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Title: The Flower of the Flock, Volume 1 (of 3)

Author: Pierce Egan

Release date: January 14, 2018 [eBook #56371]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by David Widger from page images generously
        provided by the Internet Archive


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK, VOLUME 1 (OF 3) ***




Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive









THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK

By Pierce Egan

Author Of “The Poor Girl,” &c., &c.

In Three Volumes.

Vol. I.

London: Published By W. S. Johnson & Co.

1865




THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK




CHAPTER I.--THE SHADOW IN THE SUNSHINE.


                   And the sunlight clasps the earth.

                             --Shelley.


               From her chamber window he would catch

                   Her beauty faster than the falcon spies;

               And constant as her vespers would he watch,

                   Because her face was turned to the same skies.

                             --Keats


A bright sunny morning, at the end of June, in busy, restless London.
The overarching vault of heaven was filled with an atmosphere of golden
hue. Sunshine was glowing upon cathedral turrets and upon the church
spires, upon the pinnacles of lofty buildings, and the crowns of tall
factory shafts. The bronzed and tarnished ball and cross of St. Paul’s,
and the shaggy-crested Monument, which “like a tall bully lifts its
head,” shone as if they had been newly gilded. There was sunshine upon
chimney-pots and housetops, golden beams permeating the confined air in
close garrets, through their narrow, half-closed windows; flooding wide
streets, and illuminating pestiferous courts, where riotous hilarity
sometimes, but joy never came.

Sunshine blazed upon the broad and winding Thames, over whose flowing
surface lazy barges dawdled, and panting river steamers raced, leaving
in their sinuous paths myriads of scintillations--and rather an
unpleasant odour as well. Sunshine was on the footways, and in the
roadways, and in the gutters, making mirrors of small muddy pools.

Sunshine there was for the ragged and the richly dressed; for the
beggar and the prince alike; for the robust and, happily, for the sickly
invalid.

Sunshine everywhere, making brilliant the parks and open places, and
interpenetrating all the foulest recesses of this huge city. Giving
light where it was rarely seen, and rousing to a glad activity the
teeming life already in its first throes of daily labour.

Beautiful in this, the bright sunshine! but oh, yet more enchanting in
the glory with which it invested the fair face of a young girl, peering
out of the upper window of a house situated in one of the City’s closest
streets.

She stood there, gazing heavenward, her mild blue eyes bending beneath
the influence of the golden glare of sunny-waves of light, yet seeming
to revel in their luxuriance as though they spoke to her in fairy
language of other and happier times and places now far away.

Upon the opposite side of the street, in the shop of a working
goldsmith, one John Harper, there stood a youth, an apprentice to the
noble art of working in gold. The beauty and the clearness of the fair
morning had elevated and refreshed his youthful spirits, but ah! how
much greater their exhilaration when his upturned eyes were gladdened
by the sight of that beautiful young girl, whose radiant face, and
delicately modelled form, were brought out in brilliant relief by the
dazzling sunbeams.

It seemed to him that his brightest conceptions of the beautiful, his
dreamy fashionings of a faultless ideal, combined with all his native
and his acquired skill, had never yet enabled him to realise “a thing
of beauty” to rival the perfect excellence and marvellous charms of that
young face upon which his eager eyes were now fastened.

Raphael, in his rarest art-performance had not in his belief attained
the sentiment of angelic purity beaming in her features, nor had Carlo
Dolci, in the loveliest Madonna he ever painted, anticipated it.

Motionless he stood, and with suspended breath gazed upon her as though
she were one lone bright star, shining unaccompanied in the vast field
of the deep blue heavens, in the silent night, his mind the while lost
in a maze of rapture and of wonder.

Yet he had seen it often for years!

And now he had a consciousness that a saddening gloom overspread the
earth far and near. What made the surrounding space in a moment so
sombre? Had a huge cloud suddenly sprung up from its sullen rest, and
spreading itself enviously over the broad sky, absorbed the sunlight?
Was the sunshine which had converted smoky London into a city of golden
palaces abruptly withdrawn? No! sunbeams yet glanced upon the
buildings, and danced upon the rippling waters, but the young maiden
had disappeared from her window. She had suddenly fled from it, as a
startled fawn would spring into a covert at the sound of the approaching
footsteps of a hunter bent upon its destruction.

So, though the sunshine was as brilliant as before--the whole universe,
in the eyes of Harry Vivian, the young goldsmith, seemed plunged into a
profound and solemn gloom--for she was no longer where he yet gazed.

He felt oppressed in this glittering sunshine, which had no light for
him, and he drew towards the outer door, that in the free fresh air he
might breathe more freely. As he gained the threshold, he started, and
an exclamation of surprise escaped his lips.

Opposite, at the door of the house in which dwelt the young girl upon
whom his eyes had gazed so fondly, stood a man who in costume and manner
was the reverse of prepossessing. Who was he, and what could he want
there? were questions which Harry at once put to himself. He had come on
business--most disagreeable business--that was beyond a doubt, for there
was nothing either in his garb or in his manner which betrayed the idle
visitor. Harry, therefore, conceived it to be his especial duty--with
rather questionable propriety, however--to observe his movements.

He saw the man examine the house from the scraper at the door, to the
parapet below the roof, and then make a peculiar sign to some person or
persons, who lying _perdu_, prevented Harry from catching a glimpse
of them. Then he gave a treble knock at the door, facing which he was
standing. Young Vivian did not like that knock. It was not a peal of
three distinct knocks for a third-floor lodger, nor was it the easy
rat-tat-tat of a genteel visitor. No; it was a bad imitation of a
postman’s knock, followed by a faltering, sneaking tap.

Had any embarrassed individual, accustomed to visits from
rent-distrainers or process-servers, heard that knock and caught sight
of that man at his door, he would have instantly implored some other
inmate of the house to tell the visitor that he had sailed to the
furthest extremity of the Hudson Bay territory, and would never be home
again.

The fact was, it was not alone that the knock was a tell-tale, but the
man’s dress also loudly proclaimed the purport of the visits he paid.
Upon his head, slinking down to his eyebrows, was a hat which had
long endured severe stress of weather, to its disadvantage. Upon his
body--and that was his mark--he wore a loose brown great coat, styled by
advertising tailors, “the sack,” It was dirty, discoloured, much worn at
the pockets, and strongly impregnated with the odour of the cheapest and
rankest tobacco.

That coat, worn at the hottest end of June, betrayed him. It was his
sign-board. A child brought up in that neighbourhood would have told
you, by that coat, worn in the height of summer heats, the nature of his
profession.

The young goldsmith, on seeing him, held his breath; he had a conviction
that the man’s errand would of necessity prove an unpleasant one;
and, after a moment’s reflection, he stepped over the threshold of the
shop-door, apparently engaged in looking up and down the street, but he
never took his eye for an instant off the man in the dingy brown coat.

That individual had just raised his extremely dirty fingers to repeat
the offensive knock, when the street-door slowly opened, and an elderly,
wan-faced man presented himself.

“It is her father,” muttered the young goldsmith, retiring within his
shop, yet only a few paces, for--though uninfluenced by any meanly
inquisitive motives--he felt constrained to watch the proceedings of the
shabby, brown-coated personage.

He observed the wan old man and his visitor engaged in rather a vigorous
colloquy, conducted with brutal coarseness on the part of the man in
the brown coat, and on the other side with the air of one upon whom some
heavy and startling demand is made, which he is wholly unprepared or
unable to meet.

After some extravagant gestures had been exhibited by both persons, the
individual in the dingy brown sack abruptly terminated it, by thrusting
rudely back the pale-faced old man, springing past him, and ascending
the stairs. Wringing his hands, with a distracted aspect, the old man
staggered after him.

The quick eye of Harry Vivian had detected the agonised bearing of the
old man during the whole time he was in conversation with his unwelcome
visitor. He had with pain perceived the emotion of horror which seemed
to paralyse his limbs as he tottered up the stairs after the dusky
fellow, and, with nervous apprehension, he wondered what scene was then
being enacted in the apartments above.

Was that fair young creature present? In all human probability she
was. Possibly subjected to the coarse insults of the unprepossessing
individual who had forced his way into her presence. The teeth of the
youth set firmly together as the thought intruded itself, and he felt
that it would prove an infinite comfort to him, if he detected the
vulgar rascal in any act of insolence addressed to her, to grip him by
the nape of the neck, and fling him out of the window into the street.

At this moment, old Harper, the goldsmith, his master, and his uncle
too, made his appearance from an inner workshop. Young Vivian, who was
racking his brain for a scheme which should enable him to make one of
the party opposite, turned quickly to him and said--

“Oh, sir, I am glad you have come in! There is the silver race cup from
Rixon’s, which ought to have been sent to the chaser’s; it has been
overlooked. It is wanted home quickly. Don’t you think I had better run
over with it at once to old Wilton?”

“Wilton! No, Hal!”

“No, sir. Why not?”

“He was so slow over the last things we gave him to chase. You ought to
remember that, Hal, for you used to run over there constantly to urge
him on, you know.”

Hal turned suddenly scarlet.

“That won’t do,” continued the goldsmith; “so in future, I think we had
better send all these jobs to old Verity, at the back of the Sessions
House.”

The perspiration stood in small globes on the forehead of young Vivian.

“You forget, sir,” he said, with a pleading tone, “that Wilton has been
long in failing health, that it is not so long since he lost his wife.
Oh! sir, this is not a time to take his work away.”

Mr. Harper gently stroked his chin.

“Well, no, Hal, it is not,” he said, after a short pause; “but, at the
same time, his unfortunate position is not an excuse we can offer to the
firms who employ us for delay in the work with which we are entrusted;
and it would be unfair to ourselves to allow the shortcomings of others
to prove the occasion of loss of custom to us.”

“But I will answer for Wilton’s punctuality this time,” urged Hal,
eagerly; “and you know he is our best chaser. Shall I run over with it,
and impress upon him that it is wanted as soon as it can be done?”

“Well you may, Hal,” said the goldsmith; “but remember to point out to
him the necessity for punctuality. Assure him that if there be any delay
over the completion of this job, he may reckon it as the last he will
have from us.”

The apprentice, with a pleased smile, nodded his head, caught up the
cup, which bore upon it a rare example of his own skill, and ran out of
the shop.

A moment more, and a sharp ringing knock was heard at the door of the
house in which dwelt old Wilton the gold chaser.

Another moment, and the apprentice stood within the chamber he had so
longed to enter, and he became at once a spectator and a participator in
a painful scene.

The sounds of angry altercation caught his ear as he reached the room
door, the gruff tone of voice of the unwelcome guest preponderating.
Acting upon and animated by an impulse which he perhaps would not
have cared to acknowledge even to himself, he did not pause to crave
admission, but entered the room without displaying the courtesy of a
preliminary knock.

He saw before him old Wilton, and facing him the terror-dealing man
in brown. They were at high words. On the appearance of Hal, both men
became silent, and fixed their eyes intently and inquiringly upon him.
They waited for him to speak.

The apprentice cast his eyes quickly round the room, but the maiden he
hoped to see was not there, and he drew breath. He perceived that he was
expected to commence the conversation, and, clearing his voice, he said,
hurriedly--

“Mr. Wilton, I have some work here for you.” He put the silver cup upon
the table. It will require your nicest skill, and the instructions are
therefore rather elaborate, so, if you please, I will wait until you are
disengaged before I”----

“No! no! no!” exclaimed old Wilton, interrupting him, Snatching up
the cup, he thrust it back into the arms of young Vivian--“take it
away--take it away!” he added, almost frantically, “it must not remain
here now. No! no! no!”

“Why not?” asked the individual in the loose great coat, sharply.

“Silence! speak not,” cried Wilton, hoarsely, glaring at him; and
then turning to the apprentice, he ejaculated, with great excitement,
“Go--go; I beg--I entreat you to go away. Pray, young sir, go!”

“But I interposes a objection,” intervened the former speaker, and,
turning to Vivian, he said, with an assumption of authority--“You’ll be
so kind as to put that ’ere piece o’ plate down where you put it jes’
now.”

“Suppose I do not?” rejoined Vivian, sharply, turning his bright eye
full upon the speaker, with an expression that savoured very strongly
of a disposition to resist. The dirty man did not like the language it
spake, but he affected not to be influenced by the threat it conveyed.
He answered, temperately yet impressively--

“That is jes’ what I don’t suppose. Look here, young genl’man, you don’t
know me--my name’s Jukes!”

It might have been Snooks, or Wiggins, or any other name not down in the
category of the young man’s acquaintances or friends. The indifference
he displayed on hearing it could not be greater if it had. He so
expressed himself, for which Mr. Jukes rewarded him with a stare of
astonishment, and whistled. Then he chuckled--

“You’re in luck, you are,” he continued; “but then you are young, you’ll
werry likely know me better some day. I’m a sheriff’s officer.”

Certainly the youth recognised the office if he did not the man’s name.
A thrill ran through his frame as the fellow hissed the words between
his teeth, and a sound like a low wail burst from the lips of old
Wilton.

The youth turned towards him, his bosom swelling with the generous
impulses natural to his age, and, in tones of earnest sincerity, he
exclaimed, “Can I, in any way, aid you, Mr. Wilton?”

The tone, the look, the gesture of the warm-hearted youth needed nothing
to commend them to the keen appreciation of the old gold-worker, and his
eyes filled with tears as the generous proffer fell upon his ears, but
he shook his head sorrowfully.

“I thank you, Master Vivian,” he said; “but you cannot help me. No, you
cannot aid me.”

“You do not know, Mr. Wilton, what I might be able to accomplish, if you
would give me the opportunity,” he urged.

“No, no,” replied the old man, “leave me to battle it out with this man
as best I may.”

“And jes’ leave that cup afore you go,” exclaimed Mr. Jukes, addressing
Vivian. “It’ll help the hassets.”

“I do not intend to go yet,” said Hal Vivian; “but when I do, believe
me I shall take no instructions from you about the destination of this
cup.”

Mr. Jukes whistled shrilly by the united aid of his first and third
fingers, and instantly the room door opened. A couple of yet shabbier
and much dirtier personages than Mr. Jukes made their appearance. That
individual waved his hand towards them, and performed the ceremony of
introduction.

“Mr. Nutty and Mr. Sudds, genl’men,” he said. “One on ’em, Mr. Nutty,
I shall leave here in possession on a _fi. fa_., and Mr. Sudds will
assist me in arresting Eustace Wilton on a _ca. sa._ and in taking on
him a country walk to a spunging house.”

Old Wilton turned as pale as death, and groaned in bitter anguish. Young
Vivian felt a flush of heat pass over his frame.

“Can nothing be done?” he asked of Jukes, earnestly.

Mr. Jukes raised his dirty hand to his mouth, and recklessly bit his
foul thumb-nail. He plunged into a fit of reflection. Suddenly he raised
his head, and said to his companions--

“Go outside a moment.”

They obeyed him, and quitted the room. Then he said to the youth--

“I hold warrants on two judgments against Wilton for one thousand pounds
each. On the one I takes his traps, on the other I takes his body. So
you see as he can’t satisfy ’em, young mister, he’ll be cleaned out,
and become a reg’lar pauper, on the poor side, in quod; and he must rot
in quod, for he can’t take the benefit of the hact, that I knows. That’s
bad enuff, ain’t it?”

“It is horrible!” ejaculated Hal, with a glance of commiseration at the
old man, who, with downcast eyes and set teeth, was listening to every
word that fell from the man’s lips.

“Of course it is,” repeated Mr. Jukes, with an air of triumph. “Now
he may save himself from all this, and like the princesses and queen’s
children in fairy tales, live happy ever arterwards, if he chooses not
to be hobstinate.” Mr. Jukes spoke with emphasis. “I wants him jes’ to
sign a little bit o’ paper. He has only to make a flourish with a pen,
and there he is a free man agin with all his traps about him.”

Mr. Jukes paused. Young Vivian approached old Wilton.

“Your position is a grave one, Mr. Wilton,” he said: “let me
respectfully suggest that if a simple signature will free you from two
heavy claims”----

“Two thousand pounds, two _thousand_ pounds!” interposed Jukes,
elevating his voice as he repeated the amount of the sum.

“Simple signature!--simple signature!” almost screamed the old man. “You
do not know what you ask, young sir. Sign it. Never! I will starve, rot,
die, first.”

“Then you must starve, die, and rot,” roared Mr. Jukes, entirely losing
his previous equanimity. “We’ll have no more o’ your nonsense. Hallo
there! Sudds and Nutty, come in here, and let’s go to business; ketch
’old of Eustace Wilton there, Sudds; and you, Nutty, begin to take a
hinventory of these ’ere chattels.”

Had the men thus summoned to appear, indulged themselves while outside
the door with the pastime of listening at the keyhole, they could hardly
have made a quicker response, than they did to the call of Jukes.

But as they entered the room by one door, a young girl ran into it by
another, and cast her arms about the old gold-worker’s neck, saying, in
an affrighted tone--

“Dear, dear father, who and why are these men here? why are you, in such
grief?”

The old man sank upon a seat; bowing his face upon the table and burying
his hands in his gray hair, he sobbed with agony.

The girl only tightened her loving embrace, and turned her face towards
the ruffians who were about to jest at the situation.

It was the young Madonna-faced maiden Vivian had seen at the window,
seeming like a golden seraph in the sunshine.

When Jukes perceived the exquisite countenance of Wilton’s daughter
turned with an aspect of distressed inquiry towards him, he
instinctively removed the hat of many showers from his dusty head, and
made her a slight bow. His satellites also approached as near as
they could to an imitation of his action, and stood still, instead of
displaying, as they had intended, a vast amount of unnecessary activity.

This respect was an instinctive tribute to her innocent loveliness.
Purity commands reverence even as beauty does admiration.

Vivian felt, with a rising in the throat, a sudden desire to produce
from his pocket--which contained but a very few shillings--several
thousand pounds, with which to pay off the debt, and then an almost
irresistible inclination to trundle down the stairs, and out of the
house, the three fellows whose presence created so much misery.

He could do nothing, however, but clear his voice, and, addressing the
young lady, say--

“This is a most unhappy affair, Miss Wilton; and I regret very sincerely
that it is in my power to do little either in the way of assistance or
advice; but, with your permission, I will fetch over my uncle,
Mr. Harper; he possesses vast experience, and no doubt he will show us a
way out of this maze of difficulty and affliction.”

He did not wait for her permission, but running across the road,
returned the silver cup to its former place; and, in a few hurried,
passionate words, explained to his uncle what had occurred. He succeeded
in prevailing on him to return with him to Wilton’s apartments, in some
vague hope that he would be able to suggest a mode by which the old man
might be saved from destruction.

A most painful scene followed the appearance of Mr. Harper. By pertinent
questions, he elicited that, under circumstances which could not then be
explained, Wilton had given bonds to the amount of two thousand pounds;
that those bonds were over-due; that he had been sued for the recovery
of the amount; that judgment had been obtained against him, and that
execution had issued; but, withal, the man Jukes was empowered to
withdraw arrest and execution, on the condition that Wilton signed a
certain document which Jukes then had in his possession. This signature
Wilton sternly and inflexibly refused to give; and when it was urged
upon him to do so, for the sake of her who was wholly dependent upon
him, he grew frenzied, and vowed that he would submit to death rather
than comply. Mr. Harper, the goldsmith, finding that reasoning,
expostulations, suggestions, and pleadings, were alike in vain, said
there was no way to save him, and matters must take their course. Like
a vulture pouncing upon its prey, Jukes seized upon the almost lifeless
old man, and proceeded to drag him away. His daughter clung in horrified
agony to him--in truth, it was a sad and painful sight. It was scarcely
more than a year since death had ruthlessly torn her mother from this
fair young child, and now it seemed as though the grim tyrant, in the
person of Jukes, was robbing her of her father also.

The old man’s knees trembled, and his under-jaw quivered, as though he
had been smitten with the palsy. He embraced his daughter with frenzied
emotion, and in tones of passionate grief, cried--

“Flo’! Flo’! my own, my beautiful darling, I leave you but for a brief
time. Bear up against this dreadful visitation as bravely as you can,
my girl. It is for the sake of your brother and for you, darling, that
I endure this misery; but have trust, my child, in an all-righteous
Creator--happiness will come to us again some day, my child--some day.”

“I will do my best, dear father, if you will take me with you,” murmured
Flora, through her blinding tears: “I will strive to be brave, and to
endure patiently and calmly; but oh! indeed, indeed it will terrible to
be left here alone.”

She flung herself upon his neck, and sobbed bitterly.

Mr. Harper coughed, a watery mist shrouded everything from the sight of
young Vivian, but Mr. Jukes, declaring that he had no warrant of arrest
against any “gals,” turned spitefully on old Wilton, tore him from the
agonised embrace of his weeping child, and bore him away. Mr. Harper
followed them down the stairs, to see that no unnecessary harshness was
employed in conveying the trembling prisoner into the street.

When they were gone, Flora Wilton sank, half-fainting, into a chair, Hal
approached her, and, in a gentle voice, he said to her--

“Your brother Mark and I were intimate friends, Miss Wilton, before he
went abroad--will you not also look upon me as a friend? It is not in my
power to do much, yet all that I can do to serve you shall be done
with my whole heart. Pray believe me. I will not obtrude upon the very
natural grief which now so heavily weighs you down, but I entreat you,
when you may need aid not to forget me.”

Flora rose up. She turned her large, beautiful eyes--yet more lustrous
from the tears which filled them--upon him, and with a quivering lip,
murmured--

“Oh, Mr. Vivian, kindness at a moment like this is doubly valuable. It
has a language which of late has been very, very strange in our ears;
and now that--that he--he is gone, I--I”--

Her voice gradually became inaudible, as her features were overspread
with a death-like paleness. She stretched out her small white hand, as
though to feel for some place to lean upon for support. She appeared at
a moment to have been stricken with blindness; she tottered, swayed,
to and fro, and would have fallen heavily upon the ground but that Hal,
with a sudden cry, caught her in his strong arms and saved her.

The exclamation uttered by Vivian attracted the attention of Mr. Nutty.
He was making out an inventory of the furniture in the room, and had
just written down in a penny memorandum book, “4 ’orsaire cheers,
1 tabbel,” when he heard the same voice cry--“Run for some water! Quick!
Run!”

He responded instantly:

“Water be blowed; I can’t go for no water; I’m the man in possession.”




CHAPTER II.--THE WORM UPON THE LEAF.


                        I’ll tell thee what, my friend,

               He is a very serpent in my way;

               And wheresoe’er this foot of mine doth tread

               He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?

                             --Shakspere.


Sunshine still!

Sunbeams making a golden palace of a Gothic mansion in the Regent’s
Park, gilding its fretted roof, its traceries, and its triple arched and
ornamented windows, tinting the graceful trees which gently waved in the
gardens before and behind it, scattering golden stars upon the lake, and
investing the flowers and shrubs with a beauty which rendered the place
around little less than an earthly paradise.

Sunshine and sunbeams in all places without the walls of the
mansion--shadows within.

In a room, magnificently furnished, containing every appliance a morbid
attention to personal comfort could need, or the invention of luxurious
imagination could devise, were seated an elderly gentleman, his wife and
three daughters.

One of these girls was a beauty--all had pretensions to good looks, but
she was strikingly handsome.

The name of the owner of this mansion was Grahame. He was a pale,
stern-looking man. A dress suit of black, and a white cravat, which
seemed to have the effect of being unpleasantly and rather dangerously
tight about his neck, added to the austerity of his aspect.

His wife, an intensely proud woman, whose pride was apparent in her air,
her dress, her features, sat like an imperious creature whose foible had
no other quality than the worst species of haughtiness.

Like the very frankest person in the world, she wore--

                   Her heart upon her sleeve,

and displayed its entire sentiment in the material of which her attire
was made, in its fashion, and in the style in which it was worn. The
jewellery upon her wrists, her arms, her fingers, about her neck, and
at her waist, betrayed the only feeling of which she was capable. She
lived, moved, breathed in an atmosphere of inordinate, unreasoning
pride--no other; and the “people” who came in contact with her felt it
before she uttered a word to or glanced at them. In her eyes they were
pottery of the commonest earthen material, whilst the clay of which she
was herself formed, produced a porcelain of the rarest kind. So she sat;
to be looked at, not touched.

Her husband, outwardly was of the same stamp.

Within, he was begrimed with cowardly meanness, granite selfishness,
a cringing obsequiousness to the wealthy and the powerful, and an icy
haughtiness to all whom he understood to be his inferiors in position.
By his standard, pride was measured as honour and nobility of soul, gold
as the essence of all virtue.

His daughters, brought up under such guidance, could hardly fail to be
impregnated with the principles--or, rather, lack of principle--by which
their parents were governed. Yet exercised upon the youngest, their
influence failed to win a proselyte. Her organisation had not been
adapted by nature to receive the impressions the authors of her being
laboured to create, and, therefore, when she hazarded an opinion
favourable to the purest sympathies of a kindly nature, or displayed an
emotion which betrayed that she had a heart, she was called a fool,
and treated as a pariah by the whole family. She had been christened
Evangeline, but her imperial mamma frequently informed her it was a
misnomer--that, in truth, her name should have been Gosling, which she
had somewhere heard, meant a young goose, truly a young silly goose.

The second daughter resembled her mother in all things--was, in fact,
her counterpart; she even bore her dualistic name, Margaret Claverhouse,
and like her maternal parent, was supremely proud and hateful in all her
characteristics.

The eldest girl, the beauty of the family, was composed of somewhat
discordant elements. In person she was eminently attractive, her figure
was tall and commanding, and its outline was as graceful as its air was
majestic. Her face, as we have said, was extremely beautiful, but he
must have a bold heart, who, falling in love with it, would woo her
in the expectation that he could win her with ease and retain her by
indifference. Her features were regular, her eyes large, glittering, and
of that deep brown which is often mistaken for black; her eyelids were
full, and her eyelashes so long as really to form a fringe to the lid.
Her eyebrows were arched, her hair was darker than her eyes, and not
less brilliant. Her mouth was small, yet it had a sensual fulness, no
less apparent then the scornful curl which ever seemed to keep it in a
state of unrest. As the hand of her maid was skilled, and incessantly in
requisition, the arrangement of her tresses--that wondrous ornament
to woman--may be said to have been faultless. Her attire was admirably
chosen to assist her beauty, and its fit was a triumph of the
_modiste’s_ art. Her mother had instilled into her a belief that she was
a queen of beauty, and she looked, thought, moved, as though she were an
empress.

As yet it was supposed that her affections had not been touched; from
infancy she had been tutored to believe that to be human in feeling was
to descend to the level of the common herd--that the world and what it
contained were made for her, not she for the world. She was gifted with
all the elements of which energy and passion are composed, and she was
capable of loving with a force not often allotted even to woman; but her
passions, her energies, her tenderness, had been rendered dormant by the
counsels of worldly pride, as the warm, gushing, health-giving stream is
converted by a slow frost into a silent, motionless block of ice.

Should there come before her eyes the man whose physical beauty and
whose mental intelligence woke up her heart from its icy dream into
passionate life, and that love should prove to be unrequited--woe! woe!
to her! and possibly to him! She had been named Helen after a maternal
relative, from whom the most exaggerated expectations were entertained,
and she bore it as though she, in virtue of it, already possessed the
vast inheritance it was understood to foreshadow.

This family were engaged--while the broad sunshine was gladdening
the poor and the respectable, promenading in the park, into which the
windows of the mansion looked--in discussing the conduct of the only son
of the house of Grahame, who, instead of having obtained at college a
“double first” for the honour of the family, had forwarded home a packet
of tradesmen’s accounts, the gross total of which considerably exceeded
the handsome allowance placed to his credit by his father. Mr. Grahame
spoke with considerable dissatisfaction of the course his son must have
pursued to have plunged thus largely into debt; and, though it was in
accordance with his wish that his son had for his college companions
and intimate acquaintances, the Duke of St. Allborne, the young Earl
of Carlton, and the experienced Lord Suedmuch, yet he thought that even
their intimacy, at the price his son had paid for it, or rather that
which _he_ was called upon to pay, much too dear, and he expressed
himself on the subject with an emphasis which his pride rendered
unusual.

Mrs. Grahame turned upon him a sidelong glance with her half-closed
eyes, and, said coldly and contemptuously--

“He is a Grahame! The members of that race are not used to measure their
wants, their pleasures, or even their caprices, by miserable
considerations of economy. I said to Malcolm, when we parted--‘Remember,
always, that you are a Grahame. If those with whom you associate act as
though their wealth ran a stream whose source is inexhaustible, let your
expenditure be no less illimitable than theirs, even to represent, in
wealth, a river whose’”----

“Confluence is a sea of dissipation and of debt,” sharply exclaimed
Mr. Grahame, taking a pinch of snuff out of a gold, diamond-studded
snuff-box.

“Mr. Grahame, your sense of the dignity of your position is becoming
impaired,” responded the stately lady, wholly closing her eyes.

“No, madam,” he returned, “pardon me, I simply, object to unnecessary
and preposterous extravagance.”

An expression of ineffable disdain passed over the lady’s features.

“Claver’se Grahame,” she remarked, in a frigid tone, “have you, at a
moment, become poor?”

The face of Mr. Grahame instantly changed to a brilliant scarlet hue,
then to a purple, finally it became livid. Globules of cold perspiration
gathered thickly upon his brow. He thrust his chair back a few paces,
and there was something of an affrighted expression in his eyes as he
gazed upon hen. Her eyelids were yet close down over her pale gray eyes
as he wiped the deathly damp from his brow.

Helen Grahame turned her bright dark eyes upon him with a scornful look.
In her estimation, the concentration of meanness of soul was to place a
limit upon lavish expenditure. She did not utter a word, but she tried
to balance in her own mind which of the two occasioned her father the
most terror--her mother’s cold displeasure or Malcolm’s extravagance.

Margaret thought with her sister that economy was but another word for
a despicable narrowness of soul. Not but that she was economical
enough when called upon for an exercise of charity; but for any selfish
purpose, a compulsory contraction of expenditure would have
been regarded by her as an example of the lowest and most vulgar
niggardliness. She listened with disdain to her parent, and thought that
it was incumbent upon her father to give like a Grahame, in order that
her brother Malcolm should lavish it like a Grahame.

Evangeline, to whom the conversation had been distressing observing that
her father had become suddenly silent; raised her soft eyes and marked
the expression that passed over his features. In alarm she hastily left
her seat, and in a low, affectionate tone, said, as she took his hand
and leaned over him--

“Dear sir, you are not well, you are agitated, can I”----

“Keep your seat, Evangeline;” he exclaimed hoarsely; as he drew his hand
from her petulantly. “I am not agitated--I am well--you are obtrusive
and impertinent.”

Evangeline retreated to her place at the window; she took up the
embroidery on which she had been engaged, and went on with it in
silence, but a tear dropped upon her work; no one heeding the “young
silly goose,” it passed unnoticed.

Mrs. Grahame spoke again.

“Malcolm is coming home,” she said, “and he has invited two of his
college companions--the young Duke of St. Allborne, and the Honourable
Lester Vane to accompany him here on a visit. No doubt Mr. Grahame, you
will not lose so valuable an opportunity to impress upon your son, in
the presence of his spendthrift associates, that your narrow income
forbids your meeting claims which”----

“Madam,” interrupted Mr. Grahame, tartly, “it is you who are losing a
sense of your position now. Let us change the subject. I will speak with
Malcolm upon his return. A proper maintenance of his position, and the
honour of his House is one thing: a disreputable squandering of his
income quite another. In that spirit I speak now--in that spirit will I
address myself to him.”

“Who is the Honourable Lester Vane?” inquired Margaret Grahame of her
mother.

“A young man of an ancient and high family,” replied Mrs.
Grahame--“immensely rich.”

“And very handsome,” exclaimed Helen; adding, “so at least Malcolm
writes me. He praises him highly, declares that he possesses great
personal attractions, and is sure--I--we shall all like him much.”

“He did not name him in the few lines he wrote to me,” said Margaret.

“But he did to you, Eva, did he not?” remarked Helen, turning her
brilliant eyes with a mocking glance upon her youngest sister.

A gush of tears came again into the eyes of Evangeline. She did not
raise them from her employment, that her emotion might be seen by her
sisters. She answered with a quivering lip, and in a low, faltering
tone.

“I suppose Malcolm had not time to write to me. I have had no letter
from him since he has been gone.”

Margaret smiled. She was not accustomed to laugh.

“You! Absurd! do you think he would write to you? what conceit!” she
observed, with a gesture of contempt.

What other feeling should she entertain for a sister who possessed
merely the cardinal virtues, and was utterly deficient in an
appreciation of worldly pomps and vanities?

At this part of the conversation, there was a tap at the door of the
apartment; it opened at the same moment, and an individual, attired in
a suit of black of the most approved court dress cut, advanced into
the room. The eyes of the family were turned upon him, but he scarcely
appeared to be disposed to collapse under that honour. His neck was
garnished with an unexceptionable cravat, which was arranged with
such precision that it seemed to be wrought in alabaster and carved
elaborately. His wig--for as he confessed to admiring _confreres_,
he had dispensed with his “own ’air”--looked as though it had been
subjected to a severe storm of whitewash and had been violently brushed.
He approached his master, and, bending over him, said, in a confidential
manner, yet with a gesture of grave but humble deference.

“Thet pesson is come, sir!”

“Who?--what person?” inquired Mr. Grahame with the air of one who denied
the right of any “person” to seek an audience with him.

“The pesson concerning which you gave me hin-structions, sir--I asked
’im into the libree, sir.”

“Into my library, man?” cried Mr. Grahame, rising up, angrily. “Pray
what does the fellow mean? How dare you ask any ‘person’ into my library
without my instructions to that effect?”

“He said he were Mr. Chewkle, sir, and if you please to remember”----

The face of Mr. Grahame turned as pale as death, and then changed to an
intense crimson.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes!” he cried hurriedly, altering his tone; “return
to him--say I will come to him immediately.”

The man bowed, and quitted the room.

Mr. Grahame walked to the window and looked out into the sunlight. It
lay upon the grassy lawn, upon the sloping meads, upon the waving
trees, like gleaming gold dust. The soft breeze made the leaves flutter
merrily, birds darted to and fro in the clear air, singing gaily, and
brilliantly attired ladies and children moved over the open places in
the broad park, animated by the beauty of the scene, and the glory of
the sunshine. Mr. Grahame looked distastefully upon it, it ill-assorted
with the feelings at war within his breast, and he turned from it with
an impatient exclamation. He set his teeth together, drew a long breath,
and, with his features more pallid than usual, strode out of the room.

Mrs. Grahame--too much occupied with visions of her own dignity, when
she thought at all, which was not often--took no notice of the disturbed
manner of her husband. If she had seen it, she would not have credited
the evidence of her own eyes. A Grahame disturbed or agitated, the thing
was impossible.

Neither did Helen, who was sketching fancy portraits of the Honourable
Lester Vane; nor Margaret, who was not even troubled by an effort
of imagination, observe him; but Evangeline perceived his inward
perturbation, and not daring to offer a word, or breathe a hope that she
might aid in alleviating it, sat sadly at her needlework, filled with
a foreboding that something foreshadowed trial and affliction to the
House.

Mr. Grahame descended to his library. In one corner of it, upon the edge
of a chair, under which his hat was placed, sat, with his knees close
together, and his toes poised on the floor, a strange looking personage,
a sort of hybrid between a fast banker’s clerk, and an undertaker.

It was Mr. Chewkle.

Mr. Chewkle was an agent; a commission agent. He undertook any
description of business, no matter what. He sold coals and coffee, he
introduced distracted tradesmen to usurious bill-discounters. He offered
two shillings and sixpence in the pound to indignant creditors for
unhappy insolvents. He would supply you with a good article in tea, at
two and eight. He raised money on mortgage and _post obit_, having a
friend who did that sort of thing for spendthrifts who needed it.

He laid out money on fancy horses for fast individuals, with imaginary
betting-men, though the horses he backed for them were rarely landed
winners at the post. He knew all the good investments in mines, and
would obtain shares for anybody, at a comparatively low price, though
some day they “might” be at fabulous premiums. He--but he would
undertake anything whatever, clean or dirty, if paid his commission, and
“ask no questions,” when the remunerator was liberal.

He rose up as Mr. Grahame entered, and made him a bow.

“Good morning, Chewkle,” said Mr. Grahame, loftily; “well, what
success?”

“We’ve got our man, safe, sir,” he replied, with a feeble grin.

“Where?”

“Spunging-house, sir.”

“And the family?”

“At the apartments, sir, but we shall move the goods to-morrow, for sale
by the sheriff, and then they must go out you know, sir.”

“Into the streets.”

“Into the streets, sir, or the work’us. They’ve no resources, as I
sees.”

“Well, then, of course he has signed the undertaking?”

“A--a--not yet, sir.”

“But he will?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

Mr. Grahame had seated himself with the air of a Mogul emperor giving
audience to a Hindoo slave. He rose to his feet as if a pistol-shot had
been discharged at him.

“Not! Nonsense!” he cried with fierce astonishment; “under such
pressure, the man cannot possibly refuse.”

“But he does, sir, and swears he will not sign if he has to starve and
rot in prison.”

Mr. Grahame passed his hand over his mouth, and gulped as if he would
choke.

“What is to be done?” he asked.

“Do without it, sir,” suggested Chewkle, mildly.

“Ridiculous! His signature must be to the deed.”

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Chewkle, slowly, and looking carefully round the
room to see that no other person was present, “so it may be there on the
deed.”

Mr. Grahame looked at him steadfastly.

“How?” he asked.

Mr. Chewkle reduced his voice to a whisper.

“You have got his name on a letter, I s’pose?”

“Well, sir?”

“Not very difficult to write like it, I fancy.”

“Chewkle!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with dilated eyes, “what do you
counsel?”

“Nothing, sir. I merely suggests that if the signature must be there on
the deed, no obstinate old fool should prevent its being placed there
and, where money is not a hobject, it can easily be managed.”

Mr. Grahame’s teeth chattered, as if he had been suddenly transported
into a frosty atmosphere.

“Chewkle,” he said, grimly, “do you know what the law declares such an
act to be?”

Mr. Chewkle nodded with perfect self-possession.

“It must be done, sir,” he rejoined emphatically. “Your position depends
on it. You must balance beggary, destitution, ruin, against rank,
fortune, dignity”----

“Forgery!” groaned Mr. Grahame, sinking into his chair, and pressing his
hands over his eyes.




CHAPTER III.--POSSESSION DISTURBED.


          _Duke_. You are welcome: take your place.

                   Are you acquainted with the difference

                   That holds this present question in the court?

          _Por_. I am informed thoroughly of the cause,

                   Which is the merchant here and which is the Jew?

                        --Shakspere.


In the dreams of Harry Vivian the delicate form and sweet, smiling face
of Flora Wilton had appeared to him, and not unfrequently. But then she
seemed ever to be some queen of faëryland, seated on a throne of gems
of dazzling brilliancy, in floral realms of more exquisite beauty
than mortal eye had ever beheld on earth, or waking fancy in its most
gorgeous development could conceive.

In his moments of romantic imaginings, when his mind was filled with
her beauty, he certainly had sketched a few scenes comprising events in
which both he and Flora figured. Still his ardent imagination had not
carried him beyond the presentation of a flower, and the reward for the
gift with which the soft grateful look from eyes, the loveliest in the
world, would enrich him.

He had never foreshadowed a time--for true love is ever subdued in
action by the most genuine modesty--when he should within his arms,
press to his throbbing heart the form which had in his eyes no equal,
or that the face so rare in its perfection, should recline upon his
shoulder, close to his lips.

Yet so it chanced to be. Circumstances he could have never shaped had
come to pass, and the bliss of entwining his arms about the small,
delicate waist of Flora Wilton was bestowed upon him at a moment the
most unexpected, when he was unprepared to welcome it and unable to
enjoy it.

Nay, rather than bliss, the emotion he experienced might be said to have
been one of terror; not without its gratification, it is true, for
he would not have resigned her, senseless as she was, to another for
worlds. Still the deathly hue with which her features were overspread,
the compressed lips, the closed eye, from which a tear had struggled,
and, disengaging itself, lodged yet upon her cheek, made him fear that
the frightful visitation which had so suddenly fallen upon her was a
calamity greater than her gentle nature was able to sustain. He grew
himself cold and faint as the supposition crossed him that, unless some
sudden and energetic measures were adopted, she would pass from her
swoon into the unawakening sleep of death.

Unacquainted with anything pertaining to fainting fits, and under a
strong impression that swooning and giving up the ghost were synonymous,
his calls for water and for aid merged from the vehement into the
frantic; he unheeded the representations made by Mr. Nutty that men in
possession never quit the sight of goods placed in their charge until
the amount they represent is satisfied; he threatened him most fiercely
for not flying to execute his commands; but, at the close of a paroxysm
of rage and agitation, he found Flora yet senseless in his arms, and
Mr. Nutty dancing and declaiming, vowing that he would take the “lor” of
“any willin as strove to hinterrupt him in his duty.”

In the midst of this harangue by Mr. Nutty upon the majesty of his
professional avocation, the door of the apartment opened, and a young
girl glided in.

She had met old Wilton on the stairs, in custody of the officers, and
had seen him borne away. She had loitered outside of the door of the
apartment--she heard the low, sobbing wail of the afflicted girl,
whose tears were wrung from her by the terrifying conviction that her
destruction was involved in the loss of her father. She heard, too, the
calls of Vivian, together with the angry colloquy between him and Nutty,
and then she decided on offering her assistance.

She was only a cap-front maker, working for a wholesale house in the
city, producing the fronts worn inside women’s bonnets, for sevenpence
halfpenny per dozen. She rose at six in the morning, and worked until
twelve at night, in order to complete two dozen per diem. Out of the sum
thus realized weekly she had to live, pay her lodging, and find herself
in clothes.

So she had not much time on her hands, nor much money in her pocket, and
was what the every-day world calls a person of no importance.

But she had a heart--a gentle, compassionate, loving heart.

She was a very pretty girl, though her complexion was something wan,
and her eyelids were rather tinged with pink; but if these appearances
detracted something from her prettiness, what did they not add to the
interest and the sympathy raised in the beholder? They told of early
rising and midnight toil, the rapid wearing out of young and beautiful
human life, so that thousands of thoughtless beings of her own sex might
set off to advantage their facial attractions--_CHEAPLY_.

Not to lengthen this digression--for we shall know much more of this
young damsel by and by--Lotte Clinton, for that was her name, hearing
the cry of young Vivian for water, entered the apartment, prepared to
offer her services if they were likely to be required.

She saw Flora Wilton lying in the arms of Hal Vivian, whose handsome
face she recognised in an instant, for she had often observed it from
her garret window upturned to the house in which she dwelt, though his
look reached not so high as where she sat peering behind her mignionette
and nasturtiums.

Hal knew her not, but just now she made her appearance, to his
conception, as an angel newly come from Paradise.

He turned his eager eyes upon her.

“Miss Wilton is in deep affliction,” he said, quickly, “she has fainted;
will you be so good as to bring some water?”

“Place her in a chair,” said Lotte, softly, “she will be better
there--she will have more air. I will run for water, and my smelling
salts. Sometimes at night, I grow faint and dizzy, and cannot see my
work, and they relieve me then wonderfully.”

She said this as she hurried out of the room.

Poor girl! She had but too often had occasion to use the stimulant for
the purpose she named.

Vivian almost unconsciously felt a reluctance to resign his beautiful
burden, but he could not help seeing that the course proposed by Lotte
was the proper one to be adopted; therefore he placed the yet lifeless
Flora, with the tenderest carefulness, upon a chair, and supported her
drooping head upon his breast.

Lotte, swift of foot, had not been a minute obtaining the ammoniacal
salts and a teacup with water in it. She did not possess a tumbler, for
she could not afford herself beer, and the water she took at her dinner,
or supper--when she could afford to indulge in the latter luxury--was as
sweet to her out of a cup as a glass.

She set to work, as a woman almost instinctively proceeds in these
matters. While she had all that tender sympathy and commiseration which
the condition of Flora could elicit from any one imbued with a
generous susceptibility, she was endowed also with that species of calm
self-possession and firm collectedness, so valuable in emergencies where
human life is at stake.

She set Vivian to work bathing with the cool water the white temples
from which his trembling fingers had parted the long waving hair, while
she herself applied the ammonia to the nostrils of Flora, and chafed her
palms when the inhalation had done its work.

Thus assaulted, nature returned to its duty, and reasserted its claims
over the motionless system of the young girl, who gradually opened her
eyes. Gazing wildly about her, she abruptly rose up from her seat, as
though she had awakened out of some painful dream.

The faces of Vivian and Lotte seemed to confuse her; but when her large,
sad eyes fell upon the unattractive countenance of Mr. Nutty, turned
upon her with an aspect in which the expression was undecided--as he was
not certain whether the swoon was a sham or a fact--memory returned,
and her bereavement, with the future and all the horrors of its
uncertainty--save that the direst poverty must attend it--burst upon
her.

She wrung her hands in the fulness of her misery, and then she murmured
through her blinding tears--

“Almighty Father! support me now!”

Lotte stole her arm about Flora’s waist, and whispered in her ear--

“Cheer up, Miss Wilton! you have friends who will not desert you.”

“Where?” she asked, bitterly. “I know of no relative, save my father and
my brother. My father is in prison, my brother is far, far away, and I
am a homeless, helpless, hopeless outcast.”

“Not hopeless!” exclaimed Vivian; “do not say that, Miss Wilton!
Remember that I have told you, Mark and I were friends before he went
away. I know him so well that I believe if any near and dear relative
of mine were, during my absence, to fall into trouble and affliction,
he would be the first to come forward and help her, and, as his friend,
what he would do that ought I to do. I make no boast; but, oh! Miss
Wilton, do not fear but that I will do my best, and that at least you
shall not be helpless nor homeless while I can command a shilling, and
have strength to work for one.”

“And you are a dear fellow, and make me foolish enough to cry, and I
wish you wouldn’t,” said Lotte, her eyes suffused with tears.

“And, likewise, you are young and green--pea-green,” thought Mr. Nutty,
as he put down in his inventory, “1 large spewn, 1 chimblee ornymint,
and 1 arthwrugg.”

Flora, with eyes beaming with gratitude, proffered her hand to Vivian,
who took it and pressed it. It would have been a dear delight to him to
have kissed it, but he felt that this was not a time for such a display
of gallantry or feeling.

“I know not how to thank you, Mr. Vivian,” she said, in trembling
accents, “but I fear I cannot, while I sincerely appreciate your generous
offers of assistance to me, avail myself of them. Your friendship for my
brother gives to me no claim upon your aid, neither does it entitle me
to accept it; and, guided by the precepts and counsels my dear father
has implanted in my mind, I seem clearly to comprehend that it would
be--may I say--an indiscretion were I to act otherwise than in most
grateful terms to decline what your disinterested generosity has
prompted you to propose. I confess that I have been terribly shocked
and shaken by what has occurred, but the nervous tremor I at this moment
endure will pass away, and I shall look with fervent faith to a brighter
time.”

