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Title: The Flower Of The Flock, Volume III (of III)

Author: Pierce Egan

Release Date: January 14, 2018 [EBook #56373]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK ***




Produced by David Widger from page images generously
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THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK

By Pierce Egan

In Theee Volumes

Volume III

London: W. S. Johnson & Co.

1865


[Illustration: 0001]


[Illustration: 0005]




FLOWER OF THE FLOCK.




CHAPTER I.--HELEN GRAHAME’s DANGER.


               She stood a moment as a Pythoness

                   Stands on her tripod, agonized and full

               Of inspiration, gather’d from distress;

                   When all the heart-strings like wild horses pull

               The heart asunder; then as more or less

                   Their speed abated, or their strength grew dull,

               She sank down.

                             --Byron.


When Mr. Grahame had locked the door, he flung the key upon the table,
and motioned his daughter to a seat. She silently declined to accept it.

He paced the library for a few minutes. His emotions were terrible, but
they were the strugglings of pride, vain, haughty, ambitious pride, not
such as he would have been justified in possessing.

Helen stood motionless and faint. She dreaded the demanded explanation,
which seemed each instant to draw nearer. Her heart throbbed painfully,
so painfully it seemed as though each throb, depriving her of life,
would be the last.

At length Mr. Grahame confronted her.

“Helen!” he exclaimed, “what have you to offer in explanation of the
degraded and scandalous conduct of which you have been guilty in flying
from your home, and the audacious presumption you have exhibited in
presenting yourself here again?”

Her bosom heaved, and her throat swelled, but she spoke not.

“I demand to know,” he continued, fiercely, “why you quitted position,
family, a wealthy home, in a manner so disgracefully clandestine, so
utterly reckless of the honour or the pride of our house; I claim to
know what you have been doing during your absence; and why now, like
some spectre, you suddenly appear among us to bring further shame and
disgrace upon us. Speak!”

Her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth. The events of the last few
months raced through her brain. Oh, how was she to acknowledge one
incident, at least, to him?

She remained silent.

He bit his lips and seized her wrist harshly.

“You must, you shall speak,” he cried, hoarsely, “or I will find a way
to make you, that shall bring you upon your bended knees in supplication
to be spared the torture. Tell me, girl, for whom and with whom you fled
from home?”

He committed an error when he, thus acting, sought to terrify her into
an explanation. He only roused her proud nature. By a sudden motion, she
flung his hand from her.

“I acted alone, and without being influenced by any person,” she replied
firmly, even haughtily.

“Your motive?”

“You will learn it some day.”

“Now--now; I insist upon hearing it now.”

“No, it would be premature. Nothing is to be gained by the disclosure
but pain; it is enough that I did what I have done under the promptings
of my own will. I have taken the consequences, and I am prepared to
endure them. I ask nothing of you but to be allowed to depart.”

“What language is this? Am I not your father?--have I no title to
control your actions. Preposterous notion!--you will find your error and
repent it sorely, bitterly.”

“I have done so,” she said, with an earnestness which struck him.

He paused for a moment, and gazed steadfastly at her.

“What means this alteration in you? Why are you so pallid and thin?” he
asked, abruptly.

“I have been ill.”

“Ill?”

“Very ill.”

“Tell me,” he asked with a choking utterance; “with whom have you dwelt
since you left this house?”

“A young girl.”

“A girl,” he echoed, in surprise.

This was a question he had feared to ask, and he anticipated from her a
direct refusal to reply. He was amazed at the readiness with which she
responded.

“Humble, sir,” she continued, in a thoughtful voice, which had
a singular tone of sadness pervading it; “but a model of purity,
innocence, and faithfulness!”

“You have been with her alone, up to the hour you came hither to-night?”

“With her alone.”

“Will you swear this?”

“In the face of Heaven, it is true, sir.”

Mr. Grahame paced the room again.

There was intense relief afforded to him by her replies, for, heartless
and selfish, he cared little what she had suffered during what he
considered to be her madly capricious act, so that she had not disgraced
his name. He would have looked over even her self-degradation, if he had
been sure that the crime was confined alone to her breast and that of
the partner of her sin, and it would not interfere with his new-formed
scheme.

“Helen,” he said, pausing abruptly before her, “you must give me your
promise that you will some day explain the mystery which hangs over the
interval of your flight from home, if I forbear to urge it now?”

“I do, sir,” she replied, in a low tone.

Again he took several turns across the room before he could bring out
his proposition; but at length he stopped, and recommenced speaking.

“Helen,” he said, “you are unmarried.”

Had he struck her a blow upon the temple, it would have had less effect.
She staggered and clung o the table.

“You are ill,” he said, hastily.

“No,” she answered, in a hollow tone, “proceed.”

“So far as I know,” he said, “you have had no offer for your hand--no
suitor, who has distinctly proposed; many intimations, I know, have
been made, but I have always turned a cold face upon them; for I would
elevate you in rank and surround you with wealth. Such a chance offers
itself for your acceptance now.”

She uttered a faint cry, and recoiled from him.

“Helen,” he said, sternly, “it is for you to repair the past, and the
opportunity is within your grasp--beware how you fling it away.”

She tried to speak, but her voice failed her.

“You must not, and shall not now interpose your will between mine and a
most important object I have in view,” he cried, sternly. “Listen--it is
necessary that you should marry----”

“No--oh! no--no--no!” she gasped.

“I say,” continued her father, “that the necessity is imperious.

“I cannot.”

“You shall.”

“I dare not.”

“Dare not! Listen--hear what there is need for you to dare. Helen, I am
a beggar!”

Helen almost shrieked; he uttered those words in a tone so frightful.

“Yes,” he repeated; “I stand on the verge of bankruptcy--beggary--God
knows what horrors! you can save me.”

Helen clasped her hands, and sobbed convulsively.

“You, Helen, can, I swear to you, save me--your mother--the house
itself, from destruction and disgrace. My Lord Elsingham, whom you met
at dinner, is a peer of enormous wealth; he has just expressed himself
greatly prepossessed in your favour. It rests with you to follow up this
favourable impression, and he is your own--the coronet of a peeress
will grace your temples. Your sister will, I trust, win the Duke; and in
these two marriages we may defy fate itself. You, Helen, will prove
my salvation! Do only but this, and the agony of the past will be
compensated by the splendour of the future.”

It is not possible to depict Helen’s intense anguish on hearing this
terrible revelation, or her horror to find that, even if prepared to
sacrifice her heart to save her father’s credit, it would not now be
possible to do so.

She clasped her hands, and fell upon her knees before him.

“Oh, sir! sir!” she moaned, in dire grief; “is there no other way to
save you? None? None?”

“Not one loophole to creep out of,” he cried, hoarsely. “Wilton had
promised to share with me the estates we both claim. He has recalled
that promise, and vast sums are now demanded of me, which I cannot pay.
If, however, it is known that you are about to become the bride of one
of the wealthiest peers in the kingdom, the harpies will wait, and I
shall be rescued.”

“Oh! avenging heaven!” she cried, “and I cannot do this to save them
all!”

“Helen!” cried her father, gripping her wrist hard, and hissing in her
ear, “you must do this, _whatever may have happened!_ You must marry
this peer. I ask you to reveal nothing. Keep your secret, but marry
him you must, or ruin--disgrace--death--stares me in the face. Recover
yourself--be composed, I leave you for a short time, or my absence will
be remarked upon. When I come back, I shall find you cold, and firm, and
calm--resolved, at _any_ price to carry out what I demand of you. Not a
word! not a word!”

As he spoke he put her from him. She would have clung entreatingly
to him, not to exact from her a task so wholly impossible for her to
fulfil.

He hurried out of the room, and locked the door without, leaving her a
prisoner there.

In an agony of tears she reflected on her position.

“It cannot, must not, shall not be,” she moaned, wringing her hands
while she spoke. “No; I will fly to Mr. Wilton. Lotte has spoken of
his tenderness of heart. I will appeal to him, on my knees, to save my
father; he will not resist my tears, my prayers. Yes, yes, I will go
to him--but for this marriage, ugh!” She shuddered violently--“No,
death--death rather than that.”

She tottered to the door and turned the handle, but it was fast. She
pressed against it, but it would not yield.

She made to the window. She remembered the iron staircase which led into
the garden. The window was unfastened, but she, alas, was in full dress.
She cast her eyes to the door wistfully, and thought she perceived
the handle move; she hurried to it, and, kneeling down, tried to peer
through the keyhole.

She heard a soft, low voice breathe her name, and she knew who was
without watching for her.

She whispered in a low voice--

“Eva, darling Eva, not a moment is to be lost; hasten with my bonnet and
my mantle to the slope beneath the library window.”

“Helen, dearest,” murmured the soft, low voice, “oh, you will not leave
us again?”

“Sweet sister Eva, if you love me, do what I ask. I will be more
explicit when we are together below,” she urged, almost frantically. “If
you love me, Eva--oh, if you love me, sweet Eva.”

“I will do what you wish, dear Helen,” replied her sister, softly. “I
will be down on the slope within a few minutes.”

To Helen the very mention of such a time seemed an age. She tied her
handkerchief about her neck, and stole softly to the window, which had
several times admitted Chewkle to her father’s presence secretly.

She opened it gently and looked out. It seemed very dark, and she
instinctively shuddered. She turned, and looked round the library
hastily--all was perfectly silent; yet it seemed to her that the door
would suddenly fly open, and her father, with angry aspect, appear and
pursue her.

She stepped upon the narrow iron staircase, and closed the window after
her; then she swiftly and noiselessly descended the steps, and stood
shivering upon the grass slope.

She looked up at the house: lights blazed in all the windows; but in the
garden, sombre darkness reigned. She listened intensely, for she
fancied she heard a footfall upon the gravel path, but the sound was not
repeated until she heard a light rustling noise; in another moment
after this reached her ear she felt herself encircled in the arms
of Evangeline, who had hastily thrown a large shawl over her head to
protect herself from the cold.

Helen took from her hand the garments for which she had asked, and
hastily attired herself.

“I dare not stay longer with you, my own darling Eva,” she whispered to
her; “I have escaped, as you see now, from the library, in which papa
had locked.”

“But why, Helen?” asked Evangeline.

“Ask me not now, love,” she returned, quickly; “some day you shall be
made acquainted with the reason of my flight, and why I have returned
only to leave you once more.”

“Oh! Helen, it seems so dreadful for you, who were the brightest
ornament of our house, to become suddenly”--

“Its blot, its stain!” interrupted Helen, passionately.

“No, no, no,” interposed Evangeline, hastily. “I meant not that. Oh!
pray, pray, Helen, remain with us now; everything will come bright
again. If all the others look cold upon you at first, they will come
round to regard you as they did ere you left us, and you know, Helen,
that I will ever be fond and loving to you, if you will let me.”

Helen folded her to her heart, and kissed her wildly.

“It is in vain, Eva,” she presently replied, in a low but firm tone,
“it cannot be. If I were to remain, my father would attempt to coerce
me into an act which; weak and erring as I have been, I would die rather
than consent to perform. Farewell! we shall meet again, Eva.”

“May I come to see you, Helen?” she asked, with great earnestness. “I am
very sad and lonely at home here, and if I could only come at times to
see and speak with you, it would make me so happy.”

“I will write to you, darling,” said Helen, hastily; “run back to your
room, Eva, or you will be missed, and you will be suspected of aiding
my departure. I would spare you a terrifying cross-examination, and the
ill-treatment likely to result from it. Besides, dearest, if I remain
longer it may prove the source of the greatest unhappiness to me.”

This latter argument had its full weight with Evangeline: she embraced
her sister with ardent weeping tenderness, and, with many oft-repeated
kisses, tore herself away.

Helen wept too, and convulsively. She stood motionless until after
Evangeline had, with light fleeting step, entered the house, and then
she prepared to hastily leave the garden by the servants’ entrance, with
the impression that she should never more enter that house which had
been her home from childhood.

She glided stealthily for a few paces, until she reached an angle of the
walk, upon which a shadow from the house fell darkly. As she entered
the gloom hastily, she ran into the arms of a man who had been standing
silently there, and whom she had not seen until she found herself
pressed vigorously to his breast.

“My dear Miss Grahame, I have been expecting you, and I must have a few
delicious words with you,” whispered the voice of Lester Vane in her
ear.

“Monster!” she cried, affrightedly; and by a desperate exertion, she
broke from him and fled--she knew not where.

He followed her swiftly, and caught her as she reached the thicket,
in which he had felt convinced, on his first visit, she met a lover,
clandestinely.

He seized her by both wrists, and held her firmly.

“It is useless to struggle with me,” he exclaimed, in an undertone. “You
can scream for help, if you will, and bring hither your proud parents;
I shall not quit my hold of you until I resign you into the custody of
your father, who does not contemplate your departure, as he has just
informed Lord Elsingham that you will join us in the drawing-room, when
he would have the opportunity of further examining those fascinating
attractions which he admired so much at dinner.”

“Unhand me,” she cried, with intense anguish, acutely feeling the
painful position in which she stood, and how much the man whom she now
hated with an intense loathing had become, for the moment, the master of
the situation.

“When you have listened quietly to what I have to propose to you,” he
answered, calmly.

“What can you have to propose to me, but insults?” she replied,
impatiently.

“I do not offer them as such,” he answered, with a slight shrug of the
shoulders; “if you will persist in so considering them, of course I
cannot help it.”

“In mercy let me depart; you do not know how desperate may be the
consequences of detaining me here,” she cried, entreatingly.

“Listen to me, Miss Grahame,” he returned, in a cold tone, and with slow
enunciation. “Listen to what I have to say, and here in this spot, for I
could not have selected one more fitting for my present subject.”

She cast her eyes round her, oh heaven! too well she remembered it. She
struggled madly to get free, but he held her with a cruel grip, and,
half-fainting, she was compelled to pause.

“There is a strange mystery enshrouding your actions at this present
moment,” he continued, between his set teeth, “that I know; further, I
believe that I have penetrated to its inmost recesses. Helen
Gra-hame, before you set eyes upon me, you loved another---you met him
clandestinely in this thicket.”

Again Helen struggled to set herself free, but in vain.

“It was his hand,” continued Vane, sternly, “which felled me to the
earth, when I accidentally encountered him on this very spot. Let
that pass. Helen Gra-hame, you loved that man. Yet you knowingly and
deliberately employed all your stratagems, and turned upon me the full
blaze of your charms, to capture my heart.”

She shuddered and cowered down.

“Your eye it was that sought mine, and when it encountered it, rested
there. Your voice echoed mine--your smile was set playing for me--your
hand rested on my arm, whenever opportunity offered. You were bland and
tender to me, and coy by turns. I was never in your presence but you
made me conscious of it by those peculiar artifices by which women
attract men to their side. Loving another, Helen Grahame, you acted thus
to me.”

“It is unmanly to taunt me thus!” she ejaculated, in hoarse, quivering
accents.

“Unmanly!” he echoed; “was it not unmaidenly in you, with your heart
safely lodged in another’s keeping, to make so desperate a venture for
mine----and for what? To make it a toy, to break it, and cast it aside
as worthless, even as a child does a bauble!”

He paused.

He could hear her hysteric breathing, but no pity was stirred in his
merciless heart.

“Were you not young, beautiful, of proud birth? Ought you to wonder that
you succeeded in your design---that you have won my heart----”

“It is false! it is false! it is basely untrue!” she gasped, vehemently.

“I swear to its truth! or why do I care to see or speak with you again,”
 he replied with animation. “I repeat it, Helen Grahame--I love you.
You exerted yourself to accomplish that achievement, and you succeeded,
having no love to give back in return. What atonement have you to offer
to me for having destroyed the brightest hope in my life?”

“In the fullness of an arrogant pride I have erred,” she replied, in a
choking tone; “I am only too deeply conscious of my failings, and would
gladly make reparation for all the wrong I have done, if in my power.”

“It is in your power,” he interrupted, excitedly, “I know you cannot
give me a heart that has gone, or a love which has been won by another;
but I know that, under peculiar circumstances, you are separated from
him, from home, from the enjoyment of the position you once held, and
you cannot be happy as you are now circumstanced. I would make you
happy--I would surround you with all the luxuries of wealth, I would
place in your grasp all the pleasures the world can afford you, and only
ask in return, your society.”

“Oh, man! man! you make most barbarous use of your present advantage, to
grossly and shamefully insult me,” she hissed, indignantly. “If I, in
my wicked pride, have been guilty of the artifices with which you charge
me, those artifices were expended upon a barren rock, upon which no
flower grew. I tell you, man, you had no heart to lure, and your plea is
as false as your present outrage is contemptible. Release me, or I will
dare, by my screams, the very consequences you have pictured.”

Lester Vane suddenly started, as though he heard sounds of some one
approaching.

“Hark!” he said, in a low tone; “if you would not be discovered, be
silent.”

“I am careless now of discovery. Unhand me wretch!”

He still clutched her wrists, and she, exhausted by the scenes she had
that night already gone through, together with her recent efforts to
liberate herself, was now wholly powerless. He knew it, and availed
himself of the advantage it gave him.

Unheeding her words, he listened for further sounds with breathless
attention; but, whatever they might have been, they were not repeated,
and he went on speaking--

“I have resolved not to leave you, Helen,” he said, with determined
emphasis, “until I have your promise to consent to my proposition, and
an earnest that you intend to keep your word.”

She sank upon her knees.

“Have mercy upon me; let me depart, or I shall swoon,” she ejaculated,
in a feeble voice. “Oh! in mercy let me go.”

“Your promise,” he cried. “Let me give you the best reason to fall in
with my arrangements. The name of him you loved was Hugh Riversdale--”

She leaped up.

“If you would not have me fall dead at your feet, let me go!” she
exclaimed, frantically.

“Not till you hear from me,” he answered scornfully, “that knowing the
fellow to be a beggarly clerk to a merchant, I called at the warehouse
to make inquiries respecting him, and in proof of the estimation in
which he was held in his own province, was told abruptly that he was
dead--had died on his voyage out to India, and was thrown into the sea.”

Helen uttered a faint scream, and fell back lifeless.

The firm grip with which Lester Vane yet held her prevented her
receiving injury in her fall.

When she was lifeless upon the green sward, he released her hands,
repenting, at the moment, his precipitation.

He had no time for more.

He was suddenly seized by the throat, and dragged from the shadow into
the open space, where there was light enough for him to distinguish
features he had seen once before.

“Scoundrel!” cried his assailant, “we have met again--once before to
your discomfiture; this time to the defeat of your base villany; beware,
the third time it will be fatal to you!”

These words, forced between clenched teeth, were growled in his ears,
and then it seemed that myriads of flashes of light dashed before his
sight; he was hurled to the ground with tremendous violence, and he
remembered no more.

The stranger bent tenderly over the prostrate form of Helen, raised her
up gently, imprinted a passionate kiss upon her cold lips, and pressed
her to his breast.

“Mine, mine only, my wife, let me see who will dare to take her from me
now!”

As he muttered these words, he lifted her senseless form carefully and
fondly in his arms, just as though she had been a child, and he bore her
to the side of the ornamental water, where lay a boat.

In this he laid her gently down, covered her with a boat cloak, and
rowed swiftly away with his prize.




CHAPTER II--SUSPICION.


               “Who never loved, ne’er suffered; he feels nothing

               Who nothing feels but for himself alone;

               And when we feel for others, reason reels,

               O’erloaded from her path, and man runs mad.

               As love alone can exquisitely bless,

               Love alone feels the marvellous of pain--

               Opens new veins of torture in the soul,

               And wakes the nerves where agonies are born.

                             Young.


Many a weary hour, on the night of Helen’s departure, did Lotte sit
watching by her little charge while it slumbered, plying her ever-busy
needle in making its clothes, with which it was very scantily provided.

Ever and anon she raised her eyes from her work, to gaze upon the sweet
face of the little hapless innocent, or to listen to its breathing,
soft and low, fearful that it might awake and weep, and she be unable to
pacify it.

After ten o’clock had chimed, she began to find the hours pass slowly
and painfully. Still, however, the child slept, and still she worked on.
At length the deep tone of the church-clock bell gave forth the hour of
one, and she became affrighted at Helen’s absence.

Her eyes ached painfully. She had worked many hours, and had continued
to do so, if only to pass away the lone, long vigil she was keeping.

She had been weeping, too, for she was weak in body, and that created
a depression of spirits which found relief only in tears. She was
harrassed by strange fears and vague doubts. Why, why was Helen so long
away? What could have happened?--some dreadful accident, perhaps--she
thought of nothing but that; for what else would or could keep a young
mother from her first-born in the very commencement of its babyhood. She
grew sick at heart; for if her painful foreboding proved only true, what
would be the result?

Hour after hour came and went; but though she listened to every footfall
as it approached, and believed, until it went past the house, that
it must be that of her late companion, she was disappointed in every
instance. Helen came not.

Once or twice the little babe awoke and cried, but she knelt down by its
side, laid her own soft, innocent cheek close to its little velvet face,
and soothed its low, fretful sobbing again into slumber.

During the long night she was conscious of a strange tremulous motion in
the room.

It was not that she shivered with the cold, or trembled from
nervousness, but the sensation was that of vibration, as though heavy
waggons were perpetually passing along the street, but making no sound.

Several times her attention was aroused by a loud clicking repeated at
intervals. A peculiar, unusual sound it was, but she heeded it little.
She reflected that in the many, many nights she had sat up to work, she
had often heard unaccountable noises.

The blue dawn stole into the room through the window curtains, and
paling the feeble ray of her solitary candle, found her wan and haggard,
alone with the child. And now the little creature, needing nourishment,
awoke, and cried piteously, and would not be pacified. Lotte was greatly
distressed at first, and wept with the child, for she knew not what to
do.

But she remembered that it did not become her in the position of trust
in which she was placed to be faint of heart. It was necessary to be
calm, composed, and collected, in order that she might deliberate upon
the best course to pursue.

She paced the room with the child, and presently remembered that upon
an upper floor there dwelt a young married woman, whose husband, a
house-painter, was away engaged in his business at a gentleman’s mansion
in the country. This young woman, Lotte knew had a child about three
months old, and to her she resolved to go for advice and assistance in
her almost distracting dilemma.

Strange, when she tried to open her room-door, it resisted her strongest
efforts. At first she thought it was locked, but she perceived that at
the top it pressed against the casing forcibly.

With a desperate wrench she forced it open, and made her way up the
stairs, feeling the strange tremulous vibration more than ever. She
found the room-door of the young person she sought much in the same
condition as her own, and she perceived, on effecting a forcible
entrance, that the tenant of the room was hastily dressing herself. She
wore on her features a terrified expression, and when she saw Lotte she
hastily inquired what had brought her there.

In a few brief words Lotte explained the condition in which she had been
left with the infant. The young woman, with motherly instinct, at once
took the child from Lotte, and quickly stilled its cries with nature’s
nourishment, but, as she did so, she said with the same alarmed look in
her eyes--

“What is the matter with the house?”

“The house!” echoed Lotte, every little incident connected with the
sounds she had heard during the night in a moment flashed through her
mind.

“Yes,” returned the young woman, “I seemed to have shaken and rocked
in my bed all night; I have hardly slept a wink until I could bear it
no--hark!”

A low, dull, heavy rumbling crash was plainly heard by both; the house
seemed to swing backwards and forwards, both felt a frightful giddiness
seize them, the flooring seemed to heave up with them, then followed a
dull, heavy boom, and the house seemed to shake to the centre.

Both girls shrieked, for they saw fissures like forked lightning run
down the walls, and at the same moment loud shouts rose up in the
street, mingled with screams and cries for help, and then the house,
though quieter, began again its tremulous motion.

“Merciful Heaven!” gasped Lotte, “a house has fallen down, and this will
fall too!”

“Take my child!” cried the woman, hardly able to speak from a faintness
which had seized her. “Let us run out into the street!”

It was following a natural impulse which had brought every one of the
inmates from their beds, and hurried them into the street too. Lotte,
still holding the woman’s child, found time to snatch up her mantle and
bonnet, before she followed the example of the young woman.

A large number of persons had already assembled. Bricklayers were
speedily at hand, a strong body of police were soon on the spot, and
efforts were at once commenced to clear away the _débris_ of the fallen
house, under which many poor creatures were presumed to be buried.

The house in which Lotte had resided, and from which she had just
escaped, was one of a block of eight. Erected before the Building Act
came into operation, the wonder was, not that they should now have come
down, but that they had not fallen before. The corner house, in its
descent, dragged two others with it, leaving the rest in so tottering
a condition, that none of the residents were allowed to return to them;
men were however, appointed, under the police surveyor, to remove the
most dangerous portions of the quivering walls, and the furniture in the
dwellings, as soon as they were sufficiently supported to admit of men
entering them with safety.

Lotte was thus once more thrown upon the world, under trying and painful
circumstances. Worn out as she was, she did not, however, give way to
helpless despair, but nerved herself for the task she saw she should
have to undergo.

She returned to the young woman, and recovered Helen’s child, which
she pressed to her own gentle bosom, and covered it carefully with her
mantle. She then made her way to the police station, gave a general
description of her little property to the inspector, told him she would
send a person to fetch it, and then made her way at once whither she
knew she should be befriended, and where she could obtain all assistance
in rearing Helen’s child, until Helen came forward to claim it--if she
ever came at all.

Lotte believed that she knew Helen’s true nature; and to know this was
to make her convinced that scarcely anything short of death would
have detained her from her child--that child born under such strange,
mysterious, and unhappy circumstances.

Lotte, it need hardly be said, directed her footsteps to the residence
of Mr. Bantom, or that she was there warmly welcomed; but after
the first few words of greeting, she suddenly alighted upon a full
comprehension of a startling difficulty in her position.

Helen had obtained from her a solemn promise not to disclose that she
had become the mother of a child, unless with her sanction.

When Mrs. Bantom, in her fussiness and gladness at seeing Lotte, drew
aside her mantle to take it off, she discovered the child.

“Dear heart!” she cried, with wondrous surprise; “what a blessed little
babby!”

Then Mrs. Bantom turned her eyes upon Lotte, inquiringly, and on seeing
her thin, alabaster face, she gave a gulp, and uttered an ejaculation.

The instant the worthy, humble creature gave vent thus to the suspicion
that flashed through her mind, Lotte understood her position. It was
impossible to keep down a scarlet flush that covered her neck and face,
or to prevent it dying away, and leaving her face of a deathly hue,
or to help feeling as if she should sink down upon the earth and die,
almost happy in the notion that her spirit should be so released from
this world of care and pain.

Mrs. Bantom noticed the spasm which passed over her features and said
nothing, though she felt sorely--sorely grieved; but she removed Lotte’s
cloak and bonnet, and forced her gently in a chair.

“You are ill, child, and weak,” said the good woman, in a husky voice;
“and don’t ought to be out--in--in---your condition.”

Lotte tried to speak, but her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth.

“Oh, my child--my child!” sobbed out Mrs. Bantom; “my poor motherless
girl--what has happened? Tell me, child--all; I--I--won’t think harshly
of you, nor speak unkindly to you; and I may help you--I may--with God’s
help, I may.”

Poor Lotte! This undeserved suspicion was very hard to hear. She looked
back through her past life, and felt that she ought not to have been
thus mistrusted; but she recollected that Mrs. Bantom knew little more,
of her than that she was a young girl, living quite alone, and was
thus open to temptation, or to be led astray. It was natural she should
harbour such a thought as that which now evidently possessed her mind;
and, however much it might rankle in heart, Lotte forgave her.

As soon as she could speak, she said--

“Mrs. Bantom, you wrong me. This child is not mine. At present a mystery
surrounds its birth, which I am not at liberty to explain. I thought,
indeed, Mrs. Bantom, that I should not have had even to say so much to
you; for, of all who know me, I should suspect you of being the last who
could or would think so very ill of me.”

Mrs. Bantom was now all the other way. She was only too delighted to
catch at the very smallest assurance of Lotte’s innocence, and she over
and over again expressed her readiness and desire to be of service
to her, and, in truth, she afforded her assistance she could not have
dispensed with, inasmuch as the good lady had recently presented her
husband with a tenth blessing, and she was, therefore, able to take the
child of Helen Grahame, and nourish it as her own.

At the expiration of a fortnight, Lotte had sufficiently recovered,
by care and self-attention, her strength, and, by the aid and help of
Bantom, to instal herself once more in an apartment of her own--in a
house, which, by the way, she satisfied herself was strongly built, and
not likely to tumble down as soon as she took possession. She had, also,
so far recovered her position, that the persons by whom (through the
instrumentality of Flora Wilton) she had been formerly employed gave her
again, upon application, so much work that she was enabled to employ an
assistant, who could undertake the part of wet nurse as well, for Lotte
would not part with the custody of Helen’s child under any advice,
suggestion, or proposal.

She had heard nothing of Helen. She was wholly at a loss to conjecture
what had become of her, and she meditated one evening a visit to her
house in the Park, with a hope that she might gain some tidings of her.

With her brother as yet she had not communicated, but she had contrived,
through Bantom--who, in his homely way, would perform any meed of
service for her with the greatest cheerfulness, though he was not
altogether a safe agent to employ on secret service--to ascertain that
he was well, though perplexed and grieved at her mysterious absence.

All this time, had she thought of Mark Wilton?

Ah, yes! Not with any notion of a love-passage ever occurring between
them during the vicissitudes and trials of her patiently endured life
of toil, because, whenever such vision presented itself before her, she
chased it away, as a mockery, a delusion, and a snare. No; she thought
not of him as a lover in anticipation. She did not even think, in her
heart, that he looked upon her in any other way than in a spirit of
kindness--with perhaps more earnestness than men commonly look upon a
pleasant female face. But she thought of him as one whom she would,
of all men in the world, have soonest chosen to be her life-companion.
Their stations being widely apart, she knew, or thought she knew, that
an event so instinct with happiness could never, never come to pass.

She would sometimes squeeze her hands together, and sigh very
deeply--some would say bitterly--as she ejaculated--

“How happy I am to think we do not meet! How very happy I ought to be
that I do not see him often--I should so love him. And she who wins him,
how beneficent will Heaven be to her.”

One evening, alone with the child, as she sat bending over it
caressingly, and thinking thus, Mark Wilton stood before her.

She uttered a faint cry and rose to her feet. She knew not whether to
welcome him frankly, or to wait until he spoke.

He recognised her embarrassment, and betrayed some confusion also, for
he saw the child upon her knee. His colour went and came, and his heart
heat violently. He did not look so pleasantly at her as before.

“I must beg to be excused for my intrusion,” he said, in a low grave
tone; “I come, however, to prepare you for a visit from your brother.
Are you prepared to face him?”

There was something in his tone and manner so harsh and changed from the
style in which he had previously addressed her; so different, indeed,
from the expression his face wore when, looking up, her eyes suddenly
encountered his beaming on her, for no other word would fitly give their
expression, that involuntarily she felt hurt and indignant.

A reproach was implied. She felt that she had deserved no reproach--at
least from him. His curtness seemed to her out of place, and if she
refused to think it impertinent, she felt that it was as unjust as it
appeared unkind.

She turned her clear, intelligent eyes upon him, and while a roseate
hue spread itself over her face, she responded to his words by the
monosyllable, uttered in a tone of inquiry--

“Sir?”

Again he looked at the little laughing, dark-eyed babe which she held so
lovingly in her arms, and his blood seemed to freeze in his veins.

“I really,” he said abruptly, “know not how to address you--I suppose by
the married appellative.”

Lotte felt her face and forehead burn as if they were on fire. Her
usually mild eye glittered like a diamond.

“I really cannot see, Mr. Wilton,” she answered, “the slightest
necessity for your afflicting yourself with any supposition concerning
one so humble as myself.”

He was nettled by her glance, and by the manner of her speech.

“It is easy to see,” he said, “that you have fled from your brother to
form some connection of which you were convinced beforehand he would not
approve, and that you still fear to face him by striving to keep your
abode secret from him, or you are under the command to do so of the
base, the contemptible, the--sneaking, the--the d----d scoundrel who has
cajoled you into taking the most unhappy course you have adopted.”

He looked round fiercely, and spoke loudly, as though he anticipated the
individual he had loaded with such strong epithets would step forth to
answer for himself.

Lotte became as white as a sheet, and trembled in every limb. Her lips
quivered so that she could not speak; but she pointed to the door with a
frantic gesture, as if bidding him begone.

“No!” he said, with an angry frown on his flushed brow, “I shall not
begone until I have seen the rascal who has so grossly deceived you.
He shall well explain the motives which have led him to induce you to
descend to such unworthy artifices----”

“Hold!” almost shrieked Lotte, as unconsciously she pressed Helen’s child
to her bosom; an act he noted almost with fury. “How dare you thus speak
to me?--I--I--Mr. Wilton--I would, out of the reverence in which I hold
your gentle sister, for the benefits she has conferred on me--speak to
you with respect--but this outrage--this attack upon me drives me from
myself. I did not expect to be thus cruelly insulted--by--by you.”

A gush of tears checked further utterance, and her voice dropped at the
last word.

Truly in her day-dreams she had never pictured his face turned upon her
with an expression so harsh as that which now it bore; and when in her
imaginings his voice breathed its soft, melodious accents in her ear, it
had no such tone as this. Mark felt his breast aflame, when he saw her
weep, and heard the acknowledgment implied in the reference to himself.
He would have given worlds, even at that moment, to have been enabled
to have folded his arms tenderly round her, and kissed away those tears,
which he had himself brought into her sweet eyes.

But there was the little child, yet close hugged to her bosom. If
she were a wife, he had, he felt, been scandalously cozened out of a
priceless treasure; if she dare lay claim to no such title, he could
never think of her more--unless to loathe her very name.

He assumed a cold manner, although his breast was as a seething caldron,
and recommenced.

“You may place, madam, what interpretation you please upon my language;
and I am equally at liberty to interpret your conduct.----”

“I deny your right to do any such thing!” she interrupted, vehemently;
“you are here unbidden sir. If you bear a message from my brother to me,
I ask of you only to deliver it to me--and to leave me; if you have no
such message, I request you to depart at once?”

“But----” exclaimed Mark, as if to explain.

“I will hear from you, sir, nothing more than my brother’s words, if you
have been entrusted with them,” persisted Lotte, indignantly.

“You shall have them,” said Mark, in a freezing tone; “still, I
imagined, as a friend----

“A friend!” echoed Lotte, bitterly.

“A friend!” roared Mark, with a rather startling emphasis, forgetting
his assumed coldness.

“I loved and esteemed your sister, sir, as a friend,” exclaimed Lotte,
in a tone of earnest feeling. She bit her lips to repress the sob that
gushed up to her throat---“but you----”

“I am answered!” he exclaimed in a low tone as she paused. “I had a weak
and foolish fancy that--but it is dissipated, gone--for ever. I see now
I stand but in the light of a meddlesome intruder, and have no title to
ask from you any explanation of your mysterious conduct.”

“None whatever!” said Lotte firmly.

“Enough, madam,” he returned in an icy tone. “I have but then to say
that your brother having, by means he will himself explain, discovered
your abode, will be here to night to see you.”

Lotte bowed, and remained silent.

Mark twisted his hat round and round, looked at the door and gazed
wistfully at her, but she stood immoveable, she pressed the infant to
her bosom, and she never once raised her eyes to his.

Her face was white as marble, yet he was sure he never saw her look
so handsome--so beautifully interesting. Mark lingered. Could she be a
guilty creature?

It seemed impossible. Yet that child! coupled with her sudden flight,
her continued and inexplicable absence. What other interpretation could
he put upon her conduct?

He gave a slight “Hem,” to clear his voice, and then said--

“You will see your brother when he comes, this evening?”

Her eyelids slightly trembled.

“Why do you ask that question?” she asked, sternly.

“Because,” he returned almost fiercely, “he will not come to you if you
wish him not to do so, for then he will know that he should _not_ come.”

Lotte seemed to feel that she should fall into an hysterical paroxysm if
this interview were to be prolonged. Yet her pride would not suffer
her to yield, or to make an observation which would take the form of an
admission either for or against herself.

“I shall be at home,” she observed, laconically.

“Which is to imply that he may come or remain away at his own
inclining?” said Mark between his teeth.

She bowed her head without reply.

He gave one wild glance at her.

“Guilty and hardened!” he muttered, and rushed from the room.

She sank half-lifeless upon the sofa.

Mark, with furious haste, made his way to the office of Lotte’s brother,
and with a kind of incoherent burst of strange remarks, informed him
that he had had an interview with his sister.

“Did she say she wished to see me?” inquired Charley, with a full
certainty of an affirmative reply.

“No,” returned Mark, shortly.

Charley looked at him with wondering eyes.

“Had she a fe--female--a young lady with her?” he inquired, expecting
that the presence of Helen Grahame might have been the occasion of her
reservation.

“No,” returned Mark, in the same voice; “she had a child in her arms.”

He strode abruptly away as he concluded.

Charley staggered back. A bullet through his body could not have
inflicted upon him a greater shock.

A thousand conjectures flashed through his mind; and he paced his room
in perturbed agony. Who could give him an inkling of her betrayer?--for
that she had been basely betrayed he was sure. He could think of no one
to aid him but Vivian, and him he knew not where to find.

Yet he did meet with him, and that while on his frenzied way to see his
sister.

In a few hurried, agonized words, he told Hal, who was unacquainted with
Lotte’s absence, of his discovery of her abode, of Mark’s visit and its
result.

“I know Lotte,” said Hal, with marked impressiveness, and a knitted
brow. “I know and esteem Mark Wilton also. I have occasion to do so,
Charley; but he or any man had better think well ere they utter
one sentence or half a word to defame Lotte’s truth or purity in my
hearing.”

“Do you not think, then----”

“For shame, Charley. By Heaven I would stake my life upon her virtue and
her innocence!”

“But Mark----”

“Is hasty, impetuous--forms his conclusions too rashly. You are about
to visit her--judge for yourself. There may be some mystery hanging over
her movements, but she can, she will explain all. I would hazard all
I might ever hope for in this world that you will prove her only like
golden ore--the purer for the fiery ordeal she may have had to undergo.”

“God bless you, Hal, for those comforting words! they have relieved my
heart of much bitter agony,” cried Charley, fervidly.

“Ay!” responded Hal, shrugging his shoulders, “but you should have had
faith in Lotte. She deserves it if ever one of her sex did. I am on my
way to meet Mark Wilton, and it shall go hard but I disabuse his mind of
any false notions he may have taken into his head.”

Charley wrung his hand.

“I heard that you were going abroad, Hal; is this true?” he asked.

“It was my intention,” he said, hastily; “it may be necessary yet. A
singular event has, however, occurred to detain me for the present in
England, and of which I am not at liberty now to speak, but you will,
no doubt, some day hear; and if you should not--well my fate will be of
little consequence then to anybody--least of all to myself.”

He waved his hand hurriedly, and hastened away.

Charley watched him for a moment, thoughtfully, and then he proceeded to
his sister’s quiet and humble lodging.

On reaching the house he found the street door ajar, and he entered
without noise. Previous inquiries had made him acquainted with the room
she occupied, and he stole up to it silently.

Her room-door was partly open, and lie peeped in.

He saw Lotte seated at work upon the sofa. At her knee was a bassinet,
in which lay a sleeping child.

A pang shot through his frame, and every limb quivered.

Lotte looked paler and thinner than when last they parted, and she
seemed to have been weeping. She did not raise her eyes from her work,
but her needle went swiftly and continuously.

He glided into the room and stood before her; she heard him not, nor did
she see him.

In a low tone he said--

“Lotte!”

She started, rose up with her face towards him, and remained motionless;
but she bent upon him an intensely appealing look, which seemed to ask
him to look down through her eyes to her heart and read her soul.

He did gaze into their clear depths, then he turned his eyes upon the
child; once more he looked into her luminous orbs shining upon him like
stars, and he opened wide his arms.

“My dear sister!” he exclaimed, with deep emotion.

From her bosom burst an hysterical cry. She sprang forward and laid
her head upon his breast, sobbing as though her poor sorely tried heart
would break.




CHAPTER III.--LOTTE’S FIRST LOVE.


                   _Jul._ Although I joy in thee,

                   I have no joy of this contract to-night;

                   It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,

                   Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be

                   Ere one can say--it lightens. Sweet, good night!

                   This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,

                   May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

                   Good night--good night! as sweet repose and rest

               Come to thy heart as that within my breast!

                   _Rom_. Oh! wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?

                   _Jul._ What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?

                   _Rom_. The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.

                   _Jul_. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it.

                             Shakspere.



So Hugh. Riversdale had returned home to England.

How did it come to pass?

The paragraph in the _Times_ correctly detailed what had happened to him
on his voyage out up to the moment of placing him insensible on board
the “Ripon.”

What followed may be given in a few words.

He was borne to his berth, where he was immediately attended by two or
three doctors, who, in addition to the regular medical officer, happened
to be on board on their way out to India. He was speedily resuscitated,
though not restored to consciousness, and eventually he became so ill
that he was landed, under advice, at Malta, for it was considered that
to prosecute his journey to India while so prostrated would only be to
ensure his death.

Here he lay in a hospital, hovering on the confines of death; in the
event of recovery the probabilities were great that insanity would take,
during the remainder of his future life, the place of reason.

Events, however, frequently falsify predictions and upset the most
careful calculations. A crisis in his illness arrived--passed--left him
miserably weak, but with clear, sentient reasoning powers.

His uncle had read the paragraph in the newspaper, and having
encountered it without preparation, it shocked him inexpressibly. It
erased out of his heart many hard, cold, and worldly conceits and maxims
of which he had made principles, and it placed gentler emotions there:
feelings and intentions far more in accordance with the Divine precepts
than had ever before had a place in his bosom.

He had no child, had never been married, and was enormously wealthy.

“Hugh is my own flesh and blood,” he said, in communing with himself
upon this event. “I will treat him as my son: there is enough for him
and me, and for the future we will live happily together. I will go to
his mother at once.”

He did so, there to learn that Hugh’s indisposition to go to India and
his act of folly were the consequences of love.

“He shall have the girl, if gold will buy her,” he exclaimed, with
determined emphasis.

Mrs. Riversdale shook her head, but remained silent. She it was who,
prevailed upon by the earnest entreaties of Hugh, was at Southampton to
meet Helen if she had complied with the request of her son and joined
him there.

The uncle, now bent upon Hugh’s happiness as a project, was not to be
checked by Mrs. Riversdale’s despondent action, but entered into
plans for its accomplishment with all the keenness of a commercial
speculation. He feared to ask too much of Mrs. Riversdale, because he
desired to hear nothing likely to check his enterprise, for such he made
it. He therefore, as a preliminary step, despatched a messenger to bring
Hugh home. He instructed him to stop at Malta, and to make inquiries
respecting him, as it was not improbable he might have landed there to
recruit his strength ere he went on to India.

There were some letters for Hugh which had arrived after his departure
from London, and his uncle sent them by the messenger--a confidential
clerk in the establishment--one who was personally attached to Hugh.

On the arrival of the messenger at Malta he quickly found young
Riversdale, and executed his mission with a skill and a tact which
had the most beneficial influence on the speedy restoration of Hugh to
convalescence.

But what most called the latter’s recently feeble powers into stronger
action, was an extraordinary letter which he received from a college
friend, who at the Edinburgh University, where Hugh had been educated,
was his chum.

This friend, destined for the church, was ordained before they parted,
to seek his own path in life.

The letter ran thus--

“_My dear friend Hugh,--I have most grievously, most momentously wronged
you. I am aghast as I reflect upon what may be the consequences of an
act intended only as a foolish amusement. Let me explain, and deal with
me afterwards as gently in your thoughts as you may find it in your
heart to do.

“You will remember at Christmas last we spent the holidays in the
Highlands. We passed a week snowed up at the dwelling of the Ramsays,
at Inverkeale. Other visitors were placed in the same predicament as
ourselves. Among the guests were the Grahames, whom you had met before.
One of that family, a girl of singular beauty, of wild spirits, as she
ivas proud in demeanour, attracted much of your attention, and you were
frequently rallied upon the disposition you evinced for her. Oh!
unhappy circumstance. Oh! idle folly, which reflects only in the hour of
repentance!

“Hugh Riversdale, remember that in one of the wild sallies of mirth, in
which you to ere both called upon to endure a storm of raillery, it was
laughingly proposed by a mirthful maiden present, that you should be
wedded to Miss Grahame. Giving way to the frantic merriment by which you
were both surrounded, you assented, and I was called upon to perform
the ceremony. Without reflecting upon my most unpardonable and wicked
imprudence, I undertook the office. Mark the terrible result.

“The marriage service was fully performed by me, an ordained priest.
I omitted no portion. You both made the proper responses. You placed
a wedding ring, obtained from a married lady, upon the finger of
the thoughtless girl who confronted you, and fulfilled all the
requirements of the contract--even to the drawing up of a certificate,
which both signed, and which I now hold in my possession.

