who, as a lawyer, is
+likely to do things _secundum artem_, is doing his _possible_ to obtain
+the necessary evidence; but in the meantime he is at a dead lock, and the
+whole affair appears to be in a charming condition for speculative
+interference. I opine, therefore, that your brother really has hit upon a
+good thing this time; and my only wonder is, that instead of allowing his
+agent, Hawkehurst, to waste his time hunting up old letters of Matthew
+Haygarth's (to all appearance valueless as documentary evidence), he does
+not send Valentine to India to hunt for Peter Judson, who, if living, is
+the rightful heir to the intestate's fortune, and who, as a reckless
+extravagant fellow, would be likely to make very liberal terms with any
+one who offered to procure him a large lump of money.
+
+I confess that I am quite at a loss to understand why your brother George
+does not take this very obvious course, and why Valentine potters about
+in this neighbourhood, when a gold mine is waiting to be _exploité_ on
+the other side.
+
+I shall be very glad to have your views upon this subject, for at the
+present moment I am fain to acknowledge that I do not see my way to
+taking any further steps in this business, unless by commencing a search
+for the missing Peter.
+
+I am, my dear Sir, very truly yours,
+
+H. N. C. PAGET.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Philip Sheldon to Horatio Paget_.
+
+Bayswater, Oct. 10, 186--.
+
+DEAR PAGET,--When so old a stager as G. S. does not take the obvious
+course, the inference is that there is a better course to be taken--_not_
+obvious to the uninitiated.
+
+You have done very well so far, but the information you have obtained
+from your landlord is only such information as any one else may obtain
+from the current gossip of Ullerton. You haven't yet got to the _dessous
+des cartes_. Remember what I told you in London. G. S. _has_ the clue to
+this labyrinth; and what you have to do is to hold on to the coat-tails
+(in a figurative sense) of his agent, V. H.
+
+Don't put your trust in prosy old landlords, but continue to set a watch
+upon that young man, and follow up his trail as you did in the matter of
+the letters.
+
+If the Peter Judson who went to India three-and-twenty years ago were the
+right man to follow, G.S. would scarcely give twenty pounds for the
+letters of Mrs. Matthew Haygarth. It appears to me that G. must be
+looking for an heir on the Haygarth side of the house; and if so, rely
+upon it he has his reasons. Don't bewilder yourself by trying to
+theorize, but get to the bottom of G.'s theory.
+
+Yours truly, P. S.
+
+_Horatio Paget to Philip Sheldon_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Royal Hotel, Oct. 12, 186.--
+
+MY DEAR SIR,--Considering the advice contained in your last very good, I
+lost no time in acting upon it. I need hardly tell you, that to employ
+the services of a hired spy, and to degrade myself in some sort to the
+level of a private inquirer, was somewhat revolting to a man, who, in the
+decadence of his fortunes, has ever striven to place some limit on the
+outrages which that hard taskmaster, poverty, may have from time to time
+compelled him to inflict upon his self-respect. But in the furtherance of
+a cause which I conclude is in no manner dishonourable, since an
+unclaimed heritage must needs be a prize open to all, I submitted to this
+temporary degradation of my higher feelings, and I trust that when the
+time arrives for the settlement of any pecuniary consideration which
+I am to derive from these irksome and uncongenial labours, my wounded
+self-respect may not be omitted from the reckoning. The above exordium
+may appear to you tedious, but it is only just to myself to remind you
+that you are not dealing with a vulgar hireling. My first step, after
+duly meditating your suggestions, was to find a fitting watch for the
+movements of Hawkehurst. I opined that the best person to play the spy
+would be that class of man whose existence seems for the most part
+devoted to the lounging at street corners, the chewing of straw, and that
+desultory kind of industry known in the _patois_ of this race as
+"fetching errands." This is the man, or boy, who starts up from the
+pavement (as through a trap-door in the flags) whenever one alights from
+or would enter any kind of vehicle. Unbidden, unrequired, and obnoxious,
+the creature arises, and opens a door, or lays some rag of his wretched
+attire on a muddy wheel, and then whines, piteous, for a copper. Such a
+man, or such a boy, I felt convinced must exist among the hangers-on of
+the Royal Hotel; nor was I mistaken. On inquiring for a handy lad,
+capable of attending upon my needs at all hours in the day, and not a
+servant in the hotel, but a person who would be wholly at my own
+disposal, I was informed that the Boots had a younger brother who was
+skilled in the fetching of errands, and who would be happy to wait upon
+me for a very reasonable remuneration, or in the words of the waiter
+himself, would be ready to leave it--i.e. the remuneration--to my own
+generosity. I know that there are no people who expect so much as those
+who leave the assessment of their claims to your own generosity; but
+as I wanted good service, I was prepared to pay well. The younger Boots
+made his appearance in due course--a sharp young fellow enough--and I
+forthwith made him my slave by the promise of five shillings a day for
+every day in which I should require his services. I then told him that it
+was my misfortune to own--with a strong inclination to disown--a
+reprobate nephew, now an inhabitant of that very town. This nephew, I had
+reason to believe, was going at a very rapid rate to the dogs; but my
+affectionate feelings would not allow him to consummate his own
+destruction without one last effort to reclaim him. I had therefore
+followed him to Ullerton, whither I believed him to be led by the worst
+possible motives; and having done so, my next business was to keep myself
+informed of his whereabouts.
+
+Seeing that the younger Boots accepted these statements with
+unquestioning faith, I went on to inquire whether he felt himself equal
+to the delicate duty of hanging about the yard of the Black Swan, and
+watching the doors of exit from that hotel, with a view to following my
+recreant nephew wherever he might go, even if considerably beyond the
+limits of Ullerton. I saw that the lad's intelligence was likely to be
+equal to this transaction, unless there should arise any difficult or
+complicated position by reason of the suspicion of Hawkehurst, or other
+mischance. "Do you think you can watch the gentleman without being
+observed?" I asked. "I'm pretty well sure I can, sir," answered the boy,
+who is of an enterprising, and indeed audacious, temper. "Very well,"
+said I, "you will go to the Black Swan Inn. Hawkehurst is the name by
+which my nephew is known there, and it will be your duty to find him
+out." I gave the boy a minute account of Valentine's appearance, and
+other instructions with which I need not trouble you. I further furnished
+him with money, so that he might be able to follow Hawkehurst by rail, or
+any other mode of conveyance, if necessary; and then despatched him, with
+an order to come back to me when he had seen our man safely lodged in the
+Black Swan after his day's perambulations. "And if he shouldn't go out at
+all?" suggested the lad. "In that case you must stick to your post till
+nightfall, and pick up all the information you can about my unfortunate
+nephew from the hangers-on of the hotel," said I. "I suppose you know
+some one at the Black Swan?" The boy informed me, in his untutored
+language, that he knew "a'most all of 'em," and thereupon departed.
+
+At nine o'clock at night he again appeared before me, big with the
+importance of his day's work. He had seen my nephew issue forth from the
+Black Swan within an hour of leaving my presence, and had followed him,
+first to Mr. William Judson's in Ferrygate, where he waited and hung
+about nearly an hour, keeping himself well out of view round the corner
+of Chalkin Street, a turning close to Mr. Judson's house. After leaving
+this gentleman's house, my renegade nephew had proceeded--carrying a
+letter in his hand, and walking as if in very good spirits (but that
+fellow Hawkehurst would walk to the gallows in good spirits)--to the
+Lancaster Road, where he was admitted into Lochiel Villa, a house
+belonging, as my Mercury ascertained from a passing baker's boy, to Miss
+Judson, sister of the William Judson of Ferrygate. You will perceive that
+this town appears to teem with the Judson family. My messenger, with
+praiseworthy art, contrived to engage in a game of tip-cat (what, I
+wonder, _is_ a tip-cat?) with some vagrant boys disporting themselves in
+the roadway, within view of Miss Judson's house. Hence, after the lapse
+of more than an hour, Boots-Mercury beheld my recreant relative emerge,
+and from this point followed him--always with extreme caution--back to
+the Black Swan. Here he hung about the yard, favoured by his close
+acquaintance with the ostler, until eight o'clock in the evening, no
+event of the smallest importance occurring during all those hours. But at
+eight there arrived a young woman, with a packet from Miss Judson to Mr.
+Hawkehurst. The packet was small, and was sealed with red wax. This was
+all my Mercury could ascertain respecting it; but this was something.
+
+I at once divined that this packet must needs contain letters. I asked
+myself whether those letters or papers had been sold to Hawkehurst, or
+only lent to him, and I immediately concluded that they could only have
+been lent. It was all very well for Goodge, the Methodist parson, to
+traffic in the epistles of Mrs. Matthew Haygarth, but it was to the last
+degree unlikely that a well-to-do maiden lady would part with family
+letters or papers for any pecuniary consideration whatever. "No," I said
+to myself, "the documents have been lent, and will have to be returned;"
+and thereupon I laid my plans for the next day's campaign, with a view to
+obtaining a peep at those letters, by fair means or foul. I told the boy
+to be at his post in the inn yard early the next morning, and if my
+nephew did not leave the inn, my agent was to ascertain what he was
+doing, and to bring me word thereof. "I'll tell you what it is, Boots," I
+said; "I have reason to believe that sadly disposed nephew of mine has
+some wicked intention with regard to Miss Judson, who is nearly related
+to a young lady with whom that unprincipled young man is, or pretends to
+be, in love; and I very much fear that he means to send her some letters,
+written by this foolish niece of hers to my more foolish nephew, and
+eminently calculated to wound the good lady's feelings. Now, in order to
+prevent this very shameful conduct on his part, I want to intercept any
+packet or letter which that mistaken youth may send to Miss Judson. Do
+you feel yourself capable of getting hold of such a packet, on
+consideration of a bonus of half-a-sovereign in addition to the five
+shillings per diem already agreed upon?"
+
+This, in more direct and vulgar phraseology, was what I said to the boy;
+and the boy departed, after pledging himself to bring me any packet which
+Hawkehurst might despatch from the Swan Inn. The only fear was that
+Hawkehurst might carry the packet himself, and this contingency appeared
+unpleasantly probable.
+
+Fortune favoured us. My reprobate nephew was too ill to go out. He
+intrusted Miss Hudson's packet to his waiter, the waiter confided it to
+the Boots, the Boots resigned the responsibility in favour of my boy
+Mercury, who kindly offered to save that functionary the trouble of a
+walk to the Lancaster Road.
+
+At eleven A.M. the packet was in my hands. I have devoted the best part
+of to-day to the contents of this packet. They consist of letters written
+by Matthew Haygarth, and distinguished by a most abominable orthography;
+but I remember my own father's epistolary composition to have been
+somewhat deficient in this respect; nor is it singular that the humble
+citizen should have been a poor hand at spelling in an age when royal
+personages indulged in a phonetic style of orthography which would
+provoke the laughter of a modern charity-boy. That the pretender to the
+crown of England should murder the two languages in which he wrote seems
+a small thing; but that Frederick the Great, the most accomplished of
+princes, bosom-friend of Voltaire, and sworn patron of the literati,
+should not have been able to spell, is a matter for some astonishment. I
+could but remember this fact, as I perused the epistles of Matthew
+Haygarth. I felt that these letters had in all probability been carefully
+numbered by the lady to whom they belong, and that to tamper with them to
+any serious extent might be dangerous. I have therefore only ventured to
+retain one insignificant scrawl as an example of Matthew Haygarth's
+caligraphy and signature. From the rest I have taken copious notes. It
+appears to me that these letters relate to some _liaison_ of the
+gentleman's youth; though I am fain to confess myself surprised to
+discover that, even in a period notorious for looseness of morals, a man
+should enter into such details in a correspondence with his sister.
+_Autres temps, autres moeurs_. I have selected my extracts with great
+care, and hope that you may be able to make more use of them than I can
+at present imagine possible. I shall post this letter and enclosure with
+my own hands, though in order to do so I must pass the Black Swan. I
+shall despatch my messenger to Lochiel Villa, with Miss Judson's packet,
+under cover of the darkness.
+
+In much haste, to catch the London mail,
+
+Truly yours, H.N.C.P.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_From Philip Sheldon to Horatio Paget_. City, Oct. 12, 186--
+
+Dear Paget,--Come back to town. You are only wasting money, time, and
+trouble. Yours, P.S.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+TOO CLEVER, FOR A CATSPAW.
+
+Captain Paget returned to town, mystified by that sudden summons from his
+patron, and eager to know what new aspect of affairs rendered his further
+presence in Ullerton useless or undesirable.
+
+Horatio arrived in the great city half-a-dozen hours before his sometime
+protégé, and was comfortably installed when Valentine returned to those
+lodgings in Omega Street, Chelsea, which the two men occupied in common.
+
+Captain Paget went into the City to see Philip Sheldon on the day of his
+return, but did not succeed in finding the stockbroker. The evening's
+post brought him a letter from Philip, appointing an interview at
+Bayswater, at three o'clock on the following day--the day after
+Valentine's return from Ullerton.
+
+Punctual to the moment appointed by this letter, Captain Paget appeared
+at the Lawn on the following day. He was ushered into Mr. Sheldon's
+study, where he found that gentleman awaiting him, grave and meditative
+of mood, but friendly, and indeed cordial, in his manner to the returning
+traveller.
+
+"My dear Paget, sit down; I am delighted to see you. Your trip has made
+you look five years younger, by Jove! I was sorry to find you had called
+while I was out, and had waited for me upwards of an hour yesterday. I
+have a good deal of worry on my shoulders just now; commerce is all
+worry, you know. The Marquis of Lambeth has come into the market and
+bought up two-thirds of the Astrakhan Grand Trunk debenture bonds, just
+as our house had speculated for the fall. And since it has got wind that
+the Marquis is sweet upon the concern, the bonds are going up like a
+skyrocket. Such is life. I thought we had better have our little talk
+here; it's quieter than in the City. Have some sherry and soda; you like
+that Manzanilla of mine, I know."
+
+And the hospitable Philip rang the bell, without thinking it necessary to
+wait for his guest's answer.
+
+There was a cordiality, a conciliating friendliness about the
+stockbroker's manner which Horatio Paget did not like.
+
+"He's too civil by half," the Captain said to himself; "he means to do
+me."
+
+"And now about this Ullerton business," Mr. Sheldon began, when the wine
+and soda-water had been brought, and a tall tumbler of that refreshing
+compound filled for the Captain; "you have really managed matters
+admirably. I cannot too much applaud your diplomatic tact. You would have
+put a what's-his-name--that fellow of Napoleon's--to the blush by your
+management of the whole business. But, unfortunately, when it's all done
+it comes to nothing; the whole affair is evidently, from beginning to
+end, a mare's-nest. It is one of those wild geese which my brother George
+has been chasing for the last ten years, and which never have resulted in
+profit to him or anybody else; and I should be something worse than a
+fool if I were to lend myself any longer to such a folly."
+
+"Humph," muttered the Captain, "here is a change indeed!"
+
+"Well, yes," Mr. Sheldon answered coolly. "I dare say my conduct does
+seem rather capricious; but you see George put me out of temper the other
+day, and I was determined, if he had got a good thing, to cut the ground
+from under his feet. All your communications from Ullerton tend to show
+me that he has not got hold of a good thing, and that in any attempt to
+circumvent him I should only be circumventing myself, wasting your time,
+and my own money. This Judson family seems numberless; and it is evident
+to me that the Reverend John Haygarth's fortune will be a bone of
+contention amongst the Judsons in the High Court of Chancery for any
+indefinite number of years between this and the milennium. So I really
+think, my dear Paget, we'd better consider this transaction finished. I
+will give you whatever honorarium you think fit to name for your trouble,
+and we'll close the affair. I shall find plenty more business as good, or
+better, for you to do."
+
+"You are very good," replied the Captain, in nowise satisfied by this
+promise. It was all too smooth, too conciliatory. And there was a
+suddenness in this change of plan that was altogether mysterious. So
+indeed might a capricious man be expected to drop a speculation he had
+been eager to inaugurate, but Philip Sheldon was the last of men to be
+suspected of caprice.
+
+"You must have taken an immense deal of trouble with those extracts,
+now," said the stockbroker carelessly, as Horatio rose to depart,
+offended and angry, but anxious to conceal his anger. "What, are you off
+so soon? I thought you would stop and take a chop with us."
+
+"No, thanks; I have an engagement elsewhere. Yes, I took an
+inordinate trouble with those extracts, and I am sorry to think they
+should be useless."
+
+"Well, yes, it is rather provoking to you, I dare say. The extracts would
+be very interesting from a social point of view, no doubt, to people who
+care about such things; but in a legal sense they are waste-paper. I
+can't understand why Hawkehurst was in Ullerton; for, as you yourself
+suggested, that Peter Judson who went to India must be the Judson wanted
+for this case."
+
+"Your brother may be in league with some other branch of the Judson
+family. Or what if he is hunting for an heir on the Haygarth side?" asked
+the Captain, with a very close watch upon Mr. Sheldon's face. Let the
+stockbroker be never so skilful a navigator of the high seas of life,
+there was no undercurrent, no cross trade-wind, no unexplained veering of
+the magnetic needle to the west, in the mysteries whereof the Captain was
+not also versed. When Columbus wanted to keep his sailors quiet on that
+wondrous voyage over an unknown ocean to the Western world, the
+diplomatic admiral made so bold as to underrate the length of each day's
+sail in an unveracious log, which he kept for the inspection of his crew;
+but no doctoring of the social log-book could mislead the acute Horatio.
+
+"How about the Haygarth side of the house?" he asked again; for it had
+seemed to him that at his first mention of the name of Haygarth Mr.
+Sheldon had winced, ever so little. This time, however, he betrayed not
+the faintest concern; but he was doubtless now on his guard.
+
+"Well, I don't see how there can be any claimant on that side of the
+house," he said carelessly. "You see, according to your old landlord's
+statement--which I take to be correct--Jonathan Haygarth had but one son,
+a certain Matthew, who married one Rebecca So-and-so, and had, in his
+turn one only son, the intestate John. Now, in that case, where is your
+heir to come from, except through Matthew's sister Ruth, who married
+Peter Judson?"
+
+"Isn't it just possible that Matthew Haygarth may have married twice, and
+had other children? Those letters certainly suggest the idea of a secret
+alliance of some kind on Haygarth's part, and the existence of a family,
+to whom he appears to have been warmly attached. My first idea of this
+affair was that it must have been a low _liaison_; but I could hardly
+realize the fact of Matthew's confiding in his sister under any such
+circumstances, however lax in his morals that gentleman may have been.
+Mrs. Matthew Haygarth's letters hint at some mystery in her husband's
+life. Is it not likely that this hidden family was a legitimate one?"
+
+"I can't quite see my way to that idea," Mr. Sheldon answered, in a
+meditative tone. "It seems very unlikely that any marriage of Haygarth's
+could have remained unknown to his townsmen; and even if it were so, I
+doubt the possibility of our tracing the heirs from such a marriage. No,
+my dear Paget, I have resolved to wash my hands of the business, and
+leave my brother George in undisturbed possession of his ground."
+
+"In that case, perhaps, you will return my notes; they are
+interesting to me."
+
+Here again the faintest indication of annoyance in the stockbroker's face
+told its tale to Captain Paget. For your accomplished navigator of the
+unknown seas there is no ocean bird, no floating weed, that has not a
+language and a significance.
+
+"You can have your notes, if you want them," answered Mr. Sheldon; "they
+are at my office. I'll hunt them up and send them to you; or you had
+better look in upon me in the City early next week, and I can give you a
+cheque at the same time."
+
+"Thanks. I will be sure and do so."
+
+"You say the orthography of the original letters was queer. I suppose
+your copies were faithful in all matters except the orthography. And in
+the names, you of course adhered to the original spelling?"
+
+"Most decidedly," replied Captain Paget, opening the door to depart,
+and with a somewhat cynical smile upon his face, which was hidden from
+Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"I suppose there is no doubt of your accuracy with regard to the name of
+Meynell, now?"
+
+"Not the least. Good afternoon. Ah, there's our young friend Hawkehurst!"
+exclaimed the Captain, in his "society" voice, as he looked out into the
+hall, where Valentine was parting with Diana.
+
+He came and greeted his young friend, and they left the house together.
+
+This was the occasion upon which Valentine was startled by hearing the
+name "Meynell" pronounced by the lips of Philip Sheldon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+CAPTAIN PAGET IS PATERNAL.
+
+Horatio Paget left the Lawn after the foregoing interview, fully
+convinced that Mr. Sheldon was only desirous to throw him off the scent,
+in order to follow up the chase alone, for his sole profit and advantage.
+
+"My last letter conveyed some intelligence that altered his whole plan of
+action," thought the Captain; "that is perfectly clear. He was somewhat
+wanting in tact when he recalled me so suddenly. But I suppose he thought
+it would be easy to throw dust in my poor old eyes. What was the
+intelligence that made him change his mind? That is the grand question."
+Captain Paget dined alone at a West-End restaurant that evening. He dined
+well, for he had in hand certain moneys advanced by his patron, and he
+was not disposed to be parsimonious. He sat for some time in meditative
+mood over his pint bottle of Chambertin, and the subject of his
+meditation was Philip Sheldon.
+
+"Yes," he murmured at last, "that is it. The charm is in the name of
+Meynell. Why else should he question me about the orthography of that
+name? I sent him information about Matthew Haygarth in the wife's
+letters, and he took no special notice of that information. It was only
+when the name of Meynell cropped up that he changed his tactics and tried
+to throw me over. It seems to me that he must have some knowledge of this
+Meynell branch, and therefore thinks himself strong enough to act alone,
+and to throw me over the bridge. To throw me over," the Captain repeated
+to himself slowly. "Well, we'll see about that. We'll see; yes, we'll
+see."
+
+At noon on the following day Captain Paget presented himself again at the
+Bayswater villa, where his daughter ate the bread of dependence. He
+appeared this time in a purely paternal character. He came to call upon
+his only child. Before paying this visit the Captain had improved the
+shining hour by a careful study of the current and two or three back
+volumes of the Post-Office and Trade Directories; but all his researches
+in those interesting volumes had failed to reveal to him the existence of
+any metropolitan Meynells.
+
+"The Meynells whom Sheldon knows may be in the heart of the country," he
+said to himself, after these futile labours.
+
+It was a fine autumnal morning, and as Miss Paget was at home and
+disengaged, her affectionate father suggested that she should take a walk
+with him in Kensington Gardens. Such a promenade had very little
+attraction for the young lady; but she had a vague idea that she owed a
+kind of duty to her father not remitted by his neglect of all duties to
+her; so she assented with a smile, and went out with him, looking very
+handsome and stylish in her simple but fashionable attire, no part of
+which had been provided by the parent she accompanied.
+
+The Captain surveyed her with some sense of family pride. "Upon my word,
+my dear, you do me credit!" he exclaimed, with a somewhat patronising
+kindness of tone and manner; "indeed any man might be proud of such a
+daughter. You are every inch a Paget."
+
+"I hope not, papa," said the girl involuntarily; but the Captain's more
+delicate instincts had been considerably blunted in the press and jostle
+of life, and he did not feel the sting of this remark.
+
+"Well, perhaps you are right, my love," he replied blandly; "the Pagets
+_are_ an unlucky family. Like those Grecian people, the Atri--,
+what's-his-name--the man who was killed in his bath, you know. His wife,
+or the other young person who had come to visit his daughters, made the
+water too hot, you know--and that kind of thing. I am not quite clear
+about the story, but it's one of those farragos of rubbish they make
+young men learn at public schools. Yes, my dear, I really am amazingly
+pleased by your improved appearance. Those Sheldon people dress you very
+nicely; and I consider your residence in that family a very agreeable
+arrangement for all parties. You confer a favour on the girl by your
+society, and so on, and the mother provides you with a comfortable home;
+All I wonder is that your good looks haven't made their mark before this
+with some of Sheldon's rich stockbroking fellows."
+
+"We see very little of the stockbroking fellows, as you call them, at the
+Lawn, papa."
+
+"Indeed! I thought Sheldon kept a great deal of company."
+
+"O no. He gives a dinner now and then, a gentleman's dinner usually; and
+poor Mrs. Sheldon is very anxious that it should all go off well, as she
+says; but I don't think he is a person who cares much for society."
+
+"Really, now?"
+
+"His mind seems completely occupied by his business, you see, papa. That
+horrible pursuit of gain seems to require all his thoughts, and all his
+time. He is always reading commercial papers, the _Money Market_ and _On
+Change_, and the _Stockbrokers' Vade Mecum_, and publications of that
+kind. When he is not reading he is thinking; and by his manner one would
+fancy his thoughts were always gloomy and unpleasant. What a miserable,
+hateful, unholy life to lead! I would not be that man for all the money
+in the Bank of England. But it is a kind of treachery to tell these
+things. Mr. Sheldon is very good to me. He lets me sit at his table and
+share the comforts of his home, and I must be very ungrateful to speak
+against him. I do _not_ mean to speak against him, you see, papa--I only
+mean that a life devoted to money-making is in itself hateful."
+
+"My dear child, you may be assured that anything you say to _me_ will go
+no further," said the Captain, with dignity; "and in whom should you
+confide, if not in your father? I have a profound respect for Sheldon and
+his family--yes, my love, a profound respect; and I think that girl
+Sarah--no, I mean Charlotte--a very charming young person. I need
+scarcely tell you that the smallest details of your life in that family
+possess a keen interest for me. I am not without a father's feelings,
+Diana, though circumstances have never permitted me to perform a father's
+duties."
+
+And here the solitary tear which the accomplished Horatio could produce
+at will trembled in his eye. This one tear was always at his command. For
+the life of him he could not have produced a second; but the single drop
+never failed him, and he found one tear as effective as a dozen, in
+giving point and finish to a pathetic speech.
+
+Diana looked at him, and wondered, and doubted. Alas, she knew him only
+too well! Any other creature in this wide world he might deceive, but not
+her. She had lived with him; she had tasted the bitterness of dependence
+upon him--ten times more bitter than dependence on strangers. She had
+shown him her threadbare garments day after day, and had pleaded for a
+little money, to be put off with a lying excuse. She could not forget
+this. She had forgiven him long ago, being of too generous a nature to
+brood upon past injuries. But she could not forget what manner of man he
+was, and thank him for pretty speeches which she knew to be meaningless.
+
+They talked a little more of Mr. Sheldon and his family, but Diana did
+not again permit herself to be betrayed into any vehement expressions of
+her opinions. She answered all her father's questions without restraint,
+for they were very commonplace questions, of a kind that might be
+answered without any breach of faith.
+
+"Amongst the Sheldons' acquaintances did you ever hear of any people
+called Meynell?" Captain Paget asked at length.
+
+"Yes," Diana replied, after a moment's thought; "the name is certainly
+very familiar to me;" and then, after a pause, she exclaimed, "Why, the
+Meynells were relations of Charlotte's! Yes, her grandmother was a Miss
+Meynell; I perfectly remember hearing Mrs. Sheldon talk about the
+Meynells. But I do not think there are any descendants of that family now
+living. Why do you ask the question, papa? What interest have you in the
+Meynells?"
+
+"Well, my dear, I have my reasons, but they in no manner concern Mr.
+Sheldon or his family; and I must beg you to be careful not to mention
+the subject in your conversation with those worthy people. I want to know
+all about this Meynell family. I have come across some people of that
+name, and I want to ascertain the precise relationship existing between
+these people and the Sheldons. But the Sheldons must know nothing of this
+inquiry for the present. The people I speak of are poor and proud, and
+they would perish rather than press a relationship upon a rich man,
+unless fully justified by the closeness of family ties. I am sure you
+understand all this, Diana?"
+
+"Not very clearly, papa."
+
+"Well, my dear, it is a delicate position, and perhaps somewhat difficult
+for the comprehension of a third party. All you need understand is the
+one fact, that any information respecting the Meynell family will be
+vitally interesting to my friends, and, through them, serviceable to me.
+There is, in fact, a legacy which these friends of mine could claim,
+under a certain will, if once assured as to the degree of their
+relationship to your friend Charlotte's kindred on the Meynell side of
+the house. To give them the means of securing this legacy would be to
+help the ends of justice; and I am sure, Diana, you would wish to do
+that."
+
+"Of course, papa, if I can do so without any breach of faith with my
+employers. Can you promise me that no harm will result to the Sheldons,
+above all to Charlotte Halliday, from any information I may procure for
+you respecting the Meynell family?"
+
+"Certainly, Diana, I can promise you that. I repeat most solemnly,
+that by obtaining such information for me you will be aiding the cause
+of justice."
+
+If Horatio Paget might ever be betrayed into the inconsistency of a
+truthful assertion, it seemed to his daughter that it was likely to be in
+this moment. His words sounded like truth; and, on reflection, Diana
+failed to perceive that she could by any possibility inflict wrong on her
+friends by obliging her father in this small affair.
+
+"Let me think the matter over, papa," she said.
+
+"Nonsense, Diana; what thinking over can be wanted about such a trifle? I
+never before asked you a favour. Surely you cannot refuse to grant so
+simple a request, after the trouble I have taken to explain my reasons
+for making it."
+
+There was some further discussion, which ended in Miss Paget consenting
+to oblige her father.
+
+"And you will manage matters with tact?" urged the Captain, at parting.
+
+"There is no especial tact required, papa," replied Diana; "the matter is
+easy enough. Mrs. Sheldon is very fond of talking about her own affairs.
+I have only to ask her some leading question about the Meynells, and she
+will run on for an hour, telling me the minutest details of family
+history connected with them. I dare say I have heard the whole story
+before, and have not heeded it: I often find my thoughts wandering when
+Mrs. Sheldon is talking."
+
+Three days after this Captain Paget called on Mr. Sheldon in the City,
+when he received a very handsome recompense for his labours at Ullerton,
+and became repossessed of the extracts he had made from Matthew
+Haygarth's letters, but not of the same Mr. Haygarth's autograph letter:
+that document Mr. Sheldon confessed to having mislaid.
+
+"He has mislaid the original letter, and he has had ample leisure for
+copying my extracts; and he thinks I am such a consummate fool as not to
+see all that," thought Horatio, as he left the stockbroker's office,
+enriched but not satisfied.
+
+In the course of the same day he received a long letter from Diana
+containing the whole history of the Meynells, as known to Mrs. Sheldon.
+Once set talking, Georgy had told all she could tell, delighted to find
+herself listened to with obvious interest by her companion.
+
+"I trust that you have not deceived me, my dear father," Diana concluded,
+after setting forth the Meynell history. "The dear good soul was so
+candid and confiding, and seemed so pleased by the interest I showed in
+her family affairs, that I should feel myself the vilest of wretches if
+any harm could result to her, or those she loves, from the information
+thus obtained."
+
+The information was very complete. Mrs. Sheldon had a kindly and amiable
+nature, but she was not one of those sensitive souls who instinctively
+shrink from a story of bitter shame or profound sorrow as from a cureless
+wound. She told Diana, with many lamentations, and much second-hand
+morality, the sad history of Susan Meynell's elopement, and of the
+return, fourteen years afterwards, of the weary wanderer. Even the poor
+little trunk, with the name of the Rouen trunk-maker, Mrs. Sheldon dwelt
+upon with graphic insistence. A certain womanly delicacy had prevented
+her ever telling this story in the presence of her brother-in-law, George
+Sheldon, whose hard worldly manner in no way invited any sentimental
+revelation. Thus it happened that George had never heard the name of
+Meynell in connection with his friend Tom Halliday's family, or had heard
+it so seldom as to have entirely forgotten it. To Horatio his daughter's
+letter was priceless. It placed him at once in as good a position as
+Philip Sheldon, or as George Sheldon and his coadjutor, Valentine
+Hawkehurst. There were thus three different interests involved in the
+inheritance of the Reverend John Haygarth.
+
+Captain Paget sat late by a comfortable fire, in his own bedchamber, that
+night, enjoying an excellent cigar, and meditating the following jottings
+from a pedigree:--
+
+CHARLOTTE MEYNELL, married JAMES HALLIDAY.
+       |
+THOMAS HALLIDAY, only son of above, married GEORGINA, now Mrs. SHELDON;
+       |         had issue,
+CHARLOTTE HALLIDAY.
+
+SUSAN MEYNELL, only and elder sister of the above-named Charlotte, ran
+away from her home, in Yorkshire, with a Mr. Kingdon, brother to Lord
+Darnsville. Fate unknown during fourteen years of her life. Died in
+London, 1835. Buried under her maiden name; but no positive evidence to
+show that she was unmarried.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE CAPTAIN'S COADJUTOR.
+
+Once in possession of the connection between the intestate John Haygarth
+and the Halliday family, Captain Paget's course was an easy one. He
+understood now why his investigations had been so suddenly brought to a
+standstill. Philip Sheldon had discovered the unexpected connection, and
+was eager to put a stop to researches that might lead to a like discovery
+on the part of his coadjutor.
+
+"And Sheldon expects to prove his stepdaughter's claim to this fortune?"
+thought the Captain. "He will affect ignorance of the whole transaction
+until his plans are ripe, and then spring them suddenly upon his brother
+George. I wonder if there is anything to be made out of George by letting
+him into the secret of his brother's interference? No; I think not.
+George is as poor as a church mouse, and Philip must always be the more
+profitable acquaintance."
+
+On the broad basis afforded by Diana's letter Captain Paget was able to
+build up the whole scheme of the Haygarthian succession. The pedigree of
+the Meynells was sufficiently simple, if their legitimate descent from
+Matthew Haygarth could be fairly proved. Charlotte Halliday was
+heiress-at-law to the fortune of John Haygarth, always provided that her
+great-aunt Susan died without legitimate issue.
+
+Here was the one chance which appeared to the adventurous mind of Horatio
+Paget worth some trouble in the way of research. Fourteen years of Susan
+Meynell's life had been spent away from all who knew her. It was
+certainly possible that in that time she might have formed some
+legitimate alliance.
+
+This was the problem which Horatio set himself to solve. Your adventurer
+is, of all manner of men, the most sanguine. Sir Walter Raleigh sees
+visions of gold and glory where grave statesman see only a fool's
+paradise of dreams and fancies. To the hopeful mind of the Captain these
+fourteen unrecorded years of Susan Meynell's life seemed a very Golconda.
+
+He did not, however, rest satisfied with the information afforded by
+Diana's letter.
+
+"I will have the story of these Meynells at first-hand as well as at
+second-hand," he said to himself; and he lost no time in presenting
+himself again at the Villa--this time as a visitor to Mrs. Sheldon.
+
+With Georgy he had been always a favourite. His little stories of the
+great world--the Prince and Perdita, Brummel and Sheridan--though by no
+means novel to those acquainted with that glorious period of British
+history, were very agreeable to Georgy. The Captain's florid flatteries
+pleased her; and she contrasted the ceremonious manners of that gentleman
+with the curt business-like style of her husband, very much to the
+Captain's advantage. He came to thank her for her goodness to his child,
+and this occasion gave him ample opportunity for sentiment. He had asked
+to see Mrs. Sheldon alone, as his daughter's presence would have been
+some hindrance to the carrying out of his design.
+
+"There are things I have to say which I should scarcely care to utter
+before my daughter, you see, my dear Mrs. Sheldon," he said, with
+pathetic earnestness. "I should not wish to remind the dear child of her
+desolate position; and I need scarcely tell you that position is _very_
+desolate. A father who, at his best, cannot provide a fitting home for a
+delicately nurtured girl, and who at any moment may be snatched away, is
+but a poor protector. And were it not for your friendship, I know not
+what my child's fate might be. The dangers and temptations that beset a
+handsome young woman are very terrible, my dear Mrs. Sheldon."
+
+This was intended to lead up to the subject of Susan Meynell, but Georgy
+did not rise to the bait. She only shook her head plaintively in assent
+to the Captain's proposition.
+
+"Yes, madam; beauty, unallied with strength of mind and high principles,
+is apt to be a fatal dower. In every family there are sad histories,"
+murmured the sentimental Horatio.
+
+Even this remark did not produce the required result; so the Captain drew
+upon his invention for a specimen history from the annals of his own
+house, which was a colourable imitation of Susan Meynell's story.
+
+"And what was the end of this lovely Belinda Paget's career, my dear Mrs.
+Sheldon?" he concluded. "The gentleman was a man of high rank, but a
+scoundrel and a dastard. Sophia's brother, a cornet in the First Life
+Guards, called him out, and there was a meeting on Wimbledon Common, in
+which Lavinia's seducer was mortally wounded. There was a trial, and the
+young captain of Hussars, Amelia's brother, was sentenced to
+transportation for life. I need scarcely tell you that the sentence was
+never carried out. The young man fell gloriously at Waterloo, at the head
+of his own regiment, the Scotch Fusiliers, and Lavinia--I beg pardon,
+Amelia; nay, what am I saying? the girl's name was Belinda--embraced the
+Roman Catholic faith, and expired from the effects of stigmata inflicted
+by her own hands in a paroxysm of remorse for her brother's untimely
+death at the hands of her seducer."
+
+This lively little impromptu sketch had the desired effect. Melted by the
+woes of Belinda, or Sophia, or Amelia, or Lavinia Paget, Mrs. Sheldon was
+moved to relate a sad event in her husband's family; and encouraged by
+the almost tearful sympathy of the Captain, she again repeated every
+detail of Susan Meynell's life, as known to her kindred. And as this
+recital had flowed spontaneously from the good soul's lips, she would he
+scarcely likely to allude to it afterwards in conversation with Mr.
+Sheldon; more especially as that gentleman was not in the habit of
+wasting much of his valuable time in small-talk with the members of his
+own household.
+
+Captain Paget had duly calculated this, and every other hazard that
+menaced the intricate path he had mapped out for himself.
+
+Satisfied by Mrs. Sheldon's repetition of Susan Meynell's story, and
+possessed of all the information he could hope to obtain from that
+quarter, Horatio set himself to consider what steps must next be taken.
+Much serious reflection convinced even his sanguine mind that the
+enterprise was a difficult one, and could scarcely be carried through
+successfully without help from some skilled genealogist.
+
+"George Sheldon has given his lifetime to this sort of thing, and is a
+skilled lawyer to boot," Captain Paget said to himself. "If I hope to go
+in against him, I must have someone at my elbow as well versed in this
+sort of business as he is."
+
+Having once admitted this necessity, the Captain set himself to consider
+where he was to find the right person. A very brief meditation settled
+this question. One among the numerous business transactions of Captain
+Paget's life had brought him in contact with a very respectable little
+French gentleman called Fleurus, who had begun his career as a notary,
+but, finding that profession unprofitable, had become a hunter of
+pedigrees and heirs-at-law--for the most part to insignificant legacies,
+unclaimed stock, and all other jetsam and flotsam thrown up on the
+shadowy shores of the Court of Chancery. M. Fleurus had not often been so
+fortunate as to put his industrious fingers into any large pie, but he
+had contrived to make a good deal of money out of small affairs, and had
+found his clients grateful.
+
+"The man of men," thought Horatio Paget; and he betook himself to the
+office of M. Fleurus early next day, provided with all documents relating
+to the Haygarthian succession.
+
+His interview with the little Frenchman was long and satisfactory. On
+certain conditions as to future reward, said reward to be contingent on
+success, M. Fleurus was ready to devote himself heart and soul to the
+interests of Captain Paget.
+
+"To begin: we must find legal evidence of this Matthew Haygarth's
+marriage to the mother of this child C., who came afterwards to marry the
+man Meynell; and after we will go to Susan Meynell. Her box came from
+Rouen--that we know. Where her box came from she is likely to have come
+from. So it is at Rouen, or near Rouen, we must look for her. Let me see:
+she die in 1835! that is long time. To look for the particulars of her
+life is like to dive into the ocean for to find the lost cargo of a ship
+that is gone down to the bottom, no one knows where. But to a man really
+expert in these things there is nothing of impossible. I will find you
+your Susan Meynell in less than six months; the evidence of her marriage;
+if she was married; her children, if she had children."
+
+In less than six months--the margin seemed a wide one to the impatient
+Horatio. But he knew that such an investigation must needs be slow, and
+he left the matters in the hands of his new ally with a sense that he had
+done the best thing that could be done. Then followed for Horatio Paget
+two months of patient attendance upon fortune. He was not idle during
+this time; for Mr. Sheldon, who seemed particularly anxious to conciliate
+him, threw waifs and strays of business into his way. Before the middle
+of November M. Fleurus had found the register of Matthew Haygarth's
+marriage, as George Sheldon had found it before him, working in the same
+groove, and with the same order of intelligence. After this important
+step M. Fleurus departed for his native shores, where he had other
+business besides the Meynell affair to claim his attention. Meanwhile the
+astute Horatio kept a close eye upon his young friend Valentine. He knew
+from Diana that the young man had been in Yorkshire; and he guessed the
+motive of his visit to Newhall, not for a moment supposing that his
+presence in that farmhouse could have been accidental. The one turn of
+affairs that utterly and completely mystified him was Mr. Sheldon's
+sanction of the engagement between Valentine and Charlotte. This was a
+mystery for which he could for some time find no solution.
+
+"Sheldon will try to establish his stepdaughter's claim to the fortune;
+that is clear. But why does he allow her to throw herself away on a
+penniless adventurer like Hawkehurst? If she were to marry him before
+recovering the Haygarth estate, she would recover it as his wife, and the
+fortune would be thrown unprotected into his hands."
+
+More deliberate reflection cast a faint light upon Philip Sheldon's
+motives for so quixotic a course.
+
+"The girl had fallen in love with Val. It was too late to prevent that.
+She is of age, and can marry whom she pleases. By showing himself opposed
+to her engagement with Val, he might have hurried her into rebellion, and
+an immediate marriage. By affecting to consent to the engagement, he
+would, on the contrary, gain time, and the advantage of all those chances
+that are involved in the lapse of time."
+
+Within a few days of Christmas came the following letter from M.
+Fleurus:--
+
+
+_From Jacques Rousseau Fleurus to Horatio Paget_.
+
+Hotel de la Pucelle, place Jeanne d'Arc, Rouen, 21st December, 186--.
+
+MONSIEUR,--After exertions incalculable, after labours herculean, I come
+to learn something of your Susan Meynell,--more, I come to learn of her
+marriage. But I will begin at the beginning of things. The labours, the
+time, the efforts, the courage, the patience, the--I will say it without
+to blush--the genius which this enterprise has cost me, I will not
+enlarge upon. There are things which cannot tell themselves. To commence,
+I will tell you how I went to Rouen, how I advertised in the journals of
+Rouen, and asked among the people of Rouen--at shops, at hotels, by the
+help of my allies, the police, by means which you, in your inexperience
+of this science of research, could not even figure to yourself--always
+seeking the trace of this woman Meynell. It was all pain lost. Of this
+woman Meynell in Rouen there was no trace.
+
+In the end I enraged myself. "Imbecile!" I said to myself, "why seek in
+this dull commercial city, among this heavy people, for that which thou
+shouldst seek only in the centre of all things? As the rivers go to the
+ocean, so flow all the streams of human life to the one great central
+ocean of humanity--PARIS! It is there the Alpha and the Omega--there the
+mighty heart through which the blood of all the body must be pumped, and
+is pumping always," I say to myself, unconsciously rising to the
+sublimity of my great countryman, Hugo, in whose verse I find an echo of
+my own soul, and whose compositions I flatter myself I could have
+surpassed, if I had devoted to the Muses the time and the powers which I
+have squandered on a _vilain_ metier, that demands the genius of a
+Talleyrand, and rewards with the crust of an artisan.
+
+In Paris, then, I will seek the woman Meynell, and to Paris I go. In my
+place an inexperienced person would advertise in the most considerable
+papers; would invite Susan Meynell to hear of something to her
+advantage; and would bring together a crowd of false Susan Meynells,
+greedy to obtain the benefice. Me, I do nothing in this style there. On
+the contrary, in the most obscure little journals of Paris I publish a
+modest little advertisement as from the brother of Susan Meynell, who
+implores his sister to visit him on his deathbed.
+
+Here are follies, you will say. Since Susan Meynell is dead it is thirty
+years, and her brother is dead also. Ah, how you are dull, you insulars,
+and how impossible for your foggy island to produce a Fouché, a Canler, a
+genius of police, a Columbus of the subterranean darknesses of your city.
+
+The brother, dying, advertises for the sister, dead; and who will answer
+that letter, think you? Some good Christian soul who has pity for the
+sick man, and who will not permit him to languish in waiting the sister
+who will come to him never. For us of the Roman Catholic religion the
+duty of charity is paramount. You of the Anglican faith--bah, how you are
+cold, how you are hard, how you are unpitiable!
+
+My notice appears once, my notice appears twice, three times, four times,
+many times. I occupy myself about my other business, and I wait. I do not
+wait unusefully. In effect, a letter arrives at last at the address of
+the dying, from a lady who knew Susan Meynell _before her marriage with
+M. Lenoble._
+
+Think you not that to me this was a moment of triumph? _Before her
+marriage with M. Lenoble!_ Those words appear under my eyes in the
+writing of the unknown lady. "It is found!" I cry to myself; and then I
+hasten myself to reply to the unknown lady. Will she permit me to see
+her?
+
+With all politeness I make the request; with all politeness it is
+answered. The lady calls herself Mademoiselle Servin. She resides in the
+street Grande-Mademoiselle, at the corner of the Place Lauzun. It is of
+all the streets of Paris the most miserable. One side is already removed.
+In face of the windows of those houses that still stand they are making a
+new Boulevard. Behind they are pulling down edifices of all kinds in the
+formation of a new square. At the side there is a yawning chasm between
+two tall houses, through which they pierce a new street. One sees the
+interior of many rooms rising one above another for seven stories. Here
+the gay hangings of an apartment of little master; there the still
+gaudier decoration of a boudoir of these ladies. High above these
+luxurious salons--ah, but how much more near to the skies!--one sees the
+poor grey paper, blackened and smoky, of a garret of sempstress, or
+workman, and the hearths black, deserted. These interiors thus exposed
+tighten me the heart. It is the autopsy of the domestic hearth.
+
+I find the Mademoiselle Servin an old lady, grey and wan. The house where
+she now resides is the house which she has inhabited five-and-thirty
+years. They talk of pulling it down, and to her the idea of leaving it is
+exquisite pain. She is alone, a teacher of music. She has seen
+proprietors come and go. The _pension_ has changed mistresses many times.
+Students of law and of medicine have come and passed like the shadows of
+a magic lantern; but this poor soul has remained still in her little room
+on the fourth, and has kept always her little old piano.
+
+It was here she knew Susan Meynell, and a young Frenchman who became in
+love with her, for she was beautiful like the angels, this lady said to
+me.
+
+Until we meet for all details. Enough that I come to discover where the
+marriage took place, that I come to obtain a copy of the register, and
+that I do all things in rule. Enough that the marriage is a good
+marriage--a regular marriage, and that I have placed myself already in
+communication with the heir of that marriage, who resides within some few
+leagues of this city.
+
+My labours, my successes I will not describe. It must that they will be
+recompensed in the future. I have dispensed much money during these
+transactions.
+
+Agree, monsieur, that I am your devoted servitor,
+
+JACQUES ROUSSEAU FLEURUS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in consequence of the receipt of this missive that the Captain
+trusted himself to the winds and waves in the cheerless December weather.
+He was well pleased to find that M. Fleurus had made discoveries so
+important; but he had no idea of letting that astute practitioner absorb
+all the power into his own hands.
+
+"I must see Susan Meynell's heir," he said to himself; "I must give him
+clearly to understand that to me he owes the discovery of his claims, and
+that in this affair the Frenchman Fleurus is no more than a paid agent."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Fourth.
+
+
+
+GUSTAVE IN ENGLAND.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+HALCYON DAYS.
+
+Once having offered up the fondest desires of her own heart on the
+shrine of duty, Diana Paget was not a person to repent herself of the
+pious sacrifice. After that Christmas night on which she had knelt at
+Charlotte's feet to confess her sad secret, and to resign all claim to
+the man she had loved so foolishly, so tenderly, with such a romantic
+and unselfish devotion, Miss Paget put away all thought of the past from
+her heart and mind. Heart and mind seemed empty and joyless without
+those loved tenants, though the tenants had been only fair wraiths of
+dreams that were dead. There was a sense of something missing in her
+life--a blank, dull calm, which was at first very painful. But for
+Charlotte's sake she was careful to hide all outward token of
+despondency, and the foolish grief, put down by so strong a hand, was
+ere long well-nigh stifled.
+
+Those dark days which succeeded Christmas were a period of halcyon peace
+for Valentine and Charlotte. The accepted lover came to the villa when he
+pleased, but was still careful not to encroach on the license allowed
+him. Once a week he permitted himself the delight of five-o'clock tea in
+Mrs. Sheldon's drawing-room, on which occasions he brought Charlotte all
+the news of his small literary world, and a good deal of useful
+information out of the books he had been reading. When Mr. Sheldon
+pleased to invite him to dinner on Sunday he gladly accepted the
+invitation, and this Sunday dinner became in due course an established
+institution.
+
+"You may as well make this your home on a Sunday," said Mr. Sheldon one
+day, with careless cordiality; "I dare say you find Sunday dull in your
+lodgings."
+
+"Yes, papa," cried Charlotte, "he does find it very dull--dreadfully
+dull--don't you, Valentine?"
+
+And she regarded him with that pretty, tender, almost motherly look,
+which young ladies who are engaged are apt to bestow on their affianced
+lovers.
+
+Miss Halliday was very grateful to her stepfather for his kindness to her
+landless adorer, and showed her appreciation of his conduct in many
+pretty little caressing ways, which would have been infinitely bewitching
+to a person of sentiment.
+
+Unfortunately Mr. Sheldon was not sentimental, and any exhibition of
+feeling appeared to have an irritating effect upon his nerves. There were
+times when he shrank from some little sudden caress of Charlotte's as
+from the sting of an adder. Aversion, surprise, fear--what was it that
+showed in the expression of his face at these moments? Whatever that
+strange look was, it departed too quickly for analysis; and the
+stockbroker thanked his stepdaughter for her little affectionate
+demonstration with his wonted smile--the smile he smiled on Change, the
+smile which was sometimes on his lips when his mind was a nest of
+scorpions.
+
+To Valentine, in these rosy hours, life seemed full of hope and
+brightness. He transferred his goods and chattels from Omega Street,
+Chelsea, to the pleasant lodging in the Edgware Road, where he was nearer
+Charlotte, and out of the way of his late patron Captain Paget, in the
+event of that gentleman's return from the Continent.
+
+Fortune favoured him. The gaiety of heart which came with his happiness
+lent a grace to his pen. Pleasant thoughts and fancies bedecked his
+pages. He saw everything in the rosy light of love and beauty, and there
+was a buoyant freshness in all he wrote. The Pegasus might be but a
+common hackney, but the hack was young and fresh, and galloped gaily as
+he scented the dewy morning air. It is not every poet whose Pegasus
+clears at a bound a space as wide as all that waste of land and sea the
+watchman views from his tall tower on the rock.
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst's papers on Lauzun, Brummel, Sardanapalus, Rabelais, Lord
+Chesterfield, Erasmus, Beau Nash, Apelles, Galileo, and Philip of
+Orleans, were in demand, and the reading public wondered at this prodigy
+of book-making. He had begun to save money, and had opened a deposit
+account at the Unitas Bank. How he gloated over the deposit receipts in
+the stillness of the night, when he added a fresh one to his store! When
+he had three, for sums amounting in all to forty pounds, he took them to
+Charlotte, and she looked at them, and he looked at them, as if the poor
+little bits of printed paper had been specimens of virgin ore from some
+gold mine newly discovered by Mr. Hawkehurst. And then these foolish
+lovers kissed each other, as William Lee and his wife may have embraced
+after the penniless young student had perfected his invention of the
+stocking-frame.
+
+"Forty pounds!" exclaimed Miss Halliday, "all won by your pen, and your
+poor fingers, and your poor, poor head! How it must ache after a long
+day's work! How clever you must be, Valentine!"
+
+"Yes, dear; amazingly clever. Clever enough to know that you are the
+dearest girl in Christendom."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, sir! You are not clever enough to have the
+privilege of doing that yet awhile. I mean, how learned you must be to
+know such lots of things, all about Erasmus, and Galileo, and--"
+
+"No, my darling, not Erasmus and Galileo. I knew all about Erasmus last
+week; but I am working at my paper on Galileo now, an exhaustive review
+of all the books that were ever written on the subject, in ten pages. I
+don't ask other people to remember what I write, you know, my dear, and I
+don't pledge myself to remember it. That sort of thing won't keep. There
+is a kind of sediment, no doubt, in one's note-book; but the
+effervescence of that vintage goes off rather quickly."
+
+"I only know that you are a very clever person, and that one obtains an
+immensity of information from your writings," said Charlotte.
+
+"Yes, dearest, there is a kind of wine that must be made into negus for
+such pretty little topers as you--the 'Wine of Cyprus,' as Mrs. Browning
+called it. It is better for pretty girls to have the negus than to have
+nothing, or only weak home-brewed stuff that results in head-ache. My
+dearest, Fate has been very good to me, and I love my profession of
+letters. I am sure that of all educational processes there is none better
+than book-making; and the man who begins by making books must be a dolt,
+dunce, and dunderhead, if he do not end by writing them. So you may yet
+hope to see the morning that shall make your Valentine famous--for a
+fortnight. What man can hope to be famous for _more_ than a fortnight in
+such a railroad age as this?"
+
+During this halcyon period, in which Mr. Hawkehurst cultivated
+alternately the society of the Muses and his mistress, he saw little or
+nothing of George Sheldon. He had washed his hands of all share in the
+work of establishing Charlotte Halliday's claim to the Reverend John
+Haygarth's thousands. Indeed, since that interview in which Philip
+Sheldon had made so light of his stepdaughter's chances, and ratified his
+consent to her marriage with so humble a literary adventurer as himself,
+Mr. Hawkehurst had come to consider the Haygarthian inheritance as
+altogether a visionary business. If it were certain, or even probable,
+that Charlotte was to inherit a hundred thousand pounds, was it likely
+that Mr. Sheldon would encourage such an alliance? This question Mr.
+Hawkehurst always answered in the negative; and as days and weeks went
+by, and he heard no more of the Haygarth fortune, the idea of Charlotte's
+wealth became more and more shadowy.
+
+If there were anything doing in this matter, the two brothers were now
+working together, and George had no further need of Valentine's help.
+
+The two brothers were not working entirely together. Philip Sheldon had
+taken the matter into his own strong hand, and George found it very
+difficult to hold an inch of ground against that formidable antagonist.
+The papers and information which George had boasted of to Valentine, and
+the possession whereof was, as he asserted, the very keystone of the
+arch, proved to be of such small account that he ultimately consented to
+hand them over to his brother on the payment of expenses out of pocket,
+and a bonus of one hundred and fifty pounds, together with a written
+undertaking from Miss Halliday to pay him the fifth share of any fortune
+recovered by means of those papers.
+
+This undertaking had been executed in the easiest manner.
+
+"My brother has taken it into his wise head that there is some unclaimed
+stock standing in your grandfather's name which you are entitled to,
+Lotta," Mr. Sheldon said one morning; "and he wants to recover the amount
+for you, on condition of receiving a clear fifth when the sum is
+recovered. Have you any objection to sign such an undertaking?"
+
+"Dear papa, how can I object?" cried Charlotte gaily. "Why, stocks are
+money, are they not? How fortunate we are, and how rich we are getting!"
+
+"We!"
+
+"Valentine and I," murmured the girl, blushing. "I cannot help thinking
+of him when any windfall of good fortune comes to me. What do you think,
+papa? He has saved forty pounds in little more than three months--all
+earned by his pen!
+
+"Behold
+The arch-enchanter's wand! Itself a nothing;
+But taking sorcery from the master-hand
+To paralyze the Caesars, and to strike
+The loud earth breathless!"
+
+And Miss Halliday spouted the glowing lines of the noble dramatist with
+charming enthusiasm. She signed the required undertaking without looking
+at it, and it was duly witnessed by her stepfather.
+
+"In your talk with your mother and Valentine, I should advise you to be
+as silent about this small business as about your own little fortune,"
+Mr. Sheldon remarked presently.
+
+"Mustn't I tell Valentine?" cried Charlotte, making a wry face; "I should
+so like to tell him--just about these stocks. I daresay _he_ knows what
+stocks are; and it would be such cheering news for him, after he has
+worked his poor brain so for that forty pounds. I don't so much care
+about telling poor mamma; for she does exclaim and wonder so about
+things, that it is quite fatiguing to hear her. But please let me tell
+Valentine?"
+
+Miss Halliday pursed-up her lips and offered her stepfather one of those
+kisses which she had of late been prompted to bestow on him out of the
+gratitude of a heart overflowing with girlish joy. He took the kiss as he
+might have taken a dose of medicine, but did not grant the request
+preferred by it.
+
+"If you want to be a fool, you can tell your lover of this windfall; but
+if you wish to prove yourself a sensible girl, you will hold your tongue.
+He has saved forty pounds by hard work in the last three months, you say:
+do you think he would have saved forty pence if he had known that you had
+five thousand pounds at his disposal? I know that class of men; look at
+Goldsmith, the man who wrote the "Vicar of Wakefield," and "Rasselas,"
+and "Clarissa Harlowe," and so on. I have read somewhere that he never
+wrote except under coercion--that is to say, want of money."
+
+Charlotte acknowledged the wisdom of this argument, and submitted. She
+was not what was called a strong-minded woman; and, indeed, strength of
+mind is not a plant indigenous to the female nature, but an exceptional
+growth developed by exceptional circumstances. In Charlotte's life there
+had been nothing exceptional, and she was in all things soft and womanly,
+ready to acknowledge, and to be guided by, the wisdom of her seniors. So
+Valentine heard nothing of the undertaking executed by his lady-love.
+
+After this, Mr. Sheldon took counsel's opinion, and set to work in real
+earnest to recover the estate of the deceased John Haygarth from the
+yawning jaws of that tame but all-devouring monster, the Crown. The work
+was slow, and the dry as dust details thereof need not be recorded here.
+It had but just begun when Horatio Paget suddenly returned from his
+Continental expedition, and established himself once more in the Omega
+Street lodgings.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+CAPTAIN PAGET AWAKENS TO A SENSE OF HIS DUTY.
+
+Captain Paget's return was made known to the Sheldon circle by a letter
+from the returning wanderer to his daughter. The Captain was laid up with
+rheumatic gout, and wrote quite piteously to implore a visit from Diana.
+Miss Paget, always constant to the idea of a duty to be performed on her
+side, even to this _père prodigue_, obeyed the summons promptly, with the
+full approval of Georgy, always good-natured after her own fussy manner.
+
+"And if you'd like to take your papa a bottle of Mr. Sheldon's old port,
+Diana, remember it's at your disposal. I'm sure I've heard people say
+that old port is good for the gout--or perhaps, by the bye, what I heard
+was that it _wasn't_ good. I know old port and gout seem to run together
+in my head somehow. But if there's anything in the house your papa would
+like, Diana--wine, or gunpowder tea, or the eider-down coverlet off the
+spare bed, or the parlour croquet, to amuse him of an evening, or a new
+novel--surely one couldn't forfeit one's subscription by lending a book
+to a non-subscribing invalid?"
+
+While Georgy was suggesting the loan of almost every portable object in
+the house as a specific for Captain Paget's gout, Charlotte sent for a
+cab and made things smooth for her friend's departure. She wrapped her
+warmly against the February blast, and insisted upon going out to see her
+seated in the cab, whereby she offered to the pedestrians of that
+neighbourhood a seraphic vision of loveliness with tumbled hair.
+Charlotte had been always delightful, but Charlotte engaged to Valentine
+Hawkehurst was a creature of supernal sweetness and brightness--a radiant
+ministering angel, hovering lightly above a world too common for her foot
+to rest upon.
+
+Miss Paget found her father suffering from a by no means severe attack of
+a respectable family gout, a little peevish from the effects of this
+affliction, but not at all depressed in mind. He had, indeed, the manner
+of a man with whom things are going pleasantly. There was a satisfaction
+in his tone, a placidity in his face, except when distorted for the
+moment by a twinge of pain, that were new to Diana, who had not been
+accustomed to behold the brighter side of her father's disposition. He
+seemed grateful for his daughter's visit, and received her with unwonted
+kindness of manner.
+
+"You have come very promptly, my dear, and I am gratified by your early
+compliance with my request," he said with dignified affection, after he
+had given his daughter the kiss of greeting. "I was a great sufferer last
+night, Diana, a great sufferer, a prisoner to this chair, and the woman
+below attempted to send me up a dinner--_such_ a dinner! One would think
+a very small degree of education necessary for the stewing of a kidney,
+but the things that woman gave me last night were like morsels of stewed
+leather. I am not an epicure, Diana; but with such a constitution as
+mine, good cooking is a vital necessity. Life in lodgings for a man of my
+age is a sore trial, my dear. I wish you were well married, Diana, and
+could give your father a humble corner at your fireside."
+
+Diana smiled. It was a somewhat bitter smile; and there was scorn of
+herself, as well as scorn of her father in that bitterness.
+
+"I am not the sort of person to marry well, papa," she said.
+
+"Who knows? You are handsomer than nine-tenths of the women who marry
+well."
+
+"No, papa; that is your sanguine manner of looking at your own property.
+And even if I were married to some one to whom I might give obedience and
+duty, and all that kind of thing, in exchange for a comfortable home, as
+they say in the advertisements, would you be content with a peaceful
+corner by my fireside? Do you think you would never pine for clubs and
+gaming-tables--nay, even for creditors to--to diplomatize with, and
+difficulties to surmount?"
+
+"No, my dear. I am an old man; the clubs and gaming-houses have done with
+me, and I with them. I went to see a man at Arthur's a few months ago. I
+had written to him on a little matter of business--in fact, to be candid
+with you, my love, for the loan of a five-pound note--and I called at the
+club for his reply. I caught sight of my face in a distant glass as I was
+waiting in the strangers' room, and I thought I was looking at a ghost.
+There comes a time towards the close of a long troublesome life in which
+a man begins to feel like a ghost. His friends are gone, and his money is
+gone, his health is gone, his good looks are gone; and the only mistake
+seems to be that the man himself should be left behind. I remember an
+observation of Lord Chesterfield's: 'Lord ---- and I have been dead for
+the last two years, but we don't tell anyone so,' he said; and there are
+few old men who couldn't say the same. But I am not down-hearted to-day,
+my dear. No, the habit of hoping has never quite deserted me; and it is
+only now and then that I take a dismal view of life. Come, my love, lay
+aside your bonnet and things. Dear me! what a handsome black silk dress,
+and how well you look in it!"
+
+"It is a present from Charlotte, papa. She has a very liberal allowance
+of pocket-money, and is generosity itself. I don't like to take so much
+from her, but I only wound her by a refusal."
+
+"Of course, my dear. There is nothing so ungracious as a refusal, and no
+mark of high breeding so rare as the art of gracious acceptance. Any
+booby can give a present; but to receive a gift without churlish
+reticence or florid rapture is no easy accomplishment. I am always
+pleased to see you well-dressed, my love"--Diana winced as she remembered
+her shabby hat and threadbare gown at Fôretdechêne--"and I am especially
+pleased to see you elegantly attired this evening, as I expect a
+gentleman by-and-by."
+
+"A gentleman, papa!" exclaimed Miss Paget, with considerable surprise; "I
+thought that you had sent for me because you were ill and depressed and
+lonely."
+
+"Well, yes, Diana, I certainly am ill; and I suppose it is scarcely
+unnatural that a father should wish to see his only daughter."
+
+Diana was silent. A father's wish to see his daughter was indeed natural
+and common; but that Captain Paget, who in no period of his daughter's
+life had evinced for her the common affection of paternity, should be
+seized all of a sudden with a yearning for her society, was somewhat
+singular. But Diana's nature had been ennobled and fortified by the
+mental struggle and the impalpable sacrifice of the last few months, and
+she was in nowise disposed to repel any affectionate feeling of her
+father's even at this eleventh hour.
+
+"_He_ tells us the eleventh hour is not too late," she thought. "If it is
+not too late in the sight of that Divine Judge, shall it be thought too
+late by an erring creature like me?"
+
+After a few minutes of thoughtful silence, she knelt down by her father's
+chair and kissed him.
+
+"My dear father," she murmured softly, "believe me, I am very pleased to
+think you should wish to see me. I will come to you whenever you like to
+send for me. I am glad not to be a burden to you; but I should wish to be
+a comfort when I can."
+
+The Captain shed his stock tear. It signified something nearer akin to
+real emotion than usual.
+
+"My dear girl," he said, "this is very pleasing, very pleasing
+indeed. The day may come--I cannot just now say when--and events may
+arise--which--the nature of which I am not yet in a position to indicate
+to you--but the barren fig-tree may not be always fruitless. In its old
+age the withered trunk may put forth fresh branches. We will say no more
+of this, my love; and I will only remark that you may not go unrequited
+for any affection bestowed on your poor old father."
+
+Diana smiled, and this time it was a pensive rather than a bitter smile.
+She had often heard her father talk like this before. She had often heard
+these oracular hints of some grand event looming mighty in the immediate
+future; but she had never seen the vague prophecy accomplished. Always a
+schemer, and always alternating between the boastful confidence of hope
+and the peevish bewailings of despair, the Captain had built his castle
+to-day to sit among its ruins to-morrow, ever since she had known him.
+
+So she set little value on his hopeful talk of this evening, but was
+content to see him in good spirits. He contemplated her admiringly as she
+knelt by his easy-chair, and smoothed the shining coils of her dark hair
+with a gentle hand, as he looked downward at the thoughtful face--proud
+and grave, but not ungentle.
+
+"You are a very handsome girl, Diana," he murmured, as much to himself as
+to his daughter; "yes, very handsome. Egad, I had no idea how handsome!"
+
+"What has put such a fancy into your head to-night, papa?" asked Diana,
+laughing. "I do not believe in the good looks you are so kind as to
+attribute to me. When I see my face in the glass I perceive a pale gloomy
+countenance that is by no means pleasing."
+
+"You may be out of spirits when you look in the glass. I hope you are not
+unhappy at Bayswater."
+
+"Why should I be unhappy, papa? No sister was ever kinder or more loving
+than Charlotte Halliday is to me. I should he very ungrateful to
+Providence as well as to her if I did not appreciate such affection. How
+many lonely girls, like me, go through life without picking up a sister?"
+
+"Yes, you are right, my dear. Those Sheldon people have been very useful
+to you. They are not the kind of people I should have wished a daughter
+of mine to be _live_ with, if I were in the position my birth entitles me
+to occupy; but as I am not in that position, I submit. That black silk
+becomes you admirably. And now, my love, be so kind as to ring the bell
+for lights and tea."
+
+They had been sitting in the firelight--the mystic magical capricious
+firelight--which made even that tawdry lodging-house parlour seem a
+pleasant chamber. The tea-tray was brought, and candles. Diana seated
+herself at the table, and made tea with the contents of a little
+mahogany caddy.
+
+"Don't pour out the tea just yet," said the Captain; "I expect a
+gentleman. I don't suppose he'll take tea, but it will look more civil to
+wait for him."
+
+"And who is this mysterious gentleman, papa?"
+
+"A Frenchman; a man I met while I was abroad."
+
+"_Really_ a gentleman?"
+
+"Certainly, Diana," replied her father, with offended dignity.
+
+"Do you think I should admit any person to my friendship who is not a
+gentleman? My business relations I am powerless to govern; but friendship
+is a different matter. There is no man more exclusive than Horatio Paget.
+M. Lenoble is a gentleman of ancient lineage and amiable character."
+
+"And rich, I suppose, papa?" asked Diana. She thought that her father
+would scarcely speak of the gentleman in a tone so profoundly respectful
+if he were not rich.
+
+"Yes, Diana. M. Lenoble is master of a very fair estate, and is likely to
+be much richer before he dies."
+
+"And he has been kind to you, papa?"
+
+"Yes, he has shown me hospitality during my residence in Normandy. You
+need not speak of him to your friends the Sheldons."
+
+"Not even to Charlotte?"
+
+"Not even to Charlotte. I do not care to have my affairs discussed by
+that class of people."
+
+"But, dear papa, why make a mystery about so unimportant a matter.
+
+"I do not make a mystery; but I hate gossip. Mrs. Sheldon is an
+incorrigible gossip, and I daresay her daughter is no better."
+
+"Charlotte is an angel, papa."
+
+"That is very possible. But I beg that you will refrain from discussing
+my friend M. Lenoble in her angelic presence."
+
+"As you please, papa," said Diana gravely. She felt herself bound to obey
+her father in this small matter; but the idea of this mystery and secrecy
+was very unwelcome to her. It implied that her father's acquaintance with
+this Frenchman was only a part of some new scheme. It was no honest
+friendship, which the Captain might be proud to own, glad to show the
+world that in these days of decadence he could still point to a friend.
+It was only some business alliance, underhand and stealthy; a social
+conspiracy, that must needs be conducted in darkness.
+
+"Why did papa summon me here if he wants his acquaintance with this man
+kept secret?" she asked herself; and the question seemed unanswerable.
+
+She pictured this M. Lenoble to herself--a wizened, sallow-faced
+Macchiavellian individual, whose business in England must needs be
+connected with conspiracy, treason, commercial fraud, anything or
+everything stealthy and criminal.
+
+"I wish you would let me go back to Bayswater before this gentleman
+comes, papa," she said presently. "I heard it strike seven just now, and
+I know I shall be expected early. I can come again whenever you like."
+
+"No, no, my love; you must stop to see my friend. And now tell me a
+little about the Sheldons. Has anything been stirring since I saw them
+last?"
+
+"Nothing whatever, papa. Charlotte is very happy; she always had a
+happy disposition, but she is gayer than ever since her engagement
+with--Valentine."
+
+"What an absurd infatuation!" muttered the Captain.
+
+"And he--Valentine--is very good, and works very hard at his literary
+profession--and loves her very dearly."
+
+It cost her an effort to say this even now, even now when she fancied
+herself cured of that folly which had once been so sweet to her. To speak
+of him like this--to put him away out of her own life, and contemplate
+him as an element in the life of another--could not be done without some
+touch of the old anguish.
+
+There was a loud double-knock at the street-door as she said this, and a
+step sounded presently in the passage; a quick, firm tread. There was
+nothing stealthy about that, at any rate.
+
+"My friend Lenoble," said the Captain; and in the next instant a
+gentleman entered the room, a gentleman who was in every quality the
+opposite of the person whom Diana had expected to see.
+
+These speculative pictures are seldom good portraits. Miss Paget had
+expected to find her father's ally small and shrivelled, old and ugly,
+dried-up and withered in the fiery atmosphere of fraud and conspiracy; in
+outward semblance a monkey, in soul a tiger. And instead of this
+obnoxious creature there burst into the room a man of four-and-thirty
+years of age, tall, stalwart, with a fair frank face, somewhat browned by
+summer suns; thick auburn hair and beard, close trimmed and cropped in
+the approved Gallic fashion--clear earnest blue eyes, and a mouth whose
+candour and sweetness a moustache could not hide. Henry of Navarre,
+before the white lilies of France had dazzled his eyes with their fatal
+splendour, before the court of the Medici had taught the Bearnois to
+dissemble, before the sometime Protestant champion had put on that
+apparel of stainless white in which he went forth to stain his soul with
+the sin of a diplomatic apostasy.
+
+Such a surprise as this makes a kind of crisis in the eventless record of
+a woman's life. Diana found herself blushing as the stranger stood near
+the door awaiting her father's introduction. She was ashamed to think of
+the wrong her imagination had done him.
+
+"My daughter, Diana Paget--M. Lenoble. I have been telling Diana how much
+I owed to your hospitality during my stay in Normandy," continued the
+Captain, with his grandest air, "I regret that I can only receive you in
+an apartment quite unworthy the seigneur of Côtenoir.--A charming place,
+my dear Diana, which I should much like you to see on some future
+occasion.--Will you take some tea, Lenoble?--Diana, a cup of tea.--The
+Pagets are a fallen race, you see, my dear sir, and a cup of tea in a
+lodging-house parlour is the best entertainment I can give to a friend.
+The Cromie Pagets of Hertfordshire will give you dinner in gold plate,
+with a footman standing behind the chair of every guest; but our branch
+is a younger and a poorer one, and I, among others, am paying the price
+of youthful follies."
+
+Gustave Lenoble looked sympathetic, but the glance of sympathy was
+directed to Diana, and not to the male representative of the younger
+Pagets. To pity the distressed damsel was an attribute of the Lenoble
+mind; and Gustave had already begun to pity Miss Paget, and to wonder
+what her fate in life would be, with no better protector than a father
+who was confessedly a pauper. He saw that the young lady was very
+handsome, and he divined, from some indefinable expression of her face,
+that she was proud; and as he thought of his own daughters, and their
+easy life and assured future, the contrast seemed to him very cruel.
+
+Chivalrous as the house of Lenoble might be by nature, he could scarcely
+have felt so keen an interest in Captain Paget's daughter at the first
+glance, if his sympathies had not been already enlisted for her. The
+noble Horatio, though slow to act a father's part, had shown himself
+quick to make capital out of his daughter's beauty and virtues when the
+occasion offered.
+
+In his intercourse with the seigneur of Côtenoir, which had developed
+from a mere business acquaintance into friendship, Captain Paget had
+discoursed with much eloquence upon the subject of his motherless
+daughter; and M. Lenoble, having daughters of his own, also motherless,
+lent him the ear of sympathy.
+
+"I have heard much of you, Miss Paget," said Gustave presently, "and of
+your devotion to your father. He has no more favourite theme than your
+goodness."
+
+Diana blushed, and Diana's father blushed also. That skilled diplomatist
+felt the awkwardness of the situation, and was prompt to the rescue.
+
+"Yes," he said, "my daughter has been a heroine. There are Antigones,
+sir, who show their heroic nature by other service than the leading to
+and fro of a blind father. From the earliest age my poor child has
+striven to stand alone; too proud, too noble to be a burden on a parent
+whose love would have given all, but whose means could give but little.
+And now she comes to me from her home among strangers, to soothe my hour
+of pain and infirmity. I trust your daughters may prove as worthy of your
+love, M. Lenoble."
+
+"They are very dear girls," answered the Frenchman; "but for them life
+has been all sunshine. They have never known a sorrow except the death of
+their mother. It is the storm that tests the temper of the tree. I wish
+they might prove as noble in adversity as Miss Paget has shown herself."
+
+This was more than Diana could bear without some kind of protest.
+
+"You must not take papa's praises _au pied de la lettre_, M. Lenoble,"
+she said; "I have been by no means brave or patient under adversity.
+There are troubles which one must bear. I have borne mine somehow; but I
+claim no praise for having submitted to the inevitable."
+
+This was spoken with a certain noble pride which impressed Gustave more
+than all the father's florid eloquence had done. After this the
+conversation became less personal. M. Lenoble talked of England. It was
+not his first visit; but he had only the excursionist's knowledge of the
+British Isles.
+
+"I have been to Scotland," he said. "Your Scotland is grand,
+mountainous--all that there is of the most savage and poetic. It is a
+Switzerland lined with Brittany. But that which most speaks to the heart
+of a stranger is the peaceful beauty of your English landscape."
+
+"You like England, M. Lenoble?" said Diana.
+
+"Have I not reason? My mother was English. I was only five years old when
+I lost her. She went out of my life like a dream; but I can still recall
+a faint shadow of her face--an English face--a countenance of placid
+sadness, very sweet and tender. But why do I talk of these things?"
+
+On this the Frenchman's talk took a gayer turn. This M. Lenoble showed
+himself a lively and agreeable companion. He talked of Normandy, his
+daughters and their convent, his little son at Rouen, his aunt Cydalise,
+the quiet old lady at Beaubocage; his grandfather, his grandmother, the
+old servants, and everything familiar and dear to him. He told of his
+family history with boyish candour, untainted by egotism, and seemed much
+pleased by Diana's apparent interest in his unstudied talk. He was quite
+unconscious that the diplomatic Horatio was leading him on to talk of
+these things, with a view to making the conversation supremely
+interesting to him. That arch diplomatist knew that there is nothing a
+man likes better than talking of his own affairs, if he can have a decent
+excuse for such discourse.
+
+The clock struck nine while Diana was listening, really interested. This
+glimpse of a life so far apart from her own was a relief, after the
+brooding introspective reveries which of late had constituted so large a
+portion of her existence. She started up at the sound of the clock.
+
+"What now, Cinderella?" cried her father. "Have you stopped beyond your
+time, and will your fairy godmother be angry?"
+
+"No one will be angry, papa; but I did not mean to stay so late. I am
+sorry your description of Normandy has been so interesting, M. Lenoble."
+
+"Come and see Vevinord and Côtenoir, and you will judge for yourself. The
+town-hall of Vevinord is almost as fine as that of Louvain; and we have a
+church that belongs to the time of Dagobert."
+
+"She shall see them before long," said the Captain; "I shall have
+business in Rouen again before the next month is out; and if my daughter
+is a good girl, I will take her over there with me."
+
+Diana stared at her father in utter bewilderment. What could be the
+meaning of this sudden display of affection?
+
+"I should not be free to go with you, papa, even if you were able to take
+me," she replied, somewhat coldly; "I have other duties."
+
+She felt assured that there was some lurking motive, some diplomatic art
+at the bottom of the Captain's altered conduct, and she could not
+altogether repress her scorn. The astute Horatio saw that he had gone a
+little too far, and that his only child was not of the stuff to be
+moulded at will by his dexterous hands.