“Young and green, too,” thought Mr. Nutty--“sap-green,” and placed in
his inventory, “1 immidge--a figgur of Oap.”

Lotte interposed, as Hal, with rather a disconcerted aspect, was about
to urge her acceptance of his renewed offer.

“Let us see, Mr. Vivian,” she said to him, “what tomorrow will bring
forth. At present everything is in confusion; by to-morrow we shall know
the worst; what can be done, and what there will remain to do. Then Miss
Wilton will be better able to judge in what you can be of service to
her, and I have no doubt she will feel less reluctance to accept the
kindly aid you have offered in such a friendly and worthy manner now.”

“A sensible girl, that,” thought Mr. Nutty, “works for her livin’,
an’ ’ard, too, I’ll be bound!” He put down at the same moment in his
inventory, “a peece of clokk wurk wownd up and goen; 1 nutmy graytur; 1
coles scuddel.”

Hal, seeing that the advice tendered by Lotte Clinton was acceptable to
Flora, resolved to follow it, and turning to the former, he said--

“You understand far better than I do the way to manage in such a
matter as this. I am only anxious to be of service, and my intention is
sincere. I may, by a want of tact, produce an effect entirely opposite
to that which I most desire. You are intelligent and good natured----”

“Thank you!” said Lotte, with a laugh.

“You are,” he repeated, “and I fancy you interpret justly my sincerity.”

“I am sure I do,” she answered promptly.

“Then I place myself in your hands; you will not leave Miss Wilton for
the present?” he added.

“Not for a minute,” she replied.

“You are all that I could hope you to be,” he rejoined, “and if I can
help you, you will send for me, won’t you?”

“Indeed I will!” responded Lotte.

“Bravo!” he cried. “Farewell, Miss Wilton--keep up your spirits; ‘When
matters are at their worst they mend,’ you know, and surely your affairs
could hardly be in a more unhappy predicament than at this moment.
Preserve your faith in the goodness of God, and do not despair of the
future.”

Flora could not reply; she could only return the pressure of his hand,
and then hide her face upon the neck of Lotte Clinton.

Hal then breathed a few words into the ear of Nutty to the effect
that, though he was an officer of the law, engaged in one of its most
unpleasant duties, it was quite possible for him to do his “spiriting
gently,” but that if he should entertain a contrary opinion, and offer,
or attempt to offer, to carry out in a spirit of hostility, arrogance,
and coarseness, the part he had to perform, he might prepare himself for
a reckoning, the settlement of which would not be in his favour.

Nutty was too old a hand at his craft not to know that it was best to be
civil, when as he, in rather free terms, said--“There was summat hanging
to it;” or to hesitate to be a brute when the utter poverty of the poor
creatures whose goods were seized rendered even his possession money a
question of doubt.

In the present case, he very sagaciously saw that if he acted in an
apparently compassionate and considerate spirit to the daughter of old
Wilton, and took care to let his behaviour come to the ears of young
Vivian, his purse would be rendered all the heavier by it; but if he
adopted an abrupt harshness of manner, terrified her, and permitted her
to save no little trinket, upon which she set some priceless personal
value, he might get a horse-whipping, inflicted with no light or
unwilling hand. He took; therefore, the suggestion of Vivian in good
part, winked his eyes significantly, jerked his thumb over his left
shoulder, placed his thumb to his nose, fluttered his fingers, and
otherwise bewildered the apprentice, who could only presume that these
evolutions meant that his wishes should be complied with. He, therefore,
thought it incumbent upon him, not only to seem to comprehend them, but
to so far imitate them, by slapping his pocket, tapping the palm of his
hand with one finger, and pointing to Nutty, so as to give that grubby
individual to understand that if he behaved kindly, there _would_ be
something “hanging to it.”

Nutty smiled complacently, bent the most philanthropic and benevolent of
glances upon Flora, nodded his head, and murmured, with a slight grin--

“I knows all about it.”

Thus assured, Harry Vivian waved his hand towards Flora.

“Keep up your spirits!” he cried; “all will go right yet.”

Then, with an effort, he quitted the room, ran lightly down the stairs,
and was soon in his uncle’s private room, engaged with him in earnest
conversation.

In the meantime, Lotte busied herself at the sacrifice of at least a
dozen cap fronts, or rather half a dozen hours, to be replaced by
six taken out of those devoted by her during the week to sleep, in
conferring with Flora as to the course she would have to pursue when all
the furniture was swept away, and she was left penniless and destitute.

“Have you no relations in London?” inquired Lotte; “because if you have
only one or two, I will pop on my bonnet and mantle, and run to them
very quickly. Let them be who they may, they would surely afford you
some help.”

“I never heard my father speak even of one in London or elsewhere,”
 returned Flora. “We have lived very secluded while here. We have not
always lived thus. I can remember dwelling in a large house, with
beautiful furniture, mirrors, chandeliers, and gorgeous decorations;
lovely gardens, with fountains and flowers. But that is long, long ago.
I know not when, I know not why, we left it, or when or how we came
here. It seems to me that I awakened from a dream of faëryland, to find
myself in these poor apartments, and my poor father destroying his life
by the deadly closeness of his application to his labour.”

“You know, then, of no relations you could ask to help you?” said Lotte.

“None,” replied Flora.

“Nor friends whose assistance you might ask?” Flora shook her head.

“Have you any money to go on with?”

“A little, which for safety is placed”----

“Where I want to know nothing about it,” interposed Mr. Nutty, abruptly.
“See here--when I put down in my hin-vent-ory any harticle, you daren’t
touch it arterwards; leastwise, you must give it up as I’ve put it down;
but you know you can do as you like with anything as I don’t put down.
Do you tumble?”

Mr. Nutty, having rather a mean opinion of the worldly experience of
Flora, addressed his speech to Lotte, but that young lady, who had a
shrewd guess at the intention sought to be conveyed in the first speech,
did not comprehend quite clearly the last sentence, unless, as she
conceived, the man had a notion that her professional avocation was
dancing on horseback and leaping through hoops or over poles, held by
colonels in the army of the Emperor of the Brazils. She, therefore,
thanked him for the suggestion he offered, but at the same time
mystified him by informing him that she had never been on horseback in
her life.

In a few whispers she made Flora understand Nutty’s meaning, and
suggested that if there happened to be any article to which she attached
any particular value, now was the time to transfer it to a place of
safety, beyond the jurisdiction of Mr. Nutty.

Flora hesitated to avail herself of the offer--not so Lotte.

“There is my room,” she said; “no one can enter it unless I please: I
have the key. You can put anything you like within it; and I should like
to see any one dare to come in and attempt to take it out.”

Still Flora hesitated.

“These people seem to have the power to take all,” she observed, “and
if they are justly entitled to their claim, it would be an act of
dishonesty to keep anything back from them.”

“Fiddle-de-dee, dear!” exclaimed Lotte. “You don’t know that they are
justly entitled, and therefore you have the right to assume that they
are not. They act, at all events, like hard-hearted brutes, and that is
why _I_ believe they have no more right to a single thing here than I
have. So I should act just as if they had not. Now I will tell you what
my advice is. You point out to me what you, in your heart, should like
to save, and leave the rest to me.”

“That _is_ a sensible gal,” muttered Nutty, as he entered in his
inventory--“1 save-orl, a arm chare and 1 floured assik.”

At this moment there was a gentle knock at the room door, and Mr. Nutty
opened it about two inches, and peered through.

“Wot d’ye want?” said he gruffly, to some one without.

“Miss Clinton--is she here?” asked a pleasant voice without.

“Don’t know her--don’t live here,” said Nutty, slamming the door to.

Lotte screamed.

“Open it--open the door!” she cried; “it is my brother Charley.”

In an instant she put Nutty aside, opened the door, and putting her head
out, said, hastily--

“Come in, Charley; I am so glad you are here.”

Then followed a sound as of the chirruping of young sparrows. It was
Charley and Lotte performing the usual act of grace on meeting each
other, it being customary for the pair to kiss a dozen times in rapid
succession--a quick fire, painful only to those who don’t participate.

Lotte led forward her brother, a rather smartly-dressed young man, and
introduced him to Flora, with a manner which plainly said--“Isn’t he a
nice fellow?”

Flora was, however, in no mood for introductions to strangers, she
bowed, but did not speak.

“Charley is a lawyer,” said Lotte, triumphantly.

Flora slightly bowed again, without comprehending that the fact would be
of any advantage to her, and Mr. Nutty snorted as if he instantly smelt
hostile opposition to his supremacy.

The fact was, Charley was a lawyer’s clerk, on twenty-five shillings per
week, but he had improved the opportunities he possessed by working very
hard, reading up the best works on the study and practice of the law,
making himself master of cases which were precedents, and, in fact,
doing his best to fit himself either for the bar, if he could raise the
necessary funds to be called to it, or to be a first-class solicitor.

His principal object, as at present entertained by him, was to place
his sister above the reach of want, and the necessity for her present
life-destroying labour. He little knew how hard the work, how small the
earnings. Out of his narrow weekly salary he contrived occasionally to
make her little presents, and certainly he visited no place or person
more regularly or more frequently than he did the humble abode of his
sister. Not that he went much anywhere, for he well knew that eminence
in the path he had marked out to pursue could not be achieved unless by
an incessant and persevering study, which has destroyed more men than it
has ever made great.

Lotte knew of his devotion to his task--how he sat poring over
dreadfully dry books, lighted in his task by the midnight oil, and
supported in his trying work by the noble hope that he should be able
some day to keep her like a lady.

How dearly she loved him for it, no one could know but herself; and,
in addition, she thought him the cleverest lawyer in existence, much
worthier in respect of merit to preside over the bench of judges than
the Lord Chief Justice himself.

Therefore when she mentioned to Flora that he was a lawyer, she fully
expected to see her leap with delight, and she felt disappointed that
she did not.

In order to prove his incontestable superiority, she, in rapid terms,
explained to him what had occurred, and begged him to display the legal
knowledge which she was sure he possessed, by ordering Mr. Nutty to quit
the premises instanter, and to consider himself fortunate if he did
so without receiving that shaking to which she fully believed he was
entitled.

Charley smiled and shook his head.

But such was the influence of Flora’s loveliness on him, that, after
one careful perusal of her fair lineaments, he needed no urging from his
sister to render assistance if he could. He did not ask himself whether
his exertions would be made in a deserving cause; he knew they would
be performed on behalf of one possessing rare personal attractions, and
under his first impressions that sufficed.

He commenced action by questioning Mr. Nutty, who exhibited most restive
indications under examination. Charley demanded to see the warrant under
which Mr. Nutty held possession, which Mr. Nutty refused, but, under the
bewildering, sharp, quick, and pertinent questions of the young lawyer,
he let slip the fact that Mr. Jukes had gone away without lodging it
with him.

“You are not certain that Mr. Jukes has it, I dare be sworn!” cried
Charley, looking at him, fixedly.

“Oh yes, I am--I’ll swear that!”

“You will?”

“Take my oath on it. I seed it in his hand, when he made the seizure,
and he ort to a gev’ it me afore he went away.”

“But he did not!”

“No; he was so okkepied with his prisoner that he took it with him.”

“Then you must go after him!”

“No, thank you.”

“Yes, you must! You have no warrant you know, therefore, you are _not_
in _possession_. In point of fact and of law--you are guilty of an act
of trespass. You had better go.”

“Shan’t budge a hinch.”

“Then I shall make you! If you resist, I will fling you over the
banisters to the passage below!”

“Do not hurt him too much!” interposed Lotte, with a half-frightened
look.

“Not if he goes quietly--but out he must go!”

“If you uses wiolence, I’ll have the lor on you!” cried Nutty, in
evident terror.

“I shall only use the proper force to put you into the street, and,
unless you at once disappear, I warn you you must take the consequences
of the false position in which you know, as well as I do, your employer,
through his negligence, has placed you.”

“Ain’t a’going!” cried Nutty, folding his arms, and placing his back
against the wall.

“Very well,” said Charley, “that is a point we have to determine.”

He caught Mr. Nutty firmly by the wrist, and then giving his own hand
an overturn, and Mr. Nutty’s an underturn, he, with his left hand seized
him by his collar, and drew him at a rapid rate towards the door.

Mr. Nutty uttered a yell.

“Yah!” he cried, “le’go my arm, your’e dexlycatin’ on it.”

Charley, however, heeded him not, but put him outside the door on to
the landing. The man in possession was thus no longer entitled to his
cognomen.




CHAPTER IV.--THE FORGERY.


                   Would’st thou do such a deed for all the world?

                   Why, would not you?

                   No, by this heavenly light!

*****

                   By my troth, I think I should.

                             --Shakspere.


Charley had barely re-entered the room when Mr. Jukes burst into it
with a sudden crash, followed by Sudds and Nutty, A noisy and angry
colloquy instantly ensued, but Charley was too well acquainted with the
character of the men he had to deal with either to permit himself to be
bullied or browbeaten, and he had no intention that they should maintain
their standing upon illegal documents.

Authorised by Flora Wilton, and in the name of her father, he demanded
to see the warrant of execution upon the goods. Jukes refused; he had
come back to take them away, and had a van at the door for that purpose.
Charley, however, would on no account allow this. He defied Jukes
to remove the furniture until the proper return had been made to the
sheriff, or until the claims of the landlord had been satisfied. He
interposed other legal objections, and raised points of a technical
description on the face of the warrant, which Jukes had at length
produced, until even that astute personage became mystified, and
consented to leave things in _statu quo_ until the morning, when, having
obtained advice from the solicitor by whom he had been employed, he
should be prepared to act with more determined vigour than now.

It must be borne in mind that Mr. Jukes had been promised a handsome
remuneration if he succeeded in obtaining old Wilton’s signature to a
document confessed to be of great importance, and he knew that it was
not exactly his best course to act in such a manner as to drive the
man frenzied with rage by the harsh and heartless proceedings he was
instructed to take. He was well aware that a strong pressure must be
applied to bring the obstinate old gold-chaser to compliance with the
demand now made upon him, but he was also shrewd enough to surmise that
an overpressure would have the contrary effect to that desired, and,
instead of disposing old Wilton to sign, would render him more firmly
than ever fixed on his refusal.

The warrant was, therefore, with due ceremony, handed to Mr. Nutty,
and he was instructed to remain until either the claim, under which
possession was held, had been paid, or he was directed to quit. He
received it with a grim smile of satisfaction, and prepared to go on
with his inventory with an inflexible resolve that the most treasured
article of affection should not after this escape being recorded in his
list.

But even now things were not to remain as thus arranged. The door of the
apartment, which had been closed, was once more unceremoniously thrown
open.

An old man, with a shrivelled face of a deep turmeric hue, as if the
yellow jaundice had been for years his favourite complaint, stalked
rather than walked into the room. He was a singular-looking man, with a
certain peculiarity in his mien which would prevent the possibility of
his going anywhere in society without his being stared at. He wore a
violet-coloured cloth frock coat, a buff waistcoat, as yellow as his own
face, and chocolate trousers, almost tight enough to be pantaloons; upon
his feet, which were small, were polished boots, and upon his head a
bright, black, carefully brushed beaver hat, very much turned up at the
brim.

He was followed by a small man, dressed all in black, save his cravat;
his whiskers and his hair were

               White with the whiteness of what is dead,

and formed a strange contrast to his garb.

The yellow-visaged old gentleman, on gaining the middle of the room,
turned a pair of jet black, brilliant eyes upon Mr. Jukes and smiled,
not auspiciously but cynically, and yet triumphantly.

“The wrong room?” ejaculated Mr. Jukes, suggestively.

“Not at all,” replied the old man, exhibiting a row of teeth, which
appeared ghastly in that golden visage. “My name is Nathan Gomer; this
house is mine; I am the landlord, and my claim upon the contents of
these apartments takes precedence of yours. I think it does--I say I
believe it does.”

“If you _are_ the landlord?” said Mr. Jukes, eyeing him doubtfully.

“I can prove that, Jukes,” said the owner of the white whiskers. “You
know me, Jukes?”

“I do, Mr. Graba,” responded Jukes.

“I am Mr. Gomer’s agent.”

“And a sworn broker,” added Nathan Gomer. “Not less than one hundred
pounds is owing to me for rent.”

“For how long?” asked Jukes.

“Twelve months,” replied Nathan Gomer. “Mr. Wilton rented the whole
house, and has not paid me the last year’s rent. There is not more than
enough here to satisfy my claim. I think so--I say I believe there is
not.”

“There isn’t,” gruffly muttered Jukes.

“Produce your warrant of execution upon these goods, Mr. Graba!” said
Mr. Nathan Gomer. “I think you’ll find it formal and proper.”

“P’raps _you’d_ like to look at it?” said Mr. Jukes to Charley.

“I should,” he answered; “give it to me.”

Nathan Gomer looked at him with inquiring eyes, and watched him read
every word in the document with careful attention from the first to the
last.

When he had ended his perusal, Nathan Gomer smiled.

“Nothing informal or contrary to law there?” he exclaimed.

“Nothing!” said Charley with a sigh.

“This is dreadful!” murmured Lotte.

Flora, however, was not further distressed--at least she displayed no
additional grief at this new incident. She had, in fact, been so stunned
and overwhelmed by the first event of the morning--that which involved
the compulsory absence of her father--that any circumstance of a minor
description could neither add to nor diminish her sorrow.

Nathan Gomer turned to Mr. Jukes.

“You can go,” he said “and you may take your myrmidons with you.”

“And return the writ to the sheriff with nully bony on it, I s’pose?”
 exclaimed Mr. Jukes, chagrined.

“Whatever you please,” returned Nathan; “my name, if it suits you.”

“No thank ye. Your name will be handed in to Messrs. Squeege and Drain,
solicitors, Old Jewry,” replied Jukes, with a most significant nod of
the head, which implied a threat.

“That will do as well,” said Nathan; “they know me; they stand indebted
to me in a good round sum.”

The nether jaw of Jukes slightly dropped; he gave a steadfast look at
Nathan Gomer; his eyes then slowly ran round the room, and settled on
Flora, who, pale as marble, stood as though she were in a trance, all
unconscious of what was passing around her. He gazed at her thoughtfully
for a moment. A sudden flash illumined his eyes, indicating that a new
idea had taken possession of him, and then he turned to his followers
and said--

“Now then, Sudds; come along, Nutty, Good day, Mr. Gomer; it’s your turn
this time.”

“Good day--good day, Jukes--as you say, I think it is my turn this
time--I believe I may say it is my turn this time,” answered Nathan,
rubbing his hands.

Mr. Jukes hastened out of the room, closely attended by his satellites,
Nutty looking especially chop-fallen, as his possession money would in
all probability be returned “nully bony” as well as the writ.

When these men had fairly slammed the street-door after them, and the
sound had risen up through the house, Nathan Gomer, who had listened
attentively for it, surveyed the persons of both Charley and Lotte, and
then addressing Flora, said--

“Miss Wilton, are these young persons friends of yours?”

Flora, upon hearing her name, started and slightly shuddered, as one
rousing from a painful reverie: Lotte gave her no time to answer, for
she said hastily--

“Oh, yes, sir; new friends, it is true; but not the less, disposed
warmly to serve her in her present terrible affliction, so far as our
humble means will permit.”

“And pray what are your means?” demanded Nathan.

Lotte for a moment hung her head, and a bright flush mounted to her
cheek and forehead, then she flung up her face, and with her clear
bright eyes looked steadfastly at the little old man with the golden
visage.

In a few rapid words she sketched the position of herself and her
brother, and the bright, youthful, sanguine hopes they both entertained
of their future.

“Bravo Lotte--well said, my pet!” cried Charley, patting her
affectionately and approvingly upon the shoulder. “And as for what I can
do, why somehow I’ll see you through it; a book or two less, and a----”
 dinner, he was about to say, but he checked himself and substituted--“a
pleasure the fewer I sha’n’t miss, and I would not forego the happiness
of witnessing your gratification at being able to serve a friend in
distress, for something far beyond such sacrifices as those.”

“Bah!” cried Nathan Gomer to Lotte. “Your eighteen-pence a day, for
eighteen hours at cap-front making”--

“Two shillings sometimes!” she interposed, boastfully.

“Two shillings always, if you will,” continued Nathan, “gives you no
margin for doing anything but starving and slaving, if you pay your
way--and you, my friend” he added, turning to Charley, “if you have made
up your mind to achieve to the bar, have not a farthing to waste upon
even the luxury of seeing your sister destroy herself, in an attempt to
accomplish a feat which is not only impracticable, but impossible. No,
no; go on as you have been going on, and let us see what time will bring
forth.” He paused, and then after running his eye over the warrant,
he addressed Flora, saying--“Miss Wilton, I place this warrant in
your keeping--impressing upon you that you must always have it in your
possession in safe custody, except when you leave home for a short time,
then you must entrust it to some friend who will hold it here until
your return. So long as you do this, no person like Jukes can disturb or
remove your furniture. You will keep it until you see me again, or
until you hear from me. I am a stranger to you, not prepossessing in my
appearance, but I am not quite so hard-hearted as I have been represented
to be, nor quite so selfish in my nature as you may hereafter be led to
believe. Now mark what I say. You have been left in a position of great
trust in the midst of a heavy calamity; much will be demanded of
your energy and self reliance; remember ‘God helps those who help
themselves’, therefore, while you are grateful for, place no reliance
in, promises. Farewell!--we shall meet again. May it be when you will
not need my assistance!”

With a wave of the hand, he hurried out of the room, closely followed by
Mr. Graba, leaving Flora, no less than Lotte, in a state of bewildered
astonishment.

Neither of the girls had seen Nathan Gomer before, and his sudden
appearance, together with the power he had assumed, and the kindness,
which in a cold abrupt manner he had displayed, completely astounded
them; they knew not what to make of it, nor, so far as Lotte was
concerned, how to talk enough about it.

But though she talked briskly, she acted smartly, and rousing Flora into
action, proceeded to “put things straight,” and to render the aspect of
the place pretty much what it had been before Mr. Jukes made his most
unwelcome appearance.

Leaving her and Flora to the task to which they had devoted themselves,
let us follow the movements of Nathan Gomer.

He stood alone at the door of Mr. Grahame in the Regent’s Park, very
shortly after he had quitted Wilton’s residence, and he sent in his
card, in a rather peremptory manner, by the same individual who had
announced Mr. Chewkle. He took no heed of the representations made to
him that--

“Mr. Grahame were engaged, and when he were engaged, his instructions
was that no person should be admitted to interrupt him.”

“Give him my card--he’ll see _me_,” said Nathan, emphatically. “If
you refuse,” he added, as the man hesitated, “I will walk up into the
library where you say he is engaged with some one, and obtain your
dismissal by acquainting your master with your refusal to announce me.”

There was something in the manner of Nathan that Whelks, the head
footman, did not approve of, especially as he felt himself overawed by
it, in spite of the affront to which he was called upon to submit. It
was evident that in the eyes of the little visitor his importance was
sadly underrated, and that he should have to put in his pocket the
threat of dismissal which had been held out to him, and which, though he
turned his nose up at it, caused him to take the card and proceed into
the library, as the word “_forgery_” issued from his master’s lips.

He took no heed of it, for his mind was filled with Nathan Gomer--not
favourably.

“Sir! he exclaimed, in the affected strain he usually adopted when
addressing his master, “ther is a pesson below”----

“How dare you, scoundrel, intrude, when I am especially and privately
engaged with any gentleman?” cried Mr. Grahame, leaping to his feet and
speaking passionately, while his eyes sparkled with fury.

Whelks started back, and his wig sent up a small cloud of flour. He was
so startled by the sudden action of Mr. Grahame, that he could hear his
own heart beat against his ribs.

“I ask pardon, sir,” he faltered out, “but the pesson below”----

“Curse the person below!” cried Mr. Grahame, forgetting in his rage that
dignified pride which never permitted an ebullition of anger.

Whelks heartily echoed the sentiment, but dared not so express
himself--he only bowed affirmatively.

“Have I not repeatedly told you, sir,” continued Mr. Grahame, sternly,
“that I will only be seen by those of whom I have some knowledge, or
whom I desire to see? Another infringement of my order, and you shall be
summarily dismissed.”

It struck Whelks that his master spoke in much the same strain when he
saw Chewkle; he, therefore, handed to him Nathan’s card.

Mr. Grahame snatched the card from the salver, on which Whelks presented
it, and on reading it, passed his hand over his face to hide any emotion
which might betray itself. He sank down into his chair, and laid himself
back, plunged in intense thought. Then he looked at the card, and
appeared to read it a dozen times. At length he turned to Whelks, and
said--

“Go! say I shall be happy to have the honour of receiving this
gentleman.”

Whelks, with an expression of surprise on a countenance incapable of
displaying any very distinct phase of emotion, descended to the hall to
obey his commands.

“Mr. Chewkle,” said Mr. Grahame, when Whelks had disappeared, “may I
ask you to favour me by stepping into this chamber for a few minutes? My
visitor--a very wealthy and distinguished person, I assure you--will
not detain me long, and then I shall have the pleasure of renewing our
important conversation.”

Mr. Chewkle expressed his happiness at having the opportunity of
obliging Mr. Grahame in any fashion, and promptly dived into a small
room overlooking the park, and connected with the library. He heard
Mr. Grahame lock the door, securing him in his little retreat, but he
carefully placed his ear to the keyhole, in anticipation of picking up
something worth hearing and retaining--if he was paid handsomely for
secrecy.

Mr. Grahame had scarcely resumed his seat when Nathan Gomer entered the
library. He returned the bow, graciously performed, with which he was
greeted, and placing his hat and gloves upon a chair, seated himself
upon another, and commenced speaking in rather a louder key than Mr.
Grahame thought quite desirable.

“Mr. Grahame,” he began, “we have not met before, but you are not
unacquainted with my name.”

“Oh, dear no--of course it is most familiar to me,” observed Mr.
Grahame.

“Or my money?” continued Nathan Gomer. “Assuredly not,” returned Mr.
Grahame, a little confused.

“You have made me fresh proposals?”

“For a short term--I hope you understand that!”

“Quite so. But I want to know upon what foundation you base your
expectation of returning the sums demanded?”

“The whole, sole, entire possession of an enormous property; vast
estates, yielding a splendid income, and a very considerable amount in
cash, the accumulation of years.”

“It is in Chancery!”

“It is.”

“A link is wanting, I think, to perfect your claim?”

“Ah! my dear sir, a mere nothing--such as it is, we are prepared to
supply it.”

“Ah! You are, eh?”

“Oh, certainly.”

“You are quite clear about that?”

“Nothing was ever more certain.”

“Hem! That is satisfactory, to be sure; but stay, is there not another
person who has something to do with it?--one--one--dear me, what is his
name!--one----Pshaw! how absurd in me to forget it.”

“I know of no person, save myself, Mr. Gomer, who has the shadow of a
claim to any portion of it.”

“Indeed!”

“Not a soul!”

“Then I have been misinformed. I was given to understand that a person
named--named--I do not often forget names--cannot you help me, Mr.
Grahame, to the name of the individual who claims the property of which
you have spoken, as well as you?”

“Who?--I, sir-no.”

This was said with an air of offended dignity, and the manner of a man
who, having made a positive assertion, sees that it is doubted, and
wishes it to be thought that the incredulity is unjust.

The glittering eye of Nathan Gomer seemed to play over every feature of
Mr. Grahame’s countenance. Suddenly he said, with startling abruptness--

“Ah! I remember it. I have it. Wilton is the name. Wilton, who follows
the occupation of a gold-plate chaser. Has he not a claim--also wanting
a link--to this property?”

It might have been fancy, but the sound of a whistle appeared to
issue from the vicinity of a key-hole in the door of the ante-chamber
overlooking the park.

“Wilton! Wilton!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, assuming an air of reflection,
to hide his embarrassment. “Wilton! no, oh no! I know nothing of any
such claim.”

“You do not!”

“No.”

“Nor the man himself?”

“No.”

“A gold-worker, living in Clerkenwell?”

“Certainly not. Where is Clerkenwell?”

“Hem! ugh! ugh!”

Nathan Gomer was seized with a cough. He rose up, took his hat and
gloves, and put them on with slow precision.

His glittering eye once more perused every feature in Mr. Grahame’s
face.

“Mr. Grahame,” he said, slowly, “you shall hear from me.”

“Thank you, thank you, my dear sir,” replied Mr. Grahame, rubbing his
hands. “Let me hope in a manner agreeable to my wishes and in accordance
with your known liberality.”

“It will be one of two things, Mr. Grahame: either to comply with your
proposition, or to issue process for the recovery of the money now due
by you to me. Good morning, Mr. Grahame!”

He seemed to glide out of the room down the staircase, and presented
himself at the elbow of Whelks, before that personage had any conception
that his services were required to show out the “little yellow ob-jek,
which,” he was just informing the hall-porter, “he had a few minutes
before shown in to the libree.”

In a sharp, shrill, tone, Nathan requested to be let out, and ‘Whelks,
taking upon himself the duty of the inert porter, threw open the
street-door wide, and closed it with a loud bang, thankful, he knew not
wherefore, that the “yaller objek” was out of the house.

Mr. Grahame looked after Nathan as he moved rapidly but noiselessly down
the stairs, and returned into the library, feeling that the interview
had been of a very unsatisfactory character. He experienced an uneasy
impression with respect to the inquiries made by Nathan Gomer respecting
Wilton. He cursed the name of the old gold-chaser; but for him he might
be in secure possession of the wealth he coveted, and which--there was
no disguising it--he imperatively needed. The man’s obstinacy, while it
did not benefit himself, was very likely to send him, Grahame, headlong
to ruin for want of--what? Only a signature--a simple signature.

Ah! Chewkle’s suggestion flashed through his brain. It was but to attach
a name to a bond: who would know that he had done it but Chewkle? and
would not money buy any man’s tongue? With Chewkle’s aid it might be
done.

Who else could know it?

Wilton, starving, dying, in prison, shattered by grief, want, and toil;
his children outcasts in the streets, driven, perhaps, into dens of
infamy, how could they prosecute a claim against him? If they did,
should he not have the wealth to defeat every such attempt? could he
not buy off or suborn all witnesses against him? The possessions and
the money he should acquire by that single signature would enable him
to cope with the most greedy demands for bearing false witness. Shallow
reasoning enough, but conclusive in his eyes.

His train of thought having conducted him to this point, the fact that
he had Chewkle locked up in the small ante-chamber overlooking the park,
presented itself. Had the man overheard what had transpired between him
and Nathan Gomer? A flush of heat crossed his brow at the supposition.
For the moment he forgot all the dictates of his pride, lost utterly his
austere bearing, and crept on tip-toe to the door of the little chamber.
He softly removed the key, and peered through the keyhole, but without
catching sight of Mr. Chewkle.

He replaced the key without a sound, and turning the well-oiled lock
noiselessly, he flung the door open suddenly.

Mr. Chewkle, with his arms folded, was standing in a contemplative
attitude, gazing out of the window, and watching the sportive movements
of some wild fowl upon the lake.

“Hem! a--Mr. Chewkle, I am at liberty now!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame,
recovering his pompous manner, and feeling convinced that his conference
with Nathan Gomer had not been overheard by the commission agent.

Mr. Chewkle professed himself to be quite ready to proceed to business,
and begged Mr. Grahame, when he made apologies for detaining him while
he transacted important matters, not to mention it. Indeed, there was
no necessity, as Chewkle’s quick ear, applied in the right place, had
heard every word that passed.

“And so the poor old fool, Wilton, continues obstinate, does he?”
 exclaimed Grahame to Chewkle, when they were both seated.”’Ard as
hadamant,” returned Mr. Chewkle.

“He is only doing himself harm,” suggested Mr. Grahame.

“And nobody else no good,” added Chewkle.

“He certainly is not acting in a manner to entitle him to
consideration,” observed Mr. Grahame, reflectively.

“Not a bit of it,” responded Mr. Chewkle; “nothen is to be got out of
’is sort; you may as well try to get butter out o’ flint; so if I was
you, sir, I should just say nothen to anybody--but me--and go an’ do it
at once--now’s a good time--by-and-by never comes.”

Mr. Grahame grew cold and white, and his teeth chattered. _FORGERY!_

It was a tremendous act.

The punishment, penal servitude for life.

How the words rang in his ears!

A moment more, and the threat of Nathan Gomer boomed through his
brain like the minute guns of a ship of war announcing an approaching
execution. “Issue process for the recovery of the money now due.”

He shivered as though he had come out of a cold spring bath.

He placed his trembling fingers upon the handle of a drawer, and opened
it. He turned over some papers, and drew forth a letter. It bore the
signature, “E. Wilton,” in a bold hand.

“There is his handwriting,” he said to Chewkle, in a hoarse voice, and
with a sickly smile.

“Bless my wig!” said Mr. Chewkle, as he gazed on it with admiring eyes.
“A prime clear sort of writing.”

He drew from his pocket a parchment.

“What is that?” inquired Mr. Grahame, with chattering teeth.

“_The_ deed that Wilton wouldn’t sign,” responded Chewkle. “Have you got
a piece of thin paper?” he asked.

Mr. Grahame, with a beating heart and trembling hand, gave him half a
sheet of thin post.

“That will just do,” he said.

He then put his hand into his side pocket and produced a small phial
containing a thin fluid with a pink tinge; he produced a camel-hair
pencil, and, steeping it in the liquid, painted over the back of
that portion of the note which contained the signature of Wilton. Mr.
Grahame, with eyes starting out of their sockets, watched him without
breathing. After waiting for a minute, he examined Wilton’s sign-manual
carefully, and then laying it upon the thin paper which he had
previously damped, he slightly burnished the back, and there appeared
upon the thin paper the signature of Wilton reversed. This he, in turn,
laid upon the deed, on the place for the name of the person signing the
deed to appear, and again using the burnisher with more firmness, he
reproduced, though somewhat faintly, the name of Wilton upon the deed.

“Now,” said he to Mr. Grahame, “there it is; you have only to mark over
it carefully, and the name will be there with such exactness the man
himself couldn’t swear it wasn’t his’n.”

“You do it, my good friend Chewkle--you take the pen and write over it,”
 gasped Grahame, convulsively.

“Oh, no, I beg your pardon, I think I’ve done a good deal. The winnings
will be yourn, and yourn must be the venter.”

“But my hand trembles so.”

“Well, ring for a little brandy--that will put you to rights.”

“No, no, I cannot do it!”

“Very good. You know the konsequences o’ not doin’ it best, you know.”

“Give me the pen!”

“That’s it--mind, gently does it!” advised Mr. Chewkle. “’Old your pen
’ard with your thum’ and press it against your middle finger top, and
then you’ll mark it firmly. Steady she goes--that’s it--beautiful! Dot
that _hi--l, t, o, n_--good! Now for that little bit o’ flourish--that’s
it--it’s done, an’ capitally you’ve done the _FORGERY!_”

Mr. Grahame uttered a groan, and sank back in his chair. Mr. Chewkle
caught him with a sudden grip by the wrist.

“It is a dreadful secret I have of yourn,” he growled, “let me ’int to
you that you’ll have to be generous to me to make me keep it dark.”

“Man! witness of my infamy, your most avaricious wishes shall be
gratified,” hissed Mr. Grahame through his teeth. “You have only to be
silent.”

“As the grave,” said Chewkle, placing his finger to his lip.

Suddenly Mr. Grahame uttered a shout of horror: his eye fell upon Nathan
Gomer, who, a few paces from him, was standing watching him attentively.

“My God! Mr. Gomer--how--what--why are you here?” he exclaimed, gasping
for breath.

Chewkle, in an instant, spread a newspaper, which was on the table, over
the deed.

“Do not alarm yourself, Mr. Grahame,” replied Nathan Gomer, with the
coolest self-possession. “I merely returned to say, after a brief
reflection, that I have decided on entertaining your proposals. You
had better, therefore, put your solicitor in connection with mine. Good
morning, Mr. Grahame.”

Nathan’s eye glittered on Chewkle for an instant, so as to make that
person feel most uncomfortable. Then he moved swiftly and noiselessly
out of the room.

Mr. Grahame, pale as death, sank back in his chair. Mr. Chewkle gazed in
the direction which Nathan Gomer had taken, and ejaculated--

“Well, I’m blowed!”




CHAPTER V.--THE CONFLAGRATION.


                   The wild confusion, and the swarthy glow

                   Of flames on high, and torches from below;

                   The shriek of terror and the mingling yell.

*****

                   He climbs the crackling stair--he bursts the door,

                   Nor feels his feet glow, scorching with the floor;

                   His breath choked, gasping with the volumed smoke,

                   But still from room to room his way he broke.

                             --Byron.


The events of the morning in which he had taken so prominent a part
presented to Hal Vivian, when alone in his chamber, that evening, rather
a wide field for contemplation. He was glad of the opportunity which
the close of the day’s labour gave him to retire to the solitude of his
neatly furnished bedroom, because, unobserved, he could there review
the circumstances which had that day occurred, and give to them the
colouring most agreeable to the feelings which had recently taken
possession of him.

He threw himself into an easy chair, and was quickly engaged in drawing
deductions. Not for a second was the fair face of Flora absent from
his vision. The rugged visage of Jukes, the grimy features of his
satellites, the impassible countenance of Nathan Gomer, which seemed
moulded out of fine gold, the bright, frank aspect of Lotte, by turns
floated across his mental speculum, but never to displace that of Flora.

Out of the past a future was to be formed; he tried to construct it, and
in doing so set himself honestly to work to examine those feelings which
prompted him so strongly to undertake the task.

He sought to understand why he should interest himself at all in the
affairs of the old gold-worker; what motives should have induced him
to interfere and take part in what had happened that morning, or why
he should be so very eager to effect certain happy results he had in
contemplation, and the answer which constantly presented itself to these
and other questions was--Flora Wilton!

Hal Vivian was just out of his time; but a few days, and his--

                        Seven long years were out.

He was at that age in man when love partakes very strongly of the
imaginative, and clothes the object of affection with an excellence and
perfection which, though it be not always just, makes her whom he loves
to him a _beau ideal._ Almost every youth creates in his mind a standard
of perfect loveliness, and if he, perchance, meets with a face which
presents some resemblance to the mental image he has formed, he at once
proceeds to invest it with all the charms with which he has endowed the
unreal. The maid is elected to the first place in his heart--she becomes
his guiding influence--he busies himself by contemplating schemes of
impossible delights for her, is anxious to be at her side whenever
apart, and most loth, when with her, to tear himself from her.

No doubt a very considerable amount of mental deception is practised
during this phase of youthful existence, and when marriage has bestowed
upon the lovesick swain the object he has so ardently coveted, he
perhaps finds that he has been gazing through, what he now considers,
the wrong end of the telescope.

Harry Vivian was, however, like all youths of his age, in no condition
to believe that the being he had made his representative angel could
ever prove the reverse. He had always seen her mild and gentle, soft
in manner, courteous in speech, amiable in expression, and exquisitely
lovely in person. He could suppose no other side to the picture, and
so, as she outwardly resembled an angel, he gave her credit for being
inwardly a saint. His intimacy with her was slight, his opportunities
of seeing her--save during the past year, when he had made them--had not
been many; he had interchanged but few words with her, and they were of
a very commonplace description. He had not hitherto thought of her, more
than that she was a girl of rare and delicate beauty, whose features
he should like to reproduce in some of the choice modellings of the
precious metals entrusted to him, for it seemed to him that no artist,
however marvellous his skill in delineating the female face divine, had
ever succeeded in producing one so beautiful as her’s.

Love had, however, taken no part in this admiration; he had gazed upon
her and thought of her as he would have done of the best efforts of the
greatest masters of art--“a thing of beauty,” but animated with life.
Her sudden appearance at the window, the golden sunbeams falling on
her face, her hair, her light dress, bringing her beauty out in strong
relief from the dark chamber in which she stood, altered at one stroke
the condition of his feelings.

Passion sprang into life simultaneously with the glance he turned upon
her--it intermingled with his admiration, and became love.

He was not conscious of the change wrought within him when he
instinctively surmised that trouble and trial hovered over her, and that
he should take an active part in endeavouring to avert it. He had not a
notion of it even when seated with Mr. Harper, his uncle, discoursing on
the position of the Wilton family, he employed himself devising how the
all but orphaned child of their skilled workman might be rescued from
destitution.

Here, in his chamber, alone in deep meditation and self-examination, it
flashed through his mind. A sudden glow of heat pervaded his frame, and
he sprang to his feet impulsively--a strange tremor thrilled through
him--a feeling of apprehension crept over him--and a species of sadness
oppressed him; wherefore, he could not comprehend. Here was food for
contemplation, indeed; and he resumed his seat to pursue this new
subject through its many ramifications until he should arrive at some
kind of ultimate result.

One fact followed from this discovery made by him. Up to this moment
he had been, in his knowledge of the world, a mere boy. He was, at a
moment, transformed into a man.

He had “something to love,” and the affection was not of the same nature
as that entertained for kith or kin. He had taken up a responsibility,
and at once there was something to live for, work for, seek for, and
to win. Fame, wealth, honour, were now worth striving to gain, because
there was one, whose approbation he coveted, to share the wealth and
honour to be secured by persevering energy and untiring ardour.

In commencing his struggle with the world, here was an incentive to
ambition beyond a mere love of art or the desire to excel, and a motive
for reaping golden opinions beyond the common wish to become rich.

It is true there was nothing in Flora’s manner to lead him to believe
that he had created any such impression upon her as she had upon him,
and the probabilities were that she did not see him in any other light
than as a gentlemanly and good-hearted young man, who had been kind
and considerate to her father in business, and singularly generous and
friendly to her in her moment of trial. All this he quite understood;
and, though he felt himself over head and ears in love with her, he did
not deceive himself into any other notion than that to win her love his
work was yet to commence, to be prosecuted with faithful perseverance,
and in an honorable and unselfish spirit.

As true love looks to marriage as its goal, so did that possessed by
Hal; but romantic, generous, and noble-hearted as he was by nature, he
had yet so much of the common leaven in him that it struck him it would
be worth consideration to ascertain into what kind of family he should
introduce himself by an alliance with Miss Wilton.

His own position was very soon determined. He was the son of a deceased
sister of Mr. Harper, the goldsmith--was apprenticed to him, and would,
in all probability, be his heir, as his only son had turned out wild
in his youth, and had, after the commission of some outrageous piece of
profligacy, disappeared. It was supposed he had fled to India, but from
his departure to the present hour he had not been heard of.

Mr. Harper had mentioned to Hal an intention that he had formed, of
taking him into partnership with him, but he had decided first on
subjecting him to a probation of a year or two, to try whether the
promise of steadiness and sobriety, which his youth had given, would be
realised.

Hal’s future might, consequently, be said to be formed for him; and it
was into his uncle’s family he should introduce Miss Wilton as his
wife, if ever the union took place. Therefore, while considering his own
happiness, he felt it to be his duty not to overlook that of his uncle,
who had behaved to him from his infancy as a tender, just, and generous
father. It would be a task he should impose upon himself, to ascertain,
as far as possible, the previous history of old Wilton. Not that he
feared the result would turn out other than he could wish, but he could
not conceal from himself that there was a mystery hanging over the old
worker in gold, which it would be proper, if possible, to penetrate.

Some years back Wilton had suddenly presented himself at the shop of Mr.
Harper for employment in carving in gold. Inquiries elicited that he had
not been bred to the business he professed, but was what might be termed
a scientific amateur. Mr. Harper was struck by his language, and by his
remarks upon the processes and art of modelling and chasing; and being
much pressed at the time with an excess of business, he entrusted him
with some valuable work--the more readily when he found that old Wilton
resided exactly opposite to him.

Wilton returned with his task accomplished in a manner greatly to Mr.
Harper’s satisfaction, and from that time he had been employed by him.
He always executed his work excellently, but he was not always punctual,
and twice or thrice Mr. Harper, in anger, had threatened to discontinue
employing him; but Wilton generally contrived to smooth away his
irritation, and they went on as before.

Nothing was known of him--whence, or when, or how, he came he seldom
went out, and only worked for Mr. Harper. So much Hal knew--no one knew
more--and yet they do know a good deal about each other in Clerkenwell.
Hal resolved now that his knowledge should not sleep here, although at
the present moment he could not see quite clearly his way to learn more.

His future cogitations were terminated by a call to supper, and that
meal being discussed, he retired to rest--to think again, as before, and
to fall into a deep, heavy slumber.

He dreamed.

He thought he met with Flora in some leafy coppice and in secret, and
that, while conversing with her in a strain of loving tenderness, they
were interrupted by the tramp of a body of persons approaching. He
fancied that he seized Flora in his arms, and fled with her, but was
pursued, and that his pursuers shouted and uttered fierce threats. He
looked back, and saw that old Wilton headed Jukes and his followers, as
well as Nathan Gomer and his uncle, who seemed to be the most excited
of the party, and called him by name loudly. Then, as he still fled, he
observed that his pursuers were armed, and he heard his uncle call to
them to fire upon him.

He fled on; still his uncle’s voice shouted in his ear--

“Fire! fire! fire!”

At last he sprang up in his bed, suddenly awakened, and still the voice
vehemently cried--

“Fire! fire! fire!”

A heavy hand beat violently against the panels of his chamber-door, and
completely aroused him.

He at once leaped to the floor, and unlocked his door. He found his
uncle without, in a state of great excitement--he was half-dressed.

“Oh, Lord!” he cried; “I thought you would never wake; there is a fire;
throw on your clothes, Hal, my boy!”

“A fire! where?” asked Hal, hastily.

“Over the way,” returned Mr. Harper; “be quick! while I pacify your
aunt, who is frightened to death.”

He lit Hal’s candle as he spoke, and shuffled hastily away in his
slippers.

Over the way! Why Wilton’s house was over the way. Hal felt his blood
rush violently through his veins. Over the way! What if it should be
there? He drew on his clothes with hasty swiftness, and he heard the
low, hoarse sounds of a gathering mob in the streets. The tramp of
running feet, the violent knocking at doors, and the shouts of boys and
men crying “Fire!”

All that was absolutely essential to wear, but nothing that would impede
his activity or application of strength, did Hal put on, and then he
hurried to one of the front windows of the house and looked out.

It is impossible to describe the sudden and violent shock that ran
through his frame. Though he had thought it possible, he had not
believed it probable that it could be Wilton’s abode which was on fire,
yet his first glance told him that the lower part of that house was in
flames.

A mob had gathered round; an active policeman was pushing it about to
clear the way for the inhabitants to bring out their furniture from the
burning house--that is, if they had a chance to do aught beyond saving
their lives.