“At the time it was thought as much a piece of idle play as an acted
charade. Alas! it is no such thing. Hugh Riversdale, Helen Grahame is
your wife. In the sight of God you are married, and may form no other
contract. It is true some legal forms were omitted, but that does not
absolve you from the consequences of a joke which has become dread
earnest. I leave to you the task of communicating with Miss Grahame; but
if I do not hear from you on the expiration of a week from the date of
your receipt of this note, I shall communicate with Mr. Grahame. I was
guilty of the act of joining you in jest--but in the eyes of Heaven it
was an act of marriage. Earnest reflection has impressed upon me the
imperative necessity of doing my utmost to prevent aught sundering those
whom God hath joined._”

The letter contained many further expressions of sorrow and penitence,
and offered--if Hugh was still attached to Miss Grahame, and anything
stood in the way of their re-union--to do his utmost to smoothe it away.
“I estimate marriage as a sacrament,” he said, “and hold no divorce
valid on earth but death.”

The feelings of Hugh Riversdale, on reading this communication, may be
imagined. His stay in Malta was brief after this.

On his return to England his uncle made him a gentleman--that is to say,
in one acceptation of the term; for he invested for him a very large sum
of money, and thus presented him with a most handsome income, conveying
and securing it to him and to his heirs for ever; because, having heard
from him his love-story, he was resolved he should be in a position,
when he claimed Helen Grahame, which was equal to her own.

Hugh, however, to his distraction, found, on immediate and anxious
inquiry, that Helen had quitted her home under somewhat mysterious
circumstances, and it was not known whither by any one whom he had
questioned. He set a close watch upon her father’s house, and hunted in
every direction for her without success, until the eventful night upon
which she returned home.

He had full faith in the probability of her re-appearance in her
father’s house; he had the most sanguine hopes that he should prevail
upon her to quit it, and join him, never more to part. He provided a
boat and a carriage, with fleet horses, should flight be necessary, and
we have seen how he had occasion to use them.

He bore Helen’s inanimate form to his own house, and placed her in
charge of his mother, while he went in quest of medical assistance.
Helen was aroused from her long insensibility to exhibit only raving
delirium; a violent attack of brain fever followed, and, when the
violence of this had passed, she settled down into a state of low, dull
insanity.

From the moment Hugh had taken her away to the hour that she recovered
sufficient strength to be conveyed to one of the mildest parts of
Devonshire, she had not once recognised him, nor uttered a sentence
by which he could form a clue to her object in leaving home, or the
evidently delicate state of health in which he found her. He was pained,
saddened, almost broken-hearted, on finding that at the moment the cup
of bliss was unexpectedly raised to his lips, it was likely to be dashed
from them, either by the continuance of her aberration of intellect, or
by her early death. There were faint hopes that, by the recovery of her
health, her mind might be restored, but those hopes were faint indeed;
and, under advice, he determined to try the effect of the soft air of
Madeira. So he left England with her.

It can now be understood why she did not return to Lotte to claim her
child.

In the meanwhile, explanations, secret and confidential, had taken
place between Lotte and her brother. The former, though she religiously
preserved Helen Grahame’s secret, quite gave her brother to understand
that she was able to meet him without a blush upon her cheek, raised
there by any sense of a blot upon her fair fame; and he was content to
believe this, without pressing upon her any prying questions which would
have embarrassed her to answer. She learned from him, however, that he
had seen Evangeline Grahame several times. He was, therefore, able to
inform her of Helen’s sudden appearance at her father’s house, of her
subsequent disappearance with some strange man, who, having felled
Lester Vane to the ground, when he endeavoured to intercept their
flight, had borne her away. In spite of all attempts to discover them,
they had not been heard of since.

Lotte, despite the aspect that Helen’s conduct wore, had faith in her
still. She had many opportunities of judging her nature during the time
that they had lived together; and though she could not help observing
many defects in her composition, she was able to detect that they were
more the result of a fostered pride and false education than any real
failing or flaw in a true nobility of spirit. Of course, she was
unable to fathom the cause for her absence and her silence, but she was
convinced that she should see her again, and that, too, at the earliest
moment the mother could command the opportunity to rejoin her child.

So she continued carefully to tend it, to cherish and fondle it, as
though it were her own.

What rosy cheeks she had! what a soft, beaming expression lighted up
her humid eyes! and what a pretty smile curled her small lips, as she
thought, when pressing this little creature to her bosom, during the
first period of its charge, that some day she might have as pretty a
treasure to hold up to the fond kiss of the man she loved! But since her
last interview with Mark Wilton, that thought, if it presented itself,
was hastily dismissed with a tearful sigh.

She never expected to see him more, and she consigned to the tomb of
other once-cherished hopes the visionary imaginings she had for a
time so fondly conjured up, in spite of the jeers of her common sense,
respecting him.

Yet he came again to see her, as before, unbidden; and, as before,
unexpectedly.

Hal Vivian had seen him, and had listened quietly to a violent and
incoherent string of complaints, observations, reproaches and charges
against Lotte Clinton, from his lips; and when he had exhausted his
subject, he reasoned with him quietly. He elicited from him that he had
never made even an advance to Lotte beyond the limits of courtesy, and
that she had, therefore, no right to divine or to perceive that he had
formed a strong attachment for her; and that he had neither claim
to interfere in her affairs, nor right to utter one harsh epithet
respecting her. Hal thereupon told him firmly, that holding her in his
high esteem--for he believed her character to be as noble as her nature
was pure--he would not suffer any one, not even his nearest relative or
dearest friend, to repeat, in his hearing, one word defamatory to her
good name.

Mark, despite his own suspicions, his uneasy and unhappy forebodings
and speculations, heard Vivian speak thus confidently with inward
satisfaction; and having incoherently assented to all he advanced, with
some lingering misgivings, he thought it perhaps would be as well if
he never saw her more, and under that impression he went--direct to her
abode, and again presented himself before her.

He found her at work--ever at work--but as his eye ran rapidly round the
apartment, he detected the absence of the child. He cared not where it
was, so that it was not where he held an interview with her.

Lotte was, indeed, surprised to see him enter; her heart commenced
beating violently, and perhaps her cheeks and lips turned a little pale,
but she did not betray any other emotion; on the contrary, she was
very cold and distant in her manner, giving him somewhat decidedly to
understand that his presence was an unlooked-for intrusion.

He bit his lips and felt angry--he thought she ought to have been glad
to see him again, and he drew himself stiffly up. All he had arranged
to say fled at once from his memory, and he felt himself completely in a
false position.

As he did not speak, and Lotte thought she had waited long enough for
him to commence, she inquired of him, in a voice slightly tremulous,
the object of his visit. This she did in such a tone that it vibrated
through his frame, and he replied instantly--

“I have felt, Miss Clinton, since our last interview, that I have a duty
to perform to you. I have an apology to offer, and an acknowledgment to
make. Our last meeting was very unsatisfactory”--he paused.

“To me!” ejaculated Lotte, thoughtfully.

“And to me!” he subjoined.

There was another pause, then he proceeded--

“I am impelled to say that, at our last interview, I, by implication,
challenged you with conduct which I have since reason to believe was, on
my part, a rash and hasty proceeding.”

“Rash and hasty, sir!” echoed Lotte, excitedly; “it was cruelly unjust.”

A gleam of satisfaction brightened Mark’s eyes, as she uttered those
words, and he said, earnestly--

“Oh, Miss Clinton, do but assure me, solemnly, that I aspersed you
unjustly in my words, and in my thoughts. You will, indeed, relieve a
heavy burden from my heart.”

“Sir!” said Lotte, her voice once more trembling, “I have a sense of
self-respect too acute to do anything of the kind. You know but little
of me; I therefore forgive your harsh and unwarranted impressions, but
I cannot, and will not, stoop to defend a fair name which never yet has
deserved reproach.”

There was a proud nobleness in her mien, a clear unwavering expression
of her eye, and as she concluded an unfaltering tone in her words which
instantly carried conviction to Mark’s heart.

“Miss Clinton,” he responded, with considerable earnestness, “I believe
you--from my soul I believe you. I do not know how sufficiently to
reproach myself, or how urgently enough to plead to you to pardon my
ungenerous and ignoble conduct to you when last we met. Upon my knees
I will implore you to forgive me, for I now feel keenly how wantonly I
insulted you, how inhumanly I wronged you.”

Lotte, with a beaming face, held out her hand.

“You did in truth wrong me,” she said, with a sweet smile, “but the best
of us at times form erroneous impressions. Let us no more remember what
has passed and never speak of it again.”

He took her hand and pressed it to his heart and, though she struggled a
little to withdraw it, to his lips, and imprinted a passionate kiss upon
it.

“Dear Miss Clinton,” he said, when he released her hand, “we must speak
of it again, for at least I must offer an explanation of the cause of
my behaviour, or else appear in your eyes little better than an
incomprehensible madman.”

“No--oh, no!” laughed Lotte: “indeed, I am satisfied that you were
troubled with some strange hallucination then, which has disappeared
now, and I am quite content.”

“But I am not!” he said gravely.

“No?” she rejoined, in a tone of inquiry and with some little surprise.

“No?” he answered; and then added, with ardent warmth, “it is useless to
disguise the true state of my feelings towards you. I love you, Lotte--I
love you passionately, truthfully, and devotedly. I----”

He seemed for the moment as though the intensity of his feelings would
choke him.

Lotte fell back a step, and the colour fled from her cheek. All in the
room appeared to become dim to her eyes, and Mark’s form to grow hazy
and indistinct.

He fell upon one knee before her, and caught her hand.

“Oh, Lotte!” he cried, “you can now understand how my heart was rent
asunder when I came here, hopeful to gain your heart, and found you, as
I believed, in the possession of another.”

“Pray rise, Mr. Wilton. Do not kneel to me; you distress me--indeed,
indeed you do!” she exclaimed in a low tone, the last word becoming
inaudible.

Mark rose up. He saw that she appeared faint and seemed tottering. It
is not wonderful that he should slide gently his arm around that small
waist, which never had been lovingly encircled by the arm of man before.

She was faint and full of tears, so the arm remained where it had been
placed; and, somehow, her head rested upon his breast, while large
glittering drops fell from her eyes to the ground.

Oh, the bliss of that moment! Never before in her life had she
experienced any emotion equalling that exquisite felicity.

It was natural that the same impulse which drew Lotte to Mark’s breast
should dictate to him to hold back, for an instant, that pretty head,
and to press his lips upon her forehead.

It was Lotte’s first love-kiss.

She broke from him, startled, affrighted; ran, like a terrified fawn, to
a chair, upon which she sank sobbing.

Mark followed her, and bent over her.

“Lotte,” he whispered, gently, in her ear, “do not weep, my own sweet
little girl; I cannot bear to see you in tears. I love you, as I have
confessed to you, fondly and dearly, and I would make you my own little
wife, if you will have me.”

Lotte still wept, but it was with an intensity of happiness to which
previously she had been an entire stranger.

Oh, those day dreams! those visions of Paradise, in which she had
indulged to wake out of only with a sigh.

Were they, after all, to be realized, and should she really and truly
have for her very own that handsome, manly fellow, now pleading his suit
in her ear?

The vision was one of happiness to her indeed.

But she woke up from it. Her common sense presented itself coldly and
gravely before her; it held up a mirror to her, in which she saw at a
glance their respective social positions, and she saw that what she had
just heard with such trembling delight was, after all, a dream, only to
be added to others which had been dissipated.

She rose up, and turned her face towards him, bending upon him her now
timid gaze.

“I must not listen to you, Mr. ‘Wilton,” she said, in a low, sad tone.

“No?” he cried, in a startled tone; “why not? You love another, Lotte,
is that why?” he asked, excitedly.

She shook her head gently.

“No,” she replied.

He uttered an audible sigh of relief.

“That is glad tidings!” he ejaculated, with evident satisfaction, and
added--“Before we proceed farther--before you say to me aught which
may be unsatisfactory in my ears--let us, dear, dear Lotte, come to a
decided understanding with each other. I love you, oh! so dearly. You
have confessed to me you love no other man----”

“My brother!” said Lotte, archly--serious as she was at heart, she could
not forbear the observation.

He waved his hand impatiently.

“Oh, Lotte! tell me, do you--at least, I should say, do you think you
could be brought at some future time to love me?”

“Do not ask me, pray do not,” said Lotte, seriously and earnestly, in
reply.

“Why not?” he asked, with surprise.

“Because,” she answered, “you have gone too far already for your
own peace, and--I--I wish you to see--what you have overlooked--the
difference between your position and mine.”

“What difference, Lotte?” he asked, almost sharply. “You are well born,
of a long line of ancestry--so your sister has told me--you are now
wealthy, and will be richer still; I am but a humble needlewoman,
poor, my only dowry a pure name. You see I cannot be admitted into your
family, or, if I were, it might be to meet with disdainful looks, and to
hear, perhaps, contemptuous remarks which would break my heart. It will,
therefore, be better that we should part now. I shall always think of
you kindly, and--and----”

She could get no further, and placed her handkerchief before her eyes
to conceal the emotion which the image of parting with him for ever
created.

Mark waved his hand impetuously and stamped his foot impatiently.

“Lotte,” he said, “leave me to be the judge of what constitutes the
difference in our social position. Mine, as yours, is the accident of
birth, and in taking you to my bosom, your social condition can have no
weight with me. In my hearing none will dare utter a derogatory word or
bend a haughty look at my choice. Those who attempt it may be wealthy
and purse-proud, but they would be so mean in soul I would not mix with
them, and I should return their contempt with interest. I need, Lotte,
a pure mind and a loving, faithful heart, to companion me through
life, because my future happiness will be wholly dependent upon those
qualities. I have mixed with many grades of people, and lived through
some wild scenes, and I am somewhat unsettled in my nature. I require
a gentle counsellor, one fond enough of me to make my home to me the
centre of paradise on earth, while I endeavour to make her life as free
from care and as full of unalloyed happiness as it is possible for such
an one as myself to accomplish. You, Lotte, are the pure and loving
woman upon whom my heart settles like the dove on the ark; mere worldly
distinctions I despise. You have centred in your sweet self all I desire
to possess.”

“I am very grateful to you, Mr. Wilton,” she responded.

He interrupted her.

“Mark! my name is Mark! do call me Mark!” he exclaimed earnestly.

It was strange to see how his fond eyes brought the colour in her
cheeks. She smiled, but yet it was a saddened smile.

“I am grateful,” she repeated, “for your kindness, but you have failed
to convince me that an alliance between us will be what is termed a
fitting match. Your father----”

“Lotte! Lotte!” he interposed, “only answer me this. Could you be happy
with me as my wife, irrespective of the considerations you suggest?”

She hesitated to answer, and cast her eyes upon the ground.

Once more he stole his arm about her waist, and bent his lips to her
ear.

“Answer, Lotte, dearest; do not be cold or cruel to me. Could you be
happy, if you were my wife?”

She turned her eyes full of tenderness upon his, and in the rich tones
of a fall heart said--

“I could, indeed, Mark; in truth I could.”

“And love me, Lotte?”

“And love you, Mark; fondly, tenderly, dearly--very, very dearly.”

He pressed her to his heart.

“I ask no more,” he replied, with deep emotion. “We will settle the
social distinctions after we are married.”

That night before he parted with her, he obtained from her a conditional
assent to be his. The condition imposed by her was, that his father and
his sister should give their consent to the union, and receive her as
became the position of the wife of the eldest born of the house.

Mark placed the fulfilment of that condition in the rosiest light, and
left her to depart for home on the following morning.

He arrived at his destination at a most critical moment in his father’s
life.




CHAPTER IV.--MR. CHEWKLE’S MISSION


               Avaunt and quit my sight--let the earth hide thee!

               Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;

               Thou hast no speculation in those eyes

               Which thou dost glare with.

                        Hence, horrible shadow,

               Unreal mockery, hence!

*****

               You have displaced the mirth, broke the meeting

               With most admir’d disorder.

                             Shakspere.


It is necessary to refer to the position in which Harry Vivian was
placed by the conduct of Mr. Harper’s returned son.

Ejected with brutal coarseness from the establishment in Clerkenwell,
his presence at Highbury was of course, out of the question.

His future was now in his own hands. Most men have latent energies; of
these there is a class who can only have them elicited by the pressure
of dire disaster; there is another class, in whom they spring into
action at the first call of necessity; Harry Vivian was one of the
latter. He had money by him. Mr. Harper had, early in life, taught
him the advantages of spending less than he received; and funding the
residue. This habit was grafted upon him in no miserly spirit; but that
in the most important epoch of his life he should be able to determine
the value of living within his income by the inestimable comfort enjoyed
by all who are never in debt.

One night’s anxious deliberation and his course was clear to him. He
was gifted with remarkable powers of perception. When he erred it was by
accident--it was never by the failing of his understanding. He detected
the right side of a question at the first glance, and though his
decision was not formed without a careful consideration, he rarely had
occasion to ignore his first impression.

He saw mapped out before him the order events would take, if he adopted
an unworthy, clandestine, and mean course with regard to Flora Wilton.
She could be his, and she would be, without her father’s consent, but,
dearly as he wished for such a result, it would never, he felt, be
productive to him or to her of that unalloyed happiness he so ardently
longed to enjoy with her.

He saw clearly enough the probable result of straightforward, honourable
and manly action; for no matter what the pangs they might be called upon
to endure, or the self-sacrifices each might be compelled to make in the
interval, the remainder of their life-companionship would be unclouded
by a reflection that they had, in order to achieve the hope nearest
and dearest to their heart, violated their truth, sullied their open
sincerity, or forfeited their honour.

He saw, in their respective positions, Colonel Mires and the Honorable
Lester Vane, and he examined their prospects as rival candidates for the
hand of Flora Wilton.

The former he feared on no other grounds than that a vehement and
passionate nature might hurry him to some deed of violence, out of his
unbridled desire to make Flora his own. To prevent such an unwished-for
event he resolved should be his especial duty.

Lester Vane he regarded as by far his most dangerous rival; and, from
the first moment he beheld him, when he heard, to his dismay, the warm
greetings of old Wilton, accompanied by his pressing invite to his
mansion, he determined to ascertain as far as possible his antecedents.
He saw that he was handsome, highborn, a welcomed guest, evidently much
struck by Flora’s beauty, and quite ready to form an alliance with her;
while Flora, under the strong pressure of her father’s earnest urgings,
had but small plea to refuse accepting his offer.

“If he be unworthy, and I can prove him to be so,” reflected Hal, “I
may save Flora from becoming the victim of her father’s unhesitating
sacrifice of her to a phantasm, and to the cupidity of a needy
adventurer.”

He did make close and acute inquiries, through a well-qualified agent,
and he had in his possession a report carefully framed, which, at the
proper time, he intended to produce and substantiate, in the strong
expectation that the utter discomfiture of a scoundrel would be the
inevitable consequence.

At the same time, though most ardently attached to Flora, he had no
absurdly romantic imaginings in respect to his own claims to her hand;
nor did he attempt to shut his eyes to the fact that the return of the
younger Harper, coupled with the death of his deeply lamented uncle,
almost completely robbed him of the small chance he had previously
possessed.

His first step, after the night’s deliberation of which we have just
spoken, was to write at length to Flora, to explain honestly and openly
to her the situation in which circumstances had placed him. He detailed
how his natural expectations had been abruptly shattered, and the stern
necessity which henceforward would imperiously call upon him to supply,
by the exercise of his own skill and industry, those resources with
which his late uncle had so liberally and kindly intended to furnish
him.

He made a clean breast, and disguised nothing; but his letter was not
composed in a complaining or whining spirit; and while he dwelt upon his
own ardent love for her, and alluded to the tender acknowledgments she
had made to him, it was rather with a view to suggest to her that the
change in his condition, since her admission of attachment, left her now
free to act in the future disposal of her hand and person. This, he told
her, he felt to be as a matter of justice and of right simply her due;
but it was, also, only fair to himself to state that he did not abrogate
one hope or aspiration in which she had hitherto held the first place.

He bade her be assured that he looked into the future firmly,
confidently, and with unwavering faith. He asked no promise from her
binding her to his future fortunes; he even said that he would think of
her in no angry spirit if, after what had recently occurred to himself,
she accepted the hand of one her equal in rank and wealth, however deep
might be his sense of the loss he should sustain; and finally, that
he should ever do his utmost to prove himself worthy of her favourable
opinion, even as he should strive, by unabated self-exertion, to recover
the position from which he had been so unexpectedly hurled.

The letter despatched, he pursued the course he proposed for himself to
follow. Personal application to the first manufacturing goldsmiths in
London proved to him that his devotion to his art, and the success which
always attends a well-directed perseverance, met its proper reward.
In quarters where he believed himself unknown, his skill in the
manipulation and the finish of his designs was almost a byeword. He was
gratified beyond measure to find that hours withheld from idleness, and
dedicated to his advancement, had won for him a name, as a sculptor in
the precious metal, earlier in life than could have been accomplished by
any other means.

Employment was liberally given to him, and a high scale of remuneration
awarded in payment. So far his affairs went well; but his hopes were but
hopes coloured by a fervid and sanguine imagination. He was unconscious
of the wide gulf which separated him--a young journeyman goldsmith--from
the daughter of the representative of an ancient and wealthy house.
Before his confident and imaginative eyes there did not present itself
that long vista of years, through which, if unaided, he must pass to
achieve the position which he himself felt it was fitting he should
hold, before he could, in honesty and honour, ask Flora Wilton to become
his wife.

He saw not foreshadowed in the task to which it was his intention to
devote himself the incessant application and trying toil essential to
success; he counted not upon exhaustion of energy, repeated and vexing
though common disappointments and retarding circumstances, all to be
surmounted before the goal he longed for could be reached. He saw no
impediment which steadfast faith and unwavering perseverance might not
overcome. He therefore entered upon his mission, not only to win wealth
but to reap laurels, with a bold heart and a firm purpose, keeping ever
in his eyes, as a tutelary spirit, the beautiful form of Flora Wilton,
so that he might ever be conscious of the value of the prize for which
he was contending, and never, never grow faint-hearted or weary while
prosecuting his labour of love.

Flora Wilton received his letter. She perused it many times and with no
little emotion. It came to her as a new opposition to her hopes,
raised up in a most unexpected quarter, and, with womanly instinct, she
perceived the important influence a knowledge of Hal’s sudden reducement
to poverty would have upon her father’s aversion to a union between
them; but she was woman enough, too, to feel that it strengthened her
resistance to her father’s design.

She wept as she considered that this sudden change in his circumstances
must afflict the high spirit of her lover, and she heartily wished that
at the moment she had control of a fortune that she might place it at
his disposal. There was no absolute engagement existing between them; so
far it had been a mutual love-confession, springing out of an accidental
circumstance, but Flora now construed it into one.

“Had he been wealthy and of high standing, what has passed between us
might not be considered actually binding on the free action of either,”
 she ruminated “but now misfortune has overtaken him, I cannot in honour
release him if I wished. I do not wish to do so--no, oh no, Hal--I
love you so very, very dearly, I would sooner die now than we should be
separated for ever, and both live on.”

She felt at a loss what steps to take in responding to the contents of
the letter, because she was anxious to take the one which should be
most cheering to him--that should not wound him by condolement--should
express her sympathy and regret, and at the same time assure him that
it should make no difference in the esteem--the profound esteem--she
entertained for him.

She disliked the word “esteem;” it was cold and inexpressive, yet it was
proper to think it as well as use it.

She felt herself to be in an embarrassing position. Her impulses
suggested to her to write a long and loving letter to Vivian, but she
was conscious of other considerations, which forbade her consulting only
self in the matter.

Now it happened about this time that Mark Wilton made the discovery that
no inconsiderable portion of his time was occupied in conjuring up
the face and form of Lotte Clinton, and in framing small dramas, the
incidents of which were strikingly romantic, and in which he and she
played the principal parts. For many years Mark’s path in life had been
rough hewn, and he had been compulsorily self-reliant. He could by no
means brook trammels. He, therefore, acted as impulse directed, never
believing that his father could or ought to have any further control
over him. So, after making an imaginary better acquaintance with Lotte,
passing through a number of visionary love-scenes, in which the young
lady was supposed to display a vast deal of fond confidence, and to
give faint utterance to the most pleasing open confessions, it is hardly
surprising that he should come to the conclusion that she was precisely
the person to become Mrs. Mark Wilton, and precisely the person who
should become Mrs. Mark Wilton.

He had, nevertheless, his misgivings. They would obtrude, unwelcome
enough in all conscience, and did not altogether agree with his proud,
free sense of independence.

After the scene in which Hal Vivian was denied an alliance with his
sister Flora, and forbidden to entertain in future any hope of her hand,
he could hardly help perceiving that his father would insist upon having
a voice respecting the admission of other new members to his family. He
might, in spite of Mark’s assertion of his right to do as he pleased,
in the grave and important act of choosing a wife, object to receive a
needle, woman as a daughter-in-law, even though he had been in humble
circumstances for a time himself, and, as was very likely he would,
exhibit a very strong feeling in the matter, and deliver a no less
strong opinion upon it. But though Mark felt this, he determined not to
be guided by it. He had heard it said that, in the dance of life, it was
a man’s duty to choose his own partner, and he believed in the truth of
the aphorism--at all events, he did not want any M.C. to perform that
office for him. He had funds of his own, independent of his father’s
property, and he resolved that, all things agreeing, he would marry
Lotte, in spite of his father’s opposition--always presuming that
opposition rested solely on considerations of her previous position in
life.

It may be understood that with these sentiments he sympathised with
his sister, and after some communing with her, during which, with rosy
cheeks and downcast eyes, she made frank acknowledgments, he undertook
to proceed to London, ostensibly to convey a message from her to his
early friend Harry Vivian, but really to “kill two birds with one
stone,” the other bird being Lotte Clinton; though if he attempted to
kill her at all, the only murderous weapon he intended to use would be
kindness.

He only wanted an excuse for a journey to London, and his sister Flora
afforded it to him.

Now he was very warmly attached to Hal Vivian. “They had been friends
in youth,” when the brightest side of prosperity was turned towards Hal
Vivian, but that fact had only seemed to render the latter more generous
and self-sacrificing to Mark Wilton. Their friendship had, indeed, on
both sides been characterised by the nobler qualities of human nature;
unworldly, unselfish, and romantic in its constitution, and, framed of
the materials to render it lasting, it was not of a kind to be lightly
disturbed.

Mark knew his sister to be lovely, amiable, well-born, and richly
dowered, but he knew no man whom he would sooner see her husband than
Hal Vivian. Unaffected by the claims of rank and station, he bowed to
those of sterling worth, embodied in high qualities of heart and mind.
He believed the happiness of life to be associated with them, and as it
was his intention to appeal to them to ensure him a passage to immortal
life, through elysian fields on earth, he was well disposed to interest
himself to bring about a marriage between Flora and Hal, even though his
father was at present averse to it.

He went to London from Harleydale, with what result has been shown.

Previous to his departure from the Hall, Lester Vane, with the promise
of an early return, had quitted it. Colonel Mires was also gone, and
Nathan Gomer, with a few words of condolence to Flora, couched
in mysterious language, had also disappeared from the house and
neighbourhood. So at least both Flora and Mark concluded, for though
there had been no leavetaking he was no longer visible in house or
grounds.

When Mark left, therefore, old Wilton was once more alone with his
daughter.

By tacit consent, no allusion was made to the subject of their interview
in the library. When they met she was pale, silent, and abstracted;
he moody and stern. He spoke to her in sharp, short sentences, and she
answered him mostly in monosyllables.

They scarcely met but at meals; he confining himself, with but few
exceptions, to his library, and she to visits to the glen where she
had confessed to Hal her love for him, or to the solitude of her own
chamber, that she might think only of him and those deep eyes which he
had bent upon her so earnestly and so lovingly when last they parted.

There were, however, two arrivals in the vicinity of Harleydale after
the departure of Mark, in the persons of Colonel Mires and Mr. Chewkle.
Both were bent on mischief.

The latter, during the little affair of the benefit society, in which
his personal liberty was at some hazard, had contracted the vice of hard
drinking. He was always addicted to the “glass that inebriates” when it
passes the “cheering” point, but it was an occasional indulgence only
which had a very passable interval of sobriety; but now he carried a
bottle--a bottle which he filled as soon after it was empty as possible,
and emptied as soon after it was filled with a celerity remarkable as an
accomplishment, but not, as such, commendable.

Mr. Chewkle, freely indulging his new habit on his way to Harleydale,
arrived at his destination upon the eve of an attack of _delirium
tremens_, which fit duly came off on the first evening of his arrival,
in the parlour of the village inn, in the presence of a small assemblage
of nightly frequenters, and resulted in great damage to visitors and
furniture.

Mr. Chewkle, who had been engaged for a considerable portion of the
evening in emptying glass after glass of brandy and water, suddenly
fastened a fiery eye upon a gaunt tailor, who was employed in trying how
long he could make a tumbler of gin and water last. In a little while
he began to mutter inarticulate words of suppressed rage. Presently he
leaped to his feet with an unearthly screech, and made a dash at the
tailor. The latter, intensely horrified, threw a summersault, scrambled
under the table, and so out at the door.

A tremendous uproar ensued. Everybody in an agony of fright made an
effort to get out of the doorway at the same moment, and a jam resulted.
Mr. Chewkle actively employed himself upon the body of fugitives
with his chair, until the centre was forced, and the two sides burst
outwards, leaving Chewkle in triumph to commit mad riot upon everything
breakable within the room, until he fell in horrible convulsions upon
the ground, after successive efforts to effect a breach through the wall
with his head.

It was not until he remained perfectly motionless, giving no sign of
life, save by a dreadful stertorous breathing, that it entered into the
head of the frantically amazed landlord to send for a doctor.

Upon the arrival of that skilled personage the truth was revealed, and
Mr. Chewkle was placed in bed; and as, on examining his pockets, a
good round sum was found, a nurse was provided to attend on him. The
landlord, upon considerations of safety as he suggested, took possession
of the money, leaving the empty purse in Chewkle’s pocket, and did not
forget immediately afterwards to take an inventory of the damage done by
his infuriated guest.

Mr. Chewkle, during his illness, raved about Mr. Grahame and Mr. Wilton;
frequently acting as though he had the throat of the latter gentleman
compressed between his hands and was squeezing life out. He called on
Mr. Grahame to pay him well for “the job,” and threatened, unless he
received “more bunce,” that he would provide him with a hempen collar at
Newgate.

All these ravings were treated as such, and taken no heed of by those
who heard them, though they were remembered afterwards.

Mr. Chewkle, after a few days, became conscious of his position; within
a week he had a rough notion of the havoc he had committed, from the
landlord, who dropped in to see how he was getting on.

The devil’s money never does anyone any good.

Mr. Chewkle reflected upon the bill he should have to pay for breakage,
for attendance, and lodging at the inn, for the doctor’s professional
services, and for “extras,” the extent of which he could not foresee.

As a principle he determined not to pay a farthing for one solitary
item.

How to get out of it?

It seemed strange to him that he had not been asked for any money; that
was a fact which, though singular, was advantageous and cheering, and he
determined if a proposition to pay, as he went on, should be made by the
landlord, that he would show him his gold and silver, but make an excuse
for not parting with a shilling until he was convalescent.

In less than a fortnight he felt himself to be so. The landlord seemed
still good-humoured and confiding--most confiding--and Chewkle, by his
boasts and promises, endeavoured to keep him so.

One night, Mr. Chewkle, finding the household buried in sleep, rose
silently and dressed himself. He felt hastily in his pocket to see
whether his purse was there, and chuckled as he felt it, for he was at
the moment unconscious that there was nothing in it.

By the aid of the small night-lamp which burned in his room, he looked
about for portable articles of value, but found none worth the taking.
Leaving the light burning he then stole to the window, which was a
lattice, opened it, and carefully got without, resting his toes on the
stout stems of an old ivy which covered the walls. He closed the window
after him, and descended with very little noise to the ground.

It was light enough to see Harleydale Woods in the distance, and for
them he made swiftly, trusting to fortune for chances of encountering
Wilton alone.

He felt uneasy at the delay occasioned by his illness, for he knew that
Wilton’s death, under all the circumstances which had come to his ears,
was of hourly importance to Grahame. He knew not, indeed, but that the
lapse of time might have rendered his task useless, still he resolved to
go on, and if he encountered the old man alone to address him, to elicit
from him Grahame’s actual position, and then act as circumstances might
dictate. He gained Harleydale Woods without being seen, chuckling at his
successful escape, unconscious, in the midst of the hilarity with which
he reflected on having done the landlord, that he had skilfully done
himself.

Colonel Mires was at the same moment of time hiding in the woods,
located at no great distance from Chewkle. His object, though baneful,
was of a very different character to that of Grahame’s agent. His
passion for Flora had brought him to spend the long nights watching at
her window, and the days in vain search of her in hope of meeting her
alone.

At first he had a scarcely defined purpose in this. He had a vague
notion of declaring his passion to her, of imploring her upon his
knees, even with tears, to grant to him her coveted hand. He conjured
up promises he would make to her--an offer to be her devoted slave,
to scour the earth to gratify her lightest wish, to minister to her
pleasures, her caprices, her comforts, and secure to her constant
happiness at any self-sacrifice. To proffer, indeed, impossibilities
with unscrupulous recklessness, unheeding whether one of these inflated
propositions would or could be realized, so that he induced her to
become his--only his.

These intangible impressions conducted him to the vicinity of Flora’s
dwelling; but in the secrecy arid solitude to which he for a time
devoted himself he had the opportunity of reflection, and to separate
the impossible from the probable.

His situation he found to be just this. He was inflamed with a passion
for a girl who loved another, and whose father, if opposed to his
daughter’s giving her hand to the man she loved, would certainly be
averse to her bestowing it upon him. Especially as he had himself
selected for her husband one of station, wealth, youth, and handsome
exterior. It was simply assuring him that he had no chance of success
whatever by fair means. Had he been in the western provinces of India,
where he was for many years stationed, he would soon have settled
the matter; as it was, he was in England, and abductions are not easy
matters in this country.

Yet abduction seemed to be the only course open to him.

He bent his energies to the task of framing a plan, and he believed at
last that he had succeeded in forming a scheme which was not susceptible
of failure.

While Mr. Chewkle was raving in bed, he quitted Harleydale, to make and
perfect arrangements, and having completed them, he returned to the wood
to effect, if possible, a secret interview with Flora and carry out his
project.

He had been two days on the watch, when Chewkle arrived in the wood
from the inn. In the course of that morning they came, during a stealthy
stroll, suddenly face to face.

Instantly their eyes met each seemed to feel the other was there for an
improper purpose.

“Good mornin’, sir,” exclaimed Chewkle, with a playful nod.

The Colonel eyed him sternly.

“What are you here for?” he asked in a sharp tone.

Chewkle bent a keen glance upon him.

“I have as much right here as him--he’s after no good,” thought he. A
rogue detects a rogue pretty-much as a detective does a thief, by the
eye; and Chewkle after his inspection felt a little more at ease.

Mires repeated his question.

“That’s tellings,” answered Chewkle, putting his tongue in his cheek;
“what are you here about, eh?” he inquired, somewhat impudently.

“Insolent scoundrel, how dare you put such a question to me?” exclaimed
the Colonel, angrily.

“Oh!” returned Chewkle quickly, “I only returned the compliment. Look
here, mister, I am old on the town and have forgotten more than a great
many people will ever know, but I know this, that you are up to some
dodge here”----

“Fellow!”

“Ah, yes! that’s very good acting, but it ain’t natural enough to
satisfy me that I am wrong. Now I don’t mind dropping to you that I _am_
down here on a spec, and, if it comes off right, it will be the making
of me. So you see we had better try and help each other, than kick up a
row, and bring about our ears a swarm of people we don’t want to see.”

There was something in what Chewkle said, as well as in his manner,
which attracted the attention of Colonel Mires. He saw before him a
fitting instrument for the commission of any act of rascality, and he
came promptly to the conclusion that it would be better to enlist his
services than to make an enemy of him. He, therefore, determined to
fence with his questions for a short time before he came to an open
understanding with him; and directly he proceeded to do this, Chewkle
felt satisfied and at his ease. He parried the Colonel’s questions with
the greatest ease, and artfully contrived to extract an admission from
him which caused him to say----

“So you’ve come after young Miss Wilton, have you? You found another
before you, eh? and you want to get hold of her on the sly, don’t you?”

The Colonel eyed him curiously, somewhat staggered at the observation,
and said, quickly--

“You know the fellow Vivian, I suppose?”

“Vivian,” thought Chewkle, “Vivian--Wilton, Wilton--Vivian.” He rubbed
his chin; presently he said--

“What, you mean Harper the goldsmith’s nevy?”

“The same.”

“I do--what then?”

“I presume you have come down on his business?”

“Well, you ain’t far out. He wants to get hold of Miss Wilton, too, you
know.”

This was the merest surmise on the part of Chewkle. He knew that Harry
Vivian was acquainted with the Wiltons; it was not difficult to guess
pretty near the truth.

“I am aware of his insolent pretensions, as I am of the impossibility of
their realization. I presume, as a man of the world, that service suits
you best which pays you best.”

“A conjuring freelogonist couldn’t have told you my weakness better if
he had his fingers on my bumps. That _is_ my system.”

“Abandon the service you have undertaken, and serve me. Tell me what you
receive, and I will double it.”

“You?”

“I will.”

“I am your humble servant.”

Chewkle rubbed his hands with ecstacy. He became a confirmed follower in
the belief that “it is better to be born fortunate than rich.”

“Luck’s all,” he ejaculated, in a soliloquy, “and I’ve got it, I have.”

He at once proceeded to tell Colonel Mires a host of lies respecting his
mission to Flora. Improbable, and exaggerated as they were, the Colonel,
in his raging jealousy and passion, believed them, and readily responded
to Chewkle’s request for an earnest of payment before he took a step in
his service.

As soon as gold was once more in his purse, the unscrupulous agent
declared himself ready to perform anything required of him, and the
Colonel drew him by a circuitous path towards the narrow glen Flora was
accustomed to visit. He pointed it out to him, and directed him how he
might gain access to it unseen.

He had hardly done so when he clutched Chewkle by the arm, and pointed
to the pathway leading to it--

“Look!” he exclaimed. “By Heaven, Miss Wilton is proceeding there.
Hasten by the route I have described to you, and when she is seated,
steal suddenly upon her so as to startle her, then tell her you are from
Mr. Vivian’s aunt, and give her this letter. I know what the result will
be--she will faint. I will be on the spot, and the rest is provided for.
Quick! quick! follow that path, away with you!”

Chewkle, a little bewildered, took the letter and stole cautiously
to the spot pointed out to him, while Colonel Mires, with an agitated
manner, darted off in a different direction.




CHAPTER V.--THE ABDUCTION.


                        Why, man, she is mine own;

                   And I as rich in having such a jewel,

                   As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,

                   The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.

                             Shakspere.


Lester Vane, while he indulged his appetite for profligate pleasures or
pursued with pertinacity a revengeful purpose, never lost sight of his
personal interest, especially where that interest centred itself upon an
object awakening his selfish desire.

He had a double motive in desiring to obtain the hand of Flora Wilton.
He needed the income she would bring with her, and he coveted her
beautiful self. He loved her, so far as he could love anything feminine
apart from a lower emotion, intensely, and was, in fact, sufficiently
fascinated by her charms to have married her had she been penniless,
even if he had neglected and ill-treated her afterwards.

As she was circumstanced she was a valuable prize, for she had beauty
and riches too. The combination was something rare; no one comprehended
or appreciated that fact better than himself. How he would be envied
when she was his--fortune and all. He never separated that consideration
from the pictures his imagination sketched of the future. He dwelt upon
the vision which saw him folding the fair creature to his heart, and
placing the fortune she brought to his own credit at his own banker’s.

What he had learned and knew respecting Hal Vivian, he treated
lightly--contemptuously; nevertheless, the figure of this young
“pin-maker” would obtrude itself. Still he brushed the shadowy object
from his sight with an impatient sneer, for he had faith in his own
attractions; he thought it impossible that a gentle creature so simple,
and certainly so impressionable, as Flora could resist him.

As yet he had not had a chance to play off upon her his attractions to
win her. That odious Indian bore, as he deemed Mires, with his bright,
tiger-like eyes, had always during his sojourn at Harleydale intruded
himself just as he had brought up his artillery of glances, soft words,
and tender _empressement_; and again, at the moment he had devised an
excellent plan for flinging his Indian rival, the unexpected presence of
Vivian, and the events it precipitated, drove him from the scene.

“Out of sight out of mind” was a favourite axiom with him. It was one he
invariably acted upon in affairs of the heart, unless, as in the present
instance, his personal interest was identified with his passion for the
lady.

He, being thus banished from the object of his passionate and pecuniary
hopes, reflected that the axiom he adopted as a principle might have a
similar influence upon one whom he would rather have unconscious of the
existence of the proverb, much less capable of its application.

To render such a contingency impossible, he addressed a letter to Mr.
Wilton, penned with a full conviction that it would be laid before and
perused by Flora.

It was well done, and admirably calculated to effect its object, if--ah,
those “ifs!”--Flora’s love for Harry Vivian had been of a different
complexion. He commenced by regretting that any event should have
occasioned his premature departure from Harleydale; yet more did he
regret the circumstances which had happened, because they were of a
character to disturb the domestic peace of Mr. Wilton, and to inflict
pain upon the gentle heart of his most charming daughter. He begged
to be allowed to express the effect which those events had had upon
himself. Here he grew elaborate and diffuse. He declared that he fully
comprehended the position in which Flora stood with respect to Vivian.
He was aware, he said, that the heart was not at the disposal, nor under
the control of the will Love scorned common influences or restraint;
he was himself an example of the fact. Until now he had not really
understood the difference between loving and liking; until now he was
not conscious how consummately predilection and admiration simulated
love. In man’s nature this was an incontestable truth--he believed that
it had its place in woman’s. He had witnessed and keenly appreciated the
amiable sweetness of Miss Wilton’s disposition; he had discerned with
pleasure her ready and generous gratefulness for any service tendered to
her or actually rendered; he could, therefore, perfectly understand the
influence a handsome youth would have upon her grateful sense of benefit
received, in having saved her from death in a moment of frightful peril.
This generous gratitude took the form of emotion very like love. Yet it
was not love--oh, no! love was higher and holier in all its attributes.
The emotion he had described was not ineradicable; nay, when its real
nature was fairly and rigorously examined, its actual character would be
detected. It was no desire of his that Miss Wilton should abate one jot
of her gratefulness to Mr. Vivian for the daring act of gallantry by
which he had rescued her from a most horrible death: nay, it would be
his duty, as well as his pleasure, to respect and to share it even. He
had no wish that Miss Wilton should be denied the society of Mr. Vivian
whenever her father approved his visits. In short, he had only one
desire, and that was to render her happiness, now and in the future,
perfect and entire; and he had no fear of not accomplishing this,
although Miss Wilton were not united with the present object of her
choice.

More than this, indeed, he said, but enough has been given to show the
purpose with which his communication was framed.

Mr. Wilton received the epistle upon the morning of the _rencontre_
between Colonel Mires and Mr. Chewkle. He read it with feverish pleasure
again and again. Then he rang his bell, and bade the servant who
attended to request Miss Wilton to come to him immediately in his
library.

Flora, with a beating heart, obeyed the summons. Interviews with her
father in his library of late had not been pleasurable to her. He
evidently regarded her as a rebel in captivity, himself being the stern
judge before whom she was occasionally brought, in order that she might,
with frowns, be lectured out of her contumacy. Unfortunately for the
purpose he entertained, Flora’s nature was one not to be frowned either
into or out of anything upon which she had decided a certain line of
conduct was the proper path to pursue, and when he grew angry and wroth,
and styled her stubborn, she felt an inward conviction that she was not
obstinate, but firm in acting rightly.

On appearing before her father, he commanded rather than requested her
to be seated. She obeyed; and then taking up Lester Vane’s letter, he
handed it to her.

“Read that,” he said; and added, authoritatively, “attentively.”

She took the letter apprehensively, but felt relieved when she found the
handwriting was unknown to her.

A few glances made her mistress of the name of the writer, and then it
flashed across her mind that her father’s eyes would be bent keenly upon
her face, and he would read every expression that her emotions raised
during the perusal might place there. She set her teeth and lips closely
together, contracted her brow and read slowly on to the end without
losing a word or betraying any other sign than a slight curl of the
upper lip. When she had finished its perusal, she returned it to her
father without a word.

He waited for a minute expecting her to speak, but she continued silent.
A flush mounted to his forehead, and his brow loured.

“What answer have you to make, Miss Wilton?” he asked, rather
impetuously.

“I would rather be excused answering your question, sir,” she returned,
in a low tone.

“No doubt you would,” he responded, promptly; “but I require you to
answer me.”

“The letter is not addressed to me,” she said, coldly.

“No!” he rejoined, sharply; “but it makes most important references to
you; it aptly describes the situation in which we are all placed, and
appears to me to be conceived in the very noblest spirit.”

Flora’s lip curled most expressively.

“I say, in the very noblest spirit!” almost roared her father.

“And yet so transparent as to disclose the motives which originated and
have governed its composition,” she observed, calmly.

“Motives--what motives?” repeated old Wilton, excitedly; “what other
motive could Mr. Vane have than that of opening your--I had almost said
wilfully---blind eyes to your perverse error--to show you how mistaken
you are in the insane impression you are fostering and cherishing in
obstinate opposition to the wish nearest and dearest to my heart.”