+
+"You will come and see me again, Diana?" he said in a pleading tone: "I
+am likely to be a prisoner in this room for a week or more."
+
+"Certainly, papa; I will come if you wish it. When shall I come?"
+
+"Well, let me see--to-day is Thursday; can you come on Monday?"
+
+"Yes, I will come on Monday."
+
+A cab was procured, and Miss Paget was conducted to that vehicle by her
+new acquaintance, who showed a gallant anxiety for her comfort on the
+journey, and was extremely careful about the closing of the windows. She
+arrived at Bayswater before ten, but being forbidden to talk of M.
+Lenoble, could give but a scanty account of her evening.
+
+"And was your papa kind, dear?" asked Charlotte, "and did he seem pleased
+to see you?"
+
+"He was much kinder and more affectionate than usual, Lotta dear; so much
+so, that he set me wondering. Now, if I were as confiding and eager to
+think well of people as you are, I should be quite delighted by this
+change. As it is, I am only mystified. I should be very glad if my father
+and I could be drawn closer together; very glad if my influence could
+bring about an amendment in his life."
+
+While Miss Paget was discussing her father's affectionate and novel
+behaviour, the noble Horatio was meditating, by his solitary hearth, upon
+the events of the evening.
+
+"I'm half-inclined to think he's hit already," mused the Captain. "I must
+not allow myself to be deluded by manner. A Frenchman's gallantry rarely
+means much; but Lenoble is one of those straightforward fellows whose
+thoughts may be read by a child. He certainly seemed pleased with her;
+interested and sympathetic, and all that kind of thing. And she is an
+uncommonly handsome girl, and might marry any one if she had the
+opportunity. I had no idea she was so handsome until to-night. I suppose
+I never noticed her by candlelight before. By Jove! I ought to have made
+her an actress, or singer, or something of that kind. And so I might, if
+I'd known her face would light up as it does. I wish she wasn't so
+impracticable--always cutting in with some awkward speech, that makes me
+look like a fool, when, if she had an ounce of common sense, she might
+see that I'm trying to make her fortune. Yes, egad, and such a fortune as
+few girls drop into now-a-days! Some of your straitlaced church-going
+people would call me a neglectful father to that girl, I daresay; but I
+think if I succeed in making her the wife of Gustave Lenoble, I shall
+have done my duty in a way that very few fathers can hope to surpass.
+Such a high-principled fellow as Lenoble is too!--and _that_ is a
+consideration."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"WHAT DO WE HERE, MY HEART AND I?"
+
+After that first summons to Chelsea, Diana went many times--twice and
+three times a week--to comfort and tend her invalid father. Captain
+Paget's novel regard for his only child seemed to increase with the
+familiarity of frequent intercourse. "I have had very great pleasure in
+making your acquaintance, my dear Diana," he said one day, in the course
+of a _tête-à-tête_ with his daughter; "and I am charmed to find you
+everything that a well-born and well-bred young woman ought to be. I am
+sure you have excellent reason to be grateful to your cousin, Priscilla
+Paget, for the excellent education you received in her abode; and you
+have some cause to thank me for the dash and style imparted to your
+carriage and manner by our foreign wanderings."
+
+The Captain said this with the air of a man who had accompanied his
+daughter on the grand tour solely with a view to her intellectual
+improvement. He really thought she had reason to be grateful to him for
+those accidents of his nomadic life which had secured her a good accent
+for French and German, and the art of putting on her shawl.
+
+"Yes, my dear child," he continued with dignity, "it affords me real
+gratification to know you better. I need scarcely say that when you were
+the associate of my pilgrimage, you were not of an age to be available as
+a companion. To a man of the world like myself, a young person who has
+not done growing must always savour somewhat of the schoolroom and the
+nursery. I am not going to repeat the Byronic impertinence about
+bread-and-butter; but the society of a girl of the hobbledehoy age is apt
+to be insipid. You are now a young woman, and a young woman of whom any
+father might with justice be proud."
+
+After a few such speeches as these, Diana began to think that it was just
+possible her father might really experience some novel feeling of regard
+for her. It might be true that his former coldness had been no more than
+a prejudice against the awkwardness of girlhood.
+
+"I was shabby and awkward, I daresay, in those days," she thought; "and
+then I was always asking papa for money to buy new clothes; and that may
+have set him against me. And now that I am no burden upon him, and can
+talk to him and amuse him, he may feel more kindly disposed towards me."
+
+There was some foundation for this idea. Captain Paget had felt himself
+more kindly disposed towards his only child from the moment in which she
+ceased to be an encumbrance upon him. Her sudden departure from
+Forêtdechêne had been taken in very good part by him.
+
+"A very spirited thing for her to do, Val," he had said, when informed of
+the fact by Mr. Hawkehurst; "and by far the best thing she could do,
+under the circumstances."
+
+From that time his daughter had never asked him for a sixpence, and from
+that time she had risen steadily in his estimation. But the feeling which
+he now exhibited was more than placid approval; it was an affection at
+once warm and exacting. The fact was, that Horatio Paget saw in his
+daughter the high-road to the acquirement of a handsome competence for
+his declining years. His affection was sincere so far as it went; a
+sentiment inspired by feelings purely mercenary, but not a hypocritical
+assumption. Diana was, therefore, so much the more likely to be softened
+and touched by it.
+
+She was softened, deeply touched by this late awakening of feeling. The
+engagement of Valentine and Charlotte had left her own life very blank,
+very desolate. It was not alone the man she loved who was lost to her;
+Charlotte, the friend, the sister, seemed also slipping away from her. As
+kind, as loving, as tender as of old, this dear friend and adopted sister
+still might be, but no longer wholly her own. Over the hearts of the
+purest Eros reigns with a too despotic power, and mild affection is apt
+to sneak away into some corner of the temple on whose shrine Love has
+descended. This mild affection is but a little twinkling taper, that will
+burn steadily on, perhaps unseen amidst the dazzling glory of Love's
+supernal lamp, to be found shining benignantly when the lamp is
+shattered.
+
+For Charlotte, Valentine--and for Valentine, Charlotte--made the
+sum-total of the universe at this time; or, at best, there was but a
+small balance which included all the other cares and duties, affections
+and pleasures, of life. Of this balance Diana had the lion's share; but
+she felt that things had changed since those days of romantic school-girl
+friendship in which Charlotte had talked of never marrying, and
+travelling with her dearest friend Diana amongst all the beautiful scenes
+they had read of, until they found the loveliest spot in the world, where
+they would establish themselves in an ideal cottage, and live together
+for the rest of their lives, cultivating their minds and their
+flower-garden, working berlin-wool chairs for their ideal drawing-room,
+and doing good to an ideal peasantry, who would be just poor enough to be
+interesting, and sickly enough to require frequent gifts of calf's-foot
+jelly and green tea.
+
+Those foolish dreams were done with now; and that other dream, of a life
+to be spent with the reckless companion of her girlhood, was lost to
+Diana Paget. There was no point to which she could look forward in the
+future, no star to lure her onward upon life's journey. Her present
+position was sufficiently comfortable; and she told herself that she must
+needs be weak and wicked if she were not content with her lot. But beyond
+the present she dared not look, so blank was the prospect--a desert,
+without even the mirage; for her dreams and delusions were gone with her
+hope.
+
+Possessed by such a sense of loneliness, it is scarcely strange if
+there seemed to her a gleam of joy, a faint glimmer of hope, in the
+newly awakened affection of her father. She began to believe him, and
+to take comfort from the thought that he was drifting to a haven where
+he might lie moored, with other battered old hulks of pirate and
+privateer, inglorious and at rest. To work for him and succour him in his
+declining years seemed a brighter prospect to this hopeless woman of
+four-and-twenty than a future of lonely independence. "It is the nature
+of woman to lean," says the masculine philosopher; but is it not rather
+her nature to support and sustain, or else why to her is entrusted the
+sublime responsibility of maternity? Diana was pleased to think that a
+remorseful reprobate might be dependent on her toil, and owe his
+reformation to her influence. She was indeed a new Antigone, ready to
+lead him in his moral blindness to an altar of atonement more pure than
+the ensanguined shrine of the Athenian Eumenides.
+
+Her visits to Omega Street were not entirely devoted to _tête-a-têtes_
+with her father. By reason of those coincidences which are so common to
+the lives of some people, it generally happened that M. Lenoble dropped
+in upon his invalid friend on the very day of Miss Paget's visit. M.
+Lenoble was in London on business, and this business apparently
+necessitated frequent interviews with Captain Paget. Of course such
+interviews could not take place in the presence of Diana. Gustave was
+wont, therefore, to wait with praiseworthy patience until the conclusion
+of the young lady's visit; and would even, with an inconsistent
+gallantry, urge her to prolong her stay to its utmost limit.
+
+"It will always be time for my affairs, Miss Paget," he urged, "and I
+know how your father values your society; and he well may value it. I
+only hope my daughters will be as good to me, if I have the gout,
+by-and-by."
+
+Diana had spent nearly a dozen evenings in Omega Street, and on each of
+those evenings had happened to meet M. Lenoble. She liked him better on
+every occasion of these accidental meetings. He was indeed a person whom
+it was difficult for any one to dislike, and in the thirty-four years of
+his life had never made an enemy. She had been pleased with him on the
+first evening; his bright handsome face, his courteous reverence for her
+sex--expressed in every word, every tone, every look--his sympathy with
+all good thoughts, his freshness and candour, were calculated to charm
+the coldest and most difficult of judges. Diana liked, and even admired
+him, but it was from an abstract point of view. He seemed a creature as
+remote from her own life as a portrait of Henry of Navarre, seen and
+admired in some royal picture-gallery to-day, to fade out of her memory
+to-morrow.
+
+There was only one point in connection with Gustave Lenoble which
+occupied her serious thoughts; and this was the nature of his relations
+with her father.
+
+This was a subject that sorely troubled her. Hope as she might for the
+future, she could not shut her eyes to the past. She knew that her
+father had lived for years as a cheat and a trickster--now by one
+species of falsehood and trickery, now by another--rarely incautious,
+but always unscrupulous. How had this village seigneur of Normandy
+fallen into the Captain's toils; and what was the nature of the net that
+was spread for him?
+
+The talk of business, the frequent interviews, the evident elation of her
+father's spirits, combined to assure her that some great scheme was in
+progress, some commercial enterprise, perhaps not entirely dishonest--nay
+even honest, when regarded from the sanguine speculator's point of view,
+but involving the hazard of Gustave Lenoble's fortune.
+
+"It is quite as easy for my father to delude himself as it is for him to
+delude others. This M. Lenoble is ignorant of English commerce, no doubt,
+and will be ready to believe anything papa tells him. And he is so
+candid, so trusting, it would be very hard if he were to be a loser
+through his confidence in papa. His daughters, too; the hazard of his
+fortune is peril to their future." Such doubts and fears, gradually
+developed by reflection took stronger hold on Miss Paget's mind after
+every fresh visit to Omega Street. She saw the Frenchman's light-hearted
+confidence in all humanity, her father's specious manner and air of
+quixotic honour. His sanguine tone, his excellent spirits, filled her
+with intolerable alarm. Alas! when had she ever seen her father in good
+spirits, except when some gentlemanly villany was in progress?
+
+Miss Paget endured this uneasiness of mind as long as she could, and then
+determined to warn the supposed victim. She planned the mode of her
+warning, and arranged for herself a diplomatic form which would reflect
+the least possible discredit upon her father; and having once come to
+this resolution, she was not slow to put it into effect.
+
+When her father was about to send for a cab to convey her back to
+Bayswater, after her next visit to Omega Street, she surprised him by
+intercepting his order.
+
+"There is a cab-stand in Sloane Square, papa," she said; "and if M.
+Lenoble will be so kind as to take me there, I--I would rather get the
+cab from the stand. The man charges more when he is fetched off the rank,
+I believe."
+
+She could think of no better excuse for seeing Gustave alone than this
+most sordid pretence. She blushed as she thought how mean a sound it must
+have in the ears of the man for whose advantage she was plotting. Happily
+M. Lenoble was not among the people who see nothing but meanness in the
+desire to save sixpence. His aunt Cydalise had shown him the loveliness
+of poverty; for there are vows of holy poverty that need no spoken
+formula, and that are performed without the cloister.
+
+"Poor girl!" thought M. Lenoble; "I dare say even the cost of her coach
+is a consideration with her; and one dare not pay the coachman."
+
+This was how Gustave read that blush of shame which for a moment dyed
+Diana's cheek. Her father's was a very different reading.
+
+"The minx sees my game, and is playing into my hands," thought he. "So
+demure as she is, too! I should never have supposed her capable of such
+a clever manoeuvre to secure ten minutes' _tête-a-tête_ with an
+eligible admirer."
+
+He bade his daughter good night with more than usual effusion. He began
+to think that she might prove herself worthy of him after all.
+
+The district between Omega Street and Sloane Square is after dusk of all
+places the most solitary. It is the border-land of Pimlico, or, to borrow
+from Sidney Smith, the knuckle end of Belgravia. In these regions of
+desolation and smoke-blackened stucco Diana and her companion were as
+secure from the interruption of the jostling crowd as they might have
+been in the primeval forests of Central America.
+
+Miss Paget's task was not a pleasant one. Shape her warning as she might,
+it must reflect some discredit upon her father. He had of late been kind
+to her; she felt this keenly to-night, and it seemed that the thing she
+was about to do was a sort of parricide. Not against her father's life
+was her cruel hand to be lifted; but her still more cruel tongue was to
+slay her father's good name.
+
+"This M. Lenoble likes him and trusts him," she thought to herself. "What
+a happiness for that poor broken-down old man to have so kind a friend!
+And I am going to interfere in a manner that may put an end to this
+friendship?"
+
+This is the shape which her thoughts assumed as she walked silently by
+Gustave's side, with her hand lying lightly on his arm. He spoke to her
+two or three times about the dulness of the neighbourhood, the coldness
+of the night, or some other equally thrilling subject; but, finding by
+her replies that she was thinking deeply, he made no further attempt at
+conversation.
+
+"Poor child! she has some trouble on her mind, perhaps," he thought to
+himself sadly, for his sympathy with this young lady was a very profound
+feeling. This was the first occasion on which he had ever been alone
+with her, and he wondered to find what a strange emotion was developed
+by the novelty of the situation. He had married at twenty years of age,
+and had never known those brief fancies or foolish passions which waste
+the freshness of mind and heart. He had married a wife whom he never
+learned to love; but his nature was so essentially a happy one, that he
+had failed to discover the something wanting in his life. In all
+relations--as grandson, husband, father, master--he had been "all simply
+perfect," as Mademoiselle Cydalise pronounced him; and in a mind occupied
+by cares for the welfare and happiness of others, he had never found that
+blank which needed to be filled in order to make his own life completely
+happy. Only of late, in his thirty-fourth year, had he come to the
+knowledge of a feeling deeper than dutiful regard for an invalid wife, or
+affectionate solicitude for motherless children; only of late had he felt
+his heart stirred by a more thrilling emotion than that placid
+resignation to the will of Providence which had distinguished his
+courtship of Mademoiselle de Nérague.
+
+They had nearly reached Sloane Square before Diana took courage to broach
+the subject so naturally repugnant to her. She had need to remember that
+the welfare of M. Lenoble and all belonging to him might be dependent on
+her fortitude.
+
+"M. Lenoble," she began at last, "I am going to say something I shall
+find it most painful to utter, but which I feel it my duty to say to you.
+I can only ask you to receive it in a generous spirit."
+
+"But, my dear Miss Paget, I pray you not to say anything that is
+disagreeable to you. Why should you give yourself pain?--why--"
+
+"Because it is my duty to warn you of a danger which I know only too
+well, and of which you may be quite ignorant. You are my father's friend,
+M. Lenoble; and he has very few friends. I should be sorry if anything I
+were to say should rob him of your regard."
+
+"Nothing that you say shall rob him of my friendship. But why should
+you persist thus to say anything that is painful? What can you tell me
+that I do not know, or that I cannot guess? Will you tell me that he is
+poor? But I know it. That he is a broken-down gentleman? And that also
+I know. What, then, would you tell me? That he has a daughter who is to
+him a treasure without price? Ah, mademoiselle, what must I be if I did
+not know that also?--I, who have contemplated that daughter so many
+times--ah, so many!--when she could not know with what sympathy my eyes
+watched her dutiful looks, with what profound emotion my heart
+interpreted her life of affectionate sacrifice."
+
+There was a warmth, a tenderness in his tones which touched Diana's heart
+as it had not been touched of late. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the full
+meaning of those tender accents came home to her. The love that she had
+once dreamed of from the lips of another spoke to her to-night in the
+words of this stranger. The sympathy for which she had yearned long ago,
+in the days of her wanderings with Valentine, was given to her to-night
+without stint or measure. Unhappily it came too late; and it did not come
+from the only lips which, as it seemed to her to-night, could make
+sympathy precious or love divine. But to this lonely girl a good man's
+affection seemed a treasure for which she must needs be deeply grateful.
+It was something to discover that she could be loved.
+
+"I too," she said to herself,--"I, of whose presence Valentine is
+scarcely conscious when he enters a room where Charlotte and I are
+together; I, whom he greets day after day with the same careless words,
+the same indifferent look; I, who might fade and waste day by day with
+some slow disease, until I sank into the grave, before he would be
+conscious of any change in my face,--is it possible that amongst the same
+race of beings there can be any creature so widely different from
+Valentine Hawkehurst as to love _me_?"
+
+This was the bitter complaint of her heart as she compared the tenderness
+of this stranger with the indifference of the man to whom, for three long
+years of her girlhood, she had given every dream, every thought, every
+hope of her existence. She could not put him away from her heart all at
+once. The weak heart still fondly clung to the dear familiar image. But
+the more intensely she had felt the cold neglect of Valentine, the more
+grateful to her seemed the unsought affection of Gustave Lenoble.
+
+"You know me as little as you know my father, M. Lenoble," she said,
+after a long pause, during which they had walked to the end of the long
+dull street, and were close to the square. "Let us go back a little way,
+please; I have much more to say. I wish you to be my father's friend
+always, but, if possible, without danger to yourself. My father is one of
+those sanguine people who are always ready to embark in some new
+enterprise, and who go on hoping and dreaming, after the failure of a
+dozen schemes. He has no money, that I know of, to lose himself, and that
+fact may make him, unconsciously, reckless of other people's money. I
+have heard him speak of business relations with you, M. Lenoble, and it
+is on that account I venture to speak so plainly. I do not want my poor
+father to delude you, as he has often deluded himself. If you have
+already permitted him to involve you in any speculation, I entreat you
+to try to withdraw from it--to lose a little money, if necessary, rather
+than to lose all. If you are not yet involved, let my warning save you
+from any hazard."
+
+"My dear Miss Paget, I thank you a thousand times for your advice, your
+noble thoughtfulness for others. But no, there is no hazard. The
+business in which your father is occupied for me is not a speculation. It
+involves no risk beyond the expenditure of a few thousand francs, which,
+happily, I can afford to lose. I am not at liberty to tell you the nature
+of the business in question, because I have promised your father to keep
+that a secret. Dear young lady, you need have no fear for me. I am not a
+rash speculator. The first years of my life were passed in extreme
+poverty--the poverty that is near neighbour to starvation. That is a
+lesson one cannot forget. How shall I thank you for your concern for
+me?--so generous, so noble!"
+
+"It was only my duty to warn you of my poor father's weakness," replied
+Diana. "If I needed thanks, your kindness to him is the only boon I could
+ask. He has bitter need of a friend."
+
+"And he shall never lack one while I live, if only for your sake." The
+last half of the sentence was spoken in lower tones than the first. Diana
+was conscious of the lurking tenderness of those few words, and the
+consciousness embarrassed her. Happily they had reached the end of the
+quiet street by this time, and had emerged into the busier square. No
+more was said till they reached the cab-stand, when Diana wished her
+companion good night.
+
+"I am going back to Normandy in a week, Miss Paget; shall I see you again
+before I leave England?"
+
+"I really don't know; our meetings are generally accidental, you see."
+
+"O yes, of course, always accidental," replied Gustave, smiling.
+
+"I am sorry you are going to leave London--for papa's sake."
+
+"And I, too, am sorry--for my own sake. But, you see, when one has
+daughters, and a farm, and a chateau, one must be on the spot. I came to
+England for one week only, and I have stayed six."
+
+"You have found so much to amuse you in London?"
+
+"Nay, mademoiselle, so much to interest me."
+
+"It is almost the same thing, is it not?"
+
+"A thousand times no! To be amused and to be interested--ah, what can be
+so widely different as those two conditions of mind!"
+
+"Indeed! Good night, Mr. Lenoble. Please ask the cabman to drive as fast
+as he can venture to do with consideration for his horse. I am afraid I
+shall be late, and my friends will be anxious about me."
+
+"You will be late. You consider your friends at Bayswater, and you
+consider even the cabman's horse. You are charity itself. Will you not
+consider me a little also, Miss Paget?"
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Let me see you before I go back to Normandy. Your papa likes to see you
+twice a week, I know. This is Monday night; will you come to see him on
+Thursday?"
+
+"If he wishes it."
+
+"He does wish it. Ah, how he wishes it! You will come?"
+
+"If Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte can spare me."
+
+"They cannot spare you. No one can spare you. That cannot be. It
+is amongst the things that are impossible. But they will have pity
+upon--your father, and they will let you come."
+
+"Please ask the cabman to start. Indeed, I shall be late. Good night,
+M. Lenoble."
+
+"Good night."
+
+He took her hand in his, and kissed it, with the grace of a Bayard. He
+loved her, and took no trouble to conceal his passion. No shadow of doubt
+darkened that bright horizon to which M. Lenoble looked with hopeful
+eyes. He loved this penniless, motherless girl, as it was in the blood of
+the Lenobles to love the poor and the helpless; especially when poverty
+and helplessness presented themselves in the guise of youth and beauty.
+He loved her, and she would love him. But why not? He was ten years her
+senior, but that makes nothing. His auburn hair and beard, in the style
+of Henry the Great, could show no streak of grey. His eyes had the
+brightness of one-and-twenty; for the eyes of a man whose soul preserves
+its youthfulness will keep their clear lustre for half a century. The
+tall figure, straight as a dart; the frank handsome face which M. Lenoble
+saw in the glass when he made his toilet, were not calculated to
+dishearten a hopeful lover; and Gustave, by nature sanguine, enjoyed his
+dream of happiness, untroubled by one morbid apprehension.
+
+He loved her, and he would ask her for his wife. She would accept his
+offer; her father would rejoice in so fortunate an alliance; her friends
+of Bayswater would felicitate a change so desirable. And when he returned
+to Normandy he would take her with him, and say to his children, "Behold
+your mother!" And then the great rambling mansion of Côtenoir would
+assume a home-like aspect. The ponderous old furniture would be replaced
+by lightsome appointments of modern fashion; except, of course, in the
+grand drawing-room, where there were tapestries said to be from the
+designs of Boucher, and chairs and sofas in the true Louis Quinze style,
+of immovable bulkiness.
+
+There was but one trifling hitch in the whole scheme of happiness--Diana
+was a Protestant. Ah, but what then! A creature so sweet, so noble, could
+not long remain the slave of Anglican heresy. A little talk with
+Cydalise, a week's "retreat" at the Sacré Coeur, and the thing would be
+done. The dear girl would renounce her errors, and enter the bosom of the
+Mother Church. Pouff! M. Lenoble blew the little difficulty away from his
+finger-tips, and then wafted a kiss from the same finger-tips to his
+absent beloved.
+
+"And this noble heart warned me against her own father!" M. Lenoble said
+to himself, as he walked towards the hotel at Blackfriars where he had
+taken up his abode, quite unconscious that the foot of Blackfriars Bridge
+was not the centre of West End London. "How noble, how disinterested!
+Poor old man! He is, no doubt, a speculator--something even of an
+Adventurer. What then? He shall have an apartment at Côtenoir, his place
+at the family table, his _fauteuil_ by the hearth; and there he can do no
+harm."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a strange sentiment in Diana's mind after this evening's
+conversation with Gustave Lenoble. To feel herself beloved, to know that
+there was some one creature in the wide crowded world interested in, nay,
+even attached to her, was a mystery, a surprise, and in some sort a
+source of pleasure to her. That Gustave Lenoble could ever be any nearer
+to her than he was at the present time did not occur to her as being
+within the limits of possibility. She had thrust Valentine from her
+heart, but the empty chamber could receive no new tenant. It was not
+swept and garnished; nay, indeed, it was sadly littered with the shreds
+and patches left by the late occupant. But, while this was so, to know
+that she could be loved was in some manner sweet to her.
+
+"Ah, now I know that the poet is right," she said to herself. "There is
+no creature so desolate but some heart responds unto its own. And I have
+found the generous responsive heart that can pity and love me because
+I seem so sorely to need love and pity. All my life--my blank, empty
+life--I will remember and be grateful to him, the first good man who ever
+called my father friend; the first of all mankind who thought this poor
+hand worthy to be lifted to his lips."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH.
+
+Having pledged herself to visit Omega Street on Thursday, Diana
+considered herself bound to perform that promise. She felt, however, that
+there was some touch of absurdity in the position, for to keep a promise
+so made was in a manner to keep an appointment with M. Lenoble.
+
+"I dare say he has a habit of falling in love with every young woman he
+meets," she thought, when she considered his conduct from a more prosaic
+standpoint than the grateful enthusiasm his generous sympathy had at
+first awakened in her mind. "I have heard that it is a Frenchman's
+faculty to consider himself irresistible, and to avow his adoration for a
+new divinity every week. And I was so foolish as to fancy there was a
+depth of feeling in his tone and manner! I am sure he is all that is good
+and generous; but the falling in love is no doubt a national failing."
+
+She remembered the impertinent advances of divers unknown foreigners whom
+she had encountered on pier or _digue_, kursaal or beach, in the
+frequently unprotected hours of her continental wanderings.
+
+She had not seen the best side of the foreign mind in her character of
+unattended and doubtfully attired English demoiselle. She knew that
+Gustave Lenoble was of a very different stamp from those specimens of the
+genus tiger whose impertinent admiration had often wounded and distressed
+her; but she was inclined to attribute the fault of shallowness to a
+nature so frank and buoyant as that of her father's friend.
+
+She walked from Bayswater to Chelsea on the appointed Thursday, for the
+cost of frequent journeys in cabs was more than her purse could supply.
+The walk across the Park was pleasant even in the bleak March weather,
+and she entered the little parlour in Omega Street with the bloom of
+damask roses upon her cheeks.
+
+"How do you do, papa dear?" she began, as she came into the dusky room;
+but the figure sitting in her father's accustomed place was not that of
+her father. It was M. Lenoble, who rose to welcome her.
+
+"Is papa worse?" she asked, surprised by the Captain's absence.
+
+"On the contrary, he is better, and has gone out in a hired carriage for
+a breath of fresh air. I persuaded him to go. He will be back very
+shortly."
+
+"I wrote to tell him I should be here to-day, but I am very glad he has
+gone out, for I am sure the air will do him good. Was he well wrapped up,
+do you know, M. Lenoble?"
+
+"Enveloped in railway-rugs and shawls to his very nose. I arranged all
+that with my own hands. He looked like an ambassador from all the
+Russias."
+
+"How kind of you to think of such things!" said Diana gratefully.
+
+"And tell me why should I not think of such things? Do you imagine that
+it is not a pleasure to me to wait upon your father--for your sake?"
+
+There was some amount of awkwardness in this kind of thing. Diana busied
+herself with the removal of her hat and jacket, which she laid neatly
+upon a stony-hearted horsehair sofa. After doing this she placed herself
+near the window, whence she contemplated the dusky street, appearing much
+interested in the movements of the lamp lighter.
+
+"What an admirable way they have of lighting the lamps now," she
+remarked, with the conversational brilliance which usually marks this
+kind of situation; "how much more convenient it must be than the old
+method with the ladder, you know!"
+
+"Yes, I have no doubt," said Gustave, bringing himself to her side with a
+couple of steps, and planting himself deliberately in a chair next to
+hers; "but don't you think, as I start for Normandy to-morrow, we might
+talk of something more interesting than the lamplighter, Miss Paget?"
+
+"I am ready to talk of anything you like," replied Miss Paget, with that
+charming assumption of unconsciousness which every woman can command on
+these occasions.
+
+"You are very good. Do you know that when I persuaded your father to go
+out for an airing, I was prompted by a motive so selfish as to render the
+proceeding quite diabolical? Don't be alarmed! The doctor gave his
+permission for the airing, or I should not have attempted such a thing.
+Hypocrisy I am capable of, but not assassination. You cannot imagine the
+diplomacy which I exhibited; and all to what end? Can you imagine that?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"That I might secure one half-hour's uninterrupted talk with you; and,
+unhappily, you are so late that I expect your father's return every
+minute. He was to be back again before dusk, and the appearance of the
+lamplighter demonstrates that the dusk has come. I have so much to say,
+and so little time to say it; so much, Diane--"
+
+She started as he called her thus, as if in that moment of surprise she
+would have risen from her chair by his side. She knew what was coming,
+and having expected nothing so desperate, knew not how to arrest the
+confession that she would fain have avoided hearing. M. Lenoble laid his
+hand firmly on hers.
+
+"So much, Diane; and yet so little, that all can be told in three words.
+I love you."
+
+"M. Lenoble!"
+
+"Ah, you are surprised, you wonder, you look at me with eyes of sweet
+amazement! Dear angel, do you think it is possible to see you and not to
+love you? To see you once is to respect, to admire, to bow the knee
+before beauty and goodness; but to see you many times, as I have done,
+the patient consoler of an invalid and somewhat difficult father--ah, my
+sweet love, who is there so hard amongst mankind that he should escape
+from loving you, seeing all that?"
+
+The question had a significance that the speaker knew not. Who amongst
+mankind? Why, was there not one man for whom she would have been content
+to be the veriest slave that ever abnegated every personal delight for
+the love of a hard master? And he had passed her by, indifferent,
+unseeing. She had worshipped him on her knees, as it seemed to her; and
+he had left her kneeling in the dust, while he went on to offer himself,
+heart and soul, at another shrine.
+
+She could not forget these things. The memory and the bitterness of them
+came back with renewed poignancy at this moment, when the voice of a
+stranger told her she was beloved.
+
+"My dear one, will you not answer me?" pleaded Gustave, in nowise alarmed
+by Diana's silence, which seemed to him only the natural expression of a
+maidenly emotion. "Tell me that you will give me measure for measure;
+that you will love me as my mother loved my father--with a love that
+trouble and poverty could never lessen; with a love that was strongest
+when fate was darkest--a star which the dreary night of sorrow could not
+obscure. I am ten years older than you by my baptismal register, Diane;
+but my heart is young. I never knew what love was until I knew you. And
+yet those who know me best will tell you that I was no unkind husband,
+and that my poor wife and I lived happily. I shall never know love again,
+except for you. The hour comes, I suppose, in every man's life; and the
+angel of his life comes in that appointed hour. Mine came when I saw you.
+I have spoken to your father, and have his warm approval. He was all
+encouragement, and hinted that I might be assured of your love. Had he
+sufficient justification for that half-promise, Diane?"
+
+"He had none," Miss Paget answered gravely, "none except his own wishes.
+You have made me hear more than I wished to hear, M. Lenoble, for the
+treasure you offer me is one that I cannot accept. With all my heart I
+thank you for the love you tell me of. Even if it is, as I can but think
+it, a passing fancy, I thank you, nevertheless. It is sweet to win the
+love of a good man. I pray you to believe that with all my heart and mind
+I honour your generous nature, your noble sympathy with the weak and
+friendless. If you can give me your friendship, you shall find how I can
+value a good man's regard, but I cannot accept your love."
+
+"Why not?" asked Gustave, aghast.
+
+"Because I cannot give you measure for measure, and I will not give you
+less."
+
+"But in time, Diane, in time?"
+
+"Time cannot show me your character in a nobler light than that in which
+I see it now. You do not lack the power to win a woman's heart, but I
+have no heart to give. If you will be my friend, time will increase my
+affection for you--but time cannot restore the dead."
+
+"Which means that your heart is dead, Diane?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, with unutterable sadness.
+
+"You love some one younger, happier than I?"
+
+"No, M. Lenoble, no one."
+
+"But you have loved? Yes!--a scoundrel, perhaps; a villain, who--"
+
+A spasm of pain contracted his face as he looked at the girl's drooping
+head; her face, in that dim light, he could not see.
+
+"Tell me this, Diane," he said presently, in an altered voice; "there is
+no barrier between us--no irrevocable obstacle that must part us for
+ever? There is no one who can claim you by any right--" He paused; and
+then added, in a lower voice, "by any wrong?"
+
+"No one," answered Miss Paget, lifting her head, and looking her lover
+full in the face. Even in that uncertain light he could see the proud
+steady gaze that seemed the fittest answer of all doubts.
+
+"Thank God!" he whispered. "Ah, how could I fear, even for one moment,
+that you could be anything but what you seem--the purest among the pure?
+Why, then, do you reject me? You do not love me, but you ask my
+friendship; you offer me your friendship, even your affection. Ah,
+believe me, if those are but real, time will ripen them into love. Your
+heart is dead. Ah, why should that young heart be dead? It is not dead,
+Diane; it needs but the fire of true love to warm it into life again. Why
+should you reject me, since you tell me that you love me; unless you love
+another? What should divide us?"
+
+"Shadows and memories," Diana replied mournfully,--"vague and foolish;
+wicked, perhaps; but they come between you and me, M. Lenoble. And since
+I cannot give you a whole heart, I will give you nothing."
+
+"You have loved some one, some one who did not value your love? Tell me
+the truth, Diane; you owe me at least as much as that."
+
+"I do owe you the truth. Yes; I have been very foolish. For two or three
+years of my life there was a person who was our daily companion. He
+travelled with us--with my father and me; and we saw many changes and
+troubles together. For a long time he was like my brother; and I doubt if
+many brothers are as kind to their sisters as he was to me. In his heart
+that feeling never changed. He was always equally kind, equally careless.
+Once I deluded myself with the fancy that in his looks and tones, and
+even in his words, there was some deeper feeling than this careless
+brotherly kindness; but it was no more than a delusion. My eyes were
+opened rudely enough. I saw his heart bestowed elsewhere. Do not think
+that I am so weak, or so wicked, as to abandon myself to despair because
+I have been awakened from my foolish dream. I can look the realities of
+life in the face, M. Lenoble; and I have taught myself to wish all good
+things for the dear girl who has won the heart that I once thought was
+mine. The person I am speaking of can boast no superior graces of mind or
+person. He is only a very commonplace young man, with a certain amount of
+talent, a disposition inclined to good rather than to evil. But he was
+the companion of my girlhood; and in losing him it seems to me as if I
+had lost a part of my youth itself."
+
+To Diana's mind this seemed the end of the discussion. She expected M.
+Lenoble to bow his head to the inevitable, to utter a friendly farewell,
+and depart for his Norman home, convinced, if not satisfied. But the
+light-hearted, easy-tempered Gustave was not a lover of the despairing
+order, nor an easily answered suppliant.
+
+"And that is all!" he exclaimed, in the cheeriest tone. "A companion of
+your girlhood, for whom you had a girl's romantic fancy! And the memory
+of this unspeakable idiot--great Heaven! but how idiotic must this wretch
+have been, to be loved by you, and not even to know it!--the memory of
+this last of the last is to come between you and me, and divide us for
+ever? The phantom of this miserable, who could be loved by an angel
+without knowing it, is to lift its phantasmal hand and thrust me
+aside--me, Gustave Lenoble, a man, and not an idiot? Ah, thus we blow him
+to the uttermost end of the world!" cried M. Lenoble, blowing an
+imaginary rival from the tips of his fingers. "Thus we dismiss him to the
+Arctic regions, the torrid zone--to the Caucasus, where await vultures to
+gnaw his liver--wherever earth is most remote and uncomfortable--he and
+the bread-and-butter miss whom he prefers to my Diane!"
+
+This manner of taking things was quite unexpected by Diana. It was much
+more pleasant than gloomy despair or sullen resentment; but it was, at
+the same time, much more difficult to deal with.
+
+"He is gone!" cried Gustave presently; "he is on the topmost heights of
+Caucasus, and the vultures are sharpening their beaks! And now, tell me,
+Diane--you will be my wife, will you not? You will be a mother to my
+children? You will transform the old chateau of Côtenoir into a pleasant
+home? You will cease to live amongst strangers? You will come to those
+who will love and cherish you as their own, their dearest and best and
+brightest? You will give your poor old father a corner by your fireside?
+He is old and needs a home for his last years. For his sake, Diane, for
+mine, for my children, let your answer be yes! Ah, not so fast!" he
+cried, as she was about to speak. "Why are you so quick to pronounce your
+fatal judgment? Think how much depends on your reply--your father's
+happiness, my children's, mine!"
+
+"It is of yours only I must think," Miss Paget answered earnestly. "You
+fancy it is so easy for me to say no. Believe me, it would be much easier
+to say yes. When you speak of my father's declining years, I, who know
+his weary life so well, would be hard of heart indeed if I were not
+tempted by the haven you offer. Every word that you say gives me some new
+proof of your goodness, your generosity. But I will not wrong you because
+you are generous. I shall always be your grateful friend, but you must
+seek elsewhere for a wife, M. Lenoble. You will have little difficulty in
+finding one worthier than I."
+
+"I will seek nowhere else for a wife; I will have no wife but you. I have
+had a wife of other people's choosing; I will choose one for myself this
+time. Let us be friends, Diane, since your decision is as irrevocable as
+the laws of Draco. You are stone, you are adamant; but no matter, we can
+be friends. Your father will be disappointed. But what then? He is no
+doubt accustomed to disappointments. My daughters--for them it is a
+profound affliction to be motherless, but they must support it. Côtenoir
+must go to wreck and ruin a little longer--a few more rats behind the
+panelling, a few more moths in the tapestry, that is all. My children
+say, 'Papa, our home is not comfortable; all is upside-down;' and I
+reply. 'But what will you, my children? A home without a wife is always
+upside down.' And then I take them between my arms, in weeping. It is a
+poignant picture to rend the heart. But what does it matter, Miss Paget?
+What is that verse of your grand Will?--
+
+Blow, blow, thou wintry wind;
+And let go weep the stricken land,
+While harts ungalled go play.
+
+Perhaps I have mixed him up somehow; but the meaning is clear."
+
+A hollow-sounding and somewhat awful cough heralded the approach of
+Captain Paget, who entered the room at this juncture. If the Captain had
+prolonged his first airing, after six weeks' confinement to the house,
+until this late period of the afternoon, he would have committed an
+imprudence which might have cost him dearly. Happily, he had done nothing
+of the kind, but had re-entered the house unobserved, while Diana and
+Gustave were conversing close to the window, having preferred to leave
+his fly at the end of the street, rather than to incur the hazard of
+interrupting a critical tête-à-tête. The interval that had elapsed since
+his return had been spent by the Captain in his own bedchamber, and in
+the immediate neighbourhood of the folding-doors between that apartment
+and the parlour. What he had heard had been by no means satisfactory to
+him; and if a look could annihilate, Miss Paget might have perished
+beneath the Parthian glance which her father shot at her as he came
+towards the window, with a stereotyped smile upon his lips and
+unspeakable anger in his heart.
+
+He had heard just enough of the conversation to know that Gustave had
+been rejected--Gustave, with Côtenoir and a handsome independence in the
+present, and the late John Haygarth's fortune in the future. Rejected by
+a penniless young woman, who at any moment might find herself without a
+roof to shelter her from the winds of heaven! Was ever folly, madness,
+wickedness supreme as this?
+
+Horatio trembled with rage as he took his daughter's hand. She had the
+insolence to extend her hand for the customary salutation. The Captain's
+greeting was a grip that made her wince.
+
+"Good-night, Miss Paget," said Gustave gravely, but with by no means the
+despondent tone of a hopeless lover; "I--well, I shall see you again,
+perhaps, before I go to Normandy. I doubt if I shall go to-morrow. I
+have my own reasons for staying--unreasonable reasons, perhaps, but I
+shall stay."
+
+All this was said in a tone too low to reach Captain Paget's ear.
+
+"Are you going to leave us, Lenoble?" he asked in a quavering voice. "You
+will not stop and let Di give you a cup of tea as usual?"
+
+"Not to-night, Captain. Good-bye."
+
+He wrung the old man's hand and departed. Captain Paget dropped heavily
+into a chair, and for some minutes there was silence. Diana was the
+first to speak.
+
+"I am glad your doctor considered you well enough to go out for a drive,
+papa," she said.
+
+"Indeed, my dear," answered her father with a groan; "I hope my next
+drive may be in a different kind of vehicle--the last journey I shall
+ever take, until they cart away my bones for manure. I believe they do
+make manure from the bones of paupers in our utilitarian age."
+
+"Papa, how can you talk so horribly! You are better, are you not? M.
+Lenoble said you were better."
+
+"Yes, I am better, God help me!" answered the old man, too weak alike in
+mind and body to hide the passion that possessed, him. "That is one of
+the contradictions of the long farce we call life. If I had been a rich
+man, with a circle of anxious relations and all the noted men of Savile
+Row dancing attendance round my bed, I dare say I should have died; but
+as I happen to be a penniless castaway, with only a lodging-house drudge
+and a half-starved apothecary to take care of me, and with nothing before
+me but a workhouse, I live. It is all very well for a man to take things
+easily when he is ill and helpless, too weak even to think. _That_ is not
+the trying time. The real trial arrives when a little strength comes back
+to him, and his landlady begins to worry him for her rent, and the
+lodging-house drudge gets tired of pitying him, and the apothecary sends
+in his bill, and the wretched high-road lies bare and broad before him,
+and he hears the old order to move on. The moving-on time has come for
+me, Di; and the Lord alone knows how little I know where I am to go."
+
+"Papa, you are not friendless; even I can give you a little help."
+
+"Yes," answered the Captain with a bitter laugh; "a sovereign once a
+quarter--the scrapings of your pittance! That help won't save me from
+the workhouse."
+
+"There is M. Lenoble."
+
+"Yes, there is M. Lenoble; the man who would have given me a home for my
+old age: he told me so to-day--a home fit for a gentleman--for the
+position he now occupies is nothing compared to that which he may occupy
+a year hence. He would have received me as his father-in-law, without
+thought or question of my antecedents; and if I have not lived like a
+gentleman, I might have died like one. This is what he would have done
+for me. But do you think I can ask anything of him now, after you have
+refused him? I know of your refusal to be that man's wife. I heard--I saw
+it in his face. You--a beggar, a friendless wretch, dependent on the
+patronage of a stockbroker's silly wife--_you_ must needs give yourself
+grand airs, and refuse such a man as that! Do you think such men go
+begging among young ladies like you, or that they run about the streets,
+like the roast pigs in the story, begad, with knives and forks in their
+backs, asking to be eaten?"
+
+The Captain was walking up and down the room in a fever of rage. Diana
+looked at him with sad wondering eyes. Yes, it was the old selfish
+nature. The leopard cannot change his spots; and the Horatio Paget of the
+present was the Horatio Paget of the past.
+
+"Pray don't be angry with me, papa," said Diana sorrowfully; "I believe
+that I have done my duty."
+
+"Done your fiddlesticks!" cried the Captain, too angry to be careful of
+his diction. "Your duty to whom? Did you happen to remember, miss, that
+you owe some duty to me, your father, but for whom you wouldn't be
+standing there talking of duty like a tragedy queen? By Jove! I suppose
+you are too grand a person to consider my trouble in this matter; the
+pains I took to get Lenoble over to England; the way I made the most of
+my gout even, in order to have you about me; the way I finessed and
+diplomatized to bring this affair to a successful issue. And now, when I
+have succeeded beyond my hopes, you spoil everything, and then dare to
+stand before me and preach about duty. What do you want in a husband, I
+should like to know? A rich man? Lenoble is that. A handsome man? Lenoble
+is that. A gentleman, with good blood in his veins? Lenoble comes of as
+pure a race as any man in that part of France. A good man? Lenoble is one
+of the best fellows upon this earth. What is it, then, that you want?"
+
+"I want to give my heart to the man who gives me his."
+
+"And what, in the name of all that's preposterous, is to prevent you
+giving Gustave Lenoble your heart?"
+
+"I cannot tell you."
+
+"No, nor any one else. But let us have no more of this nonsense. If you
+call yourself a daughter of mine, you will marry Gustave Lenoble. If
+not--"
+
+The Captain found himself brought to a sudden stop in his unconscious
+paraphrase of Signor Capulet's menace to his recalcitrant daughter,
+Juliet. With what threat could the noble Horatio terrify his daughter to
+obedience? Before you talk of turning your rebellious child out of doors,
+you must provide a home from which to cast her. Captain Paget remembered
+this, and was for the moment reduced to sudden and ignominious silence.
+And yet there must surely be some way of bringing this besotted young
+woman to reason.
+
+He sat for some minutes in silence, with his head leaning on his hand,
+his face hidden from Diana. This silence, this attitude, so expressive of
+utter despondency, touched her more keenly than his anger. She knew that
+he was mean and selfish, that it was of his own loss he thought; and yet
+she pitied him. He was old and helpless and miserable; so much the more
+pitiable because of his selfishness and meanness. For the heroic soul
+there is always some comfort; but for the grovelling nature suffering
+knows no counterbalance. The ills that flesh is heir to seem utterly
+bitter when there is no grand spirit to dominate the flesh, and soar
+triumphant above the regions of earthly pain. Captain Paget's mind, to
+him, was not a kingdom. He could not look declining years of poverty in
+the face; he was tired of work. The schemes and trickeries of his life
+were becoming very odious to him; they were for the most part worn out,
+and had ceased to pay. Of course he had great hopes, in any event, from
+Gustave Lenoble; but those hopes were dependent on Gustave's inheritance
+of John Haygarth's estate. He wanted something more tangible than
+this--he wanted immediate security; and his daughter's marriage with
+Gustave would have given him that security, and still grander hopes for
+the future. He had fancied himself reigning over the vassals of Côtenoir,
+a far more important personage than the real master of that château. He
+had pictured to himself a _pied-à-terre_ in Paris which it might be
+agreeable for him to secure, for existence in Normandy might occasionally
+prove _canuyeux_. These things were what he meant when he talked of a
+haven for his declining years; and against the daughter who, for some
+caprice of her own, could hinder his possession of these things, he had
+no feeling but anger.
+
+Diana compassionated this weak old man, to whose lips the cup of
+prosperity had seemed so near, from whose lips her hand had thrust it.
+He had been promised a home, comfort, respectability, friendship--"all
+that should accompany old age"--and she had prevented the fulfilment of
+the promise. Heaven knows how pure her motives had been; but as she
+watched that drooping head, with its silvered hair, she felt that she
+had been cruel.
+
+"Papa," she began presently, laying her hand caressingly upon her
+father's neck; but he pushed aside the timid, caressing hand--"papa, you
+think me very unkind, only because I have done what I believe to be
+right; indeed it is so, papa dear. In what I said to Gustave Lenoble this
+evening, I was governed only by my sense of right."
+
+"Indeed!" cried the Captain, with a strident laugh; "and where did you
+pick up your sense of right, madam, I should like to know? From what
+Methodist parson's hypocritical twaddle have you learnt to lay down the
+law to your poor old father about the sense of right? 'Honour your father
+and your mother, that your days may be long in the land,' miss, _that's_
+what your Bible teaches you; but the Bible has gone out of fashion, I
+dare say, since I was a young man; and your model young woman of the
+present generation taunts her father with her sense of right. Will your
+sense of right be satisfied when you hear of your father rotting in the
+old-men's ward of a workhouse, or dying on the London stones?"
+
+"I am not unfeeling, papa. With all my heart I pity you; but it is cruel
+on your part to exaggerate the misery of your position, as I am sure you
+must be doing. Why should your means of living fail because I refuse to
+marry M. Lenoble? You have lived hitherto without my help, as I have
+lived of late without yours. Nothing could give me greater happiness than
+to know that you were exempt from care; and if my toil can procure you a
+peaceful home in the future--as I believe it can, or education and will
+to work must go for nothing--there shall be no lack of industry on my
+part. I will work for you, I will indeed, papa--willingly, happily."
+
+"When your work can give me such a home as Côtenoir--a home that one word
+of yours would secure for me--I will thank you."
+
+"If you will only wait, papa, if you will only have patience--"
+
+"Patience! Wait! Do you know what you are talking about? Do you prate of
+patience, and waiting, and hope in the future to a man who has no
+future--to a man whose days are numbered, and who feels the creeping
+chills of death stealing over him every day as he sits beside his
+wretched hearth, or labours through his daily drudgery? I can live as I
+have always lived! Yes; but do you know, or care to know, that with every
+day life becomes more difficult for me? Your fine friends at Bayswater
+have done with me. I have spent the last sixpence I shall ever see from
+Philip Sheldon. Hawkehurst has cut me, like the ungrateful hound he is.
+When they have squeezed the orange, they throw away the rind. Didn't
+Voltaire say that, when Frederick of Prussia gave him the go-by? Heaven
+knows it's true enough; and now you, who by a word might secure yourself
+a splendid position--yes, I say splendid for a poor drudge and dependent
+like you, and insure a home for me--you, forsooth, must needs favour me
+with your high-flown sentiments about your sense of right, and promise me
+a home in the future, if I will wait and hope! No, Diana, waiting and
+hoping are done with for me, and I can find a home in the bed of the
+river without your help."
+
+"You would not be so wicked as to do that!" cried Diana, aghast.
+
+"I don't know about the wickedness of the act. But, rely upon it, when my
+choice lies between the workhouse and the river, I shall prefer the
+river. The modern workhouse is no inviting sanctuary, and I dare say many
+a homeless wretch makes the same choice."
+
+For some minutes there was silence. Diana stood with her elbows resting
+on the chimneypiece, her face covered with her hands.
+
+"O Lord, teach me to do the thing which is right!" she prayed, and in the
+next breath acted on the impulse of the moment.
+
+"What would you have me do?" she asked.
+
+"What any one but an idiot would do of her own accord--accept the good
+fortune that has dropped into your lap. Do you think such luck as yours
+goes begging every day?"
+
+"You would have me accept Gustave Lenoble's offer, no matter what
+falsehoods may be involved in my acceptance of it?"
+
+"I can see no reason for falsehood. Any one but an idiot would honour
+such a man; any one but an idiot would thank Providence for such good
+fortune."
+
+"Very well, papa," exclaimed Diana, with a laugh that had no mirthful
+music, "I will not be the exceptional idiot. If M. Lenoble does me the
+honour to repeat his offer--and I think from his manner he means to do
+so--I will accept it."
+
+"He shall repeat it!" cried the Captain, throwing off his assumption of
+the tragic father. The Oedipus Coloneus, the Lear--the venerable victim
+of winter winds and men's ingratitude--was transformed in a moment into
+an elderly Jeremy Diddler, lined with Lord Foppington. "He shall repeat
+it; I will have him at your feet to-morrow. Yes, Di, my love, I pledge
+myself to bring that about, without compromise to your maidenly pride or
+the dignity of a Paget. My dear child, I ought to have known that
+reflection would show you where your duty lies. I fear I have been
+somewhat harsh, but you must forgive me, Di; I have set my heart on this
+match, for your happiness as well as my own. I could not stand the
+disappointment; though I admired, and still admire, the high feeling,
+and all that kind of thing, which prompted your refusal. A school-girlish
+sentimentality, child, but with something noble in it; not the
+sentimentality of a vulgar schoolgirl. The blue blood will show itself,
+my love; and now--no, no, don't cry. You will live to thank me for
+to-night's work; yes, my child, to thank me, when you look round your
+comfortable home by-and-by--when my poor old bones are mouldering in
+their unpretending sepulchre--and say to yourself, 'I have my father to
+thank for this. Adverse circumstances forbade his doing his duty as
+happier fathers are allowed the privilege of doing theirs, but it was his
+forethought, his ever-watchful care, which secured me an admirable
+husband and a happy home.' Mark my words, the time will come when you
+will say this, my dear."
+
+"I will try to think of you always kindly, papa," Miss Paget answered in
+a low sad voice; "and if my marriage can secure your happiness and
+Gustave Lenoble's, I am content. I only fear to take too much, and give
+too little."
+
+"My love, you must certainly be the lineal descendant of Don Quixote. Too
+much, and too little, forsooth! Let Lenoble find a handsomer woman, or a
+more elegant woman, by gad, elsewhere! Such a woman as a duke might be
+proud to make his duchess, by Jove! There shall be no sense of obligation
+on our side, my love. Gustave Lenoble shall be made to feel that he gets
+change for his shilling. Kiss me, child, and tell me you forgive me for
+being a little rough with you, just now."
+
+"Forgive you?--yes, papa. I dare say you are wiser than I. Why should I
+refuse M. Lenoble? He is good and kind, and will give us a happy home?
+What more can I want? Do I want to be like Charlotte, to whom life seems
+all poetry and brightness?"
+
+"And who is going to throw herself away upon a penny-a-liner, by Jove!"
+interjected the Captain.
+
+"Can I hope to be like that girl, with her happy ignorance of life, her
+boundless love and trust! O, no, no, papa; those things are not for me."
+
+She laid her head upon her father's breast, and sobbed like a child. This
+was her second farewell to the man she had loved, the dreams she had
+dreamed. The Captain comforted her with a paternal embrace, but was as
+powerless to comprehend her emotion as if he had found himself suddenly
+called upon to console the sorrows of a Japanese widow.
+
+"Hysterical," he murmured. "These noble natures are subject to that kind
+of thing. And now, my love," he continued, in a more business-like tone,
+"let us talk seriously. I think it would be very advisable for you to
+leave Bayswater, and take up your abode in these humble lodgings with me
+immediately."
+
+"Why, papa?"
+
+"The reason is sufficiently obvious, my love. It is not right that you
+should continue to eat the bread of dependence. As the future wife of
+Gustave Lenoble--and in this case, the word future means immediately--"
+
+"Papa," cried Diana suddenly, "you will not hurry me into this marriage?
+I have consented for your sake. You will not be so ungenerous as to--"
+
+"As to hurry you? No, my dear, of course not. There shall be no indecent
+haste. Your wishes, your delicate and disinterested motives, shall be
+consulted before all things; yes, my love," cried the Captain, sorely
+afraid of some wavering on the part of his daughter, and painfully
+anxious to conciliate her, "all shall be in accordance with your wishes.
+But I must urge your immediate removal from Bayswater; first, because M.
+Lenoble will naturally wish to see you oftener than he can while you are
+residing with people whose acquaintance I do not want him to make; and
+secondly, because you have no further need of Mrs. Sheldon's patronage."
+
+"It has been kindness, affection, papa--never patronage. I could not
+leave Mrs. Sheldon or Charlotte abruptly or ungraciously, upon any
+consideration. They gave me a home when I most bitterly needed one.
+They took me away from the dull round of schoolroom drudgery, that was
+fast changing me into a hard hopeless joyless automaton. My first duty
+is to them."
+
+The Captain's angry sniff alone expressed the indignation which this
+impious remark inspired.
+
+"My next shall be to you and M. Lenoble. Let me give Mrs. Sheldon due
+notice of the change in our plans."
+
+"What do you call due notice?" asked Horatio, peevishly.
+
+"A quarter's notice."
+
+"O, indeed! Then for three months you are to dance attendance upon Mrs.
+Sheldon, while M. Lenoble is waiting to make you his wife."
+
+"I must consult the wishes of my friends, papa."
+
+"Very well, my dear," replied the Captain, with a sigh that was next of
+kin to a groan; "you must please yourself and your friends, I suppose;
+your poor old father is a secondary consideration." And then, timeously
+mindful of the skirmish he had just had with his daughter, Captain Paget
+made haste to assure her of his regard and submission.
+
+"All shall be as you please, my love," he murmured. "There, go into my
+room, and smooth your hair, and bathe your eyes, while I ring for the
+tea."
+
+Diana obeyed. She found eau-de-cologne and the most delicate of Turkey
+sponges on her father's wash-handstand; jockey-club, and ivory-backed
+brushes, somewhat yellow with age, but bearing crest and monogram, on his
+dressing-table. The workhouse did not seem quite so near at hand as the
+Captain had implied; but with these sanguine people it is but a step from
+disappointment to despair.
+
+"What am I to tell Mrs. Sheldon, papa?" she asked, when she was pouring
+out her father's tea.
+
+"Well, I think you had better say nothing, except that my circumstances
+have somewhat improved, and that my failing health requires your care."
+
+"I hate secrets, papa."
+
+"So do I, my dear; but half-confidences are more disagreeable than
+secrets."
+
+Diana submitted. She secretly reserved to herself the right to tell
+Charlotte anything she pleased. From that dear adopted sister she would
+hide nothing.
+
+"If M. Lenoble should repeat his offer, and I should accept it, I will
+tell her all," she thought. "It will make that dear girl happy to know
+that there is some one who loves me, besides herself."
+
+And then she thought of the strange difference of fate that gave to
+this Charlotte Halliday, with her rich stepfather and comfortable
+surroundings, a penniless soldier of fortune for a lover, while to her,
+the spendthrift adventurer's daughter, came a wealthy suitor.
+
+"Will hers be the dinner of herbs, and mine the stalled ox?" she thought.
+"Ah, Heaven forbid! Why is it so difficult to love wisely, so easy to
+love too well?"
+
+She remembered the cynical French proverb, "When we can not have what
+we love, we must love what we have." But the cynical proverb brought her
+no comfort.
+
+She went back to Bayswater with a strange bewildered feeling; after
+having promised her father to go to Omega Street whenever he sent for
+her. There was no actual pain in her mind, no passionate desire to recall
+her promise, no dread horror of the step to which she had pledged
+herself. The feeling that oppressed her was the sense that such a step
+should have been the spontaneous election of her grateful heart, proud of
+a good man's preference, instead of a weak submission to a father's
+helplessness.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Fifth.
+
+
+
+THE FIRST ACT OF MR. SHELDON'S DRAMA.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+TAKEN BY STORM.
+
+Two days after her interview with Gustave Lenoble, Miss Paget received a
+brief note from her father, summoning her again to Omega Street.
+
+"He has not gone back to Normandy," wrote the Captain.
+
+"My child, he positively worships the ground you walk upon. Ah, my love,
+_it is something to have a father_! I need scarcely tell you that his
+first idea of your excellence was inspired by those glowing descriptions
+of your goodness, your beauty, your heroism, which I favoured him with,
+_en passant_, during our conversations at Côtenoir, where the happy
+accident of a business transaction first introduced me to him. The
+interests of my only child have ever been near and dear to me; and where
+a duller man would have perceived only a wealthy stranger, my paternal
+instincts recognized at a glance the predestined husband of my daughter.
+It needed my wide experience of life--and, as I venture to believe, my
+subtle knowledge of the human heart--to understand that a man who had
+lived for five-and-thirty years buried alive in a French province--a
+charming place, my love, and for your refined taste replete with
+interest--never seeing a mortal except his immediate neighbours, would be
+the man of men to fall in love with the first attractive young woman he
+met among strangers. Come to me this afternoon without fail, and come
+early.--Yours,
+
+"H.N.C.P."
+
+Diana obeyed this summons submissively, but still troubled by that
+strange sense of bewilderment which had affected her since her stormy
+interview with Captain Paget. She was not quite certain of herself. The
+old dreams--the sweet foolish girlish fancies--were not yet put away
+altogether from her mind; but she knew that they were foolish, and she
+was half-inclined to believe that there had been some wisdom in her
+father's scorn.
+
+"What do I want more?" she asked herself. "He is good and brave and true,
+and he loves me. If I were a princess, my marriage would be negotiated
+for me by other people, and I should have reason to consider myself very
+happy if the man whom the state selected for my husband should prove as
+good a man as Gustave Lenoble. And he loves me; me, who have never before
+had power over a man's heart!"
+
+She walked across Hyde Park on this occasion, as on the last; and her
+thoughts, though always confused--mere rags and scraps of thought--were
+not all unpleasant. There was a smile, half shy, half tender, on her face
+as she went into the little sitting-room where Gustave was waiting for
+her. She had seen his hat and overcoat in the passage, and knew that he
+was there waiting for her. To this poor desolate soul there was something
+sweet in the idea of being waited for.
+
+As she stood but a little within the doorway, blushing, almost trembling
+with the sense of her changed position, her lover came across the room
+and took her in his arms. The strong brave arms held her to his breast;
+and in that one embrace he took her to his heart, and made her his own
+for ever.
+
+In every story of life-long affection, there is one moment in which the
+bond is sealed. Diana looked up at the frank tender face, and felt that
+she had found her conqueror. Master, friend, protector, husband, adoring
+and devoted lover, gallant and fearless champion--he was all; and she
+divined his power and his worth as she glanced shyly upward, ashamed to
+be so lightly won.
+
+"M. Lenoble," she faltered, trying to withdraw herself from the strong
+encircling arm that held her, as if by right.
+
+"Gustave, now and for ever, my Diane! There shall be no more Monsieur
+Lenoble. And in a few weeks it shall be 'my husband.' Your father has
+given me to you. He tells me to laugh at your refusals your scruples; to
+assail you like your Shakespeare's Petruchio assails his Katherine--with
+audacious insolence that will not be denied. And I shall take his advice.
+Look up into my face, dear angel, and defy me to take his advice."
+
+Happily the dear angel looked only downwards. But M Lenoble was resolved
+to have an agreeable response.
+
+"See, then, thou canst not defy me!" he cried, in the only language he
+spoke; and the "_tu_" for the first time sounded very tender, very sweet.
+"Thou canst not tell me thou art angry with me. And the other--the
+imbecile;--he is gone for ever, is he not? Ah, say yes!"
+
+"Yes, he is gone," said Diana, almost in a whisper.
+
+"Is he quite gone? The door of thine heart locked against him, his
+luggage thrown out of the window?"
+
+"He is gone!" she murmured softly. "He could not hold his place against
+you--you are so strong--so brave; and he was only a shadow. Yes, he is
+gone."
+
+She said this with a little sigh of relief. It was in all sincerity that
+she answered her suitor's question. She felt that a crisis had come in
+her life--the first page of a new volume; and the old sad tear-blotted
+book might be cast away.
+
+"Dear angel, wilt thou ever learn to love me?" asked Gustave, in a
+half-whisper, bending down his bearded face till his lips almost touched
+her cheek.
+
+"It is impossible not to love you," she answered softly. And indeed it
+seemed to her as if this chivalrous Gaul was a creature to command the
+love of women, the fear of men; an Achilles _en frac_; a Bayard without
+his coat of mail; Don Quixote in his youth, generous, brave,
+compassionate, tender, and with a brain not as yet distempered by the
+reading of silly romances.
+
+Captain Paget emerged from his den as the little love scene ended. He
+affected a gentlemanly unconsciousness of the poetry involved in the
+situation, was pleasantly anxious about the tea-tray, the candles, and
+minor details of life; and thus afforded the lovers ample time in which
+to recover their composure. The Frenchman was in no wise discomposed; he
+was only abnormally gay, with a little air of triumph that was not
+unpleasing. Diana was pale; but there was an unwonted light in her eyes,
+and she had by no means the appearance of a victim newly offered on the
+sacrificial altar of filial duty. In sober truth, Miss Paget was happier
+to-night than she had been for a long time. At three-and-twenty she was
+girl enough to rejoice in the knowledge that she was truly loved, and
+woman enough to value the sense of peace involved in the security of a
+prosperous future.
+
+If she was grateful to her lover--and the affection he had inspired in
+her heart had grown out of gratitude--it was no mercenary consideration
+as to his income or position that made her grateful. She thanked him for
+his love--that treasure which she had never expected to possess; she
+thanked him because he had taken her by the hand, and led her out of the
+ranks of lonely dependent womanhood, and seated her upon a throne, on the
+steps whereof he was content to kneel. Whether the throne were a rushen
+chair in some rustic cottage, or a gilded _fauteuil_ in a palace, she
+cared very little. It was the subject's devotion that was new and sweet
+to her.
+
+She went to Charlotte's room that night, when Mr. Sheldon's small
+household was at rest; as she had gone on Christmas Eve to renounce her
+lover and to bless her rival. This time it was a new confession she went
+to make, and a confession that involved some shame. There is nothing so
+hard to confess as inconstancy; and every woman is not so philosophic as
+Rahel Varnhagen, who declared that to be constant was not always to love
+the same person, but always to love some one.
+
+Miss Paget seated herself at Charlotte's feet, as she had done on that
+previous occasion. The weather was still cold enough to make a fire very
+pleasant, though it was more than two months since the Christmas bells
+had rung out upon the frosty air. Diana sat on a low hassock, playing
+with the tassels of her friend's dressing-gown, anxious to make her
+confession, and solely at a loss for words in which to shape so
+humiliating an avowal.
+
+"Charlotte," she began abruptly at last, "have you any idea when you and
+Valentine are to be married?"
+
+Miss Halliday gave a little cry of surprise.
+
+"Why, of course not, Di! How can you ask such a question? Our marriage
+is what uncle George calls a remote contingency. We are not to be married
+for ages--not until Valentine has obtained a secure position in
+literature, and an income that seems almost impossible. That was the
+special condition upon which Mr. Sheldon--papa--gave his consent to our
+engagement. Of course it was very proper and prudent of him to think of
+these things; and as he has been very kind and liberal-minded in his
+conduct to me throughout, I should be a most ungrateful person if I
+refused to be guided by his advice."
+
+"And I suppose that means that your engagement is to be a long one?"
+
+"The longest of long engagements. And what can be happier than a long
+engagement? One gets to know and understand the man one is to marry so
+thoroughly. I think I know every turn of thought in Valentine's mind;
+every taste, every fancy; and I feel myself every day growing to think
+more and more like him. I read the books he reads, so as to be able to
+talk to him, you know; but I am not so clever as you, Di, and Valentine's
+favourite authors do sometimes seem rather dry to me. But I struggle on,
+you know; and the harder I find the struggle, the more I admire my dear
+love's cleverness. Think of him, Di--three different articles in three
+different magazines last month! The paper on Apollodorus, in the
+_Cheapside_, you know; and that story in the Charing Cross--'How I lost
+my Gingham Umbrella, and gained the Acquaintance of Mr. Gozzleton.' _So_
+funny! And the exhaustive treatise on the Sources of Light, in the
+_Scientific Saturday_. And think of the fuss they make about Homer, a
+blind old person who wrote a long rigmarole of a poem about battles, and
+wrote it so badly that to this day no one knows whether it's one complete
+poem, or a lot of odds-and-ends in the way of poetry, put together by a
+man with an unpronounceable Greek name. When I think of what Valentine
+accomplishes in comparison to Homer, and the little notice the reviewers
+take of him, except to make him low-spirited by telling him that he is
+shallow and frivolous, I begin to think that literature must be going to
+the dogs."
+
+And here Charlotte became meditative, absorbed in the contemplation of
+Mr. Hawkehurst's genius. Diana had begun the conversation very artfully,
+intending to proceed by a gentle transition from Charlotte's love affairs
+to her own; but the conversation was drifting away from the subject into
+a discussion upon literature, and the brilliant young essayist whose
+first adventurous flights seemed grand as the soaring of Theban eagle to
+this tender and admiring watcher of his skyward progress.
+
+"Lotta," said Miss Paget, after a pause, "should you be very sorry if I
+were to leave you before your marriage?"
+
+"Leave me before my marriage, Diana! Is it not arranged that you are to
+live with mamma, and be a daughter to her, when I am gone? And you will
+come and stay with Valentine and me at our cottage; and you will advise
+me about my house-keeping, and teach me how to be a sensible, useful,
+economical wife, as well as a devoted one. Leave us, Di! What have I
+done, or mamma, or Mr. Sheldon, or anybody, that you should talk of
+anything so dreadful?"
+
+"What have you done, dear girl, dear friend, dear sister? Everything to
+win my undying love and gratitude. You have changed me from a hard
+disappointed bitter-minded woman--envious, at times, even of you--into
+your loving and devoted friend. You have changed me from a miserable
+creature into a contented and hopeful one. You have taught me to forget
+that my childhood and youth were one long night of wretchedness and
+degradation. You have taught me to forgive the father who suffered my
+life to be what it was, and made no one poor effort to lift me out of the
+slough of despond to which he had sunk. I can say no more, Charlotte.
+There are things that cannot be told by words."
+
+"And you want to leave me!" said Charlotte, in accents half-wondering,
+half-reproachful.
+
+"My father wants me to leave you, Lotta; and some one else--some one whom
+you must know and like before I can be sure I like him myself."
+
+"Him!" cried Charlotte, with a faint shriek of surprise. "Diana, WHAT are
+you going to tell me?"
+
+"A secret, Lotta; something which my father has forbidden me to tell any
+one, but which I will not hide from you. My poor father has found a kind
+friend--a friend who is almost as good to him as you are to me. How
+merciful Heaven is in raising up friends for outcasts! And I have seen a
+good deal of this gentleman who is so kind to papa, and the result is
+that--chiefly for papa's sake, and because I know that he is generous and
+brave and true, I mean papa's friend, M. Lenoble--I have consented to be
+his wife."
+
+"Diana!" cried Charlotte, with a sternness of manner that was alarming in
+so gentle a creature, "it shall never be!"
+
+"What dear?"
+
+"The sacrifice! No, dear, no! I understand it all. For your cruel
+mercenary heartless designing father's sake, you are going to marry a man
+whom you can't love. You are going to offer up your poor bruised desolate
+heart on the altar of duty. Ah, dear, you can't think I forget what you
+told me only two short months ago--though I seem selfish and frivolous,
+and am always talking about _him_, and parading my happiness, as it must
+seem to you, reckless of the wounds so newly healed in your noble
+unselfish heart. But I do not altogether forget, Diana, and such a
+sacrifice as this I will not allow. I know you have resigned him to me--I
+know you have thrust him from your heart, as you told me that night. But
+the hollow aching void that is left in your lonely heart shall be sacred,
+Di. No stranger's image shall pollute it. You shall not sacrifice your
+own peace to your father's selfishness. No, dear, no! With mamma and me
+you will always have a home. You need stoop to no cruel barter such as
+this marriage."
+
+And hereupon Miss Halliday wept over and caressed her friend, as the
+confidante of Agamemnon's daughter may have wept over and caressed that
+devoted young princess after the divination of Calchas had become common
+talk in the royal household.
+
+"But if I think it my duty to accept M. Lenoble's offer, Lotta?" urged
+Miss Paget with some embarrassment of manner. "M. Lenoble is as rich as
+he is generous, and my marriage with him will secure a happy home for my
+father. The foolish dreams I told you about on Christmas Eve had faded
+from my mind before I dared to speak of them. I could only confess my
+folly when I knew that I was learning to be wise. Pray do not think that
+I am sordid or mercenary. It is not because M. Lenoble is rich that I am
+inclined to marry him, it is because--"
+
+"Because you want to throw yourself away for the advantage of your
+selfish heartless father," interjected Charlotte. "He has neglected you
+all your life, and now wants to profit by the sacrifice of your
+happiness. Be firm, Di, darling; your Charlotte will stand by you, and
+find a home for you always, come what may. Who is this M. Lenoble? Some
+horrible ugly old creature, I dare say."
+
+Miss Paget smiled and blushed. The vision of Gustave's frank handsome
+face arose before her very vividly as Charlotte said this.
+
+"No, dear," she replied. "M. Lenoble is not an old
+man--five-and-thirty at most."
+
+"Five-and-thirty!" repeated Charlotte, with a wry face; you don't call
+that young? And what is he like?"
+
+"Well, dear, I think he is the sort of man whom most people would call
+handsome. I'm sure you would like him, Lotta. He is so candid, so
+animated, so full of strength and courage. The sort of man to whom one
+would naturally look in any emergency or danger; the sort of man in whose
+company fear would be impossible."
+
+"Diana," cried Charlotte, suddenly, "you are in love with him!"
+
+"Lotta!"
+
+"Yes, dear, you are in love with him," repeated Miss Halliday, embracing
+her friend with effusion; "yes, over head and ears in love with him. And
+you are ashamed to confess the truth to me; and you are half ashamed to
+confess it even to yourself--as if you could deceive an old stager like
+me!" cried Charlotte, laughing. "Why, you dear inconstant thing, while I
+have felt myself the guiltiest and most selfish creature in the world for
+robbing you of Valentine, you have been quietly transferring your
+affections to this M. Gustave Lenoble--who is very rich, and brave, and
+true, and generous, and what most people would call handsome! Bless you,
+a thousand times, my darling! You have made me so happy!"
+
+"Indeed, Lotta!"
+
+"Yes, dear. The thought that there was a blank in your life made a dark
+cloud in mine. I know I have been very selfish, very thoughtless, but I
+could never have been quite free from a sense of self-reproach. But now
+there is nothing for me but happiness. O darling, I so long to see your
+M. Lenoble!"
+
+"You shall see him, dear."
+
+"And in the meantime tell me what he is like."
+
+Miss Halliday insisted upon a full, true, and particular account of M.
+Lenoble's personal appearance. Diana gave it, but not without some sense
+of embarrassment. She could not bring herself to be enthusiastic about
+Gustave Lenoble, though in her heart there was a warmth of feeling that
+surprised her. "What a hypocrite you are, Di!" exclaimed Charlotte
+presently. "I know you love this good Frenchman almost as dearly as I
+love Valentine, and that the thought of his affection makes you happy;
+and yet you speak of him in little measured sentences, and you won't be
+enthusiastic even about his good looks."
+
+"It is difficult to pass from dreams to realities, Lotta. I have lived so
+long among dreams, that the waking world seems strange to me."
+
+"That is only a poetical way of saying that you are ashamed of having
+changed your mind. I will tell M. Lenoble what a lukewarm creature you
+are, and how unworthy of his love!"
+
+"You shall tell him what you please. But remember, dear, my engagement
+must not be spoken about yet awhile, not even to your mamma. Papa makes a
+strong point of this, and I have promised to obey, though I am quite in
+the dark as to his reasons."
+
+Miss Halliday submitted to anything her friend wished; only entreating
+that she might be introduced to M. Lenoble. Diana promised her this
+privilege; but it speedily transpired that Diana's promise was not all
+that was wanted on this occasion.
+
+For some time past, in fact from the very commencement of Charlotte's
+engagement, Mr. Sheldon had shown himself punctilious to an exceeding
+degree with regard to his stepdaughter. The places to which she went, and
+the people with whom she consorted, appeared to be matters of supreme
+importance in his mind. When speaking of these things he gave those about
+him to understand that his ideas had been the same from the time of
+Charlotte's leaving school; but Diana knew that this was not true. Mr.
+Sheldon's theories had been much less strict, and Mr. Sheldon's practice
+had been much more careless, prior to Miss Halliday's engagement.
+
+No stately principal of a school for young ladies could have been more
+particular as to the movements of her charges--more apprehensive of
+wolf-in-sheep's-clothing in the shape of singing or drawing-master--than
+Mr. Sheldon seemed to be in these latter days. Even those pleasant walks
+in Kensington Gardens, which had been one of the regular occupations of
+the day, were now forbidden. Mr. Sheldon did not like that his daughter
+should walk in public with no better protector than Diana Paget.
+
+"There is something disreputable in two girls marching about those
+gardens together according to my ideas," said this ultra-refined
+stockbroker, one morning at the family breakfast-table. "I don't like to
+see my stepdaughter do anything I should forbid my own daughter to do.
+And if I had a daughter, I should most decidedly forbid all lonely
+rambles in Kensington Gardens. You see, Lotta, two girls as attractive
+as you and Miss Paget can't be too particular where you go, and what you
+do. When you want air and exercise, you can get both in the garden; and
+when you want change of scene, and a peep at the fashions, you can drive
+out with Mrs. Sheldon."
+
+To this deprivation Charlotte submitted, somewhat unwillingly, but with
+no sign of open rebellion. She thought her stepfather foolish and
+unreasonable; but she always bore in mind the fact that he had been kind
+and disinterested in the matter of her engagement, and she was content to
+prove her gratitude by any little sacrifice of this kind. Was not her
+lover permitted to spend his Sundays in her society, and to call on her,
+at his discretion, during the week? And what were walks in Kensington
+Gardens compared with the delight of his dear presence! It is true that
+she had sometimes been favoured with Mr. Hawkehurst's society in the
+course of her airing; but she knew that he sacrificed his hours of work
+or study for the chance of half an hour in her society; and she felt that
+there might be gain to him in her loss of liberty.
+
+She told him, when next they met, that the morning walks were forbidden;
+and, so jealous a passion is love, that Mr. Hawkehurst was nowise sorry
+to find that his pearl was strictly watched and carefully guarded.
+
+"Well, it seems very particular of Mr. Sheldon, of course," he said;
+"but, upon my word, I think he's right. Such a girl as you oughtn't to go
+about with no better protection than Diana can give you. Fellows will
+stare so at a pretty girl, you know; and I can't bear to think my pearl
+should be stared at by impertinent strangers."