The door of the house was open, and volumes of smoke were pouring forth.
A dull red flame, throwing a ruby glare, was to be seen gleaming through
the windows of the kitchen and the parlour. The upper part of the house
seemed lost in wreathing dull, gray, cloudy masses of vapour, which
rolled up from the seat of the fire.

Rising up above the hoarse roar of the assembled mob, came the shouts of
those who were on their way with the first engine. It seemed to be the
herald of succour, but, alas! it was only the parish-engine, brought up
by an energetic beadle, four men, and about twenty dirty ragged boys.

The turncock arrived with it, and he, though able in the daylight
to find the plug-hole blindfold, could not without great difficulty
discover it, with his eyes briskly exercised, at night.

At lengthy when the parish engine, bravely foremost in the rank, was
ready, a mass of volunteers sprang forward to pump it. Mr. Turncock
succeeded in pulling up the plug, and saturating a dozen venturesome
persons, who with engineering spirits watched the operation. The hose
of the parish-engine was at once connected with the stream of water, and
with a hurrah the volunteers began to work the handles of the pump,
but though they were made to sound jar-jar, jar-jar, jar-jar, briskly,
nothing came of it. The parish-engine, as it has ever been from the hour
it was first invented to the present time, was found to be practicably
useless. No water could be forced into the directing pipe to play upon
the burning house.

The flames grew fiercer, the smoke denser, and crackling sounds of wood
splitting, and the sputtering of sparks, were more distinctly heard.

Then there was suddenly a mighty cry from the mob.

At the upper windows appeared, shrieking for aid, the forms of two young
girls. They were in their night dresses, and had evidently only just
been aroused. Three or four brave young fellows rushed into the passage
of the house to ascend the stairs to save them, but a sheet of flame
suddenly leaped forth, and drove them back scorched. Thus victorious, it
seized the staircase in its blistering embrace, and hissed and sputtered
as it danced and darted upwards, cutting off with a species of savage
joy all means of egress by that route.

Shouts were raised for the fire-escape, as the attempting rescuers
were forced back by the blinding burst of flame into the streets, and
preparations were made, if the worst came to the worst, to receive with
as much safety as possible those who would be called upon to leap from
the dizzy heights of the upper floor as a last desperate resort to save
their otherwise doomed lives.

A distant hubbub, growing louder as it drew near, announced the approach
of the fire-escape. Its advent was hailed with lusty shouts, and fifty
volunteers rushed to facilitate its arrival, but impeding and retarding
its progress in their meritorious desire to get it up to the scene of
disaster as quickly as possible.

This was the state of things when Hal looked out of window to ascertain
where the fire had broken out.

A downward glance at the rolling masses of smoke, and intermittent
flashes of forked flame; an upward glance at the windows, where, huddled
together, were the shrinking, weeping, distracted females, and he was
the next minute in front of the house making a mad attempt to ascend the
burning staircase.

The serpent-tongued fire had, however, obtained complete possession; it
roared, and licked as it roared, every particle of woodwork within its
reach, brightening up as if with ferocious glee as it gained strength,
and sending forth showers of coruscations, sparkling and glittering,
seemingly to mark as a festive occasion one of the most dreadful
visitations to which human society is occasionally subjected.

Blinded and suffocated, Hal was compelled to give back, to save the life
which might yet be successfully employed in rescuing that of others.

As he reached the doorway, the fire-escape came up, the conductor placed
it against the wall; but before he could commence his perilous ascent,
a light, youthful figure sprang past him on to the wheel, caught in
his hands the nearest rundle of the ladder, and ran lightly upwards,
followed by a cheer from the mob and a shout from the conductor to come
down again; for inexperience, no matter how honorably influenced, is, in
most cases, a sad marplot.

In such emergencies, surrounded by frightful danger, exposed to fatal
consequences by a false step or an error in judgment, the safety of
valuable lives hanging upon a thread, experience allied to calmness, and
cool self-reliance under the most trying contingencies, is essential to
successful operation. In these cases, knowledge is indeed power. To
know how to act and when to act, what to use and how to use it, with
the necessary courage to do and dare all that may be required, is
the battle, and victory rarely fails to follow it when it is properly
conducted. It can be understood, therefore, why the conductor of the
fire-escape, who had saved many lives, enraged at the act of Hal Vivian,
shouted so vehemently to him to return.

He knew by many instances that such a proceeding as that of which the
youth was guilty, while it imperilled the rescue of those sought to be
saved, added to the number he was called upon to preserve. His own life
was always in jeopardy in the performance of his duty, to which he was
quite equal, and it was vexing to find another placing himself in peril
without occasion for it, and, in all probability, doing far more harm
than good.

Quick as he was in his chase after Hal, he failed to reach him before
he was at the window, where clustered the affrighted girls. Ere he could
clutch hold of him, Hal sprang on the window-sill, and was the next
instant in the room.

He was recognised immediately by those whom he came to deliver.

Flora, as she saw Hal’s form upon the edge of the window, and witnessed
him bound into the room, uttered a cry of joy.

As the light from the street flashed upon his animated excited
countenance, her heart received upon it the impression of a face it was
not likely to permit easily to be effaced.

“Heaven reward you, Mr. Vivian!” she exclaimed, hysterically, “you have
come to save us.”

“Or perish with you!” he replied, excitedly, “for I will not leave the
room until you are all safely down.”

“God bless you! God bless you!” sobbed Lotte Clinton, who, as white as
death, was trembling like an aspen.

“Now then, young fellow,” cried the conductor, putting his head into
the window, “since you are here, you must make yourself useful, and be as
cool as a cowcumber. Recollect, we ain’t here to spend a week. Shut that
door; look sharp, or you’ll all be stifled in a minute.”

No sooner commanded than done.

At the same instant the clattering of horses’ feet at full gallop over
the ringing stones, the heavy rumble of whirling wheels, the rattling
cheers of a mob which was fast growing into a multitude, announced the
arrival of the first practicable fire-engine.

By this time Lotte was placed within the cradle of the fire-escape, and
was safely lowered down to those beneath.

A roar of gratification burst from the lips of the spectators as they
beheld one added to the list of the saved.

Hal watched until Lotte was lifted out of the escape, and then he turned
to Flora, to request her to be in readiness to take her place in the
little life-boat.

It must be understood that these operations were performed with the
utmost rapidity consistent with safety. The room was more than half
filled by a dense smoke when Hal entered; and, although the door was
since closed, it had streamed in through crannies and chinks so as to
fill it--the open window rather holding it in the room than suffering it
to escape.

When Lotte and her companion, the conductor of the fire-escape departed,
the atmosphere had become heated and stifling. It was also so thick that
scarcely a thing a foot off could be distinguished. Hal’s astonishment
and alarm can be imagined when, on the return of the cradle, he spoke to
Flora and received no answer.

But a moment past and she was at his elbow; she was now gone--he could
not see her--he called to her, but received no reply. He felt about the
room, but he was nearly suffocated, without succeeding in finding her.
He heard the roaring of the flames beneath him: the smoke grew each
moment thicker and denser: large drops of perspiration poured from
him: instinctively he cowered to the floor and spread his hands in all
directions, afraid to open his mouth for fear of being stifled.

The conductor of the fire-escape now poked his head into the window, and
shouted for the pair to save their lives while they had a chance, but he
received no answer.

He leaped into the room, and threw himself on the floor, groping about
upon his hands and knees. He uttered a shrill cry, but met with no
response. He persevered as long as he could breathe, but without meeting
the bodies of either the youth or the maiden.

It was his impression that, overpowered by the smoke they had sunk
senseless upon the floor, but he could nowhere find them, and at last
mystified, and all but suffocated, he was compelled to retreat to the
window.

The fire was at the door of the room, shooting its long forks of flame
into the old wood of which it was composed, and with such intense heat,
that it was quickly one mass of flame, and sputtering sparks.

With a heavy heart, the conductor got out of the room, on to his
machine, and he was barely upon it, when a long blast of flame followed
him with the speed of lightning, and darted out of both windows,
cracking and smashing the fragile glass panes, causing them to fly
in all directions, playing fantastically over, and wreathing up the
architraves of the windows, lighting up as it did so the excited faces
of the swaying, yelling mob below.

The conductor slid down the escape, and communicated the appalling
intelligence, that in the burning rooms above were two miserable young
creatures who, by the time he was relating the occurrence, had become
shapeless, blackened, charred masses of human clay.

The scene had now grown intensely exciting; more engines had arrived,
and hundreds of persons were added to those already assembled. A body
of policemen were employed in forcing the turbulent crowd back, so as to
give the firemen room for their exertions. The street was turned into
a river, and the fire brigade--accoutred like the heavy dragoons of a
former period--were plashing through the muddy stream, getting their
engines into working order with the systematic, and, as it appeared to
the anxious gazers, the rather apathetic regularity of organised action.

Frantic occupiers of adjoining houses were flinging out their
furniture--their little all, and that uninsured. The beds and chairs,
tables and drawers, formed, as they were brought, or thrown, hastily
into the streets, a motley jumble--some of them being borne away by
active parties, never more to be returned to the original owner.

“Two persons burned to death!” was a cry which ran through the crowd,
and was again and again re-echoed by the individuals of which it was
formed, a thrill of horror accompanying it wherever it went.

An explosion, and up shot a body of flame into the air, attended by a
shower of sparks, fragments of burning wood, and flaming articles, the
volumes of smoke, of gold and rose-blush tint rolling away, painfully
contrasting with the violet-hued heavens.

The roof was gone!

A brilliant glare was thrown over all objects, far and near, making the
place around as light as day.

Lo! a sudden and tremendous cry burst from the agitated multitude,
pressing, crowding, and crushing upon the foot and roadways.

“There! there!--look there!” burst from a thousand throats, and as many
hands pointed to a particular spot.

The adjoining house to Wilton’s--now a burning mass--had a tall,
irregular, but pointed roof, as though two rooms had been built above
the old roof of much less dimensions than those beneath, at the smallest
possible cost, and with an utter disregard of architectural rule.

Up the jagged side of this slanting erection a human figure was observed
climbing slowly, his arm encircling a form all in white. His position
was terrifyingly dangerous--the least slip, and he, together with his
burden, would be precipitated into the burning ruins, still roaring,
spluttering, and flaming below him.

He lay almost flat upon his face on the rough tiles, his right hand
grasping the carved edge of the angle of the roof. Gradually he worked
his hand upwards, and by a tremendous exertion of strength, he drew
himself and his companion up a foot at each movement. It was desperate
labour--a fearful struggle with death. It seemed to those who gazed upon
him a mere impossibility that he could save himself and the girl whom he
still clutched round the waist.

On he went slowly, the bright flames lighting him in his task, but
reducing his strength by the intense heat they threw out. He succeeded
in getting one leg across the angle of the roof, but in doing so he
slipped back at least two feet.

A shriek of horror burst from the crowd, and rose up in the air like a
death-wail.

The youth did not yet despair, but with desperate exertion he arrested
his descent with his knees.

He paused but a moment, and renewed his efforts to ascend, using his
knees now to enable him to maintain his position on the roof, while he
elevated his body so as to extend his reach until he obtained a hold
higher than before, that he might thus ultimately gain a place of
comparative safety.

It was Hal Vivian who was with Flora Wilton in this frightful situation.
He had crawled in search of her into an adjoining apartment to that
which he had entered from the street. She had hurried thither to save
something to which she knew her father attached great importance, but,
overpowered by the smoke, she had, after securing it, fallen senseless.

Hal fortunately found her as soon as he got into the room, and the
reflection from the fire below enabled him just to see the window. He
tore it open, and saw that the parapet adjoined the roof of the next
house.

He sprang on to it, and commenced the perilous task of endeavouring to
escape a horrible death, and of saving, with his own, a life he esteemed
far more valuable.

The falling roof of the house he had just quitted, when it sank with
its dreadful crash, was within an ace of taking him with it. It was a
fearful moment, but he surmounted it, and attempted to proceed at the
instant the crowd caught sight of him. He heard not their cry, saw
nothing, thought not of aught but the endeavour to reach a place of
safety with her. He strained every nerve and sinew to accomplish his
object, but human endurance, though backed by the urgings and influence
of a strong will, has its limits.

He now reached that point when, with sickening dismay, he found his
strength failing him, and although his firmness and determination were
unshaken, his power to go on was departing. To slacken his tenacious
hold was to be hurled into the yawning gulph of fire behind him. He knew
this well; that knowledge had as yet sustained him, and he clung to the
roof still with desperation, resolved, notwithstanding the quivering of
his fingers, the agonising aching of the arm which supported Flora, and
the trembling of his knees, to continue to the last his exertions to
save the maiden, or to pass out of life with her.

Slowly rising up, as before, he made a clutch at the top of the roof,
and caught it, but he found that, beyond drawing himself and the form of
the senseless girl a little higher, he could do no more. It required
an effort of unusual strength to reach the summit, where he believed he
could remain safe until rescued, and that effort exhausted nature was
incapable of making. Nay, he felt that he could but a few minutes longer
cling there, and if some Heaven-sent aid did not reach him, his almost
superhuman exertions would have been made in vain.

He remained motionless, trying to recover his spent breath, and, while
in this position, the hoarse cries of the people thronging in the
streets reached his ears, and seemed to rouse him from his slowly
approaching listless inanition. He breathed a prayer; a thought what
Flora yet might be to him, and what that great world, of which he had
yet seen so little, might have in store for him, flashed through his
brain. The effect upon him was like the sound of a trumpet to the
soldier at the moment of some fearful charge, in which death is the
alternative of glory.

He drew himself upwards, struggling with the obstacles which seemed to
try and force him backwards, and, almost with a scream upon his lips, he
found himself oscillating upon the spot he had with such trying exertion
sought to reach, exhausted, and unable to make another effort.

A shadow fell upon him; he turned his feeble eyes upon the occasion of
it, and saw one of the fire brigade, who, having laid a short ladder
against the side of the roof, had mounted it and reached him.

Behind this man rose up the helmet of a second fireman, closely
following his comrade in his work of mercy.

Hal knew at a glance that Flora and himself were saved. He no longer
strove to continue the battle with fate, and did not attempt to resist
the embrace of insensibility as he felt the grip of the fireman upon his
collar, and heard undistinguishable words fall from him greeting him.




CHAPTER VI.--THE NOBLE GUESTS.


               “You have deserted me; where am I now?

               Not in your heart, while care weighs on your brow;

               No, no! you have dismissed me, and I go

               From your breast houseless; ay, ay, it must be so,”

               He answered.

                             --John Keats.


Mr. Grahame, though greatly agitated at the sudden appearance and
abrupt disappearance of Nathan Gomer, at a moment of such dread
importance, did not make any comment upon it to Mr. Chewkle. He felt
unequal to such a task, and perhaps, too, he thought that it would be
better not to suppose that the strange little moneyed man had either
observed or suspected any foul play in the act he must have seen in
commission. So he folded his arms, and remained silent, assuming the
aspect of profound meditation.

Mr. Chewkle, finding the coast clear of the small enemy, would have
given free vent to the feelings which were turbulent and in turmoil
within him, but Mr. Grahame repressed the very first outbreak.

“Pray be silent on the matter,” he observed, hastily, as if aroused
suddenly from a fit of abstraction, “our speculations upon the situation
are worth nothing, and may lead us astray if suffered to have the rein.
Keep what you know safely locked within your own breast. Trust the key
in my keeping alone. Your reward shall not certainly be less than your
expectations. Mr. Gomer doubtless saw me affixing a signature to a deed,
and would presume it to be my own; he could not imagine the truth; and
therefore, though startled at the moment, I do not, upon reflection,
see any occasion for alarm. Let me see you again in a few days, my good
friend, and in the meantime endeavour to suggest a mode of bringing that
wretchedly obstinate old man, Wilton, to reason.”

Mr. Grahame rang a hand-bell sharply, and Whelks instantly was in the
room. Mr. Chewkle “had a thing to say,” which had strong reference to
an immediate pecuniary supply; but Mr. Grahame did not afford him the
opportunity, for he addressed Whelks as he entered, and bade him escort
Mr. Chewkle to the door. He tendered a finger to the commission agent as
a parting salute, honoured him with a stiff bow, and retired promptly to
the further end of the library.

“This way if you please!” exclaimed Whelks to Chewkle, as with head
erect and shoulders back, he, with the stateliness of a Tartar soldier
in an Astley’s drama, marched out of the room.

Mr. Chewkle glanced at Mr. Grahame and at Whelks; he had a pressing
occasion for a few pounds; but though he had quite made up his mind to
ask for and have a sum, and indeed in a private self-communion on his
way thither that morning, he had composed the conversation which was to
take place between himself and Mr. Grahame, and which was to terminate
in a princely act of munificence towards him on the part of the latter
personage, he found himself sneaking out, treading tip-toe on the shadow
of Whelks, without having uttered a word or having obtained a penny.

The princely act of munificence did not come off upon this occasion, but
he promised himself that before long it should; and, ere he was out of
the house, he had flung his friendship for Grahame to the winds, and had
carved for himself an antagonistic attitude, in which he played the part
of one who, having in his possession a dreadful secret, by which the
safety of another is compromised, makes money by it frequently.

As the door closed upon him, Mr. Grahame turned a fitful gaze in that
direction, and quickly, but silently, turned the key in the lock.

Then he paced up and down the library, almost convulsed by a fierce,
mental struggle. He pressed his burning palm upon his aching forehead,
and muttered rapidly and wildly--

“It must be done now; there is no escape--no escape--none--retreat
is utterly impossible, and the advance must be swift, or, in spite of
crime, utter crushing ruin must be the result. No; there is no stopping
now. That forgery is useless, worthless, while he lives to prove it what
it is. But how dispose of him without having any apparent connection
with his death? Let me see! I must have no accomplice. I already have
one too many; he will be a thorn in my side, I can see that; but there
is time enough to think of the plan by which I shall get rid of him. But
this Wilton; he must die, and that immediately. Yes, he must die! he
must die! or I perish! but how to kill him--how? how?”

He threw himself in his chair, and racked his brain for a device by
which to accomplish his devilish purpose without compromising himself.
But as he did so, the magnitude of the crime he proposed to effect was
not lost upon him. He felt that his face was livid, his hands cold and
clammy, while drops of icy sweat trickled from his temples on to his
cheek bones. His teeth, too, chattered, and his limbs trembled, as
though he had been suddenly nipped by a frost.

Some hours elapsed before his torturing reverie terminated--even then he
had only an indistinct notion of the course which he calculated upon, as
the best to be adopted. The vulgar modes of knife or poison, he foresaw
could not be employed by him, because he would have to be connected,
however remotely, with the deed; and how to accomplish his design
without the aid of one or the other, was a problem harder for him
to work out than the most difficult in the “first four books” to an
indifferent mathematician.

He certainly hit upon a scheme, but he was not sure that it would
accomplish the object in view. There was not, however, time to project
a plan, requiring consummate skill in its details, and rare ability to
execute. Need was driving, and the ground was such as the devil must
cover without the option of a choice; and he made up his mind to act
at once, for he required immediately the funds which the successful
execution of his infamous purpose would place at his disposal.

As if to sustain him in the resolution he had formed, he was aroused
by the arrival of Whelks at the library door, who, when it was opened,
informed him that his son had just returned home, accompanied by the
Duke of St. Allborne, and the Honorable Lester Vane, and that they
awaited him in the drawing-room.

Dismissing Whelks with a message to the effect that he would immediately
join them, he hastened to his dressing-room, to obliterate all traces
of the mental struggle he had for so many hours endured, and, making a
slight alteration in his attire, he descended,

                        With solemn step and slow,

to welcome his son’s guests upon their arrival from college.

He found, on entering the gorgeously furnished apartment, his wife
and daughters entertaining the new arrivals after the manner of the
House--always excepting Evangeline, who sat back in a window recess, as
if she had no business there.

A few words of stately congratulation and welcome from Mr. Grahame,
and the whole party returned to the position which it occupied when he
entered.

The keen eye of Mr. Grahame ran over the forms of the two young men who
were thus introduced into his family for the first time, and naturally
the young Duke was the first to attract his attention.

He was tall--over six feet, and stout with his height. He was fair,
with round blue eyes, a small mouth, and no whiskers upon his cheeks or
moustache upon his upper lip, or the sign of a hair in the vicinity.

His hands and feet were small, but there was a bulky, plethoric
character about his frame, and his legs had an ungraceful leaning to
knock-kneeism.

The tone of his voice was rich and not unmusical; but, like many members
of the aristocracy, his tongue refused to have anything to do with the
letter _r_, and, as a not unusual consequence, he used words containing
that letter more frequently than did persons who could sound it like the
roll of a drumstick upon a kettle-drum.

He was dressed elegantly. The jewellery he wore, though spare in
quantity, was superb in material, and super-eminently costly.

The Honorable Lester Vane was of an entirely different stamp; and could,
perhaps, have better sustained the character of a duke than his friend.
Standing about five feet ten, he was remarkably well-formed and erect,
and seemed to be at least six feet high. He was dark; and, though not
a military man, wore a handsomely-shaped and trimmed moustache: his
features were regular and well-shaped: his eyes were a very dark blue,
and shaded by long black eyelashes: his hair and whiskers being of the
same hue as the latter. His hands were white and small, and his feet
were equally neat in their proportions. He was dressed with consummate
taste and care, and of all men was calculated to attract the notice of
women.

Malcolm Grahame, short in stature, was a rather ugly likeness of his
sister Margaret, possessing all her pride, but not enough of her
studied coldness to prevent it becoming vulgar arrogance. He was rather
overdressed, too; and, altogether, presented a remarkable contrast to
his college companions. It was soon perceptible that he toadied them,
and that they both held him at no very flattering height in their
estimation.

Why, then, did they accompany him home? An answer to that question might
have been found in the glances bestowed by both the young men on the
beautiful Helen Grahame, who, conscious of her own charms, received the
homage of their eyes as simply her due. They were both, very shortly
after their introduction, aware that she interpreted their looks of
admiration, rather steadfastly bestowed--that they did not surprise
nor did they abash her--nay, when, to show her power, she flashed those
brilliant orbs upon them by turns, with a clear, steadfast gaze, they
were fain to let their eyelids fall, to screen their unsteady eyes from
the direct, unfaltering look she bent upon them.

Both regarded her in the light of a prize worth having, though each
looked on the achievement from a different point of view. One seriously
hoped to win it without the formulary of the wedding ring--the other
with that aid, but with the addition also of a golden store.

Helen Grahame was unquestionably beautiful. The heightened colour of her
cheek, the sparkling dancing of her brilliant eye, as she observed the
impression her personal attractions had made upon the two young highborn
men, greatly enhanced that beauty, which excited admiration even when
in repose. It kept them at her side, and engrossed the largest share of
their attention.

With a woman’s quickness of perception, Helen saw that she should soon
have both these men suitors for her favour, sighing at her feet for her
love. The gracefully fashioned form of Lester Vane pleased her eye and
taste--the ducal coronet of his bulky friend roused her ambition and
dazzled her; and she foresaw that she should be perplexed, when, as she
instinctively knew would be the case, both wooed her, which to prefer.
It was something to have a handsome “Honorable” for a husband--but to be
a duchess!--ah!

Why at the moment did she sigh so sharply?--why did a spasm run through
her frame, and make her clutch convulsively at a chair for support? Was
it that this momentary pang reminded her that in neither decision
would her heart be enlisted, or that there was another and more grave
consideration which rendered such a speculation a forbidden subject?

After the common-places which usually attend an introduction, Mr.
Grahame suggested that the guests should be shown to their respective
rooms, where they might remove the traces of their journey, and prepare
their toilet for dinner, to be served at half-past eight--a suggestion
which was somewhat readily accepted, and appeared to be grateful to all
parties.

The Duke and the Honorable Lester Vane had heard Malcolm Grahame boast
of his beautiful sister Helen and his proud sister Meg. They had availed
themselves of his apparently unlimited command of money, and they
considered that his family were enormously wealthy, but vulgar and
common-place. When Malcolm invited them home to spend a week with him,
at his “place” in London, they both, having “places” of their own in the
great city, looked upon the invitation as a good joke, and accepted it
in the same spirit. They each resolved to add to the favours they had
bestowed upon him, by permitting him always to pay, by borrowing his
money in return for their company, and by running off with the pretty
sister, of whom he spoke so enthusiastically. They had even entered into
a bet with each other as to which would prove successful.

They were, however, not a little surprised to find the Grahames living
in a style of elegant luxury, and the members of it displaying a pride
of bearing not even surpassed by the ineffably proud Somerset himself,
whose wife--a Percy--never attempted the liberty of kissing him. They
were equally posed to find the pretty sister a brilliant beauty, who
could only be approached with deference and humility; who was not to be
gained with a glance of passion, or won by the pretended asseverations
of a love having no existence.

Lester Vane saw his course at once. His income was narrow, and during
his father’s life would not be increased by inheritances or bequests
from any branch of his family, near or remote. To gain a beautiful wife,
with an enormous dowry, was precisely the means by which he purposed
elevating himself to wealth, and within a few minutes after his
introduction to Helen, he abandoned his criminal project, and took up
the matrimonial one. He formed the determination, too, of thwarting,
promptly and effectually, the Duke’s designs, without appearing to do
so, until he was sure of the lady, because he knew not when and how he
might require his interest and service.

The young Duke was quite thrown out, too, by what was presented to his
astonished eyes. Malcolm Grahame, after all, was not the _parvenu_ he
had fancied him to be, and his sister, instead of being merely a pretty,
silly girl, was one to grace a throne. His was not a nature easily to
abandon a resolution once formed, and he thought of Helen as a mistress
with a gratified emotion not to be described. A passion for her was at
once raised in his heart. He, too, remembering his bet with Lester Vane,
made his resolutions in respect to the intentions of his friend, but
as his own in that particular remained unchanged, he decided upon
preserving silence respecting it for the present.

Both the young men were therefore glad to escape to their rooms, to
recover their surprise on finding themselves in an atmosphere they had
not expected, and in contact with persons differing materially from the
conceptions they had formed of them. They were anxious to reflect upon
their line of conduct during their stay, and having well considered the
path to choose, to follow it out.

The two girls and their mother were glad of an opportunity of comparing
notes and devising plans, to be carried out so long as their guests
remained.

Mr. Grahame seemed to be in a dream, glad to be away from everybody, yet
hating to be alone.

A brilliant dinner was served at the appointed hour. As there was no
point of resemblance in the characters of those present, save in those
of Margaret Grahame and her mother, the conversation was certainly not
monotonous. It afforded, however, an opportunity for those interested in
such a task to observe and mentally comment upon their companions, and
to draw conclusions to be treasured up for future use.

The Duke of St. Allborne was placed on the right hand of Mr. Grahame,
the Honorable Lester Vane on the right of Mrs. Grahame, the Duke enjoyed
the pleasure of having the fair Helen as his right hand neighbour, and
Lester Vane was honoured with the company of Margaret, for which he was
not disposed to be especially grateful.

Evangeline faced her brother Malcolm, and thus arranged they proceeded
to discuss the various courses, to partake of the choicest wines, to
converse, and to gaze upon each other.

The last item was by no means the least important. The Duke did his best
to engross the conversation of Helen, and to keep his round light blue
eyes settled upon her, which she affected only to observe now and then
by accident. Then a scarcely perceptible smile turned the corners of her
mouth.

The deep blue eyes of Lester Vane rarely left her face, even when he
was addressed by others. As often as she turned hers in his direction,
which, with a motive, she did occasionally, she perceived his earnest,
dreamy gaze fixed upon her. Twice or thrice it made her shudder, she
knew not why. It was fixed, expressive, teeming with passion, but, if it
possessed fascination, it was that of the serpent. Insensibly, every now
and then her eyes wandered towards his, and settled for a moment upon
them, each was conscious of the effect they were creating, and when
Helen averted hers, a strange dread thrilled through her frame.

Now, although the beautiful face of this girl absorbed so much of
Vane’s gaze, he was not ignorant of the fact that there was another face
possessing great claims to loveliness at the table.

At first the timid reserve of Evangeline had caused him to pass her over
unnoticed, but now that she sat almost opposite to him, he could not
fail to notice her.

She was attired in a dinner dress of pale blue and silver, and, being
very fair, looked charming. Her gentleness and quietness prevented her
attracting much attention. To the Duke she was mixed up with the lights,
the plate, and Malcolm Grahame, but the eye of Vane marked her down.

“I must fall in with her when she is alone,” he thought; “early in the
morning or in byeways. She can be made, I am sure, to believe and to
keep a secret, at any self-sacrifice.”

Once more his eye fell upon Helen, who was turning her dark, bright eyes
upon the Duke, and electrifying him with her beauty, while she confused
him by the smartness of her sallies.

“I will have her,” mused Lester Vane. “It may be a task surrounded with
almost insuperable difficulties, but I will have her.”

Margaret Claverhouse Grahame divided her attentions between her plate
and the young Duke. She had estimated Lester Vane at pretty much his
value, and therefore did not trouble her head any more about him. She
fastened her gray eyes upon the Duke as often as her dinner would admit,
and she came to the same conclusion respecting him that Lester Vane had
with her sister Helen.

“He must be mine. He is fat and awkward,” she thought, “but he is a
duke, and I am born to bear the rank of a duchess.”

On the period appointed by etiquette for the ladies to retire arriving,
the young ladies, led by Mrs. Grahame, quitted the apartment, to leave
the gentlemen to their wine. They were now on much more familiar terms
with each other, and, as the ladies retired, the Duke rising with the
gentlemen, said to Helen--

“Weally, Miss Gwahame, I gwow evwy day moah and moah convinced that the
wegulation which dwove the ladies fwom our society, though only faw a
time, was absolutely bawbawous; and the pwesent fashion which pwescwibes
a limit to the sepawation, an intwo-duction of the most admiwable kind.
Believe me, I shall, with all wespect to my hospitable host, count the
minutes until we join you in the dwawing woom.”

“And I!” exclaimed Lester Vane, in a tone of voice which compelled Helen
to turn towards him; their eyes met--again she felt a strange, thrilling
dread pass over her frame; she turned her eyes away.

“I am grateful!” she responded with a bow, and hastily quitted the room
with her mother and sisters.

She did not enter the drawing-room, but ran into her own dressing-room,
and, throwing herself in a chair, buried her face in a handkerchief.

She gave way to a passionate burst of tears; presently she drew from her
bosom a small note, broke the seal, and perused its contents many times,
and then she crushed it in her hand.

“How inopportune!” she exclaimed, in a vexed tone; “any night but this;
still the terms are so peremptory; what is to be done?” She looked at
her watch. “It is the hour,” she said; “what if I let it pass by, and go
not? we part then to meet no more--no, no, that must not be--oh, fickle
heart, to what fate will you drive me!”

At this moment her maid entered the room, and she hastily secreted the
note. She mused for a second, and then she said--

“Chayter, give me a shawl; I will walk in the garden; my head aches.”

“It is very dark, miss,” returned the girl, “and the air is getting
cold. It will be dangerous to your health to walk there now.”

“Give me a shawl, Chayter,” cried Helen, impatiently. “It is my pleasure
to walk there--my brain burns.”

The girl knew it was useless to remonstrate further, and handed her a
thick shawl, which she threw hastily over her head, and left the room.
In a moment she returned, and said--

“Chayter, that dress I bade you alter this morning, you may keep.”

“Oh thank you, miss,” exclaimed the girl, joyfully, for it was a rich
one.

“And, Chayter, remain here until you see me. Remember that if I am sent
for, to say that I am lying upon my couch for a few minutes, and do not
wish to be disturbed.”

“Yes, miss.”

“Do not mention a word to any one that I have gone to the garden.”

“Not to a soul, miss.”

“There’s a good girl; I will reward you on my return.”

As she concluded, she hastened down the private staircase.

“She’s got a sweetheart, I’ll swear!” murmured Chayter reflectively.
“I’ll find that out, see if I don’t that will be many a dress in my
way.”

Helen hurried on tiptoe until she reached one of the parlours which
had a window opening on to the lawn. She passed out thence, closing the
window silently after her.

She kept upon the lawn, in the shadow of the house, for a short
distance, and then pursuing a winding path, did not pause until she
reached a small thicket of trees planted on the banks of a tongue of
land curving the ornamental waters.

Here she stood still for a moment, and then she coughed thrice. A voice
whispered, “Helen!” and she clapped her hand. The next instant there
issued from the thicket a young man, who immediately placed himself at
her side.

“I feared you would not come, dearest!” he said, in a low tone.

“Oh, Hugh!” she answered; “it was indeed a task difficult to execute,
but you so earnestly wished me to meet you that I am here.”

“It is shameful of me to doubt you, Helen, after the proofs of affection
which you have bestowed upon me, yet I know the full value of my prize,
and I so fear to lose it.”

“And you still love me, Hugh?” she asked, thoughtfully.

“Love you!--oh, Helen! why do you ask that terrible question? Have I
changed in look, in word, in thought, in act?” he exclaimed, earnestly.

“No!” she said, “oh, no! yet do you not think a time may come when your
love for me will be diverted to another?”

“Helen!”

“Can you not, Hugh, imagine a time when one fairer, less exacting,
more gentle, than myself, may win from me that love you say I now alone
possess?”

“Helen, this language affrights me--I do not understand it!” he
exclaimed, in a tone of surprise; and then added, passionately, “surely
it is not for you to hazard such a terrible supposition! I love you,
Helen--I have sworn it! I shall never change, never swerve from that
adoration, that idolatry, with which I worship you. Oh! we are about to
part for a time, Helen, and is this a moment to raise such doubts?”

She remained silent.

He pressed his clenched hand upon his heart, and said, with deep
emotion--

“Helen, I repeat, we are about to part: you cannot have met me to tell
me that the love you have declared for me, the love which you have
proved, and which I have, oh! so fondly, so dearly cherished, has faded
suddenly away at a moment, and you wish that the separation commencing
now should last for ever? You dare not do it!”

“Oh! no, no, Hugh, no!” she cried earnestly.

“Helen!” he ejaculated, in low but deep tones, as though his very
existence depended upon her answer, “you have, as I believe, proved to
me that you loved me; you love me still, do you not?”

“Oh! yes, yes, Hugh,” she returned, with fervour, “I do, indeed, Hugh,
love you with my whole soul.”

She sank upon his breast, and he pressed his lips to hers, passionately.

At this instant there was the sound of a footstep upon the gravel path.

She sprang from his embrace.

“For Heaven’s sake, be silent!” she whispered.

She turned her eyes in the direction of the advancing footsteps, and
saw, approaching the spot where she stood with her companion, the
Honorable Lester Vane.




CHAPTER VII.--LOVE AWAKENING.


                   Oh, love! no habitant of earth thou art--

                   An unseen seraph, we believe in thee,

                   A faith, whose martyrs are the broken heart,

                   But never yet hath seen, nor e’er shall see

                   The naked eye, thy form, as it should be;

                   The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven,

                   Even with its own desiring phantasy,

                   And to a thought such shape and image given,

                   As haunts, the unquench’d soul--parch’d, wearied, wrung, and riven.

                             -Childe Harold.


A sudden involuntary effort of the memory had nearly cost Flora Wilton
her life.

In that dreadful moment, when the house in which she had for years
resided was a prey to the raging flames, when her own escape--owing
to the fearful rapidity with which the fire gained ascendancy--was a
question of doubt, she had remembered a packet of papers, which her
father had given into her charge, with injunctions to preserve it, even
at the hazard of her life.

It had been placed by herself in a spot, which though secret, was yet
of easy access. To obtain it would be but the act of a minute; the
fire-escape conductor had yet to return to convey her from the burning
house, to the street below; and she made the attempt simultaneously with
the conception of the thought.

The room she entered was densely filled with smoke. She obtained the
object of her search. She remembered no more.

When again consciousness returned to her, she was in the arms of Hal,
high in the air, upon a dreadful slope, the ruddy glare of the roaring
flames making visible to her the frightful danger of her position. She
relapsed into insensibility, and when once more she opened her eyes, she
found herself in bed, the motherly face of an elderly woman bending over
her, and her wrist in the hand of a white-haired medical attendant, who
had himself applied the restoratives which had brought her back to life.

A thousand questions thronged to her lips, first wonder, then
incoherence, then, with an awakening sense of what had happened, her
desolate destitute condition burst with full force upon her, and she
fell into a passionate fit of weeping.

The soft, kindly voice of the woman at her side was addressed to her in
soothing tones, while the strictest injunctions fell from the lips of
the doctor, forbidding speech on either side. He recommended Flora
to commend herself to God, and then endeavour to sleep, under the
conviction that the fearful event in which she had borne so prominent a
part had not involved any loss of life.

Poor Flora! she had no words at command, no language in which to express
the emotions the horrors of the night had occasioned, and she obeyed the
doctor’s behest of silence simply because her tongue refused its office.

She listened to the exhortations addressed to her, and made a feeble
motion to the effect that she would endeavour to comply with the wishes
that had been expressed: and so she was left alone.

Where was she?

She cast her weeping eyes around; but, in the well-furnished room,
recognised no object that could enlighten her upon that point. By the
aid of the light of the candle, which had been left burning upon a
table, she could distinguish everything in the room plainly enough, but
there was nothing to tell her whose house she was within.

But she had a surmise. Women, quick at assumption, are rarely far wrong
in their suppositions.

Flora, when she opened her eyes to find herself at a dizzy height above
the uproar of the excited multitude assembled to witness the destruction
of the dwelling by the remorseless fire, saw, too, that she was in the
firm grasp of Harry Vivian. She remembered that now; and she was led to
believe, therefore, that she had been conveyed by him to the house of
his uncle, and that the kind and tender matron who had spoken to her
such words of tenderness was his aunt.

Her lip quivered as the thought passed through her mind, and
when--following the counsel of the doctor, no less than the dictates of
her own pure mind--she offered up a prayer of thankfulness to the Throne
of Grace for her escape, she invoked a blessing upon the head of him who
had perilled so much to accomplish the work of her deliverance.

It has been said that it is seldom a woman disposes of her own
heart--circumstances decide for her. One thing is certain--that she does
not long remain in ignorance when her heart has been made captive. A man
may for some time believe and assure himself that he only admires and
esteems some very pretty girl: an accident will, however, disclose to
him that he loves her. This is not the case with woman: a man upon whom
she casts at first an indifferent eye may possess attractions which,
gradually gaining her good will, ultimately win her affections; but her
heart will no sooner be his than she becomes cognizant of the fact, and
she takes her position accordingly.

Flora had been present many times when Hal Vivian had visited her father
upon business. She had been irresistibly struck by his handsome face
and well-formed figure, his pleasant expression of countenance, and his
mild, courteous manner; but, if she had then thought of him at all, it
was to consider him as an amiable young man--bearing the palm, perhaps,
from every other she had as yet seen--nothing more.

Now, as she sought to close her eyes in sleep, she saw vividly his face,
the bright red glow of the fire glaring upon it; she saw his glittering
eye, his contracted brow, his inflated nostril, and compressed lip, the
collective symbols of brave energy; she saw, too, that the contour was
handsome and noble--with an almost painful distinctness she perceived
that the daring effort of courage, which then so brilliantly animated
his fine face, was solely made to save her from a dreadful death.

While giving him full credit for the very noblest impulse, she had not
been true to her woman’s nature if she had not instinctively felt
that his arduous exertions received an impetus from some favourable
impression she had created upon him.

Indefinite, unacknowledged as this conception, in her agitated state,
really was, it was not without its influence in composing her to
slumber.

Her dead mother’s pale face seemed to look down upon her from its place
in heaven, gently and placidly. Her father’s countenance, quivering with
an agonised anxiety of expression, disturbed and sorrowful, oppressed
her, but the features of Hal floated before her vision, appearing to
grow brighter and brighter in her eyes, and to suggest a hopeful and
happy future.

It was broad daylight when she awoke. She turned her pained eyes around
her, and beheld at her side again that same kind, motherly face which
had been the first she looked upon the night before, when recovering
from insensibility. She was greeted with kind words as on the previous
occasion, and was permitted this time not only to recur mentally to
the sad event of the night before, but to obtain some control over her
natural emotions before a question was put to her, which called upon her
to utter a word. During this interval, she learned that all her surmises
had been founded on a true basis; that she was indebted to Hal Vivian
for an almost miraculous escape from a dreadful death, and that she had
been received and sheltered beneath the roof of Mr. Harper, where she
was assured that she was welcome to remain until some arrangements for
her comfort and convenience could be made.

Further, Flora was given to understand that the good Samaritan before
her was Mrs. Harper, who, though she had servants in the house, believed
that her own ministrations to the suffering girl would be attended with
more beneficial results than if she had delegated the task to others.

Mrs. Harper was a truly generous, kind-hearted woman, and her efforts to
serve others had, at least, the gratifying effect of rewarding herself,
for hitherto she had been so fortunate as not to misplace them, or throw
them away on unworthy objects. Her doves of pity and goodwill had always
brought her back an olive branch, and if they had not, it is doubtful
whether she would have ceased to render those services which came so
opportunely, and were so grateful to whoever needed them.

When Flora could command herself to speak, she, in warm and
eloquent terms, expressed her deep and earnest gratitude for that
self-sacrificing bravery which the nephew of Mrs. Harper had exhibited
in the behalf of herself, and to the goodness and charity of the old
lady, who, in her distress, had granted her so valuable an asylum.

“Don’t speak of it, my child,” returned Mrs. Harper. “For my part,
I wish my hospitality had been afforded to you under happier
circumstances. And as for Hal, Heaven bless us! I thought I should have
died when I saw him crawling with you up the roof of that horrible
old house over the way. I’m sure I never expected to see you come down
alive, either of you, and, in truth, I don’t believe you would if it
hadn’t been for those bold firemen, who, mercy on us! were up in the
flames, moving about like a parcel of demons in the fiery regions in the
play!”

Flora clasped her hands, and said sorrowfully--

“This perilling of life for me, and I can in no way repay it.”

“Tut, tut, my dear,” returned Mrs. Harper, “don’t think about
that--these men are paid for their work; it is their duty, and they are
used to it.”

“But Mr. Vivian?” suggested Flora.

“Just what I said, my dear,” observed Mrs. Harper, garrulously. “Hal is
neither paid for nor used to such work, but when I said so, he closed my
mouth with a kiss, and vowed that it was his duty that he had performed,
and if it was to do again he would not hesitate one minute to go through
all he did last night.”

“He is so noble!” said Flora, with the faintest of sighs.

“Poor fellow!” ejaculated Mrs. Harper. “He looks rather jaded this
morning, and so odd with his whiskers and eyebrows singed with the
fierce fire. Ah! it was a dreadful sight.”

“Dreadful!” exclaimed Flora, with a shudder.

“Yes, and he was so eager to know how you were,” continued Mrs. Harper,
“Dear me, what a many questions he asked me about you. Ah! well, I told
him you should yourself reply to him bye and bye.”

Flora was conscious of a rosy hue stealing into her cheek. She thought
of his deep, earnest eyes, and how steadfastly they would after the late
event settle upon hers, and how she would never be able to meet his,
though she had at other times and recently done so without even a
passing thought upon the matter.

Why was this? She sighed--perhaps she guessed.

It was some two or three days before she was enabled to grant an
interview to Hal, anxious as she was for the meeting. All her clothes
had been consumed by the fire, and Mrs. Harper’s dresses were “a world
too wide” for her.

Flora was not affected on the point of dress. She had no unnecessary or
false pride in that respect, but she had the natural regard to external
appearance, which every woman, young or old, unless utterly lost,
possesses; and, though she was not truly cognisant of the influence
a tasteful arrangement of well-fashioned garments would have in
heightening charms already of a very superior order, she had no desire
to present herself to Harry Vivian disguised in a dress sufficiently
capacious for Mrs. Harper, but in no degree contract-able to her
dimensions.

With most generous spirit and charming willingness, the old lady put
the powers of her draper and her dressmaker into active requisition, and
Flora was able to quit her room in the time mentioned.

She rapidly recovered her health and a certain serenity of mind. The
loss of all her father’s little property, buried among the charred ruins
opposite, was an evil to be regretted, but it was a fact which no grief
could disturb or obviate. A remedy was to be sought--something was to
be done for herself, probably for her father too, who, an inmate of a
prison, was scarcely likely to be able to help himself; and from the
moment she came to recognise and comprehend her position, her mind
busied itself in forming plans for the future, by which she should at
least be able to support him who had no one now in the wide, wide world
to look up to but herself.

She was hopeful and sanguine, but she knew very little of the world.

Old Mr. Harper knew a very great deal about it, plain and matter-of-fact
as he appeared. He had for some time past determined to have a country
house at Islington--in fact, had decided upon it, and was slowly
having it furnished. He pushed on the work now; for, after a very grave
consultation with Mrs. Harper, his wife, he decided that the poor girl,
bereaved of home by fire, and of a father by the law, could not turn out
into the streets. So, looking upon her as a trust confided to his care
by the Almighty, he resolved to take charge of her, house, feed, and
clothe her, until something was done in her behalf by such persons as
had a better title to perform the good work than himself.

Thus, at the end of a week, he calculated upon entering his new house at
Highbury, which he should leave in the morning and return to at night,
accompanied by his nephew, and he resolved that Flora Wilton should
become an inmate as well as those who constituted his family. He
absolutely chuckled to think what a delightful companion she would make
his wife, who, having lived so long in the old house in Clerkenwell,
would find the solitude of her new home, without such society as that
now ready for her, absolutely insupportable.

Mr. Harper confided to Hal the task of imparting to Flora his
intentions.

“She owes you something for the service you afforded her in escaping,”
 said the old goldsmith, “and so if she raises any foolish objection,
the prompting of a reluctance to become burdensome, or any such stuff
as that--for she is just the sort of girl to show a great deal of pride,
you know--you will be able to combat her arguments and reason her out of
it.”

Hal’s face lighted up as though a sunbeam had made it radiant.

What happiness to have her dwelling at his home, her eyes to greet
him when he returned at night, and follow him when he departed in the
morning, her sweet-toned voice to welcome him and to speed him on his
way, her delicious presence to smoothe down the fatigues of his daily
labour, and to wile away imperceptibly hours which otherwise might drag
their slow length tediously along.

Harry Vivian, overflowing with Mr. Harper’s instructions and his own
emotions of delight, one morning by arrangement entered the room in
which Flora was seated alone, and advanced towards her shyly and slowly.

Flora, who, as the door opened, turned her gaze upon it as though she

               Knew whose gentle hand was on the latch,

               Ere the door had given him to her eyes,

as he made his way into the apartment, rose up. The colour fled from her
cheek, and she was seized with such a sudden and violent palpitation of
the heart that she was forced back into her chair again. She trembled
all over. Then her cheek flushed, and she felt once more impelled to
rise and hurry towards him to grasp his hand, and pour forth a torrent
of eloquent gratefulness. The emotion which she experienced was new and
strange to her; her every nerve thrilled rather with a sense of pleasure
rather than with any other feeling.