“I do not acknowledge the correctness of Mr. Vane’s conclusions, in
respect to the influences by which my conduct is controlled,” returned
Flora, firmly. “I consider myself to be the best judge of the effect Mr.
Vivian’s gallantry has produced upon my gratefulness.”

Mr. Wilton’s breath seemed taken away. He was something more than
astonished, he was exasperated. He struck the library-table with his
fist.

“You shall not decline Mr. Vane’s hand,” he cried, vehemently, “upon
that subject I have made up my mind.”

“And I,” ejaculated Flora, decisively.

He rose up as these words fell from her lips. She rose up, too, and
stood calmly and unshrinkingly before him. He looked into her clear,
unwavering eyes, which bore his steadfast gaze without the smallest
perceptible tremor in the lid. He saw written there in plain emphatic
language the determination which would submit to death rather than yield
to coercion. He saw there the unquailing spirit, glowing as in a garment
of fire, though that eye still was soft and seemed so gentle in its blue
loveliness.

He gasped twice or thrice--he did not sigh.

“Are you my daughter?” at length he uttered, hoarsely.

“I was,” she replied.

“Was!” he echoed, in a bewildered tone.

“When we were poor and struggling,” she continued, “and you were
labouring--toiling for the bread we ate, you were my father, for then
you were tender, kind, and thoughtful, in all that related to my welfare
and to my happiness; then I was your daughter, your child, your own--own
Flo’.”

She wiped the welling tears from her eyes.

“You smiled upon me benignly,” she continued, “you spoke to me in
accents of soft lovingness, and you made my life, though poverty
intermixed with our daily wants and wishes, one of quiet happiness, for
you loved me then, and I--I--adored you.”

She paused for a moment. He listened with downcast eyes. She went on--

“Amid our trials, our toils, our sorrows, under our one great
affliction--when--when my--my sainted mother----”

A sob burst from her quivering lips. The old man’s head bowed yet lower.
Flora, with an effort, controlled her tears and went on.

“When she was taken from us, no sacrifice you could have asked of me I
would have ever paused at to make you happy. I would have compressed
my heart till it had been pulseless, rather than have interposed my
happiness between you and your perfect content. I should have laid down
my life with a cry of joy to have seen you without care. This, this,
I would have done at a time when--if they would ever--selfish
considerations would most have weighed with me, for any change out of
our miserable destitution must have been productive of greater comfort
at least. The scene, sir, has been changed; the rags of wretchedness
have been flung aside, the poor abode has sunk in charred ruins. You
are master of lordly domains, and revel in wealth, and--the relation
previously subsisting between us has changed also. Almost immediately
after our arrival here we ceased to be to each other as father and
daughter.”

“Flora!”

“Or Miss Wilton--that name, sir, is more fitting from your lips now.”

“Do I dream?” cried Wilton, pressing the palms of his hands to his
temples.

“No, sir!” she continued, in the same firm tone as before. “You are
broad awake, the morning sun is now, at least, shining upon your eyes.
You have seen me always passive and placid, yielding, and perhaps even,
as the writer of yon well-dissembled epistle has flattered me by saying,
displaying an amiable sweetness of disposition. In poverty, sir, you
were gentle, yielding--oh, most amiable; but there you had an inner
nature which has developed itself here at Harley-dale. I, too, sir, have
an inner nature; it is developing itself now.”

“It is, indeed,” almost groaned Wilton, and then added, sternly, “to
what end?”

“To this, sir,” replied Flora, as decisively as before.

“In this house, on these estates, you are the lordly patrician, lofty
to me as to the beater of your game. I am received by you, addressed by
you, retire from your presence as from that of the supreme head of the
household alone.”

“Am I not?” he demanded.

“You are, sir; as such, I pay you homage,” she responded, “but you are
my father no less, and in that capacity you have thought it proper to
treat me as a stranger--would dispose of me as a lord of old would give
in marriage the daughter of one of his serfs to a neighbour’s vassal.”

“Girl--girl, you are insane!” he cried, stamping his foot.

“If I were, sir, I should not see the change in you---the bitter--bitter
alteration. Oh, I have loved you so dearly, so truly, so fondly, when
there were no trappings and riches to step in between our loving hearts.
How I loathe this state which freezes our affections into ceremonious
greetings; how I fling back Miss Wilton to your lips, sir, and how
gladly would I take up poverty again, to be once more your own darling
Flo’!”

She sank sobbing into a chair.

The old man felt a tugging at his heart-strings. He turned his eyes
up to encounter those of his wife’s, looking down upon him from her
portrait with a soft, sad expression, as though to remind him of her
dying injunctions to cherish and make happy the little helpless innocent
creatures she left behind her.

He tottered rather than walked to the side of his daughter. He placed
his hand upon her shoulder.

“My sweet child, my own Flo’, there should be no division between us,”
 he said, in a voice quivering with emotion.

Flora flung herself upon his breast with a cry of joy, as the old tone
of voice greeted her ears, and he bent over her, kissing her white
forehead with his trembling lips.

Outwardly there was a reunion, and inwardly too, at least, so far as
their true attachment for each other, uninfluenced by the particular
cause of their recent estrangement, existed.

Flora had astonished her father; no wonder--she had surprised herself.
The alteration in his manner since his return to Harleydale had been so
remarkable that, while it pained her, it was incomprehensible to her.
There was something so new in his _hauteur_ and so bewildering in his
grand patronising air, that she, whose memory of former grandeur was
but a fleeting dream, and of their recent humble condition exceedingly
vivid, felt distressed at the splendour by which she was surrounded so
abruptly, and by homage which she was called upon to render as well
as to receive. She wished to have been permitted to glide into her new
position, and not at one bound spring from a child of poverty into the
position of a duchess. She forgot that penury had been, as it were, her
normal condition, that the change in her father was a resumption of his
dignity, not a new manner founded upon a sudden accession of wealth. She
had been uncomfortable in her isolation at Harleydale, for isolated she
was. She had brooded over the changes which had occurred and those
which threatened her. She had held self-communings and imaginary
conversations, with what result we have seen.

Her inner nature had developed itself in one great explosion; it gave to
both father and daughter a lesson.

Wilton, as he embraced his daughter, became conscious that her
affectionate nature required something more tender in the mode of
addressing her, and in the manner of acting towards her, than he had
lately adopted. He perceived that gentle fondness would gain always the
strongest influence over her, and he resolved on the instant to
dispense with his loftiness in his interviews with her, and he hoped, in
recovering the earnest affection she had always previously evinced, to
steal from her a consent to wed the man he had selected for her husband.

She, too, at the moment had a thought that, with returning fondness,
her father might be led to see Hal Vivian with, her eyes, and his strong
opposition to their union might be made to pass away.

Neither, however, alluded to the subject; both knew it was not the time,
yet each felt the impression strengthened that the resumption of
their fond relations would tend to a result they both wished to see
consummated, though so different in effect.

Wilton made no further remark upon Lester Vane’s epistle, nor did he
hint that he still entertained a very high opinion of the spirit in
which it was conceived, or that it was his intention to reply to it,
and beg the writer to come down to Harleydale quietly, when, having
the field to himself, he might endeavour, by gentle words and soft
persuasions, to induce Flora to transfer her affection from young Vivian
to him.

He addressed a few kind words to the yet tearful girl--endeavoured to
chase away an impression that his restoration to his proper position
lessened his natural affection for her--and dismissed her with a
parental kiss, bidding her come to him again with brighter eyes and her
own sweet smile, to cheer up the hours in which they were accustomed to
meet, and which their late estrangement had made irksome and gloomy to
both.

She quitted the library, her overcharged heart much relieved. She
hastened to her chamber, but not to remain there. She quickly attired
herself, for she wished to sit and think over the events of the morning,
and the prospects they seemed to open up for her, at the spot where
Hal had first poured the passionate words of love in her willing ears.
There, and there only, could she find it in her heart to sit and think
of him, and to fashion hopes of rosy aspect, and sigh forth tender
aspirations for a union that was to be to her conception so happy--so
very happy.

Flora was on her way to the little glen for this purpose when the
baleful eye of Colonel Mires fell upon her. As she disappeared in the
leafy opening, Mr. Chewkle followed her, according to the directions of
his new employer, while the Colonel hurried away to set in action the
train of arrangements he had with much cunning artifice devised, and now
sought to bring to a successful issue.

Mr. Chewkle, following his instructions to the letter, turned into a
shrubby alley, which Colonel Mires had omitted to tell him to pass, and
instead, therefore, of directing his steps to the spot where Flora was
sitting, he unconsciously hurried towards the village inn from which he
had clandestinely bolted.

Colonel Mires, as he had arranged, appeared at the proper moment within
the glen, but to his vexed surprise he saw Flora, with upturned face,
sitting in a thoughtful attitude, and no Chewkle there.

He instantly surmised that a mistake had occurred, and he would have
retired, but Flora heard his approaching step, and, on seeing him, she
rose up suddenly, with the evident intention of hastily quitting the
little fairy-like solitude.

Colonel Mires impulsively placed himself before her and intercepted her.
He was conscious the moment had arrived for him to effect his plan, and
make her compulsorily his bride or resign her for ever to the arms of
another.

His heart, at the bare thought of the alternative, seemed to be plunged
into the centre of a flaming furnace, and the sight of her exquisitely
beautiful but certainly very much astonished features roused his worst
passions, so as entirely to shut out the suggestions of caution, reason
or justice.

“Pardon me, Miss Wilton,” he said, in a voice which actually trembled
with excitement, “for appearing thus abruptly before you, as well as for
desiring to detain you for a few minutes while I make a communication to
you of an important character--at least to my future happiness.”

“Your pardon in return, Colonel Mires,” she interposed, frigidly; “any
communication you may desire to make to me must be made at the Hall, and
in presence of my father!”

“Ordinarily, Miss Wilton, such would be the proper mode, I confess; but
there are occasions which override etiquette, and this is one of them.”

As Colonel Mires had always treated her with a profound and tender
respect, no fear of him entered her mind. She disliked him because
he had acted so rudely and contemptuously to Hal, and because his
attentions to herself had become sufficiently marked to be offensive to
her. She would not, therefore, have hesitated to remain if it had been a
mere question of reliance upon his gentlemanly conduct; but the instinct
of danger so quickly felt by women when there is real danger at hand
raised in her a desire to be away from that lonely place, and, without
replying to his observation, she moved on to depart. Once more he stayed
her by intercepting her progress.

“Excuse me, Miss Wilton,” he said, “you must hear me.”

Her soft eye glittered, an angry expression appeared upon her fair
face, so lovely, even in its ruffled aspect, as to make the heart of the
Colonel ache with an intensity of passion.

“Colonel Mires,” she said, sternly, “you forget alike what is due to my
position and your own.”

“Possibly, Miss Wilton!” he answered, rapidly. “I forget that--all,
everything in the world, in your beautiful presence. You must have seen
long since, Miss Wilton, how completely you have enslaved my heart, how
entirely my whole being is absorbed by a devouring passion for you.
In my words--in my looks---in my manner, you must have observed how
ardently I love you--you must perceive and comprehend that I cannot
live without you. Oh, Miss Wilton, I am aware your imagination has been
ensnared by a generous impulse in favour of another; but believe that he
can never--would never perform one tithe of the devotions I will offer
up at your shrine. He would not--no other being would so constantly and
unceasingly worship you--so persistently consult your happiness and
do so much to secure it as I; for, oh, no other can love you with the
impetuous soul-worship which burns in my breast for you.”

“This language, in this place, is an insult to me, Colonel Mires. I
demand to be allowed to depart,” cried Flora, as soon as she could
recover from the bewilderment his torrent of passionate words occasioned
her.

“I only ask Miss Wilton for one small word--tell me to hope--one kind
look, and the displacement of that offended expression upon your face by
a forgiving smile, for I do nought in offence but all in love.”

“I insist on not being detained, sir,” she cried, indignantly; “you must
answer to my father, Colonel Mires, for this unmanly outrage.”

She sprang past him, and was about to rush from the spot, when Chewkle
made his appearance, out of breath. He had been running; in his turn he
intercepted her--“Beg pardon,” he said, almost inarticulately; “you are
Miss Wilton, I b’lieve?”

“I am,” said Flora, readily, for even in this man she believed she
should find a protector from the importunities of the now-detested
Colonel Mires.

“That’s all right,” responded Mr. Chewkle, still panting. “I’ve
been ’untin’ all over the grounds arter you, Miss, for I’ve a very
pertikler dockyment to give into your ’ands alone.”

“A document into my hands--what do you mean, my good man?” she
responded, with surprise.

“Yes, Miss, a letter,” he returned, with a kind of knowing nod.

Colonel Mires retired a few paces, as if animated by a well-bred desire
not to play the part of an eavesdropper.

“Why did you not leave this communication at the Hall?” said Flora, with
some misgiving. “Why take so much trouble to find me?”

“Because, as I told you, Miss, I was charged to give it into your
’ands only. You knows Mrs. Harper of Highbury, don’t you, Miss? aunt
to poor young Mr. Vivian, poor fellow, poor fellow!”

Flora’s face blanched. His last sentence sounded like the sudden boom of
a death-knell in her ear. She tried to speak but found it impossible to
articulate a word.

Mr. Chewkle placed in her cold hand the letter he had received from
Colonel Mires.

“That letter is from her,” he said; “she told me to give it to nobody
but you, and I was to bring back your answer. Poor creature, she is
distressed, she is!”

Flora had scarcely strength to tear open the letter. A terrible vision
of something dreadful having happened, with which Hal was intimately
connected, rose up before her, and it was not dissipated by finding the
paper on which the communication was written was thickly bordered with
black.

Her trembling eyes settled on the characters traced by a female hand.
She read a few lines, uttered an agonized, suffocating cry, dropped
the letter, staggered back a few steps, and fell into the ready arms of
Colonel Mires lifeless.

“Fainted, by goles!” cried Mr. Chewkle.

“Quick, man, quick, assist me to bear her away from here,” cried the
Colonel, in a state of excessive agitation--“quick, not an instant is to
be lost.”

Mr. Chewkle complied, and together they bore her by a narrow avenue into
a copse, and thence into a little country-lane, over which a canopy of
trees arched from either side of the hedges that bordered it.

Near to a gap which had been purposely made in the hedge stood a close
carriage, upon which was seated Colonel Mires’ Indian servant, and
within it the man’s wife, an ayah, who had come over from India with a
family at the same time Colonel Mires had returned to England.

Into this carriage Flora was placed, and Colonel Mires followed. There
was a very brief conference between him and Mr. Chewkle--the rapid
passing of a sum of money, and then, at a signal from Colonel Mires, who
drew up the overlapping wooden blind, the carriage was driven swiftly
away--a route through byways having been previously arranged; and Mr.
Chewkle was left alone.

The commission agent looked at the money he had received with a smile,
and then put it carefully away.

“Honesty’s a poor game after all,” he muttered, with a self-satisfied,
half-triumphant air. “This sort of thing is the paying game,” he added,
with a chuckle.

He forgot that the game had a heavy penalty attached to it, one indeed
that he might be called upon to pay.

He sneaked back into the copse, and stealthily made his way to
Harleydale Woods, remarking to himself--

“Now to make short work of old Wilton. The daughter is disposed of, the
old man must foller, and I must touch some more of Grahame’s money.
Business is business, and a ’ighly renoomerative business is
pleasure--tip-top pleasure.”

At the moment that he, like a prowling wolf, was stealing beneath brake
and covert, on an errand of murder, Mr. Wilton was preparing to take a
walk alone to the very place where Chewkle was hiding, as though he knew
the ruffian was secreting himself there, and it was his duty to place
himself in his power.




CHAPTER VI.--MR. CHEWKLE EXECUTES HIS MISSION.


                        Rosalind lacks, then, the love

               That teaches thee that thou and I am one:

               Shall we he sunder’d? Shall we part, sweet girl?

               No; let my father seek another heir.

               Therefore devise with me how we may fly,

               Whither to go, and what to bear with us:

               For by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,

               Say what thou canst, I’ll go along with thee.

                             --Shakspere.


Mark Wilton, during his last interviews with Lotte Clinton, and in the
intervals that occurred between them, passed through a severe trial of
his love. All the unfavourable points in the circumstances revolving
round Lotte served, instead of cooling the ardent flame kindled in
his breast, to make it burn more fiercely. They were so many small
impediments which, apparently calculated to stop the progress of his
passion, actually extended its area, and added to its depth.

Mark determined after the last interview with her to marry her.

He made his way down to Harleydale, absorbed in the purpose of bringing
his father round to his way of thinking. He expected a very angry
opposition, and he left London in a state of preparation for it. He
commenced with a fierce altercation with a cab-driver, quarrelled
with the money-taker at the railway station, and with fiery eyes and
spluttering words informed the guard of the train that he would report
him, because that functionary refused to admit him into a carriage
already filled.

Fortunately the compartment into which he did defiantly thrust himself
had no other passenger, and he was solus all the way to the station
nearest to Harley-dale. He consequently, quite undisturbed, vehemently
argued the case, every inch of the way, with an imaginary obstinate,
obdurate parent, who was most absurdly hostile to his views.

By the time he reached Harleydale he had exhausted the discussion,
triumphantly defeated the arguments of the phantom father, extorted from
him a consent to the union between himself and Lotte, and had got so far
as to hear the village bells ringing a joyous peal.

He was awakened to the reality of the case by ascending to the library
at the Hall, and meeting his father just as he was issuing from it to
place himself unconsciously within the reach and power of Mr. Chewkle.

Mark Wilton’s impetuous nature would brook no delay in bringing the
subject nearest to his heart to an issue. The life he had passed on the
islands of the South Pacific and in other wild regions, amid unlettered,
impulsive men, had communicated to his character much of that hasty
decision and impatience of delay peculiar to those who mix in the
exciting scenes which abound in the warm climes of the tropics. He could
not have endured to pass the day patiently away; dined with an appetite;
discoursed on different topics with his father, and ultimately parted
with him for the night with a formal notice that in the morning he
wished to confer with and consult him upon an important subject
connected with his settlement in life.

No. He had quite made up his mind to marry Lotte Clinton, whether his
father consented or not; and, therefore, the sooner he knew what side
his father ranged himself on--and adhered to--the better.

Mr. Wilton, having just parted with Flora, was most complacent. He, too,
had been indulging in imaginary conversations, and a vision, wherein his
daughter, overpowered by his affectionate conduct and his honeyed words,
gave, at his suggestion, with graceful sweetness, her hand and heart to
the Honorable Lester Vane. As he was mentally bestowing his benediction
upon the kneeling pair, his eyes fell upon his son, Mark.

With a face radiant with smiles, and with a lofty air which suited the
rather windy eloquence in which he indulged, he exclaimed--

“Ah! my dear boy, back from the great metropolis so soon; I am glad
to see you, none the less because you are wearied of its turmoil,
its driving, rushing, selfish careering, its hollowness and its
heartlessness.”

“Nothing of the sort, sir,” said Mark, bluntly and a little eagerly, “I
had an object in coming back; certainly, not one of those sentiments you
have suggested induced me to leave London, of which, if I must speak the
truth, I am infinitely more fond than of the country. But I see you are
going out--anywhere particular?”

“No, Mark,” returned Wilton, with a mild, patronising manner, “merely
for a stroll and the air. I have not stirred abroad for some days, and
pedestrian exercise is necessary for health.”

“Very true, sir; I will accompany you if you will allow me; we can talk
in the broad, free, fresh air as well as beneath the carved roof of
your library!” said Mark, with some little force in his tone, as though
urging a point.

“With all my heart,” said Mr. Wilton.

So together they left Harley dale Hall, and pursued their way to the
woods, where Mr. Chewkle lay hidden.

As they sauntered slowly across the park, the old man replied to some
questions respecting Flora which Mark put to him in so cheery a strain
that the latter augured favourably of his cause. Because he perceived
that a reconciliation had ensued between his sister and his father, and
as he had the strongest faith in Flora’s adhesion to the choice of her
heart, he concluded his father had made the necessary concession, and
that his own path to Lotte’s hand was half-freed from the impediments he
had conjectured he would place in it.

He at once cast about for an opening to broach the delicate subject; but
his father saved him the trouble by plumply introducing it.

Mr. Wilton felt slightly hilarious; brightened hopes of his daughter’s
marriage, assisted by the healthful fresh air playing round his brow,
disposed him to be sprightly.

How perfectly unconscious he was of the bombardment he was about to
receive, or of the animation with which he should return the fire!

He threw the first rocket into Mark’s entrenchment; it was returned
with a live shell, which exploded the instant it reached Wilton’s faery
fabric, and demolished it with one fatal crash.

“Well, Mark,” exclaimed the old man, as they went on, “pray what is the
special, object which has brought you down to Harleydale post-haste from
gay London--something important, of course?”

Mark nodded with an air of one who is impatient to communicate some
weighty affair.

Old Wilton chuckled.

“A wife, Mark, eh?” he said, in a light, jesting tone, simply because it
was the most improbable thing that occurred to him.

“Yes,” said Mark, with emphasis, surprised that his father should come
to the point of their anticipated discussion without being, so far as he
knew, prepared for it.

At first Wilton laughed, for he accepted the answer as one returned in
the same spirit as that in which he put the question.

Then it struck him that there was a remarkable and decided emphasis in
the tone of the affirmative which Mark had uttered. He gave an uneasy
glance at his son’s features. He felt a cold perspiration steal slowly
over him. His heart suddenly leaped, jumped, and ached so painfully that
he stopped. What was coming?

Mark walked on thoughtfully; presently he missed his father from his
side.

“Why do you pause?” he turned round and said; “you are not already
tired--shall we go back?”

Old Wilton waved his hand impatiently--

“I am not tired,” he said, sharply, but rather huskily. “We will go
on--but--a-hem--but, I quite presume that you understand my question to
you, Mark, was put jestingly?”

“Jestingly!” echoed Mark. “Ah! but, father, I am very desirous that you
should understand I replied in serious earnestness.”

“Explain!” exclaimed Mr. Wilton, his visage contracting, and wearing
that hard expression which so chilled Flora’s warm affection for him.

“You remember the old house in Clerkenwell, where we lived in a very
different state of things to this,” said Mark, and paused as he pointed
around him.

“Go on,” responded his father, coldly.

“In that house”--he cleared his throat and raised his voice--“I say in
that house, from whose burning ruins young Vivian saved my sister, your
only daughter---saved, too, the document by which alone you were enabled
to enter on the possession of this property and leap from destitution
into prosperity--correct me if I mistake aught.” He paused again.

Mr. Wilton maintained a grim silence.

Mark proceeded--

“In that house there dwelt a young girl, a tenant of yours--saved also
by Hal from the flames--you remember her, father, do you not?”

Mr. Wilton bowed stiffly.

“Ah! how would it be possible to forget her charming face, having once
seen it?” cried Mark, ardently.

“Proceed!” said Mr. Wilton, in a grating voice, with difficulty
enunciating the word.

“What more need I say, sir?--she is my choice!” returned Mark plumply.
and with a firm decision of manner.

The expression upon his father’s face was not lost upon him. He saw the
opposition brewing, and he gathered his strength to meet the storm.

A kind of spasmodic yell burst from his father’s lips.

“Preposterous!” he cried, vehemently; “frantically, deliriously
preposterous!”

“You are opposed, sir, to my making Lotte Clinton my wife?” exclaimed
Mark, with a falling brow.

“Opposed!” echoed Wilton, with a sardonic grin; “opposed! Don’t talk of
opposition, boy; the thing cannot be entertained for one moment.”

“Upon what grounds?” asked Mark, firmly.

Mr. Wilton waved his hand contemptuously, as though the subject
altogether was beyond discussion. Mark was not so to be put off.

“You found her honest, sir!” exclaimed Mark, as he perceived his father
declined to give his reasons for so strongly objecting to her.

“A beggar!” gasped the old man.

“Chaste!” persisted Mark, “A beggar!” screamed his father. “Industrious,
willing, cheerful!” continued Mark, with stern emphasis and heightened
colour.

“A beggar!” reiterated Wilton, foaming at the mouth.

“Handsome, intelligent, and good!” shouted Mark, elevating his voice to
a pitch which o’er topped his father’s excited tone.

“Had she all the cardinal virtues and the beauty of a seraph, she is
still a low-born beggar, and, therefore, cannot be admitted into my
family, to mingle with its blood, to take her place by my children’s
side as their equal!” cried Wilton, vehemently. “If she is in want, I
will assist her cheerfully, gladly. If she wishes to be settled in life,
choosing some honest young man, her equal, for her life-companion, I
will present her with a dowry. Beyond that limit it is the most insane
folly to expect me to move.”

“Am I to understand, sir, that virtue and truth, industry, purity,
and integrity weigh nothing in the scale when placed against birth and
station?” asked Mark, sternly.

“In such a case as this to which you would apply it, I say certainly
not. The veriest rag-collector may possess all these qualifications,
but, therefore, am I to admit her into my family as my daughter.”

“Yet your objection springs only from a sense of worldly distinctions.”

“A most refined sense, boy.”

“But after death, sir, at the great Judgment Day, what will weigh
against the virtues I have named?--_will birth and station cope with
them then?_”

Mark spoke with startling emphasis, for he wished that his words should
have a strong effect upon his father.

For an instant the old man was staggered, but the next moment the idea
that he was called upon to accept for his son’s bride a poor needlework
girl, banished the sharp impression Mark’s suggestion had made, and he
exclaimed, violently--

“I will not argue the monstrous proposition with you longer. I command
you to speak upon it in my hearing no more.”

“We will settle it now, sir, if you please,” said Mark, in a firm,
determined tone. “I hope you don’t quite overlook the fact, in your sense
of your own grandeur, that my future happiness is involved in the event
we are discussing, or that I am, therefore, entitled to a voice in the
disposal of my own person; and while you are taking upon yourself to
decide who shall not become a member of your family, you do not, I
trust, forget that your decision may help to diminish its number.”

Old Wilton turned a fierce and angry glance upon his son.

“I do not forget that you are my son, and, while I live, dependent upon
me,” he exclaimed, with enraged bitterness. “While such a condition of
your affairs remains unchanged, I will control such suicidal acts as you
meditate. I will compel you to obey me so long as I am master of your
purse-strings.”

“Sir, sir!” cried Mark, with strong emotion, “the lesson of poverty
and wretchedness has been lost upon you. You have passed through the
furnace, yet your old dross clings to you. Listen to me--I am not
dependent upon you; this strong right arm and Heaven’s bounteous
generosity enabled me to wrest from the earth’s bosom a sum which to
men with moderate wishes is an ample fortune. This money I brought to
England to lift you and my sister out of your beggary, if you had needed
its aid. You have not required it, and it yet stands in my name; I will
henceforth use it for myself, leaving you to enjoy what you possess,
but taking care to reap from my own wealth that happiness which you so
selfishly deny me.”

He turned to move away, but the old man called to him, sharply--

“Mark, Mark, what is it you would do?”

Mark, faced round and gazed upon him with steadfast eyes. With
unfaltering voice, he said--

“Make Lotte Clinton my wife.”

“Know you at what cost?” cried the old man, with inflamed eyes and
clenched hands.

“Your favour, and my stipend,” replied Mark, firmly, “I sacrifice the
two, but I regain my independence, and take to my heart the only woman I
shall ever love.”

“You have omitted one thing, one tremendous item,” ejaculated old
Wilton, with heaving chest--“my curse!”

“No,” cried Mark, in a clear firm tone, “that will never leave your
lips. Sir, I have seen in my short life that curses, like birds, come
home to roost. Do not you try the experiment.”

Mark once more turned to quit the spot.

“Mark, boy, wretch!” shrieked his father, “pause--you--you will
not--dare--dare not marry the artful, designing, infamous creature who
had infatuated--cozened you--”

“When you speak of her, use gentler terms, sir,” fiercely interrupted
Mark. “She is entitled to the profoundest respect of the noblest
man alive, and I will suffer no one to breathe a contumelious word
respecting her in my hearing.”

“If you persist, my bitterest curse shall cling to your footsteps, and
drag you down through palsying vice and debasing misery to perdition!”
 almost yelled Wilton.

“Pause!” interposed Mark, in a loud tone. “If you _will_ curse me,
wait until you return to your library. There, sir, alone with that
exquisitely truthful representative of my sainted mother, sink upon your
knees, and, with your eyes bent on her soft, loving, tender orbs, call
down your curse upon me--if you have the heart to do it. Farewell, sir!
When we meet again, you shall yourself appoint the interview.”

Once more he quitted him, with a rapid step, and Wilton staggered
almost senseless back against the stem of a tree. The old man gasped for
breath, and wrung his hands.

What! was there no condition in life exempt from disappointed hopes,
from harassing cares? What! did not ample estates and a large income
secure uninterrupted happiness?

In his dreams over his toiling labour, in the poverty-stricken home at
Clerkenwell, memories of the past and anticipations of the future had
built up for him a visionary state of untroubled serenity, should he
ever again resume the position he had lost. With what pride he had,
after his return to Harleydale, believed that it was secured to him.
Where was it now?

How he had gloated over the knowledge that a worm, was eating up the
very heart of Grahame’s happiness. Lo! a canker had commenced to corrode
his own. Was this visitation the retributive wrath of an offended Deity
at his towering pride of position and his selfish paternal despotism?

He felt his temples throb and ache, and his breast burn as he tried to
thrust back the answer which sought to present itself.

He folded his arms, and plunged deeper into the wood.

He dared not face the portrait of his wife hanging in the library. It
seemed to him that a voice would issue from those small lips and demand
of him how he had kept his promise given to her in her dying moments to
do his utmost to secure the happiness of his children.

As he struck into a bye-path a pistol-shot was fired; he uttered a cry
of mortal agony and fell bleeding to the ground.

The next instant a figure emerged from the copse; it proved to be Mr.
Chewkle. He bent over the prostrate form of Wilton.

“Only winged him arter all!” he exclaimed; “thought I’d covered him,
too. Never mind, I’ll do the trick this time. You shall have it through
the head and no mistake, old gel’man.”

He pointed the muzzle of a revolver to the temple of Wilton, but at the
instant his finger pressed the trigger a pair of powerful hands seized
him by the throat and dragged him back. The pistol was discharged, but
the bullet, missing its destination, buried itself in the earth, a foot
from Mr. Wilton’s head.

Chewkle uttered a yell of terror, startled by the suddenness of the
attack upon him. His first impression was that he had been pounced upon
by Nathan Gomer, and that his were the fingers--of solid, burnished
gold, cold as death--which now clutched him by the throat, and his heart
beat violently.

But his antagonist was certainly taller; and then it flashed through
the mind of Mr. Chewkle that he was in the hands of one of Mr. Wilton’s
gamekeepers.

The gallows, in an atmosphere of flame, presented itself before his
eyes.

With a violent, enormous exertion of strength, under the influence of a
sudden and maddening excitement, he flung off his captor and faced him.

It was no gamekeeper--no other than young Mr. Vivian.

Chewkle gave a growl of rage, and, with a fierce oath, fired his pistol
suddenly at his youthful antagonist. The ball grazed Hal’s ear and
caused him to stagger; but before Chewkle could repeat his shot, as
he intended, Hal closed again with him and a deadly struggle once more
commenced.

Twice did Chewkle, in the fearful wrestle between him and Hal, contrive
to fire off the revolver, but without success; and at length Vivian’s
youth, courage and skill prevailed over Chewkle’s powers, wasted by
debauchery and his recent illness. Hal flung him with violence to the
ground; and, kneeling on his chest, twisted, with a sudden wrench, the
pistol out of his hand.

Almost at the same moment the head-gamekeeper and his assistant, with a
couple of dogs, came crashing through the foliage, and took part in the
proceedings. A few hasty words from Hal Vivian, and Chewkle was raised
to his feet, his arms were strongly bound behind him, and he was given
into the custody of the assistant-keeper, a tall, powerful fellow, who,
with a strong grip upon Chewkle’s collar, and some very profane words in
his mouth, dragged him, sullen and half-resisting, to the police-station
in the village.

Hal Vivian and the head-keeper then raised old Wilton, and bore him to
the Hall, still senseless and bleeding from the wound inflicted by the
scoundrel Chewkle.

A medical man was summoned, and quickly made his appearance. He examined
his patient, and relieved the minds of those gathered round him by
informing them that Mr. Wilton’s arm had been broken by a bullet, but
there was no immediate or probably real danger. The old man was placed
in his bed, and the doctor proceeded to dress the wound.

In the meantime Flora Wilton was sent for, searched for, but the
messenger, after half-an-hour’s absence, returned by saying he could not
find her; she had been seen to enter the little glen skirting the park,
but she was not there now.

Mark Wilton, too, had not returned to the Hall. He had been observed to
hurry away towards the railway station, as if on his way back to London.

Young Vivian heard with a grave and anxious face that Flora was nowhere
to be found; and as soon as he saw that old Wilton was in charge of
persons who would pay him every attention and nurse him with care, he
left his name and address in the charge of the housekeeper, proceeded to
the police-station and there made a statement, fixing the crime of the
attempted murder of Mr. Wilton on Chewke. He then hurried to a cottage
in the village, where a paper was given to him by an old woman, and,
having perused it with no little excitement, he ran to the village inn,
where a sound, serviceable and swift horse was ready saddled awaiting
his commands.

He had him brought out, and, after a few words to the landlord, he
sprang into the saddle, and clapping spurs to the animal gallopped away,
as if engaged upon a mission of life and death.

In the meanwhile, Mark Wilton, with a mind much perturbed and intent
on rash proceedings, hastened to the railway station, without again
entering his father’s house, even to see his sister. It happened that
on reaching it, before there was time to reason or for his thoughts to
cool, a train for London drew up at the station; he entered it, and was
borne swiftly from Harleydale, having no knowledge or conception of the
act of Mr. Chewkle, the condition in which it placed his father, or of
what had happened to his sister.

That same evening he presented himself before Lotte Clinton. She was
not a little astonished to see him. He had prepared her for a longer
separation, but one glance at his handsome and expressive face informed
her that something had happened unfavourable to his wishes.

She did not for an instant assume that he had been to Harleydale, but
she rapidly concluded that some event had arisen which had shown him the
disparity of their positions, and he had now come to break off the match
he had so hurriedly and so impetuously desired to form.

A feeling of pain and disappointment gave her a sudden heartache, but
she would not let her emotion become visible, for fear that it might
deepen the gloom already heavy on his brow.

Mark laid down his hat, and silently gazed in Lotte’s inquiring eyes.
Then he said--

“I am soon back, you see, Lotte.”

“Surely you have not been to Harleydale!” she exclaimed.

“Indeed, but I have,” he replied. “I have seen my father, too, and have
fully discussed with him our intended marriage.”

Lotte looked at him with a sad and serious expression.

“He has forbidden it!” she exclaimed, with a countenance which grew
gradually pale in spite of her effort to control her emotion.

“Forbidden it!” echoed Mark, evasively; “he has not the power to forbid
it. I am my own master, Lotte, and am independent of him.”

“Oh! Mark, do not let there be any reserves or concealments between us;
let me know the truth,” she urged; “indeed I am not afraid to hear it,
if you will only speak it.”

“To you, Lotte,”’ responded Mark, “I am desirous of speaking and acting
always only truthfully.”

“I do believe it!” she exclaimed, earnestly.

He took both her hands in his, and pressed them.

“When I do other,” he said, with emphasis, “turn your face from me, and
speak to me never more.”

She returned the pressure of his hands, then she said to him, with
downcast eyes and a slightly lowered tone--

“You have seen your father, Mark, and you have told him how much you
have honoured me in selecting me to be your wife.”

“How much I am honoured by your consent to have me, my sweet Lotte,”
 interposed Mark, almost fiercely.

“Yes, Lotte, I told him all. I told him that my heart and happiness were
bound up in you; that if I did not have you, neither wealth nor station
would ever compensate me for your loss; that, in fact, they would
only heighten my anguish and unhappiness, so I had determined to marry
you--having your consent--and there was an end of the matter. So, in
solemn truth and honour, I have; and here I am, Lotte, darling, for you
to name the day.”

“But what said Mr. Wilton in reply?” asked Lotte, looking him
steadfastly in the face.

Mark turned his eyes askance.

“What does it signify, Lotte,” he exclaimed, evasively, “what _he_ said?
My happiness is all invested in you; if you love me, yours is equally
centred in me. I have enough to keep us both in comfort and happiness,
and some day I shall be as wealthy as my father now is. Oh! Lotte, we
will live with each other and for each other, you, my dear little wife,
thinking of and caring only for your faithful husband, and I--I, Lotte,
exhausting every plan to complete and perfect for you a peaceful, happy
existence.”

“But, dear Mark, what said Mr. Wilton?” persisted Lotte, looking grave
and even sad.

“He is an old man, Lotte, and obstinate,” replied Mark, with some little
vehemence; “he is selfish, vain, arrogant, upstart----”

Lotte raised up her soft white hand to his mouth--

“Your father,” she said--“still your father.”

“Even so, Lotte; yet he, too, should remember that I am his son,”
 exclaimed Mark, with some excitement, “his son, Lotte, not his serf, his
slave, his dog. He should recollect, Lotte, that my happiness is of as
much importance to me as pride of position to him; and he should not
overlook the fact that I don’t care a--that I don’t care that”--he
snapped his fingers--“to be great and grande if I am to be unhappy in my
elevation.”

“I am to understand by this,” said Lotte, very calmly, though sadly,
“that he has refused to give his consent to receive me into his family,
as your wife--you will not trifle with my feelings, Mark, on this point,
I am sure.”

Mark remained silent.

She laid her hand upon his arm softly.

“Answer me, Mark!” she said, gently.

He looked into her soft appealing eyes, he passed his arm round her
waist, and pressed her to his bosom.

“I will do or say aught you wish me, Lotte, but do not ask me to wound
your feelings,” he said, in a low, earnest tone.

“Nay, it will pain me so much not to know the truth, for you know, Mark,
I may conjecture much that was never said,” she responded; adding, “tell
me, did he not decline to receive me as his daughter-in-law.”

Mark set his teeth.

In an almost inaudible voice, after some hesitation, he replied--

“He did.”

“His objection, Mark--fear not for me--my bruised heart has been too
much accustomed to such trials, to faint under learning all he could say
of me.”

“I cannot repeat his words!” cried Mark, with a burst of feeling.

Lotte still urged him.

“It is needful Mark, indeed, that I should know,” she said.

“Lotte,” exclaimed Mark, taking her hand and pressing it passionately
to his lips, “remember, the words I may repeat have had--and never can
have--any influence on me.”

“Of that I am sure,” she observed.

“His objection was that you were poor----”

“Yes,” said Lotte, as he paused. .

“And low-born,” added Mark, as though the words scorched his throat
while finding utterance.

A flush of scarlet spread itself over Lotte’s features. She threw up her
head with a haughty and indignant air, and her short upper lip trembled
with an expression of offended pride.

She was about to utter a hasty reply, but she checked herself,
disengaged herself from Mark’s encircling arms, and walked in silence to
the further end of the room. She hid her face in her handkerchief; for a
minute her whole frame seemed convulsed.

Mark watched her with eyes half-blinded by scalding tears, and it
was only the endeavour to recover the power of speaking clearly that
prevented him at once catching her in his arms, bid her banish from her
mind all she had heard, and to consent, in spite of what his father had
said, to become his bride at the earliest moment possible.

He knew not Lotte yet.

She was the first to recover calmness, and she returned to where he was
standing.

“I understand your father’s weakness by my own.” she said. “I pardon the
pain it has given me, for I am reminded, by my own poor indignation at
being termed low-born, how natural his anger would be at the thought of
one so humble as myself being elevated to his side, and made a member of
his family, in opposition to all those prejudices of which station and
affluence are so fruitful. Well, Heaven knows best. I bow to its decree.
The dream, only too glorious to be realised, was sweet, very, very
sweet, while it lasted, and I wake once more to be plain Lotte Clinton,
the needle-worker----”

“To be my wife, Lotte,” cried Mark, passionately; “my wife, my adored,
my honoured wife, Lotte----”

“Oh! Mark,” she said, in pleading earnestness, “remember our contract.”

“I remember, Lotte,” he said, “that I am human, that I have my passions
and my failings, as others of my sex; but I hope I have, too, that
broader view of life that makes virtue and worth the true nobility,
and that I can appreciate it when it comes before me, as it has in you,
Lotte. I have all my life--at least so long as I remember--lived in a
sphere in which worth, and amiability, and virtue, shine most because
they are surrounded by the worst temptations to which the higher
qualifications can be subjected, and when they maintain themselves
unsullied they are, in my eyes, the true and most fitting emblems of
a real nobility. All I hope to find in woman I believe dwells in your
clear soul, Lotte. I, feeling how rich you are in sterling virtues, ask
no more, for you are wealthy enough in that. Well, what influence can
the intemperate words of my father have hereafter upon my happiness?
I shall ever love you. It shall be my study to retain your attachment;
and, for the rest, it is all empty pomp and pride, which we can be very,
very happy without.”

“It cannot be, Mark!” exclaimed Lotte, with a deep sigh.

“It cannot be?” echoed Mark, as though he had not heard aright.

“No; it must not be,” she said plaintively, but yet very firmly. “We
must part, Mark. Oh! believe me grateful for your kindly expressed
thoughts, and for the tender preference so dear, so very dear to my
heart, which you have evinced for me. Believe that to have been your
wife, Mark, would to me have proved the greatest felicity I can imagine
on earth. Yet I cannot consent, even to secure my own happiness, to sow
dissension in the hearts of others. I could not look at times, Mark,
upon your brow, clouded sometimes by thoughts of home and those dwelling
there, without feeling how deeply I have erred in causing strife to rise
up between you and them.”

“Lotte, Lotte, do not drive me to distraction and despair!” cried Mark,
passionately. “The world is wide: we will remove from the scene of my
father’s pride and selfishness to some brighter land. I know many spots;
surrounded by the clear blue waters of the vast Pacific, where we can
settle down unfettered by the paltry worldly distinctions which agitate
my father’s breast, and mindful only of that love which makes each to
the other a world of treasure.”

Lotte’s eyes swam in tears.

“It may not be, Mark,” she said, decidedly, and then added with agonized
earnestness: “I am so grateful, so deeply grateful for your affection. I
will never, never suffer that gratitude to abate, nor will I ever cease
to love you as now--most fervently for that I am parting with you; but,
great as the grief I feel at our separation, Mark, it is less than the
consciousness of what I had done in consenting to wed you in the face
of the hostility of your father--nearest and dearest to you in blood
and affection--would make me eternally suffer; for well I know that
his peace of mind, yours, and that of the other members of your family,
would all, more or less, be injured by my act. No, Mark, I will bear
my trial--as--as--well as I can--all the lighter, because I have spared
those who fondly love you, and you who love them, from tearing asunder
those ties which bind you so closely together now.”

How her poor bosom heaved and her lips quivered as she said this.

“Lotte,” exclaimed Mark, with intense earnestness, “is my love for you--
my future happiness--to weigh nothing in the considerations by which you
are influenced to this harsh step?”

“Harsh, Mark; mostly to myself. I love you, Mark; let that be your
solace. No other man; I swear, shall ever receive the hand you have
kissed. You; after we have parted; you--will not forget me--no--no, I
do _not_ believe that--but you will meet with others in a higher sphere,
beautiful, accomplished, and engaging, more than I can ever hope to be,
and you----”

“Do not finish your sentence, Lotte,” cried Mark huskily. “You do not
love me, or you would not permit such a thought to enter your brain,” he
added reproachfully.

“Your doubt wounds my heart!” exclaimed Lotte, with evident pain. “I
will not reiterate what I have confessed to you on that point. I will
only add that I would have cheerfully married you, and joined in our
mutual support by my own labour, if such had been needful; I would have
done it with the proudest content, had circumstances been such that I
could have entered your family as an equal. This cannot be. I see the
disparity more strongly now, perhaps, than even he who has forbidden me
to approach his affinity; but, Mark, I could not consent to become your
wife and his daughter on other terms than your continued friendship
with him, without incurring contumely myself. It is wholly impossible
to change my opinions on this point; so Mark, dear Mark, let us bid each
other farewell. I am faint--oppressed--ill. I would part with you at
once----”

“And for ever!” said Mark, with burning eyes, as he forced the words
through his teeth.

She bowed her head.

“For ever!” she repeated.

“Lotte!” he exclaimed, with intense excitement, “I cannot argue this
point with you--I cannot. I will not bid you farewell--I dare not; yet,
girl, we shall never, never meet again!”

He almost shrieked those last words, and rushed out of the room.

She would have followed him, but that she sank gasping and fainting upon
the floor.




CHAPTER VII.--THE ELOPEMENT--THE LONELY FLIGHT.


                        For now I stand as one upon a rock,

                   Environ’d with a wilderness of sea,

                   Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave;

                   Expecting ever when some envious surge

                   Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.

                   --Shakspere.


Mr. Grahame, after the departure of Chewkle, suffered the worst
tortures of a terrible suspense. He had no peace night nor day within
his house, or away from it. The second flight of Helen, and the
narration given of it by Lester Vane, in terms calculated to excoriate
the haughty man’s arrogant pride, were deprived of their more agonizing
features by the greater evils that threatened him.

Already had Nathan Gomer so far kept his word, that he had caused
process to be issued upon the sums last advanced: and Mr. Grahame had
the inexpressible mortification of being served with a series of writs
in his own library, and by no other person than Charles Clinton.