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst did not, however, find the strict notions of his
+lady-love's stepfather quite so agreeable when he wanted to take his
+"pearl" to the winter exhibitions of pictures. He was told that Miss
+Halliday could go nowhere, except accompanied by her mamma; and as Georgy
+did not care about pictures, and found herself unequal to the fatigue of
+attending the winter exhibitions, he was obliged to forego the delight of
+seeing them with Lotta on his arm. He pronounced Mr. Sheldon on this
+occasion to be a narrow-minded idiot; but withdrew the remark in a
+contrite spirit when Charlotte reminded him of that gentleman's
+generosity.
+
+"Yes, dear, he has certainly been very kind and very disinterested--more
+disinterested than even you think; but, somehow, I can't make him out."
+
+It was very well for Miss Halliday that she had submitted to this novel
+restriction with as good a grace, inasmuch as Mr. Sheldon had prepared
+himself for active opposition. He had given orders to his wife, and
+further orders to Mrs. Woolper to the effect that his step-daughter
+should not be permitted to go out of doors, except in his own or her
+mother's company.
+
+"She is a very good girl, you see, Nancy," he said to the old
+housekeeper, "but she's young, and she's giddy; and of course I can't
+take upon myself to answer for Miss Paget, who may or may not be a good
+girl. She comes of a very bad stock, however; and I am bound to remember
+that. Some people think that you can't give a girl too much liberty. My
+ideas lean the other way. I think you can't take too much care of a very
+pretty girl whom you are bound by duty to protect."
+
+All this sounded very noble and very conscientious. It sounded thus even
+to Mrs. Woolper, who in her intercourse with Philip Sheldon could never
+quite divest herself of one appalling memory. That memory was the death
+of Tom Halliday, and the horrible thoughts and fears that had for a time
+possessed her mind in relation to that death. The shadow of that old
+ghastly terror sometimes came between her and Mr. Sheldon, even now,
+though she had long ago assured herself that the terror had been alike
+groundless and unreasonable.
+
+"Didn't I see my own nephew carried off by a fever twice as sudden as the
+fever that carried off poor Mr. Halliday?" she said to herself; "and am I
+to think horrid things of him as I nursed a baby, because a cup of greasy
+beef-tea turned my stomach?"
+
+Convinced by such reasoning as this that she had done her master a
+grievous wrong, and grateful for the timely shelter afforded in her old
+age, Mrs. Woolper felt that she could not do too much in her benefactor's
+service. She had already shown herself a clever managing housekeeper; had
+reformed abuses, and introduced a new system of care and economy
+below-stairs, to the utter bewilderment of poor Georgy, for whom the
+responsibilities of the gothic villa had been an overwhelming burden.
+Georgy was not particularly grateful to the energetic old Yorkshirewoman
+who had taken this burden off her hands, but she was submissive.
+
+"I never felt myself much in the house, my dear," she said to Lotta; "but
+I am sure since Ann Woolper has been here I have felt myself a cipher."
+
+Mrs. Woolper, naturally sharp and observant, was not slow to perceive
+that Mr. Sheldon was abnormally anxious about his stepdaughter. She
+ascribed this anxiety to a suspicious nature, an inherent distrust of
+other people on the part of her master, and in some measure to his
+ignorance of womankind.
+
+"He seems to think that she'd run away and get married on the sly, at a
+word from that young man; but he doesn't know what a dear innocent soul
+she is, and how sorry she'd be to displease any one that's kind to her. I
+don't know anything about Miss Paget. She's more stand-offish than our
+own Miss, though she is little better than a genteel kind of servant;
+but she seems fair-spoken enough. As to our Miss, bless her dear heart!
+she want's no watching, I'll lay. But I daresay those City folks, with
+their stocks going up and going down, and always bringing about the ruin
+of somebody or other, go which way they will, get their poor heads so
+muddled with figures that they can't believe there's such a thing as
+honesty in the world."
+
+This was the gist of Mrs. Woolper's evening musing in the snug little
+housekeeper's room at the Lawn. It was a very comfortable little room,
+and held sacred to Mrs. Woolper; the three young females, and the boy in
+buttons, who formed Mr. Sheldon's in-door establishment, preferring the
+license of the kitchen to the strict etiquette of the housekeeper's room.
+
+This apartment, as well as every other room in the stockbroker's house,
+bore the stamp of prosperity. A comfortable easy-chair reposed the limbs
+of Mrs. Woolper; a bright little fire burned in a bright little grate,
+and its ruddy light was reflected in a bright little fender. Prints of
+the goody class adorned the walls; and a small round table, with a
+somewhat gaudy cover, supported Mrs. Woolper's work-box and family Bible,
+both of which she made it a point of honour to carry about with her, and
+to keep religiously, through good fortune and through evil fortune;
+neither of which, however, afforded her much employment. She felt herself
+to be much nearer grace with the family Bible by her side than she would
+have been without it; she felt, indeed, that the maintenance and due
+exhibition of the family Bible was in itself a kind of religion. But that
+she should peruse its pages was not in the bond. Her eyes were old and
+weak--sharp enough to discover the short-comings of Mr. Sheldon's young
+maid-servants, but too feeble even for long-primer.
+
+As she looked round that snug little chamber of an evening, when her
+day's labours were ended, and her own particular Britannia-metal tea-pot
+was basking in the fender, her own special round of toast frizzling on
+the trivet, she was very grateful to the man to whom she owed these
+comforts.
+
+"What should I be but for him?" she asked herself with a shudder; for
+the vision of that darksome abode shut in by high black walls--the
+metropolitan workhouse--arose before her. She did not know what
+difficulties would have barred her entrance even to that dreary
+asylum; she only thought of the horrors of that sanctuary, and she
+blessed her master for the benevolence that had accepted the service
+of her failing hands.
+
+This was the servant on whom Philip Sheldon relied. He saw that she was
+grateful, and that she was ready to serve him with an almost slavish
+devotion. He knew that she had suspected him in the past, and he saw that
+she had outlived her suspicion.
+
+"There is a statute of limitations to these things as well as for debt,"
+he said to himself. "A man can live down anything, if he knows what he
+is about."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FIRM AS A BOOK.
+
+After that midnight interview between the two girls in Miss Halliday's
+bedroom, life went very smoothly at the gothic villa for two or three
+days, during which the impulsive Charlotte, being forbidden to talk
+openly of the change in her friend's position, was fain to give vent to
+her feelings by furtive embraces and hand-squeezings, sly nods and
+meaning becks, and mischievous twinkling of her arch grey eyes.
+
+She talked of Valentine more than ever now, feeling herself at liberty to
+sing what paeans she pleased in praise of her hero, now that her friend
+had also a fitting subject for paeans.
+
+"And now it's your turn to talk of M. Lenoble, dear," she would say
+naively, when she had entertained Diana with the minute details of her
+last conversation with her lover, or a lively sketch of the delights of
+that ideal cottage which she loved to furnish and unfurnish in accordance
+with the new fancy of the hour.
+
+Diana was pleased to listen to her girlish talk: to hang and rehang the
+ideal draperies, to fill and refill the ideal bookcase, to plan and
+replan the arrangements of that ideal existence which was to be all joy
+and love and harmony; but when her turn came, and she was asked to be
+rapturous about her own lover, she could say nothing: that which she felt
+was too deep for words. The thought of her lover was strange to her; the
+fact of his love was mysterious and wonderful. She could not talk of him
+with the customary frivolous school-girl talk; and love for him had so
+newly taken root in her heart that there were as yet no blossoms to be
+gathered from that magical plant.
+
+"Don't ask me to talk of him, Lotta, dear;" she said. "I am not yet sure
+that I love him; I only feel that it is sweet to be loved by him. I think
+Providence must have sent him to me in pity for my desolation."
+
+This was almost the same fancy that had occurred to Susan Meynell
+five-and-thirty years before this time, when Gustave the first had
+rescued her from the suicide's unrepentable sin.
+
+That chivalrous turn of mind which was hereditary in the race of Lenoble
+predisposed these men to pity loneliness and beauty, weakness and sorrow.
+This pity for helplessness may have been indeed only an element of their
+exceeding strength. Was not the rescue of weaklings and women an
+unfailing attribute in the mighty men of old? Who so prompt as Hercules
+to fly to the rescue of Hesione? Who so swift as Perseus to save
+Andromeda? And what sea-monster more terrible than loneliness and
+poverty?
+
+In a few days there came another letter from Captain Paget, containing a
+fresh summons to Omega Street.
+
+"Lenoble positively returns to Normandy to-morrow," he wrote, "to see his
+girls, and, no doubt, break the news of his approaching marriage. He much
+wants to see you, and, as I have forbidden his calling on you at the
+Lawn, can only meet you here. He is to drink tea with me at the usual
+time to-morrow evening, and I shall expect to see you early in the
+afternoon."
+
+This afforded an opportunity for that introduction to which Miss Halliday
+looked forward with so much interest.
+
+"If Mr. Sheldon and your mamma will let you come with me this afternoon,
+dear, I shall be very pleased to take you," said Diana; and she felt that
+she would appear less in the character of a lamb led to the slaughter if
+she could go to meet her betrothed accompanied by Charlotte.
+
+But in this matter both the young ladies were doomed to disappointment.
+Mr. Sheldon showed himself a social Draco in all things relating to his
+stepdaughter. Being forbidden to reveal the existence of Gustave Lenoble,
+Charlotte could only urge a frivolous desire to accompany her friend in a
+pilgrimage dictated by filial duty. To the practical mind of Philip
+Sheldon this desire appeared altogether absurd and unreasonable, and he
+did not hesitate to express himself to that effect in a _tête-a-tête_
+with his stepdaughter.
+
+"What good on earth can you do by going to see a gouty old man, who has
+his own daughter to dance attendance upon him?" asked Mr. Sheldon.
+"Really, Charlotte, I am surprised to hear such a proposition from a
+girl of your good sense. Miss Paget is your companion, not your visitor.
+It is her duty to indulge your whims, but it is not your place to give
+way to hers."
+
+"But this is a whim of mine, papa; I should really like to spend the
+afternoon at Chelsea. It would be a change, you know."
+
+Mr. Sheldon looked at his stepdaughter with a sharp and searching gaze, a
+gaze in which there was suspicion as well as curiosity.
+
+"It is a very discreditable whim for a young lady in your position,"
+he said sternly; "and I beg that such a proposition may not be made to
+me again."
+
+This was decisive. Charlotte submitted, and Diana went alone to Omega
+Street. She found Gustave waiting for her. He proposed a walk, and
+Captain Paget was enthusiastic upon the subject of fresh air, and the
+benefits arising therefrom. So the lovers went out in the bleak winter
+afternoon, and wandered in the dreary Pimlico region as far as St.
+James's Park--Gustave delighted to have Diana's hand upon his arm, and
+Diana almost bewildered by a sense of happiness, which seemed unreal by
+reason of its very novelty.
+
+Gustave was all enthusiasm, full of plans for the future. He would have
+had the marriage take place immediately, if such a thing had been
+possible; but Diana showed him that it would not be possible. Her first
+duty was to the only friends she had ever known. Gustave argued the point
+resolutely for nearly an hour, during which time they made their way to
+the very gates of St. James's Park, but Diana was more resolute still.
+
+"What a tyrannical wife I shall have by-and-by!" said Gustave. "I think
+you care for these Sheldons more than for me, Diane."
+
+"These Sheldons have been so good to me in the past."
+
+"And I mean to be so good to you in the future," answered Gustave. "You
+shall be the happiest wife in Normandy, if a foolish doting husband's
+devotion can make you happy."
+
+"What have I done to deserve so much devotion?" Diana murmured
+wonderingly.
+
+"What have you done? Nothing, less than nothing. You will not even run
+the hazard of offending your family of Sheldon in order to make me happy.
+But Fate has said, 'At the feet of that girl with the dark eyes and pale
+proud face shall poor Lenoble of Côtenoir put down his heart.' Do you
+know what I said to myself when I saw you first in the little parlour
+yonder? Ah, no! How should you guess? 'She is there,' said I; 'behold
+her! It is thy destiny, Lenoble, on which thou gazest!' And thou, love,
+wert calm and voiceless as Fate. Quiet as the goddess of marble before
+which the pagans offered their sacrifices, across whose cold knees they
+laid their rich garments. I put my treasures in your hip, my love; my
+heart, my hopes,--all the treasures I had to offer."
+
+This was all very sweet, but there was a sting even mingled with that
+sweetness. Diana told herself that love like this should only be offered
+on the purest shrine; and when she remembered the many stains upon her
+father's honour, it seemed to her that a part of the shame must needs
+cleave to her.
+
+"Gustave," she said presently, after an absent meditative mood, from
+which her lover had vainly tried to beguile her, "does it not seem to you
+that there is something foolish in this talk of love and confidence
+between you and me; and that all your promises have been a little too
+lightly made? What do you know of me? You see me sitting in my father's
+room, and because my eyes happen to please you, or for some reason as
+foolish as that, you ask me to be your wife. I might have been one of the
+worst of women."
+
+"You might have been?--yes, dear, but you are not. And if you had been,
+Gustave Lenoble would not have flung his heart into your lap, even if
+your eyes had been sweeter than they are. We impulsive people are people
+of quick perceptions, and know what we are doing better than our
+reflective friends imagine. I did not need to be an hour in your company,
+dear love, in order to know that you are noble and true. There are tones
+in the voice, there are expressions of the face, that tell these things
+better than words can tell them; for, you see, words can lie, while tones
+and looks are apt to be true. Yes, my angel, I knew you from that first
+night. My heart leapt across all conventional barriers, and found its way
+straight to yours."
+
+"I can see that you think much better of me than I deserve; but even
+supposing you not to be deceived as to myself, I fear you are much
+deceived as to my surroundings."
+
+"I know that your father is poor, and that the burden of his poverty
+weighs heavily on you. That is enough for me to know."
+
+"No, M. Lenoble; it is act enough for you to know. If I am to be your
+wife, I will not enter your family as an impostor. I told you the truth
+about myself the other day when you questioned me, and I am bound to tell
+you the truth about my father."
+
+And then she told him, in the plainest frankest language, the story of
+her father's life. She inflicted no unnecessary shame on Captain Paget;
+she made no complaint of her neglected childhood and joyless youth; but
+she told Gustave that her father had been an adventurer, keeping doubtful
+company, and earning his bread by doubtful means.
+
+"I hope and believe that if a peaceful home could be secured for his
+declining years, he would live the rest of his life like a gentleman and
+a Christian; and that, the bitter struggle for existence being ended, he
+would be sorry for the past. I doubt if the sense of shame ever deserted
+him when he was living that wretched wandering life, leaving debts and
+difficulties behind him everywhere--always harassed and hunted by
+creditors, who had good cause to be angry. Yes, Gustave, I do believe
+that if it should please Providence to give my father a peaceful home at
+last, he will be thankful for God's mercy, and will repent the sins of
+life. And now I have told you the kind of heritage I can bring my
+husband."
+
+"My dear love, I will accept the heritage, for the sake of her who brings
+it. I never meant to be less than a son to your father; and if he is not
+the best of fathers, as regards the past, we will try to make him a
+decent kind of father as regards the future. I have long understood that
+Captain Paget is something--ever so little--of an adventurer. It was the
+pursuit of fortune that brought him to me; and without knowing it, he
+brought me my fortune in the shape of his daughter."
+
+Diana blushed as she remembered that Captain Paget had not been so
+innocent of any design in this matter as the Frenchman imagined.
+
+"And you will receive even papa for my sake?" asked Diana.
+
+"With all my heart."
+
+"Ah, you are indeed a generous lover!"
+
+"A lover who is not generous is--bah! there is nothing in creation so
+mean as the wretch whom love does not render generous. When one sees the
+woman whom Fate intends for one's wife, is one to stop to inquire the
+character of her father, her mother, her sister, her cousin?--for there
+is no stopping when you begin that. A man who loves makes no inquiries.
+If he finds his jewel in the gutter, he picks it out of the mud and
+carries it away in his bosom, too proud of his treasure to remember where
+he found it; always provided that the jewel is no counterfeit, but the
+real gem, fit for a king's crown. And my diamond is of the purest water.
+By-and-by we will try to drain the gutter--that is to say, we will try to
+pay those small debts of which you speak, to lodging-house keepers, and
+tradesmen who have trusted your father."
+
+"You would pay papa's debts!" cried Diana in amazement.
+
+"But why not? All these little debts, the thought of which is so bitter
+to you, might be discharged for two or three thousand pounds. Your father
+tells me I am to be very rich by-and-by."
+
+"My father tells you! Ah, then, you have allowed him to involve you in
+some kind of speculation!"
+
+"He has involved me in no speculation, and in no risk that two or three
+hundred pounds will not cover."
+
+"The whole business seems very mysterious, Gustave."
+
+"Perhaps; it has to do with a secret which I am pledged to keep. I will
+not allow your father to lead me into any quagmire of speculation,
+believe me, dear one."
+
+After this they went back to Omega Street in the winter gloaming, and
+Diana loved and admired this man with all her heart and mind. A new life
+lay before her, very bright and fair. There, where had been only the
+barren desert, was now a fair landscape, shining in the sunlight of hope.
+
+"Do you think your children will ever love me, Gustave?" she asked, not
+without some sense of wonder that this impulsive light-hearted lover
+should be the owner of children. She fancied that a responsibility so
+grave as paternity must needs have impressed some stamp of solemnity upon
+the man who bore it.
+
+"Ever love thee!" cried Gustave. "Child, they will adore thee. They ask
+only some one to love. Their hearts are gardens of flowers; and thou
+shalt gather the flowers. But wilt thou be happy at Côtenoir, thou? It is
+somewhat sad, perhaps--the grave old château with the long sombre
+corridors. But thou shalt choose new furniture, new garnitures at Rouen,
+and we will make all bright and gay, like the heart of thy affianced Thou
+wilt not be dull?"
+
+"Dull, with you and yours! I shall thank God for my happy home day and
+night, as I never thought to thank Him a few months ago, when I was
+dissatisfied, wicked, tired of my life."
+
+"And when you thought of that other one? Ah, how he was an imbecile, that
+other one! But thou wilt never think of him again; it is a dream that is
+past," said M. Lenoble.
+
+That self-confidence which was an attribute of his sanguine nature
+rendered the idea of a rival not altogether unpleasant to him. He was
+gratified by the idea of his own victory, and the base rival's
+annihilation.
+
+"Diane, I want to show thee the home that is to be thine," he said
+presently. "Your Sheldon family must give thee at least a holiday, if
+they refuse to let thee go altogether. Thou wilt come to Normandy with
+thy father. He is coming for a week or two, now that his gout is better.
+I want to show thee Côtenoir--and Beaubocage, the place where my father
+was born. It will seem dreary, perhaps, to thine English eyes; but to me
+it is very dear."
+
+"Nothing that is dear to you shall appear dreary to me," said Diana.
+
+By this time they had arrived at Omega Street. Again Miss Paget made tea
+for her lover. Strange to say, the operation seemed to grow more
+agreeable with every repetition. While taking his tea from the hands of
+his beloved, Gustave pressed the question of Diana's visit to Normandy.
+
+"About her Sheldon family she is adamant," he said to Captain Paget, who
+sipped his tea and smiled at the lovers with the air of an aristocratic
+patriarch. "There is to be no marriage till it pleases Mrs. Sheldon to
+set her free. I consent to this only as man must consent to the
+inevitable; but I say to her, can she not come to Normandy for a
+fortnight--say but one short fortnight--to see her home? She will come
+with you. She has but to ask a holiday of her friends, and it is done."
+
+"Of course," exclaimed the Captain, "she shall come with me. If
+necessary, I myself will ask it of Sheldon.--But it will be best not to
+mention where you are going, Diana. There are reasons, best known to our
+friend Gustave and myself, which render secrecy advisable just at
+present. You can say Rouen. That is quite near enough to the mark to come
+within the limits of truth," added Horatio, with the tone of a man who
+had never; quite outstepped those limits. "Yes, Rouen. And you will come
+with me."
+
+"With us," said Gustave. "I will put off my journey for a day or two for
+the sake of going with you. You have to meet Fleurus in Rouen haven't
+you?"
+
+"Yes; he is to be there on the fifth of March, and this is the last day
+of February. I had a letter from him this morning. All goes swimmingly."
+
+Diana wondered what it could be which went swimmingly; but she was
+obliged to content herself with her lover's assurance that he had not
+allowed her father to involve him in any kind of speculation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+AGAINST WIND AND TIDE.
+
+Between Philip Sheldon and his brother there was at this time a state of
+feeling somewhat akin to the relations between a subjugated country and
+its conqueror. The vanquished is fain to accept whatever the victor is
+pleased to give, though discontent and impotent rage may be gnawing his
+entrails. George Sheldon had been a loser in that game in which the
+Haygarthian inheritance was the stake. He had held good cards, and had
+played them with considerable cleverness; but no play could prevail
+against his antagonist's ace of trumps. The ace of trumps was Charlotte
+Halliday; and as to his mode and matter of playing this card, Mr. Sheldon
+was for the present profoundly mysterious.
+
+"I have known a good many inscrutable cards in my time," the solicitor of
+Gray's Inn observed to his elder brother, in the course of fraternal
+converse; "but I think for inscrutability you put the topper on the lot.
+What do you expect to get out of this Haygarth estate? Come, Phil, let us
+have your figures in plain English. I am to have a fifth--that's all
+signed and sealed. But how about your share? What agreement have you got
+from Miss Halliday?"
+
+"None."
+
+"None!"
+
+"What would the world think of me if I extorted money, or the promise of
+money, from my wife's daughter? Do you think I could enforce any deed
+between her and me?"
+
+"Ah, I see; you go in for respectability. And you are going to leave the
+settlement of your claims to your stepdaughter's generosity. You will let
+her marry Hawkehurst, with her hundred thousand pounds; and then you will
+say to those two, 'Mr. and Mrs. Hawkehurst, be so kind as to hand over my
+share of the plunder.' That is not _like_ you, Phil."
+
+"Perhaps you will be good enough to spare yourself the trouble of
+speculating about my motives. Go your way, and leave me to go mine."
+
+"But this is a case in which I have an interest. If Charlotte marries
+Hawkehurst, I don't see how you are to profit, to any extent that you
+would care about, by the Haygarth fortune. But, on the other hand, if she
+should die unmarried, without a will, the money would go to your wife. O
+my God! Philip Sheldon, is _THAT_ what you mean?"
+
+The question was so sudden, the tone of horror in which it was spoken so
+undisguised, that Mr. Sheldon the stockbroker was for one moment thrown
+off his guard. His breath thickened; he tried to speak, but his dry lips
+could shape no word. It was only one moment that he faltered. In the next
+he turned upon his brother angrily, and asked what he meant.
+
+"You've been promised _your_ reward," he said; "leave me to look after
+mine. You'll take those papers round to Greenwood and Greenwood; they
+want to talk to you about them."
+
+"Yes, I'll take the papers."
+
+Greenwood and Greenwood were Mr. Sheldon's own solicitors--a firm of some
+distinction, on whose acumen and experience the stockbroker placed
+implicit reliance. They were men of unblemished respectability, and to
+them Mr. Sheldon had confided the care of his stepdaughter's interests,
+always reserving the chief power in his own hands. These gentlemen
+thought well of the young lady's prospects, and were handling the case in
+that slow and stately manner which marks the handling of such cases by
+eminent firms of the slow-and-stately class.
+
+Mr. Sheldon wished his brother good-day, and was about to depart, when
+George planted himself suddenly before the door.
+
+"Look you here, Phil," he said, with an intensity of manner that was by
+no means common to him; "I want to say a few words to you, and I will say
+them. There was an occasion, ten years ago, on which I ought to have
+spoken out, and didn't. I have never ceased to regret my cowardice. Yes,
+by Jove! I hate myself for it; and there are times when I feel as if my
+share in that wretched business was almost as bad as yours."
+
+"I don't know what you mean."
+
+"Of course not. That's your text, and you'll stick to it. But you _do_
+know what I mean, and you shall know what I mean, if plain words can tell
+you. You and I had a friend, Phil. He was a good friend to me, and I
+liked him as much as a man of the world can afford to like anybody. If I
+had been down in the world, and had asked him for a hundred pounds to
+give me a new start in life, I think he'd have said, 'George, here's a
+cheque for you.' _That's_ my notion of a friend. And yet I stood by that
+man's deathbed, and saw him sinking, and knew what ailed him, and didn't
+stretch out my hand to save him."
+
+"Be so good as to move away from that door," said Mr. Sheldon, livid to
+the lips with smothered fury, but able to put on a bold front
+nevertheless. "I didn't come here to listen to rhodomontade of this kind,
+or to bandy words with you. Get out of my way."
+
+"Not till I've said my say. There shall be no rhodomontade this time. I
+stood by and saw my best friend murdered--by you. I kept my counsel for
+your sake, and when you had made your fortune--by his death--I asked you
+for a little money. You know how much you gave me, and how graciously you
+gave it. If you had given me twenty times the sum you gained by Tom
+Halliday's death, I would give it back, and twenty times as much again,
+to bring him back to life, and to feel that I had never aided and abetted
+a murderer. Yes, by God, I would! though I'm not straitlaced or
+over-scrupulous at the best of times. But that's past, and all the money
+in the Bank of England wouldn't undo what you did in Fitzgeorge Street.
+But if you try on any such tricks with Tom Halliday's daughter, if
+_that's_ the scheme you've hatched for getting hold of this money, as
+surely as we two live, I'll let in the light upon your doings, and save
+the girl whose father you murdered. I will, Philip, let come what may.
+You can't get _me_ out of the way when it suits you, you see. _I know
+you._ That's the best antidote against your medicines."
+
+"If you'll be so good as to say these things on 'Change, I can bring an
+action for libel, or get you put into a madhouse. There's no good in
+saying them here."
+
+Philip Sheldon, even in this crisis, was less agitated than his brother,
+being of a harder nature, and less subject to random impulses of good or
+evil. He caught his accuser by the collar of his coat, and flung him
+violently from the doorway. Thus ended his visit to Gray's Inn.
+
+Boldly as he had borne himself during the interview, he went to his
+office profoundly depressed and dispirited.
+
+"So I am to have him against me?" he said to himself. "He can do me no
+real harm; but he can harass and annoy me. If he should drop any hint to
+Hawkehurst?--but he'll scarcely do that. Perhaps I've ridden him a little
+too roughly in the past. And yet if I'd been smoother, where would his
+demands have ended? No; concession in these cases means ruin."
+
+He shut himself in his office, and sat down to his desk to confront
+his difficulties. For a long time the bark which was freighted with
+Philip Sheldon's fortunes had been sailing in troubled waters. He had
+been an unconscious disciple of Lord Bacon, inasmuch as the boldness
+inculcated by that philosopher had been the distinguishing characteristic
+of his conduct in all the operations of life. As a speculator, his
+boldness had served him well. Adventures from which timid spirits shrunk
+appalled had brought golden harvests to this daring gamester. When some
+rich argosy upon the commercial ocean fired her minute-guns, and sent up
+signals of distress, menaced by the furious tempest, lifted high on the
+crest of mountainous waves, below which, black and fathomless, yawn the
+valleys of death,--a frail ark hovering above the ravening jaws of
+all-devouring Poseidon,--Philip Sheldon was among that chosen band of
+desperate wreckers who dared to face the storm, and profit by the
+tempest and terror. From such argosies, while other men watched and
+waited for a gleam of sunlight on the dark horizon, Mr. Sheldon had
+obtained for himself goodly merchandise. The debenture of railways that
+were in bad odour; Unitas Bank shares, immediately after the discovery of
+gigantic embezzlements by Swillenger, the Unitas-Bank secretary; the
+Mole-and-Burrow railway stock, when the Mole-and-Burrow scheme was as yet
+in the clouds, and the wiseacres prognosticated its failure; the shares
+in foreign loans, which the Rothschilds were buying _sub rosa_;--these,
+and such as these, had employed Mr. Sheldon's capital; and from the
+skilful manipulation of capital thus employed, Mr. Sheldon had trebled
+the fortune secured by his alliance with Tom Halliday's widow.
+
+It had been the stockbroker's fate to enter the money market at a time
+when fortunes were acquired with an abnormal facility. He had made the
+most of his advantages, and neglected none of his opportunities. He had
+seized Good Fortune by the forelock, and not waited to find the
+harridan's bald and slippery crown turned to him in pitiless derision. He
+had made only one mistake--and that he made in common with many of his
+fellow-players in the great game of speculation always going on eastward
+of Temple Bar--he had mistaken the abnormal for the normal: he had
+imagined that these splendid opportunities were the natural evolvements
+of an endless sequence of everyday events; and when the sequence was
+abruptly broken, and when last of the seven fat kine vanished off the
+transitory scene of life, to make way for a dismal succession of lean
+kine, there was no sanguine youngster newly admitted to the sacred
+privileges of "The House" more astounded by the change than Mr. Sheldon.
+
+The panic came like a thief in the night, and it found Mr. Sheldon a
+speculator for the rise. The Melampuses and Amphiaräuses of the Stock
+Exchange had agreed in declaring that a man who bought into consols at 90
+_must_ see his capital increased; and what was true of this chief among
+securities was of course true of other securities. The panic came, and
+from 90, consols declined dismally, slowly, hopelessly, to 85-1/2;
+securities less secure sank with a rapidity corresponding with their
+constitutional weakness. As during the ravages of an epidemic the weaker
+are first to fall victims to the destroyer, so while this fever raged on
+'Change, the feeble enterprises, the "risky" transactions, sank at an
+appalling rate, some to total expiry. The man who holds a roaring lion by
+the tail could scarcely be worse off than the speculator in these
+troublous times. To let go is immediate loss, to hold on for a certain
+time might be redemption, could one but know the exact moment in which it
+would be wise to let go. But to hold on until the beast grows more and
+more furious, and then to let go and be eaten up alive, is what many men
+did in that awful crisis.
+
+If Philip Sheldon had accepted his first loss, and been warned by the
+first indication that marked the turning of the tide, he would have been
+a considerable loser; but he would not accept his loss, and he would not
+be warned by that early indication. He had implicit belief in his own
+cleverness; and he fancied if every other bark in that tempest-tossed
+ocean foundered and sank, his boat might ride triumphantly across the
+harbour-bar, secure by virtue of his science and daring as a navigator.
+It was not till he had seen a small fortune melt away in the payment of
+contango, that he consented to the inevitable. The mistakes of one year
+devoured the fruits of nine years' successful enterprise, and the Philip
+Sheldon of this present year was no richer than the man who had stood by
+Tom Halliday's bedside and waited the advent of the equal foot that knows
+no difference between the threshold of kingly palace or pauper refuge.
+Not only did he find himself as poor a man as in that hateful stage of
+his existence--to remember which was a dull dead pain even to _him_--but
+a man infinitely more heavily burdened. He had made for himself a certain
+position, and the fall from that must needs be a cruel and damaging fall,
+the utter annihilation of all his chances in life.
+
+The stockbroker's fitful slumbers at this time began to be haunted by the
+vision of a black board fixed against the wall of a public resort, a
+black board on which appeared his own name. In what strange places
+feverish dreams showed him this hideous square of painted deal!--Now it
+was on the walls of the rooms he lived in; now on the door of a church,
+like Luther's propositions; now at a street-corner, where should have
+been the name of the street; now inky-black against the fair white
+headstone of his own grave. Miserable dream, miserable man, for whom the
+scraping together of sordid dross was life's only object, and who, in
+losing money, lost all!
+
+This agonizing consciousness of loss and of close-impending disgrace was
+the wolf which this Spartan stockbroker concealed beneath his waistcoat
+day after day, while the dull common, joyless course of his existence
+went on; and his shallow wife smiled at him from the opposite side of his
+hearth, more interested in a new stitch for her crotchet or berlin-wool
+work than by the inner life of her husband; and Charlotte and her lover
+contemplated existence from their own point of view, and cherished their
+own dreams and their own hopes, and were, in all things, as far away from
+the moody meditator as if they had been natives of Upper India.
+
+The ruin which impended over the unlucky speculator was not immediate,
+but it was not far off; the shadow of it already wrapped him in a
+twilight obscurity. His repute as a clever and a safe man had left him.
+He was described now as a daring man; and the wiseacres shook their heads
+as they talked of him.
+
+"One of the next to go will be Sheldon," said the wiseacres; but in these
+days of commercial epidemic there was no saying who would be the first to
+go. It was the end of the world in little. One was taken, and another
+left. The Gazette overran its customary column like a swollen river, and
+flooded a whole page of the Times newspaper; and men looked to the lists
+of names in the Wednesday and Saturday papers as to the trump of
+archangels sounding the destruction of the universe.
+
+For some time the bark in which Mr. Sheldon had breasted those turbulent
+waters had been made of paper. This was nothing. Paper boats were the
+prevailing shipping in those waters; but Captain Sheldon's bark needed
+refitting, and the captain feared a scarcity of paper, or, worse still,
+the awful edict issued from some commercial Areopagus that for him there
+should be no more paper.
+
+Once before, Mr. Sheldon had found himself face to face with ruin
+complete and irredeemable. When all common expedients had been exhausted,
+and his embarrassments had become desperate, he had found a desperate
+expedient, and had extricated himself from those embarrassments. The time
+had come in which a new means of extrication must be found as desperate
+as the last, if need were. As Philip Sheldon had faced the situation
+before, he faced it now--unshrinkingly, though with a gloomy anger
+against destiny. It was hard for him that such a thing should have to be
+repeated. If he pitied anybody, he pitied himself; and this kind of
+compassion is very common with this kind of character. Do not the Casket
+letters show us--if we may trust them to show us anything--that Mary
+Stuart was very sorry for herself when she found herself called upon to
+make an end of Darnley? In Mr. Swinburne's wonderful study in morbid
+anatomy, there are perhaps no finer touches than those which reveal the
+Queen's selfish compassion for her own heartlessness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+DIANA ASKS FOR A HOLIDAY.
+
+Diana informed Mrs. Sheldon of her father's wish that she should leave
+Bayswater. Before doing this, she had obtained the Captain's consent to
+the revelation of her engagement to be married.
+
+"I don't like to leave them in a mysterious manner, papa," she said. "I
+have told Charlotte a good deal already, under a promise of secrecy; but
+I should like to tell Mrs. Sheldon that there is a real reason for my
+leaving her."
+
+"Very well, my love, since you are so amazingly squeam--honourable,"
+interposed the Captain, remembering how much depended on his daughter's
+marriage, and what a very difficult person he had found her. "Yes, my
+dear, of course; I respect your honourable feeling; and--er--yes--you may
+tell Mrs. Sheldon--and that of course includes Mr. Sheldon, since the
+lady is but an inoffensive cipher--that you are about to be married--to a
+French gentleman of position. You will, of course, be obliged to mention
+his name, and then will arise the question as to where and how you met
+him; and, upon my word, it's confoundedly awkward that you should insist
+on enlightening these people. You see, my dear girl, what I want to
+avoid, for the present, is any chance of collision between the Sheldons
+and Lenoble."
+
+"Papa!" exclaimed Diana, impatiently, "why must there be all this
+scheming?"
+
+"O, very well, Miss Paget; tell them what you like!" cried the Captain,
+aggravated beyond endurance by such inherent perversity. "All I can say
+is, that a young woman who quarrels with her bread-and-butter is likely
+to come to dry bread; and very little of that, perhaps. I wash my hands
+of the business. Tell them what you like."
+
+"I will not tell them more than I feel to be actually necessary, papa,"
+the young lady replied calmly. "I do not think Mr. Sheldon will trouble
+himself about M. Lenoble. He seems very much occupied by his own
+affairs."
+
+"Humph! Sheldon seems harassed, anxious, does he?"
+
+"Well, yes, papa; I have thought so for the last few months. If I may
+venture to judge by the expression of his face, as he sits at home in the
+evening, reading the paper, or staring at the fire, I am sure he has many
+anxieties--troubles even. Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte do not appear to
+notice these things. They are accustomed to see him quiet and reserved,
+and they don't perceive the change in him as I do."
+
+"O, there is a change, is there?"
+
+"Yes, a decided change."
+
+"Why the deuce couldn't you tell me this before!"
+
+"Why should I tell you that Mr. Sheldon seems anxious? I should not have
+told you now, if you had not appeared to dread his interference in our
+affairs. I can't help observing these things; but I don't want to play
+the part of a spy."
+
+"No, you're so infernally punct--so delicate-minded, my love," said the
+Captain, pulling himself up suddenly, for the second time. "Forgive me if
+I was impatient just now. You look at these things from a higher point of
+view than that of a battered old man of the world like me. But if you
+should see anything remarkable in Mr. Sheldon's conduct on another
+occasion, my love, I should be obliged to you if you would be more
+communicative. He and I have been allied in business, you see, and it is
+important for me to know these things."
+
+"I have not seen anything remarkable in Mr. Sheldon's conduct, papa; I
+have only seen him thoughtful and dispirited. And I suppose anxieties are
+common to every man of business."
+
+Georgy received Miss Paget's announcement with mingled lamentations and
+congratulations.
+
+"I am sure I am heartily glad for your sake, Diana," she said; "but what
+we shall do without you, I don't know. Who is to see to the drawing-room
+being dusted every morning, when you are gone? I'm sure I tremble for the
+glass shades. Don't imagine I'm not pleased to think you should settle in
+life advantageously, my love. I'm not so selfish as that; though I will
+say that there never was a girl with more natural talent for making-up
+pretty little caps than you. The one I have on has been admired by
+everybody. Even Ann Woolper this morning, when I was going into the
+butcher's book with her--for I insist upon going into the butcher's book
+with her weekly, whether she likes it or not; though the way that man
+puts down the items is so bewildering that I feel myself a perfect baby
+in her hands,--even Ann admired it, and said how young-looking it is. And
+then she brought up the time in Fitzgeorge Street, and poor Tom's
+illness, and almost upset me for the rest of the day. And now, dear, let
+me offer you my sincere congratulations. Of course, you know that you
+would always have had a home with me; but service, or at least
+companionship, is no inheritance, as the proverb says; and for your own
+sake I'm very glad to think that you are going to have a house of your
+own. And now tell me what he is like, Monsieur what's-his-name?"
+
+Mrs. Sheldon had been told, but had not remembered the name. Her great
+anxiety, as well as Charlotte's, was to know what manner of man the
+affianced lover was. If Diana's future happiness had been contingent on
+the shape of her husband's nose, or the colour of his eyes, these two
+ladies could not have been more anxious upon the subject.
+
+"Has he long eyelashes, and a dreamy look in his eyes, like Valentine?"
+asked Charlotte, secretly convinced that her lover had a copyright in
+these personal graces.
+
+"Does he wear whiskers?" asked Georgy. "I remember, when I was quite a
+girl, and went to parties at Barlingford, being struck by Mr. Sheldon's
+whiskers. And I was quite offended with papa, who was always making
+sarcastic remarks, for calling them mutton-chop whiskers; but they
+really were the shape of mutton-cutlets at that time. He wears them
+differently now."
+
+Mrs. Sheldon branched off into a disquisition on whiskers, and Diana
+escaped from the task of describing her lover. She could not have
+described him to Georgy.
+
+By-and-by she asked permission to leave Bayswater for a fortnight, in
+order to see her lover's home and friends.
+
+"I will come back to you, and stay as long as you like, dear Mrs.
+Sheldon," she said, "and make you as many caps as you please. And I will
+make them for you by and by, when I am living abroad, and send them over
+to you in a bandbox. It will be a great delight to me to be of some
+little service to a friend who has been so kind. And perhaps you will
+fancy the caps are prettier when they can boast of being French."
+
+"You darling generous-minded girl! And you won't go away for a fortnight
+and never come back again, will you, dear? I had a cook who did that, and
+left me with a large dinner-party hanging over my head; and how I got
+through it--with a strange man-cook, who charged a guinea, and used fresh
+butter, at twentypence, a pound, as if it had been dirt, and two strange
+men to wait--I don't know. It all seemed like a dream. And since then we
+have generally had everything from the confectioner's; and I assure you,
+to feel that you can wash your hands of the whole thing, and sit down at
+the head of your table with your mind as free from care as if you were a
+visitor, is worth all the expense."
+
+Diana promised she would not behave like the cook; and two days after
+this conversation left the London Bridge terminus with her father and
+Gustave Lenoble.
+
+Mr. Sheldon troubled himself very little about this departure. He was
+informed of Miss Paget's intended marriage; and the information awakened
+neither surprise nor interest in his heavily-burdened mind.
+
+"A Frenchman, a friend of her father's!" he said; "some swindling
+adventurer, no doubt," he thought. And this was as much consideration
+as he could afford to bestow upon Miss Paget's love affairs at this
+present time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+ASSURANCE DOUBLY SURE.
+
+On the day after Miss Paget's departure Mr. Sheldon came home from the
+City rather earlier than usual, and found Charlotte alone in the
+drawing-room, reading a ponderous volume from Mudie of an instructive and
+edifying character, with a view to making herself clever, in order that
+she might better understand that prodigy of learning, Mr. Hawkehurst.
+
+She was somewhat inclined to yawn over the big book, which contained a
+graphic account of recent discoveries of an antiquarian nature. Her mind
+was not yet attuned to the comprehension of the sublimer elements in such
+discoveries. She saw only a dry as dust record of futile gropings in
+desert sand for the traces of perished empires. Her imagination was not
+cultivated to that point whereat the gift which Mr. Lewes calls "insight"
+becomes the daily companion, nay, indeed, the ever-haunting and
+nightmare-bringing influence of the dreamer. For her sands were only
+sands, the stones were only stones. No splendour of fallen palaces, no
+glory and pride of perished kings, no clash and clamour of vanished
+courts, arose from those barren sands, with all their pomp and
+circumstance, conjured into being by half a word on a broken pillar, or a
+date upon a Punic monument. Miss Halliday looked up with a sigh of
+fatigue as her stepfather came into the room. It was not a room that he
+particularly affected, and she was surprised when he seated himself in
+the easy-chair opposite her, and poked the fire, as if with the intention
+of remaining.
+
+"You shouldn't read by firelight, my dear," he said; "it is most
+destructive to the eyesight."
+
+"I dare say my sight will last my time, papa," the young lady replied
+carelessly; "but it's very kind of you to think of it, and I won't read
+any more."
+
+Mr. Sheldon made no reply to this observation. He sat looking at the
+fire, with that steady gaze which was habitual to him--the gaze of the
+man who plans and calculates.
+
+"My dear," he said by-and-by, "it seems that this money to which you may
+or may not be entitled is more than we thought at first; in fact, it
+appears that the sum is a considerable one. I have been, and still am,
+particularly anxious to guard against disappointment on your part, as I
+know the effect that such a disappointment is apt to produce upon a
+person's life. The harassing slowness of Chancery proceedings is
+proverbial; I am therefore especially desirous that you should not count
+upon this money."
+
+"I shall never do that, papa. I should certainly like a fine edition of
+the Encyclopaedia Britannica for Valentine, by-and-by, as he says that is
+essential for a literary man; and a horse, for people say literary men
+ought to take horse exercise. But beyond that--"
+
+"We need scarcely go into these details, my dear. I want you to
+understand the broad facts of the case. While, on the one hand, our
+success in obtaining the inheritance which we are about to claim for you
+is uncertain, on the other hand the inheritance is large. Of course, when
+I presented you with the sum of five thousand pounds, I had no idea of
+this possible inheritance."
+
+"O, of course not, papa."
+
+"But I now find that there is such a possibility as your becoming
+a--well--a rich woman."
+
+"O papa!"
+
+"In which case I may conclude that your mother would benefit in some
+measure from your good fortune."
+
+"Can you doubt that, papa? There should be no measure to her benefit from
+any money obtained by me."
+
+"I do not doubt that, my dear. And it is with that idea that I wish to
+make a proposition to you--for your mother's possible advantage."
+
+"I shall be happy to do anything you wish, papa."
+
+"It must be done as a spontaneous act of your own, Charlotte, not in
+accordance with any wish of mine."
+
+"What is it that I am to do?" asked Charlotte.
+
+"Well, my dear, you see it is agreed between us that if you do get this
+money, your mother is certain to benefit considerably. But unhappily the
+proceedings are likely to drag on for an indefinite time; and in the
+course of that time it comes within the limits of possibility that your
+decease may precede that of your mother."
+
+"Yes, papa."
+
+"In which case your mother would lose all hope of any such advantage."
+
+"Of course, papa."
+
+Charlotte could not help thinking that there was something sordid in this
+discussion--this calculation of possible gain or loss contingent on her
+fresh young life. But she concluded that it was the nature of business
+men to see everything from a debased standpoint, and that Mr. Sheldon was
+no more sordid than other men of his class.
+
+"Well, papa?" she asked presently, after some moments of silence, during
+which she and her stepfather had both been absorbed in the contemplation
+of the fire.
+
+"Well, my dear," replied Mr. Sheldon slowly, "I have been thinking that
+the natural and easy way of guarding against all contingencies would be
+by your effecting an insurance on your life in your mother's favour."
+
+"No, no, papa!" cried Charlotte, with unwonted vehemence; "I would rather
+do anything than that!"
+
+"What can be your objection to such a very simple arrangement?"
+
+"I dare say my objection seems foolish, childish even, papa; but I really
+have a horror of life assurances. I always think of papa--my own poor
+father, whom I loved so dearly. It seemed as if he put a price upon his
+life for us. He was so anxious to insure his life--I remember hearing him
+talk of it at Hyley, when I was a child--to make things straight, as he
+said, for us; and, you see, very soon afterwards he died."
+
+"But you can't suppose the insurance of his life had anything to do with
+his death?"
+
+"Of course not, I am not so childish as that; only--"
+
+"Only you have a foolish lackadaisical prejudice against the only means
+by which you can protect your mother against a contingency that is so
+remote as to be scarcely worth consideration. Let it pass."
+
+There was more anger in the tone than in the words. It was not that angry
+tone, but the mention of her mother, that impressed Miss Halliday. She
+began to consider that her objections were both foolish and selfish.
+
+"If you really think I ought to insure my life, I will do so," she said
+presently. "Papa did as much for those he loved; why should I be less
+thoughtful of others?"
+
+Having once brought Miss Halliday to this frame of mind, the rest was
+easy. It was agreed between them that as Valentine Hawkehurst was to be
+kept in ignorance of his betrothed's claim to certain moneys now in the
+shadowy under-world of Chancery, so he must be kept in ignorance of the
+insurance.
+
+It was only one more secret, and Charlotte had learned that it was
+possible to keep a secret from her lover.
+
+"I suppose before we are married I shall able to tell him everything?"
+she said.
+
+"Certainly, my dear. All I want is to test his endurance and his
+prudence. If the course of events proves him worthy of being trusted, I
+will trust him."
+
+"I am not afraid of that, papa."
+
+"Of course not, my dear. But, you see, I have to protect your interests;
+and I cannot afford to see this gentleman with your eyes. I am compelled
+to be prudent."
+
+The stockbroker sighed as he said this--a sigh of utter weariness.
+Remorse was unknown to him; the finer fibres upon which that chord is
+struck had not been employed in the fabrication of his heart. But there
+is a mental fatigue which is a spurious kind of remorse, and has all the
+anguish of the nobler feeling. It is an utter weariness and prostration
+of spirit--a sickness of heart and mind--a bitter longing to lie down and
+die--the weariness of a beaten hound rather than of a baffled man.
+
+This was what Mr. Sheldon felt, as the threads of the web which he was
+weaving multiplied, and grew daily and hourly more difficult of
+manipulation. Success in the work which he had to do depended on so many
+contingencies. Afar off glittered the splendid goal--the undisputed
+possession of the late John Haygarth's hundred thousand pounds; but
+between the schemer and that chief end and aim of all his plottings what
+a sea of troubles! He folded his arms behind his head, and looked across
+the girlish face of his companion into the shadow and the darkness. In
+those calculations which were for ever working themselves out in this
+man's brain, Charlotte Halliday was only one among many figures. She had
+her fixed value in every sum; but her beauty, her youth, her innocence,
+her love, her trust, made no unit of that fixed figure, nor weighed in
+the slightest degree with him who added up the sum. Had she been old,
+ugly, obnoxious, a creature scarcely fit to live, she would have
+represented exactly the same amount in the calculations of Philip
+Sheldon. The graces that made her beautiful were graces that he had no
+power to estimate. He knew she was a pretty woman; but he knew also that
+there were pretty women to be seen in any London street; and the
+difference between his stepdaughter and the lowest of womankind who
+passed him in his daily walks was to him little more than a social
+prejudice.
+
+The insurance business being once decided on, Mr. Sheldon lost no time in
+putting it into execution. Although he made a point of secrecy as
+regarded Mr. Hawkehurst, he went to work in no underhand manner, but
+managed matters after a Highly artistic and superior fashion. He took his
+stepdaughter to the offices of Greenwood and Greenwood, and explained her
+wishes to one of those gentlemen in her presence. If he dwelt a little
+more on Miss Halliday's anxiety for her mother's pecuniary advantage than
+his previous conversation with Miss Halliday warranted, the young lady
+was too confiding and too diffident to contradict him. She allowed him to
+state, or rather to imply, that the proposed insurance was her
+spontaneous wish, an emanation of her anxious and affectionate heart, the
+natural result of an almost morbid care for her mother's welfare.
+
+Mr. Hargrave Greenwood, of Greenwood and Greenwood, seemed at first
+inclined to throw cold water on the proposition, but after some little
+debate, agreed that extreme caution would certainly counsel such a step.
+
+"I should imagine there was no better life amongst the inhabitants of
+London," he said, "than Miss Shel--pardon me--Miss Halliday's. But, as
+the young lady herself suggests, 'in the midst of life we are--'; and, as
+the young lady herself has observed, these things are--ahem--beyond
+human foresight. If there were any truth in the aphorisms of poets, I
+should say Miss Halliday cannot insure too quickly; for the remark of
+Cowper--or, stay, I believe Pope--'whom the gods love die young,' might
+very well be supposed to apply to so charming a young lady. Happily, the
+secretaries of insurance offices know very little about the poets,
+unless, indeed, Miss Halliday were to go to the Royal Widow's and
+Orphan's Hope, the secretary of which is the author of dramas that may
+fairly rank with the works of Knowles and Lytton."
+
+Mr. Greenwood, an elderly gentleman of the ponderous and port-wine
+school, laughed at his own small jokes, and took things altogether
+pleasantly. He gave Mr. Sheldon a letter of introduction to the secretary
+of his pet insurance company, the value of which to that gentleman was
+considerable. Nor was this the only advantage derived from the interview.
+The lawyer's approval of the transaction reassured Charlotte; and though
+she had heard her own views somewhat misrepresented, she felt that an
+operation which appeared wise in the sight of such a lawyer, standing on
+such a Turkey hearthrug, commanding such gentlemanly-looking clerks as
+those who came and went at Mr. Greenwood's bidding, must inevitably be a
+proceeding at once prudent and proper.
+
+The business of the insurance was not quite so easy as the interview with
+the lawyer. The doctor to whom Miss Halliday was introduced seemed very
+well satisfied with that young lady's appearance of health and spirits,
+but in a subsequent interview with Mr. Sheldon asked several questions,
+and shook his head gravely when told that her father had died at
+thirty-seven years of age. But he looked less grave when informed that
+Mr. Halliday had died of a bilious fever.
+
+"Did Mr. Halliday die in London?" he asked.
+
+"He did."
+
+"I should like--ahem--if it were possible, to see the medical man who
+attended him. These fevers rarely prove fatal unless there is some
+predisposing cause."
+
+"In this case there was none."
+
+"You speak rather confidently, Mr. Sheldon, as a non-professional man."
+
+"I speak with a certain amount of professional knowledge. I knew Tom
+Halliday for many years."
+
+Mr. Sheldon forebore to state that Tom Halliday had died in his house,
+and had been attended by him. It is, perhaps, only natural that Philip
+Sheldon, the stockbroker of repute, should wish to escape identification
+with Philip Sheldon, the unsuccessful dentist of Bloomsbury.
+
+After a little more conversational skirmishing, the confidential
+physician of the Prudential Step Assurance Company agreed to consider
+that Mr. Halliday's constitution had been in no manner compromised by his
+early death, and to pass Charlotte's life. The motives for effecting the
+insurance were briefly touched upon in Mr. Greenwood's letter of
+introduction, and appeared very proper and feasible in the eyes of the
+directors; so, after a delay of a few days, the young lady found herself
+accepted, and Mr. Sheldon put away among his more important papers a
+large oblong envelope, containing a policy of assurance on his
+stepdaughter's life for five thousand pounds. He did not, however, stop
+here, but made assurance doubly sure by effecting a second insurance upon
+the same young life with the Widow's and Orphan's Hope Society, within a
+few days of the first transaction.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Sixth.
+
+
+
+DIANA IN NORMANDY.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+AT CÔTENOIR.
+
+Beaubocage, near Vevinord, March 15, 186--.
+
+My darling Lotta,--As you extorted from me a solemn pledge that I would
+write you a full and detailed account of my adventures, I seat myself in
+Mademoiselle Lenoble's pretty little turret-chamber, in the hope of
+completing the first instalment of my work before papa or Gustave summons
+me to prepare for a drive and visit to the Convent of the Sacred Heart,
+which, I believe, has been planned for to-day.
+
+What am I to tell you, dear, and how shall I begin my story? Let me
+fancy myself sitting at your feet before your bedroom fire, and you
+looking down at me with that pretty inquisitive look in your dear grey
+eyes. Do you know that M. Lenoble's eyes are almost the colour of yours,
+Lotta? You asked me a dozen questions about his eyes the other day, and I
+could give you no clear description of them; but yesterday, as he stood
+at the window looking out across the garden, I saw their real colour. It
+is grey, a deep clear grey, and his lashes are dark, like yours. How
+shall I begin? That is the grand difficulty! I suppose you will want to
+know something even about the journey. Everything was very pleasant, in
+spite of the cold blusterous March weather. Do you know what my last
+journey was like, Lotta? It was the long dreary journey from Forêtdechêne
+to St. Katharine's Wharf, when Mr. Hawkehurst advised and arranged my
+return to England. I had been sitting quite alone in a balcony
+overlooking the little town. It was after midnight, but the lights were
+still burning: I can see the lamplit windows shining through the night
+mist as I write this, end the sense of the hopeless misery of that time
+comes back to me like the breath of some freezing wind. I can find no
+words to tell you how desolate I was that night, or how hopeless.
+
+I dared not think of my future life; or of the next day, that was to be
+the beginning of that hopeless future. I was obliged to bind my thoughts
+to the present and all its dreariness; and a kind of dull apathetic
+feeling, which was too dull for despair, took possession of me that
+night. While I was sitting there Mr. Hawkehurst came to me, and told me
+that my father had become involved in a quarrel, under circumstances of a
+very shameful nature, which I need not tell you, darling. He recommended
+me to leave Forêtdechêne--indeed, almost insisted that I should do so. He
+wanted to rescue me from that miserable life. Your lover had noble and
+generous impulses even then, you see, dear; at his worst he was not all
+bad, and needed only your gentle influence to purify and elevate his
+character. He gave me all the money he possessed to pay the expenses of
+my journey. Ah, what a dreary journey! I left Forêtdechêne in the chill
+daybreak, and travelled third class, with dreadful Belgians who smelt of
+garlic, to Antwerp. I slept at a very humble inn near the quay, and
+started for England by the Baron Osy at noon next day. I cannot tell you
+how lonely I felt on board the steamer. I had travelled uncomfortably
+before, but never without my father and Valentine--and he had been always
+kind to me. If we were shabbily dressed, and people thought ill of us, I
+did not care. The spirit of Bohemianism must have been very strong with
+me in those days. I remembered how we had sat together on the same boat
+watching the sleepy shores of Holland, or making fun of our respectable
+fellow-passengers. Now I was quite alone. People stared at me rudely and
+unkindly, as I thought. I could not afford to dine or breakfast with the
+rest; and I was weak enough to feel wounded by the idea that people would
+guess my motive for shunning the savoury banquets that sent up such
+horrid odours to the deck where I sat, trying to read a tattered
+Tauchnitz novel. And the end of my journey? Ah, Charlotte, you can never
+imagine what it is to travel like that, without knowing whether there is
+any haven, any shelter for you at the end of your wanderings! I knew that
+at a certain hour we were to arrive at St. Katharine's Dock, but beyond
+that I knew nothing. I counted my money. There was just enough to pay for
+a cab that would carry me to Hyde Lodge. I should land there penniless.
+And what if my cousin Priscilla should refuse to receive me? For a moment
+I fancied even that possible; and I pictured myself walking about London,
+hungry and homeless.
+
+This was my last journey. I have dwelt upon it longer than I need have
+done; but I want you to understand what it is that makes Gustave Lenoble
+dear to me. If you could feel the contrast between the past and the
+present as I felt it when I stood on the deck of the Dover packet with
+him by my side, you would know why I love him, and am grateful to him. We
+stood side by side, watching the waves and talking of our future, while
+my father enjoyed a nap in one of the little deck cabins. To Gustave that
+future seems very bright and clear; to me it seems unutterably strange
+that the future _can_ be anything but a dismal _terra incognita_, from
+the contemplation of which it is wise to refrain.
+
+Papa stays with Gustave at Côtenoir; but it had been arranged for me to
+visit Mademoiselle Lenoble, Gustave's aunt, at Beaubocage, and to remain
+with her during my stay in Normandy. I at once understood the delicate
+feeling which prompted this arrangement. We dined at Rouen, and came to
+Vevinord in a coach. At Vevinord a queer little countrified vehicle met
+us, with a very old man, of the farm-servant class, as coachman. Gustave
+took the reins from the old man's hand and drove to Beaubocage, where
+Mademoiselle Lenoble received me with much cordiality. She is a dear old
+lady, with silvery bands of hair neatly arranged under the prettiest of
+caps. Her gown is black silk, and her collar and cuffs of snowy
+whiteness; everything about her exquisitely neat, and of the fashion of
+twenty, or perhaps thirty, years ago.
+
+And now, I suppose, you will want to know what Beaubocage is like. Well,
+dear, much as I admire Mademoiselle Lenoble, I must confess that her
+ancestral mansion is neither grand nor pretty. It might have made a very
+tolerable farmhouse, but has been spoiled by the architect's
+determination to make it a château. It is a square white building, with
+two pepper-castor-like turrets, in one of which I write this letter.
+Between the garden and the high road there is a wall, surmounted with
+plaster vases. The garden is for the greater part utilitarian; but in
+front of the salon windows there is a grassplot, bordered by stiff
+gravel-walks, and relieved by a couple of flower-beds. A row of tall
+poplars alone screens the house from the dusty high road. At the back of
+it there is an orchard; on one side a farmyard; behind the orchard lie
+the fields that compose the farm of Beaubocage and the paternal estate of
+the Lenoble family. All around the country is very flat. The people seem
+to be kind and simple, and devotedly attached to "Mademoiselle." There is
+a rustic peacefulness pervading everything which, for me, stands instead
+of beauty.
+
+I am hypocrite enough to pretend to be pleased with everything, for I can
+perceive how anxiously M. Lenoble watches me in order to discover whether
+I like his native country. He was not born at Beaubocage, but in Paris.
+Mademoiselle Lenoble told me the story of his childhood, and how she
+brought him to Beaubocage, when quite a little fellow, from Rouen, where
+his father died. About his mother there seems to have been some mystery.
+Mademoiselle told me nothing of this, except that her brother, Gustave
+the elder, made a love-match, and thereby offended his father. She has
+the little crib in which her nephew, Gustave the younger, slept on the
+night of his coming. It had been his father's little bed thirty years
+before. She shed tears as she told me the story, and how she sat and
+watched by the little fellow as he cried himself to sleep with his head
+lying on her arm, and the summer moonlight shining full upon his face.
+
+I was deeply touched by her manner as she told me these things; and I
+think, if I had not already learned to love M. Lenoble, I should love him
+for the sake of his aunt. She is charming; a creature so innocent and
+pure, that one considers one's words in speaking to her, almost as if she
+were a child. She is about forty years older than I; yet for worlds I
+would not tell her of the people and the scenes I have beheld at foreign
+watering-places and gambling-rooms. She has spent the sixty years of her
+life so completely out of the world, that she has retained the freshness
+and sweetness of her youth untainted in the least degree. Can there be
+magical philtre equal to this--a pure unselfish life, far away from the
+clamour of cities?
+
+The old servant who waits upon me is seventy-five years of age, and
+remembers Ma'amselle Cydalise from her childhood. She is always singing
+the praises of her mistress, and she sees that I like to hear them. "Ah,
+ma'amselle," she said to me, "to marry a Lenoble is to marry one of the
+angels. I will not say that the old seigneur was not hard towards his
+son. Ah, yes, but it was a noble heart. And the young monsieur--that one
+who died in Rouen, the Poor!--ah, that he was kind, that he was gracious!
+What of tears, what of regrets, when the Old chased him!"
+
+My position is quite recognised. I think the very cowboy in the
+farmyard--a broad-shouldered lad, with a good-natured mindless face, and
+prodigious wooden shoes like clumsy canoes--even the cowboy knows that I
+am to be Madame Lenoble of Côtenoir. Côtenoir is the Windsor Castle of
+this district; Beaubocage is only Frogmore. Yes, dear, the bond is signed
+and sealed. Even if I did not love M. Lenoble, I have bound myself to
+marry him; but I do love him, and thank him with all my heart for having
+given a definite end and aim to my life. Don't think I underrate your
+kindness, darling; I know that I should never want a home while you could
+give me one. But 'tis hard to be a hanger-on in any household; and
+Valentine will exact all his sweet young wife's love and care.
+
+I have written you a letter which I am sure will require double postage;
+so I will say no more except goodbye. Take care of yourself, dear one.
+Practise your part in our favourite duets; remember your morning walk in
+the garden; and don't wear out your eyes over the big books that Mr.
+Hawkehurst is obliged to read.
+
+Ever your affectionate
+
+DIANA.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_From Charlotte Halliday to Diana Paget_.
+
+The dullest house in Christendom, Monday.
+
+EVER DEAREST Di,--Your letter was a welcome relief to the weariness
+of my existence. How I wish I were with you! But that is too bright a
+dream. I am sure I should idolise Beaubocage. I should not mind the
+dismal row of poplars, or the flat landscape, or the dusty road, or
+anything, so long as it was not like Bayswater. I languish for a change,
+dear. I have seen so little of the world, except the dear moorland
+farmhouse at Newhall. I don't think I was ever created to be "cabined,
+cribbed, confined," in such a narrow life as this, amid such a dull,
+unchanging round of daily commonplace. Sometimes, when the cold spring
+moon is shining over the tree-tops in Kensington-Gardens, I think of
+Switzerland, and the snow-clad mountains and fair Alpine valleys we have
+read of and talked of, until my heart aches at the thought that I may
+never see them; and to think that there are people in whom the word
+'Savoy' awakes no fairer image than a cabbage! Ah, my poor dear! isn't it
+almost wicked of me to complain, when _you_ have had such bitter
+experience of the hard cruel world?
+
+I am quite in love with your dear Mademoiselle Lenoble; almost as deeply
+as I am in love with your magnanimous, chivalrous, generous,
+audacious--everything ending in _ous_--Monsieur Lenoble.
+
+How dare you call him M. Lenoble, by the bye? I have counted the
+occasions on which you write of him in your nice long letter, and for one
+Gustave there are half a dozen M. Lenobles. It must be Gustave in future
+to me, remember.
+
+What shall I tell you, dear? I have nothing to tell, really nothing. To
+say that I wish you were with me is only to confess that I am very
+selfish; but I _do_ wish for you, dear--my friend and adopted sister,
+my old school companion, from whom, willingly, I have never concealed
+one thought.
+
+Valentine called on Tuesday afternoon; but I have nothing to tell you
+even about him. Mamma dozed in her corner after her cup of tea, and Val
+and I sat by the fire talking over our future, just like you and M.
+Lenoble on board the Calais boat. How much engaged people find to say
+about the future! Is it our love that makes it seem so bright, so
+different from all that has gone before? I cannot fancy life with
+Valentine otherwise than happy. I strive to picture trials, and fancy
+myself in prison with him, the wind blowing in at broken windows, the
+rain coming through the dilapidated roof and pattering on the carpetless
+floor; but the most dismal picture I can paint won't seem dismal if his
+figure is a part of it. We would stop the broken windows with rags and
+paper, we would wipe up the rain with our pocket-handkerchiefs, and sit
+side by side and talk of the future, as we do now. Hope could never
+abandon us while we were together. And then, sometimes, while I am
+looking at Valentine, the thought that he might die comes to me suddenly,
+like the touch of an icy hand upon my heart.
+
+I lie awake at night sometimes thinking of this, and of papa's early
+death. He came home one night with a cold, and from that hour grew worse
+until he died. Ah, think what misery for a wife to suffer! Happily for
+mamma, she is not capable of suffering intensely. She was very sorry, and
+even now when she speaks of papa she cries a little; but the tears don't
+hurt her. I think, indeed, they give her a kind of pleasure.
+
+See, dear, what a long egotistical letter I have written, after all. I
+will say no more, except that while I am delighted to think of your
+pleasure among new friends and new scenes, my selfish heart still longs
+for the hour that is to bring you back to me.
+
+Pray tell me all you can about your daughters that are to be.
+
+Ever and ever your loving CHARLOTTE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_From Diana Paget to Charlotte Halliday_.
+
+Beaubocage, near Vevinord, March 30, 186--.
+
+MY DEAR LOTTA,--In three days more I hope to be with you; but I suppose,
+in the meantime, I must keep my promise, and send you a faithful account
+of my life here. Everyone here is more kind to me than words can tell;
+and I have nothing left to wish for, except that you were here to be
+delighted, as I am sure you would be, with the freshness and the
+strangeness of everything. If I ever do become Madame Lenoble--and even
+yet I _cannot_ picture to myself that such a thing will be--you must come
+to Côtenoir, you and Valentine. I was taken through every room in the old
+château the day before yesterday, and I fixed in my own mind upon the
+rooms I will give you, if these things come to pass. They are very old
+rooms, and I can fancy what strange people must have lived in them, and
+died in them perhaps, in the days that are gone. But if you come to them,
+they shall be made bright and pretty, and we will chase the shadows of
+the mediaeval age away. There are old pictures, old musical instruments,
+quaint spindle-legged chairs and tables, tapestries that crumble as you
+touch them--the ashes and relics of many generations. Gustave says we
+will sweep these poor vestiges away, and begin a new life, when I come to
+Côtenoir; but I cannot find it in my heart to obliterate every trace of
+those dead feet that have come and gone in all the dusky passages of my
+future home.
+
+And now I must tell you about my daughters that are to be--my daughter
+that is, I may say of the elder--for I love her so well already that no
+breach between Gustave and me could rob her of my affection. She is the
+dearest, most loving of creatures; and she reminds me of you! I dare say
+you will laugh at this, dear; and, mind, I do not say that Clarice
+Lenoble is actually like you in complexion or feature--those common
+attributes which every eye can see; the resemblance is far more subtle.
+There is a look in this dear girl's face, a smile, an I-know-not-what,
+which every now and then recalls your own bright countenance. You will
+say this is mere fancy--and that is what I told myself at the first; but
+I found afterwards that it is no fancy, but really one of those vague,
+indefinable, accidental likenesses which one perceives so often. To me it
+seems a very happy accident; for my first glance at my daughter's face
+told me that I should love her for your sake.
+
+We went to the convent the day before yesterday. It is a curious old
+place, and was once a stately château, the habitation of a noble family.
+A little portress, in the black robes of a lay sister, admitted us, and
+conducted us to the parlour, a fine old room, decorated with pictures of
+a religious character, painted by members of the sisterhood. Here Gustave
+and I were received by the superioress, an elderly woman, with a mild
+holy face, and a quiet grace of manner which might become a duchess. She
+sent for the demoiselles Lenoble, and after a delay of a quarter of an
+hour--you remember the toilet the girls at Hyde Lodge were obliged to
+make before they went to the drawing-room, Lotta--Mademoiselle Lenoble
+came, a tall, slim, lovely and lovable girl, who reminded me of the
+dearest friend I have in this world. She ran to her papa first, and
+saluted him with an enthusiastic hug; and then she stood for a moment
+looking shyly at me, confused and doubtful. It was only for a moment
+she was left in doubt. Gustave bent down to whisper something in her
+ear--something for which his letters had in some manner prepared her. The
+fair young face brightened, the clear grey eyes looked up at me with a
+sweet affectionate gaze, and she came to me and kissed me. "I shall love
+you very much," she whispered. "And I love you very much already," I
+answered, in the same confidential manner. And I think these few words,
+that one pretty confiding look in her innocent eyes, made a tie between
+us that it would take much to loosen. Ah, Lotta, what a wide gulf between
+the Diana Paget who landed alone at St. Katharine's Wharf, in the dim
+cheerless dawn, and uncertain where to find a shelter in all that busy
+city, and the same creature redeemed by your affection, and exalted by
+the love and trust of Gustave Lenoble!
+
+After this my second daughter appeared--a pretty young hoyden, with
+lovable clinging ways; and then the superioress asked if I would like to
+see the garden. Of course I said yes; and we were taken through the long
+corridors, out into a fine old garden, where the pupils, who looked like
+the Hyde Lodge girls translated into French, were prancing and scampering
+about in the usual style. After the garden we went to the chapel, where
+there were more pictures, and flower-bedecked altars, and pale twinkling
+tapers burning here and there in the chill sunlight. Here there were
+damsels engaged in pious meditation, from five years old upwards. They
+send even the little ones to meditate, Clarice tells me; and there are
+these infants kneeling before the flower-bedecked altars, rapt in
+religious contemplation, like so many Thomas à Kempises. The young
+meditators glanced shyly at us as we passed. When they had shown me
+everything of special interest in the pleasant old place, Clarice and
+Madelon ran off to dress for walking, in order to accompany us to
+Côtenoir, where we were to dine.
+
+It was quite a family party. Mademoiselle Lenoble was there, and papa. He
+arrived at the château while Gustave and I were paying our visit to the
+convent. He is in the highest spirits, and treats me with an amount of
+affection and courtesy I have not been accustomed to receive at his
+hands. Of course I know the cause of this change; the future mistress of
+Côtenoir is a very different person from that wretched girl who was
+nothing to him but a burden and an encumbrance. But even while I despise
+him I cannot refuse to pity him. One forgives anything in old age. In
+this, at least, it is a second childhood; and my father is very old,
+Lotta. I saw the look of age in his face more plainly at Côtenoir, where
+he assumed his usual _debonnaire_ man-of-the-world tone and manner, than
+I had seen it in London, when he was a professed invalid. He is much
+changed since I was with him at Forêtdechêne. It seems as if he had kept
+Time at bay very long, and now at last, the common enemy will be held at
+arm's-length no longer. He still braces himself up in the old military
+manner, still holds himself more erect than many men of half his age;
+but, in spite of all this, I can see that he is very feeble; shaken and
+worn by a long life of difficulty. I am glad to think that there will he
+a haven for him at last; and if I did not thank Gustave with my whole
+heart for giving me a home and a place in the world, I should thank him
+for giving a shelter to my father.
+
+And now, dear, as I hope to be with you so very soon, I shall say no
+more. I am to spend a day in Rouen before we come back--papa and I, that
+is to say; Gustave stays in Normandy to make some arrangements before he
+comes back to England. I cannot comprehend the business relations between
+him and papa; but there is some business going on--law business, as it
+seems to me--about which papa is very important and elated.
+
+I am to see the cathedral and churches at Rouen, and I shall contrive to
+see the shops, and to bring you something pretty. Papa has given me
+money--the first he ever gave me unasked. I have very little doubt it
+comes from Gustave; but I have no sense of shame in accepting it. M.
+Lenoble's seems to me a royal nature, formed to bestow benefits and
+bounties on every side.
+
+Tell Mrs. Sheldon that I shall bring her the prettiest cap I can find in
+Rouen; and,
+
+with all love, believe me ever your affectionate
+DIANA.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THE SEVENTH.
+
+
+
+A CLOUD OF FEAR.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE BEGINNING OF SORROW.
+
+Who heeds the cloud no bigger than a man's hand amidst a broad expanse of
+blue ether? The faint, scarce perceptible menace of that one little cloud
+is lost in the wide brightness of a summer sky. The traveller jogs on
+contented and unthinking, till the hoarse roar of stormy winds, or the
+first big drops of the thunder-shower, startle him with a sudden
+consciousness of the coming storm.
+
+It was early May, and the young leaves were green in the avenues of
+Kensington Gardens; Bayswater was bright and gay with fashionable people;
+and Mrs. Sheldon found herself strong enough to enjoy her afternoon drive
+in Hyde Park, where the contemplation of the bonnets afforded her
+perennial delight.
+
+"I think they are actually smaller than ever this year," she remarked
+every season; and every season the headgear of fashionable London did
+indeed seem to shrink and dwindle, "fine by degrees, and beautifully
+less." The coalscuttle-shaped headdress of our grandmothers had not yet
+resolved itself into a string of beads and a rosebud in these days, but
+was obviously tending thitherward.
+
+Charlotte and Diana accompanied Mrs. Sheldon in her drives. The rapture
+of contemplating the bonnets was not complete unless the lady had some
+sympathising spirit to share her delight. The two girls were very well
+pleased to mingle in that brilliant crowd, and to go back to their own
+quiet life when the mystic hour came, and that bright vision of colour
+and beauty melted into the twilight loneliness. It had seemed just
+lately, however, as if Charlotte was growing a little weary of the
+gorgeous spectacle--the ever-changing, ever-splendid diorama of West End
+life. She no longer exclaimed at the sight of each exceptional toilette;
+she no longer smiled admiringly on the thoroughbred horses champing their
+bits in the immediate neighbourhood of her bonnet; she no longer gave a
+little cry of delight when the big drags came slowly along the crowded
+ranks, the steel bars shining as they swung loosely in the low afternoon
+sunlight, the driver, conscious of his glory, grave and tranquil, with
+the pride that apes humility.
+
+"See, Lotta," said Miss Paget, upon an especially bright May evening, as
+one of these gorgeous equipages went past Mr. Sheldon's landau, "there's
+another drag. Did you see it?"
+
+"Yes, dear, I saw it."
+
+"And are you tired of four-in-hands? You used to admire them so much."
+
+"I admire them as much as ever, dear."
+
+"And yet you scarcely gave those four splendid roans a glance."
+
+"No," Charlotte answered, with a faint sigh.
+
+"Are you tired, Lotta?" Miss Paget asked, rather anxiously. There was
+something in Charlotte's manner of late that had inspired her with a
+vague sense of anxiety; some change which she could scarcely define--a
+change so gradual that it was only by comparing the Charlotte of some
+months ago with the Charlotte of the present that she perceived how real
+a change it was. The buoyancy and freshness, the girlish vivacity of Miss
+Halliday's manner, were rapidly giving place to habitual listlessness.
+"Are you tired, dear?" she repeated, anxiously; and Mrs. Sheldon looked
+round from her contemplation of the bonnets.
+
+"No, Di, dearest, not tired; but--I don't feel very well this afternoon."
+
+This was the first confession which Charlotte Halliday made of a sense of
+weakness and languor that had been creeping upon her during the last two
+months, so slowly, so gradually, that the change seemed too insignificant
+for notice.
+
+"You feel ill, Lotta dear?" Diana asked.
+
+"Well, no, not exactly ill. I can scarcely call it illness; I feel rather
+weak--that is really all."
+
+At this point Mrs. Sheldon chimed in, with her eyes on a passing bonnet
+as she spoke.
+
+"You see, you are so dreadfully neglectful of your papa's advice, Lotta,"
+she said, in a complaining tone. "Do _you_ like pink roses with mauve
+areophane, Diana? I do not. Look at that primrose tulle, with dead
+ivy-leaves and scarlet berries, in the barouche. I dare say you have not
+taken your glass of old port this morning, Charlotte, and have only
+yourself to thank if you feel weak."
+
+"I did take a glass of port this morning, mamma. I don't like it; but I
+take it every morning."
+
+"Don't like old tawny port, that your papa bought at the sale of a bishop
+of somewhere? It's perfectly absurd of you, Lotta, to talk of not liking
+wine that cost fifteen shillings a bottle, and which your papa's friends
+declare to be worth five-and-thirty."
+
+"I am sorry it is so expensive, mamma; but I can't teach myself to think
+it nice," answered Charlotte, with a smile that sadly lacked the
+brightness of a few weeks ago. "I think one requires to go into the City,
+and become a merchant or a stockbroker, before one can like that sort of
+wine. What was it Valentine quoted in the _Cheapside_, about some lady
+whom somebody loved?--'To love her was a liberal education.' I think to
+like old port is a commercial education."
+
+"I am sure such wine _ought_ to do you good," said Georgy, almost
+querulously. She thought this bright blooming creature had no right to be
+ill. The headaches, and little weaknesses and languors and ladylike
+ailments, were things for which she (Georgy) had taken out a patent; and
+this indisposition of her daughter's was an infringement of copyright.
+
+"I dare say the port will do me good, mamma, in time. No doubt I shall be
+as strong as that person who strangled lions and snakes and dogs with
+incalculable heads, and all that kind of thing."