She was confused, dizzy. But withal, an overpowering gladness reigned
within her soul that he and she were once more face to face.

Ay, they were palm to palm, too. At first without a word. What could
they say? their hearts were too full for utterance; both remembered how
together they had trembled on the verge of eternity, and there was a
deep solemnity in the thought, which, for the moment, forbade speech.

Flora was the first--wonderful gift pertaining to woman--to recover her
self-possession. In words, low toned, but earnest and heartfelt, she
expressed her sense of the obligation she owed him, and though he,
recovering, too, his speech, would have stayed her, she was not to be so
checked, but gave utterance to all her full heart dictated.

“For my own life I am your debtor. I am sensible what I owe to you on
that account,” she observed, with much feeling, “and I can never, never
discharge the obligation; nay, perhaps I would not if I could,
for indeed, Mr. Vivian, after the brave and noble conduct you have
displayed, it affords me a gratification I have no words to describe, to
know that I shall henceforward be attached to you by ties of gratitude
which no adverse circumstances can ever sunder.”

Why did she suddenly turn so crimson, and look affrighted at the words
which she herself had uttered? Was it that Hal’s eye danced with joy, or
that he raised her hand to his lips, and pressed it with them?

Well, it matters not; her eye fell upon the ground, and her hand
remained within his; she did not offer to withdraw it, though he had
kissed it softly and tenderly it is true, but not without a little
_empressement_--if ever so little.

He had not seen her frightened look, but her words had made his heart
leap, and but that he had the proposition of his uncle to make, it is
not impossible that he would have responded to them by confessing that
her attachment, however ardent, was fully reciprocated by him. As it
was, he restrained himself.

“My dear Miss Wilton,” he said, in a somewhat tremulous tone, “do not
over-rate my services; I was excited by the occurrence, and acted upon
an impulse.”

“A noble one, Mr. Vivian.”

“But not uncommon. Thousands would have done as I have done, had they
similar opportunities, and I should have exerted myself equally had you
been an entire stranger to me.”

“That I believe,” said Flora, innocently and praise-fully.

“That is to say,” continued Hal, correcting himself, for he did not
quite like her to entertain that belief, “my impression is that I
should. I must acknowledge, Miss Wilton, that knowing you, as I have
had the honour of doing for some time, I had an additional incentive to
endeavour to snatch you from an awful death. I very much congratulate
myself that I succeeded, and I pray you to believe that you cannot be
more overjoyed at my good fortune than myself. Thank God, you are safe,
and I hope almost recovered from the fright. We will let the past go,
and cast an eye upon the future.”

“I have already done so,” interposed Flora.

“I do not dispute it, my dear Miss Wilton,” returned he, speaking
quietly yet firmly, as though to drown all opposition; “but my uncle has
been beforehand with you. He is a man of the world, and knows much;
he is a wealthy man, too, Miss Wilton, and can well afford to be kind,
considerate, and generous. He is quite alive to the very embarrassing
position in which the late sad disaster has placed you, and he is
anxious that you should not experience its inconvenience during the
interval which must elapse between any arrangements you may be able to
make hereafter for your future course. He has laid out his plans, with
which you are connected; he confesses that they are not without a little
selfishness in them, but he is wishful that you should overlook that,
and not offer any opposition to the proposal he has empowered me to make
to you.”

He, then, in the most delicate words he was able to employ, laid before
her his uncle’s plan, and begged her to assent to it.

To have refused, under present circumstances, would have been simply
a preposterous absurdity; she had no such notion, but she felt this
additional kindness most acutely.

She remained silent, because she felt that she should sob as she spoke,
if she attempted to give utterance to her feelings. She turned her large
eyes, suffused in tears, upon him--he was easily able to read their
language.

With instinctive delicacy, desirous of sparing her further distress from
painful recollections, he terminated the interview here.

In a rejoiced spirit he interpreted her look of overflowing gratitude as
an acceptance of his uncle’s liberal offer, and he once more pressed her
unreluctant hand, as, relieving her of any necessity for speaking, he
informed her that he should convey to his kind-hearted relative her
judicious decision upon the matter.

If he were not in love now, it is more than doubtful if ever he could
be.

During the period which had elapsed between the rescue and the present
moment, Flora had not, for an instant, forgotten her father.

The expression of dire misery which pervaded his features, when he
parted from her in custody of Messrs. Jukes and Sudds, remained present
to her as vividly as though it had been photographed upon her vision.
It haunted her, and added greatly to the sad impression with which the
recent occurrences and several afflicting events had clouded her young
life in the years immediately past.

She wished so much to see her father again, to be with him, to minister
to his wants and to his comforts, to both of which, she felt assured,
he had no one to attend, and must, therefore, be plunged into a state of
despairing wretchedness.

In accepting the offer of Mr. Harper, she saw--in no selfish or
narrow-minded spirit, that she would, in her present dreadful strait, be
at least provided with a home, until some means were obtained to place
her where she would be no longer a burden to Mr. Harper, and she had
not, therefore, hesitated thankfully to fall in with the arrangement
proposed.

Yet she desired to be the companion and loving attendant upon her father
in prison.

In prison!

How that dreadful word rang in her ears!

She had but a vague notion of that receptacle for vice, dishonesty, and
misfortune. She had no clear perception of the difference between the
debtor’s and the criminal’s place of incarceration. To her it was one
huge black building, frowning and grim in its aspect without; all cells,
chains, and torture within.

To some such a place she believed her father to have been borne. She
shrank not to share his captivity She had a sense that the air would be
foul, stifling, pestiferous, and the cell wanting the light of day. She
pictured four black, mildewed walls, a straw bed, always damp with slime
and dank with humid earth, a small wretched table, a pitcher of water,
and a lump of dark, noisome bread. She had heard of such places. There
might be some alleviation where the crime was only inability to pay,
but a prison was still a prison, and hopeful as she might be that his
condition was not so bad, yet she could see it in no other light.

To Mrs. Harper she revealed her wishes, but that good lady not only
had a difficulty in believing in its practicability, but even in its
propriety.

Mr. Harper was consulted, and he hastened to set Flora right.

“Do not suppose,” he said, “Miss Wilton, that I have overlooked the
situation of your father--common humanity would have forbidden that.
I made it my duty to send to him, as early as the gates of the
establishment where he is detained were open, on the morning after the
fire, to let him know that the sad disaster had happened, but that his
child was safe in my charge. I further caused him to be informed that
as soon as you were able to leave your chamber, you would go to him, and
explain all that I was unable to communicate.”

“Oh, sir! let me go to him at once,” cried Flora eagerly.

“If you feel strong enough, certainly,” replied Mr. Harper.

“Oh, sir! I am quite strong enough, quite--indeed I am. I so long to see
him; I have so much, so very much to say to him.”

“Be it so; Hal shall accompany you to protect you. You cannot go alone.”

“No?”

“No! it would not be well to do so. Through the agency of some unknown
friend, a writ of _habeas corpus_ has been obtained, and your father has
been removed from Whitecross Street to the Queen’s Prison--all of which
you do not understand. However, there he is, and the place is one of
which you can have no conception. The assemblage there is large, mixed,
and not scrupulous in its behaviour. You would be bewildered without
some one to make inquiries for you, and be, perhaps, rudely assailed by
the unreflecting or the callous and the impertinent. Yes; Hal shall go
with you, and you will, believe me, find the prison somewhat different
to the picture you have sketched in your imagination.”

Flora listened in silence, and acquiesced in the arrangement, not that
the disagreeable part of it would be the society of Hal--nay, she would
have gone with Jukes rather than not have gone at all, malicious ogre as
she considered him--but she would have preferred to have gone alone.

She felt an intuitive reluctance that Hal, whom she so much esteemed,
and whom, therefore, she would have wished to have seen her relatives
in their best light, should visit her father in a prison, and that the
visit should be paid with her.

But inexorable circumstances compelling, she set out with him, her
small hand resting upon his arm, and making him feel a far wealthier and
happier potentate than any monarch that ever reigned upon earth.




CHAPTER VIII.--THE PRISON.


                   There’s a divinity doth shape our ends,

                   Rough hew them how we will.

                             --Hamlet.


When they together reached the lodge, or gate, as it is called, of the
Queen’s Prison, Hal and Flora gazed with surprise on the motley group
waiting for the door to be unlocked, that they might enter to see those
confined within.

A sallow faced, black-haired turnkey, who seemed all eyes, was what is
called “on the lock,” and he “took stock” of every individual about to
pass into the prison with a sharp scrutiny, and with a rapidity which
told that this had been for years his daily practice.

Young and old, rich and poor, were standing there together, elbow
to elbow. The shabby man, who acted as messenger--the aristocrat,
moustached and habited in the latest fashion--the slatternly dressed
woman, with a basket containing small purchases--and the fine lady,
whose husband had settled a fortune upon her, but who was, himself, “in”
 for a few thousands, and whose carriage waited without the gate--the
squalid child, the pampered boy, the virtuous and the vicious--were
huddled together, forming no indifferent sample of the congregation
gathered within the embrace of the high brick chevaux-de-frise crested
walls.

The turnkey, who had been reading a newspaper with one eye and surveying
his guests with the other, having found the collection of guests large
enough, rose slowly up and opened the door. A crowd was waiting on the
opposite side to come out.

As Hal, with his young and beautiful but shrinking companion, passed the
turnkey, he inquired where he should find Mr. Wilton, and had to repeat
his question before he could obtain a reply. At last, as the way was
being stopped up because Hal, with the blood tingling in his forehead,
refused to budge until he obtained his answer, the man said, in a low
and surly tone--

“No. 5, in No. 10.”

Hal passed on and entered a long quadrangle, where he saw assembled some
three or four hundred persons of all descriptions, many of them passing
away their hours of confinement in the game of rackets.

An exclamation of surprise burst from both his lips and from Flora’s.
Her visions of a damp, horrible dungeon were dissipated in a moment.

The day was cloudless, and as the sun streamed down among the hordes
congregated together, bustling here and there, standing in groups, or
engaged actively at rackets, laughing, shouting, or speaking in high
tones, the scene appeared more like a community enjoying a festival day
than a body of prisoners in confinement, visited by condoling friends.

Flora’s surprised eyes ran eagerly over the lively masses, thronging
in groups, or moving rapidly to and fro, and she felt a great weight
removed from her heart, although even her small stock of worldly
knowledge told her that the aspect of the society she beheld gathered
here was a shade shabbier, and a dash more slovenly than that met with
“outside.”

Both she and her companion were slightly confused, but the latter, after
a curious gaze at the motley multitude, turned his attention to the
object with which he visited the place.

He saw upon the arched doorways leading to the prison chambers,
a painted number upon the key-stone, and shrewdly guessed at the
explanation of “No 5 in No. 10,” which had at first a little mystified
him.

Before he could advance many paces, an experienced eye picked him out
as an “outsider” and a visitor. A dingy tattered man--sallow with long
confinement, and the pressure of an enduring poverty, which had, as he
who gave it as a toast, said, stuck by him long after his friends had
deserted him--touched Hal on the elbow.

“Stranger here, I see,” he observed, as the young man turned sharply
around; “come to see a friend, I presume. If you will honour me with the
name of the gentleman residing here, I will conduct you straight to his
room. If you don’t find him there, I’ll search for him among the
players--sure to find him--one of the conveniences of this establishment
is, that the friend you call to see is never far from his hutch--‘not at
home’ is not known in our vocabulary.”

Hal saw that the information was to be purchased at an arbitrary gift.
He felt that a guide was unnecessary, as the information he had received
from the turnkey, though not at first clear, was plain enough now. Yet
there was something in the careworn aspect of the man’s features--in the
wistful, anxious expression of his eye--telling of the strong hope
he had now before him of obtaining a breakfast; so that Hal, who had
breakfasted heartily, could not find it in his heart to disappoint his
expectations; and, after a perusal of the poor fellow’s face, and a
hasty glance at his threadbare attire, he said--

“I want to see a Mr. Wilton. Do you know where he is--situated?”

Hal had almost said, confined, but he arrested the word ere it left his
lips.

“Wilton, Wilton,” repeated the man; “he is a new comer, eh?”

“He is,” replied Hal.

“Ah!” returned the man, “then he is either 2 in 8, or 7 in 4, or”----

“I can save you the trouble of speculating by telling you”----

“5 in 10,” interrupted the man; “that is the only other room which has
been recently occupied. The lawyers--you a lawyer, sir?”

Hal laughed freely.

“No,” he answered, “I am not a lawyer.”

“Glad to hear it. The precious rastals! they have been driving a roaring
trade lately. Ah, sir! what a glorious country this would have been
without lawyers! No writs, no executions, no imprisonment for debt. By
Jove! what a splendid state of things.”

The man shut his eyes to enjoy the ecstacy he felt even in imagining
such an Utopia.

“For swindlers no doubt!” observed Hal, with a smile; “but lawyers are
essentially necessary to prevent honest men being devoured by rogues.”

“Very true, sir; that is one side of the question. If they confined
themselves to that line, they would be a valuable body of professionals,
but unfortunately they do not. You are too young and too inexperienced
to know that they are much more the rogue’s friend than the honest man’s
counsellor and servant.”

Hal shook his head.

“Ah! you don’t know. I hope you may never have occasion to know. I do;
God knows I do. I have been here eighteen years, sir. Never in all that
time beyond the door through which you entered this pandemonium. The
lawyers brought me here, and here I am likely to die.”

“But can’t you take the Benefit”----

“Of the Act. No! I am here for contempt of court--a contempt of which I
am intentionally as innocent as you are--a contempt about which I knew
nothing--yet the rascally lawyers clapped me in here for it, and here
I have been ever since, because I am not able to purge my contempt, as
they call it. Besides, if it were not for contempt that I am here, I
couldn’t take the Benefit, for I am connected with a large property, and
I don’t intend to let the villains have that simply because I should,
like a bird, be glad to get out of my cage. However, sir, you want to
see Mr. Wilton, and not to listen to my doleful history. Come along,
sir, this way.”

He shuffled onward as he spoke, and Hal prepared to follow him.

As he did so, he caught sight of a man within three feet of him,
fastening a stare of passionate admiration upon Flora’s sweet face.

His gaze was impudent only so far as that it was fixed and steadfast He
had caught sight of her countenance and had stopped short, as though he
had been transfixed suddenly to the ground.

He was about forty years of age, evidently a gentleman, probably a
military man, for his carriage was remarkably erect, and his upper
lip--though that nowadays is no symbol of the profession of arms--was
garnished with a thin, black moustache, long at the ends, and having the
appearance of being perpetually manipulated by the finger and thumb of
either hand.

His complexion was very dark, bearing evidence of having for years
been exposed to the tender mercies of an Indian sun. His eyes were a
brilliant jet and unusually large; they flashed as he moved them; his
hair, which was short, was black, as were his whiskers, which were
thin and polished, curling at the edges with a uniformity that spoke of
irons.

His attire was plain and dark, but that of a gentleman.

He was evidently one in no common position. Hal ran his eye
scrutinisingly over him, and then turned a side glance at Flora,
whose face he perceived to be flushed, and its expression that of one
distressed at being thus rudely stared out of countenance.

Of course, with the instincts of his youth, he felt convulsed with a
jealous rage, and burned to commit himself in some wrathful and violent
way.

As Flora was nearest to the stranger, and must have touched him as she
passed, Hal moved her by an easy act. Setting his shoulder firm, he
increased his pace, as if to follow the messenger, and came into sharp
collision with the gentleman, who had not yet removed his eyes from the
face of Flora.

The effect of the concussion was to thrust him back some two or three
feet, while Hal passed on apparently unmoved.

Another minute, and the latter felt his shoulder rudely seized. He
wheeled round instanter. The man he had pushed out of his path was at
his side, his features distorted with rage.

“Unmannerly cub!” he cried, “how dare you thrust yourself against me?”

“You are quite able to frame the explanation if you require one, and to
comprehend my refusal to make any apology,” returned Hal, with calmness.
“Let me also counsel you not to repeat the offence of which you have
been guilty, or the consequences, as now, may not terminate in a simple
collision.”

He moved on, as the excited individual exclaimed--

“But for that fair creature on your arm, I would have caned you soundly,
you insolent puppy.”

Hal’s lip curled contemptuously; he refrained from replying to the
threat, and left the man to resent his conduct in any shape he pleased.

They were now before the open dooorway, No. 10, and followed the
messenger up the worn stone steps that looked as though water was to
them a fable and grease their daily food.

By the aid of the iron banisters and Hal’s arm, Flora, with beating
heart, reached the second flight, and saw the messenger who had preceded
them halting in the stone corridor before a door.

Upon it was painted the figure 5.

This, then, was 5, in 10, and within the room which that painted door
guarded, was her father, a prisoner.

Still there was no grim turnkey, no dripping walls, no dark
dungeon--though Heaven knows the vaulted passages lighted by small,
arched, iron-grated windows, looked dreary enough.

“This is the place,” said the messenger, “the room where Mr. Wilton is
staying; and with better luck than I have. Ah, sir, my friends have all
died, or wandered away long ago, and I, without them, or help of any
kind, have been obliged to declare myself on the County. That means,
sir, that I am supplied with a room and a scanty allowance of food by
the authorities, but not a farthing in money, sir, not a farthing. You
see before you, sir, a wretch who has not a farthing, nor any means of
obtaining one, save through the charity of kind persons like yourself,
who reward me with a trifle for conducting them to their friends.”

Hal put his hand into his waistcoat pocket and drew forth half-a-crown.
The usual reward was about twopence. Sometimes, by the tough-skinned,
a penny was doled out, or a profitless, “Thank you,” but
half-a-crown--that was unhoped-for munificence. With economy, how long
would it supply him with tobacco and beer?

The man’s eye glistened as a ray of light fell upon the coin. It was one
of the last new dies, and was bright as from the Mint.

“What a beautiful piece of silver!” he exclaimed, with a grin of
satisfaction. “Well, you _are_ a gentleman! When you come again,
sir, ask for me--my name is Maybee: everybody here knows Josh Maybee,
anything I can do for you _in_ the prison I will: out of it, you know,
is not at present in my line. God bless you, sir! good day--oh! stay,
you had better knock and see whether Mr. Wilton is in his room. If not,
I’ll run into the ground, and hunt him up.”

Flora tapped gently at the door, but there was no response. She turned
the handle of the lock gently, and opened it a little way. She looked
into the apartment with a throbbing heart.

Upon a bed she saw seated her father--the very picture of desolation
and woe. His head was bowed almost to his knees, and his two hands were
spread open over his forehead. He seemed unconscious of everything but
the intense anguish under the influence of which his body was swaying to
and fro.

Flora ran into the room: she sank upon her knees at his feet: she drew
gently his hands from before his eyes, and twined her arms about him
with a sweet tenderness.

“Father, dear father!” she said, “look up: see, your own Flo’ has come
to you--to be with you--to share your prison--to tend you, and to be
a comfort to you as she was at home. Look at me--speak to me, father
dear.”

With a startled cry, the old man looked up, as if suddenly roused out of
a dream of gloom and horror into a paradise of sunshine.

He caught Flora’s soft cheeks between his withered hands, and gazed
upon her young, bright, lovely face with an expression of passionate joy
lighting up his wrinkled, pallid, grief-furrowed features.

“Flo’!” he cried, hysterically, “Flo’! Flo’! my--my Flo’, not dead, not
consumed! my own Flo, not lost to me for ever! Oh, beneficent Creator!
I can bear all now: my sorrows are assuaged. Come what come may, I care
not, for my child is spared to me. To my heart, my darling!”

The old man drew her to his breast, and pressed her convulsively there,
sobbing, as he did so, like a child. Hal, with water glittering in his
eyes, turned his face from them, and looked out upon the bustling noisy
groups in the racket ground beneath.

Shabby Josh Maybee made an effort to clear his throat, as if he
had swallowed a cobweb, and felt that, in spite of all his economic
resolutions, at least twopence of the half-crown would instantly be
melted into beer.

He darted away down the stone staircase, two steps at a time, with the
practised agility of one who had descended them many hundred times. As
soon as Flora could disengage herself from her father’s embrace, she
drew his attention to Hal, who had all the time modestly remained close
to the threshold of the door. In glowing terms she related to him the
part which he had played in the dreadful fire, the origin of which was
a mystery. She told him of the desperate hazard he had incurred in his
efforts to save her life, and she also related to him what had since
occurred. Old Wilton, with tears in his eyes, thanked him:--

“Mr. Vivian,” he said feebly, “the day may be distant, but I have faith
that it will come, when I shall in some degree be able to repay you for
the past: not that salvation of a life can ever be meetly rewarded, but
something in the direction may be achieved--some service may be needed
by you, and it may be in my power to render it; it will show, at least,
the spirit of my gratefulness towards you. Mr. Vivian, I have not always
been the abject wretch you now see me; I may not continue to be such.
Ah! my God!” he cried, putting his hands to his forehead, as though
smitten with sudden agony, and then, turning to his astonished daughter,
who was regarding him with an affrighted look, he said, in a tone of
unutterable anguish--“everything was hopelessly, utterly destroyed in
that dreadful fire.”

She clasped her hands, bowed her head, and replied, sorrowfully--

“Alas! everything!”

He groaned bitterly.

“The fire was so sudden and so violent,” observed Hal, gently, “even
those who escaped had hardly time to save themselves in their night
dresses--opportunity was barely afforded for that.”

The old man rose up, and paced the room, murmuring, in accents of acute
misery--

“All gone, all gone, the long cherished hope of years--the one link
which, through all my misery, has bound me to life. Everything has
perished--my long, long sustained hopefulness is swept from me, and
henceforth there is nothing left but misery and despair!”

“Father, dear father, do not give way to such gloomy fears,” cried
Flora, tenderly caressing him.

“A cloud has long hung over our house; it is at its darkest now, but it
will disperse and pass away.”

“Never! never!” cried the old man, hoarsely. “In that dread fire, all
our expectations--all the possibilities of restoring them, are consumed;
we might have been wealthy in the time to come, now we must be beggars
for ever.”

“Your sorrows overpower your better reason, Mr. Wilton,” exclaimed Hal,
pained to see the acute grief of the old man, and the sharp tears of
anguish coursing down the cheeks of Flora, whom he seemed to love more
deeply and fervently each time his eye traced the exquisite beauty of
her features.

Old Wilton turned to him.

“You know not the extent of my loss, Mr. Vivian,” he said, almost
sharply, “you cannot, therefore, measure the depth of my grief.” Then,
addressing his daughter, he said--“Ah! my child, I am to blame that I
did not confide to you the true value of that document which I charged
you to guard with your life. Had I done so you would”----

“I have saved that packet,” cried Flora, eagerly interrupting him.
“I returned for it at the last moment, and I should have died when I
secured it, had not Mr. Vivian risked his life to follow me, and bear me
through flame and smoke to a place of safety.”

She turned a soft glance upon Hal as she said this, which made his heart
leap again.

Old Wilton stood speechless, staring upon her as if distraught while she
spoke. As she concluded, he said, in a hoarse whisper--

“Where is it? where is it?”

She drew from beneath her mantle a small packet, and handed it to him.
He clutched it with trembling fingers. He ran his eye eagerly over it,
though it shook in his hands, so that to decipher a word of that which
was written in endorsement upon it seemed impossible. His breath went
and came in short convulsive sobs.

“It is the same!” he murmured; “it is the same! Saved!--saved! My Flo’,
saved!” The last words sounded feebly, and he staggered as if he was
about to fall.

Hal rushed forward and caught him in his arms. The emotion had been too
much for him, and he had fallen into a swoon. Hal laid him tenderly on
his bed, and unloosed his neckcloth, while Flora, procuring some water
from a brown pitcher, which stood in a corner of the apartment, bathed
his temples and his lips with it.

After some anxious moments, spent in the endeavour to restore him, he
heaved a deep sigh, and opened his eyes.

They fell upon his daughter’s face close to his own. Her soft arm was
his pillow, and her gentle hand wiped the clammy dew from his forehead.

“Are you better, dearest father?” she asked, in low tones.

“Better! better!” he ejaculated, “Well! happy! saved!”

He pressed her cheek to his, and they mingled their tears together.

Hal knew they had much to say to each other, private matters to
communicate, the past to speak about, and the future to arrange. In such
communion, he felt that he would only be an intruder, and he availed
himself of the situation to say--

“You would gladly be alone with your father, Miss Wilton. You have much
to talk over of importance which my presence would render embarrassing
to both. I feel a curiosity to watch the proceedings below. I will
return for you in an hour.”

He did not wait for the answer, but quitted the room, closing the door
after him.

“Oh! good and generous youth,” exclaimed old Wilton, gazing after him,
“would that all the world were like him!”

Flora echoed the sentiment, but in silence. Perhaps, too, she had her
thoughts concerning him; or why did her full lid droop as the sound
of his descending footstep gradually lost itself in the echoes of the
vaulted passages.

As Harry Vivian entered the quadrangle where were assembled the
“benchers” and their friends and satellites, he gazed around upon the
noisy, active throng, uncertain whither to bend his steps.

He impulsively strolled towards the farther end of the quadrangle, where
racket-playing was going on vigorously. As he moved on, his eye suddenly
caught sight of the dark, military looking personage who had so rudely
stared at Flora Wilton, and whom he had so unceremoniously ejected from
his path.

He was in close conversation with old Josh Maybee, and twice or thrice
during their conversation he pointed to No. 10, and Josh Maybee pointed
there, too--even up at the window of No. 5, where Flora was with her
father.

Not for an instant did Hal doubt that Flora was the subject of their
conversation. It was so natural for him to surmise it. The moustached
man had stared at her in the most marked manner--impertinently and
rudely, as Hal believed. He was struck with her beauty--that was
certain; he could hardly be to blame for that--how could he help it? But
there the matter ought to end. Why was he making inquiries about her,
as it was very evident he was? Why should he desire to know who and
what she was? Perhaps he wished to see her again, and to speak to her.
Nothing more probable.

According to Hal’s calculation of consequences, he thought he had better
not make the attempt.

After a few minutes thus occupied, the tall, dark gentleman left
Josh Maybee, and walked as if in deep thought towards the end of the
quadrangle.

Josh Maybee hurried with a smiling face towards the doorway, where Hal
was yet standing.

He would have passed, but Hal caught him by the arm.

“Stay,” he said, “I want a word with you, Maybee?”

“Fifty, if you please, young sir,” cried Maybee, who appeared quite
excited. “You have been lucky to me to-day, sir. Just had a crown given
to me.”

“I guess who gave it to you--a tall, dark man with whom you were just
now speaking.”

“The very same,” returned Maybee, rubbing his hands.

“Is it fair to ask the subject of your conversation?” observed Hal,
hesitatingly.

“Certainly,” replied Maybee, “he didn’t caution me to keep what was said
to myself. He asked me, first of all, who was that pretty girl--and,
dear heart! she has a blessed sweet face--that was with you, sir. And I
told him that I didn’t know. Then he gave me a crown piece, which I
put away quickly, for fear he should ask for change or to have it back
again. Ah! there aint many crowns and half-crowns given away here, sir!”

“Well,” exclaimed Hal, impatiently, “that was not all that passed?”

“Lord bless you! no, sir!” returned Maybee, turning the crown over the
half-crown, and the half-crown over the crown in his pocket. “No, he
asked me where I conducted you to? I told him 5 in 10. He asked the name
of the gentleman you went to visit? I told him ‘Wilton.’ Then he asked
me if I knew anything about Mr. Wilton? and I told him no. Was he a
scientific man? I said I didn’t know. Had he come up from the country?
I couldn’t tell him. He asked me a good many more such questions, but I
couldn’t answer him. Then he said he was himself an Indian officer, and
had not long returned; he had been away a long, long time he said; but
he knew a Mr. Wilton before he went away, and he wondered if he were the
same. Of course I told him that I could not answer that question; and
then he wished to know the room, and I pointed it out to him, that’s
all, sir.”

“Did he mention his own name?” inquired Hal, thoughtfully.

“No, sir; he merely said he was an officer just returned from India,
nothing more,” responded Maybee, who felt more disposed for the
twopennyworth of beer he had promised himself than ever.

Hal let him go. In less than a minute Mr. Maybee was at the bar and a
foaming pint was placed before him.

Hal walked up and down, reflecting upon this event.

He looked after the Indian officer, but he had disappeared, and though
he remained in the quadrangle the time he had prescribed for himself
to remain away from Wilton’s apartments, he saw nothing more of the man
with whom he had come into collision.

The hour having passed, he ascended the stairs with a light step, and
paused before the door of No. 5. He fancied he heard voices within, and
knocked gently for admission. His summons was, perhaps, not heard, and
he repeated it louder. In the interval he was convinced that there were
voices which he did not recognise, and this lent a greater firmness to
his knock.

He heard old Wilton’s voice exclaim, “Come in,” and he entered.

He was not a little surprised on advancing into the room to perceive the
Indian officer, accompanied by a young, dashingly dressed fellow, seated
far too near to Flora to be agreeable to him. Old Wilton was standing,
and displayed an air of dignity, which Hal, certainly, had never seen
him wear before.

There was a silence upon his entrance, and the Indian officer gazed upon
him grimly. Old Wilton, however, with a pleasant smile, and the manner
of a gentleman, motioned him to a seat, and then, turning to the
officer, said--

“Proceed, sir.”

“I was about to ask of you, Mr. Wilton, whether you ever lived in
Devonshire?”

“Am I, before I reply, permitted to ask your motive in questioning me?
You, a stranger.”

“Unquestionably. I have just returned from India after an absence--with
one short exception---of seventeen years. One of my first objects, on
arriving in England, on retiring from the service, has been to find out
those old friends, dwelling in this country, who, in my early years,
were kind and generous in their conduct to me. Among those I can so
class, was a gentleman of the name of Wilton, who dwelt at Harleydale
Manor, Devon. A chance glance at that young lady’s exquisite face
awakened memories long since slumbering, and the accidental mention of
your name, in connection with it, led me to seek you to ask whether you
are Eustace Wilton, of Harleydale Manor?”

Old Wilton’s lip quivered; he drew himself up erect, and said--

“I am that man!”

The officer rose to his feet, and grasped his hand, shaking it with
great apparent warmth.

“Time has wrought great changes in us both,” he said. “I am Colonel
Mires of the Bengal army--that same Ensign Mires whom you defended at a
moment when honour, reputation, family, life itself were at stake.”

Old Wilton started as the name fell upon his ears; he raised his eyes
to the face of the officer, and appeared to scan every lineament. Then,
uttering an exclamation of wonder, he released his hand from the grip of
the colonel, and sank into his seat with an air of stupefaction.




CHAPTER IX.--THE MYSTERY.


               Till Fate or Fortune near the place convey’d

               His steps where secret Palamon was laid,

               Full little thought of him the gentle knight,

               Who, flying death, had there concealed his flight

               In brakes and brambles hid, and shunning mortal strife

               And less he knew him for his hated foe,

               But feared him as a man he did not know.

                        --Palamon and Arcite.


Helen Grahame, with her hand tightly clutching the wrist of the
young man with whom she had been in such tender converse, retreated
noiselessly into the deepest shadows of the small thicket where they had
met, and there stood with her companion, as the Honorable Lester Vane
advanced, motionless.

Though greatly agitated by the unexpected appearance of her brother’s
guest in the garden at such a moment, she betrayed no outward sign of
emotion. She could hear the beating of her heart, but, by an almost
superhuman exertion, she was calm, collected, prepared for action, if
discovered, and even in such an emergency could have spoken without any
visible symptom of embarrassment.

The Honorable Lester Vane paused before the cluster of trees; he even
took a step or two as though to enter its recess.

Helen, had he but advanced one foot more, would have emerged from her
place of concealment, and with some ready excuse for being there, have
led him away, so that her companion might have escaped unobserved,
but, as if satisfied that it possessed no outlet, he turned away and
sauntered slowly and thoughtfully down the gravelled path by a separate
route to that by which he had approached.

As soon as he was out of hearing, Helen turned to her companion,
exclaiming--

“I must leave you, Hugh, and at once--nay, dearest, do not urge me to
remain; you know what happiness it would be to me to share your dear
society for hours--would it were for ever!--but it would be madness to
risk discovery for a few minutes of stolen felicity.”

“Helen, I cannot part from you thus,” returned the youth at her side,
in a voice trembling with emotion. “I am quitting London--you know
it--possibly by dawn in the morning; and these may be the last few
precious moments I may pass with you for a long and dreary term.”

“Nay, you will soon return, Hugh,” she said, with a seeming conviction
that his absence would be brief. He shook his head sadly.

“I do not know what are the intentions of my uncle with respect to my
future movements,” he answered. “I know only that I am ordered to be in
readiness to proceed at a minute’s notice to Southampton, there to await
further instructions, and to be prepared for the possibility of having
to undertake a far more distant journey.”

“Far more distant journey, Hugh?”

“Helen, I have very powerful reasons for believing that my destination
is India.”

An exclamation burst from the lips of the young girl. A thousand
thoughts flashed through her brain at the vision of a long separation
from him who now addressed her.

Alas! for Hugh--they were not such thoughts as he could have wished to
occupy her mind.

She would regret his departure unquestionably: but it brought with it
a sense of liberty, a freedom of action, an unquestioned license for
listening to soft words from other lips, and for responding to meaning
glances from admiring eyes, without the dullness of indifference or a
flash of scorn. The suggestion of a protracted separation brought more
strongly before her mind the ducal coronet of the young peer, now in her
father’s mansion, and the impressive eyes of Lester Vane.

She was silent. Her mind was too busy to permit her to speak a word.

She had involuntarily uttered an exclamation when he revealed his
fear that he was about to leave England for a lengthened term, and he
attributed her subsequent silence to the grief he presumed she would
necessarily feel at the occurrence of an event which, to him, was
distracting.

He twined his arms about her waist, and she rested her beautiful face
upon his shoulder. He pressed the lips thus offered up to his own, and,
with a groan of agony, murmured--

“Oh, Helen! my own noble beautiful one, my life’s treasure, it will be
death to me to part with you. I cannot, will not, go: I will submit to
any sacrifice rather. I will not be torn from you, for, in truth, it
will break my heart.”

“Hugh, dearest, do not give way thus,” she rejoined, as her youthful
companion, under the intense pressure of his feelings, suffered his head
to fall upon her neck, and sobbed passionately; “this is not like you,
Hugh: I have seen you brave enough in desperate peril--come, be brave
now. Remember you are making yourself unhappy upon a surmise only.”

“Would I could view it only as a surmise, Helen,” he returned, sadly.
“Unhappily, I have too much occasion for faith in the presentiment which
oppresses me.”

“Mere childishness, Hugh! We have parted before, but only to meet
again, and with increased happiness. You quitted me hopefully, you have
returned to me joyously; why not again?”

“It is clear, Helen,” he said, raising up his head, and dashing away
the tear which yet trembled on his cheek, “that you can contemplate a
separation with calmness and firmness.”

“In expectation of meeting you soon again, certainly,” she replied.

His quick ear detected a slight coolness, and a little impatience in the
tone.

“But in expectation of not soon meeting again?” he asked, sharply and
with misgiving.

“Why imagine that which is not likely to happen?” she returned,
pettishly.

“I have told you that it _will_ happen.”

“Hugh, I do not comprehend what of late has possessed you,” she retorted
in the same fretful voice. “You have suffered the most ridiculous
fancies and chimeras to seize upon your brain, and you not only make
yourself miserable, but you seem to wish to compel everybody else to
become so.”

“Helen, you wrong me.”

“Indeed, I fear I do not. Even to-night, when you must have been
conscious that to accomplish a meeting with you was to me next to an
impossibility, you insisted upon my complying with your request, and you
bring me here only to entertain me with a string of doubts and fears,
which are not worthy of you.”

He started, and released her hand, of which, until now, he had retained
possession.

“You do not love me, Helen!” he exclaimed, passionately, as he recoiled
from her.

“Not love you, Hugh,” she replied, throwing up her head angrily; “you
are ungrateful, sir. Ask your reason. At what sacrifice have I paused
for you? You, at least, have had proof that my love for you was of no
ordinary character; you----”

“Oh, Helen!” he cried falling upon his knees before her, “pardon me,
forgive me! I am frenzied at the prospect of losing you. I do love you
so fondly, so dearly, so madly, that death in any shape seems to me
preferable to being torn from you for years. You are my heart’s idol,
its worship--my adoration; and if I am captious, full of strange
conceptions and dread misgivings, attribute it alone to my passion for
you, my Helen, my beloved!”

It is rarely that a young girl who is possessed of genuine tenderness of
feeling for a young and handsome man, remains an indifferent listener
to his ardent expressions of passionate devotion. Helen Grahame was not
less susceptible in this particular than the weakest of her sex. She
bent over Hugh, parted with her soft white hand his rich glossy hair
from his forehead, and pressed it with her ruby lips.

“Rise, Hugh, rise,” she said, fondly and earnestly, “I entreat you.
Pray, be more calm. Elevate yourself above this morbid feeling of
unhappiness, and let me hear what you have to communicate to me, for
indeed I must almost instantly return to the house. I am expected in the
drawing-room, and, if missed, a messenger will be sent in search of me.
I would not for worlds be discovered here.”

“Helen dearest.” he exclaimed with a quivering lip as he rose to his
feet and once more twined his arms about her graceful form, “I leave
London to-morrow--I know not yet at what hour--for Southampton; if that
were to be the limit of my journey I should not be thus depressed, but
from a confidential source I have received the hint that I shall be
called upon to proceed by the overland route, to India--to the city of
Agra. I believe this is decided; our separation cannot, therefore, be
less than for six months; it may be for years--it is this thought
which wounds me so deeply, for what may not happen in my absence? What
indeed!”

He paused for a moment, overpowered by a throng of painful
anticipations. Helen remained perfectly silent; and clearing his voice
he went on.

“I cannot ask you not to forget me,” he said. “I know that would be
impossible, but--but I would ask you, Helen--I would ask you, when I am
gone far, far hence, to remember what we have been to each other, and
to continue to me as, I vow to Heaven I will ever to you remain--true,
loving, and faithful.”

“Hark” cried Helen, starting suddenly, “a footstep approaches--I must
fly. Farewell, Hugh! God bless you, and guard you until we meet again!”

She threw herself into his arms. He strained her passionately to his
breast, and imprinted a thousand fervid kisses on her lips.

“And you will be true to me, Helen?” he whispered.

“I will, Hugh, I will,” she replied with an earnestness rivalling his
own.

“You swear it, dear Helen.”

“I do! I do!”

One more passionate embrace, many murmured but heart-spoken farewells,
a long--long kiss, then she broke hastily from his arms, darted swiftly
into the deep shadows of the over-arching trees, flitted like a phantom
over the grassy lawn, and disappeared.

With a melancholy gaze he caught the last wave of her white garments, as
they vanished in the distance and in the darkness, and then, with a deep
sigh, he proceeded slowly to quit the spot.

Ere he had proceeded a dozen yards, a hand was placed somewhat
vigorously upon his shoulder. He turned quickly: the figure of a man was
before him, but in the darkness he could distinguish nothing further.

A voice he did not recognise said, roughly, to him--

“Fellow! why are you lurking here?”

Hugh flung him fiercely hack.

“Who are you who dare thus address me?” he cried, angrily.

“That you shall know somewhat too soon for your satisfaction,” returned
his questioner, again seizing him, and, with great strength, dragging
him from the thicket towards the gravel path. “The lady, too,” he added,
“can hardly escape detection. I have marked her down.”

More he was unable to say, for the impetuous bands of Hugh clutched his
throat, and prevented further utterance.

A desperate struggle ensued. It was so far but a wrestle. Hugh sought to
release himself from the grip of him who had seized him, and his captor
did his utmost to retain his hold.

In the course of the contention they emerged from the thicket into the
moonlight, which fell upon the faces of both; each was thus able to
distinguish clearly the features of his antagonist, but both were utter
strangers to each other; simultaneously they detected they had not met
before.

Hugh Riversdale knew not that he was striving with Lester Vane, but he
was sure that he should never forget the face, the pallid face, within
a foot of his own, which the gray moonlight was tinting with the hue of
death.

Nor did Lester Vane fear he should fail to remember the features of
one whom he instantly perceived was strikingly handsome and no common
personage.

He found his strength failing him, that Hugh would succeed in releasing
himself from his custody, and he shouted loudly for help. The next
instant he received a tremendous blow upon the temple, and was hurled to
the ground with such force as to compel him to remain there stunned and
insensible. Hugh cast a glance upon him as he lay motionless upon the
gravel path.

“I have seen that face in a dream.” he muttered; “mine enemy from
henceforward. We have for the first time crossed each other’s path--we
shall again. Woe to him who stumbles on it!”

The sounds of persons running along the garden walk caught his ear
at this moment. Servants, roused by the shouts of Lester Vane, were
hastening to his assistance. Hugh plunged into the thicket, vaulted over
the iron fencing upon the edge of the ornamental waters, plunged into
the winding canal, and swimming briskly but noiselessly beneath the
shadows of some weeping willows, continued his progress until he reached
a bend of the stream, not visible from Mr. Grahame’s garden; and then,
emerging from the water, he disappeared among the thick cluster of trees
which there lined its banks.

In the meanwhile, the form of Lester Vane, lying insensible, was
discovered by two or three male servants, under the direction of Whelks.
During the race from the house, he was absolutely last in it, but on
finding that there was no enemy to encounter, he exhibited the most
reckless display of daring, and rushed to the front.

Directly his pale green eyes fell upon the prostrate form of Mr.
Grahame’s guest, he exclaimed--

“Oh, my ’evens! if it isn’t the ’onerbbel Mr. Lester Wane! Grashus!
Is it the wine ’es overcom ’im, I wonder?”

“No,” said one of the servants, “he’s got a hugly bump on his forrid; a
precious whack that! Somebody about here must ha’ given it him.”

“Some owdashus thief, no doubt,” suggested Whelks, with a swift glance
over his left shoulder at the clump of trees, and a shudder which lifted
his scalp, and pained him in the heels. “Jackson,” he added, quickly to
the man who had just spoken, “you ’elp me to carry Mr. Lester Wane’s
corpse--if he is a corpse--into the ’ouse, and you, Cussinks,” he
continued, addressing the other servant, “you dash into that clump o’
trees, and ’unt about for the beggler.”

Whelks and Jackson hurried on with their burden, and “Cussinks,”
 declining the verb to search proposed by Whelks, sallied out for that
gallant official, the policeman, who is supposed to know no fear, and to
be ever ready to seize the most ferocious ruffian in existence with the
same promptness with which he would attack cold mutton down a deep area.

By the time the house was gained by this little party, Mr. Grahame had
been alarmed. With his son Malcolm and the Duke of St. Allborne he was
hastening to the garden, when he encountered Whelks and Jackson bearing
the body of Lester Vane. Almost at the same moment, the injured young
man aroused from the stupor into which the blow he had received had
flung him, recovered his feet, and gazed round him with an astonished
air. He looked into the many eager faces bent upon his own, without
recognising any of them.

The Duke of St. Allborne laid his hand upon his shoulder, and shook him,
saying, at the same moment--

“Vane, wecovaw youawself, my good fellah. We aw all fwiends. I’m St.
Allborne--don’t you wecog-nise me?”

The sound of his voice brought back the absent recollection of Lester
Vane. He put his hand over his eyes, as though to collect his thoughts,
and then he exclaimed hastily--

“I remember all now--all, distinctly, clearly.” He looked up, and
addressing Mr. Grahame, he said--“My dear sir, if you will allow me to
retire for a few minutes to collect myself, I will join you with the
ladies in the drawing-room, where I will relate to you the strange
incident in which I have, I believe, borne the worst part.”

“But, Mr. Vane,” responded Mr. Grahame quickly, “the attack you have
suffered”----

“Was made by no common individual, Mr. Grahame! one who is by this time,
I have no doubt, far beyond pursuit.”

“But the object, Mr. Vane?” observed Mr. Grahame, with an air of
mystified wonder.

“Neither plunder nor violence,” returned Lester Vane, adding
hastily--“Pray interrogate me no further now. A few minutes hence, and
I will relate all that occurred. I beg now to be allowed to retire to my
room.”

Mr. Grahame bowed, and directed Whelks to show Mr. Vane to his chamber,
while he, with the Duke and Malcolm, his son, took their way to the
drawing-room, talking over the mysterious event.

The ladies had entered the room a moment before them, and they now heard
from the gentlemen, with astonishment, that the Honorable Lester Vane,
walking in the garden, had been suddenly attacked and felled to the
earth by some unknown assailant.

Not the least astounded of the party present was Helen Grahame.

The blood rushed from her heart to her brain; she felt as though a
thousand bells were ringing in her ears. Then the life-stream swept back
to her heart, leaving her as cold as death--and as colourless.

Hugh Riversdale and Lester Vane had encountered each other.

What had passed?

Her first impulse was to dart out of the room--the house, and flee
anywhere--anywhere!

The next, to remain where she was, face all that might be brought
forward to crush her for ever, and to deny every charge firmly,
steadfastly; even to deny Hugh Riversdale, if in custody he were brought
forward to confront her.

Oh! that she could only know what had actually occurred, so that she
might be prepared to enact the part it would be best for her to play.

Why did Lester Vane refuse to explain what had happened, when he first
recovered, in Mr. Grahame’s presence? Why did he defer it until all were
assembled in the drawing-room? Did he know that she had had an interview
with Hugh Riversdale?

This was remarkable, and much disturbed her. Yet if he did know that she
had a clandestine meeting with his assailant, he could surely entertain
no feeling of animosity towards her--that seemed impossible. The
acquaintance of an hour could hardly have raised up in his breast a wish
to injure her. Yet why did he pursue the strange course of refusing to
relate what had passed, unless he knew she would be present to hear the
recital?

Her anxious surmises were the suspicions that haunted a guilty mind,
for she had no just reason to believe that he would connect her with the
mystery at all.

She was perplexed, disconcerted, plunged into an agony of mind, as she
pursued this train of reasoning. Still she saw the imperious necessity
of appearing calm, collected, and full of wonder only, to the extent
she would have been had she had no further share in the event than her
sister Margaret.

By an effort of her will, she knew she could achieve this much, and she
resolved to do it.

As she formed the resolution, the door opened, and Lester Vane entered.
He was pale; there was a slight wound on his forehead, strapped up, but
otherwise he was as self-possessed, and had the same cold smile playing
upon his lips as when first he entered the sitting-room in the earlier
part of the day.

A thrill of pain ran through the frame of Helen as she felt his large,
dark eye settle upon her.

Then a sudden sense of her danger roused her to exertion, and she forced
down all outward sign of the conflict going on within her breast.