The firm with which he was connected had been instructed by Nathan
Gomer, and the delicate task--a very painful one, as it proved--of
serving process was entrusted to him, because Mr. Grahame had not
responded to a request made to him to name a solicitor who would accept
service for him.

Charley was quite aware of the desperate position of Mr. Grahame’s
affairs, as well as of the internal misery raging in the bosom of
one-half of the members of the family, and the inflated elevation of the
other portion, ignorant, through the most blind fatuity, of the fearful
precipice upon which they were already tottering.

His interviews with Evangeline had, since the second departure of Helen
from home, been several; for she anxiously desired not only to learn
the fate of her sister, but she formed a wild notion of leaving home
herself, and living with Helen, whatever might be the circumstances in
which she was placed.

She was wholly ignorant of the outer world; she had been brought up in
strict home seclusion, and from the almost excessive amiability of her
nature had been, as will have been seen, kept in the back ground, as a
degenerate member of a proud race. Her impulses had been sneered at or
sharply checked, but no attempt had been made to give them a direction.
She was unhappy at home, and there seemed every probability to her that
if she remained with her family she would continue to be treated ever
the same--more, indeed, like an unwelcome dependant than a child, loving
and loveable.

Now Helen--especially in her affliction--had been affectionate and
tender in her behaviour to her, and had thus raised within her bosom a
degree of attachment to her which would pause at no sacrifice to secure
her happiness. She believed that if she were with Helen, she would be
able to minister to her comforts, solace her griefs, and smoothe away
by her loving gentleness many of her heart-cankering cares. At the same
time she would be with one who would appreciate her acts, respond to
them with warmth, and not repel the tributes of a most generous nature
with the cold precepts of frigid pride.

So she formed a design to leave home too, that she might live with
Helen; happier she felt she should be in privation and poverty with her,
than surrounded by luxury and pomp at home, unaccompanied by a soft
look or a kind word. In her deep anxiety to know where Helen had hidden
herself, she applied, through the means agreed upon, to Charley Clinton
to obtain the information. Well for her it was that his heart was full
of manly honour, for he took no advantage of her formidable error in
holding clandestine meetings with him. Well for her that the bland
language addressed to her at various times by Lester Vane had not
induced her to open her heart to him respecting her sister Helen,
her own position at home, and the form her wishes had taken. The
consequences of her unwitting error would have been evidenced in her
certain ruin.

As it was, Charley Clinton fell in love with her, but he kept the
knowledge of the fact confided to his own bosom. Firstly, he would not
for the realization of his uttermost wishes have betrayed the confidence
she reposed in him. Secondly, she appeared so elevated above him in
position that, whatever might be his adoration of her, he saw it was not
for him to plead a love-tale in her aristocratic ear. He treated
her, therfore, with the very highest respect, the most thoughtful
consideration, and the gentlest deference.

Evangeline appreciated his conduct to her fully. It was unusual and
delicious. She so wished to be loved that she might prove how much she
could love, and how pure and disinterested that love could be. She had
no clear idea of the actual consequences of raising such an emotion in
the breast of Charles Clinton. After the first two or three meetings,
she began to ponder on the difference between his treatment of her and
that of others. The servants of her father’s household, taking their
tone from the conduct of Mr. and Mrs. Grahame, were less respectful or
attentive to her than to any other member of the family. In the presence
of all at home, she felt herself to be an intruder--some one who was
of necessity obliged to be kept in the family, but most unwelcome,
nevertheless.

In the society of Charles Clinton she was a wholly different being. She
was elevated in her own estimation, for she saw that she was in his.
She could perceive by his words, his looks, his manner, how highly he
appreciated the affection she had displayed towards her sister
Helen, and how his zeal and his behaviour, still tempered by the most
respectful propriety towards her, increased. It was the first time she
had experienced the gratification of being held in high estimation by
any human creature. She was fascinated by it, and she desired heartily
to retain that estimation. The desire to learn Helen’s fate began to
be accompanied by the wish to learn it from no other lips than those of
Charles Clinton. The hope that she should eventually be able to discover
her sister and to reside with her, came to be interpenetrated by
anticipations that Charles through his sister might be an occasional
visitor at her new abode. His name, out of gratefulness for his
exertions, took its place in her prayers. The intervals between their
meetings grew fewer, and the term of the duration of the latter longer.
Even those intervals were broken by correspondence, though neither in
their interviews nor in their notes did one word of love arise.

Evangeline grew anxious and eager for the time of meeting after it
had been appointed, and loth to part with Charley when the moment for
separation arrived. She hung on his arm when they were about to part,
and with a strange pleasure suffered her hand to linger in his when the
word “farewell” was spoken; and as she felt his fingers tremble while
they held hers, she seemed to know intuitively that they did so out
of his great respect for her. A crimson hectic burned her cheek, as an
unbidden but ungratified prompting rose up in her breast to kiss them,
for their flattering testimony of his estimation of her.

Such was the position between Charles Clinton and Evangeline when he was
called upon to proceed to the mansion in the Regent’s Park, to execute
his--at all times unpleasant, and now from what had passed between him
and the gentle girl--most painful task.

The whole establishment was brilliantly lighted up. A splendid
dinner-party and rout was that evening to be given by the direction of
Mrs. Grahame.

Mr. Grahame had demurred, alleging that circumstances would render it
inconvenient to him; but as he had not revealed to his lady the true
reason for not wishing the entertainment to be given, the lady treated
his suggestions with contempt, and issued her invitations and her
instructions for the feast.

The fact was, that the Duke of St. Allborne had been caught in the
web of Margaret Grahame. She had met him at _soirées_, at balls, at
entertainments, and frequently at the opera. She had paused at nothing
to create in him a belief that he had obtained the most entire control
over her affections. She flattered his vanity by making him imagine
that she deemed him an Admirable Crichton, and his weaker and viler
propensities by leading him to fancy that beneath her cold exterior
there dwelt an ardent passion which would urge her to withhold scarcely
any favour to him whom she so well affected.

The party given this night was solely on his account; a conference
between mother and daughter having led to the belief on both sides that
an _éclaircissement_ could be brought about--that, in short, the Duke
could be made successfully to acknowledge that he had been fairly
hooked--that he was prepared to bestow the ring and coronet, and
confess to captivity for life; his chains being those forged by Margaret
Claverhouse Grahame.

Charley Clinton had at first some difficulty to obtain an interview with
Mr. Grahame. The guests had not yet arrived, and Mr. Grahame was said to
be very busy in his library. The usual method of palming had, however,
the desired effect. After some _pro_ and _con_., and when Mr. Grahame
understood that the gentleman who desired to see him was from the
solicitors of Nathan Gomer, he had a shrewd suspicion of the object of
his visit, and to save any chance of exposure by refusing to see him, he
ordered him to be admitted.

When Charley entered, Mr. Grahame received him in his haughtiest and
grandest manner, and motioned him to a seat. Charley, however, declined
it, and opened the purport of his visit in a manner which was calculated
to have its weight with Grahame.

He did not for a moment assume that pecuniary inability to comply with
the demand upon Mr. Grahame by Nathan Gomer was the true occasion of
the issuing of process, but that some disputed point had led to a
determination to proceed to a trial to decide the question at issue. Mr.
Grahame, therefore, received the writs with more apparent complacency
than he would have done; tendering, as an explanation for not writing
in answer to the renewal of the application for a settlement of Nathan
Gomer’s claim, that he had been out of town, an assertion which Charley
knew to be false.

Mr. Grahame gave a scarcely perceptible shiver when he received the
writs, but he made an unequivocal start, when Charley said--

“There is said to be in existence a deed, Mr. Grahame, professing to be
a waiver in your favour to Mr. Wilton’s claim to the Eglinton estates,
and bearing his signature. Can you throw any light upon the subject?”

“Pray, may I ask your reason for putting that question?” said Mr.
Grahame, loftily.

“Mr. Wilton denies the signature, and has instructed us to discover the
deed, if possible.”

Mr. Grahame felt the roots of his hair vibrate.

“Upon what ground do you assume such a deed to be in existence?” he
asked, striving to appear calm.

“It is registered,” replied Clinton.

Mr. Grahame remained silent; his lips trembled; he could not have spoken
if he would.

“There can be no doubt that there either is or was such a deed,”
 continued Charley, “or that, under the most positive and vehement
denials of Mr. Wilton, the signature it bears is a forgery. It is
assumed therefore, sir, directly by Mr. Wilton and indirectly by Mr.
Nathan Gomer, that the instrument, being exclusively in your interest,
could scarcely have had the false signature attached without your
cognizance.”

Mr. Grahame felt as though a poisoned barb had pierced his soul. It was
not alone that the surmise was just that he winced under the accusation,
but his pride was acutely wounded at the readiness with which he was
connected with an act so base.

With blanched cheeks, but a cold and haughty manner, he said, with
knitted brows--

“When the deed of which you have spoken--if such there is--be
produced, it will be time to discuss the truth or falsity of so foul an
imputation.”

“When Mr. Wilton was sued by you, sir, for a large sum,” returned
Charley, gravely, “the very instrument of which I speak was tendered to
him to sign. He did not sign it, and yet that deed has been registered
as being completed. I believe--though I cannot speak with exact
certainty--that Mr. Nathan Gomer derived his information on this head
from a scoundrel name d Chewkle.”

Mr. Grahame’s hair slowly lifted up.

“Chewkle?” he breathed faintly.

“Yes,” replied Charley, observing the ghastly paleness which had spread
itself over Mr. Grahame’s visage; “a mercenary wretch, who would pause
at no employment, however villanous. In proof of which I may tell
you--although I may be stepping out of my path of strict duty in doing
so--that a telegraphic message had just reached our office, with the
terrible news that the ruffian Chewkle, of whom I have just spoken,
encountering, early this morning, Mr. Wilton in the woods at Harley
dale, discharged a pistol at him, and severely wounded him. He was
seized in the attempt to consummate the murderous act, and is at
the present moment in safe custody. It is expected he will make some
important revelations.”

A rush of ringing sounds surged through Mr. Grahame’s brain; his eyes
dilated, and glared at Charley with a frightful expression. The veins
upon his temples swelled as though they would burst, and his throat
expanded and contracted with a horrible spasmodic action.

Charley took a step towards him, alarmed by his agitation, but Mr.
Grahame waved him imperiously off. He wiped the large drops of clammy
perspiration, thickly clustered, from his brow, and in a hoarse voice
said, hastily--

“But Wilton--Wilton--is he dead?”

“No,” returned Charley, trembling under a terrible suspicion; he yet
lives. “The communication stated his wound to be severe, but not fatal.
However, his son has just quitted London to proceed to his bedside,
accompanied by an eminent surgeon----”

“His son--what son?” gasped Grahame, in a hollow tone,

“His eldest child, and only son. He has not long since returned to
England from South America,” returned Charley. “I fortunately met with
him on my way hither, and informed him of what had taken place. He at
once proceeded to obtain a surgeon of great skill, and, upon securing
his services, he intended that together they should immediately hasten
to Harleydale.”

Mr. Grahame sank into a chair. It was plain he was in the throes of a
violent spasm. Charley was pained to see his agonized prostration. He
had already gone farther than, in his capacity, he ought strictly to
have done. He knew that, for the advantage of his firm, he ought not to
have revealed what he had disclosed; but it had been for Evangeline’s
sake he had been thus communicative; and he was at the same time
convinced that the actual interests of Wilton and Gomer had not been
compromised by his act. In truth, he could not refrain from preparing
Mr. Grahame, in some degree, for the bursting of the dense and
threatening cloud hanging over his head.

He gazed with saddened commiseration upon the stupified man who sat
before him, with clasped hands, gazing wildly into vacancy; and then in
a soft, kindly tone, he said--

“I will no longer obtrude my presence, sir, upon you. I feel that it is
as unwelcome as the tidings I have communicated. Yet, before I depart,
permit me to suggest that your opposition to the claim of Mr. Nathan
Gomer can be but of brief duration, while the expense of going to trial
will be enormous. Mr. Gomer’s securities are so indisputable that a jury
would be certain to give a verdict in his favour, and the Court would
unhesitatingly grant instant execution. Pardon me, if I appear officious
or impertinent by my suggestions; I have no such intent; I am only
sincerely desirous of acquainting you with the aspect affairs are
assuming; and I would so prepare you that you may know how to properly
confront them.”

In Charley’s voice there was a tone of genuine sympathy which there was
no mistaking or misunderstanding; and the heart of the criminal
must have been callous indeed could it have resisted its softening
influences. Mr. Grahame was too unused to it to remain unaffected by
it. At one time he would have spurned its display, now it fell like balm
upon his burning thoughts. He rose up suddenly and wrung Charley’s hand,
and then, with an almost frantic gesture, he waved to him to leave.

Charley bowed and quitted the library with a heavy weight about his
heart. As he closed the door and prepared to pass along the corridor, he
paused for an instant.

“And this it is,” he muttered, “to live in splendour, in pomp, and proud
luxury. How magnificent, how superb to gaze at! what foul festering
corrosion beneath! How I have longed to achieve such a position as this!
but oh, how I should shrink from it if it were to be only obtained on
the conditions which are throttling the proud head of this house, and
hurling him into earthly, if not eternal perdition.”

While the last words were on his lips he heard the rustling of silk in
his vicinity. He stood aside to allow the coming female to pass, and
almost the next instant he saw the fair sweet face of Evangeline looking
up to his own. She stopped in evident surprise.

“_You_ here, Mr. Clinton,” she said, in a low tone of astonishment; then
she added, hastily, “have you heard anything of my sister Helen--have
you come to bring me tidings of her?”

She was full dressed; her attire, mainly composed of faint blue, silver
and lace, was eminently suited to her fair complexion; upon her head
she wore a wreath of white star-like flowers, and in Charley’s eyes she
seemed to be one of those exquisitely lovely fairy spirits of whom with
such passionate interest he had read in German legends.

He sighed as he thought how hopelessly she was out of the pale of his
companionship, but he concealed the emotion the thought occasioned. He
merely raised his finger warningly, and said, in a very low voice--“I am
most loth to affright or afflict you, dear Miss Grahame, but there is
a storm hovering over your house; and, unless I am greatly deceived,
it will burst with a terrible crash almost immediately. I cannot--dare
not--explain myself, but I would have you prepared when the bolt does
fall. I would have you call up your energies and sustain yourself
under the trial. At least I would not have it descend upon you without
preparation or warning. I cannot avert it, but I may be able to be of
service in the hour of your affliction; you know how to summon me; fear
not but I will appear at your bidding.”

He cast one passionate glance upon her beautiful countenance, overspread
with a terrified amazement, and hurried away, for once more the rustling
of silks announced the approach of females, and Evangeline almost ran
into the reception-room, to avoid the scrutiny of her mother and sister.

The dinner party was large and brilliant. Mr. Grahame, dressed as it
seemed with studied care, presided. The company were unusually animated.
The Honorable Lester Vane was present, though uninvited by Mrs. Grahame
or her husband; but the Duke of St. Allborne had been honoured with
a _carte-blanche_ for friends, who might add to the distinguished
character of the assembly, and with a particular motive he had used his
privilege to bring Vane with him. The latter accepted his offer, for he
had his motives too, and despite the omission of his name from the list
of the formally invited, he made his appearance. Looking Mrs. Grahame
defiantly in the eyes, when she received him with stiff politeness,
he deprecated in studied words--every one of which stung her to the
quick--any apology for the oversight; as he expressed himself certain
the unfortunate circumstances attendant upon the absence of her eldest
daughter had naturally disturbed her usually calm and retentive memory.

He looked sallow and savage; his large dark eyes glittered like a
tiger’s upon the spring. There was a dull red mark upon his forehead,
where Hugh Rivers dale’s blow had fallen, when he felled him to the
earth, and he apparently took no pains to conceal it. He seemed to
wear it as a badge of distinction, that might attract all eyes and many
questions, enabling him thus to answer them in terms which would tear
all Mrs. Grahame’s panoply of pride into shreds, and trample them
scornfully under foot.

How troubled she felt on seeing him!--how disqustedly she listened
to his words!--with what sickening apprehension she gazed upon the
cicatrised wound upon his forehead! She felt, as he passed into the
room beyond, that her expectations of a proud triumph were likely to be
turned into torturing anticipations of shame and degradation.

Her pride now changed her from a Juno to an Ate. There was no telling
into what extravagances, during this man’s presence, it might hurry her.

As Lester Vane sauntered on, he caught sight of Evangeline, who looked
pale and abstracted. He advanced towards her, and spoke to her with
low musical tones. He bent his eyes upon her with the fascination of
a serpent’s gaze, but she shrank from him in undisguised
aversion--horrified aversion--there could certainly be no mistaking the
expression; so decided was it in character, that he, in the fullness of
his immeasurable conceit, actually looked over his shoulder, expecting
there to see some hugely-moustached, be-whiskered object as the real
cause of her disgust, but there was no one but himself to fasten upon,
and he grated his teeth at the conviction.

“Sweet Miss Evangeline,” he lisped, “I hail our _réunion_ with a
gratification I am unable to express.”

He tendered his hand, but she recoiled from it and him as though he
were indeed a noxious reptile. Helen had spoken of him to her in hot and
blistering words. She now feared and loathed him.

She moved hastily to the side of her mother, and Lester Vane, muttering
an oath, sallied into the reception-room.

The dinner was announced--was eaten; and, at a somewhat late hour,
dancing commenced. Lester Vane sought Evangeline for a partner. She
distinctly declined to dance with him, and he turned away infuriated.

Not that she danced at all: her brain was in a whirl of confusion. She
was alarmed by the agitation displayed by her mother, who, flushed and
excited as she had never seen her before, followed Lester Vane like a
shadow; and, whenever he commenced conversation with a group of guests,
interposed and broke it up, to follow him still.

She was much startled and nervously frightened, too, by her father’s
aspect. He seemed to walk like a somnambulist through the saloons. He
appeared to be wandering as in search of some one, and eventually he
disappeared.

The admirable quadrille band played its most enlivening airs, and the
dancing went on with spirit.

Evangeline looked among the dancers for her sister Margaret; for, in
spite of her repellant coldness, she thought that she would lend an
ear to her forebodings respecting both parents. Indeed, she was growing
distracted; for, what with Charles Clinton’s vague warning, her father’s
ghastly aberration, and her mother’s flushed excitement, she felt each
coming instant would produce some event of a frightful kind.

But Margaret was not to be seen; Evangeline searched the saloons in
vain.

No; she was in the garden, with a thick shawl muffled round her,
listening to the pleadings of the Duke of St. Allborne.

What had they been saying to each other?

“The jeuce take the wauld!” cried the Duke. “You will be my Duchess
some day, and you will be coawted and _feted_ as othaw Duchesses and
Countawesses have befaw you, who have had the spiwit to seize such a
glowious oppawtunity as this!”

Margaret hesitated a moment.

The coronet danced in her eyes--to part with him now was to lose that
bauble.

“I will go with you, St. Allborne,” she said, in a trembling tone.

“My angel!” said the Duke, enrapturedly.

The woman rose up in her heart at last. She laid upon his arm her gloved
and jewelled hand.

“You will be faithful and kind to me, and always love me, St. Allborne?”
 she faltered; yet the words were uttered with anxious earnestness.

“Love you, my pwecious little wogue,” he responded, with nervous
excitement, though he had no ultimate intention of keeping his promise,
“why I adaw you now, and when you weveal to me the disintawested
chawacter of youaw love faw me by living with me until the distwessing
hut wigowous impediments to ouaw mawiage aw wemoved, what can I do
but waw-ship you. Come, let us be off befaw we aw missed from the
ball-woom.”

He folded her shawl tightly round her trembling frame, and, placing his
arms close about her waist, he drew her to the same spot from whence
Hugh Riversdale had conveyed her sister Helen away.

They stood upon the brink of the winding stream, so charming in its
ornamental character, so facile for mischief. At a signal from the Duke,
a boat swiftly appeared. A boat-cloak was handed up by the man in charge
of the boat, and Margaret was closely muffled in it; she was then lifted
into the small vessel, and the Duke stepped lightly in after her--one
moment more, and the boat glided silently but swiftly away.

The lights streamed brilliantly from the windows of the villa mansion.
Strains of joyous music issued from the crowded saloons, and in noisy
hilarity the dancers whirled with rapid steps round the gorgeously
decorated apartments. All within their scope seemed to be instinct with
joy and happiness.

When the boat disappeared, there came from the shadow of the trees in
the garden the figure of a man.

It was Mr. Grahame. He had wandered as in a dream from the heated rooms
thronged with gay visitors, not one of whom he cared for or who cared
for him, and while leaning thoughtfully, brooding over his desperate
position, against a tree, he had witnessed the meeting of the Duke and
his daughter Margaret.

He cared not to interrupt them, but glided back into his house like a
thief; no one observed him enter. He slunk to his dressing-room; his
valet was not there. He hastily divested himself of his full-dress
habiliments, and put on some plain clothing. When thus attired he crept
down the servants’ staircase, darted through the basement passage, and
passed unobserved, by the servants’ entrance, into the front of his
mansion, and made his way through the throng of carriages assembled
there.

He went on through the Regent’s Park up towards Hampstead, passed over
its dreary heath--the earth and shrubs looking black beneath the gloomy
sky.

He paused when he reached the “Castle,” and turned his bloodshot eyes
towards the spot he had left thus abruptly and secretly. He shuddered,
and struck down the hill towards Hendon, passing, with shivering frame
and tottering steps, along the narrow pathway between the prickly,
scrubby heath-bushes.

“I have been advised,” he muttered, “never to inhale chloroform, as it
would inevitably prove fatal to me. It is well my chemist included it
in the articles in my medicine chest; it will afford me an easy release
from life and its horrors, and, if I manage well, leave no clue to the
manner of my death.”

At a lone spot, by the side of a pool, he sat him down, and bowing his
head upon his knees, pressed his hands upon his scorching forehead, and
wept scalding, bitter, bitter tears.




CHAPTER VIII.--THE ABDUCTION AND ITS PUNISHMENT.


               Thee will I bear to a lovely spot,

               Where our hands shall be joined, and our sorrows forgot;

               There thou yet shall be my bride.

                             Byron.


It is, unhappily, the nature of jealousy to magnify small things into
great ones, and to build upon the flimsiest supposition a series of
incidents inflaming to the brain of the jaundiced thinker, but which,
nevertheless, have no foundation in fact. Unfortunately, the jealous too
often act upon these probabilities as if they had really happened, and
in the paroxysms of rage and agony created by unworthy visions, reason
takes to flight, and the worst extravagances are the result.

This was the case with Colonel Mires. He had assumed interviews between
Flora and young Vivian which had never taken place. His prurient mind,
not improved by his residence in India, had wrought out love passages
which had not occurred, and he groaned, gnashed his teeth, and even wept
with agony.

That he passionately loved Flora, even unto frenzy, was beyond a doubt,
and that it worked him up to a pitch of insanity is equally true, as his
recent conduct proved. In India, in command of a native regiment, his
power was great--he was, in a small sphere, a monarch; in England,
he felt curbed, trammelled, shackled, and if he had not had an Indian
servant, in close attendance, to expend that love and inordinate desire
for supreme command upon, he would have been constantly committing some
outrageous outbreak of temper, which, of necessity, would have often
precipitated him into trouble.

He chafed at the restraint the state of society in England placed upon
him; and when it was impossible to conceal from himself that he was the
veriest slave to Flora’s beauty, he was infuriate to find that his wish,
no less than his will, went for nothing in effecting a result in which
the happiness or misery of his whole future life was involved.

The confession of love for Vivian, which Flora had made to her father,
and the expressed determination of old Wilton to give her hand to the
Honorable Lester Vane, scattered any floating delusive hopes he might
have entertained. He saw that she could only become his by some bold act
of villany, perpetrated regardless of all consequences attendant upon
its frustration.

He formed a plan with subtlety, and made his arrangements with skill.
He went over the whole distance between Harleydale and Southampton
carefully, making a chart of the bye-ways. He provided relays of horses
at unfrequented spots; and at every house, where it would be necessary
to rest for the night or stay for refreshment, he palmed off on the host
a story that his task was the distressing one of conveying a young lady,
afflicted with raving insanity, to an asylum for lunatics. Every minute
detail of the plan was carefully considered before adoption, and every
possible contingency foreseen and provided against.

There was one exception!

It did not strike Colonel Mires that he was distrusted, suspected of
evil machinations, and was, therefore, closely watched.

Such a probability was omitted from his calculations. How, in fact,
was he to conjecture that Nathan Gomer, having perused his physiognomy
carefully, while Vivian was replying to the charges he had made against
him, had formed a conclusion most unfavourable to him; that, in short,
the shrewd little man had believed he read in the workings of his
features a strong determination to commit an evil deed, by which Vivian
directly and Flora indirectly would be made to suffer.

Yet such was the fact; and Nathan Gomer was not the man to pause in
doubt when he suspected evil. Having several agents in his pay, he
instructed one upon whom he could rely, and from that moment Colonel
Mires went nowhere abroad without an unknown attendant, of whose
existence he was unconscious, but who dogged his footsteps with untiring
pertinacity.

The scheme of the abduction was, therefore, by the revelations of his
agent gradually unfolded to Nathan Gomer; who let the arrangements of
the Colonel proceed until the culminating point was at hand; when he
communicated with young Vivian; and placed in his hands the power--as he
calculated--of appearing upon the scene at a moment of vital importance
to Flora; and of appearing once more before old Wilton as the saviour of
his daughter’s honour as he had been of her life.

Hal Vivian was visited by Nathan Gomer as he was making preparation to
leave England; to fulfil a short engagement offered him on high terms in
the United States, the acceptance of which had been pressed, upon him
by the first manufacturing goldsmith in England. The communication
he received altered his plan, although it happened that he reached
Harleydale too late to prevent Flora being carried off; but yet in time
to save the life of Wilton.

Thus it fell out. Upon reaching the village of Harleydale; he had
an interview with Gomer’s agent, who told him that a close carriage
belonging to Colonel Mires was in a bye-lane contiguous to Harleydale
park; and the Colonel himself was somewhere up in the woods; lying in
wait; it was supposed; for Flora; in order to carry his project into
execution. It was arranged that the agent should watch the carriage; and
Hal should go up into the woods and hunt up the Colonel. The result of
this arrangement has been seen. He saved old Wilton from the murderous
weapon of Chewkle, and the Colonel got safely off with Flora, for
the agent had to rush back to the village, when he saw Flora conveyed
senseless to the carriage, to mount a horse--already provided--to follow
the vehicle, that he might, at the first place where assistance was to
be obtained, stop the further progress of the outrage upon Miss Wilton’s
liberty.

He left a note for Vivian, who obtained from it information of the
direction he was to pursue; and though not much used to riding, his
horsemanship, under the impulse which was almost maddening, would have
done honour to a steeple-chase rider.

Colonel Mires had had the shrewdness to provide a pair of strong, fleet
horses for the start. He instructed his coachman to do the first stage
of ten miles at a hand gallop. The man obeyed, even though the roads
were heavy, the ruts deep, and the carriage several times was within an
ace of being overturned.

The second stage, with fresh horses, was performed in a similar manner,
though at a less rate of speed, because the horses were not so good,
and, being pushed, all but knocked up at their eighth mile. The third
stage was commenced with another relay of horses, and proceeded much at
the same rate on a fifteen-mile journey, unchecked and with undiminished
speed.

No delay, except changing horses, had taken place from the moment of
departure as yet; but the Colonel believing that, when he had placed
thirty-five miles between him and Harleydale, accomplishing the distance
in four hours, he might with safety pause for a short time in order
to give his coachman rest; and himself obtain some refreshment. He
determined to do so, and gave his Indian servant orders to that effect.

No pursuer as yet had appeared in sight, nor any sign that, even if
Flora had been missed, a clue elucidating the mystery surrounding her
abrupt disappearance had been obtained.

Indeed he expected none: in the first place there had not been time; in
the second, he had so full a conviction of the successful secrecy of his
operations, that he calculated upon being the very last person who would
be charged with having anything to do with Flora’s abduction.

Flora had been, soon after the carriage was set in motion, restored by
the attentions of the ayah to consciousness, and on opening her eyes
gazed wildly round her. It was some little time before she could realise
her position. At length the face of Colonel Mires and the motion of the
vehicle in which she was seated, supported in the arms of the Indian
woman, gave her some notion of her true situation, and rousing herself,
she made an effort to recall the past, and then said to Colonel
Mires----

“What is the meaning, sir, of this outrage?--how is it that I find
myself alone with you and this Indian servant, torn from my home, and
borne with frightful rapidity in an unknown direction?”

Colonel Mires turned his inflamed eyes upon her and, in a tone of
passionate tenderness, replied--

“Ask your more than mortal beauty and your in difference to my almost
more than mortal love for you. Oh! Flora, I cannot see you, cannot know
you to be another’s; my adoration for you is without limit; and if I
have resorted to a bold step, it is only because my passion for you
would pause at nothing to ensure my happiness.”

“You have resorted to a mean and wicked artifice to place me in your
power, Colonel Mires!” she exclaimed, awaiting his answer with an
intensity of eagerness which it was somewhat remarkable he did not
notice.

“All stratagems, it is said, are fair in love-matters,” he replied. “If
I adopted one which has occasioned you pain, I regret its action, though
I rejoice at its result, for it gave me you. Understand me, sweet Flora,
you must be mine--it will be impossible for you to escape that issue;
but I shall treat you with the greatest possible respect until we are
united. Your dignity shall not be insulted, nor your modesty offended,
by act, by word, or look. Every desire or wish you may form, save that
of severing yourself from me, shall be gratified. I will be your slave,
ministering to your will in all things, except in aught that would take
you from me. You will find me scrupulously adhere to this promise in
every respect. At the same time, let me inform you that any attempt to
release yourself will be futile. My arrangements have been so made that
all entreaties and appeals for assistance will be in vain. We are now on
our way to Southampton, from thence, by packet, direct to Madeira. Only
at appointed places shall we stay; and at each place the persons there
are prepared to see with me a young lady of surpassing beauty, but a
confirmed lunatic--insane upon the fancy that she is being forcibly
abducted from home. I deem it advisable to make you thus much acquainted
with my plan to spare you the agony of useless displays. At Funchal, I
hope to induce you to become my wife--at least, I will ensure that you
shall never be the bride of another.”

He ceased. Flora made no reply. The note which informed her of the
sudden death of Mr. Vivian, professing to be written by Mrs. Harper,
was a forgery, acknowledged to be such by the Colonel. She cared little
for the rest; she had faith in being rescued, or in effecting an escape
from the clutches of the scoundrel who had made her prisoner and was
bearing her away. She could not conceive how one or the other could be
accomplished, but she had no doubt that she would be set free before she
was forced on board the ship of which he had spoken. Hal was not dead;
she could bear all the rest with comparative equanimity.

As we have said, she did not reply to Mires nor afterwards speak a word
in answer to any remark he made or question he put to her. She declined
all refreshment, though he pressed her earnestly at the end of the third
stage to partake of it, and resisted every inducement to utter a word.

They were well away on the fourth stage, still pursuing unfrequented
bye-roads, when the Indian coachman suddenly put his head down to the
window, and called, “Sahib!”

His tone was so urgent and startling that Colonel Mires leaped from
the recumbent position in which he placed himself for the last hour,
watching with an unswerving, ardent gaze the beautiful but saddened
face of Flora. He bent his head towards his man, and with a brusque tone
demanded what had occurred.

“We are pursued, sahib,” replied the Indian, very decisively.

“Pursued!” echoed the Colonel, rapidly; “by whom?”

The Indian pointed with his whip. They were passing over a hilly tract
of land. At a distance of some four or five miles the road wound along
a ridge which skirted a steep hill. Pursuing that road at a brisk pace
were a couple of horsemen. Mires gazed at them intently; they appeared
to him to be taking a course leading in an opposite direction to that in
which his carriage was proceeding. He said as much.

The Indian gave a significant shake of the head.

“_We_ came same road as dat, sahib; they are on our track--seen ’em
dis half-hour coming same road as us. Tellee true, Sahib.”

The Colonel was, however, disposed to scout the notion that the horsemen
were in pursuit of him. How was it possible, he mentally inquired,
that any clue as yet could have been obtained to the cause of Flora’s
disappearance, and the route he had taken in bearing her off. Suddenly
he forced an oath through his teeth, and he broke out in a clammy
perspiration. It occurred to him that the villain Chewkle might have
betrayed him. No dependence could be placed on mercenaries Experience
had taught him that fact: but, under any circumstances, he thought it
unadvisable to give away even the shadow of a chance against him. He,
therefore, called sharply to his Indian servant--

“Nanoo, push the horses into a smart gallop; we cannot have far to
travel ere we reach the stage where we have arranged to rest for a few
hours. We shall soon ascertain the purpose of those fellows; if they are
really in pursuit, we will prepare for the worst, and stick at nothing.
Should the consequences prove fatal to those who attempt to
intercept us, the fault will be theirs. I have devoted myself to the
accomplishment of my object, and bloodshed will not stay me in effecting
it. Lash the horses--lash them--make them fly over the remaining
distance--give the brutes the thong--away!”

The Indian obeyed; and the horses, under the application of the whip,
administered with an unsparing and unpitying hand, plunged madly
forward, snorting and chafing under the smarting cuts savagely dealt
upon them.

Their route, now from a level road, lay suddenly down a hill with severe
curves in it. Colonel Mires rose up in his seat and looked eagerly after
the horsemen, and his brow clouded as he perceived them abruptly leave
the main road, and, leaping their horses over a breast-hedge which lined
it, strike across country directly towards him.

He sat down muttering an oath; and with indescribable horror Flora
perceived him draw from beneath one of the seats a case which, on his
opening it, disclosed a couple of handsomely-finished revolvers, each
with a long polished single barrel. She saw him examine them carefully
to insure their being ready for instant use, and she observed, with
apprehension and disgust, that his contracted brows and clenched teeth
indicated a most deadly determination.

She felt sick, faint, and dizzy with fear, her terror being
proportionably increased by the frightful speed at which she could see,
by the passing objects, and tell by the awful rocking, jumping motion of
the carriage, they were being borne along.

The Colonel scarcely noticed the tremendous pace into which his
servant had lashed the horses--he was in deep conjecture respecting
his pursuers. He thought it not improbable Mark Wilton might be one;
he hated him, for he had been treated by him with distrust and scarcely
concealed dislike; he felt that it would cost him but little repugnance
to shoot him; but then he was Flora’s brother, and his blood upon his
hands was not calculated to prosper his wooing. Nevertheless, rather
than resign Flora, he was resolved not to stop short even at that crime.

He was roused from his reverie by the horrified moans of the ayah, and
the sudden outcries of his Indian attendant. He thrust his head out of
the carriage window, and saw that the over-driven steeds had been lashed
into frenzy, and in their progress down the hill their own impetus,
added to the enormously accelerated velocity of the vehicle, unchecked
by a drag, had urged them to a speed which was beyond their own control.
Giving way to fright, they dashed blindly on, unheeding in their fearful
wildness the check which the speedily-alarmed Indian attempted to impose
on them the instant he found they were beyond command; but he discovered
his mastery was gone, and he soon lost all presence of mind, and
shrieked to his master that the horses were flying with them to
destruction.

The ayah quickly added her shrieks to the yells of the completely scared
Indian; and Mires, with no little consternation, saw the danger in which
all were placed, but he was powerless to aid. To open the door and jump
out would have been to court death; to remain where he was would be to
incur injuries it was impossible to calculate upon. He pulled down the
window behind the coachman, and commenced an attempt to crawl through
the opening, to gain, if possible, a seat on the box, in the hope that,
uniting his strength with that of the Indian, who still clung to the
reins, the horses might be pulled up.

He had just advanced his head and shoulders through the window when
the carriage was dashed with tremendous force against a tall thick-set
hedge, and the Indian was swept like lightning from the box. The ayah
shrieked frantically, and Flora at the shock fainted away. The horses
plunged and kicked in the madness of terror, and tore the carriage
wheels through the impediments opposed to their progress; they bounded
forward in their impetuous career, and swept down the hill with more
tremendous rapidity than ever. Within a hundred yards the road took
a sharp, abrupt turn; facing the horses stood the stone ruins of an
ancient building. Under no control, completely blind in their frantic
terror, they kept on their distracted way, swerving only by their own
infuriate motions, but turning not as the sharp wind of the road came
upon them.

With a terrific crash they dashed into the ruins, killing themselves,
and shattering the carriage to atoms in one fearful and fatal collision.

In the meantime the two horsemen, who, as it may be surmised, were
Hal Vivian and Nathan Gomer’s agent, whom he had overtaken, were fast
approaching the scene of the disastrous accident. The fugitives would
have been overtaken before they had reached so far, but for the delay in
getting fresh steeds. As it was, Hal was almost knocked up with fatigue,
save that the intensity of his anxiety for Flora’s safety prevented his
feeling the physical exhaustion he would otherwise have done. He would
have kept on until he had dropped rather than risk the possibility of
losing her by even a necessary delay for rest and refreshment.

Having, from the ridge spoken of, when the attention of Colonel Mires
was first drawn to his pursuers; perceived the flying vehicle; at Hal’s
bold suggestion, he and his companion leaped the hedge skirting the
road; and made their way by the direct line instead of pursuing the
circuitous path. The difficulties they had encountered were many, but
nearly half the distance was saved; and they at length--after leaping
gullies and hedges, wading streams, and forcing a way through part of a
plantation, one tangle of undergrowth--emerged at the brow of the
hill down which the carriage containing Flora had been whirled to
annihilation.

At this spot there was a cross-road, but the fresh print of the
carriage-wheels in the soft, sandy, moist soil directed them to the
right route, and they spurred their steeds down the declivity, but with
more caution than the miserable Nanoo had done. Suddenly Hal’s companion
reined in his steed, and jumped off his horse. He picked up a whip, and
held it up.

“Here is a sign we are on the right track,” he said, “the blacky has
dropped his whip.”

On to his horse, and away again. Not more than a hundred yards further,
both pulled in their steeds at one impulse. A garment lay in the middle
of the road.

The agent again dismounted, and picked up a loose great-coat. Then he
ran his eye along the road.

“My God!” he cried, “an accident has happened. Look at the swaying track
of the wheels; their horses have bolted with them, and they have all
been upset. Come on.”

He vaulted into his saddle as he spoke, and on they went again--Hal’s
heart beating almost audibly, in fear that an accident could only be
fraught with some frightful and fatal injury to Flora.

They had not proceeded far when the body of the Indian was discovered
lifeless upon the roadway. He had been struck with tremendous violence
by the arm of a tree, and hurled like lightning to the ground.

It was so evident that he was dead, that neither attempted to dismount,
but both pressed on in silence. The agony of Vivian it is impossible to
depict--large drops of cold perspiration stood upon his forehead, his
features had become livid, and his tongue clave to the roof of his
mouth. His breast heaved, and his breath went and came in short
spasms--he felt as if he should suffocate. A dreadful presentiment
chilled his blood, and made his marrow almost freeze in his bones. He
feared to encounter the sight he anticipated to be awaiting him, and yet
he felt that his steed seemed only to proceed at too slow a pace.

And now they reached the ruins.

Hal uttered a cry of grief and consternation.

Upon the ground lay the shattered fragments of the carriage; amid the
_débris_ of broken wall and dismantled masses of stone were both horses,
frightfully lacerated, and bleeding from the desperate wounds inflicted
by their terrific collision.

The body of the carriage, which had been forced half through a low,
dilapidated archway, appeared to have been, owing to some large blocks
of stone on the ground beneath, crushed by the hyperthyrion of the
ruined doorway, and compressed to almost half its natural height, the
splintered fragments sticking out here and there showing how tremendous
had been the collision, how frightful the destruction.

Both men leaped from their saddles in an instant, and fastening their
horses hastily at a short distance from the spot--for both animals
started and betrayed symptoms of terror, either at the scent of blood or
the confusion before them--they hastened to the carriage.

The silence of the dead reigned around--not even a groan from within
the jambed and crushed vehicle gave token of life still remaining in the
frames of those whom Hal knew it yet contained.

With almost superhuman strength, Hal forced open the twisted, bent,
and partly-shattered door. A hurried, sickening glance showed him the
mangled body of Colonel Mires, half in the carriage and half buried
in the broken box-seat, his head and shoulders hidden from view by the
splinters and ruins of that part of the vehicle.

Doubled up at the bottom of the carriage appeared the forms of two
senseless females; with a groan of acute agony, he wound his arms
tenderly about one of them, and with great difficulty, because of his
gentleness, he contrived to liberate her.

He bore her away from the spot, to a small patch of grass, and there
gently laid her down, and bent over to see if any sign of life remained.

It was Flora whom he had thus rescued, and who, without a token of life,
lay motionless--the very reality it seemed of death in as fair a form as
was ever presented to mortal eye.

Hal knelt by her in a state of frenzy--his eyes inflamed, his throat
swollen; he appeared the incarnation of despair. So intense was his
emotion, that he was wholly without power to move.

The agent bent over the prostrate form of the senseless girl, and
regarded her face with scrutinising eyes. He, though agitated, was of
course not so deeply affected as his companion, and he exclaimed--

“She’s alive--she has only fainted, rub her hands briskly, she’ll come
too directly--I don’t believe she is hurt, she has been frightened into
a swoon.”

The man commenced actively chafing her hands as he spoke. Hal, who had
seemed paralysed, now followed his example. The friction upon her palms
and the cool air which played upon her pallid features had the desired
effect, and shortly her eyelids began to work tremulously, then she
uttered a deep-drawn sigh and opened her eyes.

With a sudden motion she rose half up, looked wildly round her, her dim
sight took in the face of the agent; she turned from him with a shudder,
and her eyes fell upon Hal’s intensely anxious face, within a foot of
her own. A low cry escaped her lips.

“Hal! Hal!” she exclaimed, in a tone of doubt, yet of strong hope.

“It is even I, dear Flora,” he ejaculated, hoarsely, through his parched
lips.

She flung her arms about his neck, and cried, passionately--

“Save me! save me! Hal, save me!”

“You are saved,” he murmured, almost inaudibly; and burying his face on
her shoulder, gave way to a paroxysm of scalding tears.

It was but for a moment that this weakness overcame him. Had he not
suffered the gush of emotion to have its course, he had fallen back in a
fit.

He sprang to his feet, and raising up Flora, conducted her to his horse.
He called to his companion the agent, and bade him remain at the scene
of disaster until he sent up help to him; and, as there was yet
some three miles to traverse before he could reach the house--a lone
one--where it had been Colonel Mires’ intention to stay for some hours,
if not all night, he mounted his horse, and placing Flora before him,
went at an easy canter from the terrible spot.

Oh, that short ride of three miles. Never before did he experience such
unalloyed happiness as he enjoyed during the brief term occupied in
proceeding from the place of accident to the inn.

Flora, saved from a horrible death, was in his arms--his left encircled
her small waist, and her two soft hands met and clasped about his neck.
Her now flushed cheek rested against his, and her gentle eyes looked
into his own with an expression of loving tenderness and a perfect sense
of security.

She was unconscious as yet of the fate of Colonel Mires or his servants.
She knew that she had been on the eve of some dreadful accident. She had
a shadowy sense of a violent crash, but nothing more. She had no wish to
learn what had really happened. It was enough to know that she had been
wrested from the villanous custody of Colonel Mires and by Hal--that was
all she cared for, she sought for no more information: and Vivian, who
was pretty well acquainted with the details, forbore, in her highly
nervous state, to shock her by repeating them to her.

On reaching the inn, Hal despatched the landlord and some men to the
spot where Colonel Mires had met his fate; and upon making inquiries
learned that at no great distance was the main coach-road, leading
to Dorset, and there was a posting-house at which he could obtain a
carriage and post-horses to return to Harleydale.

He was anxious to quit the inn, for Flora’s sake, before the dead bodies
were brought in. He submitted to her that it would be desirable to
return to Harleydale without delay, and she readily assented to anything
which he believed to be for the best. Leaving his tired steed, and
having procured a seat for both in a country grocer’s light cart, they
were driven over to the roadside inn named, and there, having partaken
of some slight refreshment, set out in a post-chaise on their return to
Harleydale.

As yet Hal had not mentioned to Flora a word respecting the condition
of her father. It was his intention, when her mind became more calm, to
prepare her for the event which had taken place.

By mutual consent it seemed that they banished all unpleasant
matters, and reverted to that which was alone of absorbing interest to
both--their love for each other. Even this subject stole by degrees only
into the first place in their conversation; and then Hal honestly and
honourably placed before her his true position, together with the
views of the future which he entertained, and what probation he must
necessarily pass before he might dare to look for the realisation of
the hope first in his heart of hearts. In doing this he sketched the
relation in which she stood to him, pointed out how wide apart their
present stations were, and his own keen sense of the fact, so that,
should she bend obedient to her father’s anxious wish to wed her to one
of her own rank, he felt it would be unmanly in him to blame her, that
it would indeed be ungenerous to think even harshly of her for taking
the step; and if--notwithstanding her present impressions--she fancied
that she would eventually be happier in uniting herself with the object
of her father’s choice, it would be his duty, loving her so truly as he
did, to stand from her path, that she might ensure happiness on earth,
no matter what might be his own fate.