+
+"I really wish you would not talk in that absurd manner, my dear," said
+Mrs. Sheldon with offended dignity. "I think you really cannot be too
+grateful for your papa's kind thoughtfulness and anxiety about you. I am
+sure I myself am not so anxious as he is; but of course his medical
+knowledge makes him doubly careful. Six weeks ago he noticed that you
+wanted strength--tone is what he calls it. 'Georgina,' he said to me,
+'Charlotte wants tone. She is beginning to stoop in a really lamentable
+manner: we must make her take port or bark, or something of a
+strengthening kind.' And then a day or two afterwards he decided on port,
+and gave me the key of the cellar--which is a thing he rarely gives out
+of his own hands--and told me the number of the bin from which I was to
+take the wine--some old wine that he had laid by on purpose for some
+special occasion; and no one is to have it but you, and you are to take a
+glass daily at eleven o'clock. Mr. Sheldon is most particular about the
+hour. The regularity of the thing is half the battle in these cases, he
+says; and I am sure if you do not observe his wishes and mine, Charlotte,
+it will be really ungrateful of you."
+
+"But, dear mamma, I do observe Mr.--papa's wishes. I take my glass of
+port every morning at eleven. I go to your cupboard in the breakfast-room
+and take out my special decanter, and my special glass, in the most
+punctiliously precise manner. I don't like the wine, and I don't like the
+trouble involved in the ceremony of drinking it; but I go through it most
+religiously, to please you and papa."
+
+"And do you mean to say that you do not feel stronger after taking that
+expensive old port regularly for nearly six weeks.
+
+"I am sorry to say that I do not, mamma. I think if there is any change,
+it is that I am weaker."
+
+"Dear, dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Sheldon captiously, "you are really a
+most extraordinary girl."
+
+Mrs. Sheldon could almost have found it in her heart to say, a most
+ungrateful girl. There did seem a kind of ingratitude in this futile
+consumption of old port at fifteen shillings a bottle.
+
+"I'll tell you what it is, Lotta," she said presently, "I am convinced
+that your illness--or your weakness--is all fancy."
+
+"Why so, mamma?"
+
+"Because, if it were real weakness, that old port must have made you
+stronger. And the fact that the port does you no good, is a proof that
+your weakness is only fancy. Girls of your age are so full of fancies.
+Look at me, and the martyrdom I go through with my nervous headaches,
+which perfectly prostrate me, after the least worry or excitement. The
+nerves of my head, after going into the butcher's book, are perfect
+agony. When you come to have a house to look after, and find what it is
+to have the same saddle of mutton charged for twice over, with the most
+daring impudence--or to have capers and currie-powder, that you _know_
+you've never had, staring at you from every page of your grocer's book,
+and nothing but your memory between you and utter ruin--you'll discover
+what it is to be really ill."
+
+In this easy manner did Mrs. Sheldon dismiss the subject of her daughters
+illness. But it was not so easily dismissed by Diana Paget, who loved her
+friend with a profound and pure affection, than which no sister's love
+was ever warmer or stronger. Even Valentine's preference for this happy
+rival had not lessened Diana's love for her friend and benefactress. She
+had been jealous of Charlotte's happier fate: but in the hour when this
+jealousy was most bitter there had been no wavering in her attachment to
+this one true and generous friend.
+
+Miss Paget was very silent during the homeward drive. She understood now
+what that change had been in her friend which until now had so perplexed
+her. It was a decay of physical strength which had robbed Lotta's smile
+of its brightness, her laugh of its merry music. It was physical languor
+that made her so indifferent to the things which had once awakened her
+girlish enthusiasm. The discovery was a very painful one. Diana
+remembered her experience of Hyde Lodge: the girls who had grown day by
+day more listless, now in the doctor's hands for a day or two, now well
+again and toiling at the old treadmill round of study, now sinking into
+confirmed invalids; until the bitter hour in which parents are summoned,
+and the doctor urges rest, and the fond mother carries her darling home,
+assured that home comfort and tenderness will, speedily restore her. Her
+schoolfellows cluster round the carriage to bid her "good-bye until next
+half," full of hopeful talk about her swift recovery. But when the
+vacation is over, and Black Monday comes, she is not amongst the
+returning scholars. Has she not gone up to the higher school, and
+answered _Adsum_ to the call of the Great Master?
+
+Diana remembered these old experiences with cruel pain.
+
+"Girls, as bright and lovable as she is, have drooped and faded away,
+just when they seem brightest and happiest," she thought as she watched
+Charlotte, and perceived to-day for the first time that the outline of
+her fair young cheek had lost its perfect roundness.
+
+But in such a case love can do nothing except watch and wait. That night,
+in the course of that girlish talk in Charlotte's bedroom, which had
+become a habit with the two girls, Diana extorted from her friend a full
+account of the symptoms which had affected her within the last few weeks.
+
+"Pray don't look so anxious, dear Di," she said gaily; "it is really
+nothing worth talking of; and I knew that if I confessed to feeling ill
+you and mamma would straightway begin to worry yourselves about me. I
+have felt a little sick and faint sometimes; and now and then a sudden
+dizziness has come over me. It is nothing of any consequence, and it
+passes away very quickly. Sometimes I have a kind of torpid languid
+feeling, which is scarcely unpleasant, only strange, you know. But what
+does it all amount to, except that I am nervous?"
+
+"You must have change of air, Lotta," said Diana resolutely, "and change
+of scene. Yes, no doubt you are nervous. You have been kept almost a
+prisoner in the house through Mr. Sheldon's punctilious nonsense. You
+miss our brisk morning walks in the Gardens, I dare say. If you were to
+go to Yorkshire, now, to your friends at Newhall, you would like that
+change, dear, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Yes, I should dearly like to see Aunt Dorothy and uncle Joe; but--"
+
+"But what, darling?"
+
+"I should scarcely like being at Newhall, unless--you'll think me very
+foolish, Di--unless Valentine was with me. We were so happy there, you
+see, dear; and it was there he first told me he loved me. No, Di, I
+couldn't bear Newhall without him."
+
+"Poor Aunt Dorothy, poor uncle Joe! feathers when weighed in the scale
+against a young man whom their niece has known less than a twelvemonth!"
+
+No more was said about Charlotte's illness; Diana was too prudent to
+alarm her friend by any expression of uneasiness. She adopted a cheering
+tone, and the conversation drifted into other channels.
+
+While Diana's concern for her friend's altered health was yet a new
+feeling, she found herself called upon to attend her father once more
+in the character of a ministering angel. And this time Captain Paget's
+illness was something more than gout. It was, according to his
+doctors--he had on this occasion two medical attendants--a general
+breaking up of the system. The poor old wanderer,--the weary Odysseus,
+hero of so many trickeries, such varied adventures,--laid himself down to
+rest, within view of the Promised Land for which his soul yearned.
+
+He was very ill. Gustave Lenoble, who came back to London, did not
+conceal from Diana that the illness threatened to end fatally. At his
+instigation the Captain had been removed from Omega Street to pleasant
+lodgings at the back of Knightsbridge Road, overlooking Hyde Park. This
+was nearer Bayswater, and it was very pleasant for the fading old
+worldling. He could see the stream of fashion flowing past as he sat in
+his easy-chair, propped up with pillows, with the western sunlight on his
+face. He pointed out the liveries and armorial bearings; and told many
+scandalous and entertaining anecdotes of their past and present owners to
+Gustave Lenoble, who devoted much of his time to the solacement of the
+invalid. Everything that affection could do to smooth this dreary time
+was done for the tired Ulysses. Pleasant books were read to him; earnest
+thoughts were suggested by earnest words; hothouse flowers adorned his
+cheerful sitting-room; hothouse fruits gladdened his eye by their rich
+warmth of colour, and invited his parched lips to taste their cool
+ripeness. Gustave had a piano brought in, so that Diana might sing to her
+father in the dusky May evenings, when it should please him to hear her.
+Upon the last feeble footsteps of this old man, whose life had been very
+selfish and wicked, pity waited with a carefulness so fond and tender
+that he might well mistake it for love. Was it fair that his last days
+should be so peaceful and luxurious, when many a good man falls down to
+die in the streets, worn out with the life-long effort to bear the burden
+laid upon his weary shoulders? In the traditions of the Rabbins it is
+written that those are the elect of God who suffer His chastisement in
+the flesh. For the others, for those who on earth drain the goblet of
+pleasure, and riot in the raptures of sin, for them comes the dread
+retribution after death. They are plunged in the fire, and driven before
+the wind; they take the shape of loathsome reptiles, and ascend by
+infinitesimal degrees through all the grades of creation, until their
+storm-tost wearied degraded souls re-enter human semblance once more. But
+even then their old stand-point is not yet regained; their dread penance
+not yet performed. As men they are the lowest and worst of men; slaves
+toiling in the desert; dirt to be trampled under the feet of their
+prosperous brethren. Inch by inch the wretched soul regains its lost
+inheritance; cycles must elapse before the awful sentence is fulfilled.
+
+Our Christian faith knows no such horrors. Even for the penitent of the
+eleventh hour there is promise of pardon. The most earnest desire of
+Diana's heart was that her father should enroll himself amongst those
+late penitents--those last among the last who crowd in to the marriage
+feast, half afraid to show their shame-darkened faces in that glorious
+company.
+
+If we forgive all things to old age, so much the more surely do we
+forgive all injuries to the fading enemy. That she had suffered much
+cruelty and neglect at the hands of her father, was a fact that Diana
+could not forget, any more than she could forget the name which he had
+given her. It was a part of her life not to be put off or done away with.
+But in these last days, with all her heart she forgave and pitied him.
+She pitied him for the crooked paths into which his feet had wandered at
+the very outset of life, and from which so weak a soul could find no
+issue. She pitied him for that moral blindness which had kept him
+pleasantly unconscious of the supreme depth of his degradation--a social
+Laplander, who never having seen a western summer, had no knowledge that
+his own land was dark and benighted.
+
+Happily for Diana and her generous lover, the Captain was not a
+difficult penitent. He was indeed a man who, having lost the capacity
+and the need for sin, took very kindly to penitence, as a species of
+sentimental luxury.
+
+"Yes, my dear," he said complacently--for even in the hour of his
+penitence he insisted on regarding himself as a social martyr--"my life
+has been a very hard one. Fortune has not been kind to me. In the words
+of the immortal bard, my lines have _not_ been set in pleasant places. I
+should have been glad if Providence had allowed me to be a better father
+to you, a better husband to your poor mother--a better Christian, in
+fact--and had spared me the repeated humiliation of going through the
+Insolvent Debtors' Court. It is not always easy to understand the justice
+of these things: and it has often appeared to me that something of the
+favouritism which is the bane of our governments on earth must needs
+obtain at a higher tribunal. One man enters life with an entailed estate
+worth seventy thousand a-year, while another finds himself in the hands
+of the Jews before he is twenty years of age. 'There's something in this
+world amiss shall be unriddled by-and-by,' as the poet observes. The
+circumstances of my own existence I have ever regarded as dark and
+enigmatic. And, indeed, the events of this life are altogether
+inexplicable, my love. There is that fellow Sheldon, now, who began
+life as a country dentist, a man without family or connections,
+who--well, I will not repine. If I am spared to behold my daughter
+mistress of a fine estate, although in a foreign country, I can depart in
+peace. But you must have a house in town, my dear. Yes, London must be
+your head-quarters. You must not be buried alive in Normandy. There is no
+place like London. Take the word of a man who has seen the finest
+Continental cities, and lived in them--that is the point, my love--lived
+in them. For a fine afternoon in the beginning of May, an apartment in
+the Champs Elysées, or the Boulevard, is an earthly paradise; but the
+Champs Elysées in a wet December--the Boulevard in a sweltering August!
+London is the only spot upon earth that is never intolerable. And your
+husband will be a rich man, my dear girl, a really wealthy man; and you
+must see that he makes a fitting use of his wealth, and does his duty to
+society. The parable of the Talents, which you were reading to me this
+afternoon, is a moral lesson your husband must not forget."
+
+After this fashion did the invalid discourse. Gustave and Diana perceived
+that he still hoped to have his share in their future life, still looked
+to pleasant days to come in a world which he had loved, not wisely, but
+too well. Nor could they find it in their hearts to tell him that his
+journey was drawing to a close, and that on the very threshold of the
+peaceful home which his diplomatic arts had helped to secure, he was to
+abandon life's weary race.
+
+They indulged his hopes a little, in order to win him the more easily to
+serious thoughts; but though at times quite ready to abandon himself to a
+penitential mood that was almost maudlin, there were other times when the
+old Adam asserted himself, and the Captain resented this intrusion of
+serious subjects as a kind of impertinence.
+
+"I am not aware that I am at my last gasp, Diana," he said with dignity,
+on one of these occasions; "or that I need to be talked to by my own
+daughter as if I were on my deathbed. I can show you men some years my
+senior driving their phaetons-and-pairs in that Park. The Gospel is all
+very well in its place--during Sunday-morning service, and after morning
+prayers, in your good old county families, where the household is large
+enough to make a fair show at the end of the dining-room, without
+bringing in hulking lads who smell of the stables: but I consider that
+when a man is ill, there is a considerable want of tact in bringing the
+subject of religion before him in any obtrusive manner."
+
+Thus the Captain alternated from sentimental penitence to captious
+worldliness, during may days and weeks. The business of the Haygarthian
+inheritance was progressing slowly, but surely. Documents were being
+prepared, attested copies of certificates of marriages, births, baptisms,
+and burials were being procured, and all was tending towards the grand
+result. Once, and sometimes twice a week, M. Fleurus came to see Captain
+Paget, and discussed the great affair with that invalid diplomatist. The
+Captain had long ago been aware that in entering upon an alliance with
+that gentleman, he had invoked the aid of a coadjutor likely to prove too
+strong for him. The event had justified his fears. M. Fleurus had
+something of Victor Hugo's famous _Poulpe_ in his nature. Powerful as
+flexible were the arms he stretched forth to grasp all prizes in the way
+of heirs-at-law and disputed heritages, unclaimed railway-stock, and
+forgotten consols. If the Captain had not played his cards very cleverly,
+and contrived to obtain a personal influence over Gustave Lenoble, he
+might have found himself thrust entirely out of the business by one of
+the Frenchman's gelatinous arms. Happily for his own success, however,
+the Captain did obtain a strong hold upon Gustave. This enabled him to
+protect his own interests throughout the negotiation, and to keep the
+insidious Fleurus at bay.
+
+"My good friend," he said, in his grand Carlton-House manner, "I am bound
+to protect the interests of my friend M. Lenoble, in any agreement to be
+entered upon in this matter. I cannot permit M. Lenoble's generosity or
+M. Lenoble's inexperience to be imposed upon. My own interests are of
+secondary importance. That I expect to profit by the extraordinary
+discovery made by me--by ME--alone and unaided, I do not affect to deny.
+But I will not profit at the expense of a too generous friend."
+
+"And what recompense am I to have for my work--a work at once painful and
+impoverishing?" asked the little Frenchman, with an angry and suspicious
+look. "Do you believe that I do that to amuse me? To run the streets, to
+go by here, by there, in hunting the papers of that marriage, or this
+baptism? Believe you that is so agreeable, Monsieur the Captain? No; I
+desire to be paid for my work. I must have my part in the heritage which
+I have help to win."
+
+"It is not won yet. We will talk of your recompense by-and-by."
+
+"We will talk of it this instant--upon the field. It must that I
+comprehend where I am in this affair. I will not of mystifications, of
+prevarications, of lies--"
+
+"M. Fleurus!" cried the Captain, with a hand stretched towards the bell.
+
+"You will sound--you will chase me! Ah, but no!--you cannot afford to
+chase me yet. I have to find more papers of baptisms and burials. Go,
+then, we will talk of this affair as friends."
+
+This friendly talk ended in Captain Paget's complete victory. M. Fleurus
+consented to accept his costs out of pocket in the present, and three per
+cent, of the heritage in the future. It was further agreed that the
+Captain should select the English attorney who should conduct M.
+Lenoble's case in the Court of Chancery.
+
+This conversation occurred at Rouen, and a day or two afterwards the
+necessary document was drawn up. Gustave pledged himself to pay over a
+fourth share of the Haygarthian fortune to Horatio Paget, and three
+per cent, upon the whole amount to Jean François Fleurus. The document
+was very formal, very complete; but whether such an agreement would
+hold water, if Gustave Lenoble should choose to contest it, was open
+to question.
+
+The solicitor to whom Horatio Paget introduced M. Lenoble was a Mr.
+Dashwood, of the firm of Dashwood and Vernon; a man whom the Captain had
+known in the past, and from whom he had received good service in some of
+the most difficult crises of his difficult career. To this gentleman he
+confided the conduct of the case; and explained his apprehensions with
+regard to the two Sheldons.
+
+"You see, as the case now stands, they think they have the claimant to
+this money in Miss Halliday--Sheldon's stepdaughter. But if they got an
+inkling of Susan Meynell's marriage--and, in point of fact--the actual
+state of the case--they might try to get hold of my friend, Gustave
+Lenoble. They could _not_ get hold of him, mind you, Dashwood, but they
+would try it on, and I don't want trying on of that kind."
+
+"Of course not. I know Sheldon, of Gray's Inn. He is rather--well, say
+_shady_. That's hardly an actionable epithet, and it expresses what I
+mean. Your friend's case seems to me tolerably clear. That little
+Frenchman is useful, but officious. It is not a speculative affair, I
+suppose? There is money to meet the current expenses of the business?"
+
+"Yes, there is money. Within reasonable limits my friend is prepared to
+pay for the advancement of his claims."
+
+After this the Haygarthian business progressed, slowly, quietly. The work
+was up to this point underground work. There were still papers
+wanting--final links of the chain to be fitted together; and to the
+fitting of these links Messrs. Dash and Vernon devoted themselves, in
+conjunction with M. Fleurus.
+
+This was how matters stood when Captain Paget drooped and languished, and
+was fain to abandon all active share in the struggle.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FADING.
+
+While the invalid in the pleasant lodgings overlooking Hyde Park
+grew day by day weaker, there was a change as marked in the bright
+young creature whose loving spirit had first brought the influence of
+affection to bear upon Diana Paget's character. Charlotte Halliday was
+ill--very ill. It was with everyday increasing anxiety that Diana watched
+the slow change--slow in its progress, but awfully rapid to look back
+upon. The pain, the regret, with which she noted her father's decay were
+little indeed compared with the sharp agony which rent her heart as she
+perceived the alteration in this dear friend, the blighting of this fair
+young flower.
+
+That the withered leaves of autumn should fall is sad, but natural, and
+we submit to the gloomy inevitable fact of decay and death. But to see
+our rose of roses, the pride and glory of the garden, fade and perish in
+its midsummer prime, is a calamity inexplicable and mysterious. Diana
+watched her father's decline with a sense of natural sorrow and pity; but
+there was neither surprise nor horror in the thought that for him the end
+of all things was drawing nigh. How different was it with Charlotte--with
+that happy soul for whom life and love wore their brightest smile, before
+whose light joyous footsteps stretched so fair a pathway!
+
+The illness, whatever it was--and neither Mr. Sheldon nor the portly and
+venerable physician whom he called in could find a name for it--crept
+upon the patient with stealthy and insidious steps. Dizziness, trembling,
+faintness; trembling, faintness, dizziness; the symptoms alternated day
+by day. Sometimes there was a respite of a few days; and Charlotte--the
+youthful, the sanguine, the happy--declared that her enemy had left her.
+
+"I am sure mamma is right, Di," she said on these occasions. "My nerves
+are the beginning and end of the mischief; and if I could get the better
+of my nerves, I should be as well as ever. I don't wonder that the idea
+of my symptoms makes mamma almost cross. You see, she has been accustomed
+to have the symptoms all to herself; and for me to plagiarise them, as it
+were, must seem quite an impertinence. For a strong young thing like me,
+you know, Di dear--who have only just broken myself of plunging
+downstairs two and three steps at a time, and plunging upstairs in the
+same vulgar manner--to intrude on mamma's shattered nerves, and pirate
+mamma's low spirits, is utterly absurd and abominable; so I have resolved
+to look my nerves straight in the face, and get the better of them."
+
+"My darling, you will get the better of them if you try," said Diana, who
+did at times beguile herself with the hope that her friend's ailments
+were mental rather than bodily. "I dare say your monotonous life has
+something to do with your altered health; you want change of scene,
+dear."
+
+"Change of scene, when I have you and Valentine! No, Di. It would
+certainly be very nice to have the background shifted now and then; to
+see Capability Brown's prim gardens melt into Alpine heights or
+southern vineyards, or even into Russian steppes or Hungarian forests.
+One does get a little tired of _toujours_ Bayswater; and Mr. Sheldon;
+and crimped skate; and sirloin of beef, and the inevitable discussion as
+to whether it is in a cannibal state of rawness or burnt to a cinder;
+and the glasses of pale sherry; and the red worsted doyleys and blue
+finger-glasses; and the almonds and raisins, and crisp biscuits, that
+nobody ever eats; and the dreary, dreary funereal business of dinner,
+when we all talk vapid nonsense, with an ever-present consciousness of
+the parlourmaid. I am tired of the dull dinners, and of mamma's peevish
+complaints about Ann Woolper's ascendancy downstairs; and of Mr.
+Sheldon's perpetual newspapers, that crackle, crackle, crackle all the
+evening through; and _such_ papers!--_Money Market Monitor, Stockholder's
+Vade-Mecum_, and all sorts of dreadful things of that kind, with not so
+much as an interesting advertisement in one of them. I used never to feel
+these things an annoyance, you know, dear, till I made the acquaintance
+of my nerves; but from the moment I allowed my nerves to get the better
+of me, all these trifles have worried and excruciated me. But I am happy
+with you, darling; and I am happy with Valentine. Poor Valentine!"
+
+She pronounced his name with a sigh; and then, after a pause, repeated
+mournfully, "Poor Valentine!"
+
+"Why do you speak of him so sadly, dear?" asked Diana, very pale.
+
+"Because--because we have planned such a happy life together, dear,
+and--"
+
+"Is that a thing to be sad about, darling?"
+
+"And--if it should happen, after all, that we have to part, and he go on
+alone, the world may seem so sad and lonely to him."
+
+"Charlotte!" cried Diana, with a laugh that was almost choked by a sob,
+"is this looking your nerves in the face? Why, my dear one, this is
+indeed plagiarism of your mamma's low spirits. Lotta, you shall have
+change of air; yes, I am determined on that. The stately physician who
+came in his carriage the other day, and who looked at your tongue, and
+said 'Ah!' and then felt your pulse and said 'Ah!' again, and then called
+for pen-and-ink and wrote a little prescription, is not the doctor we
+want for you. We want Dr. Yorkshire; we want the breezes from the
+Yorkshire moors, and the smell of the farmyard, and our dear Aunt
+Dorothy's sillabubs, and our uncle Joe to take us for long walks across
+his clover-fields."
+
+"I don't want to go to Newhall, Di. I couldn't bear to leave--him."
+
+"But what is to prevent your meeting _him_ at the white gate this time,
+as you met him last October? Might not accident take _him_ to Huxter's
+Cross again? The archaeological work--of which we have heard no more, by
+the bye--might necessitate further investigations in that district. If
+you will go to Newhall, Lotta, I will pledge myself for Mr. Hawkehurst's
+speedy appearance at the white gate you have so often described to me."
+
+"My dearest Di, you are all kindness; but even if I were inclined to go
+to Newhall, I doubt if mamma or Mr. Sheldon would like me to go."
+
+"I am sure they would be pleased with any arrangement that was likely to
+benefit your health. But I will talk to your mamma about it. I have set
+my heart on your going to Newhall."
+
+Miss Paget lost no time in carrying out her idea. She took possession of
+Georgy that afternoon, while teaching her a new stitch in _tricot_, and
+succeeded in impressing her with the conviction that change of air was
+necessary for Charlotte.
+
+"But you don't think Lotta really ill?" asked Mrs. Sheldon, nervously.
+
+"I trust she is not really ill, dear Mrs. Sheldon; but I am sure she is
+much changed. In talking to her, I affect to think that her illness is
+only an affair of the nerves; but I sadly fear that it is something more
+than that."
+
+"But what is the matter with her?" exclaimed Georgy, with a, piteous air
+of perplexity; "that is the question which I am always asking. People
+can't be ill, you know, Diana, without having something the matter with
+them; and that is what I can't make out in Charlotte's case. Mr. Sheldon
+says she wants tone; the physician who came in a carriage and pair, and
+ought to know what he is talking about, says there is a lack of vigour.
+But what does that all amount to? I'm sure I've wanted tone all my life.
+Perhaps there never was a creature so devoid of tone as I am; and the
+internal sinking I feel just before luncheon is something that no one but
+myself can realize. I dare say Lotta is not so strong as she might be;
+but I do not see that she can be ill, unless her illness is something
+definite. My poor first husband's illness, now, was the kind of thing
+that any one could understand--bilious fever. The merest child knows what
+it is to be bilious, and the merest child knows what it is to be
+feverish. There can be nothing mysterious in bilious fever."
+
+"But, dear Mrs. Sheldon," said Diana, gravely, "don't you think that the
+weakness of constitution which rendered Charlotte's father liable to be
+taken off in the prime of life by a fever is a weakness that Charlotte
+may possibly have inherited?"
+
+"Good heavens, Diana!" cried Georgy, with sudden terror; "you don't mean
+to say that you think my Charlotte is going to die?"
+
+It was but one step with Mrs. Sheldon from peevish incredulity to frantic
+alarm; and Diana found it as difficult to tranquillise her newly-awakened
+fears as it had been to rouse her from absolute apathy.
+
+Change of air--yes, of course--Charlotte must have change of air that
+instant. Let a cab be sent for immediately to take them to the terminus.
+Change of air, of course. To Newhall--to Nice--to the Isle of Wight--to
+Malta; Mrs. Sheldon had heard of people going to Malta. Where should they
+go? Would Diana advise, and send for a cab, and pack a travelling bag
+without an instant's delay? The rest of the things could be sent
+afterwards. What did luggage matter, when Charlotte's life was at stake?
+
+At this point a flood of tears happily relieved poor Georgy's excited
+feelings, and then common sense and Diana Paget came to the rescue.
+
+"My dear Mrs. Sheldon," she said, with a quiet cheerful tone that went
+far to reassure the excited lady, "in the first place we must, above all
+things, refrain from any appearance of alarm. Her illness may, after all,
+be only an affair of the nerves; and there is certainly no cause for
+immediate fear."
+
+Georgy was tranquillised, and agreed to take matters quietly. She
+promised to arrange Charlotte's departure for Newhall, with Mr. Sheldon,
+that evening.
+
+"Of course, you know, my dear, I like to consult him about everything,"
+she said, apologetically. "It is a duty which one owes one's husband, you
+know, and a duty which, as a young woman about to marry, I cannot too
+much impress upon you; but in this case it is quite a matter of form: Mr.
+Sheldon never has objected to Charlotte's going to Newhall, and he is not
+likely to object now."
+
+The event proved Mrs. Sheldon mistaken as to this matter. Georgy proposed
+the visit to Newhall that evening, while the two girls were strolling
+listlessly in the dusky garden, and Mr. Sheldon most decidedly rejected
+the proposition.
+
+"If she wants change of air--and Dr. Doddleson recommended nothing of the
+kind--Newhall is not the place for her."
+
+"Why not, dear?"
+
+"It is too cold. Northerly aspect--no shelter--three hundred feet above
+York minster."
+
+"But Dorothy Mercer is such a kind motherly creature; she'd delight in
+nursing Lotta."
+
+"Yes," answered Mr. Sheldon, with a laugh, "and in quacking her. I know
+what those good motherly creatures are when they get an excuse for dosing
+some unhappy victim with their quack nostrums. If Charlotte went to
+Newhall, Mrs. Mercer would poi--would make her ten times worse than
+she is with old woman's remedies. Besides, as I said before, the place is
+too cold. That is a conclusive argument, I suppose?"
+
+He said this with some impatience of tone and manner. There was a haggard
+look in his face, a hurried harassed manner pervading him this evening,
+which had been growing upon him of late. Georgy was too slow of
+perception to remark this; but Diana Paget had remarked it, and had
+attributed the change in the stockbroker's manner to a blending of two
+anxieties.
+
+"He is anxious about money matters," she had said to herself, "and he is
+anxious about Charlotte's health. His lips, moving in whispered
+calculations, as he sits brooding by the fire, tell me of the first
+anxiety; his eyes, wandering furtively to his step-daughter's face every
+now and then, tell me of the second."
+
+This furtive anxiety of Mr. Sheldon's increased Diana Paget's anxiety.
+This man, who had a certain amount of medical knowledge, could no doubt
+read the diagnostics of that strange insidious illness, which had, as
+yet, no name, Diana, furtively watching his furtive looks, told herself
+that he read of danger.
+
+"If Charlotte wants change of air, let her go to Hastings," he said;
+"that is the kind of place for an invalid. I want rest myself; and
+there's such utter stagnation in the City nowadays that I can very well
+afford to give myself a holiday. We'll run down to Hastings, or the
+immediate neighbourhood of Hastings, for a week or two."
+
+"O Philip, how kind and considerate you are! I am sure, as I was
+observing to Miss Paget only today, you--"
+
+"Ah, by the bye, there's Miss Paget. Is it absolutely necessary that Miss
+Paget should go to Hastings with us?"
+
+"Well, dear, you see she has so kindly desired to remain with me for the
+quarter, so as to give me time to turn round, you know, with regard to
+caps and summer things, and so on--for, really, she has such taste, and
+does strike out such excellent ideas about turning, and dipping, and
+dyeing, that I don't know what will become of me when she leaves us; and
+it would look so pointed to--"
+
+"Yes; she had better go with us. But why all this fuss about Charlotte?
+Who put it into your head that she wants change of air?"
+
+Mr. Sheldon evidently considered it an established fact that any idea in
+his wife's head must needs have been put there by someone or other.
+
+"Well, you see, Diana and I were talking of Lotta this afternoon, and
+Diana quite alarmed me."
+
+"How so?" asked Mr. Sheldon, with a quick frown.
+
+"Why, she said it was evident, by the fact of poor dear Tom's dying of a
+fever, that his constitution must have been originally weak. And she said
+that perhaps Charlotte had inherited Tom's weak constitution--and
+frightened me dreadfully."
+
+"There is no occasion for you to be frightened; Charlotte will get on
+very well, I dare say, with care. But Miss Paget is a very sensible
+young woman, and is right in what she says. Charlotte's constitution is
+not strong."
+
+"O Philip!" said Georgy, in a faint wailing voice.
+
+"I dare say she will live to follow you and me to our graves," said Mr.
+Sheldon, with a hard laugh. "Ah, here she is!"
+
+Here she was, coming towards the open window near which her stepfather
+sat. Here she was, pale and tired, with her sauntering walk, dressed in
+white, and spectral in the gloaming. To the sad eyes of her mother she
+looked like a ghost. To the eyes of Philip Sheldon, a man not prone to
+poetic fancies, she looked even more ghostlike.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+MRS. WOOLPER IS ANXIOUS.
+
+Since the beginning of her illness, Charlotte Halliday had been the
+object and subject of many anxious thoughts in the minds of several
+people. That her stepfather had his anxieties about her--anxieties which
+he tried to hide--was obvious to the one person in the Bayswater villa
+who noted his looks, and tried to read the thoughts they indicated.
+
+Mrs. Sheldon's alarm, once fairly awakened, was not to be lulled to rest.
+And in Valentine Hawkehurst's heart there was an aching pain--a dull dead
+load of care, which had never been lightened from the hour when he first
+perceived the change in his dear one's face.
+
+There was one other person, an inhabitant of the Bayswater villa, who
+watched Charlotte Halliday at this time with a care as unresting as the
+care of mother or stepfather, bosom friend or plighted lover. This person
+was Ann Woolper. Mrs. Woolper had come to the villa prepared to find in
+Miss Halliday a frivolous self-satisfied young person, between whom and
+an old broken-down woman like herself there could be no sympathy. She had
+expected to be contemptuously--or, at the best, indifferently--entreated
+by the prosperous well-placed young lady, whom Mr. Sheldon had spoken of
+as a good girl, as girls go; a vague species of commendation, which, to
+the mind of Mrs. Woolper, promised very little.
+
+As clearly as Philip Sheldon dared express his wishes with regard to
+Charlotte Halliday, he had expressed them to Ann Woolper. What he would
+fain have said, was, "Watch my stepdaughter, and keep me well acquainted
+with every step she takes." Thus much he dared not say; but by
+insinuating that Tom Halliday's daughter was frivolous and reckless, and
+that her lover was not to be trusted, he had contrived to put Mrs.
+Woolper on the _qui vive_.
+
+"Mr. Philip's afraid she may go and marry this young man on the sly,
+before he's got the means to support a wife," she said to herself, as she
+meditated upon the meaning of her master's injunctions; "and well he may
+be. There's no knowing what young women are up to nowadays; and the more
+innocent and inexperienced a young woman is, the more she wants looking
+after. And Miss Georgy Craddock always was a poor fondy, up to naught but
+dressing herself fine, and streaming up and down Barlingford High Street
+with her old schoolfellows. Such as she ain't fit to be trusted with a
+daughter; and Mr. Philip knows that. He always was a deep one. But I'm
+glad he looks after Missy: there's many men, having got fast hold of th'
+father's brass, would let th' daughter marry Old Scratch, for the sake of
+gettin' rid of her."
+
+This is how Mrs. Woolper argued the matter. She came of a prudent race;
+and anything like prudence seemed to her a commendable virtue. She wished
+to think well of her master; for her he had been a Providence in the hour
+of calamity and old age. Where else could she look, if not to him? And to
+suspect him, or think ill of him, was to reject the one refuge offered to
+her distress. A magnanimous independence of spirit is not an easy virtue
+for the old and friendless and poor. The drowning wretch will scarcely
+question the soundness of the plank that sustains him upon the
+storm-tossed billows; nor was Mrs. Woolper inclined to question the
+motives of the man to whom she now owed her daily bread.
+
+It is possible that before invoking Mrs. Woolper from the ashes of the
+past to take her seat by the hearthstone of the present, Mr. Sheldon may
+have contemplated the question of her return in all its bearings, and
+may have assured himself that she was his own, by a tie not easily
+broken--his bond-slave, fettered hand and foot by the bondage of
+necessity.
+
+"What choice can she have, except the choice between my house and the
+workhouse?" he may naturally have asked himself; "and is it likely she
+will quarrel with her bread-and-butter in order to fall back upon dry
+bread?" Mr. Sheldon, contemplating this and all other questions from his
+one unchanging standpoint, may reasonably have concluded that Mrs.
+Woolper would do nothing opposed to her own interests; and that so long
+as it suited her interest to remain at the Lawn, and to serve him, she
+would there remain, his docile and unquestioning slave.
+
+The influence of affection, the force of generous impulse, were qualities
+that did not come into Mr. Sheldon's calculations upon this subject. His
+addition and subtraction, division and multiplication, were all based on
+one system.
+
+That happy and unconscious art by which Charlotte Halliday made herself
+dear to all who knew her had a speedy effect upon the old housekeeper.
+The girl's amiable consideration for her age and infirmities; the pretty
+affectionate familiarity with which she treated this countrywoman, who
+had known her father, and who could talk to her of Yorkshire and
+Yorkshire people, soon made their way to Nancy Woolper's heart of hearts.
+For Miss Halliday to come to the housekeeper's room with some message
+from her mother, and to linger for a few minutes' chat, was a delight to
+Mrs. Woolper. She would have detained the bright young visitant for hours
+instead of minutes, if she could have found any excuse for so doing. Nor
+was there any treason against Mr. Sheldon in her growing attachment to
+his stepdaughter. Whenever Nancy spoke of that master and benefactor, she
+spoke with unfeigned gratitude and affection.
+
+"I nursed your step-papa as a baby, Miss Halliday," she said very often
+on these occasions. "You wouldn't think, to look at him now, that he ever
+was _that_, would you? But he was one of the finest babies you could wish
+to see--tall, and strong, and with eyes that pierced one through, they
+were so bright and big and black. He was rather stubborn-spirited with
+his teething; but what baby isn't trying at such times? I had rare work
+with him, I can tell you, Miss, walking him about of nights, and jogging
+him till there wasn't a jog left in me, as you may say, from sleepiness.
+I often wonder if he thinks of this now, when I see him looking so grave
+and stern. But, you see, being jogged doesn't impress the mind like
+having to jog; and though I can bring that time back as plain as if it
+was yesterday, with the very nursery I slept in at Barlingford, and the
+rushlight in a tall iron cage on the floor, and the shadow of the cage on
+the bare whitewashed walls--it's clean gone out of his mind, I dare say."
+
+"I'm afraid it has, Nancy."
+
+"But, O, I was fond of him, Miss Halliday; and what I went through with
+him about his teeth made me only the fonder of him. He was the first baby
+I ever nursed, you see, and the last; for before Master George came to
+town I'd taken to the cooking, and Mrs. Sheldon hired another girl as
+nurse; a regular softy _she_ was, and it isn't her fault that Master
+George has got anything christian-like in the way of a back, for the way
+she carried that blessed child used to make my blood run cold."
+
+Thus would Mrs. Woolper discourse whenever she had a fair excuse for
+detaining Miss Halliday in her comfortable apartment. Charlotte did not
+perceive much interest in these reminiscences of Mr. Sheldon's infancy,
+but she was much too kind to bring them abruptly to a close by any show
+of impatience. When she could get Nancy to talk of Barlingford and Hyley,
+and the people whom Charlotte herself had known as a child, the
+conversation was really interesting; and these recollections formed a
+link between the old woman and the fair young damsel.
+
+When the change arose in Charlotte's health and spirits, Mrs. Woolper was
+one of the first to perceive it. She was skilled in those old woman's
+remedies which Mr. Sheldon held in such supreme contempt, and she would
+fain have dosed the invalid with nauseous decoctions of hops, or
+home-brewed quinine. Charlotte appreciated the kindness of the intent,
+but she rebelled against the home-brewed medicines, and pinned her faith
+to the more scientific and less obnoxious preparations procured from the
+chemist's.
+
+For some time Nancy made light of the girl's ailments, though she watched
+her with unfailing attention.
+
+"You ain't a-done growing yet, miss, I'll lay," she said.
+
+"But I'm more than twenty-one, Nancy. People don't grow after they're of
+age, do they?"
+
+"I've known them as have, miss; I don't say it's common, but it has been
+done. And then there's the weakness that comes after you've done growing.
+Girls of your age are apt to be faint and lollopy-like, as you may say;
+especially when they're stived up in a smoky place like London. You ought
+to go to Hyley, miss, where you was born; that's the place to set you
+up."
+
+The time had come when the change was no longer matter for doubt. Day by
+day Charlotte grew weaker and paler; day by day that bright and joyous
+creature, whose presence had made an atmosphere of youth and gladness
+even in that prim dwelling-place, receded farther into the dimness of
+the past; until to think of what she had been seemed like recalling the
+image of the dead. Nancy marked the alteration with a strange pain, so
+sharp, so bitter, that its sharpness and bitterness were a perpetual
+perplexity to her.
+
+"If the poor dear young thing is meant to go, there's no need for me to
+fret about it all day long, and wake up sudden in the night with cold
+water standing out upon my forehead at the thought of it. I haven't known
+her six months; and if she is pretty and sweet-spoken, it's not my place
+to give way at the thoughts of losing her. She's not my own flesh and
+blood; and I've sat by to watch them go, times and often, without feeling
+as I do when I see the change in her day after day. Why should it seem so
+dreadful to me?"
+
+Why indeed? This was a question for which Mrs. Woolper could find no
+answer. She knew that the pain and horror which she felt were something
+more than natural, but beyond this point her thoughts refused to travel.
+A superstitious feeling arose at this point, to usurp the office of
+reason, and she accounted for the strangeness of Miss Halliday's illness
+as she might have done had she lived in the sixteenth century, and been
+liable to the suspicion of nocturnal careerings on broomsticks.
+
+"I'm sorry Mr. Philip's house should be unlucky to that sweet young
+creature," she said to herself. "It was unlucky to the father; and now it
+seems as if it was going to be unlucky to the daughter. And Mr. Philip
+won't be any richer for her death. Mrs. Sheldon has told me times and
+often that all Tom Halliday's money went to my master when she married
+him, and he has doubled and trebled it by his cleverness. Miss
+Charlotte's death wouldn't bring him a sixpence."
+
+This was the gist of Mrs. Woolper's meditations very often nowadays. But
+the strange sense of perplexity, the nameless fear, the vague horror,
+were not to be banished from her mind. A sense of some shapeless presence
+for ever at her side haunted her by day and night. What was it? What did
+its presence portend? It was as if a figure, shrouded from head to foot,
+was there, dark and terrible, at her elbow, and she would not turn to
+meet the horror face to face. Sometimes the phantom hand lifted a corner
+of the veil, and the shade said, "Look at me! See who and what I am! You
+have seen me before. I am here again! and this time you shall not refuse
+to meet me face to face! I am the shadow of the horror you suspected in
+the past!"
+
+The shadowy fears which oppressed Mrs. Woolper during this period did not
+in any way lessen her practical usefulness. From the commencement of
+Charlotte's slow decline she had shown herself attentive, and even
+officious, in all matters relating to the invalid. With her own hands she
+decanted the famous port which Georgy fetched from the particular bin in
+Mr. Sheldon's carefully arranged cellar. When the physician was called
+in, and wrote his harmless little prescription, it was Mrs. Woolper who
+carried the document to the dispensing chemist, and brought back the
+innocent potion, which might, peradventure, effect some slight good, and
+was too feeble a decoction to do any harm. Charlotte duly appreciated all
+this kindness; but she repeatedly assured the housekeeper that her
+ailments were not worthy of so much care.
+
+It was Mrs. Woolper whom Mr. Sheldon employed to get lodgings for the
+family, when it had been ultimately decided that a change to the seaside
+was the best cure for Miss Halliday.
+
+"I am too busy to go to Hastings myself this week," he said; "but I
+shall be prepared to spend a fortnight there after next Monday. What I
+want you to do, Nancy, is to slip down tomorrow, with a second-class
+return-ticket, and look about for a nice place for us. I don't care about
+being in Hastings; there's too much cockneyism in the place at this time
+of year. There's a little village called Harold's Hill, within a mile or
+so of St. Leonard's--a dull, out-of-the-way place, but rustic and
+picturesque, and all that kind of thing--the sort of place that women
+like. Now, I'd rather stay at that place than at Hastings. So you can
+take a fly at the station, drive straight to Harold's Hill, and secure
+the best lodgings you can get."
+
+"You think as the change of air will do Miss Halliday good?" asked Mrs.
+Woolper anxiously, after she had promised to do all her kind master
+required of her.
+
+"Do I think it will do her good? Of course I do. Sea-air and
+sea-bathing will set her up in no time; there's nothing particular the
+matter with her."
+
+"No, Mr. Philip; that's what bothers me about the whole thing. There's
+nothing particular the matter with her; and yet she pines and dwindles,
+and dwindles and pines, till it makes one's heart ache to see her."
+
+Philip Sheldon's face darkened, and he threw himself back in his chair
+with an impatient movement. If he had chosen to do so, he could have
+prevented that darkening of his face; but he did not consider Mrs.
+Woolper a person of sufficient importance to necessitate the regulation
+of his countenance. What was she but an ignorant, obstinate old woman,
+who would most probably perish in the streets if he chose to turn her out
+of doors? There are men who consider their clerks and retainers such very
+dirt, that they would continue the forging of a bill of exchange, or
+complete the final touches of a murder, with a junior clerk putting coals
+on the fire, or an errand-boy standing cap in hand on the threshold of
+the door. They cannot realize the fact that dirt such as this is flesh
+and blood, and may denounce them by-and-by in a witness-box.
+
+Of all contingencies Mr. Sheldon least expected that this old woman could
+prove troublesome to him--this abject wretch, whose daily bread depended
+on his will. He could not imagine that there are circumstances under
+which such abject creatures will renounce their daily bread, and die of
+hunger, rather than accept the means of life from one hateful hand.
+
+"If you want to know anything about Miss Halliday's illness," he said in
+his hardest voice, and with his hardest look, "you had better apply to
+Dr. Doddleson, the physician who has prescribed for her. I do not attend
+her, you see, and I am in no way responsible for her health. When I was
+attending her father you favoured me by doubting my skill, if I judged
+rightly as to your tone and manner on one occasion. I don't want to be
+brought to book by you, Mrs. Woolper, about Miss Halliday's altered looks
+or Miss Halliday's illness; I have nothing to do with either."
+
+"How should I think you had, sir? Don't be angry with me, or hard upon
+me, Mr. Phil. I nursed you when you was but a baby, and you're nearer and
+dearer to me than any other master could be. Why, I have but to shut my
+eyes now, and I can feel your little hand upon my neck, as it used to lie
+there, so soft and dear. And then I look down at the hand on the table,
+strong and dark, and clenched so firm, and I ask myself, Can it be the
+same? For the sake of that time, Mr. Phil, don't be hard upon me. There's
+nothing I wouldn't do to serve you; there's nothing you could do that
+would turn me from you. There's no man living in this world, sir, that
+oughtn't to be glad to know of one person that nothing can turn from
+him."
+
+"That's a very fine sentiment, my good soul," replied Mr. Sheldon coolly;
+"but, you see, it's only an _ex parte_ statement; and as the case stands
+there is no opportunity for the display of those fine feelings you talk
+about. You happen to want a home in your old age, and I happen to be able
+to give you a home. Under such circumstances, your own good sense will
+show you that all sentimental talk about standing by me, and not turning
+away from me, is absolute bosh."
+
+The old woman sighed heavily. She had offered her master a fidelity which
+involved the abnegation of all impulses of her own heart and mind, and he
+rejected her love and her service. And then, after the first dreary sense
+of his coldness, she felt better pleased that it should be so. The man
+who spoke to her in this harsh uncompromising way could have no cause to
+fear her. In the mind of such a man there could surely be no secret
+chamber within which she had, with his knowledge, almost penetrated.
+
+"I won't trouble you any more, sir," she said mournfully. "I dare say I'm
+a foolish old woman."
+
+"You are, Nancy. We don't get wiser as we grow older, you see; and when
+we let our tongues wag, we're apt to talk nonsense. The quieter you keep
+your tongue, the better for yourself, in more ways than one. To a useful
+old woman about the place I've no objection; but a chattering old woman I
+will not have at any price."
+
+After this everything was settled in the most agreeable manner. Nancy
+Woolper's journey to Hastings was fully arranged; and early the next
+morning she started, brisk and active, in spite of her sixty-eight years
+of age. She returned at night, having secured very pleasant lodgings at
+the village of Harold's Hill.
+
+"And a very sweet place it is, my dear Miss Lotta," she said to Charlotte
+the next day, when she described her adventures. "The apartments are at a
+farmhouse overlooking the sea; and the smell of the cows under your
+windows, and the sea-breezes blowing across the farmyard, can't fail to
+bring the colour back to your pretty cheeks, and the brightness back to
+your pretty eyes."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+VALENTINE'S SKELETON.
+
+The idea of this visit to the Sussex village by the sea seemed delightful
+to every one except Gustave Lenoble, who was still in town, and who
+thought it a hard thing that he should be deprived of Diana's society
+during an entire fortnight, for the sake of this sickly Miss Halliday.
+
+For the rest, there was hope and gladness in the thought of this change
+of dwelling. Charlotte languished for fresher breezes and more rustic
+prospects than the breezes and prospects of Bayswater; Diana looked to
+the sea-air as the doctor of doctors for her fading friend; and Valentine
+cherished the same hope.
+
+On Valentine Hawkehurst the burden of an unlooked-for sorrow had weighed
+very heavily. To see this dear girl, who was the beginning, middle, and
+end of all his hopes, slowly fading before his eyes, was, of all agonies
+that could have fallen to his lot, the sharpest and most bitter. Not
+Ugolino sitting silent amidst his famishing children--not Helen, when she
+would fain that the tempest had swept her from earth's surface on that
+evil day when she was born--not Penelope, when she cried on Diana, the
+high-priestess of death, to release her from the weariness of her
+days--not Agamemnon, when the fatal edict had gone forth, and his fair
+young daughter looked into his face, and asked him if it was true that
+she was to die--not one of these typical mourners could have suffered a
+keener torture than that which rent this young man's heart, as he marked
+the stealthy steps of the Destroyer drawing nearer and nearer the woman
+he loved. Of all possible calamities, this was the last he had ever
+contemplated. Sometimes, in moments of doubt or despondency, he had
+thought it possible that poverty, the advice of friends, caprice or
+inconstancy on the part of Charlotte herself, should sever them. But
+among the possible enemies to his happiness he had never counted Death.
+What had Death to do with so fair and happy a creature as Charlotte
+Halliday? she who, until some two months before this time, might have
+been the divine Hygieia in person--so fresh was her youthful bloom, so
+buoyant her step, so bright her glances. Valentine's hardest penance was
+the necessity for the concealment of his anxiety. The idea that
+Charlotte's illness might be--nay, must be--for the greater part an
+affair of the nerves was always paramount in his mind. He and Diana had
+talked of the subject together whenever they found an opportunity for so
+doing, and had comforted themselves with the assurance that the nerves
+alone were to blame; and they were the more inclined to think this from
+the conduct of Dr. Doddleson, on that physician's visits to Miss
+Halliday. Mrs. Sheldon had been present on each occasion, and to Mrs.
+Sheldon alone had the physician given utterance to his opinion of the
+case. That opinion, though expressed with a certain amount of
+professional dignity, amounted to very little. "Our dear young friend
+wanted strength; and what we had to do was to give our dear young friend
+strength--vital power. Yes--er--um, that was the chief point. And what
+kind of diet might our dear young friend take now? Was it a light diet, a
+little roast mutton--not too much done, but not underdone? O dear, no.
+And a light pudding? what he would call--if he might be permitted to have
+his little joke--a nursery pudding." And then the old gentleman had
+indulged in a senile chuckle, and patted Charlotte's head with his fat
+old fingers. "And our dear young friend's room, now, was it a large
+room?--good! and what was the aspect now, south?--good again! nothing
+better, unless, perhaps, south-west; but, of course, everyone's
+rooms can't look south-west. A little tonic draught, and gentle daily
+exercise in that nice garden, will set our dear young friend right again.
+Our temperament is nervous we are a sensitive plant, and want care." And
+then the respectable septuagenarian took his fee, and shuffled off to his
+carriage. And this was all that Mrs. Sheldon could tell Diana, or Nancy
+Woolper, both of whom questioned her closely about her interview with the
+doctor. To Diana and to Valentine there was hope to be gathered from the
+very vagueness of the physician's opinion. If there had been anything
+serious the matter, the medical adviser must needs have spoken more
+seriously. He came again and again. He found the pulse a little weaker,
+the patient a little more nervous, with a slight tendency to hysteria,
+and so on; but he still declared that there were no traces of organic
+disease, and he still talked of Miss Halliday's ailments with a cheery
+easy-going manner that was very reassuring.
+
+In his moments of depression Valentine pinned his faith upon Dr.
+Doddleson. Without organic disease, he told himself, his darling could
+not perish. He looked for Dr. Doddleson's name in the Directory, and took
+comfort from the fact of that physician's residence in a fashionable West
+End square. He took further comfort from the splendour of the doctor's
+equipage, as depicted to him by Mrs. Sheldon; and from the doctor's age
+and experience, as copiously described by the same lady.
+
+"There is only one fact that I have ever reproached myself with in
+relation to my poor Tom," said Georgy, who, in talking to strangers of
+her first husband, was apt to impress them with the idea that she was
+talking of a favourite cat; "and that is, the youthfulness of the
+doctor Mr. Sheldon employed. Of course I am well aware that Mr. Sheldon
+would not have consulted the young man if he had not thought him
+clever; but I could lay my head upon my pillow at night with a clearer
+conscience if poor Tom's doctor had been an older and more experienced
+person. Now, that's what I like about Dr. Doddleson. There's a gravity--a
+weight--about a man of that age which inspires one with immediate
+confidence. I'm sure the serious manner with which he questioned me about
+Lotta's diet, and the aspect of her room, was quite delightful."
+
+In Dr. Doddleson, under Providence, Valentine was fain to put his trust.
+He did not know that the worthy doctor was one of those harmless
+inanities who, by the aid of money and powerful connections, are
+sometimes forced into a position which nature never intended them to
+occupy. Among the real working men of that great and admirable
+brotherhood, the medical profession, Dr. Doddleson had no rank; but he
+was the pet physician of fashionable dowagers suffering from chronic
+laziness or periodical attacks of ill-humour. For the spleen or the
+vapours no one was a better adviser than Dr. Doddleson. He could afford
+to waste half an hour upon the asking of questions which the fair
+patient's maid might as well have asked, and the suggestions of remedies
+which any intelligent abigail could as easily have suggested. Elderly
+ladies believed in him because he was pompous and ponderous, lived in an
+expensive neighbourhood, and drove a handsome equipage. He wore
+mourning-rings left him by patients who never had anything particular the
+matter with them, and who, dying of sheer old age, or sheer over-eating,
+declared with their final gasp that Dr. Doddleson had been the guardian
+angel of their frail lives during the last twenty years.
+
+This was the man who, of all the medical profession resident in London,
+Mr. Sheldon had selected as his stepdaughter's medical adviser in a case
+so beyond common experience, that a man of wide practice and keen
+perception was especially needed for its treatment.
+
+Dr. Doddleson, accustomed to attribute the fancied ailments of
+fashionable dowagers to want of tone, and accustomed to prescribe the
+mildest preparations with satisfaction to his patients and profit to
+himself dwelt upon the same want of tone, and prescribed the same
+harmless remedies, in his treatment of Charlotte Halliday. When he found
+her no better--nay, even worse--after some weeks of this treatment, he
+was puzzled; and for one harmless remedy he substituted another harmless
+remedy, and waited another week to see what effect the second harmless
+remedy might have on this somewhat obstinate young person.
+
+And this was the broken reed to which Valentine clung in the day of
+his trouble.
+
+Bitter were his days and sleepless were his nights in this dark period of
+his existence. He went to the Bayswater villa nearly every day now. It
+was no longer time for etiquette or ceremony. His darling was fading day
+by day; and it was his right to watch the slow sad change, and, if it
+were possible, to keep the enemy at arm's-length. Every day he came to
+spend one too brief hour with his dear love; every day he greeted her
+with the same fond smile, and beguiled her with the same hopeful talk. He
+brought her new books and flowers, and any foolish trifle which he
+fancied might beguile her thoughts from the contemplation of that
+mysterious malady which seemed beyond the reach of science and Dr.
+Doddleson. He sat and talked with her of the future--that future which in
+their secret thoughts both held to be a sweet sad fable--the hyperborean
+garden of their dreams. And after spending this too sweet, too bitter
+hour with his beloved, Mr. Hawkehurst would diplomatise in order to have
+a little talk with Diana as he left the house. Did Diana think his dear
+girl better to-day, or worse--surely not worse? He had fancied she had
+more colour, more of her old gaiety of manner. She had seemed a little
+feverish; but that might be the excitement of his visit. And so on, and
+so on, with sad and dreary repetition.
+
+And then, having gone away from that house with an aching heart, the
+young magazine-writer went back to his lodgings, and plunged into the
+dashing essay or the smart pleasant story which was to constitute his
+monthly contribution to the _Cheapside_ or the _Charing Cross_. Gaiety,
+movement, rollicking, Harry Lorrequer-like spirits were demanded for the
+_Cheapside_; a graceful union of brilliancy and depth was required for
+the _Charing Cross_. And, O, be sure the critics lay in wait to catch the
+young scribbler tripping! An anachronism here, a secondhand idea there,
+and the _West End Wasp_ shrieked its war-whoop in an occasional note; or
+the _Minerva_ published a letter from a correspondent in the Scilly
+Islands, headed "Another Literary Jack Sheppard," to say that in his
+"Imperial Dictionary" he had discovered with profound indignation a whole
+column of words feloniously and mendaciously appropriated by the writer
+of such and such an article in the _Cheapside_. While the sunlight of
+hope had shone upon him, Mr. Hawkehurst had found the hardest work
+pleasant. Was he not working for _her_ sake? Did not his future union
+with that dear girl depend upon his present industry? It had seemed to
+him as if she stood at his elbow while he wrote, as Pallas stood beside
+Achilles at the council, invisible to all but her favourite. It was that
+mystic presence which lent swiftness to his pen. When he was tired and
+depressed, the thought of Charlotte had revived his courage and
+vanquished his fatigue. Pleasant images crowded upon him when he thought
+of her. What could be easier than for him to write a love-story? He had
+but to create a shadowy Charlotte for his heroine, and the stream of
+foolish lover's babble flowed from his pen perennial and inexhaustible.
+To his reading she lent a charm and a grace that made the most perfect
+poetry still more poetical. It was not Achilles and Helen who met on
+Mount Ida, but Valentine and Charlotte; it was not Paolo and Francesca
+who read the fatal book together, but Valentine and Charlotte, in an
+unregenerate and mediaeval state of mind. The mere coincidence of a name
+made the "Sorrows of Werter" delightful. The all-pervading presence was
+everywhere and in everything. His religion was not Pantheism, but
+Charlottism.
+
+Now all was changed. A brooding care was with him in every moment. The
+mystic presence was still close to him in every hour of his lonely days
+and nights; but that image, which had been fair and blooming as the
+incarnation of youth and spring-time, was now a pale shrouded phantom
+which he dared not contemplate. He still wrote on--for it is marvellous
+how the pen will travel and the mind will project itself into the
+shadow-world of fancy while cankerous care gnaws the weary heart. Nay, it
+is perhaps at these times that the imagination is most active; for the
+world of shadows is a kind of refuge for the mind that dare not dwell
+upon realities. Who can say what dull, leaden, care may have weighed down
+the heart of William Shakespeare when his mind conceived that monster of
+a poet's grand imaginings, Othello! There is the flavour of racking care
+in that mighty creation. The strong soul wantonly tortured by a sordid
+wretch; the noble spirit distraught, the honourable life wrecked for so
+poor a motive; that sense of the "something in this world amiss," which
+the poet, of all other creatures, feels most keenly.
+
+With grief and fear as his constant companions, Valentine Hawkehurst
+toiled on bravely, patiently. Hope had not deserted him; but between hope
+and fear the contest was unceasing. Sometimes hope had the best of it for
+a while, and the toiler comforted himself with the thought that this dark
+cloud would pass anon from the horizon of his life; and then he counted
+his gains, and found that the fruit of his labours was increasing
+monthly, as his name gained rank among the band of young _littérateurs_.
+The day when he might count upon that income which Mr. Sheldon demanded
+as his qualification for matrimony did not appear far distant. Given a
+certain amount of natural ability, and the industrious and indefatigable
+young writer may speedily emerge from obscurity, and take his place in
+the great army of those gallant soldiers whose only weapon is the pen.
+Whatever good fortune had come to Valentine Hawkehurst he had worked for
+with all honesty of purpose. The critics were not slow to remark that he
+worked at a white-hot haste, and must needs be a shallow pretender
+because he was laborious and indefatigable.
+
+Before the beginning of Charlotte's slow decline he had fancied himself
+the happiest of men. There were more deposit-receipts in his desk. The
+nest-egg, about the hatching whereof there had been such cackling and
+crowing some months ago, was now one of many eggs; for the hard-working
+scribbler had no leisure in which to be extravagant, had he been so
+minded. The purchase of a half-circlet of diamonds for his betrothed's
+slim finger had been his only folly.
+
+Charlotte had remonstrated with him on the impropriety of such an
+extravagance, and had exacted from him a promise that this wild and
+Monte-Christo-like course should be pursued no further; but she was very
+proud of her half-hoop of diamonds nevertheless, and was wont to press it
+tenderly to her lips before she laid it aside for the night.
+
+"There must be no more such extravagance, sir," she said to her lover,
+when he sat by her side twisting the ring round and round on her pretty
+finger. Alas, how loose the ring had become since it had first been
+placed there!
+
+"Consider the future, Valentine," continued the girl, hopeful of mood
+while her hand rested in his. "Do you suppose we can furnish our cottage
+at Wimbledon if we rush into such wild expenses as diamond rings? Do you
+know that _I_ am saving money, Valentine? Yes, positively. Papa gives me
+a very good allowance for my dresses, and bonnets, and things, you know,
+and I used to be extravagant and spend it all. But now I have become the
+most miserly creature; and I have a little packet of money upstairs which
+you shall put in the Unitas Bank with the rest of your wealth. Diana and
+I have been darning, and patching, and cutting, and contriving, in the
+most praiseworthy manner. Even this silk has been turned. You did not
+think that, did you, when you admired it so?"
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst looked at his beloved with a tender smile. The exact
+significance of the operation of turning, as applied to silk dresses, was
+somewhat beyond his comprehension; but he felt sure that to turn must be
+a laudable action, else why that air of pride with which Charlotte
+informed him of the fact?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+AT HAROLD'S HILL.
+
+The summer sun shone upon the village of Harold's Hill when Charlotte
+arrived there with Mrs. Sheldon and Diana Paget. Mr. Sheldon was to
+follow them on the same day by a later train; and Valentine was to come
+two days afterwards to spend the peaceful interval between Saturday and
+Monday with his betrothed. He had seen the travellers depart from the
+London Bridge terminus, but Mr. Sheldon had been there also, and there
+had been no opportunity for confidential communication between the
+lovers.
+
+Of all Sussex villages Harold's Hill is perhaps the prettiest. The grey
+old Saxon church, the scattered farmhouses and pleasant rustic cottages,
+are built on the slope of a hill, and all the width of ocean lies below
+the rustic windows. The roses and fuchsias of the cottage gardens seem
+all the brighter by contrast with that broad expanse of blue. The fresh
+breath of the salt sea blends with the perfume of new-mown hay and all
+the homely odours of the farmyard. The lark sings high in the blue vault
+of heaven above the church, and over the blue of the sea the gull skims
+white in the sunshine. The fisherman and the farm labourer have their
+cottages side by side, nestling cosily to leeward of the hilly winding
+road.
+
+This hilly winding road in the July afternoon seemed to Charlotte almost
+like the way to Paradise.
+
+"It is like going to heaven, Di!" she cried, with her eyes fixed on the
+square tower of the old grey church. She wondered why sudden tears sprang
+to Diana's eyes as she said this. Miss Paget brushed the unbidden tears
+away with a quick gesture of her hand, and smiled at her friend.
+
+"Yes, dear, the village is very pretty, isn't it?"
+
+"It looks awfully dull!" said Mrs. Sheldon, with a shudder; "and, Diana,
+I declare there isn't a single shop. Where are we to get our provisions?
+I told Mr. Sheldon St. Leonards would have been a better place for us."
+
+"O mamma, St. Leonards is the very essence of all that is tame and
+commonplace, compared to this darling rural village! Look, do look, at
+that fisherman's cottage, with the nets hanging out to dry in the
+sunshine; just like a picture of Hook's!"
+
+"What's the use of going on about fishermen's cottages, Lotta?" Mrs.
+Sheldon demanded, peevishly. "Fishermen's cottages won't provide us with
+butcher's meat. Where are we to get your little bit of roast mutton? Dr.
+Doddleson laid such a stress upon the roast mutton."
+
+"The sea-air will do me more good than all the mutton that ever was
+roasted at Eton, mamma. O, dear, is this our farmhouse?" cried Charlotte,
+as the vehicle drew up at a picturesque gate. "O, what a love of a house!
+what diamond-paned windows! what sweet white curtains! and a cow staring
+at me quite in the friendliest way across the gate! O, can we be so happy
+as to live here?"
+
+"Diana," cried Mrs. Sheldon, in a solemn voice, "not a single shop have
+we passed--not so much as a post-office! And as to haberdashery, I'm sure
+you might be reduced to rags in this place before you could get so much
+as a yard of glazed lining!"
+
+The farmhouse was one of those ideal homesteads which, to the dweller in
+cities, seems fair as the sapphire-ceiled chambers of the house of
+Solomon. Charlotte was enraptured by the idea that this was to be her
+home for the next fortnight.
+
+"I wish it could be for ever, Di," she said, as the two girls were
+inspecting the rustic, dimity-draperied, lavender-and-rose-leaf-perfumed
+bedchambers. "Who would wish to go back to prim suburban Bayswater after
+this? Valentine and I could lodge here after our marriage. It is better
+than Wimbledon. Grand thoughts would come to him with the thunder of the
+stormy waves; and on calm bright days like this the rippling water would
+whisper pretty fancies into his ear. Why, to live here would make any one
+a poet. I think I could write a novel myself, if I lived here long
+enough."
+
+After this they arranged the pretty sitting-room, and placed an
+easy-chair by the window for Charlotte, an arm-chair opposite this for
+Mrs. Sheldon, and between the two a little table for the fancy work and
+books and flowers, and all the small necessities of feminine existence.
+And then--while Mrs. Sheldon prowled about the rooms, and discovered so
+many faults and made so many objections as to give evidence of a fine
+faculty for invention unsuspected in her hitherto--Charlotte and Diana
+explored the garden and peeped at the farmyard, where the friendly cow
+still stared over the white gate, just as she had stared when the fly
+came to a stop, as if she had not yet recovered from the astonishment
+created in her pastoral mind by that phenomenal circumstance. And then
+Charlotte was suddenly tired, and there came upon her that strange
+dizziness which was one of her most frequent symptoms. Diana led her
+immediately back to the house, and established her comfortably in her
+easy-chair.
+
+"I must be very ill," she said, plaintively; "for even the novelty of
+this pretty place cannot make me happy long."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Sheldon arrived in the evening, bringing with him a supply of that
+simple medicine which Charlotte took three times a day. He had remembered
+that there was no dispensing chemist at Harold's Hill, and that it would
+be necessary to send to St. Leonards for the medicine, and had therefore
+brought with him a double quantity of the mild tonic.
+
+"It was very kind of you to think of it, though I really don't believe
+the stuff does me any good," said Charlotte. "Nancy Woolper used to get
+it for me at Bayswater. She made quite a point of fetching it from the
+chemist's herself."
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon. "Nancy troubled herself about your
+medicine, did she?"
+
+"Yes, papa; and about me altogether. If I were her own daughter she could
+scarcely have seemed more anxious."
+
+The stockbroker made a mental note of this in the memorandum-book of his
+brain. Mrs. Woolper was officious, was she, and suspicious?--altogether a
+troublesome sort of person.
+
+"I think a few weeks of workhouse fare would be wholesome for that old
+lady," he said to himself. "There are some people who never know when
+they are well off."
+
+Saturday afternoon came in due course, after a long and dreary interval,
+as it seemed to Charlotte, for whom time travelled very slowly, so
+painful was the weariness of illness. Now and then a sudden flash of
+excitement brought the old brightness to her face, the old gaiety to her
+accents; but the brightness faded very soon, and the languor of illness
+was very perceptible.
+
+Punctual to the hour at which he was expected, Mr. Hawkehurst appeared,
+in radiant spirits, laden with new magazines, delighted with the village,
+enraptured with the garden, enchanted with the sea; full of talk and
+animation, with all sorts of news to tell his beloved. Such and such a
+book was a failure, such and such a comedy was a fiasco; Jones's novel
+had made a hit; Brown's picture was the talk of the year; and Charlotte
+must see the picture that had been talked about, and the play that had
+been condemned, when she returned to town.
+
+For an hour the lovers sat in the pretty farmhouse parlour talking
+together thus, the summer sea and the garden flowers before them, and a
+bird singing high in the calm blue heaven. Charlotte's talk was somewhat
+languid, though it was perfect happiness for her to be seated thus, with
+her betrothed by her side; but Valentine's gaiety of spirits never
+flagged; and when Mrs. Sheldon hinted to him that too long a conversation
+might fatigue the dear invalid, he left the parlour with a smile upon his
+face, and a cheery promise to return after an hour's ramble.
+
+He did not ramble far. He went straight to a little wooden summer-house
+in the remotest corner of the humble garden; and thither Diana Paget
+followed him. She had learned the language of his face in the time of
+their daily companionship, and she had seen a look as he left the house
+which told her of the struggle his cheerfulness had cost him.
+
+"You must not be downhearted, Valentine," she said, as she went into the
+summer-house, where he sat in a listless attitude, with his arms lying
+loosely folded on the rustic table.
+
+He did not answer her.
+
+"You don't think her worse--much worse--do you, Valentine?"
+
+"Worse? I have seen death in her face to-day!" he cried; and then he let
+his forehead fall upon his folded arms, and sobbed aloud.
+
+Diana stood by his side watching that outburst of grief. When the
+passionate storm of tears was past, she comforted him as best she might.
+The change so visible to him was not so plain to her. He had hoped that
+the breath of the ocean would have magical power to restore the invalid.
+He had come to Harold's Hill full of hope, and instead of the beginning
+of an improvement he saw the progress of decay.
+
+"Why did not Sheldon send for the doctor," he asked, indignantly,--"the
+physician who has attended her? He might have telegraphed to that man."
+
+"Charlotte is taking Dr. Doddleson's medicine," said Diana, "and all his
+directions are most carefully obeyed."
+
+"What of that, if she grows worse? The doctor should see her daily,
+hourly, if necessary. And if he cannot cure her, another doctor should be
+sent for. Good heavens, Diana! are we to let her fade and sink from us
+before our eyes? I will go back to London at once, and bring that man
+Doddleson down by the night mail."
+
+"Your going back to London would grieve and alarm Charlotte. You can
+telegraph for the doctor; or, at least, Mr. Sheldon can do so. It would
+not do for you to interfere without his permission."
+
+"It would not do!" echoed Valentine, angrily. "Do you think that I
+am going to stand upon punctilio, or to consider what will do or
+will not do?"
+
+"Above all things, you must avoid alarming Charlotte," pleaded Diana.
+
+"Do you think I do not know that? Do you think I did not feel that just
+now, when I sat by her side, talking inane rubbish about books and plays
+and pictures, while every stolen glance at my darling's face was like a
+dagger thrust into my heart? I will not alarm her. I will consult Mr.
+Sheldon--will do anything, everything, to save her! To save her! O my
+God, has it come to that?"
+
+He grew a little calmer presently under Diana's influence, and went
+slowly back to the house. He avoided the open window by which Charlotte
+was sitting. He had not yet schooled himself to meet her questioning
+looks. He went to the room where they were to dine, a duller and darker
+apartment than the parlour, and here he found Mr. Sheldon reading a
+paper, one of the eternal records of the eternal money-market.
+
+The stockbroker had been in and out of the house all day, now sauntering
+by the sea-shore, now leaning moodily, with folded arms, on the garden
+gate, meditative and silent as the cow that stared at Charlotte; now
+pacing the garden walks, with his hands in his pockets and his head bent.
+Diana, who in her anxiety kept a close watch upon Mr. Sheldon's
+movements, had noted his restlessness, and perceived in it the sign of
+growing anxiety on his part. She knew that he had once called himself
+surgeon-dentist, and had some medical knowledge, if not so much as he
+took credit for possessing. He must, therefore, be better able to judge
+the state of Charlotte's health than utterly ignorant observers. If he
+were uneasy, there must be real cause for uneasiness. It was on this
+account, and on this account only, that Diana watched him.
+
+"He must love her better than I gave him credit for being able to love
+any one," Miss Paget said to herself. "Dear girl! The coldest heart is
+touched by her sweetness."
+
+Mr. Sheldon looked up from his newspaper as Valentine came into the room,
+and saluted the visitor with a friendly nod.
+
+"Glad to see you, Hawkehurst," he said. "_Semper fidelis_, and that
+kind of thing; the very model of devoted lovers. Why, man alive, how
+glum you look!"
+
+"I think I have reason to look glum," answered Valentine, gravely; "I
+have seen Charlotte."
+
+"Yes? And don't you find her improving?--gradually, of course. That
+constitutional languor is not shaken off in a hurry. But surely you think
+her improving--brightening--"
+
+"Brightening with the light that never shone on earth or sea. God help
+me! I--I--am the merest child, the veriest coward, the--" He made a great
+effort, and stifled the sob that had well-nigh broken his voice. "Mr.
+Sheldon," he continued quietly, "I believe your stepdaughter is dying."
+
+"Dying! Good heavens!--my dear Hawkehurst, this alarm is most--most
+premature. There is no cause for fear--at present, no cause--I give you
+my word as a medical man."
+
+"No cause for alarm at present? That means my darling will not be taken
+from me to-night, or to-morrow. I shall have a few days breathing-time.
+Yes, I understand. The doom is upon us. I saw the shadow of death upon
+her face to-day."
+
+"My dear Hawkehurst--"
+
+"My dear Sheldon, for pity's sake don't treat me as if I were a woman or
+a child. Let me know my fate. If--if--this, the worst, most bitter of all
+calamities God's hand--raised against me in punishment of past sins,
+sinned lightly and recklessly, in the days when my heart had no stake in
+the game of destiny--can inflict upon me; if this deadly sorrow is
+bearing down upon me, let me meet it like a man. Let me die with my eyes
+uncovered. O, my dearest, my fondest, redeeming angel of my ill-spent
+life! have you been only a supernal visitant, after all, shining on me
+for a little while, to depart when your mission of redemption is
+accomplished?"
+
+"Powers above!" thought Mr. Sheldon, "what nonsense these sentimental
+magazine-writers can talk!"
+
+He was in nowise melted by the lover's anguish, though it was very real.
+Such a grief as this was outside the circle in which his thoughts
+revolved. This display of grief was unpleasant to him. It grated
+painfully upon his nerves, as some of poor Tom Halliday's little speeches
+had done of old, when the honest-hearted Yorkshireman lay on his
+deathbed; and the young man's presence and the young man's anxiety were
+alike inconvenient.
+
+"Tell me the truth, Mr. Sheldon," Valentine said presently, with
+suppressed intensity. "Is there any hope for my darling, any hope?"
+
+Mr. Sheldon considered for some moments before he replied to this
+question. He pursed-up his lips and bent his brows with the same air of
+business-like deliberation that he might have assumed while weighing the
+relative merits of the first and second debenture bonds of some doubtful
+railway company.
+
+"You ask me a trying question, Hawkehurst," he said at last. "If you ask
+me plainly whether I like the turn which Charlotte's illness has taken
+within the last few weeks, I must tell you frankly, I do not. There is a
+persistent want of tone--a visible decay of vital power--which, I must
+confess, has caused me some uneasiness. You see, the fact is, there is a
+radical weakness of constitution--as Miss Paget, a very sensible girl and
+acute observer--herself has remarked, indeed a hereditary weakness; and
+against this medicine is sometimes unavailing. You need apprehend no
+neglect on my part, Hawkehurst; all that can possibly be done is being
+done. Dr. Doddleson's instructions are carefully obeyed, and--"
+
+"Is this Dr. Doddleson competent to grapple with the case?" asked
+Valentine; "I never heard of him as a great man."
+
+"That fact proves how little you know of the medical profession."
+
+"I know nothing of it; I have had no need for doctors in my life. And you
+think this Dr. Doddleson really clever?"
+
+"His position is a sufficient answer to that question."
+
+"Will you let me telegraph for him--this afternoon--immediately?"
+
+"You cannot telegraph from this place."
+
+"No, but from St. Leonards I can. Do you think I am afraid of a
+five-mile walk?"
+
+"But why send for Dr. Doddleson? The treatment he prescribed is the
+treatment we are now following to the letter. To summon him down here
+would be the merest folly. Our poor Charlotte's illness is, so far, free
+from all alarming symptoms."
+
+"You do not see the change in her that I can see," cried Valentine
+piteously. "For mercy's sake, Mr. Sheldon, let me have my way in this. I
+cannot stand by and see my dear one fading and do nothing--nothing to
+save her. Let me send for this man. Let me see him myself, and hear what
+he says. You can have no objection to his coming, since he is the man you
+have chosen for Charlotte's adviser? It can only be a question of
+expense. Let this particular visit be my affair."
+
+"I can afford to pay for my stepdaughter's medical attendance without any
+help from your purse, Mr. Hawkehurst," said the stockbroker with offended
+pride. "There is one element in the case which you appear to ignore."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"The alarm which this summoning of a doctor from London must cause in
+Charlotte's mind."
+
+"It need cause no alarm. She can be told that Dr. Doddleson has come to
+this part of the world for a Sunday's change of air. The visit can appear
+to be made _en passant._ It will be easy to arrange that with the doctor
+before he sees her."
+
+"As you please, Mr. Hawkehurst," the stockbroker replied coldly. "I
+consider such a visit to the last degree unnecessary; but if Dr.
+Doddleson's coming can give you any satisfaction, by all means let him
+come. The expense involved in summoning him is of the smallest
+consideration to me. My position with regard to my wife's daughter is one
+of extreme responsibility, and I am ready to perform all the obligations
+of that position."
+
+"You are very good: your conduct in relation to Charlotte and myself has
+been beyond all praise. It is quite possible that I am over-anxious; but
+there was a look in that dear face--no--I cannot forget that look; it
+struck terror to my heart. I will go at once to St. Leonards. I can tell
+Charlotte that I am obliged to telegraph to the printer about my copy.
+You will not object to that white lie?"
+
+"Not at all. I think it essential that Charlotte should not be alarmed.
+You had better stop to dine; there will be time for the telegram after
+dinner."
+
+"I will not risk that," answered Valentine. "I cannot eat or drink till I
+have done something to lessen this wretched anxiety."
+
+He went back to the room where Charlotte was sitting by the open window,
+through which there came the murmur of waves, the humming of drowsy bees,
+the singing of birds, all the happy voices of happy nature in a
+harmonious chorus.
+
+"O God, wilt thou take her away from such a beautiful world," he asked,
+"and change all the glory of earth to darkness and desolation for me?"