She turned her glittering eyes slowly but full upon Lester Vane’s. Met
him on his own battle-field, and drove him back, for her gaze was so
firm and unwavering, that he turned his eyes, after a searching glance
at her, upon the ground.

All crowded round him save Evangeline, who, as usual, sat quietly and
unobtrusively in a retired part of the room--if there was, in that
brilliantly lighted apartment, such a spot.

Helen was among the first of those who called upon Lester Vane to
explain the remarkable affair which had had so unpleasant a termination
for him.

Her inquiries were dictated by the most intense desire to ascertain if
her suspicions were correct, but her acting was a masterpiece; it had
the air of a very natural curiosity only.

The ordeal, however, was yet to come.

By general request, eagerly urged, Lester Vane commenced his recital.
Helen perceived that he closely and scrutinisingly perused her features
while he spoke, and a strange feeling took sudden possession of her.

It was a contemptuous consciousness of a superiority in the power of
deception. She knew that he was trying to read what was passing within
her heart. She applied herself to the task of baffling him, feeling
that she could accomplish it with ease. It was her first direct essay
in simulation under strong pressure, but she went to the task with the
skill of a practised adept.

Cunning is not alone an art--it is necessarily a part of human
organisation: but to become subtle and refined, it requires to be
cultivated with careful discrimination, and to be pursued with merciless
indifference to the feelings of the object upon whom it is exercised.
The crafty rarely fails to detect the crafty, unless the more crafty
with consummate ability assumes genuine simplicity--then as there
appears to be nothing to guard against, cunning is to be effectively
deceived by an affectation of its absence.

Helen never troubled herself to reason upon the point, though she had
plenty of natural shrewdness to have reached this conclusion, if she
had addressed her mind to the task. She was naturally an accomplished
actress, and with no great effort could have seemed as full of natural
wonderment at what had happened as her sisters Margaret and Evangeline,
but she decided upon adopting a defiant aspect--one which should say to
Vane, “You seek by an attempt to confuse me with your steadfast gaze, to
compel me to make an admission--I defy you.” It was a mistake, because
that look at once raised up an impression in his mind that she had
something to conceal--that though she listened to his story attentively,
met his gaze at certain parts of the recital unflinchingly, made
remarks, and put questions--all tending to disconnect her with any share
in the transaction--she was in some degree mixed up with, if she was not
one of, the principal actors in the little drama.

It is true that Evangeline exhibited emotions of distress and confusion,
but he detected in her conduct no sign of guilt, nothing by which he
could presume her to have been a participator in the scene he believed
himself to have disturbed, if even she were a confidante; but Helen,
by her manner, challenged his suspicions, and, as it appeared to him,
laughed them to scorn; yet in doing so, gave him reason to form a
conviction that they were well grounded. He set his teeth, and felt the
blood mount to his sallow features.

It was but for a moment, and he became as pale as before, but he
determined to apply himself to the task of making himself master of
Helen’s secret, and by its possession master of her, to be used as his
own selfish interests might dictate.

He related to his marvelling auditors how he had escaped from the dining
room to allay the heat of his fevered blood in the cool air which had
been playing among the fragrant flower-beds, and sighing through the
graceful trees in the elegantly arranged garden.

For the sake of effect, the speaker adopted a poetical style of
narration, not without success upon the majority of his listeners.

The lip of Helen curled; to her the chosen language was another proof
of this man’s art, and she scarcely attempted to disguise from him that
such was her impression. A sense of her estimate of his display, added
only to the intensity of his resolve to obtain entire power over her,
that he might make her endure tenfold the annoyance--it was something
more--which she made him suffer now.

He could not quite comprehend why they so suddenly stood in an
antagonistic position to each other. It was enough for him that they did
so, and that he believed that he should be able to avenge himself upon
one who viewed him in a light insulting to his vanity.

Proceeding with his tale, he said that, as he slowly paced the gravelled
walk in the broad moonlight, he fancied that he heard the murmur of
voices in a retired part of the garden; low and subdued, in truth, but
still he was struck by the peculiarity of the sound, which was that
of two persons in secret conference. He gained the spot from whence it
appeared to come, and found himself fronting a small cluster of trees,
into which he directed his gaze; but, not observing any figure or sign
of a human being, he assured himself that he had been deceived, that he
had mistaken the soft bubbling of the flowing waters beyond for tones of
the human voice. He continued his walk; but he had not proceeded far ere
the sounds which had previously attracted his attention were renewed.
The position he had gained enabled him to command a view of the thicket.

He fixed his deep, dark eyes upon Helen as he arrived at this part of
his narrative, but her eyelid never wavered, nor did her face undergo
any change.

He felt himself baffled for a moment--then he went on to say that he
retraced his footsteps, and when near the clump of trees paused, with
the intent of catching, if possible, some of the words which passed
between the two persons who were engaged in such deep and earnest
conversation. Not, he added, hastily, as he saw the eye of Helen glitter
with scorn, to play the part of a paltry eaves-dropper, but to ascertain
whether he had unconsciously encountered a couple of enamoured servants
deep in a love-passage--with what withering emphasis he used those
words!--or had detected a brace of thieves in the act of concerting
measures to rob the house of Mr. Grahame.

While standing irresolute as to the steps he should take, a female
emerged from the thicket, and fled past him towards the house.

“Towards my house!” cried Mr. Grahame, elevating his eyebrows with
astonishment.

“Even so,” cried Lester Vane.

“Surely she did not enter it?” he cried, his eyes sparkling with fury;
“no shameless person world dare”----

“My impression is,” said Lester, observing how intently, and with what
remarkable self-possession Helen regarded him, “that she disappeared in
the shrubbery in front of the house. I cannot be positive, for the next
moment I was in contact with her companion.”

Still Helen’s face was rigid, her features composed, and her eye
steadily fixed upon his. But there was no expression of wonder upon her
countenance, as upon that of all the rest. What more needed Lester to
tell him that it was she whom he had seen flitting from the grove of
trees across the garden to the house, and that she held secret meetings
with some person unknown to her family?

“And this wretch--this insolent scoundrel,” cried Mr. Grahame, “you
fastened upon him, I presume, and thus was most murderously assaulted?”

“No,” said Lester Vane, speaking slowly, and with distinctness, “the
moonlight fell upon his face--that I saw clearly and well defined.”

“You would know it again?” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with eagerness.

“Amid a million faces,” he answered, between his teeth, and then added:
“He was a common-looking person, and I should have let him pass, but he
made a desperate blow at me, although he did not utter a word. I avoided
his first attack, and collared him, determined to punish him for his
cowardly and dastardly conduct. I called for assistance, as I had no
intention of entering into a personal conflict with a low ruffian about
whom I knew nothing, but he inflicted upon my forehead a blow with some
weapon which rendered me insensible. And so ends my history.”

“Most monstrous!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with an air of indignant pride.
“I never heard of such an outrage. You can describe the man, Mr. Vane,
so that the police may be able to track him, and take him into custody?”

“Oh, accurately,” replied Lester, “but not to-night. My head aches, and
the task would be an annoyance--to-morrow with pleasure, but to-night
excuse me.”

“But the creature with this desperate person--could you not, my dear Mr.
Vane, describe her--if it were only her attire?” urged Mr. Grahame.

“She may be in the house,” interposed Mrs. Grahame, feeling that a
deadly outrage had been committed upon the family pride.

“She may be in the house,” returned Lester, with a peculiar glance
directed to Helen; “all I can inform you, in reply to your question, is
that her dress was of some light fabric, but as she fled past me like
a phantom, I was not able to observe her sufficiently well to give a
description of the lady.”

“The lady, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Grahame, in a tone of immeasurable
contempt. “To-morrow, Mr. Grahame, this strange affair must be
thoroughly sifted.”

“Indeed, Mrs. Grahame, it shall be,” he replied.

“How widiculously womantic, Miss Gwahame,” laughed the Duke of St.
Allborne, addressing Helen.

Helen started as he spoke. She had listened to the sneering sarcasms of
Lester, and to her mother’s expressions of withering contempt, as though
she had been exposed to an atmosphere of flame, and was bound to endure
its tremendous torture without one sob of pain. But, great as was her
agony, her thoughts would fly away with her to him who had occasioned
this scene. She was, therefore, thankful to the Duke for thus checking
an absence of mind, which might have excited attention and caused
remark. She replied to him with a vivacity which somewhat astonished
Lester Vane, though it helped to confirm the suspicions he entertained
connecting her with the interview in the thicket.

She adroitly contrived to place the affair in a ridiculous light,
without openly giving cause of offence to him; because, with affected
sympathy, she deplored the injury he had received; but she went so far
as to cause him to observe, with a sickly smile--

“Perhaps, Miss Grahame, _you_ conceive that the affair, after all, was a
mere fancy, occasioned by the fatigues of my journey to-day?”

“Or the stwength of our fwiend Gwahame’s fine old pawt,” exclaimed the
Duke, with a loud laugh.

Mr. Grahame instantly took Helen to task in so serious and so stately a
manner, that Lester Vane interfered to obtain pardon for her, which
was granted, at his instance, in a manner that mortified her only more
bitterly than she had yet been.

“I will bring him a suppliant to my feet,” she said, mentally, as her
eyes, sparkling like a star, fastened upon him, “and when he is
prostrate, abject, I’ll crush him remorselessly.”

The next evening, Helen and Lester were walking in the garden together.
She had already begun to weave her web round him, and he seemed likely
to become so enmeshed as never more to escape from it.

Suddenly, when near the ornamental water, he paused. He drew from his
breast a small but exquisitely fine cambric handkerchief.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Grahame,” he said, “if I betray any impertinent
curiosity, but I am desirous of knowing whether you are acquainted with
this handkerchief?”

She looked at it. In a corner, embroidered, were the initials “H. G.” It
was her own, and one of value. She smiled.

“Indeed,” she answered, “I ought to know it well, Mr. Vane.”

“I found it beneath a tree, there,” he added, pointing to the thicket in
which she had parted with Hugh Riversdale.

She had, no doubt, dropped it on leaving Hugh the night before. She felt
an acute pain run through her brain, as she saw in what direction his
finger pointed, and that as he spoke his eyes were absolutely glaring
upon her. She detected, in an instant, how much depended upon her
answer. Controlling, as before, with a remarkable exertion of self-will,
the expression of her features, she assumed an air of indifference, and
flinging the handkerchief into the stream, upon the brink of which she
was standing, she answered--

“Possibly; it is one I some time since gave to my maid, Chayter.”

Lester was unable to utter a word in reply; he was baffled. He watched
the handkerchief float away, and he said to himself--

“Yet it was you who stood last night in the thicket along with the
fellow who felled me to the earth. Despite this check, I will proye it,
and to you.”




CHAPTER X.--THE INEXPLICABLE LIBERATION.


                   Alas! he’s mad!

*****

                   This is the very coinage of your brain.

                   This bodiless creation, ecstasy

                   Is very cunning in.

                             --Shakspere.


The emotion displayed by old Wilton when Colonel Mires made himself
known to him by reference to an incident which had occurred to him at a
period now long past, was a mystery to the two persons likely to be best
acquainted with its source.

Flora, who flew to her father’s aid, marvelled at it, and the Indian
colonel wondered no less. Flora knew nothing, however, of the event
alluded to, as her father had not suffered mention of it to escape his
lips; but Colonel Mires, from whom some emotion might perhaps have
been expected while recurring to it, having been a principal actor in a
circumstance of a remarkable nature could find in a rapid review of what
had then occurred no cause for Wilton to be thus suddenly affected.

Wilton had been called upon to render a great, a valuable, and
disinterested service, he had performed it nobly, because it then seemed
he was in nowise personally interested or affected by the result;
why, therefore, he should now appear overcome by his feelings somewhat
staggered the Colonel, and set him cogitating. Perhaps, after all, there
had been a motive in his generosity; and if so, it certainly behoved him
to find it out, and that as soon as possible.

Flora was surprised, but that emotion gave way to one of affright when
she beheld her father’s pale and haggard face, his closed eyes, and his
lips apart. It looked like the approach of death. She knew what a shock
the arrival of Jukes had given him. Shattered as his frame had been by
affliction, it had been yet more deeply shaken by the mortal agony he
had endured when he first learned the destruction of the residence he
had quitted by fire, when his darling child barely escaped with life.
Events calculated to act upon his nervous system had rapidly followed
each other; and the last, by its sudden effect upon him, seemed in no
degree the least severe.

As she hung over him, mournful and foreboding words fell from her lips.
She turned her eyes appealingly for aid to Hal, for of those present he
was the only one to whom she could address herself, in reliance upon the
sincerity of his readiness to assist her.

Colonel Mires observed her glance, and at whom it was directed. Before
Hal, nimble though he was in responding to her mute summons, could reach
her, Colonel Mires placed himself at the side of her father, laid his
fingers upon his wrist, and said, in a low but musical tone of voice--

“Be not alarmed, Miss Wilton. A sudden faintness only has seized your
father. When last we met, his position was very far above this, and
on meeting with me no doubt the fearful reverse he has experienced has
acted upon his weak frame. Pray cease to fear--I believe that I can
speedily restore him; and, when he is a little collected and composed,
we will design measures to remove him from this charnel-house of the
unfortunate.”

Flora turned her eyes with a grateful expression upon him, but became
instantly embarrassed by his steadfast gaze, while a creeping sensation
of fear and dislike passed over her head. She glanced at Hal, and was
rather startled to find him regarding the Colonel with a very fierce
expression. Why, she did not understand.

She had yet to learn that a lover rarely betrays satisfaction when he
perceives the gaze of one of his own sex dwelling with marked admiration
upon the fair features of the maid he loves.

Perhaps the Colonel observed the fiery look of the young goldsmith; if
he did, he outwardly took no notice of it; but taking from his breast
pocket a small case, which contained a phial, he poured a few drops into
some water, and administered it to old Wilton, who had no sooner taken
it than he revived, and became speedily conscious of the presence of his
visitors.

As the dark features of the Colonel attracted his attention, he clutched
his daughter’s hand, and, in a hoarse whisper, said--

“Is it safe--is it safe?”

“Is what safe, dear father?” she asked.

“The paper!--the paper I gave into your care,” he replied, wildly.

“Yes! yes!” she responded, quickly. “I gave it back to you, scarce half
an hour ago. Do you not remember?”

He placed his hand to his brow, and then pressed his fingers over his
eyes, as if to recal what had recently passed.

The influence of the restorative administered to him by the colonel was
quickly apparent. He withdrew his hand, and gazed about him, but only
for a moment.

He rose up: his eye was bright, his carriage firm, and his head erect.
His bearing gave him the aspect of another man.

“Colonel Mires,” he exclaimed in a tone of exultation, “your arrival in
England, at this juncture, is most opportune--your discovery of me, in
this prison, an interposition of Providence. Its consequences to me
are of vital importance, and it is impossible to describe the joy, the
happiness, it has brought to a man bowed down by a succession of dire
misfortunes.”

“Mr. Wilton, I am unprepared to hear such expressions from your lips;
believe me, it affords me especial gratification,” rejoined Colonel
Mires, casting his eyes craftily upon Flora, to observe what effect her
father’s words, in his praise, would have upon her. But she saw not his
glance, for she was watching anxiously the features, of Hal Vivian, who
was listening to her father with a countenance which appeared to assume
a deeper gravity at every succeeding sentence.

And she wondered that he should grow so serious, and seem so sad,
because her father spoke in tones of joyfulness.

Had she known that he considered her father’s favour a passport to her
own, she might not have marvelled at his sober countenance at all.

Old Wilton proceeded, addressing the colonel.

“The hackneyed aphorism which tells us that ‘the darkest hour is the
hour before the dawn,’ is true in my case, Colonel Mires. My dark hour
has spent the whole force of its pestilential blackness upon me. I have
been utterly shrouded in its gloom. Your coming is as the dawn which
will herald my day of sunshine. How wondrous are the workings of
Providence! But now I was _in extremis_; lo! in an instant I bound into
new life, and yet in the same old--old world. Oh! Colonel Mires, my
heart is too full for utterance. I will take another and a better
opportunity to express, not alone what I feel, but to explain to you
wherefore your arrival has filled me with delight, and why it will prove
to me a benefit so inestimable.”

“Upon my honour, Mr. Wilton, by so doing you will confer a great favour
upon me,” returned Colonel Mires, “for at present, I do assure you, your
expression of high satisfaction, and your excited manner, form together
a problem which I feel quite incapable of working to a successful
solution.”

“I should be more than surprised if such were not the case,” returned
old Wilton quickly. “How could you understand my gladness at beholding
you, when the only conclusion you could form from the past would be,
that I should meet you with combined feelings of regret and reproach.
It is not possible for you to conjecture how your advent should be
productive of happiness to me and mine.”

“If my coming to England--even though I know not how--should be the
occasion of so agreeable a change in the lot of Miss Wilton, I shall
only be too delighted at my good fortune, without caring to inquire by
what happy combination of circumstances it has been effected!” exclaimed
Colonel Mires, with another very steadfast, earnest glance at Flora,
which embarrassed her, and did not have the desired effect of making her
think favourably of him.

“Gratitude, Colonel Mires,” exclaimed Wilton, drily, “would, I have no
doubt, raise up such a feeling in your breast.”

The Colonel winced, but bowed affirmatively. Wilton then added,
hastily--

“Colonel Mires, your discovery of my detention in this prison is, of
course, entirely the result of accident. You did not come here to see
me--of that I am aware”--

“The moment I had a suspicion”----

Old Wilton waved his hand.

“I am quite able to comprehend the reason of your presence, Colonel,” he
said; “but I am not, to sustain a longer interview to day. You will
do me a favour by excusing me now, but if you will oblige me with your
address, I will call upon you there at any appointment you may make, and
take an occasion to explain to you much of the present mystery.”

Harry Vivian had previously entertained some doubts about the saneness
of old Wilton. The strange rebound from abject wretchedness to a species
of delirious joy, startled him. _He_ could see nothing in the exterior
of the swarthy colonel from India, to raise up such a paroxysm of
gratification as that displayed by the careworn old man, unless he
expected him to pay off the detainers at the prison gate, and thus set
him free. But when old Wilton requested of Colonel Mires his address,
and offered to call upon him at _any_ time he might appoint, then Hal’s
doubts were dissipated. What! with two thousand pounds turned into
locks, bolts, bars, and iron gates, to arrest his movements, to talk
of keeping appointments outside the prison-gates! Why it was the very
phantasy of lunacy. He believed him to be without a farthing in the
world, and had provided himself with a little sum with which to carry
the old man on, if he would accept it, and there was previously every
probability that he would; but now, to hear his tone, and to note his
manner, as well as to listen to his airy offer to appear anywhere at any
time, he felt disposed to button his pocket, and to laugh. He did not do
either--he whistled.

It was a soft, low sound, unconsciously emitted, not altogether well
bred we must admit, but it was the very symbol of extreme surprise.

Old Wilton heard him, glanced at him, turned his eyes away, and a faint
smile curled his upper lip.

Flora heard the whistle too, she looked at Hal, and then at her father.
She had her misgivings likewise--she believed every shilling he had
possessed to be gone, and to hear him speak thus made her heart throb
violently. Oh, if grief and trial should have turned his brain!

Her father understood her gaze, he read her thoughts, and his smile
deepened.

Colonel Mires heard the unconscious whistle, also. He darted a look at
Hal, and then turned to Wilton, and peering at him under his eyebrows in
a scrutinising manner, he said, in a tone which had more than a tinge of
irony in it--

“Will you say to-morrow, Mr. Wilton?”

“Of course,” thought Hal, “that’s just it; he might as well say
half-an-hour hence--one is as likely as the other.”

To his surprise, not less than to that of Colonel Mires, Wilton
answered--

“To-morrow, if you please. At what hour?”

“At moonshine,” thought Hal; “poor old man, how mad he is getting!”

“Ten o’clock in the morning,” returned the Colonel, with a grim smile.

“At ten!” echoed Wilton; “you have not named the place,” he added.

“It must be here, if there is to be a meeting anywhere,” thought Hal.

Colonel Mires produced a card-case, and handed a card to Wilton, who
held it close to his eyes.

“So far,” he muttered, and then exclaimed aloud--“I will be there,
Colonel, punctually, and without fail.”

“It will not put you to any inconvenience, I hope?” said Colonel Mires,
with a mystified air.

“No, no, oh no!” returned old Wilton, with a smile.

“To be sure not,” reflected Hal, “how should it? there is only two
thousand pounds to prevent him leaving the prison, and what is that to a
man who has not two crowns to jingle together?”

Colonel Mires gave a dry cough.

“I was not aware,” he said, “that it was an easy thing to effect a
liberation from this place. I have an old friend in durance here, whom I
came to see; he has been here a length of time, and is in tribulation at
the remote possibility of his deliverance.”

“The thing is not difficult when you know the way. I have a way,”
 returned Wilton, rather curtly.

“And two thousand pounds, too, of course,” mentally suggested Hal,
considering it hard to understand why, under such circumstances, Wilton
should have suffered himself to be imprisoned at all.

“I shall keep my appointment, Colonel Mires, never fear,” said Wilton
decidedly, though coldly.

“You leave here, possibly, to-day,” suggested the Colonel.

“I shall accompany my daughter hence,” responded Wilton

Hal walked to the window and looked out: this last remark by Wilton
seemed to him quite to settle the point of his sanity.

“Poor old gentleman! his brain is completely turned. Poor Flora! fresh
troubles, instead of coming happiness for you,” he thought. “Well, I
will try everything to make your heavy burden of care sit as lightly
upon your shoulders as possible.”

“Now, let me repeat, Colonel,” remarked old Wilton, with emphasis, “I
shall be glad if by taking your leave you will close this interview.
I am fatigued--overcome by the exciting events of the past few days; I
wish to be alone with my daughter and Mr. Vivian, as noble and gallant a
gentleman as England ever produced.”

“Indeed!” ejaculated the Colonel, in a tone of insulting surprise.

“Fact, nevertheless,” continued Wilton, and raising his voice, said,
“many a would-be Bayard, _sans peur et sans reproche_, would have
hesitated ere he attempted to perform the brave deed this gallant youth
has lately achieved. You will know more of him anon.”

It was strange how steadfastly the two men looked into each other’s eyes
as Wilton uttered these words. Colonel Mires was a soldier, a martinet,
he had been able to look down his inferior officers and his men, by
the hard fixedness of his gaze; but he could not compel Hal to wink an
eyelash. The clear bright eye of the youth was not to be made to waver,
and the Colonel found himself obliged to be the first to remove his
gaze.

“Surely,” he thought, “he can never be the suitor for the hand of
Wilton’s daughter. If he is, he shall never have her. By heaven! so
lovely a creature shall never be thrown away upon such a churl as he. A
pearl for such a pig! Bah!”

He was, however, with much discomfort, forced to leave the pearl with
the pig, and obliged to see that while Flora would not permit her eyes
to meet his, she frequently suffered them, radiant with lustrous beauty,
to settle upon Hal’s face, lingering there as though loth to leave
what they loved to dwell upon. It was not an agreeable reflection,
considering the new emotions awakened in his breast by the sight of her
face. It may have been that dormant passion only was aroused; he chose
to consider it a new sensation, and determined to satiate it at any cost
or hazard. He was, however, not a man to suffer himself to appear to be
disconcerted; he was cool and calculating, and was not defeated until
the possibility of victory was wholly removed, then he accepted the
condition with inward mortification, perhaps, and a hope to obtain the
alternative of revenge, but he did not suffer to appear whatured (sp.).
Rage and disappointment he felt acutely, but no one ever saw him exhibit
either.

He took his leave of Flora with that gentlemanly respect that betokens
good breeding--of Hal, with a formal bow, which said plainly, though not
rudely: “You may be a Chevalier Bayard, disguised as a civilian, but I
am not ambitious of making your acquaintance.” He shook Wilton heartily
by the hand, as if he were sincere at least in that performance, and
expressing his gratification at the prospect of meeting him early on the
following morning, he took his departure, bearing with him his friend,
who had been all eyes and ears but of no speech.

When Wilton, by gazing from the window, had satisfied himself that
Colonel Mires had mingled with the throng below, he returned to the
centre of the room, and, folding his daughter to his heart, he kissed
her forehead, and said to her--

“My own sweet darling Flo’, cease to regard me with such anxious eyes.
I am not mad!--in very truth my child, I am not. My sorrows have sorely
tried me, but heaven has been withal kind, and has spared me my reason.
You do not know the source of my present joy, as you know not the
occasion of my fall from a position, the pleasures and luxuries of which
you were too young to appreciate, and which were snatched from you ere
you were old enough to regret or comprehend them.”

“And yet, dear father, whenever I see a handsome mansion, filled with
splendid furniture, magnificent pictures, beautiful sculpture, standing
in the midst of gay parterres, over which wave graceful trees, I seem
to go back to a time when I lived in such scenes. I have fancied that
I have dreamed of these lovely places in childhood; and when I have in
later days come to see them, I have believed that my dreams only have
recurred to me.”

“No dreams, my Flo’, but a real mansion, with its luxurious apartments,
its galleries of pictures, sculptures, and articles of _vertu_ rare and
costly, its terraced gardens, its stately trees, its glassy streams
and lakes, its tall fountains, and its gorgeous woodlands. No dream,
my Flo’; for in such a scene you were born. In such a scene you shall
reign, queen of beauty, ere you are much older. My Flo’, no dream, but
reality.”

He clutched her by the wrist.

“The dream has been from the hour when that splendour, at one
remorseless, dreadful swoop, was torn from my grasp up to the moment of
Mires’ appearance here to-day. That fearful interval has been the dark,
horrible, terrible dream; but, my Flo’, the shadows of the night are
passing from us, the fragrance of the morning air is in my nostrils, the
golden dawn has begun to light up our too long darkened hemisphere, and
we shall yet revel in the refulgent beams of an unclouded sunshine.”

He pressed her again and again to his bosom, and kissed her with
passionate fondness, while large tears rolled down his yet pallid
cheeks.

While yet caressing her, and as Hal was preparing to ask him to give
him some proof that what he had just previously asserted was no mere
hallucination, a faint knock was heard at the room door.

Before Wilton could clear his voice to give the permission to enter the
room, the door opened and closed instantly.

But rapid as was the action, the door on closing had left within the
room Nathan Gomer.

He nodded at Wilton, he nodded at Hal, and he smiled--that is,
grinned--at Flora. All the while his face glowed like burnished gold
upon which a sunbeam rested.

Wilton uttered a cry of joy. He ran up to him, and seized him by the
hand.

“I wanted to see you,” he cried.

“I imagined as much. Here I am,” responded Nathan.

Old Wilton cast his eyes rapidly upon Flora, upon Hal, and then on
Nathan Gomer. For an instant he appeared perplexed, then he said to
Hal--

“Flora has not seen the wonders of this place, Master Henry Vivian. Will
you conduct her where she can see how the prisoners pass away their long
and wearisome days of confinement? Just for a stroll.”

Hal could have told him that she had already witnessed as much as it was
necessary for her to see, but he guessed that Wilton desired to be alone
with Nathan Gomer, and he bowed assent.

“You have no objection, Master Vivian,” observed Wilton, fancying that
he hesitated.

“Objection!” echoed Hal, with an astounded look.

Objection! What, to have Flora to himself for ten minutes or a quarter
of an hour? unquestionably not. He emphatically expressed himself to
that effect, and so Flora tied on her sweet little bonnet, and put on
her neat little mantle, and laid the softest of soft hands upon his arm,
making it thrill to his heart, near to which it rested, until he hardly
remembered anything but that she was at his side--at once the richest,
dearest treasure upon earth.

Confused by the noise, and by the jostling of the throng of persons in
the racket ground, they unconsciously strolled round to the back of the
prison, or to the county side, as it is termed.

Between the hours of ten and three, this part was comparatively
deserted. At the period of which we are writing, the needy prisoners,
who lived on the support of their creditors and the county, were alone
permitted to mix on the parade in front, or to visit their fellow
prisoners who were better off than themselves, during that part of the
day.

No county prisoner--for they had their prison pride--liked to be looked
upon as a “county bird,” so he showed himself in front as long as he
could. The back part, thus, as we have said, had few persons promenading
its precincts at the hours named.

Flora and Hal were, in consequence, comparatively alone in their walk.

As they strolled on, both seemed full of thought; after a silence, which
endured for a short time, a few remarks were made, but of no personal
nature; at length Hal ventured to say to her--

“Can it be possible, my dear Miss Wilton, that your father is not
labouring under a delusion in speaking of his immediate liberation?”

Somehow Flora had expected this question, yet she had not prepared an
answer to it. She paused for a moment, then replied--

“From the moment my dear father was seized as a prisoner, until now, the
whole affair has been inexplicable to me. I believe you know even
more of his affairs than I do. What can I answer? the matter of his
conversation seems to me to be visionary, yet I never remember him to be
so clear in his delivery, nor so elated, without being incoherent.”

“That may only be a sign of the disease which may have fastened itself
upon him, following the terrible agony of grief he has had to endure.”

“Oh, Mr. Vivian, in mercy do not say so--pray do not! I do not think he
is deranged--do you not remember that when he said to me he was not mad,
how coherently he spoke? I entreat you, Mr. Vivian, not to say you think
his mind is gone; if you do, I shall believe you.”

Hal saw the tears spring into her eyes, and he blamed himself for having
brought them there, especially when she said--

“It will so much add to the grief I have already suffered.”

“I would not add to it for the world, Miss Wilton,” he said hastily, and
added thoughtfully, “it may have been selfishness which has led me to
form the supposition, but I would willingly, though not cheerfully,
abandon it if I thought, by so doing, you would be spared one painful
emotion.”

“Not cheerfully,” said Flora with innocent surprise, “why with
reluctance, Mr. Vivian?”

“Not reluctance, Miss Wilton, that is not the word--sorrow is the truer
term.”

“I do not understand you; I am, I suppose, very dull; but, Mr. Vivian,
is it possible that you could be sorry to find my father not insane?”
 she inquired, with some earnestness.

“Listen,” he said: “if what your father has said be not the wanderings
of a disturbed mind, the return of the gentleman who has recently
visited him, from India, has opened up to him an immediate return to
some former wealthy position, even though the instrument appears as
unconscious of his power to effect it as we are.”

“So I understand it,” returned Flora, finding Hal pause.

“Then,” he exclaimed, strong feeling being manifest in the tone of his
voice, “I should not, I trust you will credit me, be sorry that he had
achieved his immediate release from this filthy prison, or that he and
you--you, Miss Wilton, were restored to a position you so eminently
deserve to occupy; but I should, I fear, grieve to think that all your
good could not be accomplished without my discomfort.”

“Your discomfort?” asked Flora, catching his arm, and looking into his
eyes with an expression of interest for which he would have willingly
pressed her to his heart if he dared.

He was a little confused, for he saw plain enough that if he had no
heart to pain her, she had no desire to occasion him discomfort.

“Well, Miss Wilton,” he answered, “to speak honestly to you--I had
reared up a little fabric, based upon what I thought to be your
condition; I had expected from it much happiness, perhaps that of
securing to you immunity from troubles and trials, so far as I could.
By the return of this Indian officer, it is dashed to the ground, and
shattered to atoms. I rejoice most sincerely that it has brought you and
your father good, but do not think harshly of me if I selfishly regret
that by it my prospects of felicity are swept away entirely In the time
to come, when difference of position shall part us for ever, may I
ask you, Flora--Miss Wilton--to believe that, had the opportunity been
afforded me, I would, when tried, have proved to you a sincere and a
true friend?”

“In the time to come--when we shall part for ever--what difference of
station should part us? Oh, Mr. Vivian, I could not--I would not, accept
a position which might bring such an estrangement to pass. I would
sooner die--I owe--my life--to your bravery.” She seized his hand and
kissed it, and then burst into tears.

Hal was almost in the act of placing his arm about her, and giving vent
to a passionate declaration, when a hand was placed upon his shoulder.

He turned round with a sudden start, which almost upset the individual
who had touched him. He found it to be Nathan Gomer, who grinned, and,
pointing with his thumb behind him, said to Flora--

“Your father awaits you both in his room. He is about to quit the prison
with you, but he wishes to say a few words to you before he departs.”

“But the two thousand pounds for which he is lodged here?” said Hal,
with a stupified air.

“Paid, sir--all paid, sir! Mr. Wilton is free to leave here when he
will, sir!” exclaimed Nathan Gomer, with the old grin upon his features.




CHAPTER XI.--SHADOWS.


               Oh, love! of whom great Caesar was the suitor,

                   Titus the master, Antony the slave,

                   Horace, Catullus, scholars, Ovid tutor,

                   Sappho, the sage blue-stocking, in whose grave

               All those may leap who rather would be neuter--

                   (Leucadia’s rock still overlooks the wave),

               Oh, love! thou art the very god of evil,

               For, after all, we cannot call thee devil.

                             --Byron.


Helen Grahame sat in her dressing-room alone. Scarce half-an-hour
had elapsed since she had quitted the side of Lester Vane, after their
stroll in the garden.

Her handkerchief, which she had dropped during her interview with Hugh
Riversdale in the thicket, yet glared before her eyes as it had done
when presented by him who, with a sharp, penetrating gaze, had sought
to extract evidence out of her confusion to assure him that she was the
heroine of the stolen interview he had disturbed.

She yet saw it floating and whirling among the circling eddies of
the meandering waters, which ran past her feet, and drew such small
consolation from the possibility of its never being again recovered--at
least to her disadvantage--as it might afford her.

It was something to have destroyed the only evidence that could identify
her with that stolen meeting, which had been the cause of so much
mystification, excitement, and scandal among the household. She could
scarcely prevent a proud smile of triumph curling her small upper lip
when she reflected that the mastery she possessed over the play of her
features, when she brought her will into action, had enabled her to
baffle the scrutiny of Vane, which she felt instinctively was exerted
to enable him to obtain power over her. Her womanly instincts were too
acute, too keen, for her not to comprehend that.

It is true she had no notion that he intended to act basely or falsely
to her. In spite of his display, his assumption of wealth, and the
inferences he left to be drawn from his suggestions, she entertained a
conviction that his sources of income were far more limited in capacity
than he wished them to appear. Her father’s reputed affluence--of the
reality of which she in common with the other members of the family, had
no doubt--she could easily understand, would attract the attention of a
young man of high family, who had but little with which to support his
station, and she as readily comprehended that he would do his best to
secure the hand of the eldest daughter of a man of wealth, if with it he
ensured also the certainty of a handsome settlement, to say nothing of
the unquestionable charms of the “encumbrance” he would have to take
with the gold.

She had not been twenty-four hours in his company before she detected
that he had determined upon becoming a suitor for her hand, having
fortified himself with a belief that her father would give with her a
dower, which would for ever set at rest his pecuniary anxieties for the
future. But she revolted at the thought of being sought for what she
should bring, rather than for her beauty--her heart, so brimful of
passion and tenderness--for her very self. Especially did she recoil
from the supposition that she was a “tassel gentle” to be lured by such
a falconer’s voice, for the purpose of his own aggrandisement, and her
whole soul rose in rebellion against being made the puppet in such a
scheme.

The Honorable Lester Vane was well-formed and handsome. There were
certain points in his figure and in his lineaments of a character to
attract and to win the admiration of many women--those, at least,
who, with the failing of their sex, are led by appearances. He had a
musically-toned voice, and a tongue, gifted with the soft cunning
of oily phrases, in so eminent a degree, that it could be scarcely
surpassed by that which our mother Eve found herself unequal to resist.
There were few women, who, if heart-free, would have been likely to
resist his advances, or to have remained proof against them were he to
address himself to them as a lover. Hitherto, he had not found female
conquest difficult; there was a peculiarity in his manner and appearance
which interested a woman in his favour immediately she beheld him; and
thus, having mastered the approaches, he, where he listed, found the
citadel not difficult to carry by a _coup de main_.

Helen was conscious of all this. She had read his character intuitively,
and had formed a just estimate of him. Perhaps her predominant feeling
towards him was contempt; but with that was mingled a strange dread of
some power he possessed to injure her, and which, at a future period, he
would exercise with a merciless malignity. She knew this impression
had no foundation, in fact--was, in truth, a mere in defined sense of
impending evil, of which he was to be the perpetrator, she the sufferer.
Yet, true to the nature of her sex, her conclusion, arrived at by no
process of reasoning, was as clear and determined as though it had been
based upon a train of facts which admitted neither of doubt nor dispute.

“At least,” she murmured, “Hugh can have nothing to fear from him, even
though he will, I am fully convinced, omit no stratagem to gain my love,
as the means of securing my hand and portion--the portion being rather a
considerable item in the object he proposes to accomplish. His eye looks
down searchingly into my heart, as though he would read and interpret
its most delicate mysteries and fathom its secrets, that he may hold me
in duress. Never! I defy him! He cannot, shall not, detect or decipher
anything I may purpose to conceal. He has destined me for his prey, a
golden fly, to be enmeshed in the entanglements of a web, every filament
of which is too palpable in my eyes. Ha! there are two words to a
bargain. It would be a delicious revenge to bring this schemer down upon
his knees before me, actually and absolutely an abject wooer: so that
when, with burning words and scorching tears, he pleaded his love, I
might spurn him with my foot. I will do it! Already has he commenced,
with consummate art, to make me think about him: he must exercise a
wily skill indeed to make me love him! I will meet him upon his own
battle-field; I will not appear to employ either art or skill, yet will
I stake my happiness that I will compel him to love me with a passionate
ardour, of which now he does not believe his soul capable. Ay, and when,
with a whirlwind of pleadings, urgings, and fervid prayers, he implores
me to bestow my heart upon him, then, in my moment of triumph, I
will open up to his terrible discomfiture my full knowledge of the
speculation which embraced my purse with my person, and laugh with
derisive scorn, at so shallow an attempt to win and wear me--_me!_”

While that reference to herself yet trembled upon her lips, a thought
rushed through her brain, and a flush of crimson spread itself over her
fair neck and face, and then it subsided, and left her deadly pale.

At this moment, the postman’s well-known ring at the gate-bell, given
with skilful force, resounded suddenly through the house. The noise made
her start, and utter a faint scream. Her heart began to beat violently,
while a strange presentiment seized her that the epistle which had
arrived by this channel was for her. An emotion of dread oppressed
her, for which she was at a loss to account, for she had but few
correspondents, and among them there was not one whose communication
ought to contain any matter to occasion her feelings of dread.

She had forgotten one.

She listened breathlessly for the light foot-fall of Chayter. She was
not disappointed. The door opened, and her quiet, neatly-dressed, sleek
maid entered, bearing a note upon a small silver salver.

Helen assumed an air of indifference she did not feel. She glanced, from
beneath her long dark eyelashes, rapidly at the letter, but she played
with the pendants of a bracelet, and yawned in Chayter’s face.

“A letter for you, if you please, miss,” said the girl, and handed it to
her.

“Put it down, Chayter,” said she, “I will read it by and by. I am in
no humour now to bore over a long crossed scrawl from a tiresome school
friend.”

The girl laid the letter upon the small table at Helen’s elbow,
remarking to herself, as she gazed upon the superscription, that the
school friend wrote a remark ably vigorous, masculine hand.

“Where is papa?” inquired Helen, with seeming apathy, although deeply
interested in the answer.

“In the library, if you please, miss,” the girl answered.

“And mamma, and the rest of them,” added Helen. “Your mamma, and his
Grace, and Miss Margaret, and Mr. Malcolm, are walking in the garden.”

“Yes.”

“And the Honorable Mr. Lester Vane and Miss Evangeline are in the
drawing-room.”

“In the drawing-room?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, miss, quite alone.”

“Indeed!”

Helen felt surprised and annoyed to hear this. She did not stay to
inquire why. Upon the first blush, it seemed to her that Lester Vane had
no right to be alone with her sister. She was irritated and vexed; not,
as she suggested to herself, that she cared, because she had a contempt
for the man; but then, to preserve merely the harmony of consistency, he
ought to be alone with no one else but her, and look into no other eyes
than her own. Evangeline, too, so reserved--so shy. She shook her head.
Perhaps there was more art and depth in that apparently timid girl than
any of them had ever dreamed of. She determined, instantly, to observe
her more closely. Evangeline hitherto had passed as a stupid, harmless,
nervous child, yet beneath such an exterior might lurk much shrewd
sagacity, and a power to think and act for herself for which she had not
previously received credit.

Helen rather prided herself upon her own perceptive faculties, and, like
many of her sex, she was so exceedingly keen-sighted as to be at times
precipitated into forming erroneous conclusions. It occurred to her that
it would not be altogether impolitic to put in an appearance, rather
unexpectedly, in the drawingroom, where Vane was _tête-à-tête_ with
her sister. A glance at the faces of both, she assured herself, would
suffice to tell her what course Vane was pursuing, and it would serve to
direct her future conduct.

She rose with this intention, and, as she moved past her little table,
her eye fell upon the letter which the sudden communication by Chayter,
respecting her sister and Lester Vane, had caused her to forget.

She turned her eyes hastily around the apartment, Chayter was no longer
there. She was alone.

She took up the letter and held it to the lamp, so that she might
see the superscription clearly. She started as she recognised the
handwriting.

“Heaven! I thought so,” she ejaculated. “It is from Hugh. How thoughtless
to address to me here!”

She examined the post-mark, which bore the name of Southampton. She drew
a long breath, as though to nerve herself to meet the contents of the
letter, which she felt would have a marked influence upon her future
destiny, and then she broke the seal.

The contents were penned by a hurried and trembling hand; the very
character of the scrawled letters betrayed the workings of a mind
convulsed by passion and sorrow--the words themselves only too
emphatically proved what the ill-formed characters suggested. She read,
with burning eyes, what follows--

“_Helen! thou passionately loved! Measure the intensity of my grief when
you learn that my dread forebodings are verified. I sail by the ‘Ripon’
to India on the 4th, three days hence. My agony is insupportable! To be
parted from you for years--perhaps never more to meet on earth--drives
me to despair--distraction! I could refuse to quit England. I did. An
alternative was presented to me; it involved the desolation of one
to insure whose happiness my life were too mean a gift; it would have
hurled me into beggary, and would still have sundered me from you--from
you, Helen, you my life-spring, the font from whence I draw the only joy
this world can yield me. What could I do? The chained and manacled slave
had more freedom of action than I! My choice lay between this loathed
voyage and comparative annihilation, and my consent to leave England has
been thus wrung from me. Helen, though but these feeble words greet
your tender eyes, yet I am with you face to face, near, near to you in
spirit._”

A cold thrill ran through the frame of Helen as she read these words,
and she raised her eyes, shrinking and gazing into the misty space
before her, as if expecting to see his form, phantom-like and grim,
standing there.

But she saw only the pictures on the walls and the hanging draperies,
so, with a cold tremor, she went on with the perusal of the letter--

“_You remember, Helen, that night when we stood together in the abbey
ruins alone--the cold, grey moonlight streamed through the oriel
window--shattered and decayed it was--and rested upon a mutilated cross.
You remember that cross, Helen, as, silver like, it stood out in bold
relief? My earnest gaze was upon it, Helen, when my fevered, trembling
lips uttered words in your ear only too feeble and inexpressive
to convey the depth and intensity of that love, which your gentle
tenderness and your unsurpassed beauty had won from me. And by that
cross I swore to be true to you while I had life. I see that cross now,
Helen! Can you? I repeat the oath I took on that night. Will you, oh,
Helen, dearest? You do not forget that, while my vow was yet vibrating
in your ear, you turned your lustrous eyes upon that glowing emblem of
mortal redemption. Your sweet head reclined upon my heaving breast, and
in faltering words, you owned that the passion was not unrequited--that
you loved me. Your warm, fragrant breath played upon my cheeks as you
pointed to that cross, and called Heaven to witness to your truth--to
testify that, in the time to come, your affection should be as
unchanging and as unchangeable as my own. Look, Helen, there! See
you not that cross standing sharply and brightly out from the shadows
beyond? Will you refuse the duty it calls upon you to perform, or forget
the oath it commands you to remember? Out of my deep love for you, at
what sacrifice would I pause? What hesitate to do and dare, that you
might be mine? Ah, Helen, will you be mine, as you have so often fondly
sworn you were, and would be ever? Are you prepared for the test which
shall prove it? It is this. Will you, on receipt of this letter, join
me here? Will you, Helen? I have made every arrangement by which you
can travel on the 3rd by the four o’clock train to Southampton alone
and secure from interruption. On your arrival, you will be received by
a lady, who will be expecting you, and will conduct you to apartments
prepared for you. On the 4th, we will be united by _a legal_ marriage,
as we have been by love, and--nay, we will then bid farewell to England,
with hearts light and free; for, come any evil after it, we shall at
least be happy in the possession of each other, and can no more be
parted, but by death. Helen, my own Helen, if you will fly to me, the
devotion of a life will be too poor a return for the integrity, the
purity, the magnanimity of your love. If you come not--well, words would
be idle.

“Hugh Riversdale.”_

Helen staggered to her chair as she concluded the epistle. She pressed
her hands to her throbbing temples; her brain was in a whirl; she had
not the power for a minute or two to summon a single thought to her aid.

Remember that night! Ay! the events crowded into it were not likely to
be forgotten by her. As her hot palms pressed down her eyelids, she
saw as in a vision the ruined abbey, desolate and silent, in the broad
moon-light, the moss-grown, ivy-bound walls, the dilapidated aisles, the
triple-arched windows, mouldering and falling away, very skeletons of
what they had once been; the rude masses of masonry half buried in the
long, rank grass; but, above all, that cross.

That cross!

It now glittered and sparkled and wreathed before her eyes as if it were
living flame, and darted out long, forked, arrowy tongues, to blister
and consume her if she violated her oath.

She sprang to her feet with a scream and a shudder of horror. She gazed
affrightedly round her; the sight of her maid, Chayter, who had, with
noiseless step, reentered the room, however, dispelled the vision, and
restored her to something like composure.

She looked for her letter; it was open upon the table where it had
fallen; waving her hand, she said, in a voice hoarse with emotion--

“Leave me, Chayter; I will ring when I require your services.”

The girl glanced at the letter and then at her mistress. She gave a
short cough.

“It is growing late, miss!” she said, hesitatingly, “I thought----”

“Leave me!” almost shrieked the haughty beauty, stamping her foot
violently.

The girl dropped a hurried curtsey, and slunk swiftly out of the room.

She had been witness to small displays of irritability, but never to
such an ebullition of temper as this.

When alone, Helen strode to the door and locked it. She threw herself
into her chair, and again pressed her beating temples with her hands.

“Is he mad?” she murmured. “Fly with him and to India! How selfish--how
unreasonable!”