Flora stayed his speech. She leaned her head upon his shoulder, and
placed her hand in his--

“I love you Hal,” she said; “I answer all your suggestions and my
father’s pleadings and commands in those words. I will give my hand to
no other, if not to you; and, oh! Hal,” she cried, with an impetuous
burst of feeling, “I will cast away all the wealth which is to be mine,
the station and its luxuries, to share your fate, whatever it may be--if
you will have me. I look with fright and horror upon any other future. I
can endure anything with you, submit with a smile to the frowns of fate,
bear cheerfully any ills which may arise--you know, Hal, poverty ought
not to scare me--I can bear troubles and trials with you, I can bear
nothing if I am to be torn from you and given to another.”

“My own darling Flora!” cried Hal, pressing her tenderly to his heart.

A flush of heat rushed to his forehead and his cheeks. His heart beat
rapidly, for it occurred to him that he had but to ask her now to return
no more to her father’s home, but to give to him at once her hand, and
thus set the machinations or the claims of all other lovers at defiance.

It was a fearful moment of temptation.

He drew a long breath.

“Will you not, Flora, marry Lester Vane?” he said, in an undertone of
deep earnestness.

“I will die first, Hal,” she replied, with equal fervour.

He pressed his hands to his throbbing temples. He laid his clenched
fist upon his wildly-beating heart. He thought of Flora’s beauty and her
tenderness. Then he thought, too, of her guileless innocence.

A fearful struggle ensued between love, honour and duty.

She would fly with him and give her hand to him at a word. That he knew.

He so adored her, and his chances of obtaining her, save by elopement,
were so very, very remote.

The temptation was a sore one to wrestle with.




CHAPTER IX.--THE REWARD OF FAITHFULNESS AND TRUTH.


               Work then with steadfast hope and hand;

                   Yoke goodwill to the sturdy plough;

               Cut the deep furrow through the land;

                   On high the ridges throw.

               So shall increase thy labours crown,

                   And joy bring in thy harvest home;

               Yet faint not should thy fortunes frown,

                   Thy harvest is to come.

               Constant in this, take heart and breath;

                   These cannot fail whate’er befall--.

               Duty and Love, and Truth and Faith,

                   And Pure-Intent withal.

                             --Kington.


Mark Wilton, with the impetuosity natural to his character, had,
after his last interview with Lotte Clinton, determined, on leaving her
residence, that another twenty-four hours should close his account with
England and all it contained.

The first ocean-going steamer bound for a distant port should convey
him--no matter whither it was destined. A selfish, inexorable parent,
a too-scrupulous love, he would leave behind him for ever; and in some
wild, exciting service, under the flag of a nation on the other side of
the globe, he resolved to endeavour to forget the cause of his present
unhappiness.

In the heat of his wrath, against his parent especially, he encountered
Charles Clinton, and from him learned that his father had been struck
down by the bullet of an assassin, and, for all that was at the moment
known, lay at the point of death.

The natural impulse of a generous and affectionate heart effected an
instant revulsion of feeling, and the ocean-going steamer was at once
abandoned for the train to Harleydale.

Before the night closed in he was, with an able surgeon, at his father’s
bedside.

As he gazed upon the old man’s ashy face, his closed eyes, the furrowed
wrinkles--traces of care and long suffering--all angry, rebellious
animosity took wing; he knelt down by the couch, and, with falling
tears, prayed earnestly for him against whom so few hours back his heart
had been so fiercely moved.

The surgeon, after a careful examination, reported that the wound
received by old Wilton, though severe, was neither fatal nor in itself
dangerous, but the shock it had occasioned to the system of an aged and
feeble man was essentially the latter; in fact, the prostration it had
produced rendered his condition highly critical. The surgeon plainly
said that extraordinary care and unceasing tending and nursing could
alone save him; and he impressed it upon Mark’s mind that failure in the
nurse’s duties would be fatal to his father.

It was necessary that Flora should be made acquainted with the
directions of the surgeon; and Mark, surprised at not seeing her with
her father, sent for her, believing that agony and fright had compelled
her to retire to her chamber.

He was astounded to learn that she was not in the house. That she
had quitted the Hall in the morning, and had not returned; and though
messengers had been despatched in every direction in search of her, she
could not only not be found, but no tidings could be gained of her.

This was a new blow to him. He felt distracted and bewildered; he could
suggest to himself nothing to account for her absence but some frightful
and fatal accident. He dare not leave his father’s side to search for
her, and the people by whom he was attended or to whom he might apply
appeared to have done all in their power, but in vain, to gain tidings
of her.

While racking his brain to devise a means of instantly instituting
a fresh search for her, his father roused himself from his previous
lethargic condition, and gazed feebly around him: as his dull eyes
fell upon Mark they brightened up, a smile of affection passed over his
ghastly features, and he pressed the hand with which Mark clasped his.

Again his eyes wandered round the bedside twice ‘or thrice, then he
turned to Mark with a disappointed look. His lips moved, and in a faint
tone he murmured--“Flora.”

What was to be said?

With an air of embarrassment, Mark responded--

“She is in her room--she is not well--frightened, unable to support this
shocking event.”

The old man shook his head feebly.

“I have been harsh and selfish to her,” he said. “I have endeavoured to
enforce my will against her hopes of future happiness, and she does not
forget it now.”

He turned his face away with an air of pain and sorrowful discontent.

“Beware of exciting his mind in any shape,” whispered the surgeon. “He
is too exhausted to sustain it.”

Mark bent over his father, and whispered in his ear--

“Do not wrong Flora, dear sir,” he said; “she will be here shortly, and
her absence shall be satisfactorily explained to you.”

As the surgeon imposed implicit silence, Mark sat down to reflect
upon what course was to be pursued respecting Flora’s unaccountable
disappearance. It suddenly occurred to him that his friend Harry Vivian
would be the individual to apply to for assistance. There was no doubt
on his mind that he would do his utmost to ascertain what had befallen
her, and to restore her in safety, if such happy issue was to attend the
mystery of her absence.

As soon as the suggestion presented itself, he despatched a servant to
the station with a telegraphic message to Vivian, paying for the return
message, instructing him to come down to Harleydale at once, even to
engage a special train, the cost of which he, Mark, would defray, for
the matter on which he desired to confer with him admitted of no delay.

An answer was received in a brief period, which ran thus--

“_Vivian from home. Gone, not known where; return, not known token_.”

This was a climax; and he reseated himself by the invalid’s bedside,
his mind tortured by doubts respecting the fate of his father and of
his sister, and agonized by his remembrances of his parting with Lotte
Clinton.

The surgeon had retired for the night, having given his parting
directions. Old Wilton lay in a motionless slumber, produced by an
opiate. The old housekeeper flitted about the room like a phantom, and
Mark, with folded arms and eyes fastened on vacancy, still continued
successively calling up dreamy visions.

Inspired by a new hope, communicated to his heart by his father’s fond
smile and affectionate manner to him he shaped out schemes to conquer
his repugnance to marriage with Lotte Clinton. What if he were to
present her with the whole of the money he had brought from abroad with
him? A girl with a dowry of upwards of six thousand pounds was hardly
one even for his father to reject.

But would she accept it, if he offered it to her!

This sempstress, so proud, so single-minded, so clear in her
perceptions, so firm in her resolves, so undeviating in her spirit of
rectitude.

Well, he might bestow it upon her anonymously, and then contrive an
accidental meeting with her. He might----

Hark!

Carriage-wheels rolling over the gravelled path, and stopping before the
hall-door.

Mark sprang to his feet. It must be Flora returned.

It was Flora and Hal too. He met them in the hall, both entering in with
grave faces and soft step.

And the temptation?

It had been triumphed over. Hal had battled with it manfully; but love
and passion, and fears of losing so dear a treasure, had fastened upon
honour, and all but strangled it.

In his dire extremity, Hal called upon Flora, and unfolded the conflict
going on within his heart to her view. He asked her for counsel and for
argument to combat the incentives tugging at his heart-strings, urging
him to do with her free consent what Colonel Mires had sought to do
without it.

She could only weep and tremble; and alas!--for she, too, could not bear
to think that they must part for ever--leave in his hands the momentous
decision.

His honour was, however, of stubborn material; it continued its exertion
in spite of the formidable antagonists it had to contend with, and there
stepped to its aid at an opportune moment the remembrance of the wound
inflicted on old Wilton by Chewkle.

Hal at once broke to Flora the event of the morning.

It saved them both.

They continued their journey to Harleydale, scarce a word passing
between them.

When at the Hall they met Mark, Flora flung herself upon her brother’s
neck, and sobbed--from more causes than one.

“Be not alarmed, Flo’, dear,” whispered Mark; “the surgeon says there is
no danger. He only wants good nursing; you will do all that, I know.”

Flora almost sank to the earth.

“If I had left him!” she thought, and, only waving her hand to Hal,
tottered to her father’s room.

“If I had induced her to fly with me,” thought Hal, and instinctively
smote his breast.

Mark wrung his hand warmly.

“You have saved her,” he said; “from whom?”

“Mires,” replied Hal, laconically.

“And from myself,” he might have added.

Mark started in astonishment.

“From him?” he ejaculated. Then he said--“No matter whom--she is back
safe again. You are pale and fagged; you must have some rest. I will
hear you recount what has passed after you have risen in the morning.”

They separated; for Hal was only too glad to be alone--too glad to have
the opportunity of making his acknowledgments of joy at having conquered
his great temptation. And when he flung himself exhausted on his bed,
Mark returned to his father’s room to find there Flora upon her knees in
prayer, and ruthful, though silent, self-upbraiding.




CHAPTER X.--HOW LOTTE FULFILLED HER TRUST.


                   Among the faithless faithful only she,

                   Among innumerable false, unmoved,

                   Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,

                   Her loyalty she kept, her love, her zeal:

                   Nor number nor example with her wrought,

                   To swerve from truth or change her constant mind.

                             --Milton.


And now Lotte Clinton was again alone in the world---again with her
face confronting her situation, prepared to sustain her cross with the
meek fortitude she had always hitherto displayed.

She had nourished in secret her hope that one day she should meet with
some sound-hearted singleminded youth, who would love her for
herself, and whom she should love, and heartily too, for the selfsame
qualification. It was only the natural promptings of a young girl’s
heart; it would, indeed, have been unnatural for her not to have
entertained some such notion.

She had met the man who had gained her heart--her first love, her soul’s
idolatry.

He was not the man she had pictured. She had never sketched out such a
figure, such a face as Mark possessed. She had never, indeed, created a
model. She had hoped only for a manly loving heart, and Mark presented
himself, carrying off her affection by a _coup de main_, without any of
those considerations she had deemed essential to love being consulted in
the matter.

Oh, she loved him truly, dearly, faithfully, and with the most pure
unselfishness. No greater happiness could she conceive than being his
wife. Yet to her clear mind there were duties superior to her deep
affection, and she bent to them. She swerved not from them, even though
her heart broke in the task.

The night that Mark went away she prayed for his happiness with earnest
sincerity, and though she might never, never see him more, and her
future life be thus made sad and cheerless, she sent up an entreaty that
their separation might never sit heavy on his heart.

A week had passed away. She was pale, and a dull settled expression had
fastened itself upon her once lively, intelligent open face. She had not
seen her brother Charley since Mark’s departure, and her only solace had
been Helen Grahame’s child.

She had hitherto loved it--now she doated upon it. It seemed all that
she had left to love, and to love her; for that the child was most
fondly attached to her there could be no doubt. She had had him
christened by the name of Hugh Riversdale Grahame, and she had stood as
godmother to him, resolving to fulfill firmly, faithfully, and justly
that sacred responsibility in the absence of his own mother, of whom,
since the night she left her so strangely, she had nothing heard.

One morning she was seated alone; she had laid the little Hugh down in
his tiny bed for his morning’s sleep, and she was bending over her work
with her accustomed close application. She thought of Mark; it was
not possible to keep down thoughts of him. He never would come back to
her--there seemed little doubt of that. How, indeed, she hardly hoped
for it, hardly wished for it; for, despite her adoration of him---it was
no less--she seemed to feel acutely disparity of their positions, and
that it would have proved an effectual barrier to their peace if united.
She thought of his parting words, and her eyes filled with tears. He
would not bid her adieu--he felt their parting so deeply--yes, he loved
her; she was sure of that, and an involuntary “God bless him,” escaped
her lips as her head sank upon her bosom, and the fast falling tears
bedewed the work in her trembling hands.

“Sweet! sweet! sweet!” chirruped the little canary.

“Dear little dick!” she thought, as the bird’s rapidly repeated call
attracted her attention, “the little darling sees that I am sad and
would comfort me.”

She raised her eyes, and, lo, a woman stood before her.

One glance--it was Helen Grahame.

With an almost suffocating cry, Lotte rose to her feet.

Helen clasped her hands and cowered before her.

“Oh, Lotte, Lotte,” she murmured.

Had she have spoken, and explained for a thousand years, she could not
have so clearly convinced Lotte that her mysterious absence had been
involuntary, as she did by the utterance of those two words.

“I see it all! I see it all!” she exclaimed, with

Jut quivering lips. “You are not to blame, Miss Grahame.”

Helen, with a gasp of ecstacy, caught Lotte in her arms. She embraced
her passionately.

“Oh! Lotte, my sweet, faithful, enduring friend,” she sobbed, “what do
I not owe to you? Only teach me how--in some way--I may try to repay you
for all the suffering I have occasioned you; for your faithfulness; for
your blessed charity; for your dear, dear womanly sympathies; and for
that service, inestimable in its value, which--never, never fainting
under its sharp exactions--you have rendered me. Oh! Lotte, my own
darling Lotte, had you been my sister, a fond, unselfish sister, I might
have expected some such ministering; but from you, on whom I had no
claim--not even that of mere acquaintanceship--how can I sufficiently
appreciate it?--how strive to evince to you the feeling it has raised
up in my heart toward you. Heaven bless you, dearest! I will try to show
you how I estimate you, for I am rich, Lotte, and--and I can look the
world in the face now bravely--ay, like a queen--but not unless you
share it with me. No, Lotte, my love, my truest, dearest friend! You
shared with me all you had in the world when there was no prospect--ay!
and no wish on your part that I should return it--and now I am wealthy
again, you shall share it all with me. It is my husband’s wish--my
husband, Lotte, my husband--my little child’s father, Lotte.”

Her voice sank low, and she hid her weeping eyes on Lotte’s neck.

What! not a word, Lotte--not one little word to say?

No--not one!

At another time, she would have pressed some composure into her service,
had it been ever so small; now she could not keep back her deep emotion,
nor enlist a word to express even one of the many thoughts crowding,
crashing through her brain.

Her whole frame appeared convulsed; she staggered as if she would sink
to the seat, but Helen clung to her, sustained her, laid her weeping
face upon her bosom.

“Rest thou there, darling!” she murmured. “Oh, Lotte, I am so happy to
hold you again in my arms--no more struggles with the world, Lotte; no
more unthreading of the web of life with a threaded needle. Dry your
tears, my own darling and true heart, for if one mortal can ensure
another’s happiness, I will compass yours.”

Happiness, and parted for ever from Mark!

Lotte could not refrain weeping, and Helen, finding it was so, hushed
her own quivering voice, and wiped the trembling lids of Lotte; and
kissed her pale cheek and forehead, pressing her again and again to her
heart.

Lotte at length summoned her old strength of purpose, and putting down
with a firm hand the uprising thoughts of her still desolate and lonely
condition in life, she strove to obey Helen’s injunctions to light up
her sweet pleasant eyes with a smile; and, after one or two efforts, she
cleared her aching throat so as to speak.

“In all sincerity,” she said, “I am happy, oh, very happy to see you
again and to hear such glad tidings, but I--I am sure I ought not to be
thus encircled by your kind arms. You overrate what I have done, and our
stations----”

Helen placed her hands over her mouth.

“Do not pain my heart, Lotte; do not wound me. If you talk to me in that
strain, I shall fear that the old contemptible pride I once possessed
had made me act so as to cause you to believe that I am hollow and
deceptive, and eaten up with a fatuity of which I have long known the
worthlessness. You have taught me that difference of station is levelled
by human worth--what do I say--oh, Lotte, no station is so high as that
held by one in right of truth and honour and virtue. Station, Lotte! If
it were of us two to kneel to the one most elevated and entitled to the
exercise of a noble pride, it would be for me to bend my knee----”

Lotte placed her hand before Helen’s mouth.

“It is my turn now,” she said, with a playful smile--sad though its
expression still was. “Pray, do not speak to me about myself,” she
added, almost mournfully, “for, indeed, it makes me feel embarrassed and
uncomfortable, but let us talk of him in search of whom, in spite
of your tender and kind words to me, your anxious eyes are
wandering--little pet.”

“My boy! my dear, dear boy! where is he?” said Helen, with a spasmodic
action of her throat, as she clutched Lotte’s shoulder.

Lotte smiled again one of her old, sweet smiles.

“He is so well, and so beautiful,” she whispered, “and such a dear, dear
little darling.”

She took Helen’s hand, and on tiptoe they went together into the
adjoining room. In a small wicker _berceaunette_, daintily trimmed with
white muslin and pink ribbons, which had cost Lotte at least a dozen
dinners, if not more, lay, sleeping, Helen’s child.

Rosy-faced, handsome-featured, and healthy-looking, he lay there a very
picture. He slept lightly and pleasantly, and seemed a very cherub of
happiness.

The devoted attention paid to him was evidenced in his own appearance
and in everything surrounding him.

Once again Helen caught Lotte in her arms and passionately kissed her
and sobbed wildly. Then she released herself and suddenly hurried from
the room, to Lotte’s intense surprise.

She was about to follow her when she saw her hastening back, light of
foot, bringing with her a gentleman. Lotte was at no loss to guess who
he was.

Helen led her husband to the side of the sleeping child. She pointed to
it, and in low quivering tones she exclaimed--

“Thus has she fulfilled her trust!”

Hugh gazed on his child, and then he turned to Lotte. She could see his
eyes were humid, He caught her hands and sank on his knees with a sudden
impulse before her.

She started; and as he pressed his lips almost impetuously on her hands,
she struggled to withdraw them, crying--

“Pray rise, sir, pray do; I entreat you to do so. You distress me--you
pain me, indeed you do.”

But Hugh still detained her.

“Pardon me!” he said, speaking rapidly and earnestly. “The position is
not derogatory to me; it is a tribute to your worth. This is no occasion
for cold form. I kneel to you in intense thankfulness; it is the
prompting--the outpouring of a full heart. You saved my Helen! she who
is dearer to me than life itself; you have saved and tenderly nurtured
our child! By these two acts you have also rescued me from destruction
and eternal perdition. I kneel to you that I may give some sign of the
keen sense of my indebtedness to you--that you may in the coming time
feel entitled to the position in which it is my intention to place
you--justly entitled without one shrinking impulse or doubting
impression. On my knees I thank you”--he rose up--“in my heart I
treasure the memory of your service, and by my future acts I will strive
to show how deeply and dearly I estimate it.”

Lotte faltered out some confused response, and ran out of the room to
conceal her emotion.

By this time the little fellow, nestled in the cradle, had opened his
infantile eyes, and turning them upon his mother, smiled.

To be sure she caught him up enraptured, and pressing him to her heart
covered him with a thousand kisses; and then he was called upon to
undergo the same process at the hands and lips of his father.

Then they adjourned, bearing their little treasure with them, to
the adjoining apartment, where they found Lotte trying to get up an
appearance as though she had no notion of tears.

Ah! Helen watched her expressive face, perused its lineaments with
attentive scrutiny, and she saw there written a sadness too deep and
settled to be ousted by any attempt to smile and seem gratified and
overjoyed at another’s happiness. Not but that Lotte _was_ delighted at
Helen’s evident felicity, yet the surrender of her young pure heart to
one who was gone no more to return to her, was a grief which resisted
all her efforts to bury it deep in her own bosom without leaving an
outward sign to mark its grave.

Helen, so well versed in the language of Lotte’s heart, interpreted by
her sweet sad eyes and the play of her features that there was hidden
anguish which, at whatever cost of pain, she sought to conceal, so that
it might not disturb her new-found happiness.

“I will probe to that deep-seated sorrow,” thought Helen, “and if it
is to be rooted out, it shall have no long-continued home in her dear
heart.”

She, however, said nothing upon that subject now. She explained those
causes for her absence and silence which which the reader is acquainted,
adding that the sea-voyage her husband had taken her had rapidly
produced the desired effect, for they had scarcely landed when she was
fully restored to her intellect, remembered all that had happened, and
did not rest until she was on her homeward voyage--indeed, until she had
discovered Lotte, and presented herself before her.

Mutual revelations were made. Lotte furnishing a history of what had
happened to her since Helen had left her, omitting from the narration
the character of Mark Wilton.

When all these recitals had ended, Helen made known her intention of not
leaving the apartments in which they were sitting without Lotte.

The latter shook her head, with a sad smile on her face, as the
announcement was made to her; but Helen, with great decision, declined
to accept any denial from her.

“I am prepared for all your objections,” she said; “in fact, Lotte, I
have invented some for you, and have discussed them with Hugh only to
most triumphantly defeat them every one.”

Then she ran hastily over them, suggesting all that Lotte really did
feel in opposition to the scheme, with much more, but only to answer and
refute all the adverse arguments.

And so Lotte was to be a lady after all--to have a fortune, and ride in
a carriage of her own.

The wealth to which Hugh had succeeded would enable him to settle upon
her an amount that would do this without in any degree inconveniently
trenching upon his very large resources; and as there was really
no consistent argument she could offer for its rejection, she, with
swimming eyes of gratefulness, expressed her thanks and her hopes to be
proved worthy such generous liberality.

Perhaps there was some latent incentive which might have helped to
overcome her indisposition to accept an obligation so great, and
perhaps a flush heightened the hue of her features as a passing thought
suggested the poor sempstress passing before the eyes of old Mr. Wilton
in her own carriage, even though he refused to receive her into his
family.

Helen kissed her cheek affectionately, and said, delightedly--

“There is nothing, then, to step in between our arrangement.”

“Except your humble servant,” said a strange voice.

Both females uttered a startled cry, and Hugh jumped up and turned upon
the intruder.

It was Nathan Gomer who stood near the door.

The same strange, almost unearthly grin was upon his face as usual,
and he chuckled as he observed the utter surprise with which he was
regarded.

Neither Helen nor her husband knew him; the former gazed on him with
terror, the latter with haughty indignation at what he considered rude
audacity.

Lotte knew him in an instant, though she had seen him but once, when
he suddenly appeared as the friend of Flora Wilton, in the old abode at
Clerkenwell.

In an instant she felt sure that his visit was to her; and she had
a strange presentiment that whatever he directed her to do she must
perform.

All remained silent for a minute--then Nathan smiled.

“You seem slightly astonished,” he said; “didn’t expect to see me.
Ha! ha! I’m fond of creating a sensation. You don’t know me,” he said,
nodding to Helen. “You do,” he exclaimed to Lotte, “and I have business
with you both. Firstly, Miss Clinton, understand that I have had your
character painted to me in most glowing language by a young man--nay,
never turn so crimson, for the young lady by your side has just
described you in highly favourable terms, and it is not the custom for
young ladies to fall into extravagancies of encomium upon individuals of
their own sex; so you ought not to look so very rosy when you hear that
a young man extolled your virtues, even more highly than he did your
pretty face and form. I don’t expect you, however, to continue the
colour on your brow when I say, that having investigated the truth of
his allegations, I have found not one over estimated--that you are truly
worthy of and deserving the reward which your friend at your side has
offered to your superior merits----”

“If you knew how distasteful to my ears are these praises,” interrupted
Lotte, gravely, “indeed, sir, you would not follow the example of
generous people, whose extreme kindness of heart leads them to speak and
to think far too highly of me. It is as if truthfulness, faithfulness
and singleness of purpose were not common to us all.”

“Ah, yes, very good,” returned Nathan, “the only thing is, that the
possession of all those qualities by one individual is uncommon--a
leetle---I say, _rather_ uncommon. But I won’t, if you wish it, tell you
what I think, but I will ask you if you will be guilty of one more act
of unselfish service. You have just entered into an arrangement fraught
with every possible comfort and happiness: I have come to place myself
between you and the realization of immunity from care, privation, and
unwearying toil. To be brief, Mr. Wilton, senior, has been wounded by
an assassin, and lies helpless and delirious upon his bed at Harleydale.
His daughter Flora--you know her well, of course--also has been placed
in a position of danger, which, together with the shock occasioned
by the attack on her father, has placed her on a bed of sickness. Mr.
Wilton has none but hired nurses therefore. Now, Mr. Mark Wilton----”

Lotte turned pale at the name; Nathan saw it. He cleared his throat.

“I say that Mr. Mark Wilton bethought himself of you. I will not pretend
to enter on all the incentives which induced him to request you to take
the unthankful and trying office of nurse to his father--at least,
in tending him more as a daughter”--he laid a strong emphasis on that
word--“than as a nurse. No doubt he will satisfactorily explain himself
to you; but I may say that, knowing all the circumstances, I feel that
the request is a strong one, its compliance hardly to be expected, and
that some more than common motive has led to the suggestion. However,
as requested, I put the proposition to you; it is for you to accept or
decline it.”

Before he had finished, ten thousand reasons why she should not go had
flashed through her brain, yet the one soul-possessing idea--her love
for Mark--determined her to comply with Mark’s wish.

She was one who never let the sun go down on her wrath. She had forgiven
old Wilton’s harsh words although they had so pained her. Now she had no
hope that all the attention, care, and service she might be called upon
to bestow would remove his objections to her; nevertheless she should
be able to do some good for Mark’s sake; and if the parting with him
for ever took place beneath the roof of his father, it would not be
embittered, at least, by the remembrance that she had granted the aid he
had asked of her.

She wiped hastily from her eyelids the tears which memories awakened by
Nathan Gomer had gathered there, and said to him simply--

“I will go with you, sir, to Harleydale.”

For a moment the nostrils of Nathan were widely inflated, and he gave a
very perceptible gulp.

“Hem!” he ejaculated, clearing his throat. “We will be off in two hours
from this, so, lassie, make your preparations, and only one box, if you
please--I say, only one box.”

Then he turned to Helen, and said--

“Madam, I know you, though you are unacquainted with me. Pardon me if I
tell you matters are going on sadly in your father’s house. The family
pride has had a dreadful fall. Your father is absent, your sister
Margaret has--I say your sister Margaret has left her home, and your
mother is confined to her bed in serious illness, with Evangeline, your
sister, as her sole attendant; for the myrmidons of the law are in the
house, and the servants have decamped.”

Helen listened to him like one in a dream; then she turned to her
husband, and said to him--

“Hugh, we will proceed there this moment.”

He silently, but readily acquiesced; and with a few hasty loving words
to Lotte concerning the future, Helen embraced her and departed, taking
Lotte’s “pet” with her and her husband.

Two hours subsequently, Lotte Clinton, in the careful charge of Nathan
Gomer, was on her way to Harleydale, wondering what new trial fate had
in store for her.




CHAPTER XI.--LOTTE CLINTON AND OLD WILTON.


                   There is a kind of character in thy life,

                   That to the observer doth thy history

                   Fully unfold; thyself and thy belongings

                   Art not thine own so proper, as to waste

                   Thyself upon thy virtues, they or thee.

                   Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,

                   Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues

                   Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike

                   As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched

                   But to fine issues.

                             --Shakspere.


It is not easy to conceive nor to clearly explain the true motives
which induced Lotte Clinton to give her assent to the unexpected
proposition made to her by Nathan Gomer. In no view was it pleasing to
her, or calculated to afford her aught but embarrassment pain---perhaps
ungenerous insult. What, indeed, was it less than insult to ask her to
tend the man in his helplessness, who, in his strength and pride, had
stigmatised her as low-born? Alas! she could not look upon the present
request as a compliment to her--there was no phase in which it could
take that shape. It held out no prospect of effecting the realization of
what had once been--so recently too--afondly, though timidly cherished
hope. There was no prospect indeed, but that she would be harassed by
Mark’s appeals and urgings, and pained and sorely tried by the denials
he would force from her lips.

What was she to expect when Mr. Wilton recovered his senses, and became
conscious of her presence? Would he not believe that she had meanly
and surreptitiously contrived to gain admission to his house during his
prostration, with the object of availing herself of the opportunity to
fix more indelibly his son’s passion for her in his heart? What
would naturally be his conduct and his language to her under such an
impression?

Respecting Flora she conjectured little. She knew her to be kind and
gentle; but the same influences which had affected her father, when an
alliance was the subject of consideration, might have their effect upon
her too.

She wished Mark had not sent for her.

Yet, withal, she would not have rejected the entreaty for worlds. No!
beset as the task would necessarily be--with possible vexations, trials
and contumely, she determined to go through with it. Still she thought
Mark should not have asked this of her.

To refuse was not, indeed, possible to her; no, even if it cost her that
fortune and ease which Helen Riversdale had promised her.

She did not once ask herself--Why? If she would not have answered that
question, who else should make the attempt?

She did not dream that Mark Wilton was wholly guiltless of the message
Nathan Gomer conveyed to her, or that, in meeting with him, she should
have to undergo an ordeal she could not, under the circumstances, have
contemplated.

The journey to Harleydale was performed rapidly. Nathan Gomer rendered
himself as amiable and as entertaining as he could, until Lotte thought
it was a pity he was so short, so extremely yellow, and _so_ ugly, for
really he was a cheerful, kind-hearted, dear little old man. On
reaching the Hall, Nathan learned that Mark was alone in one of the
sitting-rooms, and, forbidding the servant to announce him--his usual
custom--he took Lotte by the hand, and pressing it, as if to reassure
her, he, with noiseless step, approached the room to which he had been
directed.

He found the door ajar, and he peeped in. He raised his finger to Lotte
to be silent; and, opening the door without a sound, he advanced with
his trembling companion to the shoulder of Mark Wilton, who was seated,
gazing abstractedly out of the window upon the lovely landscape which
stretched far away into the distance.

Lotte did not like the process, but really Nathan had so much
instinctive influence that she took part in the proceedings
unresistingly and without remark.

She quickly wished she had not done so.

Mark, who was sitting with his arms folded, suddenly released them,
pressed his hands forcibly together, and ejaculated--

“Oh! Lotte, Lotte! cruel girl, you have no faith in my endearing love.
You have coldly sacrificed my heart--my life--to a chimera!”

Nathan instantly tapped him on the shoulder; he started up and turned
round. Uttering an exclamation of astonishment, he staggered back
several paces, for his rapid glance had fallen upon Lotte’s downcast and
grave features.

“Bad practice, Master Mark, that of audibly soliloquising; it is a
failing of mine,” exclaimed Nathan Gomer, sharply. “Take the results
of my experience---it has got me into scrapes which money has hardly
succeeded in plucking me out of.”

“I am not dreaming!” cried Mark, pressing his hand to his forehead. Then
he rushed forward and seized Lotte’s passive hand. “Oh, Lotte! sweet
Lotte!” he cried, “to what happy turn of fate am I to attribute your
dear presence here?”

With a crimsoned face she looked upon him, and said, faintly--

“Did you not expect me?”

“Much as I have wished for you, I could not,” he said, “after our last
interview, expect the happiness of seeing you here.”

“Oh, sir!” said Lotte, turning with a face as white as death, to Nathan
Gomer, “you could not have conceived the misery you have occasioned me,
or you would never have placed me in so cruel a position as this.”

“You have no right to be miserable, and you shall not be miserable if I
have any influence in the matter,” replied Nathan Gomer. “Mr. Mark
did not expect to meet you here, because he was not consulted in the
affair.”

Lotte turned her reproachful eyes upon him, and said--“But, sir”----

“I told you that it was his earnest request that you should, as his
sister was very ill, come down here and take her place at the bedside
of Mr. Wilton,” interrupted Nathan, speaking in rather a dogmatical
tone. “Well, he did request you in his heart: I knew that, and made
use of it. The fact is, Mr. Wilton the elder is a very obstinate old
gentleman. A career of privation, instead of teaching him some useful
lessons upon social relations, has hardened his heart, as prosperity
does those of other men. I have a mind to teach him, with your aid, Miss
Clinton, a lesson too. What that may be you will know in good time; but
you, who I know never refused to do good to all within your reach, will
not refuse _me_ this request. By a subterfuge, which by-and-by you will
pardon, I brought you here. By appealing to your unselfish nature, I
hope to retain you here. Mr. Mark Wilton has a spirit too noble to take
advantage of your presence to alter the respective positions in which
you stand to each other. For the present he will see in you only his
sister’s dear friend. He and you will, I trust, leave the rest to me.
Under my guidance, I hope to bring present cross purposes to a happy
unity. Will you, Mr. Mark, be so good as to lead Miss Clinton to your
sister’s room, she is fatigued with her journey; and then be kind
enough to return to me, for, though Dame Nature omitted to lengthen
my proportions, she did not curtail my appetite, and before I commence
other operations I would silence its admonitions.”

Mark took Lotte’s hand; his impulse was to press it, but he refrained.
He led her from the room, and on his way, he said--

“Your presence here, Mi--Mi--Mi--hang it, I may say Lotte to my sister’s
dear friend, and I must. So let me tell you, Lotte, your coming will
light up this dull, gloomy old place with sunshine. It is, indeed;
welcome to me, and you will find how dear it will be to Flo’. Let me say
also, Lotte, I quite understand the peculiarity of the position in which
Nathan Gomer has placed you, but I am sure it is for the best he has
done it; besides, you know he can do just what he pleases here. Let me
further beg you to discard all fear of being ill at ease, for nothing
shall be left untried to make you happy and contented, even to my
scrupulously fulfilling the suggestion of Nathan Gomer.”

He released her hand as he concluded, tapped sharply at his sister’s
room-door, and with a beaming smile of happiness, such as had not for
some time illumined his face, he quitted her, and, hurrying along the
corridor, returned to Nathan Gomer.

In one statement Nathan Gomer had been truthful. Flora Wilton was really
very ill; her nerves had been shattered by the horrible event in which
she had taken part, and by the sight of the ghastly face of her father,
as he lay motionless in his bed on her return to Harleydale after
her abduction. For a day or two she had contrived to devote herself to
watching and waiting upon him, but when fever and delirium--the effects
of his wound--exhibited themselves, her strength gave way, her nervous
system was prostrated, and the physician attending her father insisted
upon her not only keeping her room, but her bed, to prevent fatal
consequences following her efforts to continue her self-imposed and
natural office of nurse.

The chamber door was opened by Flora’s maid, who, without a word,
admitted Lotte, assuming her to be a friend of her young mistress, and
the latter walked up to the bedside to announce herself.

She could not forget in doing so that night when, rescued from the
commission of a great crime, Hal Vivian presented her to Flora. She was
not likely to forget her reception then, still she was not prepared for
the cry of delight that Flora uttered when her feeble eyes rested on her
face; still less did she look for the passionate action with which Flora
flung her arms about her neck and kissed her many times. She had some
difficulty in preserving her composure, and exerted herself to calm down
Flora’s excitement and soothe her emotion. When the maid, intuitively
comprehending that her absence would be desirable, retired, Lotte sought
to elicit an explanation of this display of joy at her appearance. The
more striking it was to her, as she expected only to be welcomed with
a quiet courtesy, tempered by the reserve which did not acknowledge an
equality of position between them.

To find herself so pleasantly in error was agreeable enough, but she
needed, nevertheless, a cause for conduct at least improbable; and
which, in the circumstances in which she was placed, she could
hardly help looking at as a little more extravagant than the occasion
warranted--grateful, so very grateful as she was for it.

She had yet to understand Flora’s actual position; and when she did so,
her wonder at her reception was considerably modified. Flora had not one
friend of her own sex. When old Wilton came to Harleydale, it did not
occur to him to invite to his new home the gentry of the vicinity. He
preferred seclusion; Flora thus had not even a female acquaintance. The
events by which she had been rapidly surrounded were all of a character
to render communion with a female friend all but imperative: one in whom
she could confide, with whom she could consult, became in her isolation
a want necessary to her present happiness.

With each succeeding phase of circumstances her need grew greater, and
never did she feel more keenly, than at the moment when Lotte arrived,
the desolation of having no ear in which to pour her sorrows, no gentle
eye to beam with sympathy upon her sadness, no tender voice to guide her
in the path she ought to take.

Of all the world, Lotte Clinton was the being she would have selected to
fill up the void. Of all faces in the world to shine upon her now in
her tribulation, Lotte Clinton’s was the most welcome. She knew Lotte’s
kindly nature, and she knew her self-reliance. She knew that she loved,
and that a cloud had settled on that love. She had faith in her pure,
bright spirit; in its independence, in her clear sense of rectitude, and
in that unwavering resolve which would maintain her in acting up to its
dictates.

Here was a mind to direct hers, a soul to sympathise with her, and a
breast which she could safely make the repository of her secrets.

Gradually Flora revealed the want under which she had so long suffered,
and was not long in putting Lotte into possession of the fact that she
looked upon her in the light of a very dear, dear friend.

Lotte knew Hal Vivian. Ah! how that smoothed the path to many a
revelation! and she listened with such deep attention and sympathy to
Flora’s confession---though she had not sought it--that, in the fulness
of her heart at finding at last a comforter and a counsellor in one
of her own sex and of her own age--of her own cast of thought and
feeling--Flora kept back nothing; and ere Lotte that night for the first
time stood in the sick chamber of old Wilton, she was in full possession
of all that Flora had to reveal.

It was not without a trembling hesitation, a nervous sense that she was
in a false position, that Lotte entered Mr. Wilton’s chamber, but
she felt, nevertheless, that she was borne along by the stream of
circumstances, and she could not resist the force of the current.
The sight of the invalid, however--his moaning, ravings, and feeble
motions--at once dissipated all her personal feelings, and she applied
herself to the duties she had undertaken with a promptness and tact
which showed how much a willing spirit can supply to compensate for
a want of knowledge. Thoughtfully suggestive, tenderly considerate,
unwearied in application to her task, she elicited the warmest encomiums
from the physician, who, at the end of the week, told her, in the
presence of Mark and Nathan Gomer, that Mr. Wilton, if his life was
spared, would be as much indebted for his recovery to her assiduous
care and faithful performance of instructions as he would be to his own
skill.

Mark, who had preserved towards her a very quiet and respectful
demeanour, and never breathed a word about his love in her ear, regarded
her now with grateful and affectionate glances; while Nathan Gomer, with
shining face, grinned and rubbed his hands delightedly.

So, for a short time, matters went on. Flora, who shared, too, no mean
portion of Lotte’s attention, fast recovered strength, and felt more
placid and calm than she had been since the change in her circumstances
had taken place.

Harry Vivian was not at Harleydale; he had gone to the scene of Colonel
Mires’ fatal accident to attend, with Nathan Gomer’s agent, a coroner’s
inquest. He had previously attended a preliminary examination of Mr.
Chewkle before a magistrate, on which occasion the extremely chapfallen
criminal was remanded for the recovery of Mr. Wilton, who, it was stated
at the time, would soon be sufficiently well to give evidence. But Mr.
Wilton at first grew rapidly worse instead of better, and therefore Mr.
Chewkle was again remanded for a somewhat longer term than before.

The return of Mr. Wilton’s reason found him terribly enfeebled; but
the danger having been surmounted, the recovery of strength was but a
question of time. And now commenced the real difficulty Lotte had to
encounter.

Mr. Wilton, as soon as he began to recognise anything, noticed Lotte’s
presence; and, on making a remark respecting it, was informed by the
physician that it was a young lady who had kindly undertaken to tend him
with that earnest care which could not be obtained, save in exceptional
instances, from a hired nurse, and he spoke in warm and praiseful terms
of the service she had rendered.

Wilton fancied he had seen her face somewhere, but could not remember
where; it was a passing thought, and he did not ask her name, assuming
that it was some new-formed friend of Flora’s, residing in their
neighbourhood; in truth, he was glad to think so, and satisfied himself
with the supposition, for he felt too ill to pursue inquiries.

He quickly felt the value of Lotte’s presence and her services; there
were so many little nameless attentions, such a close regard for his
comfort and immunity from pain, such a constant anticipation of his
wishes and his wants, that at length he could scarcely bear her from his
sight.

He began to get strength to talk, and he conversed with her or listened
while she read to him, eliciting occasionally her opinions upon the
subject he had selected, and he was pleased with the evidence she gave
of a sensible and practical mind, as well as of a pure taste. Soon
his conversation, chatty and familiar, began to revert to herself, and
became embarrassingly personal. Still he did not identify her.

He knew, indeed, that her name was Clinton, but the name itself
struck him no more than if it had been Brown or Thompson, at least
in connection with the individual whom his son frantically, as he
considered, designed to marry. In fact it was not likely to occur to him
that a young damsel, against whose admission into his family he had so
vehemently and determinedly set his face, should have absolutely taken
possession of his sick chamber, to act a daughter’s part. And as he had
adopted, as soon as he began to be sensible of her kind attention, the
appellation of “my little nurse,” in addressing or speaking of her, the
name of Clinton quickly left his memory.

Only from her hand would he take his medicine; she never made any
mistake, or gave him more or less than he ought to have had, and if she
was not there to administer it, he insisted that it was not the proper
time to take it. She gave him his food; it was always correct as to its
quality, quantity, and fitness. Hers was the first face to greet his
opening eyes in the morning, the last upon whom they closed at night.
Ay, even in the night, at times, he would wake and find the same
pleasant, patient face hanging over him, and when he asked why she had
not retired, she was always ready to answer him with a plea, that
during the previous day she had observed him to be not so well, and as a
restless night usually followed those symptoms of retrogression, she
was merely at hand to administer to him some soothing medicine which the
physician had provided for such contingencies.

Her hand alone could smooth and arrange his pillow to his satisfaction.
She was never impatient under the caprices of his temper or his
ever-varying whims. She moved always with such alacrity--so light of
foot when requested to do anything for him. She submitted so gently and
patiently to his querulous testiness, and bore his peevish remarks, as
she had throughout executed the task allotted to her, without a cloud
upon her brow or a ruffle on her equanimity. “Of course,” cry the
selfish, shrugging their shoulders, “such conduct was eminently politic;
she had a deep game to play, and had the shrewdness as well as the
ability to understand the part assigned to her, and to perform it well.”
 But “far-seeing” people are not always correct in their assumptions, and
in jumping to a conclusion sometimes arrive only at the mire of their
own ungenerous instincts; being as far from the truth as they are from
the possession of tenderness of heart or magnanimity of soul.

The policy of such conduct formed no element in Lotte’s demeanour or
action; it was in fact the result of her organisation, having undertaken
such a duty, to so fulfil it.

Mr. Wilton, now rapidly approaching a state of convalescence, began, to
weary of his chamber, and to long to inhale the fresh air without his
stately dwelling. He sketched out to Lotte walks upon the terrace, and
of the pleasure he should enjoy in again being enabled to take them, and
how much that pleasure would be enhanced by her favouring him with the
support of her kind arm. He promised to enlighten her upon many subjects
of science and art, of which she knew nothing, and he promised himself
also the pleasure of listening to her simple but always pertinent and
sensible remarks.

Flora, too, had recovered her strength and her spirits. Communion with
Lotte had toned down the perturbation of her mind, and rendered her far
more contented and hopeful than she had been for some time past.

Poor Lotte! her own heart-canker exhibited no sign. The acute agony of
her own thoughts was never suffered to display any influence upon her
actions or manner in the presence of others; it was only when alone,
and offering up her prayers to Heaven for strength to sustain her in
the performance of her duty to others, no less than to herself, that
the convulsions of a poignant sorrow bore down all opposition, and
prostrated her.

Poor Lotte! if she had entertained any misgivings, even during Mark’s
most sanguine representations to her of becoming his wife, they resolved
themselves into a certainty now. She had only to cast her eyes upon the
picturesque antique hall, with its saloons and its galleries, its
rich appointments, its paintings, and its sculptures--upon the
terrace-garden, with its fountains, its flowers, its rare shrubs, its
elegant exotics and trees, and smoothly gravelled serpentine paths--upon
the park, with its slopes and undulations of green sward--upon the
plantation, and the woods beyond, to feel that it was not for her, so
humble in her position, to share these grand and beautiful things.

It was a sorrowful conviction, but she did not quarrel now with Mr.
Wilton’s opposition to her becoming Mark’s wife; it seemed, indeed,
merely natural, taking life as she had found it, that he should do
so, and not unreasonable. And it was to bear this conviction without
repining that she prayed earnestly, and wrestled with her wishes
ardently.

Flora was no sooner able to quit her room than she applied herself to
the task of relieving Lotte of some portion of her labours. She did this
with affectionate willingness, for she was desirous that Lotte should,
after such continuous confinement to a sick chamber, be enabled to
obtain rest, and such personal enjoyment as the beauties and advantages
of the place afforded; and by the time Mr. Wilton was prepared to make
his first visit down stairs, Flora was sufficiently recovered to resume
her place at his side, and take up the position Lotte had so generously
and so well filled.