+
+His heart rebelled against the idea of her death. To save her, to win her
+back to himself from the jaws of death, he was ready to promise anything,
+to do anything.
+
+"All my days will I give to Thy service, if Thou wilt spare her to me,"
+in his heart he said to his God. "If Thou dost not, I will be an infidel
+and a pagan--the vilest and most audacious of sinners. Better to serve
+Lucifer than the God who could so afflict me."
+
+And this is where the semi-enlightened Christian betrays the weakness of
+his faith. While the sun shines, and the sweet gospel story reads to him
+like some tender Arcadian idyl, all love and promise, he is firm in his
+allegiance; but when the dark hour comes, he turns his face to the wall,
+with anger and disappointment in his heart, and will have no further
+commune with the God who has chastised him. His faith is the faith of the
+grateful leper, who, being healed, was eager to return and bless his
+divine benefactor. It is not the faith of Abraham or of Job, of Paul or
+of Stephen.
+
+Valentine told his story about the printers and the copy for the
+_Cheapside_ magazine, about which there had arisen some absurd mistake,
+only to be set right by a telegram.
+
+It was not a very clear account; but Charlotte did not perceive the
+vagueness of the story; she thought only of the one fact, that Valentine
+must leave her for some hours.
+
+"The evening will seem so long without you," she said. "That is the worst
+part of my illness; the time is so long--so weary. Diana is the dearest
+and kindest of friends. She is always trying to amuse me, and reads to me
+for hours, though I know she must often be tired of reading aloud so
+long. But even the books I was once so fond of do not amuse me. The words
+seem to float indistinctly in my brain, and all sorts of strange images
+mix themselves up with the images of the people in the book. Di has been
+reading "The Bride of Lammermoor" all this morning; but the pain and
+weariness I feel seemed to be entangled with Lucy and Edgar somehow, and
+the dear book gave me no pleasure."
+
+"My darling, you--you are too weak to listen to Diana's reading. It is
+very kind of her to try to amuse you; but--but it would be better for you
+to rest altogether. Any kind of mental exertion may help to retard your
+recovery."
+
+He had placed himself behind her chair, and was bending over the pillows
+to speak to her. Just now he felt himself unequal to the command of his
+countenance. He bent his head until his lips touched the soft brown hair,
+and kissed those loose soft tresses passionately. The thought occurred to
+him that a day might come when he should again kiss that soft brown hair,
+with a deeper passion, with a sharper pain, and when Charlotte would not
+know of his kisses, or pity his pain.
+
+"O Valentine!" cried Charlotte, "you are crying; I can see your face in
+the glass."
+
+He had forgotten the glass; the little rococo mirror, with an eagle
+hovering over the top of the frame, which hung above the old-fashioned
+chiffonier.
+
+"I am not so very ill, dear; I am not indeed," the girl continued,
+turning in her chair with an effort, and clasping her lover's hands; "you
+must not distress yourself like this, Valentine--dear Valentine! I shall
+be better by-and-by. I cannot think that I shall be taken from you."
+
+He had broken down altogether by this time. He buried his face in the
+pillows, and contrived to stifle the sobs that would come; and then,
+after a sharp struggle, he lifted his face, and bent over the chair once
+more to kiss the invalid's pale upturned forehead.
+
+"My dear one, you shall not, if love can guard and keep you. No, dear,
+I _cannot_ believe that God will take you from me. Heaven may be your
+fittest habitation; but such sweet spirits as yours are sorely needed
+upon earth. I will be brave, dearest one; brave and hopeful in the
+mercy of Heaven. And now I must go and telegraph to my tiresome
+printer. _Au revoir_!"
+
+He hurried away from the farmhouse, and started at a rattling pace along
+the pleasant road, with green waving corn on his left, and broad blue
+ocean on his right.
+
+"I can get a fly to bring me back from St. Leonard's" he thought; "I
+should only lose time by hunting for a vehicle here."
+
+He was at St. Leonards station within an hour after leaving the farm.
+He despatched the message in Mr. Sheldon's name, and took care to make
+it urgent.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+DESPERATE MEASURES.
+
+Fitful and feverish were the slumbers which visited Mr. Hawkehurst on
+that balmy summer's night. His waking hours were anxious and unhappy; but
+his sleeping hours were still more painful. To sleep was to be the
+feverish fool of vague wild visions, in which Charlotte and Dr.
+Doddleson, the editor of the _Cheapside_, the officials of the British
+Museum reading-room, Diana Paget, and the Sheldons, figured amidst
+inextricable confusion of circumstances and places. Throughout these
+wretched dreams he had some consciousness of himself and the room in
+which he was lying, the July moon shining upon him, broad and bright,
+through the diamond-paned lattice. And O, what torturing visions were
+those in which Charlotte smiled upon him, radiant with health and
+happiness; and there had been no such thing as her illness, no such thing
+as his grief. And then came hurried dreams, in which Dr. Doddleson was
+knocking at the farmhouse door, with the printer of the _Cheapside_. And
+then he was a spectator in a mighty theatre, large as those Roman
+amphitheatres, wherein the audience seemed a mass of flies, looking down
+on the encounter of two other flies, and all the glory of an imperial
+court only a little spot of purple and gold, gleaming afar in the
+sunshine. To the dreamer it was no surprise that this unknown theatre of
+his dreams should be vast as the gladiatorial arena. And then came the
+deep thunderous music of innumerable bass-viols and bassoons: and some
+one told him it was the first night of a great tragedy. He felt the
+breathless hush of expectation; the solemn bass music sank deeper; dark
+curtains were drawn aside, with a motion slow and solemn, like the waving
+of mountain pines, and there appeared a measureless stage, revealing a
+moonlit expanse, thickly studded with the white headstones of unnumbered
+graves, and on the foremost of these--revealed to him by what power he
+knew not, since mortal sight could never have reached a point so
+distant--he read the name of Charlotte Halliday. He awoke with a sharp
+cry of pain. It was broad day, and the waves were dancing gaily in the
+morning sunlight. He rose and dressed himself. Sleep, such as he had
+known that night, was worse than the weariest waking. He went out into
+the garden by-and-by, and paced slowly up and down the narrow pathways,
+beside which box of a century's growth rose dark and high. Pale yellow
+lights were in the upper windows. He wondered which of those sickly
+tapers flickered on the face he loved so fondly.
+
+"It is only a year since I first saw her," he thought: "one year! And to
+love her has been my 'liberal education;' to lose her would be my
+desolation and despair."
+
+To lose her! His thoughts approached that dread possibility, but could
+not realize it; not even yet.
+
+At eight o'clock Diana came to summon him to breakfast.
+
+"Shall I see Charlotte?" he asked.
+
+"No; for some time past she has not come down to breakfast."
+
+"What kind of night has she had?"
+
+"A very quiet night, she tells me; but I am not quite sure that she tells
+me the truth, she is so afraid of giving us uneasiness."
+
+"She tells you. But do you not sleep in her room, now that she is so
+ill?"
+
+"No. I was anxious to sleep on a sofa at the foot of her bed, and
+proposed doing so, but Mr. Sheldon objects to my being in the room. He
+thinks that Charlotte is more quiet entirely alone, and that there is
+more air in the room with only one sleeper. Her illness is not of a kind
+to require attention of any sort in the night."
+
+"Still I should have thought it better for her to have you with her, to
+cheer and comfort her.
+
+"Believe me, Valentine, I wished to be with her."
+
+"I am sure of that, dear," he answered kindly.
+
+"It was only Mr. Sheldon's authority, as a man of some medical
+experience, that conquered my wish."
+
+"Well, I suppose he is right. And now we must go in to breakfast. Ah, the
+dreary regularity of these breakfasts and dinners, which go on just the
+same when our hearts are breaking!"
+
+The breakfast was indeed a dreary soul-dispiriting meal. Farmhouse
+luxuries, in the way of new-laid eggs and home-cured bacon, abounded; but
+no one had any inclination for these things. Valentine remembered the
+homestead among the Yorkshire hills, with all the delight that he had
+known there; and the "sorrow's crown of sorrow" was very bitter. Mr.
+Sheldon gave his Sabbath-morning meditations to the study of a
+Saturday-evening share-list; and Georgy plunged ever and anon into the
+closely printed pages of a Dissenting preacher's biography, which she
+declared to be "comforting."
+
+Diana and Valentine sat silent and anxious; and after the faintest
+pretence of eating and drinking, they both left the table, to stroll
+drearily in the garden. The bells were ringing cheerily from the grey
+stone tower near at hand; but Valentine had no inclination for church on
+this particular morning. Were not all his thoughts prayers--humble
+piteous entreaties--for one priceless boon?
+
+"Will you see the doctor when he comes, and manage matters so as not to
+alarm Charlotte?" he asked of Mr. Sheldon. That gentleman agreed to do
+so, and went out into the little front-garden to lie in wait for the
+great Doddleson--"Dowager Doddleson" as he was surnamed by some
+irreverent unbelievers.
+
+A St. Leonards fly brought the doctor while the bells were still ringing
+for morning service. Mr. Sheldon received him at the gate; and explained
+the motive of his summons.
+
+The doctor was full of pompous solicitude about "our sweet young
+patient."
+
+"Really one of the most interesting cases I ever had upon my hands,"
+the West-end physician said blandly; "as I was remarking to a very
+charming patient of mine--in point of fact, the amiable and
+accomplished Countess of Kassel-Kumberterre, only last Tuesday
+morning. A case so nearly resembling the Countess's own condition as to
+be highly interesting to her."
+
+"I really ought to apologize for bringing you down," said Mr. Sheldon, as
+he led the doctor into the house. "I only consented to your being sent
+for in order to tranquillize this young fellow Hawkehurst, who is engaged
+to my daughter; a rising man, I believe, in his own particular line, but
+rather wild and impracticable. There is really no change for the worse,
+absolutely none; and as we have not been here more than three days, there
+has been positively no opportunity for testing the effect of change and
+sea air, and so on."
+
+This seemed rather like giving the learned physician his cue. And there
+were those among Dr. Doddleson's professional rivals who said that the
+worthy doctor was never slow to take a cue so given, not being prejudiced
+by any opinions of his own.
+
+Charlotte had by this time been established in her easy-chair by the open
+window of the sitting-room, and here Dr. Doddleson saw her, in the
+presence of Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon; and here Dr. Doddleson went through the
+usual Abracadabra of his art, and assented to the opinions advanced, with
+all deference, by Mr. Sheldon.
+
+To Georgy this interview, in which Mr. Sheldon's opinions were pompously
+echoed by the West-end physician, proved even more comforting than the
+benignant career of the Dissenting minister, who was wont to allude to
+that solemn passing hence of which the ancients spoke in dim suggestive
+phrase, as "going upstairs."
+
+Diana and Valentine strolled in the garden while the physician saw his
+patient. Dr. Doddleson's ponderous polysyllables floated out upon the
+summer air like the droning of a humble-bee. It was a relief to Valentine
+to know that the doctor was with his patient: but he had no intention to
+let that gentleman depart unquestioned.
+
+"I will take no secondhand information," he thought; "I will hear this
+man's opinion from his own lips."
+
+He went round to the front of the house directly the droning had ceased,
+and was in the way when Dr. Doddleson and Mr. Sheldon came out of the
+rose-hung porch.
+
+"If you have no objection," he said to Mr. Sheldon, "I should like to ask
+Dr. Doddleson a few questions."
+
+"_I_ have no objection," replied the stockbroker; "but it is really
+altogether such an unusual thing, and I doubt if Dr. Doddleson will
+consent to--"
+
+And here he cast a deprecating glance at the doctor, as who should say,
+"Can you permit yourself to comply with a demand go entirely unwarranted
+by precedent?"
+
+Dowager Doddleson was eminently good-natured.
+
+"And this is our sweet young friend's _fiancé_," he said; "dear
+me--dee-ar me!"
+
+And then he looked at Valentine with bland pale-blue eyes that twinkled
+behind his gold-framed spectacles; while Valentine was taking his
+measure, so far as the measure of any man's moral and intellectual force
+can be taken by the eyes of another man. "And this is the man who is
+chosen to snatch my darling from the jaws of death!" he said to himself,
+with burning rage in his heart, while the amiable physician repeated
+blandly:
+
+"And this is our sweet young patient's _fiancé_. Dee-ar me, how very
+interesting!"
+
+The three men strolled round to the garden behind the house, Mr. Sheldon
+close at the physician's elbow.
+
+"For God's sake tell me the truth, Dr. Doddleson!" said Valentine in a
+low hoarse voice, directly they were beyond ear-shot of the house. "I am
+a man, and I can steel myself to hear the worst you can tell."
+
+"But really, Hawkehurst, there is no occasion for this kind of thing,"
+interjected Philip Sheldon; "Dr. Doddleson agrees with me, that the case
+is one of extreme languor, and no more."
+
+"Unquestionably," said the doctor in a fat voice.
+
+"And Dr. Doddleson also coincides with me in the opinion that all we can
+do is to wait the reviving influence of sea-air."
+
+"Undoubtedly," said the doctor, with a solemn nod.
+
+"And is this all?" asked Valentine hopelessly.
+
+"My dear sir, what else can I say?" said the doctor; "as my good friend
+Mr. Sheldon has just remarked, there is extreme languor; and as my good
+friend Mr. Sheldon further observes, we must await the effect of change
+of air. The--aw--invigorating sea-breezes, the--aw--enlivening influence
+of new surroundings, and--aw--so forth. Dr. Poseidon, my dear sir, is a
+very valuable coadjutor."
+
+"And you think your patient no worse, Dr. Doddleson?"
+
+"The doctor has just left Mrs. Sheldon much comforted by his assurance
+that her daughter is better," said the stockbroker.
+
+"No, no!" exclaimed Dr. Doddleson; "no, no! _there_ my good friend Mr.
+Sheldon somewhat misrepresents me. I said that our patient was not
+obviously worse. I did not say that our patient was better. There is a
+dilatation of the pupil of the eye which I don't quite understand."
+
+"Mental excitement," said Mr. Sheldon, somewhat hastily; "Charlotte is
+nervous to an extreme degree, and your sudden arrival was calculated to
+shake her nerves."
+
+"Undoubtedly," rejoined the doctor; "and it is unquestionable that such a
+dilatation of the pupil might, under certain circumstances, be occasioned
+by mental excitement. I am sorry to find that our patient's attacks of
+dizziness--"
+
+"Which are purely the effect of fancy," interjected Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"Which are no doubt, in some measure, attributable to a hypochondriacal
+condition of mind," continued the doctor in his fat voice. "I am sorry to
+find that this periodical dizziness has been somewhat increased of late.
+But here again we must look to Dr. Poseidon. Tepid sea-baths, if they can
+be managed, in the patient's own room; and by-and-by a dip in the waves
+yonder, may do wonders."
+
+Valentine asked no further questions; and the physician departed in the
+St. Leonards fly, to turn his excursion to profitable use by calling on
+two or three dowagers in Warrior Square and Marina, who would doubtless
+be glad of an unexpected visit from their pet doctor.
+
+"Well, Hawkehurst," said Mr. Sheldon, when the fly had driven away, "I
+hope you are satisfied now?"
+
+"Satisfied!" cried Valentine; "yes, I am satisfied that your stepdaughter
+is being murdered!"
+
+"Murdered!" echoed the stockbroker, his voice thick and faint; but
+Valentine did not heed the change in it.
+
+"Yes, murdered--sacrificed to the utter incompetence of that old idiot
+who has just left us."
+
+Philip Sheldon drew a long breath.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed; "do you doubt Doddleson's skill?"
+
+"Do you believe in it? Do you? No; I cannot think that a man of your keen
+perception in all other matters--half a medical man yourself--can be the
+dupe of so shallow an impostor. And it is to that man's judgment my
+darling's life has been confided; and it is to that man I have looked,
+with hope and comfort in the thought of his power to save my treasure!
+Good God! what a reed on which to rely! And of all the medical men of
+London, this is the one you have chosen!"
+
+"I must really protest against this rant, Hawkehurst," said Philip
+Sheldon. "I hold myself responsible for the selection which I made, and
+will not have that selection questioned in this violent and outrageous
+manner by you. Your anxiety for Charlotte's recovery may excuse a great
+deal, but it cannot excuse this kind of thing; and if you cannot command
+yourself better, I must beg you to absent yourself from my house until my
+stepdaughter's recovery puts an end to all this fuss."
+
+"Do you believe in Dr. Doddleson's skill?" asked Valentine doggedly. He
+wanted to have that question answered at any cost.
+
+"Most decidedly I do, with the rest of the medical world. My choice of
+this gentleman as Charlotte's adviser was governed by his reputation as a
+safe and conscientious man. His opinions are sound, trustworthy--"
+
+"His opinions!" cried Valentine with a bitter laugh; "what in heaven's
+name do you call his opinions? The only opinions I could extract from him
+to-day were solemn echoes of yours. And the man himself! I took the
+measure of him before I asked him a question; and physiology is a lie if
+that man is anything better than an impostor."
+
+"His position is the answer to that."
+
+"His position is no answer. He is not the first impostor who has attained
+position, and is not likely to be the last. You must forgive me, if I
+speak with some violence, Mr. Sheldon. I feel too deeply to remember the
+conventionalities of my position. The dear girl yonder, hovering between
+life and death, is my promised wife. As your stepdaughter she is very
+dear to you, no doubt, and you are of course anxious to do your duty as
+her stepfather. But she is all the world to me--my one sweet memory of
+the past, my sole hope for the future. I will not trust her to the care
+of Dr. Doddleson; I claim the right to choose another physician--as that
+man's coadjutor, if you please. I have no wish to offend the doctor of
+your choice."
+
+"This is all sheer nonsense," said Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"It is nonsense about which you must let me have my own way," replied
+Valentine, resolutely. "My stake on this hazard is too heavy for careless
+play. I shall go back to town at once and seek out a physician."
+
+"Do you know any great man?"
+
+"No; but I will find one."
+
+"If you go today, you will inevitably alarm Charlotte."
+
+"True; and disappoint her into the bargain. I suppose in such a case
+tomorrow will do as well as to-day?"
+
+"Decidedly."
+
+"I can go by the first train, and return with my doctor in the afternoon.
+Yes, I will go tomorrow."
+
+Mr. Sheldon breathed more freely. There are cases in which to obtain time
+for thought seems the one essential thing--cases in which a reprieve is
+as good as a pardon.
+
+"Pray let us consider this business quietly," he said, with a faint sigh
+of weariness. "There is no necessity for all this excitement. You can go
+to town to-morrow, by the first train, as you say. If it is any
+satisfaction to you to bring down a physician, bring one; bring half a
+dozen, if you please. But, for the last time, I most emphatically assure
+you that anything that tends to alarm Charlotte is the one thing of all
+others most sure to hinder her recovery."
+
+"I know that. She shall not be frightened; but she shall have a better
+adviser than Dr. Doddleson. And now I will go back to the house. She will
+wonder at my absence."
+
+He went to the bright, airy room where Charlotte was seated, her head
+lying back upon the pillows, her face paler, her glances and tones more
+languid than on the previous day as it seemed to Valentine. Diana was
+near her, solicitous and tender; and on the other side of the window sat
+Mrs. Sheldon, with her Dissenting minister's biography open on her lap.
+
+All through that day Valentine Hawkehurst played his part bravely: it was
+a hard and bitter part to play--the part of hope and confidence while
+unutterable fears were rending his heart. He read the epistle and gospel
+of the day to his betrothed; and afterwards some chapters of St.
+John--those profoundly mournful chapters that foreshadow the agonising
+close. It was Charlotte who selected these chapters, and her lover could
+find no excuse for disputing her choice.
+
+It was the first time that they had shared any religious exercise, and
+the hearts of both were deeply touched by the thought of this.
+
+"How frivolous all our talk must have been, Valentine, when it seems so
+new to us to be reading these beautiful words together?"
+
+Her head was half supported by the pillows, half resting on her lover's
+shoulder, and her eyes travelled along the lines as he read, in a calm
+low voice, which was unbroken to the end.
+
+Early in the evening Charlotte retired, worn out by the day's physical
+weariness, in spite of Valentine's fond companionship. Later, when it was
+dusk, Diana came downstairs with the news that the invalid was sleeping
+quietly. Mrs. Sheldon was dozing in her arm-chair, the Dissenting
+minister having fallen to the ground; and Valentine was leaning, with
+folded arms, on the broad window-sill looking out into the shadowy
+garden. Mr. Sheldon had given them very little of his society during that
+day. He went out immediately after his interview with Valentine, on a
+sea-coast ramble, which lasted till dinner-time. After dinner he remained
+in the room where they had dined. He was there now. The light of the
+candles, by which he read his papers, shone out upon the dusk.
+
+"Will you come for a stroll with me, Diana?" asked Valentine.
+
+Miss Paget assented promptly; and they went out into the garden, beyond
+the reach of Mr. Sheldon's ears, had that gentleman been disposed to
+place himself at his open window in the character of a listener.
+
+"I want to tell you my plans about Charlotte," Valentine began. "I am
+going to London to-morrow to search for a greater physician than Dr.
+Doddleson. I shall find my man in an hour or so; and, if possible, shall
+return with him in the evening. There is no apparent reason to anticipate
+any sudden change for the worse; but if such a change should take place,
+I rely on you, dear, to give me the earliest tidings of it. I suppose you
+can get a fly here, if you want one?"
+
+"I can get to St. Leonards, if that is what you mean," Miss Paget
+answered promptly. "I dare say there is a fly to be had; if not, I can
+walk there. I am not afraid of a few miles' walk, by day or night. If
+there should be a change, Valentine--which God forbid--I will telegraph
+the tidings of it to you."
+
+"You had better address the message to me at Rancy's, Covent Garden; the
+house where the Ragamuffins have their rooms, you know, dear. That is a
+more central point than my lodgings, and nearer the terminus. I will call
+there two or three times in the course of the day."
+
+"You may trust my vigilance, Valentine. I did not think it was in my
+nature to love any one as I love Charlotte Halliday."
+
+Gustave Lenoble's letters lying unanswered in her desk asserted the
+all-absorbing nature of Diana's affection for the fading girl. She _was_
+fading. The consciousness of this made all other love sacrilege, as it
+seemed to Diana. She sat up late that night to answer Gustave's last
+letter of piteous complaint.
+
+"She had forgotten him. Ah, that he had been foolish--insensate--to
+confide himself in her love! Was he not old and grey in comparison to
+such youth--such freshness--a venerable dotard of thirty-five? What had
+he with dreams of love and marriage? Fie, then. He humiliated himself in
+the dust beneath her _mignon_ feet. He invited her to crush him with
+those cruel feet. But if she did not answer his letters, he would come to
+Harold's Hill. He would mock himself of that ferocious Sheldon--of a
+battalion of Sheldons still more ferocious--of all the world, at
+last--to be near her."
+
+"Believe me, dear Gustave, I do not forget," wrote Diana, in reply to
+these serio-comic remonstrances. "I was truly sorry to leave town, on
+your account and on my father's. But my dear adopted sister is paramount
+with me now. You will not grudge her my care or my love, for she may not
+long be with me to claim them. There is nothing but sorrow here in all
+our hearts; sorrow, and an ever-present dread."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Eighth.
+
+
+
+A FIGHT AGAINST TIME.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+A DREAD REVELATION.
+
+The early fast train by which Valentine Hawkehurst travelled brought him
+into town at a quarter past nine o'clock. During the journey he had been
+meditating on the way in which he should set to work when he arrived in
+London. No ignorance could be more profound than his on all points
+relating to the medical profession. Dimly floating in his brain there
+were the names of doctors whom he had heard of as celebrated men--one for
+the chest, another for the liver, another for the skin, another for the
+eyes; but, among all these famous men, who was the man best able to cope
+with the mysterious wasting away, the gradual, almost imperceptible
+ebbing of that one dear life which Valentine wanted to save?
+
+This question must be answered by some one; and Valentine was sorely
+puzzled as to who that some one must be.
+
+The struggling young writer had but few friends. He had, indeed, worked
+too hard for the possibility of friendship. The cultivation of the
+severer Muses is rarely compatible with a wide circle of acquaintances;
+and Valentine, if not a cultivator of these severe ones, had been a hard
+and honest worker during the later reputable portion of his life. His
+friendships of the previous portion had been the friendships of the
+railway-carriage and the smoking room, the _café_ and the gaming-table.
+He could count upon his fingers the people to whom he could apply for
+counsel in this crisis of his life. There was George Sheldon, a man for
+whom he entertained a most profound contempt; Captain Paget, a man who
+might or might not be able to give him good advice, but who would
+inevitably sacrifice Charlotte Halliday's welfare to self-interest, if
+self-interest could be served by the recommendation of an incompetent
+adviser.
+
+"He would send me to some idiot of the Doddleson class, if he thought he
+could get a guinea or a dinner by the recommendation," Valentine said to
+himself, and decided that to Horatio Paget he would not apply. There were
+his employers, the editors and proprietors of the magazines for which he
+worked; all busy over-burdened workers in the great mill, spending the
+sunny hours of their lives between a pile of unanswered letters and a
+waste-paper basket; men who would tell him to look in the Post-office
+Directory, without lifting their eyes from the paper over which their
+restless pens were speeding.
+
+No. Amongst these was not the counsellor whom Valentine Hawkehurst needed
+in this dire hour of difficulty.
+
+"There are some very good fellows among the Ragamuffins," he said to
+himself, as he thought of the only literary and artistic club of which he
+was a member; "fellows who stuck by me when I was down in the world, and
+who would do anything to serve me now they know me for an honest worker.
+But, unfortunately, farce writers and burlesque writers, and young
+meerschaum-smoking painters, are not the sort of men to give good advice:
+I want the advice of a medical man."
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst almost bounded from his seat as he said this. The advice
+of a medical man? Yes; and was there not a medical man among the
+Ragamuffins? and something more than a medical man? That very doctor, who
+of all other men upon this earth could best give him counsel--the doctor
+who had stood by the deathbed of Charlotte Halliday's father.
+
+He remembered the conversation that had occurred at Bayswater, on the
+evening of Christmas day, upon this very subject. He remembered how from
+the talk about ghosts they had drifted somehow into talking of Tom
+Halliday; whereupon Mrs. Sheldon had been melted to tears, and had gone
+on to praise Philip Sheldon's conduct to his dying friend, and to speak
+of Mr. Burkham, the strange doctor, called in too late to save, or, it
+might have been, incapable to save.
+
+"Sheldon seems to have a genius for calling in incapable doctors," he
+thought bitterly.
+
+Incapable as Mr. Burkham might have been for the exigencies of this
+particular case, he would at least be able to inform Valentine who among
+the medical celebrities of London would be best adapted to advise in such
+an illness as Charlotte Halliday's.
+
+"And if, as Diana has sometimes suggested, there is any hereditary
+disease, this Burkham may be able to throw some light upon the nature of
+it," thought Valentine.
+
+He went straight from the railway terminus to the quiet tavern upon the
+first floor of which the Ragamuffins had their place of rendezvous. It
+was not an hour for the encounter of many Ragamuffins. A meek-looking
+young man, of clerical aspect, who had adapted a Palais Royal farce, and
+had awoke in the morning to find himself famous, and eligible for
+admission amongst the Ragamuffins, was sipping his sherry and soda-water
+while he skimmed the morning papers. Him Mr. Hawkehurst saluted with an
+absent nod, and went in search of the steward of the club, from whom he
+obtained Mr. Burkham's address, with some little trouble in the way of
+hunting through old and obscure documents.
+
+It was the old address; the old dingy, comfortable, muffin-bell-haunted
+street in which Mr. Burkham had lived ten years before, when he was
+summoned to attend the sick Yorkshire farmer.
+
+Mr. Burkham's career had not been brightened by the sunshine of
+prosperity. He had managed to live somehow, and to find food and raiment
+for his young wife, who, when she considered the lilies of the field, may
+have envied their shining robes of pure whiteness, so dingy and dark was
+her own apparel. When children came, the young surgeon contrived to find
+food and raiment for them also, but not without daily and hourly
+struggles with that grim wolf who haunts the thresholds of so many
+dwellings, and will not be thrust from the door. Sometimes a little
+glimmering ray of light illumined Mr. Burkham's pathway, and he was
+humbly grateful to Providence for the brief glimpse of sunshine. But for
+a meek fair-faced man, with a nervous desire to do well, a very poor
+opinion of his own merits, and a diffident, not to say depressed manner,
+the world is apt to be a hard battle-ground.
+
+Mr. Burkham sometimes found himself well-nigh beaten in the cruel strife;
+and at such times, in the dead silence of the night, with mortal agonies,
+and writhings as of Pythoness upon tripod, Mr. Burkham gave himself up to
+the composition of a farce, adapted, not from the French, but from his
+memories of Wright and Bedford in the jovial old student days, when the
+pit of the Adelphi Theatre had been the pleasant resort of his evenings.
+He could no longer afford the luxury of theatrical entertainments, except
+when provided with a free admission. But from the hazy reminiscences
+floating in his poor tired brain he concocted little pieces which he
+fondly hoped might win him money and fame.
+
+With much effort and interest he contrived to get himself elected a
+Ragamuffin; believing that to be a Ragmuffin was to secure a position as
+a dramatic writer. But with one or two fortunate exceptions, his pieces
+were refused. The managers would not have the poor little feeble
+phantasmagoria of bygone fun, even supported by the whole clan of
+Ragamuffins. So Mr. Burkham had gradually melted into the dimness of
+Bloomsbury, and haunted the club-room of the Ragamuffins no more.
+
+A hansom carried Valentine Hawkehurst swiftly to these regions of
+Bloomsbury. It was no time for the saving of cab-hire. The soldier
+of fortune thought no longer of his nest-eggs--his Unitas Bank
+deposit-notes. He was fighting with time and with death; foes dire and
+dreadful, against whose encroachments the sturdiest of mortal warriors
+can make but a feeble stand. He found the dingy-looking house in the
+dingy-looking street; and the humble drudge who opened the door informed
+him that Mr. Burkham was at home, and ushered him into a darksome and
+dreary surgery at the back of the house, where a phrenological head,
+considerably the worse for London smoke, surmounted a dingy bookcase
+filled with the dingiest of books. A table, upon which were a
+blotting-book and inkstand, and two shabby horsehair chairs, composed the
+rest of the furniture. Valentine sent his card to the surgeon, and seated
+himself on one of the horsehair chairs, to await that gentleman's
+appearance.
+
+He came after a brief delay, which seemed long to his visitor. He came
+from regions in the back of the house, rubbing his hands, which seemed
+to have been newly washed, and the odour of senna and aloes hung about
+his garments.
+
+"I doubt if you remember my name, Mr. Burkham," said Valentine; "but you
+and I are members of the same club, and that a club among the members of
+which considerable good feeling prevails. I come to ask a favour"--Mr.
+Burkham winced, for this sounded like genteel begging, and for genteel
+beggars this struggling surgeon had no spare cash--"which it will
+scarcely cause you a moment's thought to grant. I am in great
+distress"--Mr. Burkham winced again, for this sounded still more like
+begging--"mental distress"--Mr. Burkham gave a little sigh of
+relief--"and I come to you for advice." Mr. Burkham gave a more profound
+sigh of relief.
+
+"I can assure you that my best advice is at your command," he said,
+seating himself, and motioning to his visitor to be seated. "I am
+beginning to remember your face amongst the members of the club, though
+the name on your card did not strike me as familiar. You see, I have
+never been able to afford much time for relaxation at the Ragamuffins',
+though I assure you I found the agreeable conversation there, the
+literary _on dits_, and so on, a very great relief. But my own little
+efforts in the dramatic line were not successful, and I found myself
+compelled to devote myself more to my profession. And now I have said
+quite enough about myself; let me hear how I can be useful to you."
+
+"In the first place, let me ask you a question. Do you know anything of a
+certain Dr. Doddleson?"
+
+"Of Plantagenet Square?"
+
+"Yes; of Plantagenet Square."
+
+"Well, not much. I have heard him called Dowager Doddleson; and I believe
+he is very popular among hypochondriac old ladies who have more money
+than they know what to do with, and very little common sense to regulate
+their disposal of it."
+
+"Is Dr. Doddleson a man to whom you would intrust the life of your
+dearest friend?"
+
+"Most emphatically no!" cried the surgeon, growing red with excitement.
+
+"Very well, Mr. Burkham; my dearest friend, a young lady--well, in plain
+truth, the woman who was to have been my wife, and whom I love as it is
+not the lot of every plighted wife to be loved--this dear girl has been
+wasting away for the last two or three months under the influence of an
+inscrutable malady, and Dr. Doddleson is the only man called to attend
+her in all that time."
+
+"A mistake!" said Mr. Burkham, gravely; "a very great mistake! Dr.
+Doddleson lives in a fine square, and drives a fine carriage, and has a
+reputation amongst the class I have spoken of; but he is about the last
+man I would consult as to the health of any one dear to me."
+
+"That is precisely the opinion which I formed after ten minutes'
+conversation with him. Now, what I want from you, Mr. Burkham, is the
+name and address of the man to whom I can intrust this dear girl's life."
+
+"Let me see. There are so many men, you know, and great men. Is it a case
+of consumption?"
+
+"No, thank God!"
+
+"Heart-disease, perhaps?"
+
+"No; there is no organic disease. It is a languor--a wasting away."
+
+Mr. Burkham suggested other diseases whereof the outward sign was languor
+and wasting.
+
+"No," replied Valentine; "according to Dr. Doddleson there is actually no
+disease--nothing but this extreme prostration--this gradual vanishing of
+vital power. And now I come to another point upon which I want your
+advice. It has been suggested that this constitutional weakness may be
+inherited; and here I think you can help me."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You attended the lady's father."
+
+"Indeed!" cried Mr. Burkham, delighted. "This is really interesting. In
+what year did I attend this gentleman? If you will allow me, I will refer
+to some of my old case-books."
+
+He drew out a clumsy drawer in the clumsy table, in order to hunt for old
+memoranda.
+
+"I am not quite certain as to the year," answered Valentine; "but it was
+more than ten years ago. The gentleman died close by here, in Fitzgeorge
+Street. His name was Halliday."
+
+Mr. Burkham had drawn out the drawer to its farthest extent. As Valentine
+pronounced this name, he let it drop to the ground with a crash, and sat,
+statue-like, staring at the speaker. All other names given to mortal man
+he might forget; but this one never. Valentine saw the sudden horror in
+his face, before he could recompose his features into something of their
+conventional aspect.
+
+"Yes," he said, looking down at the fallen drawer with its scattered
+papers and case-books, "yes, I have some recollection of the name of
+Halliday."
+
+"Some very strange and agitating recollection it would seem by your
+manner, Mr. Burkham," said Valentine, at once assured that there was
+something more than common in the surgeon's look and gesture; and
+determined to fathom the mystery, let it be what it might.
+
+"O dear no," said the surgeon nervously; "I was not agitated, only
+surprised. It was surprising to me to hear the name of a patient so long
+forgotten. And so the lady to whom you are engaged is a daughter of Mr.
+Halliday's? The wife--Mrs. Halliday--is still living, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; but the lady who was then Mrs. Halliday is now Mrs. Sheldon."
+
+"Of course; he married her," said Mr. Burkham. "Yes; I remember hearing
+of the marriage."
+
+He had tried in vain to recover his old composure. He was white to the
+lips, and his hand shook as he tried to arrange his scattered papers.
+
+"What does it mean?" thought Valentine. "Mrs. Sheldon talked of this
+man's inexperience. Can it be that his incompetency lost the life of his
+patient, and that he knows it was so?"
+
+"Mrs. Halliday is now Mrs. Sheldon," repeated the surgeon, in a feeble
+manner. "Yes, I remember; and Mr. Sheldon--the dentist, who at that time
+resided in Fitzgeorge Street--is he still living?"
+
+"He is still living. It was he who called in Dr. Doddleson to attend upon
+Miss Halliday. As her stepfather, he has some amount of authority, you
+see; not legal authority--for my dear girl is of age--but social
+authority. He called in Doddleson, and appears to place confidence in
+him; and as he is something of a medical man himself, and pretends to
+understand Miss Halliday's case thoroughly--"
+
+"Stop!" cried Mr. Burkham, suddenly abandoning all pretence of calmness.
+"Has he--Sheldon--any interest in his stepdaughter's death?"
+
+"No, certainly not. All her father's money went to him upon his marriage
+with her mother. He can gain nothing by her death; on the contrary, he
+may lose a good deal, for she is the heir-at-law to a large fortune."
+
+"And if she dies, that fortune will go--"
+
+"I really don't know where it will go," Valentine answered carelessly:
+he thought the subject was altogether beside the question of Mr.
+Burkham's agitation, and it was the cause of that agitation which he was
+anxious to discover.
+
+"If Mr. Sheldon can gain by his stepdaughter's death, fear him!"
+exclaimed the surgeon, with sudden passion; "fear him as you would fear
+death itself--worse than death, for death is neither so stealthy nor so
+treacherous as he is!"
+
+"What in Heaven's name do you mean?"
+
+"That which I thought my lips would never utter to mortal hearing--that
+which I dare not publicly proclaim, at the hazard of taking the bread out
+of the mouths of my wife and children. I have kept this hateful secret
+for eleven years--through many a sleepless night and dreary day. I will
+tell it to you; for if there is another life in peril, that life shall be
+lost through no cowardice of mine."
+
+"What secret?" cried Valentine.
+
+"The secret of that poor fellow's death. My God! I can remember the clasp
+of his hand, and the friendly look of his eyes, the day before he died.
+He was poisoned by Philip Sheldon!"
+
+"You must be mad!" gasped Valentine, in a faint voice.
+
+For one moment of astonishment and incredulity he thought this man must
+needs be a fool or a lunatic, so wildly improbable did the accusation
+seem. But in the next instant the curtain was lifted, and he knew that
+Philip Sheldon was a villain, and knew that he had never wholly trusted
+him.
+
+"Never until to-day have I told this secret," said the surgeon; "not even
+to my wife."
+
+"I thank you," answered Valentine, in the same faint voice; "with all my
+heart, I thank you."
+
+Yes, the curtain was lifted. This mysterious illness, this slow silent
+decay of bloom and beauty, by a process inscrutable as the devilry of
+medieval poisoner or Hecate-serving witch--this was murder. Murder! The
+disease, which had hitherto been nameless, had found its name at last. It
+was all clear now. Philip Sheldon's anxiety; the selection of an utterly
+incompetent adviser; certain looks and tones that had for a moment
+mystified him, and had been forgotten in the next, came back to him with
+a strange distinctness, with all their hidden meaning made clear and
+plain as the broad light of day.
+
+But the motive? What motive could prompt the slow destruction of that
+innocent life? A fortune was at stake, it is true; but that fortune, as
+Valentine understood the business, depended on the life of Charlotte
+Halliday. Beyond this point he had never looked. In all his consideration
+of the circumstances relating to the Haygarthian estate, he had never
+thought of what might happen in the event of Charlotte's decease.
+
+"It is a diabolical mystery," he said to himself. "There can be no
+motive--_none_. To destroy Thomas Halliday was to clear his way to
+fortune; to destroy Charlotte is to destroy his chance of fortune."
+
+And then he remembered the dark speeches of George Sheldon.
+
+"My God! and this was what he meant, as plainly as he dared tell me! He
+did tell me that his brother was an unutterable scoundrel; and I turned a
+deaf ear to his warning, because it suited my own interest to believe
+that villain. For her dear sake I believed him. I would have believed in
+Beelzebub, if he had promised me her dear hand. And I let myself be duped
+by the lying promise, and left my darling in the power of Beelzebub!"
+
+Thoughts followed each other swift as lightning through his overwrought
+brain. It seemed but a moment that he had been sitting with his
+clenched hands pressed against his forehead, when he turned suddenly
+upon the surgeon.
+
+"For God's sake, help me, guide me!" he said. "You have struck a blow
+that has numbed my senses. What am I to do? My future wife is in that
+man's keeping--dying, as I believe. How am I to save her?"
+
+"I cannot tell you. You may take the cleverest man in London to see her;
+but it is a question if that man will perceive the danger so clearly as
+to take prompt measures. In these cases there is always room for doubt;
+and a man would rather doubt his own perceptions than believe the hellish
+truth. It is by this natural hesitation so many lives are lost. While the
+doctor deliberates, the patient dies. And then, if the secret of the
+death transpires--by circumstantial evidence, perhaps, which never came
+to the doctor's knowledge,--there is a public outcry. The doctor's
+practice is ruined, and his heart broken. The outcry would have been
+still louder if he had told the truth in time to save the patient, and
+had not been able to prove his words. You think me a coward and a
+scoundrel because I dared not utter my suspicion when I saw Mr. Halliday
+dying. While it was only a suspicion it would have been certain ruin for
+me to give utterance to it. The day came when it was almost a conviction.
+I went back to that man Sheldon's house, determined to insist upon the
+calling in of a physician who would have made that conviction certainty.
+My resolution came too late. It is possible that Sheldon had perceived my
+suspicions, and had hastened matters. My patient was dead before I
+reached the house."
+
+"How am I to save her?" repeated Valentine, with the same helpless
+manner. He could not bring himself to consider Tom Halliday's death. The
+subject was too far away from him--remote as the dim shadows of departed
+centuries. In all the universe there were but two figures standing out in
+lurid brightness against the dense night of chaos--a helpless girl held
+in the clutches of a secret assassin; and it was his work to rescue her.
+
+"What am I to do?" he asked. "Tell me what I am to do."
+
+"What it may be wisest to do I cannot tell you," answered Mr. Burkham,
+almost as helplessly as the other had asked the question. "I can give you
+the name of the best man to get to the bottom of such a case--a man who
+gave evidence on the Fryar trial--Jedd. You have heard of Jedd, I
+daresay. You had better go straight to Jedd, and take him down with you
+to Miss Halliday. His very name will frighten Sheldon."
+
+"I will go at once. Stay--the address! Where am I to find Dr. Jedd?"
+
+"In Burlington Row. But there is one thing to be considered."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The interference of Jedd may only make that man desperate. He may hasten
+matters now as he hastened matters before. If you had seen his coolness
+at that time; if you had seen him, as I saw him, standing by that poor
+fellow's deathbed, comforting him--yes, with friendly speeches--laughing
+and joking, watching the agonising pain and the miserable sickness, and
+all the dreary wretchedness of such a death, and _never_ swerving from
+his work; if you had seen him, you would understand why I am afraid to
+advise you. That man was as desperate as he was cool when he murdered his
+friend. He will be more reckless this time."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he has reached a higher stage in the science of murder. The
+symptoms of that poor Yorkshireman were the symptoms of arsenical
+poisoning; the symptoms of which you have told me to-day denote a
+vegetable poison. _That_ affords very vague diagnosis, and leaves no
+trace. That was the agent which enabled the Borgias to decimate Rome.
+It is older than classic Greece, and simple as _a b c_, and will remain
+so until the medical expert is a recognized officer of the law, the
+faithful guardian of the bed over which the suspected poisoner
+loiters--past-master of the science in which the murderer is rarely more
+than an experimentalist, and protected from all the hazards of plain
+speaking by the nature of his office."
+
+"Great Heaven, how am I to save her?" exclaimed Valentine. He could not
+contemplate the subject in its broad social aspect; he could only think
+of this one dear life at stake. "To send this Dr. Jedd might be to hasten
+her death; to send a less efficient man would be mere childishness. WHAT
+shall I do?"
+
+He looked despairingly at the surgeon, and in that one glance perceived
+what a frail reed this was upon which he was leaning. And then, like
+the sudden gleam of lightning, a name flashed across his mind,--George
+Sheldon, the lawyer, the schemer, the man who of all the world best
+knew this vile enemy and assassin against whom he was matched; he it
+was of whom counsel should be asked in this crisis. Once perceiving
+this, Valentine was prompt to act. It was the first flash of light in
+the darkness.
+
+"You mean to stand by me in this, don't you?" he asked Mr. Burkham.
+
+"With all my heart and soul."
+
+"Good. Then you must go to Dr. Jedd instantly. Tell him all you know--Tom
+Halliday's death; the symptoms of Charlotte's decline, as you have heard
+them from me--_everything_; and let him hold himself in readiness to
+start for Hastings directly he hears from or sees me. I am going to a man
+who of all men can tell me how to deal with Philip Sheldon. I shall try
+to be in Burlington Row in an hour from this time; but in any case you
+will wait there till I come. I suppose, in a desperate case like this,
+Dr. Jedd will put aside all less urgent work?"
+
+"No doubt of that."
+
+"I trust to you to secure his sympathy," said Valentine.
+
+He was in the darksome entrance-hall by this time. Mr. Burkham followed,
+and opened the door for him.
+
+"Have no fear of me," he said. "Good bye."
+
+The two men shook hands with a grip significant as masonic sign-manual.
+It meant on the one part hearty co-operation, on the other implicit
+confidence. In the next moment Valentine sprang into the cab.
+
+"King's Road--entrance to Gray's Inn, and drive like mad!" he shouted to
+the driver. The hansom rattled across the stones, dashed round corners,
+struck consternation to scudding children in pinafores, all but
+annihilated more than one perambulator, and in less than ten minutes
+after leaving Mr. Burkham's door, ground against the kerbstone before the
+little gate of Gray's Inn.
+
+"God grant that George Sheldon may be at home!" Valentine said to
+himself, as he hurried towards that gentleman's office. George Sheldon
+was at home. In this fight against time, Mr. Hawkehurst had so far found
+the odds in his favour.
+
+"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the lawyer, looking up from his desk, as
+Valentine appeared on the threshold of the door, pale and breathless; "to
+what do I owe the unusual honour of a visit from Mr. Hawkehurst? I
+thought that rising _littérateur_ had cut all old acquaintances, and gone
+in for the upper circles."
+
+"I have come to you on a matter of life and death, George Sheldon," said
+Valentine; "this is no time to talk of why I haven't been to you before.
+When you and I last met, you advised me to beware of your brother Philip.
+It wasn't the first, or the second, or the third time that you so warned
+me. And now speak out like an honest man, and tell me what you meant by
+that warning? For God's sake, speak plainly this time."
+
+"I cannot afford to speak more plainly than I have spoken half a dozen
+times already. I told you to beware of my brother Phil, and I meant that
+warning in its fullest significance. If you had chosen to take my advice,
+you would have placed Charlotte Halliday's fortune, and Charlotte
+Halliday herself, beyond his power, by an immediate marriage. You didn't
+choose to do that, and there was an end of the matter. I have been a
+heavy loser by your pigheaded obstinacy; and I dare say before you and
+Phil Sheldon have done with each other, you too will find yourself a
+loser."
+
+"God help me, yes!" cried Valentine, with a groan; "I stand to make the
+heaviest loss that was ever made by man."
+
+"What do you mean?" exclaimed George.
+
+"Shall I tell you what you meant when you warned me against your own
+brother? Shall I tell you why you so warned me? You know that Philip
+Sheldon murdered Tom Halliday."
+
+"Great God!"
+
+"Yes; the secret is out. You knew it; how or when you discovered it I
+cannot tell. You knew of that one hellish crime, and would have prevented
+the commission of a second murder. You should have spoken more plainly.
+To know what you knew, and to confine yourself to cautious hints and
+vague suggestions, as you did, was to have part in that devilish work. If
+Charlotte Halliday dies, her blood be upon your head--upon yours--as well
+as upon his!"
+
+The young man had risen in his passion, and stood before George Sheldon
+with uplifted hands, and eyes that flashed angry lightnings. It seemed
+almost as if he would have called down the Divine vengeance upon this
+man's head.
+
+"If Charlotte Halliday dies!" repeated George, in a horror-stricken
+whisper; "why should you suggest such a thing?"
+
+"Because she is dying."
+
+There was a pause. Valentine flung himself passionately upon the chair
+from which he had just risen, with his back to George Sheldon, and his
+face bent over the back of the chair. The lawyer sat looking straight
+before him, with a ghastly countenance.
+
+"I told him he meant _this_," he said to himself, in a hoarse whisper. "I
+told him in this office not six months ago. Powers of hell, what a
+villain he is! And there are people who do not believe there is a devil!"
+
+For a few moments Valentine gave free vent to his passion of grief. These
+tears of rage, of agony the most supreme, were the first he had shed
+since he had bent his face over Charlotte's soft brown hair, to hide the
+evidence of his sorrow. When he had dashed these bitter drops away from
+his burning eyes, he turned to confront George Sheldon, pale as death,
+but very calm. And after this he gave way no more to his passion. He was
+matched against Time, of all enemies the most pitiless and unrelenting,
+and every minute wasted was a point scored by his foe.
+
+"I want your help, George Sheldon," he said. "If you have ever been sorry
+that you made no effort to save Charlotte Halliday's father, prove
+yourself his friend by trying to save her."
+
+"_If_ I have ever been sorry!" echoed the lawyer. "Why, my miserable
+dreams have never been free from the horror of that man's face. You don't
+know what it is--murder! Nobody knows who hasn't been concerned in it.
+You read of murders in your newspapers. A shot B, or C poisoned D, and so
+on, all through the letters of the alphabet, with a fresh batch for every
+Sunday; but it never comes home to you. You think of the horror of it in
+a shadowy kind of way, as you might think of having a snake twisted round
+your waist and legs, like that blessed man and boys one never sees the
+last of. But if you were to look at that plaster cast all your life, you
+couldn't realize ten per cent of the horror you'd feel if the snake was
+_there_, alive, crushing your bones, and hissing in your ear. I have been
+face to face with murder, Valentine Hawkehurst; and if I were to live a
+century, I should never forget what I felt when I stood by Tom Halliday's
+deathbed, and it flashed upon me, all at once, that my brother Phil was
+poisoning him."
+
+"And you did not try to save him--your friend?" cried Valentine.
+
+"Why, you see," replied the other, in a strange slow way, "it was too
+late to save him: I knew that, and--I held my tongue. What could I do?
+Against my own brother! That sort of thing in a family is ruin for every
+one! Do you think anybody would have brought their business to me after
+my brother had stood in the Old Bailey dock to take his trial for murder?
+No; my only course was to keep my own counsel, and I kept it. Phil made
+eighteen thousand pounds by his marriage with poor Tom's widow, and a
+paltry hundred or two is all _I_ ever touched of that money."
+
+"And you _could_ touch that money?" cried Valentine, aghast.
+
+"Money carries no infection. Did you ever ask any questions about the
+money you won at German gaming-tables. I dare say some of your napoleons
+and ten-thaler notes could have told queer stories if they had been able
+to talk. Taking Phil's money has never weighed upon my conscience. I'm
+not very inquisitive about the antecedents of a five-pound note; but I'll
+tell you what it is, Hawkehurst, I'd give all I have, and all I ever
+hope to have, and would go out and sweep a crossing to-morrow, if I could
+get Tom Halliday's face out of my mind, with the look that he turned upon
+me the last time I saw him. 'Ah, George,' he said, 'in illness a man
+feels the comfort of being among friends!' And he took my hand and
+squeezed it, in his old hearty way. We had been boys together,
+Hawkehurst, birds-nesting in Hyley Woods; on the same side in our
+Barlingford cricket-matches. And I shook his hand, and went away, and
+left him to die!"
+
+And here Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn, the Sheldon who was in with the
+money-lenders, sharpest of legal prestigitators, most ruthless of
+opponents, most unscrupulous of allies, buried his face in a flaming
+bandanna, and fairly sobbed aloud. When the passion had passed, he got up
+and walked hastily to the window, more ashamed of this one touch of
+honest emotion than of all the falsehoods and chicaneries of his career.
+
+"I didn't think I could have been such an ass," he muttered sheepishly.
+
+"I did not hope that you could feel so deeply," answered Valentine. "And
+now help me to save the only child of your ill-fated friend. I am sure
+that you can help me."
+
+Without waiting to be questioned, Valentine related the circumstances of
+Charlotte's illness, and of his interview with Mr. Burkham.
+
+"I did not even know that the poor girl was ill," said George Sheldon. "I
+have not seen Phil for months. He came here one day, and I gave him a bit
+of my mind. I told him if he tried to harm her I'd let the light in upon
+him and his doings. And I'll keep my word."
+
+"But his motive? What, in the name of Heaven, can be his motive for
+taking her innocent life? He knows of the Haygarth estate, and must hope
+to profit by her fortune if she lives."
+
+"Yes, and to secure the whole of that fortune if she dies. Her death
+would make her mother sole heir to that estate, and the mother is the
+merest tool in his hands. He may even have induced Charlotte to make a
+will in his favour, so that he himself may stand in her shoes."
+
+"She would not have made a will without telling me of it."
+
+"You don't know that. My brother Phil can do anything. It would be as
+easy for him to persuade her to maintain secrecy about the transaction as
+to persuade her to make the will. Do you suppose _he_ shrinks from
+multiplying lies and forgeries and hypocrisies? Do you suppose anything
+in that small way comes amiss to the man who has once brought his mind to
+murder? Why, look at the Scotch play of that fellow Shakespeare's. At the
+beginning, your Macbeth is a respectable trustworthy sort of person,
+anxious to get on in life, and so on, and that's all; but no sooner has
+he made an end of poor old Duncan, than he lays about him right and
+left--Banquo, Fleance, anybody and everybody that happens to be in his
+way. It was lucky for that Tartar of a wife of his that _she_ hook'd it,
+or he'd soon have put a stop to her sleep-walking. There's no such wide
+difference between a man and a tiger, after all. The tiger's a decent
+fellow enough till he has tasted human blood; but when once he _has_,
+Lord save the country-side from the jaws of the man-eater!"
+
+"For Heaven's sake let us waste no time in talk!" Valentine cried,
+impetuously. "I am to meet Burkham in Burlington Row directly I have got
+your advice."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To see Dr. Jedd, and take him down to Hastings, if possible."
+
+"That won't do."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because Jedd's appearance would give Phil the office. Jedd gave evidence
+on the Fryar trial, and must be a marked man to him. All Jedd can tell
+you is that Charlotte is being poisoned. You know that already. Of course
+she'll want medical treatment, and so on, to bring her round; but she
+can't get that under my brother's roof. What you have to do is to get her
+away from that house."
+
+"You do not know how ill she is. I doubt if she could bear the removal."
+
+"Anything is better than to remain. _That_ is certain death."
+
+"But your brother would surely dispute her removal."
+
+"He would, and oppose it inch by inch. We must get him away, before we
+attempt to remove her."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I will find the means for that. I know something of his business
+relations, and can invent some false cry for luring him off the trail. We
+_must_ get him away. The poor girl was not in actual danger when you left
+her, was she?"
+
+"No, thank God, there was no appearance of immediate danger. But she was
+very ill. And that man holds her life in his hand. He knows that I have
+come to London in search of a doctor. What if--"
+
+"Keep yourself quiet, Hawkehurst. He will not hasten her death unless he
+is desperate; for a death occurring immediately after your first
+expression of alarm would seem sudden. He'll avoid any appearance of
+suddenness, if he can, depend upon it. The first thing is to get him
+away. But the question is, how to do it? There must be a bait. What bait?
+Don't talk to me, Hawkehurst. Let me think it out, if I can."
+
+The lawyer leaned his elbows on the table, and abandoned himself to
+profound cogitation, with his forehead supported by his clenched hands.
+Valentine waited patiently while he thus cogitated.
+
+"I must go down to Phil's office," he said at last, "and ferret out some
+of his secrets. Nothing but stock-exchange business, of an important
+character, would induce him to leave Charlotte Halliday. But if I can
+telegraph such a message as will bring him to town, I'll do it. Leave all
+that to me. And now, what about your work?"
+
+"I am at a loss what to do, if I am not to take Dr. Jedd to Harold's
+Hill."
+
+"Take him to St. Leonards; and if I get my brother out of the way, you
+can have Charlotte conveyed to an hotel in St. Leonard's, where she can
+stop till she picks up strength enough to come to London."
+
+"Do you think her mother will consent to her removal?
+
+"Do I think you will be such an idiot as to ask for her consent?" cried
+George Sheldon impatiently. "My brother's wife is so weak a fool, that
+the chances are she'd insist on her daughter stopping quietly, to be
+poisoned. No; you must get Mrs. Sheldon out of the way somehow. Send her
+to look at the shops, or to bathe, or to pick up shells on the beach, or
+anything else equally inane. She's easy enough to deal with. There's that
+young woman, Paget's daughter, with them still, I suppose? Yes. Very
+well, then, you and she can get Charlotte away between you."
+
+"But for me to take those two girls to an hotel--the chance of scandal,
+of wonder, of inquiry? There ought to be some other person--some nurse.
+Stay, there's Nancy Woolper--the very woman! My darling has told me of
+that old woman's affectionate anxiety about her health--an anxiety which
+was singularly intense, it seemed to Lotta. Good God! do you think she,
+Nancy Woolper, could have suspected the cause of Mr. Halliday's death?"
+
+"I dare say she did. She was in the house when he died, and nursed him
+all through his illness. She's a clever old woman. Yes, you might take
+her down with you; I think she would be of use in getting Charlotte
+away."
+
+"I'll take her, if she will go."
+
+"I am not sure of that; our north-country folks have stiffish notions
+about fidelity to old masters, and that kind of thing. Nancy Woolper
+nursed my brother Phil."
+
+"If she knows or suspects the fate of Charlotte's father, she will try to
+save Charlotte," said Valentine, with conviction. "And now, good bye! I
+trust to you for getting your brother out of the way, George Sheldon;
+remember that."
+
+He held out his hand; the lawyer took it with a muscular grip, which, on
+this occasion, meant something more than that base coin of jolly good
+fellowship which so often passes current for friendship's virgin gold.
+
+"You may trust me," George Sheldon said gravely. "Stop a moment, though;
+I have a proposition to make. If my brother Philip has induced that girl
+to make a will, as it is my belief he has, we must counter him. Come down
+with me to Doctors' Commons. You've a cab? Yes; the business won't take
+half an hour."
+
+"What business?"
+
+"A special licence for your marriage with Charlotte Halliday."
+
+"A marriage?"
+
+"Yes; her marriage invalidates her will, if she has made one, and does
+away with Phil's motive. Come along; we'll get the licence."
+
+"But the delay?"
+
+"Exactly half an hour. Come!"
+
+The lawyer dashed out of his office. "At home in an hour," he shouted
+to the clerk, and then ran downstairs, followed closely by Valentine,
+and did not cease running until he was in the King's Road, where the
+cab was waiting.
+
+"Newgate Street and Warwick Lane to Doctors' Commons!" he cried to the
+cabman; and Valentine was fain to take his seat in the cab without
+further remonstrance.
+
+"I don't understand--" he began, as the cabman drove away.
+
+"I do. It's all right; you'll put the licence in your pocket, and call at
+the church nearest which you hang out, Edgware Road way, give notice of
+the marriage, and so on; and as soon as Charlotte can bear the journey,
+bring her to London and marry her. I told you your course six months ago.
+Your obstinacy has caused the hazard of that young woman's life. Don't
+let us have a second edition of it."
+
+"I will be governed by your advice," answered Valentine, submissively.
+"It is the delay that tortures me."
+
+The delay was indeed torture to him. Everything and everybody in Doctors'
+Commons seemed the very incarnation of slowness. The hansom cab might
+tear and grind the pavement, the hansom cabman might swear until even
+monster waggons swerved aside to give him passage; but neither tearing
+nor swearing could move the incarnate stolidity of Doctors' Commons. When
+he left that quaint sanctuary of old usages, he carried with him the
+Archbishop of Canterbury's benign permission for his union with Charlotte
+Halliday. But he knew not whether it was only a morsel of waste paper
+which he carried in his pocket; and whether there might not ere long be
+need of a ghastlier certificate, giving leave and licence for the
+rendering back of "ashes to ashes, and dust to dust."
+
+Valentine's first call, after leaving George Sheldon at the gate of
+Doctors' Commons, was at the head-quarters of the Ragamuffins. His heart
+sank as he ran into the bar of the hostelry to ask for the telegram which
+might be waiting for him.
+
+Happily there was no telegram. To find no tidings of a change for the
+worse seemed to him almost equivalent to hearing of a change for the
+better. What had he not feared after his interview with the surgeon of
+Bloomsbury!
+
+From Covent Garden the hansom bowled swiftly to Burlington Row. Here
+Valentine found Mr. Burkham, pale and anxious, waiting in a little den of
+a third room, on the ground-floor--a ghastly little room, hung with
+anatomical plates, and with some wax preparations in jars, on the
+mantelpiece, by way of ornament. To them presently came Dr. Jedd, as
+lively and business-like as if Miss Halliday's case had been a question
+of taking out a double-tooth.
+
+"Very sad!" he said; "these vegetable poisons--hands of unscrupulous man.
+Very interesting article in the _Medical Quarterly_--speculative analysis
+of the science of toxicology as known to the ancients."
+
+"You will come down to Harold's Hill at once, sir?" said Valentine,
+imploringly.
+
+"Well, yes; your friend here, Mr. Burkham, has persuaded me to do so,
+though I need hardly tell you that such a journey will be to the last
+degree inconvenient."
+
+"It is an affair of life and death," faltered the young man.
+
+"Of course, my dear sir. But then, you see, I have half-a-dozen other
+affairs of life and death on my hands at this moment. However, I have
+promised. My consultations will be over in half an hour; I have a round
+of visits after that, and by--well, say by the five o'clock express, I
+will go to St. Leonards."
+
+"The delay will be very long," said Valentine.
+
+"It cannot be done sooner. I ought to go down to Hertfordshire this
+evening--most interesting case--carbuncle--three operations in three
+consecutive weeks--Swain as operator. At five o'clock I shall be at the
+London Bridge station. Until then, gentlemen, good day. Lawson, the
+door."
+
+Dr. Jedd left his visitors to follow the respectable white-cravatted
+butler, and darted back to his consulting-room.
+
+Mr. Burkham and Valentine walked slowly up and down Burlington Row before
+the latter returned to his cab.
+
+"I thank you heartily for your help," said Valentine to the surgeon; "and
+I believe, with God's grace, we shall save this dear girl's life. It was
+the hand of Providence that guided me to you this morning. I can but
+believe the same hand will guide me to the end."
+
+On this they parted. Valentine told his cabman to drive to the Edgware
+Road; and in one of the churches of the immediate neighbourhood of that
+thoroughfare he gave notice of his intention to enter the bonds of holy
+matrimony. He had some difficulty in arranging matters with the clerk,
+whom he saw in his private abode and non-official guise. That functionary
+was scarcely able to grasp the idea of an intending Benedick who would
+not state positively when he wanted to be married. Happily, however, the
+administration of half-a-sovereign considerably brightened the clerk's
+perceptions.
+
+"I see what you want," he said. "Young lady a invalid, which she wants to
+leave her home as she finds uncomfortable, she being over twenty-one
+years of age and her own mistress. It's what you may call a runaway
+match, although the parties ain't beholden to any one, in a manner of
+speaking. _I_ understand. You give me half an hour's notice any morning
+within the legal hours, and I'll have one of our young curates ready for
+you as soon as you're ready for them; and have you and the young lady
+tied up tight enough before you know where you are. We ain't very long
+over _our_ marriages, unless it is something out of the common way."
+
+The clerk's familiarity was more good-natured than flattering to the
+applicant's self-esteem; but Valentine was in no mood to object to this
+easy-going treatment of the affair. He promised to give the clerk the
+required notice; and having arranged everything in strictly legal manner,
+hurried back to his cab, and directed the man to drive to the Lawn.
+
+It was now three o'clock. At five he was to meet Dr. Jedd at the station.
+He had two hours for his interview with Nancy Woolper, and his drive from
+Bayswater to London Bridge.
+
+He had tasted nothing since daybreak; but the necessity to eat and drink
+never occurred to him. He was dimly conscious of feeling sick and faint,
+but the reason of this sickness and faintness did not enter into his
+thoughts. He took off his hat, and leant his head back against the
+cushion of the hansom as that vehicle rattled across the squares of
+Paddington. The summer day, the waving of green trees in those suburban
+squares; the busy life and motion of the world through which he went,
+mixed themselves into one jarring whirl of light and colour, noise and
+motion. He found himself wondering how long it was since he left
+Harold's Hill. Between the summer morning in which he had walked along
+the dusty high-road, with fields of ripening corn upon his left, and all
+the broad blue sea upon his right, and the summer afternoon in which he
+drove in a jingling cab through the noisy streets and squares of
+Bayswater, there seemed to him a gulf so wide, that his tried brain
+shrank from scanning it.
+
+He struggled with this feeling of helplessness and bewilderment, and
+overcame it.
+
+"Let me remember what I have to do," he said to himself; "and let me keep
+my wits about me till that is done."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+PHOENICIANS ARE RISING.
+
+While Mr. Hawkehurst arranged his affairs with the clerk of St.
+Matthias-in-the-fields, in the parish of Marylebone, George Sheldon sat
+in his brother's office writing a letter to that distinguished
+stockbroker. The pretext of writing a letter was the simplest pretext for
+being alone in his brother's room; and to be alone in Philip Sheldon's
+room was the first step in the business which George had to do.
+
+The room was distractingly neat, and as handsomely furnished as it is
+possible for an office to be within the closest official limits. A
+Spanish mahogany desk with a cylinder cover, and innumerable drawers
+fitted with invisible Bramah locks, occupied the centre of the room; and
+four ponderous Spanish mahogany chairs, with padded backs, and seats
+covered with crimson morocco, were primly ranged against the wall. Upon
+the mantelpiece ticked a skeleton clock; above which there hung the
+sternest and grimmest of almanacks, on either whereof were fastened
+divers lists and calendars of awful character, affected by gentlemen on
+'Change.
+
+Before penetrating to this innermost and sacred chamber, George Sheldon
+wasted some little time in agreeable gossip with a gentleman whom he
+found yawning over the _Times_ newspaper in an outer and less richly
+furnished apartment. This gentleman was Philip Sheldon's clerk, the
+younger son of a rich Yorkshire farmer, who had come to London with the
+intention of making his fortune on the Stock Exchange, and whose father
+had paid a considerable sum in order to obtain for this young man the
+privilege of reading the Times in Mr. Sheldon's office, and picking up
+whatever knowledge might be obtained from the business transactions of
+his employer.
+
+The career of Philip Sheldon had been watched with some interest by his
+fellow-townsmen of Barlingford. They had seen him leave that town with a
+few hundreds in his pocket, and they had heard of him twelve years
+afterwards as a prosperous stockbroker, with a handsome house and a
+handsome carriage, and the reputation of being one of the sharpest men in
+the City. The accounts of him that came to Barlingford were all more or
+less exaggerated; and the men who discussed his cleverness and his good
+luck were apt to forget that he owed the beginning of his fortunes to Tom
+Halliday's eighteen thousand pounds. The one fact that impressed Philip
+Sheldon's townsmen was the fact that a Barlingford man had made money on
+the Stock Exchange; and the one inference they drew therefrom was the
+inference that other Barlingford men might do the same.
+
+Thus it had happened that Mr. Stephen Orcott, of Plymley Rise farm, near
+Barlingford, being at a loss what to do with a somewhat refractory
+younger son, resolved upon planting his footsteps in the path so
+victoriously trodden by Philip Sheldon. He wrote to Philip, asking him to
+receive the young man as clerk, assistant, secretary--anything, with a
+view to an ultimate junior partnership; and Philip consented, upon
+certain conditions. The sum he demanded was rather a stiff one, as it
+seemed to Stephen Orcott, but he opined that such a sum would not have
+been asked if the advantages had not been proportionately large. The
+bargain was therefore concluded, and Mr. Frederick Orcott came to London.
+He was a young man of horsey propensities, gifted with a sublime contempt
+for any kind of business requiring application or industry, and with a
+supreme belief in his own merits.
+
+George Sheldon had known Frederick Orcott as a boy, and had been in his
+society some half-dozen times since his coming to London. He apprehended
+no difficulty in obtaining from this young gentleman any information he
+had the power to afford.
+
+"How do, Orcott?" he said, with agreeable familiarity. "My brother Phil
+not come back yet?"
+
+"No," replied the other, sulkily. "There have been ever so many people
+here bothering me about him. Where has he gone? and when will he be back?
+and so on. I might as well be some d----d footman, if I'm to sit here
+answering questions all day. High Wickham races are on to-day, and I
+wanted to see Barmaid run before I put my money on her for Goodwood. She
+was bred down our way, you see, and I know she's like enough to win the
+cup, if she's fit. They don't know much about her this way, either,
+though she's own sister to Boots, that won the Chester Cup last year,
+owing to Topham's being swindled into letting him off with seven lbs. He
+ran at the York Spring, you see, for a twopenny-halfpenny plate, and the
+boy that rode him pulled his head half off--I saw him do it--and then he
+won the Chester, and brought his owners a pot of money."
+
+This information was not exactly what George Sheldon wanted, but he
+planted himself on the hearthrug in an easy attitude, with his back
+against the mantelpiece, and appeared much interested in Mr. Orcott's
+discourse.
+
+"Anything stirring in the City?" he asked presently.
+
+"Stirring? No--nothing stirring but stagnation, as some fellow said in a
+play I saw the other night. Barlingford folks say your brother Philip has
+made a heap of money on the Stock Exchange; but if he has, he must have
+done a good deal more business before I came to him than he has done
+lately. I can't see how a man is to develop into a Rothschild out of an
+occasional two-and-sixpence per cent on the transfer of some old woman's
+savings from railway stock to consols; and that's about the only kind of
+business I've seen much of lately. Of course Phil Sheldon has got irons
+of his own in the fire; for he's an uncommonly deep card, you see, that
+brother of yours, and it isn't to be expected he'll tell _me_ all he's up
+to. I know he's up to his eyebrows in companies, but I don't see how he's
+to make his fortune out of _them_, for limited liability now-a-days seems
+only another name for unlimited crash. However, I don't care. It pleased
+my governor to get me into Sheldon's office, and it suited my book to
+come to London; but if the author of my being thinks I'm going to addle
+my blessed brains with the decline and fall of the money market, he's a
+greater fool than I took him for--and that's saying a great deal."
+
+And here Mr. Frederick Orcott lapsed into admiring contemplation of his
+boots, which were the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of a sporting bootmaker; boots
+that were of the ring, ringy, and of the corner, cornery.
+
+"Ah," said George, "and Phil doesn't tell you much of his affairs,
+doesn't he? That's rather a bad sign, I should think. Looks as if he was
+rather down upon his luck, eh?"
+
+"Well, there's no knowing, you see, with that sort of close fish. He may
+have made his book for a great haul, and may be keeping himself quiet
+till the event comes off. He may be laying on to something with all his
+might, you know, on safe information. But there's one thing I know he
+stands to lose by."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"The Phoenician Loan. He speculated in the bonds when they began to go
+down; and I'm blessed if they haven't been dropping ever since, an
+eighth a day, as regular as the day comes round. He bought them for the
+March account, and has been paying contango since then, and holding on in
+hopes of a rise. I don't know whether the purchase was a large one, but I
+know he's been uncommonly savage about the drop. He bought on the
+strength of private information from the other side of the Channel. The
+Emperor was putting his own money into the Phoenician business, and it
+was the best game out, and so on. But he seems to have been made a fool
+of, for once in a way."
+
+"The bonds may steady themselves."
+
+"Yes, they _may_; but, on the other hand, they mayn't. There are the
+Stock Exchange lists, with Phoenicians ticked off by your brother's own
+pen. A steady drop, you see. 'Let me have a telegram if there's a sudden
+rise,' said Sheldon to me the day he left London; 'they'll go up with
+rush when they do move.' But they've been moving the other way ever
+since; and I think if he stayed away till doomsday it would be pretty
+much the same."
+
+"_Phoenicians are rising rapidly. Come back to town._"
+
+These were the words of the telegraphic despatch which shaped itself in
+George Sheldon's brain, as his brother's clerk revealed the secrets of
+his employer.
+
+It was found--the solution of the one great question as to how Philip
+Sheldon was to be lured away from the bedside of his unconscious victim.
+Here was the bait.
+
+"I knew I could do it; I knew I could get all I wanted to know out of
+this shallow-brained idiot," he said to himself, triumphantly.
+
+And then he told the shallow-brained idiot that he thought he would write
+a line to his brother; and on that pretence went into Philip's office.
+
+Here, use his eyes as he might, he could discover nothing; he could glean
+no stray scrap of information. The secrets that could be guarded by
+concealed Bramah locks and iron safes, with mystic words to be learned by
+the man who would open them, Philip Sheldon knew how to protect.
+Unhappily for himself, he had been compelled to confide some of his
+secrets to human receptacles not to be guarded by Bramah locks or mystic
+words.
+
+The lawyer did not waste much time in his brother's office. A very hasty
+investigation showed him there was nothing to be learned from those bare
+walls and that inviolable cylinder-topped desk. He scribbled a few lines
+of commonplace at a table by the window, sealed and addressed his note,
+and then departed to despatch his telegram, "Phoenicians are rising
+rapidly," he wrote, and that was all. He signed the despatch Frederick
+Orcott.
+
+"Phil and Orcott may settle the business between them," he said to
+himself, as he forged the Yorkshireman's name. "What I have to do is to
+get Phil away, and give Hawkehurst a chance of saving Tom Halliday's
+daughter; and I shan't stand upon trifles in the doing of it."
+
+After having despatched this telegram, George Sheldon found himself much
+too restless and excited for ordinary business. He, so renowned even
+amongst cool hands for exceptional coolness, was on this occasion
+thoroughly unnerved. He dropped into a City tavern, and refreshed himself
+with a dram. But, amidst all the bustle and clatter of a crowded bar, the
+face of Tom Halliday, haggard and worn with illness, was before his eyes,
+and the sound of Tom Halliday's voice was in his ears. "I can't settle to
+anything this afternoon," he said to himself. "I'll run down to
+Bayswater, and see whether Hawkehurst has managed matters with Nancy
+Woolper."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+THE SORTES VIRGILIANAE.
+
+While George Sheldon was still in the depths of the City Valentine
+Hawkehurst arrived at the gothic villa, where he asked to see Mrs.
+Woolper. Of the woman herself he knew very little: he had seen her once
+or twice when some special mission brought her to the drawing-room; and
+from Charlotte he had heard much of her affectionate solicitude. To have
+been kind to his Charlotte was the strongest claim to his regard.
+
+"This woman's help would be of inestimable service," he thought; "her
+age, her experience of sickness, her familiarity with the patient,
+especially adapt her for the office she will be required to fill. If Dr.
+Jedd should order a nurse to watch by the sick-bed, here is the nurse. If
+it should prove possible to remove the dear sufferer, here is the
+guardian best calculated to protect and attend her removal." That the
+desperate step of an immediate marriage would be a wise step Valentine
+could not doubt, since it would at once annihilate Mr. Sheldon's chances,
+and destroy his motive. But in contemplating this desperate step
+Valentine had to consider the reputation as well as the safety of his
+future wife. He was determined that there should be no opportunity for
+scandal in the circumstances of his stolen marriage, no scope for future
+mischief from the malignity of that baffled villain to whose schemes
+their marriage would give the death-blow. He, who from his cradle had
+been familiar with the darker side of life, knew how often the innocent
+carry a lifelong burden, and perform a perpetual pennance for the sins or
+the follies of others. And over his darling's life in the future, should
+it please God that he might save her, he would have no shadow cast by
+imprudence of his in the present.
+
+"This sharp-witted, sharp-tongued Yorkshirewoman will be the woman of
+women to protect her," he thought, as he seated himself in Mr. Sheldon's
+study, whither the prim parlour-maid had ushered him.
+
+"Mrs. Woolper have just gone upstairs to clean herself," she said; "which
+we are a-having the dining-room and droring-room carpets up, while the
+family are away. Would you please to wait?"
+
+Valentine looked at his watch.
+
+"I cannot wait very long," he said; "and I shall be obliged if you will
+tell Mrs. Woolper that I wish to see her on very important business."
+
+The parlour-maid departed, and Valentine was left to endure the weariness
+of waiting until Mrs. Woolper should have "cleaned herself."
+
+Mr. Sheldon's study at Bayswater did not offer much more to the eye of
+the investigator than Mr. Sheldon's office in the City. There were the
+handsomely bound books behind the inviolable plate-glass doors, and there
+was the neat writing-table with the machine for weighing letters, and the
+large business-like looking blotting-pad, and the ponderous brass-rimmed
+inkstand, with no nonsense about it; and yonder, on a clumsy little oak
+table with thick legs, appeared the copying machine, with a big black
+iron lever, and a massive screw with which to screw all the spontaneous
+feeling out of every letter that came beneath its crushing influence.
+
+Up and down this joyless den Valentine Hawkehurst paced, with the demon
+of impatience raging in his breast. The July sunshine blazed hot upon the
+window, and the voices of croquêt-players in adjacent gardens rose shrill
+upon the summer air. And there were girls playing croquêt while she, his
+"rose of the garden, garden of girls," lay sick unto death! O, why could
+he not offer a hecatomb of these common creatures as a substitute for
+that one fair spirit?