He asked for a sacrifice as the test of her love; but what a sacrifice!
She loved him--he ought to know that. What had she not done to give him
proofs of it? If the proofs he had already received were insufficient,
what could suffice? Not even the very sacrifice he called upon her to
make. He had spoken of sacrifices, he had reminded her of their mutual
vow, but now he sought to make her crown those cumulative sacrifices by
inducing her to fling away all personal considerations, and follow his
fortunes--to minister to his happiness by the surrender of her own.

Not that she doubted she should be happy in becoming his wife, but then
there was so much that went to make up the sum of perfect contentment,
which she must forego upon quitting home, and which she could not hope
to possess or enjoy after she had linked her fate with his. Trifles
are they at best, but to have pleasure the rule, and retirement the
exception to be flattered, admired, the cynosure of adoring eyes--are
constituent parts of many a woman’s happiness, wanting only the love
of one to make a perfect felicity. Helen was called upon to make her
election. She could not, it appeared, have done both. If she flung away
the pleasures of the world and the comforts of wealth, she would have
to be compensated by Hugh’s passionate love and entire devotion. If she
flung away his love--well, there was still her luxurious home, and--and
if he was bent upon being so very, very obstinate in his selfish
demands, and in the event of her not taking part in his wild scheme,
were to sunder the connection between them--well, there were others
moving in a higher sphere than his, who would kneel at her feet, and
give to her entire and undisputed sway, so that she but bestowed her
hand upon the suppliant.

“I will write to him,” she said, taking up his letter, and placing it
in her desk, which she carefully locked. “Yes, I will write to him, and
show to him the weakness and the folly of what he asks. Papa would be
frenzied, and mamma would surely die of mortified pride if I were to
take such a step. No, no; it must not be. You were not in your senses,
Hugh, when you addressed that letter to me, and so thoughtless, too, to
direct it here. Poor fellow!--poor dear fellow!--how he loves me!--how
deeply, dearly, he truly loves me!--dear Hugh!--yes, I well remember that
night of mutual confession--oh! I well remember the tumult of joy which
swelled my bosom when your trembling voice, and nearly inarticulate
words, told me that which I already instinctively knew, but which I so
longed for you to confess, my dear, dear Hugh!”

To what result the train of reflection, now taking an opposite path to
that which at first it pursued, might have led, we do not pretend to
say. Helen was here interrupted by a knock at the door, followed by the
voice of Chayter, who informed her young mistress that she was expected
in the drawing-room, inquiries having been already made for her.

She gave a rapid glance at her face in the glass. It was pale as
alabaster, but there was no further trace of the disorder her mind had
suffered; and so assuming a calm demeanour, she admitted Chayter.

“I do believe I have been dozing,” she said to the sleek girl.

“I don’t believe anything of the kind,” thought Chayter; but, smiling,
said--“Dear me, miss, what a thing it is to be lovely, and have a dozen
noble and beautiful gentlemen grieving to death for you.”

“Chayter!”

“Ah, miss! it is as I say,” continued the girl. “I can see. There is his
Grace talking of nothing but you, and the Honorable Mr. Vane hoping that
you are not ill because you keep your own room, and you all the while so
indifferent, dozing in your chair, and Miss Margaret looking--I beg your
pardon, miss--as if she would give her ears to be taken notice of by
either of them.”

“Dress me, Chayter!” exclaimed Helen, abruptly, “and, if you can, pray
be silent; your volubility makes my head ache.”

Chayter understood a hint, though she did not quite comprehend whether
volubility meant impertinence or overwhelming information. She gathered
from Helen’s tone that she was in no humour to listen to her prattle,
and she was shrewd enough to keep her tongue still when its rattle was
likely to be unwelcome.

Helen quickly made her toilet, and had seldom looked more beautiful than
she did when she entered the drawing-room, which, though half filled by
the guests and family, was all but silent without her.

Her eye ran round the apartment as she glided in, and she perceived her
mamma and sister Margaret conversing together. Her papa was discoursing
with the young Duke upon the management of estates, and detailing a plan
by which to obtain the largest possible amount of income with the least
possible expenditure, to all of which the Duke appeared to listen,
though he yawned frequently; but he rescued himself from the charge of
inattention by occasionally observing--“Weally!”

“Pwecisely,”

“Pwobably,”

“Wemawkable!”

Malcolm was half-asleep upon a couch, and Lester Vane was seated by the
side of her sister Evangeline, talking with her in a tone sufficiently
low as not to be heard--at least, where she stood.

What strange feeling was it that possessed her when her eye fell upon
Evangeline and Lester Vane, as it were _tête-à-tête_? Why did a flush
mount to her brow, and a pang of vexation shoot through her breast? He
was nothing to her; what he might do ought to have no interest in her
eyes, for if any feeling for him was predominant in her heart, it was
not certainly of a favourable nature. Yet he had gazed upon her so
ardently, and spoken to her with such gentle tones, that if she could
draw a conclusion from his manner, it was that her beauty had made a
deep impression upon his heart. Now to see his dreamy eyes dwelling
on Evangeline’s innocent face so earnestly, to observe his impressive
manner, as he addressed her with words toned so as to make her gentle
heart thrill with a new emotion, was to be made to feel that she had
made no impression upon him at all, or that he made love to her simply
_pour passer le temps_.

She burnt with vexation.

“He shall love me,” she thought, “woo me, kneel to me. Oh! but how I
will spurn him--shatter him with my scorn.”

Poor Hugh Riversdale!

Upon the appearance of Helen, the Duke of St Allborne flung over the
elaborate dissertation to which he was supposed to be listening, and
quitting Mr Grahame, advanced hastily to his daughter; Lester Vane
caught sight of her at the same moment, and rose to his feet, but
without evincing any emotion, other than that of pleasure at her
arrival.

“My deah Miss Gwahame,” exclaimed the Duke, all in a flutter of
excitement, “I am twuly delighted that you have wejoined us; I began to
feah you weah not well, and would afflict us by not wetawning any moah
this evening. I should have been gweatly gwieved at youah absence, but
faw moah so if you had been weally indisposed.”

“Your Grace will, I hope, pardon my not being present with my mamma and
sisters to receive you in the drawing-room,” replied Helen, favouring
him with one of her most bewitching smiles. “I am really ashamed to
acknowledge to your Grace the truth, but I am afraid that while reading
a few pages of a novel I fell into the most unromantic doze possible.”

The Duke laughed appreciatively--a doze after dinner! Who comprehended
its luxury more keenly than himself?

“Pway don’t apologise, Miss Gwahame,” he exclaimed, “I think a nap after
one’s wine one of the wosiest and most delicate awdinations of natchaw.”
 Helen smiled bewitchingly again at the Duke, for she knew the eye of
Lester Vane, who had slowly approached her, was on her face.

“My Lord Duke,” she returned, “do not misinterpret me--I dozed after my
_book_.”

“Ha! ha!” laughed the Duke. “I beg pawdon. Exactly! I could not suppose
however, Miss Gwahame, that the wine you sipped at dinnaw would have
thwown you into a doze. I alluded to myself, eh, Vane?”

“Weally this girl is devilish pwetty,” thought the

Duke, as he turned to his friend. “She is a pawfect beauty; I must
weally wun off with her.”

“You are skilled in after-dinner indulgence, you are, in fact, a perfect
master of that species of luxury, St. Allbome,” replied Vane, smiling,
and added, with marked _empressement_ to Helen, “I would not have done
you the injustice, Miss Grahame, to have presumed that a _post prandial_
slumber had denied us the pleasure of your fair society, if you had
not yourself offered it in explanation of your absence. I should, if
permitted to speculate upon your movements, have imagined that a stroll
by moonlight, along the sinuous paths of the most excellently arranged
garden attached to this mansion, had occupied you pleasantly, that,
tempted by the beauty of the night--or some other cause--you had been
induced to linger in the purple shadows thrown upon the place beneath,
by the luxuriant foliage of a certain cluster of graceful trees, bending
in pensive reflection over the flowing stream, whose rippling waters
lave their base, the balmy air responding to the chant of the water’s
low music with soft sighs, and gently fondling in its murmuring the deep
green leaves still and silent in their evening dreams.”

The Duke looked up at his friend in indescribable astonishment. Lester
Vane went on--

“Such a scene, Miss Grahame, heightened by those associations your own
glowing thoughts could supply, would naturally furnish an ample excuse
for an absence so much regretted by all present. May I suggest that you
should adopt it, rather than confess to an afterdinner nap?”

“And dreams of pumpkin pie,” interposed Helen, with sarcastic
bitterness, and a very formal bend. She understood his allusion; it
brought a scarlet flush on her cheek, and made her eye flash like a
diamond. Her lip curled scornfully as she replied to him, and if the
sarcastic tone she adopted was unnoticed by others, it was not lost upon
him.

“Mr. Vane,” she added, not concealing an expression of disdain, “I
prefer to adhere to the vulgar truth. There are people to whom such a
course is inconvenient, but I find it less troublesome than to have
to coin a number of small prevarications. I am afraid I am rather an
unromantic individual. I catch cold, and have bad fits of sneezing come
on, when I am foolish enough to be tempted by some poetical enthusiast
to enjoy the beauty of a moonlight night, shadowy trees, rippling
waters, and sighing breezes. On those occasions there is always a
quantity of mist about, moist exhalations, powerfully suggestive I
assure you Mr. Vane, of influenza. Moonlight scenes are very pretty
things at the Opera, or in a picture, but the reality is really very
trying to the constitution.”

“The vewy weflections I have frequently made myself,” burst forth
the Duke with much vivacity. ‘’You enwapchaw me, Miss Gwahame, youaw
impwes-sions squaw so wondwously with mine. Moonlight nights aw vewy
damp aflaws; I nevaw venchaw upon one without a heavy boat cape, a box
of cigaws, and a pawson to play the twumpet, to keep me awake, nevaw!”

“You surprise me, Miss Grahame,” said Vane, nettled by the tone she
assumed. “I imagined that your temperament was highly sentimental
and poetical.” There was a hidden meaning even in these words. Helen
detected so much; though she did not at the moment perceive the object
at which the shaft was levelled; she replied quickly--

“You have been premature, Mr. Vane, in forming your estimate of my
character. I am not so easily read as my sister Evangeline. She is
imbued with romance, as, no doubt, you have before this discovered. She
trusts to seeming, poor child--I do not.”

For a moment her eye fastened itself piercingly upon him. She then took
the Duke’s ready arm, and advanced up the _salon_ to a magnificent harp,
to fulfil a promise made by her to the Duke at dinner. As she did so,
she looked for Evangeline, but she had quitted the room when Lester Vane
rose up to greet her, and she liked not her disappearance.

Lester Vane looked after Helen as, with queenly dignity, she paced the
room, leaning upon the arm of his bulky, ungraceful friend, all the
brighter and more beautiful for the contrast.

“I am right,” he mused; “I am on the track; she chafes at the very
mention of garden and moonlight. My experiment, too, succeeds--two suns
may not shine in her hemisphere--she is already jealous of my attention
to her little, simple, innocent sister. There is power in that. I will
use it. I will have her completely in my grasp.”

He moved towards Mrs. Grahame and the passionless statue, her daughter
Margaret, perfectly at his ease, and as unconcerned as though the
incident of the moment alone occupied his thoughts.

Helen, too, appeared to commence her task in perfect serenity of mind,
yet the words, “You remember that cross, Helen!” were ringing in her
brain, and though she sang words and music correctly, and never faltered
in the accompaniment, she prayed for the hour of release from the
presence of guests, the sounds of voices, the glaring lights; to
be again alone in her room, to wrestle with memories of passion and
promise, to contend with conflicting emotions, to decide upon obeying
the impulse of her heart, or to determine upon one great sacrifice, in
order to secure the glittering’ triumphs of a brilliant position.

Alone! What would she not have given at that moment, while singing with
such charming taste, to have been alone!

Before her song commenced, Mr. Grahame had been summoned to an interview
with some person, who required to see him on business of importance, and
during the performance of the song, while approving smiles were upon
the features of his guests, and his wife and daughter Margaret sat in
ineffable elation, he lay upon the floor of his library in a fit!




CHAPTER XII.--A LIFE STRUGGLE.


                        Where the lamps quiver,

                        So far in the river,

                   With many a light

                   From many a casement--

                   From garret and basement,

                   She stood with amazement--

                        Houseless by night!


                   The bleak wind of March

                        Made her tremble and shiver;

                        But not the dark arch--

                   Or the black flowing river.

                   Mad from life’s history,

                   Glad to Death’s mystery

                   Swift to be hurl’d

                        Anywhere! anywhere--

                        Out of the world!

                             --Hood.


Within a close, narrow, scantily-furnished chamber, upon a miserable
bed, sparely provided with bedclothes, lay a young girl, weak and
wasted, struggling in the deadly grip of a fierce fever.

The room--a back attic--bore evidence of the humble position of the
householder, and, in addition to its native foul atmosphere, was
impregnated with the sickly odour prevalent in chambers in which there
is sickness.

A truckle bed, a table, a chair, comprised the furniture; a soiled and
ragged curtain at the diamond-paned window comprehended all the room
possessed in the shape of drapery or hangings; the walls were bare,
and washed with the odious salmon-hued distemper colour so prevalent in
debtors’ prisons and apartments in poor neighbourhoods; the floor-boards
with wide interstices between them, and large knot-holes here and there,
where mice looked up, and unspareable halfpence sometimes rolled
down, had not even a show of comfort in the way of a small bit of old
stair-carpet by the bedside. All within and around bespoke poverty of
the grimmest school.

The girl, who lay upon the bed moaning in a disturbed slumber, with
flushed cheeks, and pale and transparent lips, was no other than Lotte
Clinton.

Upon the night of the fire, when landed safely by the conductor of the
fire-escape, she found herself in her thin night-dress, exposed to the
cold night air, which struck chill to her unprotected bosom, while
her naked tender feet were upon the hard stones, ankle deep in rushing
water.

The shock she had experienced on being awakened out of a deep slumber
by the startling, horrifying cry of fire, the terror which all but
paralysed her when, half-blinded and nearly suffocated, she discovered
her room filled with smoke, the excitement which followed the rushing
from her chamber, the roaring of the flames, the crackling and
sputtering of the burning wood, the hoarse cries of the mob, the
perilous descent to the ground, the sudden exposure to the eager gaze
of a multitude of faces, red in the glaring, unnatural light, the whirl,
the turmoil, mingled with a species of hysterical joy and gratefulness
at her deliverance, created a combination of emotions beyond her
physical powers of endurance.

It is not wonderful that--affrighted, unknowing where to turn, whither
to go, what to do, chilled to the marrow by the piercing coldness of the
water rushing over her unprotected, delicate feet, utterly overwhelmed
by what had happened, by the incidents surrounding her, and in which
she was yet an actor--she should succumb; and find, that as some person
hastily and roughly seized her about the waist, she should have a dim
consciousness that the whole scene was fading from her as some expiring
terrible vision, and that, when it disappeared from her eyes, she should
be lifeless in the arms of the person who had caught hold of her.

The man who had taken her in his arms was a small tradesman, dealing in
coals and potatoes, and a little--a very little--greengrocery. He lived
in a neighbouring street, in a small house, and was blessed with a wife
and nine children, who were “dragged” up somehow. He was one of the
first on the spot when the alarm of fire was given. He saw Lotte landed
from the fire-escape; he observed the agonized expression upon the poor
girl’s face--heard her low, hysteric sobbing, and saw her totter as
though she would fall upon her face in the muddy, eddying pool in
which, barefooted, she was standing. It was enough for him. He drew off
instantly his heavy coat of “fashionable cable cord,” and, flinging it
over her shoulders, caught her up in his arms, and raced off to his old
’oman with his burden, followed by a small train of women and boys.

His wife was no little astonished at this sudden accession to her
household; but her womanly sympathy was roused immediately she beheld
the condition of the poor girl, and learned that she had been rescued
from the raging fire, which her husband had so short a time previously
run off to see, and she at once busied herself by applying those
restoratives, known to most women, which, though simple, are efficacious
in restoring to consciousness those of the sex who fall into swoons.

Lotte Clinton, being a girl of strong feelings, was not, however, easily
brought to a calm sense of her great affliction; on the contrary, she
recovered from one fainting fit only to fall into another, worse than
its predecessor; and when, by the aid of the parish doctor, who had been
called in, she was relieved from successive swoons and thrown into a
sleep, it was only to awake in a paroxysm of fever and delirium.

Two days she lay thus: on the third, late at night, when the hard-worked
parish doctor made his appearance, in order that he might see his
patient the last thing, he stood with the woman of the house, at the
bed-side of the poor girl.

Two or three anxious questions were put to him, but he shook his head,
as the woman thought, ominously.

“She is rapidly approaching a crisis,” he said. “By the dawn her fate
will be decided. She has in her favour youth and a good constitution;
but it is impossible to tell what may result from the ravages of so
fierce a fever as that under which she is suffering. We must hope for
the best, and leave the rest in the hands of God! I think it would be
proper to make her friends acquainted with her condition, and the sooner
they are here at her bed-side the better will be their chance of taking
their last farewell of her.”

Those were dread words: ill-omened shadows did they cast. The woman
raised her apron to her eyes, and gulped audibly, once or twice.

“I don’t know where to find her friends, if she has any, poor child!” she
said, huskily. “My Jem picked her up, out o’ the fire, and brought her
here; nobody’s been to ax after her; and we don’t know where to go.
She’s never been in her senses since she was here, else I should have
got her to tell me; but, lawk! lawk! it is a sad thing for a poor girl
like this to die away from home, and ne’er a friend or relation to close
her poor dear eyes. I’m a mother myself, sir! an’ God knows, I should be
dreadful wretched if one of my babbies was to die away from me in this
lonesome way.”

The poor woman sobbed unaffectedly as she concluded. The doctor, with a
glittering tear in the corner of his eye, laid his hand gently upon her
shoulder--

“While there is life there is hope, Mrs. Bantom,” he said, kindly. “It
is too early to despair yet. Had the young woman nothing about her when
your husband saved her?--no letter?”

“Lord bless you, nothing on but those night things you see on her; not
a blessed rag else. My Jem has been a trying if he could learn anything
about her, but lor! he goes about such matters in sech a bladderheaded
sort o’ way, that I don’t wonder at his making a bad out on it. He
lurches and prowls about when he goes to ax for his own in sech a way
that people are afear’d on him. It was only the other day he went for
a little bill, which it was a long time a owin’ an’ we wanted the money
badly--when he explained what he’d come for in sech an in and out round
about sort a way that the people sent for a policeman believin’ he’d
come on the sneak to prig the ’ats and mats in the ’all.”

The doctor could hardly forbear a smile. He turned his eyes, however, on
Lotte’s face, and bent his head down closely to listen to her breathing,
he felt her pulse, timing its rapid beats by his watch; then he laid
down the unresisting hand, and addressed himself to Mrs. Ban tom.

“Poor thing!” he said, “she is very, very ill. If she wakes shortly,
give to her a dose of the medicine I have brought with me--she must have
it, especially if she be violent, incoherent, and resists your attempts
to administer it. Should it not have the effect of pacifying her, send
for me at once. Good night, Mrs. Bantom. Pray to God to spare her, for
she is on the threshold of death,” he concluded, with much solemnity
in his tone. He made his way out of the room. She lighted him down the
stairs, and when she heard the street-door close she returned to the
sick room to watch by the side of her friendless patient.

Her husband and her children were in bed; he had his long hard day’s
work to perform on the morrow, and rest was essential to him. The little
colony of children were better where they were than anywhere else; Mrs.
Bantom, too, had her share of hard work cut out for her for the next
day and required sleep, but she did not heed it. She thought only of the
poor young creature who she believed to be rapidly quitting her brief
earthly career for one that would have no limit.

By the feeble rays of the miserable rushlight burning, she watched the
flushed face of Lotte, perceiving it become each minute more crimson
and inflamed-She saw her bosom heave and fall, and she listened with a
beating heart to her stertorous breathing. She saw her head roll
from side to side, her burning hands open and shut, and clutch at the
bed-clothes. She heard with an aching heart the low moan of pain which
oozed as it were with prolonged mournful cadence from the lips of the
poor girl, and she prepared for the sudden and violent awakening to
which the doctor had alluded.

But Lotte became silent and motionless again; the only change in her
was, that her tongue, white and rigid, protruded from her half-opened
mouth. The heart of good Mrs. Bantom smote her as she observed it,
and she feared that the fatal moment was indeed at hand. She, however,
performed her duty as a nurse with watchful perseverance, and with some
grapes which the doctor had brought, she moistened the dry and parched
tongue of poor Lotte.

This gentle attention, persevered in, passed not unrewarded. She could
see it had a grateful influence; though, as it seemed to her, Lotte was
dying in an unconscious state, and would breathe her last without making
any sign.

So, though she knew only the prayers taught to her in childhood, and
seldom now-a-days went to a place of worship, she remembered the words
of the doctor, and she knelt down by the bedside. She was unacquainted
with the subtleties of contending faiths. She had a faith which went
deeper: she believed implicitly in the supreme power of God, in His
ability to give and to take away. In that spirit she appealed to Him.

She prayed to Him, in earnest sincerity, to grant to the motionless,
friendless girl, stretched on the bed before her, a longer term, if
that, by a more extended sojourn on earth, she might know a greater
happiness than had, perhaps, yet been her lot; but that, if it was the
Divine will to remove her hence, she implored Him with earnest heart,
though with all humility and reverence, to take her to His bosom, that
the shadow of sorrow or affliction might fall upon her never more.

When her prayer was ended, she turned her eyes, suffused with tears,
upon her unconscious patient.

She started. The hectic crimson of the girl’s cheek had paled down, and
was fast changing to a pallid hue. It seemed even that on her brow
a moisture had appeared. The heavy breathing had abated, as had the
moaning and uneasy movement of head and hands.

Suddenly, Lotte’s eyes opened, and she gazed feebly around her. She
looked intently at the bare walls, the scanty furniture, and then
earnestly upon Mrs. Bantom, who was watching her every motion with
absorbing eagerness.

At length, in a low voice, she murmured, wonderingly--

“Where--where am I? Who are you? What strange place is this?”

Mrs. Bantom’s own common sense told her that the crisis was over; and,
so far, the girl’s life was saved.

With a burst of gratitude, she exclaimed, clasping her hands together--

“Oh, my God, you have listened to my prayer! you have heard me, a
sinner! you have spared her!”

Tears checked her voice, and she buried her face once more in the
bed-clothes.

Lotte regarded her with surprise--as, indeed, she did the whole
situation. She felt strangely weak and powerless. Had she been ill? What
did it all mean? She repeated the question, in a low voice, and then
Mrs. Bantom jumped up, and hurried to the medicine bottle. She poured
out a dose, and said, as tenderly as if Lotte was her own child--

“There, drink that, like a good girl, and don’t ask a single question
until you are stronger; it will be quite time enough to know all then.”

Lotte would have persisted, but Mrs. Bantom was peremptory, and she
was obliged to succumb. Within ten minutes after the medicine had been
administered, she was asleep.

The battle had been fought. Youth, constitution, and judicious treatment
had won the victory. The abatement of the symptoms was as rapid as had
been the attack of the fever, and in two days more Lotte was able to sit
up in bed, and communing with herself, come to a full knowledge of the
peculiarity and the distressing nature of her situation.

She had, in the interval between the crisis and the present moment,
followed the directions of the doctor, obeyed his instructions, and
swallowed his medicine with the intrepidity of a martyr. The result had
been all that could be desired in her progress to health: fresh air was
only needed to complete the rest.

How was that to be got at? How, at present, could she obtain more than
came in at her window? She had no clothes; all had been destroyed at the
fire, everything had been consumed, including the very little money
she had. Her very first impulse had been, on coming to a sense of her
position, to send for her brother Charley; but, alas! a fellow-clerk had
embezzled upwards of a thousand pounds from the firm to which they
both belonged, and had absconded. Charley had been at once charged to
accompany a detective, engaged to pursue him, to America, and he had
started on the very night of the fire. He was already on the Atlantic,
leaving the shores of England at the rate of three hundred miles per
day. He had despatched a hasty note to Lotte, informing her of the
mission upon which he had been despatched, and directing her, should she
require a little pecuniary assistance during his absence, to apply in
his name to his firm, and it would be readily afforded her.

This letter she never got. Charley had slipped it into the letter-box of
a post-office, on his way to the Euston station, and it was conveyed to
its destination by the postman on the following morning. But as he was
not able to deliver it, he returned to the Dead Letter Office, first
carefully writing upon it, “House burnt down; gone away, not known
where.”

Mr. Bantom was, however, employed by Lotte as a messenger to her
brother, to inform him of her sad misfortune, but he pursued his
inquiries for Charley in a manner so mysterious, that he raised in the
mind, of the Clerk whom he addressed a strong impression that Charley
Clinton was deeply his debtor, for coals and greengrocery. Now,
Charley’s fellow-clerk was never out of debt, and had an intense
loathing for all creditors; they were, he used to say, so offensively
pertinacious even when they had got an answer, therefore he replied to
Mr. Bantom’s questions with curt brevity. All Mr. Bantom could gather
was, that Charles Clinton had sailed for America, and his return was
a question involved in obscurity. And the clerk facetiously added, “It
might not be for years, and it might not be for never.”

This intelligence was a sad blow to Lotte; what to do she could not
tell. The honest people who had taken her in to their humble house lived
too closely from hand to mouth to aid her; indeed, she was already a
burden to them; they could ill--nay, could not--afford to keep her; this
she was at no loss to comprehend by what she heard and saw.

After her passion of bitter, bitter tears on learning that Charley had
gone to another quarter of the globe, had passed away, she consulted
with Mrs. Bantom as to what was to be done.

“I cannot lie here,” she exclaimed; “I shall worry myself to death. If I
could get out, I could get work. I could in some way repay you for your
kindness, Mrs. Bantom, but to be kept thus--oh, I had better died--
better have died.”

She wrung her hands, and sobbed violently.

“It ain’t o’ no use your taking on in this way,” said Mrs. Bantom to
her, ready to mingle her tears with her, for to say truth, the poor
creature was easily moved to weep. “Somethin’ ’ll turn up, I’ll be
bound. My things is too big for you--and too poor--besides, I ain’t got
much more’n I stand upright in, but I dare say I shall hit on a way
to dress you afore long, so don’t worrit yourself. As for the bit you
eats--lor! what’s that among so many on us? there, there, hold your
tongue, gal, and keep your spirits up; I’ll find a way to help you.”

And so she did. She went among her neighbours to make up the different
articles that constitute the dress of a woman, and poor, as nearly all
of whom she begged were, none, when they heard Lotte’s frightful story,
refused her appeal. The poor never refuse to help the poor, if they have
any means.

Her last application, however, should have been her first, for it was
to a young girl about Lotte’s own age and figure. She was an artificial
florist, a worker, too, of eighteen hours out of the twenty-four--a
diligent, unmurmuring, white slave. She was able to sympathise with poor
Lotte, and she generously offered to lend her all the clothes she would
require, until she obtained work, and would be able to return them.

With delight Mrs. Bantom accepted her offer, and conveyed the clothes
to Lotte. With yet greater delight did the poor girl attire herself in
them, and hurry to the house for which she had worked before the fire
had rendered her homeless. She revealed her unhappy position to the
individual who had employed her (there are few like him, thank Heaven!)
He listened coldly to her statement, and finding that six dozen
cap fronts, his property, had been consumed in the fire, instead of
commiserating her, abruptly informed her that she must pay for the
blonde and flowers before she had any more work, and if in two days she
did not bring to him the amount, he would pay her a visit accompanied by
a policeman.

Sickened and affrighted, Lotte hurried from the house, her hopes once
more dashed to the ground, her heart bursting with agony, no one to go
to for counsel or assistance. What was to be done?

Almost frantic, she wandered about without an aim, feeling that she
could not go back to the kind people who had sheltered her, unless she
had some prospect of lifting herself out of her desolate destitution,
and recompensing them, at least, for her board, although she could never
repay the service and the attention they had rendered to her.

She wandered through the streets, growing weak and faint from an
exertion to which she was not equal, and from being many hours without
food, gradually becoming desperate, as hopeless. She thought of the
coming night and the dark waters that swept silently beneath the
frowning arches of the bridges which spanned their breadth, and an
ever-recurring thought kept ringing in her ears--

                        “Anywhere, anywhere--

                        Out of the world,”

suddenly her eyes fell upon a printed bill; it said: “One thousand
cap-front hands wanted!” Not a second elapsed between her discovery of
that bill and the resting of her trembling hand upon the knocker of the
door. Her timid summons was responded to, and her application for work
met with success.

She was requested to enter a room and to sit down, and “make a pattern.”
 She was furnished with materials, and it was not long before she
produced a “front,” which gave great satisfaction to the employer. The
answers to inquiries put to her being deemed satisfactory, materials for
twelve dozen fronts were given to her, in a box, which she was to return
with her work.

With a light heart and a heavy parcel she returned to Mrs. Bantom.
Constant work was promised to her, provided she was punctual, and her
work was approved of. She had no fears about that. She promised the work
on the following Friday night. The task could only be accomplished by
incessant toil, but she resolved to accomplish it, and she did.

In the little squalid bedroom she sat to her exacting toil; few were the
hours of sleep she obtained during the time between the commencement and
the close of her labours, but she was rewarded by completing the last
front within an hour of the time specified. More fit for bed than for a
journey through the crowded streets, she staggered rather than walked to
the house of her new employer.

Her work was given in, and it was commended. She was told to come the
following evening, at six, the time when the workers were paid, and
bring her book, when she would receive the money due to her, and more
work would be given to her.

Elated, she returned to her poor abode, and slept happily that night at
least. She had in five days and nights--there was not much to be taken
out for sleep--earned ten shillings. She hoped the next week to earn a
like sum, and by self-sacrifices, assisted by the kind forbearance
of the Bantoms, to gradually clear off her debt, and to get herself
clothes, which she should wear with the satisfaction that they were her
own.

Ah! she raised up wonderful and glittering fabrics, but they were based
upon most intangible foundations. However, she slumbered lightly, and
rose refreshed, busying herself the whole of the day in lightening Mrs.
Bantom’s labours by assisting her in attending to her small regiment of
blessings.

At six o’clock the next evening punctually, and with anxious hopes, she
stood before the house of her new employer. She looked up wistfully
at it. It wore a peculiar air of silence and dulness which she had not
before observed. She did not pause to think upon the impression thus
suddenly raised, but knocked at the door. A pang smote her breast as it
occurred to her that a hollow sound echoed through the house on the fall
of the knocker, as though it was empty. She instinctively again cast her
eyes upwards; the windows were all closed; there were no blinds, but all
was dark within the house, and so still--so dreadfully still.

She waited: her summons remained unanswered. She knocked again. The same
hollow sound reverberated through the building, and her heart began to
sink and die within her.

A young girl now came up, stopped at the door, and knocked. She was
bound upon the same errand as Lotte, save that a fortnight’s work
was due to her. She had scrambled and starved over the past week, she
scarcely knew how. Wan and weak, but full of hope, she was here for the
miserable sum for which she had bartered health, exhausted her strength,
and perilled her young life.

There was no answer to her knock at the door, save the same hollow
mocking echo, as before.

Another girl made her appearance; a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth;
all here upon one errand--to claim the scanty sum for which they
had worked, almost from dawn to dawn. They spoke to each other,
questioningly: they looked into each other’s eyes with dread
apprehension, and they conversed in low excited tones. The wages they
had come to receive had been earned with a death-sweat. It was to them
of vital consequence.

One or two had homes and parents upon whom to fall back for assistance;
but the loss of the money to the others left them only a choice between
the streets and the river.

Lotte grasped at a railing near her for support. A throng of sharp
ringing sounds rushed through her brain. She took no part in the
conversation. She could not have uttered a sound, her tongue clave to
the roof of her mouth, her throat swelled and contracted as though it
would stifle her.

She began to lose her perception of what was going on around her.
Everything seemed to be absorbed in a harrowing consciousness that her
beggary, her loneliness, and desolation had assumed proportions of more
terrible magnitude than they had ever yet done--that they surpassed her
power to endure them longer.

She had a dim impression that a person residing next door told them all
that their employer had fled with his goods ere daybreak, no one knew
whither.

Sickened, heart-broken, Lotte quitted her hold of the railing which had
sustained her, and staggered away.

It was not difficult to find her way to the black and murky river,
careering swiftly and noiselessly through the heart of the vast
metropolis down to the sea.

“The river! the river!”

Those were the only words she muttered.

These words of such terrible significance seemed to be shrieked
by demons in her ears She saw them in fiery characters dancing
_ignis-fatuus_ like, before her, leading her on to her doom. She
followed unresistingly.

How she found her way--what route she chose to the river-side--she knew
not, cared not. She reached a bridge that spanned the dark waters,
ere she was conscious of her proximity to that grave which could be
self-made by one desperate plunge.

And now the fearful act she contemplated presented itself in its most
awful guise before her despairing eyes, but not to deter her from her
frantic purpose. No! If she remained on earth, her future was all black
and unshapen. There was rest and immunity from the horrors of want and
destitution in the grave.

She knelt down and prayed.

She compressed her hands tightly together; a wild hysteric groan, forced
from her by the intense anguish created by her unutterable thoughts,
burst from her lips, and she hurried on to the bridge, to end, by one
fearful plunge, her sorrows and her young life.

As she swept on to a recess, blinded by her misery, maddened by a
despair devoid of one glimmering of hope, the glare from one of the
lamps fell upon her ghastly face.

At that instant a strong hand caught her by the wrist, and a friendly
voice exclaimed--

“Miss Clinton! Miss Clinton!”

She fell back against the parapet of the bridge, and the voice changed
its tone for one of horror and surprise, and it said--

“Good heaven! what is the matter with you? how deadly white you are!
What has happened?--where are you going?”

“To die!--to die!”--she murmured, hoarsely, but faintly.

“Hush! hush! my dear friend,” said he who stayed her, in a soft and
slightly reproving tone, and added--“calm yourself, I entreat you; do
not speak for a minute or so; collect your thoughts, and then turn your
eyes on me. I am a friend. I have a right to that title, and you will
acknowledge it presently. I claim to aid you in affliction or trial. You
will not, I am sure, Miss Clinton, refuse consolation or help in need
from Harry Vivian.”

Lotte uttered a faint, hysteric cry; she clutched his arm, and bowed her
head upon his breast. She knew he had the power to help her; she knew
he would. As she clung to him, he felt her frame tremble and quiver as
though she had been smitten with an ague, and her hot tears fell fast
upon the hand which held hers, and pressed it re-assuringly. He let her
weep.

In a few minutes, he whispered--

“We will not stay here, Lotte. It is chill and cold, and we excite
attention from the passers-by.”

He conducted her from the bridge but a few steps only, for she was
nearly powerless, and unable longer to continue the struggle without
fatigue. He quickly perceived it, and had some notion of the cause; so
he said--

“I am so glad I have found you at last. I have made many efforts,
since the night of the fire, to discover you, but in vain. Not alone to
satisfy my own anxiety respecting you, but to allay the apprehensions of
your friend. Miss Wilton, to whom you were so kind in her hour of bitter
trial. Ah, Lotte! her misery is all past, her future life promises to be
one of supreme happiness, if wealth and station can ensure it. Come to
her now: she so wishes to see you again. It is not so far: a cab will
quickly take us to her. You will have, at least, a kindly sympathetic
ear in which to pour your sorrows, and--who knows?--the meeting between
you may be the termination of all your trials and sufferings.”

Lotte tried to reply. An inarticulate murmur was all that escaped her
lips. Her deep emotion did not so easily admit of suppression.

A cab opportunely approached, and Hal engaged it. He lifted Lotte in:
she had not power to help herself. He followed her into the vehicle, and
gave his directions to the driver.

The man whipped his horse, and the cab rattled away from the bridge.

Lotte thought of the sombre river, whirling on grimly, and she shuddered
violently.

Hal pressed her hand.

“The gloomiest lane, Lotte,” he whispered, “sometimes leads us to the
brightest land.”




CHAPTER XIII.--THE FORGED DEED.


               The same self-love in all becomes the cause

               Of what restrains him, government and laws.

               For what one likes, if others like as well,

               What serves one will, when many wills rebel?

               How shall he keep what, sleeping or awake,

               A weaker may surprise, a stronger take?

                             --Pope.


Mr. Grahame’s dissertation upon the improvement of land and the general
economy and management of estates had been abruptly interrupted by the
entrance of his daughter into the room where the guests and family were
assembled. His apathetic and somewhat drowsy auditor, the young Duke,
immediately on observing the approach of Helen Grahame, with a slight
excuse to his host, emancipated himself from the dull topic droned into
his ears, and advanced hastily to meet her.

Almost at the same moment, Whelks entered the apartment, with a printed
card upon a silver salver. It was _not_ an elegant production--the
typography was bold and in effect smudgy, and the general get-up smacked
rather loudly of the Seven Dials’ press.

It was dingy, too, and nibbled at the corners, indicating cogitation on
the part of the person whom it represented, the pasteboard having been
used unconsciously instead of the grimy thumb-nail.

The quick eye of Mr. Grahame caught sight of it almost the instant
Whelks crossed the threshold of the door, carrying it very much with
the air of one who had a huge slug on a plate, which he was seeking the
earliest opportunity to dispose of.

Mr. Grahame’s eyes flashed fire. What could the idiot mean by bringing
to him such a dun, drabby bit of card at such a moment. He glared at
Whelks, who remained unaffected; his gaze was upon the soiled article he
carried, and his reflections far away into the future, resting upon the
rosy hour when, liberated from flunkeydom, he should, with Sarah the
cook, unite hands and savings, and go into business. It was not, he
thought, with such “a hinfamous fustian smelling objek” as that which
rested on the silver salver, as though it had no business there, that he
should make his business announcement to a British public, bursting
with a desire to deal with him. And as he dreamed thus, he reached his
master.

Mrs. Grahame and Margaret Claverhouse, both with an astonishment and
indignation which their indomitable pride could barely repress, saw upon
the silver salver, in the hands of Whelks, the offensively dusky, shabby
card, and if glances could slay, Whelks’ remains would have been spread
over the magnificently “Sang”-decorated walls. He was, however, as
we have said, all unconscious of the effect he was creating upon the
members of the household, and he reached Mr. Gra-hame only to perceive
him glowering upon him like a tiger, inflamed with most sanguinary
intentions.

With a low, guttural growl, he was about to make known to Whelks the
nature of his convictions in having, at such an inopportune moment,
thrust upon him so foul a communication, when his eye caught sight
of the name--printed, according to the trade term, in fat-faced
Egyptian--of Chewkle. He felt as if some one had suddenly smote him on
the head with a club, and he broke into a cold sweat.

This man was in possession of his horrid secret; he was in his power; at
any time he could blazon forth to the world that a Grahame, the proudest
of a proud family, had committed a base act of forgery. He was now
amenable to the law of transportation--liable to be torn from his
present high position, and compelled to work and toil with thieves and
scoundrels in a penal colony.

These reflections, none the less vivid for presenting themselves in that
brilliantly lighted room, and in the presence of guests of high birth,
made his face grow white, and his knees tremble.

He whipped up the card and thrust it into his pocket, hoping that it had
escaped the eyes of all but himself.

Whelks delivered, then, an urgent message from Chewkle, and Mr. Grahame
said, in a low tone--

“Where is he?”

“In the ’orl, sir,” returned the footman, with a perked-up nose.

“Show him into the library; I will come to him immediately,” exclaimed
Mr. Grahame, in the same tone as before.

Whelks bowed, and departed to obey the instructions he had received, and
then to discuss with Sarah the nature of the business of a “Kermission
Agent,” as he styled Chewkle’s occupation, and wherefore it should,
as it appeared to him that it most certainly did, obtain so great an
influence over such a man as Mr. Grahame.

Mr. Grahame perceiving that Helen had absorbed the attention of the Duke
and Lester Vane, glided out of the room into the library. As he entered
it he became conscious of a strong smell of the “fragrant weed,” which,
however, to his olfactory nerves had not “the scent of the rose,” and
he saw Mr. Chewkle, with part of a truly British cheroot in his hand,
standing near to the lamp upon the table, harassed by doubts as to the
propriety of relighting it or the propriety of doing nothing of the
sort.

Mr. Grahame bowed patronisingly, but said hastily--

“Not smoking, I hope, Mr. Chewkle!”

“No,” returned Chewkle; “it was out afore I came in, but I thought if
you didn’t mind, you know----”

“But, indeed, I do mind!” responded Mr. Grahame, quickly, and then added
most fiercely, as he perceived the red and begrimed face of his visitor,
his dirty collar, his necktie and his hair disordered, all indicating
the frequent quaffing and replenishment of “the glass which cheers” and
_does_ inebriate--“Pray tell me, Mr. Chewkle, to what circumstance I am
to attribute your visit at, to me, a most inconvenient time?”

“Well, sir, things happens without particularly caring for our
convenience,” answered Chewkle, with a hiccup, which left a strong odour
of some beverage--not green tea--behind it. “We would all like things to
fall out jest as we would wish ‘em, but they don’t, an’ it seems as if
the more you wish ’em the more they won’t.”

“Well,” said Mr. Grahame, not liking this preface.

“Well,” continued Chewkle, “an’ when things run cross, we must, if
we wants to right ’em, go to work at once, without caring about
convenience. At least, them’s my sentiments, an’ that’s my way o’ doing
business.”

“A very proper way, no doubt, my good friend,” exclaimed Mr. Grahame,
growing yet more anxious, “but pray tell me what _has_ happened.”

“Well, a very orkurd matter, as things stand,” replied Mr. Chewkle.

“What is it?--what is it?” cried Mr. Grahame, feverishly.

“Why, just this--old Wilton’s out.”

“Out?”

“Yes, out o’ quod.”

“Out--out--out of prison?” gasped Mr. Grahame, clutching at a chair for
support.

“Nothing else,” replied Chewkle, placing his hands behind him, and
rocking himself backwards and forwards on his toes and heels, in a very
dangerous fashion for one in his state.

“Escaped--escaped?” inquired Mr. Grahame, his eyes almost starting out
of their sockets.

“No such luck!” answered Chewkle, “if he had, he’d a’ soon been nabbed
agen, and taken back to ha’ been kept closer than ever.”

“What do you mean?--speak out, man! you are inflicting upon me
indescribable torture!” exclaimed Grahame, excitedly. “Is he--is he
dead?”

“Dead! no; he’s got more lives than a cat, he has. No, sir; he’s out of
quod because he’s been and paid all the money.”

“Paid the money!” echoed Mr. Grahame, incredulously.

“Every mag of it, sir--every farthing. He has wiped off the detainer
lodged at the gate agen’ him, and he is free to roam about agen.”

Mr. Grahame stood as if thunder-stricken.

“Impossible!” he ejaculated, like one in a dream.

“Fact, sir, all the same for that. I saw Scathe, the managing clerk
to your solicitor, and he told me all about it. The debts and costs is
paid, and Wilton is out. The money has been paid under protest, sir; so
you can’t touch a penny on it until you’ve proved your right to it by a
haction-at-law. Scathe says he don’t think anything o’ that, because the
firm holds a dockyment, which Wilton has signed in your favour, as ’ll
put him out o’ court slap. Now, what I wants to know is this--is the
dockyment he spoke of the same as----”

Mr. Grahame clutched his wrist, looked around him with trepidation, and
raised his finger warningly. Mr. Chewkle hiccuped again, and lowered his
tone, and added--

“Is it the same as--as--as you signed for him?”

Mr. Grahame drew a deep breath, but made no reply. Chewkle was a shrewd
reader of physiognomy, and obtained the information he sought from the
distorted workings of Mr. Grahame’s haggard features. He gave vent to
his sensations on learning what he sought to know, in a low, prolonged
whistle.

“Things is wuss than I took them to be,” he murmured. Then he addressed
Mr. Grahame. “Who do you think?” he asked, “it is as has been making
himself so very hactive in getting old Wilton out o’ Hudson’s Hotel *
--you won’t guess. Why it’s that little saffron-jawed imidge, who
dropped in so unexpected when you jest finished that bit o’ writing for
the hobstinate Wilton.”

     * The Queen’s Bench.

“My God!” gasped Grahame, “has _he_ assisted Wilton?”

“Paid the money, I believe, sir; and is going to stand his friend in the
law case,” observed Chewkle, emphatically.

Grahame clasped his hands and paced the room in agitation, he passed
his feverish fingers convulsively over his temples. “What is to be
done--what is to be done?” he cried, “I have commenced to act upon that
accursed document. I thought he never, never would come out of prison,
but would die there; and urged by the frightfully pressing nature of my
necessity--my situation in connection with the estates to which I lay
claim--I lodged the deed with my lawyer, and ordered him to proceed
upon it. He has commenced--I know he has commenced; the deed is
registered--all will be discovered, and--oh, my God! what will ensue?”

“Transportation for life to a dead certainty,” replied Chewkle, in slow,
emphatic tones, “You’ll be called upon to prove the signatur--you can’t
do that; then, o’ course it’s a forgery. Well, who did it? You got to
show how you come by it--you can’t do that; and then you’ll be found
guilty, and sentenced for life. That’s clear, I think.”

Mr. Chewkle felt himself, at the conclusion of his speech, seized by the
throat.

“Villain,” cried Mr. Grahame, froth foaming and bubbling from his mouth.
“This was your hellish counsel; but for your infernal suggestion and
complicity, I should never have thought of it, but you shall share my
fate--my fate--transportation. Oh! horror, horror--my house--my family!
I--I--death--death--”

Mr. Chewkle felt the cold clammy fingers of his antagonist loosen, and
as the last words died on his lips, he saw him stagger back, and before
he could catch him, he fell to the ground in a fit.

Chewkle’s first impulse was to call for help, but instantly it flashed
across his mind that he should have a thousand questions to answer,
besides being regarded with looks of distrust and suspicion. He had
no wish, at that hour, and in the rather free style and state of his
costume, to have to encounter the family, to explain that which it was
so important should be left unexplained, and he proceeded to attempt
himself to play the part of a medical attendant. Mr. Chewkle was
stronger than he looked, and he had need of all his strength to pin Mr.
Grahame to the floor, during the violent paroxysms of the fit by which
he had been seized. He succeeded, by dint of tremendous exertion, in
overmastering the desperate struggles of the prostrate man, and when
they had ceased, he loosened his neckcloth, obtained some water from
a bottle upon the table, bathed his temples and lips with it until Mr.
Grahame opened his eyes, and gazed wildly around him, like one waking up
out of some dreadful dream.

After a few incoherent expressions, he became once more alive to his
position.

He walked up and down his library, wringing his hands, and displaying
the greatest possible mental anguish.

Suddenly he paused before Chewkle, and with a stern countenance, he
said--

“Through blindly following your counsel, I have placed myself in a
situation of awful peril. Tell me, what must be done to avoid the
dreadful degradation with which I am threatened--how is this frightful
false step to be retrieved?”