There was quite a little excitement when Mr. Wilton came down for the
first time since his attack to his library. Flora’s arm was used by him
for support, because Lotte had not made her appearance. The old man
was disappointed, and inquired sharply why his “little nurse” was not
present. Flora replied that she had not quitted her room yet--that
she was unusually late this morning--that she would, after having
congratulated him upon his returning to his old place in the house,
hasten to her chamber to ascertain the cause of her non-appearance.

“The sooner the better,” said Wilton, drily.

Flora quitted the room; and Mark now offered his father his
congratulations upon his having quitted his invalid chamber, and his
reappearance in his library.

“Thank you--thank you,” responded his father, quickly; and added,
somewhat peevishly, “I miss the congratulations of one who has done so
much to restore me to my place here; I quite expected to have had her
help to get here, or, at least, her pleasant face to welcome me.”

“She’s a tender, kind-hearted, good girl, sir,” said Mark, trying to
curb enthusiasm of tone and manner.

“She’s an angel, sir!” cried Wilton, vehemently. “I repeat it--an angel.
There, now, is a young, inestimable creature, who would--but we won’t
recur to that now; another time. Well, well, Flo’, where is little
nurse?” he cried, as Flora entered the library.

There was a grave expression on her face, and she held in her hand a
letter.

Lotte had quitted Harleydale early that morning. Certainly, of the
three, none appeared more completely thunderstruck at the circumstance
than Mr. Wilton.

“Gone!” he cried; “left us without a word?” He looked fiercely at
both son and daughter. “What is the meaning of so extraordinary
an occurrence?” he continued. “She must have been, in some way,
insulted--outraged--to have departed in so abrupt a manner. Whoever has
dared to be guilty of aught which can have compelled her to act thus
shall be visited by my most wrathful indignation.”

The old man spoke with great excitement. Flora, half-frightened at his
manner, said, hurriedly--

“Here is a letter, father which she has left upon her toilet-table,
addressed to me.”

“Read it,” cried Wilton, imperatively.

Flora opened the note, and, with genuine emotion, read the contents.
They ran thus--

“_My dear Miss Wilton,---Do not think harshly of me for quitting you
and your beautiful home thus abruptly, but, indeed, I could not summon
fortitude enough to part with you for ever._”

[“For ever,” ejaculated Mark and his father in a breath. “_With quivering
lip_. Flora repeated the word, and went on reading.]

“_My mission is fulfilled. I was placed by your father’s bedside in the
darkest hour of his danger, with no skill, but only a hopeful heart and
willing spirit to help and guide me. It has pleased Heaven to place him
on the threshold of health, and my services, with you by his side, are
no longer needed, so I retire again into my own humble privacy_----”

“But I won’t allow her to do anything of the kind,” roared old Wilton,
excitedly.

“Hush, sir, for mercy sake, hush!” cried Mark; and, in an agitated
manner, said to Flora, “Pray, go on.”

Flora brushed her tears away, and proceeded reading--

“_I have imagined and feel rewarded by the thanks your generous
heart and kind nature would prompt you to render me for what I have
endeavoured to accomplish in my office of nurse. I have imagined those
of the other members of your family, and so am amply repaid. You and
they owe me nothing on that account; yet, if I might claim a favour
quite to repay all obligation, it would be to ask of you all to forget
me--or if you may not be able to remove all traces of her whose social
grade renders her of little worth in the eyes of those in your position,
from lingering in your memory, at least act as if I were no more
remembered. Do not seek me, do not write to me more_--”

Wilton uttered an ejaculation of wonder. Flora, with an unsteady voice,
proceeded--

“_I beg also to be spared from giving explanations, for what must seem
strange conduct in the eyes of your parent, yourself--perhaps of others,
but I trust you will rest content by the acknowledgment that I am weaker
in spirit than I believed myself to le. That seeing hopes shown to
be illusions and dreams dissipated by hard--perhaps cold facts, I am
desirous of not having anything in future presented to my eyes to raise
up recollections of my poor folly, but would pray to be permitted to
pass my future life with resignation and in graceful obscurity. You may
know all, or you may know nothing; in either case, I earnestly implore
you to grant my request. And so, dear, dear Miss Wilton, unequal to
the agony of parting with you personally, take now from me therefore,
through the medium of this note, my farewell, and for ever. May the
Almighty bless you, and those nearest and dearest to you_---”

“Ahem!” coughed a voice loudly preventing, by the interruption, Flora
from adding the name appended to the note.

Old Wilton, whose eyes were riveted on Flora, turned sharply to the spot
whence the sound proceeded, as did Mark and Flora. They beheld Nathan
Gomer standing before them. He blew his nose almost fiercely, and we
are not sure that his eyelids were not filled with water. He cleared
his voice, which betrayed symptoms of huskiness, and muttering first
something about “a plaguy cold,” he addressed Flora.

“I am sorry, Miss Wilton,” he said, “to interrupt you, or to intrude
unannounced upon private family matters, but I have some very important
business, which cannot be delayed, to transact with your good father,
whom I congratulate upon being down here in his library once more. With
the permission of yourself and your brother, I will proceed to my work
at once.”

Both Flora and Mark were glad of the opportunity of retiring from the
library, to confer together upon Lotte’s remarkable proceeding.

Flora was utterly overwhelmed with surprise at what had happened. Mark
was not. He began to understand Lotte’s character better. Never did he
honour her more highly, or love her more dearly than when he heard the
contents of that letter, which he not only intended to read, but having
obtained possession of, to keep.

When Mark and Flora had departed, old Wilton motioned to Nathan Gomer
to be seated; all the time in a state of mystification and wonder at
the behaviour of his pretty, kind, little nurse. There was something to
unravel, he was sure of that. And, after all, who really was she, and
why had she departed from his house in a manner so extraordinary?

“I say I hope you are satisfied now!” exclaimed Nathan Gomer, loudly
repeating some words he had previously uttered. He had been talking for
some little time, and Wilton had not heard a word.

The old man started, and apologised for his inattention.

“A singular circumstance has occurred beneath my roof to-day,” he said,
“and it has surprised, mystified, and upset me--yes, much disturbed me,
when I hoped to have been really more gratified and happy than I have
been for a long time. When you have finished your communication, I will
take your opinion upon the matter.”

Nathan Gomer peered under his eyebrows at him, and stroked his chin.
He noted, with seeming pleasure, the vexed expression the old man’s
features wore; but he made no allusion to it, nor even to the incident
respecting which he was to be called upon to give his opinion. He said,
in a dry manner--

“I stated to you the present position of Grahame, and I have come to
consult with you upon our future course with respect to that unhappy man
and his family.

“But I did not hear you, Gomer,” exclaimed Wilton, quickly; “pray repeat
it! How stands now the proud man who would have destroyed me and mine?”

“Low, indeed; broken, beggared, and outcast!” returned Nathan, with
emphasis.

A grim smile sat on Wilton’s features.

“Retribution!” he muttered, “retribution!”

“A heavy one, Eustace Wilton,” said Nathan, with a sharpness in his tone
not usual with him. “He has been struck to the heart in his family as
well as in his fortune. I have small pity for the man, for he paused
not at the most foul crimes to accomplish his selfish ends; but I cannot
look at the stain which has befallen the female members of the family
without a feeling of pain and regret. They were, at least, innocent of
harm to you, in thought or act.”

“My children were innocent of wrong to Grahame,” said Wilton, harshly,
“but he spared them not.”

“You are not a Grahame!” cried Gomer, in a startling voice. “You do not
take his infamous conduct as your standard of action--do you?”

Wilton shrank back, and felt the colour spring into his cheeks, as he
beheld the glittering eyes of the little man fixed upon his features, as
if to read, by their expression, what was passing in his heart.

With an effort he assumed a cold demeanour, and said--

“Tell me, what is the exact position of the family at the present
moment?”

“I have done so,” said Gomer, with a manner as cold as his own. “I will
repeat it. Grahame has fled, it is not known whither, although a hot
search has been made for him. The sheriff is in possession of his house
in London, at my suit. His eldest daughter fled from his house and
became a mother before she knew she was a wife; his second daughter has
eloped with the Duke of St. Allborne, and is now his kept mistress. The
proud mother--the destroyer of her husband, and, so far as she could be,
the cause of her children’s ruin---is confined to her bed with a wasting
illness and a crushed brain; she is a hopeless idiot. The son is in
prison, arrested at the suit of a tailor, who has been discounting bills
for him, which he has dishonoured. That is the condition of the proud
Grahames. I ask you, are you satisfied? Are your feelings of revenge
glutted by this wholesale wreck of the family?”

“There--there was, I think, another daughter,” said Wilton, in a low,
hesitating tone. “You do not mention her.”

Nathan shrugged his shoulders, and said, tartly, “You mean the
youngest, Evangeline, a simple, artless, innocent girl, with a foolishly
affectionate nature She is pretty and engaging, and has been giving
clandestine meetings to a young lawyer’s clerk. If he happens to be a
scoundrel, it is not difficult to prophecy what will be her fate. Again
I ask you, are you satisfied?”

Old Wilton rose up; he pressed his clenched fist upon his heart. In a
hoarse voice, he exclaimed--

“I am shocked, I am horrified, Gomer. I contemplated this situation with
a vile satisfaction. I am terrified at its realization. My vengeance!
ugh! it is gorged. We must interpose--stay the further progress of their
misery. We will save this child--this Evangeline, and rescue, too, the
rest from destitution and perdition. Oh, pride! accursed pride! it has
triumphed over the reason and the conscience of both Grahame and his
wife. Had they listened to the gentle pleadings of nature, rather than
to the dictates of an overweening, selfish, unfeeling, arrogant pride,
home and family-might at this moment have been to them a source of the
purest domestic felicity. What is it now?--I shudder to reflect upon
it. The happiness of their children could never have been an element in
their worldly calculations; on the contrary, they have trampled on
the natural affections, and have considered their offspring rather
as appendages to their state than as children part and parcel of
themselves. Oh, it is terrible! it is terrible!”

“Ho! ho!” shouted Nathan Gomer; and springing up, he caught Wilton
by the wrist, saying, with vehement earnestness, “‘Before all things,
truth; and truth at all times!’ Why, pride does this for _you, Wilton_;
pride makes _you_ determine to trample on the natural affections.
You--you would break your daughter’s heart rather than she should not
give her hand to a most dishonourable Honourable. You would, at the
inspiration of pride, stamp out her truthfulness, by compelling her to
swear at the altar to love and honour a man she could never love and
never honour. Pride urges you to crush all your only son’s hopes of
earthly happiness, rather than he should mate with one who possesses a
rare combination of human virtues, but is not garbed in fine linen,
and cannot disport her dainty limbs in a handsome carriage. Go to! have
_you_ not one excuse for Grahame’s frailty?”

Old Wilton groaned aloud, and buried his face in his hands.




CHAPTER XII.--THE DOWNFALL OF PRIDE.


                        Invention is ashamed,

               Against the proclamation of thy passion,

               To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;

               But tell me then ’tis so;--for, look, thy cheeks

               Confess it, th’ one to th’ other; and thine eyes

               See it so grossly shown in thy behaviour,

               That in their kind they speak it.                              Shakspere.


               When sorrows come, they come not single spies,

               But in battalions.                              Ibid.


The night of the great and last party at Grahame’s mansion in the
Regent’s Park was, in the anticipation of Mrs. Grahame, to have proved
a crowning triumph of calculation. Upon this night she expected the Duke
of St. Allborne to propose to her daughter, Margaret. He did propose,
and his offer was accepted, but not in accordance with Mrs. Grahame’s
plan. This night of splendid triumph, as it was to have been, proved
to her a night of horror. The presence of Lester Vane threw her into
a state of nervous apprehension and agitation, for fear that he would
disclose the conduct and disappearance of her daughter, Helen. She
observed, however, with as much gratification as she could feel in such
a condition of flurry and alarm, that the Duke maintained a position
close to Margaret during the early part of the evening, and devoted
himself to her. She saw them retire into the garden, and she believed
her hopes would be fulfilled. She had no conception of what was about to
happen.

The music played joyously, the dancers whirled around in festive
enjoyment, and the absence of Lester Vane for a time gave to Mrs.
Grahame’s perturbed mind great relief; but Lester Vane again returned,
and in spite of her manouvres he contrived to elude the proximity to
him which she strove to keep up. She was, however, once more soothed
by seeing him depart. Shortly, however, after he had gone she noticed a
decided movement in her guests; one by one they disappeared, and
rapidly too. In corners of the handsome saloon groups gathered and stood
whispering, until she approached them; then they separated, and coolly
bowed to her as they passed, but they unmistakeably at the same time
left the house.

Evangeline approached her, and whispered to her--

“What has happened to Margaret, mamma? and why do some of these haughty
people speak in terms of contempt of her?”

A flash of lightning seemed to dart through Mrs. Grahame’s brain. The
blood rushed back to her heart; her eyes seemed filled with blood; she
gazed with hazy vision round the room--to do so was a tremendous effort,
but, though it had slain her, she must have done it.

Margaret was not present, nor the Duke of St. Allborne. They must have
been absent hours.

“Send your papa to me, Eva!” exclaimed Mrs. Grahame, in a broken,
guttural voice.

“Papa has not been in the room for a long time,” she replied; “he
quitted before Margaret went into the garden with the Duke.”

“Send servants into the garden, and bid your sister return instantly
hither; let her know her absence has occasioned remark.”

Mrs. Grahame staggered to a seat as she spoke, and Evangeline quitted
the saloon to obey her.

The unhappy woman sat alone--sick, dizzy, agonised.

After all, a volcano existed beneath the surface of ice.

No one came and sat down by her; her guests appeared to shun her. She
heard one heartless woman exclaim, “A cold night for a journey, even
with love to warm it.” She heard a man say, “I don’t dislike the spirit
which made her go off with such _éclat!_” and another utter a taunt in
reference to the boldness of St. Allborne. She had a dim comprehension
of what it all meant, but was powerless to act. She was transfixed by a
whirl of thoughts--horrifying thoughts; she lost consciousness of
what was going on about her; she seemed to be burdened by a frightful
nightmare, which, while it presented the most horrible visions to her
distracted eyes, refused her the power to move a limb--she appeared
frozen to her seat.

She was at length restored to the no less horrible reality, by
Evangeline--who, rousing her by her tearful embrace, pointed out to
her the fact that every guest was gone; that the most active search had
failed to discover Margaret, and that Mr. Grahame was not in the house,
though no one had seen him leave it.

Mrs. Grahame fell down in a swoon, and was borne to her bed insensible.

The next day she was a raving maniac, and subsequently the most terrible
delirium gave place to a babbling idiocy.

Still nothing was heard of Mr. Grahame, nor Margaret, nor Helen.
Evangeline alone had the trial to endure. She had the aid of a
physician, and that of Mrs. Truebody, the nurse to her mother--that was
all. Her father did not return. A week elapsed; still he came not, nor
came there any communication from him.

A few days more, and Mr. Jukes made his appearance as representative of
the Sheriff of Middlesex. Mr. Grahame had put in no appearance to the
writs with which he had been served. Judgment went by default, and
execution was obtained. Mr Jukes levied, and placed both Nutty and Sudds
in possession.

Evangeline did not understand what it meant; and, in her distress, she
thought of Charles Clinton. She wrote to him, and made an assignation
with him; for she feared, she knew not wherefore, to ask him to come to
the house.

The appointment was kept, and she told him all. She implored him to
advise her how to act, and to explain to her how it was that strange,
dirty men, could force themselves into the house, stay there, and it was
not in her power to call in policemen and have them turned out. He made
all clear to her; assigned the reason of the flight of her father to his
fear of arrest for debt, or want of moral courage to face the disgrace
of his fall being proclaimed to the world. He explained to her that, in
a few days, the whole contents of the mansion would be sold, and that
she and her mother would be turned, homeless and penniless, into
the street. He counselled her to write to the wealthiest of her near
relatives, lay bare all the facts, and ask them to come forward to
assist her in her cruel and unhappy condition. He undertook to manage to
delay the return of the writ of execution until she could get an
answer; and, with soothing words and sanguine prophecies, with earnest
entreaties to keep a good heart, he accompanied her to her home, and
parted with her under a promise to meet again as soon as her application
to her Scotch relations was answered.

In three days she received it. There was no delay in the reply. The
cold-hearted and selfish, who spontaneously refuse to help those in
distress, are usually prompt in announcing their purpose. Evangeline
received a reply, expressing great surprise and indignation at what
had happened, and, under the circumstances, at the application. If
Mr. Grahame had not thought fit to provide for his children in his
prosperity, it was not to be expected that his relations would do so
in their distress. The writer lamented the events but hoped it would
terminate less unfavourably than she had expected &c., &c.

She wept bitterly when she read the note; it almost broke her heart. She
was frightened to distraction at the prospect before her. What could she
do, not alone for herself, but for her most miserable parent?

She met Charley again; she could not speak to him, but sank upon his
breast and wept. She seemed to him as a bird nestling in his bosom.
Surely, he thought there is no worldly distinction between us now; and
he would upon the impulse have pressed her to his heart.

No!

She was still as much his superior by birth and therefore by station
as she had ever been. Her affliction instead of levelling her, he
perceived, ought to elevate her in his respect. Now, least of all, was
a time for him to break through the barrier which conventional usages
placed between them; and he bowed to the dictates of his honour no less
than his conscience, and his manner to her became more deferential and
respectful than ever.

He listened, when she could speak, to her sorrowful communication
silently; and he read the letter she handed to him with a bitter smile
of contempt. Then he said to her--

“I at least have better news for you. I have communicated with the
plaintiff in the suit against your father. I have stated to him the
very, very painful position in which you are placed, and I urged upon
him to delay for a short time the last proceedings in this unhappy
affair. In a kind and feeling letter, I have his instructions to keep
everything as it is until further notice. I am not to permit a single
article in the household to be touched. I am to remove one of the men,
and the one remaining is to be placed where he will not be seen; and
I am further directed personally to see that the terrible condition of
Mrs. Grahame is not injured by anything that may hereafter occur.”

Evangeline pressed his hand warmly. “Your intelligence is welcome
indeed,” she said, with emotion; “I feared that we should be cast upon
the wide world to perish, with no pitying soul to hold forth a hand to
save us.”

“Yes, one--I hope one,” said Charley, gently. “Who?” she asked, in
simple surprise.

He hesitated for a moment, and then he replied in a low tone, which
gradually grew earnest--

“I could not have seen you placed in so distressful a position without
proffering my humble aid. I would have done my best to have secured you
from the worst pangs of friendless privation. My dear, dear sister Lotte
would have welcomed you, and shared her home with you. It would have
been a long remove from the splendour of your own, but in the sincerity
of heart, and the earnestness of desire to make you happy, to have been
found within its walls, it would at least have equalled it.”

Evangeline again pressed his hand, but her heart was too full to speak.

“I shall see you at your own abode to-morrow morning, Miss Grahame,”
 he said; “and be assured, so far as lies in my power, every effort to
remove all trace of the presence of the individuals whose office is so
offensive shall be made, so that, however unhappy the circumstances
may be which still surround you, that annoyance shall be withdrawn from
you.”

“I can never forget your kindness, Mr. Clinton,” murmured Evangeline. “I
cannot hope to repay it but by offering up my prayers for your welfare
and your happiness.”

As the last word escaped her lips, Evangeline was struck by the thought
that the task of administering to that happiness would be delightful to
the happy, happy woman to whom it would be entrusted. She sighed. Oh!
that it might be her lot. But no! The frowns of fortune were upon their
house, and she had but to look forward to a life of secret sorrow,
passed in tending her mother through all the miserable phases of her
terrible affliction, which the most eminent physicians had pronounced
incurable.

She sighed again and cast her sweet eyes upon Charley. Ah! it was
impossible for him to misunderstand the soft, dreamy expression of
that gaze, but it was equally impossible for him to forget or abuse the
confiding trustfulness she had reposed in him; therefore he preserved
towards her still the same respectful, gentle deference he had shown
hitherto.

There might perhaps, he thought, come a time when he could speak to her
without impropriety the true language of his heart--could address her
in the fervent terms which his deep devotion for her would be sure to
suggest, but until that time she was to him a young and gentle lady in
affliction, who in full confidence in his honour had applied to him
for counsel and direction; and he revered his honour too religiously to
evade its stern dictates at the promptings of a passionate love--even
though there was the temptation of a sweet, yielding, loving nature,
which saw not the wide gap in their social grade with the same eyes as
he did to aid those promptings. No! he curbed his strong inclinings and
contented himself--a melancholy content it was--with the reflection that
if events favoured his wishes he should propose to her and wed her in
honour, fairly anticipating the felicity which would possibly attend
such an union. If, however, fate decided against him, he would devote
himself only still closer to the abstruse study of the law; strive to
make a happy lady of Lotte, and die a bachelor--for marry another than
Evangeline he resolved never to do.

Conducting Evangeline like a _preux_ chevalier attending a high-born
dame to her castle home, he left her within sight of it, so that he
might know she regained it unmolested; then he turned slowly away to go
home and dream all kinds of lovely things about her.

Every day after this he visited the abode of Evangeline to carry out the
instructions of Nathan Gomer. During one of these visits, while seated
talking to Evangeline, who was looking tenderly into his clear, dark
eyes, and listening in deep attention to the words which fell from his
lips--not that they were of themselves of much interest, but there was
a tone in the voice which uttered them that had a music in her ear far
surpassing that ever given by instrument--the door suddenly opened and
the rustling of silk was heard.

Both looked up; and Evangeline, with a cry of passionate joy, leaped
from her seat and threw herself into the arms of a lady who stood upon
the threshold.

“Helen!--dearest Helen!” she cried, with intense emotion; “Helen, Helen,
such affliction, such trouble has befallen----”

She hid her face, sobbing upon her sister’s shoulder.

Charley glided at once out of the room; and the two sisters, after the
first burst of emotion was over, sat down, and then Evangeline related,
interrupted only with hysteric sobs, all that had happened, dwelling
upon the mysterious absence of her father, of whom not a single trace
had been discovered, though every effort had been made, and upon the
pitiable condition to which their mother had been reduced.

Helen, in the midst of their talk, rose up, and said, with a strong
inspiration of her breath--

“Evangeline, I will see my mother now. Lead me to her.”

Evangeline took her hand, and together they entered the darkened chamber
where the wreck of the proud woman lay in hopeless imbecility.

Helen grew pale as ashes as she entered the room. Her heart throbbed
painfully. She found herself face to face with old Mrs. Truebody; and,
as the good old creature started and wrung her hands, she felt her
breath come and go in short hysteric gasps.

With a strong effort she drew the curtain aside and beheld the white,
pinched, and drawn features of her mother screwed up into a smile--such
a smile! Anything more terribly vacant it is impossible to conceive. Her
eyes, divested of all expression, roamed to and fro without any apparent
object. She gibbered, and babbled, and clutched at the bedclothes with
her fingers. Sometimes she nodded her head, and then a short, screeching
laugh would be heard.

Helen, with a burst of anguish, fell upon her knees, and said, in
accents of acute mental suffering--

“Mother! mother! look upon me--speak to me--I am Helen, your penitent
child, come back to strive to compensate you for the pangs and shame
I have occasioned you. Mother! for mercy sake recognise me! See, I am
Helen--she of whom you were so proud, and who so crushed all the hopes
you raised. Look at me; speak to me; if only to spurn me; but speak to
me, mother--in the name of Heaven’s holy charity, speak to me!”

Mrs. Grahame at the sound of her voice, turned her head, but she only
laughed vacantly, and nodded, and screeched again.

Helen wept frantically. She took her mother’s hand and kissed it wildly.
She bent over her and caressed her in the throes of the deepest emotion,
but without eliciting one single token of recognition.

Mrs. Truebody at length came forward and took Helen by the arm and
waist--

“I pray you to retire, my dear young lady,” she said, speaking with
firmness. “You are unintentionally only doing ill. Your unhappy
mother is beyond all power of recognition. There is only one hope of a
restoration of her senses, and that will be immediately preceding the
moment when Heaven pleases to call her hence. Now you are disturbing
and making her feverish, because she cannot understand your actions
or comprehend your grief. You are injuring your own health, when its
preservation is needful, and you are afflicting your dear young sister
beyond her power to endure it. Pray, pray exert your self-command. I do
assure you, Mi--madam, that your best fortitude and courage are needed
now.”

With one agonised look at the expressionless face of her mother, Helen
turned to depart. She caught Evangeline in her arms and kissed her
tear-bedewed cheeks with fervent earnestness, and then, with her arm
folded around her waist, she quitted the chamber. Not a word or look at
Mrs. Truebody. She could not trust herself to say a word to her now. She
had not forgotten her. She had prepared a suitable reward for her;
but at this moment the sight of her face raised too many unhappy
recollections for her to be able even to speak to her.

Once more alone in the sitting room, Helen inquired of Evangeline where
her sister Margaret was, and upon what plea she had quitted the scene of
affliction.

Evangeline simply recounted the circumstances connected with the
mysterious elopement with the Duke of St. Allborne, and expressed her
wonder that Margaret should not have stopped at home, and been married
in the proper and usual fashion. Helen, with burning cheeks and
suffocating emotion, rose up and paced the room, placing her hands upon
her beating temples. Suddenly she turned round and said--

“Where was Malcolm, that he did not follow them?”

“Malcolm told me that the Honorable Mr. Vane advised him not to do so.
He said that it was a mere romantic flight to Gretna Green, and that it
would all come right at last.”

“Villain! atrocious villain!” muttered Helen; and then said, sharply,
“but where is Malcolm now? Why should he, my poor Evangeline, have
deserted you in this dreadful crisis?”

“He is in prison!” returned Evangeline, with, a shudder. “A
gentle’--I--I mean it was explained to me that he had incurred debts and
did not pay them, and therefore the creditor, by help of the law, put
him into prison until he can make some arrangement.”

Helen clasped her hands.

“This is an abject fall for pride, indeed!” she exclaimed, with
bitterness.

As her eye fell upon Evangeline’s sweet, artless face, in gratitude that
at least she had escaped the heavy visitations which had fallen on
the other members of her family, she observed that her skin--so rarely
delicate and white in its accustomed aspect--was suffused with crimson,
and that she seemed strangely confused.

“It was explained to me,” suddenly recurred to Helen, as a sentence
Evangeline had uttered with some embarrassment. Then it flashed through
her mind that she had found her _tête-à-tête_ with a young and handsome
man, whose face she did not at the moment recognise--like as he was, in
his general contour, to Lotte Clinton.

A pang went to her heart. What! was not even her simple, innocent sister
to be saved?

She sat her down and questioned Eva closely; she elicited from her a
confession of all the clandestine meetings she had granted to Charles
Clinton with the purpose of learning tidings of her sister, or of
obtaining guidance and counsel under the great affliction with which the
whole household was overwhelmed.

Helen wiped the clammy moisture from her brow and moistened her parched
lips. She fixed her gaze upon Evangeline’s still crimsoned features and
her downcast eyes, and then placing her cold hand upon her sister’s, and
clutching it firmly, she said--

“Eva, you love this man!”

A thousand thousand thoughts rushed through Eva’s mind. Love him! in
truth she did with her whole heart, her whole soul! Her cheeks burned
more fiercely than ever. She threw herself upon her sister’s neck and
hid her face, but did not utter a word.

Helen felt as if she should swoon away, but she conquered, by a powerful
effort, her sudden sickening faintness, and releasing her sister’s
arms from about her neck, she bade her be seated, and herself set the
example.

She again took Evangeline’s hand in her own, and pressed it.

“Eva, darling,” she said, with fervent impressiveness, “I ask you--I
implore you--to confide in me; to be truthful and unreserved. I will not
judge you harshly; be this the proof. I have erred, sinfully, shamefully
erred, and my grievous error has brought with it no light punishment.
Listen! Like you, I was by accident thrown into the society of one who
was personally and strikingly handsome, and whose tone of thought it
seemed to me closely resembled my own in all things. As we were then
situated, to have been constantly in each other’s society in the
presence of friends would have excited remark. We were both young and
sensitive, and were desirous of evading the jests of those by whom we
were surrounded, especially as observations respecting our liking for
each other were floating about among those who were eager to make most
thoughtless use of them. As, however, we had a fondness for each other’s
society, we eluded what we feared by contriving clandestine meetings.
Alas! alas! Eva, the dreadful consequences of those secret meetings;
the promptings of passion and love for each other, cast, in one fatal
moment, the rules of purity and innocence aside, and I became the
victim of my selfwill; a victim of that departure from truth and clear
integrity which commits no action the light of day may not shine upon.
Clandestine meetings forced upon me a dreadful secret; clandestine
meetings made me fly my home; clandestine meetings plunged me into trial
and affliction; horrors of which you can have no conception. Oh, my
dear, dear Eva! by the mercy of Heaven, I have been relieved from the
worse consequences of my sin and from the madness of an ignoble pride;
let me implore you, upon my knees, no more to consent to a secret
interview with anyone in man’s form again. What it may be necessary for
him to say or you to hear, should be said, after he, in the face of all
who are deeply interested in your welfare, has frankly acknowledged his
affection for you and honourably asked permission to address you, that
he may win and wear you before the whole world; then, indeed, he is
worthy of your love; then, indeed, may you in secret listen to the
ardent whispers of his passion. But oh, Eva, dear! not till then--not
till then.”

Eva, still embarrassed and confused, only wept, and, in so doing, yet
more affrighted Helen. She stole her arm about her waist, and said to
her, in a low, soft voice--

“You love this person, Eva, whoever he may be, that I see; now tell me,
darling, how and when he first declared his love for you, and induced
you to give him your heart?”

Eva looked up a little surprised.

“He never declared any love for me Helen, dear,” she replied, faintly.
“He does not love me; it is not likely he would.”

“Not love you?” asked Helen, with surprise.

“Oh, no!” she answered, “he never breathed one word about love to me.”

“But how has he treated you?” inquired Helen, with an astonished look.

“Gently and respectfully; oh, so very respectfully so painfully
respectfully, Helen,” replied Evangeline, with more animation. “In all
innocence, I am sure I arranged with him to meet me. I--I don’t think he
asked me to do so--I am sure I do not recollect that he did. No, I was
so very, very anxious to learn tidings of you, that, in fear of papa, I
think I said I would come where I could hear what he had to communicate
unheard by any one but myself. He always met me and treated me as one,
oh, so far superior to himself; and now that we have all been thrown
into such deep distress, he is yet more deferential and respectful than
ever. Not distant, Helen, but as if he thought me a princess now, if I
had been a lady before. Nay, he would not have deserted me and mamma,
though we had have been thrust forth by the cruel officers into the
street, for he said he would have provided a home for us”----

“A home!” echoed Helen, hoarsely; she believed the realization of her
fears was coming now.

“Yes, with his sister Lotte--you know her well, Helen--she is very
amiable, I believe; but you, who lived with her for some time, can best
tell.”

Helen looked upon Eva perfectly astounded.

“This--this young man’s name is----?” she asked, pausing at the last
word.

“Clinton,” replied Eva, softly.

Helen drew a long breath, rose and paced the room again. After a few
turns, she took her sister in her arms, and said--

“He is worthy of your love, Eva; for I doubt not that you have won his
heart”----

“Oh, Helen!”

“I think it is clear; and, in such a case, he has acted nobly. I owe a
debt to his dear sister, which, though it is my intention to endeavour
to acknowledge to the best of my ability, is yet one that can never be
repaid; and for her loved and loving brother Charley--well, Eva, when
this cloud which has settled upon our house has passed away--the storm
is in its intensity now--we shall see, darling”----

There was a gentle knock at the door as she concluded; and, on the
permission to enter being given, the subject of their conversation
entered.

His face was pale, as though he had suffered a great shock; his mien was
sad, even solemn. Both Eva and Helen noticed it; instantly, together,
they exclaimed--“In Heaven’s name, what has happened?”

“I am the bearer of most distressing news to you, young ladies,” he
replied, in a grave, subdued tone. “It costs me great pain to fulfil the
office, but I have undertaken it, that the announcement may have nothing
added to its poignancy by abrupt thoughtlessness.”

The two sisters clung to each other, and looked upon him affrighted.

“Let me prepare you,” he said, “to receive painful intelligence
respecting your father.”

“Dead!” broke from Helen’s lips, with a groan.

Charley bowed his head; and the sisters burst into tears, though their
lamentations bore no outward violence of gesture.

“It is not all,” said Charley, sadly; “since his mysterious
disappearance an experienced detective was engaged to endeavour to find
him, and, after most arduous labour, succeeded in tracing him to the
vicinity of Hendon, where his body had been discovered lifeless upon
the earth. Nothing was found upon him to tell who he was; and, after
a coroner’s inquest was held, bills describing the body and the
circumstances under which it had been found were put forth; one
accidentally caught the eye of the detective, and he prosecuted
inquiries in that neighbourhood. He found that interment had taken place
under the direction of the parish authorities, and nothing, therefore,
was left to identify the unknown but his clothes and a handkerchief. Mr.
Grahame’s man has recognised them, and thus has placed beyond doubt his
sad his dreadful fate.”

Both sisters were in a convulsion of grief, and Charley felt most
distressed, for he knew not how to offer them consolation. But as he
knew of the forged deed, and of the worst crime--the incitement of
Chewkle to commit the murder of old Mr. Wilton, he could only say to
them----

“Let it be some consolation to you, ladies, to know that, unhappy and
dreadful as this event proves, it is better under all circumstances that
it has so happened.” So, Grahame had after all died a pauper’s death and
had received a pauper’s funeral. Such was the end of an imperious pride,
unsustained by the principles of religion and morality.

Yet more grief for the afflicted girls.

Mrs. Truebody made her appearance abruptly in the room. She tottered
rather than walked to the two sisters, yet weeping in each other’s arms.
She pressed her hands lightly upon their shoulders and said, in weeping
tones---

“Dear, dear young ladies, the terrible intelligence you have just heard
comes not alone--evils seldom do. The sad news I hear can but add to a
grief, violent enough without it--of that I am aware, but it does not
come without a consolation. If it has pleased Heaven to remove suddenly
your afflicted mother from this world, it has released her also from
suffering, and a calamity which must have been a grief to all who were
near and dear to her. Poor, dear, afflicted young ladies, your mother is
no more.”

Helen sank fainting on a chair.

Charley had already caught Evangeline in his arms, as she suddenly
became bereft of all consciousness.




CHAPTER XIII.--WHO IS HE?


               Of all the causes which conspire to blind

               Man’s erring judgment, and misguide the mind,

               What the weak head with strongest bias rules,

               Is Pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

               Whatever Nature has in worth deny’d,

               She gives in large recruits of needless Pride!

               For, as in bodies thus in souls, we find

               What wants in blood and spirits, swell’d with wind.

                             --Pope.


If Nathan Gomer had constructed a plan for the accomplishment of the
matrimonial hopes of Flora and Mark Wilton, the reading a homily to Mr.
Wilton, upon the cruelty of forcing the hand to be given without the
heart, formed no portion of it. He was content with having produced a
striking effect; and he suddenly--as abruptly as he had spoken--rose up
and quitted the room.

He did not, however, remain away long; but returned to the library,
accompanied by Mr. Wilton’s solicitor and old Josh Maybee.

During the interval of his absence, Mr. Wilton, shocked by the
disclosures made by him respecting the fate of the Grahame family, had
certainly had some grave reflections pass through his mind upon the
mutability of human affairs, as well as upon the vanity of human pride;
but these newly-awakened sentiments were quickly put to flight by an
inspection of law papers placed before him by his solicitor, and by some
revelations made by old Maybee, who also produced those documents which
were needful to identify Wilton as the actual legal claimant to the
Eglinton estates. He put in, as well, his own proofs of a title to a
portion of the property in question, which Wilton directed his solicitor
to examine with scrupulous closeness.

Deeds, plans, statements of accounts, registers, &c., were spread
over the library table; and an abstract was handed to Wilton, which he
devoured with avidity, for it gave him a more clear and definite notion
of the value and extent of the property to which he was about to succeed
than he had before been able to obtain.

The vastness of the possessions and the largeness of the revenues were
made clear in this paper, and the contemplation of it fascinated him. He
closed his eyes, and lo! a fair vision of a highly cultivated district
was spread out before him. The woods and vales, the sloping hills, the
park, the plantations, the pastures and farm-lands, the villages, and
a numerous tenantry bowing to him as sole owner of this lordly domain,
successively presented themselves to him.

When he opened his eyes again, the reflections inspired by Nathan
Gomer’s observations were no more remembered. Once more he was inflated
with vain glory; elated by his accession of wealth; unmindful of
past services received; oppressed with a torrent of schemes of future
grandeur; and more than ever unprepared to accept high moral principles
and genuine personal worth in lieu of birth and rank, in whatever
prospective matrimonial contract might be formed with any member of his
family.

The perusal of that document was too much for his strength of mind.
Evidences of its effects upon him were to be seen on his flushed cheek,
in the excited, restless expression of his eye, and the dignified tone
he gradually assumed to his “man of business.” Then, too, Josh Maybee,
received by him in a frank, familiar manner, suddenly perceived that
he was being patronised with the loftiest air imaginable, a style and
manner which Wilton continued, when addressing him, with such unvaried
uniformity, that the poor old fellow began to imagine and ultimately to
believe that through a long course of years he must have been under the
deepest obligations to him--barred windows, prison walls, and an age of
griping penury, nevertheless--that he was now only too much honoured in
being permitted to be the actual instrument of establishing the Wilton
claim. He certainly felt mystified; but the imperial manner of Wilton
towards him assured him that it must be all right.

Then, too, he was so graciously condescending to Nathan Gomer--waved his
hand to him, and smiled as a sovereign, receiving homage while seated
upon his throne. This last ebullition rather disconcerted Nathan; he
grinned not pleasantly--more as a hyena preparing to spring upon a
victim.

“Ho! ho!” screeched the little man, as he retired to a window, and
looked out. “Ho! ho! he condescends to me--me, who have done so little
for him. Ho! ho! so good of him--ho! ho! so beneficent of him. How
prostrated with thankfulness I ought to be. I ain’t, not a bit of it,
not a morsel; I must be a fiend of ingratitude. His heart, once as soft
as pudding, is becoming steel; I’ll steep it in vinegar, and see whether
that will dissolve it.”

He turned back to where Wilton was seated erect, listening to
expositions made by his solicitor, and regarding with an attentive
scrutiny some of the documents before him, especially those which had
reference to the rent-roll.

Nathan’s features had assumed an expression such as they seldom
wore--one hard, disagreeable, and unfriendly. He addressed the
solicitor, suggesting that, in Mr. Wilton’s weak condition, it would
be prudent to defer until the following day further proceedings.
Such signatures as were immediately required he had obtained, “and
altogether,” he said, looking hard at Wilton, “he thought a very
satisfactory progress had been made.”

Wilton loftily assented, and as loftily begged Nathan Gomer to do the
honours of the table for him to his man of business, and “that good
creature Maybee,” as he did not then feel that he possessed the strength
necessary for such proper courtesy--such very proper courtesy. Nathan
displayed his teeth, and accepted the post of honour. He conducted the
pair to the dining-room, where he introduced them to Mark Wilton and
Flora. He whispered a few words into Mark’s ear, and then returned to
the library.

Old Josh Maybee gazed after him as he disappeared, and said to Mark--

“An awfully singular, elderly little gentleman. Pray do you know who he
really is?”

“Ay!” added the solicitor, musingly, “a singularly peculiar personage,
indeed. I never could make out who he was, or is, or will turn out to
be.”

“Strange little fellow enough,” responded Mark, “but you pose me when
you ask me who he is. I often ask myself that question.”

“He appears to be very kind-hearted, and to have a generous spirit,”
 said Flora. “I should like to know who he really is. He comes and
departs so mysteriously; he seems to be acquainted with everything
that has happened or is about to take place; papa says he is very
wealthy----”

“E--nor--mously wealthy,” chimed in the solicitor, speaking
emphatically.

“He possesses great influence over individuals,” continued Flora, “and,
seemingly, over circumstances. I have great faith in anything he may
predict, and--and I really should like to know who he is.”

The object of their speculations was at this moment alone with Wilton;
on entering the library, he strode rather than walked up to where Wilton
was seated, still poring over the abstract. He threw himself into a seat
with a sudden violence which made Wilton start, then to elevate his
eyebrows, then to frown.

This person--this Mr. Gomer, was assuming a familiarity, which he now
thought it would be proper to check. He screwed up his eyes and affected
a distant manner.

“You have something to communicate to me, Gomer, I apprehend, by your
speedy return,” he observed, with his eyes fixed upon the paper he held
in his hand.

“I have, Wilton,” he said curtly; “a very good time too, I think, to say
it, now that you are all but installed owner of your large property.”

Mr. Wilton coldly inclined his head.

“Proceed!” he exclaimed.

Nathan made a grimace.

“Hem!” he coughed, “the gap is wide which separates the Queen’s Bench
from Eglinton Park, Mr. Wilton.”

Mr. Wilton’s cheek flushed at the suggestion. He coughed too.

“Um--a--Gomer,” he said, “those are contrasts which only vulgar minds
draw. Wonder is the offspring of ignorance--um--a--don’t repeat, I pray,
such observations.”

“And Pride is the parent of evil,” chuckled Gomer. “Ah, I used to write
that in a copy-book. However, I have not come here to make reflections,
or to bring disagreeable reminiscences before you. I came to inform
you that, the day after to-morrow, you will have to appear against our
cunning friend, Mr. Chewkle, who very nearly rendered the possession of
the Eglinton estates a matter of no importance to you.”

“The atrocious assassin,” exclaimed Wilton. “I wonder how I escaped the
villain’s bullet upon such favourable terms.”

“Do you not know?” asked Gomer, eyeing him keenly. “Um--a--well, by the
providence of Heaven, his aim was bad, and my gamekeepers were at hand,”
 said Wilton, reflectively. “Truly it was a fortunate circumstance
that they were near, or the wretch would have slain me. I have a faint
remembrance of his kneeling upon my chest----”

“And of him whose hand clutched the scoundrel by the throat and dragged
him off at the moment his hand was raised to terminate your existence?”

“Um--a--no, I do not recollect that. My senses left me: but I shall
reward that individual liberally--in short I will place that matter in
your hands, Gomer, to give to him whatever you may think will satisfy
him--um--a--with my thanks.”

“Are you serious, Wilton?” asked Gomer, almost jeeringly.

“Sir!---a--um-Mr. Gomer, pray inform me what there is in my manner
or tone which implies that I have descended to jest on this subject?”
 exclaimed Mr. Wilton, with hauteur.

Nathan Gomer laughed and rubbed his hands.

“I asked the question because I suspect that you would not endorse my
award,” he replied.

“I do not comprehend you, Mr. Gomer!” responded Wilton, still in the
same distant tone. “If I appoint you to manage an affair for me, giving
you a _carte blanche_ to act in the matter, I consider it a reflection
upon my honour to assume that I should be dissatisfied with your award.”

“Listen, Wilton!” exclaimed Gomer, striking the table a sharp, angry
blow. “The individual who saved your life at the most critical instant
of its jeopardy would spurn a money compensation.”

Mr. Wilton opened his half-closed eyes.

“I suspect that, although it was at the risk of his own life he saved
yours, he attaches but little credit to his deed,” continued Gomer, “for
he would have acted precisely in the same way to save the meanest wretch
in existence.”

“Oh!--a--well, if he attaches no importance to the act,” said Wilton,
shrugging his shoulders with the air of one who considered his dignity
reflected on, “why of course, I----”

“Must!” suggested Gomer, with emphatic shrillness, “for his gallant
rescue was everything in the world to you--children, Harleydale,
Eglinton, all--all. Therefore, though he may view his conduct with
disinterested eyes, you cannot, and you should reward him fittingly.”

“But--a--I must suggest that there is a wide distinction between the
meanest wretch in existence and a--a--the owner of----”

“Yourself, you mean,” interrupted Gomer, bluntly; “that is exactly why
you should reward him as becomes your position.”

“I empower you to do so,” said Wilton, with a most dignified gesture.

“Softly,” said Gomer. “You are also indebted to him, not only for the
life, but the preservation of your daughter’s honour.”

Wilton started, and fixed upon him an incredulous stare.

“Your condition, after you received your wound, prevented your being
told what really occasioned the illness of your daughter Flora,” said
Gomer, impressively; “let me briefly explain. The details you shall
be made acquainted with hereafter, Your late guest, Colonel Mires, who
began life by plunging from gambling into forgery, and whom you saved
from destruction by timely repairing the consequences of his crime,
who, in turn, obtained Harleydale for you, conceived a passion for your
daughter Flora----”

“I had some such suspicion,” ejaculated Wilton, looking aghast, as if he
feared what was about to follow.

“He, sir, finding that the field was occupied,” continued Gomer--“that
he should never gain your consent to marry her, nor her consent to have
him, acted independently of both, and carried her off.”

“Carried her off?”

“Precisely. In accordance with a most skilfully devised plot he bore her
off on the morning on which that knave Chewkle fired at you. The same
active spirit that interfered so opportunely in your favour discovered
the abduction, and pursued the ravisher. He succeeded in overtaking, in
rescuing, and restoring your daughter safely to her home again.”

There was a pause for a minute.

Then Nathan Gomer said, drily--

“Not a fellow this to receive a money compensation.”

Mr. Wilton made two or three efforts to speak; at length, by a desperate
exertion, he said--

“The name of this person--a--um--is----”

“Mr. Henry Vivian,” replied Nathan Gomer, in a clear, sonorous voice.