+
+He looked into the garden--the prim modern garden, but a few years
+reclaimed from that abomination of desolation, the "eligible lot of
+building land." Across the well-kept lawn there brooded no shadow of
+Old-World cedar; no century-old espaliers divided flower and kitchen
+ground; no box-edging of the early Hanoverian era bordered the beds of
+roses and mignonette. From one boundary-wall to the other there was not a
+bush old enough to hang an association upon. The stereotyped bed of
+flaming yellow calceolaria balanced the conventional bed of flaming
+crimson verbena; the lavender heliotrope faced the scarlet geranium, like
+the four corners in a quadrille. The garden was the modern nurserymen's
+ideal of suburban horticulture, and no more. But to Valentine this
+half-acre of smooth lawn and Wimbledon gravel pathway had seemed fair as
+those pleasure gardens of Semiramis, at the foot of the Bagistanos
+mountain, the fame whereof tempted Alexander to turn aside from the
+direct road, during his march from Chelone to the Nysaic horse pastures.
+
+To-day the contemplation of that commonplace garden gave him direful
+pain. Should he ever walk there again with his dear love, or in any other
+garden upon earth?
+
+And then he thought of fairer gardens, in supernal regions whither his
+soul was slow to travel. "Not easy is the journey from earth to the
+stars," says the sage; and from this young wanderer the stain of earthly
+travel had yet to be washed away.
+
+"If she is taken from me, shall I ever be pure enough to follow her?" he
+asked himself. "Will a life that began in such darkness ever rise to the
+light which is her natural element? If she is taken, and I stay behind,
+and bear my burden patiently in the hope to follow her, will there not be
+a gate closed against me in the skies, beyond which I shall see her,
+shining among her kindred spirits, in the white robes of perfect
+innocence? Ah, my love, my love, as between, us on this earth must for
+ever be a gulf your pure soul cannot pass, so between us in the skies
+will rise a barrier to sever me from your sweet company!"
+
+The thought of probable separation upon earth, of possible separation in
+heaven, was too bitter to him.
+
+"I will not think of these things," he said to himself; "I will not
+believe in that possibility of this sacrifice. Ah, no! she will be
+saved. Against the bright young life the awful fiat has not gone
+forth. Providence has been with me to-day. Providence will go with me
+till the end."
+
+He thought how other men had so stood, as he was standing now, face to
+face with the great uncertainty, the crisis, the turning-point--the pivot
+on which life itself revolved. The pendulum of the mighty clock swings
+solemnly to and fro; with every vibration a moment; with every moment
+each man's shrouded fates move another step in their inexorable progress.
+And the end? What was the goal towards which those dark relentless shapes
+were moving?
+
+He thought of Rousseau, balancing the awful question of his soul's
+salvation--his poor weak soul adrift upon a sea of doubt.
+
+"Behold yonder tree which faces me, as I sit and meditate the problem of
+my destiny--the destiny of me, Jean Jacques Rousseau, self-conscious
+genius, and future regenerator of my age. I pick up a pebble, and
+poise it between my fingers before taking my aim. In another moment
+the question will be answered. If the pebble hits the tree, I, Jean
+Jacques, am reserved for salvation. If I miss--O awful, overwhelming
+possibility!--my name will blaze upon that dreadful scroll which numbers
+the damned."
+
+Happily the tree is bulky, and within but a few yards of the
+speculator; and the great enigma of the Calvinistic church is answered
+in favour of Madame de Warenne's protégé, whose propensities and
+proclivities at that period did not very strongly indicate his claim to
+a place among the elect.
+
+Valentine remembered the _sortes Virgilianae_--the Wesleyan's drawing of
+inferences from Bible texts. Ah, could he not find an answer to the
+question that was the one thought of his mind? He would find some
+answer--a lying oracle, perhaps. It might be a voice from heaven,--some
+temporary assuagement of this storm of doubt that raged in his breast. "I
+doubt if Mr. Sheldon owns either a Bible or an, 'AEneid,'" he said to
+himself, as he stopped in his rapid pacing of the room; "I will open the
+first book I can put my hand upon, and from the first line my eye falls
+on will draw an augury."
+
+He looked about the room. Behind the glazed doors of the mahogany
+bookcase appeared Hume and Smollett, Scott and Shakespeare; and
+conspicuous among these a handsome family Bible. But the glazed doors
+were locked. In Mr. Sheldon's study there appeared to be no other books
+than these few standard works. Yes, on some obscure little shelves, low
+down in one of the recesses formed by the projection of the fireplace and
+the chimney, there were three rows of large quarto volumes, in dingy
+dark-green cloth cases.
+
+What these volumes might contain Valentine Hawkehurst knew not; and the
+very fact of his ignorance rendered these books all the more suitable for
+the purpose of augury. To dip for a sentence into any of these unknown
+volumes would be a leap in darkness more profound than he could find in
+the Bible or the "AEneid," where his own foreknowledge of the text might
+unwittingly influence the oracle. He went over to the recess, bent down,
+and ran his hand along the backs of the volumes, with his face turned
+away from the books towards the window.
+
+"The first obstruction that arrests my hand shall determine my choice of
+the volume," he said to himself.
+
+His hand ran easily along the volumes on the upper shelf--easily along
+the volumes on the second shelf; and he began to doubt whether this mode
+of determining his choice could be persisted in. But in its progress
+along the third and lowest range of volumes, his hand was arrested midway
+by a book which projected about half an inch beyond its fellows.
+
+He took this book out and carried it to the table, still without looking
+at it. He opened it, or rather let its leaves fall open of their own
+accord--still without looking at it; and then, with a strange
+superstitious fear--mingled in his mind with the natural shame that
+accompanied his conscious folly--he looked at the page before him. The
+line on which he fixed his eye was the heading of a letter. It was in
+larger type than the rest of the page, and it was very plain to him as he
+stood a little way from the table, looking down at the open book.
+
+The line ran thus:
+
+"ON THE FALLIBILITY OF COPPER GAUZE AS A TEST FOR THE DETECTION OF
+ARSENIC."
+
+The book was a volume of the _Lancet_; the date twenty years ago.
+
+"What an oracle!" thought Valentine, with a cynical laugh at his own
+folly, and some slight sense of relief. In all feeble tamperings with
+powers invisible there lurks a sense of terror in the weak human heart.
+He had tempted those invisible ones, and the oracle he only half believed
+in might have spoken to his confusion and dismay. He was glad to think
+the oracle meant nothing.
+
+And yet, even in this dry as dust title of a scientific communication
+from a distinguished toxicologist there was some sinister significance.
+It was the letter of a great chemist, who demonstrated therein the
+fallibility of all tests in relation to a certain poison. It was one of
+those papers which, while they aid the cause of science, may also further
+the dark processes of the poisoner, by showing him the forces he has to
+encounter, and the weapons with which he may defend himself from their
+power. It is needless to dwell here upon the contents of this letter--one
+of a series on the same subject, or range of subjects. Valentine read it
+with eager interest. For him it had a terrible importance in its relation
+to the past and to the present.
+
+"I let the book fall open, and it opened at that letter," he thought to
+himself. "Will it open there a second time, I wonder?"
+
+He repeated the experiment, and the book opened in the same place. Again;
+and again the book opened as before. Again, many times, and the result
+was still the same.
+
+After this he examined the book, and found that it had been pressed open
+at this page, as by a reader leaning on the opened volume. He examined it
+still more closely, and found here and there on the page faint
+indications of a pencil, which had under-scored certain lines, and the
+marks of which had been as far as possible erased. The deduction to be
+drawn from these small facts seemed only too clear to Valentine
+Hawkehurst. By some one reader the pages had been deliberately and
+carefully studied. Could he doubt that reader to have been the man in
+whose possession he found the book, the man whom that very day he had
+heard plainly denounced as a poisoner?
+
+He drew out the previous volume, and in this a rapid search revealed to
+him a second fact, significant as the last.
+
+An old envelope marked the place where appeared an article on the
+coincidences common to the diagnostics of a certain type of low fever and
+the diagnostics of a certain class of poisons. Here the volume again
+opened of itself, and a blot of ink on the page seemed to indicate that
+the open book had been leant upon by a person engaged in making memoranda
+of its contents. Nor was this all. The forgotten envelope that marked the
+place had its own dismal significance. The postmark bore the date of the
+year and the month in which Charlotte's father had died.
+
+While this volume was still open in his hand the door opened suddenly,
+and Mrs. Woolper came into the room.
+
+She had kept Valentine waiting more than half an hour. He had little more
+than half an hour at most in which to break the ice of absolute
+strangeness, and sound the very depths of this woman's character. If she
+had come to him earlier, when his plan of action was clear and definite,
+his imagination in abeyance, he would have gone cautiously to work, with
+slowness and deliberation. Coming to him now, when his mind, unsettled by
+the discovery of fresh evidence against Philip Sheldon, was divided
+between the past and the present, she took him off his guard, and he
+plunged at once into the subject that absorbed all his thoughts.
+
+Mrs. Woolper looked from Valentine to the open books on the table with a
+vague terror in her face.
+
+"I am sorry I was so long, sir; but I'd been polishing the grates and
+fenders, and such like, and my hands and face were blacker than a
+sweep's. I hope there's nothing wrong at the seaside, where Miss--"
+
+"There is much that's wrong, Mrs. Woolper--hopelessly, irrecoverably
+wrong. Miss Halliday is ill, very ill--doomed to die, if she remain in
+your master's keeping."
+
+"Lord help us, Mr. Hawkehurst! what do you mean?"
+
+The terror in her face was no longer a vague terror. It had taken a form
+and substance, and was a terror unutterably hideous, if ever human
+countenance gave expression to human thought.
+
+"I mean that your master is better skilled in the use of the agents that
+kill than the agents that cure. Charlotte's father came to Philip
+Sheldon's house a hale strong man, in the very prime of manhood. In that
+house he sickened of a nameless disease, and died, carefully tended by
+his watchful friend. The same careful watcher stands by Charlotte
+Halliday's deathbed, and she is dying!"
+
+"Dying! O, sir, for God's sake, don't say that!"
+
+"She is dying, as her father died before her, by the hand of Philip
+Sheldon."
+
+"O, sir! Mr. Hawkehurst!" cried the old woman, with clasped hands lifted
+in piteous supplication towards her master's denouncer. "It's not true.
+It is not true. For God's dear love don't tell me it is true! I nursed
+him when he was a baby, sir; and there wasn't a little trouble I had to
+bear with him that didn't make him all the dearer to me. I have sat up
+all the night through, sir, times and often, when he was ill, and have
+heard Barlingford church clock strike every hour of the long night; and
+O, if I had known that this could ever come to him, I should have wished
+him dead in the little crib where he lay and seemed so innocent. I tell
+you, sir, it can't be true! His father and mother had been respected and
+looked up to in Barlingford for many a year,--his grandfather and
+grandmother before them. There isn't a name that stands better in those
+parts than the name of Sheldon. Do you think such a man would poison his
+friend?"
+
+"_I_ said nothing about poison, Mrs. Woolper," said Valentine, sternly.
+
+This woman had known all, and had held her tongue, like the rest, it
+seemed. To Valentine there was unutterable horror in the thought that a
+cold-blooded murder could be thus perpetrated in the sight of several
+people, and yet no voice be raised to denounce the assassin.
+
+"And this is our modern civilization!" he said to himself. "Give me the
+desert or the jungle. The sons of Bowanee are no worse than Mr. Sheldon,
+and one might be on one's guard against them."
+
+Nancy Woolper looked at him aghast. He had said nothing about poison!
+What, then--had she betrayed her master?
+
+He saw that she had known, or strongly suspected, the worst in the case
+of Tom Halliday, and that she would easily be influenced to do all he
+wanted of her.
+
+"Mrs. Woolper, you must help me to save Charlotte," he said, with
+intensity. "You made no attempt to save her father, though you suspected
+the cause of his death. I have this day seen Mr. Burkham, the doctor who
+attended Mr. Halliday, and from his lips I have heard the truth. I want
+you to accompany me to Hastings, and to take your place by Charlotte's
+bed, as her nurse and guardian. If Mr. Sheldon suspects your knowledge of
+the past, and I have little doubt that he does"--a look in the
+housekeeper's face told him that he was right--"you are of all people
+best fitted to guard that dear girl. Your part will not be a difficult
+one. If we dare remove her, we will remove her beyond the reach of that
+man's power. If not, your task will be to prevent food or medicine, that
+his hand has touched, from approaching her lips. You _can_ do it. It will
+only be a question of tact and firmness. We shall have one of the
+greatest doctors in London for our guide. Will you come?"
+
+"I don't believe my master poisoned his friend," said Nancy Woolper,
+doggedly; "nor I won't believe it. You can't force me to think bad of him
+I loved when he was little and helpless, and I carried him in my arms.
+What are you and your fine London doctor, Mr. Burkham--he was but a poor
+fondy, as I mind well--that I should take your word against my master? If
+that young man thought as Mr. Halliday was being poisoned, why didn't he
+speak out, like a man, then? It's a fine piece of work to bring it up
+against my master eleven years afterwards. As for young missy, she's as
+sweet a young creature as ever lived, and I'd do anything to serve her.
+But I won't think, and I can't think, that my master would hurt a hair of
+her head. What would he gain by it?"
+
+"He has settled that with himself. He has gained by the death of Tom
+Halliday, and depend upon it he has made his plans to gain by the death
+of Tom Halliday's daughter."
+
+"I won't believe it," the old woman repeated in the same dogged tone.
+
+For such resistance as this Mr. Hawkehurst was in no manner prepared. He
+looked at his watch. The half hour was nearly gone. There was little more
+time for argument.
+
+"Great Heaven!" he said to himself, "what argument can I employ to
+influence this woman's obdurate heart?"
+
+What argument, indeed? He knew of none stronger than those he had used.
+He stood for some moments battled and helpless, staring absently at the
+face of his watch, and wondering what he was to do next.
+
+As Valentine Hawkehurst stood thus, there came a loud ringing of the
+bell, following quickly on the sound of wheels grinding against the
+kerbstone.
+
+Mrs. Woolper opened the door and looked out into the hall.
+
+"It's master!" cried one of the maids, emerging from the disorganized
+dining-room, "and missus, and Miss Halliday, and Mass Paget--and all the
+house topsy-turvy!"
+
+"Charlotte here!" exclaimed Valentine. "You are dreaming, girl!"
+
+"And you told me she was dying!" said Mrs. Woolper, with a look of
+triumph. "What becomes of your fine story now?"
+
+"It _is_ Miss Halliday!" cried the housemaid, as she opened the door.
+"And O my!" she added, looking back into the hall with a sorrowful face,
+"how bad she do look!"
+
+Valentine ran out to the gate. Yes; there were two cabs, one laden with
+luggage, the two cabmen busy about the doors of the vehicles, a little
+group of stragglers waiting to see the invalid young lady alight. It was
+the next best thing to a funeral.
+
+"O, don't she look white!" cried a shrill girl with a baby in her arms.
+
+"In a decline, I dessay, pore young thing," said a matron, in an audible
+aside to her companion.
+
+Valentine dashed amongst the group of stragglers. He pushed away the girl
+with the baby, the housemaid who had run out behind him, Mr. Sheldon, the
+cabman, every one; and in the next moment Charlotte was in his arms, and
+he was carrying her into the house.
+
+He felt as if he had been in a dream; and all that exceptional force
+which the dreamer sometimes feels he felt in this crisis. He carried his
+dear burden into the study, followed by Mr. Sheldon and Diana Paget. The
+face that dropped upon his shoulder showed deadly white against his
+dark-blue coat; the hand which he clasped in his, ah, how listless and
+feeble!
+
+"Valentine!" the girl said, in a low drowsy voice, lifting her eyes to
+his face, "is this you? I have been so ill, so tired; and they would
+bring me away. To be near the doctors, papa says. Do you think any
+doctors will be able to cure me?"
+
+"Yes, dear, with God's help. I am glad he has brought you here. And now
+I must run away," he said; when he had placed Charlotte in Mr. Sheldon's
+arm-chair, "for a very little while, darling. I have seen a doctor, a
+man in whom I have more confidence than I have in Dr. Doddleson. I am
+going to fetch him, my dearest," he added tenderly, as he felt the
+feeble hand cling to his; "I shall not be long. Do you think I shall not
+hurry back to you? My dearest one, when I return, it will be to stay
+with you--for ever."
+
+She was too ill to note the significance of his words; she only knew that
+they gave her comfort. He hurried from the room. In less than an hour he
+must be at the London Bridge terminus, or in all probability the five
+o'clock train would carry Dr. Jedd to St. Leonards; and on Dr. Jedd his
+chief hope rested.
+
+"Do you believe me now?" he asked of Mrs. Woolper as he went out
+into the hall.
+
+"I do," she answered in a whisper; "and I will do what you want."
+
+She took his hand in her wrinkled horny palm and grasped it firmly. He
+felt that in this firm pressure there was a promise sacred as any oath
+ever registered on earth. He met Mr. Sheldon on the threshold, and
+passed him without a word. The time might come in which he would have to
+mask his thoughts, and stoop to the hateful hypocrisy of civility to
+this man; but he had not yet schooled himself to do this. At the gate he
+met George Sheldon.
+
+"What's up now?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"Did you send your message?"
+
+"Yes; I telegraphed to Phil."
+
+"It has been trouble wasted. He has brought her home."
+
+"What does that mean?"
+
+"Who knows? I pray God that he may have overreached himself. I have set a
+watch upon my dear love, and no further harm shall come to her. I am
+going to fetch Dr. Jedd."
+
+"And you are not afraid of Phil's smelling a rat?"
+
+"I am afraid of nothing that he can do henceforward. If it is not too
+late to save her, I will save her."
+
+He waited for no more, but jumped into the cab. "London Bridge terminus!
+You must get me there by a quarter to five," he said to the driver.
+
+George Sheldon went no further than the gate of his brother's domain.
+
+"I wonder whether the Harold's Hill people will send that telegram after
+him," he thought. "It'll be rather unpleasant for Fred Orcott if they do.
+But it's ten to one they won't. The normal condition of every seaside
+lodging-house keeper in one degree removed from idiotcy."
+
+
+
+
+Book the Ninth.
+
+
+
+THROUGH THE FURNACE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+SOMETHING TOO MUCH.
+
+"Is that young man mad?" asked Philip Sheldon, as he went into his study
+immediately after Valentine had passed him in the hall.
+
+The question was not addressed to any particular individual; and Diana,
+who was standing near the door by which Mr. Sheldon entered, took upon
+herself to answer it.
+
+"I think he is very anxious," she said in a half whisper.
+
+"What brought him here just now? He did not know we were coming home."
+
+Mrs. Woolper answered this question.
+
+"He came for something for Miss Charlotte, sir; some books as she'd had
+from the library. They'd not been sent back; and he came to see about
+their being sent."
+
+"What books?" murmured Charlotte. But a pressure from Mrs. Woolper's hand
+prevented her saying more.
+
+"I never encountered any one with so little self-command," said Mr.
+Sheldon. "If he is going to rush in and out of my house in that manner, I
+must really put a stop to his visits altogether. I cannot suffer that
+kind of thing. For Charlotte's welfare quiet is indispensable; and if Mr.
+Hawkehurst's presence is to bring noise and excitement, Mr. Hawkehurst
+must not cross this threshold."
+
+He spoke with suppressed anger; with such evident effort to restrain his
+anger, that it would have seemed as if his indignation against Valentine
+was no common wrath.
+
+Charlotte caught his last words.
+
+"Dear papa," she pleaded in her faint voice, "pray do not be angry with
+Valentine; he is so anxious about me."
+
+"I am not angry with him; but while you are ill, I will have quiet--at
+any price."
+
+"Then I'm sure you should not have brought Charlotte home," exclaimed
+Georgy, in tones of wailing and lamentation; "for of all the miseries in
+life, there is nothing worse than coming home in the very midst of a
+general cleaning. It was agreed between Ann Woolper and me that there
+should be a general cleaning while we were away at the seaside. We were
+to be away a fortnight, and everything was to be as neat as a new pin
+when we came home. But here we are back in less than a week, and
+everything at sixes-and-sevens. Where we are to dine I know not; and as
+for the carpets, they are all away at the beating-place, and Ann tells me
+they won't be home till Friday."
+
+"We can exist without carpets," answered Mr. Sheldon, in a hard dry
+voice. "I suppose they are seeing to Miss Halliday's room?" he added,
+addressing himself to Mrs. Woolper. "Why don't you go and look after
+them, Nancy?"
+
+"Sarah knows what she has to do. The bed-rooms was done first; and
+there's not much amiss in Miss Charlotte's room."
+
+Mr. Sheldon dropped wearily into a chair. He looked pale and haggard.
+Throughout the journey he had been unfailing in his attention to the
+invalid; but the journey had been fatiguing; for Charlotte Halliday was
+very ill--so ill as to be unable to avoid inflicting trouble upon
+others. The weariness--the dizziness--the dull intervals of
+semi-consciousness--the helpless tottering walk, which was like the
+walk of intoxication rather than ordinary weakness--the clouded
+sight--all the worst symptoms of this nameless disease, had every hour
+grown more alarming.
+
+Against this journey to London Mrs. Sheldon and Diana had pleaded--Georgy
+with as much earnestness as she could command; Diana as forcibly as she
+dared argue a question in which her voice had so little weight.
+
+But upon this point Mr. Sheldon was adamant.
+
+"She will be better off in London," he said resolutely. "This trip to the
+seaside was a whim of my wife's; and, like most other whims of my wife's,
+it has entailed trouble and expense upon me. Of course I know that Georgy
+did it for the best," he added, in reply to a reproachful "O Philip!"
+from Mrs. Sheldon. "But the whole business has been a mistake. No sooner
+are we comfortably settled down here, than Hawkehurst takes it into his
+head to be outrageously alarmed about Charlotte, and wants to bring
+half-a-dozen doctors round the poor girl's bed, to her inevitable peril;
+for in an illness which begins and ends in mental depression, all
+appearance of alarm is calculated to do mischief."
+
+Having said this, Mr. Sheldon lost no time in making arrangements for the
+journey. A carriage was ordered; all possible preparations were made for
+the comfort of the invalid--everything that care or kindness could do was
+done; but the cruelty of the removal was not the less obvious. Georgy
+wailed piteously about the sixes-and-sevens to which they were being
+taken. Diana cared nothing about sixes-and-sevens; but she felt supreme
+indignation against Charlotte's stepfather, and she did not attempt to
+conceal her feelings.
+
+Nor was it without an effort to oppose Mr. Sheldon's authority that Miss
+Paget succumbed to the force of circumstances. She appealed to his wife.
+
+"Dear Mrs. Sheldon, I beg you not to suffer Lotta's removal," she said
+earnestly. "You do not know how ill she is--nor can Mr. Sheldon know, or
+he would not take such a step. As her mother, your authority is superior
+to his; you have but to say that she shall not be taken from this house
+in her present state of prostration and sickness."
+
+"I have only to say!" cried Georgy, piteously. "O Diana, how can you say
+such a thing? What would be Mr. Sheldon's feelings if I were to stand up
+against him, and declare that Charlotte should not be moved? And he so
+anxious too, and so clever. I'm sure his conduct about my poor dear Lotta
+is positively beautiful. I never saw such anxiety. Why, he has grown ten
+years older in his looks since the beginning of her illness. People go on
+about stepfather this, and stepfather that, until a poor young widow is
+almost frightened to marry again. But I don't believe a real father ever
+was more thoughtful or more careful about a real daughter than Philip has
+been about Lotta. And what a poor return it would be if I were to oppose
+him now, when he says that the removal will be for Charlotte's good, and
+that she will be near clever doctors--if she should require clever
+doctors! You don't know how experienced he is, and how thoughtful. I
+shall never forget his kindness to poor Tom."
+
+"Yes," exclaimed Miss Paget impatiently, "but Mr. Halliday died."
+
+"O Diana," whimpered Georgy, "I did not think you could be so unkind as
+to remind me of that."
+
+"I only want to remind you that Mr. Sheldon is not infallible."
+
+Mr. Sheldon entered the room at this juncture, and Diana left it,
+passionately indignant against the poor weak creature, to whom no crisis,
+no danger, could give strength of mind or will.
+
+"A sheep would make some struggle for her lamb," she thought, angrily.
+"Mrs. Sheldon is lower than a sheep."
+
+It was the first time she had thought unkindly of this weak soul, and her
+anger soon melted to pity for the powerless nature which Mr. Sheldon held
+in such supreme control. She made no further attempt at resistance after
+this; but went to Charlotte's room and prepared for the journey.
+
+"O, why am I to be moved, dear?" the girl asked piteously. "I am too ill
+to be moved."
+
+"It is for your good, darling. Mr. Sheldon wants you to be near the great
+physicians, who can give you health and strength."
+
+"There are no physicians who can do that. Let me stay here, Di. Beg papa
+to let me stay here."
+
+Diana hid her face upon the invalid's shoulder. Her tears choked her. To
+repress her grief was agony scarcely endurable. But she did hide all
+trace of anger and sorrow, and cheered the helpless traveller throughout
+the weariness of the journey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charlotte was lying on a sofa in her bedroom, with Mrs. Woolper in
+attendance upon her, when Dr. Jedd arrived. It was a quarter to six, and
+the low western sunshine flooded the room.
+
+The physician came with Valentine, and did not ask to see Mr. Sheldon
+before going to his patient's room. He told the housemaid who admitted
+him to show the way to Miss Halliday's room.
+
+"The nurse is there, I suppose?" he said to the girl.
+
+"Yes, sir; leastways, Mrs. Woolper."
+
+"That will do."
+
+Mr. Sheldon heard the voice in the hall, and came out of the library as
+the doctor mounted the step of the stairs.
+
+"Who is this? What is this?" he asked of Valentine Hawkehurst.
+
+"I told you I was not satisfied with Dr. Doddleson's opinion," answered
+the young man coolly. "This gentleman is here by appointment with me."
+
+"And pray by what right do you bring a doctor of your own choosing to
+visit my stepdaughter without previous consultation with me?"
+
+"By the right of my love for her. I am not satisfied as to the medical
+treatment your stepdaughter has received in this house, Mr. Sheldon, and
+I want to be satisfied. Miss Halliday is something more than your,
+stepdaughter, remember: she is my promised wife. Dr. Jedd's opinion will
+be more assuring to me than the opinion of Dr. Doddleson."
+
+At the sound of Dr. Jedd's name Mr. Sheldon started slightly. It was a
+name he knew only too well--a name he had seen among the medical
+witnesses in the great Fryar trial, the record of which had for him
+possessed a hideous fascination. He had fancied himself in the poisoner
+Fryar's place; and the fancy had sent an icy chill through his veins. But
+in the next minute he had said to himself, "I am not such a reckless fool
+as that man Fryar was; and have run no such risks as he ran."
+
+At the name of Jedd the same icy shiver ran through his veins again. His
+tone of suppressed anger changed to a tone of civility which was almost
+sycophantic.
+
+"I have the honour to know Dr. Jedd by repute very well indeed, and I
+withdraw my objection to your course of proceeding, my dear Hawkehurst;
+though I am sure Dr. Jedd will agree with me that such a course is
+completely against all professional etiquette, and that Dr. Doddleson
+will have the right to consider himself aggrieved."
+
+"There are cases in which one hardly considers professional etiquette. I
+shall be very happy to meet Dr. Doddleson to-morrow morning. But as Mr.
+Hawkehurst was very anxious that I should see Miss Halliday to-night, I
+consented to waive all ceremony, and come with him on the spot."
+
+"I cannot blame his anxiety to secure so valuable an opinion. I only
+wonder what lucky star guided him to so excellent an adviser."
+
+Mr. Sheldon looked from Dr. Jedd to Valentine Hawkehurst as he said this.
+The physician's face told him no more than he might have learnt from a
+blank sheet of paper. Valentine's face was dark and gloomy; but that
+gloomy darkness might mean no more than natural grief.
+
+"I will take you to my stepdaughter's room at once," he said to the
+physician.
+
+"I think it will be better for me to see the young lady alone," the
+doctor answered coolly: "that is to say, in the presence of her nurse
+only."
+
+"As you please," Mr. Sheldon replied.
+
+He went back to his study. Georgy was sitting there, whimpering in a
+feeble way at intervals; and near her sat Diana, silent and gloomy. A
+settled gloom, as of the grave itself, brooded over the house. Mr.
+Sheldon flung himself into a chair with an impatient gesture. He had
+sneered at the inconvenience involved in uncarpeted floors, but he was
+beginning to feel the aggravation of that inconvenience. These two women
+in his study were insupportable to him. It seemed as if there was no room
+in the house in which he could be alone; and just now he had bitter need
+of solitary meditation.
+
+"Let them arrange the dining-room somehow, carpet or no carpet," he said
+to his wife. "We must have some room to dine in; and I can't have you
+here, Georgy; I have letters to write."
+
+Mrs. Sheldon and Diana were not slow to take the hint.
+
+"I'm sure I don't want to be here, or anywhere," exclaimed Georgy in
+piteous accents; "I feel so miserable about Charlotte, that if I could
+lie down and die, it would be a comfort to me. And it really seems a
+mockery having dinner at such a time. It's just as it was during poor
+Tom's illness; there were fowls and all sorts of things cooked, and no
+one ever ate them."
+
+"For God's sake go away!" cried Mr. Sheldon passionately; "your perpetual
+clack is torture to me."
+
+Georgy hurried from the room, followed closely by Diana.
+
+"Did you ever see any one more anxious?" Mrs. Sheldon asked, with
+something like pride.
+
+"I would rather see Mr. Sheldon less anxious!" Diana answered gravely.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+DR. JEDD'S OPINION.
+
+Alone, Philip Sheldon breathed more freely. He paced the room, waiting
+for the appearance of the doctor; and with almost every turn he looked at
+the clock upon the chimneypiece.
+
+How intolerable seemed the slow progress of the moments! How long that
+man Jedd was staying in the sick-room! And yet not long; it was he,
+Philip Sheldon, who was losing count of time. Where was Valentine? He
+opened the door of the room, and looked out. Yes, there was a figure on
+the stairs. The lover was waiting the physician's verdict.
+
+A door on the landing above opened, and the step of the Doctor sounded on
+the upper flight. Mr. Sheldon waited for Dr. Jedd's appearance.
+
+"I shall be glad to hear your opinion," he said quietly; and the Doctor
+followed him into the study. Valentine followed the Doctor, to Mr.
+Sheldon's evident surprise.
+
+"Mr. Hawkehurst is very anxious to hear what I have to say," said Dr.
+Jedd; "and I really see no objection to his hearing it."
+
+"If you have no objection, I can have none," Mr. Sheldon answered. "I
+must confess, your course of proceeding appears to me altogether
+exceptional, and--"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Sheldon; but then, you see, the case is altogether an
+exceptional case," said the physician, gravely.
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Decidedly. The young lady is in extreme danger. Yes, Mr. Sheldon, in
+extreme danger. The mistake involved in her removal to-day is a mistake
+which I cannot denounce too strongly. If you had wanted to kill your
+stepdaughter, you could scarcely have pursued a more likely course for
+the attainment of your object. No doubt you were actuated by the most
+amiable motives. I can only regret that you should have acted without
+competent advice."
+
+"I believed myself to be acting for the best," replied Philip Sheldon, in
+a strange mechanical way.
+
+He was trying to estimate the true meaning of the Doctor's address. Was
+he merely expressing anger against an error of ignorance or stupidity, or
+was there a more fatal significance in his words?
+
+"You overwhelm me," the stockbroker said presently; "you positively
+overwhelm me by your view of my daughter's condition. Dr. Doddleson
+apprehended no danger. He saw our dear girl on Sunday morning--yesterday
+morning," added Mr. Sheldon, wonder-stricken to find that the interval
+was so brief between the time in which he had walked with Valentine and
+Dr. Doddleson in the garden at Harold's Hill and the present moment. To
+Valentine it seemed still more wonderful. What a bridgeless gulf between
+yesterday morning and to-night! All his knowledge of this man Sheldon,
+all the horror involved in Tom Halliday's death, had come upon him in
+that brief span.
+
+"I should like to see Dr. Doddleson's prescriptions," said Dr. Jedd, with
+grave politeness.
+
+Mr. Sheldon produced them from his pocket-book with an unshaken hand. No
+change of countenance, no tremulous hand, no broken voice, betrayed his
+apprehension. The one distinguishing mark of his manner was an absent,
+half-mechanical tone, as of a man whose mind is employed otherwise than
+in the conversation of the moment. Prompt at calculation always, he was
+at this crisis engaged in a kind of mental arithmetic. "The chances of
+defeat, so much; the chances of detection--?"
+
+A rapid survey of his position told him what those chances were.
+Detection by Dr. Jedd? Yes. That had come to him already perhaps. But
+would any actual harm to him come of such detection?
+
+He calculated the chances for and against this--and the result was in his
+favour. That Dr. Jedd should form certain opinions of Miss Halliday's
+case was one thing; that he should give public utterance to those
+opinions was another thing.
+
+"What can his opinion matter to me?" Mr. Sheldon asked himself; "opinion
+cannot touch me in a case where there is no such thing as certainty. He
+has seen the dilatation of the pupil--even that old fool Doddleson saw
+it--and has taken fright. But no jury in England would hang a man on such
+evidence as that; or if a jury could be found to put the rope round a
+man's neck, the British public and the British press would be pretty sure
+to get the rope taken off again."
+
+"Chloric aether, spirits of ammonia--hum, ha, hum--yes," muttered Dr.
+Jedd, looking at one prescription. "Quinine, yes; aqua pura," he
+murmured, looking at another.
+
+He threw them aside with a half-contemptuous gesture, and then took up a
+pen and began to write.
+
+"My mode of treatment will be quite different from that adopted by Dr.
+Doddleson," he said; "but I apprehend no difficulty in bringing that
+gentleman round to my view of the case when we meet."
+
+As he wrote his prescription Philip Sheldon rose and looked over his
+shoulder.
+
+The form of the prescription told him that Dr. Jedd knew--all! He had
+suspected this from the first, and the confirmation of this suspicion did
+not shake him. He grew firmer, indeed; for now he knew on what ground he
+was standing, and what forces were arrayed against him.
+
+"I really do not understand the basis of your treatment," he said, still
+looking over the physician's shoulder.
+
+Dr. Jedd turned his chair with a sudden movement, and faced him.
+
+"Am I talking to Mr. Sheldon the stockbroker, or Mr. Sheldon the
+surgeon-dentist?" he asked.
+
+_This_ was a blow. This allusion to the past was a sharper stroke than
+any that Philip Sheldon had before received. He looked at Valentine; from
+Valentine to the physician. What did it mean, this mention of the past?
+That blabbing fool George had talked to his friend of the days in
+Fitzgeorge Street, no doubt; and Valentine had blabbed Mr. Sheldon's
+antecedents to the physician.
+
+Was this what it all meant? Or did it mean more than this? Whatever it
+might mean, he faced the hidden danger, and met the uncertainties of his
+position as calmly as he met its certainties.
+
+"I have no desire to interfere with your treatment," he said, very
+quietly; "but I have some knowledge of the Pharmacopoeia, and I confess
+myself quite at a loss to understand your prescription."
+
+"Dr. Doddleson will understand it when he has heard my opinion. There is
+no time to be lost--Mr. Hawkehurst, will you take this to the chemist,
+and wait for the medicine? Miss Halliday cannot take it too soon. I shall
+be here to-morrow at nine o'clock.--If you wish me to see Dr. Doddleson,
+Mr. Sheldon, you will perhaps arrange an appointment with him for that
+hour."
+
+"It is rather an early hour."
+
+"No hour is too early in a case attended with so much danger. Perhaps it
+will be as well for me to call on Dr. Doddleson as I drive home. I shall
+make a point of seeing Miss Halliday twice a day. I find your housekeeper
+a very sensible person. She will remain in close attendance upon the
+sick-room; and I must beg that there is no quackery--no home-made
+remedies. I have given your housekeeper all directions as to treatment
+and diet, and she has my orders to allow no one but herself in the
+invalid's room. There is a marked tendency to delirium, and quiet is
+indispensable."
+
+"I have said as much myself," answered Mr. Sheldon.
+
+"Mr. Hawkehurst will undertake to see to the making-up of my
+prescriptions," continued Dr. Jedd, as he drew on his gloves. "He is very
+anxious about the young lady, and it will afford him some relief of mind
+to be employed in her service. No, thanks," he said, putting aside Mr.
+Sheldon's hand as that gentleman offered him his fee. "I have already
+received my honorarium from Mr. Hawkehurst."
+
+There was no more to be said. The physician wished the two men good
+evening, and returned to his carriage, to be driven home to dinner by way
+of Plantagenet Square, where he saw Dr. Doddleson, and appointed to meet
+him next day, much to the delight of that individual, who was proud to be
+engaged in a case with the great Jedd.
+
+Valentine left the house on the heels of the Doctor. He came back in
+about twenty minutes with the medicine. He did not go to the principal
+gate, but to a little side gate, near the offices of the gothic villa--a
+gate to which butchers and bakers came with their wares in the morning.
+
+"I want to see Miss Paget," he said to the maid who answered his summons;
+"and I want to see her without disturbing Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon. Do you
+know where to find her?"
+
+"Yes, sir; she's in her own room. I took her a cup of tea there ten
+minutes ago. She's got a headache with fretting about our poor young
+lady, and she won't go down to dinner with master and missus."
+
+"Will you ask her to step out here and speak to me for a few minutes?"
+
+"Won't you come indoors and see her, sir?"
+
+"No; I'd rather see her in the garden."
+
+It was still daylight here, but it was growing shadowy among the avenues
+in Kensington Gardens. The gate near which Valentine waited was not to be
+seen from the windows of dining or drawing-room.
+
+The housemaid ran off to summon Miss Paget; and in less than five minutes
+Diana appeared, dressed in her hat and garden jacket.
+
+"Will you come out into the road with me, dear?" asked Valentine. "I have
+something serious to say to you."
+
+"And I am so anxious to hear what the Doctor has said," answered Diana,
+as she took Valentine's arm.
+
+"The road before the Lawn was very quiet at this hour of the evening, and
+here they were safely beyond Mr. Sheldon's ken.
+
+"Tell me the Doctor's opinion, Valentine," Diana said, eagerly. "Does he
+think the case very serious?"
+
+"He does. It is more serious than you or I could have imagined, if
+Providence had not helped me to discover the truth."
+
+"What do you mean, Valentine?"
+
+He gave her in brief the story of his day's work. She listened to him
+breathlessly, but uttered no exclamation until his story was finished.
+
+"It is most horrible," she said at last; "but I believe it is most true.
+There has been so much in that man's conduct that has mystified me; and
+_this_ explains all. But what earthly motive can have prompted this
+hideous crime?"
+
+"He believes that he has a beneficial interest in her death. I cannot
+fully understand his motive; but, rely upon it, there is a motive, and a
+sufficient one. And I have let that man delude me into belief in his
+honesty after I had been warned against him! But there is no time for
+regrets. Diana, I look to you to help me in saving my dear love."
+
+"It is not too late to save her?"
+
+"Dr. Jedd will commit himself to no positive statement. He tells me she
+is in danger, but he does not refuse all hope. Now listen, my dear. In
+that house I have only two people to help me--Ann Woolper and yourself.
+Ann Woolper I hold only by a feeble bond. I think she will be true to us;
+but I am not sure of her. Sheldon's influence over her is a powerful one;
+and God knows what concession he might extort from her. She is the
+ostensible guardian of Charlotte's room; you must contrive to be the real
+guardian. You must keep custody over the custodian. How is your room
+situated in relation to Charlotte's room?"
+
+"The doors of the two rooms are exactly opposite."
+
+"Providence favours us there. Can you keep watch over Charlotte's door
+from your room without making your guardianship too apparent?"
+
+"I can."
+
+"Day and night?"
+
+"Day and night."
+
+"God bless you, dear! Her life may be saved by your fidelity."
+
+"I would do as much to render her a smaller service."
+
+"My dear girl! And now go back to the house. Here is the medicine. You
+will give that into Mrs. Woolper's hands; she has received her
+instructions from Dr. Jedd, and those instructions leave no room for
+doubt. If she permits Sheldon to tamper with the medicine or the food of
+her patient, she will be the wilful accomplice of a murderer. I think she
+may be trusted."
+
+"I will watch her."
+
+"The charge of procuring the medicine is mine. I shall come to this house
+many times in the course of every day; but I am bound to prepare myself
+for the hour in which Mr. Sheldon may forbid me his house. In that event
+I shall come to this gate. I suppose the servants would stand by me if
+you pleaded for me?"
+
+"I am sure they would."
+
+"And now, dear, go; the medicine is wanted. I shall come back in a few
+hours to inquire if there is any change for the better. Go."
+
+They had returned to the gate ere this. He grasped the hand which she
+held out to him, and stood by the little gate watching her till she had
+disappeared through the door of the servants' quarters. When the door
+closed, he walked slowly away. He had done all that it was possible for
+him to do, and now came his worst misery. There was nothing left for him
+but to wait the issue of events.
+
+What was he to do? Go home to his lodgings--eat, drink, sleep? Was it
+possible for him to eat or to sleep while that precious life trembled in
+the balance? He walked slowly along the endless roads and terraces in a
+purposeless way. Careless people pushed against him, or he pushed against
+them; children brushed past him as they ran. What a noisy, busy,
+clattering world it seemed! And she lay dying! O, the droning, dreary
+organs, and the hackneyed, common tunes, how excruciating they were to
+him to-night!
+
+He emerged into the high road by-and-by, in all the bustle and riot of
+Netting Hill. The crowded shops, the clamorous people, seemed strange to
+him. It was like the clamour of a foreign city. He walked on past the
+bustle and riot, by the quieter terraces near Holland Park, and still
+held on to Shepherd's Bush, where he went into a little public-house and
+called for some brandy.
+
+There was a bench on one side of the space in front of the bar, and
+towards this he pushed his way.
+
+"Where are you shoving to, my young swell?" growled a sturdy cabman,
+indignant at the outrage inflicted by Valentine's elbows; but in the next
+moment the sturdy cabman dashed suddenly forward and caught the young
+swell in his strong arms.
+
+"My eye, young un!" he cried; "where do you want to go to? Here, some one
+bring a mug of cold water: I'm blest if he ain't in a fit!"
+
+Happily it was no fit, only a dead faint into which Mr. Hawkehurst had
+fallen. He came back to consciousness presently, after a few spoonfuls of
+brandy had been forced into his mouth, and looked about him with a
+helpless stare.
+
+"I'm jiggered if I don't believe he's fainted for the want of wittles!"
+cried the cabman. "They keeps up till they drop, sometimes, these seedy
+swells--walks about, lookin' like so many Dossays, on a hempty stomach.
+Here, some one bring a plate o' cold meat, and look sharp about it. I'll
+stand sam."
+
+Valentine looked up with a faint smile.
+
+"And I'll stand sam for anything you like to order, my friend," he said,
+holding out his hand to the good-natured cabman. "I've eaten nothing
+since last night; but I haven't fasted for want of money. There are worse
+troubles than an empty pocket,--and I'm not unacquainted with _that_."
+
+"I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir," said the man, sheepishly, very much
+ashamed of his benevolence; "but, you see, it ain't the fust time I've
+seen a swell come to the pavement with a cropper, in consequence of
+having gone it too fast, and cleaned hisself out, in a manner of
+speaking."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+NON DORMIT JUDAS.
+
+The summer darkness closed round the Bayswater villa, but of sleep there
+was little for any one in that household during this sad night. Is there
+not, in almost every household, a memory of such days and nights--dread
+intervals in which the common course of life and time seems to be
+suspended, and all the interests of the universe hang upon the fitful
+breath of one dear sufferer?
+
+Lonely were the watchers in Mr. Sheldon's house. Georgy was in her own
+room, forbidden to disturb the invalid by her restless presence--now
+lying down, now pacing to and fro, now praying a little, now crying a
+little--the very ideal of helpless misery.
+
+In the sick-room there was no one but the invalid and Ann Woolper. In
+the room opposite watched Diana Paget, her door ajar, her senses
+sharpened by anxiety, quick to hear the faintest sound of footfall on
+the stairs, or to feel the slightest vibration from stealthily opened
+door on the story below.
+
+Alone in the study sat Philip Sheldon, at the table where he was
+accustomed to write--a blank sheet of paper before him, a pen held
+loosely in his outstretched hand, and his eyes fixed in an unseeing gaze
+upon the bookcase opposite--the living image of care. Now that the
+turmoil of the day was done, and there was silence in the house, he had
+set himself to face his position. It was no trifling task which he had to
+perform. Not one difficulty, or one set of difficulties, had he to meet
+and master. The armed enemies up-springing from the dragon's teeth which
+he had sown were not to be set fighting amongst themselves, nor were they
+to be smashed by any rocks that he could hurl amongst them. They stood
+around him in an awful circle, and turn which way he would, he saw the
+same appalling figure, armed to the teeth, and invincible as death.
+
+What had he to fear?
+
+Detection of a past crime? No, that was a fool's terror which shook him
+at the sound of Tom Halliday's name--a child's fear of the nursery bogie.
+Detection in the present was more to be dreaded. The work that he had
+done was, according to his belief, work that could not be proved against
+him. But there are crimes of which to be accused is to be condemned.
+Lawyers may plead, and juries may acquit; but the fiat of public opinion
+goes forth against the suspected wretch, and on _his_ forehead for ever
+shows the dark brand of Cain.
+
+For the criminal of almost every shade of colour, save this one dread
+hue, society has a sanctuary and earth a refuge. The forger may find a
+circle in which the signing of another man's name, under the pressure of
+circumstances, is held to be a misfortune rather than an offence. The
+swindler has the gentlemanly brotherhood and sisterhood of Macaire for
+his family, and need never be lonely. The thief may dance away his jovial
+nights among kindred spirits, and be carried to his grave by sorrowing
+fellow-artists. The coiner may be jolly in his hiding-place among his
+chosen band of brother coiners. But for the murderer there is no such
+thing as human sympathy; and, when the blood of Nancy dyes his cruel
+hand, Bill Sykes may thank God if he has a dog that will follow him to
+his wretched end, for from mankind he can hope nothing.
+
+Mr. Sheldon did not contemplate his position from any sentimental point
+of view; but he told himself that to be suspected of having poisoned his
+friend, and to be accused of poisoning, or attempting to poison, his
+daughter, would be ruin--ruin social and commercial, ruin complete and
+irretrievable.
+
+And having faced one of these dread armed antagonists, he passed on to
+another shadowy enemy.
+
+What if Charlotte recovered, and he escaped the taint of uttered
+suspicion--for Dr. Jedd's private opinion he cared very little--what
+then?
+
+Then the grim antagonist lifted his visor, and showed him the countenance
+of Commercial Disgrace.
+
+Unless within the next few weeks he could command from eight to ten
+thousand pounds, his disgrace as a member of the Stock Exchange was
+inevitable. Charlotte's death would give him the means of raising as much
+upon the policies of assurance obtained by her, and which, by the terms
+of her will, he would inherit. The life-insurance people might be
+somewhat slow to settle his claims; but he had all possible facilities
+for the raising of money upon any tangible security, and he could count
+upon immediate cash, in the event of Charlotte's death.
+
+But what if she should not die? What if this nameless languor, this
+mysterious atrophy, taken vigorously in hand by Dr. Jedd, should be
+vanquished, and the girl should live?
+
+What indeed? A sharp spasm contracted the stockbroker's hard cold face as
+he pictured to himself the result of failure.
+
+He saw the crowd of busy faces in the House, and heard the low hum of
+many voices, and the dull sound of the big half-glass doors swinging to
+and fro, and the constant tread of hurrying feet. He heard the buzz of
+voices and the tramp of feet stop as suddenly as if that busy tide of
+human life had been arrested by an enchanter's wand. The enchanter is no
+other than the head-waiter of the Stock Exchange, who takes his position
+by a stand in the midst of that great meeting-place, and removes his hat.
+
+After that sudden silence comes a faint sound of anxious whisperings; and
+then again a second silence, still more profound, prevails in that
+assembly. Three times, with wooden hammer sounding dull against the
+woodwork of his stand, the waiter raps his awful rap. To some it is the
+call of doom. The commercial Nemesis hides her awful countenance. Slow
+and solemn sound those three deliberate strokes of the wooden hammer. You
+can hear the stertorous breathing of an apoplectic stockbroker, the short
+panting respiration of some eager speculator--the rest is silence. And
+then the voice of the waiter--proxy for the commercial Nemesis--calmly
+enunciates the dread decree.
+
+"Philip Sheldon begs to inform the members of the House that he cannot
+comply with his bargains."
+
+A sudden flutter of the leaves of many note-books follows that awful
+announcement. Voices rise loud in united utterance of surprise or
+indignation. The doors swing to and fro, as hurrying members dash in and
+out to scan the market and ascertain how far they may be affected by this
+unlooked-for failure.
+
+This was the scene which the watcher pictured to himself; and for him
+Fate could wear no aspect more terrible. Respectability, solvency,
+success--these were the idols to which he had given worship and tribute
+in all the days of his life. To propitiate these inexorable ones he had
+sacrificed all the dearest and best blessings which earth and heaven
+offer to mankind. Best or happiness, as other men consider these
+blessings, he had never known; the sense of triumph in success of the
+present, the feverish expectation of success in the future--these had
+stood to him in the place of love and hope, pleasure and idlesse, all the
+joys and comforts of this lower world, and all the holy dreams of purer
+pleasures in a world to come.
+
+One vague brief thought of all that he had sacrificed flashed across
+his brain; and swift upon his track followed the thought of what he
+stood to lose.
+
+Something more than his position upon the Stock Exchange was at stake. He
+had done desperate things in the vain hope of sustaining that position
+against the destroying sweep of Fortune's turning tide. Bills were afloat
+which he must meet, or stand before the world a detected forger,--bills
+drawn upon companies that were shadowy as the regions of their supposed
+operations. Bills amounting to five thousand pounds, drawn, upon the
+Honduras Mahogany Company, Limited; other bills amounting to upwards of
+three thousand pounds, against the Pennsylvanian Anthracite Coal
+Corporation, Limited. The sum he might raise on the policies of insurance
+would about cover these bills; and, simultaneously with their withdrawal,
+fresh bills might be floated, and the horse-leech cry of the brokers for
+contango might be satisfied until there came a reaction in the City, and
+the turning tide should float him into some harbour of safety. Beyond
+this harbour shone a splendid beacon, the dead girl's inheritance--his,
+to claim by right of the same will that would give him the sum insured
+upon her life.
+
+Without this immediate ready money there was no extraction from the
+hideous labyrinth. His position had been already too long sustained by
+bills of exchange. There were people in the City who wanted, in vulgar
+parlance, to see the colour of his money. He knew this--and knew how
+frail the tenure by which he held his position, and how dire the crash
+which would hurl him down to ruin.
+
+After the proclamation of his inability to meet his differences--the
+Deluge: and, looking gloomily athwart the flood and tempest, he saw
+neither ark nor Ararat.
+
+Charlotte's death was the one chance of redemption; and to that event he
+looked as to a figure in a mathematical proposition. Of this girl
+herself, with all her wealth of beauty and goodness, of hope and love, he
+had scarcely any definite idea. She had so long been no more to him than
+an important figure in the mathematics of his life, that he had lost the
+power to behold her in any other light.
+
+The hardness of his nature was something lower than absolute cruelty of
+heart. It was less human than the half-insane ferocity of a Nero. It was
+a calm indifference to the waste of human life, which, displayed upon a
+larger field of operation, would have made a monster cold and passionless
+as Sphinx or Chimaera.
+
+"I must see Ann Woolper," he said to himself, presently, "she will not
+dare to exclude me from that room."
+
+He listened to the striking of the Bayswater clocks. Two o'clock. Within
+and without the house reigned a profound silence. The room immediately
+over Mr. Sheldon's study was Charlotte's room, and here there had been
+for a long time no sound of life or movement.
+
+"Asleep, I dare say," muttered Mr. Sheldon, "invalid and nurse both."
+
+He exchanged his boots for slippers, which he kept in a little cupboard
+below the bookshelves, among old newspapers, and went softly from the
+room. The gas was burning dimly on the stairs and on the landing above.
+He opened the door of the invalid's room softly, and went in.
+
+Mrs. Woolper was seated beside the bed. She looked up at him with
+unwinking eyes.
+
+"I thought you was abed, sir," she said.
+
+"No; I am too anxious to sleep."
+
+"I think every one is anxious, sir," Mrs. Woolper answered, gravely.
+
+"How is your patient?"
+
+The pretty white curtains of the little brass Arabian bedstead were
+drawn.
+
+"She is asleep, sir. She sleeps a great deal. The doctor said that was
+only natural."
+
+"She has taken her medicine, I suppose?" said Mr. Sheldon.
+
+He glanced round the room as he asked this question, but could see no
+trace of medicine-bottle or glass.
+
+"Yes, sir; she has taken it twice, the poor dear."
+
+"Let me look at the medicine."
+
+"The strange doctor said as I was to let no one touch it, sir."
+
+"Very likely; but that direction doesn't apply to me."
+
+"He said no one, sir."
+
+"You are an old fool!" muttered Mr. Sheldon, savagely.
+
+"Ah no, sir," the housekeeper answered, with a profound sigh; "I am wiser
+than I was when poor Mr. Halliday died."
+
+This answer, and the sigh, and the look of solemn sadness which
+accompanied it, told him that this woman knew all. She had suspected him
+long ago; but against her unsupported suspicion the mere force of his
+character had prevailed. She was wiser now; for on this occasion
+suspicion was confirmed by the voice of science.
+
+He stood for a few minutes looking at his old nurse, with a dark moody
+face. What could he feel except supreme indignation against this woman,
+who dared to oppose him when he had the best right to rely on her
+faithful service? She had promised him her fidelity, and at the first
+hint from a stranger she coolly deserted him and went over to the enemy.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you refuse to let me look at the medicine which
+you have been giving to my stepdaughter?" he asked.
+
+"I mean to say that I will obey the orders given me by the strange
+doctor," the old woman answered, with a calm sadness of tone, "even if it
+turns you against me--you that have given me a comfortable home when
+there was nothing before me but the workhouse; you that I carried in my
+arms forty years ago. If it was anything less than her dear life that was
+in danger, sir, and if I hadn't stood by her father's deathbed, I
+couldn't stand against you like this. But knowing what I do, I will stand
+firm as a rock between you and her; and think myself all the more truly
+your faithful servant because I do not fear to offend you."
+
+"That's so much arrant humbug, Mrs. Woolper. I suppose you've made your
+book with Miss Halliday and Miss Halliday's lover, and think you can
+serve your turn best by sticking to them and throwing me over the bridge.
+It's only the way of the world. You're genuine Yorkshire, and know how to
+pack your cards for winning the trick. But suppose I were to spoil your
+game by turning you out of doors neck and crop? What then?"
+
+"I don't think you'll do that, sir."
+
+"Why not, pray?"
+
+"I don't think you dare do it, in the face of that strange doctor."
+
+"You don't? And so Dr. Jedd is the master of this house, is he?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Till that poor dear young lady is well again, if ever that day
+comes, I think Dr. Jedd will be the real master in this house."
+
+"By ----! Mrs. Woolper, you're a cool hand, I must say!"
+
+He could say no more. Of passionate or declamatory language he had no
+command. The symbols of thought that obtained in his world were of a
+limited and primitive range.
+
+"You're a cool hand," he repeated, under his breath. And then he turned
+and left the room, opening and closing the door less cautiously than on
+his entrance.
+
+The door of the opposite room was opened softly as he came out into
+the corridor, and Diana Paget stood before him, dressed as she had
+been in the day.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed, impatiently, "are you up too?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Sheldon. I cannot sleep while Lotta is so ill."
+
+"Humph! I suppose you mean to get yourself on the sick-list, and give us
+another invalid to nurse."
+
+"I will not trouble you to nurse me if I should be ill."
+
+"Ah!" growled the stockbroker, as he went to his own room, "you are a
+pack of silly women altogether; and your fine friend Hawkehurst is more
+womanish than the silliest of you. Goodnight."
+
+He went into his own room, where he found his wife still awake. Her weak
+lamentings and bewailings were insupportable to him; and at three o'clock
+he went downstairs, put on his boots and a light overcoat, and went out
+into the dim regions of Bayswater, whence he saw the sun rise red above
+the eastern roofs and chimneys, and where he walked until the first
+clatter of hoofs and roll of wheels began to echo through the empty
+streets, and, with faint distant cries of sweeps and milk-women, life's
+chorus recommenced.
+
+It was seven o'clock when he went back to his house, and let himself in
+softly with his latchkey. He knew that he had been walking a long time,
+and that he had seen the sun rise; but what streets or squares he had
+been walking in he did not know. He crept upstairs to his dressing-room
+with stealthy footsteps, and made an elaborate toilet. At eight o'clock
+he was seated at breakfast in the hastily-arranged dining-room, with the
+newspapers by the side of his cup and saucer. At nine he went into the
+hall to receive Dr. Jedd and Dr. Doddleson, who arrived almost
+simultaneously. His carefully-arranged hair and whiskers, his well made
+unpretentious clothes, his spotless linen, would have done credit to an
+archbishop. Of all the cares and calculations of his long dreary night
+there was no trace, except a certain dulness in his eyes, and the dark
+half-circles below them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+COUNTING THE COST.
+
+For four days and four nights there were fear and watching in Mr.
+Sheldon's house; and in all that time the master never quitted it, except
+stealthily, in the dead of the night, or at early daybreak, to roam in a
+purposeless manner he knew not where. The doctors came and went--Dr.
+Doddleson once a day, Dr. Jedd two or three times a day--and every one in
+villas adjoining and villas opposite, and even in villas round the
+corner, knew that the stockbroker's stepdaughter lay sick unto death; for
+the white horses of Dr. Jedd's landau were as the pale horse of the Pale
+Rider himself, and where they came was danger or death. Ah, thank God! to
+some they have brought hope and blessing; not always the dread answer,
+"You have called me in vain."
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst came many times in the day, but between him and Mr.
+Sheldon there could be no safe meeting; and the lover came quietly to the
+little gate, where a kindly housemaid gave him a little note from Diana
+Paget. Miss Paget wrote half a dozen little notes of this kind in the
+course of every day, but she never left her post in the room opposite the
+sick-chamber. She complained of headache, or of some vague illness which
+prevented her taking her meals in the dining-room, and Mr. Sheldon was
+fain to be satisfied with this explanation of her conduct.
+
+She was on guard; and the wretched master of the house knew that she was
+on guard, and that if Ann Woolper could be bought over, or frightened
+into compliance with his wishes, this girl would still remain, faithful
+as watchdog, by the door of her friend and companion. He asked himself
+whether by violent or diplomatic process, he could rid himself of this
+second watcher; and the answer was in the negative. The circle around him
+was a circle not to be broken.
+
+His wife, as yet, had been told nothing of the suspicions that reigned in
+the breasts of other people. He knew this; for in his wife's face there
+was no token of that dark knowledge, and she, of all people, would be
+least skilled to deceive his scrutinizing eyes. Nor had the younger
+servants of his household any share in the hideous suspicion. He had
+watched the countenance of the maid who waited on him, and had convinced
+himself of this.
+
+It was something to know that even these were not yet leagued against
+him; but he could not tell at what moment they too might be sworn into
+that secret society which was growing up against him in his own house.
+Power to carry out his own schemes in the face of these people he felt
+that he had none. Upon the dark road which he had travelled until of late
+without let or hindrance, there had arisen, all at once, an
+insurmountable barrier, with the fatal inscription, Here there is no
+Thoroughfare.
+
+Beyond this barrier he could not pass. Sudden as the dread arrest of
+Lot's wife was the mandate which had checked his progress. He was brought
+to a dead stop; and there was nothing for him to do but to wait the issue
+of Fate. He stood, defiant, unabashed, face to face with the figure of
+Nemesis, and calmly awaited the lifting of the veil.
+
+He hoped that Charlotte Halliday would die. If by her death he could tide
+over his difficulties and drift into smooth water, it would be but a very
+small thing to him that Dr. Jedd, and Dr. Doddleson enlightened by his
+colleague, and Valentine Hawkehurst, and Diana Paget, and a stupid
+pig-headed old Yorkshirewoman, should carry in their minds for the
+remainder of their lives the suspicion that by his means that fair young
+life had been brought to its early close.
+
+What would it amount to in the future of his own existence? Prudential
+considerations would induce these people to lock the secret of this
+suspicion in their own breasts. Dr. Jedd would bow to him somewhat
+coldly, perhaps, if they met in the streets of London, or possibly might
+refuse to make any return to his passing salutation; but the cut direct
+from Dr. Jedd would not cast a shadow over his commercial career, or even
+weaken his social position. If, by the loud folly of Hawkehurst, some
+evil rumour about him should float as far eastward as the Stock Exchange,
+who would be found to give credence to the dark report? Men would shrug
+their shoulders and shake their heads incredulously; and one of these
+wise men of the east would remark that, "A fellow in Sheldon's position
+doesn't do that kind of thing, you know;" while another would say, "I
+dined with him at Greenwich last summer, and a remarkably good dinner he
+gave us. Dawkins, the great shipbuilder, and M'Pherson, of M'Pherson and
+Flinders, the Glasgow merchants, were there. Very jolly affair, I assure
+you. Deuced gentlemanly fellow, Phil Sheldon." And so the matter would
+end.
+
+Would there be an inquest in the event of his stepdaughter's death? Well,
+no. Jedd knew that in such a case all _post-mortem_ inquiry must end in
+confusion and perplexity, statement and counter-statement from medical
+witnesses, who would contradict one another persistently in the support
+of their pet theories, and who would regard the investigation as a very
+convenient opportunity for ventilating their own opinions and airing
+their own importance. A considerable number of the canine race would be
+slaughtered, perhaps, in the process of dilettante experiments; the broad
+principles of chemical science would be discussed from every point of
+view, in innumerable letters published in the _Zeus,_ and the _Diurnal
+Hermes_; and the fact that an amiable and innocent young woman had been
+foully murdered would be swept out of the minds of mankind before a
+whirlwind of technical debate. Jedd was the last man to stake his
+reputation upon such a hazard. No: Mr. Sheldon knew that he had played a
+cautious game; and if he should ultimately lose the stake for which he
+had ventured, it would be because he had been just a little too cautious.
+
+"These things are generally done too quickly," he said to himself. "My
+mistake has been to make matters too slow."
+
+Come what might, of after-consequences to himself from Charlotte
+Halliday's illness or death he had no apprehension.
+
+Thus it was that he met Dr. Jedd day after day with a face as calm as the
+stony countenance of that distinguished physician himself. Such anxiety
+as an affectionate stepfather should feel during the peril of his
+stepdaughter Mr. Sheldon took care to express. Greater anxiety than this
+by no look or gesture did he betray. He knew that he was watched; and
+that the people about him were inimical to himself and to his interests;
+and he was never off his guard.
+
+It had been necessary for him to come to London in order to be within
+easy reach of that troubled sea, the money-market. But perilous though
+the voyage of his bark across that tempestuous ocean was, he could not
+guide the helm in person. He was obliged to confide matters to the care
+of Mr. Frederick Orcott, whom he harassed with telegraphic despatches at
+all hours of the day, and who at this period seemed to spend his life
+between the stockbroker's office and Bayswater.
+
+It seemed as if Mr. Sheldon meant to hold his ground in that house until
+the issue of events was determined. Valentine Hawkehurst and George
+Sheldon met at the solicitor's offices, and there was a long and serious
+consultation between them.
+
+"One thing seems pretty clear," said George, conclusively, "and that is,
+that my brother Phil isn't to be got off the premises except by some very
+deep move. The question is, what move can be deep enough to trap such a
+man as he? He's a man who knows the inside of your mind better than you
+do yourself; and can reckon you up as easily as the simplest sum in
+arithmetic."
+
+The two men talked together very seriously for some time after this, and
+on the same day Valentine lay in wait for Dr. Jedd as he left Philip
+Sheldon's house, and was driven back to town in that gentleman's
+carriage. On the road there was much serious talk between Miss Halliday's
+physician and Miss Halliday's lover. Valentine was still very grave and
+very anxious when he took his leave of Dr. Jedd; but he was more hopeful
+than he had been for the last few days.
+
+On the same evening Gustave Lenoble received a brief epistle from his
+plighted wife.
+
+"MY DEAR GUSTAVE,--I regret to find from your letter that the doctors
+consider my father weaker than when I was last at Knightsbridge; but,
+even knowing this, I cannot come to him just yet. The duty which detains
+me here is even more sacred than his claim upon my care. And I know your
+goodness to him, and feel that in you he has a better friend and
+comforter than I could be to him. I thank you, dear, for your kindness to
+this poor broken-down wanderer even more than for your generous devotion
+to me. And now I am going to ask you a favour. It is, that you will
+afford Mr. Hawkehurst, the person who will give you this letter, the help
+of your friendship and counsel in very difficult and critical
+circumstances, which he will explain to you. I have spoken to you of him
+very little, though his devotion to my dear adopted sister, Charlotte
+Halliday, brings him very near to me. Her long, and of late dangerous,
+illness has been a bitter time of trial to him, even more than to me; but
+the trial has proved him true as steel. I think your counsel may be of
+some service to him just now, and I am sure your friendship will help to
+support him in a period of acute anxiety.
+
+"Do not ask to see me, dear Gustave. I _cannot_ leave this house while
+Charlotte is in danger; but if it please God to remove that danger, I
+shall then be free to go where I please, and my future life shall be at
+your disposal. Do not think me cold or ungrateful; I am only faithful to
+the first friend I ever knew.--Yours always, with all affection,
+
+"DIANA PAGET."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
+
+Three days elapsed after the delivery of this letter. Upwards of a week
+had gone by since the return of Mr. Sheldon and his family from Harold's
+Hill: and as yet Philip Sheldon knew not what the issue of events was to
+be. Very vague were the oracular sentences which his questioning extorted
+from Dr. Jedd, and he had tried in vain to obtain a _tête-à-tête_
+interview with Dr. Doddleson. The physician of Burlington Row took care
+that his feeble colleague should not fall alone and defenceless into the
+pathway of Philip Sheldon. Of Charlotte's actual condition her
+stepfather, therefore, knew very little. He was told that her state was
+attended by danger; and the solemn faces which greeted him on every side
+implied that the danger was extreme. From her room he was in a manner
+excluded. If he went to her door to make some benevolent and paternal
+inquiry, he was met on the threshold by Ann Woolper, the sleepless and
+unresting. If he hinted a natural desire to see his invalid stepdaughter,
+he was told that she had that moment fallen asleep, or that she was too
+ill to see him. There was always some plausible reason why he should not
+be admitted to her room; and finding that this was so, he did not press
+the question.
+
+He had taken Mrs. Woolper's measure, and had found that she was too
+strong for him; doubly strong since she was supported and sustained by
+that second sleepless watcher, Diana Paget, whom Mr. Sheldon had long ago
+pronounced to be a strong-minded and superior young person.
+
+From his wife he could obtain no real information--nothing but weepings
+and lamentations; weak apprehensions of future woe, weaker retrospective
+reflections on the fatal illness and untimely end of her first husband.
+Georgy was admitted once or twice a day to the sick-room; but she emerged
+therefrom no wiser than she entered it. Sorrow in the present, and the
+fear of greater sorrow to come, had utterly prostrated this poor weak
+soul. She believed what other people told her to believe, she hoped what
+they told her to hope. She was the very incarnation and express image of
+helpless misery.
+
+So, in utter darkness of mind, Mr. Sheldon awaited his destiny. The day
+drew very near on which he must find certain sums of ready money, or must
+accept the dreary alternative of ruin and disgrace. He had the policies
+of assurance in his cash-box, together with the will which made him
+Charlotte's sole legatee; he had fixed in his own mind upon the man to
+whom he could apply for an advance of four thousand pounds on one of the
+two policies, and he relied on getting his banker to lend him money on
+the security of the second. But for the one needful event he had yet to
+wait. That event was Charlotte Halliday's death.
+
+Of his dreary wanderings in the early morning the household knew nothing.
+The time which he chose for these purposeless rambles was just the time
+when no one was astir. The watchers in the two rooms above heard neither
+his going out nor his coming in, so stealthy were his movements on every
+occasion. But without this intermission from the dreadful concentration
+of his life, without this amount of physical exercise and fresh air,
+Philip Sheldon could scarcely have lived through this period. The
+solitude of shipwrecked mariner cast upon a desolate island could hardly
+be more lonely than this man's life had been since his return from
+Harold's Hill. From his study to the dining-room, and from the
+dining-room back to his study, was the only variety of his dreary days
+and nights. He had an iron bedstead put up in his study, and there he lay
+in the earlier hours of the night, taking such rest as he could from
+fitful dozing that was scarcely sleep, or from brief intervals of heavy
+slumber made horrible by torturing dreams.
+
+In this room he could hear every sudden movement in the hall, every
+footstep on the stairs, every opening and shutting of the outer door.
+Here, too, he could keep his watch, holding himself ready to counter the
+movements of his enemies, should any opportunity arise for action on his
+part, defensive or aggressive.
+
+To this room he stealthily returned one brilliant summer morning as the
+clocks were striking six. He had been walking in the Bayswater Road,
+amidst all the pleasant stir and bustle of early morning. Waggons coming
+in from the country, milkwomen setting forth on their daily rounds,
+clamorous young rooks cawing among the topmost branches of the elms,
+song-birds chirruping and gurgling their glad morning hymn; and over all
+things the glory and the freshness of the summer sunshine.
+
+But to Philip Sheldon it was as if these things were not. For the last
+twelve or fifteen years of his life he had taken no heed of the change
+of the seasons, except insomuch as the passage of time affected his
+bill-book, or the condition of that commercial world which was the
+beginning and end of his life. Now, less than ever, had he an ear for
+the carolling of birds, or an eye for the glory of summer sunlight, or
+the flickering shadows of summer leaves faintly stirred by the soft
+summer wind.
+
+He re-entered his house with a half-dazed sense of the stir and life that
+had been about him in the high road. It was a relief to him to escape
+this life and brightness, and to take shelter in the gloom of his study,
+where the shutters were closed, and only a faint glimmer of day crept
+through a chink in the shrunken woodwork.
+
+For the first time since the beginning of this dreary period of idleness
+and suspense he felt himself thoroughly beaten, and instead of going up
+to his dressing-room for his careful morning toilet, as it was his habit
+to do at this hour, he flung himself, dressed as he was, upon the low
+iron bedstead, and fell into a heavy slumber.
+
+Yes, there they were--the familiar tortures of his slumbers, the
+shadows of busy, eager faces; and upon all one universal expression of
+mingled anger and surprise. The sound of a wooden hammer striking three
+solemn strokes; the faint tones of Tom Halliday's voice, thanking him for
+his friendly care; the dying look in Tom Halliday's face, turned to him
+with such depth of trust and affection. And then across the shadowy
+realm of dreams there swept the slow solemn progress of a funeral
+_cortege_--plumed hearses, blacker than blackest night; innumerable
+horses, with funereal trappings and plumed headgear waving in an icy
+wind; long trains of shrouded figures stretching on into infinite space,
+in spectral procession that knew neither beginning nor end. And in all
+the solemn crowd passing perpetually with the same unceasing motion,
+there was no sound of human footfall, no tramp of horse's hoof, only that
+dismal waving of black plumage in an icy wind, and the deep boom of a
+bell tolling for the dead.
+
+He awoke with a start, and exclaimed, "If this is what it is to sleep, I
+will never sleep again!"
+
+In the next minute he recovered himself. He had been lying on his back.
+The endless pageant, the dreadful tolling of the funeral bell, meant no
+more than nightmare, the common torment of all humanity.
+
+"What a fool I must be!" he muttered to himself, as he wiped his
+forehead, which had grown cold and damp in the agony of his dream.
+
+He opened the shutters, and then looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.
+To his surprise he found that he had been sleeping three hours. It was
+nine o'clock. He went upstairs to dress. There was an unusual stir in the
+corridor above. Ann Woolper was standing there, with her hand on the door
+of the sick-room, talking to Diana, who covered her face suddenly as he
+approached, and disappeared into her own room.
+
+The beating of his heart quickened suddenly. Something had happened to
+disturb the common course of events. Something? What was likely to
+happen, except the one dread circumstance for which he hoped and waited
+with such horrible eagerness?
+
+In Ann Woolper's solemn face he read an answer to his thought. For the
+first time he was well nigh losing his self-possession. It was with an
+effort that he steadied himself sufficiently to ask the usual
+conventional question in the usual conventional tone.
+
+"Is she any better this morning, Ann?"
+
+"Yes, sir, she is much better," the Yorkshirewoman answered solemnly.
+"She is where none can harm her now."
+
+Yes; it was the usual periphrase of these vulgar people. He knew all
+their cant by heart.
+
+"You mean to say--she--is dead?"
+
+He no longer tried to conceal his agitation. It was a part of his duty to
+be agitated by the news of his stepdaughter's untimely death.
+
+"O, sir, you may well be sorry," said the Yorkshirewoman, with deep
+feeling. "She was the sweetest, most forgiving creature that ever came
+into this world; and to the last no hard or cruel word ever passed her
+innocent lips. Yes, sir, she is gone; she is beyond the power of any one
+to harm her."
+
+"All that sort of stuff is so much hypocritical twaddle, Mrs. Woolper,"
+muttered Mr. Sheldon impatiently; "and I recommend you to keep it for the
+chaplain of the workhouse in which you are likely to end your days. At
+what time--did--did this--sad event--happen?
+
+"About an hour ago."
+
+In the very hour when, in his hideous dream, he had beheld the solemn
+funeral train winding on for ever through the dim realms of sleep. Was
+there some meaning in such foolish shadows, after all?
+
+"And why was I not sent for?"
+
+"You were asleep, sir. I came downstairs myself, and looked into your
+room. You were fast asleep, and I wouldn't disturb you."
+
+"That was very wrong; but it was of a piece with the rest of your
+conduct, which has been from first to last antagonistic to me. I suppose
+I can see my stepdaughter now," Mr. Sheldon added, with a grim smile.
+"There is no further excuse--about headache--or sleep."
+
+"No, sir, you cannot see her yet. In an hour, if you wish to come into
+this room, you can come."
+
+"You are extremely obliging. I begin to doubt whether I am really in my
+own house. In an hour, then, I will come. Where is my wife?"
+
+"In her own room, sir, lying down; asleep, I believe."
+
+"I will not disturb her. How about the registration, by-the-by? That
+must be seen to."
+
+"Dr. Jedd has promised to attend to that, sir."
+
+"Has Dr. Jedd been here?"
+
+"He was here an hour ago."
+
+"Very good. And he will see to that," muttered Mr. Sheldon thoughtfully.
+
+The event for which he had been so long waiting seemed at the last a
+little sudden. It had shaken his nerves more than he had supposed it
+possible that they could be shaken.
+
+He went to his dressing-room, and on this occasion made a very hasty
+toilet. The event had been tardy, and he had no time to lose in
+discounting it now that it had come to pass. He went from his
+dressing-room back to his study, took the jacket containing the policies
+of assurance and the will from the deed-box, and left the house.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED.
+
+A cab conveyed Mr. Sheldon swiftly to a dingy street in the City--a
+street which might have been called the pavement of wasted footsteps, so
+many an impecunious wretch tramped to and fro upon those dreary flags in
+vain.
+
+The person whom Mr. Sheldon came to see was a distinguished
+bill-discounter, who had served him well in more than one crisis, and on
+whose service he fancied he could now rely.
+
+Mr. Kaye, the bill-discounter, was delighted to see his worthy friend Mr.
+Sheldon. He had just come up from his family at Brighton, and had quite a
+little court awaiting him in an outer chamber, through which Mr. Sheldon
+had been ushered to the inner office.
+
+"It's rather early for such a visitor as you," Mr. Kaye said, after a few
+commonplaces. "I have not been in town half an hour."
+
+"My business is too important for any consideration about hours,"
+answered Mr. Sheldon, "or I should not be here at all. I have just come
+from the deathbed of my wife's daughter."
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed the bill-discounter, looking inexpressibly
+shocked. Until that moment he had lived in supreme ignorance of the
+fact that Mr. Sheldon had a stepdaughter; but his sorrow-stricken
+expression of countenance might have implied that he had known and
+esteemed the young lady.
+
+"Yes, it's very sad," said Mr. Sheldon; "and something more than sad for
+me. The poor girl had great expectations, and would have come into a very
+fine fortune if she had lived a year or two longer."
+
+"Ha! dear me, how very unfortunate! Poor young lady!"
+
+"Jedd and Doddleson--you know them by repute, of course--have been
+attending her for the last six weeks. There will be no end of expense for
+me; and it has been all of no use."
+
+"Consumption, I suppose?"
+
+"Well, no; not pulmonary disease. A kind of atrophy. I scarcely know what
+to call it. Now, look here, Kaye. This illness has thrown all my affairs
+into a muddle. Taken in conjunction with the depressed state of the
+money-market, it has been altogether an upset for me. I have been staying
+at home looking after this poor girl and my wife--who of course is
+dreadfully cut up, and that sort of thing--when I ought to have been in
+the City. Luckily for me, and for my wife, in whose interests I acted, I
+took the precaution to get her daughter's life insured eight or nine
+months ago; in point of fact, immediately after finding she was
+heir-at-law to a considerable fortune. The policy is for five thousand
+pounds. I want you to give me four thousand immediately upon the strength
+of the document and of my stepdaughter's will."
+
+"Give you four thousand!" exclaimed Mr. Kaye, with a little unctuous
+laugh. "Do you suppose I keep such a balance as that at my banker's?"
+
+"I suppose that you can give me the money if you like."
+
+"I might be able to get it for you."