“Not by going on, sir, as if you’d gone stark, staring mad!” answered
Chewkle, rather brusquely. “There’s a good deal at stake, you know; and
there’s only one way to make the best of a bad game--that’s by being
as cool as hice, and as clear about the head-piece. You must be slow to
think and decide, but prompt to hact. You are in a mess, that’s
pretty certain; the only way to get out of it, is to be quite calm and
easy-like, to calculate your chances carefully, to say not a word to
nobody but them you must employ, and fight it out to the last, hinch for
hinch.”

This advice seemed tolerably sound, but Mr. Grahame could not reflect
calmly, nor calculate coldly; he could do nothing but have shifting
visions of the happy time of youth, when he was free from the cares and
responsibilities of life, and of the grim, shadowy, future, lying behind
a curtain of black and obscure vapour; they were mingled in one picture,
whirling and rioting through his aching brain, and incapacitating
him from sitting down to plan a scheme, by which he might escape the
consequences of the crime he had committed.

“It is useless,” he said, at length, impatiently, “to expect from me,
in my present excitement, any suggestion dictated by cool reflection.
My brain is in chaotic confusion; it is racked with agony. I feel that
something must instantly be done, but what--what, my good Chewkle,
cannot you devise something?--you are cooler than I am.”

“Well, you see, if the wust comes to the wust, sir,” responded Mr.
Chewkle, calculatingly, “I shan’t be hit so hard as you; I can afford to
be cooler; now my notion is, that the first thing to be done is to get
hold of that jeuced dockyment, and when got hold on, to drop it quietly
into the fire.”

“A good thought; I’ll send for it at once to my solicitor----”

“They won’t be at the hoffice now,” interposed Chewkle. “You must let
me manage it. I’ll be with ’em afore nine to morrow morning, so as to
bust upon ’em afore they opens their letters, or commences looking at
papers which have been served on ’em in different causes, an’ I’ll
be in such a fluster an’ hurry to get back to you, that I’ll get the
dockyment out of ’em, instead of being put off with a promise to look
it out and send it by a clerk. We can’t wait, you know; we _must_ have
it; and you’ll see I’ll bring it back with me all right.”

“My best of friends, how can I reward you?” said Mr. Grahame, clutching
at hope and relief from the scheme proposed.

“Well,” said Mr. Chewkle, “a tenner will do for me jest now; I ain’t
greedy, though I am short of money.”

Mr. Grahame was here made to understand that a ten pound note was
needed; he drew one promptly from his purse, and gave it to Chewkle, who
instantly transferred it to his badly worn portmonnaie, which he plunged
into the depths of his pocket.

“You must write a note--a strong note--to your solicitor, sir,” he
observed, when the money was stowed away, “directing him to give to _me_
the deed--mention my name--immediately on the receipt of your note--dash
under ‘immediately’--that will throw him off his guard; he will give the
dockyment to me; I’ll bring it to you, and then you can destroy it.”

“But it is registered, and that will afford proof that there was such a
document,” suggested Mr. Grahame, nervously.

“Yes, that there was, perhaps,” answered Chewkle; “but what
of that?--who’s to prove ’andwriting on a thing that ain’t
forthcoming?--who’s to substantiate a charge of forgery”----

“Hush! for Heaven’s sake!”

“Well, who’s to substantiate such a charge upon a thing as don’t
exist--that can’t be put in in support of the case. It can’t be done.”

“But--but what if proceedings have already commenced, and my lawyer is
prepared to put in that deed to bar the claim they will make?”

“But he musn’t.”

“But what if he has this very day? for I urged him to proceed with all
speed.”

“Well, then we must be prepared to prove that it _is_ Wilton’s
signature.”

“That it _is_ his?”

“’Zackly. I don’t want more in this affair than ourselves, but we
musn’t be beat while there is a chance of winning. Suppose I swears I
saw him sign the deed, and suppose old Jukes swears _he_ saw him do it,
and suppose his follerers, Sudds and dirty Nutty, swears they stood by,
and saw it signed--how then? There’s nothing can be brought against us
to invalidate our evidence, and what could the hother side do then? Old
Wilton will swear, of course, hard and fast, that he did not sign, but
what then?--you don’t appear in the matter? you commissioned me to
get it signed, and I brings forard three respectable men, who
swears--swears, mind--they saw him sign it; who’ll be believed then? he
wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. These men will be difficult to get, but
they’ve got their price, sir, and are to be had.”

All these remarks and suggestions, rascally as they were, afforded
comfort to Mr. Grahame. They conveyed to him a glimmering of hope that
the difficulty, after all, was not so desperate as he had presumed it
to be. He recoiled at the notion of having to work with such dirty
instruments--when, however, did dishonesty and crime ever work with
other tools?--but he did not recoil at the work itself.

To obtain a vast advantage, at the price of the misery and destruction
of another, would not have occasioned him a moment’s remorse, or in any
degree have ruffled his equanimity or serenity, but to accomplish
that task by the aid of a small knot of low rascals, was the source of
extreme annoyance and vexation to him. Still if the object could not be
obtained without such assistance, he elected to employ it rather than
forego his purpose; they were the means to the end at which he sought to
arrive, disagreeable enough, but necessary to the result--and, as such,
accepted.

The alternative of stoutly maintaining the forged signature of Wilton to
be genuine, had not struck him. The suggestion was a valuable one, and
he resolved to treasure it up. It occurred to him that his own word
would have weight in a Court of Justice, from the high position which he
held in society, and if he repudiated having had anything to do with the
signature, or of having been present when it was being signed--he would
in all probability be believed, not alone because it would seem the
natural course for him, wanting the signature, to have pursued to obtain
it, but because it would be considered incredible that he had descended
to any unworthy artifice or to crime even, to have possessed himself
of it. Its return to his own possession was, however, of the first
importance; its destruction would raise another question, to be settled
hereafter. So he sat down, and penned the letter to his solicitor, the
outlines of which Chewkle had supplied.

As he completed it, and inclosed it in an envelope, he said to Chewkle--

“I am disturbed to learn that Mr. Gomer has interested himself in
Wilton’s favour. That fact tells rather against my interests. He is a
singular man is Mr. Gomer.”

“Sing’lar, sir,” echoed Chewkle; “he’s as yallar as a canary; he’s
everywhere at once, and people says he’s as rich as ‘creeses,’ though
why _they_ should be called rich I never could understand, unless it is
they grows in profusion, an’ you get ’em at six bunches a penny.”

“He is a very extraordinary man,” said Grahame, musingly; “a very
extraordinary man--enormously wealthy. I fear the man--I fear him. I
don’t know why, but I feel terrified in his presence, and I shudder when
I think of him.”

“He is orful hugly, and that is the truth,” observed Chewkle,
emphatically, adding, “don’t talk about him, sir, or I’m blow’d if you
won’t find him at your elber. Shouldn’t be surprised to see him walk out
o’ the dark at the end of the room there.”

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with a slight shudder, as Chewkle jerked
his thumb over his left shoulder to the part of the room then in shadow.
To confess the truth, he would not have been surprised, though he might
have been appalled, to have seen the apparition of Nathan Gomer in the
spot pointed out, but he would not appear to acknowledge so much to
Chewkle.

He finished the superscription of the note, and handed it to his agent,
saying--

“You will deliver this to the principal of the firm, and I presume I may
expect you here about ten tomorrow morning?”

“It will all depend upon what time the principal comes to business in
the morning, sir,” answered, Chewkle, “but I shall be there afore the
postman, and I’ll have the deed safe enough, depend on it.”

“Of course it was this business alone that induced you to come here
to-night?” inquired Mr. Grahame, almost fearing to ask, in case there
might be further unpleasant communications for him to receive.

“Nothen’ else, sir,” returned Chewkle, although the bank note was the
principal occasion of his visit. “When I learned the news about Wilton,
I thought it my duty to lose no time in letting you know--knowing what I
knowed, you know.”

“Yes, yes, yes--quite right--you did quite right,” observed Grahame,
hastily. “Let me see you with the deed as early as you can in the
morning. Good night, Chewkle.”

Mr. Grahame rang for Whelks as he spoke, and was promptly answered by
the immediate appearance of his man, who had applied his ear to the
keyhole with most persevering zeal, in the hope to unravel the mystery
of Chewkle’s audiences with his proud and haughty master, but he had
caught nothing--but the ear-ache, which subsequently took him for a
walk up and down his bedroom all night, to the doctor’s in the morning,
afterwards to Covent Garden Market for poppy heads, and subsequently
it treated itself to scorching flannel, blistering fermentations, and
applications of hot and cold vinegar, until Whelks was nearly pickled.

On the disappearance of his servant and Chewkle, Mr. Grahame returned to
his guests with a smiling face and perfect serenity of manner, although
every one in the room noticed his haggard aspect and the ghastly
whiteness of his face. As he made no complaint, they were too well
bred to make any remark, and, exerting himself to please, his pallid
anxiousness passed without further observation.

In the meanwhile, Chewkle followed Whelks down stairs. The first twinges
of pain were introducing themselves to Whelks’ notice. A sensation as if
he was being repeatedly stabbed in the ear with a bradawl was the first
intimation he had of something unpleasant coming on. He had a dim notion
at the same time that Chewkle was addressing him as “guv’nor,” but
the lunges with the figurative brad-awl were so brisk when they once
commenced, that he was plunged into the wildest confusion, being for the
moment uncertain whether he was descending to the mat at the foot of the
stairs upon his highly-floured locks, or upon his tight patent pumps.

Chewkle, on reaching the hall, however, made him understand that he was
anxious to get change for a ten-pound note, and wished to know where
he could achieve it; Whelks, who was desirous of holding a little
conversation with him, in hopes to worm something out of him,
explanatory of the strange and anomalous influence he evidently
possessed with the head of the household, offered to accommodate him,
having, he said he believed, as much gold in his purse. He produced
it, and displayed to the greedy eyes of Chewkle some eighteen or twenty
sovereigns.

As Whelks counted out the gold, a storm of stabs set in on the inner
portion of his ear, so that he grew embarrassed and handed a number of
sovereigns to Chewkle, saying, as his eyes overran with water--

“See if they are right--ow! ow! ow! I’ve the dreadfullest pangs.”

Chewkle counted eleven sovereigns, and said the amount was quite right.
He handed the note to Whelks, and thrust the sovereigns into his pocket.

“I was goin’ to say to you, sir,” commenced Whelks, “that I should like
to have a ’arf-’our’s chat with you, if--ow! ow! ow! I never. Wheugh!
oh, my hear.”

“Bad thing,” said Chewkle, anxious to get off with the extra sovereign;
“I should ’ave it hout.”

“’Ave it hout?” echoed Whelks, “hits my hear, sir--ow! ow! ow!”

“Yes, yes,” responded Chewkle, inattentive to everything but getting
away, “’ave it hout by all means--get it done for a bob. Good night,
good night.”

He darted through the doorway, as the porter threw open the door to
admit a friend of his own, and made the best of his way to his home.

He lay awake, after getting to bed, for some time, busily plotting; and,
before he dropped asleep, he made up his mind how he would act.

By half-past eight in the morning, he appeared before the door of the
offices of Mr. Grahame’s solicitors. He knocked, and the laundress who
was setting the clerk’s office “to rights,” admitted him. He pretended
to be surprised that no clerk was there, but on his stating that he had
been sent, upon business of the utmost importance, by a client of
the firm, and that he must not go back without an answer, the woman
accommodated him with a seat.

He sat motionless, but watched her movements closely. He observed her
enter an inner apartment the consulting room of the principal. She
remained in there some little time, and when she returned, he engaged
her in conversation in a chatty, affable, familiar way, silently
observing, at the same time, that she placed the key of the inner
apartment in a particular spot.

Presently she was summoned to make the breakfast of one of _her_
clients, on another floor, and, telling Chewkle that the clerk would
shortly arrive, she left him alone. He watched her, through the keyhole,
ascend the stairs, then he heard a door above bang, and her foot
reverberating overhead.

With the greatest possible quickness he made for the spot where the key
was placed, and, securing it, unlocked the door of the inner apartment,
and glided into the room.

He gazed sharply around at the boxes on the shelves, and upon one
japanned, large and square, he saw printed in white letters, the name of
Grahame, and beneath it the date of the year. He made for it, and opened
it noiselessly. It was three parts full of papers. Upon the very top was
the deed for which he had come thither. He recognised the endorsement,
but he opened it, and at the bottom saw Wilton’s signature as Grahame
had written it. The sight of the name was sufficient. He carefully
closed the box, retreated from the room, replaced the key where he had
taken it from, put the deed beneath his waistcoat, and then buttoned his
coat over that up to his chin.

He reseated himself in pretty much the same position as that he had
taken when the laundress left him, and upon his face he wore a blank
expression, leaving it a debateable point whether he was more stupid
than innocent.

The clock of a neighbouring church struck nine!

About ten minutes afterwards the door opened, and a young man about
two and twenty entered. He started on seeing Chewkle, and looked as
disconcerted as a man who comes suddenly upon a creditor whom he cannot
pay, the said creditor being inexorable and rapacious, and money his
only pacificator. If such were the clerk’s feelings, his apprehensions
were relieved by Chewkle stating the object of his visit.

“Governor won’t be here till ten,” replied the clerk; “I can’t open his
letters: and if I did I don’t dare give up any papers. You must wait
till he comes.” He gave Chewkle back the letter and told him to take his
seat again, which Chewkle did.

About half-past nine Chewkle said, suddenly, that he wanted to make a
call at no great distance off, and he thought he might as well go on
that business as sit there doing nothing until ten, by which hour he
could certainly be again at the office. The clerk said he thought so
too. So Chewkle went leisurely away.

No sooner out of sight of the office than he jumped into a cab, and
drove to his own house, and in a secret place deposited in an iron
chest, with other articles of value, the deed he had purloined. He
locked the chest safely, and once more made his way to the street, where
he hired another cab, rattled back to the neighbourhood of the lawyer’s
office, discharged it, and entered the office at three minutes to ten.

“Governor not here yet,” said the clerk; “sit down.”

Chewkle obeyed, looking vacant; laughing stupidly when the eye of the
clerk caught his. “What a pump,” thought the young man.

Chewkle felt slightly uneasy, for fear the managing clerk Scathe should
make his appearance and recognise him, but he calculated he was engaged
at Westminster, in a cause, and would be hunting up witnesses before he
made his appearance at the office.

As the thought passed through his mind, the door was flung open, and
the principal of the firm entered. Chewkle rose up and handed him the
letter.

“From Mr. Grahame, Regent’s Park,” he said.

“Oh!” said the solicitor, with a smile. “An answer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Pray be seated. I will give you one immediately.”

The clerk handed to his principal the key of his room; he took it,
unlocked the door, and, passing in, closed it after him.

Chewkle sat and waited for the _dènouèment_, as if he was engaged
counting the letters in the printed notices of sittings in term, stuck
up over the fireplace.

Presently a bell rang, and the clerk entered the room, closing the door
after him, Chewkle still reading the printed paper. Some time elapsed.

“Somethin’s happened, shouldn’t wonder,” muttered Chewkle, still staring
at the printed bill.

By and by the clerk made his appearance, and said o Chewkle--

“Step in, please.”

He led the way into the inner apartment, and Chewkle saw the solicitor
with a flushed face and excited countenance, going through the papers in
the box with the name of Grahame painted upon it.

“Your name is Chewkle, I believe,” said the solicitor, as Chewkle
approached him.

“That is my name, and no other, sir,” he replied. “Hem! You were sent
hither for a deed by Mr. Grahame--eh?” inquired the lawyer.

“A deed, sir--why, he said ’twas to be a paper packet,” returned
Chewkle.

“Yes--yes. Do you know what the paper was about?”

“Me, sir?--no, sir.”

“Nor why Mr. Grahame is so anxious to have it?”

“Me, sir?--no, sir?”

“Um!--very odd--very remarkable, indeed.”

“Mr. Scathe must have got it, or put it somewhere,” suggested the clerk.

“I can furnish no other solution of the mystery,” answered the principal
in the same tone. “But if that is the case, Mr. Scathe is very much to
blame, and will not fail, to be made acquainted with my opinion to that
effect.” Then raising his voice, he addressed Chewkle. “Be good enough
to tell Mr. Grahame that I will send the deed up to him by one of my
clerks.”

“He told me to say, sir, that he couldn’t wait for that, so I was to
bring it with me.”

“He could not wait for _that!_ What do you mean?”

“Well, sir, I s’pose he thought you might be busy and would put off
sending the packet to him until it suited your convenience.”

“Ah! I see--um! Well, deliver the message I have given you.”

“But he said I warn’t to go without it.”

“Return to Mr. Grahame, my man, and say I will send it up
to--him--by--my--clerk!” exclaimed the solicitor, speaking, under
increasing irritation, with marked emphasis.

“Can’t go back without it, sir, on no consideration,” persisted Chewkle,
assuming a dogged manner, “them’s my instructions.”

The solicitor looked fiercely at him, and raising his voice, said--

“You can’t have it. I say--you--can’t--have it. It is not come-at-able
at this moment! do you understand?”

Chewkle quite understood that. It was certainly not come-at-able,
unless some one picked the lock of his iron safe, but he appeared not to
comprehend anything, except that he was ordered not to return without a
paper.

“Dolt!” growled the solicitor, angrily.

He sat down and penned a note to Mr. Grahame, stating that his managing
clerk--as the business was being pushed on--had the deed under his
charge; he was at the moment down at Westminster engaged upon a cause,
but that on his return the deed should be forwarded to Mr. Grahame.

Folding up his note, and directing it, he gave it to Chewkle, saying--

“Deliver that to Mr. Grahame;” turning sharply to his clerk, he added,
“Mr. Crumpler, show him out.”

Mr. Crumpler caught Chewkle by the coat sleeve, drew him into the outer
office, and pointed significantly to “the way out.” Chewkle exhibited
his teeth--no mistaking them for pearls--to Mr. Crumpler, and obeyed the
sign. He descended the stairs rapidly, and moved along the footway of
the street, quivering in the throes of what he considered an immense
triumph.

“A hincome for life,” he muttered, “that deed will be as good as a
’nuity to me. I can bleed Grahame of jest whatever I pleases by
threatening of him. I ain’t agoin’ to let him know I’ve got the forged
hinstru-ment, but I shall, in good time, ’int as I knows where it is,
and I can keep it dark, or blow it, jest whichever I likes. ‘Find it and
send it up,’ ha! ha! by Mr. Walker I s’pose. They little thinks I nabbed
it, none of ’em will ever dream o’ that--I could lay a ’undred to
one about that, I could.”

As he offered to lay these very long odds, he ran up against Nathan
Gomer.

The visage of the little man shone like burnished gold. His eyes danced
and sparkled, and he chuckled as if animated by the most pleasurable
emotions.

“Aha! friend Chewkle,” he exclaimed, placing his cold, fishy hand
upon Chewkle’s fevered wrist; “you are active this morning--full of
business--away from home to a lawyer’s office--then hurrying back in
a cab to your charmingly retired abode--away in a cab back to the
solicitors, and now, ha! ha! eh? I’ll be sworn to Mr. Grahame’s, in the
Regent’s Park, with _a_ communication--I say _a_ communication, he! he!
Brisk fellow, sharp fellow, smart dog.” He poked Chewkle in the ribs,
and Chewkle felt as if the dent his finger made remained, and would
continue a hole for the rest of his life. “Oh” continued Nathan, “I am
so partial to sharp fellows, especially when they move about so nimbly
to serve others, without a thought of serving themselves, eh, friend
Chewkle?--I say without one thought of doing themselves a small turn.”

Chewkle tried to laugh, but no sound issued from his distended jaws. He
felt his flesh crawl and creep over his bones, and his marrow vibrate;
his scalp seemed to have the “pins and needles,” and his hair to rise
slowly up, dust and all, threatening to tilt his hat into the mud.

Nathan grinned at him like a Hindoo idol, nodded, and, diving among the
flowing stream of persons ceaselessly passing on, disappeared. Chewkle
shuddered, and drew a long breath. “I believe he’s the devil hisself,”
 he groaned, and slowly--now doubtfully--pursued his way to Grahame’s
abode, made very uneasy by the conviction that the secret of his
morning’s performance was not exclusively confined to himself.




CHAPTER XIV.--LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.


               _Tra_.--I pray, sir, tell me--is it possible

                   That love should of a sudden take such hold?

               _Luc._--Oh, Tranio, till I found it to be true,

                   I never thought it possible or likely;

                   But see while idly I stood looking on,

                   I found the effect of love in idleness.

                             --Shakspere.


When Hal Vivian and Flora Wilton, summoned by Nathan Gomer, rejoined
old Wilton, prior to his departure from the Queen’s Bench, they found
him at the gate, leading into the ante-chamber or cage, through which
every incomer or outgoer must pass, awaiting them.

He appeared, in the eyes of both Flora and Hal, to have become another
being.

He was yet meanly clad, his face was still furrowed, and bore the lines
of care and sorrow, and his hair straggled loosely and wildly; but there
was a brilliancy in his eye, recently so dim; there was a hectic flush
upon his cheek, of late wan and pallid; and his figure, some few hours
past drooping, the symbol of hopeless wretchedness, was now erect, firm,
and that of a gentleman.

Even the tone of his voice had undergone a change. It had been sharp,
though weak and querulous--it was now round and clear, indicating
a heart purified and emancipated from the destroying influences of
despair.

His manner, which had been that of a grateful and respectful recipient
of services, now assumed the character of the power to confer them,
not haughtily nor patronisingly, but gently and kindly, still marked by
conscious elevation of position.

The golden key, used by some, as yet unknown, good angel, had shot back
the bolts of the prison to let Eustace Wilton pass into the free world
beyond. The gatekeepers had an instinctive respect for a man who could
pay two thousand pounds after so short a detention, so they cast
away their brusque, sharp, extraofficial impertinence of manner, and
obsequiously congratulated him upon his early departure. They expressed
their full and decided conviction that he would not quit “Hudson’s
Hotel” without remembering those attached to the establishment, because,
as the spokesman forcibly rather than elegantly observed--

“It was the custom o’ gentlemen, as was gentlemen, to act as sech, and
to behave accordingly.”

Wilton had not forgotten the poor debtors’ box, and in the elation
of his spirits, could not resist the appeal thus made to him. To the
manifest astonishment of Hal Vivian, and to the marvel of Flora, he took
from his purse two sovereigns, and handed them to the gatekeeper, who
accepted the amount with a smile, which extended to the visages of two
of his brother officers, who were at his elbow prepared to divide the
gift as soon as Wilton’s back was turned. Nathan Gomer witnessed the act
with undisguised disgust, and muttered--

“Ghouls! They fatten on the flesh and blood of the destitute and the
wretched.”

He took Wilton by the arm as he spoke, and hurried him through the cage
to the entrance, where a cab was waiting to receive the party.

Here Nathan Gomer, after a brief private conference with Wilton, took
his leave, and the cab departed for the residence of Mr. Harper.

Wilton was compelled to proceed there; his own dwelling was now a heap
of charred and blackened ruins; but he had no intention of staying
beneath the roof of Mr. Harper one hour longer than was necessary. He
was grateful in his acknowledgments to the good goldsmith and his wife.
Once more he also assured Hal that the obligation he had conferred
upon him by saving Flora from destruction, was one which he could
never repay, and that he should consider himself bound in the future to
perform for him any service within his power, when called upon by him to
do so.

For two days, old Wilton was constantly occupied abroad. His manner was
peculiar and mysterious; he volunteered no explanations, and answered
questions with, reserve. He never alluded to the circumstances of his
sudden liberation from prison, nor was even Flora made by him acquainted
with the means by which it had been effected.

Upon the evening of the second day, he returned to Mr. Harper’s
residence, and laconically informed the old goldsmith that he had been
successful in securing a furnished house; he proposed, therefore, at
once to remove himself and his daughter thither, that they might no
longer prove a burden to those who had so unexpectedly such an addition
made to their numbers, but who had played the part of Samaritans so
nobly.

The announcement was listened to with regret by at least one person
present, but no objection could be interposed, and before the hour of
midnight had arrived, Flora found herself wooing the coy embraces of
slumber upon a down bed, in an elegantly furnished bed-chamber, one of a
suite in a handsome villa mansion in the Regent’s Park.

She had parted with Hal quietly: neither had displayed emotion: what
they felt was concealed from the eyes of all present. Their words were
few, but each seemed to wish the other to understand that lightly to
forget would not be possible.

It was some compensation to Hal for the rude shattering of the ideal
fabric he had so blissfully reared, to receive from Mr. Wilton the
assurance that the doors of his house would ever be open to him, that
he had a right to enter whenever he pleased, and that he might, in fact,
view it as a second home.

“The saviour of my child deserves no less at my hands,” he added.

When Hal Vivian encountered poor Lotte Clinton, he had therefore no
hesitation in conveying her direct to the new residence of Flora Wilton.
Flora had frequently inquired after her, and had hoped that she would
visit her, for she had not forgotten her display of womanly sympathy
when she was distracted by a combination of troubles, and she was
anxious to express her grateful sense of Lotte’s kindheartedness, and
her hope that some day she might be able to repay it.

But Lotte came not. Flora imagined that her brother had conveyed her
to some place of residence near his own, and though at times uneasy
thoughts would rise and suggest that she might have escaped the horrors
of the burning house only to fall into new dangers, still she hoped that
she should see her again, smiling and cheerful, as she had been, and in
a better position than ever.

Hal knew this, and decided that he could not do better than conduct
Lotte to her when he found her in a condition of despair and destitution
which had given up all other hope of relief but what self-destruction
would afford.

As the cab pursued its way, Lotte sat with her face buried in her hands,
weeping. She wished to restrain the violence of her emotions--to attain
a calmness which would enable her to speak to Hal with some degree of
steadiness--but in vain; she had not power to resist the torrent--the
floodgates were borne away, and she could only lean in the corner of the
vehicle, and let her tears pursue their impetuous course.

It was not that new hopes were awakened, or that she doubted the result
of her meeting with Hal. She knew instinctively it would lift her for
the moment out of her despairing destitution, but it still rendered her
future shadowy and undefined. She must accept pecuniary obligations
from him. She shrank from them--needlessly enough--but her fears had by
reflection been aroused, and her desperate situation had magnified them
into unnatural proportions.

After all, her thoughts were of a very uncertain, half-formed character;
she was too prostrated to think much. She had, with a mind worked up to
a pitch of frenzy, stood upon the verge of eternity--a moment more, and
she had precipitated herself into the obscure and misty regions of that
unmapped land. She had been suddenly held back to renew the battle of
life--upon what terms was hidden from her, but the revulsion of feeling
occasioned by this recall overmastered all faculties but that of
weeping, and left her, as we have stated, absorbed in tears.

Hal sought not to check them. It would be time enough to speak to
her when the paroxysm had ceased, or at least abated somewhat of its
violence. He hoped then for the return of better feelings; not that he
intended to read her any homily upon the folly and the wickedness of the
crime into the commission of which she was hurrying, because he believed
that more powerful suggestions than any he could offer would present
themselves to her, and because, also, from what little he knew of her
nature, he felt fully convinced that the incitement to leap out of life
into the dread unknown must have been of a description exceeding the
sustaining powers of others gifted even with a higher capacity of
endurance than she possessed.

So, for a considerable distance, they rode on in silence.

Her low-drawn sobs had grown gradually wider in the interval of their
inspirations, and ultimately the painful sound ceased entirely. Having
satisfied himself that she had not fainted, he made a few commonplace
observations. Yet not altogether unconnected with the circumstances
under which he had fallen in with her at a moment of such intense
importance, in order to prove to her that it was a direct interposition
of Providence in her behalf.

A faint monosyllable, uttered now and then, was all she returned in
reply; for she felt her helpless position most acutely, however
grateful she ought to have been for her rescue from an attempt to commit
self-destruction, and she was glad when the cab stopped at the address
which Hal had given to the driver.

Having dismissed the vehicle, Hal led Lotte up the gravelled path
leading to the door of Mr. Wilton’s new residence, and gave a summons
at the door with the hand of one who felt he had a right of _entree_ in
that house at any time. He was ushered into the hall promptly. It was
his first visit. A glance told him the style in which Mr. Wilton--so
recently a humble gold-worker to his uncle’s establishment--had
commenced to live. The hall-porter who opened the door turned his
inquiring eyes upon the new comers, uncertain whether to be civil
or calmly insulting to them. He had yet to learn the description of
visitors whom his new master delighted to honour.

Hal, sensitive, and restive under suspicion as to his status in society,
drew a card from his card-case, and in a very decided tone, which
sounded like command, said, as he handed the small piece of thin
pasteboard to him--

“You will please to say that I am desirous of seeing Miss Wilton, and
that I shall esteem it a favour if she will grant me an interview at
once and alone.”

The hall-porter instantly summoned a man-servant, dressed in a livery of
deep violet hue, and gave him the card and the message.

Scarcely a minute elapsed ere the man reappeared, and bade him follow
him.

Hal pressed the arm of Lotte as he felt her cower by his side,
overwhelmed by what her dim eyes beheld, and he led her gently in
the direction the man had taken. She tottered, and could hardly find
strength to walk.

“Courage! courage! Lotte, my good girl: my life for it, you will be
tenderly received,” he whispered gently to her.

Oh! she was grateful to him for those encouraging words. But all this
grandeur! She could have met Flora readily, if she were as she had until
now known her, but to come before her--so hapless a wretch as she deemed
herself to be--in the midst of all this luxury and wealth, was only
a new trial. She said not a word, but she feared her reception; to be
pitied and to be patronised now would be to slay her.

The man ushered them into a small but elegantly furnished apartment:
a lamp burned brightly upon the table. Near to it stood Flora Wilton,
dressed as Hal had never seen her before. Her attire was such as a
princess might have worn--and with pride, for it was costly in its
value, and in its taste unimpeachable.

As the light fell full upon her face and form, Hal turned faint. Flora
smiled sweetly, and said in a tone musical, half joyous, yet half
reproachful--

“I am so glad to see you, Hal!--Mr. Vivian--I--I thought you would have
come before; I quite ex----”

She paused, for she suddenly perceived Lotte, who had tremblingly shrunk
behind Hal, wishing from the depths of her aching heart she had never,
never been induced to come here.

Hal followed the direction of her eyes, and he said, hastily--

“I am grateful, Miss Wilton, for your kind reception, but to-night, at
least, I do not claim it for myself. I have one poor sorrowful heart
here with me for whom I entreat your warm interest; she needs it. To
ensure your sympathy, I may only suggest that Lotte Clinton”----

Not a word more.

Flora was at the side of Lotte in an instant, with her arm round her
waist. The bright rays of the lamp fell upon the thin, white, wasted
features of the poor, half-fainting creature. Flora had last seen her
a roundfaced, pretty, lively, laughing girl. What a dreadful change did
she now behold!

She burst into tears.

She twined her arms about Lotte’s shoulders; she laid her cold wan face
upon her own warm bosom.

“Oh Lotte, Lotte, dear, dear Lotte, what has happened?” she murmured,
through her streaming tears; “why are are you so dreadfully changed?
Confide in me as in a sister--pray, pray do; oh, my heart aches to see
you thus; indeed, Lotte, it does; in very truth, it does.”

Why, had Flora been grand, had she played the lady, had she offered to
take the case presented to her by Hal at an early moment, and promised
to do something, Lotte might have been pierced to the heart--but she
would then have stood up bravely and haughtily--have declined the
intended favour, though she consigned herself to destitution by the act;
but to be caught thus to Flora’s heart--to be embraced--to have poured
into her ears expressions of tender sympathy--to feel upon her cheeks
the tears of human pity, which had the essence of divine pity--to
feel, to be convinced that the tender commiseration which Flora--though
unknowing the circumstances--had exhibited for her was sincere--it was
all--all!--more than she could bear; she sank at Flora’s feet, embraced
her knees, tried to ejaculate her gratefulness, tried to tell that now,
indeed, she felt herself lifted out of despair and degradation; but
exhausted nature refused to do more, and she fell back upon the carpet
in a swoon.

Hal, who had walked to the end of the apartment, half choked in his
efforts to repress the tears which would flow into his eyes, now, at a
sudden cry from the lips of Flora, rushed forward, and raised Lotte from
the ground, while Flora rang the bell, which brought into the apartment
her maid--a young, but strong, good looking, and seemingly good-humoured
girl.

Flora beckoned to her.

“Help me to bear this young lady into my dressing-room,” she said; “she
has fainted; be very gentle and tender in your movements, Mercy, for she
is very ill.”

“Poor dear young lady,” said the girl, gazing upon Lotte’s ghastly
features. “She do look bad, surely.”

She received her from Hal’s custody, and lifting her up in her arms as
if she had been a child, she bore her tenderly to Flora’s chamber, and
laid her gently on the bed. As Flora was following, Hal detained her,
and in a few brief words, acquainted her with the circumstances which
had attended his meeting with Lotte; he left her to obtain the rest from
her own surmises, or from any communications Lotte might make, and he
took the opportunity of bidding her farewell, promising that he would
pay a more formal visit, and make a more protracted stay, within a few
days.

“Do not fail,” said Flora with some earnestness, “for my father is very
anxious to see you here; he has made many inquiries respecting you, and
I--I--do hope you will come soon.”

She need have been under no apprehension that he would stay away. Her
beauty was a magnet which would have drawn visitors loving her far less
passionately than he.

He made his way home, defiantly challenging the ideal to produce such
exquisite and perfect loveliness as the real had that night presented to
him.

Flora hurried to her chamber, where poor Lotte yet lay senseless.
She was too ill that night to leave her bed. She was placed under the
careful skill of an eminent physician, who at once declared her illness
to be occasioned solely by mental distress, and treated her accordingly.

We may here mention that Mrs. Bantom grew very uneasy when nine
o’clock came and Lotte had not come back, and by ten Mr. “Jeems” Bantom
was dispatched in search of her, with strong injunctions not to go about
his task as if he was anxious to give her into the custody of the police
on a charge of petty larceny, or to act in such a way as to induce
persons to believe that he was on the prowl with the view of dishonestly
possessing himself of property which “wasn’t his’n,” but to proceed at
once, and make his inquiries in a clear and straightforward manner.

“Jeems” Bantom fortunately possessed the address of the knave for whom
Lotte had worked without obtaining her earnings, and he went there
direct. He quickly found that the place was shut up, and that the
proprietor had “bolted.”

“The gal’s been done out of her wages,” he said, to himself, “and is
afeard to come back. She’s a hiding of herself somewheres, an’ I must
find her, else she’ll be goin’ and doin’ somethen foolish. I’d keep that
gal jes’ the same as I would one of my own kids, rather than any
harm should come to her--that I would; ’cos I’m sure she is honest,
straightfor’ard, and hard-working. Ah! I’m blessed if ever I saw anyone,
woman or man, work so hard as she did over them faddle-daddies wimmen
will have, without carin’ a farden how many of their own blessed sort
they kills in the makin’ on ‘em. I jes’ wish I could get hold o’ that
cove that got the poor gal to do all that work, and then hooked it. I’d
jes’ scrag him. I’d make a korps on him, or my name ain’t Jem Bantom.”

The chances are that if Mr. Bantom had fallen in with him, at the
moment, he would have kept his word, or at least have so severely
trounced him that his most intimate friends would, for a lengthened
period, have been unable to recognise him.

Bantom was checked at the very place where he expected to obtain
information. None of the persons living near to the house where Lotte
had called for her money had seen her, and he had to start off to find
a clue to her as best he could. He inquired at police-stations, at
hospitals, and at cab-ranks, but without gaining any tidings of her; and
the night had worn away when he returned to report his ill success.

Mrs. Bantom wrung her hands.

“The poor young lonesome thing ’as drownded herself,” she cried,
“all along o’ the cussed money she told me she owed us. She said she
would!--she said she would.”

Poor Mrs. Bantom sobbed bitterly as she uttered the last words.

Bantom looked upon Lotte very much as he would upon a dog which he had
picked up, brought home, found to possess good qualities, and had grown
into a pet. He had found and brought Lotte home, and he felt a personal
interest in her, which could not have been created in his breast under
any other circumstances. When, therefore, he heard his wife’s surmise,
he seized his hat, put it on his head, and, tired as he was, prepared to
sally forth again.

“Keziah” he said, in a husky tone, “I likes to know the wust, I does--I
purfers it. I’m off to the river, I am, jes’ to show you you’re wrong.
Keep up your pluck, old gal, I’ll be back as quick as ever I can.”

He went; traversed both sides of the river between London and
Westminster bridges, and crawled home in the morning exhausted, as the
clock was striking seven. He threw himself into a chair despondent as
ever man in this world was, and said--

“I told you, Keziah, you wus wrong; nobody has drownded themselves this
blessed night. I’ve been both sides of the river, from Billin’sgate to
Lambeth.”

A loud knock at this instant was given at the street-door. Mr. and Mrs.
Bantom came into collision at the lock, and both pulled at it together.
It was not Lotte who had knocked, and their countenances fell, for, with
hearts beating high with hope, they had fully persuaded themselves she
had come “home” at last.

A footman in violet livery met their gaze instead.

He looked at husband and wife, and, with the air and manner of a cabinet
minister in his court dress, he said, inquiringly--

“Bantom?”

“That’s me!” exclaimed husband and wife together.

The footman produced a letter, and handed it to Bantom.

“See if it’s all right,” he said.

Mr. Bantom could read, but not with ease and rapidity; he could write,
too, but his hand was bold and slightly irregular. He was very nervous
this morning and the handwriting of the superscription was so delicate a
fairy might have penned it. He looked at his wife, opened the envelope,
and took out a sheet of delicate note paper, which he unclosed. It
contained a Bank of England note, which, with trembling fingers, Bantom
spread wide.

“A fi’pun note, ’ep my goodness!” he exclaimed, with astonishment.
He mechanically handed the paper which had contained the note to the
footman.

“You looks like a good scholard,” he observed;”’jes’ read that pretty
writing for me.”

The footman, with a supercilious smile, not sorry to be put in
possession of the contents of the note, read asfollows:--

_Lotte sends her “kindest love to Mr. and Mrs. Bantom, and begs them to
forgive her for any uneasiness she may have occasioned them. She desires
to assure them that though ill, she is quite safe._”

“A-hah-ha-ah!--ah-a-hah-a!” burst from Bantom’s lips, sounds composed
of hysterical laughter, and a genuine cry, although the latter was the
offspring of joy alone. Mrs. Bantom flung her apron over her head, that
the tears she shed might not be visible to the strange young man
in violet. She had small need to be ashamed of the honest tears of
happiness at the communication thus received of Lotte’s safety.

The footman was rather indignant at this interruption, he saw nothing as
he said to “’owl at,” and he requested them to be quiet while he read
the remaining’ contents of the note. They obeyed him, an occasional sigh
and sniff from Mrs. Bantom being the only further interruption. The note
went on to say that Lotte would see them shortly, but in part payment of
what she was indebted to them, she inclosed the note, hoping they would
believe she would never forget their kindness to her.

There was joy in Bantom’s house that day. His shop was better stocked
than usual, and many of the very poor were allowed to have credit,
which, under ordinary circumstances, Bantom could not have afforded.

Lotte, on being recovered from her swoon, though very feeble and under
strong injunctions not to speak, could not rest until she had unfolded
her true condition to Flora, and begged her to let the Bantoms, at
least know that she was safe; that her mysterious absence, as nearly
as possible, might be accounted for. We have seen in what manner Flora
complied with her wish.

A few days and the tender care and kindness of Flora Wilton were
rewarded by the rapidly returning strength of Lotte. She was able to
leave her room and to walk in the garden with Flora. These walks in the
soft fresh air did much to revive her; the garden was so prettily
laid out, the flowers so profuse and beautiful--she loved flowers
passionately--that it afforded her considerable pleasure to stroll there
in company with her kind friend.

Besides, while most grateful for the affectionate sympathy and
generosity of Flora, she had no notion of remaining dependant. She had
far too brave a spirit for that, and she felt that these daily walks
among the flowers in the bright clear air were bringing back to her
health and strength, to renew the labour of breadwinning.

One lovely morning, while strolling with Flora, she said to her
lightly--

“The garden adjoining this appears to be extremely beautiful, although
it is hardly possible to get a glimpse at it.”

Flora smiled.

“I have discovered already the mysteries of this garden, Lotte. There
are several little secret nooks, of which you would never dream, if you
had not searched them out. I will take you to one where you can have an
unimpeded view of the next garden, and you will say when you see it that
it is beautiful indeed.”

Flora at once turned from the path into a narrow alcove of young alder
and beech trees, and Lotte followed her. They pursued a winding course
for a short distance, and were stopped by a wire fence.

The adjoining garden lay spread out before them in all its cultivated
beauty.

But also before them, face to face, within five or six feet, were a
party of ladies and gentlemen--

“Good gwacious, Vane,” exclaimed suddenly a tall, bulky, fair young man,
“did you evaw in youaw wemembwance see an angel’s face so wavishingly
beautiful?”

The eyes of the whole party were turned at once upon Flora Wilton.

“Lovely, indeed!” ejaculated Lester Vane, for he, with Helen, Margaret,
and Evangeline Grahame, were of the party.

Helen Grahame turned her large dark eyes upon Flora. It was impossible
not to acknowledge the extreme loveliness of the fair young face
upon which her gaze rested, but a pang of mortification and jealousy
penetrated her bosom, for Vane’s words rang in her ears, and a glance
told her that his eyes were riveted upon Flora’s face with an expression
of passionate admiration.

The scene lasted but a moment. Flora, abashed and almost terrified,
shrank back and hurried away, closely followed by Lotte, who felt like
being detected in a somewhat mean act of espionage, though in this she
was not just to herself or to her friend.

All that day and night Lester Vane could not forget the face he had
momentarily seen. It was before him in the flowers, in the fleecy
clouds, in the waters of the fountain, in the shadows of the night.
When his eyes in thoughtfulness closed, it was like a star in the misty
gloom. Turn which way he would, direct his thoughts to any channel,
still the face floated before his vision.

Who was that young and lovely creature--what her name, condition,
character?

He determined to ascertain as quickly as he could. He knew that he
should be restless and unhappy until he had acquired this information at
least.

Had he conceived a sudden absorbing passion for her? Was this love at
first sight?




CHAPTER XV.--THE PROPOSITION.


                        Great floods have flown

               From simple sources; and great seas have dried;

               When miracles have by the greatest been denied.

               Oft expectation fails, and most oft there,

               Where most it promises; and oft it hits

               Where hope is coldest, and despair most sits.

                             --Shakspere.


Mr. Grahame entered his library, on the morning following his interview
with Chewkle, at least an hour before the time appointed for the return
of that individual, with the deed which he had promised to obtain, and
of which he had possessed himself--to use as an instrument of extortion.

There was no sound in the library, save the ticking of the valuable and
exquisitely finished specimen of handicraft, the skeleton timepiece,
upon the broad marble mantel-shelf, for Mr. Grahame sat with hands
clasped before him, plunged in profound, and uneasy thought.

But though a death-like stillness pervaded the apartment, there was a
terrible storm raging within his bosom.

Mr. Grahame’s position was perilous and critical.

On attaining his majority, he had inherited landed property, from
which he derived an income of nearly ten thousand a year, and personal
property to the value of thirty thousand pounds. He married a near
relative of a Scotch Duke, also a Grahame, and kin of many of the
proudest--if poorest--families in Scotland. With her he had a dowry
of ten thousand pounds; and thus he may be said to have commenced his
married life in a station of affluence, and with the brightest prospects
of happiness.

But he had, during his minority, been brought up in parsimonious
seclusion. Like the majority of his race, he was burdened with an
arrogant pride--a pride that would eat toasted herrings and potatoes in
state, that would look down in ineffable scorn upon the tradesmen it
was too poor to pay--a pride that was essentially inflation, and wholly
devoid of true dignity.

When approaching manhood, provided with the narrowest allowance, he had
preferred to be chiefly in the glen or on the mountain, where but little
money was needed, to mixing with the gay world into which his narrow
stipend would have introduced him--slightly above the condition of a
beggar. And thus he passed his minority away, yearning for the death of
his miserly father, who scraped, and saved, and accumulated, without a
thought crossing him that some day the mean and acquisitive spirit which
inhabited his frame would take its flight suddenly to the unknown land;
and, with the old and withered trunk it had inhabited, leave all the
savings, and dirty hoardings and scrapings behind.

So it turned out. One morning old Grahame was found at the threshold
of his bed-room door--a stiff, stark, grinning corpse--and Claverhouse
Grahame was declared the inheritor of ten thousand a year, and thirty
thousand pounds besides.

Shortly after this, he encountered Margaret Grahame. As she was
marriageable, and had ten thousand pounds by way of dowry, he proposed
for her hand. How could she refuse ten thousand a year? The possibility
of liking Claverhouse Grahame never entered her imagination. She took
him as part of the fortune--rather because she could not have the
fortune without him, and because the married state was not altogether
complete without a husband.

Of love, in its purity and holiness, she had no conception. She
considered her father and mother as grand and dignified persons,
entitled to filial respect and deference from her. She was passionately
fond of state, and pomp, and display, of jewels, of dress, of
genealogy--whatever pertained to an elevated position; but an emotion
purely disinterested, one equal to a self-sacrifice, she never
possessed. She gave her hand to Grahame, because the act brought her ten
thousand a year. Her heart was only so far involved in the transaction
that it vibrated with pleasure at the prospect of the situation in which
such an income would place her.

It was a natural consequence of Grahame’s probation, and his wife’s
immeasurable pride--a pride which, like his, had been confined by the
economical style of living adopted by her parents, to enable them
to give such a wedding portion with her as he had received--that his
imagination should convert the capabilities of ten thousand a year into
those of five times the amount, and that, by the same process of mental
exaggeration, his forty thousand pounds, should appear inexhaustible.

He proceeded to live as though his income possessed an elasticity which
enabled it to stretch to any length, and was startled, at the end of
some few years, to find that his forty thousand pounds had not only
evaporated, but that his liabilities more than exceeded three years’
income. He was too proud to make his wife acquainted with this
unpleasant state of his affairs, because it would necessitate
suggestions of retrenchment. Now she had formed so large an estimate
of her dowry, that he was quite aware she would taunt him with having
unjustifiably made away with it, although she had herself spent every
shilling of it, and a large sum in addition, in the indulgence of her
overweening pride.

She would too, he knew, hurl upon him expressions of contempt, for
having inveigled her with so splendid a jointure, from her castle home
in the Highlands--where a great deal of dirty state was maintained at a
small cost--only to subject her to the degradation of being compelled,
when she formed a wish suggested for the gratification of her darling
pride, to take the means of accomplishing it into consideration.