Mr. Wilton sank back in his chair.

Was it possible to be afflicted with more vexatious or annoying
intelligence than this? Had it been anyone else, his liberality would
have known no bounds; but to be indebted to this _parvenu_, who aspired
to an alliance with his house, for the lives of himself and daughter was
intolerable.

What to say--what to do, he could not conceive, his brain was in a
whirl. He remained silent.

Nathan Gomer fixed his bright, dancing eyes upon him.

“My award, Wilton, to Mr. Vivian, for his earnest services to you and
your daughter, would have been to bestow the hand of the damsel upon
him, in accordance with the maxim, that the ‘brave deserve the fair.’
But I presume, as I said before, that you would not endorse my award,
though I more than half suspect the young lady would herself do so with
a ready pen.”

Wilton quitted his chair, and paced his room, a movement he usually
resorted to when his mind was agitated; suddenly he paused and stood
before Gomer, and said, in an excited manner--

“You were correct, Gomer, in supposing that I should not endorse any
such award--perfectly correct; such a notion is preposterous,
wild, romantic,--a--a--foolery. I--a--I am--a--on a ship with my
daughter---a--we both fall into the sea--a--a--a brave sailor jumps in
and saves us both; am I--am I to give my daughter’s hand to that sailor.
I admire him, I honour his bravery, and would reward it--a--but with
my daughter’s hand--a--never. I never heard of anything so
astoundingly--why--a--Gomer, you do not look much like a susceptible
romantic personage, you can hardly feel it your business----”

“To make two young hearts beat in happy unison,” interrupted Gomer,
sharply. “Yes, I do. Why not? Why should I not, eh? Permit me to ask why
I should not? I can’t help my looks. A diamond, you know, has an ugly
crust; but because I am a dwarf, and look as if I performed ablutions
in turmeric, it does not necessarily follow that I should have a lump of
granite for a heart.”

“But, Gomer, you are--a--rich--and a--a--man of the world--a--”
 responded Wilton.

“I am both,” answered Gomer, emphatically. “I am a man of the world, and
I see that, like boys after butterflies, the majority of my kind pursue
objects as gaudy and as useless when caught. I see the hollowness of
most human purposes, the eagerness with which they are pursued, and the
wretched, vexed vanities they prove to be when possessed. I am rich,
Wilton; but I apprehend the true purpose of riches to be something
different to self-deifying aggrandisement. The world is full of woe--the
mission of wealth is to alleviate it: also, to assist and to elevate
human worth, and to plant happiness where it has not been wont to bloom.
Such have been the objects of my life-labours; and such, I trust, they
will continue to be. I do not, however, pretend to attempt to control
your actions, or guide you in the performance of your duties. That must
be your own task. I simply reiterate what my award to Mr. Vivian would
have been; and now I expect you will take upon yourself the office
of acknowledging the debt of gratitude you owe to him--rather a heavy
obligation to my thinking--and the consideration of the meet reward you
will bestow upon him.”

Wilton, after a little reflection, said--

“It appears to me, in looking back on the past, Gomer, that--a--that you
have exercised a considerable, I might say a very considerable
influence over my actions, and have directed generally the course of my
inclinations, a--a--and my intentions. Even now, a--though disclaiming
such purpose, it seems to me that you are occupied--I--a--should say,
actively occupied in forcing me to swallow a potion most repugnant
to--a--to--to my nature, seeking to impel me by honeyed words concerning
the good which a--a--must result from my acquiescence--a. Stay, don’t
interrupt me now. I would fain acknowledge that you have hitherto shown
the greatest interest in my personal affairs; that, I say, I think
is undoubtedly clear. It is also plain and undeniable that
your--a--um--your interference hitherto has been attended with the best
possible result; that I admit. It might in the present instance--I say
it might--I am by no means supposed to think it would, but it might
operate beneficially if it succeeded in making me believe that it would
be at least proper to bestow the hand of my daughter upon Mr. Vivian.
But before I consent to re-open the case, and listen to a repetition of
your arguments, be good enough to tell me who you are, and explain to me
why you, a comparative stranger--merely the landlord of a house I once
inhabited--should have mixed yourself up with my affairs, and now take
upon yourself to direct me in the disposal of my children in marriage.”

Nathan Gomer rubbed his hands briskly over his chin and mouth, and
champed with his teeth, as though his tongue and lips were parched.
Presently he spoke; his voice grated harshly at first.

“Ha! ha! very true,” he said, with a grim chuckle; “I never reflected
upon that very grave consideration---my title to interfere in your
affairs; it did not occur to me, I grant you I have been impertinent,
officious. I ought to have left you to--no no”--he checked himself
with a sudden dignity--“I must not permit myself to be betrayed into a
weakness. Mr. Wilton, you have smitten me on one cheek; before I permit
you to smite the other, I will inform you who I am, not at this moment,
but at the proper time. It will come to your ears with sufficient speed
when it does come. Farewell.”

“Hem--a--Gomer--stay!” cried Wilton, hurriedly. But Gomer was gone.
The old man would have followed him, but a servant entered the library,
followed by the Honorable Lester Vane.

Vane was dressed with studied elegance; his garb was in the highest
style of fashion, and fitted him to perfection. Having quite recovered
his health, of which, recently, he had purposely taken the greatest
possible care, he looked, as he walked with an elevated gait--affected,
and acquired by practice--a very handsome and polished specimen of the
aristocracy.

Wilton was immediately struck by his appearance and manner. The words
“Honorable Mr. Lester” rang in his ears, too, as the servant announced
him. He had before noticed the superiority of mien and attire displayed
by Vane, but, under existing circumstances, they now made a stronger
impression than ever upon him.

Here evidently was the son-in-law proper to his own and his daughter’s
condition in life. Nathan Gomer might preach as much as he pleased about
two young hearts beating in happy unison, but was it possible that such
would be the result of an unequal match? It was far more likely that
Flora, wedded to a young, elegant fellow like Lester, and moving, after
her marriage with him, in a high circle, would be much gayer and happier
than if mated with one who had been accustomed only to the atmosphere
of a workshop, and to mix with very moderate people. Wilton felt
decided upon the point, and accordingly greeted Lester Vane with evident
pleasure, which that astute personage responded to with consummate
artifice. By his observations and his inquiries, he led Wilton to the
conclusion that he possessed a noble spirit and unaffected kindness
of heart. He even offered to give back to Wilton the promise he had
received from him of Flora’s hand, and assured him, with well-simulated
earnestness, that however deeply painful, and even heart-breaking, it
might be to him to forego the honour of Miss Wilton’s alliance, he
would rather sacrifice his eternal happiness than be the occasion of
one moment’s grief to her. He had come down, he said, with the object of
either being able to disabuse Flora’s mind of its false idea in respect
to Vivian, and to win her love, or to resign her hand and retire from
the field altogether--an alternative which old Wilton rather vehemently
“pooh-poohed.”

The measured manner in which Vane expressed himself, and the earnestness
which led old Wilton to be explicit in his views and wishes,
occasioned some time to be consumed before the latter could fulfil his
intention--floating through his mind all the while he was talking with
his new guest--not to suffer Gomer abruptly to depart, and in anger,
too. So, as soon as he could conveniently take the opportunity, he rang
his bell, and bade his servant acquaint Mr. Gomer that he should be glad
of a few words with him.

“He’s gone, sir, and taken t’other old gentleman with him,” replied the
man.

“The other old gentleman?” repeated Mr. Wilton, with surprise.

“Yes, sir, one of they two that came with him, sir,” replied the man.

“Which?” asked Wilton, startled.

“I don’t know which,” replied the man, with a stupid expression of
countenance; “but Mr. Mark, he do, sir; because Mr. Gomer spoke to him
before he left the hall, sir.”

“Send Mr. Mark to me!” exclaimed Mr. Wilton, sharply.

The man disappeared, and, in a few minutes, Mark Wilton made
his appearance. He greeted Lester Vane with stern and haughty
coldness--conduct his father viewed with irritation, though he made no
remark then in reference to it, but confined himself to the matter upon
which he had sent for him.

“I hear, Mark,” he said “that Gomer has left the Hall for the railway
station, is it so?”

“Surely, sir,” answered Mark, with surprise, “you are aware of that fact.
He informed me that he had parted with you.”

“Parted with me?”

“Yes, sir; he expressed himself, I thought, rather emphatically; but he
appeared to be in a very great hurry, and took that singular companion
of his, Mr. Maybee, with him.”

“Maybee!” echoed Wilton, in a tone of alarm.

He looked hastily over the papers still on the table, but all the
documents which Maybee had produced needful to support Wilton’s claim
to the large estates in Chancery were yet there. What, then, could Gomer
mean by withdrawing him?

“My solicitor is still here,” he exclaimed, addressing Mark.

“I left him in conversation with my sister, sir,” replied Mark.

“He will dine with us--in fact he does not return to London until the
morning,” said his father. “Mr. Vane will also be our guest for
a--for a--for the present. You will conduct him to your sister and Mr.
Charlock, my excellent man of business--quite a gentleman, I assure you,
Mr. Vane.”

The “Honorable” bowed.

“A wealthy man, and of high standing in his profession,” added Mr.
Wilton.

Vane bowed again.

“I have a high esteem for men of the legal profession,” he said;
“they are agreeable company--they are acute men, intelligent, full
of anecdote, and, from the very character of their position and
acquirements, respectable.”

Mr. Wilton rubbed his hands, he was pleased with the reply.

“I am desirous of a little quiet just now,” he observed; “I shall
therefore have an hour or so to myself in my sanctum here alone, but I
will join you at dinner. It was not my intention to have done so, but
I feel equal now to the pleasure I shall enjoy. Mark, I place Mr. Vane
under your charge; I am sure you will pay him every attention.”

Mark made a cold inclination of the head and left the library, followed
by Vane, who perceived his coolness, but he had too great a game at
stake to appear to do so, or to appear to be affected by it. He himself
assumed a proud _nonchalant_ air, and took his way after Mark Wilton,
who walked with a quick step at an easy, leisurely pace.

Mark again wondered where he had seen Vane and under what circumstances.
He felt morally convinced that they had met before, and that the
impressions left behind were not favourable to Lester. In vain he
endeavoured to solve the difficulty; his memory would not serve him in
this.

Again Lester Vane and Flora were face to face, but under different
conditions. She received him--although her heart beat, for she knew
he was her father’s favoured suitor for her hand--with a quiet, firm
manner, as though his arrival was an incident of ordinary character;
and she listened to his well-turned hyperboles, as if they were but
common-places. She replied by a silent inclination of the head, and
resumed her conversation with Mr. Charlock with an unembarrassed ease
which affected Vane more keenly than any studied slight would have done.
He could have supplied a motive for that, and have surmounted, or have
attempted to have surmounted it hopefully, for it would have shown to
him that he was not an object of indifference; but to be received as
Flora had met him was to satisfy him that she was in no doubt as to the
disposal of her preference, or that it would be adhered to.

He felt by her manner that he was accepted by her as a guest of her
father’s, whose coming and going could have no influence or effect upon
her.

He mentally determined to change this state of things at any risk.

“Her uncouth booby of a brother cuts me,” he mused.

“I care nothing for that--but she shall not do so with impunity. I will
have her. No risk shall daunt me, no obstacle deter me, for it is not
alone her wealth I need, but I have conceived a passion for her.”

Such were his thoughts as he gazed upon her while she was speaking to
her father’s solicitor. She was so beautiful, so very, very beautiful,
that the more his eyes perused her fair lineaments, the more deep became
his determination not to be shaken off.

But she never turned her eyes towards him; and when, by her quietly
dropping her share in the conversation, it rested between him and Mr.
Charlock, she silently glided from the room.

Had it not been for the presence of Mr. Charlock, Mark would have
followed her example; as it was, he spoke but seldom to Vane, who
treated him with corresponding carelessness.

It was a relief to Mark when they separated to dress for dinner; and on
reassembling, Flora did not appear. She complained of not being well,
and they had to proceed without her. Mark confined his observations
to Mr. Charlock; and Mr. Wilton, irritated, angry, and feverish, was
compelled to keep Vane in countenance as well as he could.

The task was too much for him; and he found himself compelled from
weakness to retire to his chamber the moment the cloth was cleared. The
solicitor was an abstemious and an early man; and as he was compelled to
quit Harleydale for London at an early hour in the morning, he rose
from the table almost as soon as the wine was circulated; after a short
interview with Mr. Wilton, and obtaining possession of all the valuable
legal papers, he retired to rest.

Mark and Vane were thus left alone. A silence of at least ten minutes
elapsed. Neither spoke. Several times Vane had cast furtive glances at
Mark, and felt convinced he was thinking about him.

Presently, he placed his hand upon the decanter before him, and said--

“A little wine with you would be very agreeable, Mr. Wilton.”

Mark bowed slightly, and sipped his wine.

Again a silence ensued; and soon Mark’s thoughts were far away. Lotte’s
quiet, pale, sad face rose up before him, and her thoughtful eyes seemed
to be turned appealingly upon him for help and aid.

Suddenly a flush of heat passed across his features, his eye kindled
brightly, and his brow lowered.

He turned to Lester Vane, and in a sharp tone said--

“We have met before.”

Vane looked at him, somewhat surprised at the suddenness of his remark
and at its tone. With equal quickness, it occurred to him that Mark
recollected only at this moment the scene in Hyde Park. He was prepared
for what was coming, and replied, quietly--

“Unquestionably, on my last visit here.”

“Before, sir, we encountered each other in this house. Look at my face
well, sir; listen to the tone of my voice; and then tell me if your
memory does not furnish you with the circumstances under which we, on a
former occasion, confronted each other.”

Vane returned calmly his angry gaze; and, with a most collected manner,
replied--

“But for your earnestness, Mr. Wilton, I should imagine you were
jesting. Upon my honour I am unconscious of having had the satisfaction
of meeting you previous to our introduction here.”

“We met, sir, in Hyde Park one evening----” commenced Mark, rather
impetuously.

Vane stayed him.

“Your pardon, Mr. Wilton,” he said; “in what month?”

Mark replied promptly. Vane shook his head coolly, and returned--

“I was not in London; I was in Oxford.”

“In Oxford?” cried Mark, as if he could not believe his ears.

“In Oxford,” repeated Vane, slowly enunciating his words. “I give you my
word such is the fact, and if the occasion to which you may refer be
of importance to you, I will, in order to set you right on the matter,
produce, within a few days, proofs that I am simply stating--what, as a
gentleman, I have a claim my bare word should guarantee--the truth.”

Mark swallowed a glass of wine. He could say no more at present. He felt
convinced that Vane was the man he had seen in companionship with those
who had insulted Lotte, and he determined to pursue the subject until he
had either proved him a liar and a debauchee, or confess that, in this
instance at least, he was mis taken. He took the first opportunity of
excusing himself, and left Vane alone.

Alone to reflect on his position, to examine carefully the opposition
he should have to contend with, from what quarter it would proceed, what
would be its power, and how it was to be crushed.

“I must learn more before I can proceed upon my course,” he muttered.
“One thing is clear: this wilful beauty has given herself, heart and
soul, to that fellow Vivian, and I have no other rival to fear. It will
not be so difficult to dispose of him if I have time; I must have time.
Yet my necessities push me on to a _coup-de-main_. I will wait and see
what to-morrow brings forth. A day may do much. One thing I swear, if I
fail she shall never have him--never, never.”

His face assumed a demoniacal aspect. It was but a moment only that
it was so ruffled; he heard an approaching footstep, and his features
became placid and serene, as though there raged not beneath emotions
of carking anxieties, of dread solicitude, and almost despairing
apprehension.




CHAPTER XIV--THE BEGINNING OF THE END.


               _Col. Lamb_. Hold, sir! not so fast; you can’t pass.

               _Dr. Cant._ Who, sir, shall dare to stop me?

               _Col. Lamb._ Within there!       [Enter Tipstaff.

               _Tipstaff_. Is your name Cantwell, sir?

               _Dr. Cant_. What if it be, sir?

               _Tipstaff_. Then, sir, I have my lord chief justice’s warrant against
you.

               _Dr. Cant._ Against me?

               _Tipstaff_. Yes, sir, for a cheat and impostor.

                             --Bickekstaff.


To-morrow brought with it to Lester Vane a long _tête-à-tête_ with Mr.
Wilton. Neither Flora nor Mark were visible to him, and Mr. Charlock had
gone to London.

During this interview he learned, to his dismay, the whole of Colonel
Mires’ proceedings, as Mark had that morning at his request detailed to
his father all that had occurred in reference to the abduction of Flora.
He learned the particulars of Chewkle’s murderous attempt, and that,
in both cases, Harry Vivian had been the hero who had saved father and
daughter.

It was information of a startling and a grave kind to him. He was quite
enough master of woman’s character to comprehend how securely such acts
would establish Vivian in Flora’s heart, and of human nature to know
that if Wilton’s stumbling-block--pride--could be removed, he would, in
all other respects, delight in Vivian as a son-in-law.

For, although angry and irritated with him for what he considered the
presumption of aspiring to his daughter’s hand, yet Wilton never failed
to speak of him in all respects as in a high degree worthy his regard
and esteem. Lester Vane, therefore, saw that Vivian was his great
obstruction, and that he must be cleared from his path before he could
himself make the least advance.

He determined, upon reflection, to speak in high terms of him to Wilton,
especially to Mark or Flora if he had the chance, and to congratulate
Hal himself if he happened to meet with him, though it cost him an
apology for his former insolence. He resolved, and wisely, to be
governed in all he did by the form circumstances might take, and,
without attempting to control them, to guide them into the direction he
wished them to pursue. Above all, with grating teeth, he resolved to
be effectually rid of his rival; not by the vulgar means of knife or
poison--there were other ways of destroying him than that. He hoped to
slay his moral character, and that he decided should be his first move
when the right moment came to set it in motion.

Old Wilton had to attend at the Town Hall of a neighbouring borough
to appear against Mr. Chewkle, and to give his evidence before the
magistrates respecting the murderous attack he had made upon him.

He was aware that he should have to meet there Mr. Henry Vivian. To
expatiate upon his timely interposition in his favour, to laud him for
his pursuit of Colonel Mires, and the rescue of his daughter. He felt as
he meditated on this that he ought to be grateful to him, and to display
it; but then the exhibition of a generous warmth on his part might raise
hopes he was most anxious to repress. So he was bewildered as to the
part he ought to play.

Then, too, he was feverish and petulant; he missed Lotte’s gentle
attentions.

Ah! in truth he sorely missed her.

From the moment she had quitted him nothing seemed to have gone right.
He missed her every-ready offices, always performed so exactly as he
wished them to be; he missed her soft voice, which had such power to
soothe and allay his peevish fretfulness; and he missed her gentle
smile, which had never failed to gladden his heart, and dispose it to a
generous sympathy with the world and all whom it contained.

Never since her absence had he missed her so much as on the morning he
had to face the fatigue of giving his evidence on the examination of
Chewkle. He was so sure he should have been prepared to undergo the
exertion by her admirable arrangements, and he was so convinced that she
would, by her presence, have sustained him throughout his meeting with
Vivian. But he had to do it all without her; for very obvious reasons
he declined Flora’s offer to accompany him. He felt assured there was no
advantage to be derived from giving her the opportunity of seeing young
Vivian, if she did not speak to him--she had, in fact, seen him too
often as it was.

So, accompanied by his son Mark and Lester Vane, he went to the Town
Hall.

But ere he departed from his library he formed a design respecting
Lotte--one he purposed keeping to himself until he could put it into
execution.

He made a firm resolve to be no more placed in the predicament in which
he felt himself to be that morning.

And so he reached the Town Hall, which was thronged with curious
spectators. The attempt on Wilton’s life had been noised all over the
county, and the gentry and farmers for miles round came to hear the
examination.

They came to see, too, Mr. Wilton. His history was well known, as
well as his understood successful claim to the Eglinton estates. Great
curiosity was evinced to see the rich landed proprietor who had lived
for years little better than a beggar in London.

Three was a somewhat anxious desire on the part of the fair sex, too,
to have a peep at the young gentleman who had saved Mr. Wilton’s life.
Report had declared him to be the very handsomest of fine young fellows;
that Miss Wilton had fallen passionately in love with him, and was to
be married to him in a month; that she had selected her _trousseau_, and
was looking up her bridesmaids.

There was a very general morbid curiosity also to gaze on Mr. Chewkle.

Mr. Chewkle, whose race was run--Mr. Chewkle, who had possessed such
faith in having the luck which was “all.” He possessed it no more: it
had deserted him now. He knew it, and looked into the future with a
vacant stare and blank despair.

When first made prisoner and incarcerated, he forwarded a letter to Mr.
Grahame, in which he briefly stated that events had proved untoward, and
called upon him to hasten to release him by some means from his dilemma.

No answer was returned to his epistle.

He wrote again, intimating that, unless his employer made his
appearance, revelations would be made.

Still no answer. Chewkle was devoured with sickening anxiety, and
dropped a line to his passionately attached friend Jukes, asking him to
call upon Mr. Grahame, and wake him up. He gave him a few hints to
use which would be likely to terrify the proud man, as coming from a
stranger, and he signed himself “Old Chewk.” But Jukes was a rat who
skulked from a sinking ship, so he burned the letter, and swore to
himself that he had never received it.

Chewkle grew desperate at being thus deserted, and he gave Mr. Grahame,
as he said, “one more chance;” in another and last epistle, he spoke out
very plainly. He alluded to incitement to murder, of the forgery they
had together committed, and he ended by informing Mr. Grahame that if he
did not proceed instanter to “do the thing that was right,” he should
make a clean breast of all. “And if I am lagged for life,” he said, “you
shall go with me, even if we should be in the same gang, and chained
together up to our buzzums in water, until one of us turns up his toes.”
 This more expressive than elegant epistle met with no better fate than
the others.

Mr. Grahame was then where no missive or threat of Mr. Chewkle could
reach him. Mr. Chewkle hoped against hope until the last moment; then he
determined to give up Mr. Grahame’s name, and request of the authorities
that that gentleman might be taken into custody. He did so on the
morning of the examination, and was then informed that Mr. Grahame was
dead, and also that the contents of his notes had been carefully perused
before they had quitted the prison-doors.

Chewkle listened to this announcement with a spasm of agony. His future
was before him--penal servitude for life, without a hope of escape.

So, when he appeared at the dock with haggard face, bloodshot eyes,
shaggy brows, and stubbly beard, people in court shrunk back, and
believed him quite capable of the crime with which he was charged.

The examination extended to no great length. Mr. Wilton, who acted the
patrician with consummate art, gave his evidence in a somewhat
stately and rambling manner; but Vivian, whose looks realised all the
expectations of the fair owners of the many bright eyes turned upon him,
recounted his share in the transaction with a clear conciseness and a
modesty which elicited encomium from the counsel for the prosecution,
and a compliment from the magistrates. Other evidence was produced; and
Mr. Chewkle--who, under the advice of his solicitor, said nothing, and
nothing exculpatory had he to say--was fully committed for trial at the
next assizes, which, however, were not due for some two or three months
to come. Mr. Chewkle was, therefore, consigned to gaol to await that
period; and Mr. Wilton, attended by his son and Lester Vane, returned
back to Harleydale Hall.

They did not encounter Mr. Vivian. He was nowhere to be seen--though
Mark had looked for him, and Lester Vane too--until he was called upon
to give his evidence, then he suddenly rose up in the vicinity of the
witness-box, as if by magic, performed the duty required of him, and
retired, to be no more visible to the eyes which searched for him that
day.

All the way from Harleydale to the Town Hall, Mr. Wilton had been
mentally occupied by him. He considered himself slighted--he,
so wealthy, holding now such a position--he should be at least
deputy-lieutenant for his county before long--and for this Vivian, this
boy, not to appear before him and express---well, Mr. Wilton could not
define what sentiments Hal ought to have delivered himself of; he rested
with feelings irritated and annoyed at his absence.

He let his feelings at last betray themselves. Mark looked at him with
surprise.

“What, sir!” he said, curtly, “did you expect Mr. Vivian to hunt you out
to present himself to you, hat in hand, and thank you for the honour
of having been permitted to save your life, and Flora from worse than
death.”’

“Ahem! Mark, you presume!” rejoined his father, fiercely.

Mark made no reply; and the rest of the journey home was made in
silence.

Flora, sure that she should hear all that had transpired from Mark, kept
her room on the plea of indisposition--a just one; for she, too, was
feverish, excited, and certainly indisposed to meet Lester Vane, and to
bevexed by his incessant stare and his unpleasing attention.

Old Wilton, on reaching Harleydale, again missed the face of his little
pet-nurse. His house seemed a desert without her. His room seemed gloomy
without the sunshine of her eyes or the music of her voice. He said
nothing, but he speculated upon her condition.

“She is a young lady in reduced circumstances,” he thought. “I will make
this a home for her. Flora will be married and away from me. Mark, among
the splendid beauties of an elevated circle, will soon forget the artful
sempstress who inveigled herself into his affections--he does not speak
of her now, a good sign. He will marry, and have an establishment of
his own. Then, then, I will place my little pet to preside over my
household; I shall have all my wishes consulted, and all my requirements
attended to. I will make an excuse to go to London. Flora knows her
address, and I will go to her, and make short work of it. I am weary of
this loneliness.”

He, however, wanted not an excuse to go to London. He was electrified by
receiving a letter from his solicitor, who informed him that he had
been served with a notice from a new claimant to the estates of the late
Eglinton, and who was at once about to prosecute his claim, He advanced
his title as a lineal descendant from an elder branch of the family,
and, upon referring to the genealogical tree, the solicitor said he
feared his claim was only too well founded. He, however, begged Mr.
Wilton to come to London at once, and confer with him upon the course to
be adopted in this singular and unexpected turn of affairs.

Wilton read and re-read this letter a dozen times. What! was the cup of
grandeur to be dashed from his mouth while yet sparkling and bubbling on
his lips. New claimant of an elder branch of the family! the very notion
made him perspire; for he had at once a dim remembrance that Nathan
Gomer had mentioned that fact, but had suggested that the descent was
broken, or had disappeared, he could not now recollect, beyond that his
singular little friend had assured him there was no occasion to fear any
interposition from that quarter.

Yet here it was.

Upon an impulse, he swallowed humble pie, and wrote off to Nathan Gomer,
asking him to come down at once to Harleydale, for he much needed the
services of his well-tried and proved friend once more.

His letter was returned to him unopened.

What did this mean?

Who, after all, could Nathan Gomer be?

Another letter arrived from his solicitor, more urgent than before,
calling for his immediate presence in London, and he had no alternative
but to comply with its appeal.

He conferred with Mark, adopting a different manner and language
towards him to that which he had lately used, and his son announced his
intention to accompany him to London; as Flora could not well be left
behind, it was decided that she should go with them too.

Mr. Wilton was, perforce, obliged to inform Lester Vane of the change
in their arrangements; but he was warmly requested to make the house in
Regent’s Park his own, as it were, while they remained in town.

The change did not suit Vane; he had several private reasons which
rendered a return to London especially inconvenient; but he could only
submit to the alteration, and offer to journey with them to the great
metropolis, which offer Mr. Wilton accepted readily---it was one which
was not a little distasteful to Flora.

Once again their dwelling, adjoining Grahame’s, was tenanted by them,
and, with no small pleasure, by two of the family. By Flora, because
coming to London was to be where Hal dwelt--to breathe the same
atmosphere with him--to be within reach any moment of his presence--to
be within sound of his voice, within the beams from his eyes--to feel
that she was under the shadow of his protection, and that his glance
hovered over her path wheresoever she went--to preserve her from danger,
and guard her from insult.

To Mark, the change was delicious, for he was near to Lotte; near to
where he might, could, would, should, must see her again, to reason with
her, combat her prejudices, and make a lady of her whether she would or
no--do her principles a violence that he might, for so long as he should
live, prove to her how dearly and devotedly he loved her.

Mr. Wilton’s interviews with his legal adviser, successively taking
place day after day, were the reverse of satisfactory to him. He felt
the estates he had so much coveted, and the near possession of which had
so lifted him out of himself, slipping rapidly out of his fingers.

The new claimant, who seemed to be animated with a vindictive feeling
against Wilton, bore the name of Eglinton. He pushed on his claim with
all the speed of which the law would admit, and without omitting an
opportunity or advantage it gave him. So clear at last did his case
appear that Wilton’s own solicitor suggested an arrangement between
the parties, by which the enormous expense of going into Court might be
avoided.

At first, Mr. Eglinton refused any meeting, and insisted upon
prosecuting his full right to the whole of the property; but he deferred
the meeting for a fortnight--proceedings being, by mutual agreement,
suspended during that period.

In the meanwhile, Lester Vane was a constant guest at Wilton’s
residence. He came early in the morning, and seldom left until he could
with decency no longer stay.

As Vane was the guest of his father, Mark could not interfere; but he
gave that guest very little of his society, notwithstanding, the latter
exerted himself with all his cunning to establish himself on a better
footing with him. Nor did his well-dissembled conduct to Flora, his
quiet hints in favour of Vivian, his deference to her wish, and his
careful abstinence from even a show of love-making to her advance him
in her good opinion; while, strange enough, old Wilton began to tire of
him. He was so enwrapt in the disputed claims to the property he had so
fully believed to be his, that it became irksome to him to have to
keep up a conversation with Vane on subjects which possessed no kind of
interest for him.

One sunny morning, as Vane was seated with Mr Wilton in his library,
the servant of the latter brought in two cards upon a silver salver, and
handed them to him. He looked at them, and with a sudden flush mounting
to his cheeks, said--

“Show them in.”

Two gentlemen immediately afterwards entered the room, and Lester Vane
rose to bow to them, as he heard Mr. Wilton say--

“Mr. Riversdale, Mr. Vivian, the Honorable Lester Vane.”

Lester almost fell back in his seat--not that he cared to meet Hal, but
he had an instinctive dread of encountering Hugh Riversdale.

The latter had bidden him beware of their third encounter. It had now
come to pass; what would be its result?

He clenched his hands firmly, and set his teeth together, but sought to
make his face wear a cold, passionless expression.

Mr. Wilton motioned to his visitors to be seated. The eyes of both fell
glittering upon Lester Vane; but they made no remark. They took their
seats; and Mr. Wilton asked to what he had the honour of attributing the
visit of Mr. Riversdale. He added, with a somewhat gracious manner--

“I rather anticipated the pleasure of seeing Mr. Vivian before this.
I should have called upon or written to him, but I had not his new
address.”

Vivian bowed, but made no reply.

“Mr. Wilton,” said Mr. Riversdale, “you are well acquainted, as a matter
of course, with the unhappy circumstances connected with Mr. Grahame’s
family; I need not, therefore, allude to them. I have sought you, sir,
with a twofold purpose; firstly, to inform you that, as the husband of
the late Mr. Grahame’s eldest daughter, I have taken upon myself the
task of arranging her father’s affairs. I am aware that all his property
is deeply mortgaged, and that he was largely indebted to a gentleman
named Gomer, who still holds in possession the next house, and all it
contains. Mr. Gomer is, I believe, the mortgagee, and I wish to ask a
favour of you”----

At this instant, Lester Vane rose to leave the room, as though the
business, being evidently private, it became him not to remain and
listen.

Hugh Riversdale rose up too, and, with a stern look and voice, said----

“Be seated, sir. You are one of the objects of my visit here, and I
cannot permit you to depart until I have stated it.”

Lester Vane shrugged his shoulders, and reseated himself with an air of
_nonchalance_ that he was far from feeling.

What was coming?

Hugh Riversdale continued speaking to Mr. Wilton.

“I am given to understand, sir, that you possess considerable
influence with Mr. Gomer!” he said, “and I am here to ask you to bury
whatever feeling of animosity you may have entertained for the deceased
Mr. Grahame, and to prevail upon Mr. Gomer to meet me, with a view of so
arranging his claim that something may be rescued out of the wreck for
his son, and for his youngest daughter, Evangeline. In granting me this
favour, you will be exhibiting that nobleness of spirit and disposition
which distinguishes a Christian gentleman, and which I, on good
authority, believe finds a home in your breast.”

Mr. Wilton gave a gulp.

The want of nobleness of spirit had lost him the friendship and
countenance of Gomer.

Clearing his throat, he said--

“I sympathise most deeply with the misfortunes of Mr. Grahame’s family.
Unhappily between us both a deadly feud existed, and Mr. Grahame fell in
the struggle. If I can in any way repair or alleviate the evil which has
fallen like a destroying thunderbolt upon his house, command me; but,
I grieve to say, I now possess no influence over Mr. Gomer, if I ever
did--in truth--I--a--there is a difference between us just now and we
do not meet. I am sorry, therefore, I cannot help you in the quarter you
wish; in any other I shall only be too happy.”

Hugh Riversdale thanked him warmly, and said--

“I may yet require your services, and I shall avail myself of them
without fear.”

“Or favour,” added Wilton.

Making a suitable acknowledgment, Hugh then fixed upon Lester Vane a
fierce glance of hatred, and addressing Mr. Wilton, while he pointed to
the former, said--

“I now, sir, come to the second purpose of my visit. It identifies itself
with that person seated by your side.”

Wilton turned with surprise, and looked first at Vane and then at
Riversdale.

The face of Lester Vane was blanched, otherwise it exhibited no emotion
whatever. A slight smile of defiance only curled his upper lip.

“He is a suitor for your daughter’s hand, and under your promise of its
bestowal upon him?” commenced Hugh.

Wilton, with elevated eyebrows, assented.

“Sir, he is the son of a lord. Granted. But it is fit you should know
that his father has for years lived abroad.”

“I am aware of that,” exclaimed Wilton, sharply.

“Are you also aware that it is because he cannot show his face to his
creditors here in England; are you aware that your intended son-in-law
is worse than a beggar; that he is far beyond his depth in debt, that he
has already raised money upon your daughter’s expected dowry?”

Lester Vane’s face grew whiter, and his lips trembled. Hugh--keeping his
bright eye fastened upon him--went on--

“Are you conscious, Mr. Wilton, that the Honorable Lester Vane is
a blackleg, a sharper, with cards and false dice--a debauchee--a
scoundrel--who, while he was professing the warmest attachment to Miss
Wilton, strove, by the most infamous proposals, to ruin the daughter
of the man at whose house he had been received with cordial
hospitality--that he is a wretch so contemptible that words fail to
express his true character? Are you aware, sir, that such is the man you
have honoured with a place beneath your roof, and to whom you are eager
to entrust the future happiness of your child?”

Mr. Wilton placed his hands to his forehead, bewildered.

He turned to Lester, and in a choking, gasping voice, he said--

“What--what have you to answer to these tremendous charges?”

“That they are, from first to last, false!” answered Vane, striving by
a mighty effort to retain a cool self-possession; “wholly, abominably,
maliciously false! The truth of the matter is, Mr. Wilton, some
time--long before I saw your sweet daughter--the lady, now the wife of
that fellow, betrayed a preference for me, which is the secret of”----

“Scoundrel! dare to breathe one word respecting that lady through your
foul lips, and, notwithstanding Mr. Wilton’s presence, I will fling you
through yon window down to the place beneath.”

“Mere vaunting braggadocio!” returned Vane, with a tremendous effort
to appear cool. “Mr. Wilton, I shall commence an action of libel
against this infernal slanderer; that will be my best answer to his
lying-assertions.”

“There--there should be some proofs adduced to support such terrible
charges,” observed Mr. Wilton to Hugh Riversdale, who was labouring
under the most painful excitement.

“I am prepared to substantiate many of them by the very clearest
evidence!” exclaimed Hal, producing a small packet of papers.

“A disinterested witness, truly!” exclaimed Vane forcing a laugh. “A
concocted scheme, as you may perceive, Mr. Wilton; surely you are not
prepared to condemn me upon such an infamous machination as this?”

The door at this moment opened, and Nathan Gomer entered, followed by a
sturdy looking man.

He pointed to Lester Vane.

“There is your man, officer!” he exclaimed.

Lester Vane uttered an exclamation of fright; he darted from his chair
and made for the open window. The height was something, but he paused
not to think of it, and leaped out to the ground below.

“Villain! you shall not thus escape my rightful vengeance!” shouted Hugh
Riversdale, and dashed after him.

The officer, however, sprang upon him, and seizing him by the collar,
detained him.

“Hold, sir!” he cried; “there is a man below to prevent his escape.
Besides, he must have broken his limbs, if he has not his head.”

Gomer stood watching excitedly the movements of Vane and Hugh, at
the elbow of Wilton. The latter, with a sudden faintness, clutched at
Gomer’s arm.

“Support me, or I shall swoon!” he exclaimed.

“No!” said Gomer, brusquely.

He pushed Hal towards him, adding--

“Here is the proper person.”

Mr. Wilton, almost insensible, sank on to the breast of Harry Vivian.




CHAPTER XV.--“COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE.”


                   If this austere, unsociable life

                   Change not your offer made in heat of blood;

                   If frosts and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,

                   Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,

                   But that it bears this trial, and last love;

                   Then, at the expiration of the year,

                   Come challenge me.

                             --Shakspere.


The deadly faintness which had overcome Old Wilton, when he fell
into the arms of Harry Vivian, increased, until it deprived him of all
consciousness of what was passing around him.

Alarmed by an unusual disturbance in the house, both Mark and
Flora hastened to the library in time to witness a scene to them
incomprehensible.

Mr. Riversdale was struggling in the arms of an officer; Nathan Gomer
was, as usual, unexpectedly present, giving instructions to a servant;
Lester Vane had disappeared; and, oh! strangest sight of all, their
father was leaning on the breast of Hal Vivian.

Yet an instant, and the whole scene was changed as at the stroke of a
magician’s wand. Riversdale, officer, Nathan Gomer, and the servant, had
disappeared from the room at one moment, and Hal Vivian was alone left
to explain. Both hurriedly inquired of him what had happened; but he
tenderly placed old Wilton in his library chair, and begged for some
restoratives on the instant, for it was painfully apparent that the old
man was in a swoon.

Flora hastened to obtain them, while Mark, in compliance with
suggestions rapidly made by Hal, descended to the garden.

Upon Flora’s return, she, assisted by Vivian, applied some ammoniacal
salts to her father’s nostrils, and bathed his temples with
eau-de-cologne and water. In a short time the application proved
successful; Wilton recovered sufficiently to gaze vacantly around him
and utter a few incoherent remarks.

Flora twined her arms about his neck, and, with fond words and soothing
tenderness, succeeded in calming down the violent perturbation which
succeeded the recovery from his swoon.

Then he gazed, almost wildly, round him in search of the actors in the
scene which had perfectly electrified and overwhelmed him.

They were gone.

The old man gave an involuntary groan, accompanied by a sudden shudder,
then he asked--

“Where is Nathan Gomer?”

“Mark has just quitted the library to seek an interview with him,”
 replied Flora. “He will return with him, I have no doubt.”

“No, no,” said Wilton, soliloquizing. “He will come back no more--no
more! From afar he will contemplate the destruction of hopes he assisted
to raise, only the more completely to hurl them to the dust.”

“Dear sir!” exclaimed Flora, softly, “you have been startled and shocked
by what has happened. Mr. Gomer, though strange in his manner, is at
heart generous and noble; you wrong him, if you imagine he entertains
any hostile feelings towards you.”

“How, can you tell?” inquired her father, sharply. “You know not who he
is; you cannot, more than myself, even conjecture what influences have
animated him in appearing as my friend, and acting as--as----”

He really could not get his lips to shape the word “enemy.”

“Acting still as your friend, I hope and believe,” observed Vivian, as
the old man paused.

Wilton turned quickly, and gazed upon him with an air of surprise. He
had not yet collected his scattered memories.

“Why are you here, sir?” he asked with knitted brow.

“Dear papa!” ejaculated Flora, with an appealing aspect, for she was
grieved at the harshness of his tone of voice and the sternness of his
manner. She remembered how much both were indebted to Vivian.

“Silence!” said her father, brusquely.

“Have you so soon forgotten the object of the visit of Mr. Riversdale
and myself?” interrogated Vivian, gently.

Old Wilton placed his hands on his brow and reflected.

“True, I remember now,” he exclaimed, sarcastically. “You came hither
to oust a rival”--he looked around the library--“and I presume you have
succeeded to your satisfaction.”

“And to yours, I hope, sir,” responded Hal, calmly.

“To mine?--oh, of course to mine; to be sure, to mine and my daughter’s.
You forgot her, did you not, Mr. Vivian?” he asked with a sneer.

“No, sir,” replied Hal, emphatically. “Miss Wilton was my first
consideration in performing the duty I undertook.”

“Ah! to be sure; I had forgotten that,” said the old man, in the same
jibing tone. “I ought to remember that you were not wholly disinterested
in the part you have played.”

“Sir!” exclaimed Vivian, with dignity; “you would only do me justice
if you were to charge me with being deeply interested in what I have
performed; but, at the same time, I hope you will acquit me of being
selfishly so. I hold the happiness of Miss Wilton, and the honour of
yourself and house at too high a value to permit it to be shattered and
degraded by so debased and so unworthy a scoundrel as the person who,
guarded by officers, has so recently been conveyed hence. But do not
misunderstand me, sir. I build up no claim to your consideration in what
I have done; I ask for no acknowledgment or elevation to your favour
in saving yourself and daughter from the machinations of an infamous
schemer. Your good-will I will accept only when it is the offspring
of your free inclination; I have not sought, nor would I ever seek,
to purchase it at any other price. I love Miss Wilton, sir, I candidly
admit---most devotedly love her, and shall do so while I have life--but
I never have, I never desired, and never would attempt to crawl by
stealth or by any secret or unworthy agency into an alliance with her.
I hold her in too high respect, and possess, sir, a too well-defined
consciousness of what is due to my own honour, to be guilty of acts
which bring their own punishment with them. Your unprincipled friend,
Colonel Mires, did not scruple, while charging me with a basely
underhand attempt to win your daughter’s affections, to arrange, and
carry almost to fulfilment, a devilish scheme, which, if successful,
would, while it utterly destroyed the happiness of your child, have
ruined the plans you had formed and looked forward to complete. Then,
he whom you had selected for the distinguished honour and inestimable
happiness of receiving your daughter’s hand, is a worthless, depraved
and penniless swindler. Sir, at least the very strictest and closest
scrutiny into my nature and habits will absolve me from being capable of
the baseness of the one, or guilty of the depravity of the other. It has
been my great good fortune to rescue you in both instances; on the one
hand from the agony of a shameful bereavement; on the other, from an
awakening to a knowledge of the infamy brought upon your name, and the
misery entailed upon your daughter by an alliance which henceforward the
thought of having ever desired to contract will make your cheek burn
with vexed mortification. In having performed this office, I hope to
be understood as not having been influenced by one selfish thought, but
animated only by a desire to guard and protect Miss Wilton from dangers
she could scarcely avert from herself, and your name from the obloquy
which would have fallen upon it. In achieving this I have been most
importantly aided by Mr. Nathan Gomer, and to him your acknowledgments
are due for the share he has taken in obtaining success. For myself,
as I have said, I ignore them; and when I come forward, as I hope at
no distant day to do, and ask of you your consent to sanction my union
with your daughter, I trust, sir, you will then do me the justice
to admit that while, in respect to income, I am not unjustified in
preferring a claim, that I have not resorted at any time, or under any
influences, to surreptitiously obtain that which you are free to give or
to withhold.”

“Um! you admit that?” exclaimed Wilton, who had listened attentively to
all that fell from his lips, and caught at the last expression.

“I can conscientiously acquit myself of having at any time attempted to
subvert that right,” returned Vivian.

Old Wilton drew along breath, and then covered his face with his hands,
in which attitude he sat for a few minutes, evidently plunged in a
profound reverie.

Both Flora and Hal watched him attentively and anxiously; at length he
raised his head, and, addressing Hal, he said--

“I cannot conceal from myself that I am indebted to you for my life;
I am equally conscious that I must look upon you as the saviour of my
daughter’s life and honour. They are heavy debts, and very difficult to
repay”----

“Spare me acknowledgments, I beg of you,” interrupted Hal, a little
impetuously. “I have told you, sir, already, that I neither desire nor
claim them; and I most earnestly assure you, that the only reward
I looked for I have reaped--my grateful satisfaction at having been
successful.”

“Nevertheless, I feel that I owe to you something,” continued Wilton;
“and in one way I can do a little towards confessing my obligation
to you--and that is, by being candid with you. The world is full of
disappointments--the sun resting on a valley field makes it appear a
rich expanse of golden grain, but when we reach it, we find it a poor
piece of grass land, thin, weedy, and worthless. Of such are some of our
glowing expectations; they burn brightly in the eye of hope, but, like a
brilliant flame consuming a flimsy material, realise nothing but ashes.
I have had great hopes, high dreams, and proud anticipations--they have
become nothing but dust. Now, Mr. Vivian, in the position in which I
have been and am living, it is but natural, in suing for my daughter’s
hand, you should expect with her at least a moderate fortune. She would
have had a liberal dowry, but that expectations I have entertained will,
to an almost inevitable certainty, not be realised. She will, therefore,
have nothing from me upon her marriage--not a shilling. While she
remains with me, of course she will share the comforts of the luxurious
style in which we now live; but if she quits for a humbler position,
she must accept its trials and its troubles, for no aid must she or her
husband expect from me. One moment, Mr. Vivian,” he exclaimed, as Hal
was about eagerly to offer some observation--“one moment more. I am
informed your uncle’s son has returned from abroad, and has taken
possession of everything--no will having been found--to the utter
destruction of all the expectations you entertained of succeeding to his
business and property. Is this true?”