+
+"Yes; that's a kind of humbug a hundred years old. We've heard all about
+little Premium and his friend in the City, and so on, from that man who
+wrote plays and cut a figure in Parliament. You can give me the money on
+the spot if you like, Kaye; and if I didn't want ready money very badly I
+shouldn't come to you. The insurance company will give me five thousand
+in a month or two. I can give you my bill at two months' date, and
+deposit the policy in your hands as collateral security. I might get this
+money from other quarters--from my bankers', for instance; but I don't
+want to let them know too much."
+
+Mr. Kaye deliberated. He had assisted Mr. Sheldon's financial operations,
+and had profited thereby. Money advanced upon such a security must be as
+safe as money invested in Consols, unless there were anything doubtful in
+the circumstances of the policy; and that, with a man of Mr. Sheldon's
+respectability, was to the last degree unlikely.
+
+"When do you want this money?" he asked at last.
+
+"At the beginning of next week. On the twenty-fifth at latest."
+
+"And this is the twentieth. Sharp work."
+
+"Not at all. You could give me the money this afternoon, if you pleased."
+
+"Well, I'll think it over. It's a matter in which I feel myself bound to
+take my solicitor's opinion. Suppose you meet him here to-morrow at
+twelve o'clock? You can bring the necessary evidence to support the
+claim--the doctor's and registrar's certificate, and so on?"
+
+"Yes," Mr. Sheldon answered, thoughtfully; "I will bring the documentary
+evidence. To-morrow at twelve, then."
+
+Very little more was said. Mr. Sheldon left the will and the policy in
+the bill-discounter's possession, and departed. Things had gone as
+smoothly as he could fairly expect them to go. From Mr. Kaye's office he
+went to the Unitas Bank, where he had a very friendly, but not altogether
+satisfactory, interview with the secretary. He wanted the Unitas people
+to advance him money on the strength of the second policy of assurance;
+but his balance had been very low of late, and the secretary could not
+promise compliance with his desires. Those Unitas shares valued at five
+thousand pounds, which he had transferred to his beloved stepdaughter,
+had been retransferred by the young lady some months before, with a view
+to the more profitable investment of the money.
+
+This money, as well as all else that Philip Sheldon could command, had
+gone to the same bottomless pit of unlucky speculation. From the bank the
+stockbroker went to his office, where he saw Frederick Orcott, to whom he
+announced his stepdaughter's death with all due appearance of sorrow. He
+sat for an hour in his office, arranging his affairs for the following
+day, then sent for another cab, and drove back to Bayswater. The noonday
+press and noise of the City seemed strange to him, almost as they might
+have seemed to a man newly returned from lonely wanderings in distant
+wildernesses.
+
+The blinds were down at the Lawn. His own handsome bedchamber and
+adjoining dressing-room faced the road, and it was at the windows of
+these two rooms he looked. He fancied his weak foolish wife wailing and
+lamenting behind those lowered blinds.
+
+"And I shall have to endure her lamentations," he thought, with a
+shudder. "I shall have no further excuse for avoiding her. But, on the
+other hand, I shall have the pleasure of giving Mrs. Woolper and Miss
+Paget notice to quit."
+
+He derived a grim satisfaction from this thought. Yes; insolence from
+those two women he would endure no longer. The time had come in which he
+would assert his right to be master in his own house. The game had been
+played against him boldly by Jedd and these people, and had been lost by
+them. He was the winner. He could not dismiss doctors, nurse, friend,
+lover. Charlotte Halliday's death made him master of the situation.
+
+He went into his house with the determination to assert his authority at
+once. Within all was very quiet. He looked into the dining-room--it was
+quite empty; into the study--also empty. He went slowly upstairs,
+composing his face into the appropriate expression. At the door of that
+chamber which to him should have seemed of all earthly chambers the most
+awful, he knocked softly.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+He knocked a little louder, but there was still no answer. A little
+louder again, and with the same result.
+
+"Is there no one there?" he asked himself. "No one, except--?"
+
+He opened the door, and went in, with unshaken nerves, to look upon that
+one quiet sleeper whom his summons could not awaken, whom his presence
+could not disturb.
+
+There was no nurse or watcher by the bed. Everything was arranged with
+extreme neatness and precision; but it seemed to him that there were
+objects missing in the room, objects that had been familiar to him during
+the dead girl's illness, and which were associated with her presence,--
+the clock that had stood on the table by her bed, a stand of books, a low
+easy-chair, with embroidered cover worked by her mother and Diana Paget.
+The room looked blank and empty without these things, and Mr. Sheldon
+wondered what officious hand had removed them.
+
+Yonder stood the pretty little bedstead, shrouded by closely drawn white
+curtains. Philip Sheldon walked slowly across the room, and drew aside
+one of the curtains. He had looked upon the death-sleep of Charlotte
+Halliday's father, why not upon hers?
+
+She was not there! Those closely drawn curtains shrouded only the bed on
+which she had slept in the tranquil slumbers of her careless girlhood.
+That cold lifeless form, whose rigid outline Philip Sheldon had steeled
+himself to see, had no place here.
+
+He put his hand to his head, bewildered. "What does it mean?" he asked
+himself; "surely she died in this room!"
+
+He went hurriedly to his wife's room. They had taken Charlotte there,
+perhaps, shortly before her death. Some feverish fancy might have
+possessed her with the desire to be taken thither.
+
+He opened the door and went in; but here again all was blank and empty.
+The room was arranged after its usual fashion; but of his wife's presence
+there was no token. His sense of mystification and bewilderment grew
+suddenly into a sense of fear. What did it mean? What hellish fooling had
+he been the dupe of?
+
+He went to Diana's room. That, too, was empty. A trunk and a portmanteau,
+covered and strapped as if for removal, occupied the centre of the room.
+
+There was no other room upon this floor. Above this floor there were only
+the rooms of the servants.
+
+He went downstairs to the dining-room and rang the bell The parlour-maid
+came in answer to his summons.
+
+"Where is your mistress?" he asked.
+
+"Gone out, sir; she went at eight o'clock this morning. And O, if you
+please, sir, Dr. Jedd called, and said I was to give you this--with the
+certificate."
+
+The certificate! Yes, the certificate of Charlotte Halliday's death,--the
+certificate which he must produce to-morrow, with other evidence, for the
+satisfaction of the bill-discounter and his legal adviser. He stared at
+the girl, still possessed by the sense of bewilderment which had come
+upon him on seeing those empty rooms upstairs. He took the letter from
+her almost mechanically, and tore it open without looking at the address.
+The certificate dropped to the ground. He picked it up with a tremulous
+hand, and for some moments stood staring at it with dazzled, unseeing
+eyes. He could see that it was a document with dates and names written in
+a clerkly hand. For some moments he could see no more. And then words and
+names shone out of the confusion of letters that spun and whirled, like
+motes in the sunshine, before his dazzled eyes.
+
+"Valentine Hawkehurst, bachelor, author, Carlyle Terrace, Edgware Road,
+son of Arthur Hawkehurst, journalist; Charlotte Halliday, spinster, of
+the Lawn, Bayswater, daughter of Thomas Halliday, farmer."
+
+He read no more.
+
+It was a copy of a certificate of marriage--not a certificate of
+death--that had been brought to him.
+
+"You can go," he said to the servant hoarsely.
+
+He had a vague consciousness that she was staring at him with curious
+looks, and that it was not good for him to be watched by any one just
+now.
+
+"About dinner, sir, if you please?" the young woman began timidly.
+
+"What do I know about dinner?"
+
+"You will dine at home, sir?"
+
+"Dine at home? Yes; Mrs. Woolper can give you your orders."
+
+"Mrs. Woolper has gone out, sir. She has gone for good, I believe, sir;
+she took her boxes. And Miss Paget's luggage will be sent for, if you
+please, sir. There's a letter, sir, that Mrs. Woolper left for you on the
+mantelpiece."
+
+"She was very good. That will do; you can go."
+
+The girl departed, bewildered like her fellow-servants by the strangeness
+of the day's proceedings, still more bewildered by the strangeness of her
+master's manner.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+"THERE IS A WORD WILL PRIAM TURN TO STONE."
+
+When the servant was gone, Mr. Sheldon sat down and examined the document
+she had given him.
+
+Yes, it was in due form. A certified copy of the certificate
+of a marriage performed that morning at the church of St.
+Matthias-in-the-fields, Paddington, and duly witnessed by the registrar
+of that parish. If this document were indeed genuine, as to all
+appearance it was, Valentine Hawkehurst and Charlotte Halliday had been
+married that morning; and the will and the policy of assurance deposited
+with Mr. Kaye the bill-discounter were so much waste-paper.
+
+And they had fooled him, Philip Sheldon, as easily as this! The furious
+rage which he felt against all these people, and, more than against them,
+against his own besotted folly for allowing himself to be so fooled, was
+a sharper agony than had ever yet rent his cruel heart. He had been a
+scoundrel all his life, and had felt some of the pains and penalties of
+his position; but to be a defeated scoundrel was a new sensation to him;
+and a savage impotent hate and anger against himself and the universe
+took possession of his mind.
+
+He walked up and down the room for some time, abandoned wholly to the
+ungovernable rage that consumed him, and with no thought beyond that
+blind useless fury. And then there came upon him the feeling that was
+almost a part of his mind--the consciousness that something must be done,
+and promptly. Whatever his position was, he must face it. His hurried
+pacing to and fro came to a sudden stop, and he took the crumpled
+document from his packet, and examined it once more.
+
+There seemed little doubt that it was genuine; and a visit to the church
+where the marriage was stated to have been performed would immediately
+place the matter beyond all doubt. With the copy of the certificate, he
+had taken from his pocket the letter that had enclosed it. He saw now
+that the envelope was addressed in Hawkehurst's hand.
+
+"Favoured by Dr. Jedd," he had written in a corner of the envelope.
+
+Why should Dr. Jedd "favour" Mr. Hawkehurst's letter? Why, indeed, unless
+there had been a conspiracy concocted by these men against his authority
+and his interests?
+
+Valentine's letter was brief and business-like.
+
+"SIR,--With the full approbation of her mother and only near relation, my
+dear Charlotte has this day become my wife. The enclosed attested copy of
+the certificate of our marriage will afford you all particulars. I shall
+refrain from entering upon any explanation of my conduct; and I believe
+such explanation to be wholly unnecessary. You can scarcely fail to
+understand why I have acted in this manner, and why I congratulate myself
+and my dear wife on her departure from your house as on an escape from
+imminent peril. It will be, I fear, little satisfaction to you to hear
+that the doctors have pronounced your stepdaughter to be out of danger,
+though still in very weak health. She is now comfortably established in a
+temporary home, with her mother and Diana Paget; and in all probability
+some months must elapse before she and I can begin our new life together.
+To afford my darling girl the legal protection of marriage was the object
+of this sudden and secret union. You, of all men, will most fully
+comprehend how necessary such protection had become to ensure her safety.
+
+"Should you, however, require farther enlightenment as to the motives
+that prompted this step, Dr. Jedd will be the fittest person to give you
+such information; and has expressed his willingness to answer any
+questions you may please to put to him.
+
+"For the rest, I beg to assure you that the rights of Mrs. Hawkehurst in
+relation to the inheritance of the late John Haygarth's wealth will be as
+carefully protected as those of Miss Halliday; nor will the hasty
+marriage of this morning hinder the execution of any deed of settlement
+calculated to guard her interests in the future.
+
+"With this assurance, I remain, sir,
+Your obedient servant,
+VALENTINE HAWKEHURST.
+Carlyle Terrace, Edgware Road."
+
+Enclosed with this there was a second letter--from his wife.
+
+He read it with a countenance that expressed mingled anger and contempt.
+
+"Fool!" he muttered; "this is about the only service she could do me."
+
+The letter was long and incoherent; blotted with tears--in places
+completely illegible. Mr. Sheldon cared only to master the main facts
+contained in it, which were these:--His wife had left him for ever. Dr.
+Jedd and Valentine Hawkehurst had told her of something--something that
+affected the safety of her darling and only child--and the knowledge of
+which must separate her for ever from him. Of the money which she had
+brought to him she claimed nothing. Even her jewels, which were in his
+keeping, in the iron safe where he kept his papers, she did not attempt
+to obtain from him. Valentine would not allow her to starve. The humblest
+shelter, the poorest food, would suffice her in the future; but no home
+of his providing could she ever inhabit again.
+
+"What I have suffered in this last few days is only known to myself and
+to heaven," she wrote. "O Philip, how could you--how could you even shape
+the thought of such a deed as this, which you have been doing, day after
+day, for the last two months? I could not have believed what they have
+told me, if I had not seen my child fade hour by hour under your care,
+slowly, surely--and recover as surely directly you were excluded from any
+part in our care of her. If it were possible not to believe these people,
+I would disbelieve them, and would cling to you faithfully still; but the
+voices against you are too many, the proofs against you are too strong.
+
+"Do not seek to see me. I am with my poor child, who was but just able to
+bear the removal from your house, and to go through the ceremony that was
+performed this morning. Little did I ever think my daughter would have
+such a wedding. What a mockery all my plans seem now!--and I had chosen
+the six bridesmaids, and arranged all the dresses in my own mind. To see
+my dear girl dressed anyhow, in her oldest bonnet, standing before the
+altar huddled up in a shawl, and given away by a strange doctor, who kept
+looking at his watch in a most disrespectful manner during the ceremony,
+was very bitter to me."
+
+Mr. Sheldon flung aside the letter with an oath. He had no time to waste
+upon such twaddle as this. He tore open Nancy Woolper's letter. It was a
+poor honest scrawl, telling him how faithfully she had served him, how
+truly she had loved him in the past, and how she could henceforth serve
+him no more. It exhorted him, in humble ill-spelt phrases, to repentance.
+It might not yet be too late even for such a sinner as he had been.
+
+He tore these two epistles into infinitesimal fragments, and flung them
+into the fireplace. Valentine Hawkehurst's letter he kept. It was a
+document of some legal importance.
+
+For a moment there had flashed across his brain the thought that he might
+punish these people for their interference with his affairs. He might
+bring an action against Dr. Jedd for slander, and compel the physician to
+prove the charges insinuated against him, or pay the penalty attendant
+upon an unjustifiable accusation. He was well assured that Dr. Jedd could
+prove very little; and a jury, if properly worked, might award him
+exemplary damages.
+
+But on the other hand, the circumstantial evidence against him was very
+strong; and evidence which might be insufficient to prove him guilty in a
+trial for his life might be a sufficient defence for his enemies against
+an action for slander; if, indeed, the course which Dr. Jedd and
+Valentine Hawkehurst had taken did in itself constitute a slanderous and
+malicious imputation. Nor could any such action invalidate the marriage
+solemnized that morning; and that one fact comprised his utter ruin.
+Charlotte's interests were merged in the interests of her husband. No
+shadow of claim upon John Haygarth's wealth remained to him.
+
+His ruin was complete and dire. For a long time his circumstances had
+been desperate--no avenue of escape open to him but the one dark way
+which he had trodden; and now that last road was closed against him. The
+day was very near at hand when his fictitious bills on shadowy companies
+must be dishonoured; and with the dishonour of those bills came the end
+of all things for him,--a complete revelation of all those dishonest
+artifices by which he had kept his piratical bark afloat on the
+commercial waters.
+
+He surveyed his position in every light, calmly and deliberately, and saw
+there was no hope. The whole scheme of his existence was reduced to the
+question of how much ready-money he could carry out of that house in his
+pocket, and in what direction he should betake himself after leaving it.
+
+His first care must be to ascertain whether the marriage described in the
+duplicate certificate had really taken place; his next, to repossess
+himself of the papers left with Mr. Kaye.
+
+Before leaving the house he went to his study, where he examined his
+banker's book. Yes, it was as they had told him at the bank. He was
+overdrawn. Among the letters lying unopened on his writing-table he found
+a letter from one of the officials of the Unitas, calling his attention,
+politely and respectfully, to that oversight upon his part. He read the
+letter, and crumpled it into his pocket with an angry gesture.
+
+"I am just about as well off now as I was twelve years ago, before Tom
+Halliday came to Fitzgeorge Street," he said to himself; "and I have the
+advantage of being twelve years older."
+
+Yes, this is what it all came to, after all. He had been travelling in a
+circle. The discovery was humiliating. Mr. Sheldon began to think that
+his line of life had not been a paying one.
+
+He opened his iron safe, and forced the lock of the jewel-case in which
+his wife had kept the few handsome ornaments that he had given her in the
+early days of their marriage, as a reward for being good--that is to say,
+for allowing her second husband to dispose of her first husband's
+patrimony without let or hindrance. The jewels were only a few rings, a
+brooch, a pair of earrings, and a bracelet; but they were good of their
+kind, and in all worth something like two hundred pounds.
+
+These, and the gold chronometer which he carried in his waistcoat-pocket,
+constituted all the worldly wealth which Mr. Sheldon could command, now
+that the volcanic ground upon which his commercial position had been
+built began to crumble beneath his feet, and the bubbling of the crater
+warned him of his peril. He put the trinkets into his pocket without
+compunction, and then went upstairs to his dressing-room, where he
+proceeded to pack his clothes in a capacious portmanteau, which in itself
+might constitute his credentials among strangers, so eminently
+respectable was its appearance.
+
+In this dread crisis of his life he thought of everything that affected
+his own interests. To what was he going? That question was for the moment
+unanswerable. In every quarter of the globe there are happy
+hunting-grounds for the soldier of fortune. Some plan for the future
+would shape itself in his mind by-and-by. His wife's desertion had left
+him thoroughly independent. He had no tie to restrain his movements,
+nothing to dread except such proceedings as might be taken against him by
+the holders of those bills. And such proceedings are slow, while modern
+locomotion is swift.
+
+What was he leaving? That was easily answered. A labyrinth of debt and
+difficulty. The fine house, the handsome furniture, were held in the same
+bondage of the law as his household goods in Fitzgeorge Street had been.
+He had given a bill of sale upon everything he possessed six months
+before, to obtain ready-money. The final terrible resource had not been
+resorted to until all other means had been exhausted. Let this fact at
+least be recorded to his credit. He was like the lady whom the poet
+sings, who,
+
+"tolerably mild,
+To make a wash would _hardly_ boil a child:"
+
+that is to say, she would try all other materials for her cosmetic
+preparation first; and if they failed, would at last resort, unwillingly,
+to the boiling of children.
+
+No; he had nothing to lose by flight--of that fact it was easy for him to
+assure himself.
+
+He went downstairs, and rang for the servant.
+
+"I am going out," he said, "to join my wife and her daughter, and return
+with them to the sea-side. There is a portmanteau upstairs in my room,
+ready packed. You will give it to the messenger I shall send in the
+course of the next day or two. At what time did Mrs. Sheldon and Miss
+Halliday leave this morning?"
+
+"At eight o'clock, sir. Mr. Hawkehurst came to fetch them in a carriage.
+They went out by the kitchen passage and the side gate, sir, because you
+were asleep, Mrs. Woolper said, and was not to be disturbed."
+
+"At eight. Yes. And Mrs. Woolper and Miss Paget?"
+
+"They went a'most directly after you was gone out, sir. There was two
+cabs to take Miss Halliday's and Mrs. Sheldon's things, and such
+like,--just as there was when you came from Harold's Hill."
+
+"Yes; I understand."
+
+He was half inclined to ask the young woman if she had heard the
+direction given to the drivers of these two cabs. But he refrained from
+doing so. What could it profit him to know where his wife and
+stepdaughter were to be found? Whether they were in the next street or at
+the antipodes could matter very little to him, except so far as the
+knowledge of their place of habitation might guide him in his avoidance
+of them. Between him and them there was a gulf wider than all the waters
+of the world, and to consider them was only foolish waste of time and
+thought. He left the house, which for the last five years of his life had
+been the outward and visible sign of his social status, fully conscious
+that he left it for ever; and he left it without a sigh. For him the word
+home had no tender associations, and the domestic hearth had never
+inspired him with any sense of comfort or pleasure with which he might
+not have been inspired by the luxurious fireside of a first-class
+coffee-room. He was a man who would have chosen to spend his existence in
+joint-stock hotels, if there had not been solidity of position to be
+acquired from the possession of a handsome house.
+
+He went to the Paddington church. It was only five o'clock in the
+afternoon by the clock of that edifice. The church was closely shut, but
+Mr. Sheldon found the clerk, who, in consideration of a handsome
+donation, took him to the vestry, and there showed him the register of
+marriages--the last entry therein.
+
+Yes, there was Charlotte Halliday's signature, a little uncertain and
+tremulous.
+
+"I suppose you are one of the young lady's relations, sir," said the
+clerk. "It was rather a strange affair; but the young lady's ma was with
+her; and the young lady was over age, so, you see, there's nothing to be
+said against it."
+
+Mr. Sheldon had nothing to say against the marriage. If any false
+statement of his, however base or cruel, could have invalidated the
+ceremonial, he would have spared no pains to devise such a falsehood. If
+he had been a citizen of the Southern States, he might have suborned
+witnesses to prove that there was black blood in the veins of Valentine
+Hawkehurst. If he had not been opposed to so strong an opponent as Dr.
+Jedd, he might have tried to get a commission of lunacy to declare
+Charlotte Halliday a madwoman, and thus invalidate her marriage. As it
+was, he knew that he could do nothing. He had failed. All was said in
+those three words.
+
+He wasted no time at the church, but hurried on to the City, where he was
+just in time to catch Mr. Kaye leaving his office.
+
+"Have you sent those papers to your solicitor?" he asked.
+
+"No; I was just going to take them round to him. I have been thinking
+that it will be necessary to ascertain that there is no will of Miss
+Halliday's subsequent to this; and that will be rather difficult to find
+out. Women never know when to leave off making wills, if they once begin
+making them. They have a positive rage for multiplying documents, you
+know. If the testator in that great codicil case had been a woman, a jury
+would scarcely have refused to believe in the story of half a dozen
+different codicils hidden away in half a dozen different holes and
+corners. Women like that sort of thing. Of course, I quite understand
+that you bring me the will in all good faith; but I foresee difficulties
+in raising money upon such a security."
+
+"You need give yourself no further trouble about the matter," said Mr.
+Sheldon coolly. "I find that I can do without the money, and I've come to
+reclaim the papers."
+
+Mr. Kaye handed them to his client. He was not altogether pleased by this
+turn of affairs; for he had expected to profit considerably by Mr.
+Sheldon's necessities. That gentleman honoured him with no further
+explanations, but put the papers in his pocket, and wished the
+bill-discounter good day.
+
+And this was the last time that Philip Sheldon was ever seen in his
+character of a solid and respectable citizen of London. He went from the
+bill-discounter's office to a pawnbroker in the City, with whom he
+pledged Georgy's trinkets and his own watch for the sum of a hundred and
+twenty pounds. From the pawnbroker's he went back to Bayswater for his
+portmanteau, and thence to the Euston Hotel, where he dined temperately
+in the coffee-room. After dinner he went out into the dull back streets
+that lurk behind Euston Square, and found an obscure little barber's
+shop, where he had his whiskers shaved off, and his hyacinthine locks
+cropped as close as the barber's big scissors could crop them.
+
+The sacrifice of these hirsute adornments made an extraordinary change
+in this man. All the worst characteristics of his countenance came out
+with a new force; and the face of Mr. Sheldon, undisguised by the
+whiskers that had hidden the corners of his mouth, or the waving locks
+that had given height and breadth to his forehead, was a face that no one
+would be likely to trust.
+
+From the Euston Station he departed by the night mail for Liverpool,
+under the cover of darkness. In that city he quietly awaited the
+departure of the Cunard steamer for New York, and was so fortunate as to
+leave England one day before that fatal date on which the first of his
+fictitious bills arrival at maturity.
+
+
+
+
+Book the Tenth.
+
+
+
+HARBOUR, AFTER MANY SHIPWRECKS.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+OUT OF THE DARK VALLEY.
+
+Not with pomp or with splendour, with rejoicing or strewing of summer
+blossoms in the pathway of bride and bridegroom, had the marriage of
+Valentine and Charlotte been solemnized. Simple and secret had been the
+ceremonial, dark with clouds was the sky above them; and yet it is
+doubtful if happier bridegroom ever trod this earth than Valentine
+Hawkehurst as he went to his lonely lodging under the starry summer sky,
+after leaving his young wife to her mother's care in the new home that
+had been found for them.
+
+He had reason to rejoice; for he had passed through the valley of the
+shadow of death. He had seen, very near, that dread presence before which
+the angels of faith and love can avail nothing. Fearless as Alcides had
+he gone down to the realms of darkness; triumphant and glad as the
+demigod he returned from the under-world, bearing his precious burden in
+his strong arms. The struggle had been dire, the agony of suspense a
+supreme torture; but from the awful contest the man came forth a better
+and a wiser man. Whatever strength of principle had been wanting to
+complete the work of reformation inaugurated by love, had been gained by
+Valentine Hawkehurst during the period of Charlotte's illness. His
+promised wife, his redeeming angel, she for whose affection he had first
+learned to render thanks to his God, had seemed to be slipping away from
+him. In the happiest hour of his prosperous courtship he had known
+himself unworthy of her, with no right, no claim, to so fair a prize,
+except the right of pure and unselfish love. When the hour of trial came
+to him he had said, "Behold the avenger!" and in that hour it seemed to
+him that a lurking anticipation of future woe had been ever present with
+him in the midst of his happiness,--it seemed so natural, go reasonable
+that this treasure should be taken away from him. What had he done, that
+he should go unpunished for all the errors and follies of his youth?
+
+He looked back, and asked himself if he had been so vile a sinner as in
+these hours of self-reproach he was inclined to esteem himself? Could his
+life have been otherwise? Had he not been set in a groove, his young feet
+planted in the crooked ways, before he knew that life's journey might be
+travelled by a straighter road?
+
+Alas, the answer given at the tribunal of conscience went against him!
+Other men had come into this world amidst surroundings as bad, nay,
+indeed, worse than the surroundings of his cradle. And of these men some
+had emerged from their native mire spotless and pure as from newly-fallen
+snow. The natural force of character which had saved these men had not
+been given to him. His feet had been set in the crooked ways, and he had
+travelled on, reckless, defiant, dimly conscious that the road was a bad
+one, and that his garments were bespattered with more mud-stains than
+would be agreeable to some travellers.
+
+It was only when the all-powerful influence of love was brought to bear
+upon this plastic nature that Valentine Hawkehurst became fully awakened
+to the degradation of his position, and possessed with an earnest desire
+to emerge from the great dismal swamp of bad company. Then, and then
+only, began the transformation which was ultimately to become so complete
+a change. Some influence, even beyond that of happy love, was needed to
+give force to this man's character; and in the great terror of the last
+three months that influence had been found. The very foundations of
+Valentine Hawkehurst's life had been shaken, and, come what might, he
+could never be again what he had been.
+
+He had almost lost her. All was said in that. She had been almost taken
+from him--she, who to this man was father, mother, wife, household, past,
+present, future, glory, ambition, happiness--everything except that God
+who ruled above and held her life and his peace in the hollow of His
+hand. He had been face to face with death; and never, in all the years to
+come--never in the brightest hour of future happiness, could he forget
+the peril that had come upon him, and might come again. He had learned to
+understand that he held her, not as a free gift, but as a loan--a
+treasure to be reclaimed at any moment by the God who lent her.
+
+The darksome valley was past, and Valentine stood by his darling's side,
+safe upon the sunlit uplands.
+
+The doctors had declared their patient safe. The hour of danger had been
+passed in safety, and the mischief worked by the poisoner's slow process
+had been well nigh counteracted by medical skill.
+
+"In six weeks' time you may take your wife for her honeymoon tour, Mr.
+Hawkehurst, with her health and spirits thoroughly re-established,"
+said Dr. Jedd.
+
+"What is that you say about honeymoon tours?" cried Gustave Lenoble.
+"Hawkehurst and his wife will spend their honeymoon at Côtenoir; is it
+not, Diana?"
+
+Diana replied that it was to be, and must be so.
+
+It was impossible to imagine a happier party than that which met day
+after day in those pleasant lodgings at Kilburn, wherein Georgy and Diana
+and Charlotte had been established with much devotion and care on the
+parts of Valentine and Gustave. Mr. Hawkehurst had chosen the apartments,
+and M. Lenoble had spent the day before the wedding in rushing to and fro
+between the West End and Kilburn, carrying hot-house flowers, comestibles
+of all kinds from Fortnum and Mason's, bonbon boxes, perfumery, new
+books, new music, and superintending the delivery of luxurious
+easy-chairs, hired from expensive upholsterers, a grand piano, and a
+harmonium.
+
+"We will have music in the evenings," he said to Diana, upon her
+expressing surprise on beholding these arrangements, "when we are
+assembled here, all. How thou dost open thine eyes on beholding these
+nothings! Do you think it has been no pleasure to me to testify my
+affection for one who has been so good to thee--thy friend, thine
+adopted sister? I wished that all things should look bright around her,
+when they brought her here, after that she had come to escape from the
+jaws of death. And thou, was it not that thou wert also coming to make
+thy home here for some days, until thy day of marriage? Thy father
+astonishes himself to hear of such sudden events. Thou wilt go to see
+him, soon, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, dear Gustave. I will go to-morrow."
+
+She went on the next day, and found Captain Paget much weaker than on her
+last visit.
+
+It was evident that for him the end was very near. He was much changed
+and subdued by his long illness; but the spirit of worldliness had not
+been altogether exorcised even in this dismal period of self-communion.
+
+"What does it all mean, Diana?" he asked. "I don't understand being kept
+in the dark like this. Here are you suddenly leaving Mr. Sheldon's house
+without rhyme or reason, to take up your quarters in lodgings with Mrs.
+Sheldon. Here is a mysterious marriage taking place at a time when I have
+been given to understand that one of the parties is at death's door; and
+here is Lenoble introduced to Valentine Hawkehurst, in express opposition
+to my particular request that my future son-in-law should be introduced
+to none of the Sheldon set."
+
+"Valentine is not one of the Sheldon set, papa. I do not think it likely
+that he will ever see Philip Sheldon again."
+
+"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Captain Paget. "There has been something
+serious going on, then, surely?"
+
+After this he insisted on an explanation, and Diana told him the story of
+the last two or three weeks: Charlotte's increasing illness--so
+mysterious and incurable; the sudden return from Harold's Hill;
+Valentine's fears; Dr. Jedd's boldly-expressed opinion that the patient
+was the victim of foul play; the systematic exclusion of Philip Sheldon
+from the sick-room, followed immediately by symptoms of amelioration,
+leading to gradual recovery.
+
+All this Captain Paget heard with an awe-stricken countenance. The
+distance that divides the shedder of blood from all other wrong-doers is
+so great, that the minor sinner feels himself a saint when he
+contemplates the guilt of the greater criminal.
+
+"Great God! is this possible?" exclaimed the Captain, with a shudder.
+"And I have taken that man's hand!"
+
+Later in the evening, when Diana had left him, and he had been thinking
+seriously of his own career, and those many transactions of his troubled
+life which, in the slang denomination of the day, would be called
+"shady," he derived some scrap of comfort from one consideration.
+
+"I never hurt a worm," he murmured to himself, complacently. "No, I can
+lay my hand upon my heart and say, I never hurt a worm."
+
+The Captain did not pause to reflect that some of the merit involved in
+this amiable trait of character might have been referable to the fact,
+that he had never happened to fall upon a state of society in which a
+comfortable living was to be made by the hurting of worms. He thought
+only of the story he had heard about Philip Sheldon; and he told himself
+that not in the direst necessity of his life could his brain have
+fashioned the thought of such a deed as that, in the doing of which this
+man had persevered for nearly three months.
+
+For Charlotte Hawkehurst the summer days which succeeded her marriage
+passed very quietly. She had not been told the real motive of that hasty
+and stolen marriage which had given her to the man she loved and trusted
+so completely. Valentine and Diana had between them contrived to mould
+Mrs. Sheldon to their will; and it was at her request that Charlotte had
+consented to so strange a step.
+
+The fable invented to account for this desire on the part of Mrs. Sheldon
+was very innocent. The doctors had ordered a milder climate than England
+for the dear convalescent--Madeira, Algeria, Malta--or some other equally
+remote quarter of the globe. It was impossible that Mr. or Mrs. Sheldon
+could take so long a journey; Mr. Sheldon being bound hand and foot to
+the mill-wheel of City life, Mrs. Sheldon being the slave and helpmeet of
+her husband. Nor could dear Charlotte go to Malta alone, or attended only
+by faithful Diana Paget. In short, there was no course so obvious or so
+prudent as a hasty marriage, which would enable the invalid to seek a
+milder clime, accompanied and guarded by her natural protector--a
+husband.
+
+"Consent, dearest, I entreat you," wrote Valentine, in the little note
+which supported Mrs. Sheldon's request, "however strange our wishes may
+seem to you. Believe that it is for the best, for your own sake, for the
+sake of all who love you, and ask no questions. Say only yes."
+
+To the prayer in this letter, to the entreaties of her mother and Diana,
+Charlotte yielded. She wondered why Mr. Sheldon avoided her, and asked
+anxiously, on more than one occasion, why she did not see that gentleman.
+
+"Is papa ill," she asked, "that he never comes to see how I am?"
+
+"The doctors have forbidden many people in your room, dear."
+
+"Yes, a few days ago, when I was so very ill; but now that I am better,
+papa might come. I want to thank him for all his anxious care of me, and
+to be sure that _he_ consents to this marriage."
+
+"My darling, be assured the marriage is for the best," pleaded Diana.
+
+And the marriage took place.
+
+Charlotte's innocent soul was thus spared the pain of a revelation which
+must have cast a dark shadow on the bright beginning of her wedded life.
+Georgy pledged herself to keep the fatal secret from her daughter; and
+Diana Paget rewarded her discretion by the most patient attention to her
+piteous and prosy lamentations upon the iniquity of mankind in general,
+and Philip Sheldon in particular.
+
+Of that hideous secret of the past, lately revealed by Mr. Burkham, Mrs.
+Sheldon had been told nothing. No good end could have been served by such
+a revelation. The criminal law has its statute of limitations--unwritten,
+but not the less existent. A crime which would have been difficult of
+proof at the time of its commission must after the lapse of twelve years
+have travelled beyond the pale of justice. For three people to come
+forward and declare that at the time of Mr. Halliday's death they had
+suspected Mr. Sheldon of poisoning him, would be to prove nothing to the
+minds of a British jury, except that the three people in question were
+libellous and ill-disposed persons. The greater the issue, the wider the
+chances of escape given to the accused; and a petty offender will be
+condemned for picking a pocket upon much lighter grounds than will be
+considered sufficient to prove a man guilty of blowing up the Houses of
+Parliament.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+AFTER THE WEDDING.
+
+The manner in which Mr. Sheldon would act in the future was a matter of
+considerable fear to his wife. She had a hazy idea that he would come to
+the pleasant Kilburn lodgings to claim her, and insist upon her sharing
+his dreary future.
+
+"If I could only have a divorce," she said piteously, when she discussed
+the subject with her son-in-law. "There ought to be divorces for such
+dreadful things; but I never heard of one before Sir Creswick,
+or the new judge, whose name I can't remember. O Valentine, I cannot live
+with him; I cannot sit down to dinner day after day with such a man as
+that. And to think that I should have known him when I was the merest
+girl, and have danced my very first polka with him when it first came in,
+and people wore polka boots and polka jackets, and wrote their notes of
+invitation upon polka paper, and sang polka songs, and worked polking
+peasants in Berlin wool, and went on altogether in the most absurd
+manner. And O Valentine, whom can one trust, if not the man one has known
+all one's life!"
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst pledged himself to protect his mother-in-law from any
+attempt at persecution upon the part of her husband. He did not know what
+difficulties he might have to encounter in the performance of this
+pledge; for, in his ignorance of the stockbroker's desperate
+circumstances, he imagined that Philip Sheldon would make some attempt to
+right himself in the eyes of the world, by compelling his wife to
+reassume her position in his house.
+
+He went to George Sheldon's office within a few days after his marriage
+to take counsel from that astute adviser. He found the lawyer hard at
+work, and in very good spirits. It was by his advice the marriage had
+been hurried on; Charlotte's stealthy removal from the house while Philip
+Sheldon slumbered had been planned by him; and he was triumphant in the
+thought that the plot had succeeded so well, and that Philip, the coolest
+and deepest of schemers, had been so completely baffled.
+
+"That Ann Woolper is a treasure," he said; "I didn't think it was in her
+to do what she has done. Nothing could be neater than the way she kept
+Phil at bay; and nothing could be better than her tact and cleverness in
+getting Charlotte and her mother quietly off the other morning while my
+precious brother was in the land of nod."
+
+"Yes, she has been invaluable to us."
+
+"And that girl Paget, too; she has turned out a regular trump. I used to
+think her a very stiff, consequential piece of goods when I saw her at
+the Lawn; but, egad, she has shown herself the genuine metal all through
+this business. Now that's a young woman I wouldn't mind making Mrs.
+George Sheldon any day in the week."
+
+"You do her too much honour," said Valentine, with an internal shiver.
+"Unhappily, a prior engagement will prevent Miss Paget's availing herself
+of so excellent an opportunity."
+
+"It mayn't be such a very bad chance as you seem to think it, my friend,"
+George replied, with some indignation. "Whenever the Reverend John
+Haygarth's estate drops in, I stand to win fifty thousand pounds. And
+that's not so bad for a start in life, I suppose you haven't forgotten
+that your wife is heir-at-law to a hundred thousand pounds?"
+
+"No, I have not forgotten her position in relation to the Haygarth
+estate."
+
+"Humph! I should rather think not. People don't generally forget that
+kind of thing. But you are uncommonly cool about the business."
+
+"Yes, I have passed through a fiery furnace in which all the bullion in
+the Bank of England will not serve a man. That kind of ordeal upsets
+one's old notions as to the value of money. And, again, I have never been
+able to contemplate Charlotte's inheritance of that fortune as anything
+but a remote contingency; the business is so slow."
+
+"Yes, but it has been going on. Affidavits have been made; the whole
+affair is in progress."
+
+"I am glad to hear it. Don't think that I pretend not to value the
+prospect of wealth; I have only learnt to know that money is not the
+be-all and end-all of life. I could be very happy with my dear wife if
+there were no prospect of this Haygarthian inheritance; but if it does
+come to us, we shall, no doubt, be all the happier. The millionaire sees
+the world from a very pleasant point of view. I should like my dear girl
+to be the mistress of as fair a home as money can buy for her."
+
+"Yes, and you'd like to have your name stand high in the statistics of
+Government stockholders. Don't be sentimental, Hawkehurst; that kind of
+thing won't wash. Thank God, we managed to save poor Tom's daughter from
+the fangs of my brother Phil. But you can't suppose that I am going to
+shut my eyes to the fact that this affair has been a very good thing for
+you, and that you owe your chances of a great fortune entirely to me? You
+don't pretend to forget _that_, I suppose?" said George Sheldon, with
+some acrimony.
+
+"Why should I pretend to forget that, or any circumstance of our business
+relations? I am perfectly aware that you started the hunt of the
+Haygarths, and that to your investigations is to be traced the discovery
+that proves my wife a claimant to the estate now held by the Crown."
+
+"Very good; that's outspoken and honest, at any rate. And now, how about
+our agreement? It's only a parole agreement, but an honest man's word is
+as good as his bond."
+
+"Our agreement!" repeated Valentine, with a puzzled expression of
+countenance. "Upon my word, I forget."
+
+"Ah, I thought it would come to that; I thought you would manage to
+forget the terms agreed upon by you and me in the event of your marriage
+with Charlotte Halliday. My memory is not so short as yours; and I can
+swear to a conversation between you and me in this room, in which you
+consented to my taking half the Haygarthian estate as the price of my
+discovery and the fair reward of my labours."
+
+"Yes," said Valentine, "I remember that conversation; and I remember
+saying that the demand was a stiff one, but that I, as Charlotte's future
+husband, would not oppose such a demand."
+
+"You remember that?"
+
+"I do; and if my wife is willing to consent to your terms, I will hold to
+my promise."
+
+"Your wife's consent is not wanted. She married you without a settlement,
+and her rights are merged in yours. To all intents and purposes, _you_
+are heir-at-law to John Haygarth's estate."
+
+Valentine laughed aloud; the whole affair seemed a tremendous joke. He,
+the homeless, penniless, friendless reprobate of but one year ago--he,
+the son and heir of a man who had been always on the verge of social
+shipwreck for want of five pounds--he, of all other men upon this earth,
+claimant against the Crown for an estate worth one hundred thousand
+pounds!
+
+"The whole affair seems ridiculously improbable," he said.
+
+"My brother wouldn't have done what he did if the whole thing had seemed
+improbable to him. However, we needn't estimate the chances for or
+against; all I want is a legal agreement between you and me, securing my
+share of the plunder."
+
+"I am ready to execute any reasonable agreement; but I am bound to
+protect my wife's interests, and I must have a solicitor to act for me in
+this affair. Greek must meet Greek, you know."
+
+"Very good. I could have conducted the business myself without the
+interference of strangers; but if you are going in for extreme caution,
+you'd better leave your wife's affairs in the hands of Messrs. Greenwood
+and Greenwood, who have acted for her hitherto, and have all papers
+relating to the case in their possession."
+
+"Greenwood and Greenwood? My dear girl told me she had signed some
+document, and had seen some lawyers; but she did not tell me the nature
+of the document, or the name of the lawyers. I have forborne to speak to
+her on business matters. The treatment that she has undergone has left
+her very nervous, and we try to keep all unpleasant subjects out of her
+mind."
+
+"Yes, that's all very well; but business is business, you know. You'd
+better see Messrs. Greenwood and Greenwood at once. Tell them of your
+marriage. You'll have to keep Phil's conduct dark, of course; that is
+understood between us. You must say the marriage was a love-match
+against my brother's wish, romantic, sentimental, and so on. They'll
+raise no objections when they find you are willing to leave the case in
+their hands."
+
+"You have heard nothing of your brother?"
+
+"Well, no--nothing, or next to nothing. I called at his office yesterday.
+He has not been there since the beginning of Charlotte's illness, and
+there has been no letter or message for Orcott since your wedding-day.
+Things look rather piscatorial, altogether. Orcott hints that Phil's
+affairs are in queer street; but he's a shallow-headed fool, and knows
+very little. It seems, by his account, that Phil was a Bull, and that
+the fall in every species of stock has been ruin to him. You see, when a
+man once goes in for the Bull business, he never by any chance turns
+Bear--and _vice versa_. There's a kind of infatuation in the thing, and a
+man sticks to his line until he's cleaned out--at least, that's what
+stockbrokers have told me--and I believe it's pretty near the truth."
+
+This was all that Valentine could ascertain about Mr. Sheldon at present.
+Every knock fluttered Georgy; every accidental visitor at the Kilburn
+villa seemed like the swooping of eagle on dovecote.
+
+"I cannot get over the feeling that he will come and take me away with
+him," she said. "If Sir Wilde Creswick would only do something, so that
+my second husband mayn't be able to insist upon my living in that
+dreadful, dreadful house, where I suffered such nights and days of agony,
+that I am convinced the sight of chintz curtains lined with pink will
+make me wretched as long as I live!"
+
+"My dear Mrs. Sheldon, he shall not come," said Valentine.
+
+"If I could only go ever so far away from him, and feel that there was
+the sea, or something of that kind, between us!"
+
+"We will take you away--across the British Channel, or further still, if
+you like. Diana and M. Lenoble are to be married soon; and directly
+Lotta is strong enough for the journey we are to go over to Normandy, to
+their chateau."
+
+"Chateau, indeed!" Mrs. Sheldon exclaimed peevishly. "The idea of Diana
+Paget, without a sixpence, and with a regular scamp of a father, marrying
+a man with a chateau, while my poor Charlotte--! I don't wish to wound
+your feelings, Mr. Hawkehurst, but it really does seem hard."
+
+"It is hard that Lotta should not have married a prince--all the
+grandeurs of a prince in a fairy tale would only be her due; but it
+happens fortunately, you see, dear Mrs. Sheldon, that our sweet girl has
+simple tastes, and does not languish for jewels or palaces. If she should
+ever become rich--"
+
+"Ah," sighed, Georgy despondently, "I don't expect that. I can't
+understand anything about this idea of a fine fortune that Mr. Sheldon
+had got into his head. I know that my husband's mother was a Miss
+Meynell, the daughter of a carpet-warehouseman in the city, and I can't
+see how any grand fortune is to come to Charlotte through her. And as for
+the Hallidays--Hyley and Newhall farms were all the property they ever
+owned within the memory of man."
+
+"The fortune for which Charlotte is a claimant comes from the maternal
+ancestor of Christian Meynell. I do not count upon her possession of it
+as a certain good in the future. If it comes we will be thankful."
+
+"Is it a very large sum of money?"
+
+"Well, yes; I believe it is a considerable sum."
+
+"Twenty thousand pounds, perhaps?"
+
+"I have been told that it is as much."
+
+He did not want Georgy's weak mind to become possessed of the idea of
+shadowy wealth. He remembered what Philip Sheldon had said to him on the
+Christmas night in which they had paced the little Bayswater garden
+together, and he felt that there was a substratum of common sense in that
+scoundrel's artful warning.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+GREEK AGAINST GREEK.
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst called upon Mr. Greenwood, of the firm of Greenwood
+and Greenwood, within a week of his marriage, and exhibited the
+certificate to that gentleman. Mr. Greenwood received the information
+with much solemnity, and even severity, of manner.
+
+"Are you aware that this is a very serious step which you have taken,
+Mr. Hawkehurst?" he demanded, sternly. "You entrap--that is to say,
+you persuade a lady into a hasty marriage--without consultation with
+her legal advisers, without settlements of any kind whatever--while at
+the same time you are aware that the lady in question is heir-at-law
+to a very large fortune, proceedings for the recovery of which are
+now pending. Pardon me if I observe that there is a want of
+delicacy--of--a--hem--right-mindedness in the transaction."
+
+"The imputation contained in your remarks is not a pleasant one, Mr.
+Greenwood," Valentine remarked quietly; "but I am quite willing to pardon
+any injustice which you may inflict upon me by your desire to protect the
+interests of your client. I think you will speedily discover that those
+interests are in no way endangered by the lady's marriage with me. There
+are social complications which are not to be settled by either law or
+equity. Miss Halliday's surroundings of the last few months were of a
+very painful nature; so painful, that the legal protection of marriage
+became the only means of saving her from imminent peril. I cannot enter
+more fully into those painful circumstances. I can only assure you that I
+married your client with the consent and approval of her only near
+relation, and uninfluenced in the smallest degree by mercenary
+considerations. Whatever post-nuptial settlement you please to make for
+my wife's protection I shall promptly execute."
+
+"You express yourself in a very honourable and highly creditable manner,
+Mr. Hawkehurst," exclaimed the lawyer, with sudden cordiality; "and I beg
+distinctly to withdraw any offensive observations I may have made just
+now. Your own affairs are, I conclude, in a sufficiently solvent state?"
+
+"I do not owe a sixpence."
+
+"Good; and Mr. Sheldon, the lady's stepfather and my client--had you his
+approval for this hasty marriage?"
+
+"The marriage took place without Mr. Sheldon's knowledge or consent."
+
+"May I ask your reason for this secrecy?"
+
+"No, Mr. Greenwood; it is just that one reason that I cannot tell you.
+Accept my assurance that it was an all-powerful reason."
+
+"I am compelled to do so, if you decline to confide in my discretion; but
+as Mr. Sheldon is my client, I am bound to think of his interests as well
+as those of Miss Halliday--er--Mrs. Hawkehurst. I am somewhat surprised
+that he has not called upon me since the marriage. He has been made aware
+of that circumstance, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; I wrote to him immediately after the ceremony, enclosing him a copy
+of the certificate."
+
+"The marriage will make a considerable difference to him."
+
+"In what manner?"
+
+"Well, in the event of his stepdaughter's death. If she had died
+unmarried and intestate, this fortune would have gone to her mother;
+besides which, there was the insurance on Miss Halliday's life."
+
+"An insurance!"
+
+"Yes. Were you not apprised of that fact? Mr. Sheldon, with very natural
+precaution, insured his stepdaughter's life for a considerable sum--in
+point of fact, as I believe, five thousand pounds; so that, in case of
+her death prior to the recovery of the Haygarth estate, her mother might
+receive some solatium."
+
+"He had insured her life!" said Valentine, under his breath.
+
+This, then, was the key to the mystery. The Haygarthian inheritance was
+but a remote contingency, a shadowy prize, which could scarcely have
+tempted the secret assassin; but the insurance had offered the prospect
+of immediate gain. The one link wanting to complete the chain of evidence
+against Philip Sheldon was found. There was no longer a question as to
+his motive.
+
+"This man knows of one insurance on her life," Valentine thought to
+himself; "there may have been more than one."
+
+After a brief silence, in which Mr. Hawkehurst had been lost in thought,
+the lawyer proceeded to discuss the terms of the post-nuptial settlement
+necessary for the protection of his client's interests. In the course of
+this discussion Valentine explained his position in relation to George
+Sheldon, and stated the demands of that sharp practitioner.
+
+Mr. Greenwood was utterly aghast upon hearing Mr. Hawkehurst's views on
+this subject.
+
+"You mean to tell me that this man claims a clear half of the Haygarth
+estate--fifty thousand pounds--in consideration of his paltry
+discoveries!"
+
+"Such is the demand he has made, and which I have pledged myself not to
+oppose. He certainly does open his mouth very wide; but we are bound to
+consider that but for these discoveries of his, my wife and my wife's
+relatives would in all probability have gone down to their graves in
+ignorance of their claim to this estate."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Hawkehurst. If Mr. George Sheldon had not made
+the discovery, some one else would have made it sooner or later, depend
+upon it. There would have been a little loss of time, that is all. There
+are plenty of men of George Sheldon's class always on the look-out for
+such chances as this--and for very small chances in comparison to this.
+Why, I know a fellow, a Frenchman, called Fleurus, who will take as much
+trouble about a few hundred pounds' worth of unclaimed stock as this man,
+George Sheldon, has taken about the Haygarth succession. And he has
+really the impudence to claim fifty thousand pounds from you?"
+
+"A claim which I have pledged myself not to oppose."
+
+"But which you have not pledged yourself to support. My dear Mr.
+Hawkehurst, this is a business which you must allow me to settle for you,
+as your wife's legal adviser. We will consider you quite out of the
+question, if you please; you will thus come out of your relations to Mr.
+George Sheldon with perfectly clean hands. You will not oppose his claim;
+but I shall oppose him in my character of legal adviser to your wife.
+Why, are you aware that this man executed an agreement with his brother,
+consenting to receive a fifth share of the estate, and costs out of
+pocket, in complete acquittance of all claims? I have an abstract of the
+agreement, amongst Miss Halliday's--Mrs. Hawkehurst's papers."
+
+After some further discussion, Valentine agreed to leave the whole matter
+in Mr. Greenwood's hands. Greek must meet Greek. Gray's Inn and the
+Fields must settle this business between themselves.
+
+"I am only prince consort," he said, with a smile. "I pretend to no
+actual interest in my wife's estate. I doubt, indeed, whether I should
+not have felt more complete happiness in our marriage if she had not been
+heiress to so large a fortune."
+
+At this Mr. Greenwood laughed outright.
+
+"Come, come, Mr. Hawkehurst," he exclaimed, "that really won't do. I am
+an old stager, you know--a man of the world;--and you mustn't ask me to
+believe that the idea of your wife's expectations can afford you anything
+but unqualified satisfaction."
+
+"You cannot believe? No, perhaps not," Valentine answered, thoughtfully.
+"But you do not know how nearly these expectations have lost me my wife.
+And even now, when she is mine by virtue of a bond that only death can
+loosen, it seems to me as if her wealth would make a kind of division
+between us. There are people who will always consider me a lucky
+adventurer, and look at my marriage as the result of clever scheming. I
+cannot advertise to the world the fact that I loved Charlotte Halliday
+from the first hour in which I saw her, and asked her to be my wife three
+days before I discovered her claim to John Haygarth's estate. A man can't
+go through the world with his justification pinned upon his breast. I
+think it will be my fate to be misjudged all my life. A twelvemonth ago I
+cared very little about the opinions of my fellow-men; but I want to be
+worthy of my wife in the esteem of mankind, as well as in the depths of
+my own moral consciousness."
+
+"Go and finish your honeymoon," said the lawyer, digging his client in
+the ribs with elephantine playfulness; "the moon must be in her first
+quarter, I should think. Go along with you, and leave me to tackle Mr.
+George Sheldon."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+ONLY A DREAM.
+
+"I say, Lenoble," Captain Paget began abruptly one afternoon when his
+daughter and his future son-in-law were in attendance upon his sofa,
+"when are you and Diana to be married? There is nothing to hinder your
+marriage now, you know."
+
+Diana looked at the speaker with a grave countenance.
+
+"Dear papa, there can be no marriage while you are so ill," she said
+gently.
+
+"And afterwards, when I'm gone, you won't like to marry within six months
+of your father's funeral; and you will be left alone in the world. You
+can't hang on to Hawkehurst and his wife. The best thing you can do,
+Lenoble, is to marry her out of hand, and let me see her by my bedside as
+Madame Lenoble of Côtenoir. It will be some consolation for me to see
+that day. I thought to have shared your home, with a run to Paris
+occasionally just to freshen myself up a little; but that's all over now.
+It does seem rather hard to me sometimes; and I think of Moses, and his
+forty years in the Desert with those ill-conditioned Israelites, who were
+always getting into some scrape of other--setting up golden calves, and
+that kind of thing--if he turned his back on them for twenty-four hours.
+A pack of ungrateful beggars too, always ready for mutiny--regular
+radicals, begad! And he went through it all: the sand, and the _toujours_
+quails, and the ingratitude; and after forty years of it, when he saw the
+Promised Land stretched before him green and fertile on the other side of
+the river--he died! I've been through my desert, the dreary wanderings
+over the barren sand, and the ingratitude of men I've served. Yes, I've
+gone through it all; and just as I catch a glimpse of Canaan, the curtain
+drops."
+
+On this they comforted him; and sustained him with the promise of a
+brighter Canaan than Côtenoir.
+
+"Yes," he said in a dreamy voice, "I read about it very often. A city
+with foundations of jasper and chalcedony, emerald and sardonyx; gates of
+pearl, pavements of gold. That's what St. John the Evangelist saw in his
+vision; and we've only his word for it. But there's something that I can
+believe and can understand: 'In my Father's house there are many
+mansions.' There's more hope for a sinful man of the world in that
+promise than is all St. John's dreams about gates of pearl and
+foundations of emerald."
+
+The Captain was failing fast. He had exchanged his easy-chair for a sofa
+now; and the time seemed near at hand when he must exchange the sofa for
+his bed. After that there would remain but one last change, to the
+contemplation whereof the sick man was becoming daily more reconciled.
+
+He had read his Gospel more diligently of late, and had taken comfort
+from those sublime pages. Do they not contain consolation, hope, promise
+for all--for the weary man of the world as well as for the saint? There
+is to be found the only creed that can adapt itself to every condition
+of life, and has a margin wide enough for every weakness of erring
+humanity. Buddhism may contain a scheme of morality almost as perfect;
+Mahomet may have expounded hopes that seem well-nigh as divine; but in
+the Gospel is the only system that will adapt itself at once to the
+culture of the spiritual man, and the active life of the practical
+worker in this lower world.
+
+Gustave Lenoble was only too glad to claim his promised wife a little
+sooner than he had hoped to claim her. "Thou hast put me off long enough,
+cruel," he said; "and now it is thy father's wish that our marriage
+should be soon. It shall be this week; I will take no longer thine
+excuses. We shall be the sooner ready to receive thy friends, thy
+Charlotte and her Hawkehurst."
+
+Diana smiled.
+
+"Dear Gustave, you are always kind," she said.
+
+It was very sweet to her to think that her new home would afford a
+pleasant haven for that dear friend who had sheltered her. And with
+Charlotte, the dear adopted sister, would come the man she had once
+loved, to share whose cares had once been the brightest dream.
+
+She wondered at her own inconstancy on perceiving how completely the
+dream had flown. Before the stern realities of life--before sickness and
+sorrow and the dread shadow of death--that schoolgirl's vision had
+utterly melted away. It is just possible that Gustave's manly outspoken
+love may have helped to blot from the tablet of her mind the fantastic
+picture of the life that might have been. She scarcely knew whether this
+was so; but she did know that a new and happier existence began for her
+from the hour in which she gave her heart in all truth and loyalty to
+Gustave Lenoble.
+
+The wedding was arranged to take place within a week of Captain Paget's
+expressly declared wish. It was to be solemnised at a church near
+Knightsbridge, and again at a Catholic chapel in the neighbourhood of
+Sloane-street; by which double ceremonial a knot would be tied that no
+legal quibble could hereafter loosen. Charlotte was just sufficiently
+recovered to obtain permission to be present at the ceremonial, after
+some little exercise of her persuasive powers with the medical
+practitioner to whose care Dr. Jedd had committed her when all danger was
+past.
+
+The Captain protested, with an eager insistence, that the wedding
+breakfast should be eaten at his domicile.
+
+"And Val," he said, "be sure Val is with you. I have a secret to tell
+him--a kind of atonement to make; some news to give him that he won't
+quite relish, perhaps. But that's no fault of mine."
+
+"No bad news, I hope, papa; for Charlotte's sake as well as for
+Valentine's."
+
+"That depends upon how they both take it. Your friend Charlotte is not
+particularly fond of money, is she?"
+
+"Fond of money, papa? A baby knows as much of the value of money as
+Lotta. Except to give to beggars in the streets, or to buy pretty
+frivolous presents for her friends, she has neither use nor desire for
+money. She is the most generous, most disinterested of created beings."
+
+"I'm very glad to hear it," said the Captain, drily. "And how about
+Hawkehurst, now? Do you think it was a real love-match, his marriage with
+Miss Halliday? No _arrière pensée_--no looking out for the main chance at
+the bottom of his romantic attachment, eh, Di?"
+
+"No, papa. I am sure there was never truer love than his. I saw him under
+most trying circumstances, and I can pledge myself for the truth of his
+devotion."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it. Be sure you bring Hawkehurst and his wife to
+my little breakfast. A chicken, a pine, a bottle of sparkling hock, and
+a fond father's blessing, are all I shall give you; but the chicken and
+the hock will be from Gunter, and the blessing from the bottom of a
+paternal heart."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bright shone the day that gave Diana to her husband, and very beautiful
+looked the bride in her simple dress. Gustave Lenoble's marriage was no
+less quietly performed than that union which had secured the safety of
+Charlotte Halliday and the happiness of Valentine Hawkehurst. The shadow
+of death hovered very near bride and bridegroom; for they knew full well
+that he who was to preside that day at their simple marriage-feast would
+soon have tasted that last sacred cup which has no after-flavour of
+bitterness.
+
+The breakfast promised by the Captain was arranged with much elegance.
+Hothouse flowers and fruits; wines with the icedew sparkling on the dark
+glass; chickens and tongue, idealized by the confectioner's art, and
+scarcely recognizable beneath rich glazings and embellishments of jellies
+and forcemeats; the airiest and least earthly of lobster salads, and a
+pyramid of coffee-ice, testified to the glory of the Belgravian purveyor.
+It had been pleasant to Captain Paget to send his orders to Gunter,
+certain of funds to meet the bill. It was almost a glimpse of that land
+of milk and honey, that Canaan in Normandy, which he was never to
+inhabit.
+
+He was very weak, very ill; but the excitement of the occasion in some
+measure sustained and revivified him. The man who had been engaged to
+nurse and wait upon him had attired him with much care in a dressing-gown
+as elegant as the robe in which he had disported himself, a penniless
+young cornet, in his luxurious garrison quarters, some fifty years
+before. His loose white locks were crowned with an embroidered
+smoking-cap; his patrician instep was set off by a dainty scarlet
+slipper. He had put away the Gospel, and all thoughts of that dread
+reckoning which he had really some shadowy desire and hope to settle
+satisfactorily, by some poor dividend which might discharge his
+obligations to that merciful Creditor who forgives so many just debts.
+To-day he was of the world, worldly. It was a kind of _ante-mortem_
+lying-in-state--his last levee; and he was equal to the occasion.
+
+The prettily adorned table was drawn near the sofa where the invalid host
+reclined, supported by numerous pillows. His daughter and her husband,
+Valentine, Charlotte, and Georgy, made a little circle about him. His own
+man, and a clerical-looking person from Gunter's, assisted at the airy
+banquet. Very little was eaten by any of the guests, and it was a relief
+to every one when the clerical personage and Captain Paget's factotum
+retired, after serving tea and coffee with funereal solemnity.
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst was all gentleness and cordiality towards his old
+taskmaster. The wrong must indeed be dire which is considered in such an
+hour as this. Valentine remembered only that with this old man he had
+seen many troubled days; and that for him the end of all earthly
+wanderings was very near.
+
+The little banquet was not served in Captain Paget's ordinary
+sitting-room. For this distinguished occasion the landlady had lent a
+dining-room and drawing-room on the ground floor, just deserted by a
+fashionable bachelor lodger who had left town at the close of the season.
+This drawing-room on the ground floor, like the room above, overlooked
+the Park, and to this apartment the Captain requested his guests to
+adjourn, with the exception of Mr. Hawkehurst, some little time after the
+departure of the servants.
+
+"I want to have a few words with Val in private," he said; "I have a
+secret to communicate. Diana, show Mrs. Hawkehurst the Drive. You can see
+the Bow from my room, but not from these lower windows. There are a good
+many carriages still, but it is too late for the _crême de la crême_. I
+remember when the West End was a desert at this time of year; but I have
+lived to see the levelling of all distinctions, those of time as well as
+of class."
+
+Charlotte and Diana retired to the adjoining room with Mrs. Sheldon and
+M. Lenoble. Valentine was at a loss to imagine what manner of
+confidential communication his late patron and employer could desire to
+impart to him. The cautious Horatio waited until the rest of the party
+were quite out of hearing, talking gaily by the open window, beyond which
+appeared all the fluttering life and motion of summer leaves, all the
+brightness of summer green below, and deep blue sky above. When they
+seemed to him to be quite engaged with their own conversation, Captain
+Paget turned to his old companion.
+
+"Val," he said, "we have seen hard times together we've roughed it among
+strange places and strange people, you know and so on; and I think there
+is a friendly kind of feeling between us?"
+
+He held out his poor wasted hand, and Valentine grasped it firmly in his
+own with prompt cordiality.
+
+"My dear governor, I have no feeling in my heart that is not friendly to
+you."
+
+This was perfectly true.
+
+"And even if I had been inclined to bear any grudge against you on
+account of the old days, when, you know, you were a little apt to be
+indifferent as to what scrape you left me in, provided you got off
+scot-free yourself; if I had been inclined to remember that kind of thing
+(which, on my honour, I am not), your daughter's noble courage and
+devotion in the time of my dear wife's peril should have stood against
+that old wrong. I cannot tell you how deeply I feel her goodness in that
+bitter time."
+
+"She is a Paget," murmured the Captain, complacently. "_Noblesse
+oblige._"
+
+Valentine could scarcely refrain from a smile as he remembered the many
+occasions upon which the obligations of a noble lineage had weighed very
+lightly on his aristocratic patron.
+
+"Yes, Val," the Captain resumed, in a dreamy tone, "we have seen many
+strange things together. When I began my travels through this world, in
+the palmy days of the Regency, I little thought what a weary journey it
+was to be, and what queer people I was to encounter among my
+fellow-passengers. However, I've come to the last stage of the long
+journey now, and I thank Providence that it ends so comfortably."
+
+To this Valentine assented kindly, but he was at a loss to understand why
+Captain Paget should have required the adjournment of the rest of the
+party before giving utterance to these mild commonplaces.
+
+For some moments the invalid relapsed into thoughtful silence. Then,
+rousing himself as if with an effort, he took a few sips of a cooling
+drink that stood by his side, and began with a startling abruptness.
+
+"You remember your journey to Dorking, Val, last October, when you went
+to see that mysterious old aunt of yours, eh?"
+
+Valentine blushed as the Captain recalled this cunningly-devised fable.
+
+"Yes," he said gravely; "I remember telling you that I was going to see
+an aunt at Dorking."
+
+"An aunt who had a little bit of money, eh, Val?" asked the Captain,
+with a grin.
+
+"Yes. I may have gone so far as to speak of a little bit of money."
+
+"And neither the aunt nor the bit of money ever existed, eh, Val? They
+were mere figments of the brain; and instead of going to Dorking you went
+to Ullerton, eh, Val? You stole a march upon me there. You wanted to
+throw your old chum off the scent, eh? You thought you had got hold of a
+good thing, and you were afraid your friend and companion might get a
+share of it."
+
+"Well, you see, my friend and companion had a knack of getting the
+lion's share. Besides, this good thing was not my own affair. I had to
+protect the interest of another person--my employer, in point of fact;
+and it was by his suggestion, and in compliance with his request, that
+I invented that harmless fiction about Dorking. I don't think there
+was any dishonourable dealing in the matter. We were soldiers of
+fortune both; and the stratagem with which I protected myself against
+you was a very innocent one. You would have employed any stratagem or
+invented any fiction under the same circumstances. It was a case of
+diamond cut diamond."
+
+"Precisely; and if the older soldier, if the free lance of many a
+campaign, got the best of it in the long run, the younger freebooter
+could hardly think himself ill-used--could he now, Val?"
+
+"Well, no, I suppose not," replied Valentine, puzzled by the significance
+in the face of his old companion. That sly twinkle in the Captain's eyes,
+that triumphant smile wreathing the Captain's lips, must surely mean
+mischief.
+
+Valentine Hawkehurst remembered the vague suspicion that had flashed into
+his mind on that Christmas Eve when Captain Paget and he had dined
+together at a West End restaurant, and the Captain had toasted Charlotte
+Halliday with a smile of sinister meaning. He began to anticipate some
+startling and unpleasant revelation. He began to understand that in some
+manner this inscrutible schemer had contrived to overreach him.
+
+"What are you going to tell me?" he asked. "I see there is some lurking
+mischief in your mind. How was it you were at Ullerton when I was there?
+I met you on the platform of the station, and I had a vague half
+suspicion that you followed me up on more than one occasion. I saw a
+glove in a man's parlour--a glove which I could have sworn to as yours.
+But when I came back, you were so plausible with your talk of promoting
+business, and so on, that I was fool enough to believe you. And I suppose
+you cheated and tricked me after all?"
+
+"Cheated and tricked are hard words, my dear Val," said the Captain, with
+delightful blandness. "I had as much right to transact imaginary business
+in the promoting line at Ullerton as you had to visit a fictitious aunt
+at Dorking. Self-interest was the governing principle in both cases. I do
+not think you can have any right to consider yourself injured by me if I
+did steal a march upon you, and follow close upon your heels throughout
+that Ullerton business. I do not think that you can have, on moral
+grounds, any justification for making a complaint against your old ally."
+
+"Well, I suppose you are right enough in that," said Valentine.
+
+"Shake hands upon it, then. I have not very long to live, and I want to
+feel myself at peace with mankind. You see, if you had come to me in the
+first place, in a frank and generous spirit, and had said, 'My dear
+friend, here is a good thing; let us go into it together, and see what
+there is to be made out of it,' you would have placed the matter on such
+a footing that, as a man of honour, I should have been bound to regard
+your interests as my own. But when you set up a separate interest, when
+you try to throw dust in my eyes, to hoodwink me--me, Horatio Paget,
+a man of the world, possessed of some little genius for social
+diplomacy--you attempt to do that which no man ever yet succeeded in
+doing, and you immediately release me from those obligations which an
+honourable man holds sacred. It was my glove which you saw in Mr.
+Goodge's parlour. I had a very satisfactory interview with that reverend
+person while you were absent from Ullerton on some short excursion, as to
+the purpose of which I am still in the dark. On certain terms Mr. Goodge
+agreed to give me the privilege of selecting a stated number from the
+letters of Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth. I have reason to believe that I made a
+judicious choice; for the information thus obtained placed me at once
+upon a track which I followed industriously until it led me to a
+triumphant result."
+
+"I do not understand--" began Valentine; but the Captain did not allow
+him time to say more.
+
+"You do not understand that there could be any other genealogical line
+than that which you and George Sheldon fitted together so neatly. You
+have neither of you the experience of life which alone gives wideness of
+vision. You discovered the connections of the Haygarth and the Meynell
+families in the past. That was a step in the right direction. The
+discovery, so far as it went, was a triumph. You allowed the sense of
+that triumph to intoxicate you. In a business which of all businesses
+within the range of man's intellect most requires deliberation and
+sobriety, you went to work in a fever of haste and excitement. Instead
+of searching out _all_ the descendants of Christian Meynell, you pounce
+upon the first descendant who comes to hand, and elect her, at your own
+pleasure, sole heiress to the estate of the deceased John Haygarth.
+You forget that there may be other descendants of the said Christian
+Meynell--descendants standing prior to your wife Charlotte in the line of
+succession."
+
+"I can imagine no such descendants existing," said Valentine, with a
+puzzled manner. "You seem to have made yourself master of our business;
+but there is one point upon which you are mistaken. George Sheldon and I
+did not go to work in a fever of haste. We did fully and thoroughly
+examine the pedigree of that person whom we--and legal advisers of
+considerable standing--believe to be the sole heir-at-law to the Haygarth
+estate; and we took good care to convince ourselves that there was no
+other claimant in existence."
+
+"What do you call convincing yourselves?"
+
+"Christian Meynell had only three children--Samuel, Susan, and Charlotte.
+The last, Charlotte, married James Halliday, of Newhall and Hyley farms;
+the other two died unmarried."
+
+"How do you know that? How do you propose to demonstrate that Samuel and
+Susan Meynell died unmarried?"
+
+"Susan was buried in her maiden name. Mrs. Halliday, her sister, was with
+her when she died. There was no question of marriage; nor is there the
+record of any marriage contracted by Samuel."
+
+"All that is no proof."
+
+"Indeed! I should have thought the evidence sufficient. But, in any case,
+the _onus probandi_ is not upon us. Can you prove the marriage of the
+Samuel Meynell who died at Calais, or of the Susan Meynell who died in
+London?"
+
+"I can. Susan Meynell's legitimate son is in the next room. It's an
+unpleasant kind of revelation to make, Val; as he, the son of one sister,
+stands prior to your wife, the granddaughter of the other sister, in the
+order of succession. AND HE TAKES ALL!"
+
+"He takes all!" repeated Valentine, bewildered. "He! Susan Meynell's
+son?--in the next room? What does all this mean?"
+
+"It means that when Susan was deserted by the scoundrel who took her away
+from her home, she found an honest fellow to marry her. The name of her
+husband was Lenoble. Gustave Lenoble yonder, my daughter's husband, is
+her only child by that marriage. A perfectly legal marriage, my dear
+Val--everything _en regle_, I assure you. The business is in the hands of
+Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon of Whitehall--a first-class firm; counsel's
+opinion most decided as to Lenoble's position. They have been rather slow
+about the preliminary steps; and, _entre nous_, I have not cared to hurry
+them, for I wanted to get my daughter's marriage over quietly before we
+began our proceedings in Chancery. It comes rather hard upon you, Val, I
+allow; but, you see, if you had acted generously, not to say honourably,
+towards me in the first instance, you'd have had the advantage of my
+experience. As it is, you have been working in the dark. However, things
+are not so bad as they might be. You might have married some ugly old
+harridan for the sake of this Haygarth estate; you have secured a pretty
+and amiable wife, and you mustn't be downhearted if you find yourself,
+from a financial point of view, most outrageously sold."
+
+The Captain could not refrain from a laugh as he contemplated his young
+friend's surprise. The laugh degenerated into a fit of coughing, and it
+was some little time before the enfeebled Horatio was ready to resume the
+interrupted conversation. In this pause Valentine had leisure to face
+this new position. There was for the moment a sharp sense of
+disappointment. It is not possible for humanity to be quite indifferent
+to a hundred thousand pounds. So much of the "light and sweetness" of
+life is attainable for that sum,--such pleasures, of the purest and
+noblest, are in the power of the possessor. But in this moment Valentine
+fully realized the fact that he had never taken the idea of this fortune
+into his mind--never made it part and parcel of himself, to be plucked
+out of his heart with anguish, and to leave a bleeding wound in the place
+where it had grown. It seemed to him as if he had been wakened abruptly
+from some bright bewildering dream; but the sharp pang of mercenary
+desires disappointed, of sordid hopes suddenly reft, was not for him.
+
+Beyond this sense of uncertainty, which had made the Haygarthian fortune
+seem at best such "stuff as dreams are made of," there had been ever
+present in his mind of late the dismal association connected with this
+money. For this, and to get power over this through the rights of his
+weak wife, had Philip Sheldon plotted against the life of that sweet girl
+who was but newly rescued from the jaws of the grave. The bitter memory
+of those days and nights of suspense could never have been quite
+dissociated from the money that had been the primary cause of all this
+slow torture.
+
+"Do you think I shall love my wife any less because she has no claim to
+the Haygarth estate?" he exclaimed presently, looking with
+half-contemptuous indignation upon the broken-down Bohemer. "I loved her
+long before I knew the name of Haygarth; I should have loved her if I had
+found her a beggar in the London streets, a peasant-girl weeding for
+sixpence a day in some dismal swamp of agricultural poverty and
+ignorance. I am not going to say that this money would not have brought
+us pleasure; pictures and gardens, and bright rooms, and books without
+number, and intercourse with congenial acquaintance and delightful
+journeyings to all the fairest places upon the earth, and the power to do
+some good in our generation, and a sense of security for our future, and
+by-and-by, perhaps, for the future of dear children, for whose prosperity
+we should be more anxious than for our own. Pleasure the money would most
+probably have brought for us in abundance; but I doubt if it could buy us
+more perfect happiness than we may know in the simplest home that my toil
+can support. Ah, Captain, I question if you ever knew the sweetest
+sensation life can give--the delight of working for those we love."
+
+Captain Paget stared at his sometime protege in a kind of rapture of
+wonder, not entirely unmingled with admiration.
+
+"Egad!" he exclaimed, "I have read of this kind of thing in novels; but
+in the whole course of my experience I never met with anything equal to
+it. My son-in-law, Lenoble yonder, is a generous foo--fellow enough; but
+then, since infancy, he has never known the want of money. And generosity
+from that kind of man is no more of a virtue than the foolhardiness of a
+child who pokes his finger into the candle, not knowing the properties of
+the thing he has to deal with. But anything like generosity from you,
+from a man reared as you were reared, is, I freely confess, a little
+beyond my comprehension."
+
+"Yes; it is a transformation, is it not? But I don't think I was ever
+inordinately fond of money. Your genuine Bohemian rarely is. He is too
+well schooled in the art of living without cash, and he asks so little
+here below. His pipe, his friend, his dog, his books, his garret, his
+billiards, his beer. It is all a question of a few pounds a week. And if,
+some day, the divine enchanter Love takes the poor fellow underbids
+guidance, and teaches him to do without billiards and beer, your Bohemian
+settles down into the purest and best of men. Think what Goldy might have
+been if some good woman had taken compassion upon him and married him,
+and henpecked him ever afterwards. He might have written as many novels
+as Sir Walter Scott, and died master of some Hibernian Abbotsford, some
+fair domain among the bright green hills that look down upon broad
+Shannon's silvery falls. No, Captain; your intelligence has not
+annihilated me. I can face the future boldly with my dear young wife upon
+my arm."
+
+"Upon my soul, Val, you're a very noble fellow!" exclaimed Horatio Paget,
+with real enthusiasm; "and I am sorry I have kept you in the dark so
+long."
+
+"You have kept me in the dark? Yes; to be sure. How long have you known
+this--about Susan Meynell?"
+
+"Well, my dear boy, not very long."
+
+"But how long? A month--two months? Yes; you have known Lenoble's
+position ever since you knew him; and Charlotte told me three months ago
+of Diana's engagement to Lenoble. Do you know that if Sheldon had
+succeeded, Charlotte's blood would have been upon your head? If you had
+not concealed the truth, his villany would never have been attempted."
+
+"But, my dear Val," exclaimed the Captain piteously, "I was not to
+know--"
+
+"No; you were not to know that there could be such a wretch as Philip
+Sheldon upon this earth. We will say no more of that. I kept my secret,
+you kept yours. Mischief unspeakable well-nigh came of all this underhand
+work. But heaven has been merciful to us. We have passed through the
+valley of the shadow of death; and if anything could make my wife dearer
+to me than she was when first I won her promise to be mine, it would be
+the sorrow of the last few months. And now I will go and shake hands with
+Lenoble, my wife's kinsman. He is a fine fellow, and well deserves his
+good fortune. Stay; one word. Did Diana know this? did she know that her
+lover is heir to the Haygarth estate?"
+
+"She does not know it now. She has never heard the name of Haygarth. And,
+between you and me, Val, it cost me a world of trouble to persuade her to
+say yes to Lenoble's offer, though he is a very decent match for her,
+even without reference to the Haygarth estate."
+
+"I am glad she knew nothing of this," said Valentine; "I am very glad."
+
+After this he again shook hands with Captain Paget, at that gentleman's
+request, and the Captain expressed himself much relieved by the
+conversation, and by his late protégé's very generous behaviour. He
+called to his daughter and the rest presently, and they came at his
+summons.
+
+"Is your long talk finished, papa?" asked Diana.
+
+"And is the secret told?" demanded Charlotte of her obedient husband
+and slave.
+
+"Yes, dear, it is told," he answered gravely.
+
+"I hope it is a pleasant secret."
+
+"I do not think the knowledge of it will give you much pain, dearest.
+You have learnt to think yourself a--a kind of an heiress of late,
+have you not?"
+
+"Papa--Mr. Sheldon--told me that I had a claim to some money; but I have
+not thought much about it, except that I should give you Grote and
+Macaulay in dark-brown calf, with bevelled boards and red edges, like
+that edition you saw at the auctioneer's in Bond Street, and have talked
+about ever since; and a horse, perhaps; and a glass porch to our
+cottage."
+
+"Well, darling, the books in dark-brown calf, and the horse, and the
+glass porch, may all be ours in the future; but the money was only a
+dream--it has melted away, dear."
+
+"Is that all?" asked Charlotte. "Why, I dare say the day will come when
+you will be as rich as Sir Walter Scott."
+
+"In the meantime I have something to give you instead of the money."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Yes; a cousin. Will that do as well, my love?"
+
+"A cousin? I shall like her very much if she is nice."
+
+"The cousin I mean is a gentleman."
+
+"But where is he to come from?" cried Charlotte, laughing. Has he
+dropped from the moon? The only relations I have the world are Uncle and
+Aunt Mercer. How can you pretend to find me a cousin?"
+
+"Do you remember telling me of your grandmother's only sister--Susan
+Meynell?"
+
+"Yes," said Charlotte, with a sudden blush; "I remember."
+
+"That Miss Meynell married a gentleman of Normandy, and left one only
+child, a son. His name is Gustave Lenoble, and he is standing by your
+side. He is heir-at-law to a very large fortune, which it was once
+supposed you could claim. Are you sorry, Lotta, to find a kinsman and
+lose a fortune?--and are you contented to begin the world with no hope
+except in your husband's patience and courage?"
+
+"And genius!" cried Charlotte, with enthusiasm.
+
+The sweet, blinding glamour of love shone upon this young scribbler, and
+she believed that he was indeed worthy to take rank among the greatest of
+that grand brotherhood of which he was so humble a member. She looked up
+at him with the prettiest confidence; her clinging hand clasped his with
+love and trust immeasurable. He felt and knew that love like this was a
+treasure beside which the Reverend John Haygarth's hoarded thousands must
+needs seem but sorry dross.
+
+After this there was much explanation and congratulation. Gustave Lenoble
+was delighted to claim so fair a kinswoman.
+
+"Thou art like my eldest, my cousin," he said; "Diana saw the likeness at
+the Sacré Coeur when she beheld my daughter; and I too saw my eldest's
+look in thine eyes when I first met thee. Remember, it was convened
+between us that Côtenoir should be a home for thee and for Hawkehurst
+before I knew what link bound thee to the house of Lenoble. Now thou and
+thy husband will be of our family."
+
+Diana was bewildered, grieved, indignant with the father who had deceived
+her by his studious suppression of the truth. She found herself placed in
+the position of rival to Charlotte, and the whole proceeding seemed to
+her mean and treacherous.
+
+But it was no time for remonstrance or open expression of indignant
+feeling. Her father's days were numbered. She knew this, and she held her
+peace. Nor did Mrs. Sheldon utter any word of complaint, though the
+disappointment she experienced upon hearing this revelation was very
+keen. The idea of the four or five thousand pounds which were to come to
+Charlotte had been a consolation to her in the midst of that confusion
+and desolation which had newly come upon her life. She left Knightsbridge
+that evening somewhat depressed in spirits, and half inclined to be angry
+with Charlotte and her husband for their gaiety of manner, and evident
+happiness in each other's society.
+
+"It seems hard to have to begin the world at my age," she murmured
+hopelessly, "after being accustomed to have everything nice about me, as
+I had at the Lawn; though I own that the trouble and care of the servants
+was wearing me to the grave."
+
+"Dear mamma," exclaimed Charlotte tenderly, "there is no fear of trouble
+or poverty for you or for us. Valentine has plenty of money, and is on
+the high road to securing a comfortable income. Authors do not starve in
+garrets now, you know, as they used to do, poor things, when Doctor
+Johnson ate his dinner in a cave, or something dreadful of that kind; and
+when Sir Richard Steele thought it quite a wonderful thing to get a pound
+of tea for his wife. And Valentine's heart is in his profession, and he
+will work for us."
+
+"As long as I have a hand that can write, and a brain that can guide my
+pen," interposed Mr. Hawkehurst, gaily. "I have given hostages to
+Fortune. I can face the hazard boldly I feel as confident and as happy as
+if we lived in the golden age, when there was neither care nor toil for
+innocent mankind, and all the brightest things of earth were the
+spontaneous gift of the gods."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+BOHEMIAN INDEPENDENCE.
+
+Monsieur and Madame Lenoble went to Brighton for their honeymoon. A
+letter or a telegraphic message would bring them thence swiftly to the
+bedside of the dying Captain, should the last fatal change set in
+suddenly. Diana had wished to stay with her father, but Horatio insisted
+upon the honeymoon trip, and that everything should be done in a correct
+and gentlemanly manner.
+
+"You can engage rooms at the Albion," Captain Paget had said to his
+son-in-law a few days before the quiet wedding. "The house is extremely
+comfortable; and you will be received by a compatriot. The proprietor is
+a Frenchman, and a very gentlemanly person, I assure you; the _cuisine_
+irreproachable. I remember the old Steyne when Mrs. FitzHerbert lived
+close by, and received all the best people, in the days when the Cockney
+had not yet taken possession of Brighthelmstone, and the Chinese dragons
+and pagodas were bright and fresh in the Pavilion."
+
+To Brighton, therefore, the bride and bridegroom departed; Diana attended
+by a maid, an appanage which the Captain had insisted upon. Poor Diana
+was sorely puzzled as to what she should find for the maid to do when her
+hair had been dressed early in the morning, and her costume laid out in
+state for the day.
+
+"I think I must buy some handkerchiefs for her to hem," she said to
+Gustave; "it will be quite dreadful for her to have nothing to do all
+day long."
+
+The weather was warm and bright. The sea danced and sparkled under the
+windows. Gustave was always in the same happy frame of mind. An elegant
+landau had been secured for the period of their visit, and a pair of
+capital horses carried them out on long and pleasant expeditions to the
+pretty Sussex villages, or across the broad bare downs, beyond which the
+sea stretched blue and bright.
+
+In the evening, when the lamp was lighted and the urn hissed gaily, Diana
+felt that she and her husband were at home. It was the first home she had
+known--the first time she had been sole mistress and centre of a
+household. She looked back at all the old desolation, the dreary shifting
+from lodging to lodging, the degradation, the self-abasement, the dull
+apathy of despair; and then she looked across at her husband as he
+lounged in his easy-chair, contemplating her with dreamy adoring eye, in
+a kind of lazy worship; and she knew that for this man she was the centre
+of the universe, the very keystone in the arch of life.
+
+She stretched out her hand to him with a smile, and he pressed it fondly
+to his lips. There were twinkling jewels upon the slender fingers; for
+the prettiest shop in Brighton--the brightest shop in Brighton--had been
+ransacked that morning by the fond, frivolous, happy husband, as pleased
+to bedeck his wife as a child to dress her last new doll.
+
+"How can I ever be worthy of so much affection, Gustave!" she exclaimed,
+as he kissed the twinkling fingers.
+
+And it did indeed seem to her that for this free gift of love she could
+never render a sufficient recompense.
+
+"Thou wilt make Côtenoir a home," he said; "thou knowest not how I have
+sighed for a home. This room, with the lamplight shining on thy face, and
+thy white hands moving about the teacups, and thy sweet smile, which
+greets me every now and then when thou lookest by here,--it is more of
+home than I have ever known since I left Beaubocage, that modest dwelling
+where lived those two angels of kindness, my aunt and my grandmother."
+
+In one of those long pleasant drives to a distant village nestling under
+the lee of a steep hill, the husband and wife had much serious talk about
+the position of the former with reference to the Haygarth estate. The
+result of that conversation was shown in a letter which Charlotte
+Hawkehurst received the next day from her friend Diana Lenoble.
+
+"Albion Hotel, Brighton.
+
+"EVER DEAR LOTTA,--Gustave and I have discussed the Haygarth business
+with great satisfaction to ourselves, since it transpired in the course
+of our conversation that we are both of one mind in the matter. It is
+agreed between us that, as he is very well off already, and as he never
+hoped or expected to inherit a fortune from his maternal ancestor, it is
+only just that he should divide this unlooked-for wealth with his dear
+cousin, whose claim to that inheritance he recognizes as equal to his
+own; the mere fact of seniority making only a legal and not a moral
+difference in the degree of relationship to the Reverend John Haygarth.
+Do you understand, darling?--_you_ are to have half this money. My
+husband will not step in between you and good fortune. I cannot tell you
+how happy this determination of Gustave's has made me. I felt myself in a
+manner base and ungrateful when I thought I was to share wealth that
+might have been yours; but I ought to have better understood the justice
+of my husband's mind. And now, dearest, all will be arranged very simply;
+Gustave will come to London and see his lawyers, and execute some kind of
+deed, and the whole affair will be settled.
+
+"We have had some charming drive," &c. &c.
+
+Here the young wife branched off into a description of the simple
+pleasures of their honeymoon holiday.
+
+This letter was answered by Valentine Hawkehurst in person. He came down
+to Brighton to thank his friends for their generous desire to enrich his
+wife, and to decline, on her part, any share in John Haygarth's wealth.
+
+It was in vain that Gustave and Diana argued the point, Mr. Hawkehurst
+was fixed as fate.
+
+"Believe me, it is better as it is," he said. "Charlotte and I have
+arrived at this conviction with all due thought and deliberation. We are
+both young, and the world is all before us. There is much in the past
+that I have to redeem, as Diana well knows. It is better that I should
+fight the battle of life unaided, and rise from the ranks by right of my
+merit as a soldier. If ever we have need of help--if ever I find myself
+breaking down--you may be sure that it is to you I shall come. By and by,
+if Providence gives me children to work for, I will refuse no bounty that
+you may bestow on them. Their future may be rendered secure by your
+generosity, if you please, Lenoble; they will be your kindred. But for an
+alien like myself there is no discipline so wholesome as honest hard
+work. I am as rich as John Milton when he set up a school in St. Bride's
+Churchyard."
+
+To this resolution Mr. Hawkehurst adhered with a gentle firmness.
+
+"Thou art chivalrous like Don Quixote," said Gustave Lenoble; "but it
+shall be as thou wouldest. Touch there."
+
+He offered his hand, which the other grasped with all heartiness.
+
+"I will be godfather to thy little first one, and I will settle on him
+ten thousand pounds before he cuts his first tooth," said Gustave
+decisively.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+BEYOND THE VEIL.
+
+Diana and her husband did not linger long at Brighton; they went back to
+town in time to see the last of that old wayfarer whose troubled journey
+came to so peaceful an ending. It was a very calm haven in which this
+battered old privateer lay at anchor after life's tempestuous course; but
+to the Captain himself it seemed a hard thing that he should not have
+been permitted one brief cruise upon that summer sea which danced so
+gaily beneath the keel of the Lenobles' prosperous bark.
+
+"We have shared adversity, my love," he said sadly, when he talked with
+his daughter in the last few days; "but your prosperity I am to have no
+share in. Well, I suppose I have no right to complain. My life has been
+an erring one; but poverty is the most vicious companion that a man can
+consort with. If I had come into six or seven thousand a year, I might
+have been as starch in my notions as a bishop; but I have been obliged to
+live, Diana--that was the primary necessity, and I learnt to accommodate
+myself to it."
+
+That he had erred, the Captain was very ready to acknowledge. That he had
+sinned deeply, and had much need to repent himself of his iniquity, he
+was very slow to perceive. But sometimes, in the still watches of the
+night, when the faint lamplight on the shadowy wall was more gloomy than
+darkness, when the nurse, hired to assist his own man in these last days,
+dozed in her comfortable chair, the truth came hope to his shallow soul,
+and Horatio Paget knew that he had been indeed a sinner, and very vile
+among sinners. Then, for a moment, the veil of self-deception was lifted,
+and he saw his past life as it had really been,--selfish, dishonourable,
+cruel beyond measure in reckless injury of others. For a moment the awful
+book was opened, and the sinner saw the fearful sum set against his name.
+
+"What can wipe out the dread account?" he asked himself. "Is there such a
+thing as forgiveness for a selfish useless life--a life which is one long
+offence against God and man?"
+
+In these long wakeful nights the dying man thought much of his wife. The
+sweet tender face came back to him, with its mournful wondering look. He
+knew, now, how his falsehoods and dishonours had wounded and oppressed
+that gentle soul. He remembered how often she had pleaded for the right,
+and how he had ridiculed her arguments, and set at naught her tender
+pleadings. He had fancied her in a manner inimical to himself when she
+urged the cause of some angry creditor or meek deluded landlady. Now,
+with the light that is not upon earth or sea shining on the picture of
+his past career, he could see and understand things as he had never seen
+or understood them before. He knew now that it was for his own sake that
+faithful and devoted wife had pleaded, his own interest that had been
+near to her pitying heart, as well as the interest of bakers and
+butchers, landladies and tailors.
+
+"She might have made a good man of me, if I had let her have her way," he
+thought to himself. "I know that she is in heaven. Will she plead for me,
+I wonder, at the foot of the Great Throne? I used to laugh at her bad
+English, or fly in a passion with her sometimes, poor soul, when I wanted
+her to pass for a lady, and she broke down outrageously. But there her
+voice will be heard when mine appeals in vain. Dear soul! I wonder who
+taught her to be so pure and unselfish, and trusting and faithful? She
+was a Christian without knowing it. 'I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of
+heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and
+prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.'"
+
+He thought of his wife's lonely deathbed, and compared it with his own.
+For him there was luxury; by him watched a devoted and all-forgiving
+daughter, a generous friend and son-in-law. All that could be done to
+soothe the painful descent was done for him. For her there had been
+nothing but loneliness and sorrow.
+
+"But she might be certain of a speedy welcome in a better home," thought
+Horatio; "and I--? Ah, dear kind creature, _there_ the difference was all
+in her favour."
+
+As the closing scene grew nearer, he thought more and more of his gentle
+low-born wife, whose hold upon him in life had been so slender, whose
+memory had occupied until now so insignificant a place in his mind. His
+daughter watched with him unceasingly in the last two days and nights.
+His mind wandered. On the day of his death he mistook Diana for that
+long-lost companion.
+
+"I have not been a kind husband, Mary, my dear," he faltered; "but
+the world has been hard upon me--debts--difficulties--crack
+regiment--expensive mess--set of gamblers--no pity on a young man without
+fortune--force of example--tied a millstone round my wretched neck before
+I was twenty-one years of age."
+
+Later, when the doctor had felt his pulse for the last time, he cried out
+suddenly, "I have made a statement of my affairs, the liabilities are
+numerous--the assets nil; but I rely on the clemency of this court."
+
+These were his last words. He sank into a kind of stupor betwixt sleeping
+and waking, and in this he died.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+BETTER THAN GOLD.
+
+The little fleet of paper boats which Mr. Sheldon had pioneered so
+skilfully over the commercial seas came to grief very soon after the
+disappearance of the admiral. A bill drawn upon the Honduras Mahogany
+Company, Limited, was the first to reach maturity. The bill was referred
+to the drawer--the drawer was not to be found.
+
+"I have not seen Sheldon for the last fortnight," Mr. Orcott informed the
+gentleman who brought him the document.
+
+"Out of business for a fortnight?"
+
+"He has not been in business for a month. His stepdaughter has been very
+ill--at death's door, and all that kind of thing, and my governor was
+awfully cut up about it. There used to be a couple of doctors at the
+house every day, and no end of fuss. I took Sheldon his letters, and
+managed matters for him here, and so on. And one fine morning my young
+lady runs off and gets married on the quiet; so I suspect there was a
+good deal of shamming about the illness--and those old fogies, the
+doctors, winked at it. Between them all, I fancy Sheldon was completely
+sold; and he has turned savage and gone off somewhere in the sulks."
+
+"I wish he had chosen any other time for his sulks," said the holder of
+the bill; "my partner and I have discounted several acceptances for him.
+He gave us liberal terms, and we considered any paper of his as safe as a
+Bank of England note; and now this confounded bill comes back to us
+through our bankers, noted, 'Refer to drawer'--a most unpleasant thing,
+you know, and very inconsiderate of Sheldon to leave us in such a fix."
+
+"He has forgotten the bill, I suppose," said Mr. Orcott.
+
+"Well, but you see, really now, a business man ought not to forget that
+kind of thing. And so Miss Halliday has made a runaway match, has she? I
+remember seeing her when I dined at Bayswater--an uncommonly fine girl.
+And she has gone and thrown herself away upon some penniless scapegrace,
+most likely? Now, by the bye, how about this Honduras Company, Mr.
+Orcott; they don't seem to have any London offices?"
+
+"I believe not. We've some of their prospectuses somewhere about, I
+think. Would you like to see one?"
+
+"I should, very much."
+
+Mr. Orcott opened two or three drawers, and after some little trouble
+produced the required document.
+
+It was a very flourishing prospectus, setting forth the enormous
+benefits to be derived by shareholders from the profitable dealings of the
+company. Some good high-sounding names figured in the list of directors,
+and the chairman was Captain H. N. Cromie Paget. The prospectus looked
+well enough, but the holder of Mr. Sheldon's dishonoured bill was not
+able to derive much comfort from high-sounding phrases and high-sounding
+names.
+
+"I'll go down to Bayswater, and see if I can hear anything of your
+governor," he said to Mr. Orcott.
+
+"He was not there yesterday when I called, and his servants could tell me
+nothing of his whereabouts," the young Yorkshireman said very coolly.
+
+"Indeed!" cried the holder of the dishonoured bill in some alarm. "Now,
+really, that is not right; a business man ought not to do that kind of
+thing."
+
+He called a cab and drove to the Lawn. There was the smart gothic villa,
+with its pointed gables, and florid chimneys, and oriel windows, and in
+the Tudor casements of the ground-floor appeared the bills of a West-end
+auctioneer, announcing in large letters that the lease of this charming
+mansion, together with the nearly new furniture, linen, books, china,
+plate, carefully-selected proof-prints after distinguished modern
+artists, small cellar of choice wines, &c., &c., &c., would be disposed
+of by auction on the following day.
+
+Mr. Sheldon's victim went into the house, where he found some men
+preparing for the forthcoming sale.
+
+"What is the meaning of all this?" he asked, aghast.
+
+"A bill of sale, sir. Messrs. Napthali and Zabulon."
+
+This was enough. The holder of the bill went back to the City. Another
+bill came due on the following day, and before the members of the Stock
+Exchange took their luncheon, it was known that Philip Sheldon's credit
+was among the things of the past.
+
+"I always thought he was out of his depth," said one set of talkers.
+
+"He was the last man I should have expected to see come to grief," said
+another set of talkers.
+
+On settling-day came the awful proclamation--Philip Sheldon had
+absconded, and would not meet his differences.
+
+On the same day came a terrible revelation to Mr. George Sheldon, of
+Gray's Inn, solicitor, genealogist, and pedigree hunter. The first
+official step in the advancement of Gustave Lenoble's claim against the
+Crown was taken by Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon, the solicitors, of
+Whitehall; and George Sheldon discovered that between Charlotte
+Hawkehurst and the Haygarth estate there stood a prior claimant, whereby
+all his toil, trouble, costs out of pocket, and wear and tear of body and
+mind, had been wasted.
+
+"It is enough to make a man go and cut his throat," cried George, in his
+first savage sense of utter disappointment.
+
+He went into his slovenly bedroom, and took out one of his razors, and
+felt the corrugated surface of the left side of his neck meditatively.
+But the razor was blunt, and the corrugated surface seemed very tough and
+unmanageable; so George Sheldon decided that this kind of operation was
+an affair which might be deferred.
+
+He heard the next day that his brother was _non est_, and, in his own
+phraseology, that there was a pretty kettle of fish in the City.
+
+"Upon my word, Phil and I seem to have brought our pigs to a very nice
+market," he said. "I dare say, wherever that fellow has gone, he has
+carried a well-lined purse with him. But I wouldn't have his conscience
+for all the wealth of the Rothschilds. It's bad enough to see Tom
+Halliday's face as I see it sometimes. What must it be to _him_?"
+
+A little more than a year after this, and the yellow corn was waving on
+the fertile plains of Normandy, fruit ripening in orchards on hillside
+and in valley; merry holiday folks splashing and dabbling in the waves
+that wash the yellow sands of Dieppe; horses coming to grief in Norman
+steeplechases; desperate gamesters losing their francs and half-francs in
+all kinds of frivolous games in the Dieppe _établissement_; and yonder,
+in the heart of Normandy, beyond the tall steeples of Rouen, a happy
+family assembled at the Chateau Côtenoir.
+
+One happy family--two happy families rather, but so closely united by the
+bonds of love and friendship as to seem indeed one. Here are Gustave
+Lenoble and his young wife Diana, with two tall slender damsels by their
+side; and here is Valentine Hawkehurst, the successful young scribbler,
+with his fair young wife Charlotte; and out on the terrace yonder are two
+nurses walking with two babies, at that early, and, to some minds,
+obnoxious stage of babyhood in which a perpetual rocking, and pacing to
+and fro, and swaying backwards and forwards in the air, is necessary for
+the preservation of anything approaching tranquillity. But to the minds
+of the two young mothers and the two proud fathers, these small creatures
+in their long white robes seem something too bright for earth. The united
+ages of the babies do not amount to six months; but the mothers have
+counted every gradual stage of these young lives, and to both it seems as
+if there had been no time in which the children were not, with so firm a
+hold have they possessed themselves of every thought in the foolish
+maternal mind, of every impulse in the weak maternal heart.
+
+Mrs. Hawkehurst has brought her son to see his aunt Diana; for Diana has
+insisted upon assuming that relationship by letters-patent, as it were.
+Madame Lenoble's baby is a daughter, and this fact in itself seems to the
+two friends to be a special interposition of Providence.
+
+"Would it not be delightful if they should grow up to love each other and
+marry?" exclaimed Diana; and Charlotte agreed with her that such an event
+in the future did indeed seem in a manner foreshadowed by the conduct of
+the infants in the present.
+
+"He takes notice of her already!" she exclaimed, looking out at the
+little creature in white muslin robes, held up against the warm blue sky;
+"see, they are cooing at each other! I am sure that must be cooing."
+
+And then the two mothers went out upon the sunny terrace-walk and fondly
+contemplated these domestic treasures, until the domestic treasures were
+seized with some of the inexplicable throes and mysterious agonies of
+early babyhood, and had to be borne off shrieking to their nurseries.
+
+"Dear angel," said Gustave, of his "little last one," "she has the very
+shriek of Clarice here, poignant and penetrating, until to drown the
+heart. Dost thou figure to thyself that thy voice was penetrating as
+that, my beautiful, in the time?"
+
+He kissed his beautiful, and she ran off to join the procession following
+the two babies,--alarmed nurses, distracted mammas, shrieking infants,
+anxious damsels.
+
+"_C'est un vrai tourbillon_," as Gustave remarked to his companion
+Valentine Hawkehurst; "these women, how they love their children! What of
+saints, what of Madonnas, what of angels!"
+
+Whereupon he spouted Victor Hugo:
+
+"Lorsque l'enfant paraît, le cercle de famille
+Applaudit à grands cris; son doux regard qui brille
+Fait briller tous les yeux;
+Et les plus tristes fronts, les plus souillés peut-être,
+Se dérident soudain à voir l'enfant paraître,
+Innocent et joyeux."
+
+All things had gone well for M. Lenoble. His direct descent from Matthew
+Haygarth, the father of the intestate, had been proved to the
+satisfaction of Crown lawyers and High Court of Chancery, and he had been
+in due course placed in possession of the reverend intestate's estate, to
+the profit and pleasure of his solicitors and M. Fleurus, and to the
+unspeakable aggravation of George Sheldon, who washed his hands at once
+and for ever of all genealogical research, and fell back in an embittered
+and angry spirit upon the smaller profits to be derived from petty
+transactions in the bill-discounting line, and a championship of
+penniless sufferers of all classes, from a damsel who considered herself
+jilted by a fickle swain, in proof of whose inconstancy she could produce
+documentary evidence of the "pork-chop and tomato sauce" order, to a
+pedestrian who knocked his head against a projecting shutter in the
+Strand, and straightway walked home to Holloway to lay himself up for a
+twelvemonth in a state of mental and bodily incapacity requiring large
+pecuniary redress from the owner of the fatal shutter. To this noble
+protection of the rights of the weak did George Sheldon devote his
+intellect; and when malicious enemies stigmatized these Quixotic
+endeavours as "speculative actions," or when, in the breaking-down of
+some oppressed damsel's cause by reason of the slender evidence afforded
+by some reticent lover's epistolary effusions, unjust judges told him
+that he "ought to be ashamed of himself" for bringing such an action, the
+generous attorney no doubt took consolation from an approving conscience,
+and went forth from that court, to look for other oppressed damsels or
+injured wayfarers, erect and unshaken.
+
+Some little profit Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn did derive from the Haygarth
+estate; for at the request of Gustave Lenoble Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon
+sent him a cheque for one thousand pounds, as the price of those early
+investigations which had set the artful Captain upon the right track. He
+wrote a ceremoniously grateful letter to Gustave Lenoble on receiving
+this honorarium. It is always well to be grateful for benefits received
+from a rich man; but in the depths of his heart he execrated the
+fortunate inheritor of the Haygarthian thousands.
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst was not quite so vehement in the expression of his
+feelings as that lively Celt, Gustave; but deep in his heart there was a
+sense of happiness no less pure and exalted.
+
+Providence had given him more than he had ever dared to hope; not
+John Haygarth's thousands; not a life of luxurious idleness, and
+dinner-giving, and Derby days, and boxes on the grand tier, and
+carriage-horses at five hundred guineas a pair; not a palace in
+Belgravia, and a shooting-box in the Highlands, and a villa at Cowes;
+not these things, in which he would once have perceived the _summum
+bonum_; but a fair price for his labour, a dear young wife, a tranquil
+home.
+
+Nor had his researches among the dusty records of the departed Haygarths
+been profitless in a pecuniary sense to himself. Gustave Lenoble insisted
+that he should accept that honorarium of three thousand pounds which had
+been promised by George Sheldon as the reward of his success.
+
+"Captain Paget would never have been put on the right track if he had
+not filched your secrets from you," said the son and heir of Susan
+Meynell. "It is to your researches, in the first place, that I owe
+this inheritance; and you cannot refuse to accept the agreed price of
+your labour."
+
+Valentine did not refuse this fairly-earned reward, nor did he oppose the
+settlement which Gustave made in favour of Charlotte's infant son. It
+seemed to him only just that some share of the heritage should fall to
+the descendant of poor Susan's younger sister and faithful friend.
+
+With this capital of three thousand pounds comfortably invested in
+consols, and with the interest of that sum of ten thousand pounds settled
+on his infant son, Mr. Hawkehurst began the world, in his new character
+of a husband and a father, very pleasantly.
+
+Of his literary career very little need be said here. He was yet at the
+beginning of the long dusty road that leads to the temple of Fame. It is
+enough to state that he found the dusty high-road rather difficult
+walking, and that he was pelted with more mud, flung by nameless
+assailants hidden behind the hedges, than he had anticipated when he set
+out upon the first stage of his journey. Happily, he found pleasant
+fellow-travellers and kindly encouragement from an indulgent public, and
+was thus able to accept the mud which bespattered his garments in a very
+placid spirit, and to make light of all obstacles in the great highway.
+
+The cottage at Wimbledon was no longer a dream. It was a pleasant
+reality, the pride and delight of Mrs. Sheldon and Ann Woolper. It was a
+picturesque dwelling-place, half cottage, half villa, situated on the
+broad high-road from London to Kingston, with all the woodland of
+Richmond Park to be seen from the windows at the back. Only a wall
+divided Mr. Hawkehurst's gardens from the coverts of the Queen. It was
+like a royal demesne, Charlotte said; whereupon her husband insisted that
+it should be christened by the name of a royal dwelling, and so called it
+Charlottenburgh.
+
+Mr. Hawkehurst had secured this delightful abode for a considerable term
+of years, and upon the furnishing and decoration of the pretty rustic
+rooms Charlotte and he lavished unmeasured care. The delicious excitement
+of "picking up," or, in more elegant parlance, "collecting," was to these
+two happy people an inexhaustible source of pleasure. Every eccentric
+little table, every luxurious chair, had its special history, and had
+been the subject of negotiation and diplomacy that might have sufficed a
+Burleigh in the reorganization of Western Europe. The little Dresden and
+Vienna cups and saucers in the maple cabinet had been every one bought
+from a different dealer. The figures on the mantelpiece were Old Chelsea,
+of a quality that would have excited the envy of a Bernal or a Bonn, and
+had only fallen to the proud possessors by a sequence of fortuitous
+circumstances, the history of which was almost as thrilling as the
+story of Boehmer's diamond-necklace. The curtains in the drawing-room
+had draped the _portières_ of the lovely Lady Blessington, and had been
+bought for a song by Valentine Hawkehurst, after passing through the
+hands of brokers and dealers innumerable. The tapestry-covered
+Louis-Quatorze chairs had belonged to Madame de Sévigné, and had
+furnished that dull country house whence she wrote the liveliest letters
+extant to her disreputable cousin, Bussy, Count of Babutin. These
+inestimable treasures had been picked up by Mr. and Mrs. Hawkehurst from
+a bric-à-brac merchant in a little court at the back of the Rue Vivienne,
+whither the young couple had gone arm-in-arm to choose a bonnet on their
+first pleasure-trip to Paris. The clock in the modest dining-room had
+been secured from the repository of the same merchant, and was warranted
+to have sounded the last domestic hours of Maximilian Robespierre in his
+humble lodging _chez le Menuisier_. The inkstand into which Mr.
+Hawkehurst dipped his rapid pen had served the literary career of
+Voltaire; the blotting-book on which he wrote had been used by Balzac.
+
+To the plausible fictions of the second-hand dealer Mr. and Mrs.
+Hawkehurst lent willing ears, and it seemed to them as if these
+associations, for which they had paid somewhat dearly, imparted a new
+grace to their home.
+
+The arrangement and superintendence of all these treasures gave poor
+Georgy endless pleasure and employment; but in her heart of hearts she
+believed in the prim splendours of the dismantled Lawn as much superior
+to these second-hand objects of art and upholstery. Nor did Ann Woolper
+regard the Chelsea figures and Dresden teacups and old black Albert-Dürer
+engravings as anything better than an innocent eccentricity on the part
+of the master of the house, for the saving of whose purse she managed and
+economized as faithfully as she had done for that lost master whereof the
+memory was so bitter.
+
+It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. Hawkehurst with a wife, a
+mother-in-law, and a faithful old servant, was likely to be well taken
+care of; a little spoiled perhaps by "much cherishing," but carefully
+guarded from all those temptations which are supposed to assail the
+bachelor man-of-letters, toiling alone and neglected in Temple chambers.
+For him the days passed in a pleasant monotony of constant labour,
+lightened always by the thought of those for whom he worked, cheered ever
+by the fond hope of future fame. He was no longer a bookmaker. He had
+written a book, the proceeds of which had enabled him to furnish the
+Wimbledon villa; and he was engaged in writing a second book, the fruits
+whereof would secure the needs of the immediate future. He had insured
+his life for a considerable amount, and had shown himself in all things
+prudent to a degree that verged upon Philistinism. But the policies taken
+out on Charlotte's life by Mr. Sheldon had been suffered to lapse.
+Valentine would have no money staked on that dear head.
+
+The steed which Charlotte had desired for her husband's pleasure, the
+library which she had catalogued so often, were yet among the delights of
+the future; but life has lost half its brightness when there is no
+unfulfilled desire left to the dreamer; and the horse which Mr.
+Hawkehurst was to ride in time to come, and the noble library which he
+was to collect, were the pleasant themes of Charlotte's conversation very
+often, as she and her husband walked on the heights of Wimbledon in the
+twilight, when his day's work was done.
+
+These twilight walks were the happy holidays of his life, and a part of
+his liberal education. He told his wife everything, every literary
+scheme, every fancy, every shadowy outline of future work, every new
+discovery in the boundless realms of Bookland. His enthusiasm; his
+hero-worship; his setting-up of one favourite and knocking-down of
+another; his unchristian pleasure in that awful slating of poor Jones in
+this week's _Saturday_, or the flaying alive of Robinson in the _Bond
+Street Backbiter_;--in a word, his "shop" never became wearisome to
+Charlotte. She listened always with a like rapture and sympathy; she
+worshipped his favourites of Bookland; she welcomed his friends and
+fellow-workers with unvarying sweetness she devised and superintended the
+fitting-up of a smoking-room that was perfectly paradisaical, a glimpse
+of the Alhambra in miniature; and that obnoxious dish, the cold shoulder,
+was never served in Mr. Hawkehurst's dwelling. So sweet a wife, so
+pleasant a home, popularized the institution of matrimony among the young
+writer's bachelor friends; and that much-abused and cruelly maligned
+member of the human race, the mother-in-law, was almost rehabilitated by
+Mrs. Sheldon's easy good-nature and evident regard for the interests of
+her daughter's husband.
+
+And after all the groping among dry as dust records of a bygone century,
+after all the patient following of those faint traces on the sands of
+time left by the feet of Matthew Haygarth, _this_ was Charlotte's
+Inheritance,--a heart whose innocence and affection made home a kind of
+earthly paradise, and gave to life's commonest things a charm that all
+the gold ever found in California could not have imparted to them. This
+was Charlotte's Inheritance,--the tender, unselfish nature of the
+Haygarths and Hallidays; and thus dowered, her husband would not have
+exchanged her for the wealthiest heiress whose marriage was ever
+chronicled in _Court Circular_ or _Court Journal_.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+LOST SIGHT OF.
+
+A year and a half had passed since the disappearance of Philip Sheldon
+from the circle in which he had been considered a person of some
+importance. The repudiation of those bills by which he had sustained his
+exhausted credit, or rather the discovery that the companies upon which
+the bills pretended to be drawn were of all shadows the most shadowy, had
+brought consternation upon many, and ruin upon some. Bitter and
+unmeasured were the terms in which City men spoke of that Phil Sheldon
+with whom they had eaten the sacred bait and quaffed the social moselle
+in the taverns of Greenwich and Blackwall.
+
+There is a saying current on the Stock Exchange to the effect that the
+man who fails, and disappears from among his fellows behind a curtain of
+commercial cloud, is sure to return sooner or later to his old circle,
+with a moustache and a brougham. For Philip Sheldon there was, however,
+no coming back. The moustache and the brougham of the chastened and
+penitent defaulter were not for him. By his deliberate and notorious
+dishonour he had shut the door against the possibility of return. It may
+be supposed that the defaulter knew this, for he did not come back; and
+since he had no lack of moral courage, he would scarcely have refrained
+from showing himself once more in his old haunts, if it had been possible
+for him to face the difficulties of his position.
+
+Time passed, and there came no tidings of the missing man, though a
+detective was despatched to America in search of him by one vengeful
+sufferer among the many victims of the fictitious bills-of-exchange. It
+was supposed that he must inevitably go to America, and thither went his
+pursuer, but with no result except the expenditure of money and the
+further exasperation of the vengeful sufferer.
+
+"What will you do with him, if you get him?" asked a philosophical friend
+of the sufferer. "He has nothing to surrender. Zabulon had a bill-of-sale
+on his furniture."
+
+"Furniture!" cried the infuriated victim; "I don't want his furniture. I
+want his flesh and bones. I want to shut him up in Dartmoor Prison, or to
+get him twenty years' hard labour at Portland Island."
+
+"That sort of man would get a ticket-of-leave in less than twelve
+months," replied the philosophic friend. "I'm afraid you are only
+throwing good money after bad."
+
+The event proved this gentleman but too able a seer. In the monster city
+of New York Philip Sheldon had disappeared like a single drop of water
+flung upon the Atlantic Ocean. There was no trace of him: too intangible
+for the grasp of international law, he melted into the mass of humanity,
+only one struggler the more in the great army perpetually fighting life's
+desperate battle.
+
+From among all those who had known him this man had utterly vanished,
+and not one sigh of regret followed him in his unknown wanderings--not
+one creature amongst all those who had taken his hand and given him
+friendly greeting thought of him kindly, or cared to know whither he
+went or how he prospered. He had not left in the house that had
+sheltered him for years so much as a dog to whine at his door or listen
+for his returning footstep.
+
+This fact, if he had known it or considered it, would have troubled him
+very little. He had played his game for a certain stake, and had lost it.
+This he felt, and cursed his own too cautious play as the cause of his
+defeat. That there were higher stakes for which he might have played an
+easier game, was a fact that never occurred to him. In his philosophy
+there was indeed nothing higher given to the hopes of man than worldly
+success, and a dull, cold, prosperous life spent among prosperous
+acquaintance.
+
+He was gone, and those who remembered him most keenly--Valentine
+Hawkehurst, Diana Paget, Ann Woolper--remembered him with a shudder. The
+old Yorkshirewoman thought of him sometimes as she bent over the little
+muslin-bedecked cradle where the hope of the Hawkehursts slumbered, and
+looked round fearfully in the gloaming, half expecting to see his dreaded
+face glower upon her, dark and threatening, from between the curtains of
+the window.
+
+It was a belief of all ancient races, nay indeed, a belief still current
+amongst modern nations, that it is not given to man to behold the beings
+of another world and live. The Arab who meets a phantom in the desert
+goes home to his tent to die. He knows that the hand of doom is upon him.
+He has seen that upon which, for mortal eyes, it is fatal to look. And it
+is thus in some measure with those who are admitted within the dark
+precincts of murder's dread sanctuary. Not swiftly does the curtain fall
+which has once been lifted from the hidden horrors of that ghastly
+temple. The revelations of an utterly wicked soul leave a lasting impress
+upon the mind which unwillingly becomes recipient of those awful secrets.
+
+The circumstances of Tom Halliday's death and of Charlotte's illness were
+not to be forgotten by Ann Woolper. The shadow of that dark cruel face,
+which had lain upon her bosom forty years before, haunted many a peaceful
+hour of her quiet old age. Her ignorance, and that faint tinge of
+superstition which generally accompanies ignorance, exaggerated the
+terror of those dark memories. The thought that Philip Sheldon still
+lived, still had the power to plot and plan evil against the innocent,
+was an ever-present source of terror to her. She could not understand
+that such an element could exist among the forces of evil without fatal
+result to some one. It seemed to her as if a devil were at large, and
+there could be neither peace nor security until the evil spirit was
+exorcised, the baneful presence laid in nethermost depths of unfathomable
+sea.
+
+These feelings and these fears would scarcely have arisen in the old
+woman's breast, had she alone been subject to the possible plottings of
+that evil nature. For herself she had little fear. Her span of life was
+nearly ended; very few were the sands that had yet to run; and, for her
+own sake, she would have cared little if some rough hand had spilt them
+untimely. But a new interest in life had been given to Mrs. Woolper just
+as life drew near its close. That peerless child, the son and heir of the
+Hawkehursts, had been intrusted to the old woman's care; and this infant
+she loved with an affection much more intense than that which had once
+made Philip Sheldon so dear to her.
+
+It was by the cradle of this much-treasured child that Ann Woolper nursed
+her fear of her old master. She knew that he had been counter-plotted and
+beaten ignominiously in that deadly game which he had played so boldly.
+And she asked herself whether he was the man to submit to such utter
+defeat without any effort to revenge himself upon those who had helped to
+compass his failure.
+
+On that night when Charlotte Halliday had lain between life and death,
+suffering on the one hand from the effects of a prolonged and gradual
+course of poison, on the other from the violent measures taken to
+eliminate that poisonous element from her system,--on that night when the
+precious life yet trembled in the balance, Ann Woolper had seen murderous
+looks in the face of the man whom she dared boldly to defy, and who knew
+in that hour that his ghastly plot was discovered. Even now, secure in a
+haven of safety, she could not forget that baneful look in Philip
+Sheldon's eyes. She could not find perfect rest while she knew not where
+that man might be, or what mischief he might be plotting against those
+she loved.
+
+Her fears showed themselves in many ways. When she read of dark and
+vengeful deeds in her newspaper, she thought of her old master, and how,
+in such or such an act, his fatal hand might reveal itself. He might lie
+in wait for Valentine some night on the dark road between Charlottenburgh
+and the distant railway-station. She could fancy the young wife's agony
+of terror as the night wore on, and her husband did not return; the
+unspeakable horror that would come over all that happy household when the
+news came that its young master had been found on the lonely road slain
+by some unknown hand. Open utterance to her fears she was too wise to
+give; but she warned Mr. Hawkehurst of the dangers on that dark road, and
+besought him to arm himself with a trusty bludgeon wherewith to meet and
+vanquish any chance assailant. Valentine laughed at her anxious warning;
+but when Charlotte took up the cry he was fain to content her by the
+purchase of a sturdy stick, which he swung cheerily to and fro as he
+walked homewards in the gloaming, planning a chapter in his new book, and
+composing powerful and eloquent sentences which eluded his mental grasp
+when he tried to reduce his evening reverie to pen-and-ink.
+
+"When the air blows fresh across the common, and the distant lights
+twinkle, and the bright stars peep out in the pale-yellow sky, my
+language flows as it never does when I sit at my desk, Lotta," he said to
+his wife. "I feel myself a Swift or a Junius out there; equal to the
+tackling of any social question that ever arose upon this earth, from the
+Wood halfpence to the policy of American taxation, and triennial
+elections. At home I am only Valentine Hawkehurst, with an ever-present
+consciousness that so many pages of copy are required from me within a
+given time, and that my son-and-heir is cutting his teeth, and making
+more fuss about it than I ever made about _my_ teeth; and that the man
+about the water-rate is waiting to see me, please, and is desperately
+anxious about making-up his books; and that I have the dearest wife in
+Christendom, who opens my door, and puts her pretty head into my room
+once in half an hour to see how I am getting on, or to ask whether I want
+any more coals, or to borrow my ink to make-up her washing-book."
+
+"You mean, sir, that I prevent your becoming a Junius?" cried Charlotte,
+with an enchanting _moue_.
+
+"Yes, dear. I begin to understand why Swift kept his poor ill-used wife
+at a respectful distance. She would have made him too happy if he had
+allowed her to be on the premises. She would have given the cruel
+indignation no chance of lacerating his heart; and such writing as
+Swift's is only produced by a man whose heart is so lacerated. No, my
+darling, I shall never be a Swift or a Junius while your pretty head is
+thrust into my room once or twice an hour; but I may hope to be something
+better, if bright eyes can inspire bright thoughts, and innocent smiles
+give birth to pleasant fancies."
+
+Upon this there was the usual little demonstration of affection between
+this young couple; and Charlotte praised her husband as the most
+brilliant and admirable of men; after which pleasing flattery she
+favoured him with a little interesting information about the baby's last
+tooth, and the contumacious behaviour of the new housemaid, between whom
+and Mrs. Woolper there had been a species of disagreement, which the
+Yorkshirewoman described as a "standfurther."
+
+Thus occupied in simple pleasures and simple cares, the lives of Mr. and
+Mrs. Hawkehurst went on, untroubled by any fear of that crime-burdened
+wretch whose image haunted the dreams and meditations of Ann Woolper. For
+these two Mr. Sheldon was numbered among the dead. To Charlotte the
+actual truth had never been revealed; but she had been, in the course of
+time, given to understand that her stepfather had committed some
+unpardonable sin, which must for ever separate him from herself and her
+mother. She had been told as much as this, and had been told that she
+must seek to know no more. To this she submitted without questioning.
+
+"I am very sorry for him," she said, "and for mamma."
+
+She concluded that the unpardonable offence must needs have been some sin
+against her mother, some long-hidden infidelity brought suddenly to
+light, with all the treachery and falsehood involved therein. She never
+mentioned her stepfather after this but in her prayers the sinner was not
+forgotten.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+ETEOCLES AND POLYNICES.
+
+George Sheldon went his ways, picking up as good a living as he could
+from that chivalrous assertion of the rights of the weak which has been
+already described; and the thought of his brother's sin-burdened soul
+troubled him very little. He did think of Tom Halliday; for that last
+grasp of the honest Yorkshireman's hand, that last look in his old
+friend's face, were haunting memories which this sharp practitioner had
+found himself powerless to exorcise. If his brother, after an absence of
+many years in the remote regions of the East Indies, had come home to his
+fatherland with a colossal fortune, and the reputation of having
+strangled a few natives during the process of amassing that fortune,
+George Sheldon would have welcomed the returning wanderer, and would, in
+his own parlance, have "swallowed the natives." A few niggers, more or
+less, sent untimely to Gehenna, would have seemed scarcely sufficient
+cause for quarrel with a fraternal and liberally-disposed millionaire.
+But the circumstances of Tom Halliday's death had brought all the horror
+of crime and treachery home to the spectator of that deliberate
+assassination, and had produced such an impression as no other
+circumstances could on so hard a nature.
+
+It was some satisfaction to George Sheldon to know that his old friend's
+daughter had found a happy home; and he was apt to take some credit from
+his own share in his brother's discomfiture. He met Valentine sometimes
+in the course of his peregrinations in the neighbourhood of the British
+Museum, and the greeting between the two men was sufficiently cordial;
+but Mr. Hawkehurst did not invite his old employer to Charlottenburgh,
+and George was able to comprehend that to that household no one bearing
+the name of Sheldon could be a welcome visitor.
+
+He jogged on comfortably enough in his own way; living in his chambers,
+and consorting with a few chosen friends and kindred spirits of the
+jolly-good-fellow class, whom he met at an old-established tavern in the
+west-central district, and in whose society, and the society of the
+subscription-ground in the Farringdon Road, he found the _summum bonum_
+in the way of social intercourse. He did a little speculation upon the
+turf, and discounted the bills of needy bookmakers, or bought up their
+bad debts, and thereby gained introductions to the noble patrons of the
+humble "scums," and pushed his business into new grooves. He had no idea
+that such an existence was in any way ignoble; nay, indeed, when he had
+paid his rent, and his clerk, and his laundress, and his tavern score,
+and "stood glasses round" amongst his friends, he lighted his cigar, and
+thrust his hands into the depths of his pockets, and paced the flags of
+Holborn happy in the belief that he had performed the whole duty of man.
+
+"There are men whose business obliges them to keep up an establishment,
+and go to church twice a day, and all that kind of thing," he said; "and
+I dare say they find it pay. My clients don't care a doit where I live,
+or how I spend my Sundays; and I'd rather have five pounds a week and my
+liberty than the best family connection in the Fields."
+
+The fate of that wretched man, who had dropped out of his old circle
+and vanished no one knew whither, in no manner disturbed the peace of
+George Sheldon.
+
+"Take my word for it, that gentleman has fallen on his feet," he said, on
+the only occasion when the fate of Philip was discussed by Valentine and
+himself. "He's doing well enough, somewhere or other, you may depend; but
+I don't think he'll ever be able to show his nose in London after those
+bill transactions. There's a very strong feeling against him on Change.
+He's looked upon as a discredit to the order, and that sort of thing, you
+see. It isn't often a member of the House goes to the bad like that. No,
+I don't think Phil will ever show himself in London again; but such a man
+as that can always find a platform somewhere--"
+
+"And go on to the end of his days unpunished, I suppose," remarked Mr.
+Hawkehurst, with some bitterness.
+
+"Well, yes; I don't see what's to touch him in the future. Of course he
+could be dropped upon for those bills, if he came in the way of being
+dropped upon; but, as I said before, he's too deep a card for that."
+
+Thus did George Sheldon dismiss the subject. That his brother was an
+exile for life from his native land he did not doubt; but he took it for
+granted that in whatever distant spot of earth Philip had found a refuge,
+he would there contrive to prosper and to show a bold front in the city
+of his adoption.
+
+This belief Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn cherished until one snowy Christmas
+Eve, a year and a half after that event, or series of events, which the
+lawyer briefly designated "the burst-up at Bayswater."
+
+Bleak and bitter was that December, a December not long gone by. The
+heart of the prosperous British nation melted as the heart of one man.
+The columns of the _Zeus_ and the _Diurnal Hermes_, the _Flag_ and the
+_Hesper_, overflowed with the record of subscriptions to charity funds;
+and the leaders of the morning journals all preached the same kindly
+sermon on the same Christian text. Thick lay the snow upon the housetops;
+"thick and slab" the greasy slush upon the pavements of crowded
+thoroughfares; merry the rogues and ragamuffins of the great city. The
+ideal Christmas of our dreams seemed to have come at last, and the heart
+of every true Briton rejoiced; while skaters in the parks made merry, and
+cabmen demanded fabulous sums of helpless wayfarers; and luckless,
+overworked, under-fed horses stumbled and fell at every turn, and the
+familiar steep of Holborn was dangerous as Alpine mountain.
+
+To George Sheldon neither the weather nor the Christmas season made much
+difference. The even current of his life was little disturbed by festive
+pleasures or dissipations. An extra glass at his tavern, an invitation to
+dinner from some friend in the bill-discounting line, were the most
+exciting events the season was likely to bring him. He saw the shops
+brighten suddenly with semi-supernal glories of crystallized fruits and
+gorgeous bonbon-boxes, and he was aware of a kind of movement in the
+streets that was brisker and gayer than the plodding hurry of everyday
+life. He stood aside and let the mummeries go by him, and was glad when
+these Christmas follies were done with, and the law-courts in full swing
+once more. In the happiest and most innocent days of his youth, Christmas
+had brought him no more than extraordinary indulgences in the way of
+eating and drinking, swiftly followed by that dread avenger, the demon of
+the bilious.
+
+Upon this particular occasion Mr. Sheldon had pledged himself to dine
+with a horsey publican lately retired from business, and big with all the
+pride and glory of a "place" at Hornsey.
+
+"Come down and see my place, Sheldon," this gentleman had said. "I don't
+pretend to do the swell thing; but I force my own pines and grow my own
+grapes, and can put as good a dessert on my table as you could buy in
+Covent Garden for a five-pun' note. That's my missus's fad, that is, and
+I can afford it; so why shouldn't I do it? You come and eat your
+Christmas dinner with us, Sheldon. I've got a friend coming that can
+sing as good a song as Reeves hisself, and might make a fortune, if he
+wasn't above coming out at one of them music-halls. And I'll give you a
+bottle of Madeira that you won't match at any nobleman's table, if
+noblemen's tables was in your line of business, which you and I know
+they ain't, old fellow."
+
+And then the jolly good fellow dug his fat fingers into George Sheldon's
+ribs, and George accepted the invitation; not with any elation of
+spirits, but sufficiently pleased to secure a good dinner with a man who
+promised to be a profitable client, and whose house was within a
+reasonable cab-fare from the west-central district.
+
+"The cabmen are trying it on, anyhow, just now," thought Mr. Sheldon;
+"but I don't think they'll try it on with me. And if they do, there's the
+Marylebone stage. I'm not afraid of a five-mile walk."
+
+Having accepted this invitation, and thus disposed of his Christmas-day,
+George Sheldon refrained from the delights of social converse at his
+tavern on Christmas-eve, and occupied himself with business. His clerk
+left him at the usual hour; but the master sat, long after dark, writing
+letters and reading law-papers, while the snow drifted against his
+windows and whitened the quiet quadrangle below.
+
+He had just laid aside his papers and lighted a cigar, when he was
+startled by a stealthy knocking at his door. He was not unaccustomed to
+late visitors, as he was known to live at his chambers, and to work after
+office-hours; but the knocking of to-night was not the loud rollicking
+rat-a-tat of his jolly-good-fellow friends or clients. If he had been a
+student of light literature, and imbued with the ghostly associations of
+the season, he would have gone to his door expecting to behold a weird
+figure clothed in the vestments of the last century; or an old woman in
+ruff and martingale, whose figure in the flesh had once haunted those
+legal precincts; or the ghostly semblance of the Baron of Verulam
+himself, revisiting the glimpses of the moon and the avenue of elms that
+were planted by his order.
+
+In George Sheldon's nature there was, however, no lurking dread of fiend
+or phantom. His ideas in connection with ghosts were limited to a white
+sheet, a broomstick, and a hollow turnip with a lighted candle inside it;
+and he would have set down the most awful apparition that ever was
+revealed to German ghost-seer, with a scornful grin, as a member of the
+sheet and-hollow-turnip confraternity.
+
+"I know how it's done," he would have said, if the spectral form had
+glowered upon him in midnight churchyard or ruined abbey. "You'd better
+go and try it on somewhere else, my friend."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To a superstitious mind the THING which crept across the dark lobby
+and dragged itself into the glare of the gas-lighted office might
+have seemed, indeed, some, creature too loathsome for humanity. A
+plague-stricken corpse galvanized into a spasmodic life could scarcely
+have lifted to the light a more awful countenance than that on which
+George Sheldon looked with mingled anger and disgust.
+
+"What do you want here" he asked. "Do you take this for the workhouse?"
+
+"No," the creature answered, in a faint hoarse voice; "but I take you for
+my brother."
+
+"WHAT!" cried George Sheldon, aghast.
+
+He bent down and looked at the awful face. Yes, from the cavernous
+hollows of those sunken cheeks, beneath the shaggy penthouse of those
+bony brows, the fierce black eyes of Philip Sheldon looked out at him
+with a savage glare that he had never seen in them before--even when the
+savage nature of the man had revealed itself most nakedly--the fierce
+glare of fever and starvation.
+
+This walking horror, this mass of loathsome rags endued with motion, this
+living disease, was the sometime prosperous stockbroker, the man whom it
+had been impossible to think of except furnished with linen of spotless
+whiteness, and the glossy broad-cloth, and well-made boots, and keyless
+chronometer, and silk umbrella of commercial success.
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed George, horror-stricken, "is it you?"
+
+"Yes, it's I," answered the creature in his strange husky accents; and
+the change--nay, indeed, the degradation, of the voice was as complete as
+the degradation of the man. "Yes, George, it's I; your brother Phil.
+You're surprised to see me fallen so low in the world, I suppose; but you
+can't be more surprised than I am myself. I've tried hard enough to hold
+my head above water. There's scarcely any trade that mortal man ever
+tried to earn his bread by, that I haven't tried--and failed in. It has
+been the experience of Fitzgeorge-street over and over again, in every
+trade and every profession. I started as doctor in Philadelphia, and was
+doing well;--till--till a patient died--and things went against me. I've
+been clerk in more offices than you can count on your ten fingers; but
+there was always something--my employer levanted, or was bankrupt, or
+died, or dismissed me. I've been travelling-dentist, auctioneer,
+commission-agent, tout, pedlar, out yonder; but it all came to the same
+thing--ruin, starvation, the hospital, or the pauper's ward. I have swept
+crossings in the city, and camped out in the wilderness among the bears
+and opossums. One day I thought I'd come home. 'There's George,' I said
+to myself; 'if I can get money enough to take me across the Atlantic, I
+shall be all right. George will give me a lift.' I don't stand alone in
+the world. A man's own flesh and blood won't let him starve--can't let
+him starve. Blood's thicker than water, you know, George. So I came home.
+I got the money; never you mind how. I needn't tell you what it cost me
+to scrape half-a-dozen pounds together. When a man's as low down in the
+world as I am, there's not a shilling he earns that doesn't cost him a
+drop of his heart's blood; there's not a pound he gets together that
+isn't bought by the discount of so much of his life. I found money enough
+for my passage in an emigrant vessel; and here I am, ready for anything.
+I'll work like your bought nigger. I'll do the work your clerk does for a
+quarter of his wages. I'll sweep out your office, and run errands for
+you. You'll give me something to keep body and soul together, won't you,
+George?"
+
+Nothing could be more utterly abject than the tone of this most abject
+wretch.
+
+This man, who in prosperity had been the very personification of hardness
+and insolence, was transformed into a grovelling, cringing supplicant,
+ready to lie face downward in the dust beneath the feet of that brother
+whose patronage, or charity, he besought.
+
+Mr. Sheldon the younger contemplated the supplicant with looks of
+undisguised gratification. He walked a few paces backward from the spot
+where his brother had fallen, in a half-sitting, half-crouching attitude,
+and where he remained, hugging himself in his rags, too abject to be
+acutely conscious of his degradation. A year ago and he would have held
+himself obstinately aloof from all old associations, and would have
+declared himself ready to face starvation, rather than accept, still less
+supplicate, relief from his younger brother. The events of that one year
+had involved alternations and convulsions that change a year into a
+cycle. He had faced starvation; he had walked with hunger for his
+travelling companion; he had lain down night after night in such lairs
+as the tramp can find for his refuge, with sickness and pain for his
+bed-fellows. The crucible through which he had passed had left in him no
+more of humanity than its outward semblance, and scarcely that; for when
+the moral man sinks to the level of the beasts of prey, the physical man
+undergoes an assimilative process only less marked than that which
+transforms the mental nature.
+
+For six months this man had lived by fawning upon or threatening his
+fellow-men; by violence or craft; by the degradation of the vagrant or
+the audacity of the thief. There is no limit to man's capacity for infamy
+which he had not touched. Vilest amongst the vile, he had been cast forth
+from the haunts of beggars and reprobates, as no fitting company for
+honourable thieves or cadgers of good repute.
+
+George Sheldon seated himself astride upon a chair, and, with his folded
+arms resting on the back of it, contemplated this hideous spectacle. It
+was a picture that he had never thought to see, and the feeling with
+which he surveyed it was not unmingled with pleasure.
+
+"When you rode me rough-shod, my friend, I used to think how I should
+enjoy taking my change out of you," he said; "but I never thought I
+should have such an opportunity as this--never, by Jove! I thought you
+would ride the high horse to the end of the journey; I didn't think your
+steed would land you in the gutter. And so you've tried every move, have
+you?--tumbled upon every platform?--and you've found all your cleverness
+no go upon the other side of the three thousand miles of everlasting wet,
+as my Yankee friends call the Atlantic; and you've come back whining to
+me, and I'm to help you, am I, and to give you a fresh start in life, I
+suppose, and make you my clerk, or my junior partner, eh?--that would be
+better. Messrs. Sheldon and Sheldon wouldn't look bad on my door. That's
+about what you mean when you talk of blood being thicker than water,
+isn't it?"
+
+The abject wretch who had once been Philip Sheldon felt that his brother
+was trifling with him, savouring to the last drop that cup of triumph
+which the chances of fortune had offered to his lips.
+
+"Don't play the fool with me, George," he said piteously. "I don't ask
+you much--a crust of bread, a corner to sleep in, and a cast-off suit of
+clothes: that's not much for one brother to ask of another."
+
+"Perhaps not," replied George Sheldon; "but it's a great deal for you to
+ask of me. You've had your turn, Phil; and you made the most of it, and
+contrived to keep me at arm's length. My turn has come at last, and you
+may depend upon it I shall contrive now to keep _you_ at arm's length."
+
+The vagrant stared at him aghast. Here he had felt secure of food and
+shelter; and he had endured miseries and deprivations that reduce a man
+to a state in which food and shelter seem to constitute the supreme good
+that can be obtained in this life.
+
+"You won't refuse to do something for me, George," he whined piteously.
+
+"I will do nothing for you. Do you hear that, my man? Nothing! You taught
+me that blood is not thicker than water twelve years ago, when you
+married Tom Halliday's widow, and drew your purse-strings, after flinging
+me a beggarly hundred as you'd throw a bone to a dog. You made me
+understand that was all I should ever get out of your brotherly love, or
+your fear of my telling the world what I knew. You gave me a dinner now
+and then, because it suited you to keep your eye upon me; and you had
+generally some piece of dirty work on hand that made the advice of a
+sharp practitioner like me uncommonly useful to you. I don't believe that
+you ever gave me so much as a dinner that you didn't take payment for in
+meal or in malt. Don't come howling here now, trying to persuade me that
+blood is thicker than water, or that brotherhood means anything more than
+the accident of birth. And now I've said all I have to say; and the
+sooner you make yourself scarce, the better for both of us."
+
+"George!" cried the miserable suppliant, clasping his bony hands
+convulsively, and whimpering as he had whimpered when he begged his bread
+in the streets of New York, "you can't mean to turn me out of doors on
+such a night. Look at me. It was as much as I could do to crawl to this
+room. I have walked every step of the way from Liverpool; my wretched
+limbs have been frost-bitten, and ulcered, and bruised, and racked with
+rheumatism, and bent double with cramp. I came over in an emigrant
+vessel, with a herd of miserable creatures who had tried their luck on
+the other side of the Atlantic, and had failed, like me, and were coming
+home to their native workhouses. You don't know what some of your
+emigrant ships are, perhaps. People talk about the Black Hole of
+Calcutta, and the Middle Passage; but let them try the cabin of an
+emigrant vessel, and they'll have a pretty fair idea of what human beings
+have to suffer when Poverty drives the ship. I landed in Liverpool with
+half-a-dollar in my pocket, and I've had neither decent food nor decent
+shelter since I landed. Give me some hole to lie in, George, till you can
+get me an order for the nearest hospital. It's a toss-up whether I ever
+come out of it."
+
+"Do you think I'd sleep under the roof that sheltered you?" cried George.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why not! Because I'm afraid of you. Because I'd as soon have a cobra
+for my companion, or a wolf for my bedfellow. I know you. I've seen what
+you can do, and how you can do it. And if you could do those things when
+the only pressure upon you was one that you could have cast off by going
+through the _Gazette_, what would you _not_ do now when you are as
+desperate as a famished wolf, and governed by no better law than that
+which governs a wolf--the law of self-preservation? Am I to trust a
+tiger because he tells me he is hungry? No, Phil Sheldon; neither will I
+trust you."
+
+"You will give me some money--enough to keep me alive for a week or two."
+
+"Not one sixpence. I'll establish no precedent; I'll acknowledge no tie
+between us. You'd better march. I don't want to send for a policeman; but
+if you won't go quietly, you must do the other thing."
+
+"You mean that?"
+
+"Most emphatically yes."
+
+"I didn't think it was in you to be so hard upon me," faltered; the
+wretch in that faint hoarse voice which had grown fainter and hoarser
+during this interview.
+
+"Did you think that I would trust you?" cried George. "Trust _you_! You
+call me hard because I won't give you a corner to lie in. And if I did,
+you would creep out of your corner to poison me, or cut my throat. You
+would crawl into my room in the dead of the night and put a pillow over
+my face, and kneel upon it till you'd done the trick for me; and then
+you'd walk off with as much as you could carry, and begin the same kind
+of work over again with some one else. I tell you, Mr. Phil Sheldon, I
+will hold no intercourse with you. You've escaped hanging, but there's
+something that's worse than hanging, to my mind, and that is the state of
+a man whom nobody will trust. You've come to that; and if you had a spark
+of gentlemanly feeling, you'd have bought two-pennyworth of rope and hung
+yourself rather than come cringing to me."
+
+"Suppose I don't cringe," said the outcast, dropping the fawning tone of
+the mendicant for the threatening ferocity of the social wolf; "you'd
+better give me a trifle to keep body and soul together for the next few
+weeks. I'm a desperate man, George! You and I are alone up here. You are
+pretty sure to have ready money about you. And there's your watch; that's
+worth something. I didn't come here to go away empty-handed. AND I
+WON'T!"
+
+He sprang to his feet, and in the next moment the lawyer heard the sharp
+clicking noise made by the opening of a clasp-knife.
+
+"O," cried he, "that's what you want, is it!"
+
+He bent over his desk, with his eyes fixed on those other evil eyes that
+still retained some likeness to his own, and with his left arm raised in
+a boxer's defensive attitude, to guard his head, while his right hand
+groped for something in a drawer. It was a moment's work. Philip had
+seized that uplifted left arm, and was hanging on to it like a cat, with
+his knife between his teeth, when George clapped the muzzle of a revolver
+to his brow.
+
+"There are plenty of wild beasts in London besides you," he said, "and I
+am not such a fool as to be without the means of settling a chance
+visitor of your sort. Drop your knife, and march."
+
+The outcast dropped his knife submissively. He was too weak for anything
+more than a spasmodic violence.
+
+"Take your pistol away from my head," he whined.
+
+"Certainly, when you are outside my door."
+
+"You might give me a handful of silver, George. I haven't a week's life
+left in me."
+
+"All the better for society if you hadn't an hour's life in you. Be off.
+I'm tired of holding this revolver to your head, and I don't mean to let
+it go till you're off my premises."
+
+Philip saw that there was no hope. Food and shelter were all he had
+hoped for; but even these blessings were not for him. He backed out of
+the office, closely followed by George, holding the muzzle of the
+revolver within an inch or so of the fraternal brains. Upon the
+threshold only did he pause.
+
+"Tell me one thing," he said. "You won't give me sixpence to buy a loaf
+of bread or a glass of gin. Give me one scrap of comfort. It need cost
+you nothing. Tell me something bad of Valentine Hawkehurst: that he's
+gone to the dogs, or drowned himself; that his wife has run away from
+him, or his house been burned to the ground. Tell me that he's had a
+taste of my luck; and that Ann Woolper has died in a workhouse. It will
+be as good as meat and drink to me, and it will cost you nothing."
+
+"If I told you anything of the kind, I should tell you a lie; Valentine
+Hawkehurst is doing uncommonly well, and has got one of the prettiest
+little boxes between Wimbledon and Kingston. Ann Woolper lives with them,
+and is in better feather than she ever was in your time."
+
+With this, Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn pushed his brother out on to the
+staircase, and shut his door. Philip sat upon the stairs, and drew his
+rags together a little, and rubbed his wretched limbs, while the bolts
+and chains whereby the lawyer defended his citadel clanked close behind
+him.
+
+"I wonder whether he'll pay Hawkehurst a visit," thought George, as he
+bolted his door; and he had a kind of grim satisfaction in the idea that
+Valentine's Christmas peace might be disturbed by the advent of that
+grisly visitor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+"ACCORDING TO THEIR DEEDS."
+
+"Between Wimbledon and Kingston," muttered the tramp. "If I can drag
+myself as far as that, I'll go there this night."
+
+He went down stairs and out into the pitiless cold and snow, and made his
+way down Fetter Lane, and across Blackfriars Bridge to the Surrey side of
+the water, stopping to beg here and there.
+
+Upon this snowy Christmas night there were plenty of people abroad;
+and amongst them Philip Sheldon found pitying matrons, who explored
+the depths of their capacious pockets to find him a halfpenny, and
+good-natured young men, who flung the "copper" he besought with piteous
+professional whine.
+
+When he had collected the price of a glass of gin, he went into the first
+public-house he came to, and spent his money. He was too ill to stay the
+cravings of his stomach with substantial food. Gin gave him temporary
+warmth and temporary strength, and enabled him to push on vigorously for
+a little while; and then came dreary periods of faintness and exhaustion,
+in which every step was sheer pain and weariness.
+
+Something of his old self, some remnant of that hard strength of purpose
+which had once characterized him, remained with him still, utterly fallen
+and brutalized as he was. As a savage creature of the jungle might pursue
+a given course, pushing always onward to that camp or village whence the
+scent of human flesh and blood was wafted to his quivering nostrils, so
+Philip Sheldon pushed on towards the dwelling-place of that man and that
+woman whom of all creatures upon this earth he most savagely hated.
+
+"There's nothing left for me but to turn housebreaker," he said to
+himself; "and the first house I'll try my hand upon shall be Valentine
+Hawkehurst's."
+
+The idea of violence in such a creature was the idea of a madman. Weapon
+he had none, nor the physical strength that would have enabled him to
+grapple with a boy of twelve years old. Half intoxicated with the spirits
+he had consumed on his long tramp, half delirious with fever, he had a
+vague notion that he could make an entrance into some ill-defended house
+under cover of night, and steal something that should procure him food
+and shelter. And let the house be Valentine Hawkehurst's, the man who had
+baffled his plans and crushed him!
+
+If blood must be shed, let the blood be his! Never was man better primed
+for murder than the man who tramped across Wimbledon Common at eleven
+o'clock this night, with the snow drifting against his face, and his
+limbs shaken every now and then by an ague-fit.
+
+Happily for the interests of society, his hand lacked the power to
+execute that iniquity which his heart willed.
+
+He reached a little wayside inn near the Robin Hood gate of Richmond
+Park, just as the shutters were being closed, and asked a man if any one
+of the name of Hawkehurst lived in that neighbourhood.
+
+"What do _you_ want with Mr. Hawkehurst?" asked the man, contemptuously.
+
+"I've got a letter for him."
+
+"Have you? A begging letter, I should think, from the look of you."
+
+"No; it's a business letter. You'd better show me where he lives, if he's
+a customer of yours. The business is particular."
+
+"Is it? You're a queer kind of messenger to trust with particular
+business. Mr. Hawkehurst's house is the third you come to on the opposite
+side of the way. But I don't suppose you'll find anybody up as late as
+this. Their lights are out by eleven, in a general way."
+
+The third house on the opposite side of the road was half a mile distant
+from the little run. Lights shone bright in the lower windows as the
+tramp dragged his tired limbs to the stout oaken gate. The gate was
+fastened only by a latch, and offered no resistance to the intruder. He
+crept with stealthy footsteps along the smooth gravel walk, sheltered by
+dark laurels, on which the light flashed cheerily from those bright
+windows. Sounds of laughter and of music pealed out upon the wintry air.
+Shadows flitted across the blinds of the broad bay windows. Philip
+Sheldon crept into a sheltered nook beside the rustic porch, and sank
+down exhausted in the shadow of the laurels.
+
+He sat there in a kind of stupor. He had lost the power of thought,
+somehow, on that dreary journey. It seemed almost as if he had left some
+portion of his being out yonder in the cold and darkness. He had
+difficulty in remembering why he had come to this place, and what that
+deed was which he meant to do.
+
+"Hawkehurst," he muttered to himself--"Hawkehurst, the man who leagued
+against me with Jedd! I swore to be even with him if ever I found the
+opportunity--if ever! And George refused me a few shillings; my brother,
+my only brother, refused to stand my friend!"
+
+Hawkehurst and George--big only brother--the images of these two men
+floated confusedly in his brain: he could scarcely separate them.
+Sometimes it seemed to him that he was still sitting outside his
+brother's door, on the staircase in Gray's Inn, hugging himself in his
+rags, and cursing his unnatural kinsman's cruelty; then in the next
+moment he remembered where he was, and breathed bitter curses upon that
+unconscious enemy whose laugh pealed out every now and then amid a chorus
+of light-hearted laughter.
+
+There was a little Christmas party at Charlottenburgh. Two flys were
+waiting in the laurel-avenue to convey Mr. Hawkehurst's guests to distant
+abodes. The door was opened presently, and all the bustle of departure
+made itself heard by that wretched wayfarer who found it so difficult to
+keep his hold upon the consciousness of these things.
+
+"What is it?" he said to himself--"a party! Hawkehurst has been giving a
+party."
+
+He had lived through too much degradation, he had descended into too deep
+a gulf of wretchedness, to be conscious of the contrast between his
+present situation and his position in those days when he had played the
+host, and seen handsome carriages bear prosperous guests away from his
+door. In that cycle of misery which he had endured, these things and the
+memory of them had faded from him as completely as if they had been
+obliterated by the passage of a century. The hapless wretch tried to give
+sustained attention to all the animated discussion that attended the
+departure of the merry guests. Half-a-dozen people seemed to be talking
+at once. Valentine was giving his friends counsel about the way home.
+
+"You will keep to the lower road, you know, Fred. Lawsley's cab can
+follow yours. You came a couple of miles out of your way. And tell that
+fellow Battersea Bridge is a mistake."
+
+And then followed Charlotte's friendly questioning about wraps, and
+hoods, and comforters, and other feminine gear.
+
+"And when are you coming to dine at Fulham?" cried one voice.
+
+"I shall certainly get those quadrilles of Offenbach's," said another.
+
+"How delightfully Mr. Lawsley sang that song of Santley's!"
+
+And anon a chorus of "Never enjoyed myself more!" "Most delightful
+evening!" "Pray don't come out in the cold." "Thanks; well, yes, yours
+are always capital." "No, I won't light up till I'm on the road." "Give
+my book a lift in the _D.H._, eh, old fellow?" "Are you _quite_ sure that
+shawl is warm enough?" "Take a rug for your feet." "Thanks, no."
+"Good-night." "See you on Tuesday." "Don't forget the box for D.L." "All
+right, old fellow!" "Lower Road, Roehampton Lane, Putney Bridge.
+Good-night."
+
+Among the confusion of voices Philip Sheldon had recognized more than one
+voice that was familiar to him. There were Charlotte's gentle tones, and
+Valentine's hearty barytone, and another that he knew.
+
+Diana Paget! Yes, it was her voice. Diana Paget, whom he had cause to
+hate for her interference with his affairs.
+
+"A beggar," he muttered to himself, "and the daughter of a beggar! She
+was a nice young lady to set herself in opposition to the man who gave
+her a home."
+
+The vehicles drove away, but there was still a little group in the rustic
+porch. Valentine and Charlotte, with Monsieur and Madame Lenoble, who had
+come to spend their Christmas with their English friends.
+
+"How we have been gay this evening!" cried Gustave. "There is nothing
+like your English interior for that which you call the comfortable, the
+jolly, you others. Thy friends are the jollity itself, Hawkehurst. And
+our acting charades, when that we all talked at once, and with a such
+emphasis on the word we would make to know. Was it not that our
+spectators were cunning to divine the words? And your friend Lawsley--it
+is a mixture of Got and Sanson. It is a true genius. Think, then, Diane,
+while we were amusing ourselves, our girls were at the midnight mass at
+the Sacré Coeur? Dear pious children, their innocent prayers ascended
+towards the heavens for we who are absent. Come, Madame Hawkehurst,
+Diane, it makes cold."
+
+"But we are sheltered here. And the stars are so bright after the snow,"
+said Charlotte. "Do you remember the Christmas-day you spent at the Lawn,
+Valentine, when we walked in Kensington Gardens together, just when we
+were first engaged?" the young wife added shyly.
+
+"Do I not remember? It was the first time the holiness of Christmas came
+home to my heart. And now let us go back to the drawing-room, and sit
+round the fire, and tell ghost stories. Lenoble shall give us the legends
+of Côtenoir."
+
+"Valentine," murmured Charlotte, "do you know that it is nearly one
+o'clock?"
+
+"And we must put in an appearance at church to-morrow morning. And
+Lenoble has to walk to Kingston to early mass. We will postpone our ghost
+stories to New-Year's eve. And Lenoble shall read Tennyson's _New Year_,
+to demonstrate his improvement in the English language. Lead the way,
+Mrs. Hawkehurst; your obedient slave obeys. Mamma is waiting for us in
+the drawing-room, marvelling at our delay, no doubt. And Nancy Woolper
+stalks ghost-like through the house, oppressed by the awful
+responsibility of to-morrow's pudding."
+
+Anon came a clanking of bolts and bars; and Philip Sheldon, for the
+second time that night, heard a door shut against him. As the voices died
+away, his consciousness of external things died with him. He fancied
+himself on the Gray's-Inn staircase.
+
+"Don't be so hard upon me, George," he muttered faintly. "If my own kith
+and kin turn against me, whom shall I look to?"
+
+Mrs. Woolper opened the door early next day, when night was yet at odds
+with morning. All through the night the silent snow-flakes had been
+falling thick and fast; and they had woven the shroud of Philip Sheldon.
+The woman who had watched his infant slumbers forty years before, was the
+first to look upon him in that deeper sleep, of whose waking we know so
+little. It was not until she had looked long and closely at the dead face
+that she knew why it was that the aspect of that countenance had affected
+her with so strange a pang. She did recognize that altered wretch, and
+kept her counsel.
+
+Before the bells rang for morning service the tramp was lying in the
+dead-house of Kingston Union, whither he had been conveyed very quietly
+in the early morning, unknown to any one but the constable who
+superintended the removal, and the servants of Mr. Hawkehurst's
+household. Only the next day did Ann Woolper tell Valentine what had
+happened. There was to be an inquest. It would be well that some one
+should identify the dead man, and establish the fact of Philip Sheldon's
+decease.
+
+Valentine was able to do this unaided. He attended the inquest, and made
+arrangements for the outcast's decent burial; and in due course he gave
+Mrs. Sheldon notice of her freedom. Beyond that nameless grave whose
+fancy shall dare follow Philip Sheldon? He died and made no sign. And in
+the last dread day, when the dead, small and great, from the sea and from
+the grave, press together at the foot of the great white Throne, and the
+books of doom are opened; when above shines the city whose light is the
+glory of God, and below yawns the lake of fire,--what voice shall plead
+for Philip Sheldon, what entreating cry shall Pity send forth that
+sentence against him may be stayed?
+
+Surely none; unless it issue from the lips of that one confiding friend,
+whose last words upon earth thanked and blessed him, and whose long
+agonies he watched with unshaken purpose, conscious that in every
+convulsive change in the familiar face, and every pang that shook the
+stalwart form, he saw the result of his own work.
+
+Perhaps at that dread Judgment Day, when every other tongue is silent,
+the voice of Tom Halliday may be heard pleading for the man who murdered
+him.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Charlotte's Inheritance, by M. E. Braddon
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+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE ***
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