He therefore said not a word to her, and went on as before, save that
he looked more closely into his own affairs, raised his rents where
possible to the highest limits, forgave no tenant, on any plea,
arrears, and squeezed all he could out of renewals of leases. Hard,
uncompromising, refusing to spend a shilling on his land, he was hated
by the whole tenantry, and when, to gratify the stately dreams of his
wife, he paid an annual visit to the castle, his tenants, one and all
uttered reluctantly the hurrahs which, under the dark threats of the
steward, they gave to greet his arrival.

In spite of his efforts, he found it impossible to pay off his
liabilities, and make his income support the style in which he lived.
What he contrived to save, his wife expended, growing, as her family
increased in years, more arrogantly proud than ever. It was not that she
lavished or squandered money, but her tastes were enormously expensive.
She bought as an empress, preferring to give many hundreds for rare
objects rather than single pounds for articles equally handsome, but
more common; and it was these heavy drains upon his resources which kept
Mr. Grahame in a perpetual state of embarrassment.

At length many of his debts assumed a pressing character; he shrank from
appearing in a tradesman’s eyes deficient in funds, and, to obtain ready
cash, a first mortgage on a portion of his property was executed.

Once within the vortex, rescue by the aid of his remaining property,
without the most rigid curtailment of every unnecessary expense, was
utterly hopeless, and at the moment of his forging Wilton’s name to the
deed which Chewkle had that morning stolen, a few thousand pounds at
his bankers was all he possessed to meet heavy engagements, and all
the future, for every acre of his lands was in the possession of a
mortgagee.

There was, however, an enormous property to which he preferred a claim
by right of descent. It was disputed, and in Chancery; the claimants
had been many, but they had dwindled down by death to two--himself and
Eustace Wilton.

Years back, during the lifetime of the owner of the property, Wilton had
lived upon a portion of the estate--a slice of considerable dimensions,
and held under a simple document--a deed of gift, though not drawn up
by a lawyer. The original owner died suddenly, and, as it was believed,
intestate. As he died without issue, and no will could be found, a host
of claimants sprang up, and the estate went into Chancery.

Then Wilton was called upon to prove his claim to the estate he held,
and to improve which he had expended every sixpence of the fortune he
had possessed independent of it. He produced his document. So far as the
wording of the instrument went, it had full legal force; but proof was
needed that it was in the actual handwriting of the deceased, and
that it was in all respects executed by him in favour of Wilton--given
freely, fairly, without coercion, and with the full intention that
Wilton should enjoy, have, and hold possession of the estate thus
presented to him for ever.

It had been witnessed, but the witness was gone away, no one knew where.
The handwriting of the document was questioned, and on the trial to
prove Wilton’s title to the estate, the weight of evidence for and
against its being genuine was divided--if it did preponderate, it was
rather against than for him.

The judge held the non-production of the witness to be fatal to the
claim, and a verdict was so given. The property was therefore wrested
from Wilton; he was turned homeless into the world, with his wife and
family, while the estate itself was joined to the other property, and
the whole income went into the hands of the receiver appointed by the
Court--to be held in trust, disgorged only when a claimant appeared, who
could prove his title to inherit it.

In the claim to the property as a whole, Wilton was the nearest of kin,
but here again he was debarred for want of a witness, who was believed
to be living, but who could not be found.

Grahame’s chain of evidence in support of his claim was unbroken, and
his title to the property indisputable if Wilton were out of the way.
The only thing which debarred Wilton’s obtaining the estates was a doubt
thrown upon the validity of his mother’s marriage. Grahame knew that,
and, so far as it went, it was enough to keep him out of possession. But
if Wilton signed a paper waiving all claim to the property, which was
at his finger tips, without the power to grasp it, Grahame would, as the
only other surviving claimant become entitled to it, and would obtain
it; for, as we have said, his chain of evidence proving his right to it,
next of kin failing, was complete in all its parts.

It may now be understood how immensely important it was to him to obtain
Wilton’s signature to a deed which he had had most carefully drawn up,
and we have seen the lengths to which he went to obtain it. It may also
be understood wherefore Wilton preferred imprisonment, under the strong
hope that his much-wanted witness would some day appear, rather than
sign a deed which excluded not only himself but his family from the
possession of wealth, which was in truth and justice, though not to the
satisfaction of the law, actually theirs.

Grahame pondered over the past down to the present despairing moment.

What was now to be done? With the payment of the two bonds given by
Wilton while trying his right to possess that which had been given him,
he had lost all power by pressure over him: and destitution, perhaps
imprisonment, stared him in the face--no, not imprisonment--no, not
that.

He opened a drawer, and took out a case, which, with a furtive glance
round the chamber, he opened.

It contained within a beautifully-finished pair of pistols. He took one
out, and examined it.

“It is loaded,” he muttered, “and in good order.”

He replaced it in the velvet compartment made to receive it, and
returned the case to the drawer, which he closed and locked.

“They are there when needful,” he said, between his clenched teeth. “A
Grahame knows how to die, but not to endure the degradation of poverty
and ignominy. I will never die a pauper’s death!” he added, with a
fearful oath.

He pressed his hands over his burning forehead, and racked his brain to
find a path by which he could conquer his difficulties.

“That usurious wretch, Gomer, has promised me funds upon the very
document which before this he must know will not be completed,” he
muttered. “What is to be done? What if I persist in affirming that the
signature has been given, and act upon the man Chewkle’s advice, suborn
the men he named, and boldly claim the whole property? It is an enormous
prize, and worth the risk. I can pay the villains well to hold their
tongues until I am fairly in possession, and then--then--who
knows--at some carouse at which _all_ are assembled to celebrate their
success--something in their drink may make them sleep--sleep to the day
of doom. I do not like the man, Chewkle; the scoundrel is beginning
to grow insultingly familiar, and will, I foresee, ere long assume a
mastery over me. I must specially direct my attention to his permanent
welfare. When, by his aid, my scheme is consummated, then--then if
he escapes what I shall prepare for him, his good fortune will be a
marvel”----

“Mr. Chewkle, sir!” exclaimed a servant, suddenly throwing open the
library door.

Mr. Grahame’s heart leaped within him, and it palpitated painfully, but
he exhibited his accustomed cold _hauteur_.

“Show him in!” he exclaimed.

Chewkle entered with the air of a chap-fallen, disappointed man. His
manner presented a strong contrast to the half-drunken, offensive, easy
indifference it had displayed the evening before.

Mr. Grahame detected it instantly; he replied to Chewkle’s bow by an
inclination of the head, and pointed to a chair upon the edge of which
Mr. Chewkle gently sank, poising himself when there with the skill of a
performer on the tight rope.

“You have obtained the deed, Chewkle,” said Mr. Grahame--“that of
course.”

“Well, no sir,” returned Chewkle, “not quite. I entertained ’igh,
very ’igh hopes, but they has been chucked down into the deeps of the
greatest disappointment. Them lawyers, sir”----

“What do you mean?--they did not refuse to give it to you?” asked Mr.
Grahame, hastily and sternly.

“Why, no, not quite that, sir.”

“Then where is it?”

“That’s jest it--where is it, sir? That’s jest what I should like to
know.”

“What do you mean?” cried Mr. Grahame, springing to his feet with a
countenance of alarm. “You do not mean to say it has been stolen?”

“Stolen!” cried Chewkle, leaping up with a face suddenly of the hue of
scarlet. “That would be too good a joke, too. Who’d prig such a thing as
that, I’d like to know?”

“Explain yourself, man! You are speaking in enigmas!” cried Mr. Grahame,
excitedly.

Mr. Chewkle drew from out of a dirty piece of light brown paper--which
had been employed in the task of enclosing half-a-pound of “moist”
 sugar--the letter he received from the solicitor.

Mr. Grahame snatched it from him, and tore it open. He read the contents
twice, and then sat down and reflected for a minute.

“There is nothing, Chewkle,” he said, more composedly, “that I perceive
in this communication to occasion alarm: the deed will be sent here to
day by one of the clerks.”

“I hopes it may,” observed Chewkle, laconically.

“In the meantime, my good friend,” said Grahame, assuming a bland tone,
“I have been pondering over the situation, and I am afraid we have gone
a little too far to pause now, or to retrace our steps.”

“We,” echoed Chewkle, opening his eyes widely.

“Yes,” continued Mr. Grahame; “if I stand in the position of a principal
in the affair, you take the part of an accessory before the fact, and
a very important one you are, too, inasmuch as you counselled the
deed, and instructed me how to perform it, lending your assistance
throughout.”

Mr. Chewkle would have here interposed some very emphatic observations,
but that Mr. Grahame checked him, and continued speaking.

“It is not my intention,” he said, “or my wish that the conversation
should assume its present tone. I would rather that it took a shape
which, while it consulted my interest, gave liberal promise of rich
advantages to you.”

Chewkle pricked up his ears.

“Last night, if you remember,” said Mr. Grahame, slowly fixing his eye
firmly upon that of his ‘agent,’ “you threw out several suggestions
calculated to afford me, in the distress of mind under which I was
labouring, a very considerable degree of consolation. Do you remember
this?”

Chewkle caught hold of his dusty, shaggy whiskers at the roots, and drew
them out to their full extent with the tips of his fingers and thumb
several times, to appear the unconscious act of a man plunged in
reflection. Presently he said--

“Ain’t altogether certain as I does.”

Mr. Grahame now repeated the plan which he had the previous evening
proposed to accomplish by the aid of Mr. Jukes and his companions, by
which, in spite of all Wilton’s protestations and oaths to the contrary,
the signature was to be sworn to as being _bona fide_ and genuine.

Chewkle listened in silence, and when Mr. Grahame concluded by observing
that he had almost decided upon adopting it, Mr. Chewkle felt himself
to be unpleasantly situated upon the horns of a dilemma. Mr. Grahame had
been candid enough to acknowledge that, unless he obtained the estate,
he would be lost, destroyed, unable to reward the services of any
person; but that if he, by the assistance of “zealous friends,”
 succeeded in securing it, the most magnificent recompense should be
bestowed upon them.

Mr. Chewkle’s difficulty consisted in having possession of the deed. If
he retained it, it seemed that Mr. Grahame would be reduced to poverty,
and his _exposé_ of the guilty act of forgery would bring him nothing,
perhaps, but the questionable advantage of being brought under the
anxious consideration of a judge and jury, as a _particeps criminis_.
If he gave it up to Mr. Grahame, he would have to account for its
possession, an acknowledgment of the truth would place him at once in
the power of Mr. Grahame, who could give him, if he pleased, into the
custody of the police as a thief.

There was, certainly, no middle course to steer, save waiting for a
little while, to see what direction matters would take. He reflected
that it would be wise not to be precipitate, but that it would be best
to carefully consider whether there was a safe way to hit upon, which
would conduct him out of his perplexing position. He began to fear he
had been too hasty in securing the deed. The possession now seemed to
be by no means so valuable to him, as it had done, when he locked it
up carefully in his iron safe. The figure of Nathan Gomer kept
dancing before his eyes, too, in the most disagreeable fashion--it was
embarrassingly suggestive, and it disturbed him.

Mr. Grahame awaited his opinion upon the adoption of the desperate
course with impatience, and at length said, hastily--

“Why are you silent? Does the intention to carry out your own suggestion
startle and terrify you?”

“No,” he replied, “it is not that; but swearing point blank in a court
of law that a signature to a deed was written by a man whose hand
never went near it, and in the teeth of his oath to the contrary,
ain’t altogether to be done without a good deal o’ consideration and
arrangement.”

“Granted.”

“And--don’t you think it will be the best plan to wait until you have
got the deed back in your own hands?”

“No--wherefore? It is in the custody of my solicitor”--

“I ain’t so sure about that,” suggested Chewkle, artfully but
uncomfortably. “He could not find it this morning”----

“Bah! His managing clerk has it safe enough; he will proceed by the
proper legal course to claim the estate which this waiver of Wilton’s at
once will put me in possession of. Of course Wilton will dispute it. We
shall swear he signed to be released from the judgments we held against
him, prove his signature on oath, I obtain the estate, and you and your
friends a rich reward. Therefore, having finally resolved to pursue this
plan, the deed cannot be better placed than where it is now.”

Mr. Chewkle shook his head. He had rather the deed had been anywhere
but where it now was. He, however, interposed no further objection, but
suggested that he should pay a visit to Messrs. Jukes and Nutty to sound
them upon the matter.

“You see, sir, this plan makes us commit perjury as well as forgery,”
 he exclaimed, laying such emphasis on the two crimes, that Mr. Grahame
started, and involuntarily shuddered. “Now,” he continued, “it is not
every man who has the pluck to take a false oath and stick to it--stick
to it, that’s the rub, sir. Taking a false oath ain’t much, but it’s
when the counsel begins to badger you, and to ask you this question and
that, sometimes about the subjeck, and sometimes about things as has
nothen to do with it, and then comes slap back to the subjeck again,
so as to jerk a contradictory confession out on you; it’s that as tries
you. I ain’t got much doubt about Jukes; he can stand any amount
o’ cross-examining, he can, but it’s t’other I ain’t certain about.
However, I will go onto ’em at once, sound ’em cautiously without
using any names”----

“Right,” observed Mr. Grahame, approvingly.

“And if they agrees, I will come to terms with them; and if they don’t,
sir”----

“We must get some one else,” suggested Mr. Grahame.

Chewikle passed his hand over his chin. “Yes,” he replied, “that is, if
they are to be got.” Very few words more were interchanged between them
ere Mr. Chewkle quitted the house, cursing the deed which he had with
such an exercise of cunning purloined, and which would require so much
ingenuity to restore, and leave him unsuspected of the theft.

“_Perjury and Forgery!_” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, as soon as he knew
himself to be alone. “This is hastening on in the career of crime.
What if some voice were to howl in the ear of Mistress Grahame that her
husband was a perjurer and a forger! A Grahame, one of the race that has
prided itself upon never having cowered under the taint of dishonour--a
wretched criminal--liable to be dragged, with all the horrors of the
lowest degradation, to the bar of justice, thence to work out in chains
a fearful servitude, in the company of wretches the most desperate. Into
what a frightful, position has my pecuniary embarrassment hurled me?
Henceforth I shall live in perpetual horror of discovery, of being
called upon at any moment to face an officer to”----

A loud, single knock at the library door at this moment made his heart
leap into his mouth, and nearly caused him to scream with fright, but
that his voice forsook him. Before he could recover sufficiently to
accord permission to enter, Nathan Gomer walked into the room.

Pale and haggard, Mr. Grahame regarded him with any other feeling than
that of complacency. Nathan Gomer held mortgages on his property, and
had advanced money on a bond; the day of payment named in it was fast
approaching. He had also promised, upon certain security, to furnish
additional funds. Mr. Grahame could only look upon him with the eyes
of one deeply indebted to him; he believed that he would realise some
portion of the sums he had loaned, but he knew that if fate proved
adverse to him, Nathan would lose largely as well. He both hated and
feared him, and he viewed his presence now with distrust. He anticipated
that he was the harbinger of bad news: everything had gone so wrong of
late, there was nothing else to expect.

Nathan Gomer turned up his shining yellow visage, and grinned. How
Grahame loathed that grin!--it seemed to betoken only mischief.

He motioned to Nathan to take a chair, and, in a husky voice, begged to
be informed what fortunate circumstance it was to which he was indebted
for the felicity his presence thus unannounced, afforded him.

“A matter I apprehend of no small importance to you, Mr. Grahame,”
 replied Nathan.

Mr. Grahame gulped. No doubt it was of importance to him; he expected
that--most painful importance. What else could it be.

“I think I am prepared,” he said, “for anything you may have to
communicate to me, whatever distressing features it may possess.”

“I think not,” said Nathan. “Hearken: you have a new neighbour next door
to you;” he pointed as he spoke, and asked--“Do you know his name?”

Mr. Grahame looked at him with some surprise. What did such a question
portend?

Nathan only grinned, and Mr. Grahame answered coldly--

“I am not accustomed to take any notice of my neighbours, or trouble
myself to make inquiries respecting them.”

“You would have been interested if you had, in the present instance.”

“Indeed!” ejaculated Grahame, a curl turning his lip.

“Ay! His name is Wilton--Eustace Wilton--ah, you are interested now.”

Mr. Grahame clutched Nathan by the arm.

“What?” he shouted, “the wretched man dying inch by inch in his
poverty--a day or so back in the Queen’s Prison, and now”----

“Your next door neighbour, with an income of five thousand a-year, and
cash to the tune of sixty thousand pounds.” replied Nathan Gomer, with
forcible emphasis.

“Impossible!” groaned Grahame.

“Fact!” ejaculated Gomer.

“By what magic has it been accomplished?” inquired Grahame, apparently
stupefied by what he heard.

“No magic at all,” returned Nathan Gomer, grinning. “A simple process
of law. Years ago a near relative, named Eglinton, a connection of your
own, gave to him an estate”----

“Which the law took from him, exposing a trumped up”----

“Gently, Mr. Grahame, be careful what you say until you have heard more.
When our tongues run away with us, we have sometimes occasion to lament
the want of a curb. This estate was taken from him by the Court of
Chancery, because he failed only to produce the attesting witness.”

“Tush! the witness was a fiction, an imaginary person, who”----

Has recently returned from India, a colonel in the East India Service,
and sufficiently tangible to satisfy the law. This officer has not
only sworn to the genuineness of the deed of gift, but has proved its
validity, by giving information of the existence of a duplicate lodged
by Eglinton himself in the hands of a solicitor long since retired from
practice. This has been produced, attested to the satisfaction of the
Chancellor, and the estate, together with the large arrears accumulated,
are in the process of being restored to “Wilton.”

Mr. Grahame listened in grim silence. He felt choking, with spite and
envy. The man he had pressed to the verge of despair, in the hope
to compel him to sign away his birthright, was now immeasurably his
superior in position as he was his equal in descent. He would be a
formidable antagonist to fight with the miserable deed he had forged. He
could not dare to attempt it.

He fell back in his chair with a groan. Nathan Gomer had brought him
ill news indeed. He had expected foul tidings, yet not such as this. He
could have wept scalding tears of bitterness, vexation, and rage. He
bit his white and trembling lips, and exerting himself to control his
tremulous voice, he said--

“It is to give me this information you have waited upon me, Mr. Gomer, I
suppose, and with no other object?” The misty shapes dancing before
his eyes began to take the distinct form of a pistol with which he had
resolved to anticipate the thunderbolt hovering over to crush him.

“I have another object, calculated, I think, to prove vastly
advantageous to you,” returned Nathan, with a grin. “You know I have
your interest at heart,” he grined again; “and I wish to serve you--in
my own way.” He rubbed his hands, and grinned again, then he went
on. “You and Wilton are the claimants to the whole of old Eglinton’s
property. Wilton wants a witness--you want--Wilton dead--hem! All this
time, neither of you are deriving any benefit from the property. Now
supposing you and Wilton were to unite your claims and possess it
jointly; the sum accumulated in arrears is enormous, and the yearly
rental largely improved since Eglinton’s death, is at least thirty
thousand a-year. Now, an income of fifteen thousand pounds sterling,
with half the enormous sum in cash for each, would not be so bad, I
conceive! The money would be doing more good, I suspect--administering
to the comforts, the pleasures, the enjoyments of yourselves and
respective families--than it will in swelling the millions already held
in trust by the Court of Chancery. How say you, Mr. Grahame--what is
your opinion of my proposition?”

All the time Nathan Gomer was speaking, Mr. Grahame experienced a
variety of emotions. He was cold and hot by turns--now his knees
quivered, and his teeth chattered--anon he burnt as if scorched by
fever. What burst of sunshine was this on a heart almost buried in a
dense, life-destroying gloom? What sudden saving hand was this lifting
him up out of the engulph-ing quicksands of almost fathomless debt, and
placing him upon a rock firm enough to stand the shock of any storm?
What haven of safety was this stretching out its unassailable arms to
receive him into its secure shelter, even while sinking beneath the
hurricane raging around him?

Did he hear aright? Had Nathan Gomer come hither only to taunt him? The
gold-faced dwarf, albeit he grinned, seemed to be perfectly earnest and
sincere in his proposition, and had, no doubt, good grounds for making
it.

It struck Grahame suddenly that Wilton had, perhaps, ascertained
that his chance of obtaining any of the property beyond what he had
recovered, was hopeless, and, therefore, now sought by a stratagem to
secure half. If this were the fact, there was nothing to bar Grahame’s
claim to all, and the splendid income, with the immense sum in ready
cash, roused his avarice--it dazzled his vision. Not a farthing should
Wilton have, if he could obtain all--all. What a grand thing it would
be to possess himself of all! He did not observe how keenly Nathan was
perusing his features, nor conceive with what skilled eyes he read in
their changing expression the thoughts which were passing through his
mind. He little thought how bare his base greed lay before the man from
whom, of all others, he would have most concealed it.

After a pause purposely made by him to reduce his tone of voice and his
manner to an attitude of perfect calm, he said to Nathan--

“Your friend Wilton of course suggested this proposition?”

“He does not even dream of it,” was the reply. “On the contrary, he
is most sanguine of shortly discovering the witness who can prove the
validity of his mother’s marriage with his father. Certainly his chances
of doing so are such as to bar any other claim to the property, until
it is proved to the satisfaction of the Court that all his efforts
have hopelessly failed. In the meantime, you have heavy liabilities
approaching maturity. You best know what resources you possess to
meet them, and if they are not unquestionable and beyond the reach of
casualties, it seems to me you ought to leap with gladness at the chance
of suddenly acquiring the wealth my suggestion would place within your
reach.”

Mr. Grahame thought for a moment; his present position was very ugly;
still he could not bring himself to think a proposition so extraordinary
as this would be made to him unless his chances of obtaining the
property had, in some manner unknown to himself, materially improved.
Now if he could elicit this, he would not, for an instant, hesitate to
decline to accede to the terms, and with this object he commenced to
cross-examine Nathan Gomer; but before he had completed a sentence a
servant entered with a letter.

Mr. Grahame recognised the superscription as his lawyer’s handwriting,
and saying to Gomer hastily--“Pardon me,” he tore it open, and read its
contents. They were to inform him that the managing clerk of the firm
having returned, it was ascertained that he had not had the deed; it
must, therefore, be unfortunately mislaid. Mr. Grahame was assured that
prompt steps would be taken to recover it, but if they failed, the usual
course to discover any article of importance, missing or stolen, would
be adopted without the least loss of time.

Mr. Grahame was aghast at this information. That the deed was lost
or stolen was clear. In either case, his position was painfully
embarrassing. The proposal of Nathan Gomer was, therefore, a harbour
of refuge to be secured instanter to be secured at all; so he turned to
him, and said, quickly--

“What reason have you to suppose that Wilton will meet your views, if he
is in the position in this affair which you declare him to be?”

“It is unnecessary to give my reason. Will you have an interview with
him upon the subject?”

“Oh--yes--yes--readily! When shall it take place?”

“Now!”

“Now?”

“This minute, if you will. I know that he is at home.”

“This is so sudden that”----

“I hardly imagine the possession of fifteen thousand a-year can occur
too soon for your peace and safety, Mr. Grahame.”

“Lead on, sir. I will accompany you.”

Within five minutes from that time, Nathan Gomer and Mr. Grahame were
ushered into Mr. Wilton’s library.

The persecutor and the persecuted stood face to face.




CHAPTER XVI.--SELFISHNESS AND SORROW.


                   But most the proud Honoria fear’d th’ event,

                   And thought to her alone the vision sent:

                   Her guilt presents to her distracted mind

                   Heaven’s justice.

                             --Dryden.


If Flora Wilton’s lovely countenance had so remarkable an effect upon
the Duke of St. Allborne, and specially upon the heart of the Honorable
Lester Vane, it is very certain that the persons of those gentlemen
made no such impression either upon Flora or even Lotte. Both were so
embarrassed at their sudden intrusion, as it appeared, upon the privacy
of the party in the adjoining garden, that they hurried away without
taking particular notice of the individuals composing it.

But both Flora and Lotte had a floating impression that one of the
gentlemen there had large, deep, dark eyes; and that he used them too
unreservedly and unscrupulously. Flora had also an idea of a fair,
young, gentle face, the soft eyes of which regarded her with tenderness
and admiration.

Beyond this, nothing was retained in their minds of the persons they had
encountered. Flora only laughingly suggested that she should scarcely
attempt again to observe her neighbour’s garden from that point of view.

Both girls had quite overlooked Malcolm Grahame; but if the Duke and
Lester Vane were struck by the beauty of Flora’s face, so was Malcolm
by that of Lotte. It was precisely of that order of prettiness which
especially commended itself to his taste. Selfish and proud as his
mother, silly and conceited too, there was not much space in his heart
for affection; nevertheless, passion occupied a tolerably large space,
and the gratification of it was a first consideration with him.

In his eyes Lotte was the “prettiest” girl he had yet seen, and to call
the prettiest girl in the kingdom his was an ambition. He did not count
the cost even to the poor girl who was to be captured and wear his
chains. He had found satins and jewels, and golden gifts achieve
wonders; he believed there was no limit to their efficacy in conquering
a woman’s scruples, and he had the strongest possible conviction that,
if employed without reserve or hesitation, the most severely rigid
propriety would succumb to their influence.

To be smitten with the face of Lotte was to desire to obtain her. He
viewed it as a question of time and money, and he made a memorandum in
his note-book to that effect.

Lotte, thus favoured by his admiration and his intentions, had not
observed him; if she had, she would have forgotten him immediately
afterwards.

No; her thoughts were employed upon the future. Under the care and
kindness of Flora, she had in one short week won back more strength
and health than she would have done in a month under the roof of
Mrs. Bantom, or such an one as she could herself afford. It must be
remembered, too, that her mind was at peace in respect to the present,
and hopeful as regarded the future.

One week longer she decided to stay beneath the roof of her good friend,
and then into the world again, that she might eat the bread for which
her own hands had laboured successfully. It was in vain that Flora
endeavoured to change her determination; her self-dependent nature and
free spirit recoiled from being indebted even to Flora for a home. So
long as she had strength to work, and was able to obtain it, she would
support herself until she became the wife of the man she had yet to see
and love, and then if able to keep her, she would accept the luxury the
wedded state might afford her; if not, they would work together, and
together win a living for both.

She did not refuse to accept from Flora a complete stock of clothes, nor
the loan of a small sum of money to start with, nor did she ridiculously
refuse her profferred assistance in procuring an apartment in a
respectable dwelling; nor when Flora urged upon her to employ her
abilities upon some description of needlework less slavish and better
paid than cap-front making, did she refuse to make the effort, or
hesitate to accept work from a juvenile clothing warehouse, obtained
through the influence of Flora’s new dressmaker.

Her spirit of independence was neither fastidious nor affected; it was
genuine, sincere, and directed her along a path that, while by her open,
ingenuous, cheerful, loving disposition, she gained the affection of all
who knew her, she commanded their respect by eschewing all obligations
calculated to fetter her freedom of action.

Malcolm Grahame, during the last few days of his stay, had contrived to
ascertain her name, and the information that she was a humble friend
of Miss Wilton’s--a communication he received with great satisfaction,
because it intimated that she was poor. To be poor was to be accessible
to temptation, and he resolved to use gold profusely to gain her.

He little thought while making this ignoble calculation, that he himself
stood on the very brink of a degraded beggary. Lotte was poor, but her
poverty had no blur of dishonour upon it.

He caught sight of her walking alone in the garden several times, and
rushed to an upper window to waft a kiss _viâ_ his fingers to her, or to
lay his hand upon the left side of a rather narrow chest, or to render
himself conspicuously ridiculous in other ways. His vagaries were
uselessly performed and expended without result, for Lotte did not once
perceive him, and left the roof of Flora Wilton, in the Regent’s Park,
without knowing, or desiring to know, that any such vain heartless
coxcomb as Malcolm Grahame was in existence.

The interview between old Wilton and Grahame was brief; on the side of
the former; it was conducted with cold dignity, and on the latter--after
two or three revelations were made which yet further opened his eyes to
the tremendous character of the gulf, on the verge of which he had
stood with so slippery a footing--with an oily obsequiousness which was
contemptible.

Nathan Gomer conducted the whole proceedings, and displayed an influence
over Wilton, the more extraordinary as it was evidently not obtained at
the price of pecuniary obligations. The preliminaries were all arranged,
Mr. Grahame consenting to terms which gave him the enjoyment of half the
property and surplus funds in trust, until the claim of Wilton was fully
substantiated, when Mr. Grahame was to resign his half, and enter upon
arrangements by which he would gradually restore to the estate the sums
he had received from it.

The arrangement was far from being a satisfactory one to Grahame, but
his position was that of a drowning man, and, therefore, he was only too
glad to seize anything that floated within his reach, by which he might
support himself for a time, if not save himself altogether.

A memorandum was drawn up by Nathan, who grinned as he composed it,
grinned as Grahame signed it, and grinned yet more when he appended his
name as a witness to it. He even laughed a fat, chuckling laugh as he
drew Grahame’s attention to the fact, that the sheet of paper, upon
which the memorandum was executed, bore the proper stamp.

It was Grahame’s turn to smile when, throwing a cold doubt upon the
realisation of the estates to be thus divided, Gomer laconically
requested him to furnish him with a list of his most pressing
engagements, and he would at once liquidate them.

“I have some thousands lying idle at my bankers,” he said. “I may as
well realize a slightly better percentage from you.”

“And the security?” questioned Grahame, doubtfully.

“I require nothing more than your acknowledgment of the amounts
advanced, and your copy of this memorandum,” replied Gomer.

Grahame assented delightedly, and would have taken the most affectionate
farewell of both Wilton and Nathan Gomer, but that the former coldly
repelled him, and the latter grinned in his face in a manner so
strangely impish that he involuntarily shuddered, and hastened away.

As he descended the stairs, he encountered Flora Wilton, just as she was
entering her favourite sitting-room, a small one overlooking the garden.

He started as he caught sight of her upturned face, and turning to
Nathan Gomer, who was following him, he said--

“Miss Wilton, I presume.”

Nathan nodded.

“How strikingly beautiful!” he ejaculated. “Pray introduce me,” he
added.

Gomer did so briefly, saying--

“You will soon have the opportunity of knowing each other better.”

“In truth, Mr. Gomer,” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, in his grandest manner, “I
shall look forward with impatience for that honour, I need not add, and
high gratification.”

Flora could only look timidly from one to the other, and feel extremely
relieved by the absence of both.

Nathan Gomer having, ere they parted, reiterated his promise of
supplying Mr. Grahame with all the funds his present need required, that
gentleman walked into his mansion with the cold loftiness of a Sultan,
and with high elation of spirits. Not that the latter emotion rendered
him cheerful; on the contrary, it expanded and inflated his pride--it
made him look over to the verge of the horizon, and believe the lands
and domains between were his own. It made him regard his servants as
serfs, his tradespeople as vassals, his acquaintances as persons who
lived only to bask in the sunshine of his smiles, himself an imperial
personage, to whom it was the duty of the world in general to bow down
and worship.

During the last ten days, he had felt rather disposed to sneak out of
sight than to exhibit his greatness to wondering eyes. Now, removed from
the danger of imminent disgrace, his own grand staircase appeared too
circumscribed for the majesty of his presence.

Whelks, who had--by hot lotions and cold lotions, and fomentations,
and blistering garlic, new flannel, a couple of calomel pills, and
a half-a-pint of black draught--subdued the ear-ache, lost a
sovereign--how, he was mystified in imagining--and taken the form of a
ghostly shadow--noticed the change in his master, but with infinitely
less surprise than that alteration which made him almost familiar with
Chewkle.

With the instinctive perception of individuals of his class, he
presumed, by the ascendancy of the commission agent, that “something was
up.” He was extremely anxious to find out what: hence, his civility to
Chewkle, and his desire to form an acquaintance with him. Whatever
that something was, it was plain, by his master’s resumption of stern
pomposity that it was “down again.”

Mr. Grahame, preceded by Whelks, entered the room in which he expected
to find Mrs. Grahame and one at least of her daughters, but the whole
family as well as the two guests, who had been prevailed to extend their
visit beyond the term originally intended, were assembled together,
engaged in conversation, which did not pause for an instant at the
appearance of Mr. Grahame.

“Can it be pawsible, Lady Mawgawet,” exclaimed the young Duke,
addressing Miss Margaret Grahame, using the prefix “Lady” as he said in
“playfulness,” “that you did not considaw that that young cweachaw
wejoices in one of the fawest, divinest faces, ever pwesented by the
wosy goddess Beauty to one of youaw chawming sex?”

“I scarcely noticed the person,” returned Margaret, in a cold,
supercilious tone, bending her half-closed eyes upon a magnificently
jewelled bracelet, clasping her fat white arm, which she placed in
various positions to study the effect of the ornament, and to admire
trinket and arm together.

Helen looked up at the Duke with a quick action and a glittering eye.
She said in a slightly petulant tone--

“Wax dolls have the ‘fairest, divinest faces,’ my lord Duke, yet we do
not fall into raptures with them.”

“Not _we_, assuredly Miss Grahame,” observed Lester Vane, slowly,
“but little children do. In their eyes dolls’ faces possess immense
attractions, and they have a title to be ranked as the best judges of
beauty in dolls, as”----

He paused, and looked into Helen’s eyes.

“As men lay claim to be of loveliness in woman,” she responded, with a
scarcely perceptible sneer.

He bowed.

“As, indeed, they ought to be,” he rejoined, quickly; “else why are your
sex so desirous to obtain the approving admiration of ours?”

“A fallacy, which your sex has the impertinence to assert, and the
fatuity to believe,” she responded with a curling lip.

“A shrewd imbecility, nevertheless,” returned Vane, smiling meaningly.
“What say you, Miss Evangeline?”

“Indeed, I think she had the sweetest face I ever beheld!” exclaimed
Evangeline, with an enthusiasm which afflicted Mrs. Grahame--if that
lady permitted any emotion, residing soberly within her well-ordered
frame, to agitate itself to the extent of affliction.

“Pish!” cried Malcolm, “you like dolls, even now. The fact is, you are
all at fault; the companion was the prettiest of the two.”

“What, haw maid?” inquired the Duke, extending his eyebrows half way up
his forehead.

“No, her friend. I have seen them arm in arm. None of you looked at her
face; I did--she had the prettiest in Christendom, St. Allborne, all the
world to nothing.”

“May I, without inadvertence, inquire whose merits you are discussing?”
 inquired Mr. Grahame, with a loftiness he had for some time not
displayed.

“I have been listening in pain and astonishment,” responded Mrs.
Grahame; “the subject is some creature who suddenly intruded herself
upon your family and your guests in your garden, Mr. Grahame.”

“Intruded herself in my garden!” exclaimed ‘Mr. Grahame, in a tone of
outraged dignity.

“His grace, perhaps, will repeat the romantic story?” added Mrs.
Grahame.

“Oh, weadily, weadily! you are wight, madam, the stowy is womantic,”
 returned the Duke, with vivacity. “The fact is, my deaw host,” continued
he, “we weaw all in the gawden the othaw mawning; we had awested owaw
steps for a few seconds, when, all of a moment, an appawition of angelic
beauty pwesented itself to owaw dazzled eyes.”

“In my garden!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, fiercely, as much as to say, “how
dare apparitions of angelic beauty present themselves in _my_ garden?”

“No,” returned the Duke, “in the next gawden to the left. She wemained
but faw an instant, and then dis-appeawed. We aw divided in opinion with
wespect to haw chawms.”

The manner of Mr. Grahame in a moment strangely altered its character.

“The young lady is exquisitely beautiful!” he exclaimed, with an
emphasis which made Mrs. Grahame slowly elongate upwards and Margaret
Claverhouse open her eyes to their full extent, while the others looked
at him with surprise.

At length Mrs. Grahame found a tongue.

“I should have hardly conceived that such a person had attracted the
notice of Claver’se Grahame!” she exclaimed, in a tone of contemptuous
surprise.

“I have just returned from a visit to the young lady’s father,” he
returned, sharply stung by the tone of his wife’s remark.

Mrs. Grahame knew not how to support this dreadful wound to her pride;
her upper lip trembled.

“Pray, Mr. Grahame,” she said, “have you been seized by the weakness of
toadying to some man, some person, some mushroom trader, because he has
been able to make a little parade by successful plunder?”

“Stay, Mistress Grahame,” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with imperious
grandeur. “Before you suffer yourself to be betrayed into any
observation you may be disposed hereafter to recall, let me inform you
that Mr. Wilton, the father of the young lady of whom you appear
to speak and think so slightingly, is a gentleman possessing twenty
thousand a year, and cash to the extent of one hundred and fifty
thousand pounds”----

An exclamation burst from the lips of all present. Mrs. Grahame felt
that she had been premature. How Margaret began to hate Flora!

“Let me add,” continued Mr. Grahame, “that Mr. Wilton can claim an older
and a nobler descent than either you, madam, or myself. In his veins
runs the blood of the Stuarts, the Eglintons, the Grahames, and the
Gordons. When, therefore, you apply the epithets of ‘man’ and ‘person’
to him, you injuriously insult a gentleman entitled to your highest
consideration.”

He ought to have added, also, for the “consideration” of his proud
lady--“A short time back he was a pauper whom I sued and thrust into
prison.”

Mrs. Grahame was sure now she had been premature.

Margaret hated Flora more than ever. She had despised her before; she
feared her now.

“Weally,” cried the Duke, “this is a twuly bwilliant _dénouement_
to owaw womance. Gwahame, you must pawsitively intwoduce me to that
delightful young lady. Miss--what is haw name?”

“Wilton,” responded Grahame; “Mrs. Grahame will probably make a visit
to Miss Wilton, and introduce the young ladies. Miss Wilton, I have no
doubt, will be induced to return the visit. This, as a matter of course.
Our families are, though distantly, related. Mr. Wilton descends from
the elder branch.”

“I shall have the greatest pleasure in paying a visit to this pearl of
beauty,” said Mrs. Grahame, with an animation quite unusual to her. “I
regret my hasty observations, but who could have dreamed that our next
neighbour was of such distinguished birth and position; and a
relative too? I will not defer my visit, and taking advantage of the
relationship, waive a portion of that ceremony I consider it essential
in other cases to observe.”

“So I shall have, too, an introduction to this ‘pearl of beauty,’”
 thought Lester Vane; “it will save me a world of trouble.”

“May I not go with you when you pay your first visit to Miss Wilton,
dear mamma?” asked Evangeline.

“Absurd!” muttered Margaret, contemptuously; “mamma will go alone; I
shall not go.”

Mr. Grahame frowned; his wife caught the expression of his face, and in
a tone which her daughters all knew was intended to silence opposition,
she said--

“Helen and Margaret will accompany me; they will exert themselves to win
the favourable opinion of their relative--attracting her to visit us
by their cheerful smiles, rather than repelling her by any formal
frigidity. You, Evangeline, who set all the rules of propriety at
defiance, must remain at home, or you will only commit yourself in some
such manner as heroines do in novels.”

“Don’t you think I ought to accompany you, madam?” exclaimed Malcolm,
with a strong impression that he should get an opportunity of exchanging
looks and words with Lotte. “I think the visit will hardly be _en
règle_, without my presence.”

It suddenly struck Mr. Grahame that a match between Malcolm and Flora
Wilton would, in all respects, be most desirable. The young lady
possessed a long line of ancestry, wealth, and beauty. What more could
a man desire in a wife? A marriage, too, would end the conflicting
interests of both parties. He did not doubt for a moment, that Wilton
would gladly embrace the advantages offered by such a plan, and he,
therefore, almost looked upon it as being accomplished, his own future
peace being secured by the arrangement.

It did not occur to him that Flora might object, or Malcolm offer any
opposition. He looked upon marriage as a contract, in which it was the
parent’s duty to secure for their children eligible matches, and for the
children to unhesitatingly complete them.

He was immediately, therefore, anxious that Malcolm should accompany
his mother, and his suggestion took the shape of a command. No one but
himself had any inkling of his project, but though some little surprise
was manifested, no remark was made or objection raised.

As the visit was not to be paid until the next morning, the subject
was here changed, and Lester Vane, as before, addressed his attentions
almost exclusively to Helen. He rarely spoke to her without conveying
a meaning beyond the apparent import of his words. He omitted no
opportunity, either by word or glance, to induce her to believe that he
was fascinated by her personal attractions and charmed by the graces of
her mind.

She threw herself as much in his way as possible, whether in the
presence of her family or alone, and she exerted all her powers to
enslave him. She was by turns full of fire and life, seemingly gratified
by his presence; anon, cold and pettish. She would laugh with him, and
frown at him, display interest in what he said or did when he appeared
least to desire to chain her attention, and seem most provokingly
indifferent when he wished her to listen to him heedfully.

Most of all, when alone, did she play with him.

When, by some tenderness of manner, he would be induced to commence
acknowledgments warmer than those warranted by friendship, she would
parry his observations, turn them to ridicule, or give to them an
interpretation they were never intended to bear: so that he would trust
only to his expressive eyes to say what she refused to hear his tongue
utter.

He could tell by her drooping lid and rising blush that she comprehended
that language, and that if she would defiantly encounter his gaze, she
must read it and interpret it.

“She loves me,” he would say to himself, “and she must be mine--under
what contract circumstances must alone decide for me.”

That decision was arrived at when he heard that Flora Wilton was well
born and rich--his hand should be for her, his passion for Helen.

It is easy to make calculations based on probabilities, but when
contingencies are left out, the result mostly takes a very different
form to that which it first promised to assume.

Helen had carefully watched his countenance while her father spoke of
Flora Wilton; she had not forgotten how his eyes seemed to gloat on her
beauty when he beheld her in the garden, and she felt convinced by the
expression which passed over his features when he learned that
Miss Wilton was of good birth and rich, that he then formed designs
respecting her.

A flush of indignation and mortification passed through her frame.

“I will bring him to my feet, and spurn him yet!” she said to herself.

It was in this spirit they were all but toying with each other, when
Malcolm, who had been reading the _Times_, uttered an exclamation, and,
turning to his father, he said--

“You remember young Riversdale, sir?--you do, Helen, of course,” he
cried, turning to his sister.

Had fame--life--depended upon an unchanged countenance, she must
have lost both. She on the instant grew deathly pale; she could not
reply--she merely bent her head.

“A son of Major Riversdale,” said Mrs. Grahame; “I think we met them in
the north?”

“Yes,” returned Malcolm.

“Ah! I remember; his father died a beggar, and his uncle, an East India
merchant, took charge of him--made him a clerk, or something of that
kind,” observed Mr. Grahame--“a person one could not notice now. Why did
you introduce his name to our notice?”

“Here is a paragraph about him in the _Times_. It is rather a strange
affair, I’ll read it out,” replied Malcolm.

“Do so,” said his mother.

Helen held her breath. She felt that some dreadful disclosure was about
to be made, which would overwhelm her, too. Oh, that she might not
faint! If only she did not faint, and could get to her room, to wrestle
with the trial--for such it must be--alone! She sat with closed hands,
teeth, her eyes only open, motionless as a statue. Malcolm turned his
eyes upon the journal he held in his hand, and, in a loud, clear voice,
read as follows:--

“A singular circumstance attended the departure from these shores of the
Peninsula and Oriental Steam Company’s ship, the ‘Ripon,’ bearing the
mails for India and China. When off the Needles, a young gentleman,
whose name was ascertained to be Mr. Hugh Riversdale, was observed to
be regarding the receding cliffs of England with deep emotion. Suddenly,
uttering a loud cry, said by some who heard it to be the name of a
lady, he sprang on to the taffrail of the ship, and leaped into the sea.
Fortunately, a pilot-boat was standing off and on, waiting the arrival
of an American liner. Her crew had observed the suicidal act, and made
most noble efforts to rescue the young gentleman. Their exertions were,
we are happy to say, so far crowned with success that they picked up the
body in a lifeless state. Meanwhile, the engines of the ‘Ripon,’ under
the thrilling cry of ‘a man overboard,’ had been stopped and reversed,
and the crew of the pilot-boat were thus enabled to convey the body on
board the steam-ship--the most advisable course to be pursued, as the
best medical assistance, with ready access to restoratives, could be
there promptly afforded. We are unable to state whether the exertions to
restore life were successful, as on the recovery of the body the engines
of the steamer were set in motion. The crew of the pilot-boat returned
to their vessel, and the Ripon, at race-horse speed, proceeded on her
distant voyage.”

“Rather strange affair that!” concluded Malcolm, laying down the paper.

“Vewy womantic! ha! ha!” laughed the young Duke. “Pwepostewous folly
that, to dwown oneself for love! Ha! ha!”

Suddenly they were all startled by a terrified cry bursting from the
lips of Evangeline. She sprang from her seat, and twined her arms round
her eldest sister.

“Helen! Helen!” she cried; “Helen, dearest Helen, you are ill, darling!
Speak, Helen! Speak, for Heaven’s sake! Oh, mamma, mamma, pray come to
Helen; she is dying!”

Helen sat erect, still, rigid as a stone statue and as lifeless.

She had listened in a state of high-wrought feeling to the reading of
the paragraph up to a certain point. She heard the description of Hugh’s
emotion at the sight of the diminishing heights of the land containing
all that he loved or prized. She knew that her form--her averted form
was at that instant before his humid eyes.

She heard his despairing call upon her name; she saw him suddenly spring
up upon the vessel’s edge, and leap out with a wild cry, plunging down,
down into the dreadful depths of the surging sea, to find that peaceful
release from intense mental anguish which she had selfishly and
heartlessly denied to him here.

Then all was dark!

She sat motionless, stark, corpse-like, consciousness departing from
her, and leaving her without sense or motion.

Mr. and Mrs. Grahame were disturbed at the undignified departure from
the proprieties of life displayed by both Helen and Evangeline.
Mrs. Grahame especially was grieved to think that the example of icy
immobility set on all occasions by Margaret Claverhouse was not followed
by both her sisters. The bell was rung violently by Malcolm, who,
except Evangeline, displayed the most feeling of the family. Chayter
was summoned, and Helen, accompanied by Evangeline, was borne to her
apartment.

Lester Vane retired to the garden.

Folding his arms, he paced the sinuous paths thoughtfully.

“So,” he muttered, “the mystery is solved. This youth, Hugh Riversdale,
was my assailant in the alcove, and Helen was his companion there. Hem!
His merchant uncle has despatched his clerk to India. He, out of his
love-sick grief, like a mad fool, leaps into the sea, and she swoons to
hear of his folly. She is selfish; but she loves him and seeks to fool
me. ’Um! He struck me--this clerk. Well, she shall avenge the blow:
away with thoughts of marriage! No; Miss Wilton, young, exquisitely
lovely, of proud descent, and great wealth, she shall be my bride; while
you, Helen, you--’um! we shall see.”

He leaned upon the slight iron rail which ran along the end of the
garden, and gazed thoughtfully into the depths of the flowing stream
running soundlessly by.


END OF VOL. I.











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