“It is quite true!” replied Hal, firmly.

“You have, then, to depend alone upon your own exertions for the
future?” continued Wilton.

“Entirely so,” responded Hal.

“How far, then, does the disinterested character of your love for my
daughter extend?” inquired Wilton, fixing a steadfast look upon him.

“Thus far, sir: that as she, in all her sweet and pure integrity, is the
only prize I covet, I shall be infinitely prouder and happier in taking
her to my heart as my own beloved wife, dowerless, than did she have the
settlement of a princess.”

How gratefully and fondly Flora’s eyes beamed on Hal’s animated face, as
he, with enthusiastic emphasis, uttered those words.

“That I can well believe,” said Wilton, dryly. “The romance of youth is
capable of all that; but, Mr. Vivian, can you transplant her to such a
home as this or Harleydale? Can you provide her with a town house and a
carriage, with a country mansion, with its well-ordered garden, spacious
parks, surrounded by upland and dell, by sloping vales, meandering
streams, by all the charming accessories and beauties of English
landscape? Are you, I say, prepared to do this?”

Flora stole to her father’s side, and, placing her hand upon his
shoulder gently, said, with a face of rosy hue--

“Papa, dearest, to me all those beauties would be as nothing if not
shared by one--I--by--by those I--to whom I am attached!”

Her face, brilliant with blushes, sank upon his shoulder.

Mr. Wilton waved his hand.

“My proposition was to Mr. Vivian, and not to you!” he exclaimed.
“Answer me, Mr. Vivian.”

“I cannot, sir, now do this,” replied Hal, firmly.

“Then how, sir, can you call your love for my daughter other than
selfish?” cried Wilton, with apparent triumph. “Out of your exaggerated
liking for her, you would remove her from a sphere in which she enjoys
all the luxuries of comparative wealth into one in which they are all
denied to her. You would transplant her from competence and ease, to
surround her with wants, privations, and care. This is disinterested
love, indeed, to sacrifice the everyday peace and comfort of the woman
for whom you profess attachment in order that you may call her your own.
Go to, sir, true love seeks to secure the entire happiness of the object
of affection, it sacrifices its own wishes and aspirations, rather than
a cloud should hang upon the loved one’s brow, a tear dim her eye, or
the smile fade from her cheek. It elevates, sir--never seeks to reduce
her chances of happiness; and rather frets itself out in silence and
secrecy, than it would, by the gratification of its inclinations,
jeopardise her future peace and contentment.”

“I admit, sir,” replied Hal, “the force of your argument, but I deny the
truth of its intended conclusion. I yield to no being in the world in
the disinterestedness of my passion for Miss Wilton. I would sacrifice
my love and myself a thousand times rather than occasion her one
moment’s care or privation. It is not, sir, because I cannot at first
place her in the sphere she now so fairly and brightly adorns, that I
must necessarily conduct her to a hovel in a bye-street.
Something is due to my own sense of her worth and my own pride in
preparing for her--if I were to be so blessed as to call her mine--a
home as fitting to her beauty and goodness, as to the station she
quitted to pass her life with me. I should, indeed, be wanting in true
love if I did not endeavour to make the change as slight as indomitable
perseverance and unflagging industry could accomplish. I agree, sir, that
true love seeks to elevate the being it worships; but requited love
will make a palace of a prison and gild the roof of a humble cottage, as
though it were the fretted ceiling of a palace. Love sees through love’s
eyes and with love’s urgings, and it seldom finds room for discontent if
the heart it prizes remains true, faithful, and devoted to it. The great
secret of a loving woman’s happiness, sir, consists not in the halls
she treads, the terraced flower-garden she may pace, the high sphere in
which she may have been born and lived, the accessories of wealth, its
gaieties, or its pleasures. It is the discovery that the idol she was
first induced to worship is not molten brass, but the pure gold for
which she first accepted it. That her trusting faith has not been
abused, that the ardent manner of him who won her heart has not waned,
that the beaming look of fond affection remains unchanged, that the soft
word has not grown harsh, and that the ever-watchful solicitude for her
happiness remains as intact as when it first moved her gentle heart to
respond to its generous tenderness. That loving, trusting heart that you
would chain to its own sphere, would pine itself into the grave if,
upon such a plea, it were confined to its halls, its gardens, parks,
and extended landscape; but, believe me, it would not grieve if its lot,
though cast in a lower sphere, rested on a manly, faithful, truthful
nature, which never swerved from the deep and passionate affection
it once professed. However, sir, at best we are but theorizing--I am
content to abide the issue. I will not, I pledge my honour--my dearest
possession--ask your permission to woo Miss Wilton until I am fairly in
a social position which will give me some title to do so. Further, sir,
if it be your wish, great as may be the pain and privation to me, I
will not attempt to visit, or to see, or to speak with her in any manner
which may infringe upon the relation in which we now stand to each other
in the eyes of the world--acquaintances. I will not, if unprepared to
urge my own claim, interfere with any offer which may be made for the
honour of Miss Wilton’s hand, if that offer is in accordance with your
wishes and not opposed to her future happiness. More I scarcely expect
you will wish me to say; less, sir, I feel would be inconsistent with my
own sense of what is just and honourable.”

Mr. Wilton extended his hand to Hal, saying--

“You have spoken frankly, and--and--a--I may as well say it as think
it--nobly, Mr. Vivian. I am well satisfied and fully appreciate those
sentiments which you have just uttered, and which I shall test, I
honestly tell you. The result is for the future. Take, at present, your
farewell of Flora; when we next meet, it will be as friends. Heaven
shall decide whether it will be by a nearer and dearer title.”

Hal shook the extended hand warmly.

“I will not abuse any confidence you may be pleased to place in me,
sir,” he replied. “But I, too, honestly tell you, that it will be the
object of my most incessant perseverance and ardent ambition to change
the title of friend into one nearer and dearer.”

Hal walked up to Flora. She was not contented with giving him one hand,
but she placed both in his, and she looked up in his face with trusting
confidence, and a sweet, loving expression in her eyes. A beaming aspect
of hopefulness shone in her very lovely features which communicated its
cheerful, sanguine anticipations to Hal.

“It shall go hard, dear Flora, but I win the wealth which shall make you
mine,” he ejaculated, in fervent tones.

“Love gilds the humble roof, dear Hal,” she murmured; “anywhere,
anywhere in the wide world, with your unfading, faithful love.”

“My undying, ever, ever faithful love,” he responded. “With my undying,
ever, ever faithful love,” she echoed, as she pressed his hand, making
him thrill with happiness.

And so they parted.

The ice about Mr. Wilton’s heart, in respect to their union, had begun
to crack.

He gazed upon them very intently while they were conversing together,
and he thought them certainly a very handsome young couple; and if
personal attributes alone, were needful, a more fitting match could
hardly be conceived.

Soon after Hal had quitted the house, Mark Wilton returned to the
library to furnish his father with a brief narrative of what had taken
place without the house, as well as in it, relative to the Honorable
Lester Vane.

The miserable schemer’s affrighted leap had been attended with desperate
results; fractured legs and arms attested the fearful violence with
which he came to the ground; and he was conveyed, as soon as he was
picked up, senseless to the nearest hospital, still in custody of an
officer.

He was the mortgagor of an estate to Nathan Gomer, which had been
already twice mortgaged to more than its value. The title-deeds he
handed over were fresh ones he had had copied from the original draft,
and were therefore fraudulent. The sight of Nathan Gomer, with an
officer at his elbow, revealed to him the discovery that had been made;
and, in his intense alarm, he leaped out of the window, in the hope of
escape, but only to succeed in making himself a maimed cripple for life.

No one would desire to “break a butterfly on a wheel;” and by this event
Hugh Riversdale considered his wife, Helen, avenged.

Mark introduced Nathan Gomer to Hugh, and they together left Wilton’s
house for the residence of the deceased Grahame.

Wilton listened to the account of Lester Vane’s iniquity, and to his
terrible accident, with a chastened spirit-He called Flora to him, and
pressed her to his heart. “I have wronged you, Flo’, my darling,” he
said with emotion. “I have been bitterly punished. Well, well; we will
see if we cannot reward you with a young handsome fellow you would like
better; well, well, we shall see how he behaves himself.”

“Dear, dear father,” murmured Flora, her eyes glistening with happiness
at his words.

Old Wilton gazed fondly on her face, upturned to his; a gleam of pride
shot forth from his eyes as he perused her exquisite features.

“Upon my word,” he said, with a chuckle, “that young fellow, Vivian, is
a cunning dog, with excellent taste. He might journey many a weary
mile ere he found a prettier face than yours, Flo’. Except,” he added,
reflectively, “that he were to encounter my little pet nurse on his way.
Hem! she had a pretty face that kind young friend of yours, eh, Flo’?”

“A dear, dear face!” responded Flora, warmly. She turned to Mark with an
expressive twinkle in her eyes, and said, “you think so too, don’t you,
Mark?”

“He!” ejaculated his father, with a kind of depreciatory grunt--“he’s
but a poor judge.”

“Judge enough, at least,” cried Mark, rather hotly, “to think the face
of your little pet nurse, as you call her, the brightest, sweetest,
pleasantest, the most loveable under heaven.”

He looked fiercely and defiantly both at his sister and father, as
though to challenge them to disprove him if they could. Flora smiled
roguishly at him; and Wilton with evident satisfaction, for he little
dreamed that the subject of his son’s encomium was that very “low-born
beggar” he had so sternly objected to receive into his family.

“Why, Mark,” he exclaimed, with a chuckle, “you have more discrimination
and taste than I gave you credit for. In this matter you judge justly,
and with a very clear perception of the truth. I say, that when she
comes before you, her face greets you like a burst of sunshine, it is
radiant with a galaxy of glories, for it is cheerful, amiable, placid,
gentle, good, generous, patient, unselfish--everything, in fact, that is
estimable, and can make the female face divine.”

“Everything?” echoed Mark, emphatically.

“Everything?” repeated Flora, reflectively.

“Yes; every one of those beautiful qualities I have named beam in her
fascinatingly expressive face!” exclaimed Wilton.

“And in her clear, earnest eyes?” said Mark.

“And in her eyes!” echoed his father.

“And in her smile!” suggested Flora.

“And in her smile,” repeated Wilton, slightly elevating his voice.

“Aha!” chuckled Mark--“Aha! aha!”

He was on the eve of making a great disclosure, but he restrained
himself. He, however, rubbed his hands briskly with intense
gratification; while Mr. Wilton felt his resolution to carry out his
cherished and secretly formed design considerably strengthened by the
very apparent good feeling entertained by his children towards the
object of his hidden purpose.

The pleasure diffused by that conversation, somewhat further extended,
seemed to compensate for the pain the previous incidents of the morning
had occasioned.

Truly, the little episode was very agreeable--not the less so, perhaps,
because the actual relation in which the subject of it stood to father
and son did not transpire.

A few days subsequently, Mr. Wilton was startled by a note from Mr.
Charlock. It had reference to the proposed meeting between Mr. Wilton
and his solicitor, and the new claimant and his solicitor. It stated
that Mr. Eglinton, having ascertained beyond a doubt the indisputable
character of his claim, failed to see, upon reflection, any advantage
in the suggested arrangements; he therefore announced his intention of
withdrawing from it, and of leaving the legal proceedings to take their
legitimate course. Mr. Charlock appended to this communication from
the opposite party his own private opinion that, after a very keen
and subtle examination of the new claims by a consultation of eminent
counsel, there was no prospect of successfully resisting them; and, in
the strict and conscientious performance of his duty, he advised, to
save the enormous cost of going to trial, that Mr. Wilton should abandon
those he had for years so pertinaciously urged.

Mr. Wilton perused this letter with much dissatisfaction, and without at
all being convinced by its reasoning. No man, who for years has nursed
a claim to property, real or fancied, is ready to yield it up on
representations such as Mr. Charlock made to Mr. Wilton. If there is one
thing in life’s transactions he clings to with more unyielding tenacity
than another, it is a claim at law to property. To prosecute his claim,
he will suffer himself to be denuded of all he possesses; he will
part with everything he can lay his hands on--try solicitor after
solicitor--abandon trade, profession, comparative independence--exhaust
his means--yield up everything, in fact--but his claim; and when, after
successive defeats, all possibility of continuing the struggle longer is
taken from him, he has still faith in his right still an unshaken belief
that he has not had justice dealt out to him, that judge, jury, and
lawyers have been feeed, and have entered into a conspiracy to defraud
him of what is lawfully his.

Old Wilton was no exception to the rule. It is true he had a misgiving
about this claim, of which he had first heard from Nathan Gomer, but
that individual had told him it was one which was never likely to be
preferred, and he had, therefore, troubled himself no more about it.
Nathan Gomer had spoken in very light terms about it, and no doubt
justly. He began to surmise that Mr. Charlock was falling into his
dotage when he recommended a client to resign claims acknowledged to be
most powerful to property so large and valuable. He quickly found many
reasons why he should contend for the prize, and, whether founded on
sound conclusions or not, he adopted them. Who was this Mr. Eglinton
who had so suddenly appeared? Where had he sprung from--where hidden
himself--how could he identify himself? Ha! that was a point of very
great importance! Had not he, Wilton, for years been kept from the
enjoyment of his property, because of the difficulty of proving that he
actually was the person he represented himself to be. In such manner
did he argue the question with himself, and ultimately determine at any
sacrifice to proceed in his suit, even if he had to change his “man of
business” to accomplish his resolve.

First, however, he resolved upon a reconciliation with Nathan Gomer. He
had at best but a hazy notion of the actual cause of difference existing
between them. He, however, felt that he had himself been to blame, and
from him the _amende honorable_ ought to come. He determined that it
should; but how communicate with Nathan. He had already had one letter
written to him returned unopened. He was not anxious to repeat the
experiment.

He luckily remembered that Flora stood very high in Nathan’s favour,
that he had always evinced a nervous anxiety for her happiness; and
therefore it was extremely probable that if she were to address to him
a few lines requesting him to come again to visit the family on the
same footing as of old, and convey a hint that her father regretted any
unconsidered behaviour of his own which had tended to produce a rupture
in the amiable relations in which they had always stood to each other,
he would comply with her solicitation.

After carefully considering the point over, he sought his daughter,
Flora, and conveyed to her his desire that she should write a note
to Nathan Gomer, inviting him to return to his old position in their
family. Wilton left to Flora the entire wording of the epistle. He
merely wished her to express his own desire to meet Nathan again,
and his regret that any misunderstanding should have occasioned their
separation.

Flora was quite unconscious of the result attending this communication.
If she had been, it is very probable that she would have infused into it
all the ardour and fervour of which her nature was capable. As it
was, she had a deep respect for the little man, and great faith in his
promise to procure for her future life as much happiness as he might
have it in his power to control.

Thus she composed her note to Nathan Gomer with sufficient eloquence and
warmth to assure him that she was solicitous to see him again; and he
was shrewd enough to comprehend also Wilton’s anxiety, by the medium he
had employed to convey his wishes. In his dreary, dull old chamber he
sat alone, and pondered over Flora’s note the long night through; and
the following day she received a short but kind reply, to tell her that
he yielded to her solicitation, and he would join them at dinner that
day.

He came to his appointment. His manner and appearance exhibited no
apparent difference to what they ordinarily wore. Yet Flora fancied
she could detect an expression of satisfaction, if not pleasure, in his
eyes, an evidence that he was no less gratified at the reunion than all
present were.

When the cloth was cleared, and the servants had quitted the room,
Wilton cleared his throat, and said--

“Ahem--a--Mr. Gomer--a--I take an early moment to say--a--that with
no desire to intrude upon your time, which I--a--I know to be very
valuable--I--a should be most glad of a little of your counsel and
experience on a matter which very intimately and deeply--a--concerns my
future prospects.”

“I shall be very happy, Wilton, to afford you any advice or assistance,”
 replied Nathan Gomer, gravely; “but before I attempt to do so, there are
two points, I think, ought to be settled. First, who I really am, and
by what right I have taken upon myself to interfere in your family
affairs----”

Flora and Mark looked hard at each other; if ever here was a question
possessing a vivid interest to them both, this was one.

“And, secondly,” continued Nathan Gomer, “that I consider my advice, if
worth asking for, to be worth following. I therefore distinctly decline
to give it unless you, having faith in the deep concern I entertain
for your welfare and interests, pass to me your word of honour as a
gentleman that you will accept it and carry it out.”

The first was a subject of eager curiosity to Wilton, and he was only
too glad that Nathan had himself mooted it: but the second was a poser.
Suppose he should advise as Charlock had done?

A rapid retrospective reflection, however, caused Wilton to believe that
he might rely upon the sincerity of Nathan Gomer’s counsel, for he
had proved its truth and its profound sagacity; so he assented, with a
graceful manifestation, which Nathan accepted at pretty much its proper
value.

“First, then,” he exclaimed, “to reveal to you who I am, and why I
therefore have taken upon myself to advance your interests, and ensure
the happiness of yourself and children.”

He drew a deep breath and placed his hand over his eyes.

Wilton, Mark, and Flora regarded him with breathless attention.

For a minute or so a profound silence reigned, broken only by the heavy
inspirations of Nathan Gomer.




CHAPTER XVI.--THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK.


               And from the prayer of Want, and plaint of Woe,

               Oh! never, never turn away thine ear!

               Forlorn is this bleak wilderness below

               Oh! what were man, should Heaven refuse to hear?

               To others do (the law is not severe)

               What to thyself thou wishest to be done.

                             --Armstrong.


Nathan Gomer withdrew his hands from before his eyes.

A sharp spasm which had almost convulsed his frame had passed away, and
he commenced his revelation.

He addressed himself to Wilton, rather than to his other auditors, and
it soon became evident that his story possessed for the old man a most
absorbing interest.

“I was separated from my family at a very early age,” he commenced,
“being taken under the roof and tender care of a sister of my mother.
My father was a wild, dissipated spendthrift, in perpetual pecuniary
difficulties. My mother, a gentle, timid, tender creature, passed a life
of incessant fright, care and distressing misery, after her union with
him. She had been married to him some five years before I was born, and
at that period she had reached the very climax of wretchedness with the
miserable man to whom she was tied; a series of wild excesses drove him
into an infuriated insanity, during a fearful paroxysm of which life
was snatched from him. In my mother’s horror at this event, I was
prematurely born. My mother never recovered the shock. Within two years
of my father’s decease, she was placed in the same grave, and I was
taken charge of by her sister.

“My boyhood was passed in comparative seclusion; for I was, from
my earliest recollection, possessed of personal defects; and idle,
thoughtless boys, when I appeared amongst them, found a delight in
wounding my susceptibility, by jeering at me, mocking my stunted growth
and my sallow visage. I was on that account kept as much within doors
as possible, and was educated at home. I had kind instructors and an
extensive library to consult, and naturally acquired a passion for
reading, especially as legendary lore was rather an extensive element
in the collection. I was, perhaps, the more urged to devote myself
to books, because, by comparison, I became quite aware of my physical
deficiencies, and because--with a kind motive---my father’s terrible
example was always held up _in terrorem_ before me. So I became dull and
thoughtful, and shunned society as much as it was possible for me to
do, and I began to feel like Cain. Strangers met me with a smile of
derision, or their lips were curled with scorn. I was bantered by my
own kind; and was the scoff of the other sex. No wonder that I hated the
human race; for it appeared to hate me. Even the servants of the house
in which I lived made me the butt at which to level the shafts of their
vulgar ridicule. How much of this I really deserved I do not now pretend
to measure; but I hurled back the contumely I received with fierce;
intemperate defiance. I spurned; and spat; and sneered; too; even though
beneath that scornful rage my heart was breaking.

“I had nearly arrived at man’s estate; a dwarf still in stature,
harbouring against the world the most rancorous animosity; when I became
sensible that there was one gentle spirit who was out of the pale of my
hate. Years before, a quiet, dove-like, mild girl was a frequent visitor
at my aunt’s, and she was often invited when, in an irritated, turbulent
mood, I wandered about threatening mischief to others as to myself. At
first I repelled her, but somehow she discovered the way to soften my
violence, and to lead my thoughts into a gentler train. As we grew
up together, her influence over me increased, until her lightest wish
became the law I implicitly obeyed. Her face and form were of faultless
beauty, and her mind was not less perfect in purity and excellence. Her
coming seemed to me as the opening of the gates of Paradise, in which
I wandered with her--her going, as though I had been thrust back into
darkness and gloom. In my most morose fits, her smiling eyes and soft
words wooed me into placidity and to kinder thoughts of others. Her
gentle touch unloosed my clenched hands, unlocked my hard-set teeth, and
her appealing look toned down the bitterness of my heart against those
who were, as it seemed to me, lashing me into fury.

“Lo! by chance I learned that she had been wooed and won by a youth of
fairer proportions than myself, that tender words of affection had been
poured into a not unwilling ear, and that she had promised to give her
hand, with her heart in it, to him whose form and features had pleased
her eye, and whose honied language had beguiled her of her love.

“I know not how to describe the overwhelming agony of my heart at
the discovery. I brooded over it, nursed the most terrible schemes of
vengeance on him who was thus about to rob me of the only being who had
sympathised with me, had reasoned with me, and had brought me back from
almost brute barbarism into the realms of a common humanity; who had
extirpated many of my worst failings, and replaced them by implanting
virtues resembling her own. I took the first opportunity of challenging
her with the tale I had heard, and she at once, with blushing face,
acknowledged its truth. Then, then, in frantic terms, I confessed
the idolatry with which I worshipped her; then, by an involuntary
exclamation, she revealed to me that she had done all for me in
commiserating pity and nought in love. Oh! the intense torture of that
admission!

“Our interview was long and agonising to me, and scarcely less painful
to her--let me not further recur to it even at this moment, I----”

Nathan Gomer abruptly rose and paced the room, hiding his averted face
in his handkerchief. Recovering himself by a strong effort he returned
to his seat, and continued--

“I abruptly fled home and the neighbourhood; I never returned thither;
I came to London, where I changed my name. A large legacy greeted my
arrival. I hastened to secure it, and to commence to increase it by
every art the usurer can employ. I hated my race; I knew no more certain
way of feeding, ghoul-like, on their heart’s blood, than by lending
money at usurious interest. Oh! but I have, like a miserable wretch that
I was, gloated over the fearful agonies of a breaking heart, and in my
dreary, solitary chamber I have yelled with triumphant delight over the
mad despair of those I have helped to destruction.

“And so years went on. Gold showered on me from all sides. My aunt left
her sole wealth to me; I converted her lands into coin, and lent it out.
The proud bent like fawning spaniels at my feet--the humble knelt to me.
The rich smiled and bowed to me. The high and the well-born sought--ugh!
I might have surfeited myself with the ‘best society,’ yellow, ungainly
dwarf though I happened to be.

“One night, alone in my dismal room, gloating over the feat of having
that day planted my foot on a proud man’s neck, there suddenly came upon
me the memory of the past. I was a boy again. She whom I had so loved in
my youth, Flora Thorneley, stood before me; there, in her white girlish
garb, bright, shining like a seraph, her soft, sad eyes bent upon me
with a pitying expression, and her low, musical voice ringing in my
ears--‘Thou hast broken thy promise,’ she said; ‘thou hast planted
sorrow where thou mightest have sown joy; thou hast plunged into
hopeless misery those whom thou mightest have lifted into happiness.
Alas! alas!’ And then it seemed to me that I was alone and sightless.”

Wilton, with his hands compressed, had risen up as Gomer uttered the
name, and he repeated--

“Flora Thorneley?”

“Even she whom you wedded!” exclaimed Nathan, with excitement; “even
she. My first love and my last. Be seated, my story is drawing to a
close.”

Wilton obeyed, but looked upon him with a gaze in which wonder,
mystification and stupefaction were blended. A suggestion had presented
itself to him which electrified him.

Nathan Gomer went on, regarded now by Flora and Mark with intense
earnestness.

“I went down the following day to Harleydale,” he said, “and there
learned the terrible circumstances which had driven you, Wilton, to
leave there. I returned to London, and sought you out, but too late to
be of the service I intended. I became your landlord, but not until she
whom I sought had sunk into her grave. When this dreadful blow smote me,
I registered a vow that I would strive to ensure the happiness of her
children. I have striven to fulfil that vow, and I shall not cease in my
efforts until it is accomplished, or my powers to act are stayed by the
hand of the Inevitable.”

“You, then,” said Wilton, anxiously, “are not Nathan Gomer, but----”

“Allan Eliott Eglinton, claimant and heir-at-law to those estates which
have been so long in Chancery, which, had you been just, might have been
yours, but now must be mine. You now know, Wilton, who I am, and why I
have spared neither time nor money to restore you to affluence. You, who
beggared me of all I valued in the world--you, who so well remembered my
services, and so liberally rewarded them.”

Wilton covered his eyes with his hands, and sank back in his chair with
a groan.

Flora stole to the side of the dwarf, and knelt to him. She pointed to
her father and then to heaven.

“Pardon him for _her_ sake,” she said, in trembling accents.

He pressed her hands and raised her from her suppliant posture.

“For her dear sake,” he murmured, “all is forgiven.”

There was a moment’s silence; then Nathan Gomer said--

“Still there is something to clear up, Wilton. Be a man and attend to
me, for the welfare of your children is now at stake. I have committed
myself to the love-labour of securing their earthly happiness if within
the compass of my power, and therefore I shall now proceed to renew the
conversation which so abruptly parted us. I suggested that you should
reward young Mr. Vivian with the hand of your daughter Flora, upon what
I consider to be sound reasons. First, they love each other; that I
expect, from past experience, you will admit is a strong element in
producing happiness in wedded life. Secondly, Mr. Vivian possesses many
admirable qualifications. He is high-spirited, honourable, generous,
and capable of the most enduring attachment; he is brave, persevering,
industrious; he is well educated, and in the event of reverses, can
support his family by his remarkable skill; he has been--as far as
resources go--so fortunate as to discover the will of Mr. Harper, which
proved that very respectable and good man to have been infinitely richer
than he had the credit of being. The provisions of the will leave a
handsome stipend to the widow, a small income to the son--who, by the
way, is on his death-bed, the results of excessive drinking--and the
whole of the residue of his wealth to Mr. Henry Vivian. Now, Wilton,
does your pride still step in between your daughter and her future
happiness?”

Mr. Wilton held out his hand to Gomer.

“You have conquered me,” he said. “If Mr. Vivian is prepared to come
forward to claim my daughter’s hand, I will no longer withhold my
consent.”

“I am happy to hear it,” exclaimed Nathan, shaking his hand; adding,
“and considering her narrow escape from frightful misery at the hands
of an atrocious scoundrel who is likely henceforth to suffer for his
misdeeds, I hardly expected you would withhold it. As for Mr. Vivian, we
will soon ascertain his views on the matter.”

He rose and rang the bell. A servant appeared.

“Has Mr. Vivian arrived?” he inquired.

“He has this moment come,” returned the servant.

“Show him in,” said Nathan.

In another moment Hal made his appearance. Flora turned crimson and then
pale, and then sank into a seat. Mark jumped up and shook him heartily
by the hand.

“Now, Mr. Vivian,” exclaimed Nathan, with a chuckle and a grin, “I have
paved the way for you, and if you still feel inclined to accept the hand
of Miss Flora Wilton----”

“Accept, sir?” interrupted Hal, almost sharply.

“Well, sir,” grinned Nathan, “propose for the hand of Miss Wilton, sir,
if you prefer that arrangement of expression, and propose at once.”

Hal quickly did this in language fervid and eloquent; and if language
could be a test of sincerity, there was little reason for Flora to doubt
the truth of his love.

Mr. Wilton, in reply, gave with nervous excitement of manner his
consent, leaving the ratification of his promise to his daughter.

“She will refuse, decline, raise an obstacle!” exclaimed Nathan,
vigorously; “if it is only to keep up the unities of the cross-purposes
we have all been playing at.”

“Oh, no, no, no!” cried Flora, hurriedly and loudly. At a burst of
laughter from Mark and Nathan, she buried her blushing face in her
hands.

Hal was suffered to remove them, and to press them to his lips.

“You accept him?” cried Gomer, chuckling. “Eh, Flora! that is the proper
form of expression, is it not?”

“Oh, I am so happy--so very, very happy,” she murmured, looking fondly
at Hal.

Then she suddenly ran up to her father and kissed him, as if with
passionate gratitude. Presently she stole round to where Nathan Gomer
sat, and bending over him timidly, pressed her lips to his forehead.

An expression of intense emotion passed over that strange man’s
features, his eyes filled with glittering tears, and his lips moved
rapidly.

A moment’s stillness.

He rose up and took Flora’s hand. He placed it in Hal’s, and with a
voice whose tones became rich from depth of feeling, he said--

“Take her, Mr. Vivian; you are the choice of her young heart, as she
is of yours; your future happiness is in the keeping of both. Be you
faithful to the trust now reposed in you; be you true to the love you
now bear her. You have won her, now wear her as the richest jewel heaven
and fortune can bestow upon you. Be gentle to her and tender with her,
for she is a flower that will droop and perish under a cold aspect; and
be sure that, for all the loving tenderness you may plant around her
coming life, you will reap an abundant harvest of pure, enduring,
devoted affection.”

“Oh! that I were worthy of this treasure, so great, so sacred, now
entrusted to my keeping,” ejaculated Hal, in a quivering, ardent voice,
as he drew Flora to his breast. “Have only faith in me. I would die
rather than be the occasion of one sad thought to her.”

“Amen!” responded Nathan Gomer. “Understand me, young Mr. Vivian,
though I help to hand over this treasure to you, I do not resign my
self-constituted guardianship. Oh, but I shall be a very dragon of
watchfulness still.”

A merry laugh followed this sally.

Then everybody seemed to know what was coming next.

Mr. Wilton’s face grew serious and its muscles set; he had made one
sacrifice--somehow he continued to think so. He felt really that he
ought to be excused from making another--certainly they were not small
ones.

However, Nathan Gomer set boldly to work, and introduced the subject by
addressing Mark.

“Pray, sir, having been a witness to your sister’s happiness in catching
a husband, have you no yearnings to take unto yourself a wife?”

“I have for some time had the most ardent desire, sir,” responded Mark,
quickly. “I have selected a young lady, but my father objects to my
choice.”

“On what ground, Wilton,” inquired Nathan, rather magisterially.

Wilton declined discussing the topic; wished it to be deferred to a
future period, but Nathan would on no account accede to it.

“I came here to perfect my reconciliation, and to leave to-night, if
possible, a happy man, and I am not in a temper to be easily rebuffed,”
 he said. “Give your reasons?”

Wilton knew but little of the girl, he said, but that she was not of a
station or by birth fitted to be the wife of his son.

Gomer scouted the notion.

“‘Honour and shame from no condition rise,’” he exclaimed. “So says the
poet; surely no man better than you should know it, Wilton; and, by the
bye, if you and I were to trace our ancestors back, we should no doubt
find one a cattle-stealer, and the other a delver of potatoes. Come,
Wilton, supposing her origin--which I assume you are in no condition
to prove--is what you assert it to be, mean and low. What have you
to assert further against her. She is pretty, amiable, self-reliant,
proud-spirited, generous, and sympathetic to a fault; she is pure in
mind, in soul and act; she has struggled through the stern meshes of
adversity with a brave heart; she has never sacrificed her sense of self
respect under the most seductive temptation; and she never drew back
from an additional burden to her daily trials if she could in so
doing rescue from misery a fellow-being. What, Wilton, though she has
toiled--and nobly toiled with her needle--have you not slaved with your
burnisher? Come, Wilton, pride is but a hollow phantom, a bad companion,
and a worse friend--it never purchased human happiness yet. Human worth
is far more valuable than all the wealth of the Indies amassed in one
heap. This girl has a large share of that worth, and would make your son
a happy man, if not a rich one. What say you, Mr. Vivian.”

“Say, sir, that no praise can exaggerate her merits,” replied Hal, with
enthusiasm. “With my beloved Flora for my wife, and Lotte Clinton for
my sister, there would be no man more justly proud than I in all
Christendom.”

“I should think not,” replied Gomer.

Mr. Wilton coughed.

“Give me time,” he said; “give me time. I will see her--I know nothing
of her yet.”

“Oh! he wants more evidence,” cried Gomer, ringing the bell with
smartness. “He shall have it.”

A servant entered, and ushered in a lady.

“Mrs. Riversdale!” cried Nathan Gomer, loudly.

All knew that Mr. Grahame’s daughter, Helen, stood before them.

It was not difficult to guess that Nathan had made careful arrangements
before he came that day, with a view to accomplish certain desired
results.

Mrs. Hugh Riversdale was received with quiet but respectful attention.
The unhappy circumstances connected with her family were known to all,
were commiserated, and had created sincere sympathy in the breasts of
all present.

Nathan Gomer did not permit their thoughts to dwell upon what had
passed, but at once, in a courteous manner, addressed her.

“You very kindly volunteered to testify to the worth of Miss Lotte
Clinton,” he said, “when and wherever I might request you to do so?”

“Or I could have the opportunity of doing so,” interposed Helen,
emphatically.

Nathan said to her instantly--

“I wish you would give Mr. Wilton your impressions concerning her.”

If ever Helen Grahame spoke fervently, earnestly, passionately, she did
so now. Oh! she found words inexpressive to record the obligations she
was under to Lotte, or her daily increasing sense of their value, which
had no measure of requital. Her ardour of expression, her tears, her
emotion in making her acknowledgments of Lotte’s uniform, unselfish acts
of kindness overwhelmed Wilton. He could not reply to her. The tears
stood in his eyes.

Then Flora knelt at his feet, and she said--

“She watched in your sickness and prostration over you with tender
patience and amiable sweetness. She soothed your anxiety and your pain
by her attention when you were awake, her mild, kind eyes rarely left
you when you slept. You, yourself, have said that her face greeted you
like a burst of sunshine. That it was radiant with a galaxy of glories,
for it was cheerful, amiable, placid, gentle, good----”

Wilton sprang up and said, in a hoarse, husky voice--

“Why, Mark--Mark, my boy, Miss Clinton, your--your choice is--is---”

“Your own little pet nurse,” replied Mark, with evident excitement.

Mr. Wilton sank down in his seat again.

“I see it all,” he said; “I understand her better now. Mark, my son, the
last shred of false pride has been wrested from me. I see the precipice
on which I have been standing, and I draw back in thankfulness. If any
persuasions of mine can induce Miss Clinton now to accept you I will
use them until they become entreaties. She shall be yours; and happy
you will be with her, unless you yourself destroy the felicity her
gentleness will weave around you.”

So far all was well; and now Mark explained to him how he had sought
to induce her to become his wife, and how she refused him, because she
would not create dissension in his family, even though a life of sorrow
was entailed on her by her own refusal. And Helen explained how she had
declined her husband’s offer of an independence for a reason which she
would not explain, but which really was, that if Mr. Wilton found that
her means were far better than he had anticipated, he might consent to
receive her into his family. She felt that thus Mark’s solicitations
would be renewed; and as she was too high-spirited to enter his family
by such a side-wind, she believed it would occasion her less pain to
remain, unsought, in her old condition, than to have again to refuse
Mark’s entreaties to become his. Besides, she loved him so dearly that
she was afraid of her own strength to continue to say nay.

When Wilton heard all these things about her, he felt at once overjoyed
and grieved. Glad that his son had made such a choice, pained that he
had so harshly interfered to prevent the union. But he determined, as
far as possible, to repair his conduct; and he expressed his intention
of doing so without delay, and that very evening he decided on the
course he should pursue.

On the morning following that eventful evening; Lotte was seated alone;
as usual at work, and as usual thinking about Mark and Harleydale,
and many other matters connected with him and his family. She knew the
family were in town; and she was in the act of wishing that she could
get an opportunity of gazing on Mark--dear, dear Mark--unseen, when she
was startled by a gentle tap at her room-door.

She ran lightly to it and opened it, and found herself face to face with
Mr. Wilton.

She uttered an exclamation of surprise, and blushed like a rose; then
turned as pale as marble. She, however, asked Mr. Wilton into the room,
and placed a chair for him.

“So,” he said, as he seated himself, “you little runaway, I have found
you at last, have I? Pray, what have you to say in extenuation of
deserting a poor crippled invalid without one word at parting? Tell me,
had I so wearied, tired, exhausted you, that you ran away, worn out,
determined to be no more troubled with such a plaguy old fellow as I?”

“No, sir; indeed I do assure you, no,” returned Lotte, embarrassed;
“but----”

“You would not for worlds undertake the same office again, eh?” said
Wilton, eyeing her askance.

“Indeed, I would, sir, cheerfully,” she replied, trembling like an
aspen; “but----” Again she hesitated. She was unconscious that he now
knew who his nurse was, and she did not like disguising the truth, but
how to reveal it? She saw no way.

“But, indeed!” repeated Wilton. “Now listen to me. I have proved your
value. You made yourself essential to my comfort, and I am quite lost
without you. I, therefore, come now to offer you a home with my family,
you to be, as you have been, my pet, confidential attendant.”

Lotte listened to him with undisguised fright.

“Oh, no--no, sir, no--no,” she replied hurriedly; “it cannot possibly
be.”

“No!” he echoed. “Why not?--explain.”

“Pray, pardon my not answering that question. Do not ask me, sir!” she
exclaimed, appealingly. “I mean not my refusal offensively; but, in
truth, sir, it cannot be.”

“Not in that capacity, perhaps,” he said, rising up, and speaking with
grave earnestness; “but will you not come back as--as--as my daughter?”

“Sir!” exclaimed Lotte, clutching at the table in her deep emotion.

“As the wife of my son, Mark Wilton,” he replied, with energy, “and my
beloved, esteemed daughter.” He caught her in his arms, and pressed
her to his breast. “I know all now; I honour you, my child,” he said,
warmly; “the details of your past history have been made known to me,
and I blush when I think how nobly you, an unassisted helpless girl,
have sustained your integrity, your virtuous truthfulness, your
self-respect, against all temptations and assaults, against which I,
more fortified to withstand them, have fallen back. I should, my child,
now be proud of you as a friend--I shall be prouder still of you as
a daughter; ever, ever glad of your sweet presence in my household,
recording few happier days in my past history than that which sees you
wedded to my son.”

Poor Lotte! all her trials and her griefs were nothing to this. They
needed courage to meet and firmness to bear them. This announcement
by Wilton was the very bursting of a white cloud of happiness, and she
could only sob passionately on his shoulder, without uttering one word
in reply.

As soon as the old man, who was much affected, could recover his voice,
he summoned an individual who was waiting without with most feverish
impatience.

Mark entered, and pronounced her name; and she lifted her weeping
face from his father’s shoulder, and, with a faint effort at a smile,
tendered him her hand.

That instalment was insufficient for his requirements. He relieved his
father of his charge, took her in his own arms and folded them about
her.

And he whispered softly in her ear--

“Will you refuse to be mine now, dearest, dearest Lotte?”

“Oh, Mark,” she murmured, “my heart is so full, I cannot speak to you!”

“What! not one little word, Lotte?” he urged. “And see, here is Flora;
will you not greet her as your sister?”

And, in truth, there was Flora, who, in her turn, took possession of
Lotte; and Nathan Gomer, who had no intention of being out of the way
where happiness was going on.

And now the question was put formally to Lotte, that she might no more
have misgivings about the nature of her reception in Wilton’s family,
whether she would _accept_ Mark for her husband?

Lotte murmured something about consulting her brother Charley.

Such a notion was at once promptly and generally ignored; and so she
said, clearly and earnestly, that to wed Mark would be the happiest
event which could happen to her in her whole life.

Of course she was borne off in triumph to Wilton’s mansion in the
Regent’s Park, where, to her satisfaction, she found assembled to meet
her Helen Riversdale, and her husband, and Eva Grahame, and her brother
Charley.

After the first greetings were over, Nathan Gomer commenced an oration,
in which _imprimis_ he gave a rough sketch of the wealth he possessed.
He then stated that he had exchanged with Wilton the Eglinton estates
for Harleydale Hall and Manor, and which he now presented to Lotte as a
dower, that she might still preserve her noble spirit unchanged, for she
would not come to her husband empty handed. To Flora he presented the
estate on which her mother had been born, and in her youth lived. To
Hugh Riversdale he presented the mortgage-deeds of a large proportion of
the late Mr. Grahame’s estates; and the remainder he handed to Charles
Clinton as a gift to him and to his bride-elect, Eva--for that union had
been all arranged through the instrumentality of Helen, who had suffered
too much misery herself to attempt to entail it upon her young and
loving sister. Steps were taken to release Malcolm Grahame; and, as it
was clear he was not fit for anything, it was determined to provide him
with an appointment in a Government office.

Little more now remains to be told. Colonel Mires having met the fate
he richly deserved, Mr. Chewkle was visited with poetical
justice--unromantic and un-poetical enough to him. Before his trial he
sent for Nathan Gomer; and the little man, anxious to get possession of
the forged deed, visited him. At the interview that ensued Mr. Chewkle
gave him the key of his effects, and stated how he wished them bestowed.
He expressed contrition for his guilt, and promised, if he had the
chance, he would reform.

At his trial, he was found guilty; and, owing to Mr. Wilton’s
recommendation to mercy, for that he had been tempted by a bribe to
undertake the crime, he was let off with twenty years’ penal servitude.

The forged deed was obtained, destroyed; and Mr. Chewkle’s effects
distributed as he wished, with certain additions to his poor relatives,
who were thus benefited by his roguery, in a way they could never have
expected.

The fate of Margaret Grahame would have been a sad one, but for the
timely interposition of Hugh Riversdale.

As soon as Nathan Gomer’s and his own arrangements were completed,
he sought out the Duke of St. Allborne; but it was not until after
incessant efforts, assisted by skilful aid, that he was able to meet and
confront him. Then his proceedings with him were summary. He gave to the
Duke the alternative of making Margaret his duchess, or of meeting him
in mortal combat. As the Duke saw that Hugh was resolved and vindictive,
and as it seemed more than probable he might fall in the encounter, he
accepted the alternative, and quietly made Margaret his wife; taking
her at once abroad to spend the honeymoon, where he introduced her into
society, preparatory to bringing her to London to occupy the station in
which he had now placed her.

Lester Vane, as soon as he had recovered the effects of his leap, took
the benefit of the Insolvent Act, and became a confirmed blackleg.

In due course the three weddings were celebrated; and there exists no
evidence to prove other than that the six individuals united by the
nearest and dearest tie were, by that ceremony, made the very happiest
beings in the world, and that they continued to be so for the term of
their natural lives.

Eustace Wilton, after all, became lord of Eglinton and beneath his roof
dwelt, in honour and peace, Nathan Gomer--he would be addressed by no
other name. Together they argued, discussed, and contended, and were as
happy as any two old gentlemen in the wide world could wish to be.

As the main incidents in this tale are founded upon facts, it will
hardly be considered unnecessary to draw attention to the moral it is
intended to convey.

A path of rectitude is laid down in social life for all alike, rich or
poor, to pursue. It is beset with snares and pitfalls; with inducements,
seductions, and temptations to turn aside almost at every step.

To adhere, however, to the fixed principle of acting rightly in every
situation in life demands no common powers. A peculiar strength of
mind, a clearness of perception to distinguish the real from the unreal,
correct, which is something more than common, sense, and even a course
of instruction, are deemed little less than essential to achieve the
difficult task of pursuing that path unswervingly.

                   “It is one thing to be tempted, Escalus,

                   Another thing to fall.”

When those who have been born in the lap of luxury, have been nurtured
with tenderness, instructed with care, reared in plenty, surrounded by
blessings, caressed with kindred’s holy affection, elevated above the
incitements of want, and gifted with that knowledge of good and
evil which is imparted by the cultivation of the mind and the aid of
religion, yield to temptation, and fall away before seductive arts--what
shall be said of her who, unaided by any of these advantages, passes
through her path of fire uncharred? What is she among her human sisters,
who, endowed alone with that fatal gift to the poor girl--fair looks,
struggles with penury and starvation, toils from dawn far, far into the
long night, with dim and weary eyelids, and aching fingers, endures the
severest straits of destitution, arising from most scantily remunerated
labour, yet faces her danger nobly--resists those fascinating
temptations which are so terrible in their power to the beautiful but
penniless of her sex--wrestles bravely with her narrowed means, and
rising superior to all those allurements, which are aided by the urgings
of grim want, preserves her purity and her self-respect unsullied, and
her independence unabased?

What is she among women who, being driven by society itself--in
its hunger on the one hand after wealth, and on the other after
cheapness--into the very corner of desperation, comes from her crushing
ordeal unbruised and undefiled?

Is she not a _Flower of the Flock?_

Oh! reader, look about you; there are many Lotte Clintons in the throes
of mortal agony nearer to you than you suspect. If they are fainting
under their burden, can you not afford them a little aid to surmount
their miserable destitution, and lift them out of their despair?

Remember the dreadful alternative!


THE END.